This research examines the multifaceted factors influencing disaster vulnerability and resilience in coastal districts of Bangladesh, using Cyclone Remal (May 2024) as a case study. Employing a mixed-methods approach, the study identifies key determinants of disaster impact, including socioeconomic vulnerabilities, health and wellbeing infrastructure, physical infrastructure, and community mobilization. The findings show that districts with higher poverty rates, limited healthcare access, inadequate cyclone shelters and road infrastructure suffered greater damage. The role of volunteers and embankments also emerged as critical in enhancing resilience. By integrating statistical analysis with qualitative insights, the study contributes to the theoretical and empirical understanding of disaster risk reduction and resilience-building. The research offers policy recommendations aimed at reducing vulnerabilities and strengthening disaster preparedness through targeted investments in both health and physical infrastructure.

Bangladesh Betar, the largest state-run broadcaster in Bangladesh, plays a crucial role in the country's mass media landscape. As the largest state-run broadcaster, it provides information, education, and entertainment to the public. The radio has evolved to meet evolving communication technologies and listener preferences, implementing modern initiatives like mobile applications, social media, and websites. A study evaluating the quality of Bangladesh Betar's programs revealed that a significant portion of listeners tune in regularly, with 92.84% believing radio plays a vital role in enhancing public participation in government services. The study also outlines strategies for Bangladesh Betar to navigate global competition in the context of the fourth industrial revolution.

Despite national progress in women’s education, Bangladesh continues to face significant gender disparity in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). This paper investigates the status of women in STEM education and employment using a mixed-method approach, combining secondary data analysis with qualitative insights from a small-scale exploratory survey. National statistics from 2021 to 2023 reveal a gradual increase in female enrollment at the tertiary level. Yet, women’s participation remains disproportionately low in engineering and technology universities, where they comprise less than 25% of the student population. Faculty-level data show similar trends, with women comprising less than 30% of university teachers. The survey findings also reveal that young women in STEM face multiple barriers, including a lack of mentorship, societal pressure, and limited institutional support. The paper highlights emerging efforts by academic leaders and organizations like Women in Digital, which are working to improve visibility and inclusion. However, it also underscores the need for stronger institutional and policy implementation. Key recommendations include early exposure to STEM, targeted scholarships, gender-sensitive counseling, inclusive hiring practices, and
improved data collection mechanisms. By addressing these gaps, Bangladesh can foster a more inclusive and innovative STEM ecosystem that fully leverages the talents of its female
population. This study contributes to the growing literature on gender equity in STEM and offers actionable strategies aligned with national development goals.

The Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) has been knocking at the door. Industry, trade, education, medicine, transportation etc. are changing rapidly with the innovation and adaptation of advanced digital technology. The banking sector is also going to be transformed digitally to satisfy the customers and fulfill their expectations. The bank has started its digital journey by introducing ATM, core banking software, internet banking, and mobile banking. Banks are going to start branchless banking with the help of artificial intelligence, robotics, machine learning, internet of thoughts, automation, virtual reality, and augmented reality. The competition for technological excellence has started among the banks. At the same time, tech giants like Google, Apple, Facebook, and Amazon are going to start similar activities like these banks. Conventional banks are facing challenges due to continuous changing and evolving of financial technologies over time. Developed countries are reducing their branches gradually and introducing digital banking with state –of- the- art software, different apps, digital wallet, and artificial intelligence. Now the question is which strategies will be followed by developing countries’ banking sectors like Bangladesh and do they transform digitally or remain conventional? Therefore, this article is to illustrate the outline of future banking in the technological transformation that is going to take place due to the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) and financial technology.

In recent times, Dhaka’s public spaces have been grappling with escalating waste issues, causing damage to the natural environment and reducing breathable areas. This paper examines the psychology of waste generation in public spaces using the Bronfenbrenner’s bio-ecological model that focuses on the dynamic interplay between urban environments, human behaviour, and environmental sustainability. It explores the Suhrawardy Udyan, a major park in the Dhaka City, as a case study to investigate how architectural design and policies can enhance public green space maintenance and curb detrimental waste-making patterns. The findings emphasize the necessity of discreet architectural interventions to seamlessly integrate waste management into spatial policies in various scalar systems (i.e. micro, meso, macro). The paper argues that articulating concepts such as belongingness, territoriality, and co-creation through various spatial strategies, such as place-making, can prompt both reactive and proactive measures from the stakeholders, fostering a sense of ownership. This approach is pivotal in shifting the culture of waste-making in public spaces towards a more responsible one.

The Ukraine Conflict's prolonged geopolitical standoff has disrupted global economic stability and exacerbated poverty and inequality in developing countries. This paper examines its impact on trade dependencies, poverty levels, and humanitarian responses in vulnerable regions. Through a qualitative review of secondary data, it identifies key findings including rising food prices, energy shocks, disrupted trade, and unequal impacts among societal groups. Long-term implications include setbacks to poverty reduction and increased debt burdens. Policy implications underscore the need for targeted interventions, debt relief, regional cooperation, and resilience strategies to mitigate adverse impacts and foster inclusive development. This study contributes to advancing social justice and sustainable development agendas amidst global uncertainty.

Transnational organized crimes are those crimes which are committed by international criminals, in a large group or different sub-groups, coordinated across international border. To combat these crimes, UNTOC (The United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime) was introduced in 2000 by the UN which is also known as the Palermo Protocol or Palermo Policy. It came into force in September 2003. Although 20 years has been passed since it came into force, however, the question remains how effective is this protocol to prevent organized crimes. The present study will demonstrate how effective is the policy itself. If it failed what are the reasons behind the failure of the policy. It will also find out what measures should be taken so that the policy can play an effective role to combat those types of crimes.

