Biman Bangladesh Airlines (Bengali: বিমান বাংলাদেশ এয়ারলাইন্স) commonly known as Biman (pronounced /biːmɑːn/ [bee-mah-n]) is the national flag carrier of Bangladesh. With its main hub at Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport in Dhaka, the airline also operates flights from its secondary hubs at Shah Amanat International Airport in Chittagong and as well as Osmani International Airport in Sylhet. The airline provides international passenger and cargo services to multiple destinations and has air service agreements in 42 countries. The headquarters of the airline, Balaka Bhaban, is located in Kurmitola, in the northern part of Dhaka. Annual Hajj flights, transporting tourists, migrants, and non-resident Bangladeshi workers and the activities of its subsidiaries form an integral part of the corporate business of the airline. Bangladesh's air transport sector, which is experiencing an 8% annual growth rate thanks to a large number of outbound tourists, domestic tourists, and non-resident Bangladeshi travelers, is very competitive with stiff competition among a number of private Bangladeshi airlines as well as Biman.
Created in February 1972, Biman enjoyed an internal monopoly in the aviation industry of Bangladesh for 24 years, until 1996. In the decades following its founding, the airline expanded its fleet and destinations but it was adversely affected by corruption and mismanagement. At its peak, Biman operated flights to 29 international destinations, extending from New York City in the west to Tokyo in the east. The airline was wholly owned and managed by the government of Bangladesh until 23 July 2007, when it was transformed into the country's largest public limited company by the Caretaker Government of Bangladesh. Since becoming a public limited company in 2007, the airline has reduced staff and begun to modernize its fleet. The airline had signed a deal with Boeing to buy ten new aircraft along with options for ten more in 2008. After getting delivery of the new planes, Biman expanded its destinations and increased in-flight amenities, especially onboard Internet, WiFi, mobile telephony and live TV streams. (Full article...)
When the Dominion of Pakistan was formed after the separation of the Indian subcontinent in 1947 when the British left, it was composed of various ethnic and linguistic groups, with the geographically non-contiguous East Bengal province having a mainly ethnicBengali population. In 1948, the Government of the Dominion of Pakistan ordained as part of Islamization of East Pakistan or East Bengal that Urdu will be the sole federal language, alternately Bengali writing in the Perso-Arabic script or Roman script (Romanisation of Bengali) or Arabic as the state language of the whole of Pakistan was also proposed, sparking extensive protests among the Bengali-speaking majority of East Bengal. Facing rising sectarian tensions and mass discontent with the new law, the government outlawed public meetings and rallies. The students of the University of Dhaka and other political activists defied the law and organised a protest on 21 February 1952. The movement reached its climax when police killed student demonstrators on that day. The deaths provoked widespread civil unrest. After years of conflict, the central government relented and granted official status to the Bengali language in 1956. (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 PTV in 1964. It is the oldest Bengali-language television network in the world, and is the 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 their lack of quality programming. Both the headquarters and the administrative building of Bangladesh Television are located at Rampura in Dhaka. (Full article...)
In response to the violence, members of the Mukti Bahini—a guerrilla resistance movement formed by Bengali military, paramilitary and civilians—launched a mass guerrilla war against the Pakistani military, liberating numerous towns and cities in the war's initial months. At first, the Pakistan Army regained momentum during the monsoon, but Bengali guerrillas counterattacked by carrying out widespread sabotage, including through Operation Jackpot against the Pakistan Navy, while the nascent Bangladesh Air Force flew sorties against Pakistani military bases. India joined the war on 3 December 1971, after Pakistan launched preemptive air strikes on northern India. The subsequent Indo-Pakistani War involved fighting on two fronts; with air supremacy achieved in the eastern theatre, and the rapid advance of the Allied Forces of Mukti Bahini and the Indian military, Pakistan surrendered in Dhaka on 16 December 1971, in what remains to date the largest surrender of armed personnel since the Second World War. (Full article...)
Sylhet is known for its tea plantations and natural beauty. The city has a history that dates back to the 14th century, and it has been ruled by various dynasties and empires, including the Mughals, British, and the Nawabs of Bengal. The city is also home to several important landmarks, such as the Shah Jalal Dargah, which is one of the holiest sites in Bangladesh and attracts thousands of pilgrims every year. (Full article...)
