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New Delhi/Manila: India and the Philippines elevated their ties to a strategic partnership on Tuesday during President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s visit to New Delhi, as the two countries also move to boost trade and defense engagements.

Marcos is on a five-day visit to India, where he was accorded full ceremonial honors involving a military parade and formal reception before he met with Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The two leaders jointly declared the strategic partnership and agreed to boost cooperation across various areas, including culture, tourism and space.

“India and the Philippines are friends by choice, and partners by destiny. From the Indian Ocean to the Pacific, we are united by shared values. Ours is not just a friendship of the past, it is a promise to the future,” Modi said in a joint press statement.

After their navies sailed together for the first time in the South China Sea on Monday, the two countries also agreed on Tuesday to bolster defense collaboration.

“Strengthening defense relations (is) a symbol of deep mutual trust. As maritime nations, maritime cooperation between the two countries is both natural and necessary,” Modi said.

India and the Philippines have agreed to establish mechanisms for enhanced maritime cooperation between the Indian and Philippine coast guards and for talks between their militaries.

“We will foster naval and coastguard interoperability via port calls in cooperative activities and capacity building in the maritime domain,” Marcos said.

With bilateral trade currently valued at more than $3 billion, Delhi and Manila will start working toward a preferential trade agreement to further strengthen commerce ties, both leaders said.

For India, deepening its relations with the Philippines is “an important step in expanding its presence in East Asia,” said Manoj Kewalramani, a fellow in China studies and chairperson of the Indo-Pacific Studies Programme at the Takshashila Institution.

“The elevation of the relationship to a strategic partnership underscores the growing political proximity between the two nations and the alignment of broader interests,” he told Arab News.

Strengthening India-Philippines defense relations is a strategic move for New Delhi to support its interest in the South China Sea region.

“From a strategic perspective, I think it is important for India to work with like-minded countries on shared security concerns and shaping the strategic environment around China’s periphery,” Manoj said.

“It is also worth remembering that the South China Sea is a critical route for a substantial amount of Indian merchandise trade. So India has significant interests in the region.”

Tensions have continued to run high between the Philippines and China over territorial disputes in the South China Sea, a strategic waterway through which billions of dollars of goods pass each year.

Manila and Beijing have been involved in frequent maritime confrontations in recent years, with China maintaining its expansive claims to the area, despite a 2016 international tribunal ruling that its historical assertion had no basis.

Upgrading India-Philippines ties to a strategic partnership is indicative of “the trust that Manila has put in place on India as an important factor in its security calculations,” said Don McLain Gill, a geopolitical analyst and international studies lecturer at De La Salle University in Manila.

“Similarly, India being part of the strategic partnership illustrates its willingness to play a more active role … as an alternative security partner and provider, along with a capacity builder,” Gill told Arab News.

He expects India to tailor its defense cooperation with the Philippines based on what Manila needs, adding that there are also possibilities for joint production.

“It indicates that the sky is the limit for what both countries can achieve in the realm of defense and security cooperation, but also other strategic areas such as infrastructure and critical minerals,” he said.

“Elevating strategic partnerships isn’t something that the Philippines just freely tosses around. It is earned, and the Philippines, I believe, recognizes the importance of forging closer ties with India and deepening them based on emerging realities and threats and challenges.”

DHAKA: Thousands of Bangladeshis gathered in the capital on Tuesday to mark the first anniversary of the student-led uprising that ousted long-serving former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.

Hasina was removed from power on Aug. 5, 2024, when demonstrators defied a nationwide curfew and stormed her official residence, forcing her to flee to neighboring India, where she remained in exile.

Her removal came following weeks of protests that began in early July 2024. What started as peaceful demonstrations over a controversial quota system for government jobs developed into a wider anti-government movement that was met with a violent crackdown against protesters by security forces that killed more than 1,000 people, mostly students. 

The end of her 15 years in uninterrupted power brought the formation of an interim government led by Nobel Prize laureate Muhammad Yunus, who promised to restore stability and hold new elections after necessary reforms.

“Together, we will build a Bangladesh where tyranny will never rise again,” Yunus said in a message to the nation on Tuesday, as crowds in the capital, Dhaka, waved flags and used colored smoke to celebrate.

A year on, Hasina, in her absence, now faces trial for crimes against humanity, while the prospect for a better and reformed Bangladesh remains a challenge.

“There is already high hope among the citizens of this country that the interim government could do much. But we have to consider the time frame. At the same time, we have to consider the reality on the ground,” Dr. A.S.M. Amanullah, political analyst and vice-chancellor of the National University, told Arab News.

Although progress on institutional reforms promised by the interim government has been slow and fragmented, the country has recorded signs of economic recovery after the burden left by the previous Awami League party-led government, which accumulated more than $44 billion in foreign debt and oversaw widespread corruption that plagued the banking, infrastructure, energy and power sectors.

“People’s hopes are valid … (but) the way the government handled the issue with 180 million people in the country is remarkable,” Amanullah said.

The interim government “should move to hold a free and fair election early next year, as early as possible,” he added.

Despite calls for early polls, the Yunus administration has delayed elections, which may now take place between February and April 2026.

While uncertainty about the future of democracy still looms large in Bangladesh, the country has witnessed in this past year a greater freedom of expression among the public, which was largely absent under Hasina’s rule of extensive suppression of dissent, electoral manipulation and restricted press freedom.

“The people of Bangladesh can speak freely, can run freely, they can move freely without fear. There is no fear of extrajudicial killing. There is no fear of abduction,” Amanullah said.

In a report published on July 30, New York-based Human Rights Watch said “some of the fear and repression” and “abuses such as widespread enforced disappearances” that marked Hasina’s rule “appear to have ended.”

For Mahmudur Rahman, editor of Bengali-language daily Amar Desh, this was Bangladesh’s “biggest” achievement.

“We can speak freely, the people can vent their anger. They can criticize the government without any fear of government persecution. And the media is free; media also can criticize the government,” he told Arab News.

But priority must be placed on holding elections that “will be accepted by the people of Bangladesh” and the international community, Rahman said.

“We should return to the democratic system … without any further delay,” he added.  “It’s better to let a political government take over and we’ll see where the country goes from there.”

Despite numerous unresolved issues, Bangladeshis believe that unity will be central to the future of their country.

“Most important for the people of the country is to unite against fascism,” Rahman said. “They should uphold the spirit of the July Revolution and they should unite in a way that never again another fascist regime should come to power in any form.”

Amanullah from Bangladesh’s National University echoed the sentiment.

“At this moment, the most important thing for Bangladesh is to be united,” he said. “This should be the most priority concern for the country. If they remain united, Bangladesh will see a light at the end of the tunnel.”