The year 2016 commenced with a shock awakening when on third January a pre dawn moderate earthquake originating in the Indian state of Manipur shook Bangladesh, northeast India, and Myanmar, with a magnitude of the 6.7 Richter scale (according to United States Geological Survey, USGS) around 5 :05 am Bangladesh Standard Time.Its epicentre lay 29 kilometres west of Imphal, India and 352 kilometres east-northeast of Dhaka, the USGS said. It was 35 kilometres deep. Hundreds of Dhaka City residents rushed out on the streets after feeling the tremors. Tremors welcomed 2016 as we experienced a number of earthquakes during the year with magnitude of 4.4 to 4.7. There were four major earthquakes of 7.8 Richter scale namely in Ecuador, Indonesia, New Zealand and Solomon Island this year with the death of around 700 in Ecuador only. Did this earthquake in January give an early warning indication to us with what may be up in the store for the year? Hopes for the New Year
We experienced a number of history changing events both local and global aspects during the year which will have a profound impact in the way we think or work
Masihul Huq Chowdhury
The year 2016 commenced with a shock awakening when on third January a pre dawn moderate earthquake originating in the Indian state of Manipur shook Bangladesh, northeast India, and Myanmar, with a magnitude of the 6.7 Richter scale (according to United States Geological Survey, USGS) around 5 :05 am Bangladesh Standard Time.Its epicentre lay 29 kilometres west of Imphal, India and 352 kilometres east-northeast of Dhaka, the USGS said. It was 35 kilometres deep. Hundreds of Dhaka City residents rushed out on the streets after feeling the tremors. Tremors welcomed 2016 as we experienced a number of earthquakes during the year with magnitude of 4.4 to 4.7. There were four major earthquakes of 7.8 Richter scale namely in Ecuador, Indonesia, New Zealand and Solomon Island this year with the death of around 700 in Ecuador only. Did this earthquake in January give an early warning indication to us with what may be up in the store for the year?
We experienced a number of history changing events both local and global aspects during the year which will have a profound impact in the way we think or work. The progress in the space of digital Bangladesh and the benefits thereon reaped by the people is far fetching. The use of information technology in agriculture, retailing, finance, education, health and others have started shaping up for the future convenience. This year is shaping up as a bumper year in space with new missions ready to launch, deep space missions wrapping up, and commercial space going heavy. Its a year when spacecraft ditch on comets, rendezvous with asteroids, lift off for Mars, and arrive at Jupiter. Its also a year when rockets get bigger, space planes roll out, and winds get tracked. On July 4, NASAs deep-space probe Juno will arrive at Jupiter. Launched in 2010, the unmanned orbiter has spent five years on its journey, including a flyby of Earth to slingshot the spacecraft towards Jupiter. Space, the final frontier is gradually being understood and possibly in not that distant future we will have colonies across space. Once it reaches its destination it will enter a highly elliptical orbit around the giant planet. Juno is the second spacecraft to orbit Jupiter, after the nuclear powered Galileo which orbited from 1995 to 2003. Unlike all earlier spacecraft to the outer planets, Juno is powered only by solar arrays, commonly used by satellites orbiting Earth and working in the inner Solar System. The advancement in the field of robotic technology is yet another milestone. The convergence of artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics in giving the robots a personal space, deployment of robots in mass scale in the production facilities, commercial usage like delivery through drones are couple of glaring examples. In the field of medical science, we have significantly advanced during 2015. Vaccines to prevent public health epidemics such as Ebola and meningococcal B get fast-tracked for approval so patients can receive them. Genetic profiling of patients better matches them to clinical trials, which increases their chance of benefiting from research studies. A self-sustainable processor turns solid waste and sewer sludge into safe drinking water for hundreds of thousands of people. The test that detects changes in the structure of certain blood proteins can diagnose many types of cancer with high accuracy. These advancements in the field of science and technology will impact our daily lives in the coming days in a positive manner for sure.
