Is this transparency?

Sir, Bangladesh Biman published an advertisement for procurement of one DC 10-30 and one A310-300 aircraft on dry lease which appeared in your daily on 26 April. In the said advertisement it was mentioned that the year of manufacture must not be earlier than 1980. But to our utter surprise correction has been published in your issue of 28 April stating that "Year of manufacture must not be earlier than Bangladesh Financial year 1979-1980". The aviation Industry practiced throughout the world consider the calendar year as year of manufacture and not the financial year. This unusual correction of the year of manufacture bears the testimony beyond iota of doubt that Bangladesh Biman has already finalised the lease of aircraft of 1979 aviation and this particular advertisement is just to regularise the lease of aircraft already finalised by the highest authority of Biman.

; The government speaks of transparency in all the procurement deals. Is this transparency?

' Will the authority concerned undertake an investigation and let people know the reason of such an unusual step taken by Biman in changing the age old industry practice of considering ; calendar year as year of manufacture and Introducing a new nomenclature of "Financial year as year of manufacture".

Ashfaq Ahmed.

Baridhara Dhaka

Reliable BTV news!

Sir, I had an opportunity to watch the news on the Ekushey Television (ETV) broadcast at 7:50 PM on May 2. 2000. The news ended at 8:00 PM and the BTV news started immediately. The headline of both ETV and BTV was about the launch wreckage in the river Meghna near Nabinagar. Brahmanbaria. The ETV news reported the death of about 28 people and 100 people being missing and recovery of 5 dead bodies. The ETV correspondent sent this message live through television conversation with the newsreader. While the BTV news, though started approximately two minutes later, reported that no dead body was found till then!

This is Indeed a glaring example of the authenticity of BTV news!

S. M. Enayetur Raheem Mirpur, Dhaka

“Queen’s Day”

| Sir. On 30 April 2000. DS issued a Special | Supplement on the occasion of National Day of 1 the Netherlands, namely "Queen’s Day". The ] cover page contains two messages. Both these I messages presumably contain a special message each for Bangladesh.

. । The first one is written by His Excellency Ambassador Dick C.B den Haas. The principal i and only theme that does not escape the reader . is that the respected Ambassador draws our ' attention to two issues Including transship-ments and port facilities extended by the Dutch government to “its considerably larger neighbour Germany...a giant eastern neighbour" | despite the loss of hundreds of thousands of Its j civilians killed by Germany during the Second J World War rather than guided by sentiments.

; I The decision was based on the "consideration . । that rehabilitation of the Dutch economy । depended to a large extent on the reconstruction

, f of Germany as an industrial nation." Without , telling us directly what ls,goo(| ^r|uf| In-terms ol ' । opening up our transshipments and pdrt faclll-| ties to our neigbouring countries, the : (Ambassador has subtly drew the analogy for the

attention of our policy makers, making no comparison between the two countries, whatsoever. Diplomacy puts such a limit.

The other message came from the Dutch-Bangla Chamber of Commerce and Industry. It tells a story of the present Queen not trying to change the national day and hence, “celebrating the day. with others, in honour of her predecessor." The message goes on to say "...This is an admirable example demonstrating the spirit of sacrifice and magnanimity." Her Majesty conceived the idea of sacrificing as a better proposition than diverting Queen's Day to be celebrated on her own birthday.

Does this story sound familiar?

Syed Waliullah

Dhaka

Undesirable positions of Bangladesh

Sir. It is really ironical that though we have failed to secure commendable places in the world body, we are not lagging behind in those, which are not praise worthy, in fact we are in the top most positions in many such fields.

According to reports published in different newspapers— Dhaka has been cited as the most polluted city in the world, our police department is referred as the most corrupted, males of our country stand third in torturing wives, the country also secure third positiori in road accidents and in making adulterated food and medicine we must be in the top position. Our people have shown expertise in making counterfeit products and probably no one can beat us in inventing ways to deceive people and grab their valuables.

The picture is very sad and despairing. Our people do not lack in intelligence. And how we must have had prospered only if we utilised this Intelligence for good purpose! God knows if sanity will ever prevail upon us and the people of Bangladesh will strive to emerge as a proud nation.

Nur Jahan Chittagong

Registration of domestic-help personnel

Sir. There is a partial solution to one area of domestic violence, namely the mistreatment of domestic helpers (DS editorial, April 23). by introducing compulsory registration of all such personnel, before and after employment (Do not employ without ID).

The employment exchange department concerned may open sub offices in the prominent localities (Dhanmandi. Mirpur. Mohammadpur, Azimpur. etc) for easy access to registration. ID cards (on token payment to the contractors) may be Issued to such workers for tracing them later (there are many theft/pilferage cases). Once the system Is in place. It will work after the teething troubles: generating a valuable database for further projects at the poverty level). The Initial is the greatest stumbling block.

This Issue came up several times before the authorities during the last one or two decades, but no progress has been made so far due to lack of political and bureaucratic will. The human rights NGOs do not seem to be deeply interested on this issue. The politicians in power are too busy with their subjective politics, and the parliament is limping. Balance at the top ,can stabilise the mass below. Micro issues have macro effects.

AZ

Dhaka

Views expressed In this column are the writers' own. The Editor may or may not subscribe to those views. The Editor reserves the right to decide whlfh letters should be published.