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All of a sudden the caretaker government has thrown an agenda of electoral reforms and reforms of political parties on the board. It caught the country’s political parties off guard. The regime did not elucidate what kind of reforms they have in their mind.
   What can be gathered from various sources is that (a) a politician cannot serve the nation as the prime minister for more than two terms; (b) the party president and the prime minister cannot be the same person; and (c) political parties have to democratise their system of leadership.
   The first proposition is only a farcical exercise, because in no parliamentary system there is such a bar for the prime minister. Even in presidential system, excepting America, there are no such constitutional provisions. Jawaharlal Nehru ruled India as prime minister for four terms. Similar is the case with Indira Gandhi.
   The second proposition is that the prime minister and the party president cannot be the same person. There can be arguments both in favour of and against this exercise. Indira Gandhi was both chief of the Congress as well as the prime minister. Bhutto also held two offices. Anyway, this can be a talking point.
   The third proposition that political parties have to democratise themselves seems to be a judicious decision. They chief of a political party may differ with this reforms, but the rank and file will welcome it.
   The Awami League president, Sheikh Hasina, is under pressure from her colleagues to opt for collective leadership. And Hasina says there should be a congenial atmosphere for carrying out these reforms.
   The AL general secretary, Abdul Jalil, maintains that the council should elect the leadership of political parties, from the president to the executive members, by direct vote. Jalil has claimed, according to a report in new Age, that the leadership of his party from the grassroots to the district committees have been elected through secret ballots.
   AL leader Suranjit Sengupta maintains that democracy and family rule cannot go together. Rashed Khan Menon, leader of the Workers Party, wrote that ‘the current reforms movement of the political parties were many times discussed in proper forums in the past’. He also quoted Tarique Rahman as saying in a magazine interview that politics in Bangladesh would remain in the hands of two families.
   Former secretary to the government and former BNP lawmaker Mushfiqur Rahman, after meeting Khaleda Zia, said, ‘First we want to see the reform proposals set forth by the Election Commission. Then we will decide what reforms are necessary for the BNP.’
   A former US ambassador to Bangladesh wrote, ‘To send two political leaders abroad was a wrong decision. It would have demonstrated that the caretaker government was interfering with human rights and citizens’ rights.’ He held that a good voter roll, identity card, an independent election commission and a caretaker government is ‘sine quo non for democracy to function in Bangladesh’.
   The Bangladesh Nationalist Party’s situation is far worse than the Awami League. According to the BNP constitution, all power lies with the chief of the party. In the past 14 years there was no council session of the BNP. In the mid-1980s the BNP general secretary, Obaidur Rahman, was removed by a notice issued by Khaleda. It is long overdue that the BNP rectified the party constitution.
   The chief adviser to the caretaker government, Fakhruddin Ahmed, does not reveal his hands fully. He seems to have a hidden agenda which is to expel of Hasina and Khaleda from the country and make the country leaderless.
   Everyone should realise that Khaleda and Hasina are hard facts of life in Bangladesh politics. They may have committed some blunders. But like the armed forces, and the media, they are the two institutions of Bangladesh. They belong to the sweat and sorrow of this land. They are the daughters of the East though they might have committed some Himalayan blunders in the past. The caretaker government, if it wants welfare of Bangladesh, should give up this scheme.
