[ALOCHONA] Mothers in Remote Bangladesh

Mothers in Remote Bangladesh

 

A plane, a boat ride and a three-mile hike are typical of what it takes to reach one of the remote villages of Bangladesh. These are the villages where Dr. Begum Ferdousi and her army of community health workers are tackling one of the most challenging and essential jobs in their country—decreasing the high child and maternal mortality rates.

Bangladesh is one of the poorest countries in the world. With scarce medical resources, Dr. Ferdousi, a Bangladesh native, has an ingrained understanding of why 333 children and 32 mothers die in her country every day.

More often than not, children are taken by preventable and treatable illnesses, such as pneumonia, diarrhea and the effects of malnutrition. Mothers and newborns are dying because in remote villages 85 percent of births are home delivered by people who lack medical training.

Also, Dr. Ferdousi says, "If you really want to have a healthy baby, you need a healthy mother." Over her 19-year medical career, Dr. Ferdousi has trained more than 10,000 community health workers—local community members trained to treat and care for children and mothers. Currently, she oversees more than 3,000 health workers in her program with Save the Children.

Save the Children's Puskar, Dr. Ferdousi and a job well done. (Photo: Jeff Holt/World Pneumonia Day)

Tricia Puskar of Save the Children talked about the importance of having a local community member care for mothers and children:

"It's not about sending people overseas to provide temporary solutions. It's really about training people in the village that know the culture, that know the language and that can be there 24 hours a day to identify these illnesses in children and ultimately prevent and treat them."

Save the Children trains health workers in many developing countries beyond Bangladesh, including Indonesia, Guatemala and Malawi.

In many countries, the local health workers are male and female. In Bangladesh, the health workers are all women. As Dr. Ferdousi explains to TakePart: "Men do not have that much accessibility and acceptability among pregnant or lactating women."

Also, giving females the tools to save lives is a great way, Tricia Puskar of Save the Children says, "to empower women."

Dr. Ferdousi is seeing the living results of employing local health workers. In 2009, she visited the Bhola district in Bangladesh. One of the mothers told her she lost a son to pneumonia in 2005. In 2009, this mother's youngest son Nadim also became ill with pneumonia, but a community health worker was there to quickly diagnose and treat the child. Thanks to the health worker, Nadim survived.

Tricia Puskar was with Dr. Ferdousi on that visit to Nadim and his mother. Says Puskar, it's one thing to hear about the program's success, and quite another "to be there with this child who is running around living, breathing and to know their fate could have been so different had we not had a local health worker there."

Dr. Ferdousi knows that teaching is essential to curing. (Photo: Jeff Holt/World Pneumonia Day)

Thanks to organizations like Save the Children and the dedication of Dr. Ferdousi and the health workers, since 1990 Bangladesh has decreased its under five mortality rate by 64 percent and its maternal mortality rate by 53 percent. Dr. Ferdousi hopes to one day see "that every pregnancy has a happy ending."

The doctor insists that changes must be made at the policy level. She says, "The process is slow….There is money for transportation, money for doctors at the hospitals, but to me it should be strengthened and the numbers should be more in the remote areas."

Save the Children and the Ad Council's Good Goes campaign are working to not only involve local health workers but also to mobilize concern across the U.S.

Puskar of Save the Children says, "If everyone does just a little bit to take part in the campaign, it can make a big difference."

The 10,000 health-care workers that Dr. Ferdousi has trained so far during her career have saved thousands of lives in rural Bangladesh. Of the health workers in her network today, the doctor says, "Dr. Ferdousi is one, but my 3,000 volunteers, they are expanding my reach, by 3,000 hands."

http://www.takepart.com/news/2010/06/22/dr-ferdousis-story-saving-children-and-mothers-in-remote-bangladesh

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[ALOCHONA] The Fate of the Internet, Decided in a Back Room

The Fate of the Internet, Decided in a Back Room

By Tim Karr

The Wall Street Journal just reported that the Federal Communications Commission is holding "closed-door meetings"with industry to broker a deal on Net Neutrality – the rule that lets users determine their own Internet experience.

Given that the corporations at the table all profit from gaining control over information, the outcome won't be pretty.

The meetings include a small group of industry lobbyists representing the likes of AT&T, Verizon, the National Cable & Telecommunications Association, and Google. They reportedly met for two-and-a-half hours on Monday morning and will convene another meeting today. The goal according to insiders is to "reach consensus" on rules of the road for the Internet.

