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              Volume 10 |Issue 38 | October 07, 2011 |


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Letters

Vandalising- Crime?

“It is hard to find logic, behind this kind of destructive behavior for every little thing - because they plan to stop funding public universities..." this was taken from the Postscript "We don't need no Education." It is hard to find logic behind destructive behavior. But was the reason really a silly little thing? A public university is going private with 23000 students studying in it and as we all know many of the students of public universities need financial aid. No doubt vandalising cars is a crime. But should we just blame the criminals or should we not also try to find the reason behind the violence? We, the students of Jahangirnagar University are running out of time and still the Govt. hasn't fulfilled our demands. How can anyone expect us to be calm and be on our best behavior? It is a do or die situation for us. Does that mean vandalising cars is not a crime? No it doesn't and we all are really ashamed and extremely sorry. What we want and desperately need is for the government to fulfill all our demands and for the media to be easy on us.

Nabiha Binte Manjur
Jahangirnagar University
Dhaka


Hartals and Economy

Hartals are damaging to the economy of a country and in an economy like ours, hartals play very detrimental roles. A running economy is slowed down because of hartals. Production and trade of goods are hampered. Export orders get cancelled. Many foreign investors are discouraged from investing in Bangladesh because of hartals. We need Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) to create more employment. But hartals are hindering this. We don't want hartals. Our political leaders should pursue alternative programmes so that trade activities are not hampered.

S M Shamim-Ur-Rashid Tushar
SUST, Sylhet


Didi Dams bursts on Delhi

Kolkata's The Telgraph of September 5, 2011 printed an interesting Map under the headline “Didi Dam bursts on Delhi”.

The Teesta rises in the Dzongu Glacier in Sikkim and flows for 315 kilometres. India is building the Rambhi Dam near Kalimpong, and the Kalijhora dam a few kilometres downstream. In Jalpaiguri, the Gajoldoba Barrage is already in operation conserving the Teesta Waters to feed the Teesta Canal that presently irrigates 60,000 hectares but will eventually irrigate 9.22 lakhs hectares. No shortage of water here! The diverted Teesta Canal contains so much water that a hydel project is in operation at the Phansidewa Dam near Siliguri where it takes a sharp turn southwards into West Bengal, within striking distance of Tetulia in Bangladesh.

The questions arise: what quantity of water is 30 percent we get now, vis-à-vis 50 percent that we expected. After feeding four dams and a huge irrigation canal in India, what amount of water trickles down the Teesta into Bangladesh? Do our water experts know how much is 50 percent of 0? Why is there no mention of Feni River?

Also bear in mind, that all Himalayan glaciers are melting fast. How long will the small Dzongu last?

Sikander Ahmed
Niketon, Gulshan-1,
Dhaka


A volatile habitation

I am deeply touched by the monologue titled “When Life Pulls You Down” published in the last issue of The Star (30 September 2011) where a grieving mother revealed fear and uncertainty about her autistic child thinking of the hostile human conduct. The writer, an associate professor, department of English, University of Chittagong, is one of my reverent teachers. I know her as I am a student of the same department, and I attended some of her classes. Apart from thinking of her as a teacher the article lead me to think of her as a mother showing again that how much compassion she holds for her child. There was a question which seeks the answer to the mystery of humanity. Aren't we living in a savage society where a mother's grief grows higher to save her beloved child from a hostile clan of people?

We are badly in need of a safer and more liberal earth. I would like to request the concerned people as well as the government so that they can give effective assistance to create a friendly social structure for the autistic child by making it a concern among the common people.

Mahmudul Hasan Hemal
Department of English
University of Chittagong


Are We Ready?

The article on earthquake published on the September 30, 2011 was helpful but boring. The writer appeared to take polls about the awareness on the issue and kept on talking on the subject for two long pages. I had to fight my patience to reach the point where the article finally talked about what should be done during an earthquake rather than what we do wrong. The point is earthquake is not a very frequent natural disaster that occurs in our country so it is only normal that we do not know what should be done during such hours. However, the article does not say whose responsibility it is to inform us about the dos and donts during an earthquake. As readers, we expect better from a prestigious English magazine as The Star.

Papiya Chowdhury
Dhaka


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