In early February, the hackers used the SWIFT network to send fake orders requesting the transfer of nearly $1 billion from Bangladesh Banks account at the New York Fed. Many of the transfer orders were blocked or reversed but, after a series of oversights and miscommunications, the New York Fed ultimately sent $81 million to four fake accounts in a branch of Rizal Commercial Banking Corp (RCBC) in the Philippines. Most of the funds then disappeared into Manilas loosely regulated casino industry. This is the biggest heist happening in the banking history of Bangladesh. The two member probe team has done a detailed review of the incident and found out the persons related to this heist and the process lapses. The steps suggested by the investigation team needs to be implemented in order to recover the stolen money and take preventive actions in order to stop occurrence of such event in the future. There were a number of scams related to ATM and cards across the country during the year. These incidents prove the fact that how much exposed our financial sector is in the face of cyber crimes. It is time to rethink and strategise how to strengthen the IT security and take the benefits of automation for overall compliance and customer satisfaction. With the implementation of BASEL, our banking sector is now integrated with the global banking system. Our banking sector is going through various critical challenges among which rising trend in non performing loan, dearth in supply of quality human resource, the excess liquidity, migration of global best practices, adherence to the governance etc are few to name. While the overall country indicators along with sectoral performance across various industries are going in positive tones, the arrests of downward trend of indicators in banking industry need specific attention to get the synergies towards overall development of the country. This may lead to possible mergers in the banking industry in Bangladesh.
The Summer Olympics 2016 was held in Brazil. At the political uncertainty related to the impeachment of socialist head of state Ms Dilma Roussef. The ban on Russian athletes due to suspected usage of various anti doping drugs created a cloud of controversies on the Olympics games. The Olympics games could be completed with huge financial losses despite the infra structural issues, the law and order situation and health hazards. The decision of awarding Nobel Prize for Literature to Bob Dylan this year created quite a debate. However, nothing beats the way how Dylan reacted to this by not being present to take the award. BREXIT, the referendum that took place in July this year and the subsequent decision to take The United Kingdom out of the European Union placed influenced the rise of anti migration nationalist forces across the Western Hemisphere. Despite bagging popular votes in margin of 2.5 million, Hilary Clintons Presidential campaign got a serious thrash by Donald Trump in terms of electoral colleges puts up the challenge to the very meaning of democracy as put up by Abraham Lincoln in the famous Gettysburg Address. It will be interesting to see how history unfolds itself in the coming days with these changes. While the entire world has started the countdown to Christmas and New Years holiday season, the assassination of Russian envoy to Turkey in Ankara on the 19th of December and the terrorist attacks in the Christmas mall in Germany and attack on a Somali Muslim mosque in Switzerland shocked the entire world.
The people of Dhaka witnessed a heart rendering event of terrorism in the form Holy Artisan tragedy. This was indeed a shocker for the inhabitants of Dhaka, relatively a peaceful City, the news of mass scale murders in restaurants was a case of some incidents happening in some other countries, the stories which were subject of newspapers or TV channels. But the way Holy Artisan incident took place and people were killed including citizens from Japan, Italy and India during the holy month of Ramadan took us aback. I have lost a good friend Ishrat Akhand in this sad event. She was a person full of life and passion for nature. An inspiring person she was firm in her philosophy towards life. In that fateful evening once again she stood firm to her belief and sacrificed her life. May Allah SWT place her departed soul in eternal peace. The positive side is the way the Government of Bangladesh with the support from the people and international community managed the overall situation and brought in the required confidence back is indeed a Herculean task well managed. The hotels and business got back the momentum in a very short span of time.
We will embrace 2017 with open arms hoping that there will be a series of changes which will positively impact our lives. The announcement by Google that the company which consumes electricity almost at the same level as of San Fransisco will be fully based on renewable energy in 2017 is a positive sign. There will certainly be a big shift from fossil fuels to renewable energy in 2017 will help reduction in the cost of solar and other renewable energy which will help us to have a greener earth. The cloud computing will have a major shift as all individual devices will be based on cloud storage deleting the term cloud computing from our dictionary. The microbiome is made up of trillions of helpful bacteria that make a home inside the human gut to prevent, treat and diagnose disease. People with diabetes are twice as likely to have heart disease or stroke than someone without the chronic condition, according to the National Institutes of Health. Two new drugs recently approved recently approved to treat diabetes. Novo Nordisks liraglutide, sold as Victoza, and Eli Lillys empagliflozin, sold as Jardiance, have shown promise in reducing these heart-related complications. Finding a way to test for a cancer that doesnt involve the pain and cost of a doctor a chunk of tissue from your body has long been on the wish list of oncologists. Its now possible to find tumor DNA circulating the blood, spinal fluid and perhaps even urine.
These liquid biopsies could help doctors understand how tumors change in order to beat existing treatments or help identify earlier stages of the disease. Lets hope and pray for a peaceful world in 2017 when we can see the advancement of human race for future generation.
The writer is a banker by profession
