The New Nation - Internet Edition

Prices of fuel oils

GOVERNMENT leaders in Bangladesh have justified the rising prices of commodities sold in local markets on their higher procurement costs in international markets. But free market principles do not say that prices should remain at inflated levels notwithstanding their decrease in the international markets. But this is found to be the case always in Bangladesh. For example, prices of fuel oils are fixed by the government because the import and distribution of these oils are entirely government-managed operations. Government adjusted upward fuel oil prices several times over the last 20 months and the last such revision was particularly one, some 40 per cent.

The government's main ground for the upping of the fuel oil prices was that huge subsidies were being borne by it for importing the same with escalating prices from international markets and then selling them at much lower prices in the local markets. And government could no more bear greater subsidy burdens. International price of oil was some $147 per barrel when its price in Bangladesh was last raised. Oil price since then has gone on falling. It dipped to $ 80 per barrel about a fortnight ago and has been rising slowly since then. The international prices have been significantly on the lower side since the last major upward increase of fuel oil prices. The fall in prices of fuel oils in international markets have not led to any downward readjustment of their prices in our local markets. This raises the question of why it should be so. Decrease in prices of fuel oil thus merits the government's highest consideration because centering on such higher fuel oil prices the Bangladesh economy has been suffering from higher inflation and greater consumer sufferings.

Improving Dhaka’s water supply

ACCORDING to Dhaka WASA statistics, the daily demand for water in the city is about 2,100 million litres whereas the actual amount supplied by it is nearly 1,600 million litres. There is thus a wide gap between demand and supply. Thus, crisis of water experiences in different areas of the city, particularly the old city. In this backdrop, there are also concerns about the depletion of the underground water level in the city. It continues notwithstanding the heavy rains experienced during the rainy season.

The pavement of nearly 80 per cent of the land in te city is linked to this phenomenon. It appears that water cannot seep underground to raise the water level. Besides, further pumping out of water from the already much lowered aquifer would worsen land subsidence conditions in the city and make it more vulnerable to earthquakes. Therefore, the more viable and safe option to increase water supply in the city would be large scale use of surface water.

The first phase of the Sayeedabad water treatment plant using the water of the Sitalakhya river was operationalised about three years ago adding to the total supply of water. But no other project has been taken up since that time to further increase the supply. The second phase of implementation of the Sayeedabad project has been awaiting the conclusion of successful negotiations. Two other major projects for drawing waters from the Padma to supply Dhaka city are also awaiting negotiations with donors.

However, while pursuing the options some points are also to be considered. All the rivers flowing past Dhaka are seen as getting more and more polluted by the unregulated drainage of all kinds of effluents in them. It is an imperative to take steps to keep the rivers clean before more projects are taken up using their waters.

The world of credit cards

Maswood Alam Khan

There are shops in America that won't accept cash for anything you buy as handling cash invites complications as to handing back changes to a buyer and verifying genuineness of currencies on the part of a seller. The salesman will ask for your credit card.

Credit cards are smart to rid both the buyers and the sellers of the jingles and hassles of cash in coins and notes. The validity of a credit card is smartly verified in a matter of few seconds by an 'electronic verification system' that reads the card's magnetic chip to crosscheck everything as to credit limit or balance availability etc. against the card and gives the green signal to the seller to go ahead with the sale. Living in America without a credit card is, allegorically speaking, like moving on a rainy day without an umbrella.

Credit cards are cool as issuers of credit cards usually waive interest charges if the outstanding balance is paid in full each month. If, for example, you had a $1,000 transaction and repaid it in full within the grace period of one month, there would be no interest charged for all the goods and services you have enjoyed without having any money in your pocket or in your bank. You may have enjoyed even some discounts on your purchases for your using credit cards instead of cash. It seems you were all too gainer and had squarely cheated both the credit card issuing bank and the seller.

But the story is not so simple and the bankers not so naive! Behind your back the bankers and the traders are in discreet pacts to make money out of all your small and big purchases. Further, they eagerly wait for the moment when you, unmindful of the financial burden you have ultimately to bear, step into their traps---when you fail to resist your temptation to buy a necklace or a pair of cufflinks made of artificial gold dazzling inside a glasshouse-like showcase as you stroll in a posh shopping mall.

