The book Mohakashe Bangladesh or Bangladesh in the outer space, if literally translated to English, is inspired by the launching of Bangladesh's first geostationary communications and Broadcasting Satellite to space in 2018. Having gone through the chapters and their details, it was very interesting in terms of acquiring basic knowledge about broadcasting satellites in the outer space.
Divided in 11 chapters, the book with a series of illustrations and important information on communication and broadcasting satellites is a perfect handbook to understand and go through the history of artificial satellites intentionally placed into Orbit. On that count, the former soviet satellite Sputnik-1 was the pioneer in the industry. However, in the 21st century it has become imperative for countries to posses their own satellites. And today's Bangladesh definitely deserves to have its own. The country, despite a few initial hiccups, finally managed launches one successfully from the Kennedy Space Center in North America.
The government can surely incorporate the Bangabandhu- 1 satellite launching as a part of its success stories, however, what really matters is to analyse the strengths and weaknesses of a satellite. Now that the satellite has been successfully launched over six months ago, the challenges to maintain it round-the-clock are all there.
Though the book touches over the issue but the author would have done a better job - had he incorporated a separate chapter on the technical issues - on how to keep the satellite perfectly operable. Also another chapter on how to optimise on availing the maximum of a satellite would have added much value to the book. In fact, there are chapters on the functionalities, history and types of satellites and their makings in the book but more technical knowhow should have been included.
The readers would benefit more if such government initiatives are praised and also deeply analysed before publishing.
To cut a long story short, the 51 page book is informative for general readership about broadcasting and communicative satellites but as a reviewer I expect them to be more in the likes of a SWOT analysis. Nevertheless, I believe the author would take my suggestions in tune with a sportsmanship attitude.
Pleasing a particular regime should never be the ultimate goal of a civil servant; he or she should aim for a higher objective for serving the society and also the government.
Not that the author has done a bad job with his book, but propaganda publications can also be very constructive and helpful, in terms of providing effective guidelines. Published by Tahmina Shirin Podokkhep, the book has been priced at Tk 600 - Once again a bit too overpriced for a propaganda-cum- informative publication. Illustrations are good when it comes to basic knowledge acquiring about communications and broadcasting satellites.
The reviewer is editor-in-charge of the editorial section,
The Daily Observer
