Regime In Bangladesh Research Articles

Reevaluating the Underlying Factors of 1990’s Mass Uprising against Authoritarian Regime in Bangladesh: An Analysis in the Light of Causal Model of Internal Conflict

From the early beginning of the authoritarian government of Ershad, there was widespread opposition to his autocratic authority, which persisted for eight years before the 1990 rebellion brought an end to it. Like the majority of movements in Bangladesh, this one was started by students who put in heroic effort to see it through to a victorious finish. This was an urban-centric movement. With the aid of an established academic model of internal conflict, this study aims to investigate the revolt and support its underlying causes - particularly its socioeconomic and cultural causes - as well as its political causes. This study has been conducted by qualitative method, in which the information has been collected from secondary sources. As the analytical framework, this study uses Michael E. Brown’s internal conflict causal model. According to this analysis, the major structural causes that led to the uprising were communal violence, a weakened educational system, corruption, and paramilitary activity on the part of the government. In terms of political factors, this study points to the authority’s use of torture or other oppressive measures against people’s fundamental rights, the state’s non-secular policy, the scope of political opportunity, public support and sympathy for the students, the authority’s political error, and the coordinated actions of political elites as being important causes of the uprising. Economic and social factors contributing to the rebellion include the rising cost of living, the debt crisis, regular failure to meet growth targets, and a highly divisive and bourgeois-centric economic system. Once more, this study reveals that the government’s actions against national culture through various policies, the extreme application of military culture, people’s negative memories of the Pakistani era’s authoritarian regime, and the positive perception of the student community in society are the cultural and perceptual factors that led to the uprising. The findings of the study will give relevant academicians, decision-makers, and the general public essential knowledge about Bangladeshi history as well as the fundamental causes of internal strife. They might contrast these conclusions with some important recent occurrences in Bangladesh. They may use it to address the fundamental issues in various facets of our society. As a result, the research may help them identify likely and long-lasting remedies for the advancement of our civilization.

Domestic bases of foreign policy: The case of Bangladesh’s policy towards India

Foreign policy is often regarded as an extension of domestic policy. Bangladesh's foreign policy, like that of any other state, is primarily a reflection of its socio- economic and political compulsions within international politics. Therefore, the task of tracing how such domestic factors influence foreign policy poses a significant theoretical challenge. To date, the majority of studies on Bangladesh-India relations have been descriptive, chronological, and devoid of any fresh insights. Furthermore, little systematic effort has been made to study the domestic factors in Bangladesh and their implications for India-Bangladesh relations. The present paper, therefore, constitutes a modest attempt to fill this gap. The focus of this paper is not on providing a complete framework for researching domestic compulsions within Bangladesh foreign policy, but to uncover appropriate explanatory propositions for understanding the domestic roots of Bangladesh's foreign policy with regards to India. The findings of this paper highlight how Bangladesh's foreign policy has often become a device for enhancing the sectional and group interests within the domestic political and factional infighting. Various regimes in Bangladesh have not only used different internal factors to promote their own sustenance and survival but have also internal factors like external relations. Unsurprisingly, successive regimes in Bangladesh have willingly induced a dependency relationship to remain in power or deny power to their political opponents.

AN ASSESSMENT OF PRIVACY REGIME IN BANGLADESH

Privacy is one of the most valued human rights in the information age. Due to the present digital world context, privacy appears as one of the pressing problems. In a data-driven world, a vast majority of works are going online using personal data. Personal data emerge as the new fuel to the Internet, and coin to the digital world. This digital atmosphere makes life easier, faster, and smarter, while simultaneously posing tremendous challenges to privacy. Therefore, the debate encompassing privacy evolves as one of the hot-button issues in contemporary world policies, politics, and business. In response, multiple policy measures have been adopted at national, regional, and international levels. To cope with this global trend, establish a safer online ecosystem, and secure citizens’ right to privacy, Bangladesh should maintain an adequate privacy protection regime. This landscape leads the current researcher to explore and assess the privacy protection regime of Bangladesh, as there is a lack of research in this area. There is a clear gap in the existing literature that requires to be filled in, and this research aimed to fill that gap using doctrinal legal research. The findings revealed that privacy was not adequately protected in Bangladesh due to, mainly, the lack of omnibus data privacy legislation. This article concluded by offering some workable suggestions, and especially, urged for enacting comprehensive data protection legislation in Bangladesh. Presumably, this research will enlighten all stakeholders regarding an overall picture of the privacy protection regime of Bangladesh. Moreover, this study will facilitate relevant stakeholders to map their future strategies and policy directions towards establishing an effective privacy protection regime in Bangladesh.

