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.
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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.”
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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”.
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Fika bonding! 21#21 #cartoon by Thanos Kalamidas
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For more Ovi Cartoons, HERE!
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