Wonderful picture of rainy season

Children rowing a boat in a water body brimming in Keraniganj, on the outskirts of the city. They are busy picking up water lilies and sometimes sprinkling water on each other oblivious to the fact that they themselves are painting a wonderful picture of the rainy season. Photo: Syed Zakir Hossain

AIDS fight needs religious leaders

Says Marina Mahathir
Involving religious leaders is an essential measure to address HIV/AIDS issue in Muslim countries, said visiting human-rights activist Marina Mahathir on Tuesday, reports bdnews24.com.Mahathir, a member of the International Steering Committee for the Asia Pacific Leadership Forum on HIV and AIDS, was sharing her experience on awareness campaigns at the city's Independent University of Bangladesh (IUB). The seminar titled 'HIV/AIDS: Facing the Challenges' was the first in a series of seminar to be held countrywide, Professor M Omar Rahman, pro-vice-chancellor of IUB, said in his welcome note. Explaining the perils of running campaigns on such sensitive issue as AIDS in Malaysia, Mahathir said their major challenges were social and religious sensitivity and the mindset of people toward AIDS victims. "Back in 1993, when I started to work, Malaysians thought that only drug abusers and sex-workers could catch AIDS," said the daughter of Malaysia's former prime minister Mahathir Mohamad. She underlined the need for the right approach to confront the problem being a sensitive issue. They had worked closely with the Alems and Ulamas to develop a series of training workshop for Imams at the grassroots level to build awareness, said Mahathir. "And they (Imams) took it very much positively as they were already facing the problem from the locality they belonged to," she added. Mahathir, who is also a journalist, told the seminar that the problem of HIV/AIDS could be tackled in different angles but the best way was 'faith-based angle'. Speaking on Bangladesh, she said numbers of HIV-positive people are still low. "So don't miss the opportunity; you need to act fast as it would be more cost-effective now", she added. She emphasised pressuring the government in making available drugs needed for AIDS-infected people. Mahathir also met with home adviser MA Matin and later told reporters that she was satisfied with the rights of women and HIV/AIDS situation in Bangladesh. Bangladesh was in a very good condition in these two sectors, she said. The use of secondhand syringes needs to be stopped since it was the one of the influential mediums of spreading AIDS, she said. The human-rights worker said her country did not use such syringe. She was accompanied by other delegates and Bangladesh Centre for Development, Journalism and Communication (BCDJC) chairman and daily Amader Shomoy editor Nayeemul Islam Khan. She arrived in Bangladesh early Monday on a six-day visit at the invitation of BCDJC to give a talk on a seminar on media and gender equity. She is scheduled to visit to Chittagong Wednesday, the home ministry sources said.
Involving religious leaders is an essential measure to address HIV/AIDS issue in Muslim countries, said visiting human-rights activist Marina Mahathir on Tuesday, reports bdnews24.com.Mahathir, a member of the International Steering Committee for the Asia Pacific Leadership Forum on HIV and AIDS, was sharing her experience on awareness campaigns at the city's Independent University of Bangladesh (IUB). The seminar titled 'HIV/AIDS: Facing the Challenges' was the first in a series of seminar to be held countrywide, Professor M Omar Rahman, pro-vice-chancellor of IUB, said in his welcome note. Explaining the perils of running campaigns on such sensitive issue as AIDS in Malaysia, Mahathir said their major challenges were social and religious sensitivity and the mindset of people toward AIDS victims. "Back in 1993, when I started to work, Malaysians thought that only drug abusers and sex-workers could catch AIDS," said the daughter of Malaysia's former prime minister Mahathir Mohamad. She underlined the need for the right approach to confront the problem being a sensitive issue. They had worked closely with the Alems and Ulamas to develop a series of training workshop for Imams at the grassroots level to build awareness, said Mahathir. "And they (Imams) took it very much positively as they were already facing the problem from the locality they belonged to," she added. Mahathir, who is also a journalist, told the seminar that the problem of HIV/AIDS could be tackled in different angles but the best way was 'faith-based angle'. Speaking on Bangladesh, she said numbers of HIV-positive people are still low. "So don't miss the opportunity; you need to act fast as it would be more cost-effective now", she added. She emphasised pressuring the government in making available drugs needed for AIDS-infected people. Mahathir also met with home adviser MA Matin and later told reporters that she was satisfied with the rights of women and HIV/AIDS situation in Bangladesh. Bangladesh was in a very good condition in these two sectors, she said. The use of secondhand syringes needs to be stopped since it was the one of the influential mediums of spreading AIDS, she said. The human-rights worker said her country did not use such syringe. She was accompanied by other delegates and Bangladesh Centre for Development, Journalism and Communication (BCDJC) chairman and daily Amader Shomoy editor Nayeemul Islam Khan. She arrived in Bangladesh early Monday on a six-day visit at the invitation of BCDJC to give a talk on a seminar on media and gender equity. She is scheduled to visit to Chittagong Wednesday, the home ministry sources said.