   Now the question of forthcoming elections. If Fakhruddin has to be taken by his word, the elections will take place in two years’ time. Others say that Fakhruddin is planning to stay longer as power has its taste. However, taking his words at face value, we will remain outside the mainstream of world and regional politics and economics for the next two years. Other countries of the world do not have any protocol for the chief advisor to an interim government. So, he cannot visit any country of the world. Leaders of different countries will also avoid visiting Bangladesh. Similar situation was also faced by Pakistan’s Pervez Musharraf before his visit to India. So, everyone should make efforts to expedite the time of holding elections. Fakhruddin has too many irons in the fire. Once again, the Election Commission has become the centre of controversy.
   Major political parties, including the Awami League and the BNP, have urged the Election Commission to prepare the voter roll and national identity cards by going door to door instead of setting up camps. The experts fear that if the Election Commission insists on this policy, it may take five years for holding an election. The proposal for voters’ identify card was made by Hasina. She might have realised that it was a wrong decision. However, she is on record saying that the old system of updating voter list should be followed and a new system for identity card with photographs should be followed only in six divisional headquarters. It is a pragmatic idea to hold elections as soon as possible.
   Shakhawat Hossain, an election commissioner, says that if reforms are not carried out fully there would be no election schedule. He is taking like a hardliner and hawk. He wants to blackmail the political parties, it seems. The New Age wrote, ‘A section of advisers and certain sections of the powerful backers of the government of Fakhruddin Ahmed believe that it would be wiser to hold the ninth parliamentary elections as soon as possible. They anticipate that it would be difficult to maintain a peaceful atmosphere if the polls are unnecessarily delayed.’ These advisors seem to be pragmatic and well-meaning people. Moreover, they can feel the pulse of the people. A US state department spokesman says: ‘To facilitate smooth transition to democratic rule efforts must be made to hold quick elections. We do not like to see an undemocratic government run Bangladesh. We are maintaining contact with advisers of the caretaker government and encouraging them to hold early elections.’
   According to another report, the US House of Representatives want to see the election held in the month of November this year. Nicholas Burns, the US assistant secretary of state, says, ‘The consequences of army rule are always bad.’ He adds that the US is ‘being kept abreast of the political reforms in Bangladesh.’ He told Bangladesh envoy Farooq Sobhan point blank that it should be clear whether the armed forces are interfering in the conduct of running the government day to day. He expressed his disappointment with the timeframe for elections by the chief adviser. He also said, ‘It is not acceptable to us. We reject any efforts to destroy the political process in the name of carrying out reforms.’
   Meanwhile, fifteen influential US senators, including Hilary Clinton, John Kerry and Edward Kennedy, have urged the caretaker government to promptly lift the state of emergency and restore full civic and political rights to all citizens of Bangladesh. In a letter to the chief adviser, dated May 14, they also called for announcing within the next two months a roadmap towards free and fair elections to be held as soon as possible with the input of the political parties and civil society leaders so that a democratically elected government can be restored immediately.
   Senators are influential in the context of US politics. So, Fakhruddin can ignore them at his own peril.
   Finally, the forthcoming elections are going to be crucial for Bangladesh. The next government will have to make some hard, even unpopular, decisions. A US legislator has already asked Bush to establish strategic relations with Bangladesh.
   All said and done, as after 9/11 world situation was dramatically changed, similarly after January 11 when the state of emergency was proclaimed, Bangladesh will also witness some dramatic shifts.

