Research Event

Event participants

K. Anis Ahmed, Publisher, Dhaka Tribune and Bangla Tribune; Author of Good Night, Mr. Kissinger, Co-director, Dhaka Literary Festival
Meenakshi Ganguly, South Asia Director, Human Rights Watch
Chair: Ed Cumming, Writer, The Independent

Bangladeshis in 2017 suddenly emerged as one of the top migrant groups entering Europe illegally. While Europe is a new destination, Bangladeshi labor migration has been an important part of the country's development since the 1970s, with growing numbers heading abroad, largely to the Gulf Cooperation Council countries. This article explores and contextualizes the new phenomenon of Bangladeshi migration to Europe.

Winning a rickshaw in a race sponsored by the OM sports ministry team in Bangladesh changes Anwar's life and his family's life.

CNA Staff, Apr 21, 2020 / 02:19 pm (CNA).- Indigenous rights groups are warning that many families in Bangladesh who have lost jobs and income because of the coronavirus pandemic are not yet receiving aid, and many are facing starvation.

A joint statement from three Bangladeshi indigenous rights groups warns that the vast majority of those living in rural areas are day laborers, and are now out of work.

Bangladesh, a low lying county situated just east of India, has 3,400 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and has recorded 110 deaths. Officials say actual numbers are likely higher due to a lack of testing kits.

Romen Kisku, a Catholic father of five and member of the Santal ethnic group, told UCA News that his family has received a small amount of food aid from a charity, but he worries it will not be enough to feed his 10-member family. He and his family live in the northern region of Dinajpur, and he said he hopes to find work in a neighboring region as a paddy farmer.

“Three men of our family are day laborers and our income pays for everything. Now we cannot go to work and government aid has not reached us. The minimal aid was too little for our family, so we have to go on starving if things don’t improve,” Kisku told UCA News.

Ethnic-minority Santal people live mostly in northwestern Bangladesh as well as parts of India and Nepal. About eight percent are Christian.

Bangladesh has a low percentage of Catholics— as low as 0.3% in some areas— and the Catholic aid group Caritas is struggling to raise funds for the poor.

“We have made an appeal to people in our parishes and areas, so they come up with whatever they can to assist those having hard times during this crisis. The suffering of people will intensify if the crisis lingers, so we need to help people any way possible,” Bishop Sebastian Tudu of Dinajpur told UCA News.

Though the government and charitable organizations are mobilizing to provide relief, the remoteness of the areas where many indigenous people live mean that in some areas, very few families have yet received government assistance.

Though Catholic Relief Services is active in providing aid in refugee camps in Bangladesh, a CRS spokesperson confirmed to CNA that CRS is not currently active in the Dinajpur region.

The branch of Caritas in the southeastern port city of Chittagong has taken two emergency cash handouts of 2,250 taka (US$27) and 1,547 taka to support 950 families on the hills, UCA News reported.

Bangladesh’s government started food relief and subsidized food sales at the end of March, aiming to support about 50 million poor and needy people across the country, UCA News reports.

Bangladesh imposed a nationwide lockdown March 26, with a restriction of no more than five people allowed to congregate in prayer in a mosque, the New York Post reported. Despite this, on April 18 a crowd of some 100,000 people gathered for a funeral in Brahmanbaria, in the eastern part of the country.

Drowning is a leading cause of death for children in low- and middle-income countries. However, few childhood mortality reduction programs target drowning because of a lack of evidence on costs and effectiveness of these interventions.

This study presents the cost-effectiveness results of a low-cost injury and drowning prevention program in Bangladesh. We show that child care centers and swimming lessons are highly cost-effective interventions that could be scaled to other countries. (Read the full article)

In inverse proportion to the steadily declining under-5 mortality rate, prevalence of childhood disability has doubled in the past decade in Bangladesh. The Rapid Neurodevelopmental Assessment (RNDA) tool has been shown to be reliable and valid for assessment of a range of neurodevelopmental impairments (NDIs) and disabilities in children younger than 2 years. There is currently a lack of professional expertise for assessing NDIs in 2- to 5-year-old children in low- and middle-income countries.

