বিভাগ/বিষয় নিরপেক্ষ

সুপারিশকৃত লিন্ক: ফেব্রুয়ারি ২০২০

আজকের লিন্ক

মুক্তাঙ্গন-এ উপরোক্ত শিরোনামের নিয়মিত এই সিরিজটিতে থাকছে দেশী বিদেশী পত্রপত্রিকা, ব্লগ ও গবেষণাপত্র থেকে পাঠক সুপারিশকৃত ওয়েবলিন্কের তালিকা। কী ধরণের বিষয়বস্তুর উপর লিন্ক সুপারিশ করা যাবে তার কোনো নির্দিষ্ট নিয়ম, মানদণ্ড বা সময়কাল নেই। পুরো ইন্টারনেট থেকে যা কিছু গুরত্বপূর্ণ, জরুরি, মজার বা আগ্রহোদ্দীপক মনে করবেন পাঠকরা, তা-ই তাঁরা মন্তব্য আকারে উল্লেখ করতে পারেন এখানে।
ধন্যবাদ।

আজকের লিন্ক

এখানে থাকছে দেশী বিদেশী পত্রপত্রিকা, ব্লগ ও গবেষণাপত্র থেকে পাঠক সুপারিশকৃত ওয়েবলিন্কের তালিকা। পুরো ইন্টারনেট থেকে যা কিছু গুরত্বপূর্ণ, জরুরি, মজার বা আগ্রহোদ্দীপক মনে করবেন পাঠকরা, তা-ই সুপারিশ করুন এখানে। ধন্যবাদ।

১০ comments

  1. মাসুদ করিম - ১ ফেব্রুয়ারি ২০২০ (৩:০০ পূর্বাহ্ণ)

    Brexit: UK leaves the European Union

    The UK has officially left the European Union after 47 years of membership – and more than three years after it voted to do so in a referendum.

    The historic moment, which happened at 23:00 GMT, was marked by both celebrations and anti-Brexit protests.

    Candlelit vigils were held in Scotland, which voted to stay in the EU, while Brexiteers partied in London’s Parliament Square.

    Boris Johnson has vowed to bring the country together and “take us forward”.

    Bells and bunting for Brexit, or shedding a tear?
    Seven things Brexit will change and seven it won’t

    In a message released on social media an hour before the UK’s departure, the prime minister said: “For many people this is an astonishing moment of hope, a moment they thought would never come.

    “And there are many of course who feel a sense of anxiety and loss.

    “And then of course there is a third group – perhaps the biggest – who had started to worry that the whole political wrangle would never come to an end.

  2. মাসুদ করিম - ২ ফেব্রুয়ারি ২০২০ (৩:৫৯ অপরাহ্ণ)

    Bring Ambedkar & Gandhi together
    ‘To overcome the massed, malign, forces of Hindutva, we need them on the same side’

    In an interview that he gave last year, the Kannada writer (and activist), Devanur Mahadeva, urged democrats not to view Ambedkar and Gandhi as rivals and adversaries. In the journey towards true equality, he said, they should rather be seen as colleagues and co-workers. Thus, as Mahadeva remarked: “Ambedkar had to awaken the sleeping Dalits and then make the journey. Gandhi had to make the immense effort of uplifting, correcting, changing those who were drowned in Hindu caste religion, in caste wells, to take a step forward. When you see all this, maybe Gandhi would not have traversed far without the presence of Ambedkar. Similarly, I feel that without the liberal tolerant atmosphere created by Gandhi in the wells of Hindu caste religion, then this cruel Savarna society may not have tolerated Ambedkar as much as it did then.”
    Mahadeva continued: “If it is our understanding that it is the Savarnas who need to change if India has to liberate itself from caste, then Gandhi is necessary. In the fight for Dalit civil rights, Ambedkar is absolutely necessary. Hence, I say that both should be brought together.”
    Mahadeva further observed: “Gandhi calls untouchability a ‘sin’. Ambedkar calls it a ‘crime’. Why are we seeing these as opposites? It is wise to understand both of these as necessary.” (Mahadeva’s words have been translated into English by Rashmi Munikempanna).
    I recalled Devanur Mahadeva’s remarks when seeing posters of Ambedkar and Gandhi being displayed together at student protests in Delhi. This was rare, if not unprecedented. For it is much more common to see Gandhi and Ambedkar being celebrated separately. Indeed quite often they are placed in opposition to one another.

