Unheard Voices

Internship Programme: ‘Fera’

Fera, branching off from Drishtipat, is an internship programme that gives young expatriate Bangladeshis an opportunity to play an active role in contributing to public service in Bangladesh. Ultimately, Fera serves to offer the young people of the Bangladeshi Diaspora a greater understanding of Bangladesh.

Many organisations in Bangladesh are short staffed and are in need of additional human capital. In addition to fulfilling this service, Fera allows non-resident second generation Bangladeshis (NRBs), who are strongly interested in learning more about Bangladesh, to familiarise themselves about pressing issues in the country. Given their international education and experience, the interns will be able to provide fresh perspective and infuse their ideas into the organisation while gaining valuable experience by working in the country.

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দৃষ্টিপাতের ইংরেজী ব্লগ Unheard Voices গত তিন বছরে ব্যাপক পাঠক জনপ্রিয়তা লাভ করেছে। শুধুমাত্র মানবাধিকার নয়, এই ব্লগ বাংলাদেশের রাজনীতি, অর্থনীতি, সমাজ ও সংস্কৃতি ইত্যাদি নানা বিষয়ে আড্ডা ও আলোচনার জন্যে উন্মুক্ত।

দেশের আজ ক্রান্তিকাল। আমাদের সামনে হাজারো চ্যালেঞ্জ, এবং তা মোকাবেলা করতে একটি বড় প্রয়োজন হলো গণসচেতনতা বৃদ্ধি করা। ‘না বলা কথা’-য় আমরা দেশের উন্নয়ন নিয়েই লিখবো। আমরা তুলে ধরবো আমাদের তরুন প্রজন্মের চিন্তাধারা, তাদের স্বপ্ন, সম্ভাবনা ও সমস্যার কথা। আমরা আমাদের সমাজের উপরে আলোকপাত করবো, আর বলবো সমাজের হারিয়ে যাওয়া মানুষ, অদৃশ্য মানুষদের কথা। আমরা নিরলসভাবে বাংলাদেশের উন্নয়নের কথা বলে যাবো।

ইন্টারনেটের মাধ্যমে আমরা এই আলোচনায় অন্তর্ভুক্ত করতে চাই দেশের প্রযুক্তি-সচেতন নতুন প্রজন্মকে, দেশ-দরদী প্রবাসীদেরকে। আপনিও লিখুন, মন্তব্য রাখুন, অংশগ্রহণ করুন। ধর্ম-গোত্র নির্বিশেষে সবাইকে নিয়ে সোনার বাংলা নির্মাণে এটি আমাদের ক্ষুদ্র প্রয়াস।

আসুন না বলা কথা বলি at http://bangla.drishtipat.org

Over the last 3 years, Unheard voice has become a popular medium for people to visit. The blog has given birth to a writers’ collective that is regularly publishing articles in the print media in home and abroad. At the same time this blog, with tremendous contribution from its readers, has covered news and analysis that has been otherwise missing in the regular media. Still, we always felt, the medium of the discussion which is primarily English, restricted a lot of average citizens from Bangladesh to take part. Not any more.

On this day of Ekushey, we are starting a new chapter in the arena of citizen journalism by launching a new Bangla blog — ‘Na Bola Kotha’. ‘Na Bola Kotha’ (Unspoken words) will talk about issues of younger generation — their dreams, their problems and their inspirations It will talk about economy and progress and at the same time it will speak about the unheard voices and raise the profie of the unseen faces. The Bangla blog will be maintained by mostly a separate group of writers with a bulk of them being from Bangladesh. This will not be a Bangla translation of our English blog. On the contrary, we hope to create a vibrant community via Na Bola kotha with a hope that the discussions will lead to meaningful projects and ideas.

Please join NBK users’ group at Facebook by clicking here.

Visit Na Bola Kotha at http://bangla.drishtipat.org

We recognize the leadership qualities for these new leaders this year. Leadership is a thankless task. But we want to recognize some of their efforts which have opened up new doors of opportunities. Our thanks to all the volunteers, donors, readers and friends of drishtipat. We wish you happy holidays and very happy new year.

Details here.

Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.

That’s Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. As an affiliate of a human rights organisation, Unheard Voices is unequivocally committed to the right to freedom of opinion and expression. This commitment is manifest in various write ups in these website, and in various Drishtipat projects. And yet, we time to time moderate comments posted by our readers. Is there an inconsistency in the UV admin certain comments while calling for the right to freedom of expression for cartoonists and journalists in Bangladesh? Why do we moderate some comments? And can governments, particularly democratically elected ones, use reasons similar to ours to censor views they don’t like?

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Dear UV readers and commenters,

The last few days have been trying for all of us. As we try to come to grips with what has happened, and as we begin to discuss where to from now, we should take some time to reflect on what we ourselves write in these pages.

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Please raise some topics here that you think we should discuss in the blog. As always, very many thanks from all of us for keeping this forum lively, exciting and informative. We truly appreciate your support. We recently have had complaints from both side of the aisle that admin has not been strict enough and similarly admin is being too harsh. We learn from the mistakes but we also try to keep the debate focused as it can often degenerate into name calling which would put off a lot of users. Comments are deleted rarely unless it violates our posting rules. We hope you understand. Please offer suggestion on how we can do better, what you like and what you don’t like here. It is an interactive forum and with your input we can do better.

