Yesterday I picked a book from my bookshelf and read it to my 4 and 3 year old children as bed time stories. This one Bangla and the short story called “Didi O Picklo”. Very nice touchy story of pet dog named Picklo.
I did not like the language and the tone of the story. It was poor, mean, and morally weak with stereotype. I don’t want to profile the writer; however there are events and things that do not go with the culture that we have and we value in the west, I mean in Bangladesh.
No offence to English speaking people of England and USA; however they do speak different English; Culture unquestionably different, similar capitalism but one invade the world with Tea and the other with Coffee. So do Bangladesh and India, I mean east Bengal.
I was reading “Dora”, “Diago”, even dinosaur, animal stories in English and I though why not try some Bangla. I would really love to get some reference on good Bangla children books. It does not have to teach big virtue, a simple nature, basic science stories or math stories or having fun tour, adventure stories could be just fine. Or am I expecting too much? Patriots, please no hard feelings!
Friday, June 12, 2009
Saturday, June 6, 2009
More fools expectation ..
Out of approximately 300K applicant paid thousands of dollar as security deposit and willing to buy a piece of land for one’s own place which he/she will call home, not even 10% will get the product. You guessed right, yes, I am talking about RAJUK plots.
The vast majority of the pursuant, more then 90%, will be rejected. Although they have the money and will; although they are ready to invest in the housing industry, they will have no opportunity to do so. In the mean time RAJUK will have thousands of corers Taka of the applicants’ money in RAJUK’s bank.
This money will accrue interest; however applicant will not get a penny of those. I hope RAJUK will not take years to announce the winners and returns the deposits of the unlucky ones; however, I have a proposal of being agile, nimble and execute on scale. This part of my dream big.
While customers are waiting, can we be agile and multiply the scale of the project to ten fold. Can we build a modern model city? I know the real estate in Dubai in the decline and in USA it is hitting nowhere but bottom.
But in nowhere there are so many customers eager to buy.
Hence can we deliver a piece of RAJUK plot to all the applicants? Let’s act quickly and make it happen. We are the same breed of people who architected SEARS Tower, versioned the impossible, when others are doubtful.
People are waiting with money in their hands, funding is no issue here. What you say Buetians? Can Buet engineers architect, design, build such a city in Dhaka to meet customer demand and solve some housing need of the nation?
The vast majority of the pursuant, more then 90%, will be rejected. Although they have the money and will; although they are ready to invest in the housing industry, they will have no opportunity to do so. In the mean time RAJUK will have thousands of corers Taka of the applicants’ money in RAJUK’s bank.
This money will accrue interest; however applicant will not get a penny of those. I hope RAJUK will not take years to announce the winners and returns the deposits of the unlucky ones; however, I have a proposal of being agile, nimble and execute on scale. This part of my dream big.
While customers are waiting, can we be agile and multiply the scale of the project to ten fold. Can we build a modern model city? I know the real estate in Dubai in the decline and in USA it is hitting nowhere but bottom.
But in nowhere there are so many customers eager to buy.
Hence can we deliver a piece of RAJUK plot to all the applicants? Let’s act quickly and make it happen. We are the same breed of people who architected SEARS Tower, versioned the impossible, when others are doubtful.
People are waiting with money in their hands, funding is no issue here. What you say Buetians? Can Buet engineers architect, design, build such a city in Dhaka to meet customer demand and solve some housing need of the nation?
Thursday, June 4, 2009
A fools expectation from RAJUK
Let’s face it, you never turn down a buyer; not especially during the global economic down turn that we are in right now. People who are in private sector, like export oriented garment industry knows how hard they try to keep the LC valid and deliver the product; however if you are in a bureaucratic non transparent organization than you don’t have any motivation to do that; because you job is secure and your benefits is not tied with your performance or productivity.
For example, you all Bangladeshi expatriates probably heard and most of you participated in recent offerings of RAJUK for the UTTRA or PURBACHOL plots. Most of us don’t feel comfortable with the private sector offerings due to their failure to build trustworthy business dealings. Although government run companies does not do a better job; however we kind of feel that our money will be safe in their hands regardless they deliver the product or not.
With the overwhelming response from the people of Bangladeshi origin all over the world, especially middle east, America and Europe, in my estimate there could be as many as 300,000 (three hundred thousands) applicants applied with security deposits of thousands of dollar per applicants. Let me do a simple math:
Number of applicant 3,00,000
Prospectus fee collected = 300,000x1000 (30 Corer Taka) or 300,000xUSD$20 (6 million dollars)
Security deposit collected between
In USD $585 Million= (1500x0.5+2000x0.3+2500x0.1+3500x0.1)x300,000 or
In Bangladesh Taka 30750 Million Taka= (75Kx0.5+100Kx0.3+150Kx0.1+200Kx0.1)x300,000
For my estimation I used a simplified conservative formula, where I assume the following:
a. 50% applied for 3 khatha plots with USD$1500 or 75,000/= Taka (or a mix of these)
b. 30% applied for 5 khatha plots with USD$2000 or 1,00,000/=Taka (or a mix of these)
c. 10% applied for 7.5 khatha plots with USD$2500 or 1,50,000/= Taka (or a mix of these)
d. 10% applied for 10 khata plots with USD$3500 or 2,00,000/=Taka (or a mix of these)
Hence at a minimum RAJUK may collect 3075 Corer taka just from the applicants. If all were collected in USD than the amount could be 4007 Crore Taka. I am not suggesting that Rajuk got that amount of money; but to get some idea we could use the above assumptions and conclude that the amount of revenue collection from the applicants may be 3 to 4 thousands corer taka.
Keep in mind that this huge amount of money collected without even disclosing the price of per khatha of the land. See the enormous hunger of the Bangladeshi people for a piece of land that they could one day build a house. See how much they are willing to give up not even knowing the price of the product they will get.
Where are those sells technique that you learn in your MBA’s from Business Schools? You did not applied any of those; however a huge number of people willing to buy.
Alas RAJUK, I wish you could make more products to satisfy all those applicants! In this global economy nobody has that many customers ready with cash in their hand for a product!
For example, you all Bangladeshi expatriates probably heard and most of you participated in recent offerings of RAJUK for the UTTRA or PURBACHOL plots. Most of us don’t feel comfortable with the private sector offerings due to their failure to build trustworthy business dealings. Although government run companies does not do a better job; however we kind of feel that our money will be safe in their hands regardless they deliver the product or not.
With the overwhelming response from the people of Bangladeshi origin all over the world, especially middle east, America and Europe, in my estimate there could be as many as 300,000 (three hundred thousands) applicants applied with security deposits of thousands of dollar per applicants. Let me do a simple math:
Number of applicant 3,00,000
Prospectus fee collected = 300,000x1000 (30 Corer Taka) or 300,000xUSD$20 (6 million dollars)
Security deposit collected between
In USD $585 Million= (1500x0.5+2000x0.3+2500x0.1+3500x0.1)x300,000 or
In Bangladesh Taka 30750 Million Taka= (75Kx0.5+100Kx0.3+150Kx0.1+200Kx0.1)x300,000
For my estimation I used a simplified conservative formula, where I assume the following:
a. 50% applied for 3 khatha plots with USD$1500 or 75,000/= Taka (or a mix of these)
b. 30% applied for 5 khatha plots with USD$2000 or 1,00,000/=Taka (or a mix of these)
c. 10% applied for 7.5 khatha plots with USD$2500 or 1,50,000/= Taka (or a mix of these)
d. 10% applied for 10 khata plots with USD$3500 or 2,00,000/=Taka (or a mix of these)
Hence at a minimum RAJUK may collect 3075 Corer taka just from the applicants. If all were collected in USD than the amount could be 4007 Crore Taka. I am not suggesting that Rajuk got that amount of money; but to get some idea we could use the above assumptions and conclude that the amount of revenue collection from the applicants may be 3 to 4 thousands corer taka.
Keep in mind that this huge amount of money collected without even disclosing the price of per khatha of the land. See the enormous hunger of the Bangladeshi people for a piece of land that they could one day build a house. See how much they are willing to give up not even knowing the price of the product they will get.
Where are those sells technique that you learn in your MBA’s from Business Schools? You did not applied any of those; however a huge number of people willing to buy.
Alas RAJUK, I wish you could make more products to satisfy all those applicants! In this global economy nobody has that many customers ready with cash in their hand for a product!
Monday, March 2, 2009
BDR Mutiny and Army honor
Like the nation I am disturbed and deeply shocked by the BDR mutiny and aftermath. During the aftermath, we should use our decency and judgment while sharing the shocking images as well as spreading the vivid details of the brutality. We have to ask ourselves what we want by doing those acts.
I have lost friends of my relatives; my heart goes out to those children who lost their parents, to those spouses who lost their loved ones. May almighty give them the strengths to overcome the losses. For the fallen army officers, may almighty rest their souls in peace.
Just think about the alternative of not taking the control immediately under civil administration; If Army were asked to conduct the hostage negotiation or rescue operation, in my opinion, there is higher chance it could result into more casualty.
Think about it a bit. I myself, not being in the Army, was shocked, angered after seeing too many higher officers, colonel, Lt Colonel were killed instantly. Think about the Army brethren and friends of those fallen soldier would react once they saw those while they are loaded with smoking armors, tanks. Pillkhana would have been a blood bath with all those culprit killed along with many more collateral damages. Chances of many more innocent lives along with the perpetrators’ would have perished.
