E-Bangladesh

Bangladesh railway still relies upon out-of-date mechanism for traffic when train from Bangladesh to India is about to start on the 14th April. The switch of the rail gate is still controlled manually and the telephone to contact nearby railway station does not work properly.

Photo: Tanvir Ahmed/Drik News

Result India won by 5 runs.

Full Scorecard from CricInfo.

Toss India, who chose to bat first.
Series India won the 2007/08 ICC World Twenty20.

Player of the match IK Pathan (India)
Player of the series Shahid Afridi (Pakistan)

A full review will be posted later on.

[ Game Preview by Shahnawaz Alam ]

It is perhaps not the most famous event in Cricket, the Twenty20 World Cup. Old timers and purists alike have expressed their concern on Twenty20 as more of a child

[Sushanta Das Gupta, UK]

The European Parliament has been keeping track on our current events, including the student riots, detainment of teachers, violation of Human Rights on many instances and the attack on the Press and Electronic Media.

On 6th September, the EU Parliament website released a resolution on Bangladesh. The resolution states that the EU is highly concerned about the arrest of the Ex. Prime Ministers, Freedom of Press and the re-establishment of Democracy. It calls for lifting the state of emergency, banning of political activities so that parties can prepare for the coming election.

Below are the highlights from the European Parliament resolution of 6 September 2007 on Bangladesh.

Read the rest of this entry »

[Zafa Noor, USA.]

Photo: Selling Religion/Bri Vos.

[Saleem Samad, Canada.]

This article exposes the mindset of the majoritarian Bangalee Muslim nationalist population in Bangladesh. To consolidate the power base, the political parties, politicians and military dictators, have always used religion as a tool.

It is evident from the series of amendment of the Constitution from a secular to Islamic trend portrays the hegemony of the majoritarian, the Islamic nationalist chauvinist of course, over the marginalized communities.

It is indeed a losing battle of the proactive secularists entailed with the civil society and the human rights organizations. Possibly due to their inability to forge a common platform, as some political scientist would explain. Let it be informed that the civil society is divided in thin lines and sometimes partisan, thus failed to make any dent in the fragmented society.

The only hope is the strong civil society among the rural population, specially the peasant society, particularly — women, who are apparently modest in practicing religion and discreetly turned down Sharia laws championed by rural elites.

After the end of military hegemony in state politics in 1991 (which of course is another debate, whether military has at all remained out of polity), the consecutive elections to parliament, municipalities/City Corporations and Union Parishad have anchored confidence in the electoral system of the voter