Reaching out to neighbours

As ASEAN celebrates 50, reflections on SAARC’s failed decades The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) is among the world’s largest regional intergovernmental organisations. Since its inception, the countries in the region have become more integrated through enhanced intraregional trade and connectivity. The South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC), geographically proximate to ASEAN, started… Read More

What we’ve achieved and the challenges ahead – 50 years of ASEAN

As ASEAN marks its 50th Anniversary, the bloc’s economic achievements with regards to intra-regional trade and connectivity have been remarkable. Today Southeast Asia has a combined GDP of about $2.4 trillion. Overall trade has grown from $10 billion in 1967 to $2.3 trillion in 2015. The GDP per capita has increased by 63.2%, from 2007… Read More

Brighter Lives for Refugees

Image Source:UNHCR.S/Rich In connection with Brighter Lives for Refugees campaign, IKEA has donated a total of €30.8 million to help the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) bring light and renewable energy to refugee camps across Asia, Africa and the Middle East. The impacts of this initiative are: Over 284,000 refugees and members of host communities… Read More

Bangladesh’s Bold Journey: From the MDGs to the SDGs

Bangladesh is one of the bright stars from the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) era. The final MDG progress report published by the General Economics Division (GED) of the Bangladesh Planning Commission indicated Bangladesh’s remarkable progress: poverty was cut in half and school enrollment in primary and secondary achieved 97%. However, other social challenges persist such… Read More

Bangladesh Assistance in Rohiynga Crisis: The Need for Scaling-up Relief & Aid

Image Source: Dhaka Tribune The harrowing encounters of the Muslim Rohingya minority group is a testament of the constant struggle for basic human rights which others take for granted, the rights that people are entitled to by virtue of them being human. This ethnic Muslim group constitute around one million of the total 50 million… Read More

Bangladesh bears brunt of Myanmar’s crackdown on Rohingya

Since Aug 25, over 400,000 Rohingya refugees have fled the Myanmar state of Rakhine into neighbouring Bangladesh. Bangladesh has been harbouring the Rohingya for decades, bringing the total asylum count, according to unofficial sources, to around a staggering 900,000. No other developing nation has hosted this many Rohingya refugees for so many years. The United… Read More

The Lady and the Exodus

The escalating campaign of ethnic cleansing by Myanmar’s military in Rakhine State is threatening to undermine the country’s ongoing democratic transition – and to tarnish irrevocably the reputation of the country’s de facto leader, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi. But she still wields enough moral authority to act. DHAKA – Myanmar is in crisis. The… Read More

The disaster next door: on the Rohingya issue

India’s stance on the Rohingya refugees undermines its ties with Bangladesh and its regional leadership In a span of two weeks, almost 300,000 Rohingya have crossed over to Bangladesh from the northern Rakhine state in Myanmar, putting Bangladesh under immense strain and compelling the refugees to find shelter in squalid, unsanitary camps scattered along the… Read More

The geopolitical landscape of Asia Pacific is changing dramatically. Here’s how

Two important events are having a significant influence on existing security arrangements in Asia Pacific. The result of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), led by President Xi Jinping, and US President Trump’s abandonment of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), is that many Asian states are re-orientating their long-held policy towards the two giants. Vague commitments… Read More

Growing with Bangladesh: From Fossil Fuel to Alternative Energy Source

Abstract: Braving odds, Bangladesh has aggressed as a promising member of the N-11 economies (Next Eleven Emerging Market Economies). The sustenance of this growth requires uninterrupted energy supply and a careful scrutiny of the national energy mix to complement the government’s projected Vision 2021, Vision 2030 and Vision 2041. However, the shortage and constraint in… Read More