09-07-2018

EDITORIAL
MOnDAY,
JuLY 9, 2018
4
Acting Editor & Publisher : Jobaer Alam
Telephone: +8802-9104683-84, Fax: 9127103
e-mail: editor@thebangladeshtoday.com
Monday, July 9, 2018
Importance of a stronger
dairy sector
According to an estimate, the import of
milk powder in Bangladesh has
increased some 30 per cent in the last
four years. Regularly, a large sum of
precious foreign resources get drained away
on such import. This amount could be
easily saved if policy planners did not take
casually the need to boost the local dairy
sector.
It appears that over the years Bangladesh
has gradually turned into a lucrative market
for overseas milk powder suppliers. They
have established a big and impressive
network to market their milk in powder
form in this country when there is every
reason to think that consumers are in no
way amply nourished by milk powder as
they would be if they could drink locally
produced liquid and wholesome milk.
But Bangladesh with its predominant
number of rural people , its agrarian
characteristics, plus the traditional pastoral
experience of rearing cows, should
normally have comparative advantages in
producing ample milk and milk products.
Planned efforts are necessary to develop the
dairy sector.
If the dairy industry here develops fast and
properly, then several useful ends can be
served. First of all, it would mean import
substitution and substantial saving of
resources. The saved amount would help
the balance of payments. The nutrition
picture of the country could change
positively with significantly increased
consumption of fresher milk in liquid form
An improved and enlarged local dairy
industry will also create employment
opportunities in various ways where it
matters the greatest--- at grassroots level.
From greater availability of cows, different
sorts of industries will be facilitated. For
example, more cow hides will be available
for the tanneries and leather industries. The
import of cows from India for sacrificial
purposes will drastically decline or cease
which also would help the country's balance
of payments. The availability of locally
produced meat would rise helping greater
protein consumption by the population. No
part of the cow is wasted. Even its horns and
bones are used by cottage industries to make
button, combs and related products. There
can be also other spin-offs such as cow dung
to be used as fuel or as raw material to
increase production of bio-gas to help
lighting, heating and cooking in the rural
areas.
But for all of these activities to be boosted,
the first step needs to be encouraging
specially the rural people to rear cows. It
appears that institutional credits
specifically for the purpose are not enough.
Government can adopt a policy in this
regard and have it implemented very
extensively and efficiently through the
Krishi Bank and other mediums to provide
credits to persons willing to rear cows in the
rural areas on easy terms. This would surely
be a big stimulus for cow rearing as rural
people will be encouraged to go for a good
source of earning on the side.
Government should also help out in the
development and sustaining of a growing
dairy industry through research activities
and breeding of healthier species of cows. It
is obvious that rural small producers of
dairy products on their own will never have
the resources to invest in such projects. But
the government should have the resources
to invest in such projects. Healthier species
of cows can be bred in these projects and
sold to privately operated diaries.
Government should aim to run such projects
with the aim of breaking even in the areas of
cost or making only a small profit.
Side by side, the government conducted
veterinary services throughout the country
will have to be expanded and much
revamped as supportive of the growing
dairy enterprises. Inadequate veterinary
services are one of the major obstacles for
livestock development.
How books help children find their place in the world
When she isn't building fairy
villages out of moss and sticks
and flowers, when she isn't
chalking rainbows and sloths onto
sidewalks, when she isn't dressing up the
dog in ballerina tutus and cowboy
bandannas, my daughter is reading.
She reads at home and at school and on
the bus in between. "Just one more page,"
is the standard refrain before bed. "Or
four." If someone asks, "Where's
Madeline?" the answer is likely sprawled
out on the couch with a book, dreaming
with her eyes open.
We have this in common. More often
than not, I'm lost to the ether. Reading
novels or comics or essays. Or writing
them. And writing consists of more than
simply typing. Sometimes, while eating
dinner or raking leaves, I will go still and
stare into the middle distance with a slack
expression, muscling through a plot
point. Or leave a pot boiling on the stove
to scratch down a line of dialogue. A pen
and yellow legal tablet are never far from
my hand.
I'm always taking notes. A camera
technique in a film. An article in a local
paper. A conversation at the bar. A line in
a song, a passage in a memoir. A hike in a
marsh, a falcon in the sky. All of it feeds
into me, and I greedily try to break it
down into nourishment, something I can
use on the page. Every day, through
whatever I expose myself to, I'm learning
to be a better writer.
