In the sixth episode of CPR's series titled, Spotlight South Asia, we analyse the developments in Bangladesh. Hosted by Senior Fellow, Sushant Singh, this series features leading experts from India's neighborhood to make sense of the political, economic and social developments in these countries and what they mean for India. Our guest for this episode is Syed Akhtar Mahmood, an economist and former lead Private Sector Specialist in the World Bank Group where he worked on private sector development for three decades. His interests include trade, competitiveness, investment climate, mechanics of policy reforms and political economy. In the 1990s, he worked extensively in the transitional economies of the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe on state-owned enterprise reforms and privatization.

Akhtar Mahmood and Sushant discuss the economic situation in Bangladesh and the dependence of the country’s economy on textile manufacturing. Akhtar Mahmood speaks about the measures that Bangladesh adopted to cope up with the social indicators like public health and education in the pandemic as well as to mitigate the risks of climate change.

What are the big challenges to democracy in the country? What has been the impact of modern technology on Bangladesh society? How are Bangladesh’s economic ties with China and do these ties dominate the overall relationship between the two countries? Akhtar Mahmood and Sushant explore these questions. Finally, they discuss how today’s India looks from Bangladesh.