“Khuda Buksh: The Pioneer of Life Insurance in Bangladesh” brings to life a forgotten era in Bangladesh and Pakistan's history, in narrating the story of one man and his team who laid the foundation for the life insurance industry in Bangladesh and Pakistan. Between 1930 and 1970, Khuda Buksh worked tirelessly to establish the insurance business in the South Asia region, amid enormous political upheaval and overcoming engrained religious and cultural prejudices against life insurance.
Banker to the Poor is an autobiographical account of the founder of the Grameen Bank, Muhammad Yunus. This work is fundamental rethink on the economic relationship between the rich and the poor, their rights and obligations. The Grameen Bank is founded on principles of trust and solidarity. Muhammad Yunus believes that the right to credit should be recognized as a fundamental human right because credit is the last hope left to those faced with absolute poverty.
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.
On the night of March 15, 1971, K.M. Shehabuddin, a young Pakistan Foreign Service Officer, was posted in Delhi. The news that filtered in from East Pakistan led him to renounce his allegiance to Pakistan and pledge loyalty to the unborn state of Bangladesh. The first career diplomat to join the war - even before the formation of the Mujibnagar Government - he became the first head of Bangladesh's Delhi mission. From April to October 1971, he played a leading role on the diplomatic front of the liberation 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.
This account of a former diplomat brings forth new information on some of the important events of history that touches two South Asian nations, Pakistan and Bangladesh. The author had the privilege of witnessing events, which made history. It is a narration of events which took place over the past fifty years. Of the makers of history, the foremost is Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the founder of independent Bangladesh. It is the fulfillment of a thousand year old dream nourished in every Bengali heart, come true.
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.
Pakistan's first military ruler, Mohammad Ayub Khan, was born in 1907, in the village of Rehana, near Haripur. In 1951, he became the country's first Pakistani Commander-in-Chief, and subsequently served as defence minister in the second cabinet of Mohammad Ali Bogra. On declaration of martial law by Iskander Mirza on 7 October 1958, he was made the chief martial law administrator. Less than three weeks later, after deposing Iskander Mirza in a bloodless coup, Ayub Khan became the president of Pakistan on 27 October 1958.
The book is an autobiographical account of the author's journey through life beginning with the pre-partition years of India. The author's ambivalence about what really happened at that time and why, is reflected in the book along with stories of his youthful days in Bengal and of the school years in the social and political context of the country. The communal divide of India, the political negotiations and the terrible conflicts at the time of the independence of India and Pakistan are briefly captured. Coming to East Pakistan was not without a silver lining.