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117-656: The Parbatya Chattagram Jana Samhati Samiti ( Bengali : পার্বত্য চট্টগ্রাম জনসংহতি সমিতি ; United People's Committee of the Chittagong Hill Tracts ; abbreviated PCJSS ) is a left wing political party formed to represent the people and indigenous tribes of the Chittagong Hill Tracts in Bangladesh. Since its inception in 1972, the PCJSS has fought for autonomy and the recognition of
234-693: A captain in the Pakistan Army . After marriage, she changed her name to Khaleda Zia, by taking her husband's first name as her surname. She reportedly enrolled in Surendranath College in Dinajpur, but moved to West Pakistan to stay with her husband in 1965. Her husband was deployed as an army officer during the Indo-Pakistani War of 1965 . In March 1969, the couple shifted back to East Pakistan. Due to Rahman's posting in
351-467: A 100-day programme to fulfill most of her election pledges to the nation. During this term, the share of domestic resources in economic development efforts grew. Bangladesh began to attract a higher level of international investment for development of the country's infrastructure, energy resources and businesses, including from the United States, Great Britain, and Japan. Restoration of law and order
468-666: A backdrop of political bickering, protests and polarisation that threatened the economy. Officially on 26 December 2006, all political parties joined the planned 22 January 2007 elections. The Awami League pulled out at the last minute, and in January, the military intervened to back the caretaker government for a longer interim period. It held power until holding general elections in December 2008. Talks in China related to trade and prospective Chinese investment in Bangladesh, particularly
585-500: A bid to lessen this burden on young learners, efforts have been made by educational institutions in the two main Bengali-speaking regions (West Bengal and Bangladesh) to address the opaque nature of many consonant clusters, and as a result, modern Bengali textbooks are beginning to contain more and more "transparent" graphical forms of consonant clusters, in which the constituent consonants of a cluster are readily apparent from
702-537: A different word from a speaker of Standard Bengali in Bangladesh, even though both words are of native Bengali descent. For example, the word salt is লবণ lôbôṇ in the east which corresponds to নুন nun in the west. Bengali exhibits diglossia , though some scholars have proposed triglossia or even n-glossia or heteroglossia between the written and spoken forms of the language. Two styles of writing have emerged, involving somewhat different vocabularies and syntax : Linguist Prabhat Ranjan Sarkar categorises
819-480: A diphthong. The total number of diphthongs is not established, with bounds at 17 and 31. An incomplete chart is given by Sarkar (1985) of the following: In standard Bengali, stress is predominantly initial. Bengali words are virtually all trochaic ; the primary stress falls on the initial syllable of the word, while secondary stress often falls on all odd-numbered syllables thereafter, giving strings such as in সহযোগিতা shô -hô- jo -gi- ta "cooperation", where
936-406: A few weeks after February 1996 and third term was from October 2001 to October 2006. She is particularly remembered for her role in making education accessible and introducing some key economic reforms. A neutral caretaker government in Bangladesh oversaw elections on 27 February 1991 following eight years of Ershad presidency. BNP won 140 seats – 11 short of simple majority. Zia was sworn in as
1053-512: A full day hartal on 27 September 1984. The protests continued in 1985 as well and as a result, in March of the same year, Ershad-led government tightened the grip of martial law and put Begum Khaleda Zia under house arrest. To divert the political pressure, Lt. General Ershad declared a date for a fresh election in 1986. Initially, the two major opposition alliances, '7 party alliance' led by BNP and '15 party alliance' led by Awami League discussed
1170-553: A half-day strike on 10 November of the same year only to be put under house arrest again. On 24 January 1987, when Sheikh Hasina joined the parliament session with other Awami League leaders, Khaleda Zia was on the street demanding the dissolution of the parliament. She called for a mass rally in Dhaka which turned violent and top leaders of BNP were arrested. After that, a series of strikes were organized by 7 party alliance led by Khaleda Zia from February to July 1987. On 22 October of
1287-483: A landslide victory in the 6th Jatiya Sangshad . Other major parties demanded a neutral caretaker government to be appointed to oversee the elections. The short-lived parliament hastily introduced the caretaker government by passing the 13th amendment to the constitution. The parliament was dissolved to pave the way for parliamentary elections within 90 days. In the 12 June 1996 elections , BNP lost to Sheikh Hasina's Awami League . Winning 116 seats, BNP emerged as
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#17327720173401404-692: A large scale and were communally limited. Owing to Bengal's geographic location, Bengali areas bordering non-Bengali regions have been influenced by each other. Small numbers of people in Midnapore , which borders Odisha , have used the Odia script to write in Bengali. In the border areas between West Bengal and Bihar , some Bengali communities historically wrote Bengali in Devanagari , Kaithi and Tirhuta . In Sylhet and Bankura , modified versions of
1521-519: A mainstream political party. Since the peace accord, the PCJSS has emerged as a mainstream political party and is currently headed by Jyotirindra Bodhipriya Larma , the younger brother of Manabendra Narayan Larma, who is also the chairman of the CHT regional council. The PCJSS has continued to agitate for the full and proper implementation of the peace accord and has alleged lack of government action and intimidation from security forces. The PCJSS has protested
1638-409: A major story praising her achievements. Her government worked to educate young girls (nearly 70% of Bangladeshi women were illiterate) and distribute food to the poor (half of Bangladesh's 135 million people lived below the poverty line). Her government promoted strong GDP growth (5%) based on economic reforms and support of an entrepreneurial culture. When Zia became prime minister for the third time,
