26-08-2021

THURSdAY, AUGUST 26, 2021
4
Acting Editor & Publisher : Jobaer Alam
e-mail: editor@thebangladeshtoday.com
Thursday, August 26, 2021
Developing the
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.
Governments till the mid-nineties had policies
going to systematically encourage local dairies.
The interest started flagging after this period that
has gradually turned Bangladesh into a paradise
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.
Friends of Iran are now in power in Kabul
The Taliban have seized power in
Afghanistan, causing many
countries - including the UK, Italy,
Spain, Denmark, Sweden, Norway,
Denmark and Finland - to evacuate their
citizens and shut their embassies in Kabul.
Iran, however, has kept its embassy open.
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman
Saeed Khatibzadeh, quoted by official
news agency IRNA, stated: "The embassy
of the Islamic Republic of Iran in Kabul is
fully open and active. Iran's consulate
general in Herat is also open and active."
It is critical to closely examine the
Iranian regime's ties with the Taliban, as
their relationship will have important
implications for the region.
While some scholars, politicians and
policy analysts argue that the Taliban and
the Iranian government are natural foes
because one is Shiite and the other Sunni,
such an observation is extremely
simplistic and a misconception. The
Iranian regime will ally itself with any
group, regardless of its religious
orientation, as long as it shares interests
with Tehran's ideological and
revolutionary principles. Some examples
include Iran's strong alliances with
Venezuela, North Korea, Hamas and Al-
Qaeda. One of the key shared interests
between the Taliban and the Islamic
Republic is their robust opposition to the
US. This is why the Iranian leaders
cheered America's withdrawal from
Afghanistan. They see this development
PUBLIC schooling and government
regulation of the education sector
more broadly are both
developmental and political phenomena.
Developmental because they aim to equip
future citizens with knowledge and skills
that may allow them to contribute
towards their personal and societal
growth. A well-educated citizenry can
therefore achieve its own material and
intellectual aspirations and help raise the
material and intellectual well-being of
society as a whole. Seen in this light, it
should be in the interest of every
conscientious government to expand
access to education and improve the
quality of education available. There are
debates on how best to do this in
contemporary Pakistan - some argue that
supporting education entrepreneurship
through the low cost fee-paying private
sector can fill the gaps that the
government does not have resources for.
Others argue that providing education is
now a constitutional right so any fiscal
and competence constraints should be
overcome to expand public schooling.
Some will argue for a hybrid model where
different types of systems may work in
tandem to achieve the basic goal of access
as a blow to Washington and a
manifestation of its foreign policy failure
in the region.
Before the Taliban's takeover, Ali
Shamkhani, the secretary of Iran's
Supreme National Security Council,
tweeted in January: "In today's meeting
with the Taliban political delegation, I
found that the leaders of this group are
determined to fight the United States."
This infuriated the Afghan government
and surprised many because President
Ashraf Ghani was still in power. Yasin Zia,
chief of the general staff of the
Afghanistan National Army, responded by
tweeting: "Unfortunately, your
understanding (Shamkhani) of the
ongoing war in Afghanistan is inaccurate.
The Taliban is not fighting against the US,
but against the people of Afghanistan. We
will act decisively against any group which
is the enemy of the people of
Afghanistan."
It is also worth noting that Iran has long
provided shelter to Taliban leaders, who
dR. MAJId RAFIZAdeH
UMAIR JAved
have been traveling there since 1996.
Foreign Policy magazine reported in 2016
that Taliban chief Mullah Akhtar
Mansour "was killed in Pakistan by an
American drone… after leaving Iran,
where his family lives. US officials say that
Mullah Mansour regularly and freely
traveled into and out of Iran."
In addition, the Iranian regime has long
been providing the Taliban with cash and
weapons. Rahmatullah Nabil, the former
head of Afghanistan's National
Directorate of Security, in 2017 accused
Iran of providing the Taliban with arms
and financial aid. And two unnamed
Western officials told Foreign Policy
magazine in 2016 that the Iranian
government was "providing Taliban
forces along its border with money and
small amounts of relatively low-grade
weaponry like machine guns,
ammunition, and rocket-propelled
grenades."
While the Iranian regime used to keep
its ties with the Taliban a secret, it has now
Education as politics
and quality.
While the future of any country's
children is a high-stakes matter and
should be treated as such, such
developmental questions around
education are fairly standard. There are
differences in approach and methods but
at least some semblance of agreement on
what the end goal should be.
