It’s more than a little disappointing that a government headed by an economist should shut down VoIP operators in Bangladesh with the lame excuse of losses to the exchequer. New Age has a good dissection and appropriate criticism in its op-ed section. Not to be sentimental about it our anything - I haven’t been able to call my grandmother in the last couple of weeks because of this! And I know - from personal interactions - that for many low-income laborers in the Gulf  that phone call on Friday, made affordable by the wonders of the IT revolution, is one of the few things that makes the backbreaking work and soul-piercing insults of the week bearable. The ad hocness and unthinking cruelty of the SOE government’s actions has been criticized here and elsewhere (see for example, Zafar Sobhan’s complaint in his Daily Star op-ed, reprinted on Drishtipat Blog.) But taking action against VoIP operators - when the VoIP laws themselves were never very clear (from what I understand) and when the previous government could never really come to any kind of real decision on this matter - is just, not to mince any words, idiotic.

The huge fire in Kawran Bazar has revealed once again the ineptitude of the public sector. (For a powerful account from the ground, see Naeem’s posting on this on Drishtipat Blog.) No doubt there will be a lot of name-calling, blame-tolling and conspiracy-trawling mixed in with the smoke and the ashes. But the juxtaposition of the two - the undeniable evidence of the failure of our state machinery to provide public services to any degree of competence, and the shutting down of private operators that did provide at least some services cheaply and reliably - should be some food for thought.