By IANS,
New Delhi : Vice President Mohammed Hamid Ansari will be leading an Indian delegation to participate in the 150th birth anniversary celebrations of Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore in Bangladesh Friday, an official said.
The vice president’s trip will be the first high-level visit from India following that of Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in January 2010. He will reach Dhaka Thursday, accompanied by Minister of State for External Affairs Preneet Kaur.
“Bangladesh is, as you all are aware, a very important neighbour of India, our largest trading partner within the SAARC (South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation) region,” Special Secretary (public diplomacy) Jayant Prasad said at a briefing on the visit.
“India and Bangladesh share strong historic, cultural and linguistic ties and the visit will provide to us an opportunity to reiterate our commitment to partner in the economic development of Bangladesh,” he added.
During the January 2010 visit of Sheikh Hasina, both countries decided to oversee joint celebrations to commemorate the 150th birth anniversary of Tagore.
While the vice president is visiting Bangladesh for the celebrations in Dhaka Friday, Bangladesh’s Planning Minister A.K. Khandkar will be the special guest at a ceremony in New Delhi Saturday.
As part of the visit, India has extended a line of credit of $1 billion to Bangladesh, its largest ever.
“Last month, fifteen Detailed Project Reports (DPRs) arrived on our desk, and we have sent them to ministries for vetting, and we hope to begin work on this quite soon,” said Prasad.
There also has been progress in improving connectivity to allow India to provide 250 MW of power to Bangladesh. By the end of 2012, a 40-km, 400 kilovolt high voltage direct current line will be constructed to supply electricity from India to Bangladesh.
Besides, state-run National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) has signed an agreement with its Bangladeshi counterpart to set up a coal-based power plant in Khulna.