Would you like to see Bangladesh transform into an attractive tourist destination? Do you know that, in a crowded market of other destinations, Bangladesh needs to discover her uniqueness and present it to a unique set of tourists in order to accomplish that?

Judging by statements made by tourism ministries under successive governments, and by some self-designated “advice” givers on social media to prospective and present foreign tourists, Bangladeshis largely don’t have a clue.

And that is because there is a huge gulf between what adventurous foreigners have already shown interest in in the past, and what well-off locals show interest in, which they project onto foreign guests.

Let’s take Dhaka to start with. Are foreign tourists here to visit Bashundhara or Jamuna Future shopping complexes as their first port of call? Are they here simply to walk through the pristine gated communities of the Tri-State area (Gulshan-Banani-Baridhara)?

Are they here to dine at a fine Italian or Latin American restaurant? Are they here to relax next to a swimming pool in one of the posh international hotels? Are they here to sip lattes in upscale cafes only?

Let’s now move to the much-hailed world’s longest sea beach, i.e. the one at Cox’s Bazar. Are foreign tourists really going to arrive in droves using the white elephant of a proposed international airport (thank you, Hasina), to worship the sun, semi-naked, engaging in various forms of debauchery totally out of place in a Muslim-majority country?

To make the above proposition even more absurd, successive governments have contemplated gated resorts containing casinos, bars, nightclubs, private areas, etc. for the guests.

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Regardless of whether we as a people would want to see these foreigner-exclusive establishments on our beach, the question that the authorities never asked was why on earth would droves of tourists arrive from abroad to enjoy such facilities in a country like Bangladesh, whereas plenty of those are already spread all throughout the world and well-trodden.

The answer is, they will not. They know that attempting to enjoy the beach, bars, clubs, casinos, etc. in a manner they desire and are used to is simply inappropriate in a Muslim-majority country. They will not come.

Why on earth would we want to promote our country as a tourist destination through such facilities anyway? Is that what our country is about? After all, these are things that our well-off locals desire and will be visited mostly by them if made available.

Foreign tourists, through discussion forums, blogs and vlogs, have told us what our country is all about, far better than most of us seem to know. They have told us that Bangladesh offers unique adventures not present in the same way in many other places on earth. Isn’t that what our authorities need to turn their attention to?

I have noticed Bangladeshi YouTube followers recoil at the sight of a foreign tourist riding on top of a moving train. Somehow, that adventure was something for us to be ashamed of -- for that is something a “civilized” and “developed” country would never allow!

But isn’t that the point? Aren’t they here to experience things they cannot experience in their own countries? Isn’t that also the reason why the well-off among us visit other countries too?

There are many city dwellers among us who wouldn’t visit certain parts of the city due to perceived (real or otherwise) dust, grime, dirt and overall poor economic and infrastructural conditions. Fair enough, we have our air-conditioned coffee shops.

But must we cringe with embarrassment if foreign tourists find genuine interaction and friendliness among the people who live and toil away in those very environments? After all, Bangladesh’s number one selling point is the friendliness and hospitality of her people -- this opinion being unanimous among all tourists.

I know we consider the Buriganga river smelly and dirty. But interested foreign tourists are able to look beyond that and catch a glimpse of a very ancient trading civilization when riding on a hired boat. Perhaps we need to get out more.

Ask a series of Bangladeshis what he or she would consider a major draw for tourists in the country. The answer may drift towards that beach again. Hardly anyone would mention the Padma, Meghna and Jamuna -- the three mighty rivers that form the soul of the country, her trading history, her culture, her heritage.

And yet, the omnipresence of these rivers (particularly mid-year) and their confluence in Chandpur offer an experience that is simply hard to find replicated anywhere else in the world. Shouldn’t attractions be developed and promoted involving these rivers and their banks (when visible)?

The possibilities are huge.

Bangladesh is home to some of the most ancient archaeological sites relating to the Buddhist civilization that adorned our land over a thousand years ago.

While UNESCO has protected and maintained them, where is the outreach to Buddhists in our neighbouring countries, and to moneyed and/or highly educated Westerners interested in visiting these places either as pilgrims or as researchers?

Where is the outreach to highlight ancient Hindu temples, mosques and churches? Bangladesh has no dearth of history and many places of interest to vouch for that. Why isn’t the country spending at least some amount to maintain and promote these non-UNESCO places?

Of all the various cuisines around the world, ours, and indeed that of the entire Indian Subcontinent, is highly regarded among many nationalities.

Wouldn’t it be amazing if rural communities across Bangladesh were given training and other resources to provide tranquil, safe and comfortable village stays to foreign tourists, cuisine being part of the package as well?

Just imagine how that could rejuvenate rural economies, as well as introduce cuisine that is unique to various localities.

This could be tied together with marketing halal-food hospitality for interested international Muslim travellers. The vegetarian cuisine market remains largely unexplored in Bangladesh, and yet, with a little imagination, the possibilities are endless.

This takes me to an area that has already been explored in Bangladesh thanks to previous initiators -- ecotourism, particularly in areas of the Chittagong Hill Tracts -- staying and dining with the thriving tribal communities. This needs to be expanded for the benefit of everyone.

To promote Bangladesh’s tourism industry, we need to look beyond what we would desire as local tourists and focus on what foreign tourists tell us they are interested in.

Seeing our country through their eyes can reveal beauty where we thought none existed, and fun and adventure where we felt cringe and embarrassment. And that may also change the way we think of ourselves and our country.

Riaz Osmani is a political and social analyst.

