ABHIMANU IAS SPEAKS

BORDER PACT WITH BANGLADESH

•  A constitutional amendment to ratify the India-Bangladesh boundary agreement has got the nod from the Cabinet committee on security (CCS) and is likely to be placed before Parliament in the monsoon session. 

 BORDER WITH BANGLADESH:

•  India and Bangladesh share a 4,096km land boundary covering West Bengal, Assam, Tripura, Meghalaya and Mizoram.

 ABOUT LBA:

•  Manmohan Singh and his Bangladeshi counterpart Sheikh Hasina had signed the land boundary agreement (LBA) in Dhaka last year. 
•  An updated version of the Indira-Mujib agreement of 1974, the accord's ratification will require a constitutional amendment of Article 368.

 SIGNIFICANCE:

• The LBA will not only change contours of India's map, but will be the first resolved boundary with any neighbor.
• The agreement will formalize status quo on enclaves and areas under adverse possession, entailing neither transfer of territory nor people.
• Around 53,000 people residing in the enclaves, who have just been counted in the first ever census in these areas, will get the citizenship of the country they are living in.

 The strategic significance of this is incalculable. Even more than the Teesta river water treaty, the LBA is a big-ticket initiative that can galvanize bilateral ties. However, reservations on the part of West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee and the BJP have impeded its implementation. It's imperative to note that apart from Bhutan, Bangladesh is the only regional neighbor that currently has a positive relationship with India. India's inability to settle relations with neighbors comes in the way of its development and rise as a world power.