Banking Tips

Nasreen Sattar Head of International Sales, Standard Chartered Bank

Q. I am one of your customers - I would like to know what are the two types of US Dollar Bonds? Can you please give me details of how to invest in them .
A.There are two types of US Dollar Bonds - US Dollar Premium Bond and USD Investment Bond.

Main features of USD Premium Bond.
1. Eligibility:
A Bangladeshi Wage Earner Serving abroad and entitled to Wage Earner's rate of exchange on his own earnings in foreign exchange in his own name.

2. Method of Payment
Bond can be issued against funds held in Foreign Currency Account with Standard Chartered , Dhaka Bangladesh since you are one of our customers.

3. Denomination of Bond:
USD 500/ USD 1000/ USD 5000/ USD 10,000 and USD 50,000.

4. Maturity - 3years
5. Profit/ Encashment before Maturity Rate of Interest Payable
a) Within one year from date of issue No Interest
b) After completion of one year, but within two years 6.5%
c) After completion of two years but within three years 7%
d) After completion of three years 7.5 %

Main features of USD Investment Bond
Eligibility
A Bangladeshi wage-earner serving abroad is entitled to wage-earner's scheme on his own earnings in foreign exchange in his own name.

2. Method of Payment
Bond can be issued against funds held in Foreign Currency Account with Standard Chartered Bank, Dhaka Bangladesh.

3. Denomination of Bond
USD 500/ USD 1000/ USD 5000/ USD 10,000 and USD 50,000.
4. Maturity - 3 years
5. Profit/ Encashment before Maturity Rate of Interest Payable
a) Within one year from date of issue No Interest
b) After completion of one year but within two years 5.5%
c) After completion of two years but within three years 6%
d) After completion of 3 years 6.5%

Other Facilities for both Bonds
a) Income tax is exempted on investment and profit
b) One nominee can be made on each bond
c) New bond can be issued if the bond is lost, burnt or destroyed .
d) On maturity if a holder fails to encash bond (s) in his possession, the principal amount of the bond (s) shall be treated as re-invested for another term of 3 years.
Please note interest earnings to be paid in USD for INVESTMENT BONDS & IN BDT FOR PREMIUM BONDS

Interpreter Of Maladies

Dr. Nighat Ara, Psychiatrist

Q. Hi,
A year ago I fell in love with a guy. I always thought he is far superior to me and he would never have me as his partner. But fortunately I plunged into a love affair with him anyway. Recently I am having this feeling that he always loved a very good friend of his. When we started the relationship he kept it a secret, especially he kept it from that friend of his. I also have this feeling that he entered this relationship with me because he kind of took pity of on me. He did not want it to go this deep but could not refuse me. I even turned away a marriage proposal and now have a very bad relation with my parents. I am very insecure with all of this. Please help.-T

Ans: You are in a relationship with a man whom you love (could it be just admiration or infatuation?). Do you frequently find yourself in negative mind reading (e.g."he kind of took pity of on me. He did not want it to go this deep but could not refuse me") that goes against your favour? The guy you are dating is an adult and is equally responsible for his role in it. It seems to me you are feeling guilty for leading him up to this stage and now thinking of backing out. Making a mistake and then learning the lesson from it is very important. Making more mistakes to defend oneself is not justifiable. Sometimes people move back and forth before they finally break up or find some effective way to work it out. However, suppressing a conflict or trying to sweep it under the rug can lead to an unhealthy relationship in the future. Early signs of abusive relationships are--one partner suffers from low self-esteem, cannot tell his/her feelings or worries about the relationship, stop expressing opinions even if s/he doesn't agree with him/her, etc.

It also appears to me you are under estimating your power on him and not really taking in to account his needs that also drove him to this relationship. You doubt his love for you--it could be the result of your low self esteem ("I always thought he is far superior to me and he would never have me as his partner"), or your basic ability to trust a man (any childhood or past experience needs to be explored), or because you started to sense an extra chemistry between him and his lady friend (who is the third person here?). If someone is dating her boss/teacher/authority figure (pretty scary!) this kind of fear or inferiority complex (as the other party holds too much power) might initially interfere. It could be a question of mind set too. How did you develop this feeling that he always loved a very good friend of his? Our "thought/belief--feeling--behaviour chain" usually develops in a sequence, and irrational beliefs can lead to irrational feelings. There is a difference between rumour, half-truth, fact and assumption, and response has to be proportionate. Feeling totally consumed by a thought and dwelling too much in the past that cannot be changed is not a very pleasant state of mind. Even if he had loved that friend, how is that interfering with your present relationship? You have mentioned your feeling of insecurity--do you think that he will betray you or cheat you in the future? How rational is that thinking? What are the signs or evidence? Have you already witnessed him breaking someone else's trust ("love affair")? Besides, if you feel that he felt pity not love--how does it impact your expectation? If you are wondering whether you two are perfect match or not--I can only say people with different individual needs and personality traits can complement each other and make themselves a good match (e.g. a woman with a high dependency need can match well with a very controlling and dominating man, a very independent minded woman will not be the right choice for him). Most traditional marriages where women take up a submissive role and see their husbands as their protector, guide and superior, work in this way. However, in modern times when people are trying to choose their life partner, marriage counsellors sometimes help them by doing a personality profile and evaluating whether it matches well or not. Someone who can bring out all the positives in you (feel good when he is around, feel confident and secure, feel beautiful and competent etc.) is an ideal partner. It would be wise to look into the factors that are contributing to one's low self-esteem and take adequate measures to overcome it. Love is a complex emotion--trust, equality, respect, being able to communicate freely without fears are important components of it. If you are not able to communicate freely with this man then it is important that you go slow. Take some time to figure out how much of it is coming from you and how much is his contribution. If you wait for a while, something more will hopefully happen that will help you to decide what is best for you (feeling this pressure to come up with a decision right now may lead to a wrong decision!). Intimate relationships sometimes trigger past unresolved issues and if they remain unattended for too long they can virtually spoil the relationship. I appreciate that you have turned away a marriage proposal and is listening to your inner wisdom (which is probably telling you that you are not ready for marriage yet!). Without closing one relationship, rushing in to another could be potentially hazardous. Spend some more time in understanding yourself first.

