The Agency to Innovate (a2i) bill was hurriedly passed on July 5; the government fast-tracked presidential consent to make it a law within four days. Before the bill was placed, however, it was immediately detected that Section 21 of the law, which allows a2i to form a company, is a tumour that will metastasise.

During this time, something bizarre happened in our parliamentary affairs' history. Mustafa Jabbar, the telecommunication minister, publicly accused his junior colleague Zunaid Ahmed Palak, the state minister for ICT, of staging a legislative coup.

On July 7, Jabbar told The Daily Star, "It was unanimously decided that a2i would not be allowed to form a company." At a parliamentary standing committee meeting to scrutinise the bill on June 18, trade bodies thanked the ICT state minister for listening to their demands, Jabbar added. But those demands were not kept.

In fact, Jabbar has accused Palak of doctoring the draft a2i bill prior to placing it before the house for legislative approval.

In the same interview with The Daily Star, the software trade body's president, Russell T Ahmed, was infuriated and demanded a cyber-forensic probe.

The standing committee meeting was filmed, he said. "So, if the video or the meeting minutes are made public, one will see that the decision of the meeting has not been reflected in the law. We all came out of the meeting that day (June 18) with happy faces as all of our demands were met," he added.

Russell further said the bill goes against the interests of the country and the industry. In fact, the remaining ICT trade bodies, which have been historically subservient to the government, have collectively unleashed their anger at the "fabricated version" of the a2i law, suspected to be a commercial trojan horse.

They fear that all the government's ICT projects, which are lucrative sources of revenue, would bypass law to directly engage the preferred suppliers. The industry cannot be blamed for such an apprehension, because a2i functions under the ICT Division, which has earned infamy for brazenly violating the law only to promote the oligarchs in the name of digitising Bangladesh.

For example, the legal framework forbids the deployment of optical fibre without a nationwide telecommunication transmission network (NTTN) licence. But Bangladesh Computer Council (BCC), which functions under the ICT Division, has illegally deployed hundreds of thousands of kilometres of optical fibre cable (OFC) nationwide under a project—without the licence.

Everybody knows about this multi-billion dollar project, which is accused of scandal, but nobody dares to question it. BCC's proximity to the country's political power has bolstered it to not even make payments to the exchequer for deploying OFC by the roads and highways.

The ICT Division, being a part of the telecommunication ministry, now overtly sabotages the OFC business of state-owned Bangladesh Railway (BR) and Power Grid Company of Bangladesh (PGCB).

The Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC) has been forced to prohibit BR and PGCB from expanding OFC coverage beyond the train track or power transmission grid route. Such informal embargo is unheard of anywhere in the world, especially in a rapidly rising economy like Bangladesh.

As a result, today a large majority of the OFC network that hangs overhead across the vast plainland of Bangladesh is BCC's. This is the most humiliating and self-defeating form of engineering by any standard anywhere in the world.

Since both the BR and PGCB are publicly owned entities, they cannot sue the BTRC for sabotaging their commercial interest, which only safeguards the oligarchs being fostered by the ICT Division.

After successfully implementing a destructive policy at the infrastructure front, the ICT Division is now bulldozing the slightest chance of innovation and competition in the technology front of Bangladesh through the a2i law. That is why the entire private sector publicly abhors the act so much!

Abu Saeed Khan is a senior policy fellow at LIRNEasia.

It has become increasingly clear that the carrot of a pre-installed "free" app being dangled in front of our noses is covering up intentions that are far more insidious. We are talking about the Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission's (BTRC) order to pre-install the Bijoy app in all imported and locally-manufactured Android phones. This order has come with the veiled threat that, if the BTRC-supplied Bijoy APK file is not installed and displayed to the commission, a no-objection will not be issued for marketing the phone.

The decision to impose this on consumers and sellers, with very little explanation for taking away their freedom of choice, has drawn criticism from across the board. The issue is made murkier by the obvious conflict of interest: the BTRC operates under the Ministry of Posts, Telecommunications and Information Technology, and the patent of the Bangla typing software Bijoy has belonged to its minister, Mostafa Jabbar, since 1988. 

