Bitter Experience With Kuwait Airways

Kuwait Airways is the national air carrier of Kuwait. I had the opportunity to avail its service when I went to Bangladesh on the 16th December. Previously I was very impressed with Emirates, another airlines of the middle east. I was so happy with Emirates that I rated it higher than the world renowned British Airways. Emirates seemed to be a perfect airlines to me. It did not miss its schedule, the crews in the flights were very cordial and sincere in their duty. Moreover I cannot forget the dinner ticket and one international call ticket provided by Emirates when I reached Dubai International Airport. The buffet at the gorgeous restaurant was unforgettable.

I thought Kuwait Airways will be as good as Emirates as it too is an airlines of a wealthy middle eastern country. But it gave me quite a contrasting experience. Almost half of the crews were Kuwaiti and their behavior was horrible. It seemed like they do not like their job at all and by serving us they are doing a favor. The rest of the crews of foreign origin were professional. I remember that one Kuwaiti air hostess was constantly frowning indicating her disgust with the job. In my journey from JFK to ZIA I had a 7 hour stop over in Kuwait Airport. The airport is ugly, it looked like a tent made of concrete to me. May be the design is a result of living in tents for hundreds of years. It had rooms for smoking. It is the only airport I have seen so far with this facility, none of the western airports I have visited, which are much much better than Kuwait Airport, had this (at least I did not find it). The fountains were dirty and filled with cigarette filters. The prayer rooms do not have any place for ablution. Kuwait Airways did not give me any hotel. It only gave me a meal ticket when I asked about it. The restaurant looked very cheap and small. The food was moderate. The quantity and number of items were fixed.

On my way back the experience was even worse. The flight from ZIA to Kuwait Airport was delayed by three hours because the plane could not arrive in time. This time I had a 17 hour stop-over at Kuwait Airport. Kuwait Airways was supposed to provide hotel but to my astonishment they refused to provide me hotel! There were many people who did not get hotel and were infuriated by this. We all protested and in response they agreed to provide hotel but only to U.S., U.K. and Canadian passport holders! People like me was guilty of having a Bangladeshi Passport! This time too they provided the dinner ticket only when asked to provide it. They did not provide the breakfast ticket though they clearly knew we are going to stay there for 17 hours and it will include breakfast time. Families with kids and old people stayed in the sofas of restaurants at first. But they were chased away but the restaurant stuffs.

I urge everyone to take lesson from this. Specially the Bangladeshis should be aware that Kuwait Airways discriminate against them. This is their return of our sending troops after Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait. On my return to JFK, I found that few Kuwait Airways crews are held by U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers for further security screening. Looks like Americans know better how to deal with Kuwaitis.

Bangladesh Population Reaches 16.13 Crore (161.3 Million)

This is an email I got in bdresearchers group:

Bangladesh population reaches 16.13 crore ( 160. Million ) : UNFPA report ...population with the present growth rate will reach 25.41 crore ( 250. 4 million ) in 2050 The population of Bangladesh has reached 16.13 crore marking a 1.7 per cent growth in the last one year, according to the latest global population report released by the United Nations Population Fund in Dhaka on Wednesday. The Bangladesh population with the present growth rate will reach 25.41 crore in 2050, says the report, released simultaneously in other countries of the world. The country's population in 2007 was 14.71 crore. The total fertility rate has, however, decreased to 2.81 in 2008 compared to 2.98 in 2007, says the report. It said the per capita gross national income dropped to $1,230 in 2008 from $2090 in 2007. The GNI of Bangladesh lies far below than other countries of the subcontinent like India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka where the per capita income is $4,000, $2,410 and $3,730 respectively. The Bangladesh's GNI is slightly better than Nepal where it is $1,010. Unveiling the report on the State of World Population 2008 at the National Press Club, UNFPA acting representative Pornchai Suchitta said this yearο's report was focused on culture, gender and human rights. This year is the 60th anniversary of Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the report calls for culturally sensitive approaches to development, promote human rights in general and women rights in particular, he said. Gender inequality remains widespread and deep-rooted in many cultures and the report calls for action to increase cultural knowledge, Pornchai added. Men are primary decision makers about child bearing, contraceptive use while women themselves have no power to decide issues of their reproductive health, the UNFPA official said. He said the denial of womenο's right to take decision on reproductive life along with malnutrition, early marriage and violence are the reasons of incredibly high population growth, maternal mortality and child mortality and key impediments to achieve the millennium development goals. It is a striking fact that women and girls are three fifths of the worldο's one billion poorest people, women are two thirds of 960 million adults who cannot read and girls are 70 per cent of the 130 million children who are out of school, he said portraying the global situation. The UNFPA executive, quoting the report, said cultural constraints rather than poverty held women back from using family planning and programmes could succeed even if there had been little economic development. In Bangladesh, some laws are not women friendly and therefore they do not enjoy equal rights to marriage, divorce, guardianship and inheritance although the constitution provides equal rights to men and women in public life, he observed. Despite Bangladeshο's commitment to the Beijing platform for action to enact and periodically review domestic legislation to punish and redress violence against women in the home, workplace, community and society, very little is progressed in amending discriminatory laws and some of the provision of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, he said. In all stages of life, women suffer from malnutrition more than men and lack access to healthcare, the UNFPA executive said. The UNFPA is committed to contribute towards achieving the goals of international conference on population and development and the millennium development goals. Other demographic, social and economic indicators of the report show that the energy consumption per capita is very much low in Bangladesh, which is 158 units compared to 491, 490, 338 and 477 units respectively in India, Pakistan, Nepal and Sri Lanka. Additional director general of health services Hosne Ara Tahmin and UNFPA's programme officers Noor Mohammad and Mozaharul Islam Khan were also present. http://www.newagebd.com/2008/nov/13/front.html

