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EDITORIAL
Police nab a 97-year-old beggar!
While humane treatment of animals is guaranteed without question in different countries, in Bangladesh humans do not have such luck when it comes to speaking about the police-people relationship. Perhaps none expects a humane approach to things in an LDC like ours characterised by grinding poverty. Or else a nonagenarian would not have been hackled like Jumman aged 97.
This is a pathetic tale. A Dhaka court on Saturday last jailed 97-year-old Jumman Ali, for three days on charge of begging on the street after his arrest on the Dhaka University campus. Jumman, on the court premises, however, told newsmen that he was on his way to the pond in Ramna Park for a bath.
Apart from general insolence, the Police force members' demeanour is usually rude and uncouth, while brutalities are not infrequent. The Asian Human Rights Commission has recorded the heinous case of police brutality on journalists at the Chittagong stadium in April 2006. Some five years back a comprehensive UNDP report observed that Bangladesh's police have become an obstacle to progress. It says the force's problems have grave implications for the social and economic well-being of the country.
It adds that Bangladesh's Police force is notorious for being dishonest and demoralised. The Police are regarded as one of the most corrupt bodies. Even pretty senior field-level officers were found involved in robbery, baby trafficking and other crimes. Policemen, according to the UNDP study, are perceived as being more interested in extortion and bribery than serious crime fighting and doing their job.
While we only hope there will be an institutional programme to correct the ills, we wish there will be projects to assist the beggars and hardcore poor to help them live in dignity as beggary is widespread consequent upon pervasive mass poverty. We can learn from our neighbours. The West Bengal government this year has adopted a series of social welfare schemes, the most striking of which is a project to feed daily the "poorest of the poor" that includes beggars. The scheme is expected to benefit at least 4 lakh people. Food cooked by self-help groups will be given every day to every one of the "poorest" section. For us, it will be prudent to replicate a similar programme in this country where even middle class people are experiencing terrible bite of price spiral. Reportedly, starving Siraj of village Makadsar, Hajiganj, in Chandpur Zilla was shocked and fell unconscious on March 30 last to hear that Indian rice will cost Taka 80 per kg and died.
Compassion for distressed beings is a virtue which, of necessity, has to be cultivated by all. Anyone devoid of it ceases to be a human being. The hapless old man of the policemen's grandfather's age could be spared of his so-called offence of begging because so many violent and horrendous crimes are being committed in Dhaka and elsewhere every now and then under the very nose of the police. Policemen failed to detain anyone when an organised criminal gang stole as many as 3,500 clips from over 600 meters of Dhaka-Chittagong rail track near Banani railway station in the capital last week.
Our Police are widely known to have set bizarre, horrific and sometimes ludicrous records many times before, such as nabbing very old physically infirm persons, babies in arms and minors on charges of murder, robbery and other crimes. Some of their members were convicted for their nexus with underworld crime gangs. Police should have the minimum lesson that since the society or relevant government agency has no welfare scheme for the old invalid hardcore poor so they are compelled to beg from door to door. Mentionably, very limited though, beggary in the first world still exists. Policemen should be given a little lesson of sympathy for the underdogs.
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SOBRIETY GAINS OVER BRINKMANSHIP
Taiwan votes Ma as president for friendly ties with China
Barrister Harun ur Rashid
Taiwan's newly elected President Ma Ying-jeou (57), a Chinese descendant of mainland China, earned a Harvard doctorate in legal studies in 1981. Although not a born Taiwanese, the island's 17 million voters elected him with 58.45 per cent votes while his ruling DPP's opponent Hsieh received 41.55 per cent on a turnout of 76 per cent.
The newly-elected President would take over in May. The outgoing pro-independence President Chen-Shui-bian's brinkmanship stance with China is now over and Ma's sobriety and pragmatism in maintaining relations with China have prevailed.
Ma Ying-jeou of the Koumingtang Party, is a person of strict discipline and Ma's wife, Chow Mei-ching, is a lawyer for a government-controlled Taiwanese bank and takes pride in riding the bus to work every day.