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Bijoy in phones Criticism follows BTRC directive

The minister has tried to make light of this order by arguing that the app will be provided free of cost, and that customers are free to uninstall it from their phones at will. But if customers are truly free to make this choice, why make its pre-installation mandatory? 

The truth is that there is no such thing as a free lunch. The use of a product always increases its commercial value, and given that Bijoy is far less popular than other, more user-friendly keyboards, like Avro and Ridmik, there seems to be a very transparent reason behind the plan to suddenly have Bijoy downloads go up by hundreds of thousands at once. Because if the reason really is to make a Bangla typing software available to users, as the minister suggested, then why not provide one that users already prefer? 

The issue here is not only the total disregard for citizens' right to choose. The process of putting forward this so-called order is in itself dubious since, legally, no government organisation has the right to make using a specific product or service mandatory. According to news reports, the BTRC order is based on an announcement from the Bangladesh Standards and Testing Institution terming Bijoy as the standard keyboard to follow. So under what due process did it suddenly become mandatory?

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A glaring example of government intrusion

Then there are the concerns over digital security. Experts have criticised the fact that Bijoy is not an open-source product, and that even its own privacy policy on app stores admits that there are holes in its security. This is extremely concerning since, when an app is pre-installed, consumers can be asked to give away their right to give it permission to access their personal data. This lax attitude towards data protection only confirms how little the current regime values citizens' right to data privacy. 

At the end of the day, this is not just about a keyboard. This is yet another step towards the slow erosion of digital rights and personal freedoms in the country. Before going forward with this decision, the authorities must ask themselves: is this really what they want Digital Bangladesh to be known for?

Following a recent policy decision, the Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC) has taken the initiative to conduct a comprehensive audit of Teletalk, the state-owned telecom company, for the first time.

Teletalk, as a state-owned entity, holds an important position in providing mobile and data services to a substantial portion of the population. The audit aims to assess the company's operations, financial health, and adherence to regulatory guidelines. When asked about the initiative, Musfiq Mannan Choudhury, Commissioner of BTRC, said, "We have already issued files to audit Teletalk". 

Previously, BTRC has conducted audits of the three private operators, namely Grameenphone, Robi, and Banglalink. However, this marks the first time that the government telecom operator Teletalk is being formally audited by the regulatory commission.

As per official sources, the regulatory body has received audit objections of more than BDT 14 thousand crore from the three private operators. BTRC has thus far collected a part of that amount, with the rest being collected in an ongoing process.

The Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC) has recently teamed up with Sesame Workshop Bangladesh (SWB), the creators of the beloved children's educational show "Sisimpur", in order to foster a safer online environment for children. The collaboration aims to raise awareness about the safe use of the internet for educational purposes and to promote internet safety among children and parents alike.

As part of the initiative, "Sisimpur" will focus on educating students and teachers from 100 government primary schools on the importance of safe internet usage under BTRC's latest project, Digitisation of Education in Government Primary Schools in Underserved Areas.

This crucial endeavour has been approached by the Safe Internet for Early Childhood Development project, funded by the Internet Society Foundation.

BTRC and SWB signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) on Monday (April 1) to formalise the collaboration. Lt Col SM Rezaul Rahman, director of Signals, Systems, and Services Division, BTRC; and Mohammad Shah Alam, managing director, SWB, represented their respective organisations during the signing ceremony. The event was attended by Brigadier General Mohammad Khalilur Rahman, director general of System and Services Division, BTRC.

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Shuddho following his father’s footsteps

Under this partnership, BTRC and SWB will work together to advocate for safe internet practices amongst children aged 3 to 8 years old and their communities in both urban and marginalised areas of Bangladesh. With the overarching goal of creating a Smart Bangladesh, this collaboration promises to play a pivotal role in engaging children, teachers, and communities in promoting a safer online experience for all.