Skip to footer

When the cricket world descends, Dhaka spruces up

Bangladesh is hosting the T20 Cricket World Cup. Dhaka has invested money in infrastructure projects for past regional sporting events, but done little to maintain them afterwards.

|
Andrew Biraj/Reuters
India's Shikhar Dhawan plays a ball as Pakistan's Sohaib Maqsood (r.) and wicketkeeper Kamran Akmal (l.) watch during their T20 World Cup cricket match at the Sher-E-Bangla National Cricket Stadium in Dhaka, Bangladesh, March 21, 2014.
  • By Joseph Schatz Correspondent

The T20 Cricket World Cup is off and running in Bangladesh, and Dhaka looks like a different city – all shiny billboards and well-managed traffic, says our correspondent on the ground. 

The question is whether the event will pay off in the long run for Bangladesh. With more traffic cops seemingly on the beat since the March 16 start of the games – or simply better enforcement of traffic laws – Dhaka’s normally choking gridlock is a bit easier to handle, at least in the eyes of locals. 

And there’s little doubt that hosting the Cup has been good for Bangladesh’s economy. Foreign teams are pouring in, tourist arrivals have increased, and hotel occupancies are up.Ticket sales are up for domestic airlines, which have sold 80 to 90 percent of their seats for March.  ”That’s unusual for domestic airlines,” notes our correspondent.... For the rest of the story, continue reading at our new business publication Monitor Global Outlook.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to When the cricket world descends, Dhaka spruces up
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Global-News/2014/0321/When-the-cricket-world-descends-Dhaka-spruces-up
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe