Politics and poverty
Photo: Munir uz Zaman / driknews
Recently, there was a very interesting discussion on Channel-i and GP sponsored "Ajker Sangbad Patra". The experts have said that the poverty has increased in the country during the last 18 months of arbitrary rule of the military backed government. The poverty level is approximately 80%, with more than 60% being steeped in extreme poverty. The senior journalist guest in the referred programme narrated a gospel truth about Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Now they are directly involved in creating such a miserable situation in our country. I think it is high time to raise an important question: What they actually do under the cover of poverty alleviation project or study? I will not be surprised if a parallel study is done about their covert study and it is found that in one page they do poverty alleviation exercise and on the other side of the same page they project the political analysis of the country for their mentors. This is of course an assumption. The other day, I was listening to the British prime minister on BBC Bengali service. The prime minister was very critical of the outdated role and approach of the World Bank and the IMF. He thought that they needed to be reformed to address more complex social and economic issues in the 21st century. There are few in the West to disagree with him. But unfortunately our bureaucrat-turned-politicians reposed unflinching faith in those financial institutions to tackle the complex problems of the country. The consequences are quite evident. The government is taking the responsibility of raising the energy prices in the context of international price hike, ignoring the basic problems of the most important sectors of our economy.
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