Jalal Alamgir

Jalal Alamgir (17 January 1971 – 3 December 2011), was a Bangladeshi-American academic and an associate professor of political science at the University of Massachusetts-Boston and the son of Awami League Member of Parliament Muhiuddin Khan Alamgir. He specialised in the inter-relationships between globalisation and representational politics. He died in a drowning accident in Thailand on 3 December 2011.[3][4]

Jalal Alamgir
Born(1971-01-17)17 January 1971
Bangladesh[1]
Died3 December 2011(2011-12-03) (aged 40)
Phuket, Thailand[2]
EducationPh.D. (political science)
Alma materBrown University
St. Lawrence University
OccupationProfessor
EmployerUniversity of Massachusetts Boston

Career

He passed SSC from St Joseph Higher Secondary School, Dhaka. Alamgir held a Ph.D. from Brown University. He was a tenured faculty at University of Massachusetts-Boston, holding the position of associate professor of political science. He was also a fellow at the South Asia Initiative at Harvard University. Prior to joining UMass, Alamgir held research appointments at the Watson Institute for International Studies at Brown University, the Southern Asian Institute at Columbia University, and the Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi. Aside from his research, he consulted for the United Nations Population Fund and strategy consulting organizations.[5]

At the time of his death, Alamgir was working on several research projects: political violence and justice in Bangladesh and Pakistan, foreign policy of Bangladesh, the representation of values in Indian foreign policy, and the relationship between authoritarianism and globalization in Myanmar.[5]

In addition to his academic career, Alamgir was a principal at Red Bridge Strategy, Inc., which he described as a consultancy he co-founded "to help organizations globalize their operations with locally and politically-informed strategies." Describing the relationship between his academic and consulting work, he said, "The university involves me with cutting-edge research and blue-sky thinking, and I get to meet many scholars and students– wonderful, eccentric, motivated– all helping us to understand the world better. At Red Bridge Strategy, I get to try out some of the ideas I develop in academia, applying them to real world problems and puzzles that need to be 'solved' within a limited time, limited resources, and with a pragmatic approach."[1][6]

Publications

Books

Alamgir's first book, India's Open-Economy Policy: Globalism, Rivalry, Continuity[7] was selected by Asia Policy as a recommended book for its 2008 "Policymaker's Library" and was nominated for the Association for Asian Studies' Ananda Kentish Coomaraswamy Book Prize.

Articles and essays

Alamgir's scholarly essays include "The 1971 Genocide: War Crimes and Political Crimes"[8] and "Bangladesh's Fresh Start."[9] Other papers appeared in International Studies Review, Asian Survey, Asian Studies Review, Issues and Studies, Pacific Affairs, Brown Economic Review, The Journal of Contemporary Asia, The Journal of Bangladesh Studies, The Journal of Social Studies, Encyclopedia of Globalization, States in the Global Economy (ed. Linda Weiss, Cambridge University Press), and Globalization and Politics in India (ed. Baldev Raj Nayar, Oxford University Press).[5]

He also wrote for different newspapers and magazines, including Foreign Policy, Current History, The Nation, China Daily, openDemocracy,[10] GlobalPost, The Daily Star Forum,[11][12] Catamaran: Journal of South Asian American Writing, and the Huffington Post.[5][13][14][15][16][17][18] Dr. Alamgir's commentary and opinion were featured in The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Boston Globe, and aired on WBAI Radio (New York), NEEN (Boston), Deutsche Welle Radio (Germany), and Voice of America (Washington, DC).[5]

Activism

Alamgir was a member of Drishtipat,[19] a global network of Bangladeshi activists, and participated in the Drishtipat Writers' Collective.[20] In 2007, he led a campaign[21] protesting the detention of his father, Member of Parliament Muhiuddin Khan Alamgir[22] by Bangladesh's military-led caretaker government.[22] He cycled 85 miles for the Pan-Mass Challenge to raise funds for cancer research, inspired by the experience of his mother's treatment for cancer at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston.[23]

