বিভাগ/বিষয় নিরপেক্ষ

সুপারিশকৃত লিন্ক: নভেম্বর ২০১৩

আজকের লিন্ক

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

আজকের লিন্ক

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

২০ comments

  1. মাসুদ করিম - ৩ নভেম্বর ২০১৩ (৮:৪২ পূর্বাহ্ণ)

    আল্লামা শফী, তেঁতুল বলুন ফুল বলুন আর রাণী — শেষ পর্যন্তও তো ওই ‘লালা’ই আসছে। আপনি ‘লালা’তেই যেহেতু আবদ্ধ এখন আপনি তেঁতুল বললেন না ফুল বললেন না রাণী তাতে কিছুই আর আসে যায় না।

    তেঁতুল নয়, ফুল-রাণী বলেছি: শফী

    শনিবার বিকালে চট্টগ্রামের হাটহাজারী পাবর্ত্য উচ্চ বিদ্যালয় মাঠে এক সমাবেশে তিনি বলেন, “কোন জায়গায় একটা ওয়াজ করেছিলাম। আমার আগের পরের কথা কিছু আনে নাই। শুধু বলতেছে, মহিলাদেরকে আমি কোনো সুযোগ দেব না। এটা একেবারে মিথ্যা কথা, ভুয়া কথা।

    “মহিলাদেরকে বলছি, আমি মহিলাদেরকে রানীর সাথে তুলনা দিয়েছি। আমি মহিলাদেরকে ফুলের সাথে তুলনা দিয়েছি।”

    তিনি বলেন, “শুধু এ কথা বলেছিলাম, ফুল দেখলে সবাই নাকে লাগাইতে চায়। তার ঘ্রাণ নিতে চায়। সেজন্য তাদেরকে বলেছি তোমরা উলঙ্গ অবস্থায় এদিক সেদিক ঘোরাফেরা করবে না।

    “এ কথা বুঝে নাই। সরকারও বুঝে নাই। সরকারের মন্ত্রীরাও আমার কথা বুঝে নাই। আমি মহিলাকে তেঁতুলের মত বলেছি, তেঁতুল বলি নাই। এরা কিছু বুঝে না।”

    সমাবেশে শফী বলেন, “তেঁতুল গাছের নিচ দিয়ে হেঁটে গেলে ছোট ছোট ছেলেদের তেঁতুল খাইতে দেখলে মুখের মধ্যে লালা আসে।

    “একজন সাংবাদিক আমার কাছে গিয়ে এ কথা বলেছিল। বলেছি, আপনি বসেন।

    একটি সুন্দরী মেয়ে আপনার কাছে পাঠিয়ে দেব। তারপর আপনার দিলের কি অবস্থা হয় আমাকে জানাইবেন। একথা বলার সাথে সাথে উনি কোনো জবাব না দিয়ে চলে যান।”

    মন্ত্রীদের উদ্দেশ্য করে হেফাজত গুরু বলেন, “মন্ত্রীরা যারা আমার বিরুদ্ধে বলছে তাদের আমার কাছে নিয়ে আসেন। আমি একজন সুন্দরী মহিলা উনার কাছে পৌঁছায়ে দিব। দু’চার মিনিট কথাবার্তা বলুক তারা। তারপর মন্ত্রীকে জিজ্ঞাসা করব। তুমি যদি পুরুষ হইয়া থাক তাহলে তোমার দিলের অবস্থা বাতাও।”

    আহমদ শফী বলেন, “আমার নামে শুধু বদনামি। আমি মহিলাদেরকে লেখাপড়া করতে দিব না। চাকরি-বাকরি করতে দেব না। এটা সবসময় বলা হইতেছে।

    “আমি মহিলাদেরকে লেখাপড়া করানোর জন্য আদেশ দিতেছি। কিন্তু লেখাপড়া করবেন আমার ভগ্নিরা আল্লাহর ওয়াস্তে একটু পর্দার মাধ্যমে। চাকরি করবেন পর্দার মাধ্যমে, এটাই বলতেছি।”

    কওমি মাদ্রাসা কর্তৃপক্ষ আইন বিষয়ে তিনি সরকারকে উদ্দেশ্য করে বলেন, “কওমি মাদ্রাসা নিয়ে তিনবার বৈঠক করেছি। আপনাদের টাকা আমরা নেব না। শর্ত যদি মানেন তাহলে স্বীকৃতি নিতে পারি। না হয় নেব না “

    সমাবেশে হেফাজতের মহাসচিব জুনায়েদ বাবু নগরী বলেন, “মন্ত্রী মহিউদ্দিন খান আলমগীর বলেছেন, হেফাজতের মহাসমাবেশ হতে দেয়া হবে না। যেখানে মহাসমাবেশে বাধা দেয়া হবে সেখান থেকে শুরু হবে জেহাদ।”

    নারীরা সবকিছু পর্দার সাথে করতে পারবেন মন্তব্য করে বাবুনগরী বলেন, “আমরা গার্মেন্টস বন্ধ করতে বলিনি। তবে মহিলাদের কর্মক্ষেত্র হবে আলাদা।”

  2. মাসুদ করিম - ৫ নভেম্বর ২০১৩ (৫:০২ অপরাহ্ণ)

    ভারতের ‘মঙ্গলযান’ আজ সফল উৎক্ষেপণের মাধ্যমে মঙ্গল গ্রহের পথে চলতে শুরু করেছে, ৩০০ দিনের ভ্রমণ শেষে মঙ্গলের কক্ষপথে পৌঁছবে। ভারতের মঙ্গলযাত্রার সময় ও স্থান : দুপুর ০২-৩৮, ৫ নভেম্বর ২০১৩,শ্রীহরিকোটা, অন্ধ্রপ্রদেশ।

    India’s Mars mission launched, rocket places spacecraft in Earth’s orbit

    Taking a giant leap in the world of science, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) on Tuesday successfully launched India’s Mars mission, which is country’s first inter-planetary space mission, from Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh.

    The 44.4-metre tall trusted workhorse of ISRO was launched from Sriharikota. With the success of this launch, the next major test is on November 30, when the spacecraft begins its journey to Mars. And then in September 2014, when it will inject the Mars orbiter into the Mars orbit.

    The launch went on for around 40 minutes of flight when the rocket will be visible to ISRO through its own ground station at Biak near Indonesia. The subsequent operations, during which the rocket disengaged the spacecraft and placed it in a Earth orbit, was tracked by special ship-borne terminals: Nalanda and Yamuna in the South Pacific Ocean.

    With this launch, India is joining the league of countries like America, Russia and Europe to undertake a successful Mars mission.

    In the Rs 450-crore mission, the duration of journey will be 300 days.

  3. মাসুদ করিম - ৬ নভেম্বর ২০১৩ (১১:৩২ পূর্বাহ্ণ)

    মনে হচ্ছে সীমিত পরিসরে চীনে ইসলামি জঙ্গি হামলা শুরু হয়ে গেছে, আজ উত্তর চীনে শাংচি ( Shanxi ) প্রদেশ কমিউনিস্ট পার্টির প্রধান কার্যালয়ের সামনে এক বিস্ফোরণে এক জন নিহত ও আট জন আহত হয়েছে, এখনো যদিও চীনের সংবাদসংস্থা একে শুধু বিস্ফোরণ বলছে — যেমনটি তারা গত সপ্তাহে তিয়ানমার স্কয়ারে সংঘটিত জঙ্গি হামলাকেও প্রথমে শুধু বিস্ফোরণ বলেছিল — কিন্তু বিস্ফোরণে ধরনে এটিও ওই একই রকমের জঙ্গি হামলা হওয়ার আশঙ্কাই বেশি। চীনের ‘সবঋতুর বন্ধু’ পাকিস্তান নিয়ে ভারত বাংলাদেশের মতো এখন চীনের প্রশাসনেরও শঙ্কিত হওয়ার আলামত ফুটে উঠছে বলেই ধারণা করছি।

    1 dead, 8 injured after devices explode near Shanxi Communist Party HQ

    A series of explosions near the Shanxi Communist Party Committee offices in the provincial capital of Taiyuan left one dead and at least eight wounded on Wednesday.

    The blasts occurred at around 7.40am, the Shanxi provincial government said on its website, citing Taiyuan police. Seven explosions were heard, the Beijing Youth Daily reported in a microblog post.

    One person has been killed, eight wounded and two cars damaged, the provincial government website said, citing police. One of the injured was in serious condition. The explosions were triggered by small explosive devices, the website said.

    Metal ball bearings have been found at the site of the explosions, the state-run Xinhua news agency said, pointing to home-made bombs. Witnesses have shared photos of metal pellets, nails on Sina Weibo.

    National broadcaster CCTV said more than twenty vehicles have been damaged. The explosive devices had been hidden in roadside flowerbeds, it reported. Xinhua suggested the bombs were hidden within the provincial party committee’s compound.

    Windows of passing buses were shattered by the explosions, which were felt hundreds of metres away, onlookers wrote on local web forums.

    The streets around the building were closed off until around 10.30am, according to Taiyuan police. Photos shared on social media showed fire engines and ambulances at the scene.

    Speculation as to the motive behind the explosions quickly began circulating on Chinese social media. The latest explosions come at a time when China is on alert following last week’s terrorist attack in Beijing.

    Last Monday, an SUV rammed through barricades and burst into flames in Tiananmen Square, killing five and wounding more than 40 people. The Chinese government has blamed the East Turkestan Islamic Movement, a Uygur militant group, as the organisation behind the alleged terrorist attack.

    Also last week, a team of graft investigators from Beijing arrived in Taiyuan to conduct an in-depth review of the province’s finances. Inspectors are expected to stay in the province for two months. On Tuesday, the party’s Central Discipline Inspection Commission, which has dispatched inspectors to Shanxi and five other provinces, asked citizens with personal grievances not to overwhelm the team.

    The Communist Party’s Central Committee is also scheduled to hold a plenary session this weekend. This third meeting of the incoming administration is traditionally seen as a key moment for groundbreaking political and economic reforms.

