Bangladesh Watch - News,Updates and Discussions

ezsasa

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Use this thread for governance, economy and policy related information, news, updates and discussions, related to Bangladesh.
 
since BD's new regime is saying, there will be policy changes. will be posting a few current financial indicators, to check at a later date how much impact their policies have on quantifiable metrics.

was checking BD's money supply it's 2.9 lakh crore taka for a GDP of 50.8 lakh crore taka, that's 5.75% cash to GDP ratio.


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I hope people out here & in BD realise that the GoI has pursued a policy of economic integration with BD in the past 15 years the Awami League has been in power over there rather successfully which not only includes supply of foodgrains or raw material such as cotton apart from electricity but a good number of Indian businesses have invested in BD apart from other aspects like trade , travel , communication etc.

I've seen reports that upto 25% of their RMG sector is owned by Indians apart from interests in infrastructure , electricity generation etc .

That's one of the reasons you don't see much chatter from the interim government about India apart from the cursory stuff to please the ordinary malaun lungis else they may well end up in a situation like the goat in office in Maldives , Muizzu who's going out of his way to reach a compromise with India after being acquainted with facts on the ground. Latest reports indicate Maldives will run out of FOREX reserves in a few weeks.

Unfortunately for BD both their leaders who've dominated the political scenario over the past 3 decades are on their last legs with no known heirs from their dynasty who enjoys credibility or public support.

At the same time Mohammad Younis isn't getting younger as well & the way the economic situation is deteriorating which though the IMF may ameliorate by willingly opening its purse strings thanks to Younis's excellent relations with the west , it will have only so much of an impact on the BD economy.

All this leaves the field right open for the JeI to capture the political space as apart from the BD Army they've the most well oiled machinery in BD as of now . I've already seen multiple podcasts & read articles of the deep extent to which the JeI has penetrated the BD armed forces at least as far as the lower rungs & junior to mid grade officer staff goes which arguably played its part in the Army Chief refusing to put down the opposition to the SHW government.

Unless the existing political parties minus the Islamic parties get their act together & throw up a local leadership preferably without direct relations with the dynasties, which captures the imagination of their people, we could well see an endless procession of governments with the added instabilities taking a toll on the economy with consequences seen right on our borders.

Having said that although this crisis in BD comes at the worst time possible for us it wasn't entirely unforseen given SHW's age & the massive anti incumbency which was building in the 15 yrs her party enjoyed absolute power.

As far as India goes , in addition to a rapidly deteriorating situation in our west & north west we've now to contend with a similar situation in our East . Then there's China across our Northern frontiers & the Tatmadaw in Myanmar which seems to be losing its writ over the country by the day with direct implications in our NE manifesting itself in Manipur.

Add to that a resurgent 0.5 front which's now being fronted openly by the opposition & you'd realise why we no longer face a 2.5 front scenario but problems on every front & inside our country from the periphery to the mainland.
 
and from a different perspective..

- every word and sentence that comes out in a MEA related readout is very deliberate, they have people dedicated to writing and approving drafts for outgoing communication. they could have chosen not to publish that sentence, but they did not. if PMO and MEA added some sentence, it is very deliberate.

- by choosing to include the sentence on BD minorities and U.S not including this in their readout. our MEA has put a marker in 2024 and is telling our historians and future practitioners, U.S policy hasn't moved that much since 50 years on this matter. this will be later be interpreted by future Indian policy practitioners as per circumstances of their day.

- future foreign policy academics/historians will not look thru social chatter to understand the state of affairs of the past, good ones will go thru official statements of the past, bad ones will rely on opeds of the past.

Regarding this entire imbroglio in BD , I deliberately stayed away from those threads so as to not add anything to the chatter & fill in countless pages indulging in wild speculation besides venting my spleen & in the hope that within a span of a month or 2 a more clear picture will emerge.

Unfortunately nearly a month down the line the situation is getting even more muddled. For instance how many of us out here knew BD had approved China's plans in 2017 to construct a submarine pen to house 6-7 subs at an upcoming Naval base near Cox's Bazaar IIRC which was built last March - the BNS Shaikh Haseena .

Do we understand that BD intends to have a fleet of 6 submarines in the near future or is this subterfuge to get the PLAN in ? In the event St Martin's Island the purported place which the US was interested in is totally unsuitable for a base . However the issue remains that the US is interested in a Naval cum Aircraft Base in BD.

Was the US asking for a quid pro quo in the light of the PLAN getting a foothold there which SHW obviously denied them ? What was India's reaction to the base the Chinese built ostensibly for the BDN ? On the surface there seems nothing amiss in the Modi administration's relationship with the SHW government .

