সোমবার, ১৩ নভেম্বর, ২০০৬

BIMAN

কোন মন্তব্য নেই :
Good morning, Ladies and Gentlemen.
This is your captain Mahmud:
Welcoming both seated and standing passengers on board of "Biman".
We apologize for the four-day delay in taking off, it was due to bad weather, engine problems and a part time job I have in a fast food restaurant in New York.

This is flight 707 to Dhaka.
Landing there is not guaranteed, but we will end up somewhere in Bangladesh. And, if luck is in our favor, we may even be landing in your village!

Bangladesh Biman has an excellent safety-record!!! In fact, our safety standards are so high, that even terrorists are afraid to fly with us!
It is with pleasure; I announce that, starting this year, over 30% of our passengers have reached their destination.

If our engines are too noisy for you, on passenger's request, we can arrange to turn them off! To make your free fall to earth pleasant and memorable, we serve complimentary Taree (Bangla alcohol).

For our not-so-religious passengers, we are the only airline who can help you find out if there really is a God!!! We regret to inform you, that today's in-flight movie will not be shown as we forgot to record it from the television. However, for our movie buffs, we will be flying right next to Emirates Airline, where their movie will be visible from the right side of the cabin window.

There is no smoking allowed in this airplane. Any smoke you see in the cabin is only the early warning system on the engines telling us to slow down! If you see water dripping from the top of your head, don't think it is raining outside, it could be AC, that is leaking water and if you notice that you are feeling so hot, that means the AC is not working, please feel free to ask the air hostess for a hand fan.

We apologize for the inconvenience!! In order to catch important landmarks, we try to fly as close as possible for the best view. If however, we go a little too close, do let us know.

Our enthusiastic co-pilot sometimes flies right through the landmark! Kindly be seated, keep your seat in an upright position for take-off and fasten your seat-belt. For those of you who can't find a seat-belt, kindly fasten your own belt to the arm of your seat.

And, for those of you who can't find a seat, do not hesitate to get in touch with a stewardess who will explain how to fasten yourself to your suitcase."

"Thanking you all for choosing "Biman" to fly for the first and last time

শনিবার, ২৮ অক্টোবর, ২০০৬

--------------------------Wish-------------------------

কোন মন্তব্য নেই :
Wish for the closing apocalypse
Wish black blank darkness to prevail
Wish that final deathly silence
And not another breath or sigh

Wish there were no tomorrow
Wish nothing remained to be seen
Wish it rained tonight like Doom’s night
And a new world gets born

Wish the world were cleaned of all uncouth
And everything that disquiets,
Wish it were unbroken peace thereafter;
With no nightmares
Or need for dreams.
------------------------------------

শুক্রবার, ২৭ অক্টোবর, ২০০৬

A nice SMS from Nicki from India

কোন মন্তব্য নেই :
You have enemies? Good. That means you've stood up for something, sometime in your life." Never consider the possibility of failure; as long as you persist, you will be successful.

One of my fav..

কোন মন্তব্য নেই :
First they came for the Communists,
and I didn't speak up,
because I wasnn't a Communist.

Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn'nt speak up,
because I wasnn't a Jew.

Then they came for the Catholics,
and I didnn't speak up,
because I was a Protestant.

Then they came for me,
and by that time there was no one
left to speak up for me.

by Rev. Martin Niemoller, 1945

A Thought..on Marriage ( Womens Perspactive)

