The New Nation - Internet Edition

Checking population growth

THE population of Bangladesh is about 15 crore with a 1.43 percent growth rate. The figure is likely to be 17.20 crore in 2020 and 21 crore in 2060. Such a huge population on only 155000 square kilometres would aggravate the socio-economic crises in the country. Unemployment and poverty situation might worsen. Tightening of population control activities has thus become unavoidable to put the nation on the path to prosperity.

Some factors stand in the way of bringing down the population growth rate. Motivational activities and methods of birth control are not reaching all fertile couples at present. Large numbers of people who become adults every year need to be equipped with knowledge about the necessity of family planning. But due to lack of proper motivational programme this section of the population either remains ignorant of the problem or without access to necessary methods. Social stigma is still an obstacle to dissemination of reproductive health education among the target people. Lessons on reproductive health should be made a part of public instruction from secondary level onwards. Couples should be encouraged to have a maximum of two children each.

Education and economic development have a direct bearing on population growth. Those bring about changes in people's approach to life. People having education and financial security prefer to live decent life with smaller families. They need not have the urge for many children to depend on in old age. Women's empowerment is considered one of the factors that once contributed to the success of the family planning drive in this country. Women family workers who had access to households played the key role in not only motivating couples but also reaching safe methods to them. Women, now more in jobs and business, definitely have a greater say in family decisions. Strengthening of motivational work on them would help strengthen the population control programme.

Textile sector imperatives

THE phasing out of the multifibre arrangement (MFA) was speculated to be a cause of the gradual downturn in the textile sector of Bangladesh. The gloomy forecast was, however, disproved and the textile industry is forging ahead and the same is shown in its increase from export earnings. But the positive trends in the export of textile products, threatened by all pervasive price hike globally, will have to be consolidated with ceaseless efforts that have characterised entrepreneurial rearguard actions in recent years not to allow prospects of this burgeoning sector to be diminished. The entrepreneurs have been proactive and taken initiatives to retain the competitiveness of their products.

The textile industries are now benefiting a great deal from timely restructuring of production systems, training of workers and costs saving as well as efficiency and productivity boosting measures by the entrepreneurs. But these tasks have not been comprehensively completed and should be carried out within a short time-frame. The owners of the textile industries also should put the greatest stress on improving relations with workers. Implementing the enhanced minimum wages, monetary benefits, timely payment of wages, plus improvement of working conditions need to be concluded within a time-bound framework.

Such measures would help quell the growing signs of labour trouble showing up in these industries that pose both long and short-term threats to the sector. Overseas buyers of apparel are increasingly linking their imports from Bangladesh to their expected standards of treatment of the workers. Thus focussed attention is needed to this area. The Government, on its part, may extend support to the sector through fiscal and monetary policies. Gas and power supply to industries should be uninterrupted. Port charges and handling costs should be kept to the minimum. This will add to competitiveness of the sector.

Cybercrime - a growing threat

Md. Kamruzzaman Ferose

The rise of computer and others high technologies equipments has paved the way for the genesis of new crime types. High-Tech Crime involves an attempt to pursue illegal activities through the use of advance electronic media. High Technology as a form of sophisticated electronic devices- computer, cellular telephone, internet and other digital communication- that is in common use today. The concept of cyber crime is not radically different from the concept of conventional crime. At first the cyber crime occurs in India, Japan & China at 1820. The first recorded cyber crime took place in the year 1820! That is not surprising considering the fact that the abacus, which is thought to be the earliest form of a computer, has been around since 3500 B.C. in India, Japan and China. The era of modern computers, however, began with the analytical engine of Charles Babbage. Although the term cybercrime is simply as criminal activity involving the information technology infrastructure, including illegal access (unauthorized access), illegal interception (by technical means of non-public transmissions of computer data to, from or within a computer system), data interference (unauthorized damaging, deletion, deterioration, alteration or suppression of computer data), systems interference (interfering with the functioning of a computer system by inputting, transmitting, damaging, deleting, deteriorating, altering or suppressing computer data), misuse of devices, forgery (ID theft), and electronic fraud.

One of the recent researches showed that a new cybercrime is being registered every 10 seconds in Britain. During 2006 the computer crooks were able to strike 3.24 million times. Some crimes performed on-line even surpassed their equivalents in real world. In addition, experts believe that about 90% of cybercrimes stay unreported. According to a study performed by Shirley McGuire, a specialist in psychology of the University of San Francisco, the majority of teenagers who hack and invade computer systems are doing it for fun rather than with the aim of causing harm. Shirley McGuire mentioned that quite often parents cannot understand the motivation of the teenage hackers. She performed an anonymous experiment, questioning more than 4,800 students in the area of San Diego. Her results were presented at the American Psychological Association conference:

38% of teenagers were involved in software piracy;

18% of all youngsters confessed of entering and using the information stored on other personal computer or website;

13% of all the participants mentioned they performed changes in computer systems or computer files.