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Bangladesh’s energy crisis is costly -- but it could also become an opportunity to create jobs, build technological capability, and develop a globally competitive industry.

For years, Bangladesh has pursued an energy strategy heavily dependent on imported technology and raw energy, while creating an environment conducive to corruption, inefficiency, and guaranteed profits.

The result is a national crisis: The energy import bill has reached a level that consumes as much as 30% of remittance income, yet the country continues to suffer from a chronic and worsening energy crisis.

At the same time, Bangladesh is producing a growing number of university graduates who are struggling to find productive employment. Rather than treating these two problems separately, Bangladesh should connect them.

The energy crisis can be turned into a blessing by engaging the growing pool of graduates in solving it through local innovation, technological advancement, and industrial development.

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Here are seven pieces of advice:

1. Focus on energy efficiency in exploration, production, distribution, and consumption through local innovations that can find global markets, much like the way Houston has succeeded in becoming a global energy innovation center.

2. Upgrade from energy-hungry productive activities to high-value-added, less energy-consuming alternatives, which will also create a market for Bangladesh’s growing number of graduates.

3. Pursue the reinvention of mature air-cooling products and promote lifestyles that require less artificial air cooling, creating opportunities to enter the global air-cooling market while also improving health.

4. Instead of ensuring profits through capacity charges or public-private partnerships, promote fair competition to encourage innovation and efficiency.

5. Remove subsidies from energy so that both consumers and producers can make better, more rational decisions about production and consumption.

6. Instead of deploying engineers to support the installation and operation of imported energy technologies, engage them in technology advancement and innovation in building high-performing firms, as ABB and GE have been doing.

7. Focus on developing a globally competitive, highly innovative energy industry that can address Bangladesh’s energy crisis while exporting innovative solutions, as Denmark has done in wind energy and China has done in solar energy.

Bangladesh should not merely spend more to overcome its energy crisis. It should use the crisis to build the technological and industrial capabilities needed to overcome it -- and turn those capabilities into a new source of jobs, exports, and prosperity.

Md. Rokon Uz Zaman is a Professor at North South University and the Founder of The Waves

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Nepal’s Flood Forecasting Division first heard of the Bhote Koshi surge when the Rasuwa district office telephoned, after the automatic gauges had already gone dead.

On the morning of August 26, a mass of ice and rock collapsed into the Lhende along the Nepal-China divide. When the water impounded behind that blockage broke through, it carried ice, mud, and boulders rapidly down the Bhote Koshi and into the Trishuli. Early satellite reads put the failure inside Tibet, some 20 kilometers northeast of Rasuwagadhi.

By week’s end, Nepal’s disaster authority, its hydrology department, and the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) were pointing to Langtang Lirung, on the Nepali side of that border river. Origin is still under investigation.

A key issue here is that the flood wrecked the automatic monitoring stations in the upper reaches of the river before they could transmit. The Kathmandu Post reports that none of them managed to send an alert. Word arrived instead through the district administration. Warnings went out within minutes, too late for Rasuwa.

The failure lay in detection rather than in response. Until a person on the bank or in a district office saw the water and called, there was no warning at all in time to save so many.

By Sunday Nepal had recovered more than 730 bodies from this flood, with nearly 2,500 still missing, hydropower workers, foreign travelers, and security personnel among them. Chinese official media reported 16 dead and more than 500 missing in Tibet.

Reuters reports the government’s estimate that rebuilding will cost four to five billion dollars, a preliminary figure from the finance minister. Nepal’s energy minister has put the share of national generating capacity affected at around a tenth.

This was the second disaster of this scale on the Bhote Koshi in just over a year. In July 2025, a lake on the Tibetan side drained suddenly, killed at least nine people, and carried away the Nepal-China Friendship Bridge.

After that 2025 flood Kathmandu and Beijing said they would share glacial-hazard information. Last week was the first real test, and the warning still did not arrive in time. Nepal’s disaster authority has said its Chinese counterparts were caught out as well.

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In this part of the Himalaya, cross-border flood alerts still depend on the political relationship, not on a standing duty to the people living below the ice.

A firm scientific account of what set that mass of ice and rock in motion may take time, but the wider trend requires no such guesswork, as climate change is increasing the likelihood of ice-rock collapses and outburst floods of this family.

The Hindu Kush Himalaya is called the Third Pole for holding more ice than anywhere outside the Arctic and Antarctic, and the water towers of Asia for the ten major transboundary rivers that rise in it.

ICIMOD reports that the rate of glacier loss across the range has roughly doubled since 2000, and its assessments indicate that under high greenhouse gas emissions as much as 80% of the region’s glacier volume could be lost by the end of this century.

As glaciers thin, meltwater gathers in lakes held back by loose moraine, and warming thaws the permafrost that binds rock at altitude. The response so far has been to fit each arrangement to the disaster that already happened, while the hazard moves to uncertain terrain no arrangement covers.

The Trishuli becomes the Narayani, then the Gandak, and joins the Ganges in Bihar. That water reaches us in Bangladesh as the southernmost part of the delta. The corridor that killed people and washed away villages is the upper reach of the basin whose treaty we are about to renegotiate.

The 1996 Ganges Treaty expires this December, and its renewal will be negotiated against flow assumptions drawn from a historical record that the river is steadily departing from. Dhaka and Delhi will bargain over the division of a regime the mountains are already rapidly rewriting.

Nepal sits at the head of that catchment and Bangladesh at its end, and neither had much hand in the warming now reshaping it. Nepal accounts for roughly a tenth of 1% of global greenhouse gas emissions, and Bangladesh for well under 1%.

