The articles, the opinions, the stories, the poems and the cartoons Ovi magazine covers for Thursday December 16th, 2021 – Victory day of Bangladesh
The ‘Other’ Victims of the Liberation War of Bangladesh by Dr. Habib Siddiqui
Bijoy Dibosh or the Victory Day is celebrated as a
national holiday in Bangladesh on 16 December to commemorate the
surrender of the Pakistani forces in Dhaka to the allied forces of
Bangladesh and India. The nine-month-long Bangladesh Liberation War
witnessed death of many individuals on all the sides – for and against
the liberation of Bangladesh. As is often the case, most victims were
innocent unarmed civilians.
Extant research works show that the Urdu-speaking non-Bengalis faced
genocidal crimes at the hands of Bengali vigilantes before, during and
after the liberation war of 1971. As religious minorities fleeing
persecution in Hindu-majority India, they settled in East Pakistan and
remained loyalists to the very end of what was once “united” Pakistan.
During 1947-48 nearly 96% of the fleeing Muslim refugees from the
Indian administered states of West Bengal, Bihar and Assam settled in
East Pakistan; the remainder 4% settled in West Pakistan, especially in
Karachi, then the capital city of Pakistan. The Bihari Muslim migration
to East Bengal (later to become East Pakistan) started earlier. The
pre-partition anti-Muslim pogroms in 1946 witnessed the slaughter of
more than 30,000 Bihari Muslims in the hands of communalistic Hindus.
Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, then a student leader, accompanied Husain Shahid
Suhrawardy, the then chief minister of (undivided) Bengal in British-run
India, to visit Bihar and distributed relief goods amongst the affected
victims’ families.
Continue reading HERE!
The Wall #poem by George Cassidy Payne
“I loved you, the way jewels are left
unclaimed on the ocean floor. I loved you forevermore, and I knew all
along that such a place does not exist.”
Continue reading HERE!
Punishing the Unvaccinated: Europe’s COVID-19 Health Experiment by Dr. Binoy Kampmark
Forget any notions of juicy carrots; the stick approach of
savage punishment is in vogue with the Greek government in pushing
vaccination rates. It is far from the only one. Across a number of
countries in Europe, governments wishing to drive up levels of COVID-19
vaccination have decided to abandon suasion and the generous supply of
medical information in favour of penalties and punishments.
In Austria, Chancellor Alexander Schallenberg was very much a
standard bearer for that cause, citing stubbornness on the part of the
citizenry of his country. (Only 69% of those eligible have received at least one dose, a rate significantly behind that of other western European states.) “We have enough vaccines,” he told
CNN prior to announcing his resignation. “Science gave us the
possibility, the exit ticket out of this vicious circle of virus waves
and lockdown discussions. And simply not enough people are using this
possibility and taking this exit ticket”.
Continue reading HERE!
Fika bonding! 21#21 #cartoon by Thanos Kalamidas
For more Fika bonding! HERE!
For more Ovi Cartoons, HERE!
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