The New Nation - Internet Edition

THE Non-Resident Bangladeshis (NRBs) can contribute significantly to their land of origin if a congenial atmosphere is created for the same. Speakers at the three-day conference of the NRBs in Dhaka underlined the need for creating such an atmosphere in the country and that to harness their expertise in different fields for the development of their motherland. Expatriate scholars who attended the conference also expressed their pledge to contribute to the progress of the country.

Research organisation, Scholars Bangladesh (SB) organised the conference titled 'Non-Resident Bangladeshi (NRB) Conference 2007' with a view to recognising the contributions of both resident and non-resident Bangladeshis and finding ways to bring together their expertise for the development of the country. Nearly 1000 eminent Bangladeshis from home and abroad took part in the conference. The conference awarded four resident and an equal number of non-resident Bangladeshi experts for their outstanding contributions in different fields. About twenty seminars on different contemporary issues pertaining to the development of the country were held during the conference.

They noted the process of brain drain from Bangladesh that has reached an alarming level. It is gathered from media reports that more than 90 percent of scholars educated and trained outside used to return to the country before 1973. The rate has now declined to about 10 percent. The conference, first of its kind, opened up a scope before Bangladesh to make proper use of the expertise of the eminent persons in the progress of the country.

The NRBs can play vital roles and make significant contributions to development efforts. Bangladesh is now experiencing a declining trend in foreign direct investment and export trade. The expatriates can invest in different sectors of the national economy and thus help reduce dependence on donor support and foreign investment. The NRBs working in high-tech industries have also access to latest technologies. They can play pivotal roles in the transfer of technology to Bangladesh, especially in the ICT sector. They can also facilitate access of Bangladeshi products to markets abroad by using links that they have with foreign businesses and their governments.

In Bangladesh the scope for exploiting their expertise and using their connections are limited. It depends upon the creation of a hospitable environment in Bangladesh to attract NRBs and avail such windows of opportunities. The government and relevant organisations and agencies must create an atmosphere so that the expatriates feel encouraged to play mutually beneficial roles. They should be given necessary incentives too. Investment procedures need to be simplified. Legal instruments should be viewed by them as adequate to give security to their investment. Political stability and democratic environment are prime conditions to gain full confidence of the NRBs.

The development of the country depends much on how all concerned play their respective roles. The authorities must first make all efforts to facilitate expatriates' contributions. Expatriates are expected to come forward in a big way if they find the environment conducive and their investment profitable and secure.

BANGLADESH is known as a land of moderate climate. But the winter this year is found to be relatively colder and the differences between the highest and lowest temperature for more than a week appears to be little. In the backdrop of their reduced income for various reasons, the farmers who are in most cases at subsistence levels, are hard pressed to physically survive in the biting cold. The mild winters usually experienced in the country have habituated poor people not to keep good stocks of warm clothes and the present colder winter has pushed them into great difficulties as they have hardly the means to afford winter clothes.

Official assistance to the poor to cope with the situation has been meagre so far or limited to tokenism. Surely, there is a very pressing need to engage in a countrywide official programme to distribute warm clothes to the poor on an emergency basis. Furthermore, the poor should have access to assistance to improve their homes to save themselves from the cold. It is not a formidable task but a rather manageable one for an official agency to count the number of homeless in the cities who dwell on pavements and provide temporary shelter and warm clothes to them. In the longer run, cold-related disasters should be taken into consideration and measures taken to face up to them. As it is, flood, drought and cyclones are considered natural disasters, but not strong winters. Thus, disaster planning should also include plans to cope with harsh winters.

For the time being, every bit of assistance to the poor to help them cope with the situation should be welcome. Thus, even private charities on a large scale at the heart of which should be distribution of warm clothes and cash support to the poor, would be counted as very useful. However, in the long run, assistance to the poor would be best channeled perhaps, through organised institutional charities. For instance, in this case of meeting the winter-related distresses of poor people, the first step should be taking a count of the number in acute need of such help. The government administration can be very effective in taking this count. Secondly, the types of assistance required should be identified. Thirdly, the government should make its contribution towards meeting the needs of assistance and call on private charities to donate in cash and kind to a fund run by it. Fourthly, it should distribute the charities efficiently without corruption. Besides, the government may also ask private charitable organisations to engage in similar relief and rehabilitation activities systematically going by the list of the distressed ones on area or regional basis.

