07 February 2014

Magh 25, 1420 Rabius Saani 6, 1435 Regd. No. DA 6238 Vol 1 No 314

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 7, 2014 | www.dhakatribune.com | SECOND EDITION

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Activists, sponsors to be punished for ‘destructive’ activities since July last year n Asif Showkat Kallol The government is working to identify the sources of Jamaat- Shibir funds used to conduct “terrorist” and harrowing activities during their political programmes in the recent months.

Finance Minister AMA Muhith has directed the Financial Intelligence Unit of the Bangladesh Bank to take necessary action, with the assistance of the home ministry, to unearth the sources of money.

The directives came as those funds were used in the countrywide destruction carried out during the 55 days of hartals and blockades since July last year, several officials of the finance ministry told the Dhaka Tribune.

The minister recently told the officials concerned that the activists and sponsors of 19-party ally Jamaat-e-Islami and its student wing Islami Chhatra Shibir should be punished for its “destructive” activities under the existing laws related to money laundering and terror-financing.

The government had already brought in the necessary changes to the An-

ti-Money Laundering Act, 2012 and the Anti-Terrorist Act, 2009, Muhith said.

Three years ago, the names of two local banks – Social Islami Bank Ltd and Islami Bank Bangladesh – came up in a US panel probe report on HSBC over terror-financing.

Jamaat, a party banned after Bangladesh’s independence in December 1971, has come a long way and emerged a party after it was allowed to operate in 1979. In 1976, former Jamaat leader Abdur Rahim launched a new political party, the Islamic Democratic League, which was essentially Jamaat in a new guise.

On August 1 last year, the High Court declared Jamaat’s registration with the Election Commission illegal saying that its party charter was contradictory with the country’s constitution and the election rules.

Subsequent governments since 2003 banned five Islamist outfits – Shahadat-e-al Hikma on February 9, 2003; Jama’at-ul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) and Jagrata Muslim Janata Bangladesh (JMJB) on February 23, 2005;  PAGE 2 COLUMN 4

Though it was a hartal yesterday, the capital’s Farmgate was swamped with the usual traffic. The hartal was called by Jamaat-e-Islami, protesting the death penalty verdict against its leader Motiur Rahman Nizami RAJIB DHAR

BNP leader Khandaker Mosharraf sued for ‘siphoning’ off Tk9.5 crore to UK n Syed Samiul Basher Anik The Anti-Corruption Commission yesterday sued former health and family planning minister Khandaker Mosharraf Hossain for laundering about Tk9.54 crore through the United Kingdom.

ACC Director Nasim Anwar filed the case against Mosharraf, also a standing committee member of the BNP,

with Ramna model police station.

The case was filed under several sections of Money Laundering Prevention Act 2002, 2009 and 2012 respectively, Rafat Ara Sultana, duty officer of the police station confirmed to the Dhaka Tribune.

According to the case statement, the former minister has earned British currency valued at roughly 8.04 lakh (BDT

9,53,95,381), by abusing his power between 2001 and 2006.

He also concealed information and deposited the money in a fixed term deposit account at Lloyds TSB Offshore Private Banking, in Guernsey, UK. The joint account belongs to the former minister and his wife Bilkis Akhter Hossain, it reads.  PAGE 2 COLUMN 4

EC concerned about security of minorities n Mohammad Zakaria The Election Commission is worried about the security of minority communities across the country ahead of the upazila parishad polls.

In this regard the commission on Thursday sent letters to all deputy commissioners, police and returning officers across the country to take  PAGE 2 COLUMN 3

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News

Friday, February 7, 2014

Third phase polls to 83 upazilas on March 15

14,270 trees cut in hartal, blockade n Tribune Report

Election Commission sends formal letter to Armed Forces Division days, he added. n Mohammad Zakaria In the first and second phases, the The third phase polls to 83 upazila parishads would be held on March 15, Election Commissioner Md Shah Newaz said yesterday.

At a press conference, the commissioner made the announcement, and added that the upazila polls would be held in the posts of chairman, vice-chairman and vice-chairman posts reserved for women.

The last date of filing nomination paper is February 15 and the nomination would be scrutinised on February 17, while the last day of withdrawing nomination paper is February 24, sources said.

Shah Newaz also said the commission had decided to deploy sufficient number of army personnel in the upazila parishad polls and it would also deploy the necessary number of law enforcing agencies for holding the polls in a free and fair manner.

However, Senior Assistant Secretary Farhad Hossain told the Dhaka Tribune that the commission had sent a letter to the principle staff officer of Armed Forces Division formally to deploy army as striking force in the upazila polls. Army would be deployed for five

commission announced polls schedules for 102 and 117 upazilas which would be held on February 19 and 27.

Meanwhile, of the first phase, polls at four upazila parishads had been postponed as the local government and rural development ministry decided to re-fix the demarcation of Rangpur sadar, Kaunia, Gangachar and Pirgacha upazilas.

EC officials said the commission had also decided to hold the fourth phase upazila polls on March 25, fifth phase on March 31 and sixth phase on May 3.

The education ministry had sent a letter to the commission saying that there would be no objection for holding the polls on those dates.

The commission will sit for a meeting on law and order situation of upazila polls with the returning officers, district election officers, deputy commissioners, police supers and representatives of the law enforcing agencies on February 12.

The meeting is scheduled to be held at 11am at National Economic Council conference, sources said.

Earlier, the meeting was scheduled to be held on February 6. l

Martyred intellectuals’ list by June 30 n Emran Hossain Shaikh

Human Rights Watch concerned over workers’ rights in garment sector

The government for the first time is set to publish a list of martyred intellectuals by June 30 this year, Liberation War Affairs Minister AKM Mozammel Haque told parliament yesterday.

Replying to a question from Awami League MP Abdul Latif (Chittagong 11), the minister said the government had been working to prepare the list of intellectuals who had been abducted and killed just before the country’s independence on December 16, 1971.

Since 1972, Bangladesh observes December 14 as the Martyred Intellectuals Day since on that day the anti-liberation forces had killed many intellectuals to cripple the new nation. However, the government does not have a list of the victims.

Mozammel said the government had also been working to prepare the true history of the War of Independence. l

Human Rights Watch has urged the government to stop garments owners from intimidating and threatening workers for organising trade unions, and prosecute those responsible for attacks on labour leaders.

In a statement yesterday, the New York-based rights watchdog also said the foreign buyers, including major retailers from the US and European should ensure that Bangladeshi suppliers respect labour rights.

Based on the findings of a survey conducted on 47 workers of 21 factories in and around Dhaka, the HRW said some managers had intimidated and mistreated employees involved in setting up unions, including threatening to kill them.

The interviews were conducted from October 2013 onwards when

n Tribune Report

People gather around a training aircraft after it made an emergency landing on a paddy field because of technical problems in Jessore sadar upazila’s Mahidiya Village yesterday DHAKA TRIBUNE

At least 14,270 trees were cut down during the recent political demonstrations including hartal and blockade enforced by the BNP-led alliance ahead of the January 5 election.

In response to a query, Environment and Forest Minister Anwar Hossain yesterday also told parliament that necessary action would be taken against the miscreants who felled the trees.

“Tress of the roads and highways, LGRD, city corporations, union parishads and several NGOs became victim to political activities last year,” said Awami League lawmaker Habibur Rahman Molla.

As many as 142 cases were filed across the country in this connection, said the MP. l

Upazila polls first priority to BNP n Mohammad Al-Masum Molla

The BNP has decided not to wage any movement now but it will launch issue-based demonstrations and mass contact programmes before the completion of the upazila elections, said party insiders.

However, the party will keep on hammering the government for fresh elections “very soon” but will not set any specific timeframe.

Focusing to revamp the organisa-

many of the workers described abusive practices.

“The best way to avoid future Rana Plaza-type disaster and end the exploitation of Bangladeshi workers is to encourage the establishment of independent trade unions to monitor and protect workers’ rights,” said Brad Adams, Asia director of the organisation.

The HRW said the government and the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA) should ensure compliance with the labour law, and sanction companies which abuse workers’ rights.

In July 2013, Bangladesh ratified the ILO conventions 87 and 98 on freedom of association and collective bargaining, and is required to protect the rights contained in them. Section 195 of the Bangladesh Labour Act, 2006 (amended in 2013) outlaws numerous “unfair labour practices.”

tional capacity, it is likely to reshuffle the Dhaka city unit to get prepared for future agitation programmes.

These issues were discussed at the Standing Committee meeting held last night at the party Chairperson Khaleda Zia’s Gulshan office.

A member of the policymaking body seeking anonymity told the Dhaka Tribune that they had discussed about the successes and failures of the recent movements.

A Standing Committee member

One female worker described how her owner had reacted when the workers presented their union registration forms. Later two of her fellow organisers were attacked by unknown perpetrators. Two weeks later, a group of men, including a local gangster and

It is alleged that some of the unions in factories are not genuinely independent the factory owner’s brother, visited her home and threatened her. She agreed to resign.

Many female workers said they had received threats or insults. At one factory, a supervisor said any woman joining the union would be stripped of her clothes and thrown into the street.

Elsewhere, a manager said a female

wishing anonymity said there was no plan of waging any big movement very soon. “We have decided to cash in on the upazila elections. Therefore, initiatives will be taken to keep the rebel candidates away from polls.”

Khaleda asked the Standing Committee members to ensure victory of the BNP-backed candidates in the upazila polls to prove its popularity.

“All the members more or less agreed that Dhaka city unit BNP and Chhatra Dal, Jubo Dal and other as-

union organiser had been “polluting” his factory and that she should go and work in a brothel.

A union organiser at a different factory said he had received a phone call asking him not to come to work again and also threatening to kill him if he did so. When he went there the next day he was surrounded by a group of men who beat him and slashed him with blades.

Workers at one large factory told the HRW that they had been trying to form their union without the managers as they were afraid of retaliation and losing their jobs.

Labour activists also complained that some of the unions in factories were not genuinely independent, but were so-called “yellow unions” that had been established by the factory owners themselves to control workers and prevent them from establishing or joining the union of their choice. l

sociate and front organisations failed to carry out their due responsibilities during the movement. That is why, reshuffling of these committees was proposed and Khaleda Zia approved it,” he said.

The party chief, however, said the decision would be finalised after the release of Sadeque Hossain Khoka, convener of the unit.

The party, however, did not discuss anything about the national council which is due for more than year. l

Female BCL members engage in clash at DU n Arif Ahmed Rival groups of the ruling Awami Leagues’s student wing at Dhaka University clashed over the resignation of a hall provost yesterday, but no one was injured.

According to a witness, Khadizatul Kobra, president of Bangladesh Chhatra League’s Fazilatunnesa Mujib Hall unit, along with her supporters, were demonstrating in front of the provost’s office, demanding the resignation of Provost Sabita Rezwana and the reinstatement of suspended house tutor Shima Islam.

A scuffle ensued when their rivals, led by the hall unit’s BCL secretary general, Sheikh Marufa Nabila, protested against the Kobra group’s demands.

However, no one was reported injured in the incident. l

Jamaat’s hartal enforced ‘Ganajagaran spirit belongs to everyday people’ n Tribune Report

The dawn-to-dusk hartal enforced by Jamaat-e-Islami was staged peacefully in the capital as well as across the country yesterday.

A key ally of the BNP-led 19-party alliance, Jamaat called the shutdown protesting the death penalty of party chief Motiur Rahman Nizami in 10-truck arms haul case.

Jamaat in a statement claimed that the police had illegally arrested 150 party supporters from different districts.

No untoward incident was reported in the city where most people attended their daily works. Apart from the low presence of private cars on the streets, vehicular movement remained normal throughout the day. Additional law enforcers were deployed at all key points.

Hartal in Chittagong was also peaceful, although five Jamaat-Shibir men were detained from different places in Sitakunda upazila on charges of sabotage, said Iftekhar Hasan, officer-in-charge of Sitakunda police station.

Our correspondent said no inter-dis-

trict bus left Chittagong, but traffic on the city stayed normal and rail communication remained undisrupted.

In Faridpur, around a dozen people armed with sticks vandalised three shops on Mohila Road early yesterday.

Our Chandpur correspondent quoted Police Superintendent Amir Zafar as saying that five Jamaat-Shibir men had been arrested for trying to create violence. No incident of picketing was reported in the town.

Assistant Superintendent of Satkhira Police Kazi Moniruzzaman said there had been no processions, picketing or rally held in the district, reports our correspondent.

In Gopalganj, the hartal day was marked with some anti-hartal processions brought out by the Awami League and its students’ body Bangladesh Chhatra League.

Our Kurigram correspondent said police had raided different areas of the district and detained 26 Jamaat-Shibir men.

Sanjay Kumar Kundu, district police superintendent, said they had been arrested for planning subversive activities. l

IUB launches rainwater harvesting system n Tribune Report Independent University, Bangladesh (IUB) on Wednesday, through a simple function at its campus, launched a system for harvesting rainwater through.

The Department of Environmental Science at IUB in association with Water Aid Bangladesh installed Rainwater Harvesting System (RWHS) at the university’s permanent campus in the capital’s Bashundhara with an aim to save ground water and energy, a press release said.

IUB Board of trustees Chairman Rashed Chowdhury inaugurated the ceremony while Vice-Chancellor Prof M Omar Rahman and Dean of School of Environmental Science and Management Prof Dr M Ali Hossain were present at the occasion along with other faculties and students.

The chairman in his speech said the RWHS model at IUB was meant not for only saving money but also disseminating the technology throughout Bangladesh, since water resources were becoming scarce day by day. l

n Arif Ahmed

future plan and we have already made a draft plan, which we will reveal on Friday at the mass rally scheduled on 3pm at Projonmo Chattar.”

Journalists who witnessed the movement unravel from its beginning expressed their views at the Mancha in an event held around 7.15pm.

Dhaka Tribune Special Reporter Julfikar Ali Manik said he considered the Mancha a movement of the mass people. “Demanding punishment of war criminals is not a demand of any particular political party, it is a demand

of all the people of our country.”

“If I were living during 1971 and worked as a journalist, I would obviously take sides with my country. That is why now I am here with Ganajagaran Mancha, as it is a movement of our national interest, not any political interest,” he said.

Sharmin Nira, a junior reporter of Ekattor TV, said: “We have never seen the language movement or the Liberation War, but we have seen the movement of Ganajagaran Mancha which has inspired us to work as journalists.” l

Ganajagaran Mancha celebrated the second day of its three-day long anniversary celebration yesterday with several programmes.

The Mancha started its programme at 3pm with a cultural event including songs, poems and slogans.

Around 5:30pm, Mancha convener Imran H Sarkar inaugurated a photo exhibition at ‘Projonmo Chattar.’ The photos were captured in the early days of the movement by many Ganajagaran

activists and prominent photographers.

Imran told the Dhaka Tribune: “We have arranged the photo exhibition to uphold every positive and negative side of our one-year-long movement through these photos.”

“With a view to spreading our movement among the next generation, we are holding this exhibition so that the youth can understood why we organised this movement,” he added.

When asked about the future plan of the movement, Imran said: “We have consulted with many people about our

EC concerned

BB pursuing sources of Jamaat funds

 PAGE 1 COLUMN 6

 PAGE 1 COLUMN 2

necessary steps to ensure the security of minority people.

Earlier, Rokeya Kabir, a citizen submitted a letter to the EC urging it to ensure security of minorities during the first phase of upazila poll scheduled to be held on February 19.

A senior EC official said the commission was worried over the security of minorities as they came under attacks in the 10th parliamentary polls.

Besides, the commission yesterday sent a formal letter to the principle staff officer of the Armed Force Division to deploy army five days before the upazila parishad poll and put them in place until two days into the election.

As per the schedules announced by the EC the first phase of election to 102 upazilas will be held on February 19 while the second phases of poll to 117 upazilas on February 27.

Election to four upazila parishads in the first phase has been postponed as the local government and rural development ministry decided to re-fix the demarcation of Rangpur Sadar, Kaunia, Gangachar and Pirgacha upazila parishads. l

Harkat-ul Jihad al-Islami (Huji) on October 17, 2005; and Hizb-ut-Tahrir on October 22, 2009.

Finance ministry sources said the Financial Intelligent Unit was working to find out the sources of funds with which the activists had conducted attacks in Jamaat-dominated Satkhira, Chapainawabganj, Dinajpur and several other districts before and after the January 5 parliamentary election.

The minister has also stressed

the need for further amending the Extradition Act, 1974 to take assistance the foreign countries if the local terrorist financers were hiding in other countries.

“If a person finances Jamaat–Shibir from outside the country, the government will bring that sponsor back to the country under the Extradition Act inked with 139 countries including the Middle-East,” he said.

Sources at the Finance Division said during the recent demonstrations by

the BNP-led opposition alliance, it was Jamaat and Shibir activists who were seen on the streets, though mostly in the hit-and-run attacks.

They are also blamed for the random use of petrol bombs, hand bombs and gun powder to burn and kill scores of people and destroying property of the state. The party is also criticised for torching over 500 educational institutions which were set to be used as polling centres during the January 5 election. l

BNP leader Khandaker Mosharraf  PAGE 1 COLUMN 5

The commission, after analysing different documents including “package of evidence”, given by British government through Mutual Legal Assistance Request (MLAR), information from foreign exchange department of Bangladesh Bank, and income tax return statements of the ex- minister and his wife, found that Mosharraf during his power in between 2001 to 2006 acquired many properties in UK including the deposit at the bank account, the FIR reads.

The money deposited in the account was collected through money laundering and now is in a frozen situation, a report prepared by financial investigation unit of Bailiwick of Guernsey revealed, the case statement added.

Sending money abroad without informing the central bank is an offense under Foreign Exchange Regulation Act 1947, it reads.

Earlier on January 10, 2008, the ACC filed a case with Ramna Police Station against former minister Mosharraf on

charge of amassing illegal wealth and concealing information about assets while submitting the wealth statement before the commission.

The ACC also found that the minister and his wife Bilkis Akhter Hossain had concealed information about the bank account with their income tax return statements.

The commission will also investigate if any other people, including former minister’s wife Bilkis Akhter Hossain, have any sort of involvement in the irregularity, the FIR said. l

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Friday, February 7, 2014

PM: Implement coal-based power plants soon Karim and n Mohosinul Aminur Rahman Rasel Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina yesterday directed the power division to implement the proposed coal-based power plants as early as possible.

If the coal-based power plants go into electricity production, it will be possible to provide electricity at lower rate, and a step will have been taken to address the primary fuel crisis.

The premier attended the first meeting of the present government with a state minister; her adviser on power and energy; and senior officials from the Ministry of Power, Energy and Mineral Resources. Under the power sector master plan, the government would produce 24,000MW of electricity by 2021 and 39,000MW by 2030.

The government has a target to produce around 20,000MW of electricity from coal by 2030 The Prime Minister, who is also the head of the Power, Energy and Mineral Resources Ministry, went to the ministry around two and a half years after her last visit. She last went to the min-

istry on August 8, 2011, during the last tenure of her last government.

The PM said the first meeting of the new government focused on the overall situation at the ministry, its future plans, and how to implement the mega projects.

The Prime Minister’s power and energy adviser Tawfiq-e-Elahi Chowdhury, and the State Minister for Power, Energy and Mineral resources Nasrul Hamid briefed journalists about their meeting with the premier.

Nasrul said the prime minister had also issued instructions for the use of renewable energy in every sector, to conserve power and energy. The PM also outlined a five-year work plan, he said.

Instead of waiting for foreign investment, Hasina told the officials to implement the incomplete projects within a year using the states’ own funds.

She asked officials of energy division to spare agricultural lands, to ensure the food security for the countrymen. The premier also suggested going slow on underground coal mining, and instead using open-pit systems. She also asked them to wait until modern mining technologies were introduced.

About the Boropukuria coal mining project, the PM said: “First of all, we have to protect our agricultural lands to feed people. Then we will think about mining with the help of the latest technology.”

Sheikh Hasina also asked the ministry concerned to start research on future coal mining systems.

The premier ordered the authorities to plan on setting up a coal-based power-plant, at Paira seaport under Potuakhali, as early as possible. She issued directives asking for renewable energy to be used in every sector.

The PM ordered Petrobangla to set up the country’s first floating storage and re-gasification unit, widely known as a Liquefied Natural Gas terminal at Moheskhali Island in Cox’s Bazar, to facilitate the import of 500million cubic feet per day.

The PM’s advisor on power and energy Towfiq-E-Elahi Chowdhury, state minister for power Nasrul Hamid, PM’s principal secretary, the ERD secretary and secretaries of the Power Division, and the Energy and Mineral Resources Division were present at the meeting. l

Mughal Mosque being dismantled in Old Dhaka

Child labour in RMG: Rights bodies blame stakeholders

n Abu Hayat Mahmud

n Muktasree Chakma Sathi

The very old part of the Maulana Mosque on KB Ghosh Street in Armanitola, one of the oldest remaining Mughal-era establishments in the capital, is being demolished by the mosque committee defying request from the Department of Archaeology.

The Dhaka Tribune reporter yesterday found workers demolishing the roof of the mosque with only the walls standing intact. The workers, however, stopped working as soon as they saw the reporter.

The committee began demolishing the building three to four days ago terming it very risky for the people who offer prayers, said a committee member. “We started the demolition upon permission of Waqf Bangladesh.”

He showed the reporter a letter issued by the state-owned body dated August 25, 2013. He also showed a letter from the Department of Archaeology dated February 4, 2014, that requested the mosque committee not to raze the part.

Officials at the archaeology department said the vulnerable part of the mosque, believed to be built in 1707, could be retrofitted.

The letter signed by an assistant administrator of Waqf Bangladesh said: “Based on available information, permission is given to demolish the vulnerable part of the mosque fearing collapse.”

“The ancient part of the mosque is a Mughal establishment. So, with a view to protect the archaeological site, we requested you [mosque committee] to stop knocking it down,” Regional Director of Department of Archaeology Md Ataur Rahman wrote to the mosque committee on February 4.

He asked the mosque authorities to rather extend the adjacent new part of the mosque where the people offer prayers only.

Ataur said even though the mosque was not part of the government list of heritage establishments, they would try for its inclusion.

“I wonder how the Waqf authorities could make such a decision. Action should be taken against those responsible [for giving the approval],” he told the Dhaka Tribune. l

No stakeholder including government, garments factory owners and international organisations, particularly working on preventing child labour, can deny their roles behind the existence of child labour in the readymade garments sector, observe labour leaders and child rights activists.

They made the remark following a report published in the Guardian titled “Bangladesh garment factories still exploiting child labour for UK products” on Wednesday.

Labour leader Syed Sultan Uddin Ahmad said it would be wrong if someone blatantly labelled the garments owners as the exploiters.

“As far I know, the ILO, the Unicef and several other international organisations have been working on the child labour issue, for a long time. Now it is time to question them about the result of their activities as well.”

In 1995, an agreement was signed between the BGMEA, the Unicef and the ILO when the stakeholders had agreed to stop hiring under-aged workers and start working together to eliminate child labour.

However, a number of children’s names including Anna, Rabeya Akhter and Hamida Akhter were found in the list of workers who had been killed, injured or missing in the collapse of eight-storey Rana Plaza where several garments factories operated. The list was prepared by the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA). Anna used to work on the sixth floor while Rabeya and Hamida worked at a factory on the seventh floor of the building.

“I am not justifying the existence of child labour in the garments industry.

Rather I am pointing out that child labour prevails in much more hazardous works than the RMG sector.

“My question is if child labour still prevails in a comparatively safe workplace like garments even after all those efforts by the international organisations, governments and garments owners, then what is the benefit of spending

millions of money on child labour by the donor agencies and the government?” said Sultan, also the assistant executive director of Bangladesh Institute of Labour Studies (Bils).

Child labour, though termed a crime by law, is persistent in the country’s different business and industrial sectors as well as households, often in hazardous conditions. Subsequent governments have failed to change the situation even though they undertook tough measures and effective enforcement of the laws.

“No one can deny their failures,” Sultan added.

Child rights activist Sharfuddin Khan told the Dhaka Tribune: “The garment owners need to develop a scrutiny system when appointing employees. Because of poverty, one may claim that his/her child is adult. But why will the owner solely rely on my submission of the document?”

He observes that in most cases the poor workers choose the RMG job considering it as a better one than the socalled odd jobs including working as a domestic help or rickshaw-puller, or at tanneries, plastic or heavy metal factories.

According to the country’s labour law, employing children under the age of 18 in particularly hazardous areas, such as garments, electrical and tanneries, is prohibited. The Bangladesh Labour Act, 2006 defines an adolescent as an individual aged between 14 and 18, and says an adolescent can work in a factory if a certificate of fitness is granted to him or her, and if he or she carries a token while at work which gives reference to the certificate.

BGMEA Vice-President Shahidullah Azim told the Dhaka Tribune: “We often conduct sudden inspection at the garments factories. If we find any child working there, we penalize the owner $200 for every child and impose ban on their export-import facilities.”

The BGMEA initiated a ban on child labour since the US, one of the biggest importers of Bangladeshi garments, in 1992 introduced legislation banning import of goods made by factories which employ child labourers. l

Indian minister: Indian insurgent groups present in Bangladesh n Sheikh Shahariar Zaman Indian Minister of State for External Affairs E Ahamed said there had been reports of Indian insurgent groups (IIGs) in Bangladesh.

He made the comment yesterday at

the Rajya Sabha, the upper house of the Indian parliament, when three lawmakers asked him about 50 terrorist training camps in Bangladesh.

Ahmed replied: “Security related issues, including the alleged presence of IIGs in Bangladesh, have been peri-

odically taken up with the government of Bangladesh at various political and senior official levels.”

The government of Bangladesh had stated that its territory would not be allowed to be used for activities hostile to India, he added.

After the Awami League-led government assumed power in 2009, the top leadership repeatedly pledged zero tolerance to anti-Indian activities.

On Wednesday, in response to a question at the Lok Sabha, Indian Foreign Minister Salman Khurshid said: “[The Indian] Government is aware that China is involved in the construction of, or assistance with, projects in our neighborhood including in Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Myanmar. “The Government keeps a constant watch on all developments which have a bearing on India’s security, and takes all necessary measures to safeguard it.” l

A goods-laden vehicle lies on the road toppled after it lost control in the capital’s Khilgaon yesterday

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ACC okays charges against former minister Aminul Haque n Tribune Report The Anti-Corruption Commission yesterday approved charge sheet against two, including former post and telecommunications minister Aminul Haque on charge of taking bribe of US$1.708m from German engineering giant Siemens through an US expatriate.

A commission meeting yesterday approved charges against Haque and US expatriate Mizanur Rahman, a relative of the minister, for taking the bribe in

exchange of getting Siemens a contract with Teletalk and mobile networking works at an international tender.

On June 7, 2012, ACC filed a case against the two with the Ramna police station under several sections of the Money Laundering Prevention Act 2002, 2009 and 2012 respectively.

According to the case statement, the minister took the bribe valued US$1.708m from Siemens to get the company a contract of US$40million at an international tender. The minister allegedly took the bribe to make

Siemens the lowest bidder to get the contract and Mizanur helped the minister do this.

By abusing power and exercising influence illegally, the minister did the corruption between 2001 and 2006 when he was in power, the case statement added.

The case was earlier proved in a court of California, USA and following the matter, ACC conducted an investigation and following evidences, filed the case against the two, reads the case statement. l

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Friday, February 7, 2014

Hilsa netting still on in southern region

220 maunds of hilsa fry, 20 lakh metres of nets seized officer (hilsa), said the personnel from the city. n Our Correspondent, Barisal However, none was arrested, fined the Fisheries Department and Coast

or convicted in this connection as people involved with the illegal activities managed to flee the scene.

The action was taken for violating eight-month countrywide ban enforced from November 1 to June 30 instead of November 1 to May 31 against netting, transportation and marketing jatka, said AKM Aminul Islam, deputy director and divisional fisheries officer said.

The ban was imposed aiming to boost hilsa production by ensuring safe spawning and protecting mother hilsas.

If only 10-20% of the jatka could get the chance to reach maturity, then around 2 lakh tonnes of hilsa worth hundreds of crores of taka could be earned every year, said Bankim Chandra Mandal, assistant director Barisal divisional fishery office. l

A section of fishermen in southern region are still catching hilsa fry in different rivers, defying an eightmonth ban, despite drives against the illegal fishing.

Local sources said a large number of fishermen are catching fish with the banned finely woven nets in the Kirtankhola, Meghna and Arial Khan rivers.

According to the Fisheries Department, anyone found guilty of catching hilsa during the eight months would be punished with up to two years in jail or a fine of Tk5,000, but fishermen hardly care about the penalty.

The Fisheries Department and the Coast Guard seized 220 maunds of “jatka” (hilsa fry less than 10 inches or 26 centimetres in length) and 20 lakh metres of net yesterday.

