No country in the world is without problems. Be it health, environmental or economic - problems were always there and they will continue to exist. Bangladesh also has its own set of problems - major among them are limited land area, pollution, corruption, violence against women, dysfunctional democracy to many other. In the book LET US ALL SOLVE SOME IMPORTANT NATIONAL PROBLEMS Aminul Islam mentions a few of the national problems at depth. Divided in ten chapters the writer Islam pointed out those problems while chalking out a series of remedial measures on how to address them more strategically and effectively.
The ten chapters have been composed of different topics except for chapters one and three. All in all, the author attempted to address nine burning issues of today's Bangladesh. The chapter nine is his personal reflections, observations about former empires but he has drawn rather an interesting comparison on how the sphere of domination still continues while the empires have vanished. He has focused on some of the key elements of neo-colonialism and described the role of NGOs within the sphere of domination.
The problems mentioned by the writer have unquestionably slowed down our progress in many aspects. However, particularly the two chapters dealing with limited land and how to ensure its proper management including land use survey indicates the author's extensive knowledge on the issue.
Since Mr. Islam's book was primarily about addressing national problems collectively, so this reviewer paid more attention to those. The issues he penned, particularly - violence on women, our fragile democracy, the innumerable set of problems to have crippled Dhaka city and the role of NGOs in Bangladesh are not new phenomenon. But beside problems he has also pinpointed a set of guidelines how to address them. However, population boom and land scarcity in the country seems to have worried the writer to a greater extent.
The bottom-line - Mr Aminul Islam is a concerned citizen of the country and likes to ponder over various issues even the ones which go beyond his boundaries. He is a keen observer and deep thinker. His book LET US ALL SOLVE SOME IMPORTANT NATIONAL PROBLEMS will definitely give a clear outline of some of the prevailing and also growing problems of Bangladesh. Researchers or foreigners keen to delve into some of our national problems will be benefitted by reading it. Published by Jagriti Prokashoni the 160 page book is priced at taka 280 with an impressive cover image. Nevertheless, some more photos, graphs, charts and statistics would have added more value to the book. Some typos and spelling erros could have been easily avoided.
The writer is the Assistant Editor, The Daily Observer