The COVID-19 pandemic has significantly changed the world's educational system. Many governments have enacted regulatory measures to decrease social gatherings and increase social separation to control the infection. E-learning has quickly gained popularity as a different teaching and learning method worldwide, including in Bangladesh. The objective of the current study was to identify the outcome, challenges, and overcoming strategies of the E-learning platform from Bangladesh's perspective. The relevant publications were searched from several databases for 2020 to 2022. The search words used were e-learning, distance learning, e-teaching, the COVID-19 pandemic, coronavirus, online teaching, and Bangladesh. According to the literature, academics and students face a few learning and teaching obstacles, especially in developing countries like Bangladesh. Poor internet connectivity, lack of devices, poor interaction between teachers and students, insufficient skills of the teacher, etc., are the most common factors that hinder the success of e-learning in Bangladesh. The government should take the necessary steps to nourish the e-learning methods to improve this country's education system.

Supply chain management spans all movement and storage of raw materials, work-in-process inventory and finished goods from point-of-origin (POO) to point-of–consumption (POC). The supply chain function includes many sub-areas such as: forecasting and planning, purchasing and procurement, logistics, operations, inventory management, transportation, warehousing, distribution, customer service etc. Supply chain management (SCM) is the oversight of materials, information and finances as they move in a process from supplier to manufacturer to wholesaler to retailer to consumer. The pharmaceutical sector has already been declared as one of the thrust sectors by the government of Bangladesh. Bangladesh has built a strong baseline and going towards the self-sufficiency for the production of medicine. Meanwhile, some companies have started to produce vaccine, insulin, anticancer drugs, etc. Our pharmaceutical industries are successful in domestic market. Now, it‟s the time to grow our international market because we passing golden time getting the opportunity of patent exemption by the TRIPS until 2030. The government should really be attentive to remove all the obstacles and solve all the problems to see pharmaceutical sector as a vital player in international market. The main focus of this study is to analyze the supply chain management knowledge and practices of a renowned pharmaceutical company in Bangladesh namely Eskayef Bangladesh Limited.

The Government of Bangladesh is committed to establish rule of law, human rights, corruption free society, freedom of citizens according to the constitution, equality and justice in the country. Government believes that an inclusive approach based on values, morals, ethics and integrity is necessary for good governance. In this regard, the Government approved a „National Integrity Strategy‟ (NIS) in 2012. It is a comprehensive set of goals, strategies and action plans aimed at increasing the level of independence to perform, ensure accountability, efficiency, transparency and effectiveness of state and non-state institutions in a sustained manner over a period of time. The Ministries/Divisions and their departments, constitutional authorities and statutory bodies are executing the NIS in their offices. The present study intends to find out whether all areas of the NIS are being covered in the selected ministry and department levels, what are the contributions of the NIS towards promoting good governance and what are the challenges in implementing the NIS.

The infamous global pandemic Corona virus – popularly known as COVID-19, started first in Wuhan (China) from December 2019, cost millions of lives all over the world, had significantly changed the global landscape, especially in the economy and society. A global pandemic was declared by WHO (UN) in March 2020. In Bangladesh, the virus was first detected on 8thMarch 2020 and impacted heavily on healthcare and economic progress. The impact on Bangladesh‘s economy is particularly pronounced because the country relies on globalized supply chains of international fashion brands and human resource exports. The pandemic interrupted socio-economic activities due to the lockdown & shutdown imposed by the government to control the health crisis. In Bangladesh, there are 52 ministries and divisions having more than one million public servants under structured government jurisdiction. These public servants have a noble duty to serve people‘s purposes. So, their skill development has vitality for the welfare approach of the Government. The COVID-19 crisis made an interruption of this regular activity due to the isolation & lockdown imposed by the government. Realizing these circumstances, NAPD, a national-level training institution, has conducted a number of online training programs to sustain training activities. The traditional face-to-face teaching approach has been transferred to online teaching via digital platforms, which has a significant impact on the quality of education, the interaction between trainer & trainee, the adaptability of the participants, etc. Putting up with user gratification on virtual training platforms in Bangladesh as the study entity, this study operates a structured and questionnaire survey with reality & trustworthiness test and web crawler to gather experience data of online and offline users, constructs a participants‘ gratification index system by analyzing emotion and the existing literature for quantitative analysis to forecast user gratification. The finding shows that users‘ private aspects have no direct impact on user satisfaction, while platform availability has the greatest consequence on user satisfaction. Finally, suggestions on improving the online education platform are given to escalate the level of the online education system, so as to promote the reformation of information-based education.

