I am reading all these articles on encroachment on water bodies along with pathetic excuses from government bodies, but will any real action be taken? I was surprised and pleased to see the caretaker government take on some high-up influential and free a lot of land in Gulshan so it isn’t just a pipedream, anything is possible.
   Apart from our rivers, our lakes are still being encroached, on one side of Gulshan Lake they are extending the boundary pavement as I write this and yet on the Badda side of the lake they are encroaching another few feet every few months! Do the lawmakers not see that the lake has another side other than Gulshan? Or are they turning a blind eye to it because they have a vested interest? There is no point in making money harassing Gulshan residents when the lake is being significantly reduced from the other side. This should be investigated.
   S Choudhury
   Dhaka

The Awami League government’s slogan of change ‘Din Bodoler Pala’ is working in strange ways but none stranger than in the ministry of foreign affairs. As part of this slogan, the foreign ministry has been put in charge of a doctor/lawyer who is also a first timer in a cabinet post and that too in a leading one. Although articulate and intelligent, her lack of experience in a ministry that most of all requires tact and diplomatic skill is now clearly showing much to her embarrassment and that of the government although it is difficult to find out whether this government is at all concerned with embarrassment.
   She has landed herself and the ministry in an embarrassing situation in almost all the press conferences that she had held to date. But one must give her credit; such embarrassments have hardly daunted her courage to meet the press and media. At the rate she is going; she will soon turn to be the most travelled foreign minister in the world. Her predecessor in the caretaker government was widely criticised in the media for his overseas trips. Our Dipu Moni will not need much more time to overtake the record trips he made during his two years’ stint at the foreign ministry.
   As she explained in her latest press briefing, she is taking many of these trips to build world opinion in favour of the trial of the war criminals. I am not so sure what the rest of the world has to do with these trials and how creating world opinion will help. Up to the point of the prime minister’s Saudi Arabia trip, it seemed like holding the trials was not just our internal affair but also something that is inevitable. It seems that after this trip, this government has suddenly realised that holding the trials would not be as easy as it had thought it would be.
   Before the trip, we were told by the prime minister and her talkative ministers that the tribunal for the trials would be announced by April. We are now into June and the naming of the tribunal seems to be fading into the distant horizon.
   Dipu Moni has stepped into this strange inertia. Her latest message that she has been travelling abroad for creating favourable opinion for the trials could be an effort to keep the people convinced about the intentions of the government about the trials. The sudden filing of cases against suspected war criminals that fizzled out so quickly as to be ridiculous could have another ill-fated attempt to put blame for diverting from AL’s election pledge to try the war criminals.
   Dipu Moni is also implementing ‘din boldoler pala’ in the manner she is appointing heads of missions. She has already dispensed with the career diplomats as redundant in the context of being considered for any important mission. Retired diplomats; friends of the PM’s family and foreign nationals are being given these key posts. One retired diplomat who was considered less than average during his career in the foreign ministry as a lateral entrant into the diplomatic service is being sent to Washington! His sole credibility is that as ambassador in Bangkok, he had assisted the AL government to bring back one of the killers home from Thailand. Is he being sent to Washington to bring back the other killers now living in the USA?
   The strangest aspect of some of these appointments is the fact that some of these individuals are US or Russian nationals. Immigrants who take up US/Russian nationality have to swear allegiance to the US/Russian government where there is no scope of switching allegiance. An ambassador is no ordinary appointment. Individuals who are appointed ambassadors are entitled to state secrets that can be compromised only by an act of treachery. Has this government considered what would happen when one of these individuals is given a task to pursue that go against the US or Russia interests? Under the oath these individuals have taken, they would be obliged to divulge such secrets to the US Government or be charged with treachery.
   For the career diplomats at foreign ministry, it is not ‘din boldoler pala’ but their ‘shorbonasher pala’ instead.
   Rashed Ahmed
   Gulshan, Dhaka

When you don’t need them they hang around you. They beg for your vote with artificial smiles (cheese smiles) hanging on their faces. But when you need them, nobody is around; they are honking their Pajeros on Dhaka streets. These honourable persons are the local kings, they are supposed to be the leaders of the locals. They are the Members of the Parliament and the locally elected chairmen and their teams.
   We knew that Aila was coming. Aila came and left but dead bodies are still floating in Bagerhat. The homeless and shelter-less people are clinging to their lives without shelter, food and water leave alone other amenities of life. But it is true that those dead bodies once voted the MPs and chairmen to power(!). It is true that those shelter-less hungry citizens of this country once voted those MPs and chairmen on the promise and expectation of a better life.
   MH Khan
   Via e-mail

Thanks to the Daily Telegraph, British MPs are now beginning to learn the true definition of ‘taxpayers’ money’. Unfortunately, journalism in our country works slightly differently. When there is an AL government, all the pro-AL newspapers go on an overdrive to inform the public about all the corruption that took place under the previous government (which is always the BNP as our country suffers from Bi-party Affective Disorder). And when the BNP forms the government, all the pro-BNP newspapers go on an overdrive to inform the public about all the unholy things that went on under the previous AL government.
   This kind of journalism, no matter how well-intentioned, appears to be politically motivated. And the problem is not only with what gets published. We are baffled by some of the things that don’t get published at crucial times. There are many examples when one newspaper decides to put a particular story on its front-page while its rivals try to hide it in the back pages! Reading some of those half-hearted reports, it feels as though the newspaper is desperately trying to hide the story instead of revealing it. What a shame!
   I end this letter with a small request to our newspapers: can we please have some reports on how many Umrah Hajj Khaleda Zia and Sheikh Hasina have performed since 1991 (particularly when they were prime ministers)? How many officials/staff usually went with them on each trip and how much did each trip cost? I think the people of Bangladesh have a right to know this much. Our newspapers have always shied away from publishing any detailed reports. But it is our money and we want to know the truth.
   Azad Miah
   Oldham, UK