La Semaine Dernière A Mes Yeux

(24 décembre --- 31 décembre)

Selon un reportage, un bus s’est fait renverser et a parcuté un autre bus à Khilkhet,Dhaka. Le bus agresseur appartient à dirigeant de la plateforme des patrons de bus privée.

Selon un reportage, dans un croisement à Narayanganj,un train a frappé un bus en tuant 2 passagers sur place.

Selon un reportage, RAB a appréhendé patron de bateau motorisé dans lequel incendie avait tué 45 personnes le 24 décembre.

Selon un reportage, Corona a péri 7 personnes dans les dernières 24 heures. De plus,cas de détection a franchi 500 par jour.

Another Disaster,Another Headline

A burning launch in the middle of a river
Exposes the governance crisis in deeper.

Once again Bangladesh was made international headline due to country’s worst launch fire that killed 45 people. It happened at a time when the country is celebrating 50th anniversary of its victory¹. Initial probe divulged that a newly installed engine was origin of the deadly fire. Police already arrested the owner for negligence. Further investigation is being carried out.

Within hours of that launch disaster,another incendiary disaster in a Chattogram shipbreaking yard injured several workers². An indication that industrial accidents worsens in recent years.

In the wake of that launch disaster,mobile court of Bangladesh Inland Water Transport Authority (BIWTA) is conducting special drive across the country, finding irregularities in many vessels and imposing penalties³.

On the eve of Bakri Eid this year, Bangladesh was found in news reports of international press for a deadly factory fire on the outskirts of Dhaka. In the wake of that disaster,I wrote the following piece titled “Another Industrial Disaster : Decoding The Incongruities “. Sharing bits of it again:

The juice factory in question is used to store and produce consumer products like beverages and snacks. In that cramped factory premises,many children and women were working on that fateful day.Hashem Food factory fire,killed 49 people, still rankles with us. Prior to that, mysterious explosion in a shopping mall in the middle of a residential cum commercial area killed 15 people in a busy part of Dhaka, including the security guard living in the basement. Official probe report blamed gas leakage from an abandoned gas connection, severed due to pending dues 5 years ago.No independent verification is there as independent forensic investigation is not allowed. Nor is it encouraged.

Shock and puzzle displayed on the press might remind one such incident is incongruous in Bangladesh’s industrial environment. But flourishing of crony capitalism, feudal mindset ,deception and trampling over other’s legitimate rights set the context for such tragedies. It is there in subtle and less crude form ,we get puzzled and shocked only when tragedies struck. Prelude to catastrophe is pretty much written in our society⁴.

Motorized boat disaster is not new in Bangladesh. Between April 02 and April 09, just before introducing harder lockdown, a boat capsized near Narayanganj,killing 35 persons. It had been hit by cargo vessel belonging to a ruling party MP. Passengers had been trying to go to southern districts before strict lockdown came into effect.

On May 03, a motorized boat carrying 26 passengers sank in Padma after hitting a bulkhead near Munshiganj at Shimulia ghat. All the 26 passengers, on their way to villages, were dead. Later it turned out that an untrained and addicted boy was steering the boat. On May 12, another tragedy struck at Banglabazar ghat in Madaripur. Stampede in an overcrowded ferry killed 5 passengers⁵.

Recurrence of such tragedies is an indication that something is horribly wrong in the system of accountability. This year this was the third incident that put Bangladesh’s name on international press for reasons that ashamed us. Only better governance could ensure an acceptable level of accountability that could help avoiding such tragedies.

Notes And References:

1 “Jhalakathi’r Sugandha Nadite Modhyo Rate Pude Jaya Launch Tite Ki Ghotechhilo(What Happened On The Burning Launch On The Fateful Night In Jhalakathi's Sugandha River)”,BBC Bangla,December 24,2021Link here

2 “Four Workers Injured In Chittagong Shipyard Blast”,Pimple Barua,Dhaka Tribune,December 25,2021, Link here

3 “Saat Ti Launch E Ovijan,Shob Koto Tei Truti”,Daily Prothom All,December 30,2021

4 “Another Industrial Disaster: Decoding The Incongruities “,Rezaul Hoque,July 30,2021,https://hoquestake.blogspot.com,Link here

5 “Exodus And Awareness “,Rezaul Hoque,May 13,2021,https://hoquestake.blogspot.com,Link here

And The March Continues

Global brands rally behind the exit queue
Mocking govt efforts to bring investment new.

One after another global brand continues to quit Bangladesh at a moment when Bangladesh badly needs their presence to augment employment opportunities and revenue.South African Nandos and French Lafarge are two of the latest incidents to start with.

