Nabiul Hasan, member of the Bangladesh Photojour-nalists' Association and senior photojournalist of the Daily Sangram, died on Sunday. He was 46.
He had long been suffering from cancer and brain tumour.
He is survived by his wife, two sons and two daughters.
The association president, Shafi Uddin Bitu, and general secretary Mir Ahammad Miru in a message condoled the death of Nabiul Hasan.
Source : New Age
Lawyers, politicians and relatives on Monday demanded exemplary punishment of the killers of Nuha, a three-year-old girl who was shot dead by robbers on a highway near Cox's Bazar on July 2.
Nuha, a preschool student of an institution at Dhanmondi, was killed while she was traveling with her parents from Dhaka to Cox's Bazar.
During the trip, a gang of robbers stopped their car near Khutkhali in Cox's Bazar at night.
As the car tried to speed away, the robbers fired shots from behind, leaving Nuha dead in her father's lap.
Sammilita Nagarik Samaj formed the human chain in front of the National Press Club in the capital.
Nuha's father Zahirul Haq, mother Shamima Yasmin, Supreme Court advocates Sheikh Mohammad Rasel, Bulbul Abu Sayed, Shafique Mahmud, Swechchhasebak League member Maruf Hossain, National Public School and College principal Abu Jafar Mohammad Saleh were present at the human chain.
A murder case was filed in this connection with the Chakaria police.
Four accused were arrested after surrender on July 4.
More than 15 robbers were involved in the incident.
Source : New Age
The president, Zillur Rahman, who was admitted to Dhaka Combined Military Hospital on Sunday, is in good spirit.
'The present health condition of the president is good. The physicians are carrying out the necessary medical tests,' a Bangabhaban official told the news agency on Monday afternoon.
Source : New Age
Economists and rights activists on Monday suggested land reforms for ensuring the food security of the poor farmers and marginal people of the country.
They made the suggestion at a roundtable on 'Food sovereignty of poor farmers and marginalized and their lack of access to land and natural resources', organized by the Association for Land Reform and Development at the YWCA's conference hall in Mohammadpur.
PKSF chairman Quazi Kholiquzzaman Ahmad, said that 'human dignity' should be ensured for all human beings and the right to resources should be ensured for all the people to bring about food sovereignty.
He observed that the 'opportunities' in the country had gone only to the people who have more resources and power.
Kholiquzzaman urged the implementation of the CHT accord to establish the indigenous people's rights to their traditional lands and resources.
The executive director of the Centre for Policy Dialogue, Mustafizur Rahman, urged the government to provide farmers with the necessary services and opportunities to grow, harvest and store their products, and also to ensure reasonable profits.
The senior research fellow of the Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies, Bimal Kumar Saha, urged the government to enact laws on land reform and land use to ensure the poor and marginal people's rights to land and food, and suggested that no individual should be permitted to own more than 7.5 acres of land, and the land belonging to absentee owners should be confiscated and distributed to the landless.
The executive director of the Bangladesh Environmental Lawyers Association, Syeda Rizwana Hasan, said the government should enact a law on the rights to forest in the light of Awami League's election manifesto to ensure the rights of the indigenous people to lands and forests.
Alleging that the government has failed to stop land-grabbing, she urged it to provide social safety net and legal protection for the marginal farmers.
Sanjib Drong of the Bangladesh Adivasi Forum urged the government to recognize the right of the indigenous people to their traditional lands.
The executive director of the INCIDIN, AKM Masud Ali, who presented a paper on 'Interpretation of the discourse on food sovereignty and people's access to productive resources', said that availability, proper distribution and purchasing power could ensure food for the poor, not availability alone.
Kirti Nasha Chakma of the ALRD, in her paper on 'Commercialization of land and land-grabbing: a study of state policy in Bangladesh', said that only 20 per cent of the country's population own 80 per cent of the total land, and pointed out that the land distribution pattern was extremely inequitable.
She suggested enforcement of the existing laws, especially the land use policy, reviewing the existing laws and policies in this connection, recognition of the customary land rights of the indigenous people, taking appropriate measures to ensure the women's land rights and ownership and expansion of the safety net programmes.
The roundtable, chaired by ALRD's executive director Shamsul Huda, was also addressed by Jatiya Krishok Samity's leader Nur Ahmed Bokul and Hunger-Free World's country director Ataur Rahman Miton, along with others.
Source : New Age
The Election Commission has communicated with the opposition BNP over telephone, inviting it to sit in the EC's ongoing dialogue, the election commissioner, M Sakhawat Hossain, said Monday.
