EDITORIAL

SAARC summit

We would like to share optimism about SAARC ( South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation) really taking off following the 15th summit to be held in the Sri Lankan capital but, somehow or the other, past experiences continue to haunt us. After every summit—-and there have been fourteen so far—— such optimism was expressed but nothing really happened thereafter. Against the backdrop of such summits being long on promises but short in results, we place our faith in Dhaka’s official assessment that this time the summit was productive and business-oriented. India’s decision to dismantle all trade barriers for all its SAARC partners looks a good beginning and indicates change of mind in the Indian establishment. Given the necessary goodwill it will be possible to build on this major breakthrough. The decision to ensure food security is a welcome signs.
With its more than one and a half billion people SAARC is the world’s most densely populated region. But these people are mostly poor, suffer from malnutrition and various diseases. The midwives of SAARC had dreamt of improving the lost of these millions through fruitful cooperation in all fields. But they failed to chart a roadmap for removing the deep suspicion and distrust that still remains the hallmark of the region. At the root of this is possibly the religious diversity and the resulting religious competition. Religious diversity also makes the region unique. With Hindus, Muslims, Buddhists and Christians making up bulk of the region’s population it was not unexpected that there would be rivalries. We are convinced that if things were different or the political leaderships could rise above these sentiments the Association could have achieved a lot and could even be on the threshold of a union in the line of ASEAN if not the European Union. If these mental barriers could be overcome proposals like single currency, visa-free travel or regional power grid etc could become realities. But as it is we are nowhere near that.
It would have helped if the 15th summit could specify a number of confidence building measures aimed at bringing the people closer. For the leaders this is no problem but for the common people the obstacles are extremely difficult to surmount. The future of SAARC depends not on what the leaders decide or say but what the people think or perceive. The approach to socio-economic development should be uniform in which all shareholders must have visible and achievable stakes.

Using solar energy

Energy is what it means literally. It powers an economy. And without it, all engines of economic growth are destined to grind to a virtual halt. In a country like Bangladesh where 90 per cent of the population lives in rural areas, it is quite vital for any government to meet the energy needs of the vast region. There is a very little scope to increase net cropped area. Agriculture is the major sector of national economy. It employs 77% of labour force and accounts for about 45% of the GDP. The total tree covered forest of Bangladesh is 18% of total area. Forests are the major source of fuel supply in Bangladesh. Specially, homestead forests supply fuel to individual households in the rural areas. More than 51 per cent of forest area is managed by the government and 11 per cent by individual households.
Thanks to the blessings of the sun, the various available options to utilize solar energy today solar cooking, solar water heating, water purification, drying of food and crops, pumps water and mechanical crop processing, refrigeration for storage of food or other perishable, solar electric conversion. Solar drying of crops on paved open yard was found as in improvement on existing use of mud surface. Solar water heating may be incorporated in paddy parboiling.
The average daily solar radiation varies from 5.05kWh/sqm in winter to 8.76 kWh/sqm in summer. At present solar energy is mainly used as a convenient and low cost means of drying crops, fish and salt. Some photo voltaic units have been installed in different parts of the country mainly for demonstration. Capital cost for solar photo voltaic technology for the generation of electricity being costly, its prospects are to be ascertained for specific end uses and locations. One immediate positive step to encourage use of solar energy will be allow duty free import of photo voltaic cells.
We are sure, 100 million dollar loan of the World Bank for Bangladesh will help increase the solar energy generation and expand its coverage to 0.5 million new users in Bangladesh by 2015.

