Bangladesh is located in South Asia, also known as the Indian subcontinent, comprising Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan, and Sri Lanka. The country, the largest delta in the world, stands on the Bay of Bengal.  

Not long ago Bangladesh was the richest country in the world. The French traveler, Barnier, who came to the Indian subcontinent in 1658, wrote, “Egypt has been represented in every age as the first and most fruitful country in the world but the knowledge I have acquired of Bengal (Bangladesh) during two visits paid to this kingdom inclines me to believe that the pre-eminence ascribed to Egypt is rather due to Bengal.”  

Seeing the wealth of Bangladesh, Mogul Emperor Aurongajeb (1660-1715 AD) once expressed his opinion about this country as “the paradise of nations.  the Subah of Bengal” (“Soobah jenaat ul Belaod Bangla”.)  

Lord Cornwallis, the British governor general to British-India   (1786-93 AD), wrote in a letter about Bangladesh, “England is fortunate enough to establish dominion over one of the richest regions of the earth.” 

When the country was ‘Shonar Bangla’ (golden Bengal), in ancient and medieval times, many big cities like Gaura, Pundranagar (Mahasthangarh), Sonargown, Wari-bateshwar, Biratnagar etc flourished on this land.  

The antiquity of Pundranagar goes back to the 4th century BC; if not it is much older than assumed now based on the archaeological findings discovered till date.  When the city was destroyed by a fire in the middle of the sixteenth century AD, its area was about 75 (seventy-five) sq km. When the Great fire of London destroyed it in 1666, it was then a small township and its area was about 540 acres.  

From the ancient time to the middle of British period (1757 – 1947 AD) Bangladesh used to produce the finest cotton fabric, the Muslin. The fabric was so fine that a 12-yard long Muslin could be put in a fingering. The army of the king of Bangladesh (Gangaridai) rebuffed the advancement of the army of Emperor Alexander toward India proper.  

The exploitation, which took place during the long colonial rule, destroyed the economy of Bangladesh. In 1971 the country has achieved its independence. The independence has brought the opportunity to the people of Bangladesh to rebuild the economy of their country. In its Global Economics Paper, issue number 134 published on December 1, 2005, Goldman Sachs economic researchers of the USA have placed Bangladesh among the “Next 11” countries after Brazil, Russia, India, and China (BRIC), which have the potential to be substantial economies in the next decades.

The World Bank fact sheet 2005-2006 says that Bangladesh is tenth most rapidly growing economy among 31 large developing countries.

According to the Goldman Sachs, if Bangladesh remains on track in economic reforms it could become the 22nd largest economy in the world in the year of 2025.

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Some unique features of Bangladesh

• Bangladesh is the largest and youngest delta in the world. The delta stands on the world's largest bay, the Bay of Bengal (Bangladesh).

• Paharpur Mahavihara (The Great Monastery of Paharpur) is the single largest Buddhist monastery in the world. The monastery was built in late 8th century AD, now a ruin and World Heritage.

• Cox's Bazar sea beach is the unbroken longest sea beach in the world.

• Sundarbans Mangrove Forest is the largest mangrove forest in the world. Two-third of the forest belongs to Bangladesh and the rest one-third, to India. The Sundarbans, a World Heritage, contains the largest wild tiger population.

•   Tourist attractions in Bangladesh                     

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Like the Nile valley in Egypt, Bangladesh needs annual flood, which makes the soil soft and fertile for better agriculture. The annual flood does not affect people’s life adversely. This flood also raises the land level of Bangladesh 5-6 mm a year. (Being a delta, Bagnladesh needs land raising.) In some years the flood inundates, when gets severe, about ten to twenty percent of the total area of the country. Only in every 40-50 years we experience a great flood, which inundates about 30 percent of the total land.

It  is unfortunate for Bangladesh that when the annual flood turns a little bit severe, the international media start projecting Bangladesh in such a way that the outside world thinks as if the whole country has gone under water. Many of us in Bangladesh are also responsible for such a projection of our country.

