August 21, 2013

Metro

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Bhadra 6, 1420 Shawwal 13, 1434 Regd. No. DA 6238 Vol 1 No 149

Encroachers occupy Phulbaria footpath

International

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Egypt arrests Brotherhood chief

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 21, 2013 | www.dhakatribune.com

Ten Islamist outfits to face ban

Sport

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Sao Paulo will be ready to host World Cup opener: FIFA

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ENSURE WORKPLACE SAFETY

50 others, some of which reportedly operate from outside the country, are under watch

n Kailash Sarkar In the wake of rising militant activities, the government is set to ban at least 10 Islamist organisations soon. The move comes at a time when five outlawed and seven blacklisted organisations have been operating defying the government ban and vigilance of the law enforcement agencies.

Apart from the 10 groups, around 50 others, including some from outside the country, have already been brought under vigilance for their suspected militant activities in different forms.

The present government on October 22, 2009 banned Hizb-utTahrir. The same year, seven other organisations – Hizb-ut-Tawhid, Islami Samaj, Ulema Anjuman al Baiyinaat,

‘Decision against some of them is under process considering safety and security of the state and its people’ Islamic Democratic Party, Tawhid Trust, Tamir ud-Deen and Alla’r Dal – were blacklisted for their suspected involvement in militant activities.

According to the officials of home ministry, police and Rab, the government is now set to ban all the seven blacklisted organisations and three others – Shahadat-e-Nobuwat, Ansarullah Bangla Team and Al Markajul al Islami. Of the three, the existence of Ansarullah Bangla Team has been uncovered very recently.

Earlier, the previous BNP-Jamaat government outlawed Shahadat-e-al Haqima (SAH) on February 9, 2003; Jama’at-ul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) and Jagrata Muslim Janata Bangladesh (JMJB) on February 23, 2005; and Harkat-ul Jihad al Islami (Huji) on October 17, 2005.

But all the banned and listed organ-

isations have been running their activities even after the execution of six top leaders of the JMB on March 29, 2007, and the arrest of several thousand leaders and activists of the banned outfits, mainly Hizb-ut-Tahrir.

“We have recently found some organisations involved in militancy. They are under watch. Decision against some of them is under process considering safety and security of the state and its people,” State Minister for Home Shamsul Huq Tuku told the Dhaka Tribune on Sunday.

Tuku said he would not mention the number and names of those organisations. “But it is true that the government is working on those organisations,” he added.

Recently, several militant groups have been found conducting publicity campaigns through brisk processions, publishing posters and leaflets, and holding secret meetings, say law enforcers.

Activists of most of the militant groups believe in sacrificing their lives to establish the rule of Islam. In this view, they target the poor and common Muslims and cash in their beliefs in religion.

Over the past few years, law enforcers arrested more than a dozen foreign militant leaders belonging to Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), Harkat-ul Mujahideen, Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF), Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM), Jaish-e-Mostofa and Kashmir-based organisation Asif Reza Commando Force (ARCF) in Bangladesh.

The detained militant leaders had reportedly recruited thousands of local youths under the name of different organisations, inspired them with jihadi spirits “to establish Islamic rule” and trained them to operate arms and make bombs and grenade.  PAGE 2 COLUMN 5

A worker is engaged in a hazardous task at a workshop on Tipu Sultan Road in the capital yesterday. Spare parts for mills and factories are produced in different areas of the city, using local technologies, which saves the country a large amount of foreign currencies. But workers of these factories usually work without any proper safety measures. If a secured atmosphere could be ensured for these workers, the sector could become a potential industry SYED ZAKIR HOSSAIN

Amended ICT act may be challenged n Muhammad Zahidul Islam The drafted Information and Communication Technology (Amendment) Ordinance 2013 is likely to be challenged in court by a few NGOs and international agencies as they think the law contradicts people’s human rights.

Officials in the ICT industry and legal experts have said there is a huge chance that the law could be misused in the name of preventing cybercrimes.

Many have termed it a “black law.”

“There is no doubt that this is a black law…Not just ICT people, every citizen should join hands to protect

their rights by preventing execution of the law,” Dr Ananya Raihan, executive director of Dnet, told the Dhaka Tribune yesterday.

Raihan is also a member of the high-profile Digital Taskforce, the highest government body in the ICT sector headed by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. Raihan said ICT experts were considering a legal challenge against the law.

“We are planning to challenge this amended act with the assistance of the TIB [Transparency International Bangladesh]. We will also talk to the BLAST [Bangladesh Legal Aid and Services Trust] about the legal and human rights

aspects of the challenge,” he said.

When contacted, ICT Secretary Nazrul Islam Khan, however, said: “We took the previous act as the pillar and proposed amendments to some sections of it. As nobody objected to the existing act there is no scope to challenge this amendment initiative.

“People can criticise us, but we did it as a responsibility for the society and the cabinet has approved it. There are lots of scopes to specify some crimes and we will change some sections of the amended act when it is placed in the parliamentary standing committee.”

n Our Correspondent, Chandpur

Sanaul Islam Tipu and n Md Ashif Islam Shaon The fate of the August 21 grenade attack case has become uncertain due to its slow pace with the ruling government nearing the end of its tenure.

Those involved in the process fear that if the government changes, the whole process of the case could be overturned, as many opposition bigwigs have been indicted in the case.

The trial, which resumed formally after further investigation on April 23 last year against 52 accused, saw only 72 prosecution witnesses out of 491 testifying before court.

Only 12 of them had given their statements following the indictment.

BNP senior vice chairperson, Tarique Rahman, and 29 others were mentioned in the supplementary charge sheet submitted on March 18, 2011.

The further investigation was ordered during the tenure of the caretaker government, August 3, 2009, based

INSIDE News

3 The Sundarbans Gas Company Limited (SGCL), a concern of the state-run Petrobangla, will begin installing new household gas connections in Bhola city from August 28. However, no new industrial connections will be given out at the moment as the date remains still undecided.

Nation

6 Hundreds of street children in Rajshahi have been getting addicted to an adhesive solution, locally known as ‘Dandi’ — a mixture of leather solvent and glue, as it is cheap and easy to obtain.

International

9 The Guardian newspaper says the British government forced it to destroy files or face a court battle over its publication of US security secrets leaked

by Edward Snowden, as the fallout over the arrest of a man linked to the fugitive intensifies.

Business

B1 To achieve its revenue target of Tk1.36tn in the current fiscal year, the National Board of Revenue (NBR) is bringing about some changes in the administrative role of members and officials.

on a prosecution plea. The remaining 60 had testified in between October 29, 2008, when the trial first started, until its postponement on June 9 of that year.

Despite the slow process, the prosecution is hopeful that the trial of the sensational cases over the bomb attack  PAGE 2 COLUMN 1

The families of two deceased local Awami League leaders killed in the August 21 grenade attack in the capital struggle to survive after losing their sole breadwinners.

The two were Abdul Kuddus and Atique Ullah who hailed from Haimchar and Motlob upazilas respectively – both of them belonging to local Awami League politics.

Demand for punishment of the murderers has been reflected through the woebegone expression of the family members.

Kuddus’s mother Amena Begum said she still bears a deep scar in her heart over the loss of her own son.

While talking to the Dhaka Tribune, she burst into tears and said: “I cannot

n Mohosinul Karim

get my son back. Only those who have lost their own kids can understand my pain.”

“Nine years have passed since the attack took place but the killers are yet to be meted out punishment,” she added.

Sujana, Kuddus’s niece, also demanded capital punishment to those who carried out the grenade attack on the Awami League rally on August 21.

The victim’s elder brother Humayun Kabir said: “My brother lost his life while saving Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on August 21 in 2004.”

“It has been nine years since the grenade attack took place on Bangabandhu Avenue in Dhaka,” he said, demanding that the killers be brought to book within the tenure of the government.

Communications Minister ObaidulQuader yesterday confirmed that three organisations, enlisted as pre-qualified for participating in the Padma Bridge Project’s tender, have so far bought the necessary papers to contest the tender project.

The last date for dropping tenders is September 7 while the tender box will be opened on September 9. A technical committee will decide on the constructor and adviser organisations, the minister said.

He was talking at a press briefing at the ministry yesterday.The minister said 11 other firms, who intend to work as advisers to the project have also bought the tender papers.He, however, did not mention the names of the organisations which have already bought the tender documents and took part in the pre-tender discussion.

The communications ministry had organised the briefing to updateon the steps taken to repair the dilapidated roads in the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT).

The government on June 26, floated international tender for constructing the main frame of the Padma Bridge.

A high-level technical committee, led by Professor Jamilur Reza Chowdhury selected five companies as pre-qualified, and only allowed them to take part in the bid held between July 7 and September 7.

Shafiqul Islam, project director of Padma Multipurpose Bridge Project told the Dhaka Tribune, out of the five

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Grenade attack cases facing ‘uncertainty’ Families struggle to survive after breadearners’ demise AU G U S T 2 1 GRENADE AT TAC K

Three firms vie for Padma Bridge work

BNP goes soft on hard programmes n Mohammad Al-Masum Molla With barely two months left before parliament dissolves, BNP has planned to backtrack from its earlier hard-line oust-government campaigns, apparently to retain the public support it has garnered during city corporation polls.

Earlier, the senior leaders including party Chief Khaleda Zia threatened to wage vigorous movements after Eid-ulFitr, but the party has decided to give the government more time, namely until Eid-ul-Azha, to resolve the prevailing political standoff.

Party insiders said they want to ex-

ercise maximum restraint given Eidul-Azha, Durga Puja and diplomatic concerns.

“We are giving some more time to the government. We want to convey a message to the people as well as to diplomats that we do not want violence and confrontation,” said a senior BNP leader.

“At the same time, we also know the government will not comply to our demand. By that time, the people and diplomats will have a positive impression about us. After that, if we go for hard programmes people will be with us,” he said on Tuesday.

Talking to a number of senior leaders, it was learned that party leaders believed the government would not accept their demand, and that organisational tours were announced mainly to launch a campaign against the one-party election.

Party Chairperson Khaleda Zia will hold rallies on September 8 in Narsingdi, September 15 in Rajshahi, September 16 in Rangpur, September 22 in Khulna, September 28 in Barisal and October 5 in Sylhet.

Party senior leaders too will visit the 75 organisational districts.

BNP announced these programmes

at a press briefing at the party’s Nayapaltan office on Monday around 12pm.

BNP insiders said if the government does not pay heed, Khaleda Zia will call upon her party men to lay siege to the capital, from a Chittagong meeting yet to be scheduled.

And before the expiration of the government’s tenure, Khaleda Zia will hold a meeting in the capital, from where she will issue a 24-hour ultimatum to the government, and then sit-in and non-stop movement programmes will be announced, they said.  PAGE 2 COLUMN 5

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DHAKA TRIBUNE

News

Wednesday, August 21, 2013

NIKO COMPENSATION CASE

AUGUST 21 GRENADE ATTACK

Skin deep splinters; fractured lives n Udisa Islam

On that fateful August afternoon in 2004, splinters from grenade explosions flew in all directions, forever changing lives and affecting livelihoods.

24 leaders and activists of Awami League were killed and at least 300 suffered splinter injuries in the grenade attack at a party rally at the capital’s Bangabandhu Avenue on August 21, 2004.

Babul used to run a tea stall outside the central office of Bangladesh Awami League in the capital’s Bangabandhu Avenue. He was serving tea to the people who had gathered for the rally, when he was injured by the splinters from the grenade explosions.

Since that tragic day, due to the injuries suffered, Babul has been able to work at his stall for only half the time, compared to the 15 hours of work that he used to put in earlier.

Since he is the only earning member of his family, his 14-year old son Sumon had to drop out of school and now drives a human hauler to support the family.

The disabled cobbler Chan Mia, who conducted his business on the footpath in the vicinity, was a witness to the grisly incident. In its aftermath, he still suffers from psychological trauma and hardly ever speaks. This correspondent had to spend a lot of time coaxing the cobbler and gaining his confidence to share his version of what happened on that day.

Recounting the events, Chan Mia said: “I had been repairing shoes in front of the Awami League office for two decades. On that day [August 21, 2004], I was sitting at a little distance from the main stage. Suddenly I heard a loud bang. At first I could not understand what had really happened. Then I went in front of the truck [that was the main stage of the rally] and found

The horror still haunts Babul Mia, a victim of 2004 grenade attack who now runs a tea stall at Nilkhet in the capital city MAHMUD HOSSAIN OPU some ‘chena bhai’ [acquaintances] lying on the road.”

The cobbler, with a crippled hand since birth, did not just stand around like a mute spectator but rushed to the aid of Jobaidur Hossain, an Awami League leader who had suffered splinter wounds.

“The man [Chan Mia] with a crippled hand dragged me away from the spot. I was badly injured and my body was covered in blood,” Jobaidur said.

He also shared his personal trauma: “At least 80 splinters are in my body.

They make me look fat. I have been living on medicines every day for the last nine years.”

According to doctors, it is hard to remove all the splinters embedded in the body as removing too many may cause permanent deformation. They remove only those that may lead to long-term health issues and the victims have to resign themselves to leading a life with splinters still lodged in their body.

Padma Bridge work  PAGE 1 COLUMN 6

pre-qualified company Samsung C&T Corporation of Korea, China Major Bridge Engineering Co Ltd and Daelim-Bam-VCI (a joint venture entity of Korea) have already bought the tender documents.

Meanwhile, China Communication Construction Company Ltd would not be able to participate in the bid as it has been blacklistedby the World Bank.

The other organisation, Vinci-HCC, a France and India joint venture,is yet to showtheir interest to buy the documents.

ObaidulQuader also said a separate tender will be called for the river bank protection work. The cost of river bank protection work will be expensed from a separate allocation. The people of the country will see the physical work within a short time.

The minister further claimed that if the government did not wait for the World Bank’s positive response, it was possible to begin the main construction work of the Padma Bridge from last February. l

One such survivor is lawmaker Sahida Tarekh Dipty. She has hardly any flesh left on one of her legs, after the extraction of a bunch of splinters.

Since then, she has not been able walk or pray normally.

“I remained unconscious for nine days after the attack. I am living with more than a hundred splinters in my body, especially in my back and my legs. I suffer from nightmares and wake up often in the middle of the night,” she said.

Today, nine years after the dreadful incident, Bangabandhu Avenue is once again gearing up to commemorate the day. Many victims, who had come from outside Dhaka, all those years back to join the rally, have returned to join the memorial.

They realise that they will never be rid of the scars, emotional or physical, of that ill-fated day. All they now hope for is that the guilty will be given the punishment that they deserve. l

Victims’ families to get flats n Abu Hayat Mahmud The government has decided to give flats to the families of those who died and those who were maimed and disabled in the August 21, 2004 grenade attack.

Following a recent recommendation of the standing committee on the Ministry of Housing and Public Works, the National Housing Authority (NHA) has started implementing the initiative.

The government may set a “reasonable price” for the flats, which will nevertheless be less than the present market price. The ministry will take the final decision about the price, officials said.

The government-run housing agency had taken the decision to give 23 flats from their 30 ready flats in Mirpur 2 for families of the deceased victims.

NHA is now waiting for the ministry’s approval, a list of the families, and directions on the financial conditions along with the handover process.

Moreover, the NHA has begun constructing an apartment complex in the city’s Mirpur 14 with a budget of Tk350m for the victims who were seriously injured in the grenade attack.

Md Shahadat Hossain, project director of the apartment complex, told the Dhaka Tribune: “We started the construction of the apartment complex, which will have 100 flats, early this year.”

“Each flat has a net floor space of 1,250 square feet and a total space of 1,600 square feet including parking space and other facilities,” he added.

NHA Chairman Md Shahid Ullah Khandaker said, “The flats are ready at Mirpur section 2 for families of the martyrs of August 21. We sent a letter to the Ministry of Housing and Public Works and are now awaiting the approval of the ministry to hand over the flats.” l

Families struggle to survive  PAGE 1 COLUMN 5

The other victim, Atique’s wife Laily, is having a hard time. The Awami League activist died, leaving her alone to raise four kids. “I still carry the pain in my heart over the loss of my husband,” she said.

Laily’s family always feel hunger pangs as there have been no breadwinners after Atique’s untimely demise.

“I have lost my husband, but the government has done nothing to punish the culprits. I cannot provide food, let alone new clothes for my children,” she said.

“Festivals like Eid go unnoticed,” she

said, adding that “Nobody helps her get over the poor financial condition,” which is also a barrier to her sons’ educations.

Laily said Sheikh Hasina, the Awami League chief, gave Tk100,000 and late president Zillur Rahman Tk7,000, as compensation for her family.

“Since then, I did not get any further assistance from the government,” she added. The victim’s eldest son Atique opted to continue his studies. He has sought financial help from the government and demanded punitive action against the August-21 attackers. l

crimes,” Jabbar said.

“As this government declared itself as a ‘digital government,’ it has to realise the situation in light of the last four and a half years.”

In the original ICT Act 2006 enacted by the then BNP-led government, the maximum punishment for an offence was 10 years’ jail term and a fine of Tk10m. Police needed permission from the authorities concerned to file a case and arrest a person involved in crimes covered by the law.

The amendments envisage a minimum jail term of seven years and a maximum of 14.

In the original act, termed by many a repressive law, offences were eligible for bail. But now offences are non-bailable, meaning the bail is at the judge’s discretion.

Mustafa Jabbar said many cybercrimes were not brought under the purview of the original ICT act. “For instance, it does not address any crime committed through the use of mobile phones. The law considers emails as evidence, which conflicts with the

country’s evidence act.

“The amendments do not address these issues.”

Jabbar considers the provision for arrest without warrant the “blackest” part of the law. “The law offers the scope for political misuse. There is no guarantee that police will not misuse it,” he told the Dhaka Tribune.

“Only bureaucrats can make this type of act. They did not talk to any expert before finalising it,” he said.

Fahim Mashroor, president of the IT trade body Bangladesh Association of Software and Information Services, said: “The government should have consulted the relevant quarters before going for the amendments.”

There are a lot of scopes for misusing the law, which may hamper the ICT growth in the country, he told the Dhaka Tribune.

When the ICT secretary was informed of the experts’ concerns, he said: “We will sit with the experts very soon and we need to define many things before passing the law in parliament next session.” l

Hawa Bhaban, Tarique’s office at that time, as the venue where the attack was plotted and he is accused of providing the attackers with administrative support.

Investigation officer of the case Abdul Kahar Akhand, who presented the latest charge sheet, declined to comment on the issue and said that he could have spoken if questioned two years back. “Now time will decide what will happen to the case.”

Today is the ninth anniversary of the carnage in which 24 were killed and over 200 others maimed. Grenades were hurled at an Awami League rally on Bangabandhu Avenue in the capital. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, then opposition leader, was injured and President Zillur Rahman’s wife Ivy Rahman was killed.

The then Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP)-led alliance government formed a one-member commission of Justice Joynul Abedin the day after the attack. The commission submitted its

report to the home ministry on October 2, 2004 with 14 short- and 7 longterm recommendations. The report was never made public.

It blamed the intelligence agency of “a big foreign power” that “helped the emergence of Bangladesh by secession from Pakistan with the oblique motive of making it a subservient state…orchestrated this dastardly and mindless attack.”

The commission “could not identify the actual culprits and the masterminds behind the incident because of direct evidence and non-cooperation by the Awami League leaders.”

Later the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) cooked up the Joj Miah story by arresting 20 people and allegedly forcing them to admit to their ‘guilt’ before magistrates on June 26, December 12 and December 17 in 2005. George Miah, a vagabond from Noakhali, said in his statement that a 14-member team took part in the grenade attack. l

Amended ICT act may be challenged  PAGE 1 COLUMN 5

Cybercrimes and other related activities would be closely identified then, the ICT secretary added.

The cabinet on Monday approved the draft of the amendment to the ICT Act 2006, which proposed empowering law enforcers to arrest any person without any warrant and increasing the highest punishment for violation of the law to 14 years.

Jurist Shahdin Malik also termed it a black law, saying: “The act can create confusions, which can cause problems to anyone. It also eases the way of sending anyone to jail.”

Barrister Nuruzzaman, a Supreme Court lawyer who also has expertise in ICT, said: “Even if the law was implemented with absolute honesty, there would be scopes for misuse. The police of our country are not a trained force, so there are chances that the law will be wrongly applied in different ways.”

Nuruzzaman invited the ICT ministry to take legal opinions on the act.

“There is also a chance for playing with information. If there is anything in the

law that goes against human rights, the law can be challenged.”

Experts claimed that the government would not be able to tackle cybercrimes with this kind of “inefficient act.” They said the previous government had made the law only to introduce the use of digital signature for documents. It inserted some provisions for cybercrimes in the act at that time.

“The law could be used on political purposes also. After last February we found out that the government was not able to tackle cybercrimes and perhaps that led it to go for amending the act,” said a leader of an ICT-based organisation.

Mustafa Jabbar, president of Bangladesh Computer Samity, said the law was inadequate to deal with cybercrimes.

“The government cannot handle cybercrimes with this act as technology changes overnight and many things often converge into one in the ICT world. The government can form a different act only to deal with cyber-

Grenade attack cases facing ‘uncertainty’  PAGE 1 COLUMN 3

on the Awami League rally in 2004 would end within this tenure.

“We are justice seekers. We hope if democracy and rule of law prevail in the future, nobody will stop the trial,” Chief Prosecutor Syed Rezaur Rahman said.

“Even if the government changes and case progress is not stopped, it is possible to resolve the case,” he hoped blaming the defence lawyers for slowing down the case procedures.

However, a defence lawyer told the Dhaka Tribune: “This government was not able to ensure justice as they became busy using this case to publish prominent political figures like Tarique Rahman, Lutfuzzaman Babar and Haris Chowdhury. They have hidden those actually responsible and the dream will never be fulfilled.”

“BNP will ensure a fair trial of this case after we assume power. We will find the real culprits. Wait. Time will

have its say,” he added.

About the allegation of delaying he said, “We are not delaying. They [prosecution] could present only 11 witnesses after the so called fresh investigation. They delayed the process. The investigation was false. Their plan of punishing Tarique will not come true.

We will see to that.”

Talking with the Dhaka Tribune a number of defence lawyers and prosecutors, preferring to be unnamed said the case would take a few years to be resolved at the present pace.

They also said that they believed that if a BNP-led government takes office in the next tenure, the trial would be stopped because top leaders like Chairperson Khaleda Zia’s eldest son Tarique Rahman, former state minister for home affairs Lutfozzaman Babar, former prime minister’s political adviser Haris Chowdhury, and BNP lawmaker Shah Mofazzal Hossain Kaikobad have all been indicted in the case.

The latest charge sheet also marks

ICSID decision comes in favour of Petrobangla n Aminur Rahman Rasel The International Arbitrary Tribunal yesterday in its decision on Niko’s lawsuit against the Petrobangla’s compensation case paved the way for Bangladesh’s claim to realise $106m from Niko Resources Ltd for its two devastating blowouts at Chhatak gas field in 2005.

In another lawsuit filed by Niko with the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) against Petrobangla that stopped paying gas price to Niko since 2006, the tribunal maintained that it had jurisdiction to decide the claimants’ claim.

The ICSID decided that it would give by separate order directions for the continuation of the proceedings.

The tribunal heard the two lawsuits on October 13-14 of 2011 in London, and yesterday it came up with the ruling.

The International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) cleared Bangladesh as a respondent

from the lawsuit filed by Niko, claiming that a Bangladesh court did not have the jurisdiction to direct it to pay the compensation.

Petrobangla Chairman Prof Hossain Monsur told the journalists during a press conference at Petro Centre in the city’s Karwanbazar yesterday.

In its order, the ICSID maintained that it had no jurisdiction over Bangladesh and Petrobangla, thus sustaining a pending money suit filed by Petrobangla against the Canada-based oil and gas exploration company with the court of Dhaka joint district judge.

However, the arbitrary tribunal did not make any observation about Bapex – the third respondent of the lawsuit filed by Niko with ICSID – in its Tuesday’s order.

In 2010, Niko had filed two lawsuits with the ICSID against Petrobangla since the latter stopped paying the price of its shared gas from Feni gas field since 2006. l

Ten Islamist outfits to face ban  PAGE 1 COLUMN 2

Asked, the home state minister admitted that the banned and blacklisted organisations were still active. He said: “As the banned outfits have no rights to carry out activities publicly, they are operating from hideouts and using different other names or identities.

“The government as well as the law enforcement agencies are working to decide measures against them to stop militant activities,” Tuku said adding that regular drives against the militants were underway.

Reports suggest that militant activities surfaced in Bangladesh in early 1999 after the wars in Afghanistan against the Soviet forces, Kashmir against India, Iraq against the USA and Palestine against Israel. Several thousand youths from Bangladesh took part in those wars.

The persistent unstable situations in Myanmar and the seven north-eastern states of India – also called the Seven Sisters – have significant contribution behind the rise of militancy in Bangladesh.

Around 12,500 Bangladeshis had taken part in the Afghan war alone. Of them, at least 24 died and several hundred others wounded.

On their return to Bangladesh, a section of them formed different parties and groups while some others launched branches of different foreign militant organisations.

The militant forces, which became active against the county’s cultural, secular and democratic forces, had launched the first bomb attack on the annual meeting of cultural organisation Udichi in Jessore killing at least eight people and injuring over 100 others on March 6, 1999.

Following this, they carried out hundreds of attacks with bombs, grenades and arms killing Dhaka University teacher Humayun Azad, former Awami League minister Shah AMS Kibria, attacked to kill poet Shamsur Rahman and Bangladeshi-origin British High Commissioner Anwar Chowdhury.

The other attacks include Ramna Batamul blast and attack on a rally of the Communist Party of Bangladesh in Paltan in 2001; serial bomb blasts in four cinema halls of Mymensingh in 2002; grenade attacks on an AL rally on August 21, 2004 that killed 24 people including the wife of late president Zillur Rahman and injuring 300 others, including Sheikh Hasina; and the simultaneous series bomb attacks at 511 places in 63 districts on August 17, 2005.

Allegations say political parties, influential quarters and intelligence

agencies at different times used these militants to materialise their own purposes.

According to law enforcers, apart from the outlawed and blacklisted organisations, more than 60 other groups – both local and international origin – have also been found active in the country.

Some of the local Islamist militant groups are: Al Harat al Islamia, Jamayat-ul Falaiya, Tawhidi Janata, Jummatul al Sadat, Al Jihad Bangladesh, World Islamic Front for Jihad, Warat Islamic Front, Al Khidmat, Muslim Millat Sariyah Council, Ahle Hadis Andolan Bangladesh, Hizb-ul Mahadi, Jamiat-ul Ehhia-ut-Turaj, Hayatul Igasa, Anjumane Talamije Islamia, Khedmat-e-Islam, Isalmi Jihad Group, Tanjeem Bangladesh, Iktadul Tulah Al Muslemin, Amanatul Forkan Al Khayriya, Ibtedatul Al Muslemin, Al Sayeed Mujahid Bahini and Ahsab Bahini.

Earlier, intelligence agencies submitted to Bangladesh Bank a list of 12 NGOs which were allegedly involved in funding militants. These are Revival of Islamic Heritage Society (RIHS), Rabita Al-Alam Al-Islami, Society of Social Reforms, Qatar Charitable Society, Al-Muntada Al-Islami, Islamic Relief Agency, Al-Forkan Foundation, International Relief Organisation, Kuwait Joint Relief Committee, Muslim Aid Bangladesh, Dar Al-Khair, Hayatul Igachha and Tawheed-e-Noor.

The local militants have also links with the regional groups – operating in Pakistan, Kashmir and Myanmar – while some others have association with a number of so-called charity organisations and NGOs based in Saudi Arabia and other Middle East countries.

Other Pakistan-based organisations involved in militant activities are Tehrik-e-Jehad-e-Islami-Kashmiri (TJI), Harkat-ul-Jehadul Islami, Hizb-ul Mujahideen (HuM), Hezbe Islami, Jamiatul Mujahideen, Harkatul Ansar.

There are around 13 Myanmar-based militant organisations that comprise members from the Rohingya communities and Bangladeshis: Rohingya Solidarity Organisation (RSO), Arakan Rohingya National Organisation (ARNO), National United Party of Arakan (NUPA), Arakan Rohingya Force, Islamic Solidarity Front, Arakan People’s Army, Liberation Myanmar Force, Arakan Mujahid Party, Rohingya Independents Force, Rohingya Independents Army, Rohingya Patriotic Front, Rohingya Islamic Front and United students Association of Arakan Movement (USM). l

BNP goes soft on hard programmes  PAGE 1 COLUMN 6

Standing Committee Member Tariqul Islam said they did not want any unrest in the country, and that is why no hard programme had been announced.

“The BNP is a democratic party.

That’s why time has been given to the government to realise the people’s pulse. Meanwhile, we will strengthen our organisational capacity and observe the government’s behaviour, then announce the next course of action,” he told the Dhaka Tribune.

Khaleda Zia on Saturday in a meeting with the standing committee members reiterated that she would not take part in the election under the incumbent government.

“Even if the Awami League holds one-party election, it cannot stay in power for long. We will take over the office, though it might take time,” a senior leader said, quoting Khaleda.

When Khaleda asked for opinions from her standing committee colleagues on the strategy of the movement, a former minister who was jailed during the army-backed caretaker government asked her her not to pursue a tough programme.

“If we go for tough movements right now, we have to halt it halfway through during the Eid-ul Azha and Durga Puja,” said a leader who attended the meeting, requesting anonymity.

“By then the movement will die down, and many leaders and activists will be arrested, which will ultimately weaken the movement,” he said.

Earlier on August 12, US Ambassador Dan W Mozena held a meeting with BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia, where Mozena expressed his reservation about hartals.

Khaleda stated that she would try to avoid hartals. l

DHAKA TRIBUNE

Amnesty probing Odhikar’s concern n Muktasree Chakma Sathi Rights group Amnesty International yesterday confirmed that they were investigating the concerns raised by Dhaka-based Odhikar on the alleged harassment of families of the victims, who were killed during the government crackdown on May 5 and 6 at Motijheel rally of Hefazat-e- Islam.

Abbas Faiz, senior researcher of South Asia wing at the Londonbased rights body, told the Dhaka Tribune via email: “I can confirm that Amnesty International has received a list from Odhikar with the names of 61 individuals. Odhikar says this data is ‘regarding the deaths that occurred on 5th and 6th May 2013,’ as with all information that Amnesty International receives in the course of its work, we are studying the list.” Odhikar alleged that after the law enforcers got the hold of the list from the laptops and CPU – seized from its Gulshan office on August 11 – they were threatening the families of some of the victims. l

News

Bhola to get household gas connections from August 28 n Aminur Rahman Rasel The Sundarbans Gas Company Limited (SGCL), a concern of state-run Petrobangla will begin installing new household gas connections in Bhola city from August 28.

However, no new industrial connections will be given out at the moment as the date remains still undecided.

SGCL Managing Director Md Nurul Islam told the Dhaka Tribune: “We will receiving applicationsfrom the consumers on August25 and on August 28,we will initially install new household connections to two or three residences. But we are not giving any industrial connections now.”

Awami League (AL) Advisory Council member Tofail Ahmed will formally launch the new gas connections.

Petrobangla Chairman Hossain Mansur will also be present there.

The company will utilise gas from the nearby Shahbajpur gas field in Bhola which has a daily production capacity of 30 million cubic feet (mmcf).

There is a bright prospect for setting up industries in Bhola district based on gas from Shahbajpur. However, it has become bleak due to the government’s indecision over the last decade on giving new gas connections to industrial units and for domestic purposes, sources said.

So far, the only commercial consumer of the Shahbajpur Gas field remains Venture Energy Limited, which runs the 34.5MW gas-fired rental power plant burning 7-8mmcfd gas.

Meanwhile, the Power Development Board (PDB)on April 09 this year signed an agreement with a Chinese company,

China Chengda Engineering Company Ltd for installing of a 225MW power plant at Borhanuddin upazila in Bhola.

Petrobangla has also given its consent for supplying gas to the plant from Shahbajpur.

SGCL Managing Director said, the state-run Bangladesh Petroleum Exploration and Production Company Limited (Bapex) had installed about 20kmof gas pipeline for household connections in Bhola pourasava area, about two and a half years ago, at a cost of about Tk500m.

“Bapex has handed over the pipeline to SGCL on May 1 this year. Now we will install new connections through this pipe line with an approximate need for 1mmcfd,” he said.

The government had not been giving new gas connections for residential purposes in Bhola since 2010, citing

supply shortages.

Earlier in 2009, it stopped giving new connections for commercial and industrial purposes including those to power plants and fertiliser units.

The government notified that new gas connections would be given again only if production reached 2,200mmcfd.

On April 16 this year, the High Court withdrew its earlier order issued in November last year that barred the government from giving new gas connections.

On May 7, the government announced that it would resume giving fresh connections to households because production had reached the 2,250mmcfd mark.

At present, five distribution companies distribute gas through pipelines across the country. l

CASE AGAINST ALIM

Defence gets one last hour to end grilling IO n Udisa Islam

Security people aided by dog squad searching a shop on the Bangabandhu Avenue ahead of the prime minister’s visit there today to attend a party rally commemorating the horrors of grenade attacks at the same venue on this day 9 years ago

The war crimes tribunal yesterday asked the defence of Abdul Alim to end cross-examination of the investigation officer by today.

Defence counsel Ahsanul Huq yesterday questioned Investigation Officer ZM Altafur Rahman, the 35th and last prosecution witness against Alim, for the fourth day.

The tribunal 2 then gave the defence one hour to complete the proceedings today or it would pass further order in the case.

Earlier on July 30, the defence sought adjournment on the cross-examination citing that Alim’s conducting lawyer Ahsanul was ill. The tribunal approved the plea but warned that it would not afford the privilege repeatedly.

But at that time, Ahsanul had continued arguments in the case against Salahuddin Quader Chowdhury at the tribunal 1. So he could not be present at the tribunal 2.

Ahsanul yesterday cross examined the IO for a half-day session and later the tribunal ordered the defence to

KANCHPUR MAYHEM

Mueen’s involvement in intellectual killings is well-known: Witness

A magistrate’s court in Narayanganj yesterday refused bail and jailed 10 Hefazat-e-Islam activists in a case involving a violent attack on a police box, which led to the deaths of two policemen and two Border Guard Bangladesh personnel at Kanchpur in Siddhirganj on May 6.

The jailed accused are Abdul Awal, a district convener of the radical Islamist organisation, and members Abdul Kader, Jamaluddin, Samsuddoha, Abdur Rahman, Musa Kashemi, Abul Khayer, Lokman Hossain, Muhibullah and Ashraf Hossain.

Court sub-inspector Nazrul Islam Paloan said all the accused surrendered before the senior judicial magistrate court yesterday to pray for bail. But the court rejected their petition and sent them to jail.

A sub-inspector of Shiddhirganj police station on May 6 filed a case against 76 Hefazat activists, naming 11 of them. l

n Udisa Islam

10 Hefazat activists sent to jail n Our Correspondent, Narayanganj

A new prosecution witness in the trial against absconding war crimes accused Chowdhury Mueen Uddin and Ashrafuzzaman Khan yesterday said Mueen was involved in the killing of intellectuals including Shahidullah Kaiser.

Testifying as the prosecution’s 14th witness, freedom fighter Shariatullah Bangalee, 64, said Mueen had formed “Razakar Bahini” with his family members during the Liberation War. After his deposition, state defence counsel Salma Hai cross examined him. At the end of the proceedings, the tribunal 2, headed by Justice Obaidul Hassan, set today for deposition of new witness.

The tribunal jointly indicted Mueen and Ashraf in 11 counts of crimes against humanity. The charges include killing of 18 intellectuals, of whom nine were Dhaka University teachers,

six journalists and three doctors. The prosecution alleged that Mueen was the “operation-in-charge” of al-Badr and Ashrafuzzaman played the role of “chief executor.”

Mueen financed and run an NGO named Muslim Aid in Feni and Daganbhuiyan. He also runs a madrasa at his house there The witness claimed that he had known Mueen from the very beginning of the war as his village home was in Jagatpur under Daganbhuiyan in Feni. He said father of the accused Delwar Hossain Chowdhury had a library at Daganbhuiyan Bazar. Mueen had visited the library and also held meetings as a leader of Chhatra Sangha.

The witness had received training in India, and on December 6, 1971 he had returned to his home district.

“The local freedom fighters in our

ACC to launch fresh probe into Rony’s wealth n Syed Samiul Basher Anik The Anti-Corruption Commission has decided to launch a fresh investigation into the wealth of Awami League lawmaker Golam Maula Rony.

The decision came at a regular meeting of the commission yesterday. Earlier on July 30, ACC Assistant Director M Talebur Rahman submitted a preliminary report on a year-long probe into the wealth and assets of the lawmaker from Patuakhali 3.

On August 30 last year, the ACC probe team questioned Rony on charges of his alleged connection with the construction of a house on government land, receiving commissions from government tenders, and accumulating wealth through other illegal means.

