10 June 2014

Joishthya 27, 1421 Shaaban 11, 1435 Regd. No. DA 6238 Vol 2, No 71

TUESDAY, JUNE 10, 2014 | www.dhakatribune.com | SECOND EDITION

7 | NOT JOB-SEEKERS, WE ARE JOB-GIVERS

9 | KARACHI AIRPORT CLEARED OF MILITANTS

Accord, Alliance bungling RMG factory inspections

20 pages plus 16-page T-Mag tabloid | Price: Tk12

11 | TAPPING THE RIGHT ENERGY

14 | ‘JUST PASS THE BALL TO NEYMAR’

Muhith: Defence budget details to be disclosed this term n Kamran Reza Chowdhury

IN PLAIN SIGHT?

They are now reneging on verbal agreements made earlier regarding uniform standard n Tazlina Zamila Khan Two foreign agencies – Accord and Alliance– have been creating confusion for the ready made garment factory owners and their buyers by placing different inspection reports on the same factories.

They were supposed to follow a uniform standard for the inspection including scrutinising the factory buildings’ concrete strength and avoid duplication in examining 300 factories.

But now they are not complying with the understanding.

Accord, the group of European buyers, and Alliance, representing a group of North American importers, have around 300 factories in common to examine. But during inspection of these factories, both the agencies are creating hassles, the owners allege.

In a meeting with Commerce Minister Tofail Ahmed in April, officials of both the groups had agreed to avoid duplication in inspection. They had also agreed to allow factory buildings having 1,500 PSI (very strong) to operate, but now have opted for relaxed but different PSI standards.

The Accord inspectors are repeatedly examining the factories which were

earlier checked by the Alliance engineers. So far, the Alliance closed five RMG factories while the Accord shut down 20-25 units in Dhaka and Chittagong in the last one year.

There are allegations that some factories, approved by the Alliance men, were later labelled as “vulnerable” by the Accord inspectors because they are both following different standards.

Alliance closed five RMG factories while Accord shut down 20-25 units in Dhaka and Chittagong in the last one year For instance, both the organisations examined Dragon Sweater Bangladesh Ltd, situated in Malibagh Chowdhurypara, and came up with two different reports.

The inspection report of Accord says: “Smoke alarm activation sounds only a local alarm and does not provide automatic fire alarm notification to occupants. The fire alarm system is not regularly tested and maintained.”

On the other hand, the Alliance’s

Not players, tribunal questions Acsu’s role BPL MATCH FIXING

n Minhaz Uddin Khan Just when it appeared that the Bangladesh Premier League (BPL) fixing scandal would cool off with the tribunal completing its full judgement on Sunday, revelations of inappropriate role played by the International Cricket Council’s (ICC) Anti-Corruption and Security Unit (Acsu) added more fuel to the fire.

The BPL tribunal, in its complete judgement papers that were regulated among the involved parties, questioned Acsu’s role and termed the organisation’s way of dealing with corruption in cricket “unfortunate and wrong.” The tribunal noted deficiencies in the methods of the investigation carried out by Acsu. It found no protocols or guidelines in place for interviewing witnesses or suspects and flaw and incompleteness in the investigation

INSIDE Dhaka Tribune

Tuesday, June 10, 2014 Volume 2, Issue 7

21 from June 9, demanding a revision of the recently published gazette notification regarding lifespan extension of existing auto-rickshaws and a new hike in fare rates.

6 | Nation B1 | Business

Bangladesh Bank has relaxed the banks in issuing guarantee beyond single borrower exposure limit to facilitate construction of Padma Bridge project.

The mighty Moharoshi River has virtually converted into a canal for lack of dredging and random sand lifting from it by some unscrupulous people.

8 | World

3 | News

The Cabinet Division has instructed all public offices under different ministries and divisions to hold mass hearings every week to record public complaints and resolve the issues through appropriate measures.

5 | News

CNG-run auto-rickshaw owners have extended their strike postponement till June

Schools involved in an alleged plot to impose conservative Muslim teaching on pupils across Britain’s second city sought to deflect scrutiny by putting on hastily arranged ‘shows of cultural inclusivity.’

12 | Entertainment

A successful dentist, Naila Nayem figured out that flesh and commercialism go hand in hand. She was modelling for numerous brands but came into the limelight after her bold shoot wearing a two piece swim suit.

13 | Sport

Every four years around Bangladesh turns into a debate table involving mainly two South American nations – Argentina and Brazil.

 PAGE 2 COLUMN 1

report stated that there had been no trouble in the fire alarm control panel.

Centralised automatic fire alarm and smoke detection systems were available with the control panel.

About the fire exit,the Alliance says: “One Exit discharge on the ground floor is protected from utility room and dining by the fire door.” But, the Accord claims that the exit stairs are not protected with a fire door.

About the structural safety,the Alliance mentioned that no load plans had been prepared for each floor, documenting the actual maximum operational loading,which is intended or allowable on each floor.

But the Accord report says: “The building appears to be generally in good structural condition. There was no visible evidence of overloading, distress, damage, excessive deflections or settlements. The structure seems, based on visual inspection, to function properly.”

Mostafa Golam Quddus, chairman of the factory, told the Dhaka Tribune: “The BGMEA and the factory owners told them [the two agencies] to create a uniform code of conduct. But they are talking differently on this issue.”  PAGE 2 COLUMN 1

Finance Minister AMA Muhith yesterday said he would present the detailed breakdown of the defence budget – sector-wise allocations for the army, navy and air force – during the tenure of the government as demanded by the MPs. Usurpation of state power had developed a tradition of not detailing the defence budget, which was “not healthy at all,” he told parliament, winding up his speech on the supplementary budget for fiscal year 2013-14.

Independent MP Rustom Ali Farazi opposed the government proposal for an additional allocation of over Tk705 crore, besides the original Tk14,552 crore, for the defence sector.

He proposed that parliament should give Tk1 to the defence ministry instead of the additional funds, but his proposal was rejected by voice votes of the ruling party MPs.

P2 JAPA TAKES A SWIPE

agreement between the China National Machinery Import and Export Corporation and North-West Power Generation Company Limited to set up 1,320MW coal-based ultra critical power plant with an estimated cost of $3bn.

Two exchanges of letters between the two governments on the second batch of calamity rescue equipment and on feasibility study of flood prevention and management in Bangladesh between the governments were also signed.

Bangladesh Export Zone Authority (BEZA) and Chinese Commerce Ministry also signed an MoU on the creation

Taking part in the discussion on supplementary budget, Jatiya Samajtantrik Dal MP Mayeen Uddin Khan Badal first demanded that the defence budget should be detailed for transparency and accountability.

Muhith said: “I have been trying to reform the tradition [of not detailing the defence budget] for the past five years. I hope that the tradition can be reformed this term. I hope in future you will get detailed accounts of the defence budget.”

Farazi demanded that the format of the defence budget should have specific heads for all expenditures as is done for other sectors.

LGRD Minister Syed Ashraful Islam, who is also in charge of the Defence Ministry, sought the additional grant.

He said the government was also in favour of transparency in defence budget.

“There is a global discussion on making the defence budget transparent and we are a signatory to it. Concealing the defence budget creates misunderstanding and results in conflicts among states,” he said, adding that the military rulers had not disclosed the defence budget and never placed it in parliament.

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A person searches another in the presence of a policeman in uniform at Gabtoli-Amin Bazar bus stand yesterday. Existing regulation suggests that only uniformed policemen can carry out such activities SYED ZAKIR HOSSAIN

No consensus yet on deep sea port n Sheikh Shahariar Zaman

Bangladesh and China have failed to reach a consensus on the projects of deep sea port and tunnel under Karnaphuli River, during official talks between Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and her Chinese counterpart Li Keqiang in Beijing.

“We have signed two agreements, two letters of exchange and one memorandum of understanding,” Foreign Secretary Md Shahidul Haque told the Dhaka Tribune over telephone from Beijing yesterday.

Hasina went to China on June 6 and held bilateral talks with Keqiang at the

Peoples Great Hall in Beijing yesterday.

The agreements that were signed in presence of the two premiers include an agreement on economic and tech-

HASINA’S CHINA TOUR:

Two agreements penned on economic cooperation and 1,320MW power plant

nical cooperation between China and Bangladesh under which Dhaka will receive 300m renminbi (approximately $48m) every year; and a joint venture

2 N’GANJ 5 BY ELECTION

DHAKA TRIBUNE

JaPa not a serious opposition, HM Ershad’s party toughened its criticism of the Awami League government yesterday as its MP Kazi Feroz Rashid came down hard on several ministers and the chief whip.

The JaPa comes under question from different quarters for its dual role of opposition and part of the ruling coalition since the BNP-Jamaat boycotted the January 5 polls.

Opposing some ministries’ additional grants for the ongoing 2013-14 fiscal year, the JaPa presidium member said his party would play the role of opposition the people had seen over the last 43 years and started castigating AMA Muhith, ASM Feroz, Abdul Latif Siddiqui, Muhiuddin Khan Alamgir and some ministries seeking additional grants.

On Sunday, Peer Fazlur Rahman, another JaPa MP, told the Jatiya Sangsad

that a minister branded the opposition in the “tone of the BNP-Jamaat”, becoming the first JaPa lawmaker of the six-month-old 10th parliament to make harsh criticism of the government.

Chief whip ASM Feroz became the first target of Kazi Feroz Rashid. Quoting newspaper reports, he alleged that the chief whip’s occupation of five houses was unfair, if true.

“The chief whip delivered a long speech yesterday, but he did not deny that he was not using so many houses.

Bangladesh is a poor country and the people’s money should not be misused in such way.

You cannot open your shrine everywhere and the people will light candles,” said Kazi Feroz.

Opposing the additional grant of around Tk475 crore sought by the Textiles and Jute Ministry, the JaPa MP said the outgoing minister (Abdul Latif Siddiqui) had sold valuable land of the Bangladesh Textile Mills Corporation.

“So, why demand additional grants?

The minister has given a Motijheel land

Mass hearings in all public offices ordered n Mohosinul Karim The Cabinet Division has instructed all public offices to hold mass hearings every week to record public complaints and resolve the issues through appropriate measures.

The initiative was taken based on instructions from the prime minister issued during a meeting of secretaries on April 7. Later the deputy commissioners across the country begun holding mass hearings every Wednesday.

A letter of the Cabinet Division claims that the regular hearings and the mass hearings have reduced people’s sufferings. Sent to all ministries, divisions and public offices, the letter asks the authorities to consider all complaints submitted in oral or written forms, or through online or telephone. l

Tuesday, June 10, 2014

files criminal JaPa lawmaker takes a swipe at ministers BTRC case against 3

Fighters four, but ballot battle n Kamran Reza Chowdhury between two Apparently angered by the comment of Minister AMA Muhith who at a n Our Correspondent, Narayanganj Finance post-budget press conference termed Jatiya Party-backed candidate Selim Osman and former MP SM Akram are expected to be the chief contenders in Narayanganj 5 by-election scheduled for June 26.

This became clear yesterday, when City AL President Anwar Hossain withdrew his nomination paper as an independent candidate. The AL has not fielded any candidate in the by-election.

Though Krishak Sramik Janata League Central Committee Joint General Secretary Iqbal Siddique also withdrew himself as a candidate, his name had not figured as a contender in the upcoming election.

The four candidates, who will contest this election, would get their election symbols today, said Narayanganj Election Officer Tariquzzaman, also confirming that Anwar and Iqbal had withdrawn their nominations. On April 29, Narayanganj 5 MP Nasim Osman died, leaving the constituency vacant. l

News

to the Chittagong association. But our Gopalganj association has no land.”

“The minister has written (in the official note in favour of giving the land) that he gave the land to the association as he had married a Chittagong girl.”

He said: “In our Gopalganj, there are numerous canals and water bodies full of paani (water). We could have had a plot if the minister drank a little bit of water from the canals.”

Kazi Feroz raised the issue of misappropriation of public money in the banking sector and said the finance minister could not shrug off his responsibility for the banking scandals such as Hall-Mark, Bismillah Group, BASIC Bank, resulting in thousands of crores of taka.

Referring to the home ministry’s additional demand for Tk1,441 crore, Kazi Feroz Rashid said a former home minister, who has a doctorate, had asked a deputy commissioner to issue a licence for a revolver to a killer who is charged with 12 murder cases and serving a jail term of more than 10 years.

On the performance of the Religious Affairs Ministry, which sought an additional allocation of around Tk34 crore, Kazi Feroz said the ministry had done nothing good other than sending people for Hajj.

“Even the peons of the ministry have gone on pilgrimage four to five times. Even their relatives go on pilgrimage with government sponsorship.

This must be stopped,” he said.

Criticising the Environment Ministry, Kazi Feroz said, “There is no forest, no environment as the forests are being destroyed.”

Nurul Islam Milon, another JaPa MP, referred the name of Finance Minister AMA Muhith for his comment on the Jatiya Party’s role as opposition, opposing additional grants from different ministries.

While delivering his speech on the supplementary budget, Muhith thanked Kazi Feroz Rashid for his very important speech.` JaPa MPs Shawkat Chowdhury and Fakhrul Imam also delivered their speech criticising the government. l

Tarek Sayeed on Jessore DC orders fresh remand to take down n Our Correspondent, Narayanganj foreign flags A Narayanganj court yesterday again n Tribune Report granted the police a five-day remand to

Police escort the two former RAB members at a Dhaka court yesterday, in a case filed for attempt to grab a piece of land in the capital's Uttarkhan area on Sunday. Story on page 4 DHAKA TRIBUNE

former RAB official Lt Col Tarek Sayeed Mohammad, arrested in the sensational Narayanganj seven murder case.

The former commanding officer of RAB 11 was earlier given remand of 45 days in four phases.

Narayanganj Senior Judicial Magistrate Chandni Rupam passed the order after police had requested a seven-day remand on completion of a five-day remand. Tarek was produced before the court around 5pm amid tight security.

During the remand hearing, Investigation Officer of the case Mamunur Rashid Mandal, also the OC of Narayanganj CID, said Tarek had disclosed important information about the seven-murder case in the last remand and more time was needed to grill him. l

At a time when the entire nation is crazed about the upcoming football World Cup and fans across the country continue to hoist flags of their favourite countries, the Jessore district administration yesterday ordered not to hoist any foreign flag in the district. The even starts on June 12.

In a notification, the administration also asked the dwellers to take down all the foreign flags within the next 24 hours that ends 6pm today. After the deadline expires, the administration would launch a drive to take down any remaining foreign flag, district Nezarat Deputy Collector Najmul Alam told the Dhaka Tribune.

As per the Bangladesh Flag Rules, no foreign flags can be hoisted within the territory of Bangladesh. l

Bestec owners n Muhammad Zahidul Islam

The telecom regulator yesterday filed a criminal case against three owners of International Gateway (IGW) operator Bestec Telecom over non-payment of Tk130.14 crore in revenue shares and annual licence fees.

Officials at the Gulshan police station and the Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC) confirmed that a deputy director of the BTRC filed the case yesterday evening against Bestec Chairman Toriqul Islam, Managing Director Enayet Kabir, and Director Md Mamunoor Rashid.

According to BTRC sources, Bestec Telecom owes the regulator Tk115.41 crore in revenue sharing, Tk7.5 crore in annual licence fees, Tk1.13 crore in VAT on licence fees, and Tk6.71 crore in fines for delaying the payment of fees.

Bestec Telecom also faces a case filed by mobile phone operator Grameenphone over an outstanding worth Tk13.49 crore. l

Ex-minister’s APS arrested n Tribune Report An Anti-Corruption Commission team arrested Soumendra Lal Chandra Shoilen, former assistant personal secretary to ex-state minister for religious affairs M Shahjahan Miah yesterday on charges of allegedly accumulating illegal wealth worth over Tk1 crore.

An ACC official said he would be produced before the court today.

Shoilen was arrested a week after the ACC filed a case against him on charges of acquiring a huge sum of money through irregular means.

ACC found that Shoilen’s net income was around Tk31 lakh and he had deposits with several banks, including over Tk64 lakh at Sonali Bank, over Tk3 lakh at Mercantile Bank and over Tk4 lakh at Premier Bank. Soumendra has built a five-storey building in the town, while his wife owns several apartments in Dhaka, says the case statement. l

Not players, tribunal questions Acsu’s role

No consensus yet on deep sea port

 PAGE 1 COLUMN 2

 PAGE 1 COLUMN 5

process to the extent that allegations of unfairness could be sustained.

The Dhaka Tribune acquired a copy of the complete judgement yesterday and found various areas where the tribunal mentioned about finding flaws in its approach of investigation.

According to the 59-page report, Acsu was well informed that the match between Dhaka Gladiators and Chittagong Kings on February 2, 2013 was fixed.

The tribunal concluded that Acsu was bound to inform the Bangladesh Cricket Board as it had earlier entered a Services Agreement with Acsu under which it was supposed to assist the board in overseeing, managing, implementing and enforcing all aspects of the code. But Acsu did not inform either the BCB or the local law enforcement authorities about the disclosure of the fixed match.

The tribunal thought that the information of the match being fixed was significant and that it should have been brought to the attention of the BCB and the law enforcement agencies in Bangladesh since corruption of this nature also breached the domestic penal laws.

The tribunal was not impressed with the explanations provided by Acsu as a justification of permitting a fixed and corrupt match to be played. In its

judgement, the tribunal mentioned that the focus of the Services Agreement and the code was to prevent match- and spot-fixing.

The tribunal held that the choice made by Acsu, which was to let a corrupt match take place, was unfortunate and wrong. By doing so, the ICC’s anti-corruption team had breached the code. The tribunal further mentioned that it did not accept Acsu’s emphasis on gathering evidence and prosecution of offenders rather than preventing corruption.

According to the judgement, the decision to allow the fixed match between Dhaka Gladiators and Chittagong Kings

to go ahead was taken by the head of Acsu in Dubai.

Sir Roanld Flanagan, the head of Acsu, regretted breaching the code and offered a personal apology on behalf of his organisation for not involving the BCB at that stage.

The flaws and disorders of Acsu that came out in the whole saga, however, will not affect the orders placed by the tribunal.

The operation of the three-member body formed by the BCB will continue as scheduled. As for now, the body will hold the sanction judgement on June 18 and appeals should be made within 15 days from the day of the judgement. l

Accord, Alliance bungling RMG factory inspections  PAGE 1 COLUMN 3

He said: “We are in big trouble. We cannot quit our business at once as the workers are also involved here.”

The inspection reports on Alif Garments Ltd in Mohammadpur have mismatches too.

About fire safety,the Accord mentioned that inspection, testing and maintenance records for the fire alarm system were not available at the time of the survey. Emergency evacuation plans were not provided on each level.

However, the Alliance mentioned that an emergency evacuation plan had been developed and communicated to all employees, stating, “Through the interview, it is noted that the workers are aware of the evacuation procedure upon commencing the alarm.”

About the fire exit, the Accord mentioned that the main and the rear exit stairs were not separated from the work areas and other spaces on each floor by fire-related construction, stating,“The stairs open directly into the factory areas. Also, the main exit stair discharges

inside the building on the ground floor, next to the generator room.”

But, the Alliance reported that there was a steel-made external stair available separated from the building and there were openings – sealed from inside on exterior wall within 3.05 metres (10ft) beyond the ends of the stair structure.

About the structural design of the factory building, the Accord says the structural drawings provided do not match the as-constructed structure, particularly with respect to column locations and the inclusion of building movement joints.

The Alliance reported that the building structural drawing and architectural drawing were found, and those matched with the existing building.

When contacted, Azizul Islam, chairman and managing director of the factory,refused to make any comments on the issue.

Raozan Sweater Ltd in Chittagong was visited by the Alliance inspectors, and recently, the Accord has sent an email to the authorities that they

would inspect the factory.

Shabbir Mostafa, managing director of the factory, told the Dhaka Tribune: “The Accord personnel want to visit the factory. They informed me about it via email, three-four days ago. But the Alliance inspectors already visited the factory around 15 days ago.”

Alliance blames Accord

Mesbah Rabin, managing director of the Alliance,alleged that the Accord was not following a verbal understanding to not overlap the inspection task.

He said: “We came to a mutual understanding [verbal] that the inspections will not overlap. It means the Accord will not visit a unit which was already inspected by our engineers.

But, the Accord is not following the commitment.”

“Of the five factories, three were temporarily shut and the rest were told to continue production. We have already inspected 530 factories among 626 factories on the list,” Mesbah said.

The government has so far recruit-

of a Chinese economic and investment zone in Chittagong, said the foreign secretary.

Foreign Minister AH Mahmood Ali at a press conference on June 4 said the issue of a tunnel under Karnaphuli River would be discussed during the prime minister’s visit.

Officials at different ministries said it was more or less agreed and widely known that the Chinese side would build the tunnel if they get exclusive Chinese economic zone.

About the deep-sea port at Sonadia, the foreign secretary said both the leaders agreed that they would continue to discuss on the issue.

“A joint statement would be issued tomorrow [Tuesday],” he said.

The BGMEA and Orient International Holding, a Chinese company, will also sign an agreement today [Tuesday] to set up an industrial park for the readymade garment sector on 490 acres of land in Munshiganj, Shahidulsaid.

BCIM Economic Corridor

China has attached importance to implement the BCIM Economic Corridor for the development of the region as the issue was discussed in all the meetings during Hasina’svisit to Beijing.

“It is one of the most priority issues that were discussed in all meetings,” the secretary said.

ed only 32 factory inspectors in the last one year whereas it was supposed to take 250 by this time. “We want to declare all the factories safe within July 26,” he added.

Accord defends its work

Accord’s Executive Director Rob Ways claimed that they were following transparent procedures during inspection.

“The Accord is following the procedures of our inspection regime and providing the inspection findings information with the factory owners, brand representatives, worker representatives, and when convened, the review panel members. The procedures the Accord is utilising are transparent and the information being provided on the inspection findings is very clearly presented,” he said in an email.

“Accord’s factory inspections are organised in a documented and methodical manner, and are coordinated with the factory owners prior to the arrival of the inspectors. In some cases, when the inspectors arrive for a factory inspec-

Bangladesh, China, India and Myanmar have agreed to implement the BCIM Economic Corridor to improve the connectivity among the countries.

The first joint working group meeting of the BCIM was held in December last year in Kunming and the second meeting will be held in September in Cox’s Bazar.

“China will also increase the number of scholarships for Bangladeshi students,” he said.

The meetings between the prime ministers were very cordial at both the official talks and at the banquets, Shahidul said, adding that it is expected that the relationship between the countries would reach a new height. l

Proposed projects

Muhith: Defence budget details to be disclosed this term

Sheikh Hasina sought Chinese assistance for five new projects including the establishment of a second unit at Eastern Refinery.

The proposed cost of the second unit is Tk76.2bn, said sources in the Energy Ministry.

The foreign minister in the press briefing on June 4 said several projects including 1,320MW coal-fired power plant, National ICT Intra Network for Bangladesh Government (Phase 3), RajshahiWasa Water Treatment Plant, Tunnel under Karnaphuli, second rail bridge on Karnaphuli and establishment of Chittagong-Ramu-Cox’s Bazar and Ramu-Gundum rail line would be discussed during the visit of prime minister.

The estimated assistance for the projects is $4bn.

The Chinese side has also agreed to help Bangladesh in oceanography to help the country tap its marine resources, the foreign secretary said.

tion, it becomes known that there are other Accord producing factories in the same building not scheduled for inspection on that day. In these situations, the Accord engineers will often ask that factory owner or his/her representatives if it would be possible to also inspect that factory for efficiency purposes. When such requests are made, the factory owner can ask that the inspection be conducted through the normal scheduling procedures. The Accord’s requests in these circumstances are simply an attempt for efficiency and efficient resource utilisation,” he added.

Accord blamed for charging high

Many factory owners allege that the Accord’s engineers, appointed by the organisation,are doing business centring retrofitting.

Asking not to be named, a factory owner said: “The Accord engineers are doing business centring retrofitting.

They are asking for Tk70 lakh for the task while local engineers offer the service for only Tk20 lakh.”

 PAGE 1 COLUMN 6

“I hope this [demand for grants] will be passed in the House without any reservation,” said Syed Ashraf, adding that Farazi could get information on the defence budget from the ministry.

Speaking on the observation of Jatiya Party lawmaker Kazi Feroz Rashid, the finance minister told the House that the scandals in the banking sector had been embarrassing for his ministry.

Muhith said he would publish a white paper on the scams – those of Hall-Mark, BASIC Bank and Bismillah Group – next year.

Parliament yesterday passed the supplementary budget for FY2013-14. l

He mentioned thatthe owner of Selim and Brothers was asked to pay Tk70 lakh for the retrofitting of his factory building. “The Accord officials told me that they do not rely on the Alliance’s inspection,” the owner added.

BGMEA Vice-President ShahidullahAzim, who also represents the garment owners’ organisation in the review committees, said: “The Alliance is allowing 2,100 PSI as concrete strength whereasthe Accord is allowing 1,750 PSI. This is creating variations in inspection reports.”

The Accord mentioned earlier that they would not inspect the factories already checked by the Alliance engineers to avoid overlapping. “But, they are not maintaining the procedure,” he stated.

Azim said: “Now the Accord is saying that the review committee is non-functional. It does not pay the workers’ wages [in case of factory closure], while the Alliance is maintaining it. It is the Accord which is creating all the problems.” l

DHAKA TRIBUNE

News

Tuesday, June 10, 2014

One dies in City College clash Two accused remanded, The clash ensued over organising a football tournament EKRAM MURDER

n

Ashif Islam Shaon

An SSC graduate student was stabbed and beaten to death yesterday following a clash between two groups of Dhaka City College students in the capital’s Dhanmondi.

The victim, Mohammad Ayaz Haque, 17, was a student of Government Laboratory High School and was waiting for higher secondary admission. His father Shahidul Haque is a High Court lawyer.

Ayaz and his elder brother Arzin Haque, who is an HSC second year student at the college, lived with their parents at 63/4 North Circular Road in Dhanmondi. Police picked up nine City College students for their involvement in the clash.

Masud Karim, OC of Dhanmondi police, told the Dhaka Tribune that the students of science and commerce groups had clashed in the afternoon centring

money to arrange a football tournament.

“The students of both the groups used sticks, knives and brickbats during the clash, which stretched from the City College intersection to Shimanto Square shopping mall [formerly Rifles Square]. We charged batons to disperse them,” the OC said.

Chased by the police, the students scattered and ran away towards Jigatola bus stand, Dhaka College and Gonoshasthaya Hospital. “We were informed around 4:30pm that some uniformed students were beating a boy up beside Dhanmondi Lake near Shimanto Square.

We rescued Ayaz from the spot. He had been stabbed and beaten up,” he said.

Ayaz died at Dhaka Medical College Hospital around 6pm while undergoing treatment. Doctors said he had two stab injuries on his back and other injury marks on different body parts. His body was later sent to the college morgue for

Five HC judges regularised n Nazmus Sakib Five additional judges of the High Court were regularised yesterday.

Ashish Ranjan Das, Mahmudul Hoque, Md Badruzzaman, Zafar Ahmed and Kazi Md Ejarul Haque Akondo were appointed upon the president’s approval, says a gazette notification.

However, another additional judge ABM Altaf Hossain, who had been appointed together with them in 2012, was not regularised. The reason behind it could not be known immediately. Altaf did not conduct any session yesterday.

“I am looking into this,” Law Minister Anisul Huq told the Dhaka Tribune when he was asked about Altaf’s issue.

The six were elevated as additional judges on June 14, 2012 for two years.

However, there is an instance that

Khondokar Musa Khaled, a former additional judge, was regularised after six months from the completion of two years as additional judge.

According to the gazette, the five regularised judges’ appointments will come into effect after they take oath.

The chief justice administers oaths of the judges.

According to the constitution, the High Court judges are appointed by the president after consultation with the chief justice.

