February 13, 2016

SECOND EDITION

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 13, 2016

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Falgun 1, 1422, Jamadiul Awal 3, 1437

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Regd No DA 6238, Vol 3, No 298

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www.dhakatribune.com | 32 pages | Price: Tk10

INSIDE Jamaat, militants planning attacks in CHT Members of Jamaat-e-Islami and several outlawed Islamist militant groups have built up a strong base in the Chittagong Hill Tracts to carry out massive attacks on the indigenous peoples and their establishments.  PAGE 3

Dhaka grapples with illegal parking

More and more people are parking vehicles on busy city streets, arguing that there is inadequate or no parking space available, subsequently contributing to anguishing traffic congestion in Dhaka. In most cases, illegally parked vehicles occupy almost half of the road, particularly in front of shopping malls, markets, offices and schools.  PAGE 5 How come Bangladeshi travellers are not benefiting from falling international jet fuel prices?

BIGSTOCK

Airfares fail to drop even as fuel prices plummet n Ishtiaq Husain Bangladeshi air passengers are not benefiting from the nosedive taken by international jet fuel prices, which have hit their lowest levels in 11 years.

Globally, the slump in oil prices has been manna from heaven for flyers, allowing them to pay significantly less than before for airline tickets.

As Brent crude, the benchmark in oil prices on the international market, fell to an 11year low at around $35 per barrel from previous highs of $120 per barrel, most American and European airlines reduced airfares by 11-14% last year.

“We’ve seen typical domestic prices drop about 14% over the past year,” Patrick Surry, chief data scientist at airfare prediction company Hopper, said to an international news agency about global airline ticket price trends.

Yet despite state-run Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation’s (BPC) reduction of A-1 jet fuel prices by 7.93% to $0.58 per litre on December 24 last year, local airfares remain

unchanged. In some cases, tickets in this era of cheap fuel are more costly.

The BPC reduced the price of jet fuel twice previously last year – in February and August.

But Bangladesh is apparently impervious to these dramatic changes in commodity prices and airline operating costs.

One reason for this, a former airline industry leader says, is the burdensome fee and tax structure that has clipped the wings of the local aviation industry.

Former Civil Aviation Authority of Bangladesh (Caab) chairman and aviation expert Air Commodore (retd) Iqbal Hossain said the tax system must be altered in order to enable the aviation industry to soar.

“The airfare of local airlines is not very high compared with those in other countries.

But they have to pay around 70% of the total fare as taxes and charges.

“That is why passengers are not benefiting from reduced jet fuel prices,” he said.

The failure of local airline ticket prices to decrease in tandem with declining costs has left Bangladeshi airline passengers high and dry.

In fact, while foreign travellers enjoyed cheaper tickets, Bangladeshis who bought their tickets here were actually charged more this year by some carriers on certain routes.

Ripon Kumar Das, who lives in Milan, bought his ticket in Italy for less than Tk50,000 from a major international airline.

But he had to pay Tk20,000 more for the return ticket bought in Dhaka.

The Association of Travel Agents of Bangladesh told the Dhaka Tribune that airfares to some European destinations had actually increased by 10-12% last year, the same period that fuel prices were declining. Airfares to most American and Asian destinations remain unchanged.

Kazi Wahidul Alam, aviation expert and former member of Biman’s board of directors, said airfare does not just depend on fuel prices. “Prices depend on demand and supply,” he said.

But plane ticket prices are notoriously vulnerable to the ratchet effect, whereby an upward trend in cost appears irreversible and keeps prices high.  PAGE 2 COLUMN 1

Tk12cr flower bonanza ahead of Falgun, Valentine’s Day

Flower farmers of Jessore are enjoying a flourishing business surrounding their three biggest sale days – Pohela Falgun, Valentine’s Day and Language Movement Day.  PAGE 7

Book sales soar with weekend crowd

The first day of the weekend brought thousands of visitors, both adults and children, to Amar Ekushey Boi Mela 2016 yesterday, making the publishers and book stall owners happy, as expected.  PAGE 7

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News SoBs to recruit manpower through fresh test n Tribune Report

A sculptor at Shakhari Bazar in Old Dhaka gives a final touch to the idol of Saraswati, the Hindu goddess of knowledge and wisdom, yesterday in preparation of Saraswati Puja, to be celebrated across the country today RAJIB DHAR

The state-owned banks (SoBs) will recruit manpower through fresh tests, not from those who passed in the written test held previously, Bangladesh Bank (BB) announced yesterday through a press release, reported UNB. Referring to an official note of Finance Minister AMA Muhith which he gave on the letters of the SoBs to the Bankers Selection Committee, the central bank said the committee has been instructed to recruit manpower for Sonali Bank, Janata Bank and Rupali Bank through fresh exam and not from those who passed the written test in 2013-14.

The press release said the committee has been implementing the decision of the Banking Division regarding the manpower appointment in the SoBs. Muhith in his note, said: “At present, none of the successful candidates would get appointment. Three years have elapsed since the last examination. Exams should be taken as soon as possible.” “I want to know about the exam date, the result date and also the date of new appointment. I also want recommendations about the number of recruitments.” l

Dhaka for int’l cooperation to achieve SDGs

5 held over missing Pubali Bank money

n UNB

n Anwar Hussain, Chittagong

Bangladesh has emphasised the need for international cooperation in addition to efforts by LDC governments for ensuring that the LDCs would be able to meet the target of graduation within the stipulated deadlines and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

State Minister for Foreign Affairs Md Shahriar Alam raised the issue at the special thematic event titled “Building synergy and coherence in the implementation of the Istanbul Programme of Action (IPoA) in the context of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development” at the United Nations Headquarters in New York on Thursday.

Referring to the midterm review conference of the Istanbul Programme of Action that will take place in Turkey in May 2016, the state minister called for combined

efforts to help the LDCs overcome the structural weaknesses that they suffer from, according to a message received from New York yesterday.

Shahriar Alam delivered keynote address at the event that was chaired by Mogens Lykketoft, president of the General Assembly.

In his statement, the state minister flagged the leading role played by Bangladesh as the current Chair of the Group of 48 least developed countries.

Shahriar Alam also made interventions during the panel discussions of the special thematic event, where he shared the LDC perspectives on the issues of building synergy and coherence in implementation of the Istanbul Programme of Action for LDCs and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development; and also the importance of strengthening multi-stakeholder partnerships for timely implementation of these programmes. l

Police have arrested five people, a day after about Tk50 lakh of Publai Bank went missing while being transported to Chittagong City from its Sitakunda branch on a microbus.

The arrestees are Sitakunda branch Cashier Rajibur Rahman, security personnel Ashiqur Rahman, Tanjur Rahman, Majharul Islam and microbus driver Bijoy Kumar Das. Assistant General Manger of Chittagong CDA Corporate branch of Pubali Bank Toufiqur Rahman lodged a complaint with Sitakunda police on Thursday night. However, the law enforcers are yet to recover the missing money.

Sitakunda police station’ Officer-inCharge (investigation) Riyad Mahmud claimed the arrestees were involved with the incident. “We suspect someone from the bank was also involved.”

“Most of the banks of Sitakunda area seek

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1

Airfares fail to drop even as fuel prices plummet One airline company official explained that these high airfares would not last forever.

“When jet fuel prices stabilise, airline operators will be compelled to reduce fares.

Most are now saving money.

“After a couple of months, passengers will benefit because airfares must be cut to survive the competition,” Imran Asif, CEO of Epic Air, said.

“But airfares will likely remain unchanged over the next few months while airlines observe the price situation,” he added.

Ashish Roy Chowdhury, chief operating officer of Regent Airways, said it is too early to review airfare because the price of jet fuel

internationally is still lower than it is in Bangladesh.

“Airline operation costs in Bangladesh are very high. The authorities should reduce aeronautical and non-aeronautical charges,” he said.

Industry insiders say the relatively low price of jet fuel will likely continue throughout the year.

For each litre of jet fuel, international flights that take off from Dhaka airport have to pay $0.58 while flights leaving Chittagong airport pay $0.57, according to the BPC. The price per litre is Tk62 and Tk61 for domestic flights.

“Airlines do not waste time raising fares when the BPC increases jet fuel prices. But they are ignoring lower local jet fuel prices while airlines abroad are drastically reducing their fares,” Association of Travel Agents of Bangladesh Secretary General Aslam Khan told the Dhaka Tribune.

“We have urged the regulatory body at various times to intervene. If they take the necessary steps, then passengers will benefit from reduced fuel prices.

“But the response from the regulator’s end has not been promising,” he added, referring to the Civil Aviation Authority of Bangladesh. l

cooperation from the police for shipping money. However, the branch authorities did not seek help from us for transporting the money,” Md Iftekhar Hassan, officer-incharge of Sitakunda police station.

“The incident seems to be mysterious to us. We will take legal steps after the bank authorities file case in this regard,” said Dulal Hossain, second officer of Sitakunda police station.

Meanwhile, a Chittagong court yesterday granted police two-day remand for four persons and one day to question another.

The four persons are Ashiqur Rahman, Rajibur Rahman, Tanjur Rahman, Majharul Islam. Microbus driver Bijoy Kumar Das has been sent on a one-day remand.

The police prayed for a seven-day remand.

However, Senior Judicial Magistrate Shiblu Kumar Dey granted four-day and one-day remands respectively. l

AL grassroots to select UP candidates n Tribune Report The ruling Awami League has instructed its grassroots-level leaders to propose names of possible candidates for the upcoming Union Parishad (UP) elections on party tickets.

A media statement issued yesterday said the party sought lists by February 15.

The selection board consists of presidents and general secretaries of Awami League’s district, upazila and union units.

Sources said the Awami League Central Working Committee will scrutinise the lists and finalise candidates for the polls. l

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Jamaat, militants planning attacks in CHT Cyber Crime Unit finds dozens of websites, social media platforms instigating communal attacks

n Mohammad Jamil Khan Members of Jamaat-e-Islami and several outlawed Islamist militant groups have built up a strong base in the Chittagong Hill Tracts to carry out massive attacks on the indigenous peoples and their establishments.

Intelligence agencies and law enforcement agency sources have said that they already foiled some plans, recovered arms and bombs meant for conducting the attacks, and kept under watch at least 32 websites instigating communal attacks.

These groups are now mobilising the anti-government quarters in the three hill districts and sharing information about the possible attacks among themselves through social media sites including Facebook, Twitter and blogs.

The government's Cyber Crime Unit officials found the information monitoring online activities of the religious extremists. The unit has also informed the law enforcement and intelligence agencies about their findings and requested them to take necessary measures.

The information came at a time when several law enforcement agencies together with BGB and army personnel have been conducting joint drives against terrorists in the CHT.

The law enforcers have also found the involvement of two former lawmakers with these sabotage plans and would take legal action once the allegations are proved during investigation Apart from Jamaat, the other outlawed militant groups involved with the network are Hizb ut-Tahrir, Jama'atul Mujahideen Bangladesh and Ansarullah Bangla Team. Sources said that these groups had established connection with some Myanmar-based terrorist organisations including the Rohingya Soli-

Cleaning and repairing of the Central Shaheed Minar is in full swing ahead of Language Martyrs’ Day on February 21. The photo was taken yesterday MAHMUD HOSSAIN OPU

EU MPs: It’s time to discuss how power should be transferred n Sheikh Shahariar Zaman Now is the time to start a discussion on how power should be transferred from one government to another, a visiting EU delegation has said.

“Whatever the mechanism is, [it] is something that really does need to be discussed now,” visiting European Parliament delegation leader Jean Lambert said at a press conference yesterday.

The four-member delegation came to Dhaka on a three-day visit and had meetings with Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, her cabinet colleagues, the speaker, BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia and civil society members.

Lambert said the mechanism needs to be decided as far ahead from the election as possible because such a thing cannot be decided a few weeks before the polls.

Replying to a query, she said the issue had not been discussed with the premier.

Human rights, violent extremism, trade and trade benefits issues were discussed with Hasina, she said.

“We have serious concerns about human rights situation in the country, and raised the issue of murder of bloggers,” she said.

Asked about the freedom of press, she said: “I think it is fair to say that we have some concerns about what is happening to a number of editors.” l

darity Organisation (RSO).

Based on the findings of the Cyber Crime Unit, the law enforcers conducted a drive at the house of Jamaat leader Tofail Ahmed, also chairman of Naikkhyangchhari upazila, and recovered three shotguns. Tofail allegedly masterminded the 2013 Ramu attacks when dozens of Buddhist temples, monasteries and houses were attacked based on false propaganda.

The law enforcers have also found the involvement of two former lawmakers with these sabotage plans and would take legal action once the allegations are proven during investigation. In the face of strict surveillance, two top leaders of the network fled the country recently, officials said.

“We have tracked down 32 websites where the extremists share their information among the members. Analysing the sites and decoding some messages, we have found some sensational information including sabotage plans,” said Tanvir Hassan Zoha, director of Insight Bangladesh Foundation and focal person of the ICT Ministry’s Cyber

Security Programme.

Without elaborating further, Zoha said that they were very close to busting a huge network of extremists working in the CHT region.

Dhaka Tribune has learnt about some of the websites currently under close monitoring. They are Al-Hayat Media Centre, Voice of Islamic Jihad and Al-Amin's blog. The radicals are also using some Facebook pages including Hamza, Ansar Ul Islam, At-Tamkin Media and Daowatul Islam; and profiles that include Moumachi Moumachi, Sadapata and Jihadi Jeen.

When contacted, Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal said that certain quarters, who had been involved in the killing of foreigners and attacks at some places last year to embarrass the government, were now working on a new plan in the CHT. “They have been found sharing information regarding the plans through online activities and some closed groups. Our officials are on alert to bring the criminals to book,” the minister added. l

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Europe wants responsible buying from RMG brands n Tribune Report Clothing brands and buyers have to ensure consumers that their products were made in safe workplaces and that the workers were paid reasonably, visiting European Parliament member Jean Lambert has said.

Lambert made the call at a media briefing after leading an EU delegation to a meeting with BGMEA leaders in the capital yesterday.

There, the delegation learnt about the latest status of safety standards and labour rights in the country’s RMG sector.

Lambert told reporters that the EU feels that brands that buy from manufacturers in Bangladesh have an important role to play in making sure that they were buying from reputable factories and manufacturers, and the consumers should feel confident that products were made in good condition in terms of workplace safety.

The brands and buyers also have to make sure that workers have been paid reasonable wages, she said, adding that RMG sector was very important for Bangladesh in empowering women.

An RMG product was being sold for $4, but later slapped with a price tag of $45; so it was normal that workers would question where the $40 had gone Talking on the RMG sector safety issues, Lambert said Europe was following the progress in the RMG sector, which it recognises

Renowned cultural personalities Kamal Lohani and Syed Hasan Imam introduce children with Bangla alphabets at ‘Haatey Khori Utsab 2016’ in the capital yesterday. Held at Liberation War Museum in Segunbagicha area, the event was organised by Haatey Khori National Parshad DHAKA TRIBUNE

Nasim to Mahfuz Anam: Resign from Daily Star n Abu Hayat Mahmud Health Minister Mohammad Nasim has said the Daily Star Editor Mahfuz Anam should resign from the newspaper now that he has admitted to running “false corruption stories” against Sheikh Hasina based on information provided by the DGFI. “He has already lost his credibility by publishing those fake stories and now he should quit the newspaper as the readers have lost their faith in him,” Nasim said at a joint meeting of the Jubo League in Dhaka yesterday.

“There is no guarantee that he [Mahfuz] will not run such stories in future to mislead the nation,” said Nasim, also the Awami League-led 14-party alliance spokesperson.

On a TV talk show earlier this month, Mahfuz admitted to running graft stories against Hasina during the 2007-08 military-backed caretaker regime on information fed by the military intelligence outfit DGFI. “I admit it. It was a big mistake as an edi-

tor, in my journalism career,” he said on the talk show. The editor later clarified that it was a lapse in his editorial judgment in publishing reports without verifying them independently.

Nasim said: “Mahfuz Anam aimed at removing Hasina from politics and bring anti-democratic forces to power to implement the scheme of the DGFI.” The beleaguered editor has been accused in several defamation cases. Prime Minister Hasina’s son, and also her ICT Affairs Adviser Sajeeb Wazed Joy and several MPs have demanded legal action against him.

On Thursday, Mostafizur Rahman Dulal, an assistant public prosecutor of Dhaka’s Special Judge’s Court, filed a sedition complaint at Dhaka’s Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Court. The court said it required government approval to take cognisance of the charges. After the Home Ministry’s nod, police will conduct the inquiry and take legal steps. The report will have to be submitted

by March 28. l

as an immensely important industry for both Bangladesh and the EU. During the delegation’s visit to Bangladesh, it has become clear that remediation plans were in place and remediation had started in considerable number after the tragic Rana Plaza collapse and Tazreen Fashion fire, said Lambert, adding that the most dangerous factories were now closed.

The EU team has also asked the Bangladesh government about what was being done on labour rights in the export processing zones, she added.

The EU was happy to help in safety inspection and ensuring workers rights, Lambert said.

Siddiqur Rahman, president of Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA), said: “The EU delegation has expressed satisfaction over safety standards and workers.”

The trade body was committed to protect workers’ welfare, making it mandatory to have a participation committee and a safety committee in factories, said the BGMEA chief.

The EU delegation further met leaders from the government, International Labour Organisation, trade unions and Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh.

Meanwhile, also in the day, Lambert told reporters that the European Union was a very strong supporter of necessary changes in the RMG sector. “Our desire is to play our part in making sure that fair price is paid.”

She said it is good to buy clothes at cheap price, but it is necessary to think about the consequences.

An RMG product was being sold for $4, but later slapped with a price tag of $45; so it was normal that workers would question where the $40 had gone, she said. l

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DU VC: Tigers to be conserved for protecting nation’s pride, existence n Arif Ahmed

CARS, CARS, EVERYWHERE, NOR ANY PARKING SPACE

Dhaka University Vice-Chancellor Prof AAMS Arefin Siddique has called for raising awareness to protecting tigers, Bangladesh’s national animal, for ecological balance.

He described tigers as Bangladesh’s symbol while addressing a programme on DU campus yesterday. “Our pride and existence will be lost if tigers do not exist,” he said.

The programme was part of Bagh Activity, a joint project of the government and the USAID, implemented by Wild Team with support from Smithsonian Institution and Bangladesh Centre for Advanced Studies.

Prof Arefin said: “To maintain ecological balance and the natural diversity of the Sundarbans, protecting tigers is mandatory.”