Talebur Rahman investigated the allegations of Rony’s undisclosed income

and collection of money through illegal ways.

The ACC last year asked the Bangladesh Securities and Exchange Commission to provide details on the BO accounts of Rony and his wife to scrutinise their investment in the stock market. On August 13, the SEC served a letter to the managing directors of the Investment Corporation of Bangladesh and the Central Depository Bangladesh Limited, the CEOs of Dhaka and Chittagong stock exchanges, and the president of the Merchant Bankers Association for providing information about Rony’s investment in shares, debentures, mutual funds, bonds and other securities.

Inquiry against the Awami League lawmaker was initiated by Deputy Director Ahsan Ali of the Patuakhali office of the commission. Later, the case was handed over to Talebur Rahman. l

3

Wednesday, August 21, 2013

area knew about the role of Mueen in the killing of intellectuals. So they raided his house at that time but did not find him there as he had fled the country just after the Liberation War.” He said Mueen had later visited his village home several times during the tenures of Ziaur Rahman and HM Ershad. “He used to visit his village with police escort,” the witness said.

He also identified Mueen as a reporter of the daily Purbadesh and leader of Islami Chhatra Sangha, then student wing of Jamaat-eIslami. “Mueen financed and run an NGO named Muslim Aid in Feni and Daganbhuiyan. He also runs a madrasa at his house there.”

Witness Shariatullah said before the liberation war, Mueen had gone to Dhaka and enrolled in Dhaka University. “After the liberation, we came to know from newspaper reports that he was involved in the killing of intellectuals.” l

complete by 11:30am.

The IO made his deposition on July 24 and 25 and the tribunal set July 29 for his cross-examination but the defence sought an adjournment on the day. The tribunal then set July 30 for the questioning. After that, the defence again sought adjournment.

Prosecution placed 34 witnesses against Alim. The 19th witness was declared “hostile” as he did not mention anything related to Alim.

The tribunal 2 earlier accepted the statements of two prosecution witnesses as evidence. The witnesses – Dulu and Akram – made the statements to the investigation officer, but died on June 12 and November 24, 2011.

Alim is facing 17 charges of crimes against humanity he allegedly committed in Joypurhat during the 1971 Liberation War. He was the chairman of district Peace Committee. He was accused of killing thousands of people in Joypurhat in collaboration with Pakistani army.

Arrested on March 27, 2011, Alim has been enjoying conditional bail since March 31 last year. l

Mobarak named temple ‘Razakar Manjil’: Witness n Udisa Islam

A prosecution witness against war crimes suspect Mobarak Hossain yesterday said the accused and his accomplices had tortured members of Hindu community including Ashuranjan Dev and demolished temples in Akhaura of Brahmanbaria during the 1971 Liberation War. Freedom fighter Nani Gopal Mallick told the International Crimes Tribunal 1 that he had heard from villagers about the re-naming of a Hindu temple as “Razakar Manjil” by Mobarak, who is facing five charges of crimes against humanity.

After his deposition, defence counsel Ahsanul Haque cross-examined the witness. The tribunal headed by Justice ATM Fazle Kabir set August 26 for the next witness.

In his deposition, Nani Gopal, the seventh witness, told the tribunal: “I was an informer of the freedom fighters. My job was to inform them about the activities of Pakistan army and razakars. During that time, I heard from villagers that Mobarak vandalised Kalibari and Ramakrishna temples.

Together with his accomplices, Mobarak changed the name of Anandamoye Kali Mandir to Razakar Manjil.”

Describing the torture on Hindu community by the collaborators, the witness said: “In October of 1971, Mobarak abducted Ashuranjan Dev and took him to Anandamoye Kali Mandir and tortured him. Later Ashuranjan was taken to Kurulia canal and tortured.”

After his deposition, the witness identified Mobarak, who was sitting in the dock, as the perpetrator of the crimes that he had described.

Thereafter, the defence quizzed him.

Ahsanul suggested that the witness was coached by the prosecution and asked by Hindu-Buddha-Christian Oikya Parishad to give false statement in a false case. Nani Gopal denied the suggestions made by the defence.

The charges against Mobarak include killing of 33 people in Akhaura, and abduction and killings in Shyampur between August and December 1971.

He has been associated with Jamaate-Islami, BNP and also Awami League at different points of time. A couple of years earlier, he was expelled from the Awami League. l

4

DHAKA TRIBUNE

News

Wednesday, August 21, 2013

Onion price shows sign of falling

ACC sues Tangail sub-registrar n Syed Samiul Basher Anik

Traders expect further decline in few days with fresh arrivals of Indian onion Rs5 and Rs10 per kg in Agra and Delhi. n Asif Showkat Kallol At present, in Taka prices, per kg Traders and businessmen are expecting the price of onion to decline in the local markets as the prices onion Indian market showed signs falling in certain cities yesterday.

Local wholesale onion markets will cool down as an impact of the decline of onion prices in the Indian market which is now $551 per tonne, Vice President of FBCCI Md Helaluddin told the The Dhaka Tribune yesterday.

He also said the supply of locally produced onions will increase because of the traders’ fear of falling prices in the kitchen market.

“I advised the chairman of Trading Corporation of Bangladesh to buy onions from the local market and sell them for Tk10 less per kg which will cool the local markets,” he also said.

Khandoker Babul, an agricultural goods importer, told the Dhaka Tribune that the number of Indian trucks carrying onion into Bangladesh had increased in the last two days to about 40 trucks a day.

“Just two days ago there were only 15 trucks coming in, but usually it is 150-200 trucks,” he said.

Wholesale onion prices fell from Rs4,700 a quintal last week to Rs3,251 on Monday in Asia's largest onion market in Lasalgaon, Maharashtra. Markets in Agra, Delhi, Mumbai and Indore also saw the same trend. Retail prices fell by

onion is selling for Tk52 in New Delhi while in Kolkata Tk81, Katmandu Tk78.84, Bangkok Tk62.25, Yangon Tk54 and Colombo Tk107.78.

Sources in the commerce ministry said there was a possibility Indian onions will be smuggled to Bangladesh because of the price fall in the Indian market and the price of onions being fixed at $650 per tonne for Indian exporters.

Big farmers and onion traders will bring their stock of onion in the wholesale and kitchen markets from storages, sources in the commerce ministry said.

A kilogram of onion was being sold for Tk80 yesterday at the Kadomtoli kitchen market in Farmgate, a price hike of 43%, and has remained at this level for the last four days.

Commerce Secretary Mahbub Ahmed told the Dhaka Tribune it was a good news for Bangladeshi onion consumers and the local price of onions will also go down.

“We have planned to import onion from abroad through TCB which is supposed to arrive in September,” he said.

“For a long term action plan, we will talk to the agriculture ministry about cultivating onion in the rainy season which is now widely practiced in several states of India,” the secretary said. l

Law enforcers obstruct activists of the Jamaat-e-Islami as they bring out a procession yesterday in the capital’s Science Laboratory area demanding a stop to the mass killing in Egypt NASHIRUL ISLAM

Crimes on Bangladesh-India border on the rise n Tribune Desk

Bangladesh border guards have recovered huge smuggled goods worth about Tk3.28 billion and rescued 494 women and children from human traffickers along the Bangladesh-India border in the last seven months, putting in the limelight the growing cross-border crimes.

Sources at the Border Guard Ban-

DU study finds 82% people happy with police service n Tribune Report

A new study released yesterday claimed that 82% of the people had expressed satisfaction with the functioning of police while 54.5% said they did not have to bribe police in exchange for their services.

The findings may come as a surprise to many against the backdrop of a report of the Transparency International Bangladesh (TIB) published last month, which branded the police as the most corruption-plagued institution alongside political parties.

The study was conducted under the Criminology and Criminal Justice Programme of the sociology department of Dhaka University. The report titled “Public Satisfaction with Current Policing Practice” is based on the responses of 617 people who had gone to 46 police stations in Dhaka city to lodge complaints.

Addressing the launching ceremony

WEATHER

Temperature unlikely to change

of the report at the Senate building of Dhaka University, Home Minister Muhiuddin Khan Alamgir yesterday criticised the past caretaker government for staying in power for two years illegally.

“It is time we talked about the corruption of the last caretaker government that had held office for two years although they were supposed to be in office for three months only,” he said.

“Those who come to power from the seat of judges and try to capture state power at gunpoint were not punished enough,” he said.

Inspector General of Police Hasan Mahmud Khandakar, Dhaka Metropolitan Police Commissioner Benazir Ahmed, Rab’s Director Gen Mokhlesur Rahman, among others, attended the function.

“Our researchers have noticed that 72% of the people did not pay additional money while filing a general diary. In

n Tribune Desk

Light to moderate rain or thundershowers accompanied by temporary gusty or squally wind is likely to occur at most places over Khulna, Barisal, Chittagong and Dhaka and at many places over Rajshahi, Rangpur and Sylhet divisions until 6pm today.

Moderately heavy to very heavy falls were also likely at places over the country, Met Office said. Day and night temperature may remain nearly unchanged over the country.

The sun sets in the capital at 6:27pm today and rises at 5:37am tomorrow.

Country’s highest temperature 33.9 degree Celsius was recorded at Sylhet and lowest 23.5 degrees at Khepupara yesterday. Highest and lowest temperatures recorded in some major cities yesterday were:

Aiming to compensate flood victims and help them fight natural disasters, the country’s first ever flood insurance scheme was launched yesterday.

Disaster Management and Relief Minister AH Mahmood Ali formally introduced the flood insurance “product” at a programme at the Brac Centre Inn in the capital, says a UNB report.

Organised by the Oxfam Bangladesh, the programme was titled “Launching Ceremony on Index Based Flood Insurance Product Piloting in Sirajganj, Bangladesh.”

Oxfam Bangladesh has initiated the pilot project to design a commercially pragmatic catastrophic flood insurance scheme for the poor and vulnerable, targeted to sensitise investors, who are working in flood-prone areas.

Poor and vulnerable people in the river basin areas of Sirajganj district come under an index-based flood insurance scheme to enhance the disaster risk reduction programmes in the flood-prone regions.

With a fast pay-out feature for the flood-hit people, the index insurance product will cover 1,661 poor families of 14 villages located in Sirajganj Sadar and Chowhali upzilas of the district on a pilot basis.

The scheme aims to provide cash relief of up to Tk8,000 per household in an event of catastrophic flood. Mobile money transfer will also be introduced soon to transfer the money to the beneficiaries even faster. Earlier, a collaborative design and research study was conducted by Oxfam and India-based

City

High

Low

Dhaka Chittagong Rajshahi Rangpur Khulna Barisal Sylhet Cox’s Bazar

29.7 26.8 30.5 32.7 32.0 29.4 33.9 27.5

26.0 24.9 26.3 26.6 25.6 25.8 25.8 24.2

PRAYER TIMES Fajar Sunrise Zohr Asr Magrib Esha

4:17am 5:35am 12:02pm 4:36pm 6:27pm 7:46pm

Source: IslamicFinder.org

addition, 70% of the people that went to police stations for police advice and 56% who sought police protection did not give an extra amount of money for the service,” Prof Mahbub who led the research team, said.

The research found a significant shift in the perception of people about the police department’s service.

Speaking at the function, DMP Commissioner Benazir Ahmed lambasted the TIB survey report and claimed the police department had been criticised cruelly and unjustly in the TIB release.

“The TIB says we ranked first in corruption, but how is it possible for us to be the most corrupt when 82% people say they got good behaviour from police and about 55% report that they did not have to bribe the police?” Benazir said.

IGP Hasan Mahmud Khandakar praised the police, terming the police department as a “charity organisation” at present. l

First ever flood insurance scheme launched

n UNB

The Anti-Corruption Commission, yesterday, filed two cases against a subregistry official and his wife on charges for the accumulation of illegal wealth worth more than Tk25m, which was not disclosed in the wealth statement submitted to the commission.

ACC Deputy Director Jahangir Alam filed the cases with the Ramna police station against Tangail Zilla Mirjapur Sub-Registrar M Abdur Razzaq and his wife Jinia Ferdous for acquirement of illegal wealth, worth over Tk25m.

According to the case statement, Mirjapur Sub-Registrar M Abdur Razzaq joined the sub-registry office in 1994 and did not have any other source of income except the government job. However, he has acquired two flats in Dhanmondi and Green Road in the capital which are worth above Tk10m and he did not include the description of these properties in his wealth statement.

On the other hand, his wife Jinia Ferdous, a housewife, who does not have any valid source of income, also has assets worth over Tk15m. l

Center for Insurance and Risk Management (CIRM), for developing flood insurance scheme in Bangladesh.

A flood hazard model, built by the Institue of Water Modelling (IWM) of Bangladesh will be used to generate flood data while the Swiss Development Corporation (SDC) will finance the project.

Initiated by Oxfam, the CIRM Advisory Services (India), IWM, Pragati Insurance Ltd (Bangladesh), Swiss Re, Manab Mukti Sangstha and Palli Karma Sahayak Foundation will jointly implement the project.

Addressing the launching ceremony, AH Mahmood Ali said: “With this very innovative initiative, poor and vulnerable people of Sirajganj district, who are the regular victims of flood, will feel more secured. Such kind of initiative will help the government address disaster risk reduction.”

He urged everyone to scale up this effort to cover whole Bangladesh to help flood victims minimise losses and damages caused by it.

Snehal Soneji, country director for Oxfam in Bangladesh, said Bangladesh is a flood-prone country which is one of primary reasons for widespread poverty, despite the government’s remarkable economic progress, adding Oxfam was then piloting it in Sirajganj, with a hope to spread it across the country with the support of the government, national and international organisations.

Meanwhile, Sardar Shah Newaz, director of Flood Division at IWM, made a power-point presentation, while Rupalee Ruchismita, executive director of CIRM, delivered the keynote paper on an index-based flood insurance product. l

gladesh (BGB) headquarters said 959 people were arrested by members of the paramilitary force on charge of smuggling during the period - January 1 to July 31, says a UNB report.

The BGB members also rescued 390 women and 104 children while they were being trafficked out of the country, especially to neighbouring India, and arrested 13 alleged traffickers during the period.

Besides, they seized 3,20,201 bottles of Indian intoxicating Phensidyl syrup; 3,08,900 sex-stimulating Yaba tablets, 90,900 bottles of foreign liquor, 3,171 litres of local liquor, 6,607 cans of beer, 2826 kgs of hemp, and 25 kg of heroin during the seven months.

According to the sources, a total of 14,748 cases were filed with different police stations across the country in connection with the recovery of the

UGC recommends legal action against Prime University n Mushfique Wadud The University Grants Commission (UGC) in a recent letter to the education ministry recommended taking legal action against Prime University’s Uttara campus authority for establishing outer campuses in different parts of the city.

Prime University Mirpur campus authority and Prime University Uttara campus authority, are in fact two entities operating under the same name, due to difference between owners. In June 2012, UGC told the education ministry the Uttara campus was illegal and should be shut down. A High Court stay order stalled the decision.

In its letter, the UGC states that the Prime University Mirpur Campus authority informed UGC that the Prime University Uttara campus authority had established outer campuses in different parts of city including Dhanmondi, Banani and Mirpur and was running academic activities there.

BARC to devise organic farming policy n Tribune Desk Agriculture scientists and researchers at a workshop yesterday said the production and consumption of organic food that contains more nutrients would contribute to alleviating malnutrition problem.

The employment generation is necessary in a country like Bangladesh where unemployment is very high.

Organic crops in general are profitable and thus farmers prefer to grow it for higher income, they said, reports UNB. Bangladesh Agricultural Research Institute (BARI) organised the three-day international workshop, titled “Construction of the Asian Network for Sustainable Organic Farming Technology (ANSOFT)” at Brac Centre Inn in the capital.

The inaugural workshop was chaired by Executive Chairman of Bangladesh Agriculture Research Council (BARC) Dr Wais Kabir.

Dr M Nazim Uddin, principal investigator of the ANSOFT project, presented the country paper from Bangladesh side at the session.

Speakers said the tainted food was the major problem in Bangladesh, which might cause serious health hazards.

They said production and marketing of many vegetable crops were labour intensive and create more employment opportunities. Moreover, there is a scope to strengthen national economy by exporting organic food.

Stressing the importance of organic food, Dr Wais Kabir said: “Safe food should be the first priority to build a healthy nation and the organic food is the safe food.”l

Since running outer campuses was illegal as per the Private University Act 2010, UGC recommended legal actions against the university authority.

“Private universities cannot run outer campuses as per the Private University Act 2010 and that is why we have sent the letter to the education ministry,” UGC member Atful Hye Shibly told the Dhaka Tribune.

When contacted, Registrar of Prime University Uttara campus, Mohammad Shah Alam told the Dhaka Tribune that they had established campuses in different parts of the city but they were not outer campuses.

“We cannot accommodate all the students and teachers in the Uttara campus and so we have established campuses in some other parts of the city. They are mainly annex campuses and are not against the Private University Act 2010,” he said.

He said they had informed UGC about establishing the campuses. l

smuggled goods and narcotic items.

Of the smuggled goods, contrabands worth about Tk 306.50 crore were seized while being smuggled into the country and goods worth about Tk 21.61 crore while being smuggled out of the country.

A total of 145 cases were filed with different police stations in connection with the human trafficking bid during the seven months, the sources added. l

GDD centre opens for early detection of new diseases n Moniruzzaman Uzzal Health Minister AFM Ruhal Haque yesterday said: “Bangladeshi doctors could become world class public health experts.”

The minister made the observation while addressing the inaugural ceremony of the global disease detection (GDD) regional centre in Bangladesh, as well as a field epidemiology training programme (FETP) residency course, at the Institute of Epidemiology Disease Control and Research at Mohakhali, in the capital.

Ruhal hoped that the GDD centre would help in the early detection of emerging new diseases.

“Our government is committed to providing health services to all the people in the country,” the minister said. “To ensure proper health services, the health ministry is doing its best with the help of national and international friends.” l

BISMILLAH GROUP SCAM

Sons of two AL MPs ignore ACC notices n Syed Samiul Basher Anik

Sons of two Awami League lawmakers, allegedly involved with the Tk11.1bn embezzlement from five banks by the Bismillah Towels Group, have ignored the Anti-Corruption Commission notice which asked them to appear before the commission on Monday for interrogation.

A commission official said the commission on August 13 served notices to Jamil Hossain Durjoy, son of Gazipur 3 MP Rahmat Ali and Mohammad Ali, son of Comilla 1 MP Mohammad Shubid Ali Bhuiyan, to appear before the commission for interrogation on August 19, but they did not appear.

“There are allegations that these two persons, who were the non-paid directors of Bismillah Group, helped Bismillah Group high officials to do the misdeed and help them flee the country,” a commission official told the Dhaka Tribune, yesterday.

“We served them notices since quizzing them might shed some light on the embezzlement, but they did not appear for the interrogation, even when asked several times,” the official added.

Bismillah Group allegedly embezzled around Tk3.93bn from Janata Bank, Tk3.06bn from Prime Bank, Tk1.64bn from Jamuna Bank, Tk1.49bn from Shahjalal Islami Bank and Tk629.7m from Premier Bank.

An ACC inquiry committee has already reviewed the documents of all five banks and completed quizzing

around 70 officials who were allegedly involved with the swindling. The team is currently working to complete the probe report.

The preliminary inquiry found that Bismillah Group Managing Director Khaza Solaiman Anwar Chowdhury, his wife and Chairman of the group Nowrin Hasib, Solaiman’s father and the group’s Director Shafiqul Anwar Chowdhury and his mother Sarwar Jahan are currently in Dubai. Senior Manager Abul Hossain Chowdhury is in Malaysia and another top official Riaz Uddin is in London.

The commission is likely to file a case against the accused under the money laundering prevention act as soon as the probe report is submitted before the commission.

A Bangladesh Bank inspection last year first spotted Bismillah Towels Ltd, Hindul Wali Textile Ltd, and Alpha Composite Towels Ltd, all concerns of the Bismillah Group, defrauding the banks of billions from 2010 to 2012.

Irregularities included securing cash incentives against fake export documents, taking advantage of inland bills purchases and overpricing non-existing export items.

On February 26, ACC formed a five-strong probe body headed by its deputy director Syed Iqbal Hossain.

The other members of the committee are - assistant directors Toufiqul Islam and M Gulshan Anwar, and deputy assistant directors Sarder Manzur Ahmed and M Al Amin. l

DHAKA TRIBUNE

Special

5

Wednesday, August 21, 2013

No way out This is part 2 of a 3-part series on Taimur Hussain, an undocumented Bangladeshi immigrant to the US, and his struggle to change his immigration status. His is a case in point depicting the hardship of many other undocumented immigrants who have been held in detention in the past decade. Part 3 will be printed on August 22

AFP

n Tania Rashid

A

CONTINUED FROM YESTERDAY pprehensive about his immigration status, in August 2009, Hussain once more attempted to tackle the legal issues he had been ignoring for 14 years. He consulted with Usman Ahmad, an immigration attorney in Long Island City, and paid him a $6000 retainer fee.

Hussain heard about Ahmad through a friend.

Ahmad, who has a background in corporate law, said he noticed a need for South Asian lawyers when he started working for his father’s friend’s law firm in Jackson Heights back in 2000.

“The only people who would come to me were Bangladeshi, Pakistani, and Indian,” he said. And even though he didn’t have any experience in immigration law, many South Asian clients turned to him anyway. He claims to be a self-taught immigration lawyer.

Sabiha and Hussain said they gave Ahmad their children’s medical records and other confidential documents for the case. “We just asked that he didn’t put us in any risk or trouble,” Sabiha recalled, and she says he promised that he wouldn’t.

Sabiha said Ahmad reassured the couple that there were many positive aspects to their case that he would present in court. “He said we paid taxes, we had children who were US citizens, and we had come to the

country legally,” Sabiha said.

Ahmad filed a motion to reopen the case in August 2009. But the judge denied the case and an “order of removal” was issued to Hussain, Sabiha, and their eldest daughter, Rezwana, a 19-year-old college student who was also undocumented. Suddenly, they were to be deported for over-staying their visa.

But Hussain still had opportunities to appeal his case through several judicial bodies. Ahmad did not tell Hussain that he could appeal within 30 days to the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA). Based in Virginia, the BIA is the highest administrative body that reviews decisions by the immigration judges and Department of Homeland Security. If the BIA rejects the case, a next stage of appeal would have been the Second Circuit Court of Appeals.

But if Ahmad knew about these avenues of appeal, he never told the family. Maybe he figured they could never afford it. In any case, 15 months later, in November 2010, a notice from ICE labelled “bag and baggage” arrived in Hussain’s mailbox.

It was an order from ICE informing Hussain to bring a piece of luggage containing personal property before being deported. Ahmad, who took Hussain to the immigration department at 26 Federal Plaza, managed to get a temporary suspension on the deportation order.

Today, Ahmad explains that lawyers are just buying time when a tem-

would be taking him to Federal Plaza again. I told him everything would go fine,” she said. But Sabiha remembered that this second trip raised suspicion in her mind.

Once the couple reached the lawyer’s office in Long Island City he reassured them that it was part of procedure to go to the Federal Plaza every few months. “He said the visit would only take 10 minutes. We had an ongoing case so there were no risks involved; if Hussain didn’t go then there would be problems,” Sabiha said.

When they arrived, Ahmad told her to stay outside. In the past she was always by Hussain’s side, but this time the lawyer didn’t allow her inside.

Hussain said he had the sense that his lawyer didn’t understand what was going on any more than he did.

At 7pm, after a whole day, Ahmad informed Hussain that he wouldn’t be released. “The officers took me to a small jail, I think it was on Fulton Street. I couldn’t really tell because it was dark outside,” Hussain said. He was then taken to a medical facility within the premises of the jail where doctors ran tests on him.

Sabiha had stood outside for most of the day. Tired of waiting, she went home. Then, she received a call on her cell from Ahmed at 7pm. “He told me the bad news,” Sabiha said. “The sky fell on me, when he told me that,” she said.

Her daughter Sabreena recalled the misery. “I heard my mom scream ‘we don’t know where your father is.’ It was pretty harsh. I was panicking,” she said.

Hussain said he had the sense that his lawyer didn’t understand what was going on any more than he did. At 7pm, after a whole day, Ahmad informed Hussain that he wouldn’t be released

porary suspension is administered.

“The bag and baggage notice is one of the most dangerous letters my clients receive,” he said.

But that’s not what he said back then; at least that’s not how Sabiha remembers it. “He told us not to worry about it,” Sabiha said.

At the end of the temporary suspension, Hussain received another notice on March 2, 2011, the day he was taken into custody and placed in detention. That particular morning felt like any other for Hussain’s second daughter Sabreena.

She recalled sitting with her dad in the kitchen before she had to go to school. “We had breakfast together.

My dad mentioned that the lawyer

Back at the jail, at 9pm that night, the officers put Hussain in a van with a few others. “I didn’t know where they were taking us. All I remember was that it was raining heavily,” Hussain said. They drove for about an hour.

Sabiha remembers running in the heavy rain back to Ahmed’s office for answers. “He said he did his best, but the officers wouldn’t release him.”

Ahmed advised her to wait through the evening.

Meanwhile, Hussain found himself in a line outside a large yellow building with barbed wires surrounding it. With the little Spanish he knew, he asked a Latino inmate where they were. “He told me that we were at the Elizabeth Detention Center,” Hussain said.

The Elizabeth Detention Center is located off Routes 1 and 9 in New Jersey, near a sea of warehouses. It’s a 300-bed prison run by a privately owned company, Corrections Corporations of America (CCA) that has contracts with several federal clients.

ICE was paying CCA close to $90 a day per prisoner.

The facility holds undocumented immigrants, mostly asylum seekers, according to Usman Ahmad, who is no longer involved in Hussain’s case, but who said he makes frequent visits to the facility to visit other clients.

According to ICE, the Elizabeth facility is “a temporary detention centre for individuals who are waiting for their immigration status to be determined or who are awaiting repatriation.”

Inside the facility, the officers took Hussain’s fingerprints, and had him sign documents he couldn’t read.

Again, he was examined by doctors.

“Then I showered, and was given a uniform to wear.” This process took three hours. “I thought to myself, well I guess I have to get used to being here.”

At 1am he was sent to a big room that fit close to 40 people. He was given a bed. The officers shut off the lights. When he lay down, Hussain recalled feeling dizzy. “The room was spinning, all of Elizabeth spun around me. I couldn’t figure out if I was spinning, or maybe the building was spinning.”

Back in Queens the next morning, Sabiha returned to Ahmad’s office with her daughters, who are fluent in English; but still there were no updates on her husband or his whereabouts. “He said there was nothing he could do. He wasn’t really paying much mind to the situation. He was treating it like a normal matter,” she said. “Never mind a family has just been torn apart and he treats it like it’s nothing.”

Sabiha said she never went back to his office after that. And after having paid $6,000, it was hard to trust another lawyer again. “You couldn’t tell who was speaking the truth or telling a lie,” she said. Also, since she didn’t know how to read or speak English well, the legal matters were confusing. But Sabiha’s daughters who knew English, persisted. They helped their mother research lawyers online, and sought advice from family and friends.

Over the next 10 days Sabiha said she spent over a $1000 dollars from what little money she had left to pay several different lawyers’ initial consultation fees. “I just wanted the right advice,” she said. She didn’t receive the answers she needed.

Then, on March 12, 2011, a family friend recommended that Sabiha speak with yet another attorney, Amy Gell. Gell is a partner with Gell & Gell

Sabiha had heard great things about Gell’s firm. What she didn’t know was that Amy Gell was under investigation by the Attorney General’s office, and that within a year she would be censured

Law Offices. Gell, who specialises in political asylum cases, has been practicing law for 15 years according to The New York State Unified Court system’s attorney directory.

Sabiha had heard great things about this law firm. What she didn’t know was that Amy Gell was under investigation by the Attorney General’s office, and that within a year she would be censured (A censure is a public reprimand issued by the Attorney Grievance Committee for a lawyer’s misconduct in practice).

According to the March 1, 2012 New York Law Journal, between December 2005 and August 2007, Gell missed more than half of her court deadlines – 28 out of 41 client cases. The Appellate Division publicly censured her on February 12, 2012.

Gell guaranteed Sabiha two things: She promised to locate her husband and to get him released immediately.

Convinced, Sabiha instantly requested financial help from family members.

Sabiha paid Gell $3000 on the day of their first visit.

Within hours Gell had located Hussain at the Elizabeth Detention Center by tracing his alien ID number. By chance, on the same day, Taimur was allowed to call his family to let them know he was okay. He broke into tears on the phone. The children cried on the other end of the line. “We received some kind of mental peace to know where he was at least,” Sabiha said.

Then, just three days after that phone call with his wife and daughters on March 15, Hussain was abruptly taken to the airport to be deported. Despite his confusion and anxiety, once at the airport, he noticed an immigration officer speaking on the phone. Fifteen minutes later, Hussain was back in the van, being returned to the detention center. “All I could think was Allah had some kind of mercy on me,” Hussain recalled.

While Hussain languished in prison, Sabiha faced her own struggles.

She had to feed her children without her husband’s paycheck. The family couldn’t afford rent, so they left their home in Astoria and moved into the one-bedroom apartment of a family friend, Jasmeen Chowdhury, just a few blocks away.

All four of them slept on Jasmeen’s sofa bed in the living room at night.

“The first few months were as if someone had died. We didn’t have much of an appetite,” Sabiha remembered.

All she could think about was getting her husband released. But her friend Jasmeen encouraged the family to stay strong. She cooked for the kids.

But whenever she cooked Hussain’s favourite dish “goru mangsho,” a beef curry seasoned with coriander and tamarind spices, the kids would cry.

The middle daughter, Sabreena had recurring nightmares. “I had dreams about bad news coming,” she said.

Anytime the family was out, and a police officer was close by, Sabreena would run to hide her mom from the officer’s sight.

She also suffered severe stomach pains and nausea. As a result, she missed school. “It affected my grades, I had the citywide test coming up and I wasn’t concentrating,” said Sabreena.

In the end, she didn’t pass the exam; and the repeated absences from school have delayed her from graduating middle school.

Sabiha, meanwhile, began taking anti-depressants for her constant anxiety. Her blood pressure, and cholesterol levels shot up. “She was almost bedridden,” Jasmeen said.

“But I kept telling her, she had to be strong for her husband.” What made matters worse for Sabiha was her own undocumented status. It meant she couldn’t visit her husband at the Elizabeth Detention Center.

According to the Applied Research Center there are 4.5 million US citizens, under 18, with at least one undocumented parent. This number has increased in the past decade.

Inside, Hussain worried about his daughter’s daily activities. “I wondered if they were eating right and if they were going to school on time.

“Thinking about them kept me up all night,” he said. Sanjana, the youngest daughter, recalled the birthdays her dad missed. “He missed mine, my sisters, and my mom’s. We were sad,” she said. l TO BE CONCLUDED TOMORROW Tania Rashid is a multimedia journalist.

6

DHAKA TRIBUNE

Nation

Wednesday, August 21, 2013

Woman killed over dowry

Jamaat ameer held in Jhenidah in police killing case n UNB

n UNB

A housewife has been killed for dowry allegedly by her husband at Shakharia village, Jibonnagar upazila, Chuadanga on Sunday.

The victim’s name was Rupali and according to the villagers, her husband had been demanding dowry from Rupali’s father since their marriage eight years back. The husband, Sumon regularly tortured the victim for dowry.

Worried about his daughter’s future, Rupali’s father, Bachchu Miah gave Sumon Tk300, 000 in instalments but Sumon was not happy. He demanded more money from his father-in-law and started torturing Rupali when he did not get the money.

On Sunday evening, Sumon asked Rupali to bring Tk 50,000 from her father and started beating her up when she refused to do so. At one stage, he hit Rupali with a brick on her head, leaving her critically injured. The neighbours rushed Rupali to the hospital but she succumbed to her injuries on the way.

Officer-in-charge of Jibonnagar police station Abdur Rakib said Sumon had fled following the incident and the police arrested his father, Tetul Miah, in this connection. l

College student murdered in Tangail n Our Correspondent, Tangail A college student was murdered by unknown miscreants at Kashil village, Basail upazila, Tangail on Monday night.

The deceased was Alamin Khan, 19, a higher secondary student of Major General Mahmudul Hasan College in Tangail and resident of Kashil village, Basail upazila of the district.

Local said he was killed over a love affair while he was going to meet his lover Kaniz on Monday night.

Officer-in-Charge of Basail police station Md Salauddin Miah said police recovered his body at around 10pm from a paddy field of South Kashil village. Kaniz and her family fled away from the area after the incident.

Victim’s mother filed a murder case with Basail police station in this connection, he said.

The body was sent to Tangail General Hospital morgue for post mortem examination, he added. l

Police arrested a Bangladesh Jamaat-eIslami ameer from Dakhalpur village, Horinakunda upazila, Jhinaidah on Monday night in a case filed for killing a police constable.

The arrestee was Abdul Aziz Kadri, Daulatpur union unit ameer of Jamaat in the upazila.

Sub-Inspector of Horinakunda police station Aminul Islam said a team of police conducted a drive at the village around 9:30pm and arrested Aziz from his house. He was accused in a case filed for killing Constable Omar Faroque during the hartal on March 3. l

Stolen car recovered in Faridpur

n Tribune Desk

Students of Hazi Danesh Science and Technology University yesterday put up barricade on road, protesting assault on one of their fellows by some local goons

FOCUS BANGLA

Rajshahi street children vulnerable to ‘Dandi’

Police have recovered a stolen car from the house of a fourth-class employee of the deputy commissioner’s office in Kamalapur area of Faridpur town.

Executive Magistrate of Sherpur Shahriar Matin is the owner of the car.

Tuhin Lashkar, Faridpur police Sergeant, said, on a tip-off they had raided the house of Bikrom Khan, who is a fourth class employee at the Deputy Commissioner’s office, at around 11am on Monday and recovered the Toyota X-Corolla car from there. The car was kept at Kotwali police station, reports banglanews. l

Most of the addicts are involved in crimes such as mugging and stealing

Man killed as rooftop of boat falls

n Our Correspondent, Rajshahi

n UNB

Hundreds of street children in Rajshahi have been getting addicted to an adhesive solution, locally known as ‘Dandi’— a mixture of shoe solvent and glue, as it is cheap and easy to obtain.

Children aged between seven to 16 years, have been using the drug extensively, while most of them have been getting involved in crimes such as mugging and stealing with some of them even begging to manage the money for purchasing the drug.

Though there is no exact figure of such drug users, some of the drug abusers themselves said, at least several hundred street children, who col-

lect polythene bags, unused plastic products and other materials from the garbage and street side, have been using the drug a for long time.

The reporter found that the street children at Railway Station, Sheriol bus stand, Saheb Bazaar, Zero Point and Laxmipur Rajshahi Medical College Hospital areas are more prone to the Dandy.

12-year-old boy Mamun, who came to Rajshahi from Manda of Naogaon three years ago and started living as a scavenger at Rajshahi railway station, said a street child like him at first offered him to breath the gum.

“After taking the drug once, I felt different and felt ecstatic, then I started to take the drug again and again” said Ma-

mun. Another drug abuser Shafiqe said: “Gradually I became the regular user of dandi; I became dependent on it.”

He added that “at one stage of using the drug, when I used to inhale it over and over, my nose would start to bleed.”

Another drug abuser said: “I can understand that the drug is detrimental to health, but I cannot resist myself because it attracts me strongly.”

Describing the process how they prepare the drug to inhale, they said at first they collect synthetic rubber adhesive, which is used to join wood, rubber, shoes, for only Tk25 to Tk45.

Then they put the gum into polythene bags, which inhale strongly, giving them a feeling of excitement, they said.

Dr Nazib Wadood, deputy chief medical officer of Rajshahi University Medical Centre, said dandy is made of a highly toxic chemical. Sniffing such an adhesive may cause damage to the lungs, brain, liver and blood. Salima Sarwar, a human rights activist, said drug addiction of children is not only harmful to them but also for the society.

She added that the children, who are now engaged in petty, anti-social activities to manage the money for the drug, are going to one day be engaged in crimes of a larger scale when older.

The government should take measures to rehabilitate the street children for the sake of the greater good of the society, she added. l

A man was killed while four others were injured as the rooftop of a boat on cruise collapsed and fell on its passengers at Halti beel (water body) in Naldanga upazila, Natore on Monday.

The deceased was identified as Rafiqul Islam, 50.

Locals said a group of members of an association of motorcycle renters went on a river cruise by the boat in Halti beel in the afternoon.

The boat’s rooftop suddenly fell on the passengers, leaving five injured.

The injured were rushed to a private clinic in the upazila headquarters where doctors declared Rafiqul dead. l

Students’ scholarship money in Bagerhat misappropriated n Tribune Desk Education officers, bank officials and headmasters have allegedly been misappropriating scholarship money of primary school students in Shoronkhola upazila in Bagerhat.