    • মাসুদ করিম - ৯ নভেম্বর ২০১৩ (৯:৫৪ পূর্বাহ্ণ)

      যদিও বলা হচ্ছে আভ্যন্তরীন বোমা দিয়ে নাশকতা সৃষ্টি করা হয়েছিল, এবং শহরের একজন দাগী অপরাধীকে এজন্য ধরাও হয়েছে এবং অভিযুক্ত স্বীকারও করেছে ‘সমাজের বিরুদ্ধে প্রতিশোধ’ নিতেই সে এই সন্ত্রাস সৃষ্টি করেছে, কিন্তু অনেকেরই মনে হচ্ছে প্রশাসন সন্ত্রাসের মোটিফ ঢেকে দিয়ে আপাত বিশ্বাসযোগ্য এক অপরাধীকে শাস্তি দিয়ে এই সিরিজ বোমা হামলাকে বিচ্ছিন্ন ঘটনা হিসাবেই প্রমাণ করতে চাইছে।

      Taiyuan man held in Shanxi blasts

      A Taiyuan man has been detained as a suspect in connection with a series of blasts that killed one and injured eight near the Shanxi provincial Communist Party headquarters, police announced yesterday.

      The capture of Feng Zhijun , a 41-year-old ex-convict from Taiyuan’s Xinghualing district, came just one day before top party leaders gather in Beijing for a key policy meeting.

      Feng was taken into custody around 2am yesterday, Xinhua reported. Police seized “a large amount of criminal evidence” from his home, including hand-made explosives and a vehicle authorities said he used to set up the bombs.

      The bombings in downtown Taiyuan came just 10 days after a fiery crash in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square that left five dead and 40 injured. Authorities have called the earlier incident a terrorist attack orchestrated by a Uygur separatist group.

      Officials have so far provided no official characterisation of the Taiyuan incident. The Ministry of Public Security said last night that Feng admitted he wanted to “take revenge against the society”, without elaborating.

      Feng confessed to the police, but the case was still under investigation, Xinhua reported. He had served nine years in prison for a 1989 theft conviction.

      Security has been tight in the Shanxi provincial capital since the bombing. Passengers from the city of 4.2 million have been required to show their ID cards when purchasing tickets or boarding buses to Beijing, the Shanxi Evening News reported.

      Petitioners are also facing tighter surveillance. Li Maolin, a long-time petitioner from the same district as Feng, said police had been stationed outside his flat 24 hours a day since the bombing. They usually left at night.

      Li said Feng was not known among petitioners. “If the police want to find a scapegoat, a man known by few people might be the best candidate,” Li said.

      Chaos broke out around 7.40am on Wednesday when a bomb went off in the flowerbeds almost directly in front of the main entrance of the Shanxi party headquarters.

      Within seconds, a minivan exploded several hundred metres away, according to witnesses. Residents opposite to the party headquarters told Xinhua they heard seven blasts altogether.

      The security ministry said a deputy minister and a team of 26 forensic specialists were sent to Taiyuan to assist the local police investigation, Xinhua reported. A special task force has been formed by police officers of the provincial and city levels.

      Xinhua has reported that the explosions were “suspected to have been caused by home-made bombs”, with ball bearings and electronic circuit boards used in the devices found scattered about the scene.

  4. মাসুদ করিম - ৬ নভেম্বর ২০১৩ (৭:০৭ অপরাহ্ণ)

    রাশিয়ান কূটনীতি ফিরে এসেছে।

    RD
    RDB

  5. মাসুদ করিম - ৯ নভেম্বর ২০১৩ (১০:০৪ পূর্বাহ্ণ)

    বার্মার রাজত্ব হারানো শেষ রাজার জীবিত বংশধরেরাও আজ বিস্মৃত।

    Lost kingdom: Myanmar’s forgotten royals

    In a modest Yangon apartment, the granddaughter of Myanmar’s last king lives poor and unrecognized by her neighbors – a far cry from the power and riches of her ancestor.

    Princess Hteik Su Phaya Gyi said the childhood days when her family had a bevy of servants and retained some of its royal status were now a distant memory.

    The British colonial regime dethroned her grandfather King Thibaw in 1885 and later the military junta, which ruled the country for decades, kept the family out of the public eye.

    “They didn’t want us to be somebody,” said the silver-haired princess, swathed in a shimmering purple shawl worn especially for the rare interview.

    “I have lived as an ordinary person for 60 years,” she told Agence France-Presse.

    “Of course I repent a little over the glorious times that we had when we were young,” she said, displaying a lively wit undimmed by her 90 years.

    The demolition of the monarchy, at the end of the third and final war that brought the nation firmly under the colonial yoke, smashed centuries of royal rule in the country then called Burma.

    Thibaw and his wife, Queen Supayalat, were swiftly and unceremoniously removed from Myanmar and deposited in the small Indian seaside town of Ratnagiri.

    Thibaw died in India aged 56 in 1916, shortly after suffering a heart attack, and the family eventually fractured.

    Some settled in India while others made their lives in Myanmar, which remained part of the British empire until 1948 and came under junta rule in 1962.

    A cloak of silence was thrown over the monarchy by successive Myanmar regimes that viewed it as a potential rival, while army leaders sought to evoke much earlier warrior royals.

    “Most of Myanmar has forgotten about the king,” said deputy culture minister and royal historian Than Swe, who has spearheaded a campaign to return Thibaw’s body to Myanmar.

    A visit by President Thein Sein to Thibaw’s tomb in Ratnagiri during an official trip to India last December reignited interest in Myanmar’s monarchy.

    But Than Swe said Myanmar’s government had more immediate priorities, such as the sweeping reforms implemented since junta rule ended in 2011.

    Queen Suphayalat’s tomb in Yangon is barely marked. When the family tried to place a simple sign there to inform visitors of the pedigree of the occupant, the former junta immediately removed it.

    From demi-god to prisoner

    Thibaw was born into a courtly lifestyle steeped in incredible luxury and his fall was bewilderingly sudden.

    The royals lived a lavish and isolated existence within the walls of their gilded teak palace in Mandalay. They could only be approached by people crawling on their knees.

    “This man was a demi-god in Burma. He was worshipped by his people,” said Sudha Shah, author of “The King in Exile: The Fall of the Royal Family of Burma”.

    “Suddenly he was controlled like a puppet on a string by the British.”

    The British wanted Thibaw off the throne to appease business and Christian missionary interests in the country, Shah said.

    They opted for complete destruction of the monarchy, partly due to fierce resistance to their incursion which saw the country flooded with British forces.

    There were also doubts over finding a pliant royal heir that the British could rule through — Thibaw and his queen notoriously executed dozens of potential rivals for the throne.

    Restitution of the royal line was vaguely considered as Myanmar entered independence.

    But one episode when the military tried to enlist the royal family to help it counter communist insurgents ended the generals’ enthusiasm for the monarchy, Shah said.

    Local people thronged to catch a glimpse of the family and women knelt and spread their hair on the ground for the family to walk on.

    “So taken aback were the generals by the depth of public sentiment demonstrated for the royal family, that they no longer involved the family in any further campaigns,” Shah said.

    The family had a brief period of public activity when the princess and her siblings set up the “Miss Burma” beauty contest — she was in charge of catwalk training.

    The eldest brother, Prince Taw Phaya Gyi, also became involved in the Olympics before he was assassinated by insurgents in 1948.

    Princess Hteik Su Phaya Gyi and her younger brother Prince Taw Phaya, the 89-year-old potential heir of the Konbaung dynasty, are the only surviving grandchildren.

    Living with snakes and leeches

    The royals, refusing the small allowance offered after the British left, were forced to make their own way in the world.

    The princess used the impeccable English she learned as a child studying in a Catholic school in the southern city of Mawlamyine to land positions at both the Australian and US embassies before settling as a teacher — a job she still does today.

    But a family quarrel in the late 1990s saw her lose her inherited home and end up living “in a hut”.

    “During the rain the water was up to here,” she said indicating knee-deep flooding. “The snakes come into the house. And leeches.”

    She now lives with her daughter, who works at a burial association, and said none of her six children, 20 grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren showed an interest in reviving the royal line.

    She is “grateful” that Thein Sein took the time to visit Ratnagiri but believes her grandfather should not be moved.

    Several members of the family scraped together the money to travel to India in the early 1990s — her only visit to her grandparents’ home in exile.

    She recounted her own mother’s stories of the queen standing on a balcony overlooking the Arabian Sea and weeping for her homeland.

    “When I went there I looked up at that little veranda and the sun was setting. So I said ‘Oh my grandmother must have felt the same’, and I had tears in my eyes.”

  6. মাসুদ করিম - ৯ নভেম্বর ২০১৩ (১:১৭ অপরাহ্ণ)

    তেহরিক-ই-তালেবান পাকিস্তান (TTP) – এর নতুন প্রধান মোল্লা ফজলুল্লাহ কে? সেটা জানার জন্য পড়ুন ফরেন পলিসি-র দাউদ খট্টকের লেখাটি।

    অনেক তথ্যই এখানে পাওয়া যাবে কিন্তু আমার সবচেয়ে ভাল লেগেছে নতুন প্রধানের প্রচলিত নামটি ‘ মোল্লা এফএম রেডিও’।

    Who is Mullah Fazlullah?

    The Waziristan-based Pakistani Taliban, also known as the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), picked Mullah Fazlullah, nicknamed “Mullah FM Radio,” as their new chief on Thursday. Once known for his two-year reign of terror in Pakistan’s tourist resort of Swat, Fazlullah is stepping into the shoes of Hakimullah Mehsud, another dreaded TTP chief who was killed in a CIA drone strike in North Waziristan on November 2.

    As the newly-elected government of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif struggles to launch peace talks with the TTP, a number of Pakistani analysts believe that any hope of reconciliation is now dead.

    “The appointment of Fazlullah as head of the TTP means the chapter of talks is closed for the time being,” said Sen. Haji Muhammad Adeel, a top leader for the secular Awami National Party. Talking to this writer on Thursday, hours after Fazlullah’s leadership was announced, Adeel said the Pakistani army would also be averse to talks since Fazlullah was behind the attack that killed Maj. Gen. Sanaullah Niazi, a top military officer, in September.

