18 June, 2016

SECOND EDITION

SATURDAY, JUNE 18, 2016

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Ashar 4, 1423, Ramadan 12, 1437

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Regd No DA 6238, Vol 4, No 56

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

100,000 sign anti-terror fatwa Islamic scholars from around the country issue landmark declaration n Salman Tareque Sakil A fatwa against militancy, which collected signatures from over 100,000 Islamic scholars, will be published today, declaring terrorism and suicide attacks as haram – or forbidden under Islamic law.

The thirty volumes of document consisting signatures from muftis, ulema, and women uluma across Bangladesh will aim to reduce radicalism and militancy, and discourage sympathisers and patrons of militants from pursuing violent ways.

The process for the fatwa, which is a scholars' ruling or learned interpretation on Islamic law, was initiated last December by Farid Uddin Masuud, chairman of Jamiatul Ulama and imam of Bangladesh's largest Eid congregation at Sholakia.

Signature collection for the “Anti-crime and anti-militancy peace fatwa for human well-being” began on January 3 this year and continued until May 31, amassing a total 101,850 signatures. Of the signatories, 9,320 are women ulamas and muftis.

Some of the key signatories include Hefazat-e-Islam General Secretary Allama Junaid Babunagari, Shaikhul Hadis Allama Ashraf Ali, Mufti Abdul Halim Bokhari, Mufti Mansurul Haque, Allama Sulan Jawak Nadvee, and Allama Abdur Rahman Hafezzi.

Of the thirty volumes, 26 have been categorised under divisional cities and the other four only contains signatures of the women scholars.

Each volume describes the main fatwa – which analyses the Qur'an and Hadith and declares terrorism and militancy absolutely forbidden in Islam's eyes.

All of the volumes also include similar anti-militancy fatwas issued by Darul Ulum Deoband, Moinul Islam Hathazari Madrasa,

Last minute preparations go on at Jamiatul Ulama office before today's publication of the anti-militancy fatwa for peace, which has signatures of over 100,000 Islamic scholars SALMAN TAREQUE SAKIL

Islamic Research Centre, Chormonai Jamia Rashidia Islamia, Shaykh Zakaria Research Centre, and Jamiatul Asad Madrasa.

An 11-member committee, led by Farid Uddin Masuud, has worked relentlessly since January to collect the signatures. The others in the committee are Member Secretary Abdur Rahim Kashemi, Joint Member Secretary Sadruddin Makunun, and members Allama Aleem Uddin Durlabhpur, Hossain Ahmad, Delwar Hossain Saifee, Imdadullah Kashemi, Aiyub Ansari, Ibrahim Shilasthanee, Abdul Quayum Khan and Zakaria Noman Foyzi.

10,000 women scholars sign fatwa n Chowdhury Akbor Hossain Female Islamic scholars also signed spontaneously in what is set to become possibly the biggest fatwa in Bangladesh. A total of 9,320 women ulamas signed the fatwa for peace, which is set to be unveiled at the Dhaka Reporters Unity today.

Since the entire effort began in January, the madrasas for women have been at the forefront of signature collection.

In the preface for the fatwa, Maulana Farid Uddin Masuud wrote: “It is great that there are now a lot of ulamas and muftis among our women. There was

arrangement to collect signatures of female ulamas and muftis in this fatwa. There was also a great response. In the current world, this is a significant new addition.”

Also talking to this correspondent on Thursday, Masuud – who first proposed and organised the preparation of the fatwa – said: “It is a sign of hope and a great achievement for the nation that our female ulamas are aware against militancy. This is a matter of pride for our future generation.”

Sources said all female madrasas, especially the ones in Sylhet division, enthusiastically

participated in the signature collection process. The efforts were led by madrasas including Rampura National Women Madrasa, Durlabhpur Darul Hadis Women Madrasa Sylhet, and Barutkhana Darul Hadis Women Madrasa.

The signatories included Rampura National Women Madrasa’s Tanzila Afrin, Umme Hafsa, Amena, Kulsum Rima, Khadizatul Kubra, Tanzim Tasfia Dina, Anika Ahad, and Fatema Khatun among others.

