Digi Bangla - : Tech-Thought

Chandpur’s Billion Views: Time to Invest in Rural Creativity

স্পেশাল করেসপন্ডেন্ট — Tue, 10 Nov 2026 00:30:44 +0600

Key Points

Chandpur village demonstrates the global potential of rural digital content
Content creation can generate local employment and strengthen the creative economy
Reliable internet, professional training and business support are essential
Creators need fair compensation, intellectual property rights and participant protection
Bangladesh needs measurable pilot programmes and evidence-based policy support

Does a young Bangladeshi have to live in Dhaka to reach the global entertainment market? The success of the OSS Challenge in Chandpur village, Faridpur Upazila, Pabna district, challenges that conventional assumption. According to a video report by Prothom Alo, content produced in the village has received more than 750 million views on Facebook alone. Across multiple digital platforms, the total has exceeded 1.1 billion views. The achievement of a village-based initiative reaching such an enormous audience deserves a place in Bangladesh's broader development discourse.

However, the numbers need to be interpreted carefully. 1.1 billion views do not mean 1.1 billion unique viewers. The same person may watch a video multiple times or across different platforms. Nor should the reported figure be presented as an independently audited count of current individual viewers. Nevertheless, the scale of its reach points to an important opportunity: entertainment produced in a local community can find an audience in international markets.

At the centre of this initiative is Omar Sani, also known as Samrat. An earlier Prothom Alo report on his 'SS Food Challenge' documented how he achieved success after several attempts. Once the channel had established a stronger foundation, he left his job and returned to his village in late 2021. He brought local people together to organise sporting activities and build a team for video recording and editing.

His journey highlights the importance of preparation, perseverance and experimentation. Presenting the decision to leave a job and return to the village as the sole formula for success could send the wrong message to aspiring young entrepreneurs.

From Digital Consumers to Digital Creators

Discussions about Bangladesh's digital development generally focus on connectivity, software and online services. The Chandpur experience introduces another important question: alongside what rural people consume online, what can they create, and how can they earn from those creations?

Every person involved in producing a video contributes economic value through their skills. This includes the person who develops the concept, the camera operator and the editor. Such initiatives can create opportunities for new professions, local employment and entrepreneurship.

Content creation and distribution are part of the creative economy. In this sector, human ideas, cultural experiences and professional skills are transformed into videos, photographs, music and other creative products that generate economic value in the marketplace.

The United Nations Trade and Development agency, UNCTAD, recognises film, video, photography, music and broadcasting as important components of the creative industries.

From this perspective, initiatives such as the OSS Challenge can be viewed as promising examples of the rural creative economy. Local skills and employment opportunities can emerge at every stage, from concept development and filming to editing and distribution. Public policy must therefore recognise the value of creative assets and intellectual property generated through these initiatives.

Connectivity Is the Foundation of Creativity

The first requirement for turning this potential into reality is reliable, work-ready internet connectivity. A connection that allows users to watch videos but repeatedly fails when uploading large files increases production costs and disrupts a creator's workflow.

The Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC) and internet service providers should assess rural connectivity not only by download speed but also by upload speed, connection stability and complaint-resolution time.

Information about service quality in different locations should be publicly available. Local entrepreneurs need sufficient information to select connectivity that meets their professional requirements.

Professional Training Must Go Beyond App Usage

The second essential requirement is professional education. Learning to operate an application through a few hours of training does not prepare someone to manage a content-based business.

Creators need several weeks of practical exercises, guidance from experienced mentors and constructive feedback on their work.

Training programmes should cover storytelling and video editing alongside intellectual property rights, bookkeeping, contract management and digital account security.

Educational institutions, community radio stations and experienced creators at the district level could jointly introduce small-scale training programmes. Success should be measured not simply by the number of participants but by the practical work they can undertake after completing the training.

Understanding the realities of digital income is equally important. A large number of views does not automatically translate into a predictable income.

YouTube's official guidance makes clear that the Partner Programme does not guarantee how much a creator will earn, or even whether they will receive payment.

Therefore, long-term financial planning based solely on advertising revenue requires caution. Creators need to understand production costs, maintain emergency savings and develop multiple income streams.

Producing videos, editing content and providing digital promotional services for local businesses can also become sources of regular income.

Banking and Business Support Matter

Banking and business support systems must adapt to this emerging reality.

Small creator teams need practical guidance in simple Bangla on receiving legitimate income, preparing necessary documentation and complying with applicable tax requirements.

Relevant government agencies and banks could jointly develop practical support mechanisms.

When assessing loan applications, financial institutions should give greater importance to evidence of regular income, business plans and operational capacity rather than relying primarily on follower counts or video views.

Any public grant programme should follow transparent application procedures and publicly disclosed evaluation criteria.

Platform Accountability and Creators' Rights

Digital platforms also have responsibilities. When monetisation is suspended or restrictions are imposed on an account, creators should receive clear explanations and have access to an effective appeals process.

Regular engagement with Meta and YouTube is necessary to address Bengali-language support, prompt action against impersonation accounts and fair resolution of intellectual property complaints.

The experiences of creators from small towns and rural communities must be represented in these discussions, not just those of popular creators in major cities.

Government support must not become a mechanism for checking political loyalty or requiring permission to express opinions. Such practices would undermine the very environment in which creativity flourishes.

Entertainment Must Not Come at the Cost of Human Dignity

Protecting the dignity and rights of participants is equally important to sustaining creative initiatives.

Before producing commercial videos based on rural sporting activities, organisers must obtain informed consent from participants. They should clearly explain where the videos will be published and how the footage may be used.

Consent to receive a prize and consent to have one's image recorded and commercially used are two different matters.

Responsibilities and compensation should be clearly defined for people involved in regular production activities. Risk assessment and first-aid arrangements should also be integral to professional event management.

When children participate, parental consent must be accompanied by respect for the child's own comfort and best interests.

Effective mechanisms are needed to prevent and address harassment of women creators and participants.

People from low-income backgrounds must never feel pressured to undertake humiliating or dangerous activities simply to win a prize.

How safely and respectfully people are treated should be an important measure of success in any initiative designed to create entertainment.

Information Credibility Is a Professional Skill

Information credibility should also form an essential part of creator training.

A UNESCO study published in 2024 involved 500 content creators from 45 countries. The survey found that 62% did not systematically verify information before sharing it, while 73% expressed interest in receiving training.

These findings do not represent all content creators in Bangladesh. However, they offer an important international indication of the need for professional training and fact-checking.

When making claims about health, science or matters of public interest, creators must verify information through reliable sources.

They should also clearly disclose paid promotions and inform audiences when artificially generated visuals are presented in ways that could be mistaken for real footage.

A Measurable Pilot Initiative for Rural Creators

What Bangladesh needs now is a measurable pilot initiative.

The Information and Communication Technology Division, local educational institutions and private-sector partners could introduce a coordinated six-to-twelve-month support programme in selected upazilas.

The programme could provide shared access to equipment, regular mentoring, professional training and business development assistance.

Practical barriers to participation faced by women, persons with disabilities and young people from low-income backgrounds should be identified before implementation.

The results should publicly disclose how many participants secured regular work, how stable their income became after production expenses and whether they were able to work in a safe environment.

Reliable data about the sector are equally necessary.

The combined views of a few successful channels cannot be used to announce national employment figures or estimates of foreign earnings.

Sample-based research should examine creators' income, working hours, production expenses and occupational risks. Such evidence would help policymakers identify where support is most needed.

The experiences of unsuccessful initiatives must also be included. Listening only to success stories can conceal the actual conditions of the market.

Beyond a Billion Views: The Policy Imperative

There are ample reasons to celebrate Chandpur's achievement. The imagination, creativity and hard work of young people in a village can reach audiences across the world. That possibility is valuable in itself.

The government's responsibility now is to provide the infrastructure and services needed to support this potential. Digital platforms and entrepreneurs must ensure fairness, transparency and protection of participants' rights.

The next generation of content creators should be able to learn, work and earn with dignity without leaving their villages.

The billion-view achievement of Chandpur in Faridpur Upazila, Pabna, should be a starting point for Bangladesh's policymakers to turn rural creativity into a sustainable economic opportunity.

Author » Ambassador for Responsible Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Antimicrobial Resistance

[Editorial Note]

The central strength of this article lies in its ability to move beyond the personal success of a viral content initiative and connect it to broader questions of rural economic development, digital infrastructure, employment and public policy. The author rightly points out that a massive number of views does not automatically guarantee sustainable income or employment. Long-term economic viability requires professional skills, reliable connectivity, intellectual property protection, financial management and respect for human dignity.

The editorial process has preserved the author's original perspective and experience while organising the discussion into a clearer thematic structure. Particular emphasis has been placed on creators' rights, the safety of women and children, information credibility and the proposal for measurable public support.

To translate Chandpur's success into a national policy initiative, Bangladesh first needs reliable evidence of its economic impact. Rather than view counts, actual creator income, local employment, skills development and long-term business sustainability should serve as the principal indicators of success.

Every article published in Tech-Thought represents the author's personal thoughts and independent views. Therefore, Digital Bangla Media, as an organisation, is not associated with the original opinions expressed in the article. As reflection of diverse opinions is one of the fundamental principles of journalism, the editorial board does not necessarily endorse the views expressed in these articles as its own institutional position. Any individual who feels aggrieved or provoked by the contents of this article should regard the matter as a personal concern between the author and the reader.

Dark Web, Emerging Tech, and Animal Sexual Abuse

স্পেশাল করেসপন্ডেন্ট — Sun, 08 Nov 2026 01:11:39 +0600

[Highlights]

Clinical Distinction: Psychological attraction to animals (Zoophilia) is distinct from physical sexual acts (Bestiality), qualifying as a Paraphilic Disorder when linked to harm or functional impairment.
Algorithmic Normalization & Synthetic Media: Covert dark web communities erode moral inhibitions, while generative AI introduces synthetic media that circumvents traditional child and animal protection filters.
The Consent Doctrine & Forensic Integrity: Because animals cannot consent, bestiality constitutes non-negotiable cruelty; legal prosecution demands rigorous chain of custody, metadata extraction, and independent corroboration.

Historically, deviant and destructive sexual behaviors remained largely confined to an individual's private domain. Today, modern communication tools, covert online subcultures, and illicit networks operating across the dark web have introduced unprecedented vectors to normalize, encourage, and, in certain instances, commercially exploit such conduct.

A recent arrest in the United States involving the sexual abuse of a goat has reignited an essential forensic and psychiatric discourse: What biological and psychological triggers drive human sexual attraction toward animals? Concurrently, does digital technology accelerate the dissemination and reinforcement of these behaviors?

In clinical psychology, an enduring sexual attraction toward animals is defined as Zoophilia, whereas engaging in direct sexual acts with animals is termed Bestiality. These two concepts are clinically distinct. Zoophilia is not automatically categorized as a standalone psychiatric disorder in standard diagnostic manuals; rather, it is diagnosed as a Paraphilic Disorder only when it produces marked subjective distress, personal functional impairment, or external harm.

How Digital Technology Amplifies Systemic Risk

There is no definitive empirical consensus indicating that internet access independently generates zoophilic attraction. However, digital networks can provide fertile ground that reinforces and validates pre-existing harmful inclinations. Four primary areas warrant deep investigative concern:

Online Communities and Behavioral Normalization

Covert forums, private messaging channels, and niche communities often attempt to rationalize and normalize sexual abuse targeting animals. When individuals harboring deviant inclinations encounter peer validation within insulated echo chambers, internal inhibitions erode, elevating the operational risk of real-world offenses.

The Dark Web and Illicit Media Trafficking:

Encrypted networks and illicit dark web repositories facilitate the distribution and commercial exchange of bestiality media. While precise epidemiological data regarding the volume of this content remains limited, and acknowledging that encrypted routing is not inherently criminal, the structural anonymity of these layers complicates law enforcement detection.

Psychological Desensitization to Abuse:

Chronic, repetitive consumption of extreme abusive media can diminish an individual's natural empathetic response to suffering and non-consensual violence. Nonetheless, criminological science cautions against deterministic assumptions: consuming graphic digital media does not mathematically guarantee the commission of physical offenses.

Weaponization of Generative AI and Deepfakes:

Modern generative machine-learning models enable the computational synthesis of hyper-realistic imagery and video depicting animal abuse. While synthetic media does not document an immediate physical act, it is actively deployed to normalize deviant behaviors, facilitate online harassment, bypass moderation engines, and populate illicit digital black markets.

Essential Protocols in Digital Forensic Investigations

Investigating technology-facilitated animal abuse demands analyzing both the psychological profile of the suspect and their digital artifacts:

Subject to rigorous judicial warrants and statutory oversight, forensic analysts must extract and examine mobile devices, workstations, communications logs, file metadata (including EXIF parameters and timestamps), cloud synchronization histories, and digital payment trails.

Forensic protocols must verify whether the suspect created, archived, disseminated, or monetized non-consensual abusive media. Throughout the extraction pipeline, maintaining strict mathematical integrity (cryptographic hashing) and an uncompromised Chain of Custody is legally non-negotiable.

Crucially, the mere presence of illicit content on a seized storage volume is insufficient to establish that the user perpetrated the physical assault depicted. Establishing an unbroken evidentiary link between digital artifacts and the physical crime scene requires independent, multi-layered forensic correlation.

A Precursor to Interpersonal Violence Against Humans?

Criminological literature has long established a positive correlation between animal cruelty and interpersonal violence against humans. However, empirical science does not support the generalized conclusion that an individual exhibiting zoophilia will inevitably escalate to committing violent sexual offenses against humans.

Forensic evaluations must assess the suspect’s prior criminal record, behavioral recidivism, documented manifestations of physical aggression, and comprehensive psychiatric diagnoses.

Strategic Imperatives for Policy and Enforcement

Within the socio-legal framework of Bangladesh, allegations of sexual abuse against animals cannot be dismissed as bizarre trivia or reduced to social media ridicule.

Effective institutional responses demand the strict enforcement of statutory animal welfare legislation, penal statutes, specialized psychiatric interventions, and standardized digital forensic readiness.

Technology does not function as the sole root cause of criminality. However, its weaponization provides the infrastructure to conceal deviant conduct, facilitate illicit coordination, and structure digital exploitation.

Animals are biologically incapable of granting sexual consent. Consequently, sexual conduct involving animals cannot be framed under the doctrine of personal freedom or sexual autonomy. It constitutes animal cruelty, ethical degradation, and a direct violation of statutory law. In an interconnected digital era, criminal investigations can no longer stop at the physical crime scene; the most critical evidentiary trails often reside within a secured smartphone, an encrypted account, or an anonymous digital network.

Author | Digital Forensics and Cyber Crime Analyst; Chief Executive Officer, Backdraft Security. He actively provides technical analysis and policy frameworks on digital evidence preservation, incident response, and national cyber law enforcement.

[Editor's Note]

Addressing a deeply sensitive, historically taboo, and under-reported category of criminal behavior requires looking past sensationalism to conduct a rigorous psychiatric, technological, and forensic inquiry. In this treatise, digital forensics analyst Tanvir Hassan Zoha articulates an essential legal and moral truth: because animals are biologically incapable of granting consent, technology-facilitated bestiality and zoophilic exploitation cannot be shielded under doctrines of personal autonomy or private discretion—it represents unmitigated animal cruelty, psychological distortion, and an unambiguous statutory violation.

The author provides critical guidance regarding the investigative complexities introduced by dark-web encryption, the proliferation of generative AI deepfakes, and the non-negotiable imperative of preserving an uncompromised legal chain of custody when seizing digital media. In an era where illicit conduct rapidly migrates from physical perimeters into secured cyber ecosystems, equipping judicial and investigative institutions with specialized forensic readiness is vital. Published with editorial standardization to inform national cyber policy, advance forensic integrity, and uphold animal protection standards.

[Disclaimer & Declaration]

This analytical policy and technical review addresses sensitive subject matter strictly within the academic, legal, and criminological domains of digital forensics, clinical paraphilic diagnostics, and animal welfare protection. The analysis contains no graphic, explicit, or unlawful descriptions. Its exclusive purpose is to inform statutory law enforcement agencies, cybercrime investigators, forensic auditors, and policy researchers regarding the vectors through which encrypted networks, generative AI, and digital media are weaponized, alongside articulating the evidentiary standards required to identify, investigate, and legally prosecute non-consensual technological and physical abuse.

Living Well After Breast Cancer: Nutrition, Physical Activity, and Holistic Rehabilitation for Bangladeshi Women

স্পেশাল করেসপন্ডেন্ট — Fri, 06 Nov 2026 08:08:20 +0600

[Highlights]

Comprehensive Survivorship Beyond Remission: With over 13,000 annual breast cancer cases in Bangladesh, public health frameworks must expand beyond surgical and clinical treatment to prioritize long-term physical, nutritional, and emotional rehabilitation.
Affordable Local Nutrition Over Unverified Myths: Discarding expensive imported supplements and restrictive diets, survivors can secure optimal clinical recovery using nutrient-dense native foods (lentils, small fish, leafy greens, and seasonal fruits) under professional medical oversight.
Prescribed Physical Activity vs. Domestic Chores: Routine housework is not a substitute for exercise; adhering to WHO benchmarks of 150–300 minutes of weekly moderate aerobic activity alongside family support and lymphedema monitoring is vital to reducing recurrence risks.

For a woman diagnosed with breast cancer in Bangladesh, concluding active medical treatment represents an immense milestone. Following exhausting cycles of hospital consultations, radical or conservative surgery, systemic chemotherapy, and targeted radiotherapy, re-entering ordinary domestic life is an extraordinary triumph. Yet a critical public health inquiry remains unaddressed: what structural care pathways await a survivor once clinical therapy terminates? Are Bangladeshi women receiving the nutritional counseling, physical rehabilitation, and psychosocial solidarity necessary to reclaim their vitality?

Epidemiological evaluations published by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) estimate that approximately 13,000 women were diagnosed with breast cancer across Bangladesh in 2022, confirming it as the most prevalent malignancy among the female population. While clinical oncologists and health advocates focus extensively on early diagnostic screening and active intervention protocols, the sustained survivorship care, rehabilitation, and long-term quality of life (QoL) of cancer survivors receive negligible institutional attention.

Surviving breast cancer cannot remain narrowly defined by statistical longevity; it must encompass the structural restoration of human dignity and optimal functional living. A substantial proportion of post-treatment patients endure persistent cancer-related fatigue, unmanaged metabolic shifts, diminished musculoskeletal strength, clinical depression, and difficulties re-assimilating into domestic and occupational life. Evidence-based nutritional management and regular physical activity represent two non-negotiable pillars of comprehensive survivorship.

Nutritional Excellence Requires Local Prudence, Not Affluence

In the socio-cultural fabric of Bangladesh, food consumption is deeply intertwined with family traditions, socio-economic standing, and cultural heritage. Parboiled rice, seasonal vegetables, freshwater fish, pulses, and indigenous fruits constitute the traditional dietary baseline. Consumed in medically appropriate portions and combinations, these native staples deliver a balanced, nutrient-dense diet. Conversely, high consumption of refined carbohydrates, deep-fried items, and reused trans-fats, paired with insufficient dietary fiber and lean proteins, compromises biological resilience.

For breast cancer survivors, disciplined weight management and macronutrient balance are vital. International oncology guidelines emphasize a diverse intake of colorful vegetables, fresh fruits, whole grains, and clean protein sources, while advising the strict avoidance of processed meats, refined sugars, high-calorie processed snacks, and alcohol. Nutritional optimization does not mandate expensive foreign health products or proprietary commercial supplements; affordable domestic foods—such as lentils, eggs, local small fish, moringa, native leafy greens, and seasonal fruits—readily provide vital micronutrients.

Simultaneously, unverified dietary myths and social taboos demand decisive clinical deconstruction. Misinformed by folk remedies or commercial pseudoscience, many survivors enforce extreme caloric deficits or exclude vital food groups. No single "superfood" or restrictive holistic regimen guarantees permanent remission. Patients must clear any complementary herbal concoctions or OTC supplements with their surgical or clinical oncologists, as unvetted botanicals frequently disrupt ongoing endocrine therapies or hepatic pathways.

Structured Physical Activity: The Overlooked Rehabilitative Component

Parallel to metabolic nutrition, regular physical movement functions as a potent biological and psychological regenerative agent post-treatment. Clinical trials confirm that monitored exercise significantly mitigates chronic cancer-related fatigue, restores core muscle tone, optimizes glycemic control, and elevates emotional resilience. Cohort studies consistently indicate that sustained post-diagnosis physical activity correlates with reduced mortality outcomes.

The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends that adults living with chronic pathologies—including cancer survivors—target at least 150 to 300 minutes of moderate-intensity aerobic physical activity weekly, complemented by resistance exercises targeting major muscle groups on two or more days. For Bangladeshi women, this prescription does not require access to commercial gymnasiums or expensive personal training gear. Sustained brisk walking within neighborhood corridors, park walks, yoga, gentle dynamic stretching, or calisthenics at home provide practical alternatives. Patients recovering from physical debility should begin with short, low-impact sessions, incrementally advancing duration under medical oversight.

Critically, routine household labor cannot be conflated with structured exercise. Cooking over sustained heat, manual cleaning, and family caretaking impose high physical exertion, but they rarely provide the sustained cardiovascular elevation or balanced resistance training required for physiological rehabilitation. Furthermore, patients presenting with post-mastectomy chronic pain, deep fatigue, or upper-extremity lymphatic swelling (lymphedema) require tailored physical therapy regimens designed by qualified professionals before scaling their activity.

Mobilizing Household and Community Solidarity

Within the conventional Bangladeshi family architecture, women shoulder domestic administration, food preparation, and caretaking. Even in active recovery from cytotoxic therapies, female survivors frequently prioritize the domestic needs of extended family over their personal rehabilitation. Consequently, dedicating structured time to exercise, clinical follow-ups, or individualized dietary preparation becomes difficult.

Household members must play an active role in recovery. Husbands, children, and extended family members can share domestic responsibilities, prepare balanced meals, accompany survivors on daily walks, and provide emotional support. Rather than isolating the patient within an individual lifestyle regimen, entire households should embrace healthier physical habits collaboratively. Structural rural-urban healthcare disparities must also be confronted: women outside metropolitan centers encounter limited access to specialized physical therapists, dietitians, and safe recreational spaces. Survivorship strategies must remain accessible, culturally sensitive, and executable within rural contexts.

Institutionalizing Lifelong Survivorship Care

Oncology protocols in Bangladesh must evolve past hospital discharge summaries. Standardized dietary evaluations, physical therapy regimens, psychological counseling, and localized support networks must become permanent fixtures of public and tertiary oncology care. Attending physicians should deliver concise, evidence-based lifestyle roadmaps alongside prescriptions. Community clinics and civil society platforms can facilitate survivor peer networks to combat social isolation.

National healthcare strategists must recognize that improving long-term oncology outcomes requires investing in survivorship infrastructure alongside diagnostic hardware. Cancer survivors deserve the systemic support necessary to rebuild physical stamina, recover agency, and participate meaningfully in communal and public life.

A woman's post-cancer trajectory must not be measured solely by the disease she survived, but by the quality of life she reclaims. Empowering Bangladeshi women to eat nutritiously, maintain physical activity, and heal with community support must become a central healthcare priority. Life after cancer can be vibrant, meaningful, and resilient when anchored by proper nutrition, regular movement, and family solidarity.

Author | Dr. Tania Islam

Medical Lecturer and Epidemiologist, Department of Surgery, Faculty of Medicine, Universiti Malaya, Malaysia; Executive Committee Member, Youth Hub Foundation Berhad. She specializes in surgical oncology epidemiology, cancer survivorship pathways, and global women's health advocacy.

[Editor's Note]

In discussions regarding cancer management in developing countries, the primary focus is typically placed on diagnosis and hospital-based treatment. However, the aspects of daily rehabilitation, nutrition, and mental health for women who have survived cancer often remain overlooked. Dr. Tania Islam, a public health researcher with international experience, articulates a vital perspective: the true success of overcoming cancer lies not merely in extending one’s lifespan, but in restoring a high quality of life. This article offers an excellent, practical framework for how women can regain their self-confidence and reintegrate into society—achieved through a scientifically grounded approach that integrates local dietary habits, the role of the family, and physical activity. We are publishing this piece—following necessary editorial refinement—to advocate for the inclusion of ‘cancer survivorship care’ (post-treatment rehabilitation) within our national health policy and to foster greater public awareness.

Bangladesh’s 1,095-Day Economic Transformation

স্পেশাল করেসপন্ডেন্ট — Wed, 04 Nov 2026 10:10:38 +0600

Bangladesh needs a time-bound national reform strategy for LDC graduation.
A digital dashboard can strengthen ministerial performance and accountability.
Export diversification, technology and skills must drive economic transformation

Bangladesh’s deadline for graduating from the Least Developed Countries (LDC) category has been extended to 24 November 2029. Undoubtedly, this presents an important opportunity for the country. However, treating these additional three years merely as an extension of time would be a serious mistake. Instead, they should be viewed as a historic opportunity to rebuild Bangladesh’s economic foundations, strengthen trade and investment, improve productivity and enhance the capacity of state institutions.

The fundamental question is: What do we intend to achieve during these three years? Will we simply try to retain existing international privileges, or will we build a competitive economy capable of maintaining its position in global markets without relying on special trade preferences?

We should not view this extended timeline merely as three additional years. We must think in terms of individual days. A three-year period can be framed as a 1,095-day action plan. However, because 2028 is a leap year, the actual interval between 24 November 2026 and 24 November 2029 is 1,096 days. Every reform, policy initiative and implementation target must therefore be guided by a commitment to making every available day count.

Thinking in days rather than years creates a greater sense of urgency and reinforces the importance of timely action. Instead of becoming complacent about having three years, we must develop a culture in which every day contributes to a measurable national objective.

Economic reform cannot be accomplished through announcements alone. It requires clearly defined targets, accountable institutions, implementation deadlines, measurable outcomes and regular oversight.

A National LDC Readiness Monitoring Dashboard Under the Prime Minister’s Office

One of the most important components of this action plan should be the establishment of a National LDC Readiness Monitoring Dashboard under the Prime Minister’s Office.

At present, different ministries and government agencies formulate and implement their own plans. However, Bangladesh needs an effective central mechanism to monitor how individual reform initiatives relate to one another, whether implementation is progressing on schedule and how much progress the country is making towards its overall national objectives.

A central digital monitoring dashboard could provide this mechanism. It should include specific key performance indicators (KPIs) for each ministry, defined targets, daily and monthly progress reports, and verified implementation outcomes.

The Prime Minister and relevant policymakers should be able to see at a glance which ministries are ahead of schedule, which are falling behind and where administrative or policy intervention is required.

Collecting information alone, however, will not be sufficient. Officials responsible for individual ministries must be held accountable for delivering specific results.

Malaysia’s experience in public-sector performance management could offer valuable lessons. Its Prime Minister’s Office-led implementation and monitoring framework placed considerable emphasis on defined targets, deadlines and performance-based accountability.

Bangladesh could introduce a similar mechanism, creating a direct link between policy planning and implementation.

Ten Critical Areas Requiring Urgent Reform

LDC graduation is essentially a test of Bangladesh’s economic capabilities. The country's post-graduation success will depend largely on its preparedness to face reduced tariff preferences in international markets, stronger export competition and increasingly demanding global standards.

In my assessment, at least ten areas require priority reforms.

1. Export Diversification: Building New Economic Strength Beyond RMG

A substantial portion of Bangladesh’s export earnings depends on the ready-made garment (RMG) sector. Excessive dependence on a single industry creates long-term economic risks.

Considering changes in global markets, international competition, rising labour costs and the possibility of reduced tariff preferences after LDC graduation, export diversification must become an immediate national priority.

Promising sectors such as pharmaceuticals, information and communications technology (ICT), software services, cross-border e-commerce, business process outsourcing (BPO), agro-processing and light engineering deserve particular attention.

A coordinated approach is needed to strengthen production capacity, expand technology adoption, meet international standards, develop skilled human resources, improve domestic financing and attract foreign investment.

Digital services, software, BPO and cross-border e-commerce offer significant opportunities to earn foreign currency through service exports alongside traditional merchandise exports.

The government should establish separate export growth targets, timelines and implementation strategies for each priority sector. It must also address barriers to international market access, negotiate new trade agreements, facilitate international certification for products and services, and ensure accessible financing for exporters.

Our objective should be to establish Bangladesh not merely as an RMG-exporting country, but as a diversified exporter of goods and services.

2. Trade Policy: Preparing for New Markets and Trade Agreements

Following LDC graduation, retaining existing tariff preferences in major markets, including the European Union, could become increasingly challenging for Bangladesh.

Therefore, discussions on free trade agreements (FTAs) and economic partnership agreements (EPAs) should begin immediately with the European Union, the United Kingdom, Japan, Canada and other important trading partners.

Signing agreements should not be the sole objective. Bangladesh needs detailed assessments of the export potential of individual products in each market, the sectors most exposed to tariff risks and the production capabilities that must be developed.

Bangladeshi diplomatic missions can play a more active role in identifying new markets, building business-to-business (B2B) connections with local enterprises, identifying commercial opportunities and facilitating bilateral and multilateral trade agreements.

Bangladesh’s trade diplomacy must become more proactive, data-driven and results-oriented.

3. Banking Sector: Strengthening the Financial Foundation of the Economy

A strong banking system is indispensable for building a competitive economy.

Non-performing loans, weak credit management, irregularities in bank ownership and governance, and declining confidence in the financial sector remain major obstacles to investment.

To ensure good governance in banking, Bangladesh must improve transparency in loan approval and recovery, strengthen risk-based supervision, effectively restructure weak banks and take visible action against financial irregularities.

At the same time, accessible financing must be ensured for small and medium-sized enterprises, technology ventures and emerging export-oriented industries.

4. Revenue Reform: Expanding the Tax Base Without Imposing Unreasonable Pressure on Businesses

One of Bangladesh’s major challenges is its limited capacity to generate public revenue. Strengthening domestic revenue mobilisation is essential to increase investment in infrastructure, education, healthcare, technology and social protection.

This requires modernising tax administration, digitally integrating taxpayer information and using revenue intelligence and analytics to identify holding tax liabilities, trade licences, outstanding revenues, tax evasion and new revenue-generation opportunities.

Geographic information system-based tax reforms should also be introduced to expand the tax base and improve collection coverage.

Through reform of the National Board of Revenue, the tax system must become simpler, more transparent and technology-driven. The objective should not be to impose additional tax burdens, but to bring a larger share of the existing economy under a fair and transparent tax framework.

It is important to recognise that simply providing tax information or enabling online tax payments through websites does not amount to genuine automation.

True automation will require direct integration between cash registers at retail outlets across the country and the National Board of Revenue. This would allow transaction data to flow automatically into the revenue management system, helping reduce tax evasion and expand revenue collection.

5. Ports and Logistics: The Operational Foundation of Export Competitiveness

Modernising seaports, land ports, customs operations and domestic transportation systems is essential to strengthening Bangladesh’s export capabilities.

A product does not become competitive in international markets simply because its production cost is low. The speed, cost and reliability with which it reaches the buyer are equally important.

Priority should be given to expanding the capacity of Chattogram and Mongla ports, ensuring effective progress on the Matarbari deep-sea port project, automating customs operations and implementing a National Single Window trade facilitation system.

Bangladesh should learn from countries such as Singapore to improve port management, reduce cargo clearance times and lower logistics costs.

6. Energy Security: Reliable Electricity for Industrialisation

Reliable and affordable energy is essential for industrial production, technology services and new investment.

Investors are unlikely to make long-term commitments when electricity and gas supplies remain uncertain.

Bangladesh must therefore reduce excessive dependence on imported energy, expand renewable energy use, modernise electricity transmission and distribution systems, and adopt a long-term energy strategy.

Ensuring uninterrupted electricity supplies, particularly in industrial zones, must be a priority.

7. Foreign Investment: Moving Beyond Investment Promotion to Actual Implementation

Although Bangladesh has considerable potential for attracting foreign investment, complications involving business registration, regulatory approvals, land, taxation, infrastructure and administrative procedures often discourage investors.

To attract foreign investment, Bangladesh must develop internationally competitive special economic zones equipped with modern infrastructure, a business-friendly environment, appropriate tax incentives and effective one-stop services.

Investors should not have to visit multiple government offices to obtain approvals and essential services. Investment approval and service delivery processes must be simplified.

The government should also regularly monitor the gap between announced investment commitments and actual investment realised.

Foreign investment is not merely a source of capital for Bangladesh. It can also facilitate technology transfer, management expertise, access to international markets and new employment opportunities.

Clear legal guarantees, investor rights and government commitments must be established to ensure that investors can lawfully repatriate their invested capital and profits.

8. Education and Skills: Preparing the Next Generation for the Future Economy

The global economy is rapidly moving towards artificial intelligence, robotics, automation and digital services.

If Bangladesh fails to prepare its young population for these changes, its demographic advantage could eventually become an economic burden.

A national artificial intelligence task force should be established through coordination among universities, ministries, government agencies and the private sector. Its objectives should include expanding digital services, creating employment opportunities and increasing technology-driven service exports.

The task force should coordinate implementation and accountability across initiatives involving the World Bank and UNDP, skills development, the use of AI in public services, startup development and university-based research.

Effective partnerships must be established between universities and industries. Education should move beyond a certificate-oriented approach and prioritise skills that directly contribute to employment and productivity.

In particular, plans must begin immediately to reskill workers in professions likely to be transformed by artificial intelligence.

9. Product Quality and Compliance with International Standards

Producing goods at low prices is no longer sufficient to secure access to international markets.

Bangladesh must ensure product quality, workers’ rights, environmental compliance, safety and transparency throughout the production process.

Environmental and production-related requirements are becoming increasingly important in markets such as the European Union.

Domestic industries therefore need support in obtaining international certifications, adopting environmentally sustainable production methods, improving workplace safety and raising product quality.

Access to quality testing facilities and technical assistance must be made easier, particularly for small and medium-sized enterprises.

10. Good Governance and the Justice System: Foundations of Economic Confidence

No country can become an advanced economy through infrastructure development alone. It also needs effective institutions, the rule of law, corruption control and administrative accountability.

Bangladesh must ensure the timely resolution of commercial disputes, effective enforcement of contracts, transparency in public procurement and predictability in administrative decisions.

Investors must operate in an environment where they know that their investments, assets and business rights are protected by law.

Lessons from Other Countries

Bangladesh does not need to reinvent everything during these three years. It can draw valuable lessons from countries that have successfully transformed their economies.

Malaysia’s experience demonstrates how government institutions can be aligned with common national objectives through clearly defined targets, deadlines and performance monitoring led by the Prime Minister’s Office.

Bhutan has linked its LDC graduation preparations with its long-term national development strategy. Rather than treating graduation as an isolated event, it has approached the transition as part of its broader economic development agenda.

The Maldives has leveraged tourism and international investment as important drivers of economic growth. Bangladesh should also explore new opportunities in tourism, digital services, agro-processing and international trade based on its own economic potential.

However, blindly replicating another country’s model will not work. Bangladesh must adopt approaches suited to its economic structure, population, industrial capacity and administrative realities.

The First 100 Days: Visible Implementation, Not Just Announcements

The first 100 days will be particularly important in making the 1,095-day plan effective.

At least five actions should be completed during this period.

First, a National LDC Readiness and Transformation Task Force should be established under the leadership of the Prime Minister. It should include representatives from relevant ministries, government agencies, the private sector, economists, business associations and experts.

Second, a national readiness monitoring system should be launched under the Prime Minister’s Office.

Third, each ministry should receive clearly defined key performance indicators, implementation deadlines and reform roadmaps.

