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.

A Colleague Deserves Better II

Among the savages,one lives the life of a king.
As long as one has charisma and magic to entertain the ring.
As a nation,treatment to our former politician
Seldom hints we are a civilized one.

Few years ago I watched a sequel of “Pirates Of The Caribbean” where Captain Jack Sparrow got himself stranded into an island full of savages. The man-eating tribe revered the captain as king as he possessed a lighter that created flame ,something unthinkable to the natives, at his will. For the savages, that charismatic skill is enough to put him into the place of chieftain. Trouble began when the lighter got exhausted and Jack Sparrow lost the power to bedazzle the natives. He lost his position of chieftain and soon found himself to be roasted alive for the next big feast.

In a savage society, as long as one has charisma, magical power,one lives the life of a king!

Leaders in our country who once rose to power and held important positions met brutal end. In general, politicians of all rank and file seldom end last leg of their career in a civilized way. Fate of our former finance ministers could be mentioned here as apt example. Except the former finance minister Mr AMA Muhit,already survived a road accident, and Saiduzzaman, all met unnatural death. Certainly, not the sign of a civilized nation.

Recent debate on BNP chairperson’s treatment further strengthened that conviction. Back in June this year, I penned this piece arguing Khaleda Zia's release. I reproduced below that piece:

1.When we were kids, we used to watch just one channel---Bangladesh Television. Cable TV had not arrived yet. With all my wonders, I watched how one single channel broadcast programs of three TV broadcast companies. In the morning, CNN aired its programs for couple of hours. From noon till afternoon, BBC broadcast its news services ¹.From afternoon till midnight, BTV aired its programs. Bangladeshis in general had a clear idea about what was going on around the world. Images of First Gulf war, Balkan war, Larry King live, release of Pulp Fiction, handing over of Hong Kong, news of tragic death of princess Diana reached this part of the world in the blink of an eye with accompanying discussion that third world citizens were not accustomed to see and hear. Earlier, they had watched just one channel and received a government-set narrative. However, there were few dailies and weeklies that relentlessly published reports and stories completely different from the government narrative. The credit for giving this access to news and views of the world surely goes to then Ministry of Information and Communication. That initiative tremendously empowered Bangladeshis in terms of getting information and molding their own opinions about different issues at home and abroad, a quintessential aspect of modern democracy.

2. Later government also introduced Bangladesh Open University (BOU), inspired by similar initiative in the UK, that introduced distant learning , secondary and higher secondary school certificate, SSC and HSC, programs for working people and housewives who were dropped out or did not manage to get the regular degree². When we sat for SSC exam I saw many mothers along with their daughters sat for SSC exam. Jubilation and joy after the news broke out that they had passed the SSC gave an aura as if the heaven descended on earth.The society would now recognize them as "shikkhito"(educated). It is more like passing Baccalauréat (equivalent to HSC) in France. Millions of people directly benefited from that program. Moreover, BOU offered many other programs through distant learning and modular lessons to get certain degrees and skills that many working people had not dreamt before.

3. By the time, we reached college and university, we saw a good number of female students there. Government offered free education to girls at college level. And it helped many rural households to get education for their daughters without incurring any cost. Enrolment of women at tertiary educational institutions not only increased but a great number of women entered job market. By the way , the present government discontinues the stipend program for women.

4. In 1991, government introduced Value Added Tax (VAT) , a 15% general sales tax on all goods and services ³.Prior to that, government depended a lot on foreign loan, which contains unfavorable conditionalities. VAT tremendously lessened government's dependence on foreign loans as it increased government revenue manifolds. In 2005-06, total tax revenue earning was 9.3% of GDP, of which NBR revenue( including VAT) accounts 7.1% of GDP. In 2018-19, total tax revenue earning was 13.4% of GDP, of which NBR revenue( including VAT) accounts 11.7% of GDP⁴. VAT gave the government that ease and flexibility to finance government projects.

5. The lady behind all these good policies is in jail now. A trumped up charge against her lodged in the time of caretaker government, complemented by other harassing charges,landed her in jail for the last 2 years. Just before the Corona virus outbreak, she got bail and has been staying at her home since then. Recently she received medical treatments from a private hospital ⁵. I do not subscribe to the politics her party does, nor do I agree with many of their policies and position on various issues. The policies I mentioned earlier did a lot of good in the lives of ordinary Bangladeshis.

We have to keep it in mind that Khaleda Zia is wife of a freedom fighter. During the tenure of this government, dear ones of those opposed the idea of Bangladesh grabbed opportunities including lucrative position in party and parliament. Even wife of a convicted war criminal managed to go to Germany on health grounds. Chief and leaders of a party convicted in war crimes make frequent visits abroad, particularly in UK and USA.

Just few months ago perpetrators of the mayhem unleashed in Brahmanbaria and Chattogram went to Bangkok in a brainstorming session, as per some news reports.

Not just that. Many criminals managed to go abroad. Even during the time of Corona many minor transgressors were pardoned and released from jail.

Compared to them, Khaleda Zia is a former Prime Minister who did her best in spite of having so many shortcomings to lift the country out of backwardness and to bring positive changes in the lives of many people.

If there were a social credit score in Bangladesh, I bet, Khaleda Zia as an individual would fare well in that score.Her government's tremendous achievement in free press, liberalizing the economy and girl's education would make her score outstanding.

Even if her case were presented before the court of Gods, they would be compassionate and kind to her judging her past deeds.

It is a shame that a lady who is more than 70-year old and a popular politician is rotting in jail. In our country, politicians do not see any respectable and civilized end of their career. They face all kinds of tragic and savage ends. In that light it is highly untrue that politicians are untouchable and above the law.

At the end of the day, Khaleda Zia is a colleague in the same vocation our PM practices.In another vocation, differences in opinion does not lead one colleague to confine another one. Khaleda Zia has every right to go abroad like a free bird and to plan how she will spend the last leg of her political career. As a colleague and wife of a freedom fighter, she deserves better⁶.

Unfortunately, our PM ruled out any possibility of her release citing some bitter issues at the parliament where just few days ago a bill about increasing benefits of leader and deputy leader of opposition at the parliament was passed. It sounds like a mockery. When the Head of BNP is at hospital, government is more concerned with the benefits of leader and deputy leader of opposition at the parliament.

Past bitter encounters often make reconciliation harder in politics. But Khaleda Zia's ascent to political power was not at her will and her struggle to restore democracy was legendary.Had President Zia not allowed our PM to enter country and not provided security, it would have been difficult for her to do politics in this country.

Government should let Khaleda Zia to go abroad so that it would set example of a civilized country to the world. Couple of months ago I read Jung Chang's “Wild Swan: The Daughters of China”, memoir of daughter of a dissident communist apparatchik in China. The book is replete with anecdotes and incidents took place during Cultural Revolution that claimed millions of innocent lives. There has been remarkable resemblance to what has been going on in Bangladesh, where Maoism is still strong and shaped other political activities and state organs.

Misconducts and unjust treatments to former politicians,settling old scores,petty issues reigning over professionalism,deception, thuggery,breaking down of law and order,public shaming,distraction,jingoistic nationalism,tribal or herd mentality, character assassination, outnumbering activity to corner dissident or people of opposite views, suppression of free speech, giving no space/platform to opposite views are telltale signs that democratic values are replaced by such regressive values or an aura of feelings created by some quarter.