Once the blood bath in BDR headquarter spread around the country, 46 other BDR camp would have experience the call to revolt and more lives would have perished for no higher purpose. However, if that happen, you never know which way public sentiment would go; if things goes out of control and uncontrollable massacre happen. In worst case it could trigger “emergency rule”!
My heart felt thanks to Bangladesh Army for showing their patience for the greater good of the country. My thanks to the chiefs of the armed forces for their trust in civil administration. I appreciate Gen Moen’s advice not to spread rumors as well as he advised to cross check the armed forces offices even if those information are given by the army officer. Because there are lots of emotions going around. Everybody needs a shoulder to lean during this time.
I would ask everybody to refrain from spreading instigating information, especially to the leader of the opposition party. I ask her, what she is expecting to gain by repeating how much brutality those disgruntle BDR men did to the dead body? I challenge her to take a moral position; not a political one, during this national mourning. Please advice a better path and be constructive during this defining moment.
I hope the investigating body takes quick action to hunt those perpetrators. I hope Army would continue to show trust and patience toward democracy and help civil administration professionally.
Honor is what counts. My salute to all the member of Army for their honor and dignity. Above all showing their commitment for the greater interest of the nation. I hope chain of command and senior officers should continue to help mourning officers and show their outmost restrain and respect while battling their emotions.
I am very glad that the chief of the opposition Khaleda Zia hold a grip on herself and made a political move of moral call on March 1st. During this unsettling time, the country need some sense of unity. While people are drowning with grief and pulling every straw of information out there to comfort the suffering, our national leaders and intellectuals should reflect to their senses.
What is happening to the TV media and the news media that, every expert trying to bring their expertise to explain the incident; but the irony of this comes with their own agenda. Hence in lot of cases it exacerbates the anger and frustrations further more. Although, there are people who “gets it” and trying to helpless people to help. We all needed some support to go through this national loss and grief.
This note also publised as a letter to daily newage in Bangladesh: http://www.newagebd.com/2009/mar/03/fb.html
I have lost friends of my relatives; my heart goes out to those children who lost their parents, to those spouses who lost their loved ones. May almighty give them the strengths to overcome the losses. For the fallen army officers, may almighty rest their souls in peace.
Just think about the alternative of not taking the control immediately under civil administration; If Army were asked to conduct the hostage negotiation or rescue operation, in my opinion, there is higher chance it could result into more casualty.
Think about it a bit. I myself, not being in the Army, was shocked, angered after seeing too many higher officers, colonel, Lt Colonel were killed instantly. Think about the Army brethren and friends of those fallen soldier would react once they saw those while they are loaded with smoking armors, tanks. Pillkhana would have been a blood bath with all those culprit killed along with many more collateral damages. Chances of many more innocent lives along with the perpetrators’ would have perished.
Once the blood bath in BDR headquarter spread around the country, 46 other BDR camp would have experience the call to revolt and more lives would have perished for no higher purpose. However, if that happen, you never know which way public sentiment would go; if things goes out of control and uncontrollable massacre happen. In worst case it could trigger “emergency rule”!
My heart felt thanks to Bangladesh Army for showing their patience for the greater good of the country. My thanks to the chiefs of the armed forces for their trust in civil administration. I appreciate Gen Moen’s advice not to spread rumors as well as he advised to cross check the armed forces offices even if those information are given by the army officer. Because there are lots of emotions going around. Everybody needs a shoulder to lean during this time.
I would ask everybody to refrain from spreading instigating information, especially to the leader of the opposition party. I ask her, what she is expecting to gain by repeating how much brutality those disgruntle BDR men did to the dead body? I challenge her to take a moral position; not a political one, during this national mourning. Please advice a better path and be constructive during this defining moment.
I hope the investigating body takes quick action to hunt those perpetrators. I hope Army would continue to show trust and patience toward democracy and help civil administration professionally.
Honor is what counts. My salute to all the member of Army for their honor and dignity. Above all showing their commitment for the greater interest of the nation. I hope chain of command and senior officers should continue to help mourning officers and show their outmost restrain and respect while battling their emotions.
I am very glad that the chief of the opposition Khaleda Zia hold a grip on herself and made a political move of moral call on March 1st. During this unsettling time, the country need some sense of unity. While people are drowning with grief and pulling every straw of information out there to comfort the suffering, our national leaders and intellectuals should reflect to their senses.
What is happening to the TV media and the news media that, every expert trying to bring their expertise to explain the incident; but the irony of this comes with their own agenda. Hence in lot of cases it exacerbates the anger and frustrations further more. Although, there are people who “gets it” and trying to helpless people to help. We all needed some support to go through this national loss and grief.
This note also publised as a letter to daily newage in Bangladesh: http://www.newagebd.com/2009/mar/03/fb.html
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Abedin-Abdullah proposal for short term job creation
The Proposal: Mandate every state to have mandatory full service gas station like my own state Oregon.At least 4 new jobs per gas station. There should be a recovery gas tax and the new jobs will be funded by this gas tax by the owner. This proposal is a temporary plan and may mandate for next two years only. After two years, this could be extended to fund alternative energy initiatives to reduce dependency on foreign oil.Based in 1997 statistics, there are 126,262 gas stations for the lower 48; hence this plan may immediately create half million jobs assuming on average 4 jobs per station. Although these jobs may be per time and low pay; however it may be better than pan handling or food banks or even social security checks.
Thanks to Abedin Bhai for bringing this up during lunch conversation at the Intel's cafeteria today.
All gas stations in U.S.: 126,889
Alaska: 267
Hawaii: 360
Gas stations with convenience stores: 81,684
The following are the 113,000 stations that have been open more than ayear:
Gas stations with sales less than $500,000: 18,802
Gas stations with sales $500K - $1 million: 24,103
Gas stations with sales $1 million - $2.5 million: 49,482
Gas stations with sales over $2.5 million: 20,465
The data comes from the U.S. 1997 Economic Census "Establishment &Firm Size, Retail Sector" (October, 2000)http://www.census.gov/prod/ec97/97r44-sz.pdf
Thanks to Abedin Bhai for bringing this up during lunch conversation at the Intel's cafeteria today.
All gas stations in U.S.: 126,889
Alaska: 267
Hawaii: 360
Gas stations with convenience stores: 81,684
The following are the 113,000 stations that have been open more than ayear:
Gas stations with sales less than $500,000: 18,802
Gas stations with sales $500K - $1 million: 24,103
Gas stations with sales $1 million - $2.5 million: 49,482
Gas stations with sales over $2.5 million: 20,465
The data comes from the U.S. 1997 Economic Census "Establishment &Firm Size, Retail Sector" (October, 2000)http://www.census.gov/prod/ec97/97r44-sz.pdf
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
Senate OKs $15,000 tax break for homebuyers (AP)
http://buzz.yahoo.com/article/1:y_news:a6e612dc8aee93d08e28b9c63c4047e6
I think Senate, House and White House need to think outside the box for a while. They should give a break to the current buzz word "Billion" for every bill addressing the economy. Why don't they talk about the "Confidence" and "Real Value" for a change?
There has not been any catastrophe since 2007. I don't see any house smashed down or burn down or leveled up. Farmers did not stop producing produce. It is not the end of the world. More you panic more damage you are causing to the moral of the survivor. Just focus on your job and do it more efficiently and cost effectively. Add more value to it. And that goes for everybody, house and the executive body, factories and industries, farm and most importantly the money managers, investment bankers. Come on how long you though these fake valuation could last? You enjoyed the ride, not stop blaming and get use to it.
I don't want to keep writing off my tax to my future and my children’s, how much more debt are we going to put on their back? It is easy for congress and those tax dodger to write off future tax today; but boy what happen to the good old citizenship to have the politician in check?
I think Senate, House and White House need to think outside the box for a while. They should give a break to the current buzz word "Billion" for every bill addressing the economy. Why don't they talk about the "Confidence" and "Real Value" for a change?
There has not been any catastrophe since 2007. I don't see any house smashed down or burn down or leveled up. Farmers did not stop producing produce. It is not the end of the world. More you panic more damage you are causing to the moral of the survivor. Just focus on your job and do it more efficiently and cost effectively. Add more value to it. And that goes for everybody, house and the executive body, factories and industries, farm and most importantly the money managers, investment bankers. Come on how long you though these fake valuation could last? You enjoyed the ride, not stop blaming and get use to it.
I don't want to keep writing off my tax to my future and my children’s, how much more debt are we going to put on their back? It is easy for congress and those tax dodger to write off future tax today; but boy what happen to the good old citizenship to have the politician in check?
Monday, December 22, 2008
Number one job of the next government – Energy
Some of you may disagree and you have every right to do that. You may argue that Bangladesh is a poor country; people do not have the very basic of enough food, shelter. However I think the biggest catalyst for Bangladesh to infuse job creation and tap the enormous recourses of man power is energy. Energy should be the task one for the new government sworn in January 2009.
Analyze Bangladesh’s greatest achievements’:
Although agriculture and local industry contributed into the national economy and the quality of life; however two biggest foreign exchange earners are Garments and Wage earners. The contribution of these two sectors in our economy is phenomenal. They directly and indirectly created abundant jobs and purchase power. These two created enough liquidity to infuse local bossiness such that money gets circulated and overall national quality of life improved. All these happened due to global free market economy and because of the private sectors entrepreneurs’ who taped into the opportunity. However there is a lot of room to grow if we could improve “time to market” bottlenecks.