As per Article 98, the president, on the premier’s advice, may appoint additional judges for a period not exceeding two years. He can also make the additional judges regularised or appoint them as additional judges for a further period that cannot exceed two years. l

a post mortem examination.

The OC said Ayaz’s brother might have taken part in the clash as he was a science student. “After the clashes ended around 4:15pm, the group which was fleeing towards Jigatola might have noticed Ayaz standing alone and then attacked him,” he said. The OC also said they were considering whether Ayaz had any personal conflict with the attackers.

OC Masud suspected that students of some adjacent educational institutions had also taken part in the clashes.

At the morgue, the victim’s father Shahidul Haque said Ayaz had gone out of the house around 3pm.“After around half an hour when I called his phone, a police personnel replied that they had rescued Ayaz in a critical state,” he said.

When asked if his son had any feud with anyone, Shahidul said Ayaz had a dispute with one of his classmates. He, however, did not name the classmate. l

Minar falls sick n Our Correspondent, Feni

A Feni court yesterday placed two more people, accused in Fulgazi Upazila chairman Ekramul Haque murder case, on a three-day police remand.

Earlier, the investigation officer of the case and inspector of Fulgazi model police station produced Arafan Hossain Kawsar, 18, and Saiful Islam Paban, 19, before Senior Judicial Magistrate Khairul Amin seeking their remand.

Police arrested Kawsar on Sunday and Paban early yesterday. Inspector Azad told the Dhaka Tribune that they had arrested Paban from Brinchi area of Feni acting on a tip-off around 12:30am.

He said they identified him through video footage. Some arrestees in their statements also mentioned that Paban had provided the criminals with kerosene which was used to set Ekram’s car

MILKY MURDER CASE

Family unhappy as IO drops names of several key accused n Md Sanaul Islam Tipu The family of slain Jubo League leader Reazul Haque Khan Milky yesterday filed a no-confidence petition against the charge sheet pressed in the sensational murder case.

Maj Rashedul Haque Khan, brother of the victim and also complainant of the case, in the petition alleged that the investigation officer had “intentionally” dropped the names of seven “main accused” to divert the case.

Complainant’s lawyer Abdullah Al Mansur filed the petition with the court of Dhaka’s Metropolitan Magistrate Mohammad Tarek Mainul Islam Bhuiyan.

The court deferred the hearing on the petition until June 17 as the case documents were with the upper court.

RAB pressed the charge sheet naming 12 people including 11 Jubo League men as accused in the case. The elite force IO

dropped the names of nine accused mentioned by the plaintiff saying that the allegation against them had not been proved in primary investigation.

In the charge sheet, 26 people have been named as prosecution witnesses.

Milky, the organising secretary of Jubo League’s Dhaka City (south) unit, was gunned down in the capital’s Gulshan area on July 30 last year.

Hours after the murder, RAB arrested one Jahid Siddique Tarek from a hospital in Uttara.

However, Tarek and one of his cohorts were killed in a “shootout” in the capital. RAB said unidentified criminals attacked them with firearms when they were taking Tarek and his associate to the Gulshan police station a day later.

RAB, who later took over the case from Gulshan police, also claimed that Tarek had admitted the killing before he was killed in the “shootout.” l

on fire, the official added.

With the arrest of Paban, a total of 25 people have so far been arrested in the case. Of them, 13 gave confessional statements. Police are still on the hunt for 28 others who were allegedly involved with the murder.

Meanwhile, BNP leader Mahtab Uddin Chowdhury Minar was shown arrested in a case filed by Ekram during the upazila polls for attempted murder.

The suspect fell sick around 9:30pm yesterday in Feni Jail following a cardiac arrest. He was shifted to Feni Sadar Hospital and then to National Institute of Cardiovascular Diseases in the capital, Jailer Shahidul Alam said.

Meanwhile, Nagorik Samaj and Ekram Mancha have called a 48-hour strike at Fulgazi starting from today demanding the arrest of Ekram’s killers and their punishment. l

3 RAB continues to recover ammo in Habiganj n Our Correspondent, Habiganj Members of the RAB yesterday recovered a huge cache of ammunitions and a machinegun barrel from the dense Satchhari forest of Chunarughat upazila in Habiganj along the border.

“Acting on a tip off, RAB conducted a drive in the forest and recovered 633 rounds of sub-machine gun bullets, 54 rounds of armour-piercing bullets and a 37-inch long barrel of a machine-gun,” RAB 9 Srimangal Camp In-Charge Sana Shaminur Rahman confirmed to the Dhaka Tribune.

Earlier on June 3, 184 rocket launchers with 153 chargers, some anti-tank and mortar shells and many other weapons were recovered by RAB-9 from Satchhari forest. Two cases were filed with the Chunarughat police station in this regard.

The recovered weaponry has been sent to the Dhaka Central Ammunition Depot and Central Ordnance Depot. l

4

DHAKA TRIBUNE

News

Tuesday, June 10, 2014

WB to give $140m loan for fighting natural disasters n Tribune Report Bangladesh will get a loan worth $140m from the World Bank to improve and strengthen critical disaster prevention infrastructure in the coastal areas of the country.

To this end, Arastoo Khan, additional secretary of Economic Relations Division (ERD) and Johannes Zutt, World Bank country director in Bangladesh, signed an agreement on behalf of their respective organisations at the ERD, according to a World Bank (WB) press release yesterday.

The loan for the second additional financing of the Emergency 2007 Cyclone Recovery and Restoration Project (ECRRP) is from the International Development Association (IDA), the World Bank’s grant and low-interest arm.

The original ECRRP covered a portion of recovery and restoration costs and targeted the most immediate needs in the recovery and restoration of livelihoods and critical infrastructure damaged after Cyclone Sidr in 2007.

Additional damage from Cyclone Aila in 2009 necessitated further financing for the existing project to help those affected.

The IDA credit has 40 years to maturity, including a 10-year grace period, and carries a service charge of 0.75%.

“These recurring natural disasters, with increased severity and unpredictability, remind us that Bangladesh is among the countries most affected by climate change,” said Zutt, adding: “We are providing additional financing to help the coastal communities strengthen their ability to cope with

future calamities through disaster preparedness.”

The additional financing will be used for the rehabilitation of 10 polders off the coastal embankment network with the so-called “build-back-better” design.

It will also strengthen the resilience of the coastal area through the construction of 100 new multipurpose cyclone shelters, the rehabilitation of 220 existing multipurpose cyclone shelters, and construction of about 100km of connecting roads.

The additional financing will also continue to design projects for longterm disaster risk reduction and continue to support studies for improved disaster resilience.

“We welcome the additional financing as it will support the preparation of a 15-year government programme for disaster risk reduction,” said Arastoo, adding: “This is a vital initiative to reduce Bangladesh’s vulnerability to natural disasters and climate change impacts in the long run, saving thousands of lives facing the threat of more frequent and severe calamities.”

With this second additional financing, the World Bank is providing total support of $324m for the ECRRP. The project also has $25m support from the Bangladesh Climate Change Resilience Fund, $2.96m from the Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery and $4.86m from Germany’s KfW. The Ministries of Local Government, Water Resources, Disaster Management, Agriculture and Fisheries & Livestock and Planning are jointly implementing the project. l

LAND OWNERSHIP DISPUTE

Former CCC mayor, 12 others sued n Tarek Mahmud, Chittagong Former Chittagong City Corporation mayor ABM Mohiuddin Chowdhury and 12 others were sued yesterday for their alleged attempt to grab a piece of disputed land on OR Nizam Road in the city to establish a Premier University campus.

Nazrul Islam, a shopkeeper who rented a shop of Alisha Properties that claims to have owned a portion of the land, lodged the case with the court of Metropolitan Magistrate Ahmed Sayeed, said Additional Deputy Commissioner (prosecution) Md Rezaul Masud.

Taking the case into cognisance, the court ordered the OC of Chawkbazar police station to record the case as First Information Report, he said.

City unit Awami League President Mohiuddin is also the president of the university’s governing body. The other accused include acting registrar Abu Taher, CCC Bagmoniram Ward Councilor Md Gias Uddin, and several leaders of Chhatra League and Jubo League.

The case says Mohiuddin, along with the accused, forcibly entered the disputed land around 3pm on June 6 and beat up the occupants. Mohiuddin was seated in a semi-pucca house constructed on the land for establishing the campus. Several people were injured as two groups locked in a clash on the site. Registrar Taher lodged a case with Chawkbazar police accusing the plaintiff, Nazrul, and some other shopkeepers who had rented space in the area. l

Phone booths at the capital’s Kamlapur Railway Station lie in a depleted state as commuters feel no need to use its services in the age of mobile communications

HC questions validation of Ershad-period law n Nazmus Sakib

The High Court has questioned the constitutionality of giving validity to a particular law formulated during HM Ershad’s Martial Law Administration as it was held unconstitutional by the Appellate Division.

The bench of Justice Mirza Hussain Haider and Justice Khurshid Alam Sarkar issued a ruling yesterday, seek-

ing explanations from the government in four weeks as to why giving validity to the Acquisition and Requisition of the Immovable Property Ordinance, 1982 should not be declared unconstitutional.

The court passed the order following a writ petition filed by four siblings.

The petitioners alleged that the government, in a notice served under the law, had informed them about acquir-

ing their 0.69 acres of land to implement a project for the construction of Chittagong City outer ring road.

The bench also ordered to maintain a status quo order on the land, Deputy Attorney General Al-Amin Sarker told the Dhaka Tribune.

In 2011, in the case of Seventh Amendment to the Constitution, the Appellate Division scrapped the laws passed between March 24, 1982 and

Contempt verdict ATTEMPT TO GRAB LAND against Jamaat city RAB men sent back to forces chief July 7 detained by police for allegedly vandaln Md Sanaul Islam Tipu ising a house and trying to grab land in n Nazmus Sakib A Dhaka court yesterday ordered police the capital’s Uttarkhan area.

The High Court yesterday asked the counsel of Rafiqul Islam Khan, Jamaat-e-Islami city unit chief, to ensure his client’s appearance before the court on July 7 in a contempt allegation.

A High Court bench of Justice M Enayetur Rahim, now International Crimes Tribunal 1 chairman, and Justice ABM Altaf Hossain, summoned the Jamaat leader on August 4 last year to explain his remark that Jamaat would continue its movement against the verdict that cancelled its registration. But Rafiqul did not appear before the court.

Yesterday was fixed for the delivery of a judgement on the allegation, but Rafiqul was not present. Deputy Attorney General SM Maniruzzaman said the bench would pass verdict in the case. l

to send two arrested RAB officials back to their forces and ordered departmental action against them in connection with a case filed over vandalising and attempting to grab land, and demanding extortion.

The court sent five other accused in the case to jail.

Metropolitan Magistrate Md Hasibul Haque passed the order when investigating officer Sub-Inspector Iskandar Ali of Uttarkhan police station produced them before the court with a plea to send back the RAB officials to their forces and send the other five detainees to jail.

Meanwhile, defence lawyers filed bail petitions, which the court rejected.

On Sunday, the seven accused were

The two RAB officials are Md Mizanur Rahman from Bangladesh Army and Abdullah Al Mahmud from Bangladesh Navy. The other five accused are civilians Zahir Uddin, Sheikh Md Nahid, Baccu Miah, Alauddin and Riazul Haque.

According to the case, a group of hired people, including the RAB men, went to Humayun Kabir Mamun’s house in Faujir Batan at Uttarkhan to grab his land. They demanded Tk10 lakh and later vandalised the house and beat up Mamun’s family members when they refused to pay.

Later, police arrived at the spot and arrested the seven accused.

The caretaker of the house, Md Jamir Ali, filed a case with Uttarkhan police station in this regard. l

Mystery shrouds the death of university student in Chittagong n CU Correspondent

DFID Country Representative Sarah Cooke speaks at a press conference, organised ahead of the three-day Bangladesh Youth Leadership Summit, at the National Press Club yesterday MAHMUD HOSSAIN OPU

BYLC launches Youth Leadership Summit n Tribune Report Youth Leadership Summit begins tomorrow at the Bangabandhu International Conference Center in the capital with the theme “Strengthening the Spirit of Public Leadership: A Journey from I to We.” Hosted by Bangladesh Youth Leadership Center (BYLC), the first leadership institute in the country, the three-day summit will bring together 500 national and international delegates represent-

ing five continents, as well as 50 national and international speakers, including experts from Harvard University and Cambridge Leadership Associates, for three days of knowledge sharing, leadership training and networking.

The title sponsors of the summit are the UK government and UNDP, and the public sector partner is the Ministry of Youth and Sports.

The summit will feature a mix of plenaries and panels on youth in civil service, education and career, sustain-

RAJIB DHAR

able development, innovation for the public good, gender and leadership, good governance, active citizenship and youth entrepreneurship.

“Leadership is the vehicle that can bridge the gap between Bangladesh as it is today and Bangladesh as it ought to be. And this leadership has to come from the young generation. This is why we have organised this summit,” said Ejaj Ahmad, BYLC founder and president, while addressing a press conference at the National Press Club. l

The death of a university student, whose body was found in the Karnaphuli River on Sunday night, remains a puzzle to police.

Police recovered the body of Kaisarul Islam, 24, from the river at Sadarghat area in Chittagong city, three days after he went missing on Friday.

Kaisar, 24, was studying electrical and electronics engineering at the University of Information and Technology Science (UITS) in Chittagong. He was a resident of Bakalia area in the city, said police sources.

Kaisar’s family members claimed that he had recently been confronted by his girlfriend’s brother regarding the relationship, and the latter had threatened Kaisar of dire consequences.

They suspect that Kaisar may have been murdered.

Kutub Uddin, Kaisar’s uncle, told the Dhaka Tribune that he had a relationship with Nova, who is also a student and lives near Kaiser’s house.

The family filed a general dairy with Bakalia police station on Friday afternoon when Kaisar went missing and they could not trace his whereabouts.

Another missing complaint was filed

by Faisal, Kaisar’s younger brother, with Rapid Action Battalion 7 at their

Chandgaon office in this regard, said Kutub Uddin.

Aminur Rashid, sub-inspector of Bakalia police station and the investi-

Police found an SMS sent from Nova’s elder brother’s mobile to Kaisar’s elder sister’s mobile phone. It was a death threat for Kaisar gating officer of the case, told the Dhaka Tribune that police found out about Kaisar’s relationship with Nova during the primary investigation.

“Police interrogated the girl’s family members, but they denied the allegation made by the victim’s family,” Amin said.

However, the sub-inspector said police had found an SMS sent from Nova’s elder brother Saif’s mobile number on November 10 last year to Kaisar’s elder sister Nisha’s mobile phone. The SMS was a death threat for Kaisar.

Nur Hossain, sub-inspector at Sadarghat police station, said: “The body has been sent to Chittagong Medical College Hospital for a post mortem examination.” A case of unnatural death was filed with the police station. l

November 11, 1986 when Ershad had ruled the country under martial law.

But at the move of the government, the president, on January 21 last year, gave validity to the laws saying that those were important for the rule of law and protecting the people’s rights.

The same bench on July 31 last year issued a similar kind of ruling. But hearing on the ruling has yet to be held. l

Quader: Dialogue impossible while BNP considers government illegitimate n Our Correspondent, Savar Communications Minister Obaidul Quader yesterday questioned how there could be a dialogue between the government and the BNP, when the latter do not even recognise the present administration to be legitimate.

The BNP has not even given any reaction on the proposed budget for 201415, the minister said at a road safety awareness campaign ceremony organised by the BRTC at Savar Bus Stand.

Quader blamed the BNP for the country’s current situation, adding that they had been invited by Awami League and its chief, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, to a dialogue before the January 5 election.

The BNP had not given any positive response, triggering today’s situation in the country, he said. The minister, however, did not specify what he meant by “today’s situation.”

Afterwards, he stopped vehicles on the Dhaka-Aricha highway and distributed leaflets among drivers and passengers and even stuck leaflets on various vehicles. l

CPB-SPB to protest FY2014-15 budget n Manik Miazee Communist Party of Bangladesh (CPB) and Socialist Party of Bangladesh (SPB) will jointly hold a two-day long protest against the proposed budget for the next fiscal year.

The rally in front of the National Press Club will also protest countrywide “disappearances and extrajudicial killings,” and price hick of commodity product. The two parties will also try to press home their demands – expedite of crime against humanity judgment and ban on Jamaat-Shibir politics.

The CPB and SPB will also hold a countrywide demonstration programme on June 17 for the same demands, CPB President Mujahidul Islam Selim said at a press briefing yesterday at the party’s central office.

Selim termed the budget proposal “not only ambitious but also a budget for filling the pockets of the rich... Education, health, agriculture and several other important sectors had got less allocation in the proposed budget.”

Very little had been allocated to improve the living standards of garment workers and the rural people, he added. l

DHAKA TRIBUNE

Army staff commits suicide n CU Correspondent A civil staff of Bangladesh Army stationed at Chittagong Cantonment allegedly committed suicide at Hathazari upazila in Chittagong yesterday morning.

Md Jafar Alam, 32, was a resident in the upazila’s Purba Dholoi area, said police sources.

Sub-Inspector Manzur Ahmed of Hatazari Model police station said the victim hanged himself with a rope from a bailey bridge near his house around 5am.

Locals found the body and informed police. Upon receiving information, police recovered the body and sent it to Chittagong Medical College Hospital for a post-mortem, Manzur said.

According to the sub-inspector, Jafar had been mentally distressed over family matters and that might be why he killed himself. l

WEATHER THUNDERSHOWER OR RAIN

TUESDAY, JUNE 10 DHAKA TODAY TOMORROW SUN SETS 6:46PM SUN RISES 5:10AM FORECAST FOR TODAY Dhaka

37

Chittagong

34

29 27

Rajshahi

39

29

Rangpur

35

26

Khulna

37

28

Barisal

36

28

Sylhet

36

25

Cox’s Bazar

33

27

YESTERDAY’S HIGH AND LOW

37.2ºC Rajshahi

24.0ºC Syedpur

Source: Accuweather/UNB

PRAYER TIMES Fajar Sunrise Zohr Asr Magrib Esha

3:43am 5:09am 11:58am 4:38pm 6:45pm 8:13pm Source: IslamicFinder.org

News

Tuesday, June 10, 2014

CNG auto-rickshaw owners now demand change of government gazette n Abu Hayat Mahmud CNG-run auto-rickshaw owners have extended their strike postponement till June 21 from June 9, demanding a revision of the recently published gazette notification regarding lifespan extension of existing auto-rickshaws and a new hike in fare rates.

The decision came at a tripartite meeting of BRTA officials, Buet experts and CNG-run auto-rickshaw owners at the BRTA headquarter yesterday.

After the meeting, Dhaka Metropolitan CNG Auto-Rickshaw Malik Samity Oikya Parishad President Barkat Ullah Bulu told the Dhaka Tribune that from June 22, a three-day non-stop strike

would be enforced if their demand for a revisiting of the gazette notification was not met.

“The government in its gazette notification set a condition that auto-rickshaw owners must overhaul the three-wheeler engines within its 12th year. But, only six months are left till the end of the 12th year and it is not possible to overhaul the engines within this short time,” Bulu said.

“Buet experts also said it was not possible for them to check all auto-rickshaws in this limited period,” he added.

Bulu further demanded revision of the gazette in line with the recommendations made by Buet regarding the lifespan extension of the existing CNG-

Narayanganj’s Bandar upazila polls held amid tight security n Our Correspondent, Narayanganj The upazila parishad polls of Bandar upazila in Narayanganj was held yesterday amid strong security measures.

Though the number of voters was less than expected, no untoward incident was reported during the polls, police said. The candidates also expressed satisfaction over the overall environment of the polls.

A total of eight chairman candidates, seven vice-chairman candidates and three women vice-chairman candidates contested in the polls held in 50 polling centres.

Strong security measures were taken as 40 of the polling centres were declared vulnerable.

During the polls, 12 executive magistrates, 550 police personnel, 550 ansar members, 90 army personnel, 60 Border Guard Bangladesh members and 72 Rapid Action Battalion members were deployed.

Bandar police station Officer-in-Charge Akter Morshed said voting took place in a peaceful manner, adding that no untoward incidents in and outside the polling centres were reported.

Bandar upazila Awami League President MA Rashid, a chairman candidate, told the Dhaka Tribune that he was sat-

isfied with the security measures. Regarding the presence of fewer voters, he said: “Whatever the reason is, we have failed to bring the voters to polling centres.”

Strong security measures were taken as 40 of the polling centres were declared vulnerable Another chairman candidate Ataur Rahman Mukul, president of a faction of the upazila’s BNP unit and incumbent chairman, told the Dhaka Tribune that he did not receive any information of untoward incident. He said many voters did not go to the polling centres because of excessive heat of the summer.

Other than the two, Bandar upazila Chhatra League Vice-President and Madanpur union parishad Chairman MA Salam, ousted BNP leader Hazi Nuruddin, district Jatiya Party Convener Abul Zaher, Kolagachhiya union parishad Chairman and Jatiya Party leader Delwar Hossain Delu, Islami Andolon leader Hazi Mohammad Ali and independent candidate Zahirul Islam contested for the chairman post. l

run auto-rickshaws. Meanwhile, BRTA Chairman Nazrul Islam told the Dhaka Tribune that they will decide on the issue after consulting with the ministry.

Earlier, the government added four more years to the lifespan of CNG-run auto-rickshaws in Dhaka and Chittagong, which had already passed 11 years in operation, upon six specific conditions.

The conditions included ensuring fitness of the existing CNG-run auto-rickshaws, full engine overhauling by the 12th year, change of hood-cover along with a change of the body colour, repairing of body, suspension, breaks, transmission and other parts.

Moreover, capacity of the gas cylinders and efficiency of CNG fuel system

and other parts had to be examined by government-certified workshops. Vehicle owners were also asked to keep a Log Book containing information of the overhauling and repairing works done.

The gazette said fitness of all the auto-rickshaws in Dhaka and Chittagong has to be certified by Buet or Cuet.

However, auto-rickshaw owners, however, rejected the conditions and called a 72-hour strike last month to meet their 7-point demand.

On the second day of the strike, the owners postponed the protests in the capital till June 9 following assurance from the government that their demands would be met within the timeframe, which ended on Monday. l

5 Brazil, Argentina supporters clash n Our Correspondent, Barisal At least eleven supporters of Brazil and Argentina were injured in clash at Barisal Government Polytechnic Institute on Saturday night.

Witnesses said two groups of supporters of Brazil and Argentina teams, led by Chhatra League cadres Chhoto Reza and Mahmud Hasan, engaged in an altercation over the “Hand of God” incident by Diego Maradona the 1986 World Cup. At one stage, Argentina’s supporter Reza slapped Mahmud Hasan, a Brazil supporter, triggering the clash that left eight Brazil supporters and three Argentina supporters injured.

Later, police rushed to the spot and brought the situation under control.

Additional police were deployed on the campus to avert further untoward incidents. l

Mugging rings use prostitutes to trap victims n Tarek Mahmud, Chittagong Police have arrested several members of two mugging rings from different areas of the port city who had been long using call girls to lure victims into their trap.

Acting on a tip-off, police conducted a drive at Block- A of Halishahar Residential Area on Sunday night and nabbed Mohmmad Jamshed, 24, the leader of a notorious eight-member fraud gang, and three of his accomplices.

According to police, Jamshed used Shahnaz, an alleged prostitute, to form relationships with targeted victims over phone and lure them into meeting her. When the meeting was confirmed, he and his cohorts would rob all kinds of valuables from the victim when they arrived at the meeting venue.

“Police also found a light gun, two cartridges, two machetes, a knife and four mobile sets from their pos-

sessions,” Halishahar police Officer-In-Charge (OC) Shahjahan Kabir told the Dhaka Tribune.

He also added that Jamshed used to collect contact numbers of wealthy bachelors and gave them to Shahnaz.

Shahjahan also said Jamshed collected the mobile numbers of such solvent persons who are single and provided the numbers to Shahnaz.

Other arrested members of the gang were Mohammad Khokon, 24, Al Amin, 28, and Khorshed Alam, 42.

“Shahnaz used to convince the victims to meet her at her flat, which was actually owned by Khorshed, where Jamhed, Khokon and Al Amin remained standby to loot everything from the victim at gun point,” he added.

Arrested Jamshed told Dhaka Tribune that he met Shahnaz at Karim Hotel in the port city few years ago when he formed the gang. “Two days ago, we

looted Tk9,500 and four smartphones from two readymade garment workers,” he said.

Another five-member fraud gang was busted from a flat in Cosmopolitan Residential Area early yesterday.

“The arrested gang members, Jobaida Akhter Joya, Sumona Akhter Shila, Upol Chowdhury, Saidul Saimun and Atikur Rahman Sohel, had been luring victims using their female members and mugged them when they came to meet her,” said Panchlaish police station OC Abu Jafor Mohammad Omar Faruk.

Babul Akhter, additional deputy commissioner of Detective Branch of Chittagong Metropolitan Police, said the gang rented several flats at residential areas of the city and used its female members to lure local unmarried service holders into meeting them there.

Three cases were filed in this regards. l

4 arrested for abduction attempt in capital n Kailash Sarkar Police, with the help of local people, held four criminals while they were attempting to abduct a private firm official, posing as detective officials in the capital’s Banani area yesterday.

The arrested are Md Mamun, Abu Bakar, Mostofa Kamal and Dipu alias Al Amin. Police also recovered handcuffs, walkie-talkies and a micro bus.

According to the officials at Banani police station, there were two more mem-

bers of the gang who managed to escape.

Meanwhile, the victim, Jan-e-Alam Chowdhury, an official of BD Thai Cosmo Ltd, was admitted to nearby Ayesha Memorial clinic as the criminals had beaten him up as well.

The victim said the gang intercepted him immediately after coming out of the Banani branch of Brac Bank carrying Tk2.6 lakh. “They forcibly picked me up in a micro bus from the street near Banani Mosque and handcuffed me,” he said. “Identifying themselves

as DB personnel, they also beat me up mercilessly for unknown reasons. They also stabbed me in my head” He said the local people and police came forward when he had cried for help.

Sub-Inspector Shahida Akhter said the criminals had tried to abduct the victim in order to snatch away the money.

A case was filed in this connection.

Police were trying to arrest the other members of the gang who had managed to flee, she added. l

6

DHAKA TRIBUNE

Nation

Tuesday, June 10, 2014

Moharoshi River virtually converted into a canal n Our Correspondent, Sherpur The mighty Moharoshi River has virtually converted into a canal for lack of dredging and random sand lifting from it by some unscrupulous people.

Moreover, a vested interested group is grabbing the dried-up portion of the river gradually in the name of cultivation on the river bed.

First they bring the grabbed land of the river under cultivation and later start building establishments on it.

Local people apprehended that a vast tract of cultivable land stretching 20 kilometres from Sandhyakur to Rangamati would be barren because of a lack of water.

Chairman of Jinaigati upazila Aminul Islam Badsha thousands of farmers at the upazila depended on the water from the river for cultivation.

“But some influential locals who have a good relationship with political high-ups have been indiscriminately

Three workers killed in road accident n Our Correspondent, Manikganj At least three farm labourers were killed and eight others injured as a pickup van carrying them turned turtle on the Dhaka-Aricha Highway at Shibalaya upazila in Manikganj yesterday.

The deceased were identified as Samidul, Choyra, 33, and Khalil. They hailed from Alokdia Char area under the upazila.

Witnesses said that the Arichabound paddy-laden pickup van with 15-20 farm labourers onboard hit a road divider on the highway and overturned on the road at Boalia in the morning.

One labourer died on the spot and 10 others were injured critically as they fell under several paddy sacks.

The injured were taken to Manikganj Sadar Hospital where doctors declared two of them dead.

Shibalaya police station Officer-inCharge Nokibuzzaman confirmed the incident. l

One held in Naogaon triple murder case n Our Correspondent, Naogaon Police arrested a man in a case filed in light of the sensational triple murder case which was said to have occurred yesterday over a piece of disputed land in Badalgachhi upazila of Naogaon, from Hili border area of Dinajpur.

