This book provides valuable insights on issues pertaining to current macroeconomic policy debates and challenges in Bangladesh. It evaluates various macroeconomic policies and reflects on a future direction in terms of four central themes: (i) Macroeconomic Policy, Growth and Poverty; (ii) Monetary and Fiscal Policy; (iii) International Trade and Finance; and (iv) Finance and Growth. Given its scope, the book will serve as a useful resource for academics and macroeconomic practitioners whose work involves developing countries.

This book assesses the digital Bangladesh initiative of the government through different lenses: supply-side and demand-side perspectives and policy diffusions. The Bangladesh government has been pursuing a big-push policy for digitalization, namely the "Digital Bangladesh Vision," since 2009 as a shifting development strategy to leapfrog into the next level of development with the leverage of demographic dividend. However, historical anecdotes, dictated policy, international success stories and other related issues could lead to a rethinking on ICT-based development strategy. The content of the book draws on the author's long-standing research works on ICTs and economic growth in Bangladesh.

In the present investigation an attempt was made to develop a large scale production of planting materials of two Japanese hybrid cultivars of muskmelon through micropropagation. Seeds of two popular Japanese muskmelon cultivars were surface sterilized and cultured on semisolid MS medium supplemented with different concentrations of GA3. Seed germination was the highest when MS medium was supplemented with 0.2 mg/l GA3. In the present work, two explants of two muskmelon cultivars viz. Sweet Gold and Midori excised from axenic seedlings were cultured for shoot proliferation. Nodal segments showed better shoot proliferation than shoot tip explants. The maximum efficiency of shoot multiplication was recorded in MS medium supplemented with 2.0 mg/l BA. Maximum number and length of shoots were achieved in case of nodal explants when cultured on MS medium augmented with 2.0 mg/l BA. The highest percentage of in vitro grown cultured shoots to develop roots was obtained when they were cultured in MS rooting medium containing 0.5 mg/l NAA for two cultivars. Successfully acclimatized plantlets were transplanted in to field and 80% plantlets survived.

Ninety F1 hybrids obtained by diallel cross involving ten tomato genotypes displayed wide range of variation and heterosis for ten characters studied. Heritability was the highest for no. of fruit/cluster, fruits/plant, fruit yield/plant and no. of seeds/fruit. The highest genetic advance and genetic advance expressed as percentage were recorded for the characters no. of fruits/plant and no. of seeds/fruit. The genetic advance, coefficient of variability and heritability indicated that selection of superior parents based on these characters might be effective in hybridization programme to develop high performing tomato hybrids. Combining ability analysis showed that yield and yield component characters were found to be controlled by both additive and non-additive genes. Good combiner genotypes Japany, Epoch, Namdahri, Ratan and Legend possessed mostly dominant genes for all the characters. For QTL analysis F2 population was developed from a cross between two tomato genotypes Dynasagor and Bari-4. Five QTLs were identified with fruit yield/plant. Of five, three QTLs were contributed by the parent Dynasagor and two were contributed by parent Bari-4.

The results show that vitiligo are quite prevalent and constitute a major psychological health problem in Bangladesh. The occurrence of diabetes mellitus, liver function test, renal function test, hypertension related to lipid profile and others biochemical test like uric acid, hemoglobin and specially performed T3, T4, TSH for thyroid diseases were more frequent among the patients. Particularly thyroid diseases and insulin dependent diabetes mellitus had a great interrelation with vitiligo. Significant change in serum total protein among the patients of age group below 10 and 11-20 years was observed. No major changes were observed for ALT, AST, ALP, TC, HDL, TG and LDL. Disease incidence was the highest 44% among 11-20 years age group. In the case of sex incidence the female patients were 56%; on the other hand male recorded 44%. The students were the highest percentage (48%) suffering with vitiligo. The lesion of the vitiligo patients was seen 85% on the exposed parts of the body. Family history was the most important and 32% patients told that they had prior family history. Eighty percent patients expressed that most of the persons avoid them for marital relationship.

