Bangladesh blames sabotage for factory fire; country mourns dead

DHAKA (Reuters) - Bangladesh said on Tuesday a fire that killed 111 textile workers was sabotage as protesters took to the streets for a second day and garment factories across the world's second biggest clothes exporter stopped work to mourn the dead.

The country's worst-ever industrial blaze broke out on Saturday and consumed a multi-storey building of a Tazreen Fashions factory. More than 150 workers were injured.

The fire has put a spotlight on global retailers that source clothes from Bangladesh, where the cost of labor is low - as little as $37 a month for some workers - and rights groups have called on big-brand firms to sign up to a fire safety program.

The interior minister, Mohiuddin Khan Alamgir, said according to a preliminary inquiry, the fire was the result of arson. He promised to bring the culprits to justice.

"We have come to the conclusion that it was an act of sabotage. We are finding out as of now who exactly the saboteurs are and all culprits will be brought to book," Alamgir said.

Wal-Mart distances itself from fire in Bangladesh

DHAKA, Bangladesh (AP) — The garment factory in Bangladesh where a weekend fire killed at least 112 people had been making clothes for Wal-Mart without the giant U.S. retailer's knowledge, Wal-Mart said.

Wal-Mart said the Tazreen Fashions Ltd. factory was no longer authorized to produce merchandise for Wal-Mart but that a supplier subcontracted work to it "in direct violation of our policies."

"Today, we have terminated the relationship with that supplier," America's biggest retailer said in a statement Monday. "The fact that this occurred is extremely troubling to us, and we will continue to work across the apparel industry to improve fire safety education and training in Bangladesh."

The blaze on Saturday was one of the deadliest fires at a garment factory in Bangladesh and highlighted how the country's garment factories often ignore safety in the rush to supply major retailers in the U.S. and Europe. More than 300 people have died over the past six years in garment factory fires in the South Asian country. 

Subhash Dutta passes away

Subhash Dutta, an icon of evocative Bangla movies, died at his residence in the capital Friday morning due to old age complexities.

The great filmmaker breathed his last around 7:10am at his Ramkrishna Mission Road house.

His body will be kept at the Central Shaheed Minar on Saturday morning to enable his well-wishers and fans from all walks of life to pay homage to the artist.

From the shaheed minar, Dutta’s body will be taken to the Bangladesh Film Development Corporation around noon and later to the Postogola cremation ground for last rituals in the evening.

3 admit to Parag abduction link

Three of the seven suspects arrested in connection with the abduction of six--year-old Parag Mondol admitted their involvement on Friday.

Of the rest four, three were placed on a 10-day remand on Friday while the seventh was remanded for seven days the day before.

Zahidul Hasan, 18, an HSC student of Dania College in Shonir Akhra, Mohammad Ali Rifat, 19, an aeronautical engineering student at a private institute in Uttara; Kala Chand, 30, now a CNG-run auto-rickshaw driver; gave their confessional statements before Judicial Magistrate Shahidul Islam of Dhaka.

The trio said they took part in the operation but they did not know the planning as well as persons behind the abduction, Shakhawat Hossain, officer-in-charge of South Keraniganj Police Station, told The Daily Star. 

Bangladesh News: Pvt cos rule power sector with govt approval

Bangladesh News: The sharp increase in power purchase from the private sector continues against the rise of overall production as private plants generated 56.72 per cent of the total amount of power in fiscal year 2011-12.

Referring to the government’s mega plan, a Power Division official told New Age that the contribution of the private sector to electricity generation would hit 62 per cent by 2016.

On the one hand the government is encouraging private entrepreneurs to generate more and more power and on the other the generation by the public sector is decreasing.

According to a recent report of the state-run Power Development Board, out of 27,253.19 million kilowatt-hours (unit) of the total power in FY2009-10, 11,359.85 million units were produced by the private sector.

In FY2010-11, the private sector overtook the public sector by producing 14,811.57 million units of power, 50.24 per cent of the total.

The growth of the private sector in power generation continued in the following fiscal year and hit about 57 per cent by producing 19,918 million units of electricity out of 35,118.28 million.

PDB officials and experts said that the government’s negligence in increasing power generation by the old plants as well as the setting up of new plants in the public sector allowed the private entrepreneurs to establish their domination in electricity generation.

They said that the overall generation cost of power would continue increasing with the growing dependence on the private sector.

Bangladesh News: Pvt cos rule power sector with govt approval

Shamsul Alam, energy adviser of the Consumers’ Association of Bangladesh, told New Age on Saturday that it was the government’s policy to let the private entrepreneurs take control of the power sector.

He warned that the country’s energy security would be threatened if power production was in the control of the private sector.

Zaid Bakht, research director of the Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies, said that the common people would have to bear the brunt of the increasing generation cost of power as the concerned authorities will realise the extra cost from the consumers.

Besides, the cost of living will increase further, even for those who do not have access to electricity, because of the increase of the prices of essentials due to rise of power prices.

According to data available with the Bangladesh Energy Regulatory Commission and PDB, average power generation cost will shoot up to Tk 5.57 a unit in FY2012-13, which is more than double the cost (Tk 2.59 a unit) in FY2009-10.

Audited reports show that the PDB produced 10,488.33 million units of electricity, other public sector companies produced 5,405.01 million while small and big independent power producers generated 9,098.59 million and rental plants produced 9,098.59 million in FY2009-10.

In the next fiscal year the PDB produced 10,278.88 million units of electricity, other public sector companies 4,394.03 million while small and big independent power producers generated 9,389.64 million and rental plants 5,421.93 million.

This year power generation by the public sector plants dropped by 1,220.43 million units although total generation increased by 2,231.29 million, mainly due to the diversion of gas to the private plants from the public sector.

PDB officials said that the government had to ensure gas supply to the private plants due to contractual obligations as the minimum bills would have to be paid whether or not electricity is bought from the those plants.

In FY2011-12, power generation by the public sector increased by 527.37 million units as about 10 fuel oil-run plants had started power generation. (Source: New Age)

Bangladesh News: For 24/7 update stay tuned with the site.

Dhaka Stock Exchange to oppose Orion Pharma’s IPO approval

Dhaka Stock Exchange has decided to oppose the initial public offering of Orion Pharma that the Securities and Exchange Commission approved last month.

The DSE board in a meeting on Thursday made the decision after hearing the observations of an committee of experts.

The DSE panel pointed out a number of questionable features in the IPO prospectus of Orion Pharma including unjustified asset revaluation, slow growth in core business and misleading information in the financial statement.

The DSE panel said that the Tk 60 offer price of the Orion Pharma’s shares, including Tk 50 premium, was unreasonable, and also questioned SEC’s hurried move to approve the revised IPO proposal.

The SEC approved the revised IPO proposal of Orion Pharma on October 16 with offer price of Tk 60 within two days after the company submitted the proposal.

According to the panel’s observation, the company re-evaluated its fixed asset twice, in 2008 and 2011, where the value of Tk 59.09 crore worth assets stood at Tk 117.22 crore.

The panel said such re-evaluation of depreciable fixed assets was unjustified.

It also observed that the re-evaluation of Orion Pharmaceutical’s subsidiary companies, IEL Consortium and Associates and Dutch Bangla Power, was also unjustified.

The IEL Consortium re-evaluation surplus was shown at Tk 28.56 crore on December 2011 whereas the company started its commercial operation in May 2011.

The Dutch Bangla Power’s re-evaluation surplus was shown at Tk 41.54 crore on December 2011 whereas the company started commercial operation in July 2011.

Dhaka Stock Exchange to oppose Orion Pharma’s IPO approval

‘The panel strongly believes that the re-evaluation of such a new company prior to commercial operation was unusual and motivated, meant to inflate the net asset value to achieve higher offer price,’ it said.

The panel also observed that among the Tk 702.63 crore consolidated revenue of the company in 2011, Orion Pharma contributed only 25 per cent whereas the subsidiary companies contributed 75 per cent.

