A report in the newspaper today attracted my attention. Bangladesh lags behind all the countries of South Asia in Mobile Penetration Rate.

This is a matter of pity for Bangladesh that we lag behind Afghanistan also in this respect. The MPR of Afghanistan is 29 percent while Bangladesh is 28 percent. How could it be possible for a war ravaged country.

Maldives leads this region with 143 active SIMs/ 100 people as the undisputed leader in mobile connectivity in South Asia, while Sri Lanka secured the second position with 52 active SIMs per 100 people.

Pakistan is 50 SIMs per 100 and Bhutan is 37 SIMs per 100 people. India is lagging behind which is 29 per 100 people, same as Afghanistan.

This scenario indicates that Bangladesh yet has a good space for the expansion of the cell phone industry. In order to enhance the market, the mobile operators needs to reduce the tariff more so that it could reach to more people especially at the grass root level and on the other side the Government needs to reduce the tax on each SIM connection also, currently it is Taka 800, which is one of the hindrances for the expansion of the mobile industry in Bangladesh.

Though the mobile operators had reduced their rate substantially still there is lot to be done. The interconnectivity rate between the mobile operators needs to be reduced. The first cell phone company used to charge Taka 10 per minute for outgoing and Taka 7 per minute for incoming and the connection fee was more than hundred thousand Taka. I was not a subscriber until 1997/1998 when grameenphone was launched. I still remember I had to pay Taka 24,000 for the connection fee including a mobile set costing Taka 6,000. In those days the outgoing rate was Taka 5 per minute and Taka 3 per minute for incoming. Now the provision of incoming rate has been waived by all the operators and the outgoing charge has come down to less a Taka per minute in some schemes. This is of course a radical reduction in the rate. Cell sets are also cheaper today, you can buy good quality sets within Taka 1,200/- also. Thanks to the China Manufacturers.

The concern of the mobile phone industry here is the foreign investment in this sector, the huge profits in this sector are siphoned away abroad. This needs a better scrutiny.

Graviola has been used by the indigenous people of Brazil and other countries in the tropical region for remedy from various diseases like worms, parasites, fevers, diarrhea, dysentery other diseases. The leaves, bark, fruit seeds and roots of this plant are hypotensive, sedative, antispasmodic and nervine. People drink a tea prepared specially from the bark or leaves of the tree for healing purposes. Graviola is a plant naturally grown in the deep forests of Amazon in South America and other tropical forests.

In Brazil the leaf is used for liver problems and the oil extracted from the leaves is used externally for rheumatism and arthritis pain. In Peru it is used for diabetes. In Haiti, Jamaica and the West Indies, it is used for fever, flu, coughs worms, diarrhea, asthma, heart conditions and hypertension. Thus graviola has been used for medicinal purposes down through the ages.

The reason why graviola is being widely discussed in the scientific world today is for its miraculous property of combating cancer. This plant has literally proved to be a miraculous cure for cancer patients, especially for 12 types of cancer which includes breast, colon, lung, prostate, and pancreatic cancer. Since 1970 research work is in progress and it has been proved that it has thousand times more potentiality to cure cancer affected cells in comparison to usual chemotherapy treatment.

All this has been possible for the unique property of the plant. It do possess a rare chemical called Annonaceous acetogenins, this compound is naturally produced in the leaves, stem, bark and fruit seeds of the plant. Several independent research groups have confirmed that this particular chemical do have the strongest anti-tumorous properties and toxicity against various types of cancer cells. Fortunately, it does not at all affect the healthy cells while killing the cancer affected cells.

It has also been revealed that the extracts of the powerful tree do have the capability to combat cancer cells safely and it does not cause nausea, weight loss and hair loss, as it happens in the case of chemotherapy. It protects the immune system and thus infections are avoided. The patient feels energetic during the period of treatment. The most important thing is that it is 10,000 times stronger in killing colon cancer cells than Adriamycin, the chemotherapeutic drug often used in this purpose.

