MAILBOX

Women in Leadership: For the Women, By the Women

The stories of prolific journey of women leaders are really inspirational for the rest of the women who live around them. The stories of women that have been eloquently featured in the article titled "Women in Leadership: For the Women, By the Women" published in Star Weekend on March 31, 2017 revealed their struggle and courage to overcome all the odds created by society. Their achievements glorify their struggle. Leadership programmes especially for women should be conducted in the educational institutions so that female students can contribute more to our societal and economic development. I think article like this one will inspire our policy makers and academicians to launch leadership programme for female students in the educational institutions of our country.      

Joshinta Areng 
Notre Dame University Bangladesh
Dhaka

Zahid Hasan: Physicist, Philosopher, Philanthropist 

I was amazed to read the article titled "Zahid Hasan: Physicist, Philosopher, Philanthropist" published in Star Weekend on March 17, 2017. It is really a great pleasure for us that a Bangladeshi physicist has solved a complex problem of quantum physics that kept physicists puzzled for almost 86 years. It is really inspiring that a physicist like Zahid also thinks about the well being of the disabled people. His explanation of disability in accordance with the Gaussian distribution also amazed me. I am also impressed by the fact that Zahid Hasan, being a professor of Princeton University, is still eager to work in the difficult working environment of Bangladesh. There is no doubt that if his dream of establishing "Centre for Advanced Research" can be implemented, Bangladesh's higher education will be able to take a giant leap forward. Our government should provide him with all kinds of support so that he can move forward with his dream project. As he is also currently working for the disabled people, he can contribute a lot to mainstream the disabled students of Bangladesh into formal education.   

Md Ashraf Khan
Jagannath University, Dhaka

Putting Consumers Last

I didn't even know that something called consumer rights exists in Bangladesh. I was further astounded when I learned that even there is an entire directorate that has been working to execute consumer rights law in our country where consumers are forced to be deceived in every aspect of their lives. Recently a report revealed that mobile telephone companies are buying 1 GB internet data with 26 paisa whereas they sell it to the customers at on average 275 Taka. This news reflects the consumer rights situation in Bangladesh. In the article titled "Putting Consumers Last" published in Star Weekend on March 31, 2017, it was said that some consumers are filing complaints to the Directorate of National Consumer Rights Protection. However, very few people in our country know about this law and the activities of the directorate. I think that consumer protection in Bangladesh has reached such a vulnerable state that penalties like fine and short term imprisonment will not be effective to establish consumer rights. A massive social awareness campaign should be launched all over the country to make people aware of what are consumer rights and the penalties associated if these rights are violated. 

Shamsul Arefin
Jatrabari, Dhaka