The New Nation - Internet Edition

For sustained power supply

THE Rural Electrification Board (REB), the media reported, would start giving new power connections to residential consumers in villages from next month (April 1) following the withdrawal of the government's embargo. The government imposed the restriction on new household electricity connections in rural areas in January 2007 to save electricity for urban areas due to a stagnant generation capacity. 'Palli Biddyut Samities', which buy electricity from REB and supply to rural consumers, were swamped with hundreds of applications since the embargo. 'We have withdrawn the ban on REB as the power generation has increased in recent times and may go up further during the summer', the secretary of the power division reportedly said. The power officials said that REB had been asked to go for 'cautious expansion'. Rural clients do not consume as much electricity at their residences as those in urban areas. Though the average power generation in peak hours reached around 3800 MW early this month, up by 700 MW from the period a year ago, the power shortage this summer has been projected between 1000-1500 MW. Power generation could even reach 4000MW mark, but sustaining this might be difficult as very old large power plants develop technical faults.

The summer last year witnessed severe power outages across the country as generation hovered around 3000MW-3600MW against the peak demand of around 5000MW which would be around 5200MW this summer. The demand, however, would be 4500MW this summer and the generation somewhere between 4000MW and 4200MW if there is no accident or gas shortage. Government officials are confident that the chance of tripping of the power units would be less this summer as the plants were put to thorough maintenance. Gas supply shortage now causes an average generation shortfall of 450MW and the problem is expected to be over in summer when power plants get required gas supply.

Preventing avian influenza

PEOPLE have been enjoying a relieved feeling that perhaps the health threat from bird flu had ended. This was from lesser reporting of incidences of avian flu attacks. Thus, sale of poultry birds and eggs are noted to be on the rise again. But a major attack of the flu was reported in a northern district on Sunday. This created concern afresh that time is not ripe to feel that the country has become free from the flu to the extent that different stakeholders in the poultry business can afford to lower their safeguards.

The main solution relied upon to tackle the threat remains the killing of the sick birds. The poultry sector has emerged in a big way in recent years employing about 3.5 million people. It currently adds a value worth some Taka 50 billion or $833 million to the GDP. Worldwide, the mainstream practice is to cull the poultry population on detection of the disease. The practice has led to ruination of poultry sectors in China, Thailand and some other countries where large scale culling was carried out.

Bangladesh should try the best preventive methods in the first place to stop its poultry farms from being infected by the H5N1 virus so that culling is not required. Vaccination, not tried by many countries, may be tried. Italy reportedly experimented with vaccination of poultry birds and it proved to be a success. So experience of Italians can be shared for widespread preventive use in the poultry farms. The vaccine is cheap and would not be a burden for poultry farmers. The poultry farms should be enabled to detect signs of the disease and prevent its spread. Officials should train the poultry farmers on such surveillance. Such training needs to be extended also to households which raise backyard poultry.

Promoting manpower export through hospitality training

Mohammad Shahidul Islam

The human resources of Bangladesh are globally reputed for their hard work and loyalty to the employers. In the Middle East, we have a large number of workers working with reputation. Most of them work in hospitality industry and this is the only industry in which we can beat other Asians to capture a large part of the whole Middle East hospitality job-markets through exporting related manpower. The prospects are quite bright, indeed. The Middle East Countries are beckoning thousands of the Bangladeshis for working in their hospitality industry but they need skilled workers for which the government should right now get ready to upgrade and extend training programmes and institutes for developing hospitality human resources.

Presently, the hospitality and tourism industry is critical to the world, national, and regional economies. Bangladesh can not be a exception to this trend. Human resources of hospitality and tourism industry in Bangladesh are not interior to their counterparts in the region, in quality terms. But the number of high-calibre staffs is very poor. We have a few knowledgeable personalities holding BBAs, MBAs, MPhils and PhDs in hospitality and tourism industry; also they do not seem interested to work in practical fields. Sometimes they face the stark realities of the industry in the Bangladesh case. Things are very different for the Middle East countries and also even in the Maldives and Singapore. Here the hospitality specialists are highly paid and respected. The government has to allocate opportunities for such resources through negotiations with the international recruiters.

The National Hotel and Tourism Training Institute (NHTTI) is the number one institute for tourism and hospitality education in Bangladesh. It has been the leading one in the sector, ever since its inception, way back in 1974. Those who are interested to develop themselves as polished professionals in the industry, prefer the NHTTI to any other such local institutes.

A certificate-holder of the NHTTI rarely faces any difficulty while pursuing higher education abroad or for entry-level jobs. According to reliable studies, the Bangladeshi students of the NHTTI are doing well in many internationally acclaimed centers of hospitality industry.

