৬৪ comments

1. 

   মাসুদ করিম - ১ অক্টোবর ২০১১ (১০:২৩ পূর্বাহ্ণ)

   চীনের ইংরেজি দৈনিক গ্লোবাল টাইমস এর মতামত বিভাগে এক চীনা বিশ্লেষক বলছেন, দক্ষিণ চীন সাগরের আশেপাশের দেশগুলোকে শিক্ষা দেয়ার সময় হয়ে গেছে চীনের।

   China, concentrating on interior development and harmony, has been ultimately merciful in preventing such issue turning into a global affair so that regional peace and prosperity can be secured.

   But it is probably the right time for us to reason, think ahead and strike first before things gradually run out of hands.

   It seems all the countries around the area are preparing for an arms race.

   Singapore brings home high-end stealth aircraft while Australia, India and Japan are all stockpiling arms for a possible “world-class” battle. The US, provoking regional conflict itself, did not hesitate to meet the demands of all of the above.

   It’s very amusing to see some of the countries vow to threaten or even confront China with force just because the US announced that it has “returned to Asia.”
   The tension of war is escalating second by second but the initiative is not in our hand. China should take part in the exploitation of oil and gas in South China Sea.
   For those who infringe upon our sovereignty to steal the oil, we need to warn them politely, and then take action if they don’t respond.

   We shouldn’t waste the opportunity to launch some tiny-scale battles that could deter provocateurs from going further.

   By the way, I think it’s necessary to figure out who is really afraid of being involved in military activities. There are more than 1,000 oil and gas wells plus four airports and numerous other facilities in the area but none of them is built by China.

   Everything will be burned to the ground should a military conflict break out. Who’ll suffer most when Western oil giants withdraw?

   But out there could just be an ideal place to punish them. Such punishment should be restricted only to the Philippines and Vietnam, who have been acting extremely aggressive these days.

   The Afghanistan and Iraq Wars have already set some bad examples for us in terms of the scale of potential battles, but the minnows will get a reality check by the art of our move.

   Many scholars believe that the US presence in this area caused our inability to sort the mess out.

   However, I think US pressure in the South China Sea should not be taken seriously, at least for now given the war on terror in the Middle East and elsewhere is still plaguing it hard.

   The Philippines, pretending to be weak and innocent, declared that mosquitoes are not wary of the power of the Chinese elephant.

   The elephant should stay restrained if mosquitoes behave themselves well. But it seems like we have a completely different story now given the mosquitoes even invited an eagle to come to their ambitious party. I believe the constant military drill and infringement provide no better excuse for China to strike back.

   However, being rational and restrained will always be our guidance on this matter. We should make good preparations for a small-scale battle while giving the other side the option of war or peace.

   বিস্তারিত পড়ুন : Time to teach those around South China Sea a lesson।

2. 

   মাসুদ করিম - ১ অক্টোবর ২০১১ (৬:৩৯ অপরাহ্ণ)

   লতার শুধু গান শুনেছি, এটাই আমার জীবনের অন্যতম মহৎ ঘটনা। আর গুলজার, যিনি লতার গান শুনেছেন লতার জন্য গান লিখেছেন লতার সান্নিধ্য পেয়েছেন — তার জন্য লতা আরব্যরজনীর এক যাদুর কার্পেট! চাঁদ লতার মাইলস্টোন! গুলজার বলছেন

   Hindi film music traces its ancestry back to dhrupad, khayal, bhajan and thumri. If you trace the lineage of the past 100 years of Indian cinema, Lata Mangeshkar’s voice stands out like a divine boon. In the past century, many talented singers such as Ustad Bade Ghulam Ali Khan, Ustad Amir Khan and Kishori Amonkarji have sung exceptionally well. However, they all sang for themselves. This is why Lata’s voice has a legacy of its own. KL Saigal, for instance, was never anyone else’s voice. His singing, though superlative, was his own. It is a feat that she pioneered in Indian cinema. It is something of a paradox though, this business of her lending her voice to someone else. The fact is, the cast, character, situation, film, musical composition might be whatever it is but if Lata is singing, then it’s her song. After that, nothing else seems significant.

   Her voice, her melody and her preparation for a song is extraordinary. Those who seek understanding of the word ‘dedication’ must look to her. Her singing has that something extra. Flair, fun, art or a happy amalgamation that creates her je ne sais quoi. Her voice is like a magic carpet straight out of the Arabian Nights, on which millions of people have thrived for the past 60 years. Listen to her Rasik Balma and you will fall into that state of enchantment that children fall into when listening to stories of magic and fantasy. Composers like Salilda (Salil Chowdhury) have a reputation for creating tunes as complex as a crowded Benares lane. But Lata strolls through unscathed, singing “O sajna, barkha bahar aayi.”

   Whenever I wrote a song for her, I always considered how she’d react to a particular simile. Once, while recording a song for Devdas, she asked me, “What is this sarouli?” My song had a line that went “Sarouli se meethi laagey”. I explained that sarouli was a kind of mango that we used to love sucking when we were children. I asked her whether she thought I should change the image. She said, “No, of course not. Leave it alone. I only want to know how sweet is sweet.”

   On another occasion, when we were practising for a song at Pancham’s (RD Burman) home for the film Ghar, there was a line of mine, “aapki badmashiyon ke ye naye andaz hai”. He was very worried about the word badmashi. He said, “How can you have this word in poetry and, particularly, when Lata didi is going to sing it.” I told him to retain the line. If Lata disliked it, we would remove it. After the recording, we asked her, did you like the song? She said, “Yes. It was nice.” I asked again, “What about the line that contained the word badmashi?” She promptly replied, “Arrey, that was what was nice about the song. That line made the song different.” If you listen carefully to this song, you will notice that she laughs while singing badmashi, making it lovelier.

   We’re fortunate that we have been able to hear her sing. I have been fortunate to write a few songs for her. When you listen to her singing, you can’t say, “Wow, she sings so well.” You can’t do it because the second you hear her voice, you are filled with respect. We don’t even think trivialising words for her songs. Her voice and singing seem effortless, like a prayer from the heart. The moon is her milestone.

   লিন্ক : The Moon Is Her Milestone।

3. 

   মাসুদ করিম - ২ অক্টোবর ২০১১ (১২:০৫ অপরাহ্ণ)

   আহমেদিয়া বা কাদিয়ানিদের ভারত-পাকিস্তান-বাংলাদেশে অনেকেই মুসলমান মনে করে না। পাকিস্তান ও বাংলাদেশে তো আমরা বিভিন্ন সময়ে আহমেদিয়াদের উপর সংঘটিত হিংসা-দ্বেষ-সন্ত্রাসের নানা ঘটনা সম্বন্ধে জানি। ভারতও এতে পিছিয়ে নেই। কিছু দিন আগে দিল্লিতে এক আহমেদিয়া সংগঠনের আয়োজনে ‘কোরান’-এর উপর এক প্রদর্শনী চলছিল। সেই প্রদর্শনী ভণ্ডুল করেছেন ‘শুদ্ধ মুসলিম’রা। তাদের বহুশ্রুত (যুক্তি) প্রচার ছিল

   Farooqui, and some of his cronies, were waiting, quite obviously, for the media to arrive. Farooqui was frantically on his phone, even as he started giving me juicy, rhetorical soundbytes. “Nobody is denying their right to exhibit, but why are they calling themselves Muslims, when they are not? They can do anything, but please, they should not call themselves Muslims!”

   Suddenly, an SUV arrived at the building, and Yahya Bukhari, a relative of Shahi Imam Bukhari, stepped out, thundering, “Quran is not a book to be exhibited. We will bring lakhs of people here tomorrow, if they don’t stop this exhibition!” Bukhari even yelled at a cop, “Why are you stopping the protestors? When someone touches religion, it’s like a coffin being out over you!” His rhetoric was matched with his animated body language — raised fingers, eyes popping out, nostrils flaring etc.

   By this time, there were enough shutterbugs and correspondents to capture the melodrama. Farooqui, Bukhauri, and some 20 other protesters held up placards denouncing the Qadianis, and posed for the cameras.

   The next day, I didn’t bother to visit the site to see if Farooqui and Bukhari lived up to their threats. They did, as I read in the papers. Shahi Imam Bukhari came to the spot, made his presence felt as he fed a hungry media with the nutrition of his fatty sound bytes, got detained, along with 56 other protesters, and yes, the exhibition got prematurely shut.

   উপরের ওই বোল্ড করা দুটো ভাষ্য দেখুন : কী সহজেই ফারুকি ও বুখারি এই প্রদর্শনী বিষয়ে একবোরেই বিপরীত কথা বলছেন। একজন বলছেন, প্রদর্শনী নিয়ে আপত্তি নেই তো আরেকজন বলছেন, কোরান প্রদর্শনী করার মতো বই নয়। দুজনেই অবশ্য এই বিপরীত ভাষ্যের মধ্য দিয়ে অভিন্ন কথাই বলছেন, কাদিয়ানিরা মুসলমান নয়।

   বিস্তারিত পড়ুন : Ahmediyyas: Let them be।

4. 

   মাসুদ করিম - ৩ অক্টোবর ২০১১ (১০:২৯ পূর্বাহ্ণ)

   ‘ওয়াল স্ট্রিট দখল করো’ আমেরিকার এই আন্দোলনের ৭০০ কর্মী গ্রেপ্তার। আন্দোলনকারীদের ওয়েবসাইট এখানে আর খবরের লিন্ক এখানে।

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     মাসুদ করিম - ৩ অক্টোবর ২০১১ (৪:০০ অপরাহ্ণ)

     গ্রেপ্তারের সংখ্যা ৮০০ ছাড়িয়ে গেছে, কিন্তু ‘ওয়াল স্ট্রিট দখল করো’ বিক্ষোভ চলছে।

     Some 800 protesters marched and rallied in downtown Los Angeles Sunday to show their support for “Occupy Wall Street” protesters in New York City.

     Approximately 500 protesters set up camp in front of Los Angeles City Hall and about 300 protesters marched through the streets of downtown Los Angeles with variations on the slogan “We are the 99%” and “all week all day occupied LA.”

     Many protesters carried placards, some reading “We are the 99 percent,” “This Is Our Country, We Will Occupy It” or “Banks Got Bailed-out, We Got Sold Out.”

     “The sign ‘We are the 99 percent’ means everyone, that is, except the richest 1 percent of the population, who the demonstrators contend are the only beneficiaries of America’s economic policies,” a protester told Xinhua, who declined to give his name.

     “Our goal is to keep it peaceful, we are non-violent,” he said.

     “America needs a change and we need jobs,” another anonymous protester told Xinhua.

     The protesters organized by a group called “Occupy Los Angeles,” mostly young, are angry over Wall Street greed, corporate influence in politics and the richest one percent of Americans gaining more wealth during a period of time while the majority faces unemployment, growing poverty rates and austerity measures.

     Most said they had heard about the Occupy Los Angeles protest via Twitter and Internet.

     লিন্ক : Occupy Wall Street protest spreads to Los Angeles।

     আর এখানে দেখুন স্লাইডশো।

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       মাসুদ করিম - ৬ অক্টোবর ২০১১ (৯:৫৩ পূর্বাহ্ণ)

       ওয়াল স্ট্রিট দখল করো বাড়ছে।

       The “Occupy Wall Street” movement targeting corporate greed, which has rocked multiple U.S. metropolises over the past weeks, seemed to have gained new momentum on Wednesday, as thousands of New York City union workers took to the streets in downtown Manhattan and marched toward the city’s financial heartland.

       Under heavy police surveillance, the union workers, including teachers, nurses and writers, set out from Zuccotti Park, a privately-owned property near Wall Street, where “Occupy Wall Street” protesters have camped out in sleeping bags for about three weeks, and marched toward Foley Square north of the famous financial district, shouting slogans like “Wall Street should buy stocks not politicians,” “Time is up for Wall Street bankers.”

       They represent more than 15 of the country’s biggest labor unions as well as a number of notable community organizations, including United Auto Workers, Chinatown Tenants Union, Transit Workers’ Union, Working Families Party and United NY.

       James Weatherby, a protester from the American federation of state, county and municipal employees, told Xinhua reporters: “As the middle class we are falling apart … It is getting worse and worse … We have tried but there are just no jobs. We need to change the tax structure, (and) the government is supposed to be here to protect us.”

       “The middle class is taking the change. We are screwed by the wealthy. There are two parts of the society: the have and the have- not. The politicians did not hear us, but the Wall Street,” said Weatherby.

       John Samuelsen, president of Transport Workers’ Union, or TWU local 100, told local media that the recent protests on Wall Street are, to a large extent, singing the same song and fighting the same battle as his union has done for the last 18 months.

       “Basically that working families in New York State are definitely getting shafted while the wealthiest folks in New York State get tax break,” he said. “There is a sense of desperation for working people and working families in this country that the folks run the government just don’t get.”

       লিন্ক : “Occupy Wall Street” grows as New York union workers take to streets।

       আর এখানে দেখুন ওয়াল স্ট্রিট দখল করোতে মাইকেল মুরের বক্তৃতা : Michael Moore’s Speech at Occupy Wall Street। অথবা দেখুন এখানে।

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         মাসুদ করিম - ৮ অক্টোবর ২০১১ (৬:১৪ অপরাহ্ণ)

         ওয়াল স্ট্রিট দখল করোতে নাওমি ক্লাইনের বক্তৃতার ট্রানস্ক্রিপ্ট।

         I was honored to be invited to speak at Occupy Wall Street on Thursday night. Since amplification is (disgracefully) banned, and everything I said had to be repeated by hundreds of people so others could hear (a.k.a. “the human microphone”), what I actually said at Liberty Plaza had to be very short. With that in mind, here is the longer, uncut version of the speech.

         I love you.

         And I didn’t just say that so that hundreds of you would shout “I love you” back, though that is obviously a bonus feature of the human microphone. Say unto others what you would have them say unto you, only way louder.

         Yesterday, one of the speakers at the labor rally said: “We found each other.” That sentiment captures the beauty of what is being created here. A wide-open space (as well as an idea so big it can’t be contained by any space) for all the people who want a better world to find each other. We are so grateful.

         If there is one thing I know, it is that the 1 percent loves a crisis. When people are panicked and desperate and no one seems to know what to do, that is the ideal time to push through their wish list of pro-corporate policies: privatizing education and social security, slashing public services, getting rid of the last constraints on corporate power. Amidst the economic crisis, this is happening the
         world over.

         And there is only one thing that can block this tactic, and fortunately, it’s a very big thing: the 99 percent. And that 99 percent is taking to the streets from Madison to Madrid to say “No. We will not pay for your crisis.”

         That slogan began in Italy in 2008. It ricocheted to Greece and France and Ireland and finally it has made its way to the square mile where the crisis began.

         “Why are they protesting?” ask the baffled pundits on TV. Meanwhile, the rest of the world asks: “What took you so long?” “We’ve been wondering when you were going to show up.” And most of all: “Welcome.”

         Many people have drawn parallels between Occupy Wall Street and the so-called anti-globalization protests that came to world attention in Seattle in 1999. That was the last time a global, youth-led, decentralised movement took direct aim at corporate power. And I am proud to have been part of what we called “the movement of movements.”

         But there are important differences too. For instance, we chose summits as our targets: the World Trade Organization, the International Monetary Fund, the G8. Summits are transient by their nature, they only last a week. That made us transient too. We’d appear, grab world headlines, then disappear. And in the frenzy of hyper patriotism and militarism that followed the 9/11 attacks, it was
         easy to sweep us away completely, at least in North America.

         Occupy Wall Street, on the other hand, has chosen a fixed target. And you have put no end date on your presence here. This is wise. Only when you stay put can you grow roots. This is crucial. It is a fact of the information age that too many movements spring up like beautiful flowers but quickly die off. It’s because they don’t have roots. And they don’t have long term plans for how they are going to sustain themselves. So when storms come, they get washed away.

         Being horizontal and deeply democratic is wonderful. But these principles are compatible with the hard work of building structures and institutions that are sturdy enough to weather the storms ahead. I have great faith that this will happen.

         Something else this movement is doing right: You have committed yourselves to non-violence. You have refused to give the media the images of broken windows and street fights it craves so desperately. And that tremendous discipline has meant that, again and again, the story has been the disgraceful and unprovoked police brutality. Which we saw more of just last night. Meanwhile, support for this movement grows and grows. More wisdom.

         But the biggest difference a decade makes is that in 1999, we were taking on capitalism at the peak of a frenzied economic boom. Unemployment was low, stock portfolios were bulging. The media was drunk on easy money. Back then it was all about start-ups, not shut downs.

         We pointed out that the deregulation behind the frenzy came at a price. It was damaging to labor standards. It was damaging to environmental standards. Corporations were becoming more powerful than governments and that was damaging to our democracies. But to be honest with you, while the good times rolled, taking on an economic system based on greed was a tough sell, at least in rich countries.

         Ten years later, it seems as if there aren’t any more rich countries. Just a whole lot of rich people. People who got rich looting the public wealth and exhausting natural resources around the world.

         The point is, today everyone can see that the system is deeply unjust and careening out of control. Unfettered greed has trashed the global economy. And it is trashing the natural world as well. We are overfishing our oceans, polluting our water with fracking and deepwater drilling, turning to the dirtiest forms of energy on the planet, like the Alberta tar sands. And the atmosphere cannot absorb
         the amount of carbon we are putting into it, creating dangerous warming. The new normal is serial disasters: economic and ecological.

         These are the facts on the ground. They are so blatant, so obvious, that it is a lot easier to connect with the public than it was in 1999, and to build the movement quickly.

         We all know, or at least sense, that the world is upside down: we act as if there is no end to what is actually finite — fossil fuels and the atmospheric space to absorb their emissions. And we act as if
         there are strict and immovable limits to what is actually bountiful — the financial resources to build the kind of society we need.

         The task of our time is to turn this around: to challenge this false scarcity. To insist that we can afford to build a decent, inclusive society – while at the same time, respect the real limits to what the earth can take.

         What climate change means is that we have to do this on a deadline. This time our movement cannot get distracted, divided, burned out or swept away by events. This time we have to succeed. And I’m not talking about regulating the banks and increasing taxes on the rich, though that’s important.

         I am talking about changing the underlying values that govern our society. That is hard to fit into a single media-friendly demand, and it’s also hard to figure out how to do it. But it is no less urgent
         for being difficult.

         That is what I see happening in this square. In the way you are feeding each other, keeping each other warm, sharing information freely and proving health care, meditation classes and empowerment training. My favorite sign here says “I care about you.” In a culture that trains people to avoid each other’s gaze, to say, “Let them die,” that is a deeply radical statement.

         A few final thoughts. In this great struggle, here are some things that don’t matter.

         – What we wear.

         – Whether we shake our fists or make peace signs.

         – Whether we can fit our dreams for a better world into a media soundbite.

         And here are a few things that do matter.

         – Our courage.

         – Our moral compass.

         – How we treat each other.

         We have picked a fight with the most powerful economic and political forces on the planet. That’s frightening. And as this movement grows from strength to strength, it will get more frightening. Always be aware that there will be a temptation to shift to smaller targets – like, say, the person sitting next to you at this meeting. After all, that is a battle that’s easier to win.

         Don’t give in to the temptation. I’m not saying don’t call each other on shit. But this time, let’s treat each other as if we plan to work side by side in struggle for many, many years to come. Because the
         task before will demand nothing less.

         Let’s treat this beautiful movement as if it is most important thing in the world. Because it is. It really is.