The same thing happens for India. India developed a maga project to computer literate one million Indian during 80s. With their English language skills along with computer literacy, the west seizes the opportunity of more profit margins employing the low wage Indian programmer. Indian kept the customer satisfied and business keep on returning.
Today’s global competition knows no limit. Due to the internet, consumers are well informed and want the best product sooner and cheaper. Bangladesh is almost in the lowest rank of the value chain in RMG; hence could not charge more than the minimum. Several factors are in play. I believe, the worst enemy is RMG’s inability to cope with the “time to market” philosophy.
Buyers have to channel only those products to Bangladesh which are less time sensitive and hence have very low margin. Continuous power supply or the cost of onsite power generation and political instability causing seamless transportation discourage buyer to send those high value and high margin product to Bangladesh to process. To get an edge, you not only have to satisfy the factory but support the infrastructure that works hand in hand with the factory.
Look at an example. When Vietnam asked Intel Corporation to setup a sort and assembly plant, Intel Corporation asked for a continuous supply of electricity and a large parcel of land. What Vietnamese government has done is more than what Intel Corporation asked for. They not only supply uninterrupted electricity; but build new roads to the facility, new bus service to the facility from major cities.
What these incentives did for Intel? A satisfied customer, who tripled the investment from 300M factory to USD$ 1B facility along with thousands of high paying Vietnamese’ job. A year later, couple of dozen high Tech company joined Intel’s lead. That is how you earn global business. This gives you a picture of how competitive today’s global business is. We have no choice; but have to be an active competitive member of the flat world. In economic downturn everybody focuses on core competency.
RMG and Man Power are our core competency. To utilize their full potential, we have to increase our electric energy production from 4 GW to 7 GW (7000 MWatt) ASAP. Otherwise your dream for digital country will be only a fairytale.
How can you increase production ?
The energy options you have are: coal, natural gas, petroleum, renewable, hydro and nuclear. You can not depend of imported Oil for all your needs. Look at the graph below on oil consuming countries and their per capita income.
Analyze Bangladesh’s greatest achievements’:
Although agriculture and local industry contributed into the national economy and the quality of life; however two biggest foreign exchange earners are Garments and Wage earners. The contribution of these two sectors in our economy is phenomenal. They directly and indirectly created abundant jobs and purchase power. These two created enough liquidity to infuse local bossiness such that money gets circulated and overall national quality of life improved. All these happened due to global free market economy and because of the private sectors entrepreneurs’ who taped into the opportunity. However there is a lot of room to grow if we could improve “time to market” bottlenecks.
The same thing happens for India. India developed a maga project to computer literate one million Indian during 80s. With their English language skills along with computer literacy, the west seizes the opportunity of more profit margins employing the low wage Indian programmer. Indian kept the customer satisfied and business keep on returning.
Today’s global competition knows no limit. Due to the internet, consumers are well informed and want the best product sooner and cheaper. Bangladesh is almost in the lowest rank of the value chain in RMG; hence could not charge more than the minimum. Several factors are in play. I believe, the worst enemy is RMG’s inability to cope with the “time to market” philosophy.
Buyers have to channel only those products to Bangladesh which are less time sensitive and hence have very low margin. Continuous power supply or the cost of onsite power generation and political instability causing seamless transportation discourage buyer to send those high value and high margin product to Bangladesh to process. To get an edge, you not only have to satisfy the factory but support the infrastructure that works hand in hand with the factory.
Look at an example. When Vietnam asked Intel Corporation to setup a sort and assembly plant, Intel Corporation asked for a continuous supply of electricity and a large parcel of land. What Vietnamese government has done is more than what Intel Corporation asked for. They not only supply uninterrupted electricity; but build new roads to the facility, new bus service to the facility from major cities.
What these incentives did for Intel? A satisfied customer, who tripled the investment from 300M factory to USD$ 1B facility along with thousands of high paying Vietnamese’ job. A year later, couple of dozen high Tech company joined Intel’s lead. That is how you earn global business. This gives you a picture of how competitive today’s global business is. We have no choice; but have to be an active competitive member of the flat world. In economic downturn everybody focuses on core competency.
RMG and Man Power are our core competency. To utilize their full potential, we have to increase our electric energy production from 4 GW to 7 GW (7000 MWatt) ASAP. Otherwise your dream for digital country will be only a fairytale.
How can you increase production ?
The energy options you have are: coal, natural gas, petroleum, renewable, hydro and nuclear. You can not depend of imported Oil for all your needs. Look at the graph below on oil consuming countries and their per capita income.
[Courtesy of Andrews and Jelley]
Do you think you can compete with them for all your oil consumption need? You have to find other sources of energy. Grameen Sakti introduced some solar alternative. They are expensive; but may be useful for individual needs.
You may think about wind energy. You have to be little cautious here. Recently in Kutobdia island PDB spent 9 crore Taka to install tiny 50 windmills to generate a max of 1 MW electricity. This is a good start.
Moving forward we may ask help from the leading wind power generating countries. We have to take initiatives to energize pro-business diplomacy.
Let me show you the following graph where you can see the countries took bold initiatives to adopt wind energy. For example Germany is done with wind energy. This country max out the limit. Germany installed wind turbine every possible place to rip the benefit of clean electricity through out the country.
[Courtesy of wwea.org]
Wind Turbine Technology:
A paradigm shift in power generation: The growth of power generation capacity from wind turbine show in this picture for your amusement.
[Courtesy of Vestas.com]
This world's biggest wind turbine generator is currently undergoing testing in the North Sea 15 miles off the East coast of Scotland near the Beatrice Oil Field. This is the first time these enormous offshore wind turbines have actually been tested offshore, and the first time any wind turbine generator has been assembled in such deep water - 44 metres deep. Assembly took place in August 2006.
The German RePower turbines have a power output of 5 Megawatts with a rotor blade diameter of 126 metres sweeping an area of over 12,000 square metres. Maximum power output is achieved at around 30 mph, but a couple of MW are generated even in a fresh breeze. Rotors start turning at around 7 mph, and are automatically braked at 70mph.
We have a good diplomatic relationship with Germany, can we ask them to build operate and sell to this energy hungry country?
What Bangladesh can do immediately?
Coal power plant. We have to be realistic and use our natural recourses. I visited a coal field in Barapukuria couple of years back. We have to approve a plan to generate 1000 MW from the coal of this mine. Currently at the mine mouth 250 MW electricity is being hardly produced. Need to investigate why it is failing to run full capacity. If they can not run it, find a capable company. Let us not waste our limited natural resources with inefficient operation.
Phulbari was a mess. We aught to communicate transparently. Transparency is good for both the business that gets the deal and the government that handles the deal. Phulbari may be a failed example that we can learn from.
Country first is the motto that we should adopt. There will be thousands of people who will be affected and need to relocate to get the natural resources; however the wealth should be distributed in a fair, win-win agreement. The new businesses that the new plant would bring into the community will benefit everybody in that locality one way or other.
The country owns the natural resources underneath its land; not the owner of the land; hence we have an obligation to properly communicate that to the landowners. Landowners should be enthusiastic about the prospect of the overall development that a new industry brings to the area. Due to the secrecy and under the table deals in a non transparent manner, I bet landowners are suspicious and hence the tragedy.
I live in Oregon and Oregon gets 71% of its electricity from Hydroelectric and 21% from natural gas. The cost is 6.63 cents per kwh. There are four dams in Columbia river. McNary Dam, John Day Dam, The Dalles Dam and my nearest Bonneville Dam to generate hydroelectricity of ~6000 MW. These are not the biggest one here in Columbia river. My neighboring state Washington has Grand Coulee Dam on the Columbia river, which could have meet the total electricity need of Bangladesh with its 6809 MW capacity.
Total Hydroelectric generating capacity in Colunbia river alone is 24, 149 MW of electricity.
However, Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky, and North Dakota almost all the power comes from coal. You think coal is old. As you can see in the chart below, about 50% energy comes from coal in USA.
With Barak Obama’s leadership there will be five million new jobs in USA for the clean energy or alternative energy. There will be a “race to the moon” kind of innovation and research. We may pursue a partnership towards clean coal technology.I believe a presence of US business in North Bangal is strategically very important. It will give a first hand experience to the USA on seasonal flooding and drought caused by the international rivers. This will give a free global media coverage on any injustices that are systematic in that zone.
I insist the energy ministry to take immediate action to formulate a scheme to “build operate and sell” of 1000 MW coal power electricity generating plant in Phulbari. Electricity in USA and in Bangladesh is almost same cost. I pay 6 cents KWH and my father pays 7-8 taka in Bangladesh. There should not be any scope for stealing in power generation in this age.
In summery, there will be 1000 MW from Barapukuria and 1000 MW from Phulbari to meet the immediate need of additional 2000 MW electricity for the nation. The other 1000 MW can come from natural gas, wind turbine, oil and productivity increase of the existing facilities.
For future growth, a nuclear plant in North Bangal jointly with India may be feasible. High level talk’s between the new government of Bangladesh and the Obama’s administration may bring this agenda for discussion in the near future. Obviously if it is owned and operated by USA, that would be preferable.
