Thank you, Mr Anis Rahman, for your confession. I don't think these sequence of events are only unique for you. There are/were other people who went through these events (once devoted and pious and then deviated). I hope you realize your mistakes in your life time, repent and come back to true path. Dr Abu Sayeed Khurram --- On Wed, 9/9/09, Anis Rahman <anis90242@yahoo.com> wrote:
|
| No mention of Tipaimukh issue in Dhaka-Delhi talks Bangladesh and India agreed to resolve the longstanding issues of demarcation of their boundary, including the exchange of enclaves and adverse possessions, in a single package. The two sides also talked the contentions over delimitation of maritime boundary and agreed that "the issue should be settled to mutual satisfaction through negotiations". The agreement came as Foreign Minister Dr Dipu Moni and Indian External Affairs Minister SM Krishna held wide-ranging talks on all the burning bilateral issues in New Delhi Tuesday to update the ties between the two neighbours. Officials from the Indian capital told UNB that the talks, held at Hyderabad House, lasted over two hours from 11 am (IST) covering entire gamut of bilateral relations, including sharing the waters of common rivers, commercial and economic issues, security and border issues, people-to-people contact. Increased connectivity in the region, particularly involving India, Nepal, Bhutan and Bangladesh, figured prominently in discussion, Foreign Ministry sources in Dhaka said. The issues of cooperation in power sector, including the import of power from India to Bangladesh, and Indian assistance for upgrading railway sector and procurement of locomotives, passenger coaches and buses with Indian assistance, also came up for discussion. The possibility of Indian assistance for capital dredging of ports and rivers in Bangladesh was also raised, in which the Indian side expressed positive interest. Foreign Minister Dr Dipu Moni requested her Indian counterpart to allow greater market access of Bangladeshi products to the Indian market by offering greater duty-free access and also removal of non-tariff and para-tariff barriers. The meeting agreed to upgrade the infrastructures of the Land Customs Stations on both sides of the border for greater facilitation of trade. Both sides also discussed the possibility of easing the visa procedure, particularly for businessmen, patients, students and government officials. The possibility of opening border haats for the benefit of the people in the border areas and transportation of equipment for a power plant in Tripura through Ashuganj were also discussed at the meeting. "The two sides agreed that all issues would be addressed taking into consideration the aspirations of the peoples of the two countries and for their mutual benefit," said a message received here. Dr Dipu Moni invited SM Krishna to visit Bangladesh at his earliest convenience. The Indian Minister accepted the invitation with pleasure. Before the delegation-level meeting, Dipu Moni and Krishna had one-to-one talk in a 10-minute lead-in. Foreign Secretary Mijarul Quayes, Bangladesh High Commissioner Tarique Ahmed Karim and DG (South Asia) Mohammad Imran were present from Bangladesh side while Indian External Affairs Secretary Nirupoma Rao was present on the host side. Later in the day, Dr Dipu Moni called on Indian Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh and had a meeting with Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee. She is also scheduled to meet some other Ministers and dignitaries during her stay in New Delhi. http://www.thebangladeshtoday.com/leading%20news.htm |
It's official: RSS is the boss – by Kuldip NayarPosted on 29 August 2009By Kuldip Nayar It was more than a storm in a teacup. Jaswant Singh's book on Quaid-i-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah made more news than his expulsion from the BJP for writing it. I witnessed the era of partition and before and think Jaswant Singh has been unfair to history. If blame is to be apportioned — a futile exercise after 62 years — all three parties, the British, the Muslim League and the Congress, in that order, are guilty. It is a subject which academicians from both countries should discuss. Hindus and Muslims got alienated from each other and division became inevitable. Still it is a fact that many Hindus and Muslims left their homes hoping they would return once the frenzy subsided. This didn't happen because both Punjabs ousted members of the community other than their own. And then there was so much bloodshed and destruction that they could not have gone back. When rulers in both countries accepted migration, which they had resisted earlier, it was all over. The thesis that Jawaharlal Nehru, not Jinnah, was responsible for partition was only discussed in the media and the BJP. The reason why the debate really didn't take off was because other parties didn't participate. The attention is increasingly focused on the BJP's internal fighting. Arun Shourie, an academician-turned-politician, has made the scene more sombre by hurling abuses at the BJP's leadership, blaming the party president for everything. Shourie has appealed for the intervention