Personal Experiences,Study, Learning Blog of Abu Rashid aka Harun

Bangladesh Open University has lately converted most of its textbooks into ebooks and uploaded in its website for free. Most of the books are of very good quality and they are all written in Bangla except English text book. All of these ebooks could be found here:

http://www.ebookbou.edu.bd/index.php

English text book(course code is English BEN 1301) is of high standard ,especially usage of tense in English is described very eloquently.

http://www.ebookbou.edu.bd/wp/SSHL/babss1.php#ben1301

Dear Hon'ble Finance Minister Mr. Abul Maal A Muhith, MP

Dear Sir

Bangladesh  has been going to a middle income and higher income by the able stewardship of you. AL govt during their first regime during 1996-2000 made computer things taxfree thus enabling many middle income people like us to buy their first computes. The then AL govt also broke the mobile monopoly and started digital revolution. At the moment, middle income people could buy laptop, tv, freeze but still it is difficult to buy cars for them. If we look into developed countries, we could find that people in general buy cars like here in Bangladesh people could afford mobile phone. The case is that one could go for basic mobile phone or pricey according to his ability. However for the cars, due to high import tax, most middle income people could not go for the bare minimum ones. The ten or more old cars are sold at the price of a new budget car of the developed countries. Since it is imperative that we mimic what developed countries do to reach their level, I reckon we may consider their way of pricing cars – that is minimal import tax however later higher income tax, fitness, insurance, road tax etc.

To go that way, we may have two options. One is directly go to that direction or gradually. Here I am going to mention the both ways with financial implications. That is, how much revenue would be lost but at the same time how revenue could be generated using different afterwards mechanism. Before going into these two options in detail, no of car in Bangladesh and simple measure of little increase of current income tax and road tax is discussed.

http://www.brta.gov.bd/index.php/statistics

No of registered private passenger cars upto Feb 2015 is 269354 [From 2010 to Feb 2015 around 1 Lac cars have been registered ; so we could take total no of passenger car around 1 lac for conservative estimate assuming cars registered before 2009 are kind of out of order]

If there are around 100000 cars( 1 lac) private cars in Bangladesh, then if current road tax is increased from 5800 to 12000 and income tax is increased from 15000 to 24000, then the extra 15000 BDT per private passenger come will come. This is altogether comes up as the extra revenue of 15000 * 100000 = 150,00,00,000 BDT(i.e. 150 crore taka).

If tax is brought to just vat, that is just 15%, the government will lose the revenue amount of 800000*15000 =1200,00,00,000 BDT(i.e. 1200 crore taka) should it assumed that each car gives on an average 4 Lacs taka tax. Now if the govt proposes income tax and road tax of 120000 per year, then additional 1 lac taka will come from each of such newly imported car. So govt could only make up the amount of of 15000 * 100000 = 150,00,00,000 BDT(i.e. 150 crore taka). However If this new charge is applied to all registered cars except those were registered in last four years(they will get six years grace period as higher tax paid initially and no of such registered cars in last four years is 40000), then extra revenue generated will be 60000*100000 = 600,00,00,000 (i.e. 600 crore taka). It may be a more acceptable solution for the government. If the govt set the target of getting additional 50000 taka per year from per car owner and it is applied to all , no exemption is made then total additional earning would be 50000*100000=500,00,00,000 (i.e. 500 crore taka). This one would be more acceptable and easily implementable.

Now at the same time, if overall import tax reduced for upto 15000 cc from 100% to 50%, the govt will lose 4 lac BDT per car. On average every year around 15000 cars are sold or imported, so the loss of revenue in a year would be 400000*15000 =600,00,00,000 BDT(i.e. 600 crore taka). However it is expected that if tax is reduced by half, the sale would double. In such cases, from 15000 additional sale of car govt would earn the same 400000*15000 =600,00,00,000 BDT(i.e. 600 crore taka) and again more money from road tax and income tax equals to 36000*15000 =54,00,00,000 BDT(i.e. 54 crore taka)

So my final proposition is:

1500 cc and below cc car total tax  during import = 15% [there would be no other tax, it is just vat]

New road tax for such car is 12000 taka per year

Income tax advance for such car is 108000 taka per year

So an owner of 1500 cc and below car would pay the government in form of road tax and income tax is 120000 taka per year. He may be give n the option to pay in monthly installment of 10000 taka per month. This amount is equivalent to the salary paid to the drives. So people would go for driving themselves and may keep the car. In the above rate, the govt would earn extra 1 lac per car as they are now getting only around 21000 taka per year per car. So additional revenue earning of the govt per year would be 1 lac car * 1 lac bdt additional= 1000,00,00,000 taka, that is 1000 crore additional money.  The govt may arrange this thing with the owners selected bank and bank will take the responsibility to collect if someone is in default.

Generally the following things are required to set up a students’ society or club

Optimum no of core organizers:

For a project work, a couple format which means two students tagged together is good.Then to do a same kind of job, the optimum no of group members  is five, not three. Then if required the of group members may go up in odd values. However more than 9, in some cases more than 19 it would be difficult to maintain the group cohesion. The highest no would be the Dunbar no, that is 150.

