AA Edit | India's Bangla links get deeper

Prime Minister Narendra Modi was on solid ground when he stated that India takes pride in being the No. 1 development partner of Bangladesh. The PM said that at a landmark moment with the launching of two connectivity and one energy project along with his Bangladesh counterpart, Sheikh Hasina.

Adding greater significance to India taking a hand in the development of a “Sonar Bangladesh” is the fact that the biggest regional power of south Asia has, of late, been setting right ties with its closest neighbours. Such efforts bore fruit when India restored its ties with Sri Lanka to the more pleasant days of old when it did not have to compete for friendship space with China.

To buttress its diplomatic efforts, India has also been opening its purse strings to play the role of a development partner that might just help scuttle some of the “Big Brother” image it may have earned in times when ties with neighbours were far more stressful than they are today.

India’s key position in the earlier part of this year as rotating chairman of G-20 may also have helped as Sheikh Hasina had occasion to fondly remember India’s hospitality at the summit. The year of chairmanship may have vaulted India into leadership position of a higher plane wherein it saw the bigger picture and is using its economic clout also to help it strengthen its influence over a region nearer to home.

India’s assistance in creating rail infrastructure to enable people as well as freight movement will be of considerable help to Bangladesh that has been on a growth curve even as it has moved up in several human development indices.

The blip in Maldives where a very pro-China, anti-India President will soon be in place, it could be said that India is in a better place towards the end of 2023 than it was when the year began. Of course, all this is to leave out discussing the state of ties with prickly neighbours on geographical latitudes higher than India’s.