of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). The RSS spokesman has said that it can guide, not control. Even this studied remark shows that the boss is the RSS — an avowed exponent of Hindutva. The RSS is the same organisation which was banned following Mahatma Gandhi's assassination. Many BJP members, including L.K. Advani, the party's top leader, have graduated from the RSS. For all his liberal credentials, Atal Behari Vajpayee stood at attention whenever the RSS held a rally of its adherents in Delhi to convey that even the then prime minister was not outside the party's discipline. The RSS has been anti-Jinnah from the day Pakistan came into being because its formation was considered 'the cutting of Bharat Mata into pieces'. That explains why Advani's praise of Jinnah during his visit to Karachi landed the BJP leader in trouble and he had to resign as head of the party at the instance of the RSS. It is a paradox that when Vajpayee visited the Minar-i-Pakistan in Lahore, he wrote in the visitors' book that the integrity and prosperity of India depended on the integrity and prosperity of Pakistan. Vajpayee got away with his remark because he was prime minister. The RSS could do nothing because it didn't want to lose power. Any action against Vajpayee would have brought the government down. Many years ago, soon after the emergency when I shared jail with RSS men, I was invited to address an RSS shakha — the only time I did. I told them if they wanted to undo Pakistan they should let Muslims in India feel like equal citizens and help them enjoy all that the Hindu majority did in terms of employment, economic betterment and accommodation. My argument was that the Muslims got distanced because they didn't get their due. The RSS has not changed its anti-Muslim philosophy. That is the reason why the BJP doesn't get the community's vote of 15 per cent. The Hindutva terminology is explained as nationalist. Yet in all Hindu-Muslim riots, RSS men have been found to be involved. What happened to the Christians in Orissa was the doing of the Bajrang Dal, the militant wing of the RSS. It is a pity that the BJP has never stood on its own. The RSS gives it strength. Therefore, even the liberal elements in the BJP don't speak out against the inveterate hatred of the RSS towards secularism. What was once the Jana Sangh became the BJP. The latter insisted on Jana Sangh members breaking away from the RSS as an undertaking they had given while merging with the Janata. Jaswant Singh preferred a Hindutva outfit to the liberal Janata. He has never questioned Hindutva or ever challenged the BJP's role as a political face of the RSS. Jaswant Singh was found wanting in taking a posture on Gujarat. He was critical of Chief Minister Narendra Modi and favoured the dismissal of his government without saying so openly. He has correctly recalled that while travelling with Shourie to Ahmedabad, Jaswant Singh asked Advani to suggest to Vajpayee the dismissal of Modi's government. What Jaswant Singh hasn't mentioned is the brainwashing of Vajpayee after which Vajpayee attacked Muslims in his speech in Mumbai by saying that they were making trouble wherever they lived. The BJP and its ideology have been uppermost in Jaswant Singh's life. He might have hummed and hawed but he continued to be a member of the party's high command. What struck me most was his puerile assertion that he stuck to the principles he had imbibed at the military academy. The academy is a crucible where religious identities and communal bias of cadets melt. My main disappointment is over the outcome of the party's three-day brainstorming session a few days ago. I thought the country would know where the BJP was heading. It seems to have lost its way and does not realise this. After the meeting, all that BJP president Rajnath Singh said was that Advani would continue to lead the party for the next five, 50, 100 years. I have nothing against Advani but the BJP needs to change its image. Hindutva is against the country's ethos of pluralism as it excludes minorities. The BJP is losing space because it is going against the nation's temperament. Despite knowing this, it can't change because of the RSS. (The writer is a leading journalist based in Delhi) {Source: Dawn} For any personal reply, please reply me bejust.peace@yahoo.com Join me @facebook! Thanks a lot for your time. BeJustPeace N.B.: I never mail any advertisement or spam - so if you get somethine like this from this account, please forgive me as sometimes, people may spam using my ID. Wish you all the best. RESPECT. |
| ||||||||
Fencing off BangladeshIndia's 2500-mile border fence is meant to keep out smugglers. But simply living on the boundary is a dangerous business.
In the last six months, more than 50 people have been killed alongside the 2,500-mile barbed wire fence that India is building around its neighbour, Bangladesh. Such incidents are increasing in what is becoming one of the most volatile border areas in the world.
Between 2000 and 2007, more than 700 Bangladeshis and an unknown number of Indians were killed next to the boundaries of the two states. Most deaths occurred at the hands of the Border Security Force (BSF), the Indian border guard corps.
