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Friday, May 21, 2010

[mukto-mona] Craig venter creates artificial life



And here is my Bangla article on the topic:
 
 
Regards
Avijit
 



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Mukto Mona plans for a Grand Darwin Day Celebration: 
Call For Articles:

http://mukto-mona.com/wordpress/?p=68

http://mukto-mona.com/banga_blog/?p=585

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VISIT MUKTO-MONA WEB-SITE : http://www.mukto-mona.com/

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"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it".
               -Beatrice Hall [pseudonym: S.G. Tallentyre], 190




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[ALOCHONA] Water war



Water war
 


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[ALOCHONA] Delay in CID probe into BDR rebellion dangerous



 
Delay in CID probe into BDR rebellion dangerous
 
THE failure of the Criminal Investigation Department of police to meet the deadline for submission of its investigation report on the February 25-26, 2009 rebellion in the Bangladesh Rifles, which left nearly 70 people, including 57 officers of the Bangladesh Army deputed to the paramilitary border security force, killed, for the 13th time is prone to raising certain unpleasant questions across society. While there is little doubt that investigation of the rebellion and the concomitant carnage, which devastated the nation and which exposed the country's territorial sovereignty to multidimensional vulnerability, needs to be thorough and thus time consuming, the pace of the department's probe, one may say, has been inordinately sluggish; after all, it has been more than 14 months since the harrowing tragedy took place. According to a report front-paged in New Age on Thursday, the chief metropolitan magistrate's court on Wednesday extended the deadline till June 30. Hopefully, the department will redouble its efforts and complete its investigations within the next month or so.
   
It needs not be overemphasised that many a question about the cause and context, content and intent, perpetrators and masterminds of the rebellion remain unanswered. While there have been two inquiries into the rebellion, one by the government and the other by the army, the findings of these probes have never been divulged fully to the public. Whatever bits and pieces of the probe findings were made available to the media points to pent-up grievances in the BDR rank and file as a possible reason for the uprising of the soldiers against their commanding officers. Meanwhile, allegations have been raised about possible involvement, direct and indirect, of different local and external forces in planning and execution of the rebellion and the consequent carnage. Moreover, the major political parties have publicly accused each other of masterminding the rebellion.
   
In such circumstances, the go-slow investigation of the Criminal Investigation Department and its repeated failure to meet the deadline for submission of its probe report are bound to create confusion and raise suspicion that the delay may be deliberate and that the authorities may have things to hide. Indications are there that people may have started thinking—and talking too—along these lines. The apparent reluctance of the authorities to take the people into confidence has only made the situation even murkier. If such uncertainties are allowed to drag on, it might intensify the tension and mistrust between the army, the protectors of our national territory, the BDR, the sentinels of our national border, the government and the people that the rebellion touched off.
  
 Hence, the authorities need to expedite the investigation process and lead it to a credible conclusion. At the same time, there needs to be transparent and credible inquiry into the 'unnatural deaths' of several BDR soldiers since the rebellion was quelled. Most importantly, the authorities need to desert its hush-hush policy vis-à-vis investigations of the rebellion and its aftermath, and share their findings with the people. After all, in a democratic dispensation, the people are the ultimate sovereign of an independent state and reserve the right to know to the last detail why the rebellion actually took place and if there were any forces, local or foreign, that preyed on the soldiers' pent-up grievances and instigated the carnage. This is important not only for the consolidation of our national sovereignty but also for heightened alertness so that similar tragedies do not occur in future.
 

http://www.newagebd.com/2010/may/22/edit.html



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[ALOCHONA] Destruction of 1971 war documents and War Crimes Trials - An Indian perspective



Revisiting 1971

Firdaus Ahmed
firdyahmed@yahoo.com

The latest, if muted, storm in the military's tea cup has been the destruction of documents relating to India's 1971 victory. Apparently, Eastern Command made a search for the documents in order to interact with erstwhile Mukti Bahini fighters as part of a forthcoming observance of the event. It turned out that the documents in question had been destroyed on orders. This was confirmed by Lt Gen Jacob, architect of the famous victory, recalling that this was done before he took over as the Eastern Army commander soon after the war. Promptly, it surfaced that the records of the great naval action – the sinking of the Pakistani naval submarine, PNS Ghazi – were also missing.

The controversy provides an opportunity to revisit 1971. The landmark events have since had considerable resonance, particularly because the Pakistani Army has been engaged in 'paying back' India over the past three decades. However, this article dwells on the problems with strategic thinking in India, using the 1971 War as an entry point.

It is now widely known that the decision to go to war was taken sometime in mid April of that year, after the extreme brutality of the crack down on Bengalis in East Pakistan the previous month. Late Field Marshal Manekshaw recounted how he had stood up to his political masters insisting on postponing the date to a more opportune time later in the year for which his army would be better prepared. (It is perhaps his retelling of this 'legend' that led to India's political elite inexplicably keeping away from his last rites.) The interim gave India ample scope for interfering in East Pakistan, by supporting the Mukti Bahini.

