The area of Dhaka has been inhabited since the first millennium. An early modern city developed from the 17th century as a provincial capital and commercial centre of the Mughal Empire. Dhaka was the capital of a proto-industrialisedMughal Bengal for 75 years (1608–39 and 1660–1704). It was the hub of the muslin trade in Bengal and one of the most prosperous cities in the world. The Mughal city was named Jahangirnagar (The City of Jahangir) in honour of the erstwhile ruling emperor Jahangir. The city's wealthy Mughal elite included princes and the sons of Mughal emperors. The pre-colonial city's glory peaked in the 17th and 18th centuries when it was home to merchants from across Eurasia. The Port of Dhaka was a major trading post for both riverine and seaborne trade. The Mughals decorated the city with well-laid gardens, tombs, mosques, palaces, and forts. The city was once called the Venice of the East. (Full article...)
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The Bengal Subah, also referred to as Mughal Bengal, was the largest subdivision of the Mughal Empire encompassing much of the Bengal region, which includes modern-day Bangladesh, the Indian state of West Bengal, and some parts of the present-day Indian states of Bihar, Jharkhand and Odisha between the 16th and 18th centuries. The state was established following the dissolution of the Bengal Sultanate, a major trading nation in the world, when the region was absorbed into the Mughal Empire. Bengal was the wealthiest region in the Indian subcontinent.
Bengal Subah has been variously described the "Paradise of Nations" and the "Golden Age of Bengal". It alone accounted for 40% of Dutch imports from Asia. The eastern part of Bengal was globally prominent in industries such as textile manufacturing and shipbuilding, and it was a major exporter of silk and cotton textiles, steel, saltpeter, and agricultural and industrial produce in the world. The region was also the basis of the Anglo-Bengal War. (Full article...)
Satellite image of the cyclone nearing peak intensity on November 29
The 1988 Bangladesh cyclone (designated as Tropical Cyclone 04B by the Joint Typhoon Warning Center) was one of the worst tropical cyclones in Bangladesh history. Striking in November 1988, the tropical system exacerbated the catastrophic damage from what was then considered the worst floods in Bangladesh's history. The tropical cyclone originated from a disturbance that developed within the Strait of Malacca on November 21. Tracking slowly westward, the initial tropical depression reached tropical storm status in the Andaman Sea. On November 26, the storm reached an intensity equivalent to that of a modern-day severe cyclonic storm and subsequently turned northward. Gradually intensifying as it had previously, the tropical cyclone reached peak intensity with winds of 125 mph (201 km/h) as it was making landfall near the Bangladesh–India border on November 29. Although the storm retained strong winds well inland, it was last monitored over central Bangladesh as a moderate cyclonic storm-equivalent on November 30.
The brunt of the tropical cyclone's damage was inflicted upon coastal areas of Bangladesh and West Bengal. A total of 6,240 people were killed as a result of the storm, with 5,708 in Bangladesh and 538 in West Bengal. Many of the deaths were a result of the destruction of homes or electrocution after strong winds toppled power poles across the region. Along the coast of Bangladesh, strong storm surge caused heavy infrastructure damage and contributed in wiping out an estimated 70% of all harvestable Bangladeshi crops, with an estimated 200,000 tonnes (220,000 tons) of crops being lost. Widespread power outages cut telecommunications across Bangladesh; in Dhaka, Bangladesh's capital city, debris-laden streets paralyzed traffic while electrical outages caused water shortages. (Full article...)
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Flag of Bangladesh Human rights in Bangladesh are enshrined as fundamental rights in Part III of the Constitution of Bangladesh. However, constitutional and legal experts believe many of the country's laws require reform to enforce fundamental rights and reflect democratic values of the 21st century.
In 2022, Freedom House rated Bangladesh's human rights at 37 out 100 (partly free). (Full article...)
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Bangladesh became a full member of the International Cricket Council (ICC) on 26 June 2000, and played its first Test match against India later that year. Before then, it had been an associate member of the ICC since 1977, competing in six ICC Trophies, the leading One Day International (ODI) competition for non-Test playing nations. The country has enjoyed some success in ODI's and Twenty20 Internationals (T20I) since its promotion, but has struggled to perform in the Test match arena. Recent years have seen the nation improve tremendously however, and it is beginning to establish itself as a powerful force in the cricketing world. (Full article...)
Bangladesh has achieved significant advancements in political empowerment, ranking seventh globally with a commendable gender parity rate of 55.2%. Over the past 50 years, the country has witnessed a woman serving as head of state for an impressive duration of 29.3 years, which stands as the longest period in the world. Gender parity in school enrollment has seen significant improvement. Bangladesh has also put in place regulations to protect women's rights and privileges. As access to education for women increases, the momentum to boost women's participation in the labor force continues to grow. Bangladesh has experienced a substantial transformation, marked by the gradual expansion of opportunities for women over the past few decades. Multiple factors have converged to bring about transformative advancements in women's empowerment within the nation. (Full article...)
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The COVID-19 pandemic in Bangladesh was a part of the worldwide pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The virus was confirmed to have spread to Bangladesh in March 2020. The first three known cases were reported on 8 March 2020 by the country's epidemiology institute, IEDCR. Since then, the pandemic has spread day by day over the whole nation and the number of affected people has been increasing. Bangladesh is the second most affected country in South Asia, after India.