The project life of both the subsidiaries is 15 years which will hamper the interest of the long-term investors, it said.

The financial statement of Orion Pharma in 2011 showed that the investment of the company in Orion Holding Ltd was Tk 9.96 crore whereas the financial statement of Orion Holding in the same period showed the same investment to be Tk 9.60 crore.

The panel also found Orion Pharma violating the Companies Act 1994 as the managing director of the company is also the managing director of the two other subsidiaries of the company.

Section 109 of the Companies Act 1994 bars any such practice unless the government’s permission was taken is this regard.

Orion Pharma is yet to receive any permission from the government to let its managing director run other subsidiary companies.

‘The SEC should reconsider the approval of Orion Pharma for the greater interest of the investors,’ the panel concluded.

‘We will submit the panel’s observations and board’s decision about Orion Pharma to the SEC this week,’ a senior official of the Dhaka Stock Exchange told New Age.

Bangladesh women entrepreneurs not getting desired loans

Bangladesh women entrepreneurs in small and medium enterprises could not get desirable loans from January 2010 to June 2012, thanks to banks’ and non-bank financial institutions’ reluctance, said Bangladesh Bank officials.
They, however, said that the loan disbursement to the women entrepreneurs had increased on year-on-year basis during the period, as the BB took a number of initiatives in this regard.
According to the latest BB data, the banks and NBFIs have disbursed SME credit to the tune of Tk 139,518.98 crore from January 2010 to June 2012.
Of the amount, Tk 5,097.72 crore was disbursed to the women entrepreneurs.
The percentage of disbursement to the women entrepreneurs of total SME credit was 3.65 per cent during the period, showed the BB data.
The BB had earlier asked the banks and NBFIs to disburse minimum 10 per cent loans to the women entrepreneurs of their total disbursed loans in SME sector in a year.
A BB official on Thursday told New Age that the central bank had always preferred to disburse loans to women entrepreneurs under the refinance scheme, but the banks and NBFIs were showing reluctance in this regard.
BB data showed that banks and NBFIs had disbursed Tk 2,416.17 crore loans under the SME refinance schemes in the two and a half years. Percentage of refinance to total SME financing during the same period was only 2 per cent.

Bangladesh women entrepreneurs not getting desired loans

Under refinance schemes, banks and NBFIs distributed Tk 381.43 crore to the women entrepreneurs in the period. The percentage of refinance to women entrepreneurs comparing to that of the total SME credit to women entrepreneurs during the same period stands at 7.48 per cent.
BB SME and special programmes department general manager Sukamal Sinha Choudhury told New Age that the loan disbursement to the women entrepreneurs had increased consecutively between January 2010 and June 2012.
He said the banks and NBFIs disbursed Tk 1,804.98 crore in SME loans to women entrepreneurs in the year 2010 whereas the total disbursed credit stood at Tk 53,543.93.
The percentage of disbursement to women entrepreneurs of the total SME credit was 3.37 per cent in 2010.
In 2011, Tk 2,048.45 crore were disbursed to the SME women entrepreneurs, which was 3.81 per cent of the amount Tk 53,719.44 crore — the total disbursed SME credit in the year, Sukamal said.
Banks and NBFIs in the first half of this year disbursed Tk 1,244.29 crore to the women entrepreneurs, which was 3.86 per cent of the total disbursed SME credit amounting to Tk 32,255.61 crore during the period of the year.
When asked why the loan disbursement to the women entrepreneurs in the period did not reach at 10 per cent, the BB GM said that the bankers were ignorant about the women entrepreneurs.
Besides, the women entrepreneurs usually fail to show the required collateral against the bank loan and they also cannot get support from the family and society in favour of their new businesses. 
The BB GM admitted that they were receiving a number of plans to increase the loan disbursement to the women entrepreneurs.
The central bank will arrange more training programmes, workshops, seminars for the women entrepreneurs in the coming days.
Organising fair for Bangladesh SME women entrepreneurs would be increased and more initiatives would be taken in group-based financing and cluster-based financing, he added.

Google Honors Niels Bohr With Atomic Doodle

Google on Sunday recognized Niels Bohr with a homepage doodle to commemorate the 127th anniversary of the Danish physicist's birth.

The doodle, one of the search giant's simpler ones, shows the breakthrough atomic model Bohr conceived of in 1913 taking the place of the first "o" in Google's famous logo. Bohr's model was the first to conceive of the atomic structure as similar to a solar system, with electrons spinning around a central nucleus like planets around a sun, but with the electromagnetic force binding them rather than gravity.

Bohr, born in 1885 in Copenhagen, was awarded the Nobel Prize in physics in 1922 for this early work published while he was at Manchester University. In addition to devising a model of the atomic structure that endures to this day, Bohr also established one of the founding principles of quantum mechanics with his notion that electrons could move to lower orbits around the nucleus in incremental steps, emitting a photon as they do so.

An accomplished athlete in his youth, Bohr played goalkeeper around the turn of the century for the Copenhagen soccer club Akademisk Boldklub alongside his brother Harald, a mathematician and Olympic soccer player for Denmark. Niels Bohr's father Christian Bohr was himself a distinguished professor of physiology at the University of Copenhagen, where Niels conducted award-winning experiments on the properties of surface tension and received his doctorate in 1911.

Moving to England, Bohr joined a group of young physicists at Victoria University of Manchester under the tutelage of Ernest Rutherford, the pioneering chemist and nuclear physicist, with peers such as William Lawrence Bragg, James Chadwick, and Hans Geiger.

Bohr returned to the University of Copenhagen in 1916 to establish and direct its Institute of Theoretical Physics, which was formed in 1921.

As a guiding light of quantum physics and promoter of the idea of complementarity—that phenomena like light could be conceived as having contradictory properties, such as behaving as both a wave and as a collection of particles, for the purposes of study—Bohr would have a series of lively but good-natured philosophical debates with Albert Einstein, noted critic of the notion of quantum indeterminism.

During World War II, the Danish resistance managed to smuggle Bohr and his wife Margrethe out of Nazi-occupied Denmark to England in 1943. He then went on to the United States, where he worked using the pseudonym "Nicholas Baker" at the Los Alamos laboratory in New Mexico on the Manhattan Project under the direction of Major General Leslie Groves of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and theoretical physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer.

Though Bohr's credentials as a physicist were impeccable, he later described his role at Los Alamos as less about practical assistance—the Americans "didn't need my help in making the atom bomb," he would say—and more as an elder statesman of physics who offered counsel and voiced his concerns about the social impact of developing nuclear weapons and kicking off a new arms race.

After the war, Bohr returned to Denmark and continued to advocate politically for the peaceful exchange of nuclear technology to avoid a devastating nuclear war. One of Niels and Margrethe Bohr's six sons, Aage Bohr, was also awarded the awarded the Nobel Prize in physics in 1975, 13 years after his father died in Copenhagen. (Source: pcmag.com)

Bangladesh RMG owners asked to settle payment before Eid

The Bangladesh government on Tuesday instructed all concerned in the readymade garment factories to ensure that workers get their due wages and festival allowances before Eid-ul-Fitr next month.

The Cabinet committee on law and order at its 11th meeting at the secretariat, with home affairs minister Sahara Khatun in the chair, issued the directives to prevent any disorder in the export-oriented apparel sector. 

‘We have directed law enforcement agencies, including the industrial police, to take effective measures to check any disorder in the RMG sector ahead of Eid,’ Sahara told reporters after the meeting.

She said that the lawmen were especially asked to take additional measures so that the law and order situation does not deteriorate in the ongoing month of Ramadan. 

The home affairs ministry will again sit with the representatives of the RMG factories tomorrow (Thursday) to press for implementation of the directives of the Cabinet body in the wake of the ongoing labour unrest in Ashulia, the industrial belt on the outskirts of Dhaka city, over non-payment of wages and job insecurity. 