Aijaz Zaka Syed

I CAN never forget the date of February 27 2002. Dubai witnessed a historic accident that day. Yours truly landed in the emirate from India on February 27 for my new job with Khaleej Times. But there's another, more serious reason why I consider Feb 27, 2002 a turning point in the history of the 21st century. That fateful day Gujarat happened to India.

The fire that broke out on Sabarmati Express at Godhra, a sleepy town in the Western state of India, killed 57 people. Many of the victims were activists from militant Hindu groups and parties, returning home after taking part in yet another 'show of strength' by the VHP at the site where Babri Masjid once stood in Ayodhya in Uttar Pradesh.

That doesn't make the tragedy any less tragic, of course. At least two independent inquiry commissions subsequently established that the train blaze was an accident, ostensibly a result of the many stoves and kerosene carried by the Hindu activists. However, the governing BJP and chief minister Narendra Modi, desperate for an electoral victory, leapt at the opportunity presented by the tragedy.

Blaming the 'conspiracy' on the Muslim minority in the state, the BJP leaders and activists - duly aided by their friends from numerous affiliated outfits and the state machinery including the brave Gujarat Police - were out on the streets within hours to avenge Godhra. Ever a fiery orator, chief minister Modi demanded 'blood for blood' urging BJP cadres and Hindus everywhere to teach the 'Muslim terrorists' a lesson they could never forget.

How our friends from the BJP and its many avatars like RSS, VHP and Bajrang Dal et al played Holi with Muslim blood is the most shameful part of India's recent history. It's six years since the Gujarat genocide. But I still can't forget the chilling and terrifying live images of the murderous campaign that went on back home in India. I lay in my hotel room in Bur Dubai, watching in horror and disbelief the never-ending nightmare playing out on television screen.

Coming from Hyderabad, I am not exactly a stranger to religious riots. Like many other big cities in the subcontinent, the city of Charminar has had its fair share of religious tensions from time to time. However, what was going on Gujarat in that summer of 2002 was something totally different.

India hadn't seen anything like this before. The murderous mayhem went on for over a month. With burning cities, towns and homestbodies lying everywheretand marauding mobs with guns, swords and everything else that can turn into a weapon against a helpless people on the streets, Gujarat looked like an endless battlefield.

I still can't shrug off that searing image of a man standing atop his house and begging for mercy with folded hands - tears streaking on his dusty cheeks and welling in his brown eyes as the demented crowds in the street below bayed for his blood. Ansari, a tailor by profession, was the fear personified. And his face became the face of Modi's Gujarat. Ansari survived to share his trauma with Indian Express, my former employer. However, hundreds of others from Ansari's community weren't so lucky.

According to official estimates, more than 2,000 Muslims were killed. But perhaps we'll never know exactly how many from the minority community were exterminated in the 2002 pogrom. Hundreds of thousands of Muslims were driven from their homes to take shelter in neighbouring states or wherever they could survive.

While the mobs hunted and killed Muslims like some dangerous animals across Gujarat daily in the full view of 24/7 television cameras, the Neros in power in the state not only cheered on the witch hunt, they actually joined the fun with all the gusto that comes naturally to men when they turn into animals. Hardly surprising given the fact Modi himself was the architect of this campaign.

Those in power in Delhi were little different. After all, the federal coalition government then was also headed by the same party of which Modi has been a founding member.

God knows this is no exaggeration. In October this year - just before assembly elections this month - the whole of India and the world watched in morbid fascination on live television as the killers, who raped, murdered and burnt Muslims day after day in 2002, boasted how and on whose orders they turned Gujarat into a large inferno for the minority community. The first person accounts, caught on candid camera by Tehelka weekly, of Godhra BJP MLA Haresh Bhatt and VHP leaders Babu Bajrangi, Anil Patel and Dhawal Jayanti Patel and others, revealed the truth behind the Gujarat 2002. Contrary to the claims by BJP and VHP leaders, the Tehelka sting - and the judicial investigation by Justice Nanavati and Justice Banerjee before that - proved that the month-long mass killing of Muslims was not a spontaneous reaction of the Hindu community to the Godhra tragedy. It was a genocide, pure and simple - planned and executed by top functionaries of the so-called Sangh Parivar and the state authorities 'with the sanction' of chief minister Modi.

