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Thursday, March 8, 2012

Bhasani's call to divide Pakistan into two states


Moulana Abdul Hamid Khan Bhasani told a public meeting at Paltan Maidan in Dhaka on this day that East Pakistan/East Bengal would become an independent country soon. He demanded that President Yahya Khan divide the state of Pakistan officially into two independent states. 

As the momentum toward independence took gathered pace in the province, the Awami League modified some of the directives issued by Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. An announcement to this effect was made by the party general secretary Tajuddin Ahmed. The entire province continued to be run under Mujib's directives. 

There was yet no move on the part of the Pakistan military regime to initiate negotiations with the Awami League in light of Bangabandhu's declaration of March 7. However, a series of meetings went on at army headquarters in Rawalpindi, the ostensible purpose of which was to find ways and means of tackling the popular movement in East Pakistan. It was obvious that the regime had been placed in a spot by Mujib's demand that power be transferred to the elected representatives of the people. 

Additionally, the fact that Mujib was in reality running the show in East Pakistan was a clear sign of how diluted the authority of the Pakistan government had become in the province. In effect, what alarmed the regime was that while the Bengali leader had not gone for independence for Bangladesh, he had made sure that the government of Pakistan be looked upon for the illegality that it was, especially against the background of its refusal to convene the national assembly or make a move toward a quick transfer of power to the majority party.

With each passing day, Bengali militancy went up by sure degrees. Nothing happened in East Pakistan unless it had the sanction of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. 

 

Fears of disruption as big solar storm set to hit Earth

A strong solar storm is expected to hit Earth shortly, and experts warn it could disrupt power grids, satellite navigation and plane routes.


The storm - the largest in five years - will unleash a torrent of charged particles between 06:00 GMT and 10:00 GMT, US weather specialists say.

They say it was triggered by a pair of massive solar flares earlier this week. 

It means there is a good chance of seeing the northern lights at lower latitudes, if the skies are clear.

The effects will be most intense in polar regions, and aircraft may be advised to change their routings to avoid these areas.

In the UK, the best chance to see them will be on Thursday night, the British Geological Survey says.

Complex network
 
"It's hitting us right in the nose," said Joseph Kunches, an expert at the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa).

He described the storm as the Sun's version of Super Tuesday - in a reference to the US Republican primaries and caucuses in 10 states.

"Space weather has gotten very interesting over the past 24 hours," Mr Kunches added.

The charged particles are expected to hit Earth at 4,000,000 mph (6,400,000 km/h), and Noaa predicts the storm will last until Friday morning. 

Images of the Sun's region where the flares happened show a complex network of sunspots indicating a large amount of stored magnetic energy. 

Other solar magnetic storms have been observed in recent decades. 

One huge solar flare in 1972 cut off long-distance telephone communication in the US state of Illinois.