400 Years of DHAKA : Glory of Jamdani glimmers amid winds of change

Once adored by the Sultans and Nawabs, Jamdani, the descendant of ancient fine muslin cloth, still remains the pride of Dhaka. Yet, with all its fame and glorious journey through centuries, the splendid cloth faces a few stumbling blocks that threaten its existence. Historically, the area around Dhaka and Narayanganj has always been the hub of handlooms. The surrounding area grew the finest quality cotton, Karpash, the key ingredient for weaving Jamdani.Besides, the aesthetic senses of the royal patrons helped Jamdani weavers make the embroidered fabrics with eye-catching design. Still the villages in Rupganj, Araihazar, Sonargaon, Shiddhirganj and other places around the Shitalakhya remain the main Jamdani-making belt. Weavers in many other places in the country and in West Bengal tried to make Jamdani, but what they made were not comparable to that made by the weavers of Dhaka. “It is the exceptional weaving technique…the embellishment of splendid loom-embroidered motifs makes Jamdani so exquisite,” said Ruby Ghuznavi, managing director, Aranya Craft Ltd, who is doing research on traditional fabrics. “It is said that the silted waters of the Shitalakhya river gives the air a unique dampness and a perfect temperature early in the morning, giving a certain quality to the yarn. In the olden days, the artisans worked on the loom only around daybreak,” she added. Jamdani is hand-woven in old-fashioned bamboo looms set up in a shallow trench. One specialty of Jamdani loom is that it does not make any sound while weaving. Artisans use a throw shuttle locally known as maku to weave the intricate fabric. With the choreography of a nifty hand the throw shuttle goes from one end to the other, interweaving the threads, creating and recreating the motifs with precision.In the beginning it was produced only in whites, later with black, grey and straight golden line borders. Colours appeared in the 19th century, Ruby said.“A very remarkable feature of Jamdani is the designs are never sketched or outlined. Jamdani designs are made while the fabric is still on the loom, inserted by hand during the process of weaving, producing the effect of embroidery,” she explained. Another important character of Jamdani sari is the motifs, mostly floral, are of geometric shape, and the sari is embossed with the design often in a diagonal form. Traditional variety of motifs include 'Butidaar' in which a spray of small floral patterns ornate the sari. When the floral patterns diagonally spread all over the fabric it is called 'Tercha'. Ornamentation with a network of floral motifs is called 'Jhalar or Jaal' as it spreads like a net. Then there is Phulwar and the one with large flower called the 'Toradar.' Most prized among all motifs is the 'Panna Bazar' or the 'Thousand Emeralds'. Artisans later used names such as Corolla Buti, Dhaner Sheesh, Bansh Phool, Puna Phool, Bagher Pa, Ichadar and many more. “These motifs are basically the weavers' insight of the nature, the simple things of everyday life,” Ruby said. “Another unique feature of the motif is that there are no human or animal figures in Jamdani. This is probably because it was always worn by Muslim royalties and woven by Muslim weavers,” she added. Neatly cut yarn from the finest quality Karpash is the key element to weave a perfect piece of Jamdani. In the olden days only young women below the age of 18 used to cut the yarn with their soft fingers. The most appropriate time for making the yarn is early morning as the air then carried the highest moisture. The wonder cotton Karpash is long gone. Today the weavers buy yarn from the market and use chemical dyes instead of herbal dyes. And they have also surrogated cotton with silk that completely changed the nature of Jamdani. Today the market is abundant with the gleaming version of half silk Jamdani. After a glorious journey through centuries Jamdani craftsmanship is considered an endangered trait. Experts' doubt how long the glory would last as the product is losing its originality. The magic fabric exists through many modifications.“Jamdani is losing classical patterns due to intervention of modern designers. They are experimenting with the fabric and its motifs these days changing the originality and weavers are just following orders because they have to survive,” said Shahid H Shamim, director, Prabartana, who works on Jamdani and other fabrics. Shamim said one of the main problems with Jamdani is that it cannot be produced cheap as the intricate process of weaving requires a very long time. Price of yarn and colour is always on the rise. The high price of Jamdani discourages many consumers. Besides, after being transformed into half-silk product, it has become very tough to maintain today's Jamdani. Half silk disintegrates easily, washing becomes difficult and at the same time use of silk makes the product even costlier. “When you change the basics then it is no longer a Jamdani. Jamdani had always been cotton based,” Shamim said. The main Jamdani-making belt is now threatened as the river Shitalakhya is encroached and the riverbank is congested with factories and mills. The water, which changed its course over the years for encroachment and many other reasons, is polluted. The area no longer produces the fine Karpash cotton, the wonder behind the magnificent fabric. The survival of Jamdani artisans has become difficult with many inconveniences in their life, which is another reason why Jamdani faces the risk of extinction, Shamim said.Although many non-government organisations, designers and fashion houses are patronising the industry, the artisans still struggle to survive. A good piece of Jamdani sari needs the sweat and labour of around two months but the weavers are often deprived of fare wages and their share of profit as they do not have direct access to market. The marketing system is still controlled by the middlemen, who often form informal cartels. Many artisans are now switching to other occupations for better life. Weavers no longer want their next generation to get involved in the profession that was once so proudly nurtured by their forefathers.According to a survey by Bangladesh Small and Cottage Industries Corporation (BSCIC), now there are only around 5,500 artisans in the Jamdani villages, where once the entire community was associated with Jamdani craftsmanship. “The most gruesome part of this industry is that the loom owners are now using child labour to curtail the cost,” Shamim pointed out. “It is posing a threat to the age-old traditional industry as these children do not belong to original Jamdani artisan family. They come from many surrounding districts,” he added. He alleged that these children have to work as bonded labour for 10 to 12 hours a day. For them it is just another job that helps them survive. “A child from original Jamdani makers' family on the other hand inherits the heritage and has the skill and creativity in their blood,” Shamim noted.