Talking to reporters at the EC secretariat, he informed that he had talked to the BNP acting secretary general, Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir, over telephone last week. 'There was a cordial conversation with the BNP leader.'
The Election Commissioner also said the BNP had shown positive attitude about joining the EC's dialogue.
As the EC fixed August 7 to sit in dialogue with the ruling Awami League, so the BNP can sit with the commission at any time before or after the date, Sakhawat said.
About submission of the audit report of the registered political parties, he said the Election Commission would serve show-cause notices to the political parties that defaulted on submitting annual audit reports Sunday, the deadline for submitting the report.
The EC in its next meeting will review the reports of the parties submitted
to the commission, he added.
Of the 38 registered political parties, the ruling Awami League, the Jatiya Party (Ershad) and 19 other parties have submitted their annual audit report to the Election Commission within the deadline that expired Sunday.
The BNP and 9 other parties have sought extensions for submission of their audit reports while 7 parties have neither submitted statements nor applied for time.
Source : New Age
An investment of about Tk 300 crore in compressed natural gas filling station business is about to be wasted as the distribution agencies are not providing gas connection to 57 ventures, although the entrepreneurs have imported most of the capital machinery for setting up the stations.
Bangladesh CNG Filling Station and Conversion Workshop Owners' Association leaders along with the 57 entrepreneurs in trouble at a press conference on Monday also alleged that the government discriminated in favour of 52 new CNG filling stations by providing gas connection to them after it had suspended giving new gas connections to commercial consumers.
The government, amid a severe gas crisis, suspended providing new gas connections from July 21, 2009, except to the companies that had already received consent for getting connection from the gas distribution agencies concerned before that date.
The 57 entrepreneurs who are yet to receive gas connection showed the consent papers for giving them gas connection that they had received from the gas distribution and other agencies concerned before July 21, 2009.
Zakir Hossain Nayan, secretary general of the association, said the Titas Gas Transmission and Distribution Company alone had provided 691 new connections including those given to 52 CNG filling stations since the date of suspension.
He said it required two to three years to complete the formalities for setting up a CNG filling station. 'These companies have received consents from all the agencies concerned and imported capital machinery to set up CNG stations. But, they have been waiting for gas connection for the past few years,' he said.
All the entrepreneurs have become bank loan defaulters over this period and are on the brink of losing the entire capital invested in these ventures, Zakir said.
He called on the government to act rationally by providing the 57 CNG filling stations with gas connection.
He also said that new gas connections, if given to the CNG filling stations, would also reduce the pressure on the existing stations due to high demand for CNG.
Of the 57 filling stations, 39 applied for gas connection to the Titas Gas Transmission and Distribution Company, six to the Pashchimanchal Gas Company, eight to the Bakhrabad Gas Distribution Company, and four to the Karnaphuli Gas Company.
Source : New Age
Abdul Kader, a Dhaka University student who was tortured in police custody after being arrested on July 16, was granted bail on Monday in a case of alleged carjacking.
Dhaka metropolitan magistrate Utpal Chowdhury granted him the bail upon a bond of
Tk 5,000 and also rejected
a police plea for a seven-
day remand to interrogate him over the alleged carjacking.
Kader, student of biochemistry and molecular biology department of the university, could not be produced in the court as he was undergoing treatment at Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University following a High Court order on July 28.
At the bail hearing, Kader's counsel Abdul Matin Khasru, also former law minister, told the court that that the charge brought against the DU
student was false as his name was not mentioned in the first information report.
Kader sustained grievous injuries due to torture in the custody of Khilgaon police, the lawyer added.
The case was filed with Mohammadpur police station by Monjur Uddin Bepari, driver of the car that was hijacked on July 14 from the capital's Lalmatia area.
Bepari lodged the case against three or four unknown people.
Kader was arrested early July 16 on a road near the Anti-Corruption Commission office at Segun Baghicha in the capital on charge of robbery, when he was on his way to Fazlul Haque Hall of the university from his relative's house in the Holy Family Hospital quarters.
He was later implicated in two other cases with Khilgaon police. Another case was filed against him with Mohammadpur police station.
Kader's mother on Wednesday filed a petition with the National Human Rights Commission which asked the IGP to investigate the matter and report the findings to the commission by August 3.
Hearing on Kader's bail petitions in connection with two cases – one for possessing sharp weapons and another for robbery – will be held on August 3.
Source : New Age
The prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, on Monday said that the opposition leader Khaleda Zia should have resigned from parliament before threatening to throw away the constitution.