In fact, according to Bhatt, Bajrangi and others, the chief minister came and patted the back of those who had orchestrated and executed the anti-Muslim pogrom telling them that they had "done a good job." Prominent VHP leaders like Bajrangi says in his proud statement caught on tape by Tehelka weekly: "Aur humne tabiyat se kaatat Haldighati bana di thi [and we killed at will, turned the place into Haldighati (a historical battlefield) ]t And I am proud of it, if I get another chance, I will kill even moret"

Bajrangi goes on to explain how they dumped Muslims into a huge pit and set them on fire. "It was a huge pitt You could enter it from one side but you couldn't climb out at the other endt They (Muslims) were all there togethert They started clinging to each otherteven while they were dying. They were hacked, burnt, set on fire; many things were donet manyt We believe in setting them on fire because these bastards say they don't want to be crematedt"

The Tehelka videos are full of such gems. You can watch them all by visiting www.tehelka.com or www.youtube.com. They don't make an easy viewing though, I must warn you. But these disclosures shouldn't really come as a surprise. Modi and his party have never made a secret of their pathological hatred of Muslims. In fact, the very casus belli of the BJP and rest of the fascist Sangh brotherhood is the rejection of India's rich Muslim past. Which simply means wiping every living Muslim out.

And Modi has constantly revelled in Muslim-bashing since he took over the reins of power. Even during these elections, he boasted how his cops dealt with Sohrabuddin Shaikh, an innocent Muslim.

While the Gujarat Police bumped off Shaikh in a regulation encounter, his wife who was desperately looking for him was subsequently killed and burnt. There have been many such 'fake encounters' involving innocent young people from the minority community. And hundreds of them are languishing in prison as 'terrorists'.

Today, thanks to the web of terror that Modi and his men have spun, Gujarat, the great land that once gave India its greatest leader Gandhi, reminds you of Hitler's Germany. Sonia Gandhi's description of Modi and his men as 'merchants of death' might have been politically inexpedient. But by doing so, the Congress leader had been speaking the truth that many in India haven't had the courage to do.

The evil regime that Modi has been presiding over for the past seven years goes against everything that India believes in and stands for. This is why Modi's electoral victory, for second time in a row, is so shocking and disconcerting. What does it mean?

Many perplexed pundits have tried to explain the stunning outcome in Gujarat as the failure of opposition Congress party to offer a credible alternative to Modi and the governing BJP. Maybe they are right. Maybe Congress did fail to expose Modi before the people of Gujarat for what he is: yet another ruthless dictator demonising and victimising the Other, in this case Muslim minority, for power. Just as Hitler did in the case of Jews. The Fuhrer too came to power, by way of perfectly free and fair polls and by playing on majoritarian hysteria. While the Jews, tens of thousands of them, ended up in gas chambers, the world ended up with another World War that killed more than 70 million people. Modi may not inflict a world war on India. But I know one thing for sure. Modi's victory is India's failure. His win is a slap in the face of my beloved and great country and all that it epitomizes: justice, religious tolerance, secularism and the rule of law.

I am a proud Indian and I love my country. This is my home, even if I am thousands of miles away from it. This is where my parents and loved ones are buried. This is a great country. And it's exactly opposite of what Modi's regime and Hindutva stand for. This is the land where an Italian-born, Catholic widow can be picked up for the highest seat of power in the land.

This is the country whose greatest actor (Dilip Kumar) and the reigning superstar (Shahrukh Khan) happen to be Muslim. Its greatest missile scientist ever (APJ Abdul Kalam) and its most celebrated artist (MF Hussein) and most popular sportspersons (Irfan Pathan, Sania Mirza, Azharuddin and Patodi) come from the minority community. Ditto the country's greatest living journalist (MJ Akbar) and musical prodigy (AR Rahman). There are countless such examples in every walk of life. But this beautiful land is today faced with an existential crisis that threatens its very identity as a tolerant, pluralist and just society where everybody is secure and equal before the law, regardless of his or her birth, faith and class.

