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Dhaka-Delhi military nexus poses danger to regional peace
M. Shahidul Islam
Recent statesmanship of our leaders resonates exactly what the wise poet-philosopher Khalil Gibran had decried so passionately in the wake of the First World War. And, not surprisingly, the Lebanese-descent poet had found his prophesies so justified that the poor statesmanship of his country's leaders had landed Lebanon into a series of civil wars from which it is yet to fully recuperate...[ FULL STORY ]
Adieu, Jyoti Babu
Holiday Desk
Communist Party of India (Marxist) leader Jyoti Basu was paid the last respects during his state funeral programme with military honours before his body was donated to a hospital for medical students, as he wished, in the West Bengal city of Kolkata Tuesday.
Leaders from across the political spectrum paid homage to one of the greatest leaders of the Communist movement in India...[ FULL STORY ]
Violence on DU campus: Police, BCL role raises question
Special Correspondent
It was reported that the clashes on the Dhaka University campus last week was an outcome of internal feud centring on formation of the new committee of Jatiyatabadi Chhatra Dal (JCD). The ugly manifestation of muscle-flexing at the highest seat of learning was apparently well-guarded with full-time deployment of contingents of police, plain-cloth detectives and other law enforcing agencies...[ FULL STORY ]
SHEIKH-SINGH AGREEMENT
A close reading of the text
Munir Zaman
The recently-concluded talks between Sheikh Hasina and Manmohon Singh have been greeted with a mixed feeling in Bangladesh, if newspaper reports are taken as the means of measuring public reaction. Bangladesh Prime Minister, on return home, stoutly defended the Agreement referring to certain paragraphs in the 50-point joint communiqué, in particular to the provisions relating to use of Chittagong and Chalna ports by India and other neighbours, sale of electricity to Bangladesh and Indian help in river dredging. The Leader of the Opposition, on the other hand, held that Bangladesh had gained little, and in fact the deal was unequal and a sale-out...[ FULL STORY ]
DELHI OPENING TO DHAKA
Old habits die hard
Sadeq Khan
On January 12, 2010, as the Bangladesh Prime Minister's working entourage in Delhi was readying with their Indian counterparts the Joint Communiqué to be signed by Dr. Sheikh Hasina and the Indian Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh, an Op-Ed article appeared in The New York Times on "India's Opening With Bangladesh." Written by former editor of Far Eastern Economic Review, Philip Bowring who is a South Asia-China watcher, the article began as follows...[ FULL STORY ]
Indian military purchase from US rising
Fazle Rashid in New York
US Defence Secretary Robert Gates, whose frank admission recently that America is not well equipped to thwart homegrown terrorism has created quite a stir. Secretary Gates was on a trip to India this week to discuss regional security, United States strategy in Afghanistan and India's tense relationship with Pakistan with Prime Minister Manmohon Singh.
India's military hardware purchases from the US will not be discussed though New Delhi procured $3 billion worth of military hardware from the US in 2008, the New York Times in a report said. The military ties between the two countries had been on a very low key during the cold war era when India was deeply aligned to Soviet Union. But in recent years things have improved with US-India military exercises being held with increasing frequencies...[ FULL STORY ]
Why PM's Delhi visit bypassed Kolkata?
Shahriar Noori
The ruling Congress government of India was against Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's visit to Kolkata, during her four-day official tour (Jan 10 - 13) mainly in New Delhi, which included visiting the then terminally ill Marxist doyen Jyoti Basu at hospital and meeting the ruling left front leaders, to block any chance to brighten the diminishing left-image in the state of West Bengal (WB).
According to highly placed sources close to the Prime Minister's Office, it was the main reason for dropping the visit schedule of Kolkata from Sheikh Hasina's itinerary. The Delhi authorities unilaterally did it and conveyed it to the Bangladesh government, highly sources said...[ FULL STORY ]
Upazila system: One year of nothingness
Abdur Rahman Khan
Upazila councils, the lower tier of the local government system in the country, are yet to exercise full authority, though one year has elapsed since the Upazila election took place.
The government notification, circulated in December last, delegated some power and authority to the Upazila councils, but it was made almost parallel to the power exercised by Upazila Nirbahi Officers (UNOs), the chief administrative officials appointed by the government at the Upazila level...[ FULL STORY ]
Why rice price hike worries us
M. Abdul Latif Mondal
Since the second quarter of the current financial year, the price of rice in the country has been spiraling. It is a fact that the price of rice came down to some extent in the first seven to eight months of the AL-led government compared to 2008 when the caretaker government faced difficulty in importing rice due to restrictions imposed by most of the rice exporting countries, which resulted from the worldwide shortage of food grains (rice and wheat) and their very high prices in the international markets. The continuous rise in the prices of different varieties of coarse and fine rice during the last three months have made the lives of the people, particularly of the poor and the fixed wage earners in the lower groups, miserable...[ FULL STORY ]
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