The shipping routes off the coast of Bangladesh are among the most important in the world, but they're also some of the most dangerous because of rampant piracy. Al Jazeera's Nicholas Haque reports from the Bay of Bengal on pirates, as well as the shaky administration, whose job it is to combat this growing problem.
In 1995, scientists issued the first Global warming alert, but today, experts say that at least one fifth of Bangladesh will be swallowed up by rising sea levels within 50 years. AlJazeera report on the impact of policies.
Related Post: Care about Bangladesh?
Rahimafrooz Batteries has played a leading role in the Rural Electrification and Renewable Energy Development Project (REREDP) - a large scale programme to provide solar home systems to rural households in Bangladesh.
The story of Monuhor Ali who escaped unrest to open an Indian restaurant.
"Taslima Nasreen survives under the constant threat of fatwas in India and Bangladesh. But, in France she is receiving the Simone de Beauvoir prize."
>> Taslima Nasreen: The France-24 Interview
The Tate has announced the shortlist for the Turner Prize 2008. Among them is British-Bangladeshi artist Runa Islam. She is nominated for two solo exhibitions in Norway and a showing of her work at the Venice Biennale 2007 in Italy.
The judges said "Islam's works manage to be at once analytical and emotionally-charged, formal and socially relevant".
What does a visitor from Bangladesh look forward to in Kolkata?
For many visitors from Bangladesh, Kolkata is the place that offers better medical care. Many are here on business. But for many visitors, it is also a pleasure trip.
“About 70% of my customers are from Bangladesh. They visit most during winter and before the Eids. Business is a little low when the tourists are not here,” says Bhupendra Saha, of Prince, a Bengali cuisine restaurant in Kolkata.
How does an average Bangladeshi tourist find the city?
“What I most enjoy about Kolkata, is the feeling that it’s a different country and a different place despite it being so close. Though my husband still says that the two Bengals should be one,” smiles Jasmine Sarkar, a Bangladeshi housewife.
> Insight from The Telegraph
Demand for mobile accessories in Bangladesh's booming mobile communications-market is increasing, according industry insiders.
"We've been importing Chinese mobile accessories since 1996. Our yearly-turnover has doubled since 2006,": a senior official of Anik-Telecom said, one of the leading mobile accessories importers in Bangladesh.
Demand for accessories have also doubled countrywide, due to the tremendous growth in mobile subscribers. Traders said, 70% of mobile accessories of their daily sales were from China. Bangladesh has more-than 30 million subscribers.
Via Xinhua
At a press conference inaugurating his tenure as the thirteenth U.S. ambassador to Bangladesh, Mr. James Moriarty noted that "promoting democracy, ensuring development, and denying space to terrorism are the key challenges.
The United States, he said, "will remain a close partner to the people of Bangladesh in each of these areas." Mr. Moriarty expressed admiration for "the achievements of the Bangladeshi people who fought for decades to win the right to govern themselves and control their own destiny."
U.S. - Bangladesh Relations: Download mp3
Via VOA-News
Bollywood star Amitabh Bachchan has agreed to take part in a film based on the life of Bangladesh's founding leader.
Amitabh will play the role of Bongobondhu in the film, named The Poet of Politics, while his son Abhishek Bachchan will act as the young Sheikh-Mujib, Abdul Gaffar Chowdhury, the producer, told ANA.
Shyam Benegal, the only director to won India's National Film Award for Best Feature Film in Hindi five times, will direct the movie.
Via Bangladesh-Blogger
This is a comprehensive list of web-resources related to news and features on Bangladesh. It covers varied topics and subject interests.
English language >
Bengali language >
* This list on "Bangladesh News" is subject to changes.
Bangladesh is heading towards the path of becoming the third nuclear nation in South Asia. The topic came in discussion during meetings between the Chinese minister Yang Jiechi and Bangladesh's foreign advisor Iftekhar Ahmed Chowdhury.
The Chinese minister was on a two-day tour to Bangladesh recently.
The foreign advisor of Bangladesh said, China is a partner and the visit of Chinese minister would further strengthen this relationship.
´Our friendship is rooted in history, but like all relationships, ties between nations also have to be renewed and reinvigorated from time to time, and this visit was an occasion to do just that,´ the foreign adviser stated.
The Chinese foreign minister said, military cooperation is an important part of the overall bilateral relation between Bangladesh and China. Jiechi, who also met the army chief, General Moeen U Ahmed, made the remarks to journalists.
Via American Chronicle
Bangladeshi Foreign Affairs Adviser, Iftekhar Ahmed Chowdhury has said, the country needs to re-adjust its foreign-policy as a new era begins in Asia.
He said Asia is progressing fast in an unprecedented speed. So, the policies of Bangladesh need to be realigned with the global changes. Otherwise, the country would lag behind, a foreign office press release quoted him as saying.
Iftekhar said: "Perhaps, we do not realize that there is more reverse transfer of resources to those developed countries, who buy from us. We pay many times more in duties to them, than we receive in aid."
On the other hand, it is the booming economies of Asia that might help shape the future of Bangladesh. Power players of contemporary times are China, Japan, South Korea, ASEAN, India and Gulf states, he added.
Via Xinhua
Pressure is intensifying in Bangladesh for the interim government to end its state of emergency and release Sheikh Hasina and Khaleda Zia, the country's top leaders. That is according to Al-Jazeera.
