Bangladesh's top court scraps most of the quotas on government jobs
Newshour
BBC
4.2 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 21 July 2024
⏱️ 47 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The Supreme Court in Bangladesh has scrapped most of the quotas on government jobs, that have triggered widespread anti-government protests. Thousands of students have been agitating since the beginning of the month against the quota system saying it favoured those close to the governing Awami League. Around 150 people have died.
Also in the programme: Israel says it has intercepted a missile launched from Yemen shortly after the Israeli air force carried out a series of strikes on Yemeni territory; and botanists decide to change hundreds of plant names which contain a word with racist connotations.
(Photo: A member of the Bangladesh Army interrogates a man who came outside during a curfew imposed in response to student-led protests against government job quotas. Credit: Reuters).
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is New Tower. In Bangladesh the Supreme Court delivered a judgment on |
| 0:07.8 | Sunday which could help end weeks of student protests which have brought |
| 0:11.4 | Ducker the capital to a standstill. The protests began |
| 0:14.9 | as opposition to a scheme which dates from the Civil War when Bangladesh won |
| 0:18.9 | independence from Pakistan in 1971. It established a quota system which favoured the descendants of those who were |
| 0:26.6 | on the winning side and who tended to be supporters of the present governing party, |
| 0:31.5 | the Awami League. |
| 0:32.3 | Responding to journalists outside the court present governing the governing party the O'Wami League. |
| 0:32.8 | Responding to journalists outside the court, one of the lawyers representing the students |
| 0:37.4 | who challenged the quota system confirmed the court's ruling. |
| 0:40.8 | The Supreme Court ruling. |
| 0:44.0 | The Supreme Court's Appellate division, according to Article 104, issued a final solution to this quota system, |
| 0:51.0 | that is a 93% quota for general people, a 5% quota for freedom fighters and their |
| 0:57.6 | kin, 1% for the ethnic minority community and 1% for transgender and people with disabilities. |
| 1:05.0 | A curfew came into force on Friday evening. |
| 1:08.0 | Disruption of the internet has made it very difficult to get accurate information out of Bangladesh. |
| 1:13.2 | That's the sound of the military activity in the capital on Saturday with helicopters hovering |
| 1:27.0 | over the city. They may yet take time to restore order, not least because the students have |
| 1:32.0 | made demands going well beyond the future of the |
| 1:35.2 | quota. |
| 1:36.2 | The BBC's regional editor Atharajan Amarasam is live here with me in the news, our studio. Can you give us a flavor of what has |
| 1:44.6 | happened on the ground in the last 48 hours since that first curfew came |
... |
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