Feature

Let us now explore the buzzword digital Bangladesh. What does it really mean? Moving towards digital Bangladesh does not imply that the urban young groups of the country will be more sophisticated consumers of high-tech devices like computers, digital cameras, latest model mobile sets or camcorders etc. based on high-speed Internet infrastructure and promote the 'djuice' culture. Rather discarding this superficial notion, we need to ascribe the term digital Bangladesh objectively.

Broadly speaking, a digital society ensures an ICT driven knowledge-based society where information will be readily available online and where all possible tasks of the Government, semi-Government and also private spheres will be processed using state of the art technology. So, a digital Bangladesh must guarantee efficient and effective use of modern ICT in all spheres of the society with a view to establishing good governance. In other words, making Bangladesh digital, we have to establish technology driven e-governance, e-commerce, e-production, e-agriculture, e-health etc. in the society emphasising the overall development of the common people, the major stakeholders of the country.

Due to globalisation, more specifically due to booming of ICT like most of the countries on the globe, Bangladesh has already been connected with the global villages. Yet in the field of ICT, our only grand success lies in mobile communication, which has brought an abrupt change in telecommunication scenario of the country. However, in the other spheres of ICT, our achievement is very insignificant and we are still gulfs away from transforming ourselves into a knowledge-based society.

Building strong ICT infrastructure is the pre-requisite for digitalising Bangladesh. For this, we need to focus on the following relevant issues assessing the harsh reality that hinder our development in this context.

Latest statistics reveals that Bangladesh faces a power deficit of up to 2000 MW against demand of 5000 MW daily. It may be noted that for proper ICT development an uninterrupted power supply is a must. Outside Dhaka, at present a few computer network infrastructures have been developed so far. Apart from some educational institutes outside Dhaka, observation finds that most of the LAN setups are Dhaka centric. This observation reveals the reality of the digital gap even within the country. For the ICT development Internet users of the country must be increased. In this case our position is a worst one among the sub-continental countries. The latest statistics (ITU, 2007) has revealed the Internet penetration in our country is only 0.3%. whereas for Pakistan and India, this rates are 7.3% and 5.3% respectively. Since 2006, Bangladesh has been connected to worldwide Internet Super High Way through an under sea submarine cable. But this single submarine cable frequently faces disruption resulting in slow bandwidth. Networked Readiness Index (NRI), developed by the University of Harvard, measures the propensity for countries to exploit the opportunities offered by information and communications technology. The NRI seeks to better comprehend the impact of ICT on the competitiveness of nations. The NRI is a composite of three components: the environment for ICT offered by a given country or community, the readiness of the community's key stakeholders (individuals, businesses, and governments) to use ICT, and finally the usage of ICT amongst these stakeholders. Unfortunately, the latest survey (2006-7) has revealed that Bangladesh's NRI ranking is one of the lowest among the Asian countries.

Though the above accounts seem to be frustrating, they can be easily overcome within a reasonable span of time if we can establish good governance in the country. Since independence, Bangladesh has been critically suffering from ill governance. Lack of vision, corruption, lack of transparency, weak coordination, and undemocratic decision-making were the salient features of our past governments. These can also be marked as the major barrier to the overall progress of Bangladesh. However, the newly installed government which has called for changes, hopefully, will establish much expected good governance following the peoples' aspiration.

For making a digital Bangladesh by 2021, the government must address the above stated issues effectively and efficiently in transparent manners. In many cases we need to reformulate our national policy (e.g. education policy, ICT policy) in accordance with the Millennium Development Goals. In reformulating the ICT policy, we need to take a pragmatic and visionary approach so that it can curb the prevailing digital gap in the society. Moreover, the journey towards a digital Bangladesh needs the incorporation of the technologically solvent innovative younger generation. If the leaders of the country objectively guide this generation blended with patriotism, no doubt, they will come forward in this nation building huge deed. After all, the young generation always looks forward to bringing positive changes in the society.

(Md. Anwarul Kabir teaches Computer Science at AIUB. He can be reached at kabir@aiub.edu)

Mars Rover's Unexpected Behavior Puzzles NASA

By Tariq Malik

NASA engineers are scratching their heads over some unexpected behavior from the long-lived Spirit rover, which began its sixth year exploring Mars this month.

Spirit failed to report in to engineers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California, last weekend, prompting a series of diagnostic tests this week to hunt the glitch's source. The aging Mars rover did not beam home a record of its weekend activities and, more puzzlingly, apparently failed to even record any of its actions on Sunday. “We don't have a good explanation yet for the way Spirit has been acting for the past few days," said NASA's Sharon Laubach, who leads the JPL team that writes and checks commands for the rover and its robotic twin Opportunity. "Our next steps will be diagnostic activities."

Sunday marked Spirit's 1,800th Martian day, or sol, exploring a region known as "Home Plate" in the planet's expansive Gusev Crater. Spirit and its twin Opportunity were initially expected to spend just 90 days exploring the Martian surface when they landed in succession more than five years ago this month. Opportunity is currently headed for the monster crater 'Endeavour' on the other side of Mars. On Sunday, Spirit apparently received commands to drive to its next waypoint, but failed to move an inch. While that glitch can have any number of causes, such as Spirit not properly perceiving it was ready to drive, the rover's failure to record its daily work in its non-volatile computer memory is perplexing, they added.

By Monday, Spirit's mission controllers decided to tell the rover to find the sun with its camera on Tuesday to determine its location on Mars. Early Tuesday, the rover beamed back that it had tried to follow the instructions of its human handlers and did find the sun, but not in the location it expected the star to be in.

NASA engineers believe Spirit's woes may be due to a transitory cause, such as a high-energy cosmic ray hitting the rover's electronics. On Tuesday, the rover's non-volatile memory appeared to be working fine, mission managers said. The rovers Spirit and Opportunity have lasted more than 20 times their initial three-month mission plan, with each suffering from aches and pains associated with their longevity. Spirit initially bounced back from a worrying computer glitch early in its mission and has since survived frigid winters on Mars and scaled a nearby hill. Both rovers have expanded scientists' knowledge of the history of liquid water on Mars during their respective missions. While puzzling, Spirit's new glitches do not appear to be a serious concern at present, according to NASA's rover mission chief John Callas.

"Right now, Spirit is under normal sequence control, reporting good health and responsive to commands from the ground," he added.