The second catalyst was a recent exhibition at the Russian Cultural Center, organized by Neeti Gobeshona Kendra, Dhaka, featuring the life of a rickshaw puller. It was a unique experience for me and, perhaps, for many others who attended. I would like to offer a perspective on rickshaw pulling, the entire trade and the related stakeholders' community.

The exhibition allowed me to dwell on the issue of rickshaw pulling. Some comments really struck me hard, and the cases along the exhibition hall depicted real stories, with bonafide rickshaw pullers relating the stories of their lives.

It was painful, needless to say, and many feared that their's and their children's lives would be wasted away in this profession. One rickshaw puller commented that the police tend to think of them as traffic jam creators, and also project the view that before a person becomes a thief the last straw of hope that he clings onto is a rickshaw. This really demeans the profession.

Another puller commented that even their wives felt hesitant in saying that their husbands were rickshaw pullers. Imagine the pangs of emotion that one may feel, given how the society feels about a "rickshaw puller."

I sense that the society needs to change its mindset, because pulling a rickshaw is a dignified profession, and is much better than stealing, bribing, or conniving to defraud the government and the public. We need to pay respect to someone who deserves it, and not to the rapacious bureaucrats and politicians in Bangladesh.

It was a pleasant surprise when the ambassador of Netherlands called the rickshaw pullers the "real heroes" of Bangladesh, because they (the rickshaw pullers) worked hard to carry a significant number of people from point to point.

The ambassador also said that social justice demanded that we, the informed citizens of Bangladesh, should find ways to raise their (the rickshaw pullers) economic standing, and create social safety nets for them and their families so that they were not left behind in strengthening the fabric of the society.

A rickshaw puller commented that the laws of the land, especially for the rickshaw pullers, were framed with the mindset that the rickshaw pullers were inconsequential human pawns in our society who needed to obey the rules of the city corporation.

The rickshaw puller cited the example of the badge that the city corporation had given him, where it is mentioned that he (the rickshaw puller) needed to behave properly with the passenger, but there was no mention of how the passenger should behave towards the puller.

These may be insignificant issues to the policy makers, but they are real issues of importance for the pride, welfare and sustainability of the rickshaw pullers' community, and their subsequent social acceptance.

Added to these dimensions is the issue of our politicians using the rickshaw pullers as vote banks during elections in the city, and this system of misuse has taken an ominous turn, hurting the proper functioning of effective voting while contributing to the increase of inhabitants in the urban slums.

The huge number of rickshaws also tells of the many backward and forward linkage enterprises that are involved in this profession, perhaps adding low-value service that could have been utilized with proper migration planning to higher yielding productive endeavours.

With regards to rickshaws, I believe, in spite of some people saying that rickshaws were environmentally safe, that they slow down the movement of traffic, thereby causing huge traffic jams and useless burning of fuel, and depreciation of motorized vehicles.

Needless to say, the time lost is never regained, and the energy dissipated while stuck on a road has far reaching impact national productivity. Additionally, I believe that Bangladesh has become an idle nation, and its citizens, especially the affluent class, do not feel the urge to walk. They take a rickshaw to travel 200 to 300 yards, but never realize that walking is a cardiovascular exercise that the very presence of a rickshaw is stopping them from having.

I believe that our national prestige is being severely lowered by having rickshaws. When the global trend is taking us towards travel at lightening speed, and people are thinking of energizing humans to travel at the speed of light, here we are, trying to retard our progress by thinking of traveling at the pace of a turtle.

Social justice and equity are needed in our journey to make Bangladesh technology enabled, but it is ridiculous to believe that rickshaws are a functional medium of travel in this era of warp-speed and extensive travel.

I feel serious that efforts need to be made to help the rickshaw pullers to move out of this profession and into more value added professions, and allow Bangladeshis to walk for cardiovascular exercise, become less lazy, and believe and work to invent the next hypersonic age communication platform. Anything less would be insanity on the part of the smart, intelligent humans that we are.

Let us not give the feeling that we, as a nation, are dwarfed by low-tech transportation, and that our fate allows us not to move beyond a rickshaw.

Like Dr. Yunus, I would like to keep the rickshaws in the museum, and build hyper-speed transportation gateways for the future of Bangladesh. My views were echoed by the editor of New-Age -- a local English daily. I would rather offer these unfortunate rickshaw peddlers a decent life, and not let them be used by the affluent people for their merry rides.

We, as a nation, continue to stay unperturbed while gargantuan loss in our national productivity goes un-challenged, and our citizens toil for a measly living.

A re-evaluation strategy to use the rickshaw pullers' skills need to be put up in front of our faces for social and economic awakening of our policy makers and citizens.

Ziaur Rahman is the CEO of IITM.