& çâÌæÚUæð´ ·¤è ¥ôÚU Îð¹Ùæ ÁæÚUè ÚU¹ð´ ¥ÍæüÌ ¥ÂÙð ÜÿØ ÂÚU ŠØæÙ ÚU¹ð´Ð ãæÚU Ù ×æÙð´, €UØô´ç·¤ ·¤æ× ·¤ÚUÙð âð ¥æÂ·¤ô ©gðàØ ·¤è Âýæç# ãôÌè ãñ ¥õÚU ÁèßÙ ·¤æ ¹æÜèÂÙ ÎêÚU ãôÌæ ãñÐ ÖÜð ãè ÁèßÙ ×ð´ ç·¤ÌÙè Öè ·¤çÆÙæ§ü €UØô´ Ù ¥æ°, çÁ™ææâæ ¥õÚU ©ˆâæã ÕÙæ° ÚU¹ð´Ð ŠØæÙ ÚU¹ð´, ÜÿØ ã×ðàææ ¥æÂ·Ô¤ Âæâ ãôÌð ãñ´ çÁ‹ãð´ ÂæÙð ·Ô¤ çÜ° ÂýØæâ ¥æÂ ·¤Öè Öè àæéM¤ ·¤ÚU â·¤Ìð ãñ´Ð

TO THE EDITOR
Peace-loving liars
The big question everyone asking -if Saddam doesn't use any WMD- is that if he has WMD as US claims, then why isn't he using them? Looking at the amount of lies we have been bombarded with since the war began, you can be certain that if no WMD is found, some will be planted. They will probably release some useless pictures of Saddam's old weapon factories as their "evidence" and instead of saying we have found some WMD, they will cleverly say we have found plants, machinery, equipment and evidence which suggest that Saddam was "very close" to developing WMD. On CNN and BBC, these claims will then be analysed and verified by some clever think tanks! Therefore justifying their illegal invasion of a sovereign country and the killing of Iraqi civilians in their pre-emptive war of oil.
This war has nothing to do with WMD. Hans Blix repeatedly said before and again on 26 March, (BBC 2, Newsnight) that he has not found any WMD in any of those sites suggested by the US and UK.
For now, just wait and see these "civilised" tyrants reveal their lies, which are all rather predictable.
Azad Miah
Oldham, UK
Oil for Food Programme The UN Security Council has revived a modified Oil for Food programme. This is indeed welcome from humanitarian point of view. But there is an invasion going on now without Security Council approval. This is what terminated the Oil for Food in the first place. Food rations reached the entire population of Iraq without fail since the start of the Programme mainly due to the uniquely efficient and thorough management of distribution chain established and run by the government of Iraq. That system and facility is still intact. Any kind of humanitarian supply, whether it is under the UN Oil for Food or through other channel cannot be delivered to the needy without return to conditions before the war. Thus the responsibility of the Council is first to stop the war before it revives the Oil for Food programme.
Second, the UN programme relied entirely on the extensive food distribution (nearly 45000) outlets established and run by the government of Iraq which have maintained efficient and equitable food ration delivery to each family in Iraq during the five years of the Oil for Food programme; the UN did only the observation task through UN observers. So the revival must rely on the government distribution system, as the UN by itself does not have the resources or capability to take on the task of delivering food rations. It is also clear that the Security Council, whose primary task is for international peace and security to stop the war and restore conditions that existed before the war if it wants to resume the Oil for Food programme in Iraq. Question is why the Council did not force the issue? If the Council cannot stop the ongoing war, the onus of providing humanitarian aid to the distressed people of Iraq will be upon the invading and occupying force who have created the situation. The only way that can be done is by vacating their aggression immediately and unconditionally.
Hussain, Dhaka
Encroachment on Banani Lake
I have with interest followed your reports on the continuous encroachments on the lakes in Gulshan. I am as an expatriate living in a rented house (no. 11) on road 35 in Gulshan 2, having a very spectacular and nice view over Banani Lake, which I enjoy every day. Lately, I have noticed that a corrugated iron fence just in front of me has been moved into the lake with the undoubted intend to fill-up with soil from the present bank to the fence, to extend a road already made on ground from filling-up the lake.
The house I am living in, will then have a large apartment building in front, only serviced by a narrow road taken from the lake. I understand that the ground in front of me is already created from filling the lake, hence a salami method is apparently taken effectively into use.
I have also understood from your paper that a path round the lakes should be created in order to make
these unique areas into a recreation resort, which I believe would be of high value for a city like Dhaka in the years to come.
Since I am leaving shortly, the state of affairs is not my personal interest, however, for future generations of Bangladeshis this could be a part of a tropical city with a unique setting, in stead of being turned into a stone desert and a breeding ground for frustrated unsatisfied youth seen in many cities all over the world. Paul Erik Schmidt, Dhaka
HSC exam and grading system
We're going to be the first HSC exam batch whose result will be out in the grading system. Before introducing a new system the correct decisions regarding it and modifications should be made long before the batch starts its class. We got a modified grading system a few weeks ago. But the authorities seemed to have overlooked the fact that it is simply impossible to get 80+ in Bangla in order to get an A+. It is hard to get even a 70+ in Bangla. Most students are targeting 60+ marks
in Bangla which obviously doesn't give us a chance for better grades. But the students who will appear in next year's exam will obviously get a chance to get GPA 5 out of 5 for the inclusion of optional subject grade. But why should not we get a chance for that simply because the authorities didn't make the right decisions at the right time? Since many students didn't include any optional subject in their study course, it'll be better if we've a modified grade for subjects concerning literature. Don't tell us its too late for that because if you could introduce us to the grading system four days before our SSC exam you can do this too.
We also had to suffer a lot for the new study course of English. It is a better one than the previous course, but again there has been much delay and confusion about the final form of question. They changed the question style so many times that we weren't able to appear in exams with questions made in that format during our tutelage in college. You just have to look up the test paper which provides questions of different colleges for the truth. And what is this thing about rearrange that had to have 14 marks in it? The sentences can be arranged in a lot of meaningful ways.
Not to mention the fact too that students under different boards appear in exams for different question papers. I'd really like to know what is the justification behind this rule? It isn't that students from each board do not compete for the same higher education institutions where their HSC and SSC exam marks also matter. And why is it that we always have to visualise the awful number difference of a student who stood first in CTG board and someone from Rajshahi Board. Does the quality of students in different boards vary so much?
Kainat, Dhaka
"Forgotten facts"
The system of equity espoused by Mr. Joe Minx ("Forgotten Facts", March 16) is shocking. Assuming he has a conscience, can he truly justify the death of the inhabitants of Hiroshima and Nagasaki as an acceptable means to justify an end? The memorial in the city of Hiroshima has the last dying word of
a six-year-old girl, etched under the bell which is rung every year at the time the explosion occurred. The word was: "water". Was her death, justified to you, Mr Minx as a fitting way to bring an end to the war? During the bombing in Afghanistan between October 2001 and March 2002, over 3000 Afghans were killed (www.cursor.org/stories/civilian_dea ths.htm) are their deaths a fitting revenge for you too, Mr. Minx?
To the majority of Americans, war is something that happens on CNN in faraway lands with funny names. War is something that is played in the form of video games and computer games. In a land that has not experienced war on its soil for many generations, it is easy therefore to look at war in a dispassionate manner, and revert to it in the blink of an eye. War becomes an event that is dispensed through sound bytes and technicalities such as "collateral damage", and "regretful but necessary."
Shomit Chowdhury
Dhanmondi, Dhaka