Benefits of having dumb phones!

Few days earlier I lost my smart phone. After that I have shifted to my spare old dumb phone. To be honest it took a while to get used to the old dumb phone. Although I need another smart phone and will buy one soon, I learned first hand that there are some benefits of having dumb phone.

1. Forget charging you phone once everyday. I have not charged my phone in last 3 days. And when I put the phone for charge it does not take long to full charge the battery.
2. Without a smart phone, you can’t take selfies and post them in social medias. People will be better off.
3. You can actually enjoy the beauty of the places instead of uploading them in social media.
4. You can taste the foods when they are still hot. You don’t have to take thousands of pictures before eating them.
5. You can’t pretend you are doing something important when you want to avoid talking to unknown persons in the party. In order to avoid being awkward, you have to start a conversation.
6. You can’t spend time on checking in or posting live events. So you have to sit around or you could just get along with the crowd.
7. You don’t have to buy internet packages so you can save some money.

Although there are these and more benefits, but we still need smart phones to do many other things. I’m planning to treat the smart phone which I’m going to purchase as a dumb phone. I’ll not let my smart phone to in-socialize me.

#NoVATonEducation #SubsidizePrivateUniversityTuitionFees

Bangladesh govt. recently passed a legislation for imposing 7.5% VAT on the tuition fees of the Private Universities in Bangladesh. Initially it was 10% and, according to the Finance Minister of Bangladesh Govt., it was reduced to 7.5% on request of the Prime Minister. There has been lots of debates on this VAT and most of the arguments were against the VAT on the tuition fees. Govt. imposed VAT on private universities tuition fees before but had to cancel the imposition due to severe student protest. However, this time govt. remains adamant on their decision. This even led  petition to Court of Law. However, nothing appears to influence govt. decision regarding this matter.

Today I stumbled upon a news from an online news portal of a national daily. Screen shot of the news is given below. You will find the URL of the news in the screenshot. In the news Finance Minister of Bangladesh Govt. will not reduce VAT on private universities tuition fees.  He didn’t even mentioned the cancellation of VAT in Tuition fee. The news also states that he doesn’t support the students who are protesting. Well, that is expected. He is the one who is behind imposition of VAT on education. We don’t expect him to oppose his decisions. But he should have considered that he is enhancing the cost of education and education is the basic right of every people of this country. This effectively means govt. is violating the basic right of its citizen.

The news reports that finance minister’s logic behind imposing VAT is “private university students should pay VAT on education because they pay higher tuition fee”. This is an absurd logic! He might have forgotten that we have a faulty education system that led to demand and emergence of private universities in Bangladesh. Private universities had demand because our public universities couldn’t accommodate all the students who pass colleges.

Every year millions of students pass the higher secondary exam. But only a thousands get the opportunity to get admission in public universities. Most of the student get admissions in National University or the private universities. Student looses 3 to 4 years of their life when they get admitted at National University due to session jam. And other public universities are full of political activities and violence. Under this circumstances public universities acts as blessing for the students whom govt. failed to provide higher education.

Govt. may argue that govt. universities has high standards on admission and those students have that standards. This will depict that standards in our primary and secondary education have are abnormally low. Govt. should set the standard high. Also Govt. has the obligation to make sure that those students who couldn’t get in to public universities continues getting higher education without the lose of 4/5 years of their life. Private universities are giving students continuing their higher education without loosing part of their life. But this opportunity comes with a high price. Except the reach students, most of the students’ family has to struggle and forgo lots of necessary expenses to provide adequate funding for the future of their children. Here govt. should subsidize the private university tuition fees too in order to ensure higher education of its citizen.

By charging VAT on education, Govt. have started a discrimination. They are providing tremendous subsidy for the students of the public universities and now they are charging taxes on their failure. By failure here I indicating that students have to pay tuition fees to private universities to continue their education which was supposed to be ensured by the state.

Those who supports VAT on Education often argues about the poor condition of the private universities. They also say that many private universities sell certificates instead of teaching. I agree with these scenarios. But that’s not the logic to impose VAT. Instead of imposing VAT, Govt. should be strict on those universities. Govt. may cancel the license of those universities and may even take over for the greater good of the country and its future generations. But imposing VAT on education should not even be the last thing.

Also by considering the economics terms, govt. should avoid imposing VAT on education. According to the economics theories, GDP of a country depends on the input resources which effectively means the labors and knowledge. Now, the knowledge is acquired through education. If VAT is imposed on education, acquiring knowledge will be difficult and input factors will decrease. Decrease in input resources will cause to decline in GDP and ultimately harm the country in the long run. Therefore, imposing VAT will harm the country in the long run. And if we follow the theories of Finance, an investor should choose long-term investment as payoff is higher in long-term asset. Here Govt. is the investor and payoff is the future of this country.

Personally I believe, There should not be any VAT not just on education but also on the medicines and daily necessary foods. Because these are the very basic need of a human being. We are already paying for these items. We should not pay any further for these items. It’s govt.’s duty to ensure the welfare of the people of this country. Instead of charging VAT on private university tuition fees, govt. should at provide subsidy at least 50% on these fees.

