Bangladesh On A New Journey

This volume contributes to understanding Bangladesh's growth story, as it celebrates 50 years of independence. The fastest growing South Asian state is being recognised as an important partner and model case study with increasing global relevance by world powers. Sreeradha Datta reviews many of its critical bilateral relationships, as well as its expanding influence in the region and world beyond, enabling an understanding of how Bangladesh's growth trajectory complements and informs its foreign policy aims. The volume has a mixture of thematic and bilateral chapters, and includes the active Bangladeshi diaspora population and its influence on the country's unfolding narrative. Datta features the viewpoints of key Bangladeshi policy makers; expert takes on how the world is engaging with Bangladesh; and covers the growing salience of Bangladesh's foreign policy, reflecting its new acquired economic status.

This book explains the macro-drivers of growth behind the economic development of Bangladesh. Few countries in the developing world have shown as exciting a promise of economic prosperity as Bangladesh. The promising nature of the Bangladeshi economy raises interesting questions pertaining to whether good governance may lead to sustained economic growth. This book looks at the strategic interventions on macro-level, specifically the policy interventions. This book will be a useful reference to making sense how economic transformation can be strengthened through state-sponsored activities and how states can inculcate a culture of innovation which can be regarded as one of the underpinnings of economic growth.

This Open-Access-Book covers different aspects of the low-carbon energy transformation in a unique manner, with a particular focus on two regions, South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. The first part of the book provides useful insights on changes and reforms in the energy sector of Bangladesh, while the second part illustrates the low-carbon energy transformation in South Asia and the third part covers lessons from Sub-Saharan Africa. In all of these regions, the energy sector is undergoing major changes, driven by the four D’s: Decarbonization, decentralization, digitization, and democratization. Major overhauls are taking place at all levels: The country level, where energy mixes are rapidly changing, the corporate level, where large state-owned and private companies are challenged and new actors are emerging, and the local level, where technical and regulatory change has made citizen engagement and community power an option to replace or at least complement centralized supply structures.

This book examines the role of 24/7 television news channels in Bangladesh. By using a multi-sited ethnography of television news media, it showcases the socio-political undercurrents of media practices and the everydayness of TV news in Bangladesh. It discusses a wide gamut of issues such as news making; localised public sphere; audience reaction and viewing culture; impact of rumours and fake news; socio-political conditions; protest mobilization; newsroom politics and perspectives from the ground. An important intervention in the subject, this book will be useful to scholars and researchers of media studies, journalism and mass communication, anthropology, cultural studies, political sociology, political science, sociology, South Asian studies, as well as television professionals, journalists, civil society activists, and those interested in the study of Bangladesh.

Women have experienced significant changes in various spheres of their lives during the last decades as Bangladesh made economic progress. Yet women’s economic engagement and empowerment are subdued, as they cannot make sufficient choices for themselves. This book provides a comprehensive analysis of the economic developments in gender equality in Bangladesh. Through examining women’s participation in the labour force, ownership and control of household assets, use and control of financial assets, and opportunities for entrepreneurship, the authors have made concrete recommendations to overcome challenges that lie ahead for women’s economic empowerment. This book is an important contribution to the knowledge on interventions required by the policy makers and broader stakeholders towards narrowing gender gaps. --Fahmida Khatun, PhD, Executive Director, Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD), Bangladesh The women’s story is central to Bangladesh’s economic and social transformation. There is an urgent need to deepen researched understanding of the multidimensional pathways of women’s economic empowerment and extent of real progress made. Voices to Choices is an important contribution to this story. Surely, the journey of women’s economic empowerment remains a long and challenging one. Realizing the full benefits of new opportunities is often hampered by both new and entrenched insecurities. The task is as much one of empowering women’s agency as of dismantling barriers. The responsibility is as much women’s as society’s. --Hossain Zillur Rahman, PhD, Executive Chairman, Power and Participation Research Centre (PPRC) This book provides critical insights and is timely, as it outlines how girls and women in Bangladesh have gained more opportunities in labor force participation, control over household and financial assets, as well as greater prospects for entrepreneurship. The findings will greatly contribute to future policy and planning for government and key stakeholders working to advance women’s economic empowerment in the country. --Sabina Faiz Rashid, PhD, Dean and Professor, BRAC James P. Grant School of Public Health BRAC University

This book mainly addresses China's Belt and Road Initiative in terms of the connectivity industrial and spatial development, as well as current world's economic and trade pattern under such synergy development, and focuses on the function and mechanism of industry and geography coordination. Although current research on the value circulation between China and developed economies is relatively adequate, the book focuses on the value circulation between the countries and regions, especially the developing economies. China and other developing countries tie strongly with the production value circulation. The coordination industrial and spatial development in the global value cycle is also the cornerstone of long-term stabilization and sustainable development in China. Therefore, this book provides the theoretical and empirical research on Belt and Road from the perspectives on industrial and spatial synergy. This book proposes several questions: Any inherent inlay between industrial and geographic allocation, i.e., is there any possibility for close integration? This book analyzes the necessity of coordinated development of industry and space perspective of production division. Secondly, from the perspective of historical evolution and current situation, it analyzes the relationship among industry, economic growth and fluctuation and compares realizing paths of synergy of industrial and spatial development. It contains the industry and spatial diffusion mechanism and the effect of synergy development. Moreover, the corresponding policy implication is provided for sustainable development through the Belt and Road Initiative.

This book provides an academic view of political developments in Bangladesh with reference to authoritarianism and military intervention, and brings insights from unique personal experience of governance. It addresses Bangladesh’s democratic development, governance, and political conditions prior to the Caretaker Government (CTG) takeover in 2006, as well the background of the 2007 military intervention. Political science and International Relations students, especially at postgraduate level, as well as sociology researchers and those involved in politics as agents of change, will find previously unrecorded facts revealing the causes of military intervention in Bangladesh during 2007, when the UN peacekeeping force added new facets, different from earlier examples of military intervention. The author has had unique access to confidential documents and reviews the laws and constitution of Bangladesh, ordinances, orders, reports, newspaper articles and columns, research articles and television talk-shows. As such, the book recounts the 2007–08 activities of the military-backed government and the efforts of foreign powers, including the ambiguous role of the US both for and against military intervention, and compares the evidence with analyses of related literature, the opinion of experts and the author’s own experience of governance.