A two-year nationwide campaign was launched on Thursday to raise awareness about the importance of conserving tigers and their habitat, the Sundarbans. A high-tech vehicle will travel to 100 strategic locations across the country as part of the campaign.

Without any designated parking space available, rows of cars parked on the streets of Motijheel gobble up almost half the road. Such scenes are common in the capital, with lax enforcement of traffic laws causing worse parking situations on many streets. The photo was taken recently MEHEDI HASAN

Dhaka grapples with illegal parking n Abu Hayat Mahmud More and more people are parking vehicles on busy city streets, arguing that there is inadequate or no parking space available, subsequently contributing to anguishing traffic congestion in Dhaka. In most cases, illegally parked vehicles occupy almost half of the road, particularly in front of shopping malls, markets, offices and schools.

A 2014 study by capital’s development authority Rajuk observed that Dhaka’s transport and traffic management system had no discipline which cost a commuter 10 minutes on an average at each busy intersection.

The concerned authorities – Traffic Department of Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP), Dhaka North City Corporation (DNCC), Dhaka South City Corporation (DSCC) and Rajuk – offer no solution.

The DMP is chiefly responsible for the traffic system and enforcing parking laws, while the DSCC, DNCC and Rajuk are responsible for providing parking space and monitoring their arrangement.

Urban planner Professor Nazrul Islam blamed negligence on part of the authorities.

“It is encouraging illegal parking,” he told the Dhaka Tribune and accused Rajuk of not properly monitoring building construction.

“As a result, most buildings do not have sufficient parking facilities.”

According to the Detailed Area Plan (DAP), Rajuk is only responsible for approving building designs in Dhaka. The updated National Building Code says parking lots should be located close to the accessible entrance of the building.

Rajuk planning board member Md Abdur Rahman said they properly monitor every

TEMPERATURE FOREC AST FOR TODAY

Dhaka

FOGGY SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 13

DMP’s ordinance prohibits parking on the street or public places and imposes a Tk100 fine Rajuk study, Regional Development Planning (RDP) published in 2014 for Dhaka DAP 20162035, said parking facilities were conspicuous inadequate in Dhaka. Facilities owned by Rajuk and two city corporations can accommodate only 1,474 vehicles.

During a recent visit, the Dhaka Tribune found vehicles including private car, autorickshaws, microbuses, motorcycles parked at busy intersections like Science Laboratory, New Market and Nilkhet with hawkers occupying footpaths, leaving almost no space for pedestrians.

Inter-district and city buses have their stoppages and ticket counters at places and park many of their vehicles on the streets.

Several hundred vehicles were seen parked on both sides of the road at Dilkhusa commercial area and Shapla Chattar to Ittefaq intersection. The area stretching from Dainik Bangla to Shapla Chattar offered the same view.

But vehicles can only be parked on desig31

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DHAKA TODAY SUN SETS 5:52PM

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Khulna

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Barisal

YESTERDAY’S HIGH AND LOW

TOMORROW SUN RISES 6:33AM

BBS launches Rohingya census in six districts n UNB

nated sites on the roads, marked by the authorities.

DSCC’s multistorey parking City Centre at Motijheel can accommodate almost 500 cars. Another parking, owned by Sadharan Bima Corporation, with similar capacity is at Dilkhusa.

The DNCC has four authorised parking sites at Mohammadpur Town Hall, Mohammadpur Kitchen Market, Banani Kitchen Market and Karwan Bazar Kitchen Market. Another off-street multistoreyed parking at Gulshan, constructed by Rajuk, is yet to be opened for public about a year after its completion.

A large number of vehicles were seen parked outside the City Centre recently.

“Huge parking space is lying empty inside,” a security guard there told the Dhaka Tribune.

DMP’s ordinance prohibits parking on the street or public places and imposes a Tk100 fine. Private car driver Saiful, who parked outside City Centre, said he was fined Tk1,200 several months ago.

So, why did he repeat the offence? “Because the car’s owner told me to,” he replied.

DNCC Mayor Annisul Huq said they had already freed Tejgaon, Mohakhali, Gabtoli and several other areas from illegal parking. “We are in touch with the DMP to find a solution,” he told the Dhaka Tribune.

DSCC Mayor Mohammad Sayeed Khokon said it was impossible for the government alone to address the issue. “People should be more conscious.” l

building’s parking facilities when approving design. “The DMP traffic division should handle illegal parking strictly,” he added.

DMP’s Joint Commissioner (traffic) Mosleh Uddin Ahmed said traffic police and their patrol teams tried to prevent rampant parking. “But the law is not always followed as most markets and shopping malls do not have adequate parking space,” he said.

30.2ºC Gopalganj

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12.3ºC Dimla

Source: Accuweather/UNB

The first-ever census of unregistered Rohingya population in Bangladesh began in six districts yesterday.

Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) has engaged 100 supervisors and 1,090 enumerators to conduct the census in Cox’s Bazar, Bandarban, Rangamati, Chittagong, Khagrachhari and Patuakhali districts.

In Cox’s Bazar, enumerators started the counting from the Rohingya camp at Pahartoli of the district town and Kutupalang of Ukhiya in the morning, and managed to include over 800 Rohingyas.

Meanwhile, Foreign Secretary M Shahidul Haque visited different areas of the district yesterday. He later attended a meeting of the National Taskforce on Implementation of the National Strategy Paper on Myanmar Refugees and Undocumented Myanmar Nationals at the Deputy Commissioner’s Office. l

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Fajr: 5:15am | Zohr: 12:13am Asr: 4:16pm | Magrib: 5:54pm Esha: 7:22pm Source: IslamicFinder.org

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Community radio: Voice Newborn rescued while being sold in Dhaka n of rural Bangladesh Tribune Report

n

Tribune Desk

As the country celebrates the Fifth World Radio Day along with the rest of the world today, the significance of community radio in the rural, remote areas of the country in terms of development and raising awareness is being recognised by all stakeholders.

Community media are widely recognised by governments, international development agencies, and civil society organisations alike as key agents of participatory development. Their reach and practices are a unique way of reaching and involving people.

This is particularly true of community radio, the most prevalent of all community media, which is a vital alternative both to state-owned and commercial private radio. Community radio's affordability and reach make it a powerful agent of social change.

Recognising this huge potential, the government has been a patronage to the development of community radio in the rural areas and taken several initiatives in this regard, according to a press release issued by Bangaldesh NGO Network for Radio and Communication (BNNRC) on the occasion of World Radio Day. There are currently 16 community radio stations on air in the country, aiming to ensure empowerment and right to information for the rural community. They are broadcasting altogether 125 hours of programmes every day on information, education, local entertainment and development motivation activities.

Around 100 youth, including women, are working with those stations throughout the country as rural broadcasters.

These programmes are supportive to the activities reflected in the 7th five-year plan of the government, UN's World Summit on the Information Society Action Plan, and UN's Sustainable Development Goals ( SDGs), said the press release.

The community radio programmes have already been widely accepted among the local community. The existing community radio stations presently cover more than 5.6 million listeners.

The Ministry of Information have approved 16 more community radios, which are likely to go on air by the end of this year, the press statement added.

The success of community radio has garnered appreciation from all levels of society. Its role in alerting locals during the cyclones Mahasen and Komen, when all other modes of communication were ineffective, was especially applauded, according to the statement.

Community radios are becoming an active ground for organising dialogues at the rural level. These dialogues will help the rural mass to find out their own voice and ensure leverage for their free opinion in social, economic, political, cultural and environmental issues, the press statement concluded. l

Woman dies after falling on the road n Tribune Report

A woman was killed in an accident after her scarf wrapped around the wheels of an easybike, pulling her down on the road in the capital’s Badda yesterday.

The dead was identified as Anamika Sarker, 30, wife of Polash Sarker.

Anamika along with her neighbour Uzzala Banik hired an easybike, a battery-run three-wheeler, around 4pm to go to Suvastu Tower to buy school dresses for her twin sons.

Describing the incident, Uzzala said Anamika suddenly fell on the road as her scarf got stuck with the wheels of the vehicle.

Later, she was taken to Dhaka Medical College Hospital, where the duty doctors declared her dead around 7:30pm, added Uzzala.

Dr Ayesha Akther, emergency medical officer at DMCH, said the victim’s neck was badly injured because of the strangulation from the scarf and she received severe injuries on her head after falling on the road.

At emergency unit gate, seven-year-old Choton and Rakesh, students of class one of Kisholoy School in Badda, were seen crying holding their father’s hand.

When approached, Polash Sarker in a shaky voice said: “I do not know what I will do now. Without their mother, what will happen to my children?.” l

The Rapid Action Battalion has rescued a two-day-old baby from Dhaka's Banani when it was being sold.

Four persons were detained from a flat on the first floor of MashAllash Mansion, building number 137 of Shantibagh Chairmanbari area yesterday afternoon for

their alleged involvement in the incident, RAB 3 operation officer Rabiul Karim said.

The detainees are Salma Begum, 33, her husband Saiful Islam, 34, Anowara Begum, 46, and one Babu, 36.

RAB sources said Salma, a former nurse, used to procure newborns from poor families, saying she was infertile and sold the babies to others.

A RAB 3 team, led by Major Kamran Kabir Uddin, raided the house acting on a tip off. They caught the four red-handed when they were transacting Tk1 lakh, presumably during the process of trading the baby.

ASP Rabiul said it was unclear if the baby's mother had sold her own child or it was stolen from her. l

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Tk12cr flower bonanza ahead of Falgun, Valentine’s Day n Our Correspondent, Jessore Flower farmers of Jessore are enjoying a flourishing business surrounding their three biggest sale days – Pohela Falgun, Valentine’s Day and Language Movement Day. With no political instability like past years and a surge in demands, flower farmers in Jhikargachha upazila have already sold flowers worth Tk12 crore for Falgun and Valentine’s Day, which fall consecutively on February 13 and 14.

Farmers in Gadkhali and Panisara unions grow 11 variety of flowers around the year, including roses, rajanigandha, gerbera, gladiolas, gypsy and marigold.

The majority of their harvest has already been supplied to Dhaka and other districts ahead of the sales bonanza.

Aminul Islam, a flower grower and trader, said he planted flowers on 14 bighas of his land this year. Although the prices had dropped during the SSC exams, the tides have turned ahead of Pohela Falgun and Valentine’s Day. Over the past five days alone, Aminul said he has sold around Tk80,000 worth of flowers.

Flower farmers have been able to recover the losses they had to suffer last year because of hartal and political violence, he said, adding that the profits would be higher if the road communication system was improved.

Aminul was echoed by another local flower farmer named Muktar Ali, who said: “Last year, sales were down because of hartal and blockade. This year, the production is better, and so are sales. The farmers are getting more profit as a result.”

Losses are still incurred by the farmers as there is a delay in transporting the flowers to Aricha ferry terminal, he said, urging the government to introduce a rail service for flower supply.

Abdur Rahim, president of Bangladesh Flowers Society, told the Dhaka Tribune:

Flower growers are enjoying a flourishing business centring three days – Pohela Falgun, Valentine’s Day and Language Movement Day. The photo taken yesterday shows traders stockpiled tube rose and gladiolus flowers Gadkhali Bazar to take those to different parts of the country DHAKA TRIBUNE “Flowers worth almost Tk12 crore has already been sold surrounding Pohela Falgun and Valentine’s Day. Farmers of this region [Jessore] are satisfied with the sales.

“Farmers in Gadkhali are also ready for the Language Movement Day on February 21. They

No measure yet to prevent spread Zika through of Sonamasjid port n Our Correspondent, Chapainawabgan No measure has yet been taken at Sonamasjid land port in Chapainawabganj to prevent the transmission of Zika virus.

In spite of directives from the Health Ministry, the local health office has not yet formed any medical team to deal with the issue.

The lack of preventive measures has caused panic among locals living in the border areas.

Also, passengers arriving from India are entering the country without undergoing any health check-up.

More than a thousand people move through Sonamasjid immigration checkpost to enter or return from India every day and there is a risk that they could transmit Zika virus.

Sonamasjid immigration officials said no

preventive measure had been taken as they had no equipment to subject the passengers to a medical check-up.

Sanjib Kumar Karmaker, Shibganj upazila health and family planning official, said no directive had been received from the civil surgeon’s office to form a medical team for detecting Zika virus among passengers departing for India or arriving in Bangladesh.

Civil Surgeon Dr Md Abul Kalam Azad said no Zika virus case had yet been detected in Bangladesh but a medical team at Sonamasjid land port would be formed soon.

The Sonamasjid immigration authorities have called on the government to take necessary steps, including forming a medical team and arranging health check-up of passengers, for checking the transmission of Zika virus. l

have a target to sell a further Tk7 crore worth of flowers surrounding the day,” he added.

Around 1 million people are reportedly directly or indirectly involved with flower farming in Jhikargachha upazila, where commercial flower farming is done on around

3,500 hectares of land.

Currently, around 70% of the country’s flower demand are met by supplies from Gadkhali. Flowers produced there are also exported to Dubai, Malaysia, Singapore and South Korea. l

Most CCTV cameras in Ctg city remain dysfunctional n FM Mizanur Rahaman, Chittagong

More than half of the CCTV cameras installed

by Chittagong Metropolitan Police in the port city is now out of service posing a serious threat to the security of the city dwellers.

Fifty-four out of the 99 CCTV cameras set up in the city are now dysfunctional as they were installed on the pillars of the removed billboards during the anti-billboard eviction drives in January by Chittagong City Corporation.

CMP officials said though the eviction drives have ended few days ago, the cameras are yet to be reinstalled. They also said the unavailability of the cameras at key points was hampering their regular activities.

With an aim to develop the traffic system and restrain criminal activities in the city, CMP in 2014 installed three types of CCTV cameras – Pan Tilt Zoom (PTZ), Face Detector

and 1200 TBL – in key points of the city.

Under the supervision of CMP’s Detective Branch, the 99 CCTV cameras were installed on the pillars of billboards in 26 points across the city but 54 of them at 19 points has been taken down during the CCC drives, CCC and CMP sources said.

DB Additional Deputy Commissioner Babul Akter told the Dhaka Tribune that it has become difficult for them to maintain law and order as only 45 cameras were functional. CMP Special Branch Assistant Commissioner Md Kajemur Rashid said: “At first the CCC officials did not contact the police regarding the removal of the cameras but they informed us later. They handed over the cameras to respective police stations.”

CCC’s Chief Executive Officer Kazi Mohammed Safiul Alam denied the allegations and said the CCTV cameras were taken off in presence of the police officials during the drives. l

DT

8

News

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 13, 2016

Illegal stone extraction threatens Bandarban n S Basu Das, Bandarban The illegal extraction of stones and boulders from streams and hills has been going on unabated in Bandarban. As a result, many brooks and streams have already started to dry up.

Dying streams will severely impact local agriculture where streams are the only water source. Moreover, many are dredging hills in search of stones.

Locals say smugglers are also using explosives to extract stones at various upazilas in the district and feared the environment would be endangered if nothing is done.

They alleged the activity had been going on for years with the administration doing little.

Locally extracted stones are being used in various development projects instead of stones from Sylhet. The lure of easy cash has attracted many, particularly those belonging to the ruling party, residents of affected areas claimed.

Locals alleged that Maqbool Ukil, Md Kalu Member and Abdul Rahim of sadar upazila’s Tankabati Union, Abul Bashar Driver of Roangchhari, Mong Thoai Mya Roni of Thanchi and Md Abul Kalam of Alikadam upazila had been involved in the illegal business for years.

Zia from Chittagong’s Bajalia had permission to collect floating stones. But he extract-

ed stones from Thaikhang stream and stored them at Menroa Para, allegedly after bribing local government officials.

Tonkabati Union’s Saring Para Karbari Paring Mro said unabated extraction would severely affect the ecology and make the area uninhabitable. Thanchi Upazila Chairman Kya Hla Ching Marma said: “We will face acute water shortage if the current trend continues as it is killing the streams.”

Already, several streams and brooks at Mangu, Toinfa Mouja and Pamia Hill have been badly damaged following stone extraction for the Alikadam-Thanchi Road construction. Tonkabati residents staged a human chain protest on January 31 in front of the Bandarban Press Club demanding an end to it.

The district administration permits extraction of a specific amount of stone within a certain period. But locals claimed contractors belonging to the ruling party dig up every stream and hill in the area after securing permission for extracting stones from one stream.

Bandarban sadar’s Upazila Nirbahi Officer (UNO) Aparna Baidya said they would take actions against anyone illegally extracting stones. Thanchi’s UNO Mohammad Anowar Hossain said no-one had permission to extract stones in the upazila. “We will raid illegal extraction sites soon.” l

Housewife sets herself on fire to get rid of torture n Our Correspondent, Gaibandha

Being frustrated by continuous torture of inlaws a housewife attempted to commit suicide setting her on fire at Chandkarim village, Sadullapur upazila, Gaibandha in the early hours of yesterday.

Several parts of the body of Rumi Begum, 22, was burnt and she admitted to Rangpur Medical College Hospital in critical state.

Rezaul Karim, father of the victim, told the Dhaka Tribune that family members of Raihan Mia, husband of Rumi, had been torturing her since the beginning of marriage over dowry. He said he had given Tk50,000 as dowry, but in-laws of Rumi continued torturing her.

On the day, Raihan and his family members severely assaulted her over the issue.

At one stage, Rumi poured kerosine on her body and set it on fire. Hearing her screams, neighbouring people rushed to the spot and took her to Sadullapur Upazila Health Complex from where she was shifted to Rangpur Medical College Hospital.

Dr Sajib Chandra Ray, residential medical officer of the health complex, told the Dhaka Tribune that 30% of Rumi’s body had been burnt.

Officer-in-Charge of Sadullapur police station told the Dhaka Tribune that they had arrested husband of Rumi Begum, 20, for instigating her to commit suicide. A case was filed in this connection. l

AL-backed panel wins Barisal bar poll n Our Correspondent, Barisal

The Awami-League-backed panel swept Barisal District Bar Association poll bagging 12 out of 16 posts, including president.

The BNP-led 20-party alliance supported Jatiyatabadi Ainjibi Oyikko Parishad bagged four posts, including secretary, in the election held on Thursday. A total of 708 out of 797 voters cast their votes from 9am to 6pm to elect 16 office bearers, including 11 executive body and five sub-committee members.