From Narsingdi’s women’s madrasas, Mosammat Toiyaba, Umme Salma, Amina, Suraiya, Maksuda, Tasfia, Mushfiqa and many more signed the fatwa. l

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Madaripur attack Tahrir sleeper cell’s first Jamil Khan and n Mohammad Zahirul Islam Khan, from Madaripur The machete attack on a Hindu teacher in Madaripur on Wednesday was the first such operation conducted by a three-member sleeper cell of outlawed militant group Hizb ut-Tahrir that eyes establishing Caliphate.

College student Ghulam Faizullah Fahim, caught by locals after the failed attack, is from Dhaka while police suspect that at least another person was from Madaripur. Identities of those two attackers, and their planners and financiers could not be ascertained until yesterday.

The attackers fled the scene after neighbours of the victim, Govern-

ment Nazimuddin College teacher Ripon Chakrabarty, 45, came to his aid hearing screams. The trio were hacking him at the entrance of his house in College Road area on Wednesday afternoon.

The victim, now undergoing treatment at a hospital in Barisal, yesterday confirmed that Fahim had hacked him on the head after the

police showed him a photo of the attacker.

The arrestee, an HSC examinee of Rajuk Uttara Model College, yesterday claimed himself innocent saying that he had been victimised by his associates. But he admitted his connection with Hizb ut-Tahrir, saying that he was recruited by his senior  PAGE 2 COLUMN 1

SEHRI & IFTAR

Ramadan 12 13 14

June 18 19 20

Sehri – 3:39 3:39

Iftar 6:51 6:52 6:52

Source: Islamic Foundation

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Hizb ut-Tahrir demo creates panic Rahman Rabbi in Dhaka n Arifur and Dulal Abdullah, Rajshahi Members of banned militant group Hizb ut-Tahrir staged demonstrations in at least three districts including Dhaka yesterday, and urged the Muslims to wage an all-out movement to oust the government and establish Caliphate.

The announcement came only two days after three of its members hacked a Hindu college teacher in Madaripur town leaving the victim critically injured. The attack took place amid a special crackdown that netted 194 militants including 21 of Hizb ut-Tahrir since June 10.

Yesterday, police arrested three of its activists while distributing the leaflets – one in Jatrabari area and two others in Narayanganj’s Siddhirganj.

In Rajshahi, their demonstration in front of Kadirganj Greater Road Mosque after the Juma prayers created panic among the devotees as some 20 activists wearing orange badges on their foreheads were distributing the leaflets while one of them read out the statement.

Two intelligence reports recently said that over 100 members of the outlawed group had taken training to wage an armed revolution together with some members of Islami Chhatra Shibir. Moreover, some 450 leaders and activists have remained absconding after getting bail. The reports suggest that its members were also involved in the recent targeted killings of secularists, LGBT rights activists and religious minorities.

Detectives earlier said that the group was leading a platform of some outlawed militant organisations that include JMB, HujiB and Ansarullah Bangla Team since last year as their aim is the same – establishing Islamic rule in the country. Members of Hizb ut-Tahrir were allegedly involved in a failed coup in 2012. l

100,000 sign anti-terror fatwa Contents of the fatwa

The fatwa is 32 pages long and mentions the index and the names of associate ulema. The main chapter on the fatwa presents 10 questions in the light of several verses from Surah at-Taubah and a Hadith mentioned in Bukhari Sharif and Muslim Sharif.

The questions addressed by the fatwa are: 1. Does Islam support crime and terrorism?

2. Did prophets, particularly Muhammad (SM), take the barbaric path to establish Islam?

3. Are Jihad and terrorism the same thing in Islam?

4. Does terrorism create a path to heaven or hell?

5. Will a suicidal terrorist’s death be counted as martyrdom?

6. Is genocide allowed in the view of Islam?

7. Does Islam support the indiscriminate killing of people including women, children, and the elderly?

8. What sort of crime is it to kill a person while they are offering prayer?

9. Is it allowed to attack worship places of non-Muslims such as churches, pagodas and temples?

10. Is it not the responsibility of all – in the view of Islam – to create social resistance against criminals and terrorists?