Fourth, the private sector must be made a partner in both policy formulation and implementation rather than being confined to an advisory role.

Fifth, a public progress report should be published every 100 days. It must clearly explain which targets have been achieved, which remain unmet and why.

This Transformation Cannot Succeed Without the Private Sector

The private sector is the real driving force of Bangladesh’s economy. Business leaders and entrepreneurs play an indispensable role in employment generation, exports, investment, production and the adoption of new technologies.

Therefore, the national readiness plan must ensure active participation from business associations, exporters, ICT entrepreneurs, small and medium-sized enterprises, startups and representatives of the digital commerce sector.

The government’s responsibility is to provide policy support, infrastructure, skills development, financing and a business-friendly environment.

The private sector, in turn, must lead efforts to improve productivity, adopt technology, promote innovation and expand access to international markets.

Cross-border digital commerce, ICT service exports, international market access for small entrepreneurs and global marketing of domestic products could create significant new opportunities for Bangladesh in the coming years.

The Final Word: 2029 Must Not Become Another Deadline for Preparation

LDC graduation is not the end of Bangladesh’s journey. It is the beginning of a new economic reality.

If we spend the next three years merely trying to preserve existing privileges, responding to the challenges that emerge after 2029 will become increasingly difficult.

However, if Bangladesh implements meaningful reforms in banking, revenue mobilisation, trade, education, energy, ports, investment and public administration during this period, it can emerge as a stronger and more resilient economy.

We must remember that a country’s capabilities are not measured by how long it enjoys special privileges. They are measured by how competitively it can perform without those privileges.

What Bangladesh needs now is political commitment, administrative efficiency, private-sector participation and results-oriented leadership.

We must not wait until 24 November 2029. Instead, every day should be connected to a clear national objective.

This is not merely a three-year extension. It is a historic opportunity to rebuild Bangladesh’s economic future.

Without proper planning, however, imagination will remain just imagination, and the fairy of planning will simply spread her wings and fly away.

Author: ICT & Policy Analyst | Entrepreneur

Editor’s Note

Bangladesh’s LDC graduation is not merely a matter of achieving international recognition or moving into a different development category. It is a major test of the country’s economic capacity, institutional effectiveness and ability to compete in global markets.

In this article, Ashik Noon examines the additional three-year preparatory period as an opportunity to initiate a time-bound programme of economic reforms.

The article’s particular strength lies in its emphasis on implementation. The proposed digital monitoring dashboard under the Prime Minister’s Office, ministry-specific performance indicators, reforms across ten priority sectors and a first-100-day action plan highlight the importance of coordination and accountability in economic policymaking.

The author’s emphasis on export diversification, technology-driven service exports, AI-related skills development and private-sector participation is particularly relevant to Bangladesh’s future economic prospects.

The article raises an important question: How quickly can Bangladesh reduce its dependence on preferential trade arrangements and develop its own productive, innovative and competitive capabilities?

The answer will depend not simply on the quality of policy plans, but on their implementation, institutional reforms and sustained accountability.

This is an opinion article based on the author’s own analysis and policy recommendations. The proposals discussed should be understood as recommendations for national debate, not as measures already adopted by the government.

Declaration

Views expressed in the 'Tech-Thought' column are exclusively those of the author and do not necessarily represent the editorial stance of Digi-Bangla Media. Published without alterations to promote open intellectual discourse.

Is Bangladesh Prepared? Which Path for Structural Transformation?

Senior Staff Correspondent — Mon, 02 Nov 2026 00:09:58 +0600

[Highlights]

Market Expansion vs. Workforce Transition: Amid a $9.4 billion ICT sector and a $6 billion e-commerce landscape, generative AI is accelerating the obsolescence of low-tier freelancing, demanding a swift national transition toward prompt architecture and data curation.
F-Commerce Empowerment & Operational Gains: Algorithmic targeting and MFS rails have transformed social commerce into an inclusive economic engine for female entrepreneurs, while enterprise AI deployment is compressing corporate logistics OpEx by 15–25%.
Four Pillars for Sovereignty: Bangladesh must engineer a sovereign Bengali LLM, formulate green data center and semiconductor strategies, enforce a comprehensive Data Protection Act, and institutionalize independent empirical research from think tanks like CDCRA.

The global macroeconomic paradigm is traversing a historic and structural disruption. The catalyst of this epochal shift is not conventional geopolitical conflict, but the compounding exponential velocity of foundational technologies. While past industrial revolutions were defined by steam power, electrical distribution, and early silicon computing, the fourth industrial transformation is driven by two symbiotic engines: Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Digital Commerce.

Across national policy councils, cabinet meetings, and corporate boardrooms, a critical question dominates strategic discourse: How will autonomous algorithms reshape commerce, industrial productivity, and the future of labor? For Bangladesh, a developing economy historically sustained by low-cost labor exports, this transition is existential. Transitioning to knowledge-intensive, high-complexity digital value chains is no longer optional—it is a non-negotiable prerequisite for industrial survival.

Macroeconomic Architecture: Bangladesh Through Empirical Metrics

Assessing an economy's technological readiness demands rigorous empirical benchmarking. According to composite data from the World Bank, UNCTAD, and domestic IT industry audits, Bangladesh’s ICT sector valuation has crossed the $9.4 billion threshold. Sustaining an annual compound growth rate between 6 and 8 percent positions the sector to achieve gross revenues between $12.8 and $13 billion by 2031.

Concurrently, the domestic e-commerce ecosystem has crossed an annual gross merchandise value (GMV) of $6 billion. Driven by staples, fashion apparel, and FMCG, consumer electronics alone contributes approximately 24 percent of aggregate online retail turnover. Reinforced by hyper-scalable Mobile Financial Services (MFS) and national courier fulfillment backbones, digital retail has effectively decentralized beyond the urban centers of Dhaka and Chattogram into grassroots agrarian communities.

Social Commerce as an Engine for Female Economic Enfranchisement

The most profound socioeconomic manifestation of Bangladesh’s digital market is the rapid rise of social commerce (F-Commerce). Leveraging Meta and Instagram channels, hundreds of thousands of female micro-entrepreneurs operate distributed home-based commercial nodes. Retailing artisanal confectionery, handloom Jamdani textiles, indigenous crafts, and boutique fashion, they are directly converting informal household savings into active economic liquidity.

The ubiquitous penetration of MFS payment rails, paired with algorithmic micro-targeting, allows female entrepreneurs to acquire consumer traffic with minimal customer acquisition costs (CAC). E-commerce in Bangladesh has evolved past centralized corporate marketplaces to become an essential structural vehicle for decentralized female empowerment.

Workplace Disruption and the Restructuring of the Gig Economy

Projections by the World Economic Forum (WEF) indicate that generative AI architectures and advanced robotic process automation will fundamentally restructure millions of global occupations within the next five years. Enterprise deployments of autonomous tools have scaled technical productivity anywhere from 50 to 300 percent.

For Bangladesh’s vast freelance workforce, this paradigm shift represents a severe structural shock. Historically, the country's outsourcing base scaled on low-complexity, commoditized tasks: basic manual data entry, generic copywriting, rudimentary vector illustration, and boilerplate web design. Because contemporary multimodal AI models execute these low-tier tasks instantaneously at marginal cost, legacy business process outsourcing is experiencing structural contraction. Conversely, a higher-tier gig economy is emerging—one governed by algorithmic prompt engineering, contextual data curation, domain-specific model fine-tuning, and machine-learning operations.

Applied Algorithmic Operations in Digital Retail

Within enterprise e-commerce, artificial intelligence is an indispensable operational baseline. Tier-1 marketplaces leverage hyper-personalization pipelines: predictive behavioral algorithms continuously evaluate browsing histories, churn probabilities, and real-time purchasing power to serve localized recommendations, substantially increasing cart conversion rates.

Simultaneously, natural language processing (NLP) bots provide round-the-clock conversational resolutions that match the contextual nuance of human operators. In fulfillment logistics, predictive machine learning models optimize dynamic delivery routing and demand-driven warehouse staging, consistently compressing aggregate operational expenditures (OpEx) by 15 to 25 percent.

Physical Infrastructure, Semiconductor Geopolitics, and Green Compute

The contemporary international geopolitical landscape is centered upon high-stakes semiconductor sovereignty and supply-chain containment (the global "Chip War"). Orchestrating state-of-the-art AI workloads requires dense clusters of enterprise GPUs and advanced sub-nanometer chips. While Bangladesh has achieved initial competency in application software development, systemic deficiencies persist across front-end semiconductor design, IoT hardware assembly, and advanced microelectronics packaging.

Furthermore, given the heavy energy consumption and cooling requirements of high-density AI clusters, the state must codify forward-looking "Green Data Center" mandates. Transitioning hyper-scale digital infrastructure onto clean baseload renewables is a critical precondition for sustainable, climate-resilient deep-tech capital investment.

Systemic Risks: Deepfakes, Financial Fraud, and Data Privacy

Accelerating technological capability introduces severe systemic vulnerabilities. The democratization of generative tools has scaled the proliferation of synthetic deepfakes, synthetic voice mimicry, and automated social engineering campaigns. In an environment constrained by uneven digital literacy, vulnerabilities across mobile financial interfaces and programmatic disinformation networks are magnified.

Insulating the national digital financial architecture requires more than perimeter firewalls; it demands statutory institutionalization via an enforceable, progressive Data Protection Act. Explicit legal frameworks must be codified to penalize the illicit harvesting of citizen telemetric profiles and mandate absolute corporate data stewardship.

Strategic Policy Directives: From Consumers to Sovereign Producers

To insulate its economic autonomy, Bangladesh must transition from being a captive consumer of foreign proprietary algorithms to a sovereign owner of intellectual property. Strategic priorities require immediate execution across four policy pillars:

Vernacular Bengali Large Language Models (LLM): Global commercial AI engines remain inherently Anglo-centric. Developing localized, foundational open-weight models trained on rigorously vetted, sovereign Bengali datasets is vital to empower vernacular commerce and public administration.
National Curricular Reform for Scaled Upskilling: Rote academic training must be replaced with computational thinking. Secondary and tertiary curricula should integrate mandatory instruction in prompt engineering, systems architecture, and mathematical data science.
Leveraging Independent Policy Research: Sustainable modernization requires institutionalizing insights from specialized research organizations. Think tanks like the Center for Digital Commerce Research and Advocacy (CDCRA) have consistently delivered empirical frameworks regarding e-commerce governance, micro-merchant protections, and fiscal rationalization. Integrating such targeted policy research into statutory planning is essential.
Ratification of an Actionable National AI Policy: Bureaucratic paralysis must be superseded by ratifying an actionable national AI policy that codifies fiscal research tax credits, intellectual property indemnities, and competitive venture incentives.

Horizons of Sovereign Technological Growth

Artificial intelligence is not an impending crisis; it is an unprecedented multiplier of human capability. It does not exist to extinguish human agency, but to eliminate mechanical drudgery and expand productive output. The defining reality of the digital era is clear: "Artificial intelligence will not replace you; an individual proficiently leveraging artificial intelligence will replace those who do not."

By aligning institutional governance, forward-looking fiscal policy, and the exceptional intellectual resourcefulness of its demographic dividend, Bangladesh can harness this convergence of AI and e-commerce to scale into a resilient, high-income digital economy. The moment to shed the constraints of low-complexity labor and assert national technological sovereignty is now.

Author | Technology Entrepreneur, Digital Commerce Policy Analyst, and Founding Member of the e-Commerce Association of Bangladesh (e-CAB). He actively advocates for structural governance, grassroots merchant protections, and macroeconomic ICT modernization.

[Editor's Note]

As the multifaceted advances of artificial intelligence are reshaping the dynamics of global commerce, this article on the readiness, limitations, and structural potential of Bangladesh's e-commerce sector serves as an objective and practical document. The author has not merely highlighted the external benefits of technology, but has also very clearly identified the shrinking of conventional work in the freelancing sector, the necessity of green data centers, semiconductor geopolitics, and the risks of data protection. In particular, the assessment of the economic contribution of marginalized women entrepreneurs in the country's social commerce, and the proposals regarding the implementation of policy recommendations by independent think tanks such as the Center for Digital Commerce Research and Advocacy (CDCRA), can be especially helpful in formulating national planning. Given the overall realities of digital transformation and the importance of policy reform, the piece is published with editorial standardization.

Are You the Next Target?

Senior Staff Correspondent — Sun, 01 Nov 2026 02:01:33 +0600

[Highlights]

Memory Vulnerabilities in PHP & Node.js: The October 2026 disclosure of critical RCE memory flaws underscores the urgent necessity to patch legacy production stacks and audit exposed digital endpoints.
Software Delivery vs. Security Ownership: Completing vendor delivery does not terminate institutional liability; enforcing SBOM tracking and lifecycle maintenance SLAs is vital for enterprise resilience.
Institutional Governance & Bug Bounties: Mirroring European regulatory benchmarks (such as NIS2 and the Cyber Resilience Act) and piloting a safe-harbor Government Bug Bounty Program are critical prerequisites for safeguarding Bangladesh's digital infrastructure.

Encountering an unresponsive public portal during an emergency, identifying unauthorized financial transactions within a banking ledger, or discovering that sensitive personal medical records have leaked from a hospital database may read like dramatic fiction—yet due to architectural software vulnerabilities, such catastrophic risks are acutely real.

As an industry, we routinely celebrate visual aesthetics, application velocity, and user-facing features, while relegating the most mission-critical imperative—security—to an afterthought. In October 2026, the simultaneous disclosure of critical vulnerabilities across the world's most ubiquitous enterprise backends, PHP and Node.js, combined with persistent national advisories from BGD e-GOV CIRT, compels an urgent reckoning: Are we internalizing these systemic warnings, or are we passively waiting for an unmitigated digital catastrophe?

Software Security in Bangladesh: Awaiting a Systemic Crisis?
From digital birth registrations, land management, and automated tax assessment to core banking, tertiary healthcare, and export garment ERPs—web applications, APIs, and microservice databases form the foundational infrastructure of contemporary Bangladesh. Yet, while functional dependency has scaled exponentially, institutional security practices have failed to keep pace.

According to the Breached and Unanswered study published by the Tech Global Institute in 2026, at least 68 significant data leak incidents (36 public sector, 32 private enterprise) were formally recorded between January 2023 and May 2026, compromising sensitive national identity records and passport parameters. While representing an informal baseline, these metrics illustrate the systemic surface exposure. Within this operational climate, on October 25, 2026, BGD e-GOV CIRT issued an advisory noting that numerous domestic public and private institutions continue to operate end-of-life, vulnerable PHP runtimes—with several failing to verify remediation despite prior notifications. An insecure application endpoint or unhardened API does not merely compromise its host entity; it jeopardizes the entire interconnected public service perimeter. (Sources: Tech Global Institute — Breached and Unanswered; BGD e-GOV CIRT — Unresolved PHP Security Exposures, 25 Oct 2026)

The PHP and Node.js Conundrum: Are Go and Rust the Definitive Succession?
On October 21, 2026, the PHP core development team published high-priority emergency patches across branches 8.5.12, 8.4.27, 8.3.36, and 8.2.35 to remediate two severe flaws: an out-of-memory handling failure (CVE-2026-109618) and a use-after-free pointer corruption defect (CVE-2026-109619). Crucially, under configurations running Apache’s mod_php, remote adversaries can achieve unauthenticated Remote Code Execution (RCE) prior to application-level routing. On October 27, CIRT highlighted an additional conditional threat vector (CVE-2026-115560). Concurrently, the Node.js runtime consortium released urgent updates across releases 22.x, 24.x, and 26.x, addressing critical memory corruption inside Brotli decompression alongside underlying DNS, TLS, and HTTP vulnerabilities. (Sources: PHP & Node.js Security Releases, Oct 2026; BGD e-GOV CIRT)

This technical reality does not imply that legacy runtimes are fundamentally unviable; governed by rigorous patch cycles and hardened configurations, they remain battle-tested workhorses. However, for greenfield enterprise engineering, Go and Rust present compelling paradigms. Go delivers clean concurrency architectures, efficient networking, and automated dependency vulnerability auditing via tools like govulncheck. Concurrently, Rust fundamentally eliminates memory corruption at compile time through its strict Ownership and Borrowing models. In November 2025, Google’s Android Security Team confirmed that transitioning system components from C/C++ to Rust drove an exponential reduction in memory-safety vulnerabilities. Nevertheless, decommissioning production-grade PHP or Node.js infrastructure overnight is fiscally and operationally imprudent; the pragmatic approach demands rigorous patch governance for legacy frameworks alongside the strategic adoption of Go or Rust for novel pipelines. (Sources: Go Security Docs; Google Security Blog — Rust in Android, Nov 2025)

Public vs. Private Sector Software: Structural Gaps and Accountability Deficits
In Bangladesh, public sector software procurement is bound to rigid tender cycles, fixed-budget ceilings, and administrative handover terms. Conversely, private commercial development operates under crushing pressures to compress time-to-market and minimize operational overhead. Despite distinct operational environments, both sectors exhibit identical vulnerabilities in application lifecycle security.

Consider a public citizen portal successfully deployed into production. Who assumes responsibility for runtime framework patching, database engine hardening, or cryptographic upgrades three years post-delivery? In the absence of explicitly budgeted maintenance clauses, post-deployment security defaults into bureaucratic paralysis. Concurrently, commercial private enterprises frequently fast-track code directly into production environments, bypassing static code analysis and penetration testing to meet release dates.

Outsourcing application development to external agencies does not absolve the commissioning enterprise of institutional liability. While contractual vendor obligations terminate upon final billing, the enterprise collecting citizen data retains absolute legal responsibility. Master Services Agreements (MSAs) and Service Level Agreements (SLAs) must explicitly define vulnerability remediation turnaround times, patch schedules, and breach escalation protocols. Every digital asset requires transparent, institutional security ownership.

Post-Delivery Realities: Navigating Latent Supply-Chain Exposures
An enterprise web portal delivered five years ago may appear fully functional, yet its underlying runtime, CMS plugins, JavaScript dependencies, or peripheral libraries frequently harbor exploitable vulnerabilities. Contemporary software architecture is an assembly of open-source components; a codebase authored with flawless internal logic remains critically exposed to compromised dependencies—a vector codified within the OWASP Top 10:2025 as Software Supply Chain Failures, Broken Access Control, and Security Misconfiguration.

Neutralizing this latent threat landscape requires maintaining an immutable Software Bill of Materials (SBOM), enforcing active Patch Management routines, conducting external third-party vulnerability assessments, validating staging rollbacks, and rehearsing disaster recovery protocols. The NIST Secure Software Development Framework (SSDF, SP 800-218) underscores this continuous lifecycle governance as an operational imperative.

Comparative Jurisprudence: Institutional Blueprints from Europe

European policy structures illustrate how software engineering can be anchored to statutory accountability:

Estonia: The X-tee distributed data exchange layer serves as the backbone of Estonian public administration. Rather than centralizing institutional data into a single point of failure, X-tee secures cross-agency communication through mandatory mutual authentication, end-to-end encryption, cryptographic digital signatures, and tamper-evident audit logging. (Source: Estonian Information System Authority)

Germany: The Federal Office for Information Security (BSI) enforces the IT-Grundschutz methodology (Standard 200-2), delivering a unified national baseline for structural risk assessment and standardized controls across public digital systems.

France: The National Cybersecurity Agency of France (ANSSI) mandates the RGS (Référentiel Général de Sécurité) framework, requiring formal security homologation (risk certification) for all citizen-facing digital services prior to operational authorization. This systematic pre-deployment certification offers an actionable blueprint for Bangladesh's public sector deployments.

United Kingdom: The Government Cyber Action Plan established a centralized Government Cyber Unit to decommission legacy technical debt and enforce structural Secure-by-Design doctrines across all digital procurement.

European Union: The NIS2 Directive mandates strict baseline incident reporting and risk management protocols across critical infrastructure. Simultaneously, the landmark Cyber Resilience Act (CRA) imposes statutory vulnerability management and security patching mandates on digital product manufacturers—with incident reporting taking effect on September 11, 2026, leading to full enforcement on December 11, 2027. (Source: European Commission)

These institutional frameworks confirm that application security is not an isolated technical patch; it is an auditable governance pipeline.

Institutionalizing Government Bug Bounty Programs in Bangladesh
When independent national security researchers discover critical zero-day vulnerabilities within a public portal, what secure disclosure runway exists? In the absence of safe-harbor protections, researchers fear criminal litigation or administrative backlash—silencing white-hat engagement. Conversely, establishing formal Government Bug Bounty Programs provides accredited security researchers with legal authorization and structured financial rewards to audit national attack surfaces.

International precedents demonstrate unambiguous efficacy. In 2016, the United States Department of Defense launched its pilot Hack the Pentagon initiative, onboarding over 1,400 vetted ethical hackers. Within weeks, more than 250 researchers submitted vulnerability disclosures, leading to the identification and remediation of 138 validated security defects across public-facing defense domains.

Bangladesh can pilot this model across non-classified public digital interfaces through a national Vulnerability Disclosure Program (VDP). Establishing precise safe-harbor rules, transparent scopes of engagement, and legal indemnification for ethical researchers will harden public cyber defenses while accelerating the institutional capabilities of the country's domestic cybersecurity workforce.

Proactive Defense, Early Warning, and National Policy Directives in the AI Era
Contemporary cybersecurity cannot remain anchored to reactive incident containment. The paradigm must pivot toward automated early warning, threat intelligence sharing, and AI-assisted security screening. Upon the global disclosure of a Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE) index, automated platforms can parse production codebases, server logs, API endpoints, and network configurations to alert exposed institutions instantaneously. Augmenting BGD e-GOV CIRT’s threat intelligence pipeline with centralized automated screening dashboards would give regulators real-time visibility into patch compliance across public agencies.

Simultaneously, enterprise security doctrine must modernize. Peripheral firewalls and anti-malware signatures are fundamentally insufficient. Application engineering must incorporate Secure-by-Design philosophies, Zero Trust access perimeters, automated DevSecOps pipelines, and continuous security validation.

Furthermore, artificial intelligence in the software development lifecycle requires balanced governance. While AI auditing tools accelerate static analysis and fuzz testing, they can generate false negatives across bespoke business logic. Furthermore, deploying autonomous AI coding assistants introduces unvetted dependencies, insecure defaults, and accidental credential leakage into production. Complying with NIST and OWASP Secure Coding with AI standards necessitates pairing automated static analysis with rigorous manual code reviews and adversary-simulation penetration testing.

Strategic Action Plan to Preempt Systemic Cyber Disruption:

Software Asset Inventory & Ownership: Mandate that all public and private institutions maintain an exhaustive registry of internal applications, servers, dependencies (SBOM), and designated engineering ownership.
Statutory Security Clauses in Procurement: Embed mandatory requirements for independent security testing, multi-year security maintenance, and structured incident response SLAs into all software procurement contracts.
Risk-Tiered Independent Audits: Discard superficial check-box audits; enforce rigorous, recurrent penetration testing scaled to the data sensitivity of national databases.
Automated Early Warning & Bug Bounty Pipelines: Expand national automated vulnerability screening, and institutionalize safe-harbor Government Bug Bounty frameworks to engage white-hat researchers securely.
Architectural Prudence & Workforce Upskilling: Incentivize the strategic adoption of memory-safe languages like Go or Rust for greenfield projects while enforcing disciplined patch governance on legacy stacks. Provide baseline application security training to software developers, devops leads, and technical product managers.
Regulatory Accountability for Willful Inaction: Establish clear regulatory and administrative penalties for institutions that fail to apply critical security patches after formal notifications—willful negligence in the face of known threats is as hazardous as the vulnerability itself.

Concluding Remarks
In an era accelerated by generative AI, authoring code has become remarkably frictionless, yet the societal responsibility of engineering secure software has compounded exponentially. The immediate imperative for Bangladesh is not the impulsive acquisition of expensive proprietary tools, but the institutional transformation of our engineering culture. Verifying security postures prior to release, codifying operational ownership post-deployment, and enforcing rapid incident remediation are the foundational baselines required to insulate our digital sovereignty. The transition toward structural cyber resilience must begin today.

Author | Abu Kahab Mohammad Nahid Hossain _ Software Architect and Cyber Security Specialist; Researcher in Enterprise Systems Architecture, Cloud Infrastructure, and Application Security Governance.

[Editorial Note]

The technical assessments and policy directives outlined in this treatise reflect the author's professional analysis. Published with full editorial standardization to enrich national discourse on application security governance, devsecops culture, and digital infrastructure resilience in Bangladesh.

Decentralizing the AI Economy Beyond Dhaka: Bridging the Digital Divide with Trust and Structural Inclusion

স্পেশাল করেসপন্ডেন্ট — Sun, 01 Nov 2026 00:27:38 +0600

[Highlights]

Decentralizing Enterprise Automation Beyond Dhaka: Bridging the 75.7% urban versus 43.6% rural internet divide by directing targeted co-financing, vernacular AI interfaces, and technical consulting to regional MSMEs and female entrepreneurs.
Harmonizing National Policy with UN Frameworks: Urging the formal ratification of the National AI Policy 2026–2030 and integrating UNESCO's 15 readiness recommendations, WSIS action lines, and Global Digital Compact mandates into capital allocations.
Labor Protection and Institutional Accountability: Mitigating generative AI workplace disruption through funded retraining programs, competitive technology vouchers, and the rollout of an actionable 90-day post-summit national roadmap.

A small-scale manufacturing enterprise operating outside the capital evaluates the adoption of artificial intelligence. Its primary inquiry is intensely pragmatic: Will integrating this automated pipeline compress defect ratios and order cancellations sufficiently to offset total implementation costs? Simultaneously, the production workers operating the system must know: How will their operational routines transform? The credibility and substance with which public policy answers these two questions will determine the ultimate validity of Bangladesh’s national AI ambitions.

The upcoming 'Bangladesh AI Business Summit 2026'—scheduled for November 5 at the Bangladesh-China Friendship Conference Centre in Dhaka—offers a strategic runway to establish these performance baselines. Jointly organized by the Ministry of Science and Technology and the Dhaka Chamber of Commerce and Industry (DCCI), the summit converges applied enterprise automation, university-industry R&D partnerships, and contextualized domestic problem-solving into a unified national discourse.

Maximizing this operational window requires ratifying an actionable framework supported by targeted capital deployment. A successful summit must deliver more than exhibition showcases; it must delineate viable technology acquisition pathways for MSMEs while establishing institutional liability whenever state-subsidized enterprise deployments fail.

The inaugural UN Global Dialogue on AI Governance held in Geneva provides an indispensable normative substrate. The dialogue's four thematic pillars address: evaluating the socioeconomic, ethical, linguistic, and operational vectors of artificial intelligence; bridging structural divides by expanding access, computational capability, and digital infrastructure; engineering safe and trustworthy AI ecosystems via standardized interoperability; and preserving human rights through transparency, systemic accountability, and human-in-the-loop oversight.

Bangladesh’s capital allocation frameworks must systematically absorb these tenets. Every prospective AI deployment must undergo multidimensional scrutiny: quantitative economic return, labor market impacts, local vernacular reliability in Bengali, and data privacy safeguards. Capital expenditure must look beyond raw processing hardware to finance accessible digital interfaces and transparent governance models.

Policy certainty remains an essential prerequisite. On official portals, the National Artificial Intelligence Policy 2026–2030 remains designated as 'Draft Version 2.0'. The upcoming business summit must serve as a catalyst demanding a firm, public timeline for the policy's formal ratification, accompanied by delineated ministerial mandates and dedicated implementation appropriations. Furthermore, strategic deployment should directly integrate the 15 targeted recommendations outlined in UNESCO's comprehensive AI Readiness Assessment for Bangladesh, aligning public expenditure with regulatory capacity-building.

For individual enterprises, digital transformation begins with precise problem definition. If an enterprise's foundational ledgers and inventory controls are fragmented, investing in high-overhead predictive analytics is counterproductive; the immediate solution is baseline cloud accounting. Public consulting frameworks must remain insulated from vendor commissions to provide objective guidance. In this domain, DCCI can collaborate with regional chambers to establish independent diagnostic advisory services that evaluate operational readiness, compare vendor specifications, and oversee small-scale pilot deployments.

A competitive, voucher-based co-financing mechanism can de-risk initial capital expenditures for viable micro-enterprises. Beneficiary enterprises should co-invest equity and consent to rigorous longitudinal impact audits. Cost accounting must encompass training downtime, data preparation, recurring API license fees, and lifecycle maintenance; an algorithmic tool that conserves operational hours during a controlled demo can rapidly turn into an unsustainable financial liability across a three-year horizon. Public procurement warrants identical fiscal discipline: codifying explicit performance criteria, proprietary data ownership, and dispute resolution protocols prior to issuing requests for proposals.

Bridging the compute divide also demands macroeconomic justification. World Bank assessments identify stable broadband connectivity, sovereign compute access, contextualized localized data, and skilled engineering talent as foundational pillars. Establishing high-density compute facilities requires verifiable enterprise utilization alongside sustainable provisions for baseload power, industrial cooling, and lifecycle hardware refresh. Where viable, federated university compute clusters and multi-tenant commercial cloud procurement should be deployed to optimize capital efficiency.

The equity of technological dividends is inseparable from connectivity realities. Sovereign SDG telemetry records an individual internet adoption rate of 75.7 percent across urban centers, contrasting sharply with 43.6 percent in rural geographies. National AI deployment roadmaps cannot ignore this disparity. Concrete incentives must be targeted at enterprises operating outside Dhaka, female entrepreneurs, and accessibility-first platforms. Algorithmic interfaces must be hardened across low-cost hardware and non-standard colloquial dialects. Similarly, curating vernacular datasets demands clear intellectual property licensing, consent boundaries, and secondary-use guardrails.

The preservation of labor dignity requires proactive policy intervention. Research from the International Labour Organization (ILO) underscores that generative AI will predominantly alter job compositions rather than entirely extinguish occupations. Bangladesh must map sector-specific occupational exposure, linking vocational upskilling with applied technical workflows. Access to state technological subsidies should require participating corporations to formulate structured redeployment and paid upskilling programs for vulnerable staff.

Preserving human rights demands enforceable administrative mechanisms. The operational risk profile of a system predicting supply chain replenishment differs fundamentally from algorithmic decisioning governing microfinance lending, judicial triage, or talent recruitment. High-stakes applications require proportional risk audits, rigorous logging, clear adverse-action notifications, and independent human review. Furthermore, defensive protocols must be established to counter deepfake identity theft and voice-cloning fraud targeting corporate transactions.

These imperatives reflect the five core pillars of the UN Global Digital Compact—closing digital divides, expanding digital economic participation, securing human rights-compliant digital spaces, fostering responsible data governance, and international AI governance—alongside the action lines (C1 through C11) established by the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS). Furthermore, actions 28 through 33 of the Pact for the Future reinforce linking frontier science with human well-being, gender parity, and technological self-reliance in emerging economies.

An actionable milestone following the summit would be the publication of a joint 90-day multi-stakeholder implementation roadmap by the Ministry of Science and Technology and DCCI, formulated alongside labor representatives, academic institutions, and regional chambers. This blueprint must specify pilot cohorts, administrative responsibilities, and committed financial resources, followed by an independent public hearing after twelve months to audit productivity gains, regional engagement outside the capital, and wage distribution.

The ultimate benchmark of the AI economy will not be audited by high-level national rhetoric, but by the tangible commercial survival of a rural smallholder—expanding margins securely through accessible, affordable technology while ensuring that the workers underpinning that productivity share equitably in its dividends.

Author | Member, Multistakeholder Consultation Group of the United Nations Group on the Information Society (UNGIS); Chief Executive Officer, Bangladesh NGOs Network for Radio and Communication (BNNRC); Global Ambassador for Responsible Artificial Intelligence and Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR)

[Editor's Note]

While global discourse on artificial intelligence is often confined to large corporate entities and major urban centers, the author of this article timely highlights the necessity of decentralizing the benefits of the AI economy to the grassroots level. Drawing upon international policy frameworks from the United Nations, UNESCO, and WSIS, the author argues that productivity should not merely serve to increase the profits of a handful of Dhaka-based firms; rather, technology must function as a tool to improve the quality of life for small-scale entrepreneurs and rural workers. Specifically, in the context of the 'Bangladesh AI Business Summit 2026,' the proposals—which include independent advisory services, voucher-based financing, and clear action plans for worker protection—offer a practical roadmap for technology and economic policymakers. In the interest of fostering national technological equity and sustainable inclusion, this article is published here, following editorial refinement.

Why Digital Forensics Is Essential in the Unsolved Death of Tahsif Souri

স্পেশাল করেসপন্ডেন্ট — Thu, 29 Oct 2026 19:01:02 +0600

[ Highlights]

Evidence Integrity & Chain of Custody: The iPhone must undergo radio-frequency isolation to prevent remote wipes, with all acquired disk images validated through cryptographic hashes to maintain strict legal chain of custody.
Preservation Requests Over Password Resets: Rather than executing hasty credential resets that invalidate active sessions and alter server logs, investigators must issue formal preservation notices to platforms like Google and Meta.
Multi-Layered Evidence Correlation: Reconstructing the decedent's final 72-hour timeline requires cross-verifying device artifacts with telecommunications CDRs, local CCTV feeds, and physical autopsy results.

What transpired during the final 72 hours of an individual's life? Who was the last point of contact, what locations did they visit, were they subjected to extortion or threats, or did they encounter unusual psychological or environmental pressures? The most reliable answers to these complex inquiries often reside within the victim's personal iPhone.

In investigating the mysterious death of Tahsif Souri, conducting an objective, standards-compliant forensic examination of his iPhone is of paramount importance. However, device telemetry alone cannot provide an open-and-shut verdict; digital evidence must be systematically correlated with independent physical and documentary proof to establish the ground truth.

Forensic Methodology and Investigative Phases

1. iPhone Forensic Acquisition

The primary imperative is documenting the physical condition, lock status, and network connectivity of the handset. To mitigate the risk of remote wiping or continuous network polling, the device must be isolated immediately using radio-frequency shielding (such as a Faraday container). Approved forensic acquisition methodologies—extracting logical, advanced logical, or physical dumps where technically feasible—must be executed while maintaining strict Chain of Custody protocols and validating mathematical hash integrity at every stage.

2. iCloud and Apple Account Analysis

Subject to appropriate legal warrants and statutory authorizations, the decedent's iCloud ecosystem warrants deep forensic extraction. This encompasses iCloud Backups, Photo Streams, Find My location historical artifacts, associated device registries, and recent account sessions. Forensic artifacts captured during the days immediately preceding the death provide vital diagnostic insights.

3. Gmail and Facebook Account Investigation

Auditing external primary accounts—including Gmail login records, security alerts, Facebook active session histories, Messenger conversations, and unauthorized access attempts—is vital. Forensics must scrutinize whether anomalous IP addresses, unrecognized hardware profiles, or suspicious geolocation jumps accessed the accounts during critical timeframes.

Critical Technical Precaution: Password resets must never be the preliminary step in a forensic investigation. Triggering an administrative credential reset invalidates active session tokens, alters backend logs, and risks irrevocably modifying metadata. Investigators must first transmit formal Data Preservation Requests to service providers, followed by lawful warrant execution.

4. Last 72 Hours Digital Timeline Reconstruction

Synthesizing telecommunications call detail records (CDR), instant messaging payloads, cell tower handshakes, GPS telemetry artifacts, application usage timelines, and embedded EXIF metadata from photos and videos is crucial. This data must be assembled into an integrated, chronological digital timeline of the decedent's final 72 hours.