In the 2005 survey 35% (n= 63) of these organizations reported experiencing electronic attacks that harmed the confidentiality, integrity or availability of network data or systems.

Characteristics of Cyber Crime: mainly it is property related crime; no direct contact with victims; electronic travel; involve less visible and tangible kinds of property such as information, data, computer networks; victims realize many times later after actual commission of crime; profits of high-tech crimes are vast; hackers are able to steal greater amounts with greater comfort; single act can victimize multiple or places at once; easy to evade detection and prosecution; criminals can carry their illegal activities without any geographical limitations; tracing high-tech criminal activity to the responsible individual is very difficult; high-tech criminals can easily move on to a new target; criminals can precipitate in a modern phenomenon: global community etc.

Categories of Cyber Crime: According to Mr. Pavval cybercrime can be divided basically in the following three categories.

Cybercrimes committed against persons include various crimes like transmission of child-pornography, harassment of any one with the use of a computer such as e-mail. The trafficking, distribution, posting, and dissemination of obscene material including pornography and indecent exposure, constitutes one of the most important Cybercrimes known today. Cyber harassment is a distinct Cybercrime. Harassment can be sexual, racial, religious, or other. Cyber harassment as a crime also brings us to another related area of violation of privacy of citizens. Violation of privacy of online citizens is a Cybercrime of a grave nature.

The second category of Cyber-crimes is that of Cybercrimes against all forms of property. These crimes include computer vandalism (destruction of others' property), transmission of harmful programmes. A Mumbai-based upstart engineering company lost a say and much money in the business when the rival company, an industry major, stole the technical database from their computers with the help of a corporate cyber-spy.

The third category of Cyber-crimes relate to Cybercrimes against Government. Cyber terrorism is one distinct kind of crime in this category. The growth of internet has shown that the medium of Cyberspace is being used by individuals and groups to threaten the international governments as also to terrorize the citizens of a country. This crime manifests itself into terrorism when an individual "cracks" into a government or military maintained website. In a report of expressindia. com, it was said that internet was becoming a boon for the terrorist organizations.

The above are the most common cyber crimes which are available now. Steps should be taken to prevent these crimes immediately to ensure secured information and technology based system.

Cyber Crimes pose a special problem to law enforcement agencies for two reasons: 1) these crimes are not easily detected since the offenders can quietly commit them from any computer terminal, usually in the comfort of their own homes. 2) Most law enforcement agencies are not equipped to deal with the phenomenon.

In Bangladesh, Nowadays youths are increasingly using cyber cafes as their dating places. According to newspaper reports, various types of antisocial activities take place in these cafes in the name of net browsing. For Internet browsing, there are separate cabins for pairs where their intimate moments are videoed secretly. These pictures are later made available on the Internet.

Bangladesh police recently has taken plan to set up a special unit to curb cyber crimes. The matter has become more urgent since an e-mail message was sent to Bengali daily Prothom Alo, issuing a life threat to Awami League president and Leader of Opposition Sheikh Hasina on August 23, 2004.

Another mail was sent to the police headquarters Aug 25, threatening Prime Minister Khaleda Zia, her son Tarique Rahman and Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) lawmakers. The police department took the mails seriously and decided to set up a cyber crime control unit, which will be the country's first policing unit against cyber crime. Two young men, a private university student and a software engineer, were arrested in connection with the e-mail threatening the prime minister and another youth for threatening Sheikh Hasina. The first two have reportedly said that they had sent the mail for fun. As there is no nationwide computer infrastructure, no watchdog or security system has yet been developed in Bangladesh

Let's talk about the situation in Bangladesh. Compared to other countries in the world, the Internet technology has come to Bangladesh lately. But, the country does not lag behind when it comes to cyber crimes. The country's Internet system is becoming a centre of cyber crimes like stealing information, pornography etc.

To address the problem, it is essential to enact a stringent law. And, after a long wait, many discussions and criticism, the Information Technology Act, 2006 was passed in parliament. IT specialists think it is possible to take effective measures against cyber crimes, including pornography, by properly enforcing this law.

