City Dhaka Financial News

Bangladesh's national anthem, a leading cultural organisation — Udichi Shilpi Gosthi — on Friday organised a nationwide protest against radicals demanding a new anthem and flag. In Dhaka, Udichi members and some other cultural organisations protested by singing the national anthem — written by Rabindranath Tagore. Speakers at the event said they will not tolerate any conspiracy against the country's national anthem. They also promised a united front against all malicious forces if such attempts are made.

The downfall of former Bangladeshi prime minister Sheikh Hasina unfolded faster than almost anyone expected. In early July, students took to the streets in its capital Dhaka and other cities to protest the country’s job-quota system that reserved 30% of civil-service positions for veterans of the 1971 War of Independence and their descendants. Police were ordered to quell the unrest, and given permission to shoot if needed.

Bangladesh, the student community, which led the people's uprising that resulted in the ouster of Sheikh Hasina, is channelling its revolutionary zeal into spearheading flood relief efforts for millions affected by the calamity. «This isn't just about relief; it's about making a difference, just like we did during the Monsoon Revolution,» said Rafiq, a student at Dhaka University, as he and fellow students formed a human chain at the heart of the campus, passing sacks of rice and other supplies hand to hand to load onto trucks bound for flood-stricken regions of Bangladesh. The student community across Bangladesh has risen to the occasion, demonstrating their ability to lead and mobilise resources in a time of national emergency. The recent floods, which have claimed several lives and affected nearly 5 million people, have spurred a remarkable wave of student-led relief efforts, transforming their recent revolutionary fervour into a crucial force for recovery.

Awami League government, according to media reports on Sunday. The 76-year-old leader was detained late Saturday night from a house in the Piergoli area of the capital Dhaka around 3 am, The Daily Star newspaper quoted Paltan police station officer-in-charge Mollah Mohammad Khalid Hussain as saying. The Dhaka Metropolitan Police detained him and brought him to the Detective Branch (DB) office, according to The Dhaka Tribune.

Bangladesh will examine data anomalies that allegedly inflated economic performance during former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s regime, in an effort to stamp out corruption that plagued the South Asian nation for most of the past 15 years. The country’s interim government has asked Debapriya Bhattacharya, an economist and public policy analyst, to produce a “white paper” documenting mismanagement under Hasina’s rule. Bhattacharya has 90 days to write the paper and plans to submit an initial report to Nobel-winning banker Muhammad Yunus, who’s leading Bangladesh’s temporary administration. “We have a serious problem with data,” Bhattacharya, 68, said in an interview in Dhaka on Saturday. “Data were manufactured. Data were suppressed. I call that data anarchy.”

floods that inundated vast areas of the low-lying South Asian country, disaster officials said. The floods were triggered by heavy monsoon rains and have killed at least 42 people in Bangladesh and India since the start of the week, many in landslides. «My house is completely inundated,» Lufton Nahar, 60, told AFP from a relief shelter in Feni, one of the worst-hit districts near the border with India's Tripura state. «Water is flowing above our roof. My brother brought us here by boat. If he hadn't, we would have died.»

Dhaka, Tax authorities in Bangladesh have decided to unfreeze the bank accounts of Bangladesh Nationalist Party Chairperson Khaleda Zia, 17 years after they were blocked. The National Board of Revenue (NBR) on Monday instructed banks to unfreeze the accounts of BNP Chairperson Zia, the Daily Star newspaper reported. In August 2007, the NBR's Central Intelligence Cell directed banks to freeze the accounts of the BNP Chairperson, who has been elected Bangladesh's prime minister twice since 1990. The decision was based on a recommendation of a panel formed during the then Army-backed caretaker government, said a senior official of the NBR.

Bangladesh and moves to build relationships with other political parties instead of «focussing on one person and party», several political analysts and foreign relation and security experts said on Sunday. After the ouster of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus, 84, took oath as the Chief Adviser of the interim government on August 8 amid violence and chaos. Hasina, 76, fled to India on August 5 after she was forced to resign following a massive protest by students against a quota system in government jobs. «I think understanding should be the starting point for resetting our relationship, having that we have our interdependence, so we need each other to recalibrate our relationship,» head of the leading thinktank Bangladesh Enterprise Institute (BEI) Humayun Kabir told PTI.

West Bengal and across the country on Saturday started a 24-hour nationwide strike to protest the rape and murder of a trainee doctor at the government-run RG Kar Medical College in Kolkata last week. The protest was called by the Indian Medical Association (IMA), the largest organisation of medical staff in the country, which has placed five demands including justice for the victim, a central law to protect healthcare workers from violence at workplaces, and a thorough overhaul of the working and living conditions of resident doctors. The West Bengal government, meanwhile, issued detailed guidelines and measures to be taken at hospitals, medical colleges and all workplaces for women across the state with the aim to provide safe working conditions, and launched a flagship programme, 'Rattirer Shaathi' (Helpers of night).

interim government, gave this assurance while addressing the third Voice of Global South Summit which was hosted by India in a virtual format. «You all are aware that Bangladesh witnessed a 'Second Revolution' on 5th August 2024, through a mass uprising spearheaded by our valiant students and joined by the masses,» the 84-year-old Nobel laureate said, referring to the political turmoil in his country, the resignation of prime minister Sheikh Hasina and her fleeing to India on August 5. Noting that the current interim government led by him was sworn in on August 8, Yunus said, «Our government is committed to ensuring a transition to inclusive and pluralistic democracy and creating an environment in which free, fair and participatory elections can be held.»

