MAILBOX
Celebrating Chobi Mela
I felt so proud to know that Bangladesh organises Asia's first and the largest photography festival every year. The ninth edition of this festival called Chobi Mela was launched on February 3, 2017. This year, artists from sixteen countries have come to Bangladesh to exhibit their artistic creations. It is a great platform for Bangladeshi photographers which gives them the opportunity to present their works on an international platform. The talks and the panel discussions arranged in Chobi Mela are also a great occasion for us to learn from the world renowned photographers. I really appreciate that Star Weekend has covered this incredible initiative like it did in the previous years.
Sabina Khan
Dhanmondi, Dhaka
Bangladesh's Vegetable Revolution
Bangladesh experienced a boom in vegetable production in the last couple of years. The centre of this massive production boom is mostly around Dhaka and Chittagong districts. We the city dwellers in Dhaka and Chittagong are getting opportunity to have different kinds of vegetables in our meals regularly irrespective of seasons. In northern districts also mentionable quantity of vegetable are produced. Even a decade ago, many of us had to curb vegetable from our daily meal due to its excessive price and scarcity during summer and rainy season. However even in these years of production boom, in some districts farmers are not interested to grow food crops or vegetables. For example; farmers of Rangpur district are still cultivating tobacco in massive scale to make more profit. On the other hand, there are some districts in Bangladesh where vegetable farming is not popular at all. Habiganj is one such district. There is no sign of vegetable farming in this huge, fertile district. Bangladesh Agriculture Development Corporation and Department of Agriculture Extension should work in these areas to deter farmers from cultivating harmful crops and encourage them to grow food crops and vegetables which can improve Bangladesh's nutrition profile significantly.
Md Ashraf Hossain
Khilgaon, Dhaka
History Teaches us Nothing
The article titled "History teaches us nothing" was a well written article that appeared in week's Star Weekend (January 27, 2017). The writer deserves cordial thanks for highlighting the world's holocaust and historical facts on how human-being has been tortured and murdered by fellow human-beings on different pretexts. The most prominent means of torturing and murdering people is to wage war either to grab countries or simply to exert a nation's might and power. And since the beginning of the civilisation, these painful incidents have been happening frequently and this is why this wise saying "History repeats itself" has been developed. It is often said to take lessons from the history, but instead of learning anything from these tragic events, human beings, nowadays, are more engaged in death and destruction. I wonder the phrase- 'History repeats itself and people should take lessons from it'; needs to be reconsidered and rephrased as 'Don't look back at history as the world will keep on making new histories and people need not to learn lesson'. It is evident from the present world scenario; that the leaders and people are not learning anything.
Mashudul Haque
Central Road, Dhaka
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