This consensus becomes a little more
complicated once public schooling and
government regulation of the school
education sector is analysed as a political
phenomenon. And there are several
reasons why it should be done so.
Increasingly it seems, more
opportunities in higher education and the
workforce are reserved for those on the
'right' side of the class divide.
RYM TINA GHAZAL
Firstly, and most relevantly in
Pakistan's current context, schooling
forms a direct relationship with
citizenship through the curriculum. What
kind of citizens are emerging from the
schooling system? What is being taught
and to whom? What kind of messaging is
being introduced at impressionable ages?
What will the legacy of this messaging be
in the long run? These are questions that
are not and should not be tangential to
discussions about education in any
country. A review of the history of primary
school expansion in the 19th and early
20th century across the West reveals that
in many places, political considerations
were a central part of why school access
was deemed an important goal. As states
increased political participation through
changed its policy and is publicly
supporting the group. For instance,
Kayhan, a newspaper that is funded by the
Office of Supreme Leader of Iran and is
considered a mouthpiece of Ali Khamenei,
has been attempting to paint a positive
picture of the Taliban. It wrote: "The
Taliban today is different from the Taliban
that used to behead people."
The Iranian regime has long been
providing the Taliban with cash and
weapons. However, former Iranian
diplomat Ali Khorram warned the regime:
"Thinking that the Taliban will come
under Tehran's command is tantamount
to growing a snake up your sleeve. As far
as Iran's national interests are concerned,
the liberal government of Ashraf Ghani is
a hundred times better than a radical
(Daesh)-Taliban government. You were
deceived by Russia and Israel in Syria.
Take care not to fall in a bigger trap laid
out in Afghanistan for you by the West,
Israel, Turkey and other regional players."
Before the US confirmed its withdrawal
from Afghanistan, a Taliban delegation
met publicly with senior Iranian officials,
including former Foreign Minister Javad
Zarif. During their January meeting, they
reportedly talked about "relations
between both countries, the situation of
the Afghan migrants in Iran, and the
current political and security situation of
Afghanistan and the region."
Source: Arab news
Taliban's drug trade may hint at way to protect Afghan culture
In intolerance: be like the ocean." Many
may not know that those words - a call
for the acceptance of diversity - by the
13th-century poet and Muslim scholar
Rumi may actually be those of one of
Afghanistan's legendary figures.
Rumi has been claimed by Turkey, Iran
and even parts of the Arab world, but he is
believed to have been born in 1207 in
Balkh, in the north of what is present-day
Afghanistan. It will be interesting to see
what the Taliban make of Rumi and other
totemic representatives of the cultures that
once blossomed in the land now called
Afghanistan. And if their consideration is
less than positive, what can be done to
protect the country's historical patrimony?
For now, the signs don't augur well. Soon
after swooping down on Kabul, the Taliban
announced they were a changed group that
now wanted peace. They declared an
"amnesty" for all who previously worked
against them, and said they were willing to
work, even, with "our sisters." Shortly after
that, they blew up a statue. Did they destroy
it because they believe statues promote
idolatry, because it depicted a man who was
their enemy, because that man was a Shiite,
or all of the above? It is impossible to say for
certain. But it is possible that the statue of
Abdul Ali Mazari, a champion of
Afghanistan's ethnic Hazara minority who
was executed by the Taliban in 1995, ticked
more than one box. Of course, Mazari's
statue had no great cultural or artistic
value. Its destruction has made it more
famous than it would ever have been
otherwise. But more interestingly, it stood
in Bamiyan province. For it was in
Bamiyan, in 2001, that the Taliban blew up
two massive, 1,500-year-old statues of the
Buddha carved into a mountainside. The
dynamiting of the statues remains possibly
While the Iranian regime used to keep its ties with the
Taliban a secret, it has now changed its policy and is publicly
supporting the group. For instance, Kayhan, a newspaper
that is funded by the Office of Supreme Leader of
Iran and is considered a mouthpiece of Ali Khamenei, has
been attempting to paint a positive picture of the Taliban.
the biggest act of wanton destruction of
culture in modern history.
So, then, is the Mazari statue's
destruction a sign of things to come? With
the fight against the "others" - the foreign
forces that occupied Afghanistan - now
over, will the fight now turn inward against
the "others" in Afghanistan's historic,
religious and social tableau?
Those "others" are plentiful in the
country. Afghanistan has a wealthy
heritage and history, and a diversity of
identities that have been overshadowed by
wars and conflicts. It was from Afghanistan
that Buddhism spread to China.
