Bangladesh needs a fault-tolerant digital system.

Authorities must take steps to improve digital access

“Digital Bangladesh” continues to be a central plank of the ruling Awami League, despite the failure of its techno-utopian Vision 2021.

The Ministry of Land’s digital land development tax system has been selected as one of the champion projects of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) 2022 contest.

The government’s draft regulation for digital, social media and OTT platforms will be a threat to freedom of speech and people’s basic rights, experts said yesterday.

When Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina declared the vision of Digital Bangladesh on December 12, 2008, the ICT industry experienced its rebirth. Later, the government declared December 12 as Digital Bangladesh Day.

Country's biggest technology expo Digital World 2020, co-organised by Bangladesh Association of Software and Information Services (BASIS) and Department of ICT (DoICT) of the Ministry of Post, Telecommunication and IT, was inaugurated by the President M Abdul Hamid on Wednesday.

Outgoing Indian High Commissioner to Bangladesh Riva Ganguly Das has praised the government for its steps towards building ‘Digital Bangladesh’ while paying a courtesy call to Speaker Shirin Sharmin Chauhdury at her office at the Jatiya Sangsad Bhaban.

President Abdul Hamid says Digital Bangladesh is not now a dream but a reality.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina says the Awami League government has transformed the country into a Digital Bangladesh by making information technology accessible to all, including the marginal people, through efficient, service-oriented and ICT-friendly services in the last ten and a half years.

The present government has taken significant initiatives in setting the right vision and formulating policies and action plans for transforming the country into “Digital Bangladesh”. The focused government initiatives have resulted in an accelerated pace of growth of internet users, which in the last four years have more than doubled from 38 million (June 2014) to 88 million (June 2018). This is a tremendous achievement by any standard.

It is hardly a subject that is discussed in the public domain nowadays, but one recalls “Digital Bangladesh” being the centrepiece of the ruling party's electoral campaign in 2008 and onwards. The aim was to transform the bureaucracy-ridden system, making it faster, more efficient and of course less prone to graft. But such a grandiose mission, till now, remains largely unaccomplished.

Citing the government's commitment to ensure a 'Digital Bangladesh', Finance Minister AMA Muhith says that 8,000 km of optical fibre cables have been installed in 1104 union parishads of 114 upazilas in 64 districts.

This government's sterling achievement of setting in motion a “Digital Bangladesh” suffers a serious blow by way of the proposed Digital Security Act that the cabinet has just approved.

Sophia, the world's new sensation, yesterday caught Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina by surprise as the humanoid robot readily gave the premier information about her.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina makes an interesting conversation with Sophia, the humanoid robot. The premier was introduced to Sophia at an inaugural ceremony of Digital World 2017 exposition in Dhaka.

Bangladesh has acknowledged December 12 as National ICT Day, the date on which the Awami League declared its “Digital Bangladesh” mandate back in 2008.

Bangladesh has advanced significantly in internet connectivity and effectively led major Saarc nations, with nearly 42.0 percent of total population using internet for various purposes, according to official sources.

Moheshkhali, one of the remotest islands of the country, starts its journey as a "Digital Island" as a project in this regard is launched. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina inaugurated the scheme titled "Digital Island Moheshkhali" that connected Moheshkhali upazila of Cox's Bazar with high-speed internet network.

Unfortunately, so far, our performance on both transparency as well as accountability has not been very good. Fortunately, there is still time to improve this before the major climate change funds begin to flow.