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TO THE EDITOR
Theft of artefacts
In all humility 1 express my sincere appreciation of the resignation tendered by Mr. Ayub Qadri shouldering the responsibility and lapses of his ministry. His ministry was responsible for a decision which was against the popular sentiment. But what about the actual guilt of the theft which took place at a place where all the authorities/departments were under one separate ministry.
Everybody, including the everalert media, is maintaining silence on the swindling atZIA.
Aziz Ran a On e-mail
It is regrettable that two of our national treasures--the Vishnu idols— are lost due to the negligence of the government. Despite immense risks and nation-wide opposition by conscious people, the government took the most undemocratic decision to send the artefacts to France.
- Thus, it has no right to blame anybody else except itself. Mr. Ayub
Qadri’s resignation is regrettable not simply because he felt guilty about what happened, but equally because, by doing so, he was trying to hide from public wrath.
Nobody is above the law and no one has the right to play with the nation's wealth--whoever he may be.
Rafi Ahmed, D.Phil (Oxford) Professor of History
Elmira College and Cornell University
"Make internet a commodity"
Thank you very much for your interview-based article on the "High In ternet Tariff" in December 17,2007 on the Star Business Page. This issue needs mass awareness and campaign to make Internet a commodity for the public and businesses in Bangladesh. Internet is the most important component of this highly interconnected world. It is like blessings from the Almighty to countries like us, which can catalyze our developments and export growth in this
global knowledge economy. As the BASIS President aptly put “High Internet Pricing is seriously holding back our ICT exports growth in Bangladesh.”
We simply cannot remain competitive in the international market with 15 to 20 times higher in Bandwidth pricing than the neighbouring countries. We must make that lower than at least India to attract foreign businesses.
We have built up a reputation in global market for IT and ITES business. We only need govt, patronisation in the infrastructure now like cheap and affordable quality Internet, IT park etc to grab the ready business and boost up our economy like the RMG sector did before.
Mimed Ashrafuzzaman Executive Director, Graphic Associates International Limited
A good example
This is the first time that we found someone in power in Bangladesh taking responsibility for something they were directly or indirectly
accountable for.
Mr. Qadri’s resignation shows the dignity, honour, integrity and accountability that a nation has the right to expect from the leaders. Compare this to the examples set by the ministers in the administrations of the past thirty-six years!
1 guess there is still hope for Bangladesh.
R.Majumder, USA
lob quota
At the moment 55% of the government jobs are reserved on quota which is very inconvenient for the general students. After working so hard, they finish their education to get a job. As the government jobs are more reliable, every student tries his best to get one. But a lot of them fail to get it because of the 55% quota system. On the other hand, the government is also losing the service of the best students. Moreover, some quarters are resorting to corruption by manipulating the quota system.
I am not against the quota system but 55% quota is in no way reasonable. It should not be more than 10%.
I urge the government to look into the matter.
Sagar Ahmed
Dhaka University US moving towards "selective isolationism"?
I am writing with reference Post Breakfast article: "Will the EU ever have a common foreign policy?" by Muhammad Zamir (Dec. 20).
Ambassador Zamir may be right about European Union's striving for an independent foreign policy to counter US unilateralism. But the United States may be on the way to abandoning its unilateral foreign policy towards what some analysts call "selective isolationism." As the Bush administration is winding down, most presidential contenders, both Democratic and Republican, are calling for end of US interventionism in the world. They do not want to withdraw from the international scene in the same way the United States did after the First World War, but they want to leave many issues for other countries to resolve themselves.
Most polls show foreign policy is no longer the pressing issue for most voters. Economy, health care, environment and education are the top issues. Even war against terror is way down the list. About Iraq, most Americans think that it was wrong to go to war and America should not sacrifice the lives of its soldiers in a war that is increasingly becoming a civil war among Shias and Sunnis. Both Democratic frontrunners, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama want phased withdrawal of US troops from Iraq while third-placed former Senator Edwards want to pull them out at once. About Iran, despite sabre-rattling by George W. Bush, most candidates don't want any war and they want Europe, Russia and China to press Iran to end its uranium enrichment programme. In short, the United States is asking the European Union to fill the vacuum to be created by America's "selective" withdrawal from the world affairs.