They don’t call us the sole superpower for nothing. Paul Wolfowitz might be looking for a new job right now, but the term he used to describe the pervasiveness of US might back when he was a mere deputy secretary of defence – hyperpower – still fits the bill.
   Face it, the United States is a proud nation of firsts. Among them:
   
   First in oil consumption:
   The United States burns up 20.7 million barrels per day, the equivalent of the oil consumption of China, Japan, Germany, Russia, and India combined.
   
   First in carbon dioxide emissions:
   Each year, world polluters pump 24,126,416,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) into the environment. The United States and its territories are responsible for 5.8 billion metric tons of this, more than China (3.3 billion), Russia (1.4 billion) and India (1.2 billion) combined.
   
   First in external debt:
   The United States owes $10.040 trillion, nearly a quarter of the global debt total of $44 trillion.
   
   First in military expenditures:
   The White House has requested $481 billion for the Department of Defence for 2008, but this huge figure does not come close to representing total U.S. military expenditures projected for the coming year. To get a sense of the resources allocated to the military, the costs of the global war on terrorism, of the building, refurbishing, or maintaining of the U.S. nuclear arsenal, and other expenses also need to be factored in. Military analyst Winslow Wheeler did the math recently: ‘Add $142 billion to cover the anticipated costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan; add $17 billion requested for nuclear weapons costs in the Department of Energy; add another $5 billion for miscellaneous defence costs in other agencies…. and you get a grand total of $647 billion for 2008.’
   Taking another approach to the use of U.S. resources, Columbia University economist Joseph Stiglitz and Harvard Business School lecturer Linda Bilmes added to known costs of the war in Iraq invisible costs like its impact on global oil prices as well as the long-term cost of health care for wounded veterans and came up with a price tag of between 1 trillion and $2.2 trillion.
   If we turned what the United States will spend on the military in 2008 into small bills, we could give each one of the world’s more than 1 billion teenagers and young adults an Xbox 360 with wireless controller (power supply in remote rural areas not included) and two video games to play: maybe Gears of War and Command and Conquer would be appropriate. But if we’re committed to fighting obesity, maybe Dance Dance Revolution would be a better bet. The United States alone spends what the rest of the world combined devotes to military expenditures.
   First in weapons sales:
   Since 2001, US global military sales have normally totaled between $10 and $13 billion. That’s a lot of weapons, but in fiscal year 2006, the Pentagon broke its own recent record, inking arms sales agreements worth $21 billion. It almost
   goes without saying that this is significantly more than any other nation in the world.
   In this gold-medal tally of firsts, there can be no question that things that go bang in the night are our proudest products. No one makes more of them or sells them more effectively than we do. When it comes to the sorts of firsts that once went with a classic civilian manufacturing base, however, gold medals are in short supply. To take an example:
   
   Not first in automobiles:
   Once, Chrysler, General Motors, and Ford ruled the domestic and global roost, setting the standard for the automotive industry. Not any more. In 2006, the U.S. imported almost $150 billion more in vehicles and auto parts than it sent abroad. Automotive analyst Joe Barker told the Boston Globe, ‘it’s a very tough environment’ for the so-called Detroit Three. ‘In times of softening demand, consumers typically will look to brands that they trust and rely on. Consumers trust and rely on Japanese brands.’
   
   Not even first in bulk goods:
   The Department of Commerce recently announced total March exports of $126.2 billion and total imports of $190.1 billion, resulting in a goods and services deficit of $63.9 billion. This is a $6 billion increase over February.
   But why be gloomy? Stick with arms sales and it’s dawn in America every day of the year. Sometimes, the weapons industry pretends that it’s like any other trade — especially when it’s pushing our congressional representatives (as it always does) for fewer restrictions and regulations. But don’t be fooled. Arms aren’t automobiles or refrigerators. They’re sui generis; they are the way the USA can always be number one — and everyone wants them. The odds that, in your lifetime, there will ever be a $128 billion trade deficit in weapons are essentially nil.
   Arms are our real gold-medal event.
   
   First in sales of surface-to-air missiles:
   Between 2001 and 2005, the United States delivered 2,099 surface-to-air missiles to nations in the developing world, 20 per cent more than Russia, the next largest supplier.
   
   First in sales of military ships:
   During that same period, the U.S. sent 10 ‘major surface combatants’ like aircraft carriers and destroyers to developing nations. Collectively, the four major European weapons producers shipped thirteen. (And we were first in the anti-ship missiles that go along with such ships, with nearly double (338) the exports of the next largest supplier Russia (180).
   First in military training:
   A thoughtful empire knows that it is not enough to send weapons; you have to teach people how to use them. The Pentagon plans on training the militaries of 138 nations in 2008 at a cost of nearly $90 million. No other nation comes close.
   
