বিভাগ/বিষয় নিরপেক্ষ

সুপারিশকৃত লিন্ক: সেপ্টেম্বর ২০১৪

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।

১৬ comments

  1. মাসুদ করিম - ১ সেপ্টেম্বর ২০১৪ (১০:৫৭ পূর্বাহ্ণ)

    রাস্তার বিক্রেতাদের অনুমোদন দিয়ে তাদের অর্থনৈতিক কর্মকাণ্ডকে ‘অনুমোদিত অর্থনৈতিক কার্যক্রম’-এর ভেতরে এনে রাস্তায় ফুটপাতে স্থান নির্দিষ্ট করে দিয়ে যত্রতত্র বিক্রিবাটা বন্ধ করা এখন খুবই প্রয়োজন হয়ে পড়েছে।

    The tale of street vendors

    With the increasing number of population in Dhaka, requirement of more footpaths has become crucial. They are also needed for the small street entrepreneurs, i.e. vendors.

    During peak hours, footpaths in Dhaka get occupied by a section of illegal occupants, who are allowed to engage in business, and legalised, by neighbourhood extortionists and a section of law enforcers. The city of Dhaka has a vast number of street vendors, most of them being informal traders. Maybe, they cater to the city dwellers’ needs to some extent, but most of the time they create problems in the urban area by obstructing smooth pedestrian movement with their open-air shops on the footpaths. Those also lead to gathering of crowds around the shops. The vendors sometimes legalise their illegal occupation of the footpaths by ‘managing’ law enforcers, the administration people and, most importantly, the political parties and their youth wings.

    According to the media, vendors operate their businesses in Farmgate, Gulistan and New Market areas by paying Taka 0.5 million per day as illegal toll to local political leaders and workers. They also bribe the local authorities for permission to conduct business. Sometimes, special drives are conducted to evict the illegal vendors, but a few days after that we see their return and the same episode is repeated.

    Occupation of footpaths by vendors causes road accidents as pedestrians are forced to use vehicle-filled roads. It is observed that sometimes the eviction process remains withheld. It happens because of the pressure from influential quarters. The flip side of the eviction drive is that it makes large numbers of urban dwellers jobless, which creates a new problem. Eviction of footpath vendors without making alternative arrangements for them will lead to unwarranted social tension.

    As an evicted street vendor puts it, “I have no savings, since my income is very low. How will I provide food for my family of four now?” He has requested the government to introduce an alternative source of income for the permanently evicted vendors. Some vendors are found to be creative and they apply ingenious strategies to catch attention of the buyers. Despite their sales tricks, they sell quality products at an affordable cost. It has been found that products having almost the same quality as that found in those at formal shops can be bought at prices 25 per cent-50 per cent less on the footpaths.

    A research shows that Dhaka has a large number of poor urban dwellers, who have no skills to get jobs in formal sectors. They frequently turn into street vendors in urban areas. Most of them are rural-to-urban migrants. They rush to big cities like Dhaka due to the lack of work facilities and public services in rural area. Sometimes, they escape from home or are forced to come to the city after losing everything in river erosion. Other than rickshaw pulling or petty menial works, to be a street vendor is the best job opportunity for them. They consider it more prestigious also.

    According to Dhaka City Corporation (DCC) report, in the whole corporation area 60 per cent houses are of low income, 37 per cent middle income, and the rest 3 per cent comprises high-income houses. The report says more than 60 per cent of the urban dwellers depend on the occupation of urban street vendors.

    The higher authorities have no proper rehabilitation policy for the street vendors, although street vending is the most important job opportunity for more than 0.4 million urban dwellers in Dhaka city. According to a survey, street vendors operate through four different types of vending systems in urban areas: permanent, semi-permanent, semi-mobile, and mobile.

    Another survey made on street food vendors in Dhaka shows that their average age stands at about 34 years. Evidence also reveals a poor educational background of the respondents. Formal education is at 3.75 years reflecting the fact that most of them could not even complete their primary education. The average length of activity of the vendors is close to 7 years, and on average they work around 12 hours per day. The mean value for the number of days worked in a month shows that they take very few days off. The average monthly income of a food vendor appears to be Taka 5647.

    Perhaps we cannot think of a day without vendors. They are making our day-to-day life easier by bringing goods to our doorsteps at a reasonable price. But the street vendors are creating problems, like footpath obstructions with crowds of buyers etc. Still a large number of urban dwellers depend on the street vendors.

    The government has to formulate a functional system for street vendors so that they could be relocated to a designated place to operate their business with responsibility and the authorities could also collect legal taxes from them. Thus a sizable economic return could be derived from the sector, and the vendors could turn out to be resourceful and be able to play a major role in society.

  2. মাসুদ করিম - ২ সেপ্টেম্বর ২০১৪ (১০:৫১ পূর্বাহ্ণ)

    ঢাকার অদূরে দোহারের মধুরখোলা গ্রামের অর্থনীতির ‘মৌখিক ইতিহাস’।

    Of money and honey

    The name of the village is Modhurkhola (Place of Honey). It is under Dohar upazila -60 km south west of the capital city. The headmaster of the village high school said that the village was so named as fields filled with mustard plants and trees around used to tempt bees to produce honey – long, long ago. We could guess well that the bees are no more there but the honey still flows in terms of money from abroad.

    In the village, 60 per cent of the households have only homesteads and another 20 per cent have land up to 50 decimals. In other words, four-fifths of households are landless households. The average size of owned land is pitifully low at 50 decimals. Rich farmers with five acres and more lands are almost non-existent for which the tenancy market remains thin. Boro rice is grown in the winter; not much of other crops are cultivated.

    However, the people of Modhurkhola are fortunate on more than one count. In the 1970s and 1980s, it used to take them eight hours to reach Dhaka via motor launch. Now they can commute to the capital city four times a day. The huge mobility owes a great deal to the Dhaka-Mawa highway, the bridges over Buriganga and the link roads between the village and other places.

    In the past decades, 60 per cent of the houses were made of muddy floors and straw roofs (huts), 10-15 per cent shaky tin-sheds, and 20 per cent pucca or semi-pucca structures. With the passage of time, however, the pendulum has swung sharply to account for 60 per cent pucca buildings, 30 per cent tin sheds with pucca floor, and 10 per cent only tin sheds.

    In the past, majority of households could hardly have two satisfactory meals a day whereas there is hardly any household now with that hardship. Most of the poor labour class in those days used to migrate to other districts to eke out a living by working in others’ fields. Now most of the labourers in this village come from other places to plant and harvest crops. The agricultural wage rate is Tk. 300/day plus three meals. Once agriculture was the backbone of the village’s economy but now the sector has taken a back seat. The per capita income in the village has soared from below $100 (Tk 8,000) to nearly $900 (Tk 72,000) – an enviable improvement indeed!