Advocate Vanu Ranjan Das, convener of

the election sub-committee, declared results of the poll yesterday morning. Advocate Mojibor Rahman was elected president from Awami League-backed Sammilito Ainjibi Samannaya Parishad defeating BNP-led 20-party alliance supported Jatiyatabadi Ainjibi Oyikkojot’s candidate Advocate Abul Kalam Azad.

On other hand, Advocate Nazim Uddin Ahmmed Panna of BNP led 20-party-backed Jatiotabadi Ainjibi Oyikko Parishad elected general secretary defeating Advocate Md MamunOr-Rashid of Awami League-backed Sammilito Ainjibi Samannaya Parishad panel. l

Members of the Border Guard Bangladesh destroyed yaba pills and liqueur worth about Tk50 crore on the premises of BGB office in Cox’s Bazar yesterday DHAKA TRIBUNE

9

DT

Learn English

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 13, 2016

Pre-reading task 1. Are you a manager?

2. What are the main characteristics of a good manager?

3. Who do you consider to be an inspirational leader?

Now read the article and compare your experiences with those outlined in the article.

Exercise 1 Vocabulary: Matching. Match the words from the text with their correct definitions:

Leadership

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

interact with people influence colleagues social cohesion a sense of purpose networking advocate a policy blame a person for something

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n Graham Bradford Your success as a manager can be determined by how you interact with people. The role of a manager as a leader is an important part of these interactions.

Leadership involves influencing colleagues so that they follow a given direction or goal.

It is often stated that leadership has three main functions within a group: The ‘people function’ – here leadership helps to maintain the morale, social cohesion and motivation of a group of workers. A leader should act as an ambassador for the group. In this role the leader will ensure the group has sufficient funds to carry out its tasks. If the leader can be seen to have influence outside the group then there will be more influence within the group.

The ‘task function’ – here leadership involves deciding what the tasks of the group of employees are and then making

sure that they are carried out successfully.

Don’t just criticise poor performance; remember to praise colleagues for work well done – this shows that you are aware of the effort colleagues are putting into their work.

The ‘strategic function’ – leadership here helps with the development of a sense of purpose and direction for the group or organisation. A group of workers that knows what they are trying to achieve will be more efficient and better motivated than a group that doesn’t know what it’s supposed to be doing.

A manager’s ability to influence people depends on a range of factors: how much power the manager has over the group – for example regarding pay and promotion issues; knowledge – how well the manager knows the systems present in an organisation and how many personal contacts the manager has within the organisation (here we’re talking about

Word search

‘networking’ – the ability to make and maintain useful contacts); finally there’s the manager’s ability to develop and maintain interpersonal relationships based on trust and understanding – a good networker has these skills. Good communication is another crucial element to successful leadership. A good leader is aware both of the message to be communicated and of the importance of effective communication to influence members of the group. A manager’s behaviour – what they do in the workplace – is a vital component of the message they communicate to colleagues. It is essential to be a role model for the policies you advocate. And remember, always accept responsibility for your mistakes, don’t blame colleagues for things that you do badly. No one is perfect; just remember this when you interact with colleagues – they know it and you shouldn’t forget it. l

The ideas factory

17

See if you can find these words in the grid. They can be horizontal, vertical, diagonal and backwards.

Exercise 2 Vocabulary: Matching. Choose the correct words to fill the gaps in the sentences: A good leader is able to [1] ........ people so they follow and try to achieve a given [2] ........ A leader should act as an [3] ........ for the group. A leader needs to decide what the [4] ........ of the group are and then ensure that these are achieved. Workers are better [5] ........ if they know what they are trying to achieve. A good leader is able to develop a sense of [6] ........ in the workgroup. The ability to [7] ........ to create and maintain useful contacts, can increase a leader’s knowledge and [8] ........ motivated / network / goal / power / influence / purpose / tasks / ambassador

Answers

8 power

4 tasks

7 network

3 ambassador

7f

3a

6 purpose

2 goal

6g

2e

5 motivated

1 influence

5c

1d Exercise 1

Exercise 2

Want to find more learning activities?

Visit www.britishcouncil.org/learnenglish

4b

Advocate Influ_ncing _ffective Inter_ct Amba_sador Man_ger Colleag_es Motiv_ted Criti_ise Pro_otion

a. the feeling of belonging to a group b. you know why you are doing something c. making useful contacts with people d. mix with people; communicate with them e. persuade people you work with to follow your ideas f. say a person is responsible for an action g. support and promote a way of doing things

© British Council 2016

DT

10

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 13, 2016

Biz Info

Bongo and ICC sign cricket rights Bongo has signed a four-year agreement with International Cricket Council (ICC) to serve digital video of all ICC events from 2016-2019. The deal covers the Bangladesh territory and includes pre-match and postmatch highlights with match clips during the matches.

As a part of the deal, Bongo is exclusive rights holder of all ICC digital video content throughout the deal period as well as having rights to ICC’s archived content, and will be offering exclusive cricket services through its app and mobile services.

Bongo is an on demand entertainment platform which currently holds the largest digital rights library of Bangladeshi content, and offers users movies, serials, music videos and more, through mobile platforms and the web.

Ahad Mohammad Bhai, Managing Director of Bongo, said, “Like millions of others in Bangladesh, I am a crazy fan of cricket.

Bongo has always attempted to offer its users the best content, and in Bangladesh, nothing beats cricket. We want to give the viewers what they want, and the chance to tie up with the ICC and offer the best cricket events exclusive to our users is an amazing opportunity for us.”

Bongo has also announced the launch of a special cricket app, to be revealed alongside the launch of the T20 World Cup. Using this, users can stay up-to-date on the tournament and watch the latest clips of every match. l

Valentine’s Day at Dhaka Regency

Shoilpik’s lifestyle furniture solution

Fashion house Shoilpik has introduced their lifestyle and furniture solution section. Since 2004, Shoilpik has worked on producing fashion-wear while simultaneously providing

interior decoration solutions and furniture.

Their new show room at Axes Road, Chittagong, was recently inaugurated and is fully functional. l

Edison Logistics launched Dhaka Regency’s rooftop garden restaurant, Grill On The Skyline, has arranged a bouquet of sweet deals starting from 6:30pm to 10:30pm. Every couple will be met with a welcome drink and complimentary heart-shaped cakes on the table, followed by a Valentine’s Day special buffet dinner, live band performance, raffle draw with exciting prizes, presence of celebrities, instant gift vouchers and much more. All this, at the price of Tk6,500 for couples.

The event will also include complimentary framed photographs

taken by a professional photographer as a memento of the evening.

For reservations, dial 01713332661.

Moreover, The Celebration Hall at level 14 shall inaugurate “Valentine’s Bash 2016,” which shall include unique experiences and exclusive arrangements such as salsa dancing, candle light buffet dinner, magic show, session with love guru Ehtesham, gifts, violin and saxophone music, fuchka and chotpoti station and finally, a raffle draw session with exclusive gift hampers.

All at Tk10,000, so reserve your spot by dialing 01713332540. l

Edison Logistics, a wing of Edison Group, recently inaugurated their new office at Gulshan Avenue. A minute ceremony was held, which a was carried out by the chairman of Edison Group Aminur Rashid, managing director, Jakaria Shahid and director, Maksudur Rahman.

Faiz Md Kabir, deputy general manager and Bikash Bromha, general manager, were present as well. l

DT

Editorial 11

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 13, 2016

INSIDE

Lessons from L’affaire Anam PAGE 12

Investment for what?

PAGE 13

SYED ZAKIR HOSSAIN

L’affaire Anam

Climate Change PAGE 14

An 18th century whistle-blower PAGE 19

Be heard Write to Dhaka Tribune FR Tower, 8/C Panthapath, Shukrabad, Dhaka-1207 Email letters.dt@ dhakatribune.com

Send us your Op-Ed articles:

opinion.dt@dhakatribune. com www.dhakatribune.com Join our Facebook community: https://www.facebook. com/DhakaTribune

T

here is no way to defend the publication of unsubstantiated stories fed to a newspaper by intelligence services, and we will not attempt to do so here.

By his own admission, doing so was a grave error on the part of Mahfuz Anam, the editor of The Daily Star, and it is truly disappointing that a man of his standing and reputation could make such a call.

To his credit, no one recognises this more than he does himself.

On this matter, however, we strongly feel that there is a difference between even a very serious lapse in editorial judgment, as unquestionably happened in this instance, and acting unlawfully.

We find it troubling that people other than the aggrieved have filed defamation cases against Mr Anam. Cases filed by political party workers in remote districts come across as harassment through legal means.

Even more concerning is the filing of a sedition case against Mr Anam, by a junior government prosecutor. The court has directed the police to investigate the matter, and awaits a nod from government before proceeding with the case. We only hope that the government will take the effects on media at large, not just one man, into consideration.

To countenance legal harassment for editorial misjudgment would set an unfortunate precedent and threaten to chill the freedom of the press that is so crucial to our continued development as a nation.

Any attempt to force Mr Anam from his position through judicial processes, or otherwise, runs counter to our democratic aspirations.

A government committed to democracy should take the high road, and show a great deal of tolerance for the freedom of the media.

Journalism too must be responsible in order to both fulfill its public duty and be deserving of the special protection it receives under the law. There can be no question about that. We concur fully with the recent words of the honourable president to that effect.

But in the final analysis, one should trust the public to determine for themselves how they see the matter and to determine for themselves what their response should be.

This incident will remain a blemish on Mr Anam’s record and on his conscience. For a public figure of his stature and dignity, that is surely punishment enough.

One should trust the public to determine for themselves how they see the matter and to determine for themselves what their response should be

DT

12

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 13, 2016

Opinion

Lessons from L’affaire Anam Evidently, the worst thing one can ever do is to express contrition about a mistake one has made

What about those who were behind the unsubstantiated reports printed by The Daily Star?

n Zafar Sobhan

I

t was not long after I started working at The Daily Star as an assistant editor in 2003 that Mahfuz Anam put me in charge of the opinion pages of the newspaper.

His instructions were very clear: The opinion pages were to be a clearing house for all kinds of opinions, even ones which he as editor or I as opinions editor did not agree with.

We would try to provide space to as many divergent points of view as possible, and it was in providing this breadth and diversity of opinion that we would serve our readers best.

With one exception.

We would give no space to any op-ed that tried to argue that democracy was not right for Bangladesh or offered any kind of a nondemocratic solution to our problems.

Mahfuz Bhai was crystal clear: That was the one opinion he would not countenance in The Daily Star opinion pages. That was the one opinion that, as a matter of stated policy, would be deemed beyond the pale of acceptable discourse.

The reason I bring this up now is that it seems to me to be very relevant in light of the ongoing brouhaha that has been engendered by Mahfuz Bhai’s admission on television last week that he had erred in publishing unsubstantiated reports fed to the newspaper by intelligence agencies during the tenure of the army-backed caretaker government running the country from 2007-2008.

The sub-text of the bitter invective that has been hurled at him, on the floor of the national parliament (and in clear violation of parliamentary rules of procedure), among other places, is that he is an enemy of democracy and that he published the reports as part of a scheme to undermine democracy.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

Certainly, it was a mistake to have published the reports, as Mahfuz Bhai, to his credit, has recognised and acknowledged.

But to suggest that he did so as part of some agenda to derail democracy and

institute non-democratic rule is both utterly unsupported by the facts and does a grave disservice to a man who has devoted his life to the service of this nation and who has a long and proud record of serving the public interest and the cause of democracy.

It is convenient for too many now to forget how overwhelming was the support for the intervention on January 11, 2007.

Indeed, the current prime minister herself went to the oath-swearing of the Fakhruddin cabinet.

Like her, and so many others, all across the country, Mahfuz Bhai believed the country had no better option at that precise moment. But how most people hoped and expected that regime to conduct itself is not how things panned out.

To pin all the blame for 1/11 on its civil society supporters, and only on them, is unfair and unsupportable. It is especially so for people like Mahfuz Bhai whose position vis-a-vis that regime changed in response to its mis-steps.

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mind and intentions than what he had to say then in real time.

Now that the cases that are being filed against Mahfuz Bhai have escalated from defamation to sedition, it is all the more relevant to bring up this context.

Whatever else one might think of the 11 news stories that The Daily Star published without adequate substantiation in 2007 and whatever else one might think of the decision to publish that was made by the editor at the time, the one thing that is surely certain is that under no definition of the term did their publication amount to sedition on his part.

It is to the government’s credit that it has not itself initiated any cases against Mahfuz Bhai. The defamation cases that have been filed are private causes of action.

We are gratified to note that the PM herself has exercised a dignified restraint on the matter, and we both appreciate her actions and urge her to continue to take the high road by not only keeping

To suggest that he did so as part of some agenda to derail democracy and institute non-democratic rule is both utterly unsupported by the facts and does a grave disservice to a man who has devoted his life to the service of this nation and who has a long and proud record of serving the public interest and the cause of democracy The news reports and editorials published by the newspaper at the time bear clear testimony of that. Readers will find no evidence at all to suggest that the newspaper supported any indefinite prolonging of a non-democratic rule. Any support given to the government of that moment was conditional, increasingly critical, and always focused on a return to democracy.

I am glad that The Daily Star is reprinting the signed op-eds that were written by Mahfuz Bhai at that time, as nothing can bear more eloquent testimony to his state of

the government out of it, but also by discouraging her party men and women from filing private causes of action on her behalf.

For an actual aggrieved party to file suit would be one thing, but given that the cases have been filed by ruling party members in remote districts, patently with intent to harass, they are regrettable.

Any attempt to force Mahfuz Bhai from his position through legal processes or otherwise runs counter to our democratic aspirations, and the government would be

well advised to not go down this path.

A government that purports to be democratic must take the higher road, and show a great deal of tolerance for the freedom of the media. In fact, nothing would do the government’s image and reputation more good right now than to quietly let the matter rest.

The sedition case against Mahfuz Bhai requires the government nod to go ahead, and I would very much hope that the investigation into whether the case should proceed that has been ordered by the judge finds in the negative, and that the government itself stays well clear of the matter.

It should be noted in conclusion that many of those taking up the cudgels against The Daily Star editor today were equally guilty, if not more so, of what he is accused of. Which raises the question: What about the scores of other news media who did the same thing?

Yes, everyone did it is not a good defense, but when one selectively targets only one’s enemies or irritants for something others also did, it runs the risk of looking very much like a witch-hunt.

Finally, if running unsubstantiated stories fed by an intelligence agency is such an offence, then what action will be taken against those who did the feeding, and why is no one calling for this?

Indeed, the biggest take-away from the media circus of the past week is that the worst thing one can ever do is to express contrition about a mistake one has made.

There was nothing new here. No new facts have come to light. The only new thing was Mahfuz Bhai’s admission that he had erred and expression of contrition.

Far from eliciting any respect or acknowledgment for doing the right thing (with the notable exception of the information minister, for which I applaud him) it has had the opposite effect.

The implications for the future for all of us are quite clear. Never admit anything.

Never show any contrition.

I’m sure we have all learned our lesson. l Zafar Sobhan is the Editor, Dhaka Tribune.

13

DT

Long Form

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 13, 2016

Investment for what?

We need to be clear about our investment strategy. This is the first part in a two-part long form

n Akhtar Mahmood

A

high-profile investment and policy summit was recently held in Dhaka. The opening session heard a call from the prime minister for increased foreign investment. Quoting from a famous Bengali song, she harped on the uniqueness of Bangladesh and, lest any investor was concerned about past problems, she reassured everyone that the country has changed. Her ministers and officials did their bit to declare Bangladesh open for business. At first glance, it appears that investors were impressed.

But investment for what? That is the key question. As we double our efforts to attract foreign investment, it is important to be clear about our strategy. How exactly will such investment flows contribute to our development goals?

For Bangladesh, a key agenda is industrialisation where, building upon past successes, much more is needed to create good quality jobs that may absorb the huge labour force. How will future industrialisation proceed? Here, it is useful to think about future scenarios, agree on a desired scenario, and then identify actions to make that vision a reality.

largely dominated by small enterprises, facilitating inclusive growth.

At the same time, the growth in apparel production implies a significant growth in textile production which, in a business-asusual scenario, leads to serious depletion of water tables due to heavy and inefficient water use in the industry and serious decline in water quality due to high pollution discharge into water bodies.

The continuing, perhaps increasing, attraction of the industry triggers resource flow into it at the expense of other promising activities such as pharmaceuticals, shipbuilding, ICT-based services, and light engineering. Diversification prospects are diluted as garments become even more important in both absolute and relative terms. The industry continues to be largely domestic-owned. FDI remains low both in this industry as well as overall in the economy.

Scenario 2: Diversified, volume-centric, labour-intensive growth The garment industry becomes a $40bn industry by 2021, ie, it continues to grow but less rapidly than in scenario 1. Its relative importance in the economy drops as a number of other labour-intensive industries,

For Bangladesh, a key agenda is industrialisation where, building upon past successes, much more is needed to create good quality jobs that may absorb the huge labour force. How will future industrialisation proceed? It is useful to think about future scenarios, agree on a desired scenario, and then identify actions to make that vision a reality Three such scenarios are presented below.

These are not mutually exclusive, but may be combined in various ways.

Scenario 1: Garment-dominated, volumecentric, labour-intensive growth The garment industry grows rapidly to become a $50 billion industry by 2021, benefiting from the relocation of industry from higher-cost producers, such as China.

It further consolidates its position as a major driver of the economy. The change in industry is largely quantitative.

The product composition remains more or less the same, dominated by low-value added products requiring large amounts of semi-skilled workers. Productivity increases at the historical modest rates. This means that the industry continues to be labourintensive and the doubling of exports leads to an equivalent growth in employment, which rises to 10 million from the current five million.

Since productivity growth is modest, Bangladesh continues to compete on the basis of low wages. There is significant spillover impact, both positive and negative.

Ancillary industries continue to grow,

such as light engineering, agro-business and leather, and services such as ICT and ICTenabled services, grow faster than before.

The growth in garments as well as in these other industries/services is basically volume-driven, with no substantial increase in productivity.

As in scenario 1, low value-added products dominate the product composition in garments, and productivity increases at the historical modest rates.

The RMG growth is accompanied by a growth in textile production. While the growth is not as high as in scenario 1, the resource use efficiency and environmental issues remain serious.

The growth in other labour-intensive activities makes the economy more diversified. However, while there are pockets of high productivity in these sectors, overall productivity-growth remains modest with no significant increase in the sophistication of product composition.

Nonetheless, the volume-driven growth in garments and in these industries creates millions of jobs and many entrepreneurial opportunities, including for the bottom 40% of the population.