The biggest international concern of the United States and the EU is the growing economic clout of China. China has replaced Japan as America's second greatest trading partner and China has replaced the United States as EU's biggest trading partner. Both the U.S. and EU are running staggering trade deficits with China. The European Union has recently imposed trade restriction on China and although the United States has not done so, the pressure within America to restrict China's trade surplus is growing. Here both the U.S. and the EU have a common ground. But they have failed to act in concert.
The EU is no longer concerned about the U.S. unilateralism, but the European concerns about China's growing economic clout and its dependence on an increasingly assertive Russia next-door may be making the EU to ask for more U.S. role in European affairs. The global situation may have changed dramatically. It may not be long before the EU will be asking America to get involved in European affairs.
Mahmood Elahi
Iris Street, Ottawa, Canada
Bali conference and related issues
I have read an article on Bali conference. It says that the southern part of Bangladesh will be submerged under water by 2040. That's no more a fiction. Apocalypses happened before in planet earth.
If we really think of "one planet theory and new world order", then this question should have been raised in Bali conference. Surprisingly, nobody has raised the issue so far. Bangladesh will suffer not because of our fault. So the countries responsible for the impending disaster should share the burden of relocating people from the affected areas.
Dr Aziz ul Karim
General Practitioner, Victoria Australia
Taking care of forests “Hello! My name is Dipterocarpus " reads a sign attached to a sapling, one of many such signs installed by the Institute of Forestry at Chittagong University (IFCU) as part of local tree familiarisation initiative under a United Nations FAO project during 1986-1990. Sure enough, crowds gathered around the trees and saplings adorned with newly installed rectangular name tags, beaming with curiosity, or at times bursting into unrelenting giggles and laughter. The project was a success opined Dr. Zabella, a visiting FAO professor that targeted nonforestry community to 'familiarize tree species on campus.
Unlike other city-centric universities of the country, Chittagong University (CU) campus sits on a sprawling 1600-acre landscape, dotted with low-elevation hills interspersed with a few valleys that locals used for rice cultivation. Barring about a third of the area in roads and buildings, most hills were barren' and filled with sage grass and weeds lacking any aesthetic or economic value up until mid 1980's. The picture was about to change as IFCU undertook a massive plantation drive on those denuded hills and along roadways. Within a few short years, once barren and pale faced campus was smiling under a lush green veil. Residents became happy with the new look of campus; the roadside trees provided the much need shade from sultry summer heat and occasional escapades for many. People noticed deer in the evening, flocks of birds flying in and out the newly established plantations. Aside from initial cheers and kudos, these juvenile plantations provided field laboratory for IFCU faculty and its students.
Last year, I visited my alma mater IFCU and decided to take a stroll along a few plantations I treaded many times some 20 years ago. This time, however, I felt some sort ofsadness inside me. The lush green appeared over bearing; most plantations still carry the same densities as they did at the time of their planting, and are yet to receive the much needed thinning required for proper growth. Many are filled with competing vegetations that perhaps can be accommodated on a few experi mental ones for biodiversity studies; certainly not all plantations should have been in such a pitiful state of growth.
I had asked IFCU faculties as to why the campus plantations have not had any intervention of some sort all these years. To my surprise, I learned that many non-forestry residents fear of losing biodiversity due to management activities, a belief with very little scientific basis, if not outright outrageous. The denser the better goes the belief on campus- one student told me. I was flabbergasted and sad at the same time because an apparently dense looking plantation with a lot of undergrowth does not necessarily indicate higher level of biodiversity, scientifically speaking, than one receiving periodic thinning with dispersed openings to promote healthy undergrowth as well as wildlife habitat. One must realise that forest management is not about preservation; rather it is the art and science of calculated manipulation of forests towards a desired end.
The CU authorities can take a few concrete steps:
1. Declare Chittagong University forest as the national research forest to help attract researchers from both home and abroad.
2. Allow IFCU the custodianship of forest management decisions.
3. Build one or two forest canopy walkways to serve as wildlife observatory, study pollution effects as well as to serve as eco-tourism
4. Initiate research and development partnership with private sector.
My passion for forestry took me to Canada to pursue higher studies and later to employments with a Fortune300 company and a state forestry agency in the United States. As I occasionally venture into the woods of the US pacific North West, I can still hear the giggle and loud comment of my fellow students - “Hello! My name is Dipterocarpus".
