14 Oct, 2014

Ashwin 29, 1421 Zilhajjj 18, 1435 Regd No DA 6238 Vol 2, No 190

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 14, 2014 | www.dhakatribune.com | SECOND EDITION

20 pages | Price: Tk12

B1 | BUSINESS

7 | LONG FORM

11 | OP-ED

13 | SPORT

BB SMELLS RAT IN HIGH STOCK TURNOVER

ON THE LOOKOUT FOR THE COWBOY

SEPARATED COLOURS

REPUTED HALSALL SETS SIGHTS ON SHORT-CATCHING

More bleeding on the cards for railway

Korean firm gets Padma bridge 82 ‘political’ trains launched in 5 years without increasing the number of locomotives, coaches construction supervision job n Kamran Reza Chowdhury

In five years, the Bangladesh Railway, which has been incurring losses worth billions, launched 82 new trains to enhance passenger convenience and boost revenue; at least these are what appear on papers and the government boasts about.

But instead, these new trains are leading to huge wastage of fuel and valuable human resources and are likely to be burdensome for the economy in coming years, the Dhaka Tribune has found.

The BR authorities, without actually increasing the number of locomotives and coaches, created the new trains by reducing the number of coaches from existing fleets.

There are allegations that these 82 are not well thought out additions but were launched to entertain the whims of the four railways ministers who have served the ministry in the past five years.

Abdul Wahab, a former joint director general of Bangladesh Railway, told the Dhaka Tribune: “In most cases, the ministers instruct the officials to launch new trains. They are not ready to listen to any operational problems.

They would just say: ‘I want the new train; everything else is up to you.’ So, the officials cut compartments from the existing fleet and make new trains.”

According to the railway’s information book, 247 trains operated daily in 2008-09 with 279 locomotives and 1,486 coaches, carrying 65 million passengers.  PAGE 2 COLUMN 1

n Asif Showkat Kallol

A train with a locomotive capable of dragging up to 22 coaches is operating with only two passenger and two cargo coaches wasting fuel and manpower

PDB proposes Ebola risk ‘still low’ in Bangladesh 18.12% bulk AND DEATH COUNTRY PREPARES FOR EBOLA: EBOLA INICIDENTS power tariff hike n Moniruzzaman Uzzal 1350 LOW RISK EXPECTED 778 The Power Development Board (PDB) has proposed to Bangladesh Energy Regulatory Commission (BERC) to raise electricity tariff at bulk level by 18.12% or Tk0.81 per unit.

The hike, if approved, will take the price of electricity to Tk5.51 per unit from the existing Tk4.70 at bulk level.

The production cost of each unit of power is around Tk6.54 and the PDB is thus losing Tk1.84 at present.

The PDB has also urged the BERC to make the proposed rates effective from January 1 next year.

The PDB proposal said after the proposed power prices at the bulk level come into effect, the prices at the retail level will be needed to be increased too as power distribution companies will face losses otherwise.

Retail power tariff was raised in March and if the new proposal is accepted, it will be the first increase in both the bulk and retail power tariffs after the government’s assumption of power in January.

“The final decision to raise the tariff will be made after holding an open meeting and also a public hearing,” BERC Chairman AR Khan told the Dhaka Tribune yesterday.

A top PDB official said the government will have to provide the power sector with subsidies amounting to nearly Tk7,500 crore in this fiscal if the new tariff is not implemented.

If the proposal is accepted, the amount of subsidy will fall to Tk4,000 crore, he said.

“We proposed the increase in tariffs  PAGE 2 COLUMN 2

Guinea

What is Ebola?

Ebola is a highly infectious virus originated in fruit bats with proven fatality of

50% - 90%

Liberia Sierra Leone 930 Senegal 1 Spain 1 United 2 States 1

Symptoms Sudden fever, intense weakness, muscle 20 pain and a sore throat. The infected patient Nigeria 8 eventually suffers from vomiting, diarrhoea Total and – in some cases – both internal and external bleeding. Ebola is spread by contact and the exchange of bodily fluids Bangladesh scenario 123 Currently being monitored Cleared after observation 70 United States Peacekeepers in Ebola-hit countries 425 to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) headquarters in Atlanta for a confirmed result which could take a couple of days.

Dr Be-Nazir Ahmed, member secretary of the National Ebola Monitoring Committee, claimed that all necessary arrangements had been made for the

4076 2316 2950

4033

Total Deaths Total Cases

8399

EBOLA REACH Spain

Senegal

Giunea Sierra Leone Liberia Nigeria

quick detection of Ebola infection and management of the patients.

Sources at the WHO local office also told the Dhaka Tribune that the global body has promised all necessary technical support to Bangladesh and requested the government to increase  PAGE 2 COLUMN 5

ZUBAIR MURDER

Police trying to piece together Kadir’s identity A week after his arrest in the Zubair Ahmed murder case, undocumented foreign national Abuubaida Kadir’s origins and personal history remained a mystery to investigators.

No foreign embassy has yet sought to provide him with consular assistance. The Detective Branch (DB) of police says it is searching for clues about his nationality and travel history to Bangladesh.

Kadir’s own statements to the police have been contradictory. He sometimes claims to have arrived here 12 years ago and at other times says he came 10 years ago.

He bought a cell phone here by providing his personal information as a Bangladeshi, Abdul Ahad, DB additional deputy commissioner (ADC), told the Dhaka Tribune yesterday.

“In addition to contacting different embassies, we are seeking Special

The Public Administration Ministry has finally issued show-cause notices to four high-ranked bureaucrats who had acquired freedom fighters certificates by giving false information.

3 | News

After six years of the previous hike, the ruling Awami League-led government has now planned to increase prices of gas for all types of consumers, significantly at household level, with a view to reducing wastage.

Branch (SB) assistance to determine how and when he entered into the country,” he said.

Ahad said contact had been made with the Algerian embassy in Pakistan, which also handles Bangladesh, in order to verify Kadir’s identity.

Bangladeshi investigators hope to be provided with a thorough biography of the suspect if he is, in fact, Algerian because their compulsory military service would likely keep thorough personnel records, Ahad said.

In addition to determining his nationality, investigators sought information about his finances, his entry into the country and his work history during his stay in Bangladesh, the DB official said.

Kadir’s statements about his work and place of residence also raised questions, said Ahad. Kadir changed his address quite often, he said The suspect gave investigators the  PAGE 2 COLUMN 1

Abdul Latif Siddique’s return to Bangladesh uncertain n Tribune Report

Dismissed posts, telecommunication and IT minister and terminated Awami League presidium member Abdul Latif Siddique said yesterday that he wanted to come back to Bangladesh but was waiting for the party’s decision.

In an interview with the BBC on Monday evening, Latif, who is now in Kolkata, India, said he wanted to

stay in India until he returned.

Here are the highlights of that interview.

BBC: What is your reaction to the decision to dismiss you from the government and the party?

Latif: My reaction is positive. Because I belong to a party. It has its own disciplines and regulations. My leader thought I breached the disciplines and regulations. That was why the leader

made a decision as the party’s highest forum. So, there is no reason to give negative reaction to that. This party made me a minister...Now if she or her colleagues think that I do not qualify anymore, then that is not a crime in majority democracy.

BBC: Do you think that you have been done injustice to?

Latif: No, no. Rather I repent for embarrassing my party and my leader.

BBC: Do you repent anything else?

Latif: No. I do not repent anything else. I embarrassed my leader. She relied on me; I hurt her feelings.

BBC: But do you repent anything you said?

Latif: Let me say it again...I have a little penance that there is not a single journalist or a human being in this world who mentioned that I had told those things during a chitchat; not in a

8 | World

12 | Entertainment

INSIDE 2 | News

 PAGE 2 COLUMN 4

SYED ZAKIR HOSSAIN

n Mohammad Jamil Khan

MAI, DT INFOGRAPH

n Aminur Rahman Rasel

Despite the exponential rise of the Ebola threat worldwide, Bangladesh is still at a low risk of facing an outbreak, authorities concerned have claimed.

However, the situation might be of great concern if any Ebola patient was found in neighbouring India, said Dr Mahmudur Rahman, director of Institute of Epidemiology Disease Control and Research (IEDCR).

His comments came only days after the World Health Organisation warned that Ebola was now “entrenched and accelerating” in west Africa, while the first death of a patient outside the African continent was also recorded in the US. Bangladesh government has so far claimed that the country has adequate safeguards in place to prevent a local outbreak of the deadly disease, which is currently killing between 50% and 60% of people infected in west Africa.

The IEDCR laboratory has the capacity to primarily identify an Ebola patient, institute’s Director Dr Mahmudur said, but he added that the identified samples would also need to be sent

The government is set appoint a South Korean company as the construction supervision consultant (CSE) for main bridge and river training of the muchtalked-about Padma Bridge at a cost of Tk383.15 crore.

The appointment of Korean Expressway Corporation for the project was authorised after a proposal from the Bridges Division under the Ministry of Communications was approved by the cabinet committee on public purchase yesterday.

After the cabinet committee meeting, Commerce Minister Tofail Ahmed, also the alternative chairman of the committee, told the media: “We gave our consent to the proposal for appointing the foreign company for constructing the main Padma bridge and river training.”

He also said the Ministry of Communications will immediately sign an agreement with the Korean firm to start the main work of the Padma bridge.

Sources at the ministry told the Dhaka Tribune that the Bridges Division had already implemented around 25% of the project as of September this year by awarding work orders to different consultants and contractors for the four key components of the Padma bridge.

The government has already allocated Tk8,100 crore for its fast-track Padma bridge project in the budget for the current fiscal year.

On September 10, the government

4 | News

The Health Ministry is going to finalise the draft of the private medical and dental colleg e establishment act 2014 soon. A meeting to finalise the draft is expected to be held at the ministry today.

6 | Nation

Educated youths in Khulna’s Dumuria upazila have taken to farming, breaking stereotypes about farming not being prestigious for educated youth to take up as an occupation.

5 | News

When the Hatirjheel project was first opened for public in January 2013, life became very easy for private jobholder Nurun Nahar, a resident of Banasree in the capital’s Rampura.

The Iraqi army has withdrawn from its last base in the city of Hit in Anbar province following weeks of fighting with the ISIL, leaving the group in full control, security sources have said.

Actress Quzi Nawshaba Ahmed has recently landed her first major movie role having appeared in minor roles in three films previously. The film – ‘Pratiruddho’ – will also star newcomer Amit Sinha.

meeting, or a forum, or in front of a microphone. Without knowing whatever I said in that chitchat – not knowing the entire speech – depending on a partial presentation that could be distorted, irrelevant...Nobody wanted to have the full version...I take full responsibility for my words. I spoke for one and a half hours. Find out the tape of that 1.5hour speech. I take all the responsibility  PAGE 2 COLUMN 2

2

DHAKA TRIBUNE

News

Tuesday, October 14, 2014

Nepalese FM hopes for signing of Saarc Motor Vehicle Agreement n Tribune Report

CERTIFICATE FORGERY

Four high officials served show-cause notices n Mohosinul Karim The Public Administration Ministry has finally issued show-cause notices to four high-ranked bureaucrats who had acquired freedom fighters certificates by giving false information.

Their fake certificates were cancelled on September 14.

The secretaries were asked to explain within 10 days why departmental action should not be taken against them,

Liberation War Affairs Ministry cancelled the four certificates after recommendations of ACC Public Administration Ministry's Senior Secretary Kamal Abdul Naser Chowdhury told the Dhaka Tribune yesterday.

The officials are Health Secretary Neaz Uddin Mia, Public Service Commission Secretary AKM Amir Hossain, and former liberation war affairs secretary (now OSD) KH Masud Siddiqui and former joint secretary Abul Kashem Talukder (now OSD).

The Liberation War Affairs Ministry

Kadir’s identity  PAGE 1 COLUMN 6

names of some of his students, telling police that he tutored them in Arabic, French and English and also taught them football. Police believe Kadir worked for a number of educational institutions in Uttara but this is yet to be confirmed, he said.

Asked whether Zubair was Kadir’s only victim, the ADC said police had recovered texts and chat histories with teenagers from Kadir’s Facebook. “We have received several complaints but cannot say anything for certain until we find proof,” he said.

Sirajul Islam Khan, a friend of Zubair, who has known Kadir for the last 10 years, told the Dhaka Tribune that he was always unclear about where Kadir lived. He said Kadir claimed at various times to live in sector 8, sector 6 and sometimes sector 7 of Uttara.

Police said Kadir’s last residence was at house 8, road 2, sector 6 of Uttara. He lived there in a single rented room on the top floor of the house.

Fabiha Saiza, a close friend of Zubair, told the Dhaka Tribune that Zubair often talked about Kadir and all of his comments were positive. He never said anything negative about Kadir and did not tolerate any negative words against Kadir. She said she thought Kadir lived somewhere in Uttara sector 6.

Kadir, 46, a self-styled soccer coach and freelance foreign language tutor arrested on October 6 on the charge of murdering O-level student Zubair Ahmed, is on a four-day remand.

On Sunday, the DB said Kadir killed Zubair in an Uttara pond after attempting to sexually assault him. The key DB witness, a 17-year-old boy who says he witnessed the murder, was in remand until yesterday. He will be placed in court today where he may give a confessional statement to the court, police sources said. l

has already cancelled fake certificates of around 250 persons including the four bureaucrats. The procedure of cancelling 400 more fake certificates is under way.

On September 14, the ministry also withheld the freedom fighter certificate of former senior secretary to the prime minister’s office Molla Waheduzzaman, now chairman of the Privatisation Commission. He was allowed to appeal against the decision.

Kamal said they had not taken any steps against Wahed since he was not serving as a regular public servant.

“The ministry will request the Cabinet Division to take action against him as it is the discretion of the prime minister to remove a person serving on contractual appointment,” he told the Dhaka Tribune.

Earlier, Liberation War Affairs Minister AKM Mozammel Haq told the Dhaka Tribune that they would take tough action against the officials of the ministry and the National Council of Freedom Fighters for their involvement in the forgery of freedom fighter certificates.

His ministry cancelled the four certificates following recommendations of the Anti-Corruption Commission. The ACC also requested the Public Administration Ministry to take departmental action against the officials. l

A man lights a cigarette standing alarmingly close to unguarded fuel oil-laden trucks at the Rajshahi Railway Station

Body recovered from city hotel n Tribune Report

Ex JaPa lawmaker Jabbar and his son sued

Police yesterday recovered a body of a 40-year-old man from a residential hotel in the capital's Gulshan 2 area.

The body of Nazrul Islam was found – his hands and legs tied up – in a room on the sixth floor of Hotel Amri around 8pm.

“We have been only identify him by a National ID card he was carrying with. Hotel staffs informed us about the body,” Rafiqul Islam, officer-incharge of Gulshan police station, told the Dhaka Tribune.

A team of the Criminal Investigation Department was also called in to collect evidence from the crime scene. l

n Tribune Report

Abdul Latif Siddique’s return to Bangladesh uncertain  PAGE 1 COLUMN 6

for that. If I am sentenced to death for that, I will accept it.

BBC: Considering the situation, what will now be you next step? Are you coming back to the country?

Latif: I am interested in coming back home. Because I have worked for the independence of this country. I have worked for the development of this country. But the context is such now that I do not know what to do. Because I am not sure whether my return will embarrass my leader. I am in a psychological crisis. I will enter the country on first chance. Then I will face the situation.

BBC: Have you tried to contact the leader of the party?

Latif: You mean Sheikh Hasina? No I have not.

BBC: So you want them to tell you to come back?

Latif: No, I do not want that. They will decide what they will do.

BBC: If you cannot go back to the country in near future, if your party gives you a signal for not returning...

You are still an MP. Have you decided where you will stay?

Latif: No no.

BBC: Will you stay in India?

Latif: I cannot live in Europe-America. That is why I have come to Kolkata.

I want to live close to the soil. I love the wet smell of soil...I am a very normal human being brother.

BBC: Will you be able to stay in India? Any gesture from the Indian government...

Latif: If India does not allow me...

If that is right now...I will not say anything about that. Time will tell in the future. Time will make the decision. I will not say anything right now. l

due to lack of government subsidy in the wake of the increasing fuel costs for power production,” PDB Chairman MD Abduhu Ruhullah said.

At present, 20% of the electricity is produced from fuel such as diesel and furnace oil, while the rest is generated from import, gas, coal and water.

Professor Samsul Alam, adviser to the Consumers Association of Bangladesh, told the Dhaka Tribune yesterday that due to corruption in the gas sector, the power sector does not get adequate gas which is actually the reason for shortage of gas in producing power.

“Before the government raised electricity tariff in March, it said power pro-

Five years later, in 2012-13, the BR carried 62.6 million passengers – around 2.4 million less – on 329 trains with 281 locomotives and 1,489 coaches.

A standard locomotive can drag up to 22 coaches without additional fuel cost. But there are instances that the BR operates trains with as few as two to three coaches which is a massive under-utilisation of resources.

For example, local train Isa Kha runs on the Dhaka-Mymensingh route with two or three coaches and the Kalni Express, which was introduced on the Dhaka-Sylhet-Dhaka route, moves with just five coaches.

“The new trains were introduced for meeting people’s demands for more trains; these have been serving the passengers well,” Railways Minister Mazibul Haque told the Dhaka Tribune recently.

Asked if he knew that some trains had been running with just three coaches, the minister said: “I do not want to contest [your claim]. If it is true, then it is unacceptable and unfortunate for us.

This is basically a wastage of money.”

Former joint DG of BR Wahab said running a train with maximum 22 coaches was better than running two

Korean firm gets Padma bridge  PAGE 1 COLUMN 6

awarded river training work to Chinese company Sinohydro.

On June 17, it signed an agreement with a Chinese firm, China Major Bridge Engineering Company, for the construction of around 6.15-kilometre main part of the Padma bridge, which is set to start by November this year and end by 2018.

Because of a three-year delay for alleged corruption which was raised by the World Bank, the cost of the project, to be implemented solely with government funding, would increase by around Tk4,000 crore from the current estimate of Tk20,507 crore, said officials of Bridges Division that now aims to complete the long-awaited project by 2018, three years behind the original schedule. l

BULK POWER TARIFF Existing bulk power tariff (per unit) Tk4.70

Proposed bulk power tariff Tk5.51

duction would go up by 20% but that did not happen,” he said.

The PDB purchases power from rental and IPP power plants, Electricity Generation Company of Bangladesh Ltd and Ashuganj Power Station Company Ltd. It then sells to bulk consumers – Dhaka Power Distribution Company Ltd, Dhaka Electric Supply Company Ltd, Rural Electrification Board - and also to

More bleeding on the cards for railway  PAGE 1 COLUMN 1

The Anti-Corruption Commission yesterday filed cases against former Jatiya Party lawmaker from Satkhira 2 constituency M Abdul Jabbar and his son Mahbub Hossain on charges of accumulating illegal wealth beyond their known sources of income.

ACC Assistant Director M Masudur Rahman lodged two cases against the duo with Ramna police station.

According to primary inquiry, the duo accumulated illegal wealth worth Tk2 crore and concealed the informa-

PDB proposes 18.12% bulk power tariff hike  PAGE 1 COLUMN 1

trains with 10 coaches each.

The railway’s latest addition – the Kishoreganj Express on Dhaka-Kishoreganj-Dhaka route – came just a couple of months ago.

Case study

Before the launch of Kalni Express in May 2012, Bangladesh Railway used to operate three trains on the Dhaka-Sylhet route – Joyontika Express at 8:20am, Parabat at 3pm and Upobon at 10pm, all from Sylhet.

As per instructions of the then railways minister, the new inter-city service Kalni was launched, cutting compartments from other trains including the three existing ones on the route.

The BR’s timetables – the mandatory detailed guidelines for train operation – prove how the new trains were created by reducing compartments from the existing ones.

The 48th timetable that came into effect on April 1, 2012, stipulates that the Joyontika, Parabat and Upobon trains will run with 16, 15 and 16 compartments respectively.

The 49th timetable, enforced on July 10, 2013, granted 14 coaches each to Joyontika, Parabat and Upobon and

AZAHAR UDDIN

13 to Kalni. The 50th timetable, which is currently in effect, further reduced the number of coaches for Joyontika, Parabat and Upobon to 13 each and nine for Kalni as more new trains such as the Kishoreganj Express had been made operative as per the minister’s “desire.”

Kalni’s impact

Most passengers on the Sylhet-Dhaka route reportedly prefer Joyontika, which starts at 8:20am, over the 6:40am Kalni because of the more convenient timing.

In April 2012 – a month before the launch of Kalni – Joyontika carried 26,160 passengers. In August 2014, the Joyontika carried 24,009 passengers while Kalni carried 11,662 passengers.

“What happened in the case of Kalni and Joyontika is that the passengers, who failed to get tickets for Joyontika, travelled on Kalni,” said Abdul Wahab, who had been involved with train operation for three decades.

One standard locomotive consumes at least 900 litres of diesel to run the 247km distance between Dhaka and Sylhet and it can run up to 22 coaches without burning additional fuel.

Increase in Tk Tk0.81

Increase in percent 18.12%

retail consumers in its own distribution regions at the price fixed by the BERC. On march 14 this year, the BERC increased retail power tariff by 6.96% per unit on an average, with the price rising from Tk5.75 to Tk6.15.

This was the first hike in power prices since the Awami League government took office in January this year.

Proposed to be made effective from January 1, 2015. l

“If the Kalni compartments are fitted with the Joyontika engine, the number of passengers will remain the same with half the fuel cost and human resources,” Wahab said.

So, the Joyontika Express, which now pulls 13 coaches, can easily accommodate the entire Kalni Express, which currently has six coaches.

“I think most passengers would prefer Joyontika Express to Kalni if they are asked which train they would choose to travel that early in the morning. This is because, many passengers would not be interested in waking up at 5 o’clock in the morning to catch the 6:40am Kalni; rather they would go for Joyontika [that starts at 8:20],” Prof AKM Mahbubuzzaman, a teacher of the Shahjalal University of Science and Technology in Sylhet, told the Dhaka Tribune.

He, however, said the authorities should take some measures to make the Kalni Express popular by fitting more coaches.

“We understand the problem, but we cannot withdraw Kalni as it would anger the local people,” Khairul Bashir, manager of the Kamalapur Railway Station in the capital, told the Dhaka Tribune. l

tion in the wealth statements they had submitted to the ACC, Deputy Director Pranab Kumer Bhattacharya told the Dhaka Tribune.

The case statement reads that Jabbar accumulated illegal wealth of over Tk1.73 crore while his son over Tk19 lakh. If found guilty, the accused would have to face maximum 10 years’ imprisonment.

In January, the ACC launched inquiry into the phenomenal rise in wealth and assets of three former ministers, three parliament members, and three former lawmakers of the BNP, Awami League and Jatiya Party. l

Nepalese Foreign Minister Mahindra Bahadur Pandey yesterday expressed his hope that Saarc Motor Vehicle Agreement and Railway Agreement would be signed in the 18th Saarc summit to be held on November 26 and 27 in Kathmandu.

“We expect that agreements can be signed,” he told the Dhaka Tribune after a meeting with his Bangladesh counterpart AH Mahmood Ali at the Foreign Ministry yesterday.

Pandey came to Dhaka on Sunday to invite Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to attend the upcoming Saarc summit.

High officials of the member countries had agreed on the texts of the two agreements at an intergovernmental meeting held in New Delhi recently and all members would now assess the deals to take their final stance, he said.

The communications ministers of the Saarc countries are likely to sit before the Saarc summit and finalise the agreements, he said.

The Nepalese minister said land connectivity, climate change, poverty alleviation, sharing of energy in the Saarc region, and promotion of tourism and trade are the main issues to be discussed in the summit.

He said since inception, many things had been agreed in the summit meeting but most of them were not implemented. l

Ebola risk ‘still low’ in Bangladesh  PAGE 1 COLUMN 4

vigilance and screening at ports. As part of an ongoing countrywide 90day Ebola alert, screening centres and health desks have been set up at 25 ports, including three international airports and two seaports.

However, six Bangladeshis returning from Liberia reportedly managed to pass through the Dhaka airport on October 9 without being screened for the symptoms of the virus. Following media reports on the slip-up, letters were sent to those six individuals, requesting them to report to the airport for a health check-up, said Shakhawat Hossain, sub-inspector of Shahjalal International Airport’s immigration department.

Close monitoring of suspected patients

Currently, 123 Bangladeshi and foreign nationals who had recently arrived in Bangladesh from an epidemic-hit country were being closely monitored by health officials, Dr Be-Nazir told the Dhaka Tribune.

There is no direct flight service between Bangladesh and the major Ebola-affected countries – Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea. Most of the travellers from these countries arrive in Bangladesh via the Middle East or other countries.

Most travellers under observation have so far entered the country through the Dhaka airport, while one entered through the Chittagong airport and around seven people through Benapole.

Among those currently being monitored, around 25 people were health workers of Brac who had been stationed in the Ebola-affected countries until they were called back because of the Ebola threat.

Around 70 others who arrived from west African countries have also passed their observation period without showing any signs of being infected.

The initial symptoms of Ebola include a sudden fever, intense weakness, muscle pain and a sore throat.

The infected patient eventually suffers from vomiting, diarrhoea and in some cases both internal and external bleeding. Ebola is spread through contact and exchange of bodily fluids.

Meanwhile, 425 Bangladeshi army personnel currently stationed in Liberia as UN peacekeepers continue to be in good health with none showing any symptoms of being infected, said Maj Gen Abul Kalam Azad, director general of the Directorate General of Medical Services.

“We are getting news from them every day through email and SMS. We had provided them with personal protective equipment from Bangladesh and they also get PPE from the UN mission. There is nothing to be worried about,” he added.

Local preparations

When passengers arrive in Bangladesh from African countries, immigration officials send them to the entry port’s health desk where health officials check them for symptoms of Ebola before collecting their contact information. If they show no signs of infection, the passen-

gers are allowed to leave; but officials concerned monitor their physical conditions for the next 21 days – the maximum incubation period of the virus – by contacting the passengers over phone.

Dr Be-Nazir Ahmed said they were focusing on three issues: identification of Ebola patients through screening, isolation and management of the patients, and arranging rapid response for potential outbreaks.

Health directorate officials said 15 isolation wards at district hospitals near the ports have been kept ready to provide treatment if any suspected Ebola patient was found. A 20-bed specialised ward is also set to be opened soon at the Kurmitola General Hospital in the capital.

Officials said 3,167 personnel – doctors, nurses and sanitary inspectors who work at the health desks at the ports – have been provided specialised training on Ebola detection, management and handling.

A senior official of the health directorate, seeking anonymity, however, said it was “nearly impossible” to properly screen all international passengers at the airports; so, the risk of anyone carrying the virus from a country other than the affected African nations and entering Bangladesh would always remain.

Even developed countries like the US and Spain were unable to prevent Ebola-infected persons from entering their countries, the official pointed out.

Health Minister Mohammed Nasim on Sunday directed all officials concerned to strengthen vigilance and preparation for preventing an Ebola outbreak.

Mentioning that even countries like the US had found Ebola patients entering their country, the minister urged all to be more sincere in screening travellers from the endemic-hit countries.

During an inter-ministerial meeting on the Ebola situation, Nasim also questioned health officials on how a few passengers from the Ebola-hit countries had managed to slip through the airport without screening.

Global situation

The latest Ebola outbreak, which has so far killed more than all other known Ebola outbreaks combined, was first reported in March this year.

As of October 8, the latest Ebola outbreak has claimed the lives of at least 4,033 people in five countries – Liberia, Guinea, Sierra Leone, Nigeria and the United States. The total number of reported cases is over 8,300.

The WHO has also warned that there could be as many as 20,000 cases by November unless strong measures were taken to contain the disease. As a worstcase scenario, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has predicted that the number of cases globally could mount to 1.4 million by January.

The worldwide battle to stem the outbreak was dealt with a blow when it was announced on Sunday that a Texas health care worker had tested positive for the deadly fever, the first known transmission of Ebola on US soil. The UK government’s chief medical officer has also warned that the country should expect “a handful” of people to fall ill with the disease in coming months. l

DHAKA TRIBUNE

News

3

Tuesday, October 14, 2014

Gas price hike proposed to cut wastage Bangladesh performs n Aminur Rahman Rasel After six years of the previous hike, the ruling Awami League-led government has now planned to increase prices of gas for all types of consumers, significantly at household level, with a view to reducing wastage.

State-owned Petrobangla has proposed proportionately lower hike for industrial and commercial users (around 30%) than for the households (over 122%) since it wants to give the business entities a breathing space.

Petrobangla Chairman Hossain Monsur thinks gas wastage has been increasing at an alarming level due to its low price. It is resulting in huge revenue loss for the government.

He, however, could not give any estimation of the wastage.

Monsur also claimed that the gas distribution companies were not making any profit since the prices had not been increased in the last six years.

“We will soon send a proposal to the Bangladesh Energy Regulatory Commission (BERC) to increase gas prices,” he told the Dhaka Tribune.

“Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has recently approved a proposal of the Energy Ministry in this regard. The BERC, after scrutinising the proposal, will hold an open meeting and then a public hearing before giving a decision,” he said.

“The readjustment has not been

proposed for a longer period of time,” he added.

Another reason behind the hike at household level is to reduce the gap of prices between pipeline gas and liquefied petroleum gas (LPG).

Currently, a pipeline consumer pays Tk450 per month for a double burner while an LPG cylinder costs around Tk1,400 to Tk1,500.

Regarding the proposed hike at commercial and industrial levels, he said: “Gas is being used in bulk amount for commercial purpose where a small change in the price leaves big impact on the businesses.”

Gas prices were increased last time in November 2008. After coming to power in 2009, the Awami League-led government increased only the price of CNG several times.

Monsur said the distribution companies were facing loss since the prices had not been increased in the last six years. “Salary and wages of Petrobangla officials and employees increased in the last six years but our revenue from gas sale did not increase,” he said.

“Moreover, Petrobangla has to undertake several projects from its own finance as it received approval for less projects than demanded under the Annual Development Programme (ADP),” he said.