    In the past, it was usually admirers of Gandhi who saw these two great Indians in adversarial terms. In the 1930s and 1940s, Ambedkar had often used polemical language to attack Gandhi and his ideas. This outraged Congressmen, who could not countenance any criticism of their beloved Bapu. They responded by characterizing Ambedkar as an apologist for British rule, damned him for serving on the Viceroy’s Executive Council during the Quit India movement of 1942 and so on.
    In recent decades, it has more often been Ambedkarites who have critiqued Gandhi. They have seen his attempts at reforming the caste system as weak-kneed and half-hearted. They have charged him with patronizing their hero (during the Poona Pact and after), and criticized Gandhi‘s political heir, Jawaharlal Nehru, for not using Ambedkar’s talents and abilities adequately in the years that the two served together in the first cabinet of free India.
    In states such as Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra, attacks on Gandhi by Dalit intellectuals have been intense and unrelenting. In Karnataka, however, subaltern writers have taken a broader view. In his superb book, The Flaming Feet, the late D.R. Nagaraj urged us to see the work of Ambedkar and Gandhi as complementary. The work of undermining the caste system and of delegitimizing untouchability required both pressure from Dalits themselves — which Ambedkar provided — and from upper-caste reformers — which is what Gandhi represented. Nagaraj was a friend of Devanur Mahadeva’s, and the two must surely have exercised a reciprocal influence on one another.
    Whether or not they know of their work, the students of Jamia and the women of Shaheen Bagh substantiate the large-hearted analysis of Nagaraj and Devanur Mahadeva. Like those two thinkers of Karnataka, these brave protesters of Delhi admirably urge us not to posit Ambedkar and Gandhi as rivals. Rather, they urge us to view them instead as colleagues, whose legacies need to be brought together in the struggle for democracy and pluralism.
    After a recent visit to Shaheen Bagh, the Delhi-based writer, Omair Ahmad, noted, in a long and most interesting Twitter thread, that among the reasons that there were more posters of Ambedkar than Gandhi on display was that, as he put it, “people have moved from thanking a leader for winning freedom, to thanking a leader who gave them tools to assert their own rights as free citizens”.
    On reading this, I wrote to Omair Ahmad saying: “I agree (and retweeted) but with one caveat, that when it came to the promotion of Hindu-Muslim harmony, no Indian (not even Nehru) matched Gandhi. But that is a point of detail. More broadly, it is wonderful to see Ambedkar and Gandhi invoked together, rather (as we have become accustomed to seeing) than being placed in opposition.”
    To this Ahmad responded: “I very much agree, and deliberately phrased it in that way not only to contrast the contributions, but also to show that they were complementary.”
    Ahmad further observed: “The leaders of that time had their differences (and failings), and it’s okay for people to choose which appeals more to them personally, but this necessity to pull down one in order to praise another doesn’t appeal to me very much.”
    The countrywide protests against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act have been impressive in many ways, not least in the mass participation and leadership role of women. In this respect, too, the invocation of both Ambedkar and Gandhi, together, is apposite. Ambedkar in particular had a thoroughgoing commitment to gender equality, as reflected not just in the Constitution whose drafting he oversaw, but also in the reform of Hindu personal laws that he pursued so vigorously. While in private life — as in the treatment of his wife — Gandhi could be a traditional Indian patriarch, in the public sphere he contributed substantially to the emancipation of women. Thus Gandhi was instrumental in Sarojini Naidu being made president of the Indian National Congress in 1925, at a time when it was not remotely conceivable that a major political party in the supposedly advanced democracies of the West could have a female leader. And among the women activists inspired by Gandhi were such exemplary figures as Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay, Usha Mehta, Mridula Sarabhai, Anis Kidwai, Subhadra Joshi, Aruna Asaf Ali, and Hansa Mehta.
    Ambedkar famously asked oppressed Indians to “educate, organize, and agitate”. The agency and courage which students and women have displayed in the protests against the CAA is entirely in the spirit of Ambedkar’s call. Meanwhile, the defence of democracy and pluralism against Hindu majoritarianism resonates strongly with Gandhi’s lifelong struggle for inter-religious harmony.
    That the threat posed by Hindutva compels us to bring Ambedkar and Gandhi together is also underlined by Devanur Mahadeva. Thus, in his interview Mahadeva had remarked: “We should also listen to the words of Varanasi’s 16-year-old boy: ‘I will stand with Gandhi in Godse’s country.’ Otherwise, any kind of fundamentalism will first pluck out the eyes of one’s own, making them blind. After that, brains are ripped out depriving one of any rationality. Later, the heart is taken out making one monstrous. And then a sacrifice will be asked for. This is increasing today. We have to save our children’s eyes, their hearts and their brains from the jaws of fundamentalism immediately. It is better if young Dalit women take Gandhi to task after the wandering Gandhi-killer Godse’s ghost has achieved moksha. If this awareness is not there, I worry that the danger will hit at the very roots of the Dalits.”
    To be sure, neither Ambedkar nor Gandhi were infallible. They made mistakes, harboured animosities and prejudices. One must not invoke them mechanically, nor follow them blindly. We live in a radically different world from the one they inhabited. The political and technological challenges of the third decade of the 21st century are very different from the political and technological challenges of the middle decades of the 20th century. However, the moral and social challenges remain broadly the same. The battle for caste and gender equality is unfinished. The struggle for inter-faith harmony remains vital and urgent. To overcome the massed, malign, forces of Hindutva, we need Ambedkar and Gandhi on the same side.

  3. মাসুদ করিম - ৭ ফেব্রুয়ারি ২০২০ (৩:৫১ অপরাহ্ণ)

    Kenyan sculptor turns scrap metal into art with a message

    Two life-size lions crafted from scrap metal guard the entrance to the studio of Kenyan metal sculptor Kioko Mwitiki. Nearby a leopard, with holes in its metal body to mimic spots, crouches next to a giant elephant sculpture.

    Mwitiki, 56, estimates that for over three decades he has sculpted thousands of tons of discarded metal – from supermarket trolley wheels to shredded metal from factories – into art.

    Customers for his artifacts, which can fetch up to $10,000 each, have included former U.S. President Bill Clinton, the Danish royal family, Washington’s Smithsonian museum and the San Diego Zoo.

    Mwitiki says his work is particularly relevant today due to global concerns about over-consumption, pollution and climate change.

    “Recycling has become a very important issue, because you just need to be in sync with what is happening,” he told Reuters in his studio, where apprentices noisily beat twisted metal. “All this plastic in the air, all this plastic in the ocean.”

    Sometimes his choice of material helps to draw attention to wildlife conservation, an issue close to his heart.

    For his lion sculptures, he transforms animal snares, used by illegal hunters in national parks and given to him by the Kenya Wildlife Service, into dramatic manes.

    Mwitiki became an artist by accident. His older sister sent him to be an apprentice in a welder’s shop as punishment after he was expelled from university in 1986 for joining anti-government protests on campus.

    In his spare time, he fashioned a few artistic objects from metal. He later found them displayed at a Nairobi gallery after a broker bought them cheaply from him and sold them on. This led him to realize he could support himself as an artist.

    Mwitiki’s childhood memories – and concerns about growing conflict between humans and animals in his country – inspired him to sculpt wildlife.

    He grew up south of Nairobi in the Rift Valley, where large herds of wildebeest once roamed the plains. “We literally had to go through a herd of wildebeest to get to school so these are things you can never forget.”

    Those migration routes have largely disappeared due to human encroachment on animal habitats.

    Mwitiki has trained younger artists, including two men from Malawi, who returned home to start similar recycling programs.

    “We must teach the younger people to understand the importance of recycling,” he said, “because the resources that we have are in danger of being polluted.”

