The New Nation - Internet Edition

Keeping accounts under review

THE government is reported to have taken an initiative to set up a Public Accounts Committee for reviewing the reports of the Auditor and Controller General. Such review used to be made by the Parliamentary Public Accounts Committee for ensuring proper accountability of the official agencies, which spend the allocated money for running administration and implementing development projects.

The caretaker government implemented programmes taken by the previous elected government in the fiscal year 2006-07. It has also prepared and implemented a budget for fiscal year 2007-08 and has proposed a new budget for 2008-09. The obligation of ensuring proper use of resources of the country falls upon the Council of Advisers. The accounts maintained in Ministries, Departments and Public Corporations need to be brought under review. Since the imposition of state of Emergency the use of fiscal resources of the country has remained beyond the spell of review. The government has thus reportedly decided to set up a Public Accounts Committee, consisting of professionals in the field. The committee will review the report of the Comptroller and Auditor General for ultimate clearance and approval. The papers will be produced before the Parliamentary Accounting Committee set up after the election of the Parliament, mainly for continuity of accountability of official agencies.

The backlog of the reports of the Comptroller and Auditor General over the past two fiscal years should be reviewed without further loss of time. The high powered public accounts committee have to work hard for meeting the objective of clearance of public accounts. The move to set up the Public Accounts Committee is expectd to help the Caretaker government to ensure proper governance of the country.

For affordable farm production costs

THE doubling of the price of urea and muriate of potash (MoP) fertilisers a day after the presentation of the budget, cannot but create worry about its impact on farm productivity. Straightaway the farmers will have to buy the basic agricultural input at higher price that would raise their cost of production. This price hike is not an incentive for the farmers to produce more. Of course, it may not come as a disincentive if the government now also decides to pay subsidies to the farmers.

For the Boro paddy season the irrigation subsidy was paid after harvesting to farmers and that too not in the pledged amounts. If this manner of subsidy giving for fertilisers is repeated during the cultivation of Aman rice, then the consequences of it could be very undesirable. Many farmers may not be able to absorb the higher production costs all by themselves and would consider cultivation at a reduced level. Those who would be cultivating after absorbing the higher costs of fertilisers, would be selling their produce at much higher prices to compensate for the higher production costs.

Both underproduction of foodgrains and their high prices are undesirable for obvious reasons. Thus, government should tell farmers how it would help them offset the effects of the rise in prices of fertilisers. The decision of price hike of fertiliser was taken to deter such smuggling. But the smugglers will retain the incentive to smuggle out fertilisers to neighbouring countries where their prices are still much higher even after their upward adjustments in Bangladesh. This consideration, however, would be of little value to farmers who would have to pay more for fertilisers and would require support to keep productions costs at affordable levels.

Form a Joint Aviation Commission

Sheikh Monirul Islam

Although Bangladesh has not failed as a state yet, failure of its national airline is inevitable. It could have been avoided if the recent Caretaker, military backed-interim government of Dr. Fakhruddin Ahmed acted quickly and smartly. But what it did instead is that it wasted no time to make it a Pic, which was done in a kind of rush-rush, and what I came to know from my reliable sources that that too was done to facilitate the buying of new aircraft quickly in the interest of those people, the 14-member syndicate which were looting the national airline from the period of Ershad's time. So, basically it was business as usual. Only benefactor group within the airline is its group of pilots (BAPA members) which managed to strike a deal on this occasion, to raise their pay to a new higher level of US$2000.00 per month as fixed salary excluding other allowances and fringe benefit.

I started this write-up with something else in my mind, let me come back to that point. Two alarming statements came out from two very important persons in the international aviation. First the IATA CEO Glovanni Bisignani in his recent statement maintained that the global aviation industry is braced for losses of at least US$2.3 bn this year if the price of crude oil at current level of 86. The second statement came out voicing the same concern from president of the Emirates airlines Tim Clark on the devastating impact that high oil prices have on the airline industry. "If the oil goes to US$200 a barrel then we are all in trouble you won't see half of the people here next year."

Here is a worrying statistic. Every dollar on the price of crude oil means US$1.6bn in extra cost for the global aviation industry according to airline trade body IATA (Int'l Air Transport Association). That simple equation is why the world airlines have gone from forecasting 2008 consolidated profit of about US$4.5bn to losses amounting to US$2.3bn (crude oil price being at 86 at the time?). As the global airline leaders met in Istanbul last week while the regional airport industry gathered at the same time in Dubai, only one topic was up for discussion. What will the rising price of crude oil mean for aviation?

