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BTRC or the morality police?

20 January 2006, 18:00 PM
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
By Air Cdre (Retd) Ishfaq Ilahi Choudhury, Park Road, Baridhara, Dhaka
20 January 2006, 18:00 PM
The decision by the BTRC not to allow the private cell phone companies to provide free service at night to their subscribers on the plea that the teenagers were going off-track talking to their friends reminded me of the much quoted admonition of Socrates to his generation of kids more than 3000 years ago that "they were all spoiled brats with no respect for the elders." While the grand old man of the BTRC was lecturing the media on his onerous responsibility of saving the young generation from moral corruption, I was reminded of the Saudi religious police who carries a stick to prod people to go to mosque. Is this the beginning of the Big Brother watching me to stay on the correct path? BTRC Head's arguments that the terrorist would use the free services (as if they are running out of cash) only further expose the hollowness of the whole argument.

I glance through at least half a dozen newspapers daily. I have not seen a single letter of a guardian writing against the free calls. I have not seen or heard a single organisation of teachers or members of the civil society coming out in the press or in the street urging for the ban on free calls. Where the head of BTRC got the "demands from the guardians," I wonder. May I remind him that his elders must have urged in the same way many years back that watching Shuchitra-Uttam or Modhubala -Dilip Kumar on the silver screen would spoil him thoroughly. Yet, he might have sneaked into the movie houses and grew up to be a gentleman. At least, we did.

If it were accepted today that free calls corrupt young people, tomorrow someone would suggest we stop 24 hours TV or why should we have music channel? There would be no end to the obscurantist demand once the liberals cave in.

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