Bangladesh fails Sidr victims

Seen on: YouTube

Life after Cyclone Sidr, has been mixed for its survivors. After a year of promises by the mostly corrupt Bangladeshi administration, people are putting their lives back-together with assistance from non-governmental organizations.

Power of the mobile phone

Why does poverty still exist despite decades of development aid?

In this talk, Iqbal-Quadir explains why "aid does damages: because it empowers authorities instead of people," and advocates a new approach to development from below, "by the people for the people." His own experience as a child in Bangladesh and later a banker in New York brought him to realize that "connectivity is productivity" -- and that a simple cell phone has enormous power.

Now his telecom company, Grameenphone, offers service to most of rural Bangladesh, creating new opportunities by connecting villages to the world.

Bangladesh Corruption: Titas Gas

About 80 percent of the staff at Bangladesh's biggest state-owned gas distributor took bribes to the tune of millions, the head of a anti-graft body has said.

Employees of Titas-Gas Distribution Company pocketed bribes in return for undercharging thousands of factories and homes, said the chief probing the company. Colonel Hasan, who uses one name, said so far 127 workers at Titas Gas had agreed to return 58 million dollars worth of assets bought with the money.

"But it is a tiny fraction of the money these people have made by under-billing the amount of gas a company or an individual household has consumed," he said.

Bangladesh Blogger says: Above image courtesy of Titas-Gas, is to encourage its clients, not to waste this vital national-treasure. However, it seems the management of this mis-managed organization was not paying much-attention.

Via AFP

Cash Back Bangladesh

Independent film with a focus on British-Bangladeshi remittances and foreign-aid, and their impact on British and Bangladeshi society.

• By far, the largest overseas Bangladeshi communities that have settled in the West are in the UK (and increasingly the US,) with well over a quarter of a million people of Bangladeshi origin living in Britain.


• The total value of remittances sent by expatriates to the developing world was conservatively estimated to exceed $80 billion last year. As members of the largest overseas Bangladeshi community in the developed world, we have a particularly poignant interest in this topic.
  


• Remittances are conservatively estimated to contribute at least 4% of Bangladesh's GDP and have directly helped Bangladesh's balance of payments by contributing around a third of its foreign exchange needs. In monetary terms, remittance income is larger as a net gain than the near $5 billion foreign exchange earnings earned by the ready-made garment (RMG) sector, because the latter figure is significantly reduced when adjusted for the cost of materials and tax breaks.
  

Excerpts from a Memorandum submitted by the British Bangladeshi International Development Group (BBIDG) to the Select-Committee.


Via Bangladesh Blogger