In order to protect the population, the government declared "lockdown" throughout the nation from 23 March to 30 May and prepared some necessary steps to spread awareness to keep this syndrome away from them. Infections remained low until the end of March but saw a steep rise in April. In the week ending on 11 April, new cases in Bangladesh grew by 1,155 percent, the highest in Asia, ahead of Indonesia, with 186 percent. On 6 May, cases were confirmed in all districts. Rangamati was the last district to report confirmed cases of COVID-19. On 13 June, the number of cases in Bangladesh exceeded the number of cases in China, the country where the outbreak began. Bangladesh reached two grim milestones of 160,000 cases and 2,000 deaths on 5 July and overtook France in terms of the number of cases two days later. The number of recoveries in the country exceeded the number of active cases on 12 July. (Full article...)
Corruption in Bangladesh has been a continuing problem. According to all major ranking institutions, Bangladesh routinely finds itself among the most corrupt countries in the world.
As of 2001, corruption in the public sector was "endemic, chronic and all pervasive". In Transparency International's 2023 Corruption Perceptions Index, which scored 180 countries on a scale from 0 ("highly corrupt") to 100 ("very clean"), Bangladesh scored 24. When ranked by score, Bangladesh ranked 149th among the 180 countries in the Index, where the country ranked first is perceived to have the most honest public sector. For comparison with worldwide scores, the best score was 90 (ranked 1), the average score was 43, and the worst score was 11 (ranked 180). For comparison with regional scores, the highest score among the countries of the Asia Pacific region was 85, the average score was 45 and the lowest score was 17. Introducing the 2020 Corruption Perceptions Index, Executive Director Iftekharuzzaman of Transparency International Bangladesh commented, "Of the eight South Asian countries, Bangladesh remains second lowest both in score and rank — better than only Afghanistan." (Full article...)
The Bengal region was a supreme power of the medieval Islamic East. In the late 7th century, Muslims from Arabia established commercial as well as religious connection within the Bengal region before the conquest, mainly through the coastal regions as traders and primarily via the ports of Chittagong. In the early 13th century, Muhammad bin Bakhtiyar Khalji conquered Western and part of Northern Bengal and established the first Muslim kingdom in Bengal. During the 13th century Sufi missionaries, mystics and saints began to preach Islam in villages. The Islamic Bengal Sultanate, was founded by Shamsuddin Ilyas Shah who united Bengal on a ethno-linguistic platform. Bengal reached in her golden age during Bengal Sultanate's prosperous ruling period. Subsequently, Bengal viceroy Muhammad Azam Shah assumed the imperial throne. Mughal Bengal became increasingly independent under the Nawabs of Bengal in the 18th century. (Full article...)
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The headquarters of Bangladesh Television in Rampura, built in 1975. Often known as the BTV Bhaban.
Bangladesh Television (Bengali: বাংলাদেশ টেলিভিশন), commonly known by its acronym BTV (Bengali: বিটিভি), is the state-owned television network of Bangladesh. The network was originally established as the East Pakistan branch of PTV in 1964. It is the oldest Bengali-language television network in the world, and is the sister to the radio broadcaster Bangladesh Betar, which, along with BTV, are both owned and operated by the government.
Bangladesh Television is the country's only television network provided on terrestrial television. It is primarily financed through television licence fees. Although it has produced many award-winning programs, it has often been accused of being the mouthpiece of the government and their lack of quality programming. Both the headquarters and the administrative building of Bangladesh Television are located at Rampura in Dhaka. (Full article...)
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The history of Bangladesh as a civilized nation goes back for more than four millennia to the Chalcolithic. The country's early recorded history is characterized by a succession of Hindu and Buddhist kingdoms and empires that fought for control of the Bengal region.
Islam arrived during the 8th century AD and became dominant gradually since the early 13th century with the conquests led by Bakhtiyar Khalji as well as activities of Sunni missionaries such as Shah Jalal in the region. Later, Muslim rulers initiated the preaching of Islam by building mosques. From the 14th century onward, it was ruled by the Bengal Sultanate, founded by Fakhruddin Mubarak Shah, formulated an individual currency etched with his name. He conquered Chittagong for the first time and merged with Bengal Sultanate. He constructed a high way from Chandpur to Chittagong for the first time. The Bengal Sultanate was extended by king Shamsuddin Ilyas Shah, beginning a period of the country's economic prosperity and military dominance over the regional empires, which was referred by Europeans as the richest country to trade with. Afterwards, the region came under the Mughal Empire, as, according to historian C. A. Bayly, probably its wealthiest province. (Full article...)
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An aerial view of damage to villages and infrastructure following Cyclone Sidr, which swept into southern Bangladesh in 2007. Climate change is a critical issue in Bangladesh. as the country is one of the most vulnerable to the effects of climate change. In the 2020 edition of Germanwatch's Climate Risk Index, it ranked seventh in the list of countries most affected by climate calamities during the period 1999–2018. Bangladesh's vulnerability to the effects of climate change is due to a combination of geographical factors, such as its flat, low-lying, and delta-exposed topography. and socio-economic factors, including its high population density, levels of poverty, and dependence on agriculture. The impacts and potential threats include sea level rise, temperature rise, food crisis, droughts, floods, and cyclones.
Factors such as frequent natural disasters, lack of infrastructure, high population density (174 million people living in an area of 147,570 km2 ), an extractivist economy and social disparities are increasing the vulnerability of the country in facing the current changing climatic conditions. Almost every year large regions of Bangladesh suffer from more intense events like cyclones, floods and erosion. The mentioned adverse events are slowing the development of the country by bringing socio-economical and environmental systems to almost collapse. (Full article...)