Letters

Stopping global warming
Global warming is one of the biggest problems the world is facing today. The solution is only planting trees. Bangladesh can still solve the problem by planting as many trees as are cut down. Unfortunately many houses which were surrounded with trees once have been pulled down and apartments built there instead. Bangladesh has a severe shortage of land. The government should formulate a law that every building should have small plants in their surroundings. A similar law exists in Japan and the people of Japan are very much conscious about their country and their environment. Even if the government does not impose this law at least the people who can afford it should have gardens in their surroundings. This will reduce the temperature, making the place cooler and relaxing. This will reduce the green house effect and so floods and other disasters will decrease.
Mahbubur Rahman
Student of European Standard School
Dhaka

GPA-based Admission
The government always seems to come up with such changes in the education system which degrades our standard of education. The plan of introducing a GPA-based admission system into the university is one of them. The present standard of HSC and SSC exam questionnaire is quite inadequate for assessing talent. Cramming is enough to get good results. This kind of exam cannot find the real meritorious. When I teach students, I see the tendency to cram. The government should discontinue the GPA-based admission system.
Niazul Islam Khan
By email

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Shameless Politics
The top leaders of the two big political parties are now demanding release of those convicted/charge-sheeted for various heinous crimes/corruption so as to facilitate their taking part in the upcoming general election and getting elected in any possible may. At the same time they are yelling that they will establish true democracy and have a clean government. I wonder why they do not feel even the slightest pinch in their conscience at such blatant display of hypocrisy. We are very vocal about to condemning such corrupt behaviour. On the other hand what exactly are our 'progressive' brothers doing? They do not bother to call a spade a spade; but they wail for the removed sculpture as though the sculpture itself would solve all our problems. What a pity and shame!
M.S. Ali
Uttara, Dhaka

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Free Thinkers don't Support Fundamentalism
A song 'Khachar Bhitor Ochin Pakhi' (An unknown bird in a cage) comes often in our minds and touches our hearts, as we remember our great baul (folk singer) Lalon Shah. For a long time he has been remembered by the people of free thinking Bangladesh. But a few days ago a small number of fanatics made a conspiracy to remove the sculptures of the bauls from the airport intersection roundabout, the work of which was almost complete. It was an unacceptable expression of a group of narrow-minded people. This group has been hindering the development process of our nation since the start of our independence where our so-called caretaker government is also serving their needs willingly and unwillingly as whatever is demanded. Being a responsible citizen and a student of our country, I firmly protest against the confused behaviour of the caretaker government. Now, this government should punish those fundamentalists for being aggressive against our culture and reinstall the sculptures where they were before.
Johny I Costa
Motijheel, Dhaka

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ICL
In response to the letter 'Unexpected shock' (17 October 2008) I just want to say that it is a misconception about the players who were named for the ICL. It will be wrong if they are said to be traitors. They never said they wouldn't play for the country. So why did BCB create this barrier for them? Even the chief authority of the ICC never said that the ICL is illegal although it is true that the ICC has not given it approval either. And it was the respective cricket boards who have to decide whether or not their cricketers will be able to play for ICL. So my question is what would be wrong if Bangladesh cricket board allowed them to play for the ICL? If BCB allowed them then both Bangladesh cricket and the cricketers will be benefited.
Md. Rakibul Islam
SM Hall
Dhaka University

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On 'Ambiguous Spellings'
I totally agree with the author of 'Ambiguous Spellings' (17 October 2008) in the Star Diary section. It is quite a familiar sight to have signboards with wrong spellings throughout our country and nobody really bothers about that! Even the owners of the organisations do not bother about that.

A few days earlier I saw a nameplate of a salon, which stated 'Freshwash' instead of 'Facewash'. Though it was a very small salon which does not attract that many people but when comparatively bigger institutions make such mistakes it really hurts and it projects where our actual literacy and consciousness level is! I want to thank the author for her piece.
Mazed Bin Md. Yusuf Bhuiyan
Dept. of Business Administration
East West University

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Corrigendum
In last week's obituary on the head of the Mong, Raja Paihala Prue Chowdhury, 'An Honest Life Lost' (November 7, 2008) we inadvertently dropped the name of the author of the article, Jasim Majumder. We regret the error.

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