15 Oct, 2014

Ashwin 30, 1421 Zilhajjj 19, 1435 Regd No DA 6238 Vol 2, No 191

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 15, 2014 | www.dhakatribune.com

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8 | WORLD SPAIN’S CATALONIA CALLS OFF INDEPENDENCE VOTE

FOOD FACTS: HEALTHY HABITS

Father says DB has tortured his son to death

11 | OP-ED

15 | SPORT

CYNICS AND ASHRAFISTS

AJMAL READY FOR BOWLING TEST: PAKISTAN BOARD

Agencies not serious in resisting militancy

STARRY STARRY NIGHT: SACHIN WINS HEARTS

n Rabiul Islam

A police official allegedly intimidated a family to sell a land by staging a ‘shootout’

n Ashif Islam Shaon The family of Mezbah Uddin alias Tarek, who was killed in an alleged gunfight with detective police last month in the capital, claimed yesterday that he had actually been beaten to death by law enforcers.

Tarek’s father Abu Zafar aired the allegation from a presser at the capital’s National Press Club. The Detective Branch (DB) of police however denied the allegations.

According to DB, who could not confirm whether he was wanted in any case, Tarek was a rising arms dealer active in the capital’s Kadomtoli and Matuail areas.

A DB press release issued on September 14, the day of the death, said “Tarek Masud” was arrested in the Kodomtoli area around 2:30am. Based on information provided by Tarek, detectives conducted several drives in those areas by 7am that day. He was killed in a typical “gunfight” during one of those drives in the Mugda area.

Tarek’s name was later corrected in the documents.

Kadir admits to involvement in Zubair’s death n Mohammad Jamil Khan During interrogation by the police, Abuubaida Kadir, admitted to involvement in the drowning death of 17-yearold Zubair Ahmed, saying he left the boy in the pond because Zubair would not listen to him, said the Detective Branch of police. A detailed motive for the killing has not yet been made known.

Further details including whether the boy was still alive and left to die in the water, or whether he was already dead when Kadir left the scene, were not made known at this time. When Zubair’s body was retrieved from the pond in Uttara’s Sector 4, its condition was reported to be incompatible with the putative timeline proposed by Kadir’s account. The body did not show as much water damage as would have been expected if his timeline were accurate.

The sole eyewitness to the murder, in a Section 164 statement before the court, said Zubair was the victim of sexual assault by Kadir. The post-mortem report, which is not yet ready, will shed light on whether the boy was the victim of rape or attempted rape. It will also clarify the victim’s time of death.

Kadir is being treated as the prime suspect in Zubair’s murder in a case filed by the victim’s mother Dilara Begum.

Police said their case would not be based only on the suspect’s statements, especially since Kadir was prone to changing his account.

Investigators are trying to collect more evidence and information about Kadir’s involvement in the murder as well as investigating his illegal stay in Bangladesh, said SM Nazmul Haque, senior assistant commissioner at the DB. Investigators have been able to determine that Kadir came to Bangladesh a decade and a half ago on a student visa.  PAGE 2 COLUMN 5

However, Tarek’s father Abu Zafar claimed yesterday that the “murder” of his son was a result of a conflict of interest between their family and a female police official centring a piece of land near their residence in Donia near Jatrabari in the capital.

Zafar read out a written statement which said their family owned a 1.5 bigha land near their residence in Donia and the female police official owned a bigger land right beside their property.

For a long time, the policewoman and her husband had been exerting pressure on their family to sell the land to them, Zafar said, alleging that his son had been picked up and killed by DB because they had refused.

Later last night, Zafar told the Dhaka Tribune over phone that for the last two years, Bangladesh Bank Joint Director Khairul Alam Tutul, husband of Salma Begum Jolly, a commanding officer of the Armed Police Battalion (APBn) in Dhaka, had been trying to pursue them to give up the land.

Zafar said Tutul’s brother-in-law Abdul Ahad Sohrab had visited their place  PAGE 2 COLUMN 1

Indian legend Sachin Tendulkar and Bangladesh ace all-rounder Shakib Al Hasan smile at each other at a city hotel yesterday during the unveiling of shirts and logo of a new Dhaka Premier Cricket League team. More on page 13 MUMIT M

n Ahmed Zayeef In an attempt to stop university seats being wasted each year, students from now on would only get a single chance to contest for a place at the Dhaka University, according to a decision by the authority concerned.

In a meeting of the university’s general admission committee, chaired

by DU Vice-Chancellor Dr Arefin Siddique, it was decided yesterday that the long-running opportunity that allowed first year honours admission seekers the chance to appear twice for

the intake admission test – would be scrapped from the upcoming 2015-16 academic session.

As a result, only the most recently passed HSC candidates will be able to attend the test from now on.

The deans of all faculties, the chairpersons of all departments and the directors of all institutes under the Dhaka University were present at the meeting.

The move follows the publication of a story by the Dhaka Tribune titled “DU seats wasted by second-time candidates,” which showed that over 400 seats fall vacant every session as

students switched departments by appearing in admission tests for the second time.

Commenting on the decision, the DU VC told the Dhaka Tribune: “Allowing a second chance to old students can deprive first-time entry seekers, as the old students get more time than the first-time candidates.

“This decision will stop the coaching business for the admission test.

Meanwhile, the university will also have fewer admission seekers, so it can then accommodate all those seeking admission in its own campus.”

Arefin Siddique added: “There will be no more cheating and the university will no longer have to lose seats to this system of giving chances to second-timers.”

According to the DU central admission office, almost half of the students who get admitted to Dhaka University every year are the ones who take the admission test twice.

These second-time candidates are either students who failed at their first attempt at getting into the university, or those who – after their successful first attempt – got admitted to a

department that they did not prefer.

In the admission test for the 2013-14 session, 89,800 of the total 192,221 candidates were second-time applicants.

In 2012-13 session the number of second-time applicants was 96,756 among a total 235,703 candidates; and in 201112 session it was 82,289 among a total 199,046 students.

On the other hand, among the 6,896 students who got admitted for the 2013-14 session, 3,683 had appeared in the admission test for their second attempt. In 2012-13 session, the number  PAGE 2 COLUMN 5

WHO: Ebola death rate rises to 70% n AP

Hospital staff protest in support of Ebola patient Teresa Romero outside the Carlos III hospital in Madrid, Spain, on Tuesday

B1 | Business

4 | News

3 | News

5 | News

Security measures in the Chittagong court building and adjacent areas were tightened yesterday as an alleged JMB activist threatened a lawyer over the phone to launch suicide bomb attack in the court building.

 PAGE 2 COLUMN 2

Students to get only a single shot to get into Dhaka University

AP

The death rate in the Ebola outbreak has risen to 70% and there could be up to 10,000 new cases a week in two months, the World Health Organisation (WHO) warned yesterday.

WHO Assistant Director-General Dr Bruce Aylward gave the grim figures during a news conference in Geneva.

Previously, the WHO had estimated the death rate at around 50%.

Aylward said the 70% death rate was “a high mortality disease” in any circumstance and that the UN health agency was still focused on trying to get sick people isolated and provide treatment as early as possible.

He told reporters that if the world’s response to the Ebola crisis is not stepped up within 60 days, “a lot more people will die” and there will be a huge need to deal with the spiralling number of cases.

For the last four weeks, there has

INSIDE Inflation eased for the second consecutive month in September due to falling commodity prices both in domestic and international markets.

Several ministries, law enforcement agencies and other government wings have failed to implement the decisions made by a high-power committee last month to resist militant activities, at a time when threats by Islamist extremist groups are rising in Bangladesh and neighbouring India.

During the fourth meeting of the National Committee on Militancy Resistance and Prevention yesterday, 10 government wings were supposed to submit progress reports on the assignments they had been given in the previous meeting, held on August 14.

As only the police and the Islamic Foundation submitted their reports, others were given more time while the law enforcement and intelligence agencies asked to strengthen vigilance, said a senior official of the Home Ministry, preferring anonymity.

According to the working paper of the fourth meeting, it was decided in the third meeting that Bangladesh Bank would inform the law enforcement agencies of any suspicious transaction in favour of any person or organisation immediately.

The Bank and Financial Institution Division was asked to inform the committee whether compensation money realised from a firm or individual could be spent under CSR (corporate social responsibility) activities.

Authorities of BASIC Bank have requested the ACC to file graft cases against eight suspended officials of the state-owned specialised bank for allegedly misappropriating Tk4,500 crore.

Bangladesh made significant progress in improving urban health in the past 7 years, with the target of total fertility rate achieved ahead of time, say preliminary results of Bangladesh Urban Health Survey 2013.

6 | Nation

Rawhide was sold almost twice at the fixed price at Jessore’s Rajarhat, the biggest market in the country’s south-west zone on Saturday, sparking fears that it might be smuggled into India.

7 | Long Form

We seem to have hit a new low in Bangladesh’s online social media narrative in this past week, one which defies all hitherto construed contours of conventionality.

9 | World

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, shown using a cane for support, re-appeared in state media yesterday after a lengthy public absence that had fuelled speculation over his health and grip on power.

12 | Entertainment

Deceased filmmaker Humayun Ahmed’s last directorial flick ‘Ghetuputra Kamola’ is going to participate in the Religion Today Film Festival, to be held in Trento from October 10 to 21.

been about 1,000 new cases per week — including suspected, confirmed and probable cases, Aylward said, adding that the UN health agency was aiming to get 70% of cases isolated within two months to reverse the outbreak.

The WHO increased its Ebola death toll tally to 4,447 people yesterday, nearly all of them in West Africa, from 8,914 cases.

Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia have been the hardest hit nations in the current outbreak. Aylward said the WHO was very concerned about the continued spread of Ebola in the three countries’ capital cities —Freetown, Conakry and Monrovia.

He said the agency was still focused on trying to treat Ebola patients, despite the huge demands on the broken health systems in West Africa.

“It would be horrifically unethical to say that we are just going to isolate people,” he said, noting that new strategies  PAGE 2 COLUMN 1

2

DHAKA TRIBUNE

News

Wednesday, October 15, 2014

Khaleda: Awami League believes in irreligion n Mohammad Al-Masum Molla BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia has alleged that the Awami League believed in irreligion and attacked all religions, while it was the BNP who believed in religious harmony.

“They [Awami League] claim to be secular, but their claim is just a mere eyewash. Awami League is an irreligious party in the disguise of secularism. During hartal, Bishwajit [Das] was killed by Awami League people,” Khaleda said after exchanging greetings with members of the Hindu community at the capital’s Institution of Engineers Bangladesh auditorium.

The former premier alleged that Hindu community members have been repressed continuously and the ruling party men were involved with those attacks. “But the culprits were spared,”

she claimed.

Khaleda called upon citizens to unite against the misrules of the government, adding that no people irrespective of their religion was safe from the hands of the government.

“BNP is a patriotic party and believes in religious harmony. We respect people of other religions,” she said.

The BNP chief claimed that the ruling party have been grabbing land and properties of the Hindu community members across the country and also destroying the temples.

“As the ruling party men were involved with those incidents, actions were not taken against them; rather it was blamed on other people to shift the responsibility.” Khaleda said when the BNP will form the government in the future, it would be the government for people of all religion. l

Youth found dead inside hotel room n FM Mizanur Rahaman

AL serves show-cause UNDP apologises notice to Latif Siddique n

217 physicians promoted n Moniruzzaman Uzzal

A youth was found dead inside a hotel room in Chittagong's AK Khan Area on Monday.

According to the register of the hotel, Md Mizan, 30, from Chakaria upazila of Cox’s Bazar, checked into Hotel Greenway around 2pm on Monday and said he was in town for some business purpose, said Abdul Majid, officer-incharge of Akbar Shah police station.

Later that night when a hotel staff knocked at his door there was no response. The authorities informed the police who broke down door and found the body lying on the floor. Two empty bottles of poison were recovered from the room, said OC Majid.

He said the bottles indicated that the youth might have killed himself. l

n Emran Hossain Shaikh

Departmental Promotion Committee of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare has given promotion to 217 doctors yesterday.

Of them, 142 were promoted to senior consultant while the rest 75 to the post of assistant director or civil surgeon.

Two circulations signed by Khaleda Akhter and AKM Mukhlesur Rahman, deputy secretaries of Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, were issued.

The promoted doctors, who had been appointed to the public hospitals, were advised to submit the joining letter to the authorities concerned.

Habibur Rahman Khan, joint secretary (personal-1) of the ministry told the Dhaka Tribune that the promotion appeared on seniority and experience. l

Journalists and photojournalists pay respect to Daily Observer Photo Editor Azizur Rahim Peu at the National Press Club after his namaz-e-janaza yesterday

Tribune Report

The ruling Awami League has served a show-cause notice to former minister Abdul Latif Siddique asking him to explain why he should not be expelled from the party permanently.

Awami League Office Secretary Abdus Sobhan Golap yesterday confirmed the matter to the Dhaka Tribune.

He said: “Latif Siddique has been asked to reply to the show-cause notice within seven days.”

The show cause notice was sent to Latif’s house in Kalihati upazila of Tangail district. The notice was served under section 46 (I) and (X) of party charter.

Awami League has called the next meeting of its central working commit-

tee on October 24, 2014 at Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s official residence Ganabhaban.

Party sources said that the meeting was called only to take a decision on Latif.

While addressing a programme in the US on September 28, Latif made derogatory remarks on Hajj, Tablighi Jamaat and the prime minister’s son Sajeeb Wazed Joy. The minister’s “derogatory” comments on Hajj have sparked widespread criticism both at home and abroad.

Following the issue, the government sacked the minister from the cabinet on October 12 and the same day Awami League also removed Latif from its presidium body and temporarily cancelled his primary party membership. l

The United Nations Development Programme has sought apology over its inadvertent comment on the 10th parliamentary election and last upazila elections in Bangladesh, calling it an error that they regret.

Bangladesh Country Director Pauline Tamesis sought the apology in a statement published on the UN body’s website on Monday.

She came up with the statement after several media outlets reported that the UNDP has decided to review its assistant programme with the Election Commission because of its last “unilateral” general elections and controversial local government polls.

She said in the statement: “I apologize to our partners for the misunderstanding. I wish to clarify that the text

WHO: Ebola Agencies not serious in resisting militancy death rate rises to 70%  PAGE 1 COLUMN 6

 PAGE 1 COLUMN 6

like handing out protective equipment to families and setting up very basic clinics — without much treatment — was a priority.

In Berlin, a UN medical worker infected with Ebola in Liberia died despite “intensive medical procedures.”

The St George hospital in Leipzig yesterday said the 56-year-old man, whose name has not been released, died overnight of the infection.

The man tested positive for Ebola on October 6, prompting Liberia’s UN peacekeeping mission to place 41 other staff members under “close medical observation.”

He arrived in Leipzig for treatment on October 9. The hospital’s chief executive, Dr Iris Minde, said at the time there was no risk of infection for other people, since he was kept in a secure isolation ward specially equipped with negative pressure rooms that are hermetically sealed.

He was the third Ebola patient to be flown to Germany for treatment. The first man recovered and returned home to Senegal. A Uganda aid worker is still being treated in Frankfurt. l

Moreover, the Finance Ministry was supposed to work with a view to formulating a comprehensive CSR policy.

The Islamic Foundation was directed to prepare a report on sources of funds for the militant organisations and Islamist firms.

As per the decision of the third meeting, the Education Ministry was asked to modernise and update the curricula of the Madrasa Education Board, and inserting writings against militancy and terrorism.

The Religious Affairs Ministry and the Islamic Foundation were tasked to identify the issues present in the curricula of madrasa textbooks which contradict with the Qur’an and the Hadith, and may encourage extremism.

The committee also asked them to continue the ongoing awareness campaigns against militancy across the country by arranging public meetings at district- and upazila-levels and training of the imams who will address devotees at mosques before Jum’a prayers.

The Information Ministry was directed to make effective documentary and short films, and advertisements highlighting the negative and destructive impacts of extremism. The ministry was also asked to take steps with regard to publish and broadcast those in print and electronic media.

The information and cultural affairs ministries were asked to produce drama with the help of eminent script writers and arrange broadcasting those in the electronic media and exhibiting in remote areas through the mass communication department.

The Information Ministry was asked to take steps so that the private TV channels telecast at least one anti-militancy drama every month, reads the working paper.

While giving permission of any print or electronic media, the Islamic Foundation would make it mandatory for the media outlets to broadcast anti-militancy programmes.

Apart from these, the high-power committee in its third meeting also asked intelligence agencies – Special Branch, National Security Intelligence and Directorate General of Forces Intelligence – to maintain tight vigil on social, cultural, religious and educational institutions across the country to resist any militant activities.

The previous meeting also suggested that surveillance was fortified to keep under watch the activities of militant groups including al-Qaeda and ISIL. The Home Ministry senior official who attended yesterday’s meeting said only the Islamic Foundation and the police submitted their progress reports.

While briefing reporters after the

Father says DB has tortured his son to death  PAGE 1 COLUMN 2

and told them that they would be in big trouble if Jolly started taking care of the issue.

“The problem was that because of our land, Tutul cannot get a direct connecting road to the main road. Seven days before the crossfire, Tutul came here and asked us either to buy his land or sell ours to him,” Zafar said over phone.

“He also threatened that he would get one of my two sons abducted unless we entertained his demand. That is why we suspect that DB killed my son,” he said.

During yesterday’s press conference, Zafar said: “I went to the Kodomtoli police station to file a case against the police officials and some others following the murder of my son. But police did not record the case. Later I went to a court who had fixed October 16 for hearing in the issue.”

He later told over phone that Tutul’s brother-in-law Sohrab had threatened him and his family after learning that they

had sought justice from the judiciary.

When contacted, Tutul told the Dhaka Tribune that he had been living in the capital’s Pallabi near Mirpur for the last 13 years. “After my mother died, I decided to sell the land,” he claimed.

“In fact, Zafar had been trying to pursue me to sell my land. He has good terms with a land broker named Jamal Sardar. After I turned his proposal down, he tried to frame me with the shootout,” he alleged.

“My wife has no connection or involvement with these incidents,” he claimed.

The Dhaka Tribune talked to Zafar on September 14 as well. On that day, he said they went to the DB office a few hours after Tarek had been picked up around 2am. They waited there until the evening but nobody from DB could tell them what had happened to Tarek.

But by that time, his dead body had already been sent to the Dhaka Medical College morgue.

Late in the evening, a DB official asked them to contact the Kodomtoli

police station. When they went there, the OC advised them to go to the DMC morgue.

Eventually, much later in the night, the DB issued a press release claiming that Tarek had been killed in a “shootout.” By then, Tarek’s family had already found his dead body in the morgue.

Morgue findings

On September 14, DMCH sources informed the Dhaka Tribune that Tarek had bullet injuries in his mouth and on his chest and several bruises on his body, which was left at the morgue in the morning.

DB’s version of the shootout

According to the DB press release, Tarek was picked up from Kodomtoli around 2:30am on charges of selling illegal arms. During primary interrogation, Tarek confessed that he was an active member of arms dealer Chandi Sumon and Killer Shamim of Kodomtoli and Matuail areas.

meeting, State Minister for Home Asaduzzaman Khan did not say anything about the progress of previous decisions. Senior officials of the ministries concerned and the law enforcement agencies attended the meeting.

“The law enforcement agencies will investigate suspicious transactions in favour of any organisation following information given by the Bangladesh Bank to see whether those are linked to militancy.”

He said: “The cases related to militancy will be disposed of as soon as possible so that the militants in the jails cannot continue their activities.”

Expressing concern over school, college and private university students’ getting involved in militant activities, he urged all educational institutions to launch awareness programmes to discourage the students.

Regarding the Bardhaman blast incident of October 2 in which suspected JMB militants of Bangladesh origin were allegedly involved, Asaduzzaman said: “India has not informed us officially about the matter through the Bangladesh ambassador.

“If anyone speaks in Bangla it does not mean that he is a Bangladeshi. We are looking into the matter.”

He said intelligence surveillance to resist militancy had been strengthened. l

A DB team took Tarek with them and conducted several raids to recover arms from Tarek’s cohorts. Around 7am, they went to the Balur Math area in Manda Green Model Town. Soon after they reached the spot, Tarek picked up a pistol from one of his cohorts and started firing at the detectives. His cohorts also joined him and the law enforcers retaliated with gunshots, the DB police claimed.

At one stage, the DB claimed, all the criminals fled the spot and Tarek was found lying on the ground, bullet-hit.

Mughda police then took him to the Dhaka Medical College Hospital where he was declared dead.

When contacted yesterday, Sheikh Nazmul Alam, a deputy commissioner of police, snuffed out the allegations but said they would look into the mater.

Abdus Salam, OC of the Kodomtoli police station, said they had no criminal record against Tarek.

“Probably his name has come up in the list of criminals prepared by the DB,” he told the Dhaka Tribune yesterday. l

cited in the media does not represent UNDP’s position on the 10th parliamentary or Upazila elections.

“It seems that the advertisement was published without proper review and approval. This is an error that we regret and we have already taken steps to rectify this mistake.”

Highlighting the UNDP’s long-term commitment to electoral cycle support in Bangladesh, she said: “We very much value our trusted partnership with the Election Commission and remain committed to supporting the electoral process.”

The statement has also made it clear that the UNDP is looking forward to working with the Election Commission beyond the current project’s lifecycle, and will be coordinating closely with the UN Electoral Focal Point on the next phases of support. l

DHAKA TRIBUNE

Kadir admits to involvement  PAGE 1 COLUMN 1

“We have documents showing that Kadir is an Algerian citizen who came to Bangladesh in 1998 to get a degree in Information Technology from Darul Ihsan University,” Nazmul told the Dhaka Tribune yesterday.

Kadir’s student visa expired in 2001 but he never went back to Algeria. Instead, he destroyed his passport and other documents and lived in Bangladesh illegally. Kadir lead a mysterious life and rarely left the capital’s Uttara neighbourhood, the assistant commissioner said.

He said police were looking into whether Kadir was involved in serious crimes which caused him to avoid returning to Algeria and to frequently shift his place of residence in Dhaka.

Kadir identified himself as a Bangladeshi so that no one would suspect him, he said.

“We are confused about his suspicious attitude and his contradictory statements about his activities while living in Bangladesh for the last 15 years,” Nazmul said. “We have contacted the Algerian embassy in Pakistan but have not yet received a response from them.”

Assitant Commissioner Nazmul said Kadir was proficient in three languages – Arabic, French and English. Kadir told police he made a good livelihood

tutoring children in languages. He also worked at a number of private educational institutes as a children’s football trainer, said the DB official.

Kadir was first implicated in the murder of Zubair Ahmed on October 10 after the sole eyewitness, a 17-year-old boy, told police in remand that Kadir had pushed Zubair forcefully into the water as the two stood inside a shallow Uttara pond.

The eyewitness repeated this account in a confessional statement yesterday to Metropolitan Magistrate Md Emdadul Haque of the Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Court.

In the confessional statement, the witness said he left the scene with Kadir after the incident. He did not say whether he tried to help Zubair during the drowning or afterwards. He claimed that Kadir had told him to keep his mouth shut and that was why he did not come forward immediately. In an earlier statement to police, the eyewitness also claimed that Kadir offered to help him go abroad if he kept quiet about the killing.

After the hearing, the court sent the witness to jail.

A Section 164 statement, made before a magistrate, is the final pre-trial statement made by a suspect and is usually attached to the chargesheet when formal charges are pressed. l

Students to get only a single shot  PAGE 1 COLUMN 6

was 3,283 among 6,617 students; and in 2011-12 session, it was 3,338 among 6,663 total admitted students.

During the 2013-14 academic session, 421 seats were left vacant by students who changed departments after sitting in their second admission test.

For 2012-13 session, the number was 416; and for 2011-12 session, it was 429 seats.

Prof Hasibur Rashid, convener of the DU online admission committee, told the Dhaka Tribune: “The second-time admission test system was introduced many years ago. From 2010, this scenario [students taking advantage of sitting in the exam twice] started to reveal itself after the university authority began carrying out the admission process online.

This year the scenario is worse as more than 56% second-timers will get admitted [under this academic session]. ” Commenting on the move, Serajul Islam Choudhury, professor emeritus of DU, said: “The authority took the right decision, but seats also need to

be increased in other public universities to accommodate more students in a year.”

English dept eligibility relaxed

Meanwhile, the university authority also relaxed the condition for eligibility of enrolment into the English department for this year.

Dhaka University Registrar Syed Rezaur Rahman said: “According to the new rule, students have to get minimum eight marks in Elective English which was 15 previously; and 18 in General English instead of 20.

“Even if seats remain vacant in the department, we will take in the required students from Gha unit,” he said.

English department is to enrol 150 students for the current session, with 125 of those students originally supposed to come through the ‘Kha’ unit test. However, even after the revised eligibility requirements, a majority of the students from the department would now have to be selected from the ‘Gha’ unit test. l

DHAKA TRIBUNE

News

3

Wednesday, October 15, 2014

Panic in Chittagong court after suicide attack threat Police interrogating a man held with Tk58 lakh during security search gave such death threat to a judge of the n Tarek Mahmud, Chittagong court about a year ago. Later we found Security measures in the Chittagong court building and adjacent areas were tightened yesterday as an alleged JMB activist threatened a lawyer over the phone to launch suicide bomb attack in the court building.

Lawyers, staffs of the court and justice seekers were frightened hearing about the threat “A man identifying as a JMB activist called me at 9:19am and said a suicide squad will attack the court today [yesterday]. He was talking in Chittagong’s dialect,” District Bar Council Executive Member Manosh Kumer Das told the Dhaka Tribune.

He informed the Kotwali police immediately after receiving the call and lodged a general diary with the police station.

AKM Mohiuddin Selim, OC of the station, told the Dhaka Tribune that they later found the mobile phone switched off. “We are trying to trace the caller.”

He said they were on high alert considering the recent rise in militant activities at home and abroad, especially the reported regrouping of banned Islamist outfit Jama’atul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB).

Since no attack was launched in the day, OC Selim suspected that someone might have tried to misguide the lawyers and the law enforcers. “A person

personal dispute behind the treat,” he added.

CMP Additional Deputy Commissioner (south) Manjur Morshed said additional six platoons of police had been deployed in the court area. Moreover, personnel of all the intelligence agencies were seen patrolling on the court premises.

Lawyers, staffs of the court and justice seekers were frightened hearing about the threat while the crowd in the court area soon turned thin due to sudden police checking.

However, the court proceedings continued without any hazard and hearing in all the scheduled cases held, said court sources.

A total 75 different courts are housed in the Chittagong Court Building while the offices of the deputy commissioner and the divisional commissioner are situated beside the court.

Man held with ‘bribe money’

During search operation in the court area, Kotwali police nabbed a person with Tk57.92 lakh in his possession.

Md Elias, 32, hailing from Kasba of Brahmanbaria, was detained at the entrance of Lawyers’ Annex Building for his suspicious movement, the Kotwali OC said.

Later police recovered the money kept in a bag. The detainee, however, could not give any concrete information from where he got the money and where he was heading for.

Some unconfirmed sources in the police and the court said Elias might be carrying the money to bribe any official at the court or the DC Office. l

Piles of garbage overflow the street beside the Buriganga dam, creating a nuisance to the health and movement of public. The photo was taken from Gudaraghat in Jinjira Bazar of Keraniganj yesterday RAJIB DHAR

DRAFT VERDICT LEAK

Arrest warrants against SQ Chowdhury’s wife, son n Md Sanaul Islam Tipu The Dhaka Cyber Tribunal (Bangladesh) has issued arrest warrants against the wife and the son of convicted war criminal Salauddin Quader Chowdhury as well as another accused in the case filed over the leak of the draft verdict of SQ Chowdhury’s war crimes case.

The tribunal’s Special Public Prosecutor Md Nazrul Islam Shamim told the Dhaka Tribune: “On October 13, Judge KM Shamsul Alam passed the order after taking the charge sheet of the case into cognisance; and asked the Dhanmondi and Satkhira police stations, un-

der which the three reside, to submit execution reports on October 30.

“The court also asked the jail authorities to produce four other accused, who are now in jail, before it on the same day,” he added.

After completing probe into the much-talked-about draft verdict leak, DB Inspector Mohammad Shahjahan, also the investigation officer of the case, placed the charge sheet before the Dhaka Chief Metropolitan Magistrate’s court on August 28.

After receiving the charge sheet, the court on October 12 transferred the case to the cyber tribunal for trial.

The charge sheeted accused are Salauddin Quader’s wife Farhat Quader Chowdhury, son Hummam Quader Chowdhury, his manager Mahbubul Ahsan, his counsel Barrister AKM Fakhrul Islam, Fakhrul’s junior counsel Mehedi Hasan, International Crimes Tribunal (ICT) employees Nayan Ali and Faruk Hossain.

Out of the accused, Salauddin Quader’s wife, son and Mehedi Hassan are now on the run while the rest are in jail.

The IO also mentioned the names of 25 people as prosecution witnesses in the charge sheet.

According to the charge sheet,

the accused persons leaked parts of the draft verdict by uploading it on websites to make the war crimes trial controversial and questioned.

The investigators also found that the accused had made huge investments to leak the draft verdict, reads the charge sheet.

