Letters will only be considered if they carry the writer's full name, address and telephone number (if any). The identity of the writers will be protected. Letters must be limited to 250 words. All letters will be subject to editing.

Politics of hartal

Although BNP joined one or two parliament sessions, it is a matter of regret that this oppo -sition party could not play a significant role in making the parliament effective. Besides, politics of hartal that caused huge loss to our economy has added fuel into the flame. BNP's decision of not joining the parliament has made the people frustrated. MPs of BNP can even resign any time from the parliament; they have warned the government about it. Undoubtedly, this decision is leading the whole country again to the politics of clash.

Democracy cannot be strengthened by quitting parliament and declaring hartals. The opposition will have to give up the bad practices. On the other hand, the government will have to show tolerance to the opposition, so that they cannot find any clue to declare any destructive programme like hartal. Hartal cannot be acceptable in any circumstances. The common people are also against this practice. But those who are in the opposition consider hartal the main weapon of movement for ousting the government. After the experience of 1/11, we hoped that the country would get rid of the politics of hartal. But the reality is different.

Lutfor Rahman Ghoraghat, Dinajpur

Dr. Yunus - our pride

What is going on in our country? We are criticising Dr. Yunus in a way which is so

shameful for the nation. Dr. Yunus achieved the Nobel Prize for his role in eradicating poverty. He introduced microcredit to the world. It is a widely accepted theory and acknowledged by the world famous economists. He established his theory through his works. But we did not stand behind him, rather we criticised his getting the Nobel Prize. I felt so bad when I saw a procession coming out of Dhaka University shouting slogans against Dr. Yunus. Our PM also commented on the incident and demanded proper investigation into the matterwhich was unfortunate.

I urge the PM and the people of our country to stop criticising him and think about the positive aspects of his theory and work. AshfaqAhmed IBBL, Raipur Branch Laxmipur

Bangla dailies' reports

One cannot get the actual stories behind the news by reading Bangladeshi dailies, especially the Bangla dailies. For example, most Bangla dailies carried the news of shifting Khaleda Zia's household belongings under big headlines. This is not a big news for the nation. The story behind this news is very simple. Begum Zia has lost her legal battle and she is vacating the cantonment house. Of course, she deserves some notice from the media, but not this big coverage.

For the last few days, the Bangla dailies have been

publishing news under big headlines about the alleged financial irregularities of Nobel laureate Dr. Yunus without carrying out any investigation. Dr. Yunus is an asset of Bangladesh, he has brought honour to the country; and his reputation is the country's reputation. Even if he has done any wrong, we should not allow others to know that before we are confirmed about the fact. We cannot wholly believe the version of the news of Norway TV unless and until we know the fact from him and also from the government. But the Bangla dailies have published many stories about Dr. Yunus which is unethical. I believe the local newspapers are responsible very much for creating image crisis of the country globally.

I think the newspapers should play a significant role in creating a good image of the country.

Shafiqul Islam

NY

Hindu communities' woes

While 1 was in Bangladesh a few weeks ago, I went to my village where I grew up. In our village, there were almost 50 60 Hindu families in 1971 and now there are only seven families left. More shocking is that these remaining families are now the poorest of all. Most of them once had agricultural land, were relatively affluent, but now landless.

What happened to these Hindu families? The majority of them left their beloved

motherland and moved to India. A few families, who did not go to India, moved to Dhaka or nearby cities. I met a few of these families in Dhaka and found that almost all of them now live in rented apartments and have no ability to buy any apartment or house. Their condition is no better than those remaining Hindu families in the village.

Everybody mentioned three main reasons behind this situation. The first reason is the existence of the Vested Property Act, formally known as the Enemy Property Act. With the help of this single law the powerful people grabbed their land forcefully, with false paper; in some cases, the Hindus sold their land at a nominal price for fear of losing it anyway. The second reason is the discriminatory practice by the government and the private sector in case of job opportunities, education, bank loan and even the distribution of relief materials during natural disasters. The third reason is lack of security.

The condition of the Hindu communities will continue to deteriorate until they stand up against this injustice.