The main fatwa answers all these questions in light of the Qur’an and the Hadith.

In answer to the third question, the fatwa reads that: “Jihad and terrorism are not the same. Jihad is a key teaching of Islam, while terrorism is haram and illegal.

The fatwa answers the fifth question, saying: “Suicide and suicidal killings are haram in the eyes of Islam.”

The answer to the sixth question is: “It is not legal in Islam to mass murder innocent people.

'Jamaat-Shibir a barrier for anti-militancy fatwa' n Salman Tareque Sakil

While collecting signatures for the anti-militancy fatwa, ulema found that the “community of Jamaat-Shibir-militants” was one of the biggest obstacles they faced.

Two other barriers also faced by the ulema were the Islamic scholars who refused to sign the document fearing a backlash from militants, and those who were jealous of the entire effort.

In the preface of the fatwa, Maulana Farid Uddin Masuud wrote: “It is true that we were faced by several problems. Three groups became obstacles

Even killing someone on suspicion is forbidden.”

Answering to the ninth question, the fatwa reads: “Anyone killing a non-Muslim who lives within a Muslim society would never even get to smell heaven. Attacking worship places of non-Muslims such as churches, pagodas and temples is haram and illegal in the eyes of Islam.

It is a sternly punishable offence.”

Hopes of defeating terrorism

Asked how much impact the fatwa might play in defeating terrorism, Farid Uddin Masuud said: “I can say with strong conviction that a fatwa is much stronger, much sharper than 100,000 weapons. A correct fatwa purifies the psychological ideals, inspires people and makes them humanitarians.”

In the preface to the fatwa, Masuud writes: “Even if the fatwa for peace and human well-being fails to stop terrorism completely, there is no doubt that it will help reduce terrorism. It can surely be said that patrons of terrorism will be deterred.”

How the idea originated

At a joint meeting of law enforcers and clerics on December 17 last

Madaripur attack Tahrir sleeper cell’s first college-mate Jubair Ahmed and two staff at a book shop named Mishkat Library in front of his college.

Since Wednesday night, the detectives launched drives in several districts to nab his associates and leaders of the group, but failed. Police yesterday said that Fahim had given them wrong and contradictory information during the interrogation.

Ziaul Morshed, OC of Madaripur sadar police, told the Dhaka Tribune that Fahim himself had confessed that he is an active member of Hizbut Tahrir. He was inspired by the activities of Islamic State. But he later made some inconsistent statements about his associates and leaders.

The officer hoped that they would be unearth the mystery behind the

attack and arrest the other culprits at the end of Fahim’s 10-day remand granted yesterday.

After the attack, police recovered a pair of gloves and a machete from near the crime scene which were supposedly left by the trio while fleeing.

But they did not find Fahim’s bag.

Fahim told police that the trio had thrown away their mobile phones after reaching Tekerhat area near Madaripur on Wednesday as per previous instruction by the planner, whom he does not know. Later, they met with a local lawyer and had a discussion to finalise the attack.

But Fahim did not give any authentic information about the motive of the attack. He said that he had no personal conflict with Ripon and that the attack was launched to embarrass

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the government, said an official involved with the investigation.

A popular mathematics teacher of the college, Ripon used to administer religious rituals in the area as he was a Brahmin. He is not involved with any political or social activities, police and locals said.

About leaving his house in the middle of the examinations, Fahim told the police that he had locked in an altercation with his parents several months ago about his ideology.

Since then, he was avoiding his parents and finally took the decision of leaving the house and work for his group staying in a den.

Two intelligence reports recently said that over 100 members of the outlawed group had taken training to wage an armed revolution to-

for us. Jamaat, Shibir and militants spread propaganda on social media websites including Facebook claiming that we were working against jihad.

