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THE MONTHLY MAGAZINE FROM NEW AGE

June, 2007 @newagebd.com Main Page « Front Page « Metro « Business « International « Sports « National « Editorial « Op-Ed « Home « Timeout « Letters «

Pawns in the prices game The prices of essential commodities have increased between 5 and 50 per cent over the past four months. A New Age investigation has recently revealed that the prices of vegetables appreciate by up to 500 per cent between the farmer and the end consumer. The government has, meanwhile, been in complete denial, first trying to dismiss the price spiral of essential commodities as ‘media hype’ and then blaming it on ‘market manipulation by a syndicate’ before taking refuge in the much-clichéd argument about the essential pains of ‘free market economy’ - all the while looking to convince the public that there is little it can do other than taking such knee-jerk measures as open market sales.    Amidst growing despair and desperation of the consumers, especially the middle- and low-income groups, and the increasingly inane explanations by the government, this month we tried to make some sense of the seemingly endless volatility of the essential goods market: Tanim Ahmed analyses the upward trend and dissects the government’s arguments; Tahmina Shafique reports the consumers’ plight; Saad Hammadi talks to wholesalers and retailers; Mahfuz Sadique reveals that the farmers’ fate remains unchanged. The photographs in this series of stories are by Andrew Biraj, Al-Emrun Garjon and Abu Taher Khokon. Free-market predators Tanim Ahmed traces the roots of increases in prices of essential commodities and argues why a consumer-friendly market is impossible without elimination of the ‘syndicates’... MIDDLE-CLASS FEELS THE PINCH As soon as the door opens, ten-year-old Saadman lumbers in with his schoolbag. Exhausted and drenched with sweat, he drags himself into the house. The spark in his eyes soon fades, as he realises there is no electricity. He lies straight on the floor near the window, where the sunlight is streaming in. The moment his mother walks in, he gives a faint smile, but she knows that he has walked all the way from school in Dhanmondi again, just to save fifteen taka for household shopping... SELLERS FARE NO BETTER As the night deepens, trucks from every corner of the country arrive at the Karwan Bazar wholesale market. The night is the peak period for the market as the retailers rush there to bag the best groceries in stock for the next morning’s sale. Thus begins the trading at the wholesale market. On one hand the trucks offload the groceries, fishes and cattle and on the other, there is bargaining between the traders and buyers... ‘They make more money than me from what I grow’ A few kilometres from the Hemayetpur road junction at Savar, on both sides of the road, there is a riot of colours. All the way to Shingair, the inner fields that are sometimes hidden from the highway by densely-clustered semi-rural housing are ablaze with the colours of various kinds of vegetables. Abu Bakar is one of the artists in this collage. He grows lal shak (‘red amaranthus’) in the small patch of land he owns behind his house in Mushurirpur of Savar. This and other seasonally lucrative vegetables, grown all across Savar, are sent to Dhaka or, as is increasingly becoming the trend, exported abroad... A THOUSAND WORDS Adnan Khandker catches up with photographer Munem Wasif who has recently become only the second Bangladeshi to win the prestigious Joop Swart Masterclass award from the World Press Photo Foundation... And when the last fish is eaten? Adnan Khandker charts the implications of the disastrously rapid rate at which freshwater and marine fish stocks are dwindling in Bangladesh with the warning that ‘pukur bhora mach’ could soon become a Bengali fairy-tale... BHOLA DIARY Saad Hammadi visits Bhola in the wake of the devastation of Cyclone Akash, to find its residents bracing themselves for worse... Statelessness A photo essay by Andrew Biraj

Q&A Monirul Islam