Unheard Voice posted a press release of the Coalition for the International Criminal Court urging Bangladesh to be the first South Asian signatory to International Criminal Court (ICC). The ratification only requires approval of the Cabinet, not the Parliament.

The Coalition for the International Criminal Court has recently published another press release which says:

In May 2010, the ICC will hold its first Review Conference which will consider, among other things, amendments to the Statute including the adoption of a definition for the crime of aggression. Given the impact and repercussions that this meeting will have for the future of international justice, we urge your government to ratify the Rome Statute by 1 March, 2010, so as to ensure full participation as a State Party during the Conference.

Now the question is "how joining the ICC will benefit Bangladesh?" State Minister for Liberation War Affairs, AB Tajul Islam had indicated in April 2009 that Bangladesh may request the International Criminal Court to put on trial Pakistani forces for alleged war crimes.

We will take the matter to the International Criminal Court and seek the trial of the members of the Pakistani occupation forces who committed crimes against humanity during our liberation war. And we will request the world body to bring them to justice as many of them are guilty of war crimes.

Barrister Harun ur Rashid, former Bangladesh Ambassador to the UN, Geneva wrote in The Daily Star:

To demonstrate the commitment to trial of war crimes, it is appropriate that Bangladesh ratifies the Statute of International Criminal Court of 1998 (Bangladesh signed it) and the ratification will show to the international community Bangladesh's firm resolve that war crimes must not and cannot escape unpunished.

The Bangladesh government has decided to try the home based war criminal under the existing laws of the country. However, their jurisdiction will not cover to prosecute the Pakistani war criminals. So its important to take measures so that they can be brought to justice too. As Barrister Rashid said:

Crimes against humanity, war crimes and genocide are the gravest crimes in international law and are condemned by all UN members. The effective punishment is an important element in the prevention and recurrence of such odious crimes and for protection of the inherent dignity of human person.

"Bangladesh are an ordinary side. They can't beat India because they can't take 20 wickets."

This was the remark of Indian cricket captain Virender Sehwag on the eve of the first Test in Chittagong.

Bangladesh coach Jamie Siddons reacted on Sehwag's comment:

"He should stay away from mikes. Every team has good and bad phases. His comments might bite him on his bum in a few years time. It might even hit him in the bum in a week's time. We are definitely not an ordinary side. That's what we are hoping to show in this Test series. We could hopefully prove Sehwag wrong."

It did not take even a day. The Cricinfo headline read: "Bangladesh all over ordinary India." Shakib and Shahadat left India reeling at 213/8 at the end of the days play. Sehwag was obviously absent in the post match press conference.

Recommended read: A bite out of the bum.

Taking a photo with Tigers.

The bridge on the river Kwai, Kanchanaburi, Thailand.

An Internet protocol (IP) addresses is the unique numerical label that is assigned to devices participating in a computer network utilizing the Internet Protocol for communication. The original designers of TCP/IP defined an IP address as a 32-bit number and this system, known as Internet Protocol Version 4 or IPv4, is still in use today (wikipedia) 

However it may not be used after 2011. Harry Lewis reports:

If you go to WhatIsMyIp or any of a number of other sites, you can see your own, shown as four numbers, each less than 256, separated by dots. That's about 4 billion possibilities in all, a number that seemed unimaginably extravagant at a time that computers were huge. Today, with computers in everything, even your wristwatch could use its own IP address, and plenty of devices smaller than that. The pool of IP addresses, which were divided into blocks and given out to nations, and within nations to companies and universities and governments, is being rapidly depleted.

According to this report at Enterprise Networking Planet:

The timeline for IPv4 address space exhaustion may not be 2010, but it is likely to be exhausted within the next two or three years at the present rate of IP address allocation. At our current trend rate we've got about 625 days before we will not have new IPv4 addresses available.

Many regions in the world seems to be tackling a cold wave in the recent history. You can see the amazing pictures here, even in unusual places liek UAE and Saudi Arabia. For countries like Bangladesh Temperature dropping to close to 10 degrees is a disaster for many rural people as their homes or their clothes are not equipped to withstand this cold.

This reminds me of a Hollywood science fiction movie I watched recently "The Day After Tomorrow". The movie showed that due to global warming, melting of the polar ice had begun disrupting the North Atlantic current. It triggered violent weather across the world causing mass destruction. A hurricane like superstorm developed which had an eye where temperature dropped below -150 degree freezing everything in its path and leading to taking half of the world towards ice age. The developments may look like fantasy, but the theory has some merit as we can see from the affects of the recent weather.

