Food for Thought

I am really excited to hear that the 24th batch of FVM at CVASU is nearing graduation. It is such fantastic news for me! I remember meeting some of you in my tutorial group back in 2019, and now, here you are, just a couple of months away from graduation. Time really does fly! I truly wish each of you a smooth and successful completion of this process. I would like to give you a message in this write-up. While getting an educational qualification is essential, it is not everything. We have hundreds of thousands of graduates, but we are still struggling as a society. Look around yourself! What hurtful things do you see? People do not respect each other. Sometimes, we do not behave appropriately. We show our arrogance, thinking we are the best among others. We do not try to listen to others. People are dying to make money in any way. They do not care if it is the right way or wrong way. They only want to gain money. People do not have any other purpose in life other than making money. Th...

Despite the importance of organizational alignment, many enterprises still struggle to align their strategies, competencies, resources, and management systems to achieve organizational purposes due to silo mentality (Trevor & Varcoe 2017) . Exceptional companies like McDonald’s overcome the individuality of the teams and become aligned which results in greater effectiveness and efficiency. The alignment unites the company’s purposes, strategies, competencies, resources, and management structure. The organizational purpose is not just about making money rather a broader aim for what the people really care about. When the purpose is built properly, shared carefully and individuals work towards it, profit should come eventually. Business strategy fits the customer demand, company’s purpose and competitiveness together and shows how to achieve the purpose by capitalizing on the situational opportunities. For the intended alignment, then, the organization needs to have the right capabil...

Bangladeshi universities are concerned about implementing online teaching and assessment to combat epidemic situations though there is skepticism regarding online education. I would like to share some of my recent learnings during my master’s program in Australia. Understandably, the Australian context is quite dissimilar to our country but still, we can gather some gross insights that might provide us with some basic thoughts for online teaching and assessment strategies. Because of highly developed IT infrastructure, knowledge, and initiatives, and financial strength, no universities in Australia faced any kind of major interruptions in the academic semesters since the pandemic hit the country. I am trying to produce a synopsis of how they managed it with excellent outcomes. How did they operate? 1.       Since the universities are independent in academic decision making, the universities planned well ahead sensing the pandemic situations to move to online educatio...

In Bangladesh, the agriculture sector contributes 13.32% to our GDP (Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics, 2019) and it absorbs the biggest portion (41%) of the labor force (Ministry of Agriculture, 2018). About 64.96% of the total population live in rural areas (World Bank, 2016) and the majority of them are directly or indirectly engaged in a wide range of agricultural activities. Apparently, the rural development is directly linked to agro-industry development. Again another estimation of World Bank says, “Growth in agriculture is two to four times more powerful at reducing poverty than growth in other sectors”. Intergovernmental Committee of Experts on Sustainable Development Financing (ICESDF) also emphasizes that Bangladesh needs huge investment for sectors like agriculture and rural development. Hence, in a broad sense, it is clear that agro-industry comprised of agribusinesses can play a vital role in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals in an agriculture-based developing eco...

Opportunity to start a show comes suddenly. If someone holds this with love and passion, it might stand out of the crowd. Even a hobby can become a money-making venture. Josh's rainbow eggs is such an interesting story to read. In the year 2009, Josh, a boy from a family farm in Victoria, Australia, was nine years old when he first started the trading by himself after getting encouragement from his mother-  “why don’t you do all the work and then you can have all the money from the eggs.” Out of his passion, interest and hobby, he took the challenge and started raising a small flock of 40 hens.  Source: Josh's Rainbow Eggs Website In the beginning. he used to sell the eggs to the neighbors and with his business acumen, he gradually started to increase the flock size and expand his customer base. Now he needed a name and labelling of the product he produced. He got the name of the product in a wow moment when his friend first saw the green-blue Araucana eggs with some...

প্রাপ্ত বয়স্ক কারোই অজানা নয় যে, নিজের প্রয়োজনগুলো মিটিয়ে বেঁচে থাকার জন্য টাকা উপার্জন করা একটা খুব গুরুত্বপূর্ণ বিষয়। একেকজন মানুষ একেকভাবে তার মেধা এবং অথবা শ্রম দিয়ে উপার্জন করে। কিন্তু সমস্যা হয় তখন যখন আমরা নিজেকে ভুলে গিয়ে নিজের সীমাবদ্ধতাকে এড়িয়ে আরেকজনকে পুরোপুরি অনুসরণ করি বা করতে চাই অথবা আরেকজনের/ সমাজের পছন্দকে প্রাধান্য দিতে গিয়ে সেই মতে কিছু করতে চাই। আমার ব্যক্তিগত পর্যবেক্ষণে, বেশিরভাগ ক্ষেত্রেই এর পরিণতি হচ্ছে জীবন সম্পর্কে চরম হতাশা- যার কোন বাস্তবিক ইতিবাচক ফলাফল নেই। এর মানে এই নয় যে, আমরা কাউকে অনুসরণ করব না। আমরা অবশ্যয় আমাদের সাধ্যমত ভালো, যৌক্তিক, সঠিক, স্বচ্ছ, সৎ  এবং নৈতিকভাবে সমর্থনযোগ্য যেকোন ব্যক্তি/পথকে অনুসরণ করতে পারি এবং সেই একই নীতি অনুযায়ী নিজের পছন্দমত ক্যারিয়ারও গড়তে পারি। কিন্তু কোনভাবেই অযৌক্তিকভাবে আরোপিত পারিবারিক/সামাজিক চাপ নিয়ে অন্যের পছন্দমত ক্যারিয়ার গড়তে যাওয়ার চিন্তা করা উচিত না। এই কথার অর্থ এও নয় যে, আমরা পরিবারের দায়িত্ব নিতে অস্বীকৃতি জানাব।   "আমাদের সমাজ বিজ্ঞান" নাটকটি খুব সুন্দরভাবে পুরো বিষয়টি তুলে ধরেছে...

We are not born with boundless self-confidence. If someone seems to be unbelievably self-confident, it is because he or she has dealt with it for a long time with a conscious mind. So it is important to know how to deal with ‘confidence’ so that the challenge of life does not deflate it.  P. C.: Google Image You might know, over diet and poor diet both are injurious to our health. The presence of confidence in you also works in the same way as the ‘balanced diet’. No, do not get me wrong, you do not find ‘confidence’ in the balanced diet! What I mean is if there is a lack of confidence, you have got a problem and if you have over-confidence, it is more than a problem. In one hand, over-confidence makes you arrogant like ‘I can do everything!’ On the other hand, less or no confidence stops you literally in everywhere and grows ‘can’t do’ attitude. Both situations are detrimental to your well-being. So you need to balance it and it is challenging but not impossible to achieve....