Parents of these students alleged that the management committee abetted teachers in pocketing a substantial portion of scholarship money meant for students, under various pretexts.

Several assistant teachers of different primary schools, on condition of anonymity admitted the occurrence to the online news agency banglanews24. com.

Sources said each student in the 112 primary schools in the four unions of the upazila get Tk600 each, every six months, as scholarship money from the government.

The headmasters deduct amounts

from this money for various purposes.

It could range from Tk100 deducted from each student on the pretext of repairing furniture and buying fans; Tk50 to Tk100 for inadequate attend-

Preferring to remain anonymous, an assistant teacher said during the last few years headmasters and education officers had pocketed over Tk300,000 from the scholarship money. ance and at times the deduction could be for the alleged purpose of providing refreshments to bank officials and education officers visiting the school.

There have been instances of teachers fudging the total number of students in a school in order to get more money from the government.

Md Jiyarul Haque, father of class five student Rahnuma said headmaster of his daughter’s school had taken Tk100 from his daughter’s scholarship money on the pretext of buying fans.

Another student’s father Mosharraf Hossain said: “Each time the head master of the school has taken Tk100 from my child’s scholarship money on the excuse that it will be used for providing refreshments to guests visiting the school as well as to the students.

Preferring to remain anonymous, an assistant teacher said during the last few years headmasters and education officers had pocketed over Tk300,000 from the scholarship money.

Denying the allegation, Md Akhteruzzaman Milon, upazila education officer said he does not know anything about the misappropriation of scholarship money. l

Local people bring out a procession in Pabna town yesterday, demanding punishment to the killers of Jobo League leader Emon Khan FOCUS BANGLA

Plain land indigenous people remain ignored n UNB Indigenous people of the plain land are still victims of discrimination with their various demands, including constitutional recognition, lying unmet for long.

Although the International Day of World’s Indigenous People was observed on August 9, the people of the indigenous communities mostly do not know about the significance of the day and their demands.

The country’s north-western district Naogaon is a home to 150,000 people of the plain land indigenous communities, but the gloomy aspect is that a majority of such a big population is not aware of their rights.

Their various organisations have long been pressing for a 9-point demand, including constitutional recognition, formation of a separate land commission and education in their mother tongue.

The current government in its elec-

tion manifesto had pledged to recognise the constitutional rights of the indigenous people and meet their other demands.

However, the government’s inaction in implementing their demands has created resentment among the indigenous community leaders.

On the other hand, experts think that due to racial weakness the indigenous organisations are not being able to raise any effective movement. As a result, repression, killing, rape and eviction are increasing every day.

People of different indigenous communities such as Onrao, Munda, Pahan, Bhuimali, Murma and Mahato are living in large numbers in Dhamairhat, Patnitola, Sapahar, Niamatpur, Mahadevpur, Porsha and Badalgachhi of Naogano.

Jatiya Mohila Adibashi Union Parishad central committee President Rebeka Soren said although the present government made commitments several times, implementation of their

(indigenous people’s) demands is yet to be seen.

Jatiya Adibashi Parishad central committee General Secretary Sabin Munda said the government did not

Various organisations have long been pressing for a 9-point demand, including constitutional recognition, formation of a separate land commission and education in their mother tongue meet any of the 9-point demands despite several assurances, adding that the indigenous people were facing discrimination everywhere – from education, to medical treatment along with other service sectors.

They have been facing repression and becoming victims of torture and even being killed if they tried to protest for property, she alleged. She also added that the rich were evicting them

forcibly from their lands but the administration was not taking any appropriate measures.

This deprivation of justice paved the way for the evil elements to make them further victims of torture, killing, rape and other kinds of repression, she expressed concerns.

Intellectual, poet and researcher on affairs of the ethnic communities Ataul Huq Siddique said characteristics of the indigenous people in the hilly regions were different from those from the flatter lands.

The indigenous groups of the flatter lands were relatively poorer and they had not been able to organise themselves enough to realise their demands due to class weakness, he added. He also suggested the formation of a separate land commission for the indigenous communities.

This would reduce repression on them and help establish their legitimate rights, Ataul Huq opined. l

Bribery allegation brought against Roumari OC n Our Correspondent, Kurigram A police official in Kurigram have been allegedly demanding bribes for lodging cases.

Local people have submitted a complaint letter to deputy commissioner and police super of the district against the officer-in-charge of Roumari police station on Monday.

The accused police official was Mokhlesur Rahman, OC of Roumari police station. The copies of the complaint letter against Mokjlesur were sent to the home ministry, inspector general (IG) and deputy inspector general (DIG) of police, press club and other organisations, seeking an investigation over the matter.

Seeking anonymity, a poor farmer

said he went to the police station on Sunday to file a case, but Mokhlesur demanded Tk10,000 for filing his case.

Later, no cases were lodged as the farmer was unable to manage the money.

Mominul Islam, a resident, said few days ago, a group of miscreants have beaten him indiscriminately. Upazila Chairman Abdul Khaleque rescued him and admitted to the local hospital.

Later, Mominul went to Roumari police station but, Mokhlesur demanded Tk10,000 for lodging the case from him also.

Mokhlesur said, “Land-related cases are not filed with police station usually. So, we refused to lodge Mominul’s case. ” But, he did not make comment over taking bribes for filing cases. l

DHAKA TRIBUNE

Metro

7

Wednesday, August 21, 2013

Regional telecom conference begins in city n Tribune Desk A three-day conference of 10th Asia Pacific Telecommunication and ICT Development began in the city yesterday.

The conference was arranged aimed at providing platform for governments, regulators, industry players and all stakeholders to discuss ways for development of telecommunication and ICT sectors in the region.

Post and Telecommunication Minister Advocate Sahara Khatun inaugurated the opening session in a city hotel.

Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC) in cooperation with Asia Pacific Telecommunity (APT) is organising the event for the first time in the country.

Representatives from 17 countries are taking part in different technical sessions of the event.

Speaking on the occasion as chief guest, Sahara Khatun said the government was firmly committed to do everything possible to facilitate the growth of the telecommunication sector as the sector is a major partner in materialising the vision of “digital Bangladesh”.

“Our government is open to suggestions from different stakeholder to create a win-win situation for all,” said the minister.

Mentioning the government’s priority on people’s access to broadband internet connectivity, Sahara said the goal of breaking down “digital divide” has long been associated with the distribution of information and communication technology.

“The government would like to enact a more telecom friendly regulatory environment to encourage faster mobile phone penetration to catalyze access to information,” the minister added.

APT Secretary General Toshiyuki Yamada gave welcome speech while BTRC Chairman Sunil Kanti Bose, Telecom Secretary Abubakar Siddique and ICT Secretary Nazrul Islam Khan spoke as special guests.

BTRC Director General (system and services) Brigadier General Golam Mowla Bhuiyan presented vote of thanks. APT secretary general said the success of telecommunication in the country was only for the policy makers and regulator.

“We APT are continuing our effort to the development of our member countries through organizing workshop, training and seminar,” he added.

In the three-day conference, 11 technical sessions would take place.

Experts from home and abroad would make presentations on different technical aspects of telecommunication and ICT. l

Seminar on sanitation in Dhaka, Khulna in September n UNB, Dhaka

Occupying portion of road as well as footpath, some influential quarters built shop under the nose of administration

Encroachers occupy Phulbaria footpath

NASHIRUL ISLAM

Ruling party men have allegedly constructed shops on the walkway Didarul Alam had made the illegal al- ents showed allotment paper approved have been established permanently, n Abu Hayat Mahmud though the city corporation had only by the city corporation authority. lotment.

The Dhaka South City Corporation (DSCC), in contravention of rules, has allocated space on the footpath of city’s Kazi Alauddin Road in the Phulbaria area, to leaders from the ruling party.

Former officials of estate department of the city corporation had illegally allotted space on the road in front of Central Veterinary Hospital and west side of Fire Brigade Office of Phulbaria in the capital, city corporation sources said.

Preferring to remain anonymous, an official of DSCC said former estate officer of the corporation Mohammad

The matter became known only after those who had been awarded the space recently set up business there.

Administrator Nozmul Islam directed officials to take steps to demolish illegal structures.

Following the directive, DSCC Executive Magistrate Mohammad Autul Mondal along with the incumbent Assistant Estate Officer Samsul Alam went to the area yesterday in a bid to knock down the illegal establishments.

However, the eviction team returned empty handed as the plot recipi-

According to the allotment papers, the DSCC estate department temporarily allocated 45.5 square feet to the recipients, on the payment of Tk15 per month per square foot.

But the recipients, Md Shaheb and Md Shohag are in the process of building seven shops on 149 square feet of land. Around 80% of the construction work has been completed.

The recipients applied in December 5, 2011 and were awarded space on June 3, 2012.

On a visit to the area yesterday, this correspondent found that the shops

made a temporary allotment.

Local people alleged that though the allotment was made in the name of Md Shaheb and Md Shohag, some leaders of associations affiliated to the ruling party had also become involved in building shops to earn a share of the pie.

Executive Magistrate of the city corporation Mohammad Autul Mondal told the Dhaka Tribune: “We are currently verifying the allotment papers, so it is not possible to say anything at the moment. We will take the next steps soon.” l

Khulna Railway Station: a safe zone for smugglers Jamil Khan, n Mohammad back from Khulna Several strong syndicates have long been smuggling goods through Khulna railway station as a safe route to supply drugs and others products to the southern region of the country, while the station has been getting more unsafe for the passengers.

The situation has been going worsen as a section of train attendants, officials of Government Railway Police (GRP), on-duty ticket collectors and guards have been helping smugglers to do their business without any fear

of law and order by creating a safe zone for them.

Though very often members of Rapid Action Battalion and BGB recover a huge quantity of drugs and smuggled goods by raiding the trains, but they could not stopped the smugglers.

According to sources, the smuggled goods include Indian arms, contraband fencidil, contraband medicines, clothes, steel materials, powder milk, cosmetics, inferior fertiliser, imitation jewelleries and drugs, including heroin, yaba and opium.

The sources said a few persons of rail gate area are the ringleaders of the smuggling syndicate who have established their dominance in the Khulna railway station area.

A Dhaka Tribune source who wished to be anonymous said Sopon Bishwash, Faruk Hossain, Sohel and Hossain Ali are involved in the smuggling and crime rackets.

Sources alleged that GRP officials helping the smugglers as they pay a very handsome amount to the GRP men every month.

Ekram Mollah, officer-in-charge of Khulna Railway station, refused the

allegation against GRP officials.

Local people of the railway station area said the law and order of the area has deteriorated due to the inaction of GRP and police members of Khulna sadar police station.

They added that just after sun set, vendors of heroin, hemp, fensidil and other drugs begin prowling in the station area, while the pickpockets, thugs and hoodlums also roam around the station in the night and fall on the passengers at the opportune moment to rob them.

The Sheikhpara, Kadomtala and

Barmashel areas in the city have also earned notoriety as the safe haven for the sale and purchase of the smuggled goods.

A Railway official wishing anonymity said passengers are unsafe in the station as they have the shortage of night guards and police.

Sahabuddin Azad, officer-in-charge of Khulna sadar police station, said they often operate raids in vulnerable areas and arrested a number of drug peddlers.

He also claimed that they deploy their petrol team at the area to ensure the security of the passengers. l

10 new BRTC AC buses added to Barisal depot n Anisur Rahman Swapan

Jatiya Jubo Parishad yesterday arranged a photo exhibition at Dhaka University, marking the 9th anniversary of ‘21st August’. At least 24 people were killed and more than hundred injured in grenade attacks at Bangabandhu Avenue in the capital on the day in 2004 FOCUS BANGLA

The forty years old Barisal depot of state owned Bangladesh Road Transport Corporation had received 10 new air-conditioned buses in face of acute shortage of fit vehicles.

Jamil Hossain, Barisal BRTC depot manager, said recently the prime minister received and inaugurated 87 Indian-made air-conditioned buses. We placed a demand for 25 vehicles from that fleet.

“We placed a demand for 25 vehicles from that fleet and received 10 new AC vehicles after the Eid. Four of those are already placed on Patuakhali-Dhaka-Patuakhali, Kuakata-Barisal-Dhaka, Charsession-Barisal-Jessore, Barguna-Barisal-Jessore routes from August 10,” he said.

Assistant Traffic Officer of the Barisal BRTC depot Zulfikar Ali said six of the buses were giving trial on Barisal-Kewrakandi-Barisal route to asses operating and fuel cost, adding that at least 4 of those would be placed on

long routes connecting different destinations of north Bengal.

Officials said the BRTC Barisal depot had 20-25 years old 39 buses, of which three were declared abandoned 3 years ago, while average 5 out of the rest 36 remained regularly under repair and maintenance servicing.

The BRTC depot officials expressed hopes that those new AC vehicles, charging Tk2.5 per kilometre as fare, could improve better services for the passengers.

The depot started functioning in 1973 and added these new buses after about 10 years since 2004, he told.

The BRTC depot manager said the depot earned average of Tk11m monthly from over 60,000-90,000 passengers.

Out of which Tk1m was spent for ferry fare and bridge tolls, Tk5.5m for fuel costing, Tk1.8m for officials and staff salaries, Tk600,000 for maintenance and repairing cost leaving a monthly net profit of Tk2.1m and annual net profit ofTk25.2m, he added. l

The Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), India will host knowledge sharing seminar on water and waste in partnership with the Bangladesh Institute of Planners (BIP) on September 4 in the city.

The meeting will be held at the Planners’ Tower and the agenda of the meet is to share knowledge on river conservation, pollution monitoring and urban sewage treatment in India and Bangladesh.

The discharge of untreated wastewater and the ensuing contamination of surface water bodies are rising steadily, as the gap between treatment infrastructure and sewage generation is increasing. This has a massive health cost in both countries, according to a CSE message received in the city yesterday.

“We also want to focus on the massive water crisis that South Asian cities are facing and suggest possible solutions. Urban water bodies – marshlands, ponds, wetlands and lakes – play a vital role in ground water recharge, flood control and storm protection.

“We can explore ways to achieve groundwater security by protecting these water bodies, as well as scaling up city level rainwater harvesting,” it said.

The CSE will arrange another knowledge sharing seminar in partnership with the Centre for Coastal Environmental Conservation, Khulna at the Christian Service Society on September 8. l

Science fair in Rajshahi from Saturday n Tribune Report A four-day Rajshahi Divisional Science Fair-2013 will begin at Rajshahi New Government Degree College on Saturday.

Rajshahi Divisional Commissioner’s Office will organise the fair where different college, school and science club from every district under the division will attend.

Every day, the fair will remain open from 10am to 7pm for all.

Main thrust of the fair is to encourage the young scientists alongside flourishing their innovative latent talents.

State Minister for Industries Omor Faruque Chowdhury, MP, is likely to inaugurate the fair. l

Road accident kills 3 in Chittagong n Tarek Mahmud, Chittagong Three people were killed in a road crash on the Dhaka-Chittagong Highway in Sitakunda upazila, Chittagong yesterday.

The deceased were Jasim Uddin, Kamal Uddin and rickshaw puller Halim, all residents of Khulsi in the port city.

Sohel Imtiaz, officer-in-charge of Baro Awlia highway police outpost in Shitakunda, said the accident occurred around 10:30pm when a city-bound bus of Jonaki Paribahan from Laksmipur hit a battery-run rickshaw in Fakirhat area, leaving its puller Halim and passenger Jasim dead on the spot and another passenger Kamal injured.

Critically injured Kamal died on the way to Chittagong Medical College Hospital. Later, locals detained the bus but its driver fled the scene. l

Photo exhibition at ULAB n Tribune Report University of Liberal Arts Bangladesh (ULAB) organised a two-day- long photo exhibition on its campus at Dhanmondi in the city yesterday.

ULAB Vice Chancellor Prof Imran Rahman inaugurated the contest.

Among others, ULAB Pro-Vice Chancellor Prof HM Jahirul Haque, Head of the Department of Media Studies and Journalism Prof Jude William R Genilo, Registrar Foyzul Islam were also present in the inauguration programme, along with ULAB faculty and admin officers.

All the photos of this contest were captured by ULAB students. The exhibition on “Photo Contest 2013” with the theme of “Being Liberal” will be open for all till 5pm today.

A prize giving ceremony of this contest will be held today in which Prof Dhali Al Mamoon will be present as chief guest. l

8

DHAKA TRIBUNE

International

Wednesday, August 21, 2013

Egypt arrests Brotherhood chief n AFP, Cairo

Ban Ki-moon

UN chief calls for probe of Egypt detainee deaths n AFP, United Nations UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on Monday called for a “full investigation” into the deaths of three dozen pro-Morsi detainees in police custody in Egypt.

Ban was “deeply disturbed by the reported deaths” of the prisoners as they were being transferred to a different facility in Cairo, according to his spokesman Martin Nesirky.

“He calls for a full investigation to ascertain the facts surrounding this incident,” Nesirky said.

Authorities said 37 Islamist detainees died after police fired tear gas in a bid to free an officer taken hostage by prisoners, as the inmates were being transferred to a north Cairo jail. But the Muslim Brotherhood held the police accountable, accusing them of “murder.”

Ban also condemned a militant ambush of police buses in Egypt’s Sinai on Monday that left 25 policemen dead. l

Egypt’s government on Tuesday pressed its relentless campaign against the Muslim Brotherhood of ousted president Mohammed Morsi, dealing a major new blow to the Islamist group by arresting its chief.

The detention of supreme guide Mohamed Badie could throw the Brotherhood into further disarray as it struggles to withstand an onslaught by the army-installed authorities.

It quickly announced that a deputy, Mahmoud Ezzat, would assume the post of supreme guide on an interim basis, but has seen the ranks of its leadership thinned by progressive arrests.

Badie’s detention also raises fears of new violence in the country, where nearly 900 people have died in days of clashes between security forces and Islamist supporters of Morsi.

In the latest bloodshed, militants killed 25 policemen in the restive Sinai Peninsula, just hours after 37 Muslim Brotherhood prisoners died in police custody.

Judicial sources meanwhile said fresh accusations had been levelled against Morsi, who has been detained at a secret location since his July 3 ouster by the army.

And former president Hosni Mubarak won conditional release in the third of four cases against him, but remained in detention on the last case.

The interior ministry said police picked up Brotherhood chief Badie near Rabaa al-Adawiya square, where more than 280 Morsi supporters were killed on Wednesday as police cleared

Earliest iron artefacts came from meteorite n AFP, Paris

their protest camp.

It released a video of the 70-yearold, sitting impassively on a sofa, bottles of juice and water placed conspicuously in front of him.

The Brotherhood’s political party said the group had appointed deputy Mahmoud Ezzat to assume the role of supreme guide.

Badie’s detention also raises fears of new violence in the country, where nearly 900 people have died in days of clashes between security forces and Islamist supporters of Morsi Ezzat has been jailed multiple times, and is often referred to as the organisation’s “iron man,” experts on the group say.

Dozens of senior Brotherhood members have been arrested or are at large, after being accused of crimes including inciting the deaths of protesters before Morsi’s ouster. Violence continued to rock the country and draw international opprobrium.

On Monday morning, militants killed 25 riot police in two buses in the Sinai peninsula, in the deadliest such attack in decades.

The interior ministry blamed the attack on “armed terrorist groups” and Egypt closed its border with the Palestinian Gaza strip, near where the attack occurred.

Security sources said another policeman was killed in north Sinai, bringing the number of security force members killed in Sinai since Morsi’s ouster to 75. l

Egyptian Christians from Coptic churches demonstrate in US city of Nashville

AP

‘Worst’ radioactive leak from tank reported at Japan’s Fukushima n AFP, Tokyo Some 300 tonnes of radioactive water is believed to have leaked from a tank at Japan’s crippled nuclear plant, the worst such leak since the crisis began, the operator said Tuesday.

Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco) said the leak was believed to be continuing Tuesday at Fukushima and it had not yet pinpointed the source of it.

Tepco said puddles with extremely high radiation levels – about 100 millisieverts per hour – have been found

near the water tanks at the ruined plant.

“This means you are exposed to the level of radiation in an hour that a nuclear plant worker is allowed to be exposed to in five years,” a Tepco spokesman told a press conference.

The company later said it had identified which tank was faulty but had yet to find the spot from where it was leaking.

“We have instructed Tepco to find the source of contaminated water...and to seal the leakage point,” an official

from the Nuclear Regulation Authority told AFP. “We have also instructed them to retrieve contaminated soil to avoid a further expansion of toxic water, and to strengthen monitoring of the surrounding environment.”

There were no significant changes in radiation levels outside the plant, he added.

Since a quake-generated tsunami struck Fukushima in March 2011, knocking out reactor cooling systems and sparking meltdowns, there have been four similar leaks from tanks of

the same design.

But the latest leak was the worst from a tank in terms of volume, the Tepco spokesman said.

Tepco admitted the toxic water might contaminate groundwater and flow into the Pacific Ocean “in the longer term,” but said it was working to avoid such a situation.

“We are transferring the contaminated water from a tank with a leakage problem to unbroken tanks, and retrieving leaked water and soil around it,” the spokesman said.

So far four tonnes of the spilled water had been retrieved since Monday evening when Tepco started the recovery operation, the company said.

Tepco has faced a growing catalogue of incidents at the plant including several leaks of radioactive water, following the worst nuclear disaster in a generation. The company – which faces huge clean-up and compensation costs – has struggled with a massive amount of radioactive water accumulating as a result of continuing water injections to cool reactors. l

The earliest iron artefacts ever found - funeralbeads strung around bodies in a 5,000-year-old Egyptian cemetery – were made from a meteorite, archaeologists said on Monday.

Hi-tech scanning of the beads, discovered by British archaeologists in the Lower Egypt village of el-Gerzeh in 1911, shows the metal came from a rock in outer space, they said.

The nine small beads come from two burial sites dated to around 3,200 BC, where they were found in necklaces along with exotic terrestrial minerals such as lapis lazuli, agate and gold.

They are stored at the University College London (UCL) Petrie Museum.

Meteorite iron is an alloy that has a different composition from terrestrial iron.

The scientists teased out a signature of the elements in the beads through a non-destructive ID test called prompt-gamma neutron activation analysis (PGAA).

Under this, a sample is bathed in low-energy beams of neutrons.

Elements in the sample absorb some of the neutrons and emit gamma rays in response, the level of which provides the telltale.

The team found traces of nickel, phosphorus, cobalt and germanium that meant the source could only have been extraterrestrial.

X-ray scanners, meanwhile, showed that the meteorite iron had been repeatedly heated and hammered to make the precious jewels for the afterlife.

This shows that in the fourth millennium BC, the Egyptians were already advanced in the art in smithing, say the researchers.

Meteoritic iron is much harder and more brittle than copper, the commonly-worked material of the time.

“They were rolled and hammered into shape,” said Thilo Rehren, a UCL professor of archaeology.

“This is very different technology from the usual stone bead drilling, and shows quite an advanced understanding of how the metal smiths worked this rather difficult material.”

The study appears in the Journal of Archaeological Science. l

Myanmar risks spiralling anti-Muslim unrest Tunisia’s Amina says Femen ‘Islamophobic’ n AFP, Bangkok Myanmar must address anti-Muslim propaganda and stamp out a culture of impunity for religious violence or risk “catastrophic” levels of conflict, a rights group warned Tuesday.

Physicians for Human Rights described attacks on Muslims, that have swept the country since fighting first broke out last year as “widespread and systematic,” in a report examining unrest that has killed around 250 people and left tens of thousands homeless.

The US-based group said that while the situation in the country currently appeared calm, a failure to properly investigate and deal with the causes of the tensions risks further clashes.

PHR reported that “the brazen nature of these crimes and the widespread culture of impunity in which these massacres occur form deeply troubling preconditions that make such crimes very likely to continue.”

“If these conditions go unaddressed, Burma may very well face countrywide violence on a catastrophic level, including potential crimes against humanity and/ or genocide,” it continued, using the country’s former name.

Myanmar has strongly denied previous accusations by watchdog Human Rights Watch of ethnic cleansing against the Rohingya in Rakhine state.

Attacks against Muslims, who are thought to make up at least four percent of Myanmar’s population, have thrown the Buddhist-majority nation’s much-hailed emergence from military dictatorship into question.

Physicians for Human Rights described attacks on Muslims, that have swept the country since fighting first broke out last year as ‘widespread and systematic’ Communal unrest between local Buddhist and Rohingya Muslims engulfed the country’s western Rakhine state in June and October 2012, with whole villages burned to the ground leaving some 140,000 homeless – mainly the Rohingya. This year the conflict has widened to target Muslims in general, with several eruptions of violence spreading across the country.

After dozens of Muslims, including more than 20 students and teachers of

A Rohingya girl stands near the Bawdupa IDP camps outside of Sittwe

an Islamic school, were killed in the central Myanmar town of Meiktila in March the United Nations human rights envoy for Myanmar, Tomas Ojea Quintana, said the reluctance of security forces to crack down on the unrest suggested a possible state link to the fighting.

The reformist government of President Thein Sein has rejected the statement from the UN envoy, who is currently in Myanmar on a visit that includes tours of some of the areas affected by religious conflict.

PHR said there was little evidence of direct orders or funding for the violence, but said “patterns of abuse” seen during the conflict “may imply that police or military were following orders.”

The watchdog acknowledged that authorities were prosecuting both Buddhists and Muslims accused of crimes.

“But Muslims have been given much longer sentences than Buddhists and many more Muslims have been arrested,” PHR Burma director William Davis told reporters in Bangkok.

“The violence has stopped, but ... the structural violence is still there,” he said, alluding to a “culture of impunity” and lack of trust in the justice system as well as discriminatory laws.l

REUTERS

n AFP, Tunis Amina Sboui, a Tunisian activist who was detained for nearly three months, said on Tuesday she had left the radical women’s protest group Femen, accusing it of Islamophobia.

“I do not want my name to be associated with an Islamophobic organisation,” she told the Maghreb edition of the Huffington Post. “I did not appreciate the action taken by the girls shouting ‘Amina Akbar, Femen Akbar’ in front of the Tunisian embassy in Paris,” Sboui said. Those chants were a parody of Allahu akbar (God is greatest), a phrase

Dozens of Rohingya escape detention in Thailand n AFP, Bangkok Dozens of Muslim Rohingya boat people from Myanmar escaped Tuesday from a Thai immigration centre, police said, as a rights group called for all of them to be freed from detention.

Some 87 Rohingya men broke out of the detention centre housing 137 asylum-seekers in Sadao, a southern district bordering Malaysia. They were among nearly 2,000 Rohingya who have been held - some for many months – for entering Thailand illegally.

Local media reports said they punched a hole in the ceiling and climbed out using a rope made from their clothes.

Authorities are searching for the runaways and have rearrested two of them, according to Suwit Choensiri, a police commander in Songkhla province which includes Sadao.

“The reason for their escape is the pressure they are under after being detained for long time with no idea of their future,” he added.

Many of the asylum-seekers have been locked up in the overcrowded and reportedly insanitary centre for several months.

Thousands of Muslim Rohingya boat people have fled Myanmar since Buddhist-Muslim clashes a year ago in its western state of Rakhine. l

frequently used by Muslims to express their allegiance to and praise of God. Amina also criticised the burning of the black Tawhid flag, which affirms the oneness of God, in front of a mosque in Paris. “That offends many Muslims and many friends of mine. We must respect everyone’s religion,” she added.

The Femen protests took place as Sboui was being held in pre-trial detention for painting the word “Femen” on a cemetery wall in protest at a planned meeting of radical Muslim Salafists in May in Kairouan. She was finally released at the beginning of August pending her trial for desecrating a cemetery.

The young woman also criticised the lack of financial transparency of Femen, the movement founded in Ukraine and based in Paris, which has become famous for its topless protests against dictatorship in support of women’s rights.

“I don’t know how the movement is financed. I asked (Femen leader Inna Shevchenko) several times, but I didn’t get a clear answer. I don’t want to be in a movement supported by suspect money. What if it is financed by Israel?”

Amina received a wave of online support earlier this year when Tunisia’s Islamists threatened her for posting topless pictures of herself online. l

WORLD WATCH 7 dead as heavy rains pummel flooded Philippines

Flood-battered residents of Manila fled their homes or sat on rooftops on Tuesday, as relentless monsoon rains, which have killed seven people so far, submerged more than half of the Philippine capital. Streets turned into rivers, with waters above two metres in some parts of the megacity of 12 million people, displacing more than 130,000 people and forcing countless others to wait out the storm in or atop their flooded homes.

Many domestic flights at Manila’s airport were cancelled, as were some international flights. Flooded roads to the airport were impassable. The state weather agency warned the rain would continue into Tuesday evening.

Hundreds of migrants land in Italy

More than 600 migrants from Eritrea, Pakistan, Syria and other countries landed on Italian shores on three boats between Monday night and Tuesday. One boat carrying 336 people was rescued by the Italian coast guard near Porto Empedocle in Sicily and the migrants were taken ashore, where most of them fled from police. Most of the thousands of economic migrants and refugees who have landed in Italy in recent months have landed come various parts of Africa.

Police detain protesters at anti-fracking demo

British police dispersed hundreds protesters who blocked access to oil exploration site in rural England Monday, in the intensification of

of an on an

almost month-long standoff over the nascent shale gas extraction industry.

Thirty-six people were detained. Hundreds of protesters converged on the West Sussex village and repeatedly scuffled with around 400 police. Activists argued that the government should invest in renewable energy rather than fracking.

Widow who lost $280k home over $6 gets hearing

A western Pennsylvania woman whose $280,000 home was sold at auction over $6.30 in unpaid interest won a court decision on Monday allowing her a fresh opportunity to argue that she should not lose her home. Commonwealth Court ruled it was a mistake for a Beaver County judge to rule against Eileen Battisti without first holding an evidentiary hearing. Battisti’s lawyer said she still lives in her Aliquippa home, even though it was sold nearly two years ago.

Teenage surfer survives shark attack off Hawaii Island

A 16-year-old boy surfing along the east coast of Hawaii’s Big Island was bitten on the legs by a 2.44m shark in the second such attack in the state in less than a week, but the teen’s mother said on Monday he is expected to make a full recovery. The young victim, Jimmy Ulualoha, suffered 30 deep lacerations in the attack. His mother was beckoning him to get out of the water. Jimmy was flown by helicopter to Hilo Medical Center. He is expected to recover fully, his mother said.

DHAKA TRIBUNE

International

Britain’s Guardian says forced to destroy ‘Snowden files’ UK government threatened to use courts to try and obtain leaked documents if the paper did not destroy them

n AFP, London David Miranda

Partner of leaks journalist suing UK over detention n AFP, London US journalist Glenn Greenwald’s partner is taking legal action over his detention by British authorities, the editor of The Guardian newspaper said Tuesday.

“David Miranda is taking a civil action over his material and the way that he was treated,” editor Alan Rusbridger, whose newspaper has worked with Greenwald and Edward Snowden to expose US intelligence tactics, told the BBC. Miranda, a Brazilian national, spent almost nine hours in detention under British anti-terror legislation on Sunday as he passed through London Heathrow Airport en route from Berlin to Rio de Janeiro.

British police confiscated some of Miranda’s electronic equipment including his mobile phone, laptop, camera, memory sticks, DVDs and games consoles, according to The Guardian.

The Guardian itself was not taking legal action, Rusbridger said. “At the moment this is a legal challenge by David Miranda, who is the individual, and he has lawyers who will mount that challenge,” the editor said. l

The Guardian newspaper says the British government forced it to destroy files or face a court battle over its publication of US security secrets leaked by Edward Snowden, as the fallout over the arrest of a man linked to the fugitive intensifies, AFP has reported.

The claim by the paper’s editor Alan Rusbridger came as Britain faced a second day of questions over why the partner of US journalist Glenn Greenwald had been detained and questioned at a London airport for nine hours.

According to AFP, David Miranda has been working with Greenwald and The Guardian on publishing material leaked by Snowden, the former US National Security Agency (NSA) worker who has turned leaker.

In response to growing criticism of the detention, Britain’s Home Office interior ministry said police had been looking for “stolen information” that could be of use to terrorists when they had stopped Miranda.

Without mentioning him by name, a Home Office spokeswoman told AFP: “If the police believe that an individual is in possession of highly sensitive stolen information that would help terrorism, then they should act and the law provides them with a framework to do that.

“Those who oppose this sort of action need to think about what they are condoning.”

Writing in Tuesday’s edition of The Guardian, Rusbridger said that two months ago he had been contacted

Supporters of Snowden demonstrate outside the regional office of the presidency in Sao Paulo, Brazil AP by “a very senior government official claiming to represent the views of the prime minister.”

The call led to two meetings in which “he demanded the return or destruction of all the material we were working on.” At the time, the paper was in the middle of publishing candid revelations about mass surveillance programmes conducted by the NSA and its British counterpart, GCHQ, after Snowden handed them thousands of documents.

Rusbridger claimed that in a call “from the centre of government,” someone he does not identify told him: “You’ve had your fun. Now we want the stuff back.”

“There followed further meetings with shadowy Whitehall figures,” he told AFP., adding the demand re-

mained same everytime.

The editor said the government threatened to use the courts to try and obtain the leaked documents if the paper did not destroy them themselves.

“With two GCHQ security experts overseeing the destruction of hard drives in The Guardian’s basement just to make sure there was nothing in the mangled bits of metal which could possibly be of any interest to passing Chinese agents.”

According to the AFP report, Rusbridger gave no explanation of why he had waited a month to reveal the destruction of the computer equipment.

In his article, he said the detention of Miranda was a worrying development and showed “it may not be long before it will be impossible for journalists to have confidential sources.”

Miranda said Monday that he had been stopped at London’s Heathrow Airport on the way to Brazil from Berlin where he had been visiting a filmmaker.

He claims he was questioned about “my whole life” by six agents and had his computer and memory cards confiscated, the AFP report said.

A furious Greenwald said Monday that his boyfriend had been the subject of “a clear attempt at intimidation” and he vowed to train his sights on Britain and its intelligence services in future.

The White House said it had been informed that Britain was about to arrest Greenwald’s partner but denied it had requested the action.

The Guardian was one of the original media partners of WikiLeaks and its founder Julian Assange, and helped to publish material from the mass of confidential cables leaked by US military worker Bradley Manning. However the newspaper later fell out with Assange.

According to a Reuters report, Rusbridger, in his article, said he told British officials that due to the nature of “international collaborations” among journalists, it would remain possible for media organisations to “take advantage of the most permissive legal environments.” Henceforth, he said, the Guardian “did not have to do our reporting from London.” A source familiar with the matter said this meant British authorities were on notice that the Guardian was likely to continue to report on the Snowden revelations from outside British government jurisdiction, Reuters reported. l

Sonia Gandhi launches food security scheme in New Delhi n Tribune Desk In a grand step to the implementation of India’s much-talked-about food security bill, Congress president Sonia Gandhi launched the scheme in Delhi on Tuesday, Times of India has reported.

The food security scheme in India is “unparalleled” in the world and aims to feed every poor person in the country, TOI website quoted her as saying.

According to TOI, Delhi was the first Indian territory to clear the scheme.

“We have people who still don’t get food and there are children who are malnourished. We decided to bring this scheme so that every poor gets food and no child sleeps without food,” Gandhi said at Talkatora Stadium in New Delhi.

At the ceremony, she gave away food security ration cards and a 5kg packet of rice to beneficiaries.

Under the scheme, a total of 7.35m people will get foodgrain at highly subsidised rates.

US prosecutors demand 60 years for Manning n AFP, Fort Meade US military prosecutors demanded Monday that Private Bradley Manning spend at least 60 years in jail for handing a vast trove of classified government files to anti-secrecy site WikiLeaks.

Captain Joe Morrow urged the trial judge to impose a tough six-decade sentence and a $100,000 fine to “send a message to any soldier contemplating stealing classified information.”

Manning’s defence counsel, David Coombs, insisted that this would be far too harsh a sentence for a young man with a chance of rehabilitation, who had expressed remorse and who had cooperated with the court.

He pleaded for a sentence that would allow Manning one day to walk free, arguing that he had acted out of a humane but naive desire to halt the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The military judge overseeing Manning’s court martial, Colonel Denise Lind, brought the sentencing hearing to a close and said she would briefly reconvene the court on Tuesday before retiring to consider the punishment.

Last month, the former army intelligence analyst was convicted on a raft of espionage and theft charges that could see him jailed for up to 90 years. l

US says Zimbabwe vote flawed, won’t lift sanctions n Reuters, Washington The United States believes Zimbabwe’s recent election was flawed and it doesn’t plan to loosen sanctions against President Robert Mugabe’s government until there are signs of change in the country, the State Department said on Monday, despite an endorsement of the vote by Southern African leaders.

Mugabe, who has ruled Zimbabwe since independence from Britain in 1980, is set to be sworn in as president as early as this week, extending his 33year rule of the country after winning the July 31 election.

The 15-nation Southern African Development Community, which helped broker a power-sharing deal after disputed elections in Zimbabwe in 2008, backed Mugabe’s re-election on Sunday.