A substantial portion of the sale goes to the Gas Development Fund (GDF).

At present, the fund has about Tk4,300 crore under which 13 projects worth Tk3,700 crore are under way.

Meanwhile, Petrobangla has to pay the international oil companies more than before for each unit gas as they have increased production by 2-3% in the past two years.

Monsur claimed that the gas distribution companies were not making any profit since the prices had not been increased in the last six years “In addition, the costs go up due to appreciation of dollar,” he said. Petrobangla pays the IOCs in dollar.

The state-owned body also has to pay the corporate taxes of the IOCs at a rate of 37.5%, he said.

According to the Petrobangla proposal, domestic users will have to pay Tk1,000 instead of Tk450 for each double burner – a hike of 122.22%. For single burner, the new rate has been proposed Tk850 up from Tk400 a month.

It is 112.5% higher than the previous price.

Consumers using meter-based

burners will have to pay Tk235 instead of Tk146.25 per month – a 60.68% increase from the previous price.

The second highest hike (102.94%) has been proposed for captive powers (privately-owned smaller power plants) – Tk240 from Tk118 for 1,000 cubic feet of gas.

Tariff for power plants has been proposed Tk84 for every 1,000 cubic feet of gas (5.24% rise). The price was earlier Tk79.82.

The fertiliser companies will have to pay Tk80 from Tk72.92 (9.71%) while industrial users Tk220 from Tk165.91 (32.60%).

According to the proposal, prices of gas will be Tk350 from Tk268.09 (30.55%) for commercial users, Tk200 from Tk165.91 (20.55%) for tea gardens, Tk905.92 from Tk651.29 (39.10%) for CNG refuelling stations and Tk1,132.67 from Tk849.50 (33%) for CNG at consumer level.

Petrobangla would urge the BERC to make the new rates effective from November 1.

“I do not think the price should be increased. It will only benefit the officials of the distribution companies who are already facing allegations of corruption,” Prof Samsul Alam, adviser of the Consumers Association of Bangladesh, told the Dhaka Tribune yesterday.

“The price hike will increase the amount of bribes they receive from every illegal connection,” he observed. l

better in Global Hunger Index n Tribune Report Bangladesh has stepped up one point in 2014 Global Hunger Index, showing a significant improvement in hunger levels along with nine other countries.

According to the GHI released on Monday by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), Welthungerhilfe, and Concern Worldwide, Bangladesh has ranked 57. In the 2013 GHI, Bangladesh was ranked 58.

Bangladesh’s GHI index score of 19.1 was equal to Pakistan and better than India’s 17.8, Nepal’s 16.4 and Sri Lanka’s 15.1.

Angola, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Chad, Ghana, Malawi, Niger, Rwanda, Thailand, and Vietnam had seen the greatest improvements between 1990 and 2014, the GHI said.

It examined levels of hunger in 120 developing countries and countries in transition and scored them based on three equally weighted indicators: the proportion of undernourished people, the proportion of underweight children less than five years old, and the mortality rate of children under five.

This “hidden hunger” - the focus of the report’s main essay – is often hard to

PADMA WATER TREATMENT

NARAYANGANJ 7-MURDER

Proposal to award contract to Chinese firm approved n Tribune Report

Jail authority served show-cause notice n Tribune Report

The cabinet committee on public purchase yesterday approved a proposal from the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development for selecting Chinese contractor M/S CMC Engineering Company Limited to set up a water treatment plant at Munshiganj at a cost of Tk3,508 crore.

Cabinet Division Joint Secretary Md Maksudul Rahman Patwary confirmed the committee approval for the LGRD proposal to the media.

Commerce secretary Tofail Ahmed presided over the cabinet committee meeting.

According to the proposal, Chinese Exim Bank will provide Tk2,042.36 crore at 2% interest rate while remaining amount of the project will be funded from the national exchequer. The project is expected to be completed by June 2016.

Once completed, the plant will add some 450 liters per day from the Padma River to Dhaka Water Supply & Sewerage Authority’s (Wasa) supply network. Wasa is currently supplying 2,000 million litres per day water against a demand of 2,200 million litres per day in the capital, proposal said .

The proposal also selected Jashaldia (Louhajang) in Munshiganj for setting up the water treatment plant. l

Piash Karim dies; protests set at Shaheed Minar n Tribune Report Brac University teacher Prof Piash Karim died of cardiac arrest at a city hospital yesterday in his late fifties.

He was taken to the Square Hospital after he had fallen ill at his Dhanmondi residence early yesterday. He died at the hospital around 5:30am.

The body has been kept at the hospital mortuary. His namaz-e-janaza will be held at Baitul Mukarram National Mosque today.

Family members said the body would be kept at the Central Shaheed Minar at 11am today for people to pay homage. However, the Dhaka University Authorities have said they had not got any application for that.

Meanwhile, several organisationss includin Chhatra League, Chhatra Moitree and JSD Chhatra League have announced programmes to resist the move labelling him as a man against the spirit of the 1971 Liberation War. They said his father and grandfather were leaders of a peace committee in 1971.

Considering the protests, “the authorities may not give the permission,” said DU Proctor Amzad Ali. BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia and her son Tarique Rahman conveyed condolence at the sudden demise. l

detect, but is potentially devastating. It weakens the immune system, stunts physical and intellectual growth, and can lead to death. It wreaks economic havoc as well, locking countries into cycles of poor nutrition, lost productivity, poverty, and reduced economic growth.

The good news in this year’s GHI is that the number of people going hungry has steadily decreased in most developing countries. Since 1990, hunger in the developing world has fallen by 39%, and 26 countries have reduced their scores by 50% or more.

The bad news is that the levels of hunger are still “alarming” in 14 countries, and “extremely alarming” in two, Burundi and Eritrea, it said. It said several Southeast Asian and South Asian countries showed dramatically improved scores since 1990, including Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, and Bangladesh.

In Bangladesh, an active NGO sector and public transfer programs helped reduce child under-nutrition among the poorest and improved the GHI score, the report said. Bangladesh regularly monitors children’s nutritional status and has cut back underweight in children from 62% in 1990 to 37% in 2011, it added. l

Begum Sufia, 40, every day collects tiffin carriers from different households in Keraniganj and delivers them to the receivers on the other side of the Buriganga River in Chawkbazar area. The culture of delivering lunch boxes in offices is still prevalent in some parts of the Old Dhaka MAHMUD HOSSAIN OPU

Bhashantek slaying sets off police station reshuffle n Tazlina Zamila Khan Police have made no arrests four days after Md Nasir Hossain was beaten to death with metal pipes, despite claims by the dead man’s family that the murder suspects were roaming the streets in broad daylight.

Conflicting accounts of the murder and a widespread sense that some police officials may have had improper ties to the suspects has brought a serious reshuffle to Bhashantek police station.

Bhashantek police station inspector (investigation) Golam Nabi was closed

by Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP) Commissioner Benazir Ahmed. The order came to Md Nisarul Arif, police deputy commissioner of Mirpur zone, around 7:40pm yesterday.

Arif said the officer was closed for administrative reasons.

A high official of the police station, seeking anonymity, told the Dhaka Tribune that the inspector had been closed because of allegations of his connections to the prime suspects in the case.

Mosharraf Hossain, the murdered man’s brother, told the Dhaka Tribune: “We are being threatened continuously over the telephone and are living in fear. I have sent a letter to deputy com-

missioner, Md Nisarul Arif, to request the proper investigation of the case.”

The Mirpur police deputy commissioner said: “We have formed a three-member probe committee with two assistant commissioners and one additional deputy commissioner.

They will submit a report as soon as possible. Last night, some 19 officials of the Bhashantek police station were suspended.”

‘Police have a good relationship with Bablu and Mamun. That is the reason why they have not been arrested yet’ He added: “They were suspended for not acting properly to ensure public safety.”

Investigators have offered different accounts of why Nasir was murdered over the course of their investigation.

Initially it was said he had died heroically defending his cousin Laboni from her eve-teasing tormentors. This version was scuttled when Laboni herself denied she had been harassed.

Then it was alleged that Nasir, with criminal ties of his own, had exchanged

hot words with neighbourhood ruffians over the beating of Laboni’s husband, Sohag, and was beaten to death in revenge for the quarrel. This too was disputed by Laboni and Sohag.

The most recent version of the motive for murder is that Nasir was a listed criminal on the run who had a falling out with his erstwhile drug-business partners, Bablu and Mamun, and was killed in connection with an underworld deal gone sour. In this version of events, the murdered man is said to go by the alias SK Nasir.

The father-in-law of Nasir’s cousin Laboni, Mohammad Abdur Razzak, told the Dhaka Tribune: “Police have a good relationship with Bablu and Mamun. That is the reason why they have not been arrested yet.”

Sub-Inspector (SI) Md Jahir Royhan is the newly-appointed investigation officer of the case.

He told the Dhaka Tribune: “No one has been arrested yet. But we are interrogating people.” He denied the police had been lax in tracking down the murder suspects.

The former investigation officer of the case, SI Anisur Rahman, was suspended last night. The deputy commissioner said he had been suspended because of alleged links to the murder suspects. l

A Narayanganj court has served a show-cause notice to Dhaka central jail authority for not producing former RAB officer Tarek Sayeed before the court in the seven-murder case.

Narayanganj Session Judicial Magistrate KM Mohiuddin issued the notice yesterday afternoon. The court also ordered all the arrestees in the case to appear before it on December 1.

District Lawyers’ Association President Advocate Shakhawat Hossain yesterday said: “All the arrestees were scheduled to appear before the court today. 21 out of the 24 came.”

He said one of the remaining three was absent because of illness while another arrestee Ruhul Amin was on remand. “However, the jail authority did not say anything about Tarek’s absence.”

Md Neasar Alam, jailer of Dhaka central jail, told the Dhaka tribune: “We saw it on television news that a showcause notice has been issued but we have not got any formal documents.”

The jailer said Tarek did not appear in court as he was sick.

“He is suffering from fever and diarrhoea. We failed to submit the written document regarding his illness to the court because the man carrying it was stuck in traffic jam and could not make it to the court on time,” he said.

Seven people, including the panel mayor of Narayanganj City Corporation, were abducted on April 27.

Their bodies were recovered from the Shitalakhya River on April 30. l

ZIA ORPHANAGE, CHARITABLE TRUST GRAFT CASES

Court asks Khaleda to appear on October 26 n Md Sanaul Islam Tipu A Dhaka court yesterday asked BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia to appear before the court on October 26 for the Zia Orphanage and Zia Charitable Trust graft cases.

Dhaka Special Judge’s Court-3 Judge Basudev Roy passed the order after hearing on petitions filed by the defence counsel seeking adjournment of the trial proceeding in the cases.

Although yesterday was the scheduled date for recording deposition against Khaleda and others accused in the cases, the defence counsel filed two petitions – one for adjournment of recording deposition and another for Khaleda as she could not appeared before the court on the day.

After the hearing, the court granted the plea filed for Khaleda but it rejected adjournment petition. Later, the court deferred the trial proceeding until October 26 asking Khaleda to appear before the it on that day.

In the plea for Khaleda, defence stated that ‘the former prime minister could not appear in the court considering security and political circumstances.’

In the adjournment petition, Khale-

da’s counsels said the proceedings should be adjourned as two petitions filed by Khaleda regarding legality of the framing of charges against her in the cases “without following the due process of law” were pending with the Appellate Division.

‘The matter is to be heard by the Chamber Judge on October 14,’ defence counsel Khandakar Mahabub Hossain told the court.

He also argued that since the matters were pending, the special judge had no legal right to record the witness until the matters were disposed off by the higher court.

However, Anti Corruption Commission (ACC) acting chief prosecutor Musharraf Hossain Kajal argued that the trial court could record the deposition of the witness since no document stating barrier from the higher court was produced in the court.

Earlier on September 22, trial against Khaleda Zia, her elder son Tarique Rahman and others begun in the cases filed by the ACC. The court partly recorded the deposition of the plaintiff, ACC Deputy Director Harun-ur-Rashid, in the case filed for misappropriating the fund of Zia Orphanage Trust. l

4

DHAKA TRIBUNE

News

Tuesday, October 14, 2014

Private medical college act Cabinet okays amendment draft trademarks act draft to be finalised soon of n Health Ministry sought opinion on the draft from stakeholders The policy also suggests that a medmented fast considering the gradual n Moniruzzaman Uzzal rise in the number of private medical ical or dental college, after obtaining The Health Ministry is going to finalise the draft of the private medical and dental college establishment act 2014 soon.

A meeting to finalise the draft is expected to be held at the ministry today, with Ayubur Rahman, additional secretary (medical education and development), in the chair.

The ministry had earlier sought opinions from different ministries and stakeholders regarding the draft act.

Motiur Rahman, joint secretary (medical education) of the Health Ministry, told the Dhaka Tribune yesterday efforts were underway to finalise the act soon but no specific date to table it in the parliament was set yet.

“There are steps needed to be taken before the act makes its way to the House,” he said.

Dr ZH Basunia, registrar of Bangladesh Medical and Dental Council (BMDC), said the act should be imple-

and dental institutions.

“The act will ensure that the standard of medical education is maintained at all the private institutions,” he said.

At present, the number of private medical colleges stands at 55 with 4,800 seats and there are 18 dental colleges that have 1,050 seats. No act is currently there to ensure smooth operation of the 73 private institutions and all are run in accordance with a policy.

According to the private medical and dental college establishment policy, a 50-seat medical college applying for approval must have a 250-bed hospital that has been in operation for at least two years, with 75% of the beds occupied at the time of application.

The college must also ensure certain facilities in terms of infrastructure, equipment, number of departments, doctors, nurses, staff and laboratories.

permission, has to ensure adequate accommodation facilities for students in line with the BMDC act.

Several medical education experts told the Dhaka Tribune it is difficult to operate private medical and dental colleges according to the policy. They said the policy has many provisions to follow but the ministry cannot compel the private medical institution owners to do so.

The majority of the private medical and dental colleges do not follow the policy, sources said. If the ministry attempts to take any action, the owners often file lawsuit and take stay order from court.

The first private medical college in the country, Bangladesh Medical College, was established in 1985 in the capital’s Dhanmondi.

From 1985 to 2005, 26 medical colleges received approval, with the rest obtaining it after 2005. l

Students enjoy a splash of rain at the capital’s Hazaribagh yesterday after passing a day of exhausting heat and humidity

One held with 16 gold bars in Tongi n Our Correspondent, Gazipur Police arrested a man with 16 gold bars weighing 1.8 kilograms in the Nimtoli check-post area in Tongi yesterday.

The arrestee is Rasel, 24, son of late Abdus Samad of Narshingdi.

Assistant Sub-Inspector of Tongi police station Abdul Kuddus said: “Acting on a tip-off, police searched car of Rasel, 24, son of late Abdus Samad of Narshingdi, at Nimtoli and arrested him with the gold bars while he was returning from Shahjalal International Airport in the morning.”

The gold bars are worth around Tk70 lakh, added the SI. A case was filed with Tongi police station. l

Mannan Khan’s bail extended n Md Sanaul Islam Tipu A Dhaka court yesterday extended the bail to former state minister for housing and public works Abdul Mannan Khan in a graft case.

Metropolitan Magistrate Md Ataul Haque passed the order after rejecting a bail petition filed by the defence lawyer, seeking permanent bail for the Awami League leader. The court, however, extended the bail until December 9.

On August 26, Anti-Corruption Commission Chairman M Bodiuzzaman said they would file an appeal, seeking cancellation of Mannan’s bail. But the ACC counsel is yet to file any petition with the court against the bail.

ACC counsel Kabir Hossain told the Dhaka Tribune: “We will file a petition

against the bail.”

Earlier on August 24, a Dhaka court granted bail to the former state minister till October 13 after he had surrendered before it in a corruption case.

The court granted him bail, considering his illness and status as a former state minister. The ACC on August 21 filed the case with Ramna police station on charge of amassing illegal wealth and concealing information about it.

The case statement said Mannan concealed information about his property worth Tk4.59 lakh. According to his income tax returns and other related documents, he has movable properties worth Tk96.89 lakh. But his wealth statement submitted to the ACC on March 9 stated that he owned movable properties worth Tk92.30 lakh. l

Six alleged highway robbers held n Tribune Report

Sue Gronewold, a history professor at the Kean University in the US, addresses a disucssion at the Liberation War Museum yesterday RAJIB DHAR

Members of RAB arrested six suspected highway robbers from different areas of Tongi of Gazipur early yesterday for robbing passengers in the name of giving them a ride on their vehicles.

During the drive, the elite force members of police seized a micro bus, a truck, some knives and Tk43,000 from their possession.

The arrested were Alamgir, 33, Moshiur Rahman alias Mosharraf, 29, Sohel Miah, 43, Saddam Hossain, 22, Mushfiqur Rahman, 26, and Lavlu, 27.

RAB 1 Commanding Officer Lt Col Tuhin Md Masud said the six were from a gang that targeted the poor passengers who were desperate for a ride to enter the capital during the dead hours of the nights.

“The gang of the highway robbers demand half of the usual fare from the passengers while some of them also stay in the crowd under the guise of passengers. Once underway, they rob the riders. In some cases they even stabbed some passengers when they put up a fight,” the commander also stated. l

Mohosinul Karim

The cabinet yesterday approved the draft of Trademarks (Amendment) Act 2014, making the provision of disposing trademark related disputes or cases within 360 days instead of 120 days.

The decision was taken at the regular meeting of the cabinet at the secretariat yesterday with Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in the chair.

Cabinet Secretary M Musharraf Hossain Bhuiyan told reporters after the meeting: “The act was given final approval with the condition that the opinion of Law Ministry will have to be taken regarding the matter.”

Previously, the deadline for disposing the disputes or cases under the act was 120 days.

Bhuiyan said: “The existing deadline of disposing the matters is illogical as the officials concerned need to dispose seven important matters to dispose a case or dispute. It is quite impossible for a man to dispose all the matters within 120 days.

“Considering the troubles, the Ministry of Industries tabled the proposal to extend the deadline of disposing the

MEHEDI HASAN

disputes to 360 working days from existing 120 days. The cabinet has given its final approval to the draft. It will be sent to the Law Ministry for its opinion,” he added.

The cabinet also approved four strategies or policies during the period, while 54 summaries were also approved He also said the neighbouring countries did not have any deadline in their respective laws on this regard; but Bangladesh kept the provision to keep pressure on disposing such cases or disputes within the deadline.

The Trademarks Act was first enacted in 1940; the rules for implementing the act were formulated in 1963; the act was later reformed in 2009.

The cabinet also discussed the progress of implementing the cabinet’s decisions that had been taken during the first nine months of the current government. On this regard, the Cabinet Division tabled a quarterly report of the cabinet decisions implementation progress.

The report read that the cabinet had taken 55 decisions in nine meetings during the last three months. Of those, 33 decisions have been implemented already and the rest were being implemented. Progress of implementing the decisions was 60%, the report read.

The cabinet also approved four strategies or policies during the period, while 54 summaries were also approved.

Bhuiyan said: “The cabinet has already given final approval on 13 draft acts during the period, while preparation of 28 drafts of acts is in the process. Nine drafts of acts are pending in the parliament for passage.”

A total of 11 drafts of acts – which were already given approval in principle – were waiting in different ministries for correction or examination.

Those will be placed in the cabinet soon for final approval, he added. l

DHAKA TRIBUNE

News

5

Tuesday, October 14, 2014

Lack of public transport cripples Hatirjheel project Hundreds of commuters wait for private car to drop them to the FDC end of the project

Tk3 crore robbed from G4S office in Chittagong

n Rafe Sadnan Adel

n Tarek Mahmud, Chittagong

When the Hatirjheel project was first opened for public in January 2013, life became very easy for private jobholder Nurun Nahar, a resident of Banasree in the capital's Rampura.

Earlier, she had to travel around the Mouchak and Moghbazar intersections, known for horrible traffic, to go to her Karwan Bazar office every morning on crowded buses.

The project, which she could easily cross on a rickshaw, cut down her travel time from 1-2 hours to just 20-30 minutes.

However, only a few months later, the project was made off limits for rickshaws, making it hard for commuters.

As the authorities did not arrange any public transport for people, who do not own cars and cannot afford CNG-autorickshaw and taxicab rides every day, things were back to square one for them.

Since then, hundreds of commuters, especially from the Rampura area, can be be seen standing every morning in front of the TV centre entrance, waiting for a private car to drop them to the FDC end of the project.

“After Hatijheel was made off limits for rickshaws, there is no other way for us to cross the project to go to Karwan Bazar. If one has the time to wait here, private cars sometimes drop them to the other end in exchange of Tk20. That in fact is the only way out right now,” Nurun Nahar said. “Does it mean that the Hatirjheel project is only meant for the rich?” she inquired.

The project was initially launched by city development authority RAJUK with aims to improve the capital's waterlogging problem and sewerage system, give the city a facelift and more importantly to ease the horrible traffic in the Tajgaon, Gulshan, Badda, Rampura, Mouchak and Moghbazar areas.

Although it is already the biggest ever development project implement-

A total of Tk3 crore was robbed from Chittagong’s Group Four Security (G4S) Services office in the city’s Khulshi area early Sunday. The security agency lodged a case in this regard early yesterday.

Police and agency authorities are suspecting that the theft was done by a staff who has been on the run since the incident.

The agency’s front desk officer Rabiul Hossain and security guard Rafiqul Islam, who were on duty during the incident on Sunday, were taken into Khulshi police custody for interrogation.

Chittagong Metropolitan Police (North Zone) Deputy Commissioner Paritosh Ghosh told the Dhaka Tribune: “G4S Senior Manager Tarique Mansur complained that an unknown person had robbed Tk3 crore, which was kept in two small vaults, from the office building at road number 4 of Khulshi area sometime between Saturday night and early hours of Sunday.”

Quoting Tarique, the DC said: “The security agency authorities noticed the matter on Sunday night while viewing the CCTV footage.”

“We are looking into the matter and trying to arrest the thief,” added the DC. Dhaka Tribune visited the spot but the security agency did not allow any newsman in its office premises. This correspondent also tried to contact the senior manager but Tarique could not be reached on his mobile phone after repeated attempts.

DC Paritosh said they were conducting drives to arrest the absconding staff of G4S; however, he did not disclose the name of the suspected staff for the sake of investigation.

The police official further said they were also looking into whether G4S had any legal permission to store the cash in its vaults. l

Although the Hatirjheel project was created to curb travel time for city dwellers, who do not own cars or cannot afford CNG-autorickshaw or taxicabs daily, are left with no option but to walk as public transports are restricted in the area RAJIB DHAR ed in Dhaka, at least 40% of the work is still undone. Despite being included in the initial project plan, the authorities concerned have not made any arrangement for public transport.

Another Banasree resident architect Sajedul Islam, whose office is in Karwan Bazar, said: “Just laying a connecting road cannot ensure citizen service.

It will never be possible to reap the full benefits of the Hatirjheel project unless the authorities arrange for public transport for the middle class commuters,

who are a majority.”

Jamal Akhter Bhuiyan, director of the Hatirjheel Project, told the Dhaka Tribune recently: “We have plans for a public bus service, but it will take some time.”

In April this year, RAJUK floated a tender asking transport companies to start a bus service exclusive for the project.

“But we could not move too far ahead with it because the interested companies were not qualified enough,” he said.

He assured that they had been planning to float a fresh tender soon in or-

der to attract the qualified companies.

According to the Special Works Organisation (SWO) of the Bangladesh Army, who has been implementing and monitoring the project, they have kept space for bus stoppages at certain points inside the project as per the initial plan.

RAJUK sources said they had already built an 8.8km express road, 8km service road, four 477.25m bridges, 8.8km footpath, 9.8km lakeside walkway, three 260m viaducts, and several overpasses, intersections and roundabouts.

The much-coveted Hatirjheel project on a 122.21 hectare area in the heart of the city was approved by the Executive Committee of the National Economic Council (Ecnec) in October 2007.

The work for the three-year project began in December 2008.

Of the total project cost of Tk1,971.3 crore, RAJUK is spending Tk1,113.07 crore while the government's Local Government and Engineering Department (LGED) is spending Tk276 crore and Dhaka Wasa Tk86.67 crore. l

15 human trafficking victims rescued 9 officials of fake MLM company held

One more held over Tangail 4-murder n Tarek Mahmud, Chittagong n Our Correspondent, Tangail Before being trafficked to Malaysia, 15 One more person accused in the killing of a mother and three daughters in Tangail was arrested from Jahangirnagar University area of Savar yesterday morning.

The arrestee was identified as Abul Kalam Azad alias Kalam, 40, uncle of the prime accused Jahangir Alam and son of late Jahir Uddin Mandal of Sohagpara village. He was taken to Mirzapur police station for questioning.

Mirzapur police station Sub-Inspector and also the investigation officer of the case Shyamal Kumar Dutt said: “As per the information provided by Badar Uddin, uncle of Jahangir, police arrested Kamal from a house behind Jahangirnagar University area.”

On October 7, Hasna Begum, 30, her daughters Morium, 13, Mim, 10, and eightyear-old Moli were burnt to death after miscreants set the entire house on fire.

A case was filed against main accused Jahangir and nine other people on the same day by Hasna Begum’s brother Mofazzel Hossain. l

people were rescued by Chittagong Detective Branch officials from the city’s Laldighi area yesterday.

One Nasir Chowdhury, 48, resident of Rangunia upazila, was held from the spot.

Assistant Commissioner of DB of Chittagong Metropolitan Police Mohammad Moinuddin told the Dhaka Tribune that the 15 persons and the trafficker were held from a spot near the CMP headquarters in the area.

Around 4:30pm, the DB officials found 15 persons lined up to get inside a microbus at the spot. Upon suspicion, the officials interrogated them and came to know that they were being trafficked to Malaysia.

“The traffickers lined them up in the area to get them on a boat. During

WEATHER

A 16-year-old boy attending to his sick father was mugged at gunpoint inside Dhaka Medical College Hospital (DMCH) despite the presence of armed Ansar personnel and coverage by closed-circuit television (CCTV).

Hospital authorities said they had located the CCTV footage of the mugging but the victim said the picture was hazy and he was not able to clearly identify the mugger.

On Sunday evening, an armed man stole Tk1000 from Shafiqul Islam, the 16-year-old son of a patient at the hospital, at gunpoint from the second floor of the hospital.

Shafiq, from Dorbeshnandi village under Araihazar police station in Narayanganj, is a student of class ten at Gopaldi High School.

He told the Dhaka Tribune that his father Danesh Mia had been receiving treatment in ward 217 for the last one and a half months.

Shafiq said a 40-year-old man in a red t-shirt started chatting with him near the ward. At one point, when they were in a deserted spot in front of the lift, the man pointed a gun at him and said, “Give me everything you have and don’t make a sound.”

Shafiq handed over Tk1000. The mugger then told Shafiq not to shout or else he would shoot.

Patients of the biggest government hospital in the capital said they were afraid after news of the mugging spread through the wards.

According to hospital authorities, some 155 Ansar officials work at the DMCH 1 and DMCH 2 premises.

DRIZZLE TUESDAY, OCTOBER 14 DHAKA TODAY TOMORROW SUN SETS 5:34PM SUN RISES 5:56AM FORECAST FOR TODAY 32 31 31 32 30 29 31 31

Dhaka Chittagong Rajshahi Rangpur Khulna Barisal Sylhet Cox’s Bazar

25 25 24 24 25 24 24 25

YESTERDAY’S HIGH AND LOW

34.5ºC Sylhet

23.0ºC Bogra

Source: Accuweather/UNB

PRAYER TIMES Fajar Sunrise Zohr Asr Magrib Esha

4:40am 5:54am 11:45am 3:56pm 5:33pm 6:49pm SourceL IslamicFinder.org

the dark hours of night the boat would then take them to a ship sailing for Malaysia in the middle of Bay of Bengal,” he said.

The victims, all hailing from Sunamganj, were taken to the DB office from

The arrestee was handed over to Kotwali police station and a case was lodged in this connection where they would be sent back to their homes, said the DB official.

The arrestee was handed over to Kotwali police station and a case was lodged in this connection, he added.

Adding the latest incident, since last month, the law enforcing agencies

have rescued 60 people from Chittagong who were victimised to be trafficked to Malaysia.

Different sources in the law enforcing agencies said the traffickers preferred the port city these days as it was easier to transfer the victims through river routes to the mid sea.

Moreover, the law enforcers’ vigilance was stronger in Cox’s Bazar and other border areas, therefore, Chittagong and its outskirts had become the preferred choice of the traffickers, they said.

“Compared to other times of the year, more people are assembled in the port city during this time of the year as the sea remains comparatively calm after monsoon. It becomes easier to illegally shift the victims to the Malaysia-bound ships on the sea,” said CMP Additional Commissioner Bonoj Kumer Majumder. l

n Our Correspondent, Gazipur Members of Rapid Action Battalian 4 arrested nine officials of an unauthorised multi-level marketing (MLM) company from Konabari area of Gazipur on Sunday.

The RAB team also seized 56 blank stamps with clients’ signatures, a laptop, and different forged documents used for the company’s activities to cheat people.

The arrested are Mohammed Aminul Islam Tushar, Mohammed Abul Kalam Azad, Mohammed Shahabul Islam, Mohammed Shahin Alam, Mohammed Saifur Rahman, Mohammed Alamgir, Mohammed Limon, Mohammed Sweet, and Mohammed Abu Taher Masum.

Chairman of the company Moham-

Robbery inside DMCH despite CCTV surveillance n Mohammad Jamil Khan

med Shahidul Islam managed to flee sensing the presence of RAB. Assistant Director of RAB 4 Mohammed Badrul Alam Mollah said the arrested had been carrying out illegal activities through the unauthorised MLM company at a rented office on the fourth floor of Maksuda Manjil in the area for a long time.

Using fake documents, they have offered jobs to a number of youths in Gazipur and reaslised Tk28,000 from them and took their signatures on blank stamp papers, said the RAB official.

However, later they were not appointed and were harassed and threatened in different ways when they demanded their money back.

