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TO THE EDITOR
Shocking
On July 21 a caption published on page 14 hurt every citizen like me— 'Maid tortured to death for Tk 10’ . According to the report, a forest officer and his wife tortured to death their maid because she had stolen Tk 10.
Such barbaric treatment of the poor housemaids must come to an end.
A citizen
Uttara, Dhaka
Fletcher Alumni
Club
According to a news item published recently in some of our national English language dailies, a committee of the Fletcher Club, an association of the Harvard-Fletcher alumni was formed with Ms. Sarwar Sultana, a former high UN-UNDP official as President and Mr. M.I.H. Javed, a Senior Assistant Secretary in the Ministry of
Foreign Affairs, Bangladesh as the Secretary.
The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy and the Harvard Law School are the oldest and most prestigious educational institutions in the United States which are dedicated to graduate studies in International Relations and Law respectively. It is sincerely expected that the Fletcher Club members under the able leadership of its President Sarwar Sultana will contribute significantly to the development of Bangladesh and in strengthening scholastic communication between Fletcher School and the
Harvard Law.
Professor M Zahidul Haque Chairman
Defrartment of Agricultural Extension & Information System, SAU, Dhaka
National weakness? The historic and deep-rooted corrosive hate and mistrust between the AL and the BNP is destroying the nation. This unfortunate trend is causing the nation far more losses in all respect than all the loss, misuse and wastes that happens due to misdeeds or corruption! Their viewpoints, on even simple issues, are not just poles (but many poles, if one can say so) apart! What is mid-day for one, is mid-night for the other. One wonders why this childish attitude persists; day in and day out! Is it possibly rooted in the history of the formation of these parties? It is for the readers to comprehend and try to analyse it. No one can however deny that it is destroying the nation.
The AL was born from the seed of the manifestation of opposing cultures; that religion could not bind. This led to political and cultural suppression and also economic deprivation of the majority of the then Pakistanis; physically also separated by India.
The BNP was unfortunately the still-born child of innumerable military coups and the transformation of military ambition into a political entity cobbled together by those who possibly did not like the dismembering of the then Pakistan; created on the basis of one religion. Its political objectives were clouded with negativity, rather than any forward looking objectives based on new political ideas!
Their hypothesis of Nationalism, propagated by the founder of the BNP, was more of a theoretical rather than cultural or economic basis as the root behind the idea,, propagated with somewhat doubtful rationale, with some bias towards religion.
The resulting political matrix of Bangladesh;, more reactive to emotions and sentiments, as manifested by the two party leaders, is being cleverly manipulated by our large and powerful neighbour; now blessed with US tacit understanding for managing the ex-British India possibly minus Burma; which has been diplomatically and economically wooed and possibly wedded to China's southward march!
One only can wonder if and when our two parties can get themselves out of the childish attitude about which house to have for the leader and location of seats to sit in the assembly; where may be the front bench has more power (or photo opportunity!) than anywhere else!
It is indeed a pity that personal needs supersede national objectives!
A citizen
Dhaka
Toxic chemicals
There is evidence of our chemical consumption in the name of tomato. I do believe that as an individual buyer somebody has little influence but when the buyer is a big company, the situation is different. In that case the buyer has a strong bargaining power that could be utilised in the best interest of the people. But unfortunately the buyers like them are silent.
However we are optimistic, because some conscientious people are still alive. It is my sincere appeal to you to write a column regarding chemicalisation’ especially of fruits and vegetables.
Md. Zane Alam Mashuk BSc (Hons) in Applied Accounting
Oxford Brookes University
Purbachal 3rd phase
I am an NRB & have applied for a plot under Rajuk's Purbachal 3rd phase project. Thousands of applicants like me may have the same question as mine: when will the lottery for * this project be held?
Razib Bln Islam
Senior NSS/PBX Engineer Operations Dept.
Telephone Systems International NJ USA/AWCC Afghanistan Undoing “misdeeds” ?
1 do not find a proper word to describe the situation that has now been created to undo the misdeeds (!) committed during the last seven years. This is taking place from scraping the old names of streets or bridges to reviewing the alleged irregularities in forced retirements, promotions or new appointments in government institutions. Under this programme, the ACC chief who declared a jihad against corruption had to abruptly stop his mission and return to the pavilion. The Honourable President of the country has asked the new ACC Chief not to compromise over the matter of punishing the corrupt against the back-drop of the government s successful withdrawal of 174 politically motivated corruption cases involving the members of the ruling grand coalition.