Something similar is happening to
Madeline now. She's being fed. The books
she's reading are feeding her. Sustaining
her. Through them she's learning how to
live. Parents always fuss over what their
children eat, worrying about the vitamins
or toxins that will impact their bodies. I
worry about what Madeline reads. Not
prohibitively. Just the opposite. I want
her to gorge.
Because books don't merely entertain.
They incite action, create empathy, spark
critical conversation and make you a
better citizen and a more fully-realised
human being. The more books she
gobbles up, the more lives and worlds she
has packed impossibly into her nineyear-old
brain. I imagine the inside of
Madeline's mind as a house. It's a sunny,
comfy sort of place. Lots of pillows and
blankets to curl up with. A desk with
drawers packed with fresh white paper
and coloured pencils sharpened to a
point. In the fridge you can always find a
raspberry soda and a Little Princess sushi
roll. But in this house, new doors appear
every day. One leads to a ballroom lit by
floating candles. Another opens into a
dust-clotted attic full of dolls with cracked
porcelain faces. Hallways lengthen.
Windows appear that offer views of a
sandstorm in Egypt, a giant squid
BeNJAMIN PeRCy
AMULyA GANGULI
propelling itself through the murky ocean
depths, a winter forest with a lamppost
shining in it. Each book she pulls off the
shelf opens up another secret passage.
What kind of mansion will her mind
become? This is where she'll live as a
woman, and I want the foundation to be
strong.
Across barriers
Each night, my wife and I read to her on
a rotating schedule. Tonight I will crack
open A Wrinkle in Time, and tomorrow
my wife will read The Witches. We want
her diet to be as diverse, as omnivorous as
possible. We want her to read classics,
and we want her to read whatever is
rocketing to the top of the best-seller lists.
We want her to read poetry and books,
and we want her to read Newbery
winners. We want her to read across
religious and gender and cultural
barriers. We want her to be swept away,
but we want her to learn. So that she's
resilient enough to survive and openminded
enough to explore whatever life
throws at her. So that she's educated
enough, strong enough to carve out her
own place in the world.
My wife is a list-maker and she
constantly readjusts our library and
bookstore orders, queuing up Anne of
Green Gables, Bridge to Terabithia, The
Witches, Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry,
Anya's Ghost, Hidden Figures. But
Madeline also has her own ideas. When
she was 6, she picked the novel Inkheart
off the shelf at the bookstore. It's as big as
a brick, 560 pages. She had never read, on
her own, anything that was remotely as
long or as challenging. Although it took
some time and a few breaks, she finished
the damn thing. And to this day, it
remains her favourite book.
Each weekday, around 4pm, the front
door creaks open and booms shut. Two
backpacks thump to the floor. It isn't long
after this - after the dog skitters across the
hardwood to greet the children, after they
argue over who gets to use the bathroom
first - that Madeline rushes into my office
and tugs my hands away from the laptop
and says, "Time to be done."
But today she doesn't come. I feel a little
neglected. I cock my head and listen and
hear only my 12-year-old son rattling a
bowl full of cereal. "Where's your sister?"
I ask him, when I come upstairs, and he
shrugs his shoulders.
I find her at the family computer.
"Hey," I say. "Remember that you've got
to finish your chores before media."
"I'm not doing media," she says. "I'm
writing a novel." I'll admit that my black,
poisonous, gravy-clotted heart beat a little
faster then. "What? That's amazing. Can I
read it?"
Source : Washington Post
Is Nitish destined to be perpetual No.2?
The aphorism "know thyself" was
explained by Greek philosopher
Socrates as a phrase that
referred to an "unexamined life". The
rumours about Nitish Kumar's plans
provoke the query whether the Chief
Minister of the Indian state of Bihar
has carefully examined his life in
politics.
Nitish's political journeys have
moved him away from his friend
Laloo Prasad Yadav during the days of
Jayaprakash Narayan's anti-Congress
agitation to Atal Bihari Vajpayee's
government at the Centre and an
alliance with the Bharatiya Janata
Party (BJP) in Bihar, to Laloo again as
a part of an anti-BJP
Mahagathbandhan (grand alliance) in
Bihar and then back to the BJP.