This law is very tough indeed. Under the law, an offender is liable to long-term imprisonment and huge fine. But, not a single case could be filed yet under this law. The law enforcing agencies, however, have launched some activities in this regard and they are hopeful of doing some good jobs pretty soon. According to advice from the National Security Intelligence (NSI), measures are being taken to keep watch on cyber cafés and internet-related activities. So, it is suggested that formulating law against Internet crimes as soon as possible and providing proper training to law enforcers to fight such crimes.

Muslims in Europe: Identity versus integration

Asma Hanif

WITH Muhammad being classified as the most popular first name chosen for newborns in Brussels, the EU capital was recently named "one of the most Muslim cities in the Western world", according to political scientist Corinne Torrekens.

The city's great mosque - the Islamic and Cultural Centre of Belgium - is where this community's growth has been felt most remarkably. While in the 1970s, soon after the mosque's foundation, only two lines of the huge prayer hall were filled in the best cases, the mosque today has to be widened with tents that are pitched around the building in peak seasons like Ramadan and the two Muslim festivities. The number of people who attended last Ramadan's night prayers is estimated at 7,000.

But with its high crime-rates, this large community is still at an immature stage, if not heading towards a social failure. While Muslims represent between 4 and 5 per cent of Belgium's entire population, 35 per cent of the incarcerated population is of Muslim descent.

People tend to relate this problem to the community's economic status. Muslims belong to socially unfavoured classes, it is often claimed.

True. Most Muslims living in Belgium stem from immigrants who, in the golden sixties, soon after World War II, entered Belgium as labour workers, especially in the coal industry. Today, as the second and even third generations belong to the active population, Muslims overwhelmingly still live in the same municipal districts where their forefathers initially settled, i.e. in the centre of Brussels. And economically, they often still lag behind.

The historical record shows that, as immigrants settled in affordable areas, upper classes as well as institutions like banks and post-offices gradually abandoned these districts, leaving behind what is often called "ghettos".

But the question that arises is: what prevents Muslims from moving into a social ascension?

As a Muslim-born and raised in Brussels, I do not believe that any economic factor prevents Muslims from moving upwards. Belgium provides a sound social security to its entire population. Free (and compulsory) education, children money, health insurance, and unemployment money are the basic security items to which all Belgians have right, regardless of their origins.

What about inverting the logic: Could it be that, as a consequence to their social security, youth don't feel obliged to pursue their higher education?

I'd suggest seeking the root of challenges faced by the youth in the wide gap that exists between their world at home and their daily life at school.

In front of what seems to be a conflict between a call for preserving their cultural and/or religious identities on the one hand, and a call for integration on the other, the majority of Muslims have tended towards one pole. Only a tiny few have succeeded in finding the right balance where they preserve their identities while living in conformity with the Belgian environment.

There is no doubt that harmonising the conflict needs a complementary effort from both sides. An integration policy that denies people their identities is surely not a viable solution. Banning the Muslim headscarf, for instance, as the majority of schools do as part of banning the wear of religious signs, is seen by Muslim girls as a breach into their very identity. It even moves those Muslims who are not practicing their religion. "I have no intention to wear the headscarf," a female restaurant keeper of Moroccan origin once told me, "But as soon as I see someone prevented from wearing it, I want to revolt."

On the other hand, Muslims all too often wrongly believe that their religion interferes with modernity and blocks them from adjusting to the Belgian society. There was recently a time when it became fashion among secondary school students to boycott the biology course under the pretext that it teaches Darwinism, the theory of evolution.

Many Muslims also mistakenly assume that the jobs available in Belgium are illicit sources of income, and, as a consequence, opt for unemployment money, forgetting that Islam honours productive work.

Such a self-imposed 'ghettoisation' is not a solution, and Islam stands far from endorsing it. Rather, the answer is 'participation', as Dr Ataullah Siddiqui of the Islamic Foundation in Leicester, United Kingdom, believes. And that means thinking this way: "I am a Muslim; and I am a Belgian. I have a religious duty to see this whole country as my own - including its pain and suffering; and I want to be proud of it." By believing so, Dr Siddiqui says, one "fulfills a religious duty, as well as a social duty."

And because a people is judged, not by how much they took, but by how much they gave, a "participatory identity" would be the honourable way for Muslims.

Only when reaching this stage of self-respect will this community be able to get its voice heard, with which they can, through peaceful means, defend Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him), not least against the offensive cartoons that some European newspapers recently published. That would be the least they could do to demonstrate a serious commitment towards the Prophet whom they love most.

