Once again the Bangladesh Government will be trying to subdue the new year celebrations that occur in the Gulshan-Banani area and the Dhaka University area. From the Daily Star:Around 6,000 law enforcers will be deployed in the city including the diplomatic zone and the posh areas of Gulshan, Banani, Baridhara, Dhanmondi, Uttara and on the Dhaka University Campus.Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP) authorities made a number of city roads off limits to traffic for 10 hours from 8:00pm on New Year's Eve.A Bangladeshi Blogger responds:Why do I suddenly...
December 31, 2007
December 30, 2007
The shock
The thoughts of Boris (a Canadian) during a taxi ride in Delhi:"Please sir, two rupees," she said as she weakly presented some daily newspaper to me and mimed putting food in her mouth. Her eyes were dull. Almost dead. She was under ten years of age and perched here on the side of an overcrowded roadway, peddling whatever she could for survival.I, on the other side of the open window, was in a taxi that was going to cost me 350 rupees. I rather not even think for one second how many rupees I just credited the last 3 nights in a 5 star hotel to...
Picture of Benazir Bhutto's attackers
Image: Reuters"A Pakistani television channel broadcast on Sunday grainy still pictures of what it said appeared to be two men who attacked and killed opposition leader Benazir Bhutto.One was a clean-cut young man wearing sun glasses, a white shirt and dark waist coat. Behind him stood a man with a white shawl over his head, who Dawn said was believed to be the bomber.Two other photographs showed the clean-cut man pointing a pistol at Bhutto as she...
Some facts about Google
• Google is the “fastest growing company in the history of the world.” – Times of London, 1/29/06• Google controls 65.1% of all searches in the U.S. at the end of 2007 and 86% of all searches in the UK, according to measurement company Hitwise.• Google was searched 4.4 billion times in the U.S. alone in October, 2007 (three times Yahoo), says Nielsen. Average searches per searcher: 40.7.• Google’s sites had 112 million U.S. visitors in November, 2007, says Nielsen.• Google’s traffic was up 22.4% in 2007 over 2006, according to Comscore.• Google...
December 28, 2007
Should Bangladesh recognise Israel?
This is what some Bangladeshis think:"Israel, the Jews State, was established in 1948 in the land of Palestine unlawfully evicting tens of thousands of Palestine Muslims, has been a subject of debate in recent time in the country.The debate is whether should Bangladesh recognise the Zionist State or continue to pursue the present foreign policy? We know that the Tel Aviv Government does not trust the Muslims and ordered its troops to kill them at will. The troops do it calmly.The Arabs fought three wars to recover the lost land. But instead, they...
World's best market this year
If you are an entrepreneur or a venture capitalist you must know which markets have the best returns. From the Motley Fool, a commercial website about stocks, investing, and personal finance:Comparing world markets is tricky because it involves adjusting for currency fluctuations and inflation, which is never straightforward. Thankfully, the Motley Fool Global Gains team has developed a model to compare world markets on a more even basis. With a common reference, yearly and monthly comparisons help investors see just what regions of the world are...
History corrected
AFP reports:"School textbooks in Bangladesh have been revised to reflect the latest government version of the role of two slain leaders when the country won independence in 1971.Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, who led Bangladesh's bitter independence struggle against Pakistan, is now once again referred to as the "father of the nation".In another change, former president Ziaur Rahman, who was slain in an attempted military coup in 1981, was acknowledged to...
December 27, 2007
Pakistan further away from democracy
There is something wrong in the way General Parvez Musharraf runs Pakistan. Today Benazir Bhutto was assassinated in Rawalpindi, the garrison town of Pakistan. Ironically she was assassinated at the same place in Rawalpindi where the first Prime Minister of Pakistan Liaquat Ali Khan was killed and her father was hanged there. Her death puts the future of Pakistan's political future in turmoil and Pakistan may as well plunge into a civil war.An eye-witness...
December 26, 2007
Broadband revolution in India
Digital Opportunity reports:"The (Indian) government along with Nasscom and private industry associates will set up 20 IIIT's (Indian Institute of Information Technology) in various parts of the country for which the Planning Commission has already made a provision of Rs 100 crores. The government will ensure broadband accessibility to almost every citizen in countryside, covering 97% of its geographical area by 2012." I wonder where its neighbors will be during that time. I only hope not on the other side of the digital divi...
December 25, 2007
Today's Links
* Twitter helps find missing girl.* OhmyNews citizen journalism school opens.* My Facebook friends: please read this.* At Wikipedia, illustrators may be paid.* Taslima Nasrin: A personal account.* The evidence the CIA destroyed……might have incriminated Saudi and Pakistani governments in the 9/11 conspira...
