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Another long break since I last posted. The gap is due to my lack of discipline and distractions; I have has a cold or flu that has lasted six weeks and has left me very deaf. Being cut off from the aural world is very disconcerting. All sound seem to be filtered through a great wad of cotton wool, blurred and indistinct, and my grandchildren can creep up behind me and yell and I don't hear them, to great merriment.

Shahjahan Siraj and i have completed the 80+1 project on Dhaka markets, which Siraj is turning into an e-book. More details soon.

I read The Daily Star, Dhaka's leading English paper,regularly although when I'm in Dhaka I tend to read New Age. It keeps me in touch with things. The Daily Star tries to be neutral although it clearly supported the Interim Government between 2007 and 2008 and probably leans more towards the AL than the BNP. Nevertheless its not a bad paper and it covers things in some detail. Its websyte also includes access to its weekly magazine and the monthly Forum.

Issues that have been prominent have been
*a campaign to rescue Bangladesh's rivers from the encroachments of the developers;
*education;
*swine flu.

Education is the issue that really interests me. There is an ongoing debate about the 54 private universities in the country. There is no doubt that some of them are awful, little more than degree mills where students pay a fee and receive a piece of paper. Others on the other hand are trying to offer a quality education in difficult system. The problem is not so much the universities themselves but the education system in general. But more of this in the next post.

The other issues also reveal something of the problems facing Bangladesh. Clearly the developers are used to a corrupt administration and find any impediment put in their way as unacceptable and they fill the rivers and canal without concern for the future.

The hospitals are not capable of handling a major flu epidemic - and so it goes.

Reading The Daily Star I also notice that Biman has at long last posted a profit and at the same time the UN have designated it as an airline to be avoided at all costs.

Finally, there is a rule of thumb which says that the Western media only carry a story about Bangladesh if it is about disaster or mayhem. Recently the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's Foreign Correspondent carried a story about acid attacks (a vile and despicable act) on women and children. While it tried to convey a message of hope and courage it nevertheless conformed the overall approach to Bangladesh - show the baser side of human nature.