India Relaxes Visa Norms for Bangladeshi Nationals

Dhaka: India has relaxed visa rules for a category of Bangladeshi nationals planning to cross into its borders. Children below the age of 13, and citizens above the age of 65 will be given multiple-entry tourist visas for five years on their arrival in India, in a move that is aimed at giving a fillip to ties between the two South Asian neighbours.

This was decided in a meeting between external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj and her Bangladeshi counterpart Abul Hassan Mahmood Ali in Dhaka today. Ms Swaraj, who arrived in the Bangladesh capital last night on her first foreign visit, also met Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. She used the opportunity to hand over a letter addressed to Ms Hasina by India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Ms Swaraj, during her interaction with Ms Hasina, extended Mr Modi's invitation to her visit New Delhi. The Bangladeshi Prime Minister reciprocated by inviting her Indian counterpart to undertake a trip to Dhaka. Mr Modi, an official statement issued in Delhi today said, has accepted Ms Hasina's invitation.

The two sides are also learnt to have discussed a host of bilateral issues, including Teesta river water sharing, ratification of the Land Boundary Agreement, by which the two countries are to exchange land enclaves, and illegal immigration, even though no formal agreement is expected to be signed.

The proposal to share Teesta river water has turned out to be knotty affair, with West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee opposing it. In 2011, despite being an ally of the Congress, the Trinamool Congress leader opted out of the then Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh's visit to Bangladesh to register her protest against the river water sharing treaty between the two countries. The government had no option but to put the pact on the backburner.

As part of her attempt to hammer out a consensus on Teesta river water sharing, Ms Swaraj had called up the West Bengal chief minister yesterday before embarking on her trip to Dhaka.