Information Minister Dr Hasan Mahmud has said: Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has changed the identity of Bangladesh; we were once a poor country but as per World or IMF indices, Bangladesh is now a low middle income country and we will become a full fledged middle income state.
The information minister made the comments on Tuesday (Jul 30) at a programme organised by the Chattogram Shilpakala Academy.
“In the fifties, when this country had 47 million people, there was food deficit here; now, the population of the country is 166.5 million and though amount of arable land has declined by 20 to 30 percent, the country now produces surplus food.”
One does not see people in rags or barefoot on the streets anymore, he said.
“No one hears the appeal for some rice in our alleys; in the past, we used to wear second hand clothes and now clothes made in Bangladesh are exported abroad.”
The picture of the straw hut is now only found in poems and an aerial view of Dhaka or Chattgoram is similar to any developed nation.
To free democracy, leader of the people, Sheikh Hasina, faced death several times; at attempt was made on her life on Jan 24, 1988, in Chattogram; another was made in Kotalipara with a concealed bomb and the most infamous is the grenade attack on Aug 21, 2004, observed the minister.
But she has come back from the valley of death and has given us a Bangladesh of food sufficiency and democracy.
HT Imam, the PM’s political adviser, present at the programme, said: “Leader of the people, Sheikh Hasina, is a charismatic leader and has a personality similar to Bangabandhu; her fame has gone beyond the border of the country.
However, in her government, power is decentralized; ministers look after their ministries and the departments under each ministry do their work independently, said HT Imam.