Bimal Chandra Das, district fisheries

Guard had raided different trawlers and a launch named MV Dhanshiri, which runs on the Borhanuddin-Barisal route from Beltala to Shaheber Hut areas in the Kirtankhola river and seized 20 maunds of hilsa fry.

Officer-in-Charge of Mehendiganj police station said a Coast Guard team operating drives at different points of Meghna and Arialkha rivers from 7am to 2pm about 20 lakh metres of net worth about Tk11 crore.

Coast Guard Mehendiganj contingent's Lt Commander Mohiuddin said operating drives at Mehendiganj river port and surrounding areas as well as searching Dhaka-bound launches, MV Tipu and MV Farzana, they had seized 200 maunds of jatka in the early hours of yesterday.

All of the seized jatka was later distributed among different orphanages in

World Vision president due today

HC receives documents of 10-truck arms haul verdict

n Tribune Report

The High Court yesterday received the documents related to 10-truck arms haul case verdict from a Chittagong court, ordering convicts including Jamaat-e-Islami chief Motiur Rahman Nizami and former state minister for home Lutfozzaman Babar be hanged.

Supreme Court Registrar AKM Shamsul Islam told the Dhaka Tribune that the HC received the documents which were sent by the Chittagong Metropolitan Special Tribunal on Wednesday.

On January 30, the special tribunal gave death penalty to 14 convicts under the Special Powers Act 1974 in a smuggling case. It also handed down life imprisonment to them under the Arms

Humanitarian organisation World Vision International’s President Kevin J Jenkins will arrive in Bangladesh on a 4-day visit today.

His first visit to Bangladesh would mainly focus on interaction with community people, including children being served by the Bangladesh chapter of the organisation, for witnessing significant changes in their lives through various programmes such as education, health, economic development, livelihood and security, climate change and disaster mitigation, and other human aspects, according to a press release.

During this tour, Jenkins will visit World Vision Bangladesh (WVB) programmes in Khulna, Bogra and Dhaka.

On February 7, he will visit 3 projects in Khulna for interaction with vulnerable communities.

He will be in Bogra for visiting a cooperative market, business enterprises, attending a meeting with community people and meet with sponsor children and their families on February 8.

He will also visit 3 projects in Dhaka on February 9.

The WVB, a Christian humanitarian organisation focusing on children, has 42 years presence in the country, serving around 50 lakh people under 35 districts including 10 lakh children for their better futures. l

WEATHER

Weather likely to remain unchanged n UNB Weather may remain dry with temporary partly cloudy sky over the country until 6pm today.

Moderate to thick fog might occur over Rangpur division and river basins and light to moderate fog elsewhere over the country during midnight till morning, Met Office said.

Night and day temperatures may remain nearly unchanged over the country.

The sun sets in the capital at 5:49pm today and rises at 6:36am tomorrow.

Country’s highest temperature 30.8 degree Celsius was recorded in Cox’s Bazar and lowest 10.0 degrees in Rangpur yesterday.

Highest and lowest temperatures recorded in some major cities yesterday were: City

High

Low

Dhaka Chittagong Rajshahi Rangpur Khulna Barisal Sylhet Cox’s Bazar

28.4 29.0 28.6 24.4 29.7 29.0 27.2 30.8

15.4 15.8 12.8 10.0 15.0 15.0 14.6 17.5

n Nazmus Sakib

Act 1878 for the 10-truck arms haul.

According to the Special Powers Act, 1974, if a special tribunal passes death sentence, the proceedings shall be submitted immediately to the High Court division and the sentence shall not be executed unless it is confirmed by the HC. The law also stipulates that appeal may be filed with the HC against the tribunal verdict by 30 days from the date of delivery or passing of the judgment.

As the tribunal heard both cases simultaneously, documents of the cases were sent to the HC, Mohammad Ahsan, a defence lawyer, told the Dhaka Tribune.

He added that the High Court would give ruling after completion of hearing on both death reference and appeals in the cases, he said. l

Ganajagaran Mancha organises a musical event as part of its anniversary celebrations yesterday at Shahbagh in the capital. The platform was formed on February 5 last year to demand capital punishment to war criminal Quader Molla RAJIB DHAR

Bureaucracy and MPs’ interference blamed for dysfunctional upazilas

Woman crushed between racing buses in city

Karim and n Mohosinul Rabiul Islam

n Kailash Sarkar

Despite repeated pledges from politicians for strengthening the local government, the upazila parishad, one of the vital units of local administration, remains near dysfunctional because of undue interference from lawmakers and members of the civil administration.

In its election manifesto in 2008, the Awami League pledged to strengthen upazila parishads through decentralisation of power but failed to reach the expected level, although the upazila parishad was reintroduced in 2009 after a gap of 18 years.

Upazila chairmen and vice-chairmen alleged that interference from the MPs – who are advisers to the upazila parishads according to the law – impeded the activities of the councils.

“We cannot work properly because of interference from the lawmakers,” Md Mahiuddin Mallick, upazila chairman of Digholia under Khulna, told the Dhaka Tribune.

Seeking anonymity, an upazila nirbahi officer from Kishoreganj said a circular issued about the distribution of test relief said the relief could not be

distributed without the recommendation of an MP. Giving an example of the lawmakers’ interference, a local government specialist mentioned an education ministry circular that said the UNOs would need to consult with the MP concerned for the recruitment of peons and security guards at primary schools.

“The MP’s role has to be reviewed to make the council effective to the expected level,” UNDP’s Local Governance Adviser Tofail Ahmed said.

Harun-ur-Rashid Hawlader, president of Bangladesh Upazila Parishad Association, also gave the example of an agriculture ministry circular which failed to mention the responsibility of the upazila parishad for local development, although the department of agriculture had been handed over to the upazila council. “As the UNO is the president of agriculture rehabilitation committee, we have no role,” he said.

He added that constitutionally the local government in every administrative unit of the republic would be entrusted to bodies composed of elected persons in accordance with law. However, union parishad chairmen were now also members of the upazila coun-

cil, which contradicted the law.

In its 2014 election manifesto, the Awami League once again pledged that more authority and responsibility would be delegated to the upazila parishad through democratic reorganisation of the present centralised administrative structure.

Moreover, addressing the parliament on Wednesday, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina reiterated on strengthening the local government.

The EC has already declared schedules for fresh upazila polls, with the first phase of elections to be held at 98 upazilas on February 19.

Earlier on January 19, Upazila Parishad Association submitted a set of recommendations to the LGRD ministry, demanding an amendment to sections 25 and 42 of the Upazila Parishad Act for ending lawmakers’ interference and for salaries and allowances of all employees to be given through the chairmen and the UNOs. Talking to the Dhaka Tribune on Tuesday, former local government secretary Golam Robbany declined to comment on the issue, but said it was a government policy to make the local bodies effective. l

Abducted schoolgirl rescued n Our Correspondent, Kushtia

PRAYER TIMES Fajar Sunrise Jumma Asr Magrib Esha

5:20am 6:36am 12:13am 4:12pm 5:48pm 7:05pm

Source: IslamicFinder.org

A housewife was crushed to death when she fell in between two buses racing against each other at Satmasjid Road in the capital’s Dhanmondi area yesterday.

The victim was identified as Khaleda Khanam Kakoli, 35, a resident of Chanmiah Housing in Mohammadpur and the wife of Associate Professor Abdul Quader of Eden University College.

“The accident occurred when Kakoli was caught between two buses, racing against each other, near Medinova Diagnostic Centre at around 5:15pm,” said Dhanmondi police station Sub-Inspector Abdur Rashid.

“Kakoli fell to the ground when she was trying to board a bus, which suddenly took off when a bus of Raja City Paribahan tried to overtake it from the left side. Another bus also had tried to block the Raja City bus by turning toward the left side, crushing Kakoli in between and leaving her critically injured,” he added Police and locals rushed her to the Dhaka Medical College and Hospital where doctors declared her dead at around 6:00pm.

Soon after the incident, angry locals chased the two buses and caught one of its driver, while another managed to flee the scene. They also vandalised several vehicles, including the responsible bus, and lynched the driver of the vehicle.

The rampage also halted vehicular movement on the road for more than an hour.

“We have detained both the buses and arrested one of the drivers and are also trying to arrest another,” confirmed Dhanmondi police station officer-in-charge Masud Karim.

Meanwhile, a motorcyclist was killed when he skidded off his vehicle at around 12:30pm in front of Kamalapur School and College the capital yesterday.

The victim was identified was MA Majid, 45, a businessman and a resident of Taltola in Khilgaon.

Quoting witnesses, Sub-Inspector Ashraful Islam of Sabujbagh Police Station said: “Majid lost control and skidded off as he was talking on the phone while riding the motorcycle at high speed.”

Ahmed Reaz, a maternal uncle of the deceased, said Majid was been returning home from Kamalapur with his motorbike.

In Kishorganj, a school boy was in a road accident in Hossainpur upazila of the district The deceased was identified as Md. Rifat, 7, Class I student of Doliorkanda Government Primary School and a resident of Dolior village in Hossainpur.

Police and local sources, the accident took place when a CNG-run threewheeler hit the boy on HossainpurDinari road at Doliorkanda area in the afternoon. l

Hindu devotees take a dip in the Pagla River, a tributary of the Ganges, in Chapainawabganj’s Shibganj upazila yesterday. People from adjacent areas take part in the annual ritual with the hope of purifying themselves from sins FOCUS BANGLA

Police rescued a schoolgirl on Wednesday who was abducted allegedly by her maternal aunt in Bheramara upazila under Kushtia district.

Identified as Urmi, 12, daughter of Akmal Hossain of Barodag village of the upazila, she was rescued from Golapnagar Solaiman Chisti Mazar area and later admitted to Bheramara upazila health complex in a vulnerable condition.

Officer-in-Charge of Bheramara police station Parvez Islam said Urmi’s aunt Asma Khatun, 25, had abducted her on Wednesday in the afternoon while she was returning home from

school. Hours after the incident, Asma and her accomplices phoned Urmi’s father and demanded Tk100,000 as ransom.

Being informed by the victim’s family, a team of police raided Golapnagar Solaiman Chisti Mazar area and rescued Urmi and detained Asma from the spot.

Abandoned by husband, Asma used to live with her father in Golapnagar village in the upazila. Asma fed Urmi some sedative which left her ill, police said.

A case was filed with local police station against Asma and two to three unknown people in this connection, said the OC. l

DHAKA TRIBUNE

News

5

Friday, February 7, 2014

Light and sound show at Lalbagh Fort starts today Fund crunch hampering renovation of country’s historical sites, minister says n Mohosinul Karim The ministry of cultural affairs plans to renovate and install “light and sound” shows at all heritage sites of the country, such as Paharpur Buddhist monastery, Mahasthangarh fort city, Kantaji Temple and Shatgambuj Mosque, Cultural Minister Asaduzzaman Noor said yesterday.

But despite having the intention to renovate all historical sites, the ministry is unable to do so due to lack of funds, the minister said while addressing a press conference to present the details of a new “light and sound” show at the Lalbagh Kellah in Old Dhaka.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina is expected to inaugurate the show at the Mughal-era fort at 6pm today.

The department of archeology has already installed new lights and sound systems at the fort at a cost of nearly Tk28.3m under a project of the cultural affairs ministry, Noor said.

Two open air “light and sound” shows of 30 minutes duration each will be presented in the gardens of the fort after sunset every day, except on Sundays when the site is closed to the public.

A view of Lalbagh Fort during a light and sound show The initiative was taken to attract more visitors from home and abroad to the historic building and inform them

FOCUS BANGLA

about its background and other details, the minister said.

A total of 1,000 visitors (500 for each

show) would be able to enjoy the show each day all year round, except during the rainy season.

Show tickets will cost only Tk20 each for local visitors, while tourists from SAARC and other countries will

be charged Tk100 and Tk200 respectively.

Cultural Affairs Secretary Ranjit Kumar Bishwas, Principle Information Officer Aminul Islam, Director General of Archeology Department Shirin Akhtar and former DG Shafiqul Islam also attended the press conference, held at the PID conference room at the secretariat.

Shirin Akhtar said the fort authorities sell tickets worth Tk40,000 to Tk 50,000 daily, with sales going up almost threefold on weekends and other holidays.

Shirin hoped that the number of visitors to the tourist site would increase further with the new “light and sound” programme.

Meanwhile, renovation work has already started at the Shilaidaha Kuthibari, a country mansion built by poet Rabindranath Tagore’s family in Kushtia, the minister said in reply to a question.

“It has taken some time to fix the colour of the building. The experts are working to fix it. Renovations would be finished as soon as the authorities get their decision,” Noor said. l

17 BAF men awarded Pro-BNP-Jamaat teachers demand arrest of gunmen peace time medals n VIOLENCE AT RAJSHAHI UNIVERSITY

RU Correspondent

The pro-BNP and Jamaat teachers of Rajshahi University yesterday demanded arrest of the armed activists of Bangladesh Chhatra League who allegedly attacked students protesting against increased fees and evening courses.

The teachers also demanded that the university be reopened as soon as possible.

They raised the demands at a press briefing at the University Teachers’ Club at 12:30pm. Joint-Convener of white panel Professor Enamul Haque read out the written statement.

Teachers said in presence of law en-

forcement BCL cadres swooped and fired on the agitating students, leaving hundreds of students injured and at least 20 bullet-hit.

The statement also said the university authorities and the police had filed four cases against agitating students, but none against the six identified gun-toting BCL activists.

During the February 2 attack, BCL RU unit’s Organising Secretary Shamsuzzaman Emon and Faisal Ahmed Runu, Joint-Secretary Nasim Ahmed Setu, Environment Affairs Secretary Mustakim Billah, Deputy-Press Secretary Anowarul Islam Shuvro and former joint-secretary Sudipta Salam

were seen brandishing firearms in photos and videos published in different media.

Teachers demanded inclusion of the BCL cadres in the cases and their suspension from the university.

Demanding withdrawal of cases against hundreds of ordinary students, teachers demanded a proper and impartial investigation into the February 2 incident to ensure exemplary punishment to the identified attackers.

They also said the role of the proctors during the attack was questionable and that they had failed to ensure the safety of the students.

They also demanded that the uni-

versity be reopened quickly.

However, university teachers’ association president and the former president of white panel Professor Ajhar Ali said they were supporting the students’ demand to reduce increased fees but were in favour of the evening courses.

The teachers also said the accusation of vandalism against Shibir was false. They said Shibir activists may have joined the students’ agitation individually but not as an organisation.

Teachers also met Vice-Chancellor Professor Mizanuddin and submitted the same statement.

The VC told reporters steps would be taken as per the probe report. l

7th National Science Fair begins in city

n Tribune Report

The Bangladesh Air Force (BAF) yesterday awarded 17 of its members with medals for their outstanding contributions during peace time.

Chief of Air Staff Air Marshal Muhammad Enamul Bari handed over the medals to 15 officers and two airmen in four different categories at Air Headquarters in the capital.

Five BAF officers were awarded with the ‘Distinguished Service Medal’ for their special contribution to the BAF and the nation for outstanding contributions.

BANGLADESH PARJATAN CORPORATION Commercial Division, Head Office 83-88 Mohakhali C/A, Dhaka.

n Tribune Report A three-day-long 7th National Science Fair began yesterday in Residential Model School playground in the capital.

Students of different schools with innovative ideas and discoveries attended the fair and displayed their talent.

A participant Kawshik Ray of Oxford International School, Dhaka, showed his digital irrigation equipment at the fair yesterday which impressed everybody.

With this new digital irrigation machine, farmers will not have to go to their field to enquire whether water is needed. A Short Messaging System (SMS) of Mobile operators will alert the farmers if the field needs water.

And for turning on the water motor, the farmers don’t need to go to their field, they can do it from anywhere.

Like Kawshik, many other students showed their inventions at the inaugural day of the three-day-long science fair. l

2nd Call File No. BPC(Rent-A-Car & Tour}/165/

Police at Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport seized 22 gold bars, weighing 2.5 kilograms, from a youth yesterday.

Airport sources said members of the Armed Police Battalion nabbed Md Didarul Islam, 25, of Hathajari in Chittagong, from the domestic area at 2pm immediate after he received

Some officials and employees of Roads and Highways Department were beaten by the musclemen of a contractor in Patuakhali yesterday as they raised voice against sub-standard construction works of a bridge.

Manju Mia, a witness, said construction works of a guarder-bridge at a cost of Tk1 crore was going on with low quality materials by contractor Motiar Rahman at Shiali on the Dhaka-Patuakhali highway.

01. Ministry/Division

Ministry of Civil Aviation & Tourism

02. Agency

Bangladesh Parjatan Corporation

03. Procuring entity name

Bangladesh Parjatan Corporation

04. Expression of interest for

Selection of Business firms/Entrepreneurs/ Persons (Both foreign & National) for joint operation of RentA-Car Service of Bangladesh Parjatan Corporation.

05. Ref.No. with date

BPC(Rent-A-Car & Tour)/165/

06. Brief description of assignment

Interested Business firms/Entrepreneurs/ Persons (Both foreign & National) for joint operation of RentA-Car Service Sedan Car, Micro Bus, SUV, Tourist Bus/coach with Bangladesh Parjatan Corporation.

Entrepreneurs will be allowed to use Bangladesh Parjatan Corporation’s logo.

A group of Dhaka Residential College students, left, elaborate the details of a project to other school students during a science fair organised at the college premises in the capital yesterday DHAKA TRIBUNE

the gold bars from a member of a gold smuggling ring.

“We believe the gold bars were brought into the capital by a domestic fight after arriving at Chittagong through a Dubai flight,” said Senior Assistant Superintendent of Armed Police Battalion Ehteshamul Huq. He also said that acting on a tipoff, law enforcers beefed up vigilance inside the airport and arrested

Didarul, who was roaming around the domestic area suspiciously.

“After a body and luggage search, we recovered 22 bars of gold, weighing around 2.5 kilograms,” he said, adding that a case will soon be filed in this regard.

In 2013, customs and APBn members seized over 600 kilograms of smuggled gold, together with foreign currencies, precious metals,

stones and other valuables.

Meanwhile, customs official recovered 420 gold bars, worth Tk25 crore, from a flight in Chittagong’s Shah Amanat International Airport on Thursday night.

The gold was recovered in an abandoned state from inside a Fly Dubai flight that landed at the airport from Dubai at 8:30pm, customs official said. l

Government officials beaten up for protesting substandard works n Our Correspondent, Barisal

Date:06.02.2014

Request for Expression of interest(EOI) for Selection of Business firms/ Entrepreneurs/Persons (Both foreign & National) for joint operation of Rent-A-Car Service of Bangladesh Parjatan Corporation

2.5kg gold seized at Shahjalal Airport, 1 held n Kailash Sarkar

Three BAF pilots were awarded with the “Glorious Flying Medal” for bravery, efficiency, and remarkable contribution in flying within the country and UN missions.

Three BAF officers and one airman were awarded with the “Air Excellence Medal” for their exceptional professionalism.

Four BAF officers and one airman were awarded with the “Air Efficiency Medal” for playing a vital role in developing the BAF as well as the country by merit, research work or undertaking an important role in any training or exercise of the force. l

Yesterday morning, a six-member supervision team of Roads and Highway Department led by Sub-Divisional Engineer Anisuzzaman Masud went the construction site and found that labourers were continuing works ignoring protest of Assistant Engineer Hasan Al Mamun.

Anisuzzaman then asked labourers to stop the works. But they did not pay heed to the order and started beating officials of the department.

Anisuzzaman and other employees left the scene immediately, sens-

ing their lives at being at risk.

Later, police visited the spot, but failed to arrest anybody from there, said Moniruzzaman, officer-in-charge of Patuakhali sadar police station.

Sub-Divisional Engineer Anisuzzaman told the Dhaka Tribune that he along with Hasan Al Mamun, sub-assistant engineer, Abul Bashar, Abdur Rahman, Mustafizur Rahman, assistant engineers, Mahbub Hossain, driver of the department were assaulted and beaten by mus-

clemen of the contractor.

Case will be lodged as per direction of the higher authority, said, Anisuzzaman.

Matiar Rahman, the accused contractor, denied allegations of doing substandard works and assaulting and beating Roads and Highway officials.

He also alleged that Sub-Divisional Engineer Anisuzzaman demanded Tk2 lakhs from him.

He said as he did not pay the demanded money, the officials raised the allegation against him. l

07. Qualification & Experiences -The applicant firm must have at least 5-10 years overall experience at home or in abroad in operation of such services successfully. The certificate/ Proof of running such services are to be provided by obtaining the same form the respective govt.agencies.

-Should have up-to-date trade license, VAT registration certificate, TIN, bank solvencies certificate from schedule bank of Bangladesh and International Bank located in Bangladesh.

-Intended firms are invited to provide information indicating that they are qualified to perform the services submitting their brochures, description of similar assignments, experiences in similar operating conditions, qualification & experiences among staff etc.

-Interested firms may obtain further information from the above address during normal office hours.

08. Last date, time and place of 04-03-2014 upto 12.00 noon in sealed envelope submission of the EOI to Commercial Division, Bangladesh Parjatan Corporation 83-88 Mohakhali C/A, Dhaka-1212 clearly marked Request for Expression of interest(EOI) for Selection of Business firm/ Entrepreneurs/ Person (Both foreign & National) for joint operation of Rent-A-Car Service of Bangladesh Parjatan Corporation.

09. Bangladesh Parjatan Corporation reserves the right to accept or reject any or all EOls without assigning any reason. Business firms/Entrepreneurs/ persons will be selected in accordance with the PPR 2008 and the public Procurement Procedures issued by GOB.

DG-14/14(10″x 3C)

(Md. Mahbubul Islam) General Manager(Commercial)

6

DHAKA TRIBUNE

Nation

Friday, February 7, 2014

Tobacco factory poses health hazzards to students n Our Correspondent, Lalmonirhat A tobacco factory constructed only 10 meters away from three schools in Saptibari Village in Aditmari upazila, Lalmonirhat, is posing serious threats to the health of the students and the locals in the area.

Teachers, students and locals claim that the noise and malodour generated from the processing of tobacco inside the factory is jeopardising the atmosphere for education within the institutions.

The three schools are Saptibari High School, Saptibari Govt Primary School and Saptibari Blind School, the last of which is a school for visually impaired

children, all located at a distance of 10 meter from the tobacco factory Mian Leaf Ltd. Headmaster of Saptibari Govt Primary School Rasheda Begum, Saptibari High School Headmaster Tayez Uddin Tazu and faculty member of Saptibari Blind School Ershad Ali have all submitted objection letters to the tobacco factory.

If the factory continues operating, ignoring their objections, tougher actions would be called for within the locality, they said.

They urged the authorities concerned to take steps in having the factory removed from the area without delay and restore an atmosphere more

conducive to education.

Sources within the factory said Mian Leaf Ltd was constructed on an approx-

The students said they could not stay for long hours in their school since the odours started emanating from the tobacco factory imately 80 decimal land in the area in 2012 and started operating in April last year which is the harvesting season for

tobacco.

The students said they could not stay for long hours in their school since the odours started emanating from the tobacco factory.

Ibrahim Miah, a visually impaired student, said: “We study through speech, therefore we need a noise free environment. We are losing concentration in studies because the tobacco factory runs so close to our institution.”

Saptibari Union Parisad Chairman Sohrab Hossain said locals would wage tougher movements if the tobacco factory gets approval.

When contacted, Manger of Mian Leaf Ltd Auhiuzzaman Chowdhury

Transformer jolt for Kishoreganj municipalty residents n Our Correspondent, Kishoreganj A 100-kilovolt (KV) electric transformer being used by the Power Development Board (PDB) has been placed right in the middle of a busy area in Kishoreganj municipality over the last four months, posing a serious threat to the locals.

The high voltage transformer, connected to the main lines of the national grid with heavy metal wires, is set up in the middle of a road in Ukilpara area of the municipality.

Visiting the spot on Thursday, this correspondent witnessed hundreds of people walking up to the transformer to touch its iron net enclosure, something that can cause a serious accident any time.

The transformer receives 100kv electricity from the national grid’s supply line and later it is converted into 440-volt after undergoing process and

supplying it to consumers, the PDB sources said.

If anyone touches any part of the risky transformer out of curiosity, he might be electrocuted and sparks might lead to a devastating fire, they assumed.

As per the PDB rule, such a transformer must be installed on electric poles, at least 10 feet above the ground with special protective arrangements.

The transformer had broken down four months ago, and has been replaced with another one installed on a pole, locals said.

Since then, the PDB employees did not repair the transformer, putting lives of thousands of people at risk.

Locals said they were worried as the new transformer often send out sparks of electricity during the rainy season.

Every day, thousands of people, including school-going students and patients, go along the road, said Elius

Uddin, a resident of the area.

“I am especially anxious for school children who can touch the risky transformer’s cage as they are not aware of its danger,” said school teacher Shamima Akter, also a resident of the area.

Councilor of ward no 3 Hanif Uddin Ahmed Ranak said he had informed the PDB officials about the matter, but no results had come yet.

PDB officials said they had installed the transformer on the ground as a temporary basis, as the earlier transformer had been stolen from the poles around four months ago.

“We will bring a new transformer from the Dhaka divisional office immediately,” said an official preferring to be unnamed.

Ubaidul Islam, executive engineer of the PDB Kishoreganj, said: “I have joined here around three months back, but I have not been informed about the matter. l

College student ‘commits suicide’

Khokan said the factory was only being constructed. It would begin operations after receiving permission from the Department of Environment (DoE).

Senior Technician of Rajshahi Divisional DoE Mir Kashem said related permission papers had been submitted and the factory would get approval soon.

However, Director of Rajshahi Divisional DoE Ali Reza Mazid said, if the locals do not approve of the factory, then it would not be permitted to operate.

Aditmari Upazila Nirbahi Officer Rezaul Alam Sarker said administrative action would only be taken if the factory continued operating without any legal documents. l

n Tribune Report

A college student reportedly committed suicide in Ranibazar area of the city on Wednesday.

The deceased Shakawat Hossain, 22, was a honours second year student of a local college.

Police said he was living at “Rajdhani Tower Hostel’ in the area.

Housemaid of the dormitory informed the authorities concerned of not getting any response from his room despite repeated knocking as she went there to supply his meal.

Later, police recovered Shakawat’s body by breaking open the door. l

GOVERNMENT OF THE PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC OF BANGLADESH OFFICE OF THE CHIEF ENGINEER HEALTH ENGINEERING DEVELOPMENT (HED) MINISTRY OF THE HEALTH AND FAMILY WELFARE 105-106, MOTIJHEEL C/A, DHAKA-1000.

Memo No HED/HPNSDP/GOB/10 Bed/Tender-127/2014/435

Dated: 06/02/2014

Invitation for Tender (IFT) Sealed tenders are hereby invited from among the eligible tenderers for construction of Gandail 10 bed Mother & Child Welfare Centre (MCWC). The details of the tender are shown in the table below 1

Ministry

Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MOHFW)

2

Agency

Health Engineering Department (HED)

3

Procuring Entity Name

Health Engineering Department (HED) , Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.

4

Procuring Entity Code

None

5

Procuring Entity District

Dhaka

6

Invitation for

Works

7

Invitation Ref No

Memo No.45.177.014.71.00.00.039.2011.13

8 Date KEY INFORMATION

12.01.2014

9 Procurement Method FUNDING INFORMATION

Open Tendering Method (National)

10

Budget and Source of Funds

11 Development Partners PARTICULAR INFORMATION

GOB Development None

12

Project/Programme Code

5-2701-5480

13

Project/Programme Name

Health, Population & Nutrition Sector Development Program (HPNSDP)

14

Tender Package No

WP-579/SDP (GOB)-HED, WP-586/SDP(GOB)-HED, WP-616/SDP (GOB)HED, WP-621/SDP (GOB)-HED & WP-622/SDP (GOB)-HED.

15

Tender Package Name

Construction of 10 Bed Mother & Child Welfare Centre (MCWC).

16

Tender Publication Date

09.02.2014

17

Tender Last Selling date and Time

Date: 10.03.2014 Time: 16.00 hours.

18

Tender Closing Date and Time

Date: 11.03.2014 Time: 13.00 hours.

19

Tender Opening Date and Time

Date: 11.03.2014 Time: 13.30 hours.

20

Name & Address of the office(s) for Selling Tender i. Health Engineering Department, Head Office, 105-106, Motijheel C/A Documents Dhaka-1000. ii. Office of the Director General, Directorate of Family Planning, 6, Kawran Bazar, Dhaka. iii. Office of the Divisional Commissioner, Dhaka/Barisal Division. iv. Office of the Superintending Engineer, HED, Circle-4. v. Office of the Executive Engineer, HED, Barisal Division.

21

Name and address of the office for receiving Tender i. Health Engineering Department, Head Office, 105-106, Motijheel C/A Documents Dhaka-1000. ii. Office of the Director General, Directorate of Family Planning, 6, Kawran Bazar, Dhaka. iii. Office of the Divisional Commissioner, Dhaka Division.

