I read an article about the government planning to install speed monitoring devices to vehicles in Bangladesh. This is space age stuff for a bronze age country.
I can't simply understand the stupidity of this idea that they will monitor the speed of vehicles from a control center(s). LOL. Just imagine if these guys had some brain cells shared amongst them. They could have gone to Mars now. Screw NASA. These guy's are it! I mean really - is it really practical, feasible for a country like BD? In fact has such a thing been done anywhere in the world? I think not.
What is it trying to solve? The speeding problem and the killing of pedestrians. Right so fitting a remotely supervised monitor will solve this. Dream on. Instead of solving the utter lawlessness of the roads in Bangladesh again we are attacking the symptom instead of the cause. Bit like us fitting grills to all the windows in BD.
Another screwed up aspect is that the High Court ordered that the government have speed limiters fitted to all vehicles in the first place. Why have a parliament? Well I know the BD parliament is ineffective but seriously why don't we have judges just create laws in response lawsuits filed at the civil servants.
How stupid can it get? This is Bangladesh. It can only get worse.....
As you know by now the unfortunate incident of building blazes in Nimtoli, Dhaka.
We in Bangladesh are very lucky that such incidences are relatively rare considering the sheer unplanned nature of the whole country.
We have so many things going against us. 1. Road widths and the ever encroachment of the roads. The roads in Nimtoli, if you've ever been here, are in some parts so ridiculously narrow that rickshaws could have trouble. How are fire engines supposed to get to them?
2. Grills hinder any form of escape. In Bangladesh the fear of criminals makes all building owners turn their property into a modern prison with iron grills on all windows. This blocks any form of exit. Why do we need them above say 3 stories? Why do we need them at all? Instead of solving the crime problem we instead live with it and decide to solve the threat.
3. Overhead electricity. If as it is suggested that it was due to a transformer blowing up - then again there is no planning as to the location of theses transformers. Just place them on stilts - sometimes within arms reach of a building facade.
4. Zoning of commercial, industrial, residential properties. Apparently chemicals and other commerical substances in some buildings helped intensify the fire. This is my main bugbear. You can hear the media and the bangla masses blame the government - they should do something about the causes of fire. Well simple planning rules were demanded and enforced by civilized people of civilized nations over a century ago in other parts of the world. Here in BD we lay the blame solely on the government. Why don't the people demand proper zoning of buildings? and enforce them - themselves? Do they complain when someone rents the ground floor out as a shop? No - because they are doing the same. Bloody hypocrites.
We also had the building collapse the other day. The tilting buildings in Begunbari are now being demolished. Other's without approved plans will be demolished. What really will happen is that those unplanned building owners will now be spending five times as much in bribes to get their plans approved. Making those in the planning department even more fat and the whole story will be forgotten about.
So now there is a drive to make sure unsafe buildings are safe. The very concept of a building in Bangladesh is unsafe - it's clad in metal bars on all sides with a dodgy road that fire engines cannot get to. Together with a shop or some kind of commercial outfit usually on the ground floor. Not to forget the eyesore of a transformer on stilts outside the building - that's probably had a truck reverse into it so its leaning to the side a bit.
Of course they should do something about it. They being the government. Nothing for us, the public, to do is there?!
So not content with closing Channel 1 they have now gone after Amar Desh. Whatever the problems with the editor and acting editor may have been it does not justify closing down of a newspaper.
One can only conclude that it is because it is a BNP leaning paper the reason it was shut down. Couple of things to note tho.
1. Why is the law so stupid that it warrants the closure of a newspaper? What about the job, the economics, the freedom of speech. (I know, I know - Bangladeshi bureaucrats don't give a toss about that!! - I'm just baffled it's - 2010)
2. What have the other media outlets done - both AL & BNP leaning media outlets? They could have all gone on strikes or some kind of movement. How about a standard banner on front page criticising the government of ALL papers published in Bangladesh until they re-instate Amar Desh? What the AL leaning papers don't realise is that if the law and the lawmakers are not resolved over this then it will be their turn next time BNP are in power.
I'll finish with two sentences: Amar Desh - history. Amar Sonar Bangla - the future! LOL!
So the authorities decided to ban Facebook citing indecent images. If they were concerned with the images of of the Prophet then they would have banned access to the whole Internet a while ago as they are all over the place - if one wants to see them.
The Western media seem to be reporting that the ban was due to religious reasons viz Pakistan. If only they came and found out and not Parrot AP's misleading press release.
