India, Bangladesh strengthen ties in Jaishankar meet

Jaishankar meets Touhid Hossain: As part of an attempt to keep bilateral relations from getting worse, Hossain met Jaishankar on the fringes of the Indian Ocean Conference in Oman.

Touhid Hossain meets Jaishankar: On Sunday, February 16, External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar met with Bangladesh’s Foreign Affairs Secretary Touhid Hossain in Muscat to discuss bilateral relations and BIMSTEC-related issues. The meeting was held alongside the 8th Indian Ocean Conference, which the Indian and Omani foreign ministries co-organized.

“Met Foreign Affairs Adviser Md. Touhid Hossain of the Interim Government of Bangladesh,” Jaishankar wrote in an X post. Both BIMSTEC and our diplomatic partnership were the main topics of discussion.

Bangladesh, India, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Myanmar, Bhutan, and Nepal are the seven countries that make up the Bay of Bengal Project for Multidisciplinary Economic and Technical Cooperation (BIMSTEC).  

The next BIMSTEC summit, which is slated to take place in Bangkok between April 2–4, will be chaired by Bangladesh.

Relationships between Bangladesh and India 

After Sheikh Hasina was ousted from office and forced to flee the country in August of the previous year amid widespread anti-government rallies, the already strained relationship between India and Bangladesh took a serious hit.

Only a few days after Hasina left for India, Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus took over.  

Assault on Bangladesh’s Hindu minority exacerbated already strained relations.  

New Delhi was deeply alarmed by the spike in violence against Hindus and various other minorities, particularly attacks on temples, that followed Hasina’s overthrow.