JANUARY |
FEBRUARY |
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Jan 11
Jan 19 The army foiled a coup attempt to overthrow the government. A band of religious fanatics, comprising mid-ranking officers and their retired colleagues, was involved in the failed putsch. |
Feb 11 A journalist couple were brutally killed in their West Rajabazar flat in the capital. Sagar Sarowar, news editor at the private TV channel Maasranga, and his wife Meherun Runi, senior reporter of ATN Bangla, were found dead in their bedroom. Their only son, five-year-old Mahir Sarowar Megh, was in the flat when the twin murder took place sometime between 2:00am and 5:00am. The killing stirred a huge public outcry, and the mystery behind it has yet to be unravelled. Feb 19 Despite strong opposition from within, the government attempted to cancel the loan deal for the Padma bridge project with the World Bank to clear the way for an agreement with Malaysia or other potential donors. |
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MARCH |
APRIL |
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March 14 Bangladesh won a landmark verdict at the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, which sustained its exclusive economic and territorial rights over 200 nautical miles in the Bay of Bengal, rejecting the claims of Myanmar. The verdict gave the country a substantial share of the outer continental shelf beyond 200 miles, which would open up ways for offshore oil and gas exploration in the Bay. The tribunal also awarded Bangladesh a full 12-mile territorial sea around St Martin's Island, overruling Myanmar's argument that the island be cut in half and shared. March 31 The government dismissed the proposition of making Nobel Peace Prize winner Prof Muhammad Yunus the head of a committee to find a managing director for Grameen Bank. Yunus founded the bank and had been its managing director until last year.
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April 9
Following the incident, Suranjit drew heavy flak from different quarters. On instructions from the prime minister, he resigned on April 16, nearly five months into his taking over as railway minister. However, a day after he stepped down, the government made him a minister without portfolio. April 17 Former lawmaker and BNP Organising Secretary (Sylhet division) M Ilias Ali, along with his driver, went missing. The BNP claimed that government agencies had picked them up and made them disappear.
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MAY |
JUNE |
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May 5 US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton flew in Dhaka on an official visit to talk with top political figures and civil society members.
May 16 BNP acting secretary general Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir and 32 other high-profile opposition leaders ended up in jail after a Dhaka court rejected their bail prayers in connection with an arson case. May 19 Nishat Majumder, a 31-year-old accountant of Wasa, became the first Bangladeshi woman to scale Mount Everest, the world's highest mountain. Wasfia Nazreen scaled the Everest as the second Bangladeshi woman on May 26. She returned home on June 9. |
June 12 Sectarian violence in the Rakhine state of Myanmar forced many Rohingya people to look for shelter in the bordering districts of Bangladesh. The government, however, did not allow the Rohingyas in, and instead sent them back home with food and first aid. June 26 At least 85 people perished in rain-induced landslides in Chittagong, Cox's Bazar and Bandarban. June 30 The World Bank cancelled its $1.2 billion credit for the Padma bridge project with immediate effect, saying it has proof of a corruption conspiracy involving Bangladeshi officials, executives of a Canadian firm and other individuals. |
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JULY |
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July 19 Popular writer Humayun Ahmed died at Manhattan's Bellevue Hospital in New York while undergoing treatment for cancer. He was 64. The illustrious storyteller was laid to rest in the serenity of his favourite retreat Nuhash Palli on July 24. July 23 Information and Communication Technology Minister Syed Abul Hossain, former communications minister, finally tendered his resignation to the prime minister, paving the way for reviving the financial arrangements with the World Bank for the Padma bridge project.
The Anti-Corruption Commission sued 22 officials of Destiny Group on charges of laundering Tk 3,285 crore by cheating investors. The ACC filed two cases against the company officials, including its Managing Director Mohammad Rafiqul Amin and Director Lt Gen (retd) M Harun-ar-Rashid. |
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AUGUST |
SEPTEMBER |
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Aug 2 The cabinet approved a proposal for amending an ordinance to give more powers to the Grameen Bank chairman to choose the managing director of the microlender. The amendment to the Grameen Bank Ordinance, 1983, would undermine the autonomy of the bank started by Nobel Peace Prize laureate Prof Muhammad Yunus. |
Sept 31 Islamic zealots destroyed 12 Buddhist temples and more than 50 houses in Ramu of Cox's Bazar. The violence was apparently triggered by a faked Facebook posting of a photo defaming the holy Quran. |
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OCTOBER |
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Oct 7 Tanvir Mahmud, managing director of Hall-Mark Group, and another top official of the controversial firm, were captured by Rapid Action Battalion personnel at the capital's Pallabi in connection with the Sonali Bank loan scam. Oct 28 BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia went on a week-long visit to India. During her stay there, she assured New Delhi that her party was not against the neighbouring country and that it strove to better the ties. |
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NOVEMBER
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Nov 11 The abduction of six-year-old Parag on Nov 11 outraged the nation and his release after four days brought an immense relief. The kidnappers fired shots at Parag's mother, two sisters, and the driver of their family car in Keraniganj before whisking the boy away. Nov 5 Jamaat-e-Islami and its student body launched vicious attacks on police in the capital, injuring dozens of cops. They continued violence for a few more days, demanding release of top Jamaat leaders on trial for crimes against humanity. Nov 24 A blaze killed 112 workers, mostly women, at Tazreen Fashions factory in Ashulia, sending a shockwave across the country and beyond. |
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DECEMBER |
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Dec 9 Bishwajit Das, an innocent youth, was brutally hacked to death by 10 to 12 Chhatra League activists of Jagannath University during an opposition blockade. Newspaper photos and TV footage identified the killers, but the home minister claimed the culprits did not belong to Chhatra League. Dec 11 International Crimes Tribunal-1 chairman Justice Md Nizamul Huq resigned amid controversy over the leak of his alleged Skype conversation with an expatriate Bangladeshi legal expert.
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Forty years after the Liberation War, former Jamaat-e-Islami ameer Ghulam Azam, who actively opposed the nation's birth in 1971, was sent to jail to face war crimes charges.
Around Tk 70 lakh was seized from the car of then railway minister Suranjit Sengupta's assistant personal secretary at the main entrance to the Pilkhana BGB headquarters in the capital, as the driver hollered that there were stashes of bribe money in the vehicle.
Khaleda goes to India