The arrestee is Azizul Islam, number two accused of the case, and son of Najir Uddin, of Ujalpur village of the upazila.

Badalgachhai police station OC (investigation) Abul Kalam Azad said a team of Parbatipur government railway police (GRP6), acting on a tip-off, arrested Azizul from the area around 8:30am and then handed him over to them.

Azizul was held during an attempt to flee to India, the OC continued.

On Friday, three people were killed as followers of two groups – one led by Shahidul Islam Dulu and another by his neighbour Hasan – were locked in a fierce clash centring dispute over a piece of land. The deceased were Dulu and his two supporters.

Later, Dulu’s son filed a case against 24 people. l

Couple struck by lightning Correspondent, n Our Naogaon A couple was killed when lightning struck them at Azul village in Enayetpur union under Mahadebpur upazila of the district yesterday.

The deceased were identified as Abdul Matin, 45, and his wife Renu Begum, 35, of the area.

Police said the lightning during a rainstorm hit the duo around 6am when they were in the yard of their house. Both of them died on the spot.

Mahadebpur police station Officer-in-Charge Enayet Uddin confirmed the incident. l

lifting sand from the river which has not only cause the river to dry up but also caused erosion in some parts of the upazila.”

He alleged that the district administration did not take any effective steps to stop the sand lifting.

“Taking the opportunity of the situation many people have started building structures on both banks of the river.”

They have already built brick kilns, fish farms and business centres on the grabbed portion of the river.

“It is unfortunate that protectors have become predators,” he said, adding that the Department of Agriculture Extension along with the district administration kept quiet on the issue for unknown reasons.

A number of fishermen living on the river basin have also become unemployed and many of them have already changed profession to run their livelihood as many native species of fish are

on the verge of extinction.

Ramij Mia, who was a fisherman two years ago, said, “I have been compelled to change my profession because of a lack of fish and now I am working as farm labourer.”

Once the district was known as granary of native fish of the country.

These fish were even supplied to many places in the country, including the capital after fulfilling the needs of the district. But now fishermen rarely get fish from the river.

Sources at the fishery department of the district said the production of the native fish in the river had come down because of many reasons, including unprecedented fall of in the water- level in the rivers; caused by the impact of climate change.

Besides, catching of fish-fries and pollution of waters for excessive use of fertilizers and pesticide in the crop fields are blamed for the scarcity of fish in the river. l

Transport workers block the Chapainawabganj-Sona Masjid Highway in Mohanonda bridge area of Chapainawabganj yesterday, protesting ban on plying of human hauliers on highways DHAKA TRIBUNE

Strike continues at Thakurgaon diabetic hospital n Our Correspondent, Thakurgaon

The healthcare services at Thakurgaon Swasthoseba Hospital locally known as diabetic hospital are being hampered to a great extent as employees of the hospital, including doctors, have been observing work abstention for the last 10 days.

The agitating doctors and staffs yesterday held a rally on the premises of the hospital where they called upon the government to take immediate measures to save the hospital.

Dr Nur Alam Mondol, Manjurul Haque and Sarwar Hossain, among

others, addressed the rally.

The employees vowed to continue their agitation programmes until their demands are met.

On Sunday, they brought out a procession in the district town to press home their demands.

Thousands of diabetics who live in Thakurgaon and Panchagarh districts have been suffering for the work abstention.

The strike exposes the admitted patients to immense sufferings while outdoor patient are returning home without any treatment.

Rizia Khatun, a resident of Pan-

chagarh Sadar upazila, yesterday came to the hospital to visit doctor, but she was compelled to return back without any treatment.

“As I am a diabetic, I visit the hospital frequently, if the strike continues I will have to go to Dhaka for my treatment,” she said.

Hospital sources said being unable to make the hospital authority pay up their arrears, doctors, nurses and other employees of the hospital have been refraining themselves from work since May 31.

Hospital sources said there is a total of 126 staff members at the hospital,

and they have been unpaid for last nine months.

When contacted, the agitating staff blamed the authorities concerned for the deadlock, saying they were forced to call the strike as the situation had finally become unbearable.

Ekramul Hoque Swapan, executive director of the hospital, said he was trying his best to solve the crisis by contacting the higher authorities.

Mukes Biswas, Thakurgaon Deputy Commissioner, said the ongoing impasse was an internal hospital matter that the authorities would solve. l

Shops remain closed as tension prevails Correspondent, n Our Chapainawabganj

All the shops remained closed at Ramchandrapur Haat, as tension continued to prevail in Chapainawabganj following the murder of Azu group leader Azizul Haque Azu on Sunday.

Police have arrested seven people till filing the report, for interrogating them in this connection.

However, no case was filed with the Chapainawabganj model police station.

Sporadic incidents of violence – cocktail blasts and chase-counter chases between Azu and Kalam group

Robbers kill , injure 10 n Our Correspondent, Munshigani

A youth was killed and 10 others were injured in separate incidents of robbery at Teghoria and Shekhornagar Dakhkhinhati villages in Sirajdikhan upazila yesterday.

The deceased was identified as Rinku Shil, 16, of Shekhornagar Dakhkhinhati village.

Acting superintendent of police M Zakir Hossain Majumdar said a gang of 20-25 robbers had stormed the house of Anwar Hossain of Teghoria village around 1:45am and held the residents hostage at gunpoint.

They looted huge gold ornaments and other valuables from the house.

The handlooms also attacked the residents when they tried to resist them, leaving four people injured.

Later, the gang tried to com-

mit robbery at nearby Shekhornagar Dakhkhinhati village.

On information, local people, including Panjkonj Sheel and Rinku Sheel, chased off the robbers.

At one stage, robbers fired shots and threw fishing spears at the villagers, leaving six people injured.

As Rinku Sheel getting injured fell to the ground, robbers chopped him with sharp weapons indiscriminately, leaving him dead on the spot.

Critically injured Pankoj and Dr Sajib were admitted to Dhaka Medical College Hospital. l

– were reported, though temporary deployment of police was seen in the area.

Police said the deceased’s body was buried at Dihirmath village after completing the post mortem.

Seeking anonymity, several shop owners in the area told the Dhaka Tribune that fears of being attacked and

looted made them keep their shops shut.

Chapainawabganj model police station Officer-in-Charge Jasim Uddin said the seven were nabbed after carrying out drives at different residences in the area. Police Super Bashir Ahmed said the situation was calm and process to file a case was on. l

One gets death penalty for killing Chapa Rani n Our Correspondent, Faridpur A court here sentenced Debashish Saha Rony to death yesterday. He was the prime accused of the Faridpur Chapa Rani murder case.

Faridpur District and Session Judge Md Anwarul Haque pronounced the verdict in the morning.

The court also fined Rony Tk 10,000.

The court acquitted two other accused in the case, Opu alias Sanjay Bishwas and Alamgir Hossain, because they were not found to be guilty.

Chapa Rani Bhowmik, a sugar mill worker, was crushed under the wheel of Rony’s car on Oct 26, 2010 for protesting the harassment of her two daughters Hira and Mukta.

Rony had been sexually harassing Chanpa’s twin daughters, Hira and Mukta, for a long time, said the case statement. Chapa’s brother Arun Kumar Bhowmik filed a murder case with Madhukhali police station the following day, accusing Rony. l

DHAKA TRIBUNE

Long Form

7

Tuesday, June 10, 2014

We are not job-seekers, we are job-givers Turning unemployment into entrepreneurship Common facilities, like computerized MIS, and accounting software, common training facilities, are being developed. Innovations are added by each Grameen company to make the programme more effective. A rigorous implementation structure is emerging to make sure NUs get thorough orientation, training in business management, accounting, reporting, and have access to support services.

Identification And Implementation

Looking at the bigger picture

G

n Muhammad Yunus rameen Bank started out with a tiny initiative in the village of Jobra in 1976. In 1983, it became a formal bank. Now in 2014, it has over 8.5 million borrowers. Right from the beginning we paid attention to two things: 1) Borrowers build the habit of savings by putting money every week in a savings account. We encouraged them never to give up this habit.

2) Borrowers should send their children to school.

We paid highest attention to the second generation in the families of borrowers. At the very start of Grameen Bank we encouraged our borrowers to use their Centre House, a hut under which borrowers assemble to hold their weekly centre meeting, as a place of learning for their children.

They hire a local girl or a woman paying small salary (usually Tk500 or $6.5) to teach their pre-school kids every day. Families had no experience of schools. They could not tell their children what to expect in school. This new learning and fun centre acted as a soft introduction to the kids to get used to reading and writing, also have fun being together everyday, as a way to overcome the fear of school.

We included the commitment of sending every child to school in the basic charter of pledges of the borrowers, famously known as “Sixteen Decisions,” chanted by all Grameen Bank borrowers collectively, in every weekly meeting week after week, year after year. We launched a campaign to make sure hundred percent of the children of Grameen families go to school.

This was quite a daring task when most of the children of poor families did not go to school. Grameen Bank gave scholarships to thousands of students each year to encourage them to continue in school and compete for better performance. Our campaign worked. We succeeded in making all children go to school. When they finished primary school we encouraged them to go to high school. Most of them did. When they finished high school we encouraged them to go to colleges. But that created a problem. Going to college needed money. We came up with a solution. Grameen Bank introduced education loan to make sure they move to higher education.

Nobin udyokta Since then thousands of students have taken education loan to become graduates, doctors, engineers and professional people. But for most of them there were no jobs. They were very frustrated. At this point we launched another campaign. We started campaigning to redirect their mind from traditional path of hunting for jobs to creating jobs for themselves and others, through entrepreneurship.

We invited them to keep repeating to themselves that “we are not job-seekers, we are job-givers.” We tried to inspire them to create businesses, with Grameen Bank loans, instead of hunting for jobs. We called those who

BIGSTOCK

chose that path and took loans from Grameen Bank, as Nobin Udyokta (NU), Or “New Entrepreneurs.”

NU program did not pick up any speed, because parents were reluctant to let their sons or daughters take more loans while they still have the unpaid education loans. Moreover, bank staff were very slow in giving them fresh loans because they still have outstanding loans to clear.

the young, or the old). Investor, in a social business, does not take any profit from his investment, except for getting his investment money back.

The NU is responsible for paying back whatever money he received as equity within an agreed period. This offers an exciting opportunity for any entrepreneur. Imagine what a thrill it is for a young entrepreneur entering the business world for the first time.

Design lab

Relationship between Investor and NU

As the idea of social businesses was catching up by 2013, through various conferences, writings, interviews, I felt we needed a platform where we could bring the entrepreneurs to present their social business designs in front of a group of experienced business executives and social activists, to seek their advice.

This would do two things, it would encourage people to come up with social business ideas, and develop this platform as a sounding board for getting the concept of social business more business-ready through its application in concrete situation. Yunus Centre organised the first Design Lab in January, 2013. It went very well.

Encouraged by its success we decided to do it every month.

As the Design Lab continued to attract new business plans we thought about inviting the business plans from Nobin Udyoktas of Grameen Bank to link them up with social business angel investors who would invest in their businesses. It started in a slow motion, but within six months it picked up speed. By the end of April, 68 NUs presented their business plans in the design labs. My expectation is, by the end of 2014, at least a total of 200 NU business plans will be approved for investment. I think this number will easily double itself each year. Once the implementation structure is built, speed of expansion will pick up easily.

The entrepreneur may have some or no shares in his business. He can be the managing partner or a paid manager of the business owned by the investor. Investor will be monitoring the performance of the manager/managing partner, but will not get involved in the actual running of the business. As the business makes profit, the investor receives his dividend. When he has received enough dividends to equal the amount of equity he has invested, he stops taking further dividend.

From loans to equity Impact of this shift from loans to equity to create social businesses is far-reaching. This has a possibility of addressing the issue of global problem of youth unemployment, or any unemployment for that matter, in a sustainable and a replicable way.

It is simple, but very effective. It has moved the issue from traditional prescription of job creation through promoting profit-maximising investments or investments in large infrastructure projects by governments, to simple, sustainable, and direct micro equity financing of the business of the unemployed person himself within a social business format.

Here the action directly aims at the very person whose problem is to be solved. It is not an uncertain by-product of an enterprise intended for profit maximization. In a social business the investor solves a problem by creating a business. In this NU case the investor solves the problem of youth unemployment (needless to say, the method can be used in any type of unemployment situation – whether

additional amount a “share transfer fee”. The entrepreneur finds it very attractive offer, because, firstly he is buying the shares at the face value, not at the book value. That itself is a big gain for him.

Secondly, fixed charge of 20% on the original equity over the entire pay back period is a rather modest amount to pay to the own shares. For example, if the entrepreneur is paying back the investment amount of Tk 1.0 million he will have to pay back a total fixed amount of Tk 1.2 million irrespective of how many years it takes to pay back the money. Instead, if he had borrowed the money from a bank his interest burden will grow each day, making the total repayment burden twice or thrice the original loan amount in a few years.

What would be the justification for charging the “share transfer fee” in the NU programme? We point out two reasons: one, in social business shares are transferred at market value. In NU programme the entrepreneur is asked

We needed a platform where we could bring the entrepreneurs to present their social business designs in front of a group of experienced business executives It is time for him to move on to the next investment with the money he got back. But his objective will not be achieved until he establishes the entrepreneur as the owner, because his intention was to transform a job-seeker into a job-giver. This was his objective. If his intention had been merely to create job for a young unemployed person, his objective would have been achieved right at the start.

Even if he holds on to ownership of the business, the business would already be a successful social business. But his objective was bigger than just providing employment; it was to transform a job-seeker into a job-giver, that is, creating an entrepreneur. This he does by selling the shares to the entrepreneur following social business guidelines.

Question comes, what price would he charge to the entrepreneur for his shares? He is entitled to sell them at the book value, or at the market value of the shares. Both these values are higher than the face value because the business has already paid back the original investment amount. According to social business guidelines, an investor can sell his shares at the market value, but he has to reinvest the additional money he receives beyond the face value, into another social business, or in the same social business.

In other words he cannot enjoy additional value created by his investment. In our NU programme, we made an easy rule. In selling the shares of a NU business, the investor will take an amount equivalent to the original investment amount plus additional fixed sum of 20% over it. We call the

to pay the amount equivalent to face value, which would be much smaller than the market value in a successful business.

Two, investor in the case of NU programme is not a passive investor. He is a very active investor. He prepares the entrepreneur to become an efficient entrepreneur, arranging training for him, providing guidance to him, monitoring his business performance, providing support services, bearing the business risk, helping him to handle emergencies etc. Fixed amount of 20% is only a small fee for covering all these services over a period of several years.

By September, 2013, we had got some early experience in handling the NU programme. During this period, we developed basic methodology, reporting formats, identification and assessment procedures, etc. Initially, Grameen Telecom Trust was the investor. They brought the NU projects to the Design Lab for getting critical assessment from a group of experienced professionals.

Usually there are around 150 people participating in a Design Lab. It is live streamed through the internet. Participants from 70 to 80 countries attend the session in live stream. Participants ask questions, make suggestions to the investor to improve the project or raise issues which they thought had been missed out in the project preparation.

By now, one year later, methodology has been made sharper. More Grameen companies (Grameen Telecom Trust, Grameen Kalyan, Grameen Trust, Grameen Bybosha Bikash, Grameen Shakti) have initiated their own NU programmes.

Whole process begins with the identification of a potential NU. The implementation structure of the investor, which has village level staff to work with the entrepreneurs, is responsible for identification of the potential entrepreneurs, helps them develop their business plans, and prepare the NUs to make presentation of their plans to the participants of the Design Lab. The whole process starts with the home visit of the potential entrepreneur and getting to know him and his family in all details, capture his dreams and fears, and try to build confidence in him. Informal discussion in small groups of 4 or 5 takes place to let them get to know each other. Once a sizable number (say 30 to 50) of young men or women have been contacted the village staff will organise an orientation and identification camp in a village.

Experienced camp leaders will attend the camp to carry out the identification and confidence building process. Participants learn the rules and procedures of NU programme, ask questions to get a clear picture of the programme. They assess each other’s business plans, strength of their business will. Camp leaders give them business games to play and test their problem solving quality At the end of an intensive get-toknow-your-entrepreneur exercise, camp leaders make a short list of the participants who have impressed them as entrepreneurs likely to succeed, in the first round of selection.

The rest are assured that they are kept in the waiting list; they’ll be invited in the next camp. In the mean time they can prepare themselves to present a better performance next time.

The short-listed candidates then go through second round of project development exercises, in another convenient location, on a later date. Entrepreneurs selected in this round are invited to Dhaka where they’ll give final shape to their business plans and give them a professional appearance with the help of trained staff of the investors.

Project summaries are prepared in English for a five minute presentations at the Design Lab where the entrepreneur has to defend his project. Usually after all this long process of preparation Design Lab does not find any ground to reject any project. Participants give some good advice and flag some issues to help better implementation. In rare cases an entrepreneur is asked to modify his plan to make further improvement and present it to the next Lab. Once the project is approved, hand-holding process for implementation begins. Investor and the entrepreneur now go through a process of bonding together for a successful journey ahead. All regulatory issues are threshed out, necessary documentation is completed. Monitoring and accounting training are completed.

D-Day comes! Funds are released.

Business starts rolling.

Grameen Communication, a Grameen software company, has developed an accounting and monitoring software to collect MIS and accounting information from every NU business on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis.

Daily figures are sent via text messages. All information accumulates at the central server, which produces reports for each investor on daily, weekly, monthly or for any other period as the investor would like to have.

Social Business Village Next step in NU programme is to deepen it by giving it an institutional structure and vision. This is to be done by creating Social Business Villages (SBV). To make it an autonomous, and economically viable entity, we take a Union, lowest local government unit in Bangladesh, covering a cluster of about 20 villages, as the “greater village”. This village unit is being developed as a Social Business Village.

Each SBV will have a Social Business Fund and a Social Business Incubation Company. Incubation company will promote the idea of social business, help develop business plans, bring successful social businesses from outside to replicate, create joint ventures with companies from outside

the village, network with other Social Business Villages, invite non-resident villagers who are engaged in professional activities outside the village, or the country, to help build up the Social Business Fund and invest in social businesses in their own village.

Bangladeshi people have a very strong emotional attachment to their own villages. No matter how long they are away, how far they are away, from their villages, they still feel a strong bond with village. SBV programme may reconnect them to their villages in meaningful ways.

A Social Business Village will qualify to call itself as such only after it is formally recognized at the annual Social Business Day celebration which is held regularly on June 28 every year.

Minimum qualification requirement for applying for this recognition is to create at least 25 NU projects and 5 other types of social business successfully.

We are inviting individuals, foundations, and businesses to contact us, if they are interested in creating their own Social Business Villages. We can help them set up appropriate structures to do that, like Social Business Fund, and incubation company. We offer our services to manage the Fund and the company under management contracts.

Grameen Telecom trust will select three unions among those who will contact us, to provide matching funds.

For these three unions, Grameen Telecom Trust will invest an amount of money equal to whatever amount the union can mobilize on its own. In these cases both the Social Business Fund and the Incubation Company will be managed by Grameen Telecom Trust.

This will be an interesting experience of joint venture between Grameen Telecom Trust and the unions in creating Social Business Villages.

Franchising Franchising social businesses will also be good way to spread social business.

For example, an initiative is underway to franchise an existing social business of producing sanitary napkins in small factories in diverse locations. Each replication will need an investment of Tk100,000 ($ 13,000), employing five people. Equipments for this factory are easy to build, install, and operate.

Each SBV can have one or more of these factories as social businesses.

Each factory can be owned individually or collectively by women who work in the factory. They can earn additional income by selling their own products among their neighbours.

New solution for an age-old problem When I was promoting credit for the poor women in early years of Grameen Bank, many experts around the world insisted that credit may work for only very limited number of entrepreneurial poor people. Entrepreneurship is a rare quality in people. It is more rare in poor people, they claimed to counter that, I came out with a reverse position. Position I took was -All human beings are entrepreneurs, with no exception. Not only I promoted that position I became a firm believer in it.

Microcredit was born out of this firm belief. Current NU programme has the root in the same firm belief.

Social Business may bring a failproof new solution for an age-old old problem, i.e. the problem of unemployment. It has application everywhere --poor countries, rich countries, urban areas, rural areas, tribal areas, isolated areas, anywhere. It does not have to be restricted to any particular group. The young, the old, men, women, the literate, the illiterate, all are good candidates for becoming entrepreneurs. All human beings have their basic creative power. That, backed up by social business framework is all it needs for the success of turning unemployed into entrepreneurs.

Not only would this save people from extreme frustration and the depression of being unemployed, it would give people a new life, new hope and new mode of enjoyment. Everyone would become an active and productive citizen. In the process it would create a new economy. There would be no wastage of human creativity. It would save people from state dependency.

As the first step in this process we may begin by getting busy with turning unemployment into entrepreneurship in social business villages to solve the human problems with efforts of their own people. If we succeed in doing it, we can move confidently in the direction of creating a world without unemployment, and without dependence. l Muhammad Yunus is a Nobel laureate and the founder of Grameen Bank

8

DHAKA TRIBUNE

World

Tuesday, June 10, 2014

Fear, loathing sully debate on Scottish independence n Reuters, Edinburgh

Retired military general Norman Arthur represented Queen Elizabeth in his Scottish neighborhood and is passionate that the country should remain part of the United Kingdom. Stuart Campbell, a pro-independence campaigner based hundreds of miles south in England, disagrees fervently.

But both men have one thing in common: They have called in police after being threatened for their views.

The sinister side of the debate on Scotland’s Sept. 18 referendum is coming to the fore as opinion polls narrow on the outcome. The “Better Together” campaign is particularly keen to draw attention to this: Its leader has likened independence champion Alex Salmond to Kim Jong-il, the North Korean autocrat, blaming Salmond for a “culture of intimidation” in Scotland.

“I did hope the campaign would not get hotheaded and beastly,” said 83-year-old Arthur, in front of an open fire in the sitting room of his country estate home, framed photographs of the royal family on the windowsill.

“But it has. But I won’t stop.”

Nationalists argue that oil-rich Scotland should be in charge of its own decisions and not have policies it opposes imposed by politicians in London. The rest of the United Kingdom says the

Checkpoint blasts kill 21 in Iraq n AFP, Kirkuk A roadside bomb followed by a suicide bomber detonating an explosives-rigged truck at a police checkpoint in northern Iraq killed 21 people yesterday, while four people died in other attacks.

Militants have launched major operations in five different provinces in the past few days, killing scores of people and highlighting both their long reach and the weakness of Iraq’s security forces.

Iraq is suffering its worst violence in years, and with none of the myriad problems that contribute to the heightened unrest headed for quick resolutions, the bloodshed is likely to continue unabated.

Local official Shallal Abdul Baban said the blasts at the police checkpoint in Tuz Khurmatu killed 21 people, among them four police, updating an earlier toll. The bombings also wounded 140 people and caused “great destruction,” he said.

The checkpoint that was targeted was near an office of President Jalal Talabani’s Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) party.

Another suicide car bombing struck an army checkpoint south of the city of Baquba on Monday, killing two soldiers and wounding five, while two more people died in attacks in Baghdad, officials said.

The violence came a day after a car bomb followed by a suicide bombing near a PUK office and a Kurdish intelligence building in Jalawla, another northern town, killed 18 people. l

(Left) Scotland’s flag, the Saltire, flies on top of Dean Castle in Kilmarnock, Scotland in this March 27, 2014 file photograph. (Right) Postcards are displayed outside a shop along the Royal Mile in Edinburgh, Scotland in this May 1, 2014 file photograph REUTERS union of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland is strongest and best together.

On average, the latest polls show support for independence - the “Yes” vote - has risen to about 35 percent from 30 percent six months ago, while opposition has dropped to 46 percent from 50 percent and a significant number of voters remain undecided.

But as the poll nears, voters say the atmosphere is making it harder to discuss the issues.

ern political history.”

Some verbal attacks have been so vitriolic that the Church of Scotland has intervened to call for calm. Queen Elizabeth also supported church efforts to heal rifts, whatever the outcome.

“I have had the odd abuse but ... they are not going to stop me from speaking and they know it, so what they go after is the softer targets,” politician Alistair Darling, head of the Better Together campaign, told Reuters recently. “It really reflects very badly on Scotland.”

‘Shed blood together’

Arthur, in a military red-and-green tie and brass-buttoned blazer, said he decided to join the Better Together campaign late last year when he was talking to his wife about how opinion polls were narrowing.

The son of Scottish parents, he was educated at Eton, the English school of the elite, then at the military academy at Sandhurst before embarking on a career of nearly 40 years that took him to Ireland, Libya and Germany.

Alleged Muslim takeover plot in UK schools

Sisi keeps Egyptian premier to fix economy n Reuters, Cairo

n AFP, London

Schools involved in an alleged plot to impose conservative Muslim teaching on pupils across Britain’s second city sought to deflect scrutiny by putting on hastily arranged “shows of cultural inclusivity,” officials said yesterday.

One school in Birmingham arranged an assembly on Easter and a lesson on Christianity especially for a visit by education inspectors, according to Prime Minister David Cameron’s Downing Street office.

The finding is included in one of two official reports into allegations of a plot to take control of the leadership of schools in the city in central England and impose Islamic principles such as gender segregation.

The so-called “Trojan Horse” plot was first raised in an anonymous letter, which was leaked to the media earlier this year.

The government ordered inspections across 21 schools in Birmingham, a former industrial centre which has one of Britain’s largest Muslim communities.

Ahead of the publication of the official reports Monday, The Times reported that teachers and children at one school involved had been found to refer to Christians as “kaffirs,” a derogatory word meaning infidels or unbelievers.

Staff at the school, Oldknow Academy in the majority Muslim Small Heath district, also reported that a Christian assembly and timetabled lesson on Christianity was arranged for the benefit of inspectors, Downing Street said.

Following the investigation, at least

Male faces evolved to take punches! n Agencies A new theory suggests that our male ancestors evolved beefy facial features as a defence against fist fights. The bones most commonly broken in human punchups also gained the most strength in early “hominin” evolution.

They are also the bones that show most divergence between males and females.

The paper, in the journal Biological Reviews, argues that the reinforcements evolved amid fighting over females and resources, suggesting that violence drove key evolutionary changes.

Fossil records show that the australopiths, immediate predecessors of the human genus Homo, had strikingly robust facial structures.

For many years, this extra strength was seen as an adaptation to a tough diet including nuts, seeds and grasses. But more recent findings, examining the wear pattern and carbon isotopes in australopith teeth, have cast some doubt on this “feeding hypothesis.”

“In fact, [the australopith] boisei, the ‘nutcracker man’, was probably eating fruit,” said Prof David Carrier, the new theory’s lead author and an evolutionary biologist at the University of Utah.

Instead of diet, Prof Carrier and his co-author, physician Dr Michael Morgan, propose that violent competition demanded the development of these facial fortifications: what they call the “protec-

Hostilities have intensified online, some cinemas have pulled campaign ads after viewers complained, posters are being defaced, neighbors have engaged in graffiti wars and the row has resulted in at least one pub brawl.

Pro-unionists have said a Yes vote would be “cataclysmic,” feeding the “forces of darkness” at a time when stability is needed. Independence campaigners accuse rivals of “the most miserable, negative, depressing and thoroughly boring campaign in mod-

Two young girls wearing muslim headscarfs walk hand-in-hand into the main entrance of a school in Southall London three schools – not including Oldknow – have been declared to be failing, according to the trust that runs them.

However, the Park View Education Trust strongly rejected the findings, and vice-chairman David Hughes insisted the schools “do not tolerate or promote extremism.”

“Ofsted (schools watchdog) inspectors came to our schools looking for extremism, looking for segregation, looking for proof that our children have

AFP

the first duties of government and that is why the issue of alleged Islamist extremism in Birmingham schools demands a robust response,” the prime minister said.

