Reading "The Dhaka Star", a local paper here in Bangladesh, the editorial highlighted that the per capita income for this fiscal year has increased to US$690 from US$608. That means that a person on average earns $690 per year, and considering all the wealthy people at the top then it also means that many, many people are below that. Compare this to Australia with about $50 000. That puts Bangladesh in the 20 poorest countries in the world along with mostly African countries such as the Congo, Zimbabwe, Mali, Equatorial Guinea.
But are they trying to help themselves? Here is a story from a work colleague.
Driving along one of the streets here in Dhaka, one always gets accosted by beggars whether you are walking or in a vehicle. Anyway one evening a colleague spotted a woman carrying a baby who was begging. Nothing unusual about that. However the the baby had a large and very obvious hernia. After a local colleague heard about this and happened to spot the same lady and baby, she stopped and got the lady in the car and said that she would par for and take the lady to a doctor to get the baby fixed. The begging lady was aghast, no way to she want the baby made better and so appear normal. her source of begging would be gone. Instead she insistently asked for money from the good samaritan!! What does this mean in terms of the future . . .. . . . . . I don't know.
In the same vain, I have also heard that all beggars will be off the streets in 10 years time. Mind you that might depend on whether Bangladesh still exists as a country or whether rising sea levels courtesy of the Graeenhouse Effect have inundated it.
Dhaka background image
6 years ago
1 comment:
The story about the baby with the hernia reminds me of Slumdog Millionaire. That's terrible that the mother of the baby wouldn't want her children to get better just because she would lose out on a source of income, and what's worse is that the child is seen as a source of income rather than a source of joy and happiness.
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