5. Deleted Data Recovery and Cross-Platform Correlation

Forensic analysis must determine whether critical conversations, media files, or call logs were deliberately purged, parsing unallocated flash memory space where feasible. Concurrently, device-level artifacts must undergo cross-platform correlation with external datasets, including carrier-grade CDRs, physical CCTV footage, sworn eyewitness statements, and financial transaction histories.

6. Correlating Digital and Physical Evidence

Digital findings cannot stand in isolation. The digital timeline must be evaluated alongside the preliminary autopsy findings, toxicology and viscera reports, physical crime-scene trace analysis, and the medically established time of death. Deriving legal conclusions solely from isolated digital metrics without corroborative physical correlation undermines the standards of justice.

Analytical Observations

An unnatural death investigation cannot rely on speculation or emotional conjecture; scientific forensics and incontrovertible evidence remain the ultimate benchmark. Handset extractions, cloud infrastructure, and historical communications provide high-value leads, but their legal admissibility requires independent verification and rigorous validation.

Whether Tahsif Souri's demise resulted from an accident, suicide, homicide, or unaddressed external circumstances can only be settled through an impartial synthesis of digital forensics, physical forensics, and rigorous evidence correlation.

Author || Cyber Forensic Specialist, and Prosecutor & Investigation Officer, International Crimes Tribunal (ICT), Bangladesh.

[ Editor's Note]

In contemporary investigations involving unnatural deaths, digital endpoints serve as primary repositories of intent, movement, and interpersonal dynamics. This analytical review demonstrates that physical device inspections alone are insufficient; arriving at objective truth requires integrating digital telemetry, cloud infrastructure, and physical forensic artifacts. The technical advisory against premature credential resets serves as a vital reminder for modern law enforcement. This analysis is published with editorial standardization to advance the principles of scientific investigation, digital evidence integrity, and judicial fairness.

Weaving Sunlight into Copper: The Micro-Craft of Solar Cells and Energy Sovereignty

স্পেশাল করেসপন্ডেন্ট — Sun, 25 Oct 2026 00:10:57 +0600

Key Takeaways

Surging electricity demand fueled by AI infrastructure and data centers makes cost-effective, high-yield photovoltaic manufacturing a prerequisite for global energy security.
Solar cell metallization requires a precise empirical balance between minimizing optical shading and preventing electrical series resistance.
Transitioning from precious silver to engineered copper pastes represents the most vital engineering lever to slash manufacturing costs per watt.
True resilience demands breaking geographical supply chain monopolies by investing upstream in high-purity polysilicon, wafer synthesis, and specialist metallurgy.
Cross-disciplinary advances in conductive pastes yield scalable fabrication principles extendable to printed electronics and next-generation sensing devices.

Engineering Solar’s Next Horizon: Materials, Metallization, and Industrial Resilience

Growing electricity demand and energy-security concerns are increasing the need for efficient solar cells, lower-cost materials and dependable manufacturing.

As a photovoltaic process engineer, I investigate how materials, printing conditions and electrode design influence solar cell performance and material consumption. My ongoing research and development connects semiconductor science with practical manufacturing challenges.

Earlier research on solution-processed two-dimensional semiconductors for gas sensing taught me to connect fabrication conditions with electrical behaviour. That approach continues to guide my work in solar cell development and process optimisation.

Why Solar Manufacturing Matters

Electricity supports industry, healthcare, communication and transport. Meeting growing demand while limiting global warming requires reducing emissions from fossil-fuel combustion and expanding low-emission generation.

AI and data centres add concentrated demand. A 2026 assessment projects that global data-centre electricity consumption will roughly double between 2025 and 2030. Energy crises and rising fuel costs create further pressure on electricity affordability.

Solar can diversify supply and reduce exposure to fuel-price volatility. Its deployment must advance alongside networks, storage and other resources needed to maintain reliable electricity as sunlight changes.

Manufacturing contributes by converting materials into consistent, durable products with efficient use of resources.

Optimising Metallisation Geometry for Solar Cell Performance

Printed metal contacts must balance electrical resistance against optical shading. Narrower contact lines expose more semiconductor to sunlight but require adequate height, continuity and conductivity.

I evaluate screen specifications, paste condition, printing force and snap-off distance alongside electrode geometry, material consumption and electrical results.

Additional paste does not necessarily improve performance. It can increase shading without improving contact quality. Controlled experiments and statistical process control help establish which adjustments produce reproducible benefits.

Reliable measurements are fundamental. Differences in sampling, material conditioning or instrument settings can otherwise be mistaken for process improvements.

Advancing Copper-Based Solar Cell Contacts
Conventional fired silver pastes combine conductive particles, an organic vehicle and glass frit to form functional electrodes. Copper costs less than silver, making copper pastes, silver-coated copper particles and hybrid structures attractive alternatives for reducing precious-metal consumption.

The engineering requirements remain demanding. Oxidation, printability, contact resistance and copper migration into the semiconductor require control. Interface protection and processing conditions must suit the cell architecture.

Commercial value depends on efficiency, production yield, processing requirements, adhesion and durability. The relevant measure is manufacturing cost per watt across the complete process.

Supply Chains and Industrial Self-Reliance

Much of photovoltaic manufacturing is concentrated in Asia, creating dependencies across processed materials, cells, equipment and specialist technologies. Manufacturers elsewhere can remain reliant on overseas sources for conductive pastes, printing screens, machinery and associated process expertise. Broader industrial participation requires investment upstream of module assembly: responsible mineral development, refining, high-purity silicon, wafer production and cell fabrication. Diversified partnerships can connect complementary resources and skills, while industrial clusters can support testing, maintenance and training. Reliable utilities, environmental controls and qualified workers must accompany investment. Developing these capabilities across more regions can broaden sourcing options and strengthen global manufacturing resilience.

Applied Research Beyond Solar Manufacturing

My ongoing research on copper-based conductive pastes focuses on addressing oxidation, printability, contact resistance, adhesion and processing compatibility. I investigate how material formulation and processing conditions can support reliable electrical contacts while reducing dependence on silver.

My background in semiconductor fabrication and characterisation helps me examine the mechanisms behind process changes. Controlled experiments establish repeatability, while evaluation of equipment compatibility and reliability informs practical application.

The longer-term objective extends beyond photovoltaics. I aim to explore how this knowledge could support printed electronics, sensors and other semiconductor devices. Each application requires separate validation of conductivity, substrate compatibility and durability.

By connecting materials research with device fabrication and manufacturing requirements, I seek to develop transferable knowledge relevant across facilities and markets. Its potential value lies in more affordable technologies, efficient resource use and stronger industrial capability.

About the Author | Ashique Zaman is a Process Engineer at Hanwha Qcells Georgia, Inc., USA. He holds an M.S. in Materials Science and Engineering from the University of North Texas and a B.Sc. in Mechanical Engineering from Chittagong University of Engineering and Technology (CUET).

Editorial Note:
While public discourse on renewable energy often focuses on macro-level installation numbers, Ashique Zaman's analysis pulls back the curtain on the nanoscale material engineering and industrial metallurgy that dictate the actual economics of clean energy. His examination of the transition from silver to copper contacts highlights how fundamental materials science drives down levelized costs, while his call for upstream supply chain diversification addresses the core vulnerability of contemporary green transition policies.

Disclaimer

Every article published in 'Tech-Thought' is solely the reflection of the author's personal insights. Therefore, Digital Bangla Media authorities bear no alignment or involvement with the fundamental views expressed herein. To uphold diversity of thought—a key pillar of mass media—the editorial board does not impose any policy reflection on this content. Consequently, any grievance or agitation arising from this piece is entirely a personal matter between the author and the reader.

Auditing Bangladesh’s Cyber Readiness and Institutional Resilience

Senior Staff Correspondent — Fri, 23 Oct 2026 10:28:07 +0600

[Highlights]

Critical Zero-Day Exposure: The disclosure of CVE-2026-109618 and CVE-2026-109619 (‘php2shell’) with a CVSS rating of 9.2 exposes unpatched systems to unauthenticated Remote Code Execution (RCE).
High Exposure in Bangladesh: W3Techs telemetry shows that 89.3% of domestically hosted identifiable servers and 77.3% of .bd domains rely on PHP, placing national digital services squarely within the risk perimeter.
Resilience Beyond Quarantines: While precautionary service suspensions—such as those observed with the Bangladesh Bank portal—represent valid risk mitigation, long-term security requires systematic patching, defensive AI, and proactive supply-chain auditing.

In the digital sphere, structural threats rarely manifest visibly on the surface. Far more perilous are the latent algorithmic defects buried deep within software runtimes—flaws that grant unauthorized adversaries unprecedented leverage to compromise protected databases, seize administrative server controls, and paralyze critical online public utilities.

On October 21, 2026, international cybersecurity channels issued urgent advisories regarding two critical zero-day vulnerabilities discovered in PHP, the preeminent server-side web scripting language. Cataloged internationally as CVE-2026-109618 and CVE-2026-109619—and colloquially termed ‘php2shell’—the defects carry a Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) rating of 9.2 out of 10, designating them as severe critical threats. Under specific configurations, these flaws allow remote, unauthenticated threat actors to execute arbitrary code (RCE) on target hosts, directly imperiling backend databases, transactional ledgers, and operational continuity.

Strategic Implications for Bangladesh’s Digital Surface

The sheer ubiquity of PHP across domestic enterprise architectures renders this vulnerability particularly acute for Bangladesh. Independent metrics published by W3Techs for October 2026 reveal that among websites whose server-side stack is identifiable globally, 69.7 percent utilize PHP. In Bangladesh, however, this footprint expands dramatically: an estimated 89.3 percent of identifiable domestically hosted servers, alongside 77.3 percent of all registered .bd domains, are built upon PHP frameworks.

The architectural vulnerability of these metrics is unmistakable. Domestic retail e-commerce engines, news media backends, fintech application endpoints, and primary public administrative portals operate predominantly on PHP substrates. While deploying PHP does not automatically render a platform vulnerable, actual exposure is dictated by specific runtime branches, server-side memory configurations, and the speed at which official security patches are compiled.

This incident is further distinguished by the instrumental role of artificial intelligence in vulnerability discovery. International cloud security platform Wiz identified the issue as one of the most critical software defects unearthed in modern infrastructure. Simultaneously, OpenAI characterized the discovery as a milestone in AI-assisted automated code auditing. The event demonstrates that even decades-old, battle-tested software backends harbor undetected structural bugs that frontier auditing tools are now systematically exposing.

Preventive Quarantines versus Definitive Remediation

In response to these advisories, international entities—including units within the UK government—temporarily isolated non-essential digital endpoints to execute deep vulnerability audits. Although verified instances of widespread in-the-wild exploitation have not surfaced, the absence of documented intrusions does not denote absolute immunity. Standard operational hygiene dictates immediate patch deployment, configuration hardening, and forensic log auditing for Indicators of Compromise (IoC).

Within this framework, the temporary offline maintenance window executed on the central bank’s (Bangladesh Bank) official portal must be evaluated through an objective, risk-mitigation lens. If enacted in alignment with global advisories, this posture reflects standard preventive risk containment. While service interruptions cause transient user inconvenience, running critical financial endpoints with unverified zero-day exposure represents an unacceptable systemic risk.

Nevertheless, isolating public portals is merely a provisional containment tactic, not a structural solution. True hardening requires compiling supported PHP releases, reviewing memory-allocation parameters within php.ini, disabling unneeded debugging handlers, and running automated penetration testing. A defensive shutdown buys operational time; sustainable defense requires rigorous engineering.

Transitioning from Reactive Posturing to Proactive Resilience

This global alert presents an urgent governance question for Bangladesh: Is the national cyber posture designed solely to react in the aftermath of systemic breaches, or is it engineering the institutional capability to preemptively identify, isolate, and neutralize threats?

Authentic cyber resilience extends far beyond issuing reactive alerts or hastily updating software packages. It represents the institutional capacity of public and commercial infrastructure to withstand technical shocks, preserve core transactional ledgers, and recover operational continuity rapidly. Building this capability necessitates an accurate catalog of domestic digital assets, recurrent external vulnerability assessments, 24/7 Security Operations Center (SOC) monitoring, encrypted off-site disaster recovery backups, and routine incident simulation drills.

Simultaneously, institutional alignment among engineering teams, executive boards, and regulatory policymakers is mandatory. Treating cybersecurity as the narrow concern of an internal IT department is an obsolete operational mindset; it directly impacts corporate governance, enterprise valuation, and sovereign national security.

This baseline preparedness cannot remain confined to the central bank or premier statutory agencies. Small and medium e-commerce enterprises, media portals, educational institutions, regional healthcare networks, and emerging fintech providers must integrate information security into everyday operational protocols. Within distributed digital supply chains, a vulnerability in an outsourced or peripheral vendor can rapidly compromise an entire national network.

The rapid proliferation of digital public infrastructure drives significant economic and developmental velocity across Bangladesh. However, the long-term viability of this growth depends entirely on the stability, integrity, and resilience of its digital foundations. Safeguarding web endpoints is not an optional luxury; it is a fundamental pillar of citizen privacy, public trust, and national digital sovereignty.

While software will never remain entirely free of vulnerabilities, rigorous monitoring, disciplined patch governance, and unified incident reporting can systematically eliminate systemic exposure. Bangladesh must move beyond ad-hoc crisis response, cultivating an enduring institutional security culture where risks are audited early, patched decisively, and operated with absolute technical accountability.

Author | General Secretary, Bangladesh System Administrators Forum (BDSAF)

[Editor's Note]

The revelation of a critical zero-day memory vulnerability in widely used web backend technologies like PHP serves as a significant warning for Bangladesh's tech sector. With approximately 90% of identified servers and the majority of .bd domains relying on PHP, this risk is not merely theoretical but directly impacts national digital services and data security. The author logically argues that panicking and shutting down sites or temporary maintenance cannot be a permanent solution; rather, these are only part of a preventative quarantine. The real work involves regular security patching, code audits, and establishing long-term cyber resilience frameworks. This article, including editorial standardization, is published to emphasize the urgent need for increased national cyber awareness and technical security.

Preventive Quarantines, Cloud Dependencies, and Bangladesh’s Strategic Imperatives

স্পেশাল করেসপন্ডেন্ট — Thu, 22 Oct 2026 16:01:36 +0600

[Highlights]

PHP2Shell Core Vulnerability: Critical memory management and Use-After-Free defects (CVE-2026-109618 & CVE-2026-109619) expose standard PHP configurations to unauthenticated Remote Code Execution (RCE) without requiring user credentials.
Execution of Preventive Quarantine: The temporary suspension of major portals—including the central bank in Bangladesh—reflects proactive operational containment designed to prevent unauthorized lateral network traversal.
Offensive AI Acceleration & Remediation: With automated botnets weaponizing reverse-engineered patches within hours, system administrators must immediately update runtimes (8.2.35, 8.3.36, 8.4.27, 8.5.12), disable session.upload_progress, and enforce Zero-Trust access perimeters.

The architectural stability of the global internet ecosystem is navigating an unprecedented structural crisis following the disclosure of critical memory management vulnerabilities within PHP—the foundational backend engine powering approximately 77 to 80 percent of the World Wide Web. Designated collectively by threat researchers and security auditors as ‘PHP2Shell’, this development represents far more than an isolated exploit; it constitutes a systemic shock to global enterprise digital infrastructure.

In response to emergency directives issued by top cybersecurity agencies across the United States and the European Union, hundreds of banking switches, critical public services, and major commercial portals globally—alongside the central bank and key public gateways in Bangladesh—have preemptively isolated their public endpoints to preempt systemic data exfiltration.

1. Root Technical and Scientific Anatomy

The overwhelming majority of modern web applications—spanning enterprise frameworks such as Laravel, Symfony, and content architectures like WordPress, Drupal, and Magento—rely on PHP's core runtime. Core maintainers and independent security auditors disclosed two coordinated zero-day memory corruption flaws:

CVE-2026-109618 (Out-of-Memory Handling Crash): A fatal flaw in how the PHP runtime handles failover and memory exhaustion states.
CVE-2026-109619 (Use-After-Free & Memory Pointer Corruption): A critical memory management vulnerability enabling phantom pointer reuse following deallocation.

The Strategy of Preventive Quarantine:

The severity of this vector lies in its zero-authentication requirement: adversaries do not require user credentials or administrative privileges. By transmitting weaponized memory payloads via standard file upload headers or high-overhead form-data processing, attackers can execute Unauthenticated Remote Code Execution (RCE) at the core web server tier. Systems offline today have largely not suffered catastrophic compromise; rather, system administrators have initiated Preventive Quarantine to safeguard state databases and transaction ledgers while critical patches are compiled.

2. Threat Actor Proliferation and Offensive AI Exploits

According to enterprise threat intelligence telemetry, the propagation velocity of PHP2Shell marks a dangerous turning point in asymmetric cyber warfare:

Automated Offensive AI Reverse-Engineering: Almost immediately following the initial source-tree commits by PHP maintainers, decentralized offensive AI models deployed across illicit networks reverse-engineered the vulnerability diffs within hours. Functional Proof-of-Concept (PoC) exploit scripts were generated and distributed across automated botnet scanning clusters before system administrators could execute change-management procedures.
Coordinated Global Botnet Infrastructure: Distributed botnet clusters, anonymous proxies, and sophisticated state-aligned advanced persistent threat (APT) groups have launched automated reconnaissance, hitting millions of public IP addresses per second to isolate unpatched runtime environments.

3. Macroeconomic Disruption and Global Agency Interventions

The defensive isolation of enterprise services has triggered severe operational bottlenecks across financial systems and commerce:

United States (CISA and Executive Mandates): The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) issued an Emergency Directive ordering federal civilian executive branch agencies to pull all unpatchable PHP web assets entirely offline.
European Union (CERT-EU & UK NCSC): Security advisories from CERT-EU and the UK National Cyber Security Centre prompted preemptive traffic shedding and protective downtime across parliamentary digital domains in the Netherlands, state portals in Finland, and major commercial retail banking networks in Belgium and Denmark.
Economic Repercussions: Suspension of digital payment gateways and electronic brokerage customer-facing interfaces has generated substantial intraday commercial disruption across international trade rails.

4. Regulatory Liabilities and Compliance Frameworks

Beyond operational disruption, enterprise entities face stringent legal and statutory mandates:

GDPR and US SEC Disclosure Mandates: Under the European General Data Protection Regulation and SEC cybersecurity disclosure protocols, unmitigated exposure of sensitive consumer data or failure to document breaches within mandatory disclosure windows carries catastrophic administrative penalties.
Domestic Regulatory Compliance in Bangladesh: Under national cyber security legislation and Bangladesh Bank ICT governance regulations, commercial banks and financial institutions face mandatory statutory audit penalties if structural negligence leads to the compromise of core financial records.

5. Vulnerability Profile for Bangladesh: Cloud Hosting and Supply Chains

The cascading impact of this global advisory has necessitated rapid defensive posturing across Bangladesh’s national IT assets:

Preemptive Isolation of the Central Bank: On October 22, the official portal of Bangladesh Bank, alongside multiple autonomous government domains, was intentionally pulled from public peering networks. BGD e-GOV CIRT issued high-priority national advisories, initiating traffic scrubbing and boundary inspection across the National Data Center (NDC).
Vulnerabilities of Foreign Cloud Hosting: A major structural challenge for Bangladesh is the geographic concentration of its critical enterprise, fintech, and backup services in offshore hyperscalers (e.g., AWS, GCP, and commercial facilities in Singapore or North America). When global multi-tenant scrubbing or upstream IP quarantining occurs overseas, local system administrators frequently encounter command-and-control latency, impairing swift incident response.
Software Supply-Chain Vulnerabilities: Numerous public and commercial digital applications are built and maintained by outsourced third-party software development firms. Even when core infrastructure remains hardened, custom legacy code or unvetted third-party libraries deployed by contractors can compromise entire backend networks.
Entrenched Legacy Runtimes: The persistent use of unsupported PHP releases (such as PHP 7.4 or early 8.x distributions) across domestic institutions severely magnifies the threat landscape, as these environments lack upstream vendor patch pipelines.

6. Technical Remediation and Operational Hardening

To mitigate exposure and restore secure services, IT departments and DevOps engineers must execute the following protocol:

A. Immediate Technical Configuration Hardening:

Disable Upload Progress: Access the primary php.ini runtime configuration and enforce session.upload_progress.enabled = 0, followed by a service restart.
Suppress Fatal Error Traces: Configure fatal_error_backtraces = 0 to prevent memory disclosure.
Web Application Firewall (WAF) Rule Deployment: Implement custom rules within Cloudflare or AWS WAF to drop anomalous, high-volume multipart/form-data requests.
Mandatory Core Runtime Upgrades:

Immediately upgrade to official vendor-patched runtimes:
- PHP 8.5 $\rightarrow$ 8.5.12
- PHP 8.4 $\rightarrow$ 8.4.27
- PHP 8.3 $\rightarrow$ 8.3.36
- PHP 8.2 $\rightarrow$ 8.2.35
  
  (Following package installations, execute a hard restart of the PHP-FPM daemon or web server via systemctl restart php-fpm. Legacy environments must be migrated immediately.)

B. Strategic Administrative Posture:

Threat Intelligence Integration: Synchronize firewalls with real-time blacklists provided by CISA, Interpol, and global national CIRT networks to block automated reconnaissance botnets.
Enforce Zero-Trust Architecture: Ensure absolute network segmentation, strict access least-privilege policies, and multi-factor authentication across all internal systems.

7. Shifting Paradigm: From Static Defense to Cyber Resilience

In an era of hyper-automated, AI-assisted exploitation, the concept of a completely impenetrable digital perimeter is obsolete. Modern security engineering prioritizes Cyber Resilience—the systemic capacity of an institution to absorb technical shocks, isolate exposure, and recover operational integrity rapidly.

Strategic Quarantine as Standard Operating Procedure: Voluntarily suspending customer-facing services to insulate critical ledgers represents a disciplined defense-in-depth tactic rather than systemic failure.
Defensive AI Integration: Security operations centers must adopt defensive machine learning systems capable of autonomous anomaly detection and dynamic firewall policy synthesis to counter automated offensive botnets.
Institutional Cyber Insurance: Developing a structured domestic cyber insurance market is essential to hedge systemic operational downtime and balance-sheet exposure.

8. Strategic Policy Recommendations for National Infrastructure

Data Sovereignty and In-Country Cloud Redundancy: Mitigate over-reliance on foreign multi-tenant clouds by ensuring immutable, encrypted backups for critical public infrastructure reside within sovereign domestic facilities.
Institutionalizing National Red-Teaming: Mandate continuous, state-supervised ethical hacking and breach simulation exercises across all designated critical information infrastructures (CII).
Software Supply-Chain Governance: Mandate continuous code auditing, modern framework compliance, and formal software bill of materials (SBOM) protocols for third-party development vendors serving public or financial entities.
Statutory Sunset of Legacy Stacks: Legally prohibit the operational deployment of end-of-life, unsupported software frameworks across banking, fintech, and public governance platforms.

The PHP2Shell emergency serves as an urgent reminder that digital transformation demands continuous verification and systemic resilience. Preemptive site shutdowns executed by institutions like Bangladesh Bank illustrate the necessity of rapid risk containment. Sustained platform modernization, defensive automation, and sovereign data resilience will dictate national security in an increasingly volatile digital era.

Author | Columnist, analyst, and entrepreneur

[Editor's Note]

The critical memory management flaw in widely used global technologies like PHP has once again exposed the fragility of the entire digital ecosystem. Particularly concerning is how attackers are leveraging artificial intelligence to reverse-engineer source code within hours, creating sophisticated cyber weapons, which points to the complex dynamics of future cyber warfare. In this context, the decision to temporarily shut down websites of various organizations, including Bangladesh Bank, should be viewed not as a weakness but as a well-considered "preventive quarantine." However, without long-term efforts to reduce reliance on foreign clouds, completely abandon old legacy code, and ensure strict supply chain security audits, such crises will recur. This report is published with editorial standardization in the interest of national security and institutional awareness.

Covered by Signals, Excluded from Access

স্টাফ করেসপন্ডেন্ট — Wed, 21 Oct 2026 10:29:45 +0600

[Highlights]

The Coverage vs. Adoption Divide: While official 4G network coverage exceeds 99.3%, active internet adoption among individuals aged five and above remains constrained at 59.2%.
Correcting Data Anomalies: Immediate administrative correction is required for official tracker entries recording impossible metrics—such as 100.0117% 4G coverage—supported by public, union-level Quality of Service (QoS) maps.
Redefining Universal Affordability: True digital equity requires eliminating expiration traps on micro-data packs, lowering the total cost of smartphone ownership, and maintaining resilient emergency network backhaul during severe climate shocks.

Consider a rural youth with full mobile signal bars on a handset, yet repeatedly failing to submit an online employment application due to erratic data latency. Next door, a student faces a different barrier: coverage is robust, but the household lacks the disposable income to purchase recurring data bundles. In national administrative statistics, both individuals are categorized as living within the perimeter of advanced network coverage. In reality, how meaningfully are they participating in the digital economy? In strategic evaluations of Bangladesh's digital transformation, this systemic disconnect demands urgent policy scrutiny.

The extensive rollout of mobile cellular infrastructure across Bangladesh represents a monumental technical achievement. However, leveraging this infrastructure requires transitioning from nominal geographical presence to genuine, accessible utility for everyday citizens. Target 9.c of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) articulates this precise imperative: expanding access to information and communications technology while striving to deliver universal and affordable internet access across least developed countries. The target deadline has elapsed; a rigorous accounting of realized commitments versus persistent deficits is now essential.

A structural clarification regarding empirical metrics is necessary. Progress under SDG Target 9.c is monitored via Indicator 9.c.1, which measures the proportion of the population covered by a mobile network broken down by technology generation (such as 3G, 4G, or 5G). This index is derived by dividing the population residing within operational signal footprints by the total population, multiplied by 100. Consequently, an individual who owns no phone, holds no SIM registration, and has never accessed the web is statistically logged as "covered" simply because radio frequency waves propagate across their dwelling.

The mathematical parameters of generational thresholds must also be interpreted accurately. Under standardized ITU definitions, metrics labeled "at least 3G" encompass 3G and all higher evolutionary standards; the identical rule governs "at least 4G." These percentages are progressive subsets and cannot be aggregated. Furthermore, the indicator evaluates human residential settlements rather than total national landmass, leaving uninhabited or agrarian zones outside its analytical purview.

According to the ITU DataHub, approximately 99.6 percent of Bangladesh’s population was covered by at least a 4G mobile network in 2024. Concurrently, the National SDG Tracker records national 4G coverage for the identical period at 99.3029 percent. Both datasets reflect near-universal network availability. Nevertheless, the minor divergence between sovereign and multilateral datasets warrants transparent institutional reconciliation.

A more serious statistical anomaly appears within the sovereign SDG Tracker, where national 4G coverage for 2025 is recorded at 100.0117 percent. Mathematically, the proportion of a defined population cannot exceed 100 percent. Auditing and correcting such data discrepancies is essential, as effective capital allocations and policy interventions cannot be built upon flawed baselines. Rigorous data integrity is a baseline condition for credible discourse on national developmental progress.

Contrasting infrastructural reach with authentic adoption reveals the structural usage gap. According to the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) Fourth Quarter Labour Force Survey report released on October 16, 2026, the proportion of the population aged five and older actively using the internet stands at 59.2 percent. While overall mobile phone usage registers at 89.6 percent, individual phone ownership drops to 65.6 percent. Relying on shared community or household devices differs fundamentally from enjoying individual, unconstrained digital autonomy.

A methodological caution is necessary: subtracting 2026 adoption figures from 2024 coverage percentages does not yield an absolute statistical usage gap, as the analytical cohorts and temporal boundaries differ. Yet, placing these indicators in juxtaposition clarifies an undeniable reality: the physical arrival of radio waves leaves the hardest work of socioeconomic inclusion unfinished.

The underlying structural bottlenecks require granular segmentation. Certain remote pockets lack base transceiver stations entirely. In other zones, towers exist, but peak-hour traffic congests backhaul links. Elsewhere, first-rate networks operate seamlessly, yet surrounding households cannot afford capable smartphones or recurring subscriptions. These distinct conditions cannot be cured through uniform policy. Physical blackspots demand capital expenditure; degraded QoS requires spectrum refarming and optical fiber backhaul; and socioeconomic exclusion requires targeted affordability interventions.

National aggregate statistics frequently obscure marginal vulnerabilities. Network operators can rapidly expand gross population coverage by densifying base stations across high-density urban corridors. Conversely, sparsely populated riverine islands (chars) or indigenous hill communities offer minimal commercial return on investment, depressing private capital deployment despite acute civic needs. The Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC) should publish granular, interactive coverage and QoS maps at the upazila and union levels. Critical public facilities—including primary clinics, educational institutions, and flood shelters—must be systematically audited.

Quality of Service parameters must be rendered transparent and intelligible to consumers. Metrics detailing indoor signal attenuation, sustained throughput during evening peak hours, and mean time between service disruptions provide actionable consumer intelligence that advertised theoretical downlink speeds obscure. Regulators must pair self-reported operator data with independent field-level drive tests and public grievance telemetry.

This requires looking past raw tower counts. Without high-capacity optical fiber backhaul connecting rural towers to core networks, adequate spectrum allocations, and grid power reliability, modern broadband performance remains unachievable. Expanding passive infrastructure sharing models and enforcing competitive dynamics across mobile network operators and tower companies can suppress operational expenditures without sacrificing network resilience.

The economics of retail data pricing also require fundamental recalibration. Promoting an exceptionally low average price per gigabyte does not guarantee affordability for the bottom quintile. Low-income households reliant on volatile daily wages cannot absorb the upfront cost of high-volume bundles. Furthermore, strict expiration policies that forfeit unused megabytes inflate the effective cost of access. Factoring in handset amortization, battery replacement, and charging expenses, digital affordability must be assessed across the total cost of ownership.

Fiscal and taxation frameworks must align with this reality. Regulators must verify whether wholesale tariff cuts and spectrum tax amortizations directly translate into lower consumer prices. Simultaneously, retail tariff interventions must not deter network deployment in underserved border and rural geographies. Fiscal policy must holistically balance public revenue collection, operator investment returns, and consumer purchasing power.

Publicly subsidized infrastructure programs must maintain uncompromising operational accountability. Measuring the success of initiatives financed through the Social Obligation Fund (SOF) requires looking beyond base stations erected to evaluate active subscriber adoption and multi-year maintenance arrangements. Connecting rural schools and health complexes requires confirming that broadband links remain functional and funded long after official project commissioning.

Digital capacity-building initiatives must similarly shift from theoretical certifications toward pragmatic economic outcomes. Training should directly empower a smallholder farmer to independently monitor wholesale prices, a female micro-entrepreneur to conduct secure mobile financial transactions, and a young job-seeker to navigate digital portals safely. Developing operational instincts around phishing detection and cryptographic hygiene is an indispensable element of functional digital literacy.

Intra-household device distribution remains deeply asymmetric. The physical presence of a single connected handset within a family does not guarantee equitable utility for female members, adolescents, or persons with disabilities. When targeted digital harassment drives women to deactivate their accounts, the developmental value of connectivity is lost. Accessible, gender-sensitive grievance redressal mechanisms are essential to prevent digital disenfranchisement.

Community radio stations, grassroots civic organizations, and local educational centers are uniquely positioned to bridge this divide. Delivering localized cyber safety literacy, clarifying reporting pathways, and elevating community grievances to administrative authorities offers practical protection. Integrating community radio broadcasts with low-bandwidth SMS and interactive voice response (IVR) platforms ensures that digitally illiterate populations remain informed.

In a disaster-vulnerable nation like Bangladesh, telecommunications resilience faces its ultimate test during severe meteorological shocks. Base station availability during standard conditions is insufficient; operational viability during cyclones or flash floods—when utility grids collapse—must be engineered through industrial battery backups, renewable micro-grids, and redundant transmission routing. Periodic emergency simulations must confirm that evacuation centers and triage points maintain uncompromised uplink capabilities.

Network resilience is equally inseparable from fundamental civil rights. The arbitrary deployment of centralized internet shutdowns must be structurally curtailed. Any administrative restriction on telecommunications must undergo rigorous legal scrutiny, proving strict necessity, proportionality, and statutory alignment. For an entire population reliant on digital rails for commerce, education, and health, preserving network continuity is a binding constitutional obligation.

Decisions surrounding 5G commercialization should undergo comparable utilitarian scrutiny. High-density deployments should target specialized industrial economic zones, deep-sea logistics hubs, and advanced research clusters where demonstrable demand exists, while public policy concentrates on optimizing nationwide 4G coverage and affordability for the general public.

Institutional mandates must be strictly delineated. The BTRC must guarantee technical performance data and transparent QoS compliance; the BBS must deliver disaggregated sociodemographic metrics detailing usage and digital inequality; and line ministries must budget for measurable digital inclusion outcomes. Tracking the core infrastructural index 9.c.1 alongside complementary SDG indicators on individual internet usage, digital literacy, and sex-disaggregated device ownership will clarify where structural interventions are required.

An actionable roadmap can be executed within the next six months: reconcile sovereign SDG data anomalies, publish union-level QoS diagnostic registries, and formulate transparent baseline data packages for marginal demographics. Establishing annual independent multi-stakeholder hearings will reinforce transparency. Until structural universal access is achieved, direct in-person options for critical public services must remain accessible alongside automated digital portals.

Bangladesh’s immediate mandate is translating network coverage into meaningful socio-economic agency. When every student can submit an examination form without network latency, every woman entrepreneur can securely manage digital commerce, and every coastal household receives timely cyclone alerts, the true promise of SDG Target 9.c will finally be realized.

Author | Chief Executive Officer, Bangladesh NGOs Network for Radio and Communication (BNNRC); Global Ambassador for Responsible Artificial Intelligence and Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR)

[Editor's Note]

In this era of digital transformation, it is crucial to expose the gap between a country's network signal coverage and the effective digital inclusion of its general populace. The author meticulously demonstrates, using institutional statistics and the framework of Sustainable Development Goal (SDG 9.c), how nearly 40% of the population remains outside the practical benefits of internet use, despite almost 100% 4G coverage. Sustainable digital societies cannot be built merely by increasing the number of towers without addressing issues like inability to afford devices, deceptive data pack expiry terms, weak indoor network signals, and gender-based discrimination. This article, published with editorial standardization, aims to ensure transparency in policymaking and empower marginalized communities digitally.

Bits versus Bytes: Demystifying Internet Speeds, Data Volumes, and Utility Billing

Senior Staff Correspondent — Tue, 20 Oct 2026 11:54:00 +0600

Structural Speed vs. Capacity Metrics: Network transmission speeds are measured in bits (Mbps/Gbps, lowercase 'b'), while stored file payloads are calculated in bytes (MB/GB, uppercase 'B'); $1\text{ Byte} = 8\text{ bits}$ .
Vernacular Encoding Overhead: Due to UTF-8 Unicode structures, Bengali script requires 3 Bytes (24 bits) per character compared to 1 Byte for English, causing vernacular SMS payloads to truncate at roughly 70 characters per segment.
Rationalizing Utility Billing Frameworks: Transitioning broadband tariff models from conduit bandwidth capacity (Mbps) to volumetric consumption (GB) aligns telecommunications with standard metered utility economics.

For technology practitioners, the distinction between bits and bytes is fundamental. However, for everyday digital consumers, this metric remains a persistent source of confusion. Clarifying this structural arithmetic is essential to understanding bandwidth economics, telecommunications metering, and digital storage.

Bits and bytes constitute the bedrock of computational systems. Digital hardware processes information exclusively through binary states: "0" and "1". The term Bit is an abbreviation of Binary Digit. In international notation, a bit is designated by a lowercase "b", while a Byte is represented by an uppercase "B". The core mathematical ratio is exact: one Byte equals eight bits ($1\text{ Byte} = 8\text{ bits}$). Consequently, the capital "B" represents an order of magnitude eight times larger than the lowercase "b". The bit is the absolute smallest unit of digital telemetry.