  4. মাসুদ করিম - ১০ ফেব্রুয়ারি ২০২০ (৪:৪৯ অপরাহ্ণ)

    Being a team, and not chasing personal glory, does the trick for Bangladesh

    At the end of the Under-19 World Cup 2020 final, India’s Yashasvi Jaiswal (400 runs) and Ravi Bishnoi (17 wickets) finished as the most successful batsman and bowler of the competition respectively, but the title of world champions went to Bangladesh. That’s because, on the big day, it was teamwork that made Bangladesh’s dream work.

    Like in the whole tournament, Jaiswal and Bishnoi were the best individual performers on the day, the opening batsman scoring 88 and the legspinner picking up a four-wicket haul to give India a sniff. But there were at least five performances from the Bangladesh players, none of which as sparkling as Jaiswal’s or Bishnoi’s, but added up to more on the day.

    When Bangladesh captain Akbar Ali walked out to bat in their chase of 178, Bangladesh were 65 for 4 – all four wickets going to Bishnoi – and in the midst of an epic Indian comeback. Entering the match, Akbar had scored only 26 runs in three games and Bishnoi was turning the ball sharply both ways. Akbar had to not only get himself in, but navigate the game while protecting the lesser batsmen at the other end. He did so for 6.5 overs, guiding bowling allrounders Shamim Hossain and Avishek Das, but when both of them were sent back in quick succession, Bangladesh were tottering again at 102 for 6.

    ALSO READ: Akbar Ali, and a slice of Bangladesh history

    But Akbar had one trump card in his ranks. Parvez Hossain Emon, the opener who had retired hurt on 25 due to cramps in the 13th over, had looked in control against the new ball. And he was going to come out if needed. When they met in the middle following Das’ dismissal, they could see the clouds overhead turning greyer by the moment. They needed 76 more, and Akbar and Parvez had to score most of them. So they went for the counter-attack with Bishnoi out of the attack. Helped by wides and byes from the Indians, they eked out 41 runs in the next nine overs. As Bangladesh went ahead of the game again, they went from aggressive to defensive. And so, when Jaiswal, the part-timer, was introduced, Parvez looked to break the shackles, only to be caught at cover to depart for 47. But Bangladesh were 143 for 7 by then.

    “Emon showed his character,” Akbar said after the game. “He wasn’t even at his 30%. When Emon came to the dressing room during cramping, that was the crunch moment with two new batsmen and India dominating. After the sixth wicket when Emon returned, the way he batted… I am really proud of him.

    “We wanted to keep things simple in the chase. Wanted to maintain the process. [Openers] Tanzid Hasan and Emon gave us a very good start, but Ravi bowled exceptionally well, so need to give credit to him.

    “When I entered the chase, I knew we needed one big partnership from us. And we came to the party. When I was batting, the plan was to not lose many wickets since rain was around, so had to keep one eye on the DLS.”

    But it wasn’t over. In walked Rakibul Hasan at No. 9, his previous highest score in top-flight cricket being 1 not out. With the team ahead of the DLS par score – albeit marginally – and plenty of overs to go, the objective changed for Akbar and Rakibul – stay put. The 35 runs needed, a win would come if they played their cards right. So, through the next 11 overs, Akbar blocked and blocked and blocked. He ran only if he could take twos, and if things went according to plan, Rakibul would not face more than one delivery per over.

    Over by over, Akbar and Rakibul inched closer to the target. As the partnership grew, so did Rakibul’s confidence, and Akbar began to rely on his partner a bit more. From facing one ball an over, Rakibul was facing three – he even played out a whole over from the dangerous Bishnoi. Every run took Bangladesh closer to the target, and they were all met with applause that increased in intensity.

    With 15 runs to win and the team 18 ahead of the DLS par, the rain came down – in the 41st over. But that worked in Bangladesh’s advantage because of how slow India’s over-rate was. When the teams returned, eight runs were shaved off Bangladesh’s target. They came on cue, from Rakibul, and sent the Bangladesh crowd – and players – into ecstasy. For his composed batting in the midst of pressure he had never faced before, Akbar collected the Player-of-the-Match award along with the big trophy.

    “In the first half of the tournament, I wasn’t getting much runs. In the final, opportunity came to me. I had to be the chase-man, the finisher, so happy to do that for my team,” he said.

    Akbar also praised Bangladesh’s bowling attack, particularly left-arm seamer Shoriful Islam, who finished with 2 for 31 and ran Bishnoi out, doing the job in his follow through as the Indians were looking to steal a single in the 44th over. Two overs before that, Shoriful had delivered a double-blow, dismissing Jaiswal and Siddhesh Veer in consecutive deliveries. It triggered a collapse of epic proportions with the defending champions losing seven wickets for 21 runs to fold for 177.

    “After winning the toss, we wanted to take early wickets,” Akbar said. “We got the opener (Divyaansh Saxena), but Tilak Varma and Jaiswal had a very good partnership.

    “In the middle of the innings, we thought we had to chase 240, but Shoriful’s 40th over changed the climate. Was a fantastic bowling effort to restrict India below 180. At the toss, we would’ve accepted anything under 220.”

    It was this teamwork and togetherness than helped Bangladesh clinch the crown. Bangladesh’s highest-run scorer of the tournament – Mahmudul Hasan Joy – finished at No. 15 on the list of highest run-scorers. But, importantly, Nos. 18 and 19 were also from Bangladesh – Tanzid and Shahadat Hossain, respectively. Their highest wicket-taker, Rakibul, finished joint sixth on the list of highest wicket-takers with 12 strikers, but Shoriful had nine, Tanzim Hasan Sakib had seven and Shamim Hossain five.

    The Bangladesh players didn’t necessarily produce performances that would dominate the World Cup highlights reel, but you don’t need be there to be champions. That’s what worked for them and, perhaps, proved the difference between victory and defeat for India.

  5. মাসুদ করিম - ১৫ ফেব্রুয়ারি ২০২০ (৮:২০ পূর্বাহ্ণ)

    CDT Censorship Digest, January 2020: Wuhan Coronavirus Outbreak
    [https://chinadigitaltimes.net/2020/02/cdt-censorship-digest-january-2020-wuhan-coronavirus-outbreak/]
    In January 2020, CDT Chinese editors posted their first monthly summary of censorship, launching the CDT Censorship Digest series. The series will collect and quote from news and online speech that was censored by Chinese authorities during the previous month, as well as efforts to preserve and strengthen freedom of speech in Chinese society. When relevant to CDT English readers, we will translate the Chinese series in part or in full. Unless otherwise noted [in ellipses], all links in this translation are to Chinese sources.