“The United States stands by our assessment that these elections, while relatively peaceful, did not represent a credible expression of the will of the Zimbabwean people due to serious flaws throughout the electoral process,” said State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki.

“We have made clear to the government of Zimbabwe and the region that a change in US sanctions policy will occur only in the context of credible, transparent and peaceful reforms that reflect the will of the Zimbabwean people.”

The opposition Movement for Democratic Change, led by Morgan Tsvangirai, on Friday dropped its court challenge to Mugabe’s landslide win, saying it doubted it would get a fair hearing.

The Zimbabwe Election Support Network said registration flaws may have disenfranchised up to a million people out of 6.4 million registered voters. l

Swedes show support on Twitter wearing hijaab n Tribune Desk

“The guarantee of food provided by food security scheme on such a large scale is unparalleled in the world,” she said. The launch of the most expensive

At the ceremony, she gave away food security ration cards and a 5kg packet of rice to beneficiaries. Under the scheme, a total of 7.35m people will get foodgrain at highly subsidised rates food scheme in the world has been deemed to be a game-changer for the Congress ahead of Indian general elections in 2014.

Gandhi praised Delhi chief minister Sheila Dikshit for her efforts for implementing the scheme.

The bill has faced immense criticism from opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) who has termed it a “cruel joke,” saying although the party does not oppose the bill, it would like some amendments in it. l

9

Wednesday, August 21, 2013

Indians from economically underprivileged sections sit near giant replicas of the Delhi Government’s National Food Security card during the roll-out of the program by Congress party President Sonia Gandhi in New Delhi AP

In response to an attack on a woman reportedly for wearing hijaab in a Stockholm suburb, scores of women of various faiths have posted photos of them wearing the headscarf, Al Jazeera reported Tuesday.

According to police spokesman Ulf Hoffman, the woman, who was also pregnant, was attacked by an unknown assailant who banged her head against a car in the suburb of Farsta on Friday.

Hoffman said the man shouted slurs which led police to believe the attack was “motivated by the woman’s religion,” the news website wrote.

The photos of women wearing hijaab were posted on Twitter, using the hashtag #hijabuppropet (hijab outcry). Swedish Green Party leader Asa Romson and Social Democrat lawmaker Veronica Palm were among the women extending their support. The supporters also included some men who posted photos in which they covered their heads.

The initiative’s organisers has said they wanted to raise awareness about the “harassment women wearing headscarves face in Sweden.” l

Homesick British put colonial Iraqi Kurdistan limits Syrian refugee numbers stamp on India’s gardens n AFP, Geneva Iraqi Kurdistan has slapped a limit of 3,000 a day on refugees entering from Syria, after more than 30,000 flooded in from their war-torn homeland in a matter of days, aid agencies said Tuesday.

A new wave of Syrian Kurds began pouring into northern Iraq last week, seeking refuge from fighting between Kurdish forces and Islamist rebels, and a collapsing economy.

Jumbe Omari Jumbe, spokesman of the International Organisation for Migration, said the authorities in Iraq’s autonomous Kurdistan region had imposed a daily quota although it has not been applied to the letter.

“Today, they will allow 3,000 persons in, though yesterday a similar quota was also set, of 3,000, but at the end of the day, 5,000 refugees were allowed to cross,” he told reporters in Geneva.

Jumbe said the refugees arriving at two border crossings in the region were exhausted and dehydrated after walking long distances in spiralling desert temperatures.

Access to Iraq has been erratic for Syrians, with political tensions and fears of a spillover of the conflict lead-

ing the Iraqi Kurdish authorities to shut the border in May. Restrictions were eased last month to allow Syrians to join family members already in Iraq, but the number allowed to cross the border had remained relatively low.

Last Thursday, however, the authorities opened a crossing over a bridge at Peshkhabour on the Tigris River.

The influx began right away, with women, children and the elderly making up the bulk of those crossing.

On Saturday, Kurdistan closed the bridge to all but goods traffic, and opened another crossing for the refugees further south at Sahela.

Aid agencies have scrambled to get emergency supplies to the border zone and transport the refugees to camps deeper inside Iraqi Kurdistan.

UN refugee spokesman Dan McNorton said between 2,000 and 3,000 people were thought to be waiting to cross Tuesday, but that the numbers on their way were unclear.

Over 1.9 million Syrians have fled their homeland since the revolt against President Bashar al-Assad erupted in 2011. Most have found a haven in Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey, while UN figures put the number in Iraq at at least 185,000, including the latest influx. l

n AFP, New Delhi India’s monument to love, the Taj Mahal, was once even more romantic, cloaked behind towering foliage and only shyly revealing its contours as the visitor approached – until a British viceroy removed the mystery.

Lord Curzon, an enthusiastic gardener and Britain’s viceroy to India from 1899 to 1905, “imposed an imperial stamp” on what has become the nation’s most famous monument, says US historian Eugenia Herbert.

Curzon “effectively clear-felled” fragrant trees, shrubs and other plants to open up views of the Taj, says Herbert, author of “Flora’s Empire” – a detailed history of British gardens in colonial India.

Today the Taj, which draws millions of tourists a year, is surrounded by neat rectangles of manicured lawn.

“The gardens would have had to be trimmed back but those who saw them before spoke of how the greenery gradually revealed the mystery” of the Taj’s stunning facade, Herbert told AFP in an interview.

The viceroy was not alone in putting his stamp on the Indian landscape, and a horticultural legacy remains more than sixty years since the end of British rule.

Homesick colonials left their imprint on India’s parks and gardens, many of which

are still full of tidy, green lawns, trimmed hedges and flowerbeds with British blooms.

The British left “a lasting horticultural mark on India – much as India did on them”, writes Herbert, whose book was compiled from letters and diaries of British colonialists and official archives.

When the British first arrived in India in the 17th century, they discovered a continent brimming with strange but lush, exotic flowers that made them yearn for their carefully tended gardens back home.

“The farther from home they ventured, the more they longed for familiar cowslips and hollyhocks and Michaelmas daisies, for well-trimmed lawns and neat flowerbeds,” says Herbert, professor emeritus of history at Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts.

In India, where outbreaks of malaria, dysentery and other illnesses constantly brought death, many colonialists desired the comfort that a well-ordered garden could lend, she says.

For the British in India, “like tea, gardens offered colonials reassurance in situations of stress,” she says.

Wherever the British went, Herbert notes, they took with them, as part of their “cultural baggage,” their love of gardens and their view about what a garden should

look like – “and nowhere was this more evident than in India”.

Usually, the garden was the responsibility of the woman, who was “terribly bored with her husband busy running India,” says the book, which Herbert told AFP took her “the better part of 10 years” to write.

British women in India relied on the services of a gardener to do the actual groundskeeping.

Sometimes the grass was planted blade by blade to create the lawn – the essential part of any proper English garden – and also cut painstakingly by hand.

But the tame landscapes created by the British were a far cry from the extraordinary beauty of Mughal gardens. Humayun’s Tomb in New Delhi -- the inspiration of the Taj Mahal -- is a stunning example.

The gardens of Humayun’s Tomb with their pools, plants and trees are meant to symbolise paradise and are one of the earliest examples of a royal garden tomb in the Indian subcontinent, scholars say.

But they fell into neglect as Mughal power waned and were only restored a decade ago when the Aga Khan Trust for Culture and the Archaeological Survey of India brought back to life long-dormant fountains for the first time in some 400 years. l

10 DHAKA TRIBUNE

Editorial

Wednesday, August 21, 2013

Letters to

www.dhakatribune.com

the Editor

LETTER OF THE DAY

Draft ICT law misses the mark

August 18

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reach of the information and communications technology act, is now a non-bailable offence, and law enforcement is allowed to arrest offenders without a warrant. Further, only law enforcers and ministry officials are allowed to go to court and file cases under this law, while aggrieved persons or offenders have to go through law enforcement to do so.

Given that this law is loosely defined and gives free rein to law enforcement, it is more likely to be an apparatus for repression than a workable and effective code for the use of information technology.

This law appears to address the issue of seditious uses of social media more than deal If we intend to with the broader scope of cyber establish a free crimes. society in a free While recent events have country, we must brought under the spotlight give more value to the ill-effects of the misuse of our liberties social media, the best remedy for falsehood is truth, not censorship. We should not also forget that punishing people for personal views published in personal domains is not only a breach of freedom of expression and privacy but also sends a signal of intolerance and leaves us vulnerable to unwarranted government interference in our lives.

At this point, any person of law could arrest anyone for anything the person deems as the violation of the ICT act, and the arrested will not have a right to bail. This draconian law, like the infamous Section 54, has the potential for widespread misuse.

If we intend to establish a free society in a free country, we must give more value to our liberties. Such sweeping and misconceived laws need to be strongly reconsidered, and before anyone, anywhere is allowed to threaten someone’s freedom, there has to be proper justification.

Jute genome decoding shows value of funding research

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ell-deserved praise has been given this week to Dr Maqsudul Alam and the team of scientists at the Bangladesh Jute Research Institute (BJRI) who have decoded the genomes of two native varieties of jute and the fungal pests that attack them.

This breakthrough offers a chance for Bangladesh to develop new climate resilient and disease-tolerant varieties of jute which can overcome fungal attacks, reduce dependence on imported seeds and help the country boost jute production.

Competition from other cash This project, which crops and shrinking acreage has may potentially be limited the country’s ability to applied to benefit produce the golden fibre which other crops, has remains an important part of allowed leading our heritage, but is no longer a scientists to dominant export earner. conduct cutting BJRI’s vision in developing edge research in state of the art facilities for basic Bangladesh and applied research, in tandem with building human capacity to deal with intellectual property and patent issues, has enhanced the country’s scientific expertise and may now be used to capitalise on growing world demand for natural fibres such as jute.

This project, which may potentially be applied to benefit other crops, has allowed leading scientists to conduct cutting edge research in Bangladesh without having to join the brain drain to work abroad. That it has been accomplished on a fraction of the funding available in richer countries is an impressive achievement.

It demonstrates the importance of continuing to fund basic research as it provides multiple benefits. BJRI’s success should be used to stimulate more funding, both public and private, for scientific research.

SUDOKU

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

4

9

9

9 3

4 1 2 3 8

4 2 1

5

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8 6 7 2 4 9 2 8 3 4 5 7

Write to us at:

The news of the gruesome murder of Special Branch Police Inspector Mahfuzur Rahman and his wife Swapna Rahman in their house, in which the involvement of their only daughter, Oishee Rahman, has been found, has made us numb with horror and disbelief.

The decomposed bodies of the couple were found in the afternoon of August 16, 2013 in the bathroom of their daughter along with bloodstained knives. It has been disclosed that the couple had been given sedatives with tea or coffee.

When the girl was born, the parents, surely very delighted, nurtured her, not knowing that one day she would become an instrument in their unnatural and violent deaths. What an unfortunate and heart-wrenching incident!

I think nothing is more painful that to be killed by one’s own children. We pray to the Almighty Allah to spare all the parents from this horrible fate.

Nur Jahan Chittagong

dhakatribune.com

Bangabandhu and the emergence of an independent Bangladesh August 15

A concise and true political history of Bangladesh! The author who had not only witnessed but also actively participated in the entire process from the A to Z of creation of Bangladesh from framing and announcing the six points programme till the final victory on December 16, 1971 and then in the rehabilitation process of the war-ravaged newly independent Bangladesh.

That is why he could be so accurate and concise in narrating the philosophy, the politics, the culture and the ultimate leadership of Bangabondhu in bringing about a new nation state called Bangladesh. This article is no doubt a collectors’ item!

There is unfortunately a typographical error: “Purba Bangla Shashon Keno (Why is Eastern Bengal oppressed).” The correct wording would be “Shonar Bangla Shoshan Keno (why is Golden Bengal like a cremation site!)” The author chose to give the correct meaning to the Bangla proverb, may be!

WaliulHaqueKhondker

The supposed identity crisis August 19 Awesome writing ... answer to Mita Huq! Mizanur Rahman

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

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No Bangladeshi university among top global 500 August 18

Talal Hossain Banning of student politics and more funding for labs would probably put DU in the top 300.

Arch Bishop True. And would never happen because we have this “living in the past” syndrome where professional politicians and some of their journalist buddies defend “student’ politics” by beginning every discussion with “the glorious role of students in people’s movement of history,” etc etc etc.

Habibul Alam We enjoy sitting and talking about past achievements of our antecedents. Incidentally for most of all the Muslim majority countries, that is the situation.

Kazi Anwarul Haq We only study there to get a certificate, to assure a job! We do very little research in our universities!

Dhrubo Tara Wow!!! How can that be??? If IIS is there, why is not the IIM or ISB there? Funny rating I must say!!!

Shaquib Quoreshi What did you expect? Only our inflated egos tell us we are this and that, when in reality we will not be even among the 2000 or more. Like everything else, our educational institutions are also substandard!

Mia Dodson And what does that mean exactly?

Malcolm Arnold Shaquib Quoreshi, with a deep heart I have to say you are speaking the truth. Bangladeshis accept 4th best every time. They do not aim for the stars unfortunately.

Malcolm Arnold Mia, it means that education here is way, way, way below world standards.

I met a Bangladeshi lady doctor in my country, Australia. She and her doctor husband went to my country to be doctors. Their standard of education, re being a doctor, was so inferior they both had to start again. With determination they succeeded and are now both very fine doctors Sheikh Jinat Mahmid Before we talk about student politics, we must stop teacher politics first. We need good teachers. Our bright stars are twinkling overseas. We need them!

Habibul Alam Our bad luck is that our children go overseas to study. They work hard at university, and are praised and respected for being the best students there. But when they come back, being unable to apply what they learned overseas, they study under fraudulent teachers, fall into the cycle of corruption, and themselves become equally corrupt. How will we solve this dilemma?

In our university days, we have seen students from Malaysia, Iran, etc come here to study, and today our children go to Malaysia, Thailand, etc to study. The way things are going, a day will come when they feel better going to a neighbouring country.

CALVIN AND HOBBES

PEANUTS

CODE-CRACKER

1

Be Heard

Demonic act of a daughter

YESTERDAY’S SOLUTIONS Sudoku

3 5 6 9 8 1 4 2 7

2 7 1 4 3 5 6 9 8

8 9 4 7 2 6 5 3 1

Code-Cracker

4 8 3 5 9 2 1 7 6

6 1 9 8 7 4 3 5 2

5 2 7 6 1 3 8 4 9

9 4 2 1 5 8 7 6 3

7 6 8 3 4 9 2 1 5

1 3 5 2 6 7 9 8 4

DHAKA TRIBUNE

Op-Ed

11

Wednesday, August 21, 2013

In Egypt, flickers of a new Islamist insurgency n Tom Perry and Alexander Dziadosz

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unmen who fired rocket-propelled grenades at a police station near Cairo and slit an officer’s throat daubed the wall with a warning before they left: “This is the penalty for the oppressors.”

The masked assailants attacked a few hours after the security forces began breaking up protest camps set up by supporters of deposed President Mohamed Mursi in an operation last Wednesday that killed hundreds of people.

The surge in violence has raised fears that a new Islamist insurgency may take root on the Nile, where militants waged a failed campaign against the state in the 1990s.

Many of the hardliners were armed with automatic weapons trafficked across the Saharan desert into the town

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What is love? Ananta Jalil has the answer!

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n Towheed Feroze ishartho Bhalobasha translates into English as Selfless Love but as this is a Bangla film, eyebrows should not be raised when the English translation becomes “What is Love?”

Does this make sense? Perhaps not, but listen, people go to the cinema hall to have a good time, forget reality and go home feeling uplifted; and if they are lucky, they return with the definition of love.

No introduction is required for Ananta Jalil, the business magnate turned film star, who is usually known as AJ. While you may snigger at his antics in and outside the film world, there is no denying AJ has almost single-handedly revived interest in our local films. Does that mean our movies have become more plausible?

Far from it, but sometimes you must enjoy total fantasy and stop looking for credibility.

So when AJ steps out of an aircraft, which has Thai tourism identification marks and then walks right into a concert hall in Bangladesh, you have to accept it. After all, if Superman

can cover continents in seconds, why not AJ? He is, among other things, a superhero.

OK, he wears a red wig but we love it (even more in a cinema hall when we are merry). What about those huge belt buckles he wears? They are inspired! Someone please get me a buckle shaped like rhino horns.

Soon, Meghla is found cavorting with the dubious and drinking whisky like water. To get to the top, people tell her, you have to walk with Johnnie Walker and Meghla is so thrilled she literally runs. Glasses are filled and the party goes on and on, with even the bartenders also joining in.

After all, if Superman can cover continents in seconds, why not AJ? He is among other things a superhero...

In this recently released movie, Ananta is a megastar and Meghla (Borsha) plays a wannabe model. She aspires to the top but it appears that all those who promote models are highly-sexed men trying to replicate Caligula style hedonistic orgies in their offices. “If you want something, you have to give something” is their motto but Meghla is not willing to let these wolves touch her.

In Ananta she finds a gentle person devoid of any vices, willing to go the extra mile to help her. She gets the car, the apartment and all the love one can wish for, but alas, like they say, the allure of the wicked is always overpowering.

However, her model agency patrons clearly plan to get her drunk and make her engage in intimate acts. But don’t worry for AJ arrives on time, looking the part of the savior in buckles, boots and his funky jacket. Never minding once that it is summer!

Meghla is contrite and after a ‘please forgive me’ session, our man AJ relents. To err is of course human and to forgive superhuman, so his forgiveness is expected.

But Meghla cannot stay within a conventional life for long and starts a cyber- relationship. Once more AJ is deceived but is soon forgiving and a they return to traditional living.

Unfortunately, a business tycoon involved in human trafficking and drug smuggling lures Meghla into his web with promises of Bollywood.

Yet again AJ is not part of her reverie. Heartbroken, Ananta is engulfed by rage. He walks a path strewn with burning coal, stops a large truck with a punch, to seek the meaning of love. No one can give an answer and hence, after leaving all his property to “heartless and avaricious” Meghla, he decides to commit suicide.

It soon transpires of course that Meghla has been taken for a ride again and just before AJ takes the leap to end his life, the phone rings. Can he come and save Meghla and sign a document giving away his property to the bad guy?

He duly jumps, beats the hell out of a dozen guys, saves the girl, stopping a bullet with his chest along the way to end up in intensive care. Does he die? Naturally not, for AJ is our super hero. Meghla, settles on AJ’s chest and promises never to leave. For some unvarnished fun, watch Nishartho Bhalobasha. Plausibility be damned, AJ rules! l

Towheed Feroze is a journalist currently working in the development sector.

World economy at a watershed n Akmal Hussain

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apid economic growth in not only China and India but also in Brazil, Turkey and a number of African countries is resulting in a historic shift in the spatial distribution of global economic power.

The nineteenth and twentieth centuries saw the dominance of a metropolitan ‘North’ with the countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America forming the peripheral “South.” The 21st century is witnessing the rise of the South. By 2050, Brazil, China and India alone are projected to account for 40 percent of world output. This watershed moment in history is pregnant with the possibility of devising new concepts, institutions and policies for shaping a more humane future for the world.

The Human Development Index (HDI), published in the UNDP Human Development Report 2013, under the leadership of Dr Khalid Malik, has delved into these new trends in the world economy. This powerful report has the potential to influence policy thinking and public action at the global, regional and national levels.

This article considers some of the key empirical trends and conceptual issues raised.

Significant improvements have taken place in life expectancy, education coverage and per capita incomes among countries falling in the low and medium categories of the HDI. Yet wide disparities remain. Ominously, income inequalities both between and within states are increasing, creating a basis for conflict. It also constrains poverty reduction and attempts to build cooperation for protection of the environment. Thus the question of equity has entered centre stage in debates on designing development policy.

The UNDP Report argues the need to shift focus from measuring individual capabilities to incorporate capacities of social groups

There has been a major change in the orientation and origin of global production, with developing countries being a key driver, with their share in merchandise trade increasing from 25% to 47% over the period 1980 to 2011. At the same time, South-South

trade increased from 8% of global merchandise in 1980 to 26% by 2011.

These facts make looking at regional economic integration in South Asia, for instance, an important element of future development strategy.

The lessons that emerge from the success stories of the South, challenge the orthodoxy in economics. For example, rather than evicting the state and relying on the market alone to conduct growth, case studies suggest human development, social welfare and the nurturing of new export industries, can benefit from deepening the role of the state.

My own work in development action and analysis shows how organised and empowered communities can become a force for economic growth and development. Indeed organised villages and communities which provide better access for individuals to markets and public services, are a form of social capital.

I would suggest that economic analysis needs to take into account communities and the relationships between them. This is necessary in so far as community based innovations and social change are vital to economic development.

This is why I think a democracy that provides opportunities for discussion

as a mode of resolving disputes is so important. Social integration and institutions for consensus building have become essential to development.

The measures of Human Development need to be broadened in the face of this new world. The UNDP Report argues the need to shift focus from measuring individual capabilities to incorporate capacities of social groups.

The UNDP Report does well to recognise that social conditions and conflicting perceptions about progress can hinder development.

The Report documents with commendable rigour that the geographic distribution of economic power has shifted from the North to the South.

But what the Report ignores is the potential disorder that could arise out of the fact that the institutions of global governance, international finance and political power are still concentrated in the North. There is an incongruence between the distribution of economic and political power with respect to the South and the North. Therefore a change is required in the architecture of global finance and governance so as to give a greater voice to the South. l

Dr. Akmal Hussain is an economist, author and social activist.

“Have you ever seen war on TV? That’s what it was like,” said one passerby, speaking in hushed tones outside the abandoned police station in Kerdasa, its scorched facade riddled with bullet holes. He declined to give his name.

The government said nine policemen were killed in the assault in Kerdasa, a bastion of Islamist support.

Residents described offering shelter to terrified policemen who fled the building, aiding their escape by giving them civilian clothes to change into.

Outside stood the charred remains of 13 vehicles, two of them armoured personnel carriers. Not a policeman was in sight.

Two dozen police stations were attacked across Egypt that day, perhaps heralding more unrest that could cripple hopes of democracy kindled by the 2011 overthrow of Hosni Mubarak.

No group has claimed responsibility for the attacks, of which two involved rocket-propelled grenades and all, gunfire.

To the East, the Sinai Peninsula is already in the throes of an insurgency by hardline Islamists - at least two dozen policemen were killed there in an ambush on Monday.

A spate of attacks in the Nile Valley and cities along the Suez Canal since the army toppled Mursi on July 3 points to the risk of militancy spreading to the more densely populated areas of the country of 85 million.

Battlegrounds Some towns in Minya, a province south of Cairo, already resemble war zones, with police stations, churches and other targets hit in persistent violence since Wednesday.

Militants have also struck in three cities along the Suez Canal, a vital world shipping artery, killing at least seven policemen. Shipping has not been affected. Security forces are heavily deployed. Soldiers are even guarding petrol stations.

Weapons, mostly smuggled from Libya, are more freely available than in the past.

With the Internet helping al-Qaeda’s ideas to spread more easily than in the past, the movement now led by an Egyptian, Ayman al-Zawahri, will likely find new adherents on the Nile.

The decades-old struggle between the army-led state and Islamists may be about to enter a bloody phase with a new cast. “Now is a very good time for al Qaeda to recruit,” said Khalil al-Anani of the Washington-based Middle East Institute.

The government accuses the Muslim Brotherhood of terrorism, saying its protest camps represented a threat to national security. Its leaders face trial for inciting violence.

The Brotherhood, its strategy long built around peaceful political and social activism, denies those charges.

Some Islamists say the state is trying to provoke violence - something they say happened in the 1990s.

The Brotherhood, pointing to the repeated mass killings of its followers since early July, says the government’s charges of terrorism are intended to justify an even tougher crackdown.

But while the Islamist group repeats its mantra of peaceful resistance, it has spoken of uncontrollable anger in the street. Gunmen have appeared at some pro-Mursi protests in Cairo.

Fertile ground With the Brotherhood’s organisational structure under heavy strain, the risk

of splinter groups emerging has risen.

“Egypt is fertile. It isn’t just the Islamic Jihad or other organisations.

These are over, finished. But if one dies then another will come along,” said Yasser el-Sirri, an Islamist who was sentenced to death in Egypt in the 1990s. He was speaking by telephone from Britain, where he has asylum.

Online, hardliners have called for an armed response, calling for a “military jihadi current,” according to SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors radical websites.

The past week’s violence, in which officials say nearly 900 people have died, including almost 100 soldiers and police, has dwarfed the rate of killing in the 1990s.

On Wednesday alone, 70 people, 16 of them policemen, were killed in Minya province.

In the Minya town of Mallawi, churches have been torched, along with Christian homes and shops.

People speak of masked men staging repeated attacks on the police station with impunity.

Men in civilian clothes patrol with assault rifles, though it is unclear if they are plainclothes police or belong to the “popular committees” starting to fill a state authority vacuum.

Makeshift barriers of bricks and planks block a road to the police station. An armoured Interior Ministry vehicle was parked nearby. Gunfire crackled every few minutes.

Nagi Helmy, a pharmacist, has heard heavy gunfire from both sides since Wednesday. “The shooting has been very violent, both from those attacking and from the police,” he said.

Ayub Youssef, a Catholic priest from the nearby town of Delja, described similar scenes there. Islamist protesters torched the local police station on Wednesday after attacking Christian homes, he said.

Many of the hardliners were armed with automatic weapons trafficked across the Saharan desert into the town, he said.

Youssef said the violence was worse than anything he recalled during the insurgency of the 1990s, when militants killed Christians and burned churches in the same area.

New fight brewing?

The Interior Ministry, which was beefed up under ousted President Hosni Mubarak to battle the Islamists of the 1990s, appears to be gearing up for a new fight with an old enemy.

Thirty five officers who were suspended or reassigned after Mubarak’s overthrow have been brought back to the State Security branch since July 3, a security official said.

Hussein Hamouda Mostafa, a former State Security brigadier, sees the scope for an even more ferocious campaign than the one waged in the 1990s by groups including Gamaa Islamiya - a movement once aligned with al Qaeda but which later renounced violence and entered mainstream politics as a Brotherhood ally.

“Now you have 3,000 people in Syria who will come back tomorrow to Egypt. What are they going to do?” asked Mostafa, referring to Egyptian militants he said were fighting the Syrian military.

Echoing the official view, he described the Brotherhood as a “terrorist organisation” which views others as infidels.

He also says Western support for the group may encourage violence, mirroring an Egyptian perception, denied by Washington, of US backing for the Islamists.

“It is worse now than in the 1990s,” said Mostafa. “They want a civil war.

We want to contain the situation,” he said.

Others with knowledge of Islamist movements dismiss the idea that the Brotherhood is tempted to espouse armed struggle.

“I am certain that for the Brotherhood, violence is in no where on the table. The fear is from some of the members of Gamaa Islamiya that could break away,” said Montasser el-Zayat, an Islamist lawyer who defended militants in the past.

He said Gamaa Islamiya leaders had told him they were exerting utmost control over their members, but cautioned: “There are independent elements that embrace extremist ideas, which may - and put a line under that word - be provoked by the security forces.”

This article was first published by AFP.

12

DHAKA TRIBUNE

Entertainment

Wednesday, August 21, 2013

‘Lilaboti Akhyan’ shows tragic reality of patriarchal society n Afrose Jahan Chaity

Hoshina’s nostalgia expressed in artworks n Shadma Malik A solo art exhibition “Here is there-There is here” by Japanese artist Toyomi Hoshina is on at the Bengal Gallery of Fine Arts. Hoshina’s 66 artworks are on display till August 25. The exhibition was inaugurated on August 17 by Professor Anisuzzaman and eminent artist Qayyum Chowdhury as chief guest. The ambassador of Japan in Bangladesh, Hiroko Minami was present as special guest.

In the exhibited pieces, the gifted painter expressed his memories of childhood—his intimacy with the nature and the landscape of his hometown Nagano.

Hoshina’s paintings are of the beauty of river valley, stones, trees, forest

and fire, these elements mesmerise him and he tries to depict philosophical dimensions in his abstract pieces.

The series of portraits in “The Face of Memory” shows some illustrative faces of people he met in his childhood and of people with whom he desires to meet again.

A very appealing art piece of Hoshina shows flames and fumes amidst mountains. Through the composition, the nostalgic artist presents a true event where he and his father accidentally light a big fire. “I watched the fire from afar and drew no closer. That fire was extremely beautiful,” he says.

He has worked with Chinese ink on paper, sand glue, bits of papers, gauche, acrylic and wood. About us-

ing wood and Japanese paper, Hoshina explains: “Using wood as a canvas is unique to Japan, a sense of formative arts unique to Japanese people.”

The artist tend to be focused on “space,” as he mentions: “My work originated through my body, which acts as a medium, giving life to my art.”

The Japanese artist’s artworks interpret his self depicted timeless memories. Also the ethnic characteristic features and portraits are well expressed in an illustrated manner.

Born in an Island of Honshu, Japan, Hoshina completed his doctoral programme in painting from Tokyo University of the Arts in 1984. His work with the same title but different structure was displayed in China in 1998. l

To spread awareness about women’s suffering and struggle in a male dominated society, Lokonatyadal (Shidweshari) staged its production “Lilaboti Akhyan” at the Experimental Theatre Hall of Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy on the first day of the festival “Nari Jagoroner Natya Ayojan 2013.”

The play written by Nasrin Mustafa

Masud Sumon. Both the actors playing Boraho and Mihir amused the houseful audience by their skillful rendition of the characters.

“Lilaboti Akhyan” was successful to express the message of Khona through their performance. It addresses an issue which is still important to our social system. Our society is not set to approve and acknowledge the contribution of women yet. Lilaboti commonly

ON TV MOVIES 5:56pm WB

Outsourced

6:00pm HBO

Legendary Assassin

7:00pm Fox Movies Premium The Proposal

7:30pm Star Movies The Mummy 3

7:47pm HBO

Scary Movie 3

8:15pm Zee Studio Notting Hill

9:30pm WB

The Dark Knight

9:30pm Star Movies The Bourne Legacy

10:25pm Fox Movies Premium Ruby Sparks

11:00pm Zee Studio

Pirates Of The Caribbean: On Stranger Tides

COMEDY 9:30am FX

The Simpsons

11:00am AXN Bloopers

1:30pm Comedy Central Guys With Kids and directed by Liaqaut Ali Lucky is a historical tragedy based on the life of princess Lilaboti from Singhal who was popularly known as Khona. Character of the famous philosopher and astrologer of ancient times was played by Mahfuza Helaly Happy. Although, Happy put on a convincing performance, her skills did not match the demands of the character of Khona, as the role is of a strong pragmatist and feminist, therefore demands intrinsic acting skills. On many instances during the show, it was difficult for the audience to catch up with her dialogue delivery.

On the other hand, another major character of the play, Mihir, renowned astrologer Boraho’s son, was played by

recognised as Khona, which means “who have a severed tongue,” represent the woman who served a nation, but in the process, became silent forever. The structures and norms of a traditional patriarchal society deem women to be weak characters, the only suitable roles for them set apart are that of a homemaker. The essence of the story of Lilaboti captures this fact and portrays it for the mass to comprehend.

Yasmin Ali and Nirjhar Chowdhury have composed the music for the play, the live music added to the feel of this ancient play.

The Theatre and Movie Department of the Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy has organised the six-day festival. l

3:30pm Star World Glee

5:30pm Z Cafe

Just For Laughs

7:30pm Colors

Mrs Pammi Pyarelal

8:30pm Big CBS Prime

It Only Hurts When I Laugh

10:00pm Sony SAB Jeanie Aur Juju

DRAMA 2:30pm Zee Café

Pretty Little Liars

3:30pm Zee Café Lost

7:30pm Star Plus

Saath Nibhana Saathiyan

8:30pm Star Plus Meri Bhabi

Expre hennai

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baara baai Do In Mum e im T pon A Once U

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Madhubala

9:00pm Sony

Amita Ka Amit

9:30pm SATV

Bollywood Eid flicks gets slammed by critics but shines at BO n Entertainment Desk Bollywood films that perform really well at the box office have been mostly panned by critics.

“Once Upon A Time In Mumbaai Dobaara” didn’t receive praise by most critics. Film analyst Rajeev Masand writes, “Characters in Hindi movies tend to be more naïve than the audience that’s watching them on screen. The audience will guess early on that the most earnest cop in the unit is the traitor who’s been leaking information to the bad guy.”

Defying the critics OUATIMD has earned around Rs 10.25 crore on the opening day. Not an outstanding start. But considering that

“Chennai Express” is still running in theatres limiting the screening of this Akshay Kumar, Sonakshi Sinha, Imran Khan-starrer, this is a decent opening. OUATIMD also grossed Rs. 11 crore from the paid previews on Thursday (Aug 15).

SRK-starrer “Chennai Express” was panned by critics and labeled as a senseless-comedy. The audiences, however, seem to appreciate it and have contributed to the Rs 100 crore it has collected. Despite being labeled as “brainless” and by some “not funny at all,” the Shah Rukh Khan-starrer has went on to become Record Express - breaking all records for paid previews, first day collections and opening weekend earnings and entered the Rs 100 crore-club in 5 days. l

Akash Meghe Dhaka

9:30pm Star World Revenge

10:00pm Colors Qubool Hain

10:00pm Sony Jee Le Zara

NEWS 10:00am Diganta

Diganta Shongbad

4:00pm Desh Tv

Shongbad shomoi

7:30pm Banglavision Shongbad Popular singer Kanakchapa will perform live today in ‘Music Club’ on Banglavision at 11:25pm

9:00pm Independent TV Raater 9tai Bangladesh

Saif-Kareena appears in big screen for the first time after marriage

10:00pm Maasranga

n Entertainment Desk

7:30am SATV

Saif Ali Khan will reunite with his wife Kareena Kapoor on the big screen for the first time after their marriage, in his home production “Happy Ending.”

Reports of Kareena making a cameo appearance in “Happy Ending” come at a time when the celebrity couple was repeatedly denying reports of their reunion on the silver screen.

Details of her role in the film are vague and when asked about it Saif said, “Actually, a lot of people are making special appearances in our movie. Well, she might be acting in it. And even if she does, let it be a surprise for people. One thing is for sure, if Bebo (as Kareena is fondly called) does appear in the film, it would be completely unlike what she has done till date. So, let’s wait and watch.” l

Primetime news

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A scene from ‘Piprabidya’

‘Piprabidya’ selected in Asia Project Market n Entertainment Desk Celebrated filmmaker Mostofa Sarwar Farooki’s upcoming movie “Piprabidya” has been selected in 2013 Asian Project Market (APM), the indie film financing event that runs in conjunction with the Busan International Film Festival.

APM is a platform where promising directors and producers of Asia are given opportunities to meet with co-producers or financiers. A total of 30 films have been selected in this year’s APM that includes films by Asian top filmmakers like Mohsen Makhmalbaf, Naomi Kawase and Kim Jee-woon. The APM selection also includes a rare English-language re-

make of Korean film “End of Animal,” to be directed by Eron Sheean.

Farooki has recently completed the shooting of “Pirrabidya” which is now in the post-production phase. This is Farooki’s fifth feature film starring Noor Imran Mithu, Sabbir Ahmed and Indian actress Shina Chouhan. In a conversation with the Dhaka Tribune, Farooki said the film is scheduled to be released at the end of this year. According to the director, the film is about unemployed young people who live in Dhaka city, which they think of as a “big pie” and become desperate to have their shares.

Farooki’s satire “Television” was the closing film of last year’s Busan festival. l

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Did you know?

Only two players (Cavani 29 & Di Natale 23) scored more Serie A goals than Southampton new boy Pablo Osvaldo (16) in 2012-13

Sport

Wednesday, August 21, 2013

14 City turn on the style for Pellegrini

14 Fulham swoop for Spurs star Parker

Mosharraf denies fixing charges n Minhaz Uddin Khan

Mosharraf Hossain speaks at a press conference at City Club yesterday

National cricketer and Bangladesh Premier League side Dhaka Gladiator’s member Mosharraf Hossain has denied the fixing charges placed against him by the International Cricket Council.

The left arm spinner said that he is not involved with any kind of fixing in the game of cricket at a press conference at the Mirpur City Club Ground yesterday.

“I have been charged of fixing in the game against Chittagong Kings on February 2nd this year. I am shocked because I thought my performance in that game was good – I think you’ll agree if you look at the scorecard in that game. I think I am a victim of the situation and will put up a legal fight to

prove that I am not guilty,” Mosharraf told the media.

Mosharraf is one of nine individuals who received charge letters for fixing

I have already consulted with a few lawyers on the issue. I have a few friends in England who are lawyers and they have said they will support me in fighting the charges. I am confident that I will be able to prove myself innocent, from the ICC Anti-Corruption and Security Unit a week ago. Seven individuals were charged with match-fixing and the other two were charged for not reporting corrupt approaches made to

them. All nine have been provisionally suspended and given 14 days to respond to the allegations made against them.