'How dare she [Khaleda] says she would throw away the constitution,' said Hasina, adding that such utterances proved that the BNP chief did not believe in the sovereignty and independence of the country.
Inaugurating a blood donation camp at the Bangabandhu Memorial Museum at Dhanmondi in the morning, the prime minister also questioned if Khaleda had love for the country.
Krishak League, an associate body of AL, organised the camp as a part of the month-long programme marking the National Mourning Day.
'How would she [Khaleda] love the country. She was not born here. She was born in India,' said Hasina, also president of the ruling Awami League.
The prime minister also accused BNP's founder Ziaur Rahman of patronising the killers of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the country's founding president, by providing them with jobs abroad.
'Ziaur Rahman gave the killers of Bangabandhu jobs in different Bangladeshi missions abroad,' said Hasina, adding that HM Ershad had also tried to reward the killers of Mujib.
She said the BNP had passed the caretaker government provision after holding a 'fake election' on February 15, 1996. 'Three elections were held under caretaker governments but they failed to fulfill the expectations of the people,' Hasina said urging Khaleda not to try to mislead the people.
The AL president also said that free, fair and credible elections could be possible under the government of AL and it had been proved in the last municipal polls, by-elections and union council elections.
Bangabandhu Samaj Kalyan Parishad also held a discussion at Teachers Students Centers of Dhaka University on the day marking the National Mourning Day.
AL presidium member Obaidul Qader and Dhaka University vice-chancellor AAMS Arefin Siddique spoke, among others, at the programme presided over by the parishad president Shamsul Haque Bhuiyan.
The AL and its associate bodies began month-long programmes on Monday in observance of the National Mourning Day on August 15, the 36th anniversary of the assassination of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.
Source : New Age
Malaysia launched an amnesty for nearly two million illegal foreign workers Monday but a labour group condemned the exercise as vague and leaving migrants vulnerable to being cheated.
During the six-month programme, foreign workers mainly from Indonesia, Bangladesh, and India will be registered under a biometric fingerprinting system, a home ministry official said.
They will then either get to remain and work in Malaysia legally or be deported without facing punishment, the official added.
Punishments for working illegally in Malaysia can include jail terms or even caning.
The official said the fingerprinting exercise was also aimed at combating crime — the government says many migrants workers get involved in criminal activities — and preventing those who are deported from returning to Malaysia under a different identity.
'There is a shortage of workers in the plantation and construction sectors and demand for maids. The government wants to deploy these illegal workers to meet the demand before considering allowing fresh migrants to come in,' the official said.
The amnesty programme was announced in June to deal with Malaysia's estimated 1.8 million foreign workers, who support the economy by filling low-paid jobs shunned by locals such as plantation and construction work.
The campaign is the third such major labour amnesty since 2005. However, some labourers deported without punishment in early versions were found to have returned with new identities, prompting the new biometric approach.
But a worker's rights group said the programme was unclear on what types of workers are subject to the finger-printing drive, which could leave some of them vulnerable to abuse or being cheated.
Irene Fernandez, executive director of Malaysian labour rights group Tenaganita, also complained that the government did not seek input on the campaign from labour groups.
'I am really concerned that there will be a racket out there to make money from the migrant workers. I foresee a fiasco. Migrants will be duped of their money,' Fernandez said.
The government has appointed more than 300 private-sector labour recruitment agents nationwide to assist in the registration programme.
But workers have reported that some agents were seeking to exploit the situation, asking in some cases for sums of 3,500 ringgit ($1,200) to help labourers remain in the country and work legally.
'Agents are also using the amnesty to cheat refugees. How did these companies get their licenses? There is no transparency. The amnesty exercise is in such a mess,' she said.
'We call on the home ministry to halt the amnesty programme.'
Source : New Age
A Dhaka court on Monday asked the authorities concerned to publish an advertisement in two Bengali national dailies, asking the Bangladesh Nationalist Party's senior vice-chairman, Tarique Rahman, and former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia's political secretary, Harris Chowdhury, and 10 others to appear before it in connection with the August 21 grenade attack on an Awami League rally in which Sheikh Hasina narrowly escaped death.
The metropolitan magistrate in Dhaka, Keshob Roy Chowdhury, passed the order after the concerned police stations submitted reports on the execution of warrants issued earlier for the arrest of the 12 accused, stating that they could not be found as they had gone into hiding.
According to the Code of Criminal Procedure, a court can try any accused in his/her absence if the person fails to appear before it by the time stipulated in the published advertisement asking the person to appear.
