The New Nation - Internet Edition

Expediting subway project

THE feasibility study of the Dhaka City Underground Railway or the subway project is expected to begin from December. The study is likely to be completed within one and a half years. An inter-ministerial meeting on Monday took up the Taka ten-crore project. This will be the first step in constructing a mass transit system. The subway will include up to 60 kilometres of railway track. The study will be funded by the government. This project, included in the Second Master Plan for Dhaka City, is an important component of the Dhaka Strategic Transport Plan (STP).

A mega city needs to have roads covering at least 30 percent of its areas. But the roads in Dhaka cover not more than eight percent. Thus alternative mass transit systems are urgently needed to ensure smooth flow of traffic in the city of 120 million. It is estimated that the subway will cover almost 80 percent of the city area. This subway, along with an elevated rail line, is estimated to carry about 44,000 passengers an hour. According to official sources, the average speed of traffic in the city is just five kilometres per hour. This leads to wastage of millions of work hours every day. The subway is expected to save more than five thousand crore Taka annually by saving work hours and bringing down wastage of fuel due to traffic congestion.

In spite of the importance of the proposed subway, its early implementation could not be started due to lack of a sense of urgency. It is heartening that an initiative for feasibility study of the project has now been taken. Commuters in the city would want an early implementation of the subway project to ease the acute traffic problem they face every day. The subway project should be designed with a long-term perspective - at least 2050 - in clear sight.

Crocodile breeding in captivity

A CROCODILE farm set up on a commercial basis at Hatiber village under Bhaluka upazila in the district of Mymensingh is expected to start export of crocodile products soon. Two sponsors of the 'Reptiles Farm Limited’ have virtually created a new area of investment. Breeding and production of crocoldiles in captivity had earlier been successful in Thailand and some other countries. In Bangladesh successful breeding and raising of crocs have been noticed at the Dhaka Zoo. As reported in the media the demand for croc skins, meat and bones has increased in developed countries. Some of the countries import crocodile products, not only for meeting consumption demands but also for making chemical products including perfumes of global varieties.

The rivers of Bangladesh once used to be natural breeding and feeding grounds of marsh crocodiles which are no longer found in the wild. Zoologists have reared some croc youngs that hatched from eggs laid by the she croc of a pair of reptiles of the species kept at a pond at Khan Jahan Ali’s mazar premises in Khulna. Estuarine crocodiles however are still found in the Sunderbans area. The newly set up crocodile farm is expected to become profitable, if the efforts of the two sponsors are augmented with positive support. While the sponsors of the crocodile farm deserve to be praised for their successful venture, the authorities concerned should exercise caution that vested quarters do not use the export of crocodile skin, meat and other products as cover to export banned products like lizard and snake skin and do not threaten these reptiles with extinction. The law enforcing agencies should also ensure that illegal trade in frog-legs is not resumed by unscrupulous elements.

World food scarcity and the challenges of climate change

Shobha Shukla

Rarely has the World Food Day assumed greater meaning than in present times, as rapidly rising food prices risk increasing the number of hungry in the world,' according to the Food And Agriculture Organization (FAO).

FAO was founded in 1945 on the 16th of October - a day which is observed as World Food Day (WFD) in about 150 countries all over the world. The theme for this year's WFD is 'World Food Scarcity : The Challenges Of Climate Change And Bio Energy' as there is a strong need to expand global awareness to reduce the effect of severe climate patterns on agriculture and the impact of bio fuels on food production.

Global warming and the bio fuel boom are threatening to push the number of hungry even higher in times to come. During 2007 alone, around 50 million more have been added to the rank of the world's hungry due to rising prices, thus pushing the number of unfed to about 900 millions.

The world seems to be further distancing itself from reaching the U.N. Millenium Development Goal of halving hunger and poverty by 2015. Poor harvests, high oil costs, bio fuels and a rising demand for basic staple crops, especially in fast growing Asian countries, have been cited as examples for the spiralling food prices which have sparked protests, even riots, prompting the U.N.Secretary General Ban Ki Moon to give a wake up call.

