Post-Modi visit, webinar to focus on next steps in India-Bangladesh partnership

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s recent visit to Bangladesh has opened new vistas of cooperation between the two South Asian neighbours and set the stage for steering this mutually empowering partnership to a higher trajectory. The talks between PM Modi and Bangladesh’s long-serving leader Sheikh Hasina in Dhaka have forged an ambitious multi-layered agenda for accelerating transformation of India-Bangladesh relations in months and years to come.

Against this backdrop, India Writes Network and India and the World magazine have organised a webinar entitled “India-Bangladesh Maitri 2.0: The Way Forward” on April 8, Thursday. The webinar is supported by Centre for Global Indian Insights (CGII), an emerging think tank focused on international affairs.

Mr Vikram Doraiswami, India’s High Commissioner to Bangladesh and Mr Shahidul Haque, Bangladesh’s former foreign secretary, will deliver Keynote Address at the webinar. Prominent speakers at the webinar include: Amb. Veena Sikri, India’s former High Commissioner to Bangladesh; Mr Nahim Razzaq, Member of Parliament, Bangladesh Awami League; Amb. Anil Wadhwa, Former Secretary East, MEA, India; Dr Amena Hussain, Professor, Dhaka University; and Dr Prabir De, Professor, RIS.

“The overarching thrust of the webinar will be on identifying focus areas for forging Next Steps in India-Bangladesh Partnership. The success of this relationship is crucial to the future of not just the two countries, but also for the economic resurgence of the region,” said Mr Manish Chand, Founder-CEO and Editor-in-Chief, India Writes Network and India and The World magazine.

“There is a huge amount of goodwill in Bangladesh for India and people of India. Bangladesh has become the largest recipient of Indian development assistance. Bangladesh is also the largest recipient of Made in Indian vaccines,” said Mr Chand, a veteran international affairs analyst.

“India-Bangladesh relations are rapidly emerging as a model for the region. If Pakistan follows this pattern in its relationship with India, the future of South Asia will be transformed,” said Mr Chand.

“India and Bangladesh have made remarkable progress in almost every facet of their economic life. We have cooperated in all areas including social, economic, security transit, transport and connectivity,” said Mr Gowher Rizvi, International Affairs Adviser to Bangladesh Prime Minister.

“We have to move forward in a much more planned and strategic manner so that we can align our policies internationally, and economically we should promote development through strategic cooperation, taking comparative advantage of each other’s best resources,” he said.

EVENT DETAILS:

Theme: India-Bangladesh Maitri 2.0: The Way Forward

April 8, 2021; 4.30 pm IST, 5 pm BST.

The WEBINAR is being organised Live via FACEBOOK, YOUTUBE and Twitter

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India-Bangladesh Maitri: 2.0: The Way Forward

SPEAKERS

Mr. Vikram K Doraiswami joined the Indian Foreign Service in 1992. Prior to joining the Indian Government, he worked for one year as a journalist. He took a Masters’ Degree in History from the University of Delhi. In April 2019, he was tasked with setting up a new Division at MEA for the Indo-Pacific. Following a promotion in December 2019, he was designated Additional Secretary responsible for International Organizations and Summits.

From October 2012 to October 2014, Mr. Doraiswami was Joint Secretary of the Americas Division of the MEA. He became Ambassador of India to Uzbekistan in October 2014, before being assigned as India’s Ambassador to the Republic of Korea in April 2015. Upon completion of this assignment, he returned to Headquarters in July 2018, serving as Head of Division for Bangladesh and Myanmar.

Mr Doraiswamy’s distinguished career includes a stint as Private Secretary to the Prime Minister of India and India’s Consul General in Johannesburg, South Africa. His interests include reading, sports, fitness, travel and Jazz. He speaks Chinese, French and some Korean.