Standard ASCII encoding allocates 1 Byte of memory per basic Latin character (such as "A") or numeric digit (such as "3"). However, owing to the typographic and conjunct complexity of the Bengali script, standard UTF-8 Unicode allocates 3 Bytes (24 bits) to process a single Bengali glyph.

This technical disparity directly shapes mobile messaging architectures. Standard Short Message Service (SMS) protocols impose a payload ceiling of 160 Bytes per segment—accommodating 160 standard English characters. Because Bengali characters consume three times the data volume, a single Bengali SMS segment is capped at roughly 70 characters. Consequently, composed messages in the vernacular fragment across multiple billing units rapidly.

When measuring the transmission velocity or bandwidth of an internet pipe, telecommunications standards reference bits per second using the lowercase "b". Conversely, when measuring the volume of stored content, file weight, or storage media, standards employ the uppercase "B". Metric prefixes—kilo (K), mega (M), giga (G), tera (T), and peta (P)—are scaled to both units.

Bandwidth velocity is designated in Mbps (megabits per second), Gbps (gigabits per second), and Tbps (terabits per second). In contrast, storage footprint and file dimensions are audited in KB (Kilobytes), MB (Megabytes), GB (Gigabytes), and TB (Terabytes):

$1\text{ kbps} = 1,000\text{ bps}$; $1\text{ Mbps} = 1,000\text{ kbps}$; $1\text{ Gbps} = 1,000\text{ Mbps}$
$1\text{ KB} = 1,000\text{ Bytes}$; $1\text{ MB} = 1,000\text{ KB}$; $1\text{ GB} = 1,000\text{ MB}$

Applying this to downstream performance: an internet link provisioned at 100 Mbps does not transfer 100 Megabytes of files per second. Dividing by the 8-bit byte factor ($100 \div 8$) reveals a real-world maximum payload transfer rate of 12.5 MB/s. Similarly, a high-speed 1 Gbps enterprise link delivers an effective throughput of 125 MB/s.

Mobile network operators commercialize access based on data volume consumed, retailing quota tiers such as 10 GB, 25 GB, or 100 GB. Conversely, fixed broadband Internet Service Providers (ISPs) in Bangladesh retail access based entirely on pipeline capacity—offering flat-rate monthly tariffs indexed to pipeline diameter (e.g., 20 Mbps or 100 Mbps) under unmetered consumption paradigms. In contrast, many international jurisdictions enforce Fair Usage Policies (FUP), capping aggregate monthly gigabytes to prevent network congestion.

In public utility governance—such as water, natural gas, or municipal power—tariffs are metered by actual units consumed rather than the physical diameter of the conduit. Metering internet consumption by content payload (Gigabytes consumed) rather than conduit size (Megabits per second) represents a more equitable, economically rational utility architecture.

Furthermore, consumers often conflate mobile generational indicators (2G, 4G, 5G, and 6G) with gigabytes. The "G" in mobile standards denotes the architectural Generation of radio access technology, where subsequent generations deliver higher spectral efficiency and throughput (Mbps). Similarly, megawatts (MW) and gigawatts (GW) measure electrical power capacity, completely distinct from digital storage. However, in modern hyper-scale infrastructure engineering, the operational scale of contemporary enterprise data centers is increasingly benchmarked and audited by their power capacity in megawatts rather than raw server footprints.

Bits and bytes are not abstract computing trivia; they are the governing arithmetic of the contemporary digital economy and everyday communication.

Author | Technology Entrepreneur and Chief Executive Officer, InterCloud Limited

[Editor's Note]

In the era of digital transformation, this article represents a significant practical contribution to enhancing the technical literacy of the average consumer. Because most ordinary customers are unaware of the distinction between internet bandwidth speed (Mbps) and data volume (MB/GB), they often find themselves confused when selecting service packages and paying their bills. At the same time, the author has highlighted a fundamental flaw in the billing models used in the telecom and ISP sectors—proposing, instead, a rational billing framework based on actual data consumption, akin to that for electricity or water, rather than on pipeline capacity. To present the complex technical equations in clear and accessible language, the article has been published with the necessary revisions.

The Blueprint for Silicon River and Sovereign Innovation

Senior Staff Correspondent — Sat, 10 Oct 2026 09:47:27 +0600

The definitive cornerstone of American technological and economic dominance resides in its frontier engineering ecosystems. The most prestigious institutional gateway to this realm is its elite tier of graduate research universities. Talented researchers from every corner of the globe enter these institutions as unpolished diamonds, where world-class faculty refine them into exceptional intellectual leaders. Gaining entry to these faculty ranks is fiercely competitive: securing an office key and directing an independent research laboratory requires outperforming roughly 400 world-class candidates during recruitment.

Two decades ago, across the top dozen institutions that have dominated American graduate engineering research over the past quarter-century, there were only three professors of Bangladeshi origin. Today, that representation has expanded to nineteen. (Having previously highlighted the pioneering work of Professor Tanzim Mohammad at Ivy League’s Cornell University), below is a survey of the remaining eighteen distinguished researchers across these institutions, ordered alphabetically by their English names. Collectively, this cohort accounts for over 200,000 academic citations, approximately 250 patents, and at least thirteen alumni of the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET):

Dr. Ferdows Alam | Georgia Tech:

Advancing mechanical engineering through the integration of artificial intelligence with foundational laws of physics, engineering physics-informed algorithmic pipelines to automate mechanical design and industrial manufacturing.
Dr. Muhammad Ashraful Alam | Purdue University:

An internationally acclaimed authority in semiconductor device physics and reliability modeling. His pioneering work decodes transistor degradation physics, carrier dynamics, and operational lifespans across emerging semiconductor interfaces, flexible electronics, and photovoltaic systems.
Dr. Syed Bahauddin Alam | University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC):

Specializing in advanced nuclear engineering, integrating digital twins, artificial intelligence, and fluid dynamics to enhance the operational safety, thermal efficiency, and resilience of next-generation nuclear reactors.
Dr. Faisal Alamgir | Georgia Tech:

Pioneering advanced energy storage systems, leveraging high-intensity synchrotron X-ray spectroscopy to inspect materials at the atomic boundary, isolating degradation mechanics to engineer durable batteries for electric mobility.
Dr. Mekhail Anwar | UCSF & UC Berkeley:

Bridging microelectronics and clinical oncology through custom biosensors and micro-optical arrays that guide surgical oncology robotics to detect and excise malignant tissue with micro-scale precision.
Dr. Mosharaf Chowdhury | University of Michigan:

A co-creator of the foundational Apache Spark engine, which fundamentally modernized big-data analytics and distributed computing. His current research focuses on low-power, accelerated systems architectures for artificial intelligence.
Dr. Muhammad Mustafa Hussain | Purdue University:

Pioneering flexible and stretchable silicon platforms, heterogeneous 3D microelectronics, advanced transistor architectures, and bio-compatible interfaces, translating rigid planar semiconductors into conformable systems.
Dr. Md. Tauhidul Islam | Stanford University:

Applying artificial intelligence to biomedical imaging, developing deep-learning frameworks that combine multi-modal biological data to enhance early diagnostic precision.
Dr. Mohammed N. Islam | University of Michigan:

A preeminent researcher and deep-tech entrepreneur in optical transmission, mid-infrared fiber lasers, and biomedical optics, with an extensive portfolio of commercialized hardware patents.
Dr. Mohammad F. Islam | Carnegie Mellon University:

Investigating carbon nanotubes, graphene, and advanced nanomaterials, controlling molecular self-assembly to build functional macroscopic architectures for next-generation flexible electronics and sensors.
Dr. Raisul Islam | Purdue University:

Engineering post-CMOS memory paradigms, neuromorphic computing platforms, phase-change memory materials, and 2D semiconductor logic to bypass the von Neumann bottleneck.
Dr. Md. Kamruzzaman | University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC):

Pioneering the intersection of agricultural robotics and hyperspectral imaging, developing non-destructive diagnostic suites to evaluate agricultural quality and safety.
Dr. Asif Islam Khan | Georgia Tech:

A globally recognized pioneer in ferroelectric negative capacitance field-effect transistors, providing foundational physical solutions to manage power dissipation and thermal management in advanced nodes.
Dr. Asir Intisar Khan | UC Berkeley:

Designing ultra-low-power logic and memory devices, 3D monolithic microelectronics, and novel phase-change materials to unlock extreme computational densities.
Dr. M. Taher A. Saif | University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC):

Elected Member of the US National Academy of Engineering (NAE). A global pioneer in cellular biomechanics, micro-electromechanical systems (MEMS), and bio-hybrid robotics, interfacing living cells with synthetic engineering materials.
Dr. Sayeef Salahuddin | UC Berkeley:

An internationally celebrated scholar in semiconductor device physics whose foundational work on negative capacitance transistors (NC-FET) has redefined sub-threshold voltage scaling for modern microprocessors.
Dr. Navid Saleh | University of Texas at Austin:

Leading advanced research in environmental nanotechnology and surface chemistry, evaluating nanomaterial behavior and fate in aquatic matrices to engineer advanced membrane water-purification technologies.
Dr. Sharifa Sultana | University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC):

Researching human-computer interaction (HCI), technology policy, and digital safety for marginalized communities across the Global South, engineering socio-technical platforms for rural empowerment.

When we advocate for developing a domestic semiconductor ecosystem in Bangladesh through strategic initiatives like Silicon River and the BEAR Summit, standard inquiries immediately surface: Where are the fabrication plants? Where is the capital equipment? Where is the capital market?

These operational considerations are valid. Yet a more foundational question must be posed: When the intellectual sons and daughters of this nation are actively defining the future of semiconductor physics, artificial intelligence, quantum hardware, and advanced energy across the world's most elite laboratories, can Bangladesh not envision its own sovereign innovation economy?

Our intellectual capability is an established reality. The strategic imperative now is orchestrating that distributed genius into homegrown industrial capability, high-value intellectual property, and domestic technological sovereignty. Global respect is reserved for economies whose knowledge, products, and advanced architectures are sought by the world. Bangladesh must deliberately transition from a captive consumer market into a sovereign Nation of Innovation.

Postscript: Currently, there are no tenured engineering faculty of Bangladeshi origin at MIT or Caltech (in 2007, Dr. Sayeef Salahuddin declined a faculty offer from MIT). While numerous distinguished Bangladeshi scholars lead laboratories at institutions such as Princeton, UCLA, and UCSB, this survey focuses on the cohort within the select institutions that have anchored the apex of American graduate engineering research over the past 25 years.

| Author | Lead Architect, Silicon River Initiative; Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana, USA. Formerly Program Manager at SEMATECH, with research and leadership tenures across Texas Instruments, UC Berkeley, and KAUST advancing advanced CMOS nodes, flexible electronics, and nano-device architectures.

Building Sovereign AI Architecture for a Trillion-Dollar Economy of Bangladesh

Senior Staff Correspondent — Fri, 09 Oct 2026 16:38:00 +0600

The geographical divide between Dhaka and Silicon Valley spans over twelve thousand kilometers. Yet, the chasm that matters most today is vastly more subtle and formidable: it is an asymmetry of mindset, engineering depth, venture capital, institutional trust, and that critical fraction of a millisecond that isolates an emerging nation from sovereign compute infrastructure. In this unfolding era of artificial intelligence, Bangladesh refuses to linger as an idle spectator on the periphery. For over a century, global industrial revolutions were unilaterally imposed upon our economy; in this digital paradigm, we intend to act as primary architects of our technological destiny.

This strategic ambition directly underpins an overarching macroeconomic mandate. Prime Minister Tarique Rahman has articulated an unambiguous national trajectory: doubling the economic footprint within this decade and scaling into a trillion-dollar economy by 2034. This roadmap is far from rhetorical posturing; it is an actionable developmental framework anchored upon export diversification, disciplined fiscal governance, aggressive capital formation, and a high-yield domestic manufacturing substrate. Its scope traverses renewable power grids and precision pharmaceuticals to advanced electronics, digital public infrastructure, agro-industrial processing, high-value textile manufacturing, biopharma, and modern intermodal logistics. Having recently crossed the half-trillion-dollar threshold, doubling national output within eight years is undeniably an audacious challenge. Yet, if industrial productivity is structurally decoupled from low-complexity labor and anchored upon high-end digital capabilities, this vision transforms from speculative optimism into an intuitive, mathematically grounded reality.

Economic diplomacy must execute a direct, vanguard role in actualizing this transition. Contemporary trade diplomacy cannot remain restricted to the traditional exports of ready-made garments (RMG) and leather; it must aggressively integrate jute, diversified creative industries, and, critically, deep technology as the fundamental catalyst of compound growth. The mandate across our foreign missions has been fundamentally redefined: our embassies are no longer passive outposts for conventional protocol and ceremonial trade discussions. They are operating as frontline technological conduits designed to translate domestic intellectual capital into international joint ventures, strategic technical standards, institutional investments, and global market access. Just as the pioneering policies initiated under martyred President Ziaur Rahman laid the dual bedrock of our modern economy through readymade garments and expatriate remittances, the journey toward a trillion-dollar frontier demands an unyielding third pillar: an empowered domestic and diaspora class of knowledge workers, organically tethered to a sovereign state capable of monetizing compute capabilities with the same strategic clarity historically applied to optical fiber.

The doctrine of 'Bangladesh First' does not advocate insular digital protectionism. As Prime Minister Tarique Rahman has reinforced, it designates a prepared Bangladesh—an economy globally integrated, structurally autonomous in policy determination, and fiercely resistant to functioning as an expendable pawn on another superpower's computational chessboard. We seek strategic global coalitions; yet, the structural prerogative to govern how, where, and to what social ends our sovereign intelligence layer is deployed will never be outsourced.

What Is Intelligence For?

The sheer volume of commercial software licenses or overseas cloud subscriptions an economy procures is an entirely vacuous metric of technological readiness. The definitive benchmark is whether computational intelligence exponentially elevates the human agency and economic productivity of our citizens. A software engineer in Dhaka must be empowered by localized AI co-design suites to build in seven days what historically demanded a month, while retaining absolute intellectual property over the output. An artisanal Jamdani weaver in Rupganj must command generative multi-modal interfaces to project the heritage of her loom directly to an Italian haute-couture boutique in Milan, negotiating global margins without surrendering pricing leverage, original aesthetics, or design provenance to predatory intermediaries. A smallholder farmer in Faridpur must effortlessly digest hyper-local predictive climatology in his native dialect to optimize input cycles and mitigate crop volatility. These are not decorative technological metaphors; they represent the precise operational baseline of our digital transition.

An artificial intelligence infrastructure incapable of parsing the colloquial dialect of a farmer in Barisal or adapting to the cognitive journey of a young woman learning to write code in Kurigram is fundamentally deficient for Bangladesh. The developmental vulnerability of the Global South is systemic: emerging economies are systematically pressured into adopting proprietary models trained on foreign corpora, monetized through external rent-seeking mechanisms, and regulated by external jurisdictions—a transaction routinely celebrated as modernizing progress. Absorbing imported technological platforms in the absence of indigenous domestic capacity is nothing short of an accelerated form of digital colonization.

Sovereign Creators, Not Captive Consumers

Our institutional stance is unequivocal: Bangladesh must transition from being a passive consumer market into a sovereign producer of artificial intelligence. Every taka of domestic public revenue and every dollar of foreign direct investment allocated toward artificial intelligence must yield tangible domestic equity: an uncompromised internal capability, a curated national dataset, an auditable open-weight foundational model, or a high-throughput innovation cluster accessible to our youth. For a nation of over 170 million people—whose diaspora already forms the engineering backbone writing leading-edge code across Silicon Valley—renting commercial intelligence while failing to cultivate endogenous compute infrastructure represents a fundamentally extractive economic proposition.

This was the core message delivered during our high-level bilateral engagements across California. In late September, a high-level ministerial delegation led by the Prime Minister’s Adviser on Economic Affairs and Planning, Professor Rashed Al Mahmud Titumir—comprising leadership from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Primary and Mass Education, and executive advisers across Posts, Telecommunications, Information Technology, and Science—convened with the executive leadership of NVIDIA, Apple, Cisco, Meta, and Plug and Play, alongside leading institutional researchers, venture capitalists, and the Non-Resident Bangladeshi (NRB) engineering community. The deliberations bypassed generic pleasantries to confront structural priorities: sovereign compute availability, algorithmic cybersecurity, applied R&D pipelines, workforce upskilling, and the institutional rails necessary to connect high-potential Dhaka startups with global institutional capital. The strategic execution orchestrated by our Consulate General in Los Angeles exemplifies how diplomatic outposts must function as frontline economic and technological accelerators.

On September 28, at the global headquarters of Plug and Play in Sunnyvale, both sides formalized a strategic framework agreement designed to establish specialized AI Centres of Excellence connected directly with the proposed 'Bangladesh Tech Centre'. This foundational platform has established a concrete runway aimed at mobilizing over $500 million in prospective investments spanning early-stage venture acceleration, corporate syndicates, and advanced manufacturing—including specialized semiconductor automated test and packaging (ATP) operations. Nevertheless, institutional interest does not constitute realized capital, and an MoU is not a physical research laboratory. The immediate task before the state is converting diplomatic momentum into binding term sheets, physical fabrication sites, multi-disciplinary engineering teams, and globally competitive graduates who elect to build their enterprises domestically.

Identity, Dignity, and Sovereign Governance

Within our doctrine of 'Sovereign AI', two foundational pillars remain entirely non-negotiable: cultural self-determination and human dignity.

Regarding identity, our imperative is rooted in national sacrifice. A nation that shed blood to preserve the sanctity of its mother tongue cannot tolerate an artificial intelligence infrastructure that fails to process the nuances, socio-historical depth, and localized idiom of the Bengali language. Such a system is not an objective computational utility; it is a vector of cultural erasure. Across governance, healthcare, jurisprudence, agriculture, and public education, the primary foundational medium of our models must be authentic Bengali—not a superficial, automated translation layer retrofitted post-training. An algorithm that flattens the rich ethnolinguistic nuances of the Chittagong Hill Tracts into an oversimplified "generic rural demographic" fails the most fundamental test of institutional utility. In applied machine learning, localized context invariably supersedes superficial content.

Regarding dignity, our governance doctrine dictates an absolute hierarchy: human rights precede platform monetization. We welcome multinational technology enterprises that build local capacity, honor statutory tax obligations, unlock venture networks, and accept unreserved legal accountability for system harms. In our high-level engagements with corporate platforms, including Meta, we have delivered an uncompromising mandate: physical and corporate jurisdiction within Bangladesh is not a nominal courtesy; it is the sole structural mechanism to hold algorithmic networks accountable for digital extortion, targeted disinformation, gender-based violence, and the systemic erasure of women from the public digital sphere. Artificial intelligence must function to liberate humans from routine mechanical drudgery; it must never be deployed to displace labor into economic precariousness. Algorithmic safety and data rights are not decorative footnotes to innovation; they are its non-negotiable legal preconditions.

Code Hope: The Democratic Imperative

This is the operational essence of 'Code Hope'. Having studied computer engineering, I have witnessed firsthand the profound distance that corporate systems can engineer between abstract computational code and localized human reality. In orchestrating the preparatory frameworks for the upcoming 'Dhaka Dialogue' on Ending Technology-Facilitated Gender-Based Violence, our inter-ministerial coalitions arrived at a foundational truth: code is the architecture through which an abstract human aspiration begins to move, and that movement must be safe. A young woman in Dinajpur who architects an original software engine should never have her economic destiny circumscribed by traditional employment deficits; concurrently, she holds the fundamental constitutional right to navigate a digital ecosystem that does not penalize her visibility with misogynistic violence. We are not designing computational systems for an insular technical elite. We are engineering a decentralized digital public space where female technologists, industrial workers, handloom weavers, and first-generation engineers participate with absolute structural parity.

The identical standard applies to our historical economic structures: cottage industries, handloom cooperatives, agriculture, and primary education. The state’s mandate is not to dismantle indigenous industries under the banner of algorithmic modernization; it is to accelerate their access to global markets while safeguarding their autonomy and artistic provenance. We categorically reject productivity metrics that fail to translate into tangible wage growth, equitable margins for rural artisans, or expanded educational horizons for the girl child.

Compute Infrastructure as National Sovereignty

Compute represents the ultimate, material foundation of this geopolitical reality. Bridging the conceptual divide with global tech monopolies is a question of political will; however, bridging the physical distance to hyper-scale infrastructure is measured strictly in milliseconds of latency, data jurisdiction, and sovereign administrative control. Building resilient domestic infrastructure—clean baseload power, dense fiber networks, high-performance data centers, and the indigenous talent required to orchestrate them—is not an exercise in industrial nostalgia. It is the uncompromising definition of contemporary national sovereignty. A state lacking the sovereign capacity to train, host, audit, or terminate algorithms within its domestic borders remains indefinitely vulnerable to external geopolitical leverage. There is no viable developmental alternative to building national compute capacity.

We do not claim that Bangladesh has arrived at its final destination. Rather, we have instituted the rigorous strategic discipline required to materialize it: prioritizing foundational engineering over superficial application subscriptions; mandating native vernacular integration across core models; transforming diplomatic missions into high-tech commercial engines; negotiating bilateral pacts that enforce absolute technology transfer rather than perpetual licensing; and constructing a digital commons secure enough to protect the dignity and freedom of every woman. A trillion-dollar economic future will not be achieved through political slogans. It will be built line by line, through the patriotic hands of our own engineers and innovators.

The computational distance has begun to narrow. Crossing the remaining threshold is the definitive historical mission of our generation.

Author || State Minister for Foreign Affairs, Government of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh; Policy Strategist on Technology, Trade, and Economic Diplomacy.

Editor's Note ||

As the trajectory of global macroeconomics pivots toward artificial intelligence and high-density compute infrastructure, remaining passive consumers of imported algorithms poses a structural risk of digital colonization for emerging economies. Bridging technical engineering expertise with sovereign diplomatic execution, the author presents a strategic framework linking high-tech diplomacy, sovereign compute, and industrial policy. By identifying domestic knowledge workers as the critical third economic engine—alongside ready-made garments and remittances—this treatise provides an actionable blueprint for sustainable, self-reliant modernization. The article is published with editorial standardization to inform national and global policy discourse on sovereign AI, inclusive tech transformation, and long-term economic resilience.

The Imperative for Non-Partisan and Free Elections

Senior Staff Correspondent — Mon, 05 Oct 2026 00:00:20 +0600

Highlights

Democratic franchise is formally restored in e-CAB following statutory interventions by the Ministry of Commerce.
Direct secret balloting for 11 Executive Council seats is scheduled for December 19, 2026.
Urgent emphasis placed on keeping trade leadership completely insulated from partisan politics.
Calls to automate the DBID registration into a 10-minute, frictionless digital workflow.
Appeal to lower candidate nomination fees to encourage active participation from young and micro-entrepreneurs.

Following a prolonged period of administrative stagnation, legal entanglements, and institutional vacuum, the E-Commerce Association of Bangladesh (e-CAB) is finally returning to democratic governance. The recent gazette from the Ministry of Commerce and the comprehensive schedule unveiled by the reconstituted Election Board have brought profound optimism and relief to grassroots members yearning to exercise their rightful franchise.

Since its inception in 2014–15, e-CAB operated for years without competitive democratic elections. Through persistent advocacy, grassroots mobilization, and public commentary by independent members, the first direct ballot was achieved in 2022. During that milestone, we successfully pushed to reduce the candidate nomination fee from BDT 75,000 to BDT 25,000—enabling dynamic young and micro-entrepreneurs to assume leadership roles. However, while the subsequent election was slated for July 27, 2024, macroeconomic and political disruptions brought the process to an abrupt halt.

The subsequent appointment of state administrators failed to resolve the impasse, as the association became entangled in litigation. Writ petitions filed by vested quarters resulted in judicial stays—a strategy deployed to bypass open competitive balloting and engineer non-representative committees through bureaucratic delay.

Existential Challenges Facing the E-Commerce Industry

Operating without elected leadership for over 180 days left Bangladesh's digital commerce sector profoundly vulnerable. Beyond the 3,000+ registered member enterprises, the national ecosystem encompasses roughly 500,000 micro, cottage, and social commerce entrepreneurs representing an annual market volume between BDT 22,000 and 30,000 crore.

Insulating a national trade association from partisan political interference and anchoring it upon professional leadership is vital for industrial survival. An appointed government administrator can maintain routine secretarial operations, but cannot spearhead market expansion, drive structural policy reforms, or champion the collective interests of business owners. The protracted leadership vacuum produced severe structural bottlenecks:

Digital Business ID (DBID) Automation: The Ministry of Commerce’s DBID framework has suffered from bureaucratic friction, leaving adoption negligible. Mirroring the National Board of Revenue's frictionless e-TIN platform, the DBID must transition into an automated, zero-cost, self-service digital facility.
Safeguarding Micro and Women Entrepreneurs: In the absence of an elected advocate, hundreds of thousands of female and youth-led enterprises faced unchecked logistics monopolies, arbitrary courier surcharges, and high delivery failure rates.
Securing Pro-Business Fiscal Policy: Without an authentic mandate, meaningful institutional negotiations with the central bank and the revenue board regarding tax holidays, VAT rationalization, and uncollateralized CMSME credit stalled.
Cross-Border Trade and Foreign Investment: Attracting international investment and streamlining cross-border e-commerce requires a credible, elected private-sector leadership that international trade partners can trust.

Administrative Resolution and Reconstituted Boards

To restore institutional democracy and protect entrepreneur interests, I submitted formal representations to the head of government and the Ministry of Commerce, petitioning for the swift disposal of pending litigation and demanding transparent elections in full compliance with the Trade Organizations Act.

Following the judicial resolution of the pending writ petition, the Ministry of Commerce formed a 3-member Election Board chaired by WTO Wing Deputy Secretary Sharif Mostafizur Rahman and a 3-member Appellate Board led by Joint Secretary Sufia Akter Roomee.

Nomination Paper Fees (Non-Refundable)

President: BDT 120,000
Senior Vice President: BDT 110,000
Vice President: BDT 105,000
General Secretary: BDT 100,000
Joint Secretary: BDT 80,000
Finance Secretary: BDT 70,000
Director (5 Positions): BDT 50,000 per post

Four Core Principles for an Equitable Election

Rationalization of Nomination Fees: Over 90% of e-CAB members represent micro, small, and medium enterprises. High nomination fees risk excluding grassroots innovators. The Election Board should consider adjusting fees to reflect broader membership capacity.
Focus on Policy Manifestos: Contestants should engage on substantive developmental agendas—such as domestic cloud incentives, cross-border payments, and logistics frameworks—rather than partisan campaigning.
Preventing Frivolous Litigation: The industry must reject bad-faith legal maneuvers aimed at staying democratic balloting. Members must remain vigilant in defending the electoral calendar.
Impartial Voter Roll Verification: In strict alignment with trade organization regulations, paper shell companies must be purged so only verified, active digital merchants participate in the ballot.

Preserving e-CAB as an autonomous, self-sustaining, and professional trade body is our shared obligation. On December 19, let all genuine members exercise their democratic franchise to usher in visionary, accountable, and non-partisan leadership.

Author II E-Commerce Analyst, Entrepreneur, and Founding Member of the E-Commerce Association of Bangladesh (e-CAB)

Editorial Note II The perspectives, legal timelines, and policy assessments expressed in this article reflect the author's own insights. This piece is published with editorial standardization to support corporate governance, democratic norms, and sustainable development within the digital economy.

Victim Protection Must Move Beyond Bureaucratic Paperwork

Senior Staff Correspondent — Sun, 04 Oct 2026 10:09:03 +0600

Highlights:

The ICT Division has reconstituted District Cybercrime Prevention Committees headed by Deputy Commissioners to coordinate institutional responses.
Committees must publish accessible service delivery pathways (SOPs) detailing emergency contacts and digital evidence preservation protocols.
Strict non-disclosure agreements and data protection standards are critical to prevent the secondary victimization of women and minors.
Success metrics must be evaluated through case resolution speeds and victim support outcomes rather than gross meeting counts.
Localized prevention initiatives must target district-specific digital vulnerabilities using real-time insights from the CIRS platform.

An individual is blackmailed on social media with threats to circulate sensitive personal photographs. In acute distress, the victim powers down their phone, terrified of confiding even in immediate family members. In such a high-stakes psychological crisis, what is the citizen’s primary requirement? First, an accessible, non-judgmental channel to report the abuse; second, technical guidance on preserving digital evidence and metadata; and third, immediate legal and psychosocial support. Awareness assemblies and panel seminars on cybercrime deliver tangible value only when clear, accountable pathways to direct assistance exist alongside them.

The Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Division recently reconstituted the District Committees for the Prevention of Cybercrime through an updated official notification. Under this framework, the Deputy Commissioner (DC) serves as the Committee President, with the Additional Deputy Commissioner (Education and ICT) designated as Member Secretary. The committee incorporates representatives from the district police administration, academic institutions, the Department of Social Services, the Department of Youth Development, the Department of Women Affairs, the Department of ICT, and the District Legal Aid Office. Furthermore, provisions allow for the induction of local working journalists, a legal practitioner specializing in cyber litigation, and, subject to availability, a representative from an accredited fact-checking organization.

The statutory mandate of this notification extends beyond altering committee rosters. Alongside generating grassroots awareness against cyberbullying, harassment, digital stalking, and blackmail, the committee is explicitly tasked with maintaining active contact with victims, facilitating access to legal and technical remediation, and safeguarding children and vulnerable demographics. Procedurally, the committee is required to convene at least once a month, audit the progress of lodged complaints and resolution rates via the Cyber Incident Reporting System (CIRS), and oversee the operations of upazila-level units.

On paper, this establishes an institutional coordination mechanism. In practice, however, its operational validity hinges on a single question: When a grassroots citizen encounters acute digital violence, what immediate, tangible protection can this committee deliver?

Clarifying the Reporting Pathway

Victims of cyber offenses frequently experience procedural paralysis: Should they lodge a General Diary (GD) at the local police station, seek statutory counsel from the Legal Aid Office, contact national helplines, or consult private technical specialists to regain compromised accounts? Being redirected across bureaucratic desks squanders critical response time. In extortion and non-consensual image distribution cases where every passing hour compounds harm, administrative delays directly heighten victim vulnerability.

Consequently, each district committee must establish and publish a clear Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) written in plain language. Citizens must know precisely whom to contact during emergencies, what cryptographic and digital artifacts (screenshots, URLs, header metadata) to preserve, and how their confidentiality will be safeguarded. Rather than remaining buried within administrative portals, these instructions must be visible across secondary schools, colleges, Union Digital Centers, and local news outlets. Everyday internet users cannot be expected to navigate bureaucratic gazettes during an active crisis.

Simultaneously, the committee's institutional boundaries must be transparently communicated. The government notification mandates awareness, inter-agency coordination, victim liaison, and progress review; the committee does not function as an independent investigative agency or a judicial tribunal. Setting unachievable expectations harms credibility. The committee’s core role must be accelerating access to designated cyber policing units and conducting rigorous follow-ups on pending complaints.

Confidentiality as the Prerequisite for Reporting

A substantial volume of cyber harassment and extortion remains unreported due to deep-seated social stigma. Female victims and young adolescents often confront institutional victim-blaming when coming forward. If a complainant’s identity, contact information, imagery, or personal history is leaked during intake, the individual is subjected to severe secondary victimization.

District committees must enforce rigorous data protection and non-disclosure protocols governing who accesses case files, the purpose of that access, and statutory retention timelines. Monthly committee reviews can assess case milestones using anonymized case IDs without disclosing personal identities. Heightened sensitivity is essential when handling cases involving minors: requiring victims to recount traumatic experiences across multiple desks or sharing documentation without informed consent must be strictly prohibited.

While integrating journalists and civil society figures enhances local oversight and transparency, it demands equal institutional discipline regarding data privacy. Membership on a district committee does not confer blanket access to unredacted personal files. Safeguarding victim dignity is the baseline requirement for effective inter-agency coordination.

Beyond Procedural Meeting Metrics

The requirement to hold monthly operational meetings and review complaint data through the CIRS dashboard is positive. However, institutional efficacy cannot be audited simply by tallying sessions held or calculating attendance at awareness workshops.

Performance benchmarks must reflect the victim's operational journey: What was the turnaround time between the initial complaint and protective intervention? Was the victim forced to repeat their testimony across disparate desks? Where do structural bottlenecks exist in the enforcement pipeline? Publishing anonymized, district-wide operational performance data on resolution times and support services will foster genuine public confidence in the system.

Furthermore, educational campaigns must address localized threat vectors. One district may struggle with employment fraud and unregulated lending apps, another with OTP account takeovers, and another with non-consensual deepfakes and targeted reputational extortion. Distributing standardized posters statewide fails to address context-specific vulnerabilities. Tailored, actionable playbooks for students, guardians, educators, small traders, and community leaders offer far greater utility.

Replacing outdated frameworks with newly constituted district committees is a necessary administrative step. The immediate priority across all districts is publishing actionable operational roadmaps following inaugural meetings—explicitly detailing verified helplines, designated focal officers, privacy protocols, and standard response times.

The success of the District Cybercrime Prevention Committee will not be judged by its official roster. It will be defined by the concrete experience of a distressed citizen seeking urgent administrative relief—whether they were heard with empathy, guided swiftly to institutional remedy, and protected from facing the crisis in isolation.

Author || Chief Executive Officer, Bangladesh NGOs Network for Radio and Communication (BNNRC); Global Ambassador for Responsible Artificial Intelligence and Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR).

Editor's Note || This analytical policy review examines administrative accountability, victim-centric cyber support mechanisms, and data privacy protocols at the district level. Published with editorial standardization to inform national policy discourse on decentralized cyber governance and citizen safety.

Financial Interoperability: Bangla QR

Senior Staff Correspondent — Sat, 03 Oct 2026 02:04:20 +0600

The absence of systemic interoperability creates closed monopolies that stifle competition across financial technology.
The telecom sector resolved similar anti-competitive bottlenecks in 2007 through independent ICX clearinghouse licensing.
While NPSB was commissioned in 2012, integrating MFS providers into national clearing switches was delayed for 14 years.
The standalone 'Binimoy' platform was retired in August 2025 due to low utility and governance issues.
Starting November 1, 2026, personal Bangla QR transactions across the NPSB switch will enable universal P2P transfers among banks, MFS, and PSPs.

Samadhan Services Limited, an enterprise under the Grameen Telecom Trust, recently unveiled its Payment Service Provider (PSP) e-wallet service branded as 'GPAY'. This rollout raises a fundamental operational question: Can a registered user seamlessly transfer funds from a bKash wallet to GPAY, especially when direct wallet-to-wallet transfers between major players like bKash and Nagad remain structurally constrained? Will market incumbents establish bilateral application interfaces with emerging platforms? Published policy directives indicate that, after years of regulatory inertia, an integrated framework for individual-level financial interoperability is scheduled to take effect from November 1, 2026.

Whenever multiple service providers operate within regulated utility sectors—such as telecommunications or financial infrastructure—enforcing architectural interoperability is a foundational regulatory prerequisite. The absence of interoperability creates walled gardens rather than competitive open markets, with direct ramifications for pricing efficiency, market structures, and consumer welfare.

Systemic interoperability relies on structured interconnection tariffs. Network exchanges can be executed either through bilateral settlement agreements or via a neutral, centralized clearing switch governed by statutory authorities. In voice telecommunications, tariffs are traditionally unbundled per minute of traffic, whereas financial switches levy clearing charges based on transactional unit volume or transaction value percentages. Consequently, internal on-net transactions remain cost-effective, while off-net routing incurs additional interconnection surcharges.