Nandos started its journey in Bangladesh back in 2008.Later it opened several outlets in Bangladesh. As per news report, Corona made a heavy dent in its operation here, forcing it to shut down all 4 outlets in Bangladesh.¹

Lafarge was one of the few companies that had strong presence in Bangladesh. Recently, it decided to sell stocks of its operation here following a gas bill row with the government². Lafarge went to court but the court ruled in favor of the government. It is unclear why Lafarge left the country while infrastructure boom is going on.

Earlier Corona-battered big brands stopped sourcing from Bangladesh. UK-based Debenhams closed its Bangladesh office without clearing the dues. Later Debenhams' employees held press conference demanding their arrears and compensation³.

Being a less developed country that enjoys relaxation of ownership right laws on drugs,Bangladesh has long been destination of global pharmaceutical brands. However, many opted to leave the country without giving any valid reason. GlaxoSmithkline announced its closure three years ago. Its consumer division was making profit back then. So the announcement came as a surprise. French pharmaceutical giant Sanofi and Purdue Pharma followed suit.There has been some issues in business environment or governance. None bothered to search the answer.

In IT, Accenture, an Indian IT firm doing some content related work for Telenor in Bangladesh, abruptly declared closure of its operations in Bangladesh. This kind of announcement did not send positive signal abroad to foreign investors. Meanwhile, key businesses and funds to stimulate business are being concentrated into the hands of some cronies who have proven that they are unable to bring the much needed wind of change in the economy. From garbage collection to public infrastructure construction, one can see the footprints of powerful oligarchs who spare no means to get rid of any competitor or obstacle. Recent drive against casino is an eye opener. Greed of the few brings down the whole system and corrupts the process of transparent dealing. In the end, government spending does not stimulate the private sector, plays no role to create any meaningful jobs and finds innovative ways to be laundered abroad.

A handful of groups are responsible for the bad loans that cause bankers and government officials to spend sleepless nights as piling up of bad loans poses serious menace to the economy. From container transportation through waterways to direct to home TV services, powerful oligarchs control the vital businesses , leaving little room for private sector, which will take the onus to propel the economy, to play any leading role.

This is indeed not a very promising sign for the future course of the economy, which requires a holistic growth approach to create more opportunities for all and to accelerate the trickle down process to dispel inequality.

One global brand after another abandons Bangladesh, mocking the indicators that say business climate is improving. Meanwhile, concentration of wealth into the hands of the powerful few augurs ill for Bangladesh economy⁴.

Notes And References:

1 “Nandos Keno Bangladesh Chhere Gelo (Why did Nandos leave Bangladesh)? “,Business Inspection Bd,December 17,2021Link here

2 “Lafarge Ki Bangladesh Chharte Chain(Does Lafarge want to quit Bangladesh)?”,Mehedi Hasan Rahat,Bonikbarta, October 06,2021 Link here

3 “Winter Is Coming!”, Rezaul Hoque,https://hoquestake.blogspot.com,January 17,2021,Link here

4 “Big Brands Ditch Bangladesh”,Rezaul Hoque,https://hoquestake.blogspot.com,November 07,2019,Link here

La Semaine Dernière A Mes Yeux

(17 décembre --- 24 décembre)

Selon un reportage, l’ONU a accusé ARSA dans la tuerie des Rohingyas à l’intérieur de Rohingya Camp.

Selon un reportage, violence dans la 4ème tour d’élection rurale a tué 7 personnes, en faisant le bilan 66 dans 4 mois.

Selon un reportage, les États-Unis ont déclaré bounty sur les tueurs de bloggeur américain Avijit Roy.

Selon un reportage, une femme au foyer a été violée par 3 criminels dont un criminel qui avait déjà passé un mois à prison. Police a appréhendé les 3.

Selon un reportage, incendie dans un bateau motorisé a tué 37 personnes. 22 restent encore disparus.

Violence & Capital Flight II

Violent election year
Generates enough fear,
Speeding clandestine capital flight
If level of significance is right.

In another embarrassing report,Global Financial Integrity (GFI) revealed worrying accounts of illicit financial flow from Bangladesh between 2009 and 2015 with an average flow of $ 8.8 billion. The mismatches between declared value of goods on the invoices and true value of goods were reported to be $5.2 billion in 2008, $6.9 billion in 2010,$8.8 billion in 2011,$7.65 billion in 2012,$9.35 billion in 2013 and $11.92 billion in 2015 ¹.Data for subsequent years were conspicuously absent as Bangladesh government did not provide the trade data to UN,as claimed by GFI.

