British Bangladeshis are doing astonishingly well at school

Good jobs and household riches remain out of reach

Nov 24th 2022

In 1985 two articles about the Bangladeshi population of east London appeared—one in an academic journal, the other in an education report. Both were despondent. Bangladeshi children were “seriously underachieving” at school, said the education study. The academic paper described knots of unemployed men hanging around the streets, and forecast even worse for Bangladeshis as London deindustrialised. Barring a major intervention, the authors wrote, “they will become more marginalised than at present.”




Happily, something has happened to a group that accounts for about one percent of the population of England and Wales. Over the past two decades Bangladeshis in England have gone from performing worse than white Britons in the gcse exams taken at age 16 to performing considerably better (see chart). No other ethnic group has improved as much. Bangladeshis now compete for top university places and good jobs. Their progress suggests several things about success in Britain.

Bangladeshi immigration began in earnest in the early 1970s. Many migrants settled in the inner East End of London, close to the financial district. They were penned there by local councils operating discriminatory housing policies, and by racists who attacked those venturing farther into the East End (and sometimes also those who did not). They often went into the rag trade and restaurants.

Education results were indifferent, especially among girls. “My girls didn’t tend to go to university,” remembers Vanessa Ogden, who became head teacher of Mulberry School for Girls, a largely Bangladeshi school in east London, in 2006. Many were expected to marry, then toil at home. Some resented that. “When we marry and have daughters we will treat them differently,” a Bangladeshi pupil somewhere in England told a schools inspector in 2004.

She seems to have kept her word. At Mulberry School for Girls, four-fifths of sixth-formers secured university places this year. In England, the share of Bangladeshi 15-year-olds who go on to enroll in the most competitive universities has jumped from 5% to 16% since 2009-10, while the rate for white Britons has risen only from 8% to 10%. Mulberry girls tend to attend London universities and live at home, although that may change as parents grow bolder. Ms Ogden recently organised a trip to Cambridge, where parents were happy to learn that colleges have porters to keep students safe—something that the upper middle classes have long known.

One conclusion from this success story concerns policy and patience. Heidi Mirza, who was appointed to an education task force by the Labour government in 1997, argues that the extra funding and attention lavished on poor inner-city schools then are bearing fruit now. Recently, under Conservative governments, those things have moved elsewhere. The “leveling up” strategy published in February identifies 55 education investment areas, none in London. That might harm Bangladeshis’ prospects, but probably not for years.

Another conclusion is that it helps to be a Londoner. The city’s fortunes began to revive in the mid-1980s, thanks partly to financial services deregulation. As the most London-centric of all ethnic groups—in 2019, 55% of all Bangladeshis were estimated to live in the capital—they have been hitched to an economic rocket. Two American academics, Ran Abramitzky and Leah Boustan, recently argued that much immigrant success in that country can be explained by the fact that they tend to land in places with strong economies.

The final conclusion is that the road to true prosperity is very long. Some 24% of Bangladeshis receive income-related benefits, compared with a national average of 16%. The Office for National Statistics estimates that the median Bangladeshi household has about one-fifth as much wealth as the median white British one.

Fewer than half of Bangladeshi women aged 16-64 are economically active, compared with about three-quarters of white, black and Indian women. Combined with low wages, that crushes household incomes. Still, the proportion is creeping up. Syeda Khatun of the Bangladeshi Women’s Association, a West Midlands outfit, says early immigrants almost never worked outside the home. These days even mothers do. “You can’t get a mortgage on one person’s income”, she says.

Although it helps a lot, educational prowess does not automatically lead to good jobs; British Bangladeshis fare worse in the job market than they should, given their qualifications. And good jobs do not lead quickly to wealth that can be transmitted from generation to generation. Bangladeshis have done extraordinarily well. They will have to do even better in future.■

This article appeared in the Britain section of the print edition under the headline "Another East End success"

Why Britain is a world leader in offshore wind

Its wind farms are key to the country’s net-zero hopes

Nov 24th 2022

One turn of an “sg 8.0-167 dd” turbine generates enough electricity to run a British home for a day and a night. sg stands for Siemens Gamesa, a subsidiary of the German industrial giant, which makes the machines in Hull. The 8.0 is the turbine’s maximum output in megawatts (mw). The 167 is the diameter of its rotor in metres: it sweeps out in a circle equivalent in area to about three football pitches. And the dd stands for direct drive, an electricity-generation technology with no fiddly gears to wear out. At Hornsea 2, a wind farm located off the Yorkshire coast, 165 of these vast turbines form a field of steel stretching farther than the eye can see. Hornsea 2, which became fully functional in August, is now the largest wind farm in the world. When the wind really blows it can power 1.4m homes.