Now the question comes why such a revolutionary research findings had been concealed from the people so long. It has been learnt that one famous US Drug Company spent millions of dollars for this research for more than a decade and yielded positive results. As US Federal Law prohibits patenting natural substances, this company instead of promoting their research and switching it towards production of medicine from graviola, they invested further more to find a chemical replica of the plant extract so that they could retain the patent of the cancer medicine, with an ulterior motive of ensuring substantial profits. However failing in this process they had purposely prevented publishing all their research findings on graviola and ultimately shelved it. At last one individual researcher of the company disclosed the facts outside. Later Purdue University in Indiana and the Catholic University of South Korea took up the issue and conducted further studies in the field with fruitful results. This has now come close for approval from the FDA and hopefully it will open a new chapter in cancer treatment world wide.

A report has been published today in Daily Ittefaq. The Bangladesh Submarine Cable Company is now planning to export internet bandwidth to Nepal and Bhutan. According to BSCC, we are using only 31 % of the total capacity of internet bandwidth and the balance bandwidth is left utilized, so this could be exported to Nepal or Bhutan. These countries are landlocked and do not have direct access to sea, thus unable to have internet connection through submarine cables. They rely on costly VSAT technology which is a costly affair.

Exporting internet bandwidth to Bhutan and Nepal is of high potentiality and could fetch us substantial revenues. This is because of the advantage we enjoy for our country’s geographical location. The problem is that we do not have any common border with any of these countries, in between there is a patch of Indian soil. Now the question arises whether Bangladesh will be able to negotiate with India for allowing us to lay cables through their land, to reach a third country. I believe this will be a difficult job, as it is understood that India itself would like to take the opportunity to provide such internet connection to these countries.

Now other pertinent question arises, are we now in a position to transfer our bandwidth to a third country? According to the newspaper report currently we are using only 31 % of our bandwidth, apparently it seems that the rest is left unutilized. This would be an acceptable proposal if we had a high usage of internet bandwidth per capita at present. Being a country of around 150 million people, I guess hardly a million people have access to internet. We have to reach out to more and more people with the internet, in order to materialize our vision of Digital Bangladesh. The cost of internet connection is still out of reach of the general people. Still we have to pay on an average Tk.1,000 to stay online to our service provider. The cost is still same as the old VSAT usage. What percentage of our population can afford that, the Government must take steps to lower down the cost of internet usage, then only we will be able to see that the rate of utilization of internet shall increase more and more and there will be no unutilized bandwidth left.

Finally, I would still say not to give up the idea of exporting bandwidth to our neighbouring countries, this could be done only after our optimum utilization of our required bandwidth, perhaps a second submarine line could be installed for this purpose only. The bottom line is that, Nepal and Bhutan along with the development of the information technology, will surely be linked with submarine cables and these has to be routed either via India or Bangladesh. China’s border with these two countries are located in remote Chinese areas as such it will be difficult to connect. Now it will depend on the strength of the Bangladeshi diplomacy, how they could come to a advantages situation and bring revenue for the country from this sector.

I feel comfortable to use the term food security instead of food crisis in our country’s context. Whenever we talk about food crisis, the word starvation comes up in our mind, or more commonly when we mention hunger and then the issue of death from hunger surfaces. Hunger related death, is not an issue in our country as it is relevant to the Sub Saharan countries.

The staple food of our country is rice. When we talk about food grain, it is meant rice. The vast majority of the people of the country eat rice as the a staple food. Wheat, potatoes, corn was also grown in the country however, they seldom has been used as substitute of rice, and that is an issue of food security in our country. Down through the ages, the people of this region had been depended on rice.

Bangladesh never exported rice for the last 50 years. Again, since the end of the British Colonial Period in 1947 , Bangladesh never faced severe food crisis, except in 1974. It used to import food grains traditionally, but it never exceeded 15 % of the total domestic production. There are some exceptions, in the year 1999, due to severe floods huge quantity of food stuff had to be imported. We do not produce much wheat, traditionally we import about 2.5 million tons of wheat each year on an average. Rice is not much available in the international market.

