The 2nd installable Bangla distro based on Ubuntu 7.10 (Gutsy Gibbon) [0] has been released by Ankur. The codename of this release is Hoimonti (হৈমন্তী). The first one, Sraboni (শ্রাবণী), was based on Ubuntu 6.06 (Dapper Drake) [1].For features and downloads click he...
October 30, 2007
Bangladesh Boat Diary: Social Networking used in Media
According to BBC:BBC World Service is traveling along the rivers of Bangladesh as part of a major project to track and debate climate change.Officially entitled Nodi Pothe Bangladesh - Bangladesh By The River - this is one of the most ambitious projects the BBC World Service has undertaken.Over the course of the month, staff from 17 different World Service language services will visit the MV Aboshor, and each Friday and Saturday a total of 48 people...
Today's Links
* Bangladesh: RAB and BTRC compile list of Internet subscribers* The Levi-Prodi law and the end of the Internet in Italy.* Bangladesh 'cheapest place' for investment in Asia* Bangladeshis in Britain - from Brick Lane to the fast lane* Rahela Akhter Lima's third death anniversary and court hearing: will this brave young woman receive justice in October 2007?* Terrorism is no '-ism' of any Religion | Tehelka and Gujrat Violence* The wikipedia gap.* On slave mentali...
October 29, 2007
Bangladesh finds a new cricket coach
BCB announced yesterday that the new Bangladesh cricket coach replacing Australian Dav Whatmore is his countryman Jamie Siddons. Bangladesh has opted for the "Thunder Down Under".He was appointed as senior coach at the Centre of Excellence in 2005 and then became an assistant coach with the Australian national team.Australian cricket legend Steve Waugh described Siddons as the “best Australian batsman not to have played Test cricket". He made 11,587...
October 28, 2007
War Criminals of 1971
After the recent controversial statement that “Jamaat did not work against the Liberation War of Bangladesh in 1971 and there are no war criminals in the country,” we hear a new low in political rhetorics. Former Islami Bank chairman and Jamaat-e-Islam think-tank Shah Abdul Hannan has described the Liberation War of 1971 as a “civil war.” He denied that genocide took place in the country at that time and that war criminals exist here. Speaking on a talk show, Ekushey Shomoy, on private satellite television channel Ekushey Television Friday, Hannan...
October 27, 2007
Homeless people in Germany
The Bangladeshi photographer GMB Akash, a 'World Press Photo Award’ winner is currently residing in Hamburg, Germany on a Hamburg Foundation/GEO Magazine scholarship for a year. Akash was shocked to find homeless people in Germany and asked "why are there homeless in one of the richest countries of the world?" Then he started documenting what he saw. In his own account:Once, when I took a picture of a homeless in Hamburg, I was asked by the police...
The denial will rewrite history soon
“Now it is being said that no war criminal exists in the country. Maybe after some time it would be said that the Liberation War never took place. All this will mean we will be deprived of the real history.” - Former chief justice and chairman of the Law Commission Mostafa KamalBangladeshis were outraged by the Islamist political party Jamaat-e-Islami's leader Ali Ahsan Muzahid's statement that "Jamaat did not work against the Liberation War in 1971...
October 25, 2007
Free Arifur Rahman: An update
Background: Free Cartoonist Arifur RahmanDrishtipat blog posts an appeal to all:It is more than a month since Arifur Rahman’s arrest. In the past month, we have debated Arif’s culpability many times. The purpose of this post is not to re-visit that old debate. Even if we think of this man as guilty, we should ask ourselves: is his incarceration what the Prophet (SW) would have prescribed given his sense of generosity, forgiveness and - most importantly...
Raise your voice against domestic violence
(Image credit Amnesty International)October is Domestic Violence Awareness month in USA, devoted to connecting battered women’s advocates across the nation to work together to end violence against women and children.The issue is not country specific. Domestic violence is a menace that is found all over the world. This is a disease prevailing in every social structure, whether its the educated or uneducated, rich or poor. Bangladeshi women experience...