On November 5, DB Inspector Md Fazlur Rahman filed a case with Shahbagh police station accusing Nayan, Faruk, and Mehedi by name and also against several unnamed others and raided the office of Fakkrul’s chamber and seized various documents related to the verdict’s leak. l

First arrest in Bhashantek murder case n Tazlina Zamila Khan

The Detective Branch (DB) of police yesterday made an arrest in the Bhashantek murder case, picking up an accused in the case from Tangail for his alleged involvement in the killing of Md Nasir Hossain.

Monirul Islam, joint commissioner of DB of Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP) told the Dhaka Tribune: “Acting on a tip off, DB officials arrested Sharif alias Chakkha from a house in Tangail within 10 minutes of getting the information.

We have learned that he has illegal weapons and we are trying to recover them.”

More details would be made available after his interrogation, he added.

DB Deputy Commissioner (West) Sheikh Nazmul Alam told the Dhaka Tribune: “We have arrested the third accused named in the First Information Report (FIR). He will be brought to the DB office for interrogation.”

On Friday, Nasir was beaten to death in the capital’s Bhashantek area for reasons that are not yet known. The case has received much attention because of the

Appellate Division sets November 27 for Khaleda’s petition hearing n Tribune Report Without any protective mechanism, a trolley-mounted transformer is placed on a busy street in capital’s Moghbazar rail gate area, which can lead to a deadly accident anytime MEHEDI HASAN

Drive against illegal fertiliser traders soon

n Mohosinul Karim The government is set to take stern action against illegal fertiliser traders for selling adulterated fertilisers.

The Agriculture Ministry has decided to operate mobile court drives, file cases and strengthen the field level monitoring system aiming to stop unauthorised fertiliser traders from selling adulterated fertilisers during the upcoming Boro season.

The ministry has already sent letter to the director general of the Department of Agriculture Extension and all the deputy commissioners across the country, asking them to take necessary steps in this regard.

The letter, which was issued last Sunday, requested the high officials to create public awareness through upazila nirbahi officers.

The high officials were also asked to punish illegal fertiliser traders and stop selling of adulterated fertilisers across the country.

The letter, signed by the ministry’s Deputy Chief Sheikh Badiul Alam, said the ministry now fear that trading or selling of such adulterated fertilisers may hamper vegetables and Boro production in the upcoming season. l

JMB man gets 10 years in bomb blast case n Md Sanaul Islam Tipu A Dhaka court yesterday sentenced a member of Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) to 10 years’ rigorous imprisonment in a case filed in connection with a bomb blast in front of the than Hotel Sheraton in Dhaka on August 17, 2005.

The court framed charge against the accused on April 22, 2008 Dhaka Special Court-10 Judge Masud Parvez gave the verdict in presence of convict KM Rezaul Karim Reza.

In its judgement, the court also fined the accused Tk 5,000, in default of which he will have to suffer three months more in jail.

The court also acquitted three other in the case after charges brought against them were not proved as no other witness mentioned their name or mentioned about their involvement.

Three others acquitted are Md

Tareq Iqbal alias Tareq, Hafez Abdullah-Al-Fattah alias Shakil and Hafez Md Enayet Ullah Opu. According to the case statement, a time-bomb exploded in front of the five-star hotel in the capital in 2005, part of JMB’s series bomb blast in 63 districts across the country.

In this connection, Sub-Inspector Abdul Matin filed the case against the accused with Ramna police station. DB Inspector Abu Bakkar, the investigating officer of the case, pressed the charge sheet on October 23, 2005 mentioning a total of 26 prosecution witnesses.

The court framed charge against the accused on April 22, 2008.

On August 17, 2005, huge amount bombs were blast around the 64 Districts of Bangladesh. All of the bombs were exploded in half an hour from 11:30am around the country.

JMB, the banned Islamist militant outfit, took the responsibility for the blasts. They also acknowledge that they did not obey the present legal and judicial system of the country and they want to abolish the present trial system. Two judges also killed in that bomb blast incident. l

The Appellate Division yesterday fixed November 27 for a full court hearing on BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia’s petition challenging her indictment in Zia Orphanage Trust graft case.

The Appellate Division’s vacation chamber judge Md Abdul Wahhab Miah set the date after Khaleda’s counsel TH Khan moved the petition.

The petition was moved a day after Dhaka Special Judge’s Court-3 adjourned till October 26 the recording of testimonies of prosecution witnesses in the Zia Orphanage Trust and the Zia Charitable Trust graft cases as she expressed no confidence in the judge of the trial court.

Khaleda appealed to the Appellate Division against a High Court order

passed on April 23 rejecting her two petitions challenging her indictments by the trial court on March 19 in the two cases.

The High Court said that it found no irregularity in framing charges against Khaleda in the two graft cases.

In the Zia Orphanage Trust case, Khaleda and five others were charged with misappropriation of about Tk 2.11 crore after withdrawal of the money from the trust fund between November 13, 1993 and March 28, 2007.

In the other case filed by the ACC, she and three others were charged with collecting about Tk 3.15 crore illegally in the name of Zia Charitable Trust and subsequently withdrawing the money from the fund in an attempt to misappropriate. l

widely divergent accounts that have been given about the motive for the killing.

On the day of the murder, Chakkha was allegedly seen with the murdered man. Locals later reported seeing Nasir being beaten with metal pipes by eight or nine unidentified men. He succumbed to his wounds in hospital.

Nasir’s brother Mosharraf Hossain told the Dhaka Tribune: “Chakkha was present there during the incident. I am happy that he has been arrested.”

But the main culprits still have not been arrested, he added. l

Engineer goes missing in Ctg n FM Mizanur Rahaman An engineer of a private steel mill has remained missing since Monday morning after falling from a ship at the outer anchorage of Chittagong port.

Hafizur Rahman, 28, son of Khalilur Rahman, hailing from Begumganj of Noakhali, joined Kabir Steel Re-Rolling Mills Ltd as a junior electrical engineer a year ago. Confirming this, Patenga police station officer-in-charge (OC) Kazi Shahabuddin Ahmed said Hafiz’s cousin Delwar Hossain filed a general diary with them in this regard.

The case in brief is that Hafiz went to the outer anchorage on an official duty at MV Jahan Brothers, a ship of the steel mill company, on Monday at around 11am. He fell into the deep sea while getting on the ship and drowned.

Police and coast guard have ever since been conducting rescue drives at the outer anchorage, but could not trace him out until filing of this report yesterday. l

Dhaka court accepts charges in Rajeeb murder case n Md Sanaul Islam Tipu A Dhaka court yesterday accepted the charges against Mufti Jasim Uddin Rahmania, chief of emerging militant group Ansarullah Bangla Team, and seven former students of North South University in blogger Ahmed Rajeeb Haider murder case.

After taking the charges into cognisance, Dhaka’s Metropolitan Sessions Judge Md Jahrul Haque ordered the authorities concerned to transfer the

case to the Dhaka’s Fourth Additional Metropolitan Sessions Judge’s Court for its disposal.

He also set October 30 to start hearing on the charge framing matter.

Architect Rajeeb, who took part in the Shahbagh movement, was hacked to death in front of his Pallabi house on February 15 last year.

Detectives submitted the charge sheet on January 28 against the eight accused.

In the charge sheet, Mufti Jasim has been named as the instigator of the

murder while Redwanul Azad Rana, one of the seven other accused, as the planner. Rana is now on the run while Mufti Jasim and the six others – Md Faisal Bin Nayem alias Dweep, Maksudul Hasan alias Anik, Md Ehsan Reza alias Rumman, Nayem Sikdar alias Iraj, Nafis Imtiaz and Sadman Yaseer Mahmud – are now in custody.

On June 1, Sadman got bail from the High Court. But following a Supreme Court order, he surrendered before the lower court and was sent to jail. l

4

DHAKA TRIBUNE

News

Wednesday, October 15, 2014

BASIC urges ACC to file cases against eight officials Showkat Kallol and n Asif Syed Samiul Basher Anik Authorities of BASIC Bank have requested the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) to file graft cases against eight suspended officials of the stateowned specialised bank for allegedly misappropriating Tk4,500 crore through irregularities and forgery.

At the same time, the bank also sent a letter to the Bank and Financial Institutions Division Secretary M Aslam Alam to take departmental action against the accused officials.

Talking to the Dhaka Tribune, an official of the Banking Division said the Bangladesh Bank has already forwarded the names of the eight suspended officials of BASIC Bank to the ACC. According to the letter, the BASIC Bank authority had already suspended their eight officials and filed the department cases against them between March and July 2014.

The eight officials are Deputy Managing Director Abdul Monayem Khan, general managers Md Zainul Abedin Chowdhury, Khandoker Shamim Ashan and Mohammad Ali, deputy

general managers Shiper Ahmed and SM Waliullah, deputy manager SM Jahid Hasan and Assistant General Manager Niulutpal Sarker.

At the same time, the bank also completed the departmental hearing of top six officials where investigators have already submitted their probe reports on Abdul Monayem Khan, Md Zainul Abedin Chowdhury and Khandoker Shamim Ashan.

Around 81% of the loans were taken by the defaulters through the bank’s Gulshan, Shantinagar and Dilkusha branches According to the sources, the new management of BASIC Bank made an aggressive move to realise classified loans from the top 100 defaulters, who account for 86% of the total default loans of the troubled bank.

Around 81% of the loans were taken

by these defaulters through the bank’s Gulshan, Shantinagar and Dilkusha branches, which were dubbed as the most corrupt ones under its previous management.

Meanwhile, the ACC is yet to take any visible step against the bank’s former chairman Sheikh Abdul Hye Bachchu and sacked managing director Kazi Faqurul Islam regarding their alleged involvement in the embezzlement.

Although the commission initiated an inquiry in this regard last year, till now it has only been able serve notices to two suspended officials for submitting their wealth statements.

The anti-graft body also changed inquiry officers for at least three times after the investigation began.

For this, none of the investigators were able to submit a probe report and the commission is yet to gain any solid evidence in hand to disclose publicly or take measures.

Talking to the Dhaka Tribune yesterday, ACC Chairman M Badiuzzaman said the commission was now analysing the inconsistencies in wealth statements submitted by the bank officials allegedly inolved with the embezzlement. l

‘Rawshan loyalists hurt me’ n Manik Miazee

Photojournalist Azizur Rahim dies n Tribune Report Photo Editor of the Daily Observer Azizur Rahim Peu died of cardiac arrest at his Dhanmondi residence in the capital at 3am yesterday. He was 50.

Peu is the father of Dhaka Tribune’s Staff Writer Raisa Rahim.

Family sources said he had felt a pain in his chest at 3am and was immediately taken to Square Hospital where the attending doctor pronounced him dead.

His namaz-e-janaza was held at the National Press Club after Johr prayers.

In his long photojournalist career, Peu worked with different dailies, including the daily Ittefaq and Shokaler Khobor. He was associated with Pathshala, a photography training institute, and was a member of Bangladesh Photographic Society (BPS). He was also the editor and publisher of “Baher Shongbad,” a daily published from Rangpur.

Peu will be buried at his family graveyard at Guptapara in Rangpur city.

Prime minister’s information Adviser and Daily Observer Editor Iqbal Sobhan Chowdhury, Managing Director and Chief Editor of Bangladesh Sangbad Sangstha Abul Kalam Azad, President of Bangladesh Federal Union of Journalists and CEO of Boishakhi Televesion Manjurul Ahsan Bulbul attended the janaza, among others.

The Dhaka Tribune family conveys condolence to the bereaved family of the demised. l

Jatiya Party Chairman HM Ershad yesterday said some statements and comments made by some party leaders loyal to his wife hurt him.

“They [JaPa leaders] have challenged me and said: ‘Who is Ershad?’” the JaPa chief said while talking to a group of reporters at his Banani office.

About the January 5 general election, Ershad said he had accepted everything. “There is no time to raise a question about the election.

“As the BNP now remains inactive and the prime minister is unparalleled in power, she will arrange the next election after completing a five-year term.”

In reply to a query about the activities as special envoy to the prime minister, the JaPa chairman said: “If the premier thinks I am suitable, I will try my best to take necessary steps regarding the employment of Bangladeshis in Middle East countries.”

In reply to another question about

the difference between his wife and him, he claimed that they had no differences. “If my opinion on any decision is taken, I will be much happy as I am still the chairman of the party.

“If my wife had told me that she wanted to choose someone as the deputy leader of the opposition in parliament, I would not have raised any objection, but she never called me.”

Ershad said without taking his opinion Rawshan sent a letter to the speaker requesting her to appoint Firoz Rashid as the deputy leader of the opposition.

Later, he sent another letter to the speaker not to appoint him.

About a recent clash between the supporters of Ershad and Moshiur Rahman Ranga in Rangpur, the JaPa chief said: “Rangpur is my own area. I have more supporters than Ranga has there.

No one can challenge me in Rangpur.”

Ershad said: “I want Jatiya Party to exist after my death.” Hinting at his nephew Asif Shahriar, he said, “I hope someone from Rangpur leads the party.” l

Kazi Nazrul Islam Avenue in the capital sees a long tailback as a wrecker tow a bus away after it rammed a pick-up van in front of the Hotel Ruposhi Bangla yesterday.

MEHEDI HASAN

21 hajj agencies to face the music n Mohosinul Karim The government is set to take punitive action against 21 out of around 600 hajj agencies for their alleged involvement with irregularities and fraudulence with the pilgrims.

Their licences would be cancelled and deposits might be confiscated, Civil Aviation and Tourism Minister Rashed Khan Menon told a press conference held at the conference room of his ministry yesterday.

Religious Affairs Secretary Chowdhury Babul Hassan, who attended the press conference organised to brief reporters on the success in hajj management by the government, said the ministry had received specific allegations against these hajj agencies.

“The allegations are being investigated properly. Tough action will be taken against the owners and persons concerned of those agencies after investigation,” he added.

Babul claimed that the owners of these agencies demanded additional money from the pilgrims after getting

Three AUW students receive Hitachi scholarship

NSUSSC spend Eid with the unprivileged

n Tribune Report

n Tribune Report

Japan’s electronics giant Hitachi Ltd has announced to sponsor scholarships to three students of Asian University for Women (AUW) in Chittagong.

The scholarship of US$ 180,000 will be provided to three foreign students bearing their tuition fee and living expenses during their four years undergraduate education in the liberal arts and sciences at the university.

The scholarship will cover health insurance, textbooks and other necessary supplies.

Two Indian and one Myanmarese student will be granted the scholarship based on their academic excellence and leadership potential.

Yukiko Araki, CSR and environ-

mental strategy division, Hitachi said: “We are very pleased to sponsor three young women who have a big dream to contribute to solving their countries’ issues including poverty and education. We Hitachi will continue to tackle social issues while nurturing Asia’s future leaders”.

Kamal Ahmad, founder of AUW, said: “Hitachi’s commitment demonstrates their understanding of how business and social development intersect. By investing in women who live in the regions, Hitachi is cultivating a roster of educated, cross-culturally competent women who can contribute to business endeavors and lead the way for new initiatives that promote growth for both their countries and the companies that work in them.” l

North South University Social Service Club (NSUSSC) has shared happiness of Eid with underprivileged families in slums with the event titled “Sponsoring an Eid-2014.”

Students, faculty members and clubs of the university donated money to buy traditional Eid meals for around 150 families residing in the Kuril slum in capital’s Bashundhara area.

Each pack contained pulao rice, vermicelli, soybean oil, sugar, powder milk, kismis and spices worth of Tk520. l

Brac University club fair held Art Society that organises n Tribune Report different festivals featuring BRAC University hold its daylong club fair for fall semester yesterday.

With participation of 37 clubs, the event titled “Oitijjher Rong” (Colour of tradition), showcased activities of different clubs to the university’s freshmen and called them to join the clubs of their choices.

BRAC University Heritage Forum that promotes different heritage sites of Bangladesh and BRAC University

Bangladeshi art, organised the event. With a view to uphold Bangladeshi art and culture, the two clubs urged the students to take a close look of the beautiful local traditions that are on the verge of extinct in the country.

Pro-Vice Chancellor of the university Prof Fuad Hasan Mallick and Director of Career Services and Alumni Relations Office of the university Khan Ahmed Murshid were present. l

their visas through the hajj director of the hajj office under the Religious Affairs Ministry.

The ministry had found some evidences too, he said, adding that it is difficult to maintain around 1,200 hajj agents of the country.

Menon, who also performed hajj this year, claimed that the government successfully managed the total hajj process this year. As a result, all the pilgrims, who paid “Moyallem” fees to perform hajj, were able to perform hajj.

The government ensured the hajj of around 400 pilgrims who were not sure to perform hajj due to fraud of some hajj agencies. Finally, the ministry provided them with money for their air tickets to travel to Saudi Arabia and perform hajj.

The money for the air tickets of the 400 pilgrims would be adjusted later, the minister added.

Admitting the mismanagement of the return of pilgrims, he said, “Some return flights were delayed due to some problems caused by the Saudi hajj authority. It was not our mistake.” l

Ekram murder ‘plotter’ gets bail from High Court n Our Correspondent, Feni A district court has received a High Court order copy citing a six-month ad-interim bail for a key accused in the sensational Fulgazi Upazila Chairman Ekramul Haque Ekram murder case in Feni.

Senior Judicial Magistrate Alamgir Faruqi received the copy yesterday, sources said.

The order stated that the bench of Justice Salma Masud Chowdhury and Md Badruzzaman bailed Awami League leader Abdullahel Mahmud Shiblu, also the councillor of ward 5 of Feni Municipality on October 1.

Another key accused Abidul Islam Abid had confessed that Awami League leader Jihad Chowdhury Abid planned the murder during a rendezvous at Salam Community Centre in the district town on May 19, when Shiblu was present.

On May 20, miscreants attacked the car carrying Ekram on the Academy Road in Feni while he was on his way to Fulgazi upazila.

They fired at the car and also set fire to it, leaving Ekram dead on the spot. l

DHAKA TRIBUNE

News

BANGLADESH URBAN HEALTH SURVEY 2013

Significant improvement in health indicators More people are using family planning methods with an 11% increase since 2006 births per woman, set by the Health, n Moniruzzaman Uzzal COMPARISON OF 2006 AND 2013 SURVEY RESULTS Population and Nutrition Sector DevelBangladesh has made significant progress in improving urban health in the past seven years, with the target of total fertility rate achieved ahead of time, according to the preliminary results of Bangladesh Urban Health Survey 2013.

The statistics were revealed at a dissemination seminar at the capital’s Bangabandhu International Conference Center yesterday.

Addressing the event as chief guest, Health and Family Welfare Minister Mohammad Nasim said Bangladesh had made remarkable achievements in urban health sector between 2013 and 2006, when the first urban health survey was conducted.

The intra-urban inequality between slum and non-slum residents in health service utilisation has declined and more people in the slum dwellers are using family planning methods, with an 11% increase since 2006, the minister said.

The survey, conducted by National Institute of Population Research and Training (NIPORT), covered 54,000 households – both slum and non-slum – in the nine city corporations, all district municipalities and other large townships.

The target of total fertility rate of 2

opment Programme under the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare , was achieved between 2010 and 2013, according to the survey results.

Yet, there are challenges that still require addressing. There has been no change in the rate of teenage pregnancy in both the slum and non-slum areas, and the number of stunted children under the age of five is more than half.

“Inequity still prevails between the slum and non-slum population in terms of access to antenatal care and skilled birth attendants during delivery,” the health minister said.

Md Rafiqul Islam Sarkar, research director at the NIPORT, told the Dhaka Tribune that the preliminary findings shed light on the urgent need for effective public-private partnerships to further improve urban health.

In the undertaking of the survey, the financial assistance was provided by the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and the UK’s Department for International Development.

The technical expertise was provided

by USAID-funded cooperative MEASURE Evaluation and the ICDDR,B, a health research organisation.

REFORM OF ELECTORAL LAWS

Same penalty for electoral offence in all local body polls n Mohammad Zakaria The Election Commission (EC) has decided in principle to introduce same penalties for violating electoral code of conduct in all local body elections as there are different penalties for same offences in Upazila Parishad, City Corporation, Municipal and Union Parishad polls.

Besides, if any such offence is found true after the local body polls, the

There were different penalties, like 2-year, 5-year and 7-year jail, for same offences in different elections for violating electoral laws LGRD ministry can remove the representative from the post as per the EC’s recommendation.

Election Commissioner Mohammad Abu Hafiz told the Dhaka Tribune that there were many inconsistencies in the local government electoral laws and procedures and there were different types of penalties for same offence in different local body polls.

n Our Correspondent, Sylhet

LIGHT RAIN WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 15 DHAKA TODAY TOMORROW SUN SETS 5:33PM SUN RISES 5:57AM FORECAST FOR TODAY 31 31 31 31 31 30 30 30

25 25 24 23 24 24 23 24

YESTERDAY’S HIGH AND LOW

35.0ºC Sylhet

Total Fertility Rate

Slum areas, Slum Non-slum Non-slum 2006 areas, 2013 areas, 2006 areas, 2013 2.5

2.0

1.9

1.7

Any method of Contraceptive Prevalent Rate

58%

70%

63%

65%

Skilled antenatal care providers

22%

29%

53%

58%

-

2%

-

3% -

Essential newborn care CHILDHOOD MORTALITY 1.neonatal

44%

31%

20%

2.postnatal

19%

18%

10%

-

3.infant

63%

49%

30%

-

4. under-5

81%

57%

31%

33%

NUTRITIONAL STATUS OF CHILDREN 1.Stunting

56%

50%

36%

2.Wasting

17%

19%

10%

16%

3.under weight

46%

43%

28%

26%

Source: National Institute of Population Research and Training

The seminar was also attended by Zahid Maleque state minister for health and family welfare, MM Niazuddin, secretary at the ministry, Manzoor Hossain, senior secretary at the Local Government Division, Dan Mozena, US ambassador to Bangladesh, and Robert

Gibson, British High Commissioner to Bangladesh. AM Badrudduja, director-general of the NIPORT, presided over the event.

Key findings of the results

Compared to the 2006 survey, the medi-

23.8ºC Rangamati

Source: Accuweather/UNB

Police arrested a man in the early hours of yesterday on charges of throwing acid on his wife, a school teacher, in Barisal.

Arrested Masud Alam, an employee of Faridpur River Research Institute, was sent to jail through court, said Barisal Kotwali police station officer-incharge Shakhawat Hossain.

Primary schoolteacher Asma Aktar, 34, suffered 35-40% burns over her body in an acid attack at his parents’ house at BIP Colony area in the city on Monday.

The next day, her mother Rahima Begum filed a case with police against five persons, including Masud Alam.

Masud divorced Asma in 2011 after around nine years of marriage with her.

They have an eight-year-old child.

Asma then lodged a case with the family court in Barisal.

This enraged Masud and he threatened that she would have to face a dire consequence if she did not withdraw the case. Asma’s family alleged that she was thrown acid on Monday as it was fixed for hearing of the case.

Kotowali police station OC Shakhawat said they were trying to arrest other accused in the case. l

CONSTRUCTION HAZZARDS

Potholes generated by the under construction Moghbazar flyover create an unending traffic jam in the capital’s Mouchak area. The picture was taken yesterday

Dormitory of the MC College finally got its previous form.

Education Minister Nurul Islam Nahid inaugurated the dormitory, which has been reconstructed, yesterday 28 months after the hall was set on fire during clashes between the activists of the Bangladesh Chhatra League and Islami Chhatra Shibir.

Professor Nitai Chandra Chanda, principal of the college, presided over the inaugural function.

“The dormitory would be brought back to its previous form was our promise, and today we have fulfilled our promise,” said education Minister.

Mentioning MC College Hostel as century-old, the minister said: “Its our national heritage. To rebuilt it, the length of the building has been increased and we had to allocate more money to finish the construction work.”

The education minister said people, who are involved in setting ablaze in the hostel, will be brought to book.

“We have already discussed the matter with home ministry, they will take appropriate measures against them.”

On July 8 2012, about 200 rooms of the dormitory were gutted as Shibir men allegedly set those on fire during clashes.

Sources said after the incident the

Education Engineering Department took initiatives to rebuilt the hostel.

Nazrul Hakim, assistant engineer of the EED, Sylhet said: “Around Tk400 crore was spent for the total reconstruction work which started on December 5,2012.”

“We have built block 1, 2, 3 and 4, and each block would accommodate 56 students. We have also followed the design of ‘Srikanta Hostel’ to reconstruct the three blocks,” he said.

Among others, Awami League Organising Secretary Misbah Uddin Siraj, ex mayor of Sylhet City Corporation Badar Uddin Ahmed Kamran and Vice-Principal of the college Hayatul Islam Akanji attended the function. l

MAHMUD HOSSAIN OPU

n PRAYER TIMES 4:41am 5:55am 11:44am 3:55pm 5:33pm 6:48 pm SourceL IslamicFinder.org

n Our Correspondent, Gazipur

At least 50 workers of a ready-made garment at Nishadnagar of Tongi became sick yesterday after having contaminated water that allegedly supplied by the factory.

Of them, 30 were admitted to Tongi Government Hospital while one of them was referred to International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease, Bangladesh (icddr,b) in the capital when his condition deteriorated.

The hospital’s Residential Medical Officer (RMO) Mahbubur Rahman Chowdhury said they got admitted a total of 30 workers from Monday night to yesterday noon as they had been

caught with Diarrhoea as well as vomiting and abdominal pain.

Later, they released 11 workers when their condition improved, the RMO continued.

While visiting the hospital, Hasibul Hasan and Rahima Khatun, workers of CCL-1 Garment Limited, a sister concern of Hamim Group, told the correspondent that many workers of the factory started vomiting along with abdominal pain after having water supplied by the factory on Monday night.

Sensing the matter, the factory authorities immediately declared holiday there. Returning residence, the condition of about 50 workers deteriorated and forced to be hospitalised. l

300 shanties along rail Money stolen from volt of G4S recovered n tracks evicted in Ctg Tarek Mahmud, Chittagong

Fajar Sunrise Zohr Asr Magrib Esha

an living space per person has increased in both slum and non-slum areas. More than 90% communities in the slums and other urban areas have a health facility available within two kilometres. Fertility is considerably below the replacement level in all urban areas, including slums.

However, a pattern of early childbearing is observed, with almost one in five women giving birth before age 20 in the slum areas, and around one in eight in the non-slum areas.

The contraceptive prevalence rate has been increased to 70% in the urban slums and 65% in non-slum areas since 2006.

On the downside, the percentage of women receiving antenatal care from medically trained providers has declined from 2006 to 2013 in both slum (62% to 54%) and non-slum (85% to 83%) areas. Only 2-4% newborns in all urban domains receive all the essential newborn-care practices.

In slums, under-five mortality rate has declined by 24% since 2006, and infant mortality rate by 14%. Only 26% of children of age 6-23 months in slums are fed with proper infant and young child feeding practices, compared to the 40% children in non-slum areas. l

Schoolteacher’s husband held for throwing acid on her n Our Correspondent, Barisal

MC College dorm returns to its earlier form 50 RMG workers fall ill

WEATHER

Dhaka Chittagong Rajshahi Rangpur Khulna Barisal Sylhet Cox’s Bazar

He also said the commission asked its legal wing to remove all inconsistency in the local body electoral laws and make same penalties for same offences.

According to the proposals, if any representative of a local body provides wrong or incorrect information in their affidavit, the commission can recommend the ministry to cancel the post.

However, the EC has no power to recommend about the matter as per the laws except municipal polls. As per the existing laws, if any offence proves after polls, the matter will be sorted in court.

EC officials said there were different penalties, like two-years, five-years and seven-year imprisonment, for same offences in different elections for violating electoral laws.

As per the upazila parishad laws, a minimum six-month to two year imprisonment with Tk10,000 fine had been set for violating electoral laws.

The commission asked its legal wing to include this provision in other local body elections.

The commission has added the fine of Tk50,000 with six-month to fiveyear imprisonment for holding any election meeting, procession before 32hour and 64-hour after the start of the polling, as per the proposals. l

IN THE CITY CORPORATION AREAS

Urban health indicators

5

Wednesday, October 15, 2014

FM Mizanur Rahaman

A mobile court drive yesterday evicted at least 300 shanties from both sides of rail tracks in Chittagong city’s Dewanhat and Tigerpass area.

Yasin Faruk, officer-in-charge (OC) of Government Railway Police (GRP) Chittagong Station Outpost, said Bangladesh Railway (East) Chittagong and Chittagong District Administration jointly conducted the eviction drive at the area.

Chittagong Railway Chief State Officer (East) Jasim Uddin led the drive along with executive magistrate Aminul Islam representing the district administration.

“At least 300 shanties were evicted from the both side of railway tracks in Dewanhat, rail crossing area and Tigerpass area which were built illegally on railway land, hampering train movement and risking public lives,” OC Faruk told the Dhaka Tribune. l

The Detective Branch (DB) of Chittagong Metropolitan Police (CMP) early yesterday recovered Tk29,950,000 which was stolen from Chittagong city’s office of Group Four Security (G4S) Services Bangladesh Private Limited in the early hours of Sunday.

The DB personnel also nabbed Md Bashirul Alam, 24, of Moheshkhali island of Cox’s Bazar, a Muajjin of Chittagong City College Jame Mosque as the stolen money was recovered from his residence.

Police, however, could not arrest G4S security guard Shahidul Haque Shantan, 24, who was on duty during the stealing.

The CMP Commissioner Abdul Jalil Mandal made the disclosure at a press conference held at CMP headquarters in the afternoon.