“Another group supported our endeavour, but refused to sign fearing that they would be targeted by militants,” Masuud wrote, adding that the third group consisted of “the envious ones.”

Although ulema from Qawmi madrasas initially refused to sign the fatwa as they considered Masuud to be pro-Awami League, ulema who were part of Hefazat-e-Islam changed their minds later on.

However, Jamaat-e-Islam denied

Masuud's claim. A central leader of the Islamist party, on condition of anonymity, said Jamaat has never opposed this fatwa and Masuud would not be able to show any evidence to back his own claims.

But Maulana Sadruddin Makunun, joint member secretary of the signature collection committee, said: “Jamaat has always been a key barrier to serving Islam in Bangladesh. Especially, Jamaat tried to steer the country's politics in a different direction once it became cornered after opposing the Liberation War in 1971. It is natural that it would become an obstacle to anti-militancy activities.” l

year, Masuud first proposed that a fatwa by 100,000 ulama signatories be prepared to tackle terrorism.

“Those who kill and terrorise in the name of religion are not doing the right thing. Islam never supports murder. So, a common fatwa with 100,000 signatures would be distributed to create awareness,” the Sholakia imam said at the time.

Inspector General of Police AKM Shahidul Hoque asked Masuud to form a committee to plan how so many signatures can be collected.

Later on January 2, Masuud’s madrasa hosted an ulama conference, following which Rampura’s Taqwa Madrasa’s Muhtamim Maulana Mufti Abdur Rahim asked several major fatwa organisations of Bangladesh to explain militancy in light of the Sharia.

Responding to the call, Hathazari Madrasa, Islamic Research Centre, Chormonai Jamia Rashidia Islamia, Shaykh Zakaria Research Centre and Jamiatul Asad Madrasa issued their fatwas on the matter.

However, a source in a state intelligence agency told this correspondent that the main plan of the fatwa had been hatched by that particular agency, while the questions of the fatwa were prepared by

Masuud following discussion with the agency high-ups.

Masuud, however, denied the claim, saying such rumours were being spread to smear the fatwa.

The questions were prepared at the ulama conference, he added.

gether with some members of Islami Chhatra Shibir. Moreover, some 450 leaders and activists of the organisation have remained absconding after getting bail. The reports suggest that its members were also involved in the recent targeted killings of secularists, LGBT rights activists and religious minorities.

Polash, 22, Jahin, 23, Raihan, 24 and Mesbah, 24. Police think that the names could be fake.

In the remand prayer, police mentioned said that the attacking style was similar to the recent militant attacks occurred at different part of the country. During the hearing, Fahim strongly denied having involved in the attack.

The law enforcers conducted raids at different parts of Dhaka along with Fahim early Thursday to find his associates but returned to Madaripur the same day as they failed to find anyone there.

In the night he was taken to Madaripur Sadar Hospital and treated at the emergency unit. Doctors said that the patient had bruises over his body resulted from public assault. l

Remand granted

Meanwhile, Madaripur Senior Judicial Magistrate Saidur Rahman placed Fahim on a 10-day remand yesterday after the police produced him before it seeking 15 days to grill the accused.

On Thursday night, Sub-Inspector Aiyub Ali filed a case against Fahim and five others – Abul Hossain alias Salim, 19, Shahriar Hasan alias

Expenditures

Copies of the fatwa will be sent to the president, the prime minister, the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, and the United Nations.

Work, however, is yet to be completed on the English and Arabic versions of the fatwa.

An aleem who is involved with the project said the printing of each volume of document is costing around Tk1,500. With plans to print a total of 600 volumes, the overall cost would be almost Tk100,000, he said.

Other major costs included the expenses of the coordination committees that had been collecting the signatures across the country.

Maulana Abdullah Shakir, who was involved in collecting signatures, said Masuud and his followers had provided the necessary funds.

Maulana Masuud said the work has been possible for the generosity of well-wishers, adding that he also contributed as per his ability. l

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SATURDAY, JUNE 18, 2016

Bernicat leads BD business team to USA Investment Summit n UNB A delegation of prominent Bangladeshi business people will attend a three-day “SelectUSA Investment Summit 2016” that begins in Washington tomorrow to learn about business opportunities in the United States.