There is money to be made, nonetheless, from these plantations through carefully designed management techniques. Suggestions mentioned above are intended to evoke discussions among academics and researches as well as concerned citizens. I am sure there are ample qualified souls in our country to help design the necessary steps. Abu M. Nurullah, Ph.D.
Forest Management Specialist Washington State Department of Natural Resources
Commuters in trouble
Our main transports are vehicles like bus, rickshaw, cab etc. Though some metropolitan areas have recently been cleared of rickshaw to avoid traffic jam, but still there
are a large number of rickshaws in the streets.
We cannot pass a single day without traffic jam. Rickshawpullers demand an extra rent ofTk 5-10 due to the unending price spiral. Sometimes it leads to a quarrel between travellers and pullers. A few days ago I read the shocking news of the killing of a rickshaw-puller in Dhaka for demanding an extraTk 1.
My question is, are the common people responsible for the price hike? We need to have a system to bring back order to the transport sector.
MishuKutubi
Dept, of English, UUC
Mobile phone and driving
It has become a common sight in our roads - -people driving with one hand in the steering of the car and the other one holding a mobile phone which is without any doubt a dangerous thing to do while you are driving, especially in the busy roads of Dhaka. It has become a trend these days to-drive your car while using mobile phones.
Mobile phone use while driving is common but controversial. Using a cellular telephone while operating a motor vehicle increases the risk of accident Because of this, many governments have made use of cell phone while driving illegal and I think our government should also take this matter very seriously or else many people will lose their precious lives. Many countries have been very strict in this matter and are looking forward to becoming even stricter. In the UK a new law to increase the penalty for using a hand-held phone while driving has came into force on 27 February 2007. The current fine of £30 has been increased to £60 along with three penalty points on one's licence.
I think Bangladesh cannot be United Kingdom but at least we can take some measures, so that we can reduce the use of mobile phone while driving by fining them a hefty amount.
By being strict, we can reduce the use of mobile phone and thus save many lives.
Munna Hasib
Language Teacher Dhanmondi, Dhaka Knowledge-based transport planning The truism “history repeats itself” applies to those who ignore the lessons of the past and insist on forging ahead, committing the same mistakes, and experiencing the same results. It is hoped that city authorities will learn from the mistakes of the Mirpur Road demonstration project and try to assign due importance to fuel-free transport. Given the small modal share of automobiles and the many problems they cause, there should be no provision for creating more auto-only roads within urban areas, and all existing auto-only roads should be converted into mixed-use roads by properly integrating public transit, FET and fuel-dependent transport (FDT). If the Mirpur Road project is indeed a demonstrationin a sense an experimentthen clearly the lessons should be carefully learned before proceeding with transport planning. In this case, the lessons are startlingly clear, and point in a very different direction from that of current
transport planning in Dhaka.
Again, while developing a mass transit system for a mega city like Dhaka, efforts should be made to develop an affordable system for the majority under a well-integrated multi-modal system. It would be rather unfortunate to develop a mass transit system mainly as a profit making enterprise.
Given the complexity of the transport planning process and the fact that transport and urban planning have significant effects on the economic and overall wellbeing of a city's residents, it is important to adopt a knowledge-based and participatory approach involving all segments of the stakeholders. Such a participatory planning process should take into account not only technical issues about feasibility and efficiency, but also the likely effects of policies on mobility, accessibility, and quality of life for all those affected, with a particular focus on vulnerable groups, those most likelyto be left out of, and highly affected by, the existing planning process.
It is important to have an open discussion to explore the scientific validity of the further extensions of fuel-free transport bans and the justification of the building of mass transit mainly as a profit-making enterprise under the perspectives of sustainable transport development in Dhaka city.
We, the proponents of sustainable transport development, would be very keen to discuss the issues at lengths at any place in Dhaka between December 29, 2007 to January 21, 2008. Active participation of DTCB, DCC, police, high officials from the Ministry of Communications, academics from universities, representatives from the development partners and members of the STT advisory committee would be highly appreciated.
Mahabubul Bari
Transport Specialist UK