In conclusion:
I do not know how much productivity loss we write off each year due to power outages. Somebody should do a study on that and place it to the energy department. The human suffering, demoralize employee and heartbreak of the industrialists loosing competition due to disruptive power failure may be very hard to quantify. Not to mention the pain and suffering of students, children and frustration of parents for their inability to provide comfort to the loved one due to unpredictable power outage and load shedding.
We should search for more natural gas and coal. Although, there is a slim chance of getting more petroleum, we should pursue every bit of natural recourses that we get of. Strong diplomacy needed to resolve the technological learning curve.
Bangladesh solved the food problem, garment industry boom solved our clothing needs, and we are still working on shelter, primary education is work in progress. Time to address the electricity need of the country. Electricity is a basic human right of 21st century; not the cell phone or internet. If I have to prioritize then I would always pick an uninterrupted supply of electricity. Electricity brings predictability and confidence, which are key to stay competitive.
We need a visionary here, who can see through the hurdle of electricity generation. The one who could envision what uninterrupted electricity can bring to the economy, productivity and quality of life and happiness of the people of Bangladesh.
With the all cry and complain about global warming may discourage the law maker as well as the government to use coal to produce electricity; however you need electricity to grow the economy and a strong economy could only address the global warming issues and empower diplomacy. Nobody is suffering more than Bangladesh by global warming; however economy is top priority and you may trade off global warming with economy. Energy is your number one job. Make no mistake about it, country comes first.
In summery, there will be 1000 MW from Barapukuria and 1000 MW from Phulbari to meet the immediate need of additional 2000 MW electricity for the nation. The other 1000 MW can come from natural gas, wind turbine, oil and productivity increase of the existing facilities.
For future growth, a nuclear plant in North Bangal jointly with India may be feasible. High level talk’s between the new government of Bangladesh and the Obama’s administration may bring this agenda for discussion in the near future. Obviously if it is owned and operated by USA, that would be preferable.
In conclusion:
I do not know how much productivity loss we write off each year due to power outages. Somebody should do a study on that and place it to the energy department. The human suffering, demoralize employee and heartbreak of the industrialists loosing competition due to disruptive power failure may be very hard to quantify. Not to mention the pain and suffering of students, children and frustration of parents for their inability to provide comfort to the loved one due to unpredictable power outage and load shedding.
We should search for more natural gas and coal. Although, there is a slim chance of getting more petroleum, we should pursue every bit of natural recourses that we get of. Strong diplomacy needed to resolve the technological learning curve.
Bangladesh solved the food problem, garment industry boom solved our clothing needs, and we are still working on shelter, primary education is work in progress. Time to address the electricity need of the country. Electricity is a basic human right of 21st century; not the cell phone or internet. If I have to prioritize then I would always pick an uninterrupted supply of electricity. Electricity brings predictability and confidence, which are key to stay competitive.
We need a visionary here, who can see through the hurdle of electricity generation. The one who could envision what uninterrupted electricity can bring to the economy, productivity and quality of life and happiness of the people of Bangladesh.
With the all cry and complain about global warming may discourage the law maker as well as the government to use coal to produce electricity; however you need electricity to grow the economy and a strong economy could only address the global warming issues and empower diplomacy. Nobody is suffering more than Bangladesh by global warming; however economy is top priority and you may trade off global warming with economy. Energy is your number one job. Make no mistake about it, country comes first.
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
My i7, the fastest processor of the planet
Do you know that there were Bangladeshi engineers and scientists worked on the fastest processor on the planet developed by Intel Corporation called i7? There were at least 10-15 engineers of Bangladeshi origin worked in various development and production phases of i7. To set the perspective on how big of a task this was, I must say that it took almost 4 years from 2004 to today. Moreover, about 300 to 1200 designers, architect, musk designer, debugger, design validators, test engineers, fault engineers, scientists, path finder and more worked on this project in various stages of product development. Over its life span, there may be five of the thousands of Intel experts that helped design and test the new i7.
Paradigm shift:
After completing my Potomac design task I joined Nehalem in late 2004. I recall the time when we were brainstorming on how to bring the new architecture, new features in most power effective, and high performance mix. During that time Intel introduced a Philosophy of “Right hand turn”. We just don’t go for speed or performance; but as a total experience and we think outside the box of traditional design philosophy.
It is not easy for me to write about my work and inside stories of how we designed the i7; because I should be very careful about intellectual property of Intel. Intellectual property is the most important asset of Intel. I have to follow Intel’s information security guideline and I will be limiting my scope on the press releases and public documents.
I7 Highlights:
As I already said, i7 is the fastest processor in the planet. The Core i7 processor is the first product of Nehalem processor design. This is the most sophisticated processor ever build. It has the technology to boost performance on demand and maximize data throughput. The Core i7 processor speeds video editing, immersive games and other internet and computer activities by up to 40 percent without increasing power consumption.
The key features at a glance:
· Four cores, or processing units, all on one piece of silicon.
· New Intel® Turbo Boost Technology that matches the computer’s energy use to its workload, automatically adjusting the number of cores and the clock speed depending on the application.
· Double the memory bandwidth of previous processors, thanks to an innovation called Intel® QuickPath Technology.
· Hyper-Threading technology that allows up to eight computing threads to run simultaneously.
· Processing speeds up to 3.2 GHz.
· Energy efficiency: Despite the extra computing muscle, the chips don’t use any more power than Intel’s previous top-of-the-line processors.
The Core i7 processor is the first member of the Intel Nehalem microarchitecture family; server and mobile product versions will be in production later. Each Core i7 processor features an 8 MB level 3 cache and three channels of DDR3 1066 memory to deliver the best memory performance of any desktop platform. Intel's top performance processor, the Intel® Core™ i7 Extreme Edition, also removes overspeed protection, allowing Intel's knowledgeable customers or hobbyists to further increase the chip's speed.
Shift in traditional design philosophy:
In mid 2005, Intel introduced its Intel® Xeon® processor MP processor-based platform with up to 8 MB of a third-level "L3" cache memory reservoir, codenamed "Potomac." Potomac was the top-of-the-line 32-bit Intel Xeon processor with Hyper-Threading technology performance. I joined the Potomac design team in 2003 after completing my assignments on VT (Virtualization Technology or Vanderbilt Technology). We introduced a lot of *T (what we called Star-T) in various products of Prescott. There was a lot of innovation going on because of the tough competition and ever hungry market of innovative high performance products.
Now going back to my early days of Nehalem, which is the codename of i7. I started my work in instruction queue (IQ). My job is to design circuitry so that the stream of bits can be converted into useful “instruction”. These instructions can be processed by the processor’s execution unit to deliver what the instruction is asking. Now if you are familiar with IA (Intel Architecture) Instruction set, then you know what an instruction means.
Let me back up a little bit and give a vary high level view of the activity here. To learn the most accurate science, please consult any good text book in library near you.
Think about the very basic electrical engineering that we all see everyday in our life. A flip in any switch in the wall turns on or turns off a light bulb in our home. Hence a switch works as a “gate” (or door if you will) of electricity flow. When the circuit is complete, than electrical voltage to the opposite nodes use material property of the filament of the bulb and the enclosed atmosphere to convert electrical energy to light and heat energy.
The similar thing happens in a fan. However the material is different and use different property. We call it magnetic property or you may call it electric field. The trick of opposing electric field is used to fool the drum of the motor and the result is the rotating motion of the fan. Hence we use electric energy to electro-magnetic energy to rotate the shaft and wings deliver wind. There is a lot of talk now a day to do the reverse; which is to use wind energy from wind tunnels to produce electric energy and store in battery or deliver to the grid.
Remember I called light bulb switch as “gate”? “Gate” is the most important basic building block of a microprocessor. Think of it like a “brick”, which is being widely used to build multistoried building now a day.
You may think each “Transistor” like a gate. There are 731 Million Transistors in a single core of this i7. You may recall i7 has 4 cores. Look at the attached picture of i7. Can you identify the 4 cores? There is also a huge uncore section in the picture which helps cores and the outside world to communicate.
Now we know that a transistor is like a switch. It can have two positions, on or off. Let us do coding. My code name “1” is for “on” and my code name “0” is for off. See how easy, we are doing software programming.
My design:
The processing speed of i7 is 3.2 Giga Hertz per second. What exactly does it means? The processor can produce 3.2 billion “0” and “1” in a second. Of course this is a mare simplification. That’s a lot of 0 and 1.
You know the microprocessor wants everything simple. We proudly call it a dumb machine as it will do the exact same thing over and over. It only understands various combinations of “0” and “1” in a string. Think about a mile long line of 0 and 1 with various combinations. From that mile long string, look at the following section:
000001110101010011100000000101010101010100000101111000001010101010000010110101010101010
This is a typical stream of binary data coming to instruction queue. The bold highlighted bits translate into: ”Add 32 bit of immediate data to the EAX register”. The 00000101 is what we call 1 byte opcode (05) for Addition operation. Hence these highlighted streams of 32 bit data and 8 bit opcode represent a complete instruction.
