The week in re(ar)view

Save the environment with gas guzzling SUVs
The Saarc car rally went through the country amid much hoopla. The caravan of 30 decorated Tata Safari cars will travelled 1,300-km inside Bangladesh before entering India on March 18.

Two cars from each member state have joined the historic event.
Environment Department, Forest Department, district administration and other organisations staged a colorful programme at Manik Mia Avenue in occasion of this event. Students rendered songs and dance performance, highlighting the country's environment conservation activities in front of the car rally. We say that's the spirit. Rallying with a convoy of fuel inefficient SUVs shows how tough our environment is that it can withstand such onslaught.

Mobile furti to be les furtiful
The government is getting greedy again. They formed a five-member committee because they don't like the 5.5 percent take on revenues that they get from mobile phone service operators. They now want 15 percent. What's with the magic in the number '5'?

The committee will also review performances of the mobile phone operators with a view to helping them increase job opportunities for citizens. That sounds like another person invading a country to search for weapons of mad destruction while actually looking for oil.

Sources said the overall government earnings from mobile phone operators could reach Tk 10,000 crore a year if the revenue sharing is increased to 15 percent. We all know who the mobile phone operators earn money from. Yep! It's the extinct baboons from south Zambia.

Indoor politics back in the outdoors
Politicians are probably commiting suicide out of boredom from sitting at home. Unfortunately the rate isn't as high as expected. Some tried writing but the strain of not straining their vocal cords or morality was too taxing. So the ban on indoor politics may be lifted within three months.

6,000 acres of land up for grabs again
The caretaker government recovered over 6,000 acres of land from grabbers in January this year alone whereas the drive initiated in January 2005 recovered around another 6,000 acres in the following two years. At this rate the entire world could be reclaimed in about 13 years, 2 months and 5 hours from reading this article.

Around 20 lakh acres of land are still in the possession of encroachers because of negligence of the previous BNP-led coalition government. Or is that because of the diligence to actually hand out such 'khaas' land?

According to some studies total grabbed land is about 30 lakh acres.

Say cheese to vote
Now the government has new plans for voters. Gone are the stillborn voter identity cards in favour of a voter list with photographs to avoid delaying a long-awaited national election. Our question is why not wait for holographic imagery to be developed. Or better yet we can clone a short lived version of ourselves that voter list updating officials can take along with them. These clones can then vote and immediately vaporise.

But critics warned that the length of time needed to produce the cards could see the country without a democratically elected government for a long time. Apparently only the voter ID is stopping this country from becoming a democratic nation.

By Gokhra and Mood Dude

With the present question about who would become the next Prime Minister and the excitement surrounded it, I decided to ask the general people what they would do if they became the prime minister. Thus, this way I have compiled helpful information for aspiring Prime Ministers and by reading this they can know exactly what the people want.

Question: - What would you do if you became the prime minister of our country.
“I would make some undisclosed changes. Its confidential, please don't bother me further”
Raju Makhon, 23, Out of touch with reality.

“Please for the last time I am not interested. I don't care if the position is available and I don't care which party you are from!”
Chila Hens, 18, jumps to conclusions.

“I would buy many flats, have numerous accounts and bully older people.”
Marek Tia, 25, Mama's Little Boy

“I would legalize everything that I can possibly legalize as long as it means less work for me. I am very liberal.”
Kala Maruf, 43, Judge.

“I am a man! A male by birth! How can I take up that position?”
Gaza Khuza, 15, keeper of dumb conclusion.

“I would break all the malls and shops and make sure the hawkers are well guarded.”
Jakir Malik, Evicted Hawker

“You fool! I am the President! You are making fun of me because the light at the end of the tunnel was extinguished before I reached it? It was a conspiracy I tell you!”
Anonymous, classified, any guesses on profession?
“No comments please, my hair watch the hair!”
Tiahsan, 28, self-obsessed celebrity.

This concludes this weeks What Would You Do If… and I'll be back soon with another question and have genuine people answer them, like all these genuine people asked today. Send your opinions [email protected]

By Osama Rahman

Location: - the scene of a car accident
What to take: - Yourself

What to do once you're there: - Look around, see what the other people are doing. If you're lucky, the car accident won't be that serious so you don't have to pay attention all the time. Instead you can just tune in when the drivers of the two (or more) crashed vehicles start arguing and pointing the finger of blame at each other. If you get bored, you can always start chatting with your fellow passerby about whose fault you think it is, (ah, the Bengali trait of believing you know everything) and eight times out of ten, he'll disagree with some of the finer points of your argument. Then you can move on to relating anecdotes of how that sort of accident nearly happened to you or how you know someone it had happened to or the number of times you had the fortune to witness accidents like this in the past month.

