Digital Bangladesh

                                     Digital Bangladesh

Bangladesh is resounding with the target of achieving digital Bangladesh. Broadly speaking, a digital society ensures an ICT driven knowledge-based society where information will be readily available on-line and where all possible tasks of the government, semi-government and private spheres will be processed using the modern technology. So, a digital Bangladesh must guarantee efficient and effective use of modern ICT in all spheres of the society with a view to establishing good governance. In other word, making Bangladesh a digital one, we have to establish technology driven e-governance, e-commerce, e-production, e-agriculture, e-health etc, in the society emphasizing the overall development of the common people. Building strong ICT infrastructure is the pre-requisite for making Bangladesh a digital one. For this, we need to focus on the following relevant issues assessing the harsh reality that hinders our development in this context. Latest statistics show that Bangladesh faces a power deficit of up to 200 MW against a demand of 5000 MW daily. It may be noted that for proper ICT development an uninterrupted power supply is a must. For the ICT development Internet users of the country must be increased. In this case our place is the worst one among the South Asian countries. From different sources, it has been learnt that, English literacy rate in Bangladesh is less than one percent. Whereas, English literacy rates in India and Pakistan are 60% and 20% respectively. There is a strong correlation between English literacy and ICT development in the present context of globalization. In the arena of ICT English has become the Lingua-Franca. Though the above accounts seem to be frustrating one, these can be easily overcome within a reasonable span of time if we can establish good governance in the country. For making a digital Bangladesh by 2021, the government must address the above stated issues effectively and efficiently in transparent manners. In many cases we need to reformulate our national policy (e.g. education policy, ICT policy) in accordance with the Millennium Development Goals. If the leaders of our country objectively guide this generation, they can do wonder for the nation.