DHAKA THIS WEEK

Mahbub Husain Khan

The Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) has filed a case against Shamim Osman and othersafter due inquiry,. The CG is diligently pursuing its campaign against the 'big fish' amongst the corrupt politicians and businessmen, looters and extorters in the country. But the minnows are now back in operation. None other than the house of the Indian Deputy High Commissioner, whose residence is guarded round-the-clock, and is watched by intelligence agencies, was raided by miscreants and valuables looted. Meanwhile, in a well-considered and timely decision, the restrictions on Sheikh Hasina and Khaleda Zia have been lifted, and the coming weeks may see some activities within the parties of which they are the leaders, regarding reorganising the parties leading to a resumption of political activity.
   While over one year has passed since the death of Nasreen Huq in the city in her own house, but no progress has been made in bringing the murder/s to book. She was a pioneer in the movement for gender empowerment and against violence affecting women and children in our country. In her absence, these acts are still going on. Last Friday, the maid servant working at my house was called away by her relatives at Uttara with the news that her female cousin was hurt in an accident. It transpired that she was regularly beaten and tortured by her husband in front of their children. And the day before, she was tied up by him and set on fire, again in front of the children. He is now in police custody, and one hopes that he is sentenced to death by hanging and till then he should be locked up and the keys thrown away.
   
