Round table on safety of passenger vessels

We would like to draw your attention to certain points of discussion, which were necessary and was not highlighted enough in the above round table.

1. Budget Allocation in the Reverrine Sector.

The discussion, which was inaugurated by The Daily Star Editor on the budget allocation, somehow seems to be not taken seriously enough or not properly understood. If we look into the budget allocation in this sector, we will find the previous governments as well as the present government seems not to take this sector as seriously as one should. This sector has been neglected for long and is still done so.

A substantial amount of revenue is earned by the government from this sector that offers one of the safest mode of transportation in context to Bangladesh.

2. Next Round Table

It was agreed by all present (including the Minister) at the meeting that we will again sit within three months to review how much we all together have achieved and performed on safety and other issues are concerned.

Finally may we also suggest that you could include one or two passengers who are frequent travellers on the inland vessels to join this roundtable and hear them out.

Habibul Alam, Bir Pratik

Sr. Vice Chairman

Bangladesh Oil Tankers Owners' Association

The PM is back

The PM is home. I think she'll have her hands full with the debacle BNP is making of its rule. It's a good thing her knees are okay, she's going to be on her feet a lot to try and save her party from almost certain public loathing.

Did any of her ministers mention to

her that in her absence the law and order drive has denigrated to random killings by paramilitary troops and harassment of all those except the BNP protected criminals?

Cervantes, Dhaka

Appreciate honest journalism

The democratic government of Bangladesh should have the courage to appreciate honest journalism and reward those who excel in this field. The press is more like a watchdog of democracy. And in our country its role is more crucial due to the socio-political situation. The press speaks for the people here. Therefore we must recognise the enormous responsibility the journalists undertake.

I believe the act of recognition of honest and efficient journalism would be of immense benefit to the nation in protecting democratic rights of the citizens.

Khairul Anam, Dhaka

Government antics

I watch with dismay as this government (one that I had actually welcomed in October 2001) seems more desperately incompetent and downright intolerable by the day.

During eight months in office, this government has lurched from one policy fudge and inconsistency to another. Ministers routinely shoot their mouths off with crass inanities while the hottest of hot button issues of the last election-- the dismal, country-wide law and order situation-- is where this government, despite its self-righteous pledges during the elections, has bombed spectacularly. Pervasive and spiralling lawlessness (extortion, homicides, terrorism, religious bigotry and mindless violence of all sorts across the country) reported by national papers is testament to the government's abject failures in reining in domestic terrorism and alleviating mounting public insecurity and disillusionment.

Additionally, no meaningful initiative

is forthcoming to address the urgency of vital reforms of a hopelessly floundering education system, a dismal health sector, the moribund debate on gas export, the intolerably inefficient power sector, the precipitous inflationary market trends etc. Instead, government mandarins and their minions choose window-dressing---from the banning of polythene bags, the stringent laws on motor vehicles' usage to the recent high farce of banning some cable channels by an inexplicable state fiat and so on and on.

Also, haughty govt. officials, in a comical fit of pique, recently banned the mostly over-the-top, infantile FEER report depicting Bangladesh as an emerging Islamic extrem-ist/terrorist haven. And this coming from the same party, remember, that when in opposition, triumphantly cheered and trashed the then government when Transparency International cavalierly declared Bangladesh to be perceived as the most corrupt country

in the world.

When a party that accedes office with the sort of hefty mandate as this BNP-led government had done, and then proceeds to misgovern the country and betray the public's aspirations on this scale, for eight months on the trot, five years can seem like a ruinously long time to suffer thus and allow the country to rush headlong to the ditch.

Sajjad Husain

Dhaka

United voice from

London

Thousands of people of different faiths and racial background assembled at Hyde Part in London and walked peacefully to Trafalgar Square on 18th of May to insist on the British Government to put pressure on Israel to withdraw all armed forces as well as the Zionist settlement from the occupied Palestinian area.

They hate the killings and oppres-

sion perpetrated by the Govt. of Ariel Sharon in the name the Zionist campaign. In connection with the unrest and untold sufferings of the Palestinian people the huge crowd of Trafalgar Square squarely and evenly blame President George Bush and Ariel Sharon for all the mayhem in Palestine and call both of them 'terrorist'. They term the former as a 'crazy' person for his giving an appellation like 'man of peace' to the latter who is, they say, devoid of any respect for human life let alone peace.

President Bush has to prove that he is with the peace loving people of the world; he has to establish that he is not a 'terrorist' and his country does not have any linkage with any 'rogue state' i.e.

If President Bush fails to do so then he and his country will lose all moral grounds to lead the present world when our globe is still gifted with many people who have the sincere yearning to protest against oppression regardless the religious identity

of the victims, as this demonstration bears witness.

Mahmud

Portsmouth, UK

Jubo Dal leader and DCC Commissioners The government's crime drive is such a joke. Groups of policemen stand by various intersections, the same spot everyday, to try and apprehend criminals who must be blind if they haven't seen them from a mile away. The only good thing that's come out of this is that sergeants now have those nice new motorcycles.

In the meantime with certain DCC commissioners hiding at home at least the streets will be safer. Both from their depredations as well as stray bullets guided by God's wish according to the Home Minister.

Thor, Dhaka