As Bangladesh turns into 50, we should not be identified as savage nation where leaders,decision makers met brutal ends as soon as their role was over. We want to be civilized and sane nations like others. How we treat our former PM is a good measure to tell what progress we have made so far.

-----------------------------------------------

Notes And References:

1.In the mid-1990s BTV started to broadcast the news programs of BBC and CNN. Link here

2.Bangladesh Open University was set up in 1992 and designed to be a center for distance learning.Link here

3. Bangladesh Economic Review 2019. 4. More on VAT. Link here<

5. "Still in CCU, Khaleda Zia's health improving slowly",a Dhaka Tribune report, May 20,2021. Link here

6. “A Colleague Deserves Better”,Rezaul Hoque,https://hoquestake.blogspot.com,Link here

La Semaine Dernière A Mes Yeux

(19 novembre --- 26 novembre)

Selon un reportage, un étudiant a été tué par frappe d’un camion appartenant à mairie de Dacca nord. Ses amis et étudiants sont descendus dans la rue et ont manifesté contre la tuerie. Avant les étudiants demandent ristourne dans le frais de bus après une étudiante avait été menacée de viol par adjoint de bus.

Selon un reportage, Police mexicaine a secouru 600 migrants dont 37 Bangladais depuis Veracruz.

Selon un reportage, 6 personnes ont été tuées dans la troisième tour d’élection rurale.

Selon un reportage, 33 éléphants dont 20 électrocutés ont été tués dans l’année actuelle. En 2020,20 éléphants ont été tués.

Motorbike Accident:It's Time To Ponder

Surge in bike accident,
Leaves casualties with no precedent.
Cyclist-police and social credit score,
Work better than just spending crore.

Motorbike accidents have increased by 63.60% in the first ten months of this year. Road Safety Foundation has revealed it in a press conference. 1758 persons died in 1653 accidents in this time period. What is worrying 75% of the dead belonged to 14-45 years old age group.¹

Not only motorbike accidents, there has been a spike in road accidents in Bangladesh. Back in February last year,I penned a piece titled “Unruly Road,Unsafe Lives”. Sharing part of it again:

As the number of vehicle plying over the road increases, so does the number of accident. Addition of new car and bus will not stop. Similarly, new asphalt roads are also being stretched out. But how can we reduce the incidence of growing number of accidents? Reducing the number of vehicle is not a pragmatic solution. Better traffic management and responsible driving could be the possible solution.

I recently delved into Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics Pocket Book 2018, BBS pocket book 2016, BBS pocket book 2012, Bangladesh Economic Review 2018 and some leading dailies to gather data on casualty and registered vehicles between 2009 and 2018. Data on casualty from 2015 to 2018 gleaned mostly from leading dailies. Maybe that is the number of casualty is unusually high in this period. Meanwhile, data prior to 2015 and registered vehicles were collected from BBS pocket book , BER and Accident Research Institute,BUET. Unofficial figures may vary from official ones.

(Source: BBS Pocket Book 2012,2016,2018;BER 2018;BUET & leading dailies)

Despite the official-unofficial difference, there is no gainsaying that there has been a surge in accident between 2015 and 2018. This post does not intend to probe underlying reasons for the sudden rise in accidents. Rather it tries to underscore the gravity of the problem.

I transformed the two into natural log variables and then ran a regression between ln_casualty and ln_registered_vehicle. Since the data is time series in nature, I checked for serial correlation in the disturbance term. Luckily Durbin-Watson statistic reported no autocorrelation. (d=1.8382 prior to log natural transformation and d= 1.3638 after regression; for 10 observations and 1 explanatory variable.)

Having finished for diagnostic check, I went for analyzing the result. F-test was found to be significant(F=7.207, p= 0.027, df=1,8).Coefficient for ln_registered_vehicle turned out to be statistically significant(b2=1.37, t=2.68, p=0.027). However, the intercept was found to be statistically insignificant (b1=-10.948, t=-1.468, p=1.800).

From the given data, it appears that a 1% increase in registered vehicle contributes to a 1.37% increase in casualty number.

Certainly, I am not saying increasing number of vehicle provokes accident. The point is reckless driving and lack of enforcement of law aggravate the road accident problem. An array of posts could be churned out on what the traffic laws say. Since the objective is to capture the gravity of the problem, I am not treading that path and restrict my discussion on how worse it has become.²

Reckless driving by the bikers has been identified one of the reasons for death in roads by Road Safety Foundation report. As I regularly stroll on the streets of Dhaka, I know that every bit of that word is true. Many bikers run their bikes on footpath in a bid to reach their destination as soon as possible. In addition, empty streets often become a test ground for maneuvering their skills. Blowing horn every now and then is another sign of utter disregard for the surroundings and people. Often innocent pedestrians, napping housewives and toddlers,senior citizens bear full brunt of unwanted troubles.

Enforcing laws against biker-breacher could improve the situation. Like Thailand, Bangladesh could introduce bicycle-police in their 20’s to identify minor transgressors and oblige them to follow traffic rules. Social credit score could be another alternative. Bikers with poor social credit score may see their licenses suspended temporarily.

As we embrace the new normal on unruly roads--- unending traffic jam, agonizing working hours lost in roads, misfit drivers and vehicles, undocumented money whitening project, no respect for law---the truth is becoming clear that educating the driver , people is as relevant as enforcing the law. At the same time, all the corrupt practices, including the black money whitening project, should be put to an end without further ado.

Notes And References:

1 “ Motorbike Accidents Left 1758 Deads In 10 Months”,Bangladesh News,November 18,2021 Link here

2 “Unruly Roads, Unsafe Lives”,Rezaul Hoque,https://hoquestake.blogspot.com/, February 08,2020Link here

La Semaine Dernière A Mes Yeux

(12 novembre --- 19 novembre)

Selon un reportage, violence dans la troisième tour des élections municipales a tué 1 personne et blessé 12 à travers du pays.

Selon un reportage, Dacca est classé la 4ème ville plus polluée à 9 heure du matin dans le monde dans l’indice de l’air pollution.

Selon un reportage, 1653 accidents de moto ont été registrés par Road Safety Foundation dans les premiers 10 mois de 2021. Il y a une augmentation de 63,60 % dans les accidents de moto en 1 un.

UP Election 2021: Atmosphere Degenerates

Surge in violence in UP poll,
Causing mayhem and swelling death toll.
It rings alarm for democracy and constitution,
And poses danger amid no reconciliation.