1755-682: A majority in Bangladesh speaks dialects notably different from SCB. Some dialects, particularly those of the Chittagong region, bear only a superficial resemblance to SCB. The dialect in the Chittagong region is least widely understood by the general body of Bengalis. The majority of Bengalis are able to communicate in more than one variety – often, speakers are fluent in Cholitobhasha (SCB) and one or more regional dialects. Even in SCB,
1872-630: A member of Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) – the party, which was founded by Rahman. She took charge of the vice-chairman position in March 1983. In March 1982, the then chief of Bangladesh Army, Hussain Muhammad Ershad forced Bangladesh's BNP President Justice Abdus Sattar to resign and become the Chief Martial Law Administrator (CMLA) of the country. This marked the beginning of a nine-year-long military dictatorship in Bangladesh. Begum Khaleda Zia, from
1989-460: A movement against Ershad. On 30 September 1983, Begum Khaleda Zia led the first major public rally in front of the party office and was hailed by the party workers. On 28 November 1983, she took part in the "gherao movement" (encircling) of the Secretariat building at Dhaka along with the alliance leaders, which was quelled by Ershad's ruthless police force and she was put under house arrest on
2106-621: A part in the adoption of the English alphabet to write Bengali, with certain social media influencers publishing entire novels in Roman Bengali. Khaleda Zia Begum Khaleda Zia (born August–September 1945) is a Bangladeshi politician, who served as the Prime Minister of Bangladesh from 1991 to 1996 and again from 2001 to 2006. She was the first female prime minister of Bangladesh and second female prime minister in
2223-576: A rounded total of 280 million) worldwide. The Bengali language is native to the region of Bengal , which comprises the present-day nation of Bangladesh and the Indian state of West Bengal . Besides the native region it is also spoken by the Bengalis living in Tripura , southern Assam and the Bengali population in the Indian union territory of Andaman and Nicobar Islands . Bengali is also spoken in
2340-408: A special diacritic, called the hôsôntô (্) , may be added below the basic consonant grapheme (as in ম্ [m] ). This diacritic, however, is not common and is chiefly employed as a guide to pronunciation. The abugida nature of Bengali consonant graphemes is not consistent, however. Often, syllable-final consonant graphemes, though not marked by a hôsôntô , may carry no inherent vowel sound (as in
2457-581: A state language of the then Dominion of Pakistan . On 21 February 1952, five students and political activists were killed during protests near the campus of the University of Dhaka ; they were the first ever martyrs to die for their right to speak their mother tongue. In 1956, Bengali was made a state language of Pakistan. 21 February has since been observed as Language Movement Day in Bangladesh and has also been commemorated as International Mother Language Day by UNESCO every year since 2000. In 2010,
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#17327720173402574-463: A vowel in isolation from any preceding or following consonant, the independent form of the vowel is used. For example, in মই [moj] "ladder" and in ইলিশ [iliʃ] "Hilsa fish", the independent form of the vowel ই is used (cf. the dependent form ি) . A vowel at the beginning of a word is always realised using its independent form. In addition to the inherent-vowel-suppressing hôsôntô , three more diacritics are commonly used in Bengali. These are
2691-500: Is Bangladesh's national march, written by The National Poet Kazi Nazrul Islam in Bengali in 1928. It was adopted as the national marching song by the Bangladeshi government in 1972. Additionally, the first two verses of Vande Mataram , a patriotic song written in Bengali by Bankim Chandra Chatterjee , was adopted as the "national song" of India in both the colonial period and later in 1950 in independent India. Furthermore, it
2808-547: Is a classical Indo-Aryan language from the Indo-European language family native to the Bengal region of South Asia. With over 237 million native speakers and another 41 million as second language speakers as of 2024, Bengali is the fifth most spoken native language and the seventh most spoken language by the total number of speakers in the world. It is the fifth most spoken Indo-European language . Bengali
2925-468: Is a cursive script with eleven graphemes or signs denoting nine vowels and two diphthongs , and thirty-nine graphemes representing consonants and other modifiers. There are no distinct upper and lower case letter forms. The letters run from left to right and spaces are used to separate orthographic words . Bengali script has a distinctive horizontal line running along the tops of the graphemes that links them together called মাত্রা matra . Since
3042-512: Is also informally prohibited from making political moves, as doing so would result in re-imprisonment. In September 2022, the 6-month period suspension of her sentence was granted for the sixth consecutive time. She remained in Dhaka Central Jail from 2018 to 2020 and later conditionally freed for medical treatment until 5 August 2024, after a mass uprising resulted in incumbent prime minister Hasina fleeing to India and
3159-400: Is an abugida , a script with letters for consonants, with diacritics for vowels, and in which an inherent vowel (অ ô ) is assumed for consonants if no vowel is marked. The Bengali alphabet is used throughout Bangladesh and eastern India (Assam, West Bengal, Tripura). The Bengali alphabet is believed to have evolved from a modified Brahmic script around 1000 CE (or 10th–11th century). It
3276-707: Is believed by many that the national anthem of Sri Lanka ( Sri Lanka Matha ) was inspired by a Bengali poem written by Rabindranath Tagore , while some even believe the anthem was originally written in Bengali and then translated into Sinhala . After the contribution made by the Bangladesh UN Peacekeeping Force in the Sierra Leone Civil War under the United Nations Mission in Sierra Leone ,
3393-721: Is considered a separate language, although it shares similarities to Northern Bengali dialects. During the standardisation of Bengali in the 19th century and early 20th century, the cultural centre of Bengal was in Kolkata , a city founded by the British. What is accepted as the standard form today in both West Bengal and Bangladesh is based on the West-Central dialect of Nadia and Kushtia District . There are cases where speakers of Standard Bengali in West Bengal will use