Last year in March 07, I wrote this piece in a bid to find the link between political violence and capital flight. Sharing it again:

Global Financial Integrity has recently brought out its another report on illicit financial flow. Unlike previous reports, this time it underscores trade invoicing took place between 2008 and 2017. Illicit Financial Flow was broad and covered many areas. This report concentrates on trade mismatches. However, I did not get the relevant data for Bangladesh up to 2018. Much of the recent data were not available.

The 2015 report was complete and I found it handy back then. Immediately after the 2015 report , I tried to find out any possible link between political violence and illicit financial flow. Was there a correlation between the two? There was a little bit of correlation.

I still hinged on that 2015 data and looked on whether election years have any differential effect on illicit financial flow. For the political violence data, I relied on Odhikar, an NGO works on human rights issues. And from 2015 report I gleaned the data on illicit financial flow.

The regression function I constructed looked like this:

lnIFF_i = a₁ + bPolViol_i + a₂D_i

where lnIFF_i= log natural of illicit financial flow, PolViol_i= victims of political violence, D_i= 1 when the years are election years; prior and after years fall here. = 0 when the years are normal years.

Here a₂, coefficient of dummy variable, captures the differential effect of election years.

Since the data is time series in nature, I checked for autocorrelation. Durbin Watson statistic prior to natural log transformation reported 1.40 for 10 observations and 1 explanatory variable.

Then I carried out the semilogarithmic regression. At 5% level of significance, the model did not turn out to be significant. F= 3.339, p=0.095 (for degrees of freedom 2 and 7) . However it is significant at 10% level of significance. The intercept, a₁=8.273, appeared to be significant (t=44.79, p=0.000000721). The slope coefficient of political violence, b=0.000013, turned out to be insignificant (t=1.099, p= 0.308). The coefficient for dummy variable, a₂=0.4210 was found to be insignificant (t= 2.116, p=0.0720). However, it was significant at 10% level of significance.

Stat analysis did not find any evidence of differential effect of election years on illicit financial flow. What is interesting is that if the level of significance is raised at 10% level of significance then there is evidence that election years have some kind of differential effect on illicit financial flow. However, slope coefficient of political violence is still insignificant.

Let's interpret the result. At 10% level of significance, mean illicit financial flow of election years was higher than non-election years by 50.97%. As election years were more violent, as reflected in the political violence stat, more people laundered clandestine money abroad.

Based on higher level of significance , there is statistical evidence that violent election years accelerated the process of illicit financial flow. Clearly panic has its own economics. Sowing panic has intended /unintended consequences. However, finding conspiracy theory is not my goal. But my endeavor to see effect of violent election years on clandestine capital flight was not a failure².

Notes And References:

1 “Bangladesh Lost $50 billion To Trade-related Illicit Financial Flows In Six Years: Report”,bdnews24.com,December 17,2021 Link here

2 “Violence And Capital Flight “,Rezaul Hoque,https://hoquestake.blogspot.com,March 07,2021 Link here

La Semaine Dernière A Mes Yeux

(10 décembre --- 11 décembre)

Selon un reportage, les États-Unis ont sanctionné 7 dirigeants ,ancien et actuel, dont le chef de Bangladesh Police à l’entrée au pays. Bangladesh a protesté la décision en appelant l’ambassadeur des États-Unis chez ministère des Affaires étrangères.

Selon un reportage, incendie a ravagé une usine du plastique à Bogra en tuant 5 ouvriers.

Selon un reportage,une étudiante de l’Université de Dhaka a été torturé à mort chez beaux-parents.

Selon un reportage, une véhicule privée a percuté une moto d'un ancien soldat de force frontière. Police n'a que reçu plainte deux semaines plus tard.

Selon un reportage, un ancien dirigeant du groupe JSS a été abdiqué et tué à Bandarban.

Man Vs Wild III

Strange incidents perish 7 elephants in November.
Reasons of the killing no one bothers to remember.
Redesigning the policy and education hold the key
To change attitude towards the wild in vicinity.

Recently, a news report divulged that indiscriminate killing of elephants has been going on in Bangladesh. In November,7 elephants were killed, making the tally 33 alone this year¹.

Back in November last year,I penned the following piece titled “Man Vs Wild II” in the wake of elephant killing spree. Sharing it again as it is still relevant for today:

Department of forestry and IUCN, as the news report reported, claimed that 11 elephants had been killed in 2020.

It is a shame that this cruelty has been continuing unabated for some years. I was taken aback by another news of BBC. The story said a baby elephant fell inside a well in a village in Tamilnadu, India. Villagers and firefighters did everything to rescue the trapped elephant. Visibly different actions from two culturally close groups of people.

