In focusing on the scale of Sheikh Hasina’s victory in the general election a few days ago and the allegations of rigging by her opponents in Bangladesh, it is easy to miss the significant structural change unfolding in Bangladesh and its long-term implications.
Read Here – The Indian Express
On November 14, a fight broke out in the Sri Lankan Parliament. When the Speaker tried to call a vote, a group of MPs heckled him and rushed the podium. A rival faction tried to push the hecklers back. Men traded punches. One brandished a knife. A lawmaker cut himself trying to steal the Speaker’s microphone and ended up in the hospital.
Over the last decade, Bangladesh’s growth rate has gone up from around 5 per cent in 2008 to 7.86 per cent in 2017-18, with key sectors such as agriculture, manufacturing and services growing alongside. During this period, foreign exchange reserves increased five times and both investment and savings enhanced to over 30 per cent of the GDP. Per capita income has risen nearly threefold since 2009, reaching $1,750 this year, and the number of people living in extreme poverty — classified as under $1.25 per day — has shrunk from about 19 per cent of the population to less than 9 per cent over the same period, according to the World Bank.
Sri Lanka’s ousted prime minister Ranil Wickremesinghe garnered a majority in parliament on Wednesday, weeks after being sacked by President Maithripala Sirisena in a controversial move that plunged the island nation into political turmoil. As many as 117 out of 225 lawmakers in parliament voted to pass a confidence motion in his leadership.
Indeed, the rise of Asia as a whole is recasting the physical and mental map of the world. Proliferating transnational relationships and new flows of finance, trade, technology, information, energy and labour have created three new strategic geographies which are already escaping the shadow of transatlantic arrangements. They essentially represent the collision of erstwhile political constructs – and their management requires new ideas, nimble institutions and fluid partnerships.
What started with United States President Donald Trump’s tirade against Pakistan culminated into a heated exchange between him and Prime Minister Imran Khan on Twitter, with the latter making it clear that “Now, we [Pakistan] will do what is best for our people and our interests.”
Japanese policymakers often seem like the economic equivalent of Winston Churchill’s take on Americans that they can be counted on to do the right thing after exhausting all other possibilities. There’s nothing new or innovative about Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s revival scheme. Abenomics is merely a list of reforms Tokyo should have tackled 20 years ago. Instead, they exhausted every possible alternative, often several times, until delay was no longer an option.
The annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit ended without agreement on a joint communique for the first time in its history as the escalating rivalry between the United States and China dominated proceedings. The impasse emerged a day after Chinese President Xi Jinping and the US Vice-President Mike Pence had blamed their rivals in the ongoing trade war in back-to-back speeches.
Potentially the most important meeting in Asia this week isn’t on any official summit agenda, features no head of state and certainly doesn’t include China. Senior officials from Australia, India, Japan and the US—a set of countries known as “the Quad”—plan to meet today on the sidelines of a regional summit in Singapore.
Sri Lanka’s parliament passed a no-confidence motion against newly appointed Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa and his government on Wednesday, throwing the country deeper into crisis. The move comes a day after the Supreme Court overturned a presidential decree dissolving the legislature and calling for snap elections.