Understanding Medical Negligence under the Legal Regimes in Bangladesh: Gaps and Ways Forward

Right to health and medical services are the basic constitutional rights in Bangladesh which are closely related to right to life of a person. But the scenario of medical negligence is unfortunately increasing in Bangladesh which leads to violation ofconstitutional rights and statutory rights of the people. Though there are couples oflegal forums to address right to medical services and to regulate medical professions in Bangladesh, the legal avenue of Bangladesh is suffering from vibrant vacuum of a comprehensive legislation on medical negligence which would specifically address and prevent this offence in Bangladesh. Besides, the prevalent legal frameworks are insufficient and inadequate to provide effective remedies in case of medical negligence. Therefore, to a large extent,the cases of medical negligence are gone unaddressed without efficacious legal remedies due to absence of specific law on this issue, loopholes of the existing laws and discrepancy between law and practice. Though it is positive sign that the apex court of Bangladesh, time to time, is upholding directives to prevent medical negligence and asking the concerned authority to bring reformation in the laws, the concerned authority is hardly found to comply with the directives upheld by the court.Thus, this study will attempt to examine the prevalent national and international legal frameworks dealing with medical negligence and to critically analyze the gaps and lacunas to address and prevent the offence. In addition to, this study will also critically seek the role of the judiciary of Bangladesh in awarding remedies and upholding directive to prevent it. Apart from highlighting the present scenario of medical negligence in Bangladesh, the underpinning thrust of this paper is also to analyze challenges in confronting medical negligence under the existing legal frameworks as well as this study will also strive to highlight the suggestions for bringing reformation in the prevalent legal frameworks in Bangladesh to effectively prosecute medical negligence offences in Bangladesh.

Climate change impact on the distribution of Tossa jute using maximum entropy and educational global climate modelling

AbstractTossa (Corchorus olitorius L.) is a significant cash crop, cultivated commercially in the lower flood plain of Bangladesh. The climatic regimes in Bangladesh are changing as well as the world does. However, this species is threatened by climate change. Occurrences of data on threatened and endangered species are frequently sparse which makes it difficult to analyse the species suitable habitat distribution using various modelling approaches. The current paper used maximum entropy (Maxent) and educational global climate model (EdGCM) modelling to predict and conserve the suitable habitat distributions for Tossa species in Bangladesh to the year 2100. Nine environmental variables, 239 occurrence data and two Representative Concentration Pathway scenarios (RCP4.5 and RCP8.5) were used for the Maxent modelling to project the impact of climate change on the Tossa distributions. Furthermore, the EdGCM was used to study the climatic space suitability for the Tossa species in the context of Bangladesh. Both of the climatic scenarios were used for the prediction to the year 2100. The Maxent model performed better than random for the Tossa species with a high AUC value of 0.86. Under the RCP scenarios, the Maxent model predicted habitat reduction for RCP4.5 is 2%, RCP8.5 is 9% and EdGCM is 10.2% from the current localities. The predictive modelling approach presented here is promising and can be applied to other important species for conservation planning, monitoring and management, especially those under the threat of extinction due to climate change.

Rise of Competitive Authoritarianism in Bangladesh

AbstractWe examine the changing nature of an authoritarian regime, which is emerging from the social and political conditions shaped by the unconsolidated democracy in Bangladesh. Drawing on desk-based research combined with interviews from the field, we argue that the current form of the authoritarian regime in Bangladesh represents the characteristics of competitive authoritarianism. We find that authoritarianism in Bangladesh combines “election manipulation” with three additional social and political mechanisms: “marginalization of political oppositions” leading to the oppositional void, “institutionalization of authoritarian policies,” and “co-option of religious leaders.” By adding these new mechanisms of authoritarian politics and tracing the links between politics and religion, we aim to expand the theory of competitive authoritarianism and unpack the puzzle of democratic consolidation in Bangladesh.