Second round of Union Parishod Elections turned out to be violent. 27 lives lost in the violence in UP polls. Death tally reached 32,including 5 in the first round,at the end of 2-round of election. It is assumed that we have buried the violent culture during UP elections. But the result and atmosphere prevailed during the UP elections proved us dead wrong. Degree of violence was unprecedented and invoked memories of 80’s and 90’s. In 2016,84 people fell victim to violence. In 2021,the 2-round alone claimed 32 lives.¹

(Image credit: https://rezaulhoque.wordpress.com)

From the past record ,we could see that only 50 lives lost in 1997;in 2003,80 deaths reported;another 83 deaths were reported in 2011.²Following the UP Election,I wrote a piece titled “UP Election 2016: Back To Square One” where I delved into stat of fatalities on past UP elections.Comparing death tolls of earlier elections, we can see electoral violence related death rose in subsequent elections. Many argued that number of death could have been lowered if government had deployed troops with formidable authority across the country prior to elections. In earlier elections, law-enforcing agencies used to carry out drive against illegal small arms and professional criminals in a bid to contain electoral violence. Such drive was conspicuously absent ahead of this election.²

As main opposition party BNP was not present, factional clashes and rival candidates stole the headlines. A critical election commissioner did not hide his emotions. He said: “Election in this country is in ICU and democracy is in life support…lack of reconciliation among key parties pushed democracy into death bed.” He also added:”Separate electoral body is required to hold UP elections. As EC does not decide the process of UP polls why should EC bear responsibility of such elections?”³

Not only in rural councils,governance situation deteriorated in City Corporations. In my previous post I shed some light on it. Disciples of Borishal City mayor vandalized the city after a bureaucrat had refused to take off posters put up by another candidates from walls of his premises. Secretary to Cumilla City Corporation was identified in taking part in vandalism during the Durgapuja. Disciples of Cox's Bazaar City mayor cut the city for 5-long hours from rest of Bangladesh and littered the streets with garbage after murder cases had been filed against him. These incidents left a blot in the reputation of local governments.

The point is unequal participation and power sharing at grassroot level not just took off the lid of cesspool of violence but pushed back democracy to that time when unwarranted violence was regular activity.

Rural council election is very important for a politician at the grassroot level and it is paramount to his existence.As we are living in a time of “winner takes all”,a win could give the candidate unrestrained access to command over local resources and a license to plunder money allotted to local projects. Astronomical sum they spend on campaign hints that it is matter of life or death.

All the parties and the state endorsed organized violence in dealing with rivals and in carrying out assigned tasks. Hence it spread to grass root level and disturbed the tranquil and mundane country life in rural areas, which are not an incubator of anger and hatred like the urban areas.²

As I wrote back in 2016,the message did not diminish in unraveling the true state of democracy.Sharing it again:

UP election violence only accentuated absence of strong democratic institutions and rule of an authoritarian regime. To have a firm footing at grass root level, government backed candidates picked up the weapon of unwarranted hooliganism and allowed the malpractices of governance to spread in rural areas. This election has already dealt a heavy blow to the fragile democratic process that is striving to back on track.²

Notes And References:

1 “Sohingshotae Pran Gelo Chhoy Joner(Violence Claims Six Lives)”,Prothom Alo,November 12,2021

2 “UP Election 2016: Back To Square One”,Rezaul Hoque,April 27,2016,https://rezaulhoque.wordpress.com,Link here

3 “Nirbachon ICU the Gonotontro Life Support e: Mahbub Talukder(Election in ICU,Democracy in Life Support: Mahbub Talukder) “,Sylhet Today24,November 14,2021Link here

La Semaine Dernière A Mes Yeux

(05 novembre---12 novembre)

Selon un reportage, grève appelé par patron de bus en signe de protestation contre augmentation du prix de gazole a asphyxié la vie pour 3 jours à travers du pays.

Selon un reportage, violence dans élections municipales a tué 27 personnes et blessé 106. Scrutin dans 10 bureaux de vote a été reporté à cause de violence.

Selon un reportage, un éléphant a été électrocuté à mort à Sherpur.

Commitment Or New Alley For Corruption?

Fighting global warming is not just the state's pledge,
Individual commitment is the best hedge.

As countries and various parties in Glasgow are at loggerhead to confine the rate of annual temperature rise to 1.5° celcius by the end of this century,there has been little sign of optimism that they will be able to do that. In the mean time, Bangladesh has chalked out a plan (Nationally Determined Contribution or NDC) to reduce carbon emission by 22% by 2030,higher than 7% of the goal set by Bangladesh back in 2015. The plan,submitted to United Nations Framework Convention On Climate Change,envisages that Bangladesh will finance reduction of 6.73% carbon emission while the donors will finance the rest of its reduction commitment. Bangladesh requires $176 billion in this regard.^{1 & 2}

The commitment demonstrates Bangladesh’s eagerness in reducing carbon emission. However, Bangladesh’s past record in managing climate fund is not clean.Transparency International Bangladesh (TIB) last year in a study found that 54% of the climate mitigation funds allotted to 7 projects were swindled and one of the culprit was secretary to a minister.³In addition, TIB in another study found 14% to 76% corruption in 4 climate change projects,with a budget of Tk 1,102 crores where Tk 191 crores were swindled.⁴

The outcome of foreign funded projects never ended with a happy note. Look at the status of Election Commission,Police and CHT region.UNDP led initiatives to reform electoral process of Bangladesh, modernization of Police and development of Chittagong Hill Tracts(CHT) brought only embarrassment to the stakeholders.UKAID and other donors mobilized resources so that the projects would meet the desired ends.The outcomes turned out to be costly for the nation. A controversial election was staged in 2018,Tk 4000 crores were misappropriated by a powerful state organ that contributes to UN peace mission in the name of introducing Electronic Voting Machine(EVM), a special hearing on human rights abuse by Police was held in Switzerland by an UN agency and an eruption of gun violence in CHT claiming lives of many indigenous leaders. This has been common trend of project financed by donors in Bangladesh.

And Bangladesh is replete with examples how such projects backfired. World Bank funded local governments like City Corporations ( Pourasava) and Zila Parishads through Bangladesh Municipal Development Fund(BMDF) so that they could become independent financially and accountable to local people. After a decade,it stopped funding in the project as hardly any of them showed any positive impact.⁵ Cox's Bazaar which could be the richest City Corporation of Bangladesh even sought Tk 26 crores to BMDF. Now look at the kind of people chaired these institutions. Borishal City Mayor and his disciples vandalized the city over a row with a bureaucrat. Secretary to Cumilla City Corporation was identified in taking part in vandalism during the Durgapuja. Disciples of Cox's Bazaar City mayor cut the city for 5-long hours from rest of Bangladesh and littered the streets with garbage after murder cases had been filed against him.

What is worrying illicit financial flow has also become a problem for the country. The figure continues to rise. Many donor countries often appointed their former ambassadors to Bangladesh to the Caribbean countries, offshore heaven of the world,and seldom integrated them back to Foreign Ministry. An indication of how they perceive Bangladesh. Last year,British govt even dissolved UKAid and merged it with Foreign and Commonwealth Office.⁶

Many argue that incidence of poverty increased in spite of the various safety net programs taken in the last couple of years.COVID-19 deteriorated the situation.That means over the years through various poverty alleviation measures,except micro credit, we failed to create a sustainable system of poverty alleviation. Micro credit institutions play crucial role to meet the working capital need of micro and small entrepreneurs. But resource mobilization and policy formulation are tasks of policy planners. And we see wrong policy and corruption often deprived the target population and derailed us from reaching the destination.