    From Fazle Hayat to TTP chief

    Fazle Hayat, as Fazlullah was originally known, was a common village boy who joined the religious seminary of a Malakand-based cleric, Sufi Muhammad, and later married one of Muhammad’s daughters. He was impressed when his mentor and father-in-law launched the Tehrik Nifaz-e-Shariat-e-Muhammadi (TNSM) in the early nineties, but his first fighting experience began when Muhammad led a lashkar of thousands of volunteers from Malakand, as well as the Bajaur and Mohmand tribal districts, to fight alongside the Afghan Taliban against NATO and U.S. forces in October 2001.

    Muhammad’s arrest by Pakistani security agencies in late 2001 upon his return from Afghanistan left a vacuum in Swat’s militant movement. But his son-in-law, who had himself spent about 17 months in a Pakistani jail, came forward to fill the void and started preaching at a small mosque in the Swati town of Mam Dheri, which he later renamed “Imam Dheri” to add a more Islamic touch.

    Born in 1974 or 1975 to a simple farming family in Mam Dheri near Fizza Ghat area of Swat, Hayat changed his name to Fazlullah in the 1990s to bolster his credentials as an Islamic leader, even though he had failed to receive full credentials from any religious institution.

    Once an employee at a ski lift in Fizza Ghat, he used to say that he was not a religious scholar, but that did not stop him from advocating for the imposition of shari’a law in Swat.

    Though Fazlullah initially taught the Koran to children at his Mam Dheri mosque, his preaching tone changed from sermons to threats after he launched his unauthorized FM radio channel in 2004. People started supporting him with men and material as he earned the nickname “Maulana Radio.” Though he addressed the people of Swat very generally at first, he soon gained supporters among the conservative Pashtuns of the area, as well as erstwhile supporters of the jailed Muhammad and Pakistanis working abroad in Dubai and Saudi Arabia, whose families back in the country relayed Fazlullah’s messages.

    While encouraging his listeners to pray five times a day and avoid sins, Fazlullah also preached anti-Americanism, focusing on the U.S. forces fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan. As his audience grew, he started discouraging parents from sending their girls to schools and spoke out against watching television or listening to music. In November 2005, after he criticized the “evil of television,” some local Swatis responded by setting fire to thousands of TV sets.

    According to Fazlullah himself, he burned television sets, video equipment, computers, and digital cameras worth 20 million rupees (approximately $32,000) because “these are the main sources of sin.” He added: “Now we have no other option but to re-organize our movement and work for a society purged of all types of evils including music, dancing and drinking alcohol.” In September 2007, Fazlullah’s supporters also tried to destroy the centuries-old statues of Buddha and prehistoric rock carvings in the Swat Valley on the grounds that they were un-Islamic.

    Fazlullah’s fiery speeches carried an appeal for virtually everyone, from household women and laborers to landowners. They came forward in large numbers to donate goods such as wheat flour, cooking oil, and sugar, as well as cement and bricks for construction work. But despite the Swatis’ initial support for Fazlullah, his movement began to lose popularity. His armed brigades patrolled marketplaces across the valley, intimidating locals into keeping their daughters home from school and beheading local opponents. But the general population was unable to resist publicly, because by late 2007, Fazlullah had gained too much power.

    Fighting and agreements

    During his 2007-2009 reign in Swat, the Pakistani government signed two peace agreements with Fazlullah, both of which ended in a military operation and further escalation of violence.

    The first peace agreement was signed on May 21, 2008, and the Swat Taliban said they would not challenge the writ of the state in exchange for the release of Taliban prisoners and the implementation of the shari’a system. The agreement, however, only lasted for a little more than a month when Fazlullah demanded the government withdraw army troops from Swat. Soon after, the Taliban launched attacks on the army and police, and the government launched Operation Rah-e-Haq (Just Path) in June 2008.

    In February 2009, the Fazlullah-led Taliban and the government of Pakistan’s Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province signed another peace agreement. Like the previous agreement, this one lasted for just a few months and the Pakistani government had to order a massive operation, Rah-e-Raast (Right Path), in May 2009.

    After the operation, the Taliban vacated Swat and Fazlullah fled from the area, taking refuge across the border in Afghanistan. Several of his close associates were killed during the operation, while several others were captured — some of which, like his spokesman Muslim Khan, are still believed to be in the custody of the Pakistani security agencies.

    Since 2009, the 39-year-old Fazlullah has been hiding in the Afghan provinces of Kunar and Nuristan and orchestrating attacks in Pakistan from across the border. Prominent among those attacks are the shooting of Pakistani schoolgirl Malala Yousufzai in October 2012, and the bomb blast that killed Niazi.

    While some in the Pakistani government still hope the Taliban will agree to carry forward the peace process, Adeel, whose party held extensive negotiations with Fazlullah in 2008 and 2009, says “the chapter is closed, at least for the coming few months, if not years, after the appointment of Fazlullah as the TTP head.”

    While Fazlullah is regarded as a hardliner, it took at least seven days and a lot of maneuvering for the Taliban shura council members to choose their new leader and operational head. Though his appointment was not unexpected, analysts and locals from Waziristan, the Taliban’s stronghold, believe his status as a non-Mehsud TTP leader and his living across the border in Afghanistan will neutralize his strategic skills, vast fighting experience and oratory, and that some Mehsud Taliban leader could challenge him and cause cracks in the umbrella organization in the future.

  7. মাসুদ করিম - ১০ নভেম্বর ২০১৩ (১১:১০ পূর্বাহ্ণ)

    রাশিয়ার বনে কালো ক্যাঙ্গারু।

  8. মাসুদ করিম - ১১ নভেম্বর ২০১৩ (১১:৩২ পূর্বাহ্ণ)

    রিয়ানভস্তির বিশেষত্ব এর ইনফোগ্রাফিক্সে নিঃসন্দেহে। সুপারিশকৃত লিন্কের পাঠকদের জন্য আরেকটি চমৎকার রিয়ানভস্তি ইনফোগ্রাফিক্স শেয়ার করছি। এবারেরটি গুলাগ নিয়ে। গুলাগের ত্রিশ বছরের নিবর্তনের ইতিহাস ও এর বাধ্যতামূলক শ্রমের সামাজিক অর্থনৈতিক প্রেক্ষিত উঠে এসেছে এই তথ্যচিত্রে। জোসেফ স্তালিন ১৯২৯ সালে গুলাগ প্রবর্তনের ঘোষণা দেন এবং ১৯৩০ সাল থেকে এর কার্যক্রম শুরু হয়ে যায়, ১৯৬০ সালে গুলাগ অবলুপ্ত হয়। ১৯৫১ সালে গুলাগের ইতিহাসে সবচেয়ে বেশি মানুষ অন্তরীন হয়। আর গুলাগে মৃত্যুর হার সর্বোচ্চ ২২.৪% হয় ১৯৪৪ সালে। ১৯৫৩ সালে স্তালিনের মৃত্যুর পরে একসাথে ৫০% বন্দিকে সাধারণ ক্ষমার আওতায় গুলাগ থেকে মুক্তি দেয়া হয়।

    গুলাগের ত্রিশ বছরের ইতিহাসে মোট দেড় কোটি মানুষকে অবরুদ্ধ করা হয় এর মধ্যে পনেরো লাখ মারা যায়।

    গুলাগে অন্তরীনদের বাধ্যতামূলক শ্রম দিয়ে সোভিয়েত ইউনিয়ন ছোটবড় ১৭টি অবকাঠামো উন্নয়নের কাজ সম্পন্ন করে, বলতে গেলে সোভিয়েত ইউনিয়নের দ্রুত নগরায়নের ও বিদ্যুৎশক্তি উৎপাদনের মূল হাতিয়ার ছিল এই বাধ্যতামূলক শ্রম।

    177053372

  9. মাসুদ করিম - ১২ নভেম্বর ২০১৩ (২:১৪ পূর্বাহ্ণ)

    স্বীকৃতি পেল ‘তৃতীয় লিঙ্গ’

    হিজড়াদের ‘লিঙ্গ পরিচয়কে’ রাষ্ট্রীয় স্বীকৃতি দিল বাংলাদেশ সরকার।

    এর ফলে সরকারি নথিপত্র ও পাসপোর্টে তাদের লিঙ্গপরিচয় ‘হিজড়া’ হিসাবে উল্লেখ করা হবে। শিক্ষা, চিকিৎসা ও আবাসনসহ বিভিন্ন ক্ষেত্রে বৈষম্য ঘোঁচাতেও কার্যকর হবে এই স্বীকৃতি।

    সোমবার প্রধানমন্ত্রী শেখ হাসিনার সভাপতিত্বে মন্ত্রিসভার বৈঠকে এ সংক্রান্ত ‘নীতিমালা’ অনুমোদন করা হয়।

    বৈঠক শেষে মন্ত্রিপরিষদ সচিব মোশাররাফ হোসাইন ভূঁইঞা সাংবাদিকদের বলেন, “বাংলাদেশে প্রায় ১০ হাজার হিজড়া রয়েছেন। প্রান্তিক জনগোষ্ঠী হিসেবে শিক্ষা, চিকিৎসা ও আবাসনসহ বিভিন্ন ক্ষেত্রে তারা বৈষম্যর শিকার হয়ে আসছেন।”

    সমাজকল্যাণ মন্ত্রণালয় বিভিন্ন সময়ে তাদের জন্য বিভিন্ন পদক্ষেপ নিলেও তথ্য সংগ্রহের সময় তাদের চিহ্নিত করা কঠিন হয়। ফলে সরকারি সুবিধাও তাদের কাছে পৌঁছায় না। এ কারণেই সমাজকল্যাণ মন্ত্রণালয় প্রস্তাবটি মন্ত্রিসভায় তোলে বলে সচিব জানান।

    “এই সিদ্ধান্তের ফলে তথ্য সংগ্রহের সময় ব্যক্তির লিঙ্গ পরিচয় হিসাবে ‘নারী’ ও ‘পুরুষের’ পাশাপাশি ‘হিজড়া’ হিসাবে চিহ্নিত করার সুযোগ থাকবে। পাসপোর্টেও তাদের লিঙ্গ পরিচয় হবে ‘হিজড়া’।”