The real reason is the caricatures of Mz Hasina & Khaleda. If you get hold of those images then I suggest they be pasted on all free sites. They do not have the capability to ban these sites - not even Facebook using proxies and vpn's. They tried to use DPI (deep packet inspection) and failed too. Even Cisco didn't give the BD authorities time of day to reply for such a silly request.
I just hope that Mahbub Rodin isn't being tortured to death - Everyone remember that!
After nearly three the years the country's courts have managed to put Sheikh Hasina cousin Sheikh Helaluddin and his wife Rupa Chowdhury for corruption. Read the article here.
How they amassed such wealth is anybodies guess. However my question is now that the ACC is being re-politicised for the benefit of Hasina apu's shontan's what are the chances the case will be dropped?
Bangladeshis have successfully managed exported their third rate electoral malpractice to the UK.
Vote fraud is now rampant in BangaliPara area of east London. It is embarrassing to see such disgusting behaviour of Bangladeshi diaspora. A council candidate even resorted to violence with his home grown 'cadres' (haha really does my head in that word!!) by beating up a journalist.
Some of the candidates were even born there! So what does this show? It doesn't matter where you are born, whether it's a 3rd world country like Bangladesh or a 1st world country like the UK. What matters is who you are - a Bangladeshi by blood. The cancerous "durniti" gene lives on regardless of its environment in Bengalis.
Yesterday I cam across a blog comment that echoed my sentiments. I thought of this from day one but haven't had time to air my views. It seems a certain Amjad Ali from London said it exactly as I want to (see comment 20).
For the readers benefit here is a copy of his comment:
"I travel to Bangladesh regularly and I have had no problem with the Immigration authority. People travelling from UK to Bangladesh think that they can break the law once they arrive at Dhaka airport. We wouldn’t dare to enter a restricted area at LHR, so why do people enter a restricted are in Dhaka airport?? Once people are confronted by the immigration officer for these uncivilized behaviour, then they start saying I am a community leader, Doctor, barrister, lawyer from UK. What gives them the right to break laws just because they are from UK??"
Have a read of Rezwan's statement. He states that he "purchased a ticket for 500 taka". WTF?! You cannot go inside the terminal building as it's restricted area. Yes you can bribe and go inside - but bribing isn't a legal ticket. And he claims to be a barrister?!!
Can you imagine the verbal exchange when he was caught? I think words along the lines of "do you know who I am?! I am a second rate barrister from London ... where I deal with all the illegal Sylhetis!, How dare you question my illegal entry?!".
Don't get me wrong - I don't condone the behaviour of the air force personnel that beat him up. But if I had a dodgy barrister giving me a mouthful ...
Regulatory authorities are used to enforce rules. If companies don't adhere to them then enforcement authorities try and bring them in line with fines and other court orders.
Every government in the world always talks about creating jobs. Even more so in Bangladesh. So instead of punishing the company for non-performance (if that is true) the Bengali authorities go and close it down. All those jobs down the drain (Although the concept of a drain in Bangladesh is basically the footpath!!!!).
It's not just Chanel 1 employees affected. The supporting industries such as marketing, graphics, sound, studios will also be hard done by what to me seems like a political move.
Why do I think that? Well the owners are Giasuddin Mamun & Tareq Rahman (sorry I will wash out my mouth for mentioning such corrupt words after this blog).
The move hasn't affected the corrupt owners as much as they are rich enough from their theft from the BD public. Besides Ms Zia's son is still trying to fix his spine in a private hospital in London from the beating uncle Moin and uncle Bari gave him for being a naughty boy (a child without a father can become very troublesome).
My main concerns are firstly economic and secondly freedom of speech. We have just lost another media outlet.
Hope everyone likes the new name for Dhaka airport! Hazrat Shahjalal is associated with Sylhet so if Sylhet airport was renamed to that then it would make sense. Why you would want to is another question!
At least it wasn't renamed to BongoBhondu airport - probably because the BongoBhondu sign writers have got an order book to last the next decade taking into account the number of things that have been renamed.
Clearly this is another step to modernising the country as the impoverished country really needed a name change to help its 180 million people!!!
WTF don't we just rename the country as BongoBhonduDesh?!
Good job the IATA (DAC) and ICAO (VGZR) codes were fixed and don't have any influence by our ruling elite (haha elite?! really?)!
More proof that Hasina and her henchmen are in it for themselves. Looks like the Anti-Corruption Commission [ACC] will be politicised again.
Thanks to General Moin Uddin and his military regime the ACC was strengthened. It now is apparent that they are undoing all the good things that came from the military rule.
They are basically making sure that all the corrupt deals they do in the next few years will go unaccounted. You can be sure that if the BNP come to power again they will not revert this stupid law by a stupid woman and her unpatriotic criminals.