The eight-foot high barbed wire fencing cuts villages in two and divides agricultural lands and markets. It separates families and communities, cutting across mangrove swamps, forests and mountains. When completed next year, the fence will be a huge feat of Indian engineering: longer than the US/Mexico border fence, the Israel/Palestine wall and the old Berlin Wall put together. Optimistically, the Indian government says it will bring a decrease in illegal Bangladeshi immigration, smuggling and terrorism, and that it will also delineate the populations who live alongside it, sorting out "Indians" from "Bangladeshis". This is a poignant issue as communities in border areas in this part of the world continue across into neighbouring countries.
They share linguistic, ethnic and cultural similarities as well as economic interdependence. Consecutive governments in Dhaka have argued that the fence is part of a wider aggressive stance adopted by India to maintain its position as the regional superpower and the rhetoric is an attempt to undermine Bangladesh. They declare that the Bangladeshi border guards, the Bangladesh Rifles (BDR) are frequently thwarting smugglers and would-be immigrants in the frontier areas.
News of deaths in some of the most inaccessible parts of the two countries has surprisingly not resulted in uproar from civil society groups in Indian and Bangladeshi. Last year I travelled to a border village alongside Bangladesh's north-western margin where 16-year-old Hasibul Islam had been shot dead by a BSF guard.
The village he lived in his entire life is surrounded on all sides by lush paddy fields and the fence. The teenager was helping his brothers bring some cattle that they had purchased from their Indian counterparts through the barrier. Delhi refers to this trade as smuggling while Dhaka sees it as legitimate, rendering the animal "legal" or "illegal" depending on which side of the fence one is on. The border guards are instrumental in facilitating the cattle trade. In return they subsidise their salaries from the bribes they are paid. "We cannot do it if the BSF do not give us a line [chance]" said Hasibul's older brother. "We had come to an agreement with one guard who said we could bring the goods in. He had eaten [been paid off] but another, one we didn't know was there ... it was he who fired." The dead teenager's job was to ensure the animals stayed together as they came to the Bangladeshi side, earning him 300 taka (£2) per animal. Today, most of the deaths that take place along the margins of Bangladesh/India are due to BSF guards believing they are being cheated. Since the 1700s cattle have become an extreme source of conflict between Muslims and Hindus throughout the subcontinent. For Hindus, the animal is considered sacred. For Muslims, it is a most valued sacrificial animal. Public discourse in Hindu-majority India is against trading with Bangladesh, conflating nationalistic fervour, anti-Muslim and Bangladeshi rhetoric with the "war on terror". India does provide legitimate export licences but the issue is so sensitive that no one will go through the lawful means to apply for one. Muslim-majority Bangladesh argues that Hindus have traditionally sold their non-productive animals to them. This anger against Bangladeshis buying Indian cattle is in stark contrast to India's beef export market which is one of the largest in the world. As Hasibul's brother says, "The Indians want to sell and we want to buy. This has always been the case."
Since the erection of the fence, Delhi says the trade along the border has finally begun to be curtailed. Hasibul's family, however, believe it just means the system will be adapted accordingly. They say that the barrier has paradoxically made cattle trading a little safer. In the past when there was no barrier, people would run the risk of going into India illegally and procuring the animals themselves. But now they are brought to the gates by their Indian counterparts. Furthermore, it prevents BSF guards from terrorising the villagers; before the fence was built the guards would steal their livestock and walk straight into their homes. Living in a border village involves living with contradictions, conflict, insecurity and loss. Hasibul was entrepreneurial and well liked. He was killed for a mere 1,000 rupees (£12) which is what the guard would have earned himself for looking away. Last year the Indian High Commissioner to Bangladesh stated that those killed "are not innocent but smugglers."
Not only does this imply that the Indian government is out of tune with the borderlands but, more disturbingly, that it considers such extrajudicial killings to be justified. The BSF are nonetheless bolstered by such comments and indeed do kill with impunity despite the agreements local people have with them. Will legalising the trade make living in the borderlands any safer? The villagers I met did not think so. They believed that regardless of what they do or the choices they make, their lives will always be precarious. "This is what life is like for us in a border. This means sometimes we lose our people to bullets." Despite increased fears since the incident, Hasibul's brother continues the family trade. Other than this, and the unknown numbers who illegally cross both ways to visit family members and to work, there is no serious opposition to India's fencing programme. This is because the very thing that the fence is intended to achieve – to cease connections between the people on both sides – is impossible. Life, and death, simply continues in its shadow. |
Dear Friend,
We are writing to seek your assistance in compiling information on Bangladeshi Diaspora (Non-Resident Bangladeshi) philanthropic initiatives for a project being jointly undertaken by the Bangladesh Freedom Foundation (www.freedomfound.org) and Drishtipat (www.drishtipat.org).