Acting on a tip-off, the team had conducted the raid, he said. l

Female school teacher sustains acid burn n Our Correspondent, Barisal

The snapshot of the CCTV footage shows a teenager being mugged inside the Dhaka Medical College Hospital on Sunday night MAHMUD HOSSAIN OPU

Authorities said the hospital is covered by 54 CCTV cameras. The hospital also has a police outpost which includes staff from different intelligence agencies, authorities said.

One DMCH staff member, who asked not to be named, told the Dhaka Tribune that muggings and robberies occur at the hospital because no one had been

appointed to monitor the CCTV system.

DMCH Deputy Director Mushfiqur Rahman when asked about this said: “We have failed to continuously man the monitors because we have other work to do.”

“Although we wish to appoint someone to man the CCTV system, we have failed because there is no scope to do

so,” he said. About the low picture quality of the CCTV footage, he said the authorities were working to improve it.

Shirajul Islam, officer-in-charge of Shahbagh police station, told the Dhaka Tribune that a general diary had been filed with the police station regarding the mugging and that the police were investigating the matter. l

A female schoolteacher sustained acid burn injuries in the BIP Colony area of Barisal city in the early hours of yesterday.

Family members of the victim filed a case against husband of Asma Aktar, 34, a teacher of Amirabad Government Primary School under Nalchhity upazila of Jhalakati and mother of an 8-yearold child.

Asma is undergoing treatment at Barisal Sher-e-Bangla Medical College Hospital. Hospital sources said about 35-40 percent of the victim’s body were burned by the inflammable liquids thrown on her.

Abdur Rouf, deputy commissioner of Barisal Metropolitan Police, said being informed police visited the spot and talked with the victim at the SBMCH. Quoting family members police said Asma Aktar married Masud Alam, an employee of River Research Institute of Faridpur, in 2002.

In 2011, Alam sent a divorce letter to Asma and she lodged a case against the move with Family Court in Barisal.

Then, Alam threatened Asma that she would have face severe consequences if she did not withdraw the case.

Asma’s family assumed that acid might have be thrown at her to restrain her from appearing before the court as yesterday was hearing date of the case.

Shakhawat Hossain, officer-in-charge of Kotwali police station, said they would file a case in this connection. l

6

DHAKA TRIBUNE

Nation

Tuesday, October 14, 2014

Ticket scalping causes woes for passengers n Ibrahim Rony, Chandpur In collusion with a section of railway staffs black marketeers sell train tickets at higher prices at Chandpur railway station.

People who fail to buy tickets standing in queue are compelled to buy tickets from scalpers at two to three times higher prices than the government fixed price, said sources at the station.

Law enforcement agencies often arrest them, but after a few days they back to the track and start selling tickets at the railway station and its adjoining areas.

Mostafa Gazi, who came to the railway station yesterday, said a syndicate of 20 to 30 people was controlling the black marketing of tickets at the Chandpur railway station.

He said the syndicate started selling of tickets after midnight every day, but ticket counters were shut down at 10pm and then railway staffs told passengers that tickets were sold out.

“But railway police station and se-

curity personnel do not take any step against them,” he said.

The black marketeers also sell tickets from some hotels and fruit shops, he added.

Tickets of Chittagong-bound Meghna Express are always sold on black market as it has huge demand.

Another passenger Yusuf Molla said tickets of Meghna Express were provided slowly from ticket counters that created grievance among passengers and later railway authority closed counters.

Yasmin Akter, a Chittagong-bound passenger, said: “We are not getting tickets, but I saw that each person was getting 15-20 tickets.”

Another passenger Abdul Kader said: “We will have to buy tickets from black market as the railway authority shut down counters.”

When contacted, station master differed with the allegation and said they could not provide tickets to all as the number of passengers was higher than seats. He also assured the correspondent that he would look in to the matter. l

A procession was brought out in Khulna city yesterday marking the International Day for Natural Disaster Reduction

Educated youths take up farming in Khulna’s Dumuria upazila n Hedayed Hossain, Khulna

Educated youths in Khulna's Dumuria upazila have taken to farming, breaking stereotypes about farming not being prestigious for educated youth to take up as an occupation.

Frustrated with not getting any jobs even after searching for years, they are finding vegetable farming as a means of earning a livelihood. Their lifestyle has changed and their families are thanking them for their efforts.

Farmer Israil Sheikh, who lives at Kholshi village, said he had been searching for jobs after passing BA in 1992, but has failed to get any. He could not continue job search for long because his family had been beset by livelihood problems after his father died in 1987.

He said he resorted to farming and

bore the cost of educating his three brothers, and marrying off his two sisters from what he earned growing rice and vegetables on two acres of leased land. Now his family is doing well.

Farmer Israil informed boro paddy could be grown on a fish enclosure as well as cultivating fish there simultaneously, and vegetables can be farmed on the isles of the fish enclosure all the year round.

Roughly, there are 34,500 people involved in the vegetable farming in the upazila. Of them, about 3000 are educated youth. A farmer can earn Tk1/2 lakh, excluding costs, from vegetable farming on an acre of enclosure isle every year.

Vegetables are now grown on the isles of fish enclosures at all 14 unions of the upazilas, though they were used

to be grown at only two unions initially.

Vegetables and plums have been being cultivated on the isles for five to seven years on a large scale.

Headmaster of Rajapur Birsreshtha Mostofa Kamal Government Primary School Sheikh Nazrul Islam said he cultivates half of his 16 bighas of land and the rest are being jointly cultivated by educated youths Saidul Sheikh and Md Lavlu Sheikh.

“Fifteen to twenty percent of unemployed youths are resorting to farming to get rid of the curse of the unemployment. Most of them are earning self-reliance either by farming their ancestral land or by taking land on lease.”

Former Chhatra League activist Molla Sohel Rana, who lives at Sajiara village, said he passed BA in 1996, but could not secure a job and so took up

Fugitive convict arrested n

Our Correspondent, Moulvibazar

A fugitive convict, who was awarded death sentence by a court for killing a youth, was arrested from Moulvibazar on Sunday night after 17 years.

According to sources, the convict Shahjahan, 40, son of Ustar Ali, was arrested from a fish market of Paschimbazar in Moulvibazar around 11:30pm.

On August 12, 2003, Sessions Judge's

Court in Sylhet sentenced Shahjahan to death. Shahjahan was absconding after the murder incident.

According to Moulvibazar Sadar model police station sources, Nandan Kanti Dhar, officer-in-charge of Fenchuganj police station, acting on a tip-off, raided the area at night and arrested Shahjahan.

According to police sources, one Abdul Wadud, 19, was killed in an attack at a Jatra play stage on February 23, 1997. l

farming as an occupation. He was making quite good profits from farming vegetables as per agriculture officials.

Farmer Soroj Biswas, who lives at Sholua village, is now awaiting his masters results in history at Khulna Government BL College. As well as continuing his study, he has been growing vegetables on the isles of the five acres of fish enclosures for seven years.

Hailed as the best farmer in the upazila, Ali Morol of Khornia village said he had changed his lot by cultivating cauliflower. He had even gone abroad on a government trip as a reward for his success.

Vegetable haats sit at Ula Bazar, Grojendrapur, Thukra Ambhita, Sholgatia, Chechuri, Gutudia, Shobhona, Mirzapur, Nuton Rasta, Moikhali, Gabtola, Kathaltola, Atlia, Chuknogor,

NEWS IN BRIEF 1.80kg gold recovered, youth arrested Police arrested a youth and recovered 1.80 kilogramme of gold at Nimtoli area of Tongi under Gazipur city corporation early yesterday. The arrestee was identified as Rasel, 24, son of late Abdus Samad of Shapla Chattar area of Narsingdi town. Assistant Sub-inspector of Tongi model police station Abdul Kuddus said, police had raided a microbus on a tip off at around 2:30am and arrested Rasel. Later they recovered 16 gold bars weighing about 1.80 kg from his possession. Rasel was going to Narsingdi from Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport with the bars worth about Tk70 lakh in the rented microbus.

– Our Correspondent, Gazipur

47 detained in a night-long police drive Police arrested at least 47 people in the wake of recent clashes in Habiganj on Sunday night. Assistant police super Masudur Rahman Monir said, a special team of police had conducted the drive in various upazila to keep the law and order situation under control. “Some of the arrestees are listed criminals and our operation will continue,” he added.

– Our Correspondent, Habiganj

JSC examinee’s body found Body of a candidate of Junior School Certificate (JSC) examination of Joag Ahemmadia High School under Comilla’s Chandina upazila was recovered from a paddy field yesterday. Locals found the body of Md Ismail, 14, hailing from Lakkhipur village when they went to work in the field early morning. According to family sources, Ismail went missing on Saturday night when he went to watch the Brazil-Argentina football on TV at a tea stall with friends. Officer in-charge of Chandina police station said, the body had been sent for autopsy to Comilla Medical College Hospital. There were some bruises on the body.

– Our Correspondent, Comilla

Baroitola Mass Killing Day observed People of Kishoreganj yesterday paid tribute to the 365 martyrs who were brutally killed by Pakistan occupation forces and their cohorts at the upazila’s Baroitola area. Wreaths were placed at the memorial followed by observation of one minute silence.

Freedom fighters, various organizations and leaders of local Awami League took part in the events. On October 13, 1971 innocent people of Kishoreganj and its adjacent areas were killed and later dumped in a mass graveyard at Baroitola.

– Our Correspondent, Kishoreganj

One killed in Madaripur Miscreants stabbed and later slaughtered a person in Notakhola village of Kadambari union in Madaripur yesterday. The deceased Harichand Mandal, 45, son of Kanu Deb Mandal was killed around 10pm. Upon information police recovered the body and sent it for autopsy to Madaripur Sadar Hospital. Assistant police super of Madaripur Abu Bakr Siddique said, there had been a dispute between Harichand and his cousins over property and that could have resulted in the killing.

– Our Correspondent, Madaripur

Atharomail and Ghona Banda in the upazila.

Traders buy vegetables and transport them to different parts in the country, including Dhaka city, by truck.

Local farmers have demanded a permanent vegetable wholesale market be set up under the government initiative so that they get fair vegetables prices.

During Kharip-1 season, vegetables were grown on 2000 hectares of land and during Kharip-2; they were cultivated on 2250 hectares of land and during Robi season, vegetables were farmed on 2780 hectares of land in the upazila Upazila Agriculture Extension Department Officer Nazrul Islam said there were deep ties between farmers and agriculture officers, which has made it possible to bring such a vegetable farming success in the upazila. l

DHAKA TRIBUNE

Robber lynched n Our Correspondent, Barisal A robber was killed by angry mobs in Kaliganj Bazar under Bakerganj upazila of the district yesterday.

The identity of the deceased could not be known immediately.

Sources said that night guard a shop saw that some robbers were trying to break a wall of a shop. When he tried to obstruct them, the robbers started beating him.

Later, hearing the screaming of the night guard, locals rushed to the spot and caught a robber and beat him up indiscriminately, leaving him dead on the spot.

Confirming the matter, Bakerganj police station Officer-in-Charge Nurul Islam said that the body would be sent to Barisal Sher-e-bangla Medical College Hospital for autopsy. l

DHAKA TRIBUNE

Long Form

7

Tuesday, October 14, 2014

On the lookout for the cowboy Analysing public private partnerships: Who is responsible for delivering the projects?

Are there other financing alternatives?

File photo showing an investor’s forum on PPP organised on 2012. The prime minister was the chief guest, the finance minister and the then foreign minister were also present

E

n Nofel Wahid arlier in the year, the Planning Minister Mustafa Kamal in a moment of, rhetorical flourish, questioned whether Finance Minister Muhith’s efforts to deliver infrastructure projects through publicprivate partnerships, or PPPs, were a cow or a goat. Bangladeshi political rhetoric can be funny at times, but also misleading.

On this occasion, Minister Kamal’s rhetorical barb may have completely missed the mark.

The PPP Office, which is tasked with delivering PPP projects, is housed under the prime minister’s office (PMO). So logically, not all of the blame for failing to deliver PPP projects falls on the finance minister or his Ministry.

The planning minister may have inadvertently fired his rhetorical guns at the prime minister, while aiming for the finance minister. But his comment does raise a critical question.

Who is in charge of delivering PPPs? Who is the cowboy in the cabinet guiding that herd of cattle you would otherwise call a PPP project pipeline?

And it is a big pipeline too, with more than 30 projects worth between $12-13bn.

A better alternative would have been for the government to issue infrastructure bonds in the local market and allowing those bonds to be traded publicly

The PPP Office was established under the PMO in 2010 to ensure that the bully pulpit of the PMO could be effectively leveraged to get projects moving through the bureaucracy.

But a skilled leadership team needed at the PPP Office to vet projects and facilitate coordination between different ministries was not put in place until 2012.

In Bangladesh, bureaucrats are oddly bureaucratic about strengthening the bureaucracy, especially when headhunting for specialist roles. It is hardly a surprise that it took two years to hire the right team for the PPP Office. And even then, questions can be asked about whether the PPP Office has the resources it needs at its disposal.

Fast forward to the end of 2014 and it would appear that the PPP Office has finally turned a corner. The government is gearing up to sign its first PPP contract with a private sector company to establish kidney dialysis centres at the National Institute of Kidney Diseases and Urology (in Dhaka) and the

Chittagong Medical College Hospital.

The government’s decision to deliver health-related social infrastructure as its first PPP project is a curious one.

Social infrastructure PPP projects can be quite complex and sophisticated, or at least that has been the experience in developed economies.

But in the Bangladeshi experience the opposite may be true. A social infrastructure PPP project is probably easier because of what it does not require–land acquisition.

Land acquisition in Bangladesh can only be described as, in the words of Winston Churchill: a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma. Acquiring land to build a bridge or a road requires coordination between the ministries of planning, land, transport, LGRD and environment, to name just a few. Whole of government coordination between different ministries can be hard enough as it is, but when it involves one ministry transferring public land to another, or a ministry having to buy privately-held land, the process can be shockingly complex.

In comparison, contracting a private sector operator to set up and run a kidney dialysis centre within a public hospital is probably a much simpler process. Moreover, the government has long been accustomed to relying on private stakeholders to successfully deliver social services.

If you think about Bangladesh’s major developmental gains in family planning, microcredit, lowering maternal and child mortality rates, or promoting gender equality in primary education, private NGOs have been intrinsically involved in delivering services that made those gains possible.

The same cannot be said about private sector involvement in delivering physical infrastructure.

It may have taken five years for the PPP Office to deliver its first project, but it showed good judgement in picking a health project to get off the mark and put a run on the board. Perhaps the planning minister should take a second look and reconsider his views on PPPs. More importantly, the minister should ask–can we build physical infrastructure through PPPs? The answer is yes, and the process is already underway with a number of physical infrastructure projects in the PPP pipeline.

Notwithstanding process-related delays around land acquisition or tendering, it will be genuinely harder for us to deliver physical infrastructure PPPs unless we accept a fundamental truth about infrastructure.

Good, nation-building infrastructure is valuable, but not cheap.

You cannot build valuable infrastructure by just relying on concessional loans from donors at low interest rates. Good infrastructure costs money, and it is the government’s responsibility to undertake proper cost-benefit analysis to determine projects that are truly beneficial and add value-for-money.

International investors will want to know the risk of doing business with the Bangladesh government before it decides to put its money into Bangladesh. Issuing sovereign bonds has

its downsides, but the price signals it sends to international investors on sovereign risk far outweigh the costs.

There is however more to attracting private sector financing for infrastructure than just rolling out the red carpet for international investors. Most of the funds we need for infrastructure investment will have to come from Bangladeshi private investors, not foreigners.

That is a second fundamental truth the government has to accept.

By not choosing to source some of the funds for the Padma Bridge from local investors, the government has missed a golden opportunity to establish an infrastructure financing market in Bangladesh.

Make no mistake, the Padma Bridge will be financed locally, but in the worst possible way.

It will be financed through the budget, with budget deficits covered through bank borrowing. It is akin to the government asking the Bangladesh Bank to hold a gun to the heads of banks and forcing them to buy government bonds. That is traditionally how the government has financed its Annual Development Budget.

Interestingly, the World Bank is reportedly going to restart lending money to the government for budgetary support, after a five-year break in its budgetary support program for Bangladesh. This new World Bank program, if initiated, will effectively become a back-door, indirect channel for partially financing the Padma Bridge.

So maybe the banks won’t be extorted afterall!

A better alternative would have been for the government to issue infrastructure bonds in the local market and allowing those bonds to be traded publicly.

It would have given small, retail investors greater investment choice in terms of whether to invest in shares in the stock market or in bonds on a secondary bond market. It would have provided greater investment choice for institutional investors, such as banks, sitting on large sums of cash with nowhere to invest, even as the investment environment has improved since last year’s political turmoil.

That last point may sound like a contradiction to what I said earlier about extorting banks, but it is not.

It is tempting to think that it is not unreasonable for the government to shake down the banks for a bit of money when there is so much excess liquidity in the banking system. But that is a false choice.

A market-based financing mechanism where retail and institutional investors have greater investment choice, and where the lending instruments are priced properly based on investor perceptions of market risk and return, is a fundamental necessity for developing a vibrant and liquid infrastructure financing market.

You can’t do PPPs without an infrastructure financing market. It just doesn’t work!

The government’s decision to source Padma Bridge funds locally was a monumental one. Even if this bridge is indirectly financed by the World Bank, the die has been cast for

this project from a political economy perspective. As far as popular opinion is concerned, this is a project where the government decided to goit-alone.

And if the project is successfully delivered, the boost it will give to our national psyche will be invaluable.

How after making that hard-nosed political judgement the government screwed up the relatively easier financing policy decision is bemusing, to say the least. It is hard to say whether this was an error of omission or commission by the finance minister and his ministry, but it points to our biggest policy governance deficit.

PMO/INTERNET

book after taking over the failing Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) during the global financial crisis.

Before the global financial crisis, RBS was the second-largest bank in the UK and the fifth largest in the world. RBS’ systemic importance to the UK economy is similar to Sonali Bank’s importance to the Bangladeshi economy, and the UK government’s handling of RBS is a case study on what the Bangladeshi government needs to do to fix problems in its stateowned banking sector.

It is obvious that the last parliamentary committee on finance had

This idea of creating a “bad” bank and slowly disposing off its troubled assets has a proven track record. This formula has been successfully applied in many other economies to resolve banking crises

The role of a modern ministry of finance (MoF) is to do more than just manage the budget or make fiscal policy. As a central policy agency, a modern MoF has to be at the forefront of driving policy and regulatory reforms for not only supporting economic growth, but to also promote productivity gains. Our finance ministry has to see its job as being a crusader for reforms.

Some of the lowest-hanging fruit we can pick to lift productivity lies in reforming our malfunctioning and inefficient financial system. And yet, nowhere has the finance ministry been more obstructive and timid in its approach than on the subject of financial sector policy reforms.

This unwillingness to push for reforms is most glaring on the subject of corporate governance failures and corruption in state-owned banks. The finance minister is on record as saying that politicisation of bank boards has led to banking scams. Yet, MoF has repeatedly resisted efforts to empower the Bangladesh Bank to supervise and regulate the boards of state-owned banks, like they would private sector banks.

Surprisingly enough, the boldest policy reform idea to resolve problems in the banking sector came from the most unlikeliest source – the parliamentary committee on finance in the last Parliament. In a report published last year the Committee recommended that the state-owned banks should be merged into one (bad) bank and gradually spun-off and privatised.

This idea of creating a “bad” bank and slowly disposing off its troubled assets has a proven track record. This formula has been successfully applied in many other economies to resolve banking crises. Most notably, the UK government is following a similar rule

done its homework on banking crises.

Interestingly, the Committee was then-chaired by the current planning minister, Mustafa Kamal.

Minister Kamal has continued advocating for this “bad bank” policy position, with news outlets reporting his robust exchanges with the Finance Minister in government policy meetings arguing for reforms and privatisation of stateowned banks.

In the world of Bangladeshi politics as we know it, it is not hard to imagine that many would see the Planning Minister’s policy position as an example of self-interested crony capitalism, given his business background.

May be there is a grain of truth to it, maybe there isn’t; either way, it would be hard to prove. But I would venture a guess and say that if the planning minister was asked about what motivates his policy position, he would be the first to say that he relies on his business instincts and experience.

And what is so wrong about that!

If anything, we should celebrate a policymaker drawing on his or her business insights to push for government policy reforms.

The planning minister’s articulation may leave a lot to be desired, he may not have a coherent technical understanding of PPPs, as the Finance Minister claims. But between his business instincts and his call for reforms, I think the planning minister has a better grasp of the kind of ‘public private partnership’ we need in our policymaking than Finance Minister Muhith with his byzantine policy positions and reform obstructionism.

Perhaps the planning minister should be the cowboy. l Nofel Wahid is an economist.

8

DHAKA TRIBUNE

World

Tuesday, October 14, 2014

Iraqi city falls to ISIL as army withdraws

Up to 180,000 people displaced by fighting in and around Hit Up to 180,000 people have been disert and a tougher target for ISIL fighters. n Agencies Other security officials said military placed by fighting in and around Hit,

the UN office for humanitarian affairs said on Monday.

The city had been home to 100,000 people who had fled other areas of Iraq which had fallen to ISIL, it said.

During a visit to Baghdad on Monday, the British foreign minister Phillip Hammond said ISIL would only be defeated by “heavy work on the ground”

by Iraqi forces. ‘’We’ve always understood that the air campaign alone was not going to be decisive in turning the tide against ISIL but it has halted the ISIL advance ... and it is degrading their military capabilities and their economic strength,” he said.

“The heavy work on the ground is going to have been done by Iraqi forces and it is going to have been done by the Sunni communities in the areas that ISIL occupies.” l

The Iraqi army has withdrawn from its last base in the city of Hit in Anbar province following weeks of fighting with the ISIL, leaving the group in full control, security sources have said.

Hundreds of troops were pulled out of the base and relocated to help protect the Asad air base, the AFP news agency quoted a police colonel in the provincial capital of Ramadi as saying.

“Our military leaders argued that instead of leaving those forces exposed to attacks by ISIL, they would be best used to shore up the defence of Asad air base,” he said. “Hit is now 100 percent under ISIL control.”

Asad, northwest of Hit, is one of the last still under government control in the western province. It is surrounded by des-

aircraft picked up senior officers from the Hit base, and the rest of the force drove in a convoy to Asad.

An Iraqi officer and Sunni militia fighters told the Reuters news agency that ISIL looted three armoured vehicles and at least five tanks, and then set the camp ablaze.

Government forces have suffered a series of setbacks in Anbar in recent weeks, and officials have warned that their grip on the capital Ramadi was increasingly tenuous.

Al Jazeera’s Imran Khan, reporting from the Iraqi capital Baghdad, said that ISIL’s takeover put nearby towns including Amiri under threat.

“Amiri is a very key town, that is where the main supply line from Anbar province into Baghdad and the rest of the south of the country goes from,” he said.

UN says up to 180,000 refugees flee Iraq’s Hit n Reuters, Baghdad

Turkey’s Kurdish peace process at risk amid fury over Kobane

Up to 180,000 people have been displaced by fighting in and around Hit in western Anbar province since the city fell to Islamic State militants earlier this month, the United Nations said yesterday.

Islamic State fighters overran a military base that the Iraqi army had abandoned about eight kilometres west of Hit earlier on Monday, according to an army officer and three members of a government-backed Sunni militia.

The jihadists looted three armoured vehicles and at least five tanks and then set the camp ablaze, the officer and Sunni militia fighters said.

As a result of the fighting and air strikes, carried out by the Iraqi government and US-led military coalition, up to 30,000 families or 180,000 individuals have fled Hit, which lies 20 kilometres west of Ramadi. l

n Reuters, Diyarbakir, Turkey

Windows shattered by looting protesters, the largest city in Turkey’s mainly Kurdish southeast shows plenty of signs of the violence that swept it last week, but optimism over a fragile peace process with Kurdish guerrillas is far harder to find.

There are fears that the fate of the border town of Kobane in neighbouring Syria could wreck efforts by the Turkish government to end a three decades long insurgency by the militants, and tip Turkey back into a conflict that has cost 40,000 lives.

Many of Turkey’s 15 million Kurds have reacted with fury over the fate of mainly Kurdish Kobane, under assault

by Islamic State for nearly a month while Turkish troops look on.

Last week at least 35 people were killed as Kurdish protests in solidarity with Kobane turned violent, with Diyarbakir at the centre of the bloodletting.

Kurds say that fury over Ankara’s failure to intervene could spin out of control in spite of efforts by the government or jailed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) leader Abdullah Ocalan to continue with peace talks aimed at ending the uprising.

“If Kobane falls, the peace process will be history. And if Kobane falls, the people will not listen to calls for calm, from whomever they come,” said chain-smoking Ibrahim, 29, in a tea house in Diyarbakir’s poor Baglar district, a PKK hotbed.

Days earlier, the streets of Baglar were filled with tear gas as police clashed with protesters. The area brief-

Turkish Kurds watch the Syrian town of Kobani from near the Mursitpinar border crossing, on the Turkish-Syrian border in the southeastern town of Suruc in Sanliurfa province REUTERS

ly became a no-go zone for security forces, and armoured vehicles were deployed to quell the unrest.

A police officer told Reuters the rage of the protesters was like nothing he had seen in 20 years working in the region.

“They attack like they have nothing to lose. There seems to be an immense amount of hate and anger,” he said.

“They’re looting. They burn, break, destroy. The state and everything that represents the state seems to be their enemy.”

The unrest is a serious blow to President Tayyip Erdogan, who has invested considerable political capital in repairing Turkey’s relations with its Kurds.

Decades of oppression by nationalist governments in Ankara had aimed to suppress Kurdish culture, prompting a violent response by Kurdish militants

Yemen president names new PM, Shi’ite Houthis welcome choice n Reuters, Sanaa Yemen’s president named the country’s UN envoy as prime minister yesterday in a move welcomed by the Shi’ite Muslim Houthi group which controls the capital, signaling an easing in the country’s prolonged political crisis.

An aide to President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi said Khaled Bahah’s name had been among three proposed last week by the Houthi group after they rejected appointment of Ahmed Awad bin Mubarak as prime minister last week. “We believe he (Bahah) is the right person,” said Abdelmalek alEjri, a member of the Houthi political bureau. “His appointment will help the country overcome the difficulties it is going through.”

Bahah, who was born in 1965 and who holds a masters degree in administration, business and finance from India’s University of Pune, served previously as oil minister before being appointed Yemen’s envoy to the United Nations.

Analysts say he is a technocrat who is expected to focus on trying to improve public services in the country. l

mist group.

“It’s not even questioned. If you base your thinking on that, and build on top of all these grievances over the last few years (including Kobane), then you’ve got the makings of fresh conflict,” Aaron Stein, associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, told Reuters.

Stein believes that Turkey calculates that it is better to alienate the Kurds now and patch things up later than be sucked into the Syria conflict over Kobane, and that the Kurds are currently too weak to re-ignite hostilities with Turkey.

But the threat of renewed conflict was underlined at the weekend by senior PKK commander Cemil Bayik, who warned that the group would relaunch its war with Turkey if it fails to intervene in Kobane. l

Experts question ethics of placebo drug trials in case of Ebola

Khamenei blames US, Britain for creating IS n Reuters, Dubai Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, yesterday blamed the United States and the “wicked” British government for creating the Islamic State in his first speech since undergoing prostate surgery last month. The sharp remarks were a reminder of Iranian suspicions about the West despite the emergence of the ultra-hardline Sunni militants in Iraq and Syria as the common foe of Tehran and Washington.

“America, Zionism, and especially the veteran expert of spreading divisions - the wicked government of Britain - have sharply increased their efforts of creating divisions between the Sunnis and Shi’ites,” he said, according to his website, in a speech marking a Shi’ite Muslim religious holiday.

Islamic State has overrun swathes of war-torn Syria and Iraq in recent months. l

and creating deep ethnic wounds within Turkey which Erdogan has vowed to heal.

He has pushed through cultural reforms and abolished laws banning the Kurdish language in Turkey.

Around half of Kurds vote for Erdogan’s ruling AK Party and the peace process has been a major part of his political vision.

But Ankara’s failure to intervene militarily or allow weapons to be sent to Kobane’s defenders has caused mistrust, and fuelled rumours that Turkey secretly supports Islamic State.

Denials by Ankara have failed to quell a widespread belief in southeast Turkey that a policy of supporting opposition groups in Syria to bring down Syrian President Bashar al-Assad means they are helping the radical Isla-

n Reuters, London

Demonstrators wearing surgical masks protest over the government’s handling of Ebola in Madrid

1000-year old Viking treasure hoard found in Scotland n Reuters, London A hoard of Viking gold and silver artefacts dating back over 1,000 years has been discovered by a treasure hunter with a metal detector in Scotland, in a find hailed by experts as one of the country’s most significant.

Derek McLennan, a retired businessman, uncovered the 100 items in a field in Dumfriesshire, southwest Scotland, in September.

Amongst the objects is a solid silver cross thought to date from the 9th or 10th century, a silver pot of west European origin, which is likely to have already been 100 years old when it was buried and several gold objects.

“Experts have begun to examine the finds, but it is already clear that this is one of the most significant Viking hoards ever discovered in Scotland,” Scotland’s Treasure Trove unit said in a statement.

The Viking hoard is McLennan’s second significant contribution to Scotland’s un-

derstanding of its past. Last year, he and a friend unearthed around 300 medieval coins in the same area of Scotland.

“The Vikings were well known for having raided these shores in the past, but today we can appreciate what they have left behind,” said Scotland’s secretary for cultural and external affairs, Fiona Hyslop.

The Vikings, of Scandinavian origin, made successive raids on Britain from the 8th to the 11th centuries, burying their valuables for safe-keeping, which have gradually been discovered by generations of treasure seekers.

A 10th-century Viking hoard was found in 2007 in northern England, while in 1840 over 8,600 items were found in northwest England.