Death

Alamgir was in Thailand with his wife Fazeela Morshed for a holiday in December 2011. He accidentally drowned while swimming at Pattaya Beach.[3][24] Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina issued a condolence message in which she "prayed for the salvation of the departed soul and conveyed her sympathy to the bereaved family."[3] Academics Borhanuddin Khan Jahangir, Muntassir Mamoon, Khandakar Rashidul Huq Noba among others were present at the airport when Jalal's body arrived in Bangladesh on 5 December 2011.[24]

References
  1. Alamgir, Jalal. "About". Globalization, Risk, and Forecasting. Archived from the original on 5 December 2011. Retrieved 4 December 2011.
  2. "Red Bridge Strategy is very sad to announce that our partner and friend, Jalal Alamgir, drowned on December 3, while vacationing in Phuket, Thailand". Red Bridge Strategy. 5 December 2011. Archived from the original on 6 December 2011. Retrieved 5 December 2011.
  3. "Dr Jalal Alamgir drowns in sea in Thailand". The Daily Star. 4 December 2011. Retrieved 4 December 2011.
  4. Riaz, Ali (5 December 2011). জালাল আলমগীর আমার বন্ধু [My Friend Jalal Alamgir]. Prothom Alo (in Bengali). Archived from the original on 6 December 2011. Retrieved 5 December 2011.
  5. Alamgir, Jalal. "Jalal Alamgir". College of Liberal Arts Faculty. University of Massachusetts Boston. Retrieved 4 December 2011.
  6. "Our Leadership". Red Bridge Strategy. Archived from the original on 24 March 2012. Retrieved 4 December 2011.
  7. Alamgir, Jalal (2010). India's Open-Economy Policy: Globalism, Rivalry, Continuity. New York and London: Routledge. p. 176. ISBN 978-0-415-78087-2.
  8. Alamgir, Jalal; D'Costa, Bina (26 March 2011). "The 1971 Genocide: War Crimes and Political Crimes". Economic & Political Weekly. 46 (13).
  9. Alamgir, Jalal (July 2009). "Bangladesh's Fresh Start". Journal of Democracy. 20 Number=3 (3): 41–55. doi:10.1353/jod.0.0100.
  10. Jalal Alamgir & Tazreena Sajjad, "Bangladesh: a quest for justice", Open Democracy, 9 February 2010
  11. Alamgir, Jalal (April 2011). "Democracy and Dogma in the Middle East". Forum. The Daily Star.
  12. Alamgir, Jalal (September 2011). "Rise of Bangladesh: Lessons in economic diplomacy from India". Forum. The Daily Star.
  13. Local & Global, "From Risk to Reality on the Arab Street"
  14. Alamgir, Jalal (11 October 2011). "Eight Beheadings on Justice Square". Huffington Post. Retrieved 4 December 2011.
  15. Alamgir, Jalal (21 September 2011). "Bad Muslims with good idea". Huffington Post. Retrieved 4 December 2011.
  16. Alamgir, Jalal (6 June 2011). "Mladic, Bin Laden, and Justice for Mass Murder". Huffington Post. Retrieved 4 December 2011.
  17. Alamgir, Jalal (2 May 2011). "Will Anti-Americanism Live On?". Huffington Post. Retrieved 4 December 2011.
  18. Alamgir, Jalal (11 March 2011). "The Congressional Hearings That Are Really Needed". Huffington Post. Retrieved 4 December 2011.
  19. "Drishtipat".
  20. "The Writers". Drishtipat Writers' Collective. Drishtipat.
  21. Alamgir, Jalal (10 May 2007). "The plot against MKA: A son's protest". The Daily Star. Retrieved 4 December 2011.
  22. Alamgir, Muhiuddin Khan (15 January 2010). Notes from a prison : Bangladesh (1st North American ed.). Arlington, VA: Center for Economic and Social Justice. p. 444. ISBN 978-0-944997-04-8.
  23. Pan-Mass Challenge: Jalal Alamgir's ride
  24. "Dr Jalal's body arrives". BanglaNews24. 5 December 2011. Archived from the original on 5 December 2011. Retrieved 5 December 2011.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.