22

Name and Address of the office for Opening Ten- Health Engineering Department, Head Office, 105-106, Motijheel C/A Dhaders ka-1000.

23 Place/date/Time of Pre-Tender Meeting (Optional) Not Applicable.

INFORMATION FOR TENDERER

24 25 26 27

Local people form a human chain in Gopalganj town yesterday, demanding capital punishment to the killers of schoolboy Saddam

Eligibility of Tenderers Brief Description of Works Brief Description of Physical Services Price of Tender Document (Tk)

DHAKA TRIBUNE

Judge crisis hits Lalmonirhat court n Our Correspondent, Lalmonirhat

Around 4,800 criminal cases have piled up in Lalmonirhat court because of a shortage of judges for the last two months. With only two judges present at the court, many of petitions filed by deprived citizens from various villages have remained shelved because of the workload.

Sources from the court said eight out

of ten posts for judges have remained vacant for the last two months. Only two judges, the chief judicial magistrate and senior judicial magistrate, have been running the court till now. The vacant positions for judges include the district and session judge, joint district judges and judicial magistrates.

“We have been roaming the court premises for the last two months, but our cases are yet to be heard due to

the shortage of judges,” said Meherun Bewa, a resident of Patgram in Hatibandha upazila.

Most petitioners complain they are now suffering as the sluggish condition of the court has cost them more money and time.

Meanwhile, lawyers at the court have complained that they find no work as most cases are pending because of the shortage of judges. l

NEWS IN BRIEF 10 shops gutted in Barguna At least 10 shops were gutted by a fire that broke out at a local market in Sadar upazila of the district early Wednesday.

Locals said the fire originated from a solar mobile phone charger at a shop at Chhoto Gourichanna Mirer Haat in the upazila around 3:30am and it soon engulfed nine other adjoining shops.

They doused the blaze after one hour of frantic efforts before a firefighting unit came to the spot. The extent of losses from the fire was estimated at Tk60 lakh. – UNB

Three held with Phensidyl in Kurigram Police in a drive arrested three alleged drug peddlers, including two women, along with 120 bottles of Indian Phendyl syrup at Sabujpara village in Chilmari upazila on Wednesday. The arrestees were identified

as Lavlu and his aunts Jarina and Sufia Akhter Rekha, of the village. Chilmari Police Station officer-in-charge M Nurul Islam said a team of police, on a tip-off, raided the house of drug trader Koka Miah, husband of both Jarina and Sufia, at the village around 4pm and arrested them along with the drugs. The four have been involved in drugs trading for long at the village, added the OC. However, Koka managed to flee the scene sensing the presence of law enforcers. – UNB

Smuggled goods seized in Joypurhat Members of Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB), Joypurhat seized huge smuggled goods worth about Tk20 lakh from frontier areas of the district during anti-smuggling drives in last two days. In the drives BGB seized 296 bottles of phensidyl, 163 pieces of saris, 332-kg cumin seeds and others

illegal goods. A special anti-smuggling team of BGB conducted the drives in the area and seized the illegal goods, BGB sources said. – UNB

Free plastic surgery and eye camps in Faridpur A 10-day free plastic surgery and an eye camp sponsored jointly by a local voluntary service organisation Faridpur Welfare Foundation and Holland based Dokters van de Wereld will begin here from February11. According to FWF sources, the free camps will begin here at Faridpur General Hospital, the registration of the patients till February 8 and the operable patients will be selected on February 9. In the eye camp the poor patients will be operated upon for implanting Intra Ocular Lens. The patients with congenital cleft lip, cleft palate and also of burn injury will be operated during the camp. – BSS

28 Sl No.

QUALIFICATION INFORMATION: Identification of Name of work (Location) Package No

1

WP-579/SDP (GOB)-HED

As mentioned in Tender Document As mentioned in Tender Document As mentioned in Tender Document Non refundable BD Tk. 2000.00 (Taka two thousand) only in the form of pay order or bank draft in favour of Chief Engineer, HED, dhaka from any schedule bank of Bangladesh for the Package of works.

Tender Security (Taka in Lac)

The minimam amount of liquid assets or working capital or credit facilities of the Tenderer shall be (Taka in Lac)

Required average annual construction turn over shall be greater than over the last 5 (five) years (Taka in Lac) Tk 480.00

CompleLeast value tion time of works as specific experience successfully completed during last 5 (five) years (Taka in Lac)

Construction of Shekherhat 10 bed Tk 11.00 Tk 110.00 Tk 300.00 15 Month Mother & Child Welfare Centre at Sadar Upazila in Jhalokathi District.

Tk 11.00 Tk 110.00 Tk 480.00 Tk 300.00 15 Month 2 WP-586/SDP Construction of Kakordha 10 bed (GOB)-HED Mother & Child Welfare Centre at Faridpur Union of Bakergonj Upazila in Barisal District.

Tk 11.00 Tk 110.00 Tk 480.00 Tk 300.00 15 Month 3 WP-616/SDP Construction of Dakhin Digoldi (GOB)-HED (Banglabazar) 10 bed Mother & Child Welfare Centre at sadar Upazila in Bhola District.

Tk 11.00 Tk 110.00 Tk 480.00 Tk 300.00 15 Month 4 WP-621/SDP Construction of Baherchar 10 bed (GOB)-HED Mother & Child Welfare Centre at Babugonj Upazila in Barisal District.

Tk 11.00 Tk 110.00 Tk 480.00 Tk 300.00 15 Month 5 WP-622/SDP Construction of Kunjerhat 10 bed (GOB)-HED Mother & Child Welfare Centre at Borhanuddin Upazila in Bhola District.

PROCURING ENTITY DETAILS 29 Name of Official Inviting Tender S M Hayder Faruque 30 Designation of Official Inviting Tender Executive Engineer, Health Engineering Department (HED) 31 Address of Official Inviting Tender 105-106, Motijheel C/A Dhaka-1000.

32 Contact details of Official Inviting Tender i. Telephone No.: 02-9587604 ii. Fax No : 88-02-9587601 iii. e-Mail sddress : hedhq@yahoo.com 33 Special Instructions i. All submitted must be signed by the Tenderer or his authorised representative.

If not signed, it will be treated as Non-Responsive. ii. In case of Submitting Tenders by Post/courier Service must reach in the offices at Sl. 21 within the time as mentioned in Sl. no. 18. iii. Issuance of NOA/Contract Agreement is subjected to approval of competent authority. iv. The Procuring Entity reserves the right to reject all Tender prior to acceptance without assigning any reason whatsoever.

DG-15/14 (16″x4C)

S M Hayder Faruque Executive Engineer Health Engineering Department

DHAKA TRIBUNE

Long Form

Friday, February 7, 2014

7

Truth crushed to earth

F

n Garga Chatterjee

or the West Bengali bhadralok (or whatever remains of them), East Bengal continues to represent vastly different things to different people: a Muslim-majority country now called Bangladesh, an audacious dream of ethnic pride and secularism, a land vaguely and culturally similar but distant in imagination, some of their forefather’s homeland, the place where cyclones aimed at West Bengal finally end up, a previous hub of ISI activity, the place of origin of the wondrous Ilish fish, etc. The list goes on.

While every West Bengali’s attitude towards East Bengal/Bangladesh is formed from one or more such memories and connotations, many of these have a limited acceptability in standard discourse, particularly in public expression. That does not make them any less potent, however, and forces their manifestation only under very particular instances. I have a personal anecdote from March 17, 2007 about this.

Cricket in South Asia is not a game; it is serious business, and a regular metaphor for war. Cricket has been used as an acid test for loyalty to one’s country

That day Bangladesh scored its historic win over India in the World Cup cricket match. I must admit that I am no big cricket fan. That day, I watched the Bangladesh-India game in an undergraduate house at Harvard University. With India being indisputable favourites, the Bangladeshi team was expected to take a beating.

Since live telecasts of cricket matches are not available on cable TV, the Harvard Cricket Club folks, comprised primarily of Indians had bought a special subscription.

Watching along with me were two East Bengali friends. If truth be told, I only watched the Bangladesh innings

because I could not wake up in time for the Indian innings after a late night’s work.

Regardless, while I was happy that West Bengal’s own Sourav Ganguly, the Indian team’s former captain, was in the process of scoring the highest number of runs for the Indian side, I was not very happy with the Indian total. But slowly, perhaps as I became more and more caught up in the action on the field, that reaction changed.

With Bangladesh starting to dominate, I felt the first of many alarm bells going off in my head. India supporters were cursing the Indian team for its poor performance. But as the direction of the game became increasingly obvious, I did not really see the coming defeat as my own.

In fact, I was busy asking somewhat quietly and ashamedly questions about the Bangladeshi team: Oi batsman tar nam ki (what’s the name of that batsman)? By the time the match was nearing its end, I looked happy at the outcome. This led to a few strange stares.

Nonetheless, it did all feel a bit odd.

My cheers, after all, were not really for good cricket. Forbidden preferences were having a free ride to strange destinations.

After the game ended, the general ambience in the room was distinctly dark. But I found that my own mood was not part of the gloom. My East Bengali friends treated me to a pint of beer, and I learned about the “pola” who really was “aguner e gola.”

As I walked home that evening, I felt a nagging confusion – not about the anger of the Indians, nor about their reaction to my cheers for Bangladesh. Rather, of my own change of heart. A side of me had opened up that had more space for preferences than I had imagined.

It is an easy call, perhaps, when Ganguly is on the team – he is an Indian Bengali. But more generally? In the games to come, would I continue to root for the Bangladeshi team?

And what did this opening mean for India-Pakistan matches to come?

The way my reaction had publicly changed during the course of the game would have been inconceivable had I been watching the match anywhere within India or Bangladesh. The split self that I harbour and which, I believe, many others do as well, does not have a legitimate space for expression in any but the most liberal of establishments in the subcontinent. But such dual identities remain within us, deep down in our hearts, where politically correct stances and obeisance to national symbols cannot cast a shadow.

Ethnicity is a category, as is identi-

SYED ZAKIR HOSSAIN

fication with a nation state. However, these two differ in one important aspect. A nation state demands explicit loyalty, and de-legitimises everything else. In its eyes, those who balk at this explicit parade of fidelity are parasites at best and traitors at worst, loyal to another nation state.

The kind of fealty that ethnicity proposes, I like to believe, is at once more organic and primordial than that demanded by the nation state. In most cases, the loyalties to ethnicity and to nation state do not come into specific conflict with one another. But the varying degrees of distance between the two can be mapped as a continuum.

On the one hand is the Naga, for instance, who has no nation state but is held within an all-consuming one, which goes to repressive lengths to extract explicit loyalty. At the same

SYED ZAKIR HOSSAIN

time there is the Hindi belt, an area that can explicitly declare its unflinching loyalty, as the points of declaration in its case do not interfere with claims of ethnicity.

The Hindi belt is to the localities the natural claimant of the spot where the Indian pulse is to be felt, something that the rest of India only grudgingly acknowledges.

West Bengal is an interesting case in this regard, falling somewhere in the middle of this continuum. Together with the explicit declaration of loyalty to the Indian nation state, we find here a vague understanding and acknowledgement of ethnic kinship with Bangladeshis. But of course, almost all Hindu West Bengalis would balk at a declaration of loyalty to the nation state of Bangladesh. And so the split self remains masked.

Even among West Bengalis there would be a continuum of the exact extent to which this kinship is felt, irrespective of loyalty to the state of India. It is an interesting and open question: How does the barrier between Muslim and Hindu West Bengalis differ from that between West Bengali Hindus and East Bengali Muslims?

For that matter, can any such difference be attributed to allegiance to India? Would the dynamics of West Bengali loyalty to India change if Bangladesh were not a state that bore the primacy of Islam in its Constitution? Further, was the nature of association of Hindu West Bengalis any different in the heady days of 1971 and in the early months of 1972?

Would it be any different if Bangladesh had continued to be a strong pluralist secular democracy from where minorities do not continually flee from oppression by the religious majority?

Days later, the Bangladeshi team defeated South Africa, the world’s top-ranked squad, doing much to demonstrate that their win against India was not a fluke. West Bengal’s largest-circulating Bangla daily,

Anandabazar Patrika, carried huge headlines trumpeting, “Bengalis stun the world’s best.” I had guilt-less happiness - my conscience perhaps cleared by India’s elimination.

Cricket in South Asia is not a game; it is serious business, and a regular metaphor for war. Cricket has been used as an acid test for loyalty to one’s country. In general, it does not leave much space to reach across and support the neighbours. But primitive loyalties know no political frontiers, however strong the efforts of South Asian states to seek out exclusive loyalties.

Rather, this more guttural type of devotion inevitably finds its own space in private imagination; crossborder organic connections, after all, predate the nation-state centric Southasian political landscape, not to mention cricket itself. But what can be used as a tool to solidify loyalty to a nation state can also act as an avenue of private, almost unconscious, subversion. Because the relationship between a country and its citizens has been moulded into one of either loyalty or defiance, this process inevitably comes with guilt.

But can we not imagine beyond this? If political identities in South Asia are largely imagined, then forceful transnational identities are potent triggers for an organic re-imagining of the region. Guilt makes the private dissident crave legitimacy, for intimate alternative identities do not like suppression.

The dissident can only hope that organic continuities will eventually make states negotiate with transnational loyalties, with the audacious hope that such negotiations will be obligatory to the long-term survival of present-day nation states in South Asia. We can hope along the lines in the New Testament of the Christians: “Truth crushed to earth will rise again.” l Garga Chatterjee is a freelance contributor.

He can be followed on twitter @gargac.

8

DHAKA TRIBUNE

International

Friday, February 7, 2014

Putin aide accuses US of funding Ukraine rebels n AFP, Kiev

Anti-government protesters holding shields and battons march around the Ukrainian Parliament in Kiev

Ukraine protest leader probed over ‘state overthrow bid’ n AFP, Kiev Ukrainian opposition leader and former interior minister Yuriy Lutsenko has said the country’s security services are investigating him for an alleged attempt to “overthrow the state.”

Lutsenko, a close ally of jailed pro-Western former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko, is a key figure in the protest movement locked in a twomonth confrontation with Ukraine’s President Viktor Yanukovych.

“Today I received notice from the SBU security service about a case against me over ‘an attempt to overthrow the constitutional state’,” Lutsenko said in remarks published on his official website late Wednesday.

He said the investigation was linked to a call he made for the creation of an alternative parliament to be estab-

lished under the name People’s Rada.

If convicted the 49-year-old politician, who spent two years in jail before bing released last year under Western pressure, could serve up to five years in prison.

No official confirmation of the investigation was immediately available.

The security service declined comment.

However, the Ukrainska Pravda news website published a letter from Ukraine’s security services asking media to hand over video of Lutsenko at a January 22 protest in Kiev.

Ukraine’s opposition wants parliament, dominated by the ruling party, to amend the constitution to introduce curbs on presidential power.

Protests erupted in November after Yanukovych rejected an association agreement with the European Union

AFP

under pressure from the Kremlin and the ensuing unrest has claimed several lives.

Last month, Lutsenko was hospitalised with concussion after being injured in clashes between police and protesters outside a court where demonstrators had been sentenced.

At the time he spoke to riot police and tried to persuade them to change sides.

“You’re protecting with your bodies the gang who robbed the country.

You used to be the country’s pride, but there’s mafia behind your backs now,” he said.

Lutsenko was convicted of arranging illegal work-related benefits for his chauffeur and jailed for four years in 2012.

He was pardoned by Yanukovych under EU pressure last year. l

An advisor to Russian President Vladimir Putin accused Washington on Thursday of financing and arming Ukrainian militants as a senior US official arrived for crisis talks in Kiev.

Putin’s economic advisor Sergei Glazyev, often seen as the Kremlin’s pointman on Ukraine, also suggested that Russia had legal grounds to intervene in the two-month-old crisis, describing the situation at attempted coup.

“According to our information, American sources spend $20 million a week on financing the opposition and rebels, including on weapons,” he said in a wide-ranging interview with the Ukrainian edition of Russian broadsheet Kommersant published Thursday.

“We have information that the militants are briefed on the territory of the US embassy, that they are being armed.

Of course it is unacceptable, this has to be looked into,” he said.

Glazyev also indicated that Russia had legal grounds to intervene in the crisis, referring to the so-called Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances dating back to 1994.

“According to this document, Russia and the United States are guarantors

n Reuters, Sochi United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said on Thursday he was confident Syria would meet a June 30 deadline to eliminate its entire chemical weapons program under a US-Russian plan. Syria has missed a February 5 deadline to hand over its stockpile of chemical weapons, prompting fears it could fail to fulfil on time the plan which helped avert a US-led missile

Syria rebels launch Aleppo campaign, bombing toll hits 257

n

n

French Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said on Thursday the United Nations would probably have to renew a French mandate for French troops to restore order in Central African Republic when it expires in May. France deployed 1,600 troops there in December to try to stem violence between Christian militias and largely Muslim Seleka rebels who ousted President Francois Bozize last March. Catherine Samba-Panza, the interim president, says she hopes to restore order within a month, though Human Rights Watch has warned Seleka fighters who fled the capital Bangui have regrouped in the northeast and begun attacks on civilians.

Government soldiers lynched a man in the capital on Wednesday whom they suspected of having been a rebel, underscoring security concerns in a country that plans to hold elections in February next year. Asked during an RTL radio interview whether France’s six-month UN mandate, granted on December 5, would have to be renewed, Le Drian said: “Probably.”

The defence minister said that the French mission helped ease tensions and that the situation was improving day by day. l

Egypt army chief Sisi says he will run for president n Reuters, Cairo Egyptian army chief Field Marshal Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, who deposed the country’s first freely elected leader, has said he will run for president, a Kuwaiti newspaper reported on Thursday.

The widely expected move is almost certain to increase political tensions and anger Islamist militants who have stepped up attacks on the state since Sisi ousted Islamist president Mohamed Morsi in July after mass protests against him.

It will also deepen concerns that military men will again dominate Egypt after a 2011 popular uprising raised hopes of a civilian democracy.

The newspaper, Al-Seyassah, quoted Sisi as saying in an interview that he had no alternative but to meet the wishes of the Egyptian people for him to run. l

AFP, Beirut

A coalition of Syrian rebels announced a new military operation in Aleppo province on Thursday, where more than 250 people have been killed in regime barrel bomb attacks since Saturday.

The Islamic Front – a huge alliance grouping tens of thousands of rebels – and the jihadist Al-Nusra Front announced an operation dubbed “Truthful Promise Approaches,” the name a reference to a passage in the Quran.

“All military fighters in bases must go to the frontlines or they will be questioned and held accountable,” the

groups said in a statement.

It asked residents of “occupied areas” to stay away from government checkpoints and bases, saying they would be targeted.

The announcement comes as the Syrian army seeks to take territory in the rebel-held eastern part of Aleppo city.

Troops are moving from areas around Aleppo international airport after recapturing territory nearby and reopening it to air traffic.

The ground campaign has been accompanied by six consecutive days of aerial attacks involving explosive-packed barrel bombs dropped

The parties in Ukraine’s deadlocked parliament agreed on Thursday to try to draft a joint bill on constitutional amendments that could be put to a vote as early as next week, the speaker said.

Opposition leaders, backed by protesters in the streets, want a return to a constitution enacted in 2004 that would move substantial powers over the government from the president to parliament - a proposal rejected by President Viktor Yanukovich and his supporters, who have had a majority in the legislature.

Speaker Volodymyr Rybak, from Yanukovich’s Party of the Regions, said leaders of the parliamentary groups would meet in committee with himself and representatives of the president with the aim of producing a bill within the next few days. “Next week, we should take a decision - maybe on Tuesday, Wednesday - to consider this draft law,” he told lawmakers.

Party loyalties in the 450-seat, single-chamber parliament have been fluid. It remains unclear that a consensus can be found to change the constitution or that the opposition can rally a majority to push through the amendments it wants. l

Syria can meet June 30 chemical weapons deadline: UN chief

Minister: France likely to extend mission in Central African Republic Reuters, Paris

of Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, and frankly speaking they are obliged to intervene when such conflicts arise.”

The memorandum was signed after Ukraine demanded security guarantees in connection with its accession to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.

The Kremlin advisor also accused the Ukrainian government as well as the opposition and Western powers of peddling lies and distorting reality.

“What is happening in Kiev is described well in Ukrainian legislation – this is an attempted coup, an attempt to overthrow the authorities by force.”

“The situation is schizophrenic because for some reason everyone is afraid of calling a spade a spade.”

“The West calls terrorists and putschists ‘activists’ (and) tries to present them as peaceful demonstrators even though everyone sees how they attack police and hurl Molotov cocktails at them, prepare napalm, and arm themselves.”

“The paradox of a schizophrenic state is that it is comfortable with the sides lying to each other and they do not want to reach agreement before catastrophe strikes.” l

Ukraine parliament to work on constitution bill n Reuters, Kiev

from army helicopters.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Thursday that at least 257 people have been killed in barrel bomb attacks on eastern Aleppo since Saturday, including 11 on Thursday.

The dead include at least 76 children, according to the Britain-based group. Hundreds more have been wounded in the raids using the controversial unguided munitions, which have been condemned by rights groups as indiscriminate.

The heavy casualty toll has sparked a mass exodus from the worst-hit neighbourhoods in the east of the city. l

strike against President Bashar al-Assad’s government.

“About these chemical weapons, I believe the process has been moving on rather smoothly even though there have been some delays,” Ban told reporters after addressing a meeting of the International Olympic Committee in the Russian city of Sochi.

“Our target is June 30 this year. This may be a very tight target, but I believe that it can be done with the full sup-

port of the Syrian government,” said Ban, who will attend the opening of the Winter Olympics in Sochi on Friday.

The agreement on the destruction of Syria’s chemical weapons was reached after a sarin gas attack near Damascus last year killed hundreds of civilians.

Damascus blames delays in implementation of the plan on security problems and the threat of rebel attacks as the weapons are transported out of Syria. l

US condemns Syria regime barrel bomb raids n Agencies US Secretary of State John Kerry has hit out the “brutality” of the Syrian regime of President Bashar al-Assad for its sustained barrel bomb campaign. In a written statement released on Tuesday, Kerry said use of the bombs was reminding the world of the Assad regime’s “true colours.”

“It is the latest barbaric act of a regime that has committed organized, wholesale torture, used chemical weapons, and is starving whole communities by blocking delivery of food to Syrian civilians in urgent need,” the statement read.

More than 150 people have been

killed in Syria’s onetime economic hub and second city over the past four days, in a string of barrel bomb raids and other air strikes, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

At least eight people, including five children, were the latest victims killed on Tuesday when Syrian army helicopters unleashed a new wave of the bombs which Kerry said were “filled with metal shrapnel and fuel.”

The bombs hit a mosque, which the Aleppo media centre said was being used as a school. On Monday, 30 people were killed in barrel bomb attacks and other air strikes, among them 13 children and three women, the Observatory said. l

Prostitution museum opens in Amsterdam’s red-light zone n AFP, Amsterdam

Iraqi Women protest outside Abu Gharib prison over the treatment of their relatives while detained REUTERS

Iraq slammed for women prisoners abuse n Agencies Iraqi authorities are detaining thousands of women illegally and subjecting many to torture and ill-treatment, including the threat of sexual abuse, Human Rights Watch has said.

Many women were detained for months or even years without charge before seeing a judge, HRW said in a report on Thursday, and security forces often questioned them about their male relatives’ activities, rather than crimes they themselves were believed to have committed.

In custody, women described being kicked, slapped, hung upside-down and beaten on the soles of their feet, given electric shocks, threatened with sexual assault by security forces during interrogation, and even raped in front of their relatives and children.

“The abuses of women we documented are in many ways at the heart of the current crisis in Iraq,” said HRW’s deputy Middle East and North Africa director Joe Stork in a statement accompanying the report, ‘No One Is Safe’: Abuses of Women in Iraq’s Criminal Justice System. l

Amsterdam’s red-light district opened its first “prostitution museum” on Thursday, hoping to lure tourists who always wondered what life was like for those on the other side of the infamous glass windows – but were too afraid to ask.

“How do they live? What happens in their world?” said Melcher de Wind, a founder of the “Red Light Secrets Museum of Prostitution” which showcases one of the Dutch capital’s most famous attractions.

“I have always wondered what really happens behind those neighbourhood windows.”

Nestled between two famous brothels overlooking a canal, the new attraction seeks to offer something different to nearby museums on the subject such as the Sex Museum or the Museum of Eroticism.

“The other museums focus on sex and sexual performance. The new museum gives you a glimpse into the world of sex workers – what it feels like to stand behind a window and the looks you get,” explained Yolanda van Doeveren, who deals with prostitution for the Amsterdam municipality.

“Maybe tourists will get a chance to change their behaviour and show a little more respect,” she added.

Inside the small museum, a large television screen shows a woman performing a strip-tease. Visitors are then shown a film about the other side of prostitution – women with families living everyday lives.

There are exhibits showing how both fashions and attitudes towards the world’s

oldest profession have changed over the centuries. Visitors are shown a display of the tools of the trade – condoms, lubricants and sex toys – based on the experiences of former prostitute Ilonka Stakelborough who advised the museum.

Prostitution in the Netherlands was legalised in 2000 and there are now around 7,000 people working in the industry in Amsterdam.

Around three-quarters of the women come from low-income countries, mainly from Eastern Europe, according to Amsterdam municipality figures.

They pay 150 euros ($202) to hire one of Amsterdam’s 409 “frames,” which comes with a chair in front and a bed at the back.

Many women work 11 hours a day, six days a week with a visit to a prostitute lasting around 10 minutes.

The museum depicts BDSM (bondage, domination, sado-masochism) practices, and also features a “luxury” room with mirrored ceilings, a bed lit from below, and a bathtub next to an open bottle of champagne.

By way of contrast, there is a small room with barely space for a single bed that was used by a Polish prostitute when she was not with clients.

“We want to show all aspects of prostitution,” Stakelborough told AFP. “Yes, there are women who are victims of human trafficking, but prostitution is mostly a career many women volunteer for.” l

DHAKA TRIBUNE

International

9

Friday, February 7, 2014

Big Pharma pushes for US action against India n Reuters, Mumbai/London

well as infections - is expected to be worth $22-32 billion by 2017, which would rank it as the 11th largest globally, according to IMS Health.

“Any obstruction or action by the US government can have a very adverse impact on the trade relations between the two countries,” said D.H. Pai Panandiker, president of New Delhi-based RPG Foundation, an economic think-tank.

“So, both sides will be cautious, but to protect their own interests they won’t hesitate to take actions under the WTO (World Trade Organisation) provisions.”

In 2012, India issued its first ever compulsory license to domestic drugmaker Natco Pharma Ltd on a kidney and liver cancer drug, Nexavar, patented by Germany’s Bayer AG, in a move that it had said endangered pharmaceutical research.

AstraZeneca Plc last month decided to shut its R&D centre in Bangalore citing broader global business strategy. Some analysts expect a few other global drugmakers to pare R&D spending given the uncertainty about the patent regime.

“If the authorities are going haywire and looking to grant compulsory licenses lock, stock and barrel, in that event you will lose the credibility in India as a system,” Meet Hariani, managing partner at Mumbai-based law firm Hariani & Co, said.

“You are going to see much more litigation on this issue. People are going to be unwilling to introduce new drugs in the market,” he said. “You can’t expect to get a new drug at a price of an aspirin.” l

Global pharmaceutical firms are pressuring the United States to act against India to stop more local companies producing up to a dozen new varieties of cheap generic drugs still on-patent, sources with direct knowledge of the matter said.

An Indian government committee is reviewing patented drugs of foreign firms to see if so-called compulsory licenses, which in effect break exclusivity rights, can be issued for some of them to bring down costs, two senior government officials told Reuters.

The drugs that are part of the review process are used for treating cancer, diabetes, hepatitis and HIV, said the sources, declining to give details. No timeline has been given for completion of the review process.

Emerging markets, from South Africa to China and India, are battling to bring down healthcare costs and boost access to drugs to treat diseases such as cancer, HIV/AIDS and hepatitis.

Western drug makers, including Pfizer Inc, Novartis AG, Roche Holding AG and Sanofi SA, covet a bigger share of the fast-growing drugs market in India.

But they have been frustrated by a series of decisions on patents and pricing, as part of New Delhi’s push to increase access to life-saving treatments where only 15% of 1.2 billion people are covered by health insurance.

India is currently on the US government’s Priority Watch List - countries whose practices on protecting intellectual property Washington believes should be monitored closely.

The US industry trade group Phar-

maceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) believes Washington should take a tougher line by downgrading it to a Priority Foreign Country, a classification for the worst offenders, which may trigger possible actions, sources said.

“The multinational companies are exploring all options - from paring their investments in the country to forcing the US to take some actions,” said a source in New Delhi, who is directly involved in the situation.

“Companies feel something should be done at the earliest to check the violations of their intellectual property in the country. They want government-to-government pressure to change things,” he said.

All the sources declined to be named due to sensitivity of the matter.