The latest find, also containing a rare silver cup engraved with animals which dates from the Holy Roman Empire, and a gold bird pin, is the largest to be found in Scotland since 1891 and could be worth a six-figure sum, the BBC said. l

REUTERS

A group of influential health experts has argued the standard practice of using placebos in drug trials would be unethical in the case of experimental medicines for Ebola, given that the world is in the middle of a deadly epidemic. Faced with a disease with a death rate of between 40 and 90%, randomised controlled trials (RCTs) – where patients are assigned to get either the drug or a dummy pill – would be unfair and ethically unacceptable, according to the disease specialists from Europe, Africa and the United States.

“We accept that RCTs can generate strong evidence in ordinary circumstances; not, however, in the midst of the worst Ebola epidemic in history,” experts including David Heymann, head of the Chatham House Centre on Global Health Security, wrote in a letter

to the Lancet medical journal.

Some trials of potential Ebola treatments or vaccines in West Africa have just begun, or are due to start in the coming months, and the World Health Organization (WHO) has said it hopes some medicines may start to be deployed in the West Africa outbreak early next year.

A different group of disease experts last month argued in a letter to the Journal of the American Medical Association that experimental Ebola drugs were best tested in normal RCTs. A similar debate is going on in the field of cancer drugs, where researchers increasingly question whether randomisation – where some patients are given a treatment and others get a “control” substance for comparison – makes sense in patients with an incurable disease.

In cancer, new trial designs are being pioneered that allow faster testing on experimental medicines in smaller, more targeted groups. l

Cameron to abstain in symbolic vote on Palestine status

UN chief demands Israel scrap East Jerusalem settlement plan n Reuters, Jerusalem

n Reuters, London

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called on Israel yesterday to scrap plans to expand settlements in East Jerusalem, which Palestinians want as the capital of a future state, and urged both sides to return rapidly to peace talks.

Israel captured the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem in the 1967 Middle East War and annexed the city’s eastern half in a move not recognised internationally. Palestinians seek to establish statehood in the three territories, while Israel considers Jerusalem its eternal and indivisible capital.

Ban criticised Israel’s latest settlement growth plan after meeting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem as part of a visit to the region a day after Western and Arab nations pledged $5.4bn at a Cairo conference to help rebuild Gaza.

The densely populated coastal enclave was widely devastated in a July-August war between Israel and Hamas Islamists who took control of Gaza after the Israelis withdrew from it in 2005. l

British Prime Minister David Cameron will not take part in a parliamentary vote on whether the government should recognise Palestine as a state, his spokesman said yesterday ahead of a debate designed to raise the political profile of the issue.

The spokesman said the vote, called by an opposition lawmaker, would not change Britain’s diplomatic stance. Britain does not classify Palestine as a state, but says it could do so at any time if it believed it would help peace efforts between the Palestinians and Israel.

Nevertheless, the vote will have symbolic value and is being closely watched by Palestinian and Israeli authorities as a barometer for European readiness to act on Palestinian hopes for unilateral recognition by UN member states.

The debate comes just as Sweden’s new centre-left government is set to recognise officially Palestine – a move

that has been condemned by Israel, which says an independent Palestine can only be achieved through negotiations.

The British parliamentary motion, which is expected to come to a vote around 2100 GMT, states: “That this House believes that the Government should recognise the state of Palestine alongside the state of Israel.”

Cameron’s spokesman said he would not be taking part in the vote, and that the government was asking ministers to abstain.

However, it has the backing of the left-leaning opposition Labour party’s leadership, which has told its lawmakers to vote in favour of the motion – an edict which has caused anger with some pro-Israel members of parliament set to rebel or stay away.

Even if a majority of the House of Commons’ 650 Members of Parliament do vote in favour, it is non-binding and would not force Britain, which was once the colonial master of Palestine, to change its foreign policy. l

DHAKA TRIBUNE

World

Taliban ambush, bombs in Afghanistan kill 25

Taliban steps up attacks ahead of Nato pullback on Monday, killing one Afghan civilian, and mangled and side door damaged. n Reuters, Kabul It was the second car-bomb attack authorities said.

Taliban insurgents ambushed a convoy of Afghan security forces in a mountainous northern area yesterday, killing 22 soldiers and police, an official said, as bombs in Kabul and another area killed three.

The violence comes as the Taliban and their militant allies step up attacks ahead of the withdrawal of most foreign troops at the end of the year, seeking to weaken the new Afghan government that will take over most of the fight.

The Taliban, who ruled Afghanistan with an iron fist from 1996 to 2001, attacked from the mountains as the convoy was travelling through Laghman Valley in Sar-e-Pul province, Gov. Abdul Jabar Haqbeen said.

Eight security forces were wounded and seven were taken captive.

“Twelve army and police vehicles are totally destroyed,” Haqbeen said.

A suicide car bomber rammed a Nato military convoy along a major road out of Afghanistan’s capital, Kabul, early

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack on the Jalalabad Road, a main thoroughfare with a US military base and a housing compound for UN and other international contractors and aid workers.

At least three foreigners were wounded in the blast targeting their armoured vehicles, but their identities were not known, police said.

A spokesman for the US-led Nato mission in Afghanistan said a patrol was attacked but there were no fatalities among the international force. The force does not confirm injuries.

The bomber in a Toyota Corolla car drove into the convoy just before 7 a.m. (0230 GMT), said Farid Afzali, head of Kabul’s police investigation department.

“As a result of the blast, one of our countrymen was killed and three foreigners slightly wounded,” Afzali said.

Reuters television footage showed the remains of one of the white armoured vehicles, its engine blackened

on international forces in Kabul in a month.

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Majahid said on Twitter that the target was a foreign military convoy and several troops were killed. The insurgents, who are fighting to expel foreign forces and re-establish their strict Islamist state driven from power in 2001, often exaggerate the results of their attacks.

In the eastern province of Nangarhar, a suicide bomber detonated his explosives in front of a clinic killing two people and wounding seven, the Ministry of Defence said.

A bomb planted in a crowded market in the Qarabagh district of Kabul wounded 22 civilians and five of them were in critical condition. Four children were among wounded, said district governor Samih Sharifi.

The Taliban took advantage of weeks of political paralysis over a disputed election to regain territory in provinces such as Helmand in the south and Kunduz in the north. l

China detains China court sentences 12 to scholar, bans books death for Xinjiang attacks in crackdown on murder, kidnap and making explomoderate voices n Reuters, Beijing sives, according to a statement on the A court in the unruly far western Chinese Xinjiang government’s news website.

Reuters, Beijing n Aside from the 12 death sentences, region of Xinjiang sentenced 12 people to China has detained a prominent scholar who helped blind dissident Chen Guangcheng flee to the United States two years ago and has banned books by eight writers in an escalating crackdown on dissent.

Guo Yushan, a founder of the Transition Institute, a think-tank that researches business regulations, reform and civil society, was detained on Thursday, his wife, Pan Haixia, said.

More than 10 police officers took him away along with his laptop, wireless router, mobile phone and iPad, she said.

Guo was instrumental in helping Chen escape house arrest in his village in 2012. Chen travelled to Beijing where he sought refuge at the US embassy, sparking a diplomatic row between China and the United States. Authorities shut down Guo’s institute last year.

In a telephone interview, Pan said Guo’s detention could be related to the detention of Shi Lin. Activists describe Shi as an art editor at Peking University and say she was detained after she tried to put up posters on campus expressing support for pro-democracy demonstrations in Hong Kong. In a picture on her Twitter account, she can be seen wearing a face mask with a yellow ribbon on it. The ribbon is a symbol of the protests.

Guo was detained on a charge of “causing a disturbance,” according to Pan and his lawyer, Li Jin. Police did not give Pan a reason for Guo’s detention. Li said she had applied to meet him but had not heard whether she could.

“We just want to know the truth,” Pan said. “We hope the police will investigate this thoroughly and release him quickly.”

If charged and convicted, Guo could face up to five years in prison.

death and handed out dozens of other heavy sentences yesterday for attacks in July in which almost 100 people died.

The Xinjiang government said 59 “terrorists” were gunned down by security forces in Yarkant county in Xinjiang’s far south, while 37 civilians were killed in the July 28 attacks.

Authorities said people had been killed when knife-wielding attackers had staged assaults in two towns.

Hundreds of people have been killed in the region in the past two years, most in violence between the Muslim Uighur people who call Xinjiang home and ethnic majority Han Chinese. The government has also blamed attacks in other parts of China, including Beijing, on Islamist militants from Xinjiang.

The court in the old Silk Road city of Kashgar found the accused guilty of a variety of crimes, including terrorism,

15 others were given suspended death sentences, nine got life in jail and another 20 sentences ranging from four to 20 years. All of them were Uighurs, judging by their names.

The official account described how the attackers set up road blocks and dragged out some of their victims before hacking them to death.

Heavy restrictions on journalists in Xinjiang, where China has attributed recent violence to Islamist separatists it says seek to establish an independent state called East Turkestan, make verifying details about incidents difficult.

Earlier in the day, state television said that two “thugs” stabbed to death a policewoman in Xinjiang.

The motorcycle-mounted attackers used sharp weapons to “cruelly attack and kill” the policewoman, China Central Television said on its official microblog. l

Cyclone kills 24 in east India, sparks fears of floods n Reuters, Visakhapatnam, India The death toll from a powerful cyclone which battered India’s eastern coastline rose to 24 yesterday, as the storm weakened and moved inland, leaving a swathe of destruction and triggering fears heavy rains would bring flash floods.

Packing wind speeds of up to 195 kph (over 120 mph), cyclone Hudhud hammered the coasts of Andhra Pradesh and Odisha states on Sunday, forcing tens of thousands of coastal inhabitants to seek safety in storm shelters.

In the port city of Visakhapatnam, home to two million people, government workers began removing uprooted trees which had blocked roads, restoring snapped power and telecoms lines and clearing up debris including sign boards and corrugated iron roofs which had been ripped off buildings by the strong gusts.

“I do not know how many days it will take to restore my business. I have lost everything,” said Heusikeswa Rao, a trader in Visakhapatnam, as he tried to gather the pieces of wood and metal which once formed his stall.

Huge lines were seen at the few petrol stations which reopened after a two-day closure as people carrying jerry cans jostled to get fuel which was in short supply. Residents also resorted to panic buying items such as milk, candles and kerosene in some places.

Few shops were open and schools and many offices were closed due to poor telecoms and no power for the second day in a row.

Officials in Andhra Pradesh, which reported 21 deaths, said initial surveys found that thousands of houses had been damaged and there was widespread destruction to banana, sugarcane and rice crops in the districts of Visakhapatnam, Srikakulam, East Godavari and Vijaynagaram.

Tens of thousands of people spent a third night in cyclone shelters due to damage to their home or a lack of food or clean drinking water in their villages, officials said.

Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh N. Chandrababu Naidu, who visited Visakhapatnam on Monday, said he was fully confident that response to the disaster would be quick.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi said he would visit the area on Tuesday.

“Have been constantly taking updates on Cyclone Hudhud ... Will visit Visakhapatnam tomorrow and take stock of the situation,” Modi tweeted. l

Where is Kim Jong-un? n BBC Kim Jong-un, North Korea’s 32-year-old leader, has been absent from public view for more than 38 days, prompting a flurry of speculation about the political stability of a regime notorious for its opaqueness and secrecy.

In particular, Kim’s non-attendance at two high-profile public events - the 10 October anniversary of the establishment of the Korean Worker’s Party, and the 9 September Foundation Day of the North Korean State - two signature days in the political calendar when the leader would be expected to make an appearance, has been read by some as a sign of potential political turmoil behind the scenes.

Official North Korean media have cited unspecified personal “discomfort” as grounds for Kim’s absence from public view.

Foreign analysts of the regime have speculated, on the basis of very limited empirical evidence, that this may be based on a variety of causes ranging from gout, diabetes, heavy smoking on the part of the young leader, ankle injuries sustained during recent military inspection visits, and most recently (according to testimony from a German doctor who met Kim) substantial problems in his endocrine system and internal organs.

Poor health is a plausible explanation for Kim’s decision to shun the limelight - a striking departure for a leader who, in marked contrast to his publicity-shy father (the late Kim Jong-il), has appeared to revel in high-profile public appearances.

A more dramatic interpretation is that Kim has been the victim of a political coup and is languishing under house arrest, having been removed from power by members of the North’s political and military gerontocracy alarmed by his penchant for purging his political rivals - most notably the execution of his uncle Jang Song-taek

in December 2013 - and his failure to promote lasting economic prosperity.

In particular, senior members of the Pyongyang elite, may, according to this theory, have become increasingly disgruntled as a result of tightening international sanctions that have curtailed their access to privileges in-kind, typically in the form of ever more scarce luxury commodities.

Alternatively, Kim’s putative political fall from grace could be the result of worries within political circles that the North has been failing in the high-stakes game of international diplomacy.

An erratic policy over the last nine months of alternately sharply criticising and reaching out to the Park Geun-hye administration in South Korea has failed to deliver any political or economic dividends for the North, whether in the form of substantially expanded humanitarian aid, a re-start of tourism at the North’s Mount Kumgang resort, or a dramatic rise in inward foreign investment and trade.

The Obama administration remains resolutely committed to not responding to the North’s military and political provocations, and the North seems incapable of leveraging its de facto nuclear status into any meaningful political or diplomatic concessions from Washington; even China, the North’s sole security guarantor and regional ally, has become increasingly irritated by Kim’s regional belligerence.

Yet for all the talk of coups and leadership realignments, the circumstantial evidence suggests that Kim remains in charge.

South Korea’s intelligence community supports the view that he is recuperating from illness and that the decision to limit his public appearances is more likely an attempt to maintain the general air of infallibility associated with the Kim dynasty.

If anything, recent diplomatic overtures are, more plausibly, confirmation that Kim continues to dictate national policy. l

Sri Lanka re-opens rail link to former war zone n Reuters, Jaffna, Sri Lanka

‘Suspicious’

The government has convicted and detained several scholars in what activists say is a sustained campaign against dissent. A court in the western region of Xinjiang sentenced economics professor Ilham Tohti to life on separatism charges last month.

Legal scholar Xu Zhiyong was sentenced in January to four years in prison after he campaigned for government officials to disclose their wealth.

Rights groups say dozens of activists supporting the demonstrations in Hong Kong have been detained or intimidated by police.

Maya Wang of New York-based Human Rights Watch said the detentions signalled increasing intolerance of dissent. “Even very moderate intellectuals who have kept a low profile ... are now being targeted for detentions,” Wang said.

Separately, the State Administration for Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television said on Friday it was banning books by at least eight renowned writers and intellectuals.

The publishing regulator circulated a notice to say that books by the writers, including prominent liberal economist Mao Yushi, were “not to published,” according to the notice, obtained by Reuters. l

9

Tuesday, October 14, 2014

Police officers arrest an anti-occupy protester (C) in the Admiralty district of Hong Kong. Dozens of masked men rushed barricades at Hong Kong’s main pro-democracy site yesterday, triggering clashes as demonstrators tried to push them back AFP

More than two decades after its destruction in Sri Lanka’s civil war, the rail link between the capital Colombo and the northern city of Jaffna re-opened yesterday amid hopes that it will give a boost to reconciliation efforts.

Sri Lankans excitedly crowded into Jaffna station to welcome the blue train ‘Yaal Devi’ (Jaffna Queen), heavily garlanded with flowers, the first to arrive in the city since July 1990. Many younger residents had never seen a train before.

“This is not just another journey, this is a bridge between the north and south,” said President Mahinda Rajapaksa, who boarded the Chinese-built train for the final 38 km (24 miles) of its journey to Jaffna amid tight security.

Rajapaksa’s government brought Colombo’s 26-year-long war with Tamil Tiger rebels to an end in 2009, but has

drawn criticism from Western nations and ethnic minority Tamils for not doing more since then to mend ties with the Jaffna region.

He argues that economic development, with over $5bn worth of infrastructure, including the rail link, offers the best basis for reconciliation between the Tamils and Sri Lanka’s majority Sinhalese.

India provided a credit of $800m to rebuild the rail link. The final stretch, to the north of Jaffna, has not yet been completed.

On its way to Jaffna, Yaal Devi, travelling at its maximum speed of 120 km (75 miles) per hour, crossed a bridge whose destruction by the Tamil Tigers in 1990 severed the rail link with the south.

From then until 2009, with roads in rebel hands, people and goods had to travel by air or sea to reach the Jaffna peninsula. l

Scuffles break out in HK as antiVongfong hits Japan protest groups tear down barricades n Reuters, Tokyo

n Reuters, Hong Kong Hundreds of people, some wearing surgical masks and armed with crowbars and cutting tools, tore down protest barriers in the heart of Hong Kong’s business district yesterday, scuffling with protesters who have occupied the streets for two weeks.

Angry taxi drivers opposed to the protests, which have seriously affected their business, also rallied at one barricaded road with a row of 12 taxis, demanding an end to the protest.

“Open the roads,” chanted a crowd, which included taxi and truck drivers.

Taxi drivers have given protesters a deadline of Wednesday evening for all barricades to be lifted.

A truck with a crane on top attempted to remove barricades from one area until police eventually stopped it, but protesters complained that police did not act quickly enough.

Hundreds of police had earlier dismantled some barricades to relieve traffic congestion in the Asian financial hub, but said protesters could remain.

But within hours, anti-Occupy Central groups descended on the protest sites to try and disperse demonstrators, taking advantage of the earlier police action to remove barricades.

Scuffles quickly broke out, the first between demonstrators and anti-protest groups, with protesters believing the attacks were co-ordinated and may have involved triad Asian crime gangs.

“People from New Territories, blue ribbon (Beijing) supporters, triads and taxi drivers must be coordinated by some sort of people...the work is so well distributed. They went to different places in order to keep protesters busy,” said 49-year-old Mr Chan, who declined to give his full name.

Some of the anti-protest groups spoke Mandarin and could not speak Cantonese, suggesting they were not from Hong Kong.

“The group of people who look like gangsters, they start running toward them (protesters), and then one of them hit an old man with something hard, hit his head, so he’s injured over there right now,” said 20-year-old student protester and witness Winnie Locke. l

The strongest storm to hit Japan this year battered the southern islands of Kyushu and Shikoku early on Monday, brought heavy rain toTokyo and caused extensive travel disruption.

Typhoon Vongfong has forced the cancellation of more than 500 domestic flights, the public broadcaster NHK said. At least one overseas flight was cancelled, according to an airline.

Many trains in western cities were also suspended, NHK said.

More than 820,000 people have been urged to leave their homes, it said. About 4,900 households in Tokyo suburbs were without power, media said.

Rain in Tokyo was expected to intensify overnight.

Vongfong battered the southern

Japanese island of Okinawa, 600 km (1,000 miles) south of Tokyo, as well as Kyushu and Shikoku islands, injuring 59 people, NHKsaid.

On Sunday, the wind weakened significantly from the previous day when it reached a peak of 234 kph 146 mph), which had made Vongfong into a “super typhoon.”

Tokyo Electric Power Co, the operator of the crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant, said in a statement it had also increased the water transfer and storage capacity to prevent an overflow of radioactive water being stored at the plant.

A major baseball game in Osaka city, between the Orix Buffaloes and the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters for the Pacific League playoff, was also postponed. It was the first time a Nippon Professional Baseball playoff game was cancelled because of a typhoon. l

10

DHAKA TRIBUNE

Editorial

Tuesday, October 14, 2014

CODE-CRACKER

Build on the people’s optimism

A

major survey by the Pew Research Centre highlights that over 71% of Bangladeshis believe the next generation will be better off and have higher living standards.

The survey indicates a healthy pragmatic mix of realism and hope for a better future.

In common with similar surveys in other poorer nations, but unlike people in richer countries, most survey respondents believe that forces outside their control will determine their future living standards.

Despite this, when asked what is most important in getting ahead in life, the two top answers given by most respondents were education (50%) and hard work (26%). These are attributes over which individuals have more control, unlike factors such as being male (10%) or from a wealthy family (9%).

Other results also indicate pragmatism. An overwhelming 80% of people believe they are better off in a free market system, while a smaller but still large number of people (60%) agree inequality and the wealth gap is a major problem for the country.

Perhaps the most important gap which needs to be closed is the fact that while only 19% of people think the next generation will be worse off, 26% still believe they need to go abroad to be better off.

The only way in which this figure can come down is if politicians improve the quality of the nation’s governance and live up to the optimism and pragmatism demonstrated by the mass of people .

Improving access to education and opportunities for all is imperative to fulfill people’s hopes.

Improve governance and education to live up to the public’s aspirations

Don’t turn back on privatisation

T

he prime minister has directed the Textiles and Jute Ministry to reclaim 47 jute mills and factories which were privatised while the former cabinet minister, Abdul Latif Siddique, was in charge of the ministry.

A government committee has alleged that these assets were sold in non-transparent ways without inviting tenders, which raises the question why they haven’t been investigated already.

While the ACC should always be called upon to investigate any allegations of underhand dealings, the government is wrong to use Latif’s dismissal as a pretext to turn its back on the policy of privatisation.

At the present time, most jute mills, private as well as stateowned, are losing money as there is too much capacity and not enough demand.

Under the circumstances, loss-making state-owned jute mills should be closed to reduce excess production capacity. It is not fair to expect owners of private jute mills to compete with loss-making state-owned mills which receive subsidies without limit.

Their land and assets can be used more productively by the private sector to build purpose-built, safe factories to sustain export earning jobs in the RMG sector.

The future of Bangladesh depends on the private sector. The confusing mixed messages which the government has sent this year on jute mills, from promising more sell-offs to proposing costly moves to take privatised mills under state control, undermine the certainty needed to attract investors.

State-owned jute mills have consistently failed to deliver profitability. The government should not waste further taxpayer funds on them.

Close lossmaking stateowned jute mills.

Their assets can be used more productively by the private sector

Be heard 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

Can slaughter be religion?

October 3

How to solve: Each number in our CODE-CRACKER grid represents a different letter of the alphabet. For example, today 17 represents I so fill I every time the figure 17 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

(no “somebody”) is killed when a plant is being destroyed.

N Naz Chowdhury I agree on the fact that these animals could be slaughtered in a kinder way. However, I don’t believe and neither do I support the nonsense about vegans. Plants are alive too, and how do you know that they are dead emotionally? Does it not occur to you that plants may have emotional intelligence as well? The act of sacrificing an animal and “sharing” its meat with everyone on the day of Eid-ul-Azha is part of our religion whether anyone likes it or not. That much has been made clear by our last prophet. Moreover, ask the beggars and the poor if they would like to have fruits and vegetables instead because, to your dismay, you will find they don’t. Try to see the happiness in the eyes of these poor people and you will know that the beauty of Eid-ul-Azha is in the sharing.

Rainer Ebert N Naz Chowdhury: It is true that both plants and animals are alive. But so are Salmonella bacteria, and that surely doesn’t imply it is wrong to kill them. The crucial difference between plants and (“higher”) animals is the fact that the latter are conscious and capable of feeling pain. Plants lack brains, central nervous systems, and other structures that would allow them to experience pain. They also lack the ability to move away from sources of stress, an evolutionary trait linked with the ability to feel pain. Unlike (“higher”) animals, plants don’t have a point of view. There is “nobody at home” in a plant. Hence, nobody

‘Hajj selfie fever’ criticised by Islamic clerics October 5

N Naz Chowdhury Rainer Ebert: Yes that is how we understand plants today, but things may change over time. This area is still being studied. There are even reports to say that plants respond to music and sound. Scientists are still studying the behaviour of other plants.

Take carnivorous plants, for example. As I said before, I agree with how animals for slaughter can be treated with more care and kindness but your question was on whether slaughter can be religion. Sacrificing cows, goats, camels etc in the name of Allah on Eid-ul-Azha and the sharing of the meat among the poor, family members, and neighbours is definitely part of our religion. Other religions, even pagan practices, have similar things too. Think about the big Christmas dinner with friends and family and the sharing of the turkey!

Rainer Ebert N Naz Chowdhury: I agree that plants respond to external stimuli such as sound or light, but one should be careful not to draw hasty conclusions from this. The responses of plants can be explained in terms of certain non-conscious mechanisms, without talking about the “feelings” or “thoughts” of plants. For all we know, consciousness has something to do with brains, and plants don’t have brains. Of course, it is logically possible that consciousness occurs without a brain, but we don’t have any good reason to believe that this possibility is realised in plants, or are you aware of any such reason? That might change some day, as science progresses. But for now, we have to assume that plants cannot feel or think.

As for animal sacrifice being an essential part of Islam, that’s controversial. I recommend a very informative article on the topic of animal sacrifice in Islam by Islamic scholar Shahid Ali Muttaqif on islmicconcern.com.

Shah Rukh unveils son AbRam’s pic October 8

Md Sojol There’s no cellular in Rahamat.

Have you had such an experience?

October 5

Anirban Biswas Yes, it’s called a bullfight. :-p

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 Malleable (4) 3 Egg-shaped (4) 7 First woman (3) 8 Dwell (5) 11 Reduced, as expenditure (4) 12 Microbes (5) 13 Combine (5) 15 Long, detailed story (4) 18 Flank (4) 19 Inherited character units (5) 20 Henhouse (5) 21 Flows back (4) 23 Words spoken in undertone (5) 24 Beverage (3)

25 Emit fumes (4) 26 Employed (4) DOWN 1 Social standing (6) 2 Without ardour (6) 4 Annoy (3) 5 Exact satisfaction for (6) 6 Was ahead (3) 9 Frightens from (6) 10 Before (poet) (3) 11 Fix a tax (6) 14 Bite gently (6) 16 Fantastic tricks (6) 17 Go up (6) 19 Western Indian state (3) 21 Corn spike (3) 22 Insect (3)

Mohammad A Sattar Thanks Shah Rukh! Nice to see the little one. Of late, we find you are quite out of touch. You are busy, we know, in Bollywood, in business, and in sports, but the first and last that we know of you is as the actor, Shah Rukh! So be on the screen more often with newer characters, and keep us believing that the best is Shah Rukh! Bangladesh has a huge fan base for you.

Why the Nobel Peace Prize is given

CALVIN AND HOBBES

October 12

PEANUTS

Rabiul Islam It is an established fact that if you are a judge, whoever you are, you are presumed to be someone who knows better. Seems that in order to get more publicity worldwide, the Norwegian Nobel Committee chooses laureates who are either very influential (politically and economically) or whose name and description could earn credibility for the upcoming Nobel Peace Prize. Doesn’t ring a bell? When Barack Obama was awarded this prize, a few of us were angry. It didn’t matter though because by awarding a president, of a dominating and economically strong nation, the worth of the Nobel Prize just hit the roof!

In his will Alfred Nobel wrote, “and one part to the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between the nations and the abolition or reduction of standing armies and the formation and spreading of peace congresses.” If we consider the Obama administration and its diplomatic decision and the consequences, the award went against this will.

If my accusation/assumptions are right, then the Nobel committee has made a horrible mistake by not awarding Queen Elizabeth this honour.

Awarding Liu Xiaobo the following year, and then, in 2011 awarding the award to President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf with Leymah Gbowee of Liberia and Tawakel Karman of Yemen earned more credibility for the prize.

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DHAKA TRIBUNE

Op-Ed

11

Tuesday, October 14, 2014

Go-vern, or go n FS Aijazuddin

T

Who can visit the temple?

WIKIMEDIA

Separated colours

M

n Swatil Binte Mahmud

other Durga – she is gracious, kind, and powerful. She is everything I want to be. I want to have the strength she has in her hands, the mighty presence she has to offer, and shine the way she shines in her colours and jewels.

I was raised in a Muslim family around Muslim friends, and in a country with a majority population of Muslims. Growing up, my knowledge about other religions was very limited.

A 13-year-old, I never had the courage and the curiosity to visit a Hindu temple. But since I was my own person now, I gathered all the curiosity that I lacked as a young girl, and walked into another world of wonder and amazement.

As I sat on my rickshaw waiting to reach Dhakeshwari Mondir, I could already smell and see what waited ahead of me – a world completely out of my knowledge, and filled with surprises. Women were dressed in their new outfits. Bangles clanked gracefully, their red saris draped beautifully around them.

As I walked through the gate, I saw what I had seen only with my eyes for

years, but that day I felt her majestic presence. There she was, mounted on a tiger, her head held high, and all her weapons of strength firmly clasped in her palms.

I could not grasp exactly how I was not showing respect to Eid by going to an event of the Hindu religion

I walked in and saw her admirers admiring her, and before I knew it, I was doing the same. The blindfold that I had worn for years was slowly coming off, and I could see. I could see the bright red on womens’ hair parting, the white in their bangles, and the love in their eyes for Mother Durga. My ears could hear the loud but energising musical notes of the dhaak. I could also smell the candles behind me. All my senses were alive, and at their peak.

As I was walked out of the temple area and reached another section of the city, that’s when I sensed the ears and eyes around me. Wherever I went, their eyes followed, and whatever I said was being heard. My red and yellow outfit never grabbed this much attention the ten times I wore it before.

But that day it did, mainly because of the red tilok on my forehead. I did not know what was more offending, the snide remarks, or all the unnecessary countless stares.

I uploaded a photo of myself smiling, sitting inside Dhakeshwari temple along with the bright red tilok on my forehead, as my Facebook profile picture, and wishing everyone the best for this auspicious occasion. In return, I received questions about what exactly my religion was, and spiteful comments about how I was disrespecting our Eid. First of all, it was hard for me to understand how anyone could ask me about my religion, which is by all means a personal choice, so openly and impolitely. Secondly, I could not grasp exactly how I was not showing respect to Eid by going to a religious event of the Hindu religion.

It made me think about the 8% of the Bangladeshis that belong to the Hindu community. Do all of them

have to face such stares every time they step outside their house with their deep red vermillion? Do they get looked down upon because they belong to a minority?

I do not know about others, but did the remarks, stares, and questions bother me? Did they make me hate myself for enjoying and experiencing something new? No, they did not.

What I experienced that evening, all those wonderful things, is always going to be a part of me.

