A Brief Colonial History Of Ceylon(SriLanka)
Sri Lanka: One Island Two Nations
A Brief Colonial History Of Ceylon(SriLanka)
Sri Lanka: One Island Two Nations
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Thiranjala Weerasinghe sj.- One Island Two Nations
?????????????????????????????????????????????????Saturday, May 27, 2017
Budget of 2017-18: A History of the People of Bangladesh
( May 25, 2017, Dhaka, Sri Lanka Guardian) The
finance minister of Bangladesh, Mr. Abul Mal Abdul Muhith, will present
the next fiscal year’s budget in the parliament on 1st June. It will be
more than Four thousand billion Bangladeshi Taka (BDT), the biggest
budget in the history of Bangladesh. The country is going to make
another history through this budget because Bangladesh is going to
produce a budget by almost their own wealth for the first time.
Bangladesh is going to propose a big budget wholly by its own wealth
when it reaches the status of a middle income country. Besides, it is a
country of five hundred million young workers, it is a country of ten
million female garment workers, it is a country where maternity
mortality is less than India (the biggest economy in South Asia), and it
is a country where the sanitation facility is a hundred percent.
Bangladesh has prepared the budget for this fiscal year when the country
will open the Padma Bridge (the longest bridge in the country) at its
own cost, after cancelling the fund of World Bank in this project. But,
last year World Bank invited the Prime Minister of Bangladesh to give a
speech in their Bank on “How she is making this economy”; in addition,
the chief of the Word Bank has visited Bangladesh to understand its
economic progress.
The Sheikh Hasina led government is running the country for the last
eight years and a half. In this tenure, this government has made a new
Bangladesh, even a new economy which is not only developing the country
but also has become a model for the developing countries. In the current
fiscal year with regard to the the world, only Bangladesh has achieved
7.2% Gross Domestic Product (GDP). The country has achieved food
sufficiency for seven years in their main food rice. Moreover, the
country holds the fourth position in the fish producing sector in the
world.
In the 16th and 17th centuries, this country was the eastern part of the
Bengal. During that time, its total revenue was more than the total
budget of the then European countries. Then it was a part of India; and
India was ruled by the Mughal Emperor. This eastern part was one of the
treasuries of the crops of the Mughal Emperor. No Emperor is for the
people, so the people did not get the facility of their wealth
accordingly. After the Mughal Emperor, Bengal was occupied by the
British. In the regime of the British, some infrastructures were built
up in Bengal and even in India. Because, after occupying Bengal the
British within a hundred years occupied the whole of India. However, a
portion of the revenue was spent here only for production, but a lion’s
part of it was being sent regularly to Britain. People never got the
benefit of that.
In the middle of August 1947, the British left India and then this part
of Bengal became a part of Pakistan, which was created in the name of
religion majority. It was a man-made disaster for Indian subcontinents
because fifty million people were displaced and millions of people were
killed in the name of the religion based partition. The Eastern part of
Bengal was one of the main victims in Indian subcontinents. After this
bloody- death and forced –displacement of people, the people of this
area did not get their right to run their country and build up their
economy; rather as a part of Pakistan, it became another colony. A
colony of Pakistan.
So, from the very first stage, the people of this country started to
protest against Pakistan; after one and a half decade, their leader
Sheikh Mujibur Rahman clearly said that the people of this area could
not live as a colony people and they wanted their economic right in
their own hands. Fighting for this economic- right reached to a freedom
-fight of a country. In 1971, the eastern part of Pakistan was born by a
bloody birth as Bangladesh, sacrificing three million people lives.
That was the first time in its five hundred years’ history when people
got their right in their own hands. But, the misfortune of the people of
Bangladesh is that they did not get time to enjoy it. Within three and a
half years, Sheikh Mujib was killed by the military government with the
help of Pakistan. From then, the country was again run by the military
ruler as it was ruled in the Pakistan era by the Pakistani military
ruler.
So, it is true that in its five hundred years’ history, only last eight
years and a half, it was governed by a strong hand of a people’s
representative-who is for the people. This people’s representative is
the Sheikh Hasina government. In these last eight years and a half,
economic and social development cut a remarkable and extra-ordinary mark
in the country’s five hundred years’ history. In this eight years and a
half’ development history, the next budget is the biggest in the
country’s five hundred years’ history. It has been prepared by Sheikh
Hasina’s government and will be presented in the parliament by an
Octogenarian, learned Economist and Historian, Abul Mal Abdul Muhith,
the Finance Minister of Bangladesh.
Swadesh
Roy, Executive Editor. The Daily Janakantha, Dhaka, Bangladesh. He is a
highest state award winning journalist; and can be reached at
swadeshroy@gmail.com