The New Nation - Internet Edition

Reducing fire vulnerability

THE tragic death of 10 young people (nine of them of a family) in a fire incident in old area of Dhaka City on Sunday night is really painful. Series of such tragic deaths of workers in garment factories occurred in recent years. Very many workshops and factories have been set up in residential areas. Operators of such workshops and factories do not follow the relevant rules and regulations. The services like electricity, water supply and roads in residential areas cannot meet the greater demand of workshops and factories.

The use of residential buildings as factories has increased. The production of chemical, plastic and synthetic products, and even medical products, has been augmented by owners of small and medium enterprises. Those owning and operating such workshops and factories have to be brought under administrative control. The vulnerable factories and workshops in the old-town areas of Dhaka City and the residential areas and industrial zones should not be allowed to operate without ensuring safety and security of workers and management personnel. Setting up of factories in residential areas in the old city areas has to be stopped. Along with that, community awareness has to be augmented with the involvement of local people including elected representatives of the city corporation.

The owners and the management personnel, of such workshops and factories have to take corrective measures for prevention of fire incidents. Official agencies like the fire service and the law enforcing agencies have to promptly respond to distress calls of the affected factories. Sometimes, these agencies fail to reach the location of such incidents due to narrow road networks in such areas. Even the availability of water in set areas remains inadequate and, thus, twists the work of fire fighting agencies.

Give SAARC benefit of cooperation

THE 15th SAARC summit adopted a 41-point Colombo Declaration with a call for collective efforts to face the challenges of energy security, climate change impacts and terrorism, and to facilitate trade and increase economic growth for the betterment of the population of the region. The leaders adopted a separate statement on food security. The heads of state and government signed four deals, which they hoped would be effective tools to address the issues collectively.

In the face of food shortage, increased prices internationally and food riots in some countries, food problem got special treatment at the summit. The leaders underscored the need for turning the region into a good granary to meet emergency challenges in future. Sharing the water of international rivers among the co-riparian countries is a must for enhancing food production. The decision of the 2007 SAARC Conference regarding establishment of a South Asian food bank could not be implemented due to failure of some member countries to make their commitments. The countries should be able to develop a strong buffer stock of food to meet emergency.

For implementing the hitherto dormant South Asian Free Trade Area (SAFTA) the leaders expressed the need for removing the tariff barriers. They decided to revise the sensitive list of items. The SAARC countries must strive hard to adapt to changed climatic condition. The leaders emphasised the need for strong co-operation in fighting terrorism and trans-national organised crimes. Power shortage and energy crisis is a formidable obstacle to the development of the SAARC countries. The South Asian countries must join effort to solve the problem. Twenty-three years have passed since the launching of SAARC in 1985. The South Asian region, the abode of about one-fourth of the world population, should not continue to be deprived of the benefits of cooperation.

Getting immersed in Olympic frenzy

Maswood Alam Khan

The number 8 is associated with prosperity and confidence in Chinese culture. China perhaps would not have agreed to host Olympics in any other year that would not bear the digit 8 as a qualifying index and I guess China might have been planning to bet or spend any fortune at her disposal to host Olympics or for that matter any other prestigious international event to be held exactly after six thousand years---in the Year 8008.

2008 Summer Olympics opening ceremony, therefore, is due to begin in the Beijing National Stadium precisely at 8:08 PM (China Standard Time) on 8 August 2008 and more than 80 state leaders and royals are expected to attend the opening ceremony.

I don't know exactly how many of the current 205 National Olympic Committees (NOC) will ultimately participate in this grand event. But I am sure numerologists in China are keeping their fingers crossed in an expectation that the number would be 202, a lucky figure to augur well from the numerological point of view as the number 202, as summation of its three digits, equates 4 that can wholly divide the lucky number 8.

Most NOCs participate regularly, although various circumstances could cause a nation to be absent from the games, as was the case for six NOCs at the 2006 Winter Olympics.

A man who never in his life played a game or found it a wastage of time to watch a game may wonder why millions of people are so crazy about test cricket, world cup football or Olympic games; himself an avid plant lover he may wish how pleasant life would be if people instead of splurging money on games would spend their funds for gardening.

