Biz Letters
Mobile abuse among youngsters
Nowadays people cannot think without mobile communications even a moment. Mobile companies (multinational) are booming their business in Bangladesh.
Updated mobile technologies come one after another. But mobile companies have been adopting some detrimental business strategies to attract youngsters. Mobile phone, a wireless ultra modern technology, has brought about a radical change in our information and communication systems in Bangladesh.
A person can enjoy internet, audio, video, MP3 player, clock, games, light directions memory, recording, video, picture and so many multipurpose systems in a mobile phone.
But it is a matter of great regret that millions of youngsters are attracted in several misuses of mobile phone. They are killing their valuable times ignoring classes of school, colleges or home work by listening MP3 at a high volume in a body besides roads, beneath the trees, in shopping malls, or elsewhere.
The numbers are increasing day by day. Frequently, mobile companies appear with new dimensional facilities, which are lucrative for the teens. Our guardians, more or less, are not aware of their use of mobile phone. Even a section of school or college-going students has become addicted in pornography gaming through mobile phone. In the video mobile, they collect various nude pictures and sometimes they never hesitate to send to another video mobile. Such notorious and unethical activities go unabated to the guardians' much worries.
Meanwhile, the usage of MP3 players in mobile phone has become another concern. In the society, children and teenagers should be protected from high sound level. Because the usage of MP3 players at a high volume for a period of more than 5 hours a week can lead to permanent hearing loss for them. So, this alarming trend of cell phone abuse should be prevented. Guardians, teachers, law enforcing agencies and mobile companies should come forward to create awareness about the good and bad sides of using mobile phone. We hope that the latest cell phone service will bring the blessing, not curse.
M Z Haider, Narsingdi
Renewable energy policy
Renewable energy industry is maturing fast in Thailand, Vietnam and Myanmar with the active help of their respective governments. Such support ranges from consultancy to loans through its financial institution partners.
In those neighbouring countries private companies are investing heavily to set up renewable power plants in collaboration with leading foreign companies like Austria-based GE Jenbacher GmbH, Denmark-based Scan Airclean and Advance Energy Plus.
Bangladesh's caretaker government should announce the renewable energy policy very soon to reduce our huge power generation deficit to some extent.
Tawfik Sattar, Dhaka
We need a new economic order
When the former Soviet Union broke down after 1990, many thought that this would surely be the end of communism and the people would see a communist-free world.
The strong believers of capitalism thought that it is their turn to make sure the entire world believe in the ideology of capitalism. Now what a turnaround we are witnessing!
The financial meltdown in the US and Europe has raised a question whether capitalism really is the best solution towards prosperity of any society.
A report showed that some Europeans have started rethinking whether they could overcome this present financial turmoil through capitalism and this is why the people of Eastern Germany, once a communist region, began thinking about the disadvantages they had to bear after they got reunited with their West counterpart in 1989.
A recent survey found 52 percent of eastern Germans believe the free market economy is 'unsuitable' and 43 percent say they want socialism rather than capitalism. This is why people have started reading Karl Marx's book 'Das Kapital'.
The book is in very high demand and is now read by bankers and managers who try to understand what socialism is all about.
As we are witnessing downfall of some big financial institutions from the wealthiest capitalist nations on the planet, we ask today, is capitalism really perfect? Who would have thought that US economy would be in total chaos today? Who would have thought that the financial turmoil would lead up to unemployment and job cuts in the capitalist nations? Who would have really thought that a non-NATO state Russia would bail out a developed country and NATO member Iceland with 4 billion euros ($5.4 billion) shore up its teetering financial system?
Now we can say, are we going to see dominance of communism over capitalism? For all these years, capitalist nations have ruthlessly dominated communist ideologies. Nations with communist ideologies were blocked from all types of financial and commercial aides. For the socialist states like Russia, “It is now the pay-back time!”
The Kremlin thinks that now is the time to buy assets cheaply, using the current financial crisis to emerge as a powerful global economic player. Following the Russian-Georgian war, the West is scared that the Kremlin will use its cash not just for economic purposes, but as an aggressive foreign policy tool as well.
Russian private and state-owned companies have already invested abroad extensively, often buying stakes in large foreign companies. Overall, the top 25 Russian companies hold $59 billion in foreign assets and are the third-largest investors in emerging economies, following Hong Kong and Brazil. Even though the financial crisis has wiped out the Russian stock market, some of the best-run companies have endured a softer blow than their Western counterparts.
The leaders of the free world should come to realise what is best for their economy. The leaders of leading capitalist nations like USA and nations of Western Europe must have thought that no matter how volatile the economy becomes, they would surely survive. The present financial meltdown has proved them wrong.
It is true that the citizens of the world witnessed both forms of socio-economic structure, capitalism and socialism, and in one sense it is true that these economic structures have either failed them miserably or they may have given them success over periods of time but at one certain stage they faltered for sure, which is the case with capitalism right now.
Can't the world think of a better system that stabilises economy and serve definitely not only the purposes of the wealthiest but also those of the people of all classes?
For this, renowned Muslim scholars all around the globe should come up and take advantage of the present global financial crisis to build an economic system compatible with Islamic principles. The world leaders should understand by now that the collapse of the capitalist system based on usury is nothing but a weak economic system. The Western system has collapsed. It is true that Islamic system will not only benefit us economically but it will also benefit us spiritually.
This is the time to re-think!
Minhaj Ahmed, Dhaka
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