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To the Editor
Ban on faulty vehicles
A year or two back the government made much hue and cry and said that there would be no noise pollution and no emission of polluted smoke from the old vehicles. People obeyed it, more or less, by colouring and denting their old vehicles and went smoothly in front of the law enforcers.
Two years after, the streets are full of polluted smoke and dilapidated cars, which make mockery of the authority by roaming on the street with all cylinders on.
This is the present situation on the street and yet it is happening in front of the law enforcers. I believe something will be done to save the citizens from this unavoidable harassment . Let us breathe freely and live in the city!
Bhasib
Dhaka
Channelling the private way...
Private channels and package
programmes are common jargons to our media people. From mancho (theatre stage) we have developed performers of high calibre.
We should always appreciate the fact that the theatre movement has contributed towards our cultural splendour. The movement was initiated after the independence but possibly the flow was there since long. We have seen the transformation ourselves.
I am not a connoisseur of theatre but can understand we have walked a long way on our very own to achieve a unique status. What a rewarding act it is! Very recently, a private TV channel was celebrating her anniversary and fortunately I was able to watch a programme which showed review of the programmes aired by them over the year.
I was overwhelmed by the quality of some of the programmes. Given the right ingredients, we can produce original and better subject matters.
We can live and enjoy life with national and private channels! Right now we need spirited leaders.
Ashfaque Ahmed
Dhaka
Syllabus -- English medium schools
As a guardian I am familiar with the syllabus of English medium schools (EMS) at home and abroad. In Dhaka, my son and children of relatives have read or are reading in such schools. During occasional coaching sessions at home, I get the opportunity to browse through the textbooks prescribed for different subjects in several classes.
What concerns me is the heavy accent on Western history, culture, literature, and geography, and paucity of local writers on local and foreign topics. There should be more chapters on Asia and writers from Asia, especially South East Asia.
We are producing Western-oriented children, who later become very keen for further studies in the
West. The spirit of nationalism and culture is eroded, or the base is not strong enough. Later many of these youth do not wish to return to their homeland, as the anchoring is missing or weak.
Our education policy planners have to go deeper into reviewing the guidelines for syllabi followed in the local EMSs, and revise it accordingly. The ministry may encourage a series of seminars on different aspects of English-medium education in Bangladesh, to draw up a modular national education Code for the EMS.
Md. Abd
Dhaka
By-election
The recently held by-election of Dhaka-10 constituency broke all the past records of rigging and false casting of votes. The government has failed completely to hold the election in a free, fair, and neutral atmosphere. And perhaps the present government has to pay the price for the massive irregularities which really symbolise the death of democracy. While most of the organisations
and observers believe that there were rigging and false votes, the government is alone in singing its own rhymes that the election was held in a free and fair manner. How can people disbelieve what they have watched or read in TV channels and newspapers after the election? Though the candidate of the four party alliance won the election, the alliance has lost the credibility which the people of Bangladesh had in it during the general elections of 2001.Now the government's path has become full of thorns.
There is no doubt that Mr. Falu won the by-election, but at the cost of his party's image. It was a bad bargain, of course, on the part of the government.
Wajahat Anwar
Mirpur, Dhaka
Listen , politicians
While talking to a reporter, the former president, HM Ershad said, "Without Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman there would have been no Bangladesh ".
For this statement, the nation would always remember him
(Ershad).
I personally never supported him (Ershad), but now for this statement I will say he is a big hearted politician.
I would urge other politicians to speak the truth and reach a consensus on the history of our liberation war. They must rise above the level of petty party politics in the greater interest of the nation .
S Zaman Khan
Pennsylvania, USA
A strange country!
Kazi Faruque's organization Proshika worked well on poverty alleviation and social developments through decades. Proshika had been active against fundamentalist powers that oppose the spread of liberal modernization and consciousness that the NGOs advocate. NGOs create awareness against dowry and early marriages among people in the rural areas and they are against all kinds of discriminations in the name of religion. I guess good things and good people do not last long in this country. That's why Kazi Faruque is behind the bars today. And the
people, who once used to praise the man, are now accusing him of being a corrupt seditionist. Is it really a crime to support a political party in a liberal country like Bangladesh? And why wasn't he accused when the Awami League government was in power? Is it because he supported that party, and the present government is harassing him not because he has done something wrong, but because of the fact that he supported their rival? It's really a strange country.
Kh. Asef Safa Kabir upal
Lalmatia
Zakir Hossain Road
Dhaka
The vilest form of brutality
Of late, human brutality has, perhaps, for the first time reached its height around the Iraqi captives in Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. A picture recently published in one of the dailies of the country shows that ferocious dogs were allowed to bite a wretched, helpless captive who lay almost dead and naked on the ground. Blood was oozing from
different parts of his body bitten by the dogs. An American soldier with a dog beside him was looking at the dying captive with a smiling face . At this, a question may certainly arise. Where is humanity and where is Geneva Convention, though we very often talk of these things? A man who is a captive is really a helpless human being. Anything may be imposed on him. This is true about the American soldiers as well.
In fact, those who are posted to kill in the war field, are no more than ordinary men. They are appointed and used in war by the ruling class or that section of people who are in power. To exercise power, the rulers very often impose their selfish whims on common people. Most wars or misanthropic acts, so far we know, are directly or indirectly linked with those whims of a few.
Perhaps, the time has come to reassess the definition of humanity. Nobody actually knows why the war started in Iraq in the first place.
Md. Nurul Amin
Uttara, Dhaka