Facebook: Amazing tool of social networking

Facebook is the latest craze in the world. It is the dominant social networking site now. Inducted in 2004, it has a staggering one billion-plus subscriber base, which means one in every 7.7 people in the world has a Facebook account. If Facebook was a country and its population made up of its members, it would actually be 'the third largest country in the world' and, based on the current trend, it could be the second largest before too long. The principal founder of Facebook, Mark Elliot Zuckerberg, a Harvard dropout, is only 28 years old who is now the youngest billionaire, thanks to Facebook ownership. According to statistics of alexa.com (last checked on 30/04/2013), a web trend measurer, Google is the most clicked site followed by Facebook and the time spent for a typical visit to Facebook is about 28 minutes. Hence, Facebook must have some magic which compels people to pass a good time on it and surely deserves a focus. Though it is a social networking site along with Google plus, Twitter, My space etc., those are not close competitors of Facebook. Actually Facebook differentiated itself from others by its intriguing features, much more importantly by its implications which are no longer enclosed in social networking. Moreover, Facebook captured the affairs of politics - both national and international. It has also formed a platform to amplify the voice of masses of the people including the minority.

The 'Arab Spring' started with the Facebook. The fall of Hosni Mubarak of Egypt, the uprising against dictatorship at Tahrir Square in the country and the chain communication among the people were basically the outcome of this social networking site along with Twitter. In the USA, as reported by The Washington Post, "one message sent to 60 million Facebook users on the Election Day got at least 300,000 additional people to vote." Many people believe that Barack Obama's use of social networking as a campaign strategy in 2008 was enough to swing him into the presidential office. In India and Pakistan, political parties are using websites and social media to develop an alternative public space for 'image building' and to reach out to the socially-active citizens. It is highly predicted that the social networking sites, especially Facebook and Twitter, are going to be the game changers in the upcoming elections in both the countries. Even in Bangladesh, the politics is now divided into two parts- on-the-street agitation and off-the-street expression. The latter way of politics is actually based on Facebook. The recent events including the Rana Plaza collapse, the Shahbagh sit-in and the Hefajat-i-Islam movement substantiate the observation. Political leaders, groups and activists have separate official profiles and pages where tens of thousands of people are followers and make their comments instantly, which is almost impossible in the virtual world. Sometimes the people greet the political clichés and blunders of different political groups or even the top brass of the government with a lot of flak. However, the TV channels, newspapers and online media have their respective pages and are also focusing much on Facebook activities.

Facebook subscriber Statistics

Facebook has attained a new height in information dissemination by offering its 'share' option. The amazing, funny, important and sometimes clandestine videos (including socio-political issues) are available to watch on Facebook from YouTube links or personal accounts. To the utter amazement, someone uploaded the live video of the recent Brahmanbaria cyclone to Facebook which is unprecedented apparently. Empirical evidence shows that if an earth tremor jolts your territory, you need not switch on your TV or call someone to know the magnitude, just log into your Facebook and everything is there. When any incident happens in any country, good or bad, the news feed of Facebook provides us with all the information even with trivial details. 

Facebook has proved its far-reaching consequences in the business world. Started in the developed countries but now rampant in developing ones, most influential companies are currently using the social media platform to accelerate profits by building relationships with their current and potential customers. This is all done by hiring employees who post up-to-date information and videos on their products, services and events. This has improved their customers' experience markedly by making the company more relatable and the customers more loyal. Even in the West, a new concept of 'Facebook Marketing' has been taking shape over time.

Nevertheless, everything has some dark sides and so has the Facebook. It's full of fake profiles, adult pages, unwanted materials, defaming statements and controversial posts on religions. It is addictive, at times time-wasting and helps develop aggressive narcissism. Sometimes it helps people become virtually extrovert while he is introvert in reality. But it should be acknowledged that a gun in the hand of a bandit is terrific while the same in a policeman's hand secures people. Against this backdrop, if people use Facebook constructively, then it could be a great platform for expressing ourselves, raising the voice against injustice, focusing on inequality and, most importantly, mobilising the 'power of we' against any kind of tyranny. To be candid, Facebook has proved its worth and momentum. 

**The photograph has been copied from an website

[The Financial Express/ Editorial/ May 06, 2013]

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Learning languages: Towards becoming global

Two ways in this world to be great and successful are learning languages and learning mathematics. A person can access the world of invaluable knowledge, literature and philosophy if he or she knows the major languages of major nations. The other way is to learn mathematics which can enable a person to travel the galaxies, black-holes and the higher level of science what is unimaginable even in dream for the general people. The nation which is expert simultaneously in quantitative (math) and verbal (language) ability will be in a good position in the world including politics and education, for sure. World's history also substantiates this assertion.

