Hello and welcome to the Intelligence on Economist Radio. I'm your host, Jason Palmer. Every weekday, we provide a fresh perspective on the events shaping your world.

We talk a lot on the show about unhappy situations, wars, famines, oppression and protests.

You might think that the pandemic would have been an enormous hit to the global average of happiness.

We examine data showing that it hasn't.

And just as soon as a container ship got stuck in the Suez Canal, supply chains the world over started

to creek.

Now it seems weeks may be required to get it on the move again.

We look at a blockage in a narrow artery of the global shipping system. But first...

Today marks 50 years of Bangladeshi independence.

What was East Pakistan declared itself a new country in 1971, as what was left of Pakistan

fought a brutal war to retain it. The fighting has obviously

been fierce. The shell holes which spatter the fields in the area are evidence of that.

It was a conflict that may have cost as many as three million lives. Millions more fled to India

or were internally displaced, drawing the world's attention to what would later

be called a genocide. Every day, upwards of 100,000 refugees are making the long journey

back from India to Bangladesh. For many, it's a journey to heartbreak. Devastating as the war

of independence was, in some ways it set Bangladesh on the path to success

as expatriates flooded back to repair their broken homeland. By many measures, they succeeded,

but the economic gains Bangladesh has made have not been matched by the development of a healthy

open democracy. Bangladesh is not quite leapt from rags to riches in one generation,

but it has come a long way in the last half a century.

Susanna Savage writes about Bangladesh for the economist.

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