The meeting also decided to launch a crackdown against food adulteration across the country in the wake of widespread use of chemicals including formalin and carbide, especially in fruits, vegetables and fish. 

Law minister Shafique Ahmed, labour and expatriates’ affairs minister Khandker Mosharraf Hossain, information minister Abul Kalam Azad, state minister for home affairs Shamsul Haque and senior officials of law enforcement agencies, along with others, were present at the meeting. 

‘We have directed the LGRD and cooperatives ministry and city corporations to begin combing operations against the use of injurious chemicals in food items,’ said Shamsul Haque.

He said that the government was thinking of 

enacting a stern law to stop food adulteration which causes deadly diseases like cancer. 

The state minister said the meeting asked the RMG factory owners to ensure payment of due wages and festival allowances to workers to forestall any labour unrest over non-payment of wages before the Eid. 

‘No one will be allowed to create an anarchic situation ahead of Eid in the readymade garment sector. The owners will have to pay due wages and festival bonus before the Eid,’ said Shamsul. 

The Cabinet body asked the two city corporations of Dhaka to ensure alternative passages while constructing any flyovers as areas like Jatrabari and Saidabad were facing huge traffic congestion due to narrow roads in the under-construction flyover area on one of the exits of the capital.

It asked the concerned authorities to strengthen the operation of mobile courts against food adulteration and other crimes. 

‘The local administrations and police have been alerted against the possibility of deterioration in the law and order situation over shortage of gas and electricity in and around the city,’ a senior official told New Age. 

The Cabinet body underlined the need for another meeting with representatives of the export-oriented RMG sector, which earns over $20 billion in foreign exchange a year, to ensure the workers’ rights and maintain order in the sector which has around 40 lakh employees, most of them women. 

Several hundred workers of Fashion It garment factory at Jamgora in Ashulia demonstrated for the third consecutive day on Tuesday in protest against the termination of the jobs of their fellow workers.

At least five were injured when the agitated workers, who brought out a rally blocking the Dhaka-Tangail highway, were lathi-charged by the police.

Around 70 people, including policemen and factory security guards, were injured in clashes at Jamgora and Dhonaid in Ashulia on Monday morning when workers of garment factories clashed with the police.

In response to workers’ unrest, the management of five garment and sweater factories declared holiday for the day and the management of another factory declared lock-out for an indefinite period.  

CID, SB deny having detained Ilias Ali

Only two, out of 10 government agencies, responded on Sunday to a High Court order asking them to explain before April 29 why the ‘detenu’, M Ilias Ali, a former lawmaker, should not be brought before it to establish that he was not being held illegally, said a law officer. On April 19, the bench of Justice Farid Ahmed and Justice Sheikh Hassan Arif, after hearing a writ petition filed by Ilias’s wife Tahsina Rushdir Luna seeking its direction to find out her husband, asked the home secretary, inspector general of police, additional inspector generals of Criminal Investigation Department and Special Branch, Dhaka Metropolitan Police commissioner, Dhaka deputy commissioner, Rapid Action Battalion’s director-general, Detective Branch’s deputy commissioner and officers-in-charge of Gulshan and Banani police stations to answer the rule. The CID and the SB submitted separate reports to the government’s solicitor wing at the Attorney General’s office in the afternoon explaining that they had not arrested Ilias Ali, who remained missing since April 17. ‘The CID did not arrest Ilias Ali in any case on his way home at 1:30am on April 18 or torture him in a secret place,’ said additional inspector general of police (CID) Rownakul Hoque Chowdhury in reply to the allegations made in the writ petition. ‘The Special Branch or its representatives did not arrest the petitioner’s husband, even the matter is not in my knowledge,’ said additional inspector general of police (Special Branch) M Jabed Patwari, in his report. It said that since the SB had not detained Ilias Ali, the question of his being harassed by the agency did not arise. ‘The home secretary and the Rapid Action Battalion asked me to seek time, on their behalf, to submit their replies,’ the government law officer concerned, Motaher Hossain Sazu told New Age. He also said six other respondents were yet to file their replies although the High Court’s 10-day deadline to do so ended on Sunday. ‘I will submit the replies of the CID and SB to the bench concerned when the court resumes after the hartal is over,’ the law officer added. Home ministry’s joint secretary Shawkat Mostafa told New Age that the ministry had received the High Court order on April 24, and asked the police and the RAB to submit their replies. ‘We need time to prepare the replies,’ said the joint secretary. Ilias Ali, BNP’s organising secretary for Sylhet division, and his driver went missing on April 17. BNP chairperson Khaleda Zia alleged that the government agency and RAB picked up Ilias. But prime minister Sheikh Hasina dismissed the allegation saying that the BNP was staging a ‘drama’ over the Ilias issue. On April 18, police found Ilias’s car abandoned near his Banani residence in the capital and the BNP enforced dawn-to-dusk hartals for three consecutive days on April 22, 23 and 24 demanding that the party leader be returned immediately. After wrapping up their third day’s hartal on April 24, Khaleda Zia gave the government four days to find out the missing BNP leader and the deadline expired on Saturday. The main opposition is enforcing fresh two-day back-to-back shutdowns that began on Sunday after its ultimatum was over. The BNP also staged nationwide demonstrations on Thursday and Saturday to press home its demands for ‘returning’ Ilias Ali. 

 Source: New Age

BUET teachers think of alternative movement

Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology teachers, on strike for 22nd consecutive days on Sunday, told New Age that they would not call off their protests seeking resignation of the vice-chancellor and the pro-vice-chancellor although they knew that students were suffering as no classes were being held. ‘The students will not face trouble as we can take make-up classes at the weekends or during holidays,’ The BUET Teachers’ Association general secretary, Md Ashraful Islam, said. He said, ‘We expect that the prime minister will meet our demands so that the students do not suffer.’ The striking teachers are discussing the campus situation with higher authorities. A number of teachers also said that they were thinking of ‘an alternative movement’ against the corruption in the university administration in view of sufferings of the students. But they would not call off their protests pushing for the resignation of the vice-chancellor SM Nazrul Islam and the pro-vice-chancellor Md Habibur Rahman because of their ‘involvement in corruption,’ the teachers said. ‘We have not yet decided our next course of action but have thought of an alternative way to push four our demands,’ one of the striking teachers said. He talked of the silent procession they held on the campus on Saturday as a way of protests. Asked about the sufferings of the students, the teachers said that the students were not suffering so much as their strike coincided with the general strike the opposition alliance was enforcing and because of public holidays. The vice-chancellor, meanwhile, told New Age that the teachers had alleged irregularities in administration. ‘But why should the students suffer?’ Asked about the allegations levelled against them the vice-chancellor said that the allegations were ‘illogical and baseless.’ ‘I have not committed any mistake. My resignation will, rather, be a mistake,’’ he added. 

