The New Nation - Internet Edition

Violation of HR for ignorance

IT is about 60 years since the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by the UN and over 36 years of independence that a serious issue has been raised that 'policemen violate human rights for lack of knowledge about the same. The shortcoming of the police force has been recognised by none else but the police chief. The Inspector General of Police (IGP) is reported to have said that for lack of knowledge, policemen in many countries violate human rights. He made this remark while addressing the inaugural ceremony of Commonwealth Human Rights Training for the police officers.

But this is not the whole truth. The other aspect is that the police force with a strong background of being developed under colonial rule is yet to be fully equipped to suit the needs of an independent country by freeing itself completely from that legacy. There are training facilities for the police force. Against this backdrop, it is a disturbing revelation that police are ignorant of human rights and that they violate those out of ignorance. The police force comprise members of the same society and must be aware that avaoidable arrest or impairment of an earning member may lead to the ruination of a whole family.

The ongoing training programme, it is hoped, would give trainees adequate knowledge about human rights. The police are protectors of life, property and rights of the people they serve. All members of the police force should be provided with copies of pocket books on UN declaration of human rights and fundamental rights of the citizens for ready reference. Such pocket books in Bangla are already there with the UNDP. The problem should be addressed with all seriousness in right earnest to make police friends of the people.

For peace in garment factories

THE problem of management of some garment factories has been reviewed at a recent meeting of the Ministry of Commerce. The major problem is related to the failure of many factories to pay the minimum wages of workers. Another facet of the problem is keeping the workers without formal appointment letters, containing terms and conditions of employment. Workers reportedly remain temporarily employed for about ninety days after which they are terminated. The move allegedly is to avoid the payment of different benefits. As a result, workers of different factories opt for agitation against some employers and management personnel.

Law-enforcing agencies often cannot cope with agitation of workers. The demands of the workers are ineptly handled by a section of employers. Stoppage of work by workers allegedly for non-payment of officially fixed minimum wages and benefits is frequent in certain garment factories. The foreign buyers of garment thus sometimes do not get supplies against their orders on time and this creates a bad image of our garment sector abroad.

The Adviser for Commerce has reportedly said that the government will set up mobile courts to contain work stoppages. The authorities will create a participatory committee representing official agencies, employers and trade unions for the purpose. The government has also decided to file cases against those owners of factories who do not comply with the law related to minimum wages. The image of the profitable sector should be protected and its continued growth ensured by all means. Garment manufacturers complain that some foreign elements instigate trouble in their factories taking advantage of the prevailing problems that must be removed.

Exterminators on our roads and highways

Maswood Alam Khan

Captivated by birds and airplanes in flight in our childhood we slaked our wish of flight by hand-launching a paper-plane made of folded papers with wings and a fuselage designed on aerodynamic principles that glided in the air like a real-life aircraft---warming the cockles of our baby hearts.

Travelling in an aircraft does not really fulfil our mythical wish to fly on our own wings unless we ourselves can fly the aircraft as its captain. But, not everybody can afford to be a member of the flying club to become a pilot. And not every qualified pilot has an aircraft of his own parked at his backyard always ready to lift him up high into the sky whenever he fancies.

Flunking our attempt to pilot an aircraft sitting on its cockpit we then as adults satiated our longing to be a 'bird in flight' on an alternative mode: we drove our cars holding the steering wheel, shifting the transmission gears, pressing the accelerator and pushing the brakes while focusing on the road ahead---like an eagle hovering in the azure sky focusing on preys in quest for her food. The speed, altitude, centrifugal forces, and sensations of flying that we experience while driving our cars let us feel what it is like to be a bird or an aircraft pilot in flight. This partly explains why we love our cars, preferring this mode of locomotion to that of walking or running for which we are genealogically adapted.

