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Digital Bangladesh a gift to nation from Sheikh Hasina

Human Rights Report
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has made a dream come true by transforming Bangladesh into a digital country, which has paved the way for the people to get their necessary services digitally. People are now getting their desired services through digital platforms. Students get exam results online, farmers can know the prices of their agri produce thanks to the country's digitization. Besides, digitisation has created huge job opportunities for the youths. Mobile banking is the gift of digital Bangladesh and it is increasingly getting popular among the people.
Sheikh Hasina, also the president of the ruling Awami League, first came up with the idea of digital Bangladesh through her party's poll manifesto 'Vision 2021' before the 2008 national elections. "Many criticised the idea at that time. My dream has come true as people can now get benefits through digital platforms even in the rural areas," Sheikh Hasina said at a recent meeting through videoconferencing from her official residence Ganabhaban. Even the premier is clearing files digitally. Prime Minister's ICT Advisor Sajeeb Wazed Joy mentored the process of outlining strategies for getting real benefits from digital Bangladesh under the visionary leadership of Sheikh Hasina. Official record shows that some 100 million people have been using internet while different kinds of business, including e-commerce and f-commerce, have been boosted due to the digital facilities.Students of different classes are receiving lessons online while important government and private meetings are being held digitally. According to technology experts, broadband internet service has been expanded to the country's rural areas in the last one decade of the Awami League rule.
Some 2,600 unions have got connected through broadband use while 1,200 unions have BTCL connections.
Awami League presidium member Dr Abdur Razzaque told the daily sun that people has been getting benefit of the digital Bangladesh in business, commerce, health, education, government and private offices and many more sections.
"Awami League's dream of Digital Bangladesh has been materialised," he said, adding that all kinds of activities in social and economic indexes have been expedited.
Razzque, also agriculture minister, said a revolution has taken place in the country's communications sector under the dynamic leadership of Sheikh Hasina.
Amid the surge in coronavirus cases, businessmen are running their organisations while many are carrying out their official work from their homes digitally.
 

Rehabilitating Returnee Migrants

Human Rights Report:

Mohammed Hossain Sarker
According to media reports, few thousands migrant workers have had to return home amid this unprecedented travel ban and border closures, while thousand others have been waiting for days to board next available flights owing to losing livelihood opportunities caused by job losses in the destination countries. Bangladesh government predicts- an estimated 29,000 migrant workers will be returning in the coming weeks.
The deliberate state policy coupled with increased demand for low-skilled workers, extended migration networks and private sector's involvement in placing aspirants for overseas jobs has established Bangladesh as one of the biggest global players in the international labour market. Thereby, 5-7 lakh overseas jobs and 15-18 billion remittance inflow per year was pretty much normal until the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic.
However, both overseas employment opportunities and remittance inflow has seen a plummeting trend since February '20, except a momentary hike before the immediate past religious festival in the month of May 2020. To make things worse, some of the major source countries, in defiance of international laws and humanitarian responsibility, have taken a 'forced repatriation policy', in the guise of temporary amnesty for irregular and detained workers.
According to media reports, few thousands migrant workers have had to return home amid this unprecedented travel ban and border closures, while thousand others have been waiting for days to board next available flights owing to losing livelihood opportunities caused by job-loses in the destination countries. Bangladesh government predicts- an estimated 29,000 migrant workers will be returning in the coming weeks. Migrant experts, who apprehended a flux of reverse migration in the coming months, suggested a prior plan to absorb returnees in the economy with alternative livelihoods. Meanwhile, to rehabilitate and reintegrate them, the government has declared an allocation of 700 crore taka (in two phases) as a credit support scheme with a nominal interest rate.
 

Corona may create 15m new poor   
 

Human Rights Report:
The government should address the needs of the 'new poor' in addition to ensuring proper utilisation of the stimulus package to expedite the efforts for economic recovery amid the coronavirus pandemic, experts said.
Around 15 million people are projected to become 'new poor' due to unemployment and adaptation to the 'new normal' in the post-Covid-19 situation.
Talking to the daily sun, experts also underscored the need for decentralisation of workforce, laying focus on agriculture and small- and medium-sized enterprises (SME) sector.
Former Bangladesh Bank (BB) Governor Atiur Rahman said the economy cannot be made fully operational until complete eradication of coronavirus.
"We need to open the economy cautiously without affecting our efforts to win the war against corona. If we can remove the fear of infection and death through appropriate testing, isolation and follow-up treatment, only then economic stakeholders will gain the confidence to move ahead in the new normal."
He also recommended continuing to provide cash for the new poor and operate the ongoing social protection to the disadvantaged population so that they can survive the crisis.
"We need three-pronged economic recovery strategies: immediate, short-term and medium to long-term to address the crisis. Health, agriculture, social protection and stimulus packages must get full attention from the policymakers and they must ensure quality implementation of the budget," Prof Atiur, also the Bangabandhu Chair at Dhaka University, explained.
In particular, Prof Atiur emphasised that agriculture and SMEs must get enough resources so that the rural economy can generate enough demand.
"Agricultural supply chain should be remoulded through the use of digital start-ups and revival of the broken conventional supply chain. Export sector should be encouraged to get diversified and greener to respond to new post-Covid global demand."
Regarding the economic recovery, Dr Atiur mentioned that Bangladesh Bank should continue to inject sustainable finance to the banking and financial sector as a whole to execute the stimulus packages. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina announced various stimulus packages worth around 1 trillion taka to restore the country's economy. Research organization Light Castle Partners recently unveiled a report on reopening the Bangladesh economy amid the coronavirus pandemic. Deployment of healthcare technology and controlling public gatherings bring positive result in the case of reopening economic activities, according to the report.

 

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Kim suspends military action against South
 

Human Rights Report:
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has suspended plans for military action against the South, state media reported Wednesday, in an apparent sudden dialling down of tensions after Pyongyang blew up a liaison office, reports AFP.
In recent weeks, Pyongyang has issued a series of vitriolic condemnations of Seoul over anti-North leaflets, which defectors based in South Korea send across the border-usually attached to balloons or floated in bottles.
Last week, it blew up a liaison office on its side of the border that symbolised inter-Korean approchement, while its military said it would take multiple measures against the South.
The moves included re-entering areas of the North that it had withdrawn from as part of inter-Korean projects, restoring guard posts in the Demilitarized Zone that forms the border, and stepping up exercises.
But the North's official Korean Central News Agency said Kim on Tuesday presided over a Central Military Commission (CMC) preliminary meeting that "suspended the military action plans against the south". The North also began removing loudspeakers on Wednesday from border areas, which they had started setting up just two days ago to broadcast anti-South propaganda, South Korea's Yonhap news agency reported, citing unnamed sources.
In addition, Pyongyang's propaganda outlets deleted online articles critical of South Korea, according to Seoul's unification ministry, with handles relations with the North.
The apparently conciliatory moves by Pyongyang are unusual, and come after analysts said it was seeking to manufacture a crisis on the peninsula in an effort to extract concessions.
The South's unification ministry said it was "closely" and "carefully" reviewing the KCNA report, which said the meeting took place through video conferencing-something the ministry said it believed was a first.



 

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