How JDS can help me and what Ill do upon return from Japan _____________________________________________________________________________________

With an exposure to a plethora of green technologies and spectacular innovations that Japan has pioneered and mastered so far, JDS programme will enable me to acquire momentum, gain awareness and substantially broaden my insight to stay vigilant to my countrys environmental concerns. Concretely, it will allow me to learn about good water-governance with energy implications - the ultimate key to socially just and ecologically sustainable development in Bangladesh. Having gained an authoritative voice in water debates, I hope to assume a pivotal role amongst the actors who shape global environmental policies. Japans groundbreaking role in floating Asia-Pacific Water Forum to rally for political impetus, to showcase regional success stories and to call for forging financial frameworks, and its passionate urge for a cool earth partnership in both G-8 and World Economic Forum in 2008 have profoundly fascinated me to opt for an interdisciplinary, full-spectrum research in integrated river basin management. Perennially, conflict over access to fresh water has remained as one of the most dominant issues in the environment-security dialectic worldwide. As a cardinal irritant, lack of water has, in an ever traumatic way, shaped the contours of Bangladeshs foreign relations with her immediate neighbourhood. Bangladesh has an enormous stake in Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna (GBM) river basin managed and developed as an indivisible whole. Water scarcity and water-borne disasters in Bangladesh have further been accentuated by sheer climatic anomalies. With virtual explosion of multilateral environmental negotiations, never before has my country felt to buttress our competence in the ongoing climate change maneuvers intertwined with other arcane areas. Diplomacy and environment therefore go hand in hand in Bangladeshs refurbished foreign policy. More than ever before, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Bangladesh feels the dire necessity of creating a skilled array of leaders in hydro-diplomacy who are expected to thrive in devising stratagems to ensure water security. In intimate cooperation with other co-riparian countries, I would like to champion novel endeavours for building capacity and raising investments in water sector at national and regional level and beyond. I would also explore alternative approaches to water-related deliberative dialogues, negotiations and hitherto furtive decision-dynamics in the GBM basin - a region so richly endowed with massive hydro-power potential - but paradoxically the least developed international watercourse. In JDS programme, a closer look at the underlying constraints of Bangladeshs fragile hydrophysiography will not only resound my assertion to arrest unprecedented magnitude of current deterioration, but also equip me with real time state-of-the-art technologies for harnessing water as an engine for our visible growth and development. Upon return, while spearheading my countrys environmental interests abroad from the springboard of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Id certainly be disseminating my Japanese experience to a variety of actors and entities I am supposed to work with: government agencies, international fora and private stakeholders alike. Shouldered with the onus of safeguarding Bangladeshs environmental priorities, I have the conviction that, JDS programme, a venue

for excellence and articulation, would definitely accelerate my efficiency in the service of the impoverished nation.