How will investment flows contribute to our development goals?

Scenario 3: Diversified, productivitydriven, labour-intensive growth The garments industry grows at a respectable rate with exports reaching $35bn to $40bn by 2021. The industry undergoes consolidation with a smaller number of more efficient firms. The industry produces a substantially higher proportion of value-added products but remains labour-intensive, and thus a major employer with six to seven million people earning livelihoods through it.

The textile industry significantly improves its resource-use efficiency and environmental performance. Much of the new capacity created in garments is located within economic zones, which also house several existing factories that are relocated from other locations in the country. Some of the productivity increases and change in product-mix is catalysed by foreign investors whose importance in the industry increases.

This growth in garments is accompanied by substantial diversification in economic activities, especially in industry and services. Substantial amounts of investment flow into agro-business, pharmaceuticals, light engineering, footwear, ICT, and ICTenabled services, increasing production volumes, changing product composition, and improving productivity.

Pharmaceutical exports increase substantially and make an entry in the developed world as well. There is a paradigm shift in the ICT and ICT-enabled services sector which experience the highest rate of export growth (30% to 50% annually) with exports rising from $100m now to $3bn by 2021. The sector also becomes a major source of jobs, especially for young people.

The use of ICT-enabled services in the domestic economy grows significantly, creating a huge domestic market for the sector, in addition to increasing productivity and quality of service delivery in the activities that use ICT. Agro-business grows impressively, creating substantial income opportunities for the bottom 40%.

The light engineering sector develops

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along two tracks. On the first track, ie, the modern segment, a small number of firms producing a select set of products (such as bicycles, spare parts, electronic goods) makes a major breakthrough in export markets, while also serving the domestic market. Productivity increase accompanies this growth.

On the second track, ie, the traditional segment, there is partial consolidation. One part of this segment, currently accounting for 20% of its output, consolidates (including through acquisition of some of the smaller firms), moves out of its currently congested locations to wellequipped economic zones, acquires modern technology, focuses its product offerings so that each firm manufactures a small range of sophisticated products (instead of the current practice of spreading thin) with increasing productivity.

By 2021, these account for 50% of the traditional segment’s production. The other part of the traditional segment continues on the current path with thousands of firms making hundreds of products at low levels of productivity. Their main role in the economy is as a source of mass -- albeit lowpaying -- employment, and easy entry for small entrepreneurs.

The leather sector has a similar evolution with substantial consolidation, productivity increases, and much improved working conditions and environmental performance.

The relocation to the Savar leather park is complete and facilitates the above changes.

Exports rise substantially.

These sectors grow faster than garments, especially with regard to exports. As a result, their share of total exports rise while that of garments falls, even though there is a very substantial absolute increase in garment exports. The most important development, though, is that the economy moves to a productivity-driven trajectory. l The concluding part of this long form will be published tomorrow.

Akhtar Mahmood works for an international development agency.

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SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 13, 2016

Climate Change

Worrisome gaps in the Paris agreement n David Estrin The world’s nations recognise in the preamble to the December 2015 Paris Climate Agreement “that climate change represents an urgent and potentially irreversible threat to human societies and the planet” and “that deep reductions in global emissions will be required…” Yet, in the main provisions of the agreement, the parties failed to commit to actions necessary to save the planet and protect the human rights of those most vulnerable to climate change.

While admittedly the agreement is “historic” for its ambitious aspirations, from a practical and legal perspective the Paris agreement is worrisome. The two-week Paris meetings and side events demonstrated heightened appreciation by states, provinces, cities, and business that the carbon economy will need to be limited; and the meeting resulted in pledges of new activity for that purpose, including potentially increased funding for green technology development and adaptation. But it is more hyperbole than reality to call the text agreed in Paris by the 196 parties to the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change a meaningful “legal agreement” that will stop the clear trajectory we are now on to a dangerous 3 degrees Celsius warming of the globe. That trajectory will imperil the homelands, lives, and livelihoods of many millions of people now living, as well as future generations. Here are the reasons why the world collectively retains its position on that course.

First, the Paris agreement lacks specific measures and enforceable means to limit emissions from existing greenhouse gas sources to ensure the globe’s average temperature does not increase well beyond the limits of safe living on the planet. Despite comments by many world leaders and those in the media, the Paris text is not a binding “legal agreement” requiring any specific country to reduce its emissions. Although world leaders agreed to lofty goals such as keeping the global temperature rise to less than 2C and preferably to 1.5C, they failed to require individual countries or even groups of countries to reduce emissions by specific amounts or by any particular deadline.

Countries committed only to a peaking of emissions “as soon as possible” (with a recognition that it would take longer for developing countries), and a goal of net greenhouse gas neutrality “in the second half of this century.”

In the meantime, the agreement sets no emission limits that any country must meet; it simply encourages best efforts. Even though all countries are to prepare voluntary emission mitigation commitments (and revise these every five years), and although they agreed to “pursue domestic measures with the aim of achieving these objectives,” there are no binding obligations to implement or achieve these objectives.

Second, the agreement specifically refrains from authorising “enforcement” action that would punish a particular country, even if it were clear that failing to reduce emission by certain amounts or times was required, which they are not.

Promoting compliance is referenced in

the agreement, but this is to be carried out in a “facilitative” and “non-adversarial and non-punitive” manner. In short, the Paris agreement contains no specific legal requirements and no means to ensure that carbon emission will decrease and that humanity won’t be roasted, toasted, drowned, or exiled.

Ironically, the clearest legal part of the Paris agreement prevents those countries that will suffer the greatest human rights impacts, and who had the least to do with creating climate change emissions -- island communities that will disappear and low-lying parts of other countries that will be washed away or inundated by rising sea levels, those who need help the most -- from claiming compensation to move and re-establish themselves and their livelihoods. At the insistence of the United States and some other developed countries, the agreement specifically provides that “compensation” and “liability” for such loss and damage cannot be read into the agreement.

Another major gap in the Paris agreement is the absence of any restriction on the “business as usual” approach for carbon producers. Although at least one commentator suggested that “the biggest loser in the Paris agreement could be the fossil fuel industry,” in fact the Paris agreement does not threaten them. Their interests are well-protected. There are no lofty or indeed any specific goals in the agreement to restrict new coal mines, new coal fired power plants, or petrochemical projects and also no requirements to phase out existing carbon-based materials, such as coal, oil, or other fossil fuels by a specific date. Remarkably, the words oil, fossil fuels, and coal don’t even appear in

Although the concept appears in the preamble, due to opposition by some countries, the agreement fails to provide any direction in the operational clauses to prevent future horrific human rights abuses

the agreement. These carbon companies are no doubt celebrating the Paris agreement. For example, in response to the Paris agreement, the World Coal Association referred to projections by the International Energy Agency that “electricity generation from coal would grow by 24% by 2040” even under the various emission target reductions just pledged by world states before the Paris meeting.

This optimism by the coal industry is consistent with further major gaps in the agreement: It fails to mention let alone endorse the need to keep significant amounts of current carbon reserves

David Estrin embedded in place as a vital step to meeting the world “carbon budget.” It appears the carbon industry was successful in convincing world leaders to effectively ignore the advice of the International Energy Agency and other experts, who have advised that, to keep the global temperature rise to less than 2C, at least 66 % -- and as much as 80% -- of embedded carbon reserves must remain in the ground. And in a similar vein, goals advocated by some countries, such as “decarbonisation” and “climate neutrality” did not make the final text. By failing to even mention the objective of keeping some reserves embedded and also failing to suggest restrictions on major new coal mines and other high carbon energy production and use, some might argue the agreement in effect provides international approval -- even legal protection -- for the world’s carbon producers to continue business as usual, potentially to the end of this century, without any mandatory interim emission cutbacks. At that point it will be much too late to stop clearly dangerous climate impacts from becoming common.

The agreement is also disappointing for failing to provide any language with respect to human rights in the operating part of the agreement. Although the concept appears in the preamble, due to opposition by some countries, the agreement fails to provide any direction in the operational clauses to prevent future horrific human rights abuses similar to those that ironically, but tragically, occurred and continue to occur, particularly in Central and South America, in the implementation of projects approved and financed under the UNFCCC process in response to climate change.

From a climate change perspective, 2015 marks not just the year of the Paris agreement; it is also the year in which several landmark citizen law suits before domestic courts have resulted in decisions, such as Urgenda in the Netherlands and Leghari in Pakistan, in which judges have told national governments they have legal duties to limit carbon emissions and protect their citizens from climate impacts, regardless of the inaction of other countries.

Given the worrying practical and legal gaps in the Paris Agreement, frustrated citizens in other countries may increasingly call on domestic court judges to remind their governments they must substantively reduce carbon emission and not just spout greenhouse gas rhetoric. l David Estrin is a Senior Research Fellow, International Law Research Program at the Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI) based in Waterloo, ON, Canada. This article first appeared on the CIGI website and has been reproduced with their permission. To access the article online, please go to https://www.cigionline. org/blogs/global-rule-of-law/worrisome-gaps-parisagreement This page has been developed in collaboration with the International Centre for Climate Change and Development (ICCCAD) at Independent University, Bangladesh (IUB) and its partners, Bangladesh Centre for Advanced Studies (BCAS) and International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED). This page represents the views and experiences of the authors and does not necessarily reflect the views of Dhaka Tribune or ICCCAD or its partners.

INSIDE

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Wasafiri: A platform for Bangladeshi literature

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Arts & Letters

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Two young boys, my boyhood, and Dacca

Send your submissions to: anl@dhakatribune.com

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Arts & Letters

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SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 13, 2016

C U LT U R E

A platform for Bangladeshi literature Wasafiri’s latest issue, focusing on Bangladeshi work, truly puts the country’s work on the map

COURTESY

n SN Rasul

W

asafiri, Britain’s first magazine for international contemporary writing, is quarterly magazine known for publishing and promoting work both by new and established writers, poets, and artists from across the globe.

Founded by Susheila Nasta in 1984 at the University of Kent, Wasafiri was launched in an attempt to herald in changes within curricula in universities and schools and include writers like Derek Walcott, Jean Rhys, and VS Naipaul. Its aim, at the time, “was to provide serious literary and critical coverage of writers who often struggled, because of their cultural or ethnic backgrounds, to get adeqaute notice in the mainstream press; in other words, the work of such writers was frequently deemed to only be of ‘minority interest’ and not part of the mainstream.’”

With its latest issue, that is exactly what Wasafiri has attempted to achieve. Titled a “A Special Issue on Bangladesh,” this issue has covered the Bangladesh literary scene through fiction, non-fiction, poetry, reviews, and interviews, in what can only

}

This issue has covered the Bangladesh literary scene through fiction, non-fiction, poetry, reviews, and interviews, in what can only be described as a veritable tour de force of writing focusing either on Bangladeshis, or writing by Bangladeshis

be described as a veritable tour de force of writing focusing either on Bangladeshis, or writing by Bangladeshis.

Introduced with an editorial by Ahsan Akbar and K Anis Ahmed, the special issue features Bengali literary connoisseurs such as Tahmima Anam, Kaiser Haq, Abeer Hoque, Zeeshan Khan, and Sadaf Saaz, among others.

Many of the writers and those-writtenabout featured prominently in the Dhaka Lit Fest, which took place in November.

On Thursday, February 4, 2016, Wasafiri

organised a special event to launch the Bangladeshi issue (Issue 84), in Waterstones book store at London. Featuring interesting conversations with Ahsan Akbar and K Anis Ahmed, who were special guest editors for the issue, and Wasafiri editor Susheila Nasta.

One of the highlights of the event included Shagufta Sharmeen Tania’s recitation of poetry about a story published in Wasafiri: “It’s about a Bengali woman who’s recovering after a parent’s suicide, a woman who faced trauma while working in a UK prison.”

Delivered with poignant passion and grace, Shagufta Sharmeen Tania’s recitation cut through the atmosphere like a knife, evoking a wide range of emotions out of thin air. First, delivered in its entirety in Bangla and then excerpts in English, the bilingual narrative took hold and enraptured the audience.

The story, in English, is called “Gift of Silver,” (taken from a line in Pablo Neruda’s “Ode to the Sea”) and certain images from the poem stand out as if being painted right in front of our very eyes.

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Arts & Letters

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C U LT U R E

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I float away in the waters of fate Who can say why I think of absurd things at the oddest of times?

Other people comment: “Mash’allah! Happy family!” on a Facebook photo of a mother exhausted from giving birth and the father sparkling like a smiling flint as he holds the newborn Why can’t I think “Mash’allah! Happy family!”

Why do I think some get to bail out the pond?

Some get to eat all the fish?”

Another crucial segment of the event was no doubt Sadaf Saad’z reading, speaking of muslin, “arguably the greatest cotton the world has ever seen.” With an airy nonchalance, she delivered the poem on muslin with breathtaking depth and beauty, snatching words out of the reader or the listener’s mind with such ease, as if the brushstrokes were stuck in mid-air within the room, hovering somewhere just above the floor.

“Woven air The lost perfection of woven air Exquisite and rare.

I saw it once, A small precious piece Of which legends are made Delicate and posthumous Hung for posterity, A figment of nostalgic past Behind distorted clouded glass In our national museum Now, it can only be seen at the V&A As the Kohinoor Through that sacred weave What wonders were achieved Six yards with a single gold ring With ease.”

Other various authors and writers also came together to present their works in front of the audience, each bringing something novel and lyrically innovative to the table. Each reading left the audience feeling as if, when they were gone, they had taken something with them. l SN Rasul is a journalist and academic, follow him @ snrasul.

Delivered with poignant passion and grace, Shagufta Sharmeen Tania’s recitation cut through the atmosphere like a knife, evoking a wide range of emotions out of thin air. First, delivered in its entirety in Bangla and then excerpts in English, the bilingual narrative took hold and enraptured the audience

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Arts & Letters

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SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 13, 2016

NON-FICTION

Two young boys, my boyhood, and Dacca For some, memories of Dacca are as clear as yesterday’s

n SM Shahrukh

W

ent out around midday to buy a few things, mainly a jar of coffee that emptied out during the night and some meds that were of greater urgency. I had experienced the chill in the morning air while standing at my verandah around 6am, the sky a dark grey and thick fog that obfuscated the early morning devout going home after the Fazr prayers. The one single halogen street light I could see had a halo of fog around it. It felt eerie. I decided that it would be unwise to go for a walk this chilly morning.

My apprehensions about the weather were vindicated when I went out around noon. In spite of the bright sunlight, there was a chilly breeze. Wearing only my customary panjabi-pajama, I felt the chill hit my bones. A graveyard chill on a beautiful sunny day -- nature in an oxymoronic state.

The moment I came out of the drugstore with my coffee and meds, I felt a pang of hunger. I went to a deli nearby and ordered a sandwich. While I sat with my sandwich I saw two little boys with their mother. They were having some food too with the mother sitting happy with her cup of coffee.

The two young boys were coming back from school, one would be around eight and the other a year younger. They were happy, looking smart in their uniform, and chatting away with the mother nodding without speaking much. The younger one at one point was extolling the greater nutritional value of brown bread over the white variety.

She just said, “I don’t like the taste of them.” The boys went on talking and disseminated all their knowledge on the matter. The young computer kids of today!

They have schools with a better syllabus than the olden days, at least the ones for privileged children do, a world of knowledge is at their fingertips thanks to the World Wide Web, but are they really enjoying their boyhoods? Maybe they are, maybe more than I had done when I was a young boy but I will never concede. My schooldays were special to me and I had a whale of a time.

Before 1971, I went to an English medium school but enrolled into a missionary school

in 1972, a new school, a new medium of instruction. Bangla was not alien to me though. It was a new country, a new dawn, my mother pregnant with my brother, a pregnancy of joy of having her own country.

At least, that’s what I have always thought.

My brother was born in September of 72.

I used to live in Wari of the old part of Dhaka till 1975, then moved to Dhanmondi in the newer part but I went to Laxmi Bazaar till 1980 when I finished my school.

It was total independence from 1974 onwards when I was in class four, unthinkable for kids and parents of today. I was not even 10. My mother, under whose “autocracy” I lived then, taught me a very “proper” way of speaking in Bangla in my formative years. She was a Calcuttan who migrated with her family in 1947.

muri at my school gate was too alluring, a dance of spicy Bangla on my palate. The shorbot, a cool drink of any colour as per the whim of the vendor, was the most refreshing drink with chipped ice floating in them. I needed a glass or three after a game of “rescue” or a brutal “conflict” at football.

They were five paisa a glass in 1974.

I needed to save my allowance for the goodies. So I started walking to and fro to attend school, my mother oblivious, but my father somewhat wiser as he caught me walking a few times on Nawabpur Road or the rickety lanes of Narinda. He kept his “knowledge” to himself, never a peep to the loving “dictator.”

Walking to school opened a world of new colours, a beautiful cacophony to me, a symphony of the streets one may call it.

}

Walking to school opened a world of new colours, a beautiful cacophony to me, a symphony of the streets one may call it

She corrected my Bangla at every chance and even made me face punitive measures for using the language of colloquy used in the streets. But my ears were always open to all the colourful dialects I heard at Wari and then even more colorful ones when I started going to Laxmi Bazaar. I faced a lot of mockery from my new mates at the new school for my “proper” accent of speaking Bangla but it took me only a few days before I started speaking in the more acceptable dialect used in school, a mixture of Dhakaiya and other dialects.

A fish to water I was. I was speaking pure Bangla at home and the moment I stepped on the streets, I became a part of it, a bilingual, almost, but with one language.

From 1974 onwards till I migrated to Dhanmondi a year and a half later, my mother gave me rickshaw fare and a little extra for this and that. The chotpoti or jhaal

There were restaurants selling delicious parattha with bhaji, beef bhuna, chicken jhaal curry, muglai dishes, and of course, my favourite Moron Chand Ghosh & Sons, the original, at Rothkhola, selling sweetmeats as divine blessings. My way back involved the Narinda area. It was full of people and shops, bakorkhani ovens on display, a view of hell in my early days.

I entered the Wari area at Tipu Sultan Road after passing the graveyard for Christians and the ancient Armenian Church. But in a few months, I discovered a shorter path to school. I used the “bhuter goli” lane from the Tipu Sultan Road, so narrow that rickshaw-pullers declined to enter it, all the better.

This circuitous route took me past the Dholaikhal area until I reached Koltabazaar just before landing on Laxmi Bazaar.