Since in a students Society or club there are three core tasks, so the optimum no of core organizers is three. They are: Chairperson, Secretary and Treasurer.

Chairperson: looks after each and every thing, atleast being informed of everything

Secretary: calling meetings, writing minute of the meeting, written and other modes of communicatin with different persons and organisation, transfer information to society or club members or committee members through email. He/She may also look after outside information dissemination like newsletter, press release, facebook, website etc. However, other persons may be involved for such specific things though the Secretary should still oversee all such outside mass or inbound communication.

Treasurer: looks after financial things, keep records of all transactions, submit relevant financial documents to different authorities. For financial transaction, rule of two(2) may be adhered all the times. Rule of two means Payments and receivables, all should have two signatures.All should have two copies, one for the office and the other for client

Core organizers roles(name of the position) and responsibilities(the tasks entailed) are described in a concise manner here:

http://www.qubsu.org/ClubsSocieties/Support/CommitteeRoles/

Election  or selection

During the initial stage of formation society or club, its better not to go directly to election. Keep open the leadership for a while . Look for natural inclination of interested folks. Then select a leader through consensus and the leader will select other core organizers. After a year or so, formal election may be held or positions may be filled by consensus by active members. There again, active members may just select the leader and then the leader will decide who will be work along with him. That is other core positions will not be initially selected by the active members, the leader will decide upon consultation later.

Decision making for the society or club: autocratic, democratic or consensus

It is best if the decision could be taken on consensus. However in generally it is like mix of all three; however in essence it is autocratic as the leader at the end decides whether he/she will go with his own view, go along with majority or go along consensus. As a tip, it is better not to introduce democratic decision as it causes rift and groupins; better go for consensus mode. In the consensus mode, some may still come along to the decision but they may decided not to give veto. In the consensus mode, if a single active member give veto, the decision is not passed.

Sample documents and templaes for the formation of students society and club

Sheffield  Hallam University has a good collection such itmes that could be found here:

https://www.hallamstudentsunion.com/get_involved/societies/societycommitteeresources/

When you meet in person, you could have definitely known about his gender and get an idea of age.

Then you should not ask any biographical question or personal information like education, job or profession,country,nationality,marital status,staying location,parents name and profession,siblings name and profession,purpose of visitng here etc. Again, you should not ask his/her name as name could provide some information like religion, nationality etc.

Just talk about things around both of you like weather, natural scenery, buidlings, interior decoration. If you are in a office, comment on the location,interior decoration. If you are in a restaurnat, comment on the food on that restaurant, locatin, interior decoration, service etc. If you are in a shop, comment on locatin, interior decoration, service etc

Then talk what you like to do or your passion or hobby. Remember do, not what you like to see,watch,listen. Do includes doing sports,helping people, writing, activism for people.

Ask for help and or advice. People like to help and give advice. It makes them feel important and good feeling of charity.

Take things with you that may be used as an anchor for small talk. For example, you may keep showpieces of differenct coutnries landmarks that you have visited. You may take with you a book, sample booklet of your passion, special watch etc.

Use a Surrounding Object as an Anchor

http://personalexcellence.co/blog/small-talk/

    (At a talk) “The speaker is doing a great job. I like the section where he talked about the role of innovation in startups. What do you think about that?”

    (At a social event) “I had such a hard time finding the location! It took me about 20 minutes to find the place. What time did you get here?”

    (At your workplace) “Regis totally lost his temper at the morning meeting. Did you hear about it?”

    (At a cafe, while queuing up to get your drinks) “I love the dark chocolate mocha here. Have you tried it before?”

    (At the supermarket, at the ramen aisle) “I’m thinking between the Mushroom-Flavored Ramen and Hot & Spicy Ramen and I’m not sure which one to pick. Which do you think I should go for?” (This is related to Method #4: Ask for Help / Advice.)

Be open to using different surrounding objects as your conversation starter. It can include the person’s possessions:

    (Referring to the tie the person is wearing) “I saw a similar tie at Macy’s last week and wanted to get that. Did you get this at Macy’s?”

Or even someone else:

    (Referring to another participant at an event) “I’ve seen that person at similar events before. I heard he/she is the director at Firm Y. Have you talked to him/her yet?

sample ideas/questions

>>.

How is your day going today?

http://www.fastcompany.com/1843752/hate-small-talk-these-5-questions-will-help-you-work-any-room

"What’s your connection to the event?" This question can uncover mutual contacts and usually leads to a more robust answer than if you asked the typical "Have you been to this event before?"

"What’s keeping you busy when you’re not at events like this or at work?" This question gives the encouragement necessary for the person to share his/her passions and outside interests. It is an excellent way to add some enthusiasm into a conversation that has hit a lull, especially if he/she would prefer to be doing that activity at that moment.

"Are you getting away this summer?" This question can lead to conversations about family, reveal special interests and, if you like talking about travel, it’s a sure-fire way to keep a conversation interesting.

"Are you working on any charity initiatives?" This question makes it easy to launch into a deeper connection. If they’re not involved with any projects, they often share reasons which is usually revealing, and if they are doing something of value they will be more than happy to share.