Pros: - The best part of addafying around the scene of an accident is that you get to meet that certain class of people who just don't seem to have anything else to do but congregate around a scene and lend their 'useful' opinion. You can swap stories with them, stories where you are the main protagonist and then listen to others' narratives as well. Meanwhile if you think that the feud between the two drivers is cooling down, you can always fire it up a bit by going near the car that has been hit more badly and remarking what a good job the other guy has done in smashing your car and how the driver of this respective car should have been more careful. And then starts the defense/blame game again.

Cons: - Just be careful that you don't start interfering when the police arrive (if they do). The police would be the last people on earth in need of our opinion on whose fault it was and your nose could get snipped off for poking it where you are not needed.

Other than that, enjoy the charged atmosphere around you! If the police arrive, then it is likely you will get to see more quarrels about who should be fined. It'll all end by a policeman telling everyone to shut up while he makes up his mind as to who was at fault. Hey, maybe you can even make bets with the people around you about who is going to have to suffer for the accident once the authorities arrive. Not a bad way to make some fast cash.

By Nisma Elias

1. Every rich person in India lives in large Mansions with duplex interior lavishly decorated.

2. All the poor people live in lavish apartments with professionally designed tasteful interior for only 5 episodes, after that they start living in mansions like the rich.

3. The Bare (big) Bhabi is the most important person in the family as she can do everything from cooking to fighting crime.

4. All the Indian woman at all times wear saris and expensive jewellery which they change on a daily basis.

5. The Chhota (younger) Bhabi or the in laws in every Indian family are bent down on destroying the family in which they belong.

6. It is really cheap to do a plastic surgery in India that will change your entire appearance. Plus, plastic surgery of your face also changes your height, weight and voice.

7. The Ba (the oldest Grand Mother) will outlive the healthiest member of the family.

8. Almost all woman in Serial family have married at least thrice, as opposed to the men, who find it difficult to marry once even.

By Monty Python

One of the things young people of our nation think about the most is how they are going to build their futures, and many have a huge variety of plans for further studies.

This week, we asked them to give us their opinions on whether “it is better for students of our country to study in Bangladesh, or abroad?” And this is their response:

"Students should definitely go abroad to study, but they must not settle there. Instead, after their graduation, they should come back home, and use their knowledge and talent for the betterment of the country." Turjo.

“They should study in Bangladesh. If they go abroad it will be an enormous loss to the nation because they will be depriving the country of their valuable services.” Mahir.

“Students should go abroad because in Bangladesh the education system is not proper. The authorities put too much pressure on students. Being in class 8, I have to study 13 subjects in which passing all of them is important.” Rafid.

“Studying abroad is clearly better because it teaches you to be more responsible, exposes you to worldwide competition and enables you to communicate with a lot of people. Plus, it's more like an adventure.” Ariq.

“It depends on what and in which university the students want to study. If the facilities are available in Bangladesh, what is the need to fly the coop?” Ibtisam.

“The students shouldn't study abroad because it's not right to leave our country and serve one that does not require us. As for the quality of education that decreases BECAUSE of the brain drain. So if we stay behind that we CAN make a difference!” Tawhid.

“Definitely abroad. Do you see the international universities changing their syllabus every year? Abroad you learn nothing from books; you learn from practical examples. You get to meet people from different cultures too.” Tahmid.

“Frankly, where you study isn't really a big factor. At the end of the day, what matters is what you have got inside your head.” Nilufer

By Iftikhar Azam
With BIG thanks to Shehtaz, Anika, Nayeema, Faria, and Alvi

Dear readers,
In our special supplement on The Daily Star Awards for the Nation Builders of Tomorrow, published on March 12, there was an error on page 12, where the same profile (that of Imran Hasan) was printed twice. Actually there are two different people with the same name.

Imran Hasan Siddiqui, a student of Maple Leaf school, was not mentioned in the supplement.
We deeply regret the inconvenience caused.

RS Desk