To me, fight against global warming is an individual one rather than a state-backed one.Individual can reduce carbon emission through his consumption and the way he or she lives the life. Eating less meat,consuming staple that requires less methane in the cultivation process, less dependence on fossil fuel,avoiding air-conditioned environment etc significantly improve one’s carbon emission footprint. The more conscious a nation is, the better will be its carbon footprint.Involving a corrupt state where there is lack of accountability into negotiations with perpetrators of worsening global warming is more like to play the role of a complice in a crime. Many govts may finance the pledges. But the corrupt institutions and agencies, often trained by these countries, did little to stop corruption in the disbursement and implementation of such funds. And through clandestine channels some of the misappropriated money ended up in foreign overseas banks. While one points donors’ failure to attain the goals, they will simply shrugged their responsibilities,telling the sum they paid over the years. Victim country will be double loser even if this is a simple grant because cost of $1 illicit outflow is more than receiving $1 legally. It is simply because one has to pay more taka to purchase $1 unofficially in a bid to launder it abroad. Victim country is the net loser in the sense it will face all the impacts of climate change and it cannot blame the perpetrators for not playing their roles. Even worst is that stolen money ends up in political campaign of powerful countries,dragging victim country into unwanted debate. The likelihood of which is higher than ever before.

Hydrocarbon business is booming. There is no short of investment. I am not against hydrocarbon business. Bangladesh is one of the countries that benefit a lot from this business as millions of its workers work in the Middle Eastern countries. But many find it hypocratic to call others to reduce carbon emission while engaging in activities that only increase the temperature. Without any course correction, insisting others for commitment only creates suspicion and distrust.

Notes And References :

1 “Bangladesh Pitches For Climate Sensitive Growth”,Kamran Reza Chowdhury,https://thethirdpole.net,October 25,2021 Link here

2 “Bangladesher Ucchovilashi Lokkho,Purone Chai 15 Lakh Koti Taka(‘Ambitious Goal’ of Bangladesh,Tk 15 Lakh Crores Required)”,Iftekhar Mahmud, Daily Prothom Alo,November 02,2021.

3 “TIB :Over 50% Climate Mitigation Funds Lost To Corruption, Mismanagement ”,Mehedi Al Amin,Dhaka Tribune,November 05,2020 Link here

4 “TIB Study : 14% to 76% Corruption Found In Climate Change Projects”,Sohel All Mamun,Dhaka Tribune, December 24,2021Link here

5 “Bishwabanker Rin Bondho,Sonkote Mayorra(World Bank Loan Stops,Mayors Are In Crisis) ”,Arifur Rahman,Daily Prothom Alo,August 11,2021 Link here

6 Department For International Development Link here

La Semaine Dernière A Mes Yeux

(29 octobre --- 05 novembre)

Selon un reportage, 17% de gens n'ont pas participé dans le deuxième programme de mass vaccination à travers du pays.

Selon un reportage, luttes intestines du parti en exercice dans école de médecin à Chattogram ont laissé 3 blessés dont un a subit des blessures graves.

Selon un reportage, des fidèles du maire de Cox's Bazar sont descendus dans la rue et ont commencé agitation contre 4 plaintes contre lui.

Demise Of A Goose

Lights go off in an RMG factory,
Leaving jobless and worry for industry.
Reasons unearthed for its demise,
Miss out the one,unpleasant to surmise.

Closure of one of Bangladesh's biggest RMG units augurs ill to the golden goose of Bangladesh economy. Already reeling from safety and poor conditions of work issues at the factory,Corona served further blow to the ailing industry that accounts two-third of the exports of the country. Following the repeated pleas from the exporters, government announced soft credit packages to get rid of Corona related difficulties. However,the assistance did little to help as many misused it by paying back old loans or laundering money abroad. Gravity of the matter even prompted Central Bank to warn the banks about misuse of Covid assistance package.

During the pandemic,one after another major brands in the West shut down their operations.Closure of Opex added another bad news. In its successful years,annual turnover reached $500 million. One of its factories is located at the neighbourhood I grew up and live. I witnessed first hand how such factories helped local economy. House rent ,grocery business and thriving kitchen market swelled the local economy. Nowadays, the brand made lots of headlines for workers' agitation. Angry workers often blocked the key Dhaka-Chattogram highway,lifeline of Bangladesh's economy. Many put forward the reasons behind the closure as housing the 45,000 workers at one place,successor issue,loosing orders,mismanagement etc. But it once again reveals the ugly truth that our conglomerates cannot stay long in the business. Lifespan of most of our conglomerates does not last long.

Few years ago I read a feature that revealed the top 10 companies of Bangladesh in each of the 4 decades. I discovered that companies dominated in a decade or better to say under a regime did not manage to continue the domination in the subsequent decades. Many just shrunk or wound down businesses in the face of odds. This shed some light on the prevailing business environment in Bangladesh.

Most of businesses started their journey under a favorable regime. In addition,the era of permit raj,quota,licence etc that involve lots of bureaucratic operations witnessed the crony businesses to grow. Later many of the groups splintered or dropped from the race when the tide turned against them.

Opex started its journey back in 1984.A former military officer hailing from a family that has a firm footing in myriad sectors set up the conglomerate. As it was the trend then many members of the family became MPs and ministers, and obviously the group gained a lot from the influences of the power grab. Quota was still in play and certain ministries were responsible for its distribution. And those close to the power corridors grabbed the opportunity.

I find some of the reasons put forward hard to swallow. Adverse situations that it faced over the last 10 years could also be a reason for its demise. Recurrence of workers agitation at factory premises that had reputation for clearing payments in line with the image of a top conglomerate not only hampered the operations of the factory but also strangulated Dhaka-Chattogram highway,lifeline of Bangladesh economy.

Furthermore, it is not clear whether it received ample government assistance to keep the factory floating. Many upstart and fake factory received assistance with little effort since this government assumed power. According to a news report,banks discontinue back-to-back LC facility sensing its troubles. A company with $500 million turnover a decade ago ended up in such a sorry state.

Look at the banks that invested here. A bad patch on a good company,once shined under a favorable regime, rendered their money bad. And closure of factory means wiping out of 45,000 jobs. Another example of what crony capitalism does to an economy.

Fate of Citycell,Opex is the inevitable flaws in industrialization and doing business in Bangladesh,pretty common where governance is weak,rule of law is subjective and business is mingled with politics. It is dead wrong to put forward only business and economic reasons as sole factors for demise of a factory.

Notes And References:

1 “Opex:Businesses Will Think Twice Before Building Such Large Factory Units”,Saddam Hossain, Dhaka Tribune,October 28,2021Link here

La Semaine Dernière A Mes Yeux

(22 octobre --- 29 octobre)

Selon un reportage, un ferry plein de 17 véhicules et 100 passagers a fait chavirer à Paturia,Manikganj.

Selon un reportage, presque 85 plaintes ont été déposées contre 24000 personnes dans les incidents de vandalisme au milieu de Durga Puja à travers du pays.

Selon un reportage, violence dans les élections municipales a tué 2 personnes et laissé 52 blessées dans 8 villes.

Scars In Celebration

Rumor mills cause mayhem unprecedented,
Uncivilized minds fall prey to plan of groups regimented.
Spending more on development of human resources
Could stem the attack planned by evil forces.

Another bout of communal attack against the minority community amid Durga Puja celebration has severely challenged the communal harmony and social fabric of Bangladesh. It happened at a time when Bangladesh is celebrating its 50th anniversary of independence and boasting its achievement in infrastructure projects that even a decade ago none would believe achievable.