In the year 1974 we had a famine like situation in Bangladesh, there were cases of starvation to death also. This was mostly for political reasons, international politics hindered our import of food grains that year, causing severe suffering of the people.

During our liberation in 1971, we had a population of 75 million people and we used to grow 10 million tons of food grains annually. Last year, we had a bumper harvest and the estimated food grain production was around 30 million tons. Now our population is estimated at 150 million people. Our population has increased two folds and the food production has increased three folds in the last 37 years. The per capita intake has also increased by one and half folds. The annual boro rice production has increased to 18 million. This is just the double of 1986 & 1987. Our aman rice production has also increased in the same ratio. We produce mainly these two varieties of rice. During the year 1998-1999, the production of wheat also increased to the extent, where we had surplus, but unfortunately the wheat production decreased from thereon.

In short we can say that the issue of food crisis is not severe as it has been always projected. The trend is that our annual food production is in the marginal level to meet the demand of the country. Whenever there is any disruption in the normal food production, the matter of food shortage arises leading to food crisis.
Bangladesh is prone to natural calamities like the floods or cyclones. Whenever the country is devastated by cyclone or floods, this hampers the food production. In such a situation, if the governmental policy or mechanism for food imports does not synchronize well, then we suffer from food scarcity.
In the years 1988, 1989 & 1999 we had severe floods which engulfed two third of the total areas of the country, in such a situation, one crop had totally failed, however, the huge quantity and rapid grain imports had tackled the situation.

In November 2007, the southern part of the country had been totally devastated by Cyclone Sidr. This was also responsible for the massive crop failure. During the beginning of the year 2008 we were having a sort of food crisis, for the crop failure secondly for the world wide food grain shortage and also the price spiral. This had a very negative impact. The food grain price had nearly doubled and it was very difficult for the poor people to buy food. People at the lower strata suffered a lot, but there were no reports of starvation related deaths. However, situation changed with the next harvest which was a bumper crop. The prices of food grains had come down now.

The other food related issue in Bangladesh is the availability of fertilizers, seeds, proper irrigation system to the farmers. If any of these components fall short, it too has negative impact in rice production. For example, the newly elected Government after being elected at the end of last year, immediately arranged 50% subsidies for fertilizers, again we had a drought like situation here in Bangladesh during this monsoon, the Government immediately had provided free electricity to the farmers for irrigation purpose. These steps augments the food production in the country.

The other issue is that when the price of food goes up the people whom we term as ultra poor, looses the buying capacity, resulting in less food intake. The problem of malnutrition comes up then.
Similarly, in the northern part of the country, when the harvest is over during the winter season, no work is available in the field. Being unemployed the poor people loose the capacity to buy food, though food is available in the market. This is somewhat an annual phenomenon in the northern region, especially in the districts of Rangpur, Dinajpur etc. We term this as ‘monga’ a semi famine like situation. The ultra poor section of the country suffers a lot during that time. Now a days the Government takes much measures to provide work for the people so that they can have some income to buy their food and the situation is improving each year.

The food supply situtation of our country is more or less quite secure. However, we have to be cautious, especially dealing the food production during droughts, floods, cyclones. We have to see that the farmers have easy access ot agricultural amenities always and also they have a fair price of the products. Thus we can maintain a favorable condition in food production in our country.

The situation is aggravating in our country with the rise of number of infections from   swine flu caused by H1N1 virus. The total number of infection has raised to 36 in our country. However, in our neighboring India the death toll raised to 19 today while the number of infection raised to more than 1,000 cases.

I was in New Delhi last week and happened to return Dhaka on Tuesday last. When the situation aggravated, in New Delhi, we were concerned what will  happen us at Dhaka airport when we arrive, we were certain that we will be under scrutiny when we arrive at Dhaka airport, since India has been affected severely by swine flu.

