From Ukraine war to metro rail opening: Events that shaped Bangladesh in 2022

Russia's war in Ukraine dominated the landscape that also offered a few bright spots. Here are 10 defining events of 2022

As 2022 winds down, Bangladesh remains on course to fulfil its dream of bringing economic changes through the implementation of mega projects, but the Russia-Ukraine conflict cast a pall over the world, rattling the economy in a year that was otherwise mired in deadly politics and accidents, and incidents related to religious extremism.

A sudden and untimely rise in dengue cases added to the concerns of citizens as they reeled from increased living costs as an energy crisis spurred price hikes across the board.

With the national election now a year away, the country’s political arena also started heating up.

As grim economic forecasts stoked anxiety over the country's future, the launch of the Padma Bridge in mid-2022 and a section of the country’s first metro rail by the end of the year stood out as the shining lights.

The women’s football team also brought joy by becoming South Asian champions.

Here are some of the defining events of 2022 for Bangladesh:

THE UKRAINE WAR

Just as Bangladesh and the rest of the world were recovering from the effects of the coronavirus pandemic, a war broke out in Eastern Europe with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February.

Many, especially in Moscow, predicted it would take hours or days for Kyiv to fall before Russia installed a puppet government in Ukraine. But after 10 months, there is still no sign of an end to the conflict.

Both Russia and Ukraine are major exporters of grains – a fact that created a global shortage of food and drove prices. In Bangladesh, prices of essential commodities, including rice, flour and cooking oil, have reached a level not seen in a decade.

Western sanctions on Moscow meant trade with Russia became restricted while inflation in the US and Europe due to the war caused a fall in Bangladesh’s exports, coupled with a rise in import costs.

The sanctions and Europe’s bid to stop buying fossil fuels from Russia led to an energy crisis that forced Bangladesh to halt production at diesel-run power plants and purchase of gas to produce electricity and run industries.

This brought back rolling power outages, just after the country achieved 100 percent electricity coverage.

The global crisis was so acute that Bangladesh’s South Asian neighbour Sri Lanka became bankrupt, triggering fears of a similar economic crisis in Bangladesh.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina reassured citizens about the country's grain stocks but urged them to be frugal to avoid a severe food shortage in 2023.

DENGUE

Along with the mosquito menace, dengue cases increase during monsoon in the middle of the year in Bangladesh as stagnant water becomes the breeding ground for the Aedes-aegypti mosquito, the carrier of the virus.

After an unprecedented surge in dengue cases during the monsoon in 2019, the government reported a record 101,354 dengue hospitalisations and 179 deaths.

This year, however, the cases started to rise in August and continued the upward trajectory. More than 50,000 people were hospitalised with dengue fever while the death toll crossed 230 as a new variant of the disease caused a rapid deterioration in the health of patients, which meant that infected people had to seek hospital care soon after infection and stay there for extended periods.

Experts believe the actual number of dengue patients and the death toll is much higher as the official figures leave out those who aren't hospitalised, while many don't even get tested.

FATAL ROAD ACCIDENTS

Four years have passed since the student-led road safety movement began, and ended, amid a flurry of promises from the government culminating in the passage of a road safety law with somewhat harsh penalties for offenders.

But hardly anything has changed. Road traffic deaths and injuries in Bangladesh have been a “silent epidemic”.

Road crashes kill more than 4,000 Bangladeshis every year and countless more are seriously injured or disabled, according to data gathered by the 'Nirapad Sarak Chai' movement.

A total of 524 people died and 821 others were injured in 467 road accidents reported in Bangladesh in June alone, according to a study by the Road Safety Foundation. Motorcycles were the most common vehicles involved in crashes.

On Jul 29, as many as 13 people, mostly students and teachers of a private coaching centre, died after a collision between a micro-bus and a train on a level-crossing in Chattogram’s Mirsharai.

Capsize of boats and launches is also a common occurrence in Bangladesh. As many as 71 people drowned after a boat packed with Hindu devotees sank in Panchagarh on Sept 26. The passengers were on their way to a temple to join the Mahalaya festival ahead of Durga Puja.

A huge fire sparked by a chemical explosion at the BM Container Depot in Chattogram on Jun 4 caused the deaths of 51 people. The fire service, with the support of the army, the navy, and other government agencies, put out the blaze after 86 hours.

On Aug 15, five members of a family died when a crane dropped an 80-tonne girder of the Bus Rapid Transit project on their car while the structure was being shifted onto a trailer in Dhaka’s Uttara.

DEATHS

Jahidul Islam Tipu, a local leader of the Awami League, was shot dead in his car in the capital’s Shahjahanpur on Mar 24. Samia Afnan Jamal Prity, a 22-year-old rickshaw passenger, also died in the attack when she was hit by a stray bullet.

Police said Tipu was murdered following a political feud.

Several BNP activists died in clashes with police during protests in different parts of Bangladesh in late 2022 as the opposition party bolstered its anti-government movement ahead of the election.

A student named Ashraful Islam Jitu attacked a teacher, Utpal Kumar Sarker, with a cricket stump at Haji Yunus Ali School and College in Savar’s Ashulia on Jun 25. The teacher died in hospital two days later.

The Rapid Action Battalion said Jitu, a 10th-grader, attacked Utpal to "impress" a girl, an 11th-grader. Although it was assumed that Jitu was a minor, the RAB revealed he was 19 years old and had faced disruptions in his study in the past.

The mysterious death of Fardin Noor Parash, a student of the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology, made headlines on several occasions as police arrested a female friend in a murder case filed by his family.

