The year 2011 marks a new beginning for India and Bangladesh,
which signed a series of agreements to manage their common
border. The March 2011 Agreement on the non-use of lethal
weapons by the Border Security Force (BSF), the Coordinated
Border management Plan signed in July 2011, and the Protocol to
the Agreement concerning the Demarcation of Land Boundary signed
in September 2011 are some such accords that are expected to
transform the India-Bangladesh border from a border management
nightmare to a zone of peace and prosperity. All these
agreements are an outcome of a cooperative framework – the
corner stone of India’s approach to managing its borders. One of
the most important initiatives undertaken as part of this
framework was the setting up of bilateral institutional
interactions to address and resolve various challenges along the
borders. These interactions take place at the national, regional
and local levels between ministers/officials of the concerned
ministries as well as between officers of the b