    To have a look at the factors behind the transformation, one day we arrived there. Beautiful buildings on both sides of the pucca road running through the village amazed us. Some of them are 2-3 storied with flats to be rented out. We were also bemused by the costly architectural designs of the houses. The rickshaw-pullers or the agricultural labour class that we came across, come from other parts of the country. How could one explain the transformation when agricultural income constitutes only one-tenth of household income in the village?

    As we saw in other villages, and in a regime of acute land scarcity, infrastructural development such as roads, irrigation, human capital etc. paved the way towards the progress (positive transformation) through expansion of non-farm activities, spread of modern varieties, access road and electricity etc. None of these, however, could be attributed to the rise in per capita income and standard of living over time.

    As it could be learnt from oral history, the ‘honey’ for the residents of Modhurkhola now flows from foreign remittances. Two-thirds of the households have at least one member sending remittances from abroad and 10 per cent receive from domestic sources.

    It was in the early 1980s that a villager, desperate to come out of poverty, went to Saudi Arabia overcoming many problems. But after landing there, he didn’t forget his fellows at home, and established social networks to help a few more to migrate. Those few in turn helped more to migrate, and this worked like a magic. Does it mean that those who once lived in huts have moved to the tin sheds and those in tin sheds have shifted to the buildings? The headmaster explained, “No Sir, the larger proportion of those living in buildings now had huts in the past. It is because a large number of the migrants from this village hailed from the huts. They seized upon the opportunity of migration by mortgaging or selling land, taking help from others in and around and, most importantly, the migrants abroad extended their helping hands to them. The members of solvent and the rich class have also migrated but not as many as the poor ones”.

    As the men have gone abroad, roughly half of the households in Modhurkhola are female-led. Modhura (not the real name) is one such head of a landless family. Her husband, educated up to eighth grade and working as wielder, went abroad in 1996. He had no land excepting the homestead but received a lot of help from others to migrate. The total cost of migration at that time was Tk 2,50,000. Since 1996, her husband remitted, on an average, Tk 25,000 a month and the accumulated amount now stands at Tk 4.3 million. The cost of the migration was recovered within one year of the job. Modhura has now savings of Tk 2,00,000 in a bank, loans to others Tk 50,000 and gold worth Tk 20,000. In the meantime, the house has been repaired and she has already started building a pucca house. The purpose of her savings is to buy land – the dream of a landless household.

    The remittances have also produced other ripples such as a reduction in the growth rate of population, lowering household size at less than four, better health and sanitation, improved enrolment in schools, availability of mobile phones, TV sets etc. It is thus no wonder that two-thirds of the poor households of that particular village rank themselves as rich/solvent compared to others in the village. Poverty in Modhurkhola is no more confined to calorie intake. A different kind of deprivation is developing such as craze for buildings, colour TVs, sophisticated mobile phones etc.

    But all that glitters may not be gold. Remittances have also produced reverse swings. This has been revealed from our discussions with the people of surrounding villages where remittance has taken over rice economy. In Dohar upazila, early marriages (up to 17 years) of girls in the migrant villages are reported to be as high as 15-20 per cent. Both boys and girls are not serious in their studies. The former think that school-level certificate is enough to migrate abroad while the latter find that earning male migrants are ready to marry them.

    There is another serious problem – out of 100 couples, five get divorced, and roughly 15-20 indulge in immoral and scandalous activities. Thus the social cost is huge that rarely finds a berth in the calculus of foreign remittances. The huge dependence on remittance income (three-fourths of total) could also become a recipe for disaster in the wake of a global economic crisis, particularly affecting the Middle East and Singapore. Remitted money then might turn out to be bitter honey. Until then, good luck!

    Abdul Bayes, Professor of Economics at Jahangirnagar University.

  3. মাসুদ করিম - ৩ সেপ্টেম্বর ২০১৪ (৯:০৯ পূর্বাহ্ণ)

    100 Ideas That Changed Art

    From cave paintings to the internet, or how art and cultural ideology shape one another.

    On the heels of yesterday’s 100 Ideas That Changed Photography comes 100 Ideas That Changed Art (public library) — a succinct account of the most influential developments in the history of art, from cave paintings to the internet, compiled by art historian and broadcaster Michael Bird. From conceptual innovations like negative space (#98), color codes (#33), and street art (#94) to landmarks of communication like making books (#21), propaganda (#12), and handwriting (#24) to ideological developments like “less is more” (#30), protest (#79), and the body as surface (#9), each idea is contextualized in a 500-word essay with key visual examples.

    Bird writes in the introduction:

    What does it mean to ‘change art’? Art, in any definition, is so much a business of transformation that change is always and everywhere part of its nature, whether you think of it in physical terms (stone into statue) or in intellectual or spiritual ones (giving form to invisible things). No sooner has an idea changed art that art reformulates that idea, allowing it to recognize itself. Around the early fifth century BC, for example, Greek sculptors changed the way they represented naked figures, probably under the influence of certain intellectual attitudes to the human body. At the same time, their nude statues endowed fifth-century Greek ideas about what it means to be human with an extraordinarily long and fertile posterity. As so often where art is concerned, the transformation works both ways, more on the analogy of a chemical reaction than the introduction of a new material in engineering or a new process in politics.

  4. মাসুদ করিম - ৩ সেপ্টেম্বর ২০১৪ (৯:৩৮ পূর্বাহ্ণ)

    100 Ideas That Changed Photography

    From the camera obscura to the iPhone, or why photography is an art of continuous reinvention.

    Now comes 100 Ideas That Changed Photography (public library) — an equally concise and intelligent chronicle of the most seminal developments in the history of today’s most prevalent visual art. From technical innovations like the cyanotype (#12), the advent of color (#23), the Polaroid (#84), and moving pictures (#20) to paradigms like photojournalism (#66) and fabrication (#93) to new ways of looking at the world like aerial photography (#54), micro/macro (#55), and stopping time (#49), each of the ideas is accompanied by a short essay contextualizing its history and significance.

    Syracuse University fine art professor Mary Warner Marien writes in the introduction:

    Before it materialized as the camera and lens, photography was an idea. The desire to make a special kind of representation, originating in the object itself, is as old as humankind. It appears in the stencil paintings of hands in prehistoric art. In Western culture, the legend of the Corinthian woman who traced the shadow of her lover on a wall before he departed for war has evolved into an origin story for figurative art and, in the 1840s, for photography. Soon after the medium was disclosed to the world in 1839, the word ‘facsimile’ was adapted to describe the photograph’s unprecedented authenticity. Samuel F. B. Morse observed that a photograph could not be called a copy, but was a portion of nature itself. That notion, which persisted throughout the nineteenth century, found new life in the late twentieth-century language theory, in which the photograph was characterized as an imprint or transfer of the real, like a fingerprint.