Surprisingly, when we arrived at Dhaka airport via Kolkota, we didn’t notice any special measures followed in this respect. We were asked to fill up a yellow form, to indicate whether we had any flu symptoms, this seemed to be somewhat on voluntary basis. Some of the passengers filled up the form and submitted to the officers on duty there, some had rushed towards immigration counters to finish the immigration formalities without filling the forms. Moreover, how can we ensure that a passenger will write the truth in the form, in case he or she has the symptoms.  It is meaningless to  have such screening procedures.

I recall that at Singapore and Hong Kong airports, they have installed  infra red cameras to screen all incoming passengers. Though it is high tech and could be a costly affair, still the authorities should see into this affair, whether this could be installed at our international airports. But for the time being, each of the incoming passengers, especially flights arrived from a swine flu affected country should be examined one to one basis, to prevent it’s infiltration in our country.

I recall that last week when we arrived at Kolkota airport, each of the  passengers were examined physically before the duty doctor at the airport cleared us out.

A news flashed in some of the daily newspapers today, I have read in Sangbad and The Daily Star. It is not an unusual news for Bangladesh, its a common event. Garments workers have damaged  several vehicles including two buses in Dhaka city.  Around one thousand workers (800 according to Sangbad) from Alpine Garments Factory, vandalized a number of vehicles including two buses at Gulshan II in front of Westin Hotel.

It had been reported that this incident  was the aftermath of sacking of 50 workers of the factory. The agitating workers came down to the street, stopped the vehicular movement during rush hours of the day. Later the situation was brought under control through the intervention of the police.

Now several questions have erupted in public mind, which seeks answers from the pertinent quarters. The garments factory was established in the residential area like Gulshan, how did it happen when this is an exclusive zone for diplomats and expatriates. Though commercial houses have sprung up in that area like mushrooms, still allowing factories to flourish is a mystery.

Then how long we are going to accept such an improper manner of protest of the workers. The innocent vehicle owners had nothing to do with the garments factories, why they shall become victims of the conflict. Who are going to pay for the damages and how? All these questions shall remain unanswered, as it had been in the past.

Now we need a platform where the workers can properly ventilate their grievances to their employers, instead of exercising these heinous acts to draw attention of the concerned authorities. The answer could be the formation of trade unions by the workers, which could represent the workers lawfully to the employers and find acceptable solutions in conflicts between the two parties.

On September 10, former Premier of Pakistan Newaz Sharif had been deported from Islamabad Airport when he attempted to return to his country after about staying 7 years in exile. An aircraft kept ready in the airport had whisked him off to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia after about 4 hours altercation with the authorities at Islamabad Airport. Prior to his arrival the Anti Corruption Bureau had rejuvenated corruption cases against him and  threatened to arrest him, if he didn’t agree with the deportation. A verdict of the Supreme Court on August 23, declared that it was his “inalienable right” to return to his country. This historical verdict triggered his attempt to return home. This deportation was an act of ignoring and insulting the judiciary on the part of the Government.

Newaz Sharif’s deportation have enraged the judicial community in Pakistan. Supporters of Newaz Sharif have filed cases protesting the deportation and surely one can expect a proper remedy since the Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhary  is a staunch proponent of democracy and opponent of Musharraf.

President Gen. Pervez Musharraf who seized power in a bloodless coup in 1999 now wants to be reelected in the forth coming Presidential Elections without relinquishing his position as army chief. This lead to a huge political and judicial upheaval in the country.

President Musharraf earlier in March sacked the Chief Justice Iftikar Muhammad Chaudhary. The Supreme Court’s verdict of July 20, reinstated the Chief Justice. This was another challenge for President Musharraf. Justice Chaudhary is one of his strong opponents and engaged in judicial battle in restoring democracy in Pakistan. He posed a great threat to President Musharraf not only in assuming the position of the President in the next elections but also to hold it during his present tenure.

