The New Nation - Internet Edition

GOVERNMENT in a high-profile dialogue with business leaders recently, sought to assure them about engaging in business activities with full confidence. The dialogue seemed to have a positive effect for a while. But the confidence raising mood generated by the dialogue also appears to have dissipated. Soon after the government-business meeting, all concerned quarters suggested that the assurances given to businesses would make a contribution if only the same are seen implemented at the ground level. But according to business representatives, they are yet to see concrete evidences of a distinct change in the atitude of government officials from the National Board of Revenue (NBR) and from the law enforcement bodies after the dialogue. In other words, their confidence generally is still lagging and this cannot be good news for the economy.

Only an enthused business community through full-fledged business activities, specially new investment operations, can generate economic growth which then helps poverty alleviation, creation of jobs and income. But more and more, the economy of the country is becoming sluggish from lack of confidence of businesses and their withdrawn mentality. Thus, reviving fully the vital business confidence remains a challenging task for the government and it should be addressed with immediacy and prudence for the sake of the economy. Meanwhile, the big business conglomerates of the country are suffering in many ways. Some 30 top businessmen are either staying abroad out of fear or are in jail. It would not mater if corruption charges against them are investigated while a mechanism is devised to keep their business enterprises fully functional. This is necessary to keep markets well supplied by goods produced by them, for their employees to keep their jobs without adding to unemployment, for the government to get revenue from these businesses, for smooth export activities and unhindered growth in export earnings.

The banks and other financial institutions have an umbilical relationship with these business houses from extending huge credits to them. But these business houses and the enterprises under them, are failing to operate their accounts for a long time as their owners or members of their board of directors are either absconding or remain in jail. In many cases, they are under-producing and the employees have had no salaries for months. The company law does not allow banks to have dealings with these business organisations under the peculiar situation they are faced with. Thus, Bangladesh Bank should give detailed instructions to the banks such as the later authorising the directors of these business houses who are in the country and not in jail or even senior officers of the enterprises to carry out dealings with banks. The same could be given legal cover by amending the company laws through ordinance. The banks are failing to receive due repayment of loans from these institutions and the classified loan burden of the banks is shooting up. Thus, government needs to shape up its policy in this vital area realistically at the fastest

ACCORDING to a recent newspaper report, four of the country's private landline telephone operators are set to invest about Taka 800 crore in the next one year in the central telecom zone regarded as 'the most commercially viable' among the five zones Bangladesh is divided into. 'Dhaka Telephone Company Limited', a private company obtained a licence from the Bangladesh Telecommunications Regulatory Commission the other day to provide fixed phone services in the zone along with two other companies. 'Ranks-Tel' and 'Square-Informatix' are the two other companies that received licences from the regulatory commission to run land phone operations in the central zone, puting an end to the monopoly of the state-owned Bangladesh Telegraph and Telephone Board (BTTB). The fourth operator, 'Telebarta Limited', will be awarded the licence once it pays the commission the licence fee, reportedly within few days as agreed upon.

The central zone, also known as the Dhaka Multi-Exchange Area, includes the capital city, Zinjira, Savar, Narayangonj, Gazipur and Tongi, and accounts for about 60 per cent of the total demand for telephones in the country. The zone is densely populated and the potential demand for fixed phones here may go up to at least 10 lakh in the coming years as predicted by the concerned sources reflected in the media report The actual demand is at least 10 times more as many prospective customers never apply for telephone connection because of the prolonged process of geting a connection from the telephone board, which has been the lone land phone operator in the country before the government deregulated the sector in 2004. The average waiting period for geting a landline connection in our country is more than one year, which has encouraged unbridled corruption in the sector as newspaper reports mentioned.

The land phone operators will have to face tough competition from the Bangladesh Telegraph and Telephone Board and mobile phone operators to acquire new customers as most of the existing telephone users, both mobile and land phone, in the country are mainly concentrated in the capital city of Dhaka. The Bangladesh Telecommunications Regulatory Commission has set a condition that each of the four private operators will have to acquire at least 10,000 clients in the central zone in the first year of its operations. The private land phone operators, on the other hand, were aware of the situation and would fight tooth and nail with the state-owned telephone board as well as the mobile operators with a quick rollout plan. The newly licensed operators, expected to launch their services in the capital within a couple of months, will offer competitive call charges and package-facilities to consolidate their position in the central zone market The regulatory commission had earlier issued 35 licences to 15 private operators for the country's north-east, south-east, north-west and south-west zones under the open licensing system. The central zone had been kept out of its licensing purview on a court order.

