The seventh round of the India-Bangladesh Joint Consultative Commission was held in New Delhi yesterday. It was co-chaired by External Affairs Minister Dr S Jaishankar and his Bangladesh counterpart Dr. A.K. Abdul Momen.
The Ministers welcomed the further strengthening of bilateral ties with the unprecedented visits by both the President and the Prime Minister of India to Bangladesh last year.
The visits were made to commemorate three epochal events – the birth centenary of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the fiftieth anniversary of the independence of Bangladesh and the golden anniversary of India-Bangladesh diplomatic ties.
The Ministers appreciated that the trust and mutual respect shared between the two countries has only strengthened in the last decade. A recent testimony of this was the launch of the trailer of ‘Mujib – making of a nation’ at the Cannes Film Festival in May this year. It was jointly produced biopic on Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.
Noting that this was the first in-person JCC meeting convened since the onset of Covid pandemic, the two Ministers appreciated the efforts undertaken by both countries to jointly fight COVID. They expressed satisfaction that despite challenges posed by the pandemic, both countries have worked closer than ever before in every sector, from security and border management to mutually beneficial trade and investment flows.
The two ministers agreed to work closely together to further deepen and strengthen cooperation in the areas of common rivers and water resources management, IT and cybersecurity, renewable energy, agriculture and food security, sustainable trade, climate change and disaster management.