Comments & Analyses

Managing rats

Rats and mice have played a central role in human life for thousands of years and have adapted well to environments significantly altered by humans, write Dr S. R Belmain and Rokeya Begum Shefali

Rats and mice have played a central role in human life for thousands of years and have adapted well to environments significantly altered by humans. Rodents have two major impacts on people’s livelihoods. The first is the substantial pre- and post-harvest losses they cause to agriculture. The second is as carriers of debilitating diseases that can affect people and livestock. Despite the major economic impacts of rodents, they remain poorly managed in many situations through a failure to appreciate the range and scale of damage, to understand the population ecology of specific rodent species and appropriate management strategies, and ultimately to assess the costs and benefits of rodent pests and of their sustainable management.
Recently Department for International Development (DFID) of United Kingdom awarded a project titled Rat Management for Rural Communities in Bangladesh to AID-COMILLA and its coalition partners for a period of 03 years starting July 2008 and will be implemented at Comilla, Bogra, Satkhira, Netrokona and Kushtia District with a target to train 20,000 rural house holds on Ecologically Based Rodent Management.
The primary delivery channel for project activities related to the delivery of ecologically-based rodent management (EBRM) is through a coalition of partners, which includes government departments, research institutions, commercial manufacturers, company marketing organisations and NGOs. The project intends to work with 20,000 participants in 100 villages in three different regions of Bangladesh. Through the coalition, three project results are planned at the village level: 1) building farmer capacities to innovate, 2) training Resource Farmers and 3) forming groups capable of effectively supporting the interests of resource poor households. The role of the coalition partners are as follows:
Renewable Natural Resources Research Strategy (RNRRS) knowledge (R8424, R8184) was generated in Bangladesh to address the problems with pest rodents experienced by people living in rural agricultural communities. Previous research showed that 5-10% of stored grain was lost to rodents over each 3-month storage period (each household losing ?200kg/yr). Contamination with urine and faeces was also severe (200 > 1,500 droppings per kg). In common with most of Asia, Bangladesh farmers routinely plant 2 rows of rice for the rats for every 8 rows sown (pre-harvest losses ranging from 5-17%). Farmer damage assessments highlighted some of the more overlooked impacts of rodents, namely physical damage to houses, personal possessions, roads and fields. This damage requires extensive repair time to houses and fields, and significant financial expenditure when clothes, blankets, fishing nets, baskets, utensils, etc. are damaged. Ecologically-Based Rodent Management (EBRM) strategies were shown to reduce the impact of rodents by 60-80% for different measurable indicators. This was established through comparing intervention villages with non-intervention villages. Similarly, farmer assessments showed Ecologically-Based Rodent Management (EBRM) strategies were roughly the same cost (financial and time) as former practice, but with a much higher benefit (rat population reduced by >75%). Furthermore, Renewable Natural Resources Research Strategy (RNRRS) actions trialled a training and dissemination system for delivering the knowledge required by rural communities to more effectively manage their rodent pest problems. Training materials in Bengali (video and manuals) were produced to assist knowledge extension.
Our initiative is to build on this Renewable Natural Resources Research Strategy (RNRRS) investment through a programme that links together a consortium of NGOs, commercial companies and the DAE to deliver training and demonstration to a large number of farmers based in the Southeast, Southwest and Northern regions of Bangladesh. This proposed new investment will particularly add value to the existing initiatives of the DAE to manage rodent pests and increase commercial involvement in the delivery of ecologically sustainable rodent management methods targeting agricultural communities. The DAE recognises that rodents are a serious constraint for all farmers and organises an annual national rodent campaign to do something about it. However, it is accepted that this existing initiative is an inadequate response to the rodent problem and that much more needs to be done. The technology of Ecologically-Based Rodent Management Ecologically-Based Rodent Management (EBRM) is knowledge intensive and requires a degree of community-coordinated action to be most cost-beneficial. It is widely considered that disseminating such knowledge is best achieved through a combination of hands-on training and demonstration with a mixture of “classroom” education and practical observation (as trialled in R8424, R8441, R8190 and R7372). This hands-on training is particularly important in the context of rodents where indigenous management strategies are usually ad-hoc, uncoordinated and often unsuccessful, which can lead to apathy and an inability to experience what life can be like in the absence of rodents. The evidence gathered through the Renewable Natural Resources Research Strategy (RNRRS) suggests that communities’ attitudes can permanently change through the adoption and implementation of EBRM leading to many quantifiable improvements in people’s livelihoods.