This is time for the Indians to decide who really represents them and their country - the fascist and evil regime based on hatred represented by Modi and company or the all-welcoming and all-embracing India based on justice, equality and rule of law that was championed by Mahatma Gandhi and the luminaries of India's freedom struggle.

If the Indians believe in Gandhi they would not rest until Modi and other thugs are brought to account for their crimes against humanity.

(The writer is a senior editor and columnist of Khaleej Times.

Mahabubul Bari, Debra Efroymson

(From previous issue)

Whether net economic benefit of previous rickshaw ban in the Mirpur Road Demonstration Corridor was positive?: The economic impact of fuel free transport ban on the demonstration corridor has been quite devastating; even DUTB's figures indicate an enormous net loss. Revised figures suggest a colossal loss as high as Tk 1.52 billion per year for the demonstration corridor. Not a single item produced any positive benefit.

Although banning rickshaws means that many former rickshaw passengers will now have to travel by foot, including to access buses, absolutely nothing was done to improve the situation of pedestrians. The banning of FFT in the demonstration corridor has deteriorated accessibility of the majority of road users by cutting access to side roads, destroying the continuity of the transport system, and hampering door-to-door mobility of passengers.

The fuel free transport ban has been proved to be highly regressive in economic terms, with 83% of the road users becoming the ultimate losers as against only 1%, those who shifted from rickshaws to cars, emerging victorious.

Can fuel free transport ban ensure social equity and protect the right of the most vulnerable sections of the society?: Any city development initiative should contribute positively to social equity and protect the right of the most vulnerable sections of the society. On the contrary the fuel free transport ban created serious social exclusion problems by depriving the most vulnerable section of the society like women, children, the elderly, the disabled and the infirm of a feasible mode of transport.

Again, the initiative has generated undue advantages to a tiny minority of the urban elite, that is, car owners, by allocating them absolute priority in all spheres of the city transport system at the expense of mobility and convenience for the majority of the road users, i.e. pedestrians and rickshaw passengers. In the demonstration corridor, cars now make up only 8.5% of all trips but they occupy 54% of road space. Moreover, undue privilege to cars has also been manifested in terms of providing them with unlimited space for parking free of cost, giving preferential access along road links, ensuring uninterrupted movement at pedestrian crossings and giving undue long green times at traffic signals, etc.

Above all, the FFT ban project shattered the life of the vulnerable rickshaw pullers and operators by reducing their income by 32-41% despite being forced to adopt longer working hours, caused them to take less food, and above all deprived them from their fundamental right of earning a living by a legal means.

Knowledge-based and participatory decision-making approach for transport planning for Dhaka City: Given the complexity of the enterprise and the fact that transport and urban planning have significant effects on the economic and overall well-being of a city's residents, it is important not to undertake any important transport policy initiative, such as fuel free transport ban arbitrarily. It is high time to institutionalise a knowledge-based and participatory decision-making process for the Dhaka City. It is a matter of deep regret that important transport policy decisions are being taken without conducting any knowledge-based analysis by involving people who do not have proper training on transport or urban planning process. In this connection lessons can be learnt from the arbitrary decision making process of STP where a top-down planning process was adopted by involving a number of part-timers mainly drawn from the section of the urban elite without wider participation of major stakeholders and socially deprived sections of the city. As is always the case in such scenarios, the tendency to allocate resources rather arbitrarily for car-friendly (pro-rich) and capital-intensive projects becomes evidently clear from the STP approach. The experiences of different cities of Brazil prior to participatory budgeting were more or less similar, when decisions regarding urban developments were the exclusive right only for the elite and the powerful. Participatory budgeting, which has been in operation in Brazil since 1989 (Souza 2001), is emerging as an innovative urban development management theme with enormous potential to support cities in the adoption of socially integrated, inclusive, accessible, transparent, participatory and accountable urban governance and management, with a view to ensuring equitable and sustainable urban development. There is no reason why such approaches could not be institutionalised and integrated with appropriate knowledge-based process ensuring people-oriented transport developments.