Global wheat prices have more than doubled during the past year due to poor weather conditions in some wheat producing areas (droughts in Australia and Europe); a shift by farmers to growing crops used in making bio fuels; and speculation by traders.

Though India is being touted as one of the world's hottest economy, nearly 50% of the world's hungry live in it. It is listed as a low income, food deficit country, with about 25% of its population subsisting on Rs.12 or less, a day and around 77% living on less than $1 a day ( according to the latest report of National Commission for Enterprises In The Unorganized Sector). It does boast of having a burgeoning 350 million strong middle class with improved diets ( which was lamented by Ms.Rice and Mr.Bush to be one of the causes of the global food price crisis). Yet around 35% of its population is food insecure, consuming less than 80% of the daily minimum requirement and it has the dubious distinction of having the highest rate of malnutrition in children below three years of age in the world (about 46%).

Today, India faces an agricultural crisis and hunger, which are due to not only current high prices of basic staples, but skewed up government policies too. Her rapid economic growth and accompanying shortages have also fuelled prices. State support for agriculture and irrigation has been slashed, price support reduced and the public distribution system drastically curtailed.

While the GDP grew at the rate of 8.5% in 2006-2007, the growth in agricultural sector was a mere 2.6%.Also marginal land holdings have increased and total cultivated land decreased, especially as more and more agricultural land is being seized by domestic and international corporations in the form of 'Special Economic Zones' for industrialization (as happened in Nandigram and to some extent in Singur).

The results have been disastrous as many studies show that agricultural growth reduces poverty and hunger much more than urban and industrial development. A spate of farmer suicides (about 150,000 during the last decade) is a rude reminder of our agrarian crisis and the grip of cash cropping on poor farmers, bolstered by seed and chemical agribusiness. India has belatedly sought to control prices by holding back essential commodities, curbing export of non-premium rice and waiving off loans of farmers. Obviously more needs to be done than mere cosmetic changes.

There is an urgent need to improve productivity of dry land farming (as 60% of India 's agriculture is rain dependent) as well as a better implementation of the National Rural Employment Programme and the Public Distribution System.

The director general of FAO, Dr. Jacques Dious, has called upon governments to pay urgent attention to needs of agriculture and water management and also increased investment in agriculture. At the recent Rome Summit held in June 2008, he pointed out that in 2006 the world spent 1.2 trillion dollars on arms. He asked, 'Against that backdrop how can we explain to people of good sense and good faith that it was not possible to find $ 30 billion a year to enable the hungry to enjoy the most fundamental human right to food and thus the right to life.' Yet it has been estimated that there is enough food for all in the world, at least 2700 kilo calories per person, per day.

But it is the lack of purchasing power (more than food shortage due to population explosion and inclement weather conditions) which makes so many millions go to bed hungry every day. Hunger is linked to the denial of a living wage to the working poor. It is about denial of land to the landless. It is caused by socio economic policies that deny people the right to food.

Resources are there to end hunger, but they are exploited by a miniscule few to the detriment of others So the real reason for all this hunger and poverty may well be policy and not scarcity; politics and not inevitability. The real culprits are economies that fail to offer everyone opportunities and societies that place economic efficiency above compassion.

As we Indians gloat over our victory in the recently concluded Nuclear Deal and as Ratan Tata and his Nano are hailed as an engineering marvel, let us do something sincere and concrete to put some food inside empty bellies. That then would be a truly Indian Miracle. Till then, let each one of us at least refrain from over eating and throwing away left over food in the dustbin.

(The author teaches Physics at India's Loreto Convent and has been writing extensively in English and Hindi media. She serves as Editor of Citizen News Service (CNS).)

Poetic justice in US meltdown

Aijaz Zaka Syed

As a literature student, one was endlessly fascinated by the term Poetic Justice. The ancient Greeks, especially Aristotle, believed that virtue should be ultimately rewarded and vice punished in a literary work, often by an ironic twist of fate intimately related to the character's own conduct.

Since life and literature mirror each other, I believe there's some form of poetic justice at work in real life as well. Just look around; there are myriad examples all around us to prove that our world works on the principle of natural justice.