কোন মন্তব্য নেই :
Marriage is one fragile topic to take up for discussion or practice, and yes, I haven't graduated even after going through it myself - can't corroborate as to whether it is THE most important thing for women, but I have a theory. For a girl, being married and not being married bring exactly the same quanta of happiness and/or unhappiness but under different heads - not an ounce less, not an ounce more. Why do we want to get married ? After one degree of maturity of mind, to me marriage seeps down to 2 main reasons - to extend a family, going through the unexplained joy of creating and growing a tiny hope ! The second reason for marriage is the lonelisness & lack of companionship in the old age - when your parents are no more, your friends are scattered you-dont-know-where and your relatives are out of sight.Maugham once remarked through one of his characters - marriage is the best profession for women. But that is really a very different perspective from the one we cultivate today. There is this element of insecurity and vulnerability of course, but with the current generation of women, it is solely at the emotional corner of mind - marriage is not a shortcut to a safe ongoing source of money.Taking the financial necessity out of it, let us look at what remains of a marriage. Well, we cannot deny that unlike earlier times, when a women comprised of a body and a heart, women of our times have a mind too. She needs all three - physical, emotional AND cerebral stimulation from her environment - in varying degrees, but the last often takes a predominating frontseat.Now this being the case, given the exposure available to them, marriage really loses some, if not a lot, of its earlier significance and relevance. That is precisely why I notice, even among my immediate friends, coming from middle class bengali families like mine, there is an increasing comfort with the idea of staying single. She can work alone, think and grow alone and also has friends at different proximities to give her companionship and emotive support and mental stimuli. So, instead of being an obvious course of life, marriage is an option for her - something she will first weigh and measure and match with her temperament and then decide upon.At a personal level, marriage happened to me because I consciously never allowed myself to churn it in my head - I made constant, honest and alert efforts never to brainstorm and weigh the pros and cons and aftermath and probable effects and defects of marriage like I do before all other rational decisions of my life - perhaps the reason why I ended up doing it so smoothly !!!I just looked at one wonderful person who had been my best friend for 6 years and at that moment , looked particularly sweet and honest, and I went for it without allowing my mind to question the sanctity and limitations of this institution ! THAT is the rule - keep your fondly fostered and matured intellect out of this social labyrinth called marriage - else you'll never make it to the wedding day !!!Marriage isn't bad - but the best way to handle it is not to expect it to be too good, either :o)

Yesterlife

কোন মন্তব্য নেই :
Yesterlife

Life brings you small pieces of broken moments at times,

While you naively look at them and wonder where the verities went wrong :

The window that brought in the childhood yellow sun -

And the balcony that showed in the first spell of shower,

The baby rabbit that followed your steps right through the night,A torn newspaper remnant of

Calvin or Opel - Life is a Journey ?

A montage of colours and moments so small,

They are almost intangible.If not for the silence they bring.

A collage of colours, thinned and blotted out by tears - trickle down slow

Along the quiet winding path that goes to everything I once called Life

বৃহস্পতিবার, ২৬ অক্টোবর, ২০০৬

DR. Muhammad Yunus

কোন মন্তব্য নেই :

Muhammad Yunus
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
মুহাম্মদ ইউনুস Muhammod Iunus

Born : June 28, 1940Chittagong, Bangladesh
Occupation Founder: Grameen Bank
Spouse : Afrozi Yunus
Muhammad Yunus, Ph.D. (Bengali: মুহাম্মদ ইউনুস, Muhammod Iunus) (born June 28, 1940), is a Bangladeshi banker and economist. He is the developer and founder of the concept of microcredit, the extension of small loans to entrepreneurs too poor to qualify for traditional bank loans. Yunus is also the founder of Grameen Bank. In 2006, Yunus and the bank were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, "for their efforts to create economic and social development from below."[1] Yunus himself has received several other international honors, including the World Food Prize and the Sydney Peace Prize. He is the author of Banker to the Poor and a founding board member of Grameen Foundation.He is also a founding member of Ashoka's Global Academy of Social Entrepreneurship that honours leading global social entrepreneurs.
Contents[hide]
1 Childhood and family
2 Education and early career
3 Yunus and Bangladesh Liberation War
4 Founding the Grameen Bank
5 Nobel prize
6 Other Grameen Sectors
7 Awards
8 See also
9 References
10 External links
//

[edit] Childhood and family
Yunus was born in 1940 in the village of Bathua, in Hathazari, Chittagong. His father's name is Hazi Dula Mia Shoudagar, and mother's name is Sufia Khatun. His early childhood years were spent in the village. In 1947, his family moved to the city of Chittagong, where his father had a jewellery business.
Yunus is married to Afroji Yunus, a professor of physics at Jahangirnagar University. He is the father of two daughters: Dina Yunus and Monica Yunus. [2] His brothers are also active in academia: his brother Muhammad Ibrahim is a professor of physics at Dhaka University; his younger brother Muhammad Jahangir is a popular television presenter.

