The members of our moon committee don't know or probably they don't want to know that you can find out easily the times of appearance or disappearance of sun, moon, and many other heavenly bodies with accuracy up to seconds in any part of the world with the help of a nautical almanac, published every year in many countries for the use of navigators at sea land and air.

They also don't want to probably understand that in sharp contrast to Bangladesh or similar countries whose sky may remain cloudy or overcast for days together, the skies of the Arab world, the origin of Islam, ever getting cloudy or overcast is a rare phenomenon. They don't want to probably realize that because of the weather pattern, sighting of moon in Bangladesh is as uncertain as certain it is in Saudi Arabia

Our rulers have been able to divide us on political, social, and professional lines. As a nation, we are divided into Bengali and Bangladeshi. As doctors, engineers, and lawyers, we are either pro-BNP or pro-AL. As teachers, we are white, blue, or pink. Now, by the courtesy of BNP-Jamaat alliance, who never miss any opportunity to call them the sole protector of Islamic jhanda, we see a clear sign of division and confusion among our Islamic clerics on religious lines, especially after the recent debacle with moon sighting.

The leader of IOJ (one part) Maolana Fazlul Huq Amini has accused the moon sighting committee for not being able to take the correct decision regarding Ramadan and asked them to apologize to the nation for the mistake they have committed. He has even threatened to form an alternative moon sighting committee. In the late hours of Saturday night, imams of some mosques in Dhaka were calling the faithful to wake up for Sehri and begin fasting from Sunday. We do not remember facing such a situation ever before.

Just the day before the Ramadan began, brinjal was being sold at Tk 25 per kg. Today, on the fourth day of Ramadan, it is Tk 70 a kg. Chickpeas, another important item for Iftar, was Tk 60 per kg. Now it is Tk 80. Cucumber, sold earlier at Tk 24 per kg is now Tk 40. Muri, a usual item for Iftar for the common people is almost double the original price.

Yet we see our commerce minister telling the television journalists that the prices of essential commodities are stable and well in control of his government, what it is, however, going to be in the days to come, he is not sure.

Hardly a day passes without having half a dozen persons on average shot or chopped to death by state run police or Rab, political opponents, religious extremists, or social miscreants. Nobody is spared, not even a university teacher. Yet the minister in charge of home affairs in his typical Anglo-Bangla English keeps on telling us that the law and order situation is good, the people are living in peace.

The ex-energy minister of the country was using a car worth one crore taka given by Niko, the Tengratila gas explorer. Why Niko gave him the car is anybody's guess. When the matter was brought to public by the press, he lost his job. Yet he thought and probably still thinks that nothing was wrong in that deal.

I have just sat down to finish the remaining part of this article after watching the 9 pm Channel i news. How do we reconcile the two news telecast by the channel?

In the first one, infuriated by severe power crisis, thousands of people from Mirpur, Shanir Akhra, and Keraniganj are on the streets blockading roads, burning vehicles, setting on fire power distribution offices, breaking windows of buildings and factories and chasing or being chased by police, Rab, and BDR, who are trying in vain to control the agitated crowd with the help of water guns, rubber bullets, tear gas shells, and blank fires of rifles.

In the second one, Prime Minister Khaleda Zia is addressing a public meeting at Lakhipur. She is telling the people: "Dear countrymen, you are now living in peace. We have cured violence and terrorism. We have improved the law and order situation. We have carried out tremendous amount of development work in the last 5 years. We ask you to vote our party to power once again in order to maintain the continuity of the massive development work our party has undertaken in these years."

Leave aside every thing else: the rate of inflation rising from 2.3 percent to 7.9 percent in the last 5 years, the alarming rise of unemployment rate, the unprecedented price hike of essential commodities, the sharp decline of taka value, the closing down of factories like Adamji, Chittagong Steel Mill, and so on, let us talk about the power sector only.

The country at this moment needs 5,000 megawatts of electricity. It produces only 3,000 megawatts. The deficit is 2,000 megawatts. The rate of increase in demand is about 600 megawatts annually. The government in the last 5 years produced practically no electricity. The only power plant they have established during this period is the 80 megawatt power plant at Tongi. That also went out of production hardly a day after it was inaugurated and is still out of action.

Yet, Prime Minister Khaleda Zia wants her party to be voted power to maintain the continuity of the "unprecedented development work" her party has carried out. After landing on this part of the Ganges delta, Alexander the Great exclaimed: "Selukas, how strange this land is!" That was in 326 BC. If he had been here now he would have probably said: "Selukas, how strange the rulers of this land are!"