Remittances from Bangladeshi migrants play a critical role in the country's economy with its contributions to the development budget estimated to be ranging from 30% to 40%. While most of the remittances are directed at the household level, a very small portion is said to be transferred in the form of individual and faith-based charity. There is also a gradual increase in the number of Non-Resident Bangladeshi (NRB) or Diaspora groups organizing and arranging for collective transfer of resources for development purposes in their home country beyond individual to individual giving. Organized Diaspora philanthropy remains largely untapped, not well documented and an area with potential for further organizing and strengthening.
To address this knowledge gap, the Bangladesh Freedom Foundation and Drishtipat are undertaking research for building a database on Diaspora philanthropic organizations and select case studies with the long term objective of increasing the flow of information, resources, knowledge, and expertise. The research is being supported in part by a grant from the Asia Pacific Philanthropy Consortium (www.asiapacificphilanthropy.org).
As a first step we are requesting for information on different Bangladeshi Diaspora philanthropic initiatives and organizations that you may be involved with or are aware of. We would greatly appreciate any contact information and website addresses that you can share with us and also if you could share this letter with your friends and colleagues so that we can reach a wider audience. We hope that this will help more Diaspora members to contribute to Bangladeshi causes in an informed manner.
If you know of or are a part of any organization who is engaged in philanthropic or charitable programs in Bangladesh from abroad, it would be greatly appreciated if the organization's name and contact email address/phone number/website can be emailed to sadia@drishtipat.org by September 15, 2009.
Thank you again for your time in this matter and we look forward to your continued cooperation.
Sadia Faruque
Project Coordinator
On behalf of,
Asif Saleh Safi Rahman Khan
Executive Director Executive Director
Drishtipat Bangladesh Freedom Foundation
asif.saleh@drishtipat.org ed@freedomfound.org
Drishtipat is a non-profit, non-partisan volunteer organization committed to safeguarding human rights in Bangladesh through action-oriented projects funded by its Diaspora Bangladeshi members and implemented by its Bangladesh based partner organizations.
--- On Tue, 9/8/09, Factification <factia@gmail.com> wrote:
|
Islam was perfect but Muslims had issues.
------------------------------------
[Disclaimer: ALOCHONA Management is not liable for information contained in this message. The author takes full responsibility.]
To unsubscribe/subscribe, send request to alochona-owner@egroups.comYahoo! Groups Links
<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/alochona/
<*> Your email settings:
Individual Email | Traditional
<*> To change settings online go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/alochona/join
(Yahoo! ID required)
<*> To change settings via email:
mailto:alochona-digest@yahoogroups.com
mailto:alochona-fullfeatured@yahoogroups.com
<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
alochona-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
Janab Anisul Haque Chowdhury has passed away on September 07, 2009 at 4:00pm in St. Petersberg Hospital, Tampa Bay Area, Flrida, USA (Inna-Lillahi wa Inna Elahi Rajeun)
His family members & relatives are requesting every body for making dua for his departed soul.
Janab Anisul Haque Chowdhury is the writer of lot of renowned Bangla songs including "Rupali Nadi-re, Rup Deikha Tur Hoiyasi Pagol".
You may contact his eldest son : Hasnat Chowdhury at +1-727-453-8887
------------------------------------
[Disclaimer: ALOCHONA Management is not liable for information contained in this message. The author takes full responsibility.]
To unsubscribe/subscribe, send request to alochona-owner@egroups.comYahoo! Groups Links
<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/alochona/
<*> Your email settings:
Individual Email | Traditional
<*> To change settings online go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/alochona/join
(Yahoo! ID required)
<*> To change settings via email:
mailto:alochona-digest@yahoogroups.com
mailto:alochona-fullfeatured@yahoogroups.com
<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
alochona-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
[Attachment(s) from Kamrul Ahsan khan included below]
Attachment(s) from Kamrul Ahsan khan
1 of 1 Photo(s)
Biometrics on this scale has never been done before 
