He, however, took advantage of the visit to give new impetus to Bangladesh -- India ties. The veteran Indian leader, during his seven-hour stay in Dhaka, met President Iajuddian Ahmed, Chief Adviser Dr Fakhruddin Ahmed, had a substantive meeting with Foreign Affairs Adviser Dr. Iftikhar Ahmed Chowdhury, and also met Awami League Chief Sheikh Hasina and BNP Chairperson Begum Khaleda Zia.

Talking to newsmen prior to his return to New Delhi, Mukherjee said that both sides agreed to take steps to place bilateral relations on an "irreversible higher trajectory," and that both sides discussed all outstanding issues of mutual interest, including water sharing, trade imbalance and security concerns, with a view to strengthening the foundation of bilateral relations between the two countries so that future governments could build on that.

Surely, it is a good beginning, but much needs to be done with vision and open mind to boost our bilateral ties.

Mukherjee announced that India had agreed to grant "duty free access" to two million pieces of Bangladeshi readymade garments to her market, and that both sides had agreed to "jointly combat terrorism" which had posed grave challenges to their security and economic development.

Replying to a question about Bangladesh's concern about the Indian Tipaimukh Dam, he said that the issue was raised at the bilateral talks and that he had assured his Bangladeshi counterpart that India had no intention of unilaterally diverting water at Tipaimukh. He also indicated that during the talks both sides "discussed expanding economic cooperation and cooperation in various areas including energy."

The visiting Indian minister also called for greater connectivity among the Saarc countries with a view to linking South Asia with the adjoining regions. He elaborated that one of the objectives of the Saarc Summit would be to establish transit facilities among the member countries so that the region could be connected with East and South East Asia through Bangladesh and West and Central Asia through Afghanistan.

Bangladesh, he said, offered at the just concluded talks to make the Sealdah-Joydevpur passenger train service operational early and to build a bridge over Raghnacherria river.

Well, so far, so good. But the devil is details. Both sides have to demonstrate greater political will and flexibility to radically transform Bangladesh-India ties. There has to be a clear sharing of the perception that our fates are inextricably linked.

Making wild allegations against each other does not help. It only creates further acrimony.

Bangladesh should view India's recent phenomenal GDP growth as a great opportunity and challenge to derive maximum benefit out of it, while India has to show greater sensitivity to Bangladesh's economic vulnerabilities.

The current regional scene is quite perplexing. While India is galloping ahead and fast emerging as a major global power, her neighborhood, unfortunately, is going through a difficult patch.

Most of the neighboring countries are facing serious economic and political difficulties, which have, in turn, affected their state institutions. Incidentally, most of these countries were placed high on the "failed state index" computed by the prestigious Washington-based Carnegie Foundation recently. The vulnerabilities of her neighbors will surely have an adverse impact on India's security and development.

Good borders make good neighbors. Among all of India's neighbors, Bangladesh has the longest land boundary with her. It is a pity that the Indira-Mujib agreement, signed over three decades ago, has not been fully implemented and, consequently, we have border skirmishes every now and then. In the recent past, the border demarcation issue did not get the serious attention it deserved. Earlier, we had made substantial progress and currently, we have a small patch of territory, which needs to be demarcated.

We also have to rationally exchange "adverse possessions" and grant access to each other's enclaves.

When serious border clashes erupted in the "adverse possessions" of Padua and Roumari in April 2001 I had, as the foreign secretary, in cooperation with my Indian counterpart, succeeded in diffusing the heightened tensions between the two countries within a record time.

Two rounds of border talks were held in May and June 2001 at high official levels. Unfortunately, this momentum has not been maintained, and during the last six years there has been only one round of Bangladesh-India border talks at that level.

It is necessary to resume the border dialogue, and attempts should be made to bridge the gap as far as possible so that future political governments could finalize the issue on the basis of "give and take."

The issues of demarcation of our maritime boundary with India and Myanmar have not been addressed at all. India, however, has reached a bilateral maritime accord with Myanmar, and if that accord is implemented it will adversely affect our claim on the continental shelf and exclusive economic zone.

The bilateral maritime negotiations will be long and arduous, but we need to start the process before it gets out of hand.

The issue of transit is viewed as a major economic opportunity all over the world, and countries seek to derive maximum benefit out of it. But this largely economic issue gets bogged down into protracted bilateral negotiations in South Asia due to lack of trust and confidence among the countries of the region.

Pakistan refuses to grant transit facilities to India for the latter's transportation of goods to Central and West Asia, though it is quite keen about the proposed Iran-Pakistan-India, as well as the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India, gas pipelines.

Bangladesh seeks access to her enclaves, and transit facilities to neighboring Nepal and Bhutan, which India refuses. Bangladesh, on its part, has all along granted transit facilities, by river, to India, and now she has also offered transit facilities by train.

Dhaka, however, has so far refused to grant transit facilities by road to India for transportation of her goods to North East India.

On the energy question, Bangladesh has not been able to reach any accord with India on the proposed Myanmar-India gas pipeline via Bangladesh. Likewise, there was no agreement on the mega Tata project that sought to utilize Bangladeshi gas resources for export to India. These issues should be addressed afresh.

There are strong indications that India is reviewing its earlier position on the transit issue, and that it might come up with a new package deal soon. Bangladesh will be well advised to consider transit, trans-shipment and other options to derive maximum advantages. India is also considering an alternative strategy to bypass Bangladesh, in case bilateral talks fail to yield fruitful results.

Bangladesh-India trade relations are marked by huge imbalance in favor of India. India's exports to Bangladesh were $ 1.633 billion, whereas Bangladesh's exports to India were only $118.76 million in 2005-06.

How do we bridge this huge trade gap with our very short export list? India has reportedly agreed to remove non-tariff and para-tariff barriers that had hitherto blocked access of our exports to their market.

But let us be quite honest, we can not offset the deficit of billions of dollars just by exporting some limited quantities of garments, or on the basis of our existing list of exports. Even if Safta is fully implemented, it would give limited advantages to Bangladesh to boost her exports to India.

India had earlier offered bilateral FTA to Bangladesh to expand her exports to India. Sri Lanka has, reportedly, gained substantially by signing such an FTA with India. Our export situation may not be identical with that of Sri Lanka; nevertheless, the bilateral FTA proposal should be studied in depth by our experts.

As per a study, Bangladesh can earn between Tk. 500 to Tk. 5000 crores per year as annual transit fees. This could go a long way to offset our rising trade imbalances with India. How much we can gain by transforming our Chittagong port to a regional port also needs to be looked at closely.

The government may ask our economic think-tanks e.g. Bids or CPD to undertake detailed studies on these subjects, as well as on the proposed bilateral FTA proposal with India, and come up with a definitive set of recommendations.

Bangladesh and India share 54 common rivers but, so far, they have been able to sign water-sharing agreement only on Ganges. Efforts were made to negotiate water sharing on nine other rivers, including Teesta, but nothing concrete has so far emerged.

Every year we suffer from droughts and floods, yet we have not been able to harness our common water resources, which could also substantially solve our irrigation and acute power problems.

The challenges ahead are complex and formidable but with the necessary political will and pragmatism, we can surely face them and usher in a new phase in Bangladesh-India ties. Our policy makers have to broaden their vision and rise above their short-term narrow national interests in favor of longer-term regional interests.

There are bilateral problems in all other regions of the world, but that has not precluded them from resolving them for their common benefit. In this globalizing era, the sooner we come out of "the box," the better we will do.

Syed Muazzem Ali is a former foreign secretary of Bangladesh.