A PhRMA representative declined to comment.

If India gets relegated by the United States to Priority Foreign Country level, it will join Ukraine as the second country in that segment. Countries in the Priority Watch List include China, Indonesia, Pakistan, Russia, Thailand and Argentina.

“PhRMA makes submissions to the US government every year on trade issues but this year they really want to ratchet up the pressure on India,” said one executive with a multinational drug company.

PhRMA is currently drawing up a submission to the US government ahead of a Friday deadline for filing concerns about countries to be included in the so-called Special 301 Report, which is prepared annually by the Office of the United States

India registers drop in number of poor n AP

India eases visa rules to Pakistani govt and Taliban begin boost tourism talks as suicide attacks continue

The number of Indians living below the official poverty line has dropped by 34% between a census carried out in 2004-05 and another in 2011-12, a news report quoted government data as saying.

According to the latest survey by India’s Planning Commission, “the number of persons living below the poverty line in the country has declined from 40.74 crore [407.4 million] in 2004-05 to 27 crore [270 million] in 2011-12,” junior Minister for Planning Rajeev Shukla told parliament, staterun Doordarshan television reported on Wednesday.

The commission set the official poverty line in 2004-05 at a monthly per capita spending rate of 447 rupees (about $7.14) for rural areas and 579 ($9.25) rupees for urban areas. In 20112012 it was 816 rupees ($13.04) for rural areas and 1,000 rupees ( $15.98) in urban areas.

According to the latest data, the largest number of the poor lived in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh. l

n Agencies Tourists travelling to India from 180 countries will no longer have to queue at their local consulates to obtain visas after New Delhi announced an “historic” overhaul of its strict visa regime.

Most foreigners currently have to wait several weeks before learning whether they will be allowed to enter India after submitting their applications at visa processing centres, a major deterrent for potential visitors.

Under the new scheme, many tourists will be allowed to apply online and then receive the green light within five days, before picking up their visa at the airport on arrival into India. “We have decided to extend the visa-on-arrival facility to tourists from 180 nations,” Federal Planning Minister Rajiv Shukla told reporters in the capital late on Wednesday.

WIKI

Trade Representative.

Making medicines cheaper is a politically sensitive issue in India where many patented drugs are too costly for most people, 40% of whom earn less than $1.25 a day, and where patented drugs account for under 10% of total drug sales. Picking a fight with an emerging economy like India, where millions of people cannot afford basic healthcare, will not

“The facility will provide a major boost to the country’s tourism sector.

This is historic,” Shukla said.

Visitors from countries which account for the bulk of India’s tourists - such as the United States, Britain and France - that have had to go through the time-consuming process of applying in person will be among those to benefit from the changes to regulations.

Citizens from eight countries including Pakistan, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka and Iraq have not been included in the changes for security reasons.

A meeting of top foreign ministry, tourism and other government officials on Wednesday cleared the way for the changes, which were also recently approved by India’s intelligence agencies.

India currently issues visas on arrival to visitors from 11 foreign nations, including Japan, Finland and Indonesia. l

be easy and without risks.

The industry has recently run into fierce controversy in South Africa for taking on Pretoria over its plans to overhaul patent laws to favour cheaper generic drugs, leading some executives to urge a softer approach.

“I don’t believe there is any need for any kind of more assertive stance.

This is a situation where constructive engagement is the way forward,”

n Agencies A long-awaited first round of peace talks between the Pakistani government and Taliban has begun in Islamabad after numerous delays and growing doubt over the chance of their success, sources said.

The two sides met on Thursday for a preliminary meeting likely to chart a “road map” for future discussions, amid deep scepticism over whether dialogue can yield a lasting peace deal.

The peace initiative, which Sharif announced just as many were anticipating a major military offensive on Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) strongholds in North Waziristan tribal area, got off to a chaotic start earlier this week.

The government delegation

missed the planned opening meeting on Tuesday saying they were unsure of who was representing the TTP at the talks and what powers they had been given.

Pakistani Taliban insurgents have been battling for years to topple the central government and establish strict Islamic rule, but Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif believes the movement is now ready to find a negotiated settlement and stop the fighting.

Underlining the fragile security situation, a suicide bomber on Tuesday killed eight people in a sectarian attack against minority Shiite Muslims in the northwestern city of Peshawar, just hours after the abortive start to the talks.

The main TTP spokesman denied they were behind the blast but a commander for the group in Peshawar told

AFP his men were responsible, saying no ceasefire had been announced.

Stability in nuclear-armed Pakistan is seen as important to neighbouring Afghanistan, where US-led NATO troops are pulling out after more than a decade of war.

Washington has said it is watching the talks closely. It has long been pushing Pakistan to take action against militants using the tribal areas as a base to attack NATO forces across the border.

One of the TTP’s negotiating team, Maulana Abdul Aziz, told AFP on Wednesday there was no chance of peace unless the government agreed to the militants’ demand for Islamic sharia law to be imposed throughout Pakistan.

The government has insisted that Pakistan’s constitution must remain paramount. l

Rights groups urge Malaysia to stop ‘secretive execution’

North Korea says B-52 run imperils family reunions n Reuters, Seoul A nuclear-capable US B-52 bomber sortie over South Korea has endangered plans for reunions between families from the North and South of the country and risks triggering a further escalation of military tension, North Korea said on Thursday.

North Korea said a flight by the nuclear-capable B-52 took place off the west coast of the Korean peninsula on Wednesday.

A US military spokeswoman said she could not discuss details of specific missions, adding: “The US Pacific Command has maintained a rotational strategic bomber presence in the region for more than a decade.”

A South Korean military source told the Yonhap news agency that the flight was a training sortie involving a single aircraft. The North’s National Defence Commission, the country’s top military body, said in a statement read on state television, that it was a rehearsal for a nuclear attack.

“At the time when the agreement was made on reunions of separated families and relatives at Panmunjom, a formation of US B-52 strategic bombers from Guam was carrying out nuclear strike practices all day over Korea’s west sea, aiming at us,” a spokesman for the Commission was quoted as saying.

In a rare confidence-building move, the two Koreas agreed on Wednesday, in talks at the border village of Panmunjom, to allow families still divided by the 1950-53 Korean War to meet for five days in late February for the first time since 2010. l

GlaxoSmithKline Plc Chief Executive Andrew Witty told Reuters.

With sales of patented drugs in Western countries slowing, emerging markets are a vital growth driver for companies. India, however, has so far failed to be much of a money-spinner for the world’s top pharmaceutical companies. India’s $14 billion-a-year drugs market - driven these days by chronic diseases, such as diabetes, as

n AFP, Kuala Lumpur

Two burqa-clad Afghan women walk on the outskirts of Herat

AFP

Karzai urged to veto women no protection bill n Agencies Rights groups say a proposed law in Afghanistan will allow perpetrators of domestic violence to escape prosecution, and are calling for international pressure to prevent President Hamid Karzai from signing it into law.

Afghanistan’s parliament, a two-chamber house dominated by conservative Muslim leaders and former warlords, passed a “criminal procedure law” last year, which experts say contains articles that deny women legal protections.

To go into force, it needs President Karzai’s signature.

“Afghan President Hamid Karzai should refuse to sign a new criminal procedure code that would effectively deny women protection from domestic violence and forced or child marriage,” Human Rights Watch (HRW) said in a statement published on its website on Wednesday. The draft document contains an article that according to HRW states: “The following people can not be questioned as witnesses... relatives of the accused.”

That language, according to HRW, would effectively protect women’s abusers. Most victims are abused by family members inside the home, meaning that only relatives would witness the crime in the majority of cases.

“A woman who is the victim of domestic violence won’t be able to testify against her husband, a girl who has been forced into a marriage against her will won’t be able to testify against her father,” Heather Barr of Human Rights Watch, told Al Jazeera’s Jane Ferguson. l

Rights groups urged Malaysia on Thursday to halt the planned hanging of a condemned man, with Amnesty International calling it “yet another secretive execution.”

The London-based human rights group said in a statement it had learnt that the man, Chandran Paskaran, would be executed Friday for a murder committed more than a decade ago.

The government of Muslim-majority Malaysia does not announce executions and is generally tight-lipped about its application of the death penalty.

“Malaysian authorities must immediately halt plans to carry out yet another secretive execution,” Amnesty said in a statement.

The statement quoted Hazel Galang-Folli, Amnesty’s Malaysia researcher, as saying the execution would be “an enormous step backwards on human rights.”

Joining Amnesty’s call were New York-based Human Rights Watch, the Malaysian Bar Council and HINDRAF, a group that advocates for the rights of Malaysia’s ethnic Indian minority.

Government officials did not immediately respond to AFP queries.

According to a court judgement, seen by AFP, Chandran was found guilty of being slashing another man to death in 2003 in a fight in southern Johor state.

A lower court sentenced him to death in 2008 – a verdict which was upheld on appeal.

A Malaysian government official

said in 2012 that about 900 people were on death row, mostly for drug offences.

However, Malaysia is believed to have carried out few executions – which are done by hanging – in recent years.

In 2012 a government minister said it may reconsider a mandatory death sentence for drug trafficking, but nothing further has been announced.

‘Malaysian authorities must immediately halt plans to carry out yet another secretive execution’ “Prime Minister Najib should follow through now to stop this execution, while that government policy review of the use of capital punishment is ongoing,” said Phil Robertson, Asia deputy director of Human Rights Watch.

Galang-Folli of Amnesty said authorities were “undoing any positive steps taken, including the announcement of the legal review of mandatory death sentences.”

“For Malaysia to try to carry out executions in near-total secrecy is shameful – the government is essentially trying to hide its human rights violations from the world,” she said.

Between 1960 and 2011, nearly 450 people were executed, according to data released in 2011.

Two Australians were put to death in 1986 for heroin trafficking – the first Westerners to be hanged. l

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DHAKA TRIBUNE

Editorial

Letters to

www.dhakatribune.com

Dhaka Art Summit heralds a new era for Bangladeshi art

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Sycophancy is bad for society

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here has been much media debate about incidents of children being forced to line up for many hours to increase the numbers greeting visitors to their schools.

Clearly such deference should not be compulsorily imposed, so it is heartening that the Education Minister has listened to public concerns on this issue.

The incidents in question may have related to politicians, but the harm done by outdated displays of deference and sycophantic behaviour extends throughout our society.

Sycophancy not only undermines the dignity of those who give it, but confers no meaningful benefit on its recipients.

Its prevalence should be seen as harmful and outdated by everyone.

Respect for all is a good goal for all societies. It is held back by a culture of overblown acts of courtesy in many aspects of our everyday life. There is a big difference between displays of appreciation and greetings that are given voluntarily and subservient actions that are imposed from above.

The latter type of behaviour only serves to reinforce outdated social attitudes and can enable more harmful acts such as nepotism and corruption. It is also often only one way, so poorer people and service workers are not accorded due respect by people who demand or expect such behaviour.

In many cases, such as the holding up of traffic to facilitate ordinary ministerial journeys, or the deference given to visiting landlords in villages, sycophantic actions are not just reminiscent of earlier eras but downright feudal.

Sycophancy has no place in a modern society and is harmful to everybody’s freedom.

the Editor

LETTER OF THE DAY

On Bangladesh’s Jan 5 election January 31

he 2nd Dhaka Art Summit that will bring together over 250 artists from the South Asia region opens this Friday. It is the first time that an event of this scale is taking place in Dhaka and will undoubtedly do much to invigorate and energise the local art scene.

The summit, taking place over 3 days, will feature five exhibitions curated by local and international curators and 14 solo art projects. It will also feature screenings of experimental films, performances, and presentations by 33 local and international galleries.

As Bangladeshis are well aware, our country has a rich cultural heritage that has produced some of the best artists in the South Asia region. However, political and economic circumstances in recent history have suppressed this aspect of our national characteristic. By providing a platform for national artists to present their work to a global audience, the Dhaka Art Summit can play a crucial role in reviving our artistic heritage.

More importantly, the art summit is giving voice to a new generation of Bangladeshi artists, including some very promising female artists, who are eager to exchange views with and make their mark on the international art community.

The Dhaka Art Summit also demonstrates that private philanthropy can play a huge role in nurturing art, especially in a country where there public funding is scarce. We hope that this example will help to build a culture of patronage of the arts by private citizens. The talented artists of Bangladesh certainly deserve our support.

Dhaka Art Summit can play a crucial role in reviving our artistic heritage and helping Bangladeshi artists present their work to a global audience

Friday, February 7, 2014

Dear Sir, It is believed foreign missions in Bangladesh know very well that the election of Jan 5 was held as per the Bangladeshi constitution. But it is not understood from where the foreign missions got the idea that when the opposition party, BNP, rejected the Jan 5 election, it lost its legitimacy. This is a fallacy in their logic.

BNP of course was the opposition party of the 9th parliament, but since they did not join in the 10th parliament election, they automatically lost their status of “opposition party.”

Regarding their demand of a care-taker government, BNP has the democratic right to launch a movement to create public opinion in their favour, but not a “terrorist”-like movement for months altogether. The foreign missions are aware that the Awami League-led government came to power with the people’s mandate, in accordance with constitutional rights. And if BNP found any unconstitutional activities has been adopted by the Awami government, they could go to the Supreme Court for redress. But they have no right to create anarchy in the country.

Our foreign ministry should make it clear to the foreign diplomatic circle that it is compulsory for BNP to raise their demand or proposal of a caretaker government in the parliament, as per constitutional procedures, but they never did it. They preferred “violence” in the name of hartals and imposed countrywide barricades.

Yours faithfully, Md Nasirullah

Queue up ‘only for president, PM,’ says minister February 2

PA Why on earth?

Anjan Kumar Deb This is an inverted inferiority complex. They know that the people don’t have honour or respect for them. But are satisfied that the people have been/can be compelled to show it.

A minister can ask his equals and those lower in protocol. It’s for the PM and president to respond for themselves.

Zahurul Islam Anjan Kumar Deb: Some are more equal!

Special drives to make Dhaka beggar-free soon February 3

Big 3 proposal: BCCI threatens Bangladesh January 29

Mohammad Tanvir Khalid Was waiting for this actually. It’s their (BCCI’s) way of getting support. And our options are to accept it and wait for many such threats to follow, or reject it and wait for many such threats to follow.

Vinu Mohammad Tanvir Khalid: The plan should be rejected for sanity in ICC. BDCricket2014 The fact is that even Indian cricket fans know how corrupt BCCI is, and if India doesn’t want to participate in the WT20 and Asia Cup, that’s absolutely okay with cricket fans.

HRW: Probe must for extrajudicial killings January 29

It is unjust and inhumane to kill someone without giving them a chance for a trial even.

No matter what their offences are, there is still the law, which must be followed and appropriate punishment meted out. So what are these extra-judicial killings for and who do they benefit? And our law enforcement officers should be aware that their salaries come from taxpayer money, and that the ones whom these officers have killed are also taxpayers. These officers are our country’s servicemen. They should be keeping the public safe and secure, not following the political agenda of the government or anyone else for that matter.

Gail force

Tauhid Rasel It is an important issue for our country.

Parveen They should also ban beggars who board buses and trains and harass passengers.

Zahurul Islam Parveen: Why ban an age old profession? They are better than the politicians!

Decentralisation of power a good approach for development?

January 31

Good approach but simply impossible in Bangladesh where the people and their leaders cannot accommodate anything except an absolutist central one-person dictatorship.

Arch Bishop

Be Heard

RIP test cricket?

January 29 I somewhat agree with the author. Where is the time? More importantly, where is the money to follow English cricket and watch a match for five days? That is no longer possible for us. RIP test match.

Shikha

Write to us at: Dhaka Tribune FR Tower, 8/C Panthapath Sukrabad, Dhaka-1207 Email us at: letters@dhakatribune.com Send us your Op-Ed articles: opinion@dhakatribune.com Visit our website: www.dhakatribune.com Come join our Facebook community: https://www.facebook.com/DhakaTribune

How well do you know Facebook terms and conditions?

January 31 We need not knowing, actually. If that was the case, then we could not sign up with any of the services either.

Sirajul Islam

CALVIN AND HOBBES

There is a big difference between displays of appreciation and greetings given voluntarily and subservient actions imposed from above

PEANUTS

CROSSWORD

SUDOKU ACROSS 1 Period of time (4) 4 Disliked intensely (5) 8 Turn (6) 9 Spurious imitation (4) 11 Ugly amphibians (5) 12 Encourage in crime (4) 14 No score (3) 15 Holiday period (6) 19 Cricket team (6) 21 Girl’s name (3) 22 Vocal sound (4) 24 Top room (5) 27 Weakly (4) 29 Of the eye (6) 30 Change (5) 31 Undesired escape (4)

DOWN 1 Word of acceptance (3) 2 Fit for ploughing (6) 3 Eternal city (4) 4 Headwear (3) 5 Minute particles (5) 6 Afternoon reception (3) 7 Longing (6) 10 Frozen shower (4) 13 Golf mound (3) 14 American state (6) 16 Insect (3) 17 Time of holding (6) 18 Level (4) 20 Means of utterance (5) 23 Gem (4) 25 Small child (3) 26 Worthless dog (3) 28 Tibetan ox (3)

YESTERDAY’S SOLUTIONS Crossword

How to solve Sudoku: Fill in the blank spaces with the numbers 1 – 9. Every row, column and 3 x 3 box must contain all nine digits with no number repeating.

Sudoku

DHAKA TRIBUNE

Op-Ed

11

Friday, February 7, 2014

Student politics can get better n MAB Siddique

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Beyond repair?

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The system is broken

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n Zafar Sobhan

erhaps we are looking at this all the wrong way, and we should instead view the farcical one-sided election of January 5 as an opportunity rather than as a travesty.

Don’t get me wrong. I am on record as opposing the January 5 elections, and the bait and switch exercised by the government through which it looks as if they fully intend to serve out their five year term, in blithe contradiction of their pre-election promise, only makes things worse.

The thing is, though, that while I do not believe that the January elections were representative or give the government a mandate to rule for five years, nor do I believe that a fully representative election would necessarily have solved anything.

To my mind, the political system that has served us at best serviceably over the past two decades has finally broken down and is beyond repair.

While bad elections are obviously no solution, for the first time since the restoration of democracy two decades ago, I am not sure that good elections would have resolved much, either.

The simple truth is that the current system we have in place is incapable of delivering to us a workable political solution that is competent to address the needs of the country.

Our single constituency, first-pastthe-post electoral system, that delivers all power to the winner, fails to keep any kind of a check and balance on our elected representatives, and cannot ensure any kind of separation of powers so that independent branches of the government can actually operate independently, has reached the limits of what it can deliver.

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It hasn’t been all bad. The last two decades have seen a reasonable rise in prosperity and drop in poverty. Education and health have shown gains.

There has been a modicum of stability.

But this is as good as it gets.

But look around you. Can anyone really suggest that we have taken the kind of steps necessary that we need to ensure sustained growth and development, or that we have been able to put in place, let alone implement, any kind of a vision that would make the country a qualitatively better place to live in the years to come?

which might have made a real difference and which in any case would have likely been overturned as soon as an elected government returned to office.

The current government occupies a curious middle-ground. Unlike the last elected government, it has no real mandate to run the country for the next five years nor can it really claim to be a fully representative government of the people.

However, unlike the caretaker government, it does have constitutional authority and full legitimacy to enact

The simple truth is that the current system we have in place is incapable of delivering to us a workable political solution

Part of the problem is surely our political system. There are so many obvious reforms that would help deliver better governance, but under the current system no elected government has either the inclination or the incentive to do so.

Why would a legitimately elected government with a mandate to rule for five years be even remotely interested in passing legislation to curtail its own powers or to create a more workable system?

The last caretaker government did in fact attempt some piecemeal reforms, but having neither the legitimacy nor the authority to really do so, it shied away from the big ticket items

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far-reaching legislation that would be in the nation’s long-term interest.

And, not having come to office on the back of popular support, and not knowing how long the public would continue to support its tenure, it has every incentive to start a national conversation on constitutional reform.

One possible solution to the current crisis would be to move towards fully participatory elections as soon as possible, and I would certainly prefer that to five years of the current government, with its questionable mandate and moral legitimacy.

But maybe we can do better than that. Maybe we can see this government as a kind of instrumentality and

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use its tenure in office as a kind of interregnum period during which we retool the entire political system into something fairer and more workable, and which will deliver better governance to the people.

Let’s put it all on the table, from proportional representation to a presidential system of government to a federal system to truly empowered local government to true separation of powers to term limits to a bicameral legislature to reforms to give the opposition more power. The list is endless.

Let’s accept that we have come as far as the current system can take us, and that to build on the gains of the past two decades of parliamentary democracy and to ensure that we do not move backwards, that we need to all sit down in good faith and work together for a political solution that will not only last for decades to come but will deliver us to where we want to go as a nation.

The political parties should forget about winning the battle for the next five years. The conversation shouldn’t be about how to have elections as soon as possible or how to remain in power for the next five years.

The conversation should be how to enact far-reaching and long-lasting reform that will ensure that we can finally move beyond the dysfunctions that have dogged our politics and governance since at least 2001.

That would be a conversation which would be in the better long-term interests of both main political parties than the one that we have been having for the past year.

More to the point, it would be in the better long-term interest of the Bangladeshi people, too. l Zafar Sobhan is the Editor, Dhaka Tribune.

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e know that the students of Bangladesh have had a glorious role in freeing the country from colonial domination, and in establishing democracy in the country. Throughout history, students have led landmark movements towards freedom and democracy.

But the culture that has developed in educational institutes in the name of student politics has marred the historic achievements of our students.

After the re-emergence of the despotic regimes in the country, student politics took a new form. It turned into a ruthless power game. The use of arms and drugs became a part of it, and was patronised.

Gradually, this turned these institutions into places for violent feuds and clashes among student organisations.

Student politics have caused scores of murders. In most of the cases, the perpetrators went unpunished. Whenever the discussion on stopping the so-called student politics arises, many bring up the successes of previous student movements, using them as an excuse to continue this destructive culture.

Today, student politics poses a major obstacle to actual changes that students could cause, in order to contribute positively to society as well as the education scene. Student politics, with its existing apparatus, uses the students by exploiting their vulnerabilities, and makes them take part in political activities. Often students get involved against their will. The gangster culture and extreme stances form the basis of student politics, and these not only hamper the environment necessary for education, but also pose a high risk to women’s empowerment and the implementation of law.

It turned into a ruthless power game. The use of arms became a part of it, and was patronised

The destructive game that exists in universities is enforced with muscle power, and leaves many traumatised.

This particularly affects female students. It also hinders the meritocratic system that these institutions should be based on. The scenario could have been different if there were regular elections in universities by which students could choose their representatives.

With that process, the nation could also get the next generation of political leadership. Or, for example, if there were no party-affiliated organisations in the universities, the students could think and practice politics in their own way. Now, they are made to do what-

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ever the party wants them to do.

There are matters here that are administrative as well as cultural. A culture of turning away is being seen in student politics now. Students are growing more averse to student politics. But it is difficult for students who have to stay in halls and are vulnerable to other economic realities, particularly considering that educational expenses are rising.

Most parties’ student wings have professional student politicians who are much older than real students

In the past, students had defied this kind of rotten politics and engaged in healthier movements. But in recent years, the students who made or formed a part of those same movements, like the movement that rose up against the attack on prolific linguist and literary exponent Humayun Azad, or the movement for demanding the trial of war criminals, or the movement against the incidents that took place in Shamsunnahar Hall, show not only a turning away from student politics, but also the courage and capability to bring change to the society.

There are some problems which make the students go into politics.

Most parties’ student wings have professional student politicians who are much older than real students. Their old ideas, and history of involvement appears frightening to existing students in the universities.

In a democratic setting, this is quite absurd. We have seen that the Awami League has brought some changes to its student wing, which seems to be a reflection of its commitment to democratic development. It has imposed an age limit to be in the organisation, which might have a positive impact on the universities. Many students have regained their interest in doing politics.

Other parties were not so open to change. The AL has, at least, showed some willingness to improve the scenario through political and legal means. Whether student politics adds negative value to the overall investment in education or not, is a big question. Let the problem be solved. Let the students hold their own election, and choose their own leaders.

If a system was installed in universities to help students democratically elect representatives, it could curb the frequency of untoward incidents in academia. If democracy was healthy, maybe students would not need to take to the streets so often. l MAB Siddique is a Staff Writer at the Dhaka Tribune.

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Are multiple marriages really allowed? n Ekram Kabir

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ne may ask why I suddenly came up with this issue. But I think the subject doesn’t need an occasion to be raised. A common belief among Muslims in Bangladesh – that a man can marry four women – is a subject that can be discussed any time.

societies, especially in Bangladesh, that men are really not allowed to marry more than once. Yes, the Qur’an does permit polygamy, but does not command one to follow that.

Polygamy can be of two types. One is polygyny, where a man marries more than one woman, and the other is polyandry, where a woman marries more than one man.

The reason for multiple wives in Islam was not to satisfy men’s desire, but for the welfare of the widows and the orphans of the wars

This is an important issue, like many others, that needs to be discussed with serious thought. To my mind, many Islamic interpretations have been wrongly popularised in Bangladesh so that men can repress the women. The issue of multiple marriages is one. How many of us actually analysed the verses in which the Qur’an discusses it?

There’s an urgent need for transmitting this message throughout Muslim

In Islam, limited polygyny (up to four wives) is permitted, whereas polyandry is completely prohibited. This is the only religion that allows men to have up to four wives, as it says in Surah an-Nisa, verse 3: “Marry women of your choice, two, or three, or four; but if you fear that you shall not be able to deal justly (with them), then only one.”

This verse has led many Mus-

lim men to feel complacent about marrying four times. The opportunists, pleasure-seeking Muslims, have popularised this verse and have tried to meet their own interests.

Other people, those who mostly abide by religions based on rumours, have bought this concept. The opportunists, however, did not teach the verse in the same chapter of the same Surah, where it is said: “You will never be able to be fair and just among women (wives) ... ” Qur’an (4:129).

Now, what message does this verse provide? To my mind, this verse makes sure that Islam does allow having more than one wife. But the Qur’an has set conditions for multiple marriages – that the husband should be fair with all his wives and treat them equally – which is absolutely not possible.

Since it is not possible to be just with all wives, in practice, Muslim men should not even think that they can marry more than one wife.

Having said that, I must say polygyny permitted by the Qur’an is not a rule or an order, but an exception.

Many people are under the misconception that it is compulsory for a Muslim man to have more than one wife. No. Let me repeat that the Qur’an permits but does not command a man to have four wives.

Furthermore, the Qur’an stipulates

that a man is responsible for the maintenance of his wife or wives. If a man has more than one wife, he has to provide separate living arrangements for each of his wives.

Now if we look at the background of when the Qur’an was revealed, we see there was no upper limit for polygyny, and many men had many wives, some even hundreds. Islam put an upper limit of four wives. Islam gives a man permission to marry two, three, or four women, only on the condition that he deals justly with them.

So, Islam came to control having an infinite number of wives, like it was during the pre-Islamic era. Multiple marriages lay a heavy responsibility on men: If a man has more than one wife, he must treat them all in an equal manner – emotionally and financially.

The reason for multiple wives in Islam was not to satisfy men’s desire, but for the welfare of the widows and the orphans of the wars. During war times, many women were unable to find husbands, and they might have preferred to be a co-wife than no wife.

Also, allowing multiple marriages was useful in case a man’s wife was infertile, and couldn’t give him the chance of being a father. Here, he has the right to marry another wife, and leaving the choice to his first whether

she wants to continue being his wife if he marries another woman or not.

Many misunderstand polygyny, and claim that it is one of the negative aspects of Islam, but in fact, Islam sought to control and regulate the number of wives rather than give free license. And the permission given to men to have more than one wife is controlled with conditions before marrying another wife. l Ekram Kabir is Executive Editor of Natunbarta.com.

BIGSTOCK

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DHAKA TRIBUNE

Entertainment

Friday, February 7, 2014

Dhaka Art Summit begins today

Amin Nova, n Tasnuva Syeda Samira Sadeque and Ishrat Jahan The second edition of Dhaka Art Summit, an initiative of the Samdani Art Foundation, one of the biggest platforms for South Asian art, begins today at the Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy.

Featuring over 250 artists from the region, the summit has been organised with the aim to support the development of South Asian art, bring museum-quality exhibitions to Bangladesh and promote international artistic exchange.

The three day art festival will include: solo projects, curated exhibitions, an ambitious public art project, a talks series, performances, experimental film screenings, and presentations by 33 local and international galleries.

The event is supported by the British Council, the Goethe Institut, Alliance Française, Swiss Pro Helvetia and the Bangladeshi artist collective Britto Arts Trust

and is being sponsored by the conglomerate Golden harvest Group and telecommunication company, Airtel Bangladesh Ltd. 14 artists of international critical acclaim will present solo projects responding to Bangladesh.

