****The rich and the poor coexist in the land of poverty. This apparently peaceful living together is the source of the most disquieting feature: poor would always tend to remain poor.****

IN the land of poverty, everything else ought to be poor. However, what immediately attracts the attention (of foreigners) are inadequacy of food, profusion of dirt and enormous number of destitute. Lack of food, shelter and clothing are hallmarks of the land of poverty.

However, the dismal human environment falls to attract attention of the lucky few well nourished locals since there is nothing unusual about it. On the other hand, such basic inadequacies of living give rise to other severe drawbacks so that everything else turns out to be poor as well.

Poverty Is all embracing. An undernourished population lose out to everything else. Basic human intelligence and physical work capacity are both impaired. As a result, quality of output produced by limited intelligence and subnormal physical capacity are bound to be poor as well.

A remarkable feature of the land of poverty is that everybody is not so poor. Poverty creates a vicious circle of exploitation. The vast majority will struggle for existence and survive on the brink of a precipice. They are unable to move beyond the margin. This is because an infinitesimally small minority will exploit and extract their pound of flesh — even out of the destitute and the hungry. The present population of Bangladesh is 120 million with a per capita income of $260 per annum. But there are at least 1000 persons or families whose income might be one

thousand times more and another 2.000 whose annual income would easily be 500 times more.

They are the Lords of the land of poverty. The tragic characteristic of the land of poverty is that more the poverty, the greater the disparity in income. Next to worst sfums. gorgeous marble-clad apartment blocks are located. Tne disparity in terms of shelter conditions is at least 1000 times — if not more.

The rich and the poor coexist in the land of poverty. This apparently peaceful living together is the source of the most disquieting feature : poor would always tend to remain poor. In the land of poverty, everything else ought to be poor as well since everything efse is geared to the needs of the very few.

Out of over one dozen banks, only one is engaged in microcredit programme for the poor where the repayment rate is 98 per cent. From most other banks, billions of taka have been flushed away to unknown destinations without any possibility of repayment. Two specialised credit institutions have been so thoroughly ravaged that they are now in complete comatose condition. No doubt, news of rape and plunder are so numerous in the newspapers of the land of poverty which very few of the largely illiterate population can read.

The land of poverty is not a country poor in resources. It

has fuels and minerals underground. In the fertile plains, three to four crops can be grown each year. It is a land of water where fishes can be abundant. Yet It is a land of poverty. Otherwise, the privileged few with their enormous wealth cannot survive. In any other civilised society, they should have been in jails.

In the land of poverty, the ways of getting rich are always unique and one of its kind in the world. Perhaps in no other land, one can get rich simply on

borrowed money which are never repaid. Money seems to come out of the toilet flush for the lucky few. And for everybody else, it is as scarce as water in the desert. In no other country. tailoring has become the major source of foreign exchange earnings while the major export commodity fetches a poor return. In the industrial sector, workers Raj has been so thoroughly established that if factories remain closed, losses will be less. In the schools and colleges, student Raj is so dominant that everything else ex-

cept education can be accomplished and every year a new bunch is added who believe in brawn and not the brain. As a result, high school drop outs dominate both business and politics: while first class graduates fail to manage the economy of the illiterates.

In no other country, children are not growing due to lack of nutrition and the average height of the population is on the decline. In no other metropolis of the size of its capital city, rickshaws constitute

the major means of intra-urban transport. No doubt, everybody waits for an opportunity to run out of the land of poverty. Even the jungles of Malaysia are preferred. And. all the Jails of the world contain at least a few illegal immigrants from the land of poverty. After all. three basics of life — food, shelter and clothing — are likely to be better. even inside these jails.

The Lords of the land of poverty are a class by themselves. They remain isolated — deliberately keeping themselves away from the contami-

nation by the poor. They smell of perfume in spite of the landscape of open urinals and latrines. Their children study in English schools. Often they do not learn the mother tongue and move abroad immediately after the high school. By that time, they have grown up to become pseudo-expatriates in their own homeland. The rich mothers, in the meantime, pine for the silicon valley engineer to be the husband of their mostly English-speaking daughters at home.

Education used to be the great equaliser in the land of poverty. But not any longer. Even the language of the rich and the poor are different today. The former speaks Ban-glish, like the Anglo-Indians of colonial Calcutta; while, the poor speaks the local dialect which varies by a barge pole from district to district.

Poverty has obviously attracted professional eradica-tors who must not be confused with other types of eradicators — forpest and insect in particular. These eradicators try to attract the attention of donors first with a huge shopping list. Consequently, the land of poverty has developed excellent conference facilities and hotels for the comfort as well as sustainability of high living standards of both donors and eradicators. Please note that there is nothing exceptional about it. The amount of caviar and champagne consumed at the

World Poverty Summit was phenomenal.

After the conferences and discussions, actual task of poverty eradication still remains far off. Poverty have to be defined and measured, since the emaciated women, clad in rags and begging for a living is not enough. That unfortunate women should now be defined and measured. We need printed evidence, written text in nice glossy papers which should first identify the poverty category of that wretched women. Is she absolutely or relatively poor? This is followed by the quantitative task of poverty measurement: the poor women is how much poor: what is her level of nutrition, asset value and literacy level? The answers are all known — she is under nourished, assetless and illiterate. However, the obvious must appear in the printed form.

This has given rise to the huge business of poverty consultants which together with seminars and hotels for seminars. amount to a multi-billion dollar global enterprise. What more we can expect? Poor of the land of poverty have made significant contributions to the welfare of those who live off the poor and thrive on poverty.

The conditions as described seem to be ripe for a proletarian revolution. Unfortunately, spring time communists of the land of poverty are now busy enjoying their cool air-conditioned rooms and warm hot-water baths (depending on the season).