October 24, 2007
Bloggers, the media and the army chief
The political arena of Bangladesh heated up after the Eid holidays. Bloggers cum citizen journalists had a role to play in this. J Rahman at Mukti has some backgrounds: Earlier this year, Bangladesh experienced an extra-constitutional change in government. The Economist called it a coup that dares not speak its name. Initially, this de facto coup brought respite from a months-old stalemate between the country’s rival political parties. But soon, the technocratic regime (Caretaker government) that was installed by the army started arresting...
October 19, 2007
S M Sultan, Brick Lane, Female Bloggers and Bangla E-Books
(First published in Global Voices Online)Sid of Serious Golmal writes a well informative article on the life of S M Sultan, the master painter of Bangladesh commemorating his 13th death anniversary. Sultan was born in Norail (in Kushtia in the southwest of Bangladesh) in 1923. Born to a mason, he was a natural talent and did not complete his study in the Calcutta College of Arts and Crafts. Later on he created a wave in the West when he visited USA...
October 18, 2007
Today's Links
* The outrage economy* Bangladesh’s sleeping Frankenstein* The Chittagong Hill Tracts Of Bangladesh* Engage, ignore, suppress: How governments respond to Citizen Media.* Crackdowns on Bloggers increasing, survey finds.* Bangladesh tightens the Internet noose.* India-Bangladesh train goes off the rai...
October 17, 2007
India-Australia cricket series
The India Australia one-day cricket series was disappointing as Australia won (4-2) some matches with aggression and with big margins and India was not equal to the task. However they nipped back with two wins, especially the last one. The man of the match Murali Kartik with his six wickets and unbeaten 21 helped India win the match.However the post match presentation created something to ponder about. Kartik said:".. by God's grace it worked out well for me ...we had some fun batting out there ... cracking jokes helped us through ... and yes,...
Blog Action Day: Bangladesh and Environment
(First published in E-Bangladesh)Yesterday was the Blog action day, a day when bloggers around the web were unite to emphasize the important issue 'the environment' that people tend to ignore. The campaign asked every blogger around the world to post about the environment in their own way and relating to their own local or international topic.Why is the Blog day important? Kevin Stirtz writes in the American Chronicle:Blog Action Day is important...
October 16, 2007
Cartoon of the Day: How to become a famous blogger
Cartoon by Dave Walker. Find more cartoons you can freely re-use on your blog at We Blog Cartoo...
The advent of Internet theater
After podcasts and video casts internet theater is finally here. Jesse Thorn of "The Sound of Young America" has produced a podcast of dramatic reading of George Saunders’ short story “Ask Mr. Optimist” including the performance of many Internet celebrities including Xeni Jardin of Boing Boing. The video & puppetry by Brian Hogg of Hoggworks added new dimension to this piece. Watch the 15 minute long production "Ask Mr. Optimist" here: For list of casts, interviews, reviews and other details please visit the main si...
October 12, 2007
Today's Links
* Hizb ut-Tahrir: A danger to the West? Part 1, 2, 3, 4* ‘Secularism has become another religion’ – Etienne Balibar* Muslims in Burma * Empire State Building to go green for Muslim holiday* Textiles and the future* Bangladeshi shows caring ways for Congo ki...
Don't loath scraps
(Picture Courtesy Reuters/Rafiqur Rahman)iRobo is a Bangladeshi scrapbot developed by Feroz Ahmed Siddiky of the International Islamic University in Chittagong. People will be able to buy it for less than $1,000 someday the developer hopes. Reuters reports:"IRobo" responds to voice commands, has spatial intelligence and is cheap because it's made from scrap materials he's collected from electronic shops and car mechanics. He said he is currently...
October 11, 2007
Eid delights
The Eid Festival is just around the corner. Missing the special publications on Eid and the Eid supplements of Bangladeshi Newspapers. Hoping at least some of the supplements will be available onli...
Banking with mobile phone
The world's second money transfer system with mobile phone (after Philippines) was introduced in Kenya in March 2007. Kenya's biggest mobile operator Safaricom lets subscribers send M-Pesa, or mobile money convertible into cash to other phone users by SMS. The customers of the Safaricom network can keep up to 50,000 shillings (£370) in a "virtual account" on their handsets and use it for payment. Kenya's population is 35 million and 8 million of them own mobile phone.Originally targeted for the urban people's demand to send money to their families...