Source: New Age

Appointment of BERC member: Imam places candidate on political grounds

Prime Minister’s adviser HT Imam recently asked the energy ministry to appoint a civil engineer as member of Bangladesh Energy Regulatory Commission though he is not eligible for the position. In an official letter dated April 18, he told the state minister for Power, Energy and Mineral Resources Mohammad Enamul Huq that the prime minister gave ‘her kind instruction’ to appoint Mohammad Shahadat Hossain as a member of the BERC. The PM’s adviser on public administration affairs attached three-page curriculum vitae of Mohammad Shahadat Hossain with his letter. He asked the state minister to place the matter before the prime minister in an official ‘summery’ on urgent basis. He gave a copy of the letter to the senior secretary of the Ministry of Public Administration. The PM is in charge of the energy ministry. The Bangladesh Energy Regulatory Commission Act 2003, amended in 2010, set the academic qualification of BERC member as graduation in Mine and Mineral Resources or electrical engineering or chemical engineering or mechanical engineering or petroleum engineering. According to the criterion set Master’s degree holders in geography, geology and mining, law, economics, accounting, business administration, management, finance, banking, marketing, public administration, chemistry, physics or applied physics are also eligible. Civil engineers are in no way eligible for the position. According to the BERC Act a candidate is required to have at least 15 years’ experience in any of the specified fields. Asked why he recommended a civil engineer for the position HT Imam told New Age on Sunday, ‘I forwarded the letter as I have received. The concerned authority would take the decision whether he is qualified or not.’ Imam said that the concerned authority was not bound to follow his recommendation. Shahadat took retirement after serving Titas Gas Transmission and Distribution Company Limited for 26 years. He wrote in his CV that he took retirement as deputy general manager in February 2011. During his service, he mentioned, he took part in different training programmes related to gas transmission and distribution. Officials said that Shahadat does not in any way qualify for the position of member of BERC. They said that Shahadat’s ‘main qualification’ is his links. Shahadat also mentioned in his CV that he was the vice-president of Bangabandhu Prakoushali Parisad and always worked to organise engineers, who are followers of Bangabandhu in the Institution of Engineers of Bangladesh. He also mentioned that he met Sheikh Hasina several times after her home coming in 1981. Shahadat also mentioned in his CV that he actively took part n different political programmes of Awami League and its front organisations during his service life. BERC is a statutory body, not a political organisation, said officials. Asked whether a BERC member candidate needed political experience, HT Imam said that he was not aware of what Shahadat had attached with his CV. Short listing Shahadat’s name as a candidate member of BERC took e place at a time when the energy regulatory commission is facing allegations of taking politically motivated decisions. An Energy Division official said that a committee was working on the appointment of the energy commission members and prepared a short list among the applicants for the posts. 

Source: New Age

Students join striking teachers at Jahangirnagar University

Several hundred Jahangirnagar University students joined the movement of teachers who laid siege to the the vice-chancellor’s house for the fourth consecutive day on Sunday demanding his resignation. They rallied on the campus in protest at Saturday’s attack on the campus-based cultural activists and teachers by Chhatra League activists and burnt the vice-chancellor Shariff Enamul Kabir in effigy. The striking teachers, mostly belonging to opposition and left-leaning political parties, on Sunday vowed to continue with their sit-in until the vice-chancellor resigned. They were demanding the resignation of the vice-chancellor for his alleged corruption, recruitment of teachers on political grounds and patronisation of Chhatra League activists. The vice-chancellor, however, on Sunday told reporters that he would not step down. ‘There is no reason for me to resign.’ BCL activists backed by the vice-chancellor also brought out a procession on the campus. Sources said the BCL leaders forced general students to join the procession. Mehedi Hasan, a resident of Shaheed Salam Barkat Hall, said that Chhatra League activists had called general students to the common room of the hall and forced the students to join the procession. Activists of the Awami League-backed Chhatra League on Saturday night attacked the striking teachers and cultural activists. The teachers and students demanded exemplary punishment of the people who attacked them. Sangskritik Jote activists said that the police refused to record any case against Chhatra League activists who attacked on the cultural activists on Saturday in which at least 15 were injured. The Ashulia police officer-in-charge, Badrul Alam, said that some students had gone to the police station to file a case but the police did not record the case as the documents lacked some bits of information. The police recorded a general diary instead. The university authorities set up a three-member committee, headed by Pritilata Hall provost Lutfar Rahman, to investigate the attack, the registrar, Abu Bakar Siddique, said. The other two on the committee Ahmed Reza and deputy registrar Mohammad Ali. The committee has been asked to submit the report in seven working days. Cultural activists alleged that they had not stayed in the halls since Saturday night. ‘We have been forced to stay out of the halls in fear of attacks by Chhatra League activists as we are protesting at their activities that have led to the current campus situation,’ cultural activists Rahul Anzum said. Chhatra League activists, however, brushed aside the allegations and said that they had not asked anyone to leave the halls. The acting proctor Sukalyan Kumar Kundu assured the cultural activists of security in halls after discussing the matter with the provosts and Chhatra League activists. Police deployment on the campus has been reinforced to head off any trouble, the Ashulia police said. 

Source: New Age 

Sporadic clashes mark Bangladesh general strike

Sporadic clashes between pickets and police, attacks on vehicles, arrest of opposition activists and anti-hartal demonstrations by ruling party men marked the first day of the BNP-led alliance’s fresh back-to-back shutdowns in Bangladesh on Sunday. The Bangladesh Nationalist Party-led 18-party alliance enforced the nationwide dawn-to-dusk strike after its deadline to produce the missing BNP organising secretary, M Ilias Ali, was over on Saturday.

Dhaka to pressure Delhi to end border killing

From New Age
Dhaka is expected to lodge a strong protest against the killing and torture of Bangladeshis by India’s Border Security Force in the two-day home ministers’ talks scheduled for February 24–25 in New Delhi.
The home minister, Sahara Khatun, is scheduled to leave Dhaka for Delhi on February 23 leading a 12-member delegation to the bilateral talks with her counterpart P Chidambaram on issues relating to, among others, border management, security cooperation and implementation of the land boundary protocol, a senior official said.

Bangla Academy Literary Award announced

From New Age
Bangla Academy, the organiser of month-long Amar Ekushey Book Fair, on Saturday announced Bangla Academy Literary Award 2011 at the fair ground.
tor general, Shamsuzzaman Khan, at a discussion and cultural session on the academy premises in the afternoon announced the name of ten authors who won the award.

Amal Sen’s 9th death anniv observed

From New Age
The ninth anniversary of death of the legendary figure in the communist movement in the Indian subcontinent Amal Sen was observed on Monday through a commemorative ceremony held at the Workers Party of Bangladesh office in the capital.

The programme organised by the Amal Sen Smriti Rakkha Committee started with placing of wreaths at a portrait of the revolutionary communist icon, who was the founding president of the WP.

‘It’s a duty of all to show due respect to the late Comrade Amal Sen,’ WP president Rashed Khan Menon said.

WP general secretary Anisur Rahman Mollick and politbureau members Nurul Hasan Selim, Communist Party of Bangladesh president Manzurul Ahsan Khan and general secretary Muzahidul Islam Selim, Jatiya Samajtantrik Dal secretary Sharif Nurul Ambia and assistant secretary Shirin Akhter, Bangladesher Samajtantrik Dal general secretary Khaliquzzaman, Gonotantrik Party secretary Nurul Rahman Selim, 11-party alliance convener Mahmudur Rahman Babu, Gano Forum leader Pankaj Bhattacharya, and Sramik Karmachari Oikko Parishad coordinator Wazedul Islam, among others, were in the ceremony.

A two-day fair will also start in Bakri of Narail on Tuesday to commemorate Amal. The fair will feature programmes including placing of wreaths at the place of Amal Sen’s cremation, a discussion, a rally, and cultural shows.

After the

formation of a unified Workers’ Party of Bangladesh, he was elected president of it in 1992 and again in 1995, and had held this post till 2000. He then

served as a WP central committee member until his death on January 17, 2002.

Dhaka stocks plunge sparks fresh protests

From New Age
The massive fall in share prices on the Dhaka Stock Exchange on Monday triggered fresh street demonstrations by the aggrieved investors in demand of a clear government policy for stabilising the capital market.

DGEN, the benchmark general index of the DSE, lost 3.33 per cent, or 167.68 points, on the day to close at 4,864.30 points. The DGEN slipped by 358 points in the past three days.

Agitated investors staged rowdy demonstrations in front of the DSE building at Motijheel keeping the traffic from Shapla square to Ittefaq crossing at a standstill from 12:20pm to 3:30pm.

Trading at the bourse started in a negative mood on the day with the DGEN losing around 125 points in the first five minutes. The index had fluctuated heavily throughout the session before closing below the psychological benchmark of 5,000 points.