3510-495: Is greatly admired by the people of a country where politics is generally an unabashed pursuit of power and personal aggrandizement. From the moment Khaleda was installed as the leader of the BNP, she has publicly remained opposed to participation in any election held while Ershad was in power. Her popularity soared after she boycotted the polls in 1986. Later in that year, on the eve of 1986 Bangladeshi presidential election , Khaleda Zia
3627-404: Is known as Apabhraṃśa , by the end of the first millennium. The Bengali language evolved as a distinct language over the course of time. Though some archaeologists claim that some 10th-century texts were in Bengali, it is not certain whether they represent a differentiated language or whether they represent a stage when Eastern Indo-Aryan languages were differentiating. The local Apabhraṃśa of
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3744-490: Is set out below in the International Phonetic Alphabet (upper grapheme in each box) and romanisation (lower grapheme). Bengali is known for its wide variety of diphthongs , combinations of vowels occurring within the same syllable . Two of these, /oi̯/ and /ou̯/ , are the only ones with representation in script, as ঐ and ঔ respectively. /e̯ i̯ o̯ u̯/ may all form the glide part of
3861-555: Is the official , national , and most widely spoken language of Bangladesh , with 98% of Bangladeshis using Bengali as their first language. It is the second-most widely spoken language in India . It is the official language of the Indian states of West Bengal and Tripura and the Barak Valley region of the state of Assam . It is also the second official language of the Indian state of Jharkhand since September 2011. It
3978-508: Is the most widely spoken language in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands in the Bay of Bengal , and is spoken by significant populations in other states including Bihar , Arunachal Pradesh , Delhi , Chhattisgarh , Meghalaya , Mizoram , Nagaland , Odisha and Uttarakhand . Bengali is also spoken by the Bengali diasporas ( Bangladeshi diaspora and Indian Bengalis) across Europe, North America,
4095-509: The Aesop's Fables in Bengali was printed using Roman letters based on English phonology by the Scottish linguist John Gilchrist . Consecutive attempts to establish a Roman Bengali have continued across every century since these times, and have been supported by the likes of Suniti Kumar Chatterji , Muhammad Qudrat-i-Khuda , and Muhammad Enamul Haq . The Digital Revolution has also played
4212-675: The Arabic , Persian , and Turkic languages . The arrival of merchants and traders from the Middle East and Turkestan into the Buddhist -ruling Pala Empire , from as early as the 7th century, gave birth to Islamic influence in the region. In the 13th century, subsequent Arab Muslim and Turco-Persian expeditions to Bengal heavily influenced the local vernacular by settling among the native population. Bengali absorbed Arabic and Persian influences in its vocabulary and dialect, including
4329-764: The Bangladesh President issuing a release order of Zia. Khaleda Khanam "Putul" was born in 1945 in Jalpaiguri in the then undivided Dinajpur District in Bengal Presidency , British India (now in Jalpaiguri District , India) but her ancestral home is in Fulgazi , Feni She was the third of five children of tea-businessman father Iskandar Ali Majumder, who was from Fulgazi, Feni District and mother Taiyaba Majumder , who
4446-529: The Bengali culture and the Bengali language and designating all citizens of Bangladesh as Bengalis . In talks with Hill Tracts delegation led by Manabendra Narayan Larma, the country's founding leader Sheikh Mujibur Rahman insisted that the ethnic groups of the Hill Tracts adopt the Bengali identity. Sheikh Mujib is also reported to have threatened to forcibly settle Bengalis in the Hill Tracts to reduce
4563-474: The Constitution of Bangladesh states Bengali to be the sole official language of Bangladesh. The Bengali Language Implementation Act, 1987 , made it mandatory to use Bengali in all records and correspondences, laws, proceedings of court and other legal actions in all courts, government or semi-government offices, and autonomous institutions in Bangladesh. It is also the de facto national language of
4680-477: The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade in 1993. A new export processing zone was established near Dhaka in 1993 to attract foreign investors. The First Khaleda Zia government, to address popular demand, passed a law to allow the mayors of city corporations to be elected directly by the voters. Before that, the elected ward councilors of each ward of the city corporation used to elect the mayor of
4797-579: The Kaithi script had some historical prominence, mainly among Muslim communities. The variant in Sylhet was identical to the Baitali Kaithi script of Hindustani with the exception of Sylhet Nagri possessing matra . Sylhet Nagri was standardised for printing in c. 1869 . Up until the 19th century, numerous variations of the Arabic script had been used across Bengal from Chittagong in
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4914-595: The Muslim world , after Benazir Bhutto . She is the widow of one of the former President of Bangladesh , Ziaur Rahman . She is the chairperson and leader of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) since 1984, which was founded by her husband in 1978. Born in a Muslim family in Jalpaiguri , Khaleda came to national attention as the First Lady of Bangladesh after her husband Rahman became
5031-524: The Nadia region . Bengali shows a high degree of diglossia , with the literary and standard form differing greatly from the colloquial speech of the regions that identify with the language. Modern Bengali vocabulary is based on words inherited from Magadhi Prakrit and Pali, along with tatsamas and reborrowings from Sanskrit and borrowings from Persian , Arabic , Austroasiatic languages and other languages with which it has historically been in contact. In
5148-655: The Parbatya Chattagram Upajatiya Kalyan Samiti (United People's Welfare and Development Committee of the Chittagong Hill Tracts) that were organised in the 1960s in what was then- East Pakistan . The organisations agitated on behalf of the 100,000 native peoples displaced by the construction of the Kaptai Dam , seeking rehabilitation and compensation. After the creation of Bangladesh in 1971, representatives of
