Wishing everybody a happy 2010.I can't believe the year is over. Let the new year's resolution be - finish the goals I could not achieve in 2009. And then set new goa...
December 31, 2009
December 30, 2009
Quote Of The Day
"In early December of 2008, Mark Dummett of the BBC reported a wonderful “news of the weird” story from Dhaka, Bangladesh – a life-scale replica of the Taj Mahal, built at enormous expense. Global journalists sprang into action, documenting a diplomatic spat between Bangladesh and India over ownership of this cultural treasure, talking about the shocking idea of “pirating” another nation’s national symbols.
None of these intrepid reporters actually...
December 28, 2009
Back To Square One
Tomorrow is the anniversary of the landmark election that brought Bangladesh back to the path of Democracy.
So what change has this one year brought to Bangladesh? We have got many young and energetic ministers who have promised a lot but yet failed to deliver up to the people's expectations. The good thing is that they are not corrupt (not yet) like their predecessors and perhaps we need to give them more time. Furthermore the government is yet to show any success in the energy sector, securing Bangladeshi labors' rights and many other things....
December 26, 2009
Global Voices Turns Five
One of my favorite places in the Internet Global Voices has turned five years this month. It was incubated and launched five years ago at the Harvard University's Berkman Center for Internet and Society. Read Rebecca MacKinnon and David Sasaki's posts to learn how all this happened.
I am writing for Global Voices for about four and a half years. In my early blogging years I was interested about other blogs in Bangladesh and some from the neighboring...
December 25, 2009
Quote Of The Day
Bloggers are commonly read mostly by other bloggers and by a select audience; we must accept that even today, most people are unfamiliar with blogs at all (not to mention twitter), and unless/until blogs demonstrate a social value great enough to attract the attention and respect of the public, they will remain of marginal interest only. That, by the way, is just one reason there are no "blogger millionaires". - DJ Drummond at Wizban...
December 24, 2009
Merry Christmas Everyone
In Indonesia the custom is not to wish someone before the exact date - be it Christmas or Birthday. So I waited till midnight (don't be confused with the blog posting time -I need to fix it) and now wishing everyone a merry Christmas and happy holidays.
Actually Christmas celebrations are pretty visible in Jakarta. Jakarta has about 9% Christians and almost all the shopping malls are decorated with colorful Christmas trees (pics will follow). You will hear the Christmas carols playing and in the Shenayan Plaza we saw live Christmas carol concert...
December 19, 2009
Google's Christmas Gift For Global Voices
Google announced a Christmas charity gift for 25 organization totaling $20 million. Global Voices is also on the list. The amounts have been not disclosed yet and we have learned that the amount distributed will be on the need basis and may vary from organizations to organizations. But nevertheless its a great news for Global Voices which had to rely on donations from readers to survive the Global financial crisis. Congratulations ...
December 18, 2009
On the way to Pela Buhanratu
This is early morning in Jakarta. Today is holiday, the first day of Muharram, Muslim new year. So we took this opportunity to go to Pela Buhanratu, a horse shaped bay on the other side of Java island. It should not be more that 200-220 kilometers. But it takes more than 4 hours we were told. We are starting early to avoid traffic (and more delays) as we plan to come back today.We will be going past Bogor on highway and the road after that will be hilly and interesting. I will try to post some pictures on the way. Pl. Stay tun...
December 17, 2009
December 16, 2009
December 08, 2009
Nominate Your Favorite Bangla Blogs
Deutsche Welle recently announced its sixth annual international Best of the Blogs awards: the BOBs. The nominated blogs will be sorted in eleven different language categories including Bangla (Yayeee!).
Global Voices informs:
Any person interested in nominating a blog, must first search for it in the BOBs blogopedia and submit the blog of their choice in the competition database if it is not already listed. The jury will select the finalists....
December 04, 2009
Cricketer Blogger
Today New Zealand cricket team was skittled out by Pakistan for 99. Had it been Bangladesh, we could have seen another relegation debate.