    Marien goes on to illuminate the history of photography alongside the parallel history of innovations in science and technology, as well as social and cultural developments across philosophy, politics, and aesthetics.

  5. মাসুদ করিম - ৮ সেপ্টেম্বর ২০১৪ (২:৩৬ অপরাহ্ণ)

    শম্ভু মিত্রের জন্মশতবর্ষে ‘এই সময়’-এর আয়োজন, রবিবারোয়ারি-র লিন্ক, এখানে।

  6. মাসুদ করিম - ১০ সেপ্টেম্বর ২০১৪ (৮:৫৩ পূর্বাহ্ণ)

    নজরুলের গানের সর্বকালের অন্যতম শ্রেষ্ঠ শিল্পী, বাংলা গানের এক কিংবদন্তী ফিরোজা বেগম গতকাল রাতে দীর্ঘ রোগভোগের পর মৃত্যুবরণ করেছেন। জন্মেছিলেন ১৯৩০ সালের ২৮শে জুলাই।

    চলে গেলেন নজরুলের গানের পাখি

    ঢাকার অ্যাপোলো হাসপাতালে চিকিৎসাধীন অবস্থায় মঙ্গলবার রাত সাড়ে ৮টার দিকে মৃত্যু হয় ৮৪ বছর বয়সী এই শিল্পীর।

    নজরুল সংগীতশিল্পী ও ছায়ানটের অন্যতম সংগঠক খায়রুল আনাম শাকিল বিডিনিউজ টোয়েন্টিফোর ডটকমকে বলেন, “তিনি (ফিরোজা বেগম) কিডনি জটিলতায় ভুগছিলেন। হৃদযন্ত্রেও জটিলতা ছিল। কিছুক্ষণ আগে জানলাম, তিনি আমাদের ছেড়ে চলে গেছেন।”

    শিল্পীর ছেলে হামিন আহমেদ জানান, তার মায়ের মরদেহ রাতে হাসপাতালের হিমঘরে রেখে সকালে নিয়ে যাওয়া হবে ইন্দিরা রোডের বাসায়। বেলা ২টা থেকে বিকাল ৪টা পর্যন্ত সবার শ্রদ্ধা নিবেদনের জন্য কফিন রাখা হবে কেন্দ্রীয় শহীদ মিনারে।

    বিকালে গুলশানের আজাদ মসজিদে জানাজা শেষে বনানী কবরস্থানে দাফন করা হবে শিল্পীকে।

    ১৯৩০ সালের ২৮ জুলাই গোপালগঞ্জ জেলার রাতইল ঘোনাপাড়া গ্রামের এক জমিদার পরিবারে ফিরোজা বেগমের জন্ম। বাবা খান বাহাদুর মোহাম্মদ ইসমাইল ছিলেন আইনজীবী। মা কওকাবন্নেসা বেগমও ছিলেন সংগীতের অনুরাগী।

    ফিরোজা যখন গানের জগতে প্রবেশ করেন তখনকার বাঙালি মুসলমান সমাজে মেয়েদের সংগীতের তালিম নেয়া সহজ বিষয় ছিল না। কিন্তু বয়স দশ বছর পেরুনোর আগেই তার
    কণ্ঠে নিজের গান শুনে মুগ্ধ হন খোদ কবি নজরুল ইসলাম।

    অল ইন্ডিয়া রেডিওর সুনীল বোসের উৎসাহে মামার সঙ্গে নামজাদা গ্রামোফোন কোম্পানি এইচএমভিতে অডিশন দিতে গিয়ে কবির সঙ্গে প্রথম সাক্ষাৎ ফিরোজার। নজরুল তখন এইচএমভির প্রধান প্রশিক্ষক।

    ফিরোজার কণ্ঠে ‘যদি পরানে না জাগে আকুল পিয়াসা শুধু চোখে দেখা দিতে এস না’ শুনে নজরুল সেদিন বলেছিলেন- এই মেয়ে অনেক ভালো শিল্পী হবে।

    ষষ্ঠ শ্রেণীতে পড়ার সময়েই অল ইন্ডিয়া রেডিওতে ফিরোজার কণ্ঠে নজরুলের গান দুই বাংলায় সাড়া ফেলে দেয়। ১৯৪২ সালে মাত্র ১২ বছর বয়সে এইচএমভি থেকে তার প্রথম রেকর্ড বের হয়।

    শৈশবের সেই দিনগুলোতে নজরুলের কাছ থেকেই তার কয়েকটি গানের তালিম পেয়েছিলেন ফিরোজা বেগম। তার কণ্ঠের গান দিয়েই শুরু হয় নজরুলসংগীতের একক লং প্লে প্রকাশ।

    ১৯৫৫ সালে সুরকার কমল দাশগুপ্তের সঙ্গে বিয়ে হয় ফিরোজার। নজরুলের সরাসরি সংস্পর্শে আসা কমল বিদ্রোহী কবির প্রায় এক-তৃতীয়াংশ গানে সুর দিয়েছেন। ফিরোজা নিজেও পরে নজরুলের গানের স্বরলিপি তৈরি করেন; সুর সংরক্ষণে ভূমিকা রাখেন।

    নজরুলসংগীত ছাড়াও ফিরোজার কণ্ঠ থেকে ভক্তরা শুনেছে রবীন্দ্রসংগীত, আধুনিক গান, গজল, কাওয়ালি ও ভজন। বিভিন্ন দেশে তিন শতাধিক একক অনুষ্ঠানে গান করেছেন তিনি।

    ১৯৪৯ সালে ফিরোজা আর তালাত মাহমুদের গাওয়া গানেই ঢাকা শর্ট ওয়েভ রেডিওর যাত্রা শুরু হয়। ঢাকা নজরুল ইনস্টিটিউটের প্রথম চেয়ারম্যান ছিলেন ফিরোজা বেগম।

    সংগীতে অসামান্য অবদানের স্বীকৃতিস্বরূপ ১৯৭৯ সালে স্বাধীনতা পদকসহ দেশে-বিদেশে নানা পুরস্কারে ভূষিত হয়েছেন তিনি।

    এর মধ্যে রয়েছে শিল্পকলা একাডেমি পুরস্কার, শ্রেষ্ঠ টিভি শিল্পী পুরস্কার, নাসিরউদ্দিন স্বর্ণপদক, স্যার সলিমুল্লাহ স্বর্ণপদক, দীননাথ সেন স্বর্ণপদক, সত্যজিৎ রায় স্বর্ণপদক, বাচসাস পুরস্কার ও নজরুল আকাদেমি পদক।

    ফিরোজার প্রথম স্বামী কমল দাশগুপ্তের মৃত্যু হয় ১৯৭৪ সালে। পরে আরেক সংগীতজ্ঞ মনসুর আহমেদের সঙ্গে সংসার করেন তিনি।

    তিন ছেলে তাহসিন, হামীন ও শাফীন আহমেদ এবং অসংখ্য ভক্ত ও গুণগ্রাহী রেখে গেছেন শিল্পী ফিরোজা বেগম।

    : : আমি চাঁদ নহি, চাঁদ নহি অভিশাপ : :

    আপনি আবার শুনতে চেয়েছেন, Golam Hossain Habib ভাই। শুনে স্তব্ধ হয়ে বসে আছি। নজরুলের এই গানের সুর কি কমল দাশগুপ্তের দেয়া?