Bangladesh vs New Zealand ODI on the 9th OCT 2008: Bangladesh Batting Highlights

After New Zealand made 201 for 9 in 50 overs, Bangladesh emphatically won the match by 7 wickets. Here is the highlights of the magnificent batting by Bangladesh:

M.S.A.'s Iftar covered in U.T.D. Mercury

U.T.D. Mercury published a cover story about Muslim Student Association's Iftar activities here.

Economic Incentive for Preserving Rainforests

Guyana's president Bharrat Jagdeo has put forward an excellent proposal to preserve world's rainforests in 2006. BBC has published to proposal here.

Interesting idea to fight global warming

Scientist John Latham has proposed an interesting idea to counter the climate change here. He proposed to increase low-lying clouds above the oceans. These clouds play an instrumental role to reflect radiation back to the space. To create these clouds artificially, 1500 ships are needed. These ships will be powered by wind which is good to know. However, each of these ships will cost £1m to £2m.

World View of Global Warming

World View of Global Warming summarizes effects of global warming to some areas in the globe including Bangladesh here. It says that the predicted one meter sea level rise at the end of the century will inundate more than 15 percent of Bangladesh.

Arctic Ice Chunk Breaks Away

About 20 square kilometers of ice has broken away from the Ward Hunt shelf of Canada. The ice chunk used to reflect energy from Sun to space. The split is likely to increase earth's warming rate.

Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7532435.stm

Allah's Name on Meat

A man in a restaurant in Nigeria found the following meat when he went there to dine:

The meat has names of Allah and the prophet Muhammad (Peace Be Upon Him).

Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7520149.stm

Windows Live Writer

Zippy Zed introduced this nice tool here and I decided to try it immediately. I was looking for something like this for a long time. I have blogs in Blogger and Wordpress and I wanted to have a tool by which I can post to both of them simultaneously. I tried at least one such tool before but was disappointed. I could not even connect to my Wordpress blog. But Windows Live Writer makes it so easy! Using the tool is very easy. It needs only one click to publish. To publish to more than one blog, you have to switch current blog but the text in the editing area does not get lost. Then you have to click the publish button again. The only downside I found so far is the installation process. It took longer than I expected. But considering installation a one time process, I would certainly recommend it to anyone who want to edit blog posts offline and/or want to post to multiple blogs. This is a good job done by Microsoft.

North Pole Could be Ice-Free This Summer

Robert Roy Britt has reported in Live Science that north pole could be ice-free this summer. It seems that we are going to see changes caused by global warming much sooner than expected. Only twenty years ago people used to disbelieve the idea of global warming. But it has become a reality much quicker than what believers used to think. Global warming will erode world shore lines much faster than now in coming decades. The most severe victim of this phenomenon will be countries like Bangladesh. In fact, though sounds unbelievable when heard first time, Bangladesh will be drowned in less than a century if no immediate effective action against global warming is taken. As I told in a previous post, the people of Bangladesh are not responsible for that. Why should they bear the brunt of something they did not cause? I think world leaders should immediately pay their attention to this disaster mankind will be facing. They should not limit their actions to promises only, they should deliver on them. Lets not make any more delay.

