Agriculture is the largest employment sector in Bangladesh, making up 14.2 percent of Bangladesh's GDP in 2017 and employing about 42.7 percent of the workforce. The performance of this sector has an overwhelming impact on major macroeconomic objectives like employment generation, poverty alleviation, human resources development, food security, and other economic and social forces. A plurality of Bangladeshis earn their living from agriculture. Due to a number of factors, Bangladesh's labour-intensive agriculture has achieved steady increases in food grain production despite the often unfavorable weather conditions. These include better flood control and irrigation, a generally more efficient use of fertilisers, as well as the establishment of better distribution and rural credit networks.
Although rice and jute are the primary crops, maize and vegetables are assuming greater importance. Due to the expansion of irrigation networks, some wheat producers have switched to cultivation of maize which is used mostly as poultry feed. Tea is grown in the northeast. Because of Bangladesh's fertile soil and normally ample water supply, rice can be grown and harvested three times a year in many areas. The country is among the top producers of rice (third), potatoes (seventh), tropical fruits (sixth), jute (second), and farmed fish (fifth). With 35.8 million metric tons produced in 2000, rice is Bangladesh's principal crop. In comparison to rice, wheat output in 1999 was 1.9 million tonnes (1,900,000 long tons; 2,100,000 short tons). (Full article...)
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Container handling in the Port of Chittagong
The Port of Chittagong (Bengali: চট্টগ্রাম বন্দর) is the main seaport of Bangladesh. Located in Bangladesh's port city of Chittagong, and on the banks of the Karnaphuli River. The port handles over 70 percent of Bangladesh's export-import trade, and has been used by India, Nepal and Bhutan for transshipment. According to Lloyd's, it ranked as the 58th busiest container port in the world in 2019. The port has a recorded history dating back to ancient Roman accounts. It is the busiest container port on the Bay of Bengal.
Congestion is a major challenge in Chittagong port. The port had a congestion rate of 84.3 hours between January and July in 2017. (Full article...)
The Nawab of Bengal (Bengali: বাংলার নবাব, bāṅglār nôbāb) was the hereditary ruler of Bengal Subah in Mughal India. In the early 18th-century, the Nawab of Bengal was the de facto independent ruler of the three regions of Bengal, Bihar and Orissa which constitute the modern-day sovereign country of Bangladesh and the Indian states of West Bengal, Bihar and Odisha. The Bengal Subah reached its peak during the reign of Nawab Shuja-ud-Din Muhammad Khan. They are often referred to as the Nawab of Bengal, Bihar and Orissa (Bengali: বাংলা, বিহার ও উড়িষ্যার নবাব). The Nawabs were based in Murshidabad which was centrally located within Bengal, Bihar, and Odisha. Their chief, a former prime minister, became the first Nawab. The Nawabs continued to issue coins in the name of the Mughal Emperor, but for all practical purposes, the Nawabs governed as independent monarchs. Bengal continued to contribute the largest share of funds to the imperial treasury in Delhi. The Nawabs, backed by bankers such as the Jagat Seth, became the financial backbone of the Mughal court.
The Nawabs, especially under the rule of Alivardi Khan of 16 years, were heavily engaged in various wars against the Marathas. Towards the end, he turned his attention to rebuilding and restoring Bengal. (Full article...)
The Chakma possess strong ethnic affinities to Tibeto-Burman-speaking groups in Northeast India. Because of a language shift in the past to consolidate power among the tribes, they adopted an Indo-Aryan language Chakma, which is closely related to the Chittagonian language, predominant near the areas in which they live. Most modern Chakma people practice Theravada Buddhism, due to 19th-century reforms and institutionalisation by Queen regnantRani Kalindi. In Myanmar, Chakma people are known as Daingnet and are one of the 135 officially recognised ethnic groups there. (Full article...)
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The ITOS 1 weather satellite image of the cyclone making landfall in East Pakistan on 12 November
The cyclone formed over the central Bay of Bengal on 8 November and traveled northward, intensifying as it did so. It reached its peak with winds of 185 km/h (115 mph) on 10 November, and made landfall on the coast of East Pakistan on the following afternoon. The storm surge devastated many of the offshore islands, wiping out villages and destroying crops throughout the region. In the most severely affected upazilaTazumuddin, over 45% of the population of 167,000 were killed by the storm. (Full article...)
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The Indo-Pakistani war of 1971, also known as the third India-Pakistan war, was a military confrontation between India and Pakistan that occurred during the Bangladesh Liberation War in East Pakistan from 3 December 1971 until the Pakistani capitulation in Dhaka on 16 December 1971. The war began with Pakistan's Operation Chengiz Khan, consisting of preemptive aerial strikes on eight Indian air stations. The strikes led to India declaring war on Pakistan, marking their entry into the war for East Pakistan's independence, on the side of Bengali nationalist forces. India's entry expanded the existing conflict with Indian and Pakistani forces engaging on both the eastern and western fronts. Thirteen days after the war started, India achieved a clear upper hand, and the Eastern Command of the Pakistan military signed the instrument of surrender on 16 December 1971 in Dhaka, marking the formation of East Pakistan as the new nation of Bangladesh. Approximately 93,000 Pakistani servicemen were taken prisoner by the Indian Army, which included 79,676 to 81,000 uniformed personnel of the Pakistan Armed Forces, including some Bengali soldiers who had remained loyal to Pakistan. The remaining 10,324 to 12,500 prisoners were civilians, either family members of the military personnel or collaborators (Razakars). (Full article...)