    …
    আমি চাঁদ নহি, চাঁদ নহি অভিশাপ
    শূন্য হৃদয়ে আজো নিরাশায় আকাশে করি বিলাপ।।
    শত জনমের অপূর্ণ সাধ লয়ে
    আমি গগনে কাঁদি গো ভুবনের চাঁদ হয়ে
    জোছনা হইয়া ঝরে গো আমার অশ্রু বিরহ-তাপ।।
    কলঙ্ক হয়ে বুকে দোলে মোর তোমার স্মৃতির ছায়া
    এত জোছনায় ঢাকিতে পারিনি তোমার মধুর মায়া।
    কোন সে সাগর মন্থন শেষে মোরে
    জড়াইয়া যেন উঠেছিলে প্রেমভরে
    হায় তুমি গেছ চলে বুকে তবু দোলে তব অঙ্গের ছাপ।।

    http://cdn2.blugaa.com/c2530f433e63866645237a971c83e435/bvopv/Ami_Chand_Nohi_Abhishap-%28Jatt.fm%29.mp3

  7. মাসুদ করিম - ১০ সেপ্টেম্বর ২০১৪ (১১:১০ অপরাহ্ণ)

    Bangladesh joins four nations to combat kala-azar

    Five countries-Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal and Thailand-signed on Tuesday a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to collaborate on enhanced efforts for eradicating kala-azar.

    The areas for collaboration include mutually agreed arrangements of resource mobilisation, exchange of information, research, capacity building and technical support.

    Elimination of kala-azar means reduction of the cases to a level where it is no longer a public health hazard. The target is to achieve less than one kala-azar case per 10,000 population annually.

    The MoU was signed at the four-day ministerial meeting of World Health Organisation (WHO) South East Asia Region (SEARO) at a city hotel. Ministers of the five countries signed the MoU.

    Earlier, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina inaugurated the 32nd meeting of the health ministers of WHO South-East Asia Region and 67th session of the WHO Regional Committee for South-East Asia.

    Bangladesh is hosting the WHO regional conference that began on Tuesday. Other participating countries of the event are Bhutan, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, India, Indonesia, the Maldives, Myanmar, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Timor-Leste.

    According to World Health Organisation (WHO), over 147 million people in South-East Asia are at risk of contracting this life-threatening disease, mainly in Bangladesh, India and Nepal.

    “If we collaborate, we can surely eliminate the threat of kala-azar (Visceral Leishmaniasis),” Bangladesh Health Minister Mohammad Nasim told reporters after signing of the MoU.

    WHO Regional Director for South-East Asia Dr Poonam Khetrapal Singh said: “Kala-azar elimination is within our reach and WHO is committed to it”.

    Kala-azar is devastating and often fatal if left untreated. It is transmitted by sand flies, which breed in moist soil, caves, cracks in mud walls and rodent burrows. The poor population in rural areas is at the greatest risk.

    At the same event, Bangladesh and India signed a bilateral MoU regarding cooperation in the field of traditional medicine and homeopathy.

    Under the MoU, training, research, exchange of experts and setting up of an academic chair are some of the highlights of the cooperation.

    Health Secretary MM Neazuddin and India’s Secretary for Ayurveda, Yoga and Naturapathy, Unani, Siddhi and Homeopathy (AYUSH) Nilanjan Sanyal signed the MoU in the city on the sidelines of the WHO regional meeting.

    Health ministers of the two countries Mohammed Nasim and Harsh Vardhan, WHO Director-General Margret Chan and its South-East Asia Region (SEARO) Director Poonam Khetrapal Singh were also present during the signing.

    Hailing the MoU, Chairman of Bangladesh Homeopathy Board Dilip Kumar Roy said Bangladeshi homeopathy doctors cannot have post-graduation and higher training after graduation.

    “We don’t have such courses or facilities. Teachers would be trained up under the MoU and there’ll be exchanges between our doctors and teachers,” he said.

    UNB adds: Speaking at the inaugural session, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina urged all to vow afresh to ensure universal health protection to turn their population into human resources.

    “Let’s reiterate our pledges for ensuring universal health protection. This is the best way to turn population into manpower and make development sustainable. We can attain this only through united efforts,” she said.

    Noting that Bangladesh has been actively participating in WHO’s all programmes and discussions, Hasina said, “I hope WHO will become a stronger organisation through implementation of the reform programmes and be able to give more technical assistance to its member countries.”

    Highlighting various steps and achievements of her government in the health sector, the Premier said that a midwifery training course of the international standard was launched, posts for 3,000 midwives were created and they would be appointed soon, the country attained MDG-4 (millennium development goal) in 2012 and was on the right track for attaining the MDG-5.

    BSS adds: Later the visiting WHO DG Dr Margaret Chan called on the Prime Minister at the hotel and highly praised the achievements of Bangladesh in the health sector saying that other countries in the region could follow the suit in the particular field.

    The Prime Minister also recalled the support of WHO in implementation of Bangladesh’s health programmes.

    PM’s Press Secretary AKM Shameem CHowdhury briefed reporters about the meeting.

    Dr Chan extended her thanks to the Prime Minister for giving all-out support to hold the WHO meeting in Dhaka.

  8. মাসুদ করিম - ১৪ সেপ্টেম্বর ২০১৪ (১২:৪০ অপরাহ্ণ)

    Shaman dancers, coolies and suffragettes: rare photos of 1900s Beijing discovered from Austrian archive

    When a relative of a long dead Austro-Hungarian navy soldier approached Gerd Kaminski, a China scholar in Vienna, in 2007, she pointed him towards a treasure trove of thousands of photos of Beijing, many of which were a century old.

    Kaminski, director of the Austrian Institute for China and Southeast Asia Studies in Vienna, worked his way through the photos and published a selection along with other photos he was given by descendants of Austrian diplomats and traders in imperial China.

    “These photos give precious insights into daily urban life in Beijing a century ago,” he said. “Many of the buildings don’t exist anymore and traditions seen in the photos have been lost in time.”

    The photos show men dancing with animal masks, camels and traders on Changan Avenue – now Beijing’s 12-lane main thoroughfare – tea houses, the Imperial Court and women disfigured by footbinding and demonstrating for the right to vote.