The US have special interest in keeping President Pervez Musharraf in power, because he had been loyal to the US in supporting the US lead war against terrorism. Though President Musharraf has proved very little to be successful in wiping out terrorism in his very own country, still he is deemed to be one of US strong ally in South Asia, especially in respect of Pakistan’s role in war against the terrorism in neighboring Afghanistan. The US cannot take any risk of changing the political leadership in Pakistan at this moment, lest the whole campaign could be jeopardized. To address this issue, the US had brokered a deal with exiled former Pakistani Premier Benajir Bhutto, for power sharing with President Musharraf in the next Presidential Elections, where President Musharraf would continue to be the President while Butto would take over as the Premier. This would help the US to maintain the status quo in the region. Benajir Bhutto is more acceptable in the western world to Newaz Sharif. Benajir has been benefited through the deal as corruption charges against her would be dropped. She would manage to return home and participate in the elections. She also demanded constitutional changes to strip off the President with sweeping powers to dismiss the government and also President Musharraf should shed the army uniform.

Newaz Sharif well knew about his fate if returned to Pakistan, for this reason only on the eleventh hour his brother Shahbaz  Sharif had been left out from his entourage to evade possible deportation in Islamabad. It has been learnt that now is wife, Begum Kulsum might take an attempt to return to country to examine the motive of the Government, if she faces deportation, this will work to stir up the local politics, the movement against the Government.

Newaz Sharif had been signaled earlier that at present he is not expected to return to Pakistan and play any role in Pakistani politics, The center-stage has already been pre occupied by President Musharraf and Bhutto, endorsed by the western nations. Initiatives were taken by the Saudi Intelligence Chief Prince Muqrim bin Abdul Aziz and Saad Harriri,  son of late Lebanese Premier Rashid Harriri, under the US patronage to arrange for deportation of Newaz Sharif to Saudi Arabia, when he arrives in Pakistan. Both of them visited the capital during the first week of September. Now it has been learnt that the passport of Newaz Sharif has been seized by the Saudi Authorities upon his arrival at Jeddah to prevent him to travel elsewhere and more specifically Pakistan. In fact after Parvez Musharraf came to power, Newaz Sharif had been forced exiled in Saudi Arabia in the year 2000 and having a gentlemen agreement with the Saudi Government that he would not return back to Pakistan within next 10 years and involved in politics. The Saudi Authorities now ensured the embargo on Newaz Sharif’s by seizing his passport and expected to retain it until 2010.

It is early to comment whether the road to democracy in Pakistan is far ahead or just round the corner. President Musharraf’s popularity is now in the lowest ebb. His participation in the reelection is now a controversy. The present constitution does not permit him for reelection, especially while holding the position of the chief of the Armed Forces. Though he is in full command of the military, but his popularity amongst the mass people have evaporated. This is because his unconditional support to US  policy. Pakistan had been historically supportive to the guerilla warfare in Afghanistan against the erstwhile Soviet regime,  that has turned now to fundamentalist Islamic movement. The Taliban regime in Afghanistan also had support of the Pakistani people. The bordering tribal regions were very much involved in supporting the Talibans, now the US lead anti terror military campaign in Afghanistan drew discontent amongst the Pakistani people and President Musharraf is rowing against the popular current, the question is how long he can keep on rowing. Recently, several attempts against his life indicate that the Islamic fundamentalists are looking for revenge for his stand against terrorism.

The civil society’s quest for returning to democracy is increasing rapidly. Recently the judiciary have taken up stand in this matter which seems a serious threat for President Musharraf. Historically Pakistan had been under military regime for majority of the time since its independence in 1947. The possibility of imposing Emergency or Marital Law could have been an option open for President Musharraf but it seems that US is not in favor of such move on the part of President Musharraf, perhaps it might rekindle the democracy movement and destabilize the Government. President Musharraf also have declared that there is no such possibility of imposing martial law or emergency. Though such a step could bless him with unlimited power, imposing ban on fundamental rights of the people, suspending the constitution and postpone the elections, paving the way for him to stay in power for a much longer period. However, on the contrary, in such a situation the possibility of people’s upsurge cannot be ruled out which eventually might lead to his fall.  We look forward to see where Pakistan marches on, whether backward towards the days of military regime for onwards towards the road of democracy.