5265-607: The University of Karachi (established by East Pakistani politicians before Independence of Bangladesh ) also offers regular programs of studies at the Bachelors and at the Masters levels for Bengali Literature. The national anthems of both Bangladesh ( Amar Sonar Bangla ) and India ( Jana Gana Mana ) were written in Bengali by the Bengali Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore . Notuner Gaan known as " Chol Chol Chol"
5382-499: The boldface represents primary and secondary stress. Native Bengali words do not allow initial consonant clusters ; the maximum syllabic structure is CVC (i.e., one vowel flanked by a consonant on each side). Many speakers of Bengali restrict their phonology to this pattern, even when using Sanskrit or English borrowings, such as গেরাম geram (CV.CVC) for গ্রাম gram (CCVC) "village" or ইস্কুল iskul (VC.CVC) for স্কুল skul (CCVC) "school". The Bengali-Assamese script
5499-557: The phonology of Eastern Bengali is seen through the lack of nasalised vowels and an alveolar articulation of what are categorised as the "cerebral" consonants (as opposed to the postalveolar articulation of western Bengal). Some varieties of Bengali, particularly Sylheti , Chittagonian and Chakma , have contrastive tone ; differences in the pitch of the speaker's voice can distinguish words. Kharia Thar and Mal Paharia are closely related to Western Bengali dialects, but are typically classified as separate languages. Similarly, Hajong
5616-464: The 'Demand Day' and 14 February as 'Protest Day'. Country-wide rallies were organized on those days and activists of the movement died on the streets fighting the ruthless police force loyal to President Ershad. The 7-party alliance held a countrywide 'Mass Resistance Day' on 9 July 1984, In support of their demand for the immediate withdrawal of Martial Law, the opposition forces called the countrywide gherao and demonstrations from 16 to 20 September and
5733-623: The 16th century, Portuguese missionaries began a tradition of using the Roman alphabet to transcribe the Bengali language. Though the Portuguese standard did not receive much growth, a few Roman Bengali works relating to Christianity and Bengali grammar were printed as far as Lisbon in 1743. The Portuguese were followed by the English and French respectively, whose works were mostly related to Bengali grammar and transliteration. The first version of
5850-465: The 1980s, Zia's chief rival has been Awami League leader Sheikh Hasina. Since 1991, they have been the only two serving as the prime minister of Bangladesh. Following the end of her government's term in 2006, the scheduled January 2007 elections were delayed due to political violence and in-fighting, resulting in a bloodless military takeover of the caretaker government. During its interim rule, it charged Zia and her two sons with corruption. Bangladesh
5967-598: The 19th and 20th centuries, there were two standard forms of written Bengali: In 1948, the government of Pakistan tried to impose Urdu as the sole state language in Pakistan, giving rise to the Bengali language movement . This was a popular ethnolinguistic movement in the former East Bengal (today Bangladesh ), which arose as a result of the strong linguistic consciousness of the Bengalis and their desire to promote and protect spoken and written Bengali's recognition as
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#17327720173406084-593: The 6th century, which competed with the ancestor of Bengali for some time. The ancestor of Bengali was the language of the Pala Empire and the Sena dynasty . During the medieval period, Middle Bengali was characterised by the elision of the word-final অ ô and the spread of compound verbs, which originated from the Sanskrit Schwa . Slowly, the word-final ô disappeared from many words influenced by
6201-456: The Bengali equivalent of a full stop – have been adopted from Western scripts and their usage is similar. Unlike in Western scripts (Latin, Cyrillic, etc.) where the letter forms stand on an invisible baseline, the Bengali letter-forms instead hang from a visible horizontal left-to-right headstroke called মাত্রা matra . The presence and absence of this matra can be important. For example,
6318-426: The Bengali script is an abugida, its consonant graphemes usually do not represent phonetic segments , but carry an "inherent" vowel and thus are syllabic in nature. The inherent vowel is usually a back vowel , either [ɔ] as in মত [m ɔ t] "opinion" or [o] , as in মন [m o n] "mind", with variants like the more open [ɒ] . To emphatically represent a consonant sound without any inherent vowel attached to it,
6435-550: The Chittagong Hill Tracts such as the Chakma politicians Charu Bikash Chakma and Manabendra Narayan Larma sought autonomy and recognition of the rights of the peoples of the region. Larma and others protested the draft of the Constitution of Bangladesh , although the Constitution recognised the ethnic identity but Larma and others wanted full sovereignty and separation from Bangladesh. The government policy of recognised only
6552-511: The GDP growth rate of Bangladesh remained above 6 percent. The Bangladesh per capita national income rose to 482 dollars. Foreign exchange reserve of Bangladesh had crossed 3 billion dollars from the previous 1 billion dollars. The foreign direct investments of Bangladesh had risen to 2.5 billion dollars. The industrial sector of the GDP had exceeded 17 percent at the end of Zia's office. On 29 October 2006, Zia's term in office ended. In accordance with
6669-520: The Middle East and other regions. Bengali was accorded the status of a classical language by the government of India on 3 October 2024. It is the second most spoken and fourth fastest growing language in India , following Hindi in the first place, Kashmiri in the second place, and Meitei ( Manipuri ), along with Gujarati , in the third place, according to the 2011 census of India . Bengali has developed over more than 1,400 years. Bengali literature , with its millennium-old literary history,
6786-552: The PCJSS entered into peace talks with the government after the restoration of democracy in 1991. However, little progress was made with the government of prime minister Khaleda Zia and her Bangladesh Nationalist Party . Fresh rounds of talks began in 1996 with the newly elected prime minister Sheikh Hasina Wajed of the Awami League , the daughter of Sheikh Mujib. The peace accord was finalised and formally signed on 2 December 1997. The peace accord provided for greater autonomy,
6903-591: The SSC examination and the rate was 30.11% for female. In 1995, thanks to her policies, 73.2% students passed the SSC examination and among the female students, 71.58% passed. Some of the major economic reforms marked the First Khaleda Zia government, that included the introduction of Value Added Tax (VAT), formulation of Bank Company Act in 1991 and Financial Institutions Act in 1993, and the establishment of privatization board in 1993. Besides, Bangladesh signed
