Onslaughts on Ahmadiyya community
I thank Mr. Shamsher Chowdhury for his well written opinion regarding the onslaughts on Ahmadiyya community in the past few years. What is annoying is that, the story of persecution has not ended yet. There was another ultimatum by the Khatme Nabuwat people to attack an Ahmadiyya mosque in Dhanikhola Village in Trishal, Mymensingh. Hope the authorities take note of it in advance.
Imran
Dhanmandi, Dhaka
Fake voters!
A BNP leader in an interview with a newspaper disclosed that NDI, an organisation led by Jimmy Carter, found 64 lakh fake voters on the voter list. These "voters" were deliberately included in the list as part of a ploy to win the election. “What is going to happen to these fake voters if a new voter list is not prepared?” he asked. We are surprised with this discovery when the whole nation is observing the voter list drama staged by the CEC. As per his advice, the government has
recently employed two more election commissioners to increase his strength in the Commission in order to fulfill his so called dream of preparing a fresh voter list and hold a fair election. Already, we have seen how the preparation of voter list is going on, with enumerators mostly cadres and leaders of the four-party government.
People want to see a fair voter list as well as a free and fair election. The CEC should act for the people, and not for a party.
Mallik Akram Hossain
The University of Hong Kong Hong Kong
BTRC steps
One gentleman wrote in his letter in a Bengali daily..."The British could not take in over 200 years what the mobile phone companies have taken from our country in the last few years". The number of mobile phone subscribers in our country is 6 to 8 million. This number is never correct since the number is determined by the number of SIMs sold and the fact is that many subscribers have more than one SIM and of more than one brand. So the mobile phone companies are earning thousands of crores
every year. And to do this their marketing department is finding new tricks to drive people crazy with their colourful adds and mesmerising promotions.
Very recently, this marketing affair has turned into a fierce competition among the mobile phone operators. The operators most probably have thought that their number of subscribers will not grow very fast in the near future, so they are trying to boost sale as much as possible. We welcome the BTRC steps and do wish to see strict control on the mobile phone operators.
One important point for the government--all the mobile operators have a huge overseas share which means the lion share of their income is going out of the country.
Md Bashar Farhad
Mirpur-11, Dhaka
IDB loan
The news item published in a Bangla daily on 25th January 2006 drew my attention. The report was on the interest rate of Islamic Development Bank (IDB)'. From our point of view, IDB's loan is not only low interest, its terms and conditions are trouble-free and straightforward.
Its hardest condition is to utilise the money without any corruption. IDB is eager to offer Bangladesh (BD) this sort of soft loan of more than Tk five thousand crore yearly. On 24/01/06, FBCCI in a seminar hosted by IDB in Dhaka Sheraton Hotel complained that two public sector banks have been assigned to distribute the IDB funds, since IDB has no branch in Bangladesh. These banks do not disclose the benefits and opportunities of IDB and discourage people showing interest about IDB. IDB wants to open its branch in BD but without a significant amount of loan it could not be done.
Mohd. Masud Rana
Islamic Development Bank, Jeddah
Saudi Arabia
Fresh voter list
The row over the new voter list has made us perplexed, we do not understand why the Awami League is opposing the preparation of it. It seems that the AL will oppose everything the government does, stage agitation programmes, give call for hartal, and make life miserable for common people.
We think a fresh voter list is
essential because in the last five years the situation has changed, many people have become eligible to cast votes, many had died, quite a number of people have left the country and settled elsewhere and there are many who have returned. A great number of citizens have also moved to different cities so if a new voter list is not prepared, it would be difficult for them to cast votes.
Therefore, we think the opposition political parties should consider all these and refrain from making an issue of the new voter list. People have become tired of their non-co-operation in every field, we hope they will understand it and act accordingly.
Nur Jahan
Chittagong
Road accidents
Road accidents are nowadays as common as political processions in the country. Every day eight to ten people die because of road accidents on the highways.
Reckless driving and inadequate policing on the highways are responsible for the accidents. Contractor turned drivers, mostly illiterate and holding fake driving licence, make the highways a living hell. They indulge in compe-
tition on the highways by dangerously overtaking each other. In addition to that, they stop whenever they want to take passengers. The absence of well-equipped and adequate number of highway police and the inefficiency of the existing small number of highway police also contribute to the ever-rising number of casualties in road accidents.
In spite of a large number of people dying and being maimed in accidents, the government seems to take little notice of it. The laws concerning punishment to irresponsible drivers are also inadequate. Civil society organisations like "Nirapad Sarak Chai" should put more pressure on the government to come up with meaningful steps to reduce the number of accidents.
Mohibul
Dhaka
Party before country On February 1, you came up with a very interesting headline. It read, "Forget internal feuds, work for boat: Hasina". I would like to make a small suggestion here: Forget internal feuds and forget about the symbol of boat as well. Work for Bangladesh!
According to that article, Sheikh
Hasina has told her party men that they should vote for the symbol of boat even if an useless person gets the nomination! Interesting. Sheikh Hasina, it seems, doesn't feel the slightest bit of discomfort in displaying openly her greed for power. She puts the interest of her party before the interest of the country. No wonder the governments of Bangladesh never get anything done.
Azad Miah
Oldham, UK
Happiest nation in the world
My letter is a reflection in the wake of a recent report by London School of Economics that found Bangladeshis as the happiest people on Earth. Although it is quite unimaginable to measure something intangible like "Happiness", however economists in LSE tried to do so by measuring a level of satisfaction related to ability of personal spending. I think the term "Happiness" has more comprehensive meaning than defined by the economists at LSE. I should rather call Bangladeshis are the most self -content people in the world. Although self-contentment is a major factor in bringing about
happiness in one's life, however that is not the only factor leading towards happiness. A self-content person may not be happy due to myriad of external socio-economic factors and some of them even may not be in his or her control. I have seen some of my deshi friends being quite elated over this notion of "the most happiest nation" thing. But I really don't comprehend how in a country- where peoples' civil liberties are frequently being hijacked, corruption is rampant in almost all strata of society and wealth is accumulated by a few (mostly by exploitation of poor and common mass)- people are really happy. Claiming oneself "happy" amid all these odds and disparities does not reflect anything but either ignorance or self-denial. This is indeed a wrong signal to the others if we be complacent with what we have and do not struggle to change our condition (for better). I don't want to portray myself as a pessimistic, rather I warn myself and my other fellow countrymen not to be too much complacent with this very paradoxical notion of " Happiest Nation in the World".
Zafar Hadi
California, USA