[edit] Education and early career
Yunus studied at his village school in the early years. When his family moved to Chittagong, he enrolled in the Lamabazar Primary School. Later, he studied at Chittagong Collegiate School and passed the matriculation examination, in which he secured the 16th position among 39,000 students in East Pakistan. During his school years, he was active in the Boy Scouts, and travelled to West Pakistan and India in 1952. In 1955, he attended the World Scouts Jamboree in Canada as part of the Pakistan contingent. On the way back, he travelled through Europe and Asia by road. Next, Yunus enrolled into Chittagong College where he was active in cultural activies and got awards for acting in dramas. [2]
In 1957, he enrolled in the department of economics at Dhaka University and completed his BA in 1960 and MA in 1961. Following his graduation, Yunus joined in the Bureau of Economics. There he worked as research assistant to the economical researchs of Professor Nurul Islam and Rehman Sobhan [3]. Later he was appointed as a lecturer in economics in Chittagong College and joined there in 1961[4]. He obtained his Ph.D. in economics from Vanderbilt University in the United States in 1969 after getting a Fulbright scholarship. From 1969 to 1972, Yunus was an assistant professor of economics at Middle Tennessee State University before moving back to Bangladesh, where he joined Chittagong University as an economics professor.
Yunus first got involved in fighting poverty during a 1974 famine in Bangladesh. He discovered that very small loans could make a disproportionate difference to a poor person. His first loan consisted of US$27 from his own pocket, which he lent to women in the village of Jobra — near Chittagong University — who made bamboo furniture. They had to take out usurious loans in order to buy bamboo. They then sold these items to the moneylenders to repay them. With a net profit of 5 Bangladeshi taka (.02 USD), the women were unable to support their families.[citation needed] However, traditional banks were not interested in making tiny loans at more reasonable interest rates to poor people, who were considered repayment risks.[5]
During this time, he established a rural economic programme as a research project. In 1974, he developed a Tebhaga Khamar (three share farm) which the government adopted as the Packaged Input Programme. [2] In order to make the project more effective, Yunus and his associates proposed another project called 'Gram Sarkar' (the village government)[6]. The government adopted it in 1980, but the succeeding regime later lifted it away.

[edit] Yunus and Bangladesh Liberation War
In 1970, on the way of getting PhD, Yunus joined in Middle Tennessee State University. In 1971, the Liberation War of Bangladesh started. Yunus joined in the activities of raising support to the liberation war. With other Bangladeshis living in United States, he founded Bangladesh Citizen's Committee. Then they started Bangladesh Information Centre in New York. Later, he helped Bangladeshi officers working in the Pakistan Embassy in United States to get themselves out from the embassy. He was also an active participant of the Bangladesh Defence League founded by Dr. Fazlur Rahman Khan who tried to supply arms and ammunitions to the 'Muktibahini (Freedom Fighters). [7]

[edit] Founding the Grameen Bank
Main article: Grameen Bank
In 1976, Yunus founded the Grameen Bank (Grameen means "of rural area", "of village") to make loans to poor Bangladeshis. The Grameen Bank has issued more than US$ 5.1 billion to 5.3 million borrowers. To ensure repayment, the bank uses a system of "solidarity groups". These small informal groups apply together for loans and its members act as co-guarantors of repayment and support one another's efforts at economic self-advancement[8]. As it has grown, the Grameen Bank has also developed other systems of alternate credit that serve the poor. In addition to microcredit, it offers education loans and housing loans as well as financing for fisheries and irrigation projects, venture capital, textiles, and other activities, along with other banking services such as savings.
The success of the Grameen model has inspired similar efforts throughout the developing world and even in industrialized nations, including the United States. The Grameen model of micro financing has been emulated in 23 countries. Many, but not all, microcredit projects also retain its emphasis on lending specifically to women. More than 96% of Grameen loans have gone to women, who suffer disproportionately from poverty and who are more likely than men to devote their earnings to their families. [2]