Unfortunately, as a nation we lack the areas of becoming great and successful. From the very beginning of academic life, the average students have a fear for mathematics and most of the time it persists for lifetime. After mother tongue Bangla, we learn English only as a foreign language and the process of learning English is full of flaws since, we consider English as a similar subject like Physics or Chemistry. The focus goes much on raising high grades rather than developing effective communicating ability. Any spontaneous language learning process first includes listening, then speaking and then reading and writing. This is the procedure what we follow for learning mother tongue but we don't follow for English. That is why our English listening and speaking are worse compared to other nations. Hence, the academia must develop such a curriculum where English will be taught for developing communication, not for raising higher grades like mathematics or accounting. 

In the Middle East and Arab countries the prime and widely spoken language is Arabic. This is a big market for exporting human resources which has very crucial economic implications. Hence, a good command in Arabic might increase the acceptance of the real and potential expatriate workers in that region. 

In case of Europe the most powerful three languages are German and then Spanish and French. English is the prime language in Great Britain and Ireland but knowing one of the above three will give an edge to the people heading for Europe either for staying or for businesses. Normally educated people aim Europe for migration and it is a big market for our apparel industry. So, knowing German or French may help one enter into the European market. In the east, the China and Japan are also very powerful in world economy. Surprisingly, the Chinese official language 'Mandarin', the most widely spoken language on the planet is based in the most populated country, China. Beating second-place English by a 2 to 1 ratio, the speakers of mandarin is above 1 billion. Learning mandarin is tough but as China has become a dominant force in the world of business, a good reason to learn mandarin is to gain a favour when dealing with the Chinese delegates and market. 

Regardless of business perspective, there are many other reasons to learn two or three foreign languages. The great book of our religion, 'The Holy Al-Quran' is written in Arabic. To understand and absorb the knowledge of this great book, learning Arabic is a must. Many more powerful and great philosophers, poets and writers wrote their books in their mother tongue and the taste of which can never be felt in the translation. So to read those, learning languages is the only way without any short-cuts. Karl Marx, Max Weber, Immanuel Kant, Hegel, Gustav Fechner, Christian Wolff are some great names in the list of German philosophers. To taste and absorb their works and contribution to the world, one might learn the respective language by which they have written their masterpieces. Many magnificent foreign language movies are released every year and we are deprived of those owing to privation in that language.

Nevertheless, the importance of learning proper English is the highest. To be successful in studies, businesses and in career the contribution of English is needless to explain. But the conventional system put much emphasis on reading and writing where it should put the same weight on listening and speaking. What the students from any background should do include a) development of the habit to read more English novels and stories, blogs, magazines and newspapers, b) watching BBC, CNN, National Geographic, Discovery channel, English movies and serials, listening English songs on regular basis to develop the listening and capturing the expressions in various situations, c) trying to write blogs and share those on internet, d) using Google talk or Skype for making foreign friends and chatting with them in English. The internet shall be utilised in the best possible way to develop English. Moreover, the most important thing is to develop an environment and surroundings which is full of English. That is the apparent reason for why Bangla medium students drop behind by their counterparts in English medium. 

Against this backdrop, it is the responsibility of the government to the society to train students up in various languages. It should establish language training institutes in schools, colleges and universities to make the country's students adept in several languages. It should enrich its human resources by teaching foreign language with effective technical trainings and allocating more funds in annual budget for this purpose. If we notice India or Pakistan, they learn their mother tongue (Tamil, Pashtu etc.), state language (Hindi, Urdu), religious language (Arabic, Sanskrit) and foreign language (English). The context is same also in Europe. They know at least three languages on an average. Only we, the Bangladeshis, are lagging behind even compared to our neighbours. Eventually, for becoming global citizens and to compete with the people of various nations, learning languages could be our pivotal weapon to survive with power, dignity and acceptance in the era of globalization and competition.