Now the issue is with SHW gone & BDs economy deteriorating , will the BD Army acquiesce to US demands. There's a very good chance it might happen. However , how will the Islamists treat such a move ? Assuming the US buys them out , it's no longer a case of the JeI monopolising the Islamists cause in BD anymore .

A lot of even more extreme players have cropped up who may not be pliable to US manoeuvres or aligned with the JeI way of thinking . Moreover it's not as if the Awami League is both - down & OUT . Neither will the Chinese sit back & be a passive observer , nor will we ?

If such a base can have the Chinese worried , It's a even bigger problem for us. We already have US personnel prying our bases under the pretext of preventing misuse of defence equipment of US origin they've sold us like the P-8i , INS Jalashwa , the few Predators we've taken on lease etc . With the slew of agreements we've signed previously & just now , their intrusion into our defence establishment will grow .

How exactly did the Indian establishment react behind closed doors to the US mounting a campaign to oust SHW before & after the elections ? Apart from a few customary statements from the MEA there was nothing of note in the public domain.

I've a gut feeling BD will become a real mess going forward on both the political & economic fronts becoming a playground for competing interests with disastrous consequences for themselves & us .
 
It is everywhere, haha. Forum now reads like the far left Indian subreddits - endless stream of crying, coping and seething. Think a lot of DFI old timers have gone inactive and newer, possibly younger, members have taken their place. Either way, depending on the outcomes of the upcoming elections, this might change in a few months - who knows.

So glad I was not on DFI back in 2018. :yey:

Anyway, you might find the following articles from steno Shishir interesting;



I've another theory . The US did what they did in BD to send a message to the larger world especially here in South / SE Asia particularly to us.

By getting SHW out they're actually hitting the Modi Government coz their previous plans to destabilize / unseat him haven't been entirely successful , hence destabilize the periphery ( Message here to all those especially the young ones on the reason we haven't gone Mongol on the Kukis ) .

Secondly unlike Paxtan , BD doesn't have N weapons , neither is it of any particular strategic interest to the US by means of its location nor does it have any strategic wealth to be exploited.

If the US was so desperate to interdict Chinese SLOCs across the various straits leading from the Pacific to the Indian Ocean , they already have a base right in Singapore .

If India wasn't too accomodating of US interests in targeting the Chinese underbelly in Tibet & Xinjiang by opening up a second front & BD replicating India's position , with Myanmar turning into a basket case , there was always Thailand where they could base their Navy & AF assets. After all Thailand was a staunch US ally during the Vietnam war .

Besides PLAAF will seek to target both the A&N island chain as well as East & NE India through Yunnan flying over BD & Myanmar & not exclusively through Xinjiang & Tibet . The US can play the same game .
 
I've another theory . The US did what they did in BD to send a message to the larger world especially here in South / SE Asia particularly to us.

By getting SHW out they're actually hitting the Modi Government coz their previous plans to destabilize / unseat him haven't been entirely successful , hence destabilize the periphery ( Message here to all those especially the young ones on the reason we haven't gone Mongol on the Kukis ) .

Secondly unlike Paxtan , BD doesn't have N weapons , neither is it of any particular strategic interest to the US by means of its location nor does it have any strategic wealth to be exploited.

If the US was so desperate to interdict Chinese SLOCs across the various straits leading from the Pacific to the Indian Ocean , they already have a base right in Singapore .

If India wasn't too accomodating of US interests in targeting the Chinese underbelly in Tibet & Xinjiang by opening up a second front & BD replicating India's position , with Myanmar turning into a basket case , there was always Thailand where they could base their Navy & AF assets. After all Thailand was a staunch US ally during the Vietnam war .

Besides PLAAF will seek to target both the A&N island chain as well as East & NE India through Yunnan flying over BD & Myanmar & not exclusively through Xinjiang & Tibet . The US can play the same game .

My reading is that, SkH was genuinely unpopular among the masses (owing to her economic and political records), the lungi Islamists used it to their advantage and infiltrated mainstream politics while her Minsters were busy drinking the muh Asian Tiger kool-aid. BD has always been politically unstable and susceptible to 'uprisings' but SkH almost reversed the trend by ruling with an iron fist - she enjoyed uninterrupted political power till the pandemic. But her disastrous post covid economic record eventually caught up to her and the 20 hr long power cuts, the import control regime and the deteriorating forex reserves brought the element of instability back into their politics. It needed a final spark and that came early this month.

Basically, a repeat of sri lanka but with the involvement of islamists. Steno Shishir has good inside info; he has only indirectly referred to Uncle Sam. Also, Modi made an unscheduled visit to Bhutan in the middle of campaigning; that thing sure looked strange.
 
