The opposition BNP might have learned the wrong lesson from recent news of political unrest in Thailand. Perhaps that is why senior members of the party have urged Khaleda Zia to endorse a spate of popular unrest modeled on Thailand’s Red-shirts movement. Happily, saner minds have argued against that position claiming that the party isn’t […]
One needn’t be reminded that India and Bangladesh share a border and that there are often skirmishes along that winding strip of land. So, as if to unnecessarily remind, the government of Bangladesh charged India with constructing a fence in violation of international law. Perhaps if there weren’t quite as much credibility and mutually advantage […]
Two activists of the Parbatya Chattagram Jana Sanghati Samity (PCJSS) were gunned down in the Chittagong Hill Tracts. The victims were young Chakma men, the indigenous people of the area who have long sought an independent state. Though the two men are thought to be members of the PCJSS, there remains some dispute about their […]
There is this variant of political programs that exist only in so far one can bandy it about, raging, fulminating as if the program itself were sufficient to move hearts and mind. So it is, that the BNP has long launched the anti-government program that never seems to come about. The date of the […]
This is a bit like sampling I suspect, but I happen to think that the World Bank’s blog on South Asia is magnificent. The breadth of intellectual and informed discussion supported by logic and empirics is wonderfully awe inspiring. Well, certainly to me, if no one else. But I’d suggest that if you read this […]
I’ve been writing on Bangladesh’s power and water crisis. Admittedly I’ve been playing catch-up, because the story has been written up in The Daily Star and other news outlets. Nevertheless, it’s not a story that has reached an international audience, principally because the story, though a milling centipede does not have legs. No one has […]
It’s well known that Bangladesh and Pakistan suffer from chronic power shortages. Those two countries simply do not produce enough electricity to meet the demand of their respective populations. Along with that quagmire, Bangladesh, particularly its capital, Dhaka, has been suffering a terrible water shortage. This is due, principally, because of the prior electricity shortage. […]
Suppose the economy in which you go about your business is run by export revenue and remittances from migrant workers. Suppose further that one can reasonably suppose that remittance revenue will soon dip. In that circumstance, export revenue matters, doubly. Consider then the long run impact of the Icelandic volcano mess on the import and […]
A substantial piece of the politics and history–perhaps, shall I say, the political history –of Bangladesh has now been definitively relegated to the rumor-mongering heaps of badly fashioned narratives and outright lies that have for long run the public discussion of Bangladesh’s founding. It seems India had erased the records of the much of its […]
I’d earlier written about Rushanara Ali, the Labour candidate from the Bengali enclave of Bethnal Green and Bow. The latest news from the BBC shows that she’s won her seat handily, winning twice as many votes as her nearest competitor, the Liberal Democrat candidate. This is a good day for many, a bleak one for […]
The Bangladesh Student League is running rampant, loose across numerous universities across the country and the politicians–often, members of parliament–who support them are doing nothing to arrest the Student League’s criminal and violent behavior. The Daily Star reports that a leader of the AL has gone on record to admonish these politicians aiding and abetting […]
Bangladeshis and the Bengali community in London and in the United Kingdom, more broadly, have reason to celebrate today. For today, for the first time the Member of Parliament from Bangla Town is sure to be a Bengali. Each major party jockeying for power in the 2010 UK General Election has chosen a Bengali to […]
Copyright and Property of Faheem Haider A man, Zakir Hossain has died and 100 others have been injured in a skirmish between the Awami League and the BNP. Members of the Awami League allegedly attacked BNP activists along the way to a BNP rally. The AL has already passed on the blame for the […]
Sheikh Hasina, the Prime Minister of Bangladesh and the leader of the Awami League has been pushing what can fairly be called an aggressive, assertive and inviting foreign policy with the aim of attracting foreign investment in infrastructure and utilities. First there was India, then China, now the P.M. is scheduled to pay a visit […]
Working abroad has been a clear path to comfort and riches for Bangladeshi men for over twenty or more years. Mass migrations of a generation of young men to the Middle East and South East Asia have propped up Bangladesh’s economy through long spells of dictatorship and democracy. Throughout that time, remittance payments have been […]