Stories from Quick Reads and Bangladesh
Real Goats. Real Stories. Bangladesh Delivers.
Read the full interview here at Scroll.in. Bangladesh has now a satirical Facebook page much like Pigeons of New York, which is itself a parody site of the famous Humans of New York project. Goats of Bangladesh is only about six months old, but it boasts of almost 10,000 followers. Sahil Bhalla of Scroll.in interviewed one of the...
A Passenger Ferry Capsizes in Bangladesh. Again.
On Sunday noon a passenger ferry reportedly packed with more than 100 passengers was hit by a cargo vessel 40 kilometres northwest of Dhaka, Bangladesh's capital. It subsequently sank. A rescue vessel located the capsized vessel and attempted to pull it up. According to reports 37 bodies have been found...
Updates on the 18th SAARC Summit On Social Media
The ongoing summit of the The South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) was covered by international media with different perspectives. However non-official initiatives such as 18th SAARC Summit blog, Facebook account, Twitter and Google+ account are aggregating updates on the summit for easy archiving. Here are some examples: This...
Blogger Argues Corporate Sponsorship Cheapening Bangaldeshi Folk Culture
The first time around, those of us who had been visiting Cheuria for many years, were shocked to find the sponsorship junk.
Security Risks Exposed at Amusement Park in Dhaka
During the Eid holidays, Carnival Park at Jamuna Future park welcomed a large number of visitors. On October 7, 2014, one of its attractions, the 360-degree shuffle ride, stopped in the middle of a ride. Everyone on-board was stuck in their seats for about an hour. The ride had no emergency...
How Entrepreneurship Helped a Bangladeshi Girl Avoid Child Marriage
Bangladeshi blogger Raad Rahman tells the story of a girl in rural Bangladesh who avoided a forced child marriage after she started a grocery shop using a small grant from a local non-government organisation. She was going to be married off to her neighbour's son because her family could no...
Bangladesh's Elite Paramiltary Unit Is Under Fire for Human Rights Violations. This Blogger Asks: What About Israel's IDF?
Brad Adams, the executive director of Human Rights Watch's Asia division, has recently written a letter to Bangladesh's prime minister suggesting that the Bangladesh government should disband the paramilitary Rapid Action Battalion (RAB). Quoting news sources, he accused the RAB of being responsible for more than 800 extrajudicial killings in...
Bangladeshi Sex Workers Take Cow Steroids To Mask Their Real Age
ActionAid, a British charity, mentioned in a recent report that 90% of commercial sex workers in Bangladesh are addicted to Oradexon, a steroid meant for cattle. Diaspora Bangladeshi blogger Anushay Hossain explains why they use this drug: This medicine meant to fatten cows has become the preferred drug among the...
University Student Posts Suicide Note In Facebook, Friends Fail To Save Him
Suicide is a long term social issue of Bangladesh and of all the people reported dead due to suicide worldwide every year, 2.06% are Bangladeshis. Mahbub Shaheen, a student of Dhaka University, posted a suicide note in Facebook at 7:08PM on 2nd of June, 2014. He wrote: I am lying...
Creating Biogas from Water Hyacinth
Water hyacinth (water weed) is a menace in Bangladesh which restricts water flow and blocks sunlight in rivers and ponds contributing to contamination and killing of fish. Instead of spending much in removing or eradicating them they can be used for a good cause. Kristin Boekhoff at Panigram blog informs...
Bangladesh's Economy Remains Stable, Analysis Finds
Equity analyst and blogger Asif Khan posts a brief economic update of Bangladesh in his blog. According to the analysis, despite political uncertainties the economy looks stable and inflation remains under control: The chances of an interim election in the next 12 months look slim. Current account surpluses continue, currency...
Meet Khadija, a Motorcycle Repairwoman Breaking Boundaries in Bangladesh
BRAC blog profiles how girls in Bangladesh are learning lucrative yet unconventional trades for women. Khadija, for example, was forced to drop out of school before finishing fifth grade to help support her family. Not so strange, given that only 55 percent of children in Bangladesh complete their primary education. But now,...
The Rise and Fall of Bengal’s Textile Empire
Bengal was once known as the richest province of the Indian subcontinent mainly due to its famous and varied agricultural and textiles products including the Muslin, world renowned finely-woven breathable fabric. M Ahmedullah posts in Alochonaa.com a two part series (Part 1, Part 2) discussing the history of the Bengal's...
Alternative Voices Speaking For A Secular Bangladesh
Bangladeshi liberal humanist, free-thinker and award winning blogger Asif Mohiuddin has been invited to speak at the World Humanist Congress 2014 in Oxford, UK. He was arrested multiple times for his alleged ‘anti-state’ and ‘anti-religious’ writings, attacked by fundamentalists, and is living with death threats. Here is an excerpt from...
The Bengali Tradition of Halkhata, New Accounts Ledger
The centuries old Bengali new years celebrations include an important tradition, opening the Halkhata, a new ledger book for the year for the businesses. Blog Amader Kotha explains what Halkhata is. The traditional red color ledger book signifies the marking of a new beginning and the festivities, rituals, hopes and...
Barefoot Lawyers Empowering Rural Bangladeshi Women
In Bangladesh, around 6,000 “barefoot lawyers” have been trained by the country's biggest NGO under its human rights and legal services (HRLS) program, reports Scott Macmillan at BRAC blog. These women act as one-woman mobile legal services clinics for the poor, especially women in rural areas where the traditional justice...
The Underground Football Scene In Bangladesh
Football was once popular in Bangladesh and then cricket took over in the late nineteen nineties. However the appeal has not died. Padya Paramita digs into the Bangladeshi underground football scene: At the moment, the underground scene is very competitive, (as well as popular) and attracts large crowds with each...
VIDEO: T20 Cricket World Cup Theme Song Flash Mobs
Bangladesh is hosting the upcoming ICC T20 World Cup and the fever is catching on among cricket-loving Bangladeshis. The official song of the 2014 tournament, “Char Chokka Hoi Hoi”, has become popular, and many universities across the country have started arranging their own flash mobs set to the theme song and uploading...
The Significance Of Celebrating The International Women's Day
Farah Subhan at Amader Kotha, a women-based portal highlighting the unheard voices of Bangladesh, tells how countries like Bangladesh can particularly be positively affected by the celebration of International Women’s Day.
Selfies or Social Entrepreneurship? What's Your Definition For Success?
Bangladeshi adventurer and social entrepreneur Muntasir Mamun has some advice for the young people, who have not yet decided about their goal, still haven’t found their place; merely figuring it all out: By placing emphasis on new, different and bigger picture things, we change our definitions of success. Experiment, calculate,...
[Photos]: Birds Of Bangladesh
For a foreigner it’s hard to identify birds in Bangladesh as local books often have the wrong names in English, and Western books don’t have the Bangla names. The Face of Bangla blog and Jacob and Sanna's blog tried to help by posting popular birds’ pictures with both Bangla and...