In asymmetric market conditions where a dominant firm controls extensive subscriber distribution, incentives naturally emerge to refuse open peering, thereby protecting an oligopolistic moat. A clear historical parallel occurred in the late 1990s when the state monopoly BTTB denied reciprocal transit capacity to Grameenphone, forcing the mobile entrant to pioneer closed-loop 'GP-to-GP' calling networks. Telecom operators subsequently bypassed the state carrier entirely to construct closed-loop mobile-to-mobile switches. That anomaly, which drew international scrutiny from industry bodies like the GSMA, was resolved in 2007 when the telecom regulator introduced independent Interconnect Exchange (ICX) licenses to guarantee universal network peering.

Bangladesh's financial sector has traversed a similarly turbulent progression toward digital clearing:

Manual to Semi-Automated Clearing (1972–2010): Cheque settlement operated through physical paper exchanges across clearinghouses until semi-automated computer processing was introduced in 1997.

Core Banking and Branch Automation (2005–2006): Commercial banks migrated toward centralized core banking systems (CBS), progressively enabling online intra-bank branch settlements, followed by internet banking platforms, corporate portals, and mobile banking applications.

BACPS and BEFTN (2010–2011): Bangladesh Bank launched the Bangladesh Automated Cheque Processing System (BACPS) with Magnetic Ink Character Recognition (MICR) technology in October 2010, followed by the Bangladesh Electronic Fund Transfer Network (BEFTN) in February 2011 to handle paperless corporate payrolls, remittances, and utility clearing.

NPSB and National Payment Rails (2012): The central bank operationalized the National Payment Switch Bangladesh (NPSB) to handle interbank ATM routing, POS transactions, and interbank fund transfers. Crucially, although Mobile Financial Services (MFS) expanded rapidly during this period, mobile wallet providers were not integrated into the primary NPSB switch.

BD-RTGS (2015): The Bangladesh Real Time Gross Settlement (BD-RTGS) engine was introduced to facilitate instantaneous clearing for high-value transactions (exceeding BDT 100,000) across banks and Non-Bank Financial Institutions (NBFIs).

Despite having functional clearing rails, an isolated interoperable digital transaction platform called 'Binimoy' was commissioned in October 2022 under the ICT Ministry's iDEA project at a cost of approximately BDT 65 crore. Hobbled by architectural design flaws, limited stakeholder adoption, and governance deficits, the platform proved largely ineffective and was terminated in August 2025. Concurrently, Bangladesh Bank has initiated technical assessments with the Gates Foundation to adapt the open-source 'Mojaloop' switch, targeting deployment by July 2027.

While bilateral integrations have enabled account-to-wallet transfers from certain commercial banks into MFS platforms, reverse wallet-to-bank capabilities remain asymmetrical, with MFS operators capturing distinct transaction surcharges.

Within this landscape, the unified 'Bangla QR' rollout marks a substantive shift from proprietary closed networks to an open merchant-acquiring standard. Commercial merchants are no longer bound to isolated acquiring gateways; a standardized QR code accepts digital payments originating from any bank, MFS, or licensed PSP wallet. To accelerate adoption among micro-enterprises, Merchant Discount Rates (MDR) have been waived on transactions up to BDT 2,000, with transactions cleared directly across the NPSB core.

Building upon this merchant-acquiring layer, individual peer-to-peer (P2P) transfers across disparate platforms—enabling users to route funds between commercial banks, MFS entities, and PSP wallets via personal Bangla QR instances—are slated for operational deployment on November 1, 2026, using the NPSB clearing backbone.

After fourteen years of fragmented clearing infrastructure, the domestic financial sector is transitioning toward baseline interoperability. How traditional commercial banks, MFS giants, fintech PSPs, and emerging digital banks recalibrate their competitive models across this unified network will determine the long-term efficiency of the country's cashless transition.

Author || Technology Entrepreneur and Chief Executive Officer, InterCloud Limited.

Editor's Note || The views and technical perspectives presented in this article reflect the author's own industry analysis. Published with editorial standardization to inform national discourse on payment infrastructure modernization, financial inclusion, and regulatory governance.

Engineering Ingenuity, Cost Optimization, and the Digital Twin Frontier

Senior Staff Correspondent — Fri, 02 Oct 2026 12:16:46 +0600

[Executive Highlights]

Zero Sovereign Debt Model: Silicon River requires no direct funding or financial guarantees from the national exchequer, relying instead on private equity, strategic industrial partnerships, and operational efficiency.
Pragmatic Technology Roadmap: Focuses on mature 180nm CMOS nodes on 200mm wafers for power management, MEMS, and analog chips rather than pursuing capital-draining leading-edge (sub-5nm) fabrication.
Rigorous Cost Engineering: Compresses CapEx and OpEx through micro-environment air isolation, reclaimed process water, waste heat recovery, and modular utility planning.
Staged Tool Procurement & Human Capital: Deploys refurbished, high-yield tools alongside new baseline equipment, pairing 25 international specialists with 500 domestic engineers to build sustainable institutional depth.
The Digital Twin Frontier: Targets 2035 for Bangladesh to become a premier global engineering hub, managing Digital Twin modeling, simulation, and predictive optimization for up to 35% of the world's operational fabs.

As a child, I aspired to be an astronaut. Over time, reality set in. Amid that evolving journey, on a Friday afternoon in April 2001 following prayers, a fleeting scene in the physics building corridor at the University of Southern California (USC) altered the course of my professional life. Peering through the upper glass pane of an access door, I observed students clad in pristine bunny suits handling silicon wafers. Inquiries revealed it to be an advanced fabrication class—highly sought after and instructed by Professor Kaviani. By fortunate circumstance, I enrolled in the course the following fall semester. Stepping into that cleanroom marked the beginning of an enduring devotion to semiconductor fabrication. Years later, on the verge of the birth of my two daughters, it took urgent calls from my wife to pull me out of the cleanroom and rush to the hospital.

That initial exposure progressed into deep industrial and academic immersion: from the Microelectronics Research Center (MRC) fab at the University of Texas at Austin to Texas Instruments’ commercial production facilities, and eventually to SEMATECH in Austin, managing operations across a 68,000-square-foot Class 1 cleanroom equipped with 200mm wafer processing capabilities. Between October 2004 and January 2008, system logs recorded over 10,000 hours inside the cleanroom—averaging roughly ten hours a day, six days a week. During this tenure, we spearheaded the 22nm node FinFET process development targeted for volume foundry dispatch to TSMC and UMC.

In January 2008, I formally transitioned into the role of Program Manager, with core responsibilities encompassing fab operations management. What ensued was the complex logistical transfer of the entire operation to a 250,000-square-foot, 300mm wafer facility in Albany, New York. Beyond the harsh winter, the operational landscape was fraught with institutional resistance from IBM, then the primary program advisor. Navigating entrenched legacy positions while securing DARPA program integrations presented formidable hurdles. Despite severe friction, we assembled a resilient 45-member team predominantly composed of seasoned industry veterans. In under nine months, we successfully established two baseline process nodes: the 28nm planar High-k Metal Gate (HKMG) LSTP CMOS and the 22nm node FinFET CMOS—fulfilling a commitment delivered openly before the Program Advisory Group earlier that year.

Subsequently, I joined the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST). During recruitment, the late George Haddad—who built and chaired the EECS Department at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor for 21 years—pledged dedicated fab support. With an ultra-lean capital expenditure of $1.7 million, we constructed an operational microfabrication facility from raw earth and sand. That benchmark unit served as the architectural prototype for KAUST's dual Nanofab Core Facilities and the Solar Center fab, integrating advanced safety engineering and baseline process setups. My operational journey later extended through the UC Berkeley Microfabrication Laboratory, the 25,000-square-foot Birck Nanotechnology Center at Purdue University, and the STAR (Semiconductor Training, Advances and Research) facility at BUET, alongside completing a mobile fab housed within an operational box truck for field-level training. Tooling for BUET's advanced packaging division has arrived on site, with fabrication and test infrastructure actively underway. In 2023, I authored a proposal securing a commercial 300mm legacy toolset valued near $100 million as an institutional gift; regrettably, campus politics and administrative bottlenecks prevented its deployment. A parallel attempt to revamp an industrial warehouse in West Lafayette under an NSF framework faced similar institutional inertia. Yet, the architectural and layout blueprints were developed in complete collaboration with commercial design teams.

Anchored by these direct operational experiences, I state with objective confidence: Bangladesh can and will establish a semiconductor fabrication facility. Those without direct fab experience often miss the sheer operational dynamics involved. The overwhelming majority of Bangladeshi semiconductor professionals specialize in circuit design, verification, and device modeling. Consequently, personnel with hands-on expertise in fab operations, unit-process integration, equipment maintenance, and sub-fab utility engineering remain limited, though exceptionally accomplished individuals exist across global nodes. Unifying these specialists is imperative.

Decades in the cleanroom yield a straightforward maxim: fab design does not begin with civil architecture, nor does it begin with multi-billion-dollar figures. When SkyWater Technology projected a $600 million budget for an onshore 300mm fab in Minnesota, the financial model was structured around US labor economics and domestic market absorption for 700 personnel. Authentic fab architecture initiates with clear target definition: what exact components are we building? From that inquiry emerges the process flow, followed by equipment selection, cleanroom classification, ultra-pure water (UPW), industrial power redundancy, specialty gases, bulk chemicals, vacuum and abatement systems, floor layout, human capital, and, finally, capital allocation. Emerging ecosystems frequently reverse this logic—paralyzed by top-line figures of multi-billion-dollar fabs, prematurely declaring feasibility impossible.

Why must Bangladesh replicate an advanced-node 300mm leading-edge fab designed for the highest tier of global computing? Strategy dictates designing for contextual necessity. A pragmatic entry involves solar cells, MEMS sensors and actuators, thin-film transistors (TFT), and specialty power devices, advancing toward a 200mm, 180nm CMOS baseline. Such a node readily supports microcontrollers, analog-to-digital converters (ADCs), digital-to-analog converters (DACs), analog front-ends, power management ICs (PMICs), and RF connectivity modules. Complemented by advanced packaging, this baseline enables fully integrated microsystems capable of sensing, processing, communicating, and actuating. The ultimate vision is not merely fabricating isolated silicon chips; it is manufacturing sovereign, end-to-end technology products.

Industry experience at Texas Instruments reinforced an indispensable lesson: sustainability is not decorative; it is rigorous cost engineering. Modulating cleanroom airflow reduces air-handler and chiller loads. Recycling industrial wastewater compresses operational spend. Heat recovery systems trim energy inputs. Correctly sizing primary utilities slashes CapEx. Sustainable engineering is fiscal efficiency.

Developing the Mobile Fab refined these principles further. Why maintain stringent air purity across hundreds of thousands of cubic feet when processing discrete, small-footprint wafers? Precision micro-environments should isolate the wafer locally. Tools need not operate concurrently; they can run sequentially or in batched cycles. Battery energy storage systems (BESS) can buffer high-draw operational cycles. The underlying premise applies directly to modular brick-and-mortar facilities: govern only what requires absolute control, run only active tools, and procure brand-new hardware only where yield dynamics make it irreplaceable. During the global pandemic, we placed KAUST's dual fabs into full dormancy; fifteen months later, both were recommissioned without operational disruption.

Procuring an entirely brand-new equipment line is financially imprudent for an initial facility. A viable strategy leverages refurbished tools, partner-consigned production gear, deferred payment models, and equipment qualified via data-sharing arrangements, investing in new platforms only where process yield and defect density demand it. Capital outlays should not lock in a decade of idle capacity upfront; capacity must scale through staged modular expansion. Pairing 25 seasoned global veterans with 500 Bangladeshi junior engineers ensures hands-on operational capability across installation, commissioning, recipe optimization, and yield management. Over time, that initial core of 500 will seed an ecosystem of 5,000 skilled practitioners. This is the difference between technology transfer and technological absorption: learning through execution.

Our primary architecture evaluates a baseline cluster of roughly one hundred core tools—quantifying throughput metrics, equipment sourcing (new versus refurbished), utility loadings across ultra-pure water, power redundancy, process chemistry, and exhaust abatement. Within this framework, a figure like $650 million serves not as an immutable budget, but as an aggressive design constraint to be systematically compressed through precise engineering.

Yet, the most immediate strategic wedge lies not in the physical fab itself, but in the Digital Twin. If deploying physical infrastructure requires structural preparation, why delay institutional capability? A semiconductor Digital Twin is far more than a visual rendering. It is a mathematically synchronized, physics-based digital model representing process flows, tool states, wafer logistics, chemical supply, power curves, cycle times, yield curves, preventive maintenance routines, and operational bottlenecks.

A Digital Twin allows an engineer to log thousands of hours in a high-fidelity virtual fab before setting foot on a cleanroom floor. An operator can simulate chiller failures, wafer lot queuing, tool additions, or airflow modifications, evaluating the factory-wide impact in real time. In a physical cleanroom, an operational misstep costs millions of dollars; within a Digital Twin, that same error delivers invaluable operational insight at zero marginal cost.

The strategic horizon is explicit: by 2035, Bangladesh can establish itself as a primary global node for Digital Twin development, predictive process simulation, and fab optimization, servicing at least 35 percent of global semiconductor manufacturing facilities while strictly maintaining IP isolation, zero-trust cybersecurity, and data sovereignty. This is not speculative rhetoric; it is an actionable engineering roadmap.

Embarking on this trajectory does not demand hundreds of millions of dollars on day one. It requires high-performance computing clusters, specialized TCAD and simulation suites, process-literate engineers, facility systems specialists, and the unified expertise of the Bangladeshi diaspora across global foundries.

Regional peers will pursue capital-intensive paths; foreign benchmarks do not define domestic limits. The pertinent inquiry is what novel intellectual and architectural value Bangladesh can introduce to the global market. Those who have spent decades across the world’s elite research labs, universities, and commercial foundries must confront a candid question: what held us back? Was it capital, geopolitical context, or risk aversion? Did prolonged tenure abroad foster an assumption that frontier knowledge must be developed elsewhere while Bangladesh remains a passive consumer?

When the coming generation asks why a substantial cohort of experienced Bangladeshi engineers across top-tier semiconductor hubs failed to construct domestic foundations, what will our answer be? That it was structurally impossible? That is an admission of defeat I decline to offer.

To those asserting that a semiconductor fab in Bangladesh is untenable, the invitation remains open: present the quantitative model. Demonstrate where the process architecture fractures; identify the missing toolset; illustrate the yield collapse; or prove where the economics of the Digital Twin break down. Rigorous technical critique is welcome, as it refines the system design. But asserting that "Bangladesh cannot" represents neither a process flow, a CapEx model, a yield calculation, nor sound engineering.

It is merely defeatist rhetoric.

In April 2001, watching students handle wafers through a glass door at USC revealed a path I could not then foresee. Twenty-five years later, another door stands in view. Behind it lies an operational domestic fab, with Bangladeshi engineers driving the digital nervous systems of foundries worldwide. That door remains closed, but its coordinates are established. Our collective objective is to unlock it through engineering rigor, disciplined execution, and resolute self-reliance.

It is noted that, the Silicon River initiative entails no financial reliance on, nor appropriation from, the public exchequer of the Government of Bangladesh. To those who view this endeavor as an impending fiscal liability on the state, empirical metrics and operational reality dictate why sovereign capital dependency is both unviable and unwarranted.

[Author Profile]

Internationally recognized semiconductor scientist, technologist, and educator. Lead Architect of the Silicon River Initiative; Professor, School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana, USA. Formerly Program Manager at SEMATECH, with leadership tenures across Texas Instruments, UC Berkeley, and KAUST advancing advanced CMOS nodes, flexible electronics, and nano-device architectures.

[Editorial Note]

This analytical treatise delivers an authoritative, engineering-led blueprint demonstrating how emerging economies can bypass capital-heavy bureaucratic inertia through precise cost optimization, modular capacity scaling, and advanced physics-based modeling. By establishing the "Digital Twin" as a strategic stepping-stone to physical foundries, the author presents a practical, market-driven pathway toward technological sovereignty. The article is published with editorial standardization to inform national policy discourse on deep-tech capacity building and self-sustaining industrialization.

Bandwidth Demand versus the Imperative of Data Localization

Senior Staff Correspondent — Thu, 01 Oct 2026 13:39:32 +0600

In contemporary strategic discussions surrounding Bangladesh’s telecommunications ecosystem, a specific metric is frequently invoked: an aggregate bandwidth consumption of 13 to 13.5 Terabits per second (Tbps). The narrative suggests that domestic bandwidth utilization is surging exponentially, forecasting acute structural deficits in the immediate horizon. This quantitative projection is consistently cited to rationalize increased bandwidth imports via International Terrestrial Cables (ITCs) and justify urgent capital expenditures on new submarine cable systems.

However, from an infrastructural and macroeconomic governance perspective, a fundamental question must be addressed: Does this 13 Tbps volume genuinely represent Bangladesh's actual requirement for global internet transit?

A technical analysis of data telemetry and traffic origin points reveals a markedly different operational reality. A substantial proportion of this aggregate throughput does not constitute genuine global transit. Instead, it represents cached media traffic delivered through Content Delivery Networks (CDNs). Conflating gross application throughput with un-cached international transit requirements risks distorting national infrastructure prioritization and regulatory policy.

CDN Architecture Drives 60–70% of Inbound Traffic

An evaluation of domestic internet consumption patterns clarifies the underlying dynamics. High-bandwidth streaming services, including YouTube, Meta platforms, TikTok, and international OTT services, rely fundamentally on distributed CDN infrastructures. The overwhelming majority of this material is consumed repetitively across millions of domestic endpoints.

For example, when a viral media stream is accessed by several hundred thousand users concurrently, transmitting identical packets from originating servers in North America or Europe for each session represents an inefficient architecture. Modern CDN engineering preserves a localized replica—or cache—proximate to the consumer edge, serving requests locally to minimize transit overhead.

Owing to historical limitations in domestic Tier-3 and Edge Data Center architectures, a substantial share of this cached content is routed from CDN nodes located across regional borders (principally in India) via terrestrial ITC connections. Consequently, this imported border-crossing volume is accounted for under aggregate "international bandwidth" metrics. Yet, importing cached CDN traffic across cross-border terrestrial links is architecturally distinct from pure, un-cached global internet transit.

The Strategic Imperative of Edge Data Centers

The global evolution of network architecture is decentralizing toward compute-at-the-edge, minimizing physical distances between data storage and end-users. This paradigm underpins the global deployment of Edge Data Centers and localized hyper-scale CDN points-of-presence (PoPs).

If Bangladesh aggressively expands carrier-neutral Edge Data Center infrastructure, incentivizing global content providers—such as Google, Meta, Akamai, and TikTok—to deploy sovereign local CDN clusters, the vast volumes of cross-border traffic currently imported via ITCs could be served directly within the national intranet.

Under a localized topology, when a consumer in Dhaka streams high-definition video, the request resolves at an in-country CDN server, routing packets directly to the subscriber’s ISP without traversing international transmission lines. International transit backbones would remain essential, but primarily for origin ingestion, dynamic content updates, and mission-critical enterprise links—obviating the need to consume cross-border capacity for repetitive, static media streams.

The Structural Role of Terrestrial ITCs

This technical reality does not render International Terrestrial Cables redundant. ITCs remain a strategic pillar of Bangladesh’s connectivity architecture, providing low-latency geographical diversity and essential redundancy during submarine cable outages or maintenance events.

The strategic challenge lies in auditing the composition of ITC traffic and quantifying what proportion can be localized domestically. Establishing robust domestic Edge Data Centers will systematically compress reliance on cross-border terrestrial links for cached media delivery, transitioning ITCs from handling routine consumer streaming into specialized, strategic enterprise routes.

13 Tbps Aggregate versus Pure International Transit

Isolating CDN-eligible caching from the headline 13 Tbps metric reveals that the underlying baseline for pure, un-cached global internet transit is substantially lower.

Preliminary technical estimates suggest that authentic international transit demand presently sits between 4 and 5 Tbps. This baseline encompasses enterprise cloud computing, mission-critical financial networks, global dynamic web traffic, encrypted communications, and non-cacheable data streams. This figure serves as an analytical benchmark rather than an absolute value, underscoring the necessity for regulatory authorities to publish granular telemetry segregating raw IP transit from cached CDN volumes before authorizing massive cross-border procurement expansions.

Strategic Capacity Planning: Beyond Raw Bandwidth Acquisition

National telecommunications planning must transcend the simplistic question of "How much bandwidth should we purchase?" The primary inquiry must examine: "Which data streams are crossing international borders, and why?"

Relying on recurring cross-border transit imports for content that can be sustainably hosted within domestic borders is economically inefficient. A comprehensive national strategy requires a balanced, two-pronged execution:

First, accelerate the rollout of carrier-neutral Edge Data Centers and sovereign CDN hosting facilities, thereby reducing network latency, preserving foreign currency reserves, and optimizing domestic IP routing.

Second, guarantee carrier-grade international transit redundancy through owned submarine cable consortiums.

Bangladesh Submarine Cables PLC (BSCPLC), operating as a public limited company under the Posts and Telecommunications Division, anchors the nation's core transmission spine. To ensure structural redundancy, BSCPLC participates directly in two premier international submarine consortia: SEA-ME-WE 4 and SEA-ME-WE 5. Through these core systems, BSCPLC commands an active international bandwidth capacity exceeding 7,200 Gbps.

When Bangladesh landed its first submarine cable (SEA-ME-WE 4) in 2006, national international bandwidth consumption stood at a modest 150 Mbps. Today, aggregate national consumption surpasses 13,000 Gbps (13 Tbps), with BSCPLC directly supplying approximately 30 percent of total market demand. To service verified future growth, deployment operations for the third consortium system—SEA-ME-WE 6—are actively advancing. Upon commissioning, this will elevate BSCPLC’s dedicated capacity ceiling to over 41,000 Gbps by 2027.

Long-term digital sovereignty will not be secured merely through the scale of international pipes, but through the sovereign capability to localize, route, and safeguard critical data within domestic borders.

Author Profile || Deputy General Manager (DGM), Bangladesh Submarine Cables PLC (BSCPLC), Posts and Telecommunications Division.

Editor's Note || The technical analyses and perspectives presented in this treatise represent the author’s institutional observations. Published with editorial standardization to inform national debate on telecommunications infrastructure, digital sovereignty, and data localization policies.

Cyber Protection Amendment Act: Resurrecting Repressive Speech Controls in Bangladesh

Senior Staff Correspondent — Thu, 24 Sep 2026 01:21:16 +0600

Proposed amendments reintroduce criminal defamation and subjective offenses of "insult" and "bullying."
Publishing "unverified information" carries catastrophic penalties of up to 10 years imprisonment and a BDT 4 million fine.
State agencies are granted unchecked authority to block digital content based on mere suspicion without public disclosure.
The National Human Rights Commission is removed from the governing council, while state officials receive broad immunity.
The draft directly contravenes the Indian Supreme Court's Shreya Singhal precedent and Article 19 of the ICCPR.

In April 2026, the Parliament of Bangladesh enacted the Cyber Protection Act 2026, ostensibly to dismantle the draconian legacy of the widely criticized Digital Security Act 2018 (DSA). However, within months of its passage, the government introduced a set of proposed amendments that systematically revive the most repressive provisions of the DSA under new nomenclature. The proposed amendments re-criminalize defamation, invent subjective offenses such as "insult" and "bullying," and introduce severe penalties—up to 10 years imprisonment and a BDT 4 million fine—for disseminating "rumors" and "disinformation." Drawing upon comparative human rights jurisprudence, civil society petitions, and documented histories of custodial violence under past cyber laws, this policy paper argues that the proposed amendments replicate and, in certain aspects, exceed the coercive architecture of the DSA. The paper concludes with actionable recommendations to realign national cybersecurity legislation with international human rights standards.

1. Introduction

The passage of the Cyber Protection Act in April 2026 was widely welcomed as a historic departure from the Digital Security Act 2018, which for years had functioned as an instrument of state intimidation against journalists, dissenters, and human rights defenders. Although Section 20 was repealed on July 1, 2026, the ICT Division published a fresh set of regressive amendments in September 2026. A five-member cabinet committee, chaired by the Minister of Posts, Telecommunications, and Information Technology, was formed to review the draft.

The proposed revisions reintroduce criminal defamation, establish nebulously defined offenses around "insult" and "bullying," expand extrajudicial content-blocking powers, grant summary jurisdiction to executive mobile courts, and eliminate the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) from the National Cyber Protection Council. These amendments fundamentally contravene the constitutional protections of speech guaranteed under Article 39 of the Constitution of Bangladesh and Article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR).

2. The Digital Security Act (DSA): A Record of Institutional Abuse

The DSA was the direct institutional successor to the notorious Section 57 of the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Act 2006. Between October 2018 and September 2024, over 4,500 individuals were subjected to judicial harassment and arbitrary arrest under the DSA. The law fostered an pervasive climate of self-censorship, altering how citizens engaged in public life.

A legal study by the Clooney Foundation for Justice’s TrialWatch Initiative and the Centre for Governance Studies (CGS) analyzing 222 cases involving 396 journalists revealed that the statute was overwhelmingly exploited by political elites to silence investigative reporting. Accused individuals were routinely detained without warrants, subjected to prolonged pre-trial incarceration, and subjected to custodial torture. Renowned photojournalist Shahidul Alam spent 108 days in custody in 2018 under Section 57 for public commentary. Similarly, journalists in regional districts faced indefinite incarceration and career destruction before being exonerated.

2.1 The Custodial Death of Mushtaq Ahmed

The lethal extremity of the DSA is epitomized by writer and commentator Mushtaq Ahmed. Arrested in May 2020 for criticizing the government's pandemic response on social media, Ahmed was denied bail six times before dying in custody at Kashimpur High Security Prison on February 25, 2021. His co-accused, political cartoonist Ahmed Kabir Kishore, was released on bail following widespread international outrage and subsequently provided testimony detailing severe custodial torture, which resulted in permanent hearing loss and physical trauma.

2.2 The Chilling Effect on Independent Media

CGS documentation shows that between October 2018 and September 2023, 1,436 cases were filed under the DSA, implicating at least 4,520 people. Journalists constituted roughly one-third of all accused individuals. Vague statutory formulations regarding "deteriorating law and order" and "hurting religious sentiments" provided law enforcement with unconstrained discretion to suppress legitimate investigative journalism.

3. Proposed Amendments (2026): Institutionalizing Repression

A coalition of 19 leading human rights organizations—including Transparency International Bangladesh (TIB), BLAST, and ARTICLE 19—has characterized the September 2026 draft amendments as more regressive than the original DSA.

Criminal Defamation (Section 25): The amendment broadens Section 25 (originally dedicated to addressing sexual extortion and non-consensual imagery) to encompass "digital defamation," imposing up to 5 years imprisonment and a BDT 2 million fine (doubled if targeting women or minors). Re-criminalizing online speech already governed by Section 499 of the Penal Code effectively outlaws investigative journalism and public interest satire.
Subjective Offenses of "Insult" and "Bullying" (Section 25): The draft criminalizes conduct that causes "mental distress," "isolation," or perceived diminishment of "social status." These subjective definitions allow authorities to categorize critical journalism, consumer complaints, or political parody as illegal harassment.
Disinformation and "Rumors" (Section 26A): Mandating up to 10 years imprisonment and a BDT 4 million fine, this section penalizes publishing "unverified information." Criminalizing reportage during fluid public crises strips investigative journalists of foundational protections and guarantees pervasive self-censorship.
Unilateral Content Takedowns (Section 8): Executive agencies are empowered to block digital content based on mere "suspicion" of legal violations, removing the statutory requirement to maintain a public registry of blocked websites and terminating transparency safeguards.
Mobile Courts and Executive Immunity: Executive magistrates operating under the Mobile Court Act are granted jurisdiction to summarily try speech offenses, bypassing standard evidentiary procedures. Concurrently, the NHRC's seat on the National Cyber Protection Council is abolished, while public officials are granted sweeping legal immunity for actions taken under "good faith."

4. Comparative Jurisprudence: Regional Lessons

India’s Shreya Singhal Precedent (2015): The Supreme Court of India struck down Section 66A of the IT Act, ruling that unconstitutionally vague speech statutes that generate a chilling effect violate fundamental constitutional guarantees. The proposed Bangladeshi provisions on "insult" and "rumors" fail every legal test established in Shreya Singhal.
Singapore's POFMA Model: While Singapore’s Protection from Online Falsehoods and Manipulation Act (POFMA) includes limited mechanisms for judicial appeal, its implementation has drawn intense global criticism for disproportionately targeting political opposition. The proposed Bangladeshi draft lacks even these procedural appeals, authorizing unchecked executive censorship.

5. Stakeholder Impact Assessment

Journalists and Media Houses: Facing up to 10-year prison terms for publishing breaking, unverified news, media organizations will be forced into defensive compliance and extensive self-censorship.
Satirists and Writers: The vague parameters of "insult" will inevitably penalize creative expression, political dissent, and literary satire.
Civil Society and Citizens: Human rights defenders documenting state abuses risk prosecution under "anti-rumor" provisions, with summary sentencing executed through mobile courts.

6. Actionable Policy Recommendations

Withdraw Proposed Amendments: The draft revisions must be immediately shelved to initiate transparent, inclusive consultations with legal experts, media workers, and civil society.
Decriminalize Speech Offenses in Section 25: Remove all provisions regarding defamation, insult, and subjective bullying from cyber statutes, leaving legitimate reputation disputes to standard civil adjudication.
Repeal Proposed Section 26A: Abolish the offense of spreading "rumors" and "unverified information" to preserve independent investigative reporting.
Mandate Prior Judicial Authorization for Content Takedowns: Require independent judicial warrants prior to blocking online content, while reinstating public registries for all state-directed censorship.
Reconstitute the National Cyber Protection Council: Restore the statutory representation of the NHRC and independent technical experts while repealing administrative "good-faith" immunity clauses.
Harmonize Domestic Law with the ICCPR: Ensure that all provisions restricting speech comply with the international legal principles of legality, legitimate purpose, and strict proportionality under Article 19 of the ICCPR.

Conclusion

The proposed Cyber Protection (Amendment) Act 2026 threatens to reverse hard-won democratic progress by codifying an unconstrained censorship regime. The custodial death of Mushtaq Ahmed remains an enduring warning against granting state institutions ambiguous legal tools to silence dissent. Bangladesh must decouple technical cybersecurity from the policing of public thought, safeguarding digital infrastructure without compromising constitutional freedoms.

Author || Convener, DSA Victims Network; Chief Executive Officer, SeaBeach77 Limited.

Editor's Note || The legal evaluations and arguments articulated in this research article reflect the author's own policy analysis. Published with editorial standardization to support informed discourse on legislative reform, freedom of expression, and international human rights compliance.

Opening the Digital Banking Gateway: Expanding Market Competition and Financial Inclusion

Senior Staff Correspondent — Thu, 24 Sep 2026 00:51:17 +0600

Granting preliminary LOIs to five digital banks is a progressive step, but the market must not be capped permanently at this initial ceiling.
Maintaining an open, merit-based entry path for qualified applicants fosters price competition, innovation, and service quality.
Enforcing the BDT 300 crore minimum paid-up capital requirement must be paired with thorough audits of cyber resilience.
Given the lack of physical branches, full interoperability with nationwide agent networks is vital for physical cash transactions.
Developmental success should be measured by collateral-free microcredit access for rural and female entrepreneurs, not vanity app download numbers.

The decision by Bangladesh Bank to grant preliminary regulatory consent—in the form of Letters of Intent (LOIs)—to five proposed digital banks is a commendable policy milestone. The central bank's subsequent responsibility is to preserve a transparent, merit-based entry pipeline for other qualified applicants, ensuring that these specialized digital institutions generate transformative improvements in citizens' financial lives.

Consider a rural woman entrepreneur: she frequently receives client remittances, pays local wholesale suppliers, and manages domestic expenditures through Mobile Financial Services (MFS). Yet, when she requires modest institutional credit to scale her trade, she faces burdensome paperwork, physical collateral requirements, and remote brick-and-mortar branches beyond her reach. Assessing the genuine potential of digital banking in Bangladesh requires confronting this structural divide: digital transactional velocity has expanded exponentially, but has productive economic opportunity kept pace?

Within this context, the central bank's decision to issue LOIs to five entities—specifically DK, bKash, Nova, Boost, and Kori Digital Bank—is a pragmatic initial step. However, an LOI is not a definitive operating license. Regulatory operational clearances must remain contingent upon strict capital adequacy compliance, infrastructural readiness, and comprehensive cybersecurity audits.

While this marks a critical milestone, capping the market ceiling arbitrarily at five players would be a policy misstep. Out of the 12 applications submitted in the second phase, those denied LOIs in this initial cohort should have a clear, predictable avenue for future evaluation upon rectifying compliance shortfalls. Such evaluations must be governed by published benchmarks, rigorous due diligence, and absolute regulatory impartiality.

The argument for licensing additional qualified digital banks is not driven merely by an interest in swelling headcount. Simply granting access to a few players guarantees neither lower transaction tariffs, superior service quality, nor proactive rural outreach. Conversely, maintaining an accessible regulatory runway for capable entrants establishes authentic, competition-driven market discipline across pricing, consumer care, and technological innovation. Under a competitive regime, consumers secure genuine alternatives to evaluate account parameters, remittance costs, and micro-lending facilities.

The ultimate benchmark of market competition is identifying who captures its tangible dividends. Engineering sleek smartphone interfaces for urban professionals will not satisfy the socio-economic mission of digital banking. Architectural roadmaps must prioritize smallholder farmers, marginalized cottage enterprises, women micro-entrepreneurs, differently-abled citizens, and users with limited digital literacy. Simplified vernacular interfaces, low-cost micro-transactions, 24/7 localized human customer support, and accessible grievance channels are indispensable.

Although digital banks dispense with physical branches, the daily reality of a cash-dependent grassroots economy cannot be dismissed. Seamless interoperability with legacy banking channels, national payment switches, and nationwide agent-banking infrastructure is vital for physical cash deposits and withdrawals. If opening a digital account takes minutes but retrieving physical cash during emergencies remains unreliable, systemic public trust will inevitably erode.

Equally paramount is structural cybersecurity and data privacy. As digital banks aggregate citizen identities and transaction streams, the systemic risks of identity theft, account hijacking, infrastructure outages, and sophisticated fraud escalate. Depositors must retain full visibility over data telemetry and usage consent. Furthermore, dispute resolution must be instantaneous; while the interface of modern banking resides in an app, institutional accountability cannot be outsourced to automated chatbot loops.

Bangladesh Bank must balance two regulatory priorities concurrently. First, rigorously evaluate the recapitalization compliance—where minimum paid-up capital has been scaled from BDT 125 crore to BDT 300 crore—alongside the corporate governance and technical architectures of the initial LOI recipients. Second, articulate a transparent roadmap for future licensing cohorts. Explicitly defining why applications are rejected and how technical deficiencies can be cured will preserve institutional transparency and shield central bank decision-making from speculative criticism.

The operational efficacy of these prospective banks cannot be measured by app installation counts or dormant account metrics alone. Success must be audited by tangible parameters: the frequency of active rural usage, the accessibility of uncollateralized credit for micro-enterprises, reductions in end-user service costs, and the velocity of dispute remediation. Maintaining an account and acquiring the financial sovereignty to transform one's livelihood represent two entirely different developmental milestones.