October 10, 2007
Bangladesh: Bloggers protest internet user profiling
(First published in the Global Voices Online)It all started when an exclusive report from E-Bangladesh exposed a memo of Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC) which instructed 72 Internet Service Providers (ISP) of Bangladesh to submit their individual client details and their usage details. E-Bangladesh also revealed that raids have been carried out in innocent individual users' houses, as a part of the ongoing illegal...
Quote of the day
"The ground reality, as is admitted by the nation’s central bank itself, is grim: the economy has slowed down and would miss the seven per cent growth target set for this financial year; and jailing of businessmen is being touted as a contributory factor. This, clearly, is just one among the many wrong signals coming out of Bangladesh these days.The fact is that the military cannot mastermind political or economic reforms. It has its own agenda, both long-term and short-term. Those who sided with the military are neither doing a service to themselves...
October 08, 2007
The myth of VOIP being illegal
There was a thread in Drishtipat last January which elaborately describes about VOIP. VOIP reduces cost of telecommunication drastically. It is now used all over the world in means of calling cards or other means like Gtalk. Most Bangladeshi diaspora uses this form of communications and also their relatives in Bangladesh.In Germany we use a 5 digit number which has to be dialed before the Bangladeshi number and voila- teh bill is aggregated in our monthly bill). A VOIP call from Germany to Bangladesh was about 4 cent before Jan 2007 now its about...
October 06, 2007
Media in Bangladesh under crisis
The Bangla blogging platforms "Somewhere in BBA" and "Sachalayatan" are growing popular day by day with thousands of bloggers/readers filling the void the Bangladeshi local media are creating. We are seeing in traditional media a sense of self censorship and lack of professionalism. These have sometimes become propaganda machine for the authorities or some political quarters. People are generally weary of media reports.I bring to your notice to a worrying report from the Blogger Bahurupi at Somewhere in. Here is the translation (shortened version:...
Updates on internet monitoring in bangladesh
Previous post: Internet user profiling and monitoring in BangladeshRelated: Internet user profiling and surveillance process initiated in BangladeshAs I reported in my last post that BBC picked up the story. In todays morning session of BBC Bangla they digged the story deep with reactions from two experts.One is an International law expert, law professor of Brussels University Ahmed Ziauddin Ahmed. Listen to him: Get this widget | Track details...
October 04, 2007
Why cartoon published in Bangladesh leads to death of Christians in Nigeria?
Good question. Because quarters like Hizbut Tahrir tries to keep this issue alive with protests in London apparently to amplify their demands like estabishing SHaria rule and Khilafat. They are even extending their outrage against the newspaper Prothom Alo by arranging prevention committees in every locality.Meanwhile in Nigeria in a recent incident in a racial skirmish between Muslims and Christians nine Christians have been killed and many churches attacked (reports All Africa.com).The Christian Association of Nigeria's national secretary, Mr....
In solidarity with the protests in Burma
Free Burma! Petition WidgetName: (required)Email: Web: Country: End repression of the Monks. Bring the killers to justice. Free Burma. Related links:# Global Voices Online blog roundups# Support Burma: International Bloggers' Day - Facebook event# blogs about Burma# Thousands of Blog posts on today's blog protest via TechnoratiTag: Free Bu...
YouTube video of the day
One of the most popular French bloggers, entrepreneur Loïc Le Meur is opening a business in San Fransisco. He introduces his new compa...
October 03, 2007
Internet user profiling and surveillance in Bangladesh
Some disturbing news from Bangladesh.E-Bangladesh reports:RAB (Rapid Action Battalion) members assisted by BTRC (Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission) officials are conducting house-to-house searches in Dhaka, Chittagong and Sylhet pinpointing each and every internet user with a fast connection. In an unprecedented move that clearly violates privacy rights and threatens freedom of speech and communication, a special cell comprising...
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