“The main culprit managed to flee evading strong vigilance of law enforcers as the money recovery news was published at electronic and online media immediate after their drive,” he said.

The commissioner said they had

conducted drive at Bashir’s residence around 3am following a tip-off and recovered the money kept in two big suitcases.

During interrogation, the arrestee confessed that Shantan took the money to his residence on Sunday and requested them to keep the money for some days.

On Sunday, Shantan wearing masks allegedly lifted Tk3 crore from the G4S office where Tk54 crore were stored.

Later, G4S Senior Manager Tarique Mansur lodged a case with Khulshi police station on Monday. l

6

DHAKA TRIBUNE

Nation

Wednesday, October 15, 2014

Inflated rawhide prices spark fears of smuggling n Our Correspondent, Jessore Rawhide was sold almost twice at the fixed price at Jessore’s Rajarhat, the biggest market in the country’s southwest zone on Saturday, sparking fears that it might be smuggled into India.

Rawhide trading was not vibrant on the day after Eid-ul-Azha, but on Saturday, there prevailed quite a bullish trend when rawhide was sold at over Tk50 crores.

The Border Guard Bangladesh however said they were on the highest alert to such smuggling and so there was no scope for sending any rawhide out of the country.

'Market rawhide price was jaw-dropping. Yet I bought it at Tk110 as per the orders of the owners' Tannery owners had the price of cowhides at Tk60 to 65 and that of goats at Tk30 to 35 per square foot depending on its quality before this Eid. However, rawhide was sold at a price up by Tk40 to 50 from the fixed price on Saturday.

Allegations have it that rawhide smugglers had provided a section of capital crunch-hit and dishonest rawhide traders with huge money well before Eid so that they could get hold of the amount of rawhide they wanted at any cost.

A rawhide trader who came here from Dhaka, Hazi Hasan Kalu, said there was no difference between the price of rawhide in the domestic market and that in the global market because rawhide price on the global market was as much as Tk60 to 70.

“But speculators have forced up the prices of rawhide and so I cannot get my courage up to buy it at the inflated price. It would not be any problem if market price was up by Tk10 to 20 from the fixed one. I am quite unwilling to buy it at such a price now.”

Seeking anonymity, two traders who came here from Pabna and Faridpur, said they had bought rawhide at higher price and so tannery owners had to buy it from them at much higher price.

They must buy rawhide at the much higher price providing that they need it. If they balk at buying it at the expected price, it would be smuggled into India, they said.

Meanwhile, SAF Leather Industries’ Leather Purchasing Officer Akbar Ali Tukun said some tannery owners had already bought rawhide at the inflated price from this market.

“Market rawhide price was jaw-dropping. Yet I bought it at Tk110 as per the orders of the owners,” he said.

Greater Jessore Rawhide Traders’ Association General Secretary Alauddin Mukul said tannery owners-fixed price was quite unfair because it was not traders friendly at all.

“There are more than 10000 people involved in the rawhide business in this market. They would lose their capital in case they sell the rawhide at the price the tannery owners have fixed by the government.”

Jessore BGB Battalion 26 Commander Lieutenant Colonel Jahangir Alam said they would be on the highest alert on the border as long as there was a fear of rawhide being smuggled into India.

BGB South-West Region Captain (acting) Lieutenant Colonel Gazi Mohammad Asaduzzaman said they would show zero tolerance to the smuggling of rawhide. l

NEWS IN BRIEF 17,000 spoiled eggs seized Police in a drive seized 17,000 spoiled eggs from Hotapara area of the district on Monday night. During the drive, police arrested pick-up van driver one Tazul Islam and his associates Kutub Uddin and Hebzu Miah. They were carrying the eggs to the capital from Narish Poultry Farm and Hatchary situated in Potka area of Sreepur upazila. SI of Hatapara police outpost Harun-OrRashid said a team of them, on a tip-off, seized the eggs along with the vehicle from the Hotapara bus stand area. Later police claimed that at least 15,000 pieces of egg of those were spoiled and those was being taken to a godown owned by one Abul Kashed in Tejgaon area for selling. However, the farm’s Delivery Officer Jony Majhi and Store officer Ripon Kumar Bishwash denied the police claim. – Our Correspondent, Gazipur

Fratricide over land A man was stabbed to death allegedly by his two brothers over land dispute at Kalpa Para village in Sadar upazila yesterday. The deceased was identified as Warez Ali,40, son of late Shamsul Haque of the village. Locals said there had been a longstanding dispute between Warez Ali and his two brothers Hazrat Ali and Wajed Ali over the ownership of a piece of land. As a sequel to it, Hazrat Ali and Wajed Ali swooped on Warez and chopped him with sharp weapons indiscriminately while he was sleeping at his home at about 10:30 pm, leaving him injured. Critically injured, Warez was rushed to Jamalpur Sadar Hospital where on-duty doctors declared him dead. Police recovered the body and sent it to the hospital morgue for an autopsy. A case was filed in this connection. – Our Correspondent, Jamalpur

Jubo Dal man killed Unidentified miscreants slaughtered a Jubo Dal member in broad daylight at Kalinagar village under Singra upazila of Natore on yesterday. The deceased is Kamal Hossain, 40, a member of Kalom union unit Jubo Dal and also an accused in UP Chairman Fazlar Rahman murder case. Singra police station Officer-inCharge Shafiqul Islam said: “Unidentified miscreants swooped on Kamal and slaughtered him around 9am while he was going to Bildahar Bazar, leaving him dead on the spot.” No case was filed yet in this connection. – Our Correspondent, Natore

Man attempts to commit suicide killing wife A man attempted to commit suicide after killing his wife in Kaicchagar area under Sreepur municipal yesterday. Farid Ahmed, sub-inspector of Sreepur model police station said, Abul Hashem tried to strangle his wife Johura Begum Sohagi, 35,while she was sleeping. Sohagi woke up and obstructed her husband.

Then Hashem hacked her with sharp weapon, leaving her dead.

Later, Hashem tried to commit suicide by taking poison. Locals resisted him and took him to Dhaka Medical College Hospital.

– Our Correspondent, Gazipur

Fisherman gunned down A fisherman was shot dead at Thengarchar in Hatiya upazila of the district early yesterday. The victim is Abul Hashem, 40, son of Abdur Rahim, a resident from Rehania village of the upazila.

Hatiya police station OC Sayed Fazleh Rabbi said miscreants shot Hasem around 1am while catching fish, leaving him critically injured. The other fishermen took him to the Hatiya Upazila Health Complex where doctors declared him dead.

However, the victim’s son Saiful Islam claimed that police shot his father. – Our Correspondent, Noakhali

11 jailed for netting Ilish in Meghna defying ban n Our Correspondent, Bhola

A truck plunged into a water body as the Bailey bridge in Metong Ghar area under Muradnagar upazila in Comilla collapsed yesterday DHAKA TRIBUNE

Traders worried about unsold rawhide n Our Correspondent, Magura Seasonal rawhide collectors in Magura are facing difficulties in selling raw skin as they are not getting fair prices.

Seasonal traders said hide of Tk1 crore still remains unsold at their godowns.

A syndicate of wholesalers is dominating rawhide market as they are offering low price to small traders with an ulterior motive to cash more profit, said seasonal traders.

Abu Hanif, a seasonal rawhide collector of Nanduali area, said the government had fixed cow hide price at Tk60 to 65 per square feet outside of Dhaka while goat skin at Tk30 to 35 per square feet.

“But wholesalers are offering us Tk30 to 35 for per square feet cow hide while Tk15 to 20 for goat hide.”

He said he had purchased hide of Tk80,000 during Eid-ul-Azha, but he

could not sell those rawhide.

“If I sell rawhide at offered price of wholesalers, I will incur loss of Tk40,000.”

Kauser Khan, another seasonal rawhide trader of Vina area, said tannery owners association had fixed rawhide price this year according to their own whims.

Babu Mia, a seasonal rawhide trader of Parla area of Magura, said: “Wholesalers are offering us to sell our rawhide on due. But we had to buy the skin with cash payment, so how could we sell rawhide in this way?”

He said salt was a must for the preservation of rawhide and they were counting extra money to buy salt every day.

Abu Sharif, a hide wholesaler of Islampur area, said hide of Tk2 crore of last year were still in the godowns of wholesalers.

“For this reason, we are reluctant to

purchase rawhide this year.”

He also said demand of Bangladeshi leather and leather- made goods in international market had fallen sharply.

Consequently, rawhide price fixed by tannery owners is lower compared to the last year.

On the other hand, seasonal traders have purchased hide at exorbitant rate and now they were facing loss, he added.

“Nationalised banks have sanctioned loan of Tk600 crore this year.

But the facility is only for tannery owners and exporters. We are deprived of this facility. In want of loan we are also failing to purchase rawhide from seasonal traders,” he said.

When contacted, Sonali Bank Magura branch Manger Shafiqul Islam said: “We have not sanctioned any loan for rawhide traders this year as we did not receive such instruction from our superior authority. l

A mobile court in the district yesterday jailed and fined 11 fishermen for catching Ilish in the Meghna River defying the government ban.

Sources said a joint team of police and Coast Guard, led by deputy commissioner Selim Reza, launched a drive at Meghna ghat in Gazipur upazila on Monday night and arrested four fishermen.

They also seized 8,000 metres of fishing net and two maunds of hilsa from the arrestees’ possession.

Meanwhile, district fisheries department officer Pritish Kumar Mallik said they launched another drive at Meghna ghat in Charfashion upazila and arrested seven fishermen along with net and Ilish.

When they were produced before the mobile court at about 11am, the court sentenced the seven fishermen to one year’s imprisonment each and fined four others Tk1,000 each.

The ban on catching and selling of the fish to ensure its safe breeding started on October 5 and it will continue till October 15. l

One dies for ‘wrong’ treatment n Our Correspondent, Magura An elderly woman died reportedly for wrong treatment at a clinic in the town yesterday.

The deceased was identified as Hamida Begum, 70, wife of Razzaq Biswas of Chhanpur village in Sadar upazila.

SI Milon Hossen of Sadar police station said Hamida was admitted to Jahan Clinic in the town for treatment amid persuasion by its some brokers though she was referred to Mitford Hospital in Dhaka by Magura Sadar Hospital.

After her admission, Mitu, a nurse of the clinic, allegedly injected Hamida a drug without informing the doctor. Hamida died there after a while.

Meanwhile, police arrested the nurse in connection with the incident, but the manager and doctors of the clinic managed to escape. l

DHAKA TRIBUNE

Long Form

Wednesday, October 15, 2014

7

Of ‘cowfies,’ conventions and consumption The ‘cowfie’ that has descended on this Eid-ul-Adha in Bangladesh is a trend that I am hoping will be as fleeting as the horrendous vuvuzelas in South Africa during the 2010 World Cup

W

n Raad Rahman e seem to have hit a new low in Bangladesh’s online social media narrative in this past week, one which defies all hitherto construed contours of conventionality.

I’m talking about the “cowfie” that has descended on this Eid-ul-Adha in Bangladesh, a trend that I am hoping will be as fleeting as the horrendous vuvuzelas in South Africa during the 2010 World Cup. The first vestige of selfies gone wild was revealed to me when I opened up Facebook in the two days leading up to Eid. I expected the usual mass greetings that we, as imagined online communities, are wont to bequeath to all we know.

These days, for my mostly 30 something friends, social media seems to involve baby updates, travel excursions, house purchases, restaurant reviews and check-ins, news commentaries, and occasionally inspirational quotes - and sometimes selfies taken with all the above.

While millions around the world have just completed the holiest Muslim yearly pilgrimage, the Hajj, which requires them to walk for miles in the parched Arabian sun, one of Bangladesh’s more prominent companies, seemed to have hit upon a goldmine of social media attention, by inventing what the corporation’s Facebook site calls a “cowfie,” that has been encouraging Bangladeshis to submit photographs to earn a smartphone.

The picture in my newsfeed was of a bull with great tusks, and a group of boys posing in front of it as they clicked their photo next to it. The photograph had approximately 10,000 likes in this seemingly successful trendsetting campaign, which is a competition that the company has started.

Curious and shocked, I searched through the hashtag “cowfie.” In seconds, a beheaded cow with its tongue sticking out, and other such disturbingly graphic images revealed themselves.

After 10 photographs, I realised there was one overarching factor in all the photographs I encountered: usually people were plastered next to

normalised actions connected with a word that is uniquely popular, but which really must have some limits in its expression.

Cows, consumption, methane With the “cowfie,” death has finally crossed one of the last remaining barriers of human sensitivity. What used to be a very private experience of sacrificing animals in the name of religion, has reached new contours of publicity, and once again highlights how bedraggled animals take centre stage, in a global culture that has found new and unchartered expressions of celebrating the auspicious and pious Islamic religious holiday, known as the bigger of the two Eid festivals.

In my youth, of the two Eids, this Eid, known as Eid-ul-Adha, was the more sobering holiday. In this context, isn’t the commercialisation and veneration of consumption that underlies this competition, one that can then be considered undignified and bestial?

While it is not up to me to say who should afford a cow and who shouldn’t, Quranic scriptures speak at length about showing kindness to animals, and the second chapter of the Quran, Al Baqara, is even named after the cow.

Nowhere in the Muslim doctrines or the hadith does Islam insist on sacrificing in the name` of God, unless those performing the sacrifice can provide a dignified death to the animal.

By extension, what is a dignified death without a dignified life of being able to eat well in one’s life? Consider the ultimate ramifications of the “cowfie” competition - we are exchanging a photo of an animal who will die in exchange for a mobile phone.

How does taking a “cowfie” with bedraggled animals relate to giving animals respect and dignity with their death that is propagated hence through Islam? It does not. It speaks of a culture where death and violence is so normalised that you wonder why you don’t even flinch at television reports of death and violence.

It’s the remnants, some 50 years after cable television delivered the Vietnam War as nightly coverage on American television, of a ritualised and growing global culture of consuming violence, and engaging with

There was one overarching factor in all the photographs I encountered: usually people were plastered next to worn out cows that looked as though they were about to keel over

worn out cows that looked as though they were about to keel over. I was disgusted with myself for even investigating the matter, and told myself that I had been asking for it. But the truth was, I had not.

The company’s paid advertisements had delivered the competition to my computer window, and Facebook had decided I was somehow the demographic this would appeal to. I am not sure how it drew this conclusion, but then again, Facebook tried to suggest that my petite size zero self go on a diet, and constantly eggs me to rate cities - as though cities are like restaurants, definable by a tourist, traveller or inhabitant’s sole encounter with it, as profound as these encounters may be.

Now the reality of the “cowfie” has been thrust upon me, I am concerned about the uncomfortable parallels you can draw with how it speaks of exponentially increased over-sharing online that I have previously not encountered in my 9 years of using Facebook.

It needs some examination in the context of the convention of the selfie culture we have all succumbed to.

Doing thus gives us a context of the

it in exponentially far reaching ways, allowing our images and news to let us consume death and become immune to it.

I’m a beef lover, and I’m not saying that you should be out of touch with where you get your food and the constant cycle of life and death that underlies our food consumption, but you should be able to choose whether ritualised violence is forced upon you.

It shouldn’t be an option that you have to deliberately “unlike” and “unsubscribe” to (because “disliking” of course, is too strong a word for our social media providers to digest about what we think about them).

Your subscription to violence should not be just a given assumption.

You should be able to scroll Facebook without dead bulls, and distinguish between slaughtering in large farms to sacrificing in the name of religion, and the responsibility you hold, when the latter is done in the name of religion.

If you are going to eat it, you should be able to see where your food comes from, but there are some limits to this logic. It is advisable, just for the sake of personal health, to take an avid interest between food consumption, and the constant cycles of life and

JUNAID IQBAL

death that is all around us, sustaining our food intake.

Hence, as difficult as it was to endure, I have watched many sacrifices made over the years, watching the blood from beheaded cows reddening our driveway and seeping down into the drains.

Even though I was yet to encounter the concept of massive farms and slaughterhouses at the time, I was eventually also surprised to find that heart disease is the leading cause of death in Bangladesh. Red meat such as beef is one of the leading causes of cardiovascular diseases and high cholesterol worldwide.

Also, methane is a heat-trapping gas that is emitted by cows and has been linked by researchers in significantly increasing global warming and weakening the atmospheric layers. If we’re not going to reduce our consumption of beef though, shouldn’t we at least aim to allow the animal to live and to die with some dignity?

And while we’re learning about how methane is detrimental to the world we live in - just for the sake of survival, reduce our intake of this animal, which is supposed to be the product of striving and exercising faith to endure - not something to show off, in a commercialised form?

tweet happy that they’re likely to simply tweet “it’s a gorgeous day outside,” instead of actually going outside and experiencing the gorgeous day.

From US President Barack Obama and George Bush, who partake in selfies frequently, to Bangladesh’s Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina who took her first public selfie that we’re aware of this July with BBC reporter Sabir Mustafa in London, selfies have become a thing to contend with.

Ellen Degeneres’s much-tweeted Oscar photograph with celebrities ranging from Brad Pitt to Julia Roberts squeezed into a tiny space speaks of a larger trend that has been maximised by celebrities, creating exponential reach with the high distribution and shares that they garnered.

The boundaries of convention In my opinion, the recent contest lacks the compassion and dignity which should be shown to an animal being sacrificed. What is even more troubling is seeing how bedraggled animals have taken centre stage in the recent “cowfie” efforts, which brings back a question that not just Bangladeshis, but everyone in the world should ponder - why don’t we, as communities, aim to give cows the free range and dignified lives that

being diseased, and allow them to live a dignified life up until their death?

We should respect the animals we sacrifice, but 2014 has proven that we are far from this. All signs of taste are finally put to rest with this “cowfie contest.” The cows we eat are beings that we’re responsible for until its death, and if we’re going to eat them, we should know what the health and atmospheric implications our food has on us.

When some of us embrace and capture the experience of buying scraggly animals to honour the demands of our religion, we are not being religious, we only reflect the quick manner in which we support violence, and extend the convention of simply embracing social media in all its forms as legitimate and appropriate.

It’s time we learned to push past such a mindset. Consumption can take many forms. It’s time we took a look at ourselves and stopped commercialising and franchising everything we consume, including our religious obligations. At some point, when you commercialise and publicise everything you do, you’re not experiencing - you’re simply gloating mechanically, no differently from a robot. l

The selfie gone wild When the selfie was included as a word in the Oxford English Dictionary in early 2013, I watched an eruption of selfies take place amongst those in my social media profiles.

As someone who has always glanced over the shoulder before hurriedly taking a selfie prior to this inclusion of the word in the English language, watching intellectuals and social pundits hotly debate the selfie’s role in defining social belonging and normalcy became all the more fascinating. I even embraced that there’s something fun in the experiment of trying to get everyone into the frame, including the photographer.

Everyone’s been taking selfies - it’s the constant in a culture that is so

It’s time we took a look at ourselves and stopped commercialising and franchising everything we consume, including our religious obligations

they deserve before we consume them?

There is no dearth of grass in Bangladesh. Hence, do we really need to encourage the killing of malnourished cows that would not even be able to feed the poor. On a practical level, it would reduce the chances of cows

Raad Rahman is a communications expert and writer whose career spans cutting edge institutions in 5 countries across 3 continents.

Harvard’s Kennedy School selected her as a global Emerging Leader for her contributions to sustainable development and child protection issues. You can read more of her writing at wondersonder.wordpress.com.

8

DHAKA TRIBUNE

World

Wednesday, October 15, 2014

Kurds ‘recapture’ key Kobane hill from IS The hill was captured by IS more than 10 days ago n Agencies Kurdish fighters battling Islamic State (IS) say they have recaptured a strategically important hilltop west of Kobane on Syria’s border with Turkey, BBC reported.

The advances were made after a series of air strikes by the US-led coalition.

The hill, Tall Shair, was captured more than 10 days ago by IS militants, who have besieged the area for a month. Later on Tuesday, US President Barack Obama was supposed to hold talks with military chiefs from more than 20 countries on how to combat IS in Syria and Iraq.

Correspondents say the meeting in Washington is the first time such high-ranking military officials from so many countries have come together since the US-led coalition was formed last month. In a separate development, Turkish warplanes on Monday bombed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) rebel targets in Hakkari province near the Iraqi border, causing “heavy casualties”, Turkish media report.

If confirmed, this would be the first major air raid by Turkey on the PKK since a ceasefire was reached in March in 2013.

Suicide bombings

The battle for Kobane, a predominantly Kurdish town, has emerged as a major test of whether the coalition’s air cam-

Twitter to be used for payments in France n AP, Paris Did someone spot you money for lunch two weeks ago? In France, Twitter users can now publicly repay debts, donate to charity or chip in for a gift with a new payment service backed by the country’s second-largest banking service.

Group BPCE, which includes Banque Populaire and Caisses d’Epargne, announced the service — called S-money — on Tuesday. Users tweet a payment request to S-money, which then requires an authentication code before sending the amount — and a tweet to the destination confirming the payment for all the world to see.

“We think that this is quite interesting for the Twitter user to be able to communicate the financial transactions that he has made,” said Armand Dos Santos, chief technical officer for S-money.

The service only works between people who have French bank cards and cell phone numbers, in a country that prizes discretion for personal spending. Transactions are limited to 250 euros when paying a Twitter user and 500 euros when sending money to charities or crowd-funding.

“It happens to everybody ... you don’t have cash to pay a babysitter. If she has an S-money account, it will be easy to exchange with her and pay her with a simple tweet,” said Olivier Gonzalez, CEO of Twitter France. Only, that is, if you and the babysitter want everyone to know the going rate. l

paign can push back IS. Two weeks of air strikes against IS targets in and around Kobane have allowed Kurdish fighters to slow the jihadists’ advance, but Turkish and Western leaders have warned that the town is still likely to fall.

On Tuesday morning sources in the Kurdish Popular Protection Units (YPG) told the BBC that they had regained control of Tall Shair hill-top, about 4km (2.5 miles) to the west and near an informal border crossing.

Heavy fighting was reported in the east and south of Kobane on Monday.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based activist group, reported that IS carried out three separate suicide bomb attacks.

One IS suicide bomber blew up an explosives-filled vehicle in the north of the town, near the border, while the second targeted an eastern area where the main police station and government offices were located, it said. Later, a third bomber attacked a YPG position in the northeast. The Observatory said it believed IS now controlled about half of Kobane.

Capturing the town, from which more than 160,000 people have fled, would give the group unbroken control of a long stretch of the Syrian-Turkish border.

Iraq ‘reprisals’

Hundreds of kilometres away in west-

ern Iraq, as many as 180,000 people have been displaced by fighting between IS militants and Iraqi forces in and around the city of Hit, according to the UN. IS, which controls large swathes of territory across Syria and Iraq, captured Hit earlier this month in an advance across Anbar province.

Analysts say seizing Anbar would enable IS to establish a supply line to launch possible attacks on the capital, Baghdad.

Meanwhile, a report by campaign group Amnesty International said Shia militias in Iraq had kidnapped and killed scores of Sunni civilians in recent months in apparent revenge for IS attacks.

It said scores of unidentified bodies have been found in the cities of Baghdad, Samarra and Kirkuk, many still handcuffed and with gunshot wounds to the head, suggesting execution-style killings. Many others who disappeared remain unaccounted for, it added.

Amnesty says the militias have taken advantage of an “atmosphere of lawlessness” but the Iraqi government “must act now to rein in the militias and establish the rule of law”.

Iraqi Prime Minister Haider alAbadi, who took office last month, has admitted to previous “excesses” by government forces and vowed to govern for all Iraqis. l

Liberian children read a leaflet with guidelines to protect the community from the Ebola virus, in Monrovia

Doctors Without Borders loses 9 medics to Ebola n AP, Johannesburg

International aid organization Doctors Without Borders said that 16 of its staff members have been infected with Ebola and nine of them have died.

Speaking at a press conference in Johannesburg Tuesday, the head of Doctors Without Borders in South Africa Sharon Ekambaram said medical workers have received inadequate assistance from the international community. She said that while many pledges

had been made publicly they have not improved the situation in the affected countries.

Juli Switala, a doctor working for the international aid organization who just returned from Sierra Leone, said the number of those who have died from Ebola is probably an underestimate because many families hide their sick and dying loved ones. More than 4,000 people have died from Ebola so far, according to the World Health Organization. l

Spain’s Catalonia calls off independence vote

A student in Barcelona wears a white mask with a black cross at a protest last week over the blocking of the referendum

n AP, Barcelona The leader of Spain’s wealthy Catalonia region yesterday called off an independence vote but said an unofficial poll will take place next month to gauge secessionist sentiment.

Artur Mas was forced to cancel the Nov. 9 referendum and replace it with a symbolic one on the same day after

Spain’s government challenged the referendum in the country’s Constitutional Court, which suspended the vote while it deliberates.

Separatists in northeastern Catalonia, which has 7.5 million people, have been trying for several years to hold a breakaway vote from Spain to carve out a new Mediterranean nation.

Secessionist sentiment surged

AFP

during Spain’s economic stagnation and amid discontent at Spain’s refusal to give the region more autonomy and fiscal powers.

Polls show most Catalans support holding an independence referendum and around half favor ending centuries-old ties with Spain.

Mas insisted his regional government is not backtracking and still plans an

official vote later, saying the symbolic vote will serve as a “preliminary” ballot.

“It means there will be polling stations open, with ballot boxes and ballots,” Mas said. “It will depend on the people for a strong enough participation to show that people here want to vote.”

The vote questions will be the same, asking residents if they think Catalonia should be a state, and, if so, whether it should be independent.

Madrid’s central government has said an independence vote would violate clauses in Spain’s constitution specifying that only the national government can call referendums on sovereignty and that all Spaniards must be allowed to vote.

Unlike last month’s independence referendum in Scotland, which ended with voters deciding to remain part of the United Kingdom, the vote that Catalonia separatists wanted to hold would have been nonbinding.

Spain’s government did not immediately offer a reaction but Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy said before Mas spoke that the calling-off of the referendum would be “excellent news.”

Regional Catalan politicians who favor staying with Spain said the watered-down Nov. 9 vote will mean nothing.

Alicia Sanchez-Camacho of Spain’s ruling Popular Party called the new vote plan “a massive opinion poll.” The leader of the Citizens party, Albert Rivera, said Mas should step down or call early regional elections.

“We will not participate in this kind of fictitious referendum,” Rivera said. l

Group that seized Tripoli Recognition of Palestine ‘still long way off’ takes Libyan government, n oil company websites AFP, Paris

n Reuters, Cairo

A self-declared Libyan government set up by an armed group that seized the capital in August has taken over the websites of the state administration and the national oil company, adding to confusion over who is running the country.

With Libya’s official government and parliament now operating from towns hundreds of miles east of Tripoli, the armed group, from the western city of Misrata, that has seized ministry buildings in the capital now controls their websites.

The website of Prime Minister Abdullah Thinni - who now sits with his cabinet in the eastern city of Bayda shows the picture of the man the Misrata rebels have declared as prime minister, Omar al-Hasi, and lists the names of his team.

The group, which calls itself the National Salvation government, has also taken over the website of the National Oil Corp. Next to tender offers, the website features the picture of the

self-declared government’s oil minister.

Libya’s neighbours and Western powers fear the conflict between the two rival governments could drag the OPEC member into civil war.

While Thinni’s government - recognised by the United Nations - has relocated to Bayda, the elected House of Representatives is now based in Tobruk, even further east, near the Egyptian border.

Last month, the United Nations launched talks aimed at solving the crisis by bringing together members of the House of Representatives and Misrata lawmakers who have boycotted the assembly since it convened in August.

The talks have not taken in armed factions from Misrata or a rival militia allied to the western city of Zintan who battled Misrata forces in Tripoli for more than a month over the summer.

But diplomats hope that since Misrata members from the house are indirectly linked to a rival parliament that has been set up in Tripoli, the talks will start a broader political dialogue. l

Despite a highly-symbolic British vote to recognize Palestine as a state, the road to official recognition is still fraught with obstacles, experts say, with the hoped-for two-state solution a long way off.

Diplomats and analysts see Monday’s overwhelming British vote to recognise Palestine as a state, following Sweden’s decision to do so, as a “small shift”, but warn against reading too much into it.

“It’s moving a little bit. Certain European countries are trying to make themselves heard and push things forward,” said Agnes Levallois, an expert on the Arab world, adding that the push for Middle East peace must now come from Europe after the failure of US-led efforts.

According to an AFP count, at least 112 countries around the world have recognised a Palestinian state. A Palestinian count puts the number at 134.

EU member countries that have recognized a Palestinian state include Bulgaria, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Malta, Poland and Romania.

But experts say the EU is unlikely to push further towards recognition, particularly given the sensitivity of Euro-

pean heavyweight Germany’s relations with Israel due to Berlin’s Nazi past.

France has said it will recognise Palestine “when the time is right” but diplomats say Paris will not act outside the European framework.

According to an AFP count, at least 112 countries around the world have recognised a Palestinian state. A Palestinian count puts the number at 134 The Palestinian ambassador in Paris, Hael al-Fahoum, said: “I hope that France, which is normally a driving force on this topic, will soon make a very important gesture.”

But diplomats in Paris say that France is not yet ready to follow Sweden and take the plunge. “You can only play the card of recognition once, which is why it is important to choose one’s moment,” said one diplomat, who requested anonymity.