This research paper analyses the vital decision-making variables of tourists choosing a particular tourist
destination. Tourism is one of the buzz words of the modern age. Bangladesh, being known as the land of the Royal
Bengal Tiger is a country of natural beauty of unique fascination. The eco-naturals of the country composed of
hills, rivers, lakes, forests, sea-beaches and the greeneries. Tourist destinations of Bangladesh also have excellent old
monuments and religious architectural places. Bangladesh is still unaware about the potentials of this sector though
the global tourism industry is steadily expanding. Research on tourist’s behaviour indicates a country can maximise
its tourism potential through efficiently managing its tourism policy based on the tourist’s behaviour. In 2012,
around 0.6 million tourists came to Bangladesh to visit and enjoy its beauty. The total contribution of tourism to
GDP was 4.4%, 3.8% to employment and 1.5% to investment in 2013. Bangladesh Parjatan Corporation (BPC)
looks after the tourism sector in Bangladesh under the Ministry of Civil Aviation and Tourism.The importance of
happiness parameters and available amenity information can help in synthesizing ecotourism programs in
hill-piedmont bound and terrace basin sea beach-delta Bangladesh. This paper analyses Bangladesh as a tourist
destination using available appropriate methods. The major concern of the research is to focus the factors by which
Bangladesh can be one of the tourist attractive countries in the world. The implications can aid the decision makers
in Bangladesh to develop at least one eco-tourism policy in the competitive business world.

The study was conducted to identify the effective marketing strategies for the training programs of NAPD. NAPD
is one of the pioneers in the arena of training in the country. For that reason, marketing strategies of NAPD is of
crucial importance. The aim of the study is to assess the existing marketing strategies for the selected training
courses of NAPD and to determine the effective strategies for the same. The participants, nominating authorities
and potential trainees were the respondents of the study. The study then found that participants prefer electronic
mails for training communication. NAPD can explore linking with reputed university master’s degree programs
for starting master degree courses which will improve exposure of NAPD. The findings of the study has revealed
that there is a correlation with the newspaper advertisement and number of participants. The present data exposed
that NAPD’s newspaper advertisement cost decreased as well as number of participants decreased. This study
recommends for the post of a public relation officer at NAPD.

Social safety nets have been enlisted as key instruments to reduce poverty and inequality in
many developing countries. The safety net programs are designed to provide support for
the vulnerable sections of society. Despite having a large number of safety net programs,
the rate of poverty reduction and inequality prevalence is not satisfactory. This paper
analyses the impacts of safety net programs on inequality of developing countries
particularly of Bangladesh. The study examines time series data of the expenditure on
safety nets and the rate of inequality. The analysis suggests that no clear association is
found between safety nets and inequality. Initially, inequality has shown an increasing
trend with expansion of safety net expenditures, then the inequality trend is declining. Also,
inequality in consumption was relatively lower than that in income.

Supply Chain Management (SCM) is the process of planning, implementing and controlling the operations of the
supply chain with the purpose to satisfy customer requirements as efficiently as possible. The broad objective of
this study is to analyse the supply chain of Eskayef Bangladesh Ltd. It is observed that 23.3% respondents have
reported that they know SCM very well followed by moderate knowledge (21.7%), sufficient knowledge (20%),
somehow knowledge (20%) and 15% respondents have poor knowledge about SCM. Factor Analysis of the
responses regarding the benefits of SCM reveals that shorter lead time has high mean (4.15) followed by reduced
cycle time (3.97), reduced waste (3.80), competitive advantage (3.83), reduced cost (3.78), greater supply chain
visibility (3.72), reduced inventory (3.62) etc. Only 3% of the drugs are imported, the remaining 97% come from
local companies. Positive developments in the pharmaceutical sector have enabled Bangladesh to export medicine
to global markets. By overcoming the underlying obstacles this sector can develop more and can be an effective
exporting sector of Bangladesh.

Now is the era of cloud computing where internet based data are handled from remote places. Data is being entered, stored, processed, deposited and backed up all at the central servers located in specific buildings. Data center is a place where all these servers are gathered in compliance with art of technology. We have some limitations regarding knowledge about the architectures of data center. This article reveals some ideas about data center architectures and its components. Specially, this paper gives emphasis on explaining data center tier levels and its applications.

Planning and Development are interrelated. In a sense, one cannot be separated from the other. Planning is used as a tool to influence decisions about development priorities & resource allocation either for a country, a region, a province or an organization. More than last 60 years, development planning has transformed. Central planning and market-oriented planning is the character of most developing countries. Early development planning was led by the Soviet Union, which was the only country engaged in systematic development planning prior to World War II. Today, planning is no longer an issue between centralized planning and market-based planning. Modern history has shown that neither centralized planning nor market-oriented planning alone has succeeded. In the last six decades, development planning has shifted, moving to broader, more complex, multi-disciplinary perception. The government’s role today is in making a supporting atmosphere for market to work and correct market failures. As an independent country Bangladesh has been formulating five year plan since 1973. Since then Bangladesh has successfully formulated seven five year plan. The economy of this country has been able to maintain sustained economic growth even in the face of global financial crisis. Bangladesh was one of the forerunners in achieving Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and also she is an early starter in the implementing process of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Many international organizations and countries opined on the brilliant success of Bangladesh’s development. To keep these achievements the country needs good governance in all spheres of life.

This article focused on the socio-economic benefits of mixed crop cultivation by farmers based on primary and secondary data in the District of Gopalganj covering 5 Upazilas. A total of 270 marginal farmers participated in the survey of two subsequent researches. Findings demonstrated that mixed cropping system enhanced standards of living of farmers through the channels of income generation, increased in rural employment through increased participation of family farm labour, improved rural transportation, and higher enrolment in primary education,
although dietary diversity had not improved that much. Overall, the multifunctional agricultural system upgraded the socio-economic rural profiles of the marginal farmers. These findings had important policy implications for government and non-government organizations of Bangladesh.

