- Friday, April 26, 2024
By: Pramod Thomas
INDIA has assured Bangladesh that the updation of the National Register of Citizens (NRC) will have “no implications” for its people, asserting that it is a process that is “entirely internal” to the country.
“Updation of National Register of Citizens is a process that is entirely internal to India,” Foreign Secretary Harsh Vardhan Shringla said on Monday (2) “India assures Bangladesh that NRC will have no implications for the country and its people,” he said at a seminar ‘Bangladesh & India: A Promising Future’ held in Dhaka.
The Foreign Secretary, who previously served as India’s high commissioner in Dhaka, is the first senior most Indian official to visit the neighbouring country after the amended citizenship bill and the NRC.
During his visit, Shringla is scheduled to call on Prime Minister Hasina and Foreign Minister Momen and hold talks with Foreign Secretary Masud Bin Momen.
He is expected to discuss the preparations for the likely visit of prime minister Narendra Modi to Dhaka this month to attend the birth centenary of the country’s founder Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.
Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina had taken up the issue of NRC with Prime Minister Narendra Modi during their bilateral meeting in New York in September 2019.
Dhaka is worried over reports that India may send back some Bangladeshi immigrants to the country under the new citizenship law.
Bangladesh was upset following the roll out of the National Register of Citizens (NRC) in Assam even though India conveyed to it that the issue was an internal matter of the country.
“India and Bangladesh have been able to address and resolve some of the problems that bedevil relations between any neighbours – problems such as those of borders and land exchanges. We have done so with maturity, grace and sophistication,” Shringla said.
“Our partnership will reach its true potential when we recognise that our interests converge. It is in the spirit of of finding common ground rather than being bogged by a few differences that we have jointly agreed to work to enhance navigability of waterways,” he said.
“At the level of people-to-people ties, our largest visa operation anywhere in the world is in Bangladesh and Bangladeshi friends constitute the largest number of tourist arrivals by far in India,” he said.
Bangladesh Foreign Minister AK Abdul Momen and Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan cancelled their visits to India in December 2019 over prevailing situation following the passage of the new citizenship bill by Parliament.