If, even $1.00 of the total amount of your previous month's transaction of $1,000 remained unpaid, interest would be charged on the whole of $1,000 from the date of all your purchases until the payment is received. That is the price of your credit card you have to pay and the banker waits to prise from your wallet.

In the last week of every month a great majority of Americans who depend on their monthly pay checks find their cards are all maxed out, meaning the limit up to which the credit card could be charged is over. At such a time an American spends pitiable days when if you buy him a simple soft drink it would mean to him a bonanza showered directly from haven.

I was surprised as I was talking to a black American in Berkeley who was narrating the story of his painful living. He was enamoured as I offered to buy him a mug of coffee in a Starbucks coffee parlour. To reciprocate my hospitality he offered me a free ride in his car from the California University campus to my brother's house nearby, a ten minutes drive. While talking to him on my way to my brother's place I appreciated his new Volvo car and asked for its price. "US $ 1,300", he quickly replied. "Are you kidding?" I retorted, "Such a car for only $1,300?" "How much is it in Bangladesh?" he enquired. "Not less than $ 500,000", I made a guess. He couldn't believe me. After conversing on the issue for about two minutes I could realize at last that $1,300 is the monthly instalment he has to pay to his bank---not the price of the new Volvo car!

In America buyers don't much bother about the price of a product or service. Because, to their opinion, paying for something is none of their business, it is the bank's headache. The buyers only consider whether they can pay the monthly instalments out of their present income.

And the banker knows his client has no savings, nor any tangible property; so a bank keenly observes a prospective client's track records as to his/her present income, age, health, and knowledge to foresee how much s/he would be earning. Accordingly, in the absence of any collateral security the bank offers loan to a client mortgaging his future ability only and extracts from his/her weekly or monthly pay checks their investments along with interests accrued---thus making the client the bank's cash cow.

We all have bumps in the road, that's reality in America as well as in Bangladesh. In Bangladesh there is a natural propensity for us to save and spend as much as we can afford. We save money and build a home so our children, when they will grow up, may encash our savings left out and find a home ready to live in when we would pass away.

But, in America people believe in living today as best as one can manage by taking everything on credit, because they don't bother about what would happen tomorrow to themselves or to their children.

Tomorrow, to them, is not alive. Americans are typically wired to pay home mortgage and the car payments as long as they can; but, they rarely invest cash in a bank's savings account. Their houses and their cars are taken away by the banks as they stop paying their monthly instalments.

The old in America are neglected not only by their banks as they have lost their income-generating capacity, children of the old also shiver at the thought of bearing a part of their parents' burden, a situation unthinkable in our country, however poor we are in Bangladesh. Retired life in America is 100 times worse than that in Bangladesh.

Of course, intelligent Americans start investing in different modes at their young age with a view to balancing his/her today's life with life in the future. The most common investment is in homes they buy with their little savings as their own equity and asking a bank to bear the major part of the price assuming that the realty price would ultimately go up, which actually goes up, and the home owner would get at their twilight years a nice nest egg in the form of appreciated value of the home thus purchased. But, with recession looming large over the whole world the possibility of hatching such a nest egg now seems uncertain.

That the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence is our belief and I thought 'American grass is the greenest in the whole world' before I had embarked upon America as a visitor. True. Everything American is impeccable. Every home is picturesque. Public amenities are neat and clean---a situation not quite imaginable in Bangladesh.

But the more I dug deep into the living patterns of Americans the more I discovered to my dismay that beneath the well-manicured green grass of America are laid the greyest realities of living a life in the western world.

Apparently Americans are happy and content when you look at their houses, their cars, their roads and highways, their chic shopping malls, their trendy dresses, and their foods. But, if you spend a little bit of time with anyone of them and ask him/her to honestly answer 'how is life?' s/he will keep mum; his/her silence speaks a volume about the haplessness in the West.

Peace in the truest sense of the term is a rarity in America. Because, almost everybody has to pay back debts and there is hardly anyone I have come across who has savings in a bank to repose on. So, as they start feeling the weight of age a gloomy phase looms up ahead of them.