Birds of prey, whose survival hinges on swiftness and who live in deep forests and earn their living by chasing down other birds and insects, have very high 'flicker fusion frequency' enabling them to react quickly when moving at high speed---an ability achieved through an evolutionary process driven by survival necessity for thousands of years---compared to humans, whose evolution did not necessitate a fast flicker fusion frequency like that of birds, nor did their evolution presage that they would have to piggyback in future on a very fast vehicle to run or fly faster than a bird. So, when we drive our cars like a flying bird, we are a fish out of water. We abscond from our natural bipedal habit for an airborne one in which we are at times out of control.We are genetically designed to walk or run on the locomotive strength of our two legs. So, when we get behind the steering wheel of a car, we may think we have gained a bird's power of flight---a dangerous psychological illusion on the part of a human driver, if s/he is not properly educated, trained, governed, controlled and overseen. Likewise, the lady dog Laika---the first animal launched into orbit---was not expected to while away her time inside the Soviet spacecraft Sputnik-2 on her own without having undergone any training and without any remote controls from the ground station.

Pathetically, most of the motor vehicle drivers in our country are lesser trained and lesser medically screened for their ability to cope with speed than Laika, the lady dog who underwent series of trainings and medical checkups before she was harnessed with gears for her maiden journey into space.

Hundreds of our drivers embark upon their dreams to drive a truck to earn a livelihood at a minor age when they were supposed to learn lessons from schools and morals from guardians. Their prime time for games in playgrounds and for lessons inside classrooms is thus lost in the smoggy and slimy environment of trucks and buses belching out leaden fumes and truckers smiting them with spiteful scolds and unholy gestures. The first chapter of their driving lessons begins with "massaging feet, hands, back and head of their 'ustad' (master driver) when he prepares to go to sleep. The next are washing the truck, screaming warnings to drivers of other competing vehicles and doing his ustad's personal errands.

With tortuous experience on massaging human limbs, cleansing body parts of motor vehicles, and screaming nasty scolds at fellow motorists the 'helper-turning-into-driver' is suddenly ordained as a full-fledged driver---on a day when his ustad is a little tired and does not feel like driving. The new driver is now behind the wheel of a truck. He is now in the pilot's seat of a jumbo jet with turbofan engines. Speeding up is now his passion being continuously fuelled by his fantasies pent-up in a cocoon of dreams he has been knitting since the day he started his apprenticeship under the tutelage of his ustad! His dream to fly has at last come true.

The new driver was too preoccupied all his childhood with his dreams of driving to go to a school. He could not learn from a teacher the values of human empathy for another driver seeking a passage on the right side of his speeding truck. Neither could he afford time to read a story with a moral or hear words from a leader with a message that could instil into his embryonic mind a dose of patriotism. Following in his ustad's footsteps his next dream is to own a truck by his extra savings---every time by overloading the already overloaded cargo of the day.

His ustad has categorically instructed him to maintain his truck's equilibrium by driving just on the middle of the road straddling the dividing white line, may what come---left-hand or right-hand driving is none of his business! A little deviation from the middle point of the highway for any allowance given to any passing vehicle, he has been repeatedly warned, will endanger his truck, imperil his new career and shatter his dreams because his hyper-overloaded truck---now precariously on a balance on the flat surface of a road---would invariably turn turtle if it has to veer onto the slightly-sloped sideways of the road or the highway. Colliding side-on or head-on with a tiny car, to him, is far safer than sacrificing the middle path thereby losing his job or his life.

Every single citizen of our country and every single individual of our police force know and see everyday that trucks with capacity of carrying 5 tons of cargo are regularly hauling 400 large-sized sacks (each to hold 2.5 maunds of rice) fully stuffed with paddy or rice which constitutes a truckload weighing 1000 maunds or 37 tons which is 7.5 times more than its optimum capacity, thanks to indigenous modifications doctored to its load bearing power by trebling or quadrupling the sets of leaf springs that are vital for balancing loads of a vehicle---a dangerous tempering to compromise with the original architectural and mechanical designs of the truck.

We don't know whether cracks developed on the Jamuna Bridge were caused by such overloaded hauling. Neither have we known how many thousands of lives or how much tons of money could have been saved if the regulatory or the law enforcement body could only resist their temptations of not paying any heed to those tempered leaf springs that are very much visible at the underneath of the chassis of a truck.