Published in The Financial Express, Sunday, April 7, 2013 [FE Education]

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The new-age concept of 'sports economy'

When we use the term 'economy' in respect to a country, we visualise a picture of banks, insurance companies, the stock market, non-banking financial institutions (NBFIs), NGOs, the sectors of manufacturing, garments & textiles, pharmaceuticals, export-import etc. Actually in the modern age, the world economy encompasses so many elements that it sometimes seems esoteric to most of the laymen. One of the elements of economy might be sports. This assertion might seem weird initially upon taking a look at our local economy, but if we observe Europe or the USA, or even India, the whole matter will be clear. Cricket and football are the most popular and age-old games around the world. Except the two, the other popular games are tennis, golf, car racing, basketball, rugby and athletics. Football has a great market and acceptance around the globe and so has cricket. But South Asia and several other cricket-playing countries such as Australia, England, South Africa, and the West Indies, have a craze for cricket and this craze is at its peak in South Asia. On the other hand, football has dominance in Europe, and South and Latin America. The popular major tournaments of football, except the World Cup, include UEFA Champions' League, La Liga, English Premier League, Bundesliga and others. Like football, cricket too has its World Cup, T20 World Cup, Test Series and ODIs, Big Bash, IPL, BPL, SLPL, Champions League T20 etc.

The economy of Europe is greatly linked to sports. Cricket has a sparse attraction in Europe, while football is a permanent passion. Tens of millions of money are circulated over football. The football clubs spend millions of money for buying, selling and swapping players, and preparing them for playing the premier leagues. The players are highly salaried and also taxed by the governments of different countries. Except the football, lavish arrangements are made for the Tennis Series, golf and formula 1 racing. Everything there is under tax net, and that is a great source of income for the governments in Europe. But in the view of economics, apart from government revenue from taxes, the most important contributions of sports to economy in Europe are the circulation of money, promotion of tourism, the meteoric development of service industries (restaurants and hotels, the transport sector) etc. 

The second major trend is broadcasting of big sporting events on the television which has brought along with it a totally new industry, providing access of TV viewers to any significant international competition convened anywhere around the world. The latest development is the emergence of new information and communication technologies - NICTs (from Internet to the mobile phone and so on) through which photos and snapshots of sporting events can be promptly transmitted at any moment to any place, throughout the world. The outcome of all this has observed an increase in the economic significance of sports measured by its economic weight compared to gross domestic product (GDP). 

All these facts and their implications could be asserted for the USA's sports economy, where basketball, rugby and golf are the major games and more popular than football (also called soccer) and cricket. The economic ramifications are the same as aforementioned. The attraction of sporting events to the press emerged in the early 20th century, when sport events began to be broadcast live on radio. It was, however, not until after the Second World War that the genuine globalisation of the 'sports economy' took off. Sports are now consumed in many forms, such as: sport practice, sport shows, sports materials, sport sponsorship expenses, and the TV broadcasting rights issue raised by sport event organisers, fan-based clubs and so on.

The cricket of Bangladesh is controlled by Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) and football by Bangladesh Football Federation (BFF). Bangladesh cricket is always gripped by some problems as they have lacklustre concentration on the root-level cricketing. For this reason, they feel the absence of suitable substitutes whenever any key-player is benched owing to injury or other hazards. But all other cricket-playing countries have an emphasis on this aspect. BCB started BPL after a huge success of IPL by following the pattern of the later, but after its beginning some problems emerged about unsettled payments to several franchisees which undermined the BPL's image. The political influence on BCB and BFF is a major problem in the sports sector of Bangladesh. The politician-cum-sports-officials sometimes create unwarranted situation which is often fatal for sports. The condition of football is poorer than cricket. It has long lost its appeal to attract audiences to stadiums. But there was a time when people were overcome by an uncontrolled surge of emotion like that of el classico (the great battle) over the 'Abahoni vs. Mohamedan' match which is nowadays seen in Barcelona vs. Real Madrid matches.

Against this backdrop, the authorities concerned, both the government and the private sector, must come up with solutions to resolve the stalemate in the football sector of Bangladesh. Though the South Asia has a very lower financial status than Europe and USA, sports are immensely popular here, especially cricket; and then football. Bangladesh is a cricket-playing country with ODI and test status. It must be admitted that cricket has given our country an exposure among the countries in the world. We have international-standard stadiums and have arranged big sporting events --- even the cricket World Cup. But we cannot attract foreign spectators that many cricket-playing countries do. Lack of comfortable transportation service, five-star hotels and entertainment are the reasons behind it. Eventually, a structured planning is needed to resuscitate our sports sector, so that it can contribute its highest to our economy and can enhance the GDP growth of the country. 

In many parts of the world, where capitalistic or mixed economy prevails, even education and medical treatment are considered as products like mobile phones or laptops. Sports are no longer a solemn tool for developing international brotherhood. Then why will our government fall behind in recognising the sports sector as a part of our economy like banking or agriculture? 

Published : Saturday, 23 February 2013, The Financial Express, Bangladesh

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