Our project starts out by increasing the capacity of institutions in Bangladesh to deliver Ecologically-Based Rodent Management (EBRM) knowledge to end users. These institutions go on to provide formal and hands-on training to communities through an iterative cycle of training, demonstration, feedback and lesson learning to empower communities in rodent management actions. Although 100% of community members will recognise rodents to be a major problem, few successfully engage with the problem through a lack of appropriate knowledge and tools. Encouraging organised action at the community level will be necessary for Ecologically-Based Rodent Management (EBRM) to work most effectively and, hence, the project will strengthen social cohesion, necessarily involving all social groups in its implementation with all social groups benefiting from fewer rodents pest impacts on their lives. In parallel, the project will produce a ‘new-design’ rat trap that is more effective and durable than current available technology in Bangladesh. This new trap will be commercially distributed and marketed through existing marketing chains as well as through novel Public-Private partnership schemes whereby intensive trap use is encouraged at the community level as the primary means of rodent control (as opposed to the traditional use of acute poisons). We expect to increase demand for intensive trapping by demonstrating its efficacy to rural communities and, thus, promote community level buy-in through the purchase of traps by communities. Education and communication activities will aim to increase public and institutional awareness of the health problems caused by rats and how environmental management and hygiene measures can contribute to the overall objective of reducing the impact of rats on people’s lives. Increased local awareness and demand will be channelled to encourage policy changes and funding priorities within local government (targeting political representatives at the Union and Upazilla level). We expect our proposed initiative can reach 20,000 farmers across 100 village communities to train them in Ecologically-Based Rodent Management (EBRM), while at the same time strengthening the capacity of the consortium institutions to continue to deliver Ecologically-Based Rodent Management (EBRM) after the project completes.
The initiative is not commodity-specific as rodents will attack nearly all crops grown as well as causing significant damage to health (people and domestic animals) and infrastructure (buildings, farm fields, roads, personal possessions). Rodents can attack commodities along the value chain (pre-harvest, post-harvest, processing, marketing) so their holistic management can have positive effects across value chains. Rodent damage to vegetables can be particularly problematic by causing partial damage to maturing fruits that blemishes or reduces shelf life, leading to lower financial returns. Successful implementation of Ecologically-Based Rodent Management (EBRM) will certainly lead to increased yields of all staple crops and other crops grown, which should fuel diversification into more higher-value crops to supply an increasingly urbanised environment and more sophisticated markets. This means the proposed project has wide relevance to a number of Renewable Natural Resources Research Strategy (RNRRS) investments such as improving animal health and production (reduced leptospirosis and endoparasite loads), improved quality/sanitation of street foods (reduced faecal and urine contamination of stored food both before and after processing), and maternal/child health programmes. As Ecologically-Based Rodent Management (EBRM) is socially inclusive, working best when all social groups work together within a community, the initiative can help strengthen social cohesion and act as a springboard for other social issues. We expect people to benefit by the end of the project through improved yields as well as improved human health and increased human productivity (i.e. less debilitating disease, more and better food). We also expect these benefits will continue to accrue after the project has completed through policy changes (which lead to resource mobilisation), improved institutional capacity to deliver Ecologically-Based Rodent Management (EBRM) and the development of new delivery strategies (i.e. public-private partnerships) that can provide the knowledge and tools to communities through revolving fund and credit programmes operated by NGOs together with trap manufacturers/distributors.