This year floodwater (2007) entered in a district town of the country, Sirajganj. Bangladesh has got 64 (sixty-four) such district towns. Some international TV channels showed the flood in Sirajganj town for days, making their viewers believe that the whole Bangladesh gone under water.

Bangladesh in UN peacekeeping operations

Over the last two decades Bangladesh has seemingly become indispensable to Un peacekeeping operations. To date about 75,000 (seventy five thousand) Bangladesh army personnel have taken part in operations ranging from demining in Eritrea to transport of refugees in Somalia to school and hospital rehabilitation efforts in Sierra Leone. At present, it has 9,850 peacekeepers in 14 missions stretching from Liberia to Georgia to Congo. It has not been a hazard-free enterprise: 15 Bangladeshi officers died in a plane crash in Benin in October 2003, while nine more were killed in a ghastly 2005 ambush by militia men in Congo. 15.06.08                      

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Pharmaceutical, shipbuilding and textile industries thriving in Bangladesh

After garments industry, the pharmaceutical, shipbuilding, and textile industries have been thriving fast in Bangladesh. It is said that ship-breaking yard at Bhatiary (Chittagong) in Bangladesh is the largest ship breaking industry in the world. Now the export oriented shipbuilding industry in the country is growing fast. Bangladesh shipyards are now building ships for Denmark, Germany, Japan and Mozambique. The country has got thousands years old long history of shipbuilding. A ship built in Bangladesh took part in the Battle of Trafalgar as a member of the British fleet.

Bangladeshi pharmaceutical companies are now exporting medicines to the UK, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Nepal, Philippines, Bhutan, Jordan, as well as to some African countries. Country's pharmaceutical companies have made inroads into the lucrative business of contract manufacturing of bulk drugs and formulations for global clients including European major pharmaceutical companies—British, German, and Dutch. There is every possibility that this industry in Bangladesh will grow bigger then its garments industry in near future.

Textile industry in Bangladesh has been growing fast as a backward linkage to its export-oriented garments industry. Denim and knit fabrics produced in Bangladesh can now meet the demand of its garments and knit industries. From the time immemorial till to the mid-nineteenth century Bangladesh and only Bangladesh used to produce the finest cotton fabric, Muslin. The Industrial Revolution in Europe as well as the colonial policy destroyed the Muslin industry in Bangladesh. The Muslin was so fine that a 3 (three) meter-long piece of it could be put in a finger-ring.                                         

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• Related news: Bangladesh exporting the first ship (May 15, 2008)

• Related news: Bangladesh Pharmaceutical companies are taking contract manufacturing from global clients (April 10, 2008)        

Software Sector in Bangladesh

Bangladesh allows 100% duty-and-tax-free import of all computer hardware and software. The government of the country provides many other fiscal and infra-structural facilities to accelerate the growth of the IT industry. All major hardware and software manufacturers such as Acer, Compaq, Dell, Digital, HP, IBM, ICL-Fujitsu, Microsoft, Novell, Oracle, SCO, Sun Microsystems, Unisys and others are represented for a long time in Bangladesh.

The IT industry in Bangladesh is growing at more than 20% a year. Among the major IT projects already done/undertaken in Bangladesh are:

• Implementing the computerized nationwide seat reservation and ticketing system for Bangladesh Railway. The system was completed in 1996 and serves nearly one million passengers each month. 

• Preparation of a national voter database. This project has been preparing and producing computerized ID cards for each of 60 million voters. The project is going to successfully end in a month or two. 

• Preparing and administering the motor vehicles and drivers registration database. The nationwide system handles more than one million registrations/renewals each year. 

• Establishing a National Data Bank. This on-going state-funded project started in 1995 plans to be the ultimate repository of all information of Bangladesh.

• Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition (SCADA) systems. All national utility bodies (power, gas, telephony etc.) have implemented or are implementing SCADA systems over their national grid networks. 

