Business is losing social values and ethics

From the dawn of civilisation human is involved with business. In the name of barter trade, mutual exchange on account and many other forms of business facilitated men to survive in the society with the needful. With the passage of time business crossed the borders of villages, cities, and even countries. From the early twentieth century, the concepts, postulations, and theories about business developed; and in western countries, especially the USA, business and business administration are inducted as subjects to be researched and learned. From 1900-1970, with the rise and fall of capitalism, communism, and socialism; and now in the ages of mixed economy, the definition and concepts of business have undergone significant modifications. 

Business had been defined in many fashions in last hundred years. According to modern concepts, an activity will be called 'Business' when it runs after profit, adds some value to the society and it must carry ethics. These three conditions are three pillars of the legitimacy of business. Past economic theories stressed much on profit maximisation but the modern outlook is different and for them the profit is only secondary. Today business is regarded as a social institution forming an integral part of social system.With the initiation of globalisation, the businesses across the world are so interconnected that the wind of recession of any economy can affect the world economy easily. In our country, after 1990s the businesses-- both public and private have expanded considerably. In last 30 years many industries have been grown to maturity while many others are still growing. But some recent events indicate that business is losing social values and not practicing ethical standards as expected. 

Very recent Hallmark group and Sonali Bank scam of almost Tk 40 billion is the burning example of under-applied ethics. According to newspaper reports, the corruption continued for the last three years. The top brass of the bank completely failed to perform their duties and swindled. The Hallmark also coerced and adopted unethical ways to get the loan. In the recent collapse of stock market the institutional investors showed very disapproving behaviour. They were equally responsible for making the bubble and burst. Their withdrawal of so much money at a time from market harmed the individual investors most. The recent scams of so-called multi level marketing (MLM) like Destiny and Unipay2U fraudulently collected billions of taka from general people. Already Unipay2U is vanished and Destiny is under probe and trying to avoid apprehension by the law enforcers. 

Another business, popularly called 'click business', exploited many innocent people by misguiding them. Showing the opportunity of earning money without labour, a company called 'Dolancer' looted Tk 2.0 billion recently and ran away. Land grabbers are so powerful in the city that not only they are grabbing governmental lands but also sometimes private lands by threatening the legal owners. They are executing these illegal schemes by appointing local terrorists and paying kickbacks to the law enforcers. Sometimes they are backed by influential political leaders. These land grabbers have the signboard of business but never show social values and hardly exert ethical behaviour. To exploit the best opportunity many businesses do not consider the environment issue. The city's residential areas have lost residential nature. Some textiles, tanneries, manufacturing industries are operating their businesses at the heart of the capital city. They continuously are polluting the environment and rivers of this city. The mighty 'Buriganga' has lost the status to be named as river. Consequently, in the latest livability ranking by The Economist, Dhaka has got the last place out of 140 cities of the world. Last year it was ranked as second last. 

The multinational and local big companies are exploiting the benefits of the third world. They are taking advantage of cheap labour, lack of consciousness about environment issues, uneducated and ignorant people. How much the society is receiving from them is an issue to ponder. Some banks provide education scholarship to students from their corporate social responsibility. It is really commendable, but over publicising them is how much justifiable is a question. The cost of advertising would support many more students. The luxurious initiative of haunting beauty with a lavish budget by some multi-national companies (MNC) also come under scrutiny when it is found that many brilliant students cannot manage funding of education owing to poverty. 

All these events involve businesses and corporations. These show an obvious lacking of ethics and social values. As large amount of resources are concentrated in the business sector, it is supposed to play a leading role in augmenting the material and social welfare of a nation. Though business is an artificial entity and is seen like a person, it is operated by a group of human beings. Hence, the disharmony between business and social value, ethics ultimately means the society is losing values. 

The term 'Corporate Citizenship' is also commonly used to refer to the moral obligations to the society. This implies that, like an individual, corporate shall be guided by some social norms. Against this backdrop, business should exert high level of ethics and must exercise 'Social Audit' which will evaluate how a business discharges social responsibilities.

This article was published in The Financial Express, Views & Opinion, September 23, 2012

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Vulnerable Bangladesh: Water Insecurity

Considering geographic, topographic, demographic and socio-economic characteristics, Bangladesh is regarded as one of the most vulnerable countries in the world. The affects of climate change, sea level rise, enhanced monsoon precipitation, water crisis, power shortage, higher temperature have exacerbated the problems that already impede thedevelopment of Bangladesh. Weighing the scale and magnitude of the problems the water crisis and insecurity is the most important issue for Bangladesh in short as well as long run. Bangladesh will face severe challenges in the coming decades if it doesn't pay superior attention in this issue. Bangladesh is called the land of river and canal. Most of the principal rivers are borned at Himalaya and then flows in Bangladesh through other countries (India/China/ Nepal/ Tibet) and ends at the Bay of Bengal. The three major rivers of Bangladesh are Ganges, Meghna and Brahmaputra and the river basin of this big three is around 64% in India, 18% in China, 9% in Nepal and 3% in Bhutan (Rafiqul Islam, "A ticking time- bomb" in Dhaka Courier, Sep, 2010, Vol. 27, and p.17).

