POLITICS seems to have gone mad! It has ruthlessly been harming future nation-builders by shattering their academic life alongside killing innocent people and destroying the country's economic backbone.

It has been more than a month since the anti-government blockade started. With it came continuous spells of hartal, and while Molotov cocktails have become part-and-parcel of the 20-party alliance strategy, it appears that firearms are about to join the fray. The police have recently unearthed an illegal racket of arms whereby dealers are using children as arms carriers.

EVERY day we see in the media graphic images and horror stories of innocent civilians -- victims of the ongoing political unrest. Who is to blame?

POLITICAL violence is as old as the memory of our nationhood stretches back. Between the rise and fall of regimes, what appears again and again is the cycle of political violence.