& çâÌæÚUæð´ ·¤è ¥ôÚU Îð¹Ùæ ÁæÚUè ÚU¹ð´ ¥ÍæüÌ ¥ÂÙð ÜÿØ ÂÚU ŠØæÙ ÚU¹ð´Ð ãæÚU Ù ×æÙð´, €UØô´ç·¤ ·¤æ× ·¤ÚUÙð âð ¥æÂ·¤ô ©gðàØ ·¤è Âýæç# ãôÌè ãñ ¥õÚU ÁèßÙ ·¤æ ¹æÜèÂÙ ÎêÚU ãôÌæ ãñÐ ÖÜð ãè ÁèßÙ ×ð´ ç·¤ÌÙè Öè ·¤çÆÙæ§ü €UØô´ Ù ¥æ°, çÁ™ææâæ ¥õÚU ©ˆâæã ÕÙæ° ÚU¹ð´Ð ŠØæÙ ÚU¹ð´, ÜÿØ ã×ðàææ ¥æÂ·Ô¤ Âæâ ãôÌð ãñ´ çÁ‹ãð´ ÂæÙð ·Ô¤ çÜ° ÂýØæâ ¥æÂ ·¤Öè Öè àæéM¤ ·¤ÚU â·¤Ìð ãñ´Ð

To the Editor
Studentsand politics
I am writing today with a heavy heart about a concern equally shared by many of the ex DU students, after seeing so much of tension, violence and agitation being spread out across the colleges and universities of my beloved country.
More precisely, the environment on Dhaka University campus does not seem to be very much open and accommodating as it is supposed to be for many dissenting voices. Living in the 21st century globalised world, it is indeed very' sad to watch that some of the so called student leaders of the ruling party will decide the fate of the thousands of students.
It breaks my heart, being a son of a freedom fighter, to see the kind of obliteration of my fellow countrymen to others only because they do not like them or believe in something different. Forcing students, who have rightful domicile, to leave the residential halls, barring them to attend lessons or beating some of them inhumanly while claiming to be part of the progressive block and ideology is nothing but self-denial and life of oblivion.
Bangladesh is a country' where its constitution had guaranteed its citizens full democratic right of freedom of expression, association, speech, equality, fairness and justice, irrespective of their belief, sex. and race Nonetheless, in practice, not only the University Administration had failed to facilitate those rights guaranteed by the constitution but also the elected government has failed to do anything.
It has always been the criteria to judge gdod governance on the basis of dealing with the minority view or opposition or the individuals not agreed with their opinion.
Where are those ideals that we were taught by our teachers? Why has our university
administration failed so miserably to uphold those century old principles?
Let me conclude with the example of British Nationalist Party and National Front of France led by Jean-Marie Le Pen which preach the extreme of the Ideas based on white supremacy in their respective countries; however, they were/are not banned even after repeated calls to do so. That is democracy.
I would hope and expect that under your leadership every student would be provided equal status, irrespective of their alleged political involvement with any ideology or blocks. In the absence of such identical treatment not only education would be hampered but also the image of the ’ Oxford of the East’, would be tarnished further.
Fuad Abdullah
London. UK
Depoliticise public institutions
The new popular regime has one basic undertaking: to depoliticise the established public institutions. We all have bitter experience of the adverse and negative cumulative effects.
This task deserves top priority, [and not the hurry to construct another bridge over the Ganges]. This policy announcement is awaited with eagerness.
The students' unions are also in turmoil--handling change' in a subjective manner. How the labour unions and the CBAs are going to be neutralised? These are backdoor development projects under each changing political regime. Why the diplomatic silence? Stop lobbying in the corridors of power.
The MPs should not be hidden godfathers in the districts, and at the lower levels of local governance. The divisional and district HQs are not developing. The idea of turning the divisions into provinces should be thor-
oughly debated in the JS [decentralise (he overburdened Dhaka metro- the chain of kickbacks is longer in centralised regimes].
Start with neutralising (he civil service. The ministers are discreetly silent on the existence of political syndicates operating in the background in every nook and cranny of the dry-cleaned society. Talk sensibly--not to get popular.
There is no network in existence in the current political culture-letters are never acknowledged or later responded to |as in the British era]. The problem is that the vast majority of the voters (especially in the rural areas] have no holding power to press home their grievances ( no independent local gover nance].
Don’t talk down, arrogantly--it repels; while humility attracts. Neutral governance invites re-election!
A Mawaz Dhaka
Inaccuracy
/\n English language daily recently published an arti-cle "Utopia in the Constitution of Bangladesh” on its editorial page. It was written by a retired judge. The article appears prima-facie to be informative, among other things. Congratulations!
