Letters
Deadly Exposure
Your cover story about exposure of children to pornography makes a good point, as the overall number of children featured in lurid videos has increased in recent times. Although Bangladesh is one of the earliest signatories of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), there is hardly any law to protect children from the threat of porn.
Bangladesh has recently submitted combined third and fourth period report to CRC committee. The committee asked the government to take appropriate legal and other measures to prevent sexual exploitation and prostitution of children. However, the committee also recommended ensuring that child victims of sexual exploitation or abuse are not criminalized or penalized. There is also need of reform in the juvenile justice system so that children in conflict with law get the opportunity to integrate themselves in the society.
“In all actions concerning children, whether undertaken by public or private social welfare institutions, courts of law, administrative authorities or legislative bodies, the best interests of the child shall be a primary consideration”- said in Article 3 of CRC. While dealing with the issue of child pornography also, the best interest of the child must be a primary consideration.
Oli Md. Abdullah Chowdhury
Khasdobir, Sylhet
About Time
The government should restore the hands of the clock during winter season in the months of December, January and February. Although the merits and demerits of Daylight Saving Time can be debated at length, it is undoubtedly true that going to school or office while it is still dark cannot be a healthy thing. We are suffering a lot from this mismatch in our time schedules. Surely, the issue of saving power cannot be solved by tweaking the clock hands only!
Md. Imran Hossain
MBA Program
Khulna University
The Beats of Timba
The cover story of November 6, The Wizards of Timba was a good read. Finally, good musicians are getting the coverage they deserve. Genuinely talented performers should receive much more exposure in radio, electronic and print media. It is good to see that other genres are coming into our music industry in a big way. Pop, electro pop, commercial pop, and same old rock was starting to get claustrophobic.
There is an intangible commonality among all the humans living in this world, no matter we speak in different languages or live in different cultures. For ages since primordial era we, carrying our genetic imprints intact, have been migrating from one continent to another. Only pigments of our skins and languages of our vocabulary are getting changed due to changed surroundings. But, deep down we genealogically belong to one source of origin, hence to one thread of human gene. Diverse cultures of our ancestors though scattered all over the world are very much ingrained in our psyche. So, when we hear a sound of an African drum or a song of Cuban origin, a chord deep in our consciousness is reflexively struck to evoke our buried reminiscence.
I was fortunate enough to witness one of the live performances. Invited by Excalibur Entertainment, Motimba undertook their first ever visit to Bangladesh. By their dazzling performances at different hotels and clubs the troupe has already made their mark on music aficionados in Dhaka, showing how a motley combination of songs and music, as diverse as Latin jazz, Afro beats and Cuban Timba, can be blended into a universal genre to enamor any audience from any part of the globe.
Maswood Alam Khan
Dhaka
A Driving School in Every District
The majority of people in Bangladesh are poor. The present elected government has assumed power by dint of their landslide victory in January'09. It has the responsibility to do work for the betterment of the country. Training based on technical trade is one of the ways to aid the poor youth that would lead to employment opportunities and generate income for them. Fruitful employment would help them to stand on their own feet and their standard of living would increase in the long run. The ratio of poor people would be reduced as a result of technical education. A driver earns more than a day labourer. It is necessary to impart training in technical trade like driving to provide opportunities to the poor. Setting up and operating a driving school is a relatively less expensive programme in the arena of technical education. We have to keep in mind that Bangladesh has very little wealth to invest. One driving school in each district town and city would facilitate training of thousands of youths. Trained drivers would have employment opportunities within the country as well as abroad. When more trained people are be available, scope of exporting trained manpower will also increase. Taking into consideration all of these factors I like to urge the government to set up and run at least one driving school in each district, city and town within the present tenure.
Mohammad Tahamid Ashraf
Central Bashabo
Dhaka.
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