As Bangladesh is surrounded by India from three sides, naturally there are some disputes about sharing of water of trans-boundary rivers. Although Bangladesh has 54 major trans- boundary rivers with India but there is only one ambiguous water sharing treaty on the Ganges river signed on December 12, 1996, where India removed the guarantee and arbitration clause in getting of minimum water. The water of river is a divine gift from the almighty. Human life is completely dependent on water and actually the water of river is not a matter of sharing. In Western Europe and North America the countries do not share the water rather they utilize, take care and make development of the trans-boundary rivers on the basis of mutual agreement. But there is hardly an amiable understanding with India in 40 years after liberation. In that time India had taken the advantage and utilized the big share of water by breaching the international laws about river. As Bangladesh has many trans-boundary rivers with India and India is in the upper position therefore they have some comparative advantage.

River Teesta at the time of dry season

 

India have constructed almost 35 water diversion projects on the upper Ganges to divert water at other places in India in the name of extending irrigation facility before the flow of water reaches farakka. For this reason the amount of water in farakka is in declining and the share of water for Bangladesh is affected nastily. India started construction of farakka dam without any understanding with newly freed Bangladesh and completed the construction in 1974, then they launched the dam on an experimental basis but dramatically it is active till now and their experiment never stopped. For this reason thedownstream of Padma river in Bangladesh is seriously hampered and the agricultural sectors are damaged harshly in absence of adequate water.

Now-a-days India has planned to construct several dams in major international rivers to divert water on their land without any negotiation with Bangladesh. In a recent move Indian govt. has drastically changed the flow of trans-boundary Rivers by constructing embankments on Muhuri, Kacchua, Fulchari, Chhagalnaya and many other places in Tripura. Tipaimukh dam is another threat to Bangladesh. Proposed Tipaimukh project on the trans-boundary Barak river in Manipur state will have adverse impact in the flow of Surma and Kushiara, which are the principal source of meghna. The consequence of Tipaimukh dam will be so destructive that the Sylhet- Shunamganj area will be desert and agriculture of that area will be seriously damaged. Former UN water expert and visiting faculty of BRAC University told in meeting that the water dispute with india is as old as the inception of Bangladesh and if india will implement the project (Tipaimukh), the downstream of Meghna river will lose its water flow and the country will gradually turn into desert amid acute water crisis. The Teesta water sharing issue has recently added a new extent to the old disputes. During the dry season, especially beginning in September and going up to March, Bangladesh requires the Teesta waters for agriculture. So, there is an urgent need for an agreement of Teesta water sharing with India, although, during the dry season, flow of the Teesta goes down to anywhere between 5,000 and 6,000 cusecs while the demand for water by Bangladesh and India are 8,000 cusecs and 21,000 cusecs respectively (Editorial, The Daily Star, January 12, 2010.) Now we get 39% share of the water and we are demanding 50-50 while West Bengal Prime Minister Mamata Banarjee wants to give us 25% share in signing treaty. It is not only embarrassing to us but also insulting.

According to water experts, the whole world is seriously concerned about conserving their water resources for water security where Bangladesh is destroying its surface and underground water; this will ultimately damage Bangladesh in the long run. A recent report of strategic foresight group titled "The Himalayan challenge: Water security in Emerging Asia" stated, "A decrease in water supply by up to 22 percent in next two decades, rise in sea level and increase in population might push Bangladesh to the risks of food insecurity, outbreak of water-borne diseases and loss of biodiversity. Water availability on per capita cubic metre basis is estimated to decline from 2150 at present to 1860 in 2030 in case of China, from 1730 to 1240 in case of India, from 7320 to 5700 in case of Bangladesh, from 8500 to 5500 in case of Nepal." India should consider the reality of Bangladesh too. They expect the transit from us but in return they will give nothing or something too little is not a good idea. The logical sharing of water and transparency in inter-relations between Bangladesh and India will lead to a good mutual understanding we hope or who knows the third world war may happen for water in the coming century.

This article was published in The News Today, 09/09/2011 Click Here to read newspaper version