   First in private military personnel:
   According to bestselling author Jeremy Scahill, there are at least 126,000 private military personnel deployed alongside uniformed military personnel in Iraq alone. Of the more than sixty major companies that supply such personnel worldwide, more than 40 are U.S. based.
   Rest assured, governments around the world, often at each others’ throats, will want US weapons long after their people have turned up their noses at a range of once dominant American consumer goods.
   Just a few days ago, for instance, the ‘trade’ publication Defence News reported that Turkey and the United States signed a $1.78 billion deal for Lockheed Martin’s F-16 fighter planes. As it happens, these planes are already ubiquitous — Israel flies them, so does the United Arab Emirates, Poland, South Korea, Venezuela, Oman and Portugal, not to speak of most other modern air forces. In many ways, F-16 is not just a high-tech fighter jet, it’s also a symbol of U.S. backing and friendship. Buying our weaponry is one of the few ways you can actually join the American imperial project!
   In order to remain number one in the competitive jet field, Lockheed Martin, for example, does far more than just sell airplanes. TAI — Turkey’s aerospace corporation — will receive a boost with this sale, because Lockheed Martin is handing over responsibility for parts of production, assembly, and testing to Turkish workers. The Turkish Air Force already has 215 F-16 fighter planes and plans to buy 100 of Lockheed Martin’s new F-35 Joint Strike Fighter as well, in a deal estimated at $10.7 billion over the next 15 years.
   $10.7 billion on fighter planes for a country that ranks 94th on the United Nations’ Human Development Index, below Lebanon, Colombia, and Grenada, and far below all the European nations that Ankara is courting as it seeks to join the European Union — now that’s a real American sales job for you!
   Here’s the strange thing, though: This genuine, gold-medal manufacturing-and-sales job on weapons simply never gets the attention it deserves. As a result, most Americans have no idea how proud they should be of our weapons manufacturers and the Pentagon — essentially our global sales force — that makes sure our weapons travel the planet and regularly demonstrates their value in small wars from Latin America to Central Asia.
   Of course, there’s tons of data on the weapons trade, but who knows about any of it? I’m typical here. I help produce one of a dozen or so sober annual (or semi-annual) reports quantifying the business of war-making. In my case: the Arms Trade Resource Centre report, U.S. Weapons at War: Fueling Conflict or Promoting Freedom? These reports get desultory, obligatory press attention — but only once in a blue moon do they get the sort of full-court-press treatment that befits our number one product line.
   Dense collections of facts, percentages, and comparisons don’t seem to fit particularly well into the usual patchwork of front-page stories. And yet the mainstream press is a glory ride, compared to the TV News, which hardly acknowledges most of the time that the weapons business even exists.
   In any case, that inside-the-fold, fact-heavy, wonky news story on the arms trade, however useful, can’t possibly convey the gold-medal feel of a business that has always preferred the shadows to the sun. No reader checking out such a piece is going to feel much — except maybe overwhelmed by facts. The connection between the factory that makes a weapons system and the community where that weapon ‘does its duty’ is invariably missing-in-action, as are the relationships among the companies making the weapons and the generals (on-duty and retired) and politicians making the deals, or raking in their own cut of the profits for themselves and/or their constituencies. In other words, our most successful (and most deadly) export remains our most invisible one.
   Maybe the only way to break through this paralysis of analysis would be to stop talking about weapons exports as a trade at all. Maybe we shouldn’t be using economic language to describe it. Yes, the weapons industry has associations, lobby groups, and trade shows. They have the same tri-fold exhibits, scale models, and picked-over buffets as any other industry; still, maybe we have to stop thinking about the export of fighter planes and precision-guided missiles as if they were so many widgets and start thinking about them in another language entirely — the language of drugs.
   After all, what does a drug dealer do? He creates a need and then fills it. He encourages an appetite or (even more lucratively) an addiction and then feeds it.
   Arms dealers do the same thing. They suggest to foreign officials that their military just might need a slight upgrade. After all, they’ll point out, haven’t you noticed that your neighbour just upgraded in jets, submarines, and tanks? And didn’t you guys fight a war a few years back? Doesn’t that make you feel insecure? And why feel insecure for another moment when, for just a few billion bucks, we’ll get you suited up with the latest model military… even better than what we sold them — or you the last time around.
   Why does Turkey, which already has 215 fighter planes, need 100 extras in an even higher-tech version? It doesn’t… but Lockheed Martin, working the Pentagon, made them think they did.
   We don’t need stronger arms control laws, we need a global sobriety coach — and some kind of 12-step program for the dealer-nation as well.
   Frida Berrigan is a Senior Research Associate at the World Policy Institute’s Arms Trade Resource Centre.