The order was issued during the hearing of the murder case lodged for killing 24 Awami League leaders and activists in the gruesome attack on an Awami League rally on Bangabandhu Avenue on 21 August, 2004.
On July 14, Dhaka metropolitan sessions judge Mohammad Zahurul Haque issued warrants for the arrest of the 12 accused — Tarique, also BNP chairperson Khaleda Zia's eldest son, Harris Chowdhury, BNP lawmaker Kazi Shah Mofazzal Hossain Kaikobad, Directorate General of Forces Intelligence's former director general Major General (retired) ATM Amin, former DGFI official Lieutenant Colonel (retired) Saiful Islam Joardar, former deputy commissioners of the Dhaka Metropolitan Police Khan Sayeed Hasan and Obaidur Rahman who are now officers on special duty, Hanif Transport's owner Md Hanif, and four others allegedly having militant links — Abdur Rauf, also known as Omar Abu Humayra or Peer Saheb Baba, Hafez Moulana Yahiya, Babu, also known as Ratul Babu, and Mufti Abdul Hai — in another case filed for the grenade attack under the Explosive Substances Act.
The metropolitan sessions judge also asked the officers-in-charge of the concerned police stations to submit their reports by August 11.
The police submitted the report on Monday after an order was issued by the metropolitan magistrate's court on July 26, giving them 15 more days to report on the execution of the warrants it had issued for arresting the 12 accused.
The court on July 3 issued warrants for arresting Tarique and 17 others, hours after the submission of supplementary charge-sheets in a case filed on charge of killing people in the grenade attack.
Three former inspectors general of police and three former investigation officers have already surrendered to the court and landed in jail in this connection.
Thirty-one accused, including former state minister for home affairs Lutfozzaman Babar, Jamaat-e-Islami's secretary general Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mojaheed, former deputy minister Abdus Salam Pintu of the BNP, the three former inspectors general of police and three former officials of Criminal Investigation Department were produced before the court on Tuesday.
Another accused, Ariful Islam Arif, a ward councillor of the Dhaka City Corporation and now on bail, was also present in the court.
The CID on July 3 submitted the supplementary charge-sheets in the two cases, pressing charges against Tarique and 29 others.
Tarique, arrested by the army-led joint forces on 7 March, 2007 and sued in at least 12 cases during the regime of the military-controlled government, was released from the prison cell in Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University Hospital on 3 September, 2008 on bail granted by the High Court in all the 12 cases.
He then went to London for medical treatment, and is yet to return home.
Khaleda's youngest son, Arafat Rahman, was jailed for six years and fined Tk 190.41 million on June 23 for siphoning off SGD 28,84,000 and USD 9,32,000 to Singapore.
Source : New Age
Reports of violent protests against frequent load-shedding of power amid the sultry weather have come from across the country in the past two days.
People of at least five places including three spots in Gazipur and one each in Kishoreganj and Munshiganj vandalised the local power distribution offices, blockaded the highways and staged demonstrations in demand of uninterrupted power supply.
Our local correspondents of the areas reported that the power distribution agencies concerned had been imposing 12- to 15-hour load-shedding whenever temperature used to rise.
A number of residents of different areas of the country said they had been experiencing 8-10-hour power outage for past two days.
Shyamal Bhoumik, a resident of Rampura in the capital, said he was worried that some disaster might have happened in the power sector.
'Frequent load-shedding of power also prevent the IPS [instant power supply] units to get fully charged. My three-year-old kid became sick from the humid heat that has been prevailing for the last few days,' he said.
A Power Development Board official said the overall electricity generation of the country dropped bellow the 4,000MW-mark, while the demand for power had risen above 6,000MW in the past two days.
However, according to the National Load Dispatch Centre, the country's highest power generation on Monday was about 4,500MW against a maximum demand for 5,700MW of power.
People from different professions of the society have been demonstrating for power.
Locals of Louhajang Upazila under Munshiganj had blockaded the Dhaka-Munshiganj Highway for half an hour on Monday noon.
People of at least three places of two upazilas in Gazipur district on Sunday staged demonstrations, demanding uninterrupted power supply amid the sultry weather.
Local people's representatives, businessmen, and students of Sripur upazila in Gazipur on Sunday staged demonstrations demanding uninterrupted power supply and no transmission of power generated by the local power plants to elsewhere in the country before fulfilling the local demand for electricity.
The demonstrators vandalised the gate of Sripur area office of Mymensingh Palli Bidyut Samity-2 at around 11am and later put a barricade at the Sripur crossing on the Dhaka-Mymensingh Highway, allowing no traffic movement along the road till 2pm.
