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GRAMEENPHONE’S MOVE FOR MONOPOLY
BTRC must shake off spectator’s role
Faruque Ahmed
The country’s largest cell phone company Grameenphone is considering the acquisition of some rival operators in a bid to reduce competition and establish greater control, if not a monopoly, over the business...[ FULL STORY ]
Sidr-hit Bangladesh needs UNFCC’s assistance
Sadeq Khan
On 25 September 2007, the President of the United Nations General Assembly Srgjan Karim opened its annual high-level debate. He gave a call for action to sustain the international momentum generated by high-level meeting on addressing the problem of climate change the day before: “Climate change and its dramatic effects are increasingly visible and increasingly violent. The irony is that those least responsible for it will suffer most. Yesterday, many of you reaffirmed this, and sent a strong political message that the time for action had come”...[ FULL STORY ]
MIRZA AZIZUL ISLAM SAYS AMAN ISN’T MAJOR CEREAL
Finance adviser ignores ground reality
Shamsuddin Ahmed
Finance Adviser Mirza Azizul Islam has surprised those who are linked to agriculture. He viewed that the damage to Aman crop by the devastating cyclone would not affect the economy much. According to him, Aman is not a major cereal crop of the country. He is reportedly said that contribution of agriculture to the GDP is minimal and hence the loss to crops to the national economy would not be significant...[ FULL STORY ]
DISASTER AND DECISION MAKING
What delayed Dhaka’s appeal for int’l aid?
M. Shahidul Islam in Toronto
The global reach of the media has made the havoc wreaked by cyclone Sidr on the country an almost tangible phenomenon for millions of Bangladeshis living abroad. With tearful eyes, Mohammed Kamruzzaman, a bearded young imam at the Danforth Islamic centre and mosque, stands outside the gate of his Toronto seminary and asks pedestrians to donate for Bangladesh cyclone victims, a sight not uncommon anywhere across the world...[ FULL STORY ]
UN forum in Bangkok to spur finance for Asian Highway
Moinuddin Naser in New York
Representatives of more than 30 countries, including Bangladesh, attended a United Nations investment forum in Bangkok to drum up the finance for constructing the Asian Highway Network, an ambitious plan to crisscross the continent with 141,000 kilometres of high-quality road...[ FULL STORY ]
Bangladesh: worst victim of climate change
Abdur Rahman Khan
A land slide killed 87 persons in Chittagong during a monsoon rain last June.
The twin floods of August and September affected 46 out of total 64 districts in the country killing nearly 1,100 persons and causing damage to infrastructure and loss to agricultural production. The consequential river erosion caused by flashfloods and receding flood waters rendered thousands of families homeless in September...[ FULL STORY ]
INQUIRY COMMISSION REPORT
Ex-chief minister masterminded murders of ULFA leaders’ kin
Nava Thakuria in Guwahati
Last week’s indictment of Prafulla Kumar Mahanta, a former chief minister of Assam, for masterminding assassinations of a large number of relatives of leaders of the United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) has rocked the nation. The series of killings took place between 1998 and 2001, when the Asom Gana Parishad (AGP), a regional political party, was in power in the northeast Indian state under the leadership of Mahanta. A student leader turned politician, Mahanta became the chief minister of Assam for the second time after the AGP had won the 1996 sate assembly polls. He also held the home affairs portfolio...[ FULL STORY ]
Australia goes to polls tomorrow
Fazle Rashid in Sydney
Australia goes to polls tomorrow with anti-incumbency sentiments running high. The Labour led by Kevin Rudd is widely tipped to stage a cakewalk victory, ending the John Howard-led government's 11 years in office...[ FULL STORY ]
Glimpses of the Great
Mahatma Gandhi
K. Z. Islam
While in Noakhali Gandhi’s typist and shorthand secretary, Parasuram, resigned on New Year’s day 1947. He was shocked to find Gandhi sleeping naked with Manu. She also bathed and massaged his naked body, finding nothing wrong in doing anything Bapu asked of her. Gandhi insisted that he was never aroused when he slept beside her, or next to Sushila or Abha. He felt only as a “Mother” to these most intimate disciple-helpers. “I am sorry,” Gandhi replied to Parasuram. “You are at liberty to leave me today.” He woke that morning at 2 A.M. “God’s grace alone is sustaining me,” he confided to his diary. “I can see there is some grave defect in me somewhere which is the cause of all this. All around me is utter darkness.” He woke Manu, telling her “to remain alert and wide awake.” Pyarelal, Gandhi’s secretary reported that he muttered to himself: “There must be some serious flaw deep down in me which I am unable to discover…. could I have missed my way?”...[ FULL STORY ]
PARIS EXPO OF BANGLADESHI ARTEFACTS
Irregularities, theft, mistrust call its rationale into question
Anisur Rahman
A government committee has found a number of irregularities in the process of sending nearly 200 Bangladeshi artefacts to the Guimet Museum in Paris for exhibition...[ FULL STORY ]
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