December 24, 2007
Does anybody care if Bangladesh drowns?
Via Bangladesh Blogger:Afsan Chowdhury is a journalist and communications development expert based in Dhaka, Bangladesh and Toronto, Canada. Director of the film "Climate Change - Does anybody care if Bangladesh drowns?," he is also Director of Advocacy and Human Rights at The Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee (BRA...
What is web 2.0?
La chanson du web 2.0 par NOKIAUploaded by buzzynoteIts all about connecting peop...
The MacBook Service
Dave Winer reports that he replaced a faulty 80GB Hard disk of his MacBook from Apple Store and did not get the defected disk in return."They were going to send it back to the manufacturer. I figured it would be refurbished and sold cheap to someone in a third world country. Little did I suspect.He got his supervisor. She insisted that the drive belonged to Apple, even though I had paid an inflated price to buy a new one. She showed me the language on the reverse side of the form I signed. It was even worse than she had said. There was no guarantee...
Eat the poor
“Eat the Poor” will take a satirical look at poverty in the 21st century– a golden era when the designation “Millionaire,” having lost both its luster and its meaning, needed to be replaced by a new category: the simple yet apt “Super-Rich.” Interesting are the statistics of US population under poverty and the statistics on poverty & food wastage in America:* 35.9 million people live below the poverty line in America including 12.9 million children.* 3.5 percent of U.S. households experience hunger. Some people in these households frequently...
The Musée Guimet affair
Cross posted in the Global Voices OnlineFrom January 2008 the Musée Guimet of France is holding an exhibition of the masterpieces of Ganges from the collections of the Bangladesh museums for the first time outside of Bangladesh. From the museum catalogue:“Bangladesh possesses an immensely important cultural heritage, this arising from the fact that the eastern half of Bengal has been one of the cultural richest regions of the Indian world; a vision...
The migrant economy
From the Washington post:Migrants around the globe sent more than $300 billion to their home countries last year, a “staggering” sum that surpassed foreign development aid and foreign direct investment and carries major development potential for poor nations if properly channeled. India took in more remittance money last year than any other nation, $24.5 billion. It was closely followed by Mexico, with $24.2 billion, which receives most of its remittances from migrants in the United StatesMigration plays a critical role in sustaining the Bangladeshi...
December 23, 2007
The story of the trash we are generating
I had another visit to Euro shop (everything priced at 1 Euro) yesterday. You get amazing things at one Euro for example a stainless steel (rust free) bowl something you will not get even in Bangladesh at this amount.Did we ever wonder why are stuffs being offered cheaper and cheaper even less than the developing country standards?A relevant video might provoke some questions:The story of Stuff has answers to those questions.
Black Looks Blog points to the fact:90% of the stuff consumed in the US is trashed within six months - now that is truly...
Secret of Success
Richard St. John of TED [Technology, Entertainment, Design] summarizes the secret of success in 8 Words And 3 Minutes:Link via Tiffinb...
December 22, 2007
Techguide
* Using Internet via mobile in bangladesh* How to make money from blogs* Journalism 2.0: How to survive and thrive* Networking without borders: the universal language of Facebook* Reconstructing reporting: revamping the story flow for journalists* PC Magazine's 100 favorite bl...
December 19, 2007
Towards a border free world
On December 21, nine new EU countries (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Slovenia and Malta) will join the border control-free group known as Schengen.As of this weekend, travelers can go from the easternmost tip of Estonia all the way to the Atlantic coast in Portugal without encountering a single border official.More in Spiegel Online Internation...
Quotes of the day
"knowledge is the key driver for a world of equal opportunities and that ICTs are key in enabling access to knowledge for everyone""The Internet expects to reach 5 billion people by 2015, in turn creating enormous market opportunities and new jobs."- Experts at the third Global Knowledge Conference hosted by the Global Knowledge Partnership from December 11-13, 2...
December 18, 2007
Today's Links
* Swiss financial heavyweight UBS alerted over Phulbari Coal mine: Human rights concerns for Bangladesh mine investment.* Human rights: Official failures lead to workers' deaths.* Garrison democracy for Bangladesh: Fighting for the soul of Bangladesh.* Who rules Bangladesh: world of Terror, SIDR and the US 'Help'.* US provided real time intelligence for Turkish strikes on Iraq.* Indians know how to multiply and divide better than anyone else.* What milestones would you include in a timeline history of blogging?* The Bali deal is worse than Ky...