The issue has revealed sharp differences of opinion between education minister Michael Gove and interior minister Theresa May over how to tackle extremism, which caused the resignation of one of May’s aides on Saturday. l

World leaders face pressure to act against sexual violence n Reuters, London

tive buttressing hypothesis.”

In support of their proposal, Carrier and Morgan offer data from modern humans fighting. Several studies from hospital emergency wards, including one from the Bristol Royal Infirmary, show that faces are particularly vulnerable to violent injuries.

“Jaws are one of the most frequent bones to break - and it’s not the end of the world now, because we have surgeons, we have modern medicine,” Prof Carrier explained. “But four million years ago, if you broke your jaw, it was probably a fatal injury. You wouldn’t be able to chew food...

You’d just starve to death.”

The jaw, cheek, eye and nose structures that most commonly come to grief in modern fist fights were also the most protected by evolutionary changes seen in the australopiths.

Furthermore, these are the bones that show the most differences between men and women, as well as between our male and female forebears. l

religion forced upon them as part of an Islamic plot,” Hughes said.

“The Ofsted reports find absolutely no evidence of this because this is categorically not what is happening at our schools. Our schools do not tolerate or promote extremism of any kind.”

Cameron called a special meeting of the government’s anti-extremism task force on Monday to discuss the results of the schools inspections.

“Protecting our children is one of

The kidnapping of 200 Nigerian girls and several recent horrific murders of women is expected to raise pressure on the world community to take concrete action to punish those responsible for sexual violence at a global summit in London this week.

Invited by Hollywood actress Angelina Jolie and British Foreign Secretary William Hague, government ministers, military and judicial leaders and aid workers from about 150 nations will join the first global summit to end sexual violence in conflict.

The June 10-13 summit follows a run of shocking cases of violence against women including the kidnap of schoolgirls by Islamist Boko Haram, the stoning to death of a pregnant woman in Pakistan in a so-called “honour killing,” and the gang-rape and murder of two Indian teenagers who were hanged from a tree.

Hague said too often those who committed these crimes never faced justice and the summit would agree the first international protocol on how to document and investigate sexual violence in conflicts.

“Often it is the lack of evidence that means that these things go unpunished,” Hague told Sky television on Sunday.

“Now this will lead to prosecutions.

None of this will be achieved overnight

but this is a problem which has been getting worse in recent decades and is utterly unacceptable in the 21st century.”

The conference, with 1,200 attendees including US Secretary of State John Kerry, will be co-hosted by Hague and Jolie, special envoy of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), who joined forces in 2012 to tackle rape and sexual violence in conflict and post-conflict situations.

Oscar-winner Jolie’s involvement in humanitarian issues dates back to 2001 when she travelled to Sierra Leone as a UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador and was horrified to see the impact of years of civil war when an estimated 60,000 women were raped.

Unlikely pair

The unlikely pair have travelled together to witness the legacy of sexual violence in war and the work to help victims.

Earlier this year they went to Bosnia where more than 100,000 people, most of them civilians, were killed in the 1992-95 war when an estimated 20,000 women were believed raped.

Figures from UNICEF estimate an average of 36 women and girls are raped daily in the Democratic Republic of Congo where up to 200,000 women have suffered sexual violence since 1998.

Alice Allan, head of advocacy at CARE International, said the world had

After retiring in 1988, he was asked to become Lord Lieutenant of the Stewartry of Kirkcudbrightshire, a role that involves representing Queen Elizabeth in his county.

“It means a lot to me that Scots, English, Irish and Welsh all shed their blood together,” he said. “If that doesn’t bind the constituent parts of the UK together, nothing will.”

He and his wife went through their address books and wrote to everyone they knew. Then they plowed through 2,500 pages of “Who’s Who,” a guide to British society, to find anyone with a military or Scottish connection, and wrote to them.

“There is no issue today more important for us all ... let’s be passionate about this and hold to our great union,” read the one-page letter on notepaper headed with the Arthurs’ address.

The letter was posted online, the contact details visible. Arthur received a barrage of abuse. As a result, he said he had started to bolt the gate on his sprawling coastal estate and removed the name sign from the end of his drive.

Police said this was just a cautionary measure and there were no reports of violence. But Arthur will not give in.

“This is pure patriotism to try to save the UK unharmed and something well above politics,” he said. “This will only get more passionate as the two sides draw closer together.” l

been horrified by several recent cases of violence on women which would raise the bar at the summit.

“Violence against women is not new but social media has helped bring these cases to the fore and helped galvanise governments to commit to taking action,” Allan told Reuters.

“These cases have been horrific but hopefully it will lead to greater action this week and public commitments from governments to which they will be held accountable.”

The summit comes after Hague and Jolie last year launched a Declaration of Commitment to End Sexual Violence in Conflict that pledged to end impunity, promote accountability, and provide justice and safety for victims of sexual violence.

So far about 150 countries have signed the declaration that calls for funding to tackle violence and help survivors, improved collection of data and evidence for court action, and a ban on amnesties for sexual violence in peace agreements.

All signatory countries were invited to the London summit where the fate of the missing Nigerian schoolgirls will be debated at a ministerial meeting on Thursday.

But the need for concrete action after four days of talking at the summit was seen as critical if there was to be progress. l

Newly inaugurated President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi reappointed Egypt’s prime minister yesterday, signaling continuity as he sets out to fix the economy and overcome political divisions after a long period of turmoil and bloodshed.

In comments carried by the state news agency, Prime Minister Ibrahim Mehleb said the current government would stay on in a caretaker role until he forms a new cabinet. Consultations had not yet begun, he said, although officials have said many of the leading ministers such as finance are likely to be unchanged.

Sisi, who as armed forces chief toppled Islamist President Mohamed Mursi last July following mass protests, was sworn in on Sunday in a ceremony with low-key attendance by Western allies concerned by a crackdown on dissent.

While Sisi quit the military in March, a lower-than-expected turnout in last month’s presidential elections fell short of giving him a strong mandate to take tough measures to repair an economy wounded by three years of instability and regular violence which has scared away foreign investors and tourists.

Keeping the main ministers in place could allow Sisi to implement quickly the kind of reforms that the United Arab Emirates - one of the Gulf Arab states that gave Egypt billions of dollars in aid after Mursi’s fall - has been encouraging. l

‘Russia would react to Nato build-up near borders’ n Reuters, Moscow Russia would consider any further expansion of Nato forces near its borders a “demonstration of hostile intentions” and would take political and military measures to ensure its own security, a senior diplomat was quoted yesterday as saying.

The comments come amid a deep crisis between Russia and the West over Ukraine and days after US President Barack Obama offered increased military support for eastern European Nato members to ease their concerns over Moscow.

“We cannot see such a build-up of the alliance’s military power near the border with Russia as anything else but a demonstration of hostile intentions,” Deputy Foreign Minister Vladimir Titov told Interfax in an interview.

Speaking last week in Nato-member Poland, Obama unveiled plans to spend up to $1 billion on supporting and training the armed forces of alliance states bordering Russia.

The White House also said it would review permanent troop deployments in Europe in the light of the Ukraine crisis, but fell short of a firm commitment to put troops on the ground, as sought

by Poland as a security guarantee.

“It would be hard to see additional deployment of substantial Nato military forces in central-eastern Europe,” Titov said. l

DHAKA TRIBUNE

World

Karachi airport cleared of militants after Pak Taliban attack kills 28

Karachi attack derails peace talks

n AFP, Karachi

n Agencies

Twenty-eight people were killed as Pakistan’s military fought an all-night battle Monday with Taliban gunmen who besieged Karachi airport armed with rocket launchers and suicide vests, leaving a nascent peace process in tatters.

Ten militants were among the dead, officials said, as Pakistan’s biggest city witnessed a return of the kind of spectacular offensive waged before by the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) during an insurgency that has claimed thousands of lives.

The attack at Karachi’s Jinnah International Airport began just before midnight Sunday and around dawn, the military said that all 10 attackers had been killed.

Some of the gunmen were dressed in army uniform, as authorities put their mangled bodies, assault rifles, grenades and rocket launchers on display for the press. At least three blew up their suicide vests, witnesses said, and one head on display was decapitated.

But after authorities initially declared the airport cleared around dawn, an AFP reporter witnessed fresh gunfire break out inside the airport – where explosions and fires had erupted during the night – prompting security forces to relaunch the operation.

“The attack is over and we have cleared the area of all militants,” a spokesman for the paramilitary Rangers, Sibtain Rizvi, told reporters later after nearly 12 hours of fighting in all.

The bodies of the 18 victims of the Taliban assault – including eight airport

The Pakistani Taliban has claimed responsibility for a brazen attack on the country’s busiest civilian airport by a squad of 10 heavily armed gunmen, which is likely to dash hopes of a peace deal with the militant group.

The attack left the government’s year-long effort to use the prospect of peace talks to avoid a military confrontation with the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) in tatters.

The TTP spokesman, Shahidullah Shahid, said the talks had been a sham and that the attack was revenge for the killing of Hakimullah Mehsud in November. The former TTP chief was killed by a CIA’s drone strike on 1 November.

“Pakistan used peace talks as a tool of war, it killed hundreds of innocent tribal women and children. This is our first attack to avenge the death of Hakimullah Mehsud,” he told AFP. “We have yet to take revenge for the deaths of hundreds of innocent tribal women and children in Pakistani air strikes. It’s just the beginning, we have taken revenge for one, we have to take revenge for hundreds.”

In recent weeks the army has launched what it described as retaliatory air strikes and limited ground operations in north Waziristan, a tribal “agency” bordering Afghanistan that serves as important sanctuary for the TTP. The government had doggedly pressed on with peace talks efforts despite earlier attacks continuing, even as government and TTP intermediaries began holding discussions earlier in the year. But the six-hour assault on

Pakistani troops move into position on an armoured personnel carrier at the Karachi airport terminal following an assault by militants in Karachi late Sunday AFP security guards and four workers from Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) – were taken to a Karachi hospital where another 26 wounded people were being treated, a hospital official said.

PIA spokesman Mashoor Tajwar said no airline passengers were caught up in the incident.

“None of the passengers were trapped in the building, we had diverted all the flights to Lahore and Nawabshah,” he told AFP. Pakistan’s Civil Aviation Authority said normal flight operations would resume at Karachi on Monday afternoon.

Indian government sets out investor-friendly reform agenda n Reuters, India India’s new government will pursue a broad economic reform agenda focused on job creation through public and private investment that makes containing inflation its top priority, President Pranab Mukherjee told parliament yesterday.

The president told lawmakers elected in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s landslide victory last month that the government would introduce a general sales tax, encourage foreign investment and speed up approvals for major business projects. It would also tackle bottlenecks that make India’s food inflation the highest among major economies.

The anti-inflationary message will be welcomed by central bank governor Raghuram Rajan, who has made lowering India’s growth-stifling high interest rates contingent on containing consumer prices.

Asia’s third-largest economy is in its longest slump for a quarter century, growing by 4.7 percent in 2013/14 and marking the second straight year of sub5 percent growth that has dampened aspirations to emulate China’s rise.

The government will “urgently pursue” reforms to the state-run coal sec-

tor and the defence industry to attract private investment, the president said, while speeding up project clearances to promote labour intensive manufacturing industries.

Ten million people enter the workforce every year as the largest youth bulge the world has ever seen reaches working age. The demographic shift may help propel India into the league of developed nations, but risks economic and social disaster if it is not harnessed effectively.

“An emphasis on growth by improving the supply side ... in turn will restrain broad inflation pressure,” said Shubhada Rao, Chief Economist at Yes Bank in Mumbai.

“The first two years would be to create an enabling environment for growth to take off,” Rao said. “There is no tradeoff between inflation and growth.”

The inflation focus suggests the government may avoid slippage on a tight fiscal deficit target put in place by the last government. Some advisers to Modi and to finance minister Arun Jaitley have suggested loosening the purse strings to quickly stimulate the economy. Others favour cutting subsidies to finance more spending on infrastructure investments. l

‘Thank God I am alive’

Officials said the gunmen entered from two sides of the airport at around 11pm on Sunday – the terminal used for the hajj pilgrimage to Mecca, and an engineering section close to an old terminal that is no longer in use.

An AFP reporter witnessed three huge blasts as suicide bombers detonated their explosives.

Smoke was seen billowing from the airport as fires raged close to planes parked on the runway, while militants clashed with the airport’s security force who were backed by police, paramili-

A ballad penned by a coup-making army chief promising to bring happiness back to Thailand has been viewed more than 200,000 times on YouTube, in the military’s latest effort to put a positive spin on its putsch.

The normally stern-faced General Prayut Chan-O-Cha, who led the May 22 military overthrow of the civilian government, can now list songwriting among his talents after writing the lyrics to “Return happiness to Thailand.”

The song – featuring reassuring lines such as “we offer to take care and protect you with our hearts” and “give us a little more time” – has proved a hit since the Royal Thai Army band put Prayut’s words to music on Friday and released it on their website.

By Monday, one uploaded video on YouTube had garnered 150,000 views, while other media sources posted links to the patriotic song that generated tens of thousands more hits.

“He (Prayut) called me to see him for an hour. He wrote it with his own handwriting,” said Colonel Krisada Sarika, head of the Royal Thai Army band on Friday.

“He wants a song which expresses

his feeling for the people... he wants a song which Thai people listen to and then begin to love each other again.”

The song – featuring reassuring lines such as ‘we offer to take care and protect you with our hearts’ – has proved a hit since the Royal Thai Army band released it on their website Thailand’s military has gone to great lengths to put some gloss on its latest coup, holding concerts with dancing soldiers and free food for bystanders.

Prayut, who is giving weekly televised addresses to the nation, has said he was forced to act after months of protest caused policy paralysis and saw nearly 30 people die in political violence.

Since seizing power from an elected government on May 22, the army has banned public protests, censored the

tary squads and elite commandos.

Broken glass and spent gun magazines littered the engineering section where the first exchange of gunfire took place as smoke from grenade attacks began to die down. “I heard fierce firing and then saw the terrorists firing at security force … Thank God I am alive, this is very scary,” said witness Sarmad Hussain, a PIA employee.

Soon after the attack began the airport was closed to flights, sending inbound planes to other cities and creating panic inside fully fuelled aircraft stuck on the ground. l

the airport of Pakistan’s economic hub is one of the most serious attacks the country has suffered for years.

It could provide the prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, the political space he needs to back army demands for military operations in north Waziristan, a policy bitterly opposed by rightwing opposition parties, particularly Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI).

“This act of terror is unforgivable,” Khawaja Muhammad Asif, Pakistan’s defence minister, said. “The state will give a befitting response to such cowardly acts of terror. Those who plan and those who execute the terrorist attacks will be defeated.”

The attack is an embarrassing blow to the government on several levels. It will once again highlight concerns the country is unable to protect extremely sensitive targets from militant groups fighting against the Pakistani state.

The attack comes just three years after the Mehran naval airbase, just three miles from the airport, suffered a similar attack when a team of militants killed 10 military personnel and destroyed two aircraft. The group also carried out a raid on Pakistan’s military headquarters in the garrison city of Rawalpindi in 2009, leaving 23 dead including 11 troops and three hostages.

The attack could also deal a huge blow to business confidence, which had begun to perk up following the election of industrialist Nawaz Sharif as prime minister. Sharif’s faction of the Pakistan Muslim League are anxious to attract foreign investors back to Pakistan, many of whom were scared away from the country by a sharp deterioration in internal security. l

RAISING AWARENESS OF PANDA

Models pose with some of the 1,600 papier-mache pandas displayed at Hong Kong’s international airport on June 9 as part of their first appearance in the city. The event, consisting of placing 1,600 papier-mache pandas in various cities around the world, was created by French artist Paulo Grangeon in collaboration with the WWF and is aimed at raising awareness of the endangered species AFP

Thai army chief now a songwriter! n AFP, Bangkok

9

Tuesday, June 10, 2014

media and summoned hundreds of politicians, activists and academics for questioning.

The nation has been torn apart since 2006 when the army ousted divisive billionaire Thaksin Shinawatra as premier.

Thaksin and his affiliated parties have won the electoral loyalty of the northern portion of the country with populist policies aimed at improving the lot of the rural poor.

But he is loathed by the Bangkok-based establishment – and its supporters in the military – who accuse him of destabilising Thailand through vote-buying, corruption and crony capitalism.

Thousands of people gave the general’s song a “thumbs up” on YouTube while others posted comments supportive of the coup.

But Prayut’s ditty was not universally popular.

“Returning happiness for one group – while bullying the other group,” said one angry YouTube comment.

“You should try to have an election and ask the people what they want.”

The song can be heard on https:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-JnwTmGLsU l

Rammed 1,400 times, say Chinese officials n Agencies Chinese officials have accused vessels from Vietnam of launching more than 1,400 ramming raids on its ships near a drilling rig in the South China Sea, BBC reported yesterday.

The foreign ministry said in a statement the actions were illegal and called on Hanoi to stop “provocations.”

China moved the drilling rig on 2 May, helping to spark anti-Chinese riots in Vietnam in which four people died.

Hanoi says the rig is within its waters and has called on China to stop its exploration in the area.

The South China Sea is host to overlapping territorial claims by a number of countries.

Beijing claims almost the entire sea, based on a mid-20th Century map with a line apparently delineating Chinese territory, and vague historical claims going back more than 1,000 years.

The drilling rig is near the Paracel Islands, a grouping claimed by

both China and Vietnam.

Hanoi argued that the rig was inside its Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), usually defined as within 200 nautical miles of a country’s coast.

However, in its most detailed defence of the rig manoeuvre so far, China’s foreign ministry said the drilling operation fell “well within China’s sovereignty and jurisdiction.”

“The two locations of operation are 17 nautical miles from both the Zhongjian Island of China’s Xisha Islands [Paracels] ... yet approximately 133 to 156 nautical miles away from the coast of the Vietnamese mainland,” the statement said.

The statement complained of “serious infringements upon China’s sovereignty, sovereign rights and jurisdiction.”

“As of 5pm on 7 June, there were as many as 63 Vietnamese vessels in the area at the peak, attempting to break through China’s cordon and ramming the Chinese government ships for a total of 1,416 times,” it said. l

Malaysia says spent $8.6m on search for MH370 n Reuters, Kuala Lumpur Malaysia has spent a total of 27.6 m ringgit ($8.6m) so far on the search for the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370, authorities said yesterday, giving a specific cost figure for the first time.

“The figure of 27.6m ringgit was only the sum spent by Malaysian agencies, we do not know how much other countries spent,” Department of Civil Aviation chief Azharuddin Abdul Rahman told a news conference, saying he was unsure of the cost breakdown.

The search for MH370, which disappeared carrying 239 passengers and crew on March 8, is already set to be the most costly in aviation history and spending will rise significantly as the search expands to a wider swathe of the Indian Ocean off Australia. Experts have suggested the cost of searching for the missing jetliner could reach hundreds of millions of dollars.

The search has been dealt setbacks, most recently when Australian officials said last month that wreckage from the aircraft was not on the seabed in the area they had identified. l

10

DHAKA TRIBUNE

Editorial

Tuesday, June 10, 2014

CODE-CRACKER

Be heard

Taxing capital gains on shares is fair

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

T

he stock market has reacted negatively to proposals for a capital gains tax on shares.

It is a sound principle to require capital gains made from selling shares to be taxed. Investors who place their savings in bank accounts are taxed on their interest income.

It is only fair that others who invest their savings in stocks, are appropriately taxed on their capital gains.

One reason for resistance is that changes will need to be made for the proposal to be implemented. Brokers will have to share information about all trades executed so that the capital gain (or loss) on each sale by each investor can be calculated.

The system will have to ensure investors are only taxed on their net capital gains, when they sell their stocks at a higher price than the purchase price. It will also need to account for capital gain losses.

There is no technical barrier preventing brokers and stock exchanges from undertaking this task, which is standard practice in many countries and can readily be managed by IT systems.

For one thing, improved information sharing will make it easier to monitor and track manipulation of the market and insider trading. The tax will also help make all stock market investors think more long term and less likely to simply use the market for speculation.

Making the changes should be seen as part of fulfilling the government policy to strengthen the country’s capital markets by updating their operations and rules.

It is a sound principle and will help investors think more long term

Not the right cure

T

he Health Ministry’s plan to recruit 271 more homeopathic doctors at district and upazila hospitals, is misguided.

Scarce public funds should not be spent on unproven or ineffective forms of treatment.

Bangladesh has many effective local health programmes and a cost efficient pharmaceutical sector. Resources should be used to build upon these to improve access to modern, scientifically, rigorous, healthcare for all citizens.

Alternative and traditional therapies are not without merit.

Even WHO recommends certain types of alternative healthcare.

Physical treatments such as massage and yoga have proven health benefits and can contribute to individuals’ well being as part of healthy lifestyles.

However, the problem lies in the government using taxpayer money to subsidise largely unscientific and unproven remedies. Homeopathic remedies are prepared by diluting substances in water to the point where the original substance no longer remains. Not only does this go against common sense, there is no proven biological basis for the claimed efficacy of this sort of treatment, beyond the standard placebo effect.

Homeopathy is thus rightly labelled as a pseudoscience.

Government sanctioning of such treatments also opens up the risk of many unqualified doctors practicing “medicine” on genuinely sick patients who need immediate care.

People who want to use homeopathic medicines, should be free to pay for it themselves. However, we should not divert public spending on pseudoscientific or discredited forms of treatment.

We must hold our medical establishment to proper, scientific standards.

Public funds should not be spent on unproven treatments

It’s only rock and roll June 4

Osmania Be excellent to each other.

Breadbitten Osmania: I read that in both Alex Winter’s and Keanu Reeve’s voices. nahiyan_dhaka1 Does the author know the definition of the term “Wahhabi”?

Kmak What exactly is Wahhabi/Salafi culture? nds Kmak: It varies according to the interpreter’s political allegiance. No absolute explanation.

Herein lies the uniqueness of the religious texts, movements, beliefs etc. It can be interpreted to mean anything the interpreters want to suit his purpose.

Kmak nds: I’m talking about culture, not interpretation.

Also, I didn’t address the question to you. nahiyan_dhaka1 “Wahhabism” is a term used by different people for different reasons. After all, if it means enough different things for different people, it really comes down to not meaning anything real in an absolute sense. Also, the use of this term is almost exclusively negative or with implied negative connotations.

Hence, you will hardly hear anyone proudly referring to himself as a Wahhabi or to a masjid named masjid al-Wahhabi. It simply doesn’t occur. What this implies is that there is usually some emotional or prejudicial baggage with the term’s usage or some other sinister agenda.

There is no doubt that the term Wahhabi has its historical derivation from Shaykh Muhammad Ibn Abdul-Wahhab. While his father’s name has formed one of the most defamatory labels in history, Abdul-Wahhab himself actually was not too excited about his son’s mission either. So, in some ways, the word itself is technically inaccurate. A more accurate label would be Muhammadis, and we all know why that wouldn’t work as a pejorative term. Doesn’t that say something about the term’s negativity?

Those that use the term Wahhabi as an ideological attack form their basis on the opinion that Shaykh Muhammad brought something new in the religion to the Arabian Peninsula. There could be nothing further from truth. Historically, there is no doubt that the Shaykh’s mission was simply to revive lost practices of Sunnah and to remove pol-

N’ganj killing: Arif Hossain confesses involvement June 5

Mahbub Noor No need to continue the showcase investigation, when the PM has already issued a certificate of clarity to the Osman family.

How to solve: Each number in our CODE-CRACKER grid represents a different letter of the alphabet. For example, today 4 represents C so fill C every time the figure 4 appears.

You have one letter in the control grid to start you off. Enter it in the appropriate squares in the main grid, then use your knowledge of words to work out which letters go in the missing squares.

Some letters of the alphabet may not be used.

As you get the letters, fill in the other squares with the same number in the main grid, and the control grid. Check off the list of alphabetical letters as you identify them.

ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ

ytheism. Whether one agrees with his style is a different issue.

Sam Well contextualised and well argued. Between the chauvinism of culture supported by one major party and the chauvinism of religion often appealed to by the other major party, the concepts of tolerance, open inquiry, and liberty itself are threatened in Bangladesh. As for social research, well, the less said the better.

Adnan Interesting, especially the premise that rock and roll constitutes (one of) the only unifying theme for Bangladesh. But that’s another debate. I have grown up with rock music. But two steps from Dhaka proper, and the radios are abuzz with folk/pop songs and scripture recitals. Can we really know if it’s the 60% youth or only “urban” youth who so appreciate rock music? Is it really possible to truly appreciate Bangla rock without knowing where the original tradition comes from and why?

And I didn’t see the liberal-Illiberal debate as central to the argument. A casual reader is likely to infer a simplistic idea that “secularists listen to rock and roll” and “radicalised people oppose rock and roll.” That, of course, isn’t true, regardless of our arbitrary categorisation of “secularists” and “radicals.” Who can say if it’s liberal or otherwise to attempt to patronise what Sabir Mustafa rightly dubbed “anti-establishment”? Thinking back a year and a half, who can completely refute that not coopting a thriving culture can actually be patriotic?

Someone This is a pretty strange article, not least because I don’t really pin any great hope on Bangla rock music – let loose – being a transformative force in reshaping our society’s values and direction. It will take a lot more than LRB and company to make even a dent on reversing “illiberal” trends in Bangladesh. I find the broad thrust of the author’s arguments pretty quixotic. I certainly abhor the author’s plea for (horror of horrors) “state” intervention in giving a leg up to local rock music industry and the bands. Gosh, no, I’m never going to sign up for that.

As somebody who wants our (any) government to stay out of, and have as little involvement in our lives as possible, the last thing I’d ever welcome is the government to lay its paws on rock music.

What’s next? A government-approved “listening list” of bands and songs? Rock, like everyone of its fans in this country, has to find ways on its own to survive and thrive, despite our government and ignorant critics. Looking to the government as rock’s saviour is absolutely antithetical to the very spirit of any self-respecting rock fan.

SUDOKU How to solve: 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.

CROSSWORD ACROSS 1 Tender (5) 5 Melody (4) 8 Handsome youth (6) 9 Low sand hills (5) 10 Ladder’s step (4) 11 At no time (5) 12 High mountain (3) 15 Impression left by blow (4) 18 Machines for weaving (5) 21 Fish eggs (3) 22 Satellite (4) 24 Honey drink (4) 25 Golf clubs (5) 28 Cleric (6) 29 Misfortunes (4) 30 Water pitchers (5)

DOWN 1 Severe trial (6) 2 Devoted follower (3) 3 Paradise (4) 4 Flower (4) 5 Weary (5) 6 One who demands excessive interest (6) 7 Work unit (3) 13 Behold! (2) 14 Ointment for the hair (6) 16 Denial (2) 17 Tantalises (6) 19 Fashions (5) 20 Accordingly (2) 23 Agreeable (4) 24 Cut grass (3) 26 Argument (3) 27 United (3)

30 Bangladeshi students caught in Russia-Ukraine fight

June 2 Wellwisher Have they considered starting a Twitter account, to get the global media’s attention? Unfortunately, one wonders how much the BD mission in Moscow can achieve. Perhaps international attention can help them? Feel bad for them. :(

CALVIN AND HOBBES

YESTERDAY’S SOLUTIONS CODE-CRACKER

CROSSWORD PM: Zia was involved in Bangabandhu killing PEANUTS

June 3 Ronnie Such foolishly reductive riffs on history are vintage Sheikh Hasina and the Awami League. If this is the PM’s preferred mode of responding to Tarique Rahman’s recent remarks in London, I have to say we are all in grade school all over again.

Child dies after taking soft drinks June 3 vihan Horrible news. The problem is that our streets are littered with dangerous objects and products, left behind by people without any common sense. They simply do not care.

