The eyes of the nation were glued on the Narayanganj City Corporation elections these past few days. Many wondered why this particular mayoral election of a newly formed city corporation near the capital was of such great significance. The reason for this election’s socio-political significance was it would give everyone an opportunity to see if […]
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina was in New York recently to address the 66th session of the UN General Assembly. During her stay, she sat down for an interview with the WP. One of the topics discussed during the course of the interview was the impact of microcredit in Bangladesh. In December of last year, the […]
The Finance Minister of Bangladesh, AMA Muhith recently angrily thrashed out the Center for Policy Dialogue, a well-respected think tank, for questioning the official government sponsored GDP projected numbers for fiscal year 2011-2012. GDP, the gross domestic product, is a measure of a country’s economic growth and as such is a bet of how politics […]
Economy heads back to high growth http://www.thedailystar.net/newDesign/news-details.php?nid=186434 New regulatory framework at the Securities and Exchange Commission http://www.thedailystar.net/newDesign/news-details.php?nid=186523 Stocks continue to decline http://www.theindependentbd.com/business/stockmarket/50811-stocks-continue-to-decline.html Bangladesh fund floats http://www.independent-bangladesh.com/2011050512260/business/bangladesh-fund-floats.html Apparel export to US rises fast http://biz.bdnews24.com/details.php?id=196274&cid=4 Innovative business ideas and inclusive marketing will cut poverty faster http://www.thefinancialexpress-bd.com/more.php?news_id=136297&date=2011-05-20
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s recent call to eradicate poverty in South Asia through an international cooperative effort is a welcome move. She proposed such a moved during a celebtration of the life and the work of the great Rabindranath Tagore (Thakur). During her term in office Sheikh Hasina has raised Bangladesh’s profile on the international […]
The following is the U.S. State Department’s assessment of Bangladesh’s human rights record over the course of the last year. Without pulling any punches, at lenght: “Security forces committed extrajudicial killings and were responsible for custodial deaths, torture, and arbitrary arrest and detention. The failure to investigate fully extrajudicial killings by security forces, including several […]
The Awami League government has sped ahead to put together a working International Tribunal to try individuals accused of committing war crimes during the conflict-ridden events of 1971. So far the procedures though seemingly smooth haven’t measured up to international legal norms and values- values that one might suppose stands behind the “International-ness” of the […]
Dr. Md. Yunus has friends in high places. Everyone knows that. Under scrutiny following a Norwegian documentary that alleged financial malfeasance, Dr. Yunus was cleared of any accusations but remains squarely a target for the Awami League’s recrimination. Under the aegis of an ad hoc rule that Grameen Bank needed the central bank’s permission to […]
The Federation of Bangladesh Chamber of Commerce stood out against the Islami Oikya Jote’s calls for a nationwide protest and strike. A hard rightist party associated with the opposition BNP, the IOJ had called for a widespread “hartal” to protest a national women’s development policy it claimed countervailed accepted dogma in teh Koran. The policy […]
About the Stock Market crash and the lurking housing bubble in Bangladesh. Part 1 of a series of articles on the subject.
The widely read Indian newspaper The Hindu reports that the Indian delegation to the 2005 South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC ) Summit refused to attend the affair hosted in Dhaka because of long-standing tension about a series of terrorist events throughout Bangladesh in 2004 and in early 2005. This revealing bit of information […]
It is a testament to the broken, intractably conflict-ridden politics in Bangladesh, that respected jurists can claim that a dictatorial move remain in place in order to allow democracy to breathe and to burn bright. Jurist Dr. Kamal Hossain argued that the the institution of caretaker governments should remain in place while parties revolve in […]
Yesterday for World Water Day PBS Newshour, in partnership with the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, ran an excellent piece on new approaches to get clean water to Dhaka’s explosively numerous, and growing, slum dwelling population. Here’s the video that aired, with special correspondent Steve Sapienza: Please visit the PBS Newshour webpage dedicated to this rather excellent […]
Over a phone call, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton offered her support to Grameen Bank founder Dr. Md. Yunus. State Department spokesperson Phillip J. Crowley said that “Secretary Clinton spoke yesterday with Dr Muhammad Yunus and expressed support for the independence of the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh.” It’s not just that Mrs. Clinton offered […]
I don’t know what’s worse: that the New York Times printed a quote from an estimable and important Bangladeshi that was off the mark; or whether, it’s worse that the quote in question was offered by the chairman of Bangladesh Human Rights Commission. Let’s start with the former issue. The quote in question was delivered […]