Thanks to my pretty long driving experience I can empathise with a driver steering his tiny 800 CC Suzuki car vis-à-vis with a trucker driving his gigantic TATA lorry on the same road or highway: both are drivers with equal rights under law; but with laxity of law enforcement in our country and complete absence of proper licensing, medical checkups, training and education of our drivers one finds himself as a sparrow and the other a sparrowhawk.

We humans differentiate ourselves as rational beings living in a civilized society compared to other animals roaming on the wild. Yes, it is true when we are rightly educated and trained under proper leadership. An uneducated or untrained driver steering his truck in an environment not controlled by strictures of law and order is far worse than a hyena in a jungle. Hyenas don't kill another hyena to quench their hunger; but we humans do indulge in homicide, fratricide, matricide, parricide or patricide even for fun if there is no one to look over our shoulders to stop the crime.

Speed has become the driving force in our lives. Everyone is in a hurry-to get to work, to unload a cargo, to get home, to drop off the kids, to pick them up, to get to the market. We must go ever faster, and we build our cars ever stronger to protect us in the reckless chase for money and status not knowing that the truck near our car is a time bomb ticking away as the metal liner of its CNG cylinder has already frayed out and is about to give way to a slight concussion.

Thousands of people in our country are falling prey everyday to our love for speed, shoddy brakes, adulterated lubricants, CNG gas cylinders made of fatigued metals, spurious replacements of vital parts, laxity of traffic law, faulty/no traffic signal and unbridled behaviour of unruly, untrained and drunken drivers driving defective and unscientifically modified vehicles on our dilapidated and poorly maintained roads and highways.

According to the Accident Research Centre (ARC) of BUET thirty-two people are killed everyday on the roads of our country and according to Red Cross & Red Crescent Society three thousand people (including 500 children) are killed everyday on the roads of the world. This amounts to 1.2 million deaths a year. In addition, more than 50 million people are seriously injured on roads every year; many are disabled for life.

World report of 2004 jointly published by World Bank and World Health Organization cried for taking immediate measures to check road crashes in poor countries as it predicted that fatalities on roads will fall by 20 percent in high-income economies like in USA and rise by 80 percent in low-income economies like in Bangladesh in the coming years, if we fail to follow what the developed countries are doing to reverse the trend of road mishaps.

Hundreds of road mishaps are not heard about even by local people of the area where the road crashes are taking place in our country. Only a very few are reported in the news media and fewer are recorded by the police or the statistician and no follow-up story of a handful of those reported crashes is ever published in any newspaper as to plights of the victims left in the lurch: their groans in hospitals or hunger of the children who became orphans. As if, victims dying of road crashes and mosquitoes getting asphyxiated by aerosol insect sprays are of the same gravity and of the same magnitude.

If traumas and tribulations of those crash victims were published in news media in serials the way a single mishap of Rimi murder case (thanks to Rimi's status of a daughter of a journalist as an additional weight) was highlighted in the press years back, perhaps there could have been an earthquake of public opinions to compel our government to right all the wrongs on the roads or the nerves of the reckless drivers could perhaps have been calmed enough not to fly their cars at supersonic speed or ram their trucks on the wrong sides of the roads or hurtle their buses onto the rail track when the speeding train is only a few yards away.

Next time when you are in a hurry to overtake a speeding truck, look out for the space on the right or on the left of the juggernaut and count moments begging the Providence for another chance to live a little more of life as you don't know when the mountain of its sky scraping load would tip on the roof of your car or when its CNG gas cylinder would detonate or when another truck or a bus or a train of the same status is to swoop on you!

Visiting a queer forest

Hasan Zahid

The beauty, majesty, and timelessness of a mangrove forest like Sundarban are indescribable. It is impossible to capture on film, to describe in words, or to explain to those who have never had the awe-inspiring experience of standing in the heart of a mangrove forest. I had the opportunity to visit Sundarban four times.