A line-up of experimental film and performance art curated by Mahbubur Rahman will showcase the works of CAMP, Nikhil Chopra, Htein Lin, Bandu Manamperi, Aung Min Min, Sunil Sigdel, Arko Sumon and more.

33 leading international artist organizations and galleries are supporting this edition of the Dhaka Art Summit with presentations of South Asian contemporary art.

A range of group exhibitions will also be showcased.

This year, the Samdani Art Foundation has collaborated with the Delfina Foundation (UK) to award an outstanding young Bangladeshi artist the opportunity to attend a three-month residency at the Delfina Foundation in London as part of the bi-annual Samdani Art Award.

Here are some quotes of participating artists, curators, art critics and art lovers about how they feel and what they expect from the grand event:

Sourav Chowdhury (Executive Artistic Manager, Gallery Cosmos and Cosmos Atelier71)

Looking forward to meet new artists and galleries from South Asia and get familiarised with their work. Gallery Cosmos will have a booth at DAS and we have created a folio with a collection of works from our gallery

artists especially for the summit.

Ruxmini Choudhury (Student, History of Art, Dhaka University. Intern, Dhaka Art Center)

It’s hard to say what I expect to see at Dhaka Art Summit. I expect so many things; I expect to see some wonderful contemporary works, conceptual, new media, installation works.But most of all I want to see art works, ideas that I have never been exposed to before: new themes, new ways of expressing them, new approach towards the contemporary art of South Asia.

Mahenaz Choudhury (Coordinator, Talent management, GraphicPeople|SoftwarePeople and art enthusiast)

I’m hoping to see the vibrant expressions of amazing artists of the South Asian region and learn about their culture and in the process learn about mine too. Meet the artists and learn about different perspectives of various subjects and get inspired to create some extraordinary pieces of my own. This summit is going to help me get some direction for my amateur artworks.

Biren Shome (eminent artist)

I think it will be good because few selected artists are participating in the summit. Galleries from different countries will be showcasing their collection. It will be a great source of inspiration and exposure for local artists too.

Md. Amirul Momanin Chowdhury (Professor, Department of Fine Arts, Rajshahi University)

Artwork of Jitish displayed at the Dhaka Art Summit This is a great initiative because many galleries will be brought under one roof. Local artists will get to expose their work in front a wide audience base. I would like to see such summits more often, possibly once every year.

Young artists of our country should be given more opportunities because they are very talented.

Md. Muniruzzaman (curator of the Liberty exhibit)

I plan to visit every corner of the Summit and look at every artwork I possibly can. I believe the Dhaka Art Summit is a great platform for the Bangladeshi art scene to showcase itself along with its South Asian counterparts.

It’s an interesting beginning for Bangladeshi artists, and especially for South Asian art. People usually associate South Asia with India and Pakistan, but DAS is creating a platform for people to see beyond that. DAS’ initiative ignores the barbed wires around us, and in turn has created a meeting point for a very big family.

Veeranganakumari Solanki (curator of Citizens of Time exhibit)

Rosa Maria Falvo (curator of the LifeBlood exhibit)

Ayesha Sultana (Samdani Award Nominee)

There are so many exciting events, exhibitions and talks that are scheduled during the Dhaka Art Summit – I think it’s the entire edition of the 2014 Dhaka Art Summit, which I’m keenly looking forward to. I am sure this is going to be a fantastic event with all the efforts and support of the Samdani Art Foundation.

At the moment I look forward to relaxing with friends, seeing new works and new artists along with that planning a future for Bangladeshi art and a platform for South Asia.

Shumon Ahmed (Samdani Award Nominee)

Documentary on Shahbag protests screening at National Museum

Saving Mr Banks in Star Cineplex

n Hasan Mansoor Chatak

n Entertainment Desk

Marking Shahbag protests, the biggest movement of the country demanding the trial of the 1971 war criminals, many filmmakers were driven into making films and documentaries.

The monumental protest brought an entire generation of youth on the same platform and was considered an alluring subject for the young filmmakers. Hence it became one of the most documented movements in terms of moving pictures or stills.

Yesterday, at the premises of the National Museum, the Moviyana Film Society screened documentaries on Shahbag protests for public display, observing the first anniversary of the

protest. The event was titled Shahbag Andoloner Chalochitra, Chalochitre Shahbag Andolon. A total of eleven films were watched by a capacity audience at the venue. The mass uprising of Shahbagh was the core content of many of the films, while a few others featured it in parts or in line with their theme.

Many of the films screened were mostly by young filmmakers. Tui Rajakar, a music video by band Chirkut, 17th Day of Continuous Protest, a short length documentary by a group of photographers, 71 in 354 Seconds, a production of a private television channel, No Mercy and Gonodabi by Saiful Islam Jarnal, Join The Fight

by Nusrat Khan, Bangladesh-er Hridoy by Saful Wadud Helal, My Both Hands by Mahbubur

Moviana Film society screens a documentary on Shahbagh protests

QUAMRUL ABEDIN

Anushka-Virat rumour continues to roll n Entertainment Desk There has been another update added to the rumour of Bollywood diva Anushka Sharma dating Indian celebrated cricketer Virat Kohli.

The Jab Tak Hai Jaan actress Anushka, who has always maintained “just friends” status with Virat Kohli was seen walking hand in hand with him in Auckland, New Zealand.

The two lovebirds were spotted by fans taking a stroll together on the deserted streets of Auckland. India is currently playing New Zealand.

According to reports, Anushka Sharma specially flew to Auckland to spend some quality time with her rumoured beau Virat Kohli, who is there for the Test matches along with Team India.

Microblogging site Twitter was also flooded with tweets of fans who spotted

Virat and Anushka, together.

Ever since they appeared in a shampoo commercial together last year, Virat Kohli and Anushka Sharma have been creating sparks of rumours with their alleged chemistry both on and off the camera.

Giving concrete proof to the murmurs about their well-guarded equation, recently Virat was reportedly stayed at Anushka’s plush pad in Andheri, Mumbai for five long days. l

Rahman, Amar Protibad by Reshmi Ahmed, Joy Bangla by Molla Sagar and Song of Unsung

by Shameema Binte Rahman were screened at the event.

The most attractive aspect of the screening was the variety of films showcased, ranging widely in terms of style, duration and content.

For instance, 17th Day of Continuous Protest is a short documentary created by a group of photographers who took top shots of Shahbag, the protesting venue, every three seconds on the seventeenth day of the protests. My Both Hands, is a symbolic film featuring short explode of clips manipulated graphically for dramatic effects and the audio track used are only ambient sounds.

Another documentary titled Join the Fight was the first documentary of the mass movement. It is rather just a compilation of clips of the first three days of the movement with background music.

Song of Unsung was rich in content, portraying information, insights thorough a narration. On the other hand, Amar Protibad was a first-person narrative by filmmaker-journalist Shameema Akhtar. It includes events from the pre-liberation days to current affairs, taking the spectator through personal reflections of the history of Bangladesh.

Belayat Hossain Mamun, president of Moviyana Film Society thinks that the films on Shahbag protests portrayed the ambience and nature of the early mass protests. He said: ‘’The central platform of the protests, Ganajagaran Mancha should take responsibility to showcase these significant works throughout the country.’’ l

Tom Cruise sued for $1bn over Mission: Impossible script n Entertainment Desk The makers of Tom Cruise film Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol are being sued for $1bn by a man who claims its script was based on his copyrighted screenplay.

Timothy Patrick McLanahan claims the 2011 release was “illegally written and produced” from his 1998 script Head On. He filed legal papers against Cruise, Paramount Pictures and several production companies in December 2013.

The documents have since been obtained and published by Radar Online.

In the court papers, McLanahan said he had originally sent his script to the William Morris Agency only to have it turned it down.

“I was told by the agency that they could not use the script as a movie,” he writes.

He claims: “shopped the script around the world” without his permission and passed it on to Creative Artist Agency (CAA), who represent Cruise. l

I’m eager to find out how the diverse works on display at DAS engages and resonates to a larger audience. The viewer is crucial for the works to exist. I’m especially looking forward to the performance and experimental film screening events curated by Mahbubur Rahman. l

American-Australian-British historical comedy-drama Saving Mr Banks, starring Tom Hanks in the lead role, is being screened at Star Cineplex.

Directed by John Lee, the film is centered on the development of the 1964 Walt Disney Studios film Mary Poppins. Tom Hanks plays the role of filmmaker Walt Disney and Emma Thompson as author P L Travers and, with supporting roles from Paul Giamatti, Jason Schwartzman, Bradley Whitford, BJ Novak, and Colin Farrell.

When Walt Disney’s daughters beg him to make a movie of their favourite book, PL Travers’ Mary Poppins, he makes them a promise which takes 20 years to keep. In his quest to obtain the rights, Walt comes up against a curmudgeonly, uncompromising writer who has absolutely no intention of letting her beloved magical nanny get mauled by the Hollywood machine. But, as the books stop selling and money grows short, Travers reluctantly agrees to go to Los Angeles to hear Disney’s plans for the adaptation. l

TODAY IN DHAKA Film

The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, Thor: The Dark World, Pacific Rim in 3D, The Conjuring, The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, Escape Plan Time: 10am – 10pm Star Cineplex, Level 8 Bashundhara City Panthapath

Central Shaheed Minar Secretariate Rd

Theatre

Konjush

By Loko Natyadol Time - 6:30pm Experimental Theatre Hall Shilpakala Academy, Shegun Bagicha

Cultural Programme

National Street Theatre Fest Time: 4pm-7pm

Musical Soiree of Rabindrasangeet and Recitation Solo of Shreya Guhathakurta, India

by Delvistaa Foundation Time: 6pm National Museum Auditorium Shahbag

Golpota Onnorokom Hotei Parto airs today n Entertainment Desk A telefilm Golpota Onnorokom Hotei Parto will air today at 2:35pm on NTV. Written by Israfil Babu Abu, Raihan Jewel directed the telefilm which features Manir Khan Shimul, Farhana Mili, Naim, Khairul Alam Sabuj, Sharmili Ahmed, Sneha, Nayon and Dukhu Sumon and many others.

The story is about a young couple who elopes. Jeetu and Shumi takes a cab to a deserted cabin in the woods,

ON TV MOVIE 3:30pm Star Movies Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter

9:30pm HBO Get Smart

DRAMA 7:30pm Star Plus

Saath Nibhana Saathiya

8:30pm Colors Balika Vadhu

Shimul and Farhana Mili in a scene from the telefilm Golpota Onnorokom Hotei Parto

they were running away together to give their relationship a positive outcome.

Another reason for their extreme flight is that, Shumi was to be betrothed to a man chosen by her family. Rezwan, the cab driver realises that the duo has escaped from their home.

When Jeetu goes out to buy their attire for their secret wedding, the cab driver finds a mobile phone on the seat of his cab and returns to hand it over. The story takes a new turn from there. l

Did you know?

Kane Williamson’s century yesterday is the first by a New Zealand No 3 at home in more than nine years. The last was Hamish Marshall, who scored 160 against Sri Lanka at McLean Park in 2005

Sport

Friday, February 7, 2014

0 3 7 DAYS TO GO

Bangladesh 1st innings (overnight 86-1) Tamim Iqbal b Lakmal 0 Shamsur Rahman b Mendis 106 Imrul Kayes b Mendis 115 Mominul Haque lbw b Perera 13 Shakib c Karunaratne b Perera 50 Mushfiqur Rahim c Silva b Perera 20 Nasir Hossain c Chandimal b Mendis 42 Mohammad Mahmudullah not out 30 Sohag Gazi lbw b Mendis 0 Al-Amin Hossain not out 3 Extras: (b8, lb1, nb21) 30 Total (for eight wickets, 115 overs) 409 Fall of wickets 1-0 (Tamim), 2-232 (Shamsur), 3-252 (Mominul), 4-259 (Kayes), 5-319 (Rahim), 6-350 (Shakib), 7-396 (Nasir), 8-396 (Gazi).

Bowling Lakmal 23-5-68-1, Pradeep 15-2-96-0 (nb13), Mendis 27-2-84-4 (nb8), Perera 39-4-119-3, Mathews 11-1-33-0 Bangladesh trail by 178 runs with two wickets in hand Bangladesh opener Shamsur Rahman explodes into joy as he scores his maiden Test hundred during the third day of the second Test against Sri Lanka at ZACS yesterday MUMIT M

I always wanted to perform: Shamsur

Injury alert Bangladesh has a string of injuries that could affect them in the course of the second Test against Sri Lanka. The biggest difficulty is likely to be behind the stumps as captain Mushfiqur Rahim will take the field, but not as a wicketkeeper.

Imrul Kayes has multiple injuries while Abdur Razzak’s bowling in the second innings will depend on how he bats today morning. Imrul also picked up a hamstring pull off the final ball of his innings, but he had also tweaked his groin and suffered a blow to the back on the second day. “Imrul has cramps at the moment so after his pain goes away, I can assess his hamstring injury,” physio Vibhav Singh said. “I will see how Razzak bats, see how he turns while running. I will assess Mushfiq on a day-to-day basis, but he is unlikely to keep wickets tomorrow.” l

draw,” said Shamsur who scored 106.

“On this wicket even if you don’t play a bad shot you won’t get out. Over all if we can play according to our plan the Test can be a draw,” he added.

The 25-year-old right-handed batsman earlier had a superb start to his ODI career against New Zealand last year. Though he missed the hundred that time, but his innings of 96 did have the impact in his selection.

When he resumed after lunch yesterday in the 90s, Shamsur admitted the ODI innings was at the back of his mind and he was thinking, “If it doesn’t

happen, it will not, because there is a big difference between 50 and 100. So, at that point of time I always kept my mind strong and that’s why I was successful today (yesterday).”

Shamsur made his way up from the ranks of the lone sports institution of the country BKSP and has continuously impressed with his attacking batting in the domestic circuit before he was handed a T20 debut for Bangladesh last year. The ODI debut was only a matter of time, but his recent 267 in the Bangladesh Cricket League had definitely helped him wear the Test cap.

BFF plans Independence Cup next month Season’s second professional football tournament The Independence Cup is set to kick-off in the first week of March. Split into four groups a total of 12 teams, including 10 Bangladesh Premier League clubs and top two Bangladesh Championship League sides according to the current standings, will take part in the tournament.

The decision came in a meeting of the Professional Football League Committee of Bangladesh Football Federation (BFF) yesterday. The meeting was headed by BFF senior vice-president Abdus Salam Murshedy.

“As it is the month of independence, we want to hold and finish the Inde-

pendence Cup in March. The tournament will kick-off in between March 1-5, depending on the completion of the first phase matches of the ongoing BPL,” informed BFF general secretary Abu Nayeem Shohag yesterday.

The committee also decided to hold the second transfer window of the ongoing Bangladesh Premier League the day after the end of the first phase. The transfer window will be open for three weeks.

“Sheikh Jamal are playing in the IFA Shield in India and their postponed matches during this time will be held after they return. So the first phase will end by February 28 and then the transfer window will be open from the next day,” added the BFF general secretary. l

A 100 close to the ‘hurt’ Opening batsman Imrul Kayes had hurt his hamstring right after he went in to bat at number three and took his first run against Sri Lanka on the second day, he informed yesterday. But the 27-year-old bared the pain and went on until landing his maiden Test hundred in his 17th Test.

The milestone couldn’t have been better for him for that fact that he is back in the Tigers fold after more than two years. But the way he lost his wicket to the Lankans – suicidal should justify – should be more painful to him than of the hamstring.

The left-handed batsman couldn’t walk to the press briefing area at Zahur Ahmed Chowdhury Stadium as the journalists went near the dressing room for his comments.

“I shouldn’t have played that shot. I was trying not to take any risk but mistakes happen. Will try not to repeat the same in the second innings,” said Imrul

build ‘global’ club in Miami

13

15 McCullum,

Williamson slam hundreds

Home side trail despite twin tons

SCORECARD, DAY 3 Sri Lanka 1st innings 587 (Sangakkara 319, Jayawardene 72, Mendis 47, Shakib 5-148)

Bangladesh opener Shamsur Rahman, who smashed his maiden Test century, in only his second match, yesterday thinks they have a good chance of drawing the ongoing match against Sri Lanka unless they perform poorly.

Bangladesh still trail Sri Lanka by 178 runs in the first innings, but only two days remaining in the match Shamsur said a draw is on the cards if there are no accidents.

“I think that if there is no accident then there are chances of becoming a

14 Beckham to

DHAKA TRIBUNE

to the media yesterday.

Bangladesh losing Tamim Iqbal in the first over of their innings had made Imrul take charge of an opener though batting at number three. Imrul informed that he was told by the team’s coach, Shane Jurgensen, that he will open, but a last minute decision had sent Shamsur Rahman to the middle.

“I was told that I will open but it didn’t happen. Anyways, I am happy to have scored the century in need of my team. I got hurt on my chest yesterday (Wednesday) and also hurt my hamstring. I batted with the whole time with those pain but many did know about except for the team physiotherapist (Vibhav Singh). He advised me to be strong and I will be able to bat,” said Imrul.

“I tried to play my natural game today (yesterday). But the pain was giving me trouble to be honest,” he added. l

“Firstly, this is a big experience, first class cricket or club cricket is different, Test is different. To perform against a good team, that is another level. So I always thought no matter where I play, I always wanted to perform and that my performance helps my team positively.

I got 100 in my second Test, this is not the end, I want to play well in the coming days,” he said.

However, the Chandpur-lad was dismissed trying to slog Ajantha Mendis, a shot that was not needed at all and he termed it as a “bad decision” from him. l

Mendis happy to return The comeback after a year for Sri Lankan spinner Ajantha Mendis was more than decent as he claimed four important wickets in the Bangladesh first innings to push the home side on the back foot.

Mendis was positive about their chances of winning the match and said, “We have to take two wickets and then we will see. We will try to win this match because we played positive cricket.”

The spinner played his last Test against Bangladesh in Galle in March last year, where he was hammered by the Bangladeshi batsman, giving away 152 runs backed by only two wickets. Later he suffered from back pain which eventually cost him his place in

BNS for WT20 opening ceremony?

Imrul Kayes celebrates his century against Sri Lanka at ZACS yesterday MUMIT M

Centuries from Shamsur Rahman and Imrul Kayes enabled Bangladesh to avoid the follow-on in their first innings, but the poor approach from all the Tigers batsmen saw them finish the third day of their second Test against Sri Lanka on 409/8. The home side still trails the visitors by 178 runs at the Zahur Ahmed Chowdhury Stadium.

The first session of the day belonged to Bangladesh as the two overnight batsmen Shamsur resumed the day on 86/1 and added further 115 runs to register the highest second wicket partnership surpassing Tamim Iqbal and Junaid Siddique’s 200 against India in 2010 at Mirpur as Bangladesh went to lunch on 210/1.

The Sri Lankans tried the short ball strategy which successful worked in the first Test, but this time around the pair of Kayes and Shamsur remained focus in their task of staying at the crease.

Kayes smashed three consecutive fours off Nuwan Pradeep to bring his fifty while Shamsur also played some glorious strokes to reach his maiden half-century.

Shamsur, more aggressive in the pair, was finding the boundaries often while Kayes adopted a defensive role till he clobbered three consecutive boundaries again off Pradeep to enter the nineties. Both looked nervous as they came on to bat after lunch with their maiden century an inch away.

In only his second Test match, Shamsur landed his maiden Test hundred with a class cover drive for four off Angelo Mathews while his partner survived twice - a dolly at point and a catch of a no-ball at the same position next ball - on 95 before registering his

first hundred.

The hosts looked well in control and just when the batsmen were showing sign s of maturity all went wrong with Shamsur playing an unnecessary slog to Mendis. He was deceived completely to get bowled on 106 off 191 balls with 11 boundaries and a six.

Soon Kayes also threw away his wicket before pulling his hamstring and returning to the dressing room on the shoulders of his teammates.

Returning to the side after two years, Kayes could not add more to the innings of 115 in which he had already survived three catches.

Mominul Haque came in and just when it seemed he was settling in the left-handed attempted a sweep off Mendis only to be caught plumb in front. Despite a fractured finger Tigers captain Mushfiqur Rahim came in and added 60 with Shakib al Hasan.

Mushfiq was caught at silly mid-on for 20 after which the home side batsmen looked in hurry of getting runs.

Shakib made 50, but his attacking approach could have seen him back in the hut anytime while Nasir Hossain, who was unlucky to be given caught behind as replays suggested his bat hit the ground and not the ball, also scored 42 with seven fours.

Sohag Gazi was trapped leg before very first ball allowing Mendis to have a go at Sri Lanka’s second Test hattrick and the ‘mystery’ spinner could consider him unlucky not to achieve the feat as his LBW shout to incoming batsman Al Amin also looked plumb.

Sri Lanka’s horrendous time in the field continued when Al Amin was dropped twice, adding to the four catch dropped earlier.

Meanwhile Mahmudullah (30) remained the only recognised batsman at crease as he will resume the penultimate day of the Test today. l

Bangladesh Football Federation (BFF) is in a new dilemma to resume and reshuffle their fixtures of the upcoming matches of the ongoing football season as they might have to provide the Bangabandhu National Stadium for five days for the inauguration of the upcoming ICC World Twenty20 next month.

Mid last month National Sports Council (NSC) asked BFF if they have any programmes scheduled at the venue in between March 11-15. BFF, in reply, informed that they have the Independence Cup and Bangladesh Premier League scheduled at the time.

“According to Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB)’s appeal, National Sports Council (NSC) inquired us (BFF) what schedule do we have at the Bangabandhu National Stadium during March 1115. We informed them our schedules as we have Independence Cup football and may be some Bangladesh Premier League matches to be played during that time. It is their decision to take now,” said BFF general secretary Abu Nayeem Shohag yesterday. l

the Test side, but he informed that he is fully fit now and is ready to perform.

“Actually, my back was a bit down due to injury and it took me time to recover, so I was going slow but now I can bowl everything,” he said.

Mendis got the wickets of the two

centurions Shamsur Rahman and Imrul Kayes while he also returned Nasir Hossain and Sohag Gazi in consecutive deliveries to put the visitors in a strong position by the end of the day, the day which was initially dominated by the host batters.

“I am really happy because I am playing a Test match after one year. Actually they batted well, because number 3 and 4 played very patiently but after that we did well,” he added.

However, the Lankans were sloppy at the field yesterday where they dropped three catches while Mendis was also denied a wicket for over stepping. “Can’t help it maybe the guys were a little tired today. Not much I can do, because everyone can’t hold onto catches all the time. It happens,” he said. l

Tribunal ends, verdict on February 26 The operation of the three-member tribunal, formed by the Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) to conduct the hearing of the fixing allegation brought by the ICC (International Cricket Council) from the second edition of the Bangladesh Premier League, ended yesterday.

Though the evidentiary part of the proceeding concluded on Wednesday the tribunal gave further directions on written closing submission and for oral submission of the parties. Oral submissions will be made before the tribunal on February 22, after which the tribunal will deliberate and determine the issues of guilt or otherwise of the contesting defendants.

The tribunal started its hearing on January 19 and they mainly dealt with the preliminary objections raised by some of the defendants. After hearing the preliminary objections the tribunal decided to proceed with the hearing on the merits against all the defendants who contested charges.

After closing of the prosecution case, some of the defendants gave evidences before the tribunal which were cross examined by the counsels of relevant parties as appropriate. The tribunal also considered documentary evidences and viewed video recordings of the relevant matches and audio recordings of some of the interviews.

The tribunal’s verdicts into alleged match-fixing and spot-fixing will be out on February 26 and 27 and the BCB is likely to announce it. Sanctions will be announced according to article 6 of the BCB’s anti-corruption code.

The investigation into the allegations of fixing first came to light in May 2013 when it was revealed by the media that a Bangladesh player had been questioned by the ICC. Former Bangladesh captain Mohammad Ashraful was the first to admit of his involvement in corruption in June last year. This was followed by formal charges against nine individuals in August 2013 by the ICC, including six Dhaka Gladiators’ players. l

14

DHAKA TRIBUNE

Sport

Friday, February 7, 2014

I’m lucky to still be playing: Fletcher

Valencia agree deal for Otamendi

Nike produce WC tribute shirts

Darren Fletcher is lucky to be playing after chronic bowel disease threatened to end his career, the Manchester United midfielder said on Wednesday. Fletcher was diagnosed with ulcerative colitis in 2011 and underwent surgery in January 2013 after the condition restricted him to just 20 club appearances in two seasons. “You can be running to the toilet 10, 20, 30 times a day and losing a lot of blood,” the Scotland midfielder told the BBC. –Reuters

Argentinean international defender Nicolas Otamendi will join La Liga side Valencia from Porto in July for a fee of 12 million euros ($16.2 million), both clubs announced on Wednesday. “After playing at a very prestigious and big club like Porto, it is an honour for me to now come to one of the most historic and attractive clubs in Spain and Europe like Valencia,” Otamendi said in a statement on the Valencia website. “I am very happy to take this next step in my career.”

–AFP

Nike have produced yellow shirts for five Brazilian league teams as a special tribute to the country that will host the World Cup in June. Bahia, Corinthians, Coritiba, Internacional and Santos have all been given a third shirt embossed with the national team’s logo “Nascido para jogar Futebol” (Born to play football). “When fans see the striking yellow of Brasil’s national team kit on pitch, they know phenomenal football will follow,” said Henry Rabello, vice president marketing, Nike Brasil.

–Reuters

Real, Barca ride luck, on course for Cup final Real thump holders Atletico 3-0 at Bernabeu, Barca open up 2-0 lead over 10-man Sociedad Barcelona and Real Madrid are on course for a King’s Cup final showdown after Spain’s two dominant teams recorded convincing home wins in their semi-final first legs on Wednesday.

Real thumped holders Atletico Madrid 3-0 at the Bernabeu, gaining a measure of revenge for the 2-1 defeat in last year’s final at the same stadium, while record winners Barca beat 10-man Real Sociedad 2-0 at the Nou Camp.

Barca and Real last met in the final in 2011, when a Cristiano Ronaldo header in extra-time secured the trophy for the Madrid club, and if they successfully negotiate next week’s return legs they will meet on April 19 at a yet-to-be determined venue.

Atletico climbed to the top of La Liga at the weekend but their first defeat in 25 matches in all competitions since October brought Diego Simeone’s side down to earth with a bump.

Last year’s final was marred by red cards and brawling and the bad blood between Real and Atletico was still in evidence in a match littered with cyni-

cal fouls and gamesmanship.

After a cautious opening Atletico playmaker Arda Turan had the first genuine chance when he tested Real goalkeeper Iker Casillas with a header in the 13th minute.

Real were ahead four minutes later when centre back Pepe galloped forward and his speculative shot hit Emiliano Insua, wrong-footed keeper Thibaut Courtois and deflected into the net.

Atletico defender Diego Godin headed over when well placed early in the second half but Real doubled their lead just before the hour when a su-

perb Angel Di Maria pass released Jese and he poked the ball past Courtois.

Luka Modric cleared another Godin header off the line in the 72nd minute and Real landed a stunning blow a minute later with another deflected effort.

Di Maria let fly from distance and the ball struck Atletico defender Miranda before spinning past the helpless Courtois. Real coach Carlo Ancelotti said it was possibly his side’s best performance since he took over from Jose Mourinho in the close season.

At a half-empty Nou Camp, Barca had little trouble dominating a defence-minded Sociedad and Lionel

Messi cracked a scorching free kick against the crossbar before Sergio Busquets opened the scoring shortly before halftime.

The Spain midfielder pounced on a loose ball at a corner before Inigo Martinez was shown a straight red card by the referee for protesting.

The Sociedad defender and his team mates were incensed they had not been awarded a penalty moments earlier when Barca centre back Javier Mascherano appeared to haul Carlos Vela to the ground.

Barca’s second on the hour was a bizarre own goal. Cesc Fabregas sent Alex-

is Sanchez clear and when his shot came back off a post Gorka Elustondo’s attempted clearance hit goalkeeper Enaut Zubikarai and canonned into the net.

Outnumbered Sociedad did well not to concede again as Barca mounted wave after wave of attacks but the Basque club’s bid for a first King’s Cup since 1987 looks to be over.

“We wanted to score more goals given that we had an extra man and we could have scored more but it’s a very favourable result,” said Barca captain Xavi.

“We haven’t conceded a goal at home and that’s also a point very much in our favour.” l

Revenge over Atletico pleases Ancelotti

(L) Barcelona's Sergio Busquets is congratulated by his teammate Dani Alves after scoring against Real Sociedad at the Camp Nou on Wednesday. (R) Real Madrid's forward Jese celebrates with teammate Angel di Maria after scoring against Atletico de Madrid at the Santiago Bernabeu on Wednesday AFP

Real Madrid boss Carlo Ancelotti believes his side produced their best performance of his reign as they downed local rivals Atletico Madrid 3-0 in the first leg of their Copa del Rey semi-final on Wednesday.