Shahidul Haque is better known as Bangladesh’s longest-serving foreign secretary. He was the Foreign Secretary of Bangladesh from January 2013 to December 2019. He is currently a Senior Fellow and Adjunct Faculty at the North South University, Bangladesh and also a Senior Advisor on migration and humanitarian policy at IOM, Dhaka.

He has co-authored a book titled “Migration Myth in Policy and Practice” (Springer, 2020). He received IOM Director General’s Award in 2005. As the Foreign Secretary of Bangladesh, he has chaired in the Global Forum for Migration and Development at 2015 and 2016. Currently he is an Independent Expert to the Committee on the Rights of All Migrant Workers and their Families.

Mr. Haque has also been extensively engaged in negotiations associated with the Rohingya crisis. He led Bangladesh side of the Bangladesh-Myanmar Joint Working Group on the Repatriation of Displaced Myanmar Nationals from Bangladesh. He has also chaired Bangladesh National Task Force on Undocumented Myanmar Nationals from 2013 to 2019.

He pursued his graduate studies in International Relations and Diplomacy from Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, USA (1988). He was awarded Honorable Mention for Robert B. Steward Prize for high academic achievement at Fletcher. He was also awarded Dhaka University Chancellor’s Award, The Grant’s Commission Award and Chancellor’s Gold Medal from Dhaka University for his outstanding academic accomplishments.

Nahim Razzaq is a Bangladeshi politician and member of the Bangladesh Awami League. He has been elected for the consecutive third time as a member of parliament at the Bangladesh Parliament from Shariatpur-3 constituency. Mr Razzaq is currently a member of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He received the Junior Chamber International- Top 10 Outstanding Youth Person (TOYP) award in 2015 in Bangladesh. He has served in the Parliamentary Standing Committee on the Ministry of Disaster Management and Relief and Ministry of Youth and Sports. He is an adviser of E-CAB (E-Commerce Association of Bangladesh) and s also engaged in addressing climate change issues as the Convenor of Climate Parliament Bangladesh. Mr Razzaq is the founding Convener of National Youth Paltform called YOUNG BANGLA which has steered the party’s policy of youth engagement and played a vital role in forming the National Youth Policy. Mr Razzaq is an member of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Ministry of Foreign Affairs since 2019. He is the Co-Chair of DHAKA GLOBAL DIALOGUE, which is created to stimulate and engage global leader in this Asian Century for shaping the next century where Dhaka can play a big role in connecting the South Asia to the South East Asia, create a free and safe Bay of Bengal for an economic prosperity and promote peace and harmony across the region and beyond.

Amb. Veena Sikri is Founding Trustee and Convener, South Asia Women’s Network (SWAN), & Vice Chairperson, South Asia Foundation (SAF India), New Delhi. Amb. Sikri’s career and experience straddle the worlds of academia and diplomacy. She has served for 37 years (1971-2008) as a career diplomat with the Indian Foreign Service, including as High Commissioner to Bangladesh (2003-06) and to Malaysia (2000-03), as Consul General in Hong Kong (1996-2000), and Director General of the Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR), New Delhi (1989-92). She has held challenging and prestigious assignments at the Indian Embassies in Moscow, Kathmandu, Paris, and at the Permanent Mission of India to the UN in New York (1977-81), where she represented India in the UN Security Council, ECOSOC, and at Summit meetings of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM).

Veena Sikri’s publications include “India & Malaysia : Intertwined Strands” (2013), published by ISEAS, Singapore, and Manohar, New Delhi; and the volume co-edited by her (together with Professor Muchkund Dubey and Professor Imtiaz Ahmed) on “Contemporarising Tagore and the World” (UPL, Dhaka, 2013). She is currently working on a book titled “The Geopolitics of Bangladesh”.

After retiring from the Indian Foreign Service, Veena Sikri joined academia as Professor, holding the Ford Foundation endowed Chair, Academy of International Studies, Jamia Millia Islamia University, New Delhi, from February 2009 to October 2013. She was concurrently Visiting Senior Research Fellow with the Institute of South East Asian Studies (ISEAS), Singapore (November 2008 to October 2011). Her work at ISEAS resulted in a book on Malaysia-India relations.