    স্লাইডশো : Beijing in pictures a century ago

  9. মাসুদ করিম - ১৭ সেপ্টেম্বর ২০১৪ (১১:৩৮ পূর্বাহ্ণ)

    Beyond sweet talk and tempting deals

    Few doubt the importance of Xi’s visit. Both countries have recently changed top leadership. Establishing a good working relationship at the top is a necessary step towards managing the complex and friction-prone Sino-Indian ties. For Xi, the stakes in a successful visit to Delhi are high. Since assuming his position as the Communist Party of China’s general secretary in November 2012, Xi has opted for a risky foreign policy strategy that has resulted in a simultaneous deterioration in Sino-Japanese and Sino-American relations — a troubling development for a country that has prided itself on a pragmatic and low-profile foreign policy for the last three decades.

    While Xi may be eager to show Washington and Tokyo his toughness, he nevertheless seems aware that he would be courting assured strategic encirclement if he antagonises China’s powerful neighbour to the west — India. A sensible policy towards Delhi, therefore, should be one that seeks to reduce India’s fears of growing Chinese power and assertive foreign policy behaviour. This objective, modest as it may seem on the surface, is not easy to achieve. Mutual strategic suspicions run deep. Longstanding contentious issues, in particular unresolved border disputes and Chinese support for Pakistan, greatly limit the extent to which bilateral relations can be improved.
    Therefore, from the Chinese perspective, Xi’s visit has high stakes but modest, albeit realistic, objectives. The India-China summit will be seen as a success if both sides reach a fundamental understanding that a strategic conflict between the world’s two largest developing nations is both unnecessary and calamitous.

    Yet, reassuring rhetoric may not be enough to allow Xi to earn Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s trust. Xi needs to back up his words of reassurance with concrete action. There are three ways Xi can charm and convince Modi, who has carefully avoided upsetting Beijing, that India can gain far more from working with China than working against it.

    The easiest way is to use effusive rhetoric and symbols to show that China truly values its ties with India and regards India’s rise as a great opportunity, not a threat. China can garner some goodwill in India by expanding cultural and education exchanges aimed at raising India’s profile and prestige in China (where knowledge of India is abysmal). Beijing has recently upgraded its diplomatic presence in Delhi. The new Chinese ambassador to India, Le Yucheng, is the first Chinese diplomat with the rank of a vice minister to be posted in India.

    Although most people may not grasp the symbolic subtlety of appointing a vice ministerial diplomat as ambassador, the decision to send Le to Delhi reflects the greater weight China now gives to India. Of Chinese diplomatic missions abroad, only those countries considered strategically important are represented by vice ministerial diplomats: the United States, Russia, Japan, North Korea, Great Britain and now, India.

    The second and principal means of wooing India will undoubtedly be trade and investment. Xi is expected to bring a large entourage of business executives and announce billions of dollars in contracts during his visit. Beijing’s intention is quite clear. It hopes to show Delhi the enormous bilateral commercial benefits that would be lost if Sino-Indian relations became needlessly hostile. China has been India’s largest trading partner since 2011, and the two-way trade was nearly $66 billion last year (down from the record of $74 billion in 2011).

    However, India runs a huge deficit with China ($31.4 billion last year). Given the lopsided trading relationship, China has more room for concessions. In particular, China can benefit greatly from India’s competitive hi-tech services sector and generic pharmaceutical industry. With rising wages and huge capital savings, China should also find India an attractive destination for direct investment.

    But sweet talk and tempting business deals, however helpful, are not enough to assuage India’s concerns about China on the security front. Admittedly, bilateral security issues — border disputes, military deployment and Chinese support for Pakistan — are the most difficult to resolve. While no breakthroughs are expected during Xi’s visit on these issues, we nevertheless hope that Xi will, against conventional wisdom, exploit the bilateral security issue to his advantage. Given Xi’s enormous political authority and Modi’s sweeping mandate, we have a rare opportunity when two strong leaders may be able to strike a deal on the Sino-Indian border disputes. Indeed, one way of evaluating the success of Xi’s visit is to see whether there is any announcement on this issue.

    In addition, Xi can further demonstrate his commitment to a durable peaceful relationship with India by broaching the sensitive issue of Pakistan (Xi cancelled his stop in Islamabad because of the ongoing political turmoil there). For a long time, China has propped up Pakistan as a useful ally in counter-balancing India in the subcontinent. But the security benefits gained from this strategy are now diminishing. Domestic political instability and terrorism are increasingly making Pakistan more of a liability than an asset. A Machiavellian ploy to tie down India with Pakistan will only succeed in pushing India deeper into the arms of the US (and now Japan). The net outcome is negative for China. To be sure, it would be unrealistic to expect anything substantial to occur during Xi’s visit. But if Xi can reassure Modi that he will review ongoing Chinese assistance to Pakistan (especially in the nuclear energy area) to address India’s concerns, that could be a promising start.

    It is unclear whether Xi’s advisors are aware that strategic reassurance will not bear any fruit unless China takes some of these steps. Let’s hope they are.

  10. মাসুদ করিম - ২০ সেপ্টেম্বর ২০১৪ (৯:৩৮ পূর্বাহ্ণ)

    তবলা বাজাতে বাজাতেই চিরবিদায় নিলেন বিজন চৌধুরী

    অনুষ্ঠান মঞ্চে তবলা বাজাতে বাজাতে হঠাৎ থেমে গেলেন শিল্পী। মাথা হেলে পড়ল বুকের কাছে। চলে গেলেন তবলাশিল্পী পণ্ডিত বিজন চৌধুরী।

    শুক্রবার রাতে চট্টগ্রামের থিয়েটার ইন্সটিটিউট মিলনায়তনে অনুষ্ঠান চলাকালেই মারা গেলেন ৭৫ বছর বয়সী এই শিল্পী।

    অনুষ্ঠানে উপস্থিত থিয়েটার ইন্সটিটিউটের পরিচালক আহমেদ ইকবাল হায়দার বিডিনিউজ টোয়েন্টিফোর ডটকমকে বলেন, ওস্তাদ আজিজুল ইসলামকে সম্মাননা দিতে এ অনুষ্ঠানের আয়োজন করা হয়।

    সন্ধ্যা সাড়ে ৭টার দিকে বংশীবাদন শুরু করেন ওস্তাদ আজিজুল ইসলাম। এ সময় তবলা বাজাচ্ছিলেন পণ্ডিত বিজন চৌধুরী।

    “তবলা বাজাতে বাজাতেই হঠাৎ থেমে যান বিজন চৌধুরী। এরপর তার মাথাটি হেলে পড়ে বুকের কাছে।”

    তাকে দ্রুত চট্টগ্রাম মেডিক্যাল সেন্টার নামে একটি বেসরকারি হাসপাতালে নেয়া হলে চিকিৎসকরা জানান হৃদরোগে আক্রান্ত হয়ে মৃত্যু হয়েছে তার।