US-Iran détente

Before the US and Iran can start normalising relations, it is important that the mutual demonisation that both sides have indulged in, be deconstructed, writes Dr M Khan

For the past two years, Iran and its nuclear programme have dominated America’s foreign policy agenda. Iran’s refusal to stop enriching Uranium, which in its opinion it has the right to as a signatory of the NPT, has been seen by the West as an effort to develop nuclear weapons. This, along with the oft-repeated statement by Ahmedinejad that “Israel will soon disappear from the map”, has made Iran the Enemy Number One in the eyes of the West.
But now there seems to be a change taking place in US-Iran relations and prospects for a détente seem real: Ahmedinajad is saying nice things about American diplomats and Iran is responding positively to US overtures.
American failures in Iraq, Afghanistan and within its economy — energy pricing, housing and financial crises in addition to the weakening of the dollar — have handcuffed the Bush administration. The lack of domestic appetite for another war, which would surely cause oil prices to go through the roof, has removed the option of use of force option from the table.
The Bush administration, after asserting for years that no talks will take place with Iran unless it agrees to all its demands, is now engaging in direct negotiations. The decision to send William Burns, a very senior US diplomat, to meet with Iranian nuclear negotiators along with the Europeans last week clearly signals a significant shift in US policy.
It remains to be seen, however, whether this is an isolated episode or truly the beginning of a new modality in US-Iran relations. Talk of the US possibly announcing the opening of an American mission in Iran next month, which has already been welcomed by Iranians, is genuinely ground breaking. If President Bush follows through, there is no doubt in my mind that Iran could become an important partner of the US in shaping the emerging Middle East.
But before the US and Iran can start normalising relations, it is important that the mutual demonisation that both sides have indulged in be deconstructed. Iran has been painting the US as the ‘Great Satan’ and the source of all evil in the Middle East. And the US has consistently labelled Iran as a sponsor of terrorism and as a threat to global peace.
Reports from Iran clearly suggest that Iranians are alienated from and disgusted with their own leadership and its failure to provide better governance and deliver on electoral promises. Their resentment towards their leadership is translating itself into higher regard and esteem for the US and negating the anti-US rhetoric of some of their leaders. Azadeh Moaveni wrote in the Washington Post on June 1, 2008: “It might startle some Americans to realise that Iran has one of the most pro-American populations in the Middle East.”
Scholars of the Middle East have repeatedly pointed out this paradox of US foreign policy. The US had become most hostile to the people who were most favourably disposed towards it in the Middle East. It will take little to win the Iranians over. A gesture of friendship from Bush, a surprise visit to Tehran by Rice, or a gift of six passenger aircraft, should be enough to send Ahmedinejad packing in the elections due in 2009.
While Iranians are becoming pro-US, Americans are becoming anti-Iran. In order for the US-Iran détente to flourish, it is important that politicians and opinion makers stop demonising Iran and recognise its positive contributions.
US intelligence agencies are convinced that Iran abandoned its efforts to acquire nukes in 2003 (National Intelligence Estimate, November 2007). Iran helped western powers to establish the new democratic government in Afghanistan and has cooperated with the US to stabilise southern Iraq and restrain Shia militias.
While Ahmedinejad does rant about making Israel disappear, he is not in charge of Iranian foreign or military policy and those who actually do manage Iran’s external affairs do not support his claims. A regular acknowledgement of these realities and positive Iranian contributions will help change American public opinion in favour of better US-Iran relations.
The perception that a nuclear Iran ruled by a madman poses a major threat to the world is the driving force behind western paranoia about Iran. A sensible foreign policy from Washington is not possible until this misperception is dispelled. Iran is not a threat; and it is not capable of posing a serious threat.
Iran’s air force is defunct. Its economy is in bad shape. High oil prices do not help Iran too much since it is a net importer of gasoline and its crude oil exports are inferior to its competitors. Add to this the fact that the US, France, Britain and Israel all have powerful air forces and huge stockpiles of nuclear weapons. Additionally, Islamic Iran has not invaded any country since the revolution in 1979, a record that neither the US nor Israel can match given the unnecessary invasion of Iraq in 2003 and Israel’s overreaction in Lebanon in 2006.
Both Iran and the US now have an extraordinary opportunity to change their mutual destinies. Will they hold the line?

