Aquire knowlede, kill money

Three years have passed, and yet the committee members haven’t been able to travel abroad to acquire knowledge. This is unfortunate.

Syed Mehdi Ahmed Rumi
BNP MP and member of PSCTM (Parliamentary standing committee for Telecommunications ministry)

This is more unusual than unfortunate that none of this committee have got the chance to travel abroad. For most of the parliamentary committee members and high officials this kind of travel is an ordinary occurrence. Through these travels, they acquire knowledge from improved countries and propose unrealistic projects. To implement those projects they again ask for foreign farms, foreign consultants, foreign engineers and foreign help of course. For example this very committee is liable for "Teletalk" the new state owned mobile. After spending thousands of dollars and wasting lots of time they only launched 2000 SIM, where another private company sold 200,000 SIM within two month of its launch. That’s how those so called committee acts.

Now let’s see why they are so eager to go abroad. No doubt they will acquire some knowledge. But govt. has to pay too much for this. All the expenses from plain fair to exclusive dinner will be provided from govt. fund. Even sometimes they take their family with the team and shopping get the most emphasize, no doubt. Though we are a poor country, money isn’t a problem. Let’s see how-

Money isn’t any problem. Parliament secretariat or the ministry will give it

GM Fazlul Haque
Chairman of PSCTM

Yup. The govt. fund is there waiting for you. Poor farmers are providing taxes for you. Just utilize those, no matter how other suffers for money. There are govt. servants who are paid 500 tk per month. Actually everyone looks for his comfort and benefit. Not many are there to care for those poor guys and our poor country.

Source: both the quotation are taken from Daily Star, April 08, 2005

Seasonal fruits of Rajshahi

Rajshahi is famous for seasonal fruits, especially Mango and Litchi. When I first came to Rajshahi I saw jumbo mango hanging within reach of hand and no one caring much, even the children. Not only this, but also the amount of mango a tree can produce was simply hard for me to believe. Rajshahi and sub sequential area produce best quality mango. To be more precise "Chapainawabgonj" is the home of mango. There mango is their main source of income. As I am at town the price of mango is not that low. But at rural areas sometimes the price is as low as 5tk per kg, which is sold about 50tk per kg at markets of Dhaka and Chittagong.

The pictures above and below shows mango and Litchi trees of our campus. There are tens of trees like those. This year production of mango is not that good. But litchi backed it up.

Alternative stream of Bangladeshi bands

Mr. Arafat Kazi at the same time expressed his involvement with underground bands, and his grief for some specific bands and performers. On the letter published on April 27, he said what is melodious to one may seem noise to other. Mr. Mahfuzul Haque on April 22 said, "They are distorting and destroying the Bangla language." To him pronounce of Bangla of underground performers are in the English accent, so he advised them to sing in English. Mr. Mahfuz seems not so aware of the accent of the world famous English rock bands Iron Maiden and Linkin Park. In listening those, you will find a new idea how to create one’s own accent. This different accent is doing no harm to language, though it may seem odd to some people. "Black’s greatest hit is a song about a rape victim", Arafat said. Don’t know where he found this information as I didn’t find anything like this. Arafat, ‘Mon shudhu mon Cchuwecche’ and ‘guti’ or ‘poth chola’ can’t be measured by same scale as they are sung on completely different background and time.

Few years back bands like Artcell, Criptic fate etc performed only underground. But they are now competing with the traditional stream in full swing. So to term bands like Black and Artcell, alternative may be the proper word then underground. Those bands are welcomed greatly by young generation, although many of them pretend as fan of those just to be in the flow. It’s very much true that many of the lyrics of those alternative bands are not that heart soothing and at many cases not so meaningful. On the other hand there are some golden lyrics produced by traditional bands like LRB, Miles, Souls and Renaissance. But the traditional bands are no doubt going through the worst time. Most of the recently released songs of traditional bands are nothing but junk, with no variation in composition and bad lyrics. In opposition the composition of some alternative bands is just world class. They are composing music which can compete with other subcontinent bands like Jonoon, String, Jal, Silk Route etc. Just listen to the song ‘Sloke’ of ‘Black’, you will find what so different with those. Actually there is no contradictory with traditional and alternative bands. Both streams have their own listeners to keep them up.

Note - I wrote this as a letter to be published in Daily Star. First part of this article may seem gloomy as it contains reference to other published letters. Interested readers can have a glance over those links.