Ma has stood on a platform of economic reform and improving relations with China. Ma has been more aggressive in proposing a radical overhaul of economic ties to allow Taiwanese companies access to the vast mainland market while permitting Chinese investors to pump funds into the island's economy." He has set ambitious growth targets and many analysts say such target would not be met unless closer economic ties with China are established.
Ma reportedly said: "Our economy has three points. One is to love Taiwan, another is infrastructure and industry and a third is to reach out to the whole world."
He also has promised to run a clean government. But he leads a party with a long history of corruption, cronyism and thuggery so ingrained that when Mr. Ma tried to investigate illegal deals while justice minister in the mid-1990s, he quickly lost his job and temporarily had to leave politics. He was an assistant professor at a local university for about a year before he came back by being elected mayor of Taipei.
Taiwan is the world's 17th largest economy, mainly on the back of information technology sector but has been performing in recent years worse than many of its Asian counterparts.
Job and investment are being lured to mainland China, incomes are falling and the gap between rich and poor is widening. Taiwanese have felt that by annoying China, during the last eight years, the President of the ruling pro-independence DPP (Democratic Progressive Party) has put the economy into great risk.
Taiwanese have felt that without China's cooperation and money, Taiwan will not be able to compete economically in a globalised world. Therefore the platform of Ma of closer ties with China became attractive to voters.
Tens of thousands of an estimated one million Taiwanese living in mainland China are thought to have made journey over to vote via transit points in Hongkong, Macau and Jeju island, South Korea.
The election was closely watched by the US and China, among other states. Washington and Beijing were not comfortable with eight years of tensions under outgoing President Chen Shui-bian of DPP.
Unnecessarily the out-going President created a political controversy over his intention of Taiwan to become the UN member when he was aware that Taiwan's membership would be vetoed by many Security Council members of the UN. Furthermore he gave the impression that he would unilaterally declare Taiwan's independence, much to the annoyance to Washington and Beijing.
Washington seems to have heaved a sigh of relief at Ma's election and President George Bush greeted the new President. Bush reportedly said: "I believe the election provides a fresh opportunity for both sides to reach out and engage one another in peacefully resolving their differences."
Beijing also sees in Ma's election improving bilateral relations because the antics played by the out-going President have been rejected handsomely by Taiwanese.
In spite of China's continued threats against Taiwan, a wonderful development occurred since 2001. Taiwanese businessmen were overwhelming Chinese markets with investment. In that year alone, more than $100 million went out of Taiwan and onto the mainland ($36 billion was already invested there), with more than 60,000 Taiwanese by then living in Shanghai and 50,000 Taiwanese companies operating across that ancient land.
Now with Ma as the President Taiwan faces next turn on a historic roadway to development and which will influence China in the distant future.
It is believed Ma has already led three years of basically secret contacts between his Nationalist (Koumingtang) Party and China's Communist Party, and some analysts believe tentative progress on issues of the Taiwan Strait has been made.
Analysts expect Beijing and Taipei may soon open talks on tourism and direct air links. But the more sensitive political issues would be set aside for a while.
"Taiwan and China will resume dialogue soon on the model of the '1992 consensus' to discuss practical issues without having to touching sovereignty issues." Sai Cao Jinxing, a political analyst at China's Tsinghua University said.
Under the 1992 consensus, Beijing and Taipei accepted the formula of "One China" but agreed to interpret it in their own way, leading to Taiwan's current status of de facto but undeclared nationhood.
In 1993 they opened their first semi-official talks in Singapore but they were suspended a few years later.
Ma reportedly said that he wanted to negotiate confidence-building military procedures with China to reduce the risk of an accidental war and eventually a peace agreement ending hostilities across the Taiwan Strait.