Neither country built the fossil economy whose warming is destabilizing ice across the range, and neither commands the emissions decisions that will determine how much more of it fails.

I have described this as climate coloniality, the ongoing working of colonial and capitalist power to determine whose land is made unlivable, whose knowledge counts as credible, and whose institutions decide what will be done.

The people in Nepal and Tibet who faced this massive disaster live beneath a danger produced elsewhere, on a stretch of river no arrangement has made a standing obligation to watch.

Inside its borders, Nepal has lowered Tsho Rolpa, lowered Imja and installed sirens in the valley below, and last year secured a Green Climate Fund grant of 36.1 million dollars to lower and protect four more dangerous lakes.

In January, the United States, the largest historical emitter, walked off the Green Climate Fund the day after announcing it would leave the UN climate convention, and completed its exit from the Paris Agreement later that month. The OECD reports that development assistance from donor governments fell by 23% in real terms last year, the steepest annual contraction on record.

The fund established at COP27 to address loss and damage holds pledges of around 822 million dollars, not cash in hand, against a preliminary Nepali estimate of four to five billion to rebuild.

Nepal is owed something more substantial than sympathy and more useful than a loan charging interest on damage it did not cause. Monitoring of unstable ice and glacial lakes concerns the whole basin and should be funded on a standing basis, with hydrological data crossing borders as a matter of routine rather than negotiation.

Reparative finance should reach affected countries as grants. Communities living below the ice should hold authority over how their valleys are rebuilt, since they know the terrain and will live with the result. Climate justice requires at least this much, and very little of it is in place.

What remains undecided is whether the people of the mountains, and we in the delta downstream of them, will be left to absorb a fossil debt that is not ours.

Farhana Sultana is Professor of Geography and the Environment at the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University, and editor of “Confronting Climate Coloniality” (Routledge). She has written on water governance, climate justice, and South Asia for more than two decades. www.farhanasultana.com

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Bangladesh’s possible participation in the Mecca Pact deserves serious and measured consideration.

At a time when the international system is becoming increasingly fragmented and unpredictable, Bangladesh has an opportunity to strengthen its security and international standing while preserving its independent and balanced foreign policy interests.

The strongest argument for Bangladesh joining the pact is not ideological or geo-political. It is strategic and an opportunity to strengthen its security, defense capabilities, economic partnerships, and diplomatic influence, while preserving its desired goal of strategic balance.

Membership could provide Bangladesh with closer defense and technological cooperation with Türkiye (a NATO partner) and Pakistan, deeper economic and strategic engagement with Saudi Arabia, and greater collective diplomatic leverage on issues of particular importance to Dhaka, including the Rohingya crisis, energy security, investment, and labor migration.

Bangladesh should approach the Mecca Pact not as an alignment against any country, but as an additional platform for advancing its national interests. Its participation should complement not undermine its important relationships with the United States, China, India, Japan, Russia, and the wider international community.

Ambassador M. Osman Siddique is a former United States diplomat serving as Ambassador under both President Bill Clinton and President George W. Bush. He is a senior non-resident fellow at the Atlantic Center South Asia Center, Washingtopn DC.

Read more: The Mecca Pact is an Opportunity for Strategic Autonomy

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Delhi spent this week in Moscow, in Beijing’s orbit, and preparing to host the biggest BRICS delegation list in a decade. Dhaka spent it waiting for a signal that didn’t come: Prime Minister Tarique Rahman’s prospective India visit went from “likely” to “unlikely” inside a single week. Underneath sits a harder question: Does Dhaka have a security doctrine, or is it improvising foreign policy one crisis at a time? This week’s evidence, an unbuilt National Security Council, a Teesta project quietly handed to Beijing, and fresh interest in a Saudi-Pakistan-Turkey defence pact, points toward the latter.

Delhi’s Big Month Leaves Dhaka Waiting

A visit pencilled in for 20-25 August closed without happening. Dhaka wants India to act on its Hasina extradition request and, more narrowly per State Minister Humayun Kabir, to stop her conducting political activity from Indian soil, a distinction analysts read as a possible off-ramp short of extradition itself. Meanwhile, External Affairs Minister Jaishankar spent two days in Moscow co-chairing the India-Russia trade commission, and the 25th round of India-China border talks concluded in Beijing, with Xi Jinping reportedly weighing his first India visit in seven years for the September BRICS summit. Bangladesh was invited to that same summit only as a BIMSTEC-chair guest at the outreach session, a symbolic, secondary slot.

Layered onto this is Dhaka’s declared interest in the Mecca Joint Defence Agreement, the Saudi-Turkey-Pakistan pact, justified by Kabir in civilizational rather than strategic terms. Supporters call it cost-free leverage; critics, writing in the Daily Star, warn it could drag Bangladesh into a Gulf confrontation it never chose, with exposure running straight through the Strait of Hormuz.

Our take: The real story this week isn’t the extradition standoff, it’s that Bangladesh is making security-adjacent choices, including a $2.3 billion Chinese fighter jet deal, faster than it is building the institutional apparatus meant to justify them. BNP’s manifesto promised a National Security Council; seven months into government, none exists. Until it does, every India, China and Mecca Pact move will keep reading as tactical positioning rather than strategy.

RAB Never Left. Its Watchdog Just Got Muzzled.

Two pieces of legislation are moving in opposite directions. The cabinet approved the draft Special Response Battalion Act on 18 August, abolishing RAB on paper while the new unit inherits its personnel, assets and operational mandate wholesale, including raids, arrests and counter-terrorism powers. A key recommendation from the Commission of Inquiry on Enforced Disappearances, that any successor force draw solely from police rather than rotating army, navy and air force personnel, was not adopted.