    অনুষ্ঠানমঞ্চে এই তবলা শিল্পীর মৃত্যুতে শুদ্ধ সঙ্গীতের পরিচ্ছন্ন আয়োজনে মুহূর্তেই নেমে আসে শোকের ছায়া। বাতিল করা হয় অনুষ্ঠান।

    ১৯৩৯ সালে ব্রাহ্মণবাড়িয়ার এক সংস্কৃতিমনা পরিবারে বিজন চৌধুরীর জন্ম। ছোটবেলায় তালিম নিয়েছেন পণ্ডিত শিব শংকর মিত্র ও ওস্তাদ এরশাদ আলী খাঁর কাছে।

    কলকাতা ও লখনৌয়ে তবলা শিখে এসে ষাটের দশকে বুলবুল একাডেমীতে নৃত্যের ক্লাসে সংগতকারের কাজ নেন বিজন চৌধুরী। পরে যোগ দেন বাংলাদেশ বেতারে।

    ১৯৯৮ সালে বাংলাদেশ বেতার চট্টগ্রাম কেন্দ্র থেকে অবসরে গেলেও ভারত ও বাংলাদেশের বহু কৃতি সংগীত শিল্পীর সঙ্গে একমঞ্চে তবলা বাজিয়ে আসছিলেন বিজন চৌধুরী।

    তিনি বাংলাদেশের তবলাবাদকদের অনেকেরই শিক্ষাগুরু। শাস্ত্রীয় সংগীতের বিভিন্ন অ্যালবাম ছাড়াও একসময় ছায়াছবির গানের জন্যও তবলা বাজিয়েছেন তিনি।

    দুই ছেলের জনক বিজন চৌধুরী থাকতেন নগরীর কোতোয়ালী এলাকার হেমসেন লেনের পৈত্রিক বাড়িতে।

    ” আজি এ উৎসবে কেন বাজে বিষাদেরও বাশি ”
    —————————
    প্রায় সপ্তাহ দুয়েক আগে থেকেই ফেসবুকে একটা নিউজ স্ট্যাটাস ছবি সহ আপলোড দিচ্ছিলেন চট্টগ্রাম টি আই সি র পরিচালক আহমেদ ইকবাল হায়দার, আমাদের হায়দার ভাই। আর আমি প্রতিবারই লাইক দিয়েছি ফেসবুকিং এর আসক্তি আক্রান্ত স্বভাবে। অনুষ্ঠানের আয়োজক টি আই সি অনুষ্ঠানটি ছিলো চট্টগ্রাম তথা বাংলাদেশের প্রখ্যাত বংশীবাদক ওস্তাদ ক্যাপ্টেন আজিজুল ইসলামের সম্মাননা প্রদান। আমি আজিজুল ইসলামের বংশী বাদন পুর্বেও দুই একবার শুনেছিলাম, এবার অনেকদিন পর আবারো শুনতে গেলাম শুধু বাশির সুরের প্রতি অন্যরকম টান অনুভব করি বলেই হয়ত। সম্মাননা পর্ব শেষে মুল অনুষ্ঠান বংশী বাদন শুরু করার পূর্বে শিল্পী আজিজুল ইসলাম নিজেই পরিচয় করিয়ে দিলেন তার সহযোগী অন্যান্য শিল্পীদের সাথেও। তার সাথে তবলায় যিনি সঙ্গত করতে আসলেন তিনিও আর এক গুণী শিল্পী পন্ডিত বিজন চৌধুরী। এই শিল্পীর নাম আগেই শুনেছিলাম কিন্তু তার বাদন কখনো শুনিনি। হ্যা, একজন আপাদমস্তক জাত শিল্পীই বটে। বংশীবাদন শুরু করলেন ক্যাপ্টেন আজিজুল ইসলাম। রাগ রাগিণীর বিস্তার আমার একেবারেই অজানা তাই কি দিয়ে তিনি শুরু করলেন তাও বলতে পারছি না। তবে পন্ডিত বিজন চৌধুরী তখনো তবলায় একটি টোকাও দেননি। শান্ত ধীর লয়ে বাজিয়ে চলছেন শিল্পী আজিজুল ইসলাম। একপর্যায়ে বাশির যুক্ত হলেন পন্ডিতজি। কিন্তু দুজনের মাঝে সুর তালের বোঝাপড়াটা তখনো কেন জানি আমাকে স্পর্শ করছে না। পাশে বসা দেবাশীষ কানের কাছে ফিস ফিসিয়ে বললো – তবলা এখানে ধরতে পারে নাই —। তারও কিছুক্ষণ পর হয়ত টের পেলেন শিল্পী আজিজুল ইসলাম। চোখাচোখি তাকাতেই একটু অস্বস্তিকর ভঙ্গিতে পন্ডিতজি বলতে চাইলেন “আমার খারাপ লাগছে ” পানির বোতলের দিকে ইশারায় আস্তে করে ওস্তাদ আজিজুল ইসলাম বললেন “একটু পানি খাবেন? ততক্ষণে তবলায় রাখা পন্ডিতজির হাত দুটিথেমে গেলো মাথাটা কাত হয়ে নিস্তেজ ভঙ্গিতে টলে পড়তে দেখেই দর্শক সারি থেকে আওয়াজ উঠলো- উনাকে ধরেন, উনাকে ধরেন —। সাথে সাথে ধরে মঞ্চের উপরেই শুইয়ে দিলেন সকলেই ধরাধরি করে। এখানে কেউ ডাক্তার আছেন? বলে চিৎকার করে বলতেছিলেন হায়দার ভাই। মানুষজন জটলা পাকিয়ে ভির করছে মঞ্চের উপর। হায়দার ভাই কাকে যেন বাইরে মাইক্রোবাস রেডি রাখতে বলছিল। এমন গুরু গম্ভীর পরিবেশে ঘটনার আকস্মিকতায় সবাই আমরা নির্বাক দাড়িয়ে আছি। কিছুক্ষণ পরই আমাদের সামনে দিয়েই শবদেহের মত ধরাধরি করে নিয়ে গেল শিল্পীকে কোন ক্লিনিকের উদ্দেশ্যে। ওস্তাদ আজিজুল ইসলামও হতবিহবল হয়ে হয়ে বসে ছিলেন নীচের দর্শক সারির সামনে। ধীরে ধীরে আমরা হল থেকে বেড়িয়ে গেলাম। সিঁড়িতে দেখা হলো দুলালদাস গুপ’র সাথে তার কাছ থেকেই শুনলাম – তিনি নেই —-। তার মানে মঞ্চের উপরেই মাত্র কয়েক সেকেন্ডের মধ্যেই নিভে গেলো একটি জলন্ত প্রদীপ? পিছনে পড়ে রইল নিস্তব্ধ মঞ্চ, থেমে গেলো একজোড়া তবলার বোল, বাশির সুর —- আর পড়ে রইলো ওস্তাদ আজিজুল ইসলামের জন্য পরবর্তিতে কোন অনুষ্ঠানে হৃদয় বিদারক স্মৃতিচারণার এক উপাখ্যান। রয়ে গেলো এক বিষাদেরও বাশি ——–।

    rejaul karim rejaর ফেসবুক স্ট্যাটাস থেকে।

  11. মাসুদ করিম - ২০ সেপ্টেম্বর ২০১৪ (৯:৫৬ পূর্বাহ্ণ)