    CDT Chinese | Chinese Censorship Digest, January 2020: Totalitarianism’s Chernobyl Moment

    Wuhan pneumonia! Wuhan pneumonia! Wuhan pneumonia! On January 27, the World Health Organization (WHO) announced that a new coronavirus represented a “high” level global emergency. In China, the threat level was set to “extremely high.” On January 30, The WHO declared the novel coronavirus epidemic an international public health emergency. According to China’s National Health Commission, as of January 29, the death count increased from 38 to 170. Confirmed cases surpassed 1,700. All regions of China have announced cases of Wuhan pneumonia. All are on the highest level of red alert.

    In Camus’ novel, “The Plague,” he said, “There’s no heroism in any of this. This is merely a matter of honesty. The only possible way to fight the plague is honesty.”

    If you want to know why Wuhan pneumonia went from controllable to uncontrolled, why it’s now an international public health emergency, there is only one reason, I’m afraid: dishonesty.

    I. From Controllable to Uncontrolled: Who Held Back Wuhan?

    On December 8, 2019, there were 27 patients with pneumonia in Wuhan. Their names are unknown.

    On January 1, 2020, the Wuhan Public Security Bureau published a message on their official Weibo account announcing that eight people who were disseminating false information about Wuhan Pneumonia had been dealt with according to the law. The police further warned, “The internet is not outside the law. The information you post and the things you say online should comply with all laws and regulations. The police will investigate and deal with such illegal acts as fabricating and spreading false information and rumors, and disrupting social order. Such actions will not be tolerated.”

    On January 21, the first article accusing officials of concealing information about the outbreak spread like wildfire online: “None of the Important Information We Now Know About Wuhan Pneumonia was First Published by Wuhan Authorities.”

  6. মাসুদ করিম - ১৭ ফেব্রুয়ারি ২০২০ (১০:৪১ পূর্বাহ্ণ)

    Let’s think afresh about how to govern India’s gig workforce

    Over the last two months, two new co-working spaces have opened in my neighbourhood, one replacing a garment factory that existed there for over a decade. A logistics warehouse nearby is being renovated, and I suspect it too will be turned into a co-working space. Bengaluru, in general, and my neighbourhood, in particular, have an abundance of co-working spaces—both at the top end, with branded multi-location chains, and at the humble end, where local building owners have jumped onto the latest game in commercial real-estate. We might well be in a new little bubble, and Bengaluru is not representative of the country as a whole, but underlying trends suggest that the demand is only likely to grow.

    The gig economy is a big contributor to this. As is usual, there is some breathlessness in estimating how big it is going to be—with figures suggesting Indians constitute a quarter of the world’s gig workers, earning $1 billion last year and registering double-digit growth. What we do know, however, is that the gig economy plays to employment patterns in India, where most of the workforce is engaged in “informal” jobs in the “unorganized” sector.

    A recent study of employment patterns over a 13-year period ended 2017 for the Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Council by Laveesh Bhandari and Amaresh Dubey finds that non-contractual employment grew by 68 million over the period, and “has been a hero of employment generation growing by about 5% annually”.

    There were 145 million people in non-contractual employment in 2017-18. Professionals constituted the most rapidly growing occupations, with older, better educated and skilled witnessing higher growth. Bhandari and Dubey also found that unorganized sector employment grew by 65 million between 2004 and 2017, compared to only 27 million new jobs in the organized sector, suggesting that businesses are finding it more convenient to sustain themselves when they are below the radar of the government. As technology and business models take the gig economy across the country and implant it more deeply into the Indian economy, we can expect to see a lot more people find employment through online marketplaces and technology platforms.

    The government’s radar is getting sharper. In December, the government introduced legislation in Parliament that seeks to consolidate a number of labour laws into a Social Security Code. The new statute encompasses self-employed professionals, freelancers and platform workers, such as those employed by taxi aggregators and food delivery companies. The tax person is not far behind. Recent reports suggest that revenue officials are leaning on platforms and aggregators to get gig workers registered with the goods and services tax (GST) network. While it is just as well that the government is attempting to rationalize labour regulations and expand the country’s tax base, it is important to step back and reflect on how the gig workforce ought to be governed.

    There were 145 million people in non-contractual employment in 2017-18. Professionals constituted the most rapidly growing occupations, with older, better educated and skilled witnessing higher growth. Bhandari and Dubey also found that unorganized sector employment grew by 65 million between 2004 and 2017, compared to only 27 million new jobs in the organized sector, suggesting that businesses are finding it more convenient to sustain themselves when they are below the radar of the government. As technology and business models take the gig economy across the country and implant it more deeply into the Indian economy, we can expect to see a lot more people find employment through online marketplaces and technology platforms.

    The government’s radar is getting sharper. In December, the government introduced legislation in Parliament that seeks to consolidate a number of labour laws into a Social Security Code. The new statute encompasses self-employed professionals, freelancers and platform workers, such as those employed by taxi aggregators and food delivery companies. The tax person is not far behind. Recent reports suggest that revenue officials are leaning on platforms and aggregators to get gig workers registered with the goods and services tax (GST) network. While it is just as well that the government is attempting to rationalize labour regulations and expand the country’s tax base, it is important to step back and reflect on how the gig workforce ought to be governed.

    There were 145 million people in non-contractual employment in 2017-18. Professionals constituted the most rapidly growing occupations, with older, better educated and skilled witnessing higher growth. Bhandari and Dubey also found that unorganized sector employment grew by 65 million between 2004 and 2017, compared to only 27 million new jobs in the organized sector, suggesting that businesses are finding it more convenient to sustain themselves when they are below the radar of the government. As technology and business models take the gig economy across the country and implant it more deeply into the Indian economy, we can expect to see a lot more people find employment through online marketplaces and technology platforms.

