Manirul Islam
First 30 Days Plan for our next Prime Minister
By Manirul Islam at 4 January, 2009, 6:46 pm
To form a cabinet will be public’s first litmus test for Sheikh Hasina. To the public, it will be the very morning that will show them the days of next five years. The cabinet has to be a discreet blend of old and young, experience and commitment, patriotism and skill. Politicians, bureaucrats, subject experts and technocrats with clear numeric superiority of elected representatives will create the dynamics of this team for change.
Elected party politicians and patriotic alliance partners should be the first choice to fill vital portfolios like Home, Foreign, Finance, Defense, Industry, Information, Education, Health, Energy, Agriculture, Food etc. Partners of strategic alliance having questionable and vacillating political past should be kept out of the core and may be appointed on less vital portfolios. Ministries like Energy, Environment, Minerals, and Human Rights may go to technocrats and subject experts with proven loyalty to party.
Read More >>Politics in Bangladesh: Where absurdity is reality
By Manirul Islam at 29 September, 2008, 11:34 am
This article has been published in Feed Back column of the daily New Age on September 28, 2008, conveniently tailoring the theme, totally disfiguring writer’s view, in conformity with the editorial message of the same issue. I do believe that in the present partisan terrain of our politics, proposition of meeting of our two main leaders is an absurdity and bears no substance. I consider, printing an article in the paper is the prerogative of the editor, but distorting view without writer’s consent is an aggression to free opinion. Here is the uncensored (blue color portions were expunged in the New Age) article:
Politics in Bangladesh is as indefinable and shapeless as ever. The general citizens always expect stunning events in politics. Stakeholders of politics prefer to maneuver like stunt man through risky climaxes and capricious events. Intellectuals and civil society, movers and shakers of one-eleven, after staging dramas of high hopes and tall talks now are on the defensive retreat. Lethal results of municipal election put these elements in cognitive dissonance, now shifting their blame from politicians to the public. The powerhouse holding the steering of our politics has been as enigmatic as ever, subcutaneously lurking in politics, dangerously silent. With this backdrop and before the curtain of currently played drama finally drops, on the stage appears Barrister Rafique-ul Haq, the voluntary legal counsel of the two most celebrated defendants of corruption charges – Sheikh Hasina and Begum Khaleda. His rhapsody, not too lyrical but in cold-bold-crude words, ‘sit together and discuss national issues or face dire consequences’, has been percolating through every layer of the nation. The crux corralled support of intellectuals, civil society, merchants, journalists and professionals, even of Khaleda Zia, swinging the nation with fresh surge of euphoria amid few feeble voices of dissents. Talk show idols are busy canvassing it as the ultimate magic balm to straighten the dog tail. Dr. Wahiduddin Mahmood has sent a passionate plea to two leaders to transcend above parochial partisan issues and unite. So did M. Hafizuddin and other titans. The guarded response of Sheikh Hasina put her on the foreground of the dissidents. Borhan Kabir and Barrister Shafique are among other few skeptics.
Read More >>