There is no denying that demographics, vegetation, villagers' behavior towards strangers, villagers' behavior towards animal have gone through rapid changes since the influx of Rogingyas. Forests located near the frontier transformed. In the face of accommodation need and agricultural activities, forests waned.Vegetation became thinner. Paddy fields invaded elephant tracks. Poor souls in search of foods trampled along the paddy fields, damaged thatched roofs and killed few villagers, causing worries to farmers. But recent killings did not hint that these were acts of angry villagers. In fact, villagers reported the killings.

Unwarranted hatred and tortures meted out to the elephants need to be probed. Investigative should be started to find out why the recent killings took place.

In one of my earlier pieces titled " Man Vs Wild" , I argued how sustenance of population encroached on forest lands.So habitats for animals are fast disappearing to feed the hungry population. Elephant tracks that straddled along both sides of the border for decades after decades also fell victim to this.

Humans have the ability to find new place to stay, to find new land to till, to convert wild forests into cultivable land, to cut trees to make firewood and to search and grow new crop when the existing ones became hard to find to fill stomach. Unfortunately poor creatures like elephants lack this ability. So they continue to maraude paddy fields, to knock out banana trees, steal crops and attack anything that causes obstacle on its way.

Failure to create symbiotic relationship between man and the wild lies in the flawed incentive structure in our development policies. Redesigning the incentive structure could easily save lives of endangered species and secure their habitats as well. At the same time, agricultural land, small commerce, villages situated in the vicinity of the habitat could also get benefits.

A peasant who receives regular allowance /grant for the damage or loss he sustained from trampling of wild animals will not cause any harm to them. Instead he took great care of them. In addition, he will take great care to the habitats of the animals.

Incentives can be given in many forms. For instance, a village located near a forest can be subject of a school stipend program for children of villagers so that they continue their education. The aim of the stipend program is to induce villagers to take an amiable stance towards the wild.

Financing such incentive programs will not be a difficult task as many bad projects swallow hard-earned money of the tax payers. Diverting these funds to finance the incentive structure will not be a difficult task. Scope of such programs will be small compared to other social security programs as forests are receding fast.

Many primitive society still displays far more greater responsibility towards the nature and the wild than us. In Africa, parents of a newborn of a primitive society take the umbilical cord to a nearby forest and bury it. The ritual is performed so that the baby develops a strong bond to mother nature and performs its duty diligently at later stages of its life.

Education can also play a role to develop some kind of responsibility towards the wild. Textbooks in elementary schools can incorporate stories, fables that inculcate students about rights of animals, developing fondness towards them, importance of protecting their habitats. Education and grooming at an early stage can make a lot of difference in our behavior towards animal and nature at later stages. Incident in Tamilnadu and that in Lohagora furnish the evidence. It is imperative that government and policy makers revise their incentive structure and redesign the policies to protect the wild²

Notes And References:

1 “Peshadar Lok Diye Haty Hotya(Elephants Killed By Professional Poachers)”,Iftekhar Mahmud,Prothom Alo,November 23,2021

2 “Man Vs Wild II”,Rezaul Hoque,November 26,2021,https://hoquestake.blogspot.com Link here

La Semaine Dernière A Mes Yeux

(03 décembre --- 10 décembre)

Selon un reportage, une cour bangladaise a condamné 20 étudiants de BUET à mort et 5 autres à réclusion à perpétuité en lien de tuerie d’un autre étudiant.

Selon un reportage, un ministre- adjoint a démissionné après il avait insulté des politologues et vedettes de film.

Selon un reportage, un policier a été accusé d’avoir violé une femme à Khulna.

Selon un reportage, cyclone «Jawad» a causé assez dégâts aux champs de riz à Borishal,Cumilla,Faridpur et Manikganj.

Need Civilized Ways To End Disputes

Lack of civilized means in dispute settlement
Only grows anarchy and resentment.

Since the resumption of educational activities after COVID break, we have been witnessing tragic incidents at roads, campus and outside campus,costing innocent lives.

The violent clashes between two factions of ruling party student wing at Chattogram Medical College University left many students seriously injured,including one victim, son of a school teacher,who underwent a head surgery¹. In addition, many faced suspension of various duration. And the Medical College was shut down wielding the “unfavorable atmosphere” as reason.

Many students also gave in to pressures and uncertainties left by COVID-19.Some ,coping with COVID problems, found it hard to tackle personal problems. Many met unnatural death. Lack of proper guiding and supervision led to this unwanted situation. Many of them received subsidized education and country did not manage to avail their contribution due to the untimely demise. Just categorizing the incidents as “another mental health” problem exposed our inability to decode the gravity of the problem. State does need to do more when it sees so many loss of aspiring souls.