An efficient protocol for somatic embryogenesis and subsequent plant regeneration was developed for sugarcane variety Isd-16 using leaf sheath explants of 3, 6 and 12-months-old field grown plants. Explants from 6-month-old plant showed the best response and produced highest percentage of calli on MS + 3.0 mg/l 2,4-D. L-proline 25mg/l significantly enhanced somatic embryogenesis. The embryos germinated well on half-strength MS and developed into plantlets. Somatic embryo derived plants under field condition showed considerable variation in morphological, agronomical and biochemical characters. For genetic transformation the calli were co-cultivated with A. tumefaciens strain LBA4404 harboring a binary plasmid pCAMBIA1303 containing hpt (hygromycin phosphotransferase) gene as a selectable marker and a -glucuronidase (gus) reporter gene in the T-DNA region. The transient expression of gus in hygromycin resistant calli and regenerated plants was confirmed by GUS flurometric assay. PCR analysis of genomic DNA from regenerated plants revealed that the hpt gene was integrated in the transgenic plants."

Micropropagation from shoot tips of one-month-old suckers of six banana cultivars and subsequent field evaluation for commercial exploitation, were studied. Among the various growth regulators, the medium with 5 mg/l BAP was found to be the most effective for micropropagation. Among the six banana cultivars, Sabari (AAB genome) was the most responsive genotype to micropropagation. Micropropagated plants of all cultivars showed significantly superior performances for yield and yield contributing characters over sucker-derived plants. In the second part induction of callus from the male flowers and subsequent somatic embryogenesis were tested. Among the different media formulations, the medium fortified with 4 mg/l 2,4-D + 1 mg/l each of IAA, NAA and biotin was found to be the most effective growth regulator formulation for callus induction and growth. Among the five cultivars male flowers of Sabari were found to show the highest response to callus induction and subsequent embryo formation. Somatic embryo derived plants of all banana cultivars at maturity exhibited wide range of variation in yield and yield contributing characters.

The six varieties namely, BSH-2, IBON/97, BB-1, BB-2, KARAN-19 and KARAN-163 were treated with single stress at crown root initiation stage, single stress at heading stage, double stresses, one at crown root initiation and the other at heading stage with a control (without stress). Yield and yield components and the growth factors were affected by all soil moisture treatments. Correlation analysis of grain yield and yield contributing characters indicates a high positive correlation coefficient with 1000-grain weight, harvest index, tiller number/plant, fertile tiller number/plant and the total dry organic matter. Water stress both at crown root initiation and at heading stage was the most critical than at other stages. However, in between these two, stress at the heading stage was the highest. The variety BSH-2 was the most susceptible whereas; KARAN-163 was the least susceptible one. Out of the six cultivars of, KARAN-163 gave very good grain yield under all soil moisture stresses. KARAN-19 might be suitable for cultivation in unfavorable environments like non-irrigated condition for its higher grain yield.

Different sugar types were evaluated on microtuberization efficiencies of potato and sucrose was considered to be the best sugar type and 8% sucrose in media was optimized. The media with 5 uM Jasmonic acid resulted the highest number and maximum yield of microtubers than the other growth regulators used and high nitrate content media increased microtuber size. Application of 2 mg/L AgNO3 and propionic acid added media favored the in vitro microtubers formation. Microtuberization in liquid media followed by incubation at 8 h photoperiod promoted the number and fresh weight of microtubers than the other physical supports (agar based, liquid plus cotton and liquid plus sponge) and incubation (0, 8 and 16 h). The larger microtubers (0.5-0.6 cm diameter) showed significantly higher survival capacity than smaller ones (0.3-0.4 cm dia). The dormancy termination and sprouting efficiencies of microtubers were noted best in media with GA3 (100 ppm) treatment, large size of microtubers and dark incubation. The media with 5 uM Jasmonic acid showed maximum accumulation of total sugar, reducing sugar and starch. The vitamin C content of microtubers decreased with the extended storage periods.