Dr. M. S. Haq

Television channels such as, ETV Bangla (India), Zee TV and Sony are now-a-days engaged in among other things, organising mega type competitions for children and young people of India along with young people from other countries (in certain cases) who are interested in, and willing to, participating those competitions that are at present largely confined to domains of songs and dances.

The competitions are guided and regulated by, among other things, policies and rules established for the purpose by respective organizers of those (competition) programs. Factors such as, exposures of competitors and their respective performances via TV screens to the viewers and prizes for successful competitors - all carry values of different magnitudes, tangible or intangible or both, at individual, societal and other levels, relative to time, space and other variables. The judges selected for those competitions have, so far and in an average sense, found to be known personalities in their respective fields of expertise. It is pity though - they (I mean, judges, to whom it may concern) are not immune from, among other things, deficiencies when it comes to their behavioral transactions with young participants during the competition in certain cases.

A large number of guests including inter alia parents of competitors are usually invited to those programs. One of the notable guests in one of the recent Zee TV programs was India's rail minister Lalu. He was an added atraction for viewers of the program (to whom it may concern) because it provided them, among other things and in a sense, an additional opportunity for gauging and appreciating - in relevant areas - depths and breadths of the charismatic political leader. Minister Lalu had used the occasion as, among other things, a platform for promoting Indo-Pak relations in a commendable and intelligent manner, he did that while talking to one of the competitors who was a Pakistani. Congratulations!

It is expected concerned TV channels will invite more and more Lalu type leaders including inter alia former prime minister Atul Bihari Bajpayee. Prime Minister Bajpayee, I came to know from one of the published write-ups of Prof. M. Zahidul Haque (Sher-e-Bangla Agricultural University, Dhaka), is one of India's best gazal writers.

It will not be out of place to mention here: program planning, program organization, program presentation and other activities associated with those ETV, Zee TV and Sony products have so far found to be superb in many respects. Further, it has so far appeared to me, conductors of those programs are, among other things and in an average sense, smart, articulate and viewers' friendly - they possess a high degree of self-awareness. Congratulations, Once again!

Against the backdrop of various aspects of those programs, discussed and not discussed so far in the article, the role of transactions - that have been taking place between and among the competitors of those TV programs and the viewers of those programs via (for example) ICT aided feedbacks on the performance of competitors - in peoples' empowerment cannot be ignored especially at the time when the world is moving progressively towards a kind of reintegration and when people to people contacts have started ataining new shapes and dimensions or started gaining a fresh momentum or both in pursuits of say, greater understanding and cooperation between and among world people for collective survival, security, continuity and progress, relative to time and other variables.

In light of above, the development can be considered as an interesting one for number of reasons. A few of them are:

1. Given that the viewers, competitors, organizers and others represent, among other things, mindsets and backgrounds of various forms and nomenclatures, the above development could facilitate the creation of additional opportunities for a greater number of people to appreciate and promote the region's arts and culture in a wider, more effective and more constructive manner through the foreseeable future. A windfall from subsequent developments in relevant areas could inter alia be instrumental be in: promoting a deeper understanding and realization of cultural identities and cultural diversities at local, national and other levels; activating further or reactivating further the human system's responses towards augmentation of people-people synergy (I would like to call it in that way) for say, repositioning human values in the present day life, living and continuity continuum for more tolerable results and outcomes; strengthening further the people's constituencies for an overall progress and prosperity at individual, collective and other levels; and ensuring further their peaceful coexistence.

2. It could help create a greater access for millions and millions of people - considering the present day number of program related feedback by the viewers (for example, the case of Sony program concluded recently) - to participate, in a more direct, substantive and result-oriented manner, in both decision-making and decision-making processes associated with beter governance, poverty alleviation, anti-corruption and other competing priorities of relevant countries, per se. Interestingly, a windfall from the development (on a continuous basis, though) could be instrumental in bringing about a significant reduction in the per capita cost of ICT (as applicable) use at local, national and other levels and in enhancing ICT density (I would like to call it in that way) in above countries, for an instance.