The National Human Rights Commission Bill, cleared by cabinet on 10 August, goes before Parliament on 27 August and is expected to pass easily. Under Section 19, a complaint against police, RAB or the SRB cannot trigger an independent Commission investigation; the Commission must first ask the accused institution to investigate itself. Under Section 14, victims have just six months to file a complaint. Human Rights Watch and the Daily Star both warn the bill falls below even the 2009 law, under which the Commission never rose above Status B international accreditation.

our take: the operational capability that produced RAB’s abuse record is being restored under a new name at the same moment the body meant to catch future abuses is being legally barred from investigating the cases that matter most. It is the clearest evidence yet that Dhaka is making major security-institution decisions without reconciling them against any published doctrine, because none exists.

Also This Week

Reserves and inflation are both improving (gross reserves $37.5 billion, inflation down to 8.32% in July) but private sector credit growth has fallen to a 33-year low of 4.47%, roughly half the central bank’s target, as government borrowing crowds out private lending. Two water clocks are running simultaneously: the Ganga Water Treaty expires in December with formal renewal talks not yet begun, while Beijing has agreed to a Teesta feasibility study, though China can engineer the riverbed, it cannot control the upstream flow that sits with India. Saching Prue Jerry was sworn in as CHT Affairs Minister on 22 August after a three-month vacancy, filling a post left by Dipen Dewan’s disputed June resignation. A UN Security Council monitoring report flags AQIS attempting to establish cells in Bangladesh, sitting uncomfortably against the Home Minister’s public line that militancy “no longer exists.”

This is an abridged version of K A S Murshid’s weekly Dhaka Brief.
Read the full version: The Dhaka Brief

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8 to 10 hours. That is how long the lights go out each day in rural Dhaka, and the finance minister says it will stay that way for two years. The energy crisis, not the presidential election on 20 August, will define the government’s next six months.

The cabinet also abolished RAB this week while weakening the human rights commission meant to hold its successor accountable. A toxic gas leak at a Chattogram shipbreaking yard killed nine workers, and India relations remain frozen, with Dhaka ruling out a prime ministerial visit until Hasina is extradited.

Energy Crisis: The Dominant Story

Widespread load shedding began 9 August, with shortfalls topping 3,700 MW some days. On 17 August, gas shortages hit 23 power plants; thirteen generated no electricity. Excelerate’s Moheshkhali LNG terminal stopped supplying on 19 August and is unlikely to resume before 23 August.

Power plants received just 37% of demand on 15-16 August. Shops were ordered closed by 8pm as public anger grew and distribution companies requested police protection.

Finance Minister Amir Khosru Mahmud Chowdhury said resolving the shortages will take at least two years. The government approved 14 more LNG cargoes through direct procurement without tender, plus two cargoes from BP Singapore Pte Ltd this week (23-24 August at $21.878/MMBtu, 4-5 September at $21.778/MMBtu) worth roughly $149 million, raising transparency questions.

Foreign Minister Khalilur Rahman sought energy cooperation in Doha; Dhaka separately asked India for additional diesel through the cross-border pipeline.

Our take: The crisis is structural, not cyclical. Bangladesh imports 95% of fuel oil and 30% of gas from the Middle East, and the Strait of Hormuz disruption has exposed that dependence. Direct procurement, ad hoc diplomacy and a two-year timeline manage symptoms, not the disease. This will define the government’s political fortunes.

Institutional Reform: RAB Abolished, Rights Watchdog Weakened

Two reforms cleared the cabinet this week, moving in opposite directions on accountability. The cabinet approved the draft Special Response Battalion Act on 17 August, dissolving RAB and transferring its personnel, powers and assets to a new police unit, with a grievance redress committee attached, following years of US sanctions and criticism over extrajudicial killings.

Separately, the cabinet cleared the National Human Rights Commission Bill on 10 August. Under Section 19, the commission cannot independently investigate complaints against police, RAB or other disciplined forces; it must first ask the accused institution to investigate itself. Human Rights Watch and other international groups have called the bill a regression that could cost Bangladesh its international accreditation as a credible rights body.

Our take: The real story isn’t that RAB is being abolished, it’s that the body meant to hold its successor accountable is being defanged in the same news cycle. A security force can be renamed. Whether citizens gain a genuine channel to investigate abuse by the people who replace it depends on Section 19, and on that provision, the bill fails the test international observers have set since 2009.

India Relations: Frozen Over Hasina

Foreign ministry official AKM Shahidul Karim said on 16 August that Prime Minister Tarique Rahman would not visit India until New Delhi extradites Sheikh Hasina. India has called the request “under examination” and asked for “reciprocity” in ties. Trade engagement continues underneath the freeze, including proposed joint task forces with the Confederation of Indian Industry.

Our take: The public linkage of a visit to Hasina’s extradition is a significant hardening of Dhaka’s position. The relationship is frozen politically while trade and intelligence cooperation continue underneath, a contradiction that is sustainable for now, but not indefinitely.

Also This Week

A suspected hydrogen sulphide leak at Ferdous Steel Ship Recycling Yard in Sitakunda killed at least nine workers on 14 August, the first such fatal incident in Bangladesh’s shipbreaking history; the yard’s environmental clearance had expired two days earlier, and no case has yet been filed against the owners.

