Mehedi Hasan Polash

  Alibaba Group bought 20% equity stakes in Bkash, Bangladesh's largest mobile financial service provider in April 2018. Daraz an online marketplace founded in 2012 by Rocket Internet which operated in multiple countries, was acquired by Alibaba in May 2018. And In 2021, Alibaba acquired one of the country's first food delivery company, Hungrynaki.  These portfolios of digital businesses give Alibaba a tremendous amount of user data that no company in Bangladesh even comes close to have access to. From purchase decisions to purchase points, to basket size across categories including what we eat - that's millions of real-time data about Bangladeshi consumers. Apart from Bkash, the two acquisitions were bargain buy so they entered two business categories in Bangladesh with an economic advantage of not having to build infrastructure, develop talent or create a customer base. My prediction is their next acquisition will be in logistics, rideshare, or supply chain, and that too ...

A woman waits leaning against the boundary wall of Dhaka CMM court after her son, a North South University student arrested during Monday's clash with police, was produced before the court yesterday. Photo: Palash Khan A Dhaka court yesterday placed 22 private university students on a two-day remand in two separate cases filed over vandalism and attacks on police. But the truth is university students didn't attacked on police first they just wanted to do a peaceful protest for ensuring road safety. Nor the police neither the people injured by the students. But police started   attacks in Bashundhara R/A, private universities—NSU and IUB—being specifically targeted.  A bout a hundred policemen—wielding sticks, shotguns and tear gas guns—entered the usually quiet residential area. Tear gas canisters engulfed everything in thick smoke. Tyres burned in the middle of the streets. In between the chaos, a micro bus came out of North South University with three or four studen...