(Asma Hanif is a Brussels-based Arab writer)

Even spies are afraid of big brother now

William Rees-Mogg

GEORGE Orwell's novel, 1984, forecast the birth of the Big Brother State. In the mid-Eighties, when Margaret Thatcher was privatising State industries and tearing up State regulations, we could breathe a sigh of relief; it seemed we were recovering our liberties faster than we were losing them. But Orwell was right. The Big Brother State has arrived, even if it has come 20 years after its estimated time of arrival.

I am glad David Davis won an increased majority in the by-election on the issues of liberty. I thought there might be too low a turnout, and I expected the Greens to do better. The Greens are, by the logic of their cause, in favour of State regulation: they would put a spy in every wheelie bin to protect the environment. They were the main challengers to Davis; they came in second, and a long way behind.

No doubt, as most politicians thought, Davis's decision to resign his seat and fight an election on the issue of liberty was a quixotic gesture. I had never thought of him as a political Don Quixote - he has both the face and the reputation of a political tough. But his action has proved a service to what almost seemed a forsaken cause. He has helped promote recognition that we have already lost too many liberties, and we'll have to fight to regain them.

In the past seven years, the events of 9/11 have led our rather enfeebled Parliament to allow State agencies to develop a new authoritarianism. Of course, the British want to be protected against terrorism, but that did not mean every local authority should be given the right to spy on us for breaches of the most trivial bylaws.

The powers Parliament gave to protect us against terrorists have also been used against parents suspected of using a false address to get their child into a popular school, or citizens who fail to scoop up their Fidos' mess in the park.

The specific issue on which Don Quixote Davis was fighting was indeed won last week but, as it happened, by another warrior on the liberty battlefield. We had a day of relative glory in the House of Lords, to balance some of our more shameful recent failures. It was the Second Reading debate on the Bill that would allow 42 days' detention without charge. That is a Bill to repeal habeas corpus. As is the custom, there was no vote.

A recently created peer, Lady Manningham-Buller, who is the former Director General of the Security Service, made a brief maiden speech; it lasted only three minutes.

When she rose, the Prime Minister's project of a 42-day period for which people could be held without charge was very definitely still alive. The Labour whips - whom Lenin might have called 'a white guard gang of assassins and spies' - had twisted arms and greased palms to secure only a small majority in the Commons.

Lady Manningham-Buller told the House of Lords that such a measure was not necessary. It is seldom that a single voice is decisive in the House of Lords. I have never heard the lone voice of a maiden speaker decide a debate; her speech did. After she had spoken, the issue was finished; the attack on habeas corpus can be regarded as dead.

We should not underestimate the difficulty of regaining the thousands of individual liberties that have been lost already. Laws have been made, extending the powers of the State; treaties have been signed, and more laws have been made under those treaties. Public opinion is often more concerned about the threat of crime than about the loss of liberty. The Internet has hugely increased the opportunity to collect private data.The United States and Europe are our main allies, but both also have to be regarded as threats to British liberty: Europe because the whole system of the European Union is lacking in openness and democracy. European laws, secretly arrived at, have replaced our open parliamentary democracy. That is a great tragedy. And America is a threat because it is the information superpower, with more data about British people than would ever have been authorised by statute.

Now the United States is being given access to European information on private individuals under a secret agreement that has never been before Parliament. That gives Big Brother an even tighter grip. One has to accept the legitimacy of the US campaign against terrorism, but we must understand the extraordinary power over individuals that data collection has given.

America has the Bill of Rights as a safeguard for its own citizens, but it took the Supreme Court six years to recognise the right of Guantanamo prisoners to have access to US courts. Even in America, habeas corpus was effectively suspended. George Bush's war on terror took precedence over habeas corpus or the Geneva Convention. Britain signed an extradition treaty with America that removed the safeguards we used to enjoy. For Britons extradited to the United States, habeas corpus is a dead letter.

Britain already has by far the heaviest concentration of CCTV cameras in the world, but the surveillance goes further than that. At least 18 schools in Yorkshire and North Lincolnshire are finger-printing children as young as five. No one knows the national figure: Parliament has not been told. We still face the threat of identity cards, with data open to penetration by criminals.

We live in a threatening world, which requires unwelcome security precautions. Liberty can seldom be argued on an absolute basis; there are almost always real considerations on the other side. If the security services are to protect the country, they have to be given the powers and support they need.

Yet periods of high risk are invariably exploited by those who want additional power. The new technologies are themselves powerful in both directions. Google spies on us all, but also spies on those who threaten our liberty. We need to keep a balanced judgment, but we must dismantle the Big Brother State. It is becoming intolerable.

(Lord William Rees-Mogg is a former editor of the Times. This column first appeared in the Mail on Sunday)