In this connection, some of the major recent transport policy decisions is worth discussion. The government has recently undertaken an initiative to build 52 kilometres of subway in Dhaka City on commercial basis using private sector financing. A similar initiative on building of a system of elevated expressway under a commercial venture is probably also in the agenda. Any move to build a mass transit system for Dhaka City is long overdue and welcome. However, there are number of issues which demand especial attention prior to undertaking major policy initiatives as follows:

· It might not be appropriate to build a mass transit system as a commercial enterprise under a profit or loss system. A profit making public transit system would likely to be expensive and beyond the reach of the ordinary people despite some fancy claims from the investor. A profit making enterprise would have an adverse impact on social equity and integration. Such a transport system will definitely deny the most vulnerable section of the society about the right to accessibly and mobility. The very objective of the development of mass transit system, i.e. to provide an affordable public transport system for the majority will be defected if it is run on a commercial basis.

· Despite some over optimistic claims, the underground metro will not be able to solve the transport problem of the Dhaka city on its own. Without a proper integrated demand and supply management approach it is unlikely that only an underground metro will solve the transport problem of Dhaka City.

· It is essential that any mass transit system, such as underground metro, should be integrated appropriately with other transport sustainable transport modes, like pedestrians and FFT to make it effective.

· The bitter experience of STP planning process should not negate the need for implementing a well-integrated mass transit system under a knowledge-based and participatory transport planning process.

· The implementation of car incentive project like elevated expressway system would likely to eat up some of the potential benefits of the proposed mass transit system. Current anti-FFT and pro-car transport initiatives would likely to be counter-productive for the development a sustainable transport system for Dhaka City.

Concluding Remarks: The truism "history repeats itself" applies to those who ignore the lessons of the past and insist on forging ahead, committing the same mistakes, and experiencing the same results. It is hoped that, city authority will learn form the mistakes of the Mirpur Road Demonstration project and try to assign due importance of FFT as it deserves. Given the small modal share of autos and the many problems they cause, there should be no provision for creating more auto-only roads within urban areas, and all existing auto-only roads should be converted into mixed-use roads by properly integrating public transit, FFT and fuel-dependent transport (FDT).

Again, while developing mass transit system for a mega city like Dhaka, efforts should be made to develop an affordable system for the majority under a well-integrated multi-modal system. It would be rather unfortunate to develop a mass transit system mainly as a profit making enterprise.

Given the complexity of the transport planning process and the fact that transport and urban planning have significant effects on the economic and overall well-being of a city's residents, it is important adopting a knowledge-based and participatory approach involving all segment of the stakeholders. Such participatory planning process should take into account not only technical issues about feasibility and efficiency, but also the likely effects of policies on mobility, accessibility, and quality of life for all those affected, with a particular focus on vulnerable groups, those most likely to be left out of, and highly affected by, the existing planning process.

References: It is important to have an open discussion to explore the scientific validity of the further extensions of fuel free transport bans and the justification of the building a mass transit mainly as a profit making enterprise under the perspectives of sustainable transport development in the Dhaka City.

DUTP (2006), "Impact Assessment of DUTP: After Project", Final Report submitted to Dhaka Transport Coordination Board, by DHV Consultants BV, the Netherlands, Japan Overseas Co., Ltd., Japan, Finnroad Oy, Finland, Operation Research Group, India, SARM Associates Ltd., Bangladesh, Desh Upodesh Ltd., Bangladesh, DevConsultants Ltd., Bangladesh in Dhaka Urban Transport Project (DUTP), Dhaka, February 2006.

HDRC (2004), "After Study on the Impact of Mirpur Demonstration Corridor Project (Gabtoli-Russell Square)" Report prepared for Dhaka Transportation Coordination Board (DTCB), Human Development Research Centre, August 2004, Dhaka

Souza, C. (2001) "Participatory budgeting in Brazilian cities: limits and possibilities in building democratic institutions." Environment & Urbanization, Vol. 13 No 1, April 2001.

(The writer is transport specialist, UK)

(Concluded)