[🇧🇩] Everything about the interim government and its actions

[Saif]

আবারো সংখ্যা বাড়ছে উপদেষ্টা পরিষদে, আসছে নতুন শিক্ষা উপদেষ্টা

 

[Saif]

This is a highly politically motivated govt: Mahfuj Alam

Victorious forces of uprising running state affairs, says the info adviser

www.thedailystar.net

This is a highly politically motivated govt: Mahfuj Alam
Victorious forces of uprising running state affairs, says the info adviser

Photo: PID

Information Adviser Mahfuj Alam today said the interim government is not an "apolitical" government rather it is a political government based on a political victory that defeated Awami League politically.

"The forces that triumphed the mass uprising, the victorious, are the ones running the country. This is a highly politically motivated government...," said Mahfuj.

The information adviser made these remarks while speaking to journalists, officials and employees of Bangladesh Sangbad Sangstha (BSS) at its office this afternoon after inspecting its activities.

Mahfuj said many people have been saying why the interim government is not leaving quickly by just conducting an election. "However, what many have forgotten is that this government is one that has been established through the blood of many martyrs of uprising."

"The government may seem 'apolitical' due to the presence of technocrats and many other people, but in reality, it is a political one because it stands on a political victory. We are here following the political defeat of Awami League."

"In general, the goal of any political government is to serve its party, but we are fortunate here that this government does not have to serve any particular party rather it serves all the people regardless of their beliefs, ideologies and religions," said Mahfuj.

Addressing the current challenges faced by the government, the adviser said, "We are facing an 'information war' both from within the country and from external sources, including India. We are in a state of war."

"Many of us may think we are relaxed, but those who were defeated are not relaxed -- especially in terms of fighting through information," he said.

BSS, as the national news agency, is not only responsible for providing information to local media but it also serves as a benchmark for news dissemination, with global media outlets often quoting its reports.

"So, how BSS presents news actually represents Bangladesh," said the information adviser expecting the agency's responsible role in portraying the country accurately on the global stage.

The adviser assured the BSS authority of providing all-out support to develop its quality as a news agency. "Another point of my visit to ministry's affiliated institutions is to hear your needs... What kind of work you want to do that may be held back by bureaucratic complexities," he added.

"People recognise BSS as the government's spokesperson, and thus, like other countries' agencies, it is expected that BSS will be quoted as news source by international media," said the adviser.

"At least in South Asia, BSS should be an agency worthy of being used as reference. As a government entity, it should maintain the standard," he added.

Mahbub Morshed said the agency has news exchange agreement with major global news agencies, including AFP and Xinhua.

The agency has been working relentlessly to improve its quality in line with global practice and hopes to make more agreements with other renowned news agencies, said the BSS chief editor.

BSS Managing Editor Fazlul Huq, Chief News Editor (English) Morshadur Rahman, Chief News Editor (Bangla) Md Aktaruzzaman, Chief Reporter (English) Md Manikul Azad, Chief Reporter (Bangla) Didarul Alam, journalists, officials and employees were also present at the time.​

 

[Saif]

We're lucky to have a sea: CA

Noting that Nepal and the seven sister states of India have no connectivity via sea, Yunus stressed the need for using Bangladesh seaports for mutual benefit

www.thedailystar.net

We're lucky to have a sea: CA
Chief Adviser Yunus visiting China and Japan

File photo

Chief Adviser Professor Muhammad Yunus today said the people of Bangladesh are lucky to be connected by the Bay, which helps promote trade with different countries.

"We are lucky enough as we have a sea [Bay of Bengal]. The sea is very crucial for business," he said while exchanging views with local people at BIAM auditorium in Cox's Bazar.

Highlighting the marine potential, the chief adviser said Bangladesh has a long coastline and it is quite possible to build seaports anywhere along the coastline of Chattogram.

He said a massive change has been brought to Cox's Bazar. It is not only a tourist town but also a centre of economy.

Noting that Nepal and the seven sister states of India have no connectivity via sea, Yunus stressed the need for using Bangladesh seaports for mutual benefit.

"We can do business... The fates of all will change," he said.