    নথিপত্রে ইংরেজিতেও ‘হিজড়া’ শব্দটি ব্যবহার করতে হবে বলে মন্ত্রিপরিষদ সচিব জানান।

    ক্রোমোজম বা হরমনে ত্রুটি অথবা মানসিক কারণে কারো লিঙ্গ পরিচয় নির্ধারণে জটিলতা দেখা দিলে বা দৈহিক লিঙ্গ পরিচয়ের সঙ্গে আচরণগত মিল না থাকলে তাদের চিহ্নিত করা হয় হিজড়া হিসাবে।

    বাংলাদেশের সামাজিক বাস্তবতায় এ ধরনের ব্যক্তিদের ‘নিচু’ দৃষ্টিতে দেখা হয় বলে পরিবার থেকে শুরু করে রাষ্ট্র- সব জায়গাতেই তাদের হতে হয় নিগৃহীত, অধিকারবঞ্চিত। এ কারণেই অনেকেই অন্য হিজড়াদের সঙ্গে গোষ্ঠীবদ্ধ হয়ে বসবাস শুরু করেন।

    হিজড়াদের নিয়ে কাজ করছে এমন সংগঠনগুলো দীর্ঘদিন ধরেই এই জনগোষ্ঠীকে ‘তৃতীয় লিঙ্গ’ হিসাবে স্বীকৃতি দেয়ার দাবি জানিয়ে আসছিল। প্রতিবেশী দেশ ভারত, নেপাল ও পাকিস্তানের সরকার আগেই তাদের এ স্বীকৃতি দিয়েছে।

  10. মাসুদ করিম - ১৩ নভেম্বর ২০১৩ (৯:৫৪ পূর্বাহ্ণ)

    ১৯৫ খেতে ২৩৫ মাইল/ঘণ্টা বেগের ক্যাটাগরি৫ ঘূর্ণিঝড় ‘হাইয়ান’ ফিলিপাইন দ্বীপপুঞ্জে যে ধ্বংসযজ্ঞ চালিয়েছে তার মোকাবেলায় ত্রাণকর্মীরা সর্বাত্মক চেষ্টা করলেও খাদ্য ও ত্রাণের অপ্রতুলতা বেঁচে থাকা উপদ্রুত মানুষেরা সামান্য খাদ্য ও ত্রাণের জন্য মরিয়া হয়ে উঠেছে।

    As authorities in this typhoon-ravaged nation struggled Tuesday with a mammoth relief effort, survivors were becoming increasingly desperate, short on food and supplies and terrified about waiting longer for help.

    A few residents of hard-hit areas scrawled signs with a simple message: “Help us.”

    About five days after the once-in-a-century winds of Typhoon Haiyan gashed the central Philippines, some aid workers said progress has been too slow. Many who want to help are waiting at airports and air bases, hoping to catch rides from the short-handed Philippine military.

    The typhoon directly affected about 10 percent of the population. The government’s death tally stood Tuesday at 1,744, but with thousands missing, the toll is expected to climb.

    Although more than 30 countries have pledged aid, daunting problems have held up the distribution of goods. Some roads are impassable, and many towns have lost their emergency workers.

    On Tuesday, some commercial flights to the devastated region were canceled as a much milder tropical storm dumped more rain.

    বিস্তারিত পড়ুন : In Philippines, typhoon survivors desperate for food; aid workers say progress is slow।

  11. মাসুদ করিম - ১৩ নভেম্বর ২০১৩ (১০:২৮ পূর্বাহ্ণ)

    শিল্পকর্ম নিলামে রেকর্ড দামে (১৪২ মিলিয়ন ডলার) নিউইয়র্কে ক্রিস্টিজ অকসন হাউজে হস্তান্তরিত হয়েছে ফ্রান্সিস বেকনের ট্রিপটিক ‘ থ্রি স্টাডিজ অফ লুসিয়ান ফ্রয়েড’। ক্রিস্টিজ অকসন হাউজ অবশ্য ক্রেতার পরিচয় জানায়নি।

    Artist-Francis-Bacon-s-Three-Studies-of-Lucian-Freud-is-seen-during-a-press-preview-at-Christie-s-Auction-House-in-New-York

    Bacon painting fetches record price

    A painting by Francis Bacon of his friend and fellow artist Lucian Freud has become the most expensive artwork ever sold at auction after it fetched $142m (£89m, 106m euros) in New York.

    The triptych, Three Studies of Lucian Freud (1969), is considered one of Bacon’s greatest masterpieces.

    It was sold after six minutes of fierce bidding, Christie’s auction house said.

    The price eclipsed the $119.9m (£74m) paid for Edvard Munch’s The Scream last year.

    ‘Emotional kinship’

    It was the first time Three Studies of Lucian Freud had been offered at auction and bidding opened at $80m (£50m, 60m euros). Its presale estimate was $85m (£53m, 64m euros).

    Edvard Munch, The Scream – $119.9m (2012)
    Picasso, Nude, Green Leaves, and Bust – $106.5m (2010)
    Alberto Giacometti, Walking Man I – $104.3m (2010)
    Picasso, Boy With a Pipe – $104.1m (2004)

    The auction house did not disclose the identity of the buyer.

    Bacon, known for his triptychs, painted Three Studies of Lucian Freud in 1969 at London’s Royal College of Art, after his studio was destroyed in a fire.

    Francis Outred, head of Post-War and Contemporary Art at Christie’s Europe, said the work was “a true masterpiece and one of the greatest paintings to come up for auction in a current generation”.

    “It marks Bacon and Freud’s relationship, paying tribute to the creative and emotional kinship between the two artists,” he added.

    The pair met in 1945 and became close companions, painting each other on a number of occasions, before their relationship cooled during the 1970s.

    Exhibited in Bacon’s renowned retrospective at the Grand Palais, Paris in 1971-1972, the three panels that form the painting were separated in the mid-1970s.

    One panel was shown at the Tate in 1985 before the three sections were reassembled in their original splendour.

    The complete work was displayed in New Haven, Connecticut in 1999.

    It got its first ever UK public viewing at Christie’s in London in October this year.

  12. Pingback: গুলাগ দিয়ে অবকাঠামো | প্রাত্যহিক পাঠ

  13. মাসুদ করিম - ১৯ নভেম্বর ২০১৩ (৯:৫৯ পূর্বাহ্ণ)

    আজ নেপালে সংবিধান সংসদের ভোট চলছে। এটি নেপালের দ্বিতীয় সংবিধান সংসদ ভোট, প্রথম সংবিধান সংসদ দুবছরের মধ্যে সংবিধান প্রণয়নের কথা থাকলেও এবং আশি শতাংশ কাজ সম্পন্ন করলেও প্রধান দলগুলোর অনৈক্যের ফলে চার বছরেও বাকি কাজ শেষ করে সংবিধান প্রণয়ন করতে ব্যর্থ হয়। এবার বলা হচ্ছে নির্বাচিত ৬০১ সদস্যের সংবিধান সংসদ এক বছরের মধ্যেই সংবিধান প্রণয়নের কাজ শেষ করবে। দেখা যাক, এবার তারা কথা রাখতে পারে কিনা।

    EDITORIAL: Rerun in hope

    Nepal votes today in historic Constituent Assembly (CA) Election, sending 601 representatives to the supreme constitution-drafting body. The present election is also a repeat CA, unheard of in the political history of the world, because the political parties represented in CA I, especially the major ones, failed to deliver a constitution despite taking up double the two years’ time envisaged by the Interim Constitution. And it died a controversial death when it crossed the deadline given by a Supreme Court verdict, which put a check on the legislature-parliament to extend the CA’s tenure further. Between CA I’s demise and today’s polling day, one and a half years has elapsed because of the dissensions among the big political parties as to who should head the electoral government. But that the election is underway is in itself an important achievement, despite the election-boycotting 33-party alliance’s efforts, including resort to violence, to foil it or undercut it.

    Indeed, CA I was reported to have completed 80 per cent of the constitution-making task; even then at the eleventh hour, the Nepalese people were let down. Now the major political parties have been pledging to the people that they will deliver a constitution within a year. Hopefully, this time around they will live up to their word, rising above their petty interests having learned from their mistakes and failures. But it should also be noted that the public are taking these promises with a pinch of salt. CA Election I and CA Election II, then the peace process had not been completed, now it has more or less been done, including the settlement of the UCPN-Maoist’s People’s Liberation Army. Their wartime hangover was then fresh and strong but it has lost much of its fervor now. But the failure of the major parties that have engineered CA II to bring the 33-party alliance led by the CPN-Maoist on the electoral bandwagon sticks and will probably lead to unrest in the post-election period. This will also represent a failure to create a situation in which all the political forces and the people may own up the constitution and the change.

    In the coming days, however, the big parties in the election should therefore initiate damage-repairing action in this regard, though it has become more difficult now. Elections may well throw up surprises, and yesterday’s losers may turn out to be today’s gainers. But what is of paramount importance is that the country must get a constitution that will bind the whole nation together which everybody may be able to own up and which may provide lasting political stability in the country, contributing considerably to the prosperity of Nepal and the Nepalese. But things do not appear sanguine, because divisive tendencies have been taking roots in the country in terms of secularism, ethnicity and origins, geography, federalism, state restructuring and the like. Unfortunately, none of such highly divisive issues has been put before the Nepalese people to decide in a referendum. The success of the CA being elected will, therefore, chiefly rest on its ability to resolve such issues permanently, so that the deep crises that have erupted on such grounds may not come to life again in the country.

  14. মাসুদ করিম - ১৯ নভেম্বর ২০১৩ (১২:২৬ অপরাহ্ণ)

    Doris_lessing_20060312_jha

    Kate Millett On Meeting Doris Lessing

    To celebrate the life of Doris Lessing (October 1919 – 17 November 2013), we are posting a section of Kate Millett’s wrenchingly honest autobiographical work, Flying, published in 1974. Millett writes about her first encounter with Lessing. Millett tells you more about Doris Lessing the person than any impersonal obituary.

