India and Bangladesh seal border deal, four decades later

Bangladesh and India have sealed a deal to swap border territories, more than 40 years after it was negotiated. The prime ministers of both countries watched as bureaucrats signed the pact in Dhaka, Bangladesh’s capital. The deal, reached in 1974 but only recently ratified by India’s parliament, will be seen as a major achievement for Narendra Modi, the Indian prime minister, who won a landslide election last year to take power. “[The deal] will make our borders more secure and people’s lives more stable,” the 64-year-old leader said. Modi has had difficulty delivering achievements domestically, but has been active on the international scene and compared the agreement with the dismantling of the Berlin Wall. “[Foreign policy] is one area where there has been unexpected and major progress,” said C Raja Mohan, an Indian foreign affairs analyst. “This will open the door for significant co-operations and economic engagement.”   The Guardian