Bangladesh awaits its bridge of dreams across the mighty Padma

All along the brand new six-lane expressway from Dhaka to Mawa in Munshiganj district, signs with pictures of Sheikh Hasina congratulate her and the people of Bangladesh on “amader swapner Padda Setu” — the Bridge of Our Dreams Across the Padma.

The signs are sponsored by local leaders of the ruling Awami League and compete with each other to lavish praise and gratitude on the leader — but they invariably refer to the “dream”.

Twenty-one years after the Prime Minister, in the last days of her previous tenure, laid the foundation stone in Mawa, a decade after the World Bank cancelled its $1.2 billion funding saying it “cannot, should not,