• Securities exchanges automation. There are two stock exchanges in the country both of which have implemented automated securities trading systems in 1998.

• National pre-university examination system automation. The boards of secondary and higher secondary education process more than 30 million examination papers each year through the automated OMR based computer system. 

• Multimedia multilingual encyclopedia. This national project successfully completed a multimedia and hard copy versions of encyclopedias in Bangla (Bengali) with English translation.

The software and data-processing industry in Bangladesh has had a successful track record of exporting to the USA and Europe for more than a decade now.

Human resources for the IT industry have been growing rapidly since the govt. declared this industry as a thrust sector.  More than 300,000 IT professionals are engaged in the industry.  State-sponsored "IT village" which offer high-tech offices ready for rental by software companies at preferential rates. 

• IT Policy of Bangladesh

• Foreign Investment Policy of Bangladesh  

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The geographical formation of the land of Bangladesh

About 40-50 million years ago due to the drifting of the continental plates in the oceans caused by the spinning of the earth on its axis at a very high speed — about 18.5 miles a minute,  the Indian plate and the Eurasian plate came closer and then collided head on. The Himalayan Mountain Range was born due to that collision.

Another significant result of that collision was that, a part of the Indian Plate, at its north-east corner, broke off and went under the sea water. This skinning of the land took place about 30 million years ago. Then the two mighty rivers, Ganges and Brahmmaputra, started carrying alluvial soil from the Himalayas to throw them into the sea on the submerged part of the broken plate. Through the gradual deposition of alluvial soil on the broken submerged part of the plate, a new land emerged from the womb of the sea about ten thousand years ago. This new land is Bangladesh and the Indian State of West Bengal, together known as Bangla or Bengal in English.

In the beginning the country was not as big as it is now. The landmass of the country has been increasing through accretion being caused by deposition of silt on its continental shelf. The mangrove forests on the coastal areas of the country help the deposition of the silt. Every year Ganges and Brahmmaputra carry about 30 million tons of alluvial soil from the Himalayas down to the Bay of Bengal. Satellite pictures say that Bangladesh is going to get about 12 thousand sq. miles of new land from the Bay of Bengal within the next fifty years.

By Faruque Hasan / 2002                                                           Top Δ

At present there are more than 3,000 living languages in the world. Bangla is a branch of the Indo-European language family.

Celtic-Irish, which is spoken in Iceland, is the westernmost language of the Indo-European language family; and Ahomia, which is spoken in Assam, is the easternmost language of this family. The eight main groups of the Indo-European language Family are: Armenian, Slav-Baltic, Albanian, Hellenic, Italian, Celtic, Indo-Iranian, and Germanic.

Indo-Iranian Language Group has three main branches: Indic, Iranian and Dardic. Farsi, Kurdi, Pashtu, Baluchi languages belong to Iranian Language Group.

Indic branch of the language family has four main groups. They are: Udichchia, Pratichchia, Madhiadesha and Prachchia. The last group, Prachchia, has two branches: Purba-Hindi and Maghadi. Bangla gradually took shape from Maghadi. The other three languages came out of the Maghadi are Maithali, Bhojpuri and Ahomi. Sanskrit, which belongs to Indic branch, is a distant ‘cousin' of Bangla.

In 9^th century some Buddhist monks wrote down some religious poems, known as ‘Charjiapada'. These Charjiapadas are considered to be the first written specimen of Bangla language discovered till now. Some of the Charjiapada monk-poets used to live in Paharpur Monastery. In the beginning, bangla language was known as ‘Gawra bhasha' or Gawr language, because at that time the country was known as ‘Gawradesh' named after the then capital of the country, Gawra.  

Some of the medieval Arab rulers of Bangladesh contributed a lot to the development of Bangla language. Under the patronage of Arab Sultan of Bengal, Hussain Shah, who reigned from the year of 1493 to the year of 1519, Hindu epic Ramayana and Srimat Bhagabat were translated from Sanskrit to Bengali. Again, under the patronage of Nusrat Shah, the next Sultan and the son of Hussain Shah, the whole of Mahabharata was translated from Sanskrit to Bengali.