(This article was written on 25th September 2007)

Wind power could be one of the potential alternative sources of energy during these days of energy crisis in Bangladesh. Bangladesh has acute shortage of electricity with an average of 1,500 megawatt per day due to limited capacity of electricity generation. More than 80 percent of power generated in Bangladesh is produced by natural gas, which too is now becoming scarce. Bangladesh is one of the fastest growing economy based on industrial production, hence the matter of electricity generation is very vital for the country.

The government is exploring various means of alternative energy resources, to combat the power crisis. Wind, solar, coal and lately nuclear power has been on the discussion table. With the beginning of this millennium, wind power was explored and two wind power stations had been installed, one in the remote island of Kutubdia and the other in Feni.

About a month ago, Prime Minister’s energy advisor said that they were exploring to add at least 50 megawatt of electricity to the national grid from wind mills. The Power Cell had been instruction to work on this matter as well as the Meteorological Department had been advised to identify suitable locations for the windmills, depending upon the availability of high wind velocity.

On the other hand, a news drew my attention today, after the commissioning of the Kutubdia 1 megawatt wind power project in 2006, the windmill was in operation  only  for  two and half months and it had been out of commission since then as the booster of the engine went inoperative. The spare parts are yet to be imported from China.

A power plant that has been inoperative for so many years only after running for two and half months is really a depressing story. It is evident that no effective measures had been taken to repair it and bring it to operation between these years. On the other hand it has also been reported that the existence of the wind power plant is at stake now, as the Bay of Bengal is swallowing its adjacent embankment, which too needs to be reconstructed soon. The Power Development Board has been persuading the Water Development Board to construct the embankment with no visible results. This reflects the lack of sincerity on the part of the Government to overcome the power crisis of the country. No matter what is the size of the power plant, this should be dealt promptly to convey the message of the seriousness of the Government to overcome the power crisis in the country.

I have been asked by my Guru, Brother Jarlath to say about my feelings on his book “Theology from the Mystics of Bangladesh”. “Gurur adesh shirodharjo” so I opted to share my feelings about this book, which though I have not read minutely but scanned almost of it.

Brother Jarlath knows me since the day when I first stepped into my school in the year 1967, I was 4 years old then. Since then he is my mentor and still happens to be. He was the Principal of St. Placid’s High School for many many years in Chittagong.

I am not a critic nor a writer, it is far beyond my capacity to appraise this book written by my guru, who has a profound knowledge in theology. It will be not out of the way to say that he has devoted his entire life in the quest of search of God. I am not a theologian and haven’t been in depth of this subject, however on the other hand it will not be wise to say that I do not understand the basics of this subject, at least to a minimum level.

It is quite unusual for the systematic theologians to venture in this unprecedented area. Being a member of EATWOT, the network of Third World Theologians, Brother Jarlath looks at theologies evolved in our own soil, rather then looking to the West. The indigeneous theology evolved in this region, like the Dalit Theology in India or the Ming Jung Theology developed in Korea, all speak about the people who are at the grass root, they all search for the divine deity, the salvation, through their own context. Brother Jarlath also looks into the mysticism, where the sages of our soil had been in the pursuit of the divine diety through their shadhana, in their own innovative ways.

I thank Brother Jarlath for his endeavor to look into new sphere of theology in our region. The book ‘Theology from the Mystics of Bangladesh’ is perhaps the first of its kind. Possibly, Brother Jarlath have taken a fresh look towards the work of these mystics, all were in search of the Divine, through their own lifestyle, through abstention, meditation, poems and songs. Some of them apparently seemed not or has been regarded as theologians generally, but the author had put up acceptable arguments as to why they couldn’t be regarded as theologians, why should their quest for the search of the divine should be ignored.

