Results update : General Election 2008

[Duck]

Originally Posted by billah
Wow ! did you come up with that all on your own? Where have you been the last whole year? You must be the answer to the prayers of all of the Wall street players. Please, save our stock exchange....

Meanwhile, back on earth, everyone that had lost their savings during the BAL party rule, are very much aware of the swindle. About a week before the major crash, I was warned by my Indian (marwari) businessman friend. In Calcutta, he tells me to pull out as soon as I get home, regardless of how good it was going. "It's all planned, all a trap, you are my friend, please promise me, you will sell as soon as you reach Dhaka".

Then again, what do I know, specially compared to the "economists" like yourself.....

.........like S. Hasina you are really fortunate to have an "indian friends" to save you ?!
I thought in some other posts you mentioned: "When you find out that even the military officials (loyal to her) sell information to the Indians for money, you would be concerned too, looking at this farcical drama they are calling an election."

[Duck]

Originally Posted by DJ Sahastra
Congratulations to Bangladesh for successfully holding an election of such mammoth proprotions. CT and EC certainly deserves big kudos.

Congratulations to AL and Sheikh Hasina Wajed on her party's landslide victory. I hope she stays level-headed in her win and Khaledia Zia stays gracious in her defeat. They will swap chairs in 4-5 years time anyways.

Also, a small correction to the popular perception that AL's win is the most desired outcome by India. I held that notion until my India trip a couple of years back. I had a rare chance to interact with some top executives in strategic and political echeleons and to my surprise their general comment on this subject was quite an enlightenment. It seems the military, the strategic and also the political circle except for the top-level (as in PM's office) prefer Khaleda Zia led government in BD more than AL. That is because, in their words, with Khaledia Zia at the helm, shoving the stick up the miscreants from the BD side (including the BDRs and many in the BD military establishments who harbour anti-India feelings) is much easier during her rule than during ALs regime. Because of the percieved India-friendliness of AL, any strategic or Danda-push is often met with a direct veto from the PM's office. Also, misadventurism from the BD side is at the lowest during Khaleda's regime (surprising, but true).

The General notion is, BDR's adventurism is at its peak during the AL regime for 2 reasons:
1. The top-brass in BD strategic circle realise the political compulsion of Sheikh Hasina wherein any effort to curb those misadventurism may be percieved as India-friendly or India-pampering instance and backfire politically and
2. The top-brass in BD strategic circles also realise that retaliation by the Indian side will either be sabotaged/vetoed or be reduced to damage control to make sure the issues don't boil over and adversely impact AL regime.

No one in the top echeleons really has any explanation as to why AL is percieved India-friendly - it is not. At best, it is minority -friendly for it's own countrymen. At worst, it doesn't encourage many leftovers from pre-1971 ideology to indulge in misadventurism. In fact, the modern thinking is, BNP is best for India government - it offers very little headache in terms of decision-making and response and is more malleable and willing to work out or negotiate on contentious issues.

Not trying to convince anyone of anything - this is all one sided. But a different perspective than the one toed so often never harms.

As for gas imports and such, I don't think not having import from BD has affected India negatively. In all hoensty, most discussions and head-breaking on this subject happened in BD. Not many in India were very enthusiatic about it or even discuss it anymore.

My perception is that India has a major concern this time!! It is not gas, it is not Padma/ganges issue, it is not S.Hasina or Khaleda either....they are rather concerned about brewing of islamic extremist groups in BD, especially after Mumbai attack. In last 7/8 years this had been a growing problems also for BD. Since AL is supposedly against this kind of islamic extremist group, India has great interest in our recent politics.

[Duck]

Originally Posted by Miraz
According to your logic, the voter turnout should have been highest in 1991 election. People were starving for democracy for 9 years!!

The figure shows the opposite.

comparing voter turnout of 2001 (75%) and 2008 (86%) elections, there is about 11% increase.

Most important and positive thing was the environment: For the last 2 yeasrs, people of BD enjoyed an environment with less crime and political violence. And a great atmosphere was enshured by the CTG!

Second, new voter ID. This is first time people are using. Most of them were really enthusistic about it. And use of voter ID also has expedited the whole process of casting votes.

So, the 11% increase is not unrealistic.

[Alien]

Who cares about India's terrorism problems. The whole world is suffering from Terrorism so get used to it instead of playing the blame game of hypothetical "terrorist camps" operating in Bangladesh to demolish India.

By all means I am all for Hasina as long as she does the right thing. But any sane mind can tell she will screw up again. Not due to corruption (coz I think she has learnt her lesson) but due to her incompetency. But saying that the entire bangaldeshi political spectrum is incompetent.