The first bilingual dictionary of Bangla language along with Bangla grammar was written by a Portuguese missionary, Manoel Assumpsaun (spelling of the name may not be correct). He used to live in Bhawal, not far from Dhaka. The book was published in 1743 in Lisbon, the capital of Portugal. In the year of 1913, Rabindranath Thakur (Tagore)—the renowned Bengali poet, received the Nobel Prize for literature.

In 1952 on 21 February people of Bangladesh, at that time known as East Bengal and was the eastern wing of Pakistan, sacrificed their lives by the bullet of police to get the recognition of their mother tongue as one of the state languages of Pakistan. 21 February has been declared as the International Mother Tongue Day by the United Nations.

By Faruque Hasan / 2007                                                        Top Δ

During ancient time every nation had its own deities of worship. The ancient Arabs used to worship different god and goddesses, such as Laat, Maanat; ancient Iraqis used to worship Enlil, Isthar, and Uruk. God and goddesses of ancient Greeks were Zeus, Apollo, Venus and many more. Romans had their own deities. 

Ancient people of Bangladesh used to worship a deity called Bangi or Bonga. Might be Bonga was the patriarch of the Bongo tribe of ancient Bangladesh. Perhaps the name of the country derived from the name of the deity worshiped by the people of the land or vice versa. During ancient time Banga, or Bongo, or Vanga and Pundro or Pundra were the two dominant tribes in Bangladesh.

When Jain Tirthankar, Mahavira started preaching Jainism in 6^th century BC, some people of Bangladesh accepted the new faith. Gautama Buddha was born in 560 BC. He came to Bangladesh to preach Buddhism and stayed about six months in Pundranagara for that purpose. During subsequent times, due to the efforts of Buddhist preachers, many people of Bangladesh accepted Buddhism as their faith. In fact, by the first half of the first millennium AD Buddhism became the main religion of the people in India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, China, Korea, Japan and the South East Asia.  

In 8^th century BC, the Arians came up to Bihar following the course of Ganges. From there the preachers and traders started coming to Bangladesh in small number. Through their influence many people of this country started worshipping Vedic deities.  

In 7^th century AD, when Huen Shang, the Chinese monk-traveler, visited different parts of Bangladesh, he found Jains and Buddhists were almost equal in number. He also found, side by side with Jains and Buddhists, many followers of indigenous religion as well as Vedic religion. In 9^th Century AD, the Vedic religion emerged as Hinduism through a reformation led by Sankaracharjia of Karnataka in South India. Soon Buddhism lost its foothold in the Indian sub-continent, except in Bengal, to Hinduism.

During the Pala Period (750-1050 AD) in Bengal, Buddhism became the predominant faith of the people of this country. Pala rulers were Buddhists. Among the three sects of Buddhism—Hinayana, Mahayana and Tantrayana, the Vajrayana sub sect of the last one was the mainstream of Buddhism in Bangladesh at that time.

After the Palas, the Senas became the rulers of Bengal. Sena kings were Hindu by faith, and intolerant towards the followers of other faiths. To save themselves from the wrath of the intolerant rulers, the Buddhists of Bangladesh accepted many Hindu god and goddesses in their pantheon of deities.

After the Senas came Turks, Arabs, Afghans and Mughals to Bangladesh in 13^th century and afterwards. These foreign rulers were Muslim by faith; but they never encouraged local people to get converted into Islam.

In 14^th century some Muslim saints from the Middle East and Iran started preaching Islam in Bangladesh, and soon Islam became the faith of the majority people of this country. Most of the people of the country, who accepted Islam as their new faith, belonged to Vajrayana sub sect of Mahayana Buddhism.

