In particular, little has been discussed of the profound implications of the UDHR for the notion of poverty, the task of poverty alleviation and for the very philosophy of development. The relevant provisions in the UDHR are:

Article 25: Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.

Article 26: Education shall be directed to the strengthening of respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms.

Article 29: Everyone has duties to the community in which alone the free and full development of his personality is possible.

Article 25 implies a definition of poverty deeper than the conventional "dollar-a-day" kind of view, which I have termed the "livestock" notion of poverty befitting only a "cheap labour ideology" of development. Article 25 of UDHR asserted decades before such view became the norm in poverty discourse, that every person must as a human being have much more than the minimum necessary for bare subsistence. Respect for human rights ordains that the notion of poverty and hence the calculus of poverty counts be revised accordingly.

The Paris-based "International Movement ATD Fourth World" which has consultative status in the UN Commission of Human Rights, submitted in its report to the commission in 2003, "it is not acceptable to give priority to... the necessary and essential minimum for survival ... Human rights encompass more than the right to survival: their aim is that all human beings live in dignity."

The founder of the ATD Movement, late Father Wresinski, was perhaps the one to first point out also, in a report to the French Economic and Social Council in 1987 which the council adopted, that human rights have no priorities and are indivisible, being a comprehensive notion whose components cannot be lined up along a scale of priorities.

With Bangladesh wanting now to take human rights seriously I would urge that our poverty watchers -- both the academics and the government -- come out of the kind of "basic survival needs" thinking that degrades human beings to the status of livestock, that has so far won the day seemingly under the influence of the World Bank.

We need all to join in asking for the needed socio-economic reforms toward attainment of human rights for all called for in Article 25, which is a call for raising the status of all men and women to a status of dignity. This calls for socio-economic reforms toward "economic democracy" on which I wrote in this paper on March 5.

Coming to the question of philosophy of social life and development, Article 29 of the UDHR directly opposes the philosophy of development espoused by no other than Amartya Sen -- vide his famous treatise: Development as Freedom -- that calls for the expansion of individual freedom as the foundational view of development, unless it is very clearly required that individual freedom be enlightened by the highest ideals of humanity as represented by the UDHR. Such ideals of humanity are not necessarily ensured by attaining "participatory democracy" in a society, which is as far as Sen goes in his treatise -- these ideals stand above national consensus as a mandate from humanity as a whole.

The principle of service to others represented in UDHR's Article 29 is of course inherent in enlightened quarters and persons in every nation. In Bangladesh also such persons are not rare who are engaged in inspiring community service, which the state is also recognizing by way of national awards. But in view of the nation's newly reaffirmed commitment to human rights it is time to review the meaning of development to ensure that this ideal of the human mission is enshrined in this notion as well.

It is hoped that BIDS, the principal development research centre of the country, will seek to give technical leadership in this direction. The need for incorporating this outlook in the work of the government's planning commission is also obvious.

All this points naturally also to the content of our education system. The UDHR itself has not only articulated this link in its Article 26 quoted above -- it has actually given supreme importance to teaching and education as a forum for inculcating awareness of all human rights desiring, in its very preamble, for its principles "to be disseminated, displayed, read and expounded principally in schools and other educational institutions," and that "every individual and every organ of society, keeping this declaration constantly in mind, shall strive by teaching and education to promote respect for these rights and freedoms."

The education system of Bangladesh has become by and large a "capability" -- raising mechanism for qualifying in the job market. We no longer "waste" many pages in our textbooks nor time in the classrooms on the subject of service to society, nor do we include in them accounts of outstanding acts of social service that dedicated persons, including students and youth groups, are doing in the country.

There are, of course, notable exceptions, one being the initiative taken last year by the Economics Department of Dhaka University to institute an annual prize for its students for dedicated social work, to be assessed by representatives of students themselves in open seminars as a mechanism to spread the awareness among the students.

And student leaders of the country inspired by our liberation war, formed an education commission themselves shortly after independence to deliberate on educational reform for the country, and proposed among other measures arrangements for involvement of students in service to the society.

With the renewed allegiance of the nation to human rights as inunciated in the UDHR we should take a fresh look at the teaching curricula and teaching culture of the nation to give purposeful orientation in this direction to our boys and girls as an integral part of their education.

It should be clear that human rights is not just a matter of law and order. Apart from its implication toward economic democracy on which the commission for human rights being formed has to constantly prod the powers that be, it should also want to work in close collaboration with the Ministry of Education toward designing school curricula and text-books for fulfillment of the desired mission.

Needless to say, the principles of the UDHR need to be given wide publicity in bangla to promote public awareness of their rights, and members of the HRC will do well to widely tour the country to fathom the depth of the denial of human rights to the bulk of the nation's populace.

Md. Anisur Rahman is ex-Professor of Economics, University of Dhaka, and member of the first Planning Commission.