After a month of daily 18-hour fasts and self restraint to increase our spirituality, it should come as no surprise that the day immediately following Ramadan is filled with a joyful celebration focused on the community’s shared feeling of spiritual achievement and contentment.

It doesn’t matter which part of the world you may find yourself on Eid day; it’s a unique time when prayer, affection, food and fun unite Muslims in a way that is unmatched.

My very first Eid in Seattle was almost 50 years ago when Muslims in the Puget Sound included just a couple of families and a few foreign students studying at the University of Washington.

That was our community’s humble beginning. For years, our Eid prayers were held in a small meeting room at what was then called the University Methodist Church on the corner of 15th Avenue Northeast and Northeast 43rd Street, across from the UW campus.

Eid was in the winter back then, and some had to travel in harsh weather so we could pray together. We were still a small community, but our love for one another made the numbers seem immaterial.

The Eid prayer on Sunday falls in the heart of summer, and attendance will be so massive that local Muslims are gathering in a huge space — the Washington State Convention Center.

I wish all my fellow Americans could be there so they could experience this unique event — our joyful emotions expressed in warm hugs, endless smiles and a few kisses.

Everyone greets each other with “Eid Mubarak” — meaning “May your Eid be blessed.” The event radiates sisterhood and brotherhood, so real the endless embraces are regardless of color, class or creed.

Muslim women are the visual manifestation of Eid’s festive spirit. Their hands are adorned with decorative henna designs, wrists with shimmering bangles and their traditional dresses are bright and colorful.

Later at my family home, which will be decorated with colored lights, streamers and balloons, Eid will become a reunion of sorts with visiting relatives and friends. The holiday always brings out some special family desserts that are aromatic, spiced with saffron and cardamom, many soaked in fragrant orange blossom and rose water and sprinkled with green pistachios.

Eid is graduation day for everyone who fasted; our spirits are uplifted with humility and reverence. This extreme makeover becomes our badge of honor to share with everyone through actions and deeds.But perhaps the greatest blessing for Muslims is knowing that by fasting the entire month for God alone, all of our past sins have been forgiven.

While this holy month has transformed my spirituality and given me a sense of renewal, I am always saddened at the end of Ramadan, aware this special time will not return for another year.

Over the next three days, I will relish this season of joy for Muslims.

If you have a Muslim friend, neighbor or co-worker, please share in their happiness by wishing them Eid Mubarak — May your Eid be blessed!

SOURCE: The Seatle Times

Early this month the Indo-Bangla Trade Fair 2012 was held in Dhaka and the joint trade study team launched a tour of North-Eastern States beginning with Tripura. In July both neighbours are scheduled to meet on the Protocol on Inland Water Transport and Trade.

The trade between the two countries is expected to have grown to over Rs 300 crore (official available statistic up to December, 2011, says Rs 232 crore).

Mr R. K. Agarwal, Eastern Regional Chairman of FIEO, at an interaction with the Bangladeshi Deputy High Commissioner, Ms Abida Islam, said the trade body will hold a meet on trade issues.

The programme is aimed at providing Bangladesh businessmen access to their Indian counterparts to imports textiles , jute and leather and export engineering goods, electronics items, auto parts, agri products and processed foods.

The Bangladesh diplomat said there was a need for greater engagement to sort out trade-related problems and remove bottlenecks. She said traders on both sides of the border face almost identical irritants — delays on the land border posts, payments and absence of efficient mechanisms infrastructure.

“In May, one such issue pertaining to long-term visas was taken up at an official level meeting”, Ms Islam said.

Mr Agarwal said an improvement in the formal and informal trade channels would justify the investments in facilitation measures of the two countries. FIEO also urged that the system of the certification called ‘Clear Record of Findings’ for exports from India be removed altogether.

The Bangladesh Government has already done away with the certification for several products, except for a few.

SOURCE:Business Line

The past year involved unrest in parts of the Middle East and North Africa launched by educated young professionals who are unemployed and underemployed.

A year later, their demands are still simmering: according to the World Bank, economic growth will have to accelerate dramatically to bridge the demand for jobs across the Middle East.

This requires at least doubling the annual net growth rate of job creation, increasing labour force participation and ensuring growth reaches more labour-intensive industries even as technology is adopted to increase efficiency.

Financial leaders discussed in Los Angeles how creating jobs and economic opportunities would improve the region’s prospects of stability. Still, no knowledge or experience will enable anyone to predict where all this change is heading. We are, to be sure, in uncharted waters.

What can be predicted with certainty is that unless the region creates jobs, and many of them, the unrest will continue to unravel and the impact of despair will be felt globally. The size of the youth bulge is key to addressing this most vital of issues.

The demographic challenge can be turned into an opportunity that unlocks the latent development potential. The adverse global economic conditions make the challenge of creating jobs appear even more insurmountable.

At 50 per cent, Spain, for instance, has youth unemployment as high as the average youth unemployment in the Arab region. The whole of Europe is not much better off either.

The Middle East’s youth bulge, while often seen as a challenge, must be turned into an opportunity. Unlike Europe, in the Middle East the growth of the economically active population exceeds that of the economically dependent.

This demographic gift that east Asia so effectively used in the 1990s gives the region a key competitive advantage that is not yet effectively tapped.

While the repercussions of inaction are primarily political, leadership on job creation must come from the private sector. The most effective role governments can play is to create and preserve the conditions that will be conducive to the flourishing of entrepreneurship.

Governments must become, and be seen as, enablers and not as obstacles. Only until governments assume this role, and the economies are freed from the burdens of politics, will the people of the region feel liberated from the shackles of poverty and despair.

The UAE has made great strides in creating a safe and world-class environment where economic development can flourish. The country provides endless opportunities for its local population and offers citizens from the rest of the region chances they cannot find in their native countries.

Key to the success of the UAE model was the creation of both hard and soft infrastructure that gave entrepreneurs the confidence to develop and eagerness to expand. The Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC) stands head and shoulders above global competitors. Abu Dhabi’s Masdar City and twofour54 are two other examples.

The country is home to two world-leading airlines. Other countries in the region look with great admiration at how the UAE became what it is now. The key ingredient of the country’s success, that others in the region must strive to emulate, is the creation of conditions that enabled entrepreneurship to flourish.

Masdar, DIFC and the other projects are only the results of successful and continuing plans to diversify the economy. Countries in the region are well advised to create similar conditions, not a simple copying of the results.

Notwithstanding the current near-impossibility to raise the capital needed for similar mega-projects, the main lesson that other countries in the region can learn from the UAE regards the ability to unleash the private sector and create the necessary climate for it to flourish.

In addition, intra-regional collaboration can only enhance results.

There is no simple formula to address the root cause of the Arab Spring, which largely remains unchanged, if not even more aggravated, and remains a threat to regional and global stability.

However, the longer it takes to tackle unemployment and promote economic development, the greater will the challenge become.

Inaction means that more than 80 million unemployed Arab youth are unlikely to sit idly by, and the outcome of that is simply be too horrendous to contemplate.

The solution is economic and its implementation must start in earnest.

Ghanem Nuseibeh is a partner at Cornerstone Global Associates and a senior analyst with Political Capital

SOURCE:TheNation