7020-510: The army, the family then moved to Chittagong . Zia's first son, Tarique Rahman (b. 1967), got involved into politics and went on to become the acting chairman of Bangladesh Nationalist Party . Her second son, Arafat Rahman "Koko" (b. 1969), died of a cardiac arrest in 2015. Zia's sister, Khurshid Jahan (1939–2006) served as the Minister of Women and Children Affairs during 2001–2006. Her younger brother, Sayeed Iskander (1953–2012),
7137-536: The basis of modern standard colloquial Bengali. In the dialects prevalent in much of eastern and south-eastern Bangladesh ( Barisal , Chittagong , Dhaka and Sylhet Divisions of Bangladesh), many of the stops and affricates heard in West Bengal and western Bangladesh are pronounced as fricatives . Western alveolo-palatal affricates চ [ tɕɔ ] , ছ [ tɕʰɔ ] , জ [ dʑɔ ] correspond to eastern চ [tsɔ] , ছ [tsʰɔ~sɔ] , জ [dzɔ~zɔ] . The influence of Tibeto-Burman languages on
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#17327720173407254-717: The city. Zia's administration abolished the Upazila system in November 1991. It formed the Local Government Structure Review Commission, which recommended a two-tier system of local government, district and union councils. Also the Thana Development and Coordination Committee was formed to coordinate development activities at the thana level. When the opposition boycotted the 15 February 1996 election , Zia's party BNP had
7371-469: The consonant which comes first is put on top of or to the left of the one that immediately follows. In these ligatures, the shapes of the constituent consonant signs are often contracted and sometimes even distorted beyond recognition. In the Bengali writing system, there are nearly 285 such ligatures denoting consonant clusters. Although there exist a few visual formulas to construct some of these ligatures, many of them have to be learned by rote. Recently, in
7488-503: The constitution, a caretaker government would manage in the 90-day interim before general elections. On the eve of the last day, rioting broke out on the streets of central Dhaka due to uncertainty over, who would become Chief Advisor (head of the Caretaker Government of Bangladesh ). Under the constitution, the immediate past Chief Justice was to be appointed. But, Chief Justice Khondokar Mahmud Hasan (K M Hasan) declined
7605-603: The country's first female prime minister on 20 March 1991 with the support of a majority of the deputies in parliament. The acting president Shahabuddin Ahmed granted Zia nearly all of the powers that were vested in the president at the time, effectively returning Bangladesh to a parliamentary system. With a unanimous vote, the parliament passed the 12th amendment to the constitution in August 1991, formally ending 16 years of presidential rule. When Begum Khaleda Zia took charge in 1991, Bangladeshi children received about two years of education on average, and for every three boys, there
7722-455: The country. In India, Bengali is one of the 23 official languages . It is the official language of the Indian states of West Bengal , Tripura and in Barak Valley of Assam . Bengali has been a second official language of the Indian state of Jharkhand since September 2011. In Pakistan , Bengali is a recognised secondary language in the city of Karachi mainly spoken by stranded Bengalis of Pakistan . The Department of Bengali in
7839-440: The country. By 1990, Chatra Dal took control of 270 out of 321 student unions of the country, riding on the popularity of Khaleda Zia. They also won all the posts of Dhaka University Central Students' Union in 1990. The new committee of DUCSU led by Amanullah Aman declared fresh programmes to overthrow Ershad in line with BNP's programmes. On 10 October 1990, in a violent turn of events Chatra Dal leader Naziruddin Jehad died on
7956-430: The development of Dobhashi . Bengali acquired prominence, over Persian, in the court of the Sultans of Bengal with the ascent of Jalaluddin Muhammad Shah . Subsequent Muslim rulers actively promoted the literary development of Bengali, allowing it to become the most spoken vernacular language in the Sultanate. Bengali adopted many words from Arabic and Persian , which was a manifestation of Islamic culture on
8073-410: The east to Meherpur in the west. The 14th-century court scholar of Bengal, Nur Qutb Alam , composed Bengali poetry using the Persian alphabet . After the Partition of India in the 20th century, the Pakistani government attempted to institute the Perso-Arabic script as the standard for Bengali in East Pakistan ; this was met with resistance and contributed to the Bengali language movement. In
8190-443: The eastern subcontinent, Purbi Apabhraṃśa or Abahatta (lit. 'meaningless sounds'), eventually evolved into regional dialects, which in turn formed three groups, the Bengali–Assamese languages , the Bihari languages , and the Odia language . The language was not static: different varieties coexisted and authors often wrote in multiple dialects in this period. For example, Ardhamagadhi is believed to have evolved into Abahatta around
8307-454: The election only to lose to the Jatiya Party of Ershad. Begum Khaleda Zia's uncompromising attitude and her defiance to the military dictatorship made an image of an "Uncompromising leader" in the eyes of people. Gowher Rizvi in his analysis wrote: The ability to stand up against governmental oppression, to boycott elections, to refuse offices of profit, or to suffer imprisonment are considered evidence of personal sacrifices something which
8424-409: The election under Ershad, resulting in the split between the 15 party alliance, On the other hand, Begum Khaleda Zia uncompromisingly declared the election illegal and urged people to resist the election. The government of Ershad put her under house arrest on the eve of the election while Awami League , Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami , Communist Party of Bangladesh and other smaller parties took part in
8541-609: The ethnic identity and rights of the indigenous tribes of the Hill Tracts. Its military arm, the Shanti Bahini was used to fight government forces and Bengali settlers in the Hill Tracts. A peace accord was signed in 1997 led to the disarmament of the Shanti Bahini and enabled the PCJSS to return to mainstream politics. The roots of the PCJSS can be traced to the Hill Tracts Students' Association and