Military, Authoritarianism and Islam: A Comparative Analysis of Bangladesh and Pakistan

AbstractThe years 1975 and 1977 witnessed a wave of de facto military regimes in Bangladesh and Pakistan, respectively. In Pakistan, General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq operationalized the country's preexisting Islamic identity from emblematic to substantive at both domestic and international levels. General Ziaur Rahman and General Ershad of Bangladesh revived the country's Islamic identity at the domestic and international levels and reopened the space for religious fractions that were banned from politics constitutionally in the previous regime. Focusing on military regimes in Bangladesh and Pakistan between 1975 and 1990, this paper aims to bridge that gap by specifically examining the use of Islam. This study argues that dictators in both countries used Islam to support their survival strategies of legitimacy, repression, and social control. Authoritarian rulers did not have to use Islam to maintain military coherence, because of the military's culture of subordination to superiors.

Perception of Climate Change in Shrimp-Farming Communities in Bangladesh: A Critical Assessment.

Local contexts as well as levels of exposure play a substantial role in defining a community’s perception of climate and environmental vulnerabilities. In order to assess a community’s adaptation strategies, understanding of how different groups in that community comprehend climate change is crucial. Public risk perception is important as it can induce or confine political, economic, and social actions dealing with particular hazards. Climate change adaptation is a well-established policy discourse in Bangladesh that has made its people more or less aware of it. Similarly, shrimp-farming communities in southwestern Bangladesh understand environmental and climate change in their own ways. In order to understand how the shrimp-farming communities in coastal Bangladesh perceive current climate instabilities, we conducted a qualitative study in shrimp-farming villages in coastal Bangladesh where about 80% of commercial shrimp of the country is cultivated. We compared farmers’ perceptions of local climate change with existing scientific knowledge and found remarkable similarities. Our assessment shows that at least two factors are critical for this outcome: coastal people’s exposure to and experience of frequent climate extremes; and a radical approach to defining climate regimes in Bangladesh by various stakeholders and the media, depicting anthropogenic global warming as a certainty for the country. Thus, a convergence of scientific construct and sociocultural construct construes the level of awareness of the general public about climate change.

Climate Change Vulnerability Assessment and Adaptation of Bangladesh: Mechanisms, Notions and Solutions

The concept of household vulnerability along with sustainable livelihoods has currently emerged as a significant concept in the climate change vulnerability and adaptation (CCVA) literature. In this paper, the vulnerability of Bangladesh has been assessed by using multiple regression analysis where twenty two effective variables have been chosen from the surveyed data given by Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics. The vulnerability has been functioned by three main stream components: Exposure, sensitivity and adaptive capacity, which have been adopted from the reports of Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and other scientific literature. Based on the higher significance and coefficient values, the variables, which have direct relationships and impact on income and illness, have been identified and prioritized. Household income and illness are the known driving forces for assessing the vulnerability. The motion of centripetal and centrifugal forces in decision making mechanisms, which are the main driving contributions of this paper, have been dealt as a new way to envisioning vulnerability and adaptation decision. Based on the prioritized variables some actions along with solutions have been taken into consideration, which have enormous significance in addressing localized plans and actions in order to reduce potential households’ vulnerability under climate change regimes in Bangladesh.