The aim of this paper is to review and critique the applicable policy and laws in Bangladesh regarding
infrastructure procurement and the private sector engagement in public infrastructure assets and service delivery.
Public Private Partnership (PPP) have great role and effective contributions to the infrastructure development
sector, which defines national development and investment results. So creating favorable policy, law and
regulatory environment are necessary for the PPPs effective development, investment results, effective risk and
debt management and equity management. This paper examines the legal basis for private sector participation in
the provision of infrastructure and service delivery in Bangladesh by applying the legal method in combination
with the comparative study. It provides an analytical overview of the major provisions of legislation relevant to the
public private partnership covering infrastructure, maintenance, and financing rules in Bangladesh. The paper
argues that the laws that underpin the control framework in Bangladesh are inadequate and concluded with some
policy recommendations and directions for future research.

Bangladesh is now regarded as the ‘development surprise’ or ‘role model of development’ with its current target of achieving the developed country status by 2041. A number of projects along with other initiatives are currently being implemented in the country to achieve its overarching development objectives. However, globally, organizations are undergoing a fundamental paradigm shift in which projects are no longer adjacent to operations but instead primary to how work gets done and problems get solved. This fundamental paradigm shift in economy is called the Project Economy. In such an economy, project leaders lead the way to turn national dreams and goals into reality. The question asked in this research is that how far Bangladesh is ready to cope with the emerging Project Economy and what are the next steps for the country.

Bangladesh has a fairly young population with 34 percent aged 15 and younger and just 5 percent aged 65 and older. At present, more than 65 percent of our population is of working age, between 15 and 64. But the irony is, as has been depicted by the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) that the unemployment rate among people with tertiary level education has considerably risen up. In contrast to overall development, about 46% of the total unemployed youth are university graduates!
This article identified inconsistencies prevailing within different policies which were prepared by the government of Bangladesh to education along with skills development and job placement i.e. the (i) 'National Education Policy-2010', (ii) 'National Skills Development Policy-2011' and 'NFE Act 2014', (iii) National Service Program Guideline and (iv) NFE Act 2014.In this paper short-term, medium-term and long-term target, plans and strategies havebeen illustrated.
It has been projected that if the recommendations of this study are implemented, the days are not far off when there will be zero unemployment among educated youth.

The study focuses on the relationship between work attitudes (i.e. work commitment, work involvement) and work satisfaction of the motor drivers in Dhaka city. The specific objectives were: to investigate the connection between work commitment, work involvement and work satisfaction of the motor drivers and to find out significant predictors as well as best predictor in case of the relationship among the variables. To collect primary data fifty motor drivers were selected purposively from different transport organization situated in Dhaka city. To measure work attitudes a package of three questionnaires were applied on the respondents respectively. Obtained data were analyzed by applying Pearson product moment correlation and stepwise multiple regression using SPSS version 25. Results revealed a significant positive relationship among all work attitude factors (i.e. work commitment, work involvement with work satisfaction) of the drivers. Further, multiple regression analyses indicated that only work commitment was the significant and important predictor, which alone explained 24.7% of variance in work satisfaction of drivers.

Public-Private Partnership (PPP) is one of the engaging words found in the recent public sector management and governance literature since 1990’s. Interestingly, literature on PPP policy implementation performance evaluation are still evolving. Against the presence of several methods for evaluating PPP performance and inclusion of diverse range of criteria, this study gives particular focus on evaluating PPP policy implementation performance based on a theory driven approach. Considering network management perspective as basic theoretical framework, this study evaluates PPP performance of two land port PPPs in Bangladesh using case study procedures and qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) techniques. The study reveals that QCA is capable of indicating PPP success in more precise form based on qualitative remark scale. The basic advantage of the theory driven evaluation approach is reflected in surfacing up the strength of various performance indicators, which offer more insights in describing differences in PPP performance.

Saline water intrusion is not always an usual occurrence and increasing threat for providing safe drinking water in the coastal areas of many developing countries including Bangladesh. Though several attempts like – Pond Sand Filter, Sono Filter, Pond Water Harvesting, Rain Water Harvesting, and other water purification methods were taken to meet the need of adequate safe drinking water for the coastal inhabitants, but so many real-life barriers made all efforts a failure attempt to meet the crisis. In this paper, we have tried to show why a promising, easy to access and comparatively less expensive water purification method, namely Pond Sand Filter (PSF) method failed to run in the local communities. The findings of this paper will help a researcher or policy formulator to get ideas regarding the existing hurdles of establishing such methods in the coastal areas of Bangladesh. There are so many available techniques to meet the need of this crisis, but most of those were failed to be functional at the end. The reason mostly is, those initiators have failed to understand the traditions and customs of the local inhabitants. The findings of this paper will let different thinkers and agencies understand some real-life socio-cultural barriers for which such promising initiatives went in vain most of the times. The research followed the triangulation of quantitative and qualitative method. The quantitative data were collected through sample survey, while the qualitative method followed the FGD and KII. We did conduct face-to-face interview with the representatives of different sectors irrespective to their role in this approach. Moreover, we have covered five specific key informant interviews to understand the problem more intensely. In addition, we have conducted two focus group discussions.

