Bangladesh Studies

How to organize rural people for development? Azizur Rahman Patwari of Panchagram shows the way. Integrated village development is the key to the door of prosperity and happiness of the people of Bangladesh, for 90% of them live in villages. This process requires the introduction by the Government of a viable local and village government system for village administration and rural infrastructure development. Within such a facilitating environment local entrepreneurs and community leaders can improve the social and economic condition and quality of life.

This is a book written by a head of state and head of government when in office and first published in 1967. It is at once an autobiography of former President Mohammad Ayub Khan of Pakistan, and also a description of the major events in the history of Pakistan in which the author participated, and of the problems which the country continue to faces. President Ayub describes his village upbringing in the northwest of undivided India, his years at Aligarh University and Sandhurst in England, and his service in the British-Indian army before and during the Second World War.

Stephen Hatch-Barnwell’s (1909-1989) Tour of Duty as ICS (Indian Civil Service) in Bengal (1933-1947) as CSP (Civil Service of Pakistan) in East Pakistan (1949-1966) is not just another British officer’s “notes to successors” for those of us who care to read such memoirs. The author makes it a point to inform the readers that his main purpose was to show what life was for a young ICS officer in the very last days of the British Raj and not to give a personal life history to the readers.

Achievements of outstanding personalities and the examples set by leaders of a nation leave footmarks in the history of a people and thus of mankind. What we are today is largely the legacy which our leaders have bequeathed to us. The purpose of the present volume is to record the achievements and the examples set by some of the outstanding personalities from Bengal who have blazed our path of progress.