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The road map to Bangladesh’s emergence as a nation-state began with the partitioning of British India into India and Pakistan in 1947. At that time, Pakistan consisted of two geographically separated regions. The eastern section, which later became Bangladesh, had been experiencing regional and ethnic discrimination in different forms. From the very beginning Pakistan had been highly dependent on its military-civil bureaucracy. Moreover, it became a test laboratory for the western development theories that emerged during the period of swift decolonisation. Its client position was defined by the Pakistan-US military pact and by a long and decisive involvement of US consultants in shaping Pakistan’s planning, development and institutions.
   After liberation, in contrast to continuous promise and rhetoric, Bangladesh failed to alter the power matrix in social and economic fields that had prevailed in the Pakistan period. The structures and hierarchies of civil and military institutions, which had been created during British rule, were kept intact in Bangladesh. Similarly, the legal and judicial systems remained untouched; and the land administration, despite land reform measures taken in 1972 and 1984, remained merely unchanged until today.
   Despite the changes in political power and governance and the bloody conflicts among groups wishing to govern, the economic front experienced a continuity of policies and ideology. Soon after independence, ‘Bangladesh aid consortium’ was formed with the World Bank as its head ‘on the same lines as the Pakistan consortium’. From a review of thirty years of the Bank’s assessment of government’s policies, its suggestions and its policy recommendations to the government of Bangladesh, it becomes clear that the Bank has been consistent in its policy prescription and ideological framework.
   Since the early 1970s global agencies including the World Bank started emphasizing structural changes according to its line of ‘reform’. Funding started flowing which, in many ways, influenced or guided government programs. GATT agreement in 1995 can be termed as the single most important document that created a global foundation of integrating all economies. The programs sponsored by global institutions (GI) including the World Bank and IMF, have played key role in accelerating the process of integrating peripheral economies including Bangladesh with the centre economies. Those include:(i) the ‘Green’ Revolution (ii) Structural Adjustment Program (iii) ‘Poverty Alleviation’ Programs (iv) GATT agreement and (v) Foreign ‘aid’ supported trade, technical assistance, reform, consultancy, training and education. The current Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP) is the latest in the series. These programmes also have played crucial role in determining the shape and direction of the economy and creating strong support base amongst ruling classes.
   Both the changes and the continuities are important to an understanding of the internal dynamics and external effects influencing Bangladesh. As these also show the shaping of the national economy, some selected areas are briefly discussed below.
   
   Transition from agricultural
   to service economy
   Immediately after independence, Bangladesh’s economy was characterized as an agrarian based one. Agriculture accounted for the largest share of both the labour force and of GDP. However, by the end of the century, Bangladesh ceased to have agriculture based economy. Agriculture’s proportion of GDP came down from nearly 60% to 18% during this period. But on the other hand, manufacturing has not captured the dominant position either. Service sector, as a whole, has emerged as the single largest sector within GDP, about 50 per cent. The movement of an economy from agriculture to service, bypassing or degenerating manufacturing, may not go with the text book notion of development but this is very significant to study direction of peripheral economy like Bangladesh. Growth of malls has become a shining star here over dismantled mills. In the process, Bangladesh abandoned its tag of Adamjee, the largest jute industry and replaced that with Basundhara, the largest super market in South Asia. That is however a significant shift.
   During the last three decades, proportionate share of manufacturing in GDP has shown a little change. According to the old estimates of GDP, manufacturing was 7.90 percent in 1972-73; it increased to 8.47 percent in 2003, less than 1 per cent increase in thirty years. With the new estimates, all figures go upward but the trend remains the same. According to the new estimates, the share of manufacturing in GDP was 15.43 in 1995/96; it decreased to 14.68 percent in 2000 and again slightly increased to 15.97 in 2003. If we compare share of manufacturing from early 80s with the figure in 2003 than it would show a clear de-industrialization. Figures in 2004 show little change.
   Since the early 1980s, many of old enterprises, public and private, were closed or downsized and gradually replaced by the export oriented ones. Due to closure of many large-scale factories and sickness of medium and small enterprises the number of industrial workforce shrunk despite new entry of good number of export oriented garments and EPZs. Large rural-urban migration brought uprooted people in the urban areas without creating corresponding stable job opportunities.
   
