Bangladesh Parliament Speaker rules Ziaur Rahman cannot be called murderer

The speaker, Abdul Hamid, on Wednesday ruled that Ziaur Rahman could not be called  a 'cold blooded murderer' as the house became heated over the court verdict on trial of Colonel Abu Taher.

The speaker quoting newspaper reports said the court had said, 'The so-called trial and execution of Colonel Abu Taher was a cold blooded assassination which was masterminded by none other than Ziaur Rahman.'

'The court did not call Ziaur Rahman the murderer. So the word murderer will be expunged,' said the speaker amid shouts with the treasury bench members insisting that murdering someone and masterminding the murder were the same. In response, the speaker said, 'No, it is not the same.'

The house witnessed a heated exchange between the treasury bench and the opposition over the High Court ruling on the trial of Colonel Taher.

The opposition lawmakers said the court had given the ruling 'out of vengeance' while the treasury bench members said the court ruling brought the 'evil politics of killing and coup' to an end.

BNP lawmaker AM Mahbubuddin Khokan said the judge who had handed down the verdict was once the general secretary of Chhatra League and had spoken along with Inu from the same platform.

'I insist that this judge is not a citizen of this county. He is a foreign national. That's why the BNP had not confirmed his appointment. He handed down the verdict out of vengeance,' he said.

Khokan said the government had politicised the judiciary and appointed people having third class degree as judges in the highest court. 'If the judges had been neutral and independent, verdicts to writ petitions on Khaleda Zia's house, and on the removal of Yunus would have been different,' he said.

The BNP lawmaker said the government was crippling the authority of the Anti- Corruption Commission.

Awami League lawmaker Iqbalur Rahim described the court's ruling as historic. 'This verdict has ended the politics of killing, coup and usurping power in violation of the constitution.'

The court said Zia had murdered Taher in cold blood, he said.

His comments drew angry protests from the BNP lawmakers who began to shout and sought the speaker's intervention.

Jatiya Samajtantrik Dal lawmaker Moinuddin Khan Badal said the opposition's reaction were a reflection of their fear of truth.

'Mr speaker, when Hasanul Huq Inu was speaking they threatened to slaughter him. We did not react. But we would not kiss you when you attempt to slaughter us. Let us face each other in the field,' Badal said.

BNP lawmaker Abul Khair Bhuiyan said Sheikh Mujib himself had removed Taher from the army for his attempts to destabilise the military. 'After the killing of Sheikh Mujib, Taher had formed a party within in the military and conspired against the military. He faced court martial and was executed as per its verdict.'

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JSD demands posthumous trial of Ziaur Rahman

The Jatiya Samajtantrick Dal faction led by Hasanul Haq Inu on Wednesday demanded posthumous trial of the late president, Ziaur Rahman, for his alleged involvement in the killing Colonel Abu Taher.

Hasanul Haq Inu, A lawmaker and ally of Awami League, at a briefing at his party's central office said that the trial could be held by amending the existing law and that he would place a bill in parliament to amend the law.

The JSD leader said Abu Taher was hanged after trial in camera under martial law regulations in 1976 on charge of 'plotting against the state.'

The High Court on Tuesday declared the trial illegal and said that the mastermind of the killing was none other than Zia.

JSD general secretary Sharif Nurul Ambia demanded investigation of all the killings committed in the army and publication of a white paper on the killings.

He called on the government to declare March 22 as Fair Trial Day to mark the day on which the High Court delivered the verdict on Taher's killing.

The party also demanded naming a government establishment and a road of Dhaka city after Abu Taher and giving compensation to the affected in the trial.

It called for appointing an investigation committee in line with the court verdict.

Lutfa Taher, widow of Abu Taher, and the accused the case – Robiul Islam Dewan, Sajjad Rafique and Zikrul Ahmed were present at the briefing.

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Bangladesh Parliament Speaker Abdul Hamid asks lawmakers to speak decently

Speaker Abdul Hamid on Wednesday reiterated his appeal to the lawmakers of both the Treasury Bench and the opposition to speak in a decent manner in the house to maintain a congenial atmosphere as well as to uphold the parliament's image to the nation.