8658-524: The fight against extremism . Indian officials announced they had come to agreement with her to pursue a common geopolitical doctrine in the greater region to discourage terrorists. Former Bangladesh Bank governor Fakhruddin Ahmed became the Chief Adviser to the interim caretaker government on 12 January 2007. In March, Zia's eldest son, Tarique Rahman, was arrested for corruption. Enforcing
8775-466: The final ন in মন [m o n] or the medial ম in গামলা [ɡamla] ). A consonant sound followed by some vowel sound other than the inherent [ɔ] is orthographically realised by using a variety of vowel allographs above, below, before, after, or around the consonant sign, thus forming the ubiquitous consonant-vowel typographic ligatures . These allographs, called কার kar , are diacritical vowel forms and cannot stand on their own. For example,
8892-543: The first day of Ershad's rule, protested the military dictatorship and had a very uncompromising stance. She became the Senior Vice-President of BNP by May 1983. Under her active leadership, BNP started discussing the possibilities of a unified movement with six other parties on 12 August 1983 and formed a ' 7 party alliance ' by the first week of September 1983. BNP, led by Khaleda Zia also reached an action-based agreement with other political parties to launch
9009-670: The government of Ahmad Tejan Kabbah declared Bengali as an honorary official language in December 2002. In 2009, elected representatives in both Bangladesh and West Bengal called for Bengali to be made an official language of the United Nations . Regional varieties in spoken Bengali constitute a dialect continuum . Linguist Suniti Kumar Chatterji grouped the dialects of Bengali language into four large clusters: Rarhi , Vangiya , Kamrupi and Varendri ; but many alternative grouping schemes have also been proposed. The south-western dialects ( Rarhi or Nadia dialect) form
9126-499: The graph মি [mi] represents the consonant [m] followed by the vowel [i] , where [i] is represented as the diacritical allograph ি (called ই-কার i-kar ) and is placed before the default consonant sign. Similarly, the graphs মা [ma] , মী [mi] , মু [mu] , মূ [mu] , মৃ [mri] , মে [me~mɛ] , মৈ [moj] , মো [mo] and মৌ [mow] represent the same consonant ম combined with seven other vowels and two diphthongs. In these consonant-vowel ligatures,
9243-412: The graphical form. However, since this change is not as widespread and is not being followed as uniformly in the rest of the Bengali printed literature, today's Bengali-learning children will possibly have to learn to recognise both the new "transparent" and the old "opaque" forms, which ultimately amounts to an increase in learning burden. Bengali punctuation marks, apart from the downstroke । daṛi –
9360-638: The issue of financing Padma Bridge . At the beginning of 2012, the World Bank , a major prospective financier, had withdrawn, accusing government ministers of graft. The BNP announced that the Chinese funding for a second Padma Bridge was confirmed during her visit. Zia's India visit was considered notable as BNP had been considered to have been anti-India compared to its rival Awami League. At her meeting with Prime Minister Singh, Zia said her party wanted to work with India for mutual benefit, including
9477-494: The language as: While most writing is in Standard Colloquial Bengali (SCB), spoken dialects exhibit a greater variety. People in southeastern West Bengal, including Kolkata, speak in SCB. Other dialects, with minor variations from Standard Colloquial, are used in other parts of West Bengal and western Bangladesh, such as the Midnapore dialect, characterised by some unique words and constructions. However,
9594-523: The language movement. Although Sanskrit has been spoken by Hindu Brahmins in Bengal since the 3rd century BC, the local Buddhist population spoke varieties of the Prakrit . These varieties are generally referred to as "eastern Magadhi Prakrit ", as coined by linguist Suniti Kumar Chatterji , as the Middle Indo-Aryan dialects were influential in the first millennium when Bengal
9711-547: The language. Major texts of Middle Bengali (1400–1800) include Yusuf-Zulekha by Shah Muhammad Sagir and Srikrishna Kirtana by the Chandidas poets. Court support for Bengali culture and language waned when the Mughal Empire conquered Bengal in the late 16th and early 17th century. The modern literary form of Bengali was developed during the 19th and early 20th centuries based on the west-central dialect spoken in
9828-620: The largest opposition party in the country's parliamentary history. The BNP formed a four-party alliance on 6 January 1999 to increase its chances to return to power in the next general elections. These included its former political foe the Jatiya Party , founded by President Ershad after he led a military government, and the Islamic parties of Jamaat-e-Islami Bangladesh and the Islami Oikya Jot . It encouraged protests against
9945-428: The letter ত tô and the numeral ৩ "3" are distinguishable only by the presence or absence of the matra , as is the case between the consonant cluster ত্র trô and the independent vowel এ e , also the letter হ hô and Bengali Ôbogroho ঽ (~ô) and letter ও o and consonant cluster ত্ত ttô . The letter-forms also employ the concepts of letter-width and letter-height (the vertical space between
10062-424: The native peoples into a minority. The PCJSS held its first national conference on 24 June 1972 at Indrapuri Cinema Hall of Rangamati town. A 60-member Central Committee of PCJSS was constituted with Birendra Kishore Roaza as president and M N Larma as the general secretary. On 24 April 1972, Manabendra Narayan Larma presented a four-point manifesto to the constitution drafting committee, which sought: The manifesto
10179-605: The neighbouring states of Odisha , Bihar , and Jharkhand , and sizeable minorities of Bengali speakers reside in Indian cities outside Bengal, including Delhi , Mumbai , Thane , Varanasi , and Vrindavan . There are also significant Bengali-speaking communities in the Middle East , the United States , Singapore , Malaysia , Australia , Canada , the United Kingdom , and Italy . The 3rd article of
10296-517: The parliament of Bangladesh and the legislative assembly of West Bengal proposed that Bengali be made an official UN language. As of January 2023, no further action has been yet taken on this matter. However, in 2022, the UN did adopt Bangla as an unofficial language, after a resolution tabled by India. In 2024, the government of India conferred Bengali with the status of classical language . Approximate distribution of native Bengali speakers (assuming