What marred the mood of celebration is the negligence of law-enforcement agencies. This year this is second such communal violence that did damage to property and lives and made international headlines. If one googles 50th anniversary celebration of independence of Bangladesh ,one will see news and pictures of agitators pelting stones towards police or seminary students attacking Brahmanbaria rail station in protest of Indian PM's official visit to Bangladesh ,certainly not the celebration news reports Bangladeshis expected in world media. A damaging publicity to brand Bangladesh.

When we have this kind of crowd who are susceptible to agitate on slightest instance of disinformation or custom-made stories then it is indeed hard to create a cohesive and inclusive society, vital for a nation to prosper and set example for others.

This latest bout is different from other incidents as Police played a controversial role and feared such attack amid Durga Puja celebration. And vandalism spread others parts long after the first occurrence at a Puja celebration spot in Cumilla. The culprits behind the Cumilla incident have been arrested. But who are behind them is still being investigated. Here are my observations¹:

1. Long before the latest bout of vandalism, a group of youtubers preached hatred towards Hindus particularly ISKCON.A former Major of Bangladesh Army now staying in Canada in an interview with a Bangladeshi journalist who is now in exile in USA did not hide his antagonism towards ISKCON and claimed former BJP governor to Tripura on a train trip through Bangladesh told his entourage: “these were all Hindu temples once and converted into mosques",pointing the mosques dotted the landscape. The major claimed former governor had requested PM Hasina to transform them into temple again. This kind of disinformation was spread unabated through social media.

2. Former secretary to the Minister of Labor and Immigrants Welfare was charged by Police for the corruption allegations made against him.This personal secretary was known as Mr 15% in Gopalganj. Minister was former Father-in-law of the PM's daughter. He was part of the faction that attacked houses of District General Secretary of ruling party, a Hindu,and his fault was he failed to attend an iftar party.His cases made way to the arrest of ruling party goons,loyalists to ruling party minister.This is a serious development as such high political figure has never been implicated before.

3. Current Police Chief, who had earlier been DG of RAB, in a press conference feared that there might have been attack in Hindu interests during Durga Puja. The information divulged in the wake of Boat Club controversy where a film star was detained for causing troubles at the club where Police Chief is the president, a post not to be held by public servant. Later, embarrassing photographs of a Police officer and the star severely tarnished image of Police. The star's mentor was also grilled in Police custody.

During his term as RAB DG, encounter of a ruling party counselor in Cox's Bazar by a RAB personnel created lots of controversy at home and abroad. He did not do any probe there. In addition, as RAB DG he had also witnessed the worst terror incident in Bangladesh's history. Government did not replace him. Later Police in an announcement said there had been no threat to Durga Puja. Only Ansars,however, deployed to provide security to the Puja Mondops.

4. A Police inspector implicated in the controversy of an e-commerce platform was detained by BSF while he was on his way to Nepal through India for intrusion. He was later handed down to West Bengal Police. Despite repeated request of repatriation, Indian Police turned deaf to Bangladesh Police's call.

5. A Bangladeshi Court recently cleared the way for ensuring Hindu widow's rights over the property of her husband. Many groups objected such radical changes in the law. In addition, corruption verdict of a former Chief Justice,who had left Dhaka under ruling party threat, was scheduled to be held in the middle of October. But the hearing was delayed further following the communal attack.

6. A high-profile Rohingya leader was shot dead at a camp in Cox's Bazar. He was successful to mobilize crowds to observe Rohingya genocide day and helped to prepare evidence against Myanmar Army Chief in Rohingya genocide case. He even met President Donald Trump. In many YouTube channels his killing was portrayed as an act by Indian and Myanmar spy agencies.

7. Recently BNP consulted with leaders and loyalists of various districts and planned to launch a movement to electoral reforms and fresh election.

8. PM is about to set off an official visit to Europe where she may conclude several defense deals. European governments are less reluctant to sell weapons to countries with poor human rights records.

A British Navy ship HMS Kent arrived in an official visit to Bangladesh when the vandalism unfolded.

Thawing relations between Bangladesh and India witnessed boom in RMG export to India and Indian credit line including defense sector for defense purchase. India even offered its credit line to purchase an European fighter that it is currently using. Such communal tension may wipe out such offer from the table and makes way for others.

These incidents and things in part or full contributed to the recent vandalism. Subsequent investigations may shed further light.

But many here tried to portray the rise of nationalistic force across the border a threat to Bangladesh. It is indeed wrong to tag BJP and Sangha Paribar with other dogmatic groups in the region in the same category. We often forget the ruling party in India often sorted many political disputes through legal battle in the court, not through vandalism or muscle power. Here is part of my take on improving relationship and making a lasting bond with the spiritual group behind BJP:

As Bangladesh turned 50, regional connectivity and cooperation echoed in the messages and speeches of leaders of this region. Being the big country of this subcontinent, no scheme would come to fruition without the right kind of support from India. And the group Modi represents holds significant leverage in power corridor, politics, security establishment, corporate India, strategic community and society in India. Unless the group throws its weight around any regional connectivity plan, it will be difficult for the countries to connect the region and accelerate economic activities.

During his stay in Bangladesh, Modi paid visit and offered prayers to two ancient temples: one in Satkhira dated back to the era of Lakshman Sen and the other one in Gopalganj belonging to a community known as "Motua" who holds considerable influence in the politics of West Bengal and other Indian states. There is no doubt after Modiji's visit the two ancient temples will draw bigger crowds in the coming years. Time has come that Bangladesh embarks on a campaign to attract foreign tourists in these sites.

Similarly, Bangladesh government could offer land to spiritual group Modiji represents to set up an institution that will spread the ethos, teachings and the concept of "Hindutya" or "India" to people representing other faith groups.

Bangladesh could be the ideal place for such institution for two reasons. First, Bangladesh is a Muslim majority country and the Muslims are presented in the media as rival to the spiritual group. People from all around the world subscribe to this institution and get an idea of their lessons and visions. Second, it will help removing any ambiguity and dispel propaganda about their pacific beliefs. Bangladesh will have advantage making lasting bond with this group.

Moreover, India shows respect and attaches great importance to the relationship with Bangladesh. In recent years, envoys sent by India as High Commissioners to Bangladesh rose to superior positions in the country's Foreign Ministry. From those positions, they hold leverage to clear and implement any initiative that will bring the countries closer and improve common people's lives. Except few other countries, no other countries show this kind of respect towards Bangladesh.

In that light, inviting Modiji in the celebration of Independence day was right and judicious one. His presence not only bolstered ties but paved the paths for trouble-free future cooperation. Recently World Bank did a study and revealed that regional connectivity would augment Bangladesh's GDP by 17% and India's by 7%. While other nations collaborate on sending missions to Mars and moon and production on vaccine, our region could not emerge from poverty,communal hatred, ignorance, corruption and parochialism.Trivial issues still lead to spilling of blood and destruction of property. These are encumbrances towards forming a common market.

To stem recurrence of communal attack, we need to change the change textbooks and include history,anecdotes and literature on riots, holocaust so that students at tender age understand evil of such hatred and have a negative impression to such heinous acts. On the part of concrete actions, Bangladesh could outlaw such hatred and raised the penalty for such crimes. In addition, Bangladesh could also secure the interests of minority groups by amending the constitution. At the same time, Bangladesh and India could ink special deal to contain the risk emanating from nature or human-made disaster. Under the light of such deal, specialized forces may jointly conduct cross border operations like arrest,investigation,rescue, relief etc that forces of a particular country cannot do because of religious and personal reasons.

