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The twice postponed 13th summit of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) is scheduled to be held in Dhaka on November 12 and 13. The Dhaka summit was originally scheduled for January 9 to 11. But it was postponed after the December 26 tsunami disaster that battered at least 11 countries in Asia and Africa, including India, Sri Lanka and the Maldives, three member countries of SAARC. Dhaka subsequently proposed February 7 to 9 as the new date for the summit. But India proposed that the summit should be held over two days starting from February 6. The Pakistan Prime Minister, Shaukat Aziz, eventually consulted with all the member-states and set February 6 and 7 as the new date upon consensus. Accordingly Bangladesh completed all its preparation for holding the summit with due solemnity and took special security measures all over the country, especially in the Dhaka city, for the safety and security of the SAARC leaders.
   Meanwhile King Gyanendra dismissed the coalition government of the Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba on February 1, and enforced an indefinite emergency, casting doubt over Nepal’s participation in the summit. On the other hand, the regional media expressed deep concern over the political unrest in Bangladesh in the wake of the January 27 grenade attack on Awami League rally in Habiganj killing Shah AMS Kibria, the former Finance Minister and four other activists. The SAARC meet was postponed once again after India on February 2 announced that its Prime Minister Manmohan Singh decided not to attend the summit due to the political crisis in Nepal and deteriorating security situation in Bangladesh. Indian Foreign Secretary Shyam Saran told a news conference that this decision was taken against the background of recent developments in Nepal as well as the continuing and deteriorating security situation in Dhaka. Pakistan, the current chair of the SAARC, formally announced the postponement of the seven nation summit after being told by India that its Prime Minister would not attend the summit.
   When the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) was initiated by late President Ziaur Rahman in 1980, the grinding poverty of more than one billion people in the South Asian countries was uppermost in his mind. Though the problems were common in seven countries of the region, no concerted action was ever taken by any one of the countries till 1985 to help poverty alleviation of more than one billion people living in these countries. When the SAARC was ceremonially formed in Dhaka in December-1985, the millions of South Asian people had seen a ray of hope for gaining much from regional cooperation in the field of poverty alleviation. But the SAARC, caught in a complicated bilateral political situation between India and Pakistan, could not make any headway to alleviate poverty in the seven countries of the region. As such millions of people in this region are still living with poverty intensified further.
   Poverty in the SAARC countries is widespread and also a complex phenomenon which refers to both income and non-income components of poverty. The non-income components of poverty include lack of education, healthcare and vulnerability. As such there is no single dominated approach to alleviate poverty in the region. All the South Asian countries are viewed as relatively poor states. Nearly 40 percent of the World’s 1.3 billion people, who live on less than one US dollars a day, live in South Asia. The average per capita income of the people of South Asia which is US dollars 309 is much lower in comparison with US dollar 555 in sub-Saharan Africa and US dollar 970 in all developing countries. Poverty alleviation, particularly the reduction of income poverty is much slower in the South Asian countries than the countries in East Asia. Higher population growth in the South Asian countries has kept the region’s millions of people to live with poverty intensified further. The average nominal per capita GNP of the region is hardly US dollar 400. The lack of regional cooperation is considered as an important factor responsible for slow poverty alleviation in the region.
   The seven South Asian countries eventually established South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) in 1985 at Dhaka summit attended by the heads of the state of the seven countries. The regional alliance of the seven countries pledged to alleviate the grinding poverty in the region since the inception of SAARC. Since then repeated efforts were made to materialize this main objective of the SAARC. But due to various reasons SAARC could not make substantial progress towards poverty alleviation. Undoubtedly, the most important factor hampering the SAARC progress is the bilateral disputes between different countries. Though commitments by the leaders to alleviate poverty in the region have been regularly made in all the SAARC summit so far held, no concerted efforts were practically made for poverty alleviation in the region. So millions of people in the region are still standing in the same place after twenty years, where they had once stood with poverty. Collective SAARC approach is indeed for a practical way to deal with such an overwhelming problem of poverty alleviation.
