Dhaka, Nov. 28 -- Bangladesh's rapid socio-economic transformation is often celebrated as one of the most compelling success stories in the Global South. The rise of the ready-made garment industry, the expansion of mobile banking and digital finance, the push toward technology-enabled services, and the ambition to build a modern, knowledge-oriented economy have created a sense of accelerating progress. Yet beneath this optimistic narrative lies a more complex and less visible story-one that concerns the deepening patterns of inequality produced by the digital transition itself.

The inequality unfolding today is not simply an extension of older divides. It reflects a restructuring of power through digital systems, new knowledge hierarchi...