Atletico had won on each of their previous two visits to the Santiago Bernabeu, including in last year’s Copa del Rey final, but Ancelotti stressed the improvement his side have made since their defeat to Los Rojiblancos in La Liga back in September.

“I have said before that many things have changed since that match. We are more solid, more natural in our play and more compact,” said the Italian.

“I think it was (the best performance). Above all because the team we were facing is a very difficult team to play against. They are very strong and aggressive, so I thought we played very well.

“I am completely satisfied. We did everything well, we moved the ball with pace and were very aggressive without it. I wish the team could always play like they did tonight.”

Real did have fortune on their side, though, as their first and third goals were credited as own goals after taking wicked deflections.

Emiliano Insua was first to put

through his own goal 17 minutes in when he turned Pepe’s fiercely struck effort past the helpless Thibaut Courtois in the Atletico goal.

Jese Rodriguez then continued his fine scoring form with the second just before the hour mark, and Real all but secured their place in the final when

RESULTS

Semi-finals, first leg Real Madrid

3-0

Atletico Madrid

Barcelona

2-0

Real Sociedad

Insua 17-og, Jese 57, Miranda 73-og

Busquets 44, Zubikarai 60-og 2nd leg – February 11-12

Angel di Maria’s shot deflected off Miranda to once again wrong-foot Courtois.

Atletico boss Diego Simeone was left to reflect on his side’s bad luck, but refused to write off their chances of producing a famous comeback in the second leg on Tuesday.

“I think Real Madrid played very well, but they scored twice with shots that hit our players on the body and went in,” he said.

“We still have 90 minutes to play and anything can happen in football.” l

Lyon’s hard-earned win Gervinho helps Roma down Napoli sets up final date with PSG Lyon will play French champions Paris Saint Germain in the League Cup final after they eked out a 2-1 win over Ligue 2 side Troyes at home on Wednesday.

Goals by Alexandre Lacazette, his 16th of the season, and Bafetimbi Gomis gave the hosts a 2-0 lead and although Brazilian Xavier Thiago reduced the deficit before half-time, Lyon held on in a game played with half the ground empty.

Lyon, who won the trophy in 2001 and have lost three times in the final, initially made light of being without their two main creative players Yoann Gourcuff, who was injured, and the suspended Clement Grenier.

Lacazette, who had to fill the playmaking role, slotted home their opener in the 16th minute from defender Mehdi Zeffane while Gomis got in at the near post to convert Jimmy Briand’s pass 11 minutes later.

Troyes, presently 11th in Ligue 2, got back into the game nine minutes from the break as Thiago profited from poor marking to score his first goal of the season.

It was no more than Troyes had deserved as they had gone close twice shortly before, Henri Bedimo blocking a goalbound effort and then Milan Bisevac taking the ball off the feet of Stephane Darbion as he squared up to shoot from close range. l

Two goals from in-form Gervinho, including the winner two minutes from time, gave AS Roma a thrilling 3-2 victory in their Italian Cup semi-final first leg against Napoli at the Stadio Olimpico on Wednesday.

The Ivorian’s goals helped Roma to their sixth straight win and handed Rudi Garcia’s side a slender lead to take into next week’s second leg after visiting Napoli had rallied to level from 2-0 down.

A comical Morgan De Sanctis own goal just after the break and a smart Dries Mertens strike saw Rafael Benitez’s gritty side fight back after Gervinho and a rocket shot by Kevin Strootman had put the home team on top at halftime.

“Starting the second half in such a farcical fashion didn’t do us any good

RESULT

Semi-final, first leg Roma

3-2

Napoli

Gervinho 13, 88, De Sanctis 42-og, Strootman 32 Mertens 70 2nd leg – February 11

haps on the pitch and behind the scenes, and could yet win their 10th Italian Cup this year.

“The last two years we’ve had really good sides with brilliant players but we were lacking mental toughness, and that’s what all of us players here have tried to help create and develop.”

Gervinho gave the hosts the lead when he latched on to a phenomenal Francesco Totti through-ball and delicately lifted the ball over Pepe Reina before rolling home into an empty net.

Strootman then drove home Roma’s advantage with an unstoppable strike, only for De Sanctis to hand Napoli a lifeline when he let Gonzalo Higuain’s deflected cross slip through his fingers and creep over the line. Belgium international Mertens then levelled the match and, with two away goals, put his side into a commanding position in the tie when he burst past the Roma defence and emphatically shot over a prone De Sanctis with 20 minutes remaining.

However Gervinho sparked wild celebrations among the home support with his dramatic second, which he slotted home at Reina’s near post after a sweeping passing move. l

AS Roma's Gervinho (R) celebrates with teammate Miralem Pjanic after scoring against Napoli during their semi'final Coppa Italia match on Wednesday AFP

Beckham to build ‘global’ club in Miami

Balotelli admits paternity of daughter AC Milan striker Mario Balotelli on Wednesday finally acknowledged he was the father of his daughter Pia, two months after failing to attend a hearing in Italy aimed at establishing paternity.

In a message on Twitter, Balotelli wrote: “Finally the TRUTH :-)??...PIA ... Sweet child of mine !!! your Dad.” Italy striker Balotelli is no longer the partner of former on-and-off girlfriend and showgirl Raffaella Fico, who in July 2012 announced she was pregnant with his child.

Pia was born in December 2012 and Fico later accused Balotelli of distancing himself from his newborn baby daughter. l

mentally, but we responded really well and won a really difficult match,” said Roma midfielder Daniele De Rossi.

Roma are finally living up to their promise after years of fallouts and mis-

David Beckham (R) makes his way through a crowd while visiting the Kendall Soccer Park in suburban Miami on Wednesday REUTERS

David Beckham plans to bring football back to Miami, hoping his personal fame and fortune will help him build a new Major League Soccer team of truly global stature.

The former England and Manchester United star said Wednesday he already has major players calling him seeking to join a US team that may one day rival the European giants where he became a superstar.

“I wanted to create a team where we can start from scratch,” Beckham told an outdoor press conference at a downtown Miami art museum, explaining his decision to bring the expanding league’s 22nd soccer club to south Florida.

“I know there was a team here 10 years ago that unfortunately folded, but I know that Miami is ready for football again,” he said. “I wanted to create a team that would be very personal to me.”

“We’re planning to bring a team that will be a global team,” the 38-yearold said, arguing that in the past decade American soccer had made huge progress as both a sport and a business.

The former midfielder, who wore a slim-fitting gray suit and a tie despite the 82 degree Fahrenheit (28 C) weather, said one of his partners would be British pop music and television impresario Simon Fuller, who managed Beckham’s wife Victoria when she sang with the Spice Girls.

Beckham, who reportedly paid a cut price $25 million for the franchise, said his wife and family would join him in Miami.

He did not disclose when the team would be ready for action, but reports suggest it will be in 2016 or 2017.

“We want to create a football club that is a people’s football club,” he told a throng of media, as a helicopter buzzed overhead and a small plane whizzed past dragging a banner that read: “Beckham, don’t trust Gimenez,” referring to local Mayor Carlos Gimenez.

The former United and Real Madrid star said he had high hopes for the MLS, where he featured for LA Galaxy before retiring last year following a stint with Paris Saint-Germain. l

Sport

DHAKA TRIBUNE

McCullum, Williamson slam hundreds

QUICK BYTES

FIH approves new turf location Bangladesh Hockey Federation (BHF) is likely to install the sand-filled turf of hockey at the BAF Shaheen School ground. It was learnt that the president of the International Hockey Federation (FIH) Leonardo Negre approved the location to set up the new turf. BHF officials, however, informed that nothing has been finalised yet but they had primarily chosen the site. “The final decision whether to set up hockey turf there will be taken after further discussion. Leonarde Negre is satisfied with BAF Shaheen School ground to install the turf in his second visit in Bangladesh. We are also considering the FIH president’s choice,” said Bangladesh Hockey Federation (BHF) general secretary Khwaja Rahmatullah yesterday.

The proposed sand-filled hockey turf will only be used for training purposes.

FIH are providing all the expenses for the 40metre square turf which Negre himself announced during his two-day visit in Dhaka.

–SH

Zia draws in Chess Festival Grandmaster Ziaur Rahman drew with WIM Abdumalik Zhansaya of Kazakhstan in 9th round of the Masters event in the Tradewise Gibraltar Chess Festival. After nine rounds at the tournament held in British Island Gibraltar in UK, Zia has five points under his tally.

–Tribune Desk

National Women Chess begins today WIM Rani Hamid will face reigning champion WFM Sharmin Sultana Shirin in the Sultana Kamal 14th National Women Chess Championship starting today at the chess federation hall-room.

A total of 12 players are taking part in the tournament which will be played in round robin league system. The draw of the coveted tournament took place yesterday. In other matches on the opening day Shimmi, Eva, Zakia, Liza and Nupur will play against Evana, Hamida, Tanima, Runu and Moly respectively.

–Tribune Desk

Nadal recovering well from back complaint, tests show

Rafa Nadal is recovering well from the back problem that wrecked his Australian Open final last month and plans to start training again on Thursday in his native Mallorca, his team said on Tuesday. World number one Nadal lost to Swiss Stanislas Wawrinka in the Melbourne final, preventing the Spaniard drawing level on 14 grand slam singles titles with American Pete Sampras. Nadal had more tests in Barcelona on Monday and his team said in a statement they were “satisfactory and showed favourable progress”. “The player began gym work today and a decision on when he is able to start competing again will depend on his adaptation on the court in coming days,” they added. Nadal is due to play in a clay event in Buenos Aires starting on Feb. 10, followed by a tournament in Rio de Janeiro.

–Reuters

DAY’S WATCH BTV & Maasranga TV 9:30AM Bangladesh v Sri Lanka 2nd Test, Day 4 Sony Six 3:30AM (Saturday) India’s Tour of New Zealand 1st Test, Day 3 Ten Golf 4:30PM European Tour 2014 Joburg Open, Day 2 Star Sports 4 10:00AM Sochi 2014 Winter Olympic Men’s official training 2:00AM La Liga Espanyol v Granada Star Sports HD1 2:40PM Big Bash T20, Final Scorchers v Hurricanes 8:30PM Hockey India League Star Sports HD 10:00PM Sochi 2014 Winter Olympic Opening Ceremony Ten Action 01:00 AM French Ligue 1 Toulouse FC v As Saint- Etienne

15

Friday, February 7, 2014

New Zealand's Brendon McCullum celebrates his century while watched by teammate Kane Williamson on day one of their first Test match against India at Eden Park in Auckland yesterday REUTERS

U-19s depart for World Cup The 15-member Bangladesh Under-19 team will leave Dhaka for UAE today to participate in the ICC U-19 World Cup starting from February 14.

The young Tigers are pitted in Group B in the multi-national event alongside Australia, Afghanistan and Namibia.

Bangladesh will need to win at least two group matches to progress to the cup phase of the tournament.

In the last edition of the tournament in 2012 Bangladesh won their group matches against Sri Lanka and Namibia to move to the Super League knock-out phase where they were beaten by Australia by five wickets.

“We want to play the Cup Championship winning all the three matches of the group phase. We thrashed Afghanistan in the last

Asia Cup so this will boost us when we face them. Australia does not enough experience to play in the subcontinental conditions and I believe we will have an advantage there too,” said the U-19 captain Miraz at a press conference yesterday. “We have a good understanding among us players and we want to move ahead match by

BANGLADESH’S FIXTURES 15 February 17 February 19 February

v v v

Afghanistan Namibia Australia

match so that we could be focused. In this way we want to reach our ultimate target,” he added.

Bangladesh will begin their campaign against Afghanistan on February 15 before facing Namibia on February 17 and Australia on February 19.

Nazmul Abedeen Fahim, manager and technical adviser of the Bangladesh U-19 team, informed that they

have been preparing this team for the World Cup for last two years. “Since then, the team’s players are performing in a unit. Their confident level and performance so far is high. There are a string of players, who have potential and will have chances to play for the national side in future,” said Fahim.

However, despite taking the charge of the youths just 22 days ago head coach Mizanur Rahman believes his boys are prepared as of international standard.

“We’ve some problems in top-order batting line-up. We’ve worked hard to overcome it. Even we played a string of matches with BKSP team and a senior team, who played the last BCL, where most of the top-order batsmen played well and scored big runs with the rest of the players,” said Mizanur.

“Their ultimate target is to play in the Cup Championship of the mega event. We have set our game play in that way,” he added. l

ULAB to play in Red Bull Campus Cricket University of Liberal Arts Bangladesh (ULAB) are going to take part in the Red Bull Campus Cricket, an invitational cricket tournament, which will be held at the Kia Oval Ground, Kennington, London in June this year.

ULAB earned the ticket of this invitational tournament by emerging as the champions of the 7th ULAB Fair Play Cup that ended on Wednesday.

They beat Manarat International Uni-

Captain Brendon McCullum and Kane Williamson scored centuries to resurrect New Zealand’s innings after they lost three early wickets to put them in a strong position on 329 for four at the end of the first day of the first Test at Eden Park on Thursday.

McCullum was 143 not out at the close of play, his eighth Test century, while Williamson was dismissed after tea for 113, his fifth Test hundred.

Williamson’s century was his sixth score over 50 in succession against the tourists, having scored a half century in each of the five one day internationals that preceded the two-match Test series.

The pair combined for a 221-run partnership after the hosts had been reduced to 30 for three early in the first session when India captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni had won his sixth successive toss on tour and put New Zealand into bat.

All-rounder Corey Anderson (42) was with McCullum at the close of play with Ishant Sharma and Zaheer Khan taking two wickets each.

“It was pretty tricky early on for the openers so to get through that period and kick on in partnership with Brendon was fantastic,” Williamson told RadioSport.

“It’s nice to put the score on the board ... but the most pleasing thing was getting the innings back on track. It’s a very good batting track so we need to keep batting ... and make sure that we have a really good innings to bowl at.”

Dhoni’s three-pronged pace attack of Mohammed Shami, Zaheer Khan and Ishant Sharma exploited the green dropin pitch and cool, overcast conditions to knock the top off New Zealand’s batting and expose their middle order before the break.

Sharma had Hamish Rutherford well caught by a diving Ajinkya Rahane in the gully for six then Zaheer trapped Peter Fulton in front for 13 before Sharma had Ross Taylor caught by Ravindra Jadeja for three. Taylor’s dismissal put the hosts in a spot of bother before Williamson and McCullum consolidated, adding another 24 runs before lunch.

India’s bowlers were unable to sustain their disciplined line and length after lunch and were punished for bowling too short or too full, while their fielding, especially catching, was sub-standard. l

SCORECARD, DAY 1 New Zealand 1st innings P Fulton lbw Khan 13 H Rutherford c Rahane b I. Sharma 6 K Williamson c Dhoni b Khan 113 R Taylor c Jadeja b I. Sharma 3 B McCullum not out 143 C Anderson not out 42 Extras: (b1, lb5, w3) 9 Total: (four wickets; 90 overs) 329 Fall of wickets 1-19, 2-23, 3-30, 4-251 Bowling Shami 22-6-66-0, Khan 23-2-98-2, Sharma 21-4-62-2, Jadeja 20-1-81-0, Kohli 1-0-4-0, R. Sharma 3-0-12-0

Calling for DRS Nasir Hossain’s dismissal late in the third day left the Bangladesh dressing room furious as they felt the caught behind decision given by the Australian umpire Paul Reiffel was purely incorrect. Replays suggested they were right, but one should hardly blame an umpire, who gets fraction of a second to make the decision, at this age of technology. Had the DRS been installed, would this happen?

After coach Shane Jurgensen had seen the replay of the dismissal on the team analysts’ laptop, he let out a scream that spoke much about the frustration. Minutes later, Shamsur Rahman termed it a “bad decision”.

“Our day was ruined by one bad decision,” Shamsur said. “We would have had a great day had Nasir not been given out like that. He has now had two such calls in two consecutive matches. The whole team suffers if such a performer becomes victim of a bad dismissal.”

Even in the previous Test Mushfiqur Rahim’s leg-before decision appeared to have an inside edge. Over the last three years, Bangladesh has been at the wrong end of several umpiring errors, most notably against England at home in 2010 while umpiring decisions in the away series in Zimbabwe last year also caused the Bangladesh coach visit the match referee’s room often.

Shakib al Hasan first highlighted the need of DRS during the 2010 home series against England, when he criticised the BCB for spending money on welcoming then ECB chief rather than employing the DRS. However when the tender notice was placed for the broadcasting rights of this series, the companies were given a choice to either include or not include the DRS in their bid.

None of the bidders went for the “with DRS” deal.

Local channel Maasranga TV has the worldwide broadcasting rights for this series, and they have been operating with 20 cameras. l

versity by 7 wickets to clinch the title for the third time.

Red Bull Campus Cricket is an invitational cricket tournament which was taken place twice in Sri Lanka with the participation of six universities from different nations. ULAB also represented Bangladesh last year taking part in this tournament. Ahsan Habib, local agent in Bangladesh of Red Bull congratulated ULAB cricket team and praised the initiative of ULAB authorities to promote cricket in the country. l

Bangladesh allrounder Shakib al Hasan shows his frustration while returning to the pavilion during the third day of the second Test against Sri Lanka at ZACS yesterday MUMIT M

Dhaka, Khulna in strong position in NCL The second round of the 15th National Cricket League got underway yesterday across four venues in the country.

All the teams batting first – Dhaka division, Khulna, Dhaka Metropolis and Rajshahi – were in a comfortable position against their respective opponents at stumps of day one.

Dhaka division v Chittagong

Despite the delayed start due to fog the openers of Dhaka justified their decision of batting first at Rangpur Cricket Garden as the league leaders cashed in from a 98-run stand from Abdul Majid (61) and Rony Talukder (42). Slow bowler Aftab Ahmed removed both the openers in quick

succession but Taibur Parvez and Rakibul Hasan made sure they don’t lose the grip over the match as they added 46 for the third wicket.

Partnerships continued as Rakibul (41) added further 60 runs with Shuvagata Hom. Hom was unbeaten on 65 while Nadif Chowdhury was not out on five as Dhaka ended day one at 253 for five.

Khulna v Rangpur

After the early loss of Robiul Islam Robi, Soumya Sarker (45) and Nazmus Sadat (57) recovered the damage by adding 85 runs for the second wicket.

After the two set batsmen were removed Khulna was in a spot of bother by also losing Taposh Ghosh on a duck.

However, the two most experienced player of the side Tushar Imran and Zi-

aur Rahman put on 79 to take them to a safe position.

Zia dominated the bowlers in his 47ball 54 in which he struck eight fours and two sixes. Tushar however was calm and he oaired with Nizamuddin Ripon to make sure that they don’t lose any more wickets on the day. Tushar was not out on 86 while Ripon made 54 in Khulna’s 321-5.

Dhaka Metro v Sylhet

Batting first, Metro were reduced to 18 for two before Abu Baker (48) and Asif Ahmed (34) repaired their innings with an 82-run stand. Despite the starts the Metro batsmen failed to capitalise and turn it into a big knock as Mehrab Hossain and Tasamul Haque, coming in at number five and six, also returned with scores of 54 and 42. Left-arm spinner Nabil Samad

claimed three wicket for Sylhet as Metro ended the day on 252 for six.

BRIEF SCORES, DAY 1

Rajshahi v Barisal

Khulna (1st innings): 321/5 in 90 overs (Tushar 86*, Sadat 57, Ziaur 54, Ripon 51*, Sohrawardi 2/71)

Coming in at number five and six, Hamidul Islam and Taijul Islam registered fifties to save Rajshahi from the blushes in their first innings. Rajshahi had lost four wickets for 100 when the pair joined in the middle and their 96run partnership made the going easy for the defending champions. Taijul made 64 while wicketkeeper-batsman Hamidul was unlucky to miss a hundred and get out on 83. Rajshahi lost their eighth wicket in the last over of the day and they will resume today with the scorecard reading 291-8. Fast bowler Kamrul Islam Rabbi bagged three wickets for Barisal. l

Khulna v Rangpur

Chitttagong v Dhaka Div Dhaka (1st innings): 253/4 in 71 overs (Hom 65*, Majid 61, Aftab 2/20)

Sylhet v Dhaka Metro Metro (1st innings): 252/6 in 90 overs (Mehrab 54, Siddiq 48, Nabil 3/91)

Barisal v Rajshahi Rajshahi (1st innings): 291/8 in 89.2 overs (Hamidul 83, Taijul 64, Jubayer 48, Kamrul 3/54)

16

DHAKA TRIBUNE

Back Page

Friday, February 7, 2014

Rare headway in the trial of Ramna bomb blast cases A public prosecutor says verdict in the cases may be delivered next month n Md Sanaul Islam Tipu Nearly 13 years after filing, the prosecution yesterday finally finished placing arguments in the 2001 Ramna Batamul bomb blast cases.

Earlier, it took the state side nearly five and a half years to finally wrap up the submission of deposition of the 67 out of a total of 84 of its witnesses and move onto argument placement.

Additional Public Prosecutor SM Zahid Sarder, who started placing arguments on February 3, told the Dhaka Tribune that the verdict in the cases might be delivered next month.

Zahid also said the prosecution had proved all the allegations and would seek capital punishment against the accused.

There are allegations that the prosecution has not been sincere enough to produce witnesses before the court on time, resulting in the delay.

On the other hand, many witnesses have allegedly not responded to repeated calls for appearing before the court and give their statements.

Sources said it was common for prosecutions to take “unnecessarily” long time to move on with sensitive cases like those filed in connection with the Ramna blasts.

The cases also saw investigation officers change six times, the last of whom pressed charge sheets in November 2008, seven years after the deadly bomb blasts in the Bangla new year’s gathering in the capital’s Ramna Park on April 14, 2001.

The blasts for which banned Islamist militant outfit Harkat-ul-Jihad al Islami (HuJI) has been largely blamed, killed 10 and injured scores others who had gathered at the city centre for the traditional new year celebrations.

Soon after the blasts and the casualties, police filed two cases with the capital’s Ramna police station – one for murder and the other one for illegal possession of explosives.

The charge sheet that CID Inspector and the sixth investigator Abu Hena Mohammad Yusuf filed, accused 14 people, including HuJI chief Mufti Abdul Hannan and 13 of his associates.

One of them – Moulana Tajuddin – is a brother of BNP leader Abdus Salam Pintu. Tajuddin and four other accused have been absconding. Police have the remaining eight accused in custody including Hannan. Tajuddin’s name was not included in the initial case statements.

When asked what took the investigators so long to press charges, assistant PP Zahid told the

Dhaka Tribune that the cases proceeded at snail’s pace during the tenure of the BNP-Jamaat-led government because all the accused had strong connections with the then government ranks.

He also said many of the accused had threatened him for his life right in front of the judge when the prosecution witnesses had been deposing over the last five years.

“We will deal with you [Zahid] when the BNP comes to power,” Zahid quoted one of the accused as saying.

Of the accused, one Moulana Akbar Hossain had been out since 2001 after securing bail from the High Court. Yesterday Dhaka’s Second Additional Metropolitan Sessions Judge Ruhul Amin cancelled his bail and ordered for him to be sent to jail following a plea from the prosecution.

The prosecution argued that since Akbar was a member of militant group HuJI, it was particularly important to bring him back behind the bars.

Yesterday, Akbar’s lawyer began placing argument in his favour after the prosecution finished placing its arguments. The court then fixed February 13 for further hearing of defence arguments. l

A child looks through the pages of a book in the Amar Ekushey Book Fair yesterday

Book lovers pour in defying hartal n Ahmed Zayeef Despite hartal, Ekushey Book Fair was a popular destination for many from different areas of the capital yesterday.

Most preferred coming on a hartal day as it saved AMAR EKUSHEY B O O K FA I R 2 0 1 4 them time.

Mishkat Noor, a resident of Uttara said: “I wanted to visit the fair a few days back. However, fearing heavy traffic, I changed my mind. But today I took the chance as it is a hartal day and it took me only half an hour to reach here.”

Samantha Shehreen came to the fair from Keraniganj with her two children as she thought the crowd would be sparse today in the wake of hartal.

However, after coming she found it otherwise.

“We thought today we would be able to read our favorite books in a relaxed manner, but now we see a huge number of visitors here,” said Samantha.

The insecurity of hartal could not keep the book lovers away from the fair premises, said the publishers with content. To their surprise, most publishers saw a boost in their sales on hartal day, although the trend had been down till just a few days ago.

Freedom fighter Abir Ahad, organiser of the stall “Muktijuddher Boi,” said: “Hartal has lost its impact.

You can see people are no more confined in their

The committee operating the Maulana Mosque on KB Ghosh Street in Old Dhaka’s Armanitola demolishes the Mughal era establishment, defying a request from the Department of Archaeology.

The photo was taken yesterday.

Story on Page 3

RAJIB DHAR

homes fearing hartal.”

He added that sales had peaked today, which is a sign of hartal losing its impact.

Monirul Hoque, publisher of Anonna Prokashoni, was busy attending customers. He said: “You can see how busy we are today. I was rather surprised to see such a huge number of visitors as we thought hartal would discourage people from coming to the fair.”

Deputy Director of Department of Co-ordination and Public Relations of Bangla Academy Murshid Uddin Ahmed said: “The academy has declared the hours from 11am to 3pm on Saturdays as “Shishu prohor,” (children hour) to attract children to the fair. It has set up a children’s book corner with 25 stalls.”

According to Bangla Academy authorities, 97 new books came to the fair yesterday including Serajul Islam Choudhury’s “Rashtro o shomajer majhkhane” which will be available at the Pearl Publications, and Anish Das Opu’s “Mrittuchumbon” which will be available at the Jagriti Prokashoni.

A discussion titled “Bhasha andolon ebong Amanul Haque er kirti” was held at the central stage with eminent photographer Nasir Ali Mamun as the keynote speaker.

Professor Ahsanul Haque presided over the programme while Faridur Reza Sagor, managing director of Impress Telefilm Ltd, and celebrated author Lutfur Rahman Riton attended the discussion, among others. l

RAJIB DHAR

Government to seek Saudi accreditation for post-grad doctors n Moniruzzaman Uzzal Health Minister Mohammed Nasim is set to visit Saudi Arabia and Switzerland in the upcoming days, with key issues on the agenda during his first trip abroad since taking office last month.

Sources said the minister would first fly to Saudi Arabia today on a two-day visit, where he will meet with his Saudi counterpart and other senior officials.

Existing limitations bar post-graduate doctors from being accepted as specialists Nasim is also scheduled to travel to Geneva in Switzerland to attend a two-day meeting (February 10-11) on e-health standardisation at the World Health Organization (WHO).

Health Secretary MM Niazuddin told the Dhaka Tribune that both the trips by the minister are very important for Bangladesh.

He said the main agenda for the Saudi Arabia visit was to secure accreditation of different post-graduate medical education degrees (MD, MS, and FCPS) awarded by Bangladesh, which are yet to be recognised by the Saudi government.

The existing limitations bar the Bangladeshi post-graduate doctors from being accepted as specialist doctors, and force them to accept lower salaries than doctors with similar qualifications from other countries.

The health secretary expressed hopes that the Saudi government would respond positively in providing accreditation to Bangladeshi

post-graduate certificates. The Saudi government would also be requested to employ more doctors and nurses from Bangladesh, he added.

Sayedul Islam, a deputy secretary (WHO section) of health ministry, told the Dhaka Tribune that necessary information regarding the quality of international standard education in Bangladesh would be provided for the Saudi authority’s consideration.

He added that on the first day of his visit, health minister Nasim would meet with senior officials of the commission that decides on the accreditation of post-graduate degrees; while holding talks with his counterpart Abdullah bin Abdulaziz Al Rabiah on the following day.

The agenda of the discussions would include cooperation in health sector and in medical education, sources said.

Bangladesh is also expected to request for expediting loan disbursement of cancer and ophthalmology hospital projects in the country.

Meanwhile, about the minister’s visit to the WHO meeting in Geneva, Deputy Health Secretary Sayedul said Bangladesh would highlight the successful introduction of e-health services in the country.

Bangladesh has been successfully using different software to collect use and store data, Sayedul said, adding that WHO officials will be shown how the Bangladeshi system would be helpful for other countries to exchange data between each other.

Seeking anonymity, a ministry official said Bangladesh would get a prize and official recognition from the WHO for successfully introducing e-health in the country. l

Current Indian visa application system remains n Sheikh Shahariar Zaman

India has not changed its visa processing system and the current online procedure for all visa applications will continue.

The Indian High Commission through a visa advisory advised the potential travellers to India to continue to follow the current procedures.

“In response to reports in the Indian media about changes in the visa regime for foreigners visiting India the spokesperson of the Indian High Commission has clarified that there is no change in the current visa procedures in so far as Bangladesh is concerned,” the advisory said.

The spokesperson further added that as and when there are changes in the existing system these will be formally announced.

Indian High Commissioner to Dhaka Pankaj Saran told the Dhaka tribune they had no official information about new visa processing system.

“Actually it is only in the media right now,” he said.