Call Him what you will, but there's someone out there who makes sure we reap as we sow. It may take a while for them to manifest themselves but all our actions do lead to equal and opposite reactions. You don't have to be Isaac Newton to know that what goes up comes down.

Watching the world turn upside down as the global financial meltdown that originated in the US hits one economic power after another, I can't help think of the US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Call me a hopeless cynic but the more this financial plague spreads despite the desperate global efforts the more I am convinced that the world is paying for the neocon crimes against the people of Iraq and Afghanistan.

Over the past few weeks, from the Lehman Brothers to Merrill Lynch and the AIG to Morgan Stanley, some of the mightiest icons have been brought down from their hallowed perches on the Wall Street and dragged through the main street. Things haven't been so bad since the Great Depression and Herbert Hoover.

With the lifetime savings of ordinary Americans wiped out overnight, they are finally waking up to the mess the Bush administration has made of the world's most powerful economy -- and almost everything else. Like a deadly disease, the malaise in the US markets has infected the whole of Europe, Asia and the Middle East. On Monday alone, the $2,800 billion in global stocks just vanished into thin air.

For the first time in years, the Saudi stock market, the biggest in the region, shed 10 per cent -- the limit allowed by the authorities. Even our own Dubai, the fastest growing city on the planet described by the New York Times as the Boomtown this week, has begun feeling the heat of the blazes on the US Wall Street. However, in the end the hardest hit might be the Americans themselves.

It's no coincidence that Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama's popularity ratings have soared in perfect synchronization with the steady annihilation of the US and global markets over the past couple of weeks.

According to latest polls, more and more Americans -- nearly 60 per cent of them -- now believe that it's Obama, not Bush's mate John McCain, who could heave the country out of the deepening morass. And the Americans are angry, very angry with the folks who have landed them in this Godawful mess.

The initial, embarrassing failure of the bailout deal in the House of Representatives was a backlash from the angry middle America. And the fact that the $700 billion bailout, financed with their hard-earned money, has failed to stop the supernova hasn't gone unnoticed by Americans either.

As Madeleine Bunting puts in the Guardian, while the Americans and the rest of the world were engaged in the side show of the War on Terror, the "real doomsday scenario that poses a far greater threat to Western civilization (whatever that is) was gathering pace right next to Ground Zero, in Wall Street."

Can you blame the ordinary Americans then if they are mad at their leaders? They have every reason to be. Eight years ago, when Bush took over from Bill Clinton, the US was the world's biggest economy with a huge budget surplus. It was prosperous and at peace with itself. And America was respected and admired despite some of its controversial policies in the Middle East.

And look, where Bush's America is today. It's a country that is universally loathed, economically and politically bankrupt and psychologically battered! So much so America's own allies and friends are finding it difficult to stand shoulder to shoulder with it. Who brought the leader of the free world here? The American people have the answer.

The US, and with it the rest of the world, is paying the price for the unjust, unreasonable and endless wars on Iraq and Afghanistan. Even if you accept the 9/11 excuse for the carpet-bombing and killing of thousands of innocents in Afghanistan, how could anyone justify what has been visited on the Iraqi people over the past six years?

From the shame of Abu Ghraib to the total, wanton destruction of the ancient Mesopotamia, not to mention the loss of a million lives, the US leaders are guilty of the very crimes that they used to accuse Saddam Hussein of perpetrating on his people.

Which is why I think there's a kind of poetic justice in what the Americans and the West are currently going through at the hands of with-us-or-against-us leader of the free world. The world is paying for its failure to prevent the appalling crimes against humanity in Iraq and Afghanistan. The international community stood and stared while Afghanistan and Iraq were bombed back to the Stone Age in the name of freedom and democracy. Even when everyone, including the UN inspectors, was convinced Saddam's Iraq had no WMD and was as much a threat to the world peace as comrade Castro's Cuba is to Uncle Sam.

I have great respect for American democracy and its founding fathers. But I can't help recall the fact that not only did the American people fail to dissuade their commander-in-chief from launching a totally unjust war but they rewarded him with another term in office.