“There’s no other answer” to the conflict than the two-state solution,

said another source.

But frustration is growing within the international community in the face of a seemingly intractable conflict with the Europeans increasingly vocal about the cost of rebuilding after military flare-ups.

French President Francois Hollande said in August that the EU should not be seen as a “cash point” for reconstruction and EU foreign policy supremo Catherine Ashton said it must be the “last time” the international community has to pay to rebuild Gaza, after a global pledge made on Sunday of $5.4 billion.

Pessimists say that a political solution seems light years away, pointing to “out of control” Israeli settlement building, “weak and divided” Palestinians and difficulty restoring trust after this year’s Gaza conflict that killed more than 2,000 Palestinians and dozens of Israelis.

The emergence of the Islamic State and the crisis in Syria and Iraq threatens to take the international community’s eye off the ball in the Middle East peace process as well, warn analysts.

And Israel cautioned that “premature international recognition ... actually undermines the chances to reach a real peace.” l

AP

NEWS BITES

Police officers fired for a kiss!

n Agencies A relationship with a colleague can throw up any number of complications, but the two young police officers in the picture may not have thought it would end their careers. The photograph shows the pair kissing whilst dressed in their work uniforms, and was considered grounds for dismissal. Residents of the country have taken to social media to voice their dismay.

The image was uploaded to the internet by a third officer and drawn to the attention of the authorities at the Kagera police force. Henry Mwaibambe, the regional police commander, defended his department’s decision. “We followed all disciplinary procedures to make sure that they were given a chance to defend themselves,” he says. “The officer looking at the case was convinced there was compelling evidence against them, and that they had breached police code of conduct. That’s why they lost their jobs.” l

Nurse killed 38 patients ‘because she found them annoying’

n Agencies

Police in Italy are investigating whether a nurse could have killed up to 38 people who have died in hospital in suspicious circumstances, The Independent reported.

The nurse, Daniela Poggiali, is accused of injecting one patient with a fatal dose of potassium after the 78-year-old patient, who was admitted to hospital with a routine illness, died unexpectedly. She is also suspected of giving her patients high doses of potassium because she found them or their families annoying, according to local news reports in Italy. The police inquiry is being expanded to investigate 38 deaths, including ten which police have described as “very suspicious” according to local media reports of a police press conference.

The Italian newspaper Libero Quotidiano has reported that a staff member at the hospital claimed that Poggiali, 42, had asked to have her photo taken next to a patient who had just died. l

First rebuilding supplies enter Gaza

n Reuters, Gaza Israel opened the border to the first postwar truckloads of rebuilding material for Gaza yesterday and U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon lamented what he called destruction “beyond description” in the Palestinian enclave. Gaza has been blockaded

by Israel and Egypt since before the most recent conflict, which lasted for close to two months before a ceasefire in August.

Israel said it was allowing in 600 tonnes of cement, 50 truckloads of gravel and 10 truckloads of steel into Gaza for rebuilding homes and public buildings, shipments being monitored by the U.N. and the Palestinian Authority. Palestinians said had least 200 tonnes of cement had already reached Gaza through the Kerem Shalom crossing with Israel. In a short visit under tight security, Ban toured areas that were heavily bombarded by Israel during the 50-day war, in which more than 2,100 Palestinians, most of them civilians, were killed. Sixty-seven Israeli soldiers and six civilians in Israel also died at the hands of Hamas rockets and other attacks. l

DHAKA TRIBUNE

World

Wednesday, October 15, 2014

Nobel Peace Prize brings little impetus for peace in India and Pakistan

For those living near the border, the Nobel Prize provided little comfort “Why does everything have a Inn AFP, New delhi dia-Pak or Hindu-Muslim paradigm?”

New Nobel peace laureate Malala Yousafzai wasted little time living up to the accolade last week, inviting the leaders of India and Pakistan to accompany her and fellow winner Kailash Satyarthi, an Indian child rights activist, to the award ceremony.

But, just hours later, a fresh exchange of fire between troops in Kashmir provided a stark reminder that the prospect of lasting peace remains as distant as ever.

The offices of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Pakistani counterpart Nawaz Sharif both declined this week to say whether they would accept Malala’s overture.

It is a diplomatic hot potato, given the fractious relationship between the nuclear-armed neighbours, who have fought three wars since partition in 1947.

Senior Pakistani analyst Hasan Askari said the joint Nobel award was a clear signal that the international community wanted to see India and Pakistan working together more to promote peace in the region, but that outside pressure would only go so far.

“The issue of improvement of relations between the two countries is a political issue and in the past sometimes the two countries have listened to the international community and sometimes ignored it,” he said.

Kailash Satyarthi (L) and Malala Yousafzai “It really depends if the political leadership wants peace or conflict at this stage.”

Prime Minister Modi invited his Pakistani counterpart to his inauguration ceremony in May, a move widely hailed as an olive branch to India’s traditional enemy. But as he hit the campaign trail for state elections last week, Narendra Modi was in a bellicose mood.

“The enemy has realised that times have changed and their old habits will not be tolerated,” said Modi, referring to Pakistan, in a speech delivered a day before the Nobel committee’s announcement.

He said Indian troops would continue to “speak with their finger on the trigger”, after some of the deadliest

REUTERS

cross-border firing along their frontier in a decade, in which at least 20 civilians were killed.

For those living near the border, the Nobel Prize provided little comfort.

“We are happy that a Pakistani got this peace award, but I don’t think it will help in reducing tension,” said Sardar Mohammad Javed, whose family was affected by the Indian shelling across the border.

There was also little appetite for a Nobel-inspired rapprochement among the Indian public, judging by the reaction on social media to the committee’s announcement, which highlighted the importance of an Indian and a Pakistani joining in a common struggle.

tweeted Indian journalist Devirupa Mitra. Akhilesh Mishra, a supporter of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party on Twitter, said it was “patronising” to India and Pakistan.

KG Suresh, a senior fellow at the Vivekananda International Foundation thinktank in New Delhi, said the most the Nobel committee could hope to achieve was to boost morale among those campaigning for peace.

“The Nobel Peace Prize sharing is not going to help India and Pakistan move on from their recent border tensions,” he said.

“It is because the mutual acrimony and suspicion is so deep-rooted that a Nobel Peace Prize sharing won’t be able to make much of a difference, except creating some atmospherics among the media and the civil society.”

India called off peace talks last month after Pakistan consulted with Kashmiri separatists, in a move some saw as a sign of a tougher stance under the new government in New Delhi.

“The Nobel Prize is not going to solve the long-standing inter-state dispute between India and Pakistan,” said Sreeram Chaulia, professor at the Jindal School of International Affairs in New Delhi.

“It is a structural problem and can’t be solved through symbolism,” said Chaulia. l

UN ignores Pak bid to seek intervention on Kashmir n Agencies Pakistan’s latest efforts seeking UN intervention on the Kashmir issue have failed to draw any new response from the world body which reiterated that India and Pakistan need to resolve all differences through dialogue to find a long-term solution to the dispute.

India made it clear that its armed forces are ‘fully ready’ to respond to ‘provocation.’ It also said that the onus of creating a positive environment is on Pakistan Sartaj Aziz, adviser to Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on national security and foreign affairs, had written to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on the recent border tension with India and sought the UN’s intervention, stepping up its attempts to internationalise the Kashmir issue.

In the letter to Ban, Aziz said Pakistan believes the UN has an important role to play in promoting the objective of peaceful resolution of the Kashmir issue, including through his “good offices”.

Ban’s deputy spokesperson Farhan Haq, when asked to comment on the letter seeking Ban’s intervention

China won’t cede to HK protests, army to be used as last resort n Reuters, Beijing

China’s ruling Communist Party believes it has offered enough concessions to Hong Kong in the past, and will give no ground to pro-democracy protests because it wants to avoid setting a precedent for reform on the mainland, sources told Reuters.

The position, arrived at during a meeting of the new National Security Commission chaired by President Xi Jinping in the first week of October, appears to give Hong Kong’s leader little room for manoeuvre as he seeks to end the crisis.

It also sends a blunt and uncompromising message to Hong Kong’s pro-democracy camp.

Thousands of protesters have taken to the streets of the Chinese-controlled city in recent weeks, demanding that Beijing stand by a promise to introduce universal suffrage at elections for its leader in 2017 and that Leung Chun-ying step down.

The protests, which China says are illegal, have presented leaders with one of their toughest political challenges since the army violently suppressed student-led demonstrations for democracy centred on Beijing’s Tiananmen Square on June 4, 1989.

Central parts of Hong Kong have been brought to a standstill by protests now into their third week, although police have stepped back since using tear gas and pepper spray early on and numbers have dwindled to hundreds from thousands.

Three sources with ties to the Chinese leadership said that Beijing believed it had already been tolerant enough of the protests in the former

British colony.

Asked if the central government will make minor concessions, a source with leadership ties said: “Dialogue (with protest leaders) is already a concession.”

Leung’s government agreed to meet student protest leaders to discuss the crisis, but talks were called off when it became apparent the two sides were still far apart.

A second source added: “The central government’s bottom line will not change”, referring to the vetting of candidates for chief executive.

Beijing ruled on Aug. 31 that it would screen candidates who want to run for chief executive in 2017, which activists said rendered the universal suffrage concept meaningless.

China’s Communist Party leaders rule Hong Kong through a “one country, two systems” formula which allows wide-ranging autonomy and freedoms not enjoyed on the mainland and specifies universal suffrage as an eventual goal.

“Hong Kong is not high on the list of the central government’s priorities,” the second source said, requesting anonymity. “The economy is the top priority.”

Army only ‘last resort’

China has already given in twice to demands from Hong Kong, the sources said. In 2003, about 500,000 people took to the streets of the city, stunning the central government which yielded and shelved passage of the contentious Article 23, or sedition bill.

A rally of 120,000 protesters in 2012 forced the central government to back

A woman walks by a tent of Pro-democracy protesters as they block an area near the government headquarters building in Hong Kong.

Hundreds of police used sledgehammers and chainsaws yesterday to tear down barricades erected by the protesters near government offices and the financial center, reopening a major road for the first time in two weeks REUTERS down and defer plans to roll out a pro-China national education scheme in the city’s schools.

“Universal suffrage is a sovereign issue. The central government will not give in a third time,” said another source.

“If the protests continue, it would be Hong Kong’s loss, not the mainland’s.

Hong Kong people would suffer.”

At the National Security Commission meeting called earlier this month

to discuss the protests, leaders decided the central government would “firmly not give in” to the protesters, the source said. China would also “resolutely support the Hong Kong government’s management of affairs in accordance with the law” and “resolutely back police in enforcing the law”.

China, with separatist headaches in Tibet and Xinjiang, is concerned that calls for democracy might spread on

Kim Jong Un reappears finally, with walking stick n Reuters, Seoul North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, shown using a cane for support, re-appeared in state media yesterday after a lengthy public absence that had fuelled speculation over his health and grip on power in the secretive, nuclear-capable country.

Several pictures on the front page of the Rodong Sinmun newspaper showed Kim smiling and gesturing on a visit to a housing development, although there was no indication which day the event took place. He was surrounded by aides and wearing his signature dark buttoned suit, and appeared to be supporting himself with a black walking stick.

There have been no official reports on the 31-year-old Kim appearing in public since he attended a concert with his wife on Sept.

3. He missed an important political anniversary on Friday as well as a recent session of the country’s parliament.

A story in the official KCNA news agency on two public appearances by Kim was dated Tuesday but also did not specify on which day he made the visits. It also did not mention Kim’s health or lengthy absence from public view.

The KCNA report, which was typical of its chronicling of Kim’s activities, said he “gave field guidance” to the new Wisong

Scientists Residential District and visited the newly built Natural Energy Institute of the State Academy of Sciences. “Our scientists are patriots who are devoting all their lives to building a rich and powerful nation,” Kim was quoted as saying.

In still pictures broadcast by state TV, Kim was often shown seated, once with a cigarette in his hand, while his aides stood. He

was also shown in a green multi-seat golf cart, along with several members of his entourage.

The reports of Kim’s activities may be aimed at dispelling rumours outside the country and to ease any concern inside the North and its military following an exchange of gunfire on Friday between North and South Korea, an analyst said.

“He’s the military leader, and there was

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un gives field guidance to the newly built Wisong Scientists Residential District in this undated photo released by KCNA yesterday REUTERS

military action a few days ago,” said An Chan-il, who served in the North’s army as a junior officer before defecting to the South in 1979, and now heads a private think tank on North Korea in Seoul. “There was likely concern inside the North’s military as well as among the public,” which would be eased by Kim’s reappearance, he said.

Delicate stage Relations between the two Koreas, technically in a state of war since the early 1950s, are at a delicate stage. A high-level delegation from Pyongyang made a surprise visit to the South early this month for the closing of the Asian Games. That led to an agreement to hold further talks by early November, heralding a potential breakthrough in ties that have been frozen since 2010, when the South accused the North of torpedoing a navy ship, which Pyongyang denies.

However, on Friday, North Korea fired shots at balloons carrying leaflets sent towards the North by South Korean activists critical of the North’s leadership, and the South fired back.

On Monday, the South warned of a “strong” response if the North provoked a similar incident, although South Korean President Park Geun-hye also reiterated her commitment to engage with the North. l

9

the mainland and is unlikely to give an inch of ground after the worst unrest in the former British colony since it returned to China in 1997. “(We) move back one step and the dam will burst,” said a party source familiar with Beijing’s policy towards Hong Kong, adding that if Beijing yielded, it could have a domino effect with Tibet, Xinjiang and other parts of the mainland demanding the right to elections. l

and his viewpoint on the issue, told reporters Monday he would refer to a statement that was issued last week

by Ban’s spokesperson in which the UN chief encouraged India and Pakistan to resolve all differences through dialogue and engage constructively to find a long-term solution for peace and stability in Kashmir.

The Secretary-General is “concerned about the recent escalation of violence along the Line of Control between India and Pakistan. He deplores the loss of lives and the displacement of civilians on both sides,” said the statement.

A war of words between the two countries over the situation at the LoC took place last week at the UN General Assembly where India said that it was a “matter of deep regret” that Pakistan violated the ceasefire, in which eight people were killed and several others injured.

India made it clear that its armed forces are “fully ready” to respond to “provocation”. It also said that the onus of creating a positive environment for normalisation of relations is on Pakistan.

The UN has long maintained an institutional presence in the contested area between the two countries.

The UN Military Observer Group in India and Pakistan (UNMOGIP) observes and reports on ceasefire violations along and across the LoC and the working boundary between the South Asian neighbours in Jammu and Kashmir, as well as reports developments that could lead to ceasefire violations. l

‘Soon, only Sonia, Rahul will be left in Congress’ n Agencies Congress MP Shashi Tharoor’s sacking as party spokesperson for praising Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been derided by the later’s party as an unusual show of intolerance.

“If this goes on, soon only Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi will be left in the Congress,” BJP leader Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi remarked yesterday.

The Congress dropped Tharoor as a spokesperson on Monday after complaints that he had humiliated the party with his “constant and unnecessary adulation” of Narendra Modi, who took charge as prime minister in May after a massive victory for his BJP. The two-time MP from Thiruvananthapuram upset his party by saying he was “honoured” to be among nine prominent Indians tagged by the Prime Minister when he launched his fiveyear Clean India campaign on Mahatma Gandhi’s October 2 birth anniversary.

In a column on Ndtv.com, Tharoor wrote, “Which Indian worthy of the name would not be humbled to be tapped by his PM for a national cause?”

The former union minister also commented that Modi “had been effective in using his Prime Ministerial position” to drive change from the top. The compliments did not go down well with the Congress. “A spokesperson has to give his party’s views, not his own,” said senior Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad, defending the decision endorsed by party chief Sonia Gandhi. l

China firm eyes quick approval of drug to cure Ebola n Reuters, Shanghai A Chinese drugmaker with close military ties is seeking fast-track approval for a drug that it says can cure Ebola, as China joins the race to help treat a deadly outbreak of a disease that has spread from Africa to the United States and Europe.

Sihuan Pharmaceutical Holdings Group Ltd has signed a tie-up with Chinese research Academy of Military Medical Sciences (AMMS) last week to help push the drug called JK-05 through the approval process in China and bring it to market. The drug, developed by the academy, is currently approved for emergency military use only.

“We believe that we can file to the Chinese Food and Drug Administration (CFDA) before the end of the year,” Sihuan’s chairman Che Fengsheng said during an investor call last week.

“They are looking at this very seriously... and we could get on the ‘green light’ track,” he added.

Sihuan’s drug is only one contender amongst a number of experimental cures worldwide to treat Ebola, although if successful it would be a

huge boon for China’s developing pharmaceutical sector and the country’s soft power in Africa, an increasingly important partner for the world’s No.2 economy.

The current outbreak, the worst on record of the disease, has killed more than 4,000 people, mostly in West Africa.

Che said one of Sihuan’s strengths was its close military ties. The firm, which claims to be China’s third largest prescription drugmaker, was originally a military scientific unit, which was spun off into its current form in 2001.

“We have a myriad of connections with the military medical science units and have developed lots of products in cooperation with the AMMS,” Che said.

AMMS is a research unit of the People’s Liberation Army, China’s armed forces.

Che pointed out that a Chinese vaccine against a SARS outbreak a decade ago, also developed by the military, was approved by the drug regulator rapidly after its application, signally that JK-05 could receive similar treatment.

“At that time the whole approval process, clinical components and the period after was cut right down,” he said. l

10

DHAKA TRIBUNE

Editorial

Wednesday, October 15, 2014

CODE-CRACKER

Increasing electricity prices is the right move

T

here is a lot of merit to the Power Development Board’s proposal to increase the price for electricity by 18.12% from January.

If implemented, the proposal is projected to reduce government subsidies on power by over a third from the current rate of almost a billion dollars (Tk7,500 crore).

Bangladesh is not a rich country.

Taxpayers cannot afford to throw away such huge amounts of money on subsidising power.

Increasing the price of electricity will both save vital public funds which can be better spent on education and development, and create a more rational pricing structure in the energy market.

Subsidising energy production distorts the marketplace. By encouraging waste and depriving power companies of funds for reinvestment in new production sources, it delivers less energy than the country needs. Irrational subsidies are one of the main reasons why the country’s industries still suffer from power shortages.

Higher prices can create more funds to invest in stable energy supplies and incentivise consumers to use power more sensibly. It will also have the effect of making investments in renewable power, like solar, biogas, and wind power, more attractive.

As a country where huge swathes of the population are at risk from rising water levels caused by climate change, it is important for Bangladesh to be more pro-active in reducing dependence on fossil fuels and supporting investment in cleaner, renewable forms of energy.

The proposed increase in the price of power is a smart move in the right direction and should be implemented.

It is important to be pro-active in supporting investment in renewable energy

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

Minister wanted October 9

Lalon Shah With due respect to the author, our FM’s doing an okay job, given the constraints he has to operate under. The major constraint for him is too much political interference and the need to satisfy so many vested interest groups (and individuals) linked to the political party running the show.

I would wager that if the FM were given the latitude he needs, things would have been much better.

The same could be said of past FMs like Messrs Kibria and Saifur Rahman. They were capable people, and given the circumstances, they did a good job, and much of their failures were due to overall malgovernance (read: Endemic lack of rule of law, institutionalised kleptocracy etc).

B

angladesh has a lot to learn from the sustained economic success of South Korea.

Keeping in mind that, since the 1980s, Korean firms helped set up our garment-manufacturing industry, paving the way for our country’s current thriving RMG sector, it is not that we have not looked at the Korean example before. Korean companies have major investments here and our mutual trade exceeds $1.1bn, largely in imports from South Korea.

It is more that we still have a wealth of other lessons to draw from South Korea’s success in establishing itself as one of the world’s leading economies.

Around 1955, our GDP per capita was roughly the same as South Korea. In the years since, South Korean companies and brands have become known the world over and the East Asian nation now has a trillion-dollar-plus economy with per capita GDP well over $25,000.

The success of South Korea rests in large part on export-led manufacturing jobs. The important part of its model is that it is supported by a world-class education system. This has allowed its companies to constantly innovate and keep moving higher up the value chain.

It is further facilitated by continued investment in infrastructure and digital technology.

Bangladesh needs to rapidly improve the effectiveness of its education system if we are to build a more prosperous economy.

Equally important, the economy cannot rely on just low-cost manufacturing, but needs to constantly invest to create highervalue jobs. Our market location and demographic dividend give us a competitive starting point, but we need vision to make good use of it.

Bangladesh needs vision and rapid improvements to its education system

ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ

Evil people politics “ … We may resolve that the finance minister, in a transition economy like ours, should be a ruling party stalwart, commanding respect from the rank and file, with clear understanding about ‘where the shoe pinches’ and visibility about the ‘destination.’”

“S/he should mostly be an elected public representative with greater acceptability among development partners and stakeholders. His or her integrity should be beyond any doubt; s/he should also be very articulate in negotiating the ‘national interests’ with the development partners and drive the common causes of the ‘emerging economies’ among the ‘league of nations.’”

An interesting proposition. Wouldn’t hurt to give it a spin, would it?

SUDOKU Traffic police annoyed with rickshaw puller October 5

Lessons to be learned from Korea

How to solve: Each number in our CODE-CRACKER grid represents a different letter of the alphabet. For example, today 22 represents G so fill G every time the figure 22 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.

Jewel Rana ha ha ha ha This was amusing.

Arsin Ashraful Alam Knock some sense into the drivers of the VIPs as well if you are truly willing to establish rules.

Arham Hossain Bravo Dhaka Tribune. Thumbs up for this photo.

Confessions of a female ex-ISIS member October 6

EmOn SarWar Interesting article!!

Zayed Mahmud Seems what always happens is the portrayal of some wrong perceptions of belief to terrify ignorant Muslims.

Son kills mother in Comilla October 6

Umid Kumar Dey The age of Kali.

CALVIN AND HOBBES

Follow the leader

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.

October 6

adsf This article seems to reiterate the notion that Islam is consistent with secularism. Islam is far superior to secularism. Islam will never bow before secularism.

The writer comfortably ignores the fact that the prophet (SW) clearly stated that the caliphs were to be elected from the Quraish tribe. There are authentic ahadith regarding that. And our dear writer ignores this! He seems to know neither his history, nor the ahadith. Nonsensical.

Evil people politics adsf: If you feel that there is something inconsistent with what the writer is saying in his article, please back your argument up with some proof.

Highway police yet to have their own station October 5

Mohammed Sobhan The highway police should get their own facilities nationwide. It is very necessary to serve the people of Bangladesh. The developed countries in the world have their own facilities for almost each and every region in their respective countries.

I wish our government, along with the department concerned, will take appropriate action to make our dream of Digital Bangladesh a success. And I hope, one day, we will be able to reach our goal of becoming a developed nation.

Robbers loot cash and jewelery in Sylhet October 6

CROSSWORD ACROSS 1 Withdraw from federation (6) 6 Nourished (3) 9 Angry (5) 10 Vocal sound (4) 11 Saloon car (5) 12 Top card (3) 13 Maker of suits (6) 15 Welsh national emblem (4) 18 Excuse (4) 21 Pay attention (6) 24 United (3) 25 Likeness (5) 28 Land measure (4) 29 At no time (5) 30 Scottish river (3) 31 Held principles (6)

DOWN 1 Valuable fibre (5) 2 Before (poet) (3) 3 Key group of personnel (5) 4 Greek letter (3) 5 Impression left by blow (4) 6 Young horse (4) 7 Call for repeat (6) 8 Horned ruminant (4) 14 Little devil (3) 16 Show clearly (6) 17 Outfit (3) 19 Permission (5) 20 Affirms with confidence (5) 21 Burden (4) 22 Dry and withered (4) 23 Numeral (4) 26 Adults (3) 27 Obtain (3)

Oneoftherobbers “Locals said the robbers came to the area on three boats, using the Dholai River. After anchoring the boats, the robbers first attacked Aziruddin’s home.

They broke the doors, entered the house, and looted Tk17 lakh cash along with gold jewelry.”

Who is this Aziruddin fellow? Is he supposed to be important somehow?

Fakhrul: Govt is destroying democracy October 6

kabdullah Well, sir, it was teamwork. Every party that ruled this country did their share of destroying good governance in this country.

Bangladeshi woman gets Joseph Wharton Award October 6

YESTERDAY’S SOLUTIONS CODE-CRACKER

CROSSWORD

PH Another show of success of AL and Hasina.

PEANUTS

Anon-E-Mous PH: Nonetheless, Professor Durreen Shahnaz did get the award based on her own merits, and for her own significant impact in social enterprise.

Prescription desk: How to avoid fat October 5

Anon “Red meat, beef and lamb, contains high cholesterol. Do not indulge in excessive intake of these kinds of meat as they will harm your health in the long term.”

Thank you for this advice. I will be sure to follow it.

SUDOKU

DHAKA TRIBUNE

Op-Ed

Wednesday, October 15, 2014

11

Cynics and Ashrafists nearer Ashrafism as far as its meaning is concerned. However, it is far from conveying the full range of the meanings the Urdu term carries.

The Urdu word Ashraf has a history of its own, it has two connotations: One is its moral implications, and the other, its social, political, and economic implications. Its antonym in Urdu is Ajlaaf, which similarly has the same connotations.

In its moral sense, Ashraf means persons who are considered with high moral standing in a society, whereas Ajlaaf are such persons whose moral standing is measured at a lower or the lowest level, or they are with no moral standing. In English, they may be translated as noble and ignoble people.

However, the social, political, and economic senses of both terms are of immense significance. And in some ways, it is in these senses that Ajlaaf or the ignoble persons were considered with low or lowest moral standing or with none at all, and the Ashraf with high moral standing.

As a matter of fact, the Ashraf were

ways marriages and blood relations were seen and conducted in an Ashrafi society. That did help Ashraf contain property and privileges within their families and classes. For them, women were part of their property.

As against this, the Ajlaaf were such unfortunate people who were of ignoble birth. They were racially inferior and impure; they were originally, ie by birth, ignoble.

Not surprising that labour and physical work came to the share of the Ajlaaf. Thus occupations created castes, and both symbolised the Ajlaafi classes. That shuts all the doors for the Ajlaaf to go and move right or left or upward.

That’s a closed society. It’s mainly two movements – humanism and democracy – that transformed that closed society into a Karl Popper’s open society. But the remnants of that Ashrafi closed society still survive and thrive as well in Pakistan.

Hence the Ashrafists argue how a girl from a non-Ashraf can be honoured with such a prize. Let it be won by a daughter or son of an Ashrafiya,

Let it be won by a daughter or son of an Ashrafiya, and they would be all praise for him or her

Not good enough for the elite?

T

n Khalil Ahmad he case of the 2014 Nobel Peace Prize awarded to Malala Yousafzai, which she shares with an Indian – Kailash Satyarthi – who has devoted himself to the cause of child slavery, may be used as a litmus test should we want to know the bent of mind of any Pakistani fellow.

This will help us know whether someone is a cynic or an Ashrafist or both. Ask someone what he thinks about the Nobel Peace Prize for Malala; if he tells you: “Please, no joking!” be assured that he is both a cynic and an Ashrafist. Some of the refined souls may be so artful that they would argue they are not this or

that and are different from the lot; but their rhetoric reveals whether they are exclusively cynic or Ashrafist only.

As cynics are souls in anguish who in their mysterious, unknown, and unknowable perfectionism find fault with everything and view everything from a standpoint of negativity, it seems, with the announcement of the Nobel Peace Prize for Malala, they have been thrown out of the frying pan into the fire, ie into a world which may be dubbed perfectly imperfect.

So, how come in such a world, an honour like that of the Nobel Peace Prize is awarded to Malala? The cynics will never be able to be in harmony with this fact; they cannot reconcile with this “strangest” thing. What the heck, it has been given to a Pakistani,

REUTERS

a girl, and a young girl, and a Pakhtun girl!

So much so that one friend who is thoroughly a cynic, and in his deepest perceptions maybe an Ashrafist too, was so outraged that he rang me and questioned me the same evening as if it was I who made this happen.

He was completely puzzled, and quizzed me: “Why, but why has she been awarded this? Is it so? Why?” So the Pakistani cynics think, and they believe it too, that the young girl has done nothing.

She has wrongly been awarded this prize; she doesn’t deserve that. Even if she has done something, it’s not such that she be given that award. They mean: It’s all politics behind this; they are capitalists, Americans and

such who are behind her, and it is this politics because of which she has been awarded this Nobel Peace Prize.

It’s a big conspiracy. She is not worth that honour; her work is far below the prestige of the prize. Who the hell are they who make such decisions? The Pakistani cynics feel helpless in the face of that “injustice,” they would stop it by force if they could!

All that rhetoric that revolves not only around the opposition of Malala Yousafzai but has found an impetus, albeit negative, in the awarding of the Peace Prize permeates with another hidden tendency. That is Ashrafism (Urdu: Ashrafiyat, or Ashraf-Pasandi).

Let it be noted here that the English term “elitism” may somewhat be

such persons who were placed at a higher level in a society, not only socially and economically, but politically also. They were the rulers and custodians of that society.

Opposed to them were their subjects, the Ajlaaf, whom the fate has situated at a lower or the lowest level of that society, and they had no power over their lives and bodies. They were the ruled and the stuff of that society.