My reading is that, SkH was genuinely unpopular among the masses (owing to her economic and political records), the lungi Islamists used it to their advantage and infiltrated mainstream politics while her Minsters were busy drinking the muh Asian Tiger kool-aid. BD has always been politically unstable and susceptible to 'uprisings' but SkH almost reversed the trend by ruling with an iron fist - she enjoyed uninterrupted political power till the pandemic. But her disastrous post covid economic record eventually caught up to her and the 20 hr long power cuts, the import control regime and the deteriorating forex reserves brought the element of instability back into their politics. It needed a final spark and that came early this month.

Basically, a repeat of sri lanka but with the involvement of islamists. Steno Shishir has good inside info; he has only indirectly referred to Uncle Sam. Also, Modi made an unscheduled visit to Bhutan in the middle of campaigning; that thing sure looked strange.
BD Army Chief's refusal to crack down on the protests is what prompted SHW to quit & decamp raising the question on whose prompting did the Army Chief take such a stand ?

Do remember he's a recent appointee by SHW herself to the post & is related to the latter thru marriage.

I've seen reports of massive dissatisfaction in the lower & middle rungs of the BD Army over SHW & the ALs 15 year old rule which has been successfully penetrated by the JeI & other Islamists & as you've rightly pointed out , the AL government started coming undone since COVID & the post COVID years with the economic downturn serving as the biggest source of dissatisfaction.

As long as SHW & her AL government were delivering on the economic front , all her excesses were overlooked. The moment BD started faltering on the economic front for an extended period of time it was only a matter of time before the SHW regime folded up .

I don't think GoI has any reason NOT to prefer SHW over anybody else whatever their levels of dissatisfaction with her over her accomodating the Chinese for the simple reason that the alternative to her would be x times worse as previous experience has clearly demonstrated.

As far as the reason Modi rushed off to Bhutan in the midst of campaigning it'd have some thing to do with the resolution of the border problem they've with China although the exact specifics could be anyone's guess .
 

This is serious.
 

View: https://youtu.be/Dkpy6K2xPEE?si=WdBkW-3hYZe0TKx6

Very interesting podcast on the actors & motives behind the ouster of SHW . The interviewee paints a very bleak picture on the future of BD , our relations with them & the impact of the recent developments on India , as expected by those who've been following BDs trajectory over the years & Indo BD relationship.

As I've remarked before this channel is extremely underated & deserves more views & subscribers.

Must watch podcast !
 

"A committee of eight officials has been tasked to thoroughly investigate how customs-related matters are being handled during the imports from Adani."

 

.India out campaign before Hasina ouster
.damage to temples
.BGB acting arrogantly
.blaming for floods
. Maldives /srilanka / Nepal solution to east Bengali arrogance is not far away if this trend continues

what a sweet spot the globalists have carved out for themselves in BD..

globalists are against elected leaders determining policies of a nation, they keep promoting the idea that govt policies are best decided by unelected technocrats basically NGO driven policy direction. by para dropping yunous and his interim administration, this is what has happened. by the time this interim govt says BD is ready for elections, we will have to see how much diluted power the elected public representatives will even end up having.

in the meantime, any decision this interim govt takes, they don't have to be accountable, anything they do can be painted as "for the good of the people of BD", and get away with it.

we already had it in India in the form of NAC.
this technocrat govt talk, happens in pakiland as well, once every few years. but pak army prevents it from happening.
 
"The BNP has demanded cancellation of agreements signed with India over the past 15 years under Hasina's government, describing them as "secret" and "unjust" However, Bangladesh can antagonise India beyond a point at its own peril. The major reason is its significant reliance on India for food, cotton and, especially, energy."

 

Bangladesh: Official residence of former PM Sheikh Hasina to be converted to ‘July Uprising Memorial Museum’, destructions by mob to be preserved​


The proposed museum will preserve and display the memories of the July protests, with a chronicle of the daily events from the start of the protests till 5th August, when former PM Sheikh Hasina left the country


Will there be a bust of the anti fascist Gen Z revolutionary guy holding two bras in this "museum"?
 

@Azaad
What comes across very clearly is that our intelligence guys lacked intelligence. Literally.

If this is the state of affairs when a friendly regime was in place in BD , you can imagine what is like now or going into the future for our intelligence agencies.

Let me say it again . I think we ought to think beyond Modi & Doval. They've done what they must . It's time they themselves think of hanging up their boots & decide on a succession plan ASAP. It's futile to think they'd have much more to offer.
 

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