Get rid of those nasty flakes

Surprise! The latest addition to dandruff fighting agents is no anti-dandruff shampoo--it's mouthwash! Researchers discovered that the antiseptic in it kills the bacteria that cause the nasty flakes. Mix one part mouthwash with nine parts water and massage into clean hair. Wait five minutes, then rinse off.

 

UNDER A DIFFERENT SKY

All the Lonely people where do they come from?

In the morning sometimes I wake up to broken frail voices. The voices which pronounce slowly, mumbling and stumbling, and then with their best efforts tell me to call a cab. At first it was confusing, then after talking to the phone company I discovered my home number is very similar to some famous help desk number for a senior citizen home. The citizens of the senior home often mix up a few digits and call the wrong number (mine) to ask for help during their direness.

First I was annoyed, then I became sympathetic and then slowly I just grew immune to it. I started screening the calls, turning off the ringer so I wouldn't wake up at 5 am in the morning to take Mrs. Oliver's requests. They started leaving messages, some even during the day, requests like "This is Mr. Darby, I am waiting at the door of INOVA hospital, please pick me up at 3:00pm," or "This is Ms. Wilcox my heater is not working, my room is freezing, we pay you to keep us alive, please fix this problem as soon as possible." It goes on, the soft and loud cries for help, for assistance, and I keep on pressing the delete buttons on my answering machine because I don't know what else I could do.

Some voices call more than others, some voices stop abruptly. The numbers come up on my caller ID, I resist myself from calling back to find out if Mrs. Oliver got her ambulance in time, if she made it through, or did another new voice move in to her room, and Mrs. Oliver's belongings donated to good will now sit and wait for some perfect stranger. I resist myself from finding out, and a part of me feels guilty for not being there for them when they needed me. Okay fine, maybe it wasn't me who they needed but they needed someone and that could have been me but I don't change, I keep on neglecting, ignoring, cursing at the help desk and request the phone company to talk to the help desk of the senior home to perhaps change their numbers so I the good citizen can live without any guilt of being the silent witness to unknown endings.

But the problem was never really solved and slowly it stopped bothering me. It had as much affect on me as the missing person reports which we receive here in a regular basis by the post mail the quarter page "junk mails" with pictures of missing people, it always reads in the same desperate boring, bold, not so large fonts "Have you seen us" Name: Nicholas McDonald, DOB: 10/27/99, Age:5 Hair: brown…

Last seen with: Michele Schauer, DOB: 6/24/61, Age: 43, Height: 5'3', Call 1-800-THE-LOST. And then in slightly smaller fonts but in bold at the bottom it says "136 children featured have been safely recovered"...the promise…And I barely glance over the black and white photographs of the missing, chuck the mail, take home the pizza coupons and close the door behind me to delete some more wrong messages from the answering machine. I am not saying I am cruel, I am not saying the strong, rich or not-so-well-to-do relatives of Mrs. Oliver and Mr. Darby are cruel either.

They are practical, more practical than I. Because I on one hand look down upon those who abandon their parents here to old homes and on the other hand have ditched all that's old and past in my life, left them behind oceans apart. And while abandoning my past I pretended to care more than I did and falsely missed more than I could. I listened to corny songs of Nochiketa or Onjon Dotto talking about old homes of Kolkata and sighed in sequence with others around me, talked about how we Bangladeshis are so much more considerate when it comes to respecting our elders and taking care of them when they are feeble. And at the same time we all knew that was not the whole truth, that there was an "if" and a "but" in that thought yet we all overlooked, we all silently agreed to our flaws and vocally admitted to our traditional maya.

So I think its okay now, its okay to not listen, to not see, to pay no attention to desperate messages, to ignore the last breathes of what was once a vigorous body, I think it's okay. And it will be okay when one day I too will reach out and not find, and seek out and not recognise the days of pretense maya is such a cliché, we now stand ready to be forgotten.

By Iffat Nawaz