This is what a failed democracy looks like: After years of avid public support for Net Neutrality – involving millions of people from across the political spectrum – the federal regulator quietly huddles with industry lobbyists to eliminate basic protections and serve Wall Street's bottom line.

We've seen government cater to big business in the same ways, prior to the BP oil disaster and the subprime mortgage meltdown.

The Industry's regulatory capture of the Internet is now almost complete. The one agency tasked with oversight of communications now thinks it can wriggle free of its obligation to protect the open Internet, if only it can get industry to agree on a solution.

Congress is holding its own series of "closed-door" meetings and, while they've been ambiguous on the details, many remain skeptical on whether the process will lead to an outcome that serves the public interest. After all, this is the same Congress that is bankrolled by the phone and cable lobby in excess of $100 million.

Why is this so startling even for the more cynical among us? The Obama administration promised to embrace a new era of government transparency. It's the tool we were supposed to use to pry open policymaking and expose it to the light of public scrutiny.

In that spirit, President Obama pledged to "take a backseat to no one" in his support for Net Neutrality. He appointed Julius Genachowski to head the FCC -- the man who crafted his pro-Net Neutrality platform in 2008.

But the mere existence of these private meetings reveals to us a chairman who has fallen far short of expectations. Instead Genachowski is shying from the need to fortify the Internet's open architecture in favor of deals made between DC power brokers.

These deals will determine who ultimately controls Internet content and innovation. Will phone and cable companies succeed in their decade-long push to take ownership of both the infrastructure of the Internet and the information that flows across its pipes? Will they cut in a few giant companies like Google and the recording industry to get their way?

Whatever the outcome, the public – including the tens of millions of Americans who use the Internet every day and in every way – are not being given a seat at the table.

Genachowski's closed-door sessions come after six months of public comments on whether the agency should proceed with a rule to protect Net Neutrality.

During that period, more than 85 percent of comments received by the agency called for a strong Net Neutrality rule. Look at it this way: If a candidate received more than 85 percent of the vote, wouldn't she have a mandate to decide on the public's behalf?

In Chairman Genachowski's alternative view of reality, though, the public is immaterial, and industry consensus supreme.

Timothy Karr oversees all Free Press campaigns and online outreach efforts, including SavetheInternet.com and our work on public broadcasting, propaganda, and journalism. Before joining Free Press, Tim served as executive director of MediaChannel.org and vice president of Globalvision New Media and the Globalvision News Network

 

http://www.savetheinternet.com/blog/10/06/22/fate-internet-decided-back-room

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[ALOCHONA] Counterfeit Drugs Are A Public Menace In Bangladesh :Where We're Heading To?

Counterfeit Drugs Are A Public Menace In Bangladesh :Where We're Heading To?

By Avik Sengupta, Canada

New investigations reveal an estimated US $150 million worth of spurious drugs are posing a risk to public health at Bangladesh. In its annual testing of 5000 drug samples this year, the Public Health and Drug Testing Laboratory (PHDTL) detected 300 drugs that are either counterfeit or of very poor quality. Significantly, these include many popular antibiotics and lifesaving drugs. Jolted into action, the health ministry's Drug Administration authorities have launched a drive against illegal and fake drug vendors in the country. Preliminary findings reveal Bangladesh boasts a whopping 80,000 unlicensed drugstores.

Drug administration officials express their helplessness in combating the menace, "There are so many illegal operators that we cannot cope. Our 25 branches across the country are staffed with just 40 drug superintendents and inspectors. We act when we get specific complaints. But this set up is hopelessly inadequate." They point out that smuggled drugs are the biggest threat, as this is a grey area which is totally unmonitored. In the absence of quality controls, any dishonest importer can smuggle in fake drugs at a takeaway price and sell them at a higher price, experts remark. The rampant growth of contraband drugs is blamed on the poor quality of health services and cutthroat competition between drug manufacturers. The 100,000 strong industry produces drugs worth over US $500 million.

Worse, the acute shortage of doctors and clinics in rural areas forces patients to purchase off-the-counter drugs sans a prescription. This helps fake drug vendors to thrive, stresses a pharmaceutical industry executive. A large percentage of patients also travel to neighboring India for treatment, returning with prescriptions of Indian drugs. To cater to them, dozens of unauthorized pharmaceutical establishments have mushroomed on the Bangladesh border. These units either smuggle in Indian drugs or manufacture fake ones that threaten the lives of thousands of patients, experts observe. Although doctors warn these drugs could be causing deaths, no survey has so far been conducted to assess their negative impact on public health. Recently, the Drug Testing Laboratory found that a popular drug used for strokes and brain hemorrhages - Cavinton - was being marketed minus its main chemical ingredients. "It is obvious that patients who used this counterfeit drug have either died or suffered an ordeal," they say. Ironically as the Bangladesh Pharmaceutical Industries Association remarks, "The presence of fake and illegal drugs in Bangladesh is itself surprising because we manufacture over 96 per cent of our requirements and even export drugs."

