The Budget 2011-2012: Towards Digital Bangladesh round table discussion was held on May 21, 2011. It was organized by the Bangladesh ICT Journalists Forum (BIJF) and it was attended by ICT experts, operators, academicians, activists, and journalists. Honorable State Minister of Science and ICT, Architect Yeafesh Osman was the chief guest. The speakers reflected on the successes and failures of the last two budgets from the ICT industry perspectives. Moreover, specific suggestions were made for the upcoming budget from Internet Service Providers’ Associations and Software Developers. But the discussion went beyond the traditional budget issues and the overall regulatory and policy related performance of the Government in ICT and Telecom sector dominated the round table. Dr. Faheem Hussain, Assistant Professor of Asian University for Women and Research Fellow of LIRNEasia was present at the event. Dr. Hussain presented the major findings of LIRNEasia’s latest TRE report on Bangladesh: the relative poor regulatory performance of Bangladesh in two of the three sectored studied (Mobile Telephony was the exception, Fixed Telephony and Broadband Internet performed below average). He pointed out to the apparent disconnections between the Government’s policies related to “Digital Bangladesh” and the present regulatory uncertainties due to 2G licensing renewal, de-liberalization of the regulatory scenarios, anti-competitive practices by the industry incumbents etc. The details of his speech can be found here.
Workshop: Digital Tools for Strengthening Public Discourse
Today, LIRNEasia hosted a workshop to launch digital tools created by Watchdog Sri Lanka, funded by GIZ’s Strengthening Social Cohesion and Peace in Sri Lanka (SCOPE) programme. Researchers, practitioners, activists and journalists attended to learn about these tools, and how they can potentially help them in their own lines of work.
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