1429 Eid Celebrations - Baibalaa

Ibra's Education policy

Wow! I just listened to Ibra’s education policy on DhiFM 95.2. I must say he is a real good speaker. The adherence in his words, the examples he showed is simply mesmerizing. He did not put something special in his educational policy; he just put the bits n bots where the current government have failed. It showed his brilliance and understanding in the education sector.

Some of the positive points he focussed should be highlighted because of its importance and I really cheer him for that. The part where he said he would try to incorporate foreign languages in to our education system including Arabic is something we need desperately. In an era prompting for globalisation, the need for it is immense.

The need to function an independent valuation body for the education sector is another point which should be highly applauded. However, I don’t strongly support his philosophy of giving the whole authority of the valuation process to the parents. But it’s just my view.

He also pressed the need for increasing teacher’s salary and more higher educational opportunities for them. I agree to this one to some extent. I don’t think anyone maintains this statistic in the government. But for sure, most of the scholarships offered by the government are still allocated for teachers.

I strongly disagree with his point of view of abolishing the awarding process for top schools. The current process gives an extra motivation for the students who want to achieve more and who wanted to learn more! I guess everyone at the moment have equal chances as they are judged by the 8 subjects they are taught in school.

However, his long speech which lasted for more than half an hour was well structured and he also said he would challenge all the other educational policies in a debate. So that’s something to look out for!

Just a mere thought!

Well, another party! Another day in the political arena in the Maldives and the build up for the elections 2008 is getting much more unpredictable! Imagine, for a population of around 300,000 we have 10 and I reiterate, 10 political parties. Wow! For god’s sake! This is too much of our resources wasted on politics!

One funny thing I notice is none of the political parties aims to bring peace and harmony to the Maldivians and to provide a better life. Their main target is to get rid of Maumoon and that’s it! Anni talked about some aspects including tourism, housing and fisheries in his manifesto and I just could not think of how he could achieve in the time frame he told. He obviously needs to change his thinking so that it could be easily accepted by people rather than us wondering whether it would be empty promises! We still have to wait for others to talk about their manifestos, especially from our current president. Would he opt out from issuing a manifesto like how he has done for the political debate! Let’s wait and see what he does!

Back to thought! The public have to fund for the 10 political parties and I can’t see some of them functioning at all! I just can’t believe! Maybe we should start a Maldives Green Party to promote and aware the environmental condition rather than an association or an NGO, because it is more profitable! Easy capital! It’s kind of the easiest way of financing an association of such I guess because you get a yearly capital free of charge! No interest!

Just a mere thought!

A brief look at Anni's transport policy

Its election time in Maldives and the so called ‘politicians’ have started to announce their agendas and manifestos. Since I am living abroad at the moment, I just get all the news from the local media and just could not imagine the differences in how it’s been reported in here and in Maldives.

The last policy was announced by Maldivian Democratic Party’s presidency candidate, Nasheed (Anni) for the transport sector. The main outcome of the policy was to connect all the islands from a ferry mechanism. He highlighted that Maldivians are suppressed in their islands and the difficulty in transport in emergencies. The mechanism would be facilitated bydividing the country in to different zones and the zoned islands were announced in the news briefing held in Hulhumale’ ferry terminal. However, this information was not available (not even in MDP website).

However, after reading the articles about it in haveeru, miadhu, aafathis and jazeera a lot of questions popped in to my head, like any other Maldivian. The journalists failed to ask key questions or failed to report key factors in the newspapers.

First key question is how could it be done?

Is government going to start a ferry business separately or would it be run through MTCC? I thought Anni mentioned about privatising all government business and the need for government to pull away from the business sector.

By having zone ferries would it still solve the emergency problems, I don’t agree. It might give a little comfort but I don’t believe it’s the complete solution.

How could it be financed?

If ferry services are to operate, it sure has to be profitable or is government going to subsidise the company like STELCO. The business would be highly risky n volatile with the increase in fuel prices in the world. Would this policy be financed by the public and would they be charged?

Finally within how many years would it take to implement such a plan?

I don’t support any political party so far, but definitely my vote in the elections would go to a person who has the best mandate to help the people of Maldives and I hope I would get some answers for this in the near future!

Cut down costs!

A lot of people would criticise government’s narrow minded economic policy and I must say most of them are true. World Bank and IMF have reiterated in almost all their publications on Maldivian economy about the lack of flexibility and dependency on natural resources.

We do have master plans of almost all the sectors and National Development plans? Do we really follow them or still we are targeting for short term goals. I would leave this for you to answer!

