Feature

Dohogram is an enclave of Bangladesh, landlocked by India. In 1947 the British partitioned India into two independent states, Pakistan and India, and the problem of the enclave was thus created. It was the largest Pakistani enclave in India. Prior to 1953, Pakistan claimed that this enclave was connected with its territory, but a survey of the maps determined that it was separated by about 85 meters. Since that time the fate of this territory has become an issue of contention for both countries. In 1965 fighting broke out along the border of this region, followed shortly thereafter by a cease fire.

After the liberation of Bangladesh from Pakistan, a new agreement was signed to eliminate any of the enclaves. The governments of Bangladesh and India signed 'Bangladesh-Indian Treaty' in 1974, which is popularly known as 'Indira-Mujib Pact'. 'Indira-Mujib Pact' amongst others included a provision of providing 'Teen Bigha' as a corridor to link Angurpota-Dohogram to the main land Bangladesh. However, this agreement was not enforced and Dohogram remained in existence. A new agreement was signed in 1982 and implemented on June 26, 1992. This allowed intermittent traffic to pass between Bangladesh and Dohogram. The two are now separated by gated fences and 30 meters of Indian territory, which is popularly known as “Teen Bigha Corridor”.

Presently, the corridor remains open for 12 hours a day from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. without any break. But a year back it was kept open for 6 hours a day starting from 6 a.m. conditioned with every one hour after equal break.

We have visited the enclave by crossing this corridor and were very excited. Most of us were highly engrossed while crossing a foreign land for visiting our own country's territory, our brothers and our sisters. We found Indian security force to be highly alert as because of Bangladeshi are not allowed to do anything just except to cross the corridor straightway. If we walk or step anywhere else except that particular road or even we take photograph Indian force would have shot us. We also came to know; India did not give us the corridor free of cost. Every year Bangladesh government has to pay lease money for using this corridor.

After crossing 'Teen Bigha' corridor, we visited entire area, even we went to the last house walking all the way. We found people of Angurpota-Dohogram in general to be poor even in comparison to the main land people. Majority of them are involved in agriculture. They have a very few sources of earning other than farming. They have only one primary and high school for access to education, one newly built government hospital, a few tube-wells for arsenic free water. We did not find presence of any international (development) organization, not even the local NGOs. We have carried winter clothes and some money to distribute among the children and old people of the enclave.

We have seen hope in their eyes, commitment in their words, and freedom in their face. But the irony is these people have endured so much suffering yet they are as patriot as us, may be even more. We came back from the enclave long back. But memories are still fresh in our mind, which are never to be forgotten. It was really a great feeling indeed to see a land, which is ours, people, who are our brothers and sisters. They are so close to us, yet so far!

(Lecturer, BRAC Business School)

Gregory Peck (April 5, 1916 June 12, 2003) was an Academy Award-winning and four-time Golden Globe Award-winning American film actor. He was one of 20th Century Fox's most popular film stars, from the 1940s to the 1960s, and played important roles well into the 1990s. One of his most notable performances was as Atticus Finch in the 1962 film version of To Kill a Mockingbird, for which he won his Academy Award. President Lyndon Johnson honored Peck with the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1969 for his lifetime humanitarian efforts.[1] In 1999, the American Film Institute named Peck among the Greatest Male Stars of All Time, ranking at #12.

Career
Stage
After graduating from Berkeley with a BA degree in English, Peck dropped the name "Eldred" and headed to New York City to study at the Neighborhood Playhouse with the legendary acting teacher Sanford Meisner. He worked at the 1939 World's Fair and as a tour guide for NBC's television broadcasting.

He made his Broadway debut as the lead in Emlyn Williams' The Morning Star in 1942. His second Broadway performance that year was in The Willow and I with Edward Pawley.

Film work
Peck's first film, Days of Glory, was released in 1944. He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor five times, four of which came in his first five years of film acting: for The Keys of the Kingdom (1944), The Yearling (1946), Gentleman's Agreement (1947), and Twelve O'Clock High (1949).

Among his other popular films were Moby Dick (1956),On the Beach (1959), which brought to life the terrors of global nuclear war, The Guns of Navarone (1961), and Roman Holiday (1953), with Audrey Hepburn in her Oscar-winning role.

Peck won the Academy award with his fifth nomination, playing Atticus Finch, a Depression-era lawyer and widowed father, in a film adaptation of the Harper Lee novel To Kill a Mockingbird. Released in 1962 during the height of the US civil rights movement in the South, this movie and his role were Peck's favorites. In 2003, the American Film Institute named Atticus Finch the top film hero of the past 100 years.

Personal life
In October 1942, Peck married Finnish-born Greta Kukkonen with whom he had three sons. . They were divorced on December 30, 1955, but maintained a very good relationship as parents[citation needed] to their sons, Jonathan, Stephen and Carey Peck. On December 31, 1955, the day after his divorce was finalized, Gregory Peck married Veronique Passani, a Paris news reporter who had interviewed him in 1953 before he went to Italy to film Roman Holiday. They remained happily married until Gregory Peck's death.

Awards
Peck was nominated for five Academy Awards, winning once. He was nominated in 1946 for The Keys of the Kingdom, in 1947 for The Yearling, in 1948 for Gentleman's Agreement, and in 1950 for Twelve O'Clock High. He won the Oscar for best actor in 1963 for To Kill a Mockingbird, and he received the Academy's Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award for 1967.

Peck also received many Golden Globe awards. He won in 1947 for The Yearling, in 1963 for To Kill a Mockingbird, and in 1999 for Moby-Dick. He was nominated in 1978 for The Boys from Brazil. He received the Cecil B. DeMille Award in 1969, and was given the Henrietta Award in 1951 and 1955 for World Film Favorite Male.

For his contribution to the motion picture industry, Gregory Peck has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6100 Hollywood Blvd. In November 2005, the star was stolen.[citation needed] It has since been replaced.