The politicians are playing this game since die birth of this country. When one party comes to power it directly starts undoing what the other party did without giving any consideration to people's interest. For our politicians, the definition of democracy is "of the party, for the party and by the party”. Probably, this is the reason why the political government undertakes measures only considering the benefits of its supporters and activists while the general mass is let to live with promises and pledges. But the irony is that what the grand alliance government is doing to correct the politically motivated actions of the past government also falls under the same definition. The present government is more interested in and giving too much effort to bringing comforts to its party men than paying attention to crime & lawlessness, chaos in educational institutions, revival of extortion, tendermanipulation, corruption etc. in public life. It is the high time that the government gives a serious look to what it is doing and what it promised to do.
It is beyond doubt that the last CTG brought many changes in national arena that fulfilled the aspirations of the people and it would be antinational to do away with those.
Engr. Md. Aminul Hoque Khalishpur, Khulna
Dr Kalam's visit
Former Indian president Dr APJ Abdul Kalam came to Bangladesh on 19 July on a three day visit. Dr. Modasser Ali, health adviser to the prime minister, Hasan Mahmud, state minister for foreign affairs, Dr Gowher Rizvi, newly appointed adviser to the PM and the government high officials received him with great warmth at the Zia International Airport. In his private visit to Bangladesh the 11th President of India visited Grameen Bank headquarters at Mirpur and there he met Nobel Laureate Prof Muhammad Yunus. During the visit to Grameen Bank, Dr Kalam proposed joint water management and power generation for the countries of the region in the spirit of Saarc. According to the statement of Dr Kalam, he wanted to meet Prof Yunus to learn about the detailed working of Grameen Bank so that micro credit could be incorporated into the approach of his own initiatives in the villages of India through providing Urban Amenities in Rural Areas.
In his speech Dr Kalam stressed that they should work together to revive the golden fibre, jute, through research and by means of technology.
On the eve of his departure from Bangladesh Dr Kalam was interviewed by the local and international journalists. Dr Kalam, with a smiling face, expressed his view that he became happy after learning about the vision of a digital Bangladesh by the ruling party. At the eleventh hour he was again questioned by the journalists about his view on the talk of the town issue 'Tipaimukh dam'. In response, he straightforwardly said that the government of India would not do anything which will cause a huge loss for Bangladesh and Bangladesh should come forward with a view to solving the problem diplomatically. Tonmoy Anowar Chairman, Inspiration Coaching Centre Uttara, Dhaka Is DST effective?
The Daylight Saving Time (DST), a buzzword nowadays, introduced by the government has not proved its effectiveness for better management of load shedding as expected, rather it is causing some misunderstanding among the people.
The government initiated DST, effective from June 19, with a view to saving electricity by forcing the offices and shopping malls to wrap up timely within 8.00pm. The plan of the government was to manage load shedding to some extent with DST, but it is causing a lot of trouble, especially for the students and the office-going people.
Now city dwellers are suffering more as many of the shopping malls and private offices keep themselves open defying the government order and are creating more pressure on the load management. Though it has been claimed that 205 megawatt of electric-
ity is saved every day across the country, it is not practically visible.
The government needs effective monitoring so that the offices and shopping malls are wrapped up timely. To manage the load efficiently the government should have an unbiased attitude to all the areas of the city. For shortterm solution, the government can take strong actions against the clients taking illegal connections and collect the overdue amount from the defaulters. The government should not provide electricity connection to the high-rise commercial buildings and they should be asked to have their own power facility
The government has no option but to establish new power plants to produce more electricity. For this reason, it can promote private sector entrepreneurs to invest more in this thrust sector. The public-private partnership project
taken in the budget for 2009-10 fiscal can have a role in solving the problem, I guess. The government must take the decisions timely, otherwise DST will be not only ineffective but unnecessary too.
Md. AbuSufian
Golapbag, Dhaka ■
Uttara
I have been living in Uttara for the last 19 years and I have never seen the deterioration of crime in this area at this rate. Recently, the level of crime has increased so much that it is absolutely impossible for any decent human being to live in Uttara any more. It is really unfonunate to see that this is happening in the Home Minister's area.
My only question is why do these politicians make false promises before election when they actually cannot fulfil those?
Minhaj Ahmed
Uttara
Dhaka