What is remarkable about the Ashraf or Ashrafiya is that the whole of its Ashrafi paraphernalia was not only based on, but survived via the concept of racial superiority and racial purity. Most Lughaats and dictionaries say that Ashraf are “the people of noble birth.”

That puts a lot of emphasis on the

and they would be all praise for him or her.

Once, a friend whose family lived in Gowalmandi, Lahore, denigrated Nawaz Sharif thus: “Trash him; he just used to play in the streets of Gowalmandi!” In the same vein, Pakistani cynics and Ashrafists feel denigrated by this Peace Prize being awarded to an ordinary girl.

They do not see and commend her courage and work, nor her fortune! In their cynicism and Ashrafism, they represent a closed society as well as closed minds! l Khalil Ahmad is a political philosopher based in Lahore, Pakistan. He runs a blog: NotesFromPakistan.blogspot.com, and tweets at @khalilkf.

Behind the harassment

Sultan and the good old days

n Abdullah Zobair

n Mohammad Ali Sattar

W

ith the progress of women’s empowerment, and their participation in every single sector of the country, the incidences of physical and sexual assaults to women are heightening. Though the government claims success in women’s participation – a component of MDGs – it has failed to battle sexual harassment during its two consecutive regimes.

Girlhood is no longer secure in the once conservative society, though the country is ruled by a stateswoman, while the leader of the opposition is also a woman. The unabated rise in incidents of rape, stalking, and physical and mental violence against women has irritated the people, and increased feelings of insecurity in society.

Girls are living under the threat of being violated or harassed at their homes, university, or workplace.

Moral degradations of the youth, aggression of alien culture, influx of adult content, lack of ethical and religious education, and fashions molded by Western culture are the evil elements responsible for transgressions in society. Recent statistics unveiled the vulnerability of girlhood in the country. Women’s rights groups have claimed that in most incidents of sexual harassment, the criminals were found somehow politically involved.

Referring to rights group Odhikar, a vernacular daily recently reported that between January and August 2014, 158 women were subjected to dowry violence, 414 females were reportedly raped, 155 girls and women were victims of sexual harassment, and 32 persons became victims of acid violence.

Bangladesh Mahila Parishad recorded at least 504 incidents of harassment, including 75 rapes and 23 gang rapes, up from 329 reported incidents of sexual assault in July. At least 2,930 incidents of aggravated stalking

were reported between 2010 and 2013, driving 104 women to suicide.

Meanwhile, data showed that a total of 11,913 cases were lodged with different police stations across the country in the last seven months. The number of cases was 19,601 in 2013, 20,947 in 2012, 21,389 in 2011, and 17,752 in 2010. Most of the violence against girls remains covered with social stigma, and law enforcers move only when any particular incident is covered by the media widely.

Laws are only good when enforced. To battle the violence, men’s psychology should be altered

In a January 2014 survey, jointly conducted by the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics and the UN Population Fund, it was stated that about 43% of the 12,600 women surveyed in all seven divisions of the country have said public places were the most common spots where they were sexually harassed.

Stalkers in most cases were found involved with the youth wing of the ruling party that privileged abusers to secure bail from courts. After bail out, the offenders usually intimidated the victim’s family to have them withdraw the accusation. Mohila Parishad Chairman Ayesha Khanam said the government and the police were showing total indifference in bringing the offenders to justice and claimed that the perpetrators received patronage from local political leaders.

Women’s rights groups said, in the

given circumstances, only community efforts could check such crimes and provide protection to victims’ families so that they did not become victims for the second time after taking action against offenders.

A class IX female student in the city’s Nandipara killed herself by taking pesticide after being repeatedly insulted and verbally abused by local thugs. Meanwhile, the Dhaka University syndicate in the last month suspended a faculty member over allegation of sexual harassment of a student. The DU authority said the accused would be terminated if found guilty. We cautiously ask the authority to go investigate the matter without politicising the incident.

There are ample provisions in both the Bangladesh Penal Code and Nari O Shishu Nirjatan Ain, 2000, to create deterrence against such deviant incidents. But laws are only good when enforced. To battle the violence, men’s psychology should be altered.

ICDDR,B found that around 54% of urban men think it is a woman’s fault if she gets raped, after surveying 2,000 men in 2011.

Unless we address the representation of women in visual media, the inflow of adult content through the internet, religious and moral teachings in textbooks, the aggression of alien culture, and altering men’s and women’s psychology, sexual violence against women will not be curbed.

Without enabling social protection to women and girls, no nation can claim to be “civilised,” and no society can sustain. We again ask the stateswoman to protect women and girls from sexual harassment by establishing a justice system that demands exemplary punishment to all abusers regardless of their political identity. l Abdullah Zobair is Executive Director, Bangladesh Initiative for Political Development and can be followed on Twitter @azobair.

I

did not forget SM Sultan. I called him Sultan bhai. When I started my career in the fall of 1986 with the Goethe-Institut, the office was located at Road 2 in Dhanmondi. It was a semi-modern three-storey house with a lush green front-yard.

The environment was unique. As you stepped on the front corridor of the building, it would give you a mixed feeling of ancient times – the historical fragrance of art, literature, and music – as though these reverberated in the corridors of the entire building.

It always resurrected in me the feeling of the 15th century European renaissance whenever I went around the rooms that housed film reels and art pieces. The grand black piano would play a thousand notes as you walk along. The huge auditorium gave you a soft reminder of the theatres of the middle ages. While inside the building, you would get caught in olden times. Here history keeps you hammering.

I remember with fondness, the agile and active director of the centre, Peter Sewitz, who passed away a few years back in India. He was a great

lover and promoter of Bangladeshi art, culture, and literature. During his time, many Bangladeshi artists and activists had the opportunity to visit Germany, many had their books translated, or had their artwork exhibited in the centre.

Since it was the home and refuge for cultural minds, the emergence of SM Sultan was no big surprise. It was late December 1986. I remember entering my room with loads of tension, and program cards in my hand to be sorted out.

I worked as the program officer and had to carry out programming activities of the centre throughout the week. Goethe-Institut kept its officers and staff (in program sections) on their toes all week.

I met the man in my room while he was waiting for someone else to show up. He was in the wrong room, I told him. He cared less. I saw this man with long curly hair, not too many teeth, drained cheeks, and with a long black gown on. To me he looked more like a magician than an artist. Little did I know that he was a magician with colours.

We became good friends. He won over Peter Sewitz. We had him in al-

Sultan passed away on October 10, 20 years ago

most all our events. He seldom missed out on parties that we so often held in our premises and at the director’s residence.

We held the art exhibition of this great artist in 1987. It was perhaps the second Sultan exhibition. Goethe-Institut did not mind spending all that was necessary for the event. It was done with heart and spirit. The arrangements were flawless. With colourful brochures and posters all around the city, the event took on an importance. Maestros from all shades took an interest. Well before the event kicked off, I received countless telephone calls and visitors inquiring about the event.

It was a great show of masterpieces

by Sultan. The entire building was decorated with his work, especially the first floor (the exhibition room).

The amazing characters of his paintings (bulging muscles of rural men) were a treat to watch.

It was a successful event. Important government and civil personalities, common visitors, and art lovers thronged the venue as long as this remained opened.

Today, 27 years on, I cherish in my heart those colours on vast canvases and the moments that we passed. The whispers in the corridors, the shouts down the alley, and hullabaloo of the maddening fans in the front-yard, all keep coming back.

A number of times, Sultan would ask me to visit his home in Narail, where he was beginning to build up an empire of nature, birds, and animals.

Although I visited Narail once in my childhood, and played along the banks of the Chitra, I could not visit him during those days.

Along with SM Sultan, those times and characters have passed away into the wombs of time, never to look back. l Mohammad Ali Sattar is a journalist and DT columnist.

12

DHAKA TRIBUNE

Entertainment

Wednesday, October 15, 2014

Macabre World on display at EMK Center

Bheja Fry

Star Gold HD, 9:30pm

n Entertainment Desk A solo exhibition, titled “The Macabre World,” by painter Subrata Das is being held at the EMK Center and will conclude on October 23.

It his third exhibition, Subrata seeks to break away from the tradition of presenting objects as they apparently are, provoking a myriad of human thoughts and emotions.

He infuses life into inanimate objects through imaginative images in his paintings, portraying man, life, society, politics and time in a way that strikes newer relationships among the ingredients of art, through the evolution of subjects, thoughts and perspectives.

The objects in his paintings are brought to life with macabre appearances, hence the title. l

Ranjeet Thadani invite a singer Bharat Bhushan to his residence for dinner. Ranjeet does not realise that Bharat is also an Income-Tax Inspector who virtually and hilariously turn his life upside down.

Ghetuputra Kamola to compete at Italian film festival n Entertainment Desk Deceased filmmaker Humayun Ahmed’s last directorial flick “Ghetuputra Kamola” is going to participate in the Religion Today Film Festival, to be held in Trento from October 10 to 21.

Started in 1997, the event has been a leading international and itinerant film festival dedicated to cinema and religions for a culture of peace and dialogue between faiths, cultures, peoples and individuals.

It promotes a journey “exploring the differences,” both

Artist Subrata Das with the spectators

Members of the Natyapuran theatre group perform during its show titled ‘Amabasya’ on October 13, at the Experimental Theatre Hall of Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy.

The play, which deals with an interfaith relationship between two individuals, was written and directed

by Prabir Dutt

in religious practices and beliefs and in cinematic styles and languages, towards a mutual enrichment through reciprocal knowledge and comparison.

The film, which won eight national awards including best director and best screenplay, will compete at the “Exploring the Differences” section in the festival. It was produced by Impress Telefilm Ltd. Meanwhile, Another Impress venture, “Akash Koto Durey,” directed by Samia Zaman, was selected for screening at the Zagora Trans-Saharan International Film Festival in Morocco, to be held between October 20 to 25. l

Life of Pi

Star Movies, 9:30pm

A Canadian writer visits the Indian storyteller Pi Patel and asks him to tell his life story. Pi tells the story of faith, hope and fighting for survival.

9 bands, 5 countries on 1 platform

KHAN HASAN MD RAFI

Exhibition

The Macabre World

By Subrata Das Time: 9:30am – 8:00pm EMK Centre, MIDAS Center, House 5, Road 16 Dhanmondi

Wild child no more: MEGAN FOX n Entertainment Desk Megan Fox is fed up with being known as the “wild child” pin-up and the 28-yearold American actress

said: “People insist on seeing me as a wild child, a bad girl, a naughty girl, and I don’t know why,” “Because my life is the exact opposite. People have a hard time looking at me, knowing that I accept my sexuality and then understanding that I’m not promiscuous – they just can’t put that idea together,” she says.

“But I’ve been with Brian for ten years.”

Actor Brian Austin Green, with whom she has sons, twoyear-old Noah and eightmonth-old Bodhi and a stepson, Kassius, 12.

It is a career choice she says she finds easy to defend.

“You are made to feel that if you embrace your sexuality, you are an idiot or an airhead, or you have to make yourself seem more masculine.

“Why would we ever want to do that? Women are beautiful, but we’re also intelligent— and some of us are very strong.”

Megan Fox recently opened up about working alongside Will Arnett in “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.”

“I was excited for him to come on board because I am a big Arrested Development fan. He has a lot of big laughs in the movie too, and it was just nice to have someone next to me who is also a parent and, in that sense, has the same priorities that I have now too.” l

Solo Painting Exhibition

By Gopal Ghoshe Time: 12pm – 8pm Bengal Shilpalaya, House 42, Road 27 (old), Dhanmondi

Theatre

Macabre

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

WARFAZE

THE COLOUR COMPOUND

A rock concert titled “South Asian Rockfest” is going to take place at the Bangladesh Army Stadium on October 24, bringing together nine bands from five countries.

The Colour Compound from India, Kaya from Pakistan, Albatross from Nepal and Stigmata from Sri Lanka, as well as Bangladeshi bands including Warfaze, Aurthohin, Nemesis, Arbovirus, and Shunno, will perform at the music fest.

Grameenphone, which is organising the event, has picked up participants from its subscribers after inviting them to download its Welcome Tune. The first 6000 subscribers downloading the highest number of WT (between October 10 and 14) are supposed to get the tickets.

Indian band Colour Compound is a four-piece alternative rock band based in Mumbai. It was formed in early 2008 and has been performing in concerts and other musical events since.

The band Kaya, consisting of three musicians, offers a blend of spiritual, sufi, soft rock and ethnic and world music, drawing on the rich and diverse backgrounds of the artistes.

Albatross, a Nepalese band that addresses contempo-

rary issues of the country, was founded in 1998. It uses guitars and conventional instruments to transcend the sound of Nepalese alternative music.

Stigmata is a Sri Lankan heavy-metal band based in Colombo, formed in 1999. The band’s style is a mix of thrash metal along with some death metal, and hard rock influences, laced with classical, Latin, jazz, blues, baila, and eastern rhythms. l

n Entertainment Desk

ALBATROSS

Girls are not shallow and hollow: KANGANA RANAUT n Entertainment Desk

Fury director brings Pitt and cast together in brotherhood n Entertainment Desk When writer-director David Ayer decided to tackle the “beaten-to-death” World War Two movie genre with “Fury,” he decided to make it an intimate affair for his cast led by Brad Pitt.

“When I told people I was going to make a World War Two movie, the eyes rolled, you hear the groan,” Ayer recalled. “It’s really the study of a family that happens to live in a tank and kill people.”

“Fury,” out in US theatres on Friday, follows five men led by hardened war veteran Wardaddy (Pitt), overcome with fatigue and trucking along in Nazi Germany during the final months of World War Two. “My motive is bringing a cast together and turning them into a family, turning them into brothers,” Ayer said. “I haven’t really seen that level of intense character study in a World War Two movie, and I felt like it was time for that.”

Made for an estimated $80m by Sony Corp’s Sony Pictures Entertainment, “Fury” is an intimate story amid war-torn battlefields. It is projected to open with $25m at the US box office, according to BoxOffice.com.

Joining Pitt in the tank are actors Shia LaBeouf, John Bernthal, Michael Pena and Lerman, who all underwent an intensive military boot camp to research and bond.

“It’s really tough,” said Pena. “From the rations to waking up early to being sleep deprived, you’re really having to rely on the other person to get through.” l

The business of showbiz may be driven by vanity, but actress Kangana Ranaut chooses to not be “just a pretty little thing”.

“There is so much talk about beauty in our industry, especially when it comes to female actors. You are conditioned to believe that you are required only for the windblown hair and the smooth skin. But I am not here to be just a pretty little thing. And it’s not just our industry, but in society in general, too. They would want you to believe that being a girl is all about being pretty,” says the 27-year-old, who recently met young underprivileged girls as part of the Vogue Empower campaign for women.

Kangana believes it takes more than lipstick and pancake to make a mark — “If you have talent, people will wait. All my directors who came to me had no backup plans. Those roles were sketched for me. They said, either we do this, or we do something else!”

The actor is happy that she got a chance to participate in the campaign and get the message across to youngsters. “As part of Vogue Empower, I chose to interact with a bunch of underprivileged kids who had no access to education or career counselling. So I gave them guidance and made them aware about careers in our industry. It’s not just what you see on the screen, there is so much more — from managers to assistant directors etc. I helped them understand that there is more to life than living up to someone’s expectations.

And one doesn’t need to be eye candy. Girls are not shallow and hollow.” l

Did you know?

Antonio Conte is the first Italy head coach to win the first 4 games after Azeglio Vicini in 1987

Sport

Wednesday, October 15, 2014

14 Four-star Neymar

thrashes Japan in friendly

14 Argentina

DHAKA TRIBUNE

13

15 Ajmal ready for

put seven past Hong Kong

bowling test: Pakistan board

Sachin wins hearts, wishes Bangladesh cricket well n Mazhar Uddin All eyes were fixated towards the entrance of the Pan Pacific Sonargaon hotel ballroom as the waiting journalists and guests were eager to witness a glimpse of the living legend of world cricket. After attending a programme of UNICEF at Rupganj, Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar was all set to unveil the logo of reigning Dhaka Premier Division Cricket League champions Legends of Rupganj previously known as Gazi Tank Cricketers.

The little master walked into the ballroom with his usual smiling face and greeted everyone who came up to him with a shake of the hands. By this time, the photographers had already surrounded him for a precious snap.

Reaction amongst guests, journalists, sponsors and even the players of Legends of Rupganj was exactly the same as every single person present there was amazed to see Sachin in front of their own eyes. National discard Musharraf Rubel could not resist himself from taking a “selfie” with someone who many consider to be the god of cricket.

Following his retirement from international cricket, this was Sachin’s first visit to Bangladesh which was organised by his friend, Legends of Rupganj owner Lutfur Rahman Badal.

International Cricket Council president AHM Mostofa Kamal and the state minister for youth and sports Biren Sikder were among the distinguished guests at the programme. Ace all-rounder and Legends of Rupganj captain Shakib al Hasan was also present at the logo unveiling ceremony. Hard-hitting opener Tamim Iqbal, one of Badal’s close friends, however, was not present.

The programme started with a video presentation showcasing the journey of Badal and his involvement with cricket followed by another video presentation depicting Sachin’s illustrious career.

In his short speech, Sachin did not forget to mention his love for Bangladesh. “When this film of me when I was a teenager was being shown, Mr Kamal said to me ‘you started your career very early’. My response to him was ‘yes’. I

started my career from no hair to grey hair and in that journey I ended up playing in Bangladesh,” said Sachin.

The little master informed that each and every single one of his visits to Bangladesh were memorable ones, including the ICC Trophy in 1998 followed by the country’s inaugural Test match against India at Bangabandhu National Stadium in 2000.

The 41-year old also cherished the memory of smashing his 100th hundred in international cricket against Bangladesh in the Asia Cup two years ago.

Sachin recalled that he felt mesmerised by the reception accored to him by the cheerful crowd at Mirpur Sher-e-Bangla National Cricket Stadium in Dhaka.

Shakib and new ODI skipper Mashrafe bin Mortaza were among those who shook hands and congratulated the little master on that eventful day.

“I am fascinated by the response of the Bangladeshi crowd. The kind of support the Bangladesh team enjoy is fantastic for a sport. I remember I got a wonderful reception when I equaled Sunil Gavaskar’s record of 34 Test hundreds.

“A big moment for me because Sunil Gavaskar was standing at the boundary line. He was the first one to congratulate me. From there on I scored my 100th 100 in Bangladesh as well,” said Sachin.

One of the greatest ever batsmen to have graced the game alongside the prince from Trinidad and Tobago, Brian Charles Lara, Sachin congratulated his friend Badal for his love and passion towards the game of cricket and informed that the Legends of Rupganj are in right hands.

Sachin concluded by saying if Bangladesh wants to prosper in the international circuit, they require more players of the ilk of Shakib and Tamim.

“You need role models like both of them (Shakib and Tamim) to bring glory to the country and make cricket more exciting all across the world. I want to wish Bangladesh cricket all the very best for the future and also wish Badal and his team all the success. May cricket always do well,” said Sachin, not surprisingly ending his speech by wishing for the betterment of cricket. l

Indian cricket legend SachinTendulkar puts his autograph on the element that made him the the king of the game-a bat at Rupganj yesterday

Sachin visit lights up Rupganj n Minhaz Uddin Khan Rupganj turned into a hub of celebration when cricket legend Sachin Tendulkar visited the relatively small town in Narayanganj yesterday as part of his day-long stay in Bangladesh.

The 41-year old legendary batsman arrived in Dhaka in the morning on a chartered flight and flew straight to the Noapara Government Primary School field on a helicopter.

Sachin’s visit to Rupganj, an upazila of Narayanganj district located in the northeast of Dhaka, might have lasted

for a little more than 25 minutes but the occasion was not short of excitement by any stretch of the imagination.

More than 200 students of the primary school welcomed the master blaster by releasing balloons while the general public present there vociferously cheered his entrance.

Among those present in the ceremony, Sachin addressed them in Bangla saying, “Kemon acho? Ami bhalo achi” which translates to “How are you? I am fine.”

Sachin said he has fond memories of Bangladesh. “I am really happy to

be here and be amongst you all. I have many fond memories attached to this country. This is my first visit to Bangladesh after my retirement and thanks to my friend (Lutfur Rahman) Badal for arranging such a delightful visit,” said the former Indian skipper.

Later on, the little master, who was chosen as UNICEF’s first brand ambassador of South Asia, promoted hygiene and sanitation in the region by displaying techniques of a proper hand wash to the students.

The batting maestro also inspired the youngsters to play cricket. He went

MUMIT M

on to hand over a cheque of Tk500,000 to the Noapara School on behalf of IFIC Bank Ltd. Sachin embarked on the day-long trip to Dhaka yesterday to unveil the logo of Dhaka Premier Division Cricket League side ‘Legends of Rupganj’ that were previously known as Gazi Tank Cricketers.

Sachin was accompanied by the chairman of Legends of Rupganj, Badal, during his visit. Badal hails from Rupganj and studied at Noapara School for two years in his primary schooldays.l

Hosts ready for Jordan opener n Shishir Hoque

The Legend of Rupganj shirts and logo are officially revealed with Sachin Tandulkar as the main attraction yesterday

MUMIT M

Fielding can boost morale: Sabbir n Minhaz Uddin Khan

Youngster Sabbir Rahman, one of the brightest fielders of the Bangladesh cricket team, believes the existing team morale of the side can improve with more effective fielding displays.

The Bangladesh cricketers are often blamed for not giving extra effort while fielding due to fears of injury. However, Sabbir thinks the situation will change under the guidance of new fielding coach Richard Halsall. The 20-year old all-rounder informed that the cricketers are undergoing fielding sessions with Halsall to learn more about the technical aspects of diving.

“Diving is not easy but it can help you to hold on to a tough catch which might seem like a half-chance,” Sabbir told the media during a practice ses-

sion at Sher-e-Bangla National Stadium yesterday.

“But if someone prepares himself mentally to dive when it matters, it will be easier. We are working on it under the guideline of the new coach.

“For fear of injury, some players do not dare to dive sometimes. However, we have been working on the technical aspects of diving,” he added.

According to experts, poor showings in the field by Bangladesh cricketers sometimes have a negative impact on the eventual performance. Sabbir said he is enjoying the fielding sessions under the Zimbabwe-born fielding coach.

“I have earlier done fielding. But the way I would do it I did not get enjoyment in such a way like I do now. I have been practising with the national team under high-profile coaching staffs. It is totally a different thing to me,” he said.

“If I talk about fielding and fitness, I will say fielding totally depends on myself. If I do not practise then fielding will not develop. I have practised a lot at school and home,” said Sabbir.

He also added that he was applauded by head coach Chandika Hathurusingha for his electrifying fielding during a training session. l

The Bangladesh Under-16 women’s football team will kick off their AFC U-16 Women’s Championship 2015 Qualifying campaign today being fully aware about the strength of their opponents. The hosts will take on Jordan at Bangabandhu National Stadium at 5pm.

Bangladesh went through the rigours of a 50-day long training camp under head coach Golam Rabbani Choton and played six practice matches against Narayanganj and the women’s senior team whereas Jordan trained in Germany prior to coming here for the qualifiers.

Choton said they are conscious about today’s opposition but stated his desire of putting up a positive display on the pitch. “Jordan are stronger than us as they are ranked 53rd while we are ranked 109th. Tomorrow’s (today’s) game against Jordan will be a do-or-die match for us. We conceded six goals against them when we met them the last time but I can assure that it will not happen again tomorrow (today).

Our girls will play well,” Choton told the media yesterday in the pre-match presser.

Bangladesh skipper Monika Chakma echoed her coach’s tune but did express some doubt with their backline. “Winning and losing is part of the game but what we can do is give our best and try to put up a positive performance. The midfield and forward line are okay but the defence is not upto the mark yet.

Hopefully it will be when we take the pitch tomorrow (today),” said Monika.

Jordan on the contrary are one of the favourites in the qualifiers and their coach Manar Mustafa Ahmed Fraij

confirmed that their goal is to seal top spot. “Our main objective of this tournament is to secure first place. We are known in our region as a very strong team. We recently clinched two titles and we want to continue it here,” enthused Manar before adding, “We had a training camp in Germany where we played three matches. We won two and lost one. I believe this was a great help for our preparation.”

Meanwhile in the day’s other game at the same venue, Iran will face the United Arab Emirates at 2pm.

Between all the teams taking part in the qualifiers, Iran had the longest training camp. Iran coach Shadi Mahini also targeted a place in the final round.

“We had a seven-month training camp for this tournament. We went to Uzbekistan last month where we played three practice matches against them.

Our main target is to qualify for the final round and we hope we will be successful here,” said Shadi.

The UAE, meanwhile, are rank-outsiders in the tournament as they are participating in an age-level competition for the very first time. UAE coach Samir al Andaluse said the qualifiers will be a springboard for the future tournaments. “This is a new team and the players are new. Most of the players are from U-14. We take this tournament as preparation for the U-14 tournament which Dubai will host. It will also help the team for the upcoming U-17 World Cup,” said Samir.

The other participant of the tournament, India, will begin their campaign tomorrow with the game against Iran.

India head coach Maymol Rockey said they are not prepared to look beyond the first game.

“We practised for the last two months. We are now fully focused on our first game against Iran,” said Maymol.

Channel 9 will telecast all the matches live. l

Bangladesh coach Golam Rabbani Choton and U-16 skipper Monik Chakma disclose their aspiration at the BFF House yesterday COURTESY

14

DHAKA TRIBUNE

Sport

Wednesday, October 15, 2014

4-star Neymar thrashes Japan n AFP, Singapore Barcelona superstar Neymar thumped four goals past Japan in a spectacular solo performance as Brazil hammered the Asian champions 4-0 in Singapore on Tuesday.

The 22-year-old Barcelona forward was a class apart at Singapore’s national stadium as he scored all of Brazil’s goals and nearly provided more in front of a sell-out crowd.

Neymar underlined his star billing as he moved to 40 goals in just 58 games for Brazil and gave new coach Dunga a fourth straight win with no goals conceded.

RESULT

Brazil

4-0

Japan

Neymar 18, 48, 77, 81

The victory also rounded off a successful Asian mini-tour for this year’s World Cup hosts after Saturday’s convincing 2-0 win over arch-rivals Argentina in Beijing.

Neymar looked dangerous from the off. In an ominous start, he had a penalty shout waved away and grazed the side-netting with a free-kick.

He duly put Brazil ahead on 18 minutes when he ran on to Diego Tardelli’s penetrating through-ball, scampered around goalkeeper Eiji Kawashima and finished with aplomb.

Neymar pierced the Japanese defence once again when he evaded the attentions of Tsukasa Shiotani on the left and went close with a shot which rolled across the goalface.

With Japan’s offside trap sprung, Neymar had plenty of time to pick his spot and put his second goal of the night past Kawashima.

Okazaki, now bolstered by substitute Keisuke Honda, remained industrious and made the Brazilian woodwork shudder with a fierce shot that cannoned off the near post.

Neymar should have have sealed his hat-trick when he rounded a defender and shot with the goal at his mercy, only to see the side-netting bulge.

The 22-year-old was tormenting the defence and he set up first Liverpool’s Coutinho and then 65th-minute substitute Robinho for carbon-copy chances on the left which both went wide.

Kaka arrived to huge applause in the 72nd minute and he quickly drew the best from Kawashima as his firm header, from a Neymar cross, was palmed onto the bar.

But the ball was not cleared and although Kawashima kept out Coutinho’s fierce drive, Neymar pounced on the rebound for his third on 77 minutes.

Four minutes later and Neymar got his fourth of the night, and 40th in a Brazil shirt, when he met Kaka’s hanging cross from the left at the far post. l

Brazil forward Neymar celebrates after scoring his fourth goal against Japan during their friendly match at the national stadium in Singapore yesterday

Sigurdsson dents Dutch Euro hopes, Pelle fires Italy n AFP, Paris World Cup semi-finalists the Netherlands’ hopes of qualifying for Euro 2016 took another blow on Monday as a Gylfi Sigurdsson double gave Iceland a 2-0 win over the European giants.

Iceland -- who only just missed out on a place at their first ever World Cup finals when they lost in the play-offs for this year’s global showpiece -- top Group A alongside the Czech Republic with a perfect nine points from three games while the Dutch, who lost to the Czechs in their opening qualifier, are six points adrift in third place.

Croatia and Italy top Group H, also with nine points apiece, but their victories on Monday couldn’t have been more different, the Croats whipping

Azerbaijan 6-0, one short of their record victory over Andorra in the Euro 2008 qualifiers.

Italy, who had eked out a 2-1 win over Azerbaijan last Friday, relied on a goal from Graziano Pelle on his debut to scrape a 1-0 victory over minnows Malta, who played for an hour with 10 men following Michael Mifsud’s dismissal.

Italy coach Antonio Conte admitted there needed to be a big improvement if they are to see off Croatia in Milan next month.

“The big game against Croatia will tell us just how good we are after these first two months,” said Conte, who saw centre-back Leonardo Bonucci sent off late on.

“We need to get down to work if we’re to succeed.”

Wales, who have not been at a major finals since the 1958 World Cup, overcame being reduced to 10 men to edge

Cyprus 2-1 in Cardiff and hold a one point lead over Israel, who beat Andorra 4-1, in Group B. “When I saw the red card I thought it had killed us,” said Wales coach Chris Coleman.

“We never had determination in the last campaign, we were too soft. We are a different group of people this time, the players have really matured.”

