Food for Thought

Free trade refers to a market model in which trade in goods and services between or within countries flow unimpeded by government imposed restrictions such as taxes, tariffs, or subsidies. In general sense, we can say free trade ensures the free flow of goods from one country to another without facing any trade barrier. In today’s world the word ‘Free trade’ emerged in the post Cold War world as a global possibility with the growing economic interconnectedness between countries has become a catchphrase. Before concluding any remarks regarding the issue, at first we need to analyze the pros and cons. Benefits of Free Trade to a developing country like Bangladesh Free trade helps to increase the global level of output because it permits specialization among countries. Every nation has some sort of specializations which allow that nation to devote its scarce resources to the production of the particular goods and services for which that nation has a comparative advantage. Under free t...

Culture refers to our understanding of acceptable behavior, beliefs, values, languages, and all other actions and practices. Cross culture denotes to dealing with different cultures of the world. Globalizations, the expansion of global trade, the increase in the number of companies dealing on the international stage, and diversity in the workplace have made ‘cross culture communication’ a significant element of organizational life. International and national businesses are ultimately the result of people. As with incompatible software, if people are running on different cultural coding, problems can occur. Lack of knowledge of cross culture and language proficiency often leads to poor internal unity. The loss of customers, poor staff retention, lack of competitive edge, internal conflicts, external miscommunication and conflicts, poor working relations, misunderstandings, stress, poor productivity, and lack of co-operation are all by-products of poor cross cultural communication....

Politics is for the greater interest of the society and the country at large. Keeping it in mind some students of Dhaka Medical College surrendered their highest belongings on February 21, 1952. We call it ‘ultimate sacrifice’. The movement led by student community in 1960s, 1971 and 1990 brought the most enormous and the greatest output for the country and for its well being which is known to all. It was much more than student politics and still now the nation remembers those brilliant politicians for their great contributions. In 2010 we see the so called student politicians are just showing up their servile follower-ship to their supported parties in an illogical way. A couple of weeks ago several students were killed in different universities of the country by student community. In both of the before mentioned cases student community is related. But what is the output of the murders of the latter case? Bloodshed, closures of the universities, violence, prolonged session jam, ...

Culture is the unique identity of a nation. Globalization denotes to the borderless world where all the nations of the world will stand under a single umbrella. It doesn’t mean that the nations will forget their own identity as an effect of globalization. It’s our common phenomenon that we always take all the negative aspects of a buzzword and never try to adopt the positive ones. The same thing is happening in case of our golden culture due to the effect of globalization. We are almost going to forget our own culture, the Bangali culture. But we are very much alert about it when Pohela Boishak, Nobanno Utshob comes. Is culture only for those days? Or is it to represent us every where in every circumstance? On my eid vacation I was trying to enjoy some TV programs on our indigenous channels. That day a channel caught my eyes where to my utter surprise I saw all the performers wearing some western cloths. If u mute the TV set, no one can ever guess that they are the Bangali. It...

Recently published world’s best universities ranking shows no Bangladeshi universities have been able to position among the 500 best universities. Doesn’t this news make us be worried? University is the place of pilgrimage for higher education. Along with providing quality education and degree, university is to discover and organize new knowledge through research work, produce newer and newer theory. These are the significant criteria to be enlisted as a best university. What is the plight of our higher education and our universities? Our universities are busy with providing multifarious and colourful degrees. Their efforts are confined to fitting their products (students) for the job market. We are experiencing poor research work, in some cases no research work. Our universities are far-away from using latest and ultra modern technology let alone gigantic contribution to science and technology. Why are our universities out of the list if these are not true? I have some...