SUDOKU

Op-Ed

DHAKA TRIBUNE

11

Tuesday, June 10, 2014

Goodbye, Sir n Faruq Hasan

“V

Transporting gas reserves has its challenges

BIGSTOCK

Tapping the right energy

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n Amit Bhandari rime Minister Narendra Modi’s initiative of inviting the heads of state of South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (Saarc) countries for his swearing-in ceremony in May is an opportunity to deepen India’s ties with its closest neighbours.

But it is especially an opportunity to expand the growing engagement with Bangladesh in the energy sector. Both the countries can gain in the process – Bangladesh can address its growing energy and fuel needs as well as lower its energy costs. In turn, India will gain from increased economic activity in the northeastern states, which are rich in reserves of coal, oil, gas, and hydropower, and can become an energy source for Bangladesh.

Bangladesh relies on domestically produced natural gas to meet almost 75% of its energy consumption. The rest is made up by approximately 20% oil and 5% coal. However, the country is now facing a shortage of domestically produced natural gas. As a result, it has set up power plants that run on imported furnace oil and diesel, both

Derated capacity of BPDB plants, June 2014 Capacity (mw)

% of total

Coal

200

2.04

Furnace oil

52

0.53

Gas

6,224

63.62

Heavy fuel oil

1,926

19.69

High speed diesel

661

6.76

Hydro

220

2.25

Imported

500

5.11

Total

9,783

100

Source: Bangladesh Power Development Board (BPDB)

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of which are very expensive options.

Domestic oil production is minimal and petroleum products are almost entirely imported. The country has its own coal deposits, estimated to be 3.3 billion tonnes spread over five reserves. But it produces only 1 million tonnes of coal per annum because not all of the coal can be mined in a commercially viable manner.

production-sharing contract with the state-owned Petrobangla has also been signed.

For coal plants, India’s public sector National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) is developing a 1,320 megawatt coal-fired power plant in Bagerhat district of Bangladesh in a 50-50 joint venture with the Bangladesh Power Development Board (BPDB). This pro-

India is supporting Bangladesh in all three areas – exploring for oil and natural gas, building coalbased power plants, and importing power and coal

Only one of the five reserves has been brought into production so far, where the coal seams are closest to the surface, at approximately 118-509 metres.

The other reserves are at much greater depths, starting at 300 metres. The largest of these, with approximately 1 billion tonnes, is at a depth of over 600 metres, which makes it unviable to mine.

Therefore, Bangladesh has its task cut out on the energy front. It must produce more gas and this requires more efforts in exploration. It will also have to shift from expensive furnace oil and diesel to the relatively cheaper coal-burning power plants. Until then, it will have to continue to import power and coal to address current shortages.

India is already involved in supporting Bangladesh in all three areas – exploring for oil and natural gas, building more coal-based power plants, and importing power and coal.

For natural gas, a 50-50 joint venture of India’s upstream petroleum companies, ONGC and Oil India, has been awarded two shallow water blocks off the Bangladesh coast. A

O

M

ject is expected to be complete by 2018 and BPDB will purchase its output for 25 years.

India exports a small quantity of coal to Bangladesh (approximately 1.5 million tonnes) and exports 475 megawatts of electricity to Bangladesh from Tripura.

But more can be done, specifically with petroleum products, to benefit both the countries. Bangladesh imports crude oil as well as refined petroleum products such as diesel and petrol. Most of Bangladesh’s petro-products currently come from Malaysia and Singapore. During 20122013, Bangladesh imported petroleum products worth only $138m from India, while imports from Malaysia and Singapore added up to $1,362m.

India is already a major exporter of such products. Its four oil refineries in Assam have the capacity to produce 7 million tonnes of petroleum products.

The consumption of petroleum products in the seven northeastern states is only 2.88 million tonnes. Exporting petroleum products from Assam to Bangladesh via a pipeline makes economic sense for both sides – it is

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cheaper than moving them by ship, as is currently done by Bangladesh. This will lower the logistics cost for Bangladesh. For India, it will be cheaper to pipe these products to Bangladesh than to transport them to other Indian or overseas markets.

The largest and most modern of the Assam refineries is the government-owned 3 million tonne Numaligarh Refinery Limited (NRL). NRL is planning to expand from its current capacity to 8-9 million tonnes. The expansion will be financially unviable without additional markets. The company is already exploring the possibility of a pipeline from Siliguri in West Bengal to Bangladesh. While such a project will make commercial sense, the decision and its progress and execution depend on the willingness of governments to work together.

Such an overture can even catalyse other economic gains for India, such as improved access to the northeastern states if Bangladesh allows transit rights. This has already happened in a limited way in the energy sector in Tripura. The state has gas reserves with limited local use, and transporting them to other parts of India is not feasible.

Converting the gas into electricity and transmitting it via power lines is easier. To enable construction of ONGC Tripura Power Company’s 720 megawatt power project that runs on natural gas, Bangladesh permitted movement of equipment through its territory. It is this power plant that is exporting a large portion of its output to Bangladesh.

The Tripura Power Company is just one example of how mutually beneficial opportunities can be tapped if the two countries work together. This can be repeated across other links of the bilateral energy chain. l Amit Bhandari is Energy and Environment Fellow at Gateway House.

M

eteran,” “old school,” and “eminent” are the most common adjectives used to describe Mahbubul Alam, former editor of the Independent, who died on Friday. But to me, he was just Sir. I first met Sir almost four years ago, while I was being interviewed as a sub-editor for the Independent.

The interview lasted for an entire five minutes.

“Ok, you have the job.”

“That’s great, Sir. When should I start?

“Now.” “Now? As in right now?”

“Now.” And with that, in a puff of paper clippings, stationary, and visiting cards, he was out of the room, and I had a new job.

For almost my entire first year, Sir was omnipresent in the newsroom.

Our exchanges were always brief, translated through staccatos, imperatives, and orders: Why is the headline more than five words, where is the caption to the stand-alone, when is the first edition going to press, how are we giving value to our advertisers.

Sir was the proverbial skipper to the newsroom – always directing, instructing, and leading. He was never a behind-the-scenes kind of man – he had to be in charge. His decisions were never questioned, his judgments were always decree: You did what Sir told you to do, end of story. I was a cog in a machine, a well-oiled machine mind you, but still just a cog. But it never felt impersonal, because he made us realise the whole was always more important than the part.

In my second year, I was called in to his office for the very first time. People usually were promoted or fired in his room, and I wasn’t sure what was going to happen to me.

“You know Shantonu (my supervisor) is leaving, right? You’re going to have to start editing the pages yourself. You are promoted.”

“Thank you Sir, but are you sure I …”

“Leave. You are already late for the first edition as it is.”

And again, without any pleasantries, banter, or even a whiff of levity, I had a new position, but couldn’t

even thank my boss for giving it to me. Work precedes gratitude or token attempts at getting personal. That was always Sir’s philosophy.

And it just wasn’t with me.

Throughout my entire career at the Independent, Sir was always formal, always focused on work, always had his eye on the prize. Senior journalists, interns, and office support staff were invariably met with the same degree of professionalism, civility, and subdued congeniality. Sir practised equality the old-fashioned way: We are all here to make one fantastic daily newspaper, and to that end, we are all the same.

Sir eschewed fanfare, even while we were busy cutting cake and taking group pictures

Sir retired last year, something which seemed unthinkable even a couple of years ago, but I think deep down he realised he needed to pass on the baton.

Colleagues and well-wishers threw him a farewell, but as usual, Sir eschewed fanfare, and even while we were busy cutting slices of cake and taking group pictures, the conversation still steered towards work, meeting deadlines, and making sure the interns were learning from the seniors.

When he left, Sir came over and shook my hand.

“Make sure page 3 has mostly Dhaka stories. And your headlines still aren’t brief enough. And yesterday’s national pages were really poor. You better shape up young man.”

I wasn’t sure whether he was joking, but I smiled. And, for once, he smiled back.

I never got to know Mahbubul Alam as the family man, or the cricket lover, or even the avid Tagore lover. But to me, to all of us who had worked with him, he was our Sir. Goodbye Sir, you will forever remain in our hearts. l Faruq Hasan is a journalist at the Dhaka Tribune.

Always the man in charge

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Cup of dreams n Ikhtisad Ahmed

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icking a perfectly spherical object, largely branded by Adidas or Nike, gives birth to millionaires in the 21st century. Many of them are born in impoverished slums or council estates, the former reserved for South America, Asia and Africa, the latter for Europe and North America.

Here is an organisation that unabashedly reeks of elitism and takes pride in its opacity, all the while representing the common man’s sport

The ability to command that ball whilst dancing with it allows them to rise to the pinnacle of financial statuses, becoming heroes idolised by billions in the process.

Despite the promise of this drastic change of circumstances and the

possibility of untold fame, football is not the sport of kings. It remains true to its blue-collar roots, and belongs to the common man. This tag being untarnished by ludicrously expensive players and their exorbitant salaries is the source of FIFA’s supreme power.

Its foundations relying on national federations and teams rather than the clubs who are trying to ruin the beautiful game reinforce its authority.

Governments all over the world would be delighted to mirror FIFA. Here is an organisation that unabashedly reeks of elitism and takes pride in its opacity, all the while representing the common man’s sport. The global brand of football, of every person in every corner of the world being able to partake in it, is the perfect shield for the exclusivity of its international association. Its power is absolute and beyond question, its members obligingly subservient.

Nesting in the neutrality of Switzerland, with two-thirds of the headquarters lying underground to dispel the slightest hint of the myth of honesty and transparency on part of the deci-

sion-makers, is this perfect model of democracy that cannot be improved on, which so many envious states no doubt want to replicate.

They have been taking notes particularly on the process of choosing hosts for the World Cup. Compared to the last instance of this, military juntas could be defined as being democratically elected even without the ringing endorsement of the US that follows close on the heels of its interventions where it does not belong. If governments could be granted sainthood, the miracle performed by FIFA in awarding the 2022 edition of its flagship tournament, the most coveted of all crowns in the game, to Qatar would qualify it for canonisation 10 times over.

What happens in FIFA’s hallowed corridors, however, continues to be a mystery, reassuringly. Evidence of murky dealings is mounting, to the point where it has gone from being hard to ignore to being impossible to deny. Yet, the 2014 edition of the World Cup has arrived, and the world’s eyes are on it. By the time it is over, the misdeeds behind Qatar will be

forgotten as 2022 moves one competition closer.

Protests, demonstrations, and civil unrest have not prevented the most successful nation seeing the tournament return to its shores 64 years after it last played host. The continent will hope to preserve its unbeaten record of producing champions when played on its soil, while enjoying the show first-hand for the first time in 36 years, and for only the fifth time in the history of the competition.

Television screens have been lighting up with images of past heroes and their audacious triumphs for weeks now. Experts and fans have been conversing, fiercely debating about whose high definition highlight reels will join those grainy images come July 13. That is why football still belongs to the people. The game belongs to the Iranians cheering on their team with a zealous patriotic pride that is untainted by the present-day theocracy that has angered the West by making a mockery of its own magnificent history.

It belongs to the independent citizens of the ethnically diverse Bosnia

and Herzegovina, leaving behind the cruelties of its recent past and uniting passionately to support their team on the world stage for the first time.

It belongs to the Chileans who have broken free from shackles of imperialism to take on their colonisers in the modern gladiatorial arena, to the Argentinians whose players, many plying their trade in England, unfurl the politically-charged banner claiming sovereignty of the Falklands Islands before games, to the Colombians who could not prevent the reign of terror of its cartels from extending to the beautiful game.

The World Cup belongs to the homeless pensioner staring at a television through a shop window and wishing he/she could be in the stadium, and to the 10-year-old dreaming of taking to the pitch in 2022. It is hoped that this, the spirit of this very special tournament, becomes the guiding principle of its governing body by then. l Ikhtisad Ahmed is a writer and an erstwhile lawyer. He can be contacted on Twitter via @ Ikhtisad.

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DHAKA TRIBUNE

Entertainment

Lights, camera, action

Tuesday, June 10, 2014

Black belt in Tae Kwon Do wins Miss USA 2014 n Entertainment Desk

Naila Nayem at the shooting of Run Out

n Shadma Malik A successful dentist, Naila Nayem figured out that flesh and commercialism go hand in hand. Several years ago, she was modelling for numerous brands but came into the limelight after her bold shoot wearing a two piece swim suit. She has recently signed as an “item girl” for Tonmoy Tansen’s upcoming film “Run Out” and the two days long shoot ended yesterday at the Coke Studio, Tejgaon.

The set was designed as a bar/nightclub, decorated with symbols of the spade of cards and dragons, presumably to add oriental flavour, went well with the song. The song “Mon Diye Mon Nitey Shobai Crazy,” demanded Naila in revealing attire and Dhaka Tribune found her in a sizzling red dress in the green room. But the atmosphere of the spot seemed edgy at the begin-

SAZZAD HOSSAIN

ning as Naila refused to talk and she also declared to postpone the shooting.

To find out the reason behind Naila’s sudden tantrum, Dhaka Tribune spoke to the director Tonmoy Tansen and he said: “Naila is very upset about the photo which has been published in the Bangla Tribune. The photo was inappropriate and vulgar. Naila got sentimental and is very disappointed.” Naila refused to speak with any reporters and she did not allow any photos of her to be taken during the shooting which eventually resumed an hour later.

However, when Naila reappeared, her supposed “disappointment” was nowhere in sight and she greeted her director, choreographer, Asad Khan, and fans with enthusiasm. With her raunchy moves and seductive expressions, she managed to erase all the negativity from the set and replaced it with positive sexual energy.

With no sign of tiring even after many takes, Naila’s determination and hardwork were well noticed by all.

Near the end of the sequence, “Run Out” actor Sajal joined the stage. Naila’s spectacular dance moves certainly overshadowed the hero’s average performance on-stage. Indeed, Sajal’s dancing was disappointing and gave the impression that while he might be ready for acting, he needs to train and improve his dancing skills.

“Much talked about” Naila Nayem’s sultry dance number will take Dhallywood by storm for sure and will work as a positive accessory for the film. At present, people are focused on her sensuality, but soon, viewers will seek her for her talent. Naila is in the right place at the right time. For her unconventional game plan, Naila gained many titles. She has the pose, the attitude, so stardom is hers by default. l

Films festival for a cause n Entertainment Desk

Documentary on Lagaan Actor-producer Aamir Khan released a documentary titled “Chale Chalo” on the journey of his film “Lagaan” on &Pictures.

“I am so glad I can show this film to the nation. I am extremely happy for the first time we will see this film live. This film is about the journey of how we made 'Lagaan' and we wanted to make it on record.”

“For me, this journey is now like a family album I can even watch it 20 years down the line

Poster of the documentary and enjoy it. I am so glad even the nation can watch it with us now,” Aamir told reporters

during the screening of “Chale Chalo.”

“It's a documentary film and we have also won a national award for best documentary.”

The screening of “Chale Chalo” took place at the Yash Raj studios and was simultaneously premiered on TV. Karan Johar hosted the show and interacted with Aamir Khan during the commercial break.

Directed by Ashutosh Gowarikar, “Lagaan” featured Aamir Khan and Gracy Singh in the lead. l

Robert De Niro: My father was gay n Entertainment Desk Hollywood star Robert De Niro has revealed that his father was gay and he discovered that years after his parents separated when he was a toddler.

His father was an abstract expressionist painter who died in 1993, reported People magazine.

De Niro, 70, honoured his father in the HBO documentary “Remembering the Artist: Robert De Niro Sr,” premiered yesterday.

“He never told me. He was very private about it. He was loving and affectionate.

But he wasn't the kind of dad who played baseball. He liked to take me to the movies on 42nd Street: 'King Kong,' 'Beauty and the Beast,'” De Niro said. l

TODAY IN DHAKA Exhibition

Of Man and Earth II Time: 12pm – 8pm Bengal Art Lounge, Gulshan Avenue Rd-131, Circle -1

Arefin Shuvo's humanitarian stand

Unconsciously Conscious Time: 9am to 9pm Alliance Francaise de Dhaka Road-3, Dhanmondi

EMK Center, Road-16, Dhanmondi

Film Festival

Maa-er Jonno Time: 10am – 4pm National Museum of Bangladesh

Can You Handle the Truth?

Time: 9:30am – 8:00pm

Tribute to Tagore and Nazrul at ULAB

n Entertainment Desk

A three day long charity film festival, titled “Dui Banglar Cholochchitro Utsab, Maa-er Jonno” commenced on June 8 at the National Museum auditorium in the capital. As part of the festival, three films from India including “Moner Manush” and “Troyodoshi,” a quartet of short films based on Tagore’s poems and “Abar Aranye” will be showcased today.

Indian famed director Goutam Ghose’s films “Moner Manush” will be showcased at 10:30am and “Abar Aranye” at 6:00pm while Buddhadeb Dasgupta’s “Troyodoshi” will be showcased at 3:00pm.

The festival has been arranged to support the medical treatment of ad-maker Shah Fazle Rabbi’s mother Shahan Ara Begum, who is a cancer victim.

The entire festival features films by noted directors including Goutam Ghose and Buddhadeb Dasgupta (from Kolkata), alongside Nasiruddin Yousuff Bachchu, Mostofa Sarwar Farooki and Morshedul Islam. The directors, including Goutam Ghose and Buddhadeb Dasgupta, were present at the festival. l

n Entertainment Desk

Nia Sanchez, a 24-year-old 4th degree black belt in Tae Kwon Do from Nevada, was crowned Miss USA on Sunday during the 63rd telecast of the annual beauty pageant.

Sanchez, who wore an intricate red gown during the latter part of the three-hour nationally broadcast contest, addressed the issue of sexual assault on college campuses during a question-and-answer session faced by all six finalists.

Sanchez said she felt some colleges, fearing a bad reputation, might sweep the problem under the rug, and that “More awareness (of the issue) is very important so that women can learn to protect themselves.”

She added that as a 4th degree black belt, she learned “you need to be confident and be able to de- fend yourself ... That's something we need to start to implement for a lot of women.”

The pageant, co-hosted by Giuliana Rancic of “E! News” and MSNBC's morning news show “Way Too Early” host Thomas Roberts, was broadcast live on NBC from Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

The first runner-up was Audra Mari, 20, from North Dakota. Other finalists included contestants from Georgia, Louisiana and Florida. Iowa's representative became a sixth finalist based on fan voting on Twitter, but placed as the fifth runner-up.

The competition featured contestants from all 50 states and the District of Columbia who were judged in three traditional beauty pageant categories: swimsuit, evening gown and interview.

Erin Brady, Miss USA 2013, crowned her successor, who will go on to compete at the international Miss Universe competition. l

Successful hero Arefin Shuvo is quite active on Facebook. From promotional photographs and statements of his films to hilarious jokes, he communicates with his fans through the social networking site. But, yesterday he posted a completely different story urging help from his friends for a girl affected by multiple sclerosis.

He asked his friends to extend their hands to the talented girl who obtained GPA 5 in the SSC exam. She is now undergoing an expensive treatment which is 81,000tk per month and she will have to continue the treatment for more 5-7 years to be completely cured.

The father of the girl is approaching the media and the celebrities to help him raise money. Arefin Shuvo had a talk with the girl and her father yesterday and he posted the story following their meeting.

People capable of helping the girl are requested to send money to the Bikash account number 01721183622. l

ULAB Emeritus Professor Rafiqul Islam, Dr Begum Jahan Ara, Professor Kazi Madina, and Dr Tapati Rani Sarkar are at the Rabindra-Nazrul Janmotshab programme

n Entertainment Desk University of Liberal Arts Bangladesh (ULAB) celebrated the birth anniversary of Rabindranath Tagore and Kazi Nazrul Islam with a special cultural program “Rabindra-Nazrul Janmotshab” on June 8, on its own campus in Dhanmondi. The program was conducted by distinguished Nazrul scholar and ULAB Emeritus, Professor Rafiqul Islam.

Professor Islam, with Dr Begum Jahan Ara, Professor Kazi Madina, and Dr

Tapati Rani Sarkar, elucidated the artistic connection between Tagore and Nazrul. Interspersed with the program were recitations by the panelists and songs by ULAB’s Shangskriti Shangshad. The main attractions of the program were recordings of Rabindranath and Nazrul in their own voices.

Among others, Pro Vice Chancellor Professor H.M. Jahirul Haque; Registrar Lt Col Md. Foyzul Islam; faculty members, admin, students of ULAB and other guests were present in the programme. l

Hugh Jackman shines at Tonys 2014 n Entertainment Desk Hugh Jackman kicked off the ceremony on Sunday by literally hopping into New York's Radio City Music Hall for Broadway's biggest night, drawing a mix of confusion and praise on social media.

He then got to show off more of his dancing skills after introducing and joining Patti LaBelle, Gladys Knight and Fantasia for a number from “After Midnight.”

Following the highly choreographed routine, Jackman used his opening monologue as an opportunity to comment on marriage equality, at the same time giving a shout-out to last year's host, and this year's best actor in a musical winner, Neil Patrick Harris.

Jackman also made mention of the play “Casa Valentina” while taking a jab at opponents of same-sex marriage.

Another memorable moment came when Jackman performed an unorthodox rap from “The Music Man” onstage with LL Cool J and TI. Following the routine, Jackman joked that LL Cool J had given him the rap moniker, “Biggie Tap Shoes.”

After the awards ceremony, one viewer ex-

pressed disappointment on Twitter that Jackman never showed off his infamous chiseled physique during the show: “Oh! Just realised Hugh Jackman didn’t take his shirt off. Sad!” l

A glimpse at the winners: • Best musical A Gentleman’s Guide to Love & Murder • Best actress in a musical — Jessie Mueller, Beautiful - The Carole King Musical • Best actor in a musical — Neil Patrick Harris, Hedwig and the Angry Inch • Best play — All the Way • Best actor in a play — Bryan Cranston, All the Way • Best actress in a play — Audra McDonald, Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar & Grill • Best direction of a play — Kenny Leon, A Raisin in the Sun • Best direction of a musical — Darko Tresnjak, A Gentleman’s Guide to Love & Murder

Did you know?

Luis Suarez scored with one in four of his shots in WC qualifying compared to one in five in the Premier League

Sport

Tuesday, June 10, 2014

2 DAYS TO GO

14 Just pass the ball to Neymar, says Fred

Rio or Rosario? Wrong, Amin Bazar, near Savar looks like it could be anywhere in South America. As the World Cup draws nearer flag fever has taken over Bangladesh and scenes such as this are replicated across the country

Tigers catch the fever too! n Mazhar Uddin

Every four years around Bangladesh turns into a debate table involving mainly two South American nations – Argentina and Brazil. The reason being the Fifa World Cup and with just a couple of days left for the world event to kick off in Brazil, the heat is only turning up.

The national cricketers are also no different in this regard. The unit was found to be heavier on Messi’s side as the Argentine star Messi came out clear favourite from the debates among the players during their ongoing training camp ahead of the home series against

India yesterday.

“With no doubt it’s Argentina who is going to win the cup this time,” said Sohag Gazi who seemed to be the most passionate Argentine fan in the troop.

“Many of them cheer for Brazil but let me tell you one thing that Brazil is not going to win this time.”

Gazi could consider Tamim Iqbal as his opponent in the troop as the explosive opener said it’s not only him, but his whole family supports Brazil. Like a striker with the bat, it wasn’t hard to figure that 2002 World Cup winner Brazilian Ronaldo is Tamim’s favourite player. However, he will be backing the

Portuguese Cristiano Ronaldo in the current tournament.

How can you compare Messi with Neymar?

Well, the debate as usual rolled over to caparing of the stars Messi, Neymar and Ronaldo. The poster boy of Bangladesh cricket Shakib al Hasan is a big Messi fan and he even once planned to travel to Barcelona to meet his football hero, but that remains untouched in his wish list.

Meanwhile, Gazi continued his flow by saying, “How can you compare Mes-

si with Neymar? Messi has the skill which none of the player has at the moment and the way he plays and scores, it will be unfair to compare anyone with this guy.”

Leader of a team always differ a bit from the rest and in this case too Mushfiqur Rahim backed defending champions Spain rather than the South Americans. He, however, was an England fan in the past for which his teammates mostly made fun of him.

Apart from Mashrafe bin Mortaza and Nasir Hossain, Mushfiq is also a Messi fan but supports Spain simply because he “loves Barcelona”.

“I think Spain have a very good chance of winning the World Cup. My favorite player is Argentina’s Messi. As Isaid I am a huge fan of Barcelona and I love watching Messi,” said Mushfiq.

It has been long known that Tigers spearhead Shahadat Hossain is a close follower of Cristiano Ronaldo. His local club and national teammates have seen him day in and day out dressing up like Ronaldo during the football games in practice sessions.

Wearing a white Real Madrid jersey, Shahadat’s “Ronaldo celebration” which however turned out funny - is also very famous among the cricketers. l

Spain no rigid ‘Talibans’, says Del Bosque n Reuters, Barcelona

An elephant plays with students during a friendly match in honour of the upcoming 2014 FIFA World Cup at an elephant camp in Ayutthaya province yesterday AFP

Change of format but no change of result n Minhaz Uddin Khan After 1-0 defeat in the two match fourday series, Bangladesh A suffered another defeat, this time a 117 run defeat in the first of the three match one day series against Sagicor High Performance Centre at Kensington Oval on Sunday.

Sagicor chose to bat first after winning the toss and recovered tremendously after an early batting collapse which saw them reeling at 49 for 4 in the 15th over. After the initial repair work by Leon Johnson and Chadwick Walton for the 5th wicket, the Bangladesh bowlers were simply blown away by Jamaican all-rounder Andre Russell who sprinted to an unbeaten 132 runs off just 56 balls to help his side post 327 for 9 which hardly looked a possibility when Russel

came to the crease in the 37th over with Sagicor on 163 for 6. Russel appeared in his vintage best as he smashed as many as 13 sixes along with 7 boundaries. The 26-year-old reached his first fifty in just 35 balls while the second one came off just 12 balls to leave the Bangladesh bowlers in tatters.

Shafiul Islam was the pick of the bowlers with 3 wickets for 37 runs while Muktar and Farhad Reza bagged 2 wickets each.

In reply, Bangladesh A openers Imrul Kayes and Abdul Majid got off to quick but smooth start before the 47 run partnership was broken in the ninth over when Majid fell for 9 to Carlos Brathwaite.

Imrul was the next to depart after scoring a rapid 38 off 30 balls. Marshall Ayub and Shuvagata Hom then tried

their best to lay a solid foundation to launch an attack later which unfortunately wasn’t to be the case as both lost their wickets in search of quick runs to maintain flow to the huge run chase.

Ayub scored 30 off 31 balls while Shuvagata scored the only half-century of the innings before being dismissed for a run a ball 51. After that wickets kept on falling which only hastened Bangladesh A’s defeat. For Sagicor, the spin duo of Miller and Nurse caused all the damage as they shared 5 wickets between them. Miller finished with 2 for 41 while Nurse bagged 3 wickets for 45 runs to have Bangladesh all out for 210 runs in the 42nd over.

The two sides will play in the second one day of the series at Winward Cricket Club today. l

World Champions Spain are not soccer’s rigid “Talibans” and can vary their trademark possession football if necessary, coach Vicente del Bosque has said.

Spain begin their bid to retain the trophy on Friday against the Netherlands, their rivals in the final four years ago in South Africa when the Dutch used a physical approach to try and unsettle them.

The Netherlands now have a coach in Louis van Gaal who hopes to continue the Dutch traditions of total football but has also admitted that he will look to bolster the defence against Spain with five at the back in the Group B match at Salvadore.

“We are not Talibans with just one way of playing,” Del Bosque told the Marca newspaper.

“Possession without having depth doesn’t have any point. For that reason we are working so that the team can pressure to win back possession and then as a group attack. “... football is played in many different ways and there isn’t just one. We don’t have a magic formula, we have a plan based on the players that we have available. That doesn’t mean that there aren’t others who are just as good and give results.”

