Letters
On 'A Harrowing Tale'
I would like to thank Hana Shams Ahmed for her excellent cover story on the sadists in our society who are heartlessly tormenting the domestic child workers. In fact these incidents are happening time and again and as far as I am aware, SWM reports on this issue every time.
But the shocking point is, not enough people are protesting against this heinous crime and every time the tormentors get away unpunished. The same thing happened in Madhabi and Moni Lal's case. What upsets me is that behind most of the cases the tormentors are educated women.
Motherhood is such a great and honourable stage in a woman's life. How can a mother torture other's children? If we can't treat home workers like our own children, at least we can treat them as employees. There are some codes of conducts for the owner of an industry so that his/her employees can do their jobs with respect. So why don't we maintain the minimum code of conduct in our family for the domestic workers whose job is no less significant than those who work in an office? I think protests from all kinds of people against such cruelty and creating awareness through media can help to stop this brutality.
Kazi Mahbub
Narayanganj
We are not for you!
The other day, I had to go to DMCH to see one my friend's father who had just been admitted there the night before after a terrible road accident. I was shocked to find him with very negligible medication and care.
In a large room there were about forty patients lying on their beds; most of them groaning in pain. At that moment only four DMCH interns were available there for an hour. In fact, it was a suffocating environment and I was totally dumbfounded to find the interns totally indifferent to the whole situation! Even a person without a physical problem would surely be ill after staying there for some time. My friend's father neither got any medication nor any support from nurses and getting the doctors' attention was beyond expectation.
Is there any way to change this horrible situation?
Samiran Mitra
Sher-shah Suri Road
Mohammadpur
Dhaka
Congratulations, Dr. Yunus
When there were only sighs of frustration everywhere, the news came like a blitz: Dr. Yunus winning the Nobel Peace Prize. Thank you, Dr. Yunus for writing the name of our beloved country in the list of achievements. I, like all the Bangladeshis at home and abroad, are extremely proud of you. I hope the citizens of Bangladesh will start believing in themselves and turn these moments into a time of rejuvenation, I congratulate you all!
Parvez Monon Ashraf
Dallas, Texas, USA
*****
This is the best Eid gift a nation like Bangladesh could receive. In fact this is one of the best things that could have happened to Bangladesh. Thanks to Professor Yunus for the glorious gift. During the Eid season I'm sure lots of people are wasting a lot of money in different ways, but if we can just be careful about what we are doing, we can help a lot of people to change their luck.
Thanveer Hassan Jitu
Bokshibazar, Dhaka
Views on Nokia's electrotherapy
First of all, I would like to thank Imran H. Khan for providing us with such a vivid description of the new flicks of Nseries (Fresh Blood in Nokia's Arsenal, October 6, 2006). Honestly speaking, all the new editions of the Nseries are electrifying and soul-devouring, especially the N95, one of the long-term targets of the Nseries can be defined as the most dashing and handsome palmtop in the business.
Among all its daydream-like facilities, its high performance photo capturing quality and USB 2.0 connectivity are worth mentioning (as far as the question is about gratifying viewers' expectations). Hope Nokia is going to bring a large chunk of customers to their favour through this party-rocking mobile phone-cum-PDA. Besides, extending and innovating services in all other versions (especially N73 & N80) seemed to me as a commercial trick to lure more customers. Nokia has brought a variety of technologies in its high range lenses such as Carl Zeiss Optics, auto focus, digital zoom, digital video recording etc. But there was no discussion found on cyber shot and photo editing technology. Hope we are going to have our demands fulfilled in the next versions.
In addition, a very significant piece of information was lacking in the article. There was no hint on how long it will take for the new waves of Nseries to hit our showrooms. Because I think, there is hardly any customer who is going to fly to Philippines to purchase a “telecommunicator”.
Zarif Azad
G.L.H.S.
Proud To Be a Bangladeshi? Why not?
This is in reference to Audree's letter 'Proud to be a Bangladeshi?' in the SWM.
I would like to ask him to ponder on this: are the Americans proud of their country because they dropped the only nuke bomb in the history of civilisation? Or for the fact that the CIA is alleged (with substantial proof) to have carried out thousands of political killings in foreign lands? Or are they proud of their government's unconditional support for Israel? Or is it because of the alarming number of rapes, mugging and drug peddling in NY?
I would like to remind Audree that whatever or whoever you are proud of it should not be because of his/her/it's negative sides. It is because of the good and great things that he/she/it has done. Americans are proud to be Americans because they are the richest country in the world, they have the best universities, they have civil liberties and one of the finest film industries in the world.
Similarly, we Bangladeshis are proud of our country because we won a 'David v/s Goliath' war in nine months, because we were regarded as the happiest nation in the world, because our countryman Professor Yunus has been awarded the Nobel Peace prize for inventing micro-credit and because we are the only nation to have fought for our mother tongue.
Esraj Fairuz
Dept. of Management Studies
University of Dhaka
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