ShadaKalo to be renamed to Hajrat Shahjalal International Airport

A humble proposal:
Can we put digital photo frames in all government offices? Not only will they help us towards the goal of a Digital Bangladesh, they will also greatly aid us in changing photos when a new government comes into power.

We should also extend that to names of major infrastructure elements like bridges and airports. Let us use digital signs that we can change with the click of a button.

Now, let's talk about the renaming of ZIA to Hajrat Shahjalal International Airport. Some wit has discovered that the new name can represent the acronym HASINA ("Ha"jrat "S"hahjalal "In"ternational "A"irport) and there are jokes circulating about wet runways and planes waiting to land on the airport.

Madam Prime Minister: Major Zia was a freedom fighter. Regardless of the ruling by the high court abolishing the 5th amendment and who proclaimed independence first, his contribution towards the independence of Bangladesh is unquestionable. You may not like what Major General Zia did, but you could have left the name of the airport untouched in the memory of Major Zia the freedom fighter.

You claim you and your party is better than the opposition. This was your opportunity to be magnanimous in victory, and you squandered that chance.

Allow me to share with you how the people of Bangladesh feel about one very important thing, and that is the memory of the departed. In our culture, when someone dies, all his bad deeds are swept away. Ziaur Rahman still enjoys a reputation of honesty and integrity among the people of Bangladesh, and the same people do not understand or care about high court rulings about the constitution. It only sees that you are doing a land-grab.

Please do not say BNP also did it. You are telling us every day that your party is better than BNP. As my mother used to say, if someone jumped off a bridge, would you?

Lastly, a word to my journalist brothers and sisters. What exactly do you people smoke?

I saw this report first on Amader Shomy, and now on New Nation. The headlines screamed: Renaming of airport to cost Taka 1400 crore : Colossal wastage of poor people’s money.

The process of name changing would involve not merely replacement of the large neon signs at the Dhaka airport, Zia's name would have to be removed from neon signs and sign boards, both painted and electronic, in airports all over the world, informed sources claimed.
...
Civil Aviation sources, who control the operation of the airport, have been quoted by a pro-government vernacular daily to have said that the entire name changing process would cost Taka 1400 crore.
...
The sad part about the episode is that the name would certainly reappear once the BNP comes back to power. And the practice of naming and changing names is not only making the nation a laughing stock to foreigners but also involve, crores of Taka of money of the people 40 per cent of whom are poor living on less than one Dollar a day.

It's time that the political leaders give up intolerance and attitude of vengeance to keep the state functioning smoothly and ensure rapid economic development by restoring confidence in the minds of investors.

There are 3 things wrong with these paragraphs.
First, no airport has another airport's name in Neon signs. They are electronic, printed or painted signs, mostly on departure/arrival boards

Second: I suspect the journalist, his/her editor and the "sources" have never set foot inside an International airport including DAC/ZIA/HASINA; otherwise they would see that it does lists only a few of the thousands of airports in the world. Bottom line: only airports that have direct flights to Dhaka have the name of the airport on signs. This numbers to less than 30. If each sign costs $1000 to repaint/recreate, it is still $30,000. about Taka 21,00,000 (21 lacs). Changing electronic signs would take a few keystrokes, but lets assume it will still cost $1000. $1000 is a very high amount, but we wanted to leave large margins of errors here. And this would be borne by the airlines that fly to Dhaka as their cost of doing business, not by the government. This is far off from the Taka 1400 crore the report mentions. It is entirely possible that this was indeed an "informed source" but in that case the source was lying.

Lastly, the report on New Nation is under the byline of "Staff Reporter." Then why is there commentary and opinion at the end of the report? We do agree with the message in those two paragraphs, but perhaps New Nation should go back to journalism 101 and learn not to mix Op-eds and reporting. While at it, can someone throw a seminar on fact-checking for Bangladeshi Journalists and editors?

Journalists are supposed to be the Fourth Estate to keep the idiot politicians in check, not make up facts.