Hips don't lie
(Picture courtesy Canada Eh who comments Shakira has a heart of gold)..And make a great goodwill ambassador. The two-time Grammy Award-winning artist Shakira Isabel Mebarak Ripoll (known as Shakira) has visited the cyclone Sidr-ravaged region and Rajshahi in Bangladesh as an Unicef goodwill ambassador. The visit was not widely publicized by Unicef. (details in BDNews24.com)More from BangladeshNews.com.bd:“Amid all this calamity, sadness and grief,...
Free Rice
Play a vocabulary game and end the world hunger. For each word you get right, 20 grains of rice is donated to the United Nations World Food Program.What do you get? * Formulate your ideas better * Write better papers, emails and business letters * Speak more precisely and persuasively * Comprehend more of what you read * Read faster because you comprehend better * Get better grades in high school, college and graduate school ...
England, a photo essay
London is a bustling city with funny looking vehicles and a lot of congestions. You have to pay a lot to get your car stuck in traffic in certain areas. The clever option is to use the tube (underground).This giant egg represents many of the modern architectures that are dominating London skylines. Suddenly you spot a Shahid Minar (White Chappel road) and realize that you have entered Bangla Town.The Bangla Town in East London has the full flavor...
December 16, 2007
Victory day and the quest for the truth
Today marks the 36th anniversary of the Victory day in Bangladesh, a day when Bangladesh came into being. 'Victory against what?' one may ask. It was a victory against the farcical two nation theory, The colonialism of West Pakistan and their oppression against their East Pakistani brothers in economic, administrative and cultural sectors, victory against one of the worst genocides in the history of the world, victory against the rape of thousands...
December 14, 2007
The art of Kite-flying
Ulysses's article about Maanja brought me back sweet memories from the past when I used to fly kites. Maanja involves in pasting the tread of kites with glass and sand to make it tough and sharp to aid in the battle of kites. Soon children would scream "Bho-kattaaa" as soon as the lost kite was beheaded from the thread by the sharp thread of the winning kite. And some would run after it for miles to retrieve from a distant roof or treetop.Those were the days and Ulysses reveals the sad news:Kites have been driven out from the center of congested,...
December 13, 2007
Blame it on Bangladesh
After the blames that each and every recent terrorist attacks in India originated from Bangladesh now Bangladeshi migrant laborers have been blamed for transporting cholera from Bangladesh and causing an epidemic in Orissa. It is ironic that although most major rivers in Bangladesh flow from India, Bangladesh has never blamed India for any of its similar epidemi...
Religious intolerance
Quite contrary to what the media usually depict that all the religious intolerances exist among Muslims, we hear this story:A Brooklyn man whose "Happy Hanukkah" greeting landed him in the hospital said he was saved from a gang of Jew-bashing goons aboard a packed Q train by a total stranger - a modest Muslim from Bangladesh.Walter Adler was touched that Hassan Askari jumped to his aid while a group of thugs allegedly pummeled and taunted him and...
December 06, 2007
Cyclone relief efforts via a citizen journalist
Shawn is a 26 year old Canadian who came to Bangladesh for a small, short-term, and self-funded project to see what difference he can make in helping some of the world's worst off. Read his blog entries which described first hand accounts of the destruction of cyclone Sidr and the relief efforts aftermath. I am particularly impressed with his video blogging reports from different parts of the country. a must watch. He even got nominated in a video contest and won the 2nd place.Here are all of his videos hosted in YouTu...
In London
I am back in London for my exams, a town which has the most Bangladeshi flavor in Europe. If you don't believe it just walk through the Bangla town. You can feel the known Bangladeshi faces popping up everywhere in all shapes, sizes and attires and speaking in various languages. Don't be surprised to see a Shahid Minar in the Whitechappel Road. A bustling community. Fully multicultural and quite unique. I visited some local Bengali shops in Shadwell,...
December 01, 2007
The Musee Guimet Controversy
Shahidul News has a touching story on the protest to halt sending Bangladeshi artifacts to Musee Guimet, France.The reasons:* Some media in Bangladesh started the conspiracy theory raising doubts on the transparency of the process.* Allegations that “Musée Guimet in Paris incidentally also holds thousands of stolen/illegal objects from China and the rest of Asia,” and it may steal the artifacts replacing with carbon copies especially when the Bangladeshi ones were not individually and clearly marked rather listed with homogeneous counts.However...
