India and Bangladesh to seal land swap deal The two South Asian neighbours set to sign long-delayed border pact during Indian PM's visit to Dhaka.

 India's prime minister is travelling to Bangladesh as the two neighbours plan to seal a land pact which will finally allow tens of thousands of people living in border enclaves to choose their nationality after decades of stateless limbo.

During his two-day visit to India's close ally, Narendra Modi is also expected to sign a raft of trade deals and meet Bangladesh's embattled opposition leader Khaleda Zia.
But his first trip to Dhaka since his election last May will be dominated by the deal to permanently fix the contours of a border which stretches some 4,000km along India's eastern flank.
Under the agreement, the countries will exchange territories in India's northeastern states of Assam, Tripura, Meghalaya, and eastern West Bengal.
People living in the enclaves will be allowed to choose to live in India or Bangladesh, with the option of being granted citizenship in the newly designated territories, and the enclaves would effectively cease to exist.
Around 50,000 people are thought to live in the landlocked islands and lack many basic services such as schools, clinics or utility services because they are cut-off from their national governments.
Modi has compared the agreement to the dismantling of the Berlin Wall which marks "a watershed moment in our ties with Bangladesh".
Bangladesh has been similarly effusive, with Foreign Minister AH Mahmood Ali forecasting it "would open a new chapter" in ties.
While Delhi's relations with China and Pakistan continue to be dogged by border disputes, the Land Boundary Agreement's ratification will remove a thorn in ties ever since Bangladesh's 1971 war of secession from Pakistan.
India's intervention on behalf of the independence fighters proved decisive in that conflict and successive Bangladeshi governments have enjoyed close ties with their giant neighbour.
But an agreement on the ownership of 162 enclaves - essentially islands of land resulting from ownership arrangements made centuries ago by local princes - had proved elusive in the decades since.
Bangladesh actually endorsed the deal in 1974 but it was only last month that India's parliament gave its approval, teeing up Saturday's joint ratification ceremony between Modi and his counterpart Sheikh Hasina.
Officials on both sides said Modi's visit would also see the signing of around 20 agreements aimed at boosting trade and transport links, including deals on the movement of goods across borders and rail projects.
But a breakthrough in a dispute about the sharing of water from the Teesta river which flows through both nations is not expected.

Source: Aljazeera