NEW DELHI / AGARTALA, May 26 (TIWN): Prime Minister Narendra Modi will pay a two-day state visit to Bangladesh from June 6, it was officially announced.The visit, Modi's first to Bangladesh after coming to power last year, is at the invitation of Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. "The visit is expected to further expand the cordial and cooperative relationship between the two countries and strengthen the ties of friendship and trust between India and Bangladesh," it added.During the visit, Modi will hold discussions with Hasina. His programme will also include a call on President Mohammed Abdul Hamid, the statement said. Ahead of Indian Premier proposed Dhaka visit, Bangladesh Government led by Sheikh Hassina very recently has approved India’s proposal to connect Tripura with the international Internet gateway (South-East Asia – Middle East – Western Europe 4 cable system) passing through Cox’s Bazar in Bangladesh. Cox’s Bazar is 200-250 km away from Tripura. From Sabroom, it takes only 45 minutes to reach Cox’s Bazar. Presently a bridge is under construction that will connect Sabroom with Cox Bazaar. Sabroom has a border hut which was started few months back. If gateway (South-East Asia – Middle East – Western Europe 4 cable system) implemented, this will help improve Internet services in Arunachal Pradesh, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Manipur, Nagaland and Tripura; said a highly placed source.

 It is to be mentioned here that internet services in the NE region, most of the time remained mum.

The North Eastern region suffers from highly unstable tele-connectivity offered by the only optical fibre link, passing through Chicken’s Neck, to Kolkata. Geographical proximity of Cox’s Bazar to the north-eastern States and the location of Bangladesh’s only submarine cable landing station there (required for laying an optical fibre) were the two factors that were considered at the time of proposing the route connectivity plan.
It is learnt from a highly placed source that BSNL, on its part, has proposed the provisioning of optical cables to “zero point” at the India-Bangladesh border near Agartala and Akhaura (Bangladesh). The provisioning is expected to help establish better connectivity in two routes — one between Agartala and the submarine cable landing station at Cox’s Bazar and the second between Agartala and Dhaka. BSNL will be leasing Internet bandwidth (in multiples of 10G) each from Bangladesh Submarine Cable Co and Bangladesh
Telecommunications for the routes said the official.  It is the Tripura Chamber of Commerce and Industry
(EOM) which is demanding more check posts, more land custom station, export of essential commodities from mainland  through waterways of Bangladesh to Tripura. However Present Bangladesh government seems very cooperative with Indian proposals.