The development of its offshore wind industry is one of Britain’s biggest infrastructural successes. The first farms, installed in the early 2000s, amounted to little more than a cottage industry, repurposing tiny onshore turbines for the sea, with outputs of just two megawatts. Since then, the sector has boomed. By 2010 there were 1.3 gigawatts (gw) of wind power in British waters. Today there are 14gw. Until 2021, when it was overtaken by China (see chart), Britain had installed more offshore wind capacity than any other country in the world. About 36% of British electricity now comes from wind, the majority of it offshore. Duncan Clark, the boss of the British arm of Orsted, which developed Hornsea 2, says offshore wind could be producing half of Britain’s electricity by 2030. “What has happened is quite beyond almost everyone’s expectations,” he says. In the process, the cost has fallen sharply. In 2015 new offshore wind cost £120 ($155) per megawatt hour; today it costs well below £40.

Britain’s success in wind-farming is partly down to government policy. Contracts for building and running wind farms come with strict progress deadlines (and the risk, if they are not met, of cancellation). The contracts are offered through a competitive auction process which has helped drive down prices. Geography also plays a big part. Britain’s coastline runs along the western shore of the North Sea, one of the windiest places on earth. It is relatively shallow, which makes constructing wind farms easier. All this has attracted myriad companies, supplying services and equipment, that developers can call upon to help build farms in British waters. “It’s one of the best places in the world to build offshore wind,” says Soeren Lassen, head of offshore-wind research at Wood Mackenzie, a consultancy.

It has not all been plain sailing. The government’s ambition to bring as much of the industry as possible on to British soil has had mixed success. A turbine factory that General Electric was planning to build in Teesside fell through, “due to a lack of volume”, the firm says. Industry insiders said the developer it was supplying failed to secure enough contracts. It now ships turbines into British wind farms from France. No companies that make and install monopiles—the vast piles of steel rebar and concrete that fix the tower of the turbine to the floor of the sea—are yet operational in Britain, though a South Korean outfit, seah, has just started building a £400m factory in Teesside. Orsted has signed a contract with the firm to build its next wind farm, Hornsea 3. It will produce twice as much electricity as Hornsea 2.

More growth lies ahead. Rishi Sunak, the prime minister, has promised to build 50gw of offshore wind by 2030. In his autumn statement on November 17th Jeremy Hunt, the chancellor, mentioned offshore wind repeatedly as a cure for fossil-fuel dependency. Sir Keir Starmer, leader of the Labour Party, pledged more of it in his speech to the Confederation of British Industry on November 22nd. The growth will come through new farms. North of Hornsea a consortium is building a huge wind farm at Dogger Bank. Off Scotland’s coast, Berwick Bank, the largest of a series of enormous wind farms will generate more electricity than Hinkley Point C, Britain’s newest nuclear power station. Some farms will be floating, rather than fixed to the sea floor, a new technology which will allow even more electricity to be generated off Britain’s coastline.


In the short term, the biggest obstacle to Britain meeting its 50gw goal is the success of offshore wind elsewhere: competition for parts and skills is growing. And lean supply chains, a result of the fierce price competition driven by Britain’s contract auction scheme, can also cause delays. “The days when the most important thing was shaving 50p off the cost of production are over. What we need now is speed of deployment,” says Mr Clark.

Britain’s electricity grid must also keep pace, building substations and transformers along the east coast. Existing grid infrastructure was built to cater to coal plants, which tended to be built next to water sources for cooling. While most of the planned future wind farms have already secured their grid connection slots, some have not. This can be a slow process, one the government could speed up by simplifying the planning process and reforming grid designs made for a fossil-fuel world. All offshore wind-generated electricity should eventually come ashore through one of 15 big onshore interconnectors, with their own dedicated offshore grids. Fossil-fuel power, by contrast, tended to be plugged in plant-by-plant. The government could also encourage businesses which do not currently run on electricity, like transport, heat and heavy industry, to make the switch. Longer-term, the offshore wind industry will run into a wall of stagnant demand unless these big chunks of economic activity are electrified.

