Nicholas Kristof recently wrote a piece that dealt with Pakistan and Bangladesh’s parralel and diverging moves on Islamist socialization and education. The piece, published in the Times editorial page, has set off a run of commentary. To some extent this is a welcome development; considered another way, it is an unnecessary set of talk backs on […]
The BNP has finally announced a plan for nation-wide protests. Beginning with a sit in on June 9 to protest controversial High Court Appointments, Begum Khaleda Zia will lead a day long strike on June 27, against what she believes to be the sitting governments ill-thought policies that sell Bangladesh and Bangladeshi sovereignty down the […]
Zainab Jeewanjee discusses Pakistan’s ban on facebook. She draws a parallel between the notion of a Red and Blue America, to two distinct Pakistan’s. According to Jeewanjee, a ban on Facebook demonstrates the governments failure to lead its Red and Blue population toward more religious sensitbility.
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 […]
Over the last couple of days things have escalated again in Bangkok. It is unclear what ignited the latest round of violence, but it appears that Wednesday’s rejection of Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva’s proposed compromise, after its initial tentative acceptance by the Red Shirts, caused the government to run out of patience. What is clear […]
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 […]
An approaching deadline doesn’t permit me time to pick this apart, so I’ll leave that to you. A 12 Step Recovery Plan for the US-Japan Alliance by Michael Green and Nick Szechenyi of the CSIS Japan Chair: 1) Don’t give up on Futenma (Yet.) 2) Call a Time Out if the Deal Collapses 3) Damage […]
South Asia is seen as a geo-strategic, geo-economic unit by some and a single civilizational whole by others. The program of regional cooperation was expected to benefit immensely from the historical and cultural ties connecting people across national borders in South Asia. Such assessments created positive possibilities regarding cooperation in the region. Despite differences over […]
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 […]