While I was designing, my job is to find those instructions in this type of stream of 0’s and 1’s and place them in a specific area. Hola! You have a queue of instruction ready for the execution unit to execute. My design is such that, I can place six instructions in one clock cycle, enough to keep the execution pipe busy to complete 4 instructions in one clock cycle. This is parallel processing in action. Even one thread of a core can simultaneously compute 4 instructions with in one clock cycle span of time.
What is one clock cycle in 3.2 GHz i7? It is 3.2 Billionth of a second. Hence, one core at any second may complete more than 10 Billion of IA-32 instructions. With 4 cores, possibilities are endless. Moreover with hyper threading in action, you may have as much as 8 core equivalent processing power. Yesterday’s mainframe computer become today’s desktop with i7. Did you realize that we are talking about circuit and logic design of a microprocessor? See how easy it is.
Hardware and Software Synergy:
Let me take a stab on how an application software work’s with operating system and get the job done from hardware. Although I do not claim myself to be an expert on software or operation system, here is what I think the synergy among them. Let us go from the lowest level of operation to the user level operation. We just learn that how a lowest level instruction worked in a core. With the help of combinatory logic and sequential control by the clock the execution unit can do all the operation and instruction of IA-32.
Let us try to put things into perspective. This 8 bit opcode 00000101 that we learned today is asking the machine to perform an addition of adjacent 32 bit of data with the data of the register file called EAX. You may think of a register file EAX, small memory storage very close to the execution unit. So we are adding two data. The output of this operation will be stored in the same register file EAX erasing old data after the operation is done. In everyday use, this result can be a fraction of digitized sound bits, or a pixel of an image or an intermediate stage of a mathematical computation. Then there should be another opcode to take the result to the proper destination or IO. Hold you though right there.
If you do not know how to read and understand English, than everything I wrote so far is gibberish to you. Similarly if the application software does not understand all the 0’s and 1’s that the code calculated and delivered, than there is no use. So they need translation in an understandable language.
What happen when you hit a key on your keyboard:
You hit a key in your keyboard of your i7 desktop. The driver program of the keyboard translates that key stroke to a form of instruction codes. Keyboard is considered to be an IO (Input Output device). There is a sequence of tasks follow through. The driver program may be written in C++ programming language. In the high level C++ code there may be lot of really easy understandable code. These codes are library modules. Those library modules may be in fact written in IA-32 opcode. Now the compiler takes those high level code of the keyboard driver and translate into machine level code of 0’s and 1’s. With the help of the operating system recourses and the motherboard, these code streams goes through the bus and enter the processor. The processor generates the output and returns it back to another IO, which is your computer monitor display. Now you see the letter you typed.
How music or video play in Computer:
The same thing happens when you play music in your desktop. The software application reads the code of the song with the help of OS. Send those stream of opcodes, compiler compile them, processor continuously load next stream of digitized bits to process and send it to another IO, in this case the speakers. Now think about the digital photo or movie. Processor sends the processed output to display. The demand for processing capacity dramatically increasing from key stroke, to song and movie. The next toughest job for processor is interactive extreme gaming. Processor has to do zillions of IO operation with multiple of driver, sound, video, console and mathematical calculation. Taking inputs from multiple IO and process it instantly to deliver to multiple IO requires a lot of processing power. The synergy of execution should be smooth enough to deliver ultimate user experiences. Do you want a processor that delivers just that?
i7 offers up 40% faster performance for immersive 3D games, video processing, music and other demanding applications. Through a sophisticated on-die power control unit and using new "power gate" transistors based on Intel's advanced 45 nanometer, high-k metal gate manufacturing process, Turbo Boost automatically adjusts the clock speed of one or more of the four individual processing cores for single- and multi-threaded applications to boost performance, without increasing power consumption.
Now you might wonder what Intel will do next? Is there really anything more to it? Wait for the next product.
Disclaimer: Opinion expressed is solely the author’s. Author does not speak for or represent Intel Corporation.
Some more i7 picture to share:
Paradigm shift:
After completing my Potomac design task I joined Nehalem in late 2004. I recall the time when we were brainstorming on how to bring the new architecture, new features in most power effective, and high performance mix. During that time Intel introduced a Philosophy of “Right hand turn”. We just don’t go for speed or performance; but as a total experience and we think outside the box of traditional design philosophy.
It is not easy for me to write about my work and inside stories of how we designed the i7; because I should be very careful about intellectual property of Intel. Intellectual property is the most important asset of Intel. I have to follow Intel’s information security guideline and I will be limiting my scope on the press releases and public documents.
I7 Highlights:
As I already said, i7 is the fastest processor in the planet. The Core i7 processor is the first product of Nehalem processor design. This is the most sophisticated processor ever build. It has the technology to boost performance on demand and maximize data throughput. The Core i7 processor speeds video editing, immersive games and other internet and computer activities by up to 40 percent without increasing power consumption.
The key features at a glance:
· Four cores, or processing units, all on one piece of silicon.
· New Intel® Turbo Boost Technology that matches the computer’s energy use to its workload, automatically adjusting the number of cores and the clock speed depending on the application.
· Double the memory bandwidth of previous processors, thanks to an innovation called Intel® QuickPath Technology.
· Hyper-Threading technology that allows up to eight computing threads to run simultaneously.
· Processing speeds up to 3.2 GHz.
· Energy efficiency: Despite the extra computing muscle, the chips don’t use any more power than Intel’s previous top-of-the-line processors.
The Core i7 processor is the first member of the Intel Nehalem microarchitecture family; server and mobile product versions will be in production later. Each Core i7 processor features an 8 MB level 3 cache and three channels of DDR3 1066 memory to deliver the best memory performance of any desktop platform. Intel's top performance processor, the Intel® Core™ i7 Extreme Edition, also removes overspeed protection, allowing Intel's knowledgeable customers or hobbyists to further increase the chip's speed.
Shift in traditional design philosophy:
In mid 2005, Intel introduced its Intel® Xeon® processor MP processor-based platform with up to 8 MB of a third-level "L3" cache memory reservoir, codenamed "Potomac." Potomac was the top-of-the-line 32-bit Intel Xeon processor with Hyper-Threading technology performance. I joined the Potomac design team in 2003 after completing my assignments on VT (Virtualization Technology or Vanderbilt Technology). We introduced a lot of *T (what we called Star-T) in various products of Prescott. There was a lot of innovation going on because of the tough competition and ever hungry market of innovative high performance products.
Now going back to my early days of Nehalem, which is the codename of i7. I started my work in instruction queue (IQ). My job is to design circuitry so that the stream of bits can be converted into useful “instruction”. These instructions can be processed by the processor’s execution unit to deliver what the instruction is asking. Now if you are familiar with IA (Intel Architecture) Instruction set, then you know what an instruction means.
Let me back up a little bit and give a vary high level view of the activity here. To learn the most accurate science, please consult any good text book in library near you.
Think about the very basic electrical engineering that we all see everyday in our life. A flip in any switch in the wall turns on or turns off a light bulb in our home. Hence a switch works as a “gate” (or door if you will) of electricity flow. When the circuit is complete, than electrical voltage to the opposite nodes use material property of the filament of the bulb and the enclosed atmosphere to convert electrical energy to light and heat energy.
The similar thing happens in a fan. However the material is different and use different property. We call it magnetic property or you may call it electric field. The trick of opposing electric field is used to fool the drum of the motor and the result is the rotating motion of the fan. Hence we use electric energy to electro-magnetic energy to rotate the shaft and wings deliver wind. There is a lot of talk now a day to do the reverse; which is to use wind energy from wind tunnels to produce electric energy and store in battery or deliver to the grid.
Remember I called light bulb switch as “gate”? “Gate” is the most important basic building block of a microprocessor. Think of it like a “brick”, which is being widely used to build multistoried building now a day.
You may think each “Transistor” like a gate. There are 731 Million Transistors in a single core of this i7. You may recall i7 has 4 cores. Look at the attached picture of i7. Can you identify the 4 cores? There is also a huge uncore section in the picture which helps cores and the outside world to communicate.
Now we know that a transistor is like a switch. It can have two positions, on or off. Let us do coding. My code name “1” is for “on” and my code name “0” is for off. See how easy, we are doing software programming.
My design:
The processing speed of i7 is 3.2 Giga Hertz per second. What exactly does it means? The processor can produce 3.2 billion “0” and “1” in a second. Of course this is a mare simplification. That’s a lot of 0 and 1.
You know the microprocessor wants everything simple. We proudly call it a dumb machine as it will do the exact same thing over and over. It only understands various combinations of “0” and “1” in a string. Think about a mile long line of 0 and 1 with various combinations. From that mile long string, look at the following section:
000001110101010011100000000101010101010100000101111000001010101010000010110101010101010
This is a typical stream of binary data coming to instruction queue. The bold highlighted bits translate into: ”Add 32 bit of immediate data to the EAX register”. The 00000101 is what we call 1 byte opcode (05) for Addition operation. Hence these highlighted streams of 32 bit data and 8 bit opcode represent a complete instruction.
While I was designing, my job is to find those instructions in this type of stream of 0’s and 1’s and place them in a specific area. Hola! You have a queue of instruction ready for the execution unit to execute. My design is such that, I can place six instructions in one clock cycle, enough to keep the execution pipe busy to complete 4 instructions in one clock cycle. This is parallel processing in action. Even one thread of a core can simultaneously compute 4 instructions with in one clock cycle span of time.
