Illiteracy:
Illiteracy means the state of being unable to read and write. It is a curse to any society because illiterate people cannot differentiate between right and wrong and so they cannot contribute to the development and welfare of the community. People being educated can go ahead to the right path and can lead a country to progress and prosperity. To give emphasis on literacy, the Prophet Mohammad (SM) equated one literate non-believer with ten illiterate believers. As education makes a man enlightened, illiterate people are deprived of the light of education. So, most often illiterate people cannot rectify themselves, cannot change their mentality and obsolete harmful habits, cannot adapt with the new and modern thoughts, cannot accept the positive social changes, cannot think all equal, cannot develop the sense of universal brotherhood and so on. That‘s why, illiteracy is often called a curse. It is a great impediment to the process of social development. It baffles all development efforts. It gives rise to poverty, unemployment problem,population problem, health and sanitation problem etc. It is compared to darkness. So, an illiterate man is always in the dark and is considered a burden to the society. On the contrary, an educated man is often enlightened and is considered a great asset to the country. He can do many things for the welfare of the country. And for these reasons, illiteracy should be annihilated. It is the responsibility of the literate people to make the illiterate literate and remove the darkness of ignorance from the country. We know that the concerted efforts of the literate and illiterate people can make a country developed. To remove illiteracy, the govt. must budget for the campaign of eradicating illiteracy. Night schools and mass literacy centers should be established at every village. Mass media like radio, television and newspaper can take some initiatives and effective programmes to educate the illiterate. In this way, if we can eradicate illiteracy from our society, we will be able to make ours a prosperous country.
Sidr:
According to the official language of Sri Lanka - Sinhalese, the word ‗Sidr‘ stands for ‗eye‘. Definitely, the Sidr does not look like the eyes. The Sidr, the terrible eye, rushed with great signal number 10 and smashed the whole southern districts on the night of November 15, 2007. With wind speed up to 280 km per hour and tidal surge of 20 to 25 feet high, the Sidr flattened the Sundarbans, Mongla port, Khulna, Bhola, Patuakhali, Barguna, Jhalakhati, Pirospur, Satkhira, Shariatpur, Faridpur, Gopalganj, Bagerhat and Barisal. The Sidr has devastated crops, houses, trees, mangrove forest, livestock, birds, animals, infrastructures etc. The death has crossed eight thousand people. More than a thousand are reported dead according to the grief-stricken relatives. Preliminary investigations have suggested that nearly 60000 persons have been injured. It is also apparent that more than a million rural households have been seriously affected. Standing crops on 1.6 million acres have been fully ruined. Over 8000 educational institutions have been fully or partially destroyed. This has hampered educational activities of nearly 750,000 students. Preliminary assessment has indicated that nearly 20 percent of the vegetables have been destroyed. Almost one-third of the Sundarbans, a world heritage, has been totally demolished. The government of this country supplies relief to the affected people and ensures rehabilitation. The concerned authority must ensure information about the natural disasters, warn people and shift them to safe places. The young students can help people with rescue operation. They can raise awareness among the people so that they can take precautionary measures. They can also work in coordination with the govt. NGOs and donor agencies to assist the affected people of natural disasters like the Sidr.
Eve-Teasing:
At present Eve-Teasing has become one of the most talked topics across the country. The very term Eve Teasing consists of two words Eve‘ and Teasing‘ in which Eve represents girls or women folk and Teasing represents disturbance. So Eve Teasing‘ means to disturb the girls or women intentionally through vulgar words, impolite comments, teasing stares, sly whistles, unethical love offers, unpolished gestures, sexual offers and so on. Even the disturbance to girls through mobile phone or internet is also regarded as eve-teasing. The young girls are the worst sufferers of eve-teasing. There are several reasons behind eve-teasing and they are: negative attitude towards girls, moral degradation, impact of satellite television, gender discrimination, lack of proper education, religious misinterpretation, unemployment problem etc. The consequences of eve-teasing are very dreadful. It becomes a great barrier to the participation of women in our nation-building activities. Women cannot think, move and work freely in the society due to eve-teasing. The girls cannot go to school or college. As a result, their education is hampered and often stopped. Very often they are assaulted by the eve-teasers. Even the guardians are attacked and killed by the eve-teasers in some cases. The girls often go to commit suicide to save themselves from the disturbance of the eve-teasers. The recent news regarding eve-teasing in different media bears testimony to this. In fact, eve-teasing is a great social vice. It should be removed from our society at any cost. Public awareness and social movement are necessary to uproot this vice. New strict and pragmatic law should be introduced and enforced immediately. The present government has introduced mobile court to punish the eve-teasers and they are being punished in different parts of our country. Besides, the 13th June has been designated Eve Teasing Protection Day by the Ministry of Education in Bangladesh. However, we all should come forward to stop eve-teasing for building up a nice society.