IED recoveries and militant arrests surged, with at least 16 explosives found in Savar and Ashulia in two weeks. Police have linked Neo-JMB to 11 incidents since December 2025, but investigators are also weighing whether other actors are exploiting the panic.

Parliament elects the country’s 23rd president on 20 August; BNP’s Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir is certain to win, and the cabinet reshuffle that follows matters more than the vote itself.

The government marked six months in office on 17 August, having restored political stability while energy, security and governance tests mount. July inflation eased to 8.32%, the lowest since November 2025, while remittances rose 23.8% year-on-year to $4.247 billion. The NBR missed its FY26 revenue target by roughly $7.1 billion, the tenth consecutive year of shortfalls.

KAS Murshid is an economist and former director-general of Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies (BIDS).

This is an abridged version of K A S Murshid’s weekly Dhaka Brief.
Read the full version: The Dhaka Brief

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The election and investiture of Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir as the twenty-third president of Bangladesh was a two-day occasion of great national comity. Emotional scenes in the parliament and tributes from the opposition highlighted another rare moment where the July Uprising coalition came together. He is being hailed as a guardian of democracy.

However, this all-round amity marks a temporary pause at the end of a two-year period when Mr. Alamgir was one of the principal targets of unrelenting lies, vilification, and calumny by right-wing populists. Many of the political luminaries, who are now expressing satisfaction with Mr. Alamgir’s ascension to presidency, were active participants or cheerleaders in that vilification campaign.

To anyone whose memory of public affairs goes back beyond a few weeks, this turnabout may seem curious, but this represents dynamics of one of the main strands of post-July politics by the right-wing.

The post-July immediate political settlement is the reason for these attacks. The main lines of attack were that Mr. Alamgir is a stooge of India, he is soft on Awami League and protecting them from just retribution, and he is conspiring with the powers that be to subvert the “spirit of July.”

This is doubly ironic because all throughout his long tenure as BNP’s Secretary General during the Awami regime, the regime propagandists cast aspersions on his Freedom Fighter credentials and connected him with politics of his father during the Pakistan period. And second only to Begum Khaleda Zia, Mr. Alamgir was an iconic face of victimhood of the Awami regime’s relentless oppression of political rivals.

Right-wing activists from abroad and home led these attacks and their minions amplified them. They were the vanguard of a vast right-wing network that rapidly constituted immediately after Hasina fell.

This network consisted of right-wing activists, intellectuals, significant part of leadership of Jamaat and Shibir, significant part of leadership of NCP, a patron cabal within the Interim Government and a faction of BNP.

Shafiqur Rahman is a Political Economist and Executive Director of Bangladesh Research Analysis & Information Network (BRAIN).

Read more: The Guardian President and His Feckless Detractors

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As my editor and I waited at the Emerald cafe in Banani, Runa Khan, the veteran social worker, walked in, wearing a peachy-pink saree. She greeted Mr Sobhan with a warm hug before turning to me with an equally generous full, bright smile.

She was not the image I initially carried of the founder of Friendship. She quickly dismantled the stereotype of the understated Jhola Wala that we have long lived with, when the thought of NGO workers comes to mind.

Given that She and Mr. Sobhan clearly shared a deep sense of camaraderie, the conversation effortlessly oscillated between familial history and professional milestones.

Pausing to order herself a beverage, she grabbed a waitress’s hand and endearingly asked: “What can you get me to drink?” ditching the menu entirely.

While initially asking for some apple juice with mint leaves, she settled for just apple juice, not to inconvenience the waitress, once she was informed that mint leaves were not available.

Ultimately, the waitress came back with mint leaves just as she wanted.

As she sipped on her apple juice, she said: “We come from a privileged background, probably from the oldest family in the country. We are always in a glass bubble.” She said, as she gave us an introduction to her roots.

She does not shy away from acknowledging that her surroundings and upbringing may have been a barrier to reaching the poorest and most in need.

Michella Chowdhury is Senior Editorial Assistant, Counterpoint.

Read more: ‘Sustainability? I want to make people’s lives sustainable.’

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Eposode 9 at a glance-

• Discussion on Bangladesh’s first Doppler Poll and what the survey aims to measure.

• Examination of what the poll numbers reveal about public opinion.

• Comparison between the Doppler Poll and other surveys conducted in Bangladesh.

• Insights into why different surveys can produce different results.

• A conversation on polling, data, and understanding public sentiment.

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The Middle East is entering a new security era. The US-Israel war with Iran, which began on February 28, has not only destabilized the region but also prompted traditional US partners to reconsider the assumptions underlying their security arrangements.

Six months into the conflict, the war remains unresolved, while Gulf states have experienced the vulnerabilities of being caught between competing regional and global powers.

It is against this backdrop that Saudi Arabia, Türkiye, and Pakistan signed the Makkah Joint Defence Agreement on August 7. The agreement stipulates that an armed attack against one member will be regarded as an attack against all, and seeks to strengthen collective deterrence and defence cooperation.

Although some have described it as an Islamic NATO, the comparison should be treated cautiously. Unlike NATO, the pact has no integrated military command or comparable institutional structure.

It is better understood as an emerging framework for regional strategic cooperation and collective deterrence.

Why the Mecca Pact matters

The significance of the pact lies less in its immediate military capability than in what it represents. Saudi Arabia brings enormous economic weight and strategic influence; Türkiye brings substantial military capabilities and a growing defence industry; while Pakistan contributes extensive military experience and a nuclear deterrent. Their capabilities are complementary.

Brigadier General Mustafa Kamal Rusho (Retd) is a Research Director in Osmani Centre for Peace and Security Studies (OCPASS).