I had an awful experience when I visited Sundarban from Dhansagar Forest Station under Chandpai range. An investigating committee was formed by the concerned ministry to investigate into a fire incident at Tulatola in Sundarban under Dhansagar. I was one of the members of the committee. We stayed at Bagerhat Circuit House the day before. On 24.4.2005 I and other high officials of the committee reached the Dhansagar Forest Station. The station officer, a very simple and humble man, passed almost half of a day on top of a tree, the day before we reached. The fact was that after hearing the incident of fire, he had taken trouble to walk almost 6 km to see himself of the fire incident. He came across a tiger just 15-20 feet away of him. It frowned on him, and he promptly climbed up to a big tree - half burnt due to fire. He stayed there until some of the local people and his fellow men came to rescue him.

As I mentioned, the spot was nearly 6 km away of Dhansagar. We started our trip in the morning. At the very beginning, we had to cross a thin canal. This portion of Sundarban landscape is different than that of the other typical parts. A river called Bhola existed here almost a decade before. It's now dried up at this point. The usual landscape of the forest had changed a lot. The shula - dead structure of sundari, bain and other prototype Sundarban trees could be seen hither and thither. Those have been replaced by the deep hogla, nol khagra and shawn. One could see the ghastly black skeletons of the natural Sundari trees that once existed. According to the local people, due to the non-availability of the natural flow of the diminishing Bhola river and Arua Ber Khaal, there were no natural flow of the high and low tide, the main characteristic of the mangrove forest.

Anyway, we got startled at the very moment of our adventure discovering fresh pug marks of a tiger near the narrow naala (canal). One of our guards blank-fired from his Chinese rifle to frighten away the tiger, if one roamed nearby. Later, we came to know that all through our up-down journey a mischievous feline followed us! The conservator of forest Khulna circle asked me whether I could smell something! Indeed I smelled something. A type of smell similar to the smell of a carnivore's cage at zoo. I said, yes. Then the blank fires went on blindly!

Believe it or not, I had a glimpse of a 'burning bright' deep inside the nol khagra bush. We were making our way through the head-high nol khagra. Again went the fire frantically. This time I made my position deep amidst the officials and the guards. We had to walk miles to reach the spot. By noon we reached the spot. There were still some fire and smoke around the place. People hired by the forest department and some other volunteers dug wells to pick water to extinguishing the fire around.

We made the return journey to Dhansagar in the afternoon. On the way I saw a wild boar inside a deep bush. I also saw a jungle fowl and a lizard called 'takshak'. On our investigation and on the basis of some important clues, we found out finally that the people roaming in the forest in search of firewood and other collections might have caused fire to dried leaves and stems from their burning cigarette end. This ultimately spread in a vast area. Later we submitted a report to the ministry stating that the fallen burning cigarette was the root cause of the fire.

I visited Sundarban again in May 2006. This time for a pleasure. This is the Sundarban - illusive, scary, beauty, grandeur and magical. The day I reached Sundarban at Karamjal point I heard from the sources that a tiger was roaring around for the last three days. The awful feeling bewildered many visitors and they didn't dare to move deep into the forest. I, with my companion, entered a little deeper inside the jungle. There is a wooden bridge leading to three-direction edges, where guests must stop, because after the end of the wooden bridge, one has to climb down to muddy areas and start his uncertain journey through the forest. I dared to. But my companion and subordinate, a loyal old gentle man asserted: You could do whatever you like. The tiger is roaming around, it will devour you and I'll straight go to the police camp to report and then I'll return back to the office to report to the chief. I ignored his advice and proceeded to the deep. I started to feel uneasy for two reasons: First I began to suffocate and secondly, I feared an attack of the feline. But why was I proceeding? I didn't know. Maybe, to see better and perceive this magnificent jungle. But one should never ever be unguarded in such situation - whatever urgency and urge one might have. My companion took shelter high on the tower at the end of the wooden bridge. He watched me as far as I could be seen. I proceeded further and at a stage I began to shake- I lost the way to the tower! An uncanny feeling engulfed me. This was the time I lost my confidence and almost in the state of collapse. A tiger was there and he was in search of food. I was alone in a soggy and dark jungle. I didn't dare to call my companion loudly lest the tiger should be attracted. Or maybe I couldn't do so. I was walking, not knowing which way was to back and which way to proceed.