Jrod at Cricket with balls puts this nicely:
Their opening batsmen don’t seem to be able to survive an over.
The rest of their batsmen seem to hope Ross Taylor will do the job.
Then Prince Brendon and Dictator Dan have to make as many runs as they can with tired bowlers. Not fair. [..]
I suggest that all the...
November 30, 2009
Quote Of The Day
Switzerland, after centuries of striving for civilization and enlightenment, has just about reached the same level of tolerance as that exhibited by a small Gulf Wahhabi country (Qatar), the people of which were mostly Bedouins only a hundred years ago. - Juan Co...
Now Listening: Fair and Kind
Fair and Kind — the duo of Arthi Meera and her brother, Anand Subraman...
November 28, 2009
Washing Label Humor
Women’s disproportionate responsibility for housework and childcare.(Via Sociological image...
The road uphill
The road uphill to Bandung was interesting and it took long because of traffic. We went right through Bandung and now heading towards the mountain tangkuban Paradu.Sadly its raining heavily. Hope rain does not spoil the day.....
At Bandung
The traffic at the Toll road was lean. So it took about one hour and 45 minutes to reach Bandung. In the picture above is the toll booth. We had to pay about 4.5 dollars for using the toll road. But inside the city we immediately face a long traffic jam. The road was well paved and some interesting scenaries of mountains and villages. Sadly we did not stop anywhere to take pictures.The weather is great and sun is smiling. Looking forward to seeing...
On the way to Bandung
We are on the way to Bandung, the fourth largest city of Indonesia and the capital of West Java island. The city lies on a river basin at a height of 768 m and is surrounded by volcanoes. It takes almost 3 hours from Jakarta by car. Its the day after EID HOLIDAY and there is no jam.I will try to update you on our tr...
November 27, 2009
Eid Mubarak
Probably this is the dullest Eid day in my life so far. Hope you are enjoying the holiday, spending time with friends & families.**Sent from a mobile device...
November 24, 2009
Mobile Facts
Here is a list of top ten Asian countries according to the number of mobile phone users:
1. China - 644.8 million
2. India - 391.6 million
These two countries share 25 percent of total mobile phone users in the world, that is 1.04 billion subscribers of the world’s total number of 4.15 billion.
3. Indonesia - 144.6 million, followed by Japan.
5. Pakistan - 93 million
6. Vietnam - 73.2 million
7. Philippines - 71.7 million
8. Thailand - 62.7 million
9....
November 23, 2009
The proposed education policy in Bangladesh
There is a saying that "when your only tool is a hammer all your problems look like nails." It seems the only tool of some of the Islamists is bringing death to somebody.
The latest act of some religious nutcase is to send a death threat to the Education Minister Nurul Islam Nahid. His fault? Leading the formulation of a proposed "national education policy for Bangladesh" and posting the draft on the ministry website [bn].
The salient features...
Blogspot banned in Indonesia?
Well that question did not come into my mind albeit I had troubles accessing my blog (which is on blogspot domain) yesterday.
Today when I could not access multiple sites on blogspost, I tried them via proxy and could access them successfully. Then I realized that something is wrong and started Googling for news. It seems only the Jakartass blog has the information. It reveals:
A few Indonesian ISPs - namely Fastnet, CBN and Smart - blocked Blogger yesterday, albeit temporarily. Why these three, and not the major ISPs such as Telkom and Indosat,...
November 21, 2009
Google Chrome OS
Google Chrome OS is a lightweight computer operating system devoted to using the internet. (Check the Video to learn more)
Although it is set to have a publicly available stable release during the second half of 2010, probably in a netbook, a version of it is already available for download via ZeroSec. Continued....
November 20, 2009
Now Listening: Meghdol - Ommm
Ommm:
Get this widget
|
Track details
|
eSnips Social DNA
Brilliant music from Meghdol, a theatrical(!) band from Bangladesh. Listen to their albums here.