And today the same US wars have contributed to the bankruptcy and meltdown of the greatest economic superpower the world has ever seen. You shall reap as you sow. What goes around comes around. If this isn't natural justice, what is?

(Aijaz Zaka Syed is a Dubai-based commentator. Write to him at aijaz@khaleejtimes.com )

Conditions before polls

Achinta Sen

Tajul Islam, formerly Jatiyo Party Minister, in a recent TV talk predicted that there would be no general elections on December 18. Many others are of the opinion that elections may be held on schedule but it will not be universal. Already four-party alliance led by BNP had expressed its reluctance to take part in election if their 5-point demand is not met.

Awami League and BNP share common position that state of Emergency must be totally lifted and upazila election should be postponed for one month.

Barrister Rafiqul Haq, lawyer of Sheikh Hasina and Khaleda Zia said that they ruled the country for 15 years. He said the two leaders ran the state successfully. After One Eleven the country has gone much backward in the last 20 months. Those who carefully follow Fakhruddin regime will feel how difficult it is to run a government. Those who run the country must talk with the opposition. If the two leaders do not come forward to understand each other's position, the Third Force will then again take over, Rafiqul Huq said.

Rafiqul Huq was confused at the government conduct on Hasina's last case.

He termed the government lawyers' position on the question of Hasina's bail petition as self-contradictory.

Later, Barrister Rafiqul Huq told the journalists present there "Government and I have been trying to bring the two leaders face to face. On Wednesday I had talk with Law Minister. He said take the bail of Hasina. But the government lawyers opposed the bail petition of Hasina.

Khaleda Zia welcomed the initiative for trilateral talks between BNP, Awami League and the Government. She also said the people in the BNP who had negative image would be gradually removed from the party.

She expressed her opinion in a meeting with the four Advisers of the government.

But things are not going to be smooth and easy. When Rafiqul Haq consulted with Shaikh Hasina, her reaction was positive. But she told the lawyer she alone could not take such a vital decision. She had to first consult her party leaders.

Khaleda Zia can alone take decisions but Hasina cannot. Moreover, there is strong lobby in the Awami League who are opposed to any form of dialogue with the BNP.

Awami League leaders say, now is the time for contesting in the election. The people will now decide about the image of two leaders, and activities of two parties in the last 5 years and they will cast vote accordingly.

The role of the government is to pave the way to free, fair and credible elections which would he accepted both at home and abroad.

In the election politics there is no need for a meeting between two supremos of BNP and Awami League, AL leaders say. They also hold the view that the leaders, meeting must be on specific issues. The meeting will be fruitless if there is no agenda.

One leader stands for abolition of communalism and Islamic militancy, while another leader is tolerant of communalism and fundamentalism. The leader who will be voted to power and the leader who will sit in the opposition can go for discourse on specific issues.

The members of the civil society are of the opinion that the two leaders' summit will not resolve all the problems. And if the talks fail, there will be great disappointment among the people.

Meanwhile, Acting General Secretary of Awami League Ashraf remarked that politics be allowed to be handled by politicians. Lawyers should do their own job.

Barrister Rafiqul Huq took serious exception to Ashraf's conduct. Then Acting President of Awami League Zillur Rahman apologised to Rafiqul Huq for Ashraf's 'irresponsible conduct'.

Politics will now be intense as Eid-ul-Fitr is over. Khaleda Zia will kick off her electioneering from a new house in Banani.

Awami League will start working in the first floor of Sheikh Hasina's office in Dhanmondi. Awami League will attempt to further expand the grand alliance. Four-party alliance led by BNP will also try to beef up the alliance. So we should be prepared for confrontational politics.

Meanwhile, there is another development. The Chief Adviser Fakhruddin Ahmed has said his Caretaker government wants to continue with the state of Emergency until general election as he thinks emergency will help control the old tricks of money and muscle power during the polls.

In an interview with the Time magazine in New York where he was to attend the 63rd UNGA session, he also said it would depend on the Election Commission whether or not the former prime minister, Khaleda Zia and Sheikh Hasina would be allowed to stand for election.