On Thursday (11 January 2018) evening, a seminar on "The Future of the Rickshaw: Mobility, Informal Labor and Aspirations of Modernity" was held at Civil Engineering Department as part of UAP CE SEMINAR SERIES.

Annemiek Prins, PhD Candidate at University of Aberdeen, United Kingdom, was the guest speaker.

In pursuit of her PhD degree, she carried out twelve months of ethnographic fieldwork in Dhaka, Bangladesh focusing on rickshaw pullers. She interviewed at several rickshaw garages to get an overall idea of their living condition and daily income. Through her field survey, it has been found that rickshaw service has been banned in many places without rehabilitating these informal laborers. She termed this act as "showy modernization" which has, in fact, concealed poverty but failed to address the main problem regarding traffic congestion.

The hour-long seminar ended in a Q&A session. Several faculties of Civil Engineering Department attended the seminar.