People are not in a hurry

These days everybody is talking about how to ensure a level playing field for all the political parties and their candidates in the next parliamentary election, whenever it is held. If an election is a game, only a level playing field cannot ensure fairness and success of it. To make it a meaningful and successful game the players have the most important role to play. Players who are addicted to crime, terrorism and corruption cannot make a game of politics like election a success. Such players must be disqualified to participate in an election, as a player in any game is disqualified if s/he is found positive in a dope test. Time necessary for such an arrangement must be allowed to the organisers of the game. We are not at all surprised to see that the top leaders of both the BNP and the AL have already started talking in unison to have the next election within a short time. They do not want to wait to get rid of their corrupt party colleagues. They want to bring their corrupt colleagues back to power again to loot people’s money, grab government lands and indulge in wanton terrorism. So, understandably, they are in a hurry. But if you talk about the common people who are innocent victims of their looting, grabbing and terrorism, after having seen the recently exposed misdeeds of the politicians, they do not want to see the present set of politicians to come to power again. Definitely it is the politicians who will ultimately run the affairs of the state, but not the present set of politicians. The present interim government of Dr Fakhruddin Ahmed must do the needful to get rid of the present condemned set of politicians and help a new generation of honest, efficient, learned and modern politicians to take charge. People are not against politicians. They are against bad politicians who should all be shown red card before the game is restarted. That is the point which all concerned, including our foreign friends and well wishers, should take note of. People are not in a hurry for an election. They want the garbage to be cleaned first by bringing in as many reforms as necessary. Ashraf

Role of FBCCI

As an ordinary citizen I am not aware of the rights and responsibilities of FBCCI. Is it its only duty to fight/negotiate with the government to promote the cause of their business? Does it have any responsibility to ensure that its members do not indulge in corrupt practices like marketing rotten food grains, baby foods, adulterated sugar, edible oil, spurious drugs etc and evading taxes? If the answer is in the affirmative, we would like to know from the FBCCI bosses what they have been doing in the past 35 years to refrain their recalcitrant members from committing such social crimes. We would also like to hear from them about what they intend to do in future. If they fail to come out with a satisfactory reply, we feel the government, which is the custodian of the people’s interest, have no obligation to listen to FBCCI officials. One cannot enjoy rights and privileges without any responsibility.

Hasina’s negative reaction on Dr. Yunus's joining politics

Sheikh Hasina is known for her irresponsible and, at times, indecent remarks against her political adversaries. It is on record that she was once admonished by the Supreme Court of Bangladesh, while she was the prime minister, for making some irresponsible remarks. Very recently she has again (New Age, 18 February) criticised Nobel Laureate Prof Dr Muhammad Yunus in a very objectionable way, to say the least. It is the present set of politicians of the two major political parties, the BNP and the AL, who are solely responsible for bringing Bangladesh to the brink of collapse by their inefficient and corrupt handling of the affairs of the state for the last 15 years. During this period, Sheikh Hasina governed Bangladesh for 5 years as the prime minister and for 10 years as the leader of the opposition. (In a parliamentary democracy leader of the opposition is also a part of the government.) Prof Yunus is a commoner. He has no blue blood in his veins. He has not inherited his greatness from his family or anybody else. He is a self-made man. His contribution to the alleviation of poverty has been recognised and acclaimed all over the world. By getting the Nobel Prize he has already become one of those great men who are considered to be the architects of the world civilisation. Other countries, including our neighbour India, have borrowed his idea to alleviate poverty. Prof Yunus is known to be an honest and incorruptible man. On the other hand, Sheikh Hasina has not earned, rather inherited her present leadership of the AL from her illustrious father Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. She does not have much education, no grooming and no training to lead a party like the AL. While leading a non-violent democratic party like the AL she groomed and patronised godfathers like Joynal Hazari, Abul Hasnat Abdullah, Shamim Osman, Haji Mokbul and many alike. She patronised many corrupt politicians, businessmen and bureaucrats and made Bangladesh first in the TI’s list of corrupt countries. With this (brilliant?) antecedent can a politician like Sheikh Hasina criticise a person like Prof Yunus? Yes, one may have a different opinion about the principles on which Prof Yunus’s Grameen Bank is functioning. But calling him a ‘usurer’ for that is much below the sense of decency. Prof Yunus has never criticised the politicians as a class. Like all other people in Bangladesh he has criticised only the present set of politicians who are solely and entirely responsible for the present political state of the country. By joining politics he wants to bring in a positive change in the quality of political leadership and in politics of Bangladesh. What is wrong in that? Why should Sheikh Hasina react so harshly to that? I am sure, many people in Bangladesh, after having seen the corrupt and inefficient leadership of Begum Khaleda Zia and Sheikh Hasina for 15 years, would love to have a universally acclaimed personality like Prof Yunus on the driving seat.