   It is now twenty years since the late President Zia conceived the idea of a regional forum in South Asia. There are so many people who may go on arguing that the regional body practically have done nothing in the last twenty years, cannot promise anything better in the future. We have seen the much-vaunted Regional Cooperation for Development (RCD) involving Pakistan, Iran and Turkey, in a display of pomp and pageantry at the start in 1964. But by 1970, only six years after it had been founded, the RCD simply fizzled out. But let us not be that much pessimistic about the SAARC. The SAARC leaders, having traveled so far along the pragmatic, must also seek to spend some more time giving serious thought to the issue of poverty alleviation in the South Asian countries. The poverty alleviation pursuits of SAARC need to be supported by necessary fund.
   The 13th summit of the SAARC is expected to launch a new era of implementing commitments, promoting regional programmes and projects and undertaking steps towards realizing a vision of the South Asian Economic Union, as has been stated by M. Morshed Khan, the Foreign Minister of Bangladesh. As Dhaka is prepared to host the rescheduled 13th SAARC summit on November 12 and 13 and Bangladesh Prime Minister will be elected to chair the South Asian forum for the next term, one can well-understand the upbeat note in the Foreign Minister’s voice about the future success of the SAARC.
   The more matured SAARC is going to start its third decade journey completing 20 years of existence on December 8, 2005. The SAARC now has to face some new challenges which include disaster management and combating terrorism. One of the world’s worst earthquakes in recent history struck Pakistan, India and Afghanistan on October 8, killing 40 thousand people in the northeast Pakistan and injuring another 60 thousand. The quake was felt across a wide swath of South Asia from central Afghanistan to western Bangladesh and damage spanning at least 250 miles from Jalalabad in Afghanistan to Srinagar in northern Indian territory. Another most powerful earthquakes in the history of world also hit southern Asia on December 26 2004, unleashing a tsunami that crashed into Sri Lanka and India and swamping tourist isles in Thailand and the Maldives killing one hundred thousand people. Bangladesh is also running a high risk of earthquake and tsunami, but it has little preparation to combat those natural calamities. The Volunteers Against Disaster (VAD) in association with the Disaster Research, Training and Management Centre of Dhaka University arranged a roundtable in the city recently. The experts at the roundtable said that there are many seismic faults in the plains around Dhaka and Chittagong Hill Tracts which can cause a strong earthquake measuring 8 in Richter scale in Bangladesh and may also turn into tsunami if the earthquake occurs under the Bay of Bengal.
   Jan Egeland, the head of the United Nations disaster relief agency predicted that earthquakes are likely to have the biggest impact of any natural disaster in the 50 or so years that the UN has been coordinating the World’s response to such cries. A regional arrangement for disaster management is now imperative as the SAARC countries are facing devastating tremors and tidal waves frequently with increasing the number of people killed and affected. The SAARC Meteorological Research Center (SMRC), established in Dhaka in 1995, hardly has any function in the operational aspects but conducting research on weather forecast. The SAARC leaders may also consider upgrading the SMRC to a full-fledged pre-disaster early warning centre by broadening its terms of reference and areas of operation. If some good come out of the forthcoming Dhaka summit in the form of regional arrangement for disaster management, the people in the SAARC countries will be most benefited.
   Whatever may be the definition of terrorism, it is another set-back for the SAARC countries toward peace and prosperity and regional approach is a must to fight against terrorism. The SAARC Regional Convention on Suppression of Terrorism was signed in Kathmandu in November 1987 during the Third SAARC summit and came into force on 22 August following ratification by all member countries. The Convention provides a regional focus to many established principles of international law in this respect. Under its provisions, member countries are committed to extradite or prosecute alleged terrorists thus preventing them from enjoying safe heavens. The SAARC Terrorist Offences Monitoring Desk (STOMD) has been established in Colombo to compare, analyse and disseminate information about the terrorists, their tactics, strategies and methods. Efforts must be taken for further strengthening STOMD to combat terrorism in south Asia. The Prime Minister Begum Khaleda Zia said she would draw the attention of South Asian leaders during the upcoming SAARC summit for taking joint measures against terrorism.
   The holding of the 13th summit indicates the political commitment of the leaders in the SAARC to the existence of such a South Asian regional forum to the benefit of all the member countries, which was formed because of historical and geopolitical necessities. Bangladesh, as an initiator of the SAARC back in 1985, has planned to host the 13th summit in a befitting manner. The government has deployed as many as twenty thousand security personnel including the elite force RAB to ensure fool-proof security of the SAARC leaders. For the first time in the recent history, the government has taken ‘airtight security’ in and around Dhaka city deploying anti-terrorism strike force to prevent any terrorist activity. We hope that all the member countries of the South Asian regional alliance will be earnest in holding the 13th SAARC summit in Dhaka on November 12 and 13 for accelerating regional economic development.
