Daylight savings confusion

This was the first year that Bangladesh tried out Daylight Savings Time.  There’s a huge problem with electricity shortages here, leading to what they call “load shedding” – rolling brown-outs or black-outs, where parts of the city are left without electricity for hours a day.  In the worst parts of the year (when supply is [...]

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Anti-Rat Campaign!

Bangladesh awards farmer who killed 83,000 rats
By JULHAS ALAM (AP) – 1 day ago
DHAKA, Bangladesh — Bangladesh on Wednesday awarded a farmer who killed more than 83,000 rats and launched a monthlong campaign nationwide to kill millions more, to protect crops and reduce the need for food imports.
Mokhairul Islam, 40, won a first prize of [...]

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Sad news from the zoo

We visited the zoo just a couple months ago, and were actually pretty impressed.  The cages seemed decent, reasonably large; the animals seemed to be doing OK.  We were impressed by the nice landscaping and by the informational sign about each animal – you know, like a real zoo!  (After a while here, your [...]

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Economic Downturn Reaches Bangladesh

Until now the impact of the global economic crisis has scarcely been felt in Bangladesh.  Food prices have been unstable over the last year (or two?) but recently they have decreased, especially since the new government made this a central campaign pledge.  Because most of Bangladesh’s exports are very low-cost – think T-shirts at Walmart [...]

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Sisipur is 5!

Sisimpur – Bangladeshi Sesame Street – is starting its fifth successful season!
Sisimpur, an original Bangladeshi adaptation of Sesame Street and the first locally produced educational children’s series for the region, has gone into production for a fifth season. – article here

Sisimpur features a Bengal tiger, Bangladeshi kids (puppet and live), and a jackal.  The [...]

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Whew.

Back from Vietnam.  It was a fantastic trip.  Hopefully I’ll eventually get more photos up.
As per the last post, Bangladesh has had a difficult week.  The border guards mutinied against their commanding officers and in the end over 60 people were killed.  The brutality of the killings have made the event harder to  understand, and [...]

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Meanwhile…

We were out sightseeing today, but it turns out things were much less tranquil in Bangladesh – the Bangladesh Rifles mutinied today in a day-long stand-off with the Army in the middle of Dhaka.  The Bangladesh Rifles are a paramilitary border protection force that falls under the command of the Army.  I’m only reading all [...]

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I’ll believe it when I see it

Not that I’m cynical (OK, I totally am) but I just don’t buy this one:
Bangladesh to end begging within five years
Hundreds of thousands of people depend on begging for their income in desperately poor Bangladesh, where 40 percent of the 144 million population earn less than a dollar a day.
A.M.A Muhith, finance minister in the [...]

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