Mosharraf is the fifth person to admit receiving the charge letter from the ICC and Bangladesh Cricket Board.

“I am confident that I didn’t do anything wrong. I didn’t have any conversation with anyone before or after the match on this, as I didn’t find anything suspicious at that time. Secondly, my performance in the game itself is a huge proof that I was not involved with fixing. I bowled three overs, picked up two wickets and gave away 17 runs only – I don’t understand how can I be involved with fixing with such a performance,” explained Mosharraf.

“I have already consulted with a

few lawyers on the issue. I have a few friends in England who are lawyers and they have said they will support me in fighting the charges. I am confident that I will be able to prove myself innocent,” he added.

This is not the first time Mosharraf has been at odds with the ICC. In 2008, he was one of the cricketers to join the Dhaka Warriors team in the Indian Cricket League – which did not have ICC support.

“I am disappointed to be honest because have been performing in the domestic cricket for like 10 years now.

Last season I took more than 100 wickets, had a fair impression in the national conditioning camp. Such news while going through a good time is really disappointing,” said Mosharraf. l

DHAKA TRIBUNE

13

15 History beckons in Ashes finale

Athletes continue dismal show in AYG n Raihan Mahmood Bangladesh sprinters Ashik Kumar Halder and Irene Akter clocked 11.47s and 12.78s respectively in the semifinals of the 100metre sprint in the Asian Youth Games at Nanjing China yesterday.

Both Ashik and Irene finished 8th among eight sprinters. Earlier in the first heat Ashik timed 11.54s and Irene clocked 12.76s.

Meanwhile, Najma Khatun took the swimming pool to compete in the 50metre Butterfly and finished 22nd among 26 swimmers with a time of 31.79s. In the 58kg category of women’s weightlifting Mabia Akter finished 8th among nine contestants. l

A tête-à-tête with Sony Norde n Shishir Hoque

Sony Norde lost his house following an earthquake in Haiti last year, the same year he moved to Bangladesh Premier League club Sheikh Russell from Mexico’s second division club Estudiantes de Altamira. His family was struggling, but the former Boca Juniors academy product was splendid in his debut season and helped Russell win a historic treble with his dribbling skills and ability to find the back of the net.

The 24-year-old Haitian international forward was wanted by many clubs around the world following his performance where he netted six times in the league and played key role in Russell’s Federation and Independence Cup triumph. He was invited for trials in European lower division clubs and even an Indian Premier League club was interested in him but Sony decided to stay in the Bangladesh Premier League for another season.

However, he has switched teams and will be representing Sheikh Jamal Dhanmondi Club for a record fee of Tk6m.

Sony spoke the Dhaka Tribune after yesterday’s training session for today’s closed-door practice match involving the Bangladesh national side. The star explained why he chose to stay on in the BPL. “I didn’t go there (Europe) because I have an agent there who said that they only offered me a trial. There was no secure place for me. At the same time, Sheikh Jamal offered me more wages and I decided to stay.

“Since I arrived in Bangladesh, I’ve made good friends, I know the people

and their culture and I understand Bangladesh football more,” said Sony, through coach Afusi, who was playing the part of translator.

Sony is also looking at the BPL as a stepping stone. “There is a possibility that I can move to Europe. Last season was good. If I can perform better than the last season, then I will have more offers. European clubs offered me trials because of last season’s performance.

So this season I want to work hard to perform better than last season and I can get more offers.”

After the end of the season 2012-13, Sony was out of the country for three months. During the time, he was with the Haitian national team and played six matches - four of them were against four clubs of the Canadian premier division clubs and two against MLS clubs. Sony said he started six matches and scored three goals. “The national team coach was happy with my performance and invited me to play in the Fifa friendly match against Korea next month.”

Asked why he changed sides, Sony replied, “Jamal offered me double the money. That’s life.” Will that mean he’ll be under more pressure this season? “I play football with my heart. I don’t take any pressure. I play like I always play and enjoy the game,” he said nonchalantly.

Sheikh Jamal head coach Joseph Afusi was full of praise for his new recruit. “He is exceptional. He is a quality player who understands football. He is not playing because he wants to play, he plays football because he enjoys and loves football,” said the Nigerian coach. l

Sheikh Jamal’s Haitian forward Sony Norde (R) shares a light moment with Argentine trainer Ariel Colman during a training session at the Sheikh Jamal Dhanmondi Club ground yesterday MUMIT M

‘Country above all’

Cox’s Bazar venue under attack

ZACS gets thumbs up from ICC delegates

Bazar stadium, one of the venues for the World T20 next year, were allegedly attacked by BNP leader and Sadar Upazilla’s vice-chairman Nasima Akhter and her group. The incident took place an hour before the ICC delegation reached the site for inspection yesterday.

It was learnt that the attack was made at around noon. Witnesses informed, Nasima led a troop of around 50 people into the construction site and started to vandalise the shade house of the construction workers and everything around it. Nasima left the scene as soon as Cox’s Bazar Sadar police station’s sub-inspector Kamal reached and took control of the situation.

“I have taken the lake beside the Golf course on lease. I have a house there which is supposed to be removed due to the development of the stadium and I was promised compensation money for this. I didn’t do any damage or break things there. They (construction workers) did it and now they are putting the blamed on me,” said Nasima to the media yesterday. l

ber ICC venue inspection team, said he was impressed with the Zahur Ahmed Chowdhury Divisional Stadium in Chittagong city’s Sagarika area yesterday.

Tetley was speaking at a press briefing at MA Aziz Stadium after inspecting the two stadiums, following visits to Dhaka, Narayangonj and Shylhet as part of the ICC’s venue inspection programme for the World T20 Championship-2014 to be hosted by Bangladesh next year.

“Bangladesh will host the T20 world championship next year and we are happy with the preparation in Chittagong,” said Tetley.

The ICC team of Tetley, chief pitch curator Andi Atkinson, stadium mentor Van Lue Jin and tournament director Dhiraj Malhotra, along with Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) ad-hoc committee members Mahbub Anam, Lokman Hossain Bhuiyan, AJM Nasir Uddin and Venue Manager Fazle Bari Khan Rubel went to the divisional stadium at around noon.

The inspection team was informed about construction progress on the stadium’s structures like the drainage system, dressing rooms and media

Jimmy focused on repeating his previous performances in the world stage n Tarek Mahmud, Chittagong Tribune Sport Desk n sight, let’s hope we put a good show,” International Cricket Council event mann Raihan Mahmood said Jimmy.

The construction workers of the Cox’s ager Chris Tetley, who led the four-mem-

Russell Mahmud Jimmy

It may sound a little exuberant, but it’s true that Bangladesh’s performance in the upcoming Asia Cup Hockey will depend a lot on the experienced campaigner Russell Mahmud Jimmy and the player said he and his fellow teammates, having left the past behind, are firmly focused in lifting the image of the country.

Expressing his aspirations regarding the upcoming challenges Jimmy said he has urged all the players to focus upon the tasks ahead. It would be mentionable that the star forward, a few days back, wanted to retire from the national team having finding himself in the center of a hullabaloo when the players staged a demonstration demanding the date of players’ transfer.

“We have put the past behind us, we all want to play for the country and all the players for the last one year have tried hard to lift the image of the country in the international hockey arena.

“The time has arrived and we want to put up a good show in the Asia Cup. Sixth position is our main target and why not. The fifth place is also in our

Jimmy’s presence in the team is irreplaceable as head coach Naveed Alam has prepared Jimmy as the utility man.

“He has told me to get ready to play for the whole 70 minutes. We have different plans for the three group matches and I will have to take different roles as per the coach’s plans. I am motivated to continue my good form in the Asia Cup,” said the national playmaker.

“It’s my fourth Asia Cup in the last ten years and definitely the team has certain expectations from me. I am aware of that, I always play for the country and if you ask me if I have any personal target, yes there is one. I was adjudged as the best midfielder of the World Hockey League round two and I will just try to repeat the same performance. If I can do it I will hope that I may get a call to the Asian XI, that’s my personal goal,” said Jimmy.

Jimmy revealed that after the Asia Cup is completed he will fly to Oman to play for a local club. “I have not been able to avail the offer in the last two years, but this time I have taken the decision to play in Oman and I will play for Al Seeb.” l

box. Andi Atkinson also examined the ground.

Later, the team also visited MA Aziz Stadium as practice matches would be held there during the World Cup. As the venue was used for World Cup matches before, the ICC are familiar with it, said Tetley, adding that his team had given some requirements for the venue which needed to be fulfilled during their previous inspection and these have been satisfied comfortably before the September 30 deadline.

Another ICC inspection team will visit the venues in October, said Mahbub Anam.

AJM Nasir said that they are trying to increase the number of practice match in MA Aziz Stadium.

Meanwhile Cox’s Bazar, the venue for the ICC Women’s World Twenty20 2014, also got the green signal from the ICC delegates. The visitors visited the under construction site and informed to be satisfied with the work in progress.

“We were here previously too. The progress of the work is really impressive and we are satisfied,” said ICC event manager Chris Tetley.

However the work to the newest cricketing venue of Bangladesh needs to be finished by October this year informed Tetley. l

14

DHAKA TRIBUNE

Sport

Wednesday, August 21, 2013

Giovani inspires Villarreal to comeback win n Reuters, Madrid Giovani dos Santos scored a late equaliser and set up the winner as Villarreal came from behind to secure a dramatic 3-2 victory at another promoted club Almeria in La Liga on Monday.

The Mexican forward, a new signing for the team known as the Yellow Submarine, who return to the top flight after a season in the second division, marked his competitive debut by burying a low cross in the 83rd minute.

With four minutes to go he then carved the opening for Jonathan Pereira to grab the decider with a deflected shot, somewhat unfairly denying the hosts a share of the spoils.

Almeria had dominated for most of the game with two goals from striker Rodri, who netted in the 39th on a counter-attack, and in the 74th with a close range volley. Villarreal had levelled at 1-1 in the 65th when Almeria defender Sebastian Dubarbier diverted a cross into his own net.

“Almeria were superior for much of the game but perhaps paid for their earlier efforts as they tired in the last 20 minutes,” Villarreal coach Mareclino told a news conference. l

Results Rayo Vallecano

3-0

Celta Vigo

2-2

Almeria

2-3

Bueno 40, 74, Perea 44 Lopez 42, Charles 46

Rodri 39, 74

Elche

Espanyol

Sánchez 53, Bifouma 75

Villarreal

Dubarbier 65-og, G. dos Santos 83, Pereira Rodriguez 86

Arsenal fears fade as injured players train n AFP, London Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger received some welcome news yesterday when five players feared to have contracted injuries during the weekend reported for training.

Bacary Sagna, Kieran Gibbs, Aaron Ramsey, Jack Wilshere and Tomas Rosicky all hurt themselves during Arsenal’s shock 3-1 loss at home to Aston Villa on the opening day of the Premier League season on Saturday, but were able to train yesterday morning.

Arsenal will hope to have all five players at their disposal when they visit Turkish side Fenerbahce for the first leg of their Champions League play-off tie on Wednesday. However, Wenger will definitely be without England winger Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain. l

Manchester City's David Silva (R) scores with a header against Newcastle United during their English Premier League match at the Etihad Stadium in Manchester, northern England on Monday

Slick City turn on the style for Pellegrini n AFP, Manchester Manuel Pellegrini’s Manchester City revolution got off to the perfect start as 10man Newcastle were crushed 4-0 at Eastlands on Monday.

Pellegrini was hired by City’s Abu Dhabi-based owners to revitalise a team that surrendered the Premier League title to Manchester United last season and the Chilean’s new players responded by delivering a stylish victory in his first match in charge.

With title rivals United and Chelsea both winning under new management over the weekend, it was essential that former Malaga boss Pellegrini kept pace at the top.

City delivered emphatically as Spanish midfielder David Silva headed the opener in the sixth minute and Argenti-

na forward Sergio Aguero steered in the second in the 22nd minute.

Newcastle’s troubles continued when defender Steven Taylor was sent off just before half-time for catching Aguero with a forearm.

Yaya Toure’s superb 50th minute free-kick made it three and Samir Nasri came off the bench to complete the demolition with a cool finish 15 minutes from full-time.

Newcastle, who have only signed QPR striker Loic Remy on loan since Joe Kinnear was brought in to take care of transfer activity, faced disruption before the match, with France midfielder Yohan Cabaye being left out of the squad following a £12 million bid from Arsenal.

But while Newcastle were abject, City made quite a statement about their intentions for the season Many predicted that Pellegrini, who replaced Roberto Mancini at the end of

A general view of the Arena de Sao Paulo Stadium, one of the venues for the 2014 World Cup, in the Sao Paulo district of Itaqueraon Monday. The Arena de Sao Paulo Stadium will host the opening match of the 2014 World Cup REUTERS

Sao Paulo will be ready to host World Cup opener: FIFA n

FIFA Secretary General Jerome Valcke said Monday he had no doubt that Sao Paulo’s Itaquera stadium would be ready in time to host the opener of the 2014 World Cup. The arena is 86 percent complete ahead of next June’s kick-off for Brazil 2014.

“If FIFA doubted that the opening would be in Itaquera, that doubt was

resolved today,” Valcke told a news conference.

“Within 10 months we will have the opening here of the World Cup,” he said. “The stadium will be delivered in time for the opening.”

Valcke visited the stadium as part of a tour of host cities amid concerns about delays.

He was joined by Sports Minister Aldo Rebelo, who acknowledged that there had been concern about progress

at Itaquera. “But now I am sure it will be delivered on time,” Rebelo said.

The World Cup will be played in 12 host arenas, six of which were delivered for the Confederations Cup in June.

The other six are to be completed by late December under a firm deadline set by FIFA, football’s world governing body.

The 2014 World Cup starts June 12 and runs through July 13. l

with his arm.

Krul did well to keep the deficit at two goals when he swatted away a header from Dzeko after the Bosnian was picked out by a fine cross from Aguero shortly after half-time.

But seconds later City did extend their lead when Ivory Coast midfielder Toure bent a free-kick into the top corner from just outside the area.

Krul pulled off another impressive stop when he pushed a powerful Dzeko effort past the post just after the hour and the striker also turned a header wide from Silva’s corner. Nasri added the fourth when he reacted quicker than Mathieu Debuchy to a Zabaleta pass and guided a shot past Krul.

New striker Negredo came off the bench in the closing stages and after Krul pushed away Dzeko’s header, the Spaniard had a first goal for the club wrongly ruled out for offside. l

Nasri and there was no place in his 18man squad for Stevan Jovetic, Gareth Barry or Micah Richards.

Fernandinho and Jesus Navas were the only two pre-season additions to start but City wasted little time in showing their ambition for the new campaign.

Edin Dzeko forced a fine early save from Tim Krul after being picked out by

a cross from Pablo Zabaleta.

And after just six minutes City moved in front when a forceful run from Dzeko ended with the Bosnian’s cross kicking up off Taylor and Silva guided a header into the corner of the net.

Dzeko missed with a low cross-shot soon after but City moved two ahead before the mid-point of the first half.

A Navas pass was flicked on by Dzeko and Aguero burst through, making enough space around Taylor to squeeze a low shot past Krul.

City were able to pull their visitors open at will and Dzeko was unlucky not to get a toe on the end of a Navas freekick. Hatem Ben Arfa provided Newcastle’s only flicker of creativity and the French winger drove a bending effort wide of goal.

Yet Newcastle’s hopes were effectively finished when Taylor was shown a straight red card for catching Aguero

Atletico’s Costa backs Villa to gun down Barca

Fulham swoop for Spurs star Parker

last season, would employ a 4-3-3 formation following his move to England, but he stuck with the 4-4-2 he has used throughout pre-season against Newcastle. An indication of the depth available to Pellegrini is that he had a powerful bench including Alvaro Negredo and

Match Result Manchester City

Silva 6, Aguero 22, Toure 50, Nasri 75

4-0

Newcastle

n AFP, Madrid

AFP, Sao Paulo

REUTERS

Atletico Madrid began life without Radamel Falcao with a 3-1 win away to Sevilla on Sunday, but they face a far more daunting task against Barcelona in the Spanish Super Cup today.

A double from Brazilian forward Diego Costa overshadowed David Villa’s debut for Atleti after Spain’s all-time record goalscorer joined from Barca for a paltry initial fee of just 2.1 million euros ($2.8 million, £1.8 million) last month.

However, Costa believes Villa will prove to be a more than capable deputy for Falcao who scored 70 goals in his two seasons with Los Rojiblancos before a 60 million euro move to Monaco in June.

“You notice the absence of Falcao because he is a great player, but we have Villa who is also a beast and we know that he is going to do just as well,” Costa told the club’s website.

“His work and commitment for the team is amazing. He is a very humble person and he has a great attitude. I think with the quality he has he will give a lot to Atletico.”

Villa will be desperate to impress against his former employers after never truly getting a consistent run in the side after breaking his tibia in the Club World Cup back in December 2011.

A troublesome on field relationship with Lionel Messi and Barca’s capture of Neymar in June made Villa’s exit from the Camp Nou somewhat inevitable. l

n AFP, London

Fulham signed England midfielder Scott Parker from Tottenham for an undisclosed fee on Monday.

Parker agreed a three-year contract with Martin Jol’s side and has now been on the books at five London clubs.

The 32-year-old looked to be on the verge of joining Fulham’s west London neighbours QPR last week after Hoops boss Harry Redknapp confirmed a deal had been struck with Spurs.

But Fulham were also in the race for Parker and he opted to remain in the Premier League rather than drop down to the second tier with QPR. “I’m delighted to be joining Fulham and I’m looking forward to meeting my new team-mates at training tomorrow morning,” Parker told Fulham’s official

website. “Fulham is an established Premier League club and I look forward to trying to help the team progress even further over the next three years.”

Former Charlton trainee Parker, who has won 18 caps for England, joined Tottenham from West Ham in August 2011 for £5 million ($7.8 million, 5.87 million euros) and has also had spells at Chelsea and Newcastle. l

Chelsea alert for visit of ebullient Villa n AFP, London

After a triumphant homecoming as Chelsea manager at the weekend, Jose Mourinho must steel his side for todday’s visit of a buoyant Aston Villa in the Premier League.

The Portuguese made his return to the home dug-out at Stamford Bridge on Sunday after six years away and quickly slipped back into the old routine, overseeing a 2-0 defeat of Hull City that extended his run of unbeaten home games

in the English top flight to 61.

The game was over once Frank Lampard made it 2-0 with a 30-yard free-kick in the 25th minute, but Mourinho’s men can expect a more searching examination at the hands of Paul Lambert’s Villa.

The Midlands club stunned Arsenal 3-1 at the Emirates Stadium on Saturday and with Christian Benteke already in goal-scoring form, they look poised to banish memories of last season’s nervous dalliance with relegation. l

DHAKA TRIBUNE

Quick Bytes Preliminary phase of Nat’l women’s chess starts The preliminary phase of the 34th National Women’s Chess Championship started yesterday at the chess federation hall-room. A total of 46 players including 2 Women Fide Masters, 14 rated players from Dhaka city and districts are participating in the event.

The event will be held in a seven round Swiss-League system and the top seven players will qualify in the final phase of the 34th National Women Chess Championship. On the opening day, WFM Nazrana Khan Eva, WFM Zakia Sultana, Shabikun Nahar Tanima, Shamiha Sharmin Shimmi, Dilara Jahan Nupur, Kishwara Sjarin Evana, Mahmuda Hoque Chowdhury Moly, Protiva Talukder, Hamida Rahman, Tanzina Akter Tani and Jahanra Haque Runu were among the 23 first round winners.

-RM

Sacked Arthur hits out at Watson and ‘big egos’

Sacked Australian coach Mickey Arthur yesterday admitted he “lost” Shane Watson, while criticising the team’s young players for having “big egos” while earning “obscene amounts of money”. The South African has refrained from commenting since being dumped just weeks before the Ashes campaign against England, but in an interview with Sydney’s The Daily Telegraph, he detailed a fractured relationship with his vice-captain.

“My relationships were outstanding, except with Watson. He was one of the guys I lost,” Arthur said. “India was where it started going wrong, when we suspended those players."

– AFP

Asif agrees to give details of spot-fixing Banned Pakistan pace bowler Mohammad Asif has agreed to reveal details of spot-fixing to the Anti-Corruption and Security Unit of the International Cricket Council (ICC). Asif, 30, who finally admitted last week to his involvement in spot-fixing during the 2010 Lord’s test against England, submitted an apology and agreed to cooperate with the authorities after meeting with Pakistan Cricket Board officials on Monday. He was banned by the ICC for seven years, two of which were suspended, along with former captain Salman Butt and fast bowler Mohammad Amir in early 2011. The trio later served jail sentences in Britain after being found guilty of cheating and corruption by a crown court.

– Reuters

Pistorius trial to begin in March

South African Paralympian Oscar Pistorius will face trial in March next year charged with the murder of his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp, a court ruled Monday. “Mr Pistorius, the matter is then transferred to the High Court and is scheduled to start on the 3rd of March 2014 and will run until the 20th of March 2014,” magistrate Desmond Nair said. Pistorius was handed a copy of the indictment and the court adjourned.

– AFP

Russian runners astonished by ‘gay kiss’ claims

Two Russian female gold medal winners at the Moscow World Athletics Championships expressed bewilderment Tuesday over media claims that their passionate podium kiss was a symbol of gay defiance against a new Russian law banning homosexual “propaganda”.

Ksenia Ryzhova and Yulia Gushchina, who kissed each other on the lips after receiving their gold medals, said they were offended by any suggestion they were more than just good friends and complained the furore had spoilt their victory celebrations. The pair were half of the Russian 4x400 women’s relay quartet who swept to victory in front of a packed Luzhniki stadium in Moscow on Saturday.

– AFP

Day’s Watch Star Cricket 6:40pm Ashes 2013 LIVE Test 5 Day 1 Ten Action 12:00am UEFA Champions League 2013/2014 LIVE Playoffs – Fenerbahce v Arsenal 12:35am Barclays Premier League 2013/2014 LIVE Chelsea v Aston Villa

Sport

Wednesday, August 21, 2013

15

History beckons in Ashes finale n AFP, London

A chance to make history, albeit of different sorts, will confront England and Australia when the final Test of this season’s Ashes starts at The Oval in south London on Wednesday.

At 3-0 up with one to play, England have already retained the Ashes and won the series - the first time since the 1950s they’ve won three successive Test campaigns against their oldest rivals.

But they still have plenty to play as they’ve never won four Tests against Australia in England and have never taken any Ashes series by a 4-0 margin although they did win 4-1 in Australia in 1911/12 and in 1928/29 before taking a six-match series against an Australia side weakened by defections to the unofficial World Series Cricket 5-1 in 1978/79.

A result of greater resonance to both current sides is that the last England team to win the Ashes and round off the series with a defeat was Mike Gatting’s side at Sydney in 1987.

Following a narrow victory, Australia won the next eight Ashes series.

The last thing England batsman Jonathan Trott wants is for his captain, Alastair Cook, to receive the Ashes urn on the back of a loss.

“I don’t think anyone wants to go up on the stage and raise the urn after we have lost,” Trott said. “If we do that, it will be a bit of a downer.”

Unusually, Australia will have a chance for revenge in a matter of a few

months, with the return Ashes ‘Down Under’ starting in November.

“There are another five games (against Australia) after this one so we are not letting up,” Trott said.

“That is an important message to send. If we take our foot off, you give them hope and they can go back to

Alastair Cook said Tuesday the prospect of being the first England side to win a home Ashes series 4-0 was a spur as they prepared for the fifth and final Test against Australia at The Oval.

At 3-0 up, England have already retained the Ashes and won the series. But England captain Cook was in no doubt about the worth of a 4-0 scoreline.

“I think it would be very special. To win the Investec Ashes 4-0 has never been done before (by England) so that is our motivation as a side,” Cook told reporters at The Oval on Tuesday, the day before the match.

“We have a lot of record-breakers in this team and the chance to add another little notch is a great motivation,” added

starred with both bat and ball in the 74run fourth Test win at Chester-le-Street was ruled out of the rest of the season with a back injury.

Fast bowler Chris Tremlett, looking to revive his Test career on his Surrey home ground, is one of three players along with the uncapped duo of all-

England captain Alastair Cook (L) and Australia captain Michael Clarke speak during a press conference ahead of the fifth Ashes Test match yesterday AFP

Cook eyes record n AFP, London

Australia having won a Test,” added Trott, who marked his Test debut by making a hundred against Australia at The Oval in the concluding Ashes Test of 2009 where victory saw England regain the urn.

England have been forced into making a change after Tim Bresnan, who

Cook, the only England batsman to have scored 25 Test hundreds.

Unlike the past two Ashes series in England, in 2005 and 2009, this one has been decided before The Oval Test and Cook said: “It is a good feeling, of course. When we were sitting before the series, to be here at The Oval 3-0 up you’d certainly have taken it then.

“But every time you pull on that England shirt you are desperate for a performance that merits that shirt and merits the lions and we are desperate to do that.”

For all England’s recent success, Cook’s captaincy has still come in for criticism, with the likes of Australia great Shane Warne deriding the opener’s “way too cautious” approach during the fourth Test in Durham. l

Teams England Alastair Cook (capt), Joe Root, Jonathan Trott, Kevin Pietersen, Ian Bell, Jonny Bairstow, Matt Prior (wkt), Stuart Broad, Graeme Swann, James Anderson, Chris Woakes, Chris Tremlett, Steven Finn, Simon Kerrigan Australia Chris Rogers, David Warner, Shane Watson, Michael Clarke, Steven Smith, Brad Haddin (wkt), James Faulkner, Mitchell Starc, Peter Siddle, Ryan Harris, Nathan Lyon Umpires Aleem Dar (PAK), Kumar Dharmasena (SRI) TV umpire Tony Hill (NZ) Match referee Roshan Mahanama (SRI)

rounder Chris Woakes and left-arm spinner Simon Kerrigan looking to take Bresnan’s spot.

Australia, who’ve used eight batsmen in a series where the top order has been their Achilles heel, could once again make changes despite being urged to ‘pick and stick’ by the likes of former captain Steve Waugh, who didn’t score a hundred until his 26th Test before becoming a world-class batsman.

Usman Khawaja, averaging just 19 in three successive Tests, appears to be the batsman under greatest pressure right now after coach Darren Lehmann warned his top six they were playing for their places following Australia’s latest collapse at Chester-le-Street and there have been suggestions reserve wicketkeeper Matthew Wade could come into the side as a specialist batsman.

Australia have lost seven of their last eight Tests, a losing streak interrupted by a rain-affected draw at Old Trafford.

However, vice-captain Brad Haddin insisted a side led by world-class batsman Michael Clarke could avoid becoming the first Australia team since Greg Chappell’s side lost 3-0 in England in 1977 to go through an Ashes series without winning a Test.

“There’s a lot of belief in the changing room that we can win this last Test,” wicketkeeper Haddin said.

“We’ve been in a position over the Tests to put ourselves in a position to win, we just haven’t been good enough in the big moments. l

Clarke defends selectors n AFP, London

Australia captain Michael Clarke came to the defence of his embattled selectors yesterday, saying they weren’t picking a side for a “charity tour” as the tourists looked to salvage a consolation win in the final match of their disappointing Ashes series in England.

Clarke’s men head into the final Test at The Oval starting Wednesday 3-0 down in the five-match series and having failed to win any of their last eight Tests.

No Australia side have yet lost four Ashes Tests in England and none have lost the urn anywhere 4-0.

So far this Ashes, top-order batting has been Australia’s greatest weakness with eight batsmen being tried in the

first six spots of a team trying to fill the void left by the retirements of Ricky Ponting and Mike Hussey.

Not since the first two Tests of the tour of India earlier this year have Australia used the same top six in the same order in consecutive Tests.

Recently, former captain Steve Waugh, who didn’t score a hundred until his 26th Test before becoming one of the leading batsmen of his era, urged the selectors to adopt a "pick and stick" approach.

Waugh also criticised Australia coach Darren Lehmann for warning players their careers were in jeopardy after the latest in a long line of collapses saw the side suffer a 74-run defeat

by England in the fourth Ashes Test at Durham.l

Dravid wants open approach towards day-night Tests n Reuters Former India captain Rahul Dravid wants cricket administrators to approach the introduction of day-night tests with an open mind to bolster the dwindling popularity of the longer format among spectators.

The idea of floodlit test cricket, possibly played with a pink, orange or yellow ball, in more spectator-friendly hours has found acceptance in a wide section of the cricketing fraternity in recent years.

While doubts still remain about its technical viability, the International Cricket Council (ICC) last year approved the idea of day-night test matches but left it to member boards to decide on the hours of play and the colour of the ball.

Speaking at an event organised by popular website ESPNcricinfo in London

on Monday, Dravid highlighted the primacy of test cricket and suggested ways for bolstering the acceptance of the longer format of the game across the world.

“If it means playing day-night cricket, we must give it a try, keep an open mind,” Dravid, the third-highest runscorer in test cricket, said. “The game’s traditions aren’t under threat if we play test cricket under lights.

“I know there have been concerns about the durability of the pink ball, but I have had some experience of it, having played for the MCC, and it seemed to hold up okay.

“It could be an issue at places where dew sets in at certain times of the year, but scheduled at the right places at the right times, it could get Test cricket what it needs most: some more people in the stands.” l

England Lions’ Luke Wright pulls during his unbeaten 68-ball 143 against Bangladesh A in their 1st unofficial ODI at Bristol yesterday. The hosts scored 241 runs in their last 21 overs to reach 353-4. Wright clobbered 11 fours and 10 sixes in his blistering knock. Bangladesh were reeling at 117-4 in 37 overs when this report was filed INTERNET

Ryder banned over drug test n AFP, Wellington Troubled New Zealand cricketer Jesse Ryder was handed a six-month ban Tuesday after testing positive for outlawed substances contained in a weightloss supplement, the New Zealand Sports Tribunal said.

The disciplinary body said Ryder, who has been in self-imposed exile from international cricket since February 2012, tested positive after a domestic match in March this year.

It said Ryder’s sample showed traces of the stimulants PBA and DEBEA, and the batsman admitted he took two supplement tablets in the days before the test.

A downbeat Ryder said he had to accept the consequences of his actions.

“I’m devastated by this situation,” he said in a statement. “I’ve never taken drugs, to be in this situation distresses me greatly.

“I did take steps to check the supple-

ment, but ultimately it was my responsibility and I accept that.”

The disciplinary body did not dispute Ryder’s argument that he was not aware the over-the-counter product contained banned substances, and that he took it because he was struggling with his weight, not to enhance on-field performance.

However, it said he did not check with authorities whether the supplement was legal, even though the label warned it might contain substances outlawed by some organisations.

Instead, Ryder and his trainer did their own research on the Internet and concluded it was safe.

The tribunal said that, as a professional athlete, Ryder was obliged to be more cautious before taking a potentially illegal supplement.

“The tribunal thought a penalty of six months suspension was also appropriate,” it said, pointing out the maximum punishment available was two years.

The ban was backdated to April, meaning Ryder will be available to play again in October.

The 29-year-old is one of New Zealand’s best batting talents, averaging 40.93 in 18 Tests, but his career has been marred by disciplinary lapses and offfield problems.

He is still recovering from an assault outside a bar in the South Island city of Christchurch in March, which derailed his plans to return to the Indian Premier League. l

Kallis targets last shot at World Cup glory n Reuters, Cape Town South Africa all-rounder Jacques Kallis is ready to return to the one-day international side for a last shot at winning the 50-over World Cup. Kallis, who will be 38 in October, played the last of his 321 one-dayers against New Zealand in February 2012, opting instead to focus on his Test and lucrative Indian Premier League careers.

But after a meeting with national team coach Russell Domingo and Cricket South Africa (CSA) officials yesterday, he confirmed his commitment to returning to the line-up as they build towards the 2015 World Cup in Australasia.

“Playing for my country has always been both a huge honour and a privilege,” Kallis said in a statement released by CSA yesterday.

“It remains my aspiration to be available for the 2015 World Cup but, at the same time I know as an all-rounder approaching my 38th birthday, I will need to assess my future in the game season by season.

“At the moment I am feeling mentally and physically refreshed and I am looking forward to carrying on playing for my country as long as possible,” said Kallis.

Domingo says they will not select the all-rounder for the one-day series against Pakistan in October but hope to have him in the side for the end of year series against India.

“We are scheduled to play 30 ODIs between now and the start of the World Cup and we cannot expect Jacques to play every match. If we were to do that we would limit his longevity and we don’t want that,” added Domingo. l

16

DHAKA TRIBUNE

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Wednesday, August 21, 2013

MULTI-LEVEL MARKETING FRAUDS

New act brings no hope to cheated millions n Asif Showkat Kallol The cabinet approved the draft of the Multi-Level Marketing Act on Monday.

The law, if passed in September’s parliament session, will hopefully prevent the rampant swindling that has so far been practiced by various MLM companies.

However, in the nine years since the practice was brought into the country, at least 100 large and small MLM companies across the country have cheated at least 30m people out of their savings.

Department of Cooperatives officials said roughly Tk100bn had been collected from clients by MLM companies in the last four years.

Speaking to several victims, this correspondent found that many felt there was now little hope left for recovery of their investments in these companies.

Many of the victims have lost everything they had.

Jubok, Unipay2U and Destiny were the big names in the MLM business.

“We have waited nine years to receive our deposited money from the now defunct MLM company Jubok, despite two commissions formed by the government in the last couple of years,” Nazma Begum told the Dhaka Tribune.

Nazma used to be a coordinator for Jubok in Naraynganj.

“The MLM authority could return our deposited money from the fraud company,” she said.

Bangladesh Bank closed Jubok in 2005 for illegal banking.

Some MLM firms such as Maxim and Uttar Investment are now operating in the country.

The draft Multi-level Marketing Activities (Control) Act-2003, approved by the cabinet on Monday, decriminalises the business but authorises the government to appoint administrators for a

Felani’s father, uncle return home after testimony in India n Tribune Report

Felani’s father and three others who went to Cooch Behar in West Bengal to give deposition in Felani murder case returned home yesterday.

Felani’s father M Nurul Islam and maternal uncle M Abdul Hanif on Monday described the circumstance surrounding the killing of Felani by the Indian Border Security Force (BSF), at the General Security Force Court, a special court dealing with the case.

They were supposed to testify again yesterday, but the court observed in the morning that it was not required.

Lt Col Ziaul Haque Khaled of BGB 45 Battalion and Kurigram public prosecutor Abraham Lincoln assisted the witnesses.

They returned home around 2:30pm through Burimari border of Lalmonirhat under special protection of the BSF, according to agencies.

Felani, a 15-year-old girl, was shot dead by BSF while she was returning to her home in Bangladesh. As she tried to climb over the barbed-wire fencing along the Anantapur border in Kurigram on January 7, 2011, her clothes

got entangled in the wire and the BSF fired at her, hearing her screams.

Her body was left dangling on the barbed wire for nearly five hours and she was reportedly alive for at least four hours after being shot.

The photograph of Felani’s bulletridden body hanging from the barbed wire was published in the local and international media, following which there was an outpouring of demand for justice.

Abraham Lincoln said over phone yesterday: “Felani’s father and maternal uncle gave deposition on Monday at the court. Two inhabitants of Indian border areas also gave their deposition.

We hope that we will get justice, and the accused will get capital punishment.”

The deposition of lone accused Amiya Ghosh was recorded on the first day of trial, on August 13. He is being tried in this court after he was found to be guilty, following a preliminary investigation into the killing.

A team of five members is conducting the trial in top secrecy and under the supervision of Assam frontier DIG (communications) CP Trivedi. l

company found guilty of fraud.

The draft includes a prison sentence of 5-10 years or a fine of Tk5m for conducting multilevel businesses without a license.

It also says those who are already operating their businesses, without licences, have to collect that within 90 days of the enactment of the law. If they do not, they will be sentenced to a minimum of six years to a maximum ten years in prison and a fine of Tk5m.

The punishment may be doubled for “further violation” of the law, it says.

Cabinet Secretary Mohammad Mosharraf Hossain Bhuiyan said the law would be enforced through an ordinance for the time being, as no parliament session is forthcoming.

“It will be tabled at the next parliament session,” he said.

A provision for appointment of one or more administrators has also been

incorporated in the draft in case of an MLM company being found to be involved in cheating people.

But the cheated individuals do not see much to expect from the new act.

Ismail Hossain, who lives in Sylhet city, told the Dhaka Tribune he had sent a letter to the finance minister, asking that something be done about the 10 bhari gold he had deposited to the MLM company Unipay2U. The company’s high-ups went into hiding soon after.

“Unipay2U had several buildings and other wealth, but the government has not yet recovered the deposited gold from Unipay2U,” he said.

Former Jubok Commission chairman and Additional Secretary Rafiqul Islam told the Dhaka Tribune that without strong laws against fraud, the activities of MLM companies cannot be stopped.

“Criminal law should be amended to

n Kamran Reza Chowdhury

A parliamentary watchdog has recommended punishment to suppliers of adulterated formula and baby food supplements in line with the Penal Code in case of child death from adulterated food.