The delegation will learn from some of the “best minds” in business and government about the opportunities that exist for their companies, said US Ambassador Marcia Bernicat in a video message who left for Washington on Thursday night along with the delegation.

The business delegation will engage in matchmaking with different economic and development professionals, companies and business people around the United States, she said.

“I am pleased to personally lead a delegation of prominent Bangladeshi business people to the 2016 SelectUSA Investment Summit in Washington,” Bernicat said.

She said they are delighted to reciprocate the warm hospitality that Bangladesh has extended to the US companies in Bangladesh.

Bernicat said the US government is helping Bangladeshi companies access the United States market and the opportunities that lie throughout the USA. However, it could not be known who are in the business delegation.

US President Barack Obama, who hosts the Investment Summit, will deliver the keynote address on June 20.

This year’s Summit theme is “The Innovation Advantage” and will showcase investment opportunities from every corner of the United States for global investors.

The Summit is the highest-profile event that promotes foreign direct investment (FDI) in the United States.

It provides an unparalleled opportunity to bring together companies from all over the world, economic development organisations from every corner of the nation, others working to facilitate investment in the United States, and high-level government officials.

Participants can find the practical tools, information and connections they need to move investments forward.

The Summit will begin with an optional add-on Summit Academy that addresses the basics of investing in the United States and attracting foreign direct investment (FDI). l

Monks at a Buddhist temple in Khilgaon, Dhaka distribute iftar boxes among fasting Muslims yesterday. Since 2012, the monks at this temple have been distributing iftar among Muslims in need during Ramadan every year MAHMUD HOSSAIN OPU

Hizb ut-Tahrir funding families of attackers Jamil Khan, from n Mohammad Madaripur The leaders of banned militant outfit Hizb ut-Tahrir Bangladesh are now luring teenagers and youths by offering them handsome amount of money and pledging to take all responsibilities of their families for taking part in killing missions as part of its endeavour to establish Caliphate.

They are also offering complete legal support for the members caught by the law enforcers. The jihadists are told that if they die while carrying out their duty, their families would be taken care of by the group – a style adopted by Islamic Chhatra Shibir, the radical student wing of Jamaat-e-Islami.

After the recruitment, they are given training on using machetes and small arms, ways to evade arrest and keeping the mouth shut in front of the law enforcers.

Investigators have learnt about such techniques interrogating Ghulam Faizullah Fahim, a teenager caught while fleeing after hacking a Hindu college teacher in Madaripur town on Wednesday. Two of his associates could not be identified or

arrested until yesterday.

Fahim, 18, was confident when he was taken to the police station.

“Nothing will happen to men. You will not be able to keep me in custody for long,” he told the people in a loud voice.

tack, some of who are local youths while one from Rajshahi.

Fahim was earlier involved with Chhatra Shibir and later joined Hizb ut-Tahrir being inspired by the activities of international militant group Islamic State.

Two intelligence reports recently mentioned that over 100 members of the group took training to oust the government through an armed revolution Police later found that these attackers were given a good amount of money to conduct the attack in Madaripur.

“There is no doubt that these youths have got money to take part in the attack, but we are yet to learn about the amount and concrete information about their leaders,” Ziaul Morshed, OC of Sadar police, told the Dhaka Tribune yesterday.

A student of Rajuk Uttara Model School and College, Fahim left the house on June 11 in the middle of his HSC examinations informing his father in an SMS that he was going abroad. Police said Fahim and five others were involved in the at-

But during interrogation in custody, he gave the investigators wrong and misleading information about his associates, leaders and their dens in Madaripur, Dhaka, Barisal, Chapainawabganj and Rajshahi.

Fahim said that their task was to collect information on the attacks, and send photos and the information to their seniors which would be sent to the IS representatives.

Once they are done, they are asked to wait until further instruction.