The recent announcement by the government to cut down costs does not come as a shock for me, because of the fact that most of the spending is by the government. This includes parties, competitions, reducing after hours, opening hours, reduce electricity consumption and transport costs, using phones instead of mobiles and to reduce foreign travel.

Shouldn’t this be in our norms in office? It isn’t and mainly because none of us including myself values the importance of public money. We don’t realise the money we spend ultimately would be taken from our pockets!

We need to cut down our costs, not only in government, we also need to reduce our spending. Reduce buying the latest brands of phones even though we never use the functions except calling and texting, use bicycles or walk to reduce fuel consumption, reduce food waste and electricity and even in clothing!

I believe government’s main objective at the moment should not only be this! Government need to work on projects that would reward and generate revenue. A special emphasis has to be placed on population and development consolidation.

The salaries of high level people should be brought all time low. I could not believe that MPs get $4669 per month. Can you imagine that an Indian MP gets around $1500 and ours get $4669 per month? This is not different for the high level jobs and these people would get an average of around $2000 per month. The worst thing is even after I go back home, I would just earn only $550 per month. Salaries should be cut down where ever possible and should be rationale.

The next question is even though we cut down our costs, would it bring us back to normality! Nah... We are in a worse situation than that! But it sure would help!

Environment - Practice before you preach!

It’s a shame that we talk and blubber around asking other countries to reduce green house gas emissions and to be environmentally friendly when we as a nation are doing nothing in those grounds. Yes, we can plant a few trees, while chop three hundred more trees! Government’s plan to ‘plant a tree for every tree that’s cut’ is just jotted down in a piece of paper while no action is been taken on it.

The roads in the capital are full of garbage.. Chewing gums, suparis, killi... what not? No one is given advice or there is no media campaign to make our roads cleaner.. I had a talk with my friend about it and his reply was ‘Come on.. If I finish eating a supari, I had to keep it in my pocket until I go back home. There is not a single bin on the road..’

He might have a valid point, but still... is it that huge burden for us to carry it back to our home and throw it in the bin. These tiny habits could lead us to a cleaner, tidy and environmental place.

Habits such as to use a recycled bag for shopping instead of getting those plastic bags for each item we buy, to switch of lights and fans or A/C when we leave homes, to use recycled items, to buy our own local produced vegetables and fruits could be minor, but would yield to a greater positive impact on the environment.

The other thing everyone would notice is the amount of vehicles that are in the Maldives. Even though the taxes on motor bikes and cars are doubled the original price, everyone gets away with it by importing as a second hand car or bike.

All guys and girls would follow on the rule ‘to be a great guy or a girl, you need to have a motor bike or to have the latest mobile phone’. But on the reality we as a nation are contributing to the emission of green house gases.

Why can’t we walk or use a bicycle? It’s just a square kilometre.

Yes it’s true... Maldives might be wiped out from the maps of the world in the near future and we have to make the bigger emitters aware of the situation. But for sure, we have to straighten our habits and our life culture as well... Which we never do, so first let us practice it before we preach!

Photo by www.hrclean.org

Vacation!

Again, I just could not meet up with my promises of writing in my blog regularly...

Anyways I was back in Maldives for the SAFF Championship. Guess what? I finished my exams on 2^nd of June, flew on the same day and landed in Male’ International Airport on 3^rd June at 1420hrs. Got back home at 1500hrs and dumped my entire luggage at home and went straight to the stadium with my camera kit! It was the same story throughout my so called - VACATION. But who cares, I just did what I loved, sports photography and witnessed the best football tournament in the history of the Maldives!

The support for the national team was just overwhelming. With each goal that was scored, I wanted to jump, but was forced to calm myself, since I had the responsibility of catching the wonderful moment through my lens!

The euphoria of winning the tournament in the capital was just overwhelming. I was in the lorry with the players and they just could not imagine it, neither I could!. The republican square was painted in red and the long 4 hour journey through out the capital was just ecstatic.

I witnessed Portsmouth Football Club’s FA Cup win and the team’s march throughout the city and they were greeted with the whole city and I mentioned in maldivesoccer.com that BBC football pundit Alen Hansen mentioned ‘for Portsmouth, the knowledge that you've just won the FA Cup is simply one of the best feelings you can experience’.

But for Maldives, it would be the best feeling that would be treasured for our life time.

I got 14 days vacation of which I spent 5 days in Sri Lanka and then spent one whole day in Maldives before I had to fly back to Portsmouth and on the day I flew back, my mom said unhappily ‘Sinan, you could not spend a total of 24 hours with us’. Yes it was true, but then....

You could see some of my shots of the tournament in www.buggeephotos.com