The value of fake and contraband drugs flooding the market is estimated to be between US $100 million and $150 million. According to him, these drugs are produced in hundreds of fly-by-night drug factories functioning along the borders of Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, China and Thailand. Paradoxically though, the Chemist and Druggist Association points out, the pharmaceutical industry is Bangladesh's second largest foreign exchange earner, boasting exports to 52 countries. The industry comprises over 800 drug-manufacturing companies, 230 of which manufacture allopathic drugs, 255 producing traditional herbal drugs, 300 engaged in the manufacture of modern herbal drugs and 80 homeopathic drug producing outlets.

It alleges that apart from some three dozen leading allopathic drug manufacturers, the rest are involved in the production of fake and low quality drugs. The forum terms this cannibalistic marketing of competing companies. "Due to its high returns, businessmen with no commitment to health services have started investing in the pharmaceutical sector. Their companies thrive on faking popular brands and manufacturing drugs sans authentic ingredients. The low prices help their drugs to sell," it says. Many companies manufacture fake post-operative antibiotics like cephradine and hydrocortisone. Fungus-coated saline fluids and used syringes are also commonly found. In addition, most drug manufacturers lack suitable storage facilities and enclose tablets and capsules in such low quality foil that it is impossible for them to retain their potency. Health ministry says the local pharmaceutical industry meets nearly 96 percent of the country's drug demands. According to the ministry, it has ordered a crackdown on illegal drug networks in the country. "We are preparing to sue some 15 illegal and fake drug vendors in the capital Dhaka. We are currently inspecting other towns and cities as well."

If the above facts, no doubt that counterfeit drugs are a public menace in Bangladesh. They are mostly ineffective and can cause grievous injury or even death. The existence of spurious drugs in Bangladesh is well known, although not the precise extent. The Government has yet not decided to bring in legislation to hand out the serious penalty to those who manufacture or sell spurious drugs that cause grievous injury or death. Several newspapers have long opposed capital punishment but the point is that stern penalties are a necessary but insufficient condition for putting an end to the spurious drug industry. The present system has serious shortcomings that need to be overcome before any tangible results can be seen. The top priority must be to strengthen the drug control machinery and give enforcement teeth. The fact that not a single prosecution has resulted in life imprisonment since the Drugs Act has amended to provide for this enhanced punishment shows that legislation alone does not suffice.

According to the WHO, counterfeit medicine is ‘one which is deliberately and fraudulently mislabelled with respect to identity and/or source. Counterfeiting can apply to both branded and generic products and counterfeit products may include products with the correct ingredients or with the wrong ingredients, with insufficient active ingredients or with fake packaging.' In the past, bogus pills used to be blank replicas of the originals. But counterfeiters nowadays often add other active ingredients, such as mild pain relievers such as acetaminophen into pills that might make patients temporarily feel better. This was the case with fake Tamiflu seized from UK pharmacies in 2007. In 2004, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) discovered counterfeits ARVs on markets in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) containing anti-depressants and muscle relaxants. The addition of false active ingredients to counterfeit pharmaceuticals alarms health professionals. More worrisome is the substitution of real active ingredients with potentially life-threatening chemicals. The antifreeze component diethylene glycol has been used in place of glycerine in cough medicines, killing hundreds of people in Nigeria, Panama and Bangladesh in recent years.

Although the Government shares the responsibility for keeping a check on spurious drugs, the pharmaceutical industry cannot disown responsibility. The weakest link here is the distribution network. No amount of policing by the Government will help unless the companies beef up their distribution networks. While some manufacturers have their own clearing and forwarding agents to handle certain drugs, the need for a well established distribution network for all drugs cannot be ignored. Educating wholesalers and retailers to identify spurious drugs is another suggestion; this is a challenging task as the packaging is close to perfect and even experts find it difficult to tell the genuine from the fake. One of the ways to beat the counterfeiters is to use advanced packing technology. This will become a reality only if the government makes it mandatory for at least antibiotics and life saving drugs.