Related Link > 'The 2 Women' of Bangladesh
How do you define a country's status as the world's most maligned? With Bangladesh, there are countless examples of stupid-debauchery.
A Bangladeshi brother had advised me on this country's senseless indulgence in sensual pleasures. He said, "Bangladesh is a country of immoral and ignorant morons, who have never conquered a foreign-land..,". Although I disagreed on his remark, a recent incident has made me re-think the value of this statement.
Barrister Rizwan Hussain, who is a noted tv-personality and dedicated charity-worker in the UK, recently (14th April) escaped from the evil grips of the unruly Bangladeshi armed-forces. Local community channels in the UK, have been constantly repeating their calls for the "Justice for Barrister Rizwan Hussain".
As per tv-reports, the wayfarer Rizwan had decided to speak against the injustices suffered by the general-passengers at Dhaka airport; which is often said to be the most dis-organized and corrupt airport in the world.
In return for his honesty, several members of the Bangladeshi armed-forces decided to teach him a memorable-lesson in physical-pain.
They prowled around him like vicious hyenas. He was taken to a suitable environment for third-degree treatment and tortured for hours, until they realized that he may be a little influential to totally get rid-off. Killing innocent passengers in public by members of authority is nothing new at Dhaka airport.
In the mid 90s, I remember an innocent-soul (Surat Miah) from Teeside being murdered by airport staff in Dhaka. Mr. Rizwan Hussain's experience is just another example of this senseless-deprivation.
I recently drafted an article entitled, "Fuck Bangladesh", and was sometimes perturbed as I belonged to this culture of impunity. Although, it now seems okay and I am ashamed for not finding a more suitable-title for that article.
Truly Bangladesh, you never fail to amaze me!
Facebook Group: Justice for Rizwan Hussain!
Via Bangladesh-Blogger
In 1972, the president of Bangladesh issued an order which established special tribunals to prosecute Bangladeshi citizens who had collaborated with the Pakistani armed forces during 1971. Thereafter, India and Bangladesh agreed to bring criminal charges against certain Pakistani prisoners of war held by India.
In anticipation of these trials, Bangladesh Published Act No. XIX of 1973, which was entitled "An Act to provide for the detention, prosecution and punishment of persons for genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and other crimes under international law."
As Bangladesh prepared for the prosecution, Pakistan filed an action before the International Court of Justice. The basis of Pakistan's action against India was predicated on the grounds that India had detained 92,000 Pakistani prisoners of war in violation of the third and fourth Geneva Conventions of 1949.
Pakistan claimed that pursuant to these conventions, India had the duty to repatriate these persons at the conclusion of the conflict. However, India did not continue the repatriation of the detainees that it had begun in 1972, because it claimed that it had agreed with Bangladesh to surrender to that country those persons whose number exceeded ten thousand, and who were to be charged with genocide. By 1973, the exact number was fixed at 195.
Via Bangladesh-Blogger
> Bangladesh War-Crimes: Part one
Bangladesh has a number of organized & lavishly funded fundamentalist militias and a government that yields to their pressure on all matters.
Understandably, there has been growing concern over the possibility of Bangladesh becoming a country like Afghanistan under Taleban rule.
Addressing a press-conference in Dhaka on 5th September 2004, Joseph Cofer Black, the US State Department's coordinator for counter-terrorism, who was visiting the country in wake of the attack on Awami League's rally on 21 August, affirmed that USA was looking at Bangladesh's role as a terrorist platform.
Many would, however, scoff at the suggestion that a shift might be under-way from Afghanistan to Bangladesh, arguing that the situation in Bangladesh today is very different from Afghanistan in 1994 when the Taleban emerged.
Bangladesh is a far more developed country than Afghanistan. It has a vocal and assertive civil society supported by an active and secular intelligentsia. More important, it is a Muslim country with a significant degree of religious tolerance, where women play important roles in the country's social and economic lives.
Related Link > Radicalism in Bangladesh
Via Bangladesh-Blogger
Colonization and natural disasters have wrought havoc upon Bangladesh, but Henry Kissinger and George Harrison, quips Iqbal Quadir of Lexington, did the most damage to the country of his birth.
The former US secretary of state's infamous description of the South Asian nation as an "international basket case" and the former Beatle's legendary Concert for Bangladesh in 1971 saddled the war- and flood-ravaged land with an unshakable reputation as hapless and dependent on handouts for survival.
"That has been very damaging to us," said Quadir, who is the executive director of MIT's Legatum Center for Development and Entrepreneurship. "Because the country is a so-called basket case, investment never came to us."
Quadir, 49, doesn't dispute that Bangladesh has its troubles but rejects the notion that Bangladeshis need to be rescued by rich countries. On the contrary, said Quadir, Bangladeshis are as innovative and hard-working as anyone but until recently have lacked the means to unleash their entrepreneurial spirit.
He proved it with his own company, Grameenphone, which became the largest cellphone company in Bangladesh largely by selling its phones on credit to poor rural women who in turn rented phone minutes to neighbors, making money for themselves while providing a public service. "I happen to be Bangladeshi, which is why I had some emotional reason to think about it seriously." he said.
> A bottom-up plan to turn Bangladesh's economy upside-down