    A good ten minutes late for lunch with no less a person than Doris Lessing. A thought that reduces money to its rightful insignificance as I churn out of the office leaving Paul to rumble. I astonish myself today. Waiting for a cab at Charing Cross I am Mary Marvel. A mere word and my blouse will explode revealing the mystic thunderbolt. I am an American comic strip heroine. Full tilt from broken wing to superwoman. Efforts to control my euphoria succeed not at all. Give in and live it, life has so few days like this. The cab obeys my supernatural signs. A great black beast at my command all the way to this great lady.

    Roses in front and cheerful wallpaper. Impossible to be more extraordinarily ordinary. Nothing is more impressive than the commonplace situations that surround great persons. Like de Beauvoir’s pedestrian rooms hidden behind the most unassuming white stone front and a draconic concierge. I call up the stairs and she shakes my hand. Today a day so beyond possibility that I am flowing through it like a fairy tale. Or an acid trip. Or what you will. I feel like Anthony returned from the wars as I behold the strawberries she has actually washed with her own hands in my honor. “Lily white,” we joke. “Isn’t the racism of language amazing?” I am grateful as any undergraduate having lunch with the professor of his soul but we chatter like any two women over recipes. The room where she writes spied through a half-opened door. Inner sanctum of paper confusion. How reassuring that she’s not neat. And wait with my gin in the living room friendly in its rather tacky orientalia, Persian this and thats and rugs and curtains and cushions. The soft clutter of an English room, homely as the grace of her hair in a bun.

    Confess my agony of last time. How absurd not to tell her of The Golden Notebook that I couldn’t write. “But now you can,” she says- Bright, maternal. “Do you worry you will lose writing?” “No, I know now that I can do it.” She says it simply. Just that command is what a lifetime has given. Then she astounds me. “I know I can do it. My problem is wondering why I should.” “But you are making literature,” I protest. Lifetimes of libraries and scholarships, vigil lamps, envy, admiration, idolatry. Six years of graduate school. My God, to make literature and wonder why one does it. Of course she has made a grimace over “literature.” “And if I were? What does it accomplish?” I have never thought. Art is of itself surely. I am dumbfounded by such a question. “Your book does things,” she says. Doris Lessing is referring to my poor damned thesis. Its humid rhetoric. The pedestrian tirade. “Books like that make change,” she insists.

    “Just think of what The Golden Notebook has meant to the thousands of women who read it.” “But I’ve no idea. When I came to New York they thought it meant something else. We had a terrible time.” I laugh, remembering the fiasco at Kaufmann Hall. Movement heavies coming to cheer Lessing as their heroine, but she infuriates them by saying she doesn’t hate men at all and finds other world conditions—peace, poverty, class—all far more pressing than the problems of women. “Let me tell you what it meant to me. In a detail you may find ridiculous. It’s the moment your heroine shall we say,” we smile, “finds herself in a toilet at the outset of her period. In St. Paul we call it the curse.” We smile again. “And the blood is running down her legs while she struggles with toilet paper. Kleenex. That sort of thing. In a book! Happens every month of adult life to half the population of the globe and no one had ever mentioned it in a book.” There is a passage in Mary McCarthy where the heroine so-called does the sublimely stupid thing of getting drunk on a train and spends the night in a berth fucking some character she’s picked up. It’s the sort of harebrained thing we’ve all done and hated ourselves for afterwards. But she had the guts to admit it. Was honest enough. “Of course that is just the sort of thing one blushes to write,” she laughs. “But the most curious thing is that the very passages that once caused me the most anxiety, the moments when I thought, no, I cannot put this on paper—are now the passages I’m proud of. That comfort me most out of all I’ve written. Because through letters and readers I discovered these were the moments when I spoke for other people. So paradoxical. Because at the time they seemed so hopelessly private . . .”

    “It is the expression of the self in women now that is most interesting,” she goes on. “I have been getting it in the mail and hearing it in rumors from the most peculiar places.” And she tells me people write her from loony bins. And she writes back. Virtue like this is too great a reproof to a noncorrespondent. “I cannot cure this woman’s mind but I do read her manuscript,” Lessing chuckles. “And it is fascinating. The whole thing pours out of her. So I suggested she write a book. Now I can’t wait to read it. In fact this is the only sort of thing that interests me now. What people write about their lives. I want to see what you do too.”

    “But I’m always embarrassed. Have so much to be self-conscious about. Doing it in the first person which seems necessary somehow, much of the point is lost in my case if I didn’t put myself on the line. But feeling so vulnerable, my god, a Lesbian. Sure, an experience of human beings. But not described. Not permitted. It has no traditions. No language. No history of agreed values.” “But of course people wish to know,” she interrupts. “And you cannot be intimidated into silence. Or the silence is prolonged forever.”

    I am lulled by her kindness and the strawberries. Slender maternal figure before me in her chair as I sit on the floor. Primed with my greatest confusion. Mother. “You see if I write this book my mother’s going to die. She has already given me notice.” Lessing laughs. “Mothers do not die as easily as they claim. My own announced her intentions with every book I wrote. And I went on hoping eventually I might manage to please her, that I could finally make her proud of me. Only to produce another funeral. Women who write books have a particular obstacle in their mothers. I suppose it is universal.” “There’s Colette and Sidonie.” “Ah, but they never quite convinced me. In any case I did not have their luck. My mother finally did die, for reasons of her own. But I find she never quite went away.”

    With coffee we turn to politics and why it is not enough. Or never quite the right thing. “You’ll get it from that angle,” she warns. “I already hear you damned for a pacifist.” “I plan to atone for my sins with a course of study. Bury myself for a year in the country under volumes of Marx.” “You will be doing the Left an honor. They never read Marx themselves. But the irritating thing is their general inhumanity. It becomes the question of how to the exclusion of why. And the how grows more and more ugly. I did not join the Party till much later in England, so my real political activity was out in Rhodesia, where politics was something terribly real. The situation confronting us every day in its full horror and injustice. But when I came to England I found the Left could mean dull persons shouting at meetings. Boring me to death with their egos. With words. Verbiage more outrageous the less it meant. They hated art. In time I came to fear that they hated people as well. Living lives of frenzied emotionality based on the sufferings of other persons in other countries about whom they seemed to care very little except to find them convenient for certain neurotic needs and schemes of their own.”

    I suddenly remember something from the news. “Did you notice in yesterday’s paper, Mideast oligarch arrests ten who plotted his assassination? What if this guy let them go? Showed mercy, and depended upon it as a tactic. Who could bring about his overthrow if he displayed such confidence in his powers to bring better rule than the other types? And if he can’t why doesn’t he quit? Imagine what a nightmare it must be to be in power. He’d enjoy his existence so much better as a private citizen.” While I am conjuring up a situation where the tyrant reforms in a great fanfare of trumpets, she notifies me that by today’s paper the despot has already dispatched his victims. “No one ever exercises any imagination,” we laugh, a laugh like a sigh.

    “What is truly depressing,” she moves in her chair, “is to see men you’ve known, given shelter, fed, housed, helped once when they were radicals, outlaws, revolutionaries, returned to England now as powers. Ministers in African states. And have to listen while they describe their murders, rationalize their purges, excuse their crimes because they were necessary to stay in power.”

    We are naïve and moralistic women. We are human beings. Who find politics a blight upon the human condition. And do not know how one copes with it except through politics. And more directly through change, liberation, small personal things, subjective exercises appropriate only to persons with enough to eat, residence in one of the supposedly advanced, namely developed, capitalist and imperialist nations. Who if they made certain inroads upon their own society could redirect it even to the advantage of the others upon whose neck it stands.

    “But in seven years we have not even stopped the war in Vietnam,” I argue. “No, you have not. But you have begun something else more remarkable if less efficacious. A great pendulum of social force, a charge, a movement among millions of Americans spreading now abroad too. A potential. Beginning at home, or in the area upon which one has control, effect, knowledge.” I catch her meaning and see even why one begins with the self. All one has claim to finally. And change is a spiritual discipline one practices, waiting in hope. Starting with you and those around you. Knowing it takes time and that change is deep, is living, is a force formed within. Then projected supported by others, feeling it too. A communion. No, not mystic or if so, surely not bullshit, evangelical, deluded, or irrational. But real and measured in acts, in reality as well as in the psyche, as real, often, as the objective world. It is another way to live, to act, to feel, a transvaluation of values and of the very forms of apprehension. A reorientation of attitudes. A revolution is not the overturning of a cart, a reshuffling in the cards of state. It is a process, a swelling, a new growth in the race. If it is real, not simply a trauma, it is another ring in the tree of history, layer upon layer of invisible tissue composing the evidence of a circle.

    Whatever else was said upon that second cup of coffee was unimportant since that moment held upon a spoon whereby we have communicated our hope and kissed good-bye. But still the walk to the station. No cabs. And the tube, she claims, is quicker. Watching her, a middle-aged English lady troubling to guide this brash American to a train station. Effusive in thanks, but it is insolence somehow to thank the great. And a poignant little hug no humility could honor.

  15. মাসুদ করিম - ২১ নভেম্বর ২০১৩ (৮:৫০ পূর্বাহ্ণ)

    বাংলাদেশের রাজনৈতিক সংকট নিয়ে The International New York Times-এর সম্পাদকীয় পড়ে মনে হচ্ছে এটি আন্তর্জাতিক নয়া মগবাজারের সময়-এর সম্পাদকীয়।

    Editorial
    Political Crisis in Bangladesh
    Published: November 20, 2013

    Since the year began, a series of general strikes have paralyzed Bangladesh, and hundreds have died in violent clashes between rival political factions. Top opposition leaders and human rights activists have been arrested. Courts have delivered guilty verdicts and death sentences that flout the most basic standards of due process.

    Responsibility for this crisis sits squarely with Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, the leader of the Awami League party. Ms. Hasina seems determined to hang on to power in advance of general elections scheduled for January and to neutralize her opponents by any means necessary. In 2011, she scrapped a constitutional provision for the governing party to cede power to a neutral caretaker government three months before elections take place. Instead, Ms. Hasina set up an “all-party” government over which she presides. This is not acceptable to Khaleda Zia, a former prime minister who is the leader of the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party, or B.N.P. The two are locked in a potentially explosive impasse.

    Meanwhile, the Jamaat-e-Islami party, an ally of the B.N.P., has been banned from participating in the upcoming elections. Many Bangladeshis who support the Awami League fear that Islamist parties are threatening the foundation of a country that fought bitterly to separate from Pakistan in 1971. But banning Jamaat-e-Islami from participating in the electoral process is only forcing frustrated supporters into the streets.

