Bengali (Bangladesh)

Official in Bangladesh · months fixed to the Gregorian year

The Bangabda as Bangladesh keeps it, and the country’s official calendar. Its months once wandered with the sun’s passage through the sidereal zodiac; a Bangla Academy committee under the linguist Muhammad Shahidullah proposed pinning them to the Gregorian year in 1966, and Bangladesh adopted the scheme in 1987. Amended in 2019, it now runs six months of 31 days, five of 30, and Falgun with 29 — or 30 in a leap year, which is what lets the year open on 14 April without exception. That amendment moved a single day so that three national anniversaries land on the Bengali dates they first fell on: 21 February is 8 Falgun, 26 March is 12 Choitro and 16 December is 1 Poush. Years run 593 behind the Common Era from mid-April on, an era credited by some to the Mughal emperor Akbar’s revenue reforms and by others to the seventh-century Bengali king Shashanka. West Bengal never took up the reform, so the same month names read up to three days later there, and the two agree on fewer than one day in five.

Does something here look wrong? Tell us about the Bengali (Bangladesh) calendar.