The writer quoted -Mahbubul Haq as "late chief of UNDP” - at one place in the concluding paragraph of his article. The information provided by him to all concerned about Mahbubul Haq -vide the article - is not fully correct. Late Mahbub ul Haq, I mean Dr. Mahbub ul Haq, the father of UNDP's Human Development Report was not “late chief of UNDP” but a special adviser to two of the UNDP administrators.
Let us work towards ensuring and promoting - in a sustainable manner - the correct information at the right time and place-for all.
Dr.M.S.Haq
On e-mail
Political leader’s misdeed
Recently a local political leader of Barabagh area under Mirpur-2 has set up a “kitchen market” at the entrance road of a residential area known as "Popular I lousing-1". People from the adjacent areas use Popular Housing-1 approach road to go to Monipur School to drop (heir children. Popular Housing-1 is located at Barabagh under Mirpur-2 and this is a very busy connecting road between Monipur and Barabagh At the starting point of the approach road the local leader has set up the kitchen market occupying the city corporation road. The market starts at 7:00am and continues up to 1:00pm. Different types of traders gather here and set their shops occupying almost 70 80% of the road to do their trading. During this time it becomes extremely difficult for us to go to school The shopkeepers and some unruly boys tease the school girls while they pass through this road.
We are therefore, soliciting help from the City Corporation and other departments to close this market for ensuring a better residential environment for the residents of the Popular I lousing-1 area as well as for ensuring a better and safe road communication for school children and guardians.
A resident
EastMonipur Mirpur-2, Dhaka
Vice chancellors
A vice chancellor is the academic and administrative CEO of a university. To understand the great importance of the post one must know what the principal function of a university is. Like all other educational institutions a university also propagates knowledge. But a university is different from all of them for the unique role it plays. A university creates knowledge, others do not. Therefore, a vice chancellor himself must have an outstanding academic career. He mUst have the academic excellence to create knowledge by carrying out research work himself in his own field of knowledge. He must also be able to provide leadership and guidance to other research scholars under him. The universally accepted yardstick to measure such academic competence is the number of publications he publishes per year in internationally reputed professional journals.
The next qualification required of a vice chancellor is his administrative ability to efficiently handle matters related to general, financial and academic administration. All professors with academic excellence cannot make good vice chancellors. But all vice chancellors have to be academicians perse.
In a society like ours, for a head of an educational or religious institution it is not enough to be firm and fair. S/he must also look firm and fair. S/he cannot be a political activist or conduct himself like a trade union leader. S/he cannot allow herself/himself to be carried away by any kind of sycophancy. Otherwise, he is not acceptable to all his students and colleagues who will naturally be holding different political, social and religious ideologies. To be so, a vice chancellor should be a person who is well known for his/her qualities of head and heart. In our country all our public universities have had chronic problems of misman-
agement, lack of discipline and, most important of all, intellectual bankruptcy. Because, most of the time wrong persons were made vice chancellors purely on political considerations. Almost every time competence was the casualty.
One may argue that it may not be possible to get vice chancellors with (he above mentioned qualities. To them 1 humbly suggest to look for the CV/ bio data of the vice chancellors of the universities in our neighbouring country India. It is available on their websites.
To the best of our knowledge UGC, or any other authority, has never audited the academic works of our public universities. Taxpayers of this poor country have never been told how many professional papers to create knowledge have been published by different depart-ments/faculties of a public university in a year. We never knew how many such papers have been published by an individual before he was made a vice chancellor or a pro vice chancellor.
It is good that after a long unusual break of two years we now have an elected national parliament.
May I request the members of parliament to find out through the ministry of education the number of professional publications our public universities have had every year in the last 25 years.
I would also request the appointing authorities to let the people know about the academic career and the number of professional publications to their credit of the persons who have just been appointed as vice chancellor and pro vice chancellor of Dhaka University, my alma mater.
Brig Gen (Retd) Syed Ashrafuzzaman
Mohakhali DOHS, Dhaka
BNP and Zia
The BNP is clamouring as to why the name of the late Ziaur Rahman was not cited in the president's speech in the inauguration of the ninth parliament. They are very unhappy and hurt. Our reaction is 'why the hell?' Historically, Ziaur Rahman is not at par with the other national leaders of Bangladesh. His contribution towards the political movements, mass upsurge, emancipation, freedom of Bengali nation, liberation war etc. is not at all comparable to the contributions of Bangabandhu, Sher-e-Bangla, Moulana Bhashani, Shaheed Suhrawardy, Syed Nazrul Islam, Tajuddin Ahmed, Monsur AH, Kamruzzaman. Gen.
