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LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

letters@thedailystar.net
PM should resolve crisis over poll-time govt.
The people of Bangladesh must be very scared of the movement that the opposition has announced it will launch to unseat the present government. The movement is not likely to be peaceful as one can assume from the opposition leader's speech in Khulna the other day.
Thanks to the prime minister for her prudence that she did not give a similar speech on her arrival at the airport from the USA. PM should take adequate time to personally review the opposition leader's speech and respond with relevant facts and figures maintaining decency. The prime minister must keep the door open for dialogue with opposition and try her best to agree to a permanent system of poll-time interim government instead of a patchwork for next one or two terms.
A well-wisher of Bangladesh
On e-mail
An excuse for corruption of chosen ones
Your very eye-opening headliner about the National Board of Revenue (NBR) 'waiving' the law for vehicle imports for parliament members (DS Sept 30) is quite instructive. The fact that a supposedly independent body like the NBR can succumb to political pressure is bad enough. The additional fact that the tax law of the land, as passed by parliament, can be openly and formally 'waived' tells us quite a bit about the substance of Bangladesh's parliamentary democracy which the PM was taking credit for in New York with the claim that she established the 'rule of law.1 What is also interesting in your article is the author's blaming a former military ruler for the tax dodging, even though that ruler has been history for quarter of a century; at some point, laying the blame for all the ills of the land at the door of the British, the Pakistanis, and the military simply becomes an excuse for the corruption of those who we desperately want to idolise. I credit the author of the story for admitting rather grudgingly that the former caretaker government had actually refused to indulge politicians in this wholesale theft of the national exchequer.
Esam Sohail
Kansas, USA
Humanism Manifesto
Greatest theoretical physicist of our time, Stephen Hawking, speaking at the premiere of a documentary film about his life, said he thinks idea of conventional afterlife is a fairy tale for people afraid of the dark. I would like to mention in this connection that twenty two Nobel Laureates in various disciplines of science are among the signatories to Humanism Manifesto iii. According to this manifesto, humanism is a progressive philosophy of life that, without super-naturalism, affirmed our ability and responsibility to lead ethical lives of personal fulfillment that aspire to the greater good of humanity. Growing number of people in developed countries are being converted to this idea. Technology of artificial birth is already in the hands of men. Conquest of death is not a far cry as a lot of progress has already been achieved. Are we preparing ourselves to face the situation when old faiths and beliefs are shattered by the onslaught of science?
Ahmed Shah
Dhanmondi 13, Dhaka