Bangla base

The government, it appears, is not doing enough to initiate a modular master plan (series of dev projects) to strengthen the foundation for improving written and oral Bangla at the various vertical layers of the society, for different age groups, with varying levels of literacy.

What is noticeable is the sentimental approach to some annual rituals as emotional outlets. This powerful public feeling has to be channelled into formal outputs and exercises; now that the UN has recognised the mother language as a symbol of universal brotherhood.

It provides a scope for international technical assistance at the national level.

The Bangla Academy has done some work, but the image of the integrated output has yet to reach the public awareness level. This issue is no longer at political divergence, hence consensus would not be wanting.

The society is changing fast (too fast for the pen-pushers in the Secretariat!) in this ICT age, hence the use of English has its attraction (and competition) for the urbanites and the cosmopolitans in the higher-income-group families.

Outsourcing of office work, products and services to the developing countries may rise exponentially in the coming decades; hence migratory tendencies of Bangladeshis to the industrialised countries might slow down. Bangladesh has the advantage of huge human resources, provided a large percentage of the same are literate and educated enough to handle these incoming businesses.

This is a parallel national exercise, compared to the steady development of the deeper uses of Bangla at many levels of local employment and services. There are islands of entrepreneurship flags fluttering around. These have to be coordinated at the national level, specially at the initial phases, to keep the systems losses low.

A national debate would input many valuable suggestions, to enable a subsequent commission to draft a Master Plan.