But he also needs to allay the suspicions of American conservatives who value Taiwan as a strategic counterweight to China and who remain distrustful of Ma's Nationalist Party because of its reluctance for years to approve the purchase of submarines and other military hardware first offered by President Bush in 2001.
Ma plans to seek close relations with Japan, another important ally of the United States and one that shares the American commitment to preserving the status quo in the Taiwan Strait.
But he has also long infuriated Japan by contending that it should hand over a cluster of small islands to Taiwan, known in Japan as the Senkaku Islands and to Chinese speakers as the Diaoyu Islands. He even wrote his doctoral dissertation at Harvard on the subject.
At a recent news conference, Ma offered a mechanism and some thoughts on a formula for achieving a peace agreement with the mainland.
For starters, he said, negotiations should be handled through two semi official foundations set up with government backing in the early 1990s: the Straits Exchange Foundation, which Mr. Ma helped establish on the Taiwan side, and Beijing's Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits.
Ever since the communists overran China in 1949, Taiwan has been repeatedly the subject of potential conflict between the United States and the Chinese mainland. The US seemed to be continually on the verge of all-out "war" with China over the small and trembling republic.
Hopefully with the election of the new President, tension in the Taiwan Straits will be much less unless the US complicates the situation with China on strategic issues.
The writer is a former Bangladesh Ambassador to the UN, Geneva.
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DOWN MEMORY LANE
Nurul Islam, Mahbubuzzaman: Two great souls left us quietly
Shah Abdul Hannan
Recently, two doyens of Bangladesh civil service died, one of them was M. Nurul Islam, former secretary and former governor of Bangladesh Bank and the other was M Mahbubuzzaman, former cabinet secretary who later became a cabinet minister.
I worked with both of them and I have fond memories. Mr.Nurul Islam became first chairman of National Board of Revenue and I joined as its first second secretary in the customs and the then excise side. There was no member for only customs side and there was no first secretary. So I had to deal with the Chairman almost direct. I had heard about him before but I had no experience in working with him. He was Chairman for a short time and handed over charge to Mr. Kafiluddin Mahmud, an officer of his batch. They were among the officers of the first or second batch of the then Pakistan Civil Service. I found Mr Islam a totally professional, competent and soft-spoken officer. He would not talk much but he was the epitome of a gentlemen. I remember that it was decided to reduce duty on machinery from 30 per cent to eighteen per cent because of devaluation made of the taka to US dollar. He asked me to draft a new notification with a new schedule. I then suggested to him that this exercise was not necessary and that the figure 30 per cent in the earlier notification can be replaced by 18 per cent and that would do. He thought for a moment and then agreed with me and asked me to do it that way.
On another occasion, probably in 1974, he was the commerce secretary, Late Kazi Mosharraf Hossain was the Chairman of the NBR and I was the first secretary. It was decided by the government to raise more avenue and Mr. Nurul Islam suggested imposition of a development surcharge which was very easy to do and practical but Kazi Musharraf was not agreeable. He said that an import surcharge should be imposed. Mosharraf sahib was a tough arguer and Nurul Islam sahib could not convince him. Finally Mr. Nurul Islam did agree to an amendment of Import and Export law and a new import license tax was imposed. This shows a kind of bureaucratic power-mongering which I saw throughout my service life. On the other hand I found Nurul Islam sahib very different and very understanding.
My last direct experience with him was in 1986 or 87 when as a D.G. of the Bureau of Anti-corruption I was investigating an alleged graft case of one hundred thousand dollar against an officer who later became a cabinet minister. The then President wanted to see the file because somebody close to him reported the matter to him. After meeting with the President I met Nurul islam sahib on his advice. Mr Nurul Islam took certain papers from me but told me very politely that there was no hope for the investigation. He was only telling me practical aspects of such cases, the realities but also false allegations that are galore in our country to defame and destroy others.
