Democracy in the making is always a messy affair. Until democratic institutions are fully established and people’s psyche has been fully molded to democratic morals and standards, the society remain in fluid form. Meanwhile, anti-social elements try to take undue advantage of the situation and cost of the country is its stability, prosperity and integrity. Pakistan is passing through this critical phase of its life. In the last sixty years, we have seen a constant tug of war between the Islamists and the so-called secular elements of society regarding the ideology of Pakistan. The warring camps have shown no meeting ground; one asking for theocracy and the other demanding complete separation of religion from the statecraft. The rise of violence, rather terrorism as a tool in advancing political objectives is phenomenal. Although there isn’t anything new in it but for Pakistan’s nascent democracy it poses the gravest challenge. The rise of obscurantism and instrumental use of Islam is eating out at the very heart of Pakistan ideology. Currently Pakistan is paying dearly in men and material in Swat valley for the ill-thought, ill conceived and rash policies of its erstwhile military dictators. (more…)
Archive for the ‘International Relations’ Category
Swat Valley Crisis: Pakistan’s Hunt for Political Will
Thursday, July 2nd, 2009Bangladesh in the Web of Asian Highway: A Diffident Landscape
Thursday, July 2nd, 2009
No nation can remain aloof in the age of globalization. It must go forward with any gloabalised network for the greater interest of socio-economic development of the country. All transactions of trade, investment, and export-import have undeniably depended on the complex web of communication and transport network. Bangladesh with a long tale of mystification recently has decided to join with the grand Asian Highway system. The network of Asian Highway, known as the Great Asian Highway, is a set-up of 141,000 kilometers of standardized roadways crisscrossing 32 Asian countries. Being a cooperative project among countries of Asia and Europe and the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) with an intent to advance the highway systems in Asia, it is one among the three pillars of Asian Land Transport Infrastructure Development (ALTID) project endorsed by the ESCAP at its forty-eighth session in 1992. This $44 billion AH network was initiated in 1959 in order to promote the development of international road transport in the region. A major share of the funding comes from the advanced capitalist countries as well as international agencies such as the Asian Development Bank. The project is programmed for winding up in 2010. A total of US$26 billion has already been invested in the improvement and upgrading of the Asian Highway network. However, there is still a shortfall of US$18 billion. UNESCAP secretariat is now working with its member countries to identify financial sources for the development of the network to improve their road transport capacity and efficiency. (more…)
Thailand-Bangladesh Relations
Monday, April 6th, 2009
Bangladesh has always attached immense importance to Thailand, the emerging economic tiger and a prime investment paradise of Asia. Since the inception of Thailand’s Look West policy, bilateral relations between two countries has deepened and endured. Closer ties of friendship and constructive engagement in economic and security cooperation made Thailand a time tested and reliable partner of Bangladesh. Official visit of President Zia to Thailand in 1978 and Prime Minister Thaksin Sinawatra to Bangladesh in 2004 and high-level Ministerial exchange consolidated political as well as diplomatic ties between these two BIMSTEC countries. (more…)
INTERFACE IN THE SECURITY REALM OF BANGLADESH
Saturday, March 21st, 2009
The contemporary security concerns of Bangladesh emerge as a complex phenomenon. Although the conventional interpretation of security emphasizing on power armaments, weaponry all remain valid, but they by themselves are no longer able to explain a nation’s threats of multiple dimensions. Non-conventional sources of insecurity such as economic matters and environmental deteriorations have not been placed in their proper perspective to incorporate such assessment into the national security agenda. National defense establishments are useless against these new threats. “Neither bloated military budget nor highly sophisticated weapons system can halt the environmental despoliation or economic influence of the industrially advanced countries over LDCs. Therefore, an interface in the domain of Bangladesh security preoccupations is likely to be apparent setting conventional and non-conventional security in an image of confrontation. (more…)
War on Terror: what’s next?
Friday, March 20th, 2009
For a millennium, the struggle for mankind’s destiny was between Christianity and Islam; in the 21st century, it may be so again. The end of the cold war and the collapse of the USSR have given added salience to such assessments and the terrorist attack of 9/11 led to the claim that the spread of political Islam marks the onset of a new cold war where the western liberal democratic norms are pitted against the religious revivalists norms of Islamic monotheism. The USA and other western powers crafted their foreign policy in terms of threat perceptions of the Muslims world as the front of monolithic political forces that needed to be contained wherever possible and destroyed when the circumstances allowed. The United States responded to the attacks of 11 September 2001 by declaring an unjust war-Global War on Terror (GWOT) to contain what they call axis of evil. In face of western foreign policy responses US invasion on Afghanistan and Iraq, US-Iran stand off and continued media portrayals of Islamic threat, the Muslim world, has appeared, indeed, in a danger of extinction. How much they have to pay for such an imaginary and perceived western hostility is really an important query of may warm hearted peace loving Muslims around the world. The fifth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks is forthcoming in a period when the rhetoric of the global war on terror is being reframed as that of a “long war” against “Islamic Revivalism”. But how long the bloody war is likely to inflate? (more…)