Location and Physical features

Bangladesh is a country placed in south Asia located in 23°42'N 90°21'E. it’s bordered mostly by India except in the southeast a small border with Myanmar and the Bay of Bengal borders the whole southern part. It has a total area of 147,570 km2 which is mainly a plain land.

Bangladesh is fertile by Ganges-Brahmaputra Delta and as a result it’s one of the most densely populated countries of the world. It is seventh in the category of the most populous country among all the counties of the world. Bangladesh has also some areas of hills and mountains with a lush green jungle.

Geography and climate

Bangladesh is a Deltaic Zone created by the Ganges-Brahmaputra River Delta. This delta is influenced by the main Rivers of South-Asia like the Ganges/ Padma, Brahmaputra/Jamuna and Meghna rivers. The Ganges joins the Jamuna and later unites with the Meghna to finally fall into the Bay of Bengal. These rivers deposit massive amount of alluvial soil by which Bangladesh become one of the most fertile plains in the world. Bangladesh has 58 trans-boundary rivers which makes water issues difficult to solve.

The peak point of Bangladesh is in Mowdok range at 1,052 metres (3,451 ft) height in the Chittagong Hill Tracts at the southeast of the Bangladesh. Most part of the shoreline embraces a swampy jungle, the Sundarbans which is the largest mangrove forest in the world and home to the Royal Bengal Tiger and the Sundarbans was declared endangered in 1997.

Spanning across the Tropic of Cancer, weather of Bangladesh is tropical with a gentle winter from October to March and a hot, humid summer from March to June. From June to October a temperate and moist monsoon season lasts which delivers almost all the country's rainfall. Floods, tropical cyclones, tornadoes, and tidal bores including other Natural calamities occur more or less every year. Not only that these calamities united with the effects of deforestation, soil degradation and erosion. One of the other special features of Bangladesh is Cox's Bazar, south of the city of Chittagong which has the longest unbroken sea-beach of the world that stretches over 120 kilometers.

History

The history of the civilization in Bengal started four thousands year ago. It was then ruled by Dravidian, Austro-Asiatic and Tibeto-Burman people. It was “Bang” the Dravidian speaking people from where the name Bangla or Bengal came from in 1000BC.

From 17th century this region was ruled by Magadha, Nanda, Mauryan and Sunga Empires. After these empires came Gupta and Harsha dynasty. Then the great Shashanka formed a great kingdom which was short lived, although he is regarded as the first independent king of this region. When Shashanka’s great independent kingdom fell; Bengal saw the rise of Pala and Sena dynasty which were followed by the rise of Muslim Empire in the name of The Mughals. Just before the Mughals Bengal was ruled by Sultans and land lords named Bhuiyans for few hundred years. The whole Bengal came in control of Mughals fully at 16th century and during this period Dhaka became the capital as the most important province of the whole Bengal region.

Bangladesh or the ancient Bengal was always been a key place for foreign traders. In late 15th century European traders started to arrive and tried to influence the rulers of Bengal. And in 1757 British East India Company successfully gain control over Bengal until the Sepoy Mutiny of 1857 when the British Empire took over the control from East India Company. The British Empire ruled the Indian Sub-Continent including Bengal until 1947. In 1947 they gave the power to its local people and divided the Sub-Continent into two free countries – India & Pakistan. Bengal was included into Pakistan and named East Pakistan.

It remained as East Pakistan for 25 years. During this time West Pakistan ruled and ignored the needs of Bengal and its people. Also they tried to impose many aspects like language forcibly which cost many lives of Bengali people. They didn’t want to give any right of any sorts to the people of East Pakistan moreover they showed their animal sight and kill millions of people. As the people couldn’t bear the torture anymore, they forced a revolution in the name of fighting for freedom in 1971. After a nine month long blood shattering war Bengali people finally got their freedom and formed a new country as the name of Bangladesh and turned into a new nation called Bangladeshi.

Government and politics

Bangladesh is a democratic country and it has a parliamentary democracy. The parliament is a unicameral parliament which is known as Jatiyo Sangshad. Jatiyo Sangshad consists of 345 members among which 300 are elected through a direct election by the citizens above the age of 18 and the rest of 45 are by the elected members of parliament. The Prime Minister is the head of the government and leader of the parliament who is an MP and must have the confidence of the majority of the MPs. But the head of the country is the President. He is elected by the parliament and his post is mostly a formal post. Nonetheless his/her job becomes greatly important during the period of caretaker government. The caretaker government is responsible for holding a free and fair general election by which a new cabinet can be formed.