I could not comprehend what exactly I had done to offend others’ faiths and beliefs. Was I stopping someone from celebrating what they wanted to celebrate? Or was I judging anyone because they were celebrating an occasion? Yet, all of this was being done to me.

I am not here to point out what is wrong and right in my society, that is another discussion. I am here to say that what I did was not wrong. Years ago, segregation among “coloured” and “non-coloured” individuals was not acceptable. I am only eagerly waiting for the red tilok on my forehead to become acceptable, so that my actions become accepted. l

solve it.

Now, let’s take a look at the city schools. Obviously, they have good faculties, qualified students, and sound infrastructure. But, what’s actually happening there? We see teachers devoting themselves to coaching businesses because they are underpaid.

papers to students who go to their coaching centres. Here rises the question of integrity and morality of those teachers.

Creative question patterns are still a dilemma for both teachers and students. A question-setter doesn’t know how to formulate proper creative questions, an examinee doesn’t know how to write, and an examiner doesn’t know how to evaluate in the proper way.

In addition, examiners are bound to give examinees good grades. As long as a student has written something in the answer script, the examiner has to give him some marks. These errors in checking copies may create a surge of GPA 5 holders, but in the end it turns into goldbrick.

Then there are ethical problems regarding students. Students only care about good grades instead of actually learning something. They may easily get good grades in the undergraduate level, but when it comes to quality and credibility, they fail to prove themselves. Guardians too only care about good marks instead of encouraging their children to learn.

Admission tests in Dhaka University are very competitive indeed. Students who don’t possess the required qualities will be rejected. Sadly, there are students from science background

Swatil Binte Mahmud is a freelance contributor.

here are as many ways to skin a goat as there are to remove a political leader.

Fifty years ago, in October 1964, Premier Nikita Khrushchev, then on holiday in a seaside resort in Georgia, was summoned back to Moscow by his colleagues in the Soviet Presidium.

His once fawning subordinates charge-sheeted him, accusing him of “ignoring other’s opinions,” even of taking decisions “over lunch.”

Khrushchev appealed to their friendship. “You have no friends here,” one of them retorted. When Khrushchev tried to salvage his sinking authority by admitting his mistakes, another shouted him down: “You listen to us for a change.”

Khrushchev had been in power for 11 years, the same span of time that another leader, Mrs (later Baroness) Margaret Thatcher was Britain’s prime minister. In November 1990, well into her third term, her leadership was challenged by a fellow conservative, Michael Heseltine. The leadership was put to a vote. Twice, Mrs Thatcher failed to get the required majority.

Tearfully, she bowed out, yielding the post to John Major. A political observer commented laconically of Heseltine’s betrayal: “At least he stabbed her in the front.”

Imran Khan’s frontal assault on a third term, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif owes little to British traditions of furtive balloting in committee rooms, or to blood baths within the Kremlin’s mute walls. It owes even less to the mob politics that brought down the Russian czar in 1917, and the Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak in 2011. It owes nothing to parliamentary conventions that, because elected leaders are voted in, they need to be voted out.

Imran Khan’s PTI party has opted for the party game numbers: Who can mobilise the largest crowd? His detractors dismiss the tumultuous gatherings at Islamabad first, then Karachi, Lahore, and recently at Mianwali, as the power of a rent-a crowd – earnest, vociferous, but electorally flaccid.

His party stalwarts see the increasing surge of attendees at his rallies as a barometer of the public’s disaffection with the Sharif-style of governance, as a reactionary gravitation.

Neither is wrong. An angry mob is the grimace of a disaffected public, just as a friendly crowd to a politician is as heart-warming as a muddle of Labradors is to a pet-lover.

It is probably some time since anyone in Pakistan’s political parties opened a history book. They are advised to read Elizabeth Longford’s biography of the Duke of Wellington (1972). She describes how in October 1831, a horde attacked Apsley House (his London home), given to him by a grateful nation for defeating Napoleon.

The demonstrators broke its windows. She mentions: “The glass was mended in time for the Waterloo Banquet of 1833, but the Duke retained the shutters and to the end of his life was apt to raise his hat ironically and point towards them if a crowd began

cheering him.

It is also some time since anyone in our political parties re-read their manifestos, released with such fanfare in 2013.

It is becoming clear to a disaffected public that Nawaz Sharif’s ineptness will prevent him from completing his third term

The PML-N, then aspiring to become the government, made skyscraper promises that defied the laws of architecture and soared above credibility.

On energy, for example, it promised “to tackle circular debt and system losses, to end load-shedding in the minimum time,” and “to invest $20bon to generate 10,000MW of electricity in the next 5 years.”

On education, it vowed to declare a “National Education Emergency” and promised to work with the provinces to achieve “100% enrollment up to the middle level and 80% universal literacy.” Understandably, it avoided any mentions of poll-rigging.

Interestingly, the 2013 Election Manifesto of the Zardari-Bhutto PPP-P began with a quotation by its founder ZA Bhutto: “We badly need to gather our thoughts and clear our minds.

We need a political ceasefire without conceding ideological territory.”

One wonders whether his grandson Bilawal had those sentences in mind when he drafted his public apologia to PPP sympathisers, released a fortnight ago.

In that unprecedented nostra culpa, he admitted that his party had “committed mistakes in the past” and almost pleaded with discontented acolytes “not to support any undemocratic party that backs extremism.”

He urged: “There are other ways for registering a protest. You should not punish Pakistan and democracy for our mistakes.”

No one outside Bilawal House can know whether he consulted anyone older before issuing that statement.

His parents – in adversity and in power – always followed Benjamin Disraeli’s sage dictum: “Never complain and never explain.”

It is becoming clear to a disaffected public that Nawaz Sharif’s ineptness will prevent him from completing his third term. It is also clear that a tireless Imran Khan and a dispirited Tahirul Qadri cannot uproot Nawaz Sharif simply through noisy sit-ins.

Political liquidations may have the same ends; what distinguishes them from each other are the means. l FS Aijazuddin lives in Lahore and is a columnist for Dawn, Pakistan’s main Englishlanguage newspaper. This article was first published in Dawn.

Who to blame n Saleh Md Arman

T

he recent controversies regarding the “A+ deluge” and the Dhaka University admission test debacle have grabbed everyone’s attention. The issue makes us question the credibility of tertiary-level examination results, ie SSC and HSC results.

DU admission tests were submerged by torrents of A+s. It is obvious that it is impossible to accommodate every student in Dhaka University. But the saddest part is that most of them could not even secure pass marks in the admission tests. Who is responsible for this?

We always measure the development of our educational sector on the basis of the number of GPA 5 holders in each public examination. There is a positive growth in the number of GPA 5 holders. Each year, this figure is escalating. As a result, we correlate the high number of GPA 5 holders with educational development.

In reality, our education system is only at its primitive stage. The quality of education has improved in the cities where students are well-resourced with qualified teachers, internet access, projectors, and so on. But we don’t get any headaches about the situation of schools in the village areas. We can find schools with very

poor conditions even on the outskirts of Dhaka.

To be honest, now we have internet access in remote areas of the country.

But it doesn’t necessarily help with the education. Students may know how to browse the internet on computers, cell phones, or other devices.

What we need to do is to reconstruct our educational sector. We need to motivate the students to actually learn

But severe infrastructural problems are still there. There are even some incidents where teachers have to take classes under a tree like Rabindranath Tagore did more than a century ago.

This might sound hilarious to privileged people, but in reality, it indicates the horrible condition of our education system. Teachers are forced to take classes under a tree because of the fragile infrastructure of their school buildings. Authorities concerned feel reluctant to take effective actions to

Whenever they raise their voices to increase their salaries, they are humiliated and silenced. So, they focus on the coaching business in order to make more money.

I do not blame the teachers who run coaching businesses. Students might need to go to them to get additional help with their studies. What I am saying is that many times the teachers have no other option but to take coaching classes instead of teaching in schools. They even leak questions

BIGSTOCK

who score zero in mathematics, or students from business studies who get zero in accounting. This shows the level of inadequate learning of the tertiary-level students of our country.

Despite these facts, we should not play blame games. What we need to do is to reconstruct our educational sector. We need to motivate the students to actually learn instead of achieving GPA 5. The quality of education should be improved too.

I would like to thank State Minister for ICT Junaid Ahmed Palak for his brilliant idea to check the chance of question paper leakage. Hopefully, this will help stop question paper leakages.

If we change our attitudes, it might be possible to ensure quality education for every student, and we won’t have to face such debacles again. l Saleh Md Arman is an independent researcher.

12

DHAKA TRIBUNE

Entertainment

Tuesday, October 14, 2014

Matal Haowa - story about young men n Entertainment Desk A new drama series “Matal Haowa” will be aired today at 9:35pm on Channel i. The series stars Chanchal Chowdhury, Nowshin, Mim, Pran Rai, Aparna, Rawnak Hasan and Orsha, among others.

Through this drama, Nazrul singer Fatema-Tuz-Zohra will make her debut appearance in a tv serial.

The plot revolves around young men who live in a same locality. The characters have a wide range of personalities. Khokon is the new resident in the neighbourhood who is nerd. There

is also a music loving family where the father is an exponent of Rabindra Sangeet, the Mother, a Nazrul Geeti-singer, and the son is influenced by rock music; on the other hand, the daughter, Oroni, practices martial arts.

Noman is a studious person, and Kashi is a mysterious character who receives money and photos through mails. Abir, Jewel, and Panna all try to impress Oroni. This is how, each of the episodes takes a different turn.

A comic-TV series, Matal Haowa, will be aired on Sundays, Mondays, and Tuesdays. l

NAWSHABA lands first major movie role n Hasan Mansoor Chatak Actress Quzi Nawshaba Ahmed has recently landed her first major movie role having appeared in minor roles in three films previously. The film – “Pratiruddho” – will also star newcomer Amit Sinha.

Khijir Hayat Khan of “Jagoo” fame will direct the movie.

An excited Nawshaba told the Dhaka Tribune, “I have always cherished the dream of being part of a movie where I can act, if in a glamorous role, to my heart’s content. The character in this film is just what I

was looking for.”

The small-screen actress is currently taking preparation for her role which involves dancing, among other things. “Definitely the director took a bit of risk casting new actors, and we don’t want to disappoint him,” she added.

Previously, Nawshaba worked in “Chuye Dile Mon,” “Udhao” and “Underconstruction” and is confident that her new movie will play a crucial role in shaping up her career in the film industry. The shooting of the film will start in December.

Nawshaba was recently praised

MTV VJ registration closes Wednesday n Entertainment Desk Video jockeys (VJ) aspiring to work in the upcoming MTV Program Platform Bangladesh Season 2 have less than 48 hours to register before online registration closes this Wednesday. The registration process for the VJ hunt, initiated by Creinse Limited, which is responsible for marketing and producing MTV programme contents for Bangladesh, began on September 26.

The VJ Search 2014 aims to “unearth the new faces of MTV Program Platform Bangladesh,” a press release by Creinse Limited said.

The aspirants will have to register via a Facebook Application, which is available on www.facebook.com/Creinse – the official Facebook page of the entertainment company.

A total of 50 aspirants will be selected initially, and from them 25 will be short-listed for live auditions. The top five contestants will have the opportunity to participate in the subsequent grooming sessions.

Out of them, only one who meets all the necessary requirements will emerge as the winner and become the new face of MTV Bangladesh, announcing and introducing its music videos.

The new video jockey will enjoy a starting benefit package of Tk300,000 with additional incentives. l VJ Anya will join with the winner at the VJ of MTV Program Platform Bangladesh MAHMUD HOSSAIN OPU

n Entertainment Desk Although Saif Ali Khan is busy wrapping up his upcoming movie “Happy Ending,” but he has made time for his second wedding anniversary. Saif Ali Khan and wife, Kareena Kapoor, who regularly holiday in Europe, will be heading closer home this time.

The couple will celebrate their special day at the actor’s ancestral home, the Pataudi Palace, which was also the venue of their glamorous wedding reception. A source close to the actor said: “He has taken a few days off starting from October 15.

Their anniversary is on the following day and arrangements are already being made at the palace.”

The source added that only a select bunch of friends, apart from close family members, have been invited. “The palace has been going through renovation and now it’s finally ready. Saif Ali Khan and Kareena have found the perfect occasion to raise a toast to it.” l

for her role in the hit television play “Sikander Box Ekhon Bandarban,” in which she played a girl named “Pakhi.” In this regard, she said, “I didn’t expect to see the kind of reaction that the drama generated. Everyone praised the plot and acting. Even I met children on the streets calling me Pakhi. This is eally amazing.”

Beside acting, Nawshaba also writes lyrics occasionally. She penned all the songs for her husband Ehsan Rahman Zia working on an album titled “Areas of Blindness.”

Together, they also formed a musical project called The Scarlet Sky. l

Bandidas

Movies Now, 5:20pm

In 1888 Mexico, two women, one a European educated sophisticate, the other a rough and tumble peasant fight off a ruthless bank enforcer by becoming celebrated bank robbers.

Cruel Intentions

Star Movies, 3:30pm

Kathryn and Sebastian are step-siblings who boss over everyone at college. Sebastian considers himself a Don Juan who goes around sleeping with all the girl students.

Luck by Chance Star Gold, 1:10pm

Mim and Fatema-Tuz-Zohra in Matal Haowa

Exhibition

The Macabre World

By Subrata Das Time: 9:30am – 8:00pm EMK Centre, MIDAS Center, Dhanmondi Solo Painting Exhibition

By Gopal Ghoshe

Time: 12pm – 8pm Bengal Shilpalaya, Dhanmondi

Theatre

Macabre

By Centre for Asian Theatre (CAT) Time: 7:00pm – 8:30pm National Theatre, Shilpakala Academy

Sona comes to Mumbai with big dreams of becoming a star. So does Vikram who is quite intelligent and determined to get what he wants.

PENELOPE CRUZ named sexiest woman alive

by Esquire magazine n Entertainment Desk The Spanish bombshell Penelope Cruz has been named the Sexiest Woman Alive by Esquire magazine.

Cruz, 40, spoke to the magazine but said little about her personal life with actor husband Javier Bardem and their two children.

“That is for us,” she was quoted as saying.

Cruz did, however, offer a little insight into her career and how her artistic interests have changed over the years.

“I’ve made it hard for me sometimes, especially in my teens and twenties,” Cruz told Esquire. “I had an attraction to drama. Most of us have that, especially if you are an artist—you feel like you are tempted to explore the darkness. I could not be less interested now. For me, the most attractive, charming, cool, fun, interesting thing—how could I call it? A plan.”

In 2009, Cruz became the first Spanish actress to win an Academy Award, taking home the Oscar for her supporting role in “Vicky Christina Barcelona.”

Cruz was also nominated two other times.

Previous “Sexiest Woman Alive” honorees include Scarlett Johansson who won twice, including last year, Mila Kunis in 2012 and Rihanna in 2011. l

Saif and Kareena to ring in their wedding anniversary at the Nawab’s Pataudi Palace

Tanvir Mokammel to open Kolkata short film fest n Entertainment Desk Director Tanvir Mokammel from Bangladesh has been invited to inaugurate the 12th International Short Fiction Film Festival to be held in Kolkata from November 1 and 6.

The Goethe Institute in Kolkata and Kalpanirjhar, an audiovisual media platform, are jointly organising the event which will take place at the Goethe Institute auditorium and feature 36 short films from 14 countries.

Internationally-acclaimed Indian director Gautam Ghose is the chairman of this year’s episode of the festival. l

OSCARS 2015 foreign film hopefuls unveiled n Entertainment Desk The Academy has announced the complete list of 2015 Foreign Language Oscar contenders for the 2015 Oscar awards and again its a new record, topping last year’s record 76 submissions, this year the list reaches 83 total submissions. Kosovo, Malta, Mauritania and Panama are first-time entrants.

Turkish-language title, “Little Happiness,” is the UK’s official entry for the foreign language film category.

Belgian siblings Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne are among the high-profile directors to have had their films submitted by their country’s national film body.

Others include former Bafta winner Paweł Pawlikowski, whose latest drama “Ida” has been put forward on Poland’s behalf.

Director Khalid Mohammed Mithu’s “Glow of the Firefly” (‘Jonakir Alo’) is Bangladesh’s 10th entry in the category since it began submitting in 2002.

The 83 titles will be narrowed down in January to a shortlist of nine, from which five nominees will be selected for the 2015 award.

For the first time the award will have the winning director as well as the submitting country engraved upon it, following an amendment to the Academy’s rules confirmed last month. l

Did you know?

Robin van Persie (48 goals) has scored a goal every 143 minutes when playing for the Netherlands

Sport

Tuesday, October 14, 2014

14 England labour to

win, Costa ends Spain wait

14 Dunga denies

slur against Argentina

DHAKA TRIBUNE

13

15 Maxwell gives

Australia thrilling one-run win

Booters irked with new BFF ruling n Raihan Mahmood

The Professional League Committee of the Bangladesh Football Federation (BFF) virtually ignited a fire between themselves and the players as it decided that the top-flight clubs will not provide more than 25 percent as signing money during the players’ transfer.

The meeting, presided over by BFF senior vice president Abdus Salam Murshedy and attended by the club representatives, took the decision and it also finalised the date of the players’ transfer. The decision immediately angered the players as they reacted strongly.

Following the meeting, Murshedy focussed upon the rules and regulations.

“We thought that there must be some regulation over the payment process.

We have to follow the system. All the clubs must pay the players on a monthly basis. It is the structure of the professional circuit,” said Murshedy.

However, Murshedy, failed to provide any clear-cut answer when asked how they would monitor it. “We will get the contract papers and will be aware of the dealings” was his simple reply.

It is mentionable that the BFF receives a lot of applications every season regarding the non-payment of the players and its Player Status Committee finds it hard to solve the issues. Many clubs

fail to pay the players duly and it remains uncleared even till the end of the season.

The decision cast a dark shadow upon the players. Senior player of the national team and ace forward Zahid Hasan Emily stated his frustration over the decision. “It is not a good decision.

Who is going to provide the guarantee that the clubs will provide the money as monthly salaries regularly? I am frustrated that nobody hears the players’ side of the story. They should have talked to the players before taking the decision,” said a disconsolate Emily.

Another senior member of the national team, Atiqur Rahman Meshu, echoed the same tune. “The players always suffer with new rules and regulations. The new decision will put a negative effect upon the players as they will feel insecure,” said Meshu.

Brothers Union manager Amer Khan, who attended the meeting, admitted Meshu’s logic and he also revealed an interesting fact. “The players are accustomed to receiving the bulk of their money at the beginning. The new rules will have a negative impact upon the players. But I also want to say I am sure many of the clubs have already paid more than 25 percent to its targeted players,” said Amer.

The executive committee of the BFF, however, holds the right to overrule the decision. l

The Bangladesh cricketers enjoy their time during the practice session at the SBNS yesterday

Reputed Halsall sets sights on short-catching n Mazhar Uddin

Bangladesh’s new fielding coach Richard Halsall has set his sights on improving the short-catching skills of his charges after signing a two-year contract with the Bangladesh Cricket Board yesterday. The Zimbabwean has expressed his eagerness to develop the fielding aspect of the Tigers, starting with the upcoming home series against Zimbabwe later this month.

“Obviously the focus in the Test series will be a lot of close catching. The focus shifts slightly as you go from Test to ODI cricket. In the Test matches, close catching becomes critical especially with the outstanding slow bowlers that we have,” Halsall told the media at Sher-e-Bangla National Stadium yesterday.

The former Zimbabwean first-class cricketer had initially joined the Bangladesh team on a short-term contract in the recently concluded tour of the

Bangladesh fielding coach Richard Halsall West Indies as his existing deal with the England and Wales Cricket Board was still to expire. However, following the expiration of his contract with his previous employers, Halsall has now joined the Tigers permanently.

Before joining Bangladesh, Halsall was the assistant coach with the English national side for four years. Prior

to that he was the fielding consultant of England for two years from 2008-2010.

Throughout the course of his distinguished coaching career, the 46-year old was also the fielding coach of Sussex County Cricket Club from 1998-2006.

Halsall, who has worked with a number of high-profile personalities in his coaching career, said he is looking forward to utilising his experience alongside the current coaching set-up of Bangladesh.

“It’s very exciting. I have been very lucky with whom I worked with. People like Mushtaq Ahmed, Ottis Gibson, Saqlain Mushtaq, Graham Gooch. And here’s Hatu (head coach Chandika Hathurusingha) and Ruwan (Kalpage) and Heath Streak - they are outstanding coaches. For me it’s very exciting. I have spent a lot of time talking to the senior players and learning something from them. You have got to develop relationships and we are on the way to that,” he said.

Halsall also spoke about the body language of the cricketers and informed that it is important to forget the mistakes of the past and look for new opportunities. He also stressed on the significance of building a helpful atmosphere in the field.

The new fielding coach of Bangladesh went on to praise the catching ability of Shakib al Hasan and Nasir Hossain. Halsall is of the opinion that Nasir is one of the best catchers in the world and believes that the better fielders in the side can help and motivate the others to improve.

Following Halsall’s appointment, the refurbishment of the Tigers’ new coaching set-up is now complete. His fellow countryman Streak was added to the roster as the fast bowling coach while Hathurusingha has been the Tigers’ head coach since the home ODI series against India in June this year.

Kalpage, meanwhile, is the spin and assistant coach. l

COURTESY

Sachin Tendulkar, from India to Rupganj n Minhaz Uddin Khan Retired Indian cricket legend Sachin Tendulkar is all set to embark on a daylong trip to Dhaka today. The former Indian captain is making the visit to unveil the logo of Dhaka Premier Division Cricket League (DPL) side ‘Legends of Rupganj’ that were previously known as Gazi Tank Cricketers.

The club, Legends of Rupganj, are not new in the Bangladesh cricket arena. Purchased by Lutfar Rahman Badal last season, the club went on to lift the DPL crown. The change of title was finalised by Badal which was later approved by the Bangladesh Cricket Board in its September 29 board meeting.

Sachin has been going through a busy schedule lately with the first ever franchise-based football tourna-

ment – Indian Super League – getting underway last Saturday. He is one of the co-owners of ISL side Kerala Blasters. The legendary cricketer will fly to Dhaka today morning from Guwahati where his ISL side were scheduled to play their first game yesterday.

Once he sets foot in the capital, Sachin will travel to Rupganj, an upazila of the Narayanganj district located in the east of Dhaka. An organiser informed that the 41-year old will visit a primary school, meet the students and plant a tree in the school premises.

Sachin will then return to Dhaka in the afternoon and attend the logo-unveiling ceremony of Legends of Rupganj at a city hotel at 3pm. The ceremony will also reveal the club’s theme song.

Sachin is scheduled to board a chartered flight for Mumbai at night. l

Wrangle leaves Jessore friendly in limbo Foreign players’ quota set at three for BPFL

Sheikh Jamal, Abahani to contest in King’s Cup next season from November 12-De- reach the last four. n Shishir Hoque With two friendly matches against cember 11 this year. The decisions were

Zaman, Jessore and n Tauhid Shishir Hoque The Jessore Shamsul Huda Stadium is just 10 days away from hosting the first of two international football friendlies between the national teams of Bangladesh and Sri Lanka but the District Football Association (DFA) has not done any work to prepare the venue due to an ongoing conflict between its president and general secretary.

After the schedule of the friendlies was confirmed in late September this year, the Bangladesh Football Federation (BFF) sent a letter to the Jessore DFA on September 30 stating that the first match will be held in Jessore on October 24 and urged the responsible persons to take necessary actions.

According to Jessore DFA general secretary ABM Aktaruzzaman, the letter, however, did not reach Jessore because the current address of the respective DFA was posted as Dhaka instead of Jessore due to a disagreement between the general secretary and president Asaduzzaman Mithu. Consequently, nobody in the Jessore DFA was acknowledged about the BFF letter with the exception of the president and, as a result, the venue remained in its previous state despite the game being less than two weeks away. More importantly, the venue is not in a condition to host any international match.

BFF executive member Fazlur Rahman Babul visited the venue last Saturday and expressed frustration over the preparation work. Aktaruzzaman, who stated that he came to know about the

The foreign players’ quota for the 201415 Bangladesh Premier Football League (BPL) season has been reduced from four to three, confirmed the Bangladesh Football Federation (BFF) yesterday. A club can register upto five foreigners in their squad but can play three in the starting eleven. The registration number of the foreign players was previously seven.

The local players, however, are likely to pass a very hectic time in the last month of this year as the BFF has set the players’ transfer window for the

With just ten days to go before the Bangladesh-Sri Lanka friendly, the stands and the pitch of the Jessore stadium remain unprepared COURTESY game through a local newspaper, admitted that they did not get any official letter about the game in time as current president Asaduzzaman used the Dhaka address instead of Jessore in order to keep the organisation well under his control.

“We decided to work together forgetting the conflict between us keeping in mind that an international football match will be played in Jessore,” said Aktaruzzaman adding that they will prepare the venue in the next few days.

According to sources, the DFA arranged a primary meeting on Saturday 12, days after receiving the letter. The grass on the pitch has not been cut yet.

No initiatives have been taken to repair the broken seats in the gallery while

the open general gallery has not been renovated yet.

To ensure that the ongoing clash between the two higher officials of the DFA will not have any effect on the hosting of the international match in Jessore, district commissioner Humayan Kabir held a meeting at his residence last Saturday night and encouraged the two groups to forget their argument and work together.

Asaduzzaman informed that he could not start the preparation work due to his stay in Dhaka but assured that all renovations will be completed soon.

The second friendly will be held in Rajshahi on October 27. l

taken in a professional football league committee meeting at the BFF House yesterday. The committee also confirmed the names of the two participating clubs for the King’s Cup Tournament in Sri Lanka scheduled to be held next month.

BPL champions Sheikh Jamal Dhanmondi Club Limited and four-time professional league champions Abahani Limited will represent Bangladesh in Colombo. Team BJMC and Arambag KS earlier took part in the previous edition of the event but neither of them could

the Japanese Olympic football team slated for mid-December this year and the Bangabandhu Gold Cup football tournament scheduled to be held in the same month, the local footballers will go through a very busy time in December.

The new date of the transfer window has also diminished the chances of holding the Super Cup this season.

However, the committee has not yet given up hope saying a final decision on the cash-rich Super Cup will be taken in their next meeting. l

Princess to play for Jordan n Raihan Mahmood Princess Safa bint Firas of Jordan will be adding a touch of royalty to the AFC Under-16 Women’s Qualifiers that begins at Bangabandhu National Stadium tomorrow.

Safa has been playing football from a tender age and was a member of the Jordanian U-14 team. She grabbed a brace against Qatar in a 7-0 win in the AFC U-14 Girls’ Regional Championship in Jordan last year.

Coach Manar Mustafa Ahmad Fraij has been guiding the team from the U-14 level. l

The UAE U-16 team arrived in Dhaka for the AFC U-16 Qualifiers yesterday

COURTESY

14

DHAKA TRIBUNE

Sport

Tuesday, October 14, 2014

England labour to win, Costa ends Spain wait n AFP, Paris Wayne Rooney scored his 43rd international goal as England beat Estonia 1-0 to preserve their perfect Euro 2016 qualifying record on Sunday while Chelsea striker Diego Costa finally opened his Spain account.

Even after Estonia captain Ragnar Klavan was sent off for a second booking early in the second half in Tallinn, Roy Hodgson’s England still laboured to see off the Baltic minnows.

But they finally made the breakthrough thanks to Manchester United striker Rooney, who curled home a free-kick with 17 minutes remaining to maintain England’s 100 percent record after three Group E matches.

Slovenia moved into second place behind England thanks to a 2-0 win against Lithuania.

Defending champions Spain, who lost 2-1 in Slovakia last time out for their first qualifying defeat in eight years, got their campaign back on track with a 4-0 win in Luxembourg in Group C. David Silva and Paco Alcacer scored in the first half, with Costa snatching the third on 69 minutes for his first international goal in his seventh appearance.

Substitute Juan Bernat made it 4-0 with a debut goal on 87 minutes.

Eyebrows were raised before tha game when Spain coach Vicente Del Bosque dropped veteran goalkeeper Iker Casillas in favour of Manchester United stopper David de Gea. Slovakia’s 3-1 away win at Belarus -secured by a brace from Napoli striker Marek Hamsik and a late goal from Stanislav Sestak -- left them top of the group with nine points from three games.

Ukraine are in third place after Serhiy Sydorchuk struck on the stroke of half-time to earn a 1-0 win over Mace-

RESULTS Belarus Timofei Kalachyov 79

Luxembourg

1-3

Slovakia Marek Hamsik 65,84, Stanislav Sestak 90+1

0-4

Spain

0-2

Slovenia

2-0

Liechtenstein

1-0

Macedonia

David Silva 26, Alcacer 42, Diego Costa 69, Juan Bernat 88

Lithuania

Milivoje Novakovic 33,37

Sweden Erkan Zengin 34, Jimmy Durmaz 46

Ukraine

Serhiy Sydorchuk 45+2

Estonia Russia Artem Dzyuba 73pen

Austria Rubin Okotie 24

0-1

England Wayne Rooney 73

1-1

Moldova

1-0

Montenegro

Alexandru Epureanu 74

donia in Lviv.

It was Ukraine’s second win in four days having also beaten Belarus by the same scoreline on Thursday.

Sunday’s win could have been more impressive had Andriy Yarmolenko not smashed a 47th-minute penalty against the crossbar.

In Group G, Austria went top with seven points from three games after edging Montenegro 1-0 in Vienna thanks to a first-half goal from Rubin Okotie, who converted a 24th-minute pass from Marko Arnutovic.

Montenegro star striker Mirko Vucinic saw two good chances well-saved by Robert Almer in the Austria goal.

Previous leaders Russia were held to a second successive 1-1 draw and have five points from three games.