Bangladesh Bank has initiated a progressive paradigm shift by opening the digital banking gateway. The immediate expectation is that the rigorous evaluation of the initial five institutions will proceed alongside a predictable framework that welcomes further qualified institutions over time. The objective is not merely expanding institutional headcount, but constructing an inclusive financial architecture where citizens can securely, affordably, and autonomously access modern financial tools.

Author || Global Ambassador for Responsible AI and Antimicrobial Resistance; Chief Executive Officer, Bangladesh NGOs Network for Radio and Communication (BNNRC).

Editor's Note || The arguments and systemic insights presented in this article represent the author's own professional analysis. Published with editorial standardization to support informed discourse on sustainable financial inclusion, digital banking architecture, and progressive economic modernization.

Food Safety in E-Commerce: Supply Deficits, Streamlined UBID, and Consumer Rights

Staff Correspondent — Tue, 22 Sep 2026 22:00:48 +0600

Economic input calculations confirm that heavily discounted online ghee, honey, and mustard oil are largely synthetic adulterations.
Over 90 percent of 300,000+ social media food merchants operate entirely outside formal statutory and tax registers.
The UBID framework must transition to a frictionless, automated e-TIN style system issued within 10 minutes.
Mandating verified UBID credentials across logistics and courier networks will automatically eliminate fraudulent sellers.
Packaged products must integrate scannable BSTI verification QR codes, supported by active consumer complaint filings.

With the rapid proliferation of e-commerce and Facebook-based f-commerce across Bangladesh, the dynamics of online food retail have undergone a profound transformation. Driven by seamless digital payments and doorstep delivery networks, retail volumes for ghee, raw honey, mustard oil, powdered spices, herbal formulations, artisanal yogurt, and homemade confectionery have surged exponentially. Deceptive branding claims such as "100% Pure," "Organic," "Cold-Pressed," and "Homemade" routinely mislead digital consumers, generating millions in daily turnover. Yet, beneath these alluring promotional campaigns lies a profound structural disconnect among raw material supply, counterfeit BSTI credentials, and institutional oversight—fueling an escalating public health emergency.

Estimates from the e-Commerce Association of Bangladesh (e-CAB) and the Digital Commerce Research and Advocacy Forum (DCRAF) indicate that Bangladesh's digital commerce market now exceeds BDT 25,000 crore, with food and daily essentials constituting nearly a quarter of this total. However, while formally registered digital retailers number only around a thousand, over 300,000 micro-merchants operate via unregulated social media pages. More than 90 percent of these food vendors lack basic municipal trade licenses, VAT registrations, BSTI certifications, or mandatory clearances from the Bangladesh Food Safety Authority (BFSA). The laboratory reports displayed on these digital storefronts are predominantly fabricated or outdated, with virtually zero institutional capacity to verify product batches for domestic bakeries or open herbal products.

Market inspections and laboratory analyses by statutory regulators reveal severe adulteration across primary food categories. Commercial ghee distributed online frequently contains zero milk fat; butterfat is routinely substituted with palm olein, industrial vegetable fats, synthetic essences, and toxic dimethyl yellow dyes. Mustard oil is fortified with industrial mineral oils and artificial pungency chemicals. Genuine honey is replaced with thermally degraded sugar and glucose syrups, which destroy active natural enzymes and increase risks of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease and diabetes. Similarly, ground spices are contaminated with textile dyes, brick dust, and toxic lead chromate, while unregulated herbal preparations secretly incorporate synthetic corticosteroids that induce chronic renal and hepatic failure.

The systemic prevalence of counterfeit foods is conclusively proven through simple macroeconomic supply-demand models:

Ghee: Department of Livestock Services data indicates national liquid milk production stands at 14 million metric tons against an annual domestic demand exceeding 15 million metric tons. Producing one kilogram of genuine ghee requires 16 to 20 liters of fresh cow's milk. At BDT 70–80 per liter of raw milk, foundational input costs alone range from BDT 1,100 to 1,400. Factoring in processing, packaging, and cold-chain logistics, authentic ghee cannot be manufactured below BDT 1,400–1,600 per kilogram, dictating a baseline retail price of BDT 1,800–2,500. Yet, digital platforms are saturated with products priced at BDT 700–1,000, confirming the predominance of hydrogenated oils.
Mustard Oil: Department of Agricultural Extension statistics reflect an annual domestic harvest of 1.1–1.2 million metric tons of mustard seed, yielding a theoretical ceiling of 400,000 to 450,000 metric tons of edible oil against total national consumption of 2.4–2.5 million metric tons. Despite this profound structural deficit, online claims of "pure expeller-pressed" mustard oil are overwhelmingly diluted with artificially flavored palm oil.
Honey: Domestic yield from the Sundarbans and commercial apiculture yields roughly 10,000 to 12,000 metric tons annually, contrasting starkly with commercial retail volumes exceeding 20,000 metric tons. Industrial sugar syrups account for the deficit.

Despite the existence of the Consumer Rights Protection Act (2009), the Food Safety Act (2013), the BSTI Act (2018), and the Digital Commerce Operation Guidelines (2021), institutional enforcement remains constrained. Because social media sellers lack physical corporate premises, mobile judicial courts cannot easily execute spot inspections. Shutting down non-compliant pages yields minimal impact, as rogue operators instantly migrate to new digital pseudonyms.

Overcoming this administrative inertia requires fundamentally overhauling the Ministry of Commerce's Unique Business Identification (UBID) regime. Bureaucratic complexity and excessive documentation requirements have historically suppressed adoption, leaving only a negligible fraction of merchants onboarded. The UBID framework must transition into an automated, zero-cost, API-driven self-service portal linked directly to national identification registries—replicating the frictionless efficiency of the electronic tax identification (e-TIN) system to issue credentials within 10 minutes. A transparent national merchant registry would empower institutions like DCRAF and state regulators to enforce data-driven compliance.

Simultaneously, binding regulatory mandates must be imposed upon major logistics and courier intermediaries. Courier aggregators should be barred from booking commercial food consignments originating from vendors lacking verified UBID credentials, instantly disenfranchising illegal digital networks. Furthermore, statutory standards for terms like "Organic" and "Homemade" must be codified, with mandatory verification QR codes on product packaging linking directly to dynamic BSTI compliance databases.

Ultimately, proactive consumer awareness remains an essential defense. Citizens must look beyond misleading discounts and verify physical corporate addresses, valid trade licenses, and statutory UBID numbers prior to checkout. Retaining digital payment slips, commercial invoices, and chat logs enables actionable recourse. Under Section 76 of the Consumer Rights Protection Act, complainants filing written grievances within 30 days are entitled to receive 25 percent of any administrative fine levied against offending merchants.

Online food commerce represents a vital economic pillar for Bangladesh. However, unregulated adulteration syndicates severely jeopardize public health and erode institutional trust. Comprehensive digital identification through frictionless UBID protocols, logistics accountability, and strict regulatory enforcement are imperatives to preserve market integrity.

Author || E-Commerce Analyst and Founding Member, e-Commerce Association of Bangladesh (e-CAB).

Editor's Note || The data and institutional analyses expressed in this article represent the author's own insights. Published with editorial standardization to support public health safety, institutional governance, and the sustainable evolution of digital commerce.

The False Divide: Digital Violence Is Real Violence and a Crisis of Citizenship

Senior Staff Correspondent — Mon, 21 Sep 2026 00:27:23 +0600

Logging off is an eviction from democratic participation, not a legitimate remedy for online harassment.
Physiological stress responses and trauma from digital threats mirror physical intimidation.
The Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics indicates 89% of surveyed female social media users have faced online abuse.
Waiting for physical bruises before categorizing harm leaves synthetic and AI-generated digital violence unpunished.
Distress calls to Helpline 109 reflect direct constraints on women's livelihoods, education, and public visibility.

There remains a polite reflex, still common in newsrooms and certain courtrooms, that treats online harm as an inferior species of injury: unfortunate, perhaps ugly, but not entirely violence. The recommended prescription is almost always self-help: change the password, deactivate the account, do not feed the trolls. This advice mirrors the older, patriarchal instructions given to women across physical streets and kitchens: leave the room. Yet that digital "room" is precisely where contemporary employment, banking, education, journalism, and democratic politics actively take place.

Liz Kelly’s conceptual continuum of sexual violence was formulated decades before the ubiquity of smartphones, yet it articulates modern digital realities with uncomfortable precision. The primary function of a continuum is not to rank an indecent exposure beneath sexual assault; it demonstrates that disparate practices share an identical purpose: restricting women’s access to public space and demonstrating to spectators the punitive cost of visibility. Technology-facilitated gender-based violence (TFGBV) does not replace physical violence and confinement; it extends and amplifies them through connected devices, platform architectures, and synthetic media. A physical stalker and a coordinated doxxing swarm do not belong to separate spheres—they represent a unified perpetrator using two interconnected doors.

The physiological body records every blow. Sleep fractures. Cortisol does not differentiate between a menacing footstep in an alleyway and a targeted digital smear campaign. Women retreat first from comment threads, then from journalistic bylines, and ultimately from public leadership candidacies. UN Women reports that 38 percent of women globally have personally endured online violence, and 85 percent have witnessed it; over 40 percent have engaged in defensive self-censorship, and nearly one in five has retreated from professional discourse entirely. In Bangladesh, findings by the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) reveal that 89 percent of female social media users have encountered online harm at least once, yet fewer than one in five ever formally reports the abuse. An injury this systemic and chronically under-reported cannot be trivialized as a niche content moderation challenge; it is a structural crisis of equal citizenship.

Legal and judicial establishments continue to falter upon archaic evidentiary dogmas requiring a photographic image to prove physical bodily harm. When non-consensual imagery is computationally generated via artificial intelligence, law enforcement personnel and family members still colloquially ask whether the harm is "real." That inquiry is the false divide at work. The genuine harm lies in the predatory distribution, the family blackmail, the dissolved employment contract, and the traumatic isolation of the victim. Any conception of justice that delays action until it sees a physical bruise will perpetually miss the architectural reality of modern abuse.

In Bangladesh, National Helpline 109 routinely logs distress calls detailing digital extortion, the non-consensual circulation of private imagery, synthetic impersonation, and sextortion. These callers are not expressing subjective emotional discomfort; they are articulating a destructive trajectory that frequently terminates in forced withdrawal from workplaces, classrooms, and community life. An administrative apparatus that merely catalogs these grievances without building actionable investigative capacity has tacitly accepted the false divide as state policy.

Until statutory laws, editorial newsroom standards, and corporate platform architectures recognize digital violence as an unyielding restriction on human movement across public domains—both physical and virtual—the burden of remedy will remain an unfair, privatized task imposed upon the targeted individual. The insistence on establishing unified legal definitions at forums like the Dhaka Dialogue represents an effort to dismantle the outdated "vacuum theory" of the internet. There is no isolated digital vacuum; there are only shared public rooms from which women are continually instructed to retreat.

Author || Chief Innovation Officer and Director General, International Trade, Investment & Technology, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Government of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh. He is a diplomat and innovation strategist operating at the intersection of international trade, technology investments, and AI governance, actively engaged across Digital@UNGA, education and AI, sovereign compute, and economic diplomacy.

Editor's Note || The systemic assessments and critiques presented in this article represent the author's own policy perspectives. Published with editorial standardization to advance inclusive digital governance, legal modernization, and structural protections for women in the technology ecosystem.

Safety of Women in the Digital Space: Legal Protections Must Move Beyond Paper into Practice

Senior Staff Correspondent — Fri, 18 Sep 2026 09:44:44 +0600

The rapid evolution of technology has scaled cyber harassment and malicious deepfakes targeting women
UNFPA data reveals that over half of women globally lack effective legal recourse against digital violence
Legal reforms must adopt a technology-neutral approach and prioritize consent over the perpetrator's intent
Tech platforms must be subjected to binding 24-to-48-hour content takedown mandates backed by statutory penalties
Modernizing evidence acts and institutionalizing in-camera trials are essential to safeguard victim dignity

We inhabit an era where the boundary between physical life and the virtual sphere has largely dissolved. Yet, alongside this unprecedented technological trajectory, an alarming shadow has intensified: technology-facilitated gender-based violence (TFGBV). From cyberbullying and non-consensual sharing of intimate images or deepfakes to digital stalking and character assassination, women and girls routinely encounter evolving forms of online abuse. Regrettably, global legal systems remain fundamentally ill-equipped to guarantee protection in the digital realm, mirroring deep-seated systemic deficits.

Recent analytical findings from the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) delineate a deeply concerning reality: more than half of the global female population remains deprived of actionable legal safeguards against online violence. Fewer than 40 percent of nations maintain specialized statutes criminalizing cyber harassment, while civil remedies are accessible in merely 14 percent of jurisdictions. These metrics indicate that even where legislation exists, it fails to keep pace with rapid technological evolution, allowing perpetrators to navigate structural impunity.

International human rights treaties—including CEDAW, the ICCPR, and recent United Nations General Assembly resolutions—unequivocally affirm: human rights offline must be protected online. Operationalizing this mandate requires a forward-looking, human rights-anchored model legal framework.

Four structural principles must underpin such legislation:

Consent: Legal definitions must center exclusively on unambiguous, freely given, and revocable consent, rather than requiring victims to prove malicious intent.
Autonomy & Agency: The law must move beyond patronizing protectionism, recognizing victims as autonomous rights-holders over their data and personal dignity.
Intersectionality: Frameworks must account for compounded vulnerabilities faced by marginalized, disabled, or public-facing women, including journalists.
Transparency & Accountability: State enforcement agencies and major tech corporations must be held to clear public-interest benchmarks.

A comprehensive framework requires balanced criminal, civil, and administrative remedies. Statutes must remain tech-neutral so algorithmic evolutions do not render laws obsolete. Drawing from precedents like the UK’s Online Safety Act 2023, the non-consensual distribution of private media must be categorized as a strict-liability offense, preventing judicial backlogs driven by evidentiary debates over intent.

Simultaneously, binding obligations must be imposed on technology platforms. Emulating mechanisms within the US Take It Down framework and Germany’s NetzDG, platforms must comply with strict statutory windows (such as 24 to 48 hours) for removing non-consensual content, reinforced by meaningful administrative penalties for non-compliance.

Substantive procedural reforms are equally vital. Conventional policing methods are insufficient for securing ephemeral digital evidence and preserving cryptographic metadata. This necessitates specialized cyber investigative protocols, targeted judicial training, and statutory recognition of electronic evidence. Procedural guarantees—including pseudonymous filings and mandatory in-camera hearings—must be instituted to prevent re-traumatization.

Crucially, protective mandates must never be weaponized to suppress legitimate digital dissent or free expression, nor should poorly drafted provisions risk re-criminalizing victims.

The virtual realm cannot remain an ungoverned space. Establishing a safe, equitable digital ecosystem demands cohesive national strategies, adequate fiscal appropriations, and enforceable legal standards. Without guaranteeing women’s safety in digital spaces, broader developmental and equality commitments will remain unattainable.

Author || Specialist on Gender-Based Violence (GBV), United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA).

Editor's Note || The views and policy evaluations articulated in this article reflect the author’s professional analysis. This article is published with editorial standardization to further constructive dialogue on institutional accountability, digital rights, and gender-inclusive cyber governance.

Tech City of Shenzhen and the Future of Civic Thinking in Bangladesh

Senior Staff Correspondent — Tue, 15 Sep 2026 21:53:53 +0600

The visit to CIOE, Shenzhen highlighted the seamless convergence of technology, urban planning, and citizen services.
Genuine urban modernization prioritizes public transit, energy stability, low-latency connectivity, and civic welfare over cosmetic skyscrapers.
Chronic multi-agency fragmentation and uncoordinated road excavations remain the primary drain on Bangladeshi urban resources.
Bangladesh must structurally transition from a passive technology consumer into an active domestic manufacturer and innovator.
Sustainable municipal reform requires decentralized local governance, open complaint-tracking dashboards, and strict institutional accountability.

Between September 9 and 11, I had the opportunity to attend the China International Optoelectronic Exposition-CIOE, the landmark high-tech metropolis of Shenzhen, China. A distinguished delegation from Bangladesh—comprising entrepreneurs, tech executives, and key industry stakeholders from the ISP and IT sectors—joined this visit. It is worth noting that participants attended either in their personal capacity or under corporate sponsorships.

During the visit, I met with Nazmul Karim Bhuiyan, Secretary General of the Internet Service Providers Association of Bangladesh (ISPAB); Senior Vice President Saiful Islam Siddique; and Executive Committee members Mithu Howlader, Selim, among nearly 50 industry members. Over three intensive days, our delegation explored emerging technologies, engaged in high-level business interactions, placed commercial equipment orders, and directly inspected advanced manufacturing facilities.

While the CIOEFair stands as a premier global platform showcasing China's industrial manufacturing, commerce, and technological prowess, this journey represented more than a trade fair participation. It offered an invaluable, close-up perspective on how systematic technological maturity, sustainable urban planning, and citizen-centric governance converge to drive national progress.

Observing Shenzhen’s dynamic urban fabric and technological integration led me to a persistent question: As China seamlessly integrates digital technology into the daily life of every citizen, has Bangladesh managed to transform technology into a genuine vehicle for improving citizen wellbeing?

The divergence between Bangladesh and China cannot be measured solely through GDP growth or sheer physical infrastructure. It lies fundamentally in strategic foresight, precision execution, citizen service delivery, technological absorption, empowered local governance, and long-term vision. This comparative lens is not intended to uncritically glorify China’s model nor diminish Bangladesh’s domestic gains. Rather, as civil society advocates in an emerging economy, we must objectively evaluate what practical lessons can be adapted to accelerate Bangladesh's own trajectory.

Shenzhen: A Benchmark for Structured Urban Transformation

Historically a modest border fishing village, Shenzhen underwent historic modernization following Deng Xiaoping's economic reforms and its designation as China's first Special Economic Zone (SEZ) in 1979–1980. Within a few decades, it emerged as a premier global epicentre for deep-tech research, high-end electronics manufacturing, and hardware innovation.

Shenzhen demonstrates that urban modernization is not merely about erecting glass skyscrapers, multi-lane expressways, or aesthetic monuments. The genuine foundation of a modern city resides in its integrated public transport networks, uninterrupted energy grids, resilient fiber infrastructure, ecological waste management, public safety, quality healthcare, and barrier-free digital public administration.

Every layer of Shenzhen’s ecosystem—from its fully electrified bus fleets and automated traffic corridors to human-centric public spaces—reflects long-range architectural planning. The city balances immediate logistical demands with anticipatory provisions for the next decade's demographic, industrial, and infrastructural pressures.

In Bangladesh, urban development remains largely synonymous with discrete capital projects—such as constructing an isolated flyover, a new bypass, or commercial complexes. However, post-construction lifecycle management, multi-agency alignment, and measurable impacts on daily citizen commutes are routinely overlooked. Shenzhen’s evolution underscores that building concrete structures does not constitute true development unless the infrastructure is functional, resilient, and responsive to the public.

Transitioning Technology from Demonstration to Public Utility

The exhibitions in Guangzhou and Shenzhen showcased industrial IoT, robotics, artificial intelligence architectures, and unified connectivity protocols. Many of these engineering paradigms hold vital relevance for Bangladesh’s modernization roadmap.

Contemporary technology has evolved far beyond consumer smartphones and marketing rhetoric. Today, technology serves as the core utility governing power grid stability, municipal traffic synchronization, potable water networks, remote diagnostics, automated municipal sanitation, and public records security.

Examining Chinese municipal technology clarifies an essential truth: importing sophisticated hardware does not automatically create a "Smart City." True smart governance requires interoperable data architectures, technical civil service competence, an unyielding power grid, low-latency bandwidth, and strict institutional accountability.

In Bangladesh, public discourse frequently celebrates "Digital" or "Smart" initiatives. Yet, on the ground, citizens still navigate physical queues, endure administrative red tape across bureaucratic silos, submit redundant personal documentation, and face arbitrary delays. The true benchmark of digital transformation is reached only when a citizen can secure a birth registration, verify land records, process taxes, or file consumer grievances securely online within clear, SLA-backed timelines. If technology fails to save the citizen time, money, and harassment, it remains mere promotional theater rather than citizen-centric governance.

Addressing the Bottlenecks of Administrative Fragmentation

Managing a high-density metropolis like Shenzhen presents profound logistical hurdles, solved only through coordinated data sharing and unified administrative command.

In contrast, the fatal bottleneck of Bangladeshi urban management is extreme institutional fragmentation. Roads are constructed by one authority, drainage is managed by another, power and gas are administered by separate utility boards, while telecommunications operators cut trenches independently. Consequently, freshly paved road networks costing hundreds of millions of taka are routinely excavated weeks later by a sister utility. The public pays the ultimate price through traffic gridlock, chronic waterlogging, and squandered tax revenues.

Before breaking ground on any primary thoroughfare, statutory mandates must ensure multi-year coordination for underground utility ducts—including fiber, power, drainage, and gas conduits. Development devoid of institutional coordination is fundamentally unsustainable.

From Passive Consumers to Sovereign Technology Producers

Bangladesh has witnessed commendable growth in mobile financial services, smartphone penetration, software freelancing, and e-commerce. Our demographic dividend and tech-receptive youth are immense strategic assets. However, our systemic vulnerability remains our position as passive technology consumers rather than sovereign producers.

We spend billions in foreign exchange annually importing telecom gear, consumer hardware, servers, and enterprise software suites. Concurrently, domestic research in microelectronics, VLSI design, industrial robotics, and proprietary software patents remains nascent.

Reflecting on the CIOEFair, our industrial roadmap must make a strategic choice: will Bangladesh remain indefinitely an import-dependent consumer market, or will we build domestic engineering depth? To achieve structural self-reliance, we must:

Increase national budgetary allocations for targeted R&D;
Foster active collaboration between engineering universities and domestic industry;
Launch national skill accelerators to train VLSI, embedded systems, and hardware engineers;
Implement rationalized tariff and tax incentives for domestic high-tech manufacturing;
Democratize access to venture capital and low-interest credit for early-stage tech innovators.

Power and Connectivity: The Inseparable Lifelines of Modern Economy

In an interconnected digital economy, electrical energy and telecommunications connectivity cannot be treated as isolated luxuries. A transient drop in grid frequency directly risks data center stability, disrupts cellular towers, and paralyzes healthcare and digital financial transactions.

A sustainable digital transformation requires an unyielding power infrastructure, robust grid backup systems, and a nationally redundant high-speed optical fiber backbone. Without underlying infrastructural dependability, digital policies remain fragile.

Empowering Local Governance for Sustainable Decentralization

Over-centralization within central ministries remains a primary bottleneck in Bangladesh’s administrative delivery. Local municipalities and city corporations must be administratively empowered to solve localized urban problems without awaiting central approvals.

Shenzhen’s experience proves that rapid municipal problem-solving requires localized technical capability, fiscal autonomy, and delegated authority. If resolving localized civic dysfunctions requires sign-offs from central ministries, service delivery inevitably collapses.

Local municipal governments must be equipped with dedicated operational budgets, trained technocrats, and autonomous decision-making power. Simultaneously, transparency must be institutionalized through open civic dashboards, enabling citizens to track infrastructure works, service requests, and resolution timelines in real time.

Conclusion

The journey through Guangzhou and Shenzhen reinforces a foundational principle: genuine national development is not measured by macroeconomic statistics or concrete monuments, but by the dignity, security, and quality of life afforded to everyday citizens.

China’s industrial hubs demonstrate how technical innovation, cohesive industrial planning, and accountable urban governance can successfully integrate. While Bangladesh operates within distinct socio-economic realities, adopting the core tenets of integrated planning, domestic engineering capacity, and citizen-first accountability is an immediate national imperative.

The ultimate aim of development is not merely modernizing cities, but uplifting human lives. That philosophy must anchor Bangladesh's technological and urban trajectory for the decades ahead.

Author || President, Bangladesh Mobile Phone Consumers’ Association (BMPCA); Tech Policy and Consumer Rights Advocate, Researcher, and Columnist.

Editor's Note || The arguments and perspectives articulated in this article reflect the author's own observations. They are published with necessary factual standardization to encourage constructive national dialogue on smart governance, technology policy, and sustainable urban administration.

Beyond Algorithms: How Energy and Capital Costs Shape AI's Future

স্পেশাল করেসপন্ডেন্ট — Mon, 14 Sep 2026 00:26:44 +0600

AI competitiveness in developing economies is dictated by the unit economics of electricity and financing costs rather than code alone.
Elevated perceived country risk artificially inflates the cost of capital for domestic data center infrastructure.
The "Adopt, Adapt, Advance" framework offers a pragmatic roadmap over resource-draining frontier model development.
De-risking frameworks must enforce strict transparency to prevent sovereign guarantees from subsidizing private sector losses.
Modular, demand-driven compute infrastructure avoids the structural obsolescence of centralized mega-projects.

The future of artificial intelligence will not be dictated by algorithmic elegance alone; it will be fundamentally determined by the unit economics of electricity and capital.

Background research prepared for the World Bank's World Development Report 2026 confronts emerging economies like Bangladesh with a pivotal reality: national aspirations for artificial intelligence cannot outpace the reliability, affordability, and financial resilience of the underlying physical infrastructure.

Global discourse on artificial intelligence often remains preoccupied with frontier large language models (LLMs), massive training datasets, advanced silicon accelerators, and generative interfaces like ChatGPT. For developing economies, however, the digital frontier will be governed by elementary physical and fiscal realities: Is power supply strictly uninterrupted? Is high-bandwidth connectivity cost-effective and resilient? Are compute clusters democratically accessible to domestic innovators? And are core Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) layers—such as digital ID, interoperable payments, and secure data-exchange pipelines—architecturally unified?

The background study De-Risking the Digital Foundations of AI: Capital, Risk, and the Diffusion of AI, authored by Mariana Dahan, Junaid Ahmad, and David Savage for the World Development Report 2026: The Promise of Artificial Intelligence, redirects focus toward this foundational substrate. The paper identifies four non-negotiable pillars for equitable AI diffusion: dependable electricity, robust connectivity, domestic compute facilities, and unified DPI. Yet, across developing markets, the elevated cost of capital for these capital-intensive utilities presents the steepest systemic bottleneck.

The Capital Cost Divide

The traditional digital divide was largely binary—defined by who had internet access and who did not. In the AI era, this disparity is deeply financial and structurally asymmetric.

When a hyper-scale data center in an advanced economy secures ultra-low-cost, long-term debt financing, while an identical facility in an emerging market is burdened by elevated risk premiums driven by political volatility, foreign exchange instability, policy ambiguity, and grid reliability concerns, the competitive arena becomes fundamentally distorted despite deploying identical hardware.

As underscored by the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA), upfront capital intensity is not the sole constraint. Global investors actively factor in regulatory instability, contract enforcement risks, geopolitical exposure, and environmental vulnerabilities. Consequently, when an economy's "perceived risk" outstrips its actuarial reality, the cost of capital surges—metamorphosing a technological disparity into an entrenched balance-sheet disadvantage.

This dynamic reframes the debate around "AI Sovereignty." Authentic digital sovereignty cannot be achieved simply by hosting a domestic data center or training a rudimentary national language model. True sovereignty reflects an economy’s architectural autonomy: the freedom to switch upstream cloud vendors, adopt open-source frameworks, migrate data without friction, and prevent critical citizen-facing services from becoming captive to foreign proprietary monopolies.

For this reason, the World Development Report 2026 urges emerging nations to adopt an "Adopt, Adapt, Advance" framework. For most economies, underwriting speculative frontier foundation models is fiscally imprudent. Value creation lies in consuming accessible open architectures, fine-tuning them on sovereign linguistic and socio-economic datasets, and progressively developing specialized internal capability.

Pragmatic De-Risking Without Sovereign Moral Hazard

The analytical core of the research highlights the deployment of blended finance, political risk insurance, and structured credit guarantees to attract institutional private capital into viable digital infrastructure projects that are otherwise penalized by inflated sovereign risk perceptions. Multilateral instruments, such as those structured by MIGA, have historically compressed the cost of debt for high-impact projects.

However, a stringent policy warning is warranted: De-risking must never degenerate into the privatization of commercial gains alongside the socialization of infrastructure losses.

If the state extends unhedged sovereign guarantees across every commercial data center or cloud deployment, it breeds severe moral hazard. Commercially unviable projects can rebrand as "Critical National AI Infrastructure" to secure public backing, leaving governments saddled with contingent liabilities and hidden fiscal exposure. Risk mitigation frameworks must strictly require competitive procurement, transparent risk-allocation matrices, and quantifiable public utility.

Evaluating Bangladesh’s Foundational Preparedness

Bangladesh enters the AI transition with measurable structural advantages. Research supported by the World Bank under G20 DPI frameworks recognized Bangladesh for constructing foundational layers across identity, payments, and data exchange. The nationwide penetration of the National ID system, the Porichoy verification engine, e-KYC protocols, EkPay, the Binimoy interoperable payment switch, and the MyGov unified portal represent an operational baseline for digital governance. The mandate is not to construct infrastructure from scratch, but to upgrade existing rails into AI-ready, interoperable, and secure nodes.

Yet, structural vulnerabilities persist. While near-universal grid electrification has been achieved, the challenge has pivoted to power quality, tariff affordability, and environmental sustainability. With renewable energy contributing marginally to the national grid and commercial enterprises continually contending with infrastructure bottlenecks, powering compute-intensive workloads remains complex. High-density data centers require redundant power feeds, precision cooling, resilient fiber backbones, and zero-trust cybersecurity architectures.

Avoiding the Grand Monument Trap

Policymakers must resist the vanity of symbolic capital projects. Inaugurating a centralized "National AI Data Center" offers high political visibility, but without domestic software demand, affordable power tariffs, and shared academic access, rapid GPU obsolescence risks transforming such facilities into stranded public assets.

National compute policy should reject the "build first, seek users later" doctrine. Capital allocations must be modular and anchored to tangible domestic use cases: meteorological forecasting, vernacular language preservation, precision public health diagnostics, agricultural monitoring, and automated public administration.

Critically, public financing must prohibit predatory vendor lock-in. Adherence to open standards, portable containerization, and API-driven interoperability should serve as mandatory statutory covenants for any project receiving sovereign fiscal incentives. In exchange for de-risking, data center operators must guarantee compute allocations for universities, domestic researchers, and early-stage tech entrepreneurs, alongside stringent benchmarks on power usage effectiveness (PUE) and carbon footprint limits.

Ultimately, public trust remains the central currency of the AI economy. Algorithmic governance across social safety nets, public healthcare, and revenue mobilization must guarantee statutory data protection, transparent automated decision-making, and accessible citizen grievance mechanisms.

Closing the impending AI divide demands rigorous financial and institutional engineering. The nations that capture the economic dividend of artificial intelligence will not necessarily be those that design the most complex models, but those that establish the most reliable, clean, and cost-effective digital plumbing to operationalize them.

Author || Global Ambassador for Responsible AI and Antimicrobial Resistance; Chief Executive Officer, BNNRC

Editor's Note || The arguments and perspectives articulated in this article represent the author's own analysis. They are published with editorial standardization to advance informed discourse on national technology policy and sustainable digital infrastructure.

Why Code Is Compiled Politics, Not Neutral Engineering

স্পেশাল করেসপন্ডেন্ট — Sun, 13 Sep 2026 01:59:38 +0600

Code is not an objective conduit; it is an ideological framework masked as neutral engineering.
The early cyberfeminist vision was co-opted by platforms optimized to monetize attention.
Foundation models developed predominantly by male teams in the Global North operationalize systemic bias.
Ninety-five percent of deepfake media is non-consensual sexual abuse, targeting women in ninety-nine percent of instances.
Technological neutrality serves as an evasive corporate alibi while software architectures monetize harm.

Code is not a pipe. It is a politics that learned to look like engineering.

For a brief season in the 1990s, early cyberfeminists could still speak of the internet as a place where the body might be left at the door. Avatars would dissolve gender. Networks would flatten hierarchy. That wager was never foolish; it was incomplete. The platforms that followed were built by commercial enterprises, trained on the unfiltered vernacular of the street and the barracks, and monetised by engineering the capture of human attention. Technofeminism’s correction is now unavoidable: technology is not a neutral tool waiting to be used well or badly. It is a mirror, and subsequently a megaphone, of the society that finances, staffs, and scrapes data to construct it.

When the corporate laboratories shipping foundation models remain overwhelmingly male and geographically clustered within a handful of Global North jurisdictions, the resulting systems do not merely “reflect bias” as an incidental residue. They operationalise an ideological standpoint. Training corpora remain saturated with the continuum of sexualised contempt that feminist critique conceptualised long before graphics processing units became commercially cheap. Evaluation suites still treat English-language toxicity as the universal baseline for human harm. Safety policies collapse non-consensual sexual deepfakes into a generic administrative taxonomy labelled "adult content." None of this represents an accidental glitch in an otherwise neutral apparatus; it is precisely what an entrenched political order looks like when it is compiled into binary execution.

The systemic consequence is no longer speculative. Up to ninety-five per cent of deepfake material circulating across the web comprises non-consensual sexual imagery, and ninety-nine per cent of the individuals targeted are women. What historically required a darkroom, specialized tools, and a stolen physical print now demands only a consumer application and ninety seconds of automated processing. The model did not manufacture the predatory impulse; it industrialised it, scaling distribution as an integrated feature available to anyone with bandwidth. The rhetoric of technological neutrality remains the institutional alibi that allows the vendor to deflect culpability toward the end-user while the underlying system architecture generates recurring yields.

Abandoning the myth of neutrality is not a reactionary call to dismantle computational tools. It is an imperative to govern system design parameters as binding public decisions: whose data is harvested; which specific structural harms are articulated in the model's constitution; which linguistic corpora are deployed to evaluate refusal thresholds; who populates the adversarial red-teaming units; and whose lived testimony is believed when an automated classifier overlooks a threat because it was phrased in Bengali or framed through honorific societal codes rather than overt vulgarity. These interventions are not decorative diversity gestures; they represent the raw politics of the technology stack.

If algorithmic violence against women is to be structurally dismantled rather than technologically scaled, the primary intellectual concession required of software engineers, venture capitalists, and regulatory ministries is unequivocal: code is political. Strategic dialogues, such as the one convening in Dhaka, exist precisely because this principle must still be contested within institutions that remain determined to discuss innovation in sterile isolation. Until this reality is institutionalized, every peripheral reform—cryptographic watermarking, administrative takedowns, forensic investigative training, and national action plans on Women, Peace, and Security (WPS)—will remain an exercise in mopping an inundated floor while the main valve remains wide open.

Editor's Note || The arguments and systemic critiques articulated in this article reflect the author's own policy analysis. Published with editorial standardization to further critical discourse surrounding technology governance, algorithmic ethics, and structural gender equity.

Illegal Cash-Out via Bangla QR: Threatening Bangladesh's Cashless Vision

Senior Staff Correspondent — Sat, 12 Sep 2026 10:19:05 +0600

Merchant QR codes are systematically misused to dispense physical cash without underlying retail purchases.
Unscrupulous agents extract standard cash-out fees from consumers on completely free merchant payment channels
Substantial corporate tax and the mandatory 15% statutory VAT on cash-out transactions are routinely evaded.
Deficient on-site KYC verification threatens the economic survival of millions of legitimate grassroots MFS agents
Misrouted payment flows risk triggering BFIU Suspicious Transaction Reports (STRs), exposing regular citizens to legal liabilities.

The most critical policy milestone in the history of digitizing and modernizing Bangladesh's financial transaction infrastructure has been the universal, interoperable payment framework known as 'Bangla QR'. Bangladesh Bank introduced this standardized national QR with the firm commitment to reduce dependency on paper currency and establish a seamless, secure, and transparent 'Cashless Society'.

