News

The ongoing Covid-19 pandemic has shaken the world’s economy and supply chains. In the case of Bangladesh, the RMG sector, which has been one of the major drivers of the socioeconomic development of Bangladesh in the last 40 years, has been especially hard hit with the garment workers having been affected the most. In order to understand the long term implications of the pandemic on the RMG workers, BRAC University’s Centre for Entrepreneurship Development and James P.

আজকাল, the Chowdhury Center's e-Newsletter for Fall 2020 is out!! Please click the link below to find out about all the exciting Zoom events that we have planned for this semester. আজকাল Fall 2020

Shikha Bhattacharjee, the Subir Chowdhury Fellow for 2019, was awarded a prestigious grant from the National Science Foundation in support of her doctoral dissertation research.

In an effort to shed some light on the impact of the corona virus in Bangladesh, the Chowdhury Center organized a panel dicussion led by Dr. Sanchita Saxena featuring medical anthropologist Dr. Sabina Rashid, political scientist Prof. Ali Riaz, development sociologist Prof. Naomi Hossain, and Mabrur Ahmed and Rahima Begum of Restless Beings. See a recording of the event here>>

Following the alarming drop in consumption worldwide due to the COVID-19 crisis, many major brands have walked away from their contractual obligations. Many local factories in Bangladesh are unable to pay their workers, being forced to close, and creating the prospect of mass unemployment. Buyers are blaming the markets; local manufacturers are claiming to be helpless; workers are seeking justice.

Join us on Friday, February 7, 2020 for a day-long conference titled Beyond the Crisis Narrative: Rohingya Statelessness and its implications for Bangladesh, and hear from scholars, activists, and members of the community as they grapple with the Rohingya crisis. Featuring a keynote address by Hannah Beech, Southeast Asia Bureau Chief, The New York Times.

The Chowdhury Center mourns the passing of Sir Fazle Hasan Abed. We were privileged to have him inaugurate the Center on March 30, 2015. 

Edited by Chowdhury Center Director, Dr. Sanchita B. Saxena, "Labor, Global Supply Chains, and the Garment Industry in South Asia" book argues that larger flaws in the global supply chain must first be addressed to change the way business is conducted to prevent factory owners from taking deadly risks to meet clients’ demands in the garment industry in Bangladesh.  Read our South Asia Research Note (SARN) on it HERE

Edited by Chowdhury Center Director, Dr. Sanchita B. Saxena, this book argues that larger flaws in the global supply chain must first be addressed to change the way business is conducted to prevent factory owners from taking deadly risks to meet clients’ demands in the garment industry in Bangladesh. Using the 2013 Rana Plaza disaster as a departure point, and to prevent such tragedies from occurring in the future, this book presents an interdisciplinary analysis to address the disaster which resulted in a radical change in the functioning of the garment industry.

The Chowdhury Center in collaboration with the Institute for South Asia Studies and the South Asia Art Initiative at UC Berkeley is thrilled to announce that a team of specialists from UC Berkeley will be representing Cal at the 2020 Dhaka Art Summit. The interdisciplinary program, titled, "Indian Ocean Imaginaries as World History," will be led by historian Dr Munis D.

The Chowdhury Center, in collaboration with the The South Asia Centre at the London School of Economics and Political Science, are co-organizing the second Bangladesh Summit to be held at UC Berkeley on February, 22, 2019. The first of its kind, the goal of this conference series is to understand the significant issues confronting the nation from multiple perspectives, and to identify ways forward to address them in contemporary times.

Since August 2017, Burmese security forces have been carrying out a campaign of ethnic cleansing against Rohingya Muslims in Rakhine State forcing over half a million of them to flee to neighboring Bangladesh to escape killings, arson, and other atrocities. This mass migration has resulted in one of the worst humanitarian crises of our time.  The Chowdhury Center, in a attempt to inderstand this, has launched a Rohingya crisis working group in which students, researchers, and practitioners are invited to develop ideas and collaborations to further our collective work related to the Ro

LSE South Asia Centre and the Chowdhury Center jointly organised the first-ever LSE-UC Berkeley Bangladesh Summit in June 2018.

The Chowdhury Center is delighted to announce that Lauren Glasby, Marylin Wang Longley, and Lorraine Pereira have been awarded the Outstanding Paper Prize in Bangladesh Studies for 2018 for their paper titled, "Female Political Empowerment in Bangladesh and Pakistan: The Influence of Economic Participation." Click HERE to read more about the winners as well as for an abstract of their winning paper.

Initiatives targeting working conditions in Cambodia, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka have sometimes been cited as the way forward to address issues of health and safety of workers.