IN thr late 1950 or early 14*10 when my genera lion wik at the university, very tew of u* thought oi going abroad to live .md work lor the best part of our lives and return home only for holidays Now practically everybody Is in search of green pastures elsewhere in the world Millions ol Bengalis work abroad My grandfather never went >eyona Calcutta. Now over 100 individuals from my own village alpne live permanently beyond the Suez Canal In New York, practically every fifth taxi driver is from Bangladesh Thirty years back, there was none, f have found my .countrymen working In Bolivian gas stations or as farmhands in Australia. We are everywhere today. The mobility of Bangladeshi workers have gone up beyond any Imagination during the last twenty years This is the most significant aspect of globalisation which we often assume to be the inevitable result of enormous population pressure Like overflowing monsoon rivers, people must reach beyond the shores of the land in search of income and employment

However this is not the entire story of present day in ternational lalxiur migration The technology origin of not only labour migration but the whole process of globalisation is often overlooked Globallsa tion is basically a late 20th century phenomenon In the first decade of this century, the maximum speed at which man could move was in a train at 60 miles per hour Today, the Journey to the moon by rockets takes place at 25.000 miles per hour The first voice communication by telephone Involved a distance of 6 miles Today though electronic malls, both audio and video commu ideations take place within less than a second. Technology has conquered distance The world is like a village today So people will move and distance is no constraint

With the coming of Grameen telephone, our villages will no longer be remote. Without any loss of time, from Times Square. New York, Ab

dul Hakim will be able to speak to his father at Dashmina. fat uakhall district who may request his son for 500 dollars since he found out the day be fore, again through the tele phone, that the exchange rate is quite favourable these days Although even today. It takes at least two days to reach Dashmina from Dhaka and within Bangladesh, we are still in early decades of 20th century, particularly in terms of tech nology. yet globalisation has already touched the remote corners of the country.

And it is not only money transfer — voice, pictures, im ages and graphics — all can "be transmitted without fixed ca ble connections and without any loss of time Communlca tion today Is total and com plete and if It is organised appropriately the entire popula tion can be drawn Into the mainstream of development within the shortest possible time What is necessary is a well-designed distance education programme to transfer technology - including Its ef fective utilisation In 65.000 villages of the country

Technology is the basis of development and the vital component of the technology based development, is energy In a recent seminar at BUET, it was revealed that 2.000 mw of electricity can be generated from available wind energy In coastal Bangladesh Solar Khotovoltaic cells can be the ssls of domestic electricity — separately for each hdmeatead It has become fairly Inexpensive now and further reduction of costs are expected in the future

After energy comes promo tion of Integrated farming combining crop. livestock and fishery, Intensification ol irrigated agriculture. Introdpctioi) of new nigh value crops, serl culture, agro forestry etc Such opportunities are numerous arid at the micro-level, particular agro ecological conditions would determine exact design

of development Take for example the most lew-lying floodplains where even one crop per annum Is so uncertain. but through raft-based vegetable cultivation, combined with fishery and duck, dramatic changes of the pro duction structure are quite feasible

Distance education through instant audio-visual communication. computer graphics, computer aided design and management can open a new dimension towards modernisation of our rural economy The problem is the Inherent block In our mind to relate to the most modern technology vis-a-vis primitive technologies prevailing in rural Bangladesh. We tend to be skeptical — can the immense gap be covered overnight9 Shouldn’t we follow a step by step approach In the Introduction of technologies to our villages which are so far behind9 No this Is where we are very wrong

Globalisation has, enabled free movement of labour, goods and services on a worldwide scale Al the same time. Instant total communication has created conditions to bypass centuries of development and proceed straight to the computer age of modern times The quantum leap Is possible and It was best depicted by the advertisement appearing in Indian newspa pers of computers as the head load on a vendor s basket — usually meant for bananas

The most pronounced globalisation of Bangladesh through labour migration can be ideally Combined with technology-

based rural development and information technology (infotech) playing the lead role Bangladeshis working abroad result in multi-million dollar remittance income back home — using both formal and Informal channels The exposure of the country to possibilities of rural technology development will create an expanding awareness Remittance incomes can be usefully channeled into actual technology utilisation on a fairly extensive scale. The remitters can be the investors since they are already exposed to technological opportunities abroad in many instances The domestic awareness is the missing link to be established through dissemination of infotech

The world wide spread of liberal free market economies combined with removal of barriers to free trade Is the vivid manifestation of gioball satlon but to exploit It further to our advantage. the global spread of Information superhighway Itself should be able to traverse the length and breadth of the country, in spite of being poor and backward

This must be understood well No doubt, due to large-scale migration of labour, global exposure to a limited extent have already been realised. But It Is an uneven. Informal development Large scale Introduction of computers as the essential hardware of the globalisation process would not only mag nlfy the limited exposure it would also Initiate application of science and technology to rural produr lion In ways which

are unorthodox as well as unprecedented.

Education and health are two limiting factors retarding our economic progress. Without waiting for all the school buildings to be constructed and teachers trainfrig completed. a well spread out distance education system can create a largely educated population within the span of a very

short period. Health for all should not call for a health centre at every location With computer aided Instructions pa rameriir-g' capacity could be substantially expanded in order to handle 80 per cent of health related problems at the village level.

Information superhighway is the modern growth path of development. Information can be secured from gll over the world in matters of seconds. This is the essence of globalisation which we must appreciate in full and in right' earnest.