   Expansion of trade
   Bangladesh’s external trade has increased manifold over this period. Both import and export has expanded, although the trade gap remains high as the volume of imports has increased faster than that of exports. The increase in imports took place consistently with reform measures to liberalize imports, i.e., lowering import duty and removing trade and non-trade barriers. While in 1992/93 the highest import duty was 300%, it has since been reduced to 30% in 2004. The average import duty comes own to 15.65%.
   While jute and jute goods dominated export trade in the early 70s, ready-made garments have dominated since the late 80s, captured more than 60%. Although major export items shifted from agricultural goods to processed goods, the current export items (e.g., ready-made garments) now is characterized by highly import depended, it has only around 25% value added components.
   
   Women in labour market
   Women’s participation in market oriented and income-generating activities were very low in the early 70s. Women in Bangladesh traditionally have been active in both cost saving and income generating activities, i.e., in agri- processing, handicrafts, gardening, poultry and cattle care, management of household, preparing goods for marketing by male members etc. However the activities of NGOs including micro credit during last two decades have actually added inputs to the traditional activities of women and small scale businesses of men. The participation of women in economic activities outside household has been expanding since early 80s. Both push and pull factors contributed in this.
   Since sex trade is becoming more and more profitable and since uprooted girls are also available around being cheated or grabbed or homeless, so trade of women in home and abroad directed to this end has increased to a large extent, especially since early 80s.
   
   Increasing market oriented
   activities in rural areas
   Although rural works program in the sixties contributed to add road connection from countryside to urban areas that paved the way to expand market and market oriented activities, but that remained modest until late seventies. Since then these activities, i.e., production and processing for market and profit grew fast. This happened not only in crop production, but spread to other areas as a result of institutional, financial and otherwise supports. Commercial production increased significantly related to Poultry, Dairy and Fisheries since early 80s. Export oriented production of Shrimp also created a new geographical as well as socio-economic landscape in coastal areas. Expanded micro credit networks contributed significantly to market oriented activities of low income rural people. Since 1980, non-farm employment has grown very fast. The jobs include: petty trade, small shop, transports like rickshaw and van, and wage labor outside agriculture.
   (To be continued)

Vice versa, government should layout more stringent policies and rules for physical development and enforces them with strong monitoring. Exemplary punitive measures for people not abiding by that law can be implemented via an independent commission having forces like RAB. It is quite empirical even from the instances of many developed countries that the very nature of human selfishness can only be abated and controlled by actions that are detrimental to one’s own interest. Finally, professional and non professional groups who are directly involved with the construction industry -such as architects, planners, engineers and developers should be more aware and vocal for establishing a density (number of dwelling units per acre) control factor in each and every development. We have set-back rules by RAJUK, which mainly dictate how much space to be spared (from site boundary) from each side of a building under construction, however we have shown very little concern for maintaining a maximum allowable density for a healthy built environment, which also dictate ratio between maximum allowable built area and open space for a particular site-commonly known as ‘Floor Area Ratio’ or FAR.  But FAR only gives us control over individual lots, where as ‘Density’ gives us control over a larger area say neighbourhood consisting of a number of individual lots. In order to explain this more clearly, we can take ‘Dhanmondi’ as an example. When Dhanmondi was built in the sixties (I guess), the infrastructure (roads, water and sewerage lines, etc.) was built to support a way lesser number of families per acre than it is serving now. Over the years, we have increased the number of dwelling units per acre (density) almost exponentially from the initial number of dwelling units per acre. However, on the other hand, the infrastructure has remained almost unchanged and failed to support its inhabitants adequately and made the whole area more prone to environmental disaster. Therefore, a predominantly bedroom community in the sixties has become a hodge-podge of zoning disorder and a concrete jungle due to lack of planning.
   Mixed Use Development (MUD) which requires intermingle of different but coherent land uses to create more vibrant and lively built environment- is not new in the realm of Urban Design or Planning, rather it has been an on-going trend in many developed countries over the last twenty years. Instead of dividing cities into large sectors of single use zones (such as residential, commercial, industrial etc), MUD encourages discrete intermingle of different land uses that are conducive to each other in order to create more vibrant and sustainable environment. As commercial and offices are intermingled with residential areas in MUD, it provides a sense security and keeps the place enlivened even after work hours. It might also reduce commute as some people may live and work in the same area. Therefore my point is, had Dhanmondi been transformed as a mixed-use community with a more creative vision and planning over the years, it could have been a paragon of healthy mixed used development in Dhaka. However, indiscrete and myopic planning has transformed a once green community into a concrete jungle today. And unfortunately some professional architects - who are supposed to espouse and champion the values of healthy built environment - are equally responsible for this manmade disaster. The recent example of any such activity is the remodelling of Dhanmondi Lake.
   In similar fashion, we have destroyed so many areas of our beloved city just in pursuit of maximising our self-interests and sometimes didn’t hesitate even for a moment to jeopardize a common future which we all are part of. However ‘the strong political will’ to put the first stride for change is the key to everything I said above. The Government is in the driving seat for development in a country like ours where private sector can only support it to create a symbiotic relationship for a healthy built environment. The politicians (both in the government and opposition) and the bureaucrats, who implement country’s policies, need to be fully motivated and convinced for a positive development. If they really have a strong will to make a change and make a stride for that, they can overcome other difficulties and arrange for required paraphernalia. I am not overenthusiastic over their will to make a change for a noble cause although it is, however they need to do that for the betterment of their next generation who are going to live in this very city. If they do not do something today, they will be held accountable to the next generation for their shear irresponsibility. Moreover it is quite understandable that a county like Bangladesh has myriads of other problems besides the ‘endangered’ city of Dhaka, however this is our prime city, our brain, our heart of culture and history. We need to protect this for our own survival.
   This is the city once we used call ‘the Venice of Orient’; this is the abode of our many historic events. Thousands of memories are inter-woven in its social and physical fabric. But very unfortunately its fate has been imperilled by indiscrete and myopic acts by some of its own inhabitants. We have no more time for encapsulating ourselves in our self-indulgence and self-interest, we have no more time to point finger to each other.
   The more we are wasting our time, the more we are getting closer toward ultimate destruction of the ‘commons’. We have to do something collectively right now. I would like to conclude with what Sir Winston Churchill said once; he said that politicians think of today and statesmen think of tomorrow. Given the situation today, it is hard to believe that we do have that kind of statesmen. But one thing is pretty much sure. The way our politicians are running the country, we are going to need some sooner or later badly anyway.
   (Concluded)