The situation has become so serious that the IATA chief told the organisation's annual general meeting that the surging price of oil represented an extraordinary crisis. Particularly when the losses currently being forecasted by IATA may almost treble to more than US$6bn if the price of crude tops US$135 for the remainder of the year. It predicts that if the oil prices remain at US$135 for the rest of the year, the losses could be as high as US$6bn, and last week IATA revised its industry financial forecast for 2008 to a loss of US$2.3bn, a swing of US$6.8bn from the previcusly forecast industry profit of US$4.5bn, which was based on an average oil price of US$86.

"The airline business is a very risky, low-margin business, so you have to spread your revenue sources'', argues Paul Griffiths, former Executive Director of the Virgin Atlantic and current CEO of Dubai Airports. When an airline like Biman that is purely basing its revenue on a fairly narrow sector of the market, then it is even more exposed to variances in that market without any cushion because of huge cutback in its revenue generating routes due to shortage of aircraft and inherent inefficiency the way it runs its business because of lack in overall professionalism in management. And, surprisingly, no action taken in this regard by Prof. Dr. Jamilur Reza Choudhury for their vested interest, although they tried to sound it otherwise!

So far I have written about what is going wrong; let's talk about hope. I wish I could ask few questions to those people who are sitting at the helm of country's aviation playing field. So far we did not see any apparent policy changes in the way business was being done in the past. The vested interested group has an easy run too in this regard. Only difference this time is pure bureaucrats were virtually given autocratic power to make business decisions having no accountability what-so-ever.

JXB (Jabel Ali Int'l Airport), the new expansion programme (phase 2), of DXB (Dubai Int'l Airport) includes the construction of terminal 3, concourse 2, concourse 3, and a mega cargo terminal, is going to be biggest airport in the world. The most striking feature of the airport design is its sheer size. The airport is planned to have six 4500m parallel runways, cover 140 square km (54 square miles) and include facilities to handle 120 million passengers and 12 million tons of cargo per year. Upon completion, it will be the world's largest by physical size. Dubai intends for Dubai World Central to pass Heathrow. O'Hare, and Atlanta in passenger metrics, but but it will initially service cargo airlines. The airport will complement Dubai International Airport, some 40 km (24 miles) away. The airport itself is surrounded by massive industries and housing.

What is of interest to us that it is going to have two (2) biggest terminals; one will be serving the southern hemisphere, other one serving the northern hemisphere. Dubai being the hub center will bring all the international passengers from rest of the world, transporting them quickly to DXB using fast train service, where long distance routes using A380 will be waiting to carry them to the rest of the world. The plan is for virtually monopolising the whole commercial airline business, which is un-stoppable because Dubai has the best aviation people in the world to run it and has the financial capability. You have to understand the financial power of the region and the dynamic leadership in the area. It is not the end of the story; to supplement it further DXB is going to have the base operation of the biggest cargo operations which will involve 200, cargo aircraft. To be precise its cargo operation will begin first, passenger operation being the next.

Let us come to the final point: Biman or for that matter, all the commercial airline operations in our country, should quickly conglomerate and plan how we can integrate ourselves to this biggest commercial airline operation at DXB, so that we can simply survive and still enjoy a very small size of that cake without risking a total collapse of our national airline industries. Although it may sound like a threat, but that is the reality and that's the future. Once again, I must finish here with a light piece of warning that it is better that we are there, or else we may not be there ever.

I suggest the government to immediately form a joint aviation commission and invesitgate all related issue once and for all to come up with a comprehensive solution to this immediate threat to our aviation-related businesses. I also suggest that the government should send a high power delegation to negotiate with UAE government and its private aviation enterprises DAE (Dubai) Aerosoace Enterprises) and Abu Dhabi's Mubadala Development Company, two huge enterprises with billions of dollars, looking into future aviation opportunities.

(The writer is a licensed aircraft engineer who has worked for 26 years with Qantas, Biman, Malaysia Airlines and Etihad Airways and has extensively worked on Boeing, McDonald Douglas and Airbus aircrafts including Rolls Royce, General Electric and Pratt & Whitney Engines.)

Radio poised for a comeback

Maswood Alam Khan

The most punishing episode in one's life is 'to wait' uncertainly for something pleasant to happen: to wait for the postman to deliver the letter from your sweet heart or for the traffic surgeon to give the green signal for your car to move ahead, for instance.

Such punishments I have been enduring almost everyday at different crossings along my driving routes during my both morning and evening commutes.

