THE ringing in of a new year is always an occasion for an expression of hope and a time to look back at what has been and could have been. As we welcome the advent of the year 2012, it is poignant hope and profound expectations which today form the core of thoughts among individuals across the globe. For us in Bangladesh, the hope is simply one of life taldng a more progressive turn through a turning away from everything negative that held us back in the year just ended.

In terms of politics, let 2012 be a harbinger of change in political thoughts and attitudes, change that should usher in a time of cooperation and accommodation between and among our political classes. Our expectation is of a better, more secure and safe society this year, a proposition that can only be realised through law and order improving, through ensuring the dignity of the citizen. Overall, it is once again good governance, with parliament playing its full part with both ruling and opposition parties in attendance, that we look forward to in these new times.

The year which drew to a close yesterday was, like all earlier years, one of good cheer running parallel with unmitigated disappointment not merely in Bangladesh but also in the rest of the world. Around the world, the spectacle of people rising in spontaneous revolt against their insensitive governments — in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya — only reinforced the old belief that nations have the capacity and the courage to take on the powerful and the arrogant. It was an idea which extended itself to Europe and America, for different reasons. The global recession brought people out on the streets, to make it clear to governments that wisdom is not the monopoly of politicians and that power must be exercised in truly judicious manner. The spontaneity of popular rebellion, as in the 'Occupy Wall Street' movement, as in the demonstrations in Greece, were a measure of the hope one yet entertains about people's awareness of their conditions.

Let 2012 build on that hope, on earlier expectations. And let the New Year be a chance for good sense to prevail everywhere.

We wish an auspicious year to our readers.