City News(DHAKA) : Untrained traffic staffs more a hindrance than help

While Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP) is struggling to improve the city traffic system, a considerable number of the 2,272 members of DMP traffic wing, ranging from constable to sergeant, lack necessary trainings on traffic rules. Sources in the DMP could not confirm the exact number of the untrained members in the traffic wing. However, the joint commissioner of DMP who handles traffic wing admitted that the number of untrained members is not less than one third of the total force.A senior traffic sergeant at Tejgaon said the untrained members often create problems instead of helping in handling the chaotic traffic in the city.About a junior colleague who has no training, he said, “because of lack of knowledge about rules he often creates trouble putting extra pressure on me while on duty.”Due to ignorance of rules, these untrained traffic staffs often fail to handle traffic and contribute to tailbacks, he said adding that these officials also often fail to lodge cases properly against the traffic rules violators. “Their mistakes add to the burden of the senior sergeants,” the sergeant said. “Such untrained sergeants often park their motorcycle in the middle of the road to stop a vehicle and defame the whole traffic wing by violating traffic rules. A trained traffic member will never block road while discharging his duty,” he added. Sometimes accident occurs as the untrained traffic staffs give wrong signal. They often confuse drives while passing intersections, said another senior sergeant at Mirpur.Sources in DMP pointed out the lack of training facility for the traffic staffs as the key reason behind this problem. According to service rules, every traffic police member must have a Traffic Training School (TTS) certificate. The maiden TTS of the country, located at Mill Barrack in the city, cannot train more than 150 members in a single training session. A TTS certificate requires completion of a 42-day course by the participant.A senior traffic inspector said inadequate manpower in the force also creates problem in traffic control in the city. He said the existing manpower is about half of the requirement. “We need more traffic police members to control the huge traffic in the city,” he said.As per the police organogram, no traffic police member is counted for duty at a signal post but in reality DMP has to deploy several staffs at each post. Mohammad Jashimuddin, joint commissioner of DMP, talked about the difficulty of handling the chaotic traffic of Dhaka City with such untrained force. The number of traffic police is inadequate and one third of them remain untrained, he said.He emphasised traffic training for both police members and the public. DMP has already started distributing compact discs on traffic rules and regulations to transport owners, drivers, rickshawpullers, students, and traffic police members, he added. Training modules have also been prepared to train drivers and traffic police members about traffic rules, Jashimuddin said. DMP will hold day-long traffic training for general public while three-day training session for all traffic police members, he said.

A nation mourns its hero

After a six-year hiatus, the nation is observing National Mourning Day on Friday, the 33rd death anniversary of independence leader Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.The national flag was raised at half-mast atop government, semi-government, non-government and private buildings. Awami League offices hoisted the national flag, the party flag and a black flag in mourning for the assassination of the founding president of Bangladesh and family members on Aug 15, 1975. The day began with Awami League leaders, led by acting AL president Zillur Rahman, laying wreaths and observing a minute's silence before the portrait of Sheikh Mujib enshrined in front of Bangabandhu Bhaban in Dhanmondi. After paying tribute, Zillur said: "The trial of Bangabandhu's murderers will be held in Bangladesh. We renew our vow to reconstruct Bangladesh following the ideals of our martyred leader." AL presidium member Tofail Ahmed added: "We vouchsafe on this day of mourning to realise Bangabandhu's vision of a just and fair society." Fellow presidium member Suranjit Sengupta called upon the government to officially recognise Sheikh Mujib as 'Father of the Nation' as soon as possible. President Iajuddin Ahmed paid homage at the Bangabandhu mausoleum in Tungipara Friday morning, laying a wreath at the grave shortly after 10am. The three chiefs of the armed forces accompanied him. Three smart contingents of army, navy and air force ceremonially saluted the grave of the national leader, marking the recently restored National Mourning Day. The president joined others in a prayer for the salvation of the departed soul and wrote in the condolence book of the mausoleum. AL leaders also paid respects at the graves of Sheikh Mujib's assassinated family members at Banani graveyard Friday morning. Prayers were held before Zillur inaugurated food distribution among the poor there. Dhaka Metropolitan Awami League distributed food among the poor at different places around the city Friday. Special prayers were offered at all mosques after jumma prayers. Churches, temples and other religious organisations were also doing the same in memory of the national hero. Strict security measures were deployed at all points of assembly and congregation throughout the morning.

Democratic practices

We attained independence 37 years ago for establishing a democratic and exploitation free society. Although we started our journey by introducing parliamentary type of democracy but the journey was halted time and again. After 1990 we got another chance which we failed to sustain. As an inevitable result, we faced 1/11. Now we have got yet another chance to establish a democratic society. But democracy cannot be imposed; it must come from society itself. The political parties must practise democracy within the parties and also adhere to the norms and practices of democracy. The institutions like the judiciary, ACC and PSC must be strengthened. Otherwise, the talk of democracy will mean nothing.

Murder most foul . . .