Investors rushed out of different brokerage houses on the street at around 12:20pm and formed a human chain in front of the entrance to the DSE.

They set piles of wooden materials and paper on fire

and chanted slogans against National Board of Revenue chairman Nasiruddin Ahmed, finance minister AMA Muhith, Bangladesh Bank governor Atiur Rahman, and DSE president Shakil Rizvi for their failure to bring back stability to the market which had been passing through a depression for more than long one year.

The demonstrating investors demanded withdrawal of the latest NBR order banning investment of money earned in criminal ways in the securities market.

The statutory regulatory order of the revenue board said if the money was earned through criminal acts outlined in other laws then that fund would not be accorded the same privilege as that of undisclosed money.

Earlier in the budget session, the government allowed investment of undisclosed money in stocks without raising any question, subject to payment of a 10 per cent tax.

The NBR on several occasions said the provision would not be changed before the next national budget.

From the demo, investors also demanded stable government policies for stabilising the market. ‘When government policies regarding the equities market are not stable then how will those stabilise the market,’ an investor named Hamid asked.

‘The government is always coming up with short-term solutions for the market while prescribing us to go for long-term investment. This is really ridicules,’ he said.

To a question about the recent market downtrend and investors’ allegations, DSE senior vice president Ahasanul Islam first called on the investors to remain calm and act rationally. He then said, ‘The market is very sensitive and investors are reacting in a mercurial pace to its every change.’

He said the recent market downtrend was a cumulative effect of a number of issues.

‘The margin loan problem is still haunting the market and the lack of institutional participation has been intensifying it,’ he said.

He also said that ‘Rather than going for selling shares at a loss, investors should wait for corporate disclosures due to come out soon.’

The benchmark general index of the country’s premier bourse had slid 37 per cent over 2011 in a worst-ever crash that wiped out investments made by many thousands.

The DGEN which had stood at 8,290.41 points on December 31, 2010, closed on Thursday, the last trading day of the year, at 5,257.60 points, posting a lose of 3,032 points over the last calendar year.

Lack of coordination between the regulatory authorities and other stakeholders also made the measures taken by the government to rejuvenate the country’s ailing capital market ineffective. And so, the Dhaka stocks continued to fall like a stone from miles high in a hopeless, helpless state.

Public servants to be barred from stocks investment

From New Age
The prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, on Monday asked the authorities concerned to issue an official order reminding the public servants, including members of the armed forces, that they could not invest in any profitable business, including in share market.

The prime minister, while presiding over the weekly meeting of the cabinet at the secretariat, said the government officials and employees as per the service conduct rules could not engage themselves in the capital market, which fluctuates frequently, or any other profitable business, a cabinet member told New Age.

The minister said that Sheikh Hasina had asked the authorities to strictly implement the service rules in this regard.

The order came amid widespread allegations that a large number of public servants, including military officers, had made huge investments in the share market in violation of their service conduct rules. It has been alleged that many such officers and employees remain busy monitoring the capital market online and trading even in office hours.

The cabinet approved the draft amendments to the income tax law, proposing tax waiver for foreign investors and mutual fund income and reduction of tax on brokerage commission to boost the stock market, facing a serious crisis for continuous depression for last one year.

‘No government servant shall speculate in investments. For the purpose of this sub-rule the habitual purchase and sale of securities of notoriously fluctuating value shall be deemed to be speculation in investments,’ reads Section 15 of the Government Servants (Conduct) Rules 1979.

It says that no government servant shall make any investment the value of which is likely to be affected by some events of which information is available to him as a government servant and is not equally available to the general public.

‘The authorities have been asked to issue a circular ordering that no public servant either in civil service or in military can invest in any profitable business like share market which fluctuates frequently,’ the prime minister’s press secretary Abul Kalam Azad told reporters after the meeting at the secretariat.

He said that the official order would be made available soon with immediate effect.

The amendments of the tax law proposed reduction in tax at source on brokerage commission from 0.10 per cent to 0.05 per cent and waiving 10 per cent tax on mutual fund income to boost up the crisis-ridden stock market, the press secretary added..

The government imposed tax on foreigners’ investment in the capital market during the 2011-12 fiscal budget, but such investment was free of taxes before the current fiscal.

Short-sighted and uncoordinated regulatory policies reportedly helped create the stocks bubble and its riotous burst that had remained in the centre of the government’s economic mismanagement throughout past three years.

Sudden investment inflows, mostly from the banking sector, gave rise to a boom in 2010. Experts said use of funds by the alleged ‘market cartels’ had played a key role in generating a monstrous bull run, the price of which had to be paid later by the retail investors.

Since the beginning of 2011 to its last trading day on December 29, the general index of the Dhaka Stock Exchange dropped by 37 per cent of its value losing 3,032 points.

ACC approves charges against Khaleda

From New Age
The Anti-Corruption Commission on Monday pressed graft charges against Bangladesh Nationalist Party chairperson Khaleda Zia and three others for using undisclosed money in buying land for a charity named after the late president, Ziaur Rahman.

The investigation officer of the case, Harunur Rashid, submitted the charge sheet to the General Registration Officer of the Dhaka Chief Metropolitan Magistrate’s Court after the commission had approved it in the morning.

The court officials said the charge sheet would be placed before the CMM, AKM Enamul Haque, today for his signature, from where it would be transferred to the senior special judge Mohammad Zohurul Haque for further proceedings.

Khaleda’s lawyer Sanaullah Miah told New Age, ‘The ACC pressed the charge against the leader of the opposition in a bid to harass her politically.’

The ACC has no authority to interfere in the affairs of the private trust, he added.

Khaleda, who had obtained an eight-week bail from the High Court in the case, on December 8, 2012, would go to the CMM court around noon today to furnish her bail bond, the lawyer said.

Charges were also pressed against Haris Chowdhury, political secretary to the then prime minister Khaleda Zia, Ziaul Islam (Munna), former assistant private secretary to Haris, and Manirul Islam Khan, former assistant private secretary to former Dhaka mayor Sadeq Hossain Khoka for helping Khaleda in committing the offence.

Charges were pressed against Khaleda, now leader of the opposition, for committing the offence under Section 5(2) of the Prevention of Corruption Act 1947.

According to the law, the offence is non-bailable, and if the charge is proved, Khaleda may be sentenced to seven years in jail.

The three other accused may also be handed similar punishment for helping her in committing the offence.

The commission made the decision to submit the charge sheet in the case after examining the evidence and documents found during investigation, anti-corruption commissioner Muhammad Sahabuddin told New Age.

Thirty-six people were named as prosecution witnesses in the case, he said.

Harris Chowdhury is on the run while Khaleda and the two others are now on bail, the charge sheet said.

The Shaheed Zia Charitable Trust case was also the first case filed against Khaleda since the Awami League-led alliance assumed office on January 6, 2009.

Harunur Rashid, also assistant director of the commission, lodged the case with the Tejgaon police station on August 8, 2011 against Khaleda and the three.

According to the charge sheet, Khaleda, the then prime minister, had committed criminal misconduct by abusing her power in creating the trust as well as accumulating money from undisclosed sources and buying the piece of land at Kakrail in the city for the trust in 2005.

It also said that an account in the name of Shaheed Zia Charitable Trust had been opened with the Prime Minister’s Office branch of the Sonali Bank on January 9, 2005.

Around Tk 78.9 million was deposited in the bank account after a week. The BNP deposited Tk 61.9 million, Metro Makers Developers Ltd Tk 13.5 million and Ziaul Islam Tk 2.7 million, the charge sheet said.

It further said that the piece of land was bought on January 19, 2005 for Tk 65.2 million. But the seller, Suraiya Khanam, received Tk 12.5 million in addition to the amount the land was bought for.

The additional amount of money in the seller’s bank account came from the trust and the trust failed to show any valid source of the money, said the charge sheet.