Monirul Islam, chief of DMP’s Counter-Terrorism and Transitional Crimes Unit, said that a number of Jamaat-Shibir leader were working behind the recent attacks and

target killings of secularists, religious minorities and LGBT rights activists.

This is for the first time the police have learned about the involvement of Hizb ut-Tahrir members in any targeted killing. This international group, which started activities in Bangladesh in 2000, was declared outlawed in 2009 for its anti-state activities. In 2012, its members were involved in a failed coup in the army.

A leader of the group, Shafiur Rahman Farabi, was arrested last year for instigating the murder of secular writer Avijit Roy. Two intelligence reports recently said that over 100 members of the outlawed group had taken training to wage an armed revolution together with some members of Chhatra Shibir and other banned organisations.

Moreover, some 450 leaders and activists of the organisation have remained absconding after getting bail which they termed alarming.

The reports also suggest that its members were also involved in the recent targeted killings of secularists, LGBT rights activists and religious minorities. l

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SATURDAY, JUNE 18, 2016

Yaba worth Tk7.8 crore seized in Teknaf n Anwar Hussain, Chittagong

A huge consignment of contraband club drug yaba was seized in Teknaf yesterday.

The Border Guard Bangladesh said 260,000 yaba tablets, recovered in separate raids, had an estimated street value of Tk7.8 crore.

A BGB team raided the Mundar Deil beach yesterday morning after being tipped off. Smugglers, unloading the tablets from a boat, fled the scene leaving behind a sack containing 250,000 yaba pills.

BGB Teknaf 2 Commander Lt Col Abuzar Al Zahid said no-one was arrested.

Another 10,000 yaba were seized in a raid at Mundar Deil village. They were found on a local identified as Abdul Karim. He has been accused in a drugs case.

Myanmar is the biggest producer of the methamphetamine tablets in the world. According to the Department of Narcotics Control (DNC), three syndicates are involved in smuggling the drug.

BGB sources say 2,735,779 yaba pills worth around Tk10.5 crore

14.3kg gold seized at Shahjalal Int’l Airport n Kamrul Hasan Customs officials recovered 14.3kg gold from the possession of two siblings at Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport in Dhaka yesterday.

The officials detained Murad Khan from the green channel area and Mamun Khan from the transit area of the airport with 37 pieces of 100-gram gold bar, another one-kilogram gold bar and some

ornaments weighing nine kilograms wrapped in special belts worn at their waist. The gold valued at Tk7.25 crore.

The detainees are from Gazipur.

They came from Singapore via Thailand and covered their passports with red covers to deceive the customs officials, said Assistant Commissioner of Airport Customs Al Amin.

They will be handed over to airport police station, Al Amin added. l

have been seized from Teknaf so far this year.

A total of 227 cases have been filed while 156 yaba smugglers, including 16 Myanmar nationals, were arrested.

Speaking to the Dhaka Tribune, Chittagong DNC’s Deputy Director Ali Aslam Hossain said the yaba pills, Thai for ‘crazy medicine’, had “turned out to be a menace.”

“The pills are brought to Bangladesh from Myanmar. We have information that they are manufactured in some 40 factories along the Myanmar border,” he said.

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The Dhaka Tribune ran two exclusive reports on the issue – Inside the yaba trade on January 29 issue and Made-in-India yaba hits the market on March 24.

In February, Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan urged Myanmar to shut down yaba factories along the border.

“Bangladesh is facing a drug crisis even though it does not manufacture them. Myanmar produces yaba while neighbouring India manufactures Phensedyl and Bangladesh suffers as a consequence.” l

BIAC signs MoU with FSBL n Tribune Desk

Bangladesh International Arbitration Centre yesterday signed a memorandum of understanding with First Security Bank Limited in order to assist resolution of commercial and money loan disputes through alternative dispute resolution.