There is speculation that Nitish may
return to the Mahagathbandhan
again. The latest conjecture, which
gave rise to the possibility of an
electoral contest between Prime
Minister Narendra Modi and Nitish in
Varanasi in 2019, is his reported
unhappiness over the treatment by
the Modi dispensation.
A sign of Nitish's displeasure was
his refusal to engage on the
International Yoga Day, which the
BJP observes with fanfare. He has
also been sending out signals that he
will dictate the seat-sharing with the
BJP in his state in 2019. It's a clear
Doing the same thing over and over
again and expecting a different
result may not meet the clinical
definition of insanity, but it's still a pretty
good standard. It also happens to define
both, former United States president
Barack Obama's and current President
Donald Trump's approaches to working
with Russia on the Syrian civil war.
Washington and Moscow have
repeatedly issued joint statements
outlining principles for addressing the
conflict and reducing its horrific
humanitarian consequences. Yet, over
and over again, the Russians have
betrayed their commitments.
Consider the record. In November
2015, the then US secretary of state, John
Kerry, and Russian Foreign Minister
Sergei Lavrov reached an agreement on
the Vienna principles. They called for a
cessation of hostilities; lifting the sieges
on all cities; the unimpeded provision of
food, medicine and other humanitarian
materials; the drafting of a constitution in
six months; and a political transition
process of 18 months. In December 2015,
these principles were enshrined in United
Nations Security Council Resolution
2254. Syrian President Bashar Al Assad's
regime blatantly violated all of the terms:
It lifted no sieges and did not allow
humanitarian relief to pass unimpeded.
The Russians, too, did nothing.
Although Al Assad and the Russians did
finally implement a ceasefire two months
later, it collapsed by April 2016 as the Al
Assad regime resumed its onslaught
against civilian targets, with a special
emphasis on hospitals. Much as in his use
of chemical weapons, Al Assad hit
I imagine the inside of Madeline's mind as a house.
It's a sunny, comfy sort of place. Lots of pillows and
blankets to curl up with. A desk with drawers packed
with fresh white paper and coloured pencils
sharpened to a point. In the fridge you can always find
a raspberry soda and a Little Princess sushi roll. But
in this house, new doors appear every day. One leads
to a ballroom lit by floating candles.
sign that he is spoiling for a fight.
Nitish's recent phone call to Laloo to
enquire after his health has added
grist to the rumour mills, although
Tejashvi (Laloo's son) has rejected
Nitish chacha's (uncle) return to the
alliance with the Rashtriya Janata Dal
(RJD) and the Congress. Reports say
that the BJP's current by-election
defeats have encouraged Nitish to
assert himself to secure a better
bargain.
Against the backdrop of the
Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh's
reported advice to the BJP to be more
accommodative towards its allies (it
prompted BJP president Amit Shah to
have a closed-door meeting with Shiv
Sena's Uddhav Thackeray while
Maharashtra Chief Minister
How the US conceded Syria to Russia
hospitals to show that he would respect
no limits. Kerry was reduced to
condemning Al Assad's attacks while
plaintively appealing to Moscow to act on
the responsibility enshrined in the
December 2015 resolution. "We all
signed the same agreement and we all
supported the same UN Security Council
Resolution 2254, which calls for a
nationwide cessation of hostilities," he
said, adding that "it calls for a nationwide,
full delivery of humanitarian assistance
within all of Syria". Clear words, but no
consequences. Not surprisingly, Kerry's
calls were in vain. By the autumn of 2016
he tried again, reaching an agreement on
a joint operations centre with the
Russians in the hope of reducing the
violence and making a political process
possible. Once again he was frustrated,
declaring that he had "profound doubt
about whether Russia and the Al Assad
regime can or will live up to the
obligations that they agreed to in
Geneva". The Russian response was to
launch a scorched-earth attack on
DeNNIS ROSS
Devendra Fadnavis waited outside),
Nitish probably decided that the time
has come to flex his muscles. He also
may not be averse to playing both
sides since sections in the Congress
are reported to be willing to let him
return to the "secular" fold.