   The SAARC is important not only because the region is home to 20 percent of the world population, but because 50 percent of the world’s poor lives here. SAARC has been able to progress during the past two decades in the areas like agricultural rural development, women empowerment, communication and science and technology, though most of the declarations made by the SAARC leaders in the earlier summits have not yet been implemented. Dhaka summit is expected to give an agenda for the next 10 years. In the context of the changed global reality, the regional approach is an obvious necessity to fight against terrorism, poverty and disaster. The SAARC leaders may also consider to modify the SAARC charter, if necessary, to fit the changing needs to face new challenges. We wish the 13th summit a crowing success.
   The writer is a banker

The Honourable Member of Parliament (MP) for Nilphamari Sadar, Mr. Asaduzzaman Noor, has informed the government that his constituency is in the grip of a famine and has called for emergency relief. It has been a week since his request, and for hungry stomachs a week is a long time. So far the government has yet to demonstrate the sense of urgency as the honourable MP expects. Hunger related deaths have been reported amidst the news of gross corruption in Vulnerable Group Feeding programmes. Newspapers are persistently demanding the need to open gruel kitchens in a number of districts in the ‘monga’ affected greater Rangpur area. So far the government has not responded.
   Nobel laureate Amartya Sen’s seminal work on ‘Exchange Entitlements’, explaining the phenomena of ‘famine’, is based on empirical data generated from the greater Rangpur area. This area, due to the poor quality of its soil (mostly sandy loam with negligible quantity of clay), has a poor harvest and is subject to massive seasonal unemployment and destitution around this time of the year. Simplistically, according to Dr. Sen, lack of purchasing power of the poor owing to rural unemployment pushes a large number of the rural poor into vulnerable groups that need to be catered for by social interventions. Otherwise this group is likely to perish from hunger. Government initiatives like Food for Work, Vulnerable Group Feeding (VGF) programmes, etc., are designed to act as a social safety net during this lean period. Each year the government through the local Upazilla Nirbahi Officers deals this problem in a routine fashion. The beneficiaries do not escape from the vicious cycle of poverty permanently, but are allowed to survive on a year-to-year basis of their malnourished, miserable existence.
   However, this year a steep increase in consumer edibles coupled with increased politicisation of the administration has resulted in VGF programmes being unable to minimize the sufferings of the poor and hungry. There are reports that VGF cards have been distributed to the well-off. Taking rural reportage with a grain of salt, we may safely say that VGF cards have been distributed to the poor at the expense of the desperately poor. In years when the price of staples and edibles are relatively stable, the village well-off as well as the rural poor take care of the desperately poor by creating non-essential work in a spirit of community fellowship. But when the price of staples shoots through the roof, even these comparatively better off families feel vulnerable and the desperately poor are left to fend on their own. Due to their inability to procure food at market prices, the second tier poor, who usually do not avail VGF handouts (out of social pride) now start to compete with the desperately poor. This competition for scarce government resources creates a condition where the socially and politically stronger push out the weaker ones. A corrupt and politicised administration exacerbates the process. The end result is desperately poor people succumbing to hunger, the domino effect created leads to a famine, eventually resulting in large numbers of unwarranted deaths.
   The tell-tale signs of an impending famine are there for all to see. According to Dr. Sen, the indicators of an impending famine are when people start selling their possessions, eat non-traditional roots and tubers and fall sick, flee their area seeking employment elsewhere in considerable numbers, etc. Dr. Sen later on also asserts that in true democracies a famine is unlikely as a free press alerts the government to an impending crisis. The press for a considerable time has been diligently reporting on diarrhoea-related deaths, hunger-related suicides and mass migration to neighbouring districts. So far the government in the ‘monga’ affected region of North Bengal has not opened a single gruel kitchen.
