36 years under scrutiny
After 36 years of independence a section of the population complains of total failure of Bangladesh's entire state system--socio-political and socio-economic. Unfortunately, they are correct to a certain extent. What is extremely unfortunate is that the exponents of this theory do not want to recognise even whatever little we have achieved under adverse circumstances.
I am interested in socio-economic issues, rather than socio-political matters. Socio-political issues are difficult to evaluate, because globally its parameter is so huge. One or two examples should explain the predicament. In the west, the gay movement gets considerable, if not equal, political attention as does the issue of tax cuts. The next US presidential election will be fought mainly over Iraq and Illegal Immigrant issues. Over what issues our next parliament elections will be fought? It will surely be interesting to watch!
We have already missed a chance to hold our scheduled national election last year over issues such as absence of level playing field, alleged election engineering, defective voter list, nature of ballot boxes, and above all unreliable guardians of the election process. Hopefully, these concerns are taken care of.
Political discussions are always inconclusive, hence, endless. When the most powerful country in the world, the USA, achieved all its might through presidential form of government, parliamentary form of governance is still popular around the globe. Socio-economic issues however can be conclusively narrowed down to a certain degree of concurrence.
As a watcher of TV talk shows, where eminent personalities take part, one wonders the reason for their outright negation of whatever little socio-economic progress our dear country has achieved so far. There is no scope to ignore some of the advancements. We have reasons to be proud of ourselves. The fact that our development partners are still willing to work with us is good enough argument for our positive attitude towards socio-economic development that we have shown so far. Why then is the apprehension?
Other matters such as increased number of cars on the road, private universities, shopping malls, availability of branded goods, development of garments and textile industry, mushrooming of hotels and restaurants are but simple indicators of rising economy. The availability of mobile phone technology; computers, Internet etc are the result of our accessibility to global market and increased buying power. Furthermore, the growth of private sector healthcare cannot be ignored too. Though these are mainly city based--it has to start from somewhere.
If we count properly we have not got full 36 years to build our nation ( there was political turmoil of a very damaging kind on a few occasions). The truth is peace and progress can only be brought through a peaceful process keeping the momentum of development alive all the time.
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