Bangladesh has an open political system. There are many parties who are involved in politics, among them two parties dictate the leadership of the country mostly and they are Bangladesh Awami League (AL) and the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP). Sheikh Hasina and Khaleda Zia is the president of the AL and BNP respectively. In the last election both of them form two grand alliances. AL allied with the leftist and secularist parties, on the other hand BNP allied with the Islamist parties like Jamaat-e-Islami Bangladesh and Islami Oikya Jot. There is another important party in Bangladeshi politics which is Jatiya Party led by H.M. Ershad. It is currently allied with AL and has a minister from them.

Foreign relations and armed force

Bangladesh follows a modest foreign strategy that places heavy dependence on multinational diplomacy, mainly at the United Nations. Bangladesh tied with both the Commonwealth of Nations and the United Nations in 1974. Since then been nominated to serve two times on the Security Council in 1978-1979 and 2000–2001. Bangladesh played a pilot task in founding the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) in the 1980s for expanding relations with other South Asian countries. With India, Bangladesh got the most significant and intricate foreign relationships. These associations are clued-up by historical and cultural ties which forms a key domestic political dialogue.

The current vigor of the Bangladesh army is about 200,000, air force 22,000, and navy 14,950. In need for the republic the military has been called up several times for providing assistance to civil authorities for disaster relief and internal security. Bangladesh army has great reputation among the UN peacekeeping forces and 2,300 troops took part into the coalition that fought in the 1991 Persian Gulf War. With the peacekeeping forces Bangladesh had key deployments in Democratic Republic of Congo, Liberia, Sudan, Timor-Leste and Côte d'Ivoire.

Local Government

Bangladesh is alienated into six divisions, they are - Barisal, Chittagong, Dhaka, Khulna, Rajshahi and Sylhet. These divisions are divided into 64 districts, each of these districts are further divided into upazila and thana. The area within each police station or thana is divided into several unions with every union consisting of multiple villages except in metropolitan areas. In the metropolitan areas they are divided into wards with several mahallas. There are no elected officials in these administrative divisions and the administration is conducted by the government officials. Direct elections are apprehended for every union, municipality and metropolitan areas for electing a chairperson and members. Dhaka is the capital and the prime city of Bangladesh. Other key cities are Chittagong, Khulna, Rajshahi, Sylhet and Barisal. These metropolitan cities elected chairperson is called mayor. These mayor and chairpersons are elected for five years.

Economy

Bangladesh is a developing country. Many domestic and international efforts are made without much result in developing its economy. The average income per person calculated in 2006 was US$1400 comparing to the world average of US$10,200. The main force of economy of Bangladesh is Ready Made Garments, Jute, Rice, Tea, Vegetables and frozen fish. It is clear that the main pillar of the Bangladesh’s economy is agriculture. Even though agriculture isn’t the most export earning source, the garment industry is the most export earning sector of Bangladesh. It earns more than three quarters of the Bangladesh’s export earnings.

As Bangladesh is a disaster prone country, it’s not easy to develop the economic condition of the country. But the heart and soul effort from government, private and international allies, Bangladesh has accomplished an annual average growth rate of 5% since 1990 (source: World Bank).

Demography

Bangladesh is the 7th most populous country of the world. According to an estimation, from 2005-2007 the population range of Bangladesh was 142 – 159 million. As a result Bangladesh is the most highly dense country of the world. It has the highest population growth rate among the world during the 1960s and 1970s. But after the introduction of the birth control campaign, the rate has slowed down considerably. In present times Bangladesh population is young as 60% of the population is within the 0-25 age group. And the life expectancy of the population is 63 which very high comparing to the 1960s.

Most of the population of Bangladesh is Bengali (98%) and rest of the population come from Bihari, migrants and indigenous tribal people. Majority of the tribal people are Chakmas among 13 ethnic groups that lives in the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT). Except CHT Shantals and Garos are the majority all over the country. Besides these tribes, there are also Kaibartta, Meitei, Mundas, Oraons and Zomi tribes.

In the basis of religion Bangladesh is mostly a Muslim country as 87.7% population believes in Islam. The next major religion is Hinduism with the population of 11.2% of the whole Bangladesh. Besides these two there are also Buddhism, Christianity and other tribal religious beliefs.

