Dhaka at a standstill

The crazy traffic in Dhaka is totally insane these days. People have been sitting in cars, buses, rikshaws for hours. On Monday, it could take two hours to drive a distance of a half a kilometer.



Why?
University students have arranged protest since the government's 2015-16 budget imposed a 7,5 per cent value added tax (VAT) on tuition fees on private universities. This affects tens of thousands of future engineers, doctors, lawyers and other academics.
It costs about half a million takas (5600 euro) to become an engineer at a private university here. This is a lot of money in a country where the average annual income is just over 1000 euro.

The effect of the student protests are totally devastating. But the students I talked with today were very determinated. They will not give up before the government says no to the VAT.
So far, the protests have been relatively peaceful. But there is certainly a limit of patience of both from the ordinary people and the police.

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