The New Nation - Internet Edition

Give priority to coal utilisation

THE new government to take over shortly must lose no time in improving the country's energy supply. This is a desperate need, indeed, to meet the economy's present and growing needs. And to this end, it must start work decisively for utilising the vast but unutilised coal resources. Coal can be a very useful and effective source of energy to ensure energy security. But to utilise the country's coal reserves a bold decision and its immediate implementation are necessary. Bangladesh has huge coal reserves. But the country is yet to tap the potentials.

The government should be open, free from political considerations and come out of conservative approaches. Appropriate decisions should be taken without fear or favour and adequate measures should follow for their quick implementation. Bangladesh is already lagging behind other countries in utilising coal resources. The global practice is that around 70-80 per cent of coal is used in power plants in the coal-rich countries like USA, China, Germany and Australia. Despite having huge potentials Bangladesh has only one 250 MW coal-fired power plant, which is also struggling for shortages of coal due to application of wrong mining methods in the Barapukuria coalmine.

The gas reserves of the country are depleting fast as demand grows and there is no alternative but to extract and use the coal resources. The preferred option for Bangladesh would be to use coal for base load power generation and earmark gas resource for other productive uses. As Bangladesh has no expertise in coalmining, one or two coalmines should be developed with foreign assistance under contracts. The remaining coalmines should be kept for local companies to develop. Arrangements should also be there to develop local expertise by working with foreign companies.

Electronic cash registers

THE introduction of electronic cash registers (ECR) at retail shops and service centres, would benefit sellers and buyers as well as the government. The National Board of Revenue (NBR) has started enforcing compulsory use of electronic cash registers at big and medium- sized shops in the six city corporations from the fist day of the New Year. Some 3,000 business establishments are being covered. According to reports, ECRs would be at the district level from August.

This modern cash registers would replace traditional system of manual cash dealing. ECRs would store transaction records at least for four years. It is intended to strengthen collection of value added tax as a major source of revenue earning. The NBR hopes that it would improve the level of efficiency in VAT collection. ECRs would also make cash handling at business organisations easier and quicker, discouraging pilferage and develop taxpaying habits. It is also likely to create a business-friendly confidence among buyers, sellers and the government.

The shop owners association does not seem to be much enthusiastic about the idea. According to an office-bearer of the association, it would not be easy for retailers to use such a sophisticated technology in busy hours of transactions. However, to make the introduction of the system smooth, ECRs should be made available at affordable prices. It is believed that technical feasibility of the system has been studied. Precaution should be taken against tampering with the machines and manipulation of records. It should be handled in a way that does not reduce or retard VAT collection instead of enhancing it. In the absence of precautionary measures the system may end in a failure.

World must stop the killing of Palestinians

Maswood Alam Khan

Aristotle opined that a tragedy should evoke pity and fear. We also used to believe that only a barbarian remains untouched by the sufferings of the innocent. But it now seems digital hearts of modern people are too smart to be melted on hearing the groans of children being burnt to death. Dead body diplomacy and killing humans in digital fashions is nowadays a great vogue to win in global political warfare.

The whole world has decided not to be stroked and moved by what is happening in the Gaza Strip. Deaths of hundreds of Palestinians in Israel's deadly air assaults, mutilated bodies of the wounded, the sights the dead children, and flames spewing from buildings are indeed very prized scenes the photo journalists eagerly await to digitally shoot and feed back to their print and electronic media headquarters. Hamas militants too are perhaps relishing deaths of their children because one death is a powerful enticer to invite at least one hundred lives to the kiss of death.

Human shield is nowadays as great a safeguard for clandestine snipers as ruthless attack by the smart and digitalized bombers is as great a fun for global superpowers. Human cries will never stop this war because such cries are irrelevant in the human ears of snipers and the digitalized ears of superpowers.

Those holding some gun-power, Israelis or Hamas, have no interest in peace, and no enthusiasm in victory. The constant inconclusive bleeding in Gaza is actually benefiting the owners of mills and ordnance factories producing arms and ammunitions and is resultantly bereaving families both in refugee camps in Gaza strip and homes in border towns in Israel. The more blood spills on the streets of Israel and Gaza, the more the hardliners of both sides are getting vindicated and strengthened.