    Meanwhile, trials held by the International Crimes Tribunal in Bangladesh, which was set up in 2009 to try people accused of committing atrocities during the 1971 war with Pakistan, have targeted opposition leaders. The tribunal appears to be yet another tool to stifle political opponents.

    If violations of rights continue, Bangladesh could face pressure, including perhaps sanctions, from the international community. Prime Minister Hasina needs to restore autonomy to Bangladesh’s judiciary, stop persecuting human rights activists and work with the political opposition to find an acceptable transitional government ahead of next year’s election.
    A version of this editorial appears in print on November 21, 2013, in The International New York Times.

    বাংলাদেশের ওপর নিষেধাজ্ঞার পরামর্শ নিউ ইয়র্ক টাইমসের

    “বাংলাদেশ আন্তর্জাতিক নিষেধাজ্ঞাসহ বিভিন্নভাবে চাপে পড়তে পারে,” বলা হয়েছে প্রভাবশালী মার্কিন সংবাদপত্র নিউ ইয়র্ক টাইমসের এক সম্পাদকীয়তে।

    নিষেধাজ্ঞা কেন?

    “প্রধানমন্ত্রী শেখ হাসিনার উচিত বাংলাদেশের বিচার বিভাগের স্বাধীনতা ফিরিয়ে দেয়া,মানবাধিকার কর্মীদের নিপীড়ন বন্ধ করা এবং বিরোধীদলের সঙ্গে মিলে পরবর্তী নির্বাচন নিয়ে একটি গ্রহণযোগ্য সিদ্ধান্তে পৌঁছানো,” পরামর্শ রাখা হয়েছে সম্পাদকীয়তে।

    বাংলাদেশে চলমান রাজনৈতিক অস্থিরতার জন্য নিউ ইয়র্ক টাইমস শেখ হাসিনাকেই দায়ী করেছে।

    “বছরের শুরুতেই টানা হরতালে বাংলাদেশের অর্থনীতি প্রায় পঙ্গু হয়ে পড়ে এবং সহিংসতায় শতাধিক নিহত হয়।”

    “বিরোধী দলের কয়েকজন প্রধান নেতা এবং মানবাধিকার কর্মীদের গ্রেপ্তার করা হয়। যথাযথ আইনি প্রক্রিয়া না মেনেই আদালত দোষী সাব্যস্ত করেছে এবং মৃত্যুদণ্ডও দিয়েছে।”

    নির্বাচনে জামায়াতকে নিষিদ্ধ করাটি একটি ভুল ছিল বলেও মন্তব্য করা হয়েছে সম্পাদকীয়তে।

    “প্রধান বিরোধী দল বিএনপির সহযোগী জামায়াতে ইসলামীর নিবন্ধন বাতিল হয়ে যাওয়ায় আগামী নির্বাচনে তাদের অংশ নেয়া অনিশ্চিত হয়ে পড়েছে।”

    “আওয়ামী লীগের সমর্থকরা আশঙ্কা প্রকাশ করছেন যে ইসলামী দলগুলো বাংলাদেশের ভিত্তির জন্য হুমকি হতে পারে; যে ভিত্তির ওপর দাঁড়িয়ে দেশটি ১৯৭১ সালে পাকিস্তান থেকে আলাদা হয়েছিল।”

    “কিন্তু জামায়াতে ইসলামকে নির্বাচনে অংশ নেয়া থেকে বিরত রাখার সিদ্ধান্তটি এর ক্ষুব্ধ সমর্থকদের রাস্তায় আন্দোলনে নামতে বাধ্য করেছে।”

    সম্পাদকীয়টিতে সবচেয়ে বড় সমালোচনাটি হয়েছে একাত্তরের যুদ্ধাপরাধীদের বিচারে গঠিত আদালত নিয়ে।

    “আন্তর্জাতিক অপরাধ ট্রাইব্যুনালে বিরোধী দলের কয়েকজন নেতাকে আসামি করা হয়েছে। মূলত বিরোধী দলকে শায়েস্তা করতেই ট্রাইব্যুনালের কার্যক্রম বলে প্রতীয়মান হচ্ছে।”

    • মাসুদ করিম - ২২ নভেম্বর ২০১৩ (১২:২২ অপরাহ্ণ)

      paid news এর মতো এটা paid editorial — আমার কথা হচ্ছে পত্রিকাগুলো paid news ও paid editorial ছাপাক কিন্তু এই নামে নতুন বিভাগ খুলুক — কাজেই শুধু editorial শিরোনামে এটা ছাপানো উচিত হয়নি পত্রিকাটির, উচিত ছিল paid editorial শিরোনামে ছাপানো।

  16. মাসুদ করিম - ২৪ নভেম্বর ২০১৩ (৮:৩৫ পূর্বাহ্ণ)

    ইরানের সাথে ছয় জাতির (পশ৫+১) জেনেভা বৈঠক নিউক্লিয়ার চুক্তির সম্মতিতে পৌঁছেছে।

    P5+1 and Iran agree landmark nuclear deal at Geneva talks
    The P5+1 world powers and Iran have struck a historic deal on Tehran’s nuclear program at talks in Geneva on Sunday. Ministers overcame the last remaining hurdles to reach agreement, despite strong pressure from Israel and lobby groups.

    The P5+1 and Iran arrived at the historic deal over Iran’s nuclear program at approximately 3:00 AM local time in Geneva.

    Before the assembly, the foreign ministers reportedly spent some time consulting with their capitals, a diplomatic source in the Russian delegation told Ria.
    Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov stressed on Saturday that “for the first time in many years the six world powers and Iran have a real opportunity to reach agreement.”

    The tough discussions of the remaining sticking point of nuclear enrichment has stretched into the night, as the world powers were adamant to strike a deal.
    According to Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, shortly before midnight, the talks were in “their 11th hour.” He said that “98 percent of the draft” had already been agreed and the sides were discussing the remaining 2 percent, which was “very important” to the Iranian side.

    During the day Iran once again reiterated it would not accept a deal which did not recognize in one way or another Iran’s right to enrich uranium.
    “Any agreement without recognizing Iran’s right to enrich, practically and verbally, will be unacceptable for Tehran,” Araghchi told journal

    Fact Sheet: First Step Understandings Regarding the Islamic Republic of Iran’s Nuclear Program

    The White House
    Washington, DC
    November 23, 2013

    The P5+1 (the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Russia, and China, facilitated by the European Union) has been engaged in serious and substantive negotiations with Iran with the goal of reaching a verifiable diplomatic resolution that would prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.

    President Obama has been clear that achieving a peaceful resolution that prevents Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon is in America’s national security interest. Today, the P5+1 and Iran reached a set of initial understandings that halts the progress of Iran’s nuclear program and rolls it back in key respects. These are the first meaningful limits that Iran has accepted on its nuclear program in close to a decade. The initial, six month step includes significant limits on Iran’s nuclear program and begins to address our most urgent concerns including Iran’s enrichment capabilities; its existing stockpiles of enriched uranium; the number and capabilities of its centrifuges; and its ability to produce weapons-grade plutonium using the Arak reactor. The concessions Iran has committed to make as part of this first step will also provide us with increased transparency and intrusive monitoring of its nuclear program. In the past, the concern has been expressed that Iran will use negotiations to buy time to advance their program. Taken together, these first step measures will help prevent Iran from using the cover of negotiations to continue advancing its nuclear program as we seek to negotiate a long-term, comprehensive solution that addresses all of the international community’s concerns.

    In return, as part of this initial step, the P5+1 will provide limited, temporary, targeted, and reversible relief to Iran. This relief is structured so that the overwhelming majority of the sanctions regime, including the key oil, banking, and financial sanctions architecture, remains in place. The P5+1 will continue to enforce these sanctions vigorously. If Iran fails to meet its commitments, we will revoke the limited relief and impose additional sanctions on Iran.

    The P5+1 and Iran also discussed the general parameters of a comprehensive solution that would constrain Iran’s nuclear program over the long term, provide verifiable assurances to the international community that Iran’s nuclear activities will be exclusively peaceful, and ensure that any attempt by Iran to pursue a nuclear weapon would be promptly detected. The set of understandings also includes an acknowledgment by Iran that it must address all United Nations Security Council resolutions – which Iran has long claimed are illegal – as well as past and present issues with Iran’s nuclear program that have been identified by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). This would include resolution of questions concerning the possible military dimension of Iran’s nuclear program, including Iran’s activities at Parchin. As part of a comprehensive solution, Iran must also come into full compliance with its obligations under the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and its obligations to the IAEA. With respect to the comprehensive solution, nothing is agreed until everything is agreed. Put simply, this first step expires in six months, and does not represent an acceptable end state to the United States or our P5+1 partners.

    Halting the Progress of Iran’s Program and Rolling Back Key Elements

    Iran has committed to halt enrichment above 5%:

    • Halt all enrichment above 5% and dismantle the technical connections required to enrich above 5%.

    Iran has committed to neutralize its stockpile of near-20% uranium:

    • Dilute below 5% or convert to a form not suitable for further enrichment its entire stockpile of near-20% enriched uranium before the end of the initial phase.

    Iran has committed to halt progress on its enrichment capacity:

    • Not install additional centrifuges of any type.

    • Not install or use any next-generation centrifuges to enrich uranium.

    • Leave inoperable roughly half of installed centrifuges at Natanz and three-quarters of installed centrifuges at Fordow, so they cannot be used to enrich uranium.

    • Limit its centrifuge production to those needed to replace damaged machines, so Iran cannot use the six months to stockpile centrifuges.

    • Not construct additional enrichment facilities.

    Iran has committed to halt progress on the growth of its 3.5% stockpile:

    • Not increase its stockpile of 3.5% low enriched uranium, so that the amount is not greater at the end of the six months than it is at the beginning, and any newly enriched 3.5% enriched uranium is converted into oxide.

    Iran has committed to no further advances of its activities at Arak and to halt progress on its plutonium track. Iran has committed to:

    • Not commission the Arak reactor.

