State and Governance

The book is based on the findings of a survey conducted in 1990 of four erstwhile upazilas in the districts of Patuakhali and Barguna in Bangladesh. The original study was commissioned by the Danish International Development Agency (DANIDA) culminating in a research report. Although the decentralized system of local government in the form of upazila parishads no longer exists in the country, the contents of the book should be relevant to policy reforms for the local government.

This volume consists of 26 columns published earlier in various leading dailies between the years 2004 and 2006. The need for publication of the columns was felt because of the almost unending debate on religion-based militancy. The major political parties did not fail to have polarised views on the issue based on politics of denial and politics of confrontation. The media and the civil society, on the other hand, contributed to a more informed understanding of the much-debated subject of terrorism.