Having all facilities and capacities on a larger scale for hospitality training and education, the NHTTI has failed to attract government attention for its upgradation to offer higher training and extend branches across the country.

The government should do its part for ensuring that the standard of the NHTTI gets even better. Experts believe that there is still a large scope for growth in tourism and hospitality sector in this region. The demand for specialised professionals will increase and the NHTTI can be the final-touch-giving center for them. It will first ensure two basic outcomes: 1) the workforce for tourism development in Bangladesh, and 2) a large brigade for hospitality manpower export.

Every year more than 1000 students from all parts of Bangladesh study at the NHTTI. Sometimes Bangladeshi immigrants in Canada and Australia take their necessary or demanding courses from the NHTTI during their long vacation over Bangladesh. They are advised by the employer to have a course from the National Tourism Organisation-NTO. There is in increasing number of some hotel management schools in Bangladesh, being inspired by the NHTT role to the country or to meet the urgent needs of the growing hospitality industry.

This is really heartening to see the renaissance of hospitality industry in Bangladesh. Most trained students are going abroad either for higher studies in the same subject or with jobs. Some students do training to manage their expenses through part-time jobs while studying.

As the NHTTI is only state institute with a large capacity for hospitality education, this is the right time to think of it anew for its upgradation to the international level. The international hotel Industry is facing an acute dearth of artistic, competent, well-trained and experienced management staff.

It is now acknowledged by all concerned that the hospitality industry is expanding worldwide and statistics shows that by the year, 2008, the industry will employ more than 300 million workers. The NHTTI could be given a specific target for promoting manpower export through hospitality training.

But these days, the quality of hospitality education has been changing. The NHTTI needs now international assistance, as it had received earlier from the ILO /UNDP, in order to keep pace with the trends in modern hospitality world and to be useful for facing all the requirements that are demanded of, by the foreign recruiters.

The NHTTI strongly needs human resources strategy and also a long- term plan to capture the foreign hospitality job markets. It also needs to offer the proper guidelines for the future generation, particularly those interested in working in this sector.

Most young people, despite having the potentialities and sharpness to serve and meet tourists of different nationalities, are depressed, and confused over better career opportunities. This section of the population can be greatly encouraged to enter the industry through appropriate agreements with foreign employers.

All concerned would like to see the NHTTI achieve international standard. Graduate and post-graduate courses can be introduced in this institute. If such things are done, the future will, indeed, be bright for promoting manpower export.

Upholding human rights globally

M.Mizanur Rahman

The lamb is always meek and bowed down before the wolf but the ferocious wolf has his/her ulterior design to devour the lamb by hook or by crook. The word 'mercy' is fickle out from the imposturous face of the gentle looking wolf before s/he grabs the helpless prey by its cruel claws howling. It is no astonishing that the simile appears to be set the beastly human. The lamb has nothing to pray from its devourer except giving away its life.

The whole world is witnessing how human rights have since been continuously flouted by the U.S.A. and its closed allies involved at so-called war on terrorism in Iraq and Afghanistan, how many innocent human lives have since been tortured to death or maimed and crippled to have become half dead or taken to pin-folded prison cells without judicial enquiry and trial as long as they like.

The irony of fate of those victimised people is that they are Muslims in faith and they resist the onslaught of their unjust enemy at home. But none of them attacked the alien country like the USA or any other countries of its allies anyway.

See for example the Israel, where one-eyed and biased US foreign policy defending Israel tooth and nail while Israel being equipped strongly by US weapons of mass killer, on and often attack the people of Palestine killing innumerable innocent people and destroying their properties at their sweet will that is simply the flagrant violation of all the fabrics of human rights.

Even they ignore the Charter of Human Rights that is prescribed by the UN too. Every excesses of the violation of human rights by Israel is overlooked and given cold shoulder by the US and its influenced UN also. Had that ever been recorded by the US administration? That would not happen because it is apparent as a matter of fact that the attackers' Jewish lobby and Christian hegemonies got overwhelming and supporting influence over US administration against the Muslims communally.

That is why US betray the Muslims globally and inflict culpable accusation of terrorism and violation of human rights on the Muslims unilaterally without looking into their own gross violation of human rights all over the world. They can bomb any country they like if that country does not fulfill their interests. Is there any account how many nuclear bombs possessed by the USA and its allies?

What makes her itching about Islamic Iran's possession of any nuclear arsenal though Iran's denial of making such bomb excepting it's producing nuclear energy for peaceful purpose and nothing else? Probably it's one fault that it is a Muslim country and the other one is its vehement criticism of ·Israel's perpetrated atrocities against the people of Palestine since the inception of Israel state in the land of Palestine by the imperialist Christian and Jewish powers. Here only communal hatred pervades superseding human values.