What is one clock cycle in 3.2 GHz i7? It is 3.2 Billionth of a second. Hence, one core at any second may complete more than 10 Billion of IA-32 instructions. With 4 cores, possibilities are endless. Moreover with hyper threading in action, you may have as much as 8 core equivalent processing power. Yesterday’s mainframe computer become today’s desktop with i7. Did you realize that we are talking about circuit and logic design of a microprocessor? See how easy it is.
Hardware and Software Synergy:
Let me take a stab on how an application software work’s with operating system and get the job done from hardware. Although I do not claim myself to be an expert on software or operation system, here is what I think the synergy among them. Let us go from the lowest level of operation to the user level operation. We just learn that how a lowest level instruction worked in a core. With the help of combinatory logic and sequential control by the clock the execution unit can do all the operation and instruction of IA-32.
Let us try to put things into perspective. This 8 bit opcode 00000101 that we learned today is asking the machine to perform an addition of adjacent 32 bit of data with the data of the register file called EAX. You may think of a register file EAX, small memory storage very close to the execution unit. So we are adding two data. The output of this operation will be stored in the same register file EAX erasing old data after the operation is done. In everyday use, this result can be a fraction of digitized sound bits, or a pixel of an image or an intermediate stage of a mathematical computation. Then there should be another opcode to take the result to the proper destination or IO. Hold you though right there.
If you do not know how to read and understand English, than everything I wrote so far is gibberish to you. Similarly if the application software does not understand all the 0’s and 1’s that the code calculated and delivered, than there is no use. So they need translation in an understandable language.
What happen when you hit a key on your keyboard:
You hit a key in your keyboard of your i7 desktop. The driver program of the keyboard translates that key stroke to a form of instruction codes. Keyboard is considered to be an IO (Input Output device). There is a sequence of tasks follow through. The driver program may be written in C++ programming language. In the high level C++ code there may be lot of really easy understandable code. These codes are library modules. Those library modules may be in fact written in IA-32 opcode. Now the compiler takes those high level code of the keyboard driver and translate into machine level code of 0’s and 1’s. With the help of the operating system recourses and the motherboard, these code streams goes through the bus and enter the processor. The processor generates the output and returns it back to another IO, which is your computer monitor display. Now you see the letter you typed.
How music or video play in Computer:
The same thing happens when you play music in your desktop. The software application reads the code of the song with the help of OS. Send those stream of opcodes, compiler compile them, processor continuously load next stream of digitized bits to process and send it to another IO, in this case the speakers. Now think about the digital photo or movie. Processor sends the processed output to display. The demand for processing capacity dramatically increasing from key stroke, to song and movie. The next toughest job for processor is interactive extreme gaming. Processor has to do zillions of IO operation with multiple of driver, sound, video, console and mathematical calculation. Taking inputs from multiple IO and process it instantly to deliver to multiple IO requires a lot of processing power. The synergy of execution should be smooth enough to deliver ultimate user experiences. Do you want a processor that delivers just that?
i7 offers up 40% faster performance for immersive 3D games, video processing, music and other demanding applications. Through a sophisticated on-die power control unit and using new "power gate" transistors based on Intel's advanced 45 nanometer, high-k metal gate manufacturing process, Turbo Boost automatically adjusts the clock speed of one or more of the four individual processing cores for single- and multi-threaded applications to boost performance, without increasing power consumption.
Now you might wonder what Intel will do next? Is there really anything more to it? Wait for the next product.
Disclaimer: Opinion expressed is solely the author’s. Author does not speak for or represent Intel Corporation.
Some more i7 picture to share:
Monday, October 13, 2008
My "letters from USA" column at CNEWS
Time flies, it is almost one year that I am writting this column in the monthly magazine CNEWS.
My 2’cents on TV, DVR Ad:
http://www.cnewsvoice.com/pdf/PISNO000000000000015/PISNODTL000000000424.pdf
To the kids of Today:
http://www.cnewsvoice.com/pdf/PISNO000000000000014/PISNODTL000000000381.pdf
IT startup projects to get your hands dirty:
http://www.cnewsvoice.com/pdf/PISNO000000000000013/PISNODTL000000000338.pdf
Cell phone for everyday transaction:
http://www.cnewsvoice.com/pdf/PISNO000000000000012/PISNODTL000000000305.pdf
Return of the Golden fiber:
http://www.cnewsvoice.com/pdf/PISNO000000000000010/PISNODTL000000000252.pdf
Healthcare in Singapore, my experience:
http://www.cnewsvoice.com/pdf/PISNO000000000000009/PISNODTL000000000204.pdf
International Gateway licenses:
http://www.cnewsvoice.com/pdf/PISNO000000000000008/PISNODTL000000000192.pdf
Nursing, serving the world, a manpower opportunity overseas:
http://www.cnewsvoice.com/pdf/PISNO000000000000008/PISNODTL000000000192.pdf
Let’s take Bangladesh to the next step:
http://www.cnewsvoice.com/pdf/PISNO000000000000006/PISNODTL000000000143.pdf
Human Capital:
http://www.cnewsvoice.com/pdf/PISNO000000000000005/PISNODTL000000000099.pdf
Broadband Vision:
http://www.cnewsvoice.com/pdf/PISNO000000000000004/PISNODTL000000000075.pdf
My 2’cents on TV, DVR Ad:
http://www.cnewsvoice.com/pdf/PISNO000000000000015/PISNODTL000000000424.pdf
To the kids of Today:
http://www.cnewsvoice.com/pdf/PISNO000000000000014/PISNODTL000000000381.pdf
IT startup projects to get your hands dirty:
http://www.cnewsvoice.com/pdf/PISNO000000000000013/PISNODTL000000000338.pdf
Cell phone for everyday transaction:
http://www.cnewsvoice.com/pdf/PISNO000000000000012/PISNODTL000000000305.pdf
Return of the Golden fiber:
http://www.cnewsvoice.com/pdf/PISNO000000000000010/PISNODTL000000000252.pdf
Healthcare in Singapore, my experience:
http://www.cnewsvoice.com/pdf/PISNO000000000000009/PISNODTL000000000204.pdf
International Gateway licenses:
http://www.cnewsvoice.com/pdf/PISNO000000000000008/PISNODTL000000000192.pdf
Nursing, serving the world, a manpower opportunity overseas:
http://www.cnewsvoice.com/pdf/PISNO000000000000008/PISNODTL000000000192.pdf
Let’s take Bangladesh to the next step:
http://www.cnewsvoice.com/pdf/PISNO000000000000006/PISNODTL000000000143.pdf
Human Capital:
http://www.cnewsvoice.com/pdf/PISNO000000000000005/PISNODTL000000000099.pdf
Broadband Vision:
http://www.cnewsvoice.com/pdf/PISNO000000000000004/PISNODTL000000000075.pdf
Monday, September 22, 2008
An Expat's opinion on TV programming in Bangladesh and funding from Ad
Theme:
Bangladesh is enjoying the freedom of media as well as the competition, especially, in the television sector. A burden of responsibility comes along with the freedom. Although the country is going through the turmoil of “emergency rule and caretaker government”; however the continuity of popular TV channels may not feel any difference, except the flow of easy money to fund flashy shows. As an expatriate, I would like to express couple of my opinions on the TV serials and Advertisement.
Introduction:
First, let me give my audience a disclaimer. I was in Dhaka for about three weeks during the month of July.
If I think about it now, it surprises me that, I did not watched TV for a single minute during that three weeks trip. Having said that, I subscribe to four Bangladeshi TV channels for USD $32.99 per month, in my Portland home in USA. The channels that I have are RTV, NTV, ATN, Channel I.
For about a week, I started to record 3-4 hours of programming of each channels. That brings a total of 12 to 16 hours of deshi television to watch each day. How on earth I could possibly watch that many hours of TV programming after a day of full time job. The answer is the advantage of digital video recording or DVR. Although in USA, one study shows that in average Americans are watching 5 hours of television everyday; I personally watch average an hour or two. Watching Bangladeshi TV programs gave me some perspective on the corporate responsibilities of the media moguls and their business partners with the context of TV programming and Ad sponsors.
What is DRV:
Before that let me tell you what DVR is. This is simply a recorder, like you video recorder; but digital. Being digital, it has the advantage of scanning frame by frame video. The major hardware is the HDD or the digital hard drive. You have one in your computer.
DVR is a TV set top box with programmable digital recorder. You can program the DVR for certain time slot of a channel. In USA, I subscribe to America’s top 100 digital channels. The service provider gave me a set top box which has DVR and programming guide in that box. For USA channels, I look at the channel guide and select the program that would be aired next day or scheduled weekly. The DVR will trigger when the program is on and keep a copy for me in the hard drive. For Bangladeshi channels the guide does not get updated and there is no programming information available; hence we have to guess or select a time window to record those programs. This enables us to watch the shows at our convenience.
Bangladesh TV Serial/Drama/Soap:
From my west coast home, which falls under Pacific Standard Time zone (PT), Bangladesh is 11 hours ahead of me. For example, 6 PM in Dhaka is 5 AM in Portland Oregon. So if I could start recording 4 hours of prime time TV show from 5 AM to 9 AM, which is 6 PM to 10 PM of Dhaka’s time, than I get almost all the popular shows and news covered. One of my friend suggested that most of the TV channels repeat 4 hours of programming through out 24 hours a day. I must acknowledge that, without any verification, I took my friends word for that.
