Dr. Yunus in Microsoft

Dr. Yunus in Microsoft - what a great speech! He had the entire audience captivated. Many of us were fortunate to hear him from the front row.

From the Seattle Times:

Inside a private conference room at Microsoft, top executives leaned around the table, eyes and ears fixed on a small, soft-spoken visitor from Bangladesh. He might not be recognized on the street, but to people dreaming up the next great idea to change the world, Muhammad Yunus is a rock star.

One year after he won the Nobel Peace Prize, Yunus came to the Seattle area Tuesday to share his vision for uniting technology and business with a social mission.

The man who turned the concept of banking on its head said poverty stems from flawed concepts, such as the idea that only people with money should be able to borrow more of it.
Yunus, 67, developed the system of microcredit, helping poor people improve their standard of living by using tiny loans to start businesses. Since giving out its first loans in 1983, the Grameen Bank he founded has reached more than 7 million borrowers who would have no access to credit through traditional banks. About 97 percent of them are women.

"The world runs with money," he said. "You need a dollar to catch a dollar, and no one gives you the first dollar."

Yunus said he also wants to change the notion that business exists to maximize profits.

"I think that's a shame because in this theory, they have actually insulted human beings," he said. "Money-making is a very important part of human beings, but human beings are much bigger than that."

Yunus advocated linking business and philanthropy in a new model called "social business."

More from the Seattle Times...

Deshantori (The Migrant)

Deshantori (The Migrant) is a film directed and produced by a few young promising film makers from Bangladesh, based now in the US. This 69 min. short film is about a journey made by so many of us but we often forget the story behind it and how the path for many others has been less fortunate. Check out the movie, and support it if you can.

Good to see that Mridul is as concerned about our motherland as the day I met him in high school and still as willing and resourceful to make a difference!

The tigers of cricket have emerged!

...or should we call them the tiger cubs? All but two players are between 17 (yes that's one and seven - seventeen!) and 24 and not only they play GREAT cricket but they're cool and composed and calculative. The Bangladesh Cricket squad did some serious a** kicking in their game against India in the World Cup...and managed to pull a 5 wicket win.

Their balling was awesome, their batting was smashing and their fielding was spec-ta-cular but the best part was how matured their game was. They did not break a sweat even though they knew that that cricket giant India has been deemed as one of the possible champions this time.

But Bashar and the boys came and managed to say “adios” to all the Indian batsmen in 191 runs, with some superior balling by Mashrafee, Russell, Razzak and Rafique. In the outfield, not a stoppable or catchable ball went by passed them.

Then the batting side also outperformed their counterparts. With opener Tamim smashing away to get a 51, and Musfique, promoted from fourth to the first down to prove that he may just have it in him to be the next captain, with a stunning 56 and lasting all the way to the end without getting out. Sakib also scored 53, to show that the squad doesn’t put on a one man show.

We were SO ecstatic and pumped up about the win that we decided to bring out our bats and pads ahead of time and played a quick round of cricket ourselves, in the cold Seattle rain! I lost my voice while watching the Tigers beat the c*** out of the Indians and sneezing away after our adventure in the rain…and still couldn’t stop jumping up and down in celebration!

Another highlight of the celebration was when a Pakistani friend called (moments after the Pakistan loss) to congratulate me and wished that their side would play as professionally as the Bangladeshis and he’s now supporting Bangladesh for the rest of the WC. Just to think, before we got the ICC status, so many of us have grown up supporting the Imran Khans and the Wasim Akrams in world cricket, but now the tide is turning…and it’s our time!

Congrats to the young Tigers for bringing us this moment.

Celebrate International Mother Language Day

February 21st is International Mother Language Day.

"International Mother Language Day was proclaimed by UNESCO's General Conference in November 1999. The International Day has been observed every year since February 2000 to promote linguistic and cultural diversity and multilingualism.

Languages are the most powerful instruments of preserving and developing our tangible and intangible heritage. All moves to promote the dissemination of mother tongues will serve not only to encourage linguistic diversity and multilingual education but also to develop fuller awareness of linguistic and cultural traditions throughout the world and to inspire solidarity based on understanding, tolerance and dialogue." -- un.org

The day in the news today, also see the wiki.