         লিন্ক এখানে।

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       মাসুদ করিম - ২৫ অক্টোবর ২০১১ (৯:৫৬ পূর্বাহ্ণ)

       আরব স্প্রিং-এর খবর প্রথম থেকেই প্রকাশ করছিল না চীন, কিন্তু অকুপাই-এর খবর খুব উৎসাহ নিয়েই প্রকাশ করছিল একেবারে যাকে বলে প্রথম প্রহর থেকেই, আমার দেয়া #৪.১-এর লিন্কগুলো তারই প্রমাণ। কিন্তু অকুপাই যখন থেকে বিভিন্ন দেশে ছড়াতে শুরু করেছে, তখন থেকেই খবর প্রকাশে চীনের উৎসাহে ভাটা পড়েছে। কিন্তু খবর এটা নয়, খবর হল চীনের ইন্টারনেট ব্যবহারকারীরা দেখছেন : আরব স্প্রিং-এর মতো অকুপাই ও এখন নিষিদ্ধ শব্দ হয়ে গেছে।

       A good rule of thumb for life is that if the Chinese government is against it, you’re probably doing something right. The latest evidence to support this axiom is the Occupy Wall Street movement, which has spread from lower Manhattan to cities around the globe, including London, Auckland, Toronto, and Rome, among many others. Terrified by OWS’ viral growth, the oppressive regime controlling China is taking measures to ensure the protests don’t happen there. And it’s starting with the internet.

       According to UC Berkeley publication China Digital Times, Sina Weibo, China’s hyper-popular microblogging site, is now banning any and all search keywords that could theoretically be associated with OWS. “A long list of banned keywords on Sina Weibo’s search function has been uncovered and tested by the CDT team yesterday,” writes Sandra Hernandez. “All the listed phrases stick to one simple rule: a combination of ‘occupy’ (占领) and a place name—provincial capitals, economically developed regions, and few symbolic local areas.” In other words, the hundreds of millions of Sina Weibo users are no longer allowed to search for “occupy Beijing,” for instance.

       Censorship in China is nothing new, and this latest stunt resembles what happened in January when Egypt contracted the freedoms of the internet in response to its uprising. That it’s become so commonplace for the Asian powerhouse to stem the tides of protest by hindering citizens’ web communication doesn’t make it any less troubling. And it should call into question the morality of companies like Facebook, which is looking to expand in China. Such a move could mean making a deal with the devil.

       পড়ুন :‘OCCUPY’ Now a Banned Search Term in China।

5. 

   মাসুদ করিম - ৩ অক্টোবর ২০১১ (৪:৪১ অপরাহ্ণ)

   এবছরের নোবেল পুরস্কার ঘোষণা শুরু হল। তিন চিকিৎসাবিজ্ঞানী পেলেন মেডিসিন নোবেল ২০১১।

   Sweden’s Karolinska Institute said in a statement that the prize went to U.S. scientist Bruce Beutler, Luxembourg-born Jules Hoffmann, based in France, and Canadian-born Ralph Steinman, based in the United States.

   “This year’s Nobel Laureates have revolutionized our understanding of the immune system by discovering key principles for its activation,” the institute said.

   Beutler and Hoffmann shared one half of the prize of 10 million Swedish crowns ($1.46 million) and Steinman won the other half.

   The work of the three scientists has been pivotal to the development of improved types of vaccines against infectious diseases and novel approaches to fighting cancer. The research has helped lay the foundations for a new wave of so-called “therapeutic vaccines” that stimulate the immune system to attack tumors.

   Better understanding of the complexities of the body’s immune system has also provided clues for treating inflammatory diseases, such as rheumatoid arthritis, where the components of the self-defense system end up attacking the body’s own tissues.

   Medicine is traditionally the first of the Nobel prizes awarded each year. Prizes for achievements in science, literature and peace were first awarded in 1901 accordance with the will of dynamite inventor and businessman Alfred Nobel.

   বিস্তারিত : Immune system discoveries win 2011 medicine Nobel।

   • 

     মাসুদ করিম - ৪ অক্টোবর ২০১১ (১২:২২ পূর্বাহ্ণ)

     এই প্রথম কি এরকম ঘটল? আমরা জানি না। মেডিসিনে নোবেল জয়ী তিন জনের মধ্যে রালফ স্টাইনম্যান ৩০ সেপ্টেম্বর ২০১১তে মারা গেছেন।

     A scientist who won the Nobel prize for medicine on Monday used his own discoveries to treat himself for cancer, but died of the disease just days before he could be told of the award.

     Calling it “bittersweet” news, colleagues of Canadian-born Ralph Steinman at New York’s Rockefeller University said he had prolonged his own life with a new therapy based on his prize-winning research into the body’s immune system.

     But the 68-year-old physician, who joked last week with his family about hanging on until the annual prize announcement, died on Friday after a four-year battle with pancreatic cancer.

     He never knew his life’s work had been crowned with the highest accolade science can bestow.

     “We wanted him to be here for this,” said his daughter Alexis Steinman, 34. “We were like ‘OK Dad, I know things aren’t going well but the Nobel, they are going to announce it next Monday’. And he’s like: ‘I know I have got to hold out for that. They don’t give it to you if you have passed away.

     “‘I got to hold out for that.'”

     Calling it a “unique” situation, Sweden’s Nobel Committee was still considering how to reconcile the announcement with its policy of not making posthumous awards. It said it learned of Steinman’s death two hours after declaring to the world that he would share the $1.5 million annual prize with American Bruce Beutler and Jules Hoffman from France.

     “It’s really impossible to describe how our family is feeling right now. We’re devastated to have lost Ralph,” Steinman’s son Adam told reporters in New York. “We’re so incredibly proud of dad for receiving this wonderful honor … We know he will live on through his scientific contributions.”

     Steinman’s research contributed to the launch last year of the first vaccine which is designed to kill tumors.

     “BITTERSWEET NEWS”

     Colleagues said Steinman was working until last week. Admitted to hospital on Sunday, he lost consciousness on Thursday and died surrounded by family the following day. But Rockefeller University president Marc Tessier-Lavigne said the university only heard of his death from the family about half an hour after news of the Nobel prize came out from Sweden.

     In Stockholm, Nobel Committee secretary general Goran Hansson told Reuters that the poignant situation only became apparent there when his staff could not reach Steinman to tell him of the prize. It had been a closely guarded secret until announced by the Karolinska Institute at 11:30 a.m. (0930 GMT).

     “I am, of course, saddened that Dr Steinman could not receive this news and feel that happiness,” Hansson said.

     “He was a great scientist.”

     His university said: “Steinman … was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer four years ago, and his life was extended using a dendritic-cell based immunotherapy of his own design.”

     Those cells, which the Montreal-born Steinman discovered in the 1970s, are key to the attack the body launches on tumors and infections if they breach its first line of immune defense.

     The other prizewinners, Beutler and Hoffmann, studied the first stages of the body’s immune responses in the 1990s.

     Lars Klareskog, who chairs the Nobel prize-giving panel, said: “I am very excited about what these discoveries mean.

     “We will have new, better vaccines against microbes and that is very much needed now with the increased resistance against antibiotics.”

     Beutler, 53, is based at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California. Luxembourg-born Hoffmann, 70, conducted much of his work in Strasbourg. The pair were supposed to share half the 10 million Swedish crowns of prize-money.

     The rest should have gone to Steinman, but his death leaves its fate in some doubt. Since the 1970s, prizes from the Nobel fund, bequeathed by dynamite inventor Alfred Nobel over a century ago, have been available only to the living. Officials indicated no substitute prize-winner would be announced.

     SELF-Defense

     The work of all three scientists has been pivotal to the development of improved types of vaccines against infectious diseases and novel approaches to fighting cancer. The research has helped lay the foundations for a new wave of “therapeutic vaccines” that stimulate the immune system to attack tumors.

     Better understanding of the complexities of the immune system has also given clues for treating inflammatory diseases, such as rheumatoid arthritis, where the components of the self-defense system end up attacking the body’s own tissues.

     Beutler told Reuters his work “might lead to new treatments for inflammatory and auto-immune disease and possibly new treatments for other kinds of diseases as well.”

     Beutler and Hoffmann discovered in the 1990s that receptor proteins act as a first line of defense, innate immunity, by recognizing bacteria and other microorganisms. Steinman’s work, explained how, if required, dendritic cells in the next phase, adaptive immunity, kill off infections that break through.

     The research ultimately led to the launch of the first therapeutic cancer vaccine last year, Dendreon’s Provenge, which treats men with advanced prostate cancer.

     It was unclear how Steinman had treated his own pancreatic cancer — a notoriously deadly form of the disease. The development of treatments from research can take many years. Former student Michel Nussenzweig said Steinman’s discovery was only now reaching that stage after a particular wait.

     “No one believed it for a really long time,” Nussenzweig said of the work on cells. “His dream was to use his discovery to develop vaccines and it’s a dream that’s pretty close.”

     Medicine, or physiology, is usually the first of the Nobel prizes awarded each year. They were first awarded in 1901.

     The only posthumous awards were to Swedes: poet Erik Axel Karlfeldt, for literature, in 1931; and U.N. chief Dag Hammarskjold, given the 1961 peace prize weeks after dying in a plane crash while on a peacemaking mission in Africa.

     লিন্ক : Cancer kills Nobel physician before hears of prize।

6. 

   মাসুদ করিম - ৪ অক্টোবর ২০১১ (৫:৫৬ অপরাহ্ণ)

   সুপারনোভার তিন গবেষক পেলেন পদার্থবিদ্যার নোবেল।

   Three researchers behind the discovery that our Universe’s expansion is accelerating have been awarded this year’s Nobel prize for physics.

   Saul Perlmutter and Adam Riess of the US and Brian Schmidt of Australia will divide the prize.

   The trio studied what are called Type 1a supernovae, determining that more distant objects seem to move faster.

   Their observations suggest that not only is the Universe expanding, its expansion is relentlessly speeding up.

   Prof Perlmutter of the University of California, Berkeley, has been awarded half the 10m Swedish krona (£940,000) prize, with Prof Schmidt of the Australian National University and Prof Riess of Johns Hopkins University’s Space Telescope Science Institute sharing the other half.

   In 2006, the same trio shared the Shaw prize in astronomy for their findings.
   ‘Weak knees’

   Prof Schmidt spoke to the Nobel commitee from Australia during the ceremony.

   “It feels like when my children were born,” he said.

   “I feel weak at the knees, very excited and somewhat amazed by the situation. It’s been a pretty exciting last half hour.”

   The trio’s findings form the basis of our current understanding of the Universe’s origins, but raises a number of difficult questions.

   In order to explain the rising expansion, cosmologists have suggested the existence of what is known as dark energy. Although its properties and nature remain mysterious, the predominant theory holds that dark energy makes up some three-quarters of the Universe.

   Prof Perlmutter led the Supernova Cosmology Project, which began in 1988, and Prof Schmidt and Prof Riess began work in 1994 on a similar project known as the High-z Supernova Search Team.

   Their goal was to measure distant Type 1a supernovas – the brilliant ends of a particular kind of dense star known as a white dwarf.

   Because their explosive ends are of roughly the same brightness, the amount of light observed from the supernovas on Earth should be an indication of their distance; slight shifts in their colour indicate how fast they are moving.

   At the time, the competing teams expected to find that the more distant supernovas were slowing down, relative to those nearer – a decline of the expansion of the Universe that began with the Big Bang.

   Instead, both teams found the same thing: distant supernovas were in fact speeding up, suggesting that the Universe is destined for an ever-increasing expansion.

   What the trio found has sparked a new epoch in cosmology, seeking to understand what is driving the expansion.

   Commenting on the prize, Prof Sir Peter Knight, head of the UK’s Institute of Physics, said: “The recipients of today’s award are at the frontier of modern astrophysics and have triggered an enormous amount of research on dark energy.”

   “These researchers have opened our eyes to the true nature of our Universe,” he added. “They are very well-deserved recipients.”

   খবরের লিন্ক : Nobel physics prize honours accelerating Universe find।

7. 

   মাসুদ করিম - ৪ অক্টোবর ২০১১ (৬:৫১ অপরাহ্ণ)

   পুলিশের ভেতর যারা, পুলিশকে চালায় যারা, তারা কি এমন এজেন্ডা নিয়ে ঘোরাফেরা করছে — যে সময় সুযোগ পেলেই স্বরাষ্ট্রের গণ্ডি পেরিয়ে পররাষ্ট্রের কাজ গুবলেট করে ছেড়ে দেব — মত প্রকাশের স্বাধীনতা নিয়ে এএসপি রফিকুল কেইস বাংলাদেশের স্বরাষ্ট্রের পাশাপাশি পররাষ্ট্রেরও বিপদ বাড়াবে বলে মনে হচ্ছে। আসিফ মহিউদ্দিনের গ্রেপ্তার, নির্যাতন, মুচলেকা নিয়ে ফজলুল বারী লিখছেন

   আসিফের ব্লগিং জগন্নাথ বিশ্ববিদ্যালয়ের শিক্ষার্থীদের আন্দোলন উসকে দিচ্ছে অভিযোগ করে তাকে ব্লগে এবং ফেইসবুকে লেখালেখি করতে নিষেধ করা হয়েছে! এরপর আসিফ আর তার ব্লগ বা ফেইসবুকে বিষয়টি নিয়ে লিখবেননা, এমন একটি মুচলেকা দিয়ে তাকে ছাড়া হয়!

   এই কর্মকর্তা তার বিশাল জ্ঞান-গরিমার (!) নিজস্ব জীবন দর্শন সম্পর্কে (লেখালেখি করে কেউ কিছু করতে পারে নাই।”) একজন দার্শনিক অথবা ফিলোসফির প্রফেসরের মতো আসিফের মতো যুবককে চোখ বেঁধে জ্ঞান দিয়েছেন।

   আমরা সবাই দেখলাম আসিফের অপরাধ লেখালেখি। আল্লাহপাককে অসংখ্য ধন্যবাদ। এখানেও রাজাপুর কলেজের গরিব নিরীহ ছাত্র লিমনের মতো তাকে সন্ত্রাসী বা ঢাবি’র ছাত্র কাদেরের মতো ডাকাত সাজানোর অপচেষ্টা হয়নি! আর আসিফতো দেশের কোন বহুল প্রচারিত পত্রিকা বা নিউজ পোর্টালেও লিখেননি। টেলিভিশনের অতি টক টকশো’তে কিছু বলেননি! তাহলে কী ব্লগ-সোশ্যাল নেটওয়ার্কগুলোর শক্তিসামর্থ্য আইডেন্টিফাই করেছে বাংলাদেশের ডিবি পুলিশ? বাহ, এটিওতো কম অগ্রগতি নয়! কিন্তু যে দেখা গেল আসিফ ডিবি অফিসে তার ব্লগ-ফেইসবুক আইডি না খোলা অবধি এর কিছুই দেখতে পারেনি ব্যাকডেটেড এনালগ ডিবি পুলিশ!

   এখন একটা ব্লগ আর ফেইসবুকে লেখালেখির কারনে এভাবে একজনকে ধরে নিয়ে এমন টর্চার করা হবে! বিয়া-সাদী করার জ্ঞান দেয়া হবে, এসব যখন বিদেশি মিডিয়া-ব্লগে যাবে তখন দেশের মত প্রকাশের স্বাধীনতার মান-ইজ্জত কোথায় গিয়ে ঠেকবে? এ্যামনেস্টি ইন্টারন্যাশনাল বা মিডিয়া ওয়াচের পরবর্তী রিপোর্টে ঘটনাগুলো সংকলিত হলে পররাষ্ট্রমন্ত্রীকে সব মিথ্যা মিথ্যা বলতে রুটিন প্রেস কনফারেন্স করতে হবে, তাই নয় কী? ভালোই ঝামেলা বাজাইছে ডিবির এএসপি রফিকুল ইসলাম!

   আর ক্যাথলিক মোর দ্যান পোপ এই পুলিশ কর্মকর্তারা কী শেখ হাসিনাকে মিশরের হোসনী মোবারকের লাইনে নিয়ে যাবার মিশন নিয়েছেন? যে ফেইসবুককে কেন্দ্র করে বিপ্লব ঘটে গেছে মিশরে। তখততাউস ধসে-উড়ে গেছে লৌহমানব হোসনী মুবারকের। বা এরা কী দেখাতে-বোঝাতে চাইছে যে শেখ হাসিনার অবস্থা মুবারকের মতো এত খারাপ হয়ে গেছে যে ব্লগার, ফেইসবুকারদের এখনই ধরে ধরে চোখ বেঁধে লেখালেখি বন্ধের মুচলেকা না নিলে তাহরীর স্কোয়ার হয়ে যাবে ঢাকা শহর!

   বিস্তারিত পড়ুন : স্যালুট টু ইউ, ওয়ারিয়র আসিফ।

8. 

   মাসুদ করিম - ৫ অক্টোবর ২০১১ (৫:৩৮ অপরাহ্ণ)

   রসায়নের নোবেল ইসরাইলি বিজ্ঞানীর।

   An Israeli scientist won this year’s Nobel Prize in Chemistry for discovering a material in which atoms were packed together in a well-defined pattern that never repeats.

   Recent Nobel prizes have generally split credit for scientific advances among two or three people, but this year’s chemistry prize and accompanying 10 million Swedish kronor ($1.4 million) went to a single scientist: Daniel Shechtman, 70, a professor of materials science at Technion – Israel Institute of Technology.

   The citation from the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences states simply, “for the discovery of quasicrystals.”

   Such regular but non-repeating patterns, defined by precise rules, have been known in mathematics since antiquity and are found in mosaics of medieval Islamic tiles, but it was thought impossible in the packing of atoms.

   Dr. Shechtman discovered the same type of structure while studying a metal mix of aluminum and manganese. His notebook recorded the exact date: April 8, 1982.

   Scientists believed that crystals in materials all contained repeating patterns, and Dr. Shechtman took years to convince others. During the announcement, the Nobel committee noted that one colleague said, “Go away, Danny” and that he was even asked to leave his research group.

   Quasicrystals have since been found in many other materials, including a naturally occurring mineral from a Russian river.

   খবরের লিন্ক : Israeli Scientist Wins Nobel Prize for Chemistry।

9. 

   মাসুদ করিম - ৬ অক্টোবর ২০১১ (৯:৩২ পূর্বাহ্ণ)

   আপেল দ্রষ্টা ও প্রযুক্তি ব্যবসার রকস্টার স্টিভ জবস প্রয়াত।

   The death was announced by Apple, the company Mr. Jobs and his high school friend Stephen Wozniak started in 1976 in a suburban California garage.

   A friend of the family said that Mr. Jobs died of complications from his long battle with pancreatic cancer, with which he waged a long and public struggle, remaining the face of the company even as he underwent treatment. He continued to introduce new products for a global market in his trademark blue jeans even as he grew gaunt and frail.

   He underwent surgery in 2004, received a liver transplant in 2009 and took three medical leaves of absence as Apple’s chief executive before stepping down in August and turning over the helm to Timothy D. Cook, the chief operating officer. When he left, he was still engaged in the company’s affairs, negotiating with another Silicon Valley executive only weeks earlier.

   “I have always said that if there ever came a day when I could no longer meet my duties and expectations as Apple’s C.E.O., I would be the first to let you know,” Mr. Jobs said in a letter released by the company. “Unfortunately, that day has come.”

   By then, having mastered digital technology and capitalized on his intuitive marketing sense, Mr. Jobs had largely come to define the personal computer industry and an array of digital consumer and entertainment businesses centered on the Internet. He had also become a very rich man, worth an estimated $8.3 billion.

   Tributes to Mr. Jobs flowed quickly on Wednesday evening, in formal statements and in the flow of social networks, with President Obama, technology industry leaders and legions of Apple fans weighing in.