Read more: The Mecca Pact Dilemma

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On August 7, in Islam’s holiest city, the leaders of Saudi Arabia, Turkiye, and Pakistan signed the Mecca Joint Defense Agreement: a mutual defense pact declaring that an attack on any one signatory will be treated as an attack on all three.

Within days, headlines around the world had settled on a clickbait label: A new “Middle Eastern NATO” assembled to contain Iran. That framing is clickbait friendly because it is simple, but it misses what is actually happening. This agreement is not primarily targeted at Iran. It is the visible tip of a much larger and long running realignment of the Muslim world, one that will outlast the current Iran war by decades and reorganize alliances across three continents.

What the Agreement Actually States

Stripped of commentary, the Mecca Agreement mirrors NATO’s Article 5 logic: collective defense, combined defense policy, and new mechanisms for the three country’s defense ministers, foreign ministers, and military chiefs to coordinate directly.

The signatories commit to joint military exercises across land, air and sea, and to cooperation on air defense, artificial intelligence, electronic warfare and unmanned systems. Their defense industries will work more closely on research and production. On paper, this is a conventional mutual defense pact, and its precise mechanics are, frankly, the least interesting part of the story.

The Pakistani Nuclear Equation is Missing

What is genuinely notable is what the agreement omits. There is no explicit reference to Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal, and no formal extension of a nuclear umbrella to Saudi Arabia or Turkiye, unlike NATO’s structure, which extends America’s nuclear guarantee to its members.

Shafqat Aziz is a barrister (Lincoln’s Inn) and an accredited Civil-Commercial Mediator (ADR-ODR International).

Read more: No, the Mecca Pact is not Muslim NATO

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Every day across Bangladesh, the rhythm of commerce is dictated not by consumer demand, but by acute energy shortages. From heavy industrial corridors to everyday households, national productivity is being systematically choked.

The crisis is no longer theoretical: Across major industrial hubs like Gazipur, widespread gas pressure drops force scores of factories routinely to halt operations or run well below capacity. Leading conglomerates across manufacturing, processing, textile dyeing, and steel production face recurring operational shutdowns, leaving downstream manufacturers without crucial raw materials.

In major urban centers like Dhaka and Chittagong, pipeline gas supply to residential kitchens has dwindled to a trickle. At the same time, rural regions remain burdened by a long-standing lack of pipeline infrastructure.

The underlying cause is clear: Bangladesh’s domestic natural gas reserves are rapidly depleting, and the state-run energy apparatus remains ill-equipped to handle the fallout.

For decades, natural gas was Bangladesh’s quiet economic driver, supplying roughly 60% of its electricity grid. But indigenous production from aging onshore fields like Bibiyana and Titas has plummeted to approximately 1,620 million cubic feet per day (mmcfd) -- a steep decline against a national demand exceeding 3,800 mmcfd.

To bridge the widening gap, the country turned to imported Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG), procuring 410 to 800 mmcfd through floating regasification terminals. Yet, this reliance on volatile global spot markets exposed the nation’s fragile fiscal reserves to severe commodity price spikes, leaving a massive daily deficit.

Policy missteps have hampered Bangladesh’s attempt to replenish its gas reserves via offshore exploration.

Read more: Fixing Bangladesh’s Broken Energy System Before the Lights Go Out

Mohammed Mia is an investment executive and community leader focused on democracy, economic empowerment, and US-Bangladesh engagement. A co-founder of UBUI, he brings two decades of experience across global finance, civic leadership, and diaspora-driven institution building.

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Toma Mirza has spent the better part of 15 years becoming one of the most recognizable faces in Bangladeshi entertainment. She debuted in 2010, won the National Film Award for Best Supporting Actress in 2015 for her role in Nodijon, and in the last few years has headlined Surongo and Daagi, two of the biggest box office successes Dhallywood has had in recent memory.

In a country of over 170 million people, there are very few faces more widely recognized than hers. That is not incidental to this story. It is, as we’ll get to, the entire reason a bank wanted her.

That is the actress who took a job as Assistant Vice President in Brand and Communications at a bank, and Bangladesh decided this was the emergency of the week. Not the collapsed banks. Not the six lakh crore taka in bad loans sitting on the country’s books. An actress took a desk job, and suddenly everyone had a strong opinion on what real banking competence looks like.

None of this is new, and pretending otherwise is the first dishonesty in this whole controversy. Anyone who grew up in Bangladesh in the 1980s and 90s watched this exact arrangement play out with sportspeople instead of actors.

Our footballer Aslam held a position at Sadharon Bima Corporation for years. Almost every major hockey player of that generation passed through Bangladesh Biman at some point in his career. Nobody assumed these men were underwriting insurance policies or managing an airline’s cash flow between matches.

Faruq Hasan is a development worker and a political analyst.

Read more: We Found Someone to Blame for the Banking Crisis. Her Name is Toma Mirza.

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In late July 2026, Bangladesh quietly attached its name to a Saudi-led multi-national maritime defense alliance covering the Red Sea, the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, and the Gulf of Aden. At first glance, the commitment appears negligible: No Bangladeshi frigates are heading to distant waters, nor does any treaty bind Dhaka to fight another nation’s war.

Measured purely by military deployment, the gesture is close to symbolic. Yet, the size of a commitment is a poor guide to its geo-political weight. Under Prime Minister Tarique Rahman, this decision signals a broader, consequential evolution in Bangladeshi foreign policy -- a transition from five decades of cautious, declaratory non-alignment toward a risk-tolerant, active multi-alignment.