Privacy as a Human Right in the Digital Age: In Quest of a Safer Protection Regime in Bangladesh

Although the privacy jurisprudence has reached into an intense debate on to which extent the right to privacy should be allowed in this digital age in the reality of terrorism, newly evolved crimes and ever-evolving national security concerns, Bangladesh is still in its infancy in dealing with right to privacy and its related issues. The privacy provisions in Bangladesh Constitution and a few other statutory laws are quite scattered, insufficient to combat the emerging challenges posed in this digital age. Globally, the idea of privacy and data protection have been placed in important instruments like UDHR, ECHR and ICCPR with almost identical understanding as to privacy as a human right. Moreover, OECD Directives of Data Protection, 1980 as updated in 2013, EU General Data Protection Regulation, 2018 and the Data Protection Act, 2018 of the UK have advanced the privacy understanding to a new level. The courts in many jurisdictions including USA, UK, EU and India have laid down few notable principles on this very issue. In this article, after analyzing the best practices around the world, a critical examination of current privacy and data protection provisions of Bangladesh will be placed. The article offers some suggestions on how Bangladesh can combat the emerging privacy and data protection challenges and specific vulnerabilities in this digital age.

Politics and Islamic Revivalism in Bangladesh: The Role of the State and Non-State/Non-Political Actors

ABSTRACTBangladesh is an overwhelmingly Muslim majority country in South Asia. Islam is quite predominant in its political, social and cultural landscapes. While most classical and the contemporary sociologists predicted that religion would gradually fade in importance and cease to be significant with the advent of the industrial society, Bangladesh has instead witnessed a reemergence of the religious forces in its society. In order to address this theoretical exceptionalism and paradox, we have examined the role of both state and non-state or non-political actors in the Islamic revivalism in Bangladesh. Drawing on ‘Islamic revivalism’ as a theoretical construct and employing a triangulation of methods, we have critically investigated the contributions of five major independent regimes and key social, cultural and non-political organizations and groups to the Islamic revivalism in Bangladesh. We have found that Islamization in Bangladesh was actually initiated by the very first political regime in order to mobilize public supports and the subsequent regimes followed suit, albeit differently. None of the five independent political regimes in Bangladesh was however genuinely interested in establishing Islam and Islamic polity in society, but largely used Islam and Islamization to advance their political interests and legitimacy.

Threatening Dystopias: Development and Adaptation Regimes in Bangladesh

Development in Bangladesh is increasingly defined by and through an adaptation regime, a socially and historically specific configuration of power that governs the landscape of possible intervention in the face of climate change. It includes institutions of development, research, media, and science, as well as various state actors both nationally and internationally. The adaptation regime operates through three interrelated processes: imagination, experimentation, and dispossession. Each of these processes is produced and manifested both materially and epistemically. The adaptation regime is built on a vision of development in which urbanization and export-led growth are both desirable and inevitable. For the rural poor, this entails dispossession from agrarian livelihoods and outmigration. As this shift contributes to the expansion of production of export commodities such as garments and frozen shrimp, the threat of climate change and its associated migrations is reframed as an opportunity for development and growth.

Revisiting the Feminist Debates on International Labor Standards in the Aftermath of Rana Plaza

This paper revisits the turn of the millennium feminist debates on international labor standards in the aftermath of the Rana Plaza factory collapse of 2013 that killed over 1100 garment workers in Bangladesh. Feminists were divided over the benefits of establishing internationally enforced labor standards and, more generally, on the usefulness of transnational activism and union organizing for garment workers. The arguments of some feminist opponents during and in the aftermath of the debate emphasized the relative advantages of garment jobs, dismissed the importance of union rights, and criticized the labor transnationalism. These arguments have left unchallenged the current regulatory regime in Bangladesh by allaying concerns about poor working conditions. Drawing upon new empirical evidence, the paper shows that export growth under the market regulatory regime has failed to improve labor conditions in the sector. The paper makes the case for the continuing relevance of feminist arguments that favor a more proactive stance to make job growth compatible with wage gains and improved labor conditions. As they argued, the scope of the response has to be international, including solidaristic activism supporting local worker organizations, and the use of wage increases to move Bangladesh on a development path toward a higher-productivity, higher-wage economy.