The rewards will exceed large amounts of clean electricity. Offshore wind employs around 20,000 people in Britain, many of them in maintenance. By 2030, more than 61,000 workers could be employed in the sector, according to the Offshore Wind Industry Council. Many of those jobs will be in places like Grimsby, Hull and Teesside, where the government wants to boost the economy. To get there, the government needs to stay the course and create a stable environment for more companies to set up shop in Britain. ■

Mansion in Bogura with likely exaggerated cost of Tk 500 Crore

Who is the owner of the magical white palace in the remote village of Bogura?

Most villages are home to cans of villages, where the mysterious white porcelain palace is located in the remote village of Bogura. The building is called Sarkar Mahol. 

In front of the lower castle, there is no exaggeration to say that this palatial palace is a palatable palace. At the entrance of a village named সরকার পাড়া in Deuli Union, the building will be welcomed by strangers, the two will be welcomed by strangers.

The question comes to everyone's mind, what in the remote village of সরকার পাড়া in Bogura is the Palace of the Two Houses?

The fact that resides in this house is only a man. He works as a guardian there.

There is no limit to the curiosity of the inhabitants. They say, the house was built for 12 years, it spent about 500 crore wonder!

The home owner, Sakhawat Hossain Tutu, learned that he did not have the fortune to live in this house despite spending too much money.

Sakhawat Hossain Tutul, son of late Abdul Haai of Sarkarpara village, said. Locals know that Tutul is in prison today in the case of the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC).

Local residents said that Sakhawat Hossain Tutul suddenly became the owner of a lot of money in 2006. At that time, he started building this house around three acres of land beside his can in paternal. He also made two buildings. After the construction of the house, exterior walls and borders will build the white opening instead of wall tiles. Villagers said the white still was seen in the movie.

The workers were brought from outside Bogura to build home crafts and set the white pavement, they said. After 12 years of employment, the construction of the house was completed in 2018.

The expensive wood was used to make the doors and windows of the house. Place the old design on each of these wooden floors. White pales are foreigners Air conditioning is installed in each room.

Within the mansion you will find a five star hotel or more.

Beside, there are four floors of two-storey palace, the other three floors. There are four domes on the ceiling of the two houses. There is a park with different attractive design kitchens, two ponds, and different types of animals. Large floral gardens are very attractive.

Tutul, a family of middle class families, has many specimens in the area about how much property it is.

Residents of the village of Deuli Sarkarpara said Sakhawat Hossain Tutul fled to his home and went to Dhaka. He can not see for a long time. Later, she married a non-Bengali woman and has since become rich.

Knowing apart from a bundle of oxford and a cold storage at the Oxford International School home, the Gazipur Fresh Food Products Factory in Dhanmondi, Tutul has over 100 acres tillers land. There are also many businesses there.

Bogra people surround the area surrounding Tutul's house, with curiosity. Because of this the house is no longer open to the public.

In this way, housekeeper Jayant Kumar said that authorities are prohibited from allowing strangers to come inside.

Although people came to see the house every day from faraway places, he said. And for tourists, there are many hotels and hotels close to home.



Fazlul Bari's elder brother cares for Tutul's current business.

Although Tutul was not interested in saying anything about why he built this room with extra money, Fazlul Bari said that because of this home, Tutul entered the prison.

Sarkar Mahol সরকার মহল (টুটুল ভিলা)

It would be better if the owner of Oxford International School invested his money in improving his school.

The world’s population has reached 8bn. Don’t panic

Fears of overpopulation and underpopulation are both overblown

Nov 11th 2022

Something about global population trends seems to send otherwise sensible people over the edge. According to the United Nations, the planet’s population is due to reach 8bn on November 15th. Alarm bells are clanging. Population pessimists have long predicted mass famine. Now they add prophecies of environmental disaster as a result of too many people. Others worry about the opposite problem: “population collapse due to low birth rates”, tweeted Elon Musk, the self-proclaimed “chief Twit”, “is a much bigger risk to civilisation than global warming.” In fact, looking at population change during the past decade suggests neither of these mutually contradictory divinations of doom will prove correct.