Carl Linné, known as the ‘father of modern taxonomy’, was born three hundred years ago and this year the world is celebrating 300th anniversary of the birth of this great botanist, zoologist, ecologist and physician by thousands of programmes in various forms and fashions around the world.
   Linné was born on May 23, 1707 at a farmhouse called Råshult, Älmhult in southern Sweden. Linné’s name has many variations; ‘Carl Linnaeus’, ‘Carolus Linnaeus’, ‘Carl von Linné’ or just ‘Carl Linné’. His Latinised name which he used in his scientific works, however, is ‘Carolus Linnaeus’.
   Linné’s father was a priest and he was groomed in his young days to follow his father’s footstep. But he had little or no enthusiasm for religious study and he did not do well in his final examination in religious subjects to study theology as his father wished. His great interest was in botany and he was, thus, admitted to the nearby University of Lund to study medicine in 1724 after primary and junior high school education at Växjö. In those days botany was a compulsory subject for medical students as most drugs were then from different plants and knowledge in botany was very important for medical students.
   Linné studied in Lund and tried to do something of the botanical garden of the university that was neglected for long and was in bad shape but without any success. The situation made him move to Uppsala where at the university (oldest in Sweden) he had better prospect in studying the subject he loved most. He had, sadly, financial problem to continue but soon he met a famous scientist and theology professor, Olof Celsius (1670-1756), who was impressed with Linné’s knowledge and botanical collections and immediately gave him boarding and lodging. During this period he developed a system for classification of plants. In 1729 he studied and wrote a short treatise on the sexes of plants which immediately caught the attention of another professor, Professor Olof Rudebeck the Younger (1660-1740), the then professor of Botany at Uppsala. Rudeback appointed him his adjunct and the position gave him an opportunity to lecturing in the faculty at Uppsala in 1730.
   In 1732 the Academy of Sciences at Uppsala sent Linné on an expedition to Lapland, the northernmost part of Sweden, which was virtually unknown at that time. The result of this expedition was his first work on the sexual system of plants, ‘The Florula Lapponica’, and later ‘The Flora Lapponica’ in which he described the vegetation of an almost unknown part of Sweden (published in 1737).
   In 1735 Linné moved to the Netherlands where he earned his one and only academic degree at the University of Harderwijk in six days, a degree in medicine consisted of his three-day printing job of his botanical notes in Latin. Linné stayed in the Netherland for six years. In 1736 he moved to London and visited Oxford where he met several highly reputed personalities like the physicist Hans Sloane, the botanist Philip Miller and the professor of botany JJ Dillenius. After few months in England he returned to Amsterdam and continued printing of his ‘Genera Plantarum’. That was the starting point of his taxonomy.
   He returned to Sweden in 1738 and started practising medicine in Stockholm, specialising in the treatment of syphilis. During this period he was lecturing in Stockholm and soon he was appointed a professorship at Uppsala University (in 1741).
   At Uppsala he arranged the plants according to his system of classification. He made many more expeditions in Sweden while continuing revising his ‘Systema Naturae’ which, from a slim pamphlet, became a multivolume scientific work of great importance on plant and animal specimens. Samples were sent to him from every corner of the globe for classification. Linné was now a world famous scientist and an authority in his subject second to none.
   Linné was married to one Sara Elisabeth (Lisa) Moræa in June 1739. It is also an interesting story. After his successful trip to Lapland the county governor of Dalarna, Nils Reuterholm, asked Linné to write about the flora and fauna of Dalarna the same way he wrote about Lapland. He got financial support and 10 assistants to help him. After finishing the job and while editing the last part of his Dalarna work he was staying at the governor’s residence when he came into contact with one Dr Johan Moræus, a physician in Dalarna (Falun). Sara was Dr Moræus’s daughter and in 1735 Linné proposed to Sara and her father agreed to it on condition that Linné passes his medical examination first so that he could support the family. He did it in six days as we have mentioned earlier and fulfilled Dr Moræus’ condition to marry his daughter.
   Linné had hard time starting his medical practice in Stockholm. But he had the power to impress people and soon everything brightened for him. He got in contact with Field Marshal Count Carl Gustav Tessin who introduced him to Admiral Ankarkrona of the Swedish Navy and Linné was soon appointed at the Admiralty as a physician.
   During this time Swedish Academy of Sciences was founded (1739) and Linné was one of the founding members of the Academy. In 1744 he was appointed secretary to the Royal Swedish Society of Sciences in Uppsala. But he got his most notable position in 1747 when the king appointed him his senior physician. In the same year Linné became a member of the Academy of Sciences in Berlin, the only Swede to have that honour until that time. Similar honour followed when he became member of number of Academics including Russian, American (Philadelphia) and French. Linné became the Vice-Chancellor of Uppsala University in 1749. More honours followed and in 1753, the king made him ‘The Knight of Nordstjärneordern’, the first civilian to be conferred such an honour, and by 1761, Linné was raised to nobility and he took the von Linné.
   Linné continued research, writing and teaching even after becoming a nobleman. His reputation as a scientist spread all over the world. He had four girls and one boy and as it was in those days, only the boy continued father’s tradition. His son succeeded him as professor of Botany at Uppsala. His full name was Carolus Linnaeus the Younger but referred as Filius to distinguish him from his most famous father. Linné died on January 10, 1778 and was buried at Uppsala Cathedral. The French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau said about Linné that ‘I know no greater man on earth’ while Goethe remarked that ‘With the exception of Shakespeare and Spinoza, I know no one among the no longer living who has influenced me more strongly’. However, famous Swedish author August Strindberg (1849-1912) told it all about Linné when he remarked, ‘Linnaeus was in reality a poet who happened to become a naturalist.’
   Tayeb Husain writes from Lund, Sweden