Theology is the quest for God, so it’s study should not be delimited within the framework of any single religion. The author have rightfully placed the Baul movement and Lalon Shah who brought this movement to its peak and drew the attention of the general mass. The Baul movement is a form of mysticism where the Hindu and Islamic trends converge, in the search of the diety, dissolving their own identity. Lalon gave up his jat, to attain the highest knowledge of spirituality. The four stages of Baul sadhana, the Baul, Darvesh, Shain and Fakir has been elaborated as the four stages of a Baul to attain the salvation. That is why Baul mysticism is more or less individualistic in nature, just like the mysticism of the Sufis.

Hasan Raja is another mystic devotee, hailed from Sunamgonj. Hasan Raja had converted fully to a life of prayer and renunciation. He gave his life of wantonness and pleasure and went into deep meditation, praying ardently to be able to see the Face of Allah. The author compares this with the conversion of St. Paul, and the event of the sea that changed the life of St. Augustine.

The author had also placed Rabindranath Tagore in the quest of search of God the infinite. Though Tagore belonged to the Hindu tradition, still they were ardent followers of the Brama Samaj, established by Raja Rammohon Roy. They worshiped only one God, which is termed as Unitarian. In that sense Tagore was a Unitarian. The author of the book has rightly pointed out the oneness of God as depicted in the Upanishads. The expression of this search of God was explicitly expressed in his book of Poems, the Gitanjali, which later accredited him with the Nobel Prize in 1913. The author pointed out the link of Tagore’s forefathers with the Phirali Shampraday. The Phirali Shampraday also was a mystic shampraday, based in Khulna. Tagore’s songs in Puja, was mostly devoted to the Supreme God, his search for the Diety.

Our Rebel Poet Kazi Nazrul Islam, composed a great number of poems and songs, asking the divine mercy of God the Almighty, he mainly followed the Islamic traditions but also we find Hindu traditions and even Christ in his poems. Thus he was seeking justice to God through his works. Jibananda Das a poet of deep silence looked for tranquility in the nature of Bengal. Similarly Pollikobi Jashimuddin not only had embroidered the beauty of Bengal in his poems but also painted the plight of the struggle and tension between two ethic groups, the Muslim and the Hindu amongst the gypsies. According to the author the ethnic societies of this region, too in their own way had been involved in search of the divine down through the ages.

The author summarizes the book in the final chapter. All the efforts of these mystics culminate to the same road which leads to path of God the Almighty. In doing so, some the features of the sadhana emerges, such as God creates harmony and nature is the true reflection of this harmony. All workships are creation centered, human beings are keepers of the God’s Creation. Religion means Love and God is Love. Love is the bondage that ties the creation together and knowledge of God can reduce the differences and create this world a better place to live in.

Finally, I thank the author Brother Jarlath for the time and pain he had taken to write this book. The 139 references in the bibliography, tells us about the efforts he had undertaken to write this book. I fervently believe that others theologians too will follow his footsteps now to work more in this field of theology more in depth in the coming days.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has arrived today in Myanmar to have talks with the top generals of Myanmar to press them to free all political prisoners including Aung San Suu Kyi.

Suu Kyi is under house arrest and at present under trial for allowing an American citizen who swam the lake and entered her home. She will be sentenced for several years of imprisonment if found guilty. The outcome of the trial is is easily predictable, because, it is very easy to understand that the military junta’s wans to debar her from the multi party election next year as promised, while convicting her in an offence.

One must not hope much as the outcome of the Ban Ki-moon’s visit and dialogue with the leaders of the Myanmar, perhaps her sentenced could be suspended and she could return to house arrest. She has been under house arrest for 14 years in the past 20 years since 1989 in her lakeside home in Yangon.

One question still remains unanswered. It is natural to understand that when Suu Kyi is under house arrest then her house is being guarded by the authorities to prevent trespassers as well as Suu Kyi to go out of the house. Any trespassing should be subject to prosecution but why the resident of the house is held responsible for this.

On the other hand it can also be said that the security of Suu Kyi is at stake, when intruders have access to her home inspite of the protection arranged by the authorities.