In the middle of the 18^th century, the British became the ruler of Bangladesh. Though the British were Christian, but the Christian preachers of this country did not receive any direct encouragement from the rulers for their efforts to preach their faith in this country. However, through the efforts of Jesuit and other Christian missionaries a few people of Bangladesh became Christian.

By Faruque Hasan / 2001                                                          Top Δ

The first group of human beings who came to Bangladesh during pre-historic time was Mongoloid people from Tibet and China. They crossed the Himalayas to reach this land.

After the Mongoloid race came the Austro-Asiatic people to Bangladesh from Indo-China region. Perhaps this people came to Indo-China from the Polynesian and Melanesian islands in the South Pacific Ocean.

Some Arian groups from the Austro-Hungarian region or on the banks of River Volga started eastward journey, and reached, via Central Asia and Afghanistan, to India in 15^th Century BC. In the Indian Sub-continent they first settled down in Punjab. Arians gradually proceeded toward east following the course of Ganges. By 8^th century BC or 2800 years ago a group of them reached in Bihar near the border of Bangladesh. The Arian from Bihar came to Bangladesh as traders and farmers etc, in a great number, and settled down in this country.

During the first part of the last millennium, some Turks, Arabs, Abyssinian and Afghans came to Bangladesh. They came as mercenary solders and also as traders; many of them settled down in this country. In 19^th century AD, Chakma, Marma, Bomang etc. small nationalities belonged to Mongoloid stock, more precisely to Bhot-Tibetan race, migrated to Bangladesh from Myanmar and settled down at the hilly regions of the country. In 18^th and 19^th century a few Portuguese also settled down in Bangladesh.

By Faruque Hasan / 2001                                                           Top Δ

Fazlur Rahman Khan, a Bangladeshi American structural engineer, is regarded as the "Einstein of structural engineering" and considered "the greatest structural engineer of the second half of the 20^th century" for his constructions of the Sears Tower, the tallest building in the world at the time of its construction (1974), and John Hancock Center, and for his designs of structural systems that remain fundamental to all high-rise skyscrapers.

FR. Khan, born on 3 April 1929, in Dhaka, received his bachelor’s degree from the University of Dhaka in 1951. He went to United States in 1952 where he pursued advanced studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign. In three years Khan earned two Master's degrees — one in structural engineering and one in theoretical and applied mechanics — and a PhD in structural engineering.

Dr. Khan's design innovations improved the construction of high-rise buildings, enabling them to withstand enormous forces generated on these super structures. These new designs opened an economic door for contractors, engineers, architects, and investors, providing vast amounts of real estate space on minimal plots of land.

Khan's central innovation in skyscraper design and construction was the idea of the "tube" and "bundled tube" structural systems for tall buildings. Another innovation that Khan developed was the concept of X-bracing. This concept reduced the lateral load on the building by transferring the load into the exterior columns. This allows for a reduced need for interior columns thus creating more floor space. This concept can be seen in the John Hancock Center.

FR Khan died in March 27, 1982. In 1998 the city of Chicago named the intersection of Jackson and Franklin Streets (at the foot of the Sears Tower) “Fazlur R. Khan Way.”

Microcredit Pioneer in the world: Dr. Mohammad Yunus

Muhammad Yunus, the microcredit pioneer in the world, who was awarded Nobel Pease Price in 2006 along with the Grameen Bank founded by him, is a Bangladeshi banker and economist.  He is famous for his successful application of microcredit - the extension of small loans. These loans are given to entrepreneurs who do not qualify for traditional bank loans. Microcredit projects puts emphasis on lending specifically to women.

The success of the Grameen model of microfinancing has inspired similar efforts in a hundred countries throughout the developing world as well as in industrialized nations, including the United States and Russia.  

Muhammad Yunus was born in Bangladesh on June 28, 1940.        

Useful links:

• Investment Corporation of Bangladesh

• Bangladesh Export Processing Zone Authority

• Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers &  Exporters Association

• Bangladesh Knitwear Manufacturers & Exporters Association

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