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Campus Violence
Hunt on for ‘evil forces’ trying
to destabilise polity
M. Shahidul Islam
Cynics say the ghosts of the 1970s, the political instability of the time, are up and running again. Such cynicism gets further emboldened when sarcasm and reality are seen to weld into a psyche of fear... [ FULL STORY ]
Campus unrest
Review of DU Act ’73,
introspection needed
Sadeq Khan
The caretaker government of Dr. Fakhruddin Ahmed has got over a crisis of confidence on it orchestrated by its avowed informal parliament, i.e. the media. The media’s short-lived ‘no-confidence’ offensive was caused by the so called ‘explosion of general unrest’ triggered by a ‘student-teacher movement’ for an ‘uprising’ against the Dr. Fakhruddin government, and for immediate withdrawal of the state of emergency. The student-teacher unrest in turn was triggered by a trifling incident of abusive verbal and physical encounter involving an army officer and a student. The incident took place in the afternoon of August 20 after a football match in the Dhaka University playground, next to which an army camp had been set up to attend to security needs of the area as and when necessary... [ FULL STORY ]
Debate on coal mining policy
Open pit: At what cost and
benefit to nation
Faruque Ahmed
At a time when gas shortage is affecting electricity generation, fertilizer production and household consumption, the debate on the mining system is actually delaying coalmine development. Experts agree, open pit mining will facilitate the recovery of the deposit at the highest level and technologically it is possible. But the environmentalist groups are opposed to this and they are not alone. Wide range of opinion forming groups who are actively working on cost-benefit analysis are also supporting them... [ FULL STORY ]
EC announces dialogue
Politicians agree, want
indoor politics to begin
Abdur Rahman Khan
With a positive assurance from the Government for relaxing the restrictions on indoor politics, the Election Commission (EC) on Tuesday announced to begin dialogue with the political parties since September 12 on election reforms towards holding a free and fair election by December next year... [ FULL STORY ]
Aug 20–22 rioting
Govt. wants to nab masterminds
before indoor politics
Shahriar Noori
Indoor political activities will start by the end of September, said Chief Election Commissioner Shamsul Huda during a visit to Jessore on August 23. However, there are other views too... [ FULL STORY ]
Law enforcement shouldn’t betray dispensation of justice
Shamsuddin Ahmed
Many political leaders including a former prime minister and ministers are facing trial on extortion and corruption charges. The trials in the special courts and appeals in the higher court have indeed drawn a lot of public interest...[ FULL STORY ]
NEWS NOTES FROM NEW YORK
Fazle Rashid
Gonzales resigns
US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, the first Hispanic to reach such a height, has decided to quit. He will leave office on September 17. Gonzales is the fifth top Bush aid to resign after Donald Rumsfeld, defence secretary, John Bolton, US ambassador to UN who failed to win the Senate’s approval, Wolfowitz, World Bank president, and Karl Rove, political guru of Bush. All of them resigned under mounting criticisms. Scooter Libby, former chief of staff of Dick Cheney, was sentenced to a prison term which was later commuted by President Bush... [ FULL STORY ]
GLIMPSES OF THE GREAT
Shelley
K. Z. Islam
The trumpet of a prophecy! O Wind,
If winter comes, can spring be far behind?
— Ode to the West Wind
Percy Bysshe Shelley was certainly a great poet. It is quite extraordinary that how young a generation of English poets were when they transformed the literature of the English-speaking world: how young indeed when they died – Keats (1795-1821) twenty five, Shelley (1792-1822) twenty nine and Byron (1788-1824) thirty six... [ FULL STORY ]
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