Since I was born in the UK, this opportunity afforded the chance to gauge if I could bear living in the country of my parents' birth. As much as I enjoy visiting Bangladesh for limited periods of time, I decided against relocation - even though I had an employment opportunity to work as a lecturer at the Independent University of Bangladesh and a possible lecturing position at the Military Institute of Science and Technology. One deciding factor was the destructive culture of employing the use of "hartal" as an extension of political agenda. Over the past few years of reading your online paper, I found that all opposition parties use the excuse that "they have no other option" then to enforce hartal and then the following day they go on to "thank the people for supporting them".

Forgive me for my comments, but the reason why people stay at home is that they are afraid of being raped or killed by the thugs who are employed by the enforcing parties and "not" because the people support the call of "hartal". Also, since Bangladesh has over one calendar month of national holidays, why don't these political parties consider the hardship that the normal working people have to endure because of "hartal"?

This self-centred, egotistical attitude may only come to an end if the presidential rule is reintroducedsimilar to the system used in the USA, where all proposals have to be ratified and agreed upon by the Senate prior to becoming law.

However, rather than the direct election of a president by the people, this neutral and well respected individual should be voted in to lead the country and form a government by mutual consensus from all political parties in a lower house.

This would ensure that politics does not spill into the streets which only affects those who are vulnerable.