Their respective victories gave them some breathing space over two of the favourites to qualify from the group World Cup qualifiers Bosnia-Herzegovina and Belgium, who drew 1-1.

Sigurdsson put Iceland ahead in the 10th minute with a coolly taken penalty after Gregory van der Wiel had fouled Birkir Bjarnason.

Both Dutch skipper Robin van Persie and fellow veteran Arjen Robben had excellent chances to level midway through the first-half but the former

saw his effort saved by Hannes Halldorsson while the latter was off target.

They were left to regret those misses as the sparkling Sigurdsson added a second three minutes before the break, the Swansea City player tucking the ball away when the Dutch defence failed lamentably to deal with a corner.

It was his fourth goal in his last three games for Iceland.

Dutch coach Guus Hiddink acted to turn things round at half-time, replacing Wesley Sneijder with Klaas-Jan Huntelaar, but it made little difference and left the veteran coach with a lot of thinking to do.

Croatia had the game wrapped up by half-time as they went in 4-0 up.

Andrej Kamaric converted veteran Darjo Srna’s cross in the 11th minute but it was substitute Ivan Perisic who terrified the visiting defence once he came on in the 24th minute.

He scored a brace - the first a header from Ivan Rakitic’s freekick - while 21-year-old Marcelo Brozovic added a fourth in time added on of the first-half.

Playmaker Luka Modric made it 5-0 from the penalty spot before he was removed four minutes later and the shellshocked visitors went 6-0 down as Rashad Sadygov put through his own net just after the hour mark.

Their Balkan neighbours Bosnia also took a lead into the half-time break, a smart left-footed effort by Edin Dzeko giving them a 1-0 advantage over Belgium.

The Bosnians had goalkeeper Asmir Begovic to thank for going in ahead as he produced a great save from Romelu Lukaku two minutes before half-time.

The visitors, though, did get back on equal terms six minutes into the second-half as Toby Alderweireld set up Roma midfielder Radja Nainggolan to beat Begovic from the edge of the area.l

Argentina put seven past Hong Kong n AFP, Hong Kong

Argentina captain Lionel Messi (L), gives an autograph to a fan who ran past the security guards during a friendly match against Hong Kong national team in Hong Kong yesterday AP

Suarez nets first Uruguay goals since biting ban n Reuters Luis Suarez scored his first Uruguay goals since the World Cup finals and his biting ban in a 3-0 friendly win over Oman on Monday.

Suarez took his international tally to 43 with strikes in the 57th and 66th minutes and substitute Jonathan Rodriguez added the third in the dying minutes of the game at the Al Buraimi stadium.

It was the Barcelona striker’s second appearance for Uruguay on tour in the Middle East after Friday’s 1-1 draw with Saudi Arabia.l

RESULT Oman

0-3

Uruguay

Suarez 57, 66, Rodriguez 87

Argentina strolled to a 7-0 friendly win over Hong Kong on Tuesday, with superstar Lionel Messi and Napoli striker Gonzalo Higuain both netting a brace.

Coach Gerardo Martino started with a second-string side that saw Barcelona’s Messi, Manchester United’s Angel Di Maria and Sergio Aguero of Manchester City all on the bench.

Messi came on with half an hour of the match remaining. By then the score was already 4-0 but soon the little wizard had made it five, playing a neat one-two before dinking the ball over goalkeeper Yapp Hung-fai.

He was then instrumental in Argentina’s sixth, pulling the ball back from the byline to give Nicolas Gaitan of Benfica the easiest of tap-ins from in-

side the six-yard box. Just a minute earlier Higuain had scored his first, heading down a cross from the left.

The forward got his brace and Argentina’s fourth with a simple pass into a open goal less than ten minutes into the second half.

With five minutes to go Messi scored

RESULT

Hong Kong

0-7

Argentina

Banega 19, Higuain 42, 54 Gaitan, 43, 72 Messi 67, 85

his second and Argentina’s seventh, taking the ball down beautifully with his left foot before going past three Hong Kong defenders and rifling it low into the corner.

Other stars who didn’t start for Argentina included Sergio Romero, Pablo Zabaleta, Javier Mascherano, Martin Demichelis and Erik Lamela.l

RESULTS Kazakhstan

REUTERS

2-4

Logvinenko 84, 90+1

Iceland

Czech Republic Dockal 13, Lafata 44, Kreici 56, Necid 88

2-0

Netherlands

1-1

Turkey

Sigurdsson 10-P, 42

Latvia Sabala 54-P

Wales

Kisa 47

2-1

Cotterill 13, Robson-Kanu 23

Andorra

1-4

Lima 15-P

Bosnia

Israel Damari 3, 41, 82, Hemed 90+6-P

1-1

Dzeko 28

Malta

Cyprus Laban 36

Belgium Nainggolan 51

0-1

Italy Pelle 24

Croatia

6-0

Azerbaijan

Kramaric 11, Perisic 34, 45, Brozovic 45+1, Modric 56-P, Sadygov 61-o.g.

Norway

2-1

Elyounoussi 13, Nilsen 72

Bulgaria Bodurov 43

Man City fans take Lampard to their hearts n Reuters, London Former Chelsea stalwart Frank Lampard has been voted Player of the Month for September by fans of Premier League champions Manchester City after an impressive start to his loan spell at the club.

The 36-year-old edged out England midfielder James Milner and Spain’s David Silva for the honour, the club said on their website (www.mcfc. co.uk) on Monday.

“There has been a lot said about when the season starts, but the only thing that can decide my future is how well I am playing. They will be kicking me out in January if I don’t play very well!” Lampard told the Daily Mail.

“I am just looking game to game and trying to play as well as I can.” l

Fergie backs United spending spree Norwegian teen makes n Euro football history AFP, London

Alex Ferguson has backed Louis van Gaal’s decision to overhaul Manchester United’s struggling squad with a major spending spree.

Van Gaal was hired to clean up the mess left by David Moyes, whose brief reign as Ferguson’s successor at Old Trafford ended with the club at their lowest ebb for two decades.

United responded by hiring van Gaal and handing the Dutch coach significant funds to breathe new life into the team.

Van Gaal splashed out over £150 million ($240 million) on Angel di Maria, who cost a club record £59 million, Radamel Falcao, Ander Herrera, Marcos Rojo and Luke Shaw.

The new signings have helped United into the Premier League’s top four already despite some indifferent per-

formances, and Ferguson, who retired after winning the title in 2013, is in no doubt that fresh faces were needed.

Referring to the capture of Di Maria from Real Madrid, he told MUTV: “When you can identify ability like that for Manchester United, they have the resources to do that - fees I never quite equalled but they needed a big injection this year.”

On the other signings he added: “Herrera played against us three years ago for Bilbao, he’s a talented young player and we scouted him quite a lot.

He’s quite aggressive for a lad who’s not got a great frame.

“I watched Rojo at the World Cup and thought he did well. He’s capable of playing left side or centre back.

“Luke Shaw we tried to get when he was 16. They (Southampton) wouldn’t sell him but they always said we’d be the first to know if he did. He’s a talented boy,

good footballer and likes to get forward.

“Daley Blind is a common-sense footballer, a version of Darren Fletcher a few years ago. And Falcao is the one we’re all waiting to see, he’s got fantastic goalscoring ability.”

Despite the big-money arrivals, Ferguson is pleased that van Gaal has decided to use the club’s academy as well, with youngsters McNair and Tyler Blackett both featuring in defence this season.

“The rebuilding of the team, they’ve brought in some good quality which is really important because you need quality at Manchester United, you need the best players,” Ferguson added.

“What’s pleased me about Louis is he’s given about seven of the young kids their debuts, which falls into line with the history of the club. I think the supporters will respond well when a young player gets his opportunity.” l

n AFP, Oslo, Norvège Norway’s Martin Oedegaard made European football history on Monday in becoming the first player under the age

of 16 to play in a Euro qualifier.

Aged 15 years and 300 days, Oedegaard came on as a second half substitute after 64 minutes in the 2-1 win over Bulgaria.

“I was a bag of nerves when I came on, but with the welcome I got from the crowd I just had to smile and get on with it,” he told.

“I think it went well and we came away with three points - that’s the most important thing.”

Oedegaard plays his club football in midfield for Stroemsgodset in the Norwegian top flight. Previously the youngest player to turn out in a Euro qualifier was Sigurdur Jonssson of Iceland who was 16 years and 251 days when he represented his country at that level.l

DHAKA TRIBUNE

Sport

Algeria, Cameroon seek Cup places

QUICK BYTES

Walcott returns to training Arsenal winger Theo Walcott returned to full training on Monday after 10 months on the sidelines with a serious knee injury, the Premier League club announced. The 25-year-old England international has not played since rupturing the anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee during Arsenal’s 2-0 FA Cup victory at home to Tottenham Hotspur in January. “Good to have you back, @theowalcott!” Arsenal wrote on Twitter, alongside a picture of Walcott training with the rest of the squad ahead of Saturday’s Premier League game at home to Hull City. German forward Serge Gnabry also returned to training on Monday, having been out of action since March due to a knee problem.

–AFP

n AFP, Johannesburg

Hodgson take aim at Rodgers over Liverpool stars’ fitness England manager Roy Hodgson has risked inflaming his already simmering feud with Brendan Rodgers by criticising the Liverpool manager’s method of keeping Raheem Sterling fit.

Hodgson’s relationship with Rodgers was again put in the spotlight after he claimed Liverpool midfielder Raheem Sterling asked to be excluded from the England team for Sunday’s 1-0 win in Estonia because he felt tired. Shortly after revealing the details of the conversation with Sterling, Hodgson told Rodgers he must do his bit to ensure the 19-year-old does not suffer from further physical and mental fatigue. The 67-year-old then went a step further by criticising one of the methods Rodgers uses to try to ensure his quickest players, presumably including Sterling, recover properly from matches.

–AFP

Garcia chides Fifa over report secrecy Fifa ethics investigator Michael Garcia criticised the organisation’s lack of transparency on Monday and urged it to publish his report into the bidding process for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups. Garcia has written a report into corruption allegations concerning the attribution of hosting rights for the tournaments, but FIFA president Sepp Blatter says publishing it would compromise witness confidentiality.

Speaking at the ABA Criminal Justice Section International White Collar Crime Institute conference in London, Garcia said: “The investigation and adjudication process operates in most parts unseen and unheard. “That’s a kind of system which might be appropriate for an intelligence agency, but not for an ethics compliance process in an international sports institution that serves the public and is the subject of intense public scrutiny.”

–AFP

Younus named in provisional squad Pakistani selectors have named experienced opener Taufeeq Umar and senior batsman Younus Khan in a 19-member squad for the two-Test series against Australia in the United Arab Emirates, starting next week.

“This squad will be trimmed down to 15 members after the four-day side match against Australia in Sharjah from Oct. 15 to 18,” the Pakistan Cricket Board said in a statement. The board also included Mohammad Hafeez in the provisional squad, with his selection subject to a fitness test. Hafeez had injured his left hand in a practice match before the recent one-day series against Australia in the UAE and had to return home for rehabilitation. Former captain Younus had criticised the selectors for not considering him for the one-day series against Australia.

–Reuters

DAY’S WATCH Channel 9 AFC U16 Women’s Championship Qualifiers 2:00PM Iran v UAE 5:00PM Bangladesh v Jordan

Star Sports 1 Hockey: Sultan of Johor Cup 2014 2:00PM Australia v New Zealand 4:00PM India v Pakistan 6:00PM Malaysia v Great Britain

Star Sports 2, 3 Indian Super League 7:30PM Goa v Chennai

15

Wednesday, October 15, 2014

Ivory Coast midfielder Yaya Toure attends a training session in Abidjan on Monday. Ivory Coast will play against Democratic Republic of Congo in their African Nations Cup qualifying match today REUTERS

Algeria, Cameroon and South Africa will qualify for the 2015 Africa Cup of Nations if they win their qualifiers on Wednesday.

All have home advantage with Algeria facing Malawi in Blida, Cameroon playing Sierra Leone in Yaounde and South Africa meeting Congo Brazzaville in Polokwane.

Ivory Coast, Gabon and Tunisia or Senegal could also secure places if they triumph and the other group result is favourable. The Ivorians host the Democratic Republic of Congo in Abidjan, Gabon are away to Burkina Faso in Ouagadougou and Tunisia and Senegal clash in Monastir.

Defending champions Nigeria, record seven-time title-holders Egypt and shock 2012 winners Zambia have a different agenda, needing home victories to keep alive hopes of qualifying.

Nigeria meet Sudan in Abuja desperate to avenge a stunning loss in Khartoum three days ago, Egypt face Botswana in Cairo and Zambia play Niger in Ndola.

Morocco, hosts of the January 17-February 8 African football showpiece, said last week that they want the tournament postponed over Ebola epidemic fears.

Germany-born Cameroon coach Volker Finke wants a return to the form that delivered impressive victories

over DR Congo and Ivory Coast when they play Sierra Leone.

He will look particularly to Francebased attackers Vincent Aboubakar and Clinton N’Jie, scorers of three goals each in the qualifiers.

The Ivorians succeeded in Kinshasa despite Swansea star Wilfried Bony failing to convert a penalty, and they boast a home record of just one loss in 51 qualifiers.

South Africa have impressed under new coach Ephraim ‘Shakes’ Mashaba, winning in Sudan and Congo and holding bogey team Nigeria at home.

A belief in youth has been a big factor in the Bafana Bafana (The Boys) revival with Mashaba preferring teenage defender Rivaldo Coetzee over 30-year-old Tefu Mashamaite in Congo.

For Senegal or Tunisia to secure a place, one of them must win in Monastir and hope Botswana stun Egypt.

Under-fire Nigeria handler Stephen Keshi, a Cup of Nations winner as a player in 1994 and as a coach in 2013, says there is a conspiracy to ensure he fails.

Victory over limited Sudan in Abuja is essential, and Nigeria will probably need wins away to Congo and at home to South Africa during November as well to survive.

A 2-0 victory in Gaborone suggests Egypt can defeat Botswana again and Zambia should end a three-match winless run having held Niger goalless in Niamey. l

Top ranking means PCB to investigate Afridi nothing for WC: Aussies comments on captaincy issue n AFP, Abu Dhabi

Australia’s stand-in captain George Bailey admits that regaining the number one ranking will count for nothing once they launch their assault on the World Cup on home soil in February.

Australia claimed a nail-biting onerun victory in the 50th and final over on Sunday to take the third one-dayer against Pakistan and complete a 3-0 cleansweep.

They won the first match in Sharjah by 93 runs and the second by five wickets in Dubai and are now back in the world number one spot having dislodged India.

“You’re trying to win every game you play. As a team, a whitewash is what you want,” said Bailey, who has been standing in for injured skipper Michael Clarke. “It’s lovely to be ranked number one in the world but come the

World Cup, I think, it will have zero bearing. It means nothing.”

Pakistan, chasing a modest 232-run target, were well on course with Asad Shafiq (50) and Sohaib Maqsood (34) joining in a 74-run fourth wicket stand.

But they then lost five wickets for 54 runs as Australia sensed victory with 24 runs still needed for a win.

“To see our energy, our fight and our intent to get through difficult periods and get through the pressure that Pakistan were putting on and throw it back at them - that was more pleasing,” said Bailey of Australia’s fightback.

“That’s the sort of stuff that will happen in the World Cup.” Bailey, who stood down from the Twenty20 captaincy last month to concentrate on one-day internationals, said leading the team was not on his mind.

Bailey managed scores of just 18, 28 and nought in the series. l

n Reuters, Karachi The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) will look into comments made by standin skipper Shahid Afridi which fuelled speculation about the future of captain Misbah-ul-Haq, board chairman Shaharyar Khan said on Tuesday.

The 40-year-old Misbah had opted to sit out Pakistan’s third one-day international against Australia in Abu Dhabi and all-rounder Afridi was named to lead the side.

Afridi’s comments at a news conference gave rise to speculation that he was in line to lead the team during next year’s World Cup and hinted at strife within the team.

Khan stepped in to defuse the controversy and reiterated that Misbah would remain in charge through next year’s showpiece event in Australia and New Zealand.

“As far as the PCB is concerned, we are supporting Misbah and he is our captain till the World Cup,” Khan said. “The remarks made by Afridi are regretful and unfortunate and perhaps gave the indication of something

As far as the PCB is concerned, we are supporting Misbah and he is our captain till the World Cup wrong in the team.

“We are looking into Afridi’s statement to see whether he has violated his central contract terms and if this is so disciplinary action can be taken against him.”

The 34-year-old Afridi, who has

played 384 ODIs, said he was ready to lead the team and the board should decide quickly who they wanted as captain in the World Cup. His remarks fuelled speculation that Misbah, who has been leading Pakistan since 2010, was put under pressure to step aside for the third ODI. Khan said Afridi should have been more careful with his words and added that Misbah had himself opted to sit out because he was worried with his form.

“I had a long talk with Misbah and he remains our captain but he himself has said that if he doesn’t get runs in the coming Tests against Australia and New Zealand he doesn’t want to be a burden on the team,” Khan said.

Misbah has been Pakistan’s leading run scorer in Tests and ODIs over the last three years but has struggled since the tour to Sri Lanka in August. l

My ‘Clasico’ comeback is fate: Suarez Indian sprinter fights n ‘cruel’ gender rules Reuters, Barcelona

Luis Suarez is likely to play his first competitive game for Barcelona in La Liga’s “Clasico” against Real Madrid later this month and he says it is no coincidence his biting ban expires the day before one of the biggest fixtures in world soccer.

FIFA sidelined the controversial Uruguay striker for four months and banned him for nine competitive internationals after he bit Italy defender Giorgio Chiellini at the World Cup finals in Brazil.

“You know, I’m the kind of person who believes that things happen for a reason,” Suarez said in an interview published on Barca’s website (www.fcbarcelona.es) on Tuesday.

“Out of all 19 teams in the league, it’s precisely against Real Madrid at the

Bernabeu that I’ll make my comeback,” added the 27-year-old. “There must be a reason.”

Suarez will join Lionel Messi and Neymar in a formidable Barca attack and he said he was “hungry” to help the club return to winning ways after they failed to win major silverware last season.

“All I can say is that I have arrived with the desire to be a success at Barca that I am hungry to win titles,” Suarez said.

“I have the chance to play for the team that I have always wanted to play for and it’s a chance I intend to make the most of. I want to show the fans that I want to be a success at Barca and to help my team mates as much as I can.”

Suarez said he had found it difficult to admit to his attack on Chiellini and it had taken him a few days before he was able to “face the truth”.l

n AFP, New Delhi A teenage Indian sprinter who was banned from international competition for failing a “gender test” is hoping her fight against rules on sexual identity will spare others the same fate.

Dutee Chand, 18, said she has suffered trauma and embarrassment, but her challenge in the Court of Arbitration for Sport could change controversial rules set by athletics’ world governing body.

Chand, the daughter of weavers who was brought up in rural poverty, had her promising career turned upside down when she was barred from this year’s Commonwealth Games after showing elevated levels of testosterone.

“I was devastated,” India’s under-18

100 metres champion told AFP. “I didn’t know what I had done wrong. I had not taken any drugs, I had made no mistake so why was I being singled out?”

Chand was diagnosed with hyperandrogenism, a condition which produces high testosterone levels and meant she fell foul of the International Association of Athletics Federation’s gender rules.l

Ajmal ready for bowling test: Pakistan board

Kvitova to lead in Fed Cup final n AFP, Prague

n Reuters, Karachi

World number four Petra Kvitova will lead the Czech Republic in the Fed Cup final against Germany in Prague on November 8-9, team captain Petr Pala said on Monday.

Pala also named 17th-ranked Lucie Safarova, 27th-ranked Karolina Pliskova, and a reunited doubles pair Andrea Hlavackova and Lucie Hradecka to the broader five-member team.

“I’m glad to have these five girls.

Only the week before the tie will show us what the final four-member team will be like,” said Pala.

Hlavackova, the world number 14 for doubles, and 23rd-ranked Hradecka had an emotional split last year after winning two grand slam titles, a Fed Cup title and the Olympic silver in London together.l

Former Pakistan off-spinner Saqlain Mushtaq believes Saeed Ajmal has rectified his action to permissible limits and is ready to undergo a test to return to cricket, the country’s board said on Tuesday.

The PCB will first send Ajmal, who was barred from bowling in international cricket for an illegal action, for an informal review, chairman Shaharyar Khan told reporters.

The board had hired Mushtaq on a short-term contract to help Ajmal correct his action, which breached the 15 degrees level of tolerance allowed by the International Cricket Council for bowlers to straighten their arm.

“Saqlain has given a positive report that Ajmal has managed to remodel his

bowling action to within the permissible limits of the ICC. He and Ajmal are both ready to go for the informal tests.

Once he clears the informal test we will than ask the ICC to test out Ajmal so that he can be cleared before the World Cup.” Ajmal, who has been Pakistan’s leading wicket-taker in all formats for the last three years, was first reported by match officials in August during the first Test against Sri Lanka in Galle.

“Ajmal is vital to our chances in the World Cup so we will follow all the permitted routes to get him cleared by the ICC,” Khan added.

“Very soon we will be sending him for an informal review to one of the three biomechanic labs of the ICC and we are hopeful he can be available for the World Cup.”l

Fair & Lovely Max Fairness has started a consumer promotional campaign, ‘Confidence Jar Bike Tar’. Through the offer, one can get the chance to win a sport bike of a renowned brand called Renegade every day. One of the winners (R) is taking his prized bike from an Unilever official COURTESY

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Wednesday, October 15, 2014

Rosatom to manage Chief whip: Latif to retain his JS membership n radioactive waste at Rooppur plant Kamran Reza Chowdhury

Rahman Rasel n Aminur back from Russia Russia has agreed to dispose of spent reactor fuel from the proposed Rooppur nuclear power plant and transport the highly radioactive rods back to Russia at the end of their life-cycle.

In response to a question about how Bangladesh would dispose of uranium since it had no experience in nuclear waste disposal, director (nuclear and radiation safety) of the Russian stateowned nuclear organization Rosatom, Raykov Sergey, said his organisation would take responsibility for nuclear waste management and help with the eventual decommissioning of the nuclear power plant.

Bangladesh signed a deal with Russia in January 2013 for the extension of state export credit to finance preparatory stage work at the nuclear plant “The spent fuel will be taken back to Russia and will be recycled there. We will supply the necessary fuel for the reactors during the plant’s 60-80 year production life and take back the spent fuel,” Sergey told the Dhaka Tribune at his office.

He said Bangladesh did not have the technical expertise or skilled manpower to undertake such a project nor the quality-assured high-grade components required to build and operate a nuclear reactor. He added that the country lacked the institutional capacity to ensure safety for such a project.

But he ruled out any cause for concern.

“We assured Bangladesh of the safety of the plant and Rosatom has rightly taken responsibility for ensuring the safety of the plant and its by-products,”

the Russian executive said.

The Bangladesh Atomic Energy Commission (BAEC), under the science and technology ministry, will implement the project.

“When the nuclear energy deal is finalised, of course safety and waste disposal issues will be included. There is no reason to be tense,” the state minister for science and technology, Yeafesh Osman, told the Dhaka Tribune.

A top science and technology ministry official said Uranium-235 would be the reactor fuel at the proposed plant.

Uranium-235 is one of the most common fissile nuclear fuels used in power production. It is manufactured as small round fuel pellets. A single pellet is less than an inch long, but is said to produce energy equivalent to a ton of coal.

A BAEC official said the main issues to be looked into is the temporary storage of radioactive fuel rods at the end of their use and the transportation of fuel rods to and from the plant.

Being densely populated and subject to annual river flooding, Bangladesh cannot afford to take risks, he said. Harmful radio-isotopes can build up to dangerous and fatal levels of radiation that, if not properly contained, can kill a person, the official said.

According to the inter-governmental agreement, Moscow will build the plant, supply fuel and assist in the removal and management of spent fuel rods, formulate the legal and regulatory framework, develop the infrastructure and human resource capability and provide financing for the nuclear power plant.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina laid the foundation stone for the 2,000 megawatt plant in Pabna on October 2, 2013.

Bangladesh signed a deal with Russia on January 14, 2013 during Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s visit to Moscow, for the extension of state export credit to finance preparatory stage work at the nuclear power plant. l

Chief Whip ASM Feroz yesterday said Abdul Latif Siddique would remain a member of parliament even though he had been expelled from his party.

“He has not voted against the party or resigned from it. So, his membership will not go according to article 70 of the constitution. This is a settled issue,” Feroz told the Dhaka Tribune.

He, however, said the issue would be settled after Speaker Shirin Sharmin Chaudhury’s return.

Former posts and telecommunications minister Latif was removed from the cabinet and the party as well for his

recent comments on Hajj and Tabligh Jamaat.

Former BNP lawmaker Abu Hena was the first sitting MP who was sacked by his party in November 2005.

Abu Hena incurred the wrath of party Chairperson and former prime minister Khaleda Zia by making a press statement linking Jamaat-e-Islami to Islamic militant outfit Jama’atul Mujahideen Bangladesh and infamous Siddiqul Islam alias Bangla Bhai.

The BNP leadership wanted him to be stripped of his parliament membership for his comments against the interest of the four-party alliance.

Then secretary general of the BNP

Abdul Mannan Bhuaiyan urged speaker Muhammad Jamiruddin Sircar to vacate the seat in line with the constitution’s article 70 that compels lawmakers to be loyal to their respective parties.

But Jamiruddin Sircar on November 20, 2005 told the BNP leadership that Abu Hena would retain his Jatiya Sangsad membership as he had neither resigned from the BNP nor voted against the BNP in parliament.

He opposed the BNP’s decision and made Khaleda Zia understand that the constitution had now such provision.

On November 23, Jamiruddin held a press conference and clarified that Abu Hena would remain an independent MP.

The Jatiya Party also expelled its MP HM Golam Reza from Kaliganj constituency of Satkhira for anti-organisational activities in 2012. But he remained an MP until the last day of the ninth parliament.

However, Awami League General Secretary Syed Ashraful Islam recently told reporters that Latif Siddique would cease to be an MP as his party had decided to strip him of primary membership.

On Sunday, the Awami League leadership decided to terminate Abdul Latif Siddique from the cabinet and withhold his primary membership for his anti-Islam and Hajj comments he made in New York. l

DA N DY D I S R E S P EC T

A man rides on a motorbike on the platform of Dhaka Central Shaheed Minar. Lack of management by the authorities allows such disrespectful acts being carried towards the monument symbolising the spirit of the Language Movement SYED ZAKIR HOSSAIN

Tk165 crore project to reduce highway accidents Asma finally dies n Kayes Sohel

The government has taken up a Tk165 crore project to repair as many as 144 accident-prone spots on the highways to ensure safe journey of people across the country.

The move came following an alarming rise in road accidents mainly those on the highways over the past few years.

Of the 144 accident-prone spots, 34 are in Dhaka, six in Gopalganj, eight in Comilla, 14 in Sylhet, 11 in Khulna, two in Barisal, 35 in Rangpur and 34 in Rajshahi districts.

The project titled Improvement of Road Safety at Black Spots on National Highways is expected to complete by 2016. The government will spend the total project cost from its own coffer.

The latest project was taken in line with the government’s sixth five-year plan that targets to reduce road accidents by 50% within 2020 while the Roads and Highways Department has taken steps to reduce road accidents by 25% every year by 2015.

“Local and foreign experts have already identified black spots on highways that caused accidents due to engineering and technical problems. We are trying to address those,” Road Transport and Highway Division’s Secretary MAN Siddique told the Dhaka Tribune.

He said straightening the Manikganj highway has helped cut a number of ac-

cidents. “This, actually, has prompted the government to take this project.”

About the project, Planning Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal said under the project, there will be development of intersections on the highways, improvement of pedestrian crossings, simplification of road turnings, removal of eyesight obstacles, establishment of signs, signals and road markings.

“Work on the project will start soon,” he said.

Under Dhaka division, the most accident-prone spots are on Dhaka-Bhairob, Savar-Manikganj, and Keraniganj-Mawa Ghat roads, Faridpur Sadar, Modhukhali, Bhanga, Goalondo of Rajbari and Kalkini of Madaripur highways, according to the project.

Under the Rangpur division the black spots are from Sherpur to Gaibandha, Rangpur, Nilphamari, Thakurgaon via Tetulia highways stretching a 300-kilometer road.

From Madhabpur of Habiganj to Tamabil of Sylhet of the Dhaka-Sylhet highways has also accident-prone areas.

Under Rajshahi division the black spots at the Sirajganj, Pabna, Natore on the Dhaka-Rajshahi highway stretching a 125-km road.

Under Khulna division, the accident prone areas are Magura, Jhenaidah, Jessore, Khulna and Mongla sea port of Bagerhat stretching a 200-km road and under Barisal division the spots

are in between Goranodi and Potukhali stretching a 81 km road.

According to a study conducted by the Accident Research Centre (ARC) of BUET in 2011, road accidents claim on average 12,000 lives annually and lead to about 35,000 injuries. It also identified 209 accidents-prone spots in the country.

According to World Bank statistics, annual fatality rate from road accidents is found to be 85.6 fatalities per 10,000 vehicles.

At least 25 people were killed and 43 injured in road accidents across the country during the three days of Eid holidays, according to the newspaper report.

Most of the people are killed in head-on collisions between buses, microbuses, human hauliers, CNG-run auto-rickshaws and motorcycles.