   বিস্তারিত পড়ুন : Steve Jobs, Apple’s Visionary, Dies at 56।

   • 

     মাসুদ করিম - ৬ অক্টোবর ২০১১ (১০:২৮ পূর্বাহ্ণ)

     অবশ্যপাঠ্য এক সাক্ষাৎকার।

     DM: Well they might in three hundred years because all this print is going to disintegrate. Tell me a little bit about your parents, your family; what are the earliest things you remember? In 1955, Eisenhower was still President.

     SJ: I don’t remember him but I do remember growing up in the late 50’s and early 60’s. It was a very interesting time in the United States. America was sort of at its pinnacle of post World War II prosperity and everything had been fairly straight and narrow from haircuts to culture in every way, and it was just starting to broaden into the 60’s where things were going to start expanding out in new directions. Everything was still very successful. Very young. America seemed young and naive in many ways to me, from my memories at that time.

     DM: So you would have been about five or six years old when John Kennedy was assassinated?

     SJ: I remember John Kennedy being assassinated. I remember the exact moment that I heard he had been shot.

     DM: Where were you at the time?

     SJ: I was walking across the grass at my schoolyard going home at about three in the afternoon when somebody yelled that the President had been shot and killed. I must have been about seven or eight years old, I guess, and I knew exactly what it meant. I also remember very much the Cuban Missile Crisis. I probably didn’t sleep for three or four nights because I was afraid that if I went to sleep I wouldn’t wake up. I guess I was seven years old at the time and I understood exactly what was going on. I think everybody did. It was really a terror that I will never forget, and it probably never really left. I think that everyone felt it at that time.

     DM: Those of us who were older, such as myself, remember making plans of where we would meet if the country was devastated. It was a strange time. One of the things we’re trying to get a handle on is passion and power. What were the early things you were passionate about, that you were interested in?

     SJ: I was very lucky. My father, Paul, was a pretty remarkable man. He never graduated from high school. He joined the coast guard in World War II and ferried troops around the world for General Patton; and I think he was always getting into trouble and getting busted down to Private. He was a machinist by trade and worked very hard and was kind of a genius with his hands. He had a workbench out in his garage where, when I was about five or six, he sectioned off a little piece of it and said “Steve, this is your workbench now.” And he gave me some of his smaller tools and showed me how to use a hammer and saw and how to build things. It really was very good for me. He spent a lot of time with me . . . teaching me how to build things, how to take things apart, put things back together.

     One of the things that he touched upon was electronics. He did not have a deep understanding of electronics himself but he’d encountered electronics a lot in automobiles and other things he would fix. He showed me the rudiments of electronics and I got very interested in that. I grew up in Silicon Valley. My parents moved from San Francisco to Mountain View when I was five. My dad got transferred and that was right in the heart of Silicon Valley so there were engineers all around. Silicon Valley for the most part at that time was still orchards–apricot orchards and prune orchards–and it was really paradise. I remember the air being crystal clear, where you could see from one end of the valley to the other.

     DM: This was when you were six, seven, eight years old at the time.

     SJ: Right. Exactly. It was really the most wonderful place in the world to grow up. There was a man who moved in down the street, maybe about six or seven houses down the block who was new in the neighborhood with his wife, and it turned out that he was an engineer at Hewlett-Packard and a ham radio operator and really into electronics. What he did to get to know the kids in the block was rather a strange thing: he put out a carbon microphone and a battery and a speaker on his driveway where you could talk into the microphone and your voice would be amplified by the speaker. Kind of strange thing when you move into a neighborhood but that’s what he did.

     DM: This is great.

     SJ: I of course started messing around with this. I was always taught that you needed an amplifier to amplify the voice in a microphone for it to come out in a speaker. My father taught me that. I proudly went home to my father and announced that he was all wrong and that this man up the block was amplifying voice with just a battery. My father told me that I didn’t know what I was talking about and we got into a very large argument. So I dragged him down and showed him this and he himself was a little befuddled.

     I got to know this man, whose name was Larry Lang, and he taught me a lot of electronics. He was great. He used to build Heathkits. Heathkits were really great. Heathkits were these products that you would buy in kit form. You actually paid more money for them than if you just went and bought the finished product if it was available. These Heathkits would come with these detailed manuals about how to put this thing together and all the parts would be laid out in a certain way and color coded. You’d actually build this thing yourself. I would say that this gave one several things. It gave one a understanding of what was inside a finished product and how it worked because it would include a theory of operation but maybe even more importantly it gave one the sense that one could build the things that one saw around oneself in the universe. These things were not mysteries anymore. I mean you looked at a television set you would think that “I haven’t built one of those but I could. There’s one of those in the Heathkit catalog and I’ve built two other Heathkits so I could build that.” Things became much more clear that they were the results of human creation not these magical things that just appeared in one’s environment that one had no knowledge of their interiors. It gave a tremendous level of self-confidence, that through exploration and learning one could understand seemingly very complex things in one’s environment. My childhood was very fortunate in that way.

     DM: It sounds like you were really lucky to have your dad as sort of a mentor. I was going to ask you about school. What was the formal side of your education like? Good? Bad?

     SJ: School was pretty hard for me at the beginning. My mother taught me how to read before I got to school and so when I got there I really just wanted to do two things. I wanted to read books because I loved reading books and I wanted to go outside and chase butterflies. You know, do the things that five year olds like to do. I encountered authority of a different kind than I had ever encountered before, and I did not like it. And they really almost got me. They came close to really beating any curiosity out of me. By the time I was in third grade, I had a good buddy of mine, Rick Farentino, and the only way we had fun was to create mischief. I remember we traded everybody. There was a big bike rack where everybody put their bikes, maybe a hundred bikes in this rack, and we traded everybody our lock combinations for theirs on an individual basis and then went out one day and put everybody’s lock on everybody else’s bike and it took them until about ten o’clock that night to get all the bikes sorted out. We set off explosives in teacher’s desks. We got kicked out of school a lot. In fourth grade I encountered one of the other saints of my life. They were going to put Rick Farentino and I into the same fourth grade class, and the principal said at the last minute “No, bad idea. Separate them.” So this teacher, Mrs. Hill, said “I’ll take one of them.” She taught the advanced fourth grade class and thank God I was the random one that got put in the class. She watched me for about two weeks and then approached me. She said “Steven, I’ll tell you what. I’ll make you a deal. I have this math workbook and if you take it home and finish on your own without any help and you bring it back to me, if you get it 80% right, I will give you five dollars and one of these really big suckers she bought and she held it out in front of me. One of these giant things. And I looked at her like “Are you crazy lady”? Nobody’s ever done this before and of course I did it. She basically bribed me back into learning with candy and money and what was really remarkable was before very long I had such a respect for her that it sort of re-ignited my desire to learn. She got me kits for making cameras. I ground my own lens and made a camera. It was really quite wonderful. I think I probably learned more academically in that one year than I learned in my life. It created problems though because when I got out of fourth grade they tested me and they decided to put me in high school and my parents said “No.”. Thank God. They said “He can skip one grade but that’s all.”

     বিস্তারিত পড়ুন : Excerpts from an Oral History Interview with Steve Jobs।

   • 

     মাসুদ করিম - ৬ অক্টোবর ২০১১ (২:০১ অপরাহ্ণ)

     স্লাইডশোটির বর্ণনা যদিও জার্মান ভাষায়, কিন্তু আজ স্টিভ জবসকে নিয়ে যা স্লাইডশো দেখেছি, এটাই সেরা : দেখুন এখানে।

10. 

    মাসুদ করিম - ৬ অক্টোবর ২০১১ (৫:৫২ অপরাহ্ণ)

    জল্পনা চলছিল এবার কোনো কবি সাহিত্যের নোবেল পাবেন — শোনা যাচ্ছিল সিরিয়ার কবি অ্যডোনিস ও সুইডিশ কবি টমাস ট্রান্সট্রোমারের নাম। হ্যাঁ, জল্পনা সত্য হয়েছে সুইডিশ কবি টমাস ট্রান্সট্রোমার এবারের সাহিত্যের নোবেল পেয়েছেন।

    “Through his condensed, transluscent images, he gives us fresh access to reality,” read the citation from the Swedish Academy.

    Tranströmer becomes the first Swede in almost 40 years to win the prestigious prize.

    The 80-year-old Swede from Stockholm began his serious writing career in 1954 when he published “17 dikter” (17 poems) – one of the most acclaimed literary debuts of the decade.

    Predominant in his work are themes of nature and music and he followed up “17 dikter” with a slew of collections in the 1950s and 1960s, including: “Hemligheter på vägen” (1958; Secrets along the way), “Den halvfärdiga himlen” (1962; The Half-Finished Heaven, 2001) and “Klanger och spår” (1966; Windows & Stones : Selected Poems, 1972).

    With “Windows & Stones : Selected Poems”, published in English in 1972, he consolidated his standing among critics and other readers as one of the leading poets of his generation, according to the Swedish Academy biography.

    A significant amount of his work has been translated into English and other languages including “The Sorrow Gondola” and “New Collected Poems”, published in 2010 and 2011 respectively.

    Tranströmer suffered a stroke in 1990 which impaired his speech, but he continues to write. He has been mentioned several times in the past as a candidate for the Nobel prize and was also tipped as one of the favourites this year.

    Aside from his work as a writer, Tranströmer was also respected for his work as a psychologist prior to suffering his stroke, working in juvenile prisons and with drug addicts and convicts.

    Tomas Tranströmer is the first Swedish writer since Eyvind Johnson and Harry Martinson, who shared the prize in 1974, to claim the Nobel.

    লিন্ক : Swedish poet awarded 2011 Literature Nobel।

    • 

      রেজাউল করিম সুমন - ৭ অক্টোবর ২০১১ (১২:২৩ পূর্বাহ্ণ)

      আশ্চর্য, টমাস ট্রান্সট্রমারের সাহিত্যে নোবেল বিজয়ের সংবাদ তাঁর অফিসিয়াল ওয়েবসাইটে এখনো ছাপা হয়নি! রয়টার-এর বরাত গিয়ে এখনো সেখানে ঝুলছে এই বাসি খবর :

      Two poets, one Swedish and the other Syrian, are leading the betting to win the 2011 Nobel Literature prize, a bookmaker said on Tuesday, though past prizes have often defied the predictions.

      রয়টার-এর পূর্ণাঙ্গ প্রতিবেদনটি পড়তে ক্লিক করুন এখানে।

    • 

      মাসুদ করিম - ৭ অক্টোবর ২০১১ (১১:৪৭ পূর্বাহ্ণ)

      টেলিগ্রাফ ইউকেতে কবি অনুবাদক মনোবিদ পিয়ানোবাদক ও পতঙ্গবিদ টমাস ট্রান্সট্রোমারকে নিয়ে handy guide।

      1. Born in 1931 in Stokholm to a schoolteacher mother and journalist father, Tranströmer spent much of his childhood in an Enid Blyton style blurr of jolly seaside holidays on Runmarö Island (in the Stockholm archipelago.) This became fodder for his nostalgic poems Östersjöar (1974; Baltics, 1975) and his 1993 memoir Minnena ser mig (The memories see me).
      2. Tranströmer studied literary history, history of religion and psychology at Stokholm University. After graduating he was employed at the Institution for Psychometrics at Stockholm University in 1957 and, between 1960 and 1966, worked as a psychologist at Roxtuna, a youth correctional facility.
      3. Despite a previous smattering of poems published in journals, Tranströmer’s literary debut was 954 17 dikter (17 poems.) It has been consided one of the most acclaimed literary debuts of that decade.
      4. In Sweden he is known as a ‘buzzard poet’ because his poetry views the world from a great height…like a buzzard, apparently.
      5. His most notable works are Klanger och spår (1966, Windows and Stones) and Den stora gåtan (2004, The Great Enigma.)
      6. No excuses for not having read Tranströmer. His works have been translated into over fifty languages.
      7. Tranströmer suffered a debilitating stroke in 1990 that left him half-paralysed and unable to speak. Despite this, the poet continues to write, producing over five new works since his stroke, including his memoirs.
      8. His close friendship with the America poet Robert Bly means that the two poets are often read in conjunction. Bly was responsible for introducing Tranströmer’s work to the United States as early as 1960 and their correspondence has been published in the book ‘Air Mail.’
      9. Tranströmer is not a one trick pony. Besides his successful career as a respected psychologist, he is also known as a skilled literary translator, entomologist, and classical pianist. He hasn’t let his paralysis stop him either. He continues to perform one handed piano recitals throughout Europe. Impressive stuff.
      10. Tomas Transtromer is no stranger to awards. He has already collected the Bonnier Award for Poetry, the Neustadt International Prize for Literature, the Oevralids Prize, the Petrarca-Preis in Germany, the Golden Wreath of the Struga Poetry Evenings and the Swedish Award from International Poetry Forum. In 2007, Tranströmer received a special Lifetime Recognition Award given by the trustees of the Griffin Trust for Excellence in Poetry, which also awards the annual Griffin Poetry Prize. He has now become the ninth Swedish winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature.

      লিন্ক : Ten things you never knew about the poet you never knew।

      আর আউটলুক ইন্ডিয়ায় সুঁদীপ দুগাল জড়ো করেছেন আরো কিছু কবিতা, রিভিউ ও লিন্ক।

      So said the Swedish Academy’s press-release, announcing Tomas Tranströmer as this year’s recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature, who, as the Telegraph’s Ten things you never knew about the poet you never knew, informs us, besides his successful career as a respected psychologist,

      is also known as a skilled literary translator, entomologist, and classical pianist. He hasn’t let his paralysis stop him either. He continues to perform one handed piano recitals throughout Europe. Impressive stuff.

      Not being familiar with his poetry at all, a simple search led me to to the twitter stream of Teju Cole, the author of Open City. There couldn’t possibly be a better introduction:

      Next to this, for more online there is Bill Coyle’s review of The Great Enigma: New Collected Poems by Tomas Tranströmer, translated by Robin Fulton. New Directions Books, 2006 which said way back in 2006:

      Tranströmer has hardly languished in obscurity. Since 1975, when Robert Bly included him, along with Gunar Ekelöf and the aforementioned Harry Martinsson in the anthology Friends, You Drank Some Darkness (the title is taken from Tranströmer’s poem “Elegy”), his reputation has been steadily on the rise. Today he is widely recognized as one of the best poets alive, largely on the strength of translations of his work into fifty languages. In addition to Bly, May Swenson, Rika Lesser, Don Coles, John F. Deane, Samuel Charters, and Robin Robertson have all produced English versions of Tranströmer’s quietly startling poems. While the quality of these efforts has varied considerably, the poet’s voice—subdued, austere, rueful, kind—has come through relatively intact.

      Coyle also highlights Tranströmer’s “almost preternatural knack for metaphor. This was obvious in his first book (1954) from the first lines of the first poem, “Prelude”:

      Waking up is a parachute jump from dreams.
      Free of the suffocating turbulence the traveler
      sinks toward the green zone of morning.

      to these from “Streets in Shanghai” (1989)

      I’m surrounded by signs I can’t interpret, I’m totally illiterate.
      But I’ve paid what I should and have receipts for everything.
      I’ve accumulated so many illegible receipts.

      I’m an old tree with withered leaves that hang on and can’t fall to the earth.

      And a puff of air from the sea makes all those receipts rustle.

      to the first strophe of Snow is Falling (2004):

      The funerals keep coming
      more and more of them
      like the traffic signs
      as we approach a city.

      Thousands of people gazing
      in the land of long shadows.

      A bridge builds itself
      slowly
      straight out in space.”

      And here’s — for me — an unforgettable image, in this short excerpt from Robert Bly’s book, The Half-Finished Heaven: the best poems of Tomas Tranströmer (Saint Paul, Minnesota: Graywolf Press), 2001:

      The Bookcase

      All the old historians are there, they get their chance to stand up and see into our family life. You can’t hear a thing, but the lips are moving all the time behind the pane (“Passchendaele”…). It reminds me of that tale of an ancient office building (this is a pure ghost story), a building where portraits of the long dead gentlemen hung on the wall behind glass, and one morning the office workers found some mist on the inside of the glass. The dead had begun to breathe during the night.

      The excerpt ends with what by now seems to be imagery typical of Tranströmer, from At Funchal (Island of Madeira):

      A drink that bubbles in an empty glass. An amplifier that magnifies silence. A path that grows over after every step. A book that can only be read in the dark.

      Here are some more picked up from the web:

      From the Nobel laureate’s website
      Track
      2 A.M. moonlight. The train has stopped
      out in a field. Far off sparks of light from a town,
      flickering coldly on the horizon.

      As when a man goes so deep into his dream
      he will never remember he was there
      when he returns again to his view.

      Or when a person goes so deep into a sickness
      that his days all become some flickering sparks, a swarm,
      feeble and cold on the horizon

      The train is entirely motionless.
      2 o’clock: strong moonlight, few stars.

      Translated by Robin Fulton from New and Collected Poems by Tomas Tranströmer by Robin Fulton, published by Bloodaxe Books. Copyright © 1997 by Robin Fulton.

      ***

      Under Pressure
      The blue sky’s engine-drone is deafening.
      We’re living here on a shuddering work-site
      where the ocean depths can suddenly open up
      shells and telephones hiss.
      You can see beauty only from the side, hastily.
      The dense grain on the field, many colours in a yellow stream.
      The restless shadows in my head are drawn there.
      They want to creep into the grain and turn to gold.
      Darkness falls. At midnight I go to bed.
      The smaller boat puts out from the larger boat.
      You are alone on the water.
      Society’s dark hull drifts further and further away.

      Translated by Robert Bly from The Winged Energy of Delight: Selected Translations by Robert Bly, published by Harper Collins. Copyright © 2004 by Robert Bly.

      ***

      From Poets.org

      Outskirts
      Men in overalls the same color as earth rise from a ditch.
      It’s a transitional place, in stalemate, neither country nor city.
      Construction cranes on the horizon want to take the big leap,
      but the clocks are against it.
      Concrete piping scattered around laps at the light with cold tongues.
      Auto-body shops occupy old barns.
      Stones throw shadows as sharp as objects on the moon surface.
      And these sites keep on getting bigger
      like the land bought with Judas’ silver: “a potter’s field for
      burying strangers.”

      Translated by Robert Bly from The Winged Energy of Delight: Selected Translations by Robert Bly, published by Harper Collins. Copyright © 2004 by Robert Bly.

      ***

      After a Death

      Once there was a shock
      that left behind a long, shimmering comet tail.
      It keeps us inside. It makes the TV pictures snowy.
      It settles in cold drops on the telephone wires.

      One can still go slowly on skis in the winter sun
      through brush where a few leaves hang on.
      They resemble pages torn from old telephone directories.
      Names swallowed by the cold.

      It is still beautiful to hear the heart beat
      but often the shadow seems more real than the body.
      The samurai looks insignificant
      beside his armor of black dragon scales.

      Translated by Robert Bly from The Winged Energy of Delight: Selected Translations by Robert Bly, published by Harper Collins. Copyright © 2004 by Robert Bly.

      সলিন্ক বিস্তারিত : Direct Contact।

11. 