A report to the UN human rights commission in Geneva has concluded that Iraqi children were actually better off under Saddam Hussein than they are now.
   This, of course, comes as a bitter blow for all those of us who, like George Bush and Tony Blair, honestly believe that children thrive best when we drop bombs on them from a great height, destroy their cities and blow up hospitals, schools and power stations.
   It now appears that, far from improving the quality of life for Iraqi youngsters, the US-led military assault on Iraq has inexplicably doubled the number of children under five suffering from malnutrition. Under Saddam, about 4% of children under five were going hungry, whereas by the end of last year almost 8% were suffering.
   These results are even more disheartening for those of us in the Department of Making Things Better for Children in the Middle East By Military Force, since the previous attempts by Britain and America to improve the lot of Iraqi children also proved disappointing. For example, the policy of applying the most draconian sanctions in living memory totally failed to improve conditions. After they were imposed in 1990, the number of children under five who died increased by a factor of six. By 1995 something like half a million Iraqi children were dead as a result of our efforts to help them.
   A year later, Madeleine Albright, then the US ambassador to the United Nations, tried to put a brave face on it. When a TV interviewer remarked that more children had died in Iraq through sanctions than were killed in Hiroshima, Mrs Albright famously replied: “We think the price is worth it.”
   But clearly George Bush didn’t. So he hit on the idea of bombing them instead. And not just bombing, but capturing and torturing their fathers, humiliating their mothers, shooting at them from road blocks - but none of it seems to do any good. Iraqi children simply refuse to be better nourished, healthier and less inclined to die. It is truly baffling.
   And this is why we at the department are appealing to you - the general public - for ideas. If you can think of any other military techniques that we have so far failed to apply to the children of Iraq, please let us know as a matter of urgency. We assure you that, under our present leadership, there is no limit to the amount of money we are prepared to invest in a military solution to the problems of Iraqi children.
   In the UK there may now be 3.6 million children living below the poverty line, and 12.9 million in the US, with no prospect of either government finding any cash to change that. But surely this is a price worth paying, if it means that George Bush and Tony Blair can make any amount of money available for bombs, shells and bullets to improve the lives of Iraqi kids. You know it makes sense.
   — The Guardian