Disinformation continues unabated. Many spread falshood in the social media that such attack paved the path for future intervention of Indian Army,which will march down the Dhaka street in near future. Back in August this year,Bangladesh Army units took part in the march past of Indian Independence Day celebration in Delhi. On 16 December, Indian Army along with Russian and Mexican Army will take part in the march past on national parade square on the occasion of 50th anniversary of Bangladesh’s victory.

There is no denying that to fight such disinformation we have to develop our human resources. So we have to invest a lot in this sector. And to get rid of the rumor mill, there is no alternative to a free press. Before spending billions on purchasing arms, it is more sensible to spend few millions on building institutions to make good citizens. This step at least will not put us into shame when we will celebrate 100th anniversary of our independence.

Notes And References:

1 “Connecting Communities “,Rezaul Hoque,https://hoquestake.blogspot.com,March 27,2021Link here

La Semaine Dernière A Mes Yeux

(15 octobre --- 22 octobre)

Selon un reportage, cadavre d’une personne a été trouvé d’une côté d'un temple hindou à Chowmohuni,Noakhali. Une autre blessé a succombé à la mort à Cumilla,selon un autre reportage.

Selon un reportage, des maisons hindous ont été ciblées à Rangpur le dimanche.Le vandalisme continuait 30 minutes.

Selon un reportage, police a appréhendé le coupable qui avait mis le Koran au pied d'une idole à Cumilla.

Selon un reportage, 7 Rohingyas ont été tués pendant un attentat visant un séminaire koranique dans un campe à Cox's Bazar.

Covid Vaccination Program

Slow pace in vaccination
Delays process of restoration.
A vaccine for the poors
Wins the next pandemic’s rigors.

Covid vaccination program in Bangladesh is going on smoothly and slowly. Bangladesh is perhaps one of the few countries in the developing world that started mass-vaccination program pretty early. Detection rate rose to 32% back in July 2021; in October it came down to below 2%.¹However, in terms of number people vaccinated, Bangladesh lags behind many countries in South and South East Asia. It is slightly ahead than Myanmar.

Source:Data credit internet.Infographics credit Rezaul Hoque

Restriction on ingredient ban,financing and logistics challenges delayed the mass vaccination program, causing woes to general people and embarrassment to government. But financial support came in thick and fast.

Vaccine commitment was reneged following news reports divulging nitty-gritty of the deal. Government took credit from multilateral donor agencies to finance this vast vaccination program.

Free donation of vaccines by few developed countries contributed little to mitigate the vaccine shortage as the demand is huge. So government cut some sort of deal with several vaccine producers that got WHO approval to procure the vaccine.

But students, migrant workers and others faced obstacles to get the required vaccine. Migrant workers could not go back to the Middle Eastern countries as the countries did not allow Chinese or Russian vvaccineThe issue was settled when they relaxed the condition. But later lack of RT PCR machines at Bangladeshi airports further obstructed migrant worker’s scheduled travel to UAE and other countries. It increased their ordeals.

Many schoolgoers and university students also had troubles to get vaccine. Government decided to give them special NID card to let them avail the vaccine.

Initially, the response from the people was mute. When Delta started to wreck havoc this year, registration for the vaccine spiked. As there was little supply ,government could not carry out the vaccination at the scale it had earlier anticipated. Many waited months to get the first shot.

Government first vaccinated frontline workers and the higher risk groups who are susceptible to catch Covid. Later the condition was relaxed and schoolgoers were included in the list.

Long queues before the vaccination centers indicated how eager people were to get a vaccine.

I would like to share my own experience here. I registered for vaccine back in July. Meanwhile, I fell victim to dengue. I did not do any test. But symptoms hinted to dengue: high fever at regular intervals, fatigue, head ache,muscle pain , pain at knee and elbow etc.Last year, in April, I also had Covid-like symptoms: fever, head ache,loss of smell and taste,measles like rash etc. It was mild and it was in the midst of first lockdown so I did not bother to do the test. Last year in November or December, I also experienced those mild Covid-like symptoms. I got recovered pretty soon. Dengue experience made me a little nervous and the delay made me worried. Having waited more than two months, I called both IEDCR and MIS department of Ministry of Health. IEDCR advised me to contact the center I chose during registration while MIS department told me to wait as the software was designed to sort the priority and fixing the date for vaccination. I listened to MIS. Exactly, two months and twenty two days later I got an SMS for the first dose. The queue was long for the first dose seekers. Everyone had to bring their vaccine card. I got Vero Cell,manufactured by SinoPharm. The queue disappeared within hours of commencement of vaccination. Now I wait second dose for the vaccine.

Back in July in the wake of Delta variant spread ,I wrote a piece titled “Delta Wrecks Havoc”. I share some parts here:

Commitment to finance vaccination program is plenty. But it is not clear how many doses one individual requires as variant after variant doing their damage. For poorer countries it is not possible to purchase additional booster shot that costs more than $ 10 . Local production could be a solution as cost will be reduced significantly. Despite repeated pleas of calling the vaccine a global public good and relaxing the TRIPS laws, no progress has been made. This will give fresh fuel to protectionism and globalization will receive another blow. Moreover, critics of globalization will point out that it is a one way track and in terms of crisis this globalization does not work for poorer countries. So a vaccine for the poor is a must. As deadly variants loom large and new bout of wave may wreck havoc, an ideal vaccine should not cost more than couple of dollars ( under $5 ). As there is no alternative to mass vaccination, cheap credit and grant should be made available to poorer countries so that they can continue the vaccination program at ease.²

Government has created a facility to produce vaccine locally. However, as the intellectual property right is not relaxed ,no vaccine production is anticipated in near future.But there is no denying that to be prepared for next pandemic we have to augment our capacity to produce vaccine locally which we did four decades ago. It is indeed a good news that government mobilized Tk 100 crore for such research activities. Government has to make sure that research projects from Medical Universities and institutes, genuine research physicians, medical equipment manufacturing projects vie for such fund. For policy and socioeconomic research on health issues ,there are ample of funding institutions like Ministry of Planning,corporate NGOs and other public health organizations at home and abroad. There is no need to allocate fund from Tk 100 crore on policy research.

Government intends to vaccinate 80% 0f the population by 2022. In this regard,govt has to increase the procurement process and to speed up the vaccination program. Current detection rate is not convincible as a large part of the population stays outside vaccination and many have tendency not to do a screening test with the arrival of vaccine. That is why many countries still put us into red list. To make the Covid related stat convincible, government should allow other organization to keep a tab on COVID related records.

Notes And References:

1 “Covid: Deshe Shonakto Dine 300er Niche,Mrityo Nemechhey 6 e(Covid: Detection Below 300 Persons Per Day,Number of Death Below 6)”,bdnews24.com,October 16,2021 Link here

2 “Delta Wrecks Havoc”,Rezaul Hoque,July 02,2021,https://hoquedtake.blogspot.com,Link here

La Semaine Dernière A Mes Yeux

(08 octobre --- 15 octobre)

Selon un reportage, un homme d’affaires a accusé un policier de torture pendant interpellation dans une tenue de presse.