    মাসুদ করিম - ৭ অক্টোবর ২০১১ (১২:৫২ অপরাহ্ণ)

    চালের মূল্য ও কৃষকের মজুরি নিয়ে স্বদেশ রায়ের পর্যবেক্ষণ

    বাংলাদেশে কৃষি উৎপাদনের সঙ্গে জড়িত বিপুলসংখ্যক মানুষ। কিন্তু জমির মালিক বা উৎপাদিত ফসলের মালিক কমসংখ্যক লোক। বেশিসংখ্যক লোক কৃষি ক্ষেতের মজুর এবং তারা ভূমিহীন। উৎপাদিত ফসলের কোন মালিকানা তাদের নেই। বাংলাদেশে এই অবস্থা এখন সৃষ্টি হয়নি। বাংলাদেশের অধিকসংখ্যক মানুষ সুদূর অতীতেও ভূমিহীন ছিল। এমনকি জমিদারি প্রথা উঠে যাবার পরেও ভূমি সংস্কার বা ভূমি বণ্টন করা হয়নি এ দেশে। বরং দ্রুত নগরায়ন ও শিল্পায়নের ফলে এক ধরনের উঠতি বুর্জোয়াদের হাতে চলে গেছে সামন্তদের জমি। ফলে ভূমিহীনদের নূ্যনতম জমির মালিক হবার সুযোগ এ দেশে কখনও হয়নি। আর এই হয়নি বলেই, এ দেশে যারা ভূমিহীন বা ৰেত মজুরদের পৰে আন্দোলন করত, রাজনীতি করত তাদের দীর্ঘদিনের দাবি ছিল কৃষি ক্ষেতে যারা কাজ করে তাদের দৈনিক পারিশ্রমিক যেন নূ্যনতম পৰে সাড়ে তিন কেজি চালের সমান হয়। সেই তিরিশের দশক থেকে এ আন্দোলন হলেও বা দাবি থাকলেও আশির দশক অবধি এটা বাসত্মবায়ন করা সম্ভব হয়নি। নব্বই দশকের শুরম্নতে অর্থাৎ ১৯৯৩ সালে এ দেশ গড় কৃষি মজুরি ছিল ৩৬.৮০ টাকা। ওই টাকায় ওই সময়ে ৩.২৫ কেজি চাল পাওয়া যেত। সে সময়ও .২৫ কেজি কম ছিল নূ্যনতম দাবির থেকে। ১৯৯৬ সালে এই গড় কৃষি মজুরি বেড়ে হয় ৪৭.৬০ টাকা। এই টাকাও কিন্তু সাড়ে তিন কেজিতে পৌঁছতে পারেনি। সেদিন ওই টাকায় ৩.৪৫ কেজি চাল পাওয়া যেত। ১৯৯৬ সালে আওয়ামী লীগ সরকার যখন ৰমতায় আসে তখনও এ দেশে একজন কৃষি মজুর তার সারা দিনের কাজের বিনিময় সাড়ে তিন কেজি চাল পেত না। শেখ হাসিনার পাঁচ বছরের ৰমতার শেষের দিকে অর্থাৎ ২০০০ সালে কৃষি মজুরের দৈনিক গড় মজুরি গিয়ে দাঁড়ায় ৬৩.৫০ টাকা। ওই সময়ে ওই টাকায় ৪.৫ কেজি চাল পাওয়া যেত। অর্থাৎ এই ভূখণ্ডে শেখ হাসিনার নেতৃত্বাধীন আওয়ামী লীগ সরকারই প্রথম তাদের ১৯৯৬ ও ২০০১-এর সময় কৃষি মজুরি সাড়ে তিন কেজিকে ছাড়িয়ে সাড়ে চার কেজিতে নিয়ে যায়। যার ফলে ওই সময়ে এটা প্রতিষ্ঠিত হয়েছিল যে গ্রামের মানুষের অর্থনৈতিক সৰমতা বেড়েছে। তাই ২০০১-এর শত কারচুপি ও ষড়যন্ত্রের পরেও শেখ হাসিনার দল এককভাবে প্রায় ৪৫ ভাগের বেশি ভোট পায়। কিন্তু এরপরে আবার দেখা যাচ্ছে, বাংলাদেশে কৃষি মজুরি ও চালের দামের ভেতর সামঞ্জস্য ওই হারে বাড়েনি। ২০০৫ সালে গিয়ে দেখা যাচ্ছে গড় কৃষি মজুরি গিয়ে দাঁড়ায় ৮৪ টাকায়। কিন্তু ওই সময়ে কৃষি মজুরির সঙ্গে চালের মূল্য সামঞ্জস্য হারায়। যার ফলে ২০০০-এ একজন মজুর তার কাজের বিনিময় ৪.৫ কেজি পরিমাণ চালের মূল্য পেলেও ২০০৫ সালে গিয়ে পেত ৪.৮ কেজি। অর্থাৎ পাঁচ বছরে বাড়ে মাত্র দশমিক তিন (.৩) কেজি চাল। আবার ২০১১-এ বা বর্তমানে দেখা যাচ্ছে, গড় কৃষি মজুরি গিয়ে দাঁড়িয়েছে ২৪৭ টাকা। এই টাকায় এখন একজন কৃষি মজুর পাচ্ছে ৭.৭২ কেজি চাল। অর্থাৎ বর্তমানে একজন কৃষি মজুর তার প্রতিদিনের রোজগারের মাধ্যমে দিনে প্রায় আট কেজি চাল কিনতে পারছে। অর্থাৎ বর্তমানে ৰেতমজুর বা গ্রামীণ শ্রমিক তাদের কাজের বিনিময়ে অতীতের সেই দাবির দ্বিগুণের বেশি চাল পাচ্ছে। অর্থাৎ এর থেকে দেখা যাচ্ছে, গত অক্টোবরের থেকে এই অক্টোবরের ভেতর বর্তমান সরকার চালের মূল্য এবং গ্রামের শ্রমিকের মজুরির ভেতর একটা সামঞ্জস্য এনেছে। প্রায় দ্বিগুণ করতে সমর্থ হয়েছে সৰমতা। কারণ ২০১০ সালে যেখানে কৃষি শ্রমিকের মজুরি ছিল ১৮০ টাকা বর্তমানে সেটা ২৪৭-এ গিয়ে দাঁড়িয়েছে। অর্থাৎ সরকার এক বছরে গ্রামীণ অর্থনৈতিক সৰমতা যেটা বাড়াতে সমর্থ হয়েছে তা অভূতপূর্ব। এর আগে কখনও এ দেশে গ্রামীণ অর্থনীতিতে এই সৰমতা বাড়েনি। তবে এর পরেও প্রশ্ন আসবে, গ্রামীণ অর্থনীতির এই সৰমতা বাড়ার পরেও মানুষ কেন গ্রাম ছাড়ছে। প্রতিদিন কিছু না কিছু মানুষ প্রবেশ করছে শহরে। এর কারণ কি? এর কারণ, গ্রামীণ অর্থনীতির সৰমতার ভেতর একটি ছোট বস্নাকহোল এখনও রয়ে গেছে। সেটা হচ্ছে, দুই থেকে তিন ফসলে দেশ চলে গেলেও এখনও ঠিক ৩৬৫ দিন গ্রাম কাজ দিতে পারে না। সারা বছরে ৩০ থেকে পঞ্চাশ দিন কোথাও না কোথাও কিছুটা কাজের অভাব থাকে। তবে সেটা দেশজুড়ে নয়। এই তিশ থেকে পঞ্চাশ দিনের কাজের চাহিদার পরিমাণ কমে যাবার থেকেও বড় বিষয় হয়ে দাঁড়িয়েছে শহরে দৈনিক মজুরের গড় পরিমাণ প্রায় ৪২২ টাকা। যেটা ওই ২৪৭ টাকার শ্রমিককে আকর্ষণ করছে। এই অধিক আয় অনেককে টেনে আনছে শহরে। তাই এই শহর ও গ্রামের ভেতর আরও সামঞ্জস্য করা প্রয়োজন অদৰ মজুরদের ৰেত্রে। যাতে শহরে এই ভাসমান লোকের চাপ কমবে। তবে তারপরেও শহর সব সময়ই গ্রামীণ শ্রমিককে আহ্বান করে। এটা চিরনত্মণ। তবে গ্রামের স্থিতি রাখে গ্রামীণ অর্থনীতির সৰমতা। আর মূল খাদ্যপণ্যের মূল্যের এই বাসত্মবতা ও ধারাবাহিকতা ধরে রাখলে সেটা মানুষকে স্বসত্মি দেবে। তবে মূল খাদ্য সমস্যার সমাধান হবার পরেই ট্রেনটি নিম্নবিত্ত ও নিম্ন মধ্যবিত্ত হবার দিকে চলতে শুরম্ন করে। এটা জিডিপির সঙ্গে প্রবহমান। এটা অবশ্য খাদ্যপণ্য মূল্যের ওপর সবটুকু নির্ভর করে না।

    বিস্তারিত পড়ুন : খাদ্যপণ্য মূল্য ও সক্ষমতা।

12. 

    মাসুদ করিম - ৮ অক্টোবর ২০১১ (১০:০৮ পূর্বাহ্ণ)

    বিশ্বশান্তির জন্য নারীর অধিকার প্রতিষ্ঠার গুরুত্ব অপরিসীম। এবারের নোবেল শান্তি তাই নারীর অধিকার প্রতিষ্ঠায় অগ্রণী তিন নারীর।

    Declaring women’s rights vital for world peace, the Nobel committee awarded its annual Peace Prize on Friday to three indomitable campaigners against war and oppression — a Yemeni and two Liberians, including that country’s president. Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, Africa’s first freely elected woman head of state, shared the $1.5 million (R 7.4 crore) with compatriot Leymah Gbowee, who led a “sex strike” among her efforts against Liberia’s civil war, and Arab activist Tawakul Karman, who hailed the award as a victory for democracy in Yemen.
    “We cannot achieve democracy and lasting peace in the world unless women obtain the same opportunities as men…,” Norwegian Nobel committee chairman Thorbjoern Jagland said.

    Johnson-Sirleaf, 72, and once dubbed the “Iron Lady” by opponents, is running for a second term in an election on Tuesday where she faces criticism for not having done enough to heal the divisions of years of civil war.

    Gbowee, 39, had mobilised women across ethnic and religious lines to bring an end to the war in Liberia and ensure their participation in elections.
    Recognising Karman, a 32-year-old journalist, was seen as a gesture of the Nobel committee’s wider approval for the Arab Spring protest movements, which had been heavily tipped to win the prize for their young street campaigners.

    The trio follows only a dozen other women among 85 men, as well as a number of organisations, to have won the prize over its 110-year history.

    বিস্তারিত : Nobel for Arab Spring, African activists।

    আর এখানে পড়ুন : তিন মহিলাকে নোবেল শান্তি, উঠল বিতর্কও।

13. 

    মাসুদ করিম - ৮ অক্টোবর ২০১১ (৫:৪৩ অপরাহ্ণ)

    বাংলাদেশে জার্মান সাংস্কৃতিক কেন্দ্র গ্যাটে ইনস্টিটিউটের ৫০ বছর।

    Goethe-Institut Bangladesh is celebrating its 50th anniversary. Hence, it is older than the People’s Republic of Bangladesh itself which commemorates its 40th anniversary this year.

    In the course of the past five centuries Goethe-Institut initiated a lively cultural exchange between Germany and Bangladesh.

    Together with our local partners we arranged innumerable exhibitions, concerts, readings and other events. We are pleased and proud of our achievements. For the future we hope that we can continue the successful work in further cooperation with our long-time partners, friends and supporters of whom some will share their experience with Goethe-Institut Bangladesh on this website.

    We are delighted to celebrate our 50th anniversary together with you and look forward to welcoming you for the upcoming programs.

    বিস্তারিত পড়ুন ও এ উপলক্ষে ঢাকা ও চট্টগ্রামে সুবর্ণজয়ন্তী অনুষ্ঠানের সময়সূচী জানুন এখানে।

14. 

    অবিশ্রুত - ৯ অক্টোবর ২০১১ (৫:১৮ অপরাহ্ণ)

    ছবিতে আফগানিস্তানে ন্যাটোর ১০ বছর…
    দেখা যাবে এখানে।

15. 

    মাসুদ করিম - ৯ অক্টোবর ২০১১ (৫:৪১ অপরাহ্ণ)

    ২০০০ বছরের রাজতন্ত্রের অবসানের ১০০ বছর উদযাপন করছে চীন।

    China held a grand ceremony to commemorate the centennial anniversary of the 1911 Revolution, which terminated 2,000 years of imperial rule, on Sunday morning at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing.

    The 1911 Revolution, or Xinhai Revolution, which began on Oct. 10, 1911 with an armed uprising, ended one of the longest autocratic rule in the world established by Emperor Qinshihuang in B.C.221 by toppling the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) and resulting in a republican government, the first in Asia.

    Chinese president Hu Jintao, former Chinese President Jiang Zemin and other leaders attended the ceremony. Hu gave a keynote speech.

    Hu spoke highly of 1911 Revolution in his speech, saying the revolution “a thoroughly modern, national and democratic revolution” which had shook the world and ushered in unprecedented social changes in China.

    Hu eulogized Dr. Sun Yat-sen, the leader of the revolution, as “a great national hero, a great patriot and a great leader of the Chinese democratic revolution”.

    Hu said the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation must be achieved by adhering to socialism with Chinese characteristics, with patriotism, and by upholding peace, development and cooperation.

    Further, Hu urged the mainland and Taiwan to work together for the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation, and called for the peaceful reunification of China.

    The 1911 Revolution not only rid Chinese men of humiliating ponytails and women of the excruciatingly painful foot-binding, but also removed the people’s blind faith in the emperor, as well as the fear of foreign powers. The event has since been emancipating people’s minds from thousands of years of oppression and self-enclosure.

    Since then, the country began to march on the road to become an empowered modern nation.

    লিন্ক এখানে।

16. 

    মাসুদ করিম - ১০ অক্টোবর ২০১১ (১:২০ পূর্বাহ্ণ)

    এবারের সাহিত্যের নোবেলের তালিকায় ছিলেন ভারতের রাজস্থানি গল্পকার বিজয়দন দেথা।

    Vijaydan Detha: Drawing inspiration from folklore
    Detha, 85, fondly called Bijji, was named among the favourites to win the Nobel Prize for Literature this year. A recipient of the Padmashri, Sahitya Akademi and Sahitya Chudamani Awards, Detha has written more than 800 short stories in Hindi and Rajasthani, most of which have been translated into English.

    His most well-known works include Bataan Ri Phulwari (Garden Of Tales), a fourteen volume collection of stories that draws on folklore and spoken dialects of Rajasthan, and Bapu Ke Teen Hatyare, a book criticising the works of Harivanshrai Bachchan, Sumitra Nandan Pant and Narendra Sharma, who released books on Mahatma Gandhi two months after his death. His short story ‘Duvidha’ was first made into a film by Mani Kaul in 1973 and later remade as Paheli in 2005.

    Detha’s father Sabaldan and grandfather Jugtidan were well-known Rajasthani poets. In the 1950s, after having written 1,300 poems and 300 short stories, Detha was inspired by 19th century Russian literature and he “learnt to love his mother tongue (Rajasthani) even more”. His favourite authors include Sarat Chandra Chattopadhya, Anton Chekhov and Rabindranath Tagore.
    He co-founded Rupayan Sansthan, an institute that documents Rajasthani folk-lore, arts and music.

    বিস্তারিত পড়ুন : The Nobel contender from Rajasthan।

17. 

    মাসুদ করিম - ১০ অক্টোবর ২০১১ (১২:১৪ অপরাহ্ণ)

    জটিল এক অপারেশনের পরে তাকে আইসিইউ-তে আনা হয়েছে, কিন্তু তার অবস্থা আগের মতোই ‘ক্রিটিক্যাল’। এবং সেই ‘ক্রিটিক্যাল’ অবস্থা থেকে তাকে আর ফেরানো গেল না। আজ সকালে তিনি আমাদের ছেড়ে জলে গেলেন। জগজিৎ সিং আর নেই।

    Renowned ghazal singer Jagjit Singh, 70, passed away at 8.10 am in Lilavati Hospital on Monday morning.

    Jagjit Singh was admitted to the Lilavati Hospital on September 23 after he suffered brain haemorrhage in suburban Bandra where a life-saving surgery was performed on him.

    “Jagjit Singh passed away at 8.10 am after having a terrible haemorrhage,” Dr Sudhir Nandgaonkar, hospital spokesperson, told PTI.

    He is survived by his wife Chitra Singh.

    Jagjit Singh was born in Sri Ganganagar, Rajasthan. He had four sisters and two brothers and he is known as Jeet by his family.

    Popularly known as “The Ghazal King”, he gained acclaim together with his wife in the 1970s and 1980s, as the first ever successful duo act (husband-wife) in the history of recorded Indian music.

    Recipient of Padma Bhushan award, he has sung in several languages including Hindi, Urdu, Punjabi and Nepali.

    His popular ghazals include, Meri zindagi kisi aur ki, mere naam ka koi aur hai, Apni marzi se kahan apne safar ke hum hain, Wo jo hum mein tumme qaraar tha, Patta-patta boota-boota haal hamaara jaane hai, Hoshwalo ko khabar, etc.

    Jagjjit Singh has also sung for popular movies like Arth, Prem Geet, Sarfarosh and Tarqeeb.

    খবরের লিন্ক এখানে।

    এনডিটিভির ফটোগ্যালারি এখানে খবরের ভিডিও এখানে।

    • 

      মাসুদ করিম - ১১ অক্টোবর ২০১১ (৯:৫০ পূর্বাহ্ণ)

      খৈয়াম স্মরণ করছেন জগজিৎকে।

      A brilliant aspect of his gayaki was the sweetness and velvetiness of his voice. It was so adorable that one would immediately fall in love with it. And his ghazals worked best when used commercially. I don’t think any of us can ever get over his ghazals in Arth. Whenever I would compliment him on a brilliant composition, he would say, “Khayyam saheb, aapki ‘Umrao Jaan’ sabse pehle, baad mein hamari ghazal.” And I would marvel at the modesty.

      When he removed sarangi and santoor from his concerts, he was adhering to the audience’s demands to make ghazal more popular. He changed it from a genre rooted in the set-up of old nobility. It embraced the masses with his introduction of guitars and dholaks in ghazal concerts. And that is what the audience loved in his concerts. Ghazal, in general, did lose its structure and style, thanks to some trashy Bollywood music, but Jagjit Singh always elevated it.

      He never stopped bringing out albums. If his new ghazal CDs were not coming out, then he brought out the gurbani and bhajan albums that became extremely popular with a different kind of audience. In fact, the last time I met him was at the launch of his CD titled Shukrana, which was a tribute by SaReGaMa on his 70th birthday. The CD was released by me. He was so happy that day. Look at the way things have gone, I am on my way to offer my condolences.

      A traumatic event in his life was his son’s death in a car crash in 1990. He went into a shell then and did not discuss anything with anybody. His wife Chitra was completely shattered and stopped singing. But what came from that pain, that loss, was the poignancy of a beautiful ditty, which the couple used to sing in concerts when their son was young. When I heard a childless mother’s plight in “Mitti da bawa naiyo bolda, ve naiyo chalda ve naiyo, denda aye hoongara (My doll of mud, it does not talk)”, it just tore through the heart. I want to hum this one for him today. May my dear friend rest in peace.

      বিস্তারিত পড়ুন : His awaaz, andaaz।

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        মাসুদ করিম - ১২ অক্টোবর ২০১১ (১২:০১ পূর্বাহ্ণ)

        জগজিৎকে নিয়ে আউটলুক ইন্ডিয়ার ব্লগপোস্টটি অসাধারণ হয়েছে। পড়ুন, দেখুন ও শুনুন : Jagjit Singh (1941-2011)।

18. 

    মাসুদ করিম - ১০ অক্টোবর ২০১১ (৫:৩৯ অপরাহ্ণ)

    এবারের অর্থনীতির নোবেল পেয়েছেন দুই মার্কিন অর্থনীতিবিদ Thomas Sargent এবং Christopher Sims। তারা কাজ করেছেন ‘ম্যাক্রো অর্থনীতি’র কার্যকারণ নিয়ে। জিডিপি, মূল্যস্ফীতি, কর্মসংস্থান ও বিনিয়োগ এসবের পারষ্পরিক সম্পর্ক নিয়ে দার্শনিক ও গাণিতিক ভিত্তির গবেষণা কর্মের জন্যই তাদেরকে এই পুরস্কার দেয়া হয়েছে।

    How are GDP and inflation affected by a temporary increase in the interest rate or a tax cut? What happens if a central bank makes a permanent change in its inflation target or a government modifies its objective for budgetary balance? This year’s Laureates in economic sciences have developed methods for answering these and many of other questions regarding the causal relationship between economic policy and different macroeconomic variables such as GDP, inflation, employment and investments.

