18th Joint Working Group meet between India, Bangladesh on security, border management

Tags: International Relations International News

A two-day 18th Joint Working Group (JWG) meeting on security and border management between India and Bangladesh started on 5 December in Delhi.

Important facts

• Both sides will discuss strengthening the bilateral mechanism to deal with the menace of terrorism and extremism in all its forms.

• Both sides will also discuss issues to develop mechanisms to further hasten the process of verification of nationality, and status of prisoners lodged in jails of either country.

• The Indian delegation for the JWG meeting is being led by Piyush Goyal, Additional Secretary in the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA). 

• An Additional Secretary level officer is also heading the group of eight-member Bangladeshi delegation which will discuss the issues of common concern of the two neighbouring countries that share a 4,096 km border.

• This Additional Secretary level meeting is related to the preparation in advance for the Home Secretary level talks between India and Bangladesh.

• The 17th Home Secretary level talks between India and Bangladesh and the meeting of the Joint Working Group between the two countries were held in Dhaka on November 16-17, 2015 to discuss the security and border management-related issues.

• The Indian delegation was led by the then Union Home Secretary Rajiv Mehrishi and the Bangladesh delegation was led by the then Senior Secretary, Ministry of Home Affairs, Dr Md. Mozammel Haque Khan.