Koltabazaar was very famous for its

mastaans and the typical Dhakaiya with white lungi and all. Well, white lungi is not what makes a Dhakaiya but it’s their lionheartedness, the best type of Banglees there ever were who spoke in a very colourful and typical accent, full of loving swear words, and talked often in a lingo among themselves which they always thought to be Urdu. Their language needed a special identity.

Late 1975, I was living in a house in Dhanmondi, on a road adjacent to the lake, the other side was the famous Road no 32 with the now famous Bangabondu museum.

My parents wanted me to switch to the Government Laboratory School in the New Year (1976) since it was nearer to our house and made all the arrangements but I stood my ground: Laxmi Bazaar or bust. They conceded.

I didn’t want to lose my friends, the two fields where I played football and cricket, the handball and basketball courts and my ever favorite, a number of concrete table tennis tables. I was pretty good with my paddle at ping-pong, a Chinese paddle with foam on its surface under the rubber, with a name like Yin or Yang. I didn’t want to miss sitting at Sadarghat with a packet of peanuts, watching the boats and launches on the Buriganga, not a sewer then, but a beautiful river with a world of mystery, looking like the lifeline of the city.

I loved those days as I came home to Dhanmondi on a rickshaw past English Road, Becharam Deuri, Moulvi Bazaar, sometimes Rahmatganj (also called Dailpotti) and then Bokshibazaar and Lalbagh and the Azimpur area and along Mirpur Road to our one-storey house at Dhanmondi. Dhanmondi in those days was a beautiful residential area with small houses with a lawn at the front.

Around 1977, when I was in class seven, I started going to the stadium to watch Abahoni play football. They became the champions that year. This was a love affair that continued till 1984. Around the same time in 1977, I started going to the cinema on my own.

Every Friday afternoon I was either at the gates of Modhumita or Obhishar and at times at Balaka, Gulistan, Ananda, Shyamoli, or some obsolete derelict cinema hall in the old parts like Azad, Moon, Star, or Shabistan.

It was a fun time, my school days. I wonder often if the kids I saw today with crisp clothes and the internet at hand can have such a colourful time of it. Maybe they do from their perspectives and definitions of fun. But I would never trade my school days with the “modern times.” I loved my Dacca, albeit with tremendous problems of poverty, famine, communicable diseases, seasonal maladies becoming wildfires in a moment, a topsy-turvy state of economy, but there remains something deeply nostalgic about that Dacca, which is now well under wraps with the new spelling as well as the goingson of the sprawling metropolis of Dhaka. l SM Shahrukh is a freelance contributor.

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Heritage

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 13, 2016

An 18th century whistle-blower William Bolts was a hero who died a most undeserving death

n Tim Steel

D

efined from the vernacular as either just a “good man” or “a true hero,” William Bolts, rather appropriately fits either description.

Born in Amsterdam in 1739, probably to an English mother, and Palatinate German father -- he would appear to have been, in many ways, a very modern man.

Educated, probably with all the appearance of self-confidence, as would be necessary for a young man hired into what the world now knows was by way of being a “human jungle” -- the cadre of East India Company in Bengal in the immediate aftermath of Plassey.

Germany, Netherlands, and England were still in the throes of a great deal of Puritanism of religion, and no doubt, Bolts brought to his work, some semblance of high idealism.

All of which probably made him a somewhat prickly colleague -- but also made him, certainly, the first of a legion over ensuing centuries of Corporate whistle blowers. And his history describes the same sad result that has dogged many, since.

In his late teens, he spent time working in Lisbon, in the diamond trade. At the age of 20, in 1759, he was recruited to join the East India Company in Calcutta, where it was his experience with the locally mined gems that appealed to the Company. Their 1757 victory at the battle of Plassey, over the independent, young Nawab of Bengal, certainly established their domination of Bengal, Bihar, and Orissa. The subsequent victory in 1764 at Buxar secured it. And amongst the many local resources over which they took control were the diamond fields of Orissa.

Adept at languages, adding Bengali to his fluency in English, Dutch, German, Portuguese, and French, he may have worked for company employees in their private trades, of which diamonds rapidly became a favoured commodity, small in weight and size, considerable in value, and easily hidden and transported home.

Appointed to the company’s Benares factory, where he developed the saltpetre and gunpowder factory, established an opium works, and “promoted the trade in diamonds” -- there can be little doubt that his integrity must have been one of his virtues for both the company and its employees; and being posted to Benares removed him from the flourishing social life of Calcutta, to which he was probably not well suited.

However, it may well be that integrity became more of a liability to his associates than the personal trust they had in him.

In particular, his familiarity with the custom and practice of trade and dues made him rapidly familiar with the widespread abuse by the company and its employees, and even its associates, of the privileges accorded by the Farrukh Siyar’s agreement of 1717. Based on that agreement the company was able to issue authorisations,

also, to their agents for such customs-free trade within Bengal. It is not hard to imagine how such a privilege could be profitably abused!

The abuse for both private trades, and those of their supplier merchants was widespread, to the great loss of the Mughal exchequer and its local representatives. This was an abuse that was not the least of the causes of quarrel with the company of the headstrong young Nawab Siraj ud Daulah.

Although, unsurprisingly, himself amassing a considerable personal fortune, to which his knowledge of diamonds, we may assume, contributed handsomely.

In 1768, he fell foul of the company by quitting his employment with them and announcing his intention to start a newspaper in Calcutta, which would have been the first such publication in India.

In his announcement, he observed that he had documentary evidence of things, “that most intimately concerned every individual.”

He was instructed to go to Madras, and thence take passage to England.

We cannot, of course, be sure that that was not exactly what he wanted. However, whilst in modern vernacular, he would,

A true and honest man, he may well have been with qualities from which heroes are made, but luck never seemed to have come his way.

perhaps, be described as a “whistle blower,” it seems that he suffered the usual fate of today’s whistle blowers, eventually dying in poverty in 1808 in a Paris poorhouse.

It is hard not to see in Bolts, a highly intelligent, well educated young man, scarcely conforming to the pattern of the company employees of his period.

Probably he was not an easy young man.

At only 30 years of age, he had to suffer his voyage home with those who would regard his “whistle blowing” as something that would have marked him out, within the small confines of a ship heading to England -- as a man to be avoided and treated as a pariah.

The company in India had stripped him of his fortune, as they were easily able to do with fines -- and declared him bankrupt. On his return to London, a company already coming under rather close scrutiny by Edmund Burke for its practices and misdemeanour, was not ready to even attempt to assist in his rehabilitation.

It is not hard to suspect that Burke and his associates would certainly have entertained him for his evidence of wrongdoings in Bengal, but it is clear that there was no longer any future for him in England.

In 1772, he published a work,

“Considerations on Indian Affairs,” in which he attacked the whole system of the company governance in Bengal, and particularly complained of the arbitrary powers exercised by company governors in India, with reference to his own situation.

But there were too many vested interests, even in London, especially as the American colonies flexed their muscles, for anyone to support him. This, as we now know, was ever the lot of whistle blowers!

For the ensuing decade or so, the AustroHungarian Empire supported his initiative to open the burgeoning opportunities in India, and although both the Portuguese and British took every opportunity to obstruct his progress on their behalf, the imperial neutrality in the American war of independence resulted in a clear instruction from the company court in London, to its people in India, to avoid obstructing such a vital asset.

These adventures, too, ended unluckily, and Bolts turned his attention to North America, and the potentially profitable fur trade with China and Japan. That, too, failed, as did an attempt to capitalise on Cook’s adventures in the Pacific and Australia, again on behalf of Austro-

Hungary.

Russia and the Kingdom of Naples were the next to be approached, but then, an approach to the French monarch, the ill fated King Louis XVI, appeared more promising.

Sadly, despite an international reputation for expertise in trade, especially trade with the orient, Bolts' luck seems to have run out early in his life. Even his last venture, a plan made with the King of Sweden to establish a colony in Australia in the late 1780s, was thwarted by Sweden becoming embroiled in a war with Russia.

A true and honest man, he may well have been with the qualities, perhaps, from which heroes are made, but, from his early attempts to reform, what his book described as “as prosperous Bengal” which “had been despoiled and bled white by the East India Company,” to the undoubtedly bitter end -luck never seemed to have come his way.

Today, we may regard many of the practices that “despoiled” Bengal as having been, even more effectively, instituted under the Mughals. However, Bolts was to live long enough to see the British parliament legislate to control many of the malpractices of the company.

No doubt, the 1857 uprising would not have surprised him. However, like most corporate and governmental whistle blowers, he lived out his life with little, apparently, to show for it. Had he ignored what he saw, and revealed, or threatened to reveal, and “joined the party,” he would probably have died with, at least, a grand mansion and estate anywhere in the world to which he cared to retire.

“Sic simper erat, et sic simper erit!” (So it has always been, so it always will be!) l Tim Steel is a communications, marketing and tourism consultant.

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SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 13, 2016

CROSSWORD ACROSS 1 Minute particle (4) 4 Dash (4) 8 By way of (3) 9 Stare openmouthed (4) 10 Bearing (4) 11 Heavenly body (5) 12 Prevalent (4) 14 Wet, soft earth (3) 15 Mineral spring (3) 17 Stain (3) 19 Undermine (3) 21 Poet's Ireland (4) 23 Works hard (5) 26 Agreement (4) 27 Qualified (4) 28 Speed an engine (3) 29 Of various colours (4) 30 Tear (4)

DOWN 1 Nut (6) 2 Above (4) 3 Musical note (5) 4 Self (3) 5 Sources of light (5) 6 Monkey (3) 7 Fish trap (3) 11 Tree (5) 13 Electrical items (5) 16 Lessened (6) 18 Banishment (5) 20 Scottish musician (5) 22 Part of a church (4) 23 Faucet (3) 24 Kimono sash (3) 25 Was ahead (3)

Downtime CODE-CRACKER How to solve: Each number in our CODECRACKER grid represents a different letter of the alphabet. For example, today 2 represents L so fill L every time the figure 2 appears.

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

Some letters of the alphabet may not be used.

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

A B C DE FG H I J K L MN O P Q RST UVWXYZ

CALVIN AND HOBBES

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

PEANUTS

YESTERDAY’S SOLUTIONS CODE-CRACKER

CROSSWORD

DILBERT

SUDOKU

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World 21

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 13, 2016

INSIDE

Major powers agree to partial ceasefire in Syria n DPA, Munich

India: New player in South China Sea politics With the rise of China and its push into the Indian Ocean, India now may be realising the need to align with other key players in the region in molding the evolving security architecture of the Indo-Pacific. Yet as another rising Asian giant India will always walk a thin line with China in as far as its engagement with Asian strategic affairs goes.

PAGE 23

Indian Supreme Court refuses to quash graft case against Gandhis India’s Supreme Court said on Friday that opposition leaders Sonia Gandhi and her son, Rahul, will have to face trial in a case involving the alleged misuse of party funds, but exempted them from appearing in court.

PAGE 23

Major powers fell short of a full ceasefire in Syria, agreeing to a “nationwide cessation of hostilities” on Friday, which is set to begin in a week.

However, the partial truce will not apply to the Dae’sh group or the al-Nusra front militias.

The communique of the plan reached in Munich said the powers had established a ceasefire task force, under the auspices of the UN, co-chaired by Russia and the United States, and including members having government and opposition groups.

US Secretary of State John Kerry, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and UN envoy Staffan de Mistura held nearly six hours of negotiations with German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier and other European and Middle Eastern foreign ministers to reach the agreement.

It foresees the creation of two task forces to separately oversee delivery of humanitarian aid and the cessation of hostilities.

At a news conference, US Secretary of State John Kerry acknowledged the Munich meeting produced commitments on paper only.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told the news conference that Russia would not stop air strikes in Syria since the “cessation of hostilities” does not apply to Dae’sh and al-Nusrah.

The US and European allies have been alleging that few Russian strikes have targeted those groups, with the vast majority hitting Western-backed opposition groups seek-

A divided Syria Kobane

Aleppo Idlib Latakiya

Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton met on a Democratic debate stage in Wisconsin on completely different trajectories. Sanders, two days removed from a dominant win in the New Hampshire primary, has been oozing confidence and raking in donations. Clinton, on the other hand, is presiding over a sprawling but shaken campaign operation searching for a rebound in Nevada or South Carolina.

PAGE 24

Raqa

IRAQ

Deir Ezzor

Hama Homs

LEBANON

Palmyra

Territory controlled: As of February 7, 2016 Dae’sh group Government

DAMASCUS

Rebel forces Hezbollah

Daraa

Kurds

Sources: Institute for the Study of War, SOHR ing to topple the government of President Bashar al-Assad government.

Lavrov said peace talks should resume in Geneva as soon as possible and that all Syrian opposition groups should participate.

He added that halting hostilities would be a difficult task.

But British Foreign Secretary Philip Ham-

50 km

Al-Nusra front

mond said ending fighting could only succeed if Russia stopped air strikes supporting Syrian government forces’ advance against the opposition.

Diplomats cautioned that Russia had until now not demonstrated any interest in seeing Assad replaced and was pushing for a military victory. l

ANALYSIS

A few takeways from Syria ceasefire plan Even if the ceasefire or humanitarian access lasts only one day, it is worth celebrating

Key moments from Thursday’s Democratic debate

Hasakeh

The Syrian war, it is important to remember, primarily matters for the vast and terrible human suffering that it causes. The violence has killed an estimated 470,000 people, or 2% of the population. That number just a year and a half ago was 250,000, meaning about 440 people die every day. Beyond that, Syrians suffer mass displacement, face extreme poverty, disease outbreaks, and hunger. The latest truce is not going to end the world’s worst ongoing war, but just a single day of expanded humanitarian access or of ceasefire thus a welcome reprieve for Syrians. It is not peace and it is not justice, but it’s something.

Best case, maybe this can be a baby step toward peace The idea of a peace deal for Syria still feels so remote and unlikely it is difficult to even imagine; the parties within Syria can’t even talk to one another, much less the regional powers Iran and Saudi Arabia that treat Syria as their proxy war.

KEY POINTS OF THE AGREEMENT Ü Ü

Ü

Ü

To try to immediately step up aid deliveries to besieged and hard-to-reach areas in Syria For a US/Russia-led task force to work to achieve a “cessation of hostilities” across Syria beginning in one week’s time “Cessation of hostilities” will exclude action against the so-called Dae’sh group, jihadist group al-Nusra Front and other UN-designated terrorist groups.

To work towards an eventual ceasefire and implementation of a UN-backed plan for political transition in Syria.

None of that is solved by this ceasefire. At best, this agreement, however briefly it holds up, can serve as some confidence-building measure between the parties. Yes, they will spend its duration bickering, cheating, and accusing one another, before one or all of them tear it up. Still, being able to even negotiate a frail and likely doomed ceasefire is something, and the more

time that the parties spend talking, the more that they can wear down the taboo of meeting and the taboo of compromising.

Do not count on everyone to adhere to the ceasefire Russia is putting its stamp on this ceasefire, along with the US, so Moscow will be under special scrutiny. And there’s real reason to be sceptical it will hold to the terms, not least because it has long lied about its Syria airstrikes, saying they target Dae’sh group when they in fact target anti-Assad rebels. But even if Russia does stick to the ceasefire, Moscow has shown over and over that its leverage over Bashar al-Assad is limited.

There is no guarantee that Assad’s forces will comply with the ceasefire. Even if both Assad and Russia comply, then their control over pro-Assad Shia militias is not complete, either. By the same token, Syria’s anti-Assad rebels may have come together under an umbrella negotiating body, but there are still dozens of rebel groups, some of which could violate the ceasefire. l

Source: Vox

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SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 13, 2016

World

EXPLAINER

India: New player in South China Sea politics India is not geographically located nearby the South China Sea but lately it is increasingly being recognised as an actor in the balance of power in the region. Today, in the final part of the explainer, we focus how India is playing out it’s cards with crucial players over the disputed waters

n Md Toufiqul Islam and Adil Mahmood India’s new posture on maritime security in the Asia–Pacific is perhaps a reflection of India’s willingness to set aside its rigid non-alignment policy when required. With the rise of China and its push into the Indian Ocean, India now may be realising the need to align with other key players in the region in molding the evolving security architecture of the Indo-Pacific. Yet as another rising Asian giant India will always walk a thin line with China in as far as its engagement with Asian strategic affairs goes. Modi’s pragmatic understanding of the challenges and benefits of India’s relationship with China mean that a cautious approach to China will likely continue.

Such caution is evident in New Delhi’s approach to increasing its security profile in the Asia–Pacific and Indian Ocean region. Soon after making some noise on the South China Sea affair, India softened its demeanor. New Delhi refrained from commenting on the dispute when the US flew a surveillance aircraft over China’s artificial islands and the international community joined Washington in condemning Chinese actions in the region.

India is now stepping forward by focusing on building and strengthening bilateral ties with the key regional actors like Asean. New Delhi has realised the need for multilateral engagement to balance the emerging security architecture and is focusing on building such models in the Indo–Pacific.

India’s ‘balancing’

In international relations terms, India is hedging towards China; simultaneously pursuing economic engagement together with military balancing. A further two-level analysis is in play whereby there is some global China-India political cooperation with regard to restraining US uni-polarity and replacing it with a more multi-polar system, and with regard to restructuring some international economic institutions. However, at the regional level security competition between India and China is far more apparent. The South China Sea is an acute example of this regional level friction now being seen between these two Asian giants (Baruah 2015). Indian unease with Chinese assertiveness in the South China is why India has started to raise the South China issue at various regional settings like the India-Asean Delhi Dialogue in 2014 and 2015, the ASEAN Regional Forum in 2014, and the East Asia Summit in 2013 and 2014. Chinese actions in the South China Sea continued to attract Indian criticism in 2015; especially China’s Great Wall of Sand atolls to islands reclamation-militarisation project (Chaudhury 2015a), and China’s rejection of the Philippines taking the South China Sea issue to the UNCLOS tribunal (Valente 2015). India’s balancing partly consists of internal balancing whereby India is building up its own military strength.

This has been most effective in the maritime sphere with the creation of a blue water navy increasingly able to operate at a distance, beyond the Indian Ocean into the South China Sea.

India’s geopolitical interest

Geopolitically, Vietnam serves as a barrier to Chinese domination of the South China Sea, from where Beijing would be able to project power up through the Strait of Malacca into the Indian Ocean. From India’s point of view, Vietnam can put pressure on China’s southern flanks, and give China a twofront challenge. India’s “Vietnam card” against China in the South China Sea serves as some counterpart to China’s “Pakistan Card” against India in the Indian Ocean.

