The New Nation - Internet Edition

CHIEF Adviser Dr Fakhruddin Ahmed has said that various projects would be taken up for the development of the hill districts of south-eastern Bangladesh. In fact, this has become an imperative. While taking up development projects for the hill districts one point should be borne in mind, that the people of the region belong to different ethnic groups. It is now universally accepted that the characteristic features of all ethnic groups of people must be respected and nurtured. The peculiarities of the hill people should piously be taken into consideration.

Bangladeshis are now such a nation of which ethnic groups of hill districts form inseparable parts. All the ethnic groups of the country are now in the larger frame of the Bangladeshi nation. The Chief Adviser, therefore, has focused his attention to a matter which is urgent and important for national cohesion and balanced economic growth of the country. The ethnic identities, languages, ways of life, means of living, history and cultural norms should be upheld and their preferences taken into consideration while taking up and implementing development projects.

Alongside economic, social and cultural developments of the people of the hill region, importance must be attached to the national security concerns. By offering economic, social and cultural development packages to the people of the hill districts they should be attracted to the national mainstream. Simultaneously, they need to be motivated to be sensitive towards the national security concerns. Insurgents and anti-national groups have, most of the time, been active there. So, on the one side, the government should be alert and prepared to face any such repetition and, on the other, bring hill people under the national mainstream by offering them a balanced development and strengthening the bonds of unity and belongingness.