Finalising recommendations on a bill to regulate indiscriminate sales of formula and baby food supplements, the parliamentary standing committee on health ministry yesterday also suggested fines set by the government for injuries caused by such food items.

The proposed law initiated on July 16 aims at promoting breastfeeding and ensuring safest food for children.

After a meeting of the committee yesterday, its Chairman Sheikh Fazlul

Pakistan’s ex-military ruler Pervez Musharraf was indicted on three counts on Tuesday over the 2007 murder of opposition leader Benazir Bhutto in a gun and suicide attack, a prosecutor said.

Charging a former army chief is an unprecedented move in a country ruled for more than half of its life by the military and where the army is still considered the most powerful institution.

It was the second time that Musharraf, who ruled the nuclear-armed state from 1999-2008, had been summoned to face charges of criminal conspiracy and the murder of Bhutto in December 2007.

“He was charged with murder, criminal conspiracy for murder and facilitation for murder,” public prosecutor Chaudhry Azhar said at the anti-terrorism court in Rawalpindi hearing the case. Musharraf denies the charges and the case has been adjourned until August 27. l

US retailers have responsibility too: Levin n Sheikh Shahariar Zaman

US Congressman Sander Levin has stressed on the responsibility of US retailers in revamping the readymade garment sector of Bangladesh, a senior foreign ministry official told the Dhaka Tribune.

In a meeting with Levin yesterday, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina said Bangladesh and the US enjoy a good bilateral relationship but the withdrawal of the generalised system of preferences facility had shocked the people of the country.

“In the meeting, Levin wanted to know from the prime minister about her impression of the Bangladesh-US bilateral relationship and in response the prime minister said everything was fine except the withdrawal of GSP,” said an official who attended the meeting.

“The prime minister told Levin that both the countries co-operate with each other but the withdrawal of GSP had shocked the people of Bangladesh,” the official said.

Washington, on June 27 announced the withdrawal of GSP facility for Bangladesh on grounds of poor labour conditions in the country.

Levin came to Dhaka on Monday and had a meeting with the Foreign Secretary Md Shahidul Haque, Labour Secretary Mikail Shippar and Commerce Secretary Mahbub Ahmed, yesterday.

The representative from Michigan has

Visiting US Congressman Sander Levin calls on Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina at her office yesterday engaged in labour politics throughout his life and is a senior democrat leader in the Ways and Means Committee of the Congress.

Meanwhile, Director General of the foreign ministry Mahfuzur Rahman said the US Congressman had remarked that the withdrawal of GSP facility for Bangladesh was not a punitive measure.

“The congressman gave the mes-

JS body suggests Penal Code punishment for suppliers of adulterated baby food supplements Karim Selim told reporters: “We have inserted a new section [in the bill] recommending punishment to suppliers of bad quality baby food and food supplements.”

He said according to the new provision suppliers would face punishment in line with the Bangladesh Penal Code in case of death of any child from consumption of adulterated formula or food supplements.

Officials at the Directorate of Health said many physicians had been in collusion with formula sellers and promoted formula instead of breastfeeding.

The government recently issued warning notices to at least 100 doctors for promoting substitutes to breast milk.

State Minister for Health Mujibur

punish officials of MLM companies like Jubok,” he said.

Farhad Hossain, a government official, invested Tk120,000 in Destiny’s tree plantation project and a tower in Barisal district. “Destiny is now defunct, and I do not know whether I will ever get back my deposited money,” he said.

“The investigation into Destiny’s business has come to nothing,” he complained.

Sources in the Department of Cooperatives said the growth of the MLM company Destiny 2000 Limited was exponential, boasting an asset growth of 358.82% from Tk10.76bn to Tk26.19bn during the 2011-12 fiscal.

The Destiny chairman and the managing director are now in Dhaka Central Jail but high officials of Jubok and Unipay2U are out in the streets because of loopholes in the criminal law, officials at the Department of Cooperatives said. l

Musharraf charged with Benazir Bhutto’s murder n AFP

Rahman Fakir had tabled the bill, which makes it mandatory for baby food importers to register with the Institute of Public Health. The bill is set for passage in the next parliament session starting September 12.

Once passed, the law will prohibit the registered importers and sellers or producers of formula and other baby food supplements from selling those without mentioning some basic facts about breastfeeding.

Containers of such baby food items must clearly read: “Alternative food and food supplements are not the principal source of children’s nutrition” or, “Nothing can match breastfeeding;” they must also bear other information.

The law will also prevent use

of cartoons or signs identifying the alternative baby food and food supplements.

Anyone violating any section of the bill will face three years in jail or a fine of Tk500,000 or both in line with the Code of Criminal Procedure.

Passage of the law will authorise the government to form a national committee for advising the authorities concerned on the international codes of marketing baby food and food supplements.

Members of the standing committee – Health Minister AFM Ruhal Haque, his deputy Mujibur Rahman Fakir, and lawmakers M Amanullah, ZIM Mostofa Ali and Amanur Rahman Khan Rana – attended the meeting with Sheikh Fazlul Karim Selim in the chair. l

sage to the prime minister and foreign minister when he met them separately,” Mahfuzur Rahman, who attended both the meetings, told the Dhaka Tribune, yesterday.

“Levin told them workers in the US do not want to see Bangladeshi workers suffer due to the withdrawal of GSP,” Rahman said.

“The Congressman told them the GSP

BSS

withdrawal had given Bangladesh and US an opportunity to work together to improve labour conditions,” he said.

In the functional meeting with the secretaries, they appraised the congressman about the progress so far made to improve labour conditions in the country.

After the collapse of Rana Plaza in April another US Congressman George Miller came to Dhaka in June. l

BTRC issues ultimatum for 23 IGWs to pay dues by August 26 n Muhammad Zahidul Islam The Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission has issued an ultimatum for 23 international gateway (IGW) operators, asking them to pay their outstanding worth billions of taka

by August 26.

“To continue connectivity and run their businesses, the IGW operators must pay their outstandings up to June,” a high official of the BTRC told the Dhaka Tribune yesterday.

“As most of the IGW operators are powerful because of political backing, the commission often becomes helpless regarding taking action against them,” the official said.

The BTRC records show that these 23 operators have not paid the commission any dues for the April-June

quarter this year.

Meanwhile, 26 of the country’s 29 IGWs are yet to pay their licence fees worth Tk75m, too.

The 23 IGWs are Bangla Trac Communications Limited, Mir Telecom Ltd, Novotel Limited, Global Voice Telecom Limited, HRC Technologies Limited, Roots Communication Ltd, 1Asia Alliance Gateway Ltd, Sigma Engineers Limited, Telex Limited, Green Delta Aims Tower, Apple Global Tel, First Communications Limited, Kay Telecommunications Limited, Ratul Telecom Limited, Mos5 Tel Limited, Cel Telecom Limited, Ranks Telecom Limited, SM Communication Limited, Platinum Communications Limited, Vision Tel Limited, Digicon Telecommunication Limited, Venus Telecom Limited, Hamid Sourcing Limited, and Bestec Telecom Limited. l

Teletalk set to extend coverage to the Sundarbans n Muhammad Zahidul Islam

Abdul Kuddus Boyati is among cultural personalities and people from all walks of life paying their last tribute to the late folk singer Abdur Rahman Boyati at the Central Shaheed Minar yesterday MAHMUD HOSSAIN OPU

State-run mobile phone operator Teletalk, also the only 3G-service provider in the country, has reportedly finished preparations for extending its network to the Sundarbans.

Officials said Teletalk’s services will be available in the Sundarbans, one of the remotest areas in the country, beginning next week.

The operator had already set up the necessary infrastructure in three areas in the coastal forest namely Dublar Char, Katka and the popular tourist destination Mongla.

With the inclusion of these three remote areas in the network, the country will enjoy 100% mobile phone coverage for the first time.

Mobile operators claim that 99% of

the country’s area is already under mobile network coverage.

“We are trying to offer moderate services to the subscribers with our limited resources. This step is part of the government’s initiatives towards building a digital Bangladesh,” Md Mujibur Rahman, managing director of Teletalk, told the Dhaka Tribune recently.

In March, Teletalk submitted an application to the Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC) seeking permission to go to the Sundarbans, the biggest mangrove forest in the world.

Following BTRC’s approval, the company built its network infrastructure in the area in a hurry. According to sources, Teletalk had begun the preparations for extending its network even before it secured the regulator’s per-

mission.

Although initially, the infrastructure has been built at only the three popular tourist spots, Mujibur Rahman told the Dhaka Tribune that they had plans to extend coverage to remoter areas in phases.

“Not only the Sundarbans, Teletalk pioneered [extending mobile coverage to] many places,” the Teletalk boss claimed.

The state-run operator has been in the past widely criticised for the quality and strength of its network.

However, Teletalk also happens to be the first of the country’s six operators to have extended its coverage to the remote hilly areas of Banderban, Rangamati and Khagrachhari in 2008.

No other operator has network coverage in the Sundarbans till date. l

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Continue to the Business section...

Business

Business

B2 A second US congressman visits garment factories

B3 Over half of listed

companies suffer massive fall in share prices

www.dhakatribune.com/business

wednesday, August 21, 2013

Stock refinancing scheme

Affected investors to get loan at 9% n Asif Showkat Kallol

The government has approved the guidelines for the share market refinancing scheme of Tk9bn, setting an interest rate of 9% on loans for the affected investors, officials sources said.

Sources in the ministry of finance have confirmed that the Finance Minister AMA Muhith signed the proposed guidelines on Monday, which was informed to ICB, Bangladesh Bank and Bangladesh Securities Exchange Commission yesterday.

Bangladesh Bank will disburse the first installment of Tk3bn on the first day of next week. The next installment will be disbursed three months later.

Three stakeholders of the stock market and government agencies like BB, ICB and BSEC will hold a meeting to sign a MoU in this regard today.

A supervision committee was formed to oversee the scheme and its activities, according to ICB (Investment Corporation of Bangladesh) sources.

ICB Managing Director Md Fayekuzzaman told the Dhaka Tribune yesterday that they

Bangladesh Bank will disburse the first installment of Tk3bn on the first day of next week. The next installment will be disbursed three months later received the refinancing scheme guideline on Tuesday and ICB will hold a meeting at ICB today to sign a MoU with the stakeholders.

According to the guideline, ICB will be responsible to handle the refinancing scheme and merchant banks and stock brokers will collect the fund from Bangladesh Bank for three years.

Merchant banks and brokers will waive 50% interest on loan earlier taken by the affected small investors during the 2011/20112012 fiscal years.

ICB will then provide the loans to the merchant banks and broker firms at an interest rate of 7%, of which 2% will be deducted by the ICB as its service charge.

It is also mentioned that no risk will create in handling the financing for small, affected investors in the country’s stock markets and the fund will not suppose to be used for other business purposes.

Bangladesh Merchant Bankers Association (BMBA) President Mohammad A Hafiz told the Dhaka Tribune yesterday that it would help recover investors’ confidence although the guideline for the small, affected investors approved too late.

If the government continues with the financial support to the affected investors, it will definitely make the market vibrant, he added. l

NBR reshuffles official duties to reach revenue target n Tribune Report To achieve its revenue target of Tk1.36tn in the current fiscal year, the National Board of Revenue (NBR) is bringing about some changes in the administrative role of members and officials.

While talking to the Dhaka Tribune yesterday, the NBR official sources confirmed it.

The country’s revenue authority has already appointed two new members while a number of tax commissioners faced transfer.

Besides, many an official has been placed in zonal offices after completion of their training period, said sources.

“We are trying to achieve our revenue target for the current fiscal. Reshuffling of official duties is going on to this end,” said a high official of NBR. He said officials are also being transferred from one zone to another to expedite the revenue collection.

In the first three days of this week, 204 officials including five commissioners and 11 assistant commissioners were transferred, NBR sources said adding that more transfer orders are to follow.

Of 204 officials, 57 were from income tax division and the remaining 147 were chosen from customs division.

According to the sources, the revenue board on Sunday transferred and placed duties of 57 assistant tax commissioners of income tax. Among them, 10 assistant tax commissioners from BCS 31 Batch were placed in duties in different tax circles and the rest 47 assistant tax commissioners were transferred from one zone to another.

On Monday, NBR transferred five tax commissioners of customs division, 11 additional commissioners, 10 joint commissioners, 54 tax commissioners and 65 assistant tax commissioners.

Earlier, on July 31, the NBR appointed two

new members - M Lokman Chowdhury and Mahbubur Rahman - as members.

M Lokman was Commissioner of Taxes Appeal Zone-1, Dhaka, and has now taken over charge of Audit, Intelligence and Investigation Department while Mahbubur Rahman, who was Commissioner of Taxes Zone 1, Dhaka, got the responsibility of Information Management and Services Department.

Besides, member Begum Rahela Chowdhury will oversee internal taxes, member M Bashir Uddin Ahmed will perform as project director of NBR building along with the duty of tax administration and human resource management, member M Shahjahan gets tax appeal and release, Syed Aminul Karim tax policy along with performing as project director of research and statistics, M Alauddin of tax survey and inspection will also serve special duties led by the Chairman, Kalipad Halder of legal and enforcement wing is also to perform as project director of e-filing. l

FRA may help break company-auditor nexus n Kayes Sohel Analysts welcomed the long-cherished Financial Reporting Act approved by the cabinet, saying it would help break nexus between auditors and company managements in preparing financial reports.

They emphasised on stricter implementation of the act to bring wrongdoers under a legal framework to address the fundamental issues of corporate governance.

But the stock exchanges remained skeptical over setting the accounting standards even after enactment of the act.

The cabinet on Monday approved the draft of the Financial Reporting Act (FRA), 2013, which was initiated by the last caretaker government that approved a financial reporting ordinance in 2008, but the Awami League-led government did not pass it in parliament after assuming power in 2009.

“It should have been approved earlier. But it is better than never,” former Bangladesh Bank Governor Salehuddin Ahmed told the Dhaka Tribune yesterday.

“In absence of proper rules and regulations, errant auditors and company managements could not be brought under the book.

It resulted in fabricated financial statements in many cases,” he said.

The financial reporting act will ensure quality of reports, disclosures, financial transparency and accountability, which will help investors being well informed about a company’s financial strength.

Former finance adviser to the last caretaker government Mirza Azizul Islam said it would help ensure transparency of audit systems, forming a unique structure for the monitoring of firms listed with stock exchanges and financial institutions.

“It is a positive move,” he said. In many cases, the financial statements did not reflect real picture of companies’ financial strength because of collusion between the company management and the auditor.

However, an independent oversight body is needed to regulate the audit firms. Though ICAB has its own panel to do this, but because of its conflict of interest, doubt always remains about a transparent financial statement, he said.

“Though securities regulator takes some enforcement action against listed companies for financial jugglery, but gap always exists.

Financial reporting act will help bridge this gap,” he said.

He said hopefully the tendency of the financial jugglery will reduce if authorities enforce the act properly and the proper account reporting will help widen accountability of the country’s growing corporate sector.

Chittagong Stock Exchange president Al-Maruf Khan said they have not been consulted while drafting the financial reporting act. “So, we have generally certain reservation about the implication on the transparency on the financial reporting in the country.”

Khan remained doubtful over the proper

implementation of the act and said nobody could really address the issue of accounting standard unless the rules and regulations are implemented properly.

Referring to the financial reporting regime in India, he said stock market of India is many times bigger than Bangladesh and one of the largest and matured markets in Asia.

“In this context, India does not have financial reporting act. They are managing through a committee headed by a renowned chartered accountant, but not headed by the SEBI (Securities Board of India),” he said.

Khan said the mandate of that particular committee covers everything that is expected from the proposed act.

It is more important because the financial reporting act as published in many newspapers indicate that the composition of a council is essentially made by the non-accountant, who can contribute towards standards setting process of this particular technical matter, he said.

According to the draft financial reporting act, a council of 12 members will be formed under the leadership of Bangladesh Bank’s governor as per the law including the Bangladesh Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman, NBR Chairman, Chairman of Insurances Development and Regulatory Authority and representatives of the finance ministry’s Banking and Financial Institutions Division. The council will have three departments: standard setting, monitoring and enforcing. l

2

DHAKA TRIBUNE

Business

wednesday, August 21, 2013

A second US congressman visits garment factories US congressman Sandy Levin yesterday visited two garment factories in and outskirts of Dhaka. He is on a four-day visit to see the working condition and the state of labour rights in the clothing factories after the deadly Rana Plaza collapse in April.

Before Levin, another congressman George Miller visited Bangladesh’s garment factories on the same assignment. The US is likely to send another visitor to watch the condition, and all of these visits will help the US authorities to take decision on the revival of GSP to Bangladesh in December, said BGMEA Vice President Shahidullah Azim.

The US congressman visited Rumen Fashion in the city’s Malibagh and CIPL at Ashulia in Savar. Earlier on Sunday, Sandy Levin at-

A file photo shows the collapsed Rana Plaza building tended a meeting with the leaders of Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters’ Association (BGMEA).

At the meeting, he wanted to know about what steps BGMEA had taken to improve working condition after the Rana Plaza incident. “We discussed on Rana Plaza collapse at the meeting.

The US congressman wanted what initiatives BGMEA had taken after the incident,” BGMEA President Atiqul Islam told the Dhaka Tribune.

“BGMEA urged the US to withdraw the suspension of GSP. If suspension continues, it will be a big punishment for 4 million workers.” At the meeting, BGMEA presented the steps taken by it to rehabilitate Rana

Nashirul Islam

Plaza victims and upgrade workers’ safety in factories. “The meeting discussed workers’ safety,” said Atiqul Islam.

The Rana Plaza collapse in April, the deadliest accident in the history of Bangladesh’s garment industry, took over 1,100 lives and wounded 2,500 others. Bangladesh met another tragedy in Tazreen Fashions in November last year, killing 114 workers.

The US government suspended GSP for Bangladesh in June as Bangladesh government “failed to do enough” to improve working condition and labour rights.

Earlier, the US authorities set out a series of steps including improvement of workers’ safety which Bangladesh needed to implement to have GSP revived. l

Oman Air appoints new country manager n Tribune Business Desk Khondaker A Kabir has recently been appointed as the country manager for the Oman airline in Bangladesh, the national carrier of the Sultanate of Oman.

Kabir will work for providing the strategic business direction to promote and expand Oman Air’s service and operation in Bangladesh. “I am delighted to have been appointed to this prestigious assignment and look

Khondaker A Kabir

n Tribune Business Desk VU Mobile has launched the ClubZ mobile application in Google Play. ClubZ portal is a free to download mobile entertainment content service, which allows its members to download local and international songs, videos, games and images to their mobile phones.

It is the first mobile application in Bangladesh that allows a mobile subscriber to download mobile entertainment content and pay using phone credit.

Within one month of having launched, the application has been downloaded more than 3,000 times and currently has more than 400,000 subscribers from all mobile operators of Bangladesh.

VU Mobile will soon launch the J2ME version of the application which will be compatible for feature phones. l

n Ibrahim Hossain Ovi

US congressman Sandy Levin

VU Mobile launches ClubZ app for Google Play

forward to make a significant contribution to Oman Air’s continuing success and growth in Bangladesh,” said Kabir said.

Oman Air airline operates daily flights from Chittagong, which offers convenient connections to Middle East and Europe.

Oman Air’s commitment to quality, comfort and a seamless passenger experience has resulted in international acclaim, including Best Business Class Seat in the World (Skytrax World Airline Awards 2011, 2012). l

Tea prices fall for second week on higher supplies

n Reuters, Dhaka Tea prices fell for a second week at a weekly auction on Tuesday as higher volumes were on offer, brokers said.

The average price of tea was Tk236.65 ($3) per kg against Tk238.87 in the previous auction on Aug 14, an official at National Brokers Ltd said.

More than 1.9 million kg of tea was offered at Bangladesh's sole auction centre in Chittagong, with nearly 16% remaining unsold, compared with about 1.7 million kg offered and 12 percent unsold at the previous one.

The south Asian country produces 60 million kg of tea a year, compared with its demand of 56 million kg. Tea consumption is rising by 4.5% annually, in line with economic growth. l

Biman chairperson wins Asia’s Most Promising Leaders Award

n Tribune Business Desk Air Marshal Jamal Uddin Ahmed (retd), the Chairman of Biman’s board of directors, has been nominated for the Promising Leadership category at the annual Asia’s Most Promising Leaders’ Award.

Jamal Uddin Ahmed will be presented the award in a gala ceremony to be held in Dubai on August 26-27 during the Asian Brand and Leadership Summit 2013, said a statement.

Air Marshal Jamal Uddin brought about some phenomenal changes in the management and operations of the airline, since he assumed office in January 2009.

His contribution in Biman, ultimately led to a turnaround in the fortunes and modernisation of the legacy-carrier of Bangladesh. l

DHAKA TRIBUNE

Business

wednesday, August 21, 2013

Over half of listed companies suffer massive fall in share prices n Jebun Nesa Alo More than half of companies listed with Dhaka Stock Exchange (DSE) witnessed massive decline in share prices despite a number of remedial efforts taken by the government and the regulator.

The DSE data released recently showed the share prices of 80 companiesfell over 20% in a year since July 2012 as the post-debacle rescue initiatives did not work.

According to the stakeholders, the companies had been continuing to lose prices as the investors could not regain their confidence on the stocks after 2010 debacle.

Of 294 listed companies including 43 mutual funds, 141 lost prices during last one year time, the data showed. The listed 80 companieswitnessed over 20% fall in share prices while 14 otherssuffered 40% drop due to continued slump in the market.

Of the share price indices,the newly DSE Broad Index (DSEX) edged 3.99% or 164 points to 3940 during last two months - June andJuly.

Market capitalization increased more than 6% to stand at Tk2503bn from July, 2012 to July, 2013.

According to the DSE data, the companies that lost over 40% in share prices included IFIC bank (43.32%), Al-Arafah Islami bank (43.66%), National Bank Ltd (46.35%), Prime Finance and Invest (45.83%), Kay and Que (54.86%), Purabi General Insurance (70.18%), Bangladesh Industrial Finance (51.85%), Beximco (46.79%), FAS Finance and Investment (53.17), Bangladesh Finance and Investment (46.95%), Shinepukur Ceramics 40.08%, International Leasing (43.44%), IDLC Finance (44.41%) and First Lease Fi-

nance (44.19%).

Among those losers,nine companies are in A category as investors are more confident on them considering the fundamental issues.

Prurabi General Insurance is one of the A category companiesand lost the highest 70.18% in share prices in last one year. Its share price stood at Tk21.2 on July 31, 2013 from Tk71 on July 30, 2012.

Purabi General was listed in 1995 and declared over 10% dividend in last 12 years, which indicates the company has good fundamental features.

Beximco was the most gambler of shares in the boom market from 2009 to 2010. But after the share market debacle in 2010, the investors could not recover their loss because of continuous falling. Even in last one year, Beximco’s share price declined 46.79%

despite declaring 15% stock dividend for the year 2012.

“Although we invested in a company having good fundamental features, we have suffered losses,” said Abdur Rashid, a retail investor in DSE. According to him, the market has failed to regain investors’ confidence on it in last two years after the debacle.

Prof Abu Ahmed, an economist, said most of the companies made losses in their own portfolios due to sluggish market, which put a negative impacton their profit at the end of the year.

“Due to losses, the companies declared less dividends in the year than the previous year. The lack of confidence among the investors made even fundamentally good companies make losses,” Prof Ahmed added. l

Asset revaluation guideline for listed cos framed n Kayes Sohel The Bangladesh Securities and Exchange Commission has framed a guideline for asset revaluation of listed companies, aimed at preventing “inflated” disclosures.

This is to restrict upward revaluation of lands, buildings and intangible assets.

The guideline emerged amid allegations of over-valuation of assets by a section of companies which inflated offer value in the process of using book building method of primary offer.

In absence of a specific guideline so far, some companies prior to submission of their IPO proposals revalued their respective assets thrice in two years on excuse that the prices of their assets have increased commensurate with rising market prices.

Framing asset revaluation guideline was one of the recommendations of the probe committee on stock market debacle in December, 2010. After receiving instruction from the finance ministry, the regulator in November last year formed of a two-member panel to prepare a guideline on asset revalu-

ation of the listed companies.

The BSEC in a notification issued on Monday said the guideline for revaluation of assets imposed with immediate effect.

To revaluate assets, a company needs some general and disclosure requirements and the valuer should have some ethical principles, according to the notification.

Under the guideline, upward revaluation of leasehold lands and buildings having no transferring rights, plants and machineries having end economic life of less than 50% of its total useful life as estimated at acquisition, vehicles and furniture and so on are not allowed.

No dividend must be issued out of any revaluation surplus. The decision of valuation and appointment of the valuer must be taken by the board of directors of the companies concerned.

The valuer needs to submit the valuation report to the board along with all workings and documents, and the board will decide next course of action.

The valuer will provide a report and fairness opinion duly signed by its chief execu-

tive which will form integral part of the valuation report.

In their report, the valuer must confirm that the valuation has been undertaken in accordance with the International Valuations Standards and that they have maintained the fundamental principles of ethical conduct namely integrity, objectivity, competence, confidentiality and professional behavior regarding the valuation.

The revalued amounts of assets and liabilities must be included in the financial statements in accordance with the applicable provisions of Bangladesh Accounting Standards (BAS) and Bangladesh Financial Reporting Standards (BFRS).

After preparation of the financial statements, the management will hand over the same to the auditors along with all workings and documents provided by the valuer.

The auditor will examine all relevant documents and furnish their opinion in the auditors’ report regarding whether the valuation report has been prepared and treated in accordance with BAS and BFRS and other applicable laws, rules, regulations and guidelines or not. l

3

Profit booking halts six-day rally

n Tribune Report Stocks ended flat yesterday, breaking a sixday rally, as late profit taking wiped off early gains.

The initial buying pressure, followed by late selling spree and block trading, pushed the turnover to cross Tk7bn-mark after one month.

After gaining more than 62 points, the benchmark DSEX index closed at 4,082 with a marginal drop of 1.3 points or 0.03%. The blue chip index DS30 gained 3.7 points or 0.3% to 1,550.

The Chittagong Stock Exchange (CSE) Selective Categories Index, CSCX, declined 5.7 points to 8,012.

Turnover hit at Tk7.07bn, which was 49% higher over the previous session’s value and the highest turnover value since July 18.

“Upbeat vibe at the very beginning could not sustain due to investors’ dive towards profit booking. Hence, the bourse ended flat, breaking its six sessions’ rally of 250.38 points,” said IDLC Investments in its daily market analysis.

Selling spree in some of the heavy-weight large cap scrips derailed the market at the ending part of the day’s session, it said.

“No major distortion in political frontier made investors’ confidence stronger. As a result, participation was livelier,” it said.

Throughout the session, investors were shuffling their sector wise positioning.

Activity continued to increase in fuel and power, telecommunications and textile sectors.

Lanka Bangla Securities said the market started with extreme bullishness and crossed 4,100-level without much hardship within first few minutes of trade.

But the bullishness could not sustain till the end and market ended almost where it started and buyers were surprised by higher sell pressure towards the end and sellers took control of the day, it said.

There was around Tk632m worth of block trade in the day’s trading session.

“Investors will be curious to see whatever market can close above this level in forthcoming trading sessions to get sense of direction,” Lanka Bangla said.

Out of 291 issues traded, 133 advanced, 132 declined and 26 remained unchanged.

All the major sectors ended in green except banks and fuel and power which were 0.66% and 0.07% down respectively.

NBFIs gained the most with 2.57%. Telecommunications and pharmaceuticals also ended higher with 0.96% and 0.21% gains respectively.

Seven mutual funds featured in the top ten losers’ chart while the entire sector went down by 1.67%.

Bangladesh Submarine Cable Company Ltd became the top turnover leaders with shares worth Tk533m changing hands, followed by Meghna Petroleum, Padma Oil, Olympic Industries and Grameenphone.

JMI Syringes and Medical Devices was the biggest gainer of the day, as it posted more than 9% rise, while Navana CNG was the worst loser, slumping by around 14% following its price adjustment after record date. l

4 Apple readying two iPhone versions for launch: report

n AFP, New York

Apple has asked its Taiwan-based supplier to begin shipping two new versions of the iPhone next month, including a lower-cost model, the Wall Street Journal reported Monday.

The Journal, citing unnamed sources, said Taiwan-based Hon Hai Precision, the parent company of Foxconn in China, was readying both a standard iPhone with new upgrades and a less expensive model with fewer features.

Last week, the news site AllThingsD, part of the same company as The Journal, said Apple had scheduled a September 10 event to unveil the new smartphones as part of an effort to regain momentum. An Apple spokesman declined to comment.

Apple's move comes with its chief rival Samsung reportedly set to unveil its own smartphones and other devices, including a smartwatch.

Speculation has centered around whether Apple will shift its strategy to include a lower-cost handset to appeal to more consumers, especially in emerging markets.

A survey released by Gartner last week said Apple's share of the smartphone market worldwide fell to 14.2% in the second quarter, while Samsung's share rose to 31.7%.

Gartner said the Google Android operating system was used on 79% of smartphones sold in the period. l

Dollar up on Fed tapering talk, emerging currencies hit

n AFP, Tokyo

The dollar rose on Tuesday, with emerging market currencies under fresh pressure as dealers bet the US Federal Reserve will soon begin winding down its vast stimulus programme.

With eyes on the release Wednesday of minutes from the Fed's most recent policy meeting, expectations are that its year-long bond-buying, which has helped fuel a global equity and forex rally, could be coming to an end.

The euro was quoted at $1.3335, against $1.3334 in New York, while the single currency was also trading at 130.45 yen, from 130.09 yen. The dollar was also at 63.135 Indian rupees - just below its record high 63.22 rupees seen in Monday's trade - while also buying 10,495 Indonesian rupiah, a four-year high, from 10,419 rupiah. And the Thai baht was at a one-year low of 31.61 to the dollar, compared with31.34. baht.

The rupee is Asia's worst-performing major currency this year, falling 2.3% on Monday as the Fed's wind-down added to mounting concerns about the state of India's economy.

"Weakness in the Indian rupee and Indonesian rupiah has been particularly pronounced following a continued sell-off in Indian government bonds and a much larger-than-expected Indonesian second quarter current account deficit," Barclays Capital said in a note to clients. l

DHAKA TRIBUNE

Business

wednesday, August 21, 2013

China oil imports to overtake US by 2017: Wood Mac n Reuters, London China will overtake the United States as the world's biggest crude oil importer by 2017 as Chinese motorists drive domestic oil demand higher, consultancy Wood Mackenzie said on Tuesday.

China is on track to spend $500bn on crude oil imports by 2020, far outstripping the peak cost ever incurred by the United States on crude imports of $335bn, Wood Mackenzie said in a report.

It forecasts the US crude oil import bill will fall to around $160bn by 2020 as US tight oil output from shale resources replaces imports from the Middle East and Africa.

"China will surpass US demand for oil imports and peak spend," William Durbin, Wood Mackenzie's Beijing-based president of global markets, said in a statement.

The consultancy said the turning point for Chinese crude imports to surpass US imports would be around 2017.

It forecasts China's oil imports will rise to 9.2 million barrels per day (bpd) by 2020 from 2.5 million bpd in 2005. US oil imports, meanwhile, will fall to 6.8 million bpd from a peak of 10.1 million bpd.

"It means the United States is becoming more North America-centric for its supply

A worker walks past oil pipes at a refinery in Wuhan, Hubei province

Reuters

needs and China more dependent on Middle East and OPEC crude," Durbin said.

"We will therefore see OPEC suppliers, who traditionally focused on the United States for crude sales, compelled to shift their focus towards China."

Between 2005 and 2020, OPEC's share of Chinese oil imports is expected to rise to 66% from 52%.

"China will look towards OPEC supply more as the United States relies on it less," Durbin said. l

Chinese premier underlines reform in promoting sustainable growth

Nepal home ministry asks 5% of state budget for disaster management

n BSS Chinese Premier Li Keqiang yesterday underscored the role of reform in promoting sustainable growth, pledging to keep the economy from big fluctuations and maintain steady performance.

To achieve sustainable and healthy development, the authority should stick to rebalance the economy while keeping growth, employment and inflation within the reasonable range, Li said at a meeting in Lanzhou, attended by provincial heads in the country’s western regions.

When the economy is heading towards its targeted limits, reform is needed to coordinate the policies and “make precise moves” to maintain steady growth, he said.

“The major task and targets of the government is to achieve a sustainable economy, improve people’s lives and promote social equity,” he said. With the global economy still in arduous recovery, the domestic economy has achieved progress, but some much-accumulated conflicts have loomed large, he said.

As China’s economy posted a prolonged slowdown in the past two years, the government was resolved to rebalance its outdated growth model that is overly reliant on investment and exports. The government must coordinate economic growth and improve people’s lives and make tangible benefits for people, Li said.

“Fundamentally, the government must rely on reform to release the utmost benefits, spur market and social vitality, and enhance domestic potential to promote long-term sustainable and healthy development,” he said.

Despite the protracted slowdowns, Chinese authorities have so far refrained from initiating a massive stimulus program to lift the economy and allow leeway to proceed with structural reforms for the long-term good.

Since taking office in March, China’s new government has announced concrete reform plans, including delegating administrative power to lower levels and easing controls in the financial sector.

On Monday, China’s central bank governor Zhou Xiaochuan said the economy will not post persistent slowdowns, indicating the bank is ready to free long-awaited deposit interest rates, a key step to fully liberalize the financial market.

On July 19, the central bank announced lifting controls on bank lending rates, in a clear signal of the government’s determination to push forward market-oriented reforms.

China’s unbalanced economy is very much reflected in its wealth gap between rural and urban areas, and among different regions. But Premier Li singled out western regions as the biggest leeway areas for spurring more potentials, pledging to allowing differentiated economic policies for the region. l

n BSS

Nepal's Ministry of Home Affairs requested the government to allot at least 5% of the national budget for disaster management as several mountainous areas of the country had been affected by floods and landslides triggered by the monsoon.

The Ministry informed its request to the cabinet during its workshop on disaster preparedness and response planning held in Kathmandu on Monday, presenting a framework on national disaster response to all the concerned stakeholders.

The event coincided with the United Nation's World Humanitarian Day on Monday.

Naveen Kumar Ghimire, an official of the ministry, said that the government had taken the request seriously and the decision would soon be approved by the cabinet. "The framework will decide who will be responsible for what in case of emergencies and unless all the stakeholders get united the framework would be limited only on paper," Ghimire added.

According to the ministry, the purpose of the document is to develop a clear, concise and comprehensive national disaster response framework for Nepal for guiding a more effective and coordinated national response in case of a large scale disaster. The national disaster response framework will come into effect immediately after the approval of the government as recommended by the Central Natural Disaster Relief Committee. l

DHAKA TRIBUNE

Business

wednesday, August 21, 2013

Jackson Hole flying little lower this year without Fed chair n Reuters, Washington Central bankers from around the globe gather later this week in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, but for once, the absence of the Federal Reserve chairman means their annual get-together is not likely to spoil the summer vacation of traders on Wall Street.

Fed chief Ben Bernanke declined his annual invitation, breaking a 25-year tradition, and Fed Vice Chair Janet Yellen - a top contender to replace Bernanke in January 2014 - will only be moderating a panel.

As a result, there is no keynote Fed speech to open the conference, and the chances of a deliberate effort to signal an upcoming change in US monetary policy have been lowered dramatically. In prior years, Bernanke has used the venue to prepare financial markets for shifts in the Fed's policy stance.

"In the past, the news that has come out of Jackson Hole has been because the principle presenters are in a position of policy prominence, and it seems to be lighter ... this year," said Carl Tannenbaum, chief economist at Northern Trust in Chicago.

Despite his absence, Bernanke very likely will be at the center of the chatter on the sidelines of the conference, as attendees ponder who will replace him when his term expires. US President Barack Obama has said both Yellen and his former economic adviser

Qatar sends second shipment of free gas to Egypt

n AFP, Doha

Gas-rich Qatar has dispatched a second shipment of free liquefied gas it had pledged to Egypt, a report said, despite Doha's criticism of Cairo's deadly crackdown on Muslim Brotherhood protesters.

The tanker left "to brotherly Egypt on August 9," QNA state news agency said in a report late on Monday.

The shipments aim to ease the shortage of energy resources in Egypt during the summer, QNA cited an unnamed foreign ministry official as saying.

Qatar in June pledged five shipments of liquefied natural gas as a grant to Egypt, as the Gulf state led donors to the North African nation before the ouster of Islamist president Mohamed Morsi.

But Qatar's foreign minister Khaled al-Attiyah said on Sunday that his country had never given aid to the Muslim Brotherhood and that its assistance was always pledged to Egypt as a whole.

"Qatar has never given aid to an Egyptian group or an Egyptian political party.

The aid has always been provided to Egypt," he told journalists in Paris after meeting French counterpart Laurent Fabius.