    • Not fuel the Arak reactor.

    • Halt the production of fuel for the Arak reactor.

    • No additional testing of fuel for the Arak reactor.

    • Not install any additional reactor components at Arak.

    • Not transfer fuel and heavy water to the reactor site.

    • Not construct a facility capable of reprocessing. Without reprocessing, Iran cannot separate plutonium from spent fuel

    Unprecedented transparency and intrusive monitoring of Iran’s nuclear program

    Iran has committed to:

    • Provide daily access by IAEA inspectors at Natanz and Fordow. This daily access will permit inspectors to review surveillance camera footage to ensure comprehensive monitoring. This access will provide even greater transparency into enrichment at these sites and shorten detection time for any non-compliance.

    • Provide IAEA access to centrifuge assembly facilities.

    • Provide IAEA access to centrifuge rotor component production and storage facilities.

    • Provide IAEA access to uranium mines and mills.

    • Provide long-sought design information for the Arak reactor. This will provide critical insight into the reactor that has not previously been available.

    • Provide more frequent inspector access to the Arak reactor.

    • Provide certain key data and information called for in the Additional Protocol to Iran’s IAEA Safeguards Agreement and Modified Code 3.1.

    Verification Mechanism

    The IAEA will be called upon to perform many of these verification steps, consistent with their ongoing inspection role in Iran. In addition, the P5+1 and Iran have committed to establishing a Joint Commission to work with the IAEA to monitor implementation and address issues that may arise. The Joint Commission will also work with the IAEA to facilitate resolution of past and present concerns with respect to Iran’s nuclear program, including the possible military dimension of Iran’s nuclear program and Iran’s activities at Parchin.

    Limited, Temporary, Reversible Relief

    In return for these steps, the P5+1 is to provide limited, temporary, targeted, and reversible relief while maintaining the vast bulk of our sanctions, including the oil, finance, and banking sanctions architecture. If Iran fails to meet its commitments, we will revoke the relief. Specifically the P5+1 has committed to:

    • Not impose new nuclear-related sanctions for six months, if Iran abides by its commitments under this deal, to the extent permissible within their political systems.

    • Suspend certain sanctions on gold and precious metals, Iran’s auto sector, and Iran’s petrochemical exports, potentially providing Iran approximately $1.5 billion in revenue.

    • License safety-related repairs and inspections inside Iran for certain Iranian airlines.

    • Allow purchases of Iranian oil to remain at their currently significantly reduced levels – levels that are 60% less than two years ago. $4.2 billion from these sales will be allowed to be transferred in installments if, and as, Iran fulfills its commitments.

    • Allow $400 million in governmental tuition assistance to be transferred from restricted Iranian funds directly to recognized educational institutions in third countries to defray the tuition costs of Iranian students.

    Humanitarian Transactions

    Facilitate humanitarian transactions that are already allowed by U.S. law. Humanitarian transactions have been explicitly exempted from sanctions by Congress so this channel will not provide Iran access to any new source of funds. Humanitarian transactions are those related to Iran’s purchase of food, agricultural commodities, medicine, medical devices; we would also facilitate transactions for medical expenses incurred abroad. We will establish this channel for the benefit of the Iranian people.

    Putting Limited Relief in Perspective

    In total, the approximately $7 billion in relief is a fraction of the costs that Iran will continue to incur during this first phase under the sanctions that will remain in place. The vast majority of Iran’s approximately $100 billion in foreign exchange holdings are inaccessible or restricted by sanctions.

    In the next six months, Iran’s crude oil sales cannot increase. Oil sanctions alone will result in approximately $30 billion in lost revenues to Iran – or roughly $5 billion per month – compared to what Iran earned in a six month period in 2011, before these sanctions took effect. While Iran will be allowed access to $4.2 billion of its oil sales, nearly $15 billion of its revenues during this period will go into restricted overseas accounts. In summary, we expect the balance of Iran’s money in restricted accounts overseas will actually increase, not decrease, under the terms of this deal.

    Maintaining Economic Pressure on Iran and Preserving Our Sanctions Architecture

    During the first phase, we will continue to vigorously enforce our sanctions against Iran, including by taking action against those who seek to evade or circumvent our sanctions.

    • Sanctions affecting crude oil sales will continue to impose pressure on Iran’s government. Working with our international partners, we have cut Iran’s oil sales from 2.5 million barrels per day (bpd) in early 2012 to 1 million bpd today, denying Iran the ability to sell almost 1.5 million bpd. That’s a loss of more than $80 billion since the beginning of 2012 that Iran will never be able to recoup. Under this first step, the EU crude oil ban will remain in effect and Iran will be held to approximately 1 million bpd in sales, resulting in continuing lost sales worth an additional $4 billion per month, every month, going forward.

    • Sanctions affecting petroleum product exports to Iran, which result in billions of dollars of lost revenue, will remain in effect.

    • The vast majority of Iran’s approximately $100 billion in foreign exchange holdings remain inaccessible or restricted by our sanctions.

    • Other significant parts of our sanctions regime remain intact, including:

    o Sanctions against the Central Bank of Iran and approximately two dozen other major Iranian banks and financial actors;

    o Secondary sanctions, pursuant to the Comprehensive Iran Sanctions, Accountability, and Divestment Act (CISADA) as amended and other laws, on banks that do business with U.S.-designated individuals and entities;

    o Sanctions on those who provide a broad range of other financial services to Iran, such as many types of insurance; and,

    o Restricted access to the U.S. financial system.

    • All sanctions on over 600 individuals and entities targeted for supporting Iran’s nuclear or ballistic missile program remain in effect.

    • Sanctions on several sectors of Iran’s economy, including shipping and shipbuilding, remain in effect.

    • Sanctions on long-term investment in and provision of technical services to Iran’s energy sector remain in effect.

    • Sanctions on Iran’s military program remain in effect.

    • Broad U.S. restrictions on trade with Iran remain in effect, depriving Iran of access to virtually all dealings with the world’s biggest economy.

    • All UN Security Council sanctions remain in effect.

    • All of our targeted sanctions related to Iran’s state sponsorship of terrorism, its destabilizing role in the Syrian conflict, and its abysmal human rights record, among other concerns, remain in effect.

    A Comprehensive Solution

    During the six-month initial phase, the P5+1 will negotiate the contours of a comprehensive solution. Thus far, the outline of the general parameters of the comprehensive solution envisions concrete steps to give the international community confidence that Iran’s nuclear activities will be exclusively peaceful. With respect to this comprehensive resolution: nothing is agreed to with respect to a comprehensive solution until everything is agreed to. Over the next six months, we will determine whether there is a solution that gives us sufficient confidence that the Iranian program is peaceful. If Iran cannot address our concerns, we are prepared to increase sanctions and pressure.

    Conclusion

    In sum, this first step achieves a great deal in its own right. Without this phased agreement, Iran could start spinning thousands of additional centrifuges. It could install and spin next-generation centrifuges that will reduce its breakout times. It could fuel and commission the Arak heavy water reactor. It could grow its stockpile of 20% enriched uranium to beyond the threshold for a bomb’s worth of uranium. Iran can do none of these things under the conditions of the first step understanding.

    Furthermore, without this phased approach, the international sanctions coalition would begin to fray because Iran would make the case to the world that it was serious about a diplomatic solution and we were not. We would be unable to bring partners along to do the crucial work of enforcing our sanctions. With this first step, we stop and begin to roll back Iran’s program and give Iran a sharp choice: fulfill its commitments and negotiate in good faith to a final deal, or the entire international community will respond with even more isolation and pressure.

    The American people prefer a peaceful and enduring resolution that prevents Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon and strengthens the global non-proliferation regime. This solution has the potential to achieve that. Through strong and principled diplomacy, the United States of America will do its part for greater peace, security, and cooperation among nations.

  17. মাসুদ করিম - ২৮ নভেম্বর ২০১৩ (৩:১০ অপরাহ্ণ)

    পাকিস্তানের নতুন সেনাপ্রধানকে বলা হচ্ছে ভদ্রলোক এবং সেনাপরিবারের সন্তান — তাতে কী, তাকে তো পাকিস্তানের সেনাবাহিনিই চালাতে হবে, দেখা যাক।

    Troubled history hangs over Pakistan’s new Army chief

    Everything had been planned down to the last, small detail — but one. Late on the evening of October 12, 1999, as Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif swore in Lieutenant General Khwaja Ziauddin as Pakistan’s new army chief, there was no star to pin on his shoulder, to add to the three already there. Mr. Sharif’s military secretary, Brigadier Javed Malik, took one from his own uniform, so that it could be put on to his new chief’s shoulder.

    It proved an ill-omen: late that evening, the man Mr. Sharif had sacked, General Pervez Musharraf, flew back to Pakistan from Sri Lanka, and rode to power in a coup. Lieutenant General Khwaja Ziauddin was arrested and relieved of his new-found rank at gunpoint. Mr. Sharif went to prison, and then exile.

    Brigadier Malik never got his star back.

    Now, with Mr. Nawaz Sharif appointing General Raheel Sharif — no relative — to lead the Pakistan Army, he’ll be hoping to break with the past.

    Mr. Sharif’s past appointments to lead Pakistan’s army have all involved breaking with seniority — and ended in crisis for his governments. General Wahid Kakkar, appointed in 1993 superseding Lieutenants-General Rehm-Dil Bhatti, Mohammad Ashraf, Farrakh Khan and Arif Bangash, eventually forced Mr. Sharif’s resignation from office.

    In 1998, Mr. Sharif sacked the soft-spoken General Jehangir Karamat for demanding the creation of a National Security Council to adjudicate on civil-military relations. He brought in General Musharraf — with historic consequences.
    Distinguished family

    The man Mr. Sharif has now picked, Pakistan Army sources say, has made a career by avoiding controversy. Lieutenant General Raheel Sharif, soft-spoken and dignified, comes from a Punjabi family with a long military history: his father was an officer, as were his brothers and at least one brother-in-law. His older brother, Major Shabbir Sharif, was among the country’s most decorated officers, winning both its highest military honours, the Sitara-e-Jurrat and the Nishan-e-Haider, for his role in separate battles in the 1971 war.