There is a wonderful Jewish teaching that I came to learn from a novel many years back. The Jewish teaching tells us that before a child is born, God infuses that child with all of the knowledge and wisdom he or she needs in life. Then God puts his finger on the child's lips and says, "shh", making at that moment a secret pact between the child and God. As the story goes, that's why every one of us has that indentation on the upper lip; it is God's fingerprint, according to Jewish teaching.

But as time passes by, that purity and wisdom God infused into unborn babies get eroded. Children become socialized and shaped by experience. Life changes them into something different.

A few days back I visited the famous Empire State Building on the 34th Street of the 5th Avenue in New York. As I was enjoying the beauty of nocturnal New York silhouetted against a dazzling skyline someone at my back in a low tone uttered: "You are Bangladeshi, sir?" "Yes, I am", I answered politely. I was delighted to meet a Bangladeshi at the Observation Deck above the 86th floor when a chilly wind was lashing at my face and ballooning up my half-sleeved Hawaii shirt as I was shivering in cold. Suddenly I felt warm talking to someone in my mother tongue.

He is an elderly man neatly shaved with a butterfly moustache like Hitler's. Nicely attired in his official uniform and a cap adorned with a badge saying "Security" he introduced himself as one from Netrokona of Bangladesh. We talked for a while, and he seemed unusually bright and insightful. I wanted to get to know him a little better. When he told me he served in Bangladesh Navy and when he could recollect some of my friends who held high ranks in Bangladesh Navy, I got more interested.

As it turned out, he had left Bangladesh Navy about fifteen years back to settle in USA. When he was a young cadet, he wanted to become an Admiral. As he told this, he turned reflective. "It's a funny thing about life," he said, gazing skyward. "I thought I would be an Admiral and instead, here I am guarding a gate of Empire State Building in New York." To assuage his remorseful feelings I told him, "Man, life is like that. Enjoy whatever you are blessed with. When I was young I was brilliant in Mathematics and I dreamt to be an engineer and instead, I am now busy with debits of credits of my bank's clients. I had a dream to settle in America too." I added: "I think we are born square and we die round."

Birds fly hundreds of miles in quest for warmer climate; grazing animals migrate from dry to wet areas for greener plants. As the waters of life wash over us, we humans too migrate from one continent to another in quest for havens. During our voyages we often lose our sense of directions as we lose some innate insights a wise man should have; we lose some of our sharp corners and turn roundish. We forget what God whispered to us about wisdom when we were waiting to be born. But the evidence of that wisdom stays with us---right under our noses!

Managing the flood havoc

M. Mizanur Rahman

In each year the people of India and Bangladesh have been experiencing the devastating flood within its territory causing untold sufferings to its people in all respect physically and economically. This is common for both the countries. Flood never comes giving any prior signal to any country or nation. It never distinguishes the big nation or small nation, rich one or small one, and its communal animus. Everyone knows that it has its abrupt flow downward from the origin of its source. When glaciers melt away from the peak of the Himalayan region along with the torrential rainfalls the huge amount of water flow downward violently and irresistibly. The terrible streaming force of it damages the man-made barrages also. We have become the easy prey of this natural disastrous calamity. Did we ever put any serious effort to make any end to it? Had there been any united effort to resist the onslaught of such disastrous flood?

The regional or local piecemeal efforts had been made to divert the waterway in order to weaken such flood effects sometimes with little effect or no effect. There had never been found any permanent solution to it. Of course, this had been happening due to lack of technology and united efforts of the nations concerned.

Now the SAARC nations can do a lot with their united efforts towards solution of this stupendous problem. By solving this problem each nation of the SAARC countries will be benefited economically. The water is life. Its proper use will give benefit to each nation tremendously.

Gain hydro-electricity from it, make reservoirs for irrigation and divert water where necessary between the nations for the benefit of the people of the SAARC regions equally. The proper control of water and its use can make the people of the areas bounteous mitigating their poverty for good.

Hence joint ventures of these nations are necessary in order to bring about mutual benefit and thus save the lives and properties of the people of all areas of SAARC regions. This is of course an uphill task, which needs proper planning and an accurate technological manning. Every SAARC nation is hungry of energy. Here the water will be the source of energy. The water can transform the desert into a lush green orchard with full of flora and fauna.

The SAARC nations must come to terms to this effect without looking back to their narrow national or communal or parochial interests. This is the interest of the joint humanity.