In the last seven days one soldier and three civilians have been killed in southern Israel in rocket attacks from Hamas. And in Gaza more than four hundred Palestinians have been killed in the Israeli bombardments. Along with nine of his family members Mr. Nizar Rayyan, the most senior Hamas political figure, a civilian, has also been killed inside his home in the Jabaliya refugee camp in the north of the Gaza Strip, not in any battlefield. The UN says at least 25% of the 402 Palestinians killed were civilians; Palestinian medical officials say more than 2,000 people have been fatally injured.

"The blood of Sheikh Nizar Rayyan and the blood of other martyrs will never be wasted and the enemy will pay a heavy price for the crimes it has committed," one Hamas official has recently declared.

The ratio of Israeli and Palestinian deaths that now stands at 4:400 in the weeklong war since last Saturday between gargantuan Israel and diminutive Hamas seems not glaring enough for Israel to stop dispatching their sorties or for Hamas to stop catapulting their rockets!

Any failure to muffle the Palestinians up in a blanket of air bombardments would in fact bring a personal tragedy to Mr. Ehud Barak, the Israeli defense minister, who is now orchestrating the barrage of bombs on the Gaza Strip. As chairman of the Labor Party, Mr. Barak is running for prime minister in the February election and polls show him to be a distant third to the Likud leader, Mr. Benjamin Netanyahu, and the Kadami leader, Ms. Tzipi Livini, the Israeli foreign minister.

Israelis badly need a leader like Barak to be their prime minister and Barak needs a place on the top position among the three election contestants, a job which is possible only if droning sounds of propelling rockets on the Israeli border habitats and groaning sounds of dying children in the Gaza Strip can be silenced once for all---a job of detonating bombs not really tough for the Israeli defense minister! Winning political victory for Barak in Israel, to the world view, is apparently more sought after than ensuring emancipation for Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

Provocation by Hamas has purportedly worn thin Israel's patience. So, Israelis have decided to stop, by means of a lethal aerial retaliation, rains of rockets being propelled on their border towns and villages. Accordingly, Israel has drawn up a strategy of bombarding the camps, tents, government offices, courts of justice, and mosques in the Gaza Strip till the last rocket propeller drops dead, no matter even if all the Palestinian refugees packed like sardines have to die as collateral deaths!

With such torrential bombings, war-vindicating pundits of the Occident probably believe, all will have to be quiet on both sides of the border like the eerie silence that prevailed after detonation of a little bomb in Hiroshima on August 8, 1945! Like killing mosquitoes by aerosol, killing refugees in the Gaza Strip by aerial attacks, Israelis probably surmise, should not raise an alarm in the global community if only the pogrom in return brings a lasting peace in the region.

Israeli officials have said they will work with Israel's allies to build a long-term truce, and would also seek to expedite and increase humanitarian aid to Gaza alongside the military offensive, which one senior military official described as "making Hamas lose their will or lose their weapons."

"Wounding one by beating with shoes and then immediately offering him balm to heal the wound" is a maxim we Bangladeshis popularly quote when someone immediately after insulting or assaulting one begs his or her pardon---a maxim which is now appropriate to describe the latest Israeli fashion of pursuing diplomacy, pressing attacks, and supplying medical and food aid to the victims, all being carried out simultaneously.

Commentators and analysts all over the world are saying that Israel had till the latest attack on Gaza Strip shown enough patience by not killing Arabs who time to time launched rockets across the border.

But no analyst ever pointed out that it is Israelis who in the first place displaced the Arabs and stole their lands where they had lived for centuries! The Palestinians were expelled from their own lands and then they were confined to live according to Israeli rule in the territories Israel as a master earmarked for them as slaves.

If the world views Israelis as inhabitants of Brobdingnag and Palestinians as inhabitants of Lilliput (like the imaginary people we read about in Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travel) it is sheer wastage of time to keep propping up both sides in intractable conflict, to keep clashing again and again and to keep vexing TV viewers like us with the same and monotonous scenes of the wounded and the dead Palestinian children.