Not only that every war meant selling of arms by the American arms dealers amount to billions and billions of dollars of common people's exchequer consumed by the countries where conflicts are created at the cost of human blood. During the cold-war era arms struggle was randomly inflated between the USA and USSR on the basis of ideology like capitalism versus communism and both the involved countries fed their arms to the erstwhile British colony-countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America. The poor people of those countries were given arms at high price to fight against each other on either communal or ideological grounds. Again the shackles of economic and military aids accruing high rate of interests bound these countries into an indirect slavery.

Very earlier the European colonists had started the history of violation of human rights since its imperialistic expansion all over the world. These criminal European immigrants in the newly discovered America started annihilating the local inhabitants Red Indians to occupy their lands mercilessly violating all norms of human rights.

This past history is maintaining its legacy till now. Only the forms are changed. As if the common people are apt to be their cannon fodders all the time. Their diplomacy is run that way. All that we find in Indo-China war, middle-East war, Iraq-Iran war and Gulf war, Indo-Pak war and Lebanon war and in some form and very recently we find another type of war that is the 'War on Terrorism'. This phrase is the creation of Bush administration. The bogey of 'AL-Qaida' - a creation of American administration used to combat Russian occupation of Afghanistan was treated well so long that serves the purpose of US administration with American economic and military aids.

Now they have been turned into a menace of another bogey 'Islamic Militants' though there is no symmetrical relativity between Islam and such humbug of militarism. This phrase is another creation of the US administration to combat or to put future Islamic economic system that is contrary to capitalism nipped into the bud! This AL-Qaida humbug is spread in Muslim majority countries to undo those developing countries that they would remain dependent on the US administration directly or indirectly.

Now there exist clashes of interests (on social economic and religious) between the Muslims themselves unlike Shia and Sunni sects in Iraq and Hindu Muslim communities in India. What the world would see here is poverty of human conscience and imposturous but the inhuman vicious and ferocious capitalistic system.

Hence we find here that the creator of flagrant violation of human rights problems all over the world fingers out the other violators of human rights here and there around the globe. How funny does it appear? We shudder with grief and horror witnessing the live pictures in television of inhuman tortures inside the prison cell of Abu Gharib and Guantanamo Bay made by the Bush administration of the USA.

Especially we see an American soldier at the special American Prison Cell in Guantanamo Bay of Cuba carrying a chained dog stood still and on the ground a knelt down prisoner wearing red attire with his head downward before him. The soldier is shouting at the top of his voice at the prisoner while the dog kept on looking the soldier helplessly as if his master superseded him. As a matter of fact what excesses to this sort of prisoner had been done over that no other animal on earth could do.

What man has made of man?

Developing a sustainable transport system for Dhaka city

Engr. Shafiqul Alam

Many have written about the nagging traffic congestion of Dhaka, some blame the traffic police for their miss-management, some suggest withdrawing the old vehicles and introducing more new vehicles, some highlight making foot-over bridges & most interesting thing is-some think that the foot-paths have to be wide. But from the transportation engineering point of view…removal of traffic congestion is impossible by the above-mentioned way.

Dhaka is one of the most densely populated mega cities in the world with the present population of over 12 million. The percentage of roads is far below the standard limit (only 7% instead of 30%). Whenever population exceeds one million a mass transit should be introduced as a thumb rule of transportation engineering to ease traffic movement and save valuable human working hours. Studies show that in a single lane in one direction in an hour buses can carry only 5000 passengers at an average speed of 10-15 km per hour. Monorail or sky train can carry 20,000 passengers. On the other hand underground metro rail can carry 60,000-70,000 passengers at an average speed of 60 kph.

With the introduction of more buses the environment of Dhaka would be more polluted and roads would be totally stagnant. In contrast to this metro rail is totally free from emission as it runs on electricity. This electricity would be produced independently from coal or gas.

In case of elevated expressway (EE) it is impossible to make complete network throughout the city as the city is already saturated. That's why EE for certain portion is not sensible…decision like that would make the same scenario like two fly-overs. Most of the buses don't use Mohakhali fly-over because they would not get the passengers there and cant go to the gulshan…just one directional movementtreversibly buses coming from banai cant go to shatrasta & so on. On the other hand for the fly-over road-space has been wasted due to the columns and other works like beautification. Normally EE is used for the highway buses to pass the city without using the roads. Toll way of Chittagong also remains empty.

Construction of foot over bridges is not a very good decision as well because foot over bridges of various location of Dhaka remain empty…people don't feel comfort to climb upward due to psychological stress rather they like to go downward first then to upward and gulistan & karwanbazar under pass is the example of that. Again construction of underpasses is not needed now because there would be free underpass at the metro station.