He asked salt producers to find out whether foreign importers show any interest in importing salt from Bangladesh as the country now has the capacity to export salt that the farmers produce in Cox's Bazar.

He inquired about the potential of wind energy as power is being generated using windmills in Cox's Bazar on pilot basis.

Asking locals to utilise all available opportunities, Yunus said Cox's Bazar is a big part of the economy and it could be an ICT town as well.

He wanted to know from locals the impact of Rohingya influx on local community.

During the meeting, people from all walks of life gave different proposals and demands before the chief adviser for the development of Cox's Bazar.​

 

[Saif]

Professor Yunus’s government: Are we blaming the victim?

Professor Yunus inherits a nation in turmoil, balancing hope and challenges in Bangladesh

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Professor Yunus’s government: Are we blaming the victim?

Muhammad Yunus, chief adviser of Bangladesh interim government, gestures to the Rohingya people as he attends Ramadan Solidarity Iftar with them at the Rohingya refugee camp in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh, March 14, 2025. PHOTO: REUTERS

Never have I been more hopeful about Bangladesh—Professor Yunus is at the country's helm. When enlightenment, accomplishment, and diligence culminate, a Professor Yunus comes along. His potential to transform the nation is undisputed. Never have I been more upset about Bangladesh, either—Professor Yunus has replaced Sheikh Hasina, who was a dictator and left the country in a mess. What cancer does to the human body, dictatorship does the same to a country. Cancer disrupts the regular functioning of the human body until it becomes completely dysfunctional. Dictatorship, likewise, cracks every code of economic, judicial, electoral, and bureaucratic conduct, when a country is primed to crumble under its own weight. When Hasina fled to India on August 5, 2024, she left behind a wasteland of mismanagement and miseries that Professor Yunus inherited. Whatever his government did—and does—doesn't seem adequate. People complain. That's understandable.

The law and order situation, for example, seems to have deteriorated since Professor Yunus's government took over. Statistics corroborate such a claim, too. Attributing the failure entirely to this government is simplistic. Dictatorship thrives on accruing and abusing absolute power, as Hasina did. The country was already reeling under three sham elections, enforced disappearances, mindless extrajudicial killings, and co-opted judges in pliant courts. Justice was a commodity on sale, and anyone with money and political connections could buy his version of it. Hasina's police were ruthless to the core. The shooting in July and August last year that killed and crippled thousands of people across the country was the final nail in the coffin of the police. Police have been plagued by a deficit of trust and an erasure of authority since. They are still not fully functional. Under such circumstances, Professor Yunus's government faced logistical nightmares in establishing discipline, as it took over on August 8, 2024. The context that has created the current disorder is more complex than a leadership failure of a government having inherited a failing state.

Responsibility yet rested on the current government to restore law and order destroyed by the dictatorship of 15 years. The army swung into action with magistracy. Police and paramilitary joined hands as they gained confidence and credibility. Crime and violence didn't disappear altogether, as they never do in any functional society. Bangladesh suddenly didn't shift from a safety haven to a brutal hell, either. Yet panic and paranoia seemed to have gripped the whole country, especially following February 17, when a bus traveling from Dhaka to Rajshahi faced robbery, followed by the alleged rape of at least one woman, on the Dhaka-Tangail highway. As the news surfaced on electronic and print portals, the nation cringed in fear and repulsion. BBC (Bangla) followed up on the news immediately, as it claimed that no one saw anyone being raped. A passenger onboard the bus informed BBC that a woman may have been raped, as they heard her screaming. Prothom Alo published an investigative report on the news on February 27, having talked to the lady, who was apparently the rape victim. She was not raped on the bus that night, she confirmed. She blamed the media for spreading false news. The government had to bear the brunt of carefully crafted propaganda, anyway.

Why did our media go gaga on this piece of news, when they knew that misinformation from and beyond Bangladesh by the agents of the fallen regime smacked of the renewal of fascism? Our press apparently seems free following the ouster of Sheikh Hasina. Unfiltered news, along with misleading and sensational headlines even from frontline news portals, have also been alarmingly on the rise recently. What gets printed and telecast contributes to manufacturing consent. Some news portals, for example, have already attempted to prove that Professor Yunus's government is Islamist, so the frequency of attacks on the people of the minority has increased during his tenure.