Also she for once need to stop making a personality cult out of her dad. Yes he was a "great" leader, played pivotal role in our independence, thank you very much and now move on.

[Beamer]

DJ
BDR never indulges in misadventurism. To the contrary, its the BSF, a criminal organization that is responsible for over 3000+ death over the last few years. If you are talking about the instance when BSF soldiers were killed during the last AL regime, let me point it out to you that BSF ventured into the BD territory and was on the act of terrorizing villagers which they frequently do, and perished. lets have some facts right first.

[BD-Shardul]

Originally Posted by Beamer
DJ
BDR never indulges in misadventurism. To the contrary, its the BSF, a criminal organization that is responsible for over 3000+ death over the last few years. If you are talking about the instance when BSF soldiers were killed during the last AL regime, let me point it out to you that BSF ventured into the BD territory and was on the act of terrorizing villagers which they frequently do, and perished. lets have some facts right first.

Ditto.

[DJ Sahastra]

Originally Posted by Beamer
DJ
BDR never indulges in misadventurism. To the contrary, its the BSF, a criminal organization that is responsible for over 3000+ death over the last few years. If you are talking about the instance when BSF soldiers were killed during the last AL regime, let me point it out to you that BSF ventured into the BD territory and was on the act of terrorizing villagers which they frequently do, and perished. lets have some facts right first.

Beamer,

As i said, that was the point of view friom the Indian side and i am sure it will be diametrically opposite to the one held on the BD side. And i am not delving into that - this is not the thread or the time or the occassion. The simple point was, military and strategic top-brasses in India find BNP regime far easier to tackle than AL regime as an AL regime is often accompanied by lot of political pressure since AL govt. is supposed to be India friendly.

In actuallity, Wwether it is the AL govt or the BNP govt, or whether it is the Congress or the BJP will have very little impact on the relationship between the two countries - each of the two countries have their self-interests that conflict directly with the other and given the paucity of resources, as long as outstanding issues don't get a mutually acceptable closure, differences and frictions will be inevitable. I was only mentioning that contrary to the perception, BNP at the helm of the affairs makes life lot more easier for the Indian security forces and the top-brasses.

[Beamer]

Originally Posted by DJ Sahastra
Beamer,

As i said, that was the point of view friom the Indian side and i am sure it will be diametrically opposite to the one held on the BD side. And i am not delving into that - this is not the thread or the time or the occassion. The simple point was, military and strategic top-brasses in India find BNP regime far easier to tackle than AL regime as an AL regime is often accompanied by lot of political pressure since AL govt. is supposed to be India friendly.

In actuallity, Wwether it is the AL govt or the BNP govt, or whether it is the Congress or the BJP will have very little impact on the relationship between the two countries - each of the two countries have their self-interests that conflict directly with the other and given the paucity of resources, as long as outstanding issues don't get a mutually acceptable closure, differences and frictions will be inevitable. I was only mentioning that contrary to the perception, BNP at the helm of the affairs makes life lot more easier for the Indian security forces and the top-brasses.

Understood what you are saying. However, I am not at all informed on how politicized the Military and Strategic brass of India really is. If the majority of the recent brass believe in BJP ideology, then actually it won't be a surprise if they found BNP to be a better ally, since BNP itself is fundamentally and ideologically closer to BJP then AL ever will be! Playing nationalistic card and religious fear mongering to further their causes are the M.O.

I do believe AL will try to tackle the Islamic extremism issue inside BD, which was allowed to grow during BNP rule. World without them is a better place to live. Bangladesh, India..all.

[DJ Sahastra]

Originally Posted by Beamer
However, I am not at all informed on how politicized the Military and Strategic brass of India really is.

Military and strategic analysts in India are not politicised but depend upon the political class for the approval of their strategies/actions and often have strong contempt for political intervention in the decision-making - something that happens a little too much in India. As an example, there have been numerous strong vetoes from PM's office sabotaging hot-pursuits into foreign territories to catch or eliminate the terrorists and the analysts feel that much of the terror-related problem today is because of the soft-image of the Indian security forces as percieved by the terrorists.

I feel such vetoes or interventions by the political class is often necessary as some actions have national and international ramifications. At the same time, it is also true that too much intervention leads to lot of frustration and confusion among the decision-makers and further emboldens the enemy camps.

[Beamer]

That makes sense.

Anyway, I am ecstatic that AL is back in power, and hopefully we will have better relations with all neighbors. We must address some of India's concerns as well. India, as the bigger partner, must also do more to lend an ear and act on a lot of grievances. Compared to Pakistan, India's problems with Bangladesh are trivial, and a tone down of rhetoric will go a long way.

Good to hear from you. How is the DJgiri going these days? Check your PM bro.