Subodh C. Biswas Edwards, Illinois, USA

Ragging

Ragging is a nasty manifestation of popular culture. But what will be accomplished by assigning new police functions to school or college administrations? A look at child rearing in Bangladesh will reveal the roots of ragging. Girls appear to have lesser

scope or opportunity for antisocial behaviour. But in the case of boys, a great deal is overlooked by parents. Even in school, a parent is offended by reports of anti-social behaviour by his son. Perhaps training children for adulthood has to start much earlier. It is difficult to overlook the fact that ragging is cultural in its origins.

The court's directive to educational institutions to put down ragging is welcome. The practice has cost many youngsters their lives. The best part of the order is that it fixes responsibility on college authorities to curb ragging. Gopal Sengupta Canada

Custodial deaths

Custodial deaths and extra judicial killings have made our law enforcing agencies controversial. Last year as many as 90 people died in custody. Very recently 17-year-old Sagor died in police custody. His family alleged that he died due to torture by the cops. Astonishingly, we are observing such deaths one after another. Besides, the police show their disgust to file cases in these connections. Thus, these deaths go uninvestigated.

Our media should stand against custodial deaths like they stood against corruption and stalking previously.

TashrifBillah

EEE.BUET

Hillary's humour!

The American diplomacy sustained a serious jolt following disclosure of a huge volume of classified government documents by the Wikileaks. This disclosure has put the entire world into a chaotic and confusing situation.

Meanwhile, the most admired and dynamic Secretary of State of the United States of America Hillary Rodham Clinton made a little humour with Wikileaks disclosures. In a recent reception at the State Department hosted by Secretary Clinton for the recipients of this year's Kennedy Centre Honours, she said “1 am writing a cable about it which I am sure you will find soon on your closest website!”

Professor M Zahidul Haque Sher-e-Bangla Agricultural University

Dhaka

Cardiovascular diseases

The daily Prothom Alo has published a report on the Health Bulltin-2010 of Health Directorate on 27th November 2010. Cardiovascular diseases have been identified as the number one cause of patients' death in the country in the report. And the people aged between 25 to 49 years die mainly of these diseases. The age group

shown in the report who are vulnerable to cardiac diseases is the most productive and income generating group in the family. Generally, the doctors say that hypertension, stress, anxiety, food habit etc. are the main causes of cardiovascular diseases.

Nowadays, the earning members of the middle class and lower middle class families are passing very tough time. Because they are failing to make both ends meet with their present income. Price hike of essentials, children's high educational expenditures, increased transport fare and house rent have made this group very upset. This is harmful to the cardiac patients. A thorough study on this risk group should be carried out as the initial steps for finding out the root causes of the diseases. Then effective measures can be taken for the treatment and for making people aware about the causes. But the government or any other organisation has not yet conducted the study.

MobarakAli

Gopibagh, Dhaka

Delayed news in D S

We have seen an example of objective and responsible reporting from The Daily Star on December 3. A foreign media circulated a story of fund transfer from Grameen Bank to a sister organisation Grameen Kalyan. Using this as a source the media at home made a news story on December 2 that created undue sensation in society. The news story created disturbance in the minds of the readers. Some of them, who take pride in the performance of Grameen Bank and its winning of the Nobel Peace Prize, were shocked at the allegations.

The Daily Star did not publish any news on this issue on December 2. The newspaper, however, came out with the news on December 3 and explained why it preferred to keep mum on December 2. We are impressed by the reasons why The Daily Star did not publish the news earlier, and especially by the style of presenting the news. We hope the

media in our country will take a lesson from it in dealing with such issues of national importance.

M. Sekandar Khan President

S UJAN-Sushasoner Jonya Nagorik

Chittagong District Committee

Hijacked Bangladeshi ship A group of Somali pirates reportedly hijacked a Bangladesh-flagged ship in the Arabian Sea off the coast of India recently. The fate of 26 abductees remained unknown. The government and the naval force couldn't do anything to rescue the ship. Some days have passed, and now the debate has turned into who hijacked the ship. This is really frustrating. The government should do something very quickly to recover the ship from the hijackers.

Fahim Ibne Sarwar Department of International Relations

Shaheed Salam BarkatHall Jahangirnagar University