Dhaka University in Bangladesh held a protest in solidarity with ongoing demonstrations over the rape and murder of a woman trainee doctor at R G Kar Medical College in Kolkata in the neighbouring country. The protest, organised under the banner «Awaaz Tolo Nari» (Raise Your Voice, Women), on Friday, took place at the Raju Sculpture in Dhaka University, Dhaka Tribune newspaper reported. «We are aware of the non-cooperative attitude of the medical college administration regarding the rape case in Upper Bengal. As women, we demand that the administration provide maximum legal assistance, strictly enforce the law, and announce the verdict promptly,» Dhaka Tribune quoted Rahnuma Ahmed Niret, a student from the Department of Physics, as saying at the event. Anya Fahmin, a student of the Department of Anthropology, added: «Women worldwide face rape, and we fully support the ongoing movement for fair accountability in the RG Kar Hospital case in Kolkata. Additionally, we call for a public trial of the rape and murder case of Sohagi Jahan Tonu in Comilla. The general public has a right to know, especially when the army is involved. The government must ensure a safe country for women through the mass uprising of student communities.»

Through the broken glass Of a library window The burning books Can’t be read. So new ones Will have to be written. —Ian McMillan (@IMcMillan) Over a decade ago, I walked into a small two-storeyed white house in Dhaka. It felt familiar. I’d grown up around houses like that in Kolkata with red oxide floors, black-and-white photographs on the wall, the rooms cool even on a warm afternoon.

Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and pro-Pakistan Jamaat-e-Islami are planning to approach Bangladesh's interim government to secure bail for two former deputy ministers and some senior army officers convicted for their role in the 10-truck arms smuggling case, considered the biggest arms haul in the history of Bangladesh. BNP and Jamaat played a key role in the recent student protests in the country, which led to the ouster of Sheikh Hasina as Bangladesh PM. Sources said the two parties are likely to seek bail for former deputy home minister Lutfuzzaman Babar and former deputy education minister Abdus Salam Pintu, despite their conviction in anti-terror cases.

genocide and crimes against humanity that took place from July 15 to August 5 during students' mass movement against her government. A complaint was filed on Wednesday with the investigation agency of Bangladesh's International Crimes Tribunal against Hasina, Awami League general secretary and former road transport and bridges minister Obaidul Quader, former home minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal, and several other prominent figures within the party. The complainant's lawyer Gazi MH Tamim confirmed on Thursday that the Tribunal started the probe, The Dhaka Tribune newspaper reported. He said the investigation agency started the investigation on Wednesday night.

Instead, he was tossed from a car and into a muddy ditch on Dhaka's outskirts — alive, at liberty, and with no knowledge of the national upheaval that had prompted his abrupt release. «That's the first time I got fresh air in eight years,» Quasem, 40, told AFP. «I thought they were going to kill me.»

The minority Hindu population has faced vandalisation of their business and properties and devastation of Hindu temples in the students' violence that ensued for days following the ouster of prime minister Hasina, who soon fled to India on August 5. The Alliance's press conference took place on the same day as Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus, who took charge as Chief Advisor of the interim government on August 8, reached out to the distressed Hindu community members at the famous Dhakeshwari Temple here earlier in the day and urged the people to «exercise patience» before judging his government's role.

foreign policy, asserting that Dhaka intends to maintain «smooth and positive» relations with all, including India and China. «Our policy is to maintain good relations with all countries while protecting our national interests,» interim government's Foreign Affairs Adviser Md Touhid Hossain said during his first press briefing at the foreign ministry. Hossain, whose position is equivalent to a minister, said it is meaningless to assume that this interim government is focused solely on any particular direction. «We intend to maintain smooth and positive relations with all… including India and China,» said Hossain, who previously served as a deputy high commissioner to India.

Uttar Pradesh took out a protest march on Sunday over attacks on Hindus in Bangladesh. People in Varanasi took out a protest march in the city. In Ayodhya, Mahants and Hindu organisations took out a protest march in the city. Former BJP leader Pandit Sunil Bharala said, «The Hindu minority in Bangladesh is under threat at the moment. The temples and mutts are not secured and at night they are guarding it. Our daughters are also not safe. I condemn these attacks and appeal to the Bangladesh interim government to protect them. Our Prime Minister Narendra Modi has taken a strong stand on it. There is anger in the country. India should take a strong decision on this issue if this continues.»

Bangladesh, an interim government is now in place to begin the difficult work of bringing stability and order to the South Asian nation. Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus will helm the temporary government made up of a team of 16 other advisers, including two leaders of the student-protest movement that swept the country in recent weeks. The inauguration of the temporary government on Thursday brought to an end a four-day power vacuum after former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina fled to India following street protests that left hundreds dead.

economy back on track so that it does not come to a standstill, finance and planning adviser Salehuddin Ahmed has said. Former Bangladesh Bank governor Ahmed was entrusted with the charge of the finance and planning ministries by interim leader Muhammad Yunus, who announced the portfolios of his 16-member council of advisors on Friday. The interim government was formed after the fall of the Sheikh Hasina-led Awami League government on August 5 following widespread protests against her government over a controversial quota system in jobs. Talking to reporters on Saturday for the first time after assuming office, Ahmed said the government's priority is to restore the trust of common people in the banks while resuming the operations of the central bank.

Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) leader and PM-in-waiting Tarique Rahman allegedly held meetings with Pakistani intelligence agency ISI in a Gulf nation where a plan was hatched to organise a campaign for ousting the Sheikh Hasina government, said people in the know. Rahman allegedly travelled to the Middle Eastern country a few months ago for meeting the ISI officials where the plot was hatched for launching the campaign and creating conditions in Bangladesh for ousting Hasina, ET has reliably learnt. ET had reported last week how the Pakistan Embassy in Dhaka allegedly played a role in instigating the move to hijack the student movement.