I hope we will get some realistic explanation from the scientists.

A family outing on a lazy saturday.

Shakhawat Liton lists the forgotten pledges of Bangladesh's major opposition BNP, which started boycotting parliament on the issue of front row seating arrangement in the House:

• After taking oath as an MP, Khaleda on January 15 announced her party deputies will attend parliament from its inaugural sitting and play a constructive role.
• As the leader of the opposition, Khaleda's poor participation in the House proceedings shows her lack of interests to parliament. The opposition lawmakers joined 23 out of total 87 sittings of the ninth parliament, while Khaleda joined only three.
• The party has yet to elect the deputy leader of the opposition who could have led the opposition bench in parliament in absence of Leader of the Opposition Khaleda Zia.
• The BNP Parliamentary Party (BNPPP) did not hold any meeting for over 10 months. As a result, the party deputies could not discuss their parliamentary strategies.
• The manifesto BNP says none of the lawmakers can remain absent for more than 30 consecutive sittings without leave of the House.
• BNP lawmakers, who were made chiefs of two parliamentary standing committees, did not hold meeting of the committees for a few months since their formation.

This says how BNP is serious about democracy. However they have placed a ten point demand which has to be met as a precondition for their return:

The 10-point demands include strengthening security of BNP Chairperson Khaldea Zia, withdrawal of 'politically motivated' cases filed during the caretaker regime against the BNP chief, party Senior Vice-Chairman Tarique Rahman and other leaders, dropping the decision to cancel the lease of Khaleda's cantonment residence, arresting prices of essentials, improving law and order situation, stopping tender manipulation and giving two more chairs of the parliamentary bodies.

Some of the solutions to the demands lay in the hand of the judiciary and some are vague like improving law and order situation. So it seems the party has no intention to get back to the parliament. I suggest the MPs should stop taking perks and facilities from the government for the service they have not rendered for the citizens.

The following fundamental principles of Bangladesh constitution of 1972 evolved through experiences of the liberation struggle of Bangladesh.

- Democracy
- Nationalism
- Secularism and
- Socialism (meaning economic and social justice for all)

Here you can read the original constitution hand written in Bangla: (courtesy Arup Kamal)

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

The later amendments replaced Secularity with "Absolute trust and faith in the Almighty Allah shall be the basis of all actions". Here is a list of the amendments made (In Bangla, In English).

However, the government has decided to pull back Bangladesh in the path of its original constitution by annulling the fifth amendment. A day after the Supreme Court vacated an earlier stay on the High Court verdict that declared illegal the fifth amendment of the constitution, Law Minister Shafique Ahmed said that:

Religion-based political parties of the country will be banned.

This is possible after the reinstatement of a para in the section 38 which says:

"কোনো সাম্প্রদায়িক রাজনৈতিক সংগঠন, ধর্মীয় নামযুক্ত বা ধর্মভিত্তিক কোনো সংগঠন করা যাবে না।"
"No religious political organization, organization with religious names or based on religion are allowed."

However, the prime Minister Sheikh Hasina said:

The words “Bismillah-Ar-Rahman-Ar-Rahim” in the preamble to the constitution and declaration of Islam as state religion will remain as they are, since they reflect the beliefs of the people.

This certainly will diffuse the religious parties who are trying to establish political Islam and shariah in Bangladesh.

The Education minister of Bangladesh Nurul Islam Nahid has kept his promise to provide millions of Bangladeshi school students with new textbooks from the first day of the new academic year. A staggering number of 186,826,950 textbooks were printed for 27,662,529 students of this academic year.

The minister said:

“A huge number of students from the poor families discontinue their studies due to lack of books. So we decided to provide all with new books to prevent drop out."

There were quarters who wanted him not to succeed. A mysterious fire at the National Curriculum and Textbook Board (NCTB) warehouse in Tejgaon industrial blazed hundreds of tones of textbooks and printing materials on October 1. Fire service officials hinted that it was an act of sabotage. This daily star report hints that a supplier of papers, who was accused with supply of poor quality papers may be behind (as most of the papers burnt were  supplied by them).

However,  the minister should be lauded for his efforts to publish and distribute those books in time. I wish other ministers could show effectiveness like Nahid.