Letters to the Editor

Remittance increases significantly

We are highly encouraged to note that remittance from expatriate workers has raised significantly. According to a news item, the country received an impressive amount of 7.9 billion US dollar from expatriate workers in FY 2007-08. This is 2 billion dollar more than that of FY 2006-07. The remittance has emerged as the net highest foreign exchange earner for the country. It has surpassed the earning of the readymade garments (RMG) sector.
These facts were disclosed by the governor of the Bangladesh Bank at a function in the city on Thursday.
We understand that migrant workers are contributing immensely to foreign exchange earnings and thus helping the country improve the social status of the people, particularly the families of those workers. But the story has its other side also. The sad part is that most of the remittances are not spent in the productive sector. The families of the migrant workers spend the money on house building and buying clothes, electronic goods and other objects. This money could better been spent in establishing new industries. That would ensure their regular income, increase GDP and create job opportunities. To achieve that goal, the government must eliminate all bottlenecks in the path of investment. Measures should be taken against the ongoing Hundi business. The legal channels should provide cost effective and timely services for this. Commercial banks can increase the volume of international remittances by introducing advanced technology applied to fund transfer, especially introducing electronic and other innovative payment channels.
The legal means of money transfer should be improved. At the same time migrant workers should be encouraged to invest their hard earned money in the profitable productive sector. This will surely ensure economic progress of the country.
Moni Begum
Bashabo, Dhaka

Innocent girls in
porno films

Exemplary punishment has become urgently necessary to people involved in making obscene movies trapping innocent young girls and housewives. It is extremely shocking that organized gangs of youths under the cover of making movies usually trap beautiful girls and housewives to make vulgar films. The gangs usually use residential hotels in the cities and towns to make these movies. Later they market the films to make mint endangering the youngsters. Recently a newly wed girl aged some 22 years fell victim to such a crime and was divorced. According to a report carried by the News Today, a gang lured the young housewife with hopes of entry in cinema and chance of casting as a model of different TV channels. They brought the girl at a city hotel and forcibly made an obscene film with her. Like this girl, three more girls became victims to the trap of the gang and subsequently lost everything. In the meantime, one of the four victims got married. The offenders offered the married girl roles in some more films. As the girl refused to accept such nasty offer, they sent to her husband a copy of the vulgar film in which she played a role.
Making and marketing of porno films are illegal in Bangladesh. Still, many youths posing as dance directors and film producers lure girls to hotels and produce vulgar films promising that those films would be kept confined. Some times they blackmail the girls concerned and their parents. In most cases they market the films. All these are criminal activities. Besides, these films provoke youngsters in sex crimes. So the making and marketing of porno films are very dangerous and heinous crimes. The administration should take on these crimes very seriously. Hotels allowing people to produce these films should also be punished. The police must not free the culprits by taking grafts. The production and marketing of porno films must be stopped by all possible means.
Binni
Dhanmandi, Dhaka

Degrees without IT knowledge

Moral qualities, information technology (IT)-based education, and skills in English language are urgently needed in Bangladesh. This was very rightly stressed at a function in the city recently. Institute of Diploma Engineers, Bangladesh (IDEB) arranged the function to accord reception to the children of its members who obtained GPA-5 in the SSC and HSC examinations last year.
We have many degree-holders. But a large number of them are unemployed. They cannot find suitable jobs for their own deficiencies. Many of them lack moral qualities. Then their education is not IT-based. Besides, their command of spoken and written English, an International language, is very poor. These prevent them from securing foreign jobs. Unemployed degree-holders are burden to their families, the nation, and to themselves. To turn them into welcome manpower, we must give them the scope to learn IT and English.
Our age is an age of Information Age. Most of our works are done with the help of computers. Computers also ensure our access to knowledge. We can acquire all sorts of information from the Internet. We therefore cannot make ourselves fit for the modern world without proficiency in IT.
A panelist very rightly observed that a society becomes developed when everyone performs his or her duties with conscience and the spirit of serving greater national interest. We have to perform our responsibilities rightly for flourishing our spiritual and moral qualities. We should also learn the English language and acquire competence in IT for survival in this competitive global context. We should encourage our children to learn social and moral values so that they can go ahead to serve the nation.
The government should introduce IT-based education for the progress of the country. The money spent for this will be a profitable investment. So the government must manage to introduce IT-based education in the country without any delay.
Munshi Sobhan
Keraniganj