Well, the way the national airlines has been managed since its inception, I would rather say that the company itself should have been declared bankrupt and each and everyone serving Biman should have been dismissed long ago. Dangerous cancer needs to be cured by high dose of chemotherapy and nothing else if the patient can hope for any survival.
   Running an airline very successfully may not be easy but how on earth that Biman was losing money every year and still it was kept afloat? From my personal experience I can say that Biman was one of the worst airlines I have ever flown with. I shall never forget my ‘Business Class’ Bombay-Dhaka flight sometimes in the mid-‘90s. That was a nightmare to check-in, on board and to collect my luggage in Dhaka.
   Once I was sitting with a top official of Biman when one fellow came and begged him for help in getting a flight in one of its international routes. When I asked him, ‘How come one needs ‘shuparish’ to fly with your airline and still you have been a losing concern?’ He had no answer.
   Most of the old Biman employees do not deserve voluntary retirement but simple and straight ‘dismissal’. Only new ideas and new blood and non-interference from political or government quarters can make the airline a true business concern. Thus, do not punish anybody and let everyone go so that Biman can make a new start with a new management and new employees in every sector.
   An occasional Biman passenger
   On e-mail
   

Many sources, local and foreign, including diplomatic missions, are making statements throwing doubt on the promised election at the end of 2008. They are ascribing fanciful motives to the army to hold on to power indirectly and indefinitely.
   I, observing the events from far, feel that the postponement of the national election is a real possibility because of the ‘hartal’ mentality of the incarcerated leaders on criminal charges under the EPR, and the behaviour of their ‘blind’ followers outside who are agitating for their unconditional release.
   No leader is above the party and no party is above the law of the land, and the country.
   If the incarcerated leaders are innocents they would sooner or later be released by the courts anyway and they can reassert their positions of leadership of their parties, and stand for elections themselves in a seat vacated by a party lawmaker. So in this connection unruly mob mentality of freeing the leaders before election or dialogue with the EC is not understood. Neither is the call for boycotting the election if the leaders are not released despite their probable criminal culpability.
   In this connection the recent suggestion by the ICG in their report and recommendations that ‘parties must not boycott the polls but should accept the results if they are deemed free and fair by credible observers’ obviously has fallen on deaf ears of the party members and their incarcerated leaders. Such call for boycott is no less heinous than erstwhile calls for hartal to bring the country to its knees and cause violence which ushered in the change of 1/11. The same tactics which was fruitful for an opposing political party will not have any meaning for caretaker government which is not in opposition to any party.
   The government and the EC must not be perturbed by such threats. However, the criminal cases against the leaders must be dealt with by the courts with visible and utmost priority, and not in a lackadaisical routine manner. The nation must stand by the result of polls if these are fair and credible, even if some parties might boycott these as a tactical move to prevent elections and cause violence and bloodshed.
   Engineer Shafi Ahmed
   London, UK