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Flag of Nawab of Bengal after 1717
The Bengal Subah (Bengali: সুবাহ বাংলা. Persian: صوبه بنگاله.), also referred to as Mughal Bengal, was the largest subdivision of Mughal India encompassing much of the Bengal region, which includes modern-day Bangladesh, the Indian state of West Bengal, and some parts of the present-day Indian states of Bihar, Jharkhand and Odisha between the 16th and 18th centuries. The state was established following the dissolution of the Bengal Sultanate, a major trading nation in the world, when the region was absorbed into the Mughal Empire. Bengal was the wealthiest region in the Indian subcontinent.
Bengal Subah has been variously described the "Paradise of Nations" and the "Golden Age of Bengal". It alone accounted for 40% of Dutch imports from Asia. The eastern part of Bengal was globally prominent in industries such as textile manufacturing and shipbuilding, and it was a major exporter of silk and cotton textiles, steel, saltpeter, and agricultural and industrial produce in the world. The region was also the basis of the Anglo-Bengal War. (Full article...)
Bangladesh is one of the top 10 cricketing nations of the world and has regularly qualified for the Cricket World Cup since 1999, the country achieved arguably its greatest heights in Cricket, when it defeated three of the top-rated teams in 2015 Cricket World Cup to qualify for the quarterfinals. In 2015, they white-washed Pakistan and clinched the series by 3-0 and in another major achievement they won a series against India by 2-1 in the same year, they beat South Africa 2–1 in an ODI series and cemented their spot in Champions Trophy 2017. (Full article...)
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Bashundhara Group (Bengali: বসুন্ধরা গ্রুপ) is a Bangladeshi conglomerate and one of the largest manufacturing companies in Bangladesh. It was incorporated in 1987 as a real estate company under the name East West Property Development Ltd (EWPD). After its first project turned out to be successful, the company grew quickly. It presently owns more than 50 major concerns throughout Bangladesh. The company's import-export turnover was $1.12 billion or BDT 111.38 billion in the 2022-23 fiscal year. In the 2018 fiscal year, the company's real estate holdings amounted to BDT 50,000 crores, or $4.6 billion. (Full article...)
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Bangladesh Railway (Bengali: বাংলাদেশ রেলওয়ে) is the state-owned rail transport agency of Bangladesh. It operates and maintains all railways in the country, and is overseen by the Directorate General of Bangladesh Railway. The Bangladesh Railway is governed by the Ministry of Railways and the Bangladesh Railway Authority with a reporting mark known as "BR".
The Bangladesh Railway system has a total length of 3,600 kilometres (2,200 mi). In 2009, it had 34,168 employees working for the operations. In the year 2014, Bangladesh Railway recorded a ridership of 65 million passengers for a total of 8,135 million passenger-kilometres, and transported 2.52 million tonnes of freight racking up to 677 million tonne-kilometres. (Full article...)
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The headquarters of Bangladesh Television in Rampura, built in 1975. Often known as the BTV Bhaban.
Bangladesh Television (Bengali: বাংলাদেশ টেলিভিশন), commonly known by its acronym BTV (Bengali: বিটিভি), is the state-owned television network of Bangladesh. The network was originally established as the East Pakistan branch of Pakistan Television in 1964. It was rebranded right after the independence of Bangladesh. BTV is the oldest Bengali-language television network in the world, as well as the oldest television network in Bangladesh, and is sister to the radio broadcaster Bangladesh Betar, which, along with BTV, are both owned and operated by the government.
Bangladesh Television is the country's only television network provided on terrestrial television. It is primarily financed through television licence fees. Although it has produced many award-winning programs, it has often been accused of being the mouthpiece of the government and panned for its lack of quality programming. Both the headquarters and the administrative building of Bangladesh Television are located at Rampura in Dhaka. (Full article...)
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Bangladesh is a densely populated, low-lying, mainly riverine country located in South Asia with a coastline of 580 km (360 mi) on the northern littoral of the Bay of Bengal. The delta plain of the Ganges (Padma), Brahmaputra (Jamuna), and Meghna Rivers and their tributaries occupy 79 percent of the country. Four uplifted blocks (including the Madhupur and Barind Tracts in the centre and northwest) occupy 9 percent and steep hill ranges up to approximately 1,000 metres (3,300 ft) high occupy 12 percent in the southeast (the Chittagong Hill Tracts) and in the northeast. Straddling the Tropic of Cancer, Bangladesh has a tropical monsoon climate characterised by heavy seasonal rainfall, high temperatures, and high humidity. Natural disasters such as floods and cyclones accompanied by storm surges periodically affect the country. Most of the country is intensively farmed, with rice the main crop, grown in three seasons. Rapid urbanisation is taking place with associated industrial and commercial development. Exports of garments and shrimp plus remittances from Bangladeshis working abroad provide the country's three main sources of foreign exchange income. (Full article...)
The area of Dhaka has been inhabited since the first millennium. An early modern city developed from the 17th century as a provincial capital and commercial centre of the Mughal Empire. Dhaka was the capital of a proto-industrializedMughal Bengal for 75 years (1608–39 and 1660–1704). It was the hub of the muslin trade in Bengal and one of the most prosperous cities in the world. The Mughal city was named Jahangirnagar (The City of Jahangir) in honour of the erstwhile ruling emperor Jahangir. The city's wealthy Mughal elite included princes and the sons of Mughal emperors. The pre-colonial city's glory peaked in the 17th and 18th centuries, when it was home to merchants from across Eurasia. The Port of Dhaka was a major trading post for both riverine and seaborne trade. The Mughals decorated the city with well-laid gardens, tombs, mosques, palaces, and forts. The city was once called the Venice of the East. (Full article...)