Army troops patrol to ensure peaceful JS polls
December 21, 2008
Military forces have been deployed throughout the country from Saturday as striking force to ensure law and order for holding peaceful and credible national parliament elections scheduled to be held on December 29. Earlier on December 18, the troops rolled out from the barracks and are now stationed at districts and thana levels. They have already started roaming the metropolitan cities, district towns, thanas and remote areas of the villages across the country.
Govt discusses action plan for skilled manpower
December 1, 2008
A national panel Sunday discussed a 14-point action plan for grooming skilled manpower suiting the current job requirements at home and abroad. The recently formed National Skills Development Council in its first meeting at the chief adviser’s office took up the action plan for a detailed appraisal.
6 Bangladeshi organisations bag Manthan Awards
October 22, 2008
UNDP sources said Bangladeshi organisations got awards in five among 13 categories. They are e-culture and entertainment, e-enterprise and livelihood, e-government, e-localisation and m-content.
The award winners are Unnayan TV and Youth Voice (e-culture and entertainment), Jeeon-IKB (e-enterprise and livelihood), VoteBD.org (e-government), Hoimonti (e-localisation) and Cellbazaar (m-content).
Of the 32 awards in 13 categories, India bagged 22, Afghanistan one and Sri Lanka three. The announcement of the Manthan Award 2008 came on Monday.
Manthan Award is the first of its kind initiative in India to recognise the best practices in e-content and creativity. It was launched on October 10, 2004 by Digital Empowerment Foundation in partnership with World Summit Award and American India Foundation.
Since then it has come to define the very best in e-content for development arena in India. Now, after four immensely successful years of holding it within India, the organisers have felt that it is expanded a bit and its areas of operation now is all of Saarc countries namely India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Maldives, Bhutan and Afghanistan.
Unnayan TV: First online video channel in Bangladesh, which regularly publishes video contents on development, human rights and educational and cultural issues of the country.
Netbetar: NetBetar is the first online audio channel in Bangla for Bangla speaking audience globally. NetBetar as an internet radio station that serves two goals — it reconnects the global Bangladeshi to their roots and give them chance to be a part of Bangladesh’s development.
Jeeon-IKB: Subtitled ‘Information for Life’, Jeeon-IKB had been developed by Development Research Network in Bangla language. All critical information related to education, agriculture, governance, livelihood, scholarships, libraries, loans, banking, health and so on are aggregated into a CD.
VoteBD.org: The website www.votebd.org has been developed to disseminate the personal information of the candidates who will contest in the local and national elections among the voters. Ironically, this effort is happening in Bangladesh.
The information disseminated are educational qualification, criminal records (present and past), statements of assets and liabilities of candidates and dependents, profession, loan from bank and financial institutions, statement of income tax returns, source of election expenses, statement of actual election expenses etc.
Hoimonti: Hoimonti is a first of its kind technical endeavour in Bangladesh, where a Linux based free operating system called Ubuntu has been developed. The operating system is in Bangla. Hoimonti has a Bengali ‘installation procedure’ along with configuration documentation.
Cell Bazaar: It is truly a cell bazaar at people’s service from Bangladesh. The service allows buyers and sellers to meet in a mobile marketplace. Sellers post items, buyers view them, and contact sellers. Nearly more than 20 million users can access to this service to buy any agricultural product, such as rice, fish, chicken, as well as large scale purchases like apartment, land, car, and consumer goods such as TV, fridge, etc.
Foster greater regional cooperation thru’ friendship: CA
October 13, 2008
 |
|
Chief Adviser Fakhruddin Ahmed addresses the Rover Scouts at the inaugural ceremony of the 6th SAF Scout Friendship Camp at the National Scout Training Centre at Mouchak in Gazipur yesterday. Photo: PID
|
“We will need your contribution to many varied ways to promote the Saarc spirit and ensure sustainable socio-economic development of this region,” he said.
The head of the caretaker government said this while inaugurating the week-long 6th SAF Scout Friendship Camp at the National Scout Training Centre at Mouchak in Gazipur.
The meet has been organised by Bangladesh Scouts in association with South Asia Foundation (SAF). The theme of this year’s scout camp is ‘Scouting for Peace and Friendship’.
Saarc nations have been hosting and organising SAF scout friendship camps since 2002 in association with SAF. Bhutan, Nepal, the Maldives, Sri Lanka and Pakistan respectively hosted the previous SAF Scout camps.
The broad objective of such gathering of youths has been the enhancement of solidarity, friendship and cultural exchange through scouting.
A total of 322 rover scouts and scout leaders, including 138 from Bhutan, India, Nepal, the Maldives, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, are participating in the camp while the rest from the host country.
