Info minister, foreign secretary due in India next week
Information and Broadcasting Minister Hasan Mahmud and Foreign Secretary Masud bin Momen are expected to visit India next week to help strengthen two different facts of robust bilateral ties of culture and economic-security cooperation.
The minister will inaugurate Bangladeshi feature film festivals in Agartala, Tripura, and Guwahati, Assam, on February 23 and 24 respectively before flying to Siliguri in West Bengal for a personal visit, our New Delhi correspondent reports.
The film festivals in Agartala and Guwahati had to be postponed some months ago due to rising Covid-19 cases across India, particularly in the northeast, when Hasan was to visit.
Foreign Secretary Masud bin Momen will fly to Chennai on February 23, kicking off a three-day visit that will also take him to New Delhi.
In Chennai, the secretary will inaugurate Bangladesh's new diplomatic mission and hold comprehensive talks with his Indian counterpart Harsh Vardhan Shringla in New Delhi the next day.
Thousands of Bangladeshis visit Chennai every year primarily for getting medical treatment.
The Deputy High Commission in Chennai will be the first diplomatic mission of Bangladesh in south India and overall sixth in India after the High Commission in Delhi, Deputy High Commission in Kolkata and Mumbai and Assistant High Commissions in Agartala and Guwahati.
Besides comprehensive talks on a range of bilateral cooperation, the meeting between Momen and Shringla is expected to finalise the dates for a possible visit by Bangladesh Foreign Minister AK Abdul Momen to India.
The foreign minister's last visit to India was called off ahead of the Indian parliament's passage of the Citizenship Amendment Act in December 2019.
Bangladesh has conveyed to India its strong concerns over CAA under which "persecuted" Hindus, Jains, Sikhs, Parsis and Christians from Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan, who have taken shelter in India till 2014, will get Indian citizenship.
India, in turn, has sought to assure Bangladesh that CAA is its internal matter and would, in no way, affect bilateral ties.
Masud bin Momen's previous visit to India was in January last year, for the annual Bangladesh-India Foreign Office Consultation (FOC).
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