PM leaves for Dhaka

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina left Jaipur, the capital of Rajasthan, for home on Thursday afternoon wrapping up her four-day official visit to India.

A VVIP flight of Biman Bangladesh Airlines carrying the premier and her entourage departed Jaipur International Airport at 5:30pm local time (6:00pm BST).

Rajasthan’s Education Minister Bulaki Das Kalla and Bangladesh High Commissioner to India Muhammad Imran saw her off at the airport. The flight is scheduled to land at Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport at 8:00pm, reports UNB.

Earlier in the morning, the Bangladesh prime minister arrived at Ajmer in Rajasthan to offer prayers at Khwaja Gharib Nawaz Dargah Sharif, the mazar (shrine) of Sufi saint Moinuddin Chishti on the last day of her four-day official visit to India.

Hasina reached New Delhi on Monday for her first India tour in three years at the invitation of her Indian counterpart Narendra Modi. She held bilateral talks with Modi and met Indian President Droupadi Murmu and Indian Vice President Jagdeep Dhankhar separately on Tuesday.

After the bilateral talks between the two leaders, Dhaka and Delhi signed seven MoUs -- demonstrating cooperation in a number of areas, including water sharing of the Kushiyara River.

Other MoUs are cooperation in the areas of space technology, science and technology, railways, judiciary and broadcasting.

Besides, the two leaders unveiled unit-I of the Maitree power plant in Rampal and 5.13-km Rupsha Bridge in Khulna.

During Hasina’s stay in India, former Congress party president Rahul Gandhi, Indian External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar, Minister for Development of North Eastern Region of India G. Kishan Reddy, Nobel laureate Kailash Satyarthi, Adani Group Chairman Gautam Adani and late Indian president Pranab Mukherjee’s daughter Sharmistha Mukherjee also separately met her.

The Bangladesh premier visited the altar of the Samadhi (memorial) of Mahatma Gandhi to pay tribute to India’s Father of the Nation.

Sheikh Hasina visited Nizamuddin Aulia Dargah in Delhi and joined a business event, jointly organised by the Federation of Bangladesh Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FBCCI) and the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) in New Delhi.

Sheikh Hasina also awarded the Mujib scholarships among 200 students, the descendants of Indian soldiers who sacrificed their lives during the Liberation War of Bangladesh in 1971.