As the CA reached the venue, he was adorned with scout scarf. The rovers of the participating countries with their respective national flag introduced themselves to the CA.
Bangladesh Scouts President and Education Secretary M Momtajul Islam, Bangladesh Scouts Chief National Commissioner M Abul Kalam Azad and Organising Committee President M Mozammel Haque Khan also spoke at the function.
Chief national commissioner and national commissioners of scouts of Saarc countries, scout leaders and officials, rover scouts, elite and government officials also took part in the opening programme.
A cultural performance based on independence of Bangladesh, its social and cultural tradition, particularly tradition of rural life, was displayed at the function.
Addressing the function, the CA said he considers rover scouts as young ambassadors of goodwill exchange, conflict management and social development in this region.
Fakhruddin said, “The large youth population of the Saarc countries can benefit from guidance as they develop into the leaders of tomorrow,” adding that scouting can mould character and help provide appropriate life skills to allow Scouts to shoulder greater responsibilities in future.
“… You will have the chance to better understanding one another, to exchange ideas related to culture, tradition and common values,” he told the gathering of Rovers. He noted that there is a tremendous scope for increasing scout membership in the regional bloc where population exceeds one billion.
With combined efforts, he hoped, the quantitative and qualitative improvements in scouting would be visible in this region of the world and bring about positive changes for a better tomorrow.
He said the chief commissioners of the Saarc countries may make this assembly a common platform to discuss issues like leadership development, youth involvement in decision-making process, gender equity, poverty alleviation and other issues.
The CA said each of the eight Saarc countries has diversified resources to share and offer, and “If we can tap into the tremendous depth of potential in our large population, this region may in the near future be a model of development in the world.”
Fakhruddin suggested revisiting the strategic priorities of scouting and exploring more and more challenging and attractive youth activities which can meet their needs as well as the needs of society.
Properly monitor manpower export to Malaysia
September 15, 2008
Money remitted home by Bangladeshi migrant workers has long played a major role in keeping the country’s economy afloat. Last year, Bangladesh received almost $8 billion dollars worth of remittance from more than a half crore expatriate workers. It is also among the top 20 countries in the world in terms of inward flow of remittance, which, according to reports, is almost a tenth of the GDP and the second largest foreign exchange earner after the apparel industry.
Considering that remittance from Malaysia reached $92.44 million last year, growing nearly nine times over that of the previous year, it is indeed a welcome news that the Malaysian government, as disclosed by the foreign ministry, is planning to recruit one lakh more Bangladeshi workers by the end of this year.
However, the process of manpower export to Malaysia has been riddled with irregularities. Given that Kuala Lumpur has in the past slapped bans on taking in Bangladeshi workers – a ten-year old ban was lifted in October 2006 only to be re-imposed in December 2007 – this development that Bangladeshi workers will once again be recruited needs to be dealt with delicately and sincerely. Also, the workers’ interest and welfare have to be given priority over commercial gains of other quarters involved in the process.
Only a few days ago we heard the harrowing tales of deported workers from Kuwait. We have also read numerous news reports on how recruiting agencies extort from those who want to go overseas to find employment — often charging them up to Tk 200,000 where the official fees are Tk 84,000. Yet, such malpractice continues unabated as the authorities concerned remain apathetic allowing the agencies to continue their exploitation.
The expatriate workers have contributed, to a large extent, in sustaining the economy and enabling the country to maintain a healthy foreign exchange reserve, but sadly the authorities concerned have done little to protect the source of this money — the migrant workers — from persecution at home and abroad. We note with concern the government’s callousness and apparent unwillingness to take any action against the criminal practices of recruiting agencies. We believe that the government should step up its efforts to monitor the recruiting agencies and their entire recruitment process. Our foreign ministry has evidently failed to engage and initiate a diplomatic discourse with quarters that might have led to a more desirable scenario as regards Bangladeshi manpower. It is expected that the authorities concerned will act prudently in handling and monitoring the workers’ appointment and stay in Malaysia as well as other countries.
Source: New Age
South Korea to recruit 7,000 workers from Bangladesh
September 10, 2008
Sources at the South Korean Embassy in Dhaka told The New Nation yesterday that around 3,000 Bangladeshis would get jobs in South Korea’s construction, textile, fisheries, agriculture, electronics and machinery sectors this year and the rest in 2009.
“We would recruit around 3,000 workers under the first ‘Employment Permit System (EPS)’ system this year. In 2009, the number of recruitment will be around 4,000,” a official of the embassy said.
He said, “We need a huge number of overseas workers as the population growth in South Korea has become stagnant. There are jobs available in almost every sector.”
Over 5.6 million Bangladeshis are now living and working in more than 100 countries in the world. Southeast Asian countries and the Middle East countries are the main destinations.