In this current era of 4th industrial revolution, accelerating digital finance is considered as one of the significant means for the banking sector stability that subsequently leads to economic growth. However, both the negative and positive effects of financial inclusion bring the question whether digital finance is good for sustainable growth or not. Hence, this paper aims to examine the role of digital financial inclusion on promoting sustainable economic growth through banking stability in Bangladesh using the data of 2011-2018 from Orbis bank-focus and financial access survey (FAS) databases by deploying panel corrected standard errors and two-stage least square-instrument variable methods. The study also aims to shed light on the impact, prospect and limitations of the digital financial inclusion and how its proper application in the banking sector of Bangladesh can bring sustainable financial growth to achieve the sustainable development goals (SDGs) using the projection data until 2030 by employing forecasting technique. The results suggest that digital financial inclusion leads to economic growth and an integrated digital financial inclusion by banks is not only a phenomenon for attaining the SDGs, rather it is a thing that demands to be implemented carefully for the economic stability of the bank itself. Therefore, the government, policymakers, standard setters as well as regulatory bodies can see digital financial inclusion as a changing agent that can bring a revolutionary development in the overall financial sector of Bangladesh which will advance the attainment of the SDGs by 2030.

Microenterprise creates an opportunity to generate income and employment for a significant number of workforces in rural and urban areas through the production of basic goods and services such as the making of traditional foods, fisheries, livestock & poultry, handicrafts, small trade & business, timber business/carpentry, garments & tailoring, etc. for the need of rapidly growing populations. Thus, the development of microenterprises has attracted the attention of regulators, governments and other stakeholders either in developing or least developed countries. In Bangladesh, Microfinance Institutions are, therefore, providing the loans to increase the income level of poor people along with achieving the prime goal of poverty reduction. However, in the literature, several studies have examined the determinants of microenterprises development, yet, there are several venues that need to be examined. After reviewing previous studies and based on the underpinning theoretical ground, the study finds that human capital and innovation capacity are the factors that have received little attention. Based on the human capital theorist, an individual’s skills help enterprises to perform better in business. As enterprises that possess proper skills and competencies are more likely to have higher levels of growth and profitability. Consequently, the innovation on new products can increase sales volume and market share, which can attract new consumers, while maintaining the loyalty of old consumers. Subsequently, studies on service innovation professed that providing new services can enhance the profitability of existing businesses. Therefore, these relevant issues are principally interesting to explore in the context of an emerging economy such as Bangladesh as a country has the vision of becoming a truly middle-income country and is setting ambitious targets to help achieve the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This finding provides useful implications for the stakeholders and policymakers and contributes to future literature.

Being a densely populous country, addressing the socio-economic and health crises resulted from COVID-19 was a huge challenge for central and local government in Bangladesh. Literature assessing the role of central government during pandemic is enormous, yet there exist very scanty of attempts to explore the role of local government institutions (LGIs) in the ongoing pandemic. This paper fills these gaps in knowledge by making an attempt to assess the measures taken by LGIs to address the issues around pandemic situation. Finally, it comes up with a set of policy suggestions to enhance the capacity of LGIs to address the health related issues resulted from the pandemic. Finding suggests that the Local Government (City Corporation) Act, 2009 and the Local Government (Paurashava) Act, 2009 lays out the foundation and gives mandates for the Paurashavas and the City Corporations to play role during the crisis like the pandemic COVID-19. The LGIs helped Government implementing a range of measures to protect the public health and other well beings. Such measures include- implementation of social distancing protocols, banning of public rallies, community gathering, closure of institutions after designated time. In implementing these measures, LGIs have encountered a range of bottlenecks covering institutional, financial, and administrative and others. In line with the identified problems necessary policy suggestions are made to enhance the capacity of LUIs to address the pandemic situation both now and the future.

This paper explores the determinants of the labour market participation by physically constrained people. The data of 127 randomly selected physically constrained persons of four villages of Narsingdi, Bangladesh reveals that employment is gender biased employers demand for special training. The study also finds that people from families with higher number of employed members and people receiving aids have better probabilities of getting employment. The employment possibilities is less, if there is any need for assistance in movement as well as if families are not helpful due to their conservative attitudes.

The study was conducted to assess the status of Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) and explore the environmental protection measures taken for infrastructure projects under the Public-Private Partnership. The finding of the study reveals that the quality of the EIA process for infrastructure projects under PPP in Bangladesh is still unsatisfactory. Near about 50% of respondents opined that steps of EIA being partially followed and poorly considered in environmental pollution control measures. Most of the PPP infrastructure projects not at all provide for the stewardship of ecosystems and biodiversity conservation and don’t follow the proper guidelines of EIA besides having a paper-based environmental hazard mitigation plan but not in practices. Capacity building of DoE staff, a corruption-free and flexible administrative process would be helpful in an effective EIA process for infrastructure projects under PPP.

BCS (Administration) cadre in Bangladesh is the direct successor of the generalist cadre of Pakistan, which was dubbed as the steel-frame of the British Civil Service. In Bangladesh, the door of administration was opened for women in 1982. It was a milestone step that allowed women to give choice for entering administration cadre service. There was a steady progress in the number of women in administration cadre. This study reveals that despite many positive steps by the government, government service is profoundly dominated by male. It is perceived that female officers are not eligible for the apex administrative positions in the government. Moreover, they are less comfortable in the environment of the administrative cadre service than male. Since 1982 female officers are joining the administration cadre regularly. But only a few women have had the opportunity to work in the topmost and lucrative posts. This study was aimed at analysis of present situations and problems of women in administration, by comparing opinions of male and female administration cadre officers in respect of socioeconomic background. The study highlight that despite a very late start, the number of women entering the administrative cadre was steadily rising, from 13 (1.7 percent) in 1982 up to 90 (31 percent) and only 5-6 percent in the highest posts in 2014. Women were better in some aspects of their performance in service and training and also low corruption charges had filed against them. The male officers said that they were supportive to their working wives whereas the female officers viewed that their husbands were not supportive of their job. Female officers viewed there was discrimination in the nomination process for foreign training. Male officers did not face any non-cooperation whereas most of the female officers faced rough behavior from their male boss. Female officers stated less important desks were assigned to them and female officers opined that the government could introduce policy for paternity leave and male officers did not agree. Most officers also opined that six months maternity leave was short. Lack of separate room and toilet, non-cooperation from family members and boss, limited housing and transport facility, lack of child care and pre-schooling facilities and discrimination in posting and training identified as major problems for women officials. Against this backdrop, they recommended to create a congenial atmosphere for women officials in the workplace there should be a comprehensive policy in the civil service to remove the obstacles that hinder the performance of women employees named ‘Gender policy guidelines’. There should be housing allotment facilities, separate toilet and day care facilities in every field office and during distribution of responsibility women officials should be consulted.