India’s geoeconomic interest

Geoeconomically, India seeks access to oil fields in Vietnamese-controlled waters. The problem has been that some of these exploration plots have been in waters claimed by China. India says it is not taking sides on sovereignty issues in the South Chi-

JIMEX Japan-India Maritime exercises in the Western Pacific (in 2012 and 2014) and in the Bay of Bengal (in 2013 and 2015). Finally, India has embraced closer security links with Australia, including naval exercises in the Bay of Bengal in September 2015.

Indo-Pacific trilaterals

Indian Navy personnel stand on the INS Vikramaditya aircraft carrier, during the International Fleet Review in Visakhapatnam AFP na Sea, but yet its decision to sign deals with Vietnam in disputed waters thereby implicitly support Vietnam’s claimed position against China. India’s energy involvement, via Vietnam, in the South China Sea continues to rankle China (Parashar 2015b).

Bilateral security

India has moved into closer bilateral security links with the US, Japan and Australia. Of particular significance is how the South China Sea was a feature of India-US defence discussions in June 2015, when the Secretary of Defence Ashton Carter visited India and further India-US defence agreements were initialled (Chaudhury 2015b). It is also significant that the US Pacific Command is now openly egging on India to maintain its presence in the South China Sea, “the South China seas are international waters and India should be able to operate freely wherever India wants to operate. If that means the South China Sea, then get in there and do that” (Harris cited in Som 2015). India has also embraced closer security links with Japan, including bilateral

India has been moving into these Indo-Pacific trilaterals. The India-Japan-US (IJUS) trilateral was formally set up in December 2011, and has been “revitalised” (Kapil 2014) in the wake of Chinese assertiveness in the South China Sea. That mechanism already involving India in trilateral exercises with the US and Japanese navies in the Western Pacific (2007, 2009, 2013) and Bay of Bengal (2007, 2015). As part of its wider activism, the Modi administration also complemented its IJUS involvement with the India-Japan-Australia (IJA) trilateral set up at Foreign Secretary level in June 2015. l References Ü Baruah, Darshana. (2015) ‘Asia’s Nightmare: Could India and China Ü Ü

Ü Ü Ü Ü

Clash over the South China Sea?’, National Interest, July 14, 2015.

Chaudhury, Dipanjan. (2015a) ‘Chinese Military Bases in South China Sea Worries India,’ Economic Times (Mumbai), March 26, 2015.

Chaudhury, Dipanjan. (2015b) ‘India, US discuss measures for South China Sea stability amid Chinese aggression’, Economic Times (Mumbai), June 4, 2015.

Parashar, Sachin. (2015b) ‘No oil hunt in South China Sea without nod: Beijing to Delhi’, Times of India, May 31, 2015.

Patil, Kapil. (2014) ‘India-Vietnam Axis: energy and geopolitical imperatives’, NAPSNet Policy Forum, December 8, 2014.

Som, Vishnu. (2015) ‘In South China Sea row, top US Commander roots for India’, NDTV, March 4, 2015.

Valente, Catherine. (2015) ‘India backs PH in China Sea row’, Manila Times, March 11, 2015.

23

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 13, 2016

Indian Supreme Court refuses to quash graft case against Gandhis n Reuters, New Delhi India’s Supreme Court said on Friday that opposition leaders Sonia Gandhi and her son, Rahul, will have to face trial in a case involving the alleged misuse of party funds, but exempted them from appearing in court.

The two members of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty had approached the top court to throw out the case which their Congress party says is a vendetta carried out by a member of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ruling group.

But the court said it saw no justification for interfering in the trial conducted by the lower court. However it granted them leave from attending regular hearings.

The Gandhis deny any wrongdoing.

The Nehru-Gandhi dynasty ruled India for most of its post-independence era after 1947 and helped shape the country’s institutions. Detractors accuse the family of holding back economic development with socialist policies.

The legal case, brought by BJP leader Subramanian Swamy against the Gandhis, has further poisoned ties and there are no signs of compromise, political analysts say.

SOUTH ASIA

Nepal PM to visit India to repair ties

Nepal’s Prime Minister KP Oli will travel to India next week on a visit aimed at repairing fractured relations between the neighbours after the end of months-long border blockade. Demonstrators in Nepal had obstructed a major trade route since September in protest at a new constitution, sparking debilitating shortages of fuel and other vital supplies in the Himalayan nation. The strained ties meant that Oli put off visiting India until the blockade ended last week.

-AFP

INDIA

New Delhi to resume car ban in April

Sonia and Rahul Gandhi “The main prayer for which they (Gandhis) came has been defeated,” Swamy told reporters after the Supreme Court decision.

Congress leader Kapil Sibal said the party welcomed the court’s decision to exempt the Gandhis from appearing in court and would continue to fight Swamy’s “false al-

CREATIVE COMMONS

legations”.

Swamy has accused the Gandhis of cheating and criminal breach of trust by setting up a shell company to illegally gain control of properties worth $300m that belonged to a company that published National Herald, founded by Rahul’s great grandfather. l

EYE OPENER

Einstein’s waves: A 100-year odyssey n AFP, Paris When Albert Einstein forged the bedrock theory of modern physics 100 years ago, he had no computer, no internet, no printer -ballpoint pens and pocket calculators did not exist and few homes had telephones.

Yet it took one of the most sophisticated science tools ever built, at a cost of hundreds of millions of dollars, to prove an idea the scientist had crafted with little more than paper, a fountain pen, hard work and a mind sharper than most.

On Thursday, physicists announced they had detected gravitational waves -- hitherto a key unproven element of Einstein’s general theory of relativity.

The thesis was published 100 years ago this year, when the world was a very different place, inhabited by a man way ahead of his time.

In physics, there were already interferometers, but they bore little resemblance to the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO) credited with spotting Einstein’s waves.

At the time, rudimentary interferometers were used to search for “aether”, a medium theorised, wrongly, to transmit light like air transmits sound.

10bn times “The technology that was available at that time was something like 10bn times less sensitive than what it is today,” Cardiff University gravitational physics professor B Sathyaprakash said.

Even if they had been more powerful, it was unlikely anyone would have thought of

DT

World

New Delhi will restart draconian driving restrictions that will take around a million cars off the roads, to combat air quality in the world’s most polluted capital, the government said Thursday. The Delhi government first introduced the experiment for two weeks in January as dangerous levels of haze choked the city, allowing private cars on the roads only on alternate days. Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said the city’s population overwhelmingly backed the scheme, although there was little evidence that last month’s trial made an obvious difference to air quality.

-AFP

CHINA

China urges UN action to make N Korea pay price

China will back a UN Security Council resolution to make North Korea “pay the necessary price” for recent rocket launches, its foreign minister said on Friday, adding the goal was to get Pyongyang back to the negotiating table.

Wang Yi also said he was concerned by a possible US deployment of its sophisticated THAAD (Terminal High Altitude Area Defense) missile defence system to South Korea, saying it could also be used to target China.

-REUTERS

ASIA PACIFIC

Thai pro-democracy Red Shirts to reject army charter

The collision of two black holes holes - a tremendously powerful event detected for the first time ever by the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory, or LIGO - is seen in this still image from a computer simulation released in Washington, DC on Thursday REUTERS using them to detect gravitational waves.

“It was only about 50 years after Einstein first proposed (his theory) that we had some understanding of what gravitational waves were,” said Sathyaprakash.

Einstein’s genius, experts say, was probably unrelated to the time he lived in or the technology at hand.

No computer strong enough Added Sathyaprakash: “Computers are good at crunching numbers, they are not very good at analytical calculations... imagining things in a way that nobody else could do... “(Einstein) did what are called ‘thought

experiments’. He was very good at doing it.

He would think about a situation, and then try to see what the consequence of that will be if the theory goes in one particular direction... or another.”

Just 20 years ago, said Sathyaprakash, there was no computer powerful enough to solve the equations that emerged from Einstein’s musings.

“Not everything can be solved with a computer,” said Sathyaprakash.

“He had to do analytical calculations with pencil and paper, and those things took a long time.” l

Thailand’s pro-democracy “Red Shirt” movement will vote against a new junta-scripted charter in a looming referendum, their leader said Thursday, a move that could deepen the country’s political impasse. The political play comes a day after the military, which seized power two years ago from a civilian government, said it will hold a plebiscite on their proposed charter in July. The Red Shirts support toppled premiers Yingluck Shinawatra and her brother -- the self-exiled billionaire Thaksin.

-AFP

MIDDLE EAST

Syria opposition says rebels must decide on ceasefire

A key Syrian opposition body said Friday that a proposed pause in fighting in the country would have to be examined and decided upon by rebel forces on the ground.

“The project of a temporary truce to halt hostilities will be examined with the rebel factions on the ground,” said George Sabra, a leading member of the High Negotiations Committee. The HNC is an umbrella group of opposition bodies and figures formed in Riyadh to negotiate at peace talks in Geneva that collapsed earlier this month.

-AFP

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World

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 13, 2016

USA

US DoD promises plan to defeat Dae’sh

The US Department of Defence will soon submit a plan to Congress on how to defeat Dae’sh, a defence official said on Thursday, four days before a deadline. The National Defence Authorisation Act, a defense policy bill President Barack Obama signed into law in November, required the administration to submit its strategy for defeating the militant group to lawmakers by February 15. Republican congressional leaders said on Thursday they had had no indication that the report was imminent despite the short time remaining before the deadline.

-REUTERS

THE AMERICAS

Venezuela president: 3 dead after contracting Zika

Three people have died in Venezuela from complications linked to Zika, President Nicolas Maduro said Thursday, the first fatalities reported in the country in connection with the virus. Speaking on national television, Maduro said there were 319 confirmed cases of the virus in the South American country.

-AFP

UK

EU refines UK Brexit offer British and EU negotiators agreed much of a reform package on Thursday to help keep Britain in the European Union, leaving Prime Minister David Cameron to settle tricky final issues, notably on migration, at a summit next week, diplomats said. The main outstanding issues were over how long Britain would be able to stretch EU rules by denying equal social benefits to workers from other EU states - an “emergency brake” intended to help Cameron cut immigration - and the wording of pledges to enshrine reforms on euro zone rules and national sovereignty in future treaty amendments.

-REUTERS

EUROPE

EU gives Greece 3 months to strengthen border

EU member states on Friday gave Greece a three-month ultimatum to remedy “deficiencies” in controlling the influx of migrants or effectively face suspension from the Schengen passport-free zone. The decision -- taken by ministers over Greek objections -- culminates weeks of pressure on Greece, the main gateway for the million refugees and migrants who entered Europe last year. A report found Greece was failing to properly register and fingerprint migrants during inspections last November.

-AFP

AFRICA

S Africa defends itself over Bashir immunity row

The South African government argued in court Friday that it was not obliged to arrest Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir during his visit to the country last June because he had immunity. Bashir is wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for alleged war crimes related to the conflict in the Darfur region of Sudan, and South Africa is a member of the Hague-based institution. The government is seeking leave to appeal against an earlier court judgement that it was legally bound to arrest Bashir, who was in the country for a summit of the African Union.

-AFP

Key moments from Thursday’s Democratic debate Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton met on a Democratic debate stage in Wisconsin on completely different trajectories. Sanders, two days removed from a dominant win in the New Hampshire primary, has been oozing confidence and raking in donations. Clinton, on the other hand, is presiding over a sprawling but shaken campaign operation searching for a rebound in Nevada or South Carolina.

Here are the most significant moments from tonight’s debate--

Sanders swings first

When Clinton began describing what she would do as president, particularly on the size of federal government, Sanders moved quickly to interrupt her attempt to present herself as an incumbent.

“Secretary Clinton, you’re not in the White House yet,” he said sharply. It was only the beginning of Sanders’ more aggressive approach in this forum while Clinton aimed over and again to show little ideological distance between herself and her rival.

Children crossing the border

One of the sharpest exchanges of the debate came amid a discussion about the thousands of central American children that poured over the border in 2014. The issue led to a fierce debate about whether the children should be returned home or allowed to remain in the US. “I thought it was a good idea to allow those children to stay in this country. That was not, I understand, the secretary’s position,” Sanders said. Clinton said she fought to ensure children who arrived here were “processed appropriately” but she wanted to “send a message to families and communities” not to send their children on dangerous journeys to America. “I don’t know to whom you’re sending a mes-

Democratic US presidential candidate Senator Bernie Sanders speaks as former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton listens at the PBS NewsHour Democratic presidential candidates debate in Milwaukee, Wisconsin on Thursday REUTERS sage. Who are you sending a message to?”

Sanders shot back. “These are children who are leaving countries and neighborhoods.”

Sanders breaks with Ted Kennedy on immigration

In the protracted debate on immigration, Clinton dinged Sanders for opposing Ted Kennedy’s comprehensive immigration reform bill. Sanders heaped praise on Kennedy but said he broke with his ally because it enshrined guest worker programmes that Latino advocacy groups said were “akin to slavery.” “I don’t apologise for that vote,” he said.

Kissinger makes a debate cameo

Testing new and more detailed critiques on Clinton’s foreign policy credentials, Sand-

ers delivered a scalding rejection of Henry Kissinger, the secretary of state who helped craft Richard Nixon’s approach to Asia, and someone who Clinton has bragged about taking advice from. “I happen to believe that Henry Kissinger was one of the most destructive secretaries of state in the modern history of this country,” Sanders said.

“I am proud to say that Henry Kissinger is not my friend. I will not take advice from Kissinger.” Clinton noted ongoing questions about from who, exactly, Sanders does receive advice on foreign affairs. “Well I know journalists have asked who you do listen to on foreign policy, and we have yet to know who that is,” she said. l

Source: POLITICO

Drug cartel battle kills 49 in Mexican prison n Reuters, Monterrey A battle between the feared Zetas drug cartel and rivals at a prison left 49 people dead in the northeastern Mexican city of Monterrey, authorities said on Thursday, days ahead of a planned visit by Pope Francis to another jail in Mexico’s far north.

The incident was one of the worst in a series of deadly riots in recent years to rock the country’s overpopulated prisons, some of which are largely controlled by cartels.

Fighting broke out before midnight in two areas of the Topo Chico prison between supporters of a gang leader known as “Zeta 27” and another group, with prisoners using bottles and blades, Nuevo Leon state Governor Jaime Rodriguez said.

A 2014 human rights report faulted Topo Chico for not preventing violent incidents. The prison has long housed members of the Zetas, known for extreme violence. One Zetas leader was stabbed to

death there in September.

Authorities revised down their initial death toll from 52, out of a total of about 3,500 prisoners.

One victim died from gunfire, while the rest were killed from a combination of knives and other objects like bottles and chairs. Flames licked the night sky after inmates set light to food storage areas.

Milenio TV reported that inmates’ relatives who had been within the prison’s premises for conjugal visits had seen inmates with burns. Twelve people were injured, five seriously, the state government said.

40 victims had been identified so far.

The names of Zeta 27 and a rival known as El Credo were not among a list of 20 names released by state government.

According to the prison authorities, the fighting had been brought under control at about 1:30am (local time) on Thursday and ruled out a prison break, adding no women or children were hurt. Worried family mem-

bers at one point forced open the prison gates and threw timber and stones at riot police inside, television images showed.

Authorities are transfering inmates out of the prison to bring down the population, with 60 people set to be moved on Thursday.

Pope Francis is set to begin his first visit to Mexico as pontiff on Friday. Next week, he will visit a prison in border city Ciudad Juarez, once one of the world’s most violent cities.

Both Monterrey and Ciudad Juarez are more peaceful than at the peak of the war between rival cartels for control of routes to nearby Texas.

For much of the last decade, the Zetas spread terror across Mexico before being debilitated by arrests and deaths of their founding members. In 2012, at least 44 inmates died in another Nuevo Leon prison when members of the Zetas plotted with prison guards to stage an elaborate escape. l

DT

Sport 25

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 13, 2016

INSIDE

12TH SOUTH ASIAN GAMES

DAY 7 Shakib Jamaica’s for $110,000

Sovon bags two silvers in 10m air-rifle n Tribune Report

Mohammad Sovon Chowdhury bagged two silver medals in the men’s 10m air-rifle category in both the individual and team events of the 12th South Asian Games in Guwahati, India yesterday.

Sovon scored a total of 203.6 points to finish second, only a point behind gold winner Singh Chain of India while another Indian Narang Gagan claimed bronze. Abdullah Hel Baki was below average yet again, finishing fifth.

Bangladesh team comprising Baki, Sovon and Anjan Kumar Singha attained silver in the men’s 10m air-rifle category, scoring a total of 1845.8 points. India took home gold while Sri Lanka clinched bronze.

Meanwhile, Bangladesh football team will take on India in the last four of the Games today. Bangladesh are the reigning champions from the previous Games six years ago and Spanish coach Gonzalo Sanchez Moreno has taken up the challenge of repeating that performance this time around.

Bangladesh women’s football team will also lock horns with India, albeit under different circumstances, today. If the women in red and green earn at least a point against the hosts then they will fight against Nepal for the gold. l

Bangladesh all-rounder Shakib al Hasan was roped in by Jamaica Tallawahs for $110,000 as the player draft of the upcoming Caribbean Premier League Twenty20 took place in Barbados last Thursday.

Among seven Tigers cricketers in the auction, the left-arm all-rounder is the only Bangladeshi who was picked up. PAGE 26

BCCI bans Pakistani umpire Rauf for bribery India’s cricket board handed Pakistan’s former Test umpire Asad Rauf a fiveyear ban yesterday after a tribunal found him guilty of taking backhanders from bookmakers while officiating in the IPL. Rauf disappeared in the middle of the 2013 edition of the cash-rich Indian Premier League. PAGE 27

MEDAL TALLY COUNTRY

Umpiring drama works in Australia’s favour The Australia-NZ cricket series faced a fresh umpiring drama on the opening day of the first Test in Wellington yesterday with Australian batsman Adam Voges given a reprieve after being bowled. NZ were swiftly dismissed for 183 and Australia were well on top at 147-3. PAGE 28

Dybala, Higuain duel to light up Juve-Napoli clash They both hold dual nationality but Gonzalo Higuain and Paulo Dybala can expect thousands of fellow Argentinians to be glued to their sets today when Juventus host Napoli in a top-of-the-table clash in Italy’s Serie A. With 24 goals in as many league games Higuain is blazing a record-setting trail. PAGE 29

Bangladesh shooter Mohammad Sovon Chowdhury (R), who bagged two silver medals in the 12th SA Games’ 10m air-rifle event yesterday, poses alongside his Indian counterparts Singh Chain (C) and Narang Gagan in Guwahati, India AP

TOTAL

INDIA

146

79

23

248

SRI LANKA

25

53

79

157

PAKISTAN

7

23

43

73

BANGLADESH

4

12

41

57

NEPAL

1

12

20

33

AFGHANISTAN

1

3

11

15

MALDIVES

0

2

1

3

BHUTAN

0

1

4

5

Tiger cubs look to end on a high n Mazhar Uddin Following their heartbreaking semi-final loss against the West Indies, Bangladesh will be looking to end the Under-19 World Cup on a winning note when they face Sri Lanka in the third place playoff at Fatullah’s Khan Shaheb Osman Ali Stadium today.

