Hasina stands beside Pranab
Attends his wife's funeral before meeting Modi in New Delhi
From the Indira Gandhi airport, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina yesterday went straight to the Rashtrapati Bhavan, the official residence of Indian President Pranab Mukherjee, and offered condolences for the demise of his wife.
Pranab and Hasina then went to his son's house, where Hasina placed a wreath on the casket of Suvra Mukherjee who died on Tuesday at the age of 74.
Hasina had flown to New Delhi yesterday to attend the cremation of Suvra, whose family she has deep links with for a long time.
Afterwards, the PM and the Indian president travelled in the same car to the crematorium where the remains of Suvra were consigned to flames in the presence of a host of dignitaries, including Vice-President Hamid Ansari, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, former prime minister Manmohan Singh, Home Minister Rajnath Singh, several other cabinet ministers, Congress President Sonia Gandhi and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.
Later in the day, Hasina had talks with Modi.
At the outset, Hasina recalled her family's deep ties with the family of Pranab Mukherjee over a long period of time, particularly during her exile in India post-assassination of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.
Modi suggested a joint exercise by disaster management forces of South Asian countries for better response to natural calamities.
Hasina welcomed Modi's suggestion during their half-an-hour talks at Modi's residence, Hasina's Press Secretary Ihsanul Karim told reporters.
In the sombre background of the cremation, the meeting between Hasina and Modi was devoid of political content, like Teesta water sharing issue.
The meeting came on a very short notice as it was only Tuesday that Hasina decided to visit Delhi and attend the cremation so there was no scope to prepare for the summit-level meeting, let alone taking up big issues, highly-placed sources said after the meeting.
Secondly, Hasina's visit was entirely about the death of Suvra.
Thirdly, no substantive issues could be discussed when Hasina met Modi in the presence of her sister Rehana and daughter Saima in what Ihsanul termed a "courtesy call".
The thrust of Modi and Hasina meeting was on issues like promoting bilateral trade for which the Indian PM welcomed a proposal of his Bangladesh counterpart to jointly tap into big markets.
Hasina suggested that Bangladesh and India could together explore the strength of their combined market and depend less on other areas, a proposal termed "good" by Modi.
Hasina said India and Bangladesh themselves together constitute a large market combined and the countries should try to tap this cumulative market more, Ihsanul said.
Hasina and Modi expressed satisfaction over the implementation of the land boundary agreement.
They also agreed to push for transit covering Bangladesh, Bhutan, India and Nepal facilitating movement of passenger and cargo vehicles in the four countries.
Modi invited Hasina for an official visit to India as soon as possible and Hasina accepted the invitation, said a joint secretary to the external affairs ministry of India. The date would be fixed later on.