In her first bilateral visit to India since April 2017, Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, now in her third consecutive term as PM, will be arriving in India full of hope and even anxiety on issues such as sharing of the Teesta river waters, the Rohingya refugee crisis and even Assam’s National Register of Citizens (NRC) which India maintains is its internal affair though Dhaka has concerns about it. SNI’s Deputy Editor Parul Chandra spoke to former Indian high commissioner to Bangladesh Pinak Ranjan Chakravarty on the state of the bilateral relations and what Sheikh Hasina’s expectations from the visit might be. Noting that bilateral ties under Sheikh Hasina have been stable and friendly, the former diplomat said that there is also a lot of trust in the current relationship. But given the testy ties between the Centre and the West Bengal government, Chakravarty says it’s unlikely that New Delhi will be able to deliver the Teesta pact to Sheikh Hasina. He also spoke about how New Delhi sees two current irritants in bilateral ties---Rohingya refugee crisis and NRC.
#India #Bangladesh #NRC
