Urban and Regional Planning URP

Reforming political and governance institutions is not a common issue during election time. The last time this issue dominated an election campaign in a first world country was in the early eighties with Margaret Thatcher in Great Britain and Ronald Reagan in the United States. Thirty-six years after its birth, a Bangladesh caretaker government is facing the same issue. They are addressing it directly by instituting some useful reforms.

The problems of governance have occupied the centre stage of national debate in Bangladesh since independence. But at this particular point in time, their appropriate resolution has assumed unprecedented importance and urgency in our national life. With only five years to go before we enter the 21st century, our nation has reached a stage from where we may either move forward to a bright future or relapse into darkness. It is in this context that governance issues in Bangladesh have to be analysed for finding adequate solutions and means of implementation.

These essays show that contrary to the widespread belief, nationalism is not all about the celebration of territory as a marker of identity and power; it is also about time in a fundamental way. The anxiety over time is as fundamental as the one over space. Indeed space appears as one in the distribution of the elements that go into making the time of nationalism. The author contends that, each time the nationalist destiny of Muslim Bengal took a clearly discernible turn, it seemed to the actors as final and irrevocable?the actors of 1937, 1947, 1954, 1957, or 1971.

The book is a chronology of events surrounding the assassination of late President Ziaur Rahman and the aftermath, as well as a brief commentary on Zias rise to power. The author, who was Deputy Commissioner of Chittagong at the time of Zia's assassination, narrates these events from his perspective. It is a riveting account of the last hours of the most powerful man of Bangladesh that time, and the series of events leading to the capture and assassination of another freedom fighter, late Maj. Gen. Manzoor Hussain.