    These occurrences are usually two-way relationships – policy affects the economy, but the economy also affects policy. Expectations regarding the future are primary aspects of this interplay. The expectations of the private sector regarding future economic activity and policy influence decisions about wages, saving and investments. Concurrently, economic-policy decisions are influenced by expectations about developments in the private sector. The Laureates’ methods can be applied to identify these causal relationships and explain the role of expectations. This makes it possible to ascertain the effects of unexpected policy measures as well as systematic policy shifts.

    Thomas Sargent has shown how structural macroeconometrics can be used to analyze permanent changes in economic policy. This method can be applied to study macroeconomic relationships when households and firms adjust their expectations concurrently with economic developments. Sargent has examined, for instance, the post-World War II era, when many countries initially tended to implement a high-inflation policy, but eventually introduced systematic changes in economic policy and reverted to a lower inflation rate.

    Christopher Sims has developed a method based on so-called vector autoregression to analyze how the economy is affected by temporary changes in economic policy and other factors. Sims and other researchers have applied this method to examine, for instance, the effects of an increase in the interest rate set by a central bank. It usually takes one or two years for the inflation rate to decrease, whereas economic growth declines gradually already in the short run and does not revert to its normal development until after a couple of years.

    Although Sargent and Sims carried out their research independently, their contributions are complementary in several ways. The laureates’ seminal work during the 1970s and 1980s has been adopted by both researchers and policymakers throughout the world. Today, the methods developed by Sargent and Sims are essential tools in macroeconomic analysis.

    বিস্তারিত পড়ুন : The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2011 Thomas J. Sargent, Christopher A. Sims।

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      মাসুদ করিম - ১২ অক্টোবর ২০১১ (৬:২৩ অপরাহ্ণ)

      ড. অসীম দাশগুপ্ত বলছেন, এবারের নোবেলবিজয়ী অথর্নীতিবিদদের তত্ত্বের মূলকথা

      যদি সরকারী নীতি সঠিক হয় এবং কল্যাণকর কাজের জন্য সরকারের সরকারের বাজেটে ঘাটতি বৃদ্ধি না হয়, প্রয়োজনে ব্যাংক থেকে ঋণ গ্রহণের ক্ষেত্রে সুদের হারও বৃদ্ধি করা হয় এবং নীতিগুলিতে সরকার যদি স্থির থাকে, তাহলে উৎপাদন সংস্থাগুলির মধ্যে যুক্তিযুক্ত প্রত্যশা সৃষ্টি হবে এবং তারাও আর মূল্যবৃদ্ধি করবে না, এবং কর্মসংস্থান ও উৎপাদনও বৃদ্ধি পাবে।

      কিন্তু বাস্তবে এই নীতি অনুসরণ করে কেন্দ্রীয়ভাবে ভারতের অর্তনীতিতে এমনটি ঘটেনি। মূল্যবৃদ্ধি কিন্তু ঘটেই চলেছে এবং কর্মসংস্থানও সেভাবে বাড়েনি। বিস্তারিত পড়ুন : এবারে নোবেল বিজয়ীদের তত্ত্ব ও তার ব্যর্থতা।

      এই কিছুদিন আগে আন্তর্জাতিক বাজারে তেলের দাম কম থাকার পরও আমাদের দেশে তেলের দাম বাড়ানো হয়েছে। উদ্দেশ্য ছিল এর মাধ্যমে সরকারের ঘাটতি কমানো। কিন্তু এর ফলে সেই ঘাটতি কমলেও মূল্যবৃদ্ধি তো চলছে এবং কর্মসংস্থান সৃষ্টি তো সেভাবে হচ্ছে না। এবং বিনিয়োগ পরিবেশেরও তেমন কোনো উন্নতি হচ্ছে না। এখন গাণিতিক দিক হচ্ছে ঠিক কত দিন কত বছর ধরে এভাবে ঘাটতি কমাতে থাকলে ও ব্যাংক সুদের হার বাড়াতে থাকলে আর মূল্যবৃদ্ধি হবে না ও নতুন নতুন কর্মসংস্থানও হবে — তেমনভাবে কি কিছু বলা সম্ভব? কাজেই তত্ত্বের ব্যর্থতা তত দিন পর্যন্ত থাকবে যত দিন পর্যন্ত না কোনো অর্থনৈতিক তত্ত্বের প্রয়োগে সাধারণ সামাজিক অর্থনৈতিক সমস্যা ও কর্মসংস্থানের সৃষ্টি আমরা বাস্তবে দেখতে না পাই।

19. 

    মাসুদ করিম - ১১ অক্টোবর ২০১১ (৬:৩০ অপরাহ্ণ)

    বার্মা তার মানবাধিকার পরিস্থিতির উন্নয়নে ৬৩০০ জন বন্দিকে জেল থেকে মুক্তি দিয়েছে। মুক্তিপ্রাপ্তদের মধ্যে ২০০০ জন রাজনৈতিক বন্দি আছেন বলেই ওয়াকিবহাল মহলের ধারণা।

    Myanmar’s newly elected civilian government announced Tuesday it will release more than 6,300 prisoners in an amnesty that could help patch up the country’s human rights record and normalize relations with Western nations.

    It was widely expected that many of the country’s estimated 2,000 political prisoners would be among those freed, but the amnesty announcements broadcast on state radio and television did not supply any names.

    Freedom for political detainees has been hotly anticipated as part of liberalizing measures since Myanmar’s long-ruling military government handed power in March to a military-backed, civilian administration.

    “We welcome the amnesty announcement. This is very good news and we hope that many political prisoners will be among those freed,” said Nyan Win, a spokesman for democracy movement leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

    President Thein Sein, a former army officer who took office in March, has begun a dialogue with the country’s pro-democracy movement led by Aung San Suu Kyi, and promised other reforms that could start to reverse the harsh policies of decades of military rule.

    বিস্তারিত পড়ুন : Myanmar Releases 6,300 Prisoners।

20. 

    মাসুদ করিম - ১১ অক্টোবর ২০১১ (১১:৩৬ অপরাহ্ণ)

    ডেল আপেল দোয়েল। না, খারাপ নয় নামটা — ভালই, এখন কাজে কেমন হয় তাই দেখার।

    দেশে তৈরি সাশ্রয়ী ‘দোয়েল’ ব্র্যান্ডের ল্যাপটপ আনুষ্ঠানিকভাবে উদ্বোধন করেছেন প্রধানমন্ত্রী। ১১ অক্টোবর মঙ্গলবার বঙ্গবন্ধু আন্তর্জাতিক সম্মেলন কেন্দ্রে প্রধানমন্ত্রী শেখ হাসিনা আনুষ্ঠানিকভাবে দোয়েলের উদ্বোধন করেন।

    দোয়েল প্রাইমারি নেটবুক, দোয়েল বেসিক নেটবুক, দোয়েল স্ট্যান্ডার্ড নেটবুক ও দোয়েল অ্যাডভান্সড নেটবুক নামের ‘দোয়েল’ ব্র্যান্ডের চার ধরনের ল্যাপটপ তৈরি করছে টেলিফোন শিল্প সংস্থা বা টেশিস। প্রতিষ্ঠানটির গাজীপুর কারখানায় গত ১০ জুলাই ‘দোয়েল’-এর পরীক্ষামূলক উৎপাদন শুরু হয়।

    বাংলাদেশ প্রকৌশল বিশ্ববিদ্যালয় (বুয়েট)-এর পরামর্শ ও সহযোগিতায় মালয়েশিয়ার প্রতিষ্ঠান ‘থিম ফিল্ম ট্রান্সমিশন’ (টিএফটি) এবং কয়েকজন বিদেশী বিশেষজ্ঞের সহযোগিতায় এ প্রকল্প বাস্তবায়ন করছে টেশিস। এই ল্যাপটপের মাদারবোর্ডসহ শতকরা ৬০ ভাগ যন্ত্রাংশ তৈরি করা হয়েছে দেশেই।

    দোয়েল ল্যাপটপ তৈরির জন্য প্রাথমিকভাবে ১৪৮ কোটি টাকার একটি প্রকল্প হাতে নেওয়া হয়েছিল।

    দোয়েল প্রাইমারি নেটবুকে ভিআইএ প্রসেসর ব্যবহার করা হয়েছে। এটি অ্যান্ড্রয়েড অপারেটিং সিস্টেমের। অন্য তিনটি লিনাক্স অপারেটিং সিস্টেমের। দোয়েল বেসিক নেটবুক ও দোয়েল স্ট্যান্ডার্ড নেটবুকে প্রসেসর ইনটেল অ্যাটম। দোয়েল অ্যাডভান্স নেটবুকে প্রসেসর ইনটেল পেন্টিয়াম।

    ১৯৬৭ সালে প্রতিষ্ঠিত টেশিসে একসময় শুধু টেলিফোন সেটই তৈরি হতো। প্রতিষ্ঠানটি এবার হাত দিলো ল্যাপটপ তৈরিতে। মোবাইল ফোন সেট তৈরির পরিকল্পনাও টেসিসের রয়েছে বলে জানা গেছে।

    দোয়েল প্রাথমিকভাবে সরকারী প্রতিষ্ঠানগুলোতে সরবারহ করা হবে এবং পরে সবার জন্য বাজারে আসবে বলেই জানা গেছে।

    ‘দোয়েল’ ব্র্যান্ডের ল্যাপটপের দাম পড়বে মডেলভেদে ১০ থেকে ২৬ হাজার টাকা।

    লিন্ক : এলো বাংলার ল্যাপটপ ‘দোয়েল’।

21. 

    মাসুদ করিম - ১৩ অক্টোবর ২০১১ (৫:৪২ অপরাহ্ণ)

    একই ঘটনা নিয়ে পশ্চিমবঙ্গের এক পত্রিকায় পড়লাম সুটিয়ায় বাংলাদেশি দুষ্কৃতীদের হামলা এরপর অন্য পত্রিকায় পড়লাম গরু পাচারে বাধা, সীমান্তে আক্রান্ত বাসিন্দারা, ভাঙচুর। মনে হচ্ছে গরু পাচার নিয়েই সমস্যা, আর এসময়টা গরু পাচারকে সর্বাধিক অগ্রাধিকার দেয় বিএসএফ ও বিজিবি দুপক্ষই। একেবারে অরক্ষিত সীমান্তে গরু পাচারে গ্রামবাসীর বাধা আসাতেই বাংলাদেশের সন্ত্রাসীরা পশ্চিমবঙ্গের গ্রামবাসীর উপর হামলা চালালো। কোরবান মাথায় রেখে এই গরু পাচার মওসুমে কত টাকা আয় করে এভাবে বিএসএফ ও বিজিবি? কিন্তু মাঝখান থেকে এই যে গ্রামবাসী আক্রান্ত হল ও আমাদের সন্ত্রাসীরা কী সাহসী আগ্রাসন চালালো তাতো সঙ্গতকারণেই খুব নেতিবাচকভাবে চাউর হল।

22. 

    মাসুদ করিম - ১৭ অক্টোবর ২০১১ (৩:১৬ অপরাহ্ণ)

    ঢাকা সিটি কর্পোরেশনকে উত্তর ও দক্ষিণ এই দুভাগে বিভক্ত করার সিদ্ধান্ত নেয়া হয়েছে।

    ঢাকা সিটি কর্পোরেশনকে উত্তর ও দক্ষিণ দুই ভাগে বিভক্ত করার সিদ্ধান্ত নেওয়া হয়েছে। সোমবার প্রধানমন্ত্রী শেখ হাসিনার সভাপতিত্বে মন্ত্রিসভার বৈঠকে এ সিদ্ধান্ত হয়।

    বৈঠকে বলা হয়, ঢাকার মতো এত বড় একটি নগরীর নিয়ন্ত্রণ একটি মাত্র সিটি কর্পোরেশনের মাধ্যমে সম্ভব নয় বলেই একে দুটি ভাগে ভাগ করা হবে।

    বৈঠকের পর প্রধানমন্ত্রীর প্রেসসচিব আবুল কালাম আজাদ সাংবাদিকদের এ কথা জানান।

    ১৫৩০ বর্গকিলোমিটারের এই নগরীকে ৩৫টি ওয়ার্ড নিয়ে উত্তর এবং ৫৬টি ওয়ার্ড নিয়ে দক্ষিণ এই দুইভাগে বিভক্ত করা হবে বলে জানান তিনি।

    খবরের লিন্ক এখানে।

23. 

    অবিশ্রুত - ১৭ অক্টোবর ২০১১ (৩:৪৬ অপরাহ্ণ)

    মিডিয়ার খেলা ‘অকুপাই ওয়াল স্ট্রিট’ জাগরণকে ঘিরে, এরই খানিক বিবরণ এই সংবাদভাষ্যে, যেখানে মারডক-মিডিয়ার ভূমিকা নিয়ে কথা বলা হয়েছে।

24. 

    মাসুদ করিম - ১৭ অক্টোবর ২০১১ (৭:০৩ অপরাহ্ণ)

    ডেনিস রিচি ছিলেন স্টিভ জবসের চেয়েও গুরুত্বপূর্ণ। ইউনিক্স স্রষ্টা এই কম্পিউটার বিজ্ঞানী গত ০৮ অক্টোবর ৭০ বছর বয়সে মারা গেছেন।

    There is no denying the fact that the death of Steve Jobs is a great loss to the world but death of Dennis Ritchie, the father of Unix, is no less. Rob Pike, the programming legend and Googler, said, “When Steve Jobs died last week, there was a huge outcry, and that was very moving and justified. But Dennis had a bigger effect, and the public doesn’t even know who he is.”

    Pike has spent 20 years working across the hall from Ritchie at the famed Bells Labs. Pike announced the death of Ritchie through Google+ on Wednesday. He wrote that Ritchie had died at his home in New Jersey over the weekend after a long illness. The response on this post was immense from the tech world but the collective eulogy from the Web at large doesn’t quite do justice to Ritchie’s sweeping influence on the modern world.

    Dennis Ritchie is the father of the C programming language, and with fellow Bell Labs researcher Ken Thompson, he used C to build Unix, the operating system that so much of the world is built on-—including the Apple empire overseen by Steve Jobs, says a Wired report.
    …
    Dennis MacAlistair Ritchie (9 September 1941 – 8 October 2011) was an American computer scientist notable for developing C and for having influence on other programming languages, as well as operating systems such as Multics and Unix. He received the Turing Award in 1983 and the National Medal of Technology 1998 on 21 April 1999. Ritchie was the head of Lucent Technologies System Software Research Department when he retired in 2007.

    Ritchie was born in Bronxville, New York. His father was Alistair E. Ritchie, a longtime Bell Labs scientist and co-author of The Design of Switching Circuits on switching circuit theory. Ritchie graduated from Harvard University with degrees in physics and applied mathematics. In 1967, he began working at the Bell Labs Computing Sciences Research Center, and in 1968, he received a Ph.D. from Harvard under the supervision of Patrick C. Fischer.

    Ritchie was best known as the creator of the C programming language and a key developer of the Unix operating system, and as co-author of the definitive book on C, The C Programming Language, commonly referred to as K&R (in reference to the authors Kernighan and Ritchie).

    Ritchie’s invention of C and his role in the development of Unix alongside Ken Thompson has placed him as an important pioneer of modern computing. The C language is still widely used today in application, operating system, and embedded system development, and its influence is seen in most modern programming languages. Unix has also been influential, establishing concepts and principles that are now precepts of computing.

    Ritchie was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 1988 for “development of the ‘C’ programming language and for co-development of the Unix operating system”.

    বিস্তারিত পড়ুন : Dennis Had A Bigger Effect Than Jobs।

25. 

    মাসুদ করিম - ১৮ অক্টোবর ২০১১ (২:০৯ অপরাহ্ণ)

    দৃকের শহীদুল আলমের লন্ডনে প্রথম ফটোগ্রাফির প্রদশর্নী শুরু হয়েছে ০৬ অক্টোবর ২০১১ এবং চলবে ১৮ নভেম্বর ২০১১ পর্যন্ত। ভেন্যুর ওয়েবসাইট।

    Shahidul Alam ‘My Journey As A Witness’
    6th October-18 November 2011
    Wilmotte Gallery at Lichfield Studios: 133 Oxford Gardens, London W10 6NE

    লন্ডনে একই সাথে শহীদুল আলমের ফটোগ্রাফির বই ”My journey as a witness”-এর প্রকাশনা উৎসব হয়ে গেছে ১০ অক্টোবর ২০১১। অনুষ্ঠানের ভিডিও দেখুন এখানে।

26. 

    মাসুদ করিম - ১৮ অক্টোবর ২০১১ (২:২৪ অপরাহ্ণ)

    চট্টগ্রামের বর্ষীয়ান নাট্যকর্মী মাহবুব হাসান প্রয়াত।

    দেশের সাংস্কৃতিক আন্দোলনের সামনের সারির সংগঠক ও প্রবীণ নাট্যজন মাহবুবু হাসান আর নেই। মঙ্গলবার সকালে চট্টগ্রামের একটি বেসরকারি হাসপাতালে তিনি ইন্তেহাল করেছেন।

    নাটকের ভুবন ছাড়াও ৪৭ পরবর্তী সব প্রগতিশীল আন্দোলন-সংগ্রামের সামনের কাতারের এ সৈনিকের মৃত্যুতে চট্টগ্রামের সংস্কৃতি অঙ্গনে নেমেছে শোকের ছায়া।

    পারিবারিক সূত্রে জানা গেছে, প্রায় চার মাস আগে পড়ে গিয়ে গুরুতর আহত হন ৮২ বছর বয়সী মাহবুবু হাসান। এ সময় তাঁর কোমরের হাড় ভেঙে যায়।

    পরে বিশেষজ্ঞ চিকিৎসকের পরামর্শ ও তত্ত্বাবধানে অস্ত্রোপচার করে স্ক্রু ও লোহার পাত বসানো হয়। এরপর ধরা পড়ে ডায়াবেটিস।

    সম্প্রতি তাঁর কিডনির সমস্যা থেকে লাঞ্চে(বানান ভুল : লাঙ্গস) [ফুসফুসে] পানি জমে- হাত-পা ফুলে যায় এবং স্নায়ু অকেজো হয়ে পড়ে। মঙ্গলবার সকাল সাড়ে নয়টায় নগরীর সার্জিস্কোপ হাসপাতালে চিকিৎসাধীন অবস্থায় তিনি মারা যান।

    তাঁর মরদেহ সকাল ১০টায় নগরীর রাবেয়া কলোনির বাসায় আনা হয়। এ সময় চট্টগ্রামের সর্বস্তরের সাহিত্য-সংস্কৃতি ও নাট্যকর্মীরা তাঁর প্রতি শ্রদ্ধা জানাতে ছুটে আসেন।

    বিকেল তিনটায় চট্টগ্রাম কেন্দ্রীয় শহীদমিনারসংলগ্ন টিআইসিতে তাঁর মরদেহ নগরবাসীর শ্রদ্ধা নিবেদনের জন্য রাখা হবে। এরপর গরিবুল্লাহ শাহের (র.) মাজার সংলগ্ন কবরস্থানে দাফন করা হবে।

    মাহবুব হাসানের ছোট মেয়ে সাংবাদিকদের জানান, ‘অস্ত্রোপচার করে লাগানো স্ক্রু ও লোহার পাত থেকেই বাবার শরীরে ইনফেকশন হয়েছে।’

    চট্টগ্রামের বিভিন্ন নাট্যদল ও সংস্কৃতি সংগঠন সূত্রে জানা গেছে, মাহবুব হাসান ছোটবেলা থেকেই থিয়েটারের সঙ্গে যুক্ত ছিলেন। তিনি ছিলেন একাধারে নাট্য অভিনেতা, নির্দেশক, আবৃত্তিকার ও সংস্কৃতিসংগঠক।

    তাঁর সর্বশেষ অভিনীত নাটক ছিল ‘রথযাত্রা’। ১৯৬৪ সালে যখন রবীন্দ্রচর্চা নিষিদ্ধ ছিল তখন কামাল এ খান ও মাহবুব হাসান চট্টগ্রামে রবীন্দ্রনাথের শেষরক্ষা মঞ্চস্থ করে সাহসিকতার পরিচয় দেন।

    ১৯৭১ সালে স্বাধীনতাযুদ্ধের আগ মুহূর্তে চট্টগ্রামের লালদীঘিতে শিল্প সাহিত্য পরিষদের ব্যানারে যে সভা হয় তার আয়োজক ছিলেন মাহবুব হাসান। একাত্তরের মহান মুক্তিযুদ্ধের সময় তাঁর অগ্রণী ভূমিকায় মঞ্চস্থ হয় ‘স্বাধীনতা সংগ্রাম’ নাটকটি।

    পাকিস্তান রেডিও দিয়ে তিনি কর্মজীবন শুরু করেন। পরে ঢাকা ও খুলনা বেতারে কাজ করেন। ১৯৮৮ সালে বাংলাদেশ বেতার থেকে তিনি অবসর নেন।

    থিয়েটার ইনস্টিটিউট চট্টগ্রামের (টিআইসি) পরিচালক ও তির্যকের দলপ্রধান আহমেদ ইকবাল হায়দার বাংলানিউজকে বলেন, সর্বাঙ্গীন সাংস্কৃতিক সংগঠক মাহবুব ভাই ছিলেন আমাদের প্রাণশক্তি।

    খবরের লিন্ক এখানে।

27. 