Russia, coached by Fabio Capello, drew 1-1 with Sweden on Thursday and 72 hours later they were pegged back again when Moldova skipper Alexandru Epureanu scored in the 74th minute to cancel out Artem Dzyuba’s opener from the penalty spot just a minute earlier. l

Spain striker Diego Costa (2L) celebrates with teammates after scoring during their Group C Euro 2016 qualifying match against Luxembourg at the Josy Barthel stadium in Luxembourg on Sunday AFP

Dunga denies slur against Argentina n AFP, Singapore

Brazil coach Dunga denied on Monday insinuating drug use in the Argentina camp after he was filmed pinching his nose and pointing at the rival bench during the weekend win in Beijing.

Dunga, questioned over the incident during Brazil’s trip to Singapore, said he was making reference to severe pollution in the Chinese capital which gave players blocked noses.

Saturday’s “Superclasico” friendly was anything but, as a fired-up Brazil won 2-0 to restore pride against their fierce rivals following a poor World Cup campaign on home soil.

“I never mentioned that the players were using drugs. This kind of state-

ment came from the media,” Dunga told reporters in Singapore, where Brazil play Japan on Tuesday.

“Maybe it’s due to the pollution in China that players had blocked noses all the time.”

Media interpreted Dunga’s repeated gesture as a “cocaine nose”, implying drug use. Argentine legend Diego Maradona has endured well-publicised struggles with cocaine.

“If Brazil wants a competitive team we have to go for new tactics. Otherwise the players will be playing calmly and I think this is not what Brazilians expect for the Brazilian team.”

Dunga added there may be a higher risk of injuries on a threadbare pitch at Singapore’s new, 55,000-seat national sta-

dium, complaining “most of it is sand”.

“The field of course raises the possibility of having injured players because there’s a lot of sand and I hope that the sand doesn’t create holes in the pitch during the match,” he said.

“It’s a risk we have to take but we can’t say if there are going to be any injured players.”

Singapore’s football association has also raised concerns about the pitch at the billion-dollar sports development, saying it falls far short of international standards.

On Monday superstars such as Neymar, Kaka and Oscar kicked up clouds of sand as they chased an awkwardly bouncing ball during a pre-match training session at the stadium. l

Spain coach Vicente del Bosque predicted Diego Costa would be a key performer for Spain in coming years after the Brazil-born forward ended his long wait for an international goal on Sunday.

Costa’s 69th-minute strike in a 4-0 win away to Luxembourg in Euro 2016 qualification Group C was his first goal for La Roja on his seventh appearance and broke a duck lasting more than 500 minutes.

His lack of goals for the European champions was all the more perplexing as he has been on electric form for new club Chelsea with nine goals in as many matches this term.

“We were all suffering and we were all pleased for Diego Costa because he has worked hard,” Del Bosque said after watching his side bounce back from Thursday’s surprise 2-1 defeat in Slovakia.

“Now we need to look forward knowing that he will be an important player for us,” he added.

“At halftime I told him to be calm. We all noticed he was a bit nervous, dissatisfied, as he wasn’t finding a way through.

But when a player has so much desire he will always get there in the end.”

Costa’s goal came when he controlled a pass from Sergio Busquets in the penalty area, turned and lashed the ball past Luxembourg goalkeeper Jonathan Joubert.

“I am pleased, on a personal level and for the group because we won and that was the crucial thing,” Alcacer said.

“If I am here it is because I am doing things well for my club,” added the 21-year-old.

“Diego is a great player and it was a shame he wasn’t scoring. I tried to lift him as best I could.”

Spain’s victory put them on six points from three matches, three behind group leaders Slovakia who won 3-1 in Belarus. l

Club deny Essien Ebola reports n AFP, Milan

Hodgson defends decision to rest ‘tired’ Sterling

AC Milan have “categorically denied” that Ghanaian midfielder Michael Essien has contracted Ebola while on national team duty.

Reports in Ghana over the weekend claimed Essien was being treated after contracting the deadly virus. However the player’s Serie A club released a statement which said: “AC Milan categorically denies the alleged reports. Such reports are totally without foundation and what is more were never confirmed by any employee of the club.”

The Daily Times Nigeria and Newswire NGR both cited an AC Milan official in the report. l

n AFP, Tallinn Roy Hodgson insists Raheem Sterling’s complaints about tiredness left him with no choice but to rest the Liverpool midfielder for England’s spluttering 1-0 win over Estonia.

Sterling, 19, was dropped to the bench for Sunday’s Euro 2016 qualifier after telling England manager Hodgson he felt below his best both mentally and physically during training 24 hours before kick-off in Tallinn. Yet Hodgson, who had already angered Liverpool manager Brendan Rodgers when Daniel Sturridge suffered an injury on international

Milan can reach heights again, insists Berlusconi n AFP, Milan

Brazil’s Kaka (R) celebrates scoring with a teammate during a training session at the National Stadium in Singapore yesterday REUTERS

We were all suffering for Costa, Del Bosque says n Reuters, Luxembourg

AC Milan owner Silvio Berlusconi said he is confident the fallen Serie A giants will return to the forefront of European and world football under new coach Filippo Inzaghi.

“In 2016 the Champions League final is in Milan... there’s no reason we can’t dream,” Berlusconi said in an interview with Gazzetta dello Sport Monday.

Inzaghi, who took over from Dutchman Clarence Seedorf in the summer, won two league titles and two Champions League titles as a striker with Milan during his spell at the club in 2001-2012.

But in recent years the Rossoneri have slid dramatically as Italian football continues to reel from the effects of a wider economic crisis hitting the country.

Their last league title came under the guidance of Massimiliano Allegri in

2011, but the following season the spine of his squad was ripped out following an exodus of the club’s top players.

Legendary defender Paolo Maldini, now retired, recently added to criticism when he claimed Milan’s current squad is “not built to win”.

But Berlusconi hit back: “It’s pertinent to remember that we have a very high salary bill. This year we have to invest 65 million euros into the club... it’s an almost heroic effort we’ve had to make.”

Berlusconi became AC Milan owner in February 1986 and thanks to the acquisition of big name stars has overseen the club’s most successful period.

The likes of Marco Van Basten, Ruud Gullit, Frank Rijkaard, Maldini and Franco Baresi helped lead Milan to a whopping 28 titles including eight Serie A crowns and five Champions League trophies. l

duty earlier this season, was adamant it was the right move to rest Sterling .

“We were just about to have a light session at the Grove and he (Sterling) said, ‘I feel tired and I don’t think I am in my best form at the moment’,” Hodgson said.

“I admire his honesty for telling me.

It was two days after the San Marino game when we did a lot of running then because we had a lot of the ball. I had two players - one was telling me he is tired, a little bit jaded. and the other is full of beans so we put the one on that is full of beans and left the other as sub.” l

Bolton name Lennon as manager

n Reuters, London Former Celtic manager Neil Lennon has been appointed manager of struggling Bolton Wanderers on a four-year deal, the English Championship (second tier) club said on Sunday.

The 43-year-old Lennon spent four seasons in charge of the Scottish side in which he won three league titles and two domestic cups.

The Northern Irishman also led Celtic to famous Champions League victories against Barcelona and Ajax Amsterdam before leaving the Glasgow giants in May. “The club are delighted and excited to appoint Neil Lennon,” Bolton said in a statement on their website (www. bwfc.co.uk).

“He brings with him experience at the highest level and an infectious enthusiasm to take the club forward.” l

Courtois defends Chelsea handling of his head injury

Danes hoping for more good Vibe against Portugal

n Reuters, London

Substitute Lasse Vibe netted his first international goal to earn Denmark a point away to Albania on Saturday, and if he can do the same at home to Portugal on Tuesday could become a regular starter for Morten Olsen’s side.

The introduction of Vibe, who tops the scoring charts in the Swedish league with 20 goals for IFK Gothenburg, turned the game in the Danes’ favour.

The match against Portugal promises to be a sterner challenge but Vibe is confident of making a similar impact.

Chelsea goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois has defended the Premier League leader’s handling of the head injury he suffered during last weekend’s 2-0 league victory over Arsenal.

Courtois was injured in an early clash with Arsenal’s Chilean forward Alexis Sanchez and despite initially being given clearance to carry on, was replaced by Petr Cech 13 minutes later when his symptoms worsened.

Courtois, however, who played every minute of Belgium’s 6-0 Euro 2016 qualifier win against Andorra on Friday, praised the way the club’s medical

staff handled the situation.

“The doctor of Chelsea did well, I think,” Courtois told Sky Sports. “She asked me the questions she needed to ask and I could repeat immediately so I was feeling well and didn’t have to come off.

“I didn’t feel I was knocked out but I was hit. I didn’t have a headache or anything, but after a few minutes I felt worse and worse.

“Then I started to feel a little dizzy and I couldn’t see the ball anymore, and there was a little blood coming from my ear. Because I saw trouble, I went off.

“I know you have to be careful, but I was not really knocked out so I could have carried on if I was not seeing blurry.” l

n Reuters, Copenhagen

The two sides know each other well, having met five times in the last six years, including the qualifying campaigns for the 2010 World Cup and Euro 2012 - with each side registering two victories and a solitary draw.

Vibe’s second-half strike partner in Albania, Nicklas Bendtner, netted five goals in those five games but despite creating the opening for Vibe’s equaliser against Albania with a mazy run, looked otherwise subdued.

Ronaldo has been in phenomenal goal-scoring form for Real Madrid at the start of the season, but scored only twice in those encounters, though the Danes will still need to keep a close eye on him should he overcome his injury doubt.

Denmark top the five-team group on four points, ahead of Albania courtesy of scoring more goals. Serbia, who host Albania on Tuesday, and Armenia both have one point after drawing earlier on Saturday.

FIXTURES Germany Poland Gibraltar San Marino Faroe Islands Finland Greece Denmark Serbia

v v v v v v v v v

Ireland Scotland Georgia Switzerland Hungary Romania N Ireland Portugal Albania

Portugal are bottom of the group having lost to Albania in their only game so far.

Germany midfielder Christoph Kramer has been ruled out of the World Cup winners’ Euro 2016 qualifier against Ireland in Gelsenkirchen with a stomach virus, coach Joachim Loew said on Monday.

Kramer joined a long list of absent players, including Bastian Schweinsteiger, Marco Reus and Mesut Ozil, as the Germans look to bounce back after Saturday’s surprise 2-0 defeat in Poland.

Loew could opt for a more attacking option to replace the World Cup winner on Tuesday, with Max Kruse the only out-and-out striker in the 18-man squad. l

DHAKA TRIBUNE

Sport

15

Tuesday, October 14, 2014

QUICK BYTES

SCORECARD Australia A. Finch c Irfan b Ali 18 D. Warner c and b Afridi 56 S. Smith b Tanvir 77 G. Bailey c Shahzad b Irfan 0 G. Maxwell c Amin b Afridi 20 P. Hughes lbw b Tanvir 5 B. Haddin run out 2 J. Faulkner c Amin b Tanvir 33 M. Starc run out 5 K. Richardson not out 9 X. Doherty not out 1 Extras: (lb3, nb1, w1) 5 Total: (for nine wkts, 50 overs) 231 Fall of wickets: 1-48, 2-102, 3-103, 4-138, 5-157, 6-159, 7-199, 8-220, 9-221 Bowling: Irfan 10-0-61-1 (1w), Tanvir 10-1-40-3 (1nb), Ali 10-0-41-1, Babar 10-0-42-0, Afridi 10-1-0-44-2 Pakistan Ahmed Shahzad b Doherty 26 Sarfraz Ahmed run out 32 Asad Shafiq lbw b Faulkner 50 Fawad Alam c Smith b Doherty 0 Sohaib Maqsood c Warner b Richardson 34 Umar Amin b Starc 19 Shahid Afridi c Smith b Richardson 6 Anwar Ali c Maxwell b Faulkner 14 Sohail Tanvir b Maxwell 10 Zulfiqar Babar not out 14 Mohammad Irfan c Faulkner b Maxwell 0 Extras: (b2, lb5, w18) 25 Total: (all out; 50 overs) 230 Fall of wickets: 1-56, 2-80, 3-80, 4-154, 5-160, 6-174, 7-204, 8-208, 9-230, 10-230 Bowling: Starc 10-1-33-1 (10w), Richardson 10-0-36-2, Faulkner 10-0-52-2 (1w), Maxwell 8-1-41-2 (6w), Doherty 10-1-54-2 (1w), Smith 2-0-7-0 Result: Australia win by one run Series: Australia win 3-0

Miserable Misbah backed by PCB Pakistan’s cricket board (PCB) have backed struggling Test and one-day skipper Misbah-ul-Haq to lead the team at next year’s World Cup but have considered potential replacements should he decide to stand down from his role as captain. The 40-year-old middle order batsman did not play in Pakistan’s third and final one-day match against Australia on Sunday, with Shahid Afridi taking the reins for the one-run defeat in Abu Dhabi. Misbah has been in a prolonged slump with the bat, and scored 15 in the second ODI following a duck in the first. Pakistan were swept 3-0 in the one-day series. PCB Chairman Shaharyar Khan said it had been Misbah’s decision not to play on Sunday and that he was “depressed” after a poor run of scores.

–Reuters

Suspected intruder wins Buenos Aires Marathon

It took 10 years for an Argentine to win the Buenos Aires Marathon - and that after Mariano Mastromarino was nearly thrown out as a suspected intruder.

Officials at Sunday’s race, stunned to see an Argentine surge past Kenyan leader and title holder Julius Karinga, ordered Mastromarino to leave the race around the 37km mark. “They thought I was an intruder. ‘Get out of the race, get out. Don’t stay there, this is a race’,” Mastromarino told ESPN the officials had shouted at him. They soon realised their mistake and Mastromarino, who had narrowly missed qualifying for the 2012 Olympics in London, went on to win in two hours, 15 minutes and 28 seconds with two Chileans completing the podium.

–Reuters

Third ODI abandoned because of cyclone The third ODI between India and West Indies on October 14 in Visakhapatnam has already been abandoned because of a cyclone on the country’s east coast. The game will not be rescheduled and the series is now a four-match contest. The Indian Meteorological Department had issued warnings about Cyclone Hudhud at least three days in advance, but the BCCI decided against moving the game out of Visakhapatnam, a port city where the cyclone made landfall on Sunday.

A BCCI source said it would have been logistically difficult to move the match to another venue in two days time.

– cricinfo

Vettori named in NZ team for Scotland ODI All-rounder Daniel Vettori has raised hopes of a full return to international cricket after being named in a 12-man squad for New Zealand’s one-dayer against Scotland on Wednesday. The 35-year-old had surgery on his left Achilles in June 2013 and has not played a match for New Zealand since taking on England in a 50-over match in Cardiff in the same month. One of the most economical bowlers in limited-overs cricket and a handy lower-order batsman, the left-arm spinner has restricted himself to T20 tournaments in Australia and the Caribbean but hopes to play a part in next year’s World Cup on home soil. The New Zealand squad released on Monday for the match at Lincoln Oval also includes captain Brendon McCullum but regulars Ross Taylor, Tim Southee and Kane Williamson will be rested. New Zealand also play World Cup qualifiers Ireland on Saturday in a warm-up for their one-day series against South Africa starting Oct. 21.

–Reuters

DAY’S WATCH Star Sports 2 7:20 PM Hero India Super League Delhi Dynamos FC v FC Pune City

Sony Six 09:30 PM International Friendly Armenia v France 12:30 AM Uefa Euro 2016 qualifiers Germany v Republic of Ireland

Sony Six HD 12:30 AM Uefa Euro 2016 qualifiers Denmark v Portugal

Ten Action 4:45 PM Brazil Global Tour Japan v Brazil

Ten Sports 6:00 PM International Friendly Hong Kong v Argentina

The Australian team pose with the series trophy after winning the final ODI against Pakistan in Abu Dhabi on Sunday

Maxwell’s golden final over gives Australia thrilling one-run win n Reuters

Part-time off-spinner Glenn Maxwell took two wickets without conceding a run in the last over as Australia edged Pakistan in a low-scoring thriller to win the third and final one-day international by one run in Abu Dhabi on Sunday.

Pakistan needed two runs off the last over with two wickets in hand but Maxwell bowled Sohail Tanvir (10) with his second delivery and had Mohammad Irfan out caught on the last ball to spark wild celebrations among his team mates.

Needing 232 to win, Pakistan were all out for 230 with a look of disbelief on the faces in the team dressing room and the sizeable crowd.

“Wasn’t going too well until the last over. Got a bit of luck at the end and it was a good win at the end,” man-ofthe-match Maxwell said at the presentation ceremony.

“He (captain George Bailey) was just saying don’t get hit for runs.”

Left-arm paceman Tanvir, who came into the team as part of many changes in the Pakistan side for the dead rubber, led the bowling attack with three wickets for 40, which helped restrict Australia to 231 for nine in 50 overs.

All-rounder Shahid Afridi, who captained Pakistan after regular skipper Misbah-ul-Haq was rested, also took two crucial wickets for 40 in his 10 overs.

Pakistan lost wickets in clusters in their chase after a bright start from Sar-

fraz Ahmed (32) and Ahmed Shehzad (26), who added 56 runs for the first wicket.

It was left to Asad Shafiq (50) and Sohaib Maqsood (34) to resurrect the innings with a fourth-wicket stand of 74 after the side had lost three quick wickets.

Pakistan suffered another mini collapse to be reduced to 164 for six before Umar Amin (19) and Anwar Ali (14) calmed the nerves with a 30-run partnership for the seventh wicket.

Ali was out on the first ball of the 47th over with his team still needing 24 runs to win but Tanvir and Zulfiqar Babar (14 not out) took them within touching distance.

Babar remained stranded at the non-striker’s end in the last over and

Timid umpires allowed chucking to flourish, says Hair n

Reuters, Sydney

Timid officiating has allowed a generation of “chuckers” to flourish in international cricket and the current crackdown on bowlers with illegal actions has arrived two decades late, according to former test umpire Darrell Hair.

Pakistani’s Saeed Ajmal is the highest profile of a string of spinners who have been suspended by the International Cricket Council (ICC) recently for bending their elbows beyond the 15 degrees allowed while bowling the ball.

The forthright Hair famously called Sri Lankan off-spinning great Muttiah

Muralidaran for the offence during a Test at Melbourne Cricket Ground in 1995 and said the ICC should have taken action back then.

“Whatever they’re doing now, they’re doing 20 years too late,” he told the Sydney Morning Herald. “They had a chance in 1995 to clean things up and it’s taken them 19 years to finally come back and say they want chuckers out of the game.

“I can’t believe that Saaed Ajmal has been able to bowl as long as he has, and they say he is bending his arm by 45 degrees or something. Well, every man and his dog would have known that.

“I suppose what it does show is the general weakness of the umpires over time to do anything about it.”

Muralidaran, whose action was later cleared by the ICC after biomechanical analysis, went on to become the leading Test wicket taker of all time despite also being called for throwing by Hair’s compatriot Ross Emerson in Adelaide in 1999.

Hair said the way Emerson had been treated after the call during a one-day international between Sri Lanka and England - he was stood down and never officiated another international match - had made umpires reluctant to report illegal actions. l

INTERNET

helplessly watched his partners throw away their wickets and lose the match to complete a 3-0 defeat in the series.

“In the batting... the thing we are missing is partnerships. We are not finishing properly,” Afridi said.

Australia, who won the toss, were 102 for one after a brisk 56 from opener David Warner but Pakistan pegged them back with quick strikes.

Afridi took out Warner and the dangerous Maxwell (20) to restrict the scoring rate and it was left to first ODI centurion Steve Smith to prop up the innings with a watchful 77.

The dismissal of Phil Hughes (five) and the run out of wicketkeeper Brad Haddin (two) at the start of the batting powerplay meant Australia never regained momentum. l

Australia reclaim top ODI ranking n Reuters, Mumbai Australia have returned to the top of the one-day international rankings following their 3-0 whitewash of Pakistan in the United Arab Emirates, the International Cricket Council (ICC) said on Monday.

Australia slipped from the top spot after a shock three-wicket defeat to Zimbabwe in a tri-series, also involving South Africa, at the end of August.

Mahendra Singh Dhoni’s India claimed the number one ranking after Australia also lost to South Africa in the final of that tournament.

India had a chance to hold on to their position by winning the remaining three ODIs of the five-match series, currently tied 1-1, at home against the West Indies.

But with the cancellation of the third match in Visakhapatnam due to a cyclone, India will no longer be able to win the required four matches in the series to retain top spot. l

Afridi fears for Pakistan’s World Cup chances n AFP, Abu Dhabi Stand-in captain Shahid Afridi believes Pakistan’s abysmal performance in their 3-0 rout by Australia will hurt the team’s chances at next year’s World Cup. Pakistan spurned a good chance of salvaging some pride in the third and final one-dayer on Sunday, losing by one run in the final over in Abu Dhabi.

Needing just two to win in the 50th and final over, Pakistan lost Sohail Tanvir (ten) off spinner Glenn Maxwell’s second ball and then Mohammad Irfan (nought) off the last.

Afridi said Pakistan cannot go into the World Cup in February and March

in Australia and New Zealand with such performances.

“If we are not able to win on these pitches then we have to think we can’t go into the World Cup with these performances,” said Afridi.

Pakistan have now lost five straight one-dayers after losing the last two in a 2-1 defeat in Sri Lanka in August. Afridi said the batsmen once again spoilt the good work of the bowlers who kept Australia down to 231-9 in 50 overs on Sunday.

“If you look overall we have spoilt the good work of the bowlers,” said Afridi of the attack which saw paceman Sohail Tanvir taking 3-40 and himself finishing with 2-44. l

Rosberg has only himself to blame for error n Reuters, Sochi

Nico Rosberg had only himself to blame for a first lap error at the Russian Grand Prix that allowed Mercedes team mate and championship leader Lewis Hamilton to romp to a fourth win in a row on Sunday.

“I just went completely wrong and I don’t understand it,” said the German, now 17 points adrift of the Briton with three races remaining in what amounts to a private duel between the two for the Formula One title.

“It was actually an easy situation. It’s just the first time at this track, first time down there with 160kg (of fuel) in the tank. I just got it wrong completely.”

The pair had lined up together on the front row, with Hamilton on pole position, for the inaugural race in Russia at the Sochi Olympic Park circuit.

Rosberg got himself alongside Hamilton but then locked up as he braked, a puff of smoke highlighting the damage to the tyres before he went wide and

outside the track limits. When the team told him to hand back the place to the Briton, Rosberg informed them that he would have to pit instead.

“It was just a mistake on my side, braked too late and that’s it. Very unnecessary because it was my corner and I should have been in the lead after that. So, obviously very disappointed with that,” he told reporters.

“After that my tyres were just square. They were vibrating so much I couldn’t see where I was going so I knew that I had to pit.”

When he rejoined the race, he was in 20th place and facing 52 laps on the same set of medium tyres -- a big ask in the circumstances. Not only did he do it, he clawed his way back to second in an impressive act of damage limitation.

“My car was just unbelievable today and that’s what allowed me to come back through the field,” he said, joining in the team celebrations for their first constructors’ championship with mixed emotions. l

Argentina’s national team coach Gerardo Daniel Martino (R) talks to captain Lionel Messi during a training session in Hong Kong yesterday. Argentina will play a friendly match against Hong Kong today REUTERS

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DHAKA TRIBUNE

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Tuesday, October 14, 2014

116 Bangladeshis rescued while being trafficked

Two groups rescued in three days claim they were victims of human trafficking opment and Human Security is applyn Agencies ing to a court in Takua Pa on Sunday to Thailand police captured 132 people, including 116 Bangladeshis, suspected of being trafficked from Thailand from Saturday and Monday.

All of the 38 Bangladeshis captured on Saturday have alleged that they were unwilling travellers from Bangladesh, kidnapped one by one by gangs and forced onto a fishing boat by human traffickers.

If the claims are authenticated, then the exodus of the stateless Rohingya down Thailand’s Andaman Sea coast from Myanmar and Bangladesh is now being exploited by brutal mercenaries, interested only in the profit that can be made from selling people.

On Monday, Thai police found scores of sick and exhausted people hiding on a remote island and all but one of the 79 suspected human-trafficking victims were from Bangladesh, Reuters said.

Several of the rescued required immediate treatment; there were others who were believed to have been drowned.

The findings bring the number of people found since Saturday to more than 130 in the province of PhangNga, north of the famous resort island of Phuket, Thai officials told Reuters.

The first group was discovered in a rubber plantation in Takua Pa district on Saturday which comprised of 38 men from Bangladesh and 15 Rohingyas. Two Thai men were arrested on charges of human trafficking in this incidents, Thai police confirmed.

They were moved to a shelter in the neighbouring Ranong province while their cases were being investigated by Thai authorities ahead of possible repatriation.

Thailand’s Ministry of Social Devel-

have the 53 boat people declared victims of human trafficking.

A declaration by the court would prevent local police from quickly deporting the group as illegal migrants and oblige officers to investigate the mass kidnapping gleaned during several hours of interviews last night.

All of the captured were questioned individually over their allegations.

Large sums are usually extorted from the captives’ relatives before victims are taken across the border to Malaysia.

The claims and the theory are yet to be proven by independent authorities.

A reporter of the Thai tourism news portal Phuketwan who helped interview 25 of the 53 men, said the stories were consistent and nightmarish.

An electrician told the reporter that he had been snatched by a gang of men after being called to repair a house in Cox’s Bazar. He said: “I worry about my mother. I feed her medicine every day.

Since I was kidnapped, she would have had nobody to give her medicine.”

A fisherman, enticed by a call to repair a net on a stranger’s boat, said he was grabbed and had his wrists tied. He said: “I was kidnapped. I do not have relatives in Malaysia. I was not planning on leaving Bangladesh in this way.

My wife and children are there and will not know where I am.”

When the Dhaka Tribune contacted the Bangladesh consulate in Thailand, an official seeking anonymity said: “We have no information in this regard.”

However, Khandaker Mosharraf Hossain, the minister responsible for the welfare of Bangladeshis overseas, told the Reuters that the government was aware that people were being lured on to boats. l

Water badly contaminated by toxic discharges from tanneries gets logged in a street in the capital’s Hazaribagh area causing nuisance for the public and posing grave threat to the environment and health MEHEDI HASAN

Revision of child act not necessary n Udisa Islam Addressing concerns regarding the conflict between the Child Bill 2013 and the Child Marriage Restraint Act 2014, the government said revising the child act was not necessary and inclusion of a few specifications would remove the conflict.

The statement came amid criticisms and questions regarding the recently approved child marriage bill, which lowers the age limit for marriage to 16 years from 18 years for females and 18 years from 21 years for males.

Concerned activists pointed out that this was in direct conflict with the child act, which states that a Bangladeshi citizen under 18 years of age will be considered a child.

“Revising the child act is not mandatory,” said Meher Afroz Chumki, state minister for women and children affairs. “We will add a few specifications

to the child act that will allow parents to marry off their daughters aged 16 years and above.

“We are still discussing to see how we can achieve that without creating any conflicts with the existing laws regarding children,” the state minister said.

The Child Bill 2013 is in accordance with the United Nations Convention of the Rights of the Child (UNCRC), which recognises an individual under 18 years of age as a child.

However, following a Unicef report that placed Bangladesh as one of the countries with highest rate of child marriage, the government decided to lower the age limit for marriage in September this year, aiming to reduce the child marriage rate.

The decision drew criticisms and concerns from women and human rights activists across the country, who said it would be a step in the wrong direction.

In a letter to the ministry concerned,

Dr Mizanur Rahman, chairman of the National Human Rights Commission, said the age limit for marriage should not be reduced as the maternity death rate was high in the country as well.

The state minister said the government had taken the decision with good intention. “Girls in our country are matured by the age of 14. So reducing the age limit to 16 years is hardly a problem,” she said, adding that India had recently taken a similar initiative.

But Salma Ali, executive director of Bangladesh National Women Lawyers’ Association, refused to accept the state minister’s explanation.

“The decision is suicidal for our country and is in direct conflict with international laws, which we already ratified. If they want to reduce the age limit for marriage, they have to revise the child act, or scrap the clause with the definition of the child. There is no other way,” she said. l

Prime minister asks MPs to write to US like congressmen n Mohosinul Karim

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina yesterday advised ministers, advisers and party lawmakers to write to the US government in the manner US congressmen do, bringing up issues in the US to put pressure on it.

She suggested that the ministers, advisers and MPs should write to the

Rail minister nuptials ‘breaking’ namesake’s marriage n Tribune Report The cabinet yesterday shared a good laugh among them when State Minister for Labour Mujibul Haque Chunnu claimed of facing embarrassing situations caused by the marriage announcement of his namesake – Railways Minister Mujibul Hoque.

At yesterday’s cabinet meeting at the secretariat, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina – in good humour – suggested the railways minister to not delay a good deed such as marriage. Railways Minister Mujibul Hoque informed Hasina that he would get married at the end of October instead of December when it was originally scheduled.

At that time, the state minister for labour jokingly complained to the prime minister that his namesake’s marriage was causing his own family to break apart as people were mistakenly assuming that it was Chunnu who was getting married.

Relatives from the US and Canada were calling him over phone to ask about the reason behind his second marriage, Chunnu claimed. This prompted laughter among his cabinet colleagues, a state minister who attended the meeting told the Dhaka Tribune While laughing, Chunnu also jokingly warned the railways minister of dire consequences if the upcoming wedding caused his own family to fall apart.

Chunnu also told the cabinet meeting that many people had asked his wife Roksana Kader, who is an additional secretary of Health Ministry, why her husband had decided to marry again. l

US government to repatriate the convicted killers of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman who are now living in that country. Hasina also asked them to write about the human and labour rights violations in the US and other countries in the world.

“It will put pressure on them as they put pressure on Bangladesh regarding those issues,” Hasina said during an in-

formal discussion with her senior cabinet colleagues.

She gave the instructions when the issue of the generalised system of preferences (GSP) came up for discussion, a junior minister told the Dhaka Tribune, seeking anonymity.

Commerce Minister Tofail Ahmed raised the issue, requesting the PM to ask State Minister for Labour and Employ-

ment Mujibul Haque Chunnu to finish the draft rules so that the amended labour law could be implemented.

The prime minister said: “There is no hurry on the GSP issue as the US law on the GSP is now invalid.”

