Dhaka Greeneries are shrinking for public

Rumi at In the middle of Nowhere reports:

Public park space in Dhaka is almost non existent. Almost hidden within this concrete slum of 12 million people, few spots here and there still gives the Dhakaites much needed greenery and some fresh air to walk in the early morning.

While the governments should consider this park space shortage as an issue of priority and do everything possible to make more greenery available to the public, this government has done exactly the opposite.

The took away almost half of Ramna Green (25 acre of 62 acres) and silently gave it to a club of 1500 elites of Dhaka, the Dhaka Club. The hitherto public park space will be the golf course for the 1500 elites of Dhaka. And this broad daylight robbery of public land occurred almost 5 months ago in June 2007.

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Missing Person

When a VIP/celebrity is blown out of proportion by media and vanishes from media soon after then people start to question.

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Bangladesh has a lot to teach the world

Safia Minney runs the fair trade fashion company called People Tree. She describes about Bangladesh, the land and people she loves:

The politics of neighboring countries are intensifying the problems caused by climate change. In times of heavy rainfall or flooding India will use its dams to favour its own people and land redirecting excess water from its great dams into Bangladesh. And in times of drought when water is scarce Bangladesh will receive only a trickle. The politics of water are well underway and tensions will mount as rainfall patterns are disrupted due to climate change. In an agricultural country where people rely on fishing and farming water means life or death.
.....

The people of Bangladesh are so kind and holistic in their thinking.

Bangladesh has a lot to teach the world, but recently it seems that its “care taker” government lacks confidence in its own people and intellectuals. The world has moved on. Bangladesh and its people hold many of the answers for sustainability. It is the time for multi stakeholder initiatives and approaches when we all work together for change. But confidence is needed in a nation that offers so much, but ends up comparing itself with big business and a world economy system gone mad.

Bangladesh people may need help up as one of the poorest nations in the world but the nation has made great strides in the last 20 years, in terms of literacy and development. It also qualifies as the happiest nation in the world, so clearly there are other benchmarks that determine the true prosperity of a nation.

These and lot more in her blog.

Also don't forget to check the Sarah dress.

Image credit People Tree.

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India's new test captain

Congratulations Anil Kumble. But will he be a successful performer in spin department in non-Indian pitches?

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Bangladeshi Blogosphere remembers Nur Hossain

Today it is Nur Hossain Day.

Mash writes in E-Bangladesh:

On November 10, 1987 a young Bangladeshi man named Nur Hossain was shot and killed by the forces of Bangladesh’s part-time poet and full time dictator General Hossain Mohammad Ershad. On that day Nur Hossain had joined thousands of other Bangladeshis in protesting the dictator’s rule. The protesters demanded a return to democracy. Nur Hossain stood out amongst the protesters. He had the Bengali words “Sairachar nipat jak” painted in bright white letters on his bare chest, and the words “Ganatantra mukti pak” painted on his back. “Down with autocracy” on his chest; “Let there be democracy” on his back. He died for those demands and became a martyr for the democracy movement in Bangladesh.

Today, two decades after his death, we remember and honor him.

Dhaka Shohor writes (in Bangla) that the Nur Hossain square at the zero point (city center) of Dhaka is in dilapidating state and not maintained by Dhaka city Corporation. He ponders: "are the lives of general citizens of lesser value than the elites and this is true even for the democratic governments!"

Black and Grey wrote in an elegy for Nur Hossain last year:

Hossain's struggle--or statement so to speak--was not actually against a particular regime, it was a brave resistance against a brutal and corrupt economic system that had made the country a filthy playground for a class of nouveau arrivé bourgeois. One and a half decades after that nothing significant has changed.

Sushanta writes:

"Look Nur Hossain how the renowned politicians of the country are remembering you with garlands. But did Nur Hossain die for this only?"

Rehan at BangladeshWeb Blogs writes:

Nur Hussain is gone but not forgotten – his bare torso that had two lines written in Bangla on that day -- Gonotontro Mukti Paak, Shoyrachar Nipat Jaak (Long live democracy, down with tyranny) – will always be a glowing symbol for us and generations to come who long for a better Bangladesh.

Let there only be one way for our nation to meander, the way towards democracy, equality and justice for all. Let not anyone take our nation of crores hostage to autocracy, corruption and injustice.

Eskimo says Nur Hossain is the lighthouse of Bangladesh democracy.

Tacit reminds us:

In Bangladesh, we had grown complacent in the last seventeen years, mistakenly thinking that our fragile democracy would endure without proper care and nurturing. We know our mistake today, we know that we need to strive to regain our cherished ideals, to snatch back what has been taken from us, to prove wrong those who contemptuously tell us that we are not deserving of our basic rights as human beings.

Mash concludes:

Now, two decades after Nur Hossain paid with his life for a democracy he envisioned, Bangladesh is once again under a General’s grip. The story is the same. The new General, Moeen U Ahmed, is also fighting “corruption”. The new administration in Washington supports him. Meanwhile the democracy that Nur Hossain earned with his blood lies beneath the boot of another usurper.

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YouTube video of the day

Genocide, denials and convicting war criminals

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The South Asian Blogosphere

Welcome to it if you still are missing the South Asian perspectives.

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