SUBIR BHAUMIK Shillong
Tourism and civil aviation minister Rashed Khan Menon says both India and Bangladesh must give tourists from each other’s country visa-on-arrival.
“This is the only way to boost tourism between India and Bangladesh, especially between Bangladesh and India’s northeast,” Menon told the inaugural session of the NADI festival 2016 involving India, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Nepal and Bhutan.
A 149-member Bangladesh delegation — politicians, media persons, tour operators, bureaucrats and river experts — led by Menon and junior foreign minister Shahriar Alam arrived in Shillong to attend the conference oirganised by local think tank Asian Confluence.
Menon said tourism cannot grow in a ‘suffocating visa regime’.
The tourism minister said Bangladesh is ‘very keen’ to start a Bangladesh Biman flight from Dhaka to Guwahati and get the Dhaka-Shillong-Guwahati bus service functional soonest possible.
‘as many as possible’ border check-posts along the border to boost tourism into Northeast India, which is landlocked and somewhat isolated from the Indian mainland
He said India will have to open up ‘ as many as possible’ border check-posts along the border to boost tourism into Northeast India, which is landlocked and somewhat isolated from the Indian mainland.
Junior foreign minister Shahriar Alam pitched for developing river transport between India and Bangladesh, especially with India’s northeast.
“We are developing road and rail transport but we need to develop river connectivity. For that, we need to preserve and protect our rivers and not kill them by building too many dams,” Alam said.
There has been a series of anti-big dam movements in Northeast by indigenous organisations who feel such dams will destroy their ecology and natural resources.
LOOKEAST REPORT | INDIA and Bangladesh moved to bolster their defense relationship and signed agreements for expanding cooperation in maritime security, ocean economy, space, and telecommunication sectors, as New Delhi tries to present itself as a regional power. The agreements were signed during Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s visit to India, the first foreign leader…
LOOKEAST REPORT | HIGHLIGHTING the strong rapport with India compared to China, Bangladesh foreign minister Hasan Mahmud emphasised on Thursday that New Delhi is geographically closer to Dhaka than Beijing. This insight came when he was asked about Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s preferences for her next trip to neighbouring countries. Mahmud also mentioned that Prime…
LOOKEAST REPORT | THE Arakan Army is fighting with the objective of uprooting the military dictatorship in Myanmar. After the end of the military dictatorship, the ethnic groups in each region will decide for themselves on how to build their own future, said a spokesperson of the United League of Arakan (ULA) or Arakan Army….
LOOKEAST REPORT | WHEN cargo vessel MV-ITT Lion sailed into Sittwe port in Myanmar last May, having left Kolkata five days earlier, it marked an important milestone for India in its long–drawn quest for alternative routes connecting it to its northeast, even beyond to Southeast Asia. For, the docking of the cargo vessel heralded the…
Nandi Theint | Nicola Smith ONE of the world’s biggest private hospital groups is embroiled in a ‘cash for kidneys’ racket in which impoverished people from Myanmar are being enticed to sell their organs for profit. India’s Apollo Hospitals, a multi–billion dollar company with facilities across Asia, boasts that it conducts more than 1,200 transplants…
