Thoughts on "Digital Bangladesh" (Materializing the Program)
Introduction
We have explained why the thought of materializing Digital Bangladesh is risky and difficult in a poor country with low level of technology. In fact the country is so poor that it could not appoint the bare minimum required teachers in the educational institutions and government personnel in various public institutions, not to say anything about the inadequate provisions, facilities and salaries of the employed staff. To worsen the situation further, after every 3-5 years the country is visited by devastating tidal bore, damaging wealth worth millions.
The generous offer for being connected with the information highway was given to Bangladesh during the BNP government. The government refused that offer at that time. By this time the cost of related items have gone up and also the country has turned poorer. Any ambitious project for this country at this stage and context needs intelligent planning. No expert would ever say that “Digital technology” has no failure. On the other hand, quite often it fails not naturally, but intentionally due to the profiteering tendency of the related experts. Needless to mention that they find lucrative big business in such failures. Hackers (or the night-time entity of some experts) are active in order to crush the software. Even the developed countries like USA are not free from their attack. However, the hackers know well that the developed countries are capable enough to mend the damage by themselves. For obvious reasons, they love to fiddle in countries, which lack in that capability. Once the society is accustomed to some type of digital system, with its failure for whatever reason, it must be replaced immediately for the reason of people’s demand or welfare. And many a times the cost of such replacement is much more than the original expenditure. All digital systems are not essential, but once people become accustomed to it, or the country’s overall system is tuned for it, there remains no scope to ignore the same. We can cite one example here.
In the 2009 election the Election Commission used National Identity Card and it was done with tremendous cost. However, because of an inherent lacking in the system those are losing the targeted use or purpose. We are aware that road-side shops now manufacture fake cards and there is almost no way of preventing them. We know how easy it is to get the examination results through internet. And we also know how easy it is to manufacture fake results or certificates. We have to remember that whatever technologies the authorities use for manufacturing these are equally available to the miscreants. That is why we need additional measures to make those full proof and prevent fraudulence.