Birth of better days?

Finally, there is something good in the air! I was getting so sick and tired of writing how bad things are in Bangladesh. For once, we can be positive about where we are politically, with a reliable and unbiased caretaker government in place which is carefully backed by the military. Nobody denies that a state of emergency is not the most democratic solution but Bangladeshis are happy and feeling safe. The only people complaining are the corrupt politicians.

In the last weeks, two very important news have made the headlines, which may very well be the beginning of a different Bangladesh:

The first is the list of fifty corrupt politicians and businessmen, including former Ministers and Parliament Members and all with ties to one political party or the other. Many of whom have already been taken into custody and all of them have been asked to provide explanation of their wealth within the next 72 hours, otherwise the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) will temporarily confiscate or freeze their assets and properties. The ACC took the action as part of its action to root out corruption under the amended Emergency Power Ordinance, 2007. Delowar Hossain, the secretary of the ACC said more names would be published within the next few days.

At the same time, Dr Yunus announced his interest in coming into politics and forming a new political party. Of course it'll be hard, even for a Nobel peace prize winner to have a one man show in a parliamentary democracy but I believe he'll apply his straights as an economist and philanthropist and rationally form a plan for introducing his new party. Don't be too surprised if he comes in with a team of respected countrymen with views to go beyond the corruption today and make true improvements.

Pessimists obviously are not holding their breath but I'd say the worst that can happen is the corrupted politicians will realize that their day of reckoning IS possible, even if they get away this time and we may just have a third political presence, that has been born from peace, logical thinking and politics of unity, to run our state.

May the slogans created by the two leading parties finally come true! Something that they have ignored for a long time now....of course, why lead the country to be a winner when you can exploit it for personal wealth?

So I say "Bangladesh Jindabad" and I say "Joy Bangla"...things are looking better!

Tahmima Anam with A Golden Age

Tahmima Anam, daughter of Daily Star editor Mahfuz Anam is introducing her literary debut - “A Golden Age”, which is coming out in March. Although some are referring her as the next Monica Ali, but this is not a story of life as an immigrant, but rather about our war of independence. I'm also hoping she'll deliver better because of her writing background and growing up around renowned journalists and politicians. Already many critics, who had a preview of the book have good things to say about her. Few snapshots about her work are as below...

"Great writing may be in the blood, but having a window seat on remarkable historical events can help to shape an author. A major new talent, Tahmima Anam, has the advantage of coming from a line of gifted Bangladeshi writers and thinkers, yet it is the damaging experience her family shared with thousands of others living around them that is to see her launched in Britain." -- The Observer

"Set against the backdrop of the Bangladesh War of Independence, A Golden Age is a story of passion and revolution, of hope, faith and unexpected heroism. In the chaos of this era, everyone – from student protesters to the country`s leaders, from rickshaw-wallahs to the army`s soldiers – must make choices." -- HooderHeadline

Sleepwalking back again

The dark cloud lingering over the political sky in Bangladesh just started the thunder storm many of us were afraid of. Even though with occasional lightning in the last few months, things were looking up from time to time but I guess a play is all that was. A State of Emergency has been declared in the country, so right now there's curfew at night, military in the streets and no independent media operating. In a speech addressing the nation, President & Chief Advisor announced his resignation, along with nine other advisers right after UN, EU, US and other political ambassadors to monitor the democratic process were withdrawn by their individual authorities. To think, just when the world's leading political analysts were beginning to say that Bangladesh has a true democratic process in place, one which is more successful than most other third world countries. Granted we have VERY crooked and corrupt politicians but think about it - it's not like Rwanda or North Korea. Bangladesh have had a democratic process for the last fifteen years after the dictatorial reign ended and elected government for more than half of our history. Not that we were doing great but democratically - things were improving, until now.

All this reminds me so much of lines from Pink Floyd's High Hopes...