It also said that Khaleda had not replied to any of the four letters the commission issued asking her to make a statement on the allegations.

Although the trust was set up in the name of charity, no charitable activities had ever been done by it, the charge sheet alleged.

The case was filed although the commission was yet to reply to a rule issued by the High Court on May 24, 2010 asking it to explain why its notice asking Khaleda to make a statement in connection with the probe into the alleged charity fund graft should not be declared illegal.

This is the second case, in which charges have been pressed against Khaleda since assumption of power by the Awami League.

On August 5, 2009 the corruption watchdog also pressed charges against Khaleda, Tarique and four others for embezzling Tk 2.1 crore from the Zia Orphanage Trust’s fund between June 1991 and February 2007.

Harunur Rashid, who filed the Zia Orphanage Trust case on July 3, 2008 during the rule of the military-controlled interim government, had submitted the charge sheet.

Khaleda is also facing at least three more cases on graft charges – GATCO graft case, Niko graft case and Barapukuria graft case.

JU proctor quits as protests on

From New Age
The proctor of Jahangirnagar University, Arju Miah, on Monday resigned his position in the face continued teacher-student protests since a student was tortured to death by activists of Chhatra League on January 9.

The protesters described the proctor’s resignation as their partial victory and said they would continue the movement until all of their demands was met. They warned that they would wage a movement for resignation of vice-chancellor Shariff Enamul Kabir if he failed meet the demands.

Arju Miah announced his resignation at a press conference about 12:30pm in the senate hall saying that he had made the decision for the sake of ‘peaceful academic atmosphere on the campus’.

A media release issued by the university’s public relations office said, ‘Professor Dr Mohammad Arju Miah has willingly stepped down from the proctor’s post, considering the situation that arose after the death of Zubair Ahmed, a fourth-year student of English department.’

He turned in his resignation to allow the university’s ‘regular activities to continue’, read the release.

Despite leaving the position of the proctor, Arju still retains the posts of the provost of Shaheed Rafique-Zabbar Hall and president of the university shop owners’ association.

The teachers protesting under the banner of ‘Shikkhak Samaj’ said they would resume their academic and administrative activities today as the proctor had been removed but they stuck to their remaining demands, including ‘punishment’ of Arju Miah as per the university’s ‘efficiency and discipline’ rules for assaulting the president of the university teachers’ association, AA Mamun.

Nasim Akhtar Hossain, a professor of government and politics, told New Age, ‘We will join work tomorrow [Tuesday] but our movement would continue until all our demands are met. If the vice-chancellor fails to accept the demands, we would have no option but to wage a movement [for his resignation].’

‘Our demands have been fulfilled partially. Our key demands, the resignation of the entire proctorial body, expulsion of all people involved in Zubair killing, security of all students and teachers and proper academic atmosphere,’ she said.

After the proctor’s resignation, the students under the banner of ‘Jahangirnagar against terrorism’ announced that they would continue their protests until all their demands were met.

Amid continued protests, the university authorities have expelled three students for their involvement in torturing Zubair to death and police arrested four students. A security officer was also sacked after the killing.

The students and teachers are demanding a judicial investigation of the killing of Zubair Ahmed, a fourth-year English department student who was tortured to death on January 9 by a faction of Chhatra League said to be loyal to the vice-chancellor.

They accused the vice-chancellor of harbouring hooligans and warned him of movement for his removal if he failed to meet the demands.

ICT to hear arguments on Jan 26

From New Age
The International Crimes Tribunal on Monday set January 26 to hear the arguments on taking cognisance of the charges pressed by prosecution against detained Jamaat secretary general Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mojaheed.

On Monday morning the prosecution formally submitted a fresh charge sheet against Mojaheed.

Also known as war crimes tribunal, the ICT was instituted to try the suspects of 1971 war crimes.

According to prosecution sources, Mojaheed has been charged with 34 counts of war crimes, for his alleged complicity in genocide and crimes against humanity during the 1971 War of Independence.

Mojaheed faces charges of complicity in genocide in Faridpur, helping Pakistani occupation army in the abduction and murder of journalist Sirajuddin Hossain, musician Altaf Mahmud and freedom fighter Shafi Imam Rumi, son of Shahid Janani Jahanara Imam, in Dhaka, they said.

Mojaheed faces the charge of insisting on the occupation army to kill them immediately to prevent them from getting the benefit of general amnesty the then Pakistan president was expected to announce.

Mojaheed with his Al-Badr Bahini, an auxiliary force of the Pakistani occupation army, also faces the charges of killing 25 to 30 people, looting about 300-350 houses and setting houses on fire in the villages of Balidangi, Boidyadangi, Majhidangi in Charbhadrasan in Faridpur.

He is charged with 34 counts of war crimes, including eight counts of genocide, eight counts of crimes against humanity and murder, seven counts for insisting upon the occupation army to kill several people and 11 counts of robbery and arson.

On December 28, 2011, the tribunal returned the charge sheet against Mojaheed and Jamaat assistant secretary general Mohammad Kamaruzzaman and directed the prosecution to submit a fresh charge sheet against Kamaruzzaman by January 14 and against Mojaheed by January 16 in an organised way and proper format.

The tribunal of Justice Nizamul Huq, Justice ATM Fazle Kabir and judge AKM Zahir Ahmed had returned the charge sheets with the observation that prepared in a scattered and disorganised manner they were not in proper format.

On Sunday the prosecution submitted fresh charge sheets, which charged Kamruzzaman with nine counts of war crimes crime, including conspiracy, genocide and crimes against humanity.

The tribunal is yet to set a date for hearing the arguments on taking cognisance of the charges against Kamruzzaman.

Kamaruzzaman’s areas of operation included Mymensingh, Jamalpur, Tangail and Sherpur, according to prosecutor Zead Al Malum.

He also said Kamaruzzaman was the chief coordinator of Al Badr Bahini.

Energy sector turned into ‘haven for plunderers’: Khaleda

From New Age
The opposition leader, Khaleda Zia, on Monday said all corruption, irregularities, anarchy and plunder in public procurement would be investigated and the persons responsible would be brought to book if her party returned to power.

She said the power and energy sector had become ‘a haven for local and foreign plunderers’ with work orders of mega projects being given without tenders.

Khaleda, also the Bangladesh Nationalist Party chairperson, said her previous government had enacted public procurement act and public procurement rules in order to ensure transparency and accountability in public sector

purchase but the present government ignored them and passed another act giving indemnity to all acts of ‘plunder’ and turned the power sector into a ‘haven for the plunderers of the ruling party’.

The BNP chief said the government had pushed the economy to the ‘brink of bankruptcy’ by gross politicisation, tender manipulation and excessive increase in state expenditure in unproductive sectors. ‘Endless corruption in different projects prompted the World Bank and other donor agencies to stop release of funds and they are showing no interest in funding new projects,’ she said at the concluding session of the 53rd convention of the Institution of Engineers, Bangladesh, in the city.

Khaleda ridiculed the government’s claims of successes in the power sector saying the net loss in the sector was around Tk 800 crore during her rule but it rose to Tk 8,000 crore in the previous fiscal and experts projected that the loss would reach Tk 15,000 crore in the current fiscal despite fuel price hikes several times and average power generation did not increase beyond 1,000 megawatts.

She claimed that power generation during her government had increased to more than 4,000 megawatts but the incumbents were claiming that power generation had not increased by a single megawatt during the BNP rule. She said that if her successors had continued with the projects taken by her government, more 4,000 megawatts of power could have been generated by 2012.

She alleged that the incumbent government had created an ‘artificial crisis’ of power and become interested in setting up rental power plants reducing public sector power generation to 40 per cent of the total generation.

She also alleged that the ruling party-backed middlemen were given chances to plunder money through such rental plants with the government paying the price in dollar at a high rate.

Khaleda pledged for rapid and sustained measures to solve the problems in power and energy sector, ensure energy security, development of communication infrastructure, especially road, railway and waterways.