[edit] Nobel prize
Muhammad Yunus was awarded the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize, along with Grameen Bank, for "their efforts to create economic and social development from below."[9] He is the first and only Bangladeshi to win the prestigious award. The award also marked a shift away from the conventions by awarding it to someone who worked to promote peace indirectly through economic upliftment of the masses.
The announcement read:

The Norwegian Nobel Committee has decided to award the Nobel Peace Prize for 2006, divided into two equal parts, to Muhammad Yunus and Grameen Bank for their efforts to create economic and social development from below. Lasting peace cannot be achieved unless large population groups find ways in which to break out of poverty. Micro-credit is one such means. Development from below also serves to advance democracy and human rights.

The 65-year-old economist said he would use part of his share of the $1.4 million award to create a company to make low-cost, high-nutrition food for the poor. The rest would go toward setting up an eye hospital for the poor in Bangladesh, he said. The food company, to be known as Social Business Enterprise, will sell food for a nominal price.

[edit] Other Grameen Sectors
Grameen Phone – Pioneer of Telecommunication
The Grameen Phone telecommunication project has evolved to become Bangladesh's biggest private phone company. It has more than nine million subscribers.
Village Phone
The Village Phone (পল্লি ফোন, polli fon) project is another brainchild of Dr. Yunus that aims to bring phone connectivity to the rural population of Bangladesh, and at the same time give entrepreneural opportunities to rural women. Village Phone works by the basic idea of providing small amount loans to rural women to buy cellular phones to set up "public call centers" at their homes. Income generated by the call centers is used to pay off the loans.
Grameen Star Education
This was a project where students could take courses on currently needed sectors; they could also use this as a MLM source. Grameen took this step to prevent foreign MLMs from rushing into Bangladesh.
Grameen Check
For the moral of self-dependence, Dr. Yunus started a trend to wear simple local clothes and opened a small section for clothing. He also always wears Grameen Check. Now, it is one of the most popular trend among all classes of people of Bangladesh, especially in the capital of Dhaka. There are dozens of Grameen-based showrooms all over the country.

[edit] Awards
1978 — President's Award, Bangladesh
1984 — Ramon Magsaysay Award, Philippines
1985 — Bangladesh Bank Award, Bangladesh
1987 — Shwadhinota Dibosh Puroshkar (Independence Day Award), Bangladesh
1989 — Aga Khan Award for Architecture, Switzerland
1993 — CARE Humanitarian Award
1994 — Winner of the World Food Prize
1995 — Winner[10] of the Max Schmidheiny Freedom Prize[11]
1996 — Winner of the UNESCO Simón Bolívar Prize
1997 — Received award[12] from Strømme Foundation[13], Norway
1998 — Received Prince of Asturias Award
1998 — Winner of the Sydney Peace Prize
2004 — Winner of The Economist newspaper's Prize for social and economic innovation.
2006 — Mother Teresa Award instituted by the Mother Teresa International and Millenium Award Committee (MTIMAC), Kolkata, India.
2006 — 8th Seoul Peace Prize
2006 — Nobel Peace Prize, shared with Grameen Bank
And 47 others, for a total of 62.
Additionally, Prof. Yunus has been awarded 27 honorary doctorate degrees (all but one a doctorate), and 15 special awards. The Grameen Bank website includes a List of Awards Received by Professor Muhammad Yunus.
Former U.S. president Bill Clinton was a vocal advocate for the awarding of the Nobel Prize to Muhammed Yunus. He expressed this in Rolling Stone magazine[14] as well as in his autobiography My Life.[15] In a speech given at University of California, Berkeley in 2002, President Clinton described Dr. Yunus as "a man who long ago should have won the Nobel Prize [and] I’ll keep saying that until they finally give it to him." [16]
Yunus was judged one among the ten most famous living Bengali personalities in a poll organized by Muktadhara New York. [citation needed]

