Buffeted budget
A Mahasen Dhaka
Unholy speculations were rife in the metropolis on the budget announced by the finance minister. Save the party or the budding nation? Accept the rise and fall of political parties, or go by the short-term, viable ripple-effect of the budget; oblivious of the economic tsunami which might hit later? Ad hoc brains are not real thinkers. It is cosmetic thinking and planning of the have-not minds, keen on immediate impact on powerless voters and captive citizens (speaking of the political approaches to national policies; in contrast to the technical manipulation of budgetary details). Good citizens have few options in the field of choosing good governance from contemporary demonstrations.The fate and plight of the fluctuating economies in Latin America was focussed in an article in The Daily Star of May 28. The situation in the other third world nations is not much different. Bangladesh is an example of frozen assets and flowing black money for three decades since independence (1971). Power before service. No service is possible while in the Opposition! The flow is one-way; and that too, outside the august parliament. We have a very experienced Finance Minister, but he has to process and filter uncharitable proposals from a shady political world full of smoke screens. In the same issue of The Daily Star there was an article by a local professor on the coming mega-earthquake around Dhaka, based on the return-cycle of the huge Bengal earthquake of 1885, predicted to hit the high-rise buildings around 2015-2020. We need flattened egos, not buildings! Add the absence of political consensus at the national level for the last 15 years, and superimpose ethical factors such as corruption, violence and religious bigotry, and you have a dismaying picture of the shape of things to come in the near future. Protect the self, the family, or the paranoid party? When insecurity haunts at domestic and public levels, how citizens could contribute to national richness?
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