Culture

Bangladesh has a very long history of civilization. From the very beginning it has been very rich in culture. In course of the time many foreign nation came here for various region. And the culture of this region has let foreign culture to influence its nature and in the mean time to evolve into the new level. As a result Bangladesh’s culture has many elements of those foreign cultures.

The main element of any culture is the language. And the name of Bangladesh’s cultural language is Bengali. This language has a very rich literary heritage. The first literature in Bengali is dated back to 8th century and goes by the name of Charyapada. In ancient time most of the literature was based on either religion or taken from other language. In 19th century it has reached to its full height. And this period sees the most famous poets like Rabindranath Tagore , Kazi Nazrul Islam etc.

In the musical tradition, mostly the music is lyrics based with a little instrumental influence. The culture of this region has a very distinctive folk music tradition. Baul music is a very unique feature of Bengali folk music. Besides Baul music, there are Gombhira, Bhatiali, Bhawaiya etc. in this songs folk music instruments are used like ektara, dotara, dhol, flute, and table and the lyrics are very soulful. In according to this music folk dance came into the scene. For this Bangladeshi dance forms comprise with folk tradition with a great influence from Indian dance tradition.

Bangladeshi film history is not so ancient comparing to Indian films. Around 80 films release in a year. Most of which are influenced by Indian films. But there are original films too and they are highly praised around the world. Bangladesh has many newspapers in every category. 200 dailies and more than 1800 periodical newspapers published in Bangladesh. But only 15% of the population read these newspapers which are increasing gradually. The history of TV channel and radio station isn’t so rich. There was only one TV channel and radio station at first which were run by the government. But now a day’s there are quite a few private TV channels and radio stations.

The cultural tradition of the dressing of Bengali men and women are very conservative. Specially the dress sense of the women, as they normally dress themselves with saris and salwar kameez. Dhaka is renowned for producing the most exquisite saris of Jamdani and Muslin. Men normally wear the Kurta-Paejama and a long skirt type dress called lungi.

Cuisine

The cuisine tradition of Bangladesh is pretty similar to Indian and Middle Eastern cuisine. It also has its unique trends too. The most traditional food is rice and curry. Its cuisine is known for the spiciness and use of so many varieties of spices in a cuisine. The most unique and famous cuisine is its sweetmeats made from milk. Anyone that tastes these sweetmeats can never forget its fabulous taste and flavor. The most common of them are Rôshogolla, chômchôm and kalojam.

Sports

The national game of Bangladesh is Kabadi which is originated from here in this region. But in present times Cricket and Football is the most popular game in the country. Specially Cricket has made tremendous progress in international level, for which people of this region are now crazy. Among other sports Bangladesh has some success in Shooting in international level. There are some folk games too, like boat race, wrestling etc. these games are held with a festive environment in rural areas of Bangladesh. Although Bangladesh plays many other games but there isn’t much to speak of.

Transport

Bangladesh has a highly developed and modernized transport system. All the major cities are connected with each other in air, bus and rail. As many say Bangladesh is the land of rivers, it has a developed water transport system. That’s why anyone can easily go to any corner of the country with ease. Zia international Airport of Dhaka is the national airport of the country from where you can go to any place of the world by air.

Bangladesh’s transport system has not only developed by the government but is helped by private investment highly. That’s why one will find private transport services provide far better quality than the governments run transport services. But in present times government is putting much effort to develop their services as well as the whole transport system to make travel more easy and comfortable.

Education

As a poverty stricken country Bangladesh don’t have a very high rate of literacy. To improve the situation Bangladesh government introduced Education for All (EFA) under the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) and international declarations in the Article 17 of the Bangladesh Constitution where it is stated, all children between the ages of six and ten years receive a basic education free of charge.

To run a smooth education system Bangladesh has a three-tiered education system which is highly subsidized so that everyone can get the education they need. General Education System, Madrasah Education System, Technical - Vocational Education System are the three tier of the country’s education system. Each of these tier is divided into Primary Level (years 1 to 5), Secondary Level (years 6 to 10), Higher Secondary Level (years 11 and 12), Tertiary Level.

The government runs many primary schools, high schools, colleges along with 15 public universities. Also private investment has helped highly to the country’s education. In fact a study shows now a day’s private educational institution holds more student than government run institutions. A whole overview of Bangladesh’ education is given below:-