In a similar vein a game lover would pity the plant lover wondering how a man could be such a duffer to waste away his whole life watering plants only, never ever savoring the intoxicating flavor of games either as a player or as a watcher!

The plant lover and the game lover look at each other as mad caps---two diametrically reverse views which may sound mutually exclusive to a person who is neither a plant lover nor a game lover.

How popular are sports today? Well, in America alone there are 265 television stations devoted primarily to sports talks. Surveys show that 60% of literate people all over the world get a daily infusion of sports statistics and highlights from such media as television, newspapers, books, magazines, radio, blackberry devices and cell phones.

In today's fast-paced world where it is sometimes hard to keep up with things, sports offer well-defined boundaries: your team, my team, a set of rules and people to enforce them. When we play sports or when we get caught up in the action as a fan, we are taken outside of ourselves to concentrate our full attention on something that holds our complete focus and interest.

One day an illiterate friend of Albert Einstein rushed to his house to ask: "Albert, there is a rumor in the town that you invented something called "Relativity"! What is that stuff like?" Concerned about how to make his unlettered friend understand the complex equation of the 'theory of relativity' Einstein groped for an easy answer understandable to his ignorant and gullible friend and finally replied: "If you put your head near a burning oven for two minutes, it would seem you have spent two hours; but, if you hobnob with a cute lady for two hours, it would seem you have spent only two minutes. That is RELATIVITY."

Indeed time flies by when you are engrossed in a conversation with your fiancée or delve into something exhilarating like watching a football tournament with your favorite team battling against another popular squad. A child forgets the whole world when she is immersed in a different world painting a model sitting at a solitary corner of the living room segregating herself from the rest of her family.

Sometimes a physician, in addition to medicinal treatments, prescribes a hypertensive patient to involve in a mind-soothing activity like 'praying to God', 'watching a game on TV', 'listening to classical songs', 'viewing a particular soup opera periodically broadcast on a television channel', or 'any doings that may allow him to escape from clutter of temporal noises' to lower his blood pressure. Amazingly it works, a little magically!

The famous Greek philosopher, Aristotle compared sport to a meditative state in which participants are "taken out of themselves". This concept is commonly known today as being "in the zone"---an intense mental state whereby all of the athlete's strengths and talents are perfectly in sync. Whether we are playing a sport or whether we are intense fans, once the action begins, we are purely engrossed in the moment and time seems to fly by.

Rabindranath Tagore said: "The difference between a mad and a genius is as thin as a razor's edge". The world would indeed seem like a madhouse if we observe how crazes of different shapes and colors sweep our societies at different times.

An invention that was ridiculed in the past is now revered; a fashion that was deemed a shame yesteryear is viewed as the latest craze of the current year. Among all the maddening obsessions, however, crazes for sports and games are the best options for both our physical and mental health.

There would have been many more feuds and wars among neighbors and many more trillions of dollars would have been invested in defenses of nations had there been no game and sport for clubs and countries to adopt as their tools to defeat their rivals. In war defeat is humiliating and the vanquished people hardly find time, money and energy to fight again with the conquerors. Beautifully, in games and sports defeat is rather a springboard on the part of the defeated to renew their zeal to fight next time again against the winner.

The fascination of sport can best be described by reading the Olympic Creed: "The most important thing in the Olympic Games is not to win but to take part, just as the most important thing in life is not the triumph, but the struggle. The essential thing is not to have conquered, but to have fought well."

China, a craze nation for sports and the birthplace of football, must now be passing her moments "in the zone". Besides thousands of spectators in the Beijing National Stadium, nicknamed the "Bird nest" having a seating capacity of 80 thousand people, 4 billion television viewers, including most of the 1.33 billion Chinese citizens, will remain mesmerized, focused and lost in a different fascinating world watching a plethora of Olympic events live to be broadcast entirely in high definition television (HDTV) technology at day and night---burning midnight oil in many corners of the world where and when it is time to sleep.

Building a knowledge-based society

M.T. Hussain

It is rather a pleasure to hear from celebrities that Bangladesh must now onwards be a knowledge based society. Possibly the need is appreciable for the country has been facing odds for decades in shallowness and poor understanding of relevant crucial issues that made many idiosyncrasies in many areas in the society. Well, it is right to say that real knowledge is light that provides illumination for human mind. But is it that knowledge has nothing to do with moral values? Or is it that knowledge meant to include moral values, as well?