Bangladesh has made a commendable progress in achieving SDG goals, specially poverty alleviation and hunger eradication. Since 2020, COVID-19 pandemic has imposed a great uncertainty in the economy, food security throughout the whole world. To combat the contagiousness nature of this pandemic, countries had to adopt general holidays or lock down for quite a long period. In this pandemic, we had to face lock down to save lives. So, ensuring food security has become a great challenge. This paper, we have analysis the achievements of Bangladesh to ensure food security and reach Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 2: Zero Hunger. We have discussed the challenges and steps of government to achieve this goal and ensure food security in both normal situation and pandemic situation. It is also recommended that immediate and long-term steps to be taken in achieving and sustaining food security in Post COVID-19 era so that we can achieve our sustainable development goal of hunger eradication.

Bangladesh is now regarded as the ‘development surprise’ or ‘role model of development’ with its current target of achieving the developed country status by 2041. A number of projects along with other initiatives are currently being implemented in the country to achieve its overarching development objectives. However, globally, organizations are undergoing a fundamental paradigm shift in which projects are no longer adjacent to operations but instead primary to how work gets done and problems get solved. This fundamental paradigm shift in economy is called the Project Economy. In such an economy, project leaders lead the way to turn national dreams and goals into reality. The question asked in this research is that how far Bangladesh is ready to cope with the emerging Project Economy and what are the next steps for the country.

Comprehensive rural development in Bangladesh is a new approach that includes raising the productivity and real income including employment opportunities in farm and non-farm sectors, safety nets, institutional links to ensure smooth policy function, appropriate management technologies and organizational innovations to ensure access of the beneficiaries to inputs and resources in the era of public management. This study has attempted to explore prerequisite qualities of strong leadership in order to incorporate the level of citizen-centric smart governance system from the perspective of civil servants, community workers and local leaders focusing on the implementation of the comprehensive rural development attempts in Bangladesh. It is an exploratory and descriptive study conducting both in qualitative and quantitative manner. It has also endeavored to identify potential strong qualities of strong leaders for implementing smart governance in comprehensive rural development programs from the perception of selected Bangladesh Civil Service Cadre officers, community workers and local leaders. Rural development is always an important policy package of the Government of Bangladesh where public and social organizations are likely to step into the role of an effective promoter of network and smart governance in rural development for the fulfillment of basic needs of the rural beneficiaries. This is in line with the goals of basic need approach, however, at times problems of the disadvantaged groups have been addressed through ICT. Digital Bangladesh as a part of smart governance in this country involves reconsidering the whole rural development system crosswise in all levels of government from a voter perspective. It is projected that a pro-citizen leadership approach will empower the government to achieve crucial efficiency and expand service delivery levels in the rural area of Bangladesh.

This paper examines the scenario of work and livelihood patterns of rawhide-based entrepreneurs in the rishi Dalit community of Tala Upazila (sub-district) under the Satkhira district of Bangladesh. Its main concern is to focus on different dimensions of rawhide-based entrepreneurs in managing their services such as average working hours, income, the average cost per activity, value, availability of raw materials, preservation days by experience, place of sale, and material for preservation, etc. The study mainly relies on primary data collection through in-depth interviews and focus group discussions (FGDs) among the 25 rawhide-based entrepreneurs in the rishi Dalit community in a Upazila. It also highlights that lack of high technology, appropriate training, and financial support, they cannot complete the whole process of leather. To improve the raw leather-based service appropriate measurement should be taken immediately to protect and preserve this old service.

The purpose of this study was to determine the factors influencing agent banking adoption in Bangladesh. This study employed the innovation diffusion theory and expanded the model to incorporate perceived risk, perceived trust, and knowledge. This research followed a quantitative and cross-sectional approach, employing purposive sampling to choose five of nineteen banks in Bangladesh's Dhaka division and administering structured questionnaires. As a consequence, the pilot study obtained 100 legitimate replies, which were analyzed using the SPSS version 25 program. The study discovered five factors; awareness, relative advantages, perceived risk, perceived ease of use, and perceived trust grouped from a pool of items analyzed.

The study explores the stability and causality of export-led growth (ELG) hypothesis for Bangladesh, China, India and Myanmar commonly known as BCIM countries. ADF and KPSS unit root tests are employed to check the stationarity of time series data and ARDL approach for long-run co-integration among the variables. MWALD Granger causality test is also used to determine the direction of causality among the variables. It is found that both export-led growth (ELG) and growth-led export (GLE) hypotheses are stable in Bangladesh and India; only ELG theorem is relevant to China; and GLE hypothesis is valid in case of Myanmar. In this study, unidirectional and bidirectional causal associations between the variables determine the relevance to ELG and GLE hypotheses in the context of BCIM countries. It is mentionable that any joint step of BCIM countries is critical to promote exports by penetrating new destinations with diversification of exports of goods and services. The study findings also suggest that the potential for utilizing unused resources of these countries to promote exports in order to reach spectacular growth path.

