Taking care of children

Ours is basically a poor country. Due to the violation of Article 19 (2) of our Constitution which envisages that the "state should adopt effective measures to remove social and economic inequality and ensure the equitable distribution of wealth among citizens, and of opportunities in order to attain a uniform level of economic development throughout the Republic", the rich are becoming richer and the poor are becoming poorer day by day. The children of the rich are well-looked after, well-fed and well-educated, born and brought up in concrete, neat and clean houses, flats and buildings with all basic civic amenities and facilities; they attend kindergarten school well- dressed in school uniform, read costly text books with beautiful and attractive pictures and pay exorbitant school fees. Whereas, the children of the poor live in slums and dirty houses. They are deprived of electricity, gas, telephone, pure drinking water and sanitation. They attend primary school wearing torn-out and dirty clothing, of course they are given free education and free text books from the government. But many children even cannot attend school because of poverty. These discrimination and differences among rich and poor start from childhood and help grow inequality. O. H. Kabir Wari, Dhaka Price-hike of powdered milk The retail price of powdered milk, particularly of leading brands, increased more than 15 per cent after remaining somewhat stable in the previous few months. Increased price of powdered milk at import sources and the costlier dollar have forced traders to raise the price of milk as importers of powdered milk have explained. They raised the retail price per kilogram by Taka 36 to Taka 506 from Tk 470 that was the price just a month ago. The price of a two-kilogram tinned milk of infant grade has been raised to Tk 1,565 from Tk 1,365. Tinned milk is imported as 'a finished product' and it involves taxes as high as 92 per cent and 'thus' it costs more as importers argued in favour of the increased price. The business circles have disagreed with remarks made by the Commerce Minister that powdered milk price increased in the global market because of the fear of radiation, after the accident at the Japanese nuclear plants, following the recent earthquake and Tsunami. Milk importers, on the other hand, argued that the weak dollar and high price of oil and dairy feeds caused the rise in the price of powered milk. The Japan factor has yet to make any impact on the international market. Although the global production of milk had not declined significantly in the period, a continued increase of imports by China caused the rise of the prices of milk and related products. In the international market, the price of powdered milk in bulk hovered between $4,500 and $4,700 per ton in the last week of March against around $3,500 per tonne in the same period a year ago. Bangladesh's milk import continues to rise as last year's import was around 22,000 tonnes, up from 19,000 tonnes in the previous year. The authorities concerned should take actions to help arrest the uptrend about prices. Mohammed Jashim Uddin E-mail: juctg2008@gmail.com Preventive health care The best strategy for a developing country like Bangladesh with limited resources is spreading vital health maintenance-related information among all sections of people. Thus, regular and intense official publicities need to be geared up so that people can be made aware about what they can do on their own to keep away from illnesses. People can be kept educated about not smoking, taking proper diets, observing thoroughly essential hygiene and maintaining their physical environments safe. From doing of such things alone, a number of serious diseases can be warded off and health of people can generally improve. Parveen Haque Mahakhali, Dhaka