Readers, please email me if you find it otherwise. In the email, please include the 4 hour window of programming and the starting time of cycle that it starts. If that cycle is during the daytime of Dhaka, that will work better for me. Now, going back to the TV programming. My DVR allow me to simultaneously record 2 channels at the same time as I have 2 rooms DVR; however, you can get 4-6 room DVR, which will allow you to record 4-6 shows at the same time. I programmed my DVR to record NTV and Channel I from 5 AM to 9:00AM PST. For RTV and ATN, the recording starts 1:00 AM PST for the next 4 hours. That actually leaves all the primetime of my USA shows without any conflict of Bangla channels and worked out pretty well for my schedule.
As I mention earlier, how on earth I could watch 12 hours of TV shows. In reality with the help of DVR, I watch only 1-2 hours of entertainment if I have time. Rests of them are ad and programs that I don’t find interesting. Hence I skip them with the speed of 4x to 300x; which means 4 times to 300 times fast forward.
There was a time in my life, I watched a lots of nonfictions, drama, thriller and action based programs, be it a soap, cinema or documentary; but now a day, I watch most of the comedy as pass time activity. That brings me to shows like, Friends, Office or “Everybody loves Raymond” or “Will and Grace” and Seinfeld. Let me refresh your memory about these shows.
Friends: It is a show of six friends in the “city”; “City “is known to be New York City through out the world. These six individual possess uniquely six different personalities; however they are hanging out all the time and sharing supporting each other in everyway, be it emotionally, socially and literally. This soap captures all the nuisance of city living, living single, and living together, all the natty gritty details of dating and above all friendship. In a broader sense, “Friends” represents the culture of New York City with the context of six young adults living alone. It is the funny straggle of adjustment and constant try to mold into the city culture of the time.
Everybody Loves Raymond: It is a day to day story of two brothers and their parents. Raymond the younger brother is married and has 2 children. He with his wife Debra and the children moved into a house near his parents’ house. Raymond’s mother loves Raymond more than the elder son Robert and hence the jealousy between the brothers. Moreover, Raymond loves her mother more than her wife Debra. To make things even worse, Debra does not cook as good as her mother-in-law. This is a funny family pass time show.
Office: This show is a primetime hit with its eccentric mockery of corporate culture in a small branch office.
To spice things up, it introduces some affectionate love affair between colleagues and even subordinate and superior. This is not a norm in American corporate culture that I am exposed; where employee get fired for the everyday things that shown in “Office”. However, it is fun to watch. The show brings out the imagination of the corporate employee into a TV screen in a casual funny way. I think that is the source of its popularity. It is the craving of forbidden thing that you can not do but enjoying it watching others to do that, in your living room in front of you.
I will not talk about “Will and Grace” or Seinfeld here today; because the issue that I am going to raise today reverberate around “Friends” and “Office”. Last week, I saw two shows in one of the Bangladeshi TV channel, which are true copy of “Friends” and “Office”. Although, I believe that any culture can get enriched if it embraces other culture. In the embracing process two cultures may get integrated, adapted and molded into one living culture. This living culture over the time evolves into a living manifesto of people that it represented.
However, the process is not that simple. To me the show made me feel uncomfortable; sort of a feeling of “not getting alone”. May be I am not culturally savvy enough. In the same week, one of the talk show invited my Bangla Professor of Dhaka College, Dr. Abdullah Abu Said. He brings out an interesting point. One caller called him and asked, if he were given to do the budget, what he would do. Dr Abu Said mention that he would allocate 1000 Crore taka for Cultural sector. He indicated that last budget it was only about 35 Crore. According to him, the best thing that Bangladesh has is its culture. With all due respect, I don’t know how he comes to that conclusion with compare to Chinese culture, Indian Culture or British Culture; not to mention Egyptian, Inca or Mesopotamian culture.
However, the prescription that all the major TV broadcasting companies in Dhaka feed to their viewer is not the culture that he is talking about. I am sure of that. Present day TV culture definitely not the culture of Bangladesh that I knew of. I agree with Dr Said on this point that Bangladesh has some unique culture that we feel good about. We should practice, portray and nurture that culture so that it could thrive. We could expose those cultures and bring the best out of it so that it could expand our identity to the greater good.
If you look at any drama serial, almost all of them fall under one simple structure. There will be cell phone conversation for 50-80% of the episode. By doing this the director kills two birds with one bullet. Cell phone conversation is solo and cheap to shot. This makes his boss happy with respect to cost. Moreover it brings the Ad money from the Cell phone industry. It is hard to imagine how much dispensable money Cell phone operators have still today. If you follow any TV channel any given day, almost all the program runs by their money. I don’t blame them. Think about it, If you fund a program, don’t you expect that the program serves your interest? It is not healthy for an industry to 100% dependent on one industry; unfortunately in Bangladesh this is the fact.
Bangladeshi TV Ad:
This brings me to my second topic of this article, Ad. I know the Ad industry’s sole purpose to bring the Ad to your attention and introduce the product. Hence you will be interested on the product the Ad is representing. Ultimately sales will flow through the roof. The Ad I am about to mention at least attract my 100% attention.
Ad 1: A family is watching TV and the TV died, they put a fan behind it, slap few time; but still no picture. Then every body pitched in to buy a new TV, which fall short of 2000 Taka. Family chief put the dead TV to “Cell Bazaar” and claimed “just to fix the Knob and it will be fine”. Notice that by cooling and slapping they could not bring the TV to live. Is that our culture? May be today! What kind of moral value we are feeding?
Ad 2: This Ad portrays pure form of begging. To make things even worse, the begging comes from a little kid.
The little boy named “Shipu”. The boy friend of his elder sister came to visit and this boy sending all kind of massage to get 3 Taka. Finally he reaches the guest in absence of her sister and asks for 3 Taka. Sure Bangladesh once leveled as “Bottomless Basket” and “Miskin” in middle-east. And now we are proudly practicing it over free media. My kids get glued to the Ad every time it comes and I had to block the Ad. Thanks to DVR. In another similar Ad: couple of elementary kids hijacks a Senior citizen, claiming as their grandpa, to steal his candy. Can we do better than that? Unfortunately the Ad moguls are the one who brags about our culture and cry the most for its decline.
However, there are some good programmings as well as positive Ad. For example, “Shada Moner Manush”. Lots of positive energy present in this show. It is inspirational. It humbles us. It brings role models right in front of you. You feel good seeing them. One of the positive Ad that I can think of is this: A business man start from zero, do all the hard work with due diligence and discipline, count every penny and justify the expense; not a penny more, not a penny less. At the end the businessman appreciates the deal offered by a cell phone company; because it gets along with his value and ethics.
Conclusion:
In conclusion, as an expatriate I am immune to those immoral Ads or mixed up culture fed by corporate sponsor and interest group, because I have DVR. Moreover, I screen what my kids watch. As an expatriate, it makes sense to me why there are depression and frustration amount those young adults. These young adults do not have gym, sports field or any decent source of entertainment. What they do for “pass time” activity?
Watch TV or if they can afford, chat cell phone. It is boosting Cell phone industries bottom line, so they could not adopt social enterprise concept to fulfill their social obligation. Rest of the young adults get bored; thereby fall into depression and frustration. Although this may sound like very naïve explanation; however we can not deny that it is a major component. One may argue that past generation did not have all the facilities and infrastructure for sports and “pastime” resources; however they turned out fine without catastrophic depression and frustration. They are correct; however the past generation did no exposed to the media and internet to the extend that this generation is exposed to. This exposure brings the whole world in front of them. They see the disparity, discrimination and unequal distribution of wealth and resources before they are prepared to handle. These issues may fuel more of the negative energy.
Looking forward:
I hope that Ad industry and Corporate sponsors will assume more moral, ethical and social values for the betterment of the vary customer they depend on their business. We do not have laws to safe guard this type of TV program or Ad. More regulation means less freedom. I hope they will enjoy the free media and act responsibly. Free media like a sharp knife. It is the responsibility of the beholder to either use it like a thug or a surgeon.
Bangladesh is enjoying the freedom of media as well as the competition, especially, in the television sector. A burden of responsibility comes along with the freedom. Although the country is going through the turmoil of “emergency rule and caretaker government”; however the continuity of popular TV channels may not feel any difference, except the flow of easy money to fund flashy shows. As an expatriate, I would like to express couple of my opinions on the TV serials and Advertisement.
Introduction:
First, let me give my audience a disclaimer. I was in Dhaka for about three weeks during the month of July.
If I think about it now, it surprises me that, I did not watched TV for a single minute during that three weeks trip. Having said that, I subscribe to four Bangladeshi TV channels for USD $32.99 per month, in my Portland home in USA. The channels that I have are RTV, NTV, ATN, Channel I.
For about a week, I started to record 3-4 hours of programming of each channels. That brings a total of 12 to 16 hours of deshi television to watch each day. How on earth I could possibly watch that many hours of TV programming after a day of full time job. The answer is the advantage of digital video recording or DVR. Although in USA, one study shows that in average Americans are watching 5 hours of television everyday; I personally watch average an hour or two. Watching Bangladeshi TV programs gave me some perspective on the corporate responsibilities of the media moguls and their business partners with the context of TV programming and Ad sponsors.
