I was taken aback and became perplexed by reading the letter of Richard Murphy ‘The curse of Al Gore’ (June 24). It was written in disagreement to my views which I expressed in the letter ‘Barack Obama as the next US president’.
   First of all, I don’t understand what is meant by ‘The curse of Al Gore’, and secondly, going through the letter I got the impression that my words have been totally misunderstood.
   Murphy wrote, ‘Al Gore lost the election to a person of much lower intellect, and who didn’t win a Nobel Prize.’ I want to point out that the people of America had done a grave mistake by voting for GW Bush though there is controversy over the election results. Bush is named as the worst president in the American history and his popularity is the lowest!
   I want to tell Murphy that I am not celebrating as if Obama is already in the White House. I clearly said ‘If he becomes the president of America’ and the rest was wishful thinking. As the superpower, America has got the power to shape the destiny of the world; its long hand could reach anywhere, anytime. I expressed my hope that if Obama wins the election, there might be a change for the better, because he seems very intelligent and advocates change in every sphere.
   I don’t know Murphy’s nationality; just that he writes from England, I only want to remind him that former British prime minister Tony Blair joined hands with Bush in invading Iraq and he was called as the ‘poodle’ of Bush. With his support Bush made havoc, hell broke loose on the people of Iraq. It is so inhuman that one has to grasp with horror at the mere thought of it.
   Nur Jahan
   Chittagong

We, the Bengali people, are too lenient by nature. Although that is a great quality, it does not take us anywhere as regards nation-building is concerned. Sheikh Mujib committed the great mistake in 1973 by pardoning the war criminals and we as a nation are suffering till today as a result of that.
   In recent days, we have seen people showing sympathy towards the political leaders who are directly responsible for the mess that we are in today. We forget too quickly that these are the same people who managed to take us 30 years back down the development channel by damaging our central nervous system and severing our spinal cord. Not only that, if you see it carefully, it is every bone within that skeleton that bears sign of damaging or cracks.
   Since the doctors are prescribing treatment that we as nation failed to provide within the boundary of this nation, which is a shame of course, the foreigners had to meddle with our internal affairs. Such signs of leniency are everywhere. Look at the way the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank are playing with our policy; now they want to make us a middle-income country within the next ten years. Great news! But how? Our recent budget has full reflection of that if you see that there is no policy to rescue our jute industry…this is an act of treason and it cannot go unpunished.
   So let’s not be too lenient, a government needs to function and they have to be allowed to carry on with their task for the greater interest of the country and its people.
   Sayeed Abu Tahir
   Jerusalem

At the beginning of the 20th century, it was very difficult for women to obtain university education. In 1870, Emily Davies and Barbara Bodichon helped to set up Girton College, the first university for women. These days, almost all the countries have one or two women’s universities. But even after 37 years of our independence, we have no such university in our country. In Japan, there are at least ten women’s universities, among them Nara, Mukogawa, Kochi, Bunka, Showa, Jissen, Nagoya are prominent institutions. In Korea, there are five women’s universities while in India there is the Mother Teresa Women’s University and in Pakistan Fatima Jinnah Women’s University.
   Without a university degree it is very difficult for women to get established in the professional world. Half of the total population in our country are women and they need to be offered all sorts of facilities to acquire higher education. Without their development, the country’s development cannot be achieved. On the other hand, our society is a conservative one that often discourages women getting admitted in co-educational institutions. If an exclusive women’s university is established then more women will be encouraged to seek higher education.
   Eden Girl’s College has all the facilities to be transformed into such a university. Both Eden Girl’s College and Home Economics College can become affiliated under one common campus. If established, Eden Women’s University can surely become a centre for excellence, catering to more and more women seeking higher education in our country.
   Dr Sakina Khanam
   Kobe University, Japan

The Millennium Development Goals are to be fulfilled by 2015 to upgrade the lifestyle of the lower middle-class people. But as learnt from media reports, these goals are unlikely to be attained due to corruption, fund crunch and lack of initiatives from the authorities concerned.
   About 48.5 per cent people in our country now live under the poverty line which figure was however 40 per cent last year. MDG’s target is to halve the percentage by 2015. Sanitation and pure drinking water programmes are not going on satisfactorily due to fund crunch. There is also a huge discrepancy between government statistics and other organisations’ reports which creates problems and hinders the process of attaining the goals further.
   Then again, the government’s recent decision of shutting down the BDR OMS shops has also hit the poor and the lower income people hard. From a recent report by the UNICEF, it is learnt that in our country almost 330 infants die everyday due to lack of proper treatment.
   The caretaker government should take immediate initiatives to reopen the BDR shops to help out the poor and also arrange for adequate funds to fulfil the MDG goals.
   Nasir
   Khulna Univeristy

The Wimbledon men’s singles final on Sunday is without a doubt the greatest match of tennis that I have ever seen and will be remembered as a true epic between two great champions. Roger Federer, who was aiming to break Bjorn Borg’s record of five successive Wimbledon titles that he equalled last year, came from two sets down to take the match onto a fifth set, but in the end could not defeat his younger rival, Rafael Nadal. With his deserved win, Nadal himself became the first player since Borg to win the French Open and Wimbledon titles in the same year.
   Although I was rooting for Federer, the game was played at such a high level and with such great sprit that ultimately it did not matter who the victor was. It was tennis that was the real winner on the night.
   Sabih Arman
   Gulshan