   Parivartan and crime
   Can pantomimes and street plays make any difference in checking crime against women and children? Do they work better than seminars and public meetings in evoking interest and conveying the desired message? Are women constables more effective in generating faith in the system? For over a year, a part of Delhi has been the test ground for this experiment called Parivartan and the results are encouraging. More than two lakh people out of a total population of 15 lakh in the area have been touched and the crime rate has declined by more than 12 per cent since the social interface began in August 2005. The number of crimes registered against women and children has declined from 658 in 2005 to 599 in 2006.
   After the grisly Nithari case in Noida, the Delhi police claims that crime against women and children has actually come down and it is in no small measure due to Parivartan. Initially launched in 20 police beats, it has been extended to 70 beats now. The target group and the list of crimes on it are well known-domestic violence, rape, dowry-related violence, female foeticide to name a few-but the approach to solution is entirely different. Residential welfare associations (RWAs), senior citizens. NGOs, academics, educational institutions and responsible citizenry have been involved in Parivartan. Women constables coordinate with RWAs to organise one-on-one meetings. Women are also encouraged to meet the beat constables to discuss even the smallest of domestic problems. The most successful tool, however, has been pantomime shows. Children throng these street plays in thousands and every message-from reporting a crooked uncle to damage due to smoking and protection from HIV -is easily absorbed. The efficacy of Parivartan has been established and recognised by Interpol as an effective tool of social policing. I think we should take a leaf out of the Delhi experience, first at Dhaka, and then in the other cities and towns of the country.
   All over the world, the disabled people have been handicapped at birth, through diseases such as polio, accidents- in the household, on the roads, and in the factories- and because of war. In Bangladesh, we have people disabled and handicapped because of all these reasons, and also there are the disabled freedom fighters of 1971. Yet many of the disabled have been, heretofore, neglected by society and also past governments. Some of the handicapped have been able to take up a livelihood though their personal and family efforts and sometimes with help from some dedicated NGOs. And now the government's move to sign a UN convention protecting the rights of the people with disabilities has created great hope among the disabled community of the country, for the enjoyment all human rights and freedoms without any sort of discrimination. The move has been warmly welcomed by organisations such as the National Alliance of Disabled People's Organisations (NADPO) and the Bangladesh Protibandhi Kalyan Samity (BPKS). An inter-ministerial meeting, presided by Adviser for the Ministry of Social Welfare Geeti Ara Safia Chowdhury, last week decided to sign the convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities to reinforce its commitment to equal rights of the disabled people, and the decision will now need to be confirmed by the council of advisers before the signing takes place.
   The signing will open up the avenues to arrange special legal protection for people with any form of disabilities - physical, mental of intellectual. And the country will be obligated to implement the convention once it ratifies it. The country is going to sign the international instrument against the backdrop of infringement of human rights of the members of the disabled community at every level of the society, and demand by rights groups to arrange special protection for them. According to statistics of rights groups, around 14 million people or 10 per cent of country's total population live with disabilities facing immense difficulties in accessing services, facilities and opportunities.
   As the Convention is going to be signed by the Government of Bangladesh, we look forward to implementation of measures, immediately, which would ensure the disabled people's participation in national policymaking, legislation, employment, medical facilities and social uplift. The demand of the disabled people for reserved seats at all local government institutions for them with at least 15 seats in the national parliament, and implementation of government's declaration of one per cent quota in Bangladesh civil service, has to be actively considered and implemented. Let us hope that the disabled amongst us can look forward to a future where they can serve the nation and enjoy gainful employment.
   Dhaka has been prone to water-logging since it was a river port in ancient times. During floods which have hit the country at regular intervals, Dhaka city has always been flooded. During the 1988 floods, the suburbs of Dhaka city such as Uttara were completely submerged. Besides flood embankments, the canals which abound in the city afforded drainage, allowing the flood waters to flow out into the rivers around Dhaka such as Shitalakhya and Buriganga. However, since 1972, commercial and economic interests have caused encroachment of rivers and canals, in particular the building of high-rise structures by filling up the canals in the city have wrought havoc to the drainage situation within the city. Other cities in the country are also facing similar problems. So much a so that even a brief shower leaves behind waterlogged streets and open spaces. Recently, and particularly after the takeover by the present Caretaker Government, the drainage and reclamation of canals in Dhaka and other citied were undertaken. But now this drive has suddenly ceased. We have, in this paper, written time and again about the urgency of reclaiming canals and rivers from the clutches of rapacious commercial interests, which has led to random building of apartments and factories on land reclaimed from canals as also the dumping of human and industrial waters into the canals and rivers.
   Society has three closely related economic requirements, each of which is of independent force. There is the need to supply the requisite consumer goods and services. There is the need to supply the requisite consumer goods and services. There is the need to ensure that this production and its use and consumption do not have an adverse effect on the current well-being of the public at large. And there is the need to ensure that they do not aversely affect the lives and well-being of generations yet to come. The last two of these three are in frequent conflict with the first, a conflict that is strongly manifest in everyday economics and politics. The manifestations of contemporary damage are distressingly familiar air and water pollution, water-logging the large and growing problem of waste disposal, the immediate danger to health from the production and sales activity, particularly industrial production and retail sales activity on the urban and rural landscape.
   The present caretaker government is taking measures for the nation's progress towards a functioning democracy and also to ensure that the daily life of the public is pleasant. The need for canal dredging and recovery to allow proper drainage of rainwater and waste water to free the city from water-logging and the consequent woes of the citizens who are restricted in going about the city, and the susceptibility to diseases due to the brackish water, is now an urgent issue. We hope and expect that the CG shall do the need full in recovering and draining the canals and rivers within Dhaka and in the other cities in the country I had written about malls in an earlier column. But I had totally forgotten to mention that the first mall in the then East Pakistan was the New Market, which celebrates its fifty-third year of opening this year.
   The word mall meaning shopping centre was not recorded in the English language till 1967. As you all know the man responsible for the layout and the ambience of the modern shopping centre was not an American but a Viennese, Victor Gruen, who fled Hitler in 1938 and arrived in America with $8 in his pocket. Gruen's intention was to create a gathering place for the neighbourhood, a focal, point of the community where people could stroll and meet their friends, dally over a coffee or an ice cream, and only incidentally shop. Of course, our New Market, is way behind in time to Kolkata's New Market. That was opened in 1874 as Kolkata's first municipal market, and it was first Hogg's market, named after Sir Stuart Hogg who was then municipal commissioner. According to the local legend. the disturbed spirit of Sir Stuart is supposed to walk the deserted night-time corridors of his dispossessed market crying out. "Peace, peace!"
   Our New Market, designed with shops in the corridors on both sides of an open, nearly oval walking promenade going the entire circumference of the market, was the epitome of Gruen's philosophy. Here, those in the neighbourhood, young and old, of Azimpur, Dhanmondi, Elephant Road, Peelkhana used to stroll on the promenade, looking at wares in the shops, browsing at bookstalls. And then on to the tea stalls or ice-cream parlours or sweetmeat shops. Over just tea and singaras, we talked about football, politics and the shocking cost of Capstan cigarettes. Families from other parts of the city, and guests, up from the mofussils, visited the New Market with their families whenever they could make the time.
   Today, fifty-three years on, the market has 450 shops spread over 35 acres with all types of merchandise. The shops have a total of nearly 500 serving staff and 10,000 people visit the shops in the New market every day. The garden in the centre of the market. where the weary of shopping could rest on the concrete benches, while the children scampered and played, has been encroached by more shops. Even as late as the late 1990s I visited New Market at least once a week, and always remembered our old routine of strolling for half-an-hour after games in the afternoon, and having our 'adda' for another half-an-hour in a tea stall., before on to our daily grind with our studies. "Those were the days my friend..." I will not live to see the centenary of the New Market, but may our grand children and great-grandchildren preserve the old traditions, a la Gruen, in the face of the invasion of the 'mega-malls'.
   A ditty in Bengali runs thus: "Flies by day, mosquitoes at night in Dhaka, this is our plight." For the moment it seems that the combined efforts of Sadeque Hossain Khoka -the Mayor of Dhaka - and mosquito coils and the heat have reduced the hordes of mosquitoes at night. But at the same time we are facing more and more flies whether by day or by night. The reason is not far to seek. In fact it is very near your house or mine. The ever increasing heaps of garbage being collected ever so slowly, are causing the flies to make hay or whatever they make while the sun or even the moon shines. As I step out of my house I observe garbage to the left of me, and garbage to the right of me, and the flies are buzzing and diving in all directions.
   But the mayor has kept one sector in this city very clean. The over-bridges and underpasses are very clean, in fact clean even of human beings. Most of us are wary of using these facilities constructed at some considerable cost to the taxpayer. Even at the height of the midmorning rush, the underpass at Gulistan is bereft of people.
   In a city where nearly 30 per cent of the population is floating around, living in slums or on the streets, there seems to be very few new streets coming up, and the fields and parks are being turned into built up areas for shops and flats, which those on the streets can ill afford to utilise.
   Very soon we will have only buildings, but no way to reach them. Sports gear have to be kept in show cases, as we will no longer be able to see our progeny get out on the field and play a game. With less and less of open areas and tree-lined avenues, precipitation will also lessen, and desertification start up. With the onset of desertification, we will have oil - already the beginnings of a trickle are evident - and with oil we will bless the mayor, and make him president for life.
   Though new streets are not coming up, that is not preventing the city corporation from putting more rickshaws on the road, so that the floating population now need not to walk, they can ride on rickshaws. And at least they are more desirable than the autorickshaws. It does not matter that this is adding to the population of the city - it does matter, though, that they are the ones bringing in the votes.