    ‘না’ প্রসব করল স্কটল্যান্ড।

    Live coverage from the people and parties, following the historic ‘NO’ vote

    Will Cooper:
    Update on the trouble in Glasgow’s George Square tonight, the police have issued a statement: “Officers continue to manage the situation and prevent further disruption. Most have now dispersed. Small group remains with police in attendance”

    Patrick McPartlin:
    Labour leader Ed Miliband said of the First Minister: “Whatever our disagreements, he has always spoke his mind and he has always stood up for what he believed in.”
    Mr Miliband described the outgoing SNP leader as a ‘formidable frontline politician’.

  12. মাসুদ করিম - ২০ সেপ্টেম্বর ২০১৪ (১২:৪৯ অপরাহ্ণ)

    The Guggenheim Puts 109 Free Modern Art Books Online

    Back in January, 2012, we mentioned that the Guggenheim (the Frank Lloyd Wright-designed modern art museum in NYC) had put 65 art catalogues on the web, all free of charge.

    We’re happy to report that, between then and now, the number of free texts has grown to 109. Published between 1937 and 1999, the art books/catalogues offer an intellectual and visual introduction to the work of Alexander Calder, Edvard Munch, Francis Bacon, Gustav Klimt & Egon Schiele, Fernand Léger, and Kandinsky. Plus there are other texts (e.g., Masterpieces of Modern Art and Abstract Expressionists Imagists) that tackle meta movements and themes.

    Anyone interested in the history of the Guggenheim will want to spend time with a collection called “The Syllabus.” It contains five books by Hilla Rebay, the museum’s first director and curator. Together, they let you take a close look at the art originally housed in the Guggenheim when the museum first opened its doors in 1939.

    To read any of these 109 free art books, you will just need to follow these simple instructions. 1.) Select a text from the collection. 2.) Click the “Read Catalogue Online” button. 3.) Start reading the book in the pop-up browser, and use the controls at the very bottom of the pop-up browser to move through the book. 4.) If you have any problems accessing these texts, you can find alternate versions on Archive.org.

  13. মাসুদ করিম - ২১ সেপ্টেম্বর ২০১৪ (১১:১৪ অপরাহ্ণ)

    চার বছর আগে কোরিয়ান ইপিজেড নিয়ে আমি যা লিখেছিলাম

    কয়েক দিন আগে পটিয়ার বড়উঠানে উদ্দেশ্যহীনভাবে হাঁটছিলাম। এখানেই কোরিয়ান ইপিজেড নামে ইয়ংওয়ানের প্রায় ৫০০ একর জমি ইন্ডাস্ট্রিয়াল পার্কের জন্য নেয়া আছে। কিন্তু ১৪/১৫ বছর ধরে শুনলেও এখনো বাস্তবে এর কিছুই আমরা দেখতে পাইনি। কেন কিছু হচ্ছে না তাও আমরা জানি না। আর এক্সপোর্ট প্রসেসিং জোন এখন আর ততো কাজের কিছুও নয়। ভাবছিলাম এরকম জায়গায় সরকারি, বেসরকারি বা হালের সরকারি-বেসরকারি অংশীদারিতে ‘সৌরবিদ্যুৎ’ প্রকল্পও তো হতে পারে। এমন একটি প্রকল্পের কথা শুনেছিলাম কয়েক বছর আগে কলকাতায়, পুরুলিয়ায় সৌরশক্তির পার্ক হবে, যদিও এর সম্বন্ধে এখনো বিস্তারিত জানা সম্ভব হয়নি, কিন্তু আজকে গণশক্তিতে এ ব্যাপারে একটা খবর পেলাম। পশ্চিমবাংলায় সৌরশক্তিকে ঘিরে অনেক কাজ হচ্ছে, একই ভাষার কারণে আমরা কিন্তু খুব সহজেই এখানে প্রযুক্তির আদানপ্রদান করে দক্ষিণ-পূর্ব উপমহাদেশে বেশ শক্তিশালী সৌরশক্তি বলয় গড়ে তুলতে পারি।

    কিন্তু আজ যা পড়লাম ‘ডেইলি স্টার’ তা যদি সত্যি হয় তাহলে তো পুরো ব্যাপারটাই ভজঘট পাকানো পরিস্থিতির দিকেই যাচ্ছে।

    Korean EPZ in trouble
    M Abul Kalam Azad, back from Chittagong

    An aerial shot of the Korean Export Processing Zone at Anwara in Chittagong. Photo: Star
    Instead of solving the problems the Korean Export Processing Zone has been facing, the government plans to take back part of the 2,492 acres of land allotted to the KEPZ 16 years ago.

    The country’s largest private export processing zone is in a web of land-related and legal tangles triggered mainly by the non-cooperation from the local administration and some government agencies and public representatives.

    The government is yet to hand over the transfer deed for the land in Anwara upazila of Chittagong to the KEPZ owner, Korean YoungOne Corporation, creating obstacles to investment.

    Several foreign investors, including the Japanese, over the years had contacted the KEPZ authorities for plots but had to back out realising the land-related complications.

    Without having the land deed, YoungOne could not offer them any plot.

    Now the land ministry has begun the process for getting back the land on the grounds that YoungOne had not been able to set up industries there, ministry sources said.

    “We can’t give them so much land when they failed to develop it in so many years,” said Saifuzzaman Chowdhury, state minister for land and lawmaker from the area.

    “How much land will be given to the company and how much will be taken back is now under discussion. The transfer deed will be issued after that,” he told The Daily Star recently.

    He alleged KEPZ officials were “doing things wilfully” and the Korean company was trying to expand the area by cutting hills.

    “As per the lease,” Saifuzzaman went on, “they are supposed to avoid mosques, graveyards and schools in the area of the KEPZ but they are not following the rules. They prevent locals from burying the dead and from using walkways. You can’t go for development fighting with locals.”

    He also said, “I am the local lawmaker plus state minister for land but I haven’t seen them come to me and discuss the issues.”

    Other foreign investors were looking for land to set up industries, said the state minister, indicating that part of the KEPZ site could be allocated to them.

