Dhaka, Nov. 20 -- Scotland gave a thistle sting to Britain's four-nation membership last week by becoming the first to outlaw corporal punishment to its children nationwide in all settings.

This means children in Scotland now have the same legal protection from assault as adults and recognizes that corporal punishment is assault and not discipline.

Our own Nobel Laureate eternal Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941), the Bangladeshi writing genius who was a prolific composer with 2,230 songs to his credit, once wrote: "to discipline means to teach, not to punish".

Equally prolific Bangladeshi writers, High Court Justices Md. Imman Ali and Md. Sheikh Hasan Arif when outlawing corporal punishment in Bangladesh in 2011 declared corporal punishm...