The Sixth International Conference on Chemical Engineering organized by the Department of Chemical Engineering, Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET) was scheduled to be held on 19-22 December, 2020. When COVID-19 caused cancellation of all large in-person gatherings across the world as well as international travel, the organizing committee of ICChE 2020 decided to switch to complete virtual mode in September 2020. Soon after, the committee faced the biggest challenge as to how to deal with 250+ participants joining from fourteen different countries to attend five plenary lectures, fourteen keynotes and seventy-five technical papers, and a poster session in a two full and two half day program keeping the sense of engagement and connection in a virtual environment. In this paper the journey from preparatory stage through setting the virtual platform to conducting the conference in real time is described including the choice of online platform, mode of conduct, manpower allocation, trial sessions and preparation of guidelines. The difficulties faced by the organizers and lesson learned are discussed based on detail analysis of the event. Additionally, a survey result of the participants showing that conference was more or less successful in terms of knowledge dissemination and meeting the expectations of participants and speakers is also presented.

This critical review draws on the increasing body of research on SDGs and sustainability in project management through the general project management literature and the relevant professional studies and reports that promote sustainability in project management. This is the first paper that takes the SDGs serious as an imperative and allows the project management profession to rise to the occasion. This review establishes a conceptual framework to systematically formulate, monitor and evalutate the projects as delivery process for SDGs, to identify appropriate tools to measure the performance of projects against the SDGs and sustainability.

Bangladesh has a fairly young population with 34 percent aged 15 and younger and just 5 percent aged 65 and older. At present, more than 65 percent of our population is of working age, between 15 and 64. But the irony is, as has been depicted by the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) that the unemployment rate among people with tertiary level education has considerably risen up. In contrast to overall development, about 46% of the total unemployed youth are university graduates! This article identified inconsistencies prevailing within different policies which were prepared by the government of Bangladesh to education along with skills development and job placement i.e. the (i) 'National Education Policy-2010', (ii) 'National Skills Development Policy-2011' and 'NFE Act 2014', (iii) National Service Program Guideline and (iv) NFE Act 2014.In this paper short-term, medium-term and long-term target, plans and strategies havebeen illustrated. It has been projected that if the recommendations of this study are implemented, the days are not far off when there will be zero unemployment among educated youth.

The study focuses on the relationship between work attitudes (i.e. work commitment, work involvement) and work satisfaction of the motor drivers in Dhaka city. The specific objectives were: to investigate the connection between work commitment, work involvement and work satisfaction of the motor drivers and to find out significant predictors as well as best predictor in case of the relationship among the variables. To collect primary data fifty motor drivers were selected purposively from different transport organization situated in Dhaka city. To measure work attitudes a package of three questionnaires were applied on the respondents respectively. Obtained data were analyzed by applying Pearson product moment correlation and stepwise multiple regression using SPSS version 25. Results revealed a significant positive relationship among all work attitude factors (i.e. work commitment, work involvement with work satisfaction) of the drivers. Further, multiple regression analyses indicated that only work commitment was the significant and important predictor, which alone explained 24.7% of variance in work satisfaction of drivers.

Public-Private Partnership (PPP) is one of the engaging words found in the recent public sector management and governance literature since 1990’s. Interestingly, literature on PPP policy implementation performance evaluation are still evolving. Against the presence of several methods for evaluating PPP performance and inclusion of diverse range of criteria, this study gives particular focus on evaluating PPP policy implementation performance based on a theory driven approach. Considering network management perspective as basic theoretical framework, this study evaluates PPP performance of two land port PPPs in Bangladesh using case study procedures and qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) techniques. The study reveals that QCA is capable of indicating PPP success in more precise form based on qualitative remark scale. The basic advantage of the theory driven evaluation approach is reflected in surfacing up the strength of various performance indicators, which offer more insights in describing differences in PPP performance.

Saline water intrusion is not always an usual occurrence and increasing threat for providing safe drinking water in the coastal areas of many developing countries including Bangladesh. Though several attempts like – Pond Sand Filter, Sono Filter, Pond Water Harvesting, Rain Water Harvesting, and other water purification methods were taken to meet the need of adequate safe drinking water for the coastal inhabitants, but so many real-life barriers made all efforts a failure attempt to meet the crisis. In this paper, we have tried to show why a promising, easy to access and comparatively less expensive water purification method, namely Pond Sand Filter (PSF) method failed to run in the local communities. The findings of this paper will help a researcher or policy formulator to get ideas regarding the existing hurdles of establishing such methods in the coastal areas of Bangladesh. There are so many available techniques to meet the need of this crisis, but most of those were failed to be functional at the end. The reason mostly is, those initiators have failed to understand the traditions and customs of the local inhabitants. The findings of this paper will let different thinkers and agencies understand some real-life socio-cultural barriers for which such promising initiatives went in vain most of the times. The research followed the triangulation of quantitative and qualitative method. The quantitative data were collected through sample survey, while the qualitative method followed the FGD and KII. We did conduct face-to-face interview with the representatives of different sectors irrespective to their role in this approach. Moreover, we have covered five specific key informant interviews to understand the problem more intensely. In addition, we have conducted two focus group discussions.