More information about them can be found in their Last.fm page...
November 19, 2009
The Girl Who Silenced the UN For 5 Minutes
Severn Suzuki, gave this speech in 1992. Wondering how relevant is it after 17 years...
November 18, 2009
Wake Up! The Clock Is Ticking
Imagine you lived in a world of water. Your home is two-feet under. You wade through it, cook on it, and sleep above it. This is the reality for hundreds of thousands of people around the world, coastal populations on the front lines of climate change.
The latest PBS documentary called "water world" shows the effects of climate change in Bangladesh and how it threatens the world.
The situation has become so alarming that Dr. Atiq Rahman says that 'climate change', 'global warming' - these are soft words. We should be referring to this phenomenon...
November 17, 2009
Corporate Social Responsibility and $1 Adidas training shoes
This is a very welcoming news:
Adidas, the German sports giant, is to make €1 trainers for millions of people around the world who cannot afford to buy shoes, with pilot production to begin next year in Bangladesh.
This is rather at a conceptual state still as the final price will be slightly higher than this. But the important thing is that the shoes will be sold on a non-profit basis by Adidas. other sports companies accused of exploitation in the developing world, Adidas is keen to improve its image and reputation for corporate social responsibility.
The...
Quote Of The Day
"As more of us become absorbed in publishing content we become less talented at listening and paying attention to others. Here today we are not communicating with one another, we are talking past each other. We are more interested in what each one of us is saying – and how others react to what we say – than in what others are saying. We are increasingly forgetting how to listen." - David Sasaki aka El Os...
November 12, 2009
Rainy Season Begins in Jakarta
The long rainy season of Jakarta falls between late October and early May. We experienced first heavy rain of this season today. The flood situation is normal but heavy traffic jam occurred as seen in the above picture (visit Aulia's posterous for mor...
Another Travesty of Justice
Another travesty of justice happened in Bangladesh today. After cartoonist Arif was acquitted by a higher court last year, a lower court in Jessore finds him guilty.
From BDNews24.com:
A Jessore court has handed down two months of rigorous imprisonment to cartoonist Arifur Rahman of satire magazine Alpin, a weekly publication of the daily Prothom Alo.
The verdict was given in the case regarding publication of sacrilegious cartoon in the magazine...
November 10, 2009
Aminul Islam Bulbul's Cricket Journey To China
Those who are familiar with Bangladesh cricket must know Aminul Islam Bulbul. He is one of the successful spinners of Bangladesh and has played for Bangladesh for 15 years since his debut in 1988 in the Asian Youth Cup cricket tournament.
Ever wondered what he is doing now? He is working as the ACC Development Officer for China, Brunei and Myanmar. And from this video you will notice that he speaks decent Chinese to do his job to spread the game...
Talent From Bangladesh
This September when I was in Dhaka, I met some netizens from Dhaka whom I know from blogs and other online activities. One of them was Mehdi hasan. He is a young Bangladeshi in his mid twenties and keeps a low profile. I was surprised to learn that he is the one who wrote the Avro software, the versatile and open source Bangla typing software which is used by thousands of Bangladeshis because its free and supports multiple platforms including Mac...
November 09, 2009
Learning Indonesian (Bahasa) - Online Resources
I have started to learn Indonesian with the help of some great online resources. I scrapped the idea of taking classes after I found them. But self learning is sometimes more time consuming as you don't have deadlines and exams. So I haven't had much progress. But hope I will be able to speak decent Bahasa in three months time.
Here are the online resources for learning Indonesian.
Learning Indonesian - It is a product of a small family business run by Shaun and Cici. It has free resources like great audio guides for downloading and paid program...
November 06, 2009
Digital vs. Analog TV
What happens to your old TV when you switch to digital (LCD/Plasma) TV?
"The major digital TV switchover in north-west England has coincided with a huge increase in dumped analogue TVs" - reports The Guardian:
This year, the council has recycled 50,000 analogue TVs thrown away by households, of which 30,000 could have been upgraded to receive digital TV signals with a simple £20 set-top box.