Nuclear security and safeguards in Bangladesh: mapping risks and way out

Bangladesh has signed an Inter-Governmental Agreement with the Russian Federation in 2009 to set up two nuclear power reactors. In 1986, the country installed the 3MWth TRIGA Mark-II research reactor. The country possesses category 1 of nuclear and category 1-5 of radioactive materials for the purpose of research, medical and industrial applications. Bangladesh is a party to the nuclear security and safeguards related protocols and agreements. Owing to the global threat of nuclear/radiological terrorism, critics often raise questions about the country's technical and management capabilities to face the challenges of nuclear security and safeguards. This paper not only discusses about the current status and measures of nuclear security and safeguards regimes in Bangladesh but also recommends improving measures for them. Perceiving that the emerging threats derive from adversaries, the paper suggests among others to form a National Nuclear Security Council in order to enhance the State's nuclear security and safeguards capacity.

Validation of the AquaCrop model for irrigated rice production under varied water regimes in Bangladesh

Crop growth simulation models of varying complexity have been developed to predict the effects of soil, water, nutrients and climate on biomass and grain yields and water use efficiency of different crops. In this study, the AquaCrop model was calibrated and validated for rice crop growth modeling under different irrigation water regimes at the Bangladesh Rice Research Institute, Gazipur, Bangladesh during the 2008–09 and 2009–10 winter (dry) seasons. Three irrigation water regimes were examined: irrigation with continuous standing water (CSW), and irrigation at 3 or 5 days after water disappearance (3 or 5 DAWD) from the field as potential water saving adaptations. Model performance was evaluated in terms of prediction error (Pe), coefficient of determination (R2), the normalized root mean squared error (NRSME), the Nash–Sutcliffe model efficiency coefficient (EF) and Willmott’s index of agreement (d). The model calibration yielded 0.94<R2<0.99, 14.5<NRMSE<21.6, 0.83<EF<0.95 and 0.97<d<0.99 in simulating canopy cover (CC) percentage and above-ground biomass. Model validation yielded 0.98<R2<0.99, 8.6<NRMSE<12.9, 0.94<EF<0.97 and d=0.99 in simulating CC percentage and above-ground biomass. In calibration and validation, respectively, the prediction errors for grain yield varied from 5.55 to 7.70% and 8.22 to 11.54%, and for biomass production from 2.62 to 5.19% and 7.95 to 11.15%, indicating good model performances. Based on crop yield, water use and its use efficiency, the IR69515-KKN-4-UBN-4-2-1-1 genotype showed better productivity in the dry season under the 3 DAWD irrigation water regime compared to the other examined treatments, which was shown by both the experimental data and the model simulations using FAO recommended conservative model parameters. The FAO AquaCrop model was able to predict rice growth and yield with acceptable accuracy under different water regimes, making this model a suitable candidate to facilitate local scenario studies related to irrigation scheduling, yield prediction or studies related to climate change and adaptation.

FLOOD VULNERABILITY AND ADAPTATION TO CLIMATE CHANGE IN BANGLADESH: A REVIEW

This paper reviews recent literature on flood research in Bangladesh, focusing on the nation's vulnerability to climate change and its ability to adapt. This review reveals that the literature on community-based vulnerability and adaptation, and their processes and assessments in response to hazards under climate change regimes are inadequate, apart from a recent focus on assessment of the vulnerability of rural communities, their ability to adapt their farming methods, or the economic consequences of failure to adapt in response to extreme flood events, e.g. Younus (2012a,b); Younus and Harvey (2013, 2014). This paper argues that an integrated assessment of rural vulnerability and community-based adaptation is needed in order to ensure sustainable changes in response to future climate change regimes in Bangladesh.

License Renewal of Mobile Phone Services: What a Country Should Not Do (A Case Study of Bangladesh)