   In fact, some leading ministers have ridiculed the idea of the existence of ‘monga’ in North Bengal, terming it as opposition propaganda or a figment of imagination of a hostile press. A few months back, ‘Bangla Bhai’ was touted as the media’s creation and now we know how true the government’s assertions can be. Mr. Noor, MP, is an extremely gifted actor, but even he would not dare play-act on an issue involving life and death in his own constituency. It is time the government ignored its petty obsession with image and the political implications of treating the northern districts as ‘crisis areas’. It is time to consider the issue of ‘life and death’ as an issue of ‘life and death’ and start saving lives. At least the government owes the people of Bangladesh this much respect for allowing them the privilege to govern this country.

It is one of those times when I remember Indira Gandhi. You may well recall that on the last day of October in 1984, she was murdered by two of her Sikh bodyguards at her residence in New Delhi. For me, the day remains etched in deep sadness, mainly because Indira Gandhi had been an icon for me. She became an icon especially because of all the help she gave us in 1971 when we really had nowhere to turn to. I keep telling young people that had it not been for Mrs. Gandhi, the history of our country may have been much different from what it actually turned out to be. It is a pity that there are too many people in this country who do not have the time to remember the great contributions Indira Gandhi made to our Bengali cause in 1971.
   There are other things for which I remember Mrs. Gandhi. Among these is the very feminine grace which was a part of her personality as long as she lived. Even when she was India’s all powerful prime minister and felling all her male rivals with one stroke after another, she maintained this element of grace in her. We were very young when we heard that Mrs. Gandhi had become prime minister of India. That was in January 1966. Some of my friends and I met at New Market the day after that to celebrate the triumph of womanhood. That was how we looked at it. It was a time when anybody admiring anything Indian was regarded by narrow-minded people and the dimwits as unpatriotic Pakistanis. But we young Bengali women couldn’t care less. In later years, whenever I ran into any argument about women power with my husband or other men, I quietly reminded them of Indira Gandhi. Here was a woman who was not afraid to give men like Richard Nixon and Lyndon Johnson a piece of her mind. She humiliated the whole Pakistani junta and its army in battle. Even Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, a man who in season and out of season (it was a sign of his psychologically unbalanced nature) abused Indira Gandhi, was compelled to go all the way to Simla in 1972 to negotiate a peace agreement with her. When I watched that singular event in history and then read about it, I distinctly felt a swelling in my heart. One more foolish, presumptuous male had been humbled, I told myself.
   But lest you begin to think that I have admired everything about Indira Gandhi, let me tell you that I feel there were some things she did that were plainly wrong. She should never have imposed a state of emergency and she should never have brought that rascal of a son Sanjay into politics. It was he more than anyone or anything else that destroyed much of Mrs. Gandhi’s charisma and hold on the public imagination. I also happen to think that she should have desisted from attacking the Golden Temple in Amritsar and instead should have kept on trying to negotiate her way out of her crisis with the Sikh militants taking refuge there. But, when everything is said, there is something about Indira Gandhi that yet has not been matched by any other woman. Sometimes I try to compare her with Margaret Thatcher. She always comes out a winner. When you study the rise of other women to power in other countries after her, you cannot but conclude that not a single one of them has come even close to the heights she achieved for herself. She was a strong leader, no question about it. But the more important part of the story of her life is that she was a strong woman.
   Yes, beneath that apparent frailty or fragility, Indira Gandhi was a strong woman. Her beauty is something which women of my generation have always admired. She had a certain kind of sex appeal, quiet and at the same time insistent. I have known men, in Bangladesh, who have absolutely drooled at the sight of her images in newspapers. In March 1972, when she came to Dhaka only two months after her soldiers had helped us win freedom from Pakistan, I went with my husband and a few friends to hear her speak from the Indira Mancha at Suhrawardy Udyan. Those were heady times and we screamed ourselves hoarse when Indira Gandhi and Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, two great politicians of their time, appeared on the stage together. I was sitting quite close to the stage where I could easily observe Indira Gandhi in her full glory. She was stunning and I remember asking God secretly, as I sat there, how He could have made her so beautiful as a person and so powerful as a politician.
   Beginning today and until the actual anniversary of Indira Gandhi’s death, I will plunge once more into the biography of hers which her friend Pupul Jayakar has written. I have already read the book at least three times, and every time I read it, I think I discover a newer Indira Gandhi. May her soul dance around the stars in the heavens!