The Improvement of Road Safety at Black Spots on National Highways project was one of the eight projects worth over Tk2,887 crore, which were approved by the Executive Committee of the National Economic Council (Ecnec) with Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in the chair yesterday at the NEC conference room.

Of the total project cost, Tk1383.48 crore will come from the national exchequer while Tk6.71 crore from the organisation’s own fund and Tk1,497 crore in project assistance.

Aiming to address the accommoda-

tion problem for the government employees in the capital, the Ecnec also approved Construction of Multi-storey Residential Building at Azimpur Government Colony’ involving Tk 220.45 crore to be implemented by the Ministry of Housing and Public Works by June 2018.

Under the project, there will be two 20-storey buildings having 152 flats with each flat being 1000 square feet in size while another four 20-storey buildings will be built having 304 flats each 800 square feet in size.

Another project, titled ‘Construction of multi-storey residential buildings at Motijheel Government Colony’ was approved with an outlay of Tk176.42 crore, which will be completed by June 2018.

Under the project, four 20-storey buildings would be constructed having 532 flats of 650 square feet in size.

Currently, there is an accommodation facility for some 15,000 government officials and employees in the capital against the demand for three lakh, the planning minister said.

The Ecnec meeting also gave nod to the Flood Management and Improvement of Living Standard in Haor Areas with Tk993.38 crore to be implemented by the Ministry of Water Resources by June 2022.

Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) will provide Tk594.46 crore in project assistance. l

n Tazlina Zamila Khan

The four-day-old child who was allegedly almost smuggled out of the hospital, has lost his mother, who the doctors at Dhaka Medical College Hospital described as a drug addict and mentally handicapped.

Family members of the child’s mother Asma, however, denied the allegation of her being a drug addict and blamed the on-duty nurses for Asma’s death.

Shahbagh police station Officer-inCharge Sirajul Islam said: “Asma and her sister Sumi are drug addicts. Sumi admitted that she wanted to sell her sister’s baby. She also has a mental problem.”

Sumi is now in police custody.

However, Asma’s father Abdul Awal told the Dhaka Tribune: “We are poor but not liars. I swear by the name of my grandson Shahadat that my daughters were not addicted.”

He blamed the police for trying to trap his children. “My daughters did not want to sell the baby. Is it possible for any mother?” said Awal.

Asma’s mother Taslima too denied that her daughters were drug addicts Asma Akhter, 23, wife of Zohur Uddin Zahir, died on Monday night at the hospital. Her parents are blaming the nurses for the death as they claimed Asma seemed to be okay before her death.

Amirul, consultant of the DMCH ICU, said: “Asma died of anaemia as she was suffering from kidney complications.”

On-duty doctor Asaduzzaman said:

Teenager attempts suicide Ershad: I have destroyed my son’s life n for Indian actor Dev Manik Miazee

n

Ashif Islam Shaon

A 13-year-old girl attempted suicide in the capital yesterday as she thought she would never meet Dev, the popular film actor of India’s West Bengal, who she is infatuated with.

The teen jumped off from the roof of the four-storey Jurain Government Primary School where her younger sister studies, but fell on the roof of a two-storey building inside school premises.

The school teachers rescued and admitted her to Dhaka Medical College Hospital where the doctors said she had received injuries on her left hand

while her left leg was broken.

The sixth grader became infatuated with the Tollywood star after watching his films on Indian satellite channels.

She decided to commit suicide as she became certain that her feelings would not be reciprocated.

Asked why she tried to kill herself, the girl said she hoped that media stories about her suicide would let Dev know about her.

Doctors said after providing treatment the girl would be referred to a psychiatrist as she might had been suffering from mental disorders. l

It took seven years and nearly Tk40 lakh for Jatiya Party chief HM Ershad, former military ruler and now a special envoy to the prime minister, to finally realise that he had “destroyed his son’s life.”

Yesterday, he told some reporters at his Banani office that his younger son Eric – a special child – had learnt nothing during the seven years that he had studied at the capital’s Australian International School.

According to Ershad, his son, who was an eighth grader at the Australian International School, knows elementary English and mathematics only and no Bangla, sports, computer, singing and drawing.

“As a result, although he [Eric] should have been in the eighth grade, I had to recently admit him in the third grade in another school. Such was the poor standard of the previous school,” Ershad alleged.

He told reporters that he had been so busy with his political enterprises that he did not get the time to take proper care of his son during the time he studied at the Australian school.

Eric is Ershad’s second son with his divorced wife Bidisha. Ershad’s first wife is the current leader of the opposition in parliament Rawshad Ershad and they had another son.

Thirteen-year-old Eric has been living with his father since his parents got divorced in 2005. He is now studying in

a school named Proyash, which is an army-patronised educational institution.

When contacted yesterday, Bidisha said: “Do not ask me anything about Ershad and his son. I do not know what he said about his son. It is all up to him.”

Earlier, while talking to reporters, Ershad claimed that despite being a special child, his son was very talented because he knew by heart at least 70 songs of Rabindranath Tagore.

“The Australian International School had been charging me Tk5 lakh annually for [Eric’s] regular education.

They also charged Tk17,000 per month as an additional fee considering that Eric is a special child,” Ershad said.

According to a written statement of Ershad, the school appointed one Moshi-

“She died around 9pm. She became ill after the doctors conducted a surgery.”

Asma’s mother Taslima told the Dhaka Tribune: “In the afternoon, my daughter called me thrice and inquired about the health of her son. She seemed to be okay that time. My daughter was tied up as she resisted being injected saline.”

She added: “Even we were not allowed to enter the ward.”

Investigation officer and Sub-Inspector of the police station Sohel Rana said: “We came to know that both of them [Sumi and Asma] had mental problems.

In primary interrogation, Sumi said she wanted to sell the baby to her cousin Lipi who does not have any child. But her statements were incoherent.”

It is not yet confirmed that they wanted to sell the baby, he added.

On October 12, Asma was detained at Dhaka Medical College Hospital for an alleged attempt to take her baby boy out of the hospital without a release letter in order to sell him.

DMCH Director Brig Gen Mostafizur Rahman said: “Asma gave birth to a boy child on Friday. She tried to flee the hospital with her elder sister Sumi without a release letter or proper document.”

As on-duty nurse, Farzana, tried to stop them, they attacked her and tried to flee the scene. Later, Ansar men deployed at the gate detained them, he added.

The DG said: “Primary probe revealed that the mother wanted to sell her child for Tk20,000-TK25,000.” l

ur Rahman to take care of Eric as a special student; but the person did not have any experience in this regard he alleged.

“The school did not provide any progress report over the last seven years; all the annual report cards mentioned that he got good grades in all subjects,” Ershad alleged.

The Dhaka Tribune correspondent visited the Australian International School in Gulshan yesterday but could not meet Principal Michael Bowmer, an Australian national.

When contacted, Jebun Nessa, the school’s human resource executive, said she was in a meeting and could not talk.

After waiting an hour, this correspondent was told the authorities would not comment on this regard. l

Editor: Zafar Sobhan, Published and Printed by Kazi Anis Ahmed on behalf of 2A Media Limited at Dainik Shakaler Khabar Publications Limited, 153/7, Tejgaon Industrial Area, Dhaka-1208. Editorial, News & Commercial Office: FR Tower, 8/C Panthapath, Shukrabad, Dhaka 1207.

Phone: 9132093-94, Advertising: 9132155, Circulation: 9132282, Fax: News-9132192, e-mail: news@dhakatribune.com, info@dhakatribune.com, Website: www.dhakatribune.com

B3 G20 watchdog toughens up new rule

B4 Emerging markets to

diverge as US thrives, Europe lags

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 15, 2014 www.dhakatribune.com/business

Inflation slips to 4-year low

H&M wishes to place more orders in Bangladesh

MAI,DT INFOGRAPH

September 6.84

August 6.91

July

7.48

May

7.04

7.46

April

pecially as aggregate demand is likely to pick up in the first half of this fiscal and in general twelve-month average inflation, by definition, only changes in

June

7.48

March

The national wage index rate witnessed a 10.62% growth in September this year with 8,661.20, up from 8,612.73 in August

6.97

7.44

Bangladesh Bank

February

“The persisting inflationary pressures over the past few months with the risks ahead related to the inflation outlook imply that achieving the FY15 inflation target of 6.5% will be challenging”

January

Inflation eased for the second consecutive month in September due to falling commodity prices both in domestic and international markets.

Month to month inflation stood at 6.84% in September this year, which is lowest level since 2011, according to data Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) released in Dhaka yesterday. In August, it was 6.91%.

Policy Research Institute Executive Director Ahsan H Mansur said falling commodity prices in the global and local markets has helped lower inflation rate in the country. In the international market, commodity prices so far dropped 25%, he said.

The factors like appreciation of local currency against greenback, fall in inflation in neighbouring India and realistic monetary policy have contributed to sliding inflation, he added.

According to the BBS, food inflation in September dropped to 7.63% from 7.67% in August while non-food inflation rose to 5.63% from 5.76% during the period.

Bangladesh Bank, in its policy statement (July-December) said the FY15 inflation target announced in the national budget is 6%.

Reducing average inflation from its current level may prove challenging es-

7.50

Falling commodity prices in the global and local markets help lower inflation rate n Tribune Report As such BB has decided to keep pol- Chief Executive Officer of H&M n Kayes Sohel icy rates unchanged. The Cash Reserve Karl-Johan Person yesterday expressed 2014 INFLATION TREND (%)

Source:BBS an incremental manner, it said.

It said the central bank will continue to focus on achieving its inflation targets while providing sufficient space in its monetary programme for lending to activities which support broad-based investment and inclusive growth objectives.

The persisting inflationary pressures over the past few months with the risks ahead related to the inflation outlook imply that achieving the FY15 inflation target of 6.5% will be challenging, it said.

Requirement (CRR) was raised in June 2014 by 50 basis points to absorb part of the excess liquidity and help contain inflation – this remains unchanged.

BBS data also showed that in urban area inflation rate in September was 7.02%, which was 7.08% in August and in rural areas, it declined to 6.75% from 6.83% during the period.

The food inflation declined in rural areas in September this year to 7.52%, down from 7.56% in the previous month of August.

The non-food inflation in rural areas also declined to 5.31% compared to 5.46% in the previous month. In urban areas, the food inflation rate decreased to 7.88% in September from 7.89% in August this year.

The non-food inflation rate in urban areas also witnessed a down trend in September as it stood at 6.07% as against 6.19% in August this year.

Besides, the national wage index rate witnessed a 10.62% growth in September this year with 8,661.20, up from 8,612.73 in August this year.

While releasing inflation data at the Planning Commission, Planning Minister Mustafa Kamal said the target of the government is to contain inflation rate within 6.5% in the current fiscal year. l

satisfaction over the progress Bangladesh made in the readymade garment sector.

John Person came up with the observation while briefing the reporters after a meeting with Commerce Minister Tofail Ahmed at his secretariat office in the capital.

“As Bangladesh has made lots of development, we are also growing here and would also like to expand further,” said Person.

H&M, which is a Sweden-based growing company, is doing very well with lots of expansion opportunity in the days ahead, he claimed.

“We buy products from different countries based on prices, quality, capacity, lead time and sustainability and if Bangladesh continues to develop further, it would be even more attractive to the global buyers,” he added.

Person urged the government to ensure sustainability, environmental issues, structural integrity and capacity and customers relations to capture the growing global demands for the RMG products and to remain with H&M. “The visit of H&M chief executive officer certifies that Bangladesh is moving ahead after the Rana Plaza collapse, ensuring safety to RMG workers,” said Tofail Ahmed.

In response to a query, Tofail Ahmed said: “We are trying to enhance capacity building in RMG sector and the government has already allowed the sector to import duty-free fire equipment, fabricated building materials and provided lands to establish an industrial park only for RMG sector.”

Ahmed also said the retailer’s platforms have completed factory inspection and found less than 2% factory risky, which is even better than that of the developed nations.

The present scenario of the sector is calm and better for doing business as the government allowed trade unions in RMG factories even located at the Export Processing Zones' (EPZs), he added.

During his two days visit, Person held meetings with the leaders of Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA), trade union leaders and other stakeholders.

Karl-Johan Person, chief executive of Swedish retailer came to Bangladesh yesterday on a two-day visit to discuss about his sourcing plans and to gather first hand experiences about the progress Bangladesh made in RMG sector so far after the deadliest collapse of Rana Plaza Building.

According to BGMEA, H&M currently sources apparel products from over 250 factories in Bangladesh. H&M is the single largest RMG sourcing company, which imports product worth over US$1m from Bangladesh per year. l

PDB to set up 400mw power plant with own financing

Accord ends initial RMG BCC chairman to be appointed this month inspection of 1,106 units n

n Kayes Sohel

Over 400 Corrective Action Plans (CAPs), which were prescribed by the Accord, have been finalised by the RMG factories and company signatories and also are being approved by the Accord Chief Safety Inspector (CSI).

The Accord, a platform of the EU retailers, came up with the disclosure in a statement released yesterday.

The Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh completed its initial inspections of 1,106 factories, from where Accord’s signatories brands source products within time line of end September 2014, said the statement of the Accord.

More than 80,000 safety issues were identified that need to be resolved, while many of the corrective actions such as reducing weight loads and adhering to load management plans are already being implemented and monitored, the retailer platform said.

The Accord inspections identified more substantial safety requirements such as installing fire doors and automated fire alarm systems, establishing fire protected exits from factory buildings, and strengthening of columns in the buildings.

“We have found safety hazards in all factories ranged from minor to significant. The Accord team is now working intensively with factory owners, brands, and labour colleagues to ensure the safety findings are corrected,” said Brad Loewen, the Accord’s Chief Safety Inspector.

Bangladesh Power Development Board (BPDB) will set up a 400-megawatt (MW) gas-based power plant at Bibiyana at a cost of over Tk2,500 crore to be financed from its own source for the first time.

Since its inception, the board has so far set up all the power plants with public fund or foreign loan to boost power generation capacity.

It has already submitted the project proposal to set up the plant at natural gas-rich Bibiyana in Habiganj district, officials said.

A Spanish contractor has been selected to build the plant. “The bidding price offered by the contractor will soon be sent to the Cabinet Committee on Government Purchase for approval.

Then, an agreement will be signed,” said a source in the Economic Relations Division (ERD).

“The board for the first time has decided to spend from its own coffer to set up the plant," said an official.

Earlier, BPDB started working on another 400MW plant at Bibiyana by borrowing funds from the Export Credit Agency. It selected the Japanese firm Marubini Corporation to set up the plant.

Summit Power – a private power generation company – is also installing another 450MW combined cycle power plant at Bibiyana. The electricity from this plant will be purchased by the  B3 COLUMN 5

Asif Showkat Kallol

n Tribune Report

The CAPs are paramount to this as they provide the remedial measures which must be taken to ensure an acceptably safe working environment, said Brad.

Based on the inspection finding, Accord recommended review panel immediate evacuation and suspend production at 17 as the Accord inspections found that the structural integrity of the building fell below an acceptable level of safety.

Around 110 inspections found that immediate actions were required to bring the factories above accepted safety levels for occupancy and production to continue.

For other inspections occupancy and production has continued while the remediation measures are carried out.

“The next phase of the Accord will focus on the implementation and monitoring of the corrective action plans and rolling out the training and worker participation program – including establishing credible labour management, occupational safety and health committees at the factory level,” said Alan Roberts, Executive Director International Operations.

The issue of fire, electrical and building safety came under the spotlight last year following the collapse of Rana Plaza that killed over 1,135 workers and over 2,500 sustained injuries.

Since the catastrophes, Accord a plat form 189 European retailers committed to improving safety standard, including fire, electrical and structural safety, in the apparel sector. l

Shasha Denims IPO approved n Tribune Report Bangladesh Securities and Exchange Commission (BSEC) yesterday approved the Initial Public Offering (IPO) prospectus of Shasha Denims Limited to raise Tk175 crore.

The approval came at a commission meeting held yesterday presided over by its chairman M Khairul Hossain, said a statement.

The company will offload 5 crore ordinary shares of Tk10 each at an offer price of Tk35, including a premium of Tk25.

The IPO proceedings will be used to repay bank loans, expand business and bear the IPO expenses.

As per the financial statement of the company ended on December 30, 2013 the earning per share (EPS) of the company is Tk3.73, while the net assets value (NAV) per shares is Tk52.95.

AFC Capital Limited and Imperial Capital Limited will act as the issue mangers for the IPO process.

Meanwhile, the commission formed committee to recommend specific guidelines on Over The Counter market to protect investors' interest as the regulator noticed that some non-performing companies are trying to return to the main market. l

The Commerce Ministry is going to appoint the long-awaited Bangladesh Competition Commission chairman this month three years after the commission came into being, official sources said.

Secretary to the ministry, Hedayetullah Al Mamoon, ndc, told the Dhaka Tribune yesterday the rule of Bangladesh Competition Commission has now been sent to the law and parliamentary affairs ministry for vetting.

“We will appoint a chairman within this month after the nod of the ministry,” he said.

According to sources in the Commerce Ministry, the much-sought after Bangladesh Competition Commission (BCC) is yet to come into being though three years have elapsed and Tk10 lakh were allocated by the Finance Division for smooth operation of the commission.

Over the past three years, the government failed to find a suitable one as the chairman for the regulatory body and formulate a competition policy, added the sources.

The government appointed joint additional Secretary Md Sujayet Ullah to the post.

As per the law, the government will

select one commissioner from five possible commissioner candidates.

The BCC will be comprised of a chairperson and a maximum of four members and may investigate into any allegation on its own.

Under the law, if found guilty of violating the commission’s order, one will be punished with a jail sentence of maximum one year and a fine of up to Tk100,000 per day in case of non-compliance with the order.

The government will take appropriate measures against business syndication to ensure healthy competition in trade and commerce as per the law. l

GP eyes 5cr internet users in 3-4 yrs n Muhammad Zahidul Islam

Mobile phone operator Grameenphone had been incorporating over 14,000 subscribers into its volume every day over the last eight years, according to data from 2006 onwards.

In November 2006, the market leader achieved one crore subscriber milestone, and more four crore subsequently by 84 months in last September.

GP officially declared its total number of subscribers at a press conference in Dhaka yesterday.

Exchanging views with the Dhaka Tribune, Grameenphone Chief Executive Officer Vivek Sood said: “I am really wondering about the number of SIMs added to our network every day over the past years.”

“Not many countries in the world and not even many companies as well across the globe can achieve what we did today.”

The CEO focuses on gaining another five crore internet subscriber milestone within the next three to four years alongside the SIMs volume.

The market leader operator already declared “internet for all” programme to bring its subscribers under the GP internet service.

Grameenphone currently has around 85 lakh internet users and 55 lakh of them use 3G. At the press conference, Grameenphone Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) Allan Bonke also declared that they would double the internet speed for all of their 3G subscribers and give an offer of 5 paisa/10 seconds to their valued five crore subscribers from October 15 to 20.

GP started its business in March 1997 in Bangladesh and achieved five crore active subscribers in the third week of September with a market share of 42.51%.

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.

“I am happy to say that we have not

Grameenphone awards its first subscriber Laily Begum, second from right, and fifth crore customer Arif, second from left, at a ceremony in the city marking the operator’s fifth core subscriber milestone DHAKA TRIBUNE wavered and still strive towards ensuring the best services for our customers and our customers remain our utmost priority,” said Vivek.

Currently, there are 11.76 core active SIMs in the country according to the telecom regulator.

Recently Banglalink achieved a three-crore subscriber milestone with 25.46% market share while Robi comes in third with 2.47 crore subscribers.

At the press conference, GP also awarded its first subscriber Laily Begum and 5th crore subscriber.

The CEO said they had been investing close to Tk1,200 crore every year for development of their network and the amount of investment will increase to develop the network quality.

Grameenphone, a sister concern of the Norwegian company Telenor, owns 55.8% share of the operator 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.

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.

The Grameenphone network currently has more than 8,600 base stations in operation, bringing 99% of the population under its coverage.

At the press conference, GP took pride in stating that it was the first of all mobile operators to introduce prepaid service and international roaming service in 1999, WAP service in 2000 and EDGE service in 2005.

It is the only mobile operator in the country that has offloaded its share in 2009. l

B2

Stock

DHAKA TRIBUNE

DSE GAINER

Stocks fall as profit booking continues

DSE key features October 14, 2014

Traded Issues

306

n Tribune Report

Issue Gain (Avg. Price Basis)

129

Issue Loss (Avg. Price Basis)

174

Sidewalk movement continued in the premier bourse and investors continued to reallocate their position, while turnover figures remained buoyant The benchmark DSEX lost 16 points or 0.4% to close at 5,292, hitting highest 5,359 in early trade and lowest 5,283 in the mid session.

The Shariah index DSES, however, inched 2 points or 0.2% higher to 1,240. The comprising blue chips DS30 witnessed fractional losses of 0.8 points to close at 1,993.

Chittagong Stock Exchange (CSE) Selective Categories Index, CSCX, slipped 36 points to 9,936.

Trading activities remained strong as DSE turnover was over

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)

Savar Refractories-Z Fu-Wang Food A Progressive Life-A Kay & Que (BD) -Z Zeal Bangla Sugar -Z Eastern InsurA LR Global BD MF1-A Mercantile Bank -A Global Heavy Chemicals-N Popular Life Insu. -A

-7.27 -6.42 -5.72 -5.63 -5.48 -4.90 -4.76 -4.55 -4.55 -4.12

CSE LOSER Company Republic Insu.-A GreenDeltaInsu -A Fu-Wang Food A Progressive Life-A ICB AMCL3rd NRB MF-A ICB Emp. PMF-A Envoy Textiles Ltd-N Standard Ceramic -A Bank Asia -A Global Heavy Chemicals-N

Closing (% Change) -10.00 -8.19 -6.74 -5.69 -5.56 -5.36 -4.92 -4.90 -4.85 -4.74

5292.60746

(-) 0.31%

1993.27708

(-) 0.04%

16356.43210

(-) 0.27%

13388.58530

(+) 0.33%

9935.84180

(-) 0.36%

Average (% Change) -5.55 -4.88 -4.68 -5.63 -2.19 -5.25 -5.22 -3.55 -1.06 -2.83 Average (% Change) -1.03 -7.87 -4.94 -5.69 -2.10 -2.91 -3.99 -6.42 -4.09 -0.97

ANALYST

ClosingAvg. 56.67 25.34 101.68 13.42 7.14 38.84 6.17 14.96 46.85 206.26

ClosingAvg. 31.67 80.65 25.41 106.00 5.14 5.33 56.83 48.50 21.55 46.72

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 1042.07 1080.35 132.58 994.43 764.96 1951.66 2.29 749.98 1957.31 65.16 121.48 88.37 167.35 303.32 85.95 173.48 328.93 465.15 140.37 359.88 0.18

DHIGH 57.70 26.80 105.00 14.40 7.00 40.00 6.30 15.50 48.40 213.00

DHIGH

28.80 80.70 24.90 106.00 5.10 5.30 56.10 48.50 21.60 46.20

253,511,909

32.00 85.00 27.10 106.00 5.20 5.40 57.10 48.50 21.90 48.00

194,735

Unchanged Issue (Avg. Price Basis)

3

Market Capital Equity (Billion. Tk.)

2,777.31 33.75

33.66

CSE key features October 14, 2014 Turnover (Million Taka)

679.23

Turnover (Volume)

20,106,329

Number of Contract

24,284

Traded Issues

236

Issue Gain (Avg. Price Basis)

97

Issue Loss (Avg. Price Basis)

134

Unchanged Issue (Avg. Price Basis)

5

Market Capital Equity (Billion. Tk.)

2,694.94

Market Capital Equity (Billion US$)

32.67

Turnover in Million

DLOW 57.30 24.00 98.80 13.20 6.90 38.00 6.00 14.00 45.60 200.00

0.017 96.458 1.881 0.416 0.010 0.481 3.655 28.847 29.729 5.308

Turnover in Million

DLOW 28.80 79.20 24.60 106.00 5.10 5.30 55.50 48.50 20.90 45.50

% change 9.49 9.84 1.21 9.06 6.97 17.78 0.02 6.83 17.83 1.11 0.81 1.52 2.76 0.78 1.58 3.00 4.24 1.28 3.28 0.00

Million Taka 69.03 58.60 4.68 77.93 21.66 94.55 87.66 98.93 12.07 10.24 3.38 15.66 26.31 15.08 3.94 10.89 27.20 23.71 32.90 0.00

CSE

% change 9.94 8.44 0.67 11.22 3.12 13.62 0.00 12.62 14.25 1.74 1.47 0.49 2.26 3.79 2.17 0.57 1.57 3.92 3.41 4.74 0.00

Latest EPS 0.52 0.96 2.30 -1.24 -30.63 2.42 0.64 1.30 2.44 17.00

Latest EPS

0.317 0.282 4.789 0.053 0.272 0.208 1.898 0.049 0.474 2.500

Million Taka 1111.11 1138.95 137.26 1072.36 786.61 2046.21 2.29 837.64 2056.24 77.23 131.72 91.76 183.01 329.64 101.03 177.42 339.83 492.35 164.08 392.78 0.18

ACI Formulations-A Bangladesh Welding -Z DESCO Ltd. -A B I F C -A BD Finance-A I P D C -A Shinepukur Cera-Z ACI Limited- A BD. Thai Alum -B Premier Leasing-Z

Closing (% Change) 9.98 9.76 9.58 9.50 9.30 9.29 9.21 8.19 8.07 8.05

CSE GAINER

3.26 1.90 0.96 2.30 0.64 0.68 2.04 1.32 1.74 2.44

Latest PE 109.0 26.4 44.2 -ve -ve 16.0 9.6 11.5 19.2 12.1

Total

Company Central Insur -A ACI Formulations-A ISN Ltd. -Z BD Finance-A 8th ICB M F-A Bangladesh Welding -Z B I F C -A Premier Leasing-Z I P D C -A Islamic Finance-A

Closing (% Change) 9.96 9.95 9.90 9.83 9.67 9.60 9.55 9.30 9.29 9.13

Average (% Change) 7.07 5.45 4.77 8.58 9.51 7.94 9.33 5.47 5.98 8.30 Average (% Change) 9.96 6.61 9.44 10.02 9.67 8.59 8.10 8.20 10.90 12.11

ClosingAvg. 157.56 12.96 66.09 19.49 18.77 19.84 16.53 479.46 34.40 9.39

ClosingAvg. 27.60 157.16 11.01 18.78 63.50 13.52 19.35 9.24 20.04 22.68

Closing 160.90 13.50 68.60 19.60 18.80 20.00 16.60 488.70 34.80 9.40

Closing 27.60 161.40 11.10 19.00 63.50 13.70 19.50 9.40 20.00 22.70

DHIGH 160.90 13.50 71.00 19.60 18.90 20.10 16.70 489.10 35.10 9.50

DHIGH 27.60 161.40 11.10 19.00 63.50 13.70 19.50 9.40 20.10 22.80

DLOW 139.00 11.30 55.00 16.50 16.50 16.50 13.70 415.00 29.90 8.00

DLOW 27.60 149.70 10.80 17.60 63.50 12.50 17.00 9.00 19.70 22.00

Turnover in Million 102.784 4.756 206.254 38.699 60.987 19.402 12.481 185.201 71.160 8.073

Turnover in Million 0.006 8.263 0.099 11.294 0.032 1.001 1.454 0.642 0.551 5.990

Latest EPS

Latest PE

3.36 0.34 1.94 1.42 0.26 0.92 0.50 9.22 0.84 0.10

46.9 38.1 34.1 13.7 72.2 21.6 33.1 52.0 41.0 93.9

Latest EPS

Latest PE

3.14 3.36 0.20 0.26 7.96 0.34 1.42 0.10 0.92 1.50

8.8 46.8 55.1 72.2 8.0 39.8 13.6 92.4 21.8 15.1

News, analysis and recent disclosers From Trade Servers:

DESCO: The Board of Directors has recommended 5% cash dividend and 10% stock dividend for the year ended on June 30, 2014. Date, Time and Venue of the AGM will be notified later. Record Date: 13.11.2014. The Company has also reported net profit after tax of Tk. 668.64 million, EPS of Tk. 1.94, NAV per share of Tk. 32.82 and NOCFPS of Tk. 7.65 for the year ended on June 30, 2014 as against Tk. 804.65 million, Tk. 2.34, Tk. 35.97 and Tk. 10.77 respectively for the year ended on June 30, 2013.

FUWANGFOOD: 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 18, 2014 at 3:00 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.

Dividend/AGM

BANGAS: 50% stock, AGM: 21.10.2014, Record date: 30.09.2014.

BDBUILDING: 5% cash & 20% stock, AGM: 23.10.2014, Record date: 30.09.2014.

MATINSPINN: 25% cash, AGM: 30.10.2014, Record date: 02.10.2014.

CENTRALPHL: 5% cash and 15% stock, AGM & EGM: 23.10.2014, Record date for AGM & EGM: 29.09.2014.

APOLOISPAT: 15% stock, Date of AGM: 21.12.2014, Record Date: 21.10.2014.

DBH: 25% cash, AGM: 25.11.2014, Record date: 25.09.2014.

QSMDRYCELL: 5% cash and 10% stock, AGM: 27.11.2014, Record Date: 20.10.2014.

