These lie in the description of human security as outlined elsewhere in the book. The UNDP report of 1999 said that threats to this security could either develop as a slow process or an abrupt emergency. This is an issue that has been discussed extensively in chapter four but it would not be irrelevant to talk briefly about it here.

Environmental pressures, such as those caused by overpopulation and land degradation as well as by poor economic planning, can lead to natural disasters and human tragedies. The UN list speaks of the following principal threats to human security, food and economic insecurity, health and personal insecurity, as well as environmental, political, community and cultural insecurity.

What rules govern the world that we inhabit? Whether it is access to drinking water, schooling, better nourishment and incomes, the countries of the South have remained at the bottom of the heap despite much-repeated declarations of support and assistance to the poor. This is not to deny that there has been assistance. There has been significant help. But it is a fraction of what is needed.

Deprivation and inequality create huge disparities within regions and countries. The United Nations18 reels off a depressing set of figures with regard to the poorest and most vulnerable people in the world:

• Nearly 1.3 billion people do not have access to clean water.
• One in seven children of primary age school is out of school.
• About 840 million are malnourished.
• An estimated 1.3 billion people live on incomes of less than $1 per day.

There are some positive signs such as international migration and hard currency inflows as a result of workers’ remittances. Thus, although India tops the world with its huge diaspora which sends billions of dollars back to the homeland, Bangladesh is not far behind either. India tops the charts with $ 9.3 billion, or one-sixth of all foreign workers’ remittances, Bangladesh does not do too badly with $ 1.2 billion. Many of these workers are in the Middle East as also in South-East Asia and Europe. Yet, while India figures in the world’s top fifteen nations for direct foreign investment and portfolio flows, Bangladesh drops completely out of sight.

Take another barometer of expanding economies and opportunities. Migration. The undocumented number of migrants are several times those who are documented, who come on visas and passports. The United States itself is home to not less than four million illegal aliens. There are 700,000 of them in Malaysia of which not less than 70,000 are Bangladeshis.19

The number of illegal Indians and Bangladeshis in the United States and Britain are considerable. But the flow is not restricted to the rich West.

The Independent, a newspaper of Dhaka said that this situation was developing because Bangladesh found itself ‘more and more overwhelmed with the problem of overpopulation and unemployment.20