[edit] See also
Microfinance
List of Muslim Nobel Prize winners

[edit] References
^ The Nobel Peace Prize for 2006. The Nobel Peace Prize for 2006 (2006-10-13). Retrieved on 2006-10-13.
^ a b c Interview with Muhammad Yunus, from Prothom Alo Eid Magazine, 2003.
^ An interview of Dr. Muhammad Yunus conducted by Matiur Rahman, Editor, the daily Prothom Alo-a Bangladeshi daily news paper, written in Bangla
^ An interview of Dr. Muhammad Yunus conducted by Matiur Rahman, Editor, the daily Prothom Alo-a Bangladeshi daily news paper, written in Bangla
^ BBC report on Muhammad Yunus
^ Ramon Magsaysay Award Citation
^ A Bengali Interview of Dr. Muhammad Yunus, Daily Prothom Alo, October 14, 2006.
^ Ramon Magsaysay Award Citation
^ The Norwegian Nobel Committee.
^ Dr. Muhammad Yunus, 1995. The Freedom Prize[1] from The Max Schmidheiny Foundation.
^ The Max Schmidheiny Foundation
^ http://www.stromme.org/?1=1 Help for SelfHelp Award
^ http://www.eu-cord.org/members/strommetxt.html
^ The birth of micro credit, CNN, March 29, 2001
^ Left Behind - By Bangladesh: Bangladeshi girls have higher rates of school attendance than Indian girls The Telegraph, October 2, 2005
^ President Clinton's Talk at Zellerbach Hall, UC Berkeley, CA, USA on January 29, 2002
Yunus's autobiography
PBS Biography An article on Muhammad Yunus and Grameen Bank.
A short biography
Awardee Profile of Max Schmidheiny Freedom Price]

[edit] External links
This article or section may contain external links added only to promote a website, product, or service – otherwise known as spam.If you are familiar with the content of the external links, please help by removing promotional links, in accordance with Wikipedia:External links. (you can help!)

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to:
Muhammad Yunus
Grameen Bank, Yunus's dream
Banker to the Poor by Muhammad Yunus
Yunus' biography - The World Food Prize
Profile: 'World banker to the poor'
Article on Muhammad Yunus at BusinessWeek, December 26, 2005
CNN article The birth of micro credit, 2001.
A speech by Muhammad Yunus
An interview with him
SAJAforum.org Q&A from around the world with Muhammad Yunus (audio/MP3 42 minutes)
Audio-Interview with M. Yunus, by Wolfgang Blau (a.k.a. Harrer) and Alysa Selene, ZDF Germany
A collection of video documentaries of Dr. Muhammad Yunus and Grameen Bank
A video by Muhammad Yunus talking about Grameen Bank
Nobel peace prize: Well deserved, but…Prof Taj Hashmi, who has worked closely with him, hails the award, but takes a hard look at the reasons behind the choice.

