Visiting Bangladesh

I visited Bangladesh last year for few months but had to leave quite abruptly before the presidential election in the United States. Bangladesh went through a revolution last year and I was unexpectedly lucky to witness it all being unfolded in front of me. The crimes against civilians by the government and the courage of the youth to stand against all the odds are all inspiring.

However, as the nation came out from the bloody revolution, it left it's mark pretty much everywhere and it will take sometime to recover. Economically, it was a major hit for a nation like Bangladesh. Export volume decreased, some FDI left the country, government owned vehicles were burned, infrastructures were vandalized or destroyed and not to mention many lives has been lost.

Once the care-taker government led by Prof. Muhammad Yunus took over the charge, fixing badly battered economy was one of his major task. The banking system was broken and was in a pretty bad shape. People who owed big sum of money to the banks, left the country right away. Those are the people who used their personal relationship, connection with political party and power to borrow money from the banks using under-valued or fake companies as collateral. Some even laundered money to overseas.

According to a white paper published by the Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD), some US$16 billion was siphoned off Bangladesh annually during Hasina's regime. That's almost US$240 billion that has been taken out from the country's economy. It's a pretty big number for a country like Bangladesh. So, the government is trying to bring the money back to the country. Exactly how long will it take for Bangladesh to recover from this mess, is still not clear but the process has to begin at certain point.

During the revolution, those who caused the bloodshed of the innocent civilians last year must face the justice system. This is another mandate of the care-taker government. Bringing certain amendments to the system of the nation is another important task that this government has been assigned to. Various commission has been formed to submitted their expert opinions and then there will be discussion on those ideas to come up with something suitable and acceptable by all.

Since I left Bangladesh last year, quite a few things has already changed within the past couple of months. I am not saying whatever has happened are all encouraging but the country is heading somewhat in positive direction and I am quite optimistic about it. I am visiting Bangladesh once again to see all the little changes and hopefully to capture some of that on my camera.