    মাসুদ করিম - ২০ অক্টোবর ২০১১ (২:৪১ অপরাহ্ণ)

    ভারতের কেন্দ্রীয় সরকার আবার প্রমাণ করল যে তারা অভিভাবকহীন। শেখ হাসিনার তিনবিঘা সফরে কেন্দ্রীয় স্বরাষ্ট্রমন্ত্রী পি. চিদাম্বরম অথবা গ্রামোন্নয়ন মন্ত্রী জয়রাম রমেশ না এসে হঠাৎ স্বাস্থ্যমন্ত্রী গোলাম নবী আজাদ কেন? তিনবিঘায় কেন্দ্র মমতাকেই বা অচ্যুত রাখল কেন?

    Smarting from the Teesta water treaty goof-up, the Centre on Wednesday failed to make amends to its earlier lapse and found wanting in giving a befitting reception for Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, who visited Teen Bigha, the enclaves on the Bengal-Bangladesh border.

    Union health minister Ghulam Nabi Azad, a surprise choice, was left to salvage the situation. It is learnt that the gesture did not go down well with Dhaka.

    None of its original choices – Union home minister P Chidambaram or rural development minister Jairam Ramesh – was there to greet her. The Centre did not send any prior intimation to West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee to be present there even though the enclaves fall in the CM’s state. To make matters worse, a last-moment push from Delhi came a cropper since Banerjee had prior commitments, and could not make it.

    Initially, it was decided that home minister P Chidambaram would be present at Teen Bigha to welcome Hasina, but it is unclear why he called off the visit at the last moment. Rural development minister Jairam Ramesh was supposed to fill in for Chidambaram, but that plan too got shelved and Azad was sent as Centre’s emissary.

    পড়ুন : Centre found wanting at Hasina’s Teen Bigha visit।

28. 

    মাসুদ করিম - ২০ অক্টোবর ২০১১ (৫:৪৫ অপরাহ্ণ)

    দাবি করা হচ্ছে তিনি ধরা পড়েছেন, গাদ্দাফির আহত অবস্থায় ধরা পড়ার খবরটাই কি ঠিক, নাকি তিনি মৃত?

    12.37pm: Reuters is quoting a Libyan government fighter who says he witnessed the capture of Gaddafi. He said the ousted dictator was hiding in a hole shouting “Don’t shoot, don’t shoot”.

    Al-Jazeera is reporting that he is in a critical condition. But the picture remains confused.

    12.32pm: The Libyan immigration minister, Ali Errishi, has just told al-Jazeera that he has spoken to fighters who have told him Gaddafi has been captured, along with his spokesman Moussa Ibrahim. But still we await independent confirmation. Errishi said Gaddafi is wounded, adding:

    He is, as we speak, in the custody of the freedom fighters ….I’m very, very confident [in my sources] …They would not have woken me up early in the morning all the way from Misrata, I am in [Washington] DC [if it was not true].

    Al-Jazeera is reporting that Nato forces fired on the convoy, although that report is also unconfirmed.

    বিস্তারিত : Libya: fall of Sirte – live updates।

    • 

      মাসুদ করিম - ২০ অক্টোবর ২০১১ (৭:০৪ অপরাহ্ণ)

      আশঙ্কা সত্য, তিনি মৃত।

29. 

    মাসুদ করিম - ২০ অক্টোবর ২০১১ (৬:৫২ অপরাহ্ণ)

    নারীর বিরুদ্ধে সহিংসতা বন্ধ করতে যে দশটি পদক্ষেপ আপনি নিতে পারেন।

    1. Approach gender violence as a MEN’S issue involving men of all ages, socioeconomic, racial and ethnic backgrounds. View men not only as perpetrators or possible offenders, but as empowered bystanders who can confront abusive peers.

    2. If a brother, friend, classmate, or teammate is abusing his female partner – or is disrespectful or abusive to girls and women in general – don’t look the other way. If you feel comfortable doing so, try to talk to him about it. Urge him to seek help. Or if you don’t know what to do, consult a friend, a parent, a professor, or a counsellor. DON’T REMAIN SILENT.

    3. Have the courage to look inward. Question your own attitudes. Don’t be defensive when something you do or say ends up hurting someone else. Try hard to understand how your own attitudes and actions might inadvertently perpetuate sexism and violence, and work towards changing them.

    4. If you suspect that a woman close to you is being abused or has been sexually assaulted, gently ask if you can help.

    5. If you are emotionally, psychologically, physically, or sexually abusive to women, or have been in the past, seek professional help NOW.

    6. Be an ally to women who are working to end all forms of gender violence. Support the work of campus-based women’s centres. Attend “Take Back the Night” rallies and other public events. Raise money for community-based rape crisis centres and battered women’s shelters. If you belong to a team or fraternity, or another student group, organise a fundraiser.

    7. Recognise and speak out against homophobia and gay-bashing. Discrimination and violence against lesbians and gays are wrong in and of themselves. This abuse also has direct links to sexism (e.g. the sexual orientation of men who speak out against sexism is often questioned, as a conscious or unconscious strategy intended to silence them and a key reason few men do so.)

    8. Attend programmes, take courses, watch films, and read articles and books about multicultural masculinities, gender inequality, and the root causes of gender violence. Educate yourself and others about how larger social forces affect the conflicts between individual men and women.

    9. Don’t fund sexism. Refuse to purchase any magazine, rent any video, subscribe to any Web site, or buy any music that portrays girls or women in a sexually degrading or abusive manner. Protest sexism in the media.

    10. Mentor and teach young boys about how to be men in ways that don’t involve degrading or abusing girls and women. Volunteer to work with gender violence prevention programmes, including anti-sexist men’s programmes. Lead by example.

    লিন্ক এখানে।

30. 

    মাসুদ করিম - ২২ অক্টোবর ২০১১ (৯:০৪ পূর্বাহ্ণ)

    মুক্তিযুদ্ধের এক অনন্য সৈনিক আলোকচিত্র সাংবাদিক রশীদ তালুকদার হাসপাতালে, তার অবস্থা অত্যন্ত সংকটজনক।

    জীবন মৃত্যুর সন্ধিক্ষণে রাজধানীর একটি বেসরকারি হাসপাতালে চিকিৎসাধীন আছেন প্রবীণ আলোকচিত্রী রশীদ তালুকদার।

    তার মেয়ে সোনিয়া রশীদ শুক্রবার রাতে বিডিনিউজ টোয়েন্টিফোর ডটকমকে জানান, স্ট্রোকে আক্রান্ত হওয়ার পর বুধবার বিকেল থেকে স্কয়ার হাসপাতালে তাকে লাইফ সাপোর্ট দিয়ে বাঁচিয়ে রাখা হয়েছে।

    প্রথম বাংলাদেশী হিসেবে আর্ন্তজাতিক ‘পাইওনিয়ার ফটোগ্রফার অ্যাওয়ার্ড-২০১০’ পুরস্কার লাভ করেন তিনি। ন্যাশনাল জিওগ্রাফিক সোসাইটির একটি কর্মসূচির আওতায় প্রতিবছর বিশ্বের একজন সেরা ফটো সাংবাদিককে এ পুরস্কার দেওয়া হয়।

    সোনিয়া বলেন, মস্তিস্কে রক্তক্ষরণজনিত কারণে গত ১১ সেপ্টেম্বর স্কায়ার হাসপাতালে তার অপারেশন হয়। এর কিছু দিন পর থেকে অস্বাভাবিক আচরণ শুরু করেন তিনি।

    “অনেক সময় পরিবারের সদস্যদের চিনতে পারতেন না। অযথাই অনেককে বকাবকি করতেন।”

    মেয়ে জানান, ১৪ অক্টোবর তার বাবাকে ইবনে সিনা হাসপাতালে ভর্তি করা হয়। সেখানে অবস্থার অবনতি হলে বুধবার তাকে স্কয়ার হাসপাতালে ভর্তি করা হয়।

    “বুধবার বিকেল থেকেই বাবাকে লাইফ সাপোর্ট দিয়ে বাঁচিয়ে রাখা হয়েছে। ডাক্তাররা তাকে ৪৮ ঘণ্টা পর্যবেক্ষণ করার কথা বলেছেন। তবে তারা আমাদের কোনো আশার কথা বলতে পারেননি”, বলেন সোনিয়া।

    স্কয়ার হাসপাতালের একজন নিউরোসর্জনের অধীনে রশীদ তালুকদার চিকিৎসাধীন রয়েছেন জানিয়ে তিনি বলেন, লাইফ সাপোর্ট দেওয়া অবস্থায়ই বৃহস্পতিবার বিকেল মস্তিস্কে আরেক দফা অপারেশন করা হয়েছে।

    তিন মাস আগে যুক্তরাষ্ট্রে মেয়ের বাসায় বেড়াতে যান রশীদ তালুকদার। সেখানে বাথরুমে পড়ে গিয়ে সামান্য আঘাত পেলেও তখন কোনো সমস্যা হয়নি বলে জানান সোনিয়া।

    গত ৬ সেপ্টেম্বর দেশে ফেরেন রশীদ। এরপর অসুস্থ হয়ে পড়লে গত ১১ সেপ্টেম্বর স্কয়ার হাসপাতালে তার অপারেশন হয়।

    ১৯৬৯ সালের গণঅভ্যুত্থান, অসহযোগ আন্দোলন, বঙ্গবন্ধুর ৭ মার্চের ভাষণসহ মুক্তিযুদ্ধের অসংখ্য ছবি তুলেছেন এই আলোকচিত্রী সাংবাদিক। ১৯৭১ সালের ২৫ মার্চ রাতে ঢাকা শহরে গণহত্যার অসংখ্য ছবি ক্যামেরাবন্দি করেন তিনি।

    ১৯৬২ সালে দৈনিক সংবাদে আলোকচিত্রী হিসেবে যোগ দেন রশীদ তালুকদার। সেখানে একযুগ কাজ করে ১৯৭৫ সালে যোগ দেন দৈনিক ইত্তেফাক পত্রিকায়।

    দৈনিক ইত্তেফাকে টানা ২৯ বছর চাকরি করে ২০০৭ সালে অবসরে যান তিনি। এরপর থেকে পরিবারের সদস্যদের সঙ্গেই তিনি সময় কাটাচ্ছিলেন বলে জানান তার মেয়ে।

    পাইওনিয়ার ফটোগ্রফার অ্যাওয়ার্ড বিজয়ী রশীদ তালুকদারের কাজের মূল অংশ ছিল বাংলাদেশের মুক্তিযুদ্ধের ছবি।

    তিনি জাপান ফটোগ্রাফিক সোসাইটি ও আশাহি সিমবুন থেকে সেরা আলোকচিত্রীর পুরস্কার, ইউনেস্কো, থাইল্যান্ড ও বিপিএস স্বর্ণপদকসহ দেশি-বিদেশি ৭৫টি পুরস্কার পান।

    তিনি বাংলাদেশ ফটোজার্নালিস্ট অ্যাসোসিয়েশনের প্রতিষ্ঠাতা সভাপতি।

    ১৯৩৯ সালের ২৪ অক্টোবর ভারতের চব্বিশ পরগনায় জন্মগ্রহণ করেন রশীদ তালুকদার। বাবার চাকরিসূত্রে ছয় বছর বয়সেই তিনি রাজশাহীর ‘স্টার স্টুডিও’তে ছবি তোলার কাজ শুরু করেন।

    খবরের লিন্ক এখানে।

    • 

      মাসুদ করিম - ২৫ অক্টোবর ২০১১ (১১:১৪ অপরাহ্ণ)

      বাঙালির গণঅভ্যুত্থানের, রাজপথের আন্দোলনের, মুক্তিযুদ্ধের, জাতির পিতার ছায়ালোকের কবি রশীদ তালুকদার প্রয়াত। বেদনার ভাষা নেই একথা বলার যোগ্যতাও আমাদের নেই। আমরা এই মানুষটিকে তার প্রাপ্য সম্মান দিতে পারিনি।

      ঊণসত্তরের গণঅভ্যুত্থানে রাজপথে একটি শিশুর মুষ্টিবদ্ধ হাতের যে ছবি বাঙালির স্বাধিকারের দাবিকে মূর্ত করে তুলেছিল- সেই ছবির আলোকচিত্রী রশীদ তালুকদার আর নেই।

      মঙ্গলবার সন্ধ্যা সাড়ে ৬টার দিকে রাজধানীর স্কয়ার হাসপাতলে চিকিৎসাধীন অবস্থায় মৃত্যু হয় এই মুক্তিযোদ্ধার।

      তার চাচাতো ভাই শেখ মোহাম্মদ সুমন বিডিনিউজ টোয়েন্টিফোর ডটকমকে জানান, স্ট্রোক করার পর গত বুধবার বিকেল থেকে স্কয়ার হাসপাতালে লাইফ সাপোর্ট দিয়ে বাঁচিয়ে রাখা হয়েছিল রশীদকে। মঙ্গলবার সন্ধ্যায় তা খুলে ফেলা হয়।

      খবরের লিন্ক : ক্যামেরাযোদ্ধা রশীদ তালুকদারের জীবনাবসান।

      • 

        মাসুদ করিম - ২৬ অক্টোবর ২০১১ (৬:০২ অপরাহ্ণ)

        আজকের কয়েকটি দৈনিক পত্রিকার প্রথম পাতার খবর হননি রশীদ তালুকদার : সংবাদ, জনকণ্ঠ, প্রথম আলো, কালের কণ্ঠ। সংবাদের আজকের সকল শিরোনাম খুঁজতে গিয়ে আরো লজ্জায় পড়তে হল — মনে তো হচ্ছে রশীদ তালুকদারের মৃত্যৃ সংবাদ ২৬ অক্টোবর ২০১১-এর ‘সংবাদ’-এ ছাপাই হয়নি। অথচ ১৯৬২-১৯৭৫, এই সময়কালে তার স্বর্ণসময় তিনি অতিবাহিত করেছিলেন এই পত্রিকাটিতে!

31. 

    মাসুদ করিম - ২২ অক্টোবর ২০১১ (১১:০৩ অপরাহ্ণ)

    ২০ বছরের সাধনায় বাসচালক মোঃ সেলিম সত্যিই পারলেন, ফেলে দেয়া বর্জ্যকে গ্যাস রূপান্তরিত করতে। আজ তিনি একজন সফল উদ্ভাবক, এখন প্রয়োজন রাষ্ট্রের পৃষ্টপোষকতা।

    ফেলে দেওয়া বর্জ্য দিয়ে গ্যাস তৈরি করায় লৌহজংয়ে সবাই এখন সেলিমকে চেনে। মুন্সীগঞ্জের লৌহজং উপজেলার কুমারভোগ গ্রামের বাসচালক মোঃ সেলিম (৫৫)। তার দীর্ঘদিনের প্রচেষ্টায় শিল্পের ফেলে দেওয়া বর্জ্য আর রাসায়নিক কেমিক্যাল দিয়ে এক ধরনের জ্বালানী গ্যাস আবিষ্কার করেন। সেলিমের আবিষ্কৃত গ্যাস দিয়ে সিএনজি গ্যাসচালিত গাড়ি, চুলা ও ওয়েল্ডিংসহ শিল্প-কারখানার কাজ করা যায়।
    সেলিম জানান, ২০ বছরের সাধনায় তিনি এ গ্যাস আবিষ্কার করতে সক্ষম হয়েছেন। তিনি যখন খুলনার দৌলতপুরের হার্ডওয়্যারের দোকানে কাজ করতেন তখন বিভিন্ন কেমিক্যালের সঙ্গে পরিচিত হন। পরিচিত হন কোনটার কি কাজ তার সঙ্গেও। চালাতে থাকেন নানা পরীক্ষা-নিরীক্ষা। অবশেষে তার স্বপ্ন সত্যি হয়ে দেখা দেয়। সেলিম জানান, তার উৎপাদিত গ্যাস ব্যবহারে বর্তমান সিএনজির চেয়ে খরচ অনেক কম পড়বে।
    সেলিমের কুমারভোগের বাড়িতে গেলে তিনি একটি পুরনো গ্যাস সিলিন্ডারে তার উৎপাদিত গ্যাস থেকে সিলিন্ডারের মাথায় পাইপ লাগিয়ে তাতে আগুন জ্বালিয়ে দেখালেন। ওয়েল্ডিং কাজে সিলিন্ডার থেকে গ্যাস বের হয়ে যে নীলাভ রঙের আগুনের সৃষ্টি হয়, সেলিমের তৈরি গ্যাসের আগুনেও ছিল সে রকম নীলাভ আগুন।
    সেলিম একটি এলপি গ্যাসের সিলিন্ডারে লোহার পাইপ ও মিটার বসিয়ে তাতে নিজস্ব ফর্মুলায় গ্যাস উৎপাদন করেন। এ গ্যাস দিয়ে সিএনজিচালিত অটোরিকশাটি চালিয়ে দেখান।
    এ ব্যাপরে লৌহজং ডিগ্রি কলেজের রসায়ন বিভাগের অধ্যাপক একেএম ইসমাইল জানান, সেলিমের আবিষ্কৃত গ্যাস দিয়ে গাড়ি চালানো ও রান্নাসহ ওয়েল্ডিংয়ের কাজ করা সম্ভব। রাসায়নিক কেমিক্যাল ও শিল্পের বর্জ্য বা ছাই মিশ্রণের ফলে সেখানে এক প্রকার হাইড্রো-কার্বন বা জৈব গ্যাস তৈরি হয়েছে। তাই এটি গাড়ি চালাতে সক্ষম হয়েছে।
    এ গ্যাস আবিষ্কারের খবর মাওয়া চৌরাস্তায় অটোরিকশা ও বাসচালকদের মাঝে ছড়িয়ে পড়লে এলাকায় হৈচৈ পড়ে যায়। এসব চালকদের মাঝে সেলিমের আবিষ্কৃত গ্যাস নিয়ে আশার সঞ্চার হয়েছে। কিন্তু তাদের সে আশা বাস্তবে রূপ নিতে পারছে না। সরকারি পৃষ্ঠপোষকতা ও গ্যাস স্টেশন তৈরির অনুমতি এখনও না পাওয়ায় সেলিমের উৎপাদিত গ্যাস কোনো কাজেই লাগানো যাচ্ছে না। সরকারি পৃষ্ঠপোষকতা পেলে এ গ্যাস ব্যাপকভাবে ব্যবহার হতে পারে বলে ধারণা করা হচ্ছে।

    লিন্ক আজকের সমকালের ‘আজ শনিবার’ ফিচার পাতায় : স্বপ্ন যখন সত্যি।

32. 