Events In May:

If you are in any of these cities, please try to attend. As always, we welcome more local chapters. Drishtipat is entirely a volutneer effort and to be a member of drishtipat mailing list, visit here and fill out form or become a member of the dp group in facebook.

The following events are taking place all across the globe this month.

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Discuss anything that you deem important or ask question to uv bloggers.

All, as mentioned in the sidebar, if you have any question or comment in the blog, please write to blog At Drishtipat.org. We note sadly that the level of discourse in this blog has gone down considerably and some people have resorted to mudslinging. I think its in all our best interest to keep the debate issue oriented rather than questioning each other’s “agenda” or resorting to misdirected irrelevant speeches. We will try to be more vigilant on the quality of the comments posted here so that the real issue is not lost amid the mudslinging.

We are encouraging all our users to register with the unheard voices blog. The benefit of registration is that once you log in once, you will not have reenter your login details going forward. This gives you a chance to get selected to be a drishtipat author (for showing a consistent quality in writing and in your views). Also this helps us to
keep out destructive posts etc. Eventually to take up blog to the next level, this can be the first step in setting up an online community, where we would do more follow ups to the issues we raise with the help of the fellow members.

To register click here and put in your name and email address. It will take you 30 sec. We will eventually make the registration compulsory for you to comment on the blogs.

http://www.drishtipat.org/blog/wp-register.php. Might as well do it now to see the benefit of the registration.

Discuss any currrent or relevant matters that you think should be discussed. No fixed topic. If you are haveing trouble posting comments, take a look at this or write to blog at drishtipat.org

We have been flooded by comment spam. From last 2 hours along there has been 3000 comment spams that have attacked the blog. Hence we had to take an emergency measure.

From now on when you add a comment, you will see a new text field that will ask you a simple math question (yes we are testing your math skills ) and you just have to type in the number in the text field.

Example: if the text says “Please add 2 and 3″, type in 5 in the text box.

The idea is to keep the spam BOT engines away and differentiate between a human and computer generated comment. This will be a slight more hassel on your part but it will reduce tons of admin overhead for us.

Thanks for your patience.

This is an open thread for people to post their news and updates from today’s event.

Announcing the First Round Results

The DP 20K Challenge Team would like to thank all of the folks who submitted proposals for evaluation. We were impressed with the number and quality of the proposals that were submitted on such short notice. After carefully evaluating all the proposals we used a collaborative ‘ranking’ method to try and come to a consensus view as to which ones can be moved to the final round. In the interest of transparency, we have decided to make the detailed results available to all who are interested. The results can be viewed at the following link (lowest average score is best):

DP 20K First Round Results

While we would like to fund as many of the proposals as possible, we are limited by the amount of funds available to us, which is $20,000. We will seek more detailed information from each of the leading projects to determine which ones, in the opinion of the DP 20K Challenge Team, best reflect the goals that we set out. The project sponsors of the top ten ranked projects (and perhaps a few more) should expect to be contacted soon for additional information.

The DP 20K Challenge Team

In April 2006 the inhabitants of Kansat, a village in central Bangladesh, had had enough with the persisting power shortages and corruption which were blighting their lives. They decided to unite under ‘The Action Committee for Rural Power Development’ and lead a peaceful movement for their rights. But their attempt to remedy the power shortage situation and bring about greater justice through protest was met brutal suppression. Last April when Kansat, a remote village in Rajshahi, was on fire, I was in Dhaka. I was distraught like anyone else seeing the news of such injustice. These poor farmers were getting beaten, killed, battered for demanding their very basic right.

In spite of all odds, under the leadership of Rabbani, a non political leader, they kept on fighting. Although they won an eventual victory, there was absolutely no accountability of the killings. A few of us in Dhaka got together and protested during the new year celebration against this atrocity. However, we wanted to do more. Just as the news fell off the headline, we didn’t want this story of amazing courage and injustice to be forgotten. That’s when I met Omi and Ritu of Counter Foto. I saw some amazing work that Omi had done on political violence. He did have the heart in the issues. We got together and thought of doing something to capture the Kansat incidents. I came home and wrote to a few well wishers to help this project and people like Rumi, Zafa, Litu bhai and others enthusiastically did. In the meantime, OMI got his group together in Dhaka. Akram, Maruf, Omi, Ritu, Mridul in Dhaka and Shahed, Shumon, me, Zafa, Rumi, Tariq in the US got together. Those of us in the US, helped with the research and the funds raised and also created a blog to document our thinking and the making of the film. In the meantime, we managed to convince ASK to get involved in the project. Finally after months of efforts all across the globe, Drishtipat and Counterfoto are ready to tell the story of Kansat tonight. “Mondrito Kansat” or “Roaring Kansat” is ready to premier tonight in London. We picked up the film last Saturday in London after the last minute rush and saw glimpses of it. Boy am I glad that we pursued the project! This story is simply AMAZING ! Since then Omi won the National Geographic award and he will be presenting some of his works along with the movie in London tonight as well.

If you are in London, please do come and check out this unforgettable story of courage tonight, if you are elsewhere, there will be a screening hopefully near your city soon.

Screening details: http://www.drishtipat.org/london
Making of the film and the background on the issue: http://www.drishtipat.org/kansat
Some Pictures: http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/kansat/

This also tells you a bit about our organization. We like to find likeminded people and WORK (not just talk) together for a change for the better. No matter how much we argue over our political beliefs , at the end of the day we work for the common cause of speaking for the unheard voices from bangladesh.

We hear, we speak out and we help.