Israel wants to see Palestinians just sitting with their arms crossed and waiting for things to be changed as Israel deems fit. Now that they are pelting stones and rockets at the Israelis the best thing, I believe, is for the United States to help the whole lot of Brobdingnagians crush the whole bunch of Lilliputians in one stroke so that the losing side is completely cleared out and the conflict ends for good.

After such a quick and stunning annihilation of the Palestinians there may be some uproar in the immediate aftermath for a few days or weeks. But there will certainly be tranquility in the vicinity of Brobdingnag with no Lilliputians, like mosquitoes, nagging around. There is no point in keeping both sides frozen and locked into perpetual conflict when a decisive victory by one side will end the stalemate and force the losers to be evaporated into smoke.

If, otherwise, the world views both Israelis and Palestinians as truly humans, not earthlings of the lands of the Lilliput or the Brobdingnag, it is time for the United States to urge Israelis to get off their high horses. It is time when all the superpowers should condemn Israeli state terrorism. It is time when Hamas should also realize that their rockets procured through underground smuggling tunnels are less powerful than the digitally operated Israeli smart bombers bought from the Occident.

Browbeating will not serve any purpose

Nasim Zehra

India's post-Mumbai concerns are genuine as is its need to fully investigate the facts that wreaked havoc in its business commercial city.

It would also be legitimate for the government of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to seek Pakistan's cooperation in tracking down if there is any involvement from across the border. Meanwhile, Pakistan as a neighbour, one presently gripped within with terrorism itself, should feel obliged to help Delhi. And for such cooperation an anti-terrorism mechanism already exists between both the countries.

But all these facts notwithstanding three weeks into the Mumbai tragedy, confrontation looms large in the region. While Pakistan has committed flip-flops on issues like sending the ISI chief to Delhi, violation of its airspace and Masood Azhar's whereabouts, it has remained consistent with its offer to help Delhi to deal with the rising threat of terrorism. Complying with the UNSC Anti-Terrorism Committee's resolution, Pakistan has, however, banned Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD), sealed its office and arrested some of its leaders.

New Delhi has opted to reject the bilateral track for resolving the Mumbai tragedy. Instead, it has made unilateral public demands. The demands are: Pakistan should hand over the 40 men on its terrorist list; and Pakistan should dismantle terrorist infrastructure and destroy the terrorist training camps.

These demands have been consistently backed by a threat of force and diplomatic pressure from the United States and Britain. Meanwhile, China has taken the position that the final outcome of the Indian investigation is still awaited, and it would be useless to jump the gun. Beijing maintains that any finger pointing is, therefore, premature and has recommended a joint Pakistan-India investigation into the terror attacks.

However, Britain and US have supported the Indian position. It has led to the banning of JuD by Pakistan, a successor organisation of Laskhar-e-Tayaba. British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has asked that UK's intelligence agencies be allowed to interrogate Pakistani "suspects" involved in terrorism. The threat of use of force is continuously being upgraded with private Intelligence outfits declaring that an Indian surgical strike is imminent.

Whatever the Delhi's policy-making community may contemplate or advocate as the next step India would take in dealing with Pakistan, one thing is for sure it can't be the option of use of force. Given Pakistan's guaranteed military response to an Indian strike, it has a high risk of escalating into an all-out war. The past military confrontations between the countries confirm this fact. Kargil remained contained since it was not a direct military engagement. Also Pakistan's flawed military strategy and the international community's pressure forced the withdrawal of Pakistani forces from the Kargil heights.

Pakistan's response to Indian government's demand list has been rather uncomplicated. Delhi has neither handed any evidence to Pakistan nor to the Interpol authorities. Instead, Indian officials have held meetings with the US Director of National Intelligence and shared 'evidence' with him.

Meanwhile, the only document handed over to Pakistan has been Ajmal Kasab's letter, which he has written in Indian custody.

Reportedly, it reads like a confession document and he has asked for Pakistan's legal help in fighting his case.

