Some New Appointments under the Emergency Government

UN

Dr. Debapriya Bhattacharya has just been appointed  as Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Bangladesh to the WTO and UN Offices in Geneva for the next two years.  He is very happy indeed. Are we ? He has no record of any diplomatic service. He also has a foreign (Russian) wife, who is nominally now also a Bangladeshi national, which does not disqualify him officially but does raise question marks. He is no great economist, and became well-known only as a spokesman for the NGO Centre for Policy Dialogue, reportedly a CIA funded organization. It is difficult to assess where his loyalty lies. Initially he showed great enthusiasm for the emergency government, but then gave a few critical press conferences, and then more or less disappeared from the scene. His appointment may be a) the present government's way of getting rid of him so that he cannot  make any further awkward comments in public about the government's mishandling of economic and human rights affairs, or b) an order communicated during the recent visit of American bureaucrat Gastright. Even a Deputy Assistant Secretary of the US Government  talks here like a master. Interestingly, the American Embassy is now being headed by an Indian.

PSC

Saadat Hossain, the new PSC Chairman,  was notorious for his role in election rigging during the 2001 elections, rightly or wrongly. Could he not be avoided ? Or does the present government need to keep him handy to "arrange" things at the right time ?

UGC

Prof. Nazrul Islam is very-well-known in the country as an urban-planner, not really for an all round knowledge of education. He is a very good friend of Mainul Hosein, and it is rumored that Mainul secured his appointment. Nazrul made some noise about irregularities when first appointed, but is now leading a relaxed life with virtually no work to do.

The lone lady member of the UGC, newly appointed, is a junior professor of Dhaka University, and she too has had no experience in anything outside her narrow  field of specialization - Nuclear Physics. She is the daughter of one of the many sisters of the most powerful man in the country.