The e-waste dumps in developing nations are piling...
Timeline of Withdrawal of US Forces From Iraq
(click on image to enlarge)
The draw-down from Iraq includes the withdrawal of approximately 128,700 U.S. troops, over 115,000 contractor personnel, the closure or transfer of 295 bases, and the retrograde of over 3.3 million pieces of equipment.
U.S. Government Accountability Office has this excellent report on the progress of this draw-down.
Via Raed Jarr...
November 05, 2009
A Thrilling Match
"They are going to be talking about those three consecutive sixes for a long time in Chittagong." - Cricinfo
The match situation was like this:
End of over 47 (3 runs) Bangladesh 198/9 (24 runs required from 18 balls, RR: 4.21, RRR: 8.00)
Then something happened:
47.2 Chibhabha to Naeem Islam, SIX, Naeem dances down the track and launches that on over long-on for a six to bring up his half-century, that was a length ball
47.3 Chibhabha to Naeem Islam, SIX, wow, what a shot that is, another length ball, Naeem gets under it and whacks it...
October 31, 2009
Determinism
Trailer for Determinism, the movie by Sanjit Majumder from New York.
Its a drama about a South Asian in Pennsylvania, USA financially cut off from his family who plans a heist that goes horribly wrong.
Synopsis:
Alec, the film’s anti-hero, is an alienated South Asian. He’s always been an outsider, and he certainly doesn’t fit in here. New York is his Mecca.
Broke and cut off from his family after he flunks out of school, Alec sets off to free himself from the stereotypical role of “South Asian Geek” imposed upon him from birth. So opposed...
October 29, 2009
Bangladesh is a growing force in cricket
“The age-group cricket is very competitive and at junior level they (Bangladesh) are very good.
They have a lot of good spin bowlers, they are a good fielding side as well as being very aggressive and they have also some impressive batters as well, so, all in all, they are a growing force.”
- England Under-19s coach Mick Newell on Bangladesh U-19 team.
Two good news unfurled today. Bangladesh Under-19 cricket team leads a 7 match series at 4-0...
October 27, 2009
I love Bangladeshis
This is an unusual but brilliant opinion from a Kuwaiti - Ali Ahmed Al-Baghli, the Former Minister of Oil, published in the Arab Times:
IT is wrong to dread the citizens of certain countries simply because some of their compatriots are involved in illegal and unethical activities. Inadequacies are not inherited, yet some people seem to enjoy discriminating others due to the misdeeds of their compatriots. Actually, the main problem is the improper enforcement of the law. Some groups, including the security authorities, consider certain nationalities...
2009 Global Hunger Index And Bangladesh
Global Hunger Index - BANGLADESH | RANK: 67, GHI: 24.70 (Alarming)
The Global Hunger Index (GHI) shows that worldwide progress in reducing hunger remains slow. According to the report, Bangladesh’s Global Hunger Index (GHI) score is 24.7, which gives it a rank of 67th out of 84 countries. The index ranks countries on a 100-point scale, with 0 being the best score (no hunger) and 100 being the worst.
This report compares the 2009 GHI with the 2008 Global Gender Gap Index, which is made up of four subindices: economic participation, educational...
The web Has Your Records
All netizens have a digital dossier. Your dossier is the accumulation of all the digital tracks you make when you use social media tools or browse online.
You may or may not be aware of the above fact but there are some alarming news like the CIA and the European Union are building a social networking surveillance system.
Tom Burghardt at Dissident Voice writes:
Researchers on both sides of the Atlantic are busy as proverbial bees building a “total information” surveillance system, one that will, so they hope, provide police and security agencies...
Pesta Blogger 2009
Last Saturday (October 24, 2009) I attended the Pestablogger 2009 conference held in the SMESCO building in Jakarta. Around 1200 bloggers from all across Indonesia participated in this third annual Indonesian bloggers gathering.