Del Bosque was prepared in case Spain’s group rivals, that also include Chile and Australia, opt to sit back.

“It’s fine if they do. It suits us best being patient and looking for the gaps against teams that are defensive rather than being in games that are end-to-

end and out of control,” he said.

Winners of the last two European Championships, Spain return to Brazil where they lost the Confederations Cup final last year against the home nation, in front of some hostile crowds.

“It is true that they whistled us in the stadiums but I think that there is a lot of respect with this as they see us as a dangerous threat,” said Del Bosque.

“We will go out and do our best. We first face Holland who are a well-organised side, well coached and I am sure that they will cause us a lot of problems. We now have nine or ten places decided in the team and just have a couple of doubts.”

The Netherlands will be led in attack

by Robin van Persie, who has struggled for fitness this season with Manchester United but now says he is fine to play.

“I am improving and I am in good form. Basically for six years I have had one problem or another but I am used to that,” the striker told a news conference in Rio. “We are not used to so much heat and humidity but we are ready and acclimatising well.” l

DHAKA TRIBUNE

13

15 Nadal predicts golden era coming to close

SYED ZAKIR HOSSAIN

Sao Paulo metro strike stirs chaos as World Cup looms n Reuters, Sao Paulo Brazilian police used tear gas on Monday to disperse metro workers on strike in São Paulo in defiance of a court order to return to work, causing major traffic congestion just three days before the city hosts the opening match of the World Cup soccer tournament.

The partial subway strike, now in its fifth day, has snarled traffic in South America’s biggest city and added to widespread concerns about whether Brazilian authorities will be able to prevent street protests and other simmering labor disputes from disrupting the Cup. Shortly after the early morning fracas at the Ana Rosa subway station, the state metro company said it had fired 60 striking workers, a move some feared could increase tensions further.

A local court had ruled on Sunday that the strike was illegal.

The subway workers, who are seeking a pay rise of about twice the annual inflation rate, will vote whether to extend the strike at 1:00 p.m. local time (1600 GMT) after a downtown rally that will be joined by São Paulo’s homeless workers movement and other protest groups.

“The World Cup is not an excuse for us” to strike, Paulo Pasin, president of Fenametro, the country’s union of subway workers, told Reuters at Ana Rosa.

“We want to reopen talks.”

The striking workers are pushing for a 12 percent pay rise, though the state subway company offered 8.7 percent. l

14

DHAKA TRIBUNE

Cameroon delay flight for bonus Cameroon’s World Cup squad refused to board their plane for Brazil on Sunday amid a row over bonuses, football officials said. After prolonged talks with the African country’s government a deal was reached and the squad will finally head to the World Cup later Sunday, a Cameroon Football Federation official told AFP. “The players should have left this (Sunday) morning but they didn’t want to because there was a problem with bonuses,” the source told AFP on condition of anonymity.

– AFP

Sport

Tuesday, June 10, 2014

Carbonero replaces Aldo Ramirez Colombian coach Jose Pekerman called up midfielder Carlos Carbonero to replace the injured Aldo Ramirez in his World Cup finals squad. Carbonero, 23 and who recently won the Argentinian league title with River Plate, has been capped just once and did not feature in Pekerman’s original provisional 30-man squad for the finals in Brazil. Ramirez, 33, had been struggling to be fit after suffering a knee injury in April and his withdrawal is a further blow to Colombia’s hopes of at least progressing from their group. – AFP

Lopez pulls out of opening ceremony Pop superstar Jennifer Lopez has pulled out of the World Cup opening ceremony in Brazil, FIFA said Sunday, four days before the tournament kicks off.

Lopez, who recorded the official World Cup song, “We Are One,” with rapper Pitbull and Brazilian singer Claudia Leitte, had been due to perform with them at the opening ceremony in Sao Paulo but had to cancel. Jennifer Lopez, one of the artists of the official song ‘We Are One,’ will not be able to perform at the FIFA World Cup opening ceremony,” Fifa said in a statement.

– AFP

‘Just pass the ball to Neymar’ n Brazil striker Fred says his team-mates have a simple game-plan if things don’t go their way during the World Cup: get the ball to Neymar.

The Brazilians got back to work at their plush Granja Comary training base in Terespolis on Sunday after a laboured 1-0 win over Serbia on Friday.

The match saw Brazil booed by pockets of fans, but the players trained with the enthusiastic backing of local fans on Sunday at their camp in the mountains above Rio de Janeiro.

The positive mood was reflected by Fred as he looked back at the host nation’s preparations with satisfaction.

“We have played two friendlies and had two wins. It’s been two very good weeks,” said the 30-year-old, recalling the 4-0 win against Panama in Goiania as well as the defeat of Serbia, earned thanks to his solitary goal.

“Mistakes were made but it was good they were made now so that we can correct and analyse them and find solutions in order to improve.

“We have a game on Thursday now and we need to prepare well. Everyone

is confident,” he said referring to Brazil’s Group A opener against Croatia.

“We are now coming up to the competition. The players felt tired at the end of the friendlies because of the amount of hard work put in during training but we know the work has been well done.”

While Fred expressed delight at his emergence as an integral part of Luiz Felipe Scolari’s plans, the striker said he was in no doubt as to the identity of Brazil’s most important player.

“Everyone knows that the real star in our squad, the player who can make the difference, is Neymar,” said Fred.

“When things are going bad on a difficult day, we try to do everything to get the ball to Neymar.”

Fred, the former Lyon striker now with Rio giants Fluminense, will hope to get among the goals again, although he would prefer to hear the crowd shouting his name this time.

“The goal I scored was important, otherwise I wouldn’t be here giving an interview,” joked Fred, the top scorer at last year’s Confederations Cup with five goals.

“I always look to score goals, and I know that I need to be prepared to make my mark even if I only see the ball two or three times. l

Japan can reach quarters: Honda n

Brazil striker Fred (L) jokes with teammate Neymar after a training session in Teresopolis near Rio de Janeiro on Sunday

Ronaldo in line for Portugal return n

Cristiano Ronaldo is in line for a morale-boosting return to the Portugal side for Tuesday’s friendly in the United States against Ireland, just two days before the World Cup begins.

The 29-year-old forward has missed Portugal’s previous two warm-up matches through injury, hindering their preparations for the Brazil tournament and sparking speculation that he might not be fit in time.

But the Real Madrid ace returned to training on Saturday with Paulo Bento’s side, who have failed to sparkle in their captain’s absence.

Portuguese officials were tightlipped Sunday about Ronaldo’s availability for the Ireland encounter, but forward Vieirinha told reporters: “If he is fit to train, he is fit to play the match.”

Portugal face a daunting World Cup opener on June 16 against Germany in Group G, which also comprises the USA and Ghana.

Bento has been keen to stress that Portugal - who only made it to Brazil via a play-off with Sweden that saw Ronaldo fire a hat-trick - are more than just one player. But Wolfsburg man Vieirinha admitted their star player’s return had buoyed the whole squad.

“Everybody knows the importance of Ronaldo to our team and his importance to the group, both on and off the

pitch,” said Vieirinha, 28.

Ronaldo has scored 49 goals in 110 matches for Portugal.

Portugal have failed to impress without Ronaldo, who has been hampered by a left thigh muscle problem and tendinitis in his left knee.

Ronaldo trained with the full squad again on Sunday at the New York Jets’ training center, as did experienced midfielder Raul Meireles, another who has been sidelined with injury.

Portugal’s remaining injury worry is feisty Real Madrid defender Pepe, who has been on a separate rehabilitation program as he returns after a calf injury.

The centre back trained Sunday away from the rest of the squad and is unlikely to feature against the Irish. l

REUTERS

Japan’s talisman Keisuke Honda has predicted the Asian champions will produce a “miracle” at the World Cup and reach the quarter-finals, local media reported on Monday.

Sporting a spiky mohawk haircut, the bleached-blond Honda touched down in Brazil with the Japan squad at the weekend and declared the ‘Blue Samurai’ were ready to take on the world.

“Firstly, we can 100 percent get through our group,” Honda told Japan’s Nikkan Sports daily, ahead of their opening game against Ivory Coast on June 14.

“After that anything can happen at a World Cup. We’re good enough now to reach the quarter-finals,” added the AC Milan midfielder.

“Obviously we all need to stay fit but if we do the basics right 100 percent, no mistakes, we can get to the quarter-finals. From there we can make miracles happen.”

Japan, who also face Greece and Colombia in Group C, underwent intense warm-weather training in southern Japan and Florida before flying to Brazil.

“I’m not talking idealistically, I’m being realistic,” said Honda. “That’s where the past 10 days of training will pay off.”

Japan, however, have looked far from World Cup quarter-final material in warm-up wins over Cyprus, Costa Rica and Zambia. l

Minda joins in Ecuador squad

Immobile scores hat-trick in Italy warm-up win

Oswaldo Minda earned a late call-up to Ecuador’s World Cup finals squad on Sunday as a replacement for the injured midfielder Segundo Castillo.

Castillo, who plays his club football for Saudi Arabina side Al-Hilal, lost his battle to be fit after injuring ligaments in his right knee during a friendly with Mexico on May 31.

Minda, 30, was in coach Reinaldo Rueda’s provisional 30-man squad but was left out when the final list of 23 was submitted. Minda will add steel to the Ecuadorean midfield although Rueda will hope he is more disciplined than when playing for his MLS side Chivas. l

n

n

Ciro Immobile scored a hat-trick to help second-string Italy beat Brazilian club side Fluminense 5-3 in an entertaining World Cup warmup match played in a festive atmosphere on Sunday.

Lorenzo Insigne scored twice in a lively Italy performance on a difficult, lumpy pitch, though there were question marks over the defence and thirdchoice goalkeeper Mattia Perin.

The pair scored a goal apiece in the first half but Fluminense, second in the Brazilian championship, pegged Italy back each time through Chiquinho

and Carlinhos, whose toe-poked effort slipped through Perrin’s hands.

Immobile then netted twice in as many minutes soon after the break, the second a delightful flicked finish after he was sent clear by Thiago Motta, and Insigne made it 5-2 when he turned in Immobile’s pass from close range.

Matheus Carvalho reduced the arrears with a long-range goal as Prandelli gave several first-choice players, including playmaker Andrea Pirlo and forward Mario Balotelli, a run-out in the final half hour.

Italy will face England in their World Cup opener in Manaus on Saturday. l

Pele looks to Brazil avenging ‘Maracanazo’ in final n Brazil avenging their traumatic 1950 World Cup final defeat by beating Uruguay in the final in July would be the ideal result said Brazilian

Portugal skipper Cristiano Ronaldo (C ) attends a team practice in Florham Park, New Jersey, on Sunday

REUTERS

legend Pele.

The 73-year-old three time World Cup winner said in answer tyo a question of whether he would like a Brazil v Argentina final on July 13 at the Maracana it would be much more to his taste to play Uruguay and beat them.

“I would prefer to have a Brazil v Uruguay final in order that we could avenge our defeat in 1950,” Pele told a select group of journalists invited by FIFA to a bar in Sao Paulo.

The Uruguayans stunned the 200,000 spectators at the Maracana

England to counter World Cup dirty tricks n

England’s World Cup friendlies gave valuable lessons in handling South American-style aggression when the tournament starts in Brazil, coach Roy Hodgson said.

England beat Peru in London, drew 2-2 with Ecuador last week and 0-0 with Honduras on Saturday when captain Steven Gerrard described the Honduran tackling as “horrific”.

The two games produced three red cards with Raheem Sterling sent off against Ecuador game for a wild chal-

lenge on Valencia, who was red-carded for his reaction. Honduran Brayan Beckeles received his marching orders for two bookings, including one for catching Leighton Baines with his arm.

Hodgson said he was happy with the way England handled themselves.

England face three physical sides in Copa America champions Uruguay, Italy and Costa Rica, who were slammed for their approach to a friendly with Ireland which saw Kevin Doyle require stitches to a cut on his head and the player involved sent off.

“The whole idea of playing Peru, Ecuador and Honduras was to show us something very different,” Hodgson

told British media.

“Had we played Sweden or Norway we’d know exactly what we’re going into, how those teams play and how they behave. The culture in these countries is different and we’ve had a nice little taste of it and, certainly, I was very pleased with the way the players kept their discipline, kept their shape.

“Sometimes in these games that frustration can lead to people doing silly things and you end up losing one.

“The players kept their cool very well,” said Hodgson, who is going to his second World Cup having guided Switzerland to the 1994 edition.

Gerrard’s Liverpool team-mate Glen

Johnson said that if their group opponents had been watching to assess who they could single out to provoke then they will have been disappointed.

“I think we proved they weren’t going to wind anyone up,” said Johnson, who highlighted the Honduran game. There was a point when (Emilio) Izaguirre kicked the ball at Studge (Daniel Sturridge) when he was lying on the floor five seconds after the whistle had gone.

“That is when you might react but he didn’t. We kept our composure and showed we weren’t going to react to things. We are going to get all that in Brazil, so this was a useful practice. We are ready now,” said Johnson. l

into silence back in 1950 when a late goal earned them a 2-1 win and that was enough on the old system for them to be crowned world champions and not Brazil, who went into the match just requiring a draw.

The match earned the nickname the ‘Maracanazo’ on the back of it.

Pele, the record goalscorer for Brazil, said that the importance of what football had done for Brazil’s worldwide reputation could not be underestimated.

“I would say to the young that the World Cup is the tournament which allowed people throughout the world to learn about Brazil.

“I began my World Cup career in 1958 in Sweden when I was 17 years old.

“Nobody knew anything about us.

Nobody, not even a journalist came to see us.

“People confused Brazil with Argen-

tina and the Amazon.....they were all the same thing to people.

“Brazil became known to them because of the World Cup.” Pele, who eventually retired from football in 1977 and has had a varied career since embracing acting followed by politics and latterly as an ambassador for the sport, said that he wouldn;t give a scoreline for Brazil’s opening game of the tournament against Croatia on Thursday.

“The important thing is not seeking to win 1-0 or 2-0,” he said.

“The primary thing above all else is to respect your adversary and to be prepared for everything because in football one can play magnificently for 85 minutes and then be very unlucky in the final five minutes which can change everything.

“It is imperative to be ready.” l

France crush Jamaica n Karim Benzema hit two spectacular goals as France romped to an 8-0 victory over Jamaica in a bid to ease the blow of losing star striker Franck Ribery for the World Cup. Blaise Matuidi and Antoine Griezmann also scored twice in France’s final World Cup warm-up game before 49,000 fans in Lille.

While Jamaica barely put up any serious opposition, the result was a welcome boost for Didier Deschamps’ team two days after being rocked by Ribery’s withdrawal with a back injury.

“Ribery is a loss, but we have to stop

talking about it and get on without him,” said Paris St Germain’s Matuidi, who scored his first brace for France.

RESULT France

8 0

Jamaica

Cabaye 17, Matuidi 20, 66, Benzema 38, 63, Giroud 53, Griezmann 77, 89

Coach Deschamps insisted that France remained united even without star Bayern striker Ribery, who said that leaving the squad was like “a death in my soul.”

“A victory was what we needed before leaving. It gives us confidence,” added Real Madrid’s Benzema. l

DHAKA TRIBUNE

QUICK BYTES

Saif, Shafiul keep U17s afloat

Sport

15

Tuesday, June 10, 2014

THE FEVER IS ON

Bangladesh Under-17 ended the first day of their 4th three-day match against Madhya Pradesh Cricket Association (MPCA) U-17 in a safe position. The visitors finished the day on 223 for six at the Holkar Stadium, Indore, India yesterday. The decision to bat first, however, backfired as Bangladesh were reeling at 28/3 before skipper Shafiul Hayet and Saif Hassan steered them out of trouble.

Saif made a calm 72 off 203 balls with the help of 10 boundaries while Shafiul scored 59 that included 11 fours and couple sixes. Jaker Ali Anik (50) and Siddikur Rahman (five) will resume the second day today eying to take Bangladesh past the 300 mark. Shubham Joshi and Nitin Yadav bagged three wickets each for Madhya Pradesh Cricket Association.

–Tribune Desk

Rahmatganj champions in BCL Rahmatganj MFS finished their Premier Bank Bangladesh Championship League campaign as champions routing Badda Jagoroni Sangsad 4-1 in their last match at the Bangabandhu National Stadium yesterday.

Nurul Afsar slammed a hat-trick by scoring in the 18th, 50th and 87th minute of the game while Md Shazid added another in the 70th minute. Md Shipon netted the consolation in the 16th minute. Rahmatganj, who had confirmed their promotion with four games in hand, lead the league chart by 12 points ahead of Farashganj who also sealed their berth in the Bangladesh Premier League next season.

–Tribune Desk

Walton Beach Bodybuilding Arifur Rahman, Nazmul Islam and Anwar Hossain bagged gold medal in their respective discipline in the Walton Smart Television 1st Beach Bodybuilding Championship yesterday held in Cox’s Bazar. Ariful won gold in 55kg event while Nazmul and Anwar came first in the 60 and 65kg events respectively.

–Tribune Desk

Railway Sporting Club lift 1st Div Hockey Railway Sporting Club earned promotion to the Premier Division Hockey League after clinching the title of the Green Delta Insurance First Division Hockey League.

Railway edged past Bachelors Sporting Club 1-0 in the title deciding play-off match yesterday. Taher Ali scored the all important goal for the champions.

–Tribune Desk

Inzaghi rubber stamps AC Milan deal Former Milan striker Filippo Inzaghi will replace Clarence Seedorf as the Serie A club’s coach on a two-year deal, the Serie A club confirmed on Monday.

In a brief two-line statement on their website, Milan annonced that Seedorf would be replaced by the club’s former youth coach. According to Gazzetta dello sport newspaper, Milan have failed to reach an agreement with Seedorf and may have to pay his salary until the end of his contract in 2016. Seedorf’s spell in Milan ended after just four months, the Dutchman having failed in his mission to salvage a place in Europe for the seven-time European champions.

–AFP

Mandzukic demands to leave Bayern Croatia’s World Cup striker Mario Mandzukic on Monday demanded to leave German side Bayern Munich telling a local newspaper he could not follow coach Pep Guardiola’s playing style. His announcement could set off a scramble for his signature with several English Premier League sides said to be trailing the prolific scorer.

“I had great time in Bayern, but let’s be honest, the style of game forced by coach Josep Guardiola does not suit me,” Mandzukic told the Sportske Novosti daily.

–AFP

Walls, walkways, TV rooms and even the buildings inside the Dhaka University campus are seen in Fifa World Cup colours MUMIT M

Brazil braces for Argentine hooligans n Anti-World Cup protests are not the only problem Brazilian security authorities will face during the soccer tournament.

They are also bracing for an invasion of Argentine hooligans.

The soccer fan clubs called “barras bravas” in neighboring Argentina are notoriously violent and Brazilian police are taking no chances.

Brazil plans to beef up security in and outside stadiums where arch rival Argentina will play, deploy undercover cops and bring in Argentine police officers to spot troublemakers, police officials in some host cities said.

More than 50,000 Argentine fans

are expected to come to Brazil for the World Cup, many driving across the border in cars and buses.

Brazil’s government already faces the threat of street protests by Brazilians opposed to the high cost of hosting the tournament. Massive demonstrations broke out last year during a warm-up for the World Cup and have continued on a smaller scale, sometimes with violence.

Although deadly incidents are rare at World Cups, Argentine barras bravas have a history of violence, from stabbing English fans in Mexico in 1986 to fighting each other during the last tournament in South Africa four years ago.

Like fans from all over, many Argentines were unable to secure tickets to World Cup games and will be mill-

Bangladesh U19s take 1-0 lead in one-dayers n An all-round performance from skipper Mehedi Hasan Miraz helped the Bangladesh Under-19 side to an 18-run win over the visiting Madhya Pradesh Cricket Association (MPCA) U-19 in the first of the three-match one-day series at BKSP-4 yesterday.

Batting first, the Bangladesh U19s posted a challenging 264 for the loss of seven wickets in 50 overs with Nazmul Hossain scoring a responsible 100-ball 67 with the help of half a dozen boundaries while Zakir Hossain chipped in

with 51. Captain Miraz played his part smashing a quickfire 30-ball 42. Ashwin Das and Shreyansh Sharma scalped three wickets each for the visitors.

In pursuit of the target, MPCA U19s fell short by 19 runs and ended their reply on 246 runs for seven wickets in 50 overs with two half-centuries from Nitish Lashkari (58) and Siddarth Patidar (51) proving to be inadequate at the end.

Rifat Pradhan took two wickets conceding 38 runs from eight overs while man-of-the-match Miraz was economical and picked up a wicket giving away 35 runs from nine overs. l

DAY’S WATCH Ten Cricket 8:45PM New Zealand Tour of West Indies 1st Test Day 3 Sony Six Hockey World Cup 2014 2:30PM Argentina v South Africa 5:00PM Germany v Korea 11:40PM New Zealand v Netherlands

A man gives a thumb up as he jokes inside a telephone booth painted with the portrait of Brazilian legend Pele in downtown Sao Paulo REUTERS

ing around outside the stadiums. That could spell trouble if the barras bravas run into local fan groups, or “torcidas,” which are blamed for growing violence plaguing Brazilian soccer.

A record 30 people died in soccer-related violence last year in Brazil, the highest in the world after Argentina and Italy, according to data compiled by Brazilian researcher Mauricio Murad.

Like Argentina’s barras bravas, some of Brazil’s torcidas are believed to be linked to organized crime that uses them to distribute drugs and arms in slums of large cities such as Sao Paulo and Buenos Aires. Brazilian police are also worried that Argentine barras bravas could clash with English fans in the city of Belo Horizonte where the teams will play only three days apart. l

Suarez unwilling to put his shirt on playing England n Uruguay’s star striker Luis Suarez says he will definitely be fit enough to play at the World Cup finals but he told The Guardian it was not certain it would be in time to play against England.

The 27-year-old -- who suffered a knee injury training with his Uruguay team-mates and underwent an operation on May 22 -- added that even if he doesn’t play on June 19th he will bring enough shirts so that he can exchange them with his Liverpool team-mates.

“I saw reports saying that I had told the Liverpool players I would make it for the game against England, for sure,” he told The Guardian.

“But I didn’t say that. The day of the operation I exchanged messages with Stevie (Gerrard) and Glen (Johnson).

They said: ‘Hope to see you in Brazil’.

And I said: ‘Yeah, see you there’. That’s not exactly the same thing. I never said I’d definitely be there.

“I’ve already told Gerrard that we’ll swap shirts. And Glen will ask for my shirt, I’m sure. Maybe Daniel (Sturridge) and Raheem (Sterling) will as well. I’ll take a few with me,” added Suarez, who hopefully will take an extra one as he forgot to mention another Liverpool teammate in midfielder Jordan Henderson.

“When we played Holland in 2010 (he was suspended for the semi-final having being sent off for saving with his hands a goalbound effort by Ghana’s Dominic Adiyiah in the quarter-final), I was at Ajax and had friends in their team,” he said.

“I had to tell the kit man I needed five shirts. Although I didn’t play, they still wanted my shirt; they have the date and the match stitched into them, so it’s a nice reminder of the match. So, yes, I’ll swap shirts. I’m not sure I’ll actually put it on though!” l

Williamson, Latham put New Zealand in control n Kane Williamson’s sixth Test hundred and a battling 83 by opener Tom Latham put New Zealand in control at 240 for two at stumps on day one of the first Test against the West Indies on Sunday.

BRIEF SCORE DAY 1 New Zealand 240/2 in 92 overs Williamson 105*, Latham 83; J Tayor 1-22 Justifying captain Brendon McCullum’s decision to bat first on a pitch devoid of grass, Williamson, who resumes Monday on 105 in partnership with former skipper Ross Taylor (34 not out), put on 165 for the second wicket with Latham.

It came at the expense of a completely revamped West Indies bowling attack from the one that featured in the Caribbean side’s last Test six months ago against the same opponents in Hamilton.

Fast bowler Jerome Taylor impressed on his return after a four-anda-half year absence through a series of injuries, taking the early wicket of Peter Fulton to a catch at the wicket by Denesh Ramdin, the home side’s new Test captain.

He survived one referral by the West Indies to overturn a “not out” verdict on a leg-before appeal and was then successful in having a ruling of a batpad catch off left-arm spinner Suliemen Benn reversed in his favour.

He missed out on a maiden Test hundred in just his second match however, off-spinner Shane Shillingford completing a simple caught-andbowled dismissal in the final session. l

Spain’s Rafael Nadal poses with the Musketeers trophy yesterday in Paris

AFP

Nadal predicts golden era coming to close n Rafael Nadal believes that the golden generation of himself, Roger Federer, Novak Djokovic and Andy Murray could be in its death throes.

The 28-year-old Spaniard may have collected his ninth French Open title and 14th major on Sunday, but his lingering, tearful appreciation of Roland Garros’s Philippe Chatrier court in the aftermath of his win, hinted that he knew change was in the air.

Nadal took his Paris record to a staggering 66 wins against just one loss since his debut as a 19-year-old in 2005.

But he will be 29 when he attempts to win a 10th title in 2015 while Sunday’s runner-up Djokovic and Wimbledon champion Murray will be 28. This time next year, Federer will be staring down the barrel of his 34th birthday.

Between them, those four men have won 39 of the last 44 majors stretching

back to Federer’s first Wimbledon title in 2003.

“This year is emotional for different reasons,” said Nadal after his record-setting fifth consecutive French Open title.

“I am 28, it’s not forever. I want to enjoy the moment because I have worked so hard to be here. I will have a few more opportunities but you don’t know if I will ever win it again.”

Nadal’s introspection was an echo of his feelings after his second round win over Austrian hot-shot Dominic Thiem, the 20-year-old widely expected to be a title threat in Paris in 12 months’ time.

“Our generation is on the way out.

We have all been here for a long while.

It’s normal. A generation is walking away and others will replace us. It will not come overnight, but it will come,” said Nadal. He admitted that fatigue was a huge factor in Sunday’s French Open final where he beat Djokovic 3-6, 7-5, 6-2, 6-4. l

16

DHAKA TRIBUNE

KALPANA CHAKMA CASE

Still no closure after almost 18 years Islam Esha, n Rifat from Rangamati It will be exactly 18 years on June 12 since Kalpana Chakma, the former organising secretary of Hill Women’s Federation, was abducted.

Yesterday was supposed to be the day when Rangamati Police Superintendent Amena Begum would have submitted the re-investigation report of the Kalpana Chakma case to the district’s Judicial Magistrate’s Court.

However, it did not happen, and another date was given – for the eleventh time.

The SP told reporters that it was taking time since she had to fulfil the four instructions the court had given on January 16 last year for the re-investigation.

The directives were to try to rescue Kalpana Chakma; to take statements of the witnesses and those involved in the case; to take statements of the accused – Lt Ferdous of Kojoichhari army camp, and Village Defence Party (VDP) members Nurul Haque and Saleh Ahmed; and to present the correct report to the court.

She said: “Everything is still hypothetical. It is not said anywhere that

Kalpana Chakma is dead. May be she has been held captive, or something might have happened to her. But it is my job to find her.”

There is a conflict of narratives in this case too. SP Amena has claimed that there are inconsistencies in the first information report filed by Kalpana’s elder brother Kalindi Kumar Chakma.

She said the FIR had not contained the names of the accused who were reportedly identified by Kalpana’s younger brother Lalbihari Chakma.

The accused were not questioned by any of the investigating officials beforehand, the official said adding that she had made some considerable progress on the tasks as instructed by the court.

She took statements from Lt Ferdous and two out of three men who allegedly were present with him on the night Kalpana had disappeared.

Kalpana’s lawyer Jewel Dewan yesterday submitted a petition to the court for acquiring the progress made in the reinvestigation.

He said the court extended the submission date until July 9, and “if the SP fails to submit the report, the court will ask for a progress report.” l

Back Page

Tuesday, June 10, 2014

LNG terminal offer to be further scrutinised n Aminur Rahman Rasel

EXTRA! EXTRA!

