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My attention has been drawn to your report that the law ministry has asked the police to confiscate pirated copies of the Constitution. There exists huge demand for government publications which the BG Press simply fails to supply. For us, the pirated copies are reliable source for all sorts of government publications. While the pirates are punished government ought to take care of the need for piracy. One thing is to make the Constitution available on the Internet through various government websites. But many people will need a printed book. For them, government can license 5 to 10 publishers to publish the Constitution and other books. However, BG Press should continue to print and publish an official version of all legal texts.
   Farid Ahmed
   Gulshan, Dhaka

A small news item in New Age on July 20 has attracted my attention. The item said that the US assistant secretary of state for Asia would be coming to Dhaka for a visit and will hold official bilateral talks with the foreign minister.
   From what I understand from people aware of the US department of state, there are three other levels between the assistant secretary and the US secretary of state or the US foreign minister. That would make Boucher an officer equivalent to the rank of an additional secretary in our government. In Bangladesh foreign ministry, there is a foreign secretary and an adviser who has the rank of a minister of state. Even after taking into consideration the fact that the US is a superpower and we are an insignificant one, the matter of equivalence should have been a factor in setting the level for the bilateral talks between the two countries. The official talks should have been between the foreign secretary and the visiting US assistant secretary and definitely not between the latter and our foreign minister. If puts Bangladesh foreign secretary into an embarrassing position no doubt.
   A few months ago, when the US under secretary of state visited India, his official talks were with the Indian foreign secretary. Here we are having Boucher, a step below the under secretary and he gets to hold official talks with the minister who is two steps over our foreign secretary.
   In diplomacy, practical considerations sometime over-ride diplomatic ones. This notwithstanding, our foreign ministry’s handling of issues such as protocol, equivalence, etc. is weird, to say the least. Sometimes, the ministry can take a stand on these issues based on sovereignty and equality that is neither practical nor diplomatic and stretch sovereign equality to its limits and beyond and at other times such as with the one concerning the visit of Boucher, gives in in a manner that even states weaker than ours would not do.
   Rashed Ahmed
   Gulshan, Dhaka

Bangladesh recently joined the ranks of those few nations that have legally prohibited smoking in public places. The idea is to curb tobacco addiction, one of the major preventable causes of morbidity and mortality in the world. To make this investment in public health to really work, we must also make sure to support the existing smokers. It is not easy to quit smoking. We must understand that many smokers are addicted to nicotine. Like other addiction, without proper treatment the withdrawal reactions of nicotine will eventually precipitate intense craving and recidivism. That is why many smokers failed to quit even when they are well aware of its harm. The popular myth that says ‘your will is enough to quit’ is not true for too many of the smokers.
   Many of the smokers are actually very strong-willed, socially active and responsible human being. Many of our friends and family members are smokers. Fearing punitive measures many of these smokers will continue to smoke indoors and put the health of family members more at risk. And those who can’t smoke in home may even discover the safe niches from law where in some cases they may be exposed to other kinds of addiction. These are the dangers we must keep in our mind. To fight such scenario it is necessary to initiate widespread educational campaign and provide adequate support for smokers to quit.
   The support to quit smoking involves behavioural counselling, pharmacotherapy (like nicotine replacement therapy or bupropion) and other support services. It is now time for our health service personnel and different NGOs who are working with drug addiction and rehabilitation to take the step forward to make use of recent knowledge and help our smokers with their choices to quit.
   Dr Kazi Mahboob Hassan
   University of Melbourne, Australia

Like western countries the rising rate of divorce in our country is a worrying issue. Countries considered developed, educated and so on witness a greater number of divorces. Even family values, social structure, man-woman relationship of Bangladesh are following western footsteps. Though every year, nowadays, we are celebrating the Valentine’s Day with much grandeur, exchanging gifts, tokens of love among our relatives, the real feelings or spiritual appeal of relationship is fading.
   The likely causes could be urbanisation, materialism, education without religious and moral values and so on. ‘Lonely in the crowd’, according to Karl Marx, industrialisation and capitalism let human beings (modern men) in alienation and isolation.
   Thus the more urbanised we become, the more desertion and separation we experience. This is not exclusive to matrimonial couples only but spreading among parent-children, lover-beloved and even between siblings and friends.
   In this way our family texture is being loosened. Now we see old age homes in our country where aged people pass helpless days though they have solvent children.
   Perhaps materialistic views and 21st century life style are much more important rather than spiritual and passionate relationship. Furthermore, the ongoing extreme feminist movement, now evident in our country, plays a vital role of raising women’s awareness to an abnormal level that is why women cannot consider males as their friends or partners but as enemies.
   To avoid this sort of matrimonial shipwreck we should nourish tolerance, family values and norms, and religious morality. We should stop abandoning blind imitation of those whose social and family structure is virtually nonexistent.
   Mosiur Rahman
   Dept. of English, DU