She suggested that Law Minister Anisul Haq, who informed the cabinet that a convicted killer of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was in the US,

Work on ‘taming’ firms wins Frenchman economics Nobel n

Reuters

French economist Jean Tirole won the 2014 Nobel Prize for economics for work that has shed light on how governments can “tame” the big businesses that dominate once-public monopolies like railways, highways and telecommunications.

“This year’s prize in economic sciences is about taming powerful firms,” Staffan Normark, Permanent Secretary of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, told a news conference after awarding the 8 million Swedish crown ($1.1 million) prize.

The academy said Tirole has clarified policies about regulating industries with a few powerful firms, especially after a wave of privatisations had set governments a conundrum over how to encourage private investments in sectors like healthcare and railways while reining in profits.

“My one merit is to have been with the right people at the right time,” the 61-yearold, who is unknown to most French, told Reuters in his office at the Toulouse School of Economics in southwest France, where he is a professor. It was the second Nobel Prize for a French national this year after author Patrick Modiano won the literature award - a fact not lost on Prime Minister Manuel Valls, trying to deflect attacks from France’s EU partners over its battered public finances.

“After Patrick Modiano, another Frenchman in the firmanent: congratulations to Jean Tirole! One in the eye for the French-bashers!” Valls tweeted on his official account.

Tirole himself was cautious on the economic prospects of his country, where unemployment is stuck at around 10 percent and whose leaders last month broke the latest in a series of promises to bring public

Jean Tirole lending to within EU limits.

“We need to modernise our country, leaving our children a legacy other than unemployment and public debt that they will have to pay off,” he said.

The European Commission’s antitrust chief Joaquin Almunia hailed Tirole’s work on mergers and other deals with potential repercussions for market competition, adding in a statement: “We owe Jean Tirole so much.”

Good year for french economists Tirole has worked for decades on the effects of credit bubbles and said the 2008 to 2009 financial crisis was above all the result of insufficient regulatory institutions.

“I think banking is a very hard thing to regulate and we economists and academics have to do more work on this,” Tirole earlier told a news conference in Stockholm by telephone.

In a 2012 French media interview, he said it was “shocking” how US authorities had supported investment banks which, because they did not have small depositors, were not subject to full regulation.

Tirole’s research showed market regulations should be adapted to the conditions of specific industries rather than general principles that would apply to every industry, the academy said.

“He has been the dominant figure in industrial organization. It was not a question of whether but when he would be awarded the prize,” said Oxford University economics professor Paul Klemperer.

The economics prize, officially called the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, was established in 1968. It was not part of the original group of awards set out in 1895 will of Nobel, the inventor of dynamite. l

prepare the draft of a letter for the ministers and MPs so that they can send it to that country.

The law minister informed the cabinet that only 8% of US industries have trade union. But the US was putting pressure on Bangladesh to allow trade union in all industries. The premier asked Chunnu to prepare an “acceptable and perfect” rule as soon as possible. l

HRW: Lowering marriage age will be terrible step n Tribune Report Human Rights Watch, an international rights watchdog, has urged the Bangladesh government not to lower the minimum age of marriage for females.

In a press release issued yesterday, it asked the government to comply with the international prohibitions against child marriage and set 18 years as the minimum age for marriage.

The press release came following recent media reports on the draft of Child Marriage Restraint Act 2014, approved by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s cabinet last month. Human Rights Watch said the proposed revisions would reverse the government’s aims to reduce child marriage among girls.

“Setting the age of marriage for girls in Bangladesh at 16 would be a terrible step in the wrong direction,” said Liesl Gerntholtz, women’s rights director at the organisation. “The rate of child marriage in Bangladesh is already off the charts. The new law should set the minimum age of marriage at 18 for both women and men.”

Bangladesh has the second-highest rate of child marriage in the world, second only to Niger, according to the UN’s children’s agency, Unicef. About 74% of Bangladeshi women currently aged 20 to 49 are married or in a union before age 18, despite the minimum legal marriage age of 18 years for women. l

30% rape cases ‘settled’ before trial n Udisa Islam To avoid social stigmatisation or fearing further reprisal, most families of rape victims tend to settle the cases with the perpetrators outside the court in mediation of socially influential people or police.

Therefore, police have to give final report discharging the accused instead of pressing charge sheets in the cases.

Such cases would be 30% of the total rape cases registered with police stations, according to data available with the police headquarters.

The other cases usually stumble during the trial proceedings for many different reasons including unavailability of witnesses.

Police say around 18,000 cases were filed under the Women and Children Repression (prevention) Act across the country last year. Of those, 4,000 are related to rape of women and children when 23 including 18 children were killed.

Police and prosecution say charge sheets were submitted to the court in around 13,000 cases while final report in the others.

Human rights campaigners say the number of rape incidents did not fall last year despite different government measures. They allege that the number would be much higher in reality than what is available since many incidents are not reported by the victims or their families.

Rights activist Elina Khan blames social reality for the ongoing culture of impunity. “We sometimes see the victims are forced to marry the perpetrators. In the cases of children, their parents try to hide the incidents considering the blemish that may inflict

upon them in the future.” Because of such attitude towards the rape victims, all the efforts to eliminate this social menace are hampered, she observes.

Expressing concern over the high rate of settled rape cases outside court, Bangladesh Mahila Parishad President Ayesha Khanom said: “The rape cases should be conducted in a different way. The criminals take the advantage of family-level mediation since many victims’ families withdraw cases to avoid harassment.”

She said sometimes the victims are married off with the rapists while in some other cases the victims given financial aid for so-called rehabilitation.

“At times, police mediate the negotiations between the two sides.”

Salma Ali, the chief executive of National Women Lawyers’ Association, says cases are filed in many rape incidents, but the number gradually drops when they go for trial due to lack of witness and settlement outside court.

“Many victims’ families do not find it comfortable to fight the cases at the court because of the trial proceedings.”

She suggested that the print and electronic media highlight the developments related to the trial and punishment more.

Former investigation officer Abdur Razzak Khan said police have nothing to do but submit final report when no one agrees to testify in court. “The number of a crime continues to increase when punishment cannot be meted out,” he said.

“Cases related to child victims are more complicated since the children cannot identify the offence at the very first place. It may take years for them to realise that they were raped or sexually harassed,” Razzak said. l

Editor: Zafar Sobhan, Published and Printed by Kazi Anis Ahmed on behalf of 2A Media Limited at Dainik Shakaler Khabar Publications Limited, 153/7, Tejgaon Industrial Area, Dhaka-1208. Editorial, News & Commercial Office: FR Tower, 8/C Panthapath, Shukrabad, Dhaka 1207.

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B3 US and UK to test big bank collapse in joint model run

B4 IMF launches

consultations on Islamic finance

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 14, 2014 www.dhakatribune.com/business

BB smells rat in high stock turnover It would soon launch probe into big bank loans to see whether those were diverted to share market

n Muhammad Zahidul Islam

n Jebun Nesa Alo Bangladesh Bank suspects some big loans disbursed recently by the commercial banks might have been diverted to the stock market, violating the restriction to capital market exposure limit.

The suspicion emerged from the high volume of share transactions taking place in the recent times, said a senior executive of the central bank.

He said the central bank has decided to investigate the destinations of the large chunks of loans, as a result.

The DSE turnover has witnessed uprising since August this year, reaching to around Tk1,000 crore now from around Tk400 crore two months ago. It was Tk1,010 crore yesterday. The average volume of transactions climbs up to 22 crore from 6 crore in a period of two months.

Bangladesh Bank authorities have already identified some big loans disbursed this year from the scheduled banks. They will inspect thoroughly the purpose of the loans.

According to the central bank, the commercial banks are investing in the stock market through anonymous borrowers since the banks are restricted to their exposure beyond 25% of their capital.

Lamudi observes first anniversary n Tribune Report Lamudi Bangladesh, the fast-growing online property marketplace, celebrated its first anniversary in a befitting manner at the Dhaka Reporters Unity yesterday.

Lamudi in Bangladesh has grown by 71% in size over the last six months with now 14,322 property listings on its website.

Real Estate and Housing Association of Bangladesh (REHAB) Vice-President Liakat Ali Bhuiyan delivered his welcome speech at the programme.

He said: “I believe Lamudi’s services will benefit the entire real estate industry.” Lamudi should seek REHAB’s support for delivering much better services, added Liakat.

“Lamudi is committed to providing best online services for the house seekers of Bangladesh to facilitate buying, selling and renting properties,” said Lamudi’s Co-Founder and Managing Director Rajesh Grover.

Lamudi has already made life easy for house hunters of the country by introducing Dial For Home, he said, adding that more surprising services are in the offing. Lamudi was founded on October 13, 2013 by German startup incubator Rocket Internet.

The property platform was launched in 16 countries one year ago and has since grown to cover 28 countries across Asia, Africa, the Middle East and Latin America. l

GP crosses 5 crore subscriber milestone

A stock trader observes the movement of DSE index that took upturn recently with the turnover moving up simultaneously RAJIB DHAR On September 16 last year, the central bank asked all commercial banks to reduce their capital market exposure to 25% of their equity by July 2016 to comply with the new bank company law (amended up to 2013).

The banks that still maintain higher exposure to the stock market will have to reduce it to 25% of the sum of their paidup capital, reserve, retained earnings and share premium as per the new act.

Earlier, the banks were allowed to invest 10% of their liabilities.

The central bank asked the commercial banks to reduce their investment

gradually within three years, but without phasing out any plan.

As a result, the capital market exposure of maximum banks still remains unchanged while the exposure of some banks has increased from the earlier status. The central bank has recently issued show-cause notices to some banks due to increase in their exposure further, said sources.

The new investment motive of banks by diverting loans is the significant reason behind recent upswing of transactions in the share market, according to the central bank.

“The banks are trying to recover losses incurred in their own portfolio by stimulating market through injecting new funds,” said a senior executive of a private commercial bank.

Some banks have invested further from earlier exposure instead of reducing the limit as they have time in hand to reduce the capital market exposure till 2016, he said.

The central bank wants to strictly maintain the capital market exposure limit of banks to avoid further criticism of stock market free fall, said a high official of Bangladesh Bank. l

The market leader mobile phone operator, Grameenphone, will officially declare today its achievement in gaining over five-crore subscriber milestone, a senior official of the company has said.

“We have achieved the biggest milestone we were waiting for over the last couple of months and now are busy celebrating it,” a senior executive of Grameenphone told the Dhaka Tribune yesterday evening, requesting anonymity.

Analysts said for the first time in the country, the mobile operator crossed a five-crore subscriber milestone.

Grameenphone is also going to host a programme to observe the historic milestone in the hotel Westin this morning.

Earlier, the mobile company gained a four-crore active subscriber milestone in September 2012, one crore in November 2006, two crore in January 2008 and three crore in January 2011 in the market.

According to BTRC, GP currently has 12.76 crore active SIMs, with 42.51% market share.

Banglalink, the second largest operator in terms of subscribers, recently achieved a three-crore subscriber milestone with 25.46% market share while Robi comes in third with 2.47 crore subscribers having a market share of 20.72%.

Grameenphone, a sister concern of Norwegian company Telenor, started its operation in Bangladesh in 1997.

After its launch, Grameenphone become the market leader in terms of

subscribers within a very short time.

Currently, Telenor owns 55.8% of Grameenphone while 34.2% share belongs to Grameen Telecom and the rest to general retailers and institutional investors.

Telenor is the 14th largest operator in the global market with 17 crore subscribers globally while Grameenphone is the largest of all the Telenor subsidiaries.

GP currently has around 13 lakh 3G subscribers of which more than 1.2 crore use internet with either 3G or 2G network The operator fulfilled its first 15 years licence tenure in 2011 for 2G, and renewed it for the next 15 years.

Last year, Grameenphone was also awarded a 3G licence and had already deployed its network in all 64 districts.

GP currently has around 13 lakh 3G subscribers of which more than 1.2 crore use internet with either 3G or 2G network, said sources.

Operator sources added that the mobile company has some offers for its subscribers to celebrate the five crore milestone.

Over the last two months we have been offering different modern services like free facebook and minutes back when call drops, a senior executive of the operator also said. l

ADB, Japan support South Q1 sees sluggish export growth QUARTERLY GROWTH QUARTERLY GROWTH Asia’s push to end spread n IN OVERALL EXPORT IN RMG EXPORT of livestock disease Ibrahim Hossain Ovi

n Tribune Report A new US$2m grant will support South Asia’s push to slow the spread of livestock diseases like foot and mouth and avian flu, which have caused billions of dollars of losses to farmers and economies in recent years, says an Asian Development Bank (ADB) statement released yesterday from its headquarters in Manila.

The Japan Fund for Poverty Reduction is providing the grant that will be administered by the ADB. The ADB statement said the funds would be used to set up a formal regional cooperation framework among the member countries of South Asian Association of Regional Cooperation (SAARC) for cross-border disease control.

A regional epidemiology center will be set up in Kathmandu, Nepal to issue regular information on regional and national animal health issues, while a coordination unit in Nepal – supported by laboratories in Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan – will manage regional animal health programs, according to the statement.

A web-based regional information system will be set up to issue regular animal health reports and public and private sector agencies will get support

to expand their expertise in disease diagnosis, surveillance, reporting and investigation of disease outbreaks, it said.

It said the goal is to help cut disease rates in the heavily affected areas to about 30% by 2018 from about 50% from 2012 and help bring sanitary and phytosanitary standards closer to international levels.

This builds on existing activities on livestock disease control by SAARC and follows similar successful efforts in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations region, it said.

“Farm animals are an essential source of food and income, and also farmers’ only insurance against things like crop failure and medical expenses,” said Rezaul Khan, Senior Natural Resources and Agriculture Economist in ADB’s South Asia Department.

“Stronger regional measures to monitor, prevent, and control disease outbreaks will help lift rural earnings, boost food security, and make it safer to trade livestock and livestock products across borders.”

Livestock accounts for almost a third of South Asia’s agricultural gross domestic product and a growing and wealthier population means the region will need an additional 4m tons of meat and 65m tons of milk annually by 2020. l

The country’s export sector has witnessed sluggish growth in the first quarter of the current fiscal year as earning from RMG exports fell flat compared to the same period in the last fiscal year.

In the first quarter of the current fiscal year 2014-15, Bangladesh’s total export earnings rose to $7.7 billion, which is nearly 1% higher compared to $7.63 billion for the same period of the last year, according to the Export Promotion Bureau (EPB) data revealed yesterday.

But the figure is 3.87% less than the earning target of $8 billion set for the first quarter of the current fiscal.

In the first quarter of fiscal year 201314, earnings from export posted 21% growth while it was 2% in FY12-13, 23% in FY11-12 and nearly 30% in the FY10-11.

Meanwhile in September, the country’s export earnings declined by 1.44% to $2.55billion compared to $2.6 billion of the last year, but the figure is nearly 9% higher than the target of $2.34bn for the month.

From July to September of 2014-15, the RMG export earnings rose to $6.23 billion with a meager growth of 0.47% compared to $6.20 billion for the same period of last year.

The knitwear posted a 3.5% growth to $3.27 billion, but the woven garments witnessed a downtrend for the second straight month. Export earnings from the woven products plunged by 2.66 % to $2.93 billion in the first

Q1 export earnings in $m

Growth in %

Fiscal Year

Q1 export earnings in $m

Growth in %

5,029

30

2010-11

3,972

31

6,164

23

2011-12

4,814

21

6,291

2

2012-13

4,997

5

7,628

21

2013-14

6,204

25

7,695

1

2014-15

6,233

0.5

quarter of the current fiscal year.

“It is a matter of great concern that the export earnings from the RMG sector has seen slow growth through it contributes 81% to total export, while our competitors are witnessing significant growth,” Exporters Association of Bangladesh (EAB) Abdus Salam Murshedy told the Dhaka Tribune.

Murshedy attributed the sluggish growth to the inspection of garment factories by the retailers’ platform – Accord and Alliance.

He said production capacity slowed down while its cost increased manifold but the buyers did not raise the price of products leading to less earning.

BGMEA Vice-President Shahidullah Azim echoed the same as Murshedy.

He said a series of industrial incidents, political instability and safety inspection in the factories are reasons behind the fall in export earnings.

Azim, however, expects a rebound

ICC,B to hold int’l economic conference in Dhaka n Tribune Report A two-day international conference on Global Economic Recovery will begin in Dhaka from October 25, with the participation of global and local dignitaries, ministers, economists and leaders of business community from different countries.

International Chamber of Commerce, Bangladesh (ICC,B) will organise the conference titled “Global Economic Recovery: Asian Perspective to mark its 20 years of presence in Bangladesh at the Bangabandhu International Conference Centre in the city.

Organisers are expecting Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to inaugurate the event.

The dignitaries, who have already confirmed their participation, are Deputy Prime Minister of Kuwait Dr Abdul Moshen

Al-Medeij, Finance Minister AMA Muhith, Foreign Minister of Sri Lanka Prof. GL Peiris, Foreign Minister Abul Hassan Mahmood Ali, Minister for Industries and Commerce of Sri Lanka Rishad Bathiudeen, Commerce Minister Tofail Ahmed, Commerce and Supplies Minister of Nepal Sunil Bahadur Thapa, Minister of Economic Affairs of Bhutan Lyonpo Norbu Wangchuk and UNCTAD Secretary General Dr Mulhisa Kituyi.

ICCB President Mahbubur Rahman came up with the disclosure while addressing a press conference yesterday at the Dhaka Chamber of Commerce and Industry (DCC) in the capital.

“From the perspective of a developing country that aims to attain middle income country by 2021, we are going to organise such a big event,” he said.

The conference is expected to be attended by 500 delegates representing ministers, industry and business leaders, experts, economists, ICC leaders and academics from home and abroad, he said.

Mentioning the importance of the conference, ICCB President said the world economy, five years after the global financial crisis, is showing signs of bouncing back this year where Asia, led by China, Japan and India play a significant role.

He said Asia will continue to lead the way for sustained world growth and therefore, it is imperative that the world leaders give their top most priority for the development of an integrated global strategy for sustaining the projected world growth momentum.

The conference will provide opportunity for the stakeholders representing public and private

sectors, industry and business leaders, policy makers, think tanks and academics to share their thoughts and ideas on the strategies that the Asian countries can pursue to maintain sustained economic growth.

“It is a great opportunity for the country’s business leaders and policy makers not only to explore new horizon of business, but also to make effective use of international opportunities though interaction with the delegates coming from abroad.”

The business sessions, which will be held in second day of the conference, have been divided into four sessions. ICC is the largest and most representative business organisation in the world. It’s thousand of member companies in over 127 countries have interests spanning in every sector of private enterprise. l

within the first half of the current fiscal as the garment industry is going to comply with the corrective measures set by the Accord and Alliance.

The buyers are again showing interest to place orders that were pulled out after the Tazreen Fashions fire and Rana Plaza tragedy, added he.

In the first quarter of the current fiscal, Jute and jute products declined by nearly 4%, followed by specialised textiles 22.23%, engineering products 22%, ships and boats 25%, leather 8.79% and frozen fish 10.87%.

Among the major sectors, agriculture products posted a 27% growth to $187 million followed by chemical products 8.63% to $25.5 million, pharmaceuticals 2% to $20 million, plastics 35% to $27 million, leather and leather products12.39% to $308 million, footwear 30% to $141 million, home textile by 3.14% to $185 million and bicycle posted 36.79% to $7.89 million. l

3-day IPR seminar begins n Tribune Report A three-day seminar on intellectual property rights and its role in economic development was launched in Dhaka yesterday, with a call to preserve Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs) for accelerating the country’s economic growth and overall development.

“Effective preservation of the Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs) can play an important role for economic development of Bangladesh,” Commerce Minister Tofail Ahmed told the inaugural ceremony of the seminar at the Bangladesh Institute of Administration and Management (BIAM) in the capital.

World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) and Department of Patient Design and Trademarks (DPDT), Ministry of Industries jointly organised the seminar titled “General Awareness Building on Intellectual Property Rights and its Role in Economic Development.” l

B2

Stock

DHAKA TRIBUNE

Stocks drop on profit booking

DSE key features October 13, 2014

n Tribune Report

Traded Issues

306

Issue Gain (Avg. Price Basis)

156

Issue Loss (Avg. Price Basis)

140

was more than 10% higher over the previous sessions value.

Banks witnessed heavy correction as 24 out of 30 issues closed in red followed by telecommunication that lost 1.4% and non-banking financial institutions almost 1%. Nonlife insurance shed 1.8%.

After sharp fall in the previous session, food and allied sector ended flat.

Pharmaceuticals, engineering and power are the only gaining sectors, rising by 1.3%, 0.7% and 0.5% respectively.

Lanka Bangla Securities said index moved lower over the course of the trading session today.

A moderate pullback by the market offset the rally that was seen in previous sessions, it said, adding that the sell-off on the day was partly due to profit taking on banking stocks and NBFI following recent price hike in financial stocks.

Manufacturing stocks firmly reverted in green territory after a few days of consolidation as investors showed buying interest on engineering, oil and pharma stocks, it said.

IDLC Investments said market moved to correction mood after four sessions’ 283.7 points gain.

Mobil Jamuna Limited Bangladesh that gained 6.7% topped the liquidity chart with over Tk39 crore worth of turnover.

Other top turnover leaders included Square Pharmaceuticals, Grameenphone, Golden Son, Titas Gas, Beximco Pharmaceuticals and Delta Life Insurance. l

Stocks dropped with initial volatility yesterday as investors went for profit booking after four consecutive sessions of sharp rally.

The market moved between gains and losses in the morning but started to dip on profit taking mainly on financial stocks, notably banks, that plunged 1.5%.

After a slight rise in the morning, the benchmark DSEX lost almost 25 points to close at 5,309.

A moderate pullback by the market offset the rally that was seen in previous sessions

The Shariah index DSES, however, was marginally up 2 points or 0.3% to 1,238. The comprising blue chips DS30 closed at 1,994, falling nearly over 4 points or 0.3%.

Chittagong Stock Exchange (CSE) Selective Categories Index, CSCX, slipped 23 points to 9,971.

Strong selling and moderate buying pressure helped DSE turnover to cross Tk1,000 crore mark again after hovering around Tk900 crore over the last five sessions.

It stood at Tk1,010 crore, which

Weekly capital market highlights DSE Broad Index : DSE - 30 Index : CSE All Share Index: CSE - 30 Index : CSE Selected Index : DSE LOSER Company

Closing (% Change)

Bank Asia -A BD. Autocars -Z Uttara Bank - A Argon Denims Limited-A City Bank - A Apex Tannery -A Paramount Insur-A Provati Insur.-A Prime Islami Life -A Hwa Well Textiles-N

-4.74 -4.58 -4.36 -4.29 -4.22 -4.05 -3.98 -3.90 -3.83 -3.78

CSE LOSER Company Samata LeatheR -Z Nitol Insurance -A Imam Button -Z Meghna Life Ins. -A Dutch Ban. Bnk- A ISN Ltd. -Z Hwa Well Textiles-N Delta SpinnersA ICB Sonali Bank 1 MF-A Argon Denims Limited-A

Closing (% Change) -9.33 -7.74 -7.50 -5.75 -5.05 -4.72 -4.72 -4.12 -4.00 -3.89

5309.24034

(-) 0.46%

1994.12443

(-) 0.23%

16400.91670

(-) 0.24%

13344.92130

(-) 0.24%

9971.87220

(-) 0.23%

Average (% Change) 0.61 -4.06 -1.92 -2.78 -1.51 -3.48 -0.96 -1.99 -3.59 -3.65 Average (% Change) -9.33 -7.67 -7.88 -7.42 -5.02 -3.82 -4.29 -1.11 -3.49 -2.76

ANALYST

ClosingAvg. 22.92 25.30 28.66 47.25 22.89 169.80 19.55 22.16 86.29 49.15

ClosingAvg. 20.40 28.64 7.37 108.13 97.83 10.06 49.13 18.71 7.20 47.23

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 1412.24 795.67 157.45 1111.16 397.51 1630.00 2.12 943.62 1339.22 38.69 205.94 183.95 155.97 363.32 97.33 128.92 349.00 400.95 113.61 249.89 0.87

DHIGH

22.10 25.00 28.50 46.80 22.70 168.30 19.30 22.20 85.30 48.30

Closing

24.10 26.60 30.20 49.00 24.40 174.40 21.00 23.80 88.70 51.50

DHIGH

20.40 28.60 7.40 108.10 97.80 10.10 48.40 18.60 7.20 47.00

20.40 29.20 7.40 109.00 98.00 10.10 50.30 19.40 7.20 53.70

Company

10,077.43 254,474,319

Number of Contract

186,334

Unchanged Issue (Avg. Price Basis)

10

Market Capital Equity (Billion. Tk.)

2,784.49 33.75

32.70

CSE key features October 13, 2014 Turnover (Million Taka)

591.87

Turnover (Volume)

19,351,120

Number of Contract

22,539

Traded Issues

242

Issue Gain (Avg. Price Basis)

130

Issue Loss (Avg. Price Basis)

108

Unchanged Issue (Avg. Price Basis)

4

Market Capital Equity (Billion. Tk.)

2,696.47

Market Capital Equity (Billion US$)

32.68

Turnover in Million

DLOW 20.90 25.00 27.00 44.90 21.40 166.00 19.20 21.00 85.10 47.90

Latest EPS

18.986 0.463 37.768 49.923 174.841 24.621 1.117 2.075 1.851 36.245

1.74 0.08 3.60 3.86 1.78 5.51 1.18 1.52 4.95 2.99

Turnover in Million

DLOW 20.40 28.60 7.30 108.00 103.00 10.00 48.00 18.50 7.20 44.20

% change 14.01 7.90 1.56 11.03 3.94 16.17 0.02 9.36 13.29 2.04 1.83 1.55 3.61 0.97 1.28 3.46 3.98 1.13 2.48 0.01

Million Taka 94.26 40.11 7.75 59.01 19.27 75.93 88.78 70.00 5.97 14.43 5.24 13.04 22.78 13.87 6.35 8.09 14.19 17.42 26.70 0.00

CSE

% change 15.63 6.65 1.29 9.78 3.19 12.59 0.00 14.72 11.60 0.99 2.39 0.87 2.16 3.78 2.30 1.05 1.34 2.35 2.89 4.43 0.00

Latest EPS

0.010 0.473 0.048 0.141 1.663 0.025 1.302 11.498 0.004 1.360

Million Taka 1506.50 835.78 165.21 1170.17 416.78 1705.92 2.12 1032.40 1409.22 44.66 220.37 189.19 169.01 386.10 111.20 135.27 357.09 415.15 131.04 276.58 0.87

GSP Finance-A Sonargaon Tex -Z Shahjalal Islami -A MJL BD Ltd.-A NCCBL Mutual Fund-1-A Global Heavy Chemicals-N Ratanpur Steel -N Linde (BD) Ltd. -A Prime Bank 1st MF-A Apex Footwear-A

Closing (% Change) 9.50 8.70 8.33 6.62 6.56 6.39 6.30 6.13 6.12 5.76

CSE GAINER

0.09 2.58 -1.85 6.45 9.28 0.20 2.99 1.41 1.60 3.86

Latest PE 13.2 316.3 8.0 12.2 12.9 30.8 16.6 14.6 17.4 16.4

Total

Company Pragati Gen. I -A 6th ICB M F-A GSP Finance-A NCCBL Mutual Fund-1-A Sonargaon Tex -Z Rangpur Foundry -A Ambee Pharma -A LR Global BD MF1-A GreenDeltaInsu -A Pioneer Insur -A

Closing (% Change) 10.00 9.94 9.92 9.84 9.68 9.21 8.74 8.62 8.38 8.28

Average (% Change) 7.67 7.80 7.87 4.11 8.88 6.98 3.44 3.67 4.84 4.51 Average (% Change) 8.56 9.94 7.94 9.84 7.91 7.19 8.19 9.38 8.01 8.28

ClosingAvg.

Closing

25.96 9.95 12.61 150.20 6.62 47.35 77.65 912.30 5.20 456.63

ClosingAvg.

26.50 10.00 13.00 153.10 6.50 48.30 79.30 933.00 5.20 464.80

Closing

46.68 57.50 26.09 6.70 9.96 109.44 259.88 6.30 87.54 51.00

47.30 57.50 26.60 6.70 10.20 111.50 261.20 6.30 87.90 51.00

DHIGH 26.60 10.10 13.20 155.00 6.70 49.20 80.20 941.00 5.30 474.00

DHIGH 47.30 57.50 26.60 6.70 10.20 112.30 261.20 6.30 89.20 51.00

DLOW 21.80 8.80 10.80 129.30 6.50 45.00 74.70 878.00 5.10 441.00

DLOW 47.30 57.50 23.50 6.70 9.50 106.00 240.00 6.30 86.50 51.00

Turnover in Million 41.502 1.208 56.512 390.356 5.483 65.539 138.924 6.751 0.980 27.398

Turnover in Million 0.006 0.098 1.935 0.060 0.234 0.438 0.110 0.236 0.108 0.026

Latest EPS 1.56 -0.96 -1.78 5.04 0.46 2.44 3.03 38.76 0.73 -7.40

Latest EPS 2.44 6.47 1.56 0.46 -0.96 3.20 3.18 0.64 1.90 3.12

Latest PE 16.6 -ve -ve 29.8 14.4 19.4 25.6 23.5 7.1 -ve

Latest PE 19.1 8.9 16.7 14.6 -ve 34.2 81.7 9.8 46.1 16.3

News, analysis and recent disclosers From TradeServers: AL-HAJTEX: As per Regulation 30 of DSE Listing Regulations, the Company has informed that a meeting of the Board of Directors will be held on October 15, 2014 at 3:30 PM to consider, among others, audited financial statements of the Company for the year ended on June 30, 2014.