WE observe today, as we have for the last so many years, the anniversary of the assassination of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and his family members with due solemnity. It remains our belief, as well as that of everyone else who believes in decency and a sense of morality, that the murder of the nation's founding father was a terrible blow to our self-esteem as a nation and to the fabric of our national politics. The question of politics apart, the fact is that throughout his life Bangabandhu symbolised for us the struggle that needed to go, and indeed did go, into the emergence of a people ready and willing to make supreme sacrifices in defence of collective national dignity. When he was cut down on August 15, 1975, it was not merely the fall of an individual but the collapse, however temporarily, of a symbol as well.Today, therefore, it is a strong sense of mourning, of national loss engendered by the tragic incidents of August 1975 that bring the people of Bangladesh together in paying tribute to the leader on whose watch they once went into the movement for autonomy, which again was followed by a spirited, armed struggle for freedom. Today, all these years after the assassination of unquestionably the greatest political figure in our history, we are at liberty to inform ourselves and our children that it was the qualities of leadership in Bangabandhu that earned for him the pre-eminence he has always enjoyed in Bangladesh's history. His courage in the face of adversity, his adherence to principles in defence of the rights of his people and his belief in the strength of the popular will have consistently served for us as ideals in our constant striving for a pluralistic order. Bangabandhu provided leadership to us at a time when we needed it most -- in the 1960s and 1970s. It was a defining moment for us when we went to war to free ourselves from colonial rule under his leadership.More than three decades after his tragic end, we note with a sense of satisfaction the recent judgement of the High Court regarding the observance of National Mourning Day and the caretaker government's subsequent move to implement the decision. It is our belief that Bangabandhu, as we have said before, should remain above partisan politics by virtue of the unifying role he played in our transition from a colonised province to a free country. Let his position and let the observance of National Mourning Day from now on be immutable realities of national life.We pray for the souls of Bangabandhu and his family.