To understand the scope of Dhaka’s move, one must separate political rhetoric from operational reality.

Formed alongside 13 other nations -- including Turkey, Pakistan, Egypt, and key Gulf states -- the coalition was established to protect commercial shipping against asymmetric drone and missile threats, particularly following the escalation that saw the closure of the Strait of Hormuz and the subsequent Houthi blockade on Red Sea shipping.

Crucially, the alliance is not a NATO-style mutual defense pact. Its founding declaration explicitly reserves operational participation as a sovereign decision for each member state.

For Bangladesh, whose naval capacity cannot support distant force projection, membership remains largely normative. Dhaka has lent its name, a seat at the table, and a commitment to information-sharing, effectively buying into the political architecture of the arrangement while committing virtually nothing to its frontline execution.

Namia Akhtar is an anthropologist and has previously worked at the Embassy of the Netherlands in Dhaka, the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), and the European External Action Service (EEAS).

Read more: The Red Sea and the Remaking of Bangladeshi Foreign Policy

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Bangladesh has entered a political period in which opinion polling carries greater significance than before. Elections are competitive, political identities are shifting, traditional loyalties are being tested, and voters are assessing a newly elected government against very high expectations.

In such an environment, a credible opinion poll does more than generate headlines. It provides a structured snapshot of how citizens are reconciling political hope with everyday experience.

The first Doppler Approval Rating Survey 2026 therefore deserves serious attention. Conducted among 3,443 adults across all 64 districts and eight divisions, it represents an ambitious effort to measure public attitudes approximately six months after the February election. Doppler also deserves credit for publishing substantial methodological information and for explicitly cautioning readers against overinterpreting individual figures.

The survey becomes even more informative when considered alongside another major national study, the International Republican Institute’s National Survey of Bangladesh, conducted between May 16 and June 24 among 5,000 adults.

The comparison reveals an important pattern. On several broad measures of national sentiment and government performance, the two surveys are remarkably close. On more specific issues, however, they diverge considerably. Understanding the reasons for those differences is essential to interpreting the findings responsibly.

Dr Mohammad Nakibur Rahman is a professor of Finance at the University of North Carolina and the US spokesperson for Jamaat-e-Islami Bangladesh.

Read more: The First Doppler Poll: What the Numbers Tell Us and What They Do Not

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On August 20, the Bangladeshi Parliament is expected to elect Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir as the 23rd President of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh. BNP nominated him for the office following President Mohammed Shahabuddin’s resignation, and he has since resigned as the party’s Secretary General and from its National Standing Committee.

His election will mark the culmination of a public life that began in the classrooms of Dhaka College more than five decades ago. He deserves the country’s congratulations, and its gratitude.

As we mark this moment at the height of his career, it is worth remembering what preceded it, and two photographs remember it best. The first is from December 2022, when police raided BNP’s central office at Naya Paltan ahead of a planned rally, sealed the premises, and arrested party workers by the hundreds.

In the image that circulated around the world, the Secretary General of the country’s largest opposition party sat alone on the sidewalk in front of his own party office, barred from entering it, composed and unbowed. A single man seated quietly on the pavement, with the thuggish machinery of a repressive police state arrayed all around him, became the enduring emblem of an opposition that could be locked out of its office but would not give up.

The second photograph is from October 2023, when he stood addressing BNP’s grand rally in Dhaka as Hasina’s police attacked it in flagrant violation of every democratic norm, dispersing a lawful assembly of hundreds of thousands by force and jailing the party’s leadership, Mirza Alamgir among them, in the days that followed.

Ehteshamul Haque is a lawyer who focuses on technology transactions. He teaches corporate law at American University.

Read more: Democracy Returns to Banga Bhaban

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The government’s decision to introduce women-only pink buses in Dhaka is a welcome one.

The initiative, which will be operated entirely by women, is meant to make public transport safer and more comfortable for women commuters. Nine buses are initially planned across eight routes.

There is little doubt that such a service can make a difference.

For many women, boarding a crowded bus is not merely an inconvenience. It can mean having to remain alert throughout the journey, endure unwanted attention or physical contact, and calculate whether speaking up will create more trouble than remaining silent.

A dedicated service offers an immediate measure of relief. More importantly, it signals that women’s safety in public transport is a matter the government takes seriously.

But the pink buses must not inadvertently become an argument for keeping women away from every other bus.

A woman’s right to safety cannot depend on whether she has managed to catch a pink bus. She must remain equally entitled to board an ordinary city bus, at any hour and on any route, without being harassed.

Read more: The Pink Bus Test

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Episode 27 at a glance:

• The reasons behind the latest cabinet reshuffle.

• What the changes reveal about the government’s priorities.

• Assessing the government’s performance as it approaches 180 days.

• The challenges facing the new ministers.

• Public expectations and the government’s political standing.

• What the reshuffle could mean for the months ahead.

• Jon and Zafar discuss the broader political landscape and what comes next.

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I keep stopping as I write this.

Some truths are difficult not only because they are private, but because returning to them means sitting face to face with a much younger version of yourself. Even now, when I return to that child, my eyes fill with tears.

Still, I am writing.

Not for pity. I am writing because countless girls, boys, women, and men carry unspoken histories inside their bodies. We have wrapped the body, blood, desire, sexuality, and abuse in so much silence that sometimes the person who has been harmed does not even know what language to use for what happened to them.

I did not learn about this pain from a distance.

I do not remember exactly how old I was -- six, perhaps seven. I only know I was too young for words like love, desire, and consent to have entered my world.