She also called for ‘national unity’ to face up to the ‘aggression’ of a ‘mighty neighbour’ on the environment, ecology, water and agriculture and referred to the Indian move to construct a dam on the River Barak and the impact of Farakka dam over past 40 years.

The opposition leader said the country was passing through a ‘grave crisis’ as democracy was in ‘danger’ and practice of regime change through fair elections had been obstructed. She called on the engineers to take part in the struggle for building a democratic and prosperous Bangladesh.

The IEB president M Nurul Huda, general secretary M Abdus Sabur and member- secretary of the convention preparation committee Mohammad Hossain also spoke at the programme.

UK favours dialogue for healthy democracy, fair elections in Bangladesh

From New Age
The UK secretary of state for international development, Andrew Mitchell, on Monday urged the government of Bangladesh to focus its attention on ‘ensuring a healthy democracy’ and boosting the private sector, according to a British High Commission press release.

He stressed that constructive dialogue and strong, independent and accountable institutions ‘are crucial’ to

achieve sustainable democracy and development, particularly in the run up to the next national elections.

For free and fair elections dialogue between the government and the political parties is crucial, he told a news conference at the British High Commission’s club at Baridhara.

Mitchell leaves Dhaka, on way to Kathmandu, Tuesday morning, ending a three-day official visit to Bangladesh beginning Saturday.

He described president Zillur Rahman’s attempt to consult major political parties as a ‘welcome move’ and said that ‘any agreement’ among the parties would help holding credible elections in Bangladesh.

Strong, independent and accountable institutions are crucial to achieve sustainable democracy and development, Mitchell said.

Re-affirming his country’s commitment to Bangladesh’s development, Mitchell said that Britain planned to a significant scale up its aid programme to Dhaka over the next three years, but it would depend on the ‘robust delivery of results.’

He also said that for scaling up the aid package, his country would emphsasise on ‘value for money and accountability for every British pound spent’.

Mitchell said that the British government had zero tolerance to corruption.

He said that his country would also expect Bangladesh government to focus its attention on boosting the private sector to let it play its role in development to generate growth, trade and jobs.

Mitchell said he raised the issue of Grameen Bank and its former managing director Mohammad Yunus with foreign minister Dipu Moni.

He described Grameen Bank as a stunning example in the world on lifting people out of poverty.

He said that foreign minister Dipu Moni agreed with him about the huge contribution of the founder of Grameen Bank.

He said that Moni told him that the government had to follow the law and the regulations on the issue of Grameen Bank.

Asked about the British government’s decisions getting tough with migrant workers and foreign workers, Mitchell said, ‘We must make sure that our visa system is effective.’

British High Commissioner Robert Gibson and Department for International Development country representative Gwen Hines were present at the news conference.

During his visits to UK-funded projects run by BRAC and UCEP, Mitchell emphasised the need for finding new solutions to reach the poorest to lift them out of the cycle of poverty.

Mitchell met prime minister Sheikh Hasina, the leader of the opposition Khaleda Zia, finance minister AMA Muhith, foreign minister Dipu Moni and representatives of the private sector and NGOs.

Prosecution asked to submit charges against Alim by March 15

From New Age
The International Crimes Tribunal on Monday asked the prosecution to submit by March 15 formal charges against Abdul Alim, former BNP lawmaker and minister.

The ICT issued the order after the prosecution informed it that the war crimes investigation agency had submitted its report against Alim in the morning

Also known as war crimes tribunal, the ICT was instituted for prosecuting the

1971 war crimes suspects.

The prosecution sought time for examining the investigation report and other documents submitted by the investigation agency for preparing the formal charges against Alim

The tribunal of Justice Nizamul Huq, Justice ATM Fazle Kabir and judge AKM Zahir Ahmed also extended the period of the conditional bail, it had granted to Alim on March 31, 2011, and asked Alim to appear before the tribunal on March 15.

The investigation agency submitted the report Monday morning in compliance with the order the tribunal had issued on October 18, 2011.

The investigation report found Alim’s involvement in 17 incidents of crimes against humanity in Jaipurhat during the War of Independence in 1971, including three rapes, murder of 684 people, dumping bodies of a number of them in mass graves, arson, abduction, torture, robbery and forced deportation of a number of people, the investors said.

Alim appeared before the tribunal seated in a wheelchair.

Arrested at Jaipurhat on March 27, 2011, Alim was released, on conditional bail, from Dhaka Central Jail on April 1, 2011.

He was arrested about nine hours after the tribunal had issued a warrant sought by the prosecution on war crimes charges.

On March 31, the tribunal granted him the conditional bail.

Among the war crimes accused, so far, the tribunal granted bail to Alim alone.

67-year-old man wants justice

From New Age
A 67-year man on Monday sought justice from International Crimes Tribunal against the detained Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami nayeb-e-amir Delwar Hossain Sayedee for abduction and rape of his three sisters in 1971.

The 13th prosecution witness, who had a grocery shop at Parerhat in Pirojpur in 1971, broke down in tears while making his deposition before the tribunal, also known as war crimes tribunal, instiuted for trial of war

crimes committed during the 1971 war of independence.

‘I have been bearing the pain in my heart for the last 40 years seeking justice,’ he said.

In his deposition, the witness said Sayedee, along with his Razakar Bahini, attacked and robbed his house on a day in 1971 and abducted his three younger sisters.

Sayedee and the attackers handed the three sisters over to the Pakistani occupation army camp in Pirojpur, where they were raped for three days.

The three sisters came back home after three days, when they were freed from the army camp, and described to their mother the molestation they had to face at the camp of the occupation army.

The tribunal asked all, who were in the courtroom, not to disclose the identity of the victims.

The man, belonging to Hindu community, also stated that Sayedee had forced all the members of his family, along with about 100-150 Hindus of the locality, including Narayan Saha, Nikhil Paul, Sunil Paul, Haran Bhowmick and Gouranga Paul, to be converted into Islam and to say prayers at mosque.

Sayedee had named the man ‘Abdul Gani’ after converting him into Islam.

The man said he was reconverted into Hinduism after the independence of the country.

He also mentioned that all of his family but himself went to India to escape the shame and never came back. His father and mother had died in India.

Some of the Hindus, who were forced to be converted into Islam by Sayedee, had died and some of them went to India.

In the cross-examination by Sayedee’s defence counsel Mizanul Islam, the witness said the Razakars had robbed his shop along with other shops and houses of Hindus at Parerhat before the Pakistani occupation army reached there.

In reply to the defence counsel’s queries, the witness said he knew the 12 prosecution witnesses who had made their depositions before the tribunal in the case.

He said he could not recollect whether he had seen them during the war of independence, as most of the people, including him, had to remain in hiding most of the times in those days.

He also said that he could not say whether those prosecution witnesses, excepting Mahbub Alam, knew about the abduction and rape of his sisters.

He, however, said that Mahbub might come to know about the incident.

Ghulam Azam to be brought back to jail after discharge by hospital: IG prisons

From New Age
Ghulam Azam would brought back to Dhaka Central Jail after Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University Hospital discharges him, the inspector general of prisons said on Monday.

‘We will bring him back to jail after getting a release letter from the hospital authorities,’ IG prisons Brigadier General Mohammad Ashraful Islam Khan told a media briefing at his office.

Azam is under treatment at the BSMMU Hospital.

‘An x-ray, recommended by the physicians, had been done on his waist on Monday’, BSMMU Hospital director brigadier general Abdul Majid Bhuiyan told New Age.

The doctors on Sunday advised Azam’s MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) and X-ray after he complained of back pain.

Bhuiyan said the MRI could not be conducted as he had it done a few days back.

‘We are trying to bring the report from his home,’ he said.

‘If the report serves the purpose no fresh MRI test will be needed,’ he added.