Selon un reportage, une série d’attaque contre lieux de vénérations de l’Hindou a été montée dans 10 villes à travers du pays. Police a appréhendé centaines de personnes dont un coupable qui avait diffusé une vidéo de diffamation présumée de Koran dans un temple de l’Hindou au Facebook. A Chandpur où situation a rendu pire,4 ont été tués par balles pendant que des agresseurs tentaient d’attaquer des temples de l’Hindou. Vendredi après les prières hebdomadaires, des temples ont été ciblés à Noakhali, à Chattogram.

Selon un reportage, police a arrêté un ancien secrétaire privé d'un ancien ministre,connu comme Monsieur 15% dans sa ville.

Selon un reportage, une cour américaine a trouvé un Américain, originaire de Bangladesh, coupable d’avoir tenté joindre les Talibans au Afghanistan pour lutter contre les États-Unis.

Weak Passport Belies Success

Weak passport belies trumpeted success,
Multiple streams in education offer little access.
Vigor and enthusiasm shown in doing project,
Absent in creating institution to reduce poverty abject.

Once again Henley & Partners has weakened Bangladeshi passport. Bangladesh is ranked 108th among 116 countries, only ahead of Nepal,Pakistan and Afghanistan in the subcontinent.¹ This is something we should not be proud of and it belies the achievements government trumpets on every occasion.

The weakening of our passport has been going on for the last seven years. In 2013,our passport was ranked at 85 in Henley Passport Index(HPI). In 2017,the green passport was slides down by 10 places. In 2019,its rank worsened further to 99.In 2020, it was ranked 101st. Perhaps not all the countries are buying our success stories.⁴

Recently, European Union published a list of asylum seekers in EU where they entered illegally by crossing the Mediterranean Sea. Bangladesh ranked second in the list.

This week Lafarge Holcim cement announced that it would sell its operations in Bangladesh.²

E-commerce debacle left a serious blot on reputation of the government. One after another e-commerce platform that follows multilevel marketing model failed to meet customers’ need and many simply swindled money. What could have been the success story of govt's digital economy turned out to be an embarrassing point for the government.

It has been reported that government might have avoided this incident had it been stricter to malpractices.

Meanwhile, remittances shows a downward spiral following a remarkable growth last year.

In September 2021-22,Bangladesh received remittances worth $1726.29 million whereas the sum was $2171.03 million in May this year.³However, rising oil price could break the downward spiral as construction boom may resume in the Middle Eastern countries, riding on the high oil price.

Back in April this year,I wrote a piece titled “Falling Ranking,Fading Identity” in the wake of unrevised HPI. I would like to share some part of it again:

Education is the area where we fall behind our neighbors. In Global Knowledge Index, Bangladesh held the lowest rank in South Asia. Its position was 112th among 138 countries.Even Pakistan and Nepal were placed ahead of us (Source: Daily Star, December 12 , 2020).

In Innovation Index, Bangladesh was far behind than its South Asian neighbors. Among the 131 economies, Bangladesh occupied 116th position. It perched on that position for three consecutive years (Source: The Financial Express, September 14, 2020).

In recent years, school drop out rate, number of child marriage have also increased. I cannot figure out how we can continue our achievements in economic and development sectors with such a sorry state in education and innovation.

What complicated the matter is the presence of three different streams of education. A greater section of the population are not at the same wavelength while reading a particular event or situation and are not behaving in the right way at a crucial occasion or circumstances.

Our 14 years of schooling is not as good as others. It is casting a shadow over our overseas development markets. In middle eastern countries where our nationals mostly took up the jobs of housemaid, drivers, agricultural workers etc , Bangladeshis find themselves in awkward situation for failing to communicate in a proper manner. It is affecting their livelihoods there. Many even fall victims to deception and cheating. In Kuwait a Bangladeshi MP in connivance with Kuwaiti officials ran a human trafficking network. Thousands of Bangladeshis were lured into there traps, losing millions of Taka and risking their lives. The issue remains a sore point in the relationship between two countries and engenders overseas employment of Bangladesh in Kuwait.

Reuters last year carried a report divulging dilapidated conditions of stranded Bangladeshis , victims of human trafficking, in Bosnian jungles.

Like those cheated Bangladeshis abroad, state of our health sector does not vouch safe for our economic success story. COVID-19 laid bare the anarchy going on in this sector. Fake screening program ran by some politically-blessed quarter alarmed us about quality of our health professionals. Poorly equipped hospitals and dearth of health professionals brought us foreign grant and support in thick and fast. To our dismay, we watched that oxygen system and 300 ventilators bought with foreign credit were locked in warehouses of Dhaka International Airport for ten months. They are meant to equip the public hospitals. Meanwhile, deteriorating condition at home led to ban flights towards countries from where most of our remittances come.

With great enthusiasm and effort, Bangladesh implements infrastructure and development projects, very few turn out to be beneficial in the end. However, same vigor and enthusiasm are not displayed while creating social institutions that aim to develop human resources at the grassroot level. Tribal nature of our politics , tendency to set a yeoman at every organization are widely seen as encumbrance to developing such institution. For the last three decades, a moribund growth has been being observed on institutions that work on youth, discrimination, literacy,digital divide, communal harmony,folklore,hygiene,rural-urban migration, inclusion of new technology, charity, music and culture. These institutions in the past played key roles in churning out quality nationals. It does not mean they have to depend on foreign fund for their operations. Community, individual and government should step in so that they can function without any trouble. COVID-19 bluntly laid it bare that our health system is not working and one fine morning we will discover, to our surprise, that our country becomes an unlivable prison. And HPI and QNI may coshare positions with other doomed countries.⁴

Notes And References:

1 “Bangladeshi passport now 9 th weakest globally”,The Business Standard,October 05,2021Link here

2 “Bangladesh Theke Babsha Gutiye Nichhey Lafarge HolCim(Lafarge Winds Down Bangladesh Operations)”,Sylhet Today 24,October 06,2021Link here

3 Bangladesh Bank

4 “Falling Ranking,Fading Identity “,Rezaul Hoque,April 19,2021Link Here

La Semaine Dernière A Mes Yeux

(01 octobre--- 08 octobre)

Selon un reportage, 11 escrocs ont été appréhendés pour avoir opéré faux microcrédit par appli. Selon un autre reportage, une agence d’assurance a volé TK 30 millions depuis les consommateurs.

Selon un reportage, le gouvernement a arrêté diffusion des chaînes étrangères au Bangladesh. Le gouvernement a ordonné les opérateurs de chaîne câble d’émettre chaînes étrangères sans publicité à partir de 1er octobre.

Selon un reportage, la société française Lafarge va bientôt vendre sa cimenterie au Bangladesh.

Free The Foreign Channels

Foreign channels face sudden govt ban,
Govt hopes ad money for TV of crony-man.
People nowadays watch news on cyberspace,
Free flow of info could bring crony TVs back in race.

A decision of the government led cable operators to take off broadcast of foreign television channels at one fell swoop. Government had earlier ordered cable operators that no foreign television channels with advertisements be aired from October 1 onwards.¹ The reason put forward in favor of the action is that these channels earn a lot from Bangladeshi advertisers meanwhile local channels are deprived of advertisement revenues. Government also lacks revenues from airing of these ads on foreign channels. But the truth is media houses,owned by crony capitalists,failed to meet infotainment needs of local population.