The speaker, in a ruling, also urged the ruling party

lawmakers not to term Ziaur Rahman a killer while talking about the court verdict on Taher murder case and the opposition lawmakers not to use abusive remarks about the court.

Earlier, while speaking on the thanksgiving motion to the address of the president, Zillur Rahman, ruling party lawmaker Iqbalur Rahim termed Zia a cold-blooded murderer, which created an acute resentment among the opposition lawmakers and prompted the speaker to issue the ruling.

Opposition lawmaker Mahbub Uddin Khakon, while speaking on the court verdict on Taher murder case, also made aggressive remarks about the court and the judges concerned.

The speaker, referring to reports run by two news dailies on the court verdict, said the reports did not termed Zia a murderer but said he was the mastermind.

'You need not to be excited. You should speak in a decent way. The nation is listening to your speeches through television and radio and reading about them in newspapers. So, you should pay attention to preserving your honour, Abdul Hamid told the lawmakers.

He expunged the unparliamentary words from the day's business.

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Two-slab power tariff hike not a violation of BERC Act

Manjurul Ahsan

REVISION of power tariff twice or in two slabs within a year does not constitute a violation of the Bangladesh Energy Regulatory Commission Act, 2003, says the chairman of the commission, Yusuf Hossain.

The commission on February 8 announced an increase in bulk rate of electricity, to take effect in two phases, whereas the BERC Act specifically says the commission will fix price of a particular item once a year.

'I do not think that it was a violation of the law,' Yusuf said in an interview with New Age on Tuesday. 'In February, the commission increased bulk rate of power once for this year. But to reduce the effect on the economy of a massive price hike of power by 18 per cent at a time the commission divided it into two parts.'

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Textbook Renter Chegg Moves Beyond Books

Online book renter Chegg has given students at more than 6,400 college campuses an alternative to purchasing expensive text books. Now it also wants to help them study and schedule courses.

The company announced on Thursday that it is launching a new website that integrates two social learning services it recently acquired.

In August, Chegg acquired CourseRank, a service that lets students rate courses and view other students' ratings. It also shows students which of their friends are enrolled in specific classes. CourseRank's service will be available on the Chegg website at 600 participating schools starting Thursday, but the company says that it hopes to have 1,000 schools on board by the end of the year.

Cramster, which the company acquired in December, is an online study community. Members help one another answer homework questions and have access to textbook solutions, notes and other study materials.

Both of these services seem like a perfect fit for promoting textbook rentals. When users select a course using CourseRank, for instance, they can rent books for the course on the same page. Likewise, students looking for homework help might benefit from supplemental reading suggestions (though Chegg has yet to add this feature).

By integrating CourseRank and Cramster within Chegg's main website, it's also more likely that students will log on throughout the semester instead of only for textbook rentals at the beginning of courses.

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Work begun on first Windows Nokia phones: Elop

Work has begun on the first Nokia Oyj smartphones based on Microsoft Corp software following the partnership announced by the companies last month, Nokia Chief Executive Stephen Elop told Reuters.

Elop was recruited last year to rescue Nokia from increasing irrelevance at the high end of the market and is under huge pressure to produce results from the partnership.

Elop, who left a Microsoft executive post to join Nokia last September, also said he could see no good reason for the speculation that Microsoft might try to buy Nokia.

"I'm not aware of a strategic interest that Microsoft would have in the rest of the business," Elop said.

"To the extent that a partnership has been formed around what they're really interested in, then what would an acquisition bring other than a good year of anti-trust investigation, huge turmoil, delays?"

Nokia shares extended gains to trade as much as 2.9 percent higher. By 1459 GMT, they were up 2.2 percent at 5.86 euros, against a European technology index up 0.7 percent, having been up 1.2 percent before the Reuters interview was published.