November 28, 2007
In the eye of the storm
BBC's month long project Bangladesh Boat Diary ends with this note:While exposing the apparent dangers of climate change, the BBC team were on hand to report the horrors of Cyclone Sidr. Are the two issues connected? Might the ferocity of the storm have been weakened were it not for rising temperatures in the Bay of Bengal? Might such storms become more common in future? The questions are accumulating but we don't seem to find the answe...
Today's Links
* Jamaat-i-Islami: A threat to Bangladesh?* Diplomatic missions in Dhaka told not to give visas to Bangladesh war criminals.* Was it a frivolous gift or a lifelong memory? (via Where am I wearing)* Bangladesh joins Trans-Asian Railway network. * The support, suffering and shame of Bangladeshi NG...
Sobbing General
Parvez Musharraf quits as the army chief to become the President of Pakistan. We have watched this scene many time in many places of the wor...
November 27, 2007
Combating the next cyclone
An Ordinary Citizen reassesses Bangladesh's capabilities to combat mega-cyclon...
November 26, 2007
Taslima again
Taslima Nasrin is again in media spotlight because fundamentalists in India are demanding India to expel her. The Bangladeshi writer is in exile since 1994, when fundamentalists issued a fatwa against her for the allegedly blasphemous first novel Lajja. Read some interesting commentaries on the latest controversy:* The sword and the monk’ s cowl* Taslima Nasreen: The Daughter of Eternal Bangladesh on the run in India- But Why?* How Taslima Nasreen knocked Mossamat Akhera Bibi off the headlines?* Taslima Nasrin, the outcast.* Bangladesh writer...
Cyclone Sidr related news
* Concern Worldwide's update on the cyclone Sidr damage, relief and rescue efforts.* The fatal shore: Tahmima Anam writes in the Guardian:A couple of days ago, someone sent a proposal to a mailing list entitled "Sidr cyclone compensation fund". "What do people think of the following idea? Set up a fund, funded totally by expatriates, to pay cash compensation to families of the deceased? If we set a scale - 5,000 taka (£35) for each adult and 2,500...
Using SMS for raising funds
Dina Mehta highlights the efforts in Bangladesh using simple SMS to get people to donate for the victims.Bangla blogging platform Somewherein, in association with Save the Children, has launched an innovative SMS based campaign “Jagoron” (which literally means ‘the awakening’) to enable those living in Bangladesh to do their bit in aid of Sidr victims. The campaign works as follows:A mobile phone user types SAVE and sends SMS to a given number. Each...
For the Sidr Victims in Bangladesh: need of the hour
Prominent writer Anisul Haque wrote this in Prothom Alo questioning some Bangladeshi's attitude of negligence towards the cyclone Sidr victims. The piece is translated by Asif Saleh of Drishtipat.Need of the Hour- Anisul HoqueI feel really mad at myself at times like these. In fact, I feel like spitting on myself. What sort of shenanigan is going on these days? I have just returned from sidr hit Patuakhali and Borguna's worst hit areas. I can already hear people requesting others to ask for help in a low voice. The background score is attempting...
November 24, 2007
Know your enemy
It has been more than one week since cyclone Sidr devastated Bangladesh's Southern coastal region. The official death toll is still at 3199 but the unofficial death toll crossed 6000. Millions of families are displaced and are homeless now. Economists predict US$ 65 billion will be the loss of the nation.The UN said in a report:Cyclone Sidr has affected about 4.7 million people in worst-hit districts and a further 2.6 million people, most of them the "poorest of the poor", are in need of immediate help,. (BDNews24)These people have to be fed up...
November 19, 2007
Traveling
I will be traveling for the rest of the week and will have limited internet connections. So updates on Bangladesh cyclone will be almost non-existent.[BDNEWS24.com] The confirmed death toll from the cyclone reached 3,113 by Monday, while 3,322 are injured and 1,063 missing. Two C-130 aircraft of the U.S. Marine Corp arrived in Dhaka on Sunday night with medical supplies. The King of Saudi Arabia has announced a $100 million grant for the victims. Riyadh would also airlift 300 tonnes of food and relief materials. Check the Daily Star's update on...
November 18, 2007
The forgotten Operation Sea Angel
From Mash's Blog:Let me tell you a story of a disaster that you have probably never heard of and the overwhelming American response that you should know about. In late spring of 1991 a US Navy Amphibious Task Force (ATF) returning from the Persian Gulf war was diverted, on order of President George H.W. Bush, to the Bay of Bengal. A Bangladeshi citizen, rumor has it, on seeing the ATF approach from the sea, called them "Angels from the Sea." Thus began Operation Sea Angel, one of the largest military relief operations ever undertaken. Less than...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Swopon 