10413-551: The position. President Iajuddin Ahmed , as provided for in the constitution, assumed power as Chief Advisor on 29 October 2006. He tried to arrange elections and bring all political parties to the table during months of violence; 40 people were killed and hundreds injured in the first month after the government's resignation in November 2006. Mukhlesur Rahman Chowdhury , the presidential advisor, met with Zia and Sheikh Hasina, and other political parties to try to resolve issues and schedule elections. Negotiations continued against
10530-431: The possibilities of participating in the election forming a greater election alliance to catch Ershad off the guard. But Awami League refused to form any election alliance and Sheikh Hasina in a public rally declared anyone who would join the election under Ershad would be a 'national traitors', on 19 March 1986. However, Sheikh Hasina's Awami League , along with Communist Party of Bangladesh and six other parties, joined
10647-417: The president in 1977. After Rahman's assassination in 1981, Khaleda joined politics and came to lead the BNP. After a military coup in 1982, led by former army chief Lieutenant general Hussain Muhammad Ershad , She helped lead the movement for democracy until the fall of Ershad in 1990. She became the prime minister following the victory of BNP in the 1991 general election . She also served briefly in
10764-530: The return of land to displaced tribals and special status for the ethnic groups and tribes. The accord also created a central ministry of tribal affairs and an elected regional council that would be empowered to govern the Hill Tracts and oversee local tribal councils. The accord also granted official recognition of the ethnic groups and tribes. After the treaty was signed, Shanti Bahini insurgents formally laid down their arms and more than 50,000 displaced tribals were able to return to their homes. The PCJSS emerged as
10881-604: The rights of the people of the Hill Tracts. Many insurgents are believed to have trained, equipped and sheltered in the neighbouring Indian state of Tripura . During the insurgency, the PCJSS strongly opposed the government-driven settlement of Bengalis in the Hill Tracts as a ploy to marginalise the tribes in their home region. The PCJSS also rejected the Chittagong Hill Tracts Development Board and other government plans for local councils. After an insurgency that lasted for almost two decades,
10998-473: The rights, culture and ethnic identity, and autonomy for the tribes of the Hill Tracts. The PCJSS sought to unify and represent all the tribes of the Hill Tracts and also organised a committee of villages, a students and youth wing and a women's wing of the party. Dissatisfaction and anger due to government opposition to their demands led the PCJSS to organise the Shanti Bahini (Peace forces) as military force to launch an armed struggle to win autonomy and secure
11115-623: The rise of Islamism and Islamic terrorism in the region from groups based in Bangladesh and neighbouring Burma . JSS militants are alleged to have killed the first Muslim convert Omar Faruk Tripura , founder and Imam of a Masjid in Bandarban through whose hands 30 families became Muslims in his area. He was reported to be threatened by such militants because of preaching Islam and convincing people to be Muslim beforehand. Bengali language Bengali , also known by its endonym Bangla ( বাংলা , Bāṅlā , [ˈbaŋla] ),
11232-499: The ruling Awami League. Many residents strongly criticized Zia and BNP for allying with Jamaat-e-Islami, which had opposed the independence of Bangladesh in 1971. The four-party alliance participated in the 1 October 2001 general elections, winning two-thirds of the seats in parliament and 46% of the vote (compared to the principal opposition party's 40%). Zia was sworn in as the Prime Minister of Bangladesh. She worked on
11349-560: The same day. Due to the deteriorating health conditions, Justice Abdus Sattar resigned from the position of BNP chief on 13 January 1984 and was replaced by Begum Khaleda Zia who was then the Senior Vice President of the party. In May 1984, she was elected as the chairperson of the party in a council by the councilors. After assuming the position of party chief, Khaleda Zia spearheaded the movement against Ershad. In 1984, along with other parties, she declared 6 February as
11466-401: The short-lived government in 1996, when other parties had boycotted the first election because of election fraud accusations. In the next round of general elections of 1996 , the Awami League under Sheikh Hasina came to power. Her party came to power again in 2001. She has been elected to five separate parliamentary constituencies in the general elections of 1991, 1996 and 2001 . Since
11583-427: The so-called "inherent" vowel [ɔ] is first expunged from the consonant before adding the vowel, but this intermediate expulsion of the inherent vowel is not indicated in any visual manner on the basic consonant sign ম [mɔ] . The vowel graphemes in Bengali can take two forms: the independent form found in the basic inventory of the script and the dependent, abridged, allograph form (as discussed above). To represent
11700-412: The street of Dhaka that paved the way for a greater alliance between all the opposition forces. After two-month-long protests, the BNP led by Khaleda Zia, along with other political parties, compelled Ershad to offer his resignation on 4 December 1990. Begum Khaleda Zia served as the Prime Minister of Bangladesh for three times. Her first term was from March 1991 to February 1996, second term lasted for
11817-536: The superposed chôndrôbindu (ঁ) , denoting a suprasegmental for nasalisation of vowels (as in চাঁদ [tʃãd] "moon"), the postposed ônusbar (ং) indicating the velar nasal [ŋ] (as in বাংলা [baŋla] "Bengali") and the postposed bisôrgô (ঃ) indicating the voiceless glottal fricative [h] (as in উঃ! [uh] "ouch!") or the gemination of the following consonant (as in দুঃখ [dukʰːɔ] "sorrow"). The Bengali consonant clusters ( যুক্তব্যঞ্জন juktôbênjôn ) are usually realised as ligatures, where
11934-463: The suppression of political activity under the state of emergency, from 9 April, the government barred politicians from visiting Zia's residence. Her other son, Arafat Rahman (Coco), was arrested for corruption on 16 April. On 17 April, The Daily Star reported that Zia had agreed to go into exile with Arafat. Her family said, the Saudi Arabian government reportedly declined to allow her into