    The government’s radar is getting sharper. In December, the government introduced legislation in Parliament that seeks to consolidate a number of labour laws into a Social Security Code. The new statute encompasses self-employed professionals, freelancers and platform workers, such as those employed by taxi aggregators and food delivery companies. The tax person is not far behind. Recent reports suggest that revenue officials are leaning on platforms and aggregators to get gig workers registered with the goods and services tax (GST) network. While it is just as well that the government is attempting to rationalize labour regulations and expand the country’s tax base, it is important to step back and reflect on how the gig workforce ought to be governed.

    There were 145 million people in non-contractual employment in 2017-18. Professionals constituted the most rapidly growing occupations, with older, better educated and skilled witnessing higher growth. Bhandari and Dubey also found that unorganized sector employment grew by 65 million between 2004 and 2017, compared to only 27 million new jobs in the organized sector, suggesting that businesses are finding it more convenient to sustain themselves when they are below the radar of the government. As technology and business models take the gig economy across the country and implant it more deeply into the Indian economy, we can expect to see a lot more people find employment through online marketplaces and technology platforms.

    The government’s radar is getting sharper. In December, the government introduced legislation in Parliament that seeks to consolidate a number of labour laws into a Social Security Code. The new statute encompasses self-employed professionals, freelancers and platform workers, such as those employed by taxi aggregators and food delivery companies. The tax person is not far behind. Recent reports suggest that revenue officials are leaning on platforms and aggregators to get gig workers registered with the goods and services tax (GST) network. While it is just as well that the government is attempting to rationalize labour regulations and expand the country’s tax base, it is important to step back and reflect on how the gig workforce ought to be governed.

  7. মাসুদ করিম - ২২ ফেব্রুয়ারি ২০২০ (৯:২৫ পূর্বাহ্ণ)

    Alternative facts from the conflict of 1971

    There is a Rashomon-like quality to the war in the subcontinent in 1971, which led to the independence of Bangladesh and the break-up of Pakistan. In Akira Kurosawa’s 1950 film, a crime takes place in the woods, and it is difficult to figure out what happened because those who claim to have witnessed it can’t be trusted. The movie reveals the complex nature of reality, how we choose to see and believe what we want to—the narrative around 1971 is similar. Bangladesh sees it as its liberation war (which it most certainly was), India sees it as a refugee crisis, which turned into a humanitarian crisis and continued the India-Pakistan conflict (which, in some ways, it has) that incidentally created Bangladesh. And Pakistan does not talk about the atrocities its army committed in what was then East Pakistan—it blames India for splitting Pakistan.

    The conflict also severely undermined the prevailing wisdom in many parts of the world (and indeed in Pakistan) that India and Pakistan had to be distinct nations because there was a Hindu India and a Muslim India, ideas which the colonial rulers from Britain encouraged and exploited. Bangladesh was Muslim, but also Bengali, and chose independence, undermining the idea of subcontinental Muslim unity. Bangladeshis resent Indians talking of the war in a patronizing way—focusing on how India liberated Bangladesh, as though Bangladeshis did nothing except suffer.

    In contrast, Bangladesh remembers it as a nine-month war, where India came towards the end to help, for which it is grateful, but India must not forget that Bangladeshi men and women had borne the brunt of Pakistani violence for the preceding eight-and-a-half months. More importantly, three months after the war, nearly 95% of the 10 million refugees who had come to India—many of them Hindus—went back. In Pakistan, on the other hand, the war has been a footnote in history.

    Anam Zakaria is a young historian, scholar and teacher from Pakistan who aims to listen and understand the differing versions and offer her personal interpretation of what happened. In 1971: A People’s History From Bangladesh, Pakistan And India, she speaks to people in the three countries through structured interviews, conversations with schoolchildren, and discussions with groups arranged by intermediaries. These interviews are not always face-to-face, because it remains hard for Indians, Pakistanis and Bangladeshis to visit each other’s countries given the visa restrictions—several of her interviews with Indians were conducted over Skype and some have been conducted by others. She was able to make only one visit to Bangladesh. Besides, she does not speak Bengali, which limits her ability to use the oral history archives at the Muktijuddho Jadughor (Liberation War Museum) in Dhaka.

    Zakaria describes the three alternate realities well, but her account would have been more accessible had she provided a straightforward chronology of events early on. As she follows the story in thematic sections , there is repetition and too much scene-setting before each interview, which interrupts the flow—it can confuse readers unfamiliar with the story.

    To be sure, she touches upon most of the key moments, starting from the time the Bengali lawyer and freedom fighter Dhirendranath Datta (who was a parliamentarian in Pakistan, and was murdered by Pakistani troops in March 1971) gave a speech in Pakistan’s legislature in 1948 seeking to make Bengali the national language. All the events that followed—first, Pakistan prime minister Liaquat Ali Khan’s rebuttal of (and veiled threat to) Datta’s demand; later, Pakistan governor general Muhammad Ali Jinnah’s refusal to consider the demand while on a tour to the city then known as Dacca; the Bangla language movement of 1952; the six-point charter of the Awami League’s demands seeking greater autonomy; the arrest of Awami League leader Mujibur Rahman; the cyclone that ravaged East Pakistan in 1970; the election and Awami League’s victory; the protracted negotiations to form the government; the army-led Operation Searchlight and the pogrom that began at the university on 25 March 1971 and continued throughout Bangladesh; the massacre at Chuknagar in May; the rape of many Bangladeshi women; the Mukti Bahini’s formation; the Pakistani surrender to the Indian Army in 1971—are there. But it could have been structured better.

    Zakaria meets leading Bangladeshis who have kept the memories of the conflict alive—Shahriar Kabir, who has been campaigning for the controversial war crimes tribunal; academic Muntassir Mamoon, who has been painstakingly gathering data on the conflict; journalist and writer Afsan Chowdhury, who has compiled excellent oral histories from the time; academic Meghna Guhathakurta, whose father was among the first to be killed in 1971; Aroma Dutta, who saw her grandfather Dhirendranath taken away, and never saw him again; Ferdousi Priyabhashini, perhaps the first woman to speak publicly of her ordeal, having been kept in a camp and raped many times, embodying the noun birangana (the brave woman), which the government would confer on all the women who were sexually assaulted during the conflict. But missing are the voices of the marginal men and women—the many other biranganas who remain forgotten, or the boatmen who ferried refugees across.

