India and Bangladesh will sign an MoU within the next two months which will give them the right to conduct oceanic research in each other's Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZs).

National Institute of Oceanography (NIO) Director Dr S W A Naqvi said the political atmosphere is just right to launch a major programme of this kind as he announced this.

"Many countries in this region do not have the infrastructure and human resources to carry out research on their own. So they have been looking at India to provide the lead. We are now launching major programme with Bangladesh this year. In another couple of months, we will sign MoU with them. The coordinator from Dhaka University is going to visit us soon," Naqvi said.

The pact will be signed between NIO and Dhaka University.

"It will be the first time in history of NIO that we will be able to get into those parts of the ocean where we had never been. That is the advantage that we will get. We will carry out joint work with Bangladesh," Naqvi said during an interaction with reporters in presence of Union Science and Technology Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan.

Naqvi said a workshop will be organised in Bangladesh between February 10-12, which will discuss details of programmes.

"We have already identified programmes like climate, material brought by rivers and number of others that the partners are interested in working towards," the director said.

Naqvi also expressed the need for researchers in the region to work in unison.

"Unless we have regional collaboration we are not going to come up with complete understanding of what is happening," he said.