NASA warming scientist: 'This is the last chance'

A prominent NASA scientist is still hopeful about the possibility of avoiding the worst of global warming. But he calls for action immediately to which very few people are lending ears. Here is the news: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080623/ap_on_sc/sci_warming_scientist

Bangladesh: Ground Zero of Global Warming

Bangladesh is a country under severe threat from global warming. Scientists and climate experts are expressing their concerns for Bangladesh for quite a long time now. While visiting the country, the U.N.Secretary General. Kofi Annan has warned the world about it. But nobody seems to care. I think very few Bangladeshis are aware of the fact that most of Bangladesh are set to disappear from the world map within a century. Though they are no one to blame for the cause, they are the innocent victims of some of the things people doing to lead luxurious life in other parts of the world. Renowned British journalist Johann Hari wrote an excellent article on the issue. In the article, Dr Atiq Rahman, a climate scientist, rightfully called Bangladesh the Ground Zero of Global Warming. He said, "My best understanding of the evidence is that this will probably happen towards the end of the lifetime of babies born today." So, the issue is not of far future. The new generation being born today will face this daunting problem. It is our duty to start thinking about it right now. I can not accept that my beloved country will cease to physically exist one day. We have to start looking for the solution. And it is also the moral duty of the nations who are responsible for this to prevent this from happening by any possible means.

A just step which was long due

Government has sued Niko for Tk 746cr over Tengratilla loss. In U.S. dollars, this is $108,786,005.024 in today's exchange rate. This was due a long time ago. But corrupt politicians did not let it happen as they had their stakes involved with Niko. Because of a conflict of their interest a minister of previous government was fired. Then we came to know that Niko has given him a luxurious SUV. This is just tip of the iceberg. Who knows whether we will ever know the amount of total kickback. My congratulations to the government for taking this bold step.

Pledge a Firefox 3 download

Pledge a Firefox 3 download here. It is going to be released on June 17, 2008. Mozilla Foundation is trying to set a Guinness record of maximum download in a day. I surely will do two downloads: one for Windows Vista and the other for Fedora 9.

A good article by Motiur Rahman

http://www.prothom-alo.com/index.news.details.php?nid=MTY2NTU=

It is in Bangla.

My Fedora 9 Desktop

5 to 7 elections needed for change???

Khandaker Delwar Hossain said today that five to seven general elections are needed to have change in party politics in Bangladesh. In my opinion, either he is mad or he thinks the people of Bangladesh are utter fools. I don't know which one is true but we should be aware of this kind of politicians who are hell bent against any change in the way politics was done in Bangladesh. Given a chance again, they will again form alliance with Razakars and loot the country as before.

In a democracy people get the government they deserve

Today I searched the net with this "democracy people get what they deserve". These are some of the links I got:

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080514193701AAT1Qnh
http://onyxstone.blogspot.com/2007/06/democracy-we-get-what-we-deserve.html
http://www.perspectives.com/forums/view_topic.php?id=171995&forum_id=6&page=2
http://in.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20070403035533AAc38xU

Looks like not everyone agreed on the topic. However, looking at Bangladesh, I think it is true. It is us who elect the corrupt politicians, traitors and god fathers. Then it is also us who blame them for all the wrong. Isn't it us who voted for them? Our democracy is only limited in election. In the first parliamentary session after an election, the opposition boycotts the parliament and makes it defunct until next election. Then they become busy burning cars and buses in the roads. This is how we practice democracy. We also have hard time to have the only element of democracy we have: election. The ruling party does everything to rig the election but when they are in the opposition, they cry for a fair election. I think all these are to blame on us, the people. No matter what these crooked politicians do, we vote them again. That is why it is true that "In a democracy people get the government they deserve".

Bangladeshi Inventor Has Demonstrated Fuel Free Magnetic Power!

The story can be found here. Giasuddin Kachi invented a generator which needs external energy to start but then on produces energy indefinitely without any need of further external energy. This is too good a story to be true. Some expressed doubts that this machine violates fundamental principles of electricity and energy preservation. Nonetheless, if the generator works who cares! In that case, it will be one of the greatest invention of mankind. All the Bangladeshis will be very very proud of Giasuddin Kachi.