To distract my frustrations of such agonizing waits I, while driving, regularly tune in to FM 100 meter band over my car radio to listen to BBC English Service. Thus I got used to my 40 minutes bumper-to-bumper drive as a fatalistic matter of fact and have been using my commuting time to keep myself updated with the latest happenings around the world and scholarly views and analyses from erudite correspondents and guest speakers of BBC London.

Radio is my very old and engaging accompaniment. I could not sleep for a whole night out of excitement back in the year 1959 after my father had allowed me for the first time in my life to touch the switching knobs of our radio and tutored me how to tune in to not only Medium Wave radio stations of Dhaka and Calcutta but also Short Wave radio stations like those of London and Ceylon (now Sri Lanka).

I gaped with my jaws sagged and open at my father, a proud owner of a state of the art radio mounted on mahogany pedestal, as I raptly listened to his scientific lecture (though I later discovered from my mother that my father was a bit of a duffer at science) on how radio waves travel long distances in the air and our GEC Radio connected to a long external copper antennae hoisted on the roof of our house instantly catches live human voices uttered just seconds back from radio stations located hundreds of miles away.

Richard Feynman, who won the Nobel prize for physics in 1965, said: "From a long view of the history of mankind---seen from, say, ten thousand years from now, there can be little doubt that the most significant event of the 19th century will be judged as Maxwell's discovery of the laws of electrodynamics."

In 1864, Scottish mathematician James Clerk Maxwell described electromagnetism---the relationship between electricity and magnetism---in four classic equations. These equations, which are now collectively known as Maxwell's equations, describe the interrelationship between electric fields, magnetic fields, electric charge, and electric current---the very foundation on which great scientists like Heinrich Hertz, Jagdish Chandra Bose, Alexander Stepanovich Popov, Karl Ferdinand Braun, Nikola Tesla and Guglielmo Marconi worked tirelessly and unfurled to the human civilization the fruition of science and technology of electromagnetic radiation or in simpler terms 'radio waves'.

Radio waves have killed distance and in turn has made possible the comfort and convenience we have now been enjoying from radio and television broadcasting, cell phones, overland microwave links, satellite and deep space communications, GPS (Global Positioning System), radar, microwave cooking and remote controls---to cite only a few examples of a plethora of practical applications that are dependent on radio technology.

On 12 December 1901, Guglielmo Marconi and his assistants were able to hear the three short bursts of the Morse code 'S' at the receiving station set up in a hospital in Signal Hill, St. John's Newfoundland. This was the first transatlantic wireless telegraph transmission originated in Poldhu in Cornwall, England, 2100 miles across the Atlantic Ocean.

"Once out of sight of land those who went down to the sea in ships belonged to another world---a world of stark loneliness and utter silence", said Karl Baarslag in his book "SOS to the Rescue" Oxford University Press published in 1935. "Ships burned or foundered in storms with not so much as a whisper reaching land to tell their fate. The crew of a sinking or burning ship fought their battle for life, silently and alone. Wireless telegraphy with its magic powers was to wrest from the sea its ancient terror of silence and to give speech to ships which had been mute since the dawn of navigation."

There cannot be many people who screwed up at school, failed to get into university, and then went on to win a Nobel Prize for Physics. But one did: he was Guglielmo Marconi; he made radio. He managed to transform Maxwell's equations into a social upheaval. The 1909 Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded jointly to Guglielmo Marconi and Carl Ferdinand Braun, in recognition of their contributions to the development of wireless telegraphy.

In 1923, Marconi discovered to his great surprise that short-wave (higher frequency) radio waves, of relatively low power, could be beamed in a particular direction and reach out to very great distances. The great advantages of the short-wave beam system were that smaller aerials and reflectors could be used and much less power was needed to achieve the same results.

From early 1995 till 1998 for about three and a half years I was cut off from my soil during my tenure as a banker in Malaysia. The only regular link I had with my soil was my most favorite Bangla Program of Voice of America (VOA) that I used to tune in to through Short Wave Meter Band 25, 31 or 41 every night from 12 midnight till 1 after midnight (KL Time).

I never switched off my radio till the signature tune of the program ended completely. The only time I would feel truly connected with my home was when sitting alone on the balcony of my apartment in Kuala Lumpur I would sip a tea while listening to all the segments of the daily Bangla service of VOA. The theme music of the Bangla service was in fact a call of my homeland.

The famous broadcaster Masuma Khatun's husky voice with a kind of undulated tone used to sing in my ears as more than a note of music. Her avuncular intonation evoked in me a filial affection towards her though I met her neither in person nor in picture. I was truly a blind fan of Masuma!