We developed a set of instruments as part of the RNDA for administration by a single professional with experience in child development to assess >2- to 5-year-old children for a wide range of NDIs. The tool was acceptable to mothers, interrater reliability was high, and proportions of children with NDIs were elevated among the lowest income groups and in stunted children, demonstrating discriminant validity. The RNDA was valid for identifying >2- to 5-year-old children with a range of NDIs, especially in cognitive, behavior, and motor functions. Validity of the RNDA for vision, hearing, and seizure disorders needs further research. (Read the full article)

More than 200 million children <5 years old in low- and middle-income countries are not reaching their potential in cognitive development because of factors associated with poverty.

Poverty affects children’s cognition as early as 7 months and continues to increase until 5 years of age. It is mainly mediated by parental education, birth weight, home stimulation throughout the 5 years, and growth in the first 24 months. (Read the full article)

After a fire devastates a Bangladesh slum, the OM team distributes food, cooking items, plastic tarps and hope to hurting families.

Severe flooding is affecting families and communities across Bangladesh's districts. Families who are already poor have lost everything and are in desperate need of emergency assistance and hope.

An Air India flight carrying 129 Indian nationals from Dhaka, Bangladesh, landed at Delhi airport today as part of Vande Bharat Mission to bring back stranded Indians from different countries.

Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) Additional Director General (administration) Nasima Sultana said that two of the deceased were over 60 years while one was aged between 41 and 50 years.

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Wednesday that countries must also be able to manage any risk of the disease being imported into their territories, and communities should be fully educated to adjust to what will be a "new norm".

While Bangladesh captain Akbar Ali apologised for the "unfortunate incident", his Indian counterpart Priyam Garg felt it is something that should not have happened.

1 Seychellois Rupee = 4.9507 Bangladeshi Taka

1 Trinidad and Tobago Dollar = 12.5777 Bangladeshi Taka

1 Swedish Krona = 8.6978 Bangladeshi Taka

1 Slovak Koruna = 3.8275 Bangladeshi Taka

1 Serbian Dinar = 0.7837 Bangladeshi Taka

1 Polish Zloty = 20.2139 Bangladeshi Taka

1 Qatari Rial = 23.3435 Bangladeshi Taka

1 Indian Rupee = 1.1257 Bangladeshi Taka

1 Pakistani Rupee = 0.5324 Bangladeshi Taka

1 Sierra Leonean Leone = 0.0086 Bangladeshi Taka

1 New Taiwan Dollar = 2.8467 Bangladeshi Taka

1 Thai Baht = 2.6544 Bangladeshi Taka

1 Turkish Lira = 11.9895 Bangladeshi Taka

1 Singapore Dollar = 60.1646 Bangladeshi Taka

1 Mauritian Rupee = 2.1404 Bangladeshi Taka

1 Nepalese Rupee = 0.7028 Bangladeshi Taka

1 Bangladeshi Taka = 14.0009 Iraqi Dinar

1 Bangladeshi Taka = 61.0569 Zambian Kwacha

1 Bangladeshi Taka = 0.2159 South African Rand

1 Bangladeshi Taka = 2.9458 Yemeni Rial

1 Bangladeshi Taka = 7.1181 CFA Franc BCEAO

1 Bangladeshi Taka = 275.3178 Vietnamese Dong

1 Bangladeshi Taka = 0.1175 Venezuelan Bolivar Fuerte

1 Bangladeshi Taka = 118.9371 Uzbekistan Som

1 Bangladeshi Taka = 0.5076 Uruguayan Peso

1 Bangladeshi Taka = 0.0118 US Dollar

1 Bangladeshi Taka = 44.7125 Ugandan Shilling

1 Bangladeshi Taka = 0.3158 Ukrainian Hryvnia

1 Bangladeshi Taka = 27.2276 Tanzanian Shilling

1 Bangladeshi Taka = 0.3513 New Taiwan Dollar

1 Bangladeshi Taka = 0.0795 Trinidad and Tobago Dollar

1 Bangladeshi Taka = 0.0834 Turkish Lira

1 Bangladeshi Taka = 0.0343 Tunisian Dinar

1 Bangladeshi Taka = 0.3767 Thai Baht

1 Bangladeshi Taka = 0.103 Salvadoran Colon

1 Bangladeshi Taka = 116.0075 Sierra Leonean Leone