Earlier, locals of Maona blockaded the highway for an hour. They withdrew the blockade after Mymensingh Palli Bidyut Samity-2 deputy general manager Abul Bashar had assured them of supplying power for 15 to 16 hours a day from next Thursday.
Angry locals of Kaliakoir in Gazipur and of Bajitpur in Kiahorganj also attacked the local power distribution offices and vandalised them on Monday.
Source : New Age
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Monday directed the authorities concerned to complete a feasibility study on the selection of a new site for the proposed Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib International Airport within a week.
The premier issued the directive while presiding over the weekly Cabinet meeting at the secretariat, a minister told New Age.
The civil aviation minister, GM Quader, told the meeting that a feasibility study was being conducted in four areas of Madaripur-Faridpur and Munshiganj on both sides of the river Padma to select a new site for the Tk 50,000-crore airport project.
The government in early February changed its decision to build an international airport at Arial Beel in Munshiganj in response to violent protests by local people and the objections of environmentalists who pointed out that the water-body was a valuable source of food.
LGRD and cooperatives minister Syed Ashraful Islam said the authorities should take immediate steps to upgrade the status of Shahjalal International Airport to Category 1 from Category 2 by raising the standard of safety and service.
Expressing concern over the poor facilities and service of the private airlines, he said that most of them cannot maintain the schedule of flights. 'Even the air-conditioning systems of some their planes do not function,' complained the LGRD minister in the meeting.
The civil aviation minister said that measures were under way to upgrade the country's biggest airport's status to Category 1 by October 2011, and by that time two passenger planes would be delivered by Boeing to Biman as per the deal.
It was reported that Arial Beel was selected as a site for the new airport without conducting a geological survey or a feasibility study. Villagers of Srinagar teamed up under the banner of Arial Beel Raksha Committee and protested against the government's move to build the airport on productive farmland and wetland.
On February 2 Sheikh Hasina told a Cabinet meeting that the Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib International Airport would not be constructed in Munshiganj if the local people did not want it, and said that the government would look for another site on the south bank of the Padma.
A police officer was killed and more than a hundred people, including journalists and policemen, were injured when demonstrators, opposing the government's plan to build the airport, clashed with the law enforcers at Hasara point on the Dhaka-Mawa Road in Srinagar on January 31.
There are three international and five domestic airports in the country, all of which remain under-used for lack of proper management, according to officials.
Source : New Age
The High Court on Monday asked all executive magistrates, authorised officers and inspectors of the Rajdhani Unnayan Kartripakkha to appear in the court on August 4 along with the Rajuk chairman to explain what measures they had taken to enforce the safety rules on the buildings under construction in the capital.
A bench of Justice AHM Shamsuddin Chowdhury and Justice Gobinda Chandra Tagore passed the order during the hearing in a rule suo moto the court issued on July 24 after newspapers had reported the death of four workers in a carrier lift accident at an under-construction building at Kakrail in the capital on July 21.
The same court on July 28 directed Rajuk chairman Md Nurul Huda to appear on August 4 to explain the state of building safety and compliance of rules. The court passed the order during hearing in another suo moto issued on July 19 in connection with the death of a student on July 16 when bricks fell on his head, reportedly from an under-construction high rise on Panthapath.
On Monday, Building for Future Limited's chairman Kazi Anisuddin Iqbal, its managing director Tanvirul Huq Probal, deputy project director Sheikh Tanjirul Hasan, project coordinator Gazibur Rahman, manager and construction worker Azgar Ali and Ramna police officer-in-charge Rafiqul Islam appeared in the court after the rule suo moto had asked them to explain their actions as regards safety measures on the construction under the company's Iris Noorjehan project.
The court also asked the BFL managing director to appear on August 4 but exempted others from being present during next the hearing.
Defending the BFL officers, barrister Sheikh Fazle Noor Taposh, who is also a ruling Awami League lawmaker, told the court that BFL was a developer company which operated by appointing contractors for building construction.
Taposh also told the court that one Hannan, who was given contract for providing lifts for the buildings, was arrested for the accident.
He, however, said that the lift, which was installed only to carry construction materials, also carried some workers which caused the accident.
The counsel also pointed out that it was Rajuk's responsibility to supervise all construction works in areas under its jurisdiction.
He also informed the court that the officers of the company were granted bail in the case filed by construction worker-cum-manager Azgar Ali with the Ramna police station over the death of four workers.
In reply, the court said that it would order arrest of the officers if they were not out on bail.
The High Court had summoned the BFL officers in connection with the case filed against the company for the death of workers in the lift collapse.
Source : New Age