Whatever be the outcome, it is
undeniable that Nitish has harmed
Against the backdrop of the Rashtriya
Swayamsevak Sangh's reported advice to the
BJP to be more accommodative towards its
allies (it prompted BJP president Amit Shah
to have a closed-door meeting with Shiv
Sena's Uddhav Thackeray while Maharashtra
Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis waited
outside), Nitish probably decided that the
time has come to flex his muscles.
his reputation by being the subject of
such rumours. No other wellrespected
politician in the recent past
has been associated with so many
manoeuvres that could be described
as floor-crossing. A senior leader like
Nitish cannot seem to choose the
right ally and the treatment at the
hands of new friends seems to fall
short of his expectations. It happened
in the days of the Mahagathbandhan
Aleppo, which reduced the eastern half of
the city - then Syria's largest - to rubble.
That ended Kerry's efforts.
Trump has made his own attempts to
get somewhere with the Russians. On the
margins of the Group of 20 summit in
Germany in July 2017, he and Putin
finalised a ceasefire agreement for
southwestern Syria. Trump met again
with Putin in November at the Asia-
Pacific Economic Cooperation summit
in Vietnam, where they issued another
joint statement on Syria. It emphasised
The Russians, too, did nothing. Although Al
Assad and the Russians did finally implement a
ceasefire two months later, it collapsed by April
2016 as the Al Assad regime resumed its
onslaught against civilian targets, with a special
emphasis on hospitals. Much as in his use of
chemical weapons, Al Assad hit hospitals to show
that he would respect no limits.
the "importance of de-escalation areas as
an interim step to reduce violence in
Syria, enforce ceasefire agreements,
facilitate unhindered humanitarian
access, and set the conditions for the
ultimate political solution to the conflict"
on the basis of UN Security Council
Resolution 2254.
So how did the Russians act after that?
Along with the Al Assad regime and the
Iranians, they waged military campaigns
that decimated and depopulated three of
the four de-escalation areas. The fourth,
after trouncing the BJP in 2015 and
recurred two years later after he
joined the BJP. On both occasions, he
felt that being the chief minister was
not enough and he was not treated
with respect.
Nitish is disadvantaged by the lack
of a strong support base. Being a
Kurmi, a backward caste that
constitutes four per cent of Bihar's
population, he was unable to match
the social and political clout of the
Yadavs, who make up 14.4 per cent -
the largest caste in the state - when he
was in the Mahagathbandhan. Now,
as a BJP ally, Nitish appears unable to
cope with the overbearing nature of
the Modi-Amit Shah duo. He must
have realised that fate marks him out
to be a No 2 person wherever he is,
notwithstanding his reputation as
"Sushashan Babu" or a person known
for delivering good governance.
Nitish's present status is shaky: He
is ill at ease in the BJP's company, and
the "secular" camp is not waiting with
open arms. The former poster boy of
the national opposition and a
potential prime minister is at a loose
end. Nitish's failure to know his
strengths and weaknesses while
taking a hard look at his options in a
sharply polarised atmosphere has led
him down a blind alley.
Source : IANS
the one Trump and Putin had agreed to
in southwestern Syria, remained quiet -
effectively freeing the Al Assad regime,
with its Russian backers, to attack
elsewhere. Lately, Al Assad and the
Russians have turned their attention to
southwestern Syria, bombing
relentlessly. On June 21, the US State
Department issued a blunt statement
warning the Al Assad regime and the
Russian government about "serious
repercussions of these violations". The
Russians intensified their bombing,
creating a new refugee flow with more
than 270,000 people fleeing to the
Jordanian and Israeli borders. Did
Moscow face any "serious
repercussions"? No - only Trump's
pursuit of a summit with Putin.
Neither Obama nor Trump has been
prepared to impose any consequences
on the Russians. Both wanted to get out
of Syria, not to be embroiled in it. And
both permitted Putin to become the
arbiter of events. So what should Trump
do when he and Putin meet in Helsinki
on July 16?
He should make a virtue of necessity
and convey the following points: That the
US will maintain its small presence in
Syria until Daesh is gone; that unless
Iran's continuing entrenchment in Syria
is contained, it will trigger a wider war
between Israel and the Iranians; and that
the US will back the Israelis completely,
making it in Putin's interest to stop the
expansion of the Iranians and their
proxies in Syria and prevent a major
regional escalation.
Source : Gulf News