Bangladesh Press Minister to New Delhi Enamul Hoque Chowdhury told the Dhaka Tribune that the government is in touch with the Indian authorities over the issue.

Meanwhile, the BBC reported that Indian government had taken a decision to provide limited visa-on-arrival facility to tourists from 180 countries.

“We have decided to extend the visa-on-arrival facility to tourists from 180 nations. It will take five to six months for the respective departments to put the required infrastructure in place. We hope to implement this from the next tourist session beginning October,” Planning Minister Rajeev Shukla said.

The electronic visa service would be available at 26 major airports and would be valid for 30 days from the date of the tourist’s arrival in India, Shukla said.

Indian media reported that tourists from eight countries – Pakistan, Sudan, Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Nigeria, Somalia and Sri Lanka – had been exempted from the facilities.

India has the biggest visa processing operation and issues over 0.3 million visa every year.

Dhaka and New Delhi agreed on a revised travel arrangement [RTA] under which both the countries reciprocate flexible visa facility to provide better service to visitors.

Under the RTA, tourists would get one-year multiple visas while official passport holders will not need visa to travel the countries.

Students and businessmen would get visa for up to five years while multiple medical visa would be provided for one year with a provision for extension of another year. l

Editor: Zafar Sobhan, Published and Printed by Kazi Anis Ahmed on behalf of 2A Media Limited at Dainik Shakaler Khabar Publications Limited, 153/7, Tejgaon Industrial Area, Dhaka-1208. Editorial, News & Commercial Office: FR Tower, 8/C Panthapath, Shukrabad, Dhaka 1207.

Phone: 9132093-94, Advertising: 9132155, Circulation: 9132282, Fax: News-9132192, e-mail: news@dhakatribune.com, info@dhakatribune.com, Website: www.dhakatribune.com

Continue to the Business section...

Business

B3 Dollar firms ahead of jobs data

B4 Asian governments to central banks: It's our mess, you fix it

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 7, 2014 www.dhakatribune.com/business

Muhith takes SME credit grows 18% in 2013 ‘The soft loan went to trading sector as entrepreneurs were reluctant to invest in time to revise manufacturing due to political turmoil in last several months’ marco indicators n Jebun Nesa Alo

Government is struggling to maintain macro-economic indicators of a country whose economy has just suffered a damaging political unrest And the fiscal coordination committee members said the budget deficit would also increase to 5% of GDP from 4.5%.

In the meeting, finance ministry placed a proposal stating that the current fiscal’s budget will be slashed down by Tk11,270 crore to Tk211,220 crore from Tk222,490 crore.

Annual Development Programme (ADP) will also need to be cut by Tk11,000 crore from Tk63,000 crore.

Of the amount, TK6,000 crore will be cut from the government fund, TK3,063 crore from foreign assistance and the rest is from the budget for the autonomous bodies. l

145.45%

Growth in loans to entrepreneurs in 2013 against previous year

SME Loan in 2013 (in crore Taka)

50.47%

Es in u ru rba ra n a la n re d as

Manufacturing sector 24,017

SM

rtu

ps

23.23%

St a

Finance Minister AMA Muhith was not willing to accept the country’s macro-economic reality as presented by the officials who attended the yesterday’s fiscal coordination council meeting.

Although the officials in the meeting advised to revise the indicators like cutting GDP growth target, revenue collection target and raising inflation target, the minister insisted that the state of economy was not so bad. He suggested further discussions before revising the indicators.

But the government is struggling to maintain macro-economic indicators of a country whose economy has just suffered a damaging political unrest, said the officials.

Fund shortage and slow investment growth have continued to batter Bangladesh’s economy, they said.

Finance Minister AMA Muhith however said there was no negative impact of political unrest on the economy.

He was speaking to the journalists after the meeting held at the finance ministry office in Dhaka.

The minister said: “We have just reviewed macroeconomic indicators for doing a revision, but the review is not complete yet.”

According to finance minister, the gross domestic product growth will not be below 6.3%, “although some will differ about it.”

But officials who attended the meeting said the fund deficit was too acute to maintain the budget’s macroeconomic targets set for the current fiscal year.

In the meeting, National Board of Revenue chairman proposed to curtail revenue collection target by 11.82% or

The commercial banks and financial institutions have disbursed loans of Tk85,323 crore to the small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in 2013.

According to Bangladesh Bank figures released yesterday, the disbursement was 16% higher than the year’s target and 18% higher than the previous year, despite slow growth in overall private sector credit in year 2013 due to the political turmoil.

Of the total SME loan disbursed last year to 744,228 entrepreneurs, small enterprises shared about 52%, thanks to initiatives by the government and Bangladesh Bank taken with assistance from the development partners to boost SMEs that contribute 25% of the country’s GDP. Sub-sector wise, 67% went to the trading, followed by manufacturing 28% and services 5%.

Former adviser to the past caretaker government Mirza Azizul Islam said the loan should have been invested more in the manufacturing sector to get better outcome.

“The soft loan went to trading sector as entrepreneurs were reluctant to invest in manufacturing due to political turmoil in last several months,” he told the Dhaka Tribune yesterday.

He said businessmen are interested to take SME loan as it requires simple condition while they have taken advantage of the easy-term loan to make quick profit through trading.

In Bangladesh, 90% of the private sector enterprises are SMEs while 70% to 80% of the non-agricultural workforce working in the sector or around 25% of the country’s total labour force.

It contributes about 40% of gross manufacturing output, making a significant contribution to exports.

Banks in Bangladesh are being supported in SME financing initiatives at subsidised interest rate with refinance

en tre W pr om en e eu n rs

n Asif Showkat Kallol

Tk16,000 crore due to political turmoil.

But the finance minister refused it and asked the NBR chief to make a fresh proposal.

For the current fiscal, the revenue collection was set at Tk136,000 crore in the budget.

The meeting also debated on GDP growth with the officials suggesting to cut it to between 6.3% and 6.5% from the existing target of 7.2%.

Besides, Planning Commission officials advised to raise inflation rate target to 7.5% or 7.2% from the present 7%.

Loan disbursement for small enterprises

Trading sector 56,704 Service sector 4,603

line from Bangladesh Bank, which is being funded by Bangladesh Bank, government of Bangladesh and development partners like IDA, ADB and JICA. “The SME loan disbursement increased as Bangladesh Bank encouraged new entrepreneurs,” said a senior executive of Bangladesh Bank.

For this year, the central bank had earlier set a SME loan target of Tk88,753 crore, which is about 20% higher than the Tk74,187 crore target of last year.

The release said Bangladesh Bank has taken several development measures last year to create new entrepreneurs, including the Dhaka Chamber plan to create 2,000 new entrepreneurs. A decision has also been taken to arrange a women entrepreneur fair with the sup-

port of all banks and non-bank financial institutions to be arranged soon.

The banks and FIs disbursed SME loans of Tk3,346 crore to woman entrepreneurs last year, which is over 50% higher from Tk2,224 crore in the previous year.

It was Tk13,197 crore for 65,504 new entrepreneurs last year against 26,687 new entrepreneurs received Tk4,835 crore in the previous year.

Of the total SME loan last year, 23% went to the rural areas while the loan to rural areas increased by 9% to Tk19,850 crore in 2013 from Tk18,158 crore in 2012.

SME initiatives in the country typically begin with small, often insufficient equity from entrepreneurs’ own per-

sonal or family savings.

Absence of track record in business and lack of real assets to offer as collateral makes it difficult for SMEs to access debt finance on affordable terms.

Banks and financial institutions primarily geared towards serving larger urban businesses are in general neither well motivated nor well equipped to serve SMEs in dispersed locations far off from branches.

Besides higher risks in SME lending, they also find SME loan administration costlier. In these circumstances, SMEs find it hard to get credit for inputs procurement and other expenses. SMEs often have also to sell their produces on credit, further burdening their precarious finances. l

BGMEA, Impactt ink deal to improve RMG productivity All set to award MLM company n Tribune Report Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA) has signed a collaboration agreement with the UK-based consultant firm Impactt to enhance productivity in the country’s RMG sector.

BGMEA vice-president (finance) Reaz Bin Mahmood and Impactt Bangladesh Chairman Rosy Hurst signed the agreement on their respective sides in Dhaka yesterday.

“The aim of the agreement is to enhance capability of the entrepreneurs so they can meet the imminent challenges relating to prices and wages as well as workers safety issues,” said Rosy Hurst, chairman of Impactt – a firm Specialised in ethical trade, human rights, labour standards and international development.

She said they would also work in the wide range of areas like programmes for the workers to improve their skills,

enhance their capability and efficiency, and to make them loyal to rules and regulation of their respective factories.

“Partnership with the BGMEA is very important for this potential sector as

collaboration is the only way to do so,’’ said Reaz Bin Mahmood.

Replying to a query on the implementation of new wage, BGMEA President Atiqul Islam categorically said,

Partnership with the BGMEA is very important for this potential sector as the support from us would help enable a more competitive industry to provide better jobs for its workers the support from us would help enable a more competitive industry to provide better jobs for its workers,’’ she said.

“Productivity is an opportunity to bridge the gap between our problems and potentials. To make better use of that opportunity, sharing knowledge and capability enhancement through

“We don’t have any accurate data about how many factories have so far implemented the new wage structure”.

He, however, said the buyers did not increase the prices of RMG products as yet. Instead, they have threatened us to leave the country, blaming the political unrest.

Impactt and BGMEA will build partnership with other stakeholders to roll out the successful Benefits for Business and Workers (BBW) programme, which has already improved efficiency and quality and also ensured better jobs for workers in 45 factories in Bangladesh.

The collaboration will support rolling out of the ongoing programme to 200 more garment factories in Dhaka and Chittagong by December 2015.

To get the benefits from the programmes, a RMG factory has to pay Tk3.80 lakh as the programme will be run with the funds from UK Aids, buyers, DIFD and factory owners.

The BBW Programme involves a consortium of retailers, including C&A, Debenham, K-Mart of Australia, M&Co, Primark, Target of Australia, Tesco and Tau Investment Management with matched funding from UK Aids new Trade and Global Value Chains Initiative. l

licences from next week n Asif Showkat Kallol The government is finally going to start offering licence to the much-talked about Multi-Level Marketing (MLM) companies from next week, with offering the first-ever licence to Tiangshai.

“The Registrar of the Joint Stock Companies and Firms (RJSC) will scrutinise the eligible firms before offering the licences, beginning from next week,” an official of the commerce ministry said yesterday.

According to commerce ministry and RJSC sources, a total of 21 firms have submitted their proposals to get MLM licences.

The proposals of the scam-hit Destiny, Advance Bangla, Rich, Pinacal, Aimway, and Tiangshai have also been submitted to the RJSC. “Tiangshai is the first MLM company, which is going to get the opening

licence from RJSC in the next week,’’ said an official.

Although the much-talk about MLM company Destiny-2000 had submitted its proposal on January 8 to RJSC, it might be difficult for the controversial company to get the desired license on legal ground, said an official of RJSC. However, as per newly enacted MLM law, the RJSC will have to inform Destiny about its decision within thirty days.

“Legal complexities won’t be any hindrances for the Destiny to get licence from RJSC,” secretary of Destiny Mizanur Rahman told the Dhaka Tribune yesterday.

As contacted, Commerce Secretary Mahbub Ahmed yesterday said the government has no option but to give licences to the companies as per the enacted MLM law. l

BB wants mobile bankers to get access to NID server n Tribune Report

Bangladesh Bank has urged the Election Commission to allow banks to access into its NID (National Identity) server so they could increase mobile banking accounts or wallets and help deepen the financial inclusion.

“Unlike other countries, it is not common in Bangladeshi to carry NID, which is hampering adoption of wallet,” Governor Atiur Rahman told a function in Dhaka yesterday.

“There is, therefore, a need for awareness campaign of carrying NID and allowing access to NID by mobile bankers.”

He was addressing a function to release a survey report on “Mobile Financial Services (MFS): Consumer Insights” at a city hotel. pi Strategy Consulting and Consultative Group to Assist the Poor (CGAP) of World Bank jointly launched the survey findings at the function.

National Board of Revenue also uses the EC NID server in the process of registering the TINs.

According to the report, only 3% MFS customers transacted money using their own accounts, 52% through agents, 35% through either sender or receiver accounts and 10% through courier services.

The governor said it is natural that survey at agent points would be dominated by non-account holder customers. “Due to low transaction limit, some find it convenient to send money through agents.”

There is a general perception that opening an account is a cumbersome process-which indirectly promotes using agents.

The current form of registration, which doesn’t allow people to instantly open an account, significantly slows the process of financial inclusion – as people want to open accounts on the spot and transfer funds instantly.

However, self-wallet-use is increasing as many elements (i.e. airtime, loan repayment, merchant payment, school fee payment) are coming in the ecosystem and, time to time, one should study how the adaptation is increasing.

Bangladesh Bank Governor Atiur Rahman delivers speech at a function on mobile financial services in Dhaka yesterday MAHMUD HOSSAIN OPU Atiur said most of the cash-ins are happening in major metro cities while cash-outs are spreading to the rural areas making significant contribution in terms of financial inclusion and there by inclusive growth.

“In cash-in markets, customers don’t

feel the need to open an account, however, in the cash-out markets, there is a higher need to register and open an account.”

He said there are big differences in regulatory perspective -ours is bankled model while others in the globe may not be so.

“It is a light-touch regulated. Normally central bank is heavy handed but I had to change mindset to understand that many are not educated.”

Pial Islam, managing partner of the consulting firm, presented the survey and said the research is expected to assist industry players as well as the regulator to gain important insights about MFS end-users.

According to the survey nearly 48% of the MFS users reside in urban areas while 32% in rural and 20% in semi urban areas. A big gender gap among the users, only 18% of them are female and the average monthly income of the MFS users is Tk8007, which is higher than the national average income, and nearly three times higher than the poverty line average income.

More than four-fifths of the users transfer funds between the members of same economic households. The study reports that those who are using mobile banking, tend to conduct more frequent transactions of lower monetary value compared to their own funds transfer patterns in the past.

A significant number of people have been opening wallets, especially over the last few months. Some 25% of those surveyed are wallet owners.

Among the MFS users, noticeable differences were observed in the study between wallet owners and those who don’t have wallets.

Early adopters of wallet are typically younger, better educated, earn more and have better English proficiency than non-wallet MFS users.

Islam said: “This raises some important questions about impact of MFS towards financial inclusion. Are the unbanked, less educated and poorer segments of our population being served through MFS in a significant way yet?”

By now, 28 banks have MFS permission and 19 are in active operation that includes BRAC Bank’s dedicated MFS, bKash. Key players in MFS are bKash, DBBL Mobile Money and M-Cash of IBBL with13.2mn registered customers with about 2 lakh agents nationwide generating (on average) more than 1.0 million transactions amounting more than Tk2.21b per day. l

B2

Stock

DHAKA TRIBUNE

Stocks rally with higher turnover

DSE key features February 6, 2014

n Tribune Report

Number of Contract

with a 34 points gain, at the end of the day.”

The multinational companies continued to perform well. The commendable gains by pharmaceuticals that rose over 3% and telecommunications 2.7% helped the market move upward.

Stocks rallied yesterday, led by heavyweight pharmaceuticals and telecommunications companies.

After two-session of marginal corrections, the benchmark DSEX index rose 34 points or 0.7% to end at 4,845.

Shariah-based DSES index gained 13 points or 1.5% to 996.

The blue-chip comprising DS30 index ended at 1682 with a rise of 18 points or 1%.

The Chittagong Stock Exchange Selective Category Index, CSCX, soared 79 points to close at 9,523.

The market participation at DSE improved significantly with the total turnover going up by over 24% to Tk770 crore over the previous session.

The mixed trading attitude of market makers over the last few trading sessions indicates that the market is cautiously optimistic on the future gain as quarterly corporate profits are coming with less battered declaration as expected, said Lanka Bangla Securities in its market analysis.

IDLC Investments said the market turned around with large caps taking lead of the rally.

“The buyers dominated early in the session and were neutralised later by the sellers later. As a result, despite soaring up as much as about 70 points, DSEX had to settle

The market participation at DSE improved significantly with the total turnover going up by over 24% to Tk770 crore over the previous session Food and allied, and non banking financial institutions gained 1.6% and 0.6% respectively.

Square Pharmaceuticals - the largest free-floated cap stocks posted the highest liquidity of Tk41crore and also saw a 3.7% gain.

The bank sector contributed the most to the total market turnover, accounting for 14.94% of total value.

After Square, other turnover leaders were Jamuna Oil, Bangladesh Submarine Cable Company Ltd, Olympic Industries, Meghna Petroleum, Grameenphone and Mercantile Bank. l

(+) 0.70%

▲

996.35851

(+) 1.41%

▲

DSE - 30 Index :

1681.91129

(+) 1.09%

▲

CSE All Share Index:

15026.9404

(+) 0.77%

CSE - 30 Index : CSE Selected Index : DSE LOSERS Company Rahima Food -Z Savar Refractories-Z Standard Ceramic -A Al-Haj Textile -A Kay & Que (BD) -Z Safko Spinning-A Mozaffar H.Spinning-N Rahim Textile -A ICB Emp. PMF-A Miracle Industries -B

Closing (% change) -5.02 -4.26 -4.06 -3.65 -3.37 -3.28 -3.04 -3.02 -2.94 -2.90

CSE LOSERS Company Prime Insur -A Phoenix Insur -A Brac B.C. Bond-A SonarBangla Insu. -A Safko Spinning-A Bank Asia -A PHP 1st M. F.-A ICB Emp. PMF-A Miracle Industries -B PrimeFin. 1st MF-A

Closing (% change) -8.21 -8.11 -5.96 -3.65 -3.59 -3.51 -3.03 -2.90 -2.89 -2.88

7,704.01 145,920,088 142,246

Traded Issues

294

Issue Gain (Avg. Price Basis)

156

Issue Loss (Avg. Price Basis)

128

Unchanged Issue (Avg. Price Basis)

10

Market Capital Equity (Billion. Tk.)

2,315.74

Market Capital Equity (Billion US$)

28.07

Turnover (Million Taka)

602.95

Turnover (Volume)

15,127,931

229

Issue Gain (Avg. Price Basis)

117

Issue Loss (Avg. Price Basis)

106 5

▼

Unchanged Issue (Avg. Price Basis)

2,192.39 26.57

12656.9792

(+) 1.18%

▲

9523.0557

(+) 0.84%

▼

Market Capital Equity (Billion US$)

Average (% change) -0.74 -4.96 -3.00 -1.46 -4.05 -2.90 -2.53 1.73 -1.74 -1.69 Average (% change) -8.21 -7.90 -5.96 -3.65 -3.51 -2.02 -1.82 -1.74 -2.26 -1.66

Closing average 66.76 55.79 37.83 85.57 20.15 29.81 38.87 334.36 6.76 23.81

Closing average 38.00 51.08 970.00 29.00 29.66 22.26 6.48 6.78 23.81 23.76

Closing

Daily high

66.20 56.20 37.80 84.40 20.10 29.50 38.30 327.30 6.60 23.40

Closing

Daily high

Turnover in million

Daily low

69.90 58.50 38.00 88.30 20.60 30.40 40.00 350.90 7.00 24.50

38.00 51.00 970.00 29.00 29.50 22.00 6.40 6.70 23.50 23.60

21,941

Traded Issues

Market Capital Equity (Billion. Tk.)

65.90 54.10 37.70 83.90 19.80 29.30 38.10 323.50 6.60 23.30

Turnover in million

Daily low

38.00 55.00 970.00 29.00 30.60 22.50 6.50 6.80 24.50 24.50

1.936 0.053 0.227 11.182 0.131 8.498 28.512 3.678 1.990 8.927

38.00 50.00 970.00 29.00 29.40 21.80 6.20 6.70 23.40 23.10

Latest EPS -1.00 0.60 1.06 2.06 -0.89 1.12 2.16 11.56 0.52 0.22

Latest EPS

0.038 0.021 0.010 0.029 0.535 0.534 0.441 0.017 0.679 0.784

Samata LeatheR -Z BD Submarine Cable-A Renata Ltd. -A Zeal Bangla Sugar -Z Renwick Jajneswar-A Bata Shoe Ltd. -A GreenDeltaInsu -A Marico BD Ltd-A PragatiLife Insu. -A Padma Islami Life*-N

2.36 3.81 0.00 1.85 1.12 1.41 0.40 0.52 0.22 1.00

Latest PE -ve 93.0 35.7 41.5 -ve 26.6 18.0 28.9 13.0 108.2

Company Samata LeatheR -Z Eastern Cables-Z Prime Islami Life -A BD Submarine Cable-A Bata Shoe Ltd. -A Marico BD Ltd-A BATBCL -A Samorita Hospital -A Bengal Windsor-A HeidelbergCement -A

Sector Bank NBFI Investment Engineering Food & Allied Fuel & Power Jute Textile Pharma & Chemical Paper & Packaging Service Leather Ceramic Cement Information Technology General Insurance Life Insurance Telecom Travel & Leisure Miscellaneous Debenture

DSE Million Taka 1085.21 375.18 130.22 601.95 914.47 947.56 2.80 685.53 928.69 1.00 58.34 115.62 94.94 341.94 176.37 242.00 318.75 465.15 104.19 113.77 0.35

% change 14.09 4.87 1.69 7.81 11.87 12.30 0.04 8.90 12.05 0.01 0.76 1.50 1.23 4.44 2.29 3.14 4.14 6.04 1.35 1.48 0.00

Million Taka 113.02 34.36 7.74 65.57 25.83 49.35 61.68 60.04 2.09 7.73 4.84 12.96 19.10 27.37 6.50 13.67 53.37 17.76 25.89 0.05

CSE

% change 18.56 5.64 1.27 10.77 4.24 8.10 0.00 10.13 9.86 0.34 1.27 0.79 2.13 3.14 4.49 1.07 2.24 8.76 2.92 4.25 0.01

Million Taka 1198.24 409.53 137.97 667.52 940.30 996.91 2.80 747.21 988.73 3.08 66.07 120.46 107.90 361.04 203.74 248.51 332.42 518.51 121.95 139.65 0.40

Total

Closing (% change) 9.91 8.88 7.83 7.35 7.11 6.15 5.07 4.84 4.79 4.66

Average (% change) 10.00 4.82 9.72 13.63 5.05 5.68 7.09 8.62 2.56 3.33 Average (% change) 9.91 8.56 6.26 4.22 7.11 6.16 4.94 4.78 2.80 4.70

Closing average 24.20 181.98 897.74 9.09 170.07 832.54 102.83 894.50 234.14 91.76

Closing average 25.50 102.70 129.04 181.20 808.65 898.83 2068.89 95.35 58.68 438.19

Closing 24.20 186.90 908.80 9.00 172.30 841.50 102.30 894.80 236.50 92.80

Closing 25.50 103.00 129.40 187.00 808.70 898.80 2071.40 95.40 59.10 435.80

Daily high 24.20 189.20 908.80 9.10 173.00 850.00 104.10 908.90 238.50 94.70

Daily high 25.50 103.00 129.50 189.90 811.60 905.00 2071.40 97.40 60.90 445.00

Daily low 24.20 160.00 854.00 9.00 163.00 813.00 90.00 869.90 228.00 80.00

Daily low 25.50 100.00 126.00 175.00 806.00 848.00 2001.00 93.30 57.00 434.00

Turnover in million 0.375 302.623 90.733 0.030 8.376 29.590 16.278 19.858 24.468 55.913

Turnover in million 0.051 0.103 0.289 38.960 0.323 1.034 2.896 0.095 8.485 2.125

Latest EPS

Latest PE

-0.04 3.28 41.39 -25.08 5.32 52.75 3.69 46.53 2.38 1.10

Latest EPS

-ve 55.5 21.7 -ve 32.0 15.8 27.9 19.2 98.4 83.4

Latest PE

-0.04 1.40 4.95 3.28 52.75 46.53 76.51 2.74 2.50 29.19

-ve 73.4 26.1 55.2 15.3 19.3 27.0 34.8 23.5 15.0

GREENDELT: The Board of Directors has recommended 15% cash dividend and 15% stock dividend for the year ended on December 31, 2013. Date of AGM: 15.03.2014, Time: 11:00 AM, Venue: Hotel Purbani International Ltd., 1, Dilkusha C/A, Dhaka-1000. Record Date: 17.02.2014. The Company has also reported net profit after tax of Tk. 235.47 million, EPS of Tk. 3.69, NAV per share of Tk. 70.22 and NOCFPS of Tk. 0.76 for the year ended on December 31, 2013 as against Tk. 237.68 million, Tk. 3.73 (restated), Tk. 60.49 (restated) and Tk. 8.30 (restated) respectively for the year ended on December 31, 2012.

GREENDELT: The Company has informed that the Board of Directors of the Company has resolved the following decision subject to approval from the Insurance Development & Regulatory Authority and legal opinion from the panel lawyer of the Company: To purchase commercial floor space measuring 8,000 sft. at MANS Trade Center (4th floor), Ram Joy Mohjan Lane, Khatungonj,

Chittagong at the price of Tk. 7,700.00 per sft. totaling to Tk. 6.16 crore and 3 parking space at a total cost of Tk. 8.25 lac.

RIGHT SHARE: ARAMITCEM: Subscription 23.03.2014 to 17.04.2014. Record date for entitlement of rights share: 09.01.2014.

RUPALILIFE- Subscription 06.04.2014 to 05.05.2014. Record date for entitlement of rights share: 16.01.2014. BRACBANK: Subscription 20.04.2014 to 15.05.2014. Record date for entitlement of rights share: 10.02.2014.

IPO Subscription: Matin Spinning Mills Limited subscription date 26-30 January 2014, NRB upto 08 Feburay 2014. @ Tk. 37/-, face value taka 10 and market lot 200.

Hwa Well Textiles (BD) Limited subscription date 17-23 February 2014, NRB upto 04 March 2014. At per, face value taka 10 and market lot 500.

Dividend/AGM

RAKCERAMIC: 15% cash and 10% stock, AGM: 02.04.2014, RD: 13.02.2014.

SALAMCRST: 13% cash, AGM: 29.03.2014, RD: 11.02.2014.

1STPRIMFMF: 10% cash, RD: 11.02.2014.

HRTEX: 15% cash, AGM: 21.04.2014, Record date: 20.02.2014.

MAKSONSPIN: 5% stock, AGM: 13.03.2014, RD: 16.02.2014.

GSPFINANCE: 12% stock, AGM: 20.02.2014, RD: 03.02.2014.

ECABLES: 10% cash, AGM: 01.03.2014, RD: 29.12.2013.

USMANIAGL: 11% Cash & 10% Stock, AGM: postponed, RD: 07.11.2013.

SAVAREFR: No dividend, AGM: 30.01.2014, RD: 19.12.2013.

PADMAOIL: 90% Cash, 10% Stock, AGM: 15.02.2014, RD: 23.12.2013.

