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TO THE EDITOR
New Men to ensure women's rights
The article 'The long road to maternal care' by Shaveena Alam was painfully good but failed to say that 'women's problems' affect everyone and so are men’s business also!
Fathers need to check that men and boys do not get the lion's share of food and that their sons, in learning to treat the women of the family with respect, know they are practising treating all women with respect. It is men who need to know the dangers of under-age motherhood (taught from the local pulpit?) and thus take responsibility for the long-term health and happiness of young girls. Men’s intervention is needed to stop the gossipmongers who demand girls have got to be married below legal age limits and break the power of wicked old women repeating stories about pregnancy that are terrifying and untrue
When a woman is pregnant, it is the men who should demand medical check-ups and proper nutrition and is it not the job of the senior men to take both silly little boys and vicious older ones who misbehave with local girls to their families, warning that, next time, it will be the police? Any man seen 'groping' a woman on the bus, should be thrown off it by common consent of the men passengers! Let us dream about how much better behaviour would now be, if, for the last few decades, men around the world who think they are a cut above the rest, had behaved in such ways....!
If women join the paid workforce, it may bring appreciation for the extra cash but, on its own, does it always result in those changes of heart and mind that benefit family and community life and continue, even when the woman is unable to find employment?
In my life-time, many men world-wide have so totally changed their attitudes and behaviour to their women and children that they are called 'the New Men'. (I have met 'western' men whose first marriages have failed and, realising how selfish they had been, they have quite different family relationships in their second marriage.) Others continue to behave badly so the work goes on.
However, the men who most need to change are those who ignore and despise what any woman tells them! Do not most men need to be taught by men?
Angela Robinson
Baridhara DOHS
Dhaka
Abul Hossain's resignation
On July 21, 2012, an open letter of former communications minister Syed Abul Hossain to the people of Bangladesh was published in The Daily Star. It was about Padma bridge. In the long letter he wrote many things to clear himself of the corruption charges brought against him concerning the bridge.
We do not know why suddenly he decided to write this letter; it is meaningless to us; he wasted his time and energy and the newspaper its space. People do not want to hear his explanation; they want to see the World Bank's letter written to the government.
He failed miserably as communications minister —-roads were so dilapidated that drivers had to call strike -— people demonstrated against him and asked him to resign but he was unperturbed.
By reading his letter it has become clear why the communication system fell apart. At one place he wrote: "It took ten years to do the ground work of Bangabandhu bridge, it took only two years for the same work of Padma bridge." Syed Abul Hossain was so busy with the Padma Bridge Project that he had no time for solving other problems of his ministry. Roads became death traps; during Eid holidays many people were unable to go home to celebrate Eid with their dear ones. Does he know that roads which are in a very deplorable condition are now called 'Abul roads'?
Syed Abul Hossain should have resigned when his name came up with the Padma bridge scam.
Nur Jahan
Chittagong
'30 minutes' maximum power cut'
Government's '30 minute maximum power cut’ formula, published in almost all English dailies on July 17th has 'built in' contradictions and 'good excuses' incorporated in it, to cover all eventualities.
The PM's energy advisor reportedly stated that there will be 'uninterrupted' electric power supply during Sehri, Iftar and Tarabi prayers. For Sehri occurring well past midnight, this should be no problem, as it is the time of minimum demand period between midnight and six in the morning! However, Iftar and Tarabi prayer take place during the maximum demand period, when power need is highest.
The advisor also reportedly said that: "if necessary, we will pro-
duce around 6500MW against the demand of 6000MW during Ramadan." Were not the key words 'If necessary' and 'around' incorporated to cover for all or any power supply shortfall!? Further, the advisor had also stated, as reported in the dailies: "if the consumers use it(electric power) wisely". So any shortfall can be passed on to 'unwise usage by consumers', the safe way out!
After all that was said, mostly based on notes and memos from the ministry to DESA and PDB, with possibly nothing being done, for that would have been surely trumpeted in the report. However, the 'proof of the pudding, is in the eating'. So let's see how does the "uninterrupted power pudding" taste, which can only be evaluated during and after Ramadan.
Engr. S.A. Mansoor
Gulshan