Those illegal private universities

What will happen to those enrolled or those who have passed from these universities that have been declared illegal by the authorities? Some are even holding different posts at different organisations! This is a shame that the UGC had kept quiet all these years while these illegal universities continued their operations and made thousands of crores of taka from the unfortunate students.
   Who is going to compensate these poor (not necessarily financially) students!
   Md Tazin Alam
   On e-mail

Our captain is still in the team, talking and not making any runs.
   Saif
   Dhaka

I am very pleased to hear about the caretaker government okaying the decision to turn Biman into a public limited company. I do sincerely hope this step will infuse new life and integrity into the ailing flag carrier and act as a turning point in leading Biman to new heights in the near future.
   This has been long due, and I truly respect those who have finally managed to turn Biman’s fate for the better. It is high time Biman was converted to a PLC, specially in the face of such intense competition, not only from foreign carriers but also from the likes of national carriers like GMG and Royal Bengal. It is time for Biman to spread its wings again
   and carry the colours of Bengal throughout the world. Well done, caretaker
   government.
   Mehtab Ghazi Rahman
   London Medical School, UK

I was always under the impression that women were more effective in the government and administration then men.
   AA
   On e-mail

Hopefully the new political party will have a clause in its constitution to curb any evil dynastic dictators choking it to death!
   Shabbir A Bashar
   On e-mail

Next on Quick Comments

a. Fakhruddin admits failure in arresting prices: Blames price-hike in international market (New Age, May 22) b. Haris Chy jailed for three years (New Age, May 22) c. Government likely to appoint consultants instead of advisers: Mainul claims backlogged files belong to BNP-Jamaat govt (New Age, May 22) d. Rangs Bhaban demolition: Govt all set for fighting HC verdict (New Age, May 22) e. CA asks to keep traffic normal during his movement (New Age, May 22)