The crucial question, however, is that if knowledge is fully independent of value system; and if not so, how could values be integrated into knowledge in its quality and quantity. Neither knowledge is anything that can correctly be measured for quantification in terms of levels as we know of schooling - primary, secondary, tertiary etc- though schooling levels are taken to be synonymous with learning, education and knowledge.

If we may look seriously into schooling for learning and acquisition of knowledge, it provides simultaneously three basic things, cognitive learning and knowledge, development of physical and mental skill and building up of positive attitude to life and work for productive utility.

Learning in childhood starts informally at mothers lap, then on to schooling in what learned educationists term as 3Rs - Reading, Writing and Arithmetic. Acquisition of these first level school learning skills essentially call for cognitive learning through one set of alphabets of a developed language. That is the normal way for attainment of literacy. And through learning of numbers one acquires competency in basic arithmetic. Shaping of behavior and formation of mental attitude begin essentially though informally at family level and then what school offers some as additional ones.

Learning, acquisition of cognitive knowledge, psychomotor skill and attitude formation continue as one would go up in further levels of schooling. The crucial matter in further up in schools, however, is that acquisition of cognitive knowledge and psychomotor skills do not differ much both in contents and in quality provided schools would be of equal standard, but attitude formation may differ from school to school that depend on factors not of cognitive literacy nature but for beliefs and spiritual persuasion mainly based first in family practices; school may have only marginal role in formation of attitude or character based on values.

Renowned late twentieth century British educators of Comparative Education like Nicholas Hans etc have listed eight major internal factors for bases of educational goals. They are Ideological, Natural, Geographical, Historical, Social, Political, Constitutional and Educational. It is amazing to note that of the eight major factors, only one is educational, the other seven are not educational in the sense that they do not belong specifically to cognitive learning domain and psychomotor skills formation. Among external factors one could add to the internal eight issues in these days of globalization of matters in economics, employability, obsolescence of skills, acquisition of new skills for increased productivity, earning for decent living, caring for environment, etc to be worthy citizen not only of one's own country but also to form international human personality to fit in with appropriate attitude to work according to one's ability, aptitude, knowledge and psychomotor skill. Importantly, on all the seven apparently non-educational issues, there is at least a common subject matter and that is values inherent in each item but basically originated not only in human rationality but also in spiritual domain of human entity.

Human being unlike all naturally created beings is taken to be rational for possible high level intellect but not necessarily equally gifted by the Nature or the Great Creator. Even so, it is said that all human beings are created 'equal' which is somewhat a misnomer as we do not see anywhere that every body is equally gifted for anything and everything. That is what the advanced human society made the issue of equality question more specifically delimited and accepted as the idea of 'Equality of Opportunity' and not the misnomer 'equality' as such.

Educators further agree that education and acquisition of knowledge is essentially a matter of values (See, UNESCO, Educational Goals, Paris, 1980, p.5). Our great educator of the late twentieth century Dr. Mohammad Shahidullah would hold the firm view, I recall, in his own way that 'If you give students 3Rs but don't give them the 4rth 'R' or religion, you would produce another 'R' or 'Rascals.' He might be taken as little crude for the straight forward comment, but possibly more sophisticated educators would intend to use the term 'values'. It is worth pondering that basic human values did not come by their own only through human experience and rationality but from spiritual origin of man. The source of right and wrong, good and bad, just and unjust etc, as most religions stated, originated in spirituality, no matter whether you call it religion or not. The late Dr. Shahidullah being a devoutly religious person used the term 'religion' in his own way. What I took from him in this regard is that he wished to integrate school learning with simultaneous development of basic human values in the psyche of each every learner and in upcoming future citizens to lead lives of productivity and of virtue.