Nokia shares have fallen almost 30 percent since the agreement with Microsoft was announced and remain not far from their more than 10-year low of 5.415 euros set earlier this week.

ON SALE

Almost half of Nokia's handset revenue comes from more basic mobile phones, which are popular in emerging markets. The company has struggled to establish its brand in the United States, especially since Apple Inc launched its iPhone.

Nokia also considered partnering with Google Inc, but decided it would be too difficult to differentiate its smartphones from a multitude of other Android devices made by the likes of Samsung and HTC.

Nokia's chairman has said Windows-based Nokia phones will be on sale from 2012, though Elop has said he feels under pressure and would prefer to deliver one by the end of this year.

"We're right now, today, having people work on the first Windows Phone devices from Nokia. That work is already under way. If this was an acquisition scenario, that wouldn't be possible," Elop said.

The agreement between Nokia and Microsoft still has to be finalized, something that Elop has said he expects to happen in the next couple of months.

Elop said he had no current plans to change Nokia's top management, after only one senior executive was dropped in his line-up announced last month. He dismissed as nonsense a German magazine report that a wider cull was likely.

"Now what happens is accountability. If someone's not succeeding, they need to be helped or they need to be moved along. In my context, that will absolutely be the case," he said.

"So there's a team in place. It's now a new team of my new leadership, newly minted in terms of their new roles. Now they have to perform."

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Bangladesh population census ends

Muktasree Chakma Sathi

The fifth national population and household census ended on Saturday without reaching all the households.

The Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics secretary, Riti Ibrahim, in the afternoon

said, 'We have come to know that a number of households have been left out. We are considering the matter seriously and will send enumerators as soon as we receive complaints.'

She said although the official census would end by midnight, enumerators would continue working for three to four more days to cover all the households.

As for allegations regarding non-payment of training allowance to the enumerators by some senior officials,

Riti said that there might be some such cases.

She said that the BBS office cane to know that some enumerators had attended the training but did not do any enumeration. Some areas officials might have decided that the training allowance would be paid to them after the census.

She blamed the media for not doing enough to create awareness of the census among the people.

'Even after providing payment, we failed to make media houses understand that the census advertisement needed to be published prominently,' she said.

The first population census in the sub-continent was conducted in 1872. Since then, census has been conducted almost regularly every 10 years. This year's census is the fifth since the country's independence.

After the independence, population and household census was conducted in 1974, 1981, 1991 and 2001. According to the fourth census, the number of households was about 2.54 crore and the population was 12.43 crore.

The Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics engaged 3.10 lakh enumerators to collect data about the citizens and the households. The five-day population census 2011 began with the counting of floating people a minute after midnight past March 14.

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Bangladesh youth jailed for uploading obscene photos on Facebook

A young man was jailed for uploading obscene photos of a girl on a social networking site on Saturday.

Accused Shakil Ahmed, 23, created a Facebook account in the name of the girl and uploaded her objectionable photos.

Executive magistrate A H M Anwar Pasha told bdnews24.com that a Rapid Action Battalion team arrested Shakil from the city's Uttara area at around 3:00pm on Saturday following a complaint lodged by the girl.

He was sentenced to jail for one-and-a-half years after he had admitted the crime, the magistrate said.

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BCL renames SUST hall

Activists of the Bangladesh Chhatra League, associate student body of the ruling Awami League, renamed a student hall of the Shahjalal University of Science and Technology as 'Bangabandhu' Friday afternoon.

Campus sources said BCL activists in the afternoon put up a signboard reading 'Bangabandhu Hall' on the nameplate of Second Student Hall on the campus.

Contacted, SUST BCL leaders, seeking anonymity, said the name the hall was renamed to show respect to Sheikh Mujibur Rahman in the month of independence.

Rafiqul Islam, former president of SUST teachers' association and loyal to the BNP-Jamaat-backed teachers' front, said the authority to rename a hall lied only with the authorities concerned. 'Such renaming is completely illegal,' he added.

The Second Student Hall provost, Anwarul Islam Dipu, told New Age that renaming the hall without any official decision in this connection was not proper.

