India to organise 'Concert for Bangladesh' with Anoushka Shankar, Dhani Harrison later this year

India will organise the famous "Concert for Bangladesh" later year this even as Dhaka marks the 50th year of its Independence.

The original 1971 concert was led by George Harrison and Ravi Shankar at New York's Madison Square Garden, and was key to raising international awareness regarding Bangladesh's war of liberation and the refugee crisis in East Pakistan.

The concert will be led by Dhani Harrison and Anoushka Shankar, the son, and daughter of the original "stars" of the concert -- George Harrison and Ravi Shankar. The entire event is being done under the aegis of India's Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR). Ravi Shankar is known for taking Indian classical music to the West, while George Harrison, the lead guitarist of The Beatles, has been a famous cultural icon.

There can be an official announcement on the concert during Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to Dhaka from March 26 and 27. This will be the first foreign visit of the Indian prime minister in more than a year. His last foreign visit was to Dhaka in November, 2018.

According to estimates, the 1971 concert raised $12 million for Bangladesh. As many as 40,000 people came for the event. 

Such was the magnitude of the concert that it became hard for the US to support Pakistan fearing a backlash domestically. So much so that the naval ship the US had sent into the Bay Of Bengal to help the then ally West Pakistan remained only a show of force achieving nothing on ground.