This study focuses on the achievement versus ascription debate that cropped up as an impact of an action research project conducted by the erstwhile National Foundation for Research on Human Resource Development (NFRHRD) during 1981-1983 with 30 urban poor women in two slum areas of Dhaka city. The purpose of the study is to assess if any change occurred in restructuring gender role as an outcome of this project, Using case-study and participant observation method it finds that the project with its overemphasis on attracting women into income generating activities has outweighed the concern for redefining women’s reproductive and domestic roles. It argues that income generating activities cannot make much headway in liberating women if it undermines the role of community mobilization and the need for reformulation of the family ideology and gender role.

This paper is concerned with adjustments to food-shortages at the micro-level, in terms of consumption, employment and demand. It argues that such effects are more serious today than e.g., in the sixties, and is not limited to the direct cultivators alone, affecting employment, income and demand in the non-food and non-agricultural sectors. It also argues that shortages result in a widening and deepening of existing seasonalities, with consumption, prices, demand, employment etc. essentially following this seasonal pattern. Apart from immediate short-run effects, substantial longer-term adjustments may be required. Implications for policy include buffer-stock operations, a rationalised public food distribution programme and development of consumption of the most disadvantaged groups, and minimising the pressure on the government budget and the balance of payments.

The agricultural sector in Bangladesh has failed to grow at a rapid rate despite considerable emphasis that is sought to be placed on the sector. The major resources in the sector, constrained primarily by low and declining share of public expenditure on agriculture, remain utilised at sub-optimal levels. This paper examines public expenditure on agriculture highlighting its trend and composition and notes some of the major influences on the optimal use of physical resources.