Contacted over mobile phone, SUST vice-chancellor Saleh Uddin told New Age Saturday afternoon that he was not aware of the matter as he was out of the campus.

'I am not aware who hung the signboard at the hall. I will discuss the matter with the authorities concerned after returning to the campus. A decision about the matter will be made then,' SUST vice-chancellor said.

The AL-backed government in 1997 had taken a move to name several structures on the campus, but it had to stop the move in the face of movement by the main opposition BNP and its allies.

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Robert O Blake meets Khaleda as US expects amicable solution to Yunus issue

The United States said on Saturday that it hoped that the controversy over removal of Muhammad Yunus from Grameen Bank, he had founded, would be resolved mutually in an amicable way to ensure the integrity and effectiveness of the microcredit institution.

'The United States have concerns about the way the matter (removal of Yunus) has been handled,' the visiting US assistant secretary of state for South and Central Asia Robert O Blake told reporters after an hour-long meeting with the leader of the opposition, Khaleda Zia, at her Gulshan office in the city.

He said that Grameen Bank and Muhammad Yunus were held in great respect in the United States.

'Certainly, you have already seen the statements our government has made in this regard. In addition to this, a number of senators and congressmen from Capitol Hill sent letters to Bangladesh expressing their concerns about the issue,' he said.

'So, we hope,' he said, 'this can be resolved mutually in an amicable way and a compromise will be found that will ensure the integrity and effectiveness of the Grameen Bank, because it has been an important institution for Bangladesh, particularly for ensuring empowerment of women.'

'Begum Zia also made the point to me about the issue,' he said

Blake said that he discussed with the leader of the opposition issues of bilateral interests including anti-terrorism and economic affairs.

He said he would have an 'important conference' with diplomats based in Dhaka on the issue of anti-terrorism.

BNP chairperson's Advisers Reaz Rahman, Osman Farruk and Sabiuddin Ahmed and the US ambassador in Dhaka James F Moriarty were present during the discussions.

Blake who arrived in Dhaka Saturday afternoon on a four-day visit leaves on March 23.

According to a US State Department announcement, Blake's three-nation tour would also take him to China and Kazakhstan until 26.

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Khandaker Delwar Hossain laid to rest

BNP secretary general and valiant freedom fighter Khandaker Delwar Hossain was buried at his family graveyard by the side of a mosque at Khirai Pachuria in Gheor upazila of Manikganj on Saturday with state honour and due respect.

He was buried at 3.45 PM, reports New Age correspondent in Manikganj.

A veteran politician and lawyer, he died of pneumonia and other old-age complications at Singapore's Mount Elizabeth Hospital on Wednesday. He was 78.

His body was flown to Dhaka the same day.

Namaz-e-janaza was held twice in the village before he was buried.

Thousands of people, cutting across the opinion lines, gathered to attend the janaza prayers as well his burial.

They paid their last respects to the valiant freedom fighter.

Leaders of all political parties recalled the contributions to the nation, Delwar made during his long and chequered political career as a progressive politician with sagacity and principle.

They also recalled the role he played in all democratic movements of this country.

Delwar's body was taken to his ancestral home following a series of janaza prayers in the capital city all largely attended on Friday.

At Manikganj the first namaz-e-janaza was held at the Government Devandra College ground. People from all walks of life and cutting across opinion lines gathered there as his body reached there at midday.

His body was then taken to Gheor where the last namaz-e-janaza was held.

BNP standing committee members Khandaker Mosharraf Hossain, Abdul Moyeen Khan and Mirza Abbas, the mayor of Dhaka Sadeque Hossain Khoka and senior joint secretary general Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir, local Awami League lawmaker Jahid Maleque Swapan, former AL minister Moslem Uddin Khan Habu Mia, former BNP Minister Haruner Rashid Khan Monno and former AL

lawmaker Samsuddin Ahmed were present at the time of burial.

Delwar was elected

to parliament five times and he served as chief whip thrice.