(SMESCO building at Jalan Gatot Soebroto)
This year's theme was "One Spirit One Nation", which reflects the nation's unity and diversity. Iman Brotoseno, the chairman of the event tells:
"Blog and other social media...
The Hawa Bhaban Conspiracy
Who was behind the August 21, 2004 murder plot against Sheikh Hasina left unanswered for years. But now shocking details are emerging.
Last year we learned that the former BNP lawmaker and deputy minister Abdus Salam Pintu Pintu was detained and charges were made against him and 22 persons including top Harkat-ul-Jihad (Huji) leader Mufti Abdul Hannan for the sensational August 21 grenade attack against Hasina. He confessed of his involvement in...
October 22, 2009
Hizbut Tahrir Banned In Bangladesh
In 2007 I wrote why Hizbut Tahrir is the next threat for Bangladesh. They had been recruiting talented youths from Bangladeshi education institutions and brain washing them for their quest to establish Khilafat. Rawi commented in my above post:
I happened to closely follow the alarming emergence of HT in Bangladesh over the last 5 years -- alarming because they openly reject democracy as "un-Islamic", unlike the other Islamist parties that at least accept the democratic system as a pragmatic norm and act within it. Ironically, when they first...
October 20, 2009
My Interview Published In Asia Media Forum
Lynette Lee Corporal at Asia Media Forum has published an article on Blog Action Day and quoted me from an interview which I submitted via email earlier.
Here is the article:
Battle for Climate Change Waged in Cyberpace Too...
October 19, 2009
The State Of The Blogosphere 2009
"In a year when revolutions and elections were organized by blogs, bloggers are blogging more than ever, and the State of the Blogosphere is strong."
Technorati State Of The Blogosphere for 2009 is out. Since 2004, Technorati's annual study has followed the growth and trends in the blogosphere. 2,900 bloggers were surveyed directly by market research firm Penn Schoen and Berland. Here is a summary of the report.
Day 1: Who are the Bloggers?
Bloggers...
October 18, 2009
3D Animation Film From Bangladesh
A 3D Animation film made by Nishu and Mazhar of Batch 02 (Mechanical Engineering) from Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUE...
October 16, 2009
I swear my chair moved
Earthquake in Indonesia have been so frequent these days that people don't bother. I was sitting in chair and I felt it was moving for a bit. I was deeply concentrated in work and I thought probably my head was spinning. Then the shaking was no more. I asked my family members who did not feel anything probably it was for a brief period - 5 seconds or so. No apparent damages in Jakarta.
And a while after a twitter message came up:
W7VOA: Another...
Better Than That One!
Via Jakarta Daily Photo:
The owner of the biggest McDonalds franchise in Indonesia has converted all his McDonald’s counters into the new restaurant: Tony Jack’s. Apparently he’s pissed by McDonald’s decision to sell its majority franchise ownership of McDonalds Indonesia to the Rekso group.
Detik Finance reports that 13 McDonalds branches were converted to Tony Jack’s on the 1st of October. The new entity vows to offer different food items from...
October 15, 2009
Blog Action Day 2009: Climate Change
Today is the Blog Action Day and this annual event aims to unite the world's bloggers where they write about a single topic in a single day to raise awareness and trigger a global discussion on the subject.
I have posted a round-up of some of the Rising Voices projects discussing climate change in their blogs.
This is my third year of participating in the Blog Action Day. You can read my posts from 2007 & 2008.
Now the question is why Blog...
Featured in Asia Media Forum, Thailand
I am featured in an article published in Asia Media Forum, Thailand. This is republished here purely for archiving purpose:
Screenshot of the article
Battle for Climate Change Waged in Cyberpace Too
By Lynette Lee Corporal
BANGKOK (Asia Media Forum) — Like veritable Davids to the status quo's Goliaths, who contribute one way or another to environmental apathy, bloggers have been busy using a very powerful weapon to smote climate change in...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Swopon 