Under the National Financial Inclusion Strategy (NFIS) and the overarching blueprint of the Payment Systems Department of Bangladesh Bank, the primary objective of creating an integrated payment ecosystem was to curb the government's colossal cash management expenditures. Minting paper notes, vaulting, physical security, transportation, and cash processing across commercial banks cost the national exchequer an estimated BDT 20,000 to 25,000 crore (200-250 billion) annually. The long-term vision of this digital blueprint was to cut this operational waste by at least 50 percent.

To advance this vision, the Ministry of Commerce, national reform steering frameworks, amended digital commerce policies, and the National Board of Revenue (NBR) have jointly facilitated tax rebates, relaxed Merchant Discount Rates (MDR), and provided incentive schemes to onboard Cottage, Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises (CMSMEs) into modern digital rails. The ultimate ambition was to bring every micro-merchant—from tiny roadside betel-leaf stalls to rural wet-market grocers—under structured digital commercial payment networks.

However, in stark contrast to this groundbreaking policy ambition, an acute operational irregularity and malpractice has surfaced at the grassroots. A nexus of Mobile Financial Service (MFS) agents and opportunistic shopkeepers has illegally repurposed the designated 'Merchant Payment' mechanism into an unregulated, parallel 'Cash-Out' channel. This systemic abuse not only undermines the foundational premise of a cashless transition, but also exposes public revenue, banking discipline, payment security, and the rural financial framework to severe risks.

1. Mechanism of Camouflaged Transactions and Three-Tier Offenses

Reports indicate that this deceptive practice has proliferated across major commercial hubs in Dhaka—such as Motijheel, Karwan Bazar, Malibagh, Uttara, Mirpur, and Farmgate—as well as divisional and district centers (Chattogram, Sylhet, Bogura, Khulna, Rajshahi, Barishal) and rural flexiload or recharge counters.

When ordinary citizens visit agent points needing urgent physical cash from their personal MFS wallets, they are systematically misled. Instead of initiating a standard agent cash-out, merchants prompt customers to scan a commercial bank or fintech 'Bangla QR' displayed on the counter to execute a 'Payment'. Unaware of the technical and legal distinction between a commercial payment and an agent cash-out, customers complete a merchant payment via their apps. The merchant then hands over equivalent physical cash from their drawer without exchanging any underlying goods or services.

Behind this single fictitious transaction, three distinct and serious legal offenses are being systematically committed:

First, it constitutes a Fictitious Commercial Payment without underlying goods or services. Under the Payment and Settlement Systems Act and central bank directives, the exclusive legal foundation of a merchant payment is the bona fide delivery of merchandise or utility services. Channeling funds as commercial sales without an actual purchase violates basic payment system security and financial integrity rules.

Second, consumer exploitation and unlawful fee extraction. Per strict regulatory mandates of Bangladesh Bank, retail purchases executed via Bangla QR are entirely fee-free (0% charge) for end-users. Yet, unscrupulous merchants exploit consumer lack of awareness to privately charge standard cash-out fees (BDT 14.90 to BDT 18.50 per thousand) in cash or by shortchanging the disbursed amount.

Third, massive evasion of VAT and fiscal levies. The statutory 15% VAT on MFS cash-out commissions, along with corporate income taxes on institutional revenues, is entirely bypassed. Consequently, the National Board of Revenue loses substantial fiscal revenue daily.

2. Onboarding Chaos, Supervisory Voids, and Disruption of Marginal Ecosystems

Industry estimates indicate that over 3.2 million micro and retail merchants have already been onboarded into the Bangla QR ecosystem, routing transactions worth hundreds of crores daily across this unified grid. However, this rapid pace of merchant acquisition has exposed severe gaps in ongoing compliance and oversight.

Commercial banks and fintech aggregators, driven by competitive corporate performance targets (KPIs), have aggressively issued merchant QR codes to conventional MFS agents without conducting rigorous site inspections or Know Your Customer (KYC) verifications. Consequently, commercial merchant credentials are indiscriminately issued without confirming the genuine existence of a retail store.

Simultaneously, a fundamental conflict of interest has emerged. For nearly a decade and a half, regulatory guidelines strictly prohibited operating both an 'Agent' wallet and a 'Merchant' wallet from the same physical shop to preserve financial integrity. With the advent of universal QR codes, this clear structural boundary blurred. Exploiting this oversight, illicit rings have displayed bank merchant QRs at agent desks to operate a parallel, unauthorized cash-out syndicate.

This operational distortion inflicts severe economic harm on millions of legitimate, compliant MFS agents. Rural agent networks are the true operational backbone of financial inclusion in Bangladesh. As unlawful cash-outs divert transaction volumes away from regulated channels, compliant agents lose legitimate commissions and are pushed toward insolvency, threatening basic grassroots access to institutional financial services.

3. Macroeconomic Risks, Money Laundering, and Stringent Legal Provisions

The ramifications of this malpractice extend beyond unethical merchant arbitrage; it poses multi-layered structural risks to the broader macroeconomy.

First, the proliferation of trade-based laundering and shadow economic activities. Under the Money Laundering Prevention Act, 2012, converting electronic funds into untracked cash without legitimate underlying transactions constitutes an offense. Illicit networks can exploit these off-the-record merchant channels to facilitate untraceable capital flows, cryptocurrency settlements, illegal online gambling, and informal hundi remittance networks (Layering).

Second, innocent consumers face severe legal exposure. While ordinary citizens may initiate these transfers naively to obtain cash, automated monitoring at the Bangladesh Financial Intelligence Unit (BFIU) can flag recurring high-value non-retail transactions as Suspicious Transaction Reports (STRs), dragging unsuspecting users into formal law enforcement scrutiny.

Third, rigorous statutory provisions and central bank regulatory actions. Under the Payment and Settlement Systems Act, 2024, and relevant regulatory guidelines, substantiated evidence of artificial payment splitting or illegal cash disbursement through merchant channels carries mandatory permanent revocation of trade licenses and merchant accounts. All associated bank and MFS accounts of offending entities are liable to be frozen. Furthermore, acquiring banks or aggregators failing to discharge supervisory duties face financial penalties up to BDT 3 million alongside suspension of acquiring licenses.

4. Policy Framework and Strategic Recommendations for Sustainable Resolution

To preserve the transformative advantages of 'Bangla QR' while safeguarding national payment integrity, a coordinated national strategy must be deployed:

Algorithmic Real-Time Tracking: Deploy AI-driven anomaly detection models across the central bank and commercial banking cores. If micro-retailers (such as small tea stalls) register repetitive, uniform, rounded-figure payments (e.g., BDT 5,000, 10,000, or 20,000) at high frequency, the system must trigger automated holds and alert compliance units.
Mandatory On-Site Field Audits: Acquiring institutions must enforce periodic physical site verification audits. Displaying unauthorized merchant QR codes on dedicated MFS agent counters must result in immediate termination of merchant services.
In-App Warnings and Consumer Awareness: Banking and MFS mobile interfaces must display prominent in-app prompts upon QR scan: "This is a Merchant Payment code, not a Cash-Out point. Paying any cash surcharge here is strictly prohibited by law."
Integrated Fiscal and Regulatory Enforcement: The VAT Audit and Intelligence Directorate of the NBR must coordinate closely with the CID Financial Crimes Unit to identify transaction anomalies, bringing digitized tax evasion syndicates to justice.

Bangla QR remains a cornerstone of the nation’s vision for a Smart, Cashless Bangladesh. However, without resolute regulatory enforcement and active grassroots surveillance, this landmark payment infrastructure risks being hijacked into a digital vehicle for tax evasion and unregulated shadow transactions.

Author || E-Commerce Analyst and Founding Member, e-Commerce Association of Bangladesh (e-CAB).

Editor's Note || The views and arguments expressed in this article are exclusively those of the author. Any resemblance to specific individuals or entities is entirely coincidental. They do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Digi-Bangla Media authorities. The piece is published in its authentic form to preserve open and pluralistic discourse.

When Cybersecurity Becomes Content Control

Senior Staff Correspondent — Fri, 11 Sep 2026 10:33:15 +0600

he proposed amendments raise a serious concern that this is becoming less about strengthening cybersecurity and more about expanding the state’s power to regulate speech and empower law-enforcement and intelligence agencies.

There is no dispute that Bangladesh needs a strong, modern and technology-neutral legal framework to combat cybercrime. The question, however, is whether the latest draft amendments to the Cyber Security Act, 2026 are primarily designed to address cyber threats—or to expand the government’s control over online expression.

The draft discussed at a consultation meeting on 10 September 2026 proposes a new offence covering the publication or dissemination of “rumours and disinformation,” punishable by up to 10 years in prison or a fine of up to Tk40 lakh, or both. It also proposes bringing defamation, “demeaning” content and bullying within the scope of criminal offences, expanding content-blocking powers and changing the framework for trying cyber offences.

The concern is not about combating cybercrime. It is about whether powers created in the name of cybersecurity could ultimately be used against journalism, public-interest reporting, civic investigation and legitimate criticism.

The lifecycle of Bangladesh’s cyber laws

Bangladesh’s cyber-law journey has been marked by repeated changes in names, provisions and enforcement mechanisms.

The Digital Security Act, 2018 was introduced amid strong criticism over several provisions affecting freedom of expression. In 2023, the government replaced it with the Cyber Security Act, although critics argued that many controversial features of the earlier framework remained.

In 2025, the interim government introduced a Cyber Security Ordinance. A Cyber Security Act, 2026 was subsequently enacted by Parliament in April 2026. The National Cyber Security Agency’s official legal archive lists the 2025 ordinance and the 2026 Act separately.

Then, on 1 July 2026, the Cyber Security (Amendment) Act, 2026 was gazetted as Act No. 99 of 2026.

Yet another amendment draft has now emerged. A cabinet committee was formed in July to review and finalise the draft, and the committee held a meeting on 15 July. The latest consultation took place on 10 September.

That sequence matters. The issue is no longer simply about creating a cybercrime law; it is about expanding the powers of a law that was enacted only months ago.

1. The draft raises questions about its own stated purpose

The fundamental test for a modern cyber law should be whether it protects both digital security and citizens’ rights.

That is why the proposed Section 26A deserves particular scrutiny.

2. Section 26A: up to 10 years for a “rumour”

The draft proposes criminalising the publication or dissemination of “rumours and disinformation” in cyberspace, with a maximum punishment of 10 years’ imprisonment or a fine of up to Tk40 lakh, or both.

The most troubling issue is not simply the severity of the punishment. It is the proposed definition of a “rumour”.

The definition reportedly covers unsupported or unverified information, news or claims that create—or are likely to create—confusion, panic, excitement or social instability.

Three questions immediately arise.

First, must the information actually be false?
Not necessarily. Being “unverified” may itself be enough.

Second, must there be an intention to mislead?
The proposed concept of disinformation carries an intentionality element, but the proposed definition of “rumour” does not appear to establish the same safeguard with equal clarity.

Third, must actual harm occur?
Again, apparently not. The possibility of harm or instability may be sufficient.

That is where journalism enters the danger zone.

Journalism often means publishing information before the government has officially confirmed it. A report may be unverified at the time of publication and later prove to be completely accurate. If the legal test focuses on its status at the time of publication rather than its truthfulness or the journalist’s intent, legitimate reporting could become vulnerable.

That would create risks not only for professional journalism but also for citizen journalism, whistleblowing and public-interest advocacy.

A disproportionate punishment structure?

The proposed 10-year maximum sentence under Section 26A also raises questions about proportionality.

The punishment would sit alongside offences involving cyber fraud, attacks on critical information infrastructure and cyberterrorism. The issue is therefore not whether misinformation should be addressed. It is whether the definition of the offence and the severity of the punishment are proportionate to the actual harm involved.

A modern cyber law must punish genuine malicious conduct without criminalising the normal uncertainty inherent in reporting breaking news.

3. Why are safeguards missing where speech is regulated?

The broader cyber-law framework recognises the need for legitimate exceptions in areas such as law enforcement, criminal investigations, medical treatment, authorised research, education and public-interest whistleblowing.

If lawmakers recognise the importance of such safeguards elsewhere in the same legislation, similar protections should be considered for journalism, satire, research, fair criticism and public-interest communication.

Their absence from speech-related offences is therefore difficult to dismiss as a minor drafting issue.

4. Defamation and “demeaning” content return

The draft proposes adding defamation, “demeaning” content and bullying to the existing list of offences covering sexual harassment, blackmail, revenge pornography, sextortion and child sexual-abuse material. It also proposes higher penalties.

There should be little disagreement over stronger protection for children or tougher penalties for sextortion and sexual exploitation.

The problem arises when online defamation and an expansive concept of “demeaning” conduct are placed in the same criminal framework.

Where does legitimate criticism end and criminal conduct begin?

If the definition of “demeaning” is broad enough to encompass negative reviews, accountability journalism, cartoons, satire or memes, the boundary between criticism and criminality becomes dangerously blurred.

The issue becomes even more serious when arrest and trial mechanisms are considered.

5. Should cyber offences be tried through mobile courts?

The draft proposes dividing cyber offences among different judicial forums. Certain serious offences would remain under cyber tribunals, while others would go to first-class magistrate courts. Some offences could also become subject to mobile-court proceedings if included in the relevant schedule.

This raises a structural concern.

Cybercrime cases increasingly involve digital forensics, metadata, audio-visual authentication, source verification and the detection of AI-generated or manipulated content. The draft itself acknowledges the possibility of audio and video being created or edited using artificial intelligence.

How, then, can a summary mobile-court process reliably determine whether a screenshot, recording or video is authentic—or whether it has been digitally manipulated?

Speed cannot become a substitute for due process.

6. Who gets the power to block online content?

The proposed amendment would expand the authority to remove or block content beyond law-enforcement agencies to include the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting and other agencies or forces authorised by the government.

The phrase “other authorised agencies or forces” deserves particular attention.

If the law does not clearly define who can exercise such powers and under what judicial or administrative safeguards, the scope of executive authority can expand through administrative decisions.

The draft also proposes bringing “disinformation or rumours,” defamatory content concerning individuals or institutions, and content deemed insulting to the state within the blocking framework.

The phrase “insulting to the state” is especially problematic if it lacks a precise statutory definition.

A modern content-regulation system must also guarantee transparency and effective remedies. When content is blocked, the government should disclose what was blocked, why it was blocked and under what legal authority.

More importantly, a person affected by a blocking decision should have access to an independent and meaningful appeal process. A system in which the same agency that blocks content also decides whether its own decision should be reversed would raise obvious concerns about impartiality.

7. Less oversight, more immunity?

The proposed amendment reportedly seeks to change the meeting frequency of the National Cyber Security Council from at least once every three months to once every six months.

That proposal becomes significant if the same draft is simultaneously expanding executive powers to block and remove online content.

Even more important is the proposed immunity for officials. The draft reportedly seeks protection from civil or criminal proceedings for the council’s chairman, members and authorised officials for acts carried out in “good faith”.

Good-faith protection can have a legitimate role in public administration. But it must be narrowly defined, subject to oversight and never become a blanket shield against abuse of power.

The real question

Bangladesh needs a modern cyber law.

Artificial intelligence, deepfakes, ransomware, malware, identity theft, cyber fraud and attacks on critical information infrastructure are genuine threats. The state must have effective tools to address them.

But security and control are not the same thing.

A modern cyber law should protect citizens’ digital rights while safeguarding critical infrastructure, government systems, businesses and personal data.

The danger begins when vague concepts such as “rumour”, “disinformation”, “demeaning”, “insulting to the state” or “likely to cause instability” become the basis for long prison sentences and broad executive powers.

The government can explain why further amendments are necessary so soon after the Cyber Security Act, 2026 was enacted. But the legislative process must also answer a more fundamental question: are we strengthening cybersecurity, or are we rebuilding older mechanisms for controlling speech under a new legal label?

Bangladesh spent years moving away from the controversial architecture of the Digital Security Act.

If the new framework brings back similarly vague definitions, disproportionate penalties, broad blocking powers, weak remedies and extensive official immunity, changing the name of the law will not change the nature of the problem.

Bangladesh needs a strong cyber law. But that law should make citizens safer—not silent.

Author: Policy Technologist, Data Scientist and Researcher

Editorial Note || The views expressed are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of Digital Bangla Media. To uphold diversity of opinion, Tech-Thought is published without editorial censorship.

Flexible Silicon, Bangladesh’s Big Ambition

Senior Staff Correspondent — Thu, 10 Sep 2026 08:33:47 +0600

Today, Apple has entered the foldable-phone era with its first foldable iPhone, the iPhone Duo. Apple, of course, is not the first. Years ago, Samsung and several other companies entered the foldable-phone market. Long before that, researchers such as John Rogers had already pioneered remarkable work in flexible and stretchable electronics.

But 13 years ago, another team was asking a somewhat different question.

Not a new exotic material. Not plastic electronics.

Could high-performance electronics be built on industry-standard bulk monocrystalline silicon wafers using conventional CMOS-compatible processes—and could that very silicon later be made flexible? Could we do this while retaining the core advantages of performance, scalability and semiconductor manufacturing?

John Rogers and other researchers had already explored approaches involving silicon-on-insulator (SOI), silicon (111) and other forms of silicon for flexible electronics. Those approaches, however, came with limitations involving substrate cost, defect density or performance. Our question was more direct: could the bulk silicon (100) wafers used by the mainstream semiconductor industry themselves become the foundation for flexible electronics?

On September 10, 2013, our research paper, “Can We Build a Truly High Performance Computer Which is Flexible and Transparent?”, was published in Scientific Reports. The work demonstrated that high-performance silicon electronics could be converted into flexible and semi-transparent electronics using bulk silicon (100) wafers and conventional microfabrication techniques compatible with CMOS processing.

The resulting silicon fabric was roughly 15–17.5 micrometers thick and could be bent to a radius of about 5 millimeters. The devices incorporated high-k/metal-gate p-type MOSFETs. Importantly, the study also showed that the remaining bulk silicon substrate could be reused through chemical-mechanical planarization.

At the time, Nanowerk described the work under the headline, “On route to building flexible high-performance computers.” The discussion of future applications included foldable, paper-thin tablet computers and smartphones.

Now comes the surprising part. ????

The work was not done at MIT, Stanford or in Silicon Valley. It was carried out in the desert of Saudi Arabia, at the Integrated Nanotechnology Lab of the then-newly established King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST).

The paper was authored by Jhonathan P. Rojas, Galo A. Torres Sevilla and me, Muhammad M. Hussain. Our affiliation was the Integrated Nanotechnology Lab at KAUST.

Alhamdulillah, that team was ours.

We are not claiming that we built the foldable phones that Apple or Samsung sells today. Nor did we invent flexible electronics. Our question was different: could high-performance silicon electronics be made flexible without abandoning the existing semiconductor ecosystem?

Alhamdulillah, we showed that it could.

KAUST was new at the time. Few people viewed Saudi Arabia as a technology frontier. Perhaps that is why the work did not receive all the limelight it deserved.

But science has no passport.

And innovation has no postcode.

That is precisely where this story connects with the audacious vision of Silicon River Bangladesh.

Today, someone may ask: Why should Bangladesh think about advanced memory, agentic AI, AIoT, digital twins, specialized testing, automated assembly, packaging, strategic fabrication, intellectual property or product development?

Where is the capability?

My answer is simple.

Capability does not always exist before you begin. Capability is built by doing the work.

If a new university in the desert could ask a question about the future of flexible high-performance computing in 2013, why should Bangladesh not ask fundamental questions about the future of semiconductors and deep tech in 2026?

Entering the market as a low-cost service provider after someone else’s technology has already succeeded is easy.

Our ambition is to sit at the table where knowledge, intellectual property, products and companies are created—before that future becomes obvious.

Because by the time the future becomes obvious, the most valuable chairs have usually already been taken.

Silicon River wants to put Bangladesh’s name on one of those chairs.

Insha’Allah. Bangladesh.

References:
Jhonathan P. Rojas, Galo A. Torres Sevilla & Muhammad M. Hussain, “Can We Build a Truly High Performance Computer Which is Flexible and Transparent?”, Scientific Reports, September 10, 2013.
Nanowerk, “On route to building flexible high-performance computers,” September 2013.

Author || Chief Architect, Silicon River; Professor, Purdue University, Indiana, USA

Editorial Note || The views expressed are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of Digital Bangla Media. To uphold diversity of opinion, Tech-Thought is published without editorial censorship.

Bangladesh Needs Energy-Market Expertise

Senior Staff Correspondent — Wed, 09 Sep 2026 11:57:51 +0600

Bangladesh urgently needs the right expertise in energy procurement. Historically, this is an area where the country has suffered significant losses. We still lack the institutional capacity to consistently buy fuel at the right time, at the right price and with the right risk-management strategy.

Based on available calculations, Bangladesh could be spending roughly $250 million more each year on its 110–115 LNG cargoes because of the gap between procurement prices and international benchmarks. The precise figure, however, depends on the benchmark, delivery window and methodology used for comparison.

The situation has become more difficult in 2026. The war in the Middle East, disruptions around the Strait of Hormuz and volatility in the global LNG market have forced Bangladesh to procure a growing number of spot cargoes at elevated prices.

On 24 August 2026, for example, the government approved two September LNG cargoes at more than $24 per MMBtu—one from POSCO International at $24.625 and another from TotalEnergies Gas & Power at $24.25 per MMBtu.

Bangladesh’s 2026 annual delivery plan initially envisaged 115 LNG cargoes, combining long-term contracts, short-term arrangements and spot purchases.

QatarEnergy, one of Bangladesh’s largest long-term suppliers, also cut its planned deliveries amid disruptions caused by the regional conflict. That forced Bangladesh to turn increasingly to alternative sources and the spot market.

This experience exposes a deeper structural problem.

1. Fuel planning must be based on equations, not administrative judgment

Under the current system, major fuel-planning decisions ultimately move through the energy ministry. Petrobangla or BPC prepares procurement proposals based on market requirements, after which the files move through the ministry and receive approval before going to the Cabinet Committee on Government Purchase.

The process can be represented as:

BPC/Petrobangla → Ministry → Cabinet Committee → Ministry → BPC/Petrobangla.

The file goes up, gets approved and comes back down. Only then does the actual procurement begin.

Such administrative oversight is necessary. But energy markets move far faster than bureaucratic files.

If every cargo is treated as a separate retail-style procurement, Bangladesh loses the opportunity to lock in prices when the market is favourable.

The 24 August purchases illustrate the problem. The two cargoes were approved at $24.625 and $24.25 per MMBtu. Only days earlier, another cargo had been approved at $23.93, while two earlier August cargoes were approved at $21.778 and $21.878.

The question is therefore not simply whether a particular cargo is expensive.

The real question is whether Bangladesh is anticipating the market—or approaching the market only after a crisis has already emerged.

Fuel planning should not depend on the personal market experience of a minister or secretary.

Fuel planning should be built on engineering, economics, demand forecasting, market intelligence and risk modelling.

That requires accurate load forecasting.

Data should come not only from substations, utilities and distribution authorities, but also from business associations, industrial clusters, EPZs, BEZA, BEPZA, high-tech parks and other emerging centres of industrial demand.

One example illustrates the problem. This year, the load forecast was reportedly 12.4%, while actual demand growth exceeded 17%. At the same time, a substantial portion of the forecast demand could not be supplied. That means the system was facing both unexpectedly strong demand and major supply constraints.

Therefore, calculating how much gas power plants need is not enough.

We need to know where, when and how much electricity will be required—and then build an integrated fuel mix around that demand.

2. Spot procurement cannot replace long-term planning

A reliable fuel-mix plan should be built around an accurate demand forecast and supported by long- and medium-term procurement.

Bangladesh already has a foundation of long-term LNG contracts with suppliers including QatarEnergy, OQ Trading and Excelerate Energy. Several of these agreements were designed to increase deliveries from 2026 onward.

But long-term contracts also carry supply risk. The Qatar disruption in 2026 demonstrated that clearly.

Therefore, Bangladesh needs not only long-term contracts but also diversified suppliers and alternative supply routes.

There is no shame in admitting that Bangladesh lacks sufficient international energy-market, trading and risk-management expertise.

The solution is to build that expertise institutionally.

3. Build direct and diversified supplier relationships

In the short and medium term, Bangladesh should reduce excessive dependence on third-party trading intermediaries and build direct commercial relationships with major producers and established international energy marketers.

Companies such as Shell, TotalEnergies and QatarEnergy can be part of such a strategy, alongside established global trading houses. But producers and trading companies should not be treated as interchangeable; their contractual structures, pricing mechanisms, supply guarantees and risk profiles are different and must be assessed accordingly.

Bangladesh needs multiple reliable supply sources that can provide continuity and, when necessary, increase deliveries within reasonable limits.

If there is no established purchasing relationship with a supplier, there is no guarantee that the supplier will prioritise Bangladesh when a crisis hits.

4. Buy before the crisis, not after it

Without an accurate fuel plan, Bangladesh repeatedly finds itself buying in the spot market during crisis periods.

At that point, the buyer has little negotiating power because the market knows the buyer has limited time.

The result is predictable: higher prices.

The state needs a balanced procurement portfolio.

That portfolio should combine one-, two-, three- and five-year contracts with fixed or formula-based pricing. At the same time, supply guarantees for the long peak-demand period from April through August should be secured in advance through both domestic and international sources.

Spot purchases should remain part of the portfolio—but they should be planned and limited.

There is nothing wrong with using the spot market for major disruptions, disasters, supply interruptions or sudden demand spikes. But relying continuously on spot purchases throughout a long summer demand window is not a sustainable energy strategy.

Bangladesh’s 2026 experience demonstrates why. After QatarEnergy reduced deliveries, the country had to increase its reliance on spot purchases and alternative suppliers.

5. Energy procurement needs financial risk management

When prices are volatile, market exposure must be brought under professional financial risk management.

Petrobangla and BPC need stronger teams capable of analysing LNG pricing, Henry Hub futures, Brent-linked derivatives, LNG swaps and other OTC instruments.

There is a structural problem here.

Ministers and secretaries are rotating positions. Institutional market expertise cannot depend on the personal experience of whoever happens to occupy a particular office.

The expertise must belong to the institution.

Bangladesh therefore needs a permanent professional team covering energy trading, market analytics, commodity risk management and international negotiations.

The biggest weakness in Bangladesh’s energy procurement system may not be money.

It may be expertise.

6. Move from ad-hoc procurement to portfolio management

Bangladesh’s procurement system still tends to be reactive: identify a shortage, go to the market and buy.

Modern energy markets demand a different sequence.

First, forecast demand.

Then determine the fuel mix.

Then secure supply.

Then structure long- and medium-term contracts.

Then manage price and supply risks.

Finally, use the spot market to cover the remaining gap.

That should be the sequence.

The spot market itself is not the problem. The problem is using it without a strategy.

When prices are favourable, Bangladesh should be able to block future spot volumes or secure prices for future delivery, subject to market liquidity, contract structures and proper risk controls.

That is why demand forecasting, fuel planning and procurement must be integrated into one professional management framework.

The bottom line

Bangladesh’s energy security is no longer simply a question of how much gas is available, how many power plants exist or how many LNG cargoes can be imported.

The real question is:

How intelligently are we buying it?

The volatility of 2026 has demonstrated the risks of excessive dependence on a single supplier, a single supply route or emergency spot purchases.

Bangladesh needs a professional Energy Procurement & Trading Architecture.

That means building a permanent team of international energy-market specialists, trade negotiators, demand forecasters, commodity-risk managers and financial-market experts.

We need to reduce ad-hoc procurement, minimise unnecessary intermediary dependence, diversify supplier relationships and combine long-term and medium-term contracts with disciplined spot purchases.

Above all, energy procurement must move away from political and administrative guesswork and towards engineering, economics, data and market-risk modelling.

Bangladesh’s 115 planned LNG cargoes are not 115 isolated purchases.

They are one national energy portfolio.

If that portfolio is professionally managed, the country can potentially reduce hundreds of millions of dollars in avoidable costs.

If it is not, we will keep returning to the same place:

waiting for a crisis, entering the market late and buying energy at a premium.

Author || Former Adviser to the Interim Government; Engineer and Writer.

Truth Behind the Logfiles

স্পেশাল করেসপন্ডেন্ট — Tue, 08 Sep 2026 22:06:46 +0600

A woman named Maliha reached out over the phone, her voice trembling with sheer panic: "My two-year-old daughter is asleep, but I can't close my eyes. Someone is blackmailing me with private, old photographs."

Naturally, suspicion pointed squarely toward her former partner. Cornered by accusations, he swore under oath, "I swear, I know nothing about this; I have done nothing."

I remained silent.

Often, human beings find themselves condemned in the dock of suspicion despite committing no crime. But where does the objective truth reside? Truth lies buried in the encrypted shadows of system logfiles, dormant sectors of hard drives, or the silent audit trails of Google Cloud.

I took the phone into custody. What emerged was the footprint of a sophisticated RAT (Remote Access Trojan)—with persistent root-level access, an anonymous hacker had infiltrated Maliha’s Google Photos. Startlingly, the former partner was entirely oblivious that his own mobile device had also been remotely compromised.

Here began the rigorous mechanics of digital forensics:

Chain of Custody: Verified the device's cryptographic hash values immediately to preserve legal and evidential integrity.
Physical Acquisition & Core Inspection: Extracted raw physical disk images and audited system root partitions to isolate malware artifacts.
Cloud Forensics: Scrutinized cloud access logs, uncovering unauthorized concurrent logins routed from unfamiliar international IP pools.
Network Forensics: Intercepted active data flows, confirming hidden outbound beacons tethered to a remote foreign command-and-control (C2) server.
Malware Analysis: Reverse-engineered the payload to establish systematic, automated background data exfiltration.

Layer by layer, empirical facts shattered assumption. The former partner was blameless; the real perpetrator lurked silently across the dark corners of the web.

Human bias rushes to judge, but forensic technology remains uncompromised—telling the absolute, unvarnished story. Authentic investigation is not solely about prosecuting the guilty; exonerating the wrongfully accused is an equally sacred pillar of justice.

I am Tanvir Hassan Zoha, Prosecutor. On my forensic keyboard, justice never wavers—truth merely demands precision to unveil itself. People search for culprits in their immediate surroundings, yet the actual adversary frequently hides within mobile operating systems, obscure telemetry logs, and cloud histories.

Through digital forensics, truth prevailed: not the former partner, but a phantom cybercriminal orchestrated the exploit.

True justice does not merely apprehend the guilty—it restores dignity and freedom to the innocent.

Author || Cyber Forensic Specialist, and Prosecutor & Investigation Officer, International Crimes Tribunal (ICT), Banglades

Editorial Notes || This piece reflects the author's proprietary insights and investigative analysis. Any resemblance to real persons or events is purely coincidental. DigiBanglaTech.news holds no institutional liability for the analytical claims made herein.

Does Procuring Tech Truly Equal Digital Transformation?

স্পেশাল করেসপন্ডেন্ট — Mon, 07 Sep 2026 08:33:03 +0600

Deploying high-speed satellite broadband on moving passenger trains marked a commendable leap forward for Bangladesh’s public transit digitization. Yet, within just six months of rollout, the repeated theft of high-value Starlink terminals from multiple intercity trains exposed an uncomfortable truth: acquiring advanced hardware does not equate to authentic digital transformation without integrated security, continuous maintenance, institutional readiness, and rigid operational accountability.

The Paradox of Demand and Asset Vulnerability

On March 13, free Starlink-powered Wi-Fi was experimentally introduced on the Parabat Express, Upaban Express, Sonar Bangla Express, and Banolata Express. Across transit corridors long plagued by spotty cellular signals, the service achieved immediate popularity. Official metrics indicate that passengers across just four trains consumed nearly 18 terabytes (TB) of data—unequivocally validating robust public demand.

Concurrently, however, severe operational vulnerabilities surfaced. A high-performance flat satellite antenna was detached and stolen directly from the roof of the Upaban Express, alongside wireless network transceivers from other trains. In certain instances, replacement units were stolen shortly after reinstallation.

This recurrent breach moves beyond petty larceny; it signals a systemic breakdown in the stewardship and lifecycle security of state-deployed digital assets.

Hardware Deployment vs. Institutional Governance

For a commuter, onboarding takes mere seconds via a QR code scan. However, maintaining that seamless connectivity hinges on an interconnected physical ecosystem: roof-mounted satellite transceivers, onboard routing infrastructure, clean power supply, and wireless access points. Compromising a single node disables the entire pipeline.

With the Secretary of the Ministry of Railways publicly acknowledging structural monitoring constraints and calling for inter-agency coordination, core architectural governance questions emerge:

Who conducts real-time physical inventory checks prior to departure and upon arrival?
Are pre- and post-transit security audits standard operating procedure?
Were these roof-mounted terminals engineered with anti-tamper sensors, geofencing, or silent distress alarms?
How are legal and financial liabilities delineated among Bangladesh Railway, the Railway Police (GRP), the Bangladesh Satellite Company Limited (BSCCL), and the private technology vendors?

Expanding identical setups to water vessels, inter-district buses, and public utilities without answering these questions merely exports security vulnerabilities to wider frontiers.

Discontinuation Is Not the Answer

Terminating satellite transit connectivity in reaction to theft would be fundamentally regressive. The very purpose of an agile pilot deployment is to stress-test technology against real-world vulnerabilities and identify administrative deficits.

BSCCL’s parallel ambition to extend connectivity across bus routes, riverine ferries, and integrated transit subscriptions holds strong macroeconomic promise. Nonetheless, commercial scaling must be contingent upon rigorous, independent evaluations encompassing hardware security, total cost of ownership, service level reliability, and long-term financial sustainability.

The Imperative for a 'Digital Asset Security Protocol'

To protect and sustain public-sector technology investments, an institutionalized protocol must be enforced:

Centralized Device Management: Every deployed asset must be indexed on an automated central telemetry registry.
Tamper-Resilient Engineering: Terminals require physical tamper-proof mountings, automated disconnection alerts, GPS tracking, and remote-bricking capabilities.
Operational Handover Rigor: Station-level staff must be mandated to complete time-stamped visual and digital verification at terminal points.
Lifecycle Cost Integration: Pilot programs must factor comprehensive physical security, insurance, and rapid-replacement overheads directly into upfront budgeting.
Public Transparency: Because public assets are funded through state resources, incident investigations, operational losses, and remediation costs must be transparently disclosed.

The disappearance of Starlink terminals from railway coaches is not the failure of technology; it is an invaluable institutional stress test. The real metric of digital transformation is never how rapidly state agencies procure cutting-edge technologies, but how securely, resiliently, and accountably those systems are maintained to serve the public good.

Author || Specialist in Digital Democracy, Information Integrity, and Media Development; Ambassador for Responsible AI and Antimicrobial Resistance

// Editorial Note // Views expressed in the Opinion column are strictly the author's own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial stance of Digi-Bangla Media. Published without editorial censorship to uphold pluralism in discourse

Beyond OTPs: How Payment Passkeys Promise Faster, Fraud-Resilient Digital Transactions for Bangladesh

স্পেশাল করেসপন্ডেন্ট — Sat, 05 Sep 2026 10:15:29 +0600

The appetite for digital transactions in Bangladesh is experiencing exponential growth. Central bank metrics reveal that monthly volumes processed through internet banking and cards consistently average between BDT 45,000 to 50,000 crore. However, running parallel to this digital surge is a persistent rise in cyber fraud and online deception. The ubiquitous six-digit One-Time Password (OTP), long relied upon as the standard protective barrier for checkouts and bill settlements, has become fundamentally compromised.

Local and international cybersecurity assessments indicate that 35% to 40% of digital financial fraud stems from OTP theft, SIM swapping, or credential harvesting via social engineering. Furthermore, erratic telecom networks and persistent SMS delivery latencies cause 10% to 15% of prospective e-commerce checkouts to stall mid-transaction, forcing consumers to abandon their carts.