While state terrorism that occurred in East Pakistan is inexcusable, it bears mention that in the Third World context of state weaknesses, dealing with foreign interference is usually done through greater violence than is otherwise the case. Therefore, India's earlier role in sponsoring irregulars and later in conducting operations alongside them prior to the outbreak of war contributed in some measure to the brutality of the Pakistani state and its army. There is also a question mark in history on the hijacking of and blowing up of the 'Ganga' Air India flight in Lahore. This enabled India to terminate over-flights between the eastern and western wings of Pakistan as early as February 1971, accentuating its problems of access and heightening its security dilemma. Therefore, to an extent the final figures of three million dead and ten million refugees can also be attributed to India's strategy. It is no wonder that the records held with the Army are missing.

The costs of India's strategy are easy to discern. It could have been anticipated that Pakistan's paranoia would heighten due to the Indian angle to the crisis. Was it perhaps that Pakistan's despicable behaviour provided India the casus belli? Was the strategy to provoke just such a response? At the UN, India initially alluded to the humanitarian consequences of Pakistani action as the casus belli, swiftly its UN officials retracted and attributed India's action to self-defence instead; brought on, incidentally, by Pakistani attacks after a fortnight of Indian ground force presence in East Pakistan.

K Subrahmanyam, doyen of India's strategic community, won his spurs then by making a case for dividing Pakistan. He records insisting with YB Chavan that India also take the war to West Pakistan to dictate the agenda of peace. In the event that India's aims were limited to taking some territory in the East and being defensive in the West would Subrahmanyam's case have led to a better outcome? The USS Enterprise was enroute to the Bay of Bengal leaving India with enough time to revert troops from the West to East. Operational level ingenuity resulted in the stunning victory. However, factoring in the entirely predictable human cost preceding it and that continues to rack the subcontinent today, makes it much less so.

The criticism today is that the gains to the east were not exploited adequately at Shimla to force Bhutto's weak hand. The usual argument is that holding onto prisoners would have been a useful pressure point. This is ignorance of the Third Geneva Convention which requires the return of prisoners at the earliest. In the event India chose to return even the 150 prisoners pointed out by Bangladesh as war criminals. Perhaps returning them, after getting Bangladesh to acquiesce, would have closed the chapter. War crime trials would no doubt have brought out the Indian angle to the internal crisis.

Lastly, the telling lesson of 1971 is that continuing political control over the military is required, even over action seemingly in the military domain. War aims formulated in Calcutta by Eastern Command's Chief of Staff keeping Dhaka as the center of gravity were not those of Delhi, as elaborated by the General Jacob himself in his surrender at Dhaka. In today's nuclear environment –a consequence of political inattention then– such a situation cannot be allowed to replicate.

 
http://www.ipcs.org/article/india/revisiting-1971-3134.html

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[ALOCHONA] Dalit teacher kills self after insult by colleague



Dalit teacher kills self after insult by colleague
 
 
CHANDIGARH: At a time when caste-based census is still being debated, a 50-year-old dalit school teacher ended his life after being allegedly humiliated by an upper caste employee of a school in Mandi, Himachal Pradesh. His body was recovered on Thursday. Chandan Lal of Rinj village was posted as a physical education teacher at a government school and was deputed for census survey. On May 13, Lal along with Kesaru Ram, a lab attendant in the school, had gone for the census survey. Ram belongs to an upper caste community.

According to the police, Kesaru Ram, unaware that Chandan Lal belonged to the scheduled caste, had asked him to spend a night at his house. When he came to know about it, Ram allegedly insulted Chandan Lal for not revealing his caste.

DSP (headquarter), Mandi, Narinder Kumar said according to Chandan Lal's suicide note addressed to a tehsildar, he was not able to bear the humiliation and committed suicide by allegedly consuming some poisonous substance. "The police will be directed to register a case under the Prevention of Atrocities Act if it is confirmed that there is a caste bias in the case," said Himachal Pradesh secretary for social justice Prem Kumar. "We'll verify the allegations and will take stern action," said Himachal Pradesh minister for social justice and empowerment Sarveen Chaudhary.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Dalit-teacher-kills-self-after-insult-by-colleague/articleshow/5959413.cms



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RE: [ALOCHONA] Jadu



http://ittefaq.com.bd/content/2010/05/22/news0003.htm

Have you read this article?

If you have, what do you think ?

An ex-bureaucrat, who managed to grab a Govt. scholarship ON TIME ( when the country was in turmoil) , enjoyed govt.
positions and used/misused varieties of previlages.........is now singing AN ECONOMIC lullaby.

The writer and his associates seldom condemn the anti-democratic and anti-human activities of certain politicians.

I am doubtful if we will ever create a system to identify PUBLIC ENEMIES among Govt. officials, who manipulate anything
and everything for their own benefit, during their service period.

And then in 1 fine morning, they re-emerge as advisors, writers, economists, politicians, ministers, vice-chancellor, to
serve the nation!!!


Best wishes.

khoda hafez.











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