Qatar has pledged an aid package of $5bn to Egypt, comprising $4bn in bank deposits and a grant of $1bn. l

Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke testifies before a Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee hearing on “The Semiannual Monetary Policy Report to the Congress” on Capitol Hill in Washington Reuters Lawrence Summers are top candidates for the job, and he will make up his mind in the fall. Summers is also not attending.

Economists expect the Fed to start scaling back monthly bond purchases at its meeting

next month, but as opposed to getting a steer from a speaker in Wyoming, they will have to rely on the minutes of the central bank's July meeting - due to be released on Wednesday - to fine tune expectations. l

No reward for hacking Zuckerberg Facebook page n AFP, San Francisco A researcher who hacked into Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg's profile to expose a security flaw won't get the customary reward payment from the social network.

While Facebook offers rewards for those who find security holes, it seems that Palestinian researcher Khalil Shreateh went too far by posting the information on Zuckerberg's own profile page.

Shreateh said on his blog he found a way for Facebook users to circumvent security and modify a user's timeline.

He said he took the unusual step of hacking into Zuckerberg's profile after being ignored by the Facebook security team.

"So i did post to Mark Zuckerberg's timeline , as those pictures shows," he said, including screen shots of the posting.

"Dear Mark Zuckerberg," he wrote."First sorry for breaking your privacy and post to your wall, i had no other choice to make after all the reports I sent to Facebook team. My name is “Khalil” from Palestine."

His reward for exposing the flaw was having his Facebook account disabled.

He later got a message saying, "We are unfortunately not able to pay you for this vulnerability because your actions violated our Terms of Service. We do hope, however, that you continue to work with us to find vulner-

abilities in the site."

Facebook said it appreciates help with security but not by hacking into user accounts.

Facebook security engineer Matt Jones posted a comment Sunday on a security forum saying "we fixed this bug on Thursday," and admitted that "we should have asked for additional... instructions after his initial report."

"We get hundreds of reports every day," Jones said. "We have paid out over $1m to hundreds of reporters. However, many of the reports we get are nonsense or misguided."

Jones added that "the more important issue here is with how the bug was demonstrated using the accounts of real people without their permission."

"We welcome and will pay out for future reports from him (and anyone else!) if they're found and demonstrated within these guidelines," Jones said on the YCombinator hacker news forum.

Independent security researcher Graham Cluley said he had "some sympathy" with Facebook on the issue.

"Although he was frustrated by the response from Facebook's security team, Shreateh did the wrong thing by using the flaw to post a message on Mark Zuckerberg's wall," Cluley said on his blog. l

5

Central bank data shows South Korea’s corporate bankruptcies surging on one-off factors

n BSS Corporate bankruptcies in South Korea almost doubled last month due to one-off factors,central bank data showed yesterday.

The number of companies that went belly-up surged to 101 in July from 58 in the previous month, the highest in six months, according to the Bank of Korea.

The bank attributed the surge to one-off factors. “The last two days of June fell on weekend, so bill clearing was delayed to July.

The July figure was overestimated,” said a bank official.

The official noted that excluding the one-off factor, there was no reason for company failures increasing to such a large extent.

Local companies, which failed to redeem promissory notes and checks, trended down this year as banks became generous toward small companies in terms of lending to meet the government’s efforts to enhance their access to funding markets.

The number of newly established firms expanded 1,075 from a month earlier to 7,140 in July.

The ratio of start-ups to company failures was 108.2 last month, down from 163.9 in the prior month.

The default rate on corporate bills, including promissory notes and checks, came in at 0.14% in July, up from 0.08% in the previous month.l

Oil prices lower ahead of US crude stockpiles data

n AFP, Singapore

Oil prices inched down in Asian trade Tuesday as dealers await US crude stockpiles data for clues about demand in the world's biggest economy, analysts said.

New York's main contract, West Texas Intermediate for delivery in September, was down 35 cents at $106.75 a barrel in afternoon trade while Brent North Sea crude for October eased 38 cents to $109.52.

"The market is taking a wait-and-see approach," Victor Shum, managing director at IHS Purvin and Gertz in Singapore, told AFP. The US Energy Information Administration last week said crude stockpiles shrank to 360.5 million barrels in the week to August 9, the lowest since January.

A decline in stockpiles supports crude prices as it suggests a pick-up in demand.

However, Shum added: "The market may soon start a correction phase as we move out of the peak summer demand season."

Prices are getting support from fears about a tightening of supplies from the Middles East owing to sporadic violence in Egypt as well as strikes in Libya that have hampered oil production and shipping operations.

"The tense situation in Egypt and Libya continues to be a cause for uncertainty and is providing a floor for oil prices," Shum said. l

6

Share

DHAKA TRIBUNE

wednesday, August 21, 2013

DSEBroadIndex:4082.67⇑0.03%Turnover:7068.52M.Tk⇑48.60%,PE:12.98 Turnover 7,570.35 MTk.⇑47.46% August20,2013 MarketCap.1,997.91 BTk.⇑0.35% CSEAllShareIndex:12641⇑0.09%,Turnover:501.83,MTk.⇑32.94%,PE:12.79 Combined Turnover Leader BD Submarine Cable-A

1771300

BATBCL -A

301203

Meghna Petroleum -A

1448982

Padma Oil Co. -A

1012815

Grameenphone-A

CompanyCode | EPS | BV | Volume Traded (Share) DSE/CSE: ClosePrice ⇓/⇑ Chn % | Avg.Price | Hi / Lo

BANK ABBANK | 2.95 | 32.60 | Vol. 317895 D: 25.50 ⇑ 0.00% | 25.53 | 27.20 / 23.00 C: 25.20 ⇓ 0.40% | 25.22 | 25.50 / 24.60 CITYBANK | 1.15 | 25.97 | Vol. 254216 D: 17.50 ⇓ 0.57% | 17.70 | 18.60 / 16.00 C: 17.50 ⇓ 1.13% | 17.70 | 18.00 / 17.00 IFIC | 1.10 | 18.34 | Vol. 446601 D: 21.30 ⇑ 0.95% | 21.61 | 22.10 / 20.00 C: 21.40 ⇑ 0.47% | 21.77 | 21.90 / 21.30 ISLAMIBANK | 3.78 | 27.16 | Vol. 308703 D: 37.10 ⇓ 2.37% | 37.33 | 38.00 / 36.00 C: 36.80 ⇓ 2.39% | 36.94 | 37.30 / 36.50 NBL | 1.05 | 15.76 | Vol. 1900390 D: 11.80 ⇓ 0.84% | 11.88 | 12.10 / 10.90 C: 11.90 ⇓ 0.83% | 11.95 | 12.10 / 11.90 PUBALIBANK | 1.92 | 21.18 | Vol. 317687 D: 29.60 ⇓ 1.00% | 29.45 | 32.00 / 27.00 C: 29.50 ⇓ 1.67% | 29.66 | 30.00 / 29.20 RUPALIBANK | 6.70 | 64.27 | Vol. 34974 D: 61.90 ⇑ 0.98% | 62.21 | 63.00 / 60.00 C: 61.10 ⇑ 0.33% | 61.32 | 63.00 / 61.00 UCBL | 1.90 | 21.72 | Vol. 2144981 D: 18.90 ⇓ 1.56% | 19.25 | 20.50 / 17.30 C: 18.80 ⇓ 1.05% | 18.96 | 19.30 / 18.60 UTTARABANK | 3.42 | 26.97 | Vol. 299806 D: 25.30 ⇓ 0.39% | 25.57 | 26.00 / 22.90 C: 25.30 ⇓ 1.94% | 25.57 | 26.00 / 24.00 ICBIBANK | -1.60 | -13.03 | Vol. 156000 D: 5.90 ⇑ 0.00% | 5.98 | 6.10 / 5.90 EBL | 3.91 | 28.22 | Vol. 137566 D: 25.50 ⇓ 0.78% | 25.55 | 26.20 / 25.00 C: 25.40 ⇓ 1.17% | 25.41 | 26.00 / 25.00 ALARABANK | 2.03 | 14.91 | Vol. 1588912 D: 15.00 ⇓ 0.66% | 15.08 | 16.00 / 14.00 C: 14.80 ⇓ 1.33% | 14.90 | 15.00 / 13.50 PRIMEBANK | 2.89 | 22.40 | Vol. 141883 D: 22.80 ⇓ 2.56% | 22.90 | 23.80 / 22.00 C: 22.10 ⇓ 3.49% | 21.87 | 22.10 / 21.20 SOUTHEASTB | 1.89 | 22.66 | Vol. 469482 D: 16.40 ⇓ 0.61% | 16.57 | 17.00 / 15.50 C: 16.40 ⇓ 0.61% | 16.51 | 16.80 / 15.00 DHAKABANK | 1.46 | 18.08 | Vol. 190362 D: 20.40 ⇓ 0.97% | 20.50 | 21.80 / 19.00 C: 20.30 ⇓ 1.93% | 20.16 | 20.40 / 20.20 NCCBANK | 1.90 | 15.88 | Vol. 596651 D: 12.40 ⇑ 0.00% | 12.48 | 13.00 / 11.50 C: 12.30 ⇑ 0.00% | 12.40 | 12.50 / 11.50 SIBL | 2.05 | 14.47 | Vol. 549604 D: 12.30 ⇑ 0.82% | 12.34 | 13.00 / 11.50 C: 12.40 ⇑ 1.64% | 12.28 | 12.50 / 11.80 DUTCHBANGL | 11.57 | 54.27 | Vol. 42960 D: 99.20 ⇑ 0.51% | 99.95 | 103.0 / 93.00 C: 98.40 ⇑ 3.47% | 98.40 | 98.50 / 98.10 MTBL | 1.17 | 17.27 | Vol. 94036 D: 14.80 ⇑ 4.23% | 14.87 | 15.10 / 13.00 C: 14.70 ⇑ 0.00% | 14.60 | 14.70 / 14.70 STANDBANKL | 2.33 | 14.41 | Vol. 573674 D: 13.50 ⇑ 0.00% | 13.63 | 14.00 / 12.30 C: 13.70 ⇑ 1.48% | 13.65 | 13.90 / 13.50 ONEBANKLTD | 2.35 | 15.34 | Vol. 1161791 D: 15.40 ⇑ 0.65% | 15.55 | 15.70 / 14.00 C: 15.40 ⇑ 0.00% | 15.47 | 16.50 / 13.90 BANKASIA | 1.35 | 20.80 | Vol. 480168 D: 19.30 ⇑ 1.58% | 19.34 | 19.60 / 17.20 C: 19.00 ⇑ 1.06% | 19.08 | 19.20 / 19.00 MERCANBANK | 2.07 | 16.59 | Vol. 470269 D: 12.10 ⇓ 0.82% | 12.30 | 12.60 / 11.50 C: 12.10 ⇑ 0.00% | 12.15 | 12.20 / 12.00 EXIMBANK | 1.80 | 14.31 | Vol. 791766 D: 12.00 ⇓ 0.83% | 12.15 | 12.30 / 11.00 C: 12.20 ⇓ 0.81% | 12.20 | 12.30 / 12.00 JAMUNABANK | 2.47 | 18.56 | Vol. 105152 D: 14.50 ⇑ 0.00% | 14.47 | 15.00 / 13.10 C: 14.30 ⇑ 0.00% | 14.28 | 14.30 / 14.20 BRACBANK | 1.51 | 24.87 | Vol. 5160225 D: 29.00 ⇓ 0.34% | 29.19 | 29.50 / 26.90 C: 28.60 ⇓ 0.69% | 28.62 | 29.00 / 26.70 SHAHJABANK | 2.61 | 14.47 | Vol. 545993 D: 14.80 ⇑ 0.68% | 14.83 | 15.00 / 13.50 C: 14.70 ⇑ 0.68% | 14.67 | 14.80 / 14.50

Vol.

1644893

TO M. Tk.

% of TTL

Avg. P

556.37

7.35

314.1

452.18

5.97

1501.24

429.29 403.74 327.44

5.67

296.27

5.33

398.63

4.33

PREMIERBAN | 1.18 | 13.95 | Vol. 397350 D: 10.30 ⇓ 0.96% | 10.42 | 11.40 / 9.40 C: 10.40 ⇑ 1.96% | 10.35 | 10.50 / 10.20 TRUSTBANK | 0.50 | 18.00 | Vol. 83088 D: 17.80 ⇑ 0.00% | 17.97 | 18.50 / 16.10 C: 17.80 ⇑ 0.00% | 17.60 | 17.80 / 16.20 FIRSTSBANK | 1.85 | 13.89 | Vol. 369840 D: 12.20 ⇓ 0.81% | 12.33 | 12.50 / 11.20 C: 12.10 ⇓ 0.82% | 12.15 | 12.30 / 12.10 NON BANKING F I IDLC | 4.43 | 29.18 | Vol. 371693 D: 64.40 ⇑ 0.31% | 65.14 | 66.00 / 61.00 C: 64.80 ⇑ 1.09% | 65.65 | 67.00 / 64.10 ULC | 1.80 | 14.90 | Vol. 86796 D: 28.20 ⇑ 1.08% | 28.43 | 28.90 / 26.00 UTTARAFIN | 7.16 | 41.54 | Vol. 402546 D: 76.80 ⇑ 1.05% | 77.47 | 78.50 / 68.50 C: 76.30 ⇑ 1.06% | 77.06 | 78.00 / 76.10 MIDASFIN | 0.16 | 10.21 | Vol. 82550 D: 34.80 ⇑ 6.75% | 34.57 | 35.80 / 32.00 FLEASEINT | 2.34 | 13.93 | Vol. 271930 D: 26.50 ⇑ 0.38% | 27.05 | 27.60 / 25.00 C: 26.80 ⇑ 1.52% | 27.07 | 27.60 / 26.40 PLFSL | 1.37 | 17.48 | Vol. 698531 D: 24.20 ⇓ 0.41% | 24.66 | 26.00 / 22.10 C: 24.20 ⇓ 0.82% | 24.55 | 25.00 / 22.00 PRIMEFIN | 0.87 | 17.88 | Vol. 238262 D: 26.40 ⇓ 0.38% | 26.75 | 27.00 / 24.90 C: 26.60 ⇓ 0.37% | 26.89 | 27.20 / 26.50 PREMIERLEA | 0.10 | 11.37 | Vol. 278255 D: 10.40 ⇑ 0.00% | 10.50 | 10.90 / 10.00 C: 10.40 ⇑ 0.00% | 10.51 | 10.60 / 10.40 ISLAMICFIN | 1.03 | 15.48 | Vol. 635354 D: 15.90 ⇑ 0.63% | 16.25 | 16.50 / 14.30 C: 15.80 ⇑ 0.00% | 16.10 | 16.50 / 15.80 LANKABAFIN | 1.61 | 31.07 | Vol. 991638 D: 58.30 ⇓ 0.34% | 59.07 | 60.40 / 53.00 C: 57.00 ⇓ 2.06% | 59.18 | 60.50 / 56.70 BIFC | 0.15 | 18.58 | Vol. 67735 D: 13.60 ⇓ 0.73% | 13.77 | 14.20 / 12.50 C: 13.80 ⇑ 2.22% | 13.70 | 14.10 / 13.30 IPDC | 1.23 | 19.43 | Vol. 62000 D: 16.40 ⇓ 1.80% | 16.50 | 17.00 / 16.20 C: 16.60 ⇑ 0.00% | 16.60 | 16.70 / 16.50 UNIONCAP | 0.54 | 17.85 | Vol. 168710 D: 28.30 ⇑ 0.00% | 28.20 | 29.00 / 26.50 C: 28.90 ⇑ 3.21% | 28.90 | 28.90 / 28.90 BDFINANCE | 0.57 | 14.77 | Vol. 91639 D: 18.10 ⇓ 1.63% | 18.47 | 19.50 / 17.50 C: 18.50 ⇓ 1.07% | 18.55 | 19.00 / 18.40 ILFSL | 0.35 | 12.19 | Vol. 436950 D: 12.40 ⇑ 0.00% | 12.54 | 12.70 / 11.80 C: 12.50 ⇑ 0.00% | 12.72 | 12.80 / 12.40 PHOENIXFIN | 2.46 | 19.39 | Vol. 506634 D: 34.00 ⇑ 1.80% | 34.51 | 35.00 / 30.30 C: 33.80 ⇑ 2.74% | 34.44 | 36.00 / 33.80 FASFIN | 0.19 | 13.56 | Vol. 327631 D: 13.70 ⇓ 0.72% | 13.93 | 14.10 / 13.50 C: 13.70 ⇓ 1.44% | 13.93 | 14.70 / 13.60 DBH | 3.40 | 16.80 | Vol. 460140 D: 68.40 ⇑ 4.43% | 68.77 | 71.00 / 60.00 C: 70.00 ⇑ 7.20% | 69.01 | 70.90 / 66.50 NHFIL | 0.57 | 12.70 | Vol. 227793 D: 28.10 ⇓ 1.06% | 28.82 | 29.50 / 26.00 C: 28.50 ⇑ 0.00% | 28.87 | 29.00 / 28.50 BAYLEASING | 0.72 | 25.55 | Vol. 236168 D: 30.40 ⇓ 2.56% | 31.05 | 32.00 / 28.50 C: 30.40 ⇓ 2.25% | 30.97 | 31.20 / 30.00 ICB | 109.65 | 595.98 | Vol. 32906 D: 2107 ⇑ 4.70% | 2099 | 2113 / 2030 C: 2114 ⇑ 4.40% | 2114 | 2126 / 2090 GSPFINANCE | 1.63 | 22.23 | Vol. 108722 D: 25.70 ⇓ 1.15% | 26.01 | 26.80 / 23.50 C: 25.80 ⇓ 0.77% | 25.85 | 26.10 / 25.70 INVESTMENT 1STICB | 64.70 | 137.05 | Vol. 550 D: 858.9 ⇑ 0.86% | 858.18 | 866.0 / 843.1 2NDICB | 33.02 | 76.34 | Vol. 200 D: 295.0 ⇑ 3.80% | 295.00 | 300.0 / 290.0 3RDICB | 24.83 | 58.91 | Vol. 600 D: 202.9 ⇑ 3.47% | 203.33 | 204.0 / 200.0

199.07

DSE Loser

DSE Gainer

C%

A%

CP

JMI Syringes MDL-A

9.62

5.67

94.60

Navana CNG-A Grameen M F One-A Central Pharm-N

BD. Thai Alum -B

9.52

12.35

23.00

Rangpur Foundry-A

9.08

7.34

70.90

GeminiSeaFood-A

8.93

9.12

162.20

6th ICB M F-A

Bangas-A

8.74

8.05

401.80

S.B. 1st M. F.-A

4THICB | 23.40 | 58.63 | Vol. 2800 D: 211.2 ⇑ 3.94% | 211.43 | 216.0 / 191.0 5THICB | 18.93 | 41.95 | Vol. 11700 D: 189.9 ⇑ 7.78% | 189.83 | 190.0 / 185.0 6THICB | 10.58 | 26.73 | Vol. 54800 D: 55.80 ⇓ 7.00% | 56.59 | 60.00 / 54.90 1STBSRS | 14.43 | 161.88 | Vol. 50000 D: 103.4 ⇑ 2.99% | 103.02 | 104.5 / 101.4 AIMS1STMF | 3.02 | 15.70 | Vol. 761325 D: 41.90 ⇓ 2.33% | 42.44 | 44.50 / 41.70 C: 41.70 ⇓ 3.25% | 42.06 | 43.60 / 41.70 ICBAMCL1ST | 7.14 | 48.54 | Vol. 183000 D: 60.10 ⇓ 2.75% | 60.51 | 61.70 / 60.00 C: 61.00 ⇑ 17.99% | 61.00 | 61.00 / 61.00 ICBISLAMIC | 2.21 | 26.81 | Vol. 17500 D: 21.80 ⇓ 4.39% | 21.83 | 22.90 / 21.10 GRAMEEN1 | 6.26 | 33.23 | Vol. 519500 D: 43.30 ⇓ 9.03% | 44.18 | 45.60 / 41.50 C: 44.00 ⇓ 7.95% | 44.23 | 46.10 / 43.10 ICB1STNRB | 4.06 | 35.31 | Vol. 57500 D: 27.00 ⇑ 0.37% | 27.10 | 27.30 / 26.90 ICB2NDNRB | 2.49 | 16.24 | Vol. 276000 D: 11.60 ⇓ 0.85% | 11.77 | 12.00 / 11.60 C: 11.80 ⇓ 0.84% | 11.82 | 12.10 / 11.70 GRAMEENS2 | 2.17 | 16.41 | Vol. 1531400 D: 17.00 ⇓ 5.03% | 17.11 | 17.50 / 16.60 C: 17.10 ⇓ 6.04% | 17.10 | 17.40 / 16.90 1STPRIMFMF | 0.64 | 11.63 | Vol. 408500 D: 16.20 ⇓ 1.22% | 16.37 | 17.00 / 16.10 C: 16.30 ⇓ 3.55% | 16.63 | 17.70 / 15.90 EBL1STMF | 0.60 | 12.62 | Vol. 905000 D: 8.20 ⇓ 3.53% | 8.30 | 8.50 / 8.20 C: 8.40 ⇓ 2.33% | 8.50 | 8.70 / 8.30 ICBAMCL2ND | 0.60 | 12.12 | Vol. 72500 D: 5.70 ⇑ 1.79% | 5.75 | 5.90 / 5.50 C: 5.80 ⇑ 1.75% | 5.80 | 5.80 / 5.80 ICBEPMF1S1 | 0.52 | 11.32 | Vol. 232000 D: 5.50 ⇓ 1.79% | 5.54 | 5.60 / 5.50 C: 5.50 ⇓ 1.79% | 5.47 | 5.70 / 5.30 TRUSTB1MF | 0.82 | 11.65 | Vol. 1639500 D: 8.70 ⇓ 4.40% | 8.87 | 9.00 / 8.70 C: 8.80 ⇓ 3.30% | 8.90 | 9.10 / 8.80 PRIME1ICBA | 0.42 | 11.18 | Vol. 472500 D: 5.00 ⇓ 1.96% | 5.10 | 5.20 / 5.00 C: 5.10 ⇓ 3.77% | 5.16 | 5.20 / 5.10 DBH1STMF | -1.12 | 10.15 | Vol. 294500 D: 5.80 ⇑ 0.00% | 5.84 | 6.00 / 5.80 C: 5.80 ⇓ 1.69% | 5.74 | 5.80 / 5.60 IFIC1STMF | 0.90 | 11.88 | Vol. 1165000 D: 8.20 ⇓ 1.20% | 8.25 | 8.40 / 8.20 C: 8.30 ⇓ 2.35% | 8.32 | 8.60 / 8.20 PF1STMF | 0.51 | 11.11 | Vol. 486000 D: 5.10 ⇓ 3.77% | 5.24 | 5.30 / 5.10 C: 5.10 ⇓ 7.27% | 5.10 | 5.10 / 5.10 ICB3RDNRB | 0.00 | 10.60 | Vol. 237000 D: 5.10 ⇓ 1.92% | 5.18 | 5.30 / 5.10 C: 5.20 ⇓ 1.89% | 5.15 | 5.20 / 5.10 1JANATAMF | 0.78 | 10.68 | Vol. 245000 D: 5.80 ⇑ 0.00% | 5.89 | 6.00 / 5.80 C: 5.80 ⇓ 3.33% | 5.83 | 5.90 / 5.80 GREENDELMF | -0.82 | 9.72 | Vol. 445500 D: 5.30 ⇑ 1.92% | 5.32 | 5.40 / 5.20 C: 5.40 ⇑ 0.00% | 5.28 | 5.40 / 5.20 POPULAR1MF | 0.79 | 11.38 | Vol. 710000 D: 6.10 ⇓ 3.17% | 6.25 | 6.40 / 6.10 C: 6.10 ⇓ 3.17% | 6.21 | 6.40 / 6.10 IFILISLMF1 | 0.00 | 10.45 | Vol. 535000 D: 4.90 ⇓ 2.00% | 4.98 | 5.10 / 4.90 C: 5.00 ⇓ 1.96% | 4.98 | 5.10 / 4.90 PHPMF1 | 0.63 | 10.92 | Vol. 469500 D: 5.60 ⇑ 0.00% | 5.68 | 5.80 / 5.60 C: 5.70 ⇓ 1.72% | 5.67 | 5.80 / 5.60 AIBL1STIMF | -0.07 | 9.25 | Vol. 53000 D: 6.60 ⇓ 1.49% | 6.64 | 6.90 / 6.40 MBL1STMF | -0.16 | 9.08 | Vol. 216500 D: 6.20 ⇓ 4.62% | 6.39 | 6.50 / 6.20 C: 6.40 ⇑ 3.23% | 6.39 | 6.40 / 6.30 SEBL1STMF | 1.03 | 11.85 | Vol. 2257500 D: 8.90 ⇓ 6.32% | 9.01 | 9.50 / 8.90 C: 9.00 ⇓ 6.25% | 9.07 | 9.50 / 9.00 EBLNRBMF | 1.16 | 10.88 | Vol. 5000 D: 8.40 ⇓ 2.33% | 8.40 | 8.60 / 8.20

C%

A%

CP

-13.77

-12.63

65.10

-9.03

-5.15

43.30

-7.28

-2.37

34.40

-7.00

-5.68

55.80

-6.32

-5.06

8.90

RELIANCE1 | 1.05 | 11.36 | Vol. 1117000 D: 10.10 ⇓ 1.94% | 10.26 | 10.50 / 10.10 C: 10.00 ⇓ 0.99% | 10.00 | 10.10 / 10.00 LRGLOBMF1 | 0.50 | 10.82 | Vol. 18000 D: 7.00 ⇑ 1.45% | 7.06 | 7.10 / 7.00 ABB1STMF | 1.00 | 10.63 | Vol. 76500 D: 8.30 ⇓ 2.35% | 8.31 | 8.50 / 8.20 NLI1STMF | 1.29 | 12.22 | Vol. 749000 D: 10.10 ⇓ 4.72% | 10.25 | 10.60 / 10.10 C: 10.10 ⇓ 2.88% | 10.23 | 10.50 / 10.10 FBFIF | 1.43 | 10.27 | Vol. 5000 D: 10.10 ⇑ 1.00% | 10.10 | 10.10 / 10.10 NCCBLMF1 | 0.00 | 10.48 | Vol. 32500 D: 9.00 ⇓ 2.17% | 9.05 | 9.30 / 8.90 ICBSONALI1 | 0.00 | 10.39 | Vol. 349000 D: 7.10 ⇓ 2.74% | 7.10 | 7.20 / 7.00 C: 7.00 ⇓ 4.11% | 7.08 | 7.30 / 7.00 EXIM1STMF | 0.00 | 10.91 | Vol. 10000 D: 7.60 ⇓ 1.30% | 7.70 | 7.80 / 7.60 ENGINEERING AFTABAUTO | 4.29 | 52.65 | Vol. 786578 D: 117.1 ⇓ 1.18% | 119.40 | 121.8 / 107.0 C: 116.9 ⇓ 1.02% | 119.29 | 121.0 / 116.0 AZIZPIPES | 0.39 | -42.04 | Vol. 1700 D: 15.40 ⇑ 0.00% | 15.29 | 15.60 / 15.40 OLYMPIC | 5.94 | 14.91 | Vol. 1393215 D: 227.4 ⇓ 4.61% | 232.94 | 241.7 / 220.0 C: 227.1 ⇓ 4.42% | 233.13 | 241.5 / 225.5 BDLAMPS | -5.31 | 37.07 | Vol. 15480 D: 139.9 ⇓ 3.05% | 144.01 | 147.8 / 138.1 C: 142.2 ⇑ 0.07% | 142.20 | 151.5 / 131.1 ECABLES | 2.04 | 18.87 | Vol. 10100 D: 64.60 ⇑ 2.87% | 64.30 | 66.50 / 63.80 C: 58.30 ⇓ 5.97% | 58.30 | 58.30 / 58.30 MONNOSTAF | 5.31 | 44.78 | Vol. 150 D: 191.6 ⇑ 1.97% | 193.33 | 192.0 / 191.0 SINGERBD | 9.99 | 45.74 | Vol. 237024 D: 208.2 ⇓ 1.19% | 212.83 | 216.6 / 200.0 C: 208.8 ⇓ 0.33% | 211.69 | 216.0 / 208.0 ATLASBANG | 11.98 | 207.70 | Vol. 38887 D: 180.3 ⇓ 1.42% | 183.69 | 187.8 / 166.0 BDAUTOCA | 0.25 | 6.23 | Vol. 14254 D: 22.80 ⇑ 0.00% | 23.23 | 23.60 / 22.50 QSMDRYCELL | 1.65 | 58.49 | Vol. 211410 D: 36.00 ⇑ 0.56% | 36.35 | 36.90 / 34.00 C: 35.70 ⇑ 0.00% | 36.01 | 36.70 / 35.50 RENWICKJA | 5.62 | -90.00 | Vol. 17550 D: 173.5 ⇑ 2.54% | 178.75 | 183.9 / 172.3 NTLTUBES | -2.52 | 312.10 | Vol. 70428 D: 68.00 ⇑ 0.89% | 69.18 | 70.10 / 67.70 BDTHAI | 0.43 | 39.35 | Vol. 595179 D: 23.00 ⇑ 9.52% | 22.93 | 23.10 / 20.00 C: 23.10 ⇑ 10.00% | 22.97 | 23.10 / 20.00 ANWARGALV | 0.51 | 8.08 | Vol. 20500 D: 14.50 ⇑ 0.69% | 14.70 | 14.90 / 14.50 C: 14.10 ⇓ 3.42% | 14.10 | 14.10 / 14.10 KAY&QUE | -3.89 | 6.03 | Vol. 11000 D: 13.20 ⇑ 1.54% | 13.20 | 13.70 / 13.00 C: 13.00 ⇓ 1.52% | 13.05 | 13.20 / 13.00 RANFOUNDRY | 2.84 | 18.62 | Vol. 80500 D: 70.90 ⇑ 9.08% | 69.77 | 71.50 / 65.00 C: 70.40 ⇑ 8.31% | 70.38 | 71.50 / 70.00 SALAMCRST | 3.31 | 20.00 | Vol. 813250 D: 43.90 ⇑ 5.78% | 43.78 | 45.30 / 38.00 C: 43.80 ⇑ 6.31% | 43.35 | 44.90 / 41.40 GOLDENSON | 3.70 | 28.70 | Vol. 401552 D: 41.20 ⇑ 0.98% | 41.71 | 42.40 / 37.00 C: 42.10 ⇑ 2.18% | 42.02 | 42.70 / 41.50 BSRMSTEEL | 3.06 | 19.53 | Vol. 645968 D: 77.50 ⇑ 2.38% | 78.13 | 79.90 / 70.00 C: 77.20 ⇑ 2.39% | 77.94 | 79.60 / 76.20 NAVANACNG | 4.09 | 27.04 | Vol. 586426 D: 65.10 ⇓ 13.77% | 65.55 | 68.00 / 60.00 C: 65.70 ⇓ 12.63% | 65.46 | 67.40 / 64.20 DESHBANDHU | 1.16 | 12.02 | Vol. 345321 D: 20.80 ⇑ 0.48% | 21.08 | 21.40 / 19.00 C: 20.90 ⇑ 1.46% | 21.12 | 21.40 / 20.80 GPHISPAT | 2.32 | 16.80 | Vol. 270800 D: 48.60 ⇓ 0.82% | 49.74 | 50.50 / 45.00 C: 48.60 ⇓ 1.82% | 49.13 | 50.00 / 48.40 BENGALWTL | 2.42 | 20.72 | Vol. 191000 D: 44.30 ⇓ 1.77% | 44.92 | 46.00 / 44.00 C: 44.40 ⇓ 1.11% | 44.60 | 45.00 / 44.20

NPOLYMAR | 2.01 | 324.37 | Vol. 94200 D: 43.70 ⇓ 2.67% | 44.43 | 46.00 / 43.30 C: 43.50 ⇓ 2.25% | 43.33 | 43.90 / 43.00 FOOD & ALLIED APEXFOODS | 2.54 | 90.81 | Vol. 75000 D: 82.80 ⇑ 1.35% | 82.74 | 83.80 / 81.50 C: 82.20 ⇑ 0.98% | 82.90 | 84.10 / 81.50 BANGAS | 7.20 | 50.27 | Vol. 222250 D: 401.8 ⇑ 8.74% | 399.23 | 401.8 / 381.1 C: 408.1 ⇑ 8.74% | 404.68 | 408.1 / 390.7 BATBC | 65.69 | 117.22 | Vol. 301203 D: 1506 ⇑ 3.05% | 1501 | 1540 / 1465 C: 1530 ⇑ 6.25% | 1530 | 1530 / 1530 GEMINISEA | 10.88 | 9.69 | Vol. 3800 D: 162.2 ⇑ 8.93% | 162.37 | 163.7 / 160.0 NTC | 29.88 | 110.05 | Vol. 1850 D: 842.0 ⇑ 1.15% | 843.33 | 843.0 / 840.0 C: 842.4 ⇓ 5.22% | 840.00 | 845.0 / 835.0 ZEALBANGLA | -23.01 | -193.09 | Vol. 900 D: 7.80 ⇑ 0.00% | 7.78 | 8.00 / 7.70 CVOPRL | 2.66 | 13.28 | Vol. 74790 D: 532.5 ⇑ 0.23% | 539.73 | 550.2 / 520.0 C: 527.0 ⇓ 1.38% | 539.40 | 550.0 / 527.0 AMCL(PRAN) | 6.53 | 53.37 | Vol. 439500 D: 227.0 ⇑ 5.93% | 225.74 | 233.0 / 212.1 C: 226.1 ⇑ 3.01% | 226.54 | 238.0 / 211.0 SHYAMPSUG | -36.87 | -355.85 | Vol. 1100 D: 7.00 ⇑ 0.00% | 7.27 | 7.10 / 7.00 RAHIMAFOOD | 0.62 | 4.46 | Vol. 81000 D: 15.30 ⇑ 0.00% | 15.52 | 15.90 / 15.20 C: 15.50 ⇑ 0.00% | 15.75 | 16.00 / 15.50 FUWANGFOOD | 1.26 | 12.37 | Vol. 340115 D: 25.40 ⇓ 1.55% | 25.89 | 26.20 / 25.00 C: 25.70 ⇓ 0.39% | 25.96 | 26.40 / 25.50 MEGHNAPET | -0.58 | -1.02 | Vol. 1000 D: 5.30 ⇑ 1.92% | 5.30 | 5.30 / 5.30 MEGCONMILK | -6.68 | -16.22 | Vol. 37500 D: 6.60 ⇓ 4.35% | 6.75 | 6.90 / 6.60 BEACHHATCH | 1.01 | 12.48 | Vol. 858585 D: 18.80 ⇑ 8.05% | 18.78 | 19.10 / 15.90 C: 18.70 ⇑ 7.47% | 18.80 | 19.10 / 17.60 FINEFOODS | -0.11 | 10.58 | Vol. 64023 D: 17.60 ⇑ 1.15% | 17.63 | 17.80 / 17.00 RDFOOD | 0.91 | 16.84 | Vol. 635208 D: 21.00 ⇑ 0.00% | 21.18 | 21.50 / 20.00 C: 20.90 ⇑ 0.00% | 21.24 | 21.50 / 20.80 GHAIL | 1.01 | 22.08 | Vol. 1001180 D: 45.00 ⇑ 0.00% | 45.84 | 46.70 / 41.00 C: 45.00 ⇓ 0.22% | 45.99 | 46.70 / 41.60 ELCAMELIA | 611.00 | 1974.18 | Vol. 0 C: 0.00 ⇑ 0.00% | 0.00 | 0.00 / 0.00 FUEL & POWER LINDEBD | 31.71 | 144.00 | Vol. 7050 D: 604.5 ⇑ 0.92% | 605.39 | 609.0 / 601.1 PADMAOIL | 16.38 | 43.67 | Vol. 1012815 D: 390.4 ⇑ 1.77% | 398.71 | 407.0 / 370.0 C: 390.1 ⇑ 1.75% | 397.61 | 405.1 / 383.0 EASTRNLUB | 6.32 | 68.68 | Vol. 150 D: 307.6 ⇓ 0.55% | 306.67 | 309.0 / 305.0 BDWELDING | 0.33 | 16.82 | Vol. 214522 D: 18.00 ⇑ 0.56% | 18.27 | 19.00 / 17.00 C: 17.80 ⇓ 0.56% | 18.29 | 18.80 / 17.80 SUMITPOWER | 3.17 | 19.26 | Vol. 346427 D: 36.70 ⇓ 1.08% | 37.29 | 39.00 / 34.00 C: 37.00 ⇓ 0.54% | 37.53 | 38.40 / 35.10 DESCO | 2.80 | 35.25 | Vol. 477868 D: 82.90 ⇓ 1.07% | 84.65 | 86.40 / 77.00 C: 83.00 ⇓ 0.48% | 83.41 | 86.00 / 82.50 POWERGRID | 2.56 | 48.08 | Vol. 48566 D: 57.50 ⇓ 0.86% | 57.72 | 58.50 / 53.00 C: 57.10 ⇓ 2.39% | 56.91 | 59.80 / 53.20 JAMUNAOIL | 22.78 | 50.24 | Vol. 825379 D: 241.6 ⇓ 0.21% | 246.56 | 250.5 / 230.0 C: 241.4 ⇓ 0.37% | 245.66 | 250.0 / 237.2 MPETROLEUM | 16.98 | 40.41 | Vol. 1448982 D: 290.1 ⇓ 0.07% | 296.38 | 302.0 / 265.0 C: 290.9 ⇑ 0.38% | 293.98 | 302.0 / 286.0 TITASGAS | 9.01 | 36.56 | Vol. 3344082 D: 88.40 ⇑ 0.11% | 89.93 | 92.00 / 79.50 C: 88.10 ⇑ 0.00% | 90.14 | 91.50 / 88.00