August 15, 1975 -- and the long darkness after

BANGABANDHU Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, with most members of his family, was gunned down in the pre-dawn hours of August 15, 1975. When daylight broke, it was an eerie scene at 32 Dhanmondi, the spot that had been witness to so much of history in the lives of the people of Bangladesh. Bangabandhu's body, as also those of everyone else, lay where they had fallen the whole day and the night that followed. Soldiers swarmed everywhere. Cameramen, all serving the government at different points, were brought in to record what remains the most gruesome episode in the history of Bangladesh. It was not until the next day that most of the dead were buried in Banani. Bangabandhu's killers made sure, though, that the Father of the Nation did not find a resting place in the nation's capital, for there was the danger that his grave would in time become a hallowed spot. They helicoptered his body all the way to his village Tungipara and buried him there hastily and unceremoniously. State-run radio and television then served up an untruth: the dead president, the nation was informed, had been interred with full state honours. It was anything but.Just what dire possibilities the nation was up against came through within moments of the carnage at 32 Dhanmondi. Announcements on the electronic media began with Islamic invocations and ended in similar fashion. What was most pronounced, though, was the alacrity with which Joi Bangla, so long the national slogan, was replaced with the Pakistan-like Bangladesh Zindabad. It was a Friday when Bangabandhu was murdered. Khondokar Moshtaque, his commerce minister now in the position of president, offered Juma prayers at Baitul Mokarram, a clear indication of the threat secular politics suddenly faced as a result of the bloody coup. In the weeks and months that followed the coup, except for the very brief interregnum of General Khaled Musharraf's coup d'etat in early November, the principles underlying the 1971 War of Liberation went on a nosedive. In the five years of General Ziaur Rahman, Bangladesh's first military ruler, the lurch to the right became too well pronounced to be missed. It was the elderly journalist and Zia loyalist Khondokar Abdul Hamid who spoke for the regime in February 1976. The people of this country, he told a stunned gathering of Bengali intellectuals, would take inspiration from "Bangladeshi nationalism," a concoction that patently militated against the historically acknowledged Bengali nationalism that had gone into the struggle for autonomy in the 1960s and national independence in 1971.Bangabandhu's tragic end remains symptomatic of the ramifications coming from it. In the twenty-one years that elapsed after his death and till the time his party, the Awami League, returned to power under the leadership of his daughter in 1996, it was the entire political nature of the country that went through darkness. Politics mutated into intrigue as the Zia regime permitted the emergence in Bangladesh's politics of the rightwing forces that had associated themselves with the Pakistan occupation army in 1971. Leading figures of the Jamaat-e-Islami, the Muslim League and other parties, reviled for their collaborationist roles in 1971, came together to prop up the Zia regime, a united effort that was to throw up in time the Bangladesh Nationalist Party. And with that came something more sinister: a conscious, concerted move to pit Ziaur Rahman, by virtue of his announcement of independence on March 27, 1971, against Sheikh Mujibur Rahman in a brazen effort towards rewriting history. It was conveniently not given about that Zia's broadcast had repeatedly referred to Bangabandhu as the "great national leader." For understandable reasons, the Zia speech was never broadcast in all the years he held power.And power was applied ruthlessly in the Zia years. The period remains noted for the systematic manner in which leading military