What is worrying is that sloppy governance created such an atmosphere even adolescents with little knowledge of outside world tried to leave the country. Worried about the future life in Bangladesh, three school-going sisters took a bus ride to Cox's Bazaar. They wanted to go to Japan,no idea where the country is situated.

The unprecedented student protest in the wake of Bus fare hike shook up the government. Citing oil price hike in the International market,private bus owners raised bus fare,causing anger among COVID-battered lower income group. Students took the opportunity to make some concessions. Situation turned worse when a college student was threatened to be raped as she refused pay extra fare and when another college student was run over by a dumping truck of Dhaka South City Corporation². Later,three more students died in Chandpur and a former journalist was died in another accident caused by a Dhaka North City Corporation vehicle. By this time,school students blocked key roads and started checking papers of circulating vehicles. It reminded one of the student movement in 2018 across Bangladesh following harrowing death of two school students in an accident inside cantonment. They demanded reforms in traffic laws,which were partially met.

Student vigilance on streets for valid papers and fitness certificate literally rocked Bangladesh back then. Similar wave of protest is being observed right now.

Once we had a well managed bus services in Dhaka,under World Bank financed Dhaka Urban Transport Project. Since the government assumed power,it had scrapped the projects and misfit buses started to ply over the roads.

Back in 2019, I had witnessed an accident,which I narrowly escaped. I wrote about it in another piece³:

My bus was boarding passengers while an empty bus intentionally hit the rear side of the bus. That was where I sat. In the blink of an eye, it smashed the back of the bus. It took few seconds to befuddled passengers to understand what was going on. I got off and took few snaps of the assailant bus on my mobile phone. Two days later I went to the police station where seized bus was parked outside.

I filed a general diary and tried to know the identity of the owner. To my surprise, I came to learn that there were many owners of that bus company. Maybe 400 or 500. Even a single bus is owned by several people, as disclosed by the claimed owner of the bus. The transport businesses is all about to mainstream or whiten the undocumented money. The accident took place the very next day of the brutal murder of a BUET student. Two-month after I had lodged the diary, the bus was no longer before the police station. Maybe they released the bus.

Government’s reluctance to implement digital Bangladesh projects in transport sector further strengthened the conviction that the transport system is being used by some quarter to whiten undocumented money.

The ongoing student movement took a virulent turn when a student died in Badda after being hit by a bus. Angry mob instantly torched 9 buses. Sensing trouble private bus owners agreed to provide discount on fare for Dhaka students.

Later another private university student met a tragic end when his Uttara-bound bike was hit by a cargo truck in Khilkhet.

As culture of agitation is strong in Bangladesh, dead body bears strong significance and adds another degree to that agitational politics. Perhaps that is what we are witnessing in the streets and campuses.

Recently, a Professor was succumbed to stroke after he had been intimidated by ruling party student wing at Khulna University of Engineering & Technology over recruitment of a dining manager at a dormitory. Teachers protested the matter and demanded exemplary punishment of the intimidators. Later KUET was closed and 9 were expelled⁴.

Similar agitation was observed in other subsidized educational institutions,hampering the academic environment. As academic activities resumed after long COVID break, ongoing anarchy only delays recuperation of academic loss. Over the years we have not developed civilized ways to resolve disputes, this leads Bangladeshis to resort anarchy to settle disputes.

It is a pity students have to descend on streets to make their voice reached the right place. While opposition force is subdued, there is no sign in abatement of agitation politics. Rather, anarchy reigns everywhere. Sometimes bus owners called strike,sometimes workers or students. In UP elections, we witnessed factional clashes within the ruling party claimed more lives. Anarchy breeds anarchy. Civilized ways of dispute settlement and more participation of democratic parties could free us from this evil.

Notes And References:

1 ”CMC Expels 31 Students Over BCL Clashes”,Staff Correspondent, November 23,2021, Link here

2 “Notre Dame Student Death: City Corporation Proxy Driver Remanded”,Dhaka Tribune,November 25,2021,Link here

3 “Unruly Roads,Unsafe Lives”,Rezaul Hoque,February ,2020,https://hoquestake.blogspot.com, Link here

4 “KUET Suspends 9 After Professor's Death”,Dhaka Tribune,December 04,2021, Link here

La Semaine Dernière A Mes Yeux

(26 novembre--- 03 décembre)

Selon un reportage, 21 personnes dont un soldat de la force frontière ont été tuées dans la troisième tour d’élection rurale.

Selon un reportage, un autre plateforme de cybermarché a fermé ses opérations pour la période indéterminée.

Selon un reportage, il s'est produit un grave accident à Badda,en tuant un étudiant. 9 bus on été mis à feu.