শনিবার, ২১ অক্টোবর, ২০০৬

How hi-tech Hezbollah called the shots

কোন মন্তব্য নেই :
How hi-tech Hezbollah called the shotsBy Iason Athanasiadis BEIRUT - Hezbollah's ability to repel the Israel Defense Forces during the recent conflict was largely due to its use of intelligence techniques gleaned from allies Iran and Syria that allowed it to monitor encoded Israeli communications relating to battlefield actions, according to Israeli officials, whose claims have been independently corroborated by the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). "Israeli EW [electronic warfare] systems were unable to jam the systems at the Iranian Embassy in Beirut, they proved unable to jam Hezbollah's command and control links from Lebanon to Iranian facilities in Syria, they blocked the Barak ship anti-missile systems, and they hacked into Israeli operations communications in the field," Richard Sale, the longtime intelligence editor for United Press International, who was alerted to this intelligence failure by current and former CIA officials, told Asia Times Online. The ability to hack into Israel's military communications gave Hezbollah a decisive battlefield advantage, aside from allowing it to dominate the media war by repeatedly intercepting reports of the casualties it had inflicted and announcing them through its television station, Al-Manar. Al-Manar's general director, Abdallah Kassir, would not comment on the information- gathering methods that had allowed it to preempt Israel's casualty announcements, but he admitted he was in constant contact with Hezbollah's military wing. When Israeli troops invaded southern Lebanon, they found themselves bogged down in stronger-than- expected Hezbollah resistance. The story of the handful of Hezbollah militants who single-handedly defended the border village of Aita Shaab has already become legend. Ultimately, Israel decided that the only way to neutralize them was to carpet-bomb the village, reducing it to rubble in the process. Part of the reason for Hezbollah's decisive battlefield performance was that it was gleaning valuable information by monitoring telephone conversations in Hebrew between Israeli reservists and their families on their personal mobile phones. "If an enemy sets up a small group of EW people familiar with the terrain and reasonably aware of the current tactical situation, a stream of in-the-clear calls could have been a gold mine of information mentioned inadvertently," said Sale, quoting a CIA official. A London Sunday Times article titled "Humbling of the super-troops shatters Israeli army morale" reported the story last week. It stated that Hezbollah was "able to crack the codes and follow the fast-changing frequencies of Israeli radio communications, intercepting reports of the casualties they had inflicted again and again". The development marks a potential turning point in the region's strategic balance. Hezbollah's ability to repel Israel's elite troops marked the first time that an Arab force had frustrated a concerted invasion scenario by Israel. This has led to a concerted rethink on the part of the Israeli leadership, in which it is being assisted by American experts, according to Israeli intelligence website DEBKAfile. It adds that the American experts are particularly focused on how Iranian EW installed in Lebanese army coastal radar stations blocked the Barak anti-missile missiles aboard Israeli warships, allowing Hezbollah to hit at least one Israeli corvette, the Hanith. "Assuming that these capabilities came from Syria and Iran, most probably by way of Russia and China, one would have to believe that both the US and Israel have learned from the experience, and that leaning process will be applied in future conflicts," said Robert Freedman, Peggy Meyerhoff Pearlstone professor of political science at the Baltimore Hebrew University. The Debka article also claims that Hezbollah secretary general Hassan Nasrallah was hosted throughout the war in an underground war-room beneath the Iranian Embassy in Beirut. Iranian involvement was suspected throughout the conflict, and a captured Hezbollah guerrilla confessed on Israeli television to have visited Iran for training. The most able and committed Hezbollah guerrillas usually visit Iran for religious indoctrination and training in the firing of non-Katyusha rocketry. "It [the technological breakthrough] may mean that the US and Israel no longer have the ability to operate at lower levels of violence on a supreme basis," said a Middle East analyst. "The playing field is more leveled. This may mean more diplomacy or it may mean more, and more concentrated, violence." Iran and Syria advanced their SIGINT (SIGnals INTelligence - intelligence- gathering by interception of signals) cooperation last November, as part of a joint strategic defense cooperation accord aimed at consolidating the strategic aspect of their long-term alliance. Aside from being an invaluable help to Hezbollah, the ability to read Israeli and US codes could aid Iran in monitoring US movements in Iraq and Afghanistan. "It goes to the heart of one of the factors ... routinely regarded as one of the clear advantages for all First World versus Third World nations or forces - electronic warfare and secure communications," said Gary Sick, who was national security adviser under US president Jimmy Carter. "We are supposed to be able to read and interfere with their communications, not vice versa. A lot of calculations are based on that premise."

Iason Athanasiadis is an Iran-based correspondent.
Source: http://www.myantiwa r.org/view/ 92407.html--

রবিবার, ২৩ জুলাই, ২০০৬

My first foot step at blog

কোন মন্তব্য নেই :
My very first day as a blogger............The start , i dont know when it will come to an end.
That is it for to day..now I'll have to call my wife who is eagerly waiting for my call thousands miles away from me........okkay mates....bye for today