Lokkhi Terra and The Che Guevara's Rickshaw Diaries

2012 began with Lokkhi Terra performing at Drik. The group has performed all around the world at venues such as Ronnie Scotts, Royal Albert Hall, Royal Festival Hall, the House of Commons, Glastonbury and at Womad.? They were one of the critics? choices at this year?s Womad festival in the UK, and was the band chosen to perform at the closing ceremony of the South Asian Games 2010.
Lokkhi Terra?s two albums?No Visa Required,?and?Che Guevara?s Rickshaw Diaries, received much critical acclaim around the world.

Photo Of Lokkhi Terra

From?Bangladesh,?Cuba,?Turkey,?United Kingdom
Open-eared and well-travelled world/jazz fusion
The music of Lokkhi Terra isn’t for those who don’t travel well, while those with strong wanderlust in their bones are advised to strap themselves in. The sound of this London-based, multi-membered collective zigzags all over the map. Their point of departure appears to be jazz fusion, but from here they touch down in the streets of Bangladesh, the Afrobeat clubs of Nigeria, the cantinas of Cuba and the beaches of Brazil. Such eclecticism might suggest a disjointed jumble, a sound dreamed up by committee. But in Lokkhi Terra’s care, it all makes utter and perfect sense, a seamless collage of some of the best noises this planet’s ever made. And they’re a bunch keen on album titles that sum up their modus operandi. Last year’s No Visa Required emphasised their border-busting sound, while their forthcoming record also gives a hint of their influences and inspirations: it’s called Che Guevara’s Rickshaw Diaries.
(Biography written by Nige Tassell 2011)
They have all performed around the world at venues such as Ronnie Scotts, Royal Albert Hall, Royal Festival Hall, the House of Commons, Glastonbury and at Womad.? They were one of the critics? choices at this year?s Womad festival in the UK, and was the band chosen to perform at the closing ceremony of the South Asian Games 2010.
Lokkhi Terra?s two albums?No Visa Required,?and?Che Guevara?s Rickshaw Diaries, received much critical acclaim around the world.
The combined sonic forces usually transform a quiet room into one which has people clapping and swaying within minutes and Khan is hoping for a similar reaction in India. Times of India.
Lokkhi Terra will be playing?23rd of January at Blue Frog Delhi and on the 24th January at Blue Frog Mumbai.
Lokkhi Terra is led by the Bangladeshi Kishon Khan

Kisho Khan
Kisho Khan?Pianist/Composer/Arranger/Producer

Here is what people have said about him:
?Kishon Khan leant back from his keyboards with the glee of a man driving a super-car, and played as if distilling the entire 1970s work of Herbie Hancock into a high-octane drive in the country, as congas bounced and brass slid around him…? FT.com
?A formidable jazz pianist? Simon Broughton, Evening Standard
? Highly innovative, a key figure in the British Bangla-Afro-Cuban-Jazz circle? Agogo Records
?Exceptional? ? Movimientos
Kishon Khan is a classically trained pianist, born in Bangladesh, and brought up and living in London. He is widely regarded as one of the most versatile players on the scene today ? sessioning across the genres whilst also being at the heart of some of London?s most critically acclaimed bands. He has lived, studied and worked in countries a far afield as Cuba, Brazil, South Africa, and of course Bangladesh, and this is reflected in the diversity of his musical works/collaborations.
Lokkhi Terra is developing the theme music for Chobi Mela VII, the international festival of photography, held in Dhaka.
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The year sadly ended with the attack at Ramu, the devastating fire at Tazreen Fashions and the brutal assassination in broad daylight of Biswajit Das. While both parties wax lyrical on their successes at the talk shows, the real heroes of Bangladesh continue to be the farmer in the field, the migrant workers and the garment workers who pay for the lavish lifestyles of the Tri State residents of Gulshan, Baridhara and Banani. Let’s take time to remember some of the other Bangladeshis who have made us proud. Some of them young like the choreographer Akram Khan and the writer Tahmima Anam the cricketer Shakib Al Hasan, the educationist Salman Khan and others more senior like the elephant in the room whom we are not allowed to mention, Muhammad Yunus.
Please Retweet #bangladesh #muhammadyunus #tahminaanam #akramkhan #shakibalhasan #salm

An Attack on Grameen Bank, and the Cause of Women

By?DAVID BORNSTEIN? New York Times

This month, the Grameen Bank, the organization that won the Nobel Peace Prize for extending small loans to impoverished village women, has come under renewed attack from the government of Bangladesh. Last year,?I reported?that the government was attempting to forcibly remove the bank?s founder, Muhammad Yunus, from his position as managing director on the pretense that Yunus, then 70, was beyond the official retirement age. The government prevailed.

