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To the Editor...
Mispronounced
Sir, Our news readers in the electronic media usually mispronounce Arabic words: AlZe-ria, munazat, Zedda, etc. Why does not the News Department have no advisor on telephone tap?
Abul M Ahmad Dhaka.
Cost of telephone
Sir, The declining middleclass may give up the hope of having a telephone at home. Halal earning cannot fork out 18,000 taka to install a phone.
The telephone development is too slow, and the state monopoly too rigid. Why is the government doing business?
Instead it should announce a scheme to get a line for around Tk 5,000. The middle-class is stuck between two patronising sectors — the rich and the poor. There is no path of golden mean! Hello! No response!
Abdul M Ahmad Dhaka.
Telephone bills and turtles
Sir, I have heard and also read of what is popularly known as 'snail’s pace'. Being a son of the soil of uiis country, I have, of course, also seen s-nails' in their thousands and the 'pace' at which they move. In fact, our whole country is full of them and their presence is particularly felt in all government and semi-government offices. I am fully acquainted with this phenomenon.
I have not. however, been aware of our having acquired a new phenomenon which would easily put even a poor snail to shame. The distance between the computerised billing office of the T&T Board and my ad-
dress given below would not be more than 3/4 miles and the slowest of 'snails' would, perhaps. be able to traverse this distance in one day or a maximum in two days and yet my telephone bill for April bearing the date of issue as 12 April and the last date of payment as 27 April reached me in the afternoon of 25 April.
This, undoubtedly, is a shining example of how our T&T Board has beaten a snail at least tenfold, thereby, perhaps, creating yet one more world record.
A Qayuum 69 Gulshan Avenue Dhaka 1212.
Trade diversification
Sir, The growth of Bangladesh's foreign exchange reserve to over $3.9 billion during 1995, and currently its perilous decline to below $200 million shows how fragile our foreign trade sector is. The country has high concentration of exportables into a few commodities and in their geographic destinations, ft is important to diversify our export basket and their destinations. Such high concentration can lead to export instability originating in the importing countries due to fluctuations in their demand and economic conditions and our reliance on a few commodities available for export. Geographic concentration often provides less economic benefit and much political control on our exports.
In dealing with the regional trading blocs, Bangladesh would be better-off by seeking parity status with countries within such groups like the ASEAN. Rather than tie up our thin pool of trained manpower in the procreation and sustenance of ever new trading blocs with Bangladesh being the
common denominator, seeking such parity would make Bangladesh to move to a more advantageous position by allowing it to deal on a bilateral and selective basis and at the same time to get the preferences and privileges of the group, based on mutuality with greater control on the outcome.
As we find a plethora of commodities in the list of preferred items of SAPTA but only a few really matter to Bangladesh and its adverse trade balance with the major partner in the group, not to speak of the NTBs (non-tariff barriers) which Bangladesh has to address with each member within the group.
M Ahmed
9/25 Sir Syed Road Mohammadpur, Dhaka
Poor coin design
Sir, The one-taka and the 5-taka coins cannot be identified easily, during blind-test (feel, not see), in poor light, or with weak eye sight.
The shapes should have more contrast (too many sides of the polygon); the numbers T and '5‘are not prominent (lost with other details); the diameters are too close, and the difference in weight and thickness are marginal. The approving body may be more technically alert.
A Husnatn Dhaka.
J S(chool) squabbles
Sir, This refers to the JS Tidbits column which was published in your esteemed dally on June 11, 1997.
Although I think I can spare time to watch the JS session on BTV. I have never got round to actually sitting down to doing that. After reading the column.
I don't think I shall ever sit down to watch the mudslinging that goes on in our parliamentary discussions. Imagine wasting valuable time and money arguing over who has got an Indian shawl draped around his neck or not and discussing what people like to wear.
This is supposed to be the Budget Session. This seems more like a school squabble. To telecast live discussions of these arguments is to defer BTV's revenues that it might have earned through advertisements or by other means. It would probably be much more informative to watch an indepth CNN/BBC report.
Yassir Husain Uttara, Dhaka
BTV news fails once again!
Sir. The viewers switched on their televisions timely on 16 June to watch the Magurchhara gas field disaster in 8 O'clock news. Much to our surprised, what we watched were a very few repeated shots of blazing inferno. The man who shot with Betacom pal system was understood to have worked quite perfunctorily. The close up shot of fire balls and the single long shot over the burnt out railway track not only needed elaboration from various angles but also the details of other shots.
And there was no re-porter/producer reporting from the spot! Well, the accident took place around 1.45 am on June 14. There should have been on-the-spot reporting on 15 June. But it is unbelievable that there came only spoken news! To add more surprise, the source was BSS and its line up was after the middle of the news! And in the final show that night It was still second In the line up after the usual parliament news. We very much expected a senior
news producer would be seen reporting from the spot giving details tersely, with the visuals, about the cause of the accident, damage, aftermath, measures taken, imminent impacts etc. Nothing of that sort came out. The newscaster with unmoved expression read out the news of gas field disaster which was more elaborately carried by all news papers of that day. The visual was not only inadequate but also ended abruptly. And the voice it was not by any BTV's reporter or its Moul-vibazar correspondent. Then why keeping the correspondents? The newscaster quoted only the energy minister — what he told The parliament that day about the disaster whereas it could have been the last added para.
Yes. we cry out in disbelief, grumbling and exasperation — who drafted the gas disaster story? Who was the assigned reporter? Is there any shortage of manpower/reporter? For us ft is hard to believe.
Meanwhile we the viewers turned to satellite TV as usual for the Magurchhara gas disaster. But how many times will there be recurrence of this callousness?
Salahuddin
36/F. Azimpur Estate Dhaka 1205
Fiction vs fact
Sir. 1 was going through your Kiges in the literary section of ay 31. In the Bridge on the Train. I read how the author traveled on Assam mail from Rajbari to Calcutta. I was simply amazed because in those days. Assam mail never ran between Ralbari and Calcutta. Assam mail ran between Sealdah (Calcutta) and Parbatlpur with stoppages at Barrackpur. Ranaghat, Poradah. Ishwardi, Natore, Santhahar and Par-batipur In the broad gauge.
I realised it was a fiction and I was mixing facts with it. In fiction, I suppose, the author, in this figment of imagination, has the right to fly from Dhaka to anywhere on by anything. Still I feel that facts and fiction should not be mixed up.
A Citizen Dhaka
Clinton's good work
Sir, US President Bill Clinton has taken a right decision by offering a legislation to ban human cloning which is morally unacceptable and can destroy the mankind's gene pool.
Meanwhile, an international Monitoring Cell under the auspices of the UN should be formed to monitor and check research on somatic cell nuclear transfer towards creating a human child in different Garts of the world including the S.
M Zahidul Haque BAI, Sher-e-Bangla Nagar. Dhaka-1207.
"Significant Verdict"
Sir. This refers to the editorial under the above caption published in your esteemed daily on May 26, 1997. You have got the dates all mixed up.
The present regime is in power in Iran for the last 18 years and not 28 years as you have mentioned Again, the Iranian people have risen against the royal Pahlavi despotism during 1978-79 and not in 1969 I. in fact, had the opportunity to be in Iran during the whole period of their great revolution and proudly recollect the moment on the 11 February 1979 when Imam Khomeini landed in Tehran thereby heralding the dawn of a new era for that country.
Iqram A Rahman 1/11 Lalmatia Block-A Dhaka-1207