figures of the War of Liberation were eliminated one after the other. The process, of course, had begun barely three months into the assassination of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. On November 3, four leading members of the Mujibnagar provisional government -- Syed Nazrul Islam, Tajuddin Ahmed, A.H.M. Quamruzzaman and M. Mansoor Ali -- were murdered in Dhaka central jail, whence they had been lodged after August 15, by the very soldiers who had put an end to Bangabandhu's life. On November 7, it was the turn of General Khaled Musharraf, a valiant, intellectually oriented soldier reputed for planning military strategy in 1971, to be murdered by troops loyal to Zia. And with him died Colonel Huda and Major Haider, both freedom fighters. In the Zia era, as many as eighteen abortive coups took place, with the plotters subsequently being arrested and swiftly disposed of. The attempted coup by a group of air force men in October 1977 led to summary trials and swift executions. General Zia died in the nineteenth coup, again a botched one because its leading figure, General M.A. Manzoor, a freedom fighter, proved unable to sustain it. Manzoor was apprehended within days of the Zia killing and was murdered in cold blood by Zia loyalists. In the period following Zia's death in May 1981, a number of military officers, many of them freedom fighters, were tried in camera and sentenced to death. They were all hanged, twelve in all. Brigadier Mohsinuddin headed the list of the condemned.Political negativism, as distinct from the liberal ethos that had defined the Mujib years, gained intensity and increasing currency in the Ershad years. For all his personal esteem for Mujib, General Ershad, having taken power in a coup in March 1982, went systematically into the job of a communalisation of the secular Bengali state. He decreed Islam as the state language and cheerfully went into setting up religious motifs on walls all over town. It was in his time that Bangabandhu's murderers were permitted to form a so-called political party known as the Freedom Party. Colonel Farook Rahman, one of the leading elements in the August 1975 assassination of Bangabandhu, contested the presidential election of 1988 and even went on television and radio to address the nation. He and his kind were of course being protected by the notorious Indemnity Ordinance which had in 1979 been incorporated into the nation's constitution by the Zia regime. And, to be sure, the Ershad regime was only furthering the cause of the Zia system. As one of his earliest moves in power, Zia had tampered with the constitution by doing away with secularism and socialism and bringing in a corrupted form of nationalism. By the time the general elections of June 1996 came round, Bangladesh no more resembled the liberal, nationalistic experiment it had been in 1971 and the three and a half years in which Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman governed. Bangladesh in the post-Mujib period moved away from its close links with the Soviet Union and India to more cordial ties with the United States. With China and Saudi Arabia according diplomatic recognition to Bangladesh within days of the Mujib murder, the new rulers in Dhaka consciously nurtured ties with the two countries. Pakistan set up its diplomatic mission in Dhaka; Libya offered a home to Bangabandhu's murderers. At home, Hamidul Haq Chowdhury and Golam Azam, having been Pakistan loyalists in 1971 and having lived in Pakistan during the Mujib years, came back home to reclaim their politics and their property. Khan Abdus Sabur, who on the eve of liberation had described the soon-to-be-born Bangladesh as the illegitimate child of India, took his seat in Bangladesh's Jatiyo Sangsad. Suffice it to say that the death of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman led to Bangladesh's retreat from the civilised world. The lights went out of our lives. Darkness came over a once vibrant, verdant land.