"How did you come to be in your line of work?"

Some more sample qustions from http://personalexcellence.co/blog/small-talk/

What brings you here today?”

“What did you do today?” , “What have you been up to?“, or “What have you been busy with?”

How did XX go?” —xx=say your visit to your village, another country

“What are you up this week?”

website links

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good info on how to start small talk, especially answer with little bit details:

http://lifehacker.com/5913355/how-can-i-turn-small-talk-into-a-conversation

Detailed questions open ended and suggestions:

http://www.ou.edu/class/bc2813/ConversationTips/MasteringSmallTalk.htm

The best suggestion is to talk about what you are passionate about. As the website http://puttylike.com/small-talk/

says =Talk About Things that are Meaningful to You

This is the key. Talk about meaningful topics. It could be work, relationships or experiences. It doesn’t matter, as long as it’s something that you care about and can speak about with emotion. Don’t bring up the weather (I cringe every time the weather comes up in conversation), unless it’s a relevant detail in the story of the amazing hike you just took.

If you talk about meaningful topics first and allow yourself to express the feelings associated with those topics, the other person will feel something too. They will then be more likely to open up themselves.

Purpose of life: 

It is very important to know what is your calling, that is your passion or in other words purpose of life. Steve Pavlina, a popular blogger and self help guru, suggests the following steps to discover one’s life purpose.

For details please check out: http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2005/01/how-to-discover-your-life-purpose-in-about-20-minutes/

Give atleast one try what you desire: it is also called no regret principle. 

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Well, sometimes what you like to do most or what is your passionate, there may be nearly zero chance of success. As a side note, in life there are very few things where there is clear zero possibility, in general there is always some possibility. Then you might fail at the task you have attempted, that’s fair enough. You will not have any regrets later your life reminding if I would have tried. Besides, it would be a learning experience and in general some new ways are opened up. As the saying goes on like when you open the door then you could see what are inside, but if you don’t open the door you could not see what are inside. After failure, you may opt to try with another strategy or may go for your second best option. By the by, if the option you desire most has life risk or risk of law infringement or involve huge investment of money, you may think carefully to commit for that one. However, only few things will have such consequences.

More insight could be found here: http://www.gll-getalife.com/get-success/entry/not-trying-will-be-your-biggest-regret

Comparative advantage: 

One should do what one could do better compared to other things. For example, Dr Humayun Ahmed was the most popular and highest selling fiction writer of Bangladesh. He had a phd in Chemistry and he was good at Chemistry too. However, his command on writing fiction is far better than teaching in Chemistry. So judiciously he took the decision to leave teaching profession and engage in full time writing. So one should not compare with others when taking decision about certain choices rather look into what is the comparative advantage. For example, one guy is not that good at both football and cricket. However, he is better in football than cricket. So he should opt for football playing.

Look for more detail analysis in ‘the undercover economist’ written by Tim Harford: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=CFjupwQOgD4C&pg=PA218&lpg=PA218&dq=comparative+advantage+undercover+economist&source=bl&ots=IebuHHpk4w&sig=rKtpRwL9T3Ad2g8HV1TYZBSAQDQ&hl=en&sa=X&ei=uOksVa2bOM62uQSojoCIDw&ved=0CCIQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=comparative%20advantage%20undercover%20economist&f=false

Time Management: 

Time flies as the saying goes. So it is very important to manage time wisely and efficiently. Here goes some tips:

Use pareto principle and finish any task with minimal effort. Later on, if required you may improve the quality. Generally you could reach 80 percent of your own standard quality just by inputting that minimal 20 percent effort.

To test a thing do it in small scale like prototype. Then if it works, go for bigger version. If small sizing is not possible, then do a small part and see the result.

Start early: if average people start job when they are 22 years old, you may start job at 21 years of age. Starting earlier with minimalistic standard is far advantageous that starting late with adequate resources. Because time always beat the amount resource for a human beings.

Finish fast: Try to finish fast, may be atelast 20 percent earlier than average standerd time. Again after doing some part if you feel not good quit. Therer is no point of bearing the sunk cost.

Use a time schedule for every minute. Its better to use 10 minutes block. Make a rule that you could not modify an item unless it is modified 10 minutes or 30 minutes or so on earlier. To make life easy, you make the rule that you may change whenever you like but you need to write it down in the schedule. However, it is better to use 10 minutes or other loger minutes or hours or days rule to change. In generally we procrastinate stating that we would pleasurable task now  and harder task later. It makes that a little difficult by stating that you could change but not instantly.  Usually our reasonable self works better when we think ahead but when things actually come up our pleasurable self takes over the reason. Again, by starting somehow a little bit you could eventually continue to do so.

Its ok to fail but not to try and remain in the race reasonable time.

http://www.elsevier.com/connect/10-tips-to-finishing-your-phd-faster

Done is better than perfect:

Just doing with minimal things is better than doing later with perfection.

So finish everything in the rough draft format with minimal effort and things. Later if needed, you will have plenty of time to tweak and improve.