3. It could help enhance sense of competition at individual, collective and other levels and create additional opportunities for constructive engagement of youths, particularly, unemployed youths, in productive or more productive ventures, per se. In such an event, the countries concerned and others might witness, in varying degrees though and relative to time and space: a reduction in crimes including inter alia terrorism; an environment more conducive to proper human development including inter alia development of human resources; a reduction in the number of cases of religious extremism and human rights violations; an improvement in domains of say, social responsibility and corporate accountability; and a more productive form of social cohesions at conceptual, operation and other levels.

4. Given the dimension of popularity of winners of the competitions, it appears to me (at times), if for example, those young winners decide to take part in national or local elections at least immediately after winning those competitions, they might have good chances for winning those elections - under certain conditions, though. One of those conditions is: the elections should be conducted on the basis of present day practices. One of the underlying assumptions here is: the value of entertainers in contemporary political markets is on the rise and a continuous rise of their value in those markets could facilitate, among other things, the development of a somewhat new generation and more sustainable support base for them in the domain of people's representation at local and other levels.

Taking into cognizance above and other related considerations, it can be said emerging political landscapes for entertainers are taking, in one form or another, a more solid shape than ever with and without the help of say, ICT and that could go a long way in assisting them (I mean, the entertainers) in the improvement and sustenance of their respective shares in politics and governance at local, regional and other levels, among other things. But the question is: how best and quickest those entertainers turned people's representatives (to whom it might concern) could be instrumental in bringing about qualitative and quantitative changes in the country's governance, in a significant way, for an instance? I am asking the question because the quality of answers to that question could inter alia be instrumental in determining eventually the demand side and the supply side of entertainers' market in the domain of politics and governance.

5. The TV programs have demonstrated so far - in a sense - the influence and power of media and ICT when it comes to mobilize and sustain people's ownership and participation in pursuits of accomplishing certain objectives in a meaningful and constructive manner in poor countries, for an instance. It is an encouraging development But some of the challenges in that respect are: how to mobilize media-cum-ICT opportunities for a rapid development of poor countries, involving inter alia scaling up the quality of life of poor people? How to recharge the delivery network of development assistance with a maximum help of say, ICT in pursuits of enhancing the per capita entitlement of for example, poor people when it comes to those assistance? How to establish, operationalize, sustain and promote more reliable and more productive program (I mean, development programs) monitoring and feedback regimes with the help of what I would call media-ICT compact, per se? How to bring development closer to world people than ever at the present stage of information age? How to transform relevant ICT opportunities into comparative, competitive and other advantages in support of people centered development?

The need of the hour is: world people, governments, donors, civil society, development agencies - including inter alia World Bank, IMF, UNDP, UNFPA, WFP and UNICEF, and others should cooperate and coordinate with each other in a best possible fashion they could muster in pursuits of reconfiguring their effort and resources for the best possible use, as well as outcome and to the maximum satisfaction of all concerned, per se. The mater should be taken more seriously and in a more professional manner than ever by all concerned. It is the time for all to operate above the present ego level (used in an unproductive sense). It is the time for all to become more realistic, more objective, more tolerant, more farsighted, more enriched by entrepreneurial skills and more result-oriented, to mention a few. Otherwise, poor countries could lose information age opportunities in a miserable way, among other things.

The last word: my beat wishes to all including inter alia the competitors, the winners, and the TV channels. Keep up the good work.

Seumas Milne

BRITONS are now more suspicious of Muslims than are Americans or citizens of any other major Western European country, including France. According to an international Harris poll last month, nearly 30 per cent of British people believe it's impossible to be both a Muslim and a Briton (compared with 14 per cent who think you can't be French and a Muslim); 38 per cent think the presence of Muslims in the UK is a threat to national security (compared with 21 per cent in the US); and 46 per cent believe that Muslims have too much political power in Britain, far above the level of any other surveyed country. You might think that these findings, reported in the Financial Times, would have been the occasion for some soul-searching about where British society is going, the state of community relations, and a new self-restraint in the way Muslim stories are covered in the media.

Not a bit of it The fact that a large minority of Britons has some of the most Islamophobic atitudes in the Western world has passed without comment Instead, we have since been treated to a renewed barrage of lurid and hostile stories about Muslims which can only have further inflamed anti-Muslim opinion and the community's own sense of being under permanent siege. This isn't just a problem of hate-filled tabloid rants, such as the Daily Express's denunciation of Muslims' "alien and threatening outfits", or columnist Richard Litlejohn's Muslim-baiting in the Daily Mail. For the past three weeks, there has been a stream of hostile coverage in the heavyweight press and on TV current affairs programmes.

