Welcome 2024! Today is the New Year of the Gregorian calendar. We have witnessed many events in 2023. Last year, our girls won the Asia Cup in cricket. Our girls also performed well in football. Our rickshaw art has been recognised as a world heritage.
But we must admit that international events affected people’s life in Bangladesh. Besides, the economy faced new risks due to shortage of foreign currency reserves and the dollar crisis. Last year, inflation and rise in essentials prices made the life of people with low income to middle class unbearable. Many people were compelled to take loans to make ends meet.
Like the peace-loving people of world, we were also stunned seeing the Israeli brutality in Gaza. When we are welcoming the New Year, at that time Israel continues to kill people, mostly women and children, in Gaza indiscriminately ignoring global opinion. Fuel shortage and import dependency created pressure on the economy of Bangladesh because of the Russia-Ukraine war in 2022, and it persisted last year. And, the lesson from this is that we must try our best to explore and extract our offshore and onshore gas resources.
The introduction of metro rail in Dhaka, inauguration of the third terminal at Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport or the opening of Karnaphuli Tunnel in Chattogram will be identified at the big achievement of economic and communication development in 2023. The direct train communication between Dhaka and Cox’s Bazar will help the sea port attract tourists along with regular passengers.
Like 2022, politics of the country was filled with concern and worry in 2023. The political arena was fired up by the rallies of the ruling and the opposition parties throughout the year. These programmes were somewhat observed in peaceful manner, but the violence centring the BNP’s rally on 28 October hurled the country into a deep political crisis, and the arrest of thousands of the party leaders and activists including BNP secretary general followed. In addition, more than a thousand of BNP leaders and activists were jailed in old cases.
The 12th parliamentary election is going to be held amid such circumstance where all parties are not joining the election. When the ruling Awami League and their associate bodies are contesting the election, at that time, BNP and their like-minded parties are calling for boycotting the election in addition to observing progamme like hartals, blockades and the non-cooperation programme.
Although there are no political opponents in the 7 January election, clashes and violence continue to take place between the supporters of boat candidates and independent candidates. Several party supporters have already been reported dead and many injured, and in this case, the call from the party top leadership on for peace is not working.
People anticipated political leadership would reach a negotiation on the election, but that did not happen. The holding of 7 January election amid a political deadlock does not mean that a solution has been reach on the existing political crisis, but it is necessary to maintain a political stability to keep fragile economy of the country running and life and livelihood of people undisrupted. We hope the political leadership will play a positive role for the sake of country and people considering this circumstance. If a group of people of the country are left out of democratic process, it will impact the overall national life, and that is not warranted.
If the 2023 has been a stormy year, let 2024 be a year of challenge. May 2024 bring happiness and prosperity to all. Happy New Year!