    In Pakistani accounts of the 1971 war, Major Shabbir Sharif is credited with holding back Indian armour at the Gurmakhera Bridge for several days.

    Former Pakistan President General Pervez Musharraf was a course-mate of Major Shabbir Sharif — and took the younger brother under his wing when he was commissioned into service in October, 1976.

    In 1998, General Musharraf was hand-picked as chief of army staff by Mr. Nawaz Sharif — superseding his seniors, Lieutenant General Ali Kuli Khan and Lieutenant General Khalid Nawaz Khan, just as General Raheel Sharif has now done.

    His rise to power gave General Sharif a mentor at the highest level of the Pakistan Army. General Sharif was chosen as personal secretary to the new army chief, but General Musharraf then changed his mind and instead sent him for a prestigious course at the Royal College of Defence Studies in London.

    Later, General Sharif served as chief of staff to Lieutenant General Abdul Qadir Baloch, then commander of the Gujranwala-based XXX corps. In the wake of the 9/11 attacks, Lieutenant General Baloch was transferred to the Quetta-based XII corps, a formation responsible for operations against jihadists who were known to be crossing the border from Afghanistan. He took General Sharif with him as his chief of staff, a Brigadier-rank appointment.

    Then, General Musharraf promoted General Sharif to the rank of Major General, assigning him as General Officer-Commanding of the prestigious Lahore-based 11th Infantry Division — a formation with a key role in the event of a land war with India.
    Challenges

    The challenges before General Sharif are huge. His predecessor, General Pervez Kayani, sought to heal the fractures between the Pakistan Army and its jihadist clients during General Musharraf’s tenure. Even though terrorist violence has sharply escalated in Pakistan, it is generally unnoticed that both military and jihadist fatalities are in decline, suggesting a diminishing will for combat.

    In a 2010 article, former United Nations official Chris Alexander charged General Kayani with “sponsoring a large-scale, covert guerrilla war through Afghan proxies” — a charge western and Afghan leaders have since repeated.

    General Kayani also part-reversed a ceasefire General Musharraf had put in place on the Line of Control, and loosened restraints on jihadists operating against India.

    Experts say General Sharif, a conservative figure, is unlikely to spearhead a radical shift in Pakistani military thinking. The military expert, Hamid Husain, has written that General Sharif “is a gentleman but almost all agree that for a peacetime army, it would make no difference but he is probably not suited to lead an army engaged in a war.”

    “The biggest challenge before General Sharif,” says Rana Banerjee, a Pakistan expert who earlier served in the Research and Analysis Wing, “is to find a way to deal with the existential threats posed by the Taliban. We’ll have to watch closely, though, if he’s able to build a consensus around this in what is evidently a very divided Pakistan army.”

    New Pak army chief’s brother died in 1971 Battle of Majors in Fazilka

    In Pakistani war folklore, it is one of the most talked about battles of the 1971 war, one of the few operations glorified in an otherwise despondent time for the nation. It was the battle of the Majors — one from each side, both hot-blooded and fierce — who wrestled for the control of a key bridge which finally ended in hand-to-hand combat while soldiers looked on, instructed not to intervene in the duel.

    Pakistan Army’s Major Shabbir Sharif died in the battle for Beriwala bridge in Punjab’s Fazilka sector. His heroics won him the Nishan-e-Haider, the nation’s highest gallantry award. Major Narain Singh, who led the Indian counter-attack on the bridge which had been captured by Sharif and his men, too died in the battle. He was awarded the Vir Chakra.

    So this week, when Pakistan named Raheel Sharif as its new Army chief, bells rang on either side of the border. Because Raheel is the younger brother of Major Shabbir Sharif.

    From Jammu, Major Narain Singh’s wife Urmila, who was a 22-year-old during the war, recalled not just “painful memories” but also the “love and respect” her family has got from Fazilka ever since the battle.

    The attack on Beriwala bridge was a crucial Pakistani move on the western front in early December to divert Indian resources from the east where General Niazi’s men were facing a rout.

    Major Shabbir, a company commander of the 6 Frontier Force who had already been decorated in the 1965 war, was tasked to capture a bridge on the ditch-cum-bund (DCB) near the Indian town of Fazilka which he managed to do on December 3-4 by overrunning BSF positions on the border.

    Major Singh, a company commander of 4 Jat, was chosen to launch a counter-attack a day later and recapture the bridge — the bridge was key since it could have been used by the Pakistanis for a strong armour attack.

    These facts are well established but there are two versions of what actually happened in the battle.

    The Pakistani version spread by word of mouth and was mentioned in a book Pakistan’s Crisis in Leadership by Maj Gen Fazal Muqueen Khan: “In the ensuing hand-to-hand fight, this brave Indian Major was killed by another extremely brave Company Commander Major Shabbir Sharif.”

    According to another Pakistani version, Singh charged on their positions with his company and lobbed a grenade at Sharif, injuring him slightly. When Indian soldiers prepared to fire at Sharif, Singh stopped them and opted for a ‘man-to-man’ combat. He was killed by Sharif who died a day later at the same bridge after he was shot at by an Indian T-54 tank.

    But the Indian version, as recounted by officers of the 4 Jat who were present at the battle as well as the official citation of the Vir Chakra, is different.

    There are no records or eyewitness accounts to confirm the ‘man-to-man’ combat but the charge of 4 Jat’s Bravo Company led by Singh is well known for its bravery and the losses the battalion suffered — over 60 soldiers were killed and several more injured.

    While a hand-to-hand fight did occur when Singh’s soldiers attacked the Pakistani positions under Sharif, Singh did not die on the battlefield in direct combat with his Pakistani counterpart, his fellow soldiers recall.

    “It was a very brave and courageous battle between the two but he did not die on the spot. He died while being taken by the Pakistani side to their medical room. Major Singh managed to reach the Pakistani positions after going through a hail of fire but was badly injured by the time they invaded the stronghold,” Col (retd) Vijay Singh, who was then adjutant of 4 Jat, told The Sunday Express from Dehradun.

    He said the Pakistani side treated Singh with respect. They picked up the unconscious Major and were taking him for treatment when he died.

    Singh’s official citation for the Vir Chakra also reflects this: “Major Narain Singh led his men and charged the objective. In the process, he was hit by a burst from a machine gun but he continued to direct the operation during which he was mortally wounded.”

    The versions differ, but both sides agree that the battle of Beriwala was one of exceptional bravery during the 1971 war. Though attacks and counter-attacks continued in the sector, it could never be used by Pakistan for a full armour attack.

    When news of the appointment of Gen Sharif as the Pakistan Army chief reached Singh’s wife Urmila, it brought back memories of the December day in 1971 when she was first informed that her husband was missing in action.

    “I was so devastated then that no one even came to me with tales of his bravery. It was only later that we got to know what he had done for the nation. Earlier this year, my son showed me what the Pakistani side had described about the battle,” she said over phone from Jammu.

    After the war, she went to Fazilka. “The residents have given us so much love. They wanted me to come and settle there with my young son. They called him the saviour of Fazilka. Even now when we go there, everyone remembers the battle and his sacrifice,” she said.

  18. মাসুদ করিম - ২৯ নভেম্বর ২০১৩ (২:৪৩ অপরাহ্ণ)

    এটার কোনো মানে নেই। ব্রিটিশ প্রশাসন, জার্মান প্রশাসন তথা পশ্চিমা প্রশাসনের এই ধরনের অবরোধমূলক আচরণগুলো মূলত মানুষকে অবদমিত করে তার স্বাভাবিক অর্থনৈতিক অধিকারকে খর্ব করে।

    Germany and Britain block Palestinian bid to join international olive trade group
    European diplomatic sources claim that letting Palestinians join the council could sabotage Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.

    The Palestinians have had to freeze their application to become a member state of the International Olive Council due to opposition by Germany and Britain.

    According to European diplomatic sources, German and British representatives claimed that letting the Palestinians join the council could sabotage the Israeli-Palestinian talks now taking place under American auspices. The talks’ resumption was conditioned on Israel releasing Palestinian prisoners in exchange for a Palestinian promise not to try to join various UN organizations, and not address the International Criminal Court in The Hague.

    The Palestinian application, which was prepared this summer by the Palestinian Authority Foreign Ministry in Ramallah in the name of the State of Palestine, was supposed to be voted on at an olive council meeting in Madrid this week.

    Representatives of the European External Action Service argued that the council is purely a technical organization, and therefore does not fall in the category of the organizations that the Palestinians promised not to join. Moreover, they argued, membership would give the Palestinians access to technical assistance in an industry vital to their economy. But this view didn’t sway Britain and Germany, both of which opposed the application.

    The European Union’s member states are represented on the olive council by a single joint delegation, so if these states are unable to reach a consensus on a given issue, the rule is that the EU delegation must abstain from voting.

    Therefore, despite the External Action Service’s support for their bid, the Palestinians realized that the European Union’s vote wouldn’t be cast in their favor, and preferred not to suffer a diplomatic failure. Instead, they decided to postpone their application to a more opportune moment, Palestinian officials told Haaretz.

    A German Foreign Ministry official said in a statement: “The vote in this decision has not yet taken place and will be taken by the EU, not Germany. The German position related to questions on Palestinian statehood is well known.” No British response was forthcoming.

    The Office of the European Union Representative in East Jerusalem said: “The membership to the IOC is in line with Palestinian institution-building efforts which the EU continues to support and has worked on for years. In that context, the EU looks favorably at improving Palestinian technical capacity in the olive oil sector.”

    Last October, the PA Foreign Ministry urged the International Olive Council to take urgent action to protect olive trees in the West Bank from settler attacks. It also urged the international community, and particularly members of the Quartet (the United States, United Nations, European Union and Russia), to condemn these attacks.

    According to data collected by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, almost 10,000 Palestinian olive trees and saplings in the West Bank have been uprooted or damaged in direct attacks by Israelis since the start of 2013, up from about 8,500 in 2012.

    Asked about this issue, the Office of the European Union Representative in East Jerusalem told Haaretz: “The EU has condemned continuous settler violence towards Palestinian farmers and deliberate provocations against Palestinian civilians. It constantly calls on the Israeli authorities to bring the perpetrators to justice and to comply with its obligations under international law.”

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