Main Page «
Front Page «
Metro «
Business «
International «
Sports «
National «
Editorial «
Op-Ed «
Home «
Timeout «
Letters «

Archive «
Launch Supplement «
Special Supplements «

Politics does make strange bedfellows! If anyone needed any assurance on this, then just see Sheikh Hasina and Dr Kamal Hossain sharing the same podium in an alliance against the government on the caretaker issue.
   Dr Kamal Hossain’s brilliance in law is a point that no one needs any assurance on. He is one of the few minds we have in Bangladesh who are well known for their brilliance abroad. However, I just wish I could say the same about his politics. He has dashed the hopes of many in the country who have taken his politics seriously. I guess his interests are too deep into his legal profession to allow him to concentrate on politics. As a result those who like me had once hoped that he would be one of our rising political stars have been utterly disappointed. He is like the star batsmen who never scored more that just a few runs here and there and never even crossed the half-century mark!
   The strange bedfellow aspect apart, Dr Kamal Hossain should not forget that the AL with Sheikh Hasina in charge had just not thrown him out of the party but physically assaulted him while throwing him out. The AL has not changed since and Sheikh Hasina is just playing politics with him again in seeking him out. As a great constitutional mind, as the man who wrote the constitution of Bangladesh, he can serve the country much better by taking some time out from his legal profession and by giving the people (not to the AL nor to the BNP) what he thinks should be done with the caretaker government. Knowing the style of AL politics, there is just no way that it will accept anything unless it assures the party victory. We have seen the AL negotiating in the past and it has never accepted anything less than a zero-sum victory. The BNP has suffered as a consequence. The BNP is now wiser and if the AL or Dr Kamal Hossain thinks they can get the party to negotiate in their terms, they should forget that.
   If Dr Kamal Hossain needs confirmation of the AL’s tactics, he should just consider this fact. Three key persons involved in the last caretaker government, namely, President Shahabuddin Ahmed, Justice Latifur Rahman and CEC MA Syed were all in the public perception, right or wrong, pro-AL when they entered their respective offices. The BNP is on record as having stated this in unequivocal terms. They all became partial and biased towards the BNP when the AL lost the election. Then here are other facts for the good doctor to consider. The AL never ever mentioned any need to reform the caretaker government while in power. The AL remained mum when the BNP raised doubts about Justice Habibur Rahman as the head of the caretaker government in 1996. Does Kamal Hossain now think that the BNP should take the AL seriously when it talks of reform of the CG? A lot of us do not think so.
   But we do think that the CG could be improved but not by the AL whose credibility on the reform is suspect. But someone of the stature of Dr Kamal Hossain can suggest amendments and improvements but only by working independently of the AL and not by aligning with it.
   Shahjahan Ahmed
   Dhanmandi, Dhaka

A new era in civil aviation was opened by Airbus-380 on April 27. Appropriately, there was a large and enthusiastic crowd welcoming the event on a week-day morning at Toulouse, France.
   It has opened up a commercial air traffic duel between Airbus and Boeing, the only two large passenger aeroplane makers. We have the Airbus Super jumbo A380 and Boeing Dreamliner 787 both competing for the growing air travel market.
   While Airbus believes in A380 to economically fly over 700 plus passengers from point to point, Boeing is betting on its 787 to be more viable for the future air travel growth. Both the exponents have points in favour or against their contention. Only time will tell who was right and had the better market forecast of travel trends.
   Can we see the A380 landing in Dhaka on its round the world demonstration flight sometimes next year? It makes one remember the first landing of the 747 in Dhaka more than a decade ago!
   However, I wonder if airportwise poor ZIA will ever have a chance to see the A380! Even today two 747 within half an hour of each other makes a mockery of ZIA as far as passenger and luggage handling is considered. On top of it all the illegal high rises ignoring ICA safety regulations will possibly relegate ZIA only to smaller planes in the further from a hub in India or Bangkok.
   While others move forward, we despite all the cacophony of high sounding development seminars and what not are as usual moving in the reverse gear! May be the threat from ICA will herald a further round of seminars and workshops and nothing else.
   SA Mansoor
   Gulshan, Dhaka

Mrs Afruza is a 65 year old lady whose husband died a few years ago. All her children are settled in Australia and the UK. She stays all alone in her house. Her children cannot manage time to visit their mother since their father died. They hardly find time to call their mother. Sometimes when their mother calls them, they find it very difficult to manage a few moments to talk to their mother.
   Therefore, after retirement from the university, the elderly lady has extended her teaching only to spend time. Though she does not have enough work on the campus, she spends at least 8-10 hours there. Then she visits her friends and relatives instead of returning to her flat. Sometimes she visits the same relative more than once a day. She prefers to visit relatives in the evening and gossip there till late in the evening. Then she says, ‘It’s too late, how will I go home now?’ Obviously her relatives reply, ‘Well, tonight you stay with us’. She replies delightedly, ‘Okay, if you insist’. Actually she wants to spend time in a family environment to avoid her painful loneliness.
   Most evenings when she has no place to visit she spends her time seeing photographs and videos of her children, grandsons and granddaughter. She can see her children on the screen in front of her but cannot touch them, love them and hug them. At that point she becomes desperate to meet her children, and hug them with love. Then she travels all the way alone to the UK or Australia to visit her family. But she cannot stay long there because her husband’s remains are in Bangladesh and she cannot in that sense leave him.
   Sometimes I think that I should write on this issue after a few years when I am a mother myself. And yet I feel I must write now. When I become a lonely mother it may not be possible for me to express my feelings in a short article. Maybe I will lose my voice and even my pen will stand still while I try describing my sufferings.
   Quazi Shabnom
   Dhaka