    Zakaria hears Bangladeshis telling her how much they distrust and dislike Pakistan and Pakistanis because of the lack of Pakistan’s atonement. The absence of people-to-people contact within the subcontinent is one reason so little is known about the “other”. Zakaria is a fine ambassador of Pakistani liberalism—sceptical, defying norms, polite, a listener full of empathy. She is struck by the violent stories she hears and feels emotionally wrenched; she analyses the numbers (did three million die, as Bangladeshis insist? Or 26,000, as Pakistan reckons?) as well as the politics around them, without taking sides, which is wise.

    Although Bangladeshis resent the fact that Pakistan hasn’t apologized for what happened in 1971, Zakaria rightly mentions that former president Pervez Musharraf did express regret, even as she notes that few ordinary Pakistanis expressed remorse over what happened, partly because school textbooks are so biased, and not only in Pakistan. She documents the collective amnesia in Pakistan, the unwillingness to learn more, and blames the distorted textbooks in all three countries that colour national narratives.

    Zakaria also notes, politely, that Bangladesh’s own political trajectory has bounced between the nominally secular Awami League and the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, which has allied with Islamists—therefore, its own history books can’t be relied upon. Awamis too have allied with Islamists in the past. While words can’t compensate, the earliest Pakistani apology was in 1974 (which Zakaria does not mention), though she notes the publication, We Owe An Apology To Bangladesh, a collection of essays by Pakistanis. She speaks to the man who compiled it, the poet Ahmad Salim. She talks to Nadir Ali, a Pakistani captain who was horrified by what he saw, and became mentally ill. He would later write poetry and visit Bangladesh, expressing profound sympathy for Bangladeshis.

    It is the Indian part that is weak, partly because Zakaria was not able to travel to India. We do not hear much from Indian soldiers or officers, nor from those who hosted the refugees, or who resented their presence, though she notes the resentment. While she writes about the current crisis in India over citizenship, which is inextricably linked to the lack of India’s own historical understanding of 1971, she does so perfunctorily, as if to make the book seem complete and contemporary.

    As a result, we get a mixed narrative, which is not what the label advertises—a people’s history from the three countries. It is, rather, some people’s interpretations of what happened. Not all the people she speaks with are witnesses. Some rely on hearsay; many other views are not captured. We hear of Chakmas, but not from them; we do not hear of other minorities in Bangladesh, such as Christians or Santhals; and we do not hear from voices of the left, like women’s rights activist Rokeya Kabir. Dismaying are the responses of the young in each country—how little they know of their neighbours—and this shows why we need many more books like Zakaria’s.

  8. মাসুদ করিম - ২৪ ফেব্রুয়ারি ২০২০ (১০:৪৫ পূর্বাহ্ণ)

    A deal undone

    On October 13th 2019, bdnews24.com, one of Bangladesh’s leading news portals, reported that it had received Taka 50 crore ($5.8 million) investment from a “major fund manager” company, LR Global. “It’s a very encouraging endorsement of our brand of journalism that we have pursued for the past 13 years,” the report quoted the portal’s co-owner and Editor-in-Chief Toufique Imrose Khalidi. “In 30 years of my investment experience globally across multiple sectors, I have rarely seen a company like bdnews24.com that has such great future potential […],” added Reaz Islam, the CEO of LR Global. “The digital platform of bdnews24.com has endless possibilities.”

    Exciting times for bdnews24.com, until the Bangladesh Securities and Exchange Commission (BSEC) held an emergency meeting and issued a press statement the same day noting that it had halted the investment deal as it was in breach of BSEC rules relating to mutual funds.

    If such a decision had involved the Daily Star or the Prothom Alo — independent newspapers that had been a deep thorn in the government’s side over the years, and had already suffered some blows as a result — one would immediately have assumed that this was a politicised decision geared towards harming the newspapers.

    bdnews24.com, however, is different from these two news outlets. Though it has never been overtly partisan and still remains a trustworthy source of news on Bangladesh, since 2009 the news portal increasingly came to be seen as a minor cheerleader for the Awami League government, and was often perceived (though Khalidi himself would deny this) as a promoter of stories helpful to the party and the prime minister. Indeed, in December 2018, Khalidi set up the Editors Guild, a government friendly version of the more independent Editors Council.

    This is why it would not be expected that the Awami League government would punish bdnews24.com, a friendly media outlet, by halting the investment deal. It seemed possible that the BSEC decision may have been an independent and neutral enforcement decision by the regulator.

    However, just two weeks later, the situation for bdnews24.com became more problematic. On November 4th 2019, the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) wrote to Toufique Imrose Khalidi asking him to respond to corruption allegations. An ACC spokesperson said subsequently that the agency was looking at Khalidi’s “acquisition of wealth beyond a known source through irregularities and corruption.” His accounts were frozen and suddenly his news website itself was in jeopardy.

    To paraphrase Lady Bracknell (from Oscar Wilde’s play, The Importance of Being Earnest), to have one regulatory decision against you may suggest carelessness, but, in Bangladesh, to have two such consecutive decisions within a few days suggests harassment.

    Suddenly, things started looking very different. Should Toufique Imrose Khalidi’s name be added to the growing list of persecuted Bangladeshi editors and media owners? Is he facing the same fate as Abdus Salam, the former owner of Ekushey Television who was imprisoned in 2015 for pornography; or, Mahfuz Anam, the editor of The Daily Star, who faced 17 sedition cases in 2016; or, Matiur Rahman, the editor of the Prothom Alo, who is now facing criminal charges over the accidental death of a student at an event organised by his newspaper?

    While the legal cases against Abdus Salam, Mahfuz Anam, Matiur Rahman and some other owners and editors were all instituted by or on behalf of the Awami League government, Khalidi’s predicament seems to illustrate something else, that is how press freedom in Bangladesh is not only vulnerable to direct state repression and censorship but also from powerful businessmen using their influence over state agencies to protect their own private interests.