That there is hardly any denying the fact that we in Bangladesh of late have been having floods of moral erosion, particularly, among many of the fairly schooled people. I recall once the recently late Professor Dr Asaduzzaman, Chairman of the Bangladesh University Grants Commission, lashing at the moral erosion of many such well placed educated persons, possibly, out of his utter frustration. On the contrary, our non-schooled and less sophisticated poor folks do not easily give in to moral erosion, not for 'idiocy' but for sticking to moral values they had learnt from their older generation and parents. What I wish to drive at is that our schooling must not only impart learning for cognitive knowledge and psychomotor skills but also train themselves in right attitudes and humane character to lead lives of high moral values. In a nut shell, if I may say, the society must aim not only to be knowledge based if that would mean only secular learning but also should be of high standard of moral values that schools must impart simultaneously during operation of schooling curricula. Shall I mention here from a renowned British educator's terms he coined for educational value contents; the British education system produces 'Christian Gentlemen', the Americans, 'Pragmatic Christian Gentlemen', the Chinese, 'Red and Expert', the former Soviets, 'Soviet Marxist man'. One would not miss the value contents based specifically on to their individual basic value system.

I do not clearly see the basic values our schools impart except that what Macaulay had given us to act as their secular 'interpreters' divorced from humane values nearly two centuries back starting in 1835 A.D. that made us literate and also educated but not persons of good moral standard manifested of late as in our ignominious drives against all forms of erosion of moral values. Only acquisition of secular knowledge would hardly improve the situation. For improvement we must at the same time integrate morality learning and positive attitude building through redesigning our school curricula so that we may have our society full of men and women having bases not only on integrated encyclopedic knowledge but also on high standard of moral values that the twentieth century great philosopher Allama Iqbal viewed and termed to produce INSAN E KAMEL or fully equipped balanced human personality.

Opinion: Defeating terrorism

Mohammad Shahidul Islam

At last SAARC has come to realize that hibernation of defeating terrorism could be the actual threat towards the peace or prosperity in the region. All leaders took pains to stress this point during their speeches at the 15th SAARC summit in Colombo.

For the first time SAARC leaders have decided together to consider a legal framework for cooperation in combating terrorism with a legal mechanism for effectively dealing with the threat.

The need, SAARC has moved foward, for defeating this fiend jointly itself shows inter-connectivity of the terrorist problem and the need for a mutual arrangement to eliminate the evil.

The tone and theme of appeals of all leaders for a joint SAARC initiatives to combat terrorism were akin to a clarion call to all South Asians to rid the region of the this scourge once and for all without which progress and stability in the region could only be a pipe dream.

All past SAARC Summits treated this topic with the utmost priority but after some initial efforts to combat the menace interest faded when focus shifted elsewhere putting paid to all the initiatives discussed to tackle terrorism. Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa said "we must ensure strengthening regional legal mechanisms and intensifying intelligence sharing to ensure the region's collective prosperity and peace and stability."

The significance of the summit is that whatever plans discussed on the economic front will not succeed keeping the region under continued tension that could hardly be a recipe for the peoples' emancipation sought to be achieved by SAARC.

Leaders of SAARC, battling the terrorism in the world, have become aware of what impact it has had on social development and economic progress. The devastation wrought as a result of an alignment of terrorist forces in the region could be too chilling to contemplate.

It would not only stifle progress but also deal a death knell to SAARC goals and aspirations. Already the chaos wrought by the serial bombings in India had brought home the threat posed to the region by terrorism.

SAARC leaders' views in this regard were echoed by as SAARC Head Dr. Manmohan Singh who left no doubt on the resolve of India to confront the menace head on.

The Indian Premier said "we cannot lose the battle against idealogies of hatred, fanaticism and against all those who seek to destroy our social fabric".

In the words of President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan the newest entrant to the SAARC club "no amount of condemnation and outrage can suffice to express the anger and frustration we all feel when faced with such mindless brutality and violence" in reference to the attack on the Indian Embassy in Kabul.

This is the first time that the issue of terrorism had dominated the SAARC summit to such an unprecedented degree. From the emphasis laid by all SAARC Heads of State in their speeches it is apparent that more concrete measures would emerge to tackle terrorism in the region in a more forceful manner.

Sri lankan President Rajapaksa as the Head of SAARC, we have to be optimistic, would take the forefront in ensuring that the topic would not be allowed to peter out in the course of time as in the past and would take measures to ensure the institutional mechanisms drawn up in this regard would be implemented to the letter.

It hopes that SAARC nations' efforts for collective action to combat terrorism will this time around bear fruition paving the way for regional peace spelling prosperity and a new dawn for South Asians.