Mehedi Hasan and his troop displayed some brilliant cricket to reach the last four of the age-level tournament for the first time in history but the high-flying Windies youngsters brought the junior Tigers right back down to earth with a thrilling three-wicket win last Thursday.

With that said, the junior Tigers have the golden opportunity to register Bangladesh’s best ever performance in the U-19 World Cup when they take on the Lankan youngsters, who lost to India in the first semi-final.

Bangladesh’s previous best finish came in the 2006 edition in Sri Lanka when Mushfiqur Rahim’s side ended fifth. The side also comprised Shakib al Hasan, Shamsur Rahman and Suhrawardi Shuvo among others and Mehedi and his team mates will be ea-

Today’s Matches 3rd Place Playoff, 9:00AM

Bangladesh v Sri Lanka, Fatullah LIVE* *On Star Sports 1 & HD1

ger to surpass their heroes.

Bangladesh U-19 coach Mizanur Rahman and the team think-tank have persisted with the opening combination of Pinak Ghosh and Saif Hasan throughout the tournament but the partnership has performed with mixed results. The team management therefore, might tinker with a new opening wicket pair today.

Among other changes, off-spinner Saeed Sarkar proved to be expensive against the Windies so it will be no surprise if he finds himself out of the playing XI. The Lankans, on the other hand, were totally outplayed by India in the other semi and will no doubt be desperate to finish off their campaign with a win. Lankan captain Charith Asalanka will once again be expected to play a vital role with both bat and ball, along with opening batsman Avishka Fernando and paceman Asitha Fernando. l

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Sport

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 13, 2016

Zamal, Sohel outshine Siddikur n Tribune Report Local golfers Zamal Hossain Molla and Shakhawat Sohel continued their surge in the 2nd Bashundhara Bangladesh Open while golf sensation Siddikur Rahman’s fortunes refused to improve in the penultimate round of the $300,000 event yesterday.

Overnight leader Thitiphun Chuayprakong maintained his stay at the summit, leading by three shots with the final round to be played today. The Thai golfer carded sixunder-par 65 at Kurmitola Golf Club in the capital yesterday.

Siddikur, meanwhile, continued to slide down the leaderboard while his compatriots – Zamal, Sohel and Abdul Matin – carried on their calm and consistent displays.

Zamal was the top performer among the Bangladeshi golfers yesterday, carding threeunder-par 68 to be placed jointly at 7th, along with Sohel, who played 69. A resolute Zamal traded four birdies for a single bogey while Sohel hit seven birdies against five bogeys.

Matin’s one-under-par 70 saw him slip to joint 11th place.

After 69 and 71 in the first two rounds,

Siddikur struck two-over-par 73 to move down to 47th place from his previous round position of 27th and is now 16 shots behind the Thai leader. The Bangladesh golf ace experienced the ignominy of smashing three bogeys in his first four holes and was unable to improve as the day wore on, blasting two more bogeys and only three birdies.

Meanwhile, Sutijet Kooratanapisan of Thailand matched Thitiphun’s efforts yesterday, sharing second place on 199 while India’s Gaganjeet Bhullar settled one shot back in fourth following a 66.

Japan’s Shunya Takeyasu signed off the third round with a 68 to take fifth place on 203 while young Thai Phachara Khongwatmai stayed eight shots behind in sixth after a 67.

Thitiphun, chasing his maiden win in the region’s premier Tour, expressed his delight with his splendid run so far this week but knows he has to keep himself grounded and not get ahead of himself.

“I stayed focused out there. I felt very confident. I was a little bit excited when I started out but I played with no pressure. I had fun out there. I just want to keep playing the same [today]. I will stick to my own game-plan,” said Thitiphun, whose highlight of the day came on par-five seven where he sank a 10-footer eagle putt from the fringe of the greens. l

Bangladesh golfers Zamal Hossain Molla (R) gestures while Shakhawat Sohel tees off the third round’s play in the 2nd Bashundhara Bangladesh Open in Dhaka yesterday COURTESY

Afghan youngsters lift Plate title n Tribune Report CPL T20

Shakib Jamaica’s for $110,000

Afghanistan clinched the Plate championship of the Under-19 World Cup when they defeated Zimbabwe by five wickets in the final at Sheikh Kamal International Cricket Stadium in Cox’s Bazar yesterday.

The Afghan youngsters coasted to their target of 217 with 19 deliveries remaining, cour-

tesy an unbeaten 142-ball 106 from top-order batsman Tariq. Together with Rashid Khan, Tariq added 95 unbroken runs for the sixth wicket to guide their side to victory.

Earlier, Zimbabwe posted 216/9 from their 50 overs, riding on half-centuries from William Mashinge (66) and Ryan Murray (53).

Zia-ur-Rehman (3/33) and Muslim Musa (3/38) and the rest of the Afghanistan bowl-

ing attack kept things tight throughout the innings as Zimbabwe failed to put up a challenging total.

Meanwhile in the other matches of the day, Pakistan secured fifth spot after defeating England by seven wickets in Fatullah while South Africa finished at 11th position following their 138-run win over New Zealand in Cox’s Bazar. l

n Tribune Report Bangladesh all-rounder Shakib al Hasan was roped in by Jamaica Tallawahs for $110,000 as the player draft of the upcoming Caribbean Premier League Twenty20 took place in Barbados last Thursday.

Among seven Tigers cricketers – Tamim Iqbal, Imrul Kayes, Mahmudullah, Mushfiqur Rahim, Mustafizur Rahman, Soumya Sarkar and Shakib - in the auction, the leftarm all-rounder is the only Bangladeshi who was picked up by a franchise.

Jamaica’s Shakib will play alongside West Indies opening batsman Chris Gayle, Sri Lankan legend Kumar Sangakkara, Windies all-rounder Andre Russell and Lankan paceman Lasith Malinga. Shakib is the third-highest paid player in the side after Gayle and Sangakkara, who were recruited for $160,000 and $130,000 respectively. The fourth edition of the colourful T20 event is expected to kick off in July this year. l

BRIEF SCORES Plate final, Cox’s Bazar

Afghanistan U-19 218/5 (Tariq 106*, Rashid 55*, Ives 2/36) beat Zimbabwe U-19 216 (Mashinge 66, Murray 53, Zia 3/33) by five wickets

5th Place Playoff, Fatullah

Pakistan U-19 265/3 (Zeeshan 93, Saif 75*, Hasan 39*) beat England U-19 264/7 (Curran 83, Moores 47, Ali 2/37) by seven wickets

11th Place Playoff, Cox’s Bazar

Afghanistan Under-19 cricket team pose for a photo following their win over Zimbabwe in the Plate final of the U-19 World Cup in Cox’s Bazar yesterday INTERNET

South Africa U-19 288/6 (Foxcroft 117, Moonsamy 51, Makwetu 50*) beat New Zealand U-19 150 (Allen 40, Ravindra 39, Mulder 4/14) by 138 runs

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QUICK BYTES Benzema admits to lying over sex tape Real Madrid striker Karim Benzema has admitted to lying to fellow France international Mathieu Valbuena over a sex video at the centre of an alleged blackmailing attempt, Le Parisien reported yesterday. The French daily quoted extracts from Benzema’s hearing with a judge on Jan 28 in which the player reportedly said he did not watch Valbuena’s sex tape after telling the Olympique Lyonnais forward that he did.

–REUTERS

PSG forward Lavezzi close to China move Paris Saint-Germain forward Ezequiel Lavezzi looks set to become the latest footballer to swap Europe for China after the French champions said talks with Hebei China Fortune were progressing. “The talks are going very well, but nothing will be finalised for a few days,” said PSG, while French media reported the Argentine’s departure to Hebei, where he could earn an annual salary of 13 million euros ($14.7 million).

–AFP

Payet signs new contract with West Ham West Ham’s highly-rated midfielder Dimitri Payet has signed a new long-term contract, the Premier League club confirmed on Thursday.

France international Payet was only seven months into a five-year deal with Slaven Bilic’s side following his move from Marseille last year.

–AFP

Robinho agrees two-year deal with Atletico Mineiro Former Manchester City and Real Madrid striker Robinho has signed for Brazilian club Atletico Mineiro, the club confirmed on Thursday. “Robinho is Atletico’s new signing,” the Belo Horizonte team said in a short statement.

“Robinho will sign for two seasons.”

–REUTERS

Sevilla reach King’s Cup final against Barcelona Sevilla set up a King’s Cup showpiece clash against Barcelona with a 6-2 aggregate semi-final victory over Celta Vigo after a 2-2 second-leg draw on Thursday. Sevilla conceded for the first time in this season’s competition in the 35th minute when Celta Vigo’s Iago Aspas met Fabian Orellana’s left-wing cross at the far post and tapped past Sergio Rico.

–REUTERS

Sunderland sack Johnson Sunderland sacked Adam Johnson on Thursday after the former England winger pleaded guilty to one count of sexual activity with a 15-year-old girl and one count of grooming.

Johnson, 28, is due to stand trial in Bradford, northern England yesterday on two counts of sexual activity with a child, which he denies.

“In light of Adam Johnson’s guilty pleas, the club has today terminated his contract with immediate effect. The club will make no further comment,” a statement confirmed.

–AFP

Rafael Nadal of Spain returns the ball to Juan Monaco of Argentina in the ATP Argentina Open in Buenos Aires, Argentina on Thursday. Defending champion Nadal won the match 6-4 6-4 AFP

Sammy calls for mediation in T20 row n Reuters, Kingston West Indies captain Darren Sammy has called for mediation to settle a contractual dispute that threatens to wreck the team’s chances of winning next month’s World Twenty20.

With the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) standing firm in its stance that players must sign the offered contract by tomorrow or be replaced, Sammy’s position could open the door to a resolution. It is the clearest indication yet that Sammy’s 15-man squad does not want to boycott the World Twenty20, which starts in India on March 8.

“As captain of the (Twenty20) team, I wish

that we can settle this matter and focus on preparations for the tournament,” Sammy wrote in a letter to WICB chief executive Michael Muirhead.

“I want to state on behalf of the players that we want to play and will represent the West Indies to the best of our abilities.”

Sammy said mediation was the best way to settle the matter, if the board would not “consider our request to double the match fees (of $6,900), share 50 percent of sponsorship fees and award 100 percent of prize money to players.”

This came after Muirhead confirmed to Reuters that the WICB selection panel,

BCCI bans Pakistani umpire Rauf for bribery n AFP, New Delhi India’s cricket board handed Pakistan’s former Test umpire Asad Rauf a five-year ban yesterday after a tribunal found him guilty of taking backhanders from bookmakers while officiating in the IPL. Rauf disappeared in the middle of the 2013 edition of the Indian Premier League after press allegations that he had accepted designer watches and other gifts in exchange for favourable decisions.

The 59-year-old was subsequently struck off the International Cricket Council’s elite panel of umpires and has not officiated outside his native Pakistan since then.

In a statement announcing its verdict, the Board of Control for Cricket in India said Rauf was “guilty of misconduct and corruption” within the terms of the board’s anti-corruption code. The allegations against Rauf came during the sixth edition of India’s hugely popular annual Twenty20 tournament which was dogged by several fixing scandals.

Officials in two of the IPL’s eight franchises were subsequently banned for betting on matches involving their own teams while the former Test player Shanthakumaran Sreesanth was sacked for deliberately bowling badly in exchange for thousands of dollars.

Rauf officiated in 49 Tests, 98 ODIs and 23 Twenty20 internationals. l

chaired by Clive Lloyd, was mandated to select a new team if the current squad, which includes Chris Gayle and Dwayne Bravo, did not sign by tomorrow’s deadline.

Sammy, who referenced the fiasco of the abandoned Indian tour in 2014 after a similar row over contracts, said it was the “arrogance and high-handedness of the board” which had caused the problems.

“You cannot continue (to) force players to be represented by a body that they are not members of and do not want to represent them,” he said, adding that 14 of the 15 players in the squad were not members of the West Indies Players Association. l

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Fresh umpiring drama works in Australia’s favour

SCORECARD NEW ZEALAND M. Guptill c Smith b Hazlewood T. Latham c Nevill b Hazlewood K. Williamson c Nevill b Siddle H. Nicholls c Nevill b Siddle B. McCullum c Warner by Hazlewood C. Anderson c Khawaja by Lyon B. Watling c Nevill b Hazlewood D. Bracewell c Voges b Siddle M. Craig not out T. Southee c Hazlewood b Lyon T. Boult c Khawaja b Lyon Extras (b4, lb1, nb5)

R 18 6 16 8 0 38 17 5 41 0 24 10

Total (10 wickets; 48 overs)

183

B 18 6 18 13 7 87 51 11 57 3 22

n AFP, Wellington

Fall of wickets 1-17 (Latham), 2-38 (Guptill), 3-44 (Williamson), 4-47 (McCullum), 5-51 (Nicholls), 6-88 (Watling), 7-97 (Bracewell), 8-137 (Anderson), 9-137 (Southee), 10-183 (Boult)

Bowling Hazlewood 14-2-42-4, Bird 10-1-52-0 (nb3), Siddle 12-5-37-3 (nb2), Marsh 6-1-15-0, Lyon 6-0-32-3

AUSTRALIA J. Burns c Watling b Southee D. Warner c Watling by Southee U. Khawaja not out S. Smith c&b Craig A. Voges not out Extras (b4, w1, nb2)

R 0 5 57 71 7 7

Total (3 wickets; 40 overs)

147

B 7 7 96 112 23

Fall of wickets 1-0 (Burns), 2-5 (Warner), 3-131 (Smith)

Bowling Southee 8-1-22-2, Boult 10-2-36-0. Bracewell 11-1-45-0 (nb2), Anderson 2-0-9-0 (w1), Craig 9-1-31-1

Brendon McCullum was handed a commemorative cap for his 100th Test by New Zealand Cricket president Stephen Booch (C) in Wellington yesterday CRICINFO

Aussies in control in first Test n AFP, Wellington

It was supposed to be Brendon McCullum’s day but it was opposing captain Steve Smith who made the right moves as Australia ended day one of the first Test against New Zealand comfortably in control in Wellington yesterday.

Smith called correctly at the toss, made New Zealand bat on a green wicket and within two sessions the innings was over for 183.

Australia at stumps were 147-3, 36 behind New Zealand, with Smith making 71. Usman Khawaja was not out 57 with Adam Voges on seven.

Voges was bowled by Doug Bracewell in the final over of the day only for umpire Rich-

ard Illingworth to call it a no-ball. Replays indicated it was a legitimate delivery.

When New Zealand batted, Josh Hazlewood and Peter Siddle did the damage for Smith as they ripped through the top order in conditions ripe for seam and swing.

Their cause was helped by some injudicious shot selection, including by McCullum, who saw his 100th Test celebrations fall flat when he was out for a duck.

He did not get forward far enough to a Hazlewood special that came back, took an inside edge and deflected off the pads to David Warner at third slip.

After McCullum had received a rousing ovation when he walked to the middle, there was silence when he walked off after facing

seven deliveries.

That the New Zealand innings lasted 48 overs was thanks to lusty tail-end hitting with the last three wickets contributing 86 after Hazlewood and Siddle had reduced the side to 97-7.

All seven dismissals came from edges to the cordon behind the wicket with wicketkeeper Peter Nevill snaring four catches including a superb one-handed diving effort to remove Kane Williamson down the leg-side.

New Zealand were reeling at 51 for five in the 12th over before a determined knock by Corey Anderson, who with BJ Watling went about stopping the tumble of wickets.

Anderson then featured in a 10-over stand with Mark Craig that produced 40 runs and Craig, who had a Mitchell Marsh delivery hit his stumps but not dislodge the bails, put on 46 with Trent Boult for the 10th wicket.

Craig was unbeaten on 41 at the end with Boult out for 24.

New Zealand had a glimmer of hope that their cause was not lost at the start of the Australian innings when Tim Southee snapped up two early wickets.

Joe Burns went in the first over without scoring and David Warner followed soon after for five.

But Smith and Usman Khawaja then took control and proved the pitch was playable as they put on 126 for the third wicket.

Smith offered a chance on 18 but was dropped by Craig at second slip. Craig, however, made no mistake with the second offering from the Australian captain taking a return catch off his own bowling.l

The Australia-New Zealand cricket series faced a fresh umpiring drama on the opening day of the first Test in Wellington yesterday with Australian batsman Adam Voges given a reprieve after being bowled.

After New Zealand were swiftly dismissed for 183 Australia were well on top at 147-3 at stumps but could just as easily have been four down.

Voges was bowled in the last over of the day by Doug Bracewell, only for umpire Richard Illingworth to signal a no ball.

Television replays, however, confirmed it was a legitimate delivery.

Australian bowler Josh Hazlewood, the tourists’ chief destroyer with four for 42, said the incident brought back memories of the dismissal of Mitchell Marsh in a oneday match a week ago. Marsh was given not out on a caught and bowled appeal only for the decision to be overturned after a huge crowd uproar when a replay on the big screen showed the ball had not hit the ground as first thought.

“We were just hoping it did not come up on the big screen too quickly,” Hazlewood said, with the Australians aware a mistake had been made with the Voges decision.

“The umpires made the decision and we can just go off that. That’s what they’re there for, to make those tough decisions and that’s how it went.”

New Zealand were disappointed but Mark Craig said there was nothing they could do about the ruling.

“That’s cricket. Once his (the umpire’s) arm goes out there’s not much you can do about it. That’s the way it goes,” he said.

“There’s obviously a bit of disappointment but we can’t do much about it.”

Craig top scored for New Zealand with an unbeaten 41 in an innings that only lasted 48 overs and folded within two sessions.

Craig had previously dropped Smith on 18.