Mahbubuzzaman was another great soul. He was probably from 1954 batch of civil service. I found him as cabinet secretary and Cabinet Division used to supervise the work of Bureau of Anti-Corruption. I have found hardly such well-behaved, knowledgeable, competent and courageous officer. His example would be rare like Nurul Islam sahib. He used to preside over the Anti-Corruption council of that time where prosecution decision about important cases of corruption used to be taken.
I was myself not very prosecution minded because I had very grave doubts about the complaints and investigating officers and I used to take very few cases there. I found him more considerate in giving clearance for prosecution .He backed me very much during my days in that organization and did help me somewhat when I was being challenged by a junior officer of civil service cadre in the Bureau. I was facing a difficult time in my life at that time but I decided to pass this crisis coolly with patience as Almighty Allah has taught humanity. Mr Zaman knew the matter and used to console me though he did not take any further action at that time. Service solidarity in this country is more important than truth and justice. It is only a few who can pass this test
I faced the same situation when my promotion as secretary became due. I was by passed by thirty officers though my record as the key person who introduced VAT in this country and also my record in major reforms in the banking sector were well-known. I wish justice become the guiding principle in our life.
Mahbubuzzaman used to call everybody and also me Apni (you, in respectful sense) and he had great affection for me. He did visit me several times after his retirement and I always tried to help him whenever it was possible.
Islam and Mr Mahbubuzzaman have left us almost silently with no publicity or discussion to mention. I feel a little pain that such great sons who have built the administration in Bangladesh have gone in this manner. I pray for them, Allah may reward them for all their good works for the nation.
The author is a former secretary to the Government of Bangladesh.
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LETTERS
COAB should monitor CTVN's PQC
Dear Editor:
Like thousands of subscribers to cable TV network (CTVN) in Dhaka we home viewers are suffering from poor quality control (PQC) of the service to various localities. There are no signs of internal and external monitoring of quality control by the CTVN service providers' association known as COAB. Is this service operating in non-formal zone? It appears that the authorities are ignoring proper official monitoring of the channels for quality control and other facilities. What about the monthly rate? Is it not arbitrarily imposed?
There is no one-stop centre for complaints; and no advertisements, announcements, and feedback system. The association of cable TV operators [COAB] is callous about public relations. The cable operators in the localities usually put the blame (non-technical jargon and opinionated remarks) at the subscribers' end. The technical staff should be trained and qualified to handle technical complaints; simply connecting the cable to the home is not enough.
There are several areas of technical monitoring in the vast network; output from the TV station/studio (uplink to the satellite); the downlink to the receiving stations/dishes: the feeding of the programmes (cable/wireless) to the cable TV retailers (to homes) in the localities; the inspection of the quality of installations as per standard practices.
An example; we receive the foreign channels at the usual level of quality, but some local (Bangladesh) channels have some intermittent faults, for which fine tuning is required, but while the noise in the sound disappears, the colour also disappears. The quality of BTV has improved; while in most local channels, there is a difference, in quality between the studio and outside broadcasts (noisy, with poor colour control). The private channels have to improve technical teamwork levels.
Let us hear from the Government and the association on this grey area of poor service control.
M. Abad,
Lalmatia, Dhaka.
Edible oil export to India at throwaway price!
Dear Editor:
A group of dishonest businessmen with permission from the relevant Government agencies exported 20,000 metric tons (MT) of edible oil at a throwaway price to Indian importers in November 2007. They exported edible oil at a throwaway price of Taka 48 per litre while the same was sold in Dhaka at Taka 90 per litre. It ia a clear case of money laundering, there is no doubt about it. Import or export of commodities through over-invoicing and under-invoicing causes money laundering which cripple a country's economy.
People are astonished as to how this reckless exploitation of the common people is taking place at a time when cooking oil price is exorbitant and the country is under emergency rule and the Caretaker Government has visibly undertaken serious campaign to clear the society from this scourge. We also wonder how the relevant Government agencies dared to permit the dishonest businessmen to export edible oil at throwaway price to encourage money laundering when the country is under emergency rule.