Retailers take part in an auction of litchis imported from India at the Badamtoli wholesale market in old Dhaka yesterday

RAJIB DHAR

Elderly man killed, burnt for ‘extortion’ n Our Correspondent, Khagrachari Being unable to extort money out of a sexagenarian, miscreants allegedly murdered him and then burnt his body at Lepia para in Manikchhari upazila of the hilly district on Sunday.

The victim, Hnabreong Marma alias Tankhala Marma, was a resident of Shimpru para area of the upazila, and was also a headman.

However, the deceased’s family members and relatives did not com-

plain to the local police, fearing the extortionists.

Ramgarh ASP (circle) said: “This is very remote area and none of the victim’s family members complained to us.”

On condition of anonymity, many headmen confirmed the killing, saying that the area is a stronghold of the miscreants and no one dares to challenge them there.

Local sources said the miscreants had long been demanding extor-

tion money, and threatening to kill Hnabreong, and on Wednesday, they kidnapped him when he refused to pay the money.

Later, locals spotted Hnabreong’s body at Lepia para and informed his family members.

When his family tried to take away the body, the extortionists set fire to it, the sources added. l

World’s oldest man dies in NYC at age 111 n AP, New York The world’s oldest man, a retired chemist and parapsychologist, has died in New York City. Alexander Imich was 111. His niece, Karen Bogen of Providence, Rhode Island, says Imich died Sunday at his home in Manhattan. Bogen says she had visited Imich a day earlier. She says his health declined about two weeks ago and he didn’t recognize her.

Imich was born in 1903 in a town in Poland that was then part of Russia. He and his wife fled after the Nazis invaded in 1939. They eventually moved to the United States in 1951. His wife died in 1986. In news reports, Imich said his good genes and a general healthy lifestyle contributed to his longevity.

Guinness is investigating the claim that 111-yearold Sakari Momoi of Japan is now the world’s oldest man. The world’s oldest person is a woman, 116-year-old Misao Okawa of Japan. l

Lopez pulls out of WC opening ceremony n BBC Jennifer Lopez has pulled out of performing the official World Cup song at the tournament’s opening ceremony in Brazil, Fifa has announced.

Officials said the singer could not attend Thursday’s show because of unspecified “production issues”.

Lopez was due to perform alongside rapper Pitbull and Brazilian singer Claudia Leitte, with whom she has recorded the song We Are One (Ole Ola).

Pitbull and Leitte will go ahead and perform accompanied by drummers Olodum.

“For production issues, Jennifer Lopez, one of the artists of the official song We Are One, will not be able to perform at the Fifa World Cup opening ceremony,” said a statement.

The 25-minute ceremony in Sao Paulo will feature 600 artists, including acrobatic gymnasts, trampolinists, martial arts-style performers and stilt walkers.

Last week, Lopez whose hits include On The Floor and Jenny From The Block - said she was “thrilled” to be given the chance to perform at the opening ceremony.

“This is an amazing celebration of global unity, competition and sport,” she said.

Pitbull appeared not to be downhearted at Lopez’s withdrawal from the show.

“To be performing We Are One to the world, es-

pecially in such a beautiful country like Brazil, is going to be a lot of fun,” he said in a statement released by Fifa.

“But more than this, it is going to show the world that music is the universal language.”

Lopez also missed the January event where Pitbull and Leitte unveiled plans for the song alongside Fifa officials in Rio de Janeiro.

More than 60,000 people are expected to be in Sao Paulo’s Corinthians Arena to watch the ceremony and kick-off match between Brazil and Croatia.

The cancellation comes amid protests and strikes in Brazil, where some are unhappy about the amount of money being spent on the tournament. l

The proposal for setting up an LNG terminal on Moheshkhali Island in Cox’s Bazar has been sent to a technical committee for review after the Energy and Mineral Resources Division (EMRD) could not agree on some of the offers proposed by US-based Astra Oil and Excelerate Energy Consortium.

“The members of the Project Processing Committee (PPC), which was formed to run the LNG terminal, sat to discuss about Astra Oil and Excelerate Energy Consortium’s offers today [Monday]; but they were not able to agree on some points,” EMRD Secretary Md Mozammel Haque Khan told the Dhaka Tribune yesterday.

For this reason, the proposal of the country’s first floating storage and re-gasification unit (FSRU) – widely known as Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) terminal – has been sent for further analysis to a technical committee, which was asked to submit report by June 15, he said.

The day after receiving the report, the PPC will sit in a meeting with Astra Oil once more, Mozammel added.

If the technical committee gives its approval, a meeting, scheduled for June 16, will also decide on whether an initial agreement will be signed with the consortium, said Mozammel.

Sources said the points in dispute include the consortium’s demand to reduce the performance bond money and extend the duration for LNG terminal maintenance.

Earlier, US-based Astra agreed to give $20m as a performance bond to implement the project.

The EMRD secretary said they were planning to sign the contract by December this year under the Speedy Supply of Power and Energy (Special Provision) Act, so that the terminal could be set up within a year and a half.

He also said the contractor company agreed to work under a build-own-operate-transfer basis for a period of 15 years.

The consortium has agreed to transfer the FSRU to Petrobangla without any cost after 15 years, with re-gasification tariff at $0.39 for every million cubic feet per day (mmcfd). l

Computer AI passes Turing test in ‘world first’ A computer program c a l l e d Eugene Goostman, which simulates a 13-year-old Ukrainian boy, is said to have passed the Turing test at an event organised by the University of Reading.

The test investigates whether people can detect if they are talking to machines or humans.

The experiment is based on Alan Turing’s question-and-answer game Can Machines Think?

No computer has passed the test before under these conditions, it is reported.

The 65-year-old Turing Test is successfully passed if a computer is mistaken for a human more than 30% of the time during a series of five-minute keyboard conversations.

On 7 June Eugene convinced 33% of the judges at the Royal Society in London that it was human.

Other artificial intelligence (AI) systems also competed, including Cleverbot, Elbot and Ultra Hal. Judges included actor Robert Llewellyn, who played an intelligent robot in BBC Two’s science-fiction sit-

com Red Dwarf, and Lord Sharkey, who led the successful campaign for Alan Turing’s posthumous pardon, over a conviction for homosexual activity, in 2013.

Eugene was created by Vladimir Veselov, who was born in Russia and now lives in the United States, and Ukrainian-born Eugene Demchenko, who now lives in Russia.

Transcripts of the conversations are currently unavailable, but will appear in an academic paper later this month.

The judges and hidden human control groups were kept apart throughout the test.

The event was organised by Reading University’s School of Systems Engineering in partnership with RoboLaw, an EU-funded organisation examining the regulation of emerging robotic technologies. Alan Turing was an English mathematician, wartime code-breaker and pioneer of computer science.

Historic

The event has been labelled as “historic” by the organisers, who claim no computer has passed the test before.

“Some will claim that the Test has already been passed,” said Kevin Warwick, a visiting professor at the University of Reading and deputy vice-chancellor for research at Coventry University.

“The words Turing test have been applied to similar competitions around the world. However, this event involved the most simultaneous comparison tests than ever before, was independently verified and, crucially, the conversations were unrestricted.

“A true Turing test does not set the questions or topics prior to the conversations. We are therefore proud to declare that Alan Turing’s test was passed for the first time on Saturday.”

Lord Sharkey, a leading expert in robotic technology and artificial intelligence, said: “It is indeed a great achievement for Eugene. It was very clever ruse to pretend to be a 13-year-old Ukranian boy, which would constrain the conversation.” l

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TUESDAY, JUNE 10, 2014 www.dhakatribune.com/business

Budget placed, commodity prices up Sugar traders appear prompt to raise price; edible oil, chickens also get costlier

n

Syed Samiul Basher Anik

Less than a week after Finance Minister AMA Muhith proposed the budget measures for the fiscal year 2014-15, the prices of essential commodities including sugar, edible oil and chickens have soared in the city markets.

During visits to several kitchen markets like Karwan Bazar, Mohammadpur Krishi Market and Town Hall Market, the surges were found.

The retailers were selling sugar at Tk48-50 per kilogram, risen by Tk5 from one week ago.

According to them, the wholesalers have raised the prices “where the retailers have nothing to do but sell at the increased prices.”

“Last week, the price (of sugar) was Tk43 per kg, but it now stands at Tk48 as the wholesalers have increased the price following the duty hike on import of raw materials for sugar,” Hannan Mia, a trader at Karwan Bazar, told the Dhaka Tribune yesterday.

Trading Corporation of Bangladesh (TCB) data yesterday showed a Tk2 increase in the retail price of sugar as the product was selling at Tk45-48 per kg.

The government has proposed raising duty on raw beet sugar and raw cane sugar to Tk2,000 from the existing Tk1,500 for the upcoming fiscal year.

But the proposed budget is yet to be passed in the parliament for implementation in the year which begins from July.

The loose soy bean oil was found selling at Tk95-98 per litre while the price of bottled soy bean ranged from Tk115 to Tk120.

According to TCB data, the loose soy bean oil witnessed price hike from Tk97 to Tk101 per litre and bottled soy bean from Tk112 to Tk116.

Tax receipts from DSE falls 40% in May

n Tribune Report Tax earnings from the Dhaka Stock Exchange fell 40% month-on-month in May due to declining trade volumes.

The government in May bagged Tk5.9 crore in taxes, a sharp fall of 40.4% from April’s Tk9.8 crore.

On behalf of the government, the DSE collects the tax as brokerage commission at 0.05% and deposits the amount to the state coffers; and the higher the turnover, the higher the tax collection.

The average daily volume of share trade declined 18% to 691 lakh in May over the previous month, according to the DSE data. The government’s earnings from tax on sales of sponsor and placement shares also declined marginally of 1% to almost Tk3.8 crore in May. l

n Tribune Report Bangladesh Bank has relaxed the banks in issuing guarantee beyond single borrower exposure limit to facilitate construction of Padma Bridget project.

The banks would now be able to issue guarantee, with immediate effect, to their clients who would be working for the project.

If the clients fail to perform their respective jobs, the banks will have to pay for the non-performing portion of the job as compensation, and the banks will realise the amount from their clients.

Other than the project, the banks cannot issue guarantee beyond the limit.

“The decision has been taken considering the significance of Padma Bridge in the national economy and the government’s priority in this project,” said a Bangladesh Bank circular issued yesterday.

According to earlier circular, the ex-

A woman looking at products at the shelves of a superstore in Dhaka. The proposed budget for FY2014-15 has already pushed up prices of some essentials in the city’s kitchen market as the budget includes import duty hikes SYED ZAKIR HOSSAIN A wholesalers’ leader, however, said the price hike of soy bean oil was due to “problem in the delivery process.”

“The price (of soy bean oil) has not increased on the wholesale market as the supply is sufficient, but there is some problem with the delivery process,” Hazi Md Abul Hashem, General Secretary of Bangladesh Edible Oil Wholesalers Association, told the Dhaka Tribune.

He, however, didn’t explain what type of problem they were facing in the delivery line.

“We are selling soy bean oil at Tk83.50 per litre and palm oil at Tk72.50 to the retailers who are ex-

pected to charge Tk2-3 more than the wholesale price,” he said.

Abul Hashem, however, warned that the price might increase further if the importers didn’t keep an additional stock to meet an increased demand during Ramadan.

During the market survey, it was also found that the broiler chickens were selling at Tk155 per kg, a Tk10 increase from the last week.

The layer chickens were being sold at Tk170 per kg, up by Tk5 from one week earlier. The price of local variety of chickens was Tk360 per kg.

TCB data showed the broiler chicken increased from Tk150 to Tk160 in

the week. Prices of beef and mutton remained unchanged at Tk290-300 and Tk450-480 per kg respectively.

Regarding the prices of onion, Selim Miah, a retailer at Krishi Market, said they were selling the local variety at Tk35 and the imported one at Tk30 per kg.

He predicted: “The price of onion is unlikely to fall, rather it may see a price hike as the month of Ramadan approaches,” Besides, the retail price of Najir Shail rice remained unchanged at Tk52-58 per kg while the Miniket was selling at Tk50-56, Paijam at Tk40-44 and BR28 from Tk44-Tk46. l

posure limit, in case of both the funded and non- funded ones, to a single person and/or counterparty or a group shall not exceed 35% of the capital at any point of time.

The outstanding amount of exposure, both funded and non-funded, to a single person/counterparty or a group shall not exceed 35% of the capital at any point of time.

The aggregate outstanding principal amount of funded exposures shall not exceed 15% of the capital at any point of time.

In case of export financing, the outstanding amount of exposure, both funded and non-funded, at any point of time to a single person/counterparty or a group shall not exceed 50% of the capital.

However, the aggregate outstanding principal amount of funded exposures shall not exceed 15% of the capital at any point of time. l

Sonali Bank MD gets one year extension n Tribune Report

The state-run Sonali Bank Managing Director and CEO Pradip Kumar Dutta got one year time extension of his service tenure.

Bangladesh Bank approved the time extension application yesterday for Sonali Bank MD and rejected for the Janata Bank Managing Director Aminur Rahman.

The existing service tenure of Sonali Bank MD will be expired on June 16.

On June 17, 2012, Pradip Kumar took the post of Managing Director of Sonali Bank after unearth of hallmark scam.

He was appointed to bring discipline

and to strengthen the internal structure of the bank. But many allegations rose against him about his efficiency of bank management as the bank victims two times of robbery during his tenure.

After that, Sonali Bank board of directors sent a recommendation to finance ministry to extend his tenure.

Bangladesh Bank extended his tenure following the positive signs of high officials of the government on the matter.

On the other hand, service tenure of Aminur Rahman will be expired on July 27.

The central bank rejected his application time extension following the finance ministry instruction said source. l

Green industries for accreditation stressed

Government to set standard for state bank directors n Tribune report The government will set a standard to appoint the board of directors of the state-owned commercial banks (SOCBs) to avert any further fraud incident in the country’s banking sector.

Finance Minister AMA Muhith yesterday came up with the disclosure while talking to reporters after handing over the dividends of a joint venture named Bangladesh-UAE Investment Company at a ceremony held at the finance ministry auditorium in the capital.

It is important to maintain the standard in appointing the board of directors in the SOCBs for averting of any further fraud in the banking sector, said the finance minister.

“In most cases, the appointments are made on political grounds in the board of directors of the state owned banks. But, few of the politically-appointed board of directors are involved in wrong doing,” Muhith pointed out.

The minister also noted that there had always been corruption in the country’s banking sector.

“The large-scale corruption occurs in the banking sector because of our weak supervisions and lack of our vigilance service although the system has now been improved. You will see more progress in our vigilance in the banking sector in near future.” l

Banks’ guarantee limit eased for Padma project

n Tribune Report

Budget incentives may help boost RMG exports n Ibrahim Hossain Ovi Apparel makers have expected the proposed incentives in the new national budget would help improve export competitiveness of the country’s readymade garment products in the global market while contributing to improve the fire and safety standards of the factory buildings.

They said the production cost of RMG products has already increased several times higher than before due to the recent wage-hikes, appreciation of dollar and increased charges of the utility services.

Reduction of tax at source at 0.30% and lowering tax on cash incentives to 3% would definitely help the sector increase competitiveness in the global markets as it would reduce production cost, said Abdus Salam Murshedy, former president of Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA).

In the budget, the government has proposed to reduce tax at source to 0.30% from existing 0.80%, tax incentives to 3%, instead of 5%, and also to cut duty on some RMG raw materials to 5% from existing 10%.

Garments workers safety came on the spot light after the incident of Rana Plaza, an eight-story commercial building having housed five factories, collapsed in Savar on April 24, leaving at least 1,135 workers killed and over 2,500 injured.

Following the incident the global buyers imposed conditions to introduce fire safety equipment including

fire doors, hydrant and sprinklers. But these equipments have higher import duty, which appeared as burden to the factory owners.

Due to lack of cash flow, a section of factory owners were unable to import fire equipments as the import duty is still very high, Vidiya Amrit Khan, Managing Director of Desh Garments, told the Dhaka Tribune.

“Duty-free import of fire equipments would reduce the burden and help the factory owners to make their factories more compliant.”

Hoping that the overall industry would get back its lost momentum, Vidiya also noted that the government offered the incentives at a critical time while the RMG sector was sturglling to survive due to the ongoing inspection and safety-related scanning following the Rana Plaza Collapse.

According to BGMEA, over 35% factories need relocation to comply with safety standards. To relocate those factories, the factory owners demanded duty-free import of prefabricated building materials for quick relocation of their factories.

A sectition of factory owners has already shut their factories, failing to comply with the safety standards.

It was not possibile for them to further improve the safety standard of the existing factory structure without relocation, Syed Sadek Ahmed, Managing Director of Space Sweater told the Dhaka Tribune. He also noted that duty-free import of prefabricated building materials would help the RMG owners to relocate their factories easilly, fulfilling the compliance issues. l

Speakers at a seminar laid emphasis on developing environment-friendly production and trading system for accreditation of products, which is vital in competing in the global market.

Bangladesh Accreditation Board (BAB) and Dhaka Chamber of Commerce and Industry (DCCI) jointly organised the seminar on “Accreditation: Delivering confidence in the provision of energy” to mark the World Accreditation Day 2014 yesterday.

Industries Minister Amir Hossain Amu spoke on the occasion as chief guest.

He urged the consumers to use accredited electrical equipment and appliance to avoid accidents and use energy efficiently.

Accreditation is one type of recognition that determines the technical competence and integrity of different

organisations that offer conformity assessment of service such as testing, certification, inspection and calibration.

“Present government is committed to generate renewable energy or find alternative energy sources in order to ensure environment-friendly green industrialisation,” the minister said.

To observe the day this year, the accreditation board placed special focus on the green energy use in the production system.

“Sources of energy in the country are limited but the demand for energy is increasing day by day to ensure supply of the energy. Quality of power is much needed, which can be met by accreditation,” said DCCI President Mohammad Shahjahan Khan.

Developing and least developed countries are concentrating on accreditation for the expansion of trade and commerce as the global buyers are de-

manding accreditation of companies so that they can be sure about the quality of products, he said.

“We should ensure quality and safe energy generation system,” DCCI president said.

Secretary of Ministry of Industries Mohammad Moinuddin Abdullah said the accreditation is a must to compete in the global market especially in this open market economy.

“We should enhance efficiency in energy management system to reduce the misuse of energy,” he added.

Prof Zahid Hasan Mahmood of Dhaka University’s Electronic and Communication Engineering Department presented keynote paper in the seminar.

He said accreditation can help business organisations select the best quality products and services “because it ensures quality and safety of products and services to the consumers.” l

IBFB: Proposed bank borrowing may worsen private investment n Tribune Report International Business Forum of Bangladesh (IBFB) feared that the proposed bank borrowing in the budget might bring crowding out effect in the private investment that still reels particularly from political unrest and higher interest rate.

In the proposed budget, the government has set a target to borrow Tk31,000 crore from banking system in the next fiscal year, which is more than 4% from the revised budget of the outgoing fiscal year.

“Public borrowing from banks might increase further if the government fails to get the projected foreign loans. In that case, the situation might turn from bad to worse,” IBFB president Hafizur Rahman Khan said in a statement giving reaction to the proposed budget.

The government expected to receive foreign aid of Tk24,275 crore in the FY201415. About the budget size, Khan, however, said, “It is a big budget but time-befitting.”

IBFB identified that good governance and political sta-

bility is the key to implement the proposed budget.

“The government needs to increase administrative efficiency, to ensure good governance and political stability for implementation of the proposed budget,” said IBFB chief.

He added it is important to implement the such big budget right at this moment for taking its fruits to the door of the people. IBFB appreciated the budget for taking measures to protect local industry, including pharmaceuticals, LPG cylinder, iron and ispat, shipbuilding, paper, ceramic, rubber, electrical and plastic.

“Import duty reduction on raw materials and duty hike on finished prod-

ucts will help expand local industry,” Khan said. On the other hand, he said, withdrawal of tax at source for letters of credit opening will bring dynamism to the country’s dull business situation.

Terming revenue income target of Tk1,49,720 crore as “a bold step,” IBFB said it is necessary to ensure transparency, accountability and efficiency in the administrative level to achieve the revenue target.

The Forum demanded raising of taxfree income limit to Tk2.5 lakh and Tk3 lakh for women be reconsidered taking colossal damage of businesses caused by the political unrest and many other reasons into account. l

B2

DHAKA TRIBUNE

Stock

Stocks bounce back on buying binge

DSE key features June 9, 2014

n Tribune Report

Number of Contract

Scrip-wise focus kept market activity robust with a turnover of Tk420 crore, which is 1% higher over the previous session.

Cement came to spotlight on the day on expectation of increased revenue earnings of cement companies due to beginning construction work of large infrastructure projects like Padma Bridge in the coming fiscal year.

The sector rallied 4.6%, followed by non-banking financial institutions that gained more than 3.4%, telecommunication 1.8% and bank 1%.

Textile dropped on profit-booking rising sharply higher in the previous session spurred by incentives proposed in the budget.

Lanka Bangla Securities said market reverted surprisingly strong, closing the benchmark index towards day’s high amid improved level of market turnover.

It said following the proposed budget, market is going through a sectoral vibe with specific interest on financial, engineering, pharma and banking stocks.

Lafarge Surma Cement was the most traded stock, which topped the liquidity chart with turnover of Tk32 crore, followed by BSRM Steel, Grameenphone, Mobil Jamuna, GPH Ispat, Eastern Housing Ltd, Unique Hotel and Resorts, and Meghna Petroleum. l

Stock bounced back yesterday, as previous session's selling pressure fueled by adverse psychological impact of the proposed budget subdued.

The market saw flying start at the very beginning and the momentum continued till close of the trade, as investors bought shares that hit their bottom.

The benchmark index DSEX gained almost 70 points or 1.7% to settle at 4,416, recovering well from its previous session's five monthlow. It also broke five consecutive days of losses.

The comprising blue chips DS30 rose 29 points or 1.8% to 1,629. The Shariah index DSES closed at 1,015, rising over 18 points or 2%.

Chittagong Stock Exchange (CSE) Selective Categories Index, CSCX, rallied 103 points to 8,365.

“Offsetting budget-specific psychological hit, a natural reversal powered by lucrative prices kept market sentiment upbeat,” said IDLC Investments in its daily market analysis.

“Besides, the indices’ positioning around support level has offered investors some space of re-assessment. These factors accumulated buying pressure and forced DSEX to cross 4,400 points level in early hours.”

DSE GAINERS Company

Turnover (Million Taka)

4,205.81

Turnover (Volume)

105,607,852 91,126

Traded Issues

295

Issue Gain (Avg. Price Basis)

218

Issue Loss (Avg. Price Basis)

72

Unchanged Issue (Avg. Price Basis)

5

Market Capital Equity (Billion. Tk.)

2,284.74

Market Capital Equity (Billion US$)

27.69

CSE key features June 9, 2014 Turnover (Million Taka)

291.75

Turnover (Volume)

Daily capital market highlights

8,055,787

Number of Contract

11,577

DSE Broad Index :

4415.96176

(+) 1.60%

▼

Traded Issues

224

DSE Shariah Index :

1015.42816

(+) 1.85%

▲

Issue Gain (Avg. Price Basis)

156

DSE - 30 Index :

1629.04574

(+) 1.80%

▼

Issue Loss (Avg. Price Basis)

63

CSE All Share Index:

13603.47160

(+) 1.59%

▲

Unchanged Issue (Avg. Price Basis)

4

CSE - 30 Index :

10936.25680

(+) 1.00%

▲

Market Capital Equity (Billion. Tk.)

2,192.13

8365.40800

(+) 1.24%

▲

Market Capital Equity (Billion US$)

26.57

CSE Selected Index : DSE LOSERS

Wata Chemicals -A Renwick Jajneswar-A ICB Islamic Bank-Z Rahima Food -Z Rahim Textile -A ACI Limited- A Rangpur Foundry -A Popular Life Insu. -A

-5.58 -4.74 -4.08 -4.06 -4.04 -3.30 -2.84 -2.72

Average (% change) -3.44 -3.87 -4.24 0.07 -0.76 -0.59 -1.77 -2.68

Grameen M F One-A H.R. Textile -A

-2.56 -2.50

-2.14 -0.73

Company

Closing (% change)

CSE LOSERS

Wata Chemicals -A Libra Infusions-A Asia Pasific Insu. -A Apex SpinningA Standard Insurance-A Sandhani Life -A Mercantile Insur -A PrimeFin. 1st MF-A

-13.51 -10.83 -9.66 -8.95 -8.54 -6.94 -5.97 -5.43

Average (% change) -13.51 -10.83 -9.70 -6.97 -8.45 -6.95 -6.31 -5.80

Aziz PipesZ ISN Ltd. -Z

-5.16 -4.76

-5.16 -4.76

Company

Closing (% change)

ANALYST

Closing average

Closing

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 626.98 148.41 56.24 722.96 157.12 464.87 2.46 529.46 335.10 0.18 137.19 37.19 12.39 446.18 23.75 35.22 68.19 218.53 125.70 57.30 0.39

Turnover in million

Daily low

Latest EPS

Latest PE

386.78 286.62 4.74 55.75 362.49 248.85 103.74 200.09

382.50 281.20 4.70 54.30 351.20 245.80 102.50 200.00

415.00 300.00 4.90 58.50 369.70 257.30 107.80 203.00

374.50 275.00 4.70 53.40 337.00 243.00 102.20 194.20

23.903 7.925 6.151 1.756 4.223 28.170 4.720 2.201

6.24 3.92 -1.12 -1.01 11.16 5.28 3.08 17.00

62.0 73.1 -ve -ve 32.5 47.1 33.7 11.8

38.36 31.38

38.00 31.20

39.30 32.40

37.00 29.00

5.697 1.842

3.40 1.62

11.3 19.4

Closing average

Closing

Daily high

Turnover in million

Daily low

Latest EPS

Asia Insur. Ltd.-A Bangladesh Welding -Z BD Building Systems -A Beacon Pharma Ltd.-Z LankaBangla Fin. -A BDCOM Online-A First Lease- A B I F C -A People`s Leasing-A Union Capital -A

400.00 428.00 21.50 82.40 30.00 75.10 18.90 17.40

400.00 428.00 21.50 85.20 30.00 75.10 19.00 17.50

400.00 428.00 21.50 82.40 30.00 75.10 18.70 17.20

0.080 0.086 0.043 0.253 0.030 0.023 0.019 0.200

6.24 4.20 2.48 1.85 2.88 2.39 2.40 1.64

64.1 101.9 8.7 45.5 10.4 31.4 7.9 10.6

14.70 10.00

14.70 10.00

14.80 10.00

14.50 10.00

0.002 0.010

0.68 0.20

21.6 50.0

Offsetting budget-specific psychological hit, a natural reversal powered by lucrative prices kept market sentiment upbeat % change 14.91 3.53 1.34 17.19 3.74 11.05 0.06 12.59 7.97 0.00 3.26 0.88 0.29 10.61 0.56 0.84 1.62 5.20 2.99 1.36 0.01

Million Taka 22.70 13.47 3.30 52.65 15.65 29.45 54.54 19.46 15.78 6.71 17.29 1.20 34.19 3.85 2.07 5.26 19.73 12.31 8.91 0.03

% change 6.71 3.98 0.97 15.55 4.62 8.70 0.00 16.11 5.75 4.66 1.98 5.11 0.35 10.10 1.14 0.61 1.55 5.83 3.64 2.63 0.01

Million Taka 649.68 161.89 59.54 775.61 172.77 494.31 2.46 584.00 354.57 15.97 143.90 54.49 13.58 480.36 27.60 37.28 73.45 238.26 138.01 66.21 0.42

Total

10.68 10.00 9.88 9.68 9.67 9.52 9.30 9.17 9.15 9.05

CSE GAINERS Company Asia Insur. Ltd.-A Beacon Pharma Ltd.-Z Bangladesh Welding -Z BD Building Systems -A People`s Leasing-A BD. Thai Alum -B LankaBangla Fin. -A Beach Hatchery -A First Lease- A NLI 1st M F-A

Closing (% change) 11.74 10.00 9.90 9.90 9.80 9.79 9.67 9.65 9.25 8.60

Average (% change) 7.13 6.72 7.43 10.76 6.96 7.84 7.79 7.03 7.67 5.37 Average (% change) 8.95 9.63 9.44 8.39 7.64 5.76 5.93 6.34 8.36 8.84

Closing average 25.24 10.80 55.80 13.59 42.24 22.84 18.69 12.94 16.56 21.00

Closing average 25.08 13.20 11.01 56.07 16.49 20.57 42.16 24.32 18.67 10.10

Closing 25.90 11.00 56.70 13.60 43.10 23.00 18.80 13.10 16.70 21.70

Closing 25.70 13.20 11.10 56.60 16.80 21.30 43.10 25.00 18.90 10.10

Daily high 26.20 11.00 56.70 13.60 43.20 23.10 18.90 13.20 16.80 21.80

Daily high 26.00 13.20 11.10 56.60 16.80 21.30 43.20 25.00 19.00 10.10

Daily low 21.00 9.50 48.00 12.00 36.00 18.90 16.00 11.00 14.00 18.90

Daily low 23.40 13.20 10.40 53.50 15.50 19.80 40.50 23.30 17.40 10.10

Turnover in million 10.740 0.743 24.879 6.773 47.702 4.689 14.479 1.424 15.429 7.637

Turnover in million 0.702 0.574 0.193 2.271 2.434 0.143 5.839 2.517 0.766 0.010

Latest EPS

Latest PE

1.93 0.48 3.01 0.04 1.24 1.43 1.76 0.24 1.08 2.08

Latest EPS

13.1 22.5 18.5 339.8 34.1 16.0 10.6 53.9 15.3 10.1

Latest PE

1.93 0.04 0.48 3.01 1.08 0.84 1.24 2.04 1.76 1.36

13.0 330.0 22.9 18.6 15.3 24.5 34.0 11.9 10.6 7.4

News, analysis and recent disclosers ASIAINS: The Board of Directors has recommended 15% cash dividend and 5% stock dividend for the year ended on December 31, 2013. Date of AGM: 16.07.2014, Time: 11:00 AM, Venue: Institution of Diploma Engineers, Bangladesh, IDEB Bhaban, 160/A, Kakrail VIP Road, Dhaka.