In this current era of 4th industrial revolution, accelerating digital finance is considered as one of the significant means for the banking sector stability that subsequently leads to economic growth. However, both the negative and positive effects of financial inclusion bring the question whether digital finance is good for sustainable growth or not. Hence, this paper aims to examine the role of digital financial inclusion on promoting sustainable economic growth through banking stability in Bangladesh using the data of 2011-2018 from Orbis bank-focus and financial access survey (FAS) databases by deploying panel corrected standard errors and two-stage least square-instrument variable methods. The study also aims to shed light on the impact, prospect and limitations of the digital financial inclusion and how its proper application in the banking sector of Bangladesh can bring sustainable financial growth to achieve the sustainable development goals (SDGs) using the projection data until 2030 by employing forecasting technique. The results suggest that digital financial inclusion leads to economic growth and an integrated digital financial inclusion by banks is not only a phenomenon for attaining the SDGs, rather it is a thing that demands to be implemented carefully for the economic stability of the bank itself. Therefore, the government, policymakers, standard setters as well as regulatory bodies can see digital financial inclusion as a changing agent that can bring a revolutionary development in the overall financial sector of Bangladesh which will advance the attainment of the SDGs by 2030.

Microenterprise creates an opportunity to generate income and employment for a significant number of workforces in rural and urban areas through the production of basic goods and services such as the making of traditional foods, fisheries, livestock & poultry, handicrafts, small trade & business, timber business/carpentry, garments & tailoring, etc. for the need of rapidly growing populations. Thus, the development of microenterprises has attracted the attention of regulators, governments and other stakeholders either in developing or least developed countries. In Bangladesh, Microfinance Institutions are, therefore, providing the loans to increase the income level of poor people along with achieving the prime goal of poverty reduction. However, in the literature, several studies have examined the determinants of microenterprises development, yet, there are several venues that need to be examined. After reviewing previous studies and based on the underpinning theoretical ground, the study finds that human capital and innovation capacity are the factors that have received little attention. Based on the human capital theorist, an individual’s skills help enterprises to perform better in business. As enterprises that possess proper skills and competencies are more likely to have higher levels of growth and profitability. Consequently, the innovation on new products can increase sales volume and market share, which can attract new consumers, while maintaining the loyalty of old consumers. Subsequently, studies on service innovation professed that providing new services can enhance the profitability of existing businesses. Therefore, these relevant issues are principally interesting to explore in the context of an emerging economy such as Bangladesh as a country has the vision of becoming a truly middle-income country and is setting ambitious targets to help achieve the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This finding provides useful implications for the stakeholders and policymakers and contributes to future literature.

The aim of this paper is to review and critique the applicable policy and laws in Bangladesh regarding infrastructure procurement and the private sector engagement in public infrastructure assets and service delivery. Public Private Partnership (PPP) have great role and effective contributions to the infrastructure development sector, which defines national development and investment results. So creating favorable policy, law and regulatory environment are necessary for the PPPs effective development, investment results, effective risk and debt management and equity management. This paper examines the legal basis for private sector participation in the provision of infrastructure and service delivery in Bangladesh by applying the legal method in combination with the comparative study. It provides an analytical overview of the major provisions of legislation relevant to the public private partnership covering infrastructure, maintenance, and financing rules in Bangladesh. The paper argues that the laws that underpin the control framework in Bangladesh are inadequate and concluded with some policy recommendations and directions for future research.

This article focused on the socio-economic benefits of mixed crop cultivation by farmers based on primary and secondary data in the District of Gopalganj covering 5 Upazilas. A total of 270 marginal farmers participated in the survey of two subsequent researches. Findings demonstrated that mixed cropping system enhanced standards of living of farmers through the channels of income generation, increased in rural employment through increased participation of family farm labour, improved rural transportation, and higher enrolment in primary education, although dietary diversity had not improved that much. Overall, the multifunctional agricultural system upgraded the socio-economic rural profiles of the marginal farmers. These findings had important policy implications for government and non-government organizations of Bangladesh.

Planning and Development are interrelated. In a sense, one cannot be separated from the other. Planningis used as a tool toinfluence decisions about development priorities &resource allocation either for a country, a region, a province or an organization.More than last 60 years, development planning has transformed. Central planning and market-oriented planning is the character of most developing countries. Early development planning was led by the Soviet Union, which was the only country engaged in systematic development planning prior to World War II. Today, planning is no longer an issue between centralized planning and market-based planning. Modern history has shown that neither centralized planning nor market-oriented planning alone has succeeded. In the last six decades, development planning has shifted, moving to broader, more complex, multi-disciplinary perception. The government’s role today is in making a supporting atmosphere for market to work and correct market failures. As an independent country Bangladesh has been formulating five year plan since 1973. Since then Bangladesh has successfully formulated seven five year plan. The economy of this country has been able to maintain sustained economic growth even in the face of global financial crisis. Bangladesh was one of the forerunners in achieving Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and also she is an early starter in the implementing process of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Many international organizations and countries opined on the brilliant success of Bangladesh’s development. To keep these achievements the country needs good governance in all spheres of life.

Now is the era of cloud computing where internet based data are handled from remote places. Data is being entered, stored, processed, deposited and backed up all at the central servers located in specific buildings. Data center is a place where all these servers are gathered in compliance with art of technology. We have some limitations regarding knowledge about the architectures of data center. This article reveals some ideas about data center architectures and its components. Specially, this paper gives emphasis on explaining data center tier levels and its applications.