Now, perhaps as an election stunt, the GoB has announced some scheme for these neglected class of citizens; while the private sector cashed on the boom of the newly rich by constructing 'luxurious' high-rise flats in posh expensive locations of the major cities, violating site rules right and left. The question is why these 13 years were wasted.

Housing in urban migratory society is a huge sector, with good prospects for investment. In Malaysia, the new flats were much costlier than the bungalows (for example the monthly house rents were M$3,000 for a typical flat, and M$800 for a two-storied bungalow. Later, in the late 1980s, cheap flats were available for the factory workers in 18-storied apartment buildings for HP rent as low as M$50 pm).

Bangladesh can easily rise above the five percent growth rate if the political parties display some sanity in approach to national problems. Now even giants like Tata is lured to the potentialities of the Bangladesh market. But the problem is that wealth, (white, grey and black) is concentrated in the hands of the few who are at the top of the society, and the politicians (difficult to spot a 'middle-class' politician!). The pensioners' schemes are also not being enhanced.

The biggest stumbling block to doing routine peaceful business is the wicked political culture which the two major parties have allowed to proliferate the vanity of immortality!