WHAT WAS IT ABOUT THE 1974 FAMINE?

 

Professor Nurul Islam

About Professor Nurul Islam :

(Professor Nurul Islam provides a penetrating analysis of the evolving struggle of the Bengalis’ with Pakistan government’s policies on economic issues that led to the birth of Bangladesh. He also provides an insight into the important landmark economic policy issues during Bangladesh’s formative years. The book begins by providing for the first time an insider’s view of many little known aspects or subjects of economic debates and negotiations with Pakistan that caused the great divide between East and West Pakistan. He also examines in great detail the far reaching implications of Awami League’s Six Point Programme, which was not fully understood by many at that time.
In his capacity as the Deputy Chairman of the first Bangladesh Planning Commission he was not only intimately associated with but also had a unique insight into both the underlying rationale, the process of decision making and of governance in those formative years.

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IS PRIVATIZATION MAGIC WAND
FOR ALL ECONOMIC ILLS?

 

A.K.N Ahmed Washington DC

About A.K.N Ahmed :

( Mr. A.K.N Ahmed is an eminent central banker will known not only in Bangladesh but in many countries of the world. His areas of specialisation are central banking and development finance. During his long professional career he served with distinction in many important positions including Executive Director, State Bank of Pakistan, Deputy Managing Director, Industrial Development Bank of Pakistan, Chairman and Managing Director, Sonali Bank and the Governor of Bangladesh Bank, In early 50's he worked in the World Bank and in mid 70's as advisor in IMF. In mid 80's he also served as Bangladesh ambassador to Japan and South Korea when he was awarded Alexander the Great gold medal by Institute of Oriental Philosophy, Soka Geiki University, Tokyo for his deep knowledge of Japanese culture and socity.

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WHITHER PRSP (Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper)?

M. M. Akash

Background:

1.28 billion citizens of our planet are now living below the poverty line income. This is what World Bank says in its latest World Development Report (WDR, 2000). Almost 72 percent of them live in Asia and about half of the one billion Asian poor live in South Asia alone! Bangladesh is a low-income poverty ridden country of this South Asian region. Every one man in two here is considered to be poor, if we accept the international definition of absolute poverty as offered by WB . What actually are the characteristics of these "Poor People"? Basically they are that part of the society who are relatively most deprived from income, wealth, education, social security and political power. They are the defeated victims of an unequal competition in an intrinsically unequal society. In Bangladesh there is going on a continuous process of unequal and unjust competition through which a greater section of the middle class is slowly becoming the member of a lower middle class and after a brief period of life and death struggle to hold on they also ultimately in most cases slide down to swell the ranks of the poor. Now a day in the literature you will find another category: "Poor becoming Extreme Poor!"

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Economic Literacy
Kazi Iqbal

We are not concerned about economics as much as we are aware of politics, both domestic and international. Couple of weeks ago most of the daily newspapers reported that the incidence of national poverty had aggravated. But unfortunately this news, lost in the spree of hot debates of army deployment, could not draw much attention of the general public. Hardly any repercussion or concern has been expressed by our policymakers, economists, which is not only alarming but pathetic too. The newspapers will be the last one to blame, for they run business; they will underscore news with more public demand than those general people are less concerned with. This is the outcome of simple economics: lower demand induces lower supply. Among others, the demand side, more precisely, economic illiteracy of the general people is largely responsible for news like poverty worsening gone unnoticed, unexplained.

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