With Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina meeting PM Modi, the National Citizens Registry (NRC) is likely to be a focus area on Saturday.
During a brief interaction with media hosted on Thursday night, Hasina said Bangladesh doesn’t foresee any problems with India over the NRC following an assurance from Modi.
“I don’t see any problem (on the NRC). I had a talk with Prime Minister Modi, everything is okay,” she said, adding she was satisfied with Modi’s assurance during their meeting on the margins of the UN General Assembly in New York that Bangladesh had nothing to worry about the NRC. She had raised the issue during that meeting.
Meanwhile, around six-seven pacts are likely to be inked in areas like transport, connectivity, capacity building and culture. Ministry of External Affairs Spokesperson Raveesh Kumar said: "The relations (between India and Bangladesh) have never been so close. Naturally, the focus of discussion will be bilateral relationship. When I say bilateral relationship, we are talking about the next steps the two countries should take now to get the relationship in a different trajectory."
The final list of the updated NRC for Assam was published on August 31. Of the 3.3 crore people who applied to be included in the NRC, the new list includes 3,11,21,004 people and excludes 19,06,657 people, including those who did not apply. Assam is the first state to have updated the NRC since 1951, when the NRC was originally created after the census that year. The roots of the demand for a new NRC can be traced to the influx of lakhs of refugees and illegal immigrants from what is now Bangladesh in the 1960s and 1971. This had sparked the Assam Movement in 1979, which demanded expulsion of the immigrants from Bangladesh.