Osmani etc. His name can not be taken at the same breath and with the same respect and honour as the above mentioned ones. Contribution of Ziaur Rahman is comparable with that of Shafiullah , Khaled Musharraf and other sector commanders.
We know the circumstances of how Ziaur Rahman was vaulted into limelight by Belal Mohammad and a few dedicated workers of Chittagong Radio Station. It was an act of God. Ziaur Rahman kept on cashing that 'good will' till the end. He entered into our political arena through the back door and was the supreme beneficiary of the killing of the founder of nation, Bangabandhu. Seventeen
coups were reportedly staged during his tenure of less than six years and he was killed in the last one. It is true that he was the founder of the BNP whose undemocratic constitution vests all the power to a single person- the chairman of the party.
If the name of Ziaur Rahman requires to be included in the president's speech, why should HM Ershad be deprived? Factually, Ershad's contribution towards economic development of Bangladesh is more than that of Ziaur Rahman.
In our opinion, Ziaur Rahman does not merit or deserve a place among the 'bigones'.
Dr.SNMamoon
On e-mail
Neglected students Thanks are due to Syed Badrul Ahsan for speaking up, in no uncertain terms, about the plight of students in 'On dormitories and schools' (DS 4.2.09). The problem goes even wider.
1 am trying to help a young student from one of the tribal minorities through university - not least by helping the sister he is living with who only has her salary from a beauty parlour. He earns a modest Tk 1,000 a month for one, early hour session at a health club, 7 days a week. 1 make that 33 taka an hour. No one can say he is not trying...
The finals of his bachelor's degree, at a government university, are in May and he informs me that, from now until then, he will be receiving no teaching at all! That is something only the Honours candidates will have. He has to do all his study, from the books he has bought, at home.
What is happening in the universities of this dear country? How can final year students cope with no teaching at all?
How can society make demands on the behaviour of the students, unless it also makes demands on the behaviour of the university teachers and the authorities that pay them - as well as any outfit that is abusing them?
It is surely not surprising if some young people, rightly or wrongly, feel that, if no one cares about them - and what is being dished up to them, in the name of education - then why should they care about anyone, or anything?
This is not merely a disciplinary issue but a caring one. Parents, teachers and society have no right to discipline the young unless we make it obvious, in deeds as well as words, that we only care about their BEHAVIOUR because we careaboutTHEM!
Once the God-given connection between love and discipline is broken, no relationshipworks.
Angela Robinson (Rev Mrs) Headmistress, Girls' Section Bangladesh International Tutorial
Gulshan, Dhaka
Ensure non-partisan bureaucracy
The Sheikh Hasina-led government has started reshuffling the civil administration with a view to translating the pledged “Digital Bangladesh” into reality but in the same way that every political government, after holding the state power and authority, forthwith does. The government at hand is restructuring the administration by promoting the persons dedicated to the party to the higher ranks on the basis of political consideration, rather than seniority that contradicts democratic principles. The civil bureaucracy administered by inexperienced and partisan personnel can neither produce the desired results, nor serve the gross national interest. Reasonably, it should be run by the experienced, competent and efficient personnel. Therefore, the government should prioritise seniority and meritocracy, irrespective of party loyalty, as the principles of promotion in the bureaucracy and should shun the path repeatedly followed by the past political governments to set a good example before other political parties.
We would like to remind the government that they are committed to the people to build a "Digital Bangladesh” that indispensably requires emphasis on meritocracy. Alamin Al Azad
Public Administration, DU
JS stalemate
Although the outgoing Speaker Mr. Jamiruddin Sircar has proved his bipartisan role once again by putting the last nail on the board, I think it is not a big deal for the party in power to negotiate with the opposition by providing them one more seat in the front row of parliament. It will rather strengthen their ynagp further to pubfic.
People saw the stepmotherly behaviour of the former Speaker. Of course, the then opposition, now in power, was not supposed to do that. People from their respective constituencies wanted them in parliament to talk for them. As they did not do that, they had to face lots of criticisms. But the same tradition cannot continue anymore. Both the parties should be more responsive and respectful of each other.
I therefore urge the party in power to reconsider the demand of the Opposition by providing them one or if possible two more seats at the front row without spending any more valuable time. They should remember that people are very much conscious now and they are observing each and every single activity of the government and opposition. So please do not make any further delay in negotiating with the opposition.
Md. Sirajul Islam Molla KanthalBagan, Dhaka
Shab-e-Barat
Since Shab-e-Barat is not mentioned in the Holy Quran and since its status is disputed by the ulema groups, so we should not observe the day as a govt, holiday.
Let the devoted people offer nafal prayers at night but a holiday is not justified. Mohammed Alauddin Green Road, Dhaka