To resolve this systemic bottleneck, global payments network Visa is introducing its 'Visa Payment Passkey' technology in Bangladesh. According to Sabbir Ahmed, Country Manager for Bangladesh, Nepal, and Bhutan at Visa, the primary objective is to phase out brittle dependencies on SMS OTPs. By leveraging device-native biometric authentication—such as fingerprint scanning, Face ID, or secure device PINs—consumers can authorize digital transactions with near-instantaneous finality.

Under the Hood: Architecture and Global Precedents

Engineered on open standards established by the FIDO Alliance and the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), passkeys operate on asymmetric public-key cryptography. Unlike conventional legacy systems that require waiting for bank SMS alerts and manually transposing codes, passkeys eliminate manual input entirely.

When an account holder configures a passkey on their device, an encrypted, non-exportable private key is provisioned within the hardware’s secure enclave. During transaction processing, this key cryptographically verifies credentials directly with the payment gateway and issuing bank. The user merely touches the fingerprint sensor or glances at their front-facing camera to validate the payment.

Globally, over 3 billion accounts have adopted passkey protocols. Across North America and Europe, post-deployment metrics indicate up to a 70% reduction in network-induced cart abandonment alongside an almost total elimination of credential-phishing exploits.

Regulatory Alignment and Sovereign Data Compliance

Bangladesh Bank mandates strict Two-Factor Authentication (2FA) across all retail digital payments. Passkey technology adheres to this directive seamlessly: the registered hardware device serves as the first factor (possession), while the local biometric or secure unlock functions as the second factor (inherence).

Equally significant is alignment with national data sovereignty principles, which prohibit transmitting citizens' sensitive biometric data abroad or storing it on remote banking servers. Passkey architecture guarantees that raw biometric prints or facial scans never traverse telecommunication networks or reside on merchant or cloud databases; they remain permanently locked within the handset's tamper-resistant hardware. The system is structurally immune to server-side breaches.

Transaction Velocity and Macroeconomic Implications

Payment analytics reveal that completing an OTP-based transaction requires 30 to 45 seconds on average. In contrast, biometric passkey authorization resolves in just 5 to 7 seconds.

This temporal efficiency translates directly into broader macroeconomic momentum. Mitigating payment drop-offs caused by delayed SMS delivery will immediately boost e-commerce conversion rates, expand domestic retail revenues, and strengthen digital VAT collections—while advancing the state's cashless roadmap by disincentivizing cash-on-delivery.

For the consumer, social engineering scams are decisively neutralized: malicious actors calling over the phone cannot deceive a user into parting with biometric keys. Furthermore, non-resident Bangladeshis and outbound travelers can complete domestic card transactions effortlessly over Wi-Fi, completely independent of cellular roaming.

Deployment Headwinds and Technical Vulnerabilities

Despite its architectural superiority, roll-out across Bangladesh confronts pragmatic structural hurdles:

Physical Handset Compromise: Should a device be physically stolen and the perpetrator already possesses the handset's screen lock or unlock PIN, an illicit vector opens to authorize payments before the owner remotely revokes access.
Low-End Hardware Penetration: A vast demographic segment remains reliant on entry-level feature phones or low-cost smartphones devoid of certified secure enclaves or FIDO support, barring immediate mass inclusion.
Core Banking Modernization: Deploying Visa’s modern passkey APIs necessitates substantial infrastructure overhauls within the legacy core-banking and acquiring systems of local banks—a capital- and engineering-intensive transition.
Consumer Onboarding Friction: Transitioning users away from ingrained SMS routines toward local biometric prompts will inevitably generate initial hesitation and trust deficits among less tech-savvy demographics.

The Strategic Imperative

With the central bank targeting widespread digitization of retail transactions by 2027, the rollout of payment passkeys marks a timely leap forward. To maximize efficacy, Bangladesh Bank must issue explicit regulatory mandates governing cryptographic tokenization, data boundaries, and mobile device fleet protocols.

Simultaneously, a dual-rail approach is essential: preserving legacy OTP fallbacks for feature-phone demographics while progressively migrating smartphone cohorts toward passkey ecosystems. Through rigorous regulatory oversight and proactive public education, this transition can elevate Bangladesh’s fintech infrastructure into a globally competitive, fraud-resilient benchmark.

Author: E-Commerce Analyst and Founding Member, E-Commerce Association of Bangladesh (e-CAB).

Editorial Note: Views expressed in the Opinion column are strictly the author's own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial stance of Digi-Bangla Media. Published without editorial censorship to uphold pluralism in discourse.

Engr. Quamrul Islam Siddique: The Visionary Architect of Rural Bangladesh

স্পেশাল করেসপন্ডেন্ট — Tue, 01 Sep 2026 10:47:48 +0600

Engr. Quamrul Islam Siddique began his transformative journey from just two modest rooms in the Secretariat. From there, operations moved to a rented house in Lalmatia, and within a few remarkable years, the iconic LGED Bhaban rose in Agargaon. That grand edifice became more than just an engineering headquarters—it stood as the living testament to his indomitable vision, relentless courage, and dynamic leadership.

I had the distinct privilege of witnessing the relentless crusade of Freedom Fighter Quamrul Islam Siddique up close. He was a quintessential example of how a technocrat and civil servant can evolve into a transformative national leader. Audacious, indefatigable, and deeply visionary, he fundamentally reshaped Bangladesh’s rural infrastructure. His pioneering work laid the very foundation of modern Bangladesh's rural economy. His trusted companion on this historic path was Engr. Md. Shahidul Hassan, who later served as Chief Engineer of LGED and is currently serving as Secretary of the Local Government Division (LGD).

I hold countless memories of him. He held me in deep affection and trusted me enough to share his candid reflections. As Chief Engineer of LGED, Chairman of the Power Development Board (PDB), and Secretary of the Ministry of Housing and Public Works, he navigated tremendous triumphs and daunting crises. He often recounted the sheer administrative pressure and the professional anguish of resisting unjustified political demands.

He was remarkably outspoken and never hesitated to speak truth to power. I observed firsthand the immense resistance and political obstacles he braved to maintain professional integrity and administrative discipline.

Shortly before his passing, he traveled to Sweden to attend an international water symposium. He called me from there, and we had a long, affectionate conversation. He mentioned that he would proceed to the United States to spend some quiet time with his son and return to Dhaka after Eid.

Tragically, destiny intervened.

I still vividly remember that fateful day: September 1, 2008. I was sitting in my office reading his latest email and drafting a reply, when my phone rang. It was Iftekhar Bhai, then Additional Chief Engineer of LGED.

In a voice overcome with grief, he said, "Quamrul Islam Siddique Sir is no more."

Stunned in disbelief, I replied, "What are you saying? I am literally reading his email and typing a response right now!"

Iftekhar Bhai shared that moments after sending out his emails from his son Saif’s residence in New Jersey, Sir suffered a sudden, massive cardiac arrest. An ambulance was rushed, but he breathed his last before reaching the hospital.

How poignant it is that we write back to reach a cherished soul, yet that message remains forever unread in this mortal world.

A monumental nation-builder left us far too early at the age of 63. Today marks his death anniversary—on this day in 2008, he departed our world.

Generations pass and people fade, but visionary leaders endure through their immortal legacies—etched onto the roads of the nation, embedded in the uplifted lives of rural communities, and cherished across the annals of national memory.

Even after all these years, on a quiet afternoon, I still intuitively anticipate my phone ringing, hoping to hear that familiar, affectionate voice asking, "Naem, how are you?"—knowing all too well that I will never hear it again.

On this day, I remember this extraordinary mentor and patriot with the deepest reverence, love, and prayers.

May you rest in eternal peace in the hereafter.

Writer: Renowned Senior Journalist, Editor, and Columnist.

Quamrul Islam Siddique: A Unsung Hero

S. M. Imdadul Haq — Tue, 01 Sep 2026 01:31:15 +0600

Look at the map of Bangladesh—a delta stretching across 147,610 square kilometres. Wherever the lines of a paved road, a culvert or a rural bridge cut across that map, there is a story of transformation. And behind many of those stories stands a name that Bangladesh has never fully acknowledged: Engineer Quamrul Islam Siddique.

He was not merely a builder of roads and bridges. He was a nation-builder who understood that Bangladesh’s future would be decided not only in its cities, but in its villages. He saw infrastructure not as concrete and steel, but as a means of liberating people from isolation, poverty and exclusion.

The pages of his personal records, along with the history of Bangladesh’s rural development, testify to a man who loved his country quietly, relentlessly and without seeking applause.

September 1 marks the 18th anniversary of his death.

On that day, during the holy month of Ramadan in 2008, Siddique died at the age of 63. Even as his health was failing, he was reportedly writing emails about environmentally responsible, engineering-based solutions for the modern transformation of his country.

Eighteen years later, 3 uncomfortable questions remains:

Have we allowed one of Bangladesh’s genuine national heroes to disappear from our collective memory?
Why has he still not received the Independence Award or the Ekushey Padak, among the country’s highest civilian honours?
Why does his name remain so strangely absent from the national conversation about the people who built modern Bangladesh?

From the ruins of war to the work of rebuilding

The story begins not with roads, bridges or government institutions, but with war.

On April 30, 1971, as Pakistani forces unleashed violence across Bangladesh, Quamrul Islam Siddique had every reason to choose safety. As District Engineer of the Kushtia District Council, he had a secure professional position and the prospect of a comfortable life.

He chose otherwise.

He placed his career, his future and his life at risk and joined the Liberation War. Siddique played an active role in preparing operational plans for attacks on three important Pakistani positions in Kushtia: Kushtia Zilla School, the Police Lines and the Millpara Wireless Station.

Earlier, on March 30, 1971, thousands of unarmed people had joined the historic resistance to surround Pakistani troops at these three strategic points. Siddique’s engineering knowledge and strategic thinking became part of that resistance.

When a bridge on the Kushtia–Bheramara route was destroyed to obstruct the movement of Pakistani forces, he used his engineering expertise to make the route operational again for the freedom fighters.

The war ended. Bangladesh emerged as an independent state. But independence left behind a country devastated by war: broken roads, destroyed culverts and a communications network in ruins.

For Siddique, liberation did not end when the guns fell silent. He simply exchanged one instrument of national service for another. He put down his weapon and picked up the tools of reconstruction. The Greek poet Homer, in The Iliad, captured a similar idea of heroism:

“Defeating the enemy with weapons is not the final measure of heroism; true courage is to stand amid the ruins of war and rebuild one’s homeland anew”

Siddique did precisely that. He refused to be overwhelmed by destruction. Instead, he immersed himself in reconstruction with an extraordinary sense of urgency.

His response to devastation seems to resonate with Kazi Nazrul Islam’s immortal Pralayollas: (“ধ্বংস দেখে? ভয় কেন তোর? প্রলয় নূতন সৃজন-বেদন! আসছে নবীন- জীবন-হারা অ-সুন্দরে করতে ছেদন!” ) “Why fear destruction? The cataclysm is the pain of new creation; a new life is coming to cut away the lifeless ugliness.”

For Siddique, reconstruction was not simply an administrative assignment. It was a continuation of the Liberation War by other means.

A technological visionary before technology became fashionable

There was another dimension to Siddique’s vision that deserves greater attention today. He belonged to a generation of Bangladeshi professionals who had to imagine the future before the tools to build it were widely available.

At a time when computers and digital technology were still largely unfamiliar concepts in Bangladesh, Siddique recognised the limitations of conventional analogue approaches to managing the development of a vast and densely populated country.

He understood that rural development required information, mapping, data and technology.

He introduced pioneering concepts including rural mapping and Geographic Information System (GIS) technology, laying the groundwork for a more modern and data-oriented approach to infrastructure planning in Bangladesh.

His instinct was always to look beyond the immediate problem and ask what technology could make the solution faster, wider and more sustainable.

That intellectual openness echoes the words attributed to Rabindranath Tagore: (“নূতনের আহ্বানকে যে জাতি অবহেলা করে, সে জড়তার অন্ধকারে তলিয়ে যায়। মেধার সাথে প্রযুক্তির মিলনই প্রগতির মূল চাবিকাঠি।”) “A nation that ignores the call of the new sinks into the darkness of inertia. The union of intellect and technology is the master key to progress.”

Siddique understood that principle long before the language of digital transformation became commonplace.

From an engineering cell to LGED

Perhaps his most enduring institutional contribution was his role in transforming a modest engineering unit into what would eventually become the Local Government Engineering Department (LGED).

The significance of that transformation cannot be measured simply by the size of the organisation.

LGED became a central force in extending rural roads, bridges, markets, water infrastructure and other essential connectivity across Bangladesh.

Siddique’s approach challenged the traditional culture of government administration. He had little patience for bureaucratic delay, excessive paperwork and the notorious “red tape” that could turn a straightforward public project into a prolonged administrative exercise.

He was not a man who believed development could be managed simply by sitting behind a desk.

His home often became an informal planning centre, where discussions about national development continued late into the night.

He believed that work intended for public welfare should not be unnecessarily paralysed by procedural obstacles.

The Russian novelist and philosopher Leo Tolstoy once wrote:

“The true strength of an organisation lies not in its rules, but in the will of a leader who can unite thousands of people around a common goal for the greater good.”

That description fits Siddique’s institutional philosophy remarkably well.

There was little room for idleness in his world.

The philosophy of his life seems almost perfectly captured in the familiar words of Lalon Shah: (“কাজের মানুষ কাজের বেলায়, ফাঁকি নাই তার কোনো পাড়ায়।”) “A person of work stands by work when the time comes; there is no place for evasion.”

The freedom of a road

Siddique’s greatest insight may have been deceptively simple: rural connectivity is freedom.

He believed Bangladesh’s real strength lay in its more than 68,000 villages.

A country could not genuinely prosper while development remained concentrated in its cities and rural communities remained isolated.

That belief drove an extraordinary expansion of rural connectivity—from Teknaf in the south to Tetulia in the north.

Roads were paved. Bridges were built. Culverts were constructed. The muddy village paths that had once isolated communities gradually became lifelines for rural economies.

A road meant more than transportation. It meant a farmer could reach a market. A student could reach a school. A patient could reach a hospital. A trader could move goods. A village could become part of the national economy.

In communities once cut off from modern services, connectivity became a form of social and economic liberation. Siddique also promoted rubber dams to protect agricultural land and improve water management.

His achievements reflected a powerful belief in human potential—something that recalls Allama Iqbal’s concept of Khudi, or the awakening of the self:

“Raise the dormant power within yourself—your Khudi—to such a height that even God, before writing your destiny, asks you what you desire”

Siddique tried to do something similar at the national level.

He sought to rewrite Bangladesh’s development trajectory through determination, technical knowledge and institutional innovation.

William Shakespeare’s familiar words seem equally appropriate:

“Some people are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them.”

Siddique belonged to the second category.

He earned greatness—not through privilege, political power or inherited influence, but through integrity, intellect and years of work on behalf of ordinary people.

The final hours of a nation-builder

The final chapter of his life is perhaps the most revealing. In 2008, at the age of 63, Quamrul Islam Siddique died after a lifetime devoted to Bangladesh’s development. The final pages of his personal records are particularly poignant.

Even about an hour before his death, while his body was failing, his fingers were reportedly still working on a mobile phone. His concern was not his own condition but possible, environmentally friendly solutions to some of Dhaka’s civic problems.

That detail tells us something fundamental about the man. At the threshold of death, his thoughts were still occupied by the country and its people.

A medal is not the measure- but recognition matters

On this 18th anniversary of his death, the roads of Kushtia, the bridges across rural Bangladesh and the institutional legacy of LGED stand as living monuments to Quamrul Islam Siddique. Yet monuments alone do not settle a nation’s debt to its heroes. Eighteen years after his death, the question remains

Why has a man who fought for Bangladesh’s territorial freedom in 1971, and later devoted his intellect, technological foresight and administrative ability to building the foundations of its economic and infrastructural freedom, still not received the country’s highest national recognition?

One explanation lies in the darker history of partisan politics.

Authoritarian political cultures have often struggled to accommodate people whose qualifications, independence and patriotism do not depend on political loyalty.

Siddique was not known as a political sycophant. He was a man of work. He built institutions rather than political networks. He pursued results rather than patronage and that independence may have come at a cost.

If his rightful recognition was delayed or overlooked because he did not belong to the right political camp, then the injustice is not merely personal. It is institutional.

Those who shape history do not necessarily work for medals. But states have a responsibility to remember. Recognition is not simply a reward for the dead. It is also a message to the living. When a country honours integrity, competence and service, it tells the next generation what kind of citizenship it values.

That is why awarding Quamrul Islam Siddique the Independence Award or the Ekushey Padak should not be treated merely as a ceremonial gesture.

It would be an act of national remembrance.
It would also help correct a historical imbalance.

Because if a country repeatedly fails to honour its finest citizens, it risks creating a culture in which political proximity matters more than public service—and where genuine nation-builders disappear into the margins of history.

There is a line from Rabindranath Tagore recorded in Siddique’s personal notes that now seems painfully relevant: (“স্মৃতিভারে আমি পড়ে আছি / ভারমুক্ত তুমি হেথা নাই।”) “I remain burdened by memory; you are nowhere here, freed from that burden.”

Perhaps that is where Bangladesh stands today.

Quamrul Islam Siddique is gone. But Bangladesh is still travelling on many of the roads he helped build.

From the dirt tracks of Kushtia to the institutional corridors of modern LGED, his work remains embedded in the physical landscape of the country.

The man may have disappeared from public view. His roads still making conjuntion between peoples. Perhaps, that is the most enduring monument of all: millions of Bangladeshis continue to travel every day across the infrastructure he helped create, often without knowing the name of the man whose vision helped connect them to a larger country.

Quamrul Islam Siddique, the poet of rural roads and highway of Bangladesh deserves to be remembered- not because he needs a medal, but because the nation needs to remember what he stood for.

A free country must also remember the people who helped build its freedom.

Author || Executive Editor, Digital Bangla Media

Solar Shift Strategy for Green Revolution: Policy Push for Sustainable, Smart Energy Systems

Saiful Islam Siddique — Sat, 25 Apr 2026 21:52:10 +0600

There was a time when the phrase “burning since birth,” written on the back of fuel tankers on highways, might be ridiculed. But in a twist of time, that phrase has now become a stark reality of the global economy. The geopolitical tensions among Iran, the United States, and Israel in the Middle East are no longer confined to maps—they have reached our kitchens and industrial wheels. Bangladesh is no exception. Seventeen years after witnessing a severe power crisis, even in today’s era of advanced technology, a similar shadow is once again knocking at our door.

However, the solution to this crisis does not lie in imported liquid fuels; it lies in the abundant sunlight above us. If the government seeks sustainable benefits in the coming years, it must move beyond a “duty-based import” policy toward prioritizing “duty-free production” or “local assembling.” Battery hubs must be established for solar energy storage. To reduce petroleum consumption, the use of electric vehicles (EVs) and home appliances must be expanded. This requires indigenous renewable energy, stability, cost efficiency, and long-term energy security.

If every rooftop in urban areas can be transformed into a power station, pressure on the national grid could be reduced by half. The government can, through entrepreneurs, convert rooftops of public offices into solar hubs. By reducing dependence on imported fuel oil and harnessing the country’s abundant sunlight, the energy crisis can be permanently mitigated. In this regard, simplifying solar panel imports is essential. Additionally, to make lithium-ion or advanced sodium-ion batteries more accessible, duties on raw material imports should be reduced to zero, and at least a 10-year tax holiday should be offered to encourage local manufacturing. Long-term, low-interest “green loans” must also be ensured for solar panel installation. As battery costs decrease, solar power will no longer be limited to daylight hours. With such policy support, people across all income groups will benefit.

Similarly, to relieve citizens from the burden of fuel procurement for motorized agricultural equipment—such as irrigation pumps, harvesters, and threshers—electric solutions must be made widely available across agriculture and transport sectors. EVs are no longer just vehicles; they have become a symbol of progress. Special incentives for importing EV components such as motors, controllers, and charging equipment could enable the production of affordable e-bikes and three-wheelers, as well as the development of new vehicles tailored for agricultural and industrial needs. Duty-free EV imports would reduce the number of fuel-based vehicles, lower fuel import costs, and ease pressure on the sector, while also reducing noise and air pollution.

However, introducing EVs alone is not sufficient; adequate charging infrastructure must be ensured. Policies should mandate the installation of DC fast-charging points at every filling station nationwide. Charging stations could also be set up along roadsides, in garages, or through ride-sharing models similar to charging EV networks. At the same time, smart metering systems should offer incentives for charging EVs during off-peak hours, when electricity demand is lower, thereby facilitating grid management.

A significant portion of Bangladesh’s diesel imports is consumed by irrigation pumps. Therefore, increasing government subsidies to convert diesel-powered irrigation systems into solar-powered pumps is essential. This would reduce farmers’ costs while decreasing reliance on fuel imports.

To meet EV electricity demand, simplifying net metering could serve as an effective solution. When citizens see that they can sell surplus electricity generated from rooftop solar panels back to the grid and receive “zero” or even “negative” electricity bills at the end of the month, it could evolve into a массовое движение (mass movement).

Investors, however, will only engage when they perceive long-term policy stability. Entrepreneurs working in renewable energy should not have to navigate multiple government offices. Strengthening the Sustainable and Renewable Energy Development Authority (SREDA) and enabling a one-stop approval system could streamline processes.

Through a “green energy” movement, if Bangladesh fully embraces battery technology and solar energy today, the term “load shedding” could disappear from the national vocabulary within a few years. The country would no longer burn under energy shortages but instead move toward a sustainable future illuminated by sunlight.

As the discussion draws to a conclusion, a question may arise: why would a telecom sector entrepreneur be so concerned about the energy sector, and why should the government take note? The answer lies in the reality that every call and every data packet in Bangladesh travels through thousands of telecom towers, and keeping these networks operational requires electricity. Much of this infrastructure still depends on diesel generators and unstable grid power. Rising fuel costs, increasing carbon emissions, and vulnerability during crises put networks at risk. In this context, “uninterrupted, clean energy” is no longer a luxury—it has become a prerequisite for the survival of the telecom sector.

Consider a remote telecom tower or an ISP point-of-presence where grid power is unreliable. Previously, diesel generators would run for hours to maintain connectivity. Now, solar panels installed on the tower, combined with lithium-ion battery banks, generate electricity during the day and store it for use at night. Generators operate only in emergencies. This “hybrid power system” not only reduces costs but also cuts carbon emissions by 40–60 percent. For telecom, where even a second of power disruption can result in thousands of dropped calls and data loss, uninterrupted power is critical.

This is where integrated energy storage systems (ESS), large-scale batteries (lithium-ion, LFP), smart energy management software, and the integration of grid, solar, and generator sources come into play. Such systems can transform telecom towers into self-sufficient micro power stations. In a country prone to cyclones, floods, and storms, telecom networks become lifelines during disasters. By combining solar energy, storage, and smart UPS systems, “disaster-resilient networks” can be developed.

Imagine an ecosystem where an entrepreneur establishes an “Energy Service Company (ESCO)” in a rural area, supplying solar power to telecom towers, local businesses, and charging stations. Electricity is sold under a “Power-as-a-Service” model, where operators pay only for usage without heavy capital investment. A telecom tower, once merely a communication symbol, can evolve into a source of energy, a hub of stability, and even a driver of local economic growth.

Bangladesh’s energy sector now faces an uncomfortable reality. The current model is not sustainable—this is no longer a matter of debate. Fluctuations in global oil prices, Middle Eastern tensions, or pressure on the dollar directly impact households, industries, and agriculture. Yet sunlight is available every day. The question is whether it will remain merely light or be transformed into energy for the future.

Statistics indicate that Bangladesh receives an average solar radiation of 4 to 5 kWh per square meter per day—nearly double that of Germany, which generates more than 60 percent of its electricity from renewable sources. This highlights the untapped potential of solar energy in Bangladesh. Experts estimate that utilizing rooftops of industrial, commercial, and residential buildings could generate 3,000 to 4,000 megawatts of electricity. In alignment with this view, the telecom sector’s adoption of this transformation could extend “network coverage” beyond maps into every layer of sustainable development.

Technology is now affordable, investors are interested, and the potential is vast—yet progress remains slow. The barrier is not technological but policy-driven. Without removing duties on renewable technologies, ensuring long-term financing at below 5 percent interest, expediting approval processes (within 30 days), mandating rooftop solar integration, modernizing the grid, and implementing effective net metering, no transformation will be sustainable.

Author || Publisher, DigiBangla; Editor, SaraBangla; Entrepreneur and Senior Vice President, ISPAB

Disclaimer: The views expressed in the opinion section are solely those of the author. The Digital Bangla media authority bears no responsibility for these views. As a reflection of diverse opinions, the article is published without editorial alteration. Any dissatisfaction or reaction remains the personal matter of the reader.

Liberation War in Pixels: Can Games Carry the Spirit of ’71?

S. M. Imdadul Haq — Tue, 16 Dec 2025 16:05:55 +0600

The Great Liberation War of 1971 was fought with weapons—but even more profoundly, it was a war of consciousness. Today, that very consciousness faces a new battlefield: the digital world. The story of 1971 is a complex mosaic of thousands of small human narratives. The question now is how those stories are being transformed into games. Are we merely consuming history at a popcorn level on screens, or are we truly able to convey and absorb its deeper essence? This article attempts to stitch together information, government expenditure, notable games, their development stories, and the controversies surrounding them.

1971— the sound of boots, the roar of rifles, and the voice of Swadhin Bangla Betar Kendra crackling through broken transmitters—are now confined to the pages of history. Yet, as the world increasingly revives history through computer and mobile games, a pressing question arises: has Bangladesh’s Liberation War secured its rightful place on this digital battlefield?

To find an answer, one must look back several decades, when game development in Bangladesh was limited to scattered initiatives, constrained technology, and a small market. These efforts were not driven by market demand, but by emotion and conviction. The journey began with Arunodoyer Agnishikha.

In tracing the history of Liberation War–based games in Bangladesh, the first notable mention is the first-person shooter Arunodoyer Agnishikha. Though it was not a commercial success, its historical significance was immense. Developed by local company Som Computers Limited using its own 3D engine, the game presented different phases of the Liberation War. Despite technological limitations, piracy, and market indifference causing its eventual halt, it delivered a powerful message: making games on the Liberation War was possible.

Later, with state patronage, Bangladeshi developers attempted to recreate the Liberation War across various platforms through games such as Liberation 71, Heroes of 71, Battle of 71, and Massive War 71. Some found limited success, while others faded into obscurity. Nevertheless, these initiatives marked the first attempt to offer younger generations an “experience” of history beyond academic texts.

The Beginning: Emotion, Independence, and Pixels
Among the earliest Liberation War–based games, Arunodoyer Agnishikha stood as an emotional endeavor. Although it disappeared amid piracy and market constraints, it inspired a generation of developers. This was followed by Liberation 71, developed largely through voluntary efforts by university students under Team-71. The game gained attention by releasing demo missions based on significant historical events of 1971. Plans were later announced to create separate episodes featuring martyrs such as Bir Sreshtho Abdul Rouf and Bir Sreshtho Matiur Rahman, with improved graphics using the Unreal Engine.

Heroes of 71 became the country’s first widely discussed mobile shooter game, bringing the Liberation War directly to the Android platform. Players participated in an operation set in a rural area near the Madhumati River. While the game succeeded in connecting some young users with historical context, it also faced criticism regarding graphics, artificial intelligence, and gameplay.

Around the same time, Battle of 71 included 3D representations of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and battle scenes from places such as Rajarbagh and the Sylhet tea gardens. With standalone levels, comparatively better visuals, and historical references, it earned a distinct place among Liberation War–themed games. Developers attempted to present internationally competitive visuals by incorporating national leaders’ 3D models and broader battle environments.

Juddho 71: Prothom Protibedon stood out technologically. Focusing on the first resistance of the night of March 25, the game supported virtual reality (VR) and was developed using the Unity engine. It demonstrated that Bangladesh was also attempting technologically advanced game development beyond conventional mobile platforms.

Available data suggest that more than 50 games and applications related to the Liberation War have been developed. These include Muktijuddho, Juddho 71, Bangladesh Liberation War Quiz Game, Muktijuddho Runner, documentary-style app Genocide 1971, Shadhinota 71, Ora 11 Jon, Odommo 71, Guerilla 71, and Guerilla Brothers. While many are educational, others focus on gameplay, quizzes, or interactive storytelling. However, despite repeated patronage from the ICT Division, content diversity remained limited, and general gamers showed little interest. As a result, the mud, dust, and gunpowder of the 1971 battlefield failed to truly reach the new generation through screens, mobiles, or VR.

While hundreds of games worldwide depict World War II, Vietnam, or Middle Eastern conflicts, the question becomes sharper: has Bangladesh’s Liberation War received its due place in digital gaming? Was state patronage sufficient?

Grants, Projects, and Large-Scale Spending
Although the intent of preserving history through digital media is commendable, the reality paints a different picture. Under projects such as “Mobile Game and Apps Development” and various grants and training programs, crores of taka have been spent. Yet, compared to this expenditure, the number of effective and popular games remains negligible.

Reports indicate that vast sums have been allocated to games, apps, animations, and VR projects. However, due to contractor-driven implementation, the effectiveness and outcomes of many projects remain questionable. Whether public funds were used to capture the true depth of history or merely spent on packaged formats has become a widely debated issue.

Spending Disparities: Mujib-Centric Content vs Liberation War Games
A clear imbalance is visible in funding. While large budgets were allocated to digital content centered on Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman—such as the animated film Mujib Bhai or the Mujib 100 app—Liberation War–based games focusing on raw historical realities received minimal support. As a result, themes such as refugees, women’s suffering, and political conflict rarely found space in games, restricting creative freedom and historical depth.

The Creativity Gap: “Safe” History and Content Capping
Research suggests that contractor-based management and political-cultural sensitivities often pushed developers toward “safe” narratives—patriotic, simplified plots—avoiding harsh realities and moral dilemmas. Consequently, games failed to explore the multilayered nature of history or personal human stories. The balance between historical accuracy and entertainment is achievable, but it requires transparent guidelines and creative independence tied to grants.

Controversial Grants and Ethical Questions
Investigations have also raised concerns over controversial individuals or institutions receiving public funds. Reports of political affiliations and questionable financial links have fueled debates on transparency and accountability in managing history-based digital projects.

Yet, There Is Hope
Despite limitations, these games have sparked curiosity about the Liberation War among young people. Independent initiatives continue to emerge. The 2019 release The Victory by young developer Rupokatha showed that meaningful digital representations of history are possible even on modest budgets. With proper training, research, and funding, Liberation War–based games can evolve into strong educational tools.

What Needs to Be Done?
The war of 1971 was a war of questions. Yet today, questioning seems discouraged when translating that war into games. If the state truly wants the Liberation War to resonate with the digital generation, games must be seen not merely as grant-driven projects, but as platforms for truth. Otherwise, despite massive spending, these games will remain buried in download lists—far from history.

Future efforts must go beyond shooters to develop story-driven, RPG, and strategy games grounded in rigorous research. The war should be seen not only through the eyes of a freedom fighter, but also through those of a mother, a refugee, or a journalist. Historians must collaborate with game designers. Government support must be long-term, funding years of research, prototyping, testing, and multilingual releases. Ethical considerations and human impact must be overseen by an independent review board.

Let Freedom Return in Victory; Let Truth Live in Games
When a nation’s independence story is presented as entertainment, the responsibility doubles: truth must be preserved, and new generations must be engaged. If the scale of investment seen in Mujib-centric content had been applied to portraying the Liberation War’s stark realities, these games would be far more powerful today. With transparency and collaboration between historians and gaming professionals, our stories can truly come alive in pixels—and then it can be said that the Liberation War lives not only in books, but in games, in hearts, and in digital memory.

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author, S. M. Imdadul Haq, Executive Editor of DigiBangla Tech, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publication.

Advantages of Broadband Internet Over Fixed Wireless Access

Saiful Islam Siddique — Wed, 12 Nov 2025 07:24:31 +0600

As technology evolves, the way we connect to the internet has diversified. Two common options for home and business connectivity are broadband internet (typically delivered via cable, fiber, or DSL) and fixed wireless access (FWA) internet. Understanding the advantages of broadband internet over fixed wireless access can help users make informed decisions about their connectivity needs. The ISPs in Bangladesh successfully deployed the highspeed broadband service from 100mbps to 1gbps throughput up to rural level with a very affordable price using fiber optic technology.

1. Greater Reliability and Stability
Broadband internet connections, especially those using fiber optic or cable infrastructure, are generally more reliable and stable than fixed wireless access. Wired connections are less susceptible to environmental factors such as weather conditions, physical obstructions, or electromagnetic interference, which can affect the quality and consistency of wireless signals.

2. Higher Speeds and Bandwidth
Broadband internet often provides higher maximum speeds and greater bandwidth than fixed wireless access. Fiber-optic broadband, in particular, can deliver gigabit speeds suitable for data-intensive tasks like streaming high-definition video, online gaming, and large file transfers. In contrast, fixed wireless access is typically limited by spectrum availability and signal strength, resulting in lower maximum speeds.

3. Lower Latency
Latency, or the time it takes for data to travel between the user and the internet, is generally lower with broadband connections. This is particularly important for real-time applications such as video conferencing, online gaming, and VoIP calls. Fixed wireless access can experience higher latency due to signal transmission and potential interference.

4. Less Susceptibility to Environmental Factors
Broadband internet delivered via wired infrastructure is less affected by environmental factors like rain, snow, or physical obstructions (trees, buildings) that can interfere with wireless signals. This leads to a more consistent and dependable connection throughout the year.

5. Scalability and Upgradability
Broadband networks, especially fiber, are highly scalable and can be upgraded to support faster speeds and new technologies as demand increases. Fixed wireless access is limited by the capabilities of the wireless spectrum and equipment, making upgrades more challenging and sometimes requiring significant investment in new hardware.

6. Higher Data Caps or Unlimited Data
Broadband internet plans often come with higher data caps or even unlimited data options, making them more suitable for heavy internet users or households with multiple connected devices. Fixed wireless access providers may impose stricter data limitations due to bandwidth constraints.
While fixed wireless access internet can be a valuable solution in rural or hard-to-reach areas, broadband internet delivered via wired infrastructure offers significant advantages in terms of speed, reliability, latency, scalability, and overall performance. For users who have access to both options, broadband is generally the preferred choice for robust and future-proof connectivity.

In Bangladesh, the approval of Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) was granted during the previous administration and led by then The State Minister (Zunaid Ahmed Palak), without public consultation or input from relevant trade organizations. During that period, BASIS, ISPAB, BACOO, and e-Cab were not involved in the consultation process. Throughout the last regime, the Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC) experienced changes in leadership, with several politically appointed Chairmen. These appointments contributed to a perceived shift in BTRC’s autonomy, with some stakeholders expressing concern regarding responsiveness to general telecom operators' interests. There have been many instances of monopolies, duopolies, and even syndicates forming to gain control and capture market share in unethical ways. In the past, a few ambitious businesspeople, often working with politicians, would manipulate the law or exploit the system to gain an unfair advantage over regular operators, leaving no room for fair competition. The new telecom policy promises to benefit FTSP operators, but only if it manages to regulate appropriately without excessive intervention. According to public demand, fixed wireless internet should be reserved exclusively for FTSP operators, while mobile wireless internet should remain under the domain of CMSP operators. This division is crucial not only to public interest, but also to safeguarding the livelihoods and survival of 1 million families working in 2,200 domestic FTSP operators.

Author: Saiful Islam Siddique, Senior Vice President, ISPAB, Publisher, Digital Bangla Media.