BANGLADESH

The foreign minister, Dipu Moni, has robustly defended the government's India policy saying more has been achieved than ever before and that exports from Bangladesh are growing much faster as a result.

"India is a huge market," she told editors and senior journalists over dinner at the state guest house Padma Monday night, "let's take advantage of that."

Dipu Moni blamed India bashers who she said were "out to spread confusion in their bid to gain electoral benefit". She agreed with an editor who said the anti-India rhetoric did not yield results in 2008 parliamentary elections. "Gone are the days when misinformation and confusion worked," she said.

She sought to set aside concerns over "failure" to secure Teesta deal by highlighting "work on both sides of the border" to facilitate bilateral trade.

"Has anyone tried to find out how many land ports have been upgraded to deal with increased trade?" she retorted as she tried to shoot down queries by one editor about granting transit to intra-India shipment.

She was obviously referring to increased exports of readymade garments thanks to the latest deal allowing duty-free access of 61 products including 47 textile categories.
She did not give any statistics, no one asked for the figures either. There was more concern about transit, border killings and share as a lower riparian country from common rivers.

Trade gap – US$ 3.5 billion in 2010-11—showed some signs of narrowing in recent months, with garments sales picking up, according to trade officials in Dhaka.

Bangladesh's export figure was better in July-Dec 2011—Tk 18.35 billion— than Tk 13.62 billion in the same period previous year.

"Border shootings have come down," Dipu Moni said, "but it hasn't come down to zero."

"Any killing along the border is unacceptable, and we protest as soon as any incident of shooting occurs," she said amid a barrage of questions regarding border deaths and the government's "failure" to raise its voice.

"The protests are lodged at all levels," she insisted.

"It is true, despite assurances from the highest levels in India, incidents of shooting continue to happen."

As one senior journalist pointed to demonstrations in Dahagram and Angorpota, the two largest enclaves, she said the ratification by India of the landmark 1974 land agreement would put things to rest.

"Did anyone else put any pressure on India to ratify the Indira-Mujib Treaty after the assassination of the Father of the Nation?"

The minister also defended the role of advisers to the prime minister and said they complemented her ministry's work. Her comment was sought in response to fierce criticism in parliament from two key ruling party allies –Rashed Khan Menon on Sunday and H M Ershad on Monday.

In clear references to Gowher Rizvi and Moshiur Rahman, both MPs alleged that the advisers were acting more on the interest of India than Bangladesh.

The two advisers had visited India in preparation for Manmohan Singh's much-hyped trip in September last year and publicly defended India's position as negotiations for such issues as transit or Tipaimukh were on.