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Holiday Desk

President of International Chamber of Commerce (ICC)-Bangladesh Mahbubur Rahman said that Bangladesh economy experienced a mixed trend in 2006 due to political instability during the whole year. As a result the economic indicators showed a sign of slowdown during the last quarter of 2006, says an ICC press release.
   ICCB President, while presenting the Report of the Executive Board at its Annual Council 2006 held at DCCI Auditorium last week, said that the country has experienced a political stalemate towards the end of 2006, which ultimately led to the declaration of State of Emergency.
   It was mentioned that the business leaders took initiatives during the period for bringing the mainstream parties into dialogue but failed to produce any tangible results. The businesses have appreciated the timely initiatives taken by the present caretaker government for bringing in political stability, reforms and reconstitution of the Election Commission and Anti-Corruption Commission, progress made in the separation of the judiciary, streamlining the administration, bringing the corrupt politicians and their cronies into task.
   Mahbubur Rahman observed that despite all odds at the end of 2006, export earnings recorded a significant growth of 25.80 per cent, while import growth moderated to I 9.8 per cent. At the same time, remittance from non-resident Bangladeshis increased substantially by 29 per cent. As a result the current account balance showed a surplus of US$579 million during the second half of 2006 and the foreign exchange reserves improved to US$4 billion.
   ICCB report mentioned that the Bangladesh Bank has, however, attributed the higher growth in FY06 to a strong post-flood recovery in agriculture and a notable expansion in manufacturing activities despite excessive price hike of fuel and some other essential commodities in the international market. Real GDP growth during FY2006 was recorded at 6.7 per cent slightly higher than 6 per cent of FY05.
   The report pointed out that the national output growth is likely to slowdown in 2007 due to the anticipated slower GDP growth in FY07. The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has projected a 6.5 per cent growth for FY07, which is marginally lower from 6.7 per cent achieved in FY06. The Bangladesh Bank has also projected growth rate ranging between 6.5 and 6.8 per cent. The central bank has, however, linked the growth rate with the favorable political environment and end of disruption to the economic activities.
   ICCB report has also projected that in the coming days inflation will be a major challenge for the Bangladesh economy as rate of inflation is critical for accelerated economic growth and poverty reduction.
   The report observed that businesses in 2006 had to struggle with power crisis. According to a study by the CPD the country's economy faced a loss of Tk 130 billion for power outages during FY06, which is about 4 per cent of the GDP as against the loss of Tk 120 billion or 3.3 per cent of the GDP in FY05. The country's power plants currently generate only 2600MW to 2700MW of electricity against the current demand for more than 4500MW, the report mentioned.
   The continuous high global oil prices that have heightened pressure on the country's balance of payment and threatened fiscal and monetary stability underscore the need for further rationalization of domestically administered prices of petroleum products. It was, therefore, suggested that a pricing system providing for automatic adjustment of domestic fuel prices to international market situation be adopted.
   Among others, ICCB Vice President Latifur Rahman, Executive Board members : A. S. M. Quasem, Annisul Huq, M. Aminuzzaman, M. Shamsul Alam, Mahbub Jamil, Mamun Rashid, Masih Ul Karim and Waliur Rahman Bhuiyan; and ICCB members, namely, DCCI President Hossain Khaled, Rokeya A. Rahman, Barrister Dr. M. Zahir, Barrister Rafique-ul Huq, MCCI Secretary General C. K. Hyder as well as CEOs of banks, insurance companies, national and multinational companies also attended the Council.

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