On Friday, politicians, lawmakers, judges, lawyers, academics, students and people from all walks of life paid him rich tributes.

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Poet Abu Zafar Obaidullah’s death anniversary observed

The 10^th anniversary of the death of poet Abu Zafar Obaidullah was observed in his village Baherchar in Barisal on Saturday.

A discussion meeting on the life, works and achievement of the poet was held on the premises of Poet Abu Zafar Obaidullah Smriti Pathagar in his village under Babuganj upazila.

A special prayer session was held in the local mosque after the asr prayers.

Former UP chairman Bazlur Rahman Master presided over the programme organised by Poet Abu Zafar Obaidullah Smriti Pathagar.

Secretary of the library Rafikul Islam, Professor Golam Hossain of Babuganj College, headmaster of Khanpura School Enayet Karim Faruk, Nazrul Islam Mamun, Anisur Rahman Akon, Alamgir Hossain Gharami and others also spoke in the discussion.

The speakers said Abu Zafar Obaidullah was a prominent figure of the language movement and played a seminal role in Bangladesh's literature and culture.

Despite his chequered career in national and international level, he always preferred to be known as a poet of the soil, nature and humanity, not as a mandarin, they observed.

They further said poet Abu Zafar Obaidullah was not only one of the major poets of the Bangla language and Bangladesh, but also the spokesman of the third world countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America.

He portrayed the dreams, demands, struggle for liberation of the oppressed people in his works.

The speakers also called for deeper study and research into the life and works of the poet.

Abu Zafar Obaidullah was awarded Ekushey Padak and Bangla Academy Padak for his contribution to the Bangla literature and significant role in literary and cultural activities of the country.

Born in Barisal on February 8, 1934, Obaidullah died on March 19, 2001.

He was the second son of Justice Abdul Jabbar Khan, a former speaker of the Pakistan national assembly.

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Bangladesh ethnic minorities call for recognition as ‘indigenous’

Rights organisations, socio-political parties, people of ethnic minority groups in human chains they formed across the country on Saturday demanded constitutional recognition of such ethnic groups as 'indigenous people (adivasis).'

Speakers at the human chain at Shahbagh in the capital said the word 'adivasi' does not mean people who come first in a land and it rather means communities having distinct identity from the mainstream in culture, history, heritage, land ownership and customary, rather than statutory, laws for solution to social and legal problems within the communities.

Suranjit Sengupta, co-chair of the special parliamentary committee on constitution amendment,

earlier said that ethnic minority groups could be recognised s 'small anthropological groups' in the constitution.

The Bangladesh Adivasi Forum general secretary, Sanjeeb Drong, said that 'small anthropological groups' is an imported idea and it does not mean anything as every individual belongs to an anthropological group.

He demanded that ethnic minority groups should be termed either by the phrase 'indigenous people' or by their specific ethnicity such as the Chakmas, the Marmas, the Garos and so on.

After a meeting of the special parliamentary committee, Suranjit on March 15 said that the definition of 'indigenous people' as used by the United Nations did not apply to the situation in Bangladesh.

The speakers at the human chain said that the existing laws such as the State Acquisition and Tenancy Act 1950, the Chittagong Hill Tracts Regulation 1900, the Finance Act 1995, the Small Anthropological Groups Act 2010, the ruling Awami League's election manifesto for the 2008 general elections and the Awami League's constitution use the term 'adivasi.'

Cultural activist Mamunur Rashid, Nirmal Chatterji of the Bangladesh Hindu Buddhist Christian Unity Council, Saleh Ahmed of Sammilita Samajik Andolan, Sharif Jamil of Bangladesh Paribesh Andolan, journalist Selim Samad and Dipayan Khisha of the Kapaeeng Foundation also spoke.

Reports from Barisal, Moulvibazar, Rajshahi, Dinajpur, Thakurgaon, Sirajganj, Jaipurhat, Barguna and the Chittagong Hill Tracts reported that such ethnic minority groups and other socio-political organisations in the places also formed human chains to push for the demand.

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