Fardin left home in Demra’s Konapara for a BUET hall of residence on Nov 4, three days before his body was found in the Shitalakkhya river in Narayanganj.

Investigators later presented evidence that the 24-year-old took his own life by jumping from Sultana Kamal Bridge in Demra in the small hours of Nov 5. His father rejected the police claim.

PADMA BRIDGE OPENS, METRO ROLLS

The year 2022 will be memorable for the residents of the southern districts whose long wait for a direct road connection to Dhaka ended with the opening of the Padma Bridge in June.

A decade after the World Bank pulled out of the project, alleging corruption, Bangladesh completed the construction with its own funds.

And just three days ago, on Dec 28, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina inaugurated the Uttara-Agargaon section of Dhaka Metro Rail, Bangladesh’s first urban transportation system, with great fanfare.

The metro rail is expected to bring a massive respite to commuters in Dhaka, one of the most jam-packed cities in the world.

A short stretch of the Bus Rapid Transit project has also been inaugurated while the government celebrated the completion of the southern tube of the Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman Tunnel under the Karnaphuli river in Chattogram in another first for Bangladesh.

DOLLAR HITS A CENTURY

The US dollar, the world's reserve currency, began climbing in mid-2021 due to a supply crunch. The crisis deepened towards March this year due to the Ukraine war, prompting the central bank to come up with several measures to curb the dollar’s unprecedented gains.

On Jun 30, Bangladesh Bank reintroduced the floating exchange rate and regularly devalued the taka against the dollar while selling large amounts of the currency to meet the demands of rising import costs.

Banks in crisis bought dollars from other banks at higher prices to settle import payments, while sometimes looking to clients to come up with the currency. This put customers at the receiving end of the crisis.

The US dollar reached an all-time high of Tk 121 in the open market in August and is currently being sold at around Tk 110.

As the central bank continued to sell dollars, the reserves dwindled to $33 billion at the beginning of December, from an all-time high of $48 billion in August 2021.

Amid the crisis, the government is borrowing $4.5 billion from the International Monetary Fund. The IMF loans are expected to create a reserve buffer for Bangladesh with no sign of the global economy improving anytime soon amid the Russia-Ukraine war.

PRE-ELECTION HEAT

As the pandemic ebbed, politics began to heat up at the beginning of 2022. Now with the general election on the horizon, politics is getting even more heated.

2022 was a preparatory year for all political parties as the general election is now just a year away.

The BNP strengthened its movement to materialise its demand for an election under a non-partisan caretaker government and brought their allies on board.

On the other hand, the ruling Awami League held its national council in a bid to strengthen the party and combat the opposition movements.

The two main political camps have already started to exhibit their powers which were evident on the occasion of the BNP’s Dhaka rally on Dec 10.

Deadly clashes between BNP activists and police in the run-up to the rally offered a glimpse into the political situation next year.

RELIGIOUS EXTREMISM

In March, a Hindu teacher was arrested on charges of hurting the religious sentiments of Muslim students.

The teacher, Hriday Kumar Mondal, was discussing topics of science with a group of 10th graders in class when some pupils asked him about the links between science and religion and secretly recorded his response on a mobile phone.

According to an audio clip the students later shared on social media, Mondal had argued that “religion is a matter of faith” while “science looks at the evidence”.

Although many locals were angry at him and police said they had to arrest the teacher for his safety, the incident drew condemnation from across the country. The teacher was later released and acquitted of the charges.

Swapan Kumar Biswas, acting principal of Mirzapur United Degree College in Narail, was humiliated on flimsy charges of blasphemy in June. Photos and videos of him being paraded with a garland of shoes around his neck went viral and caused an uproar.

The incident took place in the wake of a post on Facebook by a Hindu student who had shared a photo of Indian BJP leader Nupur Sharma, criticised for her remarks on Prophet Muhammad. Some Muslim students asked the Hindu student to delete the post after he had gone to college.

Tensions mounted when rumours spread that Swapan took the Hindu student's side. Angry Muslim locals and students set the motorcycles of the principal and two teachers on fire. The mob also clashed with the police.

In May, a young woman was harassed and attacked at the Narsingdi Railway Station for wearing what the attackers deemed ‘obscene’ clothes. Law enforcers later arrested one of the attackers.

TEA WORKERS’ PROTESTS

Workers at Bangladesh's tea estates had been at loggerheads with owners over their daily wage of Tk 120. They called for the wage to be increased to Tk 300 and had been protesting since early August to press home their demand.

They abstained from work for two hours a day for four days before launching a full-scale strike on Aug 13.

Some of them went back to work after the authorities assured them of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's intervention to end the impasse and the owners offered a Tk 25 rise in their daily wage to Tk 145.

However, they then rejoined the others on strike as there was no sign of assurances they could rely on, the protesters said.

The stalemate eventually ended through Hasina's intervention on Aug 26 as the workers agreed to a daily wage of Tk 170.

OPEN-TOP BUS PARADE FOR SAFF CHAMPIONS

Bangladesh thrashed five-time finalists and hosts Nepal 3-1 to win their maiden SAFF Women’s Championship title in Kathmandu in September, having earlier edged out defending champions India in the group stage, again for the first time.

Fans flooded social media with posts demanding that the winners be welcomed from the airport on an open-top bus upon their return.

Thousands of people packed out the road from Shahjalal International Airport to Bangladesh Football Federation in Motijheel to greet the champions upon their arrival in Dhaka.

The winners took the victory ride on an open-top double-decker bus, waving to the fans, flying the national flag, throwing flowers and flashing victory signs during the parade.

[Writing in English by Osham-ul-Sufian Talukder]