Indo-Bangladesh border talks to be held in Guwahati from December 22

New Delhi: The 51st Round of Director General Level Talks (DGLT) between India and Bangladesh will be held in Guwahati between December 22 and December 26. Aimed at discussing border-related matters such as controlling trans-border crimes and timely sharing of information, the four-day conference will take place for the first time at a venue outside of Delhi. The biannual conference will have Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) and Indian Border Security Force (BSF) as its participants. 

While the 12-member BSF delegation will be led by Director General Rakesh Asthana, Major General Md. Shafeenul Islam will be at the forefront of the Bangladesh delegation with 11-members. Concerned officials from Bangladesh's Prime Minister's Office, Home Affairs Ministry, Foreign Affairs Ministry and senior BGB officials will represent the Bangladesh delegation in the conference while senior officials of BSF headquarters, frontier IGs and concerned officials of the Indian Home Affairs Ministry and External Affairs Ministry will represent the BSF delegation.

An official release stated, "The aim of the Director-General talks is to discuss border-related issues, and to enable better coordination between both border guarding forces.The conference will focus on addressing and streamlining mechanisms on how to jointly curb various trans-border crimes and timely sharing of information between both border guarding forces. There will be deliberations on developmental and infrastructure works, joint efforts for effective implementation of Coordinated Border Management Plan (CBMP) and Confidence Building Measures (CBMs)."

Assam's capital city Guwahati serves as BSF's frontier headquarters and its troops guard 495 kilometres of the total 4,096 km long India-Bangladesh international border, that runs along this state and some parts of West Bengal.The last edition of this BSF-BGB Coordination Conference was held at Dhaka from September 16 to 19. Various resolutions were taken by the two delegations in the last conference including reducing killings in Bangladesh and firing only for self-defence. In this Edition, along with the topics mentioned in the release, protection of river banks in the border areas of both countries and undertaking steps for further strengthening the mutual trust and friendship will also be kept under purview.

According to reports, after conducting discussions, the two delegations will enter the the signing of a Joint Record of Discussions (JRD) on December 25 while the Bangladesh delegation will return home on December 26.

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