Ambassador Anil Wadhwa served as Secretary (East) in India’s Ministry of External Affairs and served as Ambassador to Italy, Thailand, Poland and Lithuania, Sultanate of Oman. He is Distinguished Adviser to India and the World magazine and India Writes Network. He is currently Distinguished Fellow, VIF. He has been a member of the Indian Foreign Service (IFS) from July 1, 1979 to May 31, 2017. Ambassador Wadhwa was also a United Nations Disarmament Fellow in Geneva (July-November1989) and India’s Permanent Representative to several Rome-based United Nations agencies. Ambassador Wadhwa also drew up the Most Favoured Nation Agreement between India and China in 1984, the first-ever agreement between the two countries since 1954.

Dr Amena Mohsin teaches in the Department of International Relations, University of Dhaka. She graduated from the same department and later received her MA and PhD degrees from the University of Hawaii, USA and Cambridge University, UK. Amena has received several national and international fellowships. She is the author of “The Politics of Nationalism: The Case of Chittagong Hill Tracts, Bangladesh” (UPL, 1997), “The Chittagong Hill Tracts, Bangladesh: On The Difficult Road To Peace” (Lynn Rienner Publishers, 2002), “Ethnic Minorities of Bangladesh: Some Reflections the Saontals and Rakhaines” (Programme for Research on Poverty Alleviation, 2002), “Women and Militancy: South Asian Complexities”, edited (with Imtiaz Ahmed), (Dhaka, University Press Limited. 2011), Conflict and Partition, CHT, Bangladesh, (with Delwar Hossain) SAGE, 2015). Of the Nation Born, edited with Hameeda Hossain, Zubaan, Delhi, 2016

Dr. Prabir De is Professor and Co-ordinator, ASEAN India Center at the Research and Information System for Developing Countries (RIS). He is also the Coordinator of ASEAN-India Centre (AIC) at RIS. De works in the field of international economics and has research interests in international trade and development. He was a visiting Fellow of the Asian Development Bank Institute (ADBI), Tokyo; and visiting Senior Fellow of United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP), Bangkok. He has been conducting policy research for the Government of India and several international organisations. He has a Ph.D. in Economics from the Jadavpur University, Calcutta. He has contributed several research papers in international journals and written books on trade and development. He is the Editor of The South Asia Economic Journal, published by Sage.

Moderator: Manish Chand is Founder-CEO of India Writes Network, an emerging think tank and media-publishing platform focused on international affairs, and TGII Media Private Limited. He is Editor-in-Chief, “India and the World,” a magazine-journal focused on international affairs. An alumnus of the prestigious St Stephen’s College, he heads Centre for Global India Insights, the IR think tank set up by TGII Group. He has authored and edited many books including “Journeys Across Continents: A New India on the Global Stage,” the first-of-its-kind book that maps Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s journeys to various foreign countries. He has worked closely with India’s Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) on a host of publications, research reports and public diplomacy projects. A widely-travelled journalist and foreign policy analyst, he has accompanied India’s Prime Minister, Foreign Minister and Vice-President to over 60 foreign countries on bilateral visits.

Author Profile

India Writes Network: India Writes Network (www.indiawrites.org) is an emerging think tank and a media-publishing company focused on international affairs & the India Story. Centre for Global India Insights is the research arm of India Writes Network. To subscribe to India and the World, write to editor@indiawrites.org. A venture of TGII Media Private Limited, a leading media, publishing and consultancy company, IWN has carved a niche for balanced and exhaustive reporting and analysis of international affairs. Eminent personalities, politicians, diplomats, authors, strategy gurus and news-makers have contributed to India Writes Network, as also “India and the World,” a magazine focused on global affairs.