At last, I managed to come back. In fact, I was not so far from the tower. I saw the top of the structure from the bush and rushed onto that. There I saw my companion, trembling. He shook his head in despair and utter disgust and opined that it would have been better if I were digested inside a tiger's stomach. He, however, concluded that all is well that ends well. When I returned home I suffered from fever for several days. I had had terrible dreams for nights together.

(Every time I visited Sundarban from different points, I had only one inner urge - save it, for God's sake, save this Sundarban.)

Opinion: Cricket may help promote tourism

Mohammad Shahidul Islam

Tourism, that is to say hospitality industry has had new shape since the popularity of cricket starts. Its fashion is very lavish and star-studded. Notwithstanding, cricket has presently emerged as an important mechanism to develop tourism. Instance can be given for West Indies and India. West Indies is the archetype for tourism development through cricket.

They have been marketing tourism through cricket since first world cup in 1975. India, Australia, South Africa, Srilanka, Sharja etc are well-announced cricket venues which have contributed largely to tourism development in the respective destination.

Sports tourists now hugely choose these destinations for recreation and entertainment. Cricket is next to Soccer in popularity all over the world. But in Bangladesh the norm has been changed.

Now we are playing in the world cup cricket and respected as the giant killer in the cricket arena. Bangladesh, though is not well planned for tourism development, could be positively associated with cricket in contributing to the tourism development.

Cricket and tourism may go paired optimistically in Bangladesh. We do not hesitate to clinch world championship in near future. Our dream for developed tourism is not also very far away. We have diversities in natural resources. Except desert we are proud of possessing all natural resources. We never remain backer than any other countries in the world from at least potential tourism point of view. Cricket could be very prospective to enliven our tourism.

The commentators and media partners in telecasting cricket matches always play significant roles in lifting a country image to the world. Say, where the venue is, how the place is important, what the players do, what they shop, where they go; every thing catches up romantic hearts of viewers and they feel persuaded to visit the place right up.

They put highlights on the country and the venue. Dhaka city is now more or less popular for cricket. Our Cox's Bazaar could be the paradise for international cricket venue. Cricket can easily get Cox's Bazaar more renowned across the world. We can easily think of Cox's Bazaar for establishing a cricket venue. People round the world must visit Cox's Bazaar to support their countries. In the time of off-day in between matches they would be busy in tourism.

Cricket in Bangladesh or Bangladeshi cricket is becoming passion for youth and world cricket lovers. The zeal and passionate emotion with which the game is played, followed and analyzed is unique anywhere else in the world. Now Cricket is to Bangladesh as Soccer is to Brazil.

Sports are always significant as harbinger of friendship and peace. We can be very optimistic to plan tourism development through cricket. From present trend we can anticipate; Bangladeshi cricket calendar would never be empty and there would be either one series or another just round the corner. While cricket teams move along from one part of the country to another, devoted followers of the game and over-enthusiastic supporters of the teams also must move along. Thousands of international tourists will pour in every year from different parts of the world to support the team while they take on Bangladesh and other in Bangladesh. It would be also common to find out all the hotels in the host city will run full for a couple of days to a few days before and after the rubber.

Centering cricket, hotels and motels would go to be established. The reservation rates would be loudening during the peak cricket season or at the time of a tour by a foreign team. Though tourists will come with the primary objective to see a game of quality cricket and enjoy the carnival like atmosphere and attractions in Bangladesh. They can visit around the country within a couple days, as Bangladesh is small geographically. Cricket venues like Chittagong, Dhaka, Bogura, Naryanganj, Sylhet, Rajshahi, Comilla and Cox's Bazaar (Proposed and islands like Kotobdia, Moheshkhali or some other banks of rivers can be also proposed and thought) cannot be only famous for wonderful cricket infrastructure but also as some of the finest tourist destinations.

Since the itinerary would be prepared early enough, tourists who will plan to visit Bangladesh with the cricket team will have enough time to make the necessary hotel bookings in those particular fixtures. Last minute reservation in these cities on the days must be exciting!