Speaker of the parliament Shirin Sharmin Chaudhury has said that India is the "closest and important" neighbour and friend of Bangladesh and expected that the pending issues like Teesta water sharing deal will be resolved in good spirits.
She was speaking at the 75th Republic Day reception in Dhaka hosted by High Commissioner Pranay Verma on Wednesday.
India became a free nation on August 15, 1947, but it declared itself a republic state with the adoption of the Constitution on January 26, 1950.
The speaker extended greetings on this occasion and said India's development like the recent moon landing serves as an inspiration for all the South Asian countries.
She remembered India's support in the 1971 liberation war and said "Bangladesh enjoys deep rooted friendship with India."
"The relationship reached a new height under the leadership of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and Prime Minister Narendra Modi," she said, adding that Sheikh Hasina's zero tolerance policy towards terrorism and extremism gave confidence to this relationship.
She said the two countries solved many issues including the Ganges water sharing in good spirit.
"We hope pending issues like the Teesta water sharing issue will also be resolved in good spirit."
The Indian high commissioner said these 75 years have been an “extraordinary challenge for India, from the throes of impoverishment to a modern, capable nation playing an increasingly important role in the progress of humanity and offering solutions to global challenges."
"The scale of India's transformation is creating new capacities and generating opportunities for the entire world, and in this journey Bangladesh has been a close party for this," he said.
"Ours is a relationship joined together by shared history and geography and nurtured by common language, culture and traditions. But above all, our relationship is built for the shared empathy of our people towards each other and rooted with the shared sacrifices of the Liberation War of 1971."
"That spirit of 1971 remains part of our friendship and is a constant inspiration for driving our relationship," he said.
"Our partnership is built on the conviction that our progress and well-being are interlinked and interdependent," he said.
"Our desire for development and aspiration for a better future are creating new opportunities and new momentum for our multifaceted relations and complementing each other.Bangladesh is India's largest development partner. We are working together to build critical infrastructure.”
“We are forging better connectivity that would bring our economies and societies ever closer and we are constantly expanding the horizons of our engagement”, the high commissioner said.
"Our invitation to Bangladesh to participate as a guest country during India's G20 Presidency last year reflected the importance we attached to Bangladesh as a close neighbour,” he added.