Latest PE 16.1 13.4 15.7 26.5 15.8 16.2 13.0 108.2 23.8

The buyers dominated early in the session and were neutralised later by the sellers later. As a result, despite soaring up as much as about 70 points, DSEX had to settle with a 34 points gain, at the end of the day

SECTORAL TURNOVER SUMMARY

10.00 7.41 7.37 7.14 5.90 5.80 5.79 5.64 5.63 5.57

CSE GAINERS

DSE TURNOVER LEADERS Company

ANALYST

Closing (% change)

News from trade server

Number of Contract

4845.08962

DSE Shariah Index :

Company

CSE key features February 6, 2014

Daily capital market highlights DSE Broad Index :

DSE GAINERS

Turnover (Million Taka) Turnover (Volume)

Friday, February 7, 2014

% change 14.41 4.93 1.66 8.03 11.31 11.99 0.03 8.99 11.89 0.04 0.79 1.45 1.30 4.34 2.45 2.99 4.00 6.24 1.47 1.68 0.00

Prepared exclusively for Dhaka Tribune by Business Information Automation Service Line (BIASL), on the basis of information collected from daily stock quotations and audited reports of the listed companies. High level of caution has been taken to collect and present the above information and data. The publisher will not take any responsibility if any body uses this information and data for his/her investment decision. For any query please email to biasl@bol-online.com or call 01552153562 or go to www.biasl.net

BATBCL -A Square Pharma -A BD Submarine Cable-A Jamuna Oil -A Olympic Ind. -A Meghna Petroleum -A Grameenphone-A

Mercantile Bank -A Padma Oil Co. -A LankaBangla Fin. -A

ConfidenceCement A aamra technologies-A Summit Power -A UCBL - A Golden Son -A Brac Bank -A Generation Next-A Aftab Auto.-A Renata Ltd. -A Singer BD -A CSE TURNOVER LEADERS Company BD Submarine Cable-A

Square Pharma -A aamra technologies-A UCBL - A Mercantile Bank -A UNITED AIR-A Grameenphone-A BSC-A Aftab Auto.-A Appollo Ispat CL -N AB Bank - A RAK Ceramics-A LankaBangla Fin. -A Summit Power -A Mozaffar H.Spinning-N BEXIMCO Ltd. -A Generation Next-A

Volume shares 270,476 1,677,414 1,662,939 943,830 1,104,043 601,204 778,824 6,069,768 373,131 1,604,905

743,342 2,474,385 2,109,897 3,292,509 1,571,541 2,899,774 2,754,620 1,013,488 101,068 398,300

Volume shares

215,007 99,579 530,190 552,791 745,363 957,301 69,000 28,840 138,616 374,000 303,470 161,262 134,645 203,487 250,500 268,087 260,780

Value in million 569.86 411.53 302.62 217.62 203.13 167.58 162.53 128.03 123.60 118.59

112.51 105.81 102.84 98.90 98.71 97.65 95.02 95.00 90.73 90.60

Value in million

38.96 24.46 22.69 16.59 15.77 15.48 14.41 13.56 12.97 12.26 10.45 10.17 9.94 9.92 9.78 9.46 9.04

% of total turnover 7.40 5.34 3.93 2.82 2.64 2.18 2.11 1.66 1.60 1.54

1.46 1.37 1.33 1.28 1.28 1.27 1.23 1.23 1.18 1.18

% of total turnover

6.47 4.06 3.77 2.76 2.62 2.57 2.39 2.25 2.15 2.04 1.74 1.69 1.65 1.65 1.62 1.57 1.50

Daily closing 2100.80 248.10 186.90 230.80 185.60 278.30 210.00 20.70 328.90 73.20

150.90 43.00 49.00 29.70 63.40 34.00 34.30 93.60 908.80 228.10

Daily closing

187.00 248.40 43.00 29.70 20.60 16.30 210.20 471.80 93.50 32.60 34.00 61.90 73.70 49.00 38.60 35.30 34.40

Price change 1.92 3.68 7.41 1.58 2.83 0.43 2.24 0.00 -0.51 -1.61

Daily opening 2061.30 239.30 174.00 227.20 180.50 277.10 205.40 20.70 330.60 74.40

Price change

Daily opening

1.00 3.86 1.45 -1.98 0.63 2.41 -2.56 0.86 7.37 3.45

7.35 3.63 3.61 -2.30 -0.48 1.24 2.09 2.28 0.75 0.00 0.29 -0.96 -1.34 1.45 -2.77 0.57 -2.82

149.40 41.40 48.30 30.30 63.00 33.20 35.20 92.80 846.40 220.50

174.20 239.70 41.50 30.40 20.70 16.10 205.90 461.30 92.80 32.60 33.90 62.50 74.70 48.30 39.70 35.10 35.40

Daily high 2164.30 249.90 189.20 235.00 198.00 280.80 210.80 22.00 335.60 76.00

Daily low 2061.00 232.00 160.00 220.00 171.00 265.00 195.00 19.00 325.00 70.00

Daily average 2106.88 245.33 181.98 230.57 183.99 278.75 208.68 21.09 331.25 73.89

Daily high

Daily low

Daily average

153.20 43.80 49.40 31.00 63.80 36.50 35.50 96.00 908.80 235.00

189.90 249.90 43.80 30.70 21.50 16.40 210.90 475.00 94.30 33.20 34.80 64.10 75.40 49.50 40.00 35.70 35.70

144.70 37.50 44.00 27.30 61.00 30.00 32.00 84.00 854.00 220.00

175.00 237.40 41.50 29.60 20.40 16.00 205.00 460.00 85.00 32.50 33.90 61.50 73.00 48.00 38.50 35.00 34.20

151.36 42.76 48.74 30.04 62.81 33.68 34.50 93.73 897.74 227.47

181.20 245.64 42.79 30.00 21.16 16.17 208.78 470.02 93.55 32.77 34.43 63.04 73.84 48.74 39.04 35.30 34.65

DHAKA TRIBUNE

Business

Green Delta Ins shares rise on disclosures n Tahmidur Rahman Green Delta Insurance stocks yesterday registered a gain of 5.79% each as the company disclosed price sensitive information at the Dhaka Stock Exchange.

The company yesterday informed its board’s recommendation of 15% cash dividend and 15% stock dividend on Tk10 face value for the year ended on December 31 of 2013.

The recommendation is a subject of approval at its annual general meeting on March 15 at Hotel Purbani International Ltd in Dilkusha C/A, Dhaka.

However the record date for the dividend is declared on the 17th of the on-going month.

Following the disclosure, there was no price limit on the trading of the shares yesterday.

The company also reported a yearly profit of Tk23.5 crore after tax in 2013, down from a profit of Tk23.7 crore during the same period last year.

On the contrary to a slight fall in profits due to lower income from insur-

Oil prices rise in Asian trade n AFP, Singapore

Oil prices rose in Asian trade yesterday, extending gains on stronger demand for heating fuel in the United States as the country grapples with severe winter.

US benchmark West Texas Intermediate (WTI) for March delivery advanced 19 cents to $97.57 in afternoon trade, while Brent North Sea crude was up four cents $106.29 a barrel for its March contract.

Stockpiles at the trading hub in Cushing, Oklahoma, sank 1.5 million barrels, the Department of Energy (DoE) said, indicating strong demand and pushing prices higher.

“I think we are seeing that inventories are coming in better than expected due to the cold snap which ... helped to cut back on the supply glut in Cushing,” Desmond Chua, market analyst at CMC Markets in Singapore told AFP. US commercial crude reserves rose 400,000 barrels in the week ending January 31, the DoE said Wednesday, much smaller than the average analyst estimate of 2.2 million.

But traders focused on the fourth straight week of declines in distillates, which include diesel and heating oil.

Distillates fell 2.4 million barrels, more than the 2 million barrels estimated.

More than 600,000 people were without power as high winds and ice knocked down trees and electrical lines. l

ance premium along with an increase in the net claims, the report says the net asset value per share has increased to Tk70.22 in 2013 from Tk60.49 in 2012.

Nevertheless the increase in asset value per share resulted in a decrease of net operating cash flow per share from Tk8.3 in 2012 to Tk0.76 in 2013.

The unaudited third quarterly report of the company shows increased in assets is mainly due to short-term investments, such as, in shares, securities and FDRs. In a separate disclosure, the “A” category informed its board's success in resolving a decision that was subject to approval from the Insurance Development and Regulatory Authority and legal opinion from the company’s panel lawyer.

The decision was on purchase of commercial floor space measuring 8,000 square feet at MANS Trade Centre (4th floor), Ram Joy Mohjan Lane, Khatungonj, Chittagong at the price of Tk7,700 per square feet totalling to Tk6.16 crore and three parking spaces at a total cost of Tk8.25 lakh. l

IBM starts rolling out Watson supercomputer in Africa n Reuters IBM began rolling out its Watson supercomputer system across Africa yesterday, saying it would help to address continental development obstacles as diverse as medical diagnoses, economic data collection and e-commerce research.

The world’s biggest technology service provider said “Project Lucy” would take 10 years and cost $100m.

The undertaking was named after the earliest known human ancestor fossil, which was found in east Africa, “I believe it will spur a whole era of innovation for entrepreneurs here,” IBM Chief Executive Ginni Rometty told delegates at a conference on Wednesday.

“Data ... needs to be refined. It will determine undisputed winners and losers across every industry,” she said.

As an example, Rometty cited how Morocco had used sophisticated data mining for “smart agriculture” to improve how crops are grown by predicting weather, demand and disease outbreaks.

The Watson system uses artificial intelligence that can quickly analyze huge amounts of data and understand

human language well enough to hold sophisticated conversations. It beat humans on the TV quiz show “Jeopardy” in 2011.

International Business Machines Corp has so far failed to convert that genius into substantial revenue growth, with the system contributing just $100m over the past three years as overall revenues declined.

'Data ... needs to be refined. It will determine undisputed winners and losers across every industry'

The company said last month it would invest $1bn in creating a business unit for Watson, named after former IBM President Thomas Watson.

The technology would enable poorer parts of Africa to “leapfrog” stages of

Dollar firms ahead of jobs data n AFP, Tokyo

The dollar edged up in Asia yesterday as investors await the release of key US jobs data and a European Central Bank (ECB) policy meeting.

The greenback bought 101.61 yen in Tokyo afternoon trade, compared with 101.49 yen in New York Wednesday afternoon.

The euro also drifted to $1.3520 from $1.3536 as investors weigh the likelihood of an ECB interest rate cut later Thursday to boost eurozone growth.

Against the Japanese currency, the euro stayed flat at 137.38 yen Kengo Suzuki, chief FX strategist at Mizuho Securities, said investors’ risk appetite was recovering after heavy sell-offs in stock markets this week saw a surge yen, which is considered a safe haven in times of turmoil.

“Although the dollar hasn’t set a clear direction ahead of US jobs data on Friday, it appears to be regaining some stability,” Suzuki told Dow Jones Newswires.

The US non-farm payrolls data for January will be closely watched after a weak US manufacturing report triggered wider concerns about the global economy and helped send equity markets tumbling.

The data Friday will help markets gauge the state of the US economy as the Federal Reserve winds down its stimulus programme.

The Fed announcement last week

development they have failed to reach because they were too expensive, in much the same way mobile phones took off across the continent in places where there had been virtually no landlines, said Michel Bézy, a Rwanda-based technology professor who helped develop the Watson system.

It could help with education in schools that have few computer resources by using smartphone apps that get access to Watson’s analytical tools through cloud computing, IBM’s chief Africa research scientist Uyi Stewart told Reuters in Lagos.

“This is a continent with a tremendous infrastructural deficit, but leveraging data can help you get around it,” he said.

Roads in countries like Nigeria are often so poorly maintained, trafficclogged or flooded that it is impossible to predict how long a journey will take, which is problematic for logistics companies. Stewart said the system would help such companies by telling them where potholes are, which junctions are choke points and whether it is raining.

Two Nigerian start ups, a logistics and a traffic control company, have already adopted the Watson system. l

gles to recover from its debts crisis. The bank’s target is for 2% inflation.

The dollar was weaker against most other Asia-Pacific currencies.

The greenback sank to 12,173 Indonesian rupiah from 12,185 rupiah on Wednesday, to 62.45 Indian rupees from 62.59 rupees, to 1,076.60 South Korean won from 1,079.07 won, and to Tw$30.27 from Tw$30.33.

It rose to 45.25 Philippine pesos from 42.35 pesos and to 32.81 Thai baht from 32.76 baht, while fetching Sg$1.2692 against Sg$1.2694.

The Australian dollar rose to 89.61 US cents from 88.92 cents, while the Chinese yuan inched up to 16.73 yen from 16.50 yen. l

World Bank to map Africa’s natural resources n AFP, Washington The World Bank plans to launch in July a $1bn plan to map Africa’s natural resources with the aim of delineating more clearly the continent’s uncovered mineral wealth.

The project, dubbed the Billion Dollar Map, “will unlock the true worth of Africa’s mineral endowment,” Tom Butler, mining specialist at the Bank’s private finance arm, the International Finance Corp, said Wednesday.

Speaking in Cape Town, South Africa, Butler said most of Africa’s subsoil resources have not been surveyed.

Doing so, in a public way, would be useful to policy makers, investors and the public, helping to boost development, he said, according to prepared remarks.

“There is yet an enormous amount of wealth left to discover,” he said.

“Coupled with in-country training and institutional support, and the work of exploration companies, this initiative will unlock the true worth of Africa’s mineral endowment.”

The World Bank , which calls accessible data on resources a “public good”, said it has already invested over $200 million in developing geological data for Africa over the past 10 years. l

As gold supplies are squeezed, jewellery imports soar in India n Reuters

rattled emerging markets such as India, South Africa and Russia on fears of a capital flight, which in turn sent their currencies diving.

Poor China data has also dampened investors’ spirits, dealers said.

European data were mixed ahead of today’s ECB policy meeting. A report from Markit Economics on eurozone private sector business activity in January showed the seventh monthly rise in a row.

But separate figures showed retail sales in the currency bloc fell 1.6% in December. Speculation over an ECB interest rate cut has been growing after inflation eased to 0.7% in January, from 0.8% in December, as the region strug-

B3

Friday, February 7, 2014

Jewellers are stepping up imports of finished gold jewellery from Dubai and Singapore, as a record high import tax on the metal and rising premiums demanded by sellers are choking bullion supplies in the world’s second-biggest consumer.

India has put in place measures to dissuade gold buying to tackle a widening trade deficit, including a 10% import tax and a requirement that a fifth of all imports of the metal be shipped out. As a result, domestic sellers are asking for up to 10% more than quoted gold prices for deliveries.

The measures are making finished jewellery imports a viable option and could even reshape the domestic jewellery industry by luring their manufacturing overseas.

Gold jewellery imports have surged nearly four times to 4-5 tonnes in January from 1.0-1.5 tonnes two months prior to that, according to the All India Gems and Jewellery Trade Federation, which represents more than 300,000 jewellers.

A 10-gram gold chain from Dubai costs 27,000 rupees, about 10% lower than the cost in India, said Raman So-

lanki, owner of Mumbai-based Sangam Jewels and Gold, who now regularly imports from Dubai. The cheaper price is even after adding a 15% duty that finished jewellery imports attract.

Indian jewellers import finished jewellery either to sell directly or to melt to make customised designs.

“Since there is no gold available, we import jewellery as it fits well with our costing. We imported about 700-800 kg of jewellery from Dubai last month,” said Prithviraj Kothari, managing director of Mumbai-based Riddhisiddhi Bullions Ltd. Dubai-based wholesaler Siroya Jewellers, which exports to India, has also seen a spurt in jewellery sales to India.

“There is demand for jewellery from India due to a shortage of gold there,” said Rajesh Jain, a partner at Siroya Jewellers.

Cheaper imports of finished jewellery now pose a threat to local jewellery manufacturing units that employ more than 10 million workers, excluding retail store employees.

Hit by lower availability of gold, a few Indian jewellery makers such as Gitanjali Exports are also thinking of raising capacities at their overseas manufacturing units. l

Shariah Supervisory Committee of Social Islami Bank Limited held its 50th meeting at the bank’s corporate office on Jan 29.The chairperson of Shariah Supervisory Committee Principle, Sayeed Kamaluddin Zafree presided over the meeting

AB Bank Limited has recently distributed blankets among the deprived population at Godagari in Rajshahi. Shamim Ahmed Chaudhury, the bank’s president and managing director (ccting distributed the blankets among the poor people

Books can be purchased using bKash at Ekushey Book Fair

Bangladesh House Building Finance Corporation distributes blanket among poor orphan and physically handicapped people of Ghatail Upazilla of Tangail. Dr Md Nurul Alam Talukder, managing director of BHBFC was at the event as chief guest

Gulzar Ahmed a prominent businessman and director of Standard Bank Limited has been unanimously elected as vicechairperson of the bank’s board of directors

Bank Asia, Citycell and BancNet signed a tripartite agreement to facilitate mobile banking and mobile wallet services to the clients of the bank and users of Citycell mobile service.

Md. Mehmood Husain, the bank’s president and managing director, Mehboob Chowdhury, CEO of Pacific Bangladesh Telecom Limited (Citycell) and Md Rafel Kabir, managing director of Bangladesh Bancnet Ltd are seen exchanging document of agreement on mobile banking and mobile wallet service signed at the bank’s corporate office in Dhaka yesterday

The Premier Bank opened a WASA bill collection booth at Fakirapoole in Dhaka on Wednesday. Dewan Anwarul Latif, DMD of the bank was present as chief guest at the ceremony

bKash account holders can purchase books at the month long Ekushey Book Fair by paying through bKash. Such payment will be accepted by 77 publishing houses at the book fair.

“This is going to be a unique experience for the visitors at the fair as it will give them opportunities for alternative payment option outside cash,” said Kamal Quadir, Chief Executive Officer of bKash.

If a customer has some shortage of money he or she would be able to receive from others thorough his/her bKash account and pay for the books he or she wants to buy. l

B4

DHAKA TRIBUNE

Business

Friday, February 7, 2014

Asian governments to central banks: it’s our mess, you fix it

EU eyes 'radical' steps against cheap Chinese imports n Reuters

n Reuters Asia’s central bankers are being forced to juggle their day jobs with what their governments have failed to do - steeling their economies for the hard times.

Critics say many governments have done too little to remove barriers to domestic and foreign business investment, cut red tape, upgrade infrastructure and develop deep, well-functioning financial markets when the region was flush with cheap money.

Now that economic rocks are emerging as the tide of the Fed’s easy cash recedes, central banks are having to step in, detouring from their price and financial stability mandates, to shore up weak economies.

India and Indonesia were first in the firing line of investors last year when the Fed’s plans to scale back its $85bn in monthly cash injections started to take shape. Both took emergency steps, intervened in markets and raised interest rates to shore up battered currencies.

Since then the Fed has started winding down its stimulus in earnest, putting emerging markets on the back foot once again as investors look to target the most vulnerable economies.

Indonesian and Indian authorities have improved their defences against rapid outflows but their governments have failed to tackle supply bottlenecks and market rigidities that fuel inflation and limit room for policy manoeuvre, economists say. Both face national elections this year that could lead to populist measures and further delay reforms.

In Thailand, months of political turmoil have paralysed government, leaving the central bank as the mainstay of economic support.

“Government and monetary policies should be fairly balanced,” says Rob Subbaraman, chief Asia economist at Nomura in Singapore.

“In India, and increasingly Thailand, the governments have not done their part. There’s a risk Indonesia goes this way as the elections draw closer,” said Subbaraman, who since mid-2013 has been warning of emerging Asia’s growing exposure to market turmoil.

Even in Japan and China, with their strong and stable political leaderships, central banks appear to be doing most of heavy lifting.

In Japan, a blast of central bank money has boosted the economy and

REUTERS

markets, but Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s economic reforms have disappointed. China’s central bank is trying to rein in an explosion of off-balance sheet and risky lending as cautious government regulators resist speedier financial reform that would force markets to price risk more realistically.

Asian central bankers rarely air their frustrations in public. India’s former central bank governor Duvvuri Subbarao was an exception, regularly sparring with New Delhi over economic reforms and rates.

Sometimes though, their concerns do bubble to the surface.

After a series of rate hikes by Indonesia’s central bank, an official there in October voiced his vexation that the government was not tackling the root cause of a widening trade and current account gap - its own spending.

“We need to address the cause of illness when running a fever,” Dody Budi Waluyo, executive director of Bank Indonesia economic and monetary policy department told Reuters at the time.

“The medicine should not only be Panadol to lower the fever.”

New risks

In picking up the reins from government, the risk is that central banks will deliver neither the stability they seek, nor the economic support that is need-

US Trade Relationships Need An 'Upgrade' - Pritzker n Reuters, Mexico City The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and other US trade relationships are outdated and need an “upgrade”, US Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker said on Tuesday during a trade visit to Mexico.

Attitudes toward labor and the environment as well as e-commerce and new technology have shifted trade concerns since NAFTA was signed, so the US government is focusing on the TransPacific Partnership (TPP), which would establish a free-trade bloc stretching from Vietnam to Chile, she said.

“NAFTA was a groundbreaking agreement 20 years ago and it has served all of the North American countries well,” Pritzker said of the 1994 treaty between the US, Mexico and Canada. “But now it’s time to be looking at how can we upgrade our trade relationships.”

Mexico and the US are two of 12 countries negotiating the TPP, which would encompass about 800 million people and almost 40% of the global economy.

The Obama administration is seeking the authority to fast-track trade deals, like the TPP, to reassure the 11 other countries involved that any agreement, once signed, would not be changed later by Congress.

When asked whether there was any push to change the NAFTA agreement specifically, Pritzker replied that the administration was focused on getting TPP done.

Pritzker, a businesswoman and heiress to the Hyatt Hotel fortune who has been a prolific fundraiser for US President Barack Obama, is in Mexico on a five-day trade mission along with representatives from 17 US companies, ranging from railroads to the medical supply industry. l

FAO: World food prices fall in January, seen contained n Reuters Global food prices fell in January, led by declines in the costs of sugar, vegetable oils, and cereals, the United Nations food agency said yesterday, adding that robust inventories should contain prices in coming months.

The Food and Agriculture Organisation’s (FAO) price index, which measures monthly price changes for a basket of cereals, oilseeds, dairy, meat and sugar, averaged 203.4 points in January. That was down from a revised 206.2 in December, originally reported as 206.7.

“The cereals, oils, and sugar seem to have one thing in common - a much better supply situation than there has been in some years,” FAO senior econo-

mist Abdolreza Abbassian told Reuters by telephone.

“Prices are at more moderate levels and are more stable than in recent years, and in supply terms there is nothing on the horizon that says the situation will change,” he said.

Among the categories in the index, only dairy prices rose, FAO said, while meat prices declined marginally. Dairy and meat prices are more demand driven and less predictable that crops, Abbassian said.

Overall food prices declined in 2013 overall compared with the two previous years, and are down significantly from peaks reached in 2011.

Also on Thursday, FAO said that it sees cereal output higher than forecast in a December report. l

ed.

In Japan, for example, the concern is that optimism spurred by the Bank of Japan’s massive cash injections will fade without reforms to unshackle the economy’s untapped growth potential and help overcome the problems of a fast ageing society.

The Chinese central bank’s attempts to curb risky lending by calibrating supply of money market funds have triggered repeated cash crunches that threaten to ignite market panic.

Indonesian and Indian central banks may be forced to tighten monetary policy more than their slowing economies would otherwise have warranted because of fragile market sentiment and sticky inflation that remains high even when growth cools. In an ominous sign for India, foreign investors have been net sellers of the country’s stocks this year.

Thailand’s central bank is under pressure to fill the void left by stalled infrastructure spending and provide the struggling economy with stimulus, but is well aware of the risks.

“Maintaining monetary policy in an accommodative mode for a long period of time runs the risk of delays in reforms as they may seem less pressing and the risk of financial imbalances build up,” Bank of Thailand spokeswoman Roong Mallikamas told Reuters.

In Japan, one concern is that with-

out fundamental reforms promised as part of Abe’s “Abenomics” revival plan, markets will reverse and Japan lurch back into its deflationary equilibrium or “stagflation” - a spell of tepid growth and rising prices. Japan Risk Forum, which groups risk managers from Japan’s major financial institutions, sees nearly a 50-50 chance of that happening.

“We cannot rely solely on monetary policy forever and the time will come when the government’s resolve will be tested by markets, likely around summer,” said Hiroshi Watanabe, head of state-run lender JBIC and Japan’s former top financial diplomat.

Own making

To be fair, central bankers may have contributed to their own predicament by keeping monetary policies too loose for too long after the global financial crisis, either because of political pressure or fear of more turmoil.

Nomura estimates that taken as a whole, real interest rates measured as a difference between official rates and inflation in Asia’s 10 biggest economies excluding Japan were negative for more than half the time since 2008 - a recipe for rapid debt buildup and property and stock market bubbles. By contrast rates were negative for only 16% of the 1996-2007 period.

“By over accommodating the Fed’s

easing, central banks allowed asset price inflation to occur, causing an intoxicating party in full swing,” said Thirachai Phuvanatnaranubala, former Thai finance minister and deputy central bank governor. “With tapering, the party is over. Some emerging markets will now have to deal with the bubbles that crept up while everybody dreamily enjoyed himself.”

There are also some signs of change.

India is embarking on an ambitious monetary policy overhaul that would make it harder for the government to lean on the central bank, while the government has curbed gold imports and secured $34bn in overseas financing to try to close its current account deficit.

Indonesia’s ban on ore exports drew fire, but it is a sign Jakarta at least recognises the need to reduce its reliance on raw commodities exports. It has also taken steps to shore up public finances.

Still, central bank efforts can easily unravel once elections are in motion, said Toru Nishihama, senior emerging markets economist at Dai-ichi Life Research Institute in Tokyo.

“As elections are looming in many emerging countries this year, no matter how central banks tighten policy to control inflation, their governments are tempted to loosen fiscal policy, offsetting central banks’ efforts,” Nishihama said. l

The European Parliament pressed the EU’s trade chief on Wednesday to build stronger defences against cheap imports from China, saying the European Union needed broad new powers to stand up to the world’s second-largest economy.

The European Union’s trade chief Karel De Gucht is seeking to update the tools that Brussels uses to fight unfair trade practices and that date from before China’s transformation into a powerful exporter. Some in Europe say the rules are too soft.

EU lawmakers want to go further than a proposal by the European Commission, which handles international trade matters on behalf of EU countries.

They want to make it easier for small companies to take on countries that flaunt world trade rules by exporting goods at below the cost of production.

Legislators also want to do away with a European rule that limits punitive sanctions to only what is absolutely necessary to correct any injury caused by illegally subsidised imports.

“The parliament’s position is a lot more radical,” said Christofer Fjellner, the lawmaker who is leading negotiations with the Commission on the issue. “I know it has been very controversial but many member states are opposed to the Commission’s original proposal,” he said, speaking after votes in the parliament in Strasbourg.

Although the rules do not mention China by name, the majority of the EU’s trade disputes are with Chinese companies. Trade between Europe and China has doubled since 2003 to more than 1bn euros a day, but relations are often tense. Of the 12 cases that ended in the imposition of punitive duties by the European Commission last year, seven involved China.

The most serious was a multi-billion-euro dispute over Chinese exports of solar panels, the biggest ever trade clash between Brussels and Beijing, one that was resolved only after both sides agreed a minimum price for the panels.

A group of European solar equipment makers including Germany’s Solar World said last year that China’s trade practices had already meant 15,000 lost jobs and 30 bankruptcies in Europe’s solar sector.

When drawing up the new rules, De Gucht is eager not to send the wrong message or make trade defence instruments seem protectionist and upset often delicate ties with partners ranging from Beijing to Buenos Aires. l

Emerging countries - focus on progress, not market volatility n Reuters The start of the year has not been an easy one for financial markets. The Federal Reserve is continuing its policy of trimming its bond purchases by $10bn a month, and the immediate result has been a sharp pullback of the currencies, and to some degree equities, of countries such as Indonesia, Turkey, India, South Africa and Argentina. The reason? According to traders, commentators, and even the head of Brazil’s central bank, Fed policy will trigger interest rate rises around the world, staunching the flow of easy money that has purportedly fueled global growth and leading to struggles everywhere.

That thesis is hardly new. It was widely circulated last summer, when the Fed first hinted that it might begin to wind down its more aggressive measures to stimulate economic activity, which it introduced after 2009. In this reading, the boom times of many countries around the world has had nothing to do with the change in economic fortunes, or skilled leadership, or shifting global sands. It was and is simply a derivative of US policies.

This view has wide play, and goes nearly unchallenged. That does not make it correct.

Indeed, it is likely wrong for at least two major reasons: it forgets that financial markets are not perfect proxies for real world economies, and it misses the fundamental transformation in countries around the world that has taken place over the past few decades and is about to accelerate this year.

As I wrote in a column last August, a US-centric view extends well back into the 20th century, and the only wrinkle today is that China has now entered the mix.

Low and behold, China, too, has recently seen some slowing of its growth, largely because of the determination of the Chinese government to shift the mix of its economic growth from state-led

infrastructure and exports to domestic consumption. That transition will, inevitably, result in diminishing demand for commodities and raw materials, and that demand had also been a key factor in the strength of other economies, including many of the ones above.

Yes, China’s voracious demand for raw materials did provide a boost to countries as far-ranging as Chile, South Africa, Indonesia and Brazil. And yes, easy money from the Federal Reserve did get deployed to more speculative currencies ranging from Turkey to Argentina. But that speaks only to the narrow - albeit attention-grabbing and important - financial markets. Financial markets are roiling, as they do from time to time, but that doesn’t result in less activity by companies such as Unilever or Starbucks, nor a halt in the emergence of a global middle class in

numerous countries.

We shouldn’t overweight the significance of financial markets when evaluating the status of emerging markets; to do so is to espouse a particularly UScentric view of how the world works.

More voters, and more Starbucks lattes, are bellwethers for progress, irrespective of how markets are performing.

Even more, what financial markets miss, in addition to the factors above, is that this year will see a massive democratic surge around the world. In fact, in a span of several months more people than ever before will go to the polls.

In part, that is a natural consequence of more people living on the planet than any other time in history, but between now and this fall, massive democracies will elect parliaments, congresses and presidents.

Many of those countries, in fact, are

the ones currently experiencing financial market volatility. Turkey, which has seen a run on the lira and then aggressive action by the Turkish central bank to raise interest rates, will have an election in August to determine the fate of the embattled prime minister, Recip Erdogan, and his Islamist party.

Indonesia, the world’s largest Muslim democracy with more than 250 million people, will chose a new president and parliament over the summer.

In October, more than a hundred million Brazilian voters will decide whether Dilma Roussef has earned another term in the midst of questionable economic growth and after hosting the World Cup. And in May, India - the world’s largest democracy - will elect a new government and see whether it can at last break the political knot that has constrained its economic potential. l