On Saturday, the BSMMU authorities told the jail authorities in a letter that Azam needed no treatment in a hospital, after a medical board had given its report on his health.

But, on Sunday the medical board advised for shifting him to orthopaedics department following waist pain.

Azam, charged with 62 counts of war crimes, including crimes against humanity, was shifted to BSMMU Hospital from Dhaka central Jail.

His medical board comprises professor of cardiology Sajal Kumar Banarjee and associate professor of nephrology Habibur Rahman Dulal.

Farmers worried about cold injury on seedling beds

From New Age
Boro cultivation began across the country with farmers in many places expressing their worry that the seedling beds could suffer from cold injuries.
Farmers in the districts in northern Rangpur division as well as Jhinaidah and Manikganj said a good number of seedbeds in their areas had become yellowish due to fog and severe cold weather. The young plants aged below two weeks were the worst affected, they said.
However, officials of the department of agriculture extension in Dhaka said they were yet to receive any information about cold injury on seedling beds.
‘We have targeted to bring 47.8 lakh hectares of land under Boro cultivation and it would need 2.5 lakh hectares of seedling beds,’ DAE field service wing director Md Eunus Ali told New Age.
He said that the department was not at all worried about seedling beds as the target of 2.5 lakh hectares had already crossed and the government ensured supply of quality seeds.
DAE field level officials have been asked to advise farmers what to do in case of foggy weather and cold, he added.
‘Like most of the farmers in our area, all my seedling beds have been damaged in fog and cold injury… all the seedlings turned yellowish and gradually died,’ Md Jamat Ali, a farmer in Shibalay upazila in Manikganj said.
Md Mamun-ur-Rashid, deputy director of Manikganj DAE, claimed the affected seedbeds were very few and they had been trying to recover from the situation by advising the farmers what to do to tackle the situation.
Md Solaiman, a farmer of Ajitmari upazila in Lalmonirhat, said seedling bed damage will increase the cost of his boro production as he will have to buy seedlings from the market.
DAE officials in Dhaka said they have been advising the farmers to cover the seedling beds with polythene, pouring water in the bed in the evening and releasing it in the morning, applying muriate of potash (MOP) fertilizer or a mixture of water and cow-dung in the seedling beds to save the young plants.
DAE has set the target to produce 187 lakh tonnes of rice in the ongoing Boro season. Earlier, farmers got three consecutive bumper productions – 178 lakh tonnes in 2009, 183 lakh tonnes in 2010 and around 186 lakh tonnes in 2011.
New Age correspondent in Rangpur reported that farmers of eight districts in Rangpur division feared a reduction in boro output in the current season due to delayed transplantation for repeated cold wave coupled with dense fog that damaged a large portion of seedbeds.
The seedlings meant for transplantation have been turning yellowish due to the hostile weather, they said, adding that spraying pesticides did not help them much.
‘I managed to procure quality boro seeds at high prices and prepared seedbeds on 30 decimal of lands, but repeated cold wave and dense fog damaged the seedbeds. So, I have to take alternative ways to make up the damage that will cost me more time and additional investment, said farmer Alam Miah under Pirgacha  upazilla in Rangpur.
Rangpur regional DAE officials said about 25 per cent of 38,706 hectares of seedling beds were affected by cold injury in eight districts of Rangpur division in the current season.
Kali Das  Devnath, additional director of Rangpur regional DAE, said cold wave usually hits the northern region in mid-January when the plants become matured enough to resist the attack but this year the chilly weather hit earlier and caused damage to tender plants.
The farmers of the region prefer BRRI dhan-28 and 29 for boro farming which do not have cold tolerant characteristics and so the seedbeds have been damaged, Devnath added.

Five hurt in BCL-JCD clash at Azizul Haque College

From New Age
Five students were injured as BCL and JCD engaged in a clash on Govt Azizul Haque University College campus on Monday.

Witnesses said Jatiyatabadi Chhatra Dal brought out a procession on the campus, led by Shafiqul Islam Shafique, convener of the college unit JCD, as part of their central programme, at 12 noon.

Bangladesh Chhatra League brought out a separate procession on the campus at the same time demanding trial and punishment to war criminals, which also paraded different points on the campus.

At one stage, the two processions came face to face, sparking hot exchanges between the processionists which led to a clash, leaving five injured on both sides.

BCL college committee convener Mahamudunnabi Russel alleged that JCD activists attacked their procession leaving Chemistry 1st year student Sohag Hossain severely injured, a charge denied by JCD college unit secretary Shahabul Alam Piplu who claimed that it was BCL who attacked first leaving four JCD activists injured.

As tension prevailed between the two student organisations the police were deployed on the campus.

Bangladesh PM says EC to be reorganised as per president’s suggestions

From New Age
The prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, has said her government will reorganise the Election Commission as per the suggestions of the president.

‘The government has taken initiatives to strengthen further the EC to ensure the voting rights of the people and we would accept the suggestions of the president to this end,’ she said.

The prime minister categorically said her government had no intention to remain in power by snatching the voting rights of the people.

‘We believe in people’s empowerment and they (people) would decide who would go to power who wouldn’t,’ she said when the Canadian high commissioner to Bangladesh, Heather Cruden, called on her at her official Ganabhaban residence in Dhaka Monday evening.

After the meeting, the deputy press secretary to the prime minister, M Nazrul Islam, briefed reporters.

Hasina highlighted the bitter experience of the caretaker government and said the last interim government overstayed in power illegally for two years instead of three months.

She said all elections under the present government were held in a free, fair and transparent manner and the government did not make any interference in the polls. ‘Many opposition candidates won these elections,’ she said.

The prime minister listed the government’s successes in the fields of agriculture, education, women empowerment and health.

She said the government had undertaken ‘Vision 2021’ programme to turn Bangladesh into a middle-income country by 2021.

The prime minister sought more Canadian assistance in different sectors of the country.

The Canadian envoy praised the government’s successes in different fields including education, health, agriculture, women empowerment and food security.

She also lauded the election manifesto of the present government terming it well-planned.

Ambassador-at-large M Ziauddin and special assistant to the prime minister Abdus Sobhan Golap were present on the occasion.

Dhaka-Ctg Highway blocked in Munshiganj

From New Age
Hundreds of people blocked Dhaka-Chittagong Highway at Baushia in Gazaria upazila of Munshiganj on Monday in protest against an attack on a UP chairman.

Gazaria thana officer Md Shahidul Islam said Baushia UP chairman Abdul Mannan Dewan Mona came under attack by supporters of his rival and defeated chairman candidate Nasir Uddin at Bhaberchar village in the upazila on Sunday evening.

Angered by the attack several hundred supporters of Mona brought out a protest procession and blocked the highway by placing barricade on it at 12:40pm Monday.

However, the road blockade was withdrawn after police intervention at 1:00pm.

FIR accused Tarek, Mayeen and Kabir Sarkar granted bail

From New Age
Narsingdi District and Session Judge on Monday granted bail to three people accused in FIR in mayor Lokman Hossain murder case, including accused Tarek Ahmed.

Lawyers defending Tarek Ahmed told the court that their client was an international businessman, Managing Director of T Hossain and Company and a land owners.

Moving the bail petition, they said Tarek had gone to Saudi Arab to perform Hajj on October

30 before the killing of mayor Lokman Hossain and as such he was not involved in the murder of Lokman.

Public Prosecutor opposed the bail petition.

District and Session Judge Dr. Shahjahan after hearing arguments fromboth sides granted Tarek Ahmed bail.

The judge also granted bail to two other FIR

accused in Lokman Hossain murder case —Mayeen and Kabir Sarkar.

DCs replaced in 10 dists

From New Age
Deputy commissioners have been replaced in 10 districts across the country.
The districts are Pirojpur, Bhola, Gazipur, Natore, Sherpur, Satkhira, Bandarban, Jhenaidah, Bogra and Chapainawabganj. 6 of former DCs have been transferred.