Some compares Dhaka with Bangkok and some with that of New York. Bangkok has sky train but that is not a complete network and the fare is very high (15-30 Baht, almost 30-60 taka). The same situation was happened in Australia for a segment of metro, people was not interested to use that, because metro should be for the people but people are not for metro…for that they modified the network. On the other hand American Government gives subsidy for metro because of their sound economy. Metro is profitable in Japan, China, India, France and so on. To speak the truth underground metro has a proven track record of 150 years and more than 177 cities are using this transport comfortably.

Considering the above facts India has introduced metro in Calcutta and Delhi, one in Bangalore is under construction. More over they are going beneath the ganga in Calcutta to make the network complete. If metro is not profitable or is not the best solution then why they are going to build another strip in Calcutta, even though they are the manufacturer of buses? Another point is to be noted that they have used Cut & Cover method and kept the metro fare just like bus fare.

Some thinks that in case of earth quake or flood there would be sabotage in the tunnel…but metro tunnel can withstand earth quake in the magnitude of 9.2 Richter scale, on the other hand the over ground structures can sustain only 6. Anything like SIDR would totally collapse monorail or sky train. There is no chance of the entrance of flood water in the tunnel…in this regard please check the under-passes and underground parking of Bashundara and so on. Other sabotages are also not possible due to the integrated security, auto initiated braking system, fire suppression system etc.

Future expansion has to be considered and that is only possible in the underground and we can make several networks (6 networks-up to 180 feet) beneath the ground, one after another. For monorail, sky train or EE we can never make lines one above another.

Since Dhaka is an over populated city…here rider ship is also high and metro would be able to cater more than 15-20 lacs passengers per day and by adjusting headway 60-70 lacs passengers can be carried.

Valuable human working hours are wasted every day and wastage of imported fuel due to jam is a huge loss. With the introduction of metro these losses would be totally minimized and the economic gain would be 6000-7000 crore taka per year.

Cut & Cover method can easily be applied for the tunnel construction and the total cost for Dhaka would be 7000 crore taka. 80% city dwellers would get a metro station within one Km or less walking distance and by adopting BOT (Build - operate - Transfer) the fare would be just like bus fare. People of all class would be able to use underground. In contrast to this TBM is 5-6 times expensive than that of Cut & Cover and it's a slow process. For TBM Government has to pay huge subsidy, hence this method is not feasible. Another point is to be noted that TBM is used for the deep layer and hard soil (rock like soil).

For EE people have to pay additional toll with fare which is not desirable…on the other hand in the proposal of mono rail (1998) the fare was approximated as 1, 1.5, 2 usD, which is absolutely not feasible for a country like ours. People always feel bored in using buses and women, children, handicapped people are not habituated to use buses, that's why they use rickshaws and removal of rickshaws is not a wise decision as well.

One of the most unwanted but usual scenario of Dhaka is: auto-rickshaw & cab drivers want to move as per their will or charge 10-20 taka or more from the meter reading, even though they are sitting idle, which is the violation of citizen's Rights.

Traffic police have nothing to do because at mohakhali some buses goes to shatrasta, some turns to farmgate, some make the U-turn, coming from farmgate or others go to banani or gulshan and some goes to shatrastatin such a haphazard situation traffic police will do what? Modernization of signaling will do nothing too. These steps were taken previously but the result is not very good, which is far from satisfaction.

Only 2% people of Dhaka own cars and with the improvement of economy these number would increase significantly, we cant restrict it…when metro would be in operation this class would use metro in the peak hour & during the off-peak they would use own transport.

For EE, sky-train & monorail, the aesthetic view of Dhaka would be destroyed…the city would be more dirty & shaded. The exhaust from BRT (for EE) would make an isolated shade due to the turbulence in the upper region. For sky/mono once again there would be chaotic situation…it can carry few passengers, that's why people would not be able to depend on it & sky/mono for some portion…bus for some portion is not sensible. To cope with heavy population, we have to introduce heavy metro (underground metro rail) of independent network, where all the city entry points are connected and the busiest areas are covered concentrating on the existing traffic flow pattern.

Considering the fare, sustainability, future expansion, economic gain, track record, and environmental impact---underground metro rail by Cut & Cover method is the only solution to mitigate traffic congestion of Dhaka, eventually that would make pollution free green Dhaka. In this regard one thing is true that-we may have to go beneath the first network for the 2nd network in near future to cater the huge number of population as the population growth is very high in Dhaka. Then we may use TBM for some portion. We need the balanced diet but not the rich food.