This paper is about Digital Bangladesh and its impacts on national politics of Bangladesh. After a brief background and aims of Digital Bangladesh, this paper presents sector wise key achievements of Digital Bangladesh. Later it scrutinizes the impacts of digitalization on national politics. This paper discusses the impacts focusing on (a) changes in the nature of movements and issues involved with movements, (b) changes in the nature of parliamentary election. Finally, before a brief conclusion, this paper examines the challenges for Bangladesh. This section divides the challenges in to broad category; (a) challenges for Digital Bangladesh, means hindrances to digitalization, and (b) challenges for national politics, including sociopolitical movements and parliamentary politics.

1. Digital Bangladesh: Impacts on
National Politics
Presented by:
Md. Saiful Islam
Roll No: BE-114
Dept. of International Relations
University of Dhaka.

2. Digital Bangladesh
 It refers to an e-state where all its activities of
governance, commerce, education, agriculture
etc will be powered by digital instruments;
computer and internet. It’s a political vision of
Bangladesh for the year 2021, the golden
jubilee of the nation.
Digital Bangladesh is a blessing of globalization.

3. Background of Digital Bangladesh
• On the eve of the Ninth National Parliamentary
Election on 29 December, 2008, Bangladesh
Awami League, one of the major political parties,
first declared the Vision-2021 with the aim to turn
Bangladesh into a digital country by the next
decade.
• Under the leadership of AL government
Bangladesh is now on the track of digitalization.

4. Digital Bangladesh for what?
 Four Aims:
• Developing human resources ready for the 21
century
• Connecting people
• Taking services to the nationals’ doorways
• Making the private sector and market more
productive and competitive through the use of
information technology.

5. Key achievements of Digital Bangladesh
 Education Sector
- Online Form Fill Up
- Distributing books among the students at the
first day of the year
- ICT as mandatory subject & multimedia
classroom.
- e-library, e-book & distance learning
- Easy access to higher education

6. Key achievements of Digital Bangladesh
 ICT Sector:
- Tele-communication for all
- Online information centers
- Affordable internet & bandwidth price
- 3G & 4G services
- IT Parks and Hi-tech parks
- BANGABANDHU-1 Satellite

7. Key achievements of Digital Bangladesh
 Commerce Sector
- E-commerce
- Ready Made Garments (RMG)
- Online & mobile Banking
- Online Shopping & Marketing
- Web Hosting, Domain
- Online Transportation System, Hotel
Management and Tourism etc.

8. Key achievements of Digital Bangladesh
 E-governance
- Digital Info Centers in local units of
governance
- Information Portals in all 64 Districts
- Disaster early warning through mobile
network.
- All 64 DC offices, PMO and Cabinet being
connected with video conferencing

9. Digital Bangladesh: Impacts on
National Politics
Changing Nature of Movement:
• Increasing role & influence of Social Media
- tool of planning, gathering & platform of
movement
Case: Quota Reform Movement & Movement for
Road Safety
• Instant and huge media coverage
• Instant Reaction
• Propaganda

10. Digital Bangladesh: Impacts on
National Politics
 Changing Nature of National Politics:
• Celebrities and business figures involvement in politics
• Rising influence of business elites
• Rising interest of young generations in politics
• Social media as an instrument of electoral campaigning
• Use of EVM
• Public pressure on policy making
Cases: Rohingya Issues & India-Bangladesh relations.

11. Challenges for Digital Bangladesh
 Challenges of Digitalization:
• Lack of resources & infrastructures
• Lack of technology & knowledge
• Lack of skill Manpower
• Rising Cyber crimes & insecurity
• Digital divide

12. Challenges for Digital Bangladesh
 Challenges for Politics
• Section 57 of the ICT act, 2017
• Call tracking & expose to social media
• Apolitical sentiment
• Lack of trust & solidarity
• Extremism
• Fake news & propaganda

13. Thank You!