    There remains much that is not known about the mechanics of how the BSEC and the ACC came to their decisions, but several individuals well-briefed about the bdnews24.com-LR Global deal certainly believe that the regulatory decisions may have much to do with Chowdhury Nafeez Sarafat, one of the main shareholders of RACE Asset Management, Bangladesh’s top manager of mutual funds.

    Though Sarafat is not publicly well known, he is amongst Bangladesh’s most influential pro-government businessmen. Hailing from Gopalganj, the prime minister’s home district, he is now the chairperson of Padma Bank (formerly Farmers Bank), which has received significant investments from RACE Asset Management’s mutual funds. One observer of the Bangladeshi share markets, who is not involved in the bdnews24.com deal, said of Sarafat that he wields significant power in share market circles and everyone in the sector “seems to be terrified of him”. Another observer said, “[Sarafat] is extremely powerful, very close to No. 1, the prime minister. He has direct access.”

    One example of Sarafat’s influence, that is often cited by journalists and analysts covering the financial sector, concerns how, just before the 2018 general election, RACE Asset Management, which operates the largest mutual funds in Bangladesh, influenced the finance minister’s decision to allow “closed end mutual funds” to continue to operate even after their terms had ended. This decision brought significant financial benefits for the company in ensuring continued commissions, and the company might even have faced trouble in paying back its unit holders had the fund had come to an end. This matter is now before the High Court, with both RACE and the BSEC as defendants.

    It is this influence that is said to be behind the current crisis faced by bdnews24.com and its editor-in-chief. One of RACE’s main competitors is LR Global, the investment fund which sought to buy into the news portal — and in recent years there have been serious conflicts between the two companies over investments and investment practices. In emailed comments, Sarafat has categorically denied to me that he had any involvement at all in the BSEC decision regarding the bdnews24.com-LR Global investment deal. However, several individuals briefed about the deal suggest that Sarafat was worried about the potential of LR Global using bdnews24.com to publish articles critical of him and his businesses.

    Sarafat’s concern may indeed have had some foundation. In June 2019, four months before the investment deal was announced, bdnews24.com had published a report questioning how Sarafat, as the chairperson of the Canadian University of Bangladesh, had managed to obtain control of a piece of land in Purbachal for the private university which had earlier been allocated for a secondary school. And soon after the BSEC intervention to halt the bdnews24.com-LR Global investment deal, the news portal published three more reports critical of Sarafat and his investment company.

    The first of these reports, published on October 21st, raised questions about the Canadian University of Bangladesh, claiming that it has managed to obtain clearance to build a commercial 24-story building in a residential area in the heart of the capital city, against government rules. The other two reports, published on October 22nd and October 27th, covered RACE Asset Management and claimed that the ten mutual funds set up by Sarafat’s company were poorly performing with their worth declining by half. One of the reports included the claim that the company had “placed over 35 percent of its mutual assets in highly risky ventures, betraying the cause of thousands of small investors who trusted the company with their money.”

    Though these reports, which directly challenged the integrity of the asset management company that Sarafat runs, seem well-researched and legitimate works of journalism, they are exactly what Sarafat may have feared would happen if the deal with LR Global had gone ahead.

    And, surprise, within a week of their publication, the ACC initiated its investigation against Khalidi.

    Speaking to journalists a few days after the ACC investigation was announced, Khalidi set out clearly who he thought was behind it, without naming names, “We did stories that hurt a very powerful lobby, and are paying the price for what I believe is good, exemplary journalism done by my colleagues. They could file a case if any word was erroneous in our reportage, or if there was any mistake in a single sentence or a bit of information. Why didn’t they file a case? Why did they choose this path?”

    Sarafat denied that he was involved in either the BSEC decision to halt the LR Global investment in bdnews24.com or the subsequent ACC decision to investigate Khalidi. He said that claims about his influential position are “unsubstantiated and unverifiable hearsay” and attributing such “powers” to him as “baseless and unfounded”. He also declined to comment on the finance ministry’s decision to allow mutual funds to continue after their end date as this is a “sub judice matter” but claimed that “it was made for the greater benefit of the capital markets.”

    As to the BSEC decision, Sarafat said, “[It] was made by BSEC; there was no influence from me.” He pointed to fines that the BSEC had previously imposed on LR Global in 2015, and suggested that this was sufficient reason for BSEC to investigate the bdnews24.com investment.

    Regarding the ACC investigation, Sarafat said, “I did not concoct the […] charges. The allegations are consequences of Mr- Khalidi’s own actions or dealings.” He also noted that if he wanted to take action against bdnews24.com in relation to the reports it published, he had “the protection of the law.”

    However, despite his denials, the chronology of what happened does point the finger of suspicion at Sarafat, who was in fact recently overheard at a public event gloating about the fiasco bdnews24.com is in.

    The bdnews24.com imbroglio reminds one of the danger within Bangladesh of the unaccountable might of private actors, who are powerful enough to influence ostensibly independent regulators, and how this can affect press freedom in the country. It also suggests that however close people like Khalidi are to the powers-that-be in Bangladesh, there is always someone else who is more powerful — and that they step out of line at their own peril.

  9. মাসুদ করিম - ২৭ ফেব্রুয়ারি ২০২০ (১০:৫৬ পূর্বাহ্ণ)

    A country that allows its craftsmen to die, is going to die soon: Architect Miki Desai

    For 40 years, Ahmedabad-based architect and retired professor of CEPT University, Miki Desai, travelled across India and South Asia to document sustainable architecture. Desai, 72, was in Delhi last week for his exhibition “From My House to Your House: A Select Journey of Indian Vernacular Architecture (Lok-Sthapatya)”, with 5,000 photographs, diagrams, and a playing-card deck, that highlighted the fast-disappearing aspects of sustainable “vernacular” architecture. Desai also spoke of the “intricate, structural carpentry” of Kerala’s temple architecture, which he delves deeper into in his recent book, Wooden Architecture of Kerala (Mapin Publishing). Excerpts:
    What is vernacular architecture?

    The pure definition, adhered to by many, is architecture done without architects. It is also where people themselves have made the buildings (village mud-houses, with local material); we are talking about craftsmen doing the buildings, but at the same time, the idea of architecture as a profession doesn’t exist. What exists are guilds, like carpenters’ guild, that constructs the buildings. Thus, it is a collaborative effort of craftsmen, rather than of a professional. Call them indigenous, instead of vernacular. What’s important is not the terminology, but what’s happening within it.