Consumers have a crucial role to play in arresting the proliferation of spurious drugs. Being the least equipped to tell genuine from spurious drugs, they should be advised to buy drugs only from reputed and well-established chemists. Insisting on bills with the batch number of medicines clearly mentioned, staying clear of chemists who sell drugs at a discounted price, and destroying used containers bearing the manufacturer's name indelibly marked are simple ways of ensuring that the drugs being bought are genuine. Consumers need to be wary of doctors themselves providing drugs rather than prescriptions. Finally, drug testing carried out by some public service organizations enjoying wide consumer acceptance will go a long way in supplementing the government's efforts. Educating the public on the circulation of spurious drugs and the dangers they pose should be high on the agenda of the government, the pharmaceutical industry, and the media.

http://newsfrombangladesh.net/view.php?hidRecord=323601

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[ALOCHONA] Jamaat links to UK war crimes meeting

Jamaat links to UK war crimes meeting

 

David Bergman 

London, June 23 ( bdnews24.com) -- A United Kingdom human rights parliamentary committee has admitted that a high-profile seminar it is hosting at the House of Lords on Bangladesh's 1971 war crimes trials has been organised with the assistance of a group accused of having links to the Jamaat-e-Islami.

Members of the Jamaat and its then student organisation Islami Chhatra Sangha are alleged to have committed crimes during the nation's war of independence from Pakistan in 1971.

The seminar discussing the compatibility of the International War Crime (Tribunals) Act 1973 with international legal standards is hosted by Lord Avebury and includes speakers from Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the International Bar Association.

In March 2010, the War Crimes Committee of the International Bar Association, an independent legal body, sent the Bangladesh government a legal opinion outlining changes that it considered should be made to the 1973 Act that would help ensure that the trials would be compatible with international legal standards.

Its detailed advice reflected the concerns previously set out by the international human rights organisation, Human Rights Watch, in a letter it sent to the prime minister, Sheikh Hasina in July 2009.

Even though the Bangladesh government has consistently stated in public that its trials will meet international standards, it has however yet to engage with these arguments in any level of detail.

Lord Avebury, the vice-chair of the Parliamentary Human rights Group, told bdnews24.com that although the invitations to the seminar on the 1973 Act were sent out in his name, Justice Concern provided clerical support in sending out the invitations. "[It] also recorded the answers, so that we have a list of those speaking and attending," he said. The e-mail address of Justice Concern along with its contact telephone number was on the bottom of all the invitations.

Inquiries made by bdnews24.com however indicate that Justice Concern, which was formed only two months ago, has links to the Jamaat-i-Islami in Bangladesh and its sister organisations in England.

Justice Concern's website is registered in the name of MKA Sikder, also known as Kamal Sikder who is the executive director of the UK-based jamaat-leaning Euro Bangla magazine.

In addition, Kamal Sikder, who now lives in the UK, admitted to bdnews24.com that "as a student ten years ago" he was a member of the executive council of the Islami Chaatra Shibir, the student organisation associated with Jamaat.

Surprisingly, Sikder said he had "no knowledge" that he had himself registered the Justice Concern website. "Kamal Sikder is a common name, it could be anyone."

When informed that the e-mail address in the website registration document was his, Sikder replied that he "would have to ask [Justice Concern] whether they used my name".

He denied that he had any role within the organisation. "All I know about Justice Concern is that I got an invitation to attend an event."

The chair of Justice Concern is barrister Asaduzzaman Bhuiyan (Fuad), who also has links to the Jamaat.

Bhuiyan is the executive co-ordinator of Bangladesh Forum Europe – an organisation well known in London's East End to have close links to the party through Islamic Forum Europe, its similarly sounding sister organisation in the UK. Its website has a picture of Jamaat chief Matiur Rahman Nizami as a guest speaker at a seminar.

Islamic Forum Europe was set up by UK-based Chowdhury Mueenuddin who, 15 years ago was accused in a British television Channel Four documentary of involvement in the abduction of intellectuals in December 1971 when he was a member of the Islami Chaatra Sangha. Mueenuddin denies the allegations.

Bhuiyan told bdnews24.com that initially Lord Avebury had agreed that the All Party Parliamentary Committee and Justice Concern would organise the meeting together. "However, Lord Avebury told us that in order for the meeting to be bipartisan, Justice Concern should not be involved."

Contrary to Lord Avebury's version, Bhuiyan told bdnews24.com, "We did not send out any invitations. I don't even know who is attending the meeting."

Bhuiyan denied that either Justice Concern or Bangladesh Forum Europe had any links with Jamaat politics. He said that he did not know Kamal Sikder, who had registered the Justice Concern site. "I am not in charge of IT issues. Somebody else did it."

