The onset of closer relations between Bangladesh and India has set off quite a bit of celebratory humming in the blogosphere concerned with South Asia–some of it distinctly emanating from my neck of the woods. Though the new developments are promising, nevertheless we may be calling the game too soon. Whatever the merits of the […]
We’ve only just begun/Before the rising sun we fly/ So many roads to choose/ We start out walking/ And learn to run/ And yes! We’ve just begun. The Carpenter’s pedigree is gleefully appropriate today: Bangladeshi domestic and foreign has been a planar patchwork of sawed and hacked retro-fitted pieces of woodwork and sawdust. The Awami […]
The business and political media in Bangladesh in winding up for P.M. Sheikh Hasina’s visit to India. I’ll be following the news over the period of the 3 day visit. Already Sheikh Hasina’s itinerary is full and she’s committed to the multiple honoraria and cultural visits that foreign dignitary accede to in order to convey […]
The fallacy of composition is the proposition that the causal relations that hold at the individual level also hold at a collective or aggregate social level. Allow me to play with this fallacy, for nothing helps one to comprehend the problems of the many than to see the problems of the few. Credit card bills […]
I’d like to alert you to a short piece written recently on Bangladesh. The piece was published in the Japan Times a little more than a month ago. The author Gwynn Dyer expertly runs through the last three decades in the running gag of an internecine conflict in Bangladesh between two powerful families: As Dyer […]
It’s looking like the Awami League government is turning the refugee crisis consequent to climate climate into a policy issue. The Daily Star reported today that, “A parliamentary standing committee on Tuesday asked the expatriate welfare ministry to start preparation for rehabilitation of two crore people with jobs abroad, who are feared to be […]
It is an odd thing to wish for more positive news coverage of a country’s socio-economics. On one hand, one is grateful for any coverage whatsover, particularly when the coverage is of an overlooked country like Bangladesh; on the other one wishes bitterly that the news on the ground were such that positive coverage were […]
The Supreme Court of Bangladesh lifted a stay on a four year old High Court verdict that had declared illegal and unconstitutional the fifth amendment of the Constitution of Bangladesh. The fifth amendment had legitimized all successive governments after the assassination of President Sheikh Mujibur Rahman from 1975 until April 1979. This ban now makes […]
If education is the engine of economic growth and social replenishment, and education outcomes are path dependent, then we must care about how our youth begin their studies. This is more the case in Bangladesh than in most other countries. The sheer fact of the population of Bangladesh, its density and the growing divergence in […]
Let’s ring in the new year with forward looking news. Bangladesh and India are moving closer to politics in concert. The cabinet approved a memorandum of understanding that Dhaka and New Delhi would import and export electricity from each other over the long term. The Daily Star reports: “A meeting of the cabinet chaired by […]
The mourning of Ashura has come and gone, and not a whimper in Bangladesh. As readers of the New York Times and Guardian know Ashura is the commemoration of the martyrdom of Imam Hussein, the grandson of the Prophet Muhammad. The events of that date in 680 AD are considered to have created the fault lines between […]
I am concerned with the effect of intra-party democracy and candidate selection on the quality of democratic policy making in Bangladesh. Though not as well-studied in politics as other more “titillating” topics like justice, candidate selection is the dominant issue in any practical study of a functioning democracy. To that end, it may serve us […]
One year ago, to the day, the Awami League swept back into power with an overwhelming majority of votes and corresponding seats in Parliament. Promising change and prosperity in Bangladesh, Awami League leader and former Prime Minister Begum Sheikh Hasina Wajed trounced her opposition, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) led by Begum Khaleda Zia, the […]
Merry Christmas to all. It is a sign of the rising urgency of the necessary work that still needs to be done in order to foster tolerance in Bangladesh that the Awami League has taken security measures in order to ensure that peace prevails for the Christmas celebrations in Bangladesh. It were as if the […]
The Copenhagen Conference has claimed another victim: Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Wajed’s prestige on the international stage. Her state visit to India to hash out issues as far ranging as investment in cross-border electrical grids, prisoner swaps and child trafficking got derailed when her Indian counterpart decided to attend the talks in Copenhagen. Her visit […]