    What took you to Kerala?

    Somebody from Switzerland approached me in the 1990s to contribute to an exhibition, “Ill? Why”. For my chapter on “Vows People Take to Get Cured”, I started looking at Indian temples and was directed to Kerala’s practice of nercha (vows) – taken to get cured, get a marriage done, etc. I’m a heathen, but there I became a devotee, for the only way to learn things is to participate. The temples were so different from what I had seen.
    In what ways? Tell us more…

    There are four types, in terms of shape: square, circular, rectangular, apsidal. Their spires could have four storeys and the wooden (double) roof craftsmanship could go as far back as 400 years. The temple architecture is similar to residential architecture. Within the temple (outer shell) is another temple (inner shell), the garbhagriha (sanctum sanctorum), where the main idol is enshrined. The visitation is unlike north Indian temples. You’re not allowed inside the garbhagriha, the domain of the Melshanthi or priest. The salutation pavilion is restricted to the Namboothiris (landed Brahmins). Outsiders can’t climb in; and there’s an invisible line which a Dalit wouldn’t cross.

    In your book, you describe the differences of an Ezhava house from that of the higher-caste Namboothiri or Nair. How does caste percolate into architecture?

    Ezhava houses used to be meagre but now they have come up owing to economic forwardness, etc. The houses of Namboothiris are traditionally larger, more opulent, with multiple buildings, granaries, kulam (bathing pond), and temple – a whole samrajya – within the compound. The Nair (protectors) houses were smaller (than the Namboothiris), with a smaller courtyard. The houses of the Brahmins who came from Tamil Nadu are long, with a small ventilating (not activity) courtyard. They don’t believe in orientation and feel that since they are pure, their houses are good enough simply by their being in them. The kitchen would be located far away from the courtyards, unlike the ones in the “ventilating and socialising” courtyards of Gujarat’s pols and havelis. For the Kerala Brahmins (especially Tamil Brahmins), the kitchen is a sacred domain, which can get polluted by men, outsiders, menstruating women, etc. Sometimes, you find a well, half of which is outside and half in the kitchen. There’s a token gesture of the sacred and profane. Even from the outside, if somebody were to take water, they would do it carefully, knowing that it is the same water that will be used in the kitchen.
    Himachal Pradesh’s kumbh (pot) column reappear in Gujarat, as do mythical Yali/Vyala of Kerala’s balcony brackets. How did motifs and style travel?

    The idea of pan-Indianness must have been fairly coherent in the past, when transportation wasn’t what it is today. This country is full of diversity, and, yet, people from one part don’t know enough about another. I had studied architecture rigorously in Ahmedabad, studied Roman and Greek architecture but nobody taught us about Indian regional architecture. Nor do we make an effort to know or have value for what our neighbour is doing, so all this talk of national integration or one integrated image of the country is really a farce.
    What about the drive to build statues?

    We are a poor country and shouldn’t be spending colossal money like this. You are modifying the ecology, people’s lives. The bullet train, too, is displacing farmers.
    The Central Vista redesign is facing a lot of flak. What makes Bimal Patel a winning bidder? Was he your student at CEPT?

    He is well-connected. No, I didn’t teach him, but he used to be a good friend. To me, ‘modern’, ‘old’, ‘smart cities’ are not important words. We have to look at the necessities and plight of the people, and, in forging urbanity, keep our Indian limitations, ethos, culture, climate, materials in mind, rather than creating symbols of pride, of falsehood. A country that allows its craftsmen to die, is going to die soon.

  10. মাসুদ করিম - ২৮ ফেব্রুয়ারি ২০২০ (১১:১১ পূর্বাহ্ণ)

    Mexico’s women to observe strike Mar 9

    No women in offices or schools. No women in restaurants or stores. No women on public transportation, in cars or on the street.

    A country without women, for one day.

    That’s the vision of an alliance of feminist groups in Mexico that – fuelled by the rising violence against women and girls, including two horrific murders that appalled the nation this month – has called for a 24-hour strike by the country’s female population on March 9.

    The action is to protest gender-based violence, inequality and the culture of machismo, and to demand greater support for women’s rights.

    Promoted under the hashtag #UNDÍASINNOSOTRAS, A Day Without Us, it has gained extraordinary momentum across this country of more than 120 million, with wide-ranging buy-in from the public and private sectors, civic groups, religious leaders and many, if not most, women.

    The support has cut across the boundaries of class, ethnicity, wealth and politics that fracture this nation, and has given organisers hope that this might be not just a monumental event but also a watershed moment in the modern history of Mexico.

    “So many of our slogans and mottos – like, ‘The revolution will be feminist,’ or ‘The future is feminist’ – they talked about this moment,” said Arussi Unda, spokeswoman for Las Brujas del Mar, a feminist collective in Veracruz state that is helping to mobilise the strike. “It seems like the moment might already be here.”

    In the past year, feminist activism in Mexico, partly inspired by the global #MeToo movement, has gained new energy as women have taken to the streets in anger and frustration to protest gender-based violence and entrenched attitudes of machismo.

    The protests have been rowdy and, at times, violent, as participants have smashed windows and defaced public monuments – including the National Palace – with spray-painted slogans and feminist exhortations.

    Sabina Berman, a Mexican novelist and feminist activist, said that the nucleus of these latest protests was a younger generation of women who have lost patience with a more measured approach to activism.

    “They have decided to skip the pacifist, smiling kind of protests, and instead smash windows,” she said. “It was them who lit the spark by taking that further step, and they made us all wake up.”

    After simmering for months, the movement reached a roiling boil this month after the horrific murders of a woman and a girl.

    Ingrid Escamilla, 25, a Mexico City resident, was stabbed, skinned and disembowelled. Her body was found on Feb. 9, and photos of her mutilated body were leaked to tabloids, which published the images on their front pages, adding to the public outrage.

    On Feb 11, Fátima Cecilia Aldrighett, 7, was abducted from her primary school in Mexico City and her body was discovered wrapped in a plastic bag next to a construction site on the outskirts of the capital.

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