Incessant rains and gushing waters have marooned at least six million people in Bangladesh, prompting authorities to call in the Army to assist in the rescue and relief operations.

Officials estimate that six million people were marooned at their nearly inundated homes or were forced to take makeshift refuge elsewhere as water level in rivers in northeastern and northern regions continued to rise.

“Water now continued to surpass much above the danger lines in two of the country’s four major river basin. The situation appears to be nearly as bad as that of the 2004 flooding, a Flood Forecasting and Warning Centre (FFWC) spokesman said. The FFWC attributed the flooding to excessive rainfalls simultaneously in upstream Meghlaya and Bangladesh.

Many people were forced to initially take refuge on their rooftops amid gushing rising waters until rescue boats came in Sunamganj, said local officials. Meanwhile, due to huge rainfall, many districts of norther Bangladeh are facing threat of fresh flood.

China has reportedly been engaging Bangladesh (BD) by offering new weapon platforms like J-10 Multi Role Combat Aircraft (MRCA)& LY-80 Medium Range Air Defence Systems.

Two 6-member Chinese delegations have recently visited BD in quick succession for the same.

BD Chief of Air Staff (COAS) Air Chief Marshal Shaikh Abdul Hannanis scheduled to visit China in June 2023 for concluding the deal. China has not only supplied poor quality defence hardware like tanks WS-22 Multiple Launch Rocket System (MLRS), FM-90 AirDefence Missiles, fighter/trainer aircraft, submarines and other naval platforms to BD in the past, a large number of defects have also been reported in the recently acquired VT-5 Light Tanks and K-8WTrainer Aircraft.

Eventhepost sale services of Chinese companies have largely been deficient whichhas led to acrimony between Chinese companies and BD Armed Forces.

Such defects are not only a drain on the defence budget of BD due to the ever increasing cost of repairs/maintenance, but also severely affect operational availability of critical platforms due to increased downtime.

Similarly the JF-17 Aircraft in Pakistan have witnessed several engine, avionics and structural defects which have severely impacted its air worthiness. Defects have also being reported in the J-10 aircraft platforms.

A soft loan amounting to BDT 1 billion has also been offered by China to facilitate this deal. Such loans, however, come with a hidden agenda of trapping the receiving country in debt eventually leading to major concessions being extracted from them.

If the J-10 deal is concluded, it will be a double whammy for BD wherein it will be straddled with sub-standard standard platform coupled with a loan which will further accentuate its current economic situation.

Source: Bangladesh Live News

Beijing has often been in news for supplying sub-standard and faultyequipments/arms/airplanes to its neighboring countries.

Now, an incident of failure of Chinese assisted National Data Centre has been reported in Bangladesh. The Chinese-assisted National Data Centre (NDC) of the Bangladesh Data Centre Company Ltd. (BDCCL) is facing problems these days in storing government data owing to un-licensed/ pirated software supplied by the ZTE of China.

The use of pirated software has led to failure in updating software and hardware patches, damage to one of the firewalls and considerable reduction in storage capacity, claimed to be 2.1 Petabyte.ZTE has offered to rebuild the NDC using its Cloud service, which may involve huge costs.

Till then, they are holding back on offering full services. It has always been a ploy of Chinese companies to first set up a faulty infrastructure and then blackmail the recipient country with huge costs to rectify and restore the system to its full capacity.

Meanwhile, the failure of Data Centre has compelled Bangladesh Government to look for alternate data storage companies, for storing the government data, post-filling up of the storage capacity of NDC.

The Bangladesh government is already in talks with Oracle Cloud, US which has proposed to provide sovereign-hosted cloud services to the Bangladesh Government.

Simultaneously, negotiations are also going on with a few UK-based companies. The credibility of China in the protection of personal data was hit badly when during Feb 12-15, 2023 the express delivery sector of China was itself afflicted by cyber theft leading to the leakage of private data of 4.5 billion customers. Anheng Information Co.Ltd, one of the leaders in the network security industry in China, had reported that a ChatGPT or an automated query robot had leaked 4.5 billion pieces of personal information in China pertaining to e-commerce or express logistics industry.

Users only needed to enter mobile phone numbers to query private information such as name, mobile number and detailed delivery address.

This data breach reflected poorly on the data protection measures adopted by the Chinese government to protect the personal information of individuals. Data is the most valuable asset in today’s world and its loss can be detrimental to growth or, in the worst case, it could result in the collapse of an economy.

The Bangladesh government needs to think as to how can a country guarantee protecting data of other country when personal data of its own people has been compromised.

Source: Bangladesh Live News

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina said, today there will be agitation and struggle. We will be overthrown. From one point of view it is good that if they (BNP) commit arson and kill people they will not get US visas.

Criticizing the BNP's excitement after the announcement of the US visa policy, she said, "They (BNP) think that someone from somewhere else will put them in power so they are happy because nobody will do that." They will use them, but not empower them.

The prime minister said these things while addressing a discussion meeting organized by the Awami League at the Bangabandhu International Conference Center in the capital on the occasion of the historic 6-point day on Wednesday (June 7).

She said that Awami League has protected democracy and voting rights and ensured the continuity of democracy in the country. She also said that they will destroy the BNP dance to the rhythm of power. We have nothing to do. We have nothing to worry about.

The Prime Minister said she has already asked (the authorities concerned) to allow the BNP to agitate. Let them do what they want to do. We will not say anything.'

She, however, asked the authorities to keep their eyes open and cameras always on so that BNP does not repeat the violence, burning and killing of people like in 2013, 2014 and 2015.

The Prime Minister said, we must always remember that this country is ours. We will not allow anyone to play with the destiny of the people of this country. No matter how much local and international pressure comes, Bengalis do not bow down to it.

Mentioning that the Awami League protected the voting rights of the people, she said, "We have brought democracy to this country, we have carried out agitations and struggles." As democracy continues, Bangladesh today has witnessed progress and socio-economic development.

Italy has agreed to take skilled workers from Bangladesh in construction, shipbuilding and hospitality sectors under bilateral migration and movement arrangements.

This information is known from the political talks between Bangladesh and Italy held in Rome on Wednesday.

Foreign Secretary Masoud Bin Momen and Italian Secretary General of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation Riccardo Guariglia led their respective countries in the talks.

Italy expressed satisfaction at this time as more than 46 percent of workers went to Italy from Bangladesh for seasonal and non-seasonal work under the Flusi Decree.

Before the political talks, Masood bin Momen and Riccardo Guariglia signed a memorandum of understanding on political consultation between the foreign ministries of Bangladesh and Italy.

In the meeting, both countries expressed interest in deepening relations in several fields including trade and investment, technology in the textile sector of Bangladesh, defense and security, ICT, agriculture, immigration.

Both sides agree to curb illegal immigration to Italy.

Italy appreciated Bangladesh for providing shelter to the Rohingya and assured them of continued humanitarian assistance and assistance in their safe repatriation to Myanmar.

The Italian delegation expressed interest in working closely with Bangladesh as a partner in the Indo-Pacific under the Indian Ocean Rim Association.