Nobel Prize Laureate Professor Muhammad Yunus, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006. He initiated the Grameen (rural) Bank, the bank for the poor, which gives loans to poor people (generally women), who do not have collateral. The Grameen Foundation has also initiated innovative companies such as Grameen Phone, a commercial telecommunication company which also provides phones to rural women for setting up their businesses. 1988. Mirpur. Dhaka. Bangladesh. ??Shahidul Alam/Drik/Majority World

Now it has struck again. On Aug. 2, the cabinet of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Wazed?approved?a proposal to amend the 29-year-old law that governs the Grameen Bank so the government can bypass the bank?s board of directors and handpick Yunus?s successor. This is a brazen step to seize control of an institution that serves 8.4 million poor villagers across Bangladesh and provides inspiration to social entrepreneurs around the world. Sadly, it is occurring in a country where the government has been consistently ranked as highly?corrupt. Just this past June, the World Bank?canceled?$1.2 billion in financing for the much-needed Padma Bridge because of corruption at a high-level within the government. Continue reading “An Attack on Grameen Bank, and the Cause of Women”

Part V Military-installed caretaker govt, or a 'consortium' govt?

by rahnuma ahmed

Dr. Muhammad Yunus, proud recipient of The Nobel Peace Prize, 2006, which was awarded jointly to Muhammad Yunus and Grameen Bank, which he founded, “for their efforts to create economic and social development from below.”

Yunus with Nobel prize. Photographer unknown

I had written earlier in this series that now, when I look back, it seems that the policy planners of the consortium government had almost arithmetically calculated that a ‘political vacuum’ resulting from minus-ing the two leaders, from dismantling the organisational structure of the two major political parties — would create the enabling conditions for redrawing the terrain of politics in Bangladesh (divorcing it further from the issue of national sovereignty) in a manner so as to serve, and further perpetuate, the interests represented by the western power bloc. Continue reading “Part V Military-installed caretaker govt, or a 'consortium' govt?”

Reselling Your Soul to the Devil

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20th anniversary of Ain O Salish Kendra and National Museum auditorium, Dhaka. Bangladesh
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Fazle Hasan Abed (left), Muhammad Yunus (centre) and George Soros (right)
Muhammad Yunus, Amartya Sen, Fazle Hasan Abed, George Soros Sultana Kamal. I could hardly have asked for a better photo op. Well it is Christmas! If ever a nation was in need of a pick me up, this was it. The twentieth anniversary of Ain O Shalish Kendra (ASK) had a special significance. This was an organization that has been relentlessly fighting for the rights of the downtrodden. Despite the central bank predicting a 7 percent growth in the coming year, with both parties poised to contest the upcoming election choosing to woo the autocratic general the people had fought to overthrow, and the traditionally secular Awami League (AL) selling out to the Bangladesh Khelafat Majlish (BKM) for supposed electoral gains, the people needed the assurance that at least some still believed in a secular state and the interests of common people.
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Amartya Sen lauded ASK and women?s agencies for the role they had played in upholding the rights of women and talked of the importance of freedom of speech.
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Muhammad Yunus reminded the audience of ASK?s role in preserving the legal rights of the poor. Both Nobel laureates stayed clear of commenting on the decision that had been made by the major opposition party, which had just buried all of these ideas for political convenience.
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Sen gave an eloquent speech, weaving history and his own characteristic economic analysis to point to the role civil society could play in creating a more egalitarian world.
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His witty anecdotes about Salma Sobhan, the diminutive but feisty human rights activist who had founded ASK, and his frank accounts of the attempts by him and his friend, our own celebrated economist Rehman Sobhan, in winning over Salma Banu, before she became Salma Sobhan, was a warm and sincere tribute to one of Bangladesh?s finest citizens. But despite the joy of celebration, the mood in the audience was less than ebullient. The high court ban on fatwas had been a hard won battle and the gloom caused by AL?s entente with the other side of the fundamentalist coin, had left everyone shattered. My activist friends were surprisingly unperturbed. ?Well, they have unmasked themselves? said Khushi Kabir, ?it is time we woke up to what the parties really represent.?
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Sultana Kamal was similarly defiant but also brought up her concerns. ?It has always been our fight, and now we know what alliances to avoid. But they have effectively robbed me of my voting rights. If I now want someone in parliament to stand up for the rights of women, or the Ahmadiyyas, or for free speech, whom do I turn to? The candidates too have no choice. The few who might have wanted to enter the fray because they wanted to change things, now have no party to turn to.?
Politicians are not known for honesty and candour. AL?s win at any cost deal was defended by Abdul Jalil, the general secretary of AL who signed the document, as he tried to wriggle his way out of the hole he had dug himself into. ?It is an understanding based on an election strategy? and ?any decision is a fatwa? he rambled.
This particular election strategy seems to have left out the voters from the equation. The latest ?fatwa? by the Awami League is a ?decision? that will haunt them.