    মাসুদ করিম - ২৩ অক্টোবর ২০১১ (৬:০০ অপরাহ্ণ)

    আজ ভোট চলছে তিউনিসিয়ায়।

    Tunisians began voting today in their first truly free elections, the culmination of a popular uprising that ended decades of authoritarian rule and set off similar rebellions across the Middle East.

    Voters women with headscarves and without, former political prisoners, young people whose Facebook posts helped fuel the revolution are electing members of an assembly that will appoint a new government and then write a new constitution.

    They’re definitively turning the page on the 23-year presidency of Zine El-Abidine Ben Ali, who was overthrown by a monthlong uprising on Jan. 14 stirred by anger at unemployment, corruption and repression. The party expected to come out on top, Ennahda, is a moderate Islamic party whose victory, especially in a comparatively secular society like Tunisia, could have wide implications for similar religious parties in the region.

    The unexpected revolution in this quiet Mediterranean country cherished by European tourists for its sandy beaches and desert oases set off a series of similar uprisings against entrenched leaders, an event now being called the Arab Spring.

    If Tunisia’s elections produce an effective new government they will serve as an inspiration to pro-democracy advocates across the region, including in next-door Libya, where longtime dictator Moammar Gadhafi was killed last week by rebel forces.

    The campaign season has been marked by controversies over advertising, fears over society’s religious polarization and concerns about voter apathy, but in the run-up to the vote a mood of optimism and excitement in the capital was palpable. Soldiers were stationed in several areas to keep order, but as of mid-morning the elections appeared calm.

    বিস্তারিত পড়ুন : Tunisia votes in first free elections।

    • 

      মাসুদ করিম - ২৯ অক্টোবর ২০১১ (১:২৪ অপরাহ্ণ)

      তিউনিসিয়ায় তারাই জিতেছে যাদের জেতার কথা ছিল। এবং জেতার পরে সবার আগে তারা সেকথাই বলেছে যেটা আপাত দৃষ্টিতে অপ্রত্যাশিত মনে হলেও আসলে খুবই প্রত্যাশিত ছিল, হিজাব মহিলাদের জন্য বাধ্যতামূলক করা হবে না — শুধু তাই নয়, তারা তাদের ইচ্ছে মতো জামাকাপড় পরতে পারবে। এন্নাহদা পার্টি নির্বাচনে জেতার পরপরই হিজাব নিয়ে যা বলেছে তা খুবই গুরুত্বপূর্ণ। আমরা ভবিষ্যতমুখী, এবং আমরা আশাবাদী মুসলিম সমাজের মানসিকতার পরিবর্তন হবে।

      Ennahda, the Islamist winner of Tunisia’s elections last weekend, will not force women to wear the hijab because similar attempts to do that in other Arab states have failed, the party’s leader said Oct. 28.

      “Ennahda will not change the way of life … It will leave that up to Tunisian women,” Ennahda leader Rached Ghannouchi said Oct. 28 in promising women the right to choose whether or not to wear the Islamic veil.

      Ghannouchi also said women would have jobs in the coalition government his party would “whether they wear a veil or don’t wear a veil.” Meanwhile, Ennahda expects to form a new government within 10 days, party Secretary General Hamadi Jbeli, who is likely to be prime minister in the new Cabinet, said Oct. 28. Jbeli said the economic program be prioritized in the discussions.

      বিস্তারিত পড়ুন : Tunisian women free not to wear hijab: Ennahda।

33. 

    মাসুদ করিম - ২৩ অক্টোবর ২০১১ (৬:১৭ অপরাহ্ণ)

    আবার বড় মাত্রার ভূমিকম্প হল তুরস্কে।

    A 6.6-magnitude earthquake jolted eastern Turkey today, reported the private NTV television.

    Several houses were collapsed after the quake in Van province in eastern Turkey, said the Anatolia news agency, adding that aftershocks were continuing.

    The quake was also felt in the neighbouring provinces, said media reports.

    Turkey is earthquake-prone due to being crossed by several fault lines.

    In 1999, two strong quakes in the heavily-populated and industrialised regions of northwest Turkey left some 20,000 dead.

    An earthquake in Kütahya province in 1970 killed more than 1,000 people.

    খবরের লিন্ক এখানে।

34. 

    মাসুদ করিম - ২৩ অক্টোবর ২০১১ (৭:০৪ অপরাহ্ণ)

    বেগম নুসরাত ভুট্টো প্রয়াত। জিয়াউল হকের সামরিক শাসনের বিরুদ্ধে এক সোচ্চার কণ্ঠ ছিলেন জুলফিকার আলী ভুট্টোর স্ত্রী নুসরাত ভুট্টো।

    Begum Nusrat Bhutto was born on March 23, 1929 in the city of Isfahan in Iran.

    She was elected as a member of the National Assembly twice from Larkana and even led the Pakistan Peoples Party after the death of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto.

    The government has decided to postpone all the political activities for the next 10 days on the demise of Begum Nusrat Bhutto. President Zardari too shortened his Jordon visit.

    According to the spokesperson of the Bilawal House in Karachi, the funeral will take place at Garhi Khuda Bux near Larkana.

    According to the sources, special arrangements have been made to bring her remains from Dubai to Pakistan.

    খবরের লিন্ক : Begum Nusrat Bhutto dies in Dubai।

    • 

      মাসুদ করিম - ২৫ অক্টোবর ২০১১ (৯:৩০ পূর্বাহ্ণ)

      At the same time, one must also acknowledge her symbolism, for those who mourn today, of a bygone era, before religious fanaticism and guns and venal corruption came to define this country’s politics. When she stood, with blood streaming down her face from wounds inflicted by the sticks of General Zia’s goons, she stood with a defiant moral authority that needed no certification from the media, maulvis or armed security guards.

      বিস্তারিত পড়ুন : Nusrat Bhutto, 1929-2011।

      • 

        মাসুদ করিম - ২৬ অক্টোবর ২০১১ (১০:০৬ পূর্বাহ্ণ)

        সত্যিই এক উল্লেখযোগ্য জীবন। Dawn সম্পাদক মুর্তাজা রাজভি অসাধারণ লিখেছেন, নুসরাত ভুট্টোকে নিয়ে এক অবশ্য পাঠ্য।

        Begum Nusrat Bhutto’s posthumous crowning as “Mother of Democracy” by a party which had stripped her of its chairpersonship, and her decoration with Nishan-e-Imtiaz, Pakistan’s highest civilian honour, by her son-in-law president come as exercises to cover up a guilty conscience. The nationwide public holiday declared on her funeral day on October 24 and the 10-day mourning are similarly hollow moves on the part of the government. The lady was over and above all such cosmetic gestures. She was truly Pakistan’s iron lady with the nerves of steel and a will to match. She always stood up and told the truth challenging dictatorial conduct, whether it be that of a general or of her own daughter.
        As Pakistanis mourn Begum Sahiba’s passing, one’s mind races back to September 20, 1996 when her elder son, Mir Murtaza Bhutto, was gunned down by security personnel outside the Bhutto home in Karachi. Her daughter, Benazir, was prime minister at the time and embroiled in a brutal rivalry with her brother. The case was callously brushed aside and no one was brought to justice for killing Murtaza and his friends in cold blood. Composed and elegant even in grief, Begum Sahiba held forth before the media and squarely blamed her daughter’s government of dictatorial conduct, calling her worse than Zia-ul Haq, who had dared not attack her house let alone stage a fake police encounter to take his political opponents out. The daughter retaliated by stripping the mother of her party title, taking on the chairpersonship herself and for life

        It would not be until after Begum Sahiba was struck by Alzheimer’s that Benazir would coax her into leaving the country with her to live and, alas, die in isolation in Dubai. The idea was to keep her away from Murtaza Bhutto’s children, Fatima and Zulfikar Ali Bhutto (Junior), whom she was very fond of and who in turn would be Bilawal Bhutto’s rivals in future politics. The grandmother and the grandchildren were indeed very close. The lasting curse of forced separation followed Begum Sahiba in her death just as well as in life.

        At the funeral in Garhi Khuda Bux, President Zardari and his children officially conducted the ceremonies at Naudero House, the house that Benazir Bhutto in another bizarre episode had secured for herself by evicting the aged Begum Amir Bhutto, the first wife of her father. A short distance from that house stands Al Murtaza, the ancestral Bhutto home where Murtaza’s widow and her two children mourned separately for the lady who was taken away from them. Murtaza’s Syrian-born widow, Ghinwa Bhutto, who heads her faction of the People’s Party, lambasted the Zardari squad for keeping her and her children away from bidding farewell to Begum Bhutto.

        Pakistan’s former first lady and a woman who single-handedly challenged General Zia-ul Haq by launching the Movement for the Restoration of Democracy after the coup against her husband’s government in 1977, indeed, witnessed many tragedies at chillingly close quarters. She was jailed and tortured by the dictator Zia, who hanged her husband after a mock trial; she saw the killing of Mir Murtaza and the death under mysterious circumstances of her youngest son, Shahnawaz, in exile in France. Whether she got to learn of Benazir’s assassination is beyond public knowledge because Begum Sahiba was not allowed any contact with outsiders in Dubai. Only Sanam Bhutto, her only surviving child and an avowedly apolitical person living in London, was allowed access to her mother from time to time.

        Nusrat Bhutto will be remembered for her remarkable ability to distinguish between right and wrong — an ability which she exercised to the full at all times during her tumultuous years in public and private life. She never sought the limelight for herself even though she was elected MP to all but two assemblies between 1977 and 1997. She was the one who, after the judicial murder of her husband in 1979, took Benazir Bhutto through the ropes of Pakistan’s male-dominated politics. Unlike the daughter who had started donning the dupatta over her head as she entered politics, Nusrat Bhutto held her head high, dressing and walking the way she had always done. Hypocrisy never touched her; she remained straightforward and blunt throughout her life, never mincing words when censure was called for even if it involved her own children.

        She will be remembered for these very qualities. Unlike her husband and her daughter, her politics too remained secular. She stuck to a democratic political lexicon even as others in her party used and abused religion for gaining political mileage. The emancipated granddaughter of an Iranian Ayatollah and a fashion icon in her day, Begum Sahiba knew that religion and politics are not the mix to set Pakistan’s many wrongs right. Her commitment to working towards democratic ideals and a firm belief in emancipation of women will remain her lasting legacy.

        লিন্ক : A remarkable life story।

35. 

    মাসুদ করিম - ২৪ অক্টোবর ২০১১ (৩:০১ অপরাহ্ণ)

    সৌদি আরবের ক্রাউন প্রিন্স সুলতানের মৃত্যুর পর, সম্ভাব্য পরবর্তী ক্রাউন প্রিন্স হিসেবে ধারণা করা হচ্ছে বর্তমান স্বরাষ্ট্র মন্ত্রী প্রিন্স নাইয়েফকে। হার্ডলাইনার বাস্তববাদী এই প্রিন্স যদি শেষ পর্যন্ত বাদশাহ হতে পারেন, তাহলে স্বরাষ্ট্র মন্ত্রণালয় কার কাছে আসবে? তার মতোই হার্ডলাইনার কারো কাছে? আর হার্ডলাইনার হিসেবে তিনিই বা কেমন বাদশাহ হবেন? — বর্তমান সংস্কারবাদী বাদশাহর সব কার্যক্রম কি তিনি স্থগিত করবেন?

    আমার একটি ব্যক্তিগত ধারণা কিছুদিন আগে বাংলাদেশের ৮জন মানুষের শিরচ্ছেদের পেছনে সবচেয়ে নিষ্ঠুর কঠিন ভূমিকা নিয়েছিলেন এই প্রিন্স নাইয়েফ। আরো এগিয়ে বলতে চাই, এ ধরনের হার্ডলাইনার যতই বাস্তববাদী হোক তার সময়ই হয়ত সবচেয়ে বেগবান হবে সৌদি আরবের বাদশাহীর বিরুদ্ধে গণজাগরণ। হয়ত তার রাজত্বেই পতন হবে সাউদ রাজপরিবারের। অবশ্যই যদি নানা অসুখ বিসুখ জয় করে যদি শেষ পর্যন্ত তিনি বাদশাহ হতে পারেন।

    Since the Arab uprisings began in January, his ministry has instigated a long list of crackdowns and rule-tightening.

    Among them has been a running dragnet to arrest anyone whose political activism might be designed to start a movement. One woman spent an unprecedented nine days in jail last spring for challenging the Saudi ban on women driving, while about half a dozen more face court cases and possible flogging. The police arrested five young activists in the past couple weeks for putting up two short YouTube videos highlighting poverty and shoddy government construction.

    Human rights organizations estimate that thousands of political prisoners languish in jail.

    In April, the government introduced a draconian and vaguely worded press law pushed by Prince Nayef that made it illegal to threaten national security or insult Islam as well as its senior representative, the grand mufti. “It is safer to shoot someone than to talk in the media,” joked Abdulaziz M. AlGasim, a lawyer.

    Prince Nayef has a reputation for rejecting any criticism of the kingdom’s puritanical Wahhabi sect of Islam, which is both the main pillar of Saud rule and a source of instability. He blames Islamic extremism globally on the Muslim Brotherhood, feeling betrayed that the kingdom took in members while they were being persecuted by Egypt’s Arab nationalist leader Gamal Abdel Nasser in the 1960s, only to have them establish a competing political ideology.

    But that does not necessarily signal that he his devout. “There is a distinction between being cautious and being religious,” said Robert Lacey, an author of two books about the kingdom.

    After the Sept. 11, 2001, hijackings, Prince Nayef infamously supported the favorite Middle East conspiracy theory that the attacks were a Jewish plot and insisted that it was impossible that 15 of the 19 hijackers could have come from Saudi Arabia, or that if they had, they were misled by the Muslim Brotherhood. “The Saudis are being framed,” he said at a news conference at the time.

    বিস্তারিত পড়ুন : Potential new Saudi Crown Prince: Hard-line but pragmatic।

36. 

    মাসুদ করিম - ২৭ অক্টোবর ২০১১ (৮:৪৬ পূর্বাহ্ণ)

    ইয়েমেনে সালেহ বিরোধী বিক্ষোভে ঠিক জিনিসটিই পুড়ছে ইয়েমেনি নারীরা — তারা বোরখা পুড়ছে, ইয়েমেনে যাকে বলা হয় মাকরামা।

    The women, in the capital Sanaa, made a pile of veils in the street which they then doused with petrol and set alight.

    Women have played a key part in the uprising against Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh.

    A Yemeni woman activist, Tawakkul Karman, was joint winner of the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize.

    She received the award for her role in the struggle for women’s rights and democracy in Yemen.

    The veil-burning protest began when a group of women spread a black cloth across a main street.

    They threw full-body veils, known as makrama, onto it.

    As the flames rose, they chanted, “Who protects Yemeni women from the crimes of the thugs?”

    The Associated Press news agency says they also handed out leaflets appealing for help.

    “Here we burn our makrama in front of the world to witness the bloody massacres carried out by the tyrant Saleh,” the leaflets read.

    বিস্তারিত পড়ুন : Yemen women burn veils in Sanaa in anti-Saleh protest।

37. 

    মাসুদ করিম - ২৭ অক্টোবর ২০১১ (২:২০ অপরাহ্ণ)

    শান্তিনিকেতনের মোহন সিংয়ের গান শুনেছিলাম এই চট্টগ্রামেই, কিন্তু তার ছেলে বিক্রম সিংয়ের গান আগে কখনো শুনিনি, গতকাল যখন শুনছিলাম, ভাবছিলাম, এতো ভাল গাইত মোহন সিংয়ের ছেলে! গাইত, এখন আর গায় না, ২০০৯ সালে মাত্র ৩৫ বছর বয়সে তার জীবনাবসান হয়েছিল। তথ্য হাতড়ে দেখি ছবিও আঁকত, কবিতাও লিখত — এসব জেনে মন আরো খারাপ হল।

    Vikram Singh Khangura was one of the most talented artists. A rising star with various colours in the sky of arts — Indian Classical Music, Rabindrasangeet, Painting, Poetry … what not! With so many qualities, he had a very sweet and polite personality; anybody who met him once can never forget him. His debut in public stage as a Rabindrasangeet singer was in a programme titled “Parompora” along with his father, the legendary singer Mohan Singh of Shantiniketan, at Rabindra Sadan in the year 2005. At the very first appearance, Vikram stunned the audience by his vocal performance. He left all of us at an age of only 35. A great loss, not to be replenished, to all the artists and art lovers of the present and future.

    লিন্ক এখানে : TRIBUTE TO LATE VIKRAM SINGH KHANGURA।

    তার ‘রয়েছ নয়নে’ অ্যালবাম থেতে নয়নও তোমাতে পায় না দেখিতে, এই গানটি নেপথ্যে রেখে বন্ধুরা ওকে স্মরণ করে সতিই একটা চমৎকার ভিডিও ক্লিপ করেছে, দেখুন এখানে।

38. 

    মাসুদ করিম - ২৯ অক্টোবর ২০১১ (৭:০৯ অপরাহ্ণ)

    ২০১০-এর মাঝামাঝি থেকে কৌশলগত কারণে প্রতিনিয়ত যতটুকু পারি তুরস্কের খবরাখবর রাখার চেষ্টা করছি এবং সুপারিশকৃত লিন্কে তুরস্ক প্রসঙ্গে উল্লেখযোগ্য লিন্ক শেয়ার করেছি। কারণ ছিল একটাই, তখন থেকে এই ভাবনাটা খুব গুরুত্বপূর্ণ হয়ে উঠছিল আমার কাছে, সৌদি আরব ও ইরানের প্রভাব মধ্যপ্রাচ্যে আস্তে আস্তে কমে তুরস্কের প্রভাব বাড়বে। আজ আরব বুদ্ধিজীবি পল সালেম এই সাক্ষাৎকারটা পড়তে পড়তে মনে হচ্ছিল ভাবনাটা অমূলক ছিল না।

    Q: Where are we with the Arab Spring?

    A: It is a changed Arab world. Peoples’ mentalities have changed. Even if conditions in certain countries have not changed, people have changed. This change has gone in the direction of people prioritizing democracy and pluralism. This was clearly a pro-democracy revolution.

    Now we are entering a new era. We had the era where political Islam in a non-democratic, often violent, format was the proposed solution. This is the era where democratization is the key. Political Islam is coming under the context and conditions of democracy. And obviously the Turkish example of a party with Islamic roots successful in a democratic state is the most attractive model for the states that have been through a revolution.

    Today the majority of Arab citizens by number are either living in countries transitioning to democracy like Egypt, Tunisia, Libya or semi-democracies like Iraq or Lebanon or in countries in revolutions asking for democracy like Syria or Yemen. This is significant. But the process is filled with uncertainties, risks and challenges.

    Q: How about the impact on international and regional balances?

