Govt has so far ignored the demand for broader education sector reforms
News of men trafficked to Russia to serve as soldiers raises alarm
Authorities must wake up to this crisis
The recent special drive to bring to book environmental polluters -- in which over 100 polluting units have been fined -- is commendable. Half of the amount in fines is yet to be realised, however. Despite tougher laws and the government's promises of strict action against violators, the evil of pollution continues, causing serious hazards to public health and marine life from industries, especially fabric and dyeing industries and tanneries.
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Over the past many years, the Gulshan-Banani lake has been subjected to assaults from various vested interests, the upshot of which is that today the lake is but a shadow of its former self. One could argue that the image we have at this point of the Gulshan-Banani lake is similar to what we have lately had about other places --- lakes, rivers, et cetera --- all across the country but especially in the capital. The seriousness of such predatory human action has now led to a situation where the judiciary has had to intervene in the matter of retrieving lakes like the one we speak of.
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The Rapid Action Battalion has come under the scrutiny of the international organisations - and perhaps for good reasons. The government's prime law and order agency had been under the media focus for a long time and we, in particular, have been stressing upon the need for the government to prevail upon the unit to stop circumventing the legal process in dealing with criminals. The unit has been accused of a large number of extrajudicial deaths, and itself admits to 600 such deaths between 2004, when it was established, and now. And all these are explained away as "crossfire" or "encounter" deaths.
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It is both surprising and deeply disturbing to note that of late the government has not been taking criticism in the spirit it should. Besides, even when significant public opinion surveys point to the many things which are going wrong in the country, the authorities have quickly adopted a posture that is truly disappointing for the nation. Last week, the government in general and the police administration in particular came down heavily on Transparency International Bangladesh over its findings that the police in the country conveyed an extremely corrupt image before the public. Where introspection and careful analysis of the TIB report was called for, the government simply went for a knee-jerk response and questioned the modalities upon which the report had been prepared. It left...
Passenger traffic and operators of lorries with cargo on the Dhaka-Aricha highway set to use ferries at Paturia-Daulatdia to cross the Padma are hard done by. Given the volumes of passenger and goods on this route 14 ferries are required. As against this pressing need, only eight ferries are said to be operating, that too virtually on paper. Since the conditions of these ferries are deplorable one or the other would be found out of order at any given time. In fact some of them have outlived their utility thanks to poor maintenance or sloppy repair work.
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The picture provided by the survey titled, "Service Sector Corruption: National Households Survey 2010," conducted by Transparency International Bangladesh (TIB), is stunning, to say the least. The households surveyed shared their experience of 13 service sectors and the period covered was between June 2009 and May of this year. What is even more disconcerting is that this is only the tip of the iceberg. To paraphrase the comments of the chairman of the Anti-Corruption Commission, this was not the full picture of corruption in the country but only a part, and that prevalence of corruption was more than this survey has revealed.
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We have it on the authority of the Export Promotion Bureau (EPB) that the country's export outlook is brightening at a steady pace. The traders also sound upbeat about the rising trend. Not surprisingly, the reason for this buoyancy is ascribed to what is seen as a somewhat rapid recovery of the major importing countries from recession. The latter had whittled down demands from the western economies.
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We in Bangladesh cannot but feel happy at the placing the country has been given on the Economist Intelligence Unit's Index of Democracy 2010. We have advanced to 83rd position from our earlier placing at 91st (which was back in 2008). We certainly feel encouraged but at the same time we might as well remind ourselves that this new report comes against a background of elected, democratic government in Bangladesh at this point of time. The 2008 report was prepared in light of the country being under emergency caretaker rule. Naturally, therefore, the general feeling is that in the current democratic dispensation we should be finding and indeed do find our state of politics at an elevated level. That said, it must also be noted that the EIU survey is a comparative study which even...
Bangladesh's extreme vulnerability to climate change has been well recognized by the developed nations and especially by the relevant international forums. So, it is only expected that Bangladesh is a strong candidate to draw the Green Climate Fund pledged by the rich countries at the recently held Cancun Climate Summit.
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After a hundred and one ideas and moves to resolve the capital city's maddening traffic knots have failed to make any headway, the finance minister has come up with yet another proposition. This is about restricting or even banning the movement of private cars with less than five or four passengers on the city's roads, in order to provide the space for the larger vehicles for mass transit.
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