Australia resume today with Usman Khawaja on 57 and Voges on seven. l

Adam Voges of Australia is bowled but it was called a no-ball during their first Test against New Zealand at the Basin Reserve in Wellington yesterday AFP

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DAY’S WATCH FOOTBALL STAR SPORTS 4 English Premier League 6:35PM Sunderland v Manchester United 8:30PM Crystal Palace v Watford 11:20PM Chelsea v Newcastle United

STAR SPORTS 1 8:15PM German Bundesliga Borussia Dortmund v Hannover 96

STAR SPORTS 2 11:30PM German Bundesliga FC Koln v Eintracht Frankfurt

TEN SPORTS 2:30PM A-League 2015/16 Melbourne City FC v Melbourne Victory

TEN ACTION I-League 2016 2:30PM Aizawl FC v Shillong Lajong FC 7:35PM Bengaluru FC vs Mohun Bagan French Ligue 1 2015/16 9:50PM Paris Saint-Germain v Losc Lille 12:50AM FC Nantes v FC Lorient Bretagne Sud

TEN CRICKET Sky Bet Championship 6:30PM QPR v Fulham 9:00PM Bristol City v Ipswich Town

SONY SIX 1:40AM Italian Serie A: Juventus v Napoli

SONY ESPN Spanish La Liga 9:00PM Real Madrid v Athletic Bilbao 11:30PM Villarreal v Malaga 1:30AM Barcelona v Celta Vigo

CRICKET STAR SPORTS 1 9:00AM ICC U19 World Cup 2016 3rd Place: Bangladesh v Sri Lanka

GAZI TV Pakistan Cricket League 5:30PM Karachi Kings v Quetta Gladiators 10:00PM Lahore Qalandars v Peshawar Zalmi

STAR SPORTS 2 10:00AM Ranji Trophy 2015/16 SF Day 1: Saurashtra v Assam

SONY SIX 9:30PM Masters Champions League: Final

Dybala, Higuain duel to light up Juventus-Napoli clash n AFP, Milan They both hold dual nationality but Gonzalo Higuain and Paulo Dybala can expect thousands of fellow Argentinians to be glued to their sets today when Juventus host Napoli in a top-of-the-table clash in Italy’s Serie A. With 24 goals in as many league games Higuain is blazing a record-setting trail towards Serie A’s “Capocannoniere” (top scorer) award as Napoli target a first league title in 26 years. Dybala may be 11 goals off the pace, but the 22-year-old’s 13 strikes for the four-time defending champions have been key for Juve on their way to closing the gap

SERIE A FIXTURES Empoli v Frosinone Chievo v Sassuolo Juventus v Napoli to just two points.

Defeat today is to be avoided at all costs, with Juventus goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon suggesting: “A draw would not be an unwelcome result.”

Just how much Higuain and Dybala’s influence is felt remains to be seen.

The pace, movement and occasional goalscoring of Colombian winger Juan Cuadrado offers Juve similar attacking options

Rooney, Martial set sights on fragile Sunderland n AFP, Sunderland Manchester United will face the worst defence in the Premier League today, which should have their strike-force of Wayne Rooney and Anthony Martial licking their lips in anticipation.

Sunderland have conceded 49 goals so far this season - the main reason why Sam Allardyce’s side find themselves in relegation trouble inside the bottom three.

Their record at the Stadium of Light is not as troubling, with only 13 goals conceded on home turf to date.

But the Black Cats are evidently vulnerable and Rooney and Martial will be looking to add to their goal tallies as United bid to keep their prospects of Champions League qualification alive.

They go into the weekend six points off the top four under Louis van Gaal, whose position remains under intense scrutiny following reports of an approach for Jose Mourinho to replace the Dutchman as manager at Old Trafford.

EPL FIXTURES Bournemouth Chelsea Crystal Palace Everton Norwich Sunderland Swansea

v v v v v v v

Stoke Newcastle Watford West Brom West Ham Manchester United Southampton

Rooney, who scored one of the goals in United’s comfortable 3-0 home win over Sunderland in September, has netted seven times in his last eight games.

Meanwhile, champions Chelsea will aim to continue their laborious climb up the Premier League table with a victory at home to Newcastle United today. Guus Hiddink’s side are unbeaten in nine league games, but six of those have been draws. They come into the weekend in 13th place and cannot move into the top 10 until the following week at the earliest. l

outside of the players club coach Massimiliano Allegri likes to deem as his strikers.

At Napoli, attacking midfielder Lorenzo Insigne’s contribution - he has scored 10 league goals and provided a league-leading 10 assists - this season has led to calls for the Azzurri to “unretire” Diego Maradona’s number 10 shirt.

Indeed Dybala is a far more similar player to Insigne, whose vision, passing, movement and goalscoring in and around the area has lured Italy coach Antonio Conte to Juventus Stadium this weekend. Yet when it comes to scoring, an Argentinian showdown would lend a fairytale ending to the most hotlyanticipated fixture. l

Under-fire Neville faces must-win Espanyol clash n AFP, Madrid Valencia coach Gary Neville has pleaded with the club’s disgruntled fans to turn up and support his struggling side when they face Espanyol at the Mestalla today.

Valencia have not won in the league since November and there are growing fears they could be dragged into a relegation battle.

Neville has failed to win in nine La Liga games since taking charge in December, form that has seen his Valencia side plummet from five points off the top four to just four points above the relegation zone.

At the other end of the table, Zinedine Zidane faces his toughest test since becoming Real Madrid coach as Athletic Bilbao visit the Santiago Bernabeu today. l

LA LIGA FIXTURES Real Madrid Villarreal Valencia Deportivo la Coruna

v v v v

Athletic Bilbao Malaga Espanyol Real Betis

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SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 13, 2016

Showtime

Radio talk with RJ Sharmeen n Promiti Prova Chowdhury Gazi Sharmeen Ahmed, popularly known as RJ Sharmeen, has been a prominent name in the FM radio stations in Bangladesh.

Aired on ABC Radio 89.2FM, her two shows Premrog and Kuasha, has been extremely popular among radio listeners for quite a while. The hype even elevated after the launch of two books on the respective shows, with the titles “Premrog” and “Kuasha 2.”

RJ Sharmeen, the producer of the two shows and editor of the books, was interviewed in connection to the publications, the journey of ABC Radio, and her views over the FM radio industry as one of the senior members of the industry.

What are Kuasha and Premrog about?

Kuasha is all about mystery and horror fictions. I have a pool of script writers for this show who write short mystery and horror fictions, which I act out in the last hour of the show. Aa array of sound effects are used in this segment as the stories can only be heard. Hence, I try to make it as imaginable as possible for the listeners. In the first half, I read out any classic detective or crime novel. The popular stories comprise those of Sherlock Holmes, Byomkesh Bakshi, Satyajiy Ray and Humayun Ahmed’s Misir Ali. The aim of this segment is to trigger curiosity among listeners and inspire them to read the books, as the habit of reading is gradually fading away. So no songs or texts are included during this show.

On the other hand, Premrog is a complete packages of comedy where there is a character called Bishwapremik (BP). BP is a boy from Old Dhaka who cannot speak in fluent English and converses with a

new girl every other week. We engage in a funny chat on the show and mostly talk about the different components of Old Dhaka, BP’s changing love affairs etc.

Our relationship is like Tom and Jerry. In between our conversation, catchy tunes like hip hop tracks are played. Both the shows are aired at 12am for two hours. Kuasha is aired on Mondays, while Premrog is aired on Saturdays.

Kuasha was published last year while this year Student Ways, the publishing house, has brought “Kuasha 2” along with “Premrog.” It was written by Sudip De which compiles the stories in which I and my co-anchor BP talk it out during the show. It is a compilation of the episodes of Premrog, while “Kuasha 2” is a compilation of the horror and mystery fictions written by my pool of script writers.

Till now, the response is amazing and, beyond my expectations. I have been to the fair on three separate days so far, and was showered by the readers’ affection. “Kuasha” was one of the bestsellers at Amar Ekushey Boi Mela last year.

Since its inception, much changes have been evident in the content and style of ABC Radio broadcasts. Any comments?

Life is all about experimentation. You start something new and see how it goes, and then you make changes according to your necessities. We have done the same. In the beginning, we were a news-based station.

Our intention was to keep our tone serious.

We used Bangla terms like “kothabondhu,” “muthhophone,” and “khudebarta.”

Gradually with time, we shifted to a more entertainment-based tone, while our style changed accordingly. Now we focus on the youth listeners with shows like, The HK

(Hridoy Khan) Show, Hot Box with Rafa and Hang Out with Linkon.

You had been involved with the FM radio industry for around seven years now. Where do you see it going?

I see it going on a positive route. You will see that nowadays, most of our time are spent on streets. When we are driving, between meetings and classes, stuck in traffic; there are few ways to entertain yourself other than the FM radio channels. This becomes the only medium to remove boredom. Most people cannot watch TV when they are stuck inside a vehicle, but at least they can listen to the radio. Hence, FM radio channels are seemingly becoming more and more popular, more than any other medium of entertainment in Bangladesh.l

First photos of Game of Thrones’ Season 6 revealed n Showtime Desk The new season of Game of Thrones is coming out on April 24 and HBO has graciously anointed the world with 20 new images from the brand new episodes.

The images include debut glimpses of a couple new faces in Westeros, along with snapshots of many returning favorites. It revealed which characters survived the final episode of season five, and subsequently, those who did not.

However, Kit Harington’s Jon Snow was not among the 20 images, and his fate remains unknown.

Sansa Stark (Sophie Turner) and Theon

Greyjoy (Alfie Allen) - who jumped off the Winterfell castle wall to an unknown fate in the season five finale are shown to be very much alive. The seemingly confirmed dead remains to be tragically poisoned Myrcella Baratheon (Nell Tiger Free), and was shown as a corpse back at the Red Keep. Meanwhile, Arya Stark (Maisie Williams) is still blind and it looks like the “World’s Best Dad,” Balon Greyjoy (Patrick Malahide), is back.

There’s also a first look at the new ThreeEyed Raven (Max von Sydow) along with Bran Stark (Isaac Hempstead Wright), who is noticeably standing up (presumably because they’re in one of Bran’s vision flashbacks?).

Who knows? l

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SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 13, 2016

WHAT TO WATCH

The Expendables 2 Zee Studio 2:35pm The Expendables are reunited when Mr Church enlists them to take on a seemingly simple job. The task looks like an easy paycheck for Barney and his band of old-school mercenaries.

But when things go wrong and one of their own is viciously killed, the Expendables are compelled to seek revenge in hostile territory where the odds are stacked against them.

Cast: Ken Kaufman, David Agosto, Richard Wenk Underworld: Evolution WB 3:30pm The film is about the unending war between vampires and werewolves (Lycans). Vampire Selene (Kate Beckinsale) and the lycan hybrid Michael (Scott Speedman) try to trace the origin of their ancient feud and the secrets of their bloodlines. This leads them into a battle to end all wars.

Cast: Kate Beckinsale, Scott Speedman, Tony Curran, Derek Jacobi, Bill Nighy, Shane Brolly, Michael Sheen

Clash of the Titans HBO 9:30pm Perseus is the mortal son of the Olympian god Zeus and the leader of a band of heroes who embark on a new adventure destined to be told for ages as the unforgettable mythology of the ancients.

Cast: Sam Worthington, Liam Neeson, Ralph Fiennes, Jason Flemyng, Gemma Arterton Maleficent Star Movies 11:30pm Maleficent is a powerful and respected winged fairy helping to rule a magical land full of strange creatures. A beautiful, pure-hearted young woman, Maleficent has an idyllic life growing up in a peaceable forest kingdom, until one day when an invading army threatens the harmony of the land. One of them is a fairy named Maleficent who is kind and cares for all in the Moors.

Cast: Angelina Jolie, Sharlto Copley, Elle Fanning, Sam Riley, Imelda Staunton, Juno Temple, Lesley Manville

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Back Page

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 13, 2016

WORRISOME GAPS IN THE PARIS AGREEMENT PAGE 14

ZAMAL, SOHEL OUTSHINE SIDDIKUR PAGE 26

RADIO TALK WITH RJ SHARMEEN PAGE 30

BOOK FAIR 2016

AMAR EKUSHEY

Book sales soar with weekend crowd n Nure Alam Durjoy

The first day of the weekend brought thousands of visitors, both adults and children, to Amar Ekushey Boi Mela 2016 yesterday, making the publishers and book stall owners happy, as expected.

The number of visitors was significantly higher as the fair opened early, courtesy of the Children’s Hours from 11am to 1pm.

Though children thronged the fair grounds in the morning, the number of adults were impressive as well.

Publishers and attendants at the Children’s Corner as well as other stalls showcasing children’s literature reported an impressive amount of book sales yesterday.

Many publishers said they were happy as the sales were up to their expectations.

They said the stalls and pavilions both in Bangla Academy and in Suhrawardy Udyan were teeming with visitors.

Stall owners of “Sisimpur,” popular children’s television series, launched six children’s books and a DVD of the show in the morning.

The launching ceremony was attended

by Cultural Affairs Minister Asaduzzaman Noor, US Ambassador to Bangladesh Marcia Stephens Bloom Bernicat and other prominent personalities.

Another attraction yesterday was “Bhuturey,” a children’s horror story written by a child, second-grader Alin Bashar. The

Attendants at a book stall have a hectic time attending to the weekend visitors at Amar Ekushey Boi Mela 2016 yesterday SHEKHAR MONDAL

Book Names Babarnama A Secret of A War Baby Swarnoprate Meghbalika Plator Republic Onno Rokom Jaowa Ondho Golite Fuler Gondho Indur o Dustu Hati Tokio Tower Theke

Author Translated by Muhammad Jalaluddin Biswas Shahazada Basunia Shahriar Hossain Imdadul Haq Milon Aminul Islam Bhuiyan Mostafa Mamun Muhammed Zafar Iqbal Shibli Noman

Genre History

Publishers Oitijhya

History Novel Novel Politics Juvenile Novel Juvenile Travelogue

Somoy Prakashan Tamralipi Puthiniloy Pathak Samabesh Chitra Prakashani Pear Publications Chandradeep Kabi Prakashani

AYLAN KURDI’S DEATH

Father, smugglers on trial n AFP, Istanbul The father of Aylan Kurdi, the Syrian toddler whose drowning shocked the world last year, went on trial on Thursday along with two alleged people smugglers accused of causing the death of migrants.

A photograph of the three-year-old, face down in the sand on a Turkish beach, caused horror when it was published in September 2015 after his family decided to make the risky journey to Greece in an open boat.

Aylan’s mother Rihana and brother Ghaleb, four, also died in the same accident.

The trial of Syrian nationals Muwafaka Alabash and Asem Alfrhad opened at the criminal court in the western Turkish resort of Bodrum, the Dogan news agency reported.

If convicted, they face up to 35 years in jail.

They are charged of smuggling migrants and causing the deaths of five people, including Aylan Kurdi, his brother and mother when their boat sank while on its way to Greece.

But also on trial in absentia was Aylan Kur-

di’s father, Abdullah Kurdi, who survived the sinking of the boat, on accusations of being an organiser of the smuggling. The precise charges against him were not made clear.

Both of the defendants in court strongly incriminated Abdullah Kurdi as a wellknown organiser of people smuggling in the Bodrum area, accusing him of being responsible for the deaths and driving the boat at the time of the disaster.

But Dogan said the court had decided to drop the legal proceedings against Abdullah Kurdi, without specifying further.

Abdullah Kurdi, from the mainly Kurdish Syrian town of Kobane on the Turkish border, is currently believed to be outside of Turkey and in northern Iraq.

He became a prominent figure through media interviews at the time of the disaster and also gave the traditional “alternative” Christmas message in 2015 on British TV’s Channel 4.

His family, many of whom are now based in Canada, had previously rubbished similar allegations against him broadcast by foreign

television as “ridiculous.”

“The real criminal here is Abdullah Kurdi, who became a hero on television but did not even testify,” said Asem Alfrhad in court.

Muwafaka Alabash said he had been told before coming to Bodrum to “find Abdullah Kurdi, he does the migrant smuggling. I found him in Bodrum. Everyone knew him.

His collected money from his people.”

The court also heard testimony from Syrian refugee Emin Haydar, who witnessed and survived the sinking, and said that Abdullah Kurdi had been “driving the boat” at the time.

“While the person behind this gives TV interviews, the two victims remain behind bars,” said Alfrhad’s lawyer Duygu Cakmak Bisen.

“It is clear that my client received no money from anyone,” he added, saying his client had only wanted to go to Europe.

The trial was adjourned until an unspecified date. The court rejected pleas from the defence to release the Syrians, ruling they must stay in custody as they had no address and constituted a flight risk. l

book was a popular choice among visitors throughout the day.

The afternoon saw more adults coming in to the fair. The number of weekend visitors kept growing, and long queues were seen at the fair’s two main entrances at the TSC and Doyel Chattar areas.

Renowned writer Muhammad Zafar Iqbal were seen surrounded by hundreds of young fans at Suhrawardy Udyan in the afternoon, busy signing books near the stall of Tamralipi, which has published his new science fiction and one of the fair’s bestsellers this year, “Cranial.”

“Sales were huge today, but that is expected during the weekend,” said Zahirul Islam of publishing house Oitijhya.

Annesha Prakashan publisher Shahadat Hossain, Mitia Osman Tisma of Agamee Prakashani and Tuhin Tushar of Anya Prakash echoed Zahirul’s statement, saying the weekend sales are somewhat different than the regular days.

Yesterday saw 280 new books published, putting the total number of new arrivals at the fair this year at 1,393.

Today is a special day for the book fair as visitors have more occasions to celebrate: today is Pahela Falgun, the first day of spring, and Saraswati Puja will be celebrated today across the country, as well as on Dhaka University campus.

The fair will open at 11am today for Children’s Hour. l

Presses to fall silent as UK’s Independent goes digital-only n Reuters, London Britain’s the Independent newspaper is to disappear from news stands next month after its Russian owner said the 29-year-old title would only publish online, in the starkest sign yet of the pressures weighing on the newspaper industry.

The paper launched by a group of journalists in 1986 has become Britain’s highest-profile casualty of the change in news reading habits brought about by the internet. From a peak of around 400,000 copies a day, circulation has fallen to just over 40,000.

“This decision preserves the Independent brand and allows us to continue to invest in the high quality editorial content that is attracting more readers to our online platforms,” said owner Evgeny Lebedev yesterday.

“The newspaper industry is changing, and that change is being driven by readers,” he added. “They’re showing us that the future is digital.” l

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