An appeal to our lawyers

For the last few days, our law enforcing agencies have been unearthing huge warehouses, one after another, filled with adulterated and poisonous food grains, baby food and edible oils, and factories manufacturing spurious drugs, fertilisers, insecticides etc. The importers, the owners and the manufacturers of these poisonous items are, no doubt, enemies of the nation. It is not necessary to explain how these anti-state elements have been killing our innocent people, including our family members and babies, by marketing these items under the direct patronisation of their corrupt political masters. It is expected that soon charge-sheets will be framed against them and they will be put on trial in the courts of law. These criminals need to be given exemplary punishment for the crimes they have been committing against the humanity, and to deter others from doing so. I would like to appeal to our learned and patriotic lawyers not to appear in the courts to defend these adulterators of food items and the manufacturers of spurious drugs, fertilisers and insecticides. We know, these criminals are all very powerful people in the society and have lots of black money. They have the money to employ the best lawyers by paying them the highest fees. But before you stand for them please ask your conscience, should you sell yourselves to money? In the recent past, you as a community earned great appreciation of the whole nation when you very rightly refused to appear before the court to defend the JMB leaders and activists, as the whole nation wanted those criminals to be punished. I am sure you will not fail the nation this time too. I request the interim government of Dr Fakhruddin Ahmed to constitute special speedy tribunals to deal with these elements as soon as possible. Otherwise, I am sure once a political government comes to power these criminals will manage to go unscathed, as we saw in the past, by manipulating the politicians.

Khaleda’s call

As per a newspaper report (February 16) Khaleda Zia while addressing an award-giving function of the ‘Shapla Kuri 2006’ held in Dhaka called for ‘making Bangladesh an ideal place for grooming children as good citizens.’ She also gave some advice to the children. My simple question is: does she mean what she said to the children? The children of today can read newspapers. They watch TV. From the recent newspaper reports and telecasts made by the TV channels they have already learnt that Khaleda Zia is one of our two top political leaders (the other being Sheikh Hasina) under whose direct patronisation politics has been so much criminalised that the country has come to a point of collapse. Publication of children’s textbooks which are full of mistakes; creation of artificial crisis of writing papers in the market; grabbing of parks and playgrounds for children by godfathers; adulteration of baby food, food grains, medicines; unlawful occupation of government lands and property; politicisation of bureaucracy and wanton corruption by politicians and government servants — do all these activities carried out under her rule as the prime minister make Bangladesh an ideal place for grooming children as good citizens? Madame Khaleda Zia, please don’t take our children as fools. They are born in the age of the Internet and digital technology. You can no more befool them, as you and your cohorts have been befooling many of their parents in the last 15 years.

Catch them now

Some former members of the 6th, 7th and 8th parliaments while trying to get visa for someone else’s wives and children by certifying them as their (MPs’) own wives and children were caught red-handed by the concerned foreign missions in Dhaka. They got forged diplomatic red passports issued against these passengers in exchange of huge amount of bribes. There were others who were caught by our immigration officials at the airport. All these incidents were published in the newspapers. Records should also be available with the SB of the police. No government in the past years is known to have taken any legal action against these corrupt politicians. The arm of law failed to reach them for obvious reasons. Certainly these politicians brought bad name to themselves and to the nation by indulging in such heinous crimes. We would like to see the present caretaker government take stern actions against these criminals to stop recurrence of such crimes by VIPs in the future.

Finally ACC is ready to get cleansed

Thank god, the three unwise old men have finally left the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) [two of them have already resigned and remaining one will tender his resignation any day]. They had to be told, point blank, by no less a person than the president himself to leave the job. And the president, we suppose, had to be advised by the interim government to do that. The outgoing chairman of the ACC, while talking to the media, insisted that he and his colleagues did not fail. The government of Khaleda Zia did not let them to function by not making necessary laws and rules. If that is true, then why didn’t they resign? Prof Muniruzzaman Miah, one of the members, during his interview with BBC in the evening of 6 February, answered that question. He said that it was not correct that the people of the country were asking for their resignation. They never heard of it! It was only after the Election Commission members resigned some people raised the issue of their resignation. How deaf and blind these gentlemen were! Prof Miah said that there were good reasons for them not to resign. He further added that it was not always possible to make such reasons public. Persons with such poor moral courage, in the first place, should not have been appointed to an organisation like the ACC (and EC) where one was supposed to work independently without any fear or favour. It is no use blaming these intellectual hirelings. The blame squarely lies on their masters who appointed them. Will these masters ever be asked why they did so against the interest of the nation? We thank the present interim government for showing Justice Sultan and his colleagues the door. At the same time we hope that the interim government will take due care to appoint the right kind of people in the ACC.