Anyone who’s been following the politics and political economy of Bangladesh knows that remittances are a strong and important driver of the domestic economy. Over the last 30 years, the rate of annual growth of remittances has averaged about 19%. This is an impressive rate of growth and as such, it is engine of […]
The BNP has just announced that on May 3rd, it will lead a protest march to the election commission to demand a that the voting results of the Bhola-3 elections be annulled. Further, the BNP will demand that the electoral commissioners resign. I understand that all protests are extra-legal acts and– taken together–movements. But this […]
The reportage in the course of the day presents a slightly more nuanced take on the government shut down of the private Channel 1 television station. On the one hand, though the channel has gone through several iterations of leadership and journalistic talent, the news programming certainly was less frivolous than other outlets. On the […]
The Awami League government has now shut down another television station in the span of less than six months. This is the second such censorious clamp-down since the Awami League returned to power in December 2008. This is a troubling move, for the official excuse for the revocation of the license to broadcast seems like a […]
The Commerce Ministry of Bangladesh was set to lift a ban on public commercial import and exhibition of Indian films in Bangladeshi cinema theaters. That move will now be scrapped. The Commerce Minstry was set to lift a ban placed on exhibitions of Indian films in 1972 to nurture Bangladesh’s then nascent film industry. […]
Straight on the heels on charges of election fraud, the BNP leadership has announced that it will commence its country-wide protest plan to challenge and, perhaps overthrow Awami League rule on Wednesday. Claiming that the Bhola-3 by-election was riven with fraud, Begum Khaleda Zia has decided to operationalize her plans to try to bring about […]
The Awami League candidate has won the by-election in the (thern) district of Bhola by an overwhelming margin. The BNP has challenged the outcome. Even with such a strong, ringing public endorsement, the proceedings were not marked with civility and respect. Widely shared anecdotal evidence of voter intimidation and physical violence besmirched the election. Specific, […]
The government of Bangladesh has nearly completed prosecuting members of the Bangladesh Rifles for February 2009 mutiny that led to the death of 74 people, among them high ranking officers of the military and workaday civilians. The Times published an edited Associated Press write up that provides just the fact ma’am: “A court in southwestern Bangladesh […]
The government of Bangladesh recently denied unregistered Rohingya people refugee status within Bangladesh’s borders. More distressingly, the government has carried on a policy of detainment and coercively repatriation of Rohingya individuals. This is a wholesale violation of their human rights, according to the doctrinal values enshrined in the Constitution of the People’s Republic of […]
100 mile per hour winds hit parts of the Indian states of Bihar, Assam and West Bengal and claimed at least 130 lives. Bangladesh wasn’t spared. The raging cyclone hit Rangpur and killed at least five people and injured over 200 people. Meanwhile, over 100,000 houses have been demolished by the storm throughout the effected […]
The government of Bangladesh will not register the Rohingya who are currently living in squalor outside the bandustani refugee camps in Cox Bazaar. There are already some 28,000 registered refugees in the two camps that comprise the state sanctioned shelter that has been provided the Rohingya. That space–whatever its hue–has been set aside for […]
The High Court declared in a ruling on Thursday that “if any person tries to compel a woman to wear a veil against her consent … that would amount to a violation of her fundamental rights as enshrined in the Constitution,” The Times published a Reuters piece that reports: “The verdict came in response to […]
The BDR Special Tribunal convicted 29 BDR members for mutineering and committing reprehensible acts that really just begin at murder. The Times has published a Reuters piece that runs through a good chunk of the relevant facts and the pertinent history behind the mutiny. The verdicts were expected, and I might even think less severe […]
The rating agency Standard & Poor’s gave Bangladesh its first BB sovereign credit rating. More specifically the S&P assigned Bangladesh its first BB- for long term international credit and a B for short term credit. This means that S&P thinks the outlook for long term international credit to Bangladesh is fairly stable, second in South […]
Over the weekend, the State Minister of Law claimed that though war crimes and crimes committed against humanity are the same thing, nevertheless it is only the leaders of the Jamaat who seem to be confessing to perpetrating crimes, committed during war, but perhaps against humanity. Now quite apart from the sense most of us […]