The interests of India and Bangladesh lay in their mutual cooperation, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said in Visva Bharati on Friday.
“Both countries can learn from each other in areas of public policy and culture,” he said at the the convocation ceremony in Visva Bharati University Santiniketan, held in the presence of Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.
Mr. Modi pointed out that there have been very few instances where Prime Ministers of two countries have been present at the convocation of a university. The Prime Minister said that he along with his Bangladeshi counterpart would inagurate Bangladesh Bhavan on the campus of the university.
“Bangladesh Bhawan is also a symbol of the vision of Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore,” he noted.
Tagore's foreign travels
The foreign travels which Tagore undertook during his lifetime were as expansive and vast as his thoughts. “In my foreign trips, I meet people who tell me that Gurudev had visited the country years ago, ” he said, adding that Tagore “was and remains the first global citizen.”
Ms. Hasina, who along with Mr. Modi inaugurated Bangladesh Bhavan later in the day, said Tagore was a poet “very dear to our hearts.”
“Tagore has written the national anthem of both India and Bangladesh and most of the poems were written by him while he was in Bangladesh,” she observed.
