Status of Handloom Workers and Causes of Their Migration: A Study in Handloom Industry of Tangail District, Bangladesh

Handloom industry is the biggest handicraft industry in our country; it is the second largest source of rural employment after agriculture. This industry is an increasingly essential element of economic, social development and it has become one of the largest economic industries in Bangladesh. Handllom industry in Tangail has a glorious history of its own. The “Tangail Sharee” of Bangladesh has a great popularity and reputation within and outside the country. But day by day the number of weavers of the industry is decreasing in alarming rate and the industry is becoming smaller over time. Here the study tries to identify the factors of declining handloom workers in Tangail and their main causes of migration to India. Mainly case studies and interview have been taken to collect the primary data. A lot of research papers, websites, journals, and articles have been reviewed to know the relevant information and describing the history and development of the industry. Factors like fear of communial violence, increased price of raw materials, absence of loan from government, insufficient transport facility, better facilities in India, lack of security has been identified for their rapid migration to india. Keywords: Handloom industry, weavers, Sharee, migratio

Micro-Credit as a Tool for Poverty Reduction in Bangladesh

Poverty has remained a global phenomenon and has defied various endeavors at curbing it especially in developing countries. The high and unacceptable number of people within its grip around the world gave it a pride of place as one of the major goals of Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) adopted in 2000. Poverty alleviation was a prime target of the MDGs and micro-credit was recognized as a veritable tool for tackling it. Since the 1970s, especially during the new wave of microfinance in the 1990s, micro-credit has come to be seen as an important development policy and a poverty reduction tool.  In this paper, we examined empirically the effect of micro-credit on poverty alleviation in Bangladesh using secondary data.  The results of the study show that poverty level is still high among the rural populace; but those that have access to micro-credit seems to have managed better than those who have no access to micro-credit. In other words, access to micro-credit has positive but not significant impact on poverty alleviation among the rural populace. The study recommends that government should intensify effort in its recent financial inclusion strategy to ensure that the rural populace has greater access to micro credits. Government should also ensure that interest rate on micro credits are affordable, the terms of the credits flexible and the conditions attached to the credit well liberalized. Keywords: Microcredit, Microfinance, Poverty, Eradication, Challenge

Contemporary Situation of FDI and its Determinants: Bangladesh Scenario

This paper examines the present FDI scenario of Bangladesh since 1971 along with an explanation of its significant trend. The various trend facilities, exemptions provided by the government of Bangladesh are also mentioned in the paper. Moreover, the paper also investigates those factors that are handle and affects current FDI situation using the annual data for 1996-2010. From the analysis, we found that market size, infrastructure facilities, trade openness, export promotion, labor cost and availability of skilled labor are the important factors that contribute most to affect FDI. &nbsp