Deprived Children of Bangladesh

Just look at those faces. Every face clearly depicts the pain of poverty. They don’t have cloths to wear, just a half pant and obviously barefooted.


A girl taking care of her younger one, while no one is there to take care of her. The smile is not for happiness, but for the joy of being before the camera.


Playing just with a tyre. Those children don’t have toys to play with. They just make tyres, papers and anything they get their playing tools.

"Pohela Boishak" in frame

14th April was the first day of Bangla New Year, which we call "Pohela Boishak". This day has a age old haritage and deep impact on every Banglai heart. We observe the day in fastive mode amid different cultural functions. "Boishaki Mela" is the main attraction of the day. In this fair all sorts of people attend and enjoy the folk songs.
"ADDA" a cultural organization of our varsity organized a clutural program and fair on this day. We enjoyed the day there through various activites. In the function there was arrangement for "Pantha Bhat" with "Elish" in a plate made of soil.


"Pantha Bhat" with "Elish"


A girl dressed up with Sari.

A snap without a camera

This is a picture of a moonlit night. But this is taken fully indoor and to surprise you most without a camera. Lets explain it to you. I am undergoing through a basic photographic course. In the first class we got primary idea about photography. As a part of this we took picture without a camera, even without a lens.

To take this snap place a photographic white paper on a table (The room must be dark, only dim red light are allowed). Set some grasses over it, with a coin at the corner (coin with illustrate moon). Put a plain transparent glass over it, so that those objects can’t shift aside. Now lit the normal bulbs on for a while and turn it off. Now just wash this paper in hypo and you get a snap without a camera. Isn’t it interesting?

Note - To publish the picture here, I took snap of that picture with a digital camera(!!) as I don’t have a scanner available.

Prottoy: the determination

Cover of prottoy

At last we have finished the lengthy and laborious task and published the magazine from our varsity. Its name is "Prottoy". The Bangla word ‘Prottoy’ means determination. I might tell the story underneath another day. For now I am presenting my article about blog that is published in the magazine.

Blog: Your window to the world

Do you have something to say to the world? Do you want your views published on the internet? Then "Weblog" (or simply ‘Blog’) is probably the best way to express your thoughts. So let’s know what a blog is? A blog is a personal website used to post your views, ideas and thoughts on a particular subject or on various facts. A blog gives you your own voice on the web. It is often a mixture of what a person experiencing in his life and what is happening on the web. You can publish written essays, associated links, graphics, multimedia and many more on your blog site. Like a good diary, weblogs provide documentation about people, places and events.

Blog has got famous on last few years. Even at the beginning of 1999 the number of weblogs around the world was only 23. By the year 2002 the number claimed over 7,50,000. At present it’s almost impossible to mention a number, as it’s increasing in every minute.

Blogging is like a window to internet. Just by reading some good quality blogs you can know what is happening everywhere and what’s new in the web. For the new users it’s a nice opportunity to be familiarized with Internet. You will get more than what you expect from those.

If someone interested to start his own blog all he has to do is to go to www.blogger.com (there are many other sites like this. But this one is most famous and easier to use) and sign in for a new account. The process is very much simple and similar to opening a new email account. There you have to provide a user name and a nice heading for your site. After doing so you will get your own address on the net like www.userid.blogspot.com (your id will be in the place of userid). Now you want to write something new on your site? It’s also as easy as sending email to your friend. Just sign in to blogger.com with id and password. I think you will get the rest done by yourself. All this is provided absolutely free of cost. Understand that on the Internet, your words may live forever, whether they are self-published or archived on another site. Isn’t it thrilling?

But why you will bother to read or write a blog? Actually it’s all about personal interest. There are science blogs, war blogs, peace blogs, humor blogs, culture blogs and many others to occupy your day. There are blogs about books, blogs about music, blogs about sites and blogs about blogs. All are a click away, waiting for you. There are also blogs written by specialist on different subjects. Reading the views of other ordinary people you will know about different facts from different corners. If you write regularly, your writing improves, your thinking improves. Ideally, you will find your own opinions and ideas worthy of serious consideration.

Actually blog is not indeed suitable for all. Reading blog is strongly recommended for those who want to know about other countries, culture, lifestyle or who want to pass his time reading something amusing. Writing blogs is a step farther. To have your own regular blog, you should have your own perspective and ideas. If you think that you have something to say to the world and you have the potential to do so, than please start your own blog and let us experience your thoughts. We need some strong voice from Bangladesh to speak for us. So give it a whirl.