This latest step may deem as isolated one ,but just a week ago government deliberately banned all unregistered news outlets. When it was found that except one,owned by a ruling party MP's family-owned company and member of Chinese Communist Party Youth Committee, all the crony-dominated news outlets went offline for one-long hour. BTRC later backtracked its decision and allowed to function all registered and unregistered news outlets as usual.

(Source:Data credits go to internet,wikipedia;infographics credit goes to Rezaul Hoque)

Some of these crony-dominated news outlets showed their true colors when mysterious death of a secret lover of a son of a powerful industrialist pointed fingers at that son. Detention of a rising star and coverage around her further exposed them. The whole incident unfolded just before a court decision whether it would accept or nullify plea,made by victim's sister, that charge sheet should focus on provocation to suicide.The platforms were full of intentional reports to flood the press with stories that deliberately assassinate characters of the rising star and the deceased girl who lived alone in a Gulshan apartment.Idea behind the reports was to influence the verdict of the court. And they got ads lavishly from that conglomerate.

Couple of weeks later,series of phone conversations appeared to leak on the social media platforms. Little known unregistered media outlets started to broadcast them on YouTube. In addition, these outlets in the cyberspace have become the only source of information about ruling party corruption.

Many media outlets who had leaked conversation of others to deliberately shape outcome in favor of ruling party in the past remained noticeably quiet this time.

Evolution of Bangladesh’s media industry says Bangladeshi press started its journey as spokesman of respective political parties. Politically biased reporting, bullying led other business groups to embark on media business as such stories did tremendous damage to business. More or less these houses act as guards of these business groups and no professionalism is ever practiced at these houses. Rather they became rehabilitation centers of former comrades.

Either the owner ,editor or chief reporter of leading outlets of any branch of media is former leaders of various wings of political parties. Credible news and entertainment are hard to get from these outlets.

Apart from that we also have agency backed houses where news and views reflect those of the agencies.

In addition, even the so called neutral news papers have links with ruling regime through their trust fund that hardly goes through any scrutiny. I have respect for the communists and I do acknowledge their importance and contributions in sane and stable nation-building process. But their attitude and behavior towards the nation and people will be different when they will get 80% or 100% of the power. They are no different from a theocratic ruling regime. Just the other side of the same coin. The so called neutral and best selling newspaper of Bangladesh is the most successful project of the Communist Party of this country.The brand does not have any direct political affiliation with the party itself but is more similar to “Naya Diganta”,the ultra-right wing's civilian spokesman.Party cadres will do their level best to keep the paper floating and running and commercial success means free flow of revenue. Even if the editorial staffs resign from the so called neutral news paper and start a new one ,they will manage to get at least 5000 dedicated readers from the party loyalists. Their news items are agenda-driven. The so called neutral news paper and its affiliates showed its true color during the caretaker government which deliberately tried to purge politicians and bureaucrats turning a blind eye to the corruption of the garrison and freezing the constitution for two years. That govt's role was even used to criticize the role of the NGOs in other countries. Later when stricter anti-NGO policies were taken in Russia or in India the role of the caretaker government was discussed as a case. Riding on the image of number one newspaper of Bangladesh, it manipulated its role and successfully presented itself as partner of development organizations that promote democracy and freedom of speech. Development organizations have budgets and program calendars for a particular country. Year-long programs and events are maintained through these calendars. Sponsored supplements on popular dailies,news reports are proof that the event is observed and the money is well spent. News cuttings, links and video clips are stored in the headquarters in donor countries. In Bangladesh, NGO Affairs Bureau under Prime Minister’s Office is responsible for disbursing foreign funds. But it is the Army-led agency that decide clearing and disbursement of such fund. In the past, Bangladesh witnessed many incidents where ultra-right and left had played controversial roles in favor of military regime. By thriving on sponsored supplements of development organizations, it flaunts an image of direct representative of these organizations ,which is untrue. And many of its affiliated NGOs also received disbursement of funds from NGO Affairs Bureau without any obstacle. It is highly untrue that it is neutral. In addition, it is shy to expose corruption of ruling party family, just before the verdict of a retired military official who worked in a real estate company it published biased reports.Its desk reports are based on a foreign news agency identified as vehicle of disinformation campaign,its reports on damage assessment of natural calamities open further alleys of corruption and in 2014 it deliberately depicted a particular community as deciding factor behind a controversial elections stoking communal hatred.

In recent years, it tightened its grip on publication houses by reducing the number of independent publishing houses. Now it even engages in publication of current affairs digest vital for public service job seekers’ success. It nowadays behaves more like a dictating newspaper,mostly found in closed countries. However, business partner of the newspaper Transcom Group suffered a lot due to the controversial newspaper. Transcom Group owner’s daughter was raped and murdered by ruling party hooligans in their second term. In the fourth term, his grandson was butchered in Bangladesh’s worst recorded terrorist incident where dozens of Japanese and Italians and other foreign nationals were murdered.Heartbroken owner gave in to Covid last year,but the editorial staffs suffered little. They did not spend a single day in jail. In Occidental countries, controversial role of news outlets led to resignation of editorial staffs. That did not happen in Bangladesh.

Concentration of media houses and publication industry into few hands already kills the sources of free flow of information.

In addition, introduction of controversial Digital Security Act introduced by JaShoD minister Inu complicated the matter by muzzling the independent voices.

Even trade-union like professional bodies of the journalists are dominated by these crony-backed journalists.

People obviously inclined to social media platforms to quench their news thirst from whatever is there on these platforms. These underground, semiprofessional, little-known news platforms did tremendously well to disclose dirty little secrets of ruling regime. As there is a complete silence from the so called mainstream media to avoid retribution, there is disclosing of truth from these underground media with no holds barred in a child-like manner. In addition, quality and well-made contents of foreign channels already won hearts and minds of Bangladeshi audiences. So ads gradually follow the footsteps of the audiences. Facebook and YouTube earned huge revenues from Bangladesh riding on the popularity of the contents broadcast on these channels.Following government instructions they even pay VAT and taxes to government. The foreign TV channels like Facebook and YouTube earn millions of dollars from Bangladesh. Many Bangladeshi crony-dominated TV channels keep complaining that they do not receive enough revenues. They put the blame squarely on foreign TV stations.

For instance, local TV stations hardly shed any light when official of Prime Minister’s Office and his wife and other ruling party members owned shares of a mobile financial service company and profited from selling of shares of that company where Bangladesh Post Office also has stake.

Meanwhile, boat club controversy, e-commerce debacle also exposed corruption of ruling party member and law-enforcement officials. Leading media houses stayed notably mute in the wake of such controversies. And the little known online and social media based news channels filled the vacuum.

This abrupt implementation comes at this moment to restrain their activities. But it will make people to subscribe more these news channels in the cyberspace leading the government to lose a vital chunk of the audience base.And it is costly because the government may no longer disseminate and convince people about its own version of an incident. In the end this measure will turn out to be a damp squibs.Free flow of information is the best strategy. If professionalism and free flow of information are at play then the flow will wash away any undesired substance just like a swollen river.Moot point is to stop the free flow of information.

Notes And References:

1 “ Bangladesh Cable Operators Shut Broadcast of Foreign TV Channels with Ads”,bdnews24.com,October 01,2021Link here