    In recent days, the government has been promising Japanese and Chinese investors land and other facilities.

    Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina at the ground-breaking of KEPZ on October 31, 1999, had pledged full support for the zone.

    But the company faced hurdles at every step, from getting the environmental clearance to electricity and water supply. It got operational licence eight years after the ground-breaking.

    The environmental clearance was issued after 10 years, in 2009, and that too was cancelled three years later and then given back after five months.

    The Department of Environment (DoE) had cancelled the clearance in March 2012, alleging the KEPZ was cutting hills and damaging the environment. The certificate was returned once the allegation was found untrue.

    But a case filed in this connection against KEPZ officials is yet to be withdrawn.

    “We were supposed to get 160 megawatts of electricity in phases and 80 million cubic feet of gas a day. We got only 14 megawatts and no gas supply whatsoever as of today,” KEPZ Managing Director Mohammad Hasan Nasir told this correspondent.

    About 84MW electricity from a 100MW power plant built for the KEPZ is being supplied to others. There were no telephone connections and fresh water supply, the MD said.

    The authorities concerned cut off electricity supply in 2012, forcing the KEPZ to run its factories on diesel generators. The supply was restored after more than a year following an order from the Supreme Court.

    “If you don’t provide us with the basic utility services and create obstacles to developing the land, you can’t accuse us of having failed. Rather, we started production two years into the ground-breaking and we are setting up factories against all odds.”

    On the land being taken back, Nasir said the government could do it by force but it would be unethical and illegal. “It will seriously affect foreign investor confidence,” he said, adding the KEPZ authorities would go to court and, if necessary, to an international tribunal for justice.

    “Now our main concern is not development and investment but legal battles to protect the KEPZ land from being taken over,” said the MD, who and some other officials and employees of KEPZ are facing over a dozen cases, including two attempted murder cases.

    Many in Chittagong believe some local ruling AL leaders and businessmen were behind the troubles the KEPZ was facing. The land has become very lucrative after development. There is also an indirect pressure on the KEPZ to let go of a part of the land, they added.

    The Local Government Engineering Department (LGED) is another agency to cause the KEPZ trouble. It gave fund to Boirag union parishad to illegally develop an earthen road inside the zone last year.

    As police took no action, the KEPZ authorities went to the court. The Chittagong DC visited the spot asking both sides to keep the road as it was. But nothing could stop developing the road.

    Despite all these difficulties, the Korean company has developed a substantial area by turning the barren hillocks into a productive industrial area spending $250 million. It constructed 21km of roads, housing for investors and officials, 17 lakes and planted 1.6 million trees.

    YoungOne set up seven shoe and garment factories creating jobs for 6,000 locals. Four more factories would start operations by December.

    Once fully operational, the KEPZ would employ 3.5 lakh people.

    It has plans to set up a school, a residential university, a business development park and an IT park and a hospital but land-related complications are delaying those.

    YoungOne, which started working in Bangladesh in 1980, has industries in Dhaka and Chittagong EPZs with 60,000 workers. It has operations in 12 other countries.

    During the ground-breaking, Hasina hoped that YoungOne would be able to showcase KEPZ as a model for private sector industrial development in Bangladesh. The KEPZ officials said it would be possible only if they got support from the government.

  14. মাসুদ করিম - ২২ সেপ্টেম্বর ২০১৪ (১১:৫৬ পূর্বাহ্ণ)

    China Beats Europe in Per-Capita Pollution for First Time

    China surpassed the European Union in levels of pollution levels per capita for the first time last year, propelling to a record the worldwide greenhouse gas emissions that are blamed for climate change.

    The findings led by scientists at two British universities show the scale of the challenge of reining in the emissions damaging the climate. They estimate that humans already have spewed into the atmosphere two-thirds of the fossil fuel emissions allowable under scenarios that avoid irreversible changes to the planet.

    If pollution continues at the current rate, the limit for carbon will be reached in 30 years, the scientists concluded in a report issued on the eve of a major United Nations summit designed to step up the fight against climate change.

    “We are nowhere near the commitments needed to stay below 2 degrees Celsius of climate change, a level that will be hard to reach for any country, including rich nations,” said Corinne Le Quere, co-author of the report and a director of the Tyndall Center for Climate Change Research at the University of East Anglia, England. “CO2 growth now is much faster than it was in the 1990s, and we’re not delivering the improvements in carbon intensity we anticipated 10 years ago.”

    Each person in China produced 7.2 tons of carbon dioxide on average compared with 6.8 tons in Europe and 1.9 tons in India in 2013, according to the study by the Tyndall Center and the University of Exeter’s College of Mathematics and Physical Sciences.

    Biggest Polluter

    China passed the U.S. in terms of overall carbon emissions seven years ago and remains the world’s biggest fossil fuel emissions producer. The academics projected global emissions will rise 2.5 percent in 2014, driving to total carbon pollution to a record 40 billion tons.

    The report set out a budget of 3,200 billion tons of carbon that can be emitted into the atmosphere to have a two-thirds chance of keeping global warming to 2 degrees Celsius, or 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit. Of that budget, only 1,200 billion tons remain to be emitted before concentrations of CO2 in the atmosphere will make climate change dangerous, the report said.

    Temperatures have already increased by 0.85 of a degree since 1880, and the current trajectory puts humanity on course for a warming of at least 3.7 degrees Celsius, the UN has estimated. That’s quicker than the shift in the climate when the last ice age ended about 10,000 years ago.

    Those risks include greater temperature swings, rising sea levels, melting glaciers, more pervasive heatwaves and increased water shortages in areas stressed by drought, industry demands and rising populations.

  15. মাসুদ করিম - ২৪ সেপ্টেম্বর ২০১৪ (১০:০৫ পূর্বাহ্ণ)

    ভারতের মঙ্গলযাত্রা সফল, আজ বুধবার ভারতীয় মান সময় সকাল ৭টা ১৮মিনিটে মঙ্গলযান ইতিহাস সৃষ্টি করে প্রথম প্রচেষ্টাতেই এই সাফল্য পেয়েছে।

    LIVE: India’s Mars mission a success as Mangalyan enters Mars orbit, Prime Minister says ‘MOM never disappoints’

    India scripted history on Wednesday with the success of its Mars mission. As the Mangalyan entered the Mars orbit, making India the first country in the world to make it to the Red Plant in the first attempt. Mangalyan moved a step closer to home after the dormant main engine on the spacecraft was testfired flawlessly, ISRO looked confident of giving one final nudge to put it in orbit around Mars that saw it make space history.

  16. মাসুদ করিম - ২৫ সেপ্টেম্বর ২০১৪ (৯:২৪ পূর্বাহ্ণ)

    এই বইগুলো আপনার, আপনার মতো করে খুঁজুন পড়ুন ব্যবহার করুন।

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