Record Date: 19.06.2014. The Company has also reported EPS of Tk. 1.93, NAV per share of Tk. 18.32 and NOCFPS of Tk. 1.23 for the year ended on December 31, 2013.

WATACHEM: (Q1): As per un-audited quarterly accounts for the 1st quarter ended on 31st March 2014 (Jan'14 to March'14), the Company has reported net profit after tax of Tk. 9.88 million with basic EPS of Tk. 2.03 as against Tk. 8.34 million and Tk. 1.72 respectively for the same period of the previous year. However, considering proposed bonus share @ 30% for the year 2013, restated basic EPS will be Tk. 1.56 as on 31.03.2014 and Tk. 1.32 as on 31.03.2013.

IFIC: The Company has informed that it has credited the bonus shares for the year ended on December 31, 2013 to the respective shareholders' BO Accounts on June 08, 2014.

DSE TURNOVER LEADERS Company Mercantile Bank -A LafargeS Cement-Z BSRM Steels-A Grameenphone-A MJL BD Ltd.-A GPH Ispat Ltd-A Eastern Housing -A

CSE

Closing (% change)

NTC: The Company has further informed that due to unavoidable circumstances the 36th AGM of the Company scheduled to be held on June 21, 2014 has been postponed until further notice.

ISNLTD: The Company has further informed that due to unavoidable circumstances, the Venue for holding the 19th AGM of the Company has been shifted at Institution of Diploma Engineers Bangladesh, IDEB Bhaban, 160/A Kakrail, VIP Road, Dhaka-1000 from Bangladesh Institute of Administration and Management (BIAM), 63 New Eskaton Road, Dhaka. Other information of the AGM will remain unchanged.

UTTARABANK: The Company has informed that disbursement of Cash Dividend among the shareholders under BO ID has been completed within 04.06.2014 through Bangladesh Electronic Fund Transfer Network (BEFTN). The payment of Cash Dividend of shareholders under Index number has been made by issuing dividend warrant from Bank's registered office by hand to hand delivery and through Courier Service within 08.06.2014.

DELTALIFE: The Company has informed

that it has started all its Official activities from its own building Delta Life Tower, Plot # 37, Road, # 45 (South) 90 (North), Gulshan Circle-2, Dhaka-1212. Share department of the Company will continue with its activities from Uttara Bank Bhaban, 10th Floor, 90 Motijheel C/A, Dhaka-1000.

IPO Subscription: Far East Knitting & Dyeing Industries Limited subscription date 15-19 June 2014, NRB upto 28 June 2014. @ taka 27, face value taka 10 and market lot 200. Shurwid Industries Limited subscription date 08-12 June 2014, NRB upto 21 June 2014. @ taka 10, face value taka 10 and market lot 500. Saif Powertec Limited subscription date 06-10 July 2014, NRB upto 19 July 2014. @ taka 30, face value taka 10 and market lot 200. Ratanpur Steel Re-Rolling Mills Limited subscription date 13-17 July 2014, NRB upto 26 July 2014. @ taka 40, face value taka 10 and market lot 200.

Dividend/AGM

WATACHEM: 30% stock, AGM: 27.06.2014, Record Date: 11.06.2014.

AMBEEPHA: 15% cash and 20% stock, AGM: 16.06.2014, Record Date: 28.05.2014.

Latest PE

400.00 428.00 21.50 84.19 30.00 75.10 18.85 17.37

SECTORAL TURNOVER SUMMARY Sector

Daily high

Tuesday, June 10, 2014

% change 14.30 3.56 1.31 17.07 3.80 10.88 0.05 12.85 7.80 0.35 3.17 1.20 0.30 10.57 0.61 0.82 1.62 5.24 3.04 1.46 0.01

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

Unique Hotel RL - A Meghna Petroleum -A Square Pharma -A

Generation Next-A Aftab Auto.-A HeidelbergCement -A Matin Spinning-N Padma Oil Co. -A CSE TURNOVER LEADERS Company LafargeS Cement-Z

BSRM Steels-A Generation Next-A Grameenphone-A Aftab Auto.-A BD Submarine Cable-A Familytex (BD) Ltd.-A Hwa Well Textiles-N Golden Son -A Unique Hotel RL - A MJL BD Ltd.-A Eastern Housing -A LankaBangla Fin. -A UNITED AIR-A GPH Ispat Ltd-A

Volume shares 19,816,294 3,626,500 2,437,461 639,888 1,800,331 2,383,890 2,013,692 1,418,630 388,746 331,765

4,816,165 971,159 130,570 1,457,600 202,279

Volume shares

303,500 170,713 692,565 39,400 113,014 46,500 302,000 166,500 159,000 90,605 69,657 94,631 138,500 508,550 84,360

Value in million 359.72 329.54 230.56 184.79 165.46 132.60 127.91 106.14 103.58 90.37

87.53 83.94 67.06 64.98 63.34

Value in million

27.51 16.07 12.55 11.37 9.77 8.36 7.72 7.19 6.98 6.76 6.39 6.02 5.84 5.54 4.70

% of total turnover 8.55 7.84 5.48 4.39 3.93 3.15 3.04 2.52 2.46 2.15

2.08 2.00 1.59 1.55 1.51

% of total turnover

9.69 5.66 4.42 4.00 3.44 2.95 2.72 2.53 2.46 2.38 2.25 2.12 2.06 1.95 1.66

Daily closing 16.90 92.00 92.30 289.30 89.50 56.50 63.80 74.90 268.60 272.70

18.10 87.40 508.00 44.20 312.90

Daily closing

91.40 91.90 18.00 287.80 87.40 179.70 25.30 42.70 44.50 74.70 89.20 64.00 43.10 10.90 56.70

Price change 1.81 8.49 -0.75 1.87 -0.67 4.82 3.74 5.20 0.86 0.29

Daily opening 16.60 84.80 93.00 284.00 90.10 53.90 61.50 71.20 266.30 271.90

Price change

Daily opening

0.00 4.80 -0.84 1.84 -0.13

8.29 -0.76 -1.10 1.66 4.55 1.30 -1.17 0.95 8.54 5.21 -1.44 3.73 9.67 1.87 5.00

18.10 83.40 512.30 43.40 313.30

84.40 92.60 18.20 283.10 83.60 177.40 25.60 42.30 41.00 71.00 90.50 61.70 39.30 10.70 54.00

Daily high 18.20 92.80 97.20 291.60 94.00 57.00 64.40 76.50 269.70 273.70

18.60 87.80 522.40 45.50 317.00

Daily low 15.00 87.10 87.00 275.00 81.10 50.00 58.00 64.10 250.00 249.00

16.70 78.00 500.00 43.50 300.00

Daily average 18.15 90.87 94.59 288.78 91.90 55.62 63.52 74.82 266.44 272.39

Daily high

Daily low

Daily average

92.30 97.00 18.50 292.00 87.80 181.60 26.00 43.90 45.10 76.60 94.00 64.20 43.20 11.10 57.20

87.00 91.10 16.50 284.40 83.00 177.50 25.10 42.50 41.30 71.60 87.20 62.60 40.50 10.50 54.00

18.17 86.43 513.61 44.58 313.15

90.65 94.16 18.12 288.60 86.45 179.86 25.55 43.19 43.90 74.65 91.78 63.60 42.16 10.90 55.72

DHAKA TRIBUNE

Business

Tuesday, June 10, 2014

B3

Cyber crime costs global economy $445bn a year n Reuters, London Cyber crime costs the global economy about $445bn every year, with the damage to business from the theft of intellectual property exceeding the $160bn loss to individuals from hacking, according to research published yesterday.

The report from the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) said cyber crime was a growth industry that damaged trade, competitiveness and innovation.

A conservative estimate would be $375bn in losses, while the maximum could be as much as $575bn, said the study, sponsored by security software company McAfee.

"Cyber crime is a tax on innovation and slows the pace of global innovation by reducing the rate of return to innovators and investors," Jim Lewis of CSIS said in a statement.

"For developed countries, cyber

crime has serious implications for employment."

The world's biggest economies bore the brunt of the losses, the research found, with the toll on the United States, China, Japan and Germany reaching $200bn a year in total.

Losses connected to personal information, such as stolen credit card data, was put at up to $150bn.

About 40 million people in the United States, roughly 15% of the population, has had personal information stolen by hackers, it said, while highprofile breaches affected 54 million people in Turkey, 16 million in Germany and more than 20 million in China.

McAfee, owned by Intel Corp, said improved international collaboration was beginning to show results in reducing cyber crime, for example in the takedown last week of a crime ring that infected hundreds of thousands of computers known by the name of its master software, Gameover Zeus. l

An illustration picture shows a projection of binary code on a man holding a laptop computer, in an office in Warsaw

Amazon expands middleman role Politics poses biggest risk to euro zone endurance in latest online payments push n Reuters, San Francisco Amazon.com Inc will start managing subscription payments for start-ups and other companies - the latest in a series of quiet moves the e-commerce giant has made into PayPal's turf over the past year.

The service, which launches on Monday, allows the company's more than 240 million active users to use credit card details stored on Amazon.com to pay for services such as a monthly phone bill or a digital music subscription. Amazon then charges a fee on each transaction.

EBay Inc's PayPal has long dominated online payments services but Amazon sees plenty of scope to push into new areas.

The new service broadens Amazon's profitable role as a middleman for third-party sellers, which account for 40 percent of its sales and extends its influence beyond its website.

It also comes ahead of June 18 unveiling by Chief Executive Jeff Bezos of what is widely expected to be a smartphone key to expanding Amazon's role in mobile payments.

"You should see it as one of many things that we'll do to expand where people might think about Amazon helping them," Amazon vice president of seller services Tom Taylor said in an interview.

Amazon has been testing the new service over the last several months with start-ups including Ting, a mobile phone company that is part of Tucows Inc. Those who used recurring payments by Amazon spent 30% more

on Ting's website, product manager Justen Burdette said in an interview arranged by Amazon.

Some analysts have said Amazon has been held back in payments because merchants are wary of handing over customer data to the company, which has a record of rapidly expanding into new areas and competing with sellers.

But Taylor said the only details collected by Amazon as part of the new service is the dollar amount of each transaction and not any "item-level information."

He added that the service would encourage Amazon users who might otherwise be leery of handing over their credit card details to a fledgling companies to try out them out.

"If you think about giving a merchant that you may not know very well the right to continue to charge your credit card in the future, you really want to know that a good relationship with Amazon stands behind that," Taylor said.

"We hope whoever the next Spotify out there is thinking about Amazon," he added, referring to the privately held, popular digital music subscription service. l

n Reuters, Paris

With the euro zone bond market back to irrational exuberance and economic growth returning slowly if unevenly, politics rather than economics now poses the biggest threat to the longterm endurance of Europe's single currency.

Widespread anti-EU protest votes in last month's European Parliament elections will make it harder for many governments to pursue deficit-cutting and structural economic reforms or to deepen the integration of the 18-nation euro area.

Public resistance in Germany, Europe's biggest economy, may make it impossible for the European Central Bank to go beyond last week's monetary easing measures to more radical US-style asset purchases if low inflation persists or worsens.

Berlin is balking at using its own healthy fiscal position to invest more in infrastructure or spur domestic demand with tax cuts that could help balance Europe's economic adjustment.

European Union leaders and the ECB have done enough to restore market confidence for now by equipping

the euro zone with a financial rescue fund, stricter fiscal discipline, a single banking supervisor and a de facto lender of last resort.

But the political will to complete economic and monetary union looks ever weaker, especially if it requires winning public approval for changes to the EU's governing treaties.

In a book published before the elections, French economist Jean Pisani-Ferry argued that Europe's leaders were reluctant to give any more power to Brussels and sought to avoid controversy over further European integration.

"Fighting the euro crisis has already proved divisive domestically.

The less they take initiatives, the less they risk political problems at home," he wrote.

The surge in support for Eurosceptic and anti-establishment parties in the May 25 vote can only reinforce that inertia now that the acute need for action has passed.

Even critics who predicted the euro zone could break up, such as US economist Nouriel Roubini, acknowledge that much has improved in the last two years. l

REUTERS

Tech stock jumps after Modi's tweet n Reuters Sterlite Technologies Ltd, a manufacturer of optical fibres and telecommunication cables, surged 8.6% after the prime minister on Sunday tweeted about the importance of an "information highway" in his official Twitter account.

Modi tweeted "Infrastructure should not only be about Highways but also about Information Highways! The way ahead lies in creating optical fibre networks" l

Oil prices up in Asia n AFP, Singapore Oil prices rose in Asian trade yesterday, boosted by robust Chinese export data and a solid US jobs report that boosted hopes for a pick-up in demand, analysts said.

US benchmark, West Texas Intermediate for July delivery, gained 20 cents to $102.86 a barrel in afternoon trade, while Brent North Sea crude for July rose eight cents to $108.69.

China's trade surplus surged in May, official data showed Sunday, as export growth accelerated sharply while imports saw a surprise fall. l

Union Bank Ltd has recently achieved International Quality Summit Award 2014 from Spain based company BID Group One at an event held at Marquize Convention center in New York time square USA. The bank’s managing director Md Abdul Hamid Miah received the award from the chair and CEO of BID Group One, Jose-i- Prito

NCCB Securities & Financial Services Ltd has recently held its 4th annual general meeting at the head office of NCC Bank in Dhaka. The company’s chair Md Nurun Newaz Salim presided over the meeting

Modhumoti Bank Limited has recently held a workshop on green banking at its Motijheel.

The bank’s managing director and CEO Md Mizanur Rahman inaugurated the workshop

DHL observes Environment Day n Tribune Business Desk

Sohana Rouf Chowdhury, managing director of Ranks Commercial Vehicles Ltd seen speaking at the launch of FUSO trucks of Daimler India Commercial Vehicles at Rangs Bhaban on Saturday

Akij Cement Company Ltd recently held its distributors’ annual conference titled ‘BondhutterBondhone’ at the Rangamati Waterfront in Gazipur. Akij Group’s managing director Sk Bashir Uddin was chief guest at the occasion

Deutsche Post DHL, the world’s leading mail and logistics company, has observed World Environment Day across the world on June 5, says a press release yesterday.

DHL Global Forwarding Bangladesh has tied up with SOS Children’s Villages in Bangladesh as part of its corporate social responsibilities to mark the Day. The company has also arranged a tree planting program and planted over 800 saplings at SOS Children’s Village

on World Environment Day in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Country manager of DHL Global Forwarding Bangladesh Nooruddin Chowdhury and several employees participated in the initiative.

Project Director of SOS Children’s Villages Bangladesh Saiful Islam thanked DHL Global Forwarding Bangladesh for extending wholehearted support.

Nooruddin said, “We will be looking forward to continuation of this plantation campaign in the near future and SOS expects to be a vital part of our “living responsibility” initiative.” l

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DHAKA TRIBUNE

Back Page

Tuesday, June 10, 2014

Property tax: A tool to reduce inequality n Sabbir Ahmed Investment in land property yields the highest returns to the owner in Bangladesh.

From 1972 to 2010, inflation-adjusted average return of the sector was between 95% and 120%, as shown in an article titled “The Imperative for Property Taxation in Bangladesh� by Sadiq Ahmed. Where the return on bank fixed deposit was between 9% and 11%, commerce industry 15% - 23%, and share (stock) of listed companies was 38% (2006-11 average).

Bangladesh is a densely populated country with around 1,150 persons per square kilometre.

The country has been experiencing a steady economic growth since its independence, which crossed the 6% mark 10 years ago.

Two major contributors of this economic growth are remittance from expatriate citizens, which is going to cross $15bn a year in the near future, and export earnings, which is nearing $30bn a year. Because of prevailing widespread corruption and tax evasion, largely by the wealthy, social wealth is being accumulated by a few unscrupulous professionals, bureaucrats, businessmen, people associated with politics, and the families receiving foreign remittances.

In absence of a reliable capital market and a lack of opportunities for investing in productive sectors, a large portion of accumulated wealth in the hands of few wealthy people is being siphoned off to the markets of developed countries.

Informatively, wealth transfer from developing countries to developed countries was about $6tn between 2001 and 2010.

The remaining portions of the corruption-generated and foreign remittance monies are mostly being invested in land and buildings. Excessive investment in land and buildings cause high property price in both urban and rural areas.

High property price creates many social problems: Higher costs to businesses, corruption relating to frequent ownership transfers, land grabbing, extortion, rapes, and even killing.

Land owners with little to no social influence are the main victims, while land owners belonging to minority religious groups are the worst. In many cases, they were evicted from family-inherited properties.

Excessive returns from property invest-

ment discourages investment in productive sectors.

Efficient capital and financial markets, backed by a structured investment climate, could have absorbed this accumulated wealth.

Investment in productive sectors is still a big job to accomplish to a new entrepreneur, as adequate policy and infrastructure supports from the state are either not available or are tangled in exhausting bureaucratic processes.

Rampant corruption is another hindrance to investments in productive sectors.

Property tax could be one of the solutions to the real estate bubble and another answer to the growing inequality. According

to World Bank data, Gini Coefficient (a widely used measure of income inequality) had risen from 0.26 in 1984 to 0.33 in 2005.

It had reduced slightly to 0.32 during 2005-10 periods. On the other hand, income of the top 20% of population has increased by 5.57%, while the income for 80% has decreased by the same amount during 1984 to 2010. Meaning, 20% wealthy and powerful people have taken away the income of the middle and lower class people, making them poorer. This social injustice happened because of inefficient national policies and their implementation. Inequality has a price.

It hinders poverty reduction, thwarts eco-

nomic growth, and indulges the economy into poverty spiral.

In many developed and developing countries (eg Australia, Canada, Denmark, Greece, Hong Kong, India, USA) property tax is being levied on the basis of the assessed value of the property.

It is directly charged to the owner. Countries like Bangladesh, where property prices are ever increasing at lightning speeds, property tax can control the speed as it increases the cost of acquisition and maintenance of the property. In this way it also reduces the cost of doing business.

As a result, investors would become

interested in investing in other productive sectors as per their own convenience. Imposition of property tax will widen the tax net as untouched areas will be brought under the tax net in a country where tax-GDP ratio is around 10% in comparison to 40% in the United States.

Properties are tangible. Thus, it would be very difficult to evade the tax levied on it in a society where tax avoidance is largely unnoticed.

Property tax is not new to Bangladesh. In the 1980s the system was scrapped because administrative and operational costs to collecting the tax, surpassed revenue genera-

Japan's economy picks up speed on capex surge n Reuters, Tokyo

A lock icon, signifying an encrypted Internet connection, is seen on an Internet Explorer browser in a file photo illustration in Paris REUTERS

Upsurge in hacking makes customer data a corporate time bomb n Reuters, Washington

With hackers stealing tens of millions of customer details in recent months, firms across the globe are ratcheting up IT security and nervously wondering which of them is next.

The reality, cyber security experts say, is that however much they spend, even the largest companies are unlikely to be able to stop their systems being breached. The best defense may simply be either to reduce the data they hold or encrypt it so well that if stolen it will remain useless.

Only a few ago, the primary IT security concern for many large corporations was stopping the loss or theft of physical disks or drives with customer information. Now, much harder to detect online thefts are rife.

Last week, Reuters revealed a host of big name US Fortune 500 companies were on a hiring spree for board level

cyber security experts often offering $500,000-700,000 a year, sometimes more.

Many have high-level backgrounds, at much lower pay, at signals intelligence agencies such as the US National Security Agency or Britain's GCHQ - although security experts say European firms are reluctant to hire ex-NSA staff following revelations over the scale of US cyber monitoring by whistleblower Edward Snowden.

"Information has become toxic for retailers because the more they have, the bigger a target they become," said Lamar Bailey, security researcher at IT security firm Tripwire. "The ongoing rash of attacks brings into question what information an organization should be keeping."

US retailer Target ousted its CEO Gregg Steinhafel in May after the firm said foreign hackers had stolen up to 70 million items of customer data includ-

ing some PIN numbers late last year.

Industry watchers said purchases on its website dropped noticeably in the run-up to Christmas with the breach also sparking lawsuits and official investigations.

A report from cyber security think tank the Ponemon Institute showed the average cost of a data breach in the last year grew by 15% to $3.5m. The likelihood of a company having a data breach involving 10,000 or more confidential records over a two-year period was 22%, it said.

The corporate fallout from the largest recorded breach so far, the loss of password data on some 145 million customers from online retailer eBay, is not yet clear.

A senior eBay executive told Reuters last week that "for a very long time" the firm had not realized customer data had been seriously compromised by the attack. l

Japan's first quarter growth handily beat initial estimates on an unexpected surge in capital spending, fresh signs the world's third-biggest economy is in better shape to weather a hit to consumption from a sales tax hike.

Capital spending, long a weak link in the economy, is a key focus in Tokyo's campaign to engineer a revival after two decades of sub-par growth and grinding deflation.

"Companies don't tend to ramp up spending ahead of the sales tax hike, so the increase likely reflects improvements in corporate profits and diminishing slack," said Mitsumaru Kumagai, chief economist at Daiwa Institute of Research.

Japan's economy grew an annualized 6.7% in the first quarter, data showed on Monday, up sharply from an initial reading of a 5.9% rise, and confirmed the fastest pace of growth since July-September 2011. The data beat the median market forecast for GDP to rise 5.6%.

The upward revision was largely due to a recalculation in capital expenditure that took into account finance ministry data showing a solid increase in spending.

Adding to the optimism, current account data showed foreign visitors spent more money than Japanese traveling abroad for the first time in 44 years, boding well for Japanese companies in the retail and tourism industry.

In other encouraging news, Japanese consumer confidence rose for the first time in six months in May, further underscoring recent signs that the economic pain from the sales tax hike

DILBERT

would be temporary. The service-sector sentiment index also edged up.

The tax, which was raised to 8% from 5% on April 1 to fix Japan's tattered finances, has caused distortions in data and raised worries about the outlook.

Monday's positive figures, however, back the Bank of Japan's view the economy will recover moderately led by domestic demand, with growing evidence of an uptick in business investment a particularly pleasing result for policy makers.

'The Japanese economy will continue growth above its potential rate as a trend as exports turn up and domestic demand remains firm' In comments to Parliament, BOJ Deputy Governor Kikuo Iwata sounded suitably upbeat, saying that he expects Japan's exports to turn up as advanced nations recover.

"The Japanese economy will continue growth above its potential rate as a trend as exports turn up and domestic demand remains firm," Iwata told parliament, adding that the economy is on a steady track to meet the BOJ's 2% inflation target.

Corporate capital spending rose 7.6%, up from a preliminary 4.9% increase, an encouraging sign for Prime Minister Shinzo Abe who is keen for companies to spend more of their cash piles to drive a sustainable economic recovery. l

tion. The situation has changed a lot since then. With the advancement of information technology, more economic and business information is available to tax authorities.

A meticulously designed tax collection system can bring the benefits of property taxation.

Discussion on the possible imposition of property tax was initiated by the government in 2011. Prominent economists instantly welcomed the move while business communities created obstacles, saying that this tax will give impetus to the growth of an underground economy. Managing underground economy is a separate challenge being tackled by the government.

A taxation system alone cannot fight an underground economy. Instead of levying property tax the government through the Finance Act, 2011 introduces a surcharge on income tax for those who have declared property to be valued more than Tk2cr.

The surcharge discourages honest tax payers, who have built or acquired properties with her/his hard-earned, tax-paid money. Interestingly, the surcharge has been levied on income tax, not on property value.

It cannot consider the value of the property, rather it considers only the income of the individual. Surcharge is not property tax and hence it cannot achieve the purposes of property tax VAT is payable by the consumer when purchasing VAT-able goods or services.

Generally, VAT-able goods and services are not vital for living. For example rice, potato, fish, meat are not VAT-able , while sweet, cosmetics, stationery are VAT-able . Living in an ordinary flat or building can be exempted from the tax net, but living in a posh flat or building on a high-value land cannot remain outside of it, as one of the main purposes of taxation is to ensure social justice through the redistribution of social resources. Property tax ensures social justice by collecting money from wealthy people, to be used for common social purposes.

Property tax is justified in the current discriminatory economic system where the gap between rich and poor is a challenge to address. l Sabbir Ahmed is a fellow chartered accountant and can be reached at sabbahme@yahoo.com

Learn from Google, Airbus chief warns aerospace industry n AFP, Caen The aerospace industry must embrace competition from technology companies such as Google and SpaceX which are already having a revolutionary impact on the sector, the head of the Airbus Group told AFP in an interview.

Describing the scale and speed of innovation in Silicon Valley as both "frightening and fascinating," Tom Enders said the increasing digitalisation of the economy was having a profound impact on his company's business.

"I think that in the future our industry will have to work much more closely with these new high-tech companies ... if only because these guys are increasingly intruding on our territory," said Enders, 55, who is half-way through a four-year mandate as CEO of the European aerospace giant.

Enders cited SpaceX, the space transport company founded by former PayPal entrepreneur Elon Musk, whose Falcon launch vehicles are taking on the market-leading Airbus-built Ariane in the commercial satellite launch market.

SpaceX has also mounted a legal challenge to the monopoly held by Boeing and Lockheed Martin for the launch of US government satellites.

Google in April acquired the drone start-up Titan Aerospace which aims to compete with Airbus in making high-altitude unmanned planes that are meant to take on tasks traditionally done by more expensive satellites.

"Aerospace is still a rather young industry but these people are even younger," he said. "And I think there is no debate as to which of us is the more vibrant industry. They are." l