12051-491: The verdict for abusing power as the prime minister while disbursing a fund in favor of newly formed Zia Orphanage Trust. Referring to the international and domestic legal experts, the U.S. State Department in its 2020 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices opined that "Lack of evidence to support the conviction" suggests the case was a political ploy to remove her from the electoral process. Amnesty International raised concerns that her "fair trial rights are not respected". Zia
12168-484: The visible matra and an invisible baseline). There is yet to be a uniform standard collating sequence (sorting order of graphemes to be used in dictionaries, indices, computer sorting programs, etc.) of Bengali graphemes. Experts in both Bangladesh and India are currently working towards a common solution for this problem. Throughout history, there have been instances of the Bengali language being written in different scripts, though these employments were never popular on
12285-435: The vocabulary may differ according to the speaker's religion: Muslims are more likely to use words of Persian and Arabic origin, along with more words naturally derived from Sanskrit ( tadbhava ), whereas Hindus are more likely to use tatsama (words directly borrowed from Sanskrit). For example: The phonemic inventory of standard Bengali consists of 29 consonants and 7 vowels, as well as 7 nasalised vowels . The inventory
12402-449: The year, Khaleda Zia's BNP in collaboration with Sheikh Hasina's Awami League declared "Dhaka Seize" programme on 10 November to overthrow Ershad. As a countermeasure, Ershad's government rounded up thousands of political leaders and activists, but on the day of seizing there were complete chaos on the streets and dozens died. The government of Ershad put Khaleda Zia under house arrest after detaining her from Purbani Hotel , from where she
12519-568: Was a part of the Greater Magadhan realm. The local varieties had no official status during the Gupta Empire , and with Bengal increasingly becoming a hub of Sanskrit literature for Hindu priests, the vernacular of Bengal gained a lot of influence from Sanskrit. Magadhi Prakrit was also spoken in modern-day Bihar and Assam , and this vernacular eventually evolved into Ardha Magadhi . Ardha Magadhi began to give way to what
12636-486: Was also a politician who served as a Jatiya Sangsad member from the Feni-1 constituency during 2001–2006. Her second brother, Shamim Iskandar, is a retired flight engineer of Bangladesh Biman . Her second sister is Selina Islam. On 30 May 1981, Khaleda Zia's husband, the-then President of Bangladesh Ziaur Rahman, was assassinated . After his death, on 2 January 1982, she got involved into politics by first becoming
12753-605: Was an achievement during the period. Zia promoted neighbourly relations in her foreign policy. In her "look-east policy", she worked to bolster regional cooperation in South Asia and adherence to the UN Charter of Human Rights. She negotiated settlement of international disputes, and renounced the use of force in international relations. Bangladesh began to participate in United Nations international peacekeeping efforts. In 2006, Forbes magazine featured her administration in
12870-407: Was coordinating the movement. On 11 December 1987, Khaleda was set free but she immediately held a press conference and claimed that, she was "prepared to die" to depose the dictator. After the eventful 1987, two following years went relatively calm with sporadic violence. A fresh wave of movements started when BNP's student wing Chatra Dal started winning most of the student union elections across
12987-616: Was extensively developed during the Bengali Renaissance and is one of the most prolific and diverse literary traditions in Asia. The Bengali language movement from 1948 to 1956 demanding that Bengali be an official language of Pakistan fostered Bengali nationalism in East Bengal leading to the emergence of Bangladesh in 1971. In 1999, UNESCO recognised 21 February as International Mother Language Day in recognition of
13104-617: Was facing a total 36 cases against her including the Zia Orphanage Trust corruption Case and Zia Charitable Trust corruption case. On 27 November 2024, Zia was acquitted in these graft cases. Zia was transferred to a hospital for medical treatment in April 2019. In March 2020, she was released for six months on humanitarian grounds with the conditions that she would stay at her home in Gulshan, Dhaka and not travel abroad. She
13221-546: Was from Chandbari (now in Uttar Dinajpur District ). According to her father, after the partition of India in 1947 , they migrated to Dinajpur town (now in Bangladesh). Khaleda describes herself as "self-educated" and there are no records of her graduating from high school; Initially, she attended Dinajpur Missionary School and later Dinajpur Girls' School . In 1960, she married Ziaur Rahman , then
13338-459: Was one girl studying in the same classroom. Begum Khaleda Zia promoted education and vocational training very aggressively. Her government made primary education free and mandatory for all. Education was made free for girls until the 10th grade. To fund the implementation of new reforms and policies, in 1994, the education budget was increased by 60%, the highest allocation amongst the formal budget sectors. In 1990, only 31.73% students passed in
13455-406: Was put under house arrest once again. Khaleda Zia was put under house arrest multiple times from 1986 to 1990 by Ershad's military government. On 13 October 1986, she was put under house arrest right before the 1986 Bangladeshi presidential election and was released only after the election. She took the lead on her release and initiated a fresh movement with a view to deposing Ershad. She called
13572-516: Was summarily rejected by the government, causing resentment and dissatisfaction amongst the people of the Hill Tracts. On 15 February 1973 representatives and activists of the Hill Tracts founded the Parbatya Chhattagram Jana Samhatti Samiti (PCJSS) under Manabendra Narayan Larma's leadership. The party's official aims and objectives included humanism , nationalism, democracy, secularism and the protection of
13689-512: Was the most corrupt country in the world according to Corruption Perceptions Index during her second tenure from 2001 to 2006. In its list of the 100 Most Powerful Women in the World , Forbes magazine ranked Zia at number 14 in 2004, number 29 in 2005, and number 33 in 2006. Zia was sentenced to a total of 17 years in prison for the Zia Orphanage Trust corruption case and Zia Charitable Trust corruption case in 2018. A local court handed her
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