The New Nation - Internet Edition

Rights are not unlimited. Their exercise are restricted by certain regulations. While exercising one's own right, care should be taken that it does not infringe upon the right of others. Rights are based on the use of intelligence and good behaviour. None has the right to spread evils in the society. If one's right encroaches upon the right of others, disorder and chaos are sure to grow in the society. In other words, rights inherently impose obligations in regards to abiding by certain rules and principles.

Political scientist Wilde defines right as, "Rights are a reasonable claim to freedom in the exercise of certain activities."

I am sure Irin Khan, Secretary General of Amnesty International knows all these very well and therefore will refrain from the reported effort of lobbying for the release of a cartoonist who blasphemed the Prophet Muhammad (SM) and Islam a few months ago.

William

Banani, Dhaka

We heard during our boyhood that cricket is gentleman's game and costly as well. As a result, there were limitless thrills when two Test playing nations met each other. The organisers, cricketers, umpires and every one also tried to prove the matter true by their ideal outlook. In this connection we may refer to the test series between the West Indies and Australia in 1960. On the day of the departure, thousands of Aussies fans assembled in the streets to bid farewell to the West Indies team.

But now cricket has become the game of conspiracy, intrigue and moneymaking. The motto is: Win by any means. The umpires play the prominent role in this regard as we observed in the second Test between Australia and India. Decisions given by the umpires were out and out crime against cricket and civilisation.

We are at a loss to understand how does an umpire gives decision hearing from the Aussies team captain? How long will the ICC keep its eyes shut to the tyrannical attitude of the umpires? We think time has arrived to rethink over the future of cricket and we suggest to scrap the result of the second Test between Australia and India. We also suggest to Bangladesh team to review their remainder part of the series with New Zealand. Like India; Bangladesh too has been victimized by super bad umpiring.

By all counts, the game of cricket is now an affair of big money deal by way of TV rights, product endorsement, advertisements etc (not to mention the tales of bookies). If cricket is to be made again the game of gentleman, then the ICC must reform itself first, revise its outlook and give more priority to skills and morals than money.

Khaled

Lalbagh, Dhaka

Every year thousands of pilgrims from Bangladesh go to Saudi Arabia to perform hajj (pilgrimage) and every year they face a lot of afflictions including non-availability of flights and defraud of their money. The government is very much aware of all these but sadly does not take appropriate measures to redress the pilgrims' grievances.

Other Muslim countries of the world use to draw plan one year before to avert crisis and to make hajj journey as smooth as possible. The governments of those countries, even a non-Muslim country like India, take special care of the pilgrims and reportedly give subsidy to him who cannot find means to go to Saudi Arabia. On the contrary, in Bangladesh, a good number of economically solvent persons working in the Religious Ministry (and other ministries) use to go to Mecca at the State expenditure. This is really unfortunate if authenticate. This practice should be abandoned once for all.

Some of the private travel agencies are more dangerous. They love to play gambling with the intending pilgrims and embezzle their money. As law does not touch their evils, they have become desperate. Let me remind them in reference to verse No. 42/42 that Allah treats exploitation of man by another as the most serious offence. Nobody will be spared.

However, we hope that the government will be careful right from now for the next year's hajj schedules.

Rabbani

Dhaka