A brief lesson on ‘How to kill someone’

Ever thought of killing your enemy or a person you don’t like? Or have you thought of killing someone but could not do it at the end? Do you want to be just like Dexter Morgan and kill him? well i can give you a solution on this matter. All you have to do is bring him out on a strike day.At the very beginning look in the media for a strike called by opposition party. Then call the person you are planning to kill. Make a schedule for something in a place where processions or violence occurs frequently.

On the strike day take him to the spot. Follow your schedule until any violence takes place. Normally violence occurs when opposition party supporters brings a procession supporting the strike and ruling party supporters brings another procession against the strike. Then both parties starts fighting and beats one another. Most of the case ruling party supporters beats the hell out of opposition party supporters. When you see violence is in extreme state, try to find out who are winning. Then run to that party and shout that there is a member of anti-party hiding. Then point to the person you want to kill. People will kill him for you. Don’t worry about the polices or others. Polices will pick up the corpse. No one will notice you.

By any chance you become a suspect, tell that you two are walking by and strikers attacked him. Though police will do some investigation but they will not find out who was actually behind this act. Even if your could be detected from some picture or video footage, investigating people will not find you in the footage. At the end you will be safe. And this is how you should kill a man.

N.B. This post should not be takes seriously at all. It is criticism post written after watching disgusting and shameful activities of police and govt. regarding ‘Biswajit Murder’.    

Be Safe while on road

Eid-ul-Fitr is knocking at the door. People are getting busy with holiday shopping. Shopping malls are already prepared for holiday sales with their goods. Weekly holidays for shopping mall have gone. Now the shopping malls stay open from morning to late night. In order to finish the shopping, people are staying outside till late night. This is contributing greatly in traffic jam. How? Most of the shoppers brings their personal vehicles to the shopping mall. Most of the shopping mall in our country ha very limited parking place. Therefore, people who can’t avail the parking facility, they parks their vehicles  in the road side making the road narrow and even blocking the road. A large number of public transports like CNGs, cabs & rickshaws waits in front of shopping malls in order to get passengers. Also number of vehicles running in the streets have increased on this occasion. Result of these is sever traffic jam in the city. Now it takes almost three times more time to reach the destination. However, roads are empty in the early morning. It is the best time to travel long route.

As I wrote earlier section that streets are pretty busy during these days. People who walks in the road are busy too. Most people don’t use foot-over-bridges. People on the street suddenly starts running to cross the road. They are aware of how to cross roads but they don’t obey the rules. And as a result accidents occurs most often.Couple of days earlier,  I have seen a terrible accident.

I was walking on the footpath of airport road near Banani. I was stuck at traffic jam in front of Naval headquarter for a while. So I got down from bus and started walking. Few minutes later I was close to Banani circle. Footpaths were occupied by street hawkers. So I had to get down from footpath and walk on the side of road. Suddenly I noticed that there were lots of blood on the street. I was almost walking over the blood. So I stopped and carefully saw my surroundings. Then I saw a small crown just in front of me. I hurried to the crowed and found out that there were a police van and a police is asking a person some questions. I peeped through the van and saw a wrapped dead body lying inside the van. I asked the person standing right to me about what happened. He told me that a road accident took place. A person was trying to cross the road when a bus knocked him  down causing his death on the spot. I looked again to the place where accident took palace. I saw some small pieces of dead man’s body still lying on the road. I had some urgent matters to attend to and so I left the place. But for the rest of the day, I kept thinking about the accident.

I believe this kind of accidents could be minimized if people patiently waits for the signal or uses the foot-over-bridge. I request all of you to follow traffic rules while you drive and be careful when you walk on the road. And those who  are very busy with Eid shopping and passing most of their time in shopping mall, watch out for your wallets, bags and mobile phones. Crowd in the shopping mall is an ideal place for pick-pockets. Be alert when you shop and when you are on streets.

Good wishes for the upcoming holidays!!!

Acting on time!

When I was a child, I got a piece of advice along with lot of other advises. And that advice was to act on time. However I never gave importance to that advice. As a result I had to face difficulties lots of times.

I started my university life as a ‘go-with-the-flow’ type student. And because of that, my results wasn’t up to my expectations. However I didn’t act on time. Therefore I had to work hard at the end of university life to push my result higher. At that time I learned that it is better to act on time.

1 months after I got admitted in ICAMB, I saw that ICMAB invited application for exemption for the foundation level. I had all the requirements and so I decided to apply. However I didn’t act on time. I waited till the last week of submission date. So I had to face lots of difficulties. But some how I managed to apply by the last hour of the last day. This is not everything. I still can’t act on time. In few days I will apply for registration at ICAB (Institute of Chartered Accounts of Bangladesh). However I still didn’t get my provisional certificate at my hand. I had to wait more than 2 weeks before my transcript gets updates. Even after I found that my transcript is updated, I couldn’t apply for official copy of transcript  because I forgot to take the application with me. Though I hope I will get my certificate and transcript just few days earlier than the date I will need them.

It appears that I barely have  time to things but at the end I somehow manage to do everything. I don’t know why I still can’t take the lesson to act on time. I need to learn act on time as soon as possible. Or else I will always face the shortage of time and barely do what I need to do.