DSE NEWS: Road Show of The ACME Laboratories Limited for indicative price discovery under Book Building Method: This is for information of all eligible institutional investors that a Road Show for indicative price discovery of shares of The ACME Laboratories Limited will be held on October 13, 2014 (Monday) at 07:00 p.m. at Ball Room of Pan Pacific Sonargaon, Dhaka. For further information, please contact with the Issuer Company (The ACME Laboratories Limited) or Issue Manager (ICB Capital Management Limited). Information Memorandum of the company is available at DSE website under the link namely http://www. dsebd.org/bookbuilding_roadshow.php.

Eligible institutional investors who have not yet registered their name with Book Building System, are requested to communicate with Listing Affairs Department of DSE during office hour for registration.

Registration form is also available at http:// www.dsebd.org/ipo/EIRForm.pdf.

AAMRATECH: As per Regulation 30 of DSE Listing Regulations, the Company has informed that a meeting of the Board of Directors will be held on October 22, 2014 at 3:00 PM to consider, among others, audited financial statements of the Company for the year ended on June 30, 2014.

SINGERBD: The Company has requested the concerned shareholders to collect their Interim Dividend Warrants for 2014 from October 13 to October 16, 2014 from the Company's Registered Office at 39 Dilkusha C/A, Dhaka-1000 from 10:00 AM to 5:00 PM. DESCO: As per Regulation 30 of DSE Listing Regulations, the Company has informed that a meeting of the Board of Directors will be held on October 13, 2014 at 5:30 PM to consider, among others, audited financial statements of the Company for the year ended on June 30, 2014.

PTL: The Company has informed that the Board of Directors of the Company has decided to purchase Commercial floor space in the Ground floor 1,420 sft., 1st floor 2,914 sft. and 2nd floor 2,914 sft. total 7,248 sft. floor space including 6 cars parking at Shikharaa Jolchhobi 40/8, Gulshan North Avenue (Madani Road), Gulshan-2, Dhaka-1212 from Shikharaa Developments Limited for its own uses by

fixing total Tk. 42,06,59,500.00 of which Tk. 12,61,97,850.00 only will be paid as down payment and the rest amount will be paid in 14 equal monthly installment i.e. Tk. 2,10,32,975.00 only.

AL-HAJTEX: As per Regulation 30 of DSE Listing Regulations, the Company has informed that a meeting of the Board of Directors will be held on October 15, 2014 at 3:30 PM to consider, among others, audited financial statements of the Company for the year ended on June 30, 2014.

IPO Subscription: Hamid Fabrics Limited subscription date 28 September to 02 October 2014, NRB upto 11 October 2014. @ taka 35, face value taka 10 and market lot 100. National Feed Mill Limited subscription date 26 -30 October 2014, NRB upto 08 November 2014. @ taka 10, face value taka 10 and market lot 500.

Right Share: MIDASFIN: Subscription period for rights issue will be from 01.09.2014 to 30.09.2014. Record date for entitlement of rights share: 03.08.2014.

ICB: Subscription period for rights issue will be from 07.12.2014 to 30.12.2014. Record date for entitlement of rights share: 09.09.2014. BIFC: subscription period for rights issue of the Company will be from 09.11.2014 to 30.11.2014. Record Date for entitlement of rights share: 19.10.2014.

Latest PE 226.7 11.1 -ve 16.8 10.5 50.3 16.4 13.3 4.5 12.2

Strong selling and moderate buying pressure helped DSE turnover to cross Tk1,000 crore mark again after hovering around Tk900 crore over the last five sessions

SECTORAL TURNOVER SUMMARY Sector

▼ ▼ ▼ ▼ ▼

DSE GAINER

Turnover (Million Taka) Turnover (Volume)

Tuesday, October 14, 2014

DSE TURNOVER LEADERS Company

% change 14.11 7.83 1.55 10.96 3.90 15.97 0.02 9.67 13.19 0.42 2.06 1.77 1.58 3.61 1.04 1.27 3.34 3.89 1.23 2.59 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

MJL BD Ltd.-A Square Pharma -A Grameenphone-A Golden Son -A Titas Gas TDCLA Beximco Pharma -A Delta Life Insu. -A Familytex (BD) Ltd.-A People`s Leasing-A LafargeS Cement-Z

Summit Power -A Khulna Power-A BEXIMCO Ltd. -A City Bank - A Active Fine Chem.-A CSE TURNOVER LEADERS Company Familytex (BD) Ltd.-A BEXIMCO Ltd. -A National Bank - A MJL BD Ltd.-A G Next Fashions-A Square Pharma -A Summit Power -A Golden Son -A RAK Ceramics-A Delta SpinnersA

LafargeS Cement-Z Beximco Pharma -A People`s Leasing-A Khulna Power-A Appollo Ispat CL -N

VolumeShares 2,598,950 1,340,153 940,400 5,295,267 2,885,952 3,458,437 1,190,860 8,359,000 7,628,697 1,462,500

Value in Million 390.36 357.52 355.05 295.01 266.31 248.63 242.32 232.25 206.71 200.35

% of TotalTurnover 3.87 3.55 3.52 2.93 2.64 2.47 2.40 2.30 2.05 1.99

VolumeShares

Value in Million

% of TotalTurnover

4,363,988 3,030,804 3,849,796 7,639,669 1,914,218

1,071,000 460,036 1,461,090 119,493 845,640 49,341 291,145 229,714 174,871 614,600

78,500 143,026 364,745 148,038 334,000

194.26 182.51 176.80 174.84 154.65

29.75 21.17 19.32 17.86 15.32 13.16 13.05 12.80 11.91 11.50

10.70 10.29 9.88 8.92 8.78

1.93 1.81 1.75 1.74 1.53

5.04 3.58 3.27 3.02 2.59 2.23 2.21 2.17 2.02 1.95

1.81 1.74 1.67 1.51 1.49

ClosingP 153.10 269.60 374.70 55.50 92.50 71.40 201.20 27.60 27.80 138.00

44.30 60.80 45.50 22.70 79.40

ClosingP

27.50 45.70 13.20 153.20 18.20 269.00 44.70 55.60 66.80 18.60

136.40 71.60 27.70 60.90 26.20

Change % 6.62 1.81 -1.39 2.78 -0.32 0.99 -2.61 1.47 1.83 1.02

-1.56 2.88 -0.66 -4.22 -3.17

Change %

1.10 -0.44 -1.49 6.54 -0.55 1.66 -1.11 2.58 -2.20 -4.12

-0.87 1.27 1.84 3.40 -0.76

ClosingY 143.60 264.80 380.00 54.00 92.80 70.70 206.60 27.20 27.30 136.60

45.00 59.10 45.80 23.70 82.00

ClosingY

27.20 45.90 13.40 143.80 18.30 264.60 45.20 54.20 68.30 19.40

137.60 70.70 27.20 58.90 26.40

DHIGH

DLOW

155.00 285.00 383.70 56.90 93.70 72.90 210.80 28.50 28.30 139.80

129.30 241.70 373.50 49.00 83.60 63.70 189.00 27.10 24.60 135.90

DHIGH

DLOW

28.80 47.00 13.60 154.00 18.60 270.00 46.50 56.30 70.00 19.40

27.00 45.50 13.00 142.00 17.80 250.00 44.10 49.00 66.10 18.50

45.70 62.00 47.00 24.40 82.30

138.00 72.70 28.20 61.90 26.70

40.90 54.00 41.30 21.40 76.00

134.30 68.00 26.50 58.80 26.10

AvgPrice 150.20 266.78 377.55 55.71 92.28 71.89 203.48 27.78 27.10 136.99

44.51 60.22 45.92 22.89 80.79

AvgPrice

27.77 46.01 13.22 149.47 18.12 266.63 44.82 55.73 68.13 18.71

136.35 71.97 27.10 60.24 26.27

DHAKA TRIBUNE

Business

US and UK to test big bank collapse in joint model run n Reuters

Regulators from the United States and the United Kingdom will get together in a war room next week to see if they can cope with any possible fall-out when the next big bank topples over, the two countries said on Friday.

Treasury Secretary Jack Lew and the UK’s Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, on Monday will run the first-ever joint exercise simulating how they would prop up a large bank operating in both countries that has landed in trouble.

Also taking part are Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen and Bank of England Governor Mark Carney, and the heads of a large number of other regulators, in a meeting hosted by the US Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation.

“There is no doubt that in 2008 the judgment taken by my predecessor and others was that banks ... like the Royal Bank of Scotland and others were too big to fail,” Osborne said.

“Now I want to make sure that ... we have real options, and that we are able to avoid bailing in taxpayers with a bailout. And I’m pretty confident that’s the case now,” he said.

Six years after the financial crisis, politicians and regulators around the globe are keen to prove they have created rules that will allow them to let a large bank go under without spending billions in taxpayer dollars.

They have forced banks to ramp up equity and debt capital buffers to protect taxpayers against losses, and have told them to write plans that lay out how they can go through ordinary bankruptcy. The plans are so-called living wills.

B3

Tuesday, October 14, 2014

Coal import from India likely to resume n Our Correspondent, Sylhet Coal import from Indian state of Meghalaya is likely to resume soon after a break of a five-month.

Visiting leaders of Meghalaya Coordination Committee of coal owners, miners and dealers forum disclosed this at a meeting with Sylhet coal importers at a city hotel on Sunday night.

Following a law suit filed by Meghalayan environmentalists group, coal import from India was stopped on May 16, 2014. After hearing, the court passed an order on October 7 in this regard, said SL Kriam, chairman of the coal owners’ forum.

“The court directed us to submit roy-

alty in three phases within 45 days. Following the verdict, the stalemate will be resolved and coal export from India will resume as soon as possible,” he said.

Falah Uddin Ali Ahmed, chairman of the Sylhet coal importers group, said: “The government counts loss of Tk1 crore everyday because of the suspension on coal import from India.”

About five lakh tonnes of coal are imported from July to October every year, he said, adding that about 50,000 labourers remain jobless for the disruption in coal import.

Coal is mainly imported through Tamabil, Bholaganj, Sutarkandi, Barchara, Charagoan and Bogla borders of Sylhet. l

Oil prices down in Asian trade as weak demand weighs n AFP, Singapore

Britain's Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne (right) looks at his notes at a meeting of G-20 finance ministers and central bank governors during the IMF-World Bank annual meetings in Washington REUTERS Yet salvaging a bank with operations in several countries - which is the norm for most of the world’s largest banks such as Deutsche Bank, Citigroup Inc and JPMorgan - has proven to be a particularly thorny issue.

Regulators may not be used to talking to each other, and there have also been suspicions that supervisors would first look to save the domestic operations of a bank, and would worry

less about units abroad.

One scenario would test the hypothetical failure of a U.S. bank with UK operations, and a second the demise of a large UK bank with U.S. operations, the countries said. Results would be communicated after the exercise.

The exercise comes as regulators are about to bring to fruition further initiatives to make banking safer. The first would force banks to have more long-

term bonds that investors know can lose their value during a crisis, on top of their equity capital, to double their so-called Total Loss-Absorbing Capacity (TLAC).

A second measure, expected to be announced this weekend, will force through a change in derivative contracts, which in their current form protect investors, and complicate the winding down of a bank across borders. l

Oil prices fell in Asian trade yesterday on growing concerns about demand as equities tumble on global growth woes and supplies increase.

US benchmark West Texas Intermediate for November delivery fell $1.23 to $84.59 - its weakest for two years while Brent North Sea crude lost $1.24 to a four-year low of $88.97.

“Prospects for global oil demand growth have weakened recently,” British bank Barclays said in a market analysis.

It said global oil consumption this year grew at its slowest pace since 2009, with weakness in Chinese demand a key factor. China´s oil consumption this year rose at its slowest rate since 1990, it added.

China, the world´s second biggest economy, on Monday said its trade

surplus more than doubled to $31bn in September as exports jumped and imports increased at a slower rate.

“The oversupply (in oil) has built since July,” Barclays said, pointing to the return of Libyan crude into the market after a prolonged shutdown in facilities due to civil unrest.

“As Libyan output recovers, more West African crude oil barrels get displaced from North America and North Sea crude oil gets fewer bids from European refineries that have reduced runs,” it said.

Suppliers are now looking to Asia to absorb the surplus oil, including forging long-term supply deals at cheaper prices to gain market share, it added.

Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates recently cut their selling prices to Asian refineries, with Iran following suit, it noted.l

China’s September trade Gold climbs as global growth concerns surplus more than doubles stoke safe-haven bids n AFP

China’s trade surplus more than doubled to $31bn in September, official data showed yesterday, as exports jumped while imports increased at a slower rate.

Exports from the world’s secondbiggest economy rose 15.3% year on year to $213.7bn, the General Administration of Customs said, while imports climbed 7% to $182.7bn.

Today figures show that in the third quarter, exports rose 12.8% year-on-year while imports crept up 0.9%, Customs said without giving totals.

The surplus was lower than August’s record $49.8bn, and also came in below expectations of $42bn in a poll of 15 economists.

But the rise in exports accelerated from August’s 9.4% and was ahead of the median forecast of 12.5%. The survey had predicted a fall of 2.4% in imports, matching a surprise decline in August.

Customs spokesman Zheng Yuesheng attributed the improvement to major economies recovering and external demand strengthening.

“The good momentum is expected to continue in the fourth quarter,” he added.

The positive figures are the latest

contradictory indicator for China’s economy, a key driver of global growth.

Recent reports have suggested expansion in China - which stood at 7.7% last year, maintaining its slowest in more than a decade - is weakening even after authorities took limited stimulatory measures.

Industrial production growth slowed sharply in August to its lowest level for more than five years, official data said last month, while house prices have fallen for five consecutive months.

Officials are targeting economic growth of “about 7.5%” this year, the same as last year’s objective. The goal is normally exceeded, but senior officials have repeatedly sought to play down its significance this year.

Last week the World Bank cut its forecast for Chinese growth to 7.4% for 2014 and 7.2% for 2015, while the International Monetary Fund left its predictions unchanged at 7.4% and 7.1% but warned of “near-term growth risks”, especially in the property sector.

Today figures show that in the third quarter, exports rose 12.8% year-onyear while imports crept up 0.9%, Customs said without giving totals.

For the first three quarters, China recorded a total trade surplus of $231.6bn, the statement said, up 37.8 % year-on-year.

Exports climbed 5.1% over the ninemonth period to $1.7tn, while imports rose 1.3% to $1.46tn.

Trade with the European Union was up 10.2% at 2.81tn yuan ($460bn), 14.5% of the total, and up 5.2% with the US to 2.48tn yuan, 12.8% of the total.

But bilateral trade with Hong Kong fell 13% year-on-year to 1.61tn yuan.

With Japan it crept up 0.4% to 1.43tn yuan. l

Banglalink has recently distributed 1000 recycled school bags among primary school children across three different districts. Banglalink’s brand ambassador, Shakib Al Hasan attended the progamme to distribute the bags at the presence of Sharfuddin Ahmed Chowdhury, head of PR, marketing and communication at Banglalink

n Reuters, Singapore Gold prices jumped sharply in Asia yesterday as worries over the global economic outlook sent investors scuttling towards safe-haven bullion amid a selloff in equities and the dollar.

Asian stocks had a shaky start to the week after a steep decline on Wall Street on Friday, while crude oil prices were stuck near four-year lows. Gold is often seen as an alternative investment to riskier assets such as equities.

Spot gold rose to a high of $1,234.80 an ounce before paring some gains to trade up 0.8% at $1,233.15 at 0256 GMT US gold futures jumped to $1,235.70, their highest since Sept. 23.

Silver, platinum and palladium also gained.

Gold’s first leg up on Monday came during early Asian hours when liquidity was thin. Japan, which is usually active early in the Asian day, was closed for a public holiday.

“A few stops were triggered this morning once we hit $1,225,” said a precious metals trader in Hong Kong.

“With the dollar and equities under pressure, and what is seen as dovish comments from Federal Reserve officials over the weekend, it looks like gold could see some more upside.”

“We are expecting a move up to the $1,240-50 area, though we would be sellers there.”

Concerns over the global economy have risen in the past few days after weak data from Europe and lowered global growth forecasts by the International Monetary Fund.

Fed officials also expressed concern over the global economy, which could have an impact on the timing of an eventual rise in US interest rates.

A dealer displays gold pendants at a jewellery shop near the Grand Mosque during the annual Haj pilgrimage in Mecca

Asian stocks had a shaky start to the week after a steep decline on Wall Street on Friday, while crude oil prices were stuck near fouryear lows Most notably, Fed Vice Chairman Stanley Fischer said the effort to normalise U.S. monetary policy after years of ex-

Ericsson has recently supported Indian High Commission in Bangladesh on an initiative to pay tribe to Guru Rabindranath Tagore, through the publication of the documentary that traces the history of Gitanjali

traordinary stimulus may be hampered by the global outlook.

A delay in raising interest rates would be seen as positive for gold, a non-interest-bearing asset, and negative for the dollar.

The greenback snapped a 12-week winning streak on Friday, and remained under pressure on Monday.

“Gold is going to be doubly influenced by both the equity markets and the dollar over the course of the week.

We suspect that both will continue to drop over the short term, offering

REUTERS

a measure of support to prices,” said INTL FCStone analyst Edward Meir.

“In addition, gold’s technical picture looks slightly more constructive,” he said.

Despite the recent gains, however, investor interest in the precious metal remains near multi-year lows.

Holdings in SPDR Gold Trust, the world’s largest gold-backed exchangetraded fund and a good proxy for market sentiment, fell 2.64 tonnes on Friday to 759.44 tonnes, its lowest level since December 2008. l

The photo shows the chairperson of Shahjalal Islami Bank Ltd, AK Azad inaugurating a Deep Sea Fishing Vessel named “EuroStar-2” at the Chittagong Port recently

B4

DHAKA TRIBUNE

Back Page

Tuesday, October 14, 2014

IMF launches consultations on Islamic finance n Reuters The International Monetary Fund has held its first consultation with an external advisory group of Islamic finance industry bodies, as regulators across the globe seek to address structural issues in the sector.

Islamic finance, with its core markets in the Middle East and southeast Asia, is under growing regulatory scrutiny as it takes a greater share of the banking sector in some Muslim-majority countries and makes inroads in Western markets.

The nine-member external advisory group includes industry bodies such as the Malaysia-based Islamic Financial Services Board and the Bahrain-based Accounting and Auditing Organisation for Islamic Financial Institutions.

The group is an IMF initiative which aims to identify policy challenges in the industry and encourage coordination among bodies. The meeting, held in Washington last week, discussed topics including how to improve financing to small and medium- sized businesses as well as the implications for Islamic banks of Basel III regulatory standards.

Islamic banks face a shortage of high-quality liquid assets which they can hold to meet the standards, and there is uncertainty over regulatory treatment of their deposits.

The industry is trying to develop tools to ease the shortage, such as the short-term Islamic bonds issued by the Malaysia-based International Islamic Liquidity Management Corp (IILM), which is also part of the advisory group.

But the shortage is aggravated by activities of conventional firms which are free to buy sukuk, Kuwait central bank governor Mohammad al-Hashel said at an IILM seminar in August.

Because sukuk sometimes offer better yields than conventional bonds, they attract buyers among conventional banks, which can out-muscle smaller Islamic banks in bidding for such instruments in the open market.

Also, since Islamic banks can’t buy interest-bearing debt, they tend to hang on to their sukuk and rarely trade them in the secondary market, further reducing their availability, al-Hashel said.

“Empirical evidence suggests that as a direct consequence of the above factors, reliance of Islamic banks on cash is much higher compared to their conventional counterparts.”

Islamic commercial banks held about $1.2tn worth of assets at the end of last year, according to a study by Thomson Reuters. They accounted for roughly a quarter of deposits in Gulf Arab countries and over a fifth in Malaysia. l

n Reuters, Washington

Visitors are silhouetted against the logo of the International Monetary Fund at the main venue for the IMF and World Bank annual meeting in Tokyo REUTERS

French bank, Twitter team up for money transfers via tweets n Reuters, Paris One of France’s largest banks is teaming up with social network Twitter Inc. this week to allow its customers to transfer money via tweets.

The move by Groupe BPCE, France’s second largest bank by customers, coincides with Twitter’s own push into the world of online payments as the social network seeks new sources of revenue beyond advertising.

Twitter is racing other tech giants Apple and Facebook to get a foothold in new payment services for mobile phones or apps. They are collaborating and, in some cases, competing with banks and credit card issuers that have run the business for decades.

The bank said last month it was prepared to offer simple person-toperson money transfers via Twitter to French consumers, regardless of what bank they use, and without requiring the sender know the recipient’s banking details. “(S-Money) offers Twitter users in France a new way to send each other money, irrespective of their bank and without having to enter the beneficiary’s bank details, with a simple tweet,” Nicolas Chatillon, chief ex-

ecutive of S-Money, BPCE’s mobile payments unit, said in the statement.

Payment by tweets will be managed via the bank’s S-Money service, which allows money transfers via text message and relies on the credit-card industry’s data security standards.

BPCE and Twitter declined to provide further details ahead of a news conference in Paris on Tuesday to unveil the service.

Last month, Twitter started trials of its own new service, dubbed “Twitter Buy”, to allow consumers to find and buy products on its social network.

The service embeds a “Twitter Buy” button inside tweets posted by more than two dozen stores, music artists and non-profits. Burberry, Home Depot, and musicians such as Pharrell and Megadeth are among the early vendors.

Twitter’s role to date has been to connect customers rather than processing payments or checking their identities.

“From the Twitter point of view, there is a limit to their appetite for getting involved in payments processing itself,” said Andrew Copeman, a payments analyst with financial ser-

vices research firm AITE Group, who is based in Edinburgh, Scotland.

“At the moment, banks are probably viewing Twitter and other social media networks as marketing channels to reach a wider set of their customers and to extend the bank’s existing mobile banking initiatives,” he said.

Twitter’s success in developing additional services on its platform as Facebook has done will be key to its future profitability. Rakuten Bank in Japan offers a similar “Transfer by Facebook” service that lets users of its mobile banking app send money to anyone in their Facebook friends list.

Investors have been worried about Twitter’s slowing user growth, sending the shares down about 17% this year, while rival Facebook’s have climbed 35%.

Thomas Husson, a marketing strategy analyst with Forrester Research, said Twitter was likely to multiply efforts to explore new ways to generate revenue with banks and credit card firms.

“Twitter wants to more explicitly demonstrate the overall value of its network as an advertising platform,” he said. l

n Reuters, London Oil producers are getting another brutal reminder that theirs is a business characterised by long, deep price cycles.

Benchmark Brent futures have dropped below $90 a barrel, the lowest level since December 2010, but that actually understates the extent of the damage.

The problem with using December 2010 as a baseline is that oil prices at the time were hugely distorted by the cyclical downturn in demand caused by the financial crisis and the ensuing recession. Most analysts would agree these effects were temporary and give little insight into long-term oil-market trends.

If the period covered by the recession (late 2008 to early 2011) is excluded to give a more representative picture, the price of Brent has not been this low since February 2008, when price increases were still accelerating towards their eventual peak five months later.

And if prices are adjusted for inflation (using average US hourly earnings), Brent prices are at the lowest level in real terms since October 2007, exactly seven years ago.

The oil industry has always experienced very long, slow and deep cycles in supply, demand and prices: the current downturn is no exception.

Both the surge in oil supplies and slowdown in demand are the lagged re-

sponse to the increase in prices which started in 2002 and lasted until 2012, albeit with a hiatus during the recession between 2008 and 2011.

It was the stimulus of high and rising prices which made the application of hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling possible in the North American shale oil plays.

And it was the panic brought on by rising fuel bills which prompted households, businesses and governments to conserve fuel by turning to energy efficiency and substitutes such as ethanol and natural gas.

Fuel supply and demand are characterised by an enormous amount of economic and technological inertia. It takes many years for a price change to start having a meaningful impact on production and consumption, which is why many of the impacts of the earlier rise in prices are only now beginning to be felt.

For the same reason, however, once those deep-cyclical changes are under way, they are extremely difficult to arrest or reverse. Like a supertanker, changes in supply and demand wrought by price rises in 2002-2012 have developed a momentum of their own and cannot easily be stopped.

Just as oil prices had to overshoot in 2008 to overcome the natural inertia in the system and force big increases in supply and reductions in demand, prices will now probably need to over

n Reuters, London

kept investors on their toes for several months. It is unclear whether the current turmoil will last as long.

“What is interesting about what is going on is that you have several themes all feeding into the same action, and that action is to mitigate risk,” said Peter Kenny, chief market strategist of Clearpool Group in New York.

Defensive plays

The only S&P 500 sectors to gain since the market’s Sept. 18 high are defensive - utilities and consumer staples. This week also saw the biggest weekly inflow on record to U.S. taxable bond funds,

while nearly $7bn left stock funds.

One sign that investors anticipate more volatility has been in the options market, where volumes have increased sharply. Friday marked the busiest day in the options market since June 2013, with options volume totaling 27.2 million contracts, according to options analytics firm Trade Alert.

In addition, the CBOE Volatility Index is trading higher than monthly VIX futures contracts between now and May 2015, a sign of worry about nearterm ups and downs in the market.

“Just look at options volume versus stocks volume over the past three to six

correct on the downside to put the oil market on to a new course.

The existence of this long cycle is confirmed by the fact that each temporary peak in prices since July 2008 has been lower than the last, which indicates that a gradual shift in both supply and demand have been under way, producing a gradual price downward.

The same unwinding of the supercycle is evident in other commodities, notably the thermal coal market.

Benchmark coal prices to Europe exhibit identical behaviour: a massive escalation between 2002 and 2008, followed by the recession, a partial recovery by 2011, and then a gradually falling trend in which each temporary peak is lower than the last. Broadly similar pricing patterns are evident in other major industrial commodities as diverse as aluminium and copper.

The best way to characterise the current fall in oil and other commodity prices is that it is the downswing of a long price cycle that dates from around 2002.

During the upswing, the synchronised rise in the price of many industrial and agricultural commodities was dubbed by analysts as a “super-cycle”.

In their excitement, many investors and businesses focused on the “super” and forgot about the “cycle”, ignoring the fact that at least some of the increase in prices would eventually need to be reversed. l

BoE’s Carney: Euro zone weakness will not dictate policy

n Reuters, New York

People walk by the New York Stock Exchange in New York's financial district

A stronger dollar and weak global inflation are putting downward pressure on the pace of price increases in the US economy, posing a challenge for the Federal Reserve, a top Fed official said on Saturday.

“The dollar, it puts downward pressure on our inflation,” Chicago Federal Reserve Bank President Charles Evans told a conference on the sidelines of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank fall meetings in Washington.

The Fed is debating how long it will keep its benchmark interest rate near zero, and Evans is among the policymakers willing to hold rates low the longest, in part because he is troubled by persistently soft inflation.

The Fed targets a 2% inflation rate, but Evans said the trend appears to be around 1.5% at present. The dollar’s strength, therefore, presents another “headwind” because it reduces net exports and also imports the low inflation rates of America’s trading partners, he said.

Evans repeated his view that the Fed should keep its benchmark interest rate near zero until the first quarter of 2016.

Many of his policymaking peers favor hiking around the middle of next year. l

Oil producers enter supercycle’s dark side

Investors gird for scarier days in US markets Volatility has suddenly returned to US stocks, and for the first time all year it doesn’t appear that the weakness in equities will go away quietly in the span of a few days.

While the S&P 500 is still up 3.1% for the year, the index is off about 5% from its record high reached in midSeptember, and closed out this week at the lowest level since May 23.

“We’re still in a bull market, but in the near term things are a little bit dicey, and I don’t think the decline is over with yet,” said Jeffrey Saut, chief investment strategist at Raymond James Financial in St Petersburg, Florida.

The S&P 500 and Nasdaq posted their biggest weekly declines since May 2012, and the Dow Jones industrial average ended Friday in negative territory for the year.

The S&P also posted back-to-back intraday moves of more than 40 points this week for the first time in three years. Wall Street’s fear gauge, the CBOE Volatility Index .VIX, ended at 21.24 on Friday, its highest level since early February.

Investors said they were concerned about the eventual end of Federal Reserve stimulus, as well as weak growth overseas and its potential effect on US earnings. The slide in oil prices has also served as a harbinger for poor demand, and investors in general got caught betting heavily on further market gains at a time when this stew boiled over.

The volatility recalls the last major period of big market gyrations in the second half of 2011, when the firstever credit downgrade of the United States and the threat of a debt default

Fed’s Evans says dollar putting downward pressure on inflation

REUTERS

months,” said Tim Biggam, lead option strategist at online brokerage TradingBlock.

“Options volume has been nothing but growing and stock volume has been sort of petering out. A lot of the big players are pre-positioning with options.”

Growing worry over Europe and other overseas economies has money managers concerned about earnings season. The next two weeks bring a slew of US corporate results, including from S&P 500 companies with some of the highest levels of sales abroad, such as chip maker Intel Corp. l

Euro zone weakness will be only one factor that helps to determine when the Bank of England raises interest rates, Governor Mark Carney said in media interviews broadcast yesterday.

Carney told US news channel CNN that weakness in the euro zone and elsewhere had been a major theme at the International Monetary Fund’s meetings in Washington last week.

But Britain’s recovery had been driven primarily by domestic factors.

“The only difficulty that is caused

by Europe is that it provides an additional drag on growth. But that doesn’t dictate the monetary policy of the Bank of England,” he said.

Financial markets have recently pushed back their bets on when the BoE will start to raise interest rates, with interest rate future contracts pricing in a first hike in mid-2015.

As well as the weakness in Britain’s

DILBERT

core export markets such as Germany, investors also believe very slow growth in pay for British workers will stay the BoE’s hand for now.

Carney said the BoE had already forecast that Britain’s rapid recovery would slow slightly toward the end of 2014, and would continue to keep a close eye on domestic inflation pressures that might come from the labor market.

Carney said in a separate interview with CNBC television that the central bank would take into account the fact that weaker global demand was producing a “very benign global inflationary environment”.

He said the slowdown in Europe’s recovery did not compare with the scale of the crisis in the single currency zone in recent years when Greece was at risk of dropping the euro.

“This is a chronic phase of European adjustment,” Carney told CNBC. “We’re not back in the acute phase, back into that period of a couple of years ago.” l