    A: It did not so far have a major impact on regional or international balance of power. This could change if the uprising in Syria reaches its end point with a regime change. If Syria changes its leadership this will mean the new regime will probably not have the same deep relations with Iran or Hezbollah. And it might lose access to Hamas and the Palestinian issue. This will be a major loss for Iran. It will retreat and focus more on Iraq and Afghanistan.

    The U.S. has lost in the Arab Spring, but it has lost much less than it thought. The relationship with Egypt like the one with Turkey will be more challenging.

    Turkey is one of the slight winners. The revolutionaries did not say we want to be like Iran or Saudi Arabia or America. Most of them were saying we want to be something like Turkey.

    And these revolutions are pro-globalization and pro-business. That is good for Turkey. Egypt wants trade and economic progress. The Muslim Brotherhood and Islamist forces, which are likely to be important players, are looking to the Justice and Development Party (AKP) to see if they can learn anything. Now they realize being in the opposition is easier than being in the government. Arab Spring was about poverty and lack of economic progress.

    The Muslim Brotherhood is realizing that if they cannot get jobs and the economy going, people will not like them either. And they are aware of that. They look to Turkey for advice. It is not a model. But they know that they have more to learn from Turkey than from Saudi Arabia or Iran.

    Q: For “political Islam” to function under democracy, isn’t there a need to reconcile with secularism? Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s call for secularism was not welcomed by all.

    A: Secularism has failed as a word and as a strong philosophy to build legitimacy in the Arab world. But what is meant by secularism has legitimacy in the wider Arab world.

    Many parties and citizens participating in the Arab uprising actually believe in the details of secularism. Islamists won the argument that if you say you are secularist it means you are atheist. But Islamic slogans were hardly visible during uprisings even though Islamists were there. They agreed on the words “civil state”; they are the new buzz words.

    This is where they disagree with Erdoğan: While accepting the civil state, the Islamist say “since we are mostly Muslim, we should include in the constitution a reference to Islam and sharia,” but they don’t say “we want to be an Islamic state.”

    Q: So will the Islamist parties be the dominant players in the region?

    A: They will do quite well in the elections. They will be the biggest single blocs, but not majority blocs. This partly reflects the strategy of Islamists. They are aware that they are feared.

    Their strategy is to move gradually and to enter coalitions.

    Q: There are fears that like in the Iranian example, the Islamists will soon get rid of their coalition partners and impose a less tolerant rule.

    A: The risk is there, definitely. But, had the revolutions been an Islamist revolution, with millions on the street with Islamist slogans, that would have been a different situation. Second, the biggest Islamist movement, for example the Muslim Brotherhood, has certain Islamist ambitions, in which secularists and Christians disagree. But they are also aware of the Iranian experience and they are aware that it has failed. They don’t like it because it is not popular with its people. It is repressive and people see that it ended up very corrupt and unsuccessful at building jobs and economic progress.

    They don’t look at Saudi Arabia as an attractive model; they don’t look to Taliban or al-Qaeda. This movement is coming to power after people have seen the extremists and made a judgment about it. Ten years ago Iran could have been a much more popular model. Ten years ago Turkey was not an attractive model, but it just so happens that it is now.

    So 2011 is significant.

    Also, in Egypt and Tunisia these parties are not entering into a vacuum. There are military, bureaucracy and business circles. The Islamists will be one among several players.

    Any government in Egypt will be pleading for investment and money, so they cannot be extremists. The economics are not there. But in Libya or Syria that could be different.

    Q: What makes Turkey so attractive?

    A: It is the only real democracy in the entire Middle East. People are impressed that the AKP found a balance between cultural issues like faith, religion, nationalism and globalism. The extremists are anti-globalists. And obviously the economy. It the only rapidly growing non-oil economy in the region.

    Q: Is this image not shaken by Erdoğan’s staments on secularism?

    A: Muslim Brothers did not like it, but they had always said: “We have a lot of respect for Turkey and the AKP and have a lot to learn from them. But don’t assume everything is the same. We will not follow Turkey’s model as if it is a magical recipe.”

    On the other hand it actually calmed a lot of fears. There was a rapidly growing concern that Turkey was building a network of Muslim Brotherhood-led governments to control Arab world. It was drawing hostility. Some started saying “Turkey is becoming too ambitious. It cannot rule the Arab world through Muslim Brothers.”

    And also, Islamists were pointing at Turkey, saying “Look at them. Turkey is going Islamic too.” But Erdoğan said, “Wait a minute, we are a secular state.” So that was also welcomed by those who feared the Muslim Brotherhood.

    Q: How was Turkey’s assertive role perceived in the region prior to the Arab Spring? There was criticism of neo-Ottomanism.

    A: It was assertive toward Israel. But with the Arab world it was engaged with trade relations, visa abolitions. This was nice and welcomed. The neo-Ottoman argument is a bit silly. They are not establishing an empire; they are just engaging in a region that was part of the Ottoman region and are entering for good things like trade. Nobody can blame them.

    Q: Is this image changing with the Arab Spring?

    A: There is a new image. Before Turkey was about the “Zero Problems Policy.” It was about dealing with the status quo. Stabilize it and establish business deals. But now this has changed. It is not about trade any longer; it is about democratic change. Turkey has a role to play; it has responsibilities. Its position relates to different questions. Will Turkey help democratic change to succeed? Will it play a positive role?

    বিস্তারিত পড়ুন : Arab wave sweeps Iran model out, Turkey ‘in’।

39. 

    মাসুদ করিম - ২৯ অক্টোবর ২০১১ (১১:৫৬ অপরাহ্ণ)

    জাপান অস্ত্র রপ্তানি করে না — জাপানের এই নীতি সম্ভবত পরিবর্তিত হতে যাচ্ছে। ভারতের বিদেশমন্ত্রী ও প্রতিরক্ষামন্ত্রীর সফরে সেই ধরনের আলোচনার আভাস পাওয়া যাচ্ছে — ভারত জাপান থেকে অস্ত্র কিনতে উৎসাহী এবং জাপানের অস্ত্র নির্মাতারাও অস্ত্র রপ্তানিতে উৎসাহী।

    Japanese industry has been lobbying for long for a change in this policy of self-denial. Sections of the strategic community in Tokyo too have been calling for an active pursuit of arms exports to increase Japan’s regional influence as well as expand its strategic space in Asia. If all goes well Tokyo is likely to announce new guidelines for arms exports in the coming weeks.

    Whatever the Japanese motivation, the prospect of its arms exports opens up more options for India’s defence acquisition. As one of the world’s largest defence markets, India has traditionally relied on Russia and Western Europe. In recent years, Israel and the United States have emerged as important suppliers.

    Given the extraordinary sophistication of Japan’s industrial and technological base, Delhi must look beyond the mere purchase of arms from Japan and focus on the possibilities for long-term defence industrial collaboration.

    As it awaits the liberalisation of Japan’s arms exports, Delhi’s immediate focus should be on exploring the possibilities for major purchases within the current Japanese guidelines which permit export of advanced non-lethal equipment for peaceful military uses like search and rescue.

    পড়ুন : Japan debates arms exports।

40. 

    মাসুদ করিম - ৩১ অক্টোবর ২০১১ (৯:৩০ পূর্বাহ্ণ)

    এক সপ্তাহ আগের খবর, ভূপেন হাজারিকা নিউমোনিয়ার সংক্রমণ থেকে আরোগ্য লাভ করেছেন ফলে তার শারীরিক অবস্থা আগের চেয়ে ভাল কিন্তু শঙ্কামুক্ত নন। এবং তিনি এখনো হাসপাতালেই আছেন, ভেন্টিলশনে থাকায় গত দুমাস কোনো শক্ত খাবার দেয়া হয়নি, এখন তাকে পাইপ দিয়ে খাওয়ানো শুরু করা হয়েছে।

    The health condition of music maestro Bhupen Hazarika was reported to be stable on Monday evening. The singer was declared critical on Sunday evening.

    Talking to TOI, sister-in-law of the legendary singer, Manisha Hazarika, said he has overcome the pneumonia infection, which was causing worry till the morning hours.

    “Doctors have just informed us that Bhupenda’s condition is stable. Hopefully, he will recover in the next few hours and will be among us again”, said Manisha.

    Earlier, Surjya Hazarika, biographer of the legendary said condition of Bhupenda improved slightly as compared to Sunday evening.

    “Bhupenda’s condition has improved a bit on Monday. But, doctors said he is not yet out of danger”, said Surjya Hazarika.

    He, however, said Hazarika has become too weak as he has not taken any solid food since the last two months.

    “Doctors have started feeding him with the help of a pipe through the neck,” he said.

    Well wishers of the music maestro in Assam are praying for a quick recovery of Hazarika, who is undergoing treatment at the intensive care unit (ICU) of the Kokilaben Dhirubhai Ambani Hospital in Mumbai.

    খবরের লিন্ক : Music maestro Bhupen Hazarika better, not out of danger।

41. 

    মাসুদ করিম - ৩১ অক্টোবর ২০১১ (৯:৫০ পূর্বাহ্ণ)

    প্রাকৃতিক ও জেনেটিক্যালি মডিফাইড একেবারেই দুটি ভিন্ন জিনিস, ভিন্ন উৎপাদন।

    What’s ‘natural‘?

    According to the Oxford English Dictionary, ‘natural’ is “constituted by nature, existing in or by nature, not artificial”.

    This would seem to preclude anything re-constituted with artificial DNA, or containing or changed by artificial materials.

    Monsanto, for one, agrees that GMOs are not natural. The Company’s definition of GMOs is “Plants or animals that have had their genetic makeup altered to exhibit traits that are not naturally theirs.” The World Health Organisation concurs that GMOs are “Organisms in which the genetic material (DNA) has been altered in a way that does not occur naturally.”

    How is it, then, supermarket shelves everywhere abound with processed foods claiming to be “natural, “all-natural”, or ”100%-natural” when they are made from commodity crops universally doused in agrichemicals, and in the US, genetically transformed?
    

    The simple answer is that regulators, such as the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) have not legally defined ‘natural’. Food manufacturers can effectively make up their own definitions, and labelling is, therefore, a free-for-all.

    In a world where consumers are increasingly concerned about healthful eating, food companies have every incentive to spin their ‘food-like’ products as natural.

    However, all this may be about to change.

    In June, a law suit filed in California against food-giant, ConAgra, for deceptive marketing “could make the entire industrial food complex shake in its boots” (Simon).

    The case surrounds canola-, corn- and ‘vegetable’-oils labelled “100% natural”, but which are up to 100% GM. To add to the ‘natural’ image, the message is displayed in vibrant green with the brand-name haloed by a sun and adorned by a picture of a green heart (apparently because it’s cholesterol-free – like all plant oils!).

    Customers are not informed of the (unnatural) GM sources, nor the (unnatural) agrichemicals, nor the (unnatural) processing aids which went into creating the ‘100% natural’ oil. Yet ironically ConAgra’s position is that “ultimately, consumers will decide what is acceptable in the marketplace based on the best science and public information available.”
    
    One law Professor who was involved in the successful suit against McDonald’s over the claim that its French fries were cooked in “100% pure vegetable oil” when they had, in fact, been pre-cooked in beef fat, pointed out that “Many state consumers protection laws permit recovery for claims which might be deceptive or misleading even if only to uneducated people, and even if the claims are technically true”. He also notes that such laws often permit law suits and large financial recoveries, even if no plaintiff can show that he suffered any actual harm.
    
    Besides ‘all-natural’ products made from GMOs, the Professor gave some examples of foods misleadingly labelled, including:

    flavour enhancers added to ‘100% orange juice, not from concentrate’
    ‘natural foods with added monosodium glutamate, corn syrup, citric acid, or hydrogenated oil, all of which are man-made chemicals.
    

    Other food safety watchdogs have pointed out that US Department of Agriculture (USDA) figures on commodity grains typically show residues of seven different pesticides, including known carcinogens and neurotoxins.

    As the Professor said, the number of potential law suits concerning claims against misleading ‘natural’ labels, and the number of potential plaintiffs for individual or class actions is unbelievably large.

    লিন্ক : Natural plants and GM plants are two different things।

42. 

    মাসুদ করিম - ৩১ অক্টোবর ২০১১ (১০:৩৭ পূর্বাহ্ণ)

    আর্কেওলজির ইতিহাসে সবচেয়ে বড় চৌর্যবৃত্তির শিকার লিবিয়া?

    A gang of looters in Libya have targetted the invaluable treasure of gold and silver coins that are believed to date to the era of Alexander the Great (356-323 B.C).

    The thieves carried off the pieces, known as The Treasure of Benghazi, having drilled through a concrete ceiling at the National Commercial Bank of Benghazi, the Daily Mail reported.

    Besides the coins, several artefacts, including monuments and figurines of bronze, glass and ivory, as well as jewellery, bracelets and medallions, are also believed to have been seized by thieves.

    Most of the Benghazi treasures was on Libyan soil following a mass recovery of the collection between 1917 and 1922 from the temple of Artemis in Cyrene – an ancient Roman city, now Libyan territory.

    During World War II, much of the treasure was on display at the Museum of Italian Africa in Rome. But it was returned to Libyan soil in 1961 and had been kept at the bank.

    According to an expert, the raid could be termed as ‘one of the greatest thefts in archaeological history’.

    While the break-in was initially believed to have been part of the uprising against the Libyan leader Muammar Gadaffi, Hafed Walada, a Libyan archaeologist working at King’s College London told The Sunday Times it might have been ‘insiders’ job’.

    ‘It appears to have been carried out by people who knew what they were looking for.’

    The treasure was priceless given its historical value, said Italian archaeologist Serenella Ensoli, from the Second University of Naples.

    ‘The collection is not well studied and is a huge loss for Libyan heritage,’ said Ensoli.

    খবরের লিন্ক এখানে।

43. 

    মাসুদ করিম - ৩১ অক্টোবর ২০১১ (২:৪৯ অপরাহ্ণ)

    ভারত-চীনের যুদ্ধের সম্ভাবনা কতটুকু? অনেক রণকৌশল বিশেষজ্ঞ তো এখনই যুদ্ধ লাগিয়ে দিচ্ছেন। অনেকে আবার অর্থনৈতিক সম্পর্কের কথা বলে বলছেন, যুদ্ধের কোনো আশু সম্ভাবনা নেই। ইশান থারুর লিখছেন

    While a lot of recent media attention has focused on the likelihood of Sino-Indian clashes at sea, the IDSA report keeps its scope trained along the traditional, glacial Himalayan land boundary, referred to in wonkish parlance as the LAC, the Line of Actual Control. Since the 1962 war, China and India have yet to formally resolve longstanding disputes over vast stretches of territory along this line. Those disputes have resurfaced noticeably in recent years, with China making unprecedented noises, much to the alarm of New Delhi, over its historical claims to the entirety of the northeastern Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh — what the Chinese deem “Southern Tibet.” The Chinese even rebuked Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh for having the audacity of visiting the Indian state during local elections in 2009.

    Not surprisingly, it’s in this remote corner of the world that many suspect a war could kick off, particularly around the historic Tibetan monastery town of Tawang. India has reinforced its position in Arunachal with more boots on the ground, new missile defenses and some of the Indian air force’s best strike craft, new Russian-made Su-30 fighters. After decades of focusing its army west against perennial threat Pakistan, India is tacitly realigning its military east to face the long-term challenge of China.

    The report speculates that China could make a targeted territorial grab, “for example, a bid to take Tawang.” Further west along the LAC, another flashpoint lies in Kashmir. China controls a piece of largely uninhabited territory known as Aksai Chin that it captured during the 1962 war. Indian press frequently publish alarmist stories about Chinese incursions from Aksai Chin and elsewhere, playing up the scale of Chinese investment in strategic infrastructure on its side of the border in stark contrast to the seeming lethargy of Indian planners. Part of what fuels the anxiety in New Delhi, as the report notes, is the threat of coordinated action between China and Pakistan — an alliance built largely out of years of mutual antipathy toward India. In one mooted scenario, Pakistan, either with its own forces or terrorist, insurgent proxies, would “make diversionary moves” across the blood-stained Siachen glacier or Kargil, site of the last Indo-Pakistani war in 1999, while a Chinese offensive strikes further east along the border.

    Of course, such table-top board game maneuvers have little purchase in present geo-politics. Direct, provocative action suits no player in the region, particularly when there’s the specter of American power — a curious absence in the IDSA report — hovering on the sidelines. Intriguingly, the report seems to dismiss the notion that China and India would clash in what others would consider obvious hotspots for rivalry; it says the landlocked Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan would likely be treated as a neutral “Switzerland”, while Nepal, a country of 40 million that entertains both Beijing and New Delhi’s patronage, is more or less assured that neither of its big neighbors would risk violating its sovereignty in the event of war.

    বিস্তারিত পড়ুন : China and India at War: Study Contemplates Conflict Between Asian Giants।

44. 

    মাসুদ করিম - ৩১ অক্টোবর ২০১১ (৫:৫০ অপরাহ্ণ)

    পৃথিবীতে আজ আমাদের সংখ্যা হল ৭০০ কোটি। এখানে ইনফোগ্রাফিক্স।

45. 

    মাসুদ করিম - ৩১ অক্টোবর ২০১১ (৬:০৪ অপরাহ্ণ)

    কাজুও আজুমার সাথে প্রতারণাকারী দারাদকে সিলেটে গ্রেপ্তার করা হয়েছে।

    সিলেটের বড়লেখা উপজেলা বিএনপির বহিস্কৃত সাধারণ সম্পাদক জাপান প্রবাসী দারাদ আহমদ ওরফে হিরোকে আটক করেছে পুলিশ।

    বহুল আলোচিত জাপানি দম্পতির কাছ থেকে প্রতারণার মাধ্যমে ৬ কোটি টাকা আত্মসাতের ঘটনায় সোমবার সকালে বড়লেখা থেকে দারাদকে আটক করে বিয়ানীবাজার থানা পুলিশ ।

    প্রধানমন্ত্রীর কার্যালয়ের নির্দেশে দারাদকে আটক করে ব্যাপক জিজ্ঞাসাবাদ করা হচ্ছে বলে বাংলানিউজকে জানান থানার ওসি কামরুল ইসলাম।

    সোমবার সন্ধ্যা ৫ টা পর্যন্ত দারাদ পুলিশ হেফাজতে থানায় ছিলেন।

    এদিকে পুলিশের কাছ থেকে দারাদকে ছাড়িয়ে নেওয়ার জন্য একটি চক্র তদবির করছে বলে অভিযোগ পাওয়া গেছে।

    বড়লেখা থানার ভারপ্রাপ্ত কর্মকর্তা (ওসি) কামরুল ইসলাম বাংলানিউজকে জানান, ‘স্যার (মৌলভীবাজারের পুলিশ সুপার) রাতে থানায় আসবেন, তারপর সিদ্ধান্ত হবে দারাদকে ছেড়ে দেওয়া হবে, না জেলহাজতে পাঠানো হবে।’

    উল্লেখ্য, জাপানি অধ্যাপক দম্পতি কাজুও আজুমার কাছ থেকে জাপান-বাংলাদেশ সাংস্কৃতিক কেন্দ্রের নামে প্রতারণা করে জাপান প্রবাসী দারাদ আহমেদ ৬ কোটি টাকা আত্মসাৎ করেন।

    খবরের লিন্ক এখানে।

46. 

    মাসুদ করিম - ৩১ অক্টোবর ২০১১ (৬:৪৮ অপরাহ্ণ)

    ইউনেস্কোর পূর্ণ সদস্যপদ পেল প্যালেস্টাইন।

    UNESCO is the first U.N. agency the Palestinians have sought to join as a full member since President Mahmoud Abbas applied for full membership of the United Nations on September 23.

    The United States, Canada and Germany voted against Palestinian membership. Brazil, Russia, China, India, South Africa and France voted in favor. Britain abstained.

    খবরের লিন্ক : UNESCO gives Palestinians full membership।