This I write with reference to the lead item entitled, "Despite acute crisis at home, corrupt traders exported edible oil to India" published in your esteemed weekly on February 29, 2008.
It is clear to all that these dishonest businessmen could not have exported edible oil at throwaway price unless they were abetted by corrupt officials of relevant Government agencies. None could commit crime without connivance of these corrupt officials. These corrupt officials of relevant Government agencies must not go unpunished under any circumstances.
Few days ago I read a news item published in a vernacular daily that a total of 59 thousand kgs of Hilsa fish was exported to India at a throwaway price of Taka 140/- per kg while the same was sold in Dhaka at Taka 500/- to 600/-per kg. Bangladesh Bank detected export of Hilsa fish through under-invoicing by two scheduled banks. Such practice of import and export of commodities through over-invoicing and under-invoicing must be stopped.
Quoting observers the writer has written that the government should immediately put all those businessmen behind the bar for their alleged crime and once the charges are proved, they must be given exemplary punishment to warn other black marketers, money launderers and the members of the so-called syndicate.
A.M.K. Chowdhury,
West Masdhair
Narayanganj.
Change in rules anticipated
Dear Editor:
A news item has been published in the vernacular daily of 28th March) that the Government has agreed in principle to allow land owners and developers to build houses by giving up 30 per cent of the total land instead of the existing 40 per cent, came as a big relief to the land owners in general. This is what is known as good governance, i.e. when the Govt. in power cares for the public opinion and expectation.
No doubt, the past BNP Govt. framed the existing impractical and unrealistic rule on the pretext of developing Singapore-style environment ( but without caring for the ground reality ). As regards good environment, I suppose if the Govt. were sincere, they should have developed a sound waste management system and kept the city clean and free of garbage and stinks.
However, I cordially thank the Housing and Public works Adviser Major General ( retd) Golam Kader for the pragmatic decision by paying his attention to the long awaited stalemate. Laws are man-made and should be framed in conformity with the prevailing socio economic conditions of the country/city. Land is scarce and costly in Dhaka city. We have acute housing problem and it is only getting worse day by day. Steps should be taken to make optimum utilisation of land, so that more and more people of moderate means are able to have a roof over their heads.
While hailing the above, I also point out that the proposed amendments seem to have no room for the small land owners, what was so long in the air that the land owners having up to 10 kathas will be allowed to build houses as per the old rules i.e. by giving up 20 per cent of the total area. I think the old rule, if implemented honestly, would have been appropriate for the majority people as well as for the city. May I appeal to the incumbent Adviser to reconsider the amendment and make room for the small land owners possessing up to 10 kathas of land, to build houses as per the old rule.
A.B.M.Zakaria,
East Shewrapara
Mirpur, Dhaka.
BGMEA should open website
Dear Editor:
The garment sector, our biggest foreign exchange earner, should open an international website, with information and data, updated monthly. Its monthly bulletin should be available at newspaper and book stalls, in English and Bangla.
Introduce a regular documentary programme each month on radio and TV networks. Be transparent and encourage public feedback. At the recent DI trade fair the BGMEA pavilion was not prominent. Why this hush-hush attitude?
The RMG industry is well established but the PR is poor or absent. Why visiting a factory is not encouraged for tourists and students/citizens? Labour relations are an important PR weapon.
What about awards, rewards and punishments? What are the amenities available to the workers; including extra curricular activities, games and sports, recreations, helping the child students? There is no news on training facilities.
The news releases in the media are scanty. We are proud of the achievements of RMG sectors but BGMEA's PR is amateurish.
Let us see a revamped BGMEA-public friendly.
A Husnain,
Dhaka.
Substance is there, but spirit is missing
Dear Editor:
We celebrate so many national anniversaries in substance - but where is the spirit? We get lost in details. Political curfews can isolate political flue? What is the deterrent punishment for these unpatriotic political players, who don't care for rules and referees?
A referendum of the voters would reveal that voters want an immediate political regime- or after a pause.
AZ,
Dhaka.
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