Zoroastrianism, Christianity, Judaism and
Hinduism thrived in the land before - and
after - the arrival of Islam in the 7th
century.
As a major way station on the millenniaold
trade routes connecting India with Iran
and China, Afghanistan is filled with the
remains of ancient cities, monasteries and
caravanserais that hosted famous travelers
like the 14th-century Moroccan Ibn
Battuta, and the 13th-century Venetian
Marco Polo.
Ancient artifacts are strewn across its
geography. Some 80,000 of these now are
housed in the National Museum. The
Taliban destroyed a number of such
artifacts in the museum the first time they
came to power. But in February this year,
their leaders forbade selling artifacts. They
told their followers to "robustly protect,
monitor and preserve" relics, halt illegal
digs and safeguard "all historic sites." We
shall have to see if that injunction holds.
Will the Taliban, for example, protect the
historical heart of the city of Herat? It is
currently on a UNESCO heritage site
tentative list. Herat was captured by
Alexander the Great in 330 BCE during his
campaign against the Achaemenids. It later
became a major outpost for the Hellenistic
Seleucid empire.
Then there is Balkh, which gave birth not
only to Rumi, but also Ibn Sina - better
Of course, Mazari's statue had no great cultural or artistic
value. Its destruction has made it more famous than it
would ever have been otherwise. But more interestingly, it
stood in Bamiyan province. For it was in Bamiyan, in
2001, that the Taliban blew up two massive, 1,500-yearold
statues of the Buddha carved into a mountainside.
known in the West as Avicenna - and the
poet Ferdowsi, both from around the turn
of the 1st millennium.
The name Balkh may be more familiar to
those who frequent Western museums as
Bactria, the ancient civilization that dates
back to the early 3rd millennium BCE.
From the Seleucids to the Sassanians to
many others, the history of civilization is
layered in the ground of Balkh and many
other cities like it across Afghanistan - sites
like Mes Aynak, home to a complex of at
least seven Buddhist monasteries and
under which may be Bronze Age structures.
It is tempting to think that the Taliban
have changed - after all, the rest of the
Seen in this light, it should be in the interest of every conscientious
government to expand access to education and improve the quality
of education available. There are debates on how best to do this in
contemporary Pakistan - some argue that supporting education
entrepreneurship through the low cost fee-paying private sector
can fill the gaps that the government does not have resources for.
world certainly has. We want to believe that
they will police adherence to their
injunction to do no harm to the country's
historical and cultural heritage.
The problem is, the Taliban are
committed to keeping themselves pure
from the poison of modernity. The future
has not caught up with them and likely
never will. And aside from their own
version of an imagined past, the rest is dust
to them. But there may be a way out. The
Taliban frown on drug use. But they don't
have a moral problem with other people
using narcotics.
In 2000, they banned poppy cultivation,
much like they have banned trading in
historical artifacts today. That poppy ban,
however, eventually evaporated. Today, the
Taliban control the world's largest supply of
illegal opiates - accounting for 80% of the
global opium and heroin market. A record
harvest in 2017 yielded sales the equivalent
of 7% of Afghanistan's gross domestic
product.
The intriguing question then is whether
the Taliban can be induced to protect the
heritage of Afghanistan if they are paid to
do so. They may have no use and see no
value in a sculpture of a Bactrian woman,
for example. But could they be persuaded
to keep it safe if it were a source of income?
Can an international trust fund be
established for this? And maybe for the
safekeeping of artifacts outside
Afghanistan? (Though, until when?)
There are many questions. Including the
moral one of privileging the safety of
cultural items over the safety and wellbeing
of people. Yet surely it's still one that
would be useful to have. But the first
question is, will the Taliban take part?
Source: Asia times
extension of electoral franchise, the
schooling system was identified as a key
avenue through which to generate
compliant and supportive citizens.
Depending on the ideological proclivities
of the state (or of different ruling parties),
schools would impart different types of
curricula. Current debates and handwringing
on 'Critical Race Theory' in
American schools is part of the same
phenomenon. Conservatives don't want
racial realities to be taught in schools,
while progressives are pushing for greater
societal reckoning with racial inequities.
A second reason why school education
is political is because its actual form and
associated regulation has powerful
distributional consequences. By
distributional we mean how do different
socioeconomic segments in society access
education, what they stand to gain from it,
and what are the long-term effects of any
differences that may exist across different
strata.
Take the example of a seemingly benign
decision in Pakistan, such as the opening
up of for-profit private schools and the
allowance for a foreign credential system.
Source: Dawn