Abdullah Shibli

The other day I was chatting with Abu, a long-time friend of mine who has been living in Bangladesh for the last one year.

In this time of the pandemic and the resultant economic slowdown, one has to be mindful of the effects of these twin curses on the poor of Bangladesh.

Shegufta Bakht Chaudhuri, popularly known as SB Chaudhuri, the former Governor of Bangladesh Bank, passed away on November 11 at United Hospital, Dhaka.

While the recent US Presidential Election has left a number of issues unresolved, one thing is clear.

The Nobel Prize for Economics this year was shared by two Americans, Paul Milgrom and Robert Wilson of Stanford University.

One of the industries hardest hit by the Covid-19 pandemic and the lockdown policies has been the travel and hospitality (T&H) sector.

The scandal involving Prashanta Kumar Halder, also known as PK Halder, a former managing director of NRB Global Bank, Reliance Finance and other companies, has been in the national news for almost a decade.

My readers must have by now become sick of hearing about the big loan defaulters in Bangladesh and the scandals involving the Farmer’s Bank (now Padma Bank), BASIC Bank, Sonali/Hallmark, Janata, Prime, and a motley of other shady characters including some leading industrialists of the country.

Sebia Sulaiman, a pioneer in the field of early childhood education and a lifelong social worker passed away at 5:30 AM on September 19, 2020 at a city hospital in Dhaka.

For future historians, the most memorable event of the year 2020 is certainly likely to be the Covid-19 pandemic, followed by the US Presidential elections.

My heart sank when I saw the headline in The Daily Star on August 17, which reported that the US had updated its periodic travel advisory on August 6, 2020 and urged its citizens to exercise “increased caution in the country due to crime, terrorism, and kidnapping”.

There is a global race going on now for the rapid development of a Covid-19 vaccine. As of July 27, pharmaceutical companies worldwide were working on 164 candidates, including 25 that are being tested in people, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

“Little international aid is flowing to poorer regions to fight the epidemic.” That was the headline in a major news item circulating in early March, before the spread of Covid-19 was declared to be a “pandemic” and the virus had started its devastating journey out of Wuhan and flattened the economic and geo-economic landscape, upending global commerce.

The Covid-19 pandemic has triggered debates between economists and health specialists. I found myself engaged in a conversation with my childhood friend Imtiaz Husain Chowdhry, MD, who is a physician in the USA with a successful practice and long career behind him.

At the beginning of this year, policymakers in many countries, including the US and the EU, decided to lock down the entire country in order to save lives and to push back Covid-19.

The national budget announced by the Bangladesh government is another example of the curious disconnect between reality and the world of politics.

With the Bangladesh economy in the first phase of its Covid Reopening, the country will be eagerly looking forward to attracting foreign investors to provide a much-needed stimulus.

Every country, small or large, rich or poor, have embraced the concept of a balanced and phased reopening where the concerns of the workers, businesses, and health sector professionals are meshed into a workable action plan.

Once the Covid-19 pandemic is under control, and the world economy is back on its tracks, the status and fate of the 2030 Agenda, also known as Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), needs to be reassessed.

Economic recovery following the coronavirus lockdown will require massive government intervention and tons of money.