BNP Seeks to Emulate Thailand's Red Shirts
May 18, 2010 3 min. read

The opposition BNP might have learned the wrong lesson from recent news of political unrest in Thailand. Perhaps that is why senior members of the party have urged Khaleda Zia to endorse a spate of popular unrest modeled on Thailand’s Red-shirts movement. Happily, saner minds have argued against that position claiming that the party isn’t […]

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Bangladesh Contests Illegal Border Fence With India
May 16, 2010 1 min. read

One needn’t be reminded that India and Bangladesh share a border and that there are often skirmishes along that winding strip of land.  So, as if to unnecessarily remind, the government of Bangladesh charged India with constructing a fence in violation of international law. Perhaps if there weren’t quite as much credibility and mutually advantage […]

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Chakma Political Parties Infighting
May 16, 2010 1 min. read

Two activists of the Parbatya Chattagram Jana Sanghati Samity (PCJSS) were gunned down in the Chittagong Hill Tracts. The victims were young Chakma men, the indigenous people of the area who have long sought an independent state.  Though the two men are thought to be members of the PCJSS, there remains some dispute about their […]

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BNP's Protest Program is a Long Time Coming
May 15, 2010 1 min. read

There is this variant of political programs that exist only in so far one can bandy it about, raging, fulminating as if the program itself were sufficient to move hearts and mind.  So it is, that the BNP has long launched the anti-government program that never seems to come about.   The date of the […]

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Passion of the Redshirts: When the Samurai Falls
May 15, 2010 5 min. read

Over the last couple of days things have escalated again in Bangkok.  It is unclear what ignited the latest round of violence, but it appears that Wednesday’s rejection of Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva’s proposed compromise, after its initial tentative acceptance by the Red Shirts, caused the government to run out of patience.  What is clear […]

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Bureaucracy, Knowledge and Traffic Congestion in Bangladesh
May 14, 2010 3 min. read

This is a bit like sampling I suspect, but I happen to think that the World Bank’s blog on South Asia is magnificent.  The breadth of intellectual and informed discussion supported by logic and empirics is wonderfully awe inspiring. Well, certainly to me, if no one else.  But I’d suggest that if you read this […]

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The Consequences of Bangladesh's Power Crisis
May 13, 2010 3 min. read

I’ve been writing on Bangladesh’s power and water crisis. Admittedly I’ve been playing catch-up, because the story has been written up in The Daily Star and other news outlets. Nevertheless, it’s not a story that has reached an international audience, principally because the story, though a milling centipede does not have legs. No one has […]

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Recovering the US-Japan Alliance?
May 12, 2010 1 min. read

An approaching deadline doesn’t permit me time to pick this apart, so I’ll leave that to you. A 12 Step Recovery Plan for the US-Japan Alliance by Michael Green and Nick Szechenyi of the CSIS Japan Chair: 1) Don’t give up on Futenma (Yet.) 2) Call a Time Out if the Deal Collapses 3) Damage […]

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SAARC III – Challenges and Prospects
May 12, 2010 5 min. read

South Asia is seen as a geo-strategic, geo-economic unit by some and a single civilizational whole by others. The program of regional cooperation was expected to benefit immensely from the historical and cultural ties connecting people across national borders in South Asia. Such assessments created positive possibilities regarding cooperation in the region. Despite differences over […]

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Dhaka's Water Crisis And The Question of Political Inefficiency
May 12, 2010 2 min. read

It’s well known that Bangladesh and Pakistan suffer from chronic power shortages.  Those two countries simply do not produce enough electricity to meet the demand of their respective populations.  Along with that quagmire, Bangladesh, particularly its capital, Dhaka, has been suffering a terrible water shortage.  This is due, principally, because of the prior electricity shortage. […]

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