Subho Basu, an associate professor of History and Classical Studies at McGill University, discredited such a complaint upfront, as he claimed in his interview with The New Yorker in August 2024, "he [Professor Yunus] had nothing to do with Islamism." He further claimed that minorities are always targeted in South Asia, when there is upheaval. Because the Sheikh Hasina regime was identified with India, and a significant percentage of the minority are the supporters of the fallen regime that also had leaders at the local levels from the minority community, targeting supporters and leaders of the fallen regime has gained a communal slant, which some right-wing media in India have magnified, he claims. This government is not complicit in minority repression whatsoever, but the governments that preceded it were.

Any attempt to whitewash a government, including Professor Yunus's government, is infantile—angels and prophets have never run a government. Blaming the government for everything is impulsive, too. This government is the outcome of a revolution. Following a revolution, as history teaches us, people's expectations soar. Chaos erupts. Uncertainties loom. Pessimism grips. And a post-revolution government totters. Professor Yunus's government has been through this typical phase. It's not a weak government, as it is popularly dubbed. Its strength is fortitude. Its skill is negotiation. Almost everyone seems to have a demand following Hasina's departure (I have a demand, too. Where is a commission on education, Professor Yunus?), and they want their demand fulfilled immediately. They reach the government following protests and road blockades. The government negotiates and settles. However disruptive the hundreds of protests the government has had to face already, this is democracy in action. Suppressing it is fascistic. Attendant chaos towards democracy is inevitable, as Italian philosopher Antonio Gramsci famously said, "The old world is dying, and the new world struggles to be born: Now is the time of monsters." If we are frightened by the monsters around us, it's not pathological. Most of them are, however, the harbingers of hope and healing for the reformed Bangladesh in the times ahead.

Some of these monsters are not agents of hope and healing, unfortunately. Dictators depart and die, but their legacy lingers. The more chronic a dictatorship is, the more expansive and intractable it is. Having ruled for 15 years, Hasina left the country upended. Hasina was psychologically deranged. Leading a country was not her call. In the worst-case scenario, someone of Hasina's class and calibre could have been someone else's personal problem. She must never have been allowed to become a national problem. Because she was, the crisis is intergenerational and transnational. A family, for example, that lost someone or had someone with life-altering injuries in the July Revolution (approximately 1,400 people were killed and thousands were injured, the UN Fact-Finding Report, published in February 2025, confirmed) will have to endure the loss for generations. Our relationship with India is a political bloody shirt that triggers statements and actions from both sides as if we are eternal enemies. It's apparently clear that our ties with India during Hasina's regime were lopsided and un-examined to create an impression that Bangladesh was India's vassal state. Some monsters use these fault lines to destabilise Bangladesh, which is not yet on an even keel since Hasina's departure. False-flag movements and mobs are Hasina's ghost re-surfaced. Professor Yunus's government is more helpless than responsible in such situations.

Bangladesh has been through a phase of transition, so the situations are often volatile—sometimes, even dispiriting. Frustrated, we forget that Professor Yunus's government has been through hell already, but it's still active and advancing. He is focused on his agendas, mainly the reforms. His clean-up crew (who we euphemistically call the advisers) are honest and diligent. I'm not convinced we would run from this crisis to a catastrophe. What distracts me is that some zombie politicians remind us—every day, after every nanosecond—that this is not an elected government. It is! The uprising was the election. Blood was the vote. Thinking otherwise is suicidal, for it undermines the government and belies the spirit of the uprising, along with causing tensions for the people to own the government and the government to own the people. This is NOT a placeholder government. It is a government as independent and empowered as any elected government is. While nitpicking on Professor Yunus's government is rational, cooperating with it is ethical and patriotic. His faults and failures are often not the results of his decisions and actions. He is a victim, as we all are—were—because of the buggers and muggers Hasina left the country with.

Believing in Professor Yunus's abilities, therefore, seems sensible. That's what Professor Amartya Sen reminds us in his recent interview with the PTI, "I have great confidence in Yunus' abilities." So do we!

Dr Mohammad Shamsuzzaman is associate professor at the Department of English and Modern Languages in North South University (NSU).​