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wednesday, August 21, 2013

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August 20, 2013 Sectotal Index: BANK: 33,720.98 ⇓ 0.94% NBFI: 20,970.94 ⇑ 0.19% INVS: 4,996.03 ⇓ 2.11% ENGG: 6,233.64 ⇑ 0.83% FOOD: 8,008.08 ⇓ 0.67% F&P: 11,315.00 ⇑ 0.02% TEXT: 2,990.50 ⇓ 0.53% PHAR: 17,020.22 ⇑ 0.42% PAPR: 799.23 ⇑ 0.64% SERV: 3,225.91 ⇓ 0.70% LEAT: 4,584.14 ⇓ 2.60% CERA: 495.01 ⇑ 0.75% CMNT: 4,299.55 ⇑ 1.10% INFO: 7,321.60 ⇓ 0.01% GINS: 9,366.93 ⇑ 1.28% LINS: 103,118.53 ⇓ 1.52% TELC: 1,465.88 ⇓ 0.07% MISC: 6,408.34 ⇑ 2.29% KPCL | 4.73 | 15.86 | Vol. 373640 D: 52.00 ⇑ 0.00% | 52.29 | 53.10 / 50.00 C: 51.90 ⇑ 0.00% | 52.22 | 53.00 / 51.80 BEDL | 1.57 | 17.89 | Vol. 760752 D: 36.60 ⇓ 1.61% | 37.37 | 38.30 / 33.70 C: 36.60 ⇓ 1.35% | 37.15 | 37.70 / 36.40 MJLBD | 2.73 | 30.24 | Vol. 110892 D: 74.10 ⇑ 0.95% | 73.90 | 78.00 / 66.20 C: 73.20 ⇑ 0.27% | 73.34 | 74.50 / 72.40 GBBPOWER | 1.86 | 22.63 | Vol. 479963 D: 27.00 ⇓ 0.74% | 27.35 | 27.70 / 25.00 C: 26.90 ⇓ 0.37% | 27.25 | 27.80 / 26.60 SPPCL | 3.81 | 23.34 | Vol. 939820 D: 62.80 ⇓ 3.09% | 64.48 | 66.00 / 58.40 C: 62.90 ⇓ 2.93% | 64.42 | 66.10 / 62.50 JUTE JUTESPINN | 2.06 | 17.42 | Vol. 2650 D: 83.00 ⇓ 0.24% | 83.77 | 85.00 / 78.50 SONALIANSH | 5.54 | 218.80 | Vol. 33850 D: 146.4 ⇓ 4.06% | 149.39 | 153.9 / 146.0 TEXTILE AL-HAJTEX | 1.35 | 15.64 | Vol. 48650 D: 60.20 ⇑ 1.52% | 60.29 | 61.40 / 59.30 RAHIMTEXT | 0.51 | 73.88 | Vol. 8550 D: 221.2 ⇑ 2.03% | 227.02 | 231.3 / 217.2 SAIHAMTEX | 2.75 | 29.50 | Vol. 631000 D: 31.40 ⇓ 0.32% | 31.80 | 32.20 / 31.10 C: 31.40 ⇓ 0.32% | 31.73 | 32.40 / 31.20 MODERNDYE | 1.09 | 12.93 | Vol. 50 D: 65.00 ⇓ 0.91% | 65.00 | 65.00 / 65.00 DSHGARME | 0.72 | 12.00 | Vol. 2600 D: 28.00 ⇓ 0.36% | 28.08 | 29.20 / 27.50 DULAMIACOT | -8.46 | -27.78 | Vol. 6500 D: 8.30 ⇑ 2.47% | 8.31 | 8.40 / 8.30 TALLUSPIN | 2.56 | 12.06 | Vol. 2949852 D: 38.70 ⇑ 3.75% | 38.96 | 40.00 / 33.60 C: 38.40 ⇑ 2.40% | 38.90 | 39.90 / 37.20 APEXSPINN | 2.01 | 49.32 | Vol. 3000 D: 59.70 ⇓ 4.02% | 59.67 | 60.50 / 59.10 MITHUNKNIT | 4.54 | 30.39 | Vol. 444675 D: 108.8 ⇑ 1.02% | 108.36 | 116.0 / 98.00 C: 107.5 ⇓ 1.65% | 106.39 | 114.0 / 102.5 DELTASPINN | 3.06 | 18.12 | Vol. 642100 D: 33.90 ⇓ 2.31% | 34.37 | 35.30 / 33.60 C: 33.90 ⇓ 3.14% | 34.31 | 35.00 / 33.80 SONARGAON | 0.27 | 34.50 | Vol. 44107 D: 13.30 ⇑ 0.76% | 13.36 | 13.70 / 12.20 C: 13.50 ⇑ 0.75% | 13.53 | 13.70 / 13.40 PRIMETEX | 1.01 | 63.54 | Vol. 499000 D: 25.20 ⇓ 1.56% | 25.46 | 25.90 / 24.90 C: 25.10 ⇓ 2.33% | 25.56 | 26.60 / 25.00 ALLTEX | -0.11 | 23.81 | Vol. 542500 D: 8.40 ⇑ 3.70% | 8.76 | 8.90 / 8.20 C: 8.30 ⇑ 0.00% | 8.72 | 9.10 / 8.20 ANLIMAYARN | 1.19 | 11.01 | Vol. 179000 D: 29.90 ⇓ 3.86% | 30.01 | 31.00 / 29.50 C: 29.60 ⇓ 3.90% | 29.77 | 31.90 / 29.30 HRTEX | 2.08 | 14.92 | Vol. 304000 D: 28.80 ⇑ 0.00% | 28.90 | 29.40 / 28.50 C: 28.50 ⇓ 1.38% | 28.79 | 29.30 / 28.30 CMCKAMAL | 1.37 | 19.31 | Vol. 567397 D: 25.10 ⇓ 1.95% | 25.40 | 28.00 / 23.50 SAFKOSPINN | 0.95 | 21.78 | Vol. 182640 D: 18.50 ⇓ 1.07% | 18.89 | 19.20 / 17.10 C: 18.60 ⇓ 2.11% | 18.65 | 18.80 / 18.50 SQUARETEXT | 4.32 | 31.82 | Vol. 103474 D: 87.00 ⇑ 0.46% | 86.79 | 88.00 / 80.00 C: 87.10 ⇑ 1.04% | 87.14 | 88.00 / 87.00 METROSPIN | -1.00 | 19.59 | Vol. 112037 D: 15.00 ⇑ 0.00% | 15.03 | 15.20 / 14.10 C: 14.80 ⇓ 1.33% | 14.99 | 15.30 / 14.80 MAKSONSPIN | 0.16 | 20.55 | Vol. 1471707 D: 13.80 ⇑ 0.00% | 13.97 | 14.10 / 12.50 C: 13.90 ⇑ 0.00% | 13.96 | 14.10 / 13.70 DACCADYE | 1.21 | 31.13 | Vol. 550172 D: 27.90 ⇓ 1.76% | 28.14 | 29.00 / 26.00 C: 27.90 ⇓ 2.45% | 28.11 | 28.70 / 27.70 RNSPIN | 2.80 | 16.58 | Vol. 5019555 D: 27.90 ⇑ 1.09% | 28.15 | 28.70 / 25.00 C: 27.80 ⇑ 0.72% | 28.07 | 28.50 / 27.00 BXSYNTH | 0.93 | 25.42 | Vol. 429093 D: 15.00 ⇑ 1.35% | 15.26 | 16.00 / 13.50 C: 15.10 ⇑ 2.03% | 15.28 | 15.70 / 15.00

LAFSURCEML | 1.60 | 7.22 | Vol. 716500 D: 32.20 ⇑ 0.31% | 32.45 | 32.70 / 32.10 C: 32.40 ⇑ 0.93% | 32.28 | 32.70 / 32.00 MICEMENT | 4.14 | 40.00 | Vol. 526669 D: 94.30 ⇑ 1.18% | 95.27 | 97.00 / 84.00 C: 94.00 ⇑ 0.75% | 95.09 | 96.10 / 93.50 PREMIERCEM | 3.59 | 22.92 | Vol. 759800 D: 128.6 ⇑ 1.02% | 131.11 | 133.6 / 125.0 C: 127.8 ⇑ 0.63% | 130.99 | 133.0 / 127.0

MALEKSPIN | -1.44 | 46.87 | Vol. 2123000 D: 28.70 ⇓ 1.37% | 29.09 | 30.00 / 28.00 C: 28.60 ⇓ 2.05% | 29.11 | 29.60 / 28.50 ZAHINTEX | 1.91 | 35.25 | Vol. 1157200 D: 31.80 ⇓ 5.07% | 32.46 | 34.00 / 31.80 C: 32.10 ⇓ 2.73% | 32.23 | 32.60 / 32.00 SAIHAMCOT | 2.48 | 22.87 | Vol. 1474500 D: 29.40 ⇓ 1.34% | 29.84 | 30.60 / 29.20 C: 29.40 ⇓ 1.67% | 29.81 | 30.40 / 29.20 GENNEXT | 1.68 | 15.15 | Vol. 2444020 D: 22.10 ⇓ 3.49% | 22.61 | 23.00 / 20.70 C: 22.20 ⇓ 2.20% | 22.56 | 23.00 / 22.00 ENVOYTEX | 3.26 | 39.26 | Vol. 1437670 D: 52.90 ⇑ 0.00% | 53.29 | 54.30 / 47.70 C: 52.90 ⇑ 0.38% | 51.72 | 53.80 / 47.50 ARGONDENIM | 1.89 | 38.86 | Vol. 1711280 D: 38.40 ⇑ 0.00% | 38.82 | 39.40 / 34.60 C: 38.20 ⇓ 0.52% | 38.67 | 39.20 / 38.00 FAMILYTEX | 3.72 | 14.68 | Vol. 428000 D: 31.50 ⇓ 1.25% | 31.76 | 32.20 / 31.30 C: 31.10 ⇓ 2.51% | 31.31 | 32.00 / 31.00 Pharmaceutical & Chemical AMBEEPHA | 3.94 | 26.15 | Vol. 10100 D: 257.8 ⇑ 1.74% | 261.44 | 270.0 / 255.0 C: 256.0 ⇑ 2.48% | 259.80 | 265.0 / 255.0 BXPHARMA | 3.77 | 52.55 | Vol. 388032 D: 50.40 ⇓ 0.59% | 51.28 | 54.00 / 45.70 C: 50.00 ⇓ 0.40% | 50.91 | 54.00 / 49.00 GLAXOSMITH | 20.25 | 123.32 | Vol. 3450 D: 875.3 ⇑ 0.69% | 882.03 | 898.0 / 870.0 ACI | -5.82 | 126.42 | Vol. 11626 D: 151.5 ⇓ 0.07% | 152.27 | 156.0 / 137.0 C: 148.2 ⇓ 1.40% | 148.19 | 149.0 / 148.0 RENATA | 33.57 | 138.83 | Vol. 12299 D: 670.2 ⇑ 0.30% | 673.96 | 697.2 / 630.0 RECKITTBEN | 27.16 | 78.89 | Vol. 700 D: 766.1 ⇑ 1.22% | 765.71 | 770.0 / 748.0 PHARMAID | 5.06 | 26.30 | Vol. 73200 D: 199.3 ⇓ 3.39% | 204.89 | 212.0 / 196.3 KOHINOOR | 9.52 | 10.49 | Vol. 6500 D: 372.2 ⇑ 0.65% | 372.31 | 376.8 / 360.0 IBNSINA | 3.44 | 34.02 | Vol. 5600 D: 84.70 ⇑ 1.93% | 84.46 | 85.40 / 76.00 LIBRAINFU | 4.64 | 1565.37 | Vol. 1000 D: 251.4 ⇑ 6.75% | 251.00 | 256.0 / 240.2 ORIONINFU | 8.72 | 1.73 | Vol. 89000 D: 42.50 ⇑ 1.19% | 43.02 | 43.50 / 42.50 C: 42.70 ⇑ 1.91% | 42.69 | 43.50 / 42.00 SQURPHARMA | 9.01 | 50.83 | Vol. 1303098 D: 221.2 ⇑ 0.91% | 221.67 | 226.9 / 210.0 C: 220.8 ⇑ 1.05% | 221.25 | 225.0 / 216.7 IMAMBUTTON | -1.68 | 5.67 | Vol. 6500 D: 7.10 ⇑ 2.90% | 7.23 | 7.30 / 7.10 KEYACOSMET | 3.19 | 19.99 | Vol. 1152579 D: 29.90 ⇓ 1.64% | 30.38 | 31.00 / 27.40 C: 30.00 ⇓ 1.32% | 30.22 | 30.70 / 29.80 BERGERPBL | 32.46 | 100.20 | Vol. 3550 D: 812.0 ⇑ 1.06% | 812.11 | 820.0 / 805.0 ACIFORMULA | 3.33 | 38.08 | Vol. 18300 D: 73.70 ⇑ 2.36% | 73.85 | 75.50 / 72.80 C: 72.10 ⇑ 3.00% | 72.10 | 72.10 / 72.10 MARICO | 27.53 | 62.47 | Vol. 20400 D: 596.0 ⇓ 2.74% | 602.65 | 625.0 / 592.6 BEACONPHAR | 0.33 | 11.97 | Vol. 344500 D: 14.40 ⇑ 0.70% | 14.56 | 14.80 / 14.30 C: 14.60 ⇑ 0.69% | 14.65 | 14.90 / 14.50 ACTIVEFINE | 3.23 | 13.89 | Vol. 1894651 D: 92.40 ⇑ 0.87% | 93.39 | 94.90 / 85.00 C: 92.50 ⇑ 0.98% | 93.25 | 95.00 / 91.00

SALVOCHEM | 0.68 | 10.57 | Vol. 657487 D: 19.30 ⇑ 0.52% | 19.79 | 21.00 / 17.30 C: 19.20 ⇑ 0.00% | 19.66 | 21.00 / 17.30 GHCL | 2.14 | 57.31 | Vol. 466000 D: 47.50 ⇑ 4.63% | 47.95 | 48.90 / 44.70 C: 47.30 ⇑ 6.05% | 47.52 | 48.30 / 46.80 ORIONPHARM | 5.02 | 68.68 | Vol. 631900 D: 67.40 ⇓ 0.59% | 68.19 | 69.80 / 61.10 C: 67.30 ⇓ 0.74% | 67.99 | 69.60 / 66.70 JMISMDL | 1.12 | 12.83 | Vol. 305000 D: 94.60 ⇑ 9.62% | 92.05 | 94.90 / 85.50 C: 93.60 ⇑ 7.83% | 92.45 | 95.40 / 86.00 CENTRALPHL | 0.61 | 10.99 | Vol. 938500 D: 34.40 ⇓ 7.28% | 35.46 | 37.50 / 34.10 C: 34.50 ⇓ 7.01% | 35.55 | 37.00 / 34.20 PAPER & PACKAGING HAKKANIPUL | 0.64 | 11.02 | Vol. 4500 D: 16.40 ⇓ 3.53% | 16.44 | 16.70 / 16.30 SERVICE SAMORITA | 2.31 | 17.25 | Vol. 11000 D: 69.50 ⇓ 0.71% | 69.55 | 70.80 / 69.00 SAPORTL | 1.23 | 38.39 | Vol. 242747 D: 26.30 ⇓ 0.75% | 26.92 | 28.00 / 24.50 C: 26.30 ⇑ 0.00% | 26.66 | 27.90 / 26.20 EHL | 2.87 | 18.48 | Vol. 387772 D: 52.70 ⇑ 1.74% | 53.46 | 54.20 / 48.00 C: 52.70 ⇑ 1.74% | 53.41 | 54.00 / 52.40 LEATHER APEXTANRY | 6.57 | 69.38 | Vol. 270200 D: 109.3 ⇓ 1.35% | 112.06 | 115.3 / 107.9 C: 108.9 ⇓ 2.68% | 111.44 | 115.0 / 106.0 BATASHOE | 49.12 | 135.53 | Vol. 21420 D: 639.5 ⇑ 3.31% | 638.06 | 643.9 / 615.0 C: 640.0 ⇓ 7.49% | 640.02 | 640.1 / 640.0 APEXADELFT | 23.01 | 203.26 | Vol. 106350 D: 336.0 ⇑ 0.72% | 344.50 | 356.0 / 310.0 C: 343.0 ⇑ 3.31% | 340.78 | 345.0 / 338.7 LEGACYFOOT | 0.63 | 17.19 | Vol. 77205 D: 14.00 ⇓ 0.71% | 14.00 | 15.50 / 13.00 C: 14.40 ⇑ 4.35% | 14.35 | 14.50 / 14.30 CERAMIC MONNOCERA | 0.71 | 96.33 | Vol. 6250 D: 27.80 ⇑ 3.35% | 27.67 | 28.30 / 26.80 C: 27.00 ⇑ 3.45% | 27.00 | 27.00 / 27.00 FUWANGCER | 1.43 | 13.25 | Vol. 264666 D: 19.10 ⇓ 1.55% | 19.43 | 19.90 / 19.00 C: 19.00 ⇓ 1.55% | 19.44 | 19.80 / 19.00 SPCERAMICS | 0.62 | 30.92 | Vol. 841807 D: 16.50 ⇑ 4.43% | 16.54 | 17.10 / 14.50 C: 16.60 ⇑ 6.41% | 16.69 | 17.10 / 15.00 RAKCERAMIC | 1.98 | 16.76 | Vol. 139457 D: 51.20 ⇓ 0.97% | 52.18 | 53.00 / 47.00 C: 51.80 ⇓ 0.38% | 51.95 | 52.60 / 49.00 CEMENT HEIDELBCEM | 22.85 | 111.50 | Vol. 61400 D: 332.6 ⇑ 1.68% | 334.71 | 341.9 / 325.6 C: 332.5 ⇑ 0.91% | 336.20 | 340.0 / 320.0 CONFIDCEM | 6.23 | 90.76 | Vol. 850961 D: 133.6 ⇑ 3.33% | 136.01 | 138.2 / 127.0 C: 133.3 ⇑ 2.70% | 135.97 | 138.1 / 131.3 MEGHNACEM | 6.28 | 33.81 | Vol. 77700 D: 124.0 ⇑ 2.31% | 124.71 | 126.9 / 121.5 C: 123.6 ⇑ 1.81% | 123.56 | 125.0 / 120.1 ARAMITCEM | 3.03 | 14.65 | Vol. 43500 D: 70.80 ⇑ 0.85% | 72.09 | 73.90 / 69.50 C: 69.00 ⇓ 2.82% | 69.00 | 69.00 / 69.00

IT IINDUSTRIES ISNLTD | 0.28 | 17.31 | Vol. 3592 D: 13.40 ⇑ 0.75% | 13.33 | 13.50 / 13.30 C: 13.10 ⇑ 4.80% | 13.16 | 13.50 / 13.10 BDCOM | 1.00 | 14.91 | Vol. 107832 D: 21.30 ⇑ 0.00% | 21.61 | 21.90 / 20.90 C: 21.60 ⇑ 3.35% | 21.54 | 21.80 / 21.30 AAMRATECH | 1.17 | 20.44 | Vol. 1185300 D: 40.30 ⇓ 2.18% | 41.01 | 42.00 / 37.50 C: 40.40 ⇓ 1.94% | 41.10 | 41.90 / 40.10 GENERAL INSURANCE EASTERNINS | 2.22 | 35.88 | Vol. 11015 D: 38.50 ⇑ 0.00% | 38.64 | 39.20 / 38.00 JANATAINS | 7.84 | 170.69 | Vol. 8326 D: 246.8 ⇓ 2.28% | 247.09 | 253.0 / 230.5 C: 248.3 ⇓ 3.20% | 248.98 | 252.0 / 248.0 PHENIXINS | 2.70 | 20.96 | Vol. 30574 D: 39.80 ⇓ 1.00% | 40.15 | 41.60 / 38.00 C: 40.00 ⇓ 2.44% | 40.29 | 41.00 / 40.00 EASTLAND | 4.06 | 23.29 | Vol. 92421 D: 46.80 ⇓ 2.90% | 47.76 | 48.90 / 44.00 C: 47.50 ⇑ 1.06% | 47.51 | 47.60 / 47.10 CENTRALINS | 1.54 | 19.04 | Vol. 15276 D: 29.10 ⇓ 0.34% | 29.07 | 30.00 / 28.90 KARNAPHULI | 1.56 | 19.42 | Vol. 37880 D: 22.80 ⇑ 0.88% | 22.94 | 24.00 / 21.00 RUPALIINS | 2.76 | 23.38 | Vol. 108232 D: 32.50 ⇑ 0.00% | 32.86 | 33.40 / 30.00 C: 32.80 ⇑ 0.31% | 32.77 | 33.00 / 32.10 FEDERALINS | 1.10 | 10.98 | Vol. 107913 D: 22.90 ⇑ 0.00% | 23.05 | 23.50 / 21.50 C: 23.00 ⇑ 0.44% | 22.93 | 23.30 / 22.00 RELIANCINS | 3.93 | 61.52 | Vol. 4500 D: 77.80 ⇑ 0.52% | 78.00 | 81.40 / 75.50 PURABIGEN | 1.05 | 18.71 | Vol. 143350 D: 21.40 ⇓ 0.47% | 21.76 | 22.10 / 20.00 PRAGATIINS | 2.01 | 50.30 | Vol. 33929 D: 57.20 ⇑ 0.00% | 57.30 | 58.20 / 56.00 PRIMEINSUR | 2.14 | 14.14 | Vol. 43500 D: 28.40 ⇓ 0.70% | 28.76 | 29.50 / 28.40 PIONEERINS | 3.11 | 23.84 | Vol. 220900 D: 76.40 ⇓ 2.68% | 77.99 | 81.50 / 74.00 C: 77.00 ⇓ 1.28% | 77.00 | 77.00 / 77.00 SONARBAINS | 1.68 | 13.38 | Vol. 36736 D: 23.00 ⇑ 0.88% | 23.09 | 23.40 / 22.00 C: 23.00 ⇑ 2.22% | 23.00 | 23.00 / 23.00 PARAMOUNT | 1.26 | 13.19 | Vol. 45071 D: 22.00 ⇑ 1.85% | 21.87 | 23.00 / 20.50 C: 22.50 ⇑ 3.21% | 22.50 | 22.50 / 22.50 CITYGENINS | 1.65 | 14.26 | Vol. 131754 D: 25.70 ⇑ 1.98% | 26.22 | 26.80 / 22.70 C: 26.10 ⇑ 2.76% | 26.24 | 27.00 / 25.90 CONTININS | 1.41 | 15.68 | Vol. 9949 D: 29.20 ⇑ 0.69% | 29.25 | 29.80 / 28.00 TAKAFULINS | 2.19 | 15.17 | Vol. 23190 D: 31.40 ⇑ 0.64% | 31.55 | 32.60 / 30.00 C: 31.20 ⇓ 0.64% | 31.20 | 31.50 / 31.00 STANDARINS | 2.58 | 13.99 | Vol. 4615 D: 37.40 ⇓ 0.80% | 37.33 | 38.00 / 37.10 C: 36.70 ⇑ 1.94% | 36.54 | 36.80 / 36.60 NORTHRNINS | 1.77 | 11.15 | Vol. 84428 D: 46.10 ⇓ 1.50% | 46.73 | 47.70 / 42.20 C: 47.00 ⇑ 3.30% | 46.95 | 47.00 / 46.50 REPUBLIC | 2.14 | 12.42 | Vol. 78426 D: 54.40 ⇓ 1.81% | 55.30 | 60.00 / 50.00 C: 56.10 ⇑ 4.86% | 56.07 | 56.40 / 55.40 ASIAINS | 1.56 | 17.34 | Vol. 75719 D: 26.10 ⇓ 0.38% | 26.30 | 26.60 / 23.70 C: 26.10 ⇑ 0.38% | 26.21 | 27.00 / 26.00 ISLAMIINS | 1.29 | 11.96 | Vol. 4254 D: 26.60 ⇑ 0.76% | 26.64 | 26.70 / 26.00 C: 25.10 ⇓ 3.46% | 25.10 | 25.10 / 25.10 PROVATIINS | 1.90 | 14.30 | Vol. 49561 D: 26.70 ⇑ 2.69% | 26.58 | 27.40 / 25.00 C: 26.30 ⇑ 3.14% | 26.28 | 26.50 / 26.10

DHAKAINS | 2.84 | 18.02 | Vol. 31000 D: 40.00 ⇓ 0.25% | 40.13 | 40.90 / 39.60 C: 40.20 ⇑ 1.26% | 40.20 | 40.20 / 40.20 LIFE INSURANCE NATLIFEINS | 12.34 | 80.99 | Vol. 7516 D: 243.8 ⇓ 0.41% | 244.24 | 250.0 / 240.0 C: 230.4 ⇓ 7.80% | 230.42 | 233.0 / 230.0 DELTALIFE | 38.53 | 189.40 | Vol. 5300 D: 5136 ⇓ 3.22% | 5210 | 5331 / 5108 C: 5118 ⇓ 3.65% | 5118 | 5121 / 5116 SANDHANINS | 2.39 | 28.22 | Vol. 101189 D: 70.00 ⇑ 2.79% | 69.85 | 72.00 / 62.00 C: 70.40 ⇑ 1.00% | 69.71 | 71.00 / 69.80 POPULARLIF | 3.70 | 715.41 | Vol. 108700 D: 156.9 ⇑ 6.37% | 154.50 | 158.9 / 148.5 MEGHNALIFE | 10.82 | 48.87 | Vol. 86770 D: 94.70 ⇑ 1.94% | 95.46 | 97.00 / 89.50 C: 96.00 ⇑ 5.15% | 94.83 | 96.90 / 93.90 PROGRESLIF | 2.30 | 31.45 | Vol. 3000 D: 94.20 ⇑ 1.95% | 94.33 | 96.00 / 93.00 PRAGATILIF | 0.60 | 30.15 | Vol. 36500 D: 96.00 ⇓ 0.31% | 96.30 | 97.00 / 96.00 PRIMELIFE | 5.51 | 27.10 | Vol. 8600 D: 93.60 ⇓ 0.43% | 95.12 | 98.00 / 92.80 RUPALILIFE | 3.75 | 31.25 | Vol. 9500 D: 84.00 ⇑ 1.33% | 84.11 | 84.60 / 82.90 PADMALIFE | 1.63 | 25.76 | Vol. 120000 D: 60.70 ⇓ 0.16% | 61.39 | 62.70 / 60.00 C: 59.30 ⇓ 1.00% | 59.93 | 61.30 / 59.30 SUNLIFEINS | 0.00 | 0.00 | Vol. 172500 D: 48.20 ⇑ 2.12% | 48.74 | 49.40 / 47.90 C: 48.50 ⇑ 1.89% | 49.17 | 50.00 / 48.30 TELECOM GP | 12.96 | 26.26 | Vol. 1644893 D: 195.9 ⇑ 1.66% | 199.09 | 202.8 / 180.0 C: 194.9 ⇑ 1.40% | 198.70 | 202.5 / 194.4 BSCCL | 7.14 | 23.70 | Vol. 1771300 D: 306.0 ⇓ 3.44% | 314.13 | 322.8 / 299.9 C: 305.7 ⇓ 3.17% | 313.36 | 323.0 / 303.7 Travel & Leisure UNITEDAIR | 1.60 | 15.12 | Vol. 8519999 D: 20.80 ⇓ 0.48% | 21.04 | 21.40 / 19.20 C: 20.90 ⇓ 0.48% | 21.01 | 21.40 / 20.80 UNIQUEHRL | 4.02 | 86.29 | Vol. 958420 D: 94.00 ⇓ 2.49% | 95.81 | 98.00 / 87.00 C: 94.20 ⇓ 2.08% | 96.07 | 98.00 / 93.80 MISCELLANEOUS ARAMIT | 16.07 | 99.93 | Vol. 16900 D: 254.0 ⇑ 2.05% | 250.24 | 258.0 / 240.0 C: 229.1 ⇑ 11.76% | 229.07 | 229.1 / 229.0 BSC | 1.77 | 565.82 | Vol. 225220 D: 597.3 ⇓ 1.12% | 613.54 | 634.8 / 590.0 C: 594.5 ⇓ 1.95% | 610.43 | 634.0 / 582.0 GQBALLPEN | 6.55 | 250.45 | Vol. 145427 D: 154.1 ⇓ 1.22% | 155.41 | 160.0 / 149.0 C: 151.5 ⇓ 2.38% | 154.41 | 158.9 / 150.0 USMANIAGL | 0.50 | 26.03 | Vol. 108083 D: 131.9 ⇓ 4.35% | 138.92 | 141.9 / 125.1 C: 136.0 ⇓ 2.09% | 139.88 | 143.5 / 135.0 SAVAREFR | 0.23 | 12.32 | Vol. 3000 D: 60.00 ⇓ 3.69% | 60.00 | 60.00 / 60.00 BEXIMCO | 3.24 | 86.74 | Vol. 1391383 D: 33.80 ⇑ 0.30% | 34.29 | 37.00 / 30.40 C: 34.00 ⇑ 0.59% | 34.41 | 35.00 / 32.00 SINOBANGLA | 1.75 | 21.01 | Vol. 82000 D: 18.80 ⇓ 1.57% | 19.21 | 19.60 / 18.70 C: 19.40 ⇑ 1.57% | 19.40 | 19.50 / 19.00 MIRACLEIND | 0.14 | 14.90 | Vol. 26500 D: 11.80 ⇑ 0.00% | 11.83 | 12.00 / 11.80 C: 11.80 ⇓ 0.84% | 11.90 | 12.10 / 11.80 BOND IBBLPBOND | 0.00 | 1000.00 | Vol. 635 D: 945.8 ⇓ 0.42% | 945.60 | 949.0 / 944.0 C: 948.0 ⇑ 0.32% | 948.00 | 948.0 / 948.0 ACIZCBOND | 0.00 | 1000.00 | Vol. 110 D: 850.0 ⇑ 1.19% | 851.85 | 850.0 / 840.5 C: 840.0 ⇓ 0.12% | 840.00 | 840.0 / 840.0 BRACSCBOND | 0.00 | 0.00 | Vol. 15 D: 1031 ⇓ 3.64% | 1031 | 1031 / 1031 C: 1050 ⇑ 0.86% | 1050 | 1050 / 1050

8

DHAKA TRIBUNE

Business

wednesday, August 21, 2013

Indian rupee hits record low as policy rescue operations fall short n Reuters, Mumbai The Indian rupee fell past 64 to the dollar for the first time on Tuesday and bond yields spiked to a five-year high before the central bank stepped in to sell dollars, as Asia’s third-largest economy bore the brunt of the global emerging markets selloff.

Underscoring how hard it is for New Delhi to push through reforms despite the urgency of a deteriorating economic outlook, parliament was adjourned on Tuesday due to protests by members over a corruption scandal.

India’s notoriously dysfunctional lower house of parliament was due to debate a bill to allow foreign investment in the fledgling private pension industry, a reform seen as key to government efforts to attract investment and narrow the current account deficit, which is exacerbating the currency crisis.

“India’s problems are nowhere near resolution because New Delhi has not done anything - there is no focus on improving productivity, infrastructure or getting FDI (foreign direct investment) back,” said Nomura credit analyst Pradeep Mohinani in Hong Kong.

“It’s all about stemming the flow of currency and that is not the cause of the problem,” he said.

Later on Tuesday, India was due to hold a $9.3bn sale of government debt quotas, a gauge of foreign investor interest in local assets. Bankers said that the debt limits at the auction may get taken up, but at rock-bottom prices.

Foreigners have unloaded about $10 billion in Indian debt since May 22, when the U.S. Federal Reserve first signaled its intention to begin scaling back its quantitative easing. They now hold only 43% of the $30 billion limit available to them in Indian government debt.

The rupee slumped as much as 1.6% to 64.13 to the dollar, adding to its 2.3% rout on Monday, before traders said the central bank was seen stepping in to sell dollars.

Later, the Reserve Bank of India was believed by traders to be selling dollars in the forward market, a move that helps it support the rupee without immediately expending its reserves.

Stocks extended declines, with the BSE Sensex index .BSESN falling as much as 1.8 percent to a near-year low. JPMorgan downgraded Indian equities to “neutral” from

“overweight”, citing strains in the country’s balance of payments, while Citi cut its Sensex target to 18,900 from 20,800.

Selling of dollars by the RBI helped the partially convertible rupee recover somewhat to 63.65 to the dollar.

Bond yields spiked to 9.48%, a level not seen since before the Lehman Brothers crisis in 2008 before stability in the rupee helped them recover. Yields were last down 19 basis points (bps) on the day at 9.04%.

Srei BNP Paribas, an equipment finance company, on Tuesday raised its benchmark lending rate by 50 basis points to 17.75%, citing a continued rise in borrowing costs. Several Indian banks have also raised lending rates in recent weeks.

“Our rate hike has become imperative to maintain the quality of our portfolio,” D K Vyas, chief executive officer at SREI BNP Paribas, said in a statement.

Borrowing Rates Rising

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s weak coalition government, heading into national elections by next May, has been hamstrung from pushing through reforms to attract more long-term capital and close a record-high current account gap that has made India vulnerable to flows away from emerging markets.

Since Singh’s government took office for a second term in 2009, the parliament has been the least productive in nearly three decades, according to PRS Legislative Research.

A spate of measures by the central bank and government has failed to halt the rupee slide, with liquidity tightening measures aimed at making it harder to short the currency pushing up borrowing rates and battering corporate and investor sentiment.

State-run oil firms, the largest dollar buyers in the forex market, face a deterioration in credit quality if they have to share a higher burden of the country’s fuel subsidies due to rising crude prices and a falling rupee, Moody’s said.

Weak Government, Weak Economy

Instead, India has been limited to piecemeal measures such as Monday’s move to increase the foreign direct investment cap in asset reconstruction companies to 74% from 49%, and a ban on the duty-free import of flat-screen TVs from August 26.

The rupee’s plunge also adds to worries about whether Finance Minister P. Chidambaram will be able to meet his goal to pare the fiscal deficit to 4.8% of gross domestic product (GDP) this fiscal year.

Rating agency Moody’s said that while the rupee depreciation was a new variable for the economy, the factors underpinning it have been incorporated in its investment grade rating for India.

India is at the lowest investment-grade sovereign rating.

“We believe that meeting the fiscal deficit target will be very challenging this year, given lower than anticipated growth holding back revenue growth and steep rupee depreciation raising the subsidy bill on imported goods,” analyst Atsi Sheth said in an e-mailed reply to queries from Reuters. l

US firms doubt ASEAN 2015 single market goal n AFP, Singapore Two leading American business groups Tuesday said US firms operating in ASEAN countries are sceptical the regional bloc can meet a 2015 deadline to establish a single market.

The 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has set 2015 as the target for creating a single regional economic market known as the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC).

In a survey of 475 senior US business execu-

tives from the region - jointly conducted by the American Chamber of Commerce in Singapore and the US Chamber of Commerce - 52% said they “do not think that the AEC’s goals will be realised by 2015”.

Of those who doubt ASEAN will reach its deadline, nearly 60% “think that ASEAN will not reach AEC’s goals until 2020 or later”.

Only 23% of all executives questioned believe that ASEAN will meet its 2015 goal, the poll showed.

Despite their scepticism, the survey showed

that US companies are optimistic about overall business prospects in the region.

US firms said their level of trade and investment in ASEAN rose over the past two years and expect this figure to climb over the next five years.

Indonesia was named the most attractive country for new business expansion, followed by Vietnam, Thailand and Myanmar.

Meanwhile the Philippines showed the biggest improvement in its business environment between 2008 and 2013, the survey said.

ASEAN, a region of 600 million people, wants

to establish a common market and manufacturing base so that it can better compete as a group with giant neighbours such as China and India in terms of trade and investments.

While it has made strides in bringing down tariff barriers to trade in goods, services and investments, analysts have said the problem of creating a single market lies in removing non-tariff hurdles.

The group comprises Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. l