Mainstream America is not Islamophobic

         From the moment New York City's Landmarks Commission ruled that a building can be torn to clear the way to build a Muslim cultural centre and a mosque in lower Manhattan-everyone has some say about it.Two most used words in context to this ongoing debate are"Bigots"and 'Islamophobia. These are mpt the words of the common masses.Most Americans do not like bickering about religion.I taught in three different Parochial schools in Washington DC to know enough about how educated Americans of all religius  background feel.They want people to live in peace side by side,irrespective of their religion.It is those people who use offensive words to describe another religion-are nothing but ihnorant.Media also plays a pivotal part as to how those views are publicised .American media is often anti-Islam.It is also the failure of each leadership in American politics who failed to practice religious tolerance.Let this debate about the mosque that is yet to go up in New York-be a learning lesson.I pray that Imam Faisal Abdul Rauf and his wife Daisy Khan can carry out their plan of building that mosque in lower Manhattan.As a Sufi Muslim Rauf can teach America about tolerance-not violence.

India's economy outpacing the world

         I am writing with reference to Op-ED: 'Farce and facts for Obama,' by Saeed Naqvi, distinguished fellow of the Observer Research Foundation
         In his analysis,Saeed Naqvi misses one fact that stands out prominently today: India's economy is outpacing the world.India's economy grew at the fastest pace in two and half years.making it  the second fastest growing economy in the world.Gross domestic product rose 8.8 per cent in the second quarter of this year.This is happening at a time of the global recession and even the chinere economy needed a massive stimulus to keep it going .In contrast ,the Indian continues to grow without any massive stimulus because unlike China,which is cependent on exports,Indea's growth is centred on the domestic consumption.

The wheel of fortune

          It is the late 1990s and a phenomenon known as the 'internet' has been touted to reshape the way man operates and lead to ever-increasing productivity. The IT bubble is rapidly expanding in the United State; companies possessing a dot.com suffix floating on the stock market by the minute and share prices doubling and tiipling within hours of floatation.Making a quick off the stock market has never been easier.
          Somewhere in the background , Alan Greenspan the Chairman of the Federal Reserve of the United State,the Central Bank of  America murmurs against 'irrational exuberance' from investors.Then Long Term Capital Management (a US hedge fund) suffers losses of $4.6 billion in less than four mounths, the now famous Enron fraud reverberates through the system and numerous companies file for bankruptcy,haveing burnt through all their venture capital,never having made a profit in their short stint as they had no credidle business plan.

          That shameful episode resulted in $8 trillion of wealth being completely wiped out and the fortunes of millions of investors,big and small ending in tatters.A lesson learned the hard way that if assets,particulerly within the   artificial economy surpass their value ( in accordance with economic fundamentals) and overexposure to the capital market in a state of euphoria brought about almost entirely by speculation becomes the norm,the bursting of the bubble is quick and quite painful.

Kashmir is too protracted, too gory a story

         There is a story mainly pulled off by the Indian media establishment that their army and central reserve police force protect Kashmiris.But a few of the Kashmiris,as it is known by now,feel protected by them.People in India call them security forces and belive they save Kashmiris from terrorists but it is from them that Khahmiris want to be saved, as the stories come out nowadays . Kashmiris want these forces off their land. The only feelings Kashmiris have for them are of fear,hatrad and revenge.In the past two months or so, 64'boys' died ; latest, a 13-year old boy died in a hospital after he was brutally beaten up by the security forces in Kashmir . Most of them have a been youth who were either throwing stones or playing in their neighbourhoods. It is learnt that thousands of them went defying curfew to attend the funeral of a 17-year old 12th grader whose death begun the current spell of  youth protest in Kashmir. The boy was learnt to be thrown in a pond after killing, as two other boys saw that happening,but official story described he drowned.

GOLDA FARMING AT STAKE

         Hundreds of millions of foreign currency will be lost due to the infiltration of Indian so-called prawn fry:known as guest PL(post Larvae ). Everyday,a few million smuggled Indian PL are being sold to the golda farmers in Bagerhat,Shatkhira and Khulna region in the name of matural PL supposedly caught in the coastal rivers of Bangladesh.In reality, there is very little catch of golda fry from the rivers this year for number reasons.

          These smuggled PLs brought in the night from Shatkhira border, nursed for one day in the so-called 'Matir hatcheries',100s of which can be seen in the adjacent highway from Shatkhira town towards Kaligonj are later put  in the open pot and bucket and bucket and taken to the nearby markets to be sold to the farmers as river PL or natural PL.

ABOLISH FATWA

             A so - called parellel jurisprudence by the name of Fatwa is unique in Islam.It's not essential if a country is governed by the modern laws or not but an illiterate mullah can challenge the sovereign laws by proclaiming a religious edict which is popularly known as Fatwa and there is no law to prosecute that mullah.This practice not only violates the established norms of law but it creates an uncivilised precedence practiced in the middle ages. Governments in the Muslim nations are afraid to take corrective actions against the practice of Gatwa out of fear based on ignorance and illiteracy.It's a shame that a modern government succumbs to such deliberate efforts by the Islamic fundamentalists which undermines the authority of the gocernment with impunity .In the modern times,this practice of Fatwa is an attempt to impose a  system on the society based on medieval considerations.If the aim of law is to eliminate crimes this cant be done by beheading or cutting limbs and hands.This requires universal education,even handed social justice and equal distribution of wealth.

SMART GRID

           This is in reference to a report which is of interest for power sector in Bangladesh.It should provoke the planners in power sector(particularly the power ministry).
            But will they even go through it and try to understand its impact;possibly not ,as they are too busy pulling and pushing files and filling note sheets! The prospect of interconnecting renewable power source with the distribution grid,and its automated two way interaction provides the key to tap on to alternative energy sources. We should keep up with Smart Grid development and applications being done to increase power availability as a very relevant near future propect.

            Smart Grid operation is closely interlinked to high speed internet monitoring and operation.It can tap on to consumer's power sources in parallel with the transmission and distribution networks based on regional power shortage or surplus.