Welcome 2015

The New Year is always a time for reflection and looking forward to a fresh beginning. Those who lived the past year well, hope the year to come would be even better. And those who did not spend a particularly good year, pull their socks in the hope that they would be able to get the most out of the year that follows. What acts as a guiding force is the eternal hope in human bosom. But living a cherished life may mean different things to different people. In a world of diverse cultures, customs, social norms, tradition, beliefs, ideologies and values, even the celebration of the New Year takes place at different times. Yet the New Year on the Gregorian calendar has made its presence felt almost all over the world for reasons understandable. International agreements and transactions of any kind are set according to this calendar.

 There is nothing to be surprised if it is discovered that the dominant theme of global culture constitutes in aggressive consumerism. As part of the sub-continent which spent about 200 years under colonial rule though, this land has a tradition of exporting merchandise, a bulk of which was clothes - muslin being the ultimate variety man has ever woven. Snapped for about a couple of centuries, the tradition is once again revived through the manufacture and export of readymade garments (RMG). But in a global village, industrial production has to pass various tests including the working environment in the factory. To its credit Bangladesh has every chance of living behind the most infamous factory disasters at Tazreen Fashion and Rana Plaza in 2012 and 2013. The process of recovery continued throughout the year 2014 and it will hopefully do so in the following year. As the country's economic lifelines, RMG and migrant workers have not only propped the country's economy against all odds, they have opened its possibility of attaining the status of a middle-income one within the next five or six years. The country's farmers, of course, deserve most credit for supplying the required fuel. For a country dismissed once as a 'basket case' this is no mean achievement.

Yet this much is not enough. The country's immense possibility as an economic power to reckon with has largely been undermined so far by financial corruption almost at all levels of administration. Had the people in power could only make such corruption a thing of the past, the country might have achieved the middle-income status by now. Capital flight of undisclosed amounts has eroded the country's economic power. It is also at the root of maldistribution of wealth among different segments of people. Fair income and its investment generate employment but siphoned-off money saps the financial system of its strength. It is exactly because of this, the country is in a dire need to put in place good governance and go for institution building.

Higher growth of gross domestic product (GDP) would have been possible if financial irregularities in administration could be done away with. Now that a new national pay scale is all set to be introduced, doubling the existing salaries, should it not be a common expectation that financial corruption will be dealt with an iron hand and governance improved to meet the long-felt needs of the people? These should concurrently be done. Every government makes boosting economy a bird's eye but few give enough consideration to its ethical and environmental implications. It is time Bangladesh made a conscious effort in keeping its environmental commitment strong enough too. The oil leak episode at Sunderbans does not speak highly of the government initiative. In the year 2015, let the government come forward with a definite policy to deal with such unfortunate turns of events.