NRC India’s internal issue but it gives handle to religious groups in BD: Speakers

Addressing the grey areas of Indo-Bangla relationship, security expert Maj Gen (Rtd) Mohammad Ali Sikder said on Saturday that Bangladesh believes that the NRC issue is an internal issue of India, but speaking in communal languages adversely influences the common people of Bangladesh.

"Not only the NRC issue, uncertainty of Teesta water sharing has also created scope for rightist and religious extremist groups to rally people against the existing secular government of Bangladesh and the ultimate consequence of this could be a serious security threat to India as experienced in the past," the security expert commented.
He was addressing a two-day long Bangladesh-India Friendship Dialogue  at Cox's Bazar on Saturday.

Pointing his finger at the Rohingya issue, he said if 1.1 million displaced Rohingyas of Myanmar remained in Bangladesh for longer period, then it will become a hot bed of terrorism and no country in the region will be safe.

"How Bangladesh supported India to uproot militancy and secessionist movements from north-eastern states of India can be an example for all other similar issues in the region," he asked.
Taking part in the discussion Foreign Minister Dr AK Abdul Momen said peoples' mind set is a big barrier to enhancing people to people and state to state relationship so we need to focus on the issue for the greater interest of the people of the two countries and the globe as a whole.

"Only positive mindset could shoot out and root out all odds in the relationship in any form, let us work on it," he said in his concluding remarks on Saturday as chief guest in the Friendship dialogue.

He recalled the memories of 1971, and the role of the people of India and its government saying that 'both Bangladesh and India are now enjoying the highest level of relationship and we need to expand it by building trust and respect between the peoples of the two countries.
Aimed at ensuring sustainable political goodwill and trust, economic growth and shared prosperity of the peoples of India and Bangladesh, Bangladesh Foundation for Regional Studies and India Foundation organised the 9th round of dialogue at Cox's Bazar organised by the Foreign Ministry.

Five strategic areas were discussed in the concluding day of the dialogues. Ministers from both the countries, academics, members of the civil society, lawmakers and journalists took part in the dialogue.

Experts from both the sides took part in the technical sessions on trade and investment to generate employment, connectivity, technology, power and energy, ecological sustainable development and containing extreme ideology for regional security, among others.

Meanwhile, Bangladesh wants special economic zones in the Northern East (NE) part of India to offset the trade gap between the two countries which already crossed US$ 8 billion dollar by the time.
"Our young people want to explore the business opportunities in the NE and easy excess to India to search business there, please ease the visa system and make the special zone for us to expand trade and commerce between the two countries," Waseqa Ayesha Khan, MP, said.
She spoke on the issue of trade, investment and employment generation issues in the concluding session.

Sharing her experience, Dr Nazeen Ahmed, Senior Research Fellow, BIDS, said the 12 border haats, situated in bordering areas have not became the centre of trade, rather it is being used for re-building family connections between the neighbouring countries.

"We need to give special focus on products produced by the women entrepreneurs to sale their products in the haats," she said adding that we have a huge number of young force including women and they are producing various things which are marketable.
Tarik Hasan Somy said we have a great young force in our country.
We should think about them as they are ready to tap the opportunities of business and trade in this region.

"We should explore the opportunity of connectivity for using it for the betterment of the young forces of the country," he said.
Himanta Biswas Sarma, Minister for Finance, Transformation and Development, Health and Family Welfare and  PWD chaired the connectivity session.

Hasunal Haque Inu, Farook Khan, Prashanta B Barua, Nahim Razzaq, Prof Dr Atiur Rahman, Department of Development Studies, DU, Kushan Mitra, Editor, The Pioneer, Dr Delwar Hossain of International Relations Department of Dhaka University, Dr Nazeen Ahmed, Senior Research Fellow, BIDS, Preeti Saran, Former Secretary, Ministry of External Affairs, Tarik Hasan from Suchinta Foundation, MJ Akbar, former Indian High Commissioner to Bangladesh Veena Sikri, Waseqa Ayesha Khan, MP, Sabyasachi Dutta, Secretary, Governing Council, Asian Confluence, Prof Dr Kamrul Hasan Khan, Former Vice Chancellor, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University, Muhammad Zafrul Islam, Bir Protik, MP, Md Abdul Aziz Khan, Member, Bangladesh Energy Regulatory Commission, Maj Gen AKM Abdur Rahman Ndc, Psc, Director General, Bangladesh Institute of International and Strategic Studies, Guru Prakash. Assistant Professor (Law), Patna University, Advisor, Dalit Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry, India, Tanvir Shakil Joy, Alok Bansal, Director, Centre for Security and Strategy, India Foundation took part in the discussion.

"Both the governments are sharing the highest of good relationship, we want to reintegrate the enormous opportunity of the relationship to build an integrated region," Assam Minister Himanta Biswas Sarma said.