Gauri Noolkar-Oak

In June 2019, the Bangladesh High Court granted its rivers the status and rights of a living entity, becoming the fourth country after New Zealand, India and Colombia to do so, and the first to extend the declaration to every river within its territory. The decision was welcomed by river rights groups, environmentalists, experts and the National River Conservation Commission of Bangladesh as an important move against the widespread encroachment and pollution, choking hundreds of rivers crisscrossing Bangladesh.

Last month, shortly after the new Modi government came to power, the External Affairs Minister of India, Dr S Jaishankar, met his Bangladeshi counterpart AK Abdul Momin on the sidelines of the CICA (Conference of Interaction and Confidence measures in Asia) in Tajikistan.