While Pakistan remains bogged down with terrorism at home, it is unlikely that it can make any substantive move on Delhi's demands. Without any credible and concrete evidence Pakistan must not take action against its citizens. India bases its premise on the fact that Pakistan used to hand over its nationals to the US without following any legal procedure.

A more strident position is that of the BJP, which says it regrets having trusted Pakistan and the peace process it initiated in 2004.

Delhi's headstrong attitude is unwise. India mistakenly believes that it could take the US post-9/11 route for dealing with the problem of terrorism: a brow beating approach, with the threat of use of force. Delhi must understand that Pakistan and its people want peace. However, Pakistan will fight terrorism within the parameters of international and national law. The post-2007 Pakistan, with a strong commitment to the rule of law and citizens' rights, will play by the rules. Delhi needs to go beyond 'browbeating.'

India needs to adopt a more constructive attitude in dealing with the post-Mumbai crisis. There is no international 'browbeating' route that will yield any results for India. Pakistan must be engaged on the bilateral track.

If Delhi persists in taking the international route at the cost of bilateralism, Pakistan-India relations will be badly hit. If such an unwise approach is prompted largely by political expediency, given 2009 is an election year for India, whether the Congress will get any additional votes is still unclear. What it will certainly not get is security and stability, which is desperately needed.

Opinion: Election 2008: An observation

Dr. M. Saidul Islam

The result of the just concluded general election is a puzzle for both the winners and losers. The unprecedented victory of 14-party alliance came through a humiliating defeat of the 4-party alliance. Despite Begum Khaleda Zia's complain of election engineering, this poll with about 80% turnout has widely been accepted as free and fair, and will remain as a model not only for Bangladesh but also for many nations of the world. People with new voter ID exercised their power.

The questions are: Why did people make this history? Why did 4-party alliance suddenly fall from "sublime to ridiculous"? Why and how did 14-party alliance get such a massive victory, which was even beyond their imagination? The simple answer is: it's a reflection of people's power.

Critical analysis shows that people did not vote for the 14-party alliance; they voted against massive corruptions and mismanagement of the BNP-led government. People were suffocated with sky-high price for daily necessities, massive corruptions, and various unaccepted mismanagements. The grievance against 4-party alliance mounted and finally reached to its extreme verge. Poverty-ridden farmers failed to get fertilizers even though they were ready to pay the high price. BNP cadres in this critical juncture took opportunities to become rich. Poor farmers were not only deprived, but also cheated and humiliated. Crisis of electricity added another fuel to their grievance. BNP-led alliance grossly failed to address these basis problems of people. People were thus waiting for a moment to punish the 4-party alliance.

The right moment was grabbed by the Awami League-led alliance. Shaikh Hasina promised to the nation that she would reduce the price of rice to 10 taka per KG, manage to provide free fertilizers to the farmers, and provide at least one employment in every family. One might have serious doubt whether these promises can actually be met in a country like Bangladesh; but he/she cannot dispute that these promises captured the imagination of millions of people. Therefore, this election was less about the fight for idealism (secularism vs. nationalism) but more about the question of survival, basic necessities, and punishing the corrupted folks.

Despite having many notable achievements of the BNP-led government, they failed to focus on those due to the massive crackdown by the CTG. During the time of election, BNP as a party was massively disorganized and was not ready at all to face the election. Most of its leaders were in jail, and the onus of campaign was largely shouldered by Begum Khaleda Zia herself. She tried her best, but the overall climate was not in her favour. The news of her two sons' massive corruptions just few days before the election posed another massive blow in her campaign. The 14-party alliance got another momentum, and with the help of media they used it massively and perfectly.

For BNP and its alliance, the time has come to do self-assessment as to why this powerful alliance is what it is today. One key lesson is that people won't forgive if any alliance bluffs with them. The 14-party alliance should be proud of its achievement, but should not be arrogant. The greatest challenge it to meet the promises it made; and if it fails, it has to embrace the same doom as 4-party alliance has embrace today. Because, people has power.

( The author is a Visiting Assistant Professor (Sociology) in The College of William and Mary (University), Virginia, USA.)