Sikder, however, contradicted Bhuiyan when he told bdnews24.com that he and Bhuiyan did "know each other".

Lord Avebury appeared unrepentant that Justice Concern was involved in the meeting's organisation.

"I do know that Justice Concern is alleged to have links with the Jamaat, and I have been made aware that unfortunately it was for this reason that some organisations declined to participate in the meeting," he told bdnews24.com.

Many fear however that the involvement of a Jamaat-linked group in the organisation of a meeting on international standards will provide the government an excuse to discount the views of international lawyers raising concerns about the Bangladesh trials.

"It is important that the Bangladesh government gives serious consideration to the arguments made by organisations like the IBA, and Amnesty International, and not just ignore them," Rayhan Rashid from the War Crimes Strategy Forum, a coalition of independent activists working on the 1971 war crimes trials, told bdnews24.com.

"However, organising meetings jointly with Jamaat groups is not the way to get the government or others in Bangladesh to listen," Rashid said.

The Bangladesh high commissioner in London did not accept an invitation to speak at the meeting informing the parliamentary group that he was busy with the president's visit.

Chris Hall, senior legal adviser at the human rights organisation Amnesty International who is down to speak at the meeting, told bdnews24.com that he had no knowledge that Justice Concern was involved in the meeting, "I only had dealings with Lord Avebury."

He said that Amnesty International's position was clear, that "anyone regardless of affiliation or nationality who is suspected of international crimes should be investigated and if there is sufficient evidence, should be prosecuted."

At the end of March, the government established a three-member tribunal along with an investigation body and a group of prosecutors to hold trials of those accused of committing war crimes during the 1971 War.

The issue of whether the 1973 Act satisfies international legal standards -- the subject of the seminar -- is important to whether or not the trials, when they do take place, will be accepted internationally.

http://bdnews24.com/details.php?id=165375&cid=2

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[ALOCHONA] A letter to Dr. M Zafar Iqbal - Jute Genome

Dr. Zafar Iqbal

Dear Sir,

I read your article on discovery of 'jute Genome'.

Every research is good for us and we should engage in more research. It is an achievement.

Jute is cultivated from period unknown or say, last three hundred years jute industry contributed to economic progress. Centuries ago thousand miles away an industrial city was built called Dandy mainly on Jute. Adamjee was built less than a century ago.

Today jute do not have its glory or importance, there are lot of arguments for and against its industrial and economic potentials. And politics played it part in the direction one may like it to fit in.
Reality is, our farmers who used to cultivate jute already lost their lust for the 'golden fiber' and found alternate corps in its place. Not only Adamjee but numerous big plants already disappeared from the industrial township along with its millions suppliers/growers. That brings the country's reliance on jute as exportable or as primary goods for industry to a negligible percentage.
Discovering the 'genome' how will change the whole scenario, as projected, I simply can not fathom. Save the academic research which itself an achievement but re-invigorating jute with this discovery is a mere propaganda. And our respected professors and teachers impeccably playing in the hand of their political mentors.

Banana, Mango, Pineapple are produced in much bigger quantity these days in our country which fetch a good economic value without knowing their 'Genome', but like all other agri produce farmers benefits are always less. What is needed an organized storage, distribution and marketing mechanisms under fully strategized policy supports from the state. Until these facilities are not created and farmers profit is not protected potential development will not take place. There are loose talks, political 'bhashon', which do not change the scenario or actual matrix of the business or the economy. Until those loose talks turns to objectivity and also effectively exercised into profitable ventures.

Since, this involves millions of poor farmers and growing number of small entrepreneurs, our professors would do better if they open their hearts for the millions of poor whose children do not fill their class rooms, rather than for few researchers to earn a mileage, to help better their lives.

Research should be done for productive results and resources should be mobilized from 'unchained' (without string attached) sources so that the benefits of the research is done objectively and used for welfare of common folks or for humanity in general.

We need to free Dhaka University, BUET, Agriculture University, Shahjalal University from the influence of coterie politics and their cronies, in order to instill a culture of wellbeing of our society.
We can mobilize more resources ample proof are there, and I would like to stress on the fact that resources will not be a problem for doing good basic research. Through a development oriented participatory yet transparent programs will attract not only the researchers but the industry and voluntary fund providers as well.
What is required, these professors should free themselves and change their line of allegiance to built trust of our people, so that in reliance they come and offer their few hundred to see that their knowledge is enhanced only to be utilized for their own good.

Are you ready professor, upon your readiness you will find thousands like me who would have few hundreds either in Dollar or in taka or powerful moral supports.

Your sincerely
Haque

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