Cover Story, Offensive

SWM's cover story of January 9th, “Braving the Cold in Style, is a mockery of poor people who are suffering day and night due to the cold. On the cover page, there is a picture of a young man and woman with high-fashion warm clothes and big happy smiles on their faces. It is a cruel insult to those hundreds who died in the cold spell as they had no way to "brave the cold" much less in style. SWM's January 9 edition was a sad contrast to the Daily Star newspaper, which featured a story headlined "Children Lay Siege to DC's office for warm clothes”. Had the SWM cover story shown poor people around a fire made out of garbage, tree leaves and waste for braving the current cold it would have matched the newspaper's high writing standards.
Shams Hyder
Free School Street

Scam of the Week
]
A few weeks ago in the Letters column I read a piece about "Write to Mita”, in which the "unknown reader" claims that Mita only writes about love and gives love advice. In actuality, Mita offers advice on a variety of different problems, such as studies and family matters. As the reader claims to be a regular reader of the magazine, it would be nice of him/her to be aware of the facts before stating an opinion.
Azmi-Syed
Mohammadpur

An Opinion

I am a regular reader of SWM and I like all the articles in it. I am really impressed with the recent changes and the fantastic forty-page issue that came as a new years gift. Being a fan of the magazine I would like to offer a suggestion. Why not put a new column on shortcut and logical mathematics, in order to enhance the reader's intelligence? It could be something similar to the book Neurone Anuranan (written by Muhammad Zafar Iqbal and Mohammad Kaikobad).
Md. Abdullah Imran
Kushtia

Just a Comment

I am a regular reader of SWM. I eagerly wait to read it every week. I like some of it's regular items such as Jokes, Voicebox, Dhaka Diary etc. However, I am wondering why you do not have a sports page. Sports news are avoided by SWM almost every week. As a sports lover I expect that SWM will be decorated with some sports news and views for its readers. I hope that the SWM editor will consider my request.
Rifat Bin Salam
Notre Dame College

Messed Up Musings

I really liked Srabonti Narmeen Ali's Musings article on the New Year’s Eve parties. However, I was a little surprised to see an accompanying picture of Dhaka University students celebrating the New Year. Where exactly in the article did the author write about a party anywhere near or even remotely related to Dhaka University? The article had nothing whatsoever to do with the picture that came along with it. It is a shame to see these kinds of mess ups in such a well renowned news magazine. I would really like to suggest that the SWM staff is a little more careful about checking and rechecking in order to avoid mistakes such as this in the future.
MKH
Gulshan

Corruption Everywhere

The present society we live in is full of corruption. Wherever we cast our eyes we find that corruption is rampant. It is painful that at present it has increased at an alarming rate. It has infested itself into our daily lives like a cancer -- and we have no idea how to rid ourselves of this disease. Every sector in our society is corrupted, be it education, or politics. The government and all concerned persons should come forward to eradicate this problem from our society.
Mohammad Alamgir Hossain (Plabon)
Dhaka

What Are We Thinking ?

As I read through Daily Star, I notice the torments of young people dealing with the everyday issues of life. I wonder if their parents read them properly. Most of us, when we read a story, think that "this won't happen to me or my children”. But anything can happen to anyone, so we should all be vigilant. If its not my child then perhaps my neighbour's child is suffering in solitude. Our restless generation needs to learn tolerance. I sincerely hope the younger people who write and read will remember these ordeals and help their children and all the other people in the younger generations to come after them. Our children desperately need our assistance, we should pay more attention .
Zafar
Illinois

Banks Need Money Exchanging Facilities

It would be quite beneficial for the public if the privatised as well as the nationalised banks take the responsibility of foreign currency exchanging since there are no facilities for accepting or giving open dollars in banks. Foreigners as well as local people face a lot of problems as they have to incur a loss while dealing with private foreign currency exchange dealers outside of the bank. I hope the government as well as private individuals take this into account.
Naome Syed
Mohammadpur

Nice Photo Feature

I really liked your photo feature about the cold spell in Bangladesh in your last issue. For once your pictures were not blurry and I was able to finally see how talented your photographer is. However, I wish you would have put more pictures in. It seemed like there were not enough pictures there. Also I hope that in the future, you will consider playing around with your layout a little more. Instead of putting all pictures aligned, try adding some spice to it by being unconventional about the graphics. I just think that in the last year you have come such a long way with graphic designing and layout -- why not keep going?
EH
Dhanmondi