It happened in Japan, with an older white man whom, for whatever reason, my family trusted.

I do not remember the room. I do not remember the day. I do not remember how I came to be alone with him. Sometimes I think I may have been on a moving bus, because the memory still carries a strange sense of speed, of everything rushing past. Was something actually moving, or was my small world simply swaying with terror? I do not know.

I also remember a sharp, unfamiliar smell, almost like sulphur.

Memory is strange. It does not always preserve the whole event. It erases time, place, sequence -- yet leaves behind a smell, a sense of motion, a few sensations.

But I remember the fear.

I remember him holding my hair tightly and forcing me into a sexual act I did not want, did not understand, and that no child should ever have to experience.

Anusheh Anadil is a Bangladeshi musician, artist, cultural activist, and social entrepreneur.

Read more: What the Body Does Not Forget

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Both the Grid and the Pumps

Power, Energy and Mineral Resources Minister Iqbal Hasan Mahmood told an energy conclave on July 22 that he wants all six electricity distribution companies privatised, with the prime minister’s consent already in hand. No model, timeline or first candidate has been named, and several distribution agencies reportedly learned of the plan from the press. The stated rationale is bill collection, which does not survive contact with the discoms’ own accounts: collection runs at or near full across all six, several above 100%, with government institutions among the largest defaulters.

On the fuel side, the Energy and Mineral Resources Division ordered BPC on August 6 to draft a private refined-fuel policy by August 10, effectively two working days. The sequence behind that deadline is the story. On May 24 Sayem Sobhan Anvir of Anvir Bashundhara Group sought permission for Bashundhara Oil and Gas Company to import and market over 30 lakh tonnes annually, against national demand of roughly 74 lakh. BPC’s committee, also given two working days, recommended against it on July 21. Five days later BPC chairman Rezanur Rahman was made an officer on special duty, and the corporation has had no full-time chairman since.

The likely design, borrowed from the 2023 framework, carries genuine safeguards: private refiners sell at least 60% of output to BPC at government-set prices for three years, tapering to around 50% by year five, with uniform pump prices. Entry thresholds requiring Tk5,000 crore turnover, 80 acres and a Tk250 crore bank guarantee answer the competition question rather than raising it. The text is not yet gazetted.

Our take: The fiscal case is thinner than advertised. BPC has taken no budget subsidy since around FY2014-15 and has been profitable since the March 2024 automatic pricing formula. Bangladesh has run this experiment before: renewables were opened to private capital years ago and still supply 4 to 5% of generation, because investors would not enter without sovereign payment guarantees the state kept withdrawing, restoring them only this August after 31 projects worth $6 billion were cancelled and Marubeni and Total walked away. In distribution and fuel retail the analogous guarantee is protection from price and demand risk, which shifts risk back onto the state. Delhi’s 2002 privatisation worked because bidding was competed on loss reduction against clean books, and Delhi is not typical: of 23 Indian distribution franchisees, two-thirds ceased operations. Until BERC’s tariff authority is settled in law and the policy text is public, this reads less like liberalisation than asset transfer with the risk left behind.

The LNG Contract

The Cabinet Committee on Government Purchase approved a government-to-government arrangement with Gunvor USA LLC on August 12 for 117 cargoes to 2038, priced at the Japan-Korea Marker plus 8.75 cents through 2028, then ten cargoes a year at 121% of Henry Hub plus $5.20. Former Bangladesh Public Procurement Authority chief executive Faruque Hossain has asked how a government-to-government arrangement can be executed with a private US company, noting it would be different had Washington designated Gunvor.

Our take: Frame it correctly and it reads differently. Bangladesh is not choosing American LNG on the merits; it is executing an obligation accepted in February, when the reciprocal trade agreement committed Dhaka to buy $15 billion of US LNG over 15 years plus 14 Boeing aircraft, in exchange for a one-point tariff reduction. The counterfactual was foreclosed months ago. That is what makes the procurement question sharp rather than academic.

Jute Mills Change Hands

BJMC signed 30-year leases on August 11 handing PRAN-RFL two mills and HAMKO one, with Tk 619 crore of investment and 11,629 jobs projected. Fourteen of twenty designated mills are now leased, but only seven are producing. Note what PRAN-RFL plans to build on jute land: knitwear, denim, footwear, toys and fibreboard. This is industrial real estate being recycled rather than a jute revival, which is defensible policy but should be described accurately.

Delhi, Quietly

RAW chief Parag Jain arrived in Dhaka on August 9 with a four-member delegation, having come directly from China. The visit coincided with High Commissioner Dinesh Trivedi’s meeting with Prime Minister Tarique Rahman, who said a conducive environment was needed to improve ties, his first remarks attaching a condition. Intelligence cooperation continues beneath the political freeze over Sheikh Hasina’s extradition.

The Numbers

Inflation fell to 8.32% in July from 9.16% in June, the lowest since November 2025, with food easing to 7.16% and non-food sticky at 9.28%. Remittances reached $4.247 billion between July 1 and August 11, up 23.8% year-on-year. The NBR collected Tk 4.15 lakh crore in FY2025-26 against a revised target of Tk 5.03 lakh crore, a tenth consecutive shortfall, and faces a FY27 target requiring 45.38% growth.

Watching: The presidential election on August 20, the first contested vote in 35 years; the gazetted fuel policy text; and whether BERC’s tariff authority is clarified before any grid sale.

KAS Murshid is an economist and former director-general of Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies (BIDS).

This is an abridged version of K A S Murshid’s weekly Dhaka Brief.
Read the full version: The Dhaka Brief