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The article highlights the health and safety compliance laws in the ready made clothing industry of Bangladesh. Topics include that the readymade garment sector in Bangladesh accounts for the second-largest apparel manufacturer and exporter after China; its cheap labor pool, low wages and reluctance to unionization; and ignorance and lack of health and safety procedures and policies in the industry.

The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), ostensibly a connectivity and developmental program, was launched by the Chinese President Xi Jinping with the primary objective of connecting the common people in Asia through trade, infrastructure and culture. The initiative is designed to enhance connectivity in areas such as trade, infrastructure, investment, capital and people. That said, since its inception, the project seems to confront certain hurdles such as regional geopolitical complexities and launching of other alternative proposals that tend to hamper its progress. As part of the BRI, the BCIM--EC proposes to connect eastern China with South Asia that will also ultimately connect Southeast Asia through different modes for better economic and cultural connectivity. This paper attempts to evaluate the challenges and opportunities of the BCIM--EC project in the context of South and Southeast Asian nations. The paper concludes that the challenges are rather overriding. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to conceptualize a comparative framework on civil-military relations (CMR), at both political and strategic levels, in the context of major South Asian states such as India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. There are complexities involved in framing and explaining power relations between political/ bureaucratic and military elites in these countries. Methodology used in this paper is basically content analysis, interviews, and observations made, and inferences drawn by the author himself, given his professional experience. The paper concludes there are both similarities and dissimilarities in such relations between democratic and quasi-democratic or between liberal and illiberal polities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Increases in military spending have a big impact on the socioeconomic conditions in any country. However, there is no consensus as to whether the rising military expenditure is beneficial or detrimental to economic growth. The present study chose China as a case study to empirically examine a complex relationship between military expenditure and economic development. The findings from the Johansen cointegration test indicated that there existed a long-run relationship between China’s military spending and economic growth. Furthermore, the Granger causality test detected a unidirectional causality from economic development to military expenditure. These results were further confirmed by the findings from the impulse response function. This means that China represents an example of a developing economy where the size of military expenditure expands in the process of economic transformation. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

China and the United States are the greatest strategic powers of the world today, where China is rising but the United States still remains predominant. Both have their grand strategic visions to shape and manage the world or regional political and security architecture. South Asia, being located in a critical and important geographical area, with players such as India, Pakistan, and others, is factored in their visions. It gives rise to a different combination of alignments and orientations of the states of South Asia and beyond. A kind of power game, along with its tangible manifestations, also seems conspicuous. This paper attempts to develop a broad framework of such developments, along with ramifications, both in place and projected, in the political power games of the relevant actors in South Asia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]