Looking beyond the embers of bridges glowing behind us,
to a glimpse of how green it was on the other side
Steps taken forwards but sleepwalking back again,
dragged by the force of some inner tide.

So what were the forces this time around? The four party government finished it's tenure amidst mass allegations of tampering with the upcoming democratic process of the independent and interim government to hold the elections within ninety days. Immediately, the polar forces of the fourteen (now nineteen) party alliance placed their demands in order to balance out the scale. Some demands were justifiable, which the interim government should have met immediately but decided to hold the fort strong without giving in. But all it did was put fuel in the fire that ended up burning the commoners. The fourteen party alliance came down to the streets and started an unfortunate episode of mayhem and destruction, which killed hundreds and injured thousands so far, not to mention bringing life and the economy to a stand still. With time, the chaos continued with endless demands that are almost impossible for the government to meet within ninety days, especially since they were spending more days to bring peace to the forum than actually prepping for the election.

There was a ragged band that followed in our footsteps,
running before time took our dreams away.
Leaving the myriad small creatures trying to tie us to the ground
to a life consumed by slow decay.

The rivalry of the two "alliances" have taken us to the brink of democracy and I just hope we don't fall into any perilous cavern that hold nothing but more distress for the people of Bangladesh, like never ending chaos, military regime or foreign penetration.

Since the ringing of the division bell had (already) begun, I hope we don't follow the song to it's end...

Encumbered forever by desire and ambition,
there's a hunger still unsatisfied.
Our weary eyes still stray to the horizon
go down this road we've been so many times.

"You" named Time's person of 2006

"You" have been named as Time magazine's Person of the Year...yes, YouTube that is. Kool ain't it? Jawed Karim, originally from Germany and of Bangladeshi descent, founded YouTube in February 2005, which was recently bought by Internet giant Google for $1.60B.

Light at the end of the tunnel?

Hopefully we're closer to that light at end of the tunnel in our beloved motherland's political tug of war. Advisors of the caretaker government met with both the alliances day before yesterday and proposed package solutions. After meetings all day long yesterday with the chief advisor in the chair, they announced the outcome - to reconstitute the Election Commission, reschedule the polling date, correct the voters’ list and reshuffle the top bureaucrates even further. So in the end it's just accepting what the 14 party alliance has been forcibly demanding since late October.

The nation is breathing a little easier now, with hopes that life will be normal again, the economy can operate again and that this is the end to the mayhem that was ruling the streets of Bangladesh. We all hope that we will have a fair election early next year, the voice of the people will be heard and a government based on the peoples choice will be formed.

Hmmmm...now that's a fairy tale, even if the voice of the people is heard and a government based on the peoples choice is formed.

Let me ask this...how can an exiting government manipulate the system in such a way that the idea of a free and fair election commission and a neutral caretaker government is jeopardized? And how can the former opposition completely imprison and batter the people and the economy of a country until what they deem necessary for winning the election is met?

So yes we can see the light at the end of tunnel but unfortunately there are always freight trains that follow...and hit us hard over and over again.

Hok hangama, amar gaan ache bhai

Searching eagerly for prayer halls debut album
while listening to the soothing sounds of yaatri and
not much kolorob in super ornob's new album
thank god souls still sings soulfully!
Leave underground under the ground komol bhai
even though you're the guitar god.
overlistening to fuad's great mixed collections
shono habib you do great, keep it real
Nothing cryptic about danob you guys...kudos kudos
is elita featuring more in the star these days?
worried that james has completely gone bollywood.
where does tahsan get his hair done?
kingkortorbobimured that bangla has unfused from it's jazzy lalon sounds,
although still in love with you all.
shumon and aurthohin ain't so meaningless, i tell you
shocked by the black accident,
saddened to see mobin bhai go.
love runs blind for AB no matter what anybody says
miles was talented too but amar feedback ta koi re bhai?
remembering rockstrata every morning
haven't fazed out warfaze too.

c0mpletely enchanted by the sudden realization - THANK GOD for bangla music and thank you, all you musicians who are keeping it sane for the rest of us!