The first part of this investigation deals with induction of callus and regeneration of haploid plants from anther cultures of rice. Z2 containing 2,4-D 0.5 mg/l+NAA 2.5 mg/l+KIN 0.5 mg/l induced highest 6.36% callus in BRRI dhan-29. Medium containing 4.0% sucrose gave the highest 7.5% callus formation as well as highest green plants regeneration. Pretreatment of cold shock is beneficial for callus induction and regeneration of haploid plants. Chromosomes counting was made from root tips and observed 69.0% haploids (n=12) in BRRI dhan-29. In the second part effect of three basal media MS, N6 and LS supplemented with four growth regulator treatments on the response of induction of callus from three different sources of explants like mature seed scutella, roots and immature embryos of four rice genotypes was studied. The highest callus formation 88.8% was recorded in Taipei-309 from mature seed scutella. Calli were subcultured with tryptophan in MS+2,4-D(1.0 & 1.5 mg/l)+NAA 0.5 mg/l for somatic embryogenesis. Regeneration response of embryogenic calli was tested on RM1, RM2 and RM3 and highest 79.5% calli formed shoots in BRRI dhan-29 from immature embryos in RM3.

The objective of the present investigation was to establish in vitro culture and plant regeneration methods from leaf base and rhizome bud explants of Z. officinale. The MS medium with 1.0 mg/l 2, 4-D proved to be the best for callus induction from leaf base explants. Shoot regeneration was achieved after subculturing the calli in different media formulation and 8.0 mg/l BA with 0.2 mg/l 2, 4-D was found to be the best for multiple shoot regeneration from callus through organogenesis. MS medium supplemented with 5.0 mg/l NAA was the best formulation for successful culture establishment as well as shoot proliferation from rhizome bud explant. Multiple shoot proliferation was noticed at 4th subculture in medium with 5.0 mg/l NAA and shoot proliferation was increased with the increased number of subculture. Activated charcoal (AC) enhanced multiple shoot proliferation and the optimum pH level for shoot formation was 5.5 - 6.0 in the medium. MS + 4.0 mg/l NAA proved to be the best for root induction. Rooted shoots (plantlets) were gradually acclimatized and successfully established in polybag soil.

Different aspects of micropropagation through meristem culture for the production of virus indexed source plants, callus induction followed by subsequent plant regeneration, in vitro tuberization and field evaluation of the in vitro regenerated plants were studied on four commercial cultivars of potato (Solanum tuberosum L.) viz., Diamant, Cardinal, Shilbilati and Lalpakri. Rooted plantlets of four potato cultivars obtained directly through meristem culture and indirectly via callus phase were gradually acclimatized and successfully established in the field. Visual evaluation of the morphological traits of the meristem-derived plants showed that all plants were normal and free from virus diseases. Substantial yield increase was observed from meristem-derived plants over their source plants. Somaclonal variation among different plants derived from callus was observed. The present investigation also addressed in vitro tuberization in potato. The potato plants derived from microtubers of four varieties under field condition was similar to look as that of normal seed propagated plants.

Four epiphytic orchids viz., Dendrobium aphyllum, Vanda roxburghii, Rhynchostylis retusa, Luisia teretifolia collected from four places (Khulna, Cox's Bazar, Sylhet and Mymensingh) showed significant variation in different morphological and reproductive characters. The seeds of different species upon culture on to growth regulator free media were able to germinate asymbiotically and subsequent development into plantlet. Mature explants such as shoot tips, axilliary buds, leaf segments, flower stalk segments and root tips were also cultured in various types of culture media formulations. Morphogenetic differentiation, tissue growth and rate of success of the cultured explants in resuming new growth were found to vary with orchid species, culture media and explant types. among the four orchid taxa V. roxburghii was found to be the most responsive for in vitro culture followed by D. aphyllum, R. retusa and L. teretifolia. The plantlets thus developed through in vitro culture were acclimated and transferred into in vivo condition and were finally grown to maturity.

The present investigation was carried out with an aim to studying some physio-morphological characters of wheat associated with yield under different soil moisture stress. The soil moisture stress as a whole reduced the yield and yield contributing characters of wheat. Correlation analysis of grain yield with yield attributing characters indicated a high positive correlation coefficient with total dry matter, crop growth rate, leaf number/plant, harvest index, spikelet number/spike and 1000 kernel weight. Growth analysis showed that both crown root initiation and heading stages were the critical and care is needed at these stages for better crop yield. However, heading stage was more critical. Stress study clearly showed that the varieties differed from one another in their tolerance to stress and among the varieties studied, Gaurab was comparatively least susceptible one while Aghrani was the highest highest susceptible. Phenotypic regression analysis also showed that Gaurab had unit regression slope with low stability value for grain yield/plant, fertile tiller number and 1000 kernel weight indicating its stability to varying soil moisture treatments.