DESHBANDHU: 10% stock, EGM & AGM: 19.10.2014, Record date for AGM & EGM: 21.09.2014.

PENINSULA: 10% cash, AGM: 13.11.2014, Record Date: 15.10.2014.

FAREASTLIF: 40% cash, AGM: 03.11.2014, Record date: 16.10.2014.

UNITEDAIR: 10% stock, Record date: 20.10.2014.

EHL: 15% cash & 5% stock, AGM: 30.10.2014, Record Date: 02.10.2014.

MHSML: 25% stock, AGM: 30.10.2014, Record date: 25.09.2014.

FARCHEM: 20% stock, AGM: 09.10.2014, Record date: 11.09.2014.

SAIHAMCOT: 10% cash, AGM: 23.10.2014, Record date: 17.09.2014.

BSCCL: 10% cash, AGM: 12.10.2014, Record date: 04.09.2014.

GPHISPAT: 15% cash and 5% stock, AGM: 10.11.2014, Record date: 22.09.2014.

Latest PE 9.7 42.4 26.5 46.1 8.0 7.8 27.9 36.7 12.4 19.1

Two of the largest cap sectors – banks and telecommunication – slipped more than 2% and 0.5% respectively. Nonbanking financial institutions ended flat

SECTORAL TURNOVER SUMMARY Sector

▼ ▼ ▼ ▲ ▼

57.40 24.80 100.60 13.40 6.90 38.80 6.00 14.70 46.10 204.90

Closing

10,975.23

Number of Contract

Tk1,098 crore, up almost 9% over the previous session’s value.

Two of the largest cap sectors-banks and telecommunication – slipped more than 2% and 0.5% respectively. Non-banking financial institutions ended flat.

Pharmaceuticals posted the highest gain of over 2%, followed by power that shed over 1% and, food and allied 0.2%.

Lanka Bangla Securities said market continued to extend loss as investors continued to earn profit on banking stocks for the second day.

The market indicators show that the multi-national companies and manufacturing stocks were back on track as investors were smacking lips at further gain on these stocks, it said.

Zenith Investments said index continued to languish in the red, facing correction as investors swooped down to book some profit.

It said the total turnover volume, however, refused to be let down and stood firmly above Tk1,000 crore.

IDLC Investments said: “Sidewalk movement continued in the premier bourse and investors continued to reallocate their position, while turnover figures remained buoyant.”

Square Pharmaceuticals topped the liquidity chart accumulating nearly Tk70 crore, followed by Mobil Jamuna Limited Bangladesh, Grameenphone, Beximco Limited, Delta Life Insurance and Summit Power. l

Profit booking continued for the second straight session at the stock market yesterday with the DSE benchmark index edging lower amid volatility.

The morning session was in the positive territory. But the mid-session experienced fall on profit taking, particularly on bank and telecommunication issues those fell for the second consecutive day.

Company

Turnover (Million Taka) Turnover (Volume)

Wednesday, October 15, 2014

DSE TURNOVER LEADERS Company

% change 9.52 9.76 1.18 9.19 6.74 17.53 0.02 7.18 17.62 0.66 1.13 0.79 1.57 2.82 0.87 1.52 2.91 4.22 1.41 3.37 0.00

Prepared exclusively for Dhaka Tribune by Business Information Automation Service Line (BIASL), on the basis of information collected from daily stock quotations and audited reports of the listed companies. High level of caution has been taken to collect and present the above information and data. The publisher will not take any responsibility if any body uses this information and data for his/her investment decision. For any query please email to biasl@bol-online.com or call 01552153562 or go to www.biasl.net

Square Pharma -A MJL BD Ltd.-A Grameenphone-A BATBCL -A BEXIMCO Ltd. -A Delta Life Insu. -A Summit Power -A Beximco Pharma -A Titas Gas TDCLA DESCO Ltd. -A

People`s Leasing-A Khulna Power-A ACI Limited- A Keya Cosmetics -A Jamuna Oil -A CSE TURNOVER LEADERS Company Square Pharma -A MJL BD Ltd.-A BEXIMCO Ltd. -A Keya Cosmetics -A Familytex (BD) Ltd.-A Grameenphone-A Summit Power -A BSRM Steels-A LafargeS Cement-Z The Peninsula CTG.-N

National Bank - A Generation Next F-A RAK Ceramics-A BD Finance-A Delta SpinnersA

VolumeShares 2,521,404 3,452,791 1,082,697 109,855 5,796,813 1,236,028 5,253,425 3,251,063 2,286,399 3,120,723

Value in Million 695.54 541.19 404.75 307.29 260.63 250.48 236.11 231.05 210.60 206.25

% of TotalTurnover 6.34 4.93 3.69 2.80 2.37 2.28 2.15 2.11 1.92 1.88

VolumeShares

Value in Million

% of TotalTurnover

6,831,417 2,995,131 386,269 7,011,821 645,112

116,525 175,144 598,339 810,756 694,500 49,000 407,834 144,800 107,000 451,400

1,027,172 716,466 186,259 601,230 582,700

197.46 188.57 185.20 180.45 160.33

32.13 27.23 26.94 20.89 18.88 18.50 18.37 16.41 14.83 14.41

13.30 12.83 12.34 11.29 10.72

1.80 1.72 1.69 1.64 1.46

4.74 4.01 3.97 3.08 2.78 2.73 2.71 2.42 2.19 2.12

1.96 1.89 1.82 1.66 1.58

ClosingP 279.50 158.60 372.60 2721.70 44.50 201.00 44.70 70.10 91.70 68.60

28.20 63.00 488.70 25.90 248.20

ClosingP

279.40 157.70 44.70 26.00 26.90 374.60 44.90 112.40 137.60 32.00

12.80 17.80 65.60 19.00 18.30

Change % 3.67 3.59 -0.56 0.46 -2.20 -0.10 0.90 -1.82 -0.86 9.58

1.44 3.62 8.19 5.71 -1.51

Change %

3.87 2.94 -2.19 6.12 -2.18 -0.24 0.45 -2.09 0.88 0.31

-3.03 -2.20 -1.80 9.83 -1.61

ClosingY 269.60 153.10 374.70 2709.30 45.50 201.20 44.30 71.40 92.50 62.60

27.80 60.80 451.70 24.50 252.00

ClosingY

269.00 153.20 45.70 24.50 27.50 375.50 44.70 114.80 136.40 31.90

13.20 18.20 66.80 17.30 18.60

DHIGH

DLOW

285.00 160.00 378.90 2800.00 47.00 207.00 45.80 73.00 93.10 71.00

247.00 137.90 360.00 2580.00 41.00 185.00 40.00 64.30 83.50 55.00

DHIGH

DLOW

281.00 160.00 45.90 26.70 28.30 384.60 46.00 117.00 141.00 32.10

268.30 147.00 44.50 24.60 26.50 372.80 44.50 111.50 137.10 31.60

29.40 64.00 489.10 26.70 260.00

13.20 18.40 68.30 19.00 19.00

25.10 57.00 415.00 22.10 240.00

12.80 17.70 65.30 17.60 18.00

AvgPrice 275.85 156.74 373.84 2797.27 44.96 202.65 44.94 71.07 92.11 66.09

28.90 62.96 479.46 25.74 248.52

AvgPrice

275.70 155.49 45.02 25.76 27.18 377.59 45.04 113.32 138.63 31.93

12.95 17.90 66.23 18.78 18.39

DHAKA TRIBUNE

Business

G20 watchdog toughens up new rule n Reuters, London Global regulators are making it more expensive for hedge funds and insurance companies to raise money from loaning shares in a bid to curb hitherto unregulated risks in "shadow banking".

Securities financing are typically short-term money-raising transactions between banks and other financial institutions, involving the lending and borrowing of shares or the use of repurchase agreements or repos.

The market is worth an estimated $3.9tn globally.

Regulators worry that as banks become tightly controlled by the authorities following the 2007-09 financial crisis, risky financing will shift to the hitherto less regulated "shadow banking" sector made up of hedge funds, insurance companies and other non-banks.

The Financial Stability Board (FSB), which coordinates regulation for the Group of Twenty (G20) economies, published on Monday its new rule for the first global minimum "haircut" or discount on collateral used to back securities financing transactions, toughening up its original draft proposal.

"The regulatory framework for haircuts on securities financing transactions issued by the FSB today addresses important sources of leverage and the level of risk-taking in the core funding markets," FSB Chairman Mark Carney said in a statement.

From the end of 2017, banks must impose a haircut of at least 6 percent

Bank of England Governor Mark Carney participates in a panel discussion during the IMF-World Bank annual meetings in Washington on the collateral they receive from non-banks as "insurance" on the value of securities being loaned. The FSB had originally proposed a minimum haircut of 4 percent.

This means that for every $100 a hedge fund, for example, gets from a securities transaction, the bank must collect collateral worth at least $106.

It is the first hard rule from the FSB

B3

Wednesday, October 15, 2014

REUTERS

on regulating shadow banking as up until now it has only published principles.

It also marks a departure from the past year or more when draft rules

from global regulators tended to be watered down as policymakers become more mindful of not wanting to approve rules that risk choking funding to the economy.

Currently, there are no haircuts on many securities financing transactions, meaning there is no safety buffer to cover any drop in the value of the securities loaned.

Some FSB members like the US Federal Reserve, pushed for a tougher version of the draft rule.

"The implementation of the numerical haircut floors on securities financing transactions will reduce the buildup of excessive leverage and liquidity risk by non-banks during peaks in the credit and economic cycle," said Daniel Tarullo, who chairs one of the FSB's standing committees.

"It will be important for the FSB to monitor the impact of the framework following the implementation to help ensure that it achieves these objectives," added Tarullo, who is also a Fed governor.

The new rule covers transactions between banks and non-banks. To stop a large chunk of the market shifting to transactions between only non-banks, the FSB launched a consultation on Monday on imposing the same minimum haircut on that part of the market as well.

Regulators will also carry out further work on how the minimum haircut could be temporarily raised above 6% when there is a need to cool markets, known as macro prudential regulation. l

Oil prices hit new multi-year lows in Asia n AFP, Singapore Oil prices fell to fresh multi-year lows in Asian trade yesterday, with analysts citing concerns about a supply glut and the effects of weaker demand from Europe and China.

US benchmark West Texas Intermediate (WTI) for November delivery was down 65 cents at a two-year-low $85.09 in afternoon trade and Brent crude retreated 71 cents to $88.18, its lowest since mid-2010.

Both contracts are down about a fifth from their 2014 highs touched in June.

Analysts said markets were becoming saturated owing to a rise in US shale gas production and a return of Libyan oil into the market, while the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) signalled it has no intention of cutting output.

Kuwaiti Oil Minister Ali al-Omair said Sunday he expects falling prices to recover during the northern hemisphere winter - but OPEC was unlikely to counter the slide in the short term.

“This slump is partly a reflection of weak demand from Europe and China, but it is mainly due to booming supply and has been compounded by dollar strength and panic selling," research house Capital Economics said in a note.

"As such, the collapse in oil prices overstates the weakness of the world economy. l

Dollar ticks up in Asia but economy fears cap gains n AFP, Tokyo

Buba's Dombret: ECB bank health checks 'already a success'

BPDB to set up 400MW power plant with own fund

n Reuters, Frankfurt

The dollar ticked up in Asia yesterday but gains were limited by concerns over slowing global economic growth and the possibility the Federal Reserve will refrain from an early interest rate rise.

In midday trading, the dollar bought 107.08 yen, up from 106.83 yen in New York but still sharply down from 107.79 yen in Tokyo on Friday before a threeday weekend.

The euro slipped to $1.2722 from $1.2753, and to 136.23 yen from 136.25 yen in US trade, ahead of data on German investor sentiment later in the day.

National Australia Bank said in a note that the greenback was "suffering from strengthening conviction that the Fed may play it 'lower for longer'" on interest rates due to concerns about global growth and its effects on the US economy.

Weak data from Japan, China and the eurozone has fanned fears about global prospects, while the Federal Reserve also said it was concerned about the outlook.

That has tempered expectations the Fed will lift rates from their record lows before mid-2015, even though the US economy is picking up pace.

Dealers will be watching the release of Germany's ZEW investor confidence index following a series of negative indicators from the eurozone's biggest economy. l

A review of banks' financial health led by the European Central Bank can be considered a success before it is completed as banks have raised around 200bn euros ($254bn) in preparation, a top Bundesbank official said on Monday.

The results of Europe's most comprehensive banking review will be released on Oct 26, giving the clearest picture yet of the state of a sector that was pummeled during the financial crisis.

In anticipation of the results and without knowing how they will do in the tests, European banks have taken steps to strengthen their balance sheets, including raising equity, retaining profit, reducing risk and selling investments.

"It's already clear now that the ex-

BPDB, the largest power producer in the country.

Currently, the BPDB generates 4,440MW of power from its plants. The rest of a total of 10,390MW is being produced by different government-owned, private and joint-venture companies.

According to the Power Division officials, nearly 38% of Bangladesh’s population is still out of the electricity coverage.

A BPDB official said they invited bids from the international companies in February last and hired a Spanish

ercise is a success because European banks have strengthened their balance sheets by around 200 billion euros," Andreas Dombret, in charge of banking supervision on the Bundesbank board, was quoted as saying by German financial daily Handelsblatt on Monday.

Juergen Fitschen, head of the German association of commercial banks and co-chief executive of Deutsche Bank, said on Saturday that Germany's banks were well capitalised. Deutsche is one of the 130 top euro zone banks undergoing the ECB's review.

The ECB hopes its 'comprehensive assessment' will banish fears about the health of European banks and restore investor trust and revive lending to euro zone households and companies - a key to getting economic recovery back on track.

ECB President Mario Draghi said last week he expected bank lending to pick up "soon next year", referring to a similar capital figure to the one cited by Dombret that banks had raised since summer 2013. Turning to the low interest-rate environment, Dombret said this was a continued risk for banks by depressing earnings.

Corporate bonds also posed a potential risk due to their overall high valuations, which could fall in case of an external economic shock or a sudden turn in interest rates, he said.

Echoing Draghi, Dombret said there were no signs that the currency union was about to tip into a Japan-like deflationary scenario. Euro zone annual inflation has been persistently weak and stood at 0.3% in September. l

 B1 COLUMN 1

contractor for constructing the 400MW power plant. “After completing all necessary formalities, we will sign a contract with the selected bidder.”

He said the gas-based power plant installation might be completed by June 2017.

Another official said they have already sent the project proposal to the Finance Division, Planning Commission, Economic Relations Division, and Implementation, Monitoring and Evaluation Division and other relevant government agencies seeking their opinion. l

New iPhones to be available in more than 115 countries by year-end n Reuters Apple Inc said that its recently released iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus phones will be available in more than 115 countries by the end of the year.

The iPhones will arrive in 36 additional countries and territories across Europe, Asia, the Middle East, Latin

Managing Director of NCC Bank, Golam Hafiz Ahmed addressing the bank’s business review meeting held on Sunday

Le Meridien Dhaka and Four Points by Sheraton Dhaka jointly organised ‘Charity Run’ competition among children of Shishu Polli Plus in Sreepur, Gazipur. The winners were awarded medals. Four Points manager Abdullah Al Mamun, MD of Perfetti Van Melle Bangladesh Rajesh Ramakrishnan and director of programme support at the Polli SS Alam Choudhury were present

America and Africa by the end of this month, Apple said. The iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus will be made available in China, the world's biggest smartphone market, and India from Oct 17.

Other countries where the phones will be launched include Israel, Czech Republic, Greenland, Poland, South Africa, Bahrain and Kuwait, making this

the fastest rollout of iPhones, the company said.

Reuters had earlier reported that the iPhone 6 will be sold in China from Oct 17, after rigorous regulator scrutiny led to Apple reassuring the Chinese government that the smartphones did not have security "backdoors" through which US agencies can access users' data. l

Sayed Nurul Islam, member (investment promotion) of BEPZA, and Miran Ali, director of Baridhi Garments Ltd, recently signed an agreement to set up a garment industry on 11,750 square metres at Comilla EPZ with an investment of $8.54m

Marcel recently opened a new exclusive showroom. The company's brand ambassador film actor Amin Khan inaugurated it. Marcel's executive director SM Zahid Hasan was also present

Commerce Minister Tofail Ahmed shakes hand with Mohiuddin Faruqui, chairman and managing director of Multifabs Limited, after handing over CIP card awarded recently for Mohiuddin’s contribution through knitwear export - press release

BRAC Bank Limited recently signed an agreement with Application Solution Provider Software Shop Limited (SSL Wireless) to provide mobile top-up service to its customers through SMS Banking. The bank’s MD and CEO Syed Mahbubur Rahman and MD of SSL Wireless Sayeeful Islam inked the deal at the bank’s head office

A joint meeting with Howrah Rotary Club of India and Cosmopolitan Rotary Club of Dhaka was recently held at CIRDAP in Dhaka. Dhaka Cosmopolitan Club President Abul Khair Chowdhury presided over the meeting

B4

DHAKA TRIBUNE

Back Page

Wednesday, October 15, 2014

Emerging markets to diverge as US thrives, Europe lags n Reuters, London Investors are rethinking their exposure to emerging markets, focusing on countries likely to weather lean times with manufacturing exports to the United States while avoiding those that have thrived on sending commodities to a now slowing China.

After the financial crisis erupted in 2008, emerging markets drew in huge amounts of capital as investors fled ultra-low interest rates brought in to fend off recession in the United States, while commodity and energy exporters prospered from booming demand from China.

Now, Chinese economic growth is weakening and oil prices are falling, whereas the dollar is riding high on expectations that the U.S. Federal Reserve will raise interest rates from next year. The euro zone economy, meanwhile, is flirting with recession for the third time in recent years. That leaves the United States as the only buoyant major market for emerging market export economies, especially those based on manufacturing and services.

"Simply increasing broad exposure to emerging markets is no longer enough and it is necessary to discriminate between countries and regions," Richard Titherington, head of emerging market equities, at JP Morgan Asset Management, told a briefing last week.

JP Morgan Asset Management tips Singapore, Taiwan and Thailand as examples of manufacturing nations likely to benefit from a growing U.S. economy.

Google says Amazon biggest search engine rival n AFP Google boss Eric Schmidt said Monday his company's biggest competition as a search engine came from e-commerce giant Amazon, not from its traditional rivals.

In remarks prepared for delivery in Berlin, Schmidt hit back at accusations that Google as the world's biggest search engine enjoyed unchallenged market dominance, saying that the sector was targeting the company on several fronts.

"Many people think our main competition is Bing or Yahoo. But, really, our biggest search competitor is Amazon," he said.

"People don't think of Amazon as search, but if you are looking for something to buy, you are more often than not looking for it on Amazon."

He said that while Amazon's main mission was "the commerce side of the equation", the company was essentially "answering users' questions and searches, just as we are".

He added that Google's outsize market position was under constant threat from upstarts and innovators.

"Someone, somewhere in a garage is gunning for us. I know, because not long ago we were in that garage," he said. l

German gloom deepens as investor sentiment hits 22-month low n AFP The pall of gloom hanging over the German economy, Europe's biggest, deepened in October as investment sentiment turned negative and fell to its lowest level in nearly two years, a survey showed yesterday.

The widely watched investor confidence index calculated by the ZEW economic institute fell by 10.5 points to minus 3.6 points in October, its lowest level since November 2012, and the first time since then that it has been in negative territory, ZEW said in a statement.

It was the 10th month in a row that the index has fallen.

"ZEW's financial market experts expect the economic situation in Germany to decline further over the medium term," said ZEW president Clemens Fuest.

"Geopolitical tensions and the weak economic development in some parts of the eurozone, which is falling short of previous expectations, are a source of persistent uncertainty. These factors are tarnishing growth expectations in Germany," Fuest said.

A raft of recent disappointing data, including factor orders, industrial production, and foreign trade "have likely contributed to the growing pessimism among financial market experts," ZEW added.

Only last week, the country's leading economic institutes slashed their growth forecasts for both this year and next. l

Investors sit in front of computer screens at a brokerage house in Shenyang, Liaoning province Commodity exporters such as Russia, Chile, South Africa and Brazil are likely to fare less well because their growth of recent years was driven largely by demand from China, Titherington said.

"Manufacturers have historically benefited from developed market demand faster than commodity export-

ers," he added. Those emerging markets that have had to compete with China in importing commodities should benefit from the falling cost of oil.

That should help to improve their balance sheets and drive down the cost of production for manufacturing industries.

In India for instance, the cost of importing oil has dropped 12.6% in local currency terms since Brent crude hit a $147 per barrel peak in July 2008.

Similarly, for Indonesia, the cost of buying oil is down 18% and for South Korea, crude is 37% cheaper.

Avinash Vazirani, a fund manager at

Trade engine shifts down just as global growth needs a boost n Reuters, Washington Policymakers scrambling to keep the world economy from settling into the "new mediocre" of sluggish growth can no longer rely on global trade to do the heavy lifting.

International trade helped the global economy tide over rough spots over two decades before the financial crisis, when it grew nearly twice as fast as economic output, but this engine is running out of fuel.

That is bad news for officials taking part in discussions at the International Monetary Fund and World Bank meetings this week, focused on preventing what International Monetary Fund chief Christine Lagarde warns could be a long spell of sub-par performance for the global economy.

The impetus from China and Russia opening their doors and the emergence of global supply chains, linking factories in emerging markets with rich consumers in the developed world, has largely run its course, economists say.

"It's that particular engine which seems to have exhausted its propulsive energy for now," said World Bank trade specialist Aaditya Mattoo.

The McKinsey Global Institute calculates trade and cross-border financial flows contribute up to a quarter of global growth, leaving policymakers with a gaping hole to fill if trade shifts into a lower gear.

As the IMF cut its global growth outlook, it also forecast annual trade growth to average just 4.2% in the 10 years starting in 2016, compared to 6.7% in the decade leading up to the 2008-2009 financial crisis.

One reason for that downgrade is obvious enough: it is hard to replicate the effect of an economy of China's size tearing down trade barriers.

Add to that slower growth in other emerging markets as they become richer and have less catching up to do, a smaller wage gap between developed and developing nations and a renewed leaning to make inputs for final products close to home.

'It's that particular engine which seems to have exhausted its propulsive energy for now' RBC Global Asset Management chief economist Eric Lascelles predicts trade's contribution to growth will be half a percentage point lower than in the previous two decades - half of that because of weak global demand, trade barriers and geopolitical tensions and half reflecting permanent changes in trade dynamics.

"We could expect some of the lost trade to come back but realistically a lot of it is probably gone forever and we may actually be in an area of diminished globalization, primarily via lower trade flows but perhaps also via less on the migration front and less on the financial flows front," he said.

The pressure is on policymakers to regain as much momentum as possible through far-reaching regional and global pacts and standards under the aegis of the World Trade Organization.

"We have been living too much off past trade liberalization," WTO Director-General Roberto Azevedo told the IMF's steering committee, urging policymakers to support a global pact to cut customs red tape, now stalled by opposition from India.

Economists estimate that those changes, when fully implemented, could boost global output by $1% per year, equivalent to a 1.3% boost to the world economy.

That's roughly twice as much as the combined impact of major trade deals being negotiated between the United States and Europe and another between 12 Pacific Rim countries, including the United States, Japan, Canada and Australia.

Economist Ed Gresser, from Washington-based think tank Progressive Economy, said services trade could expand as technological innovations made it easier to provide services like education and healthcare across borders.

In the United States alone, internetfriendly services such as communications and financial services had grown to make up 11.7% of exports by 2012, from 7.6% in 2000.

"The natural path of that should be to bring services up, in the same way that manufacturing trade grew relative to resources and agriculture in the second half of the 20th century," he said.

HSBC global chief economist Stephen King said there was also potential to increase trade among countries in Latin America, Asia, the Middle East and Africa, which had not been fully captured by recent waves of trade growth. l

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Jupiter Asset Management, said India will benefit particularly as it subsidises energy prices on the domestic market.

High global oil prices strain the public budget, but these pressures ease as the cost of imports falls.

It is no wonder then that India-focused equity funds have enjoyed the

Money grows on trees with great walnuts of China n AFP Grinning with pride, a Chinese farmer held out two precious walnuts - globes so precisely symmetrical that consumers in search of hand massages value them more highly than gold.

"Prices have skyrocketed," said Li Zhanhua, standing in the shade of the leafy green walnut trees which have made him a small fortune. "Years ago, we could never have imagined this."

Rolling a pair of walnuts between palm and fingers - believed to improve circulation - has been a Chinese pastime for hundreds of years.

"Mainly the walnuts are good for the body, that's why people play with them," Li said, plucking a deep brown pair out of a display case.

Walnuts were used as toys in China's imperial courts as early as 220 AD, but were championed by officials during the Qing Dynasty (1644-1912) and have been a status symbol exchanged among the country's elite ever since.

Demand has grown alongside China's economic boom, and vendors say they are especially popular among the newly wealthy and gangsters profiting from Beijing's grey economy.

Years of rising prices have transformed the lives of farmers in Laishui county, a few hours from the capital.

Just a decade ago, Li and his neighbours ploughed a hard-scrabble existence growing wheat and corn, but now take regular holidays from their mountainside village and own imported cars as well as apartments in a nearby city.

Li once sold a prized pair for 160,000 yuan, but added: "Even a relatively ordinary pair of walnuts can be more expensive than gold, in terms of weight."

"We are all grateful for the huge changes the walnuts have brought us. All of our development depends on them," said Li, who says he harvests up to 2m yuan ($325,000) a year from his nuts.

"Before, just building a house or getting married would be a big expense for us. We didn't imagine buying houses in the city."

Going nuts Images of the humble walnut are everywhere in Laishui, shining down from shop fronts, huge banners lining the streets, and naturally, printed on business cards.

Collectors are not interested in the edible kernel, but instead value its ridged brown shell, which grows concealed beneath a green husk.

Farmers root through truckloads of produce to find pairs with the most sym-

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A stock trader(C)takes pictures of a Ferrari LaFerrari dsplayed in front of the New York Stock Exchange yesterday in New York. Italian automaker Fiat Chrysler Automobiles on Monday, moved higher in its first day of Wall Street trade after shifting its main listing from Milan to attract more investment. The newly merged Italian auto giant, formed by Fiat's full acquisition of US automaker Chrysler, debuted on the NYSE under the symbol FCAU AFP

best returns in emerging markets so far in 2014 while commodity exporting Russia brings up the rear..

State revenues in oil-based economies such as Russia are dwindling, leading to wider budget deficits that put pressure on their currencies as well as depressing economic growth.

With Brent crude now at around $89 per barrel, it is below the $92 level Saudi Arabia needs to fund its budget.

Other oil exporters such as Algeria, Ecuador and Nigeria all need a price well over $100 per barrel for their budgets.

"You do have to take oil into account (while allocating). The oil price fall is a relatively positive development for countries such as India, or Turkey which are importers while others such as Brazil and Russia will be penalised," said Jeremy Lawson, chief economist at Standard Life Investments.

However, Lawson and others cautioned that the United States, which is projected to post robust growth by the International Monetary Fund, is a weak engine for global growth on its own.

"There has been a tendency to overstate the strength of the global economic recovery ... There has been too much faith in the ability of US growth to lift all boats," Lawson said.

Simply focusing on manufacturers rather than commodity exporters may not be enough to weather more volatile global markets, however. Investors may need to discriminate further still, to filter out emerging markets that depend on exporting to weaker developed markets in Europe or Japan. l

metrical pits and ridges, which bring the highest prices.

Size – the bigger the better - and colour also play a role, with deeper browns more valuable.

“Each one is unique, and becomes red as you play with it," said Li's neighbour Zhang Guifu, gripping a high-pressure hose while spraying a box of freshly husked nuts. "It's valuable as a collector's item and for boosting brain fitness."

Different varieties' names are as colourful as the nuts themselves. There is the "government official's hat", whose pitted surface and form recall the tasselled headwear of Qing dynasty courtiers, as well as the "chicken's heart" and "lantern", named for their shapes.

At an open air market, dozens of salespeople sat behind walnuts placed in rows or perched on revolving plastic podiums.

“At the high point of the season this whole area is packed with cars and people like a sea, you can't even move,” said vendor Lin Changzhu, whose namecard shows two deep red nuts.

But local fortunes have encouraged another growth industry -- walnut theft.

To prevent pilfering, farmers like Li and Dong have fortified their fields with barbed-wire fences, grizzly guard dogs and security cameras.

Skin deep With prices appreciating long term, investors facing low interest rates on bank deposits have turned to walnuts as a store of value, according to Chinese reports, and speculating on unpeeled walnut fruit has become a form of gambling, which is generally banned in mainland China.

In a practice called “betting on skin” buyers pay a fixed price for the nuts before their green outer covering has been removed, hoping that what is inside will be worth more than they shelled out.

Walnuts have been sold for generations in Beijing's Shilihe market, where stalls also offer specialised walnut oil and brushes.

Dozens of mostly middle-aged men crouched smoking and commenting on lines of fruit set out on black cloth.

After prodding and measuring a series of specimens, and a prolonged debate, Beijinger Miao Yaoge rolled out 2,000 yuan in crisp red notes, before watching as the vendor cut open his chosen pair with a kitchen knife.

“Look, the husk is thin,” the seller exclaimed, suggesting a larger nut and prompting a flicker of a smile from Miao, 45, an imposing figure with a shaved head and a white tracksuit. l