
This book includes selected papers on crop suitability and agricultural development based on the author's extensive experience with soils and agricultural development in Bangladesh. Written between 1974 and 1989, the papers range from popular journal articles to formal reports to Government. The successive chapters, updated by footnotes, provide a realistic appraisal of the opportunities for increasing agricultural production in Bangladesh's diverse environments.
The first decade of the 21st century has been a lost decade for Bangladesh both politically and economically. On one hand, this period provided a scope for political commentators to write about many issues in respect of development of democratic practices and of governance, yet on the other hand, this was a period of nightmare for the politicians and for the people in general. This volume is a collection of selected articles contributed by the author to Bangladesh's most popular English daily, The Daily Star.
The liberal democratic values and the constitutional system have suffered serial reversals in Bangladesh, accompanied by a trend towards authoritarian and unaccountable government. The failure of the political system and politicians is blamed conventionally. That alone cannot explain the reversals sufficiently; the deep conflict of secular nationalism and liberal democracy with communal and authoritarian political culture explain the political and constitutional regresses.
This study covers, what Leonard A. Gordon calls, the neglected history of Bengali Muslims before 1947. It provides a detailed account of the Bengal Muslim League during the period from 1906 to1947. It covers its various aspects, such as, problems of organisation, policies and mobilisation , nature of leadership, inner party conflict, bases of support and relations with the parent all-India body. A special attempt has been made to show how the formerly popular Krishak Praja Party disappeared from the political scene of Bengal, ironically, during the Chief Ministership of its architect, A.K.
The decade preceding the 1947 Indian partition was an eventful period, with profound impact on the subsequent political developments of the states thus created. Though works dealing with this period abound, most of these have an all-India focus. There is a dearth of research-based books and other works covering the Bengal situation. Bengal, then a Muslim-majority province in eastern India, was the bastion of the Muslim League/Pakistan movement.
Elections under caretaker governments are a common practice to be found in most parliamentary democracies of the world. Usually an outgoing government acts as the caretaker administration. But Bangladesh has deviated from this established democratic tradition. The Constitution now requires that a non-party caretaker government (NCG) run the routine administration of the country for a limited period of time between the dissolution of parliament and the appointment of a prime minister after the constitution of a new parliament.
Committees are ubiquitous. They are found in all types of legislatures- large or small, old or new. Parliamentary committees are important because they can provide a number of values that are not easily available otherwise. However, although it is widely acknowledged that committees have greater resilience in Congressional and Continental systems than in Westminster-style democracies, there are not many studies that explore variations in committee influence and impact in the latter. This volume intends to fill this gap.
This book contains essays for discussion and amendment. The author has tried to describe and analyse one of the most enduring issues of our time in order to facilitate a different understanding of the event. The effects of nationalism, militarism, fundamentalism and democracy manifest themselves as a powerful pressure with significant effects on our human environment. It has widened the gap between concern and decision and has impassibly divided Bangladesh society.
This book is an attempt to bring the complexities and multiplicities of violence inflicted against women and the different dimensions of militarisation. Several issues however inform and shape the South Asian complexities with respect to women and militancy, and the book attempts to address them both theoretically and empirically. Firstly, the book looks at the challenges and contradiction. South Asia has outstanding women leaders at the state level, but violence against women and that too of varied nature is on the rise.
The Politics of Nationalism examines the process of nationality construction within the Hill people of Chittagong Hill Tracts, Bangladesh. The book places the issue in an historical context and begins with the first encounter of the Hill people with the British in 1760; it traces their loss of independence and consequent marginalisation within the colonial state. The book then argues that nation-state is tuned to the needs and aspirations of the dominant community; and the Hill people being the subordinate group continued to be marginalised within the State of Pakistan and then Bangladesh.