This week it is was an hour-long Channel 4 Dispatches about atacks on Muslim converts to Christianity; last week it was the BBC Newsnight programme's 20-minute interview with the latest defector from the non-violent Islamist party Hizb ut-Tahrir; the week before that it was a Newsnight special on radical Islamist books in east London libraries, complete with sinister music and a round-table debate. The same week there was a London Times front-page news story about the "hardline takeover of British mosques", focused on the deeply conservative Deobandi religious movement which has long had a strong presence among British Muslims of Pakistani origin. For both Newsnight programmes, it was apparently felt that Patrick Mercer - the Conservative MP sacked by his party's leader David Cameron for making racially inflammatory remarks and appointed a security adviser by Gordon Brown - was the ideal person to comment on Muslim issues. Meanwhile, the novelist Martin Amis denounced "liberal relativist appeasers" of a "racist, misogynist, homophobic, totalitarian, inquisitorial, imperialist and genocidal" doctrine.

The problem isn't necessarily with the stories themselves. There are obviously legitimate issues to report about jihadist or anti-Jewish strains within the Deobandi school, the agenda of a group like Hizb ut-Tahrir that the government originally wanted to ban, or intimidation of converts to any religion. But in a climate of anti- Muslim prejudice, their disproportionate and sensationalist treatment can only feed ethnic tensions ("Christians in Britain are under atack", this week's Channel 4 Dispatches programme began, even if the numbers were tiny). Nor is the record of these kinds of reports impressive - an earlier Dispatches programme on the preaching of hate in British mosques was recently found by the police and Crown Prosecution Service to have "completely distorted" what speakers had said.

The level of Islamophobia highlighted by the Harris poll is obviously partly a response to the July 2005 bombings and later failed terror atacks. But given the fact that most British people have litle contact with Muslims, some are bound to be swayed by the media campaigns of the past couple of years - which have not only focused on jihadist groups but also the niqab and multi-culturalism. What has given the anti-Muslim onslaught particular force is that many secular liberals have convinced themselves that since Islam is an ideology rather than an ethnicity - and because they see themselves as defending liberal values - they are on the righteous side of racism. In reality, of course, religion isn't only about beliefs, it's also about culture and identity and, as the (far right) British National Party has worked out, Islam has become a toxic racial proxy.

The relentless public invective against Muslims and Islamism is also clearly fuelled by a political agenda, which seeks to demonstrate that jihadist violence is driven, as Tony Blair and the US neoconservatives always insisted, by a socially disconnected ideology rather than decades of Western invasion, occupation and support for dictatorships across the Muslim world. That is certainly the view of Richard Watson, the reporter behind Newsnight's Muslim coverage, who recently wrote that extreme Islamism and terror are the product of a "seductive cult", not Western foreign policy, and demanded that British Muslims find new leaders. And the co-author of the thinktank report which formed the basis of Newsnight's programme on Islamist books in municipal libraries is the self-proclaimed neocon Douglas Murray.

Gordon Brown is said to want to mimic the clandestine methods used by the CIA against communism during the Cold War in the cultural field to win Muslim hearts and minds. If the British government's sponsorship of the pliant Sufi Muslim Council is any indication of the way he wants to go, that won't work - nor will any approach that tries to load responsibility for jihadist violence on to the Muslim community while refusing to take responsibility for the government's own role in fanning the flames by supporting aggression and occupation in the Muslim world.

None of this is an argument for refraining from criticising Muslims or their organisations - but it does highlight the need for context and sensitivity in a climate in which Muslims are under a crude assault that would simply not be accepted if targeted on any other community. The relentless media onslaught in Britain on Muslims, their culture and institutions risks turning into a racist witch-hunt On the ground, it translates into violent atacks - and Crown Prosecution Service figures show that 82 per cent of convictions for identified religiously aggravated offences last year involved atacks on Muslims. Those atacks reportedly spike not only after terrorist incidents but also in response to media feeding frenzies. Some pro- war liberals like to argue that Islamophobia doesn't exist - try telling that to those at the sharp end.

(Seumas Milne is a Guardian columnist and associate editor.)