It took a dozen years (from 1998 to 2010) for the global population to grow from 6bn to 7bn. It has taken the same length of time to notch up the next billion. Against the backdrop of catastrophising, it is worth recalling what is behind this growth: longer lives, improvements in nutrition and public health; falls in infant mortality, disease and maternal deaths in childbirth. The world’s population carried on growing even in the teeth of the covid-19 pandemic, despite the virus killing—according to The Economist’s best estimates—between 16m and 28m people. That would represent as much as a fifth of all deaths over the period.

Not much evidence, then, of a global demographic collapse. Nor is one coming soon. On current trends, the global population will reach 9bn in 2037 and peak at 10.4bn sometime between 2080 and 2100.

The spectre of overpopulation looks equally unthreatening. Even though the extra-billion milestones are passing with the same regularity, the global population growth rate is falling fast. In 1963 total population rose by 2.3%. In 2022 it grew by just 0.8%, the lowest rate since the 1950s.

How can growth be falling while the population rises steadily? The answer is that inertia and momentum matter hugely. The 1990s and 2000s were both decades of relatively fast population growth. The children born then are now reaching their child-bearing years. The number of adults aged between 18 and 49 was 2.2bn in 1987. It is 3.6bn now. But this bumper crop of potential parents seems to be choosing to have smaller families. The total fertility rate, which measures how many children a woman can expect to have in her lifetime, has plunged from 3.3 in 1990 to 2.3 now, only slightly above the “replacement rate”—at which the population stays constant—of about 2.1. Though the population continues to rise, the increase hardly seems uncontrolled.

As ever, the global average disguises big regional differences. About half the world’s projected population growth between 2022 and 2050 will occur in just eight countries. Five of those are in Africa (Congo, Egypt, Ethiopia, Nigeria and Tanzania). The other three are in Asia (India, Pakistan and the Philippines). India will probably overtake China as the world’s most populous country next year. Africa overtook the combined populations of Europe and North America this year (in 1980 it had just one-third of their total). That will have both environmental and social implications.

Start with the environmental consequences. People in India and Africa pollute far less than their counterparts in America, Europe or China. According to the UN, poor and lower-middle-income countries account for only a seventh of the world’s emissions of carbon dioxide. But 90% of population growth over the next decade will come from these less-polluting countries. Population growth can sometimes make environmental pressures worse: think of drought-stricken Somalia. But globally, there is little evidence that population growth, in and of itself, contributes as much to global warming as rising living standards do.

A similar point can be made about ageing societies. Two-thirds of the world’s people live in countries where the population is flattening or falling and where the total fertility rate is below the replacement level. In 61 mostly rich countries, the UN reckons populations will fall by 1% or more between now and 2050. Shrinking societies certainly face social problems: one big one is that there are proportionately fewer people of working age to provide for those who have retired, implying higher taxes or lower spending on the elderly.

Whether this constitutes a threat to civilisation is not so clear. On pessimistic estimates, a rich country such as Germany could have roughly the same population in 2100 as it had in 1950 (and that assumes its very low fertility does not change). That would be a big change from today, but it is not clear that it would be catastrophic. Over the next eight decades rising productivity could well mean that fewer workers are needed to support a given number of retired people, in the same way that fewer are needed to grow crops or pour steel than would have been 80 years ago, in 1942.

None of this is to deny that the world faces big problems of environmental degradation and political upheaval. But the 8bn mark does not portend demographic disaster. Instead, Earth’s population growth seems to be having something of a Goldilocks moment: neither too hot nor too cold. ■

Artificial Island Property Master Plans

Glass swimming pool on balcony, Forest V, Lahore

Man made archipelago, Arabian Gulf 


Architectural Design Team: Paul Rodgers, Lukasz Wawrzenczyk, Rita Pang, Inigo Arrotegui


Project is set within the Gulf of Arabia approximately 1km to 4.5km offshore from the Gulf of Arabia coast. 

Airport, marina, golf course and hotels in the master plan of a sea side city

Langkawi Artificial Island

Hatta Masterplan, Dubai

Li Auto Plant Changzhou, China