What is DRV:
Before that let me tell you what DVR is. This is simply a recorder, like you video recorder; but digital. Being digital, it has the advantage of scanning frame by frame video. The major hardware is the HDD or the digital hard drive. You have one in your computer.
DVR is a TV set top box with programmable digital recorder. You can program the DVR for certain time slot of a channel. In USA, I subscribe to America’s top 100 digital channels. The service provider gave me a set top box which has DVR and programming guide in that box. For USA channels, I look at the channel guide and select the program that would be aired next day or scheduled weekly. The DVR will trigger when the program is on and keep a copy for me in the hard drive. For Bangladeshi channels the guide does not get updated and there is no programming information available; hence we have to guess or select a time window to record those programs. This enables us to watch the shows at our convenience.
Bangladesh TV Serial/Drama/Soap:
From my west coast home, which falls under Pacific Standard Time zone (PT), Bangladesh is 11 hours ahead of me. For example, 6 PM in Dhaka is 5 AM in Portland Oregon. So if I could start recording 4 hours of prime time TV show from 5 AM to 9 AM, which is 6 PM to 10 PM of Dhaka’s time, than I get almost all the popular shows and news covered. One of my friend suggested that most of the TV channels repeat 4 hours of programming through out 24 hours a day. I must acknowledge that, without any verification, I took my friends word for that.
Readers, please email me if you find it otherwise. In the email, please include the 4 hour window of programming and the starting time of cycle that it starts. If that cycle is during the daytime of Dhaka, that will work better for me. Now, going back to the TV programming. My DVR allow me to simultaneously record 2 channels at the same time as I have 2 rooms DVR; however, you can get 4-6 room DVR, which will allow you to record 4-6 shows at the same time. I programmed my DVR to record NTV and Channel I from 5 AM to 9:00AM PST. For RTV and ATN, the recording starts 1:00 AM PST for the next 4 hours. That actually leaves all the primetime of my USA shows without any conflict of Bangla channels and worked out pretty well for my schedule.
As I mention earlier, how on earth I could watch 12 hours of TV shows. In reality with the help of DVR, I watch only 1-2 hours of entertainment if I have time. Rests of them are ad and programs that I don’t find interesting. Hence I skip them with the speed of 4x to 300x; which means 4 times to 300 times fast forward.
There was a time in my life, I watched a lots of nonfictions, drama, thriller and action based programs, be it a soap, cinema or documentary; but now a day, I watch most of the comedy as pass time activity. That brings me to shows like, Friends, Office or “Everybody loves Raymond” or “Will and Grace” and Seinfeld. Let me refresh your memory about these shows.
Friends: It is a show of six friends in the “city”; “City “is known to be New York City through out the world. These six individual possess uniquely six different personalities; however they are hanging out all the time and sharing supporting each other in everyway, be it emotionally, socially and literally. This soap captures all the nuisance of city living, living single, and living together, all the natty gritty details of dating and above all friendship. In a broader sense, “Friends” represents the culture of New York City with the context of six young adults living alone. It is the funny straggle of adjustment and constant try to mold into the city culture of the time.
Everybody Loves Raymond: It is a day to day story of two brothers and their parents. Raymond the younger brother is married and has 2 children. He with his wife Debra and the children moved into a house near his parents’ house. Raymond’s mother loves Raymond more than the elder son Robert and hence the jealousy between the brothers. Moreover, Raymond loves her mother more than her wife Debra. To make things even worse, Debra does not cook as good as her mother-in-law. This is a funny family pass time show.
Office: This show is a primetime hit with its eccentric mockery of corporate culture in a small branch office.
To spice things up, it introduces some affectionate love affair between colleagues and even subordinate and superior. This is not a norm in American corporate culture that I am exposed; where employee get fired for the everyday things that shown in “Office”. However, it is fun to watch. The show brings out the imagination of the corporate employee into a TV screen in a casual funny way. I think that is the source of its popularity. It is the craving of forbidden thing that you can not do but enjoying it watching others to do that, in your living room in front of you.
I will not talk about “Will and Grace” or Seinfeld here today; because the issue that I am going to raise today reverberate around “Friends” and “Office”. Last week, I saw two shows in one of the Bangladeshi TV channel, which are true copy of “Friends” and “Office”. Although, I believe that any culture can get enriched if it embraces other culture. In the embracing process two cultures may get integrated, adapted and molded into one living culture. This living culture over the time evolves into a living manifesto of people that it represented.
However, the process is not that simple. To me the show made me feel uncomfortable; sort of a feeling of “not getting alone”. May be I am not culturally savvy enough. In the same week, one of the talk show invited my Bangla Professor of Dhaka College, Dr. Abdullah Abu Said. He brings out an interesting point. One caller called him and asked, if he were given to do the budget, what he would do. Dr Abu Said mention that he would allocate 1000 Crore taka for Cultural sector. He indicated that last budget it was only about 35 Crore. According to him, the best thing that Bangladesh has is its culture. With all due respect, I don’t know how he comes to that conclusion with compare to Chinese culture, Indian Culture or British Culture; not to mention Egyptian, Inca or Mesopotamian culture.
However, the prescription that all the major TV broadcasting companies in Dhaka feed to their viewer is not the culture that he is talking about. I am sure of that. Present day TV culture definitely not the culture of Bangladesh that I knew of. I agree with Dr Said on this point that Bangladesh has some unique culture that we feel good about. We should practice, portray and nurture that culture so that it could thrive. We could expose those cultures and bring the best out of it so that it could expand our identity to the greater good.
If you look at any drama serial, almost all of them fall under one simple structure. There will be cell phone conversation for 50-80% of the episode. By doing this the director kills two birds with one bullet. Cell phone conversation is solo and cheap to shot. This makes his boss happy with respect to cost. Moreover it brings the Ad money from the Cell phone industry. It is hard to imagine how much dispensable money Cell phone operators have still today. If you follow any TV channel any given day, almost all the program runs by their money. I don’t blame them. Think about it, If you fund a program, don’t you expect that the program serves your interest? It is not healthy for an industry to 100% dependent on one industry; unfortunately in Bangladesh this is the fact.
Bangladeshi TV Ad:
This brings me to my second topic of this article, Ad. I know the Ad industry’s sole purpose to bring the Ad to your attention and introduce the product. Hence you will be interested on the product the Ad is representing. Ultimately sales will flow through the roof. The Ad I am about to mention at least attract my 100% attention.
Ad 1: A family is watching TV and the TV died, they put a fan behind it, slap few time; but still no picture. Then every body pitched in to buy a new TV, which fall short of 2000 Taka. Family chief put the dead TV to “Cell Bazaar” and claimed “just to fix the Knob and it will be fine”. Notice that by cooling and slapping they could not bring the TV to live. Is that our culture? May be today! What kind of moral value we are feeding?
Ad 2: This Ad portrays pure form of begging. To make things even worse, the begging comes from a little kid.
The little boy named “Shipu”. The boy friend of his elder sister came to visit and this boy sending all kind of massage to get 3 Taka. Finally he reaches the guest in absence of her sister and asks for 3 Taka. Sure Bangladesh once leveled as “Bottomless Basket” and “Miskin” in middle-east. And now we are proudly practicing it over free media. My kids get glued to the Ad every time it comes and I had to block the Ad. Thanks to DVR. In another similar Ad: couple of elementary kids hijacks a Senior citizen, claiming as their grandpa, to steal his candy. Can we do better than that? Unfortunately the Ad moguls are the one who brags about our culture and cry the most for its decline.
However, there are some good programmings as well as positive Ad. For example, “Shada Moner Manush”. Lots of positive energy present in this show. It is inspirational. It humbles us. It brings role models right in front of you. You feel good seeing them. One of the positive Ad that I can think of is this: A business man start from zero, do all the hard work with due diligence and discipline, count every penny and justify the expense; not a penny more, not a penny less. At the end the businessman appreciates the deal offered by a cell phone company; because it gets along with his value and ethics.
Conclusion:
In conclusion, as an expatriate I am immune to those immoral Ads or mixed up culture fed by corporate sponsor and interest group, because I have DVR. Moreover, I screen what my kids watch. As an expatriate, it makes sense to me why there are depression and frustration amount those young adults. These young adults do not have gym, sports field or any decent source of entertainment. What they do for “pass time” activity?
Watch TV or if they can afford, chat cell phone. It is boosting Cell phone industries bottom line, so they could not adopt social enterprise concept to fulfill their social obligation. Rest of the young adults get bored; thereby fall into depression and frustration. Although this may sound like very naïve explanation; however we can not deny that it is a major component. One may argue that past generation did not have all the facilities and infrastructure for sports and “pastime” resources; however they turned out fine without catastrophic depression and frustration. They are correct; however the past generation did no exposed to the media and internet to the extend that this generation is exposed to. This exposure brings the whole world in front of them. They see the disparity, discrimination and unequal distribution of wealth and resources before they are prepared to handle. These issues may fuel more of the negative energy.
Looking forward:
I hope that Ad industry and Corporate sponsors will assume more moral, ethical and social values for the betterment of the vary customer they depend on their business. We do not have laws to safe guard this type of TV program or Ad. More regulation means less freedom. I hope they will enjoy the free media and act responsibly. Free media like a sharp knife. It is the responsibility of the beholder to either use it like a thug or a surgeon.
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