This paper identifies the major challenges behind the poor performance of the telecommunications licensing regime in Bangladesh. Moreover it explores the negative consequences this emerging economy has to endure in both short and long term future, primarily due to the uncertainties created by the incumbent regulator in mobile phone service renewal process. Mobile telephony is considered to be one of the key enablers for the present Bangladeshi government’s vision of a connected and equitable society. In reality, the uncertain, non-transparent, and arbitrary nature of the license renewal process for 2G mobile services has severely hindered any significant market growth. According to the telecom experts, service authorization and continuation of any communication services need to be consistent with the competitive market environment to ensure maximum benefit for the population the providers cater to. Telecom license assignment and renewal process need to encourage long term investment and minimize the risk of service disruption for the general populace. The situation becomes even more critical when the regulators are required to consider the imminent transition from older to newer services (e.g. , 2G to 3G transition). This paper’s comparative analysis of Bangladesh’s license renewal scenario with the best practices worldwide has helped to show the main bottlenecks of this country’s telecom regulatory process. In person interviews have been conducted with the primary stakeholders to further explore the impacts of poor and uncertain renewal regulations on communication infrastructure, service innovation, and financial investments. Our research have identified high risk of having a stagnated service industry, low foreign investments, and stalled environment for technological innovation as some of the main consequences due to the absence of a responsible regulatory framework for license assignment and renewal. In order to address the challenges identified, the paper has proposed a set of recommendations which can help the Bangladeshi regulator in not repeating the same mistakes again in coming years, and can be used as a learning experience for countries facing similar challenges. Transparent license process, long term and predictable licensing regulations, technology neutrality, provision for secondary spectrum markets, and spectrum refarming are some of the major ways identified by this research, which should help Bangladesh to overcome its present regulatory challenges and establish a stable, pro-competition, and people friendly communication licensing environment.

“Minority Islam” in Muslim Majority Bangladesh: The Violent Road to a New Brand of Secularism

More than 85% of Bangladesh's 150 million people are Muslims. Bangladesh earns its title as “the third largest Muslim country of the world” following Indonesia and Pakistan because of its enormous size of Muslim population. Their religion, Islam, is however becoming a “minority” day by day. While Muslims in the West—in spite of being a minority—are enjoying their basic religious freedom, this basic right is increasingly being denied to the Muslims in Bangladesh while it continues to aspire to become a “uniquely secular” society. Based on a robust content analysis and interviews, the study shows that the current regime in Bangladesh has taken on a comprehensive policy of secularization with an aim to emasculate Islamic influence from political and social landscape of Bangladesh. Apart from undermining basic religious freedom of Muslims, the policy—which turns out to be both aggressive and violent—is increasingly becoming hostile to democratic principles, rule of law, freedom of movement, and political pluralism.

The Rift Within An Imagined Community: Understanding Nationalism(s) in Bangladesh

AbstractThe continuing debate in Bangladesh over the national identity of its people — whether one is a Bangali or Bangladeshi — is a post-1975 phenomenon. One of the main themes of the independence war (1971) was 'Bangali nationalism'. However, it was replaced with 'Bangladeshi nationalism' by a military government following a bloody military coup in 1975. This major change in the label of the national identity of the people of Bangladesh requires explanation. A sharp distinction in the nature of politics in Bangladesh between the pre- and post-1975 era offers an explanation of the politics of identity in Bangladesh. This study shows that the manifestations of these political identities have been represented discursively, according to the political ideologies adopted by the successive regimes in Bangladesh. This paper studies the material representations of national identity, specifically the discursive construction of national identity in Bangladesh. It investigates also whether national identity discourse is a creation of the political rhetoric during different eras or it is "over-determined" in Althusserian terms. In other words, this paper questions the ontological basis of national identity in Bangladesh.

Investor protection through administrative enforcement of disclosure requirements in prospectuses: Bangladeshi laws compared with their equivalents in India and Malaysia

Compares the approach to disclosure‐based regulation of securities markets in Bangladesh with that of India and Malaysia. Describes the present administration of the disclosure regime in Bangladesh, which is split between the Registrar of Joint Stock Companies (RJSC) and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC); this mirrors the two sets of laws involved, company law and securities law respectively. Outlines the basic regulatory functions of securities law enforcement: the ability of investors to seek remedies against the infringements of disclosure requirements and the efficiency of the SEC in dispensing justice, and finds that both are weak in Bangladesh. Suggests that more effective regulation in Bangladesh is necessary and that the SEC should be free from government and other interference. Argues that preventive measures should for this reason be the preferred policy; these include investor education and regulatory verification before prospectus issue.