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Nemesis performing in 2014
Nemesis is a Bangladeshi rock band formed in 1999 in Dhaka. They are one of the most popular rock bands in Bangladesh. The band rose to mainstream fame in the late 2000s and early 2010s with their hit songs like "Obocheton", "Kolporajjo", "Bir" and "Kobe". Since 1999, they have released three studio albums. The line-up includes vocalist Zohad Reza Chowdhury, guitarist Ifaz Abrar Reza, guitarists Sultan Rafsan Khan, bassist Raquibun Nabi Ratul and drummer Jeffery Ovijit and Dio Haque. (Full article...)
The Padma Oil Company Limited (Bengali: পদ্মা অয়েল কোম্পানী লিমিটেড) formerly known as Burmah Eastern Limited, is a subsidiary of Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation (BPC), a statutory organization of the government under the Ministry of Power, Energy, and Mineral Resources. It is registered with the joint-stock company as a public limited company under the Company Act 1913. The company's head office is located on Strand Road in Chittagong, officially known as Chattogram. It is one of three state owned oil distribution companies in Bangladesh with the others being Jamuna Oil Company and Meghna Petroleum Limited. (Full article...)
The Bangladesh Police (Bengali: বাংলাদেশ পুলিশ) is the national law enforcement agency of Bangladesh, operating under the Ministry of Home Affairs. It plays a crucial role in maintaining peace, and enforcement of law and order within Bangladesh. Though the police are primarily concerned with the maintenance of law and order and security of persons and property of individuals, they also play a big role in the criminal justice system. Bangladesh police played an important role during the Bangladesh Liberation War. (Full article...)
The Bangladeshi government has begun to implement a foreign policy that pursues regional economic integration in South Asia and aims to establish Bangladesh as a regional hub of transit trade in Asia. (Full article...)
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The Bangladesh Bank robbery, also known colloquially as the Bangladesh Bank cyber heist, was a theft that took place in February 2016. Thirty-five fraudulent instructions were issued by security hackers via the SWIFT network to illegally transfer close to US$1 billion from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York account belonging to Bangladesh Bank, the central bank of Bangladesh. Five of the thirty-five fraudulent instructions were successful in transferring US$101 million, with US$81 million traced to the Philippines and US$20 million to Sri Lanka. The Federal Reserve Bank of New York blocked the remaining thirty transactions, amounting to US$850 million, due to suspicions raised by a misspelled instruction. As of 2018, only around US$18 million of the US$81 million transferred to the Philippines has been recovered, and all the money transferred to Sri Lanka has since been recovered. Most of the money transferred to the Philippines went to four personal accounts, held by single individuals, and not to companies or corporations. (Full article...)
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The University of Dhaka (Bengali: ঢাকা বিশ্ববিদ্যালয়; also known as Dhaka University or DU) is a publicresearch university located in Dhaka, Bangladesh. It was established in 1921 as University of Dacca and it is the oldest active university in Bangladesh.
The university was founded in 1921 under the Dacca University Act 1920 of the Indian Legislative Council. Nawab Bahadur Sir Khwaja Salimullah, who pioneered the university in Dhaka, donated 600 acres of land from his estate for this purpose. It is modeled after British Universities. Currently it is the largest public research university in Bangladesh, with a student body of 46,150 and a faculty of 1,992. (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 it's 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...)
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Percentage of the population vaccinated with at least one dose as of January 17, 2022
Bangladesh began the administration of COVID-19 vaccines on 27 January 2021 while mass vaccination started on 7 February 2021.
The Oxford–AstraZeneca vaccine was the only COVID-19 vaccine authorized for emergency use from January to April 2021. Bangladesh ordered vaccines produced by Serum Institute of India; however, it delivered to Bangladesh less than half of the doses that had been agreed. After the consequent vaccine shortage, Bangladesh approved the Russian Sputnik V and Chinese Sinopharm BIBP vaccines for emergency use in late April 2021. Bangladesh also authorized the emergency use of Pfizer–BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine to be distributed as part of COVAX. It was reported that the Bangladesh government planned to give permission to Bangladeshi-made Bangavax developed by Globe Biotech Ltd. to conduct the first clinical trial that got listed in the 'Draft landscape and tracker of Covid-19 candidate vaccines' by the World Health Organization (WHO). However, the fate of Bangavax is still uncertain due to an unknown reason. Less than 4% of Bangladesh's population had gotten two doses as of the beginning of June 2021. Bangladesh has already fully immunized more than 70% of its population and received funding from a program called Friendship. (Full article...)