This would be the case of gain only. There is no loss for any country or nation. Only to tap the natural resources for mutual benefits to alleviate poverty of all the people of the areas concerned.

To be united in this regard each nation must come forward with firm determination honestly to work together without any misgivings.

If SAARC could come in oneness with sincerity and with the sense of sacrifice and love for fellow beings as humans, there would be no problem at all in this regard. Every nation of this region would be happy and prosperous for the ensuing future to come.

Flood would not make any headway to engulf anybody's land or property anyway. All waters must have been exploited to bring about the prosperity of the SAARC nations and its people. Let us hope for the best.

It would not be out of place to mention about most of the rivers in both Bangladesh and India is invariably silted. These also need dredging thoroughly.

Though it incurs heavy cost primarily, yet the future looks to be brighter for both the countries. Rather innumerable rivers and rivulets run on the vast Indian territory and some of them are closely linked with Bangladesh.

Hence Bangladesh needs Indian co-operation and co-ordination towards flowing of the rivers unhindered.

When a river flows from one foreign country to another its status becomes automatically and naturally international. Moreover, all rivers fall into the sea ultimately.

The rivers flow across Bangladesh is falling into the Bay of Bengal. Our sea lines linking rivers are lying on the eastern and southern parts of Bangladesh. While the northern part of it remains almost adjacent to the Himalayan belt.

The rivers connecting our port areas linking the Bay of Bengal have its regular ebb and tide. Both the areas are flood-affected zones.

All along the rivers linking the coastal areas are also said to be cyclone prone zone. Hence the people of the coastal areas have to be prepared to face such natural calamities like flood and tidal waves time and again.

When there is tidal bore the low-lying coastal areas along the Bay become inundated. If the natural flow of the rivers could be ensured by dredging out the silts the formidable effects of flood would have been averted or lessened to a great extent, on the other hand, the dredged out silts by the banks of the rivers would be of great use to irrigation and cultivation of lands in Bangladesh as well as in India.

There is a general apprehension of fear among the global people about the climatic change. The people along the coastal areas are apt to carry on tree plantation.

While the source of water from the countries falls under the Himalayan belt linking China are Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan, India and Bangladesh are SAARC countries. Their joint efforts for mutual interests would be of great use in solving this flood problem, which is not only the problem of the regions concerned but also the problem globally for its climatic turn towards humanitarian causes.

Opinion: Bangladesh back to battle stations

Shafeen Mustaq

When the caretaker government came into force in early 2007 and made tackling corruption its main objective, many Bangladeshis and NRB's were sceptical about the extent to which they could catalyse change. This scepticism was somewhat alleviated with the subsequent arrests of Prime Ministers Khaleda Zia and Sheikh Hasina in 2007. The caretaker government brought hope and the light of change into a society where daily life is immersed in and irrevocably connected to the implications of political warfare on streets, universities and other public places.

Two years on, the caretaker government has released the two figure heads of an archaic and corrupt political system with the excuse that it 'is considered important for bringing an end to the deadlock with the government and ensuring their participation in the parliamentary elections slated for December'. More than 100 high-profile politicians, mostly from the BNP and the Awami League (AL), landed in jail in the government's anti-corruption drive. However, despite the drive's aim of curbing corruption and bringing reforms in politics, many of the detained corruption suspects were released in the past two months.

The caretaker government is holding elections by the end of 2008 as promised but it had also promised to 'first to rid the country of corruption'.

How has this been achieved if the protagonists of corruption and their sidekicks are out on bail and once again announcing their intentions to partake in elections? Although the government tried to keep the two top leaders at bay, it eventually reached "understandings" with both Khaleda and Hasina in the "interest" of a credible election and transition to democracy. Just released on bail, Khaleda Zia announced that she plans to join the dialogue with the government and take part in the upcoming elections but asked the caretaker government to hold the stalled parliamentary elections first and withdraw the state of emergency.

How is a democratic election ever to be achieved if we do not move on from the stalemate of the past?

It is imperative that the caretaker government take the necessary precautions to remain objective and clear-headed in the face of public sentiment and pressure from political parties. The caretaker government should be mindful of the successes it has achieved in the past two years and refrain from allowing archaic political figureheads the power to catalyse any movements which may impede a democratic election and a peaceful transition into a new chapter of Bangladeshi political history.