My lonely days in Kuala Lumpur, nevertheless, all on a sudden became less burdensome, thanks to a precious piece of advice given by Hanifa Bee, a Malaysian banker of the Bank Pertanian Malaysia. One day I was surprised to see almost all the desks on the floor where Hanifa works adorned with small radio sets and most of the employees were listening to a particular radio station in muffled sound. The music they were listening to did not in any way divert their attention from their individual works; rather, as Hanifa told me, it helped fatigued workers to recharge their energy. I was flabbergasted!

It was "Soft and Easy", a very popular nonstop FM Radio program on English Music that could be heard in absolute clarity while driving anywhere in Malaysia including the newly built North-South Highway linking Malaysia and Singapore. I was literally hooked with "Soft and Easy" from that day of my visit to Hanifa's office.

My apartment which took on a forlorn look after my family had moved to North America suddenly started throbbing with life. Blared from my Sony Stereo System nostalgia music featuring simple, catchy, soft and laid-back songs kept my mood always buoyant and perked up. I felt deeply connected with the FM Radio Station for the articulate humors, jokes and quips Radio Jockeys of the program used to crack in short interludes between songs to make the listeners feel home and relaxed. As I was a loner in my house I also used to dance to the rhymes of my most favorite songs---a funny in-house performance I would have been the last person to do in the presence of a second person.

Old songs of fifties and sixties like "I heard it through the Grapevine" of Marvin Gaye, "Papa's Got A Brand New Bag" of James Brown, "Tears of A Clown" of Smokey Robinson etc. would cool the air I breathed, untangle clutters of my mind, soothe strains of my nerves and induce me to hum to their tunes and tones. At times my eyes would get frosted with tears while listening to a very nostalgic melody like "Streets of London" by Ralph McTell that was recorded for 1969 album 'Spiral Staircase'.

Television has gagged creativity of the listening viewers who, when they were dependent only on radio for infotainments, would focus their full attention on syllables of each word and pitches of each sound wafted from radios. A radio listener would paint in his imaginary mental frame every broadcaster, every character and every episode with the best colors under the sun and the finest brushes of his/her own choice in a participatory way connecting the broadcaster and the listener in stronger bonds compared to TV casters and their viewers. Television viewers now idle away their time mostly as couch potatoes having no scope to stimulate their intellect for any colorful visualization.

People are on move; they don't have time to converse over telephone, let alone sit for audiovisual infotainment through television. Texting (so-called SMS service) through cell phones is now the smart way to keep 'people on the move' posted about anything. The only corridor to reach the majority of people would be through FM radio chip installed in all the modern versions of cell phone handsets. Radio is once again poised for a thunderous comeback as the most efficacious medium for advertisers to reach their target groups.

Of late, to my uneasy surprise, I find myself indulged in activities not exactly suitable for men of my age. I seem to have forgotten my long habit of listening to BBC news in the mornings. Instead I spend the whole morning listening to songs and anecdotes, jokes and quips that are aired by Radio Foorti or Radio Today, two very popular FM Radio Stations broadcasting their programs, tailored specially for teenagers, from Dhaka, Chittagong and Sylhet. God knows what has happened to me!

I abhor the idea of being pulled in a car by a driver. I find the latitude of my freedom severely shrunk when I take the backseat of my car. I have an extra fascination for the driving seat where I enjoy my best liberty to do whatever I fancy when nobody is around to eavesdrop my humming a song. So, I drive my car myself for my commuting to and from office.

Tuned in to FM Meter Band 88.00 of Radio Foorti, the other day in the morning, as I parked my car in a long queue of dozens of cars jammed in a gridlock near Mahakhali crossing I laid back on my driving seat---my eyes closed, my hands backwardly embracing the headrest, my head swinging back and forth, my right index finger tapping against my other finger, both my feet tapping on the floor of my car and my hip swaying to the rhythm of a song sung by a young girl: Ke bashi bajairey, Mon keno nachairey, Amaar praan je manena, Kisui bhalo lagena. (Who is there blowing the flute? To ruffle my mind up? My punished soul is desperatet.in quest for unreachable pleasures.)

At a piercing shriek of a hydraulic horn blared by a truck just behind me I jumped up and opened my eyelids! I found all the vehicles that were in front of my car long gone away and the traffic surgeon shooting his bloodshot eyes out at me. My pleasant break for a secret tryst with the young singer is rudely snapped!