Chief Executive Officer of BIAC Muhammad A Ali and Managing Director of FISBL Syed Waseque Md Ali signed the MoU on behalf of their respective institutions at First Security Bank’s head office in Dhaka. l

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HRW criticises Bangladesh for late response to killings n Tribune Desk

Executive Magistrate Sarowar Alam speaks with a fish trader during a raid at Hatirpool kitchen market yesterday, part of a special campaign to monitor markets during Ramadan. Sixteen traders were fined Tk113,000 RAJIB DHAR

2 Bangla Bhai men caught Mizanur Rahaman, n FM Chittagong Police have claimed that they have arrested three suspected militants, among whom two are associates of the notorious terrorist Bangla Bhai, and the other a leader of banned outfit Hizb ut-Tahrir.

Jufikar Ali, 30, Alauddin Rubel, 30, members of banned militant outfit Jama’atul Mujahideen Bang-

police station in the city.

They recovered a large number of leaflets and organisational papers from their possession, the ASP said.

“Julfikar and Rubel are close associates of banned outfit JMB’s executed leader Siddiqur Rahman who was also known as Bangla Bhai,” ASP Mostafiz told the Dhaka Tribune.

Yesterday was the last day of the nationwide week-long crackdown against militants in Bangladesh.

This was the first time Chittagong police arrested suspects who could be linked to terrorism.

ASP Mostafiz told this correspondent that Julfikar and Rubel had worked with Bangla Bhai.

Bangla Bhai was the chief of Jagrata Muslim Janata Bangladesh (JMJB), a JMB offshoot. He was hanged for terrorism in 2007.

The arrested men have been charged in several cases filed under the Anti-Terrorism Act, Explosives Act and others in Chittagong and other parts in the country.

“Mohibul used to coordinate field-level activists of Tahrir in Chittagong. Leaflets have been recovered from his home containing anti-government propaganda,” he said.

Raozan police station’s Officerin-Charge Kefayet Ullah said Tahrir leader Mohibul was arrested from Chittagong city’s Bayezid area’s Shershah early yesterday.

OC Kefayet said the banned group was organising a showdown for its founding anniversary on June 17.

Mohibul was arrested along with six other Tahrir men in 2013, but he came out on bail. l

ladesh (JMB), and Tahrir leader Mohibul Alam, 30, were arrested in overnight drives yesterday in Chittagong, Chittagong Police’s Additional Superintendent (North) Md Mostafizur Rahman said yesterday.

Mohibul is a final year law student at BGC Trust University.

Police arrested Julfikar and Rubel from Mosjidda area of Sitakunda upazila while Mohibul was arrested from Shershah area under Bayezid

194 militants held in 7 days n Arifur Rahman Rabbi A total of 194 suspected militants have been arrested by the end of a week-long special police crackdown on militancy.

The last day of the drive saw 17 arrests, according to a press release from police headquarters, issued yesterday.

These 17 include nine members of Jama’atul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB), seven of Hizb ut-Tahrir and one belonging to Ansarullah Bangla Team.

The drive began on June 10 following the murder the wife of Police Superintendent (SP) Babul Akter who has led several successful anti-terrorism drives.

Of the 194 arrested so far, 151 belong to JMB, 21 to Hizb ut-Tahrir, seven to Jagrata Muslim Janata Bangladesh (JMJB), six to Ansarullah Bangla Team, four to Allahar Dal, three to Ansar Al-Islam, one to Harqatul Jihad while another is an Afghanistan-returnee militant.

During the nationwide raids, police also recovered one pipe gun, one shutter gun, a single round of bullet, two

crude bombs and three machetes.

The majority of targeted assassinations since 2013 have been claimed by Islamic State, Ansarullah Bangla Team and Ansar Al-Islam. The last two claim to be affiliated with al-Qaeda.

In another drive against criminals that started on June 7 and ended on 13, police arrested 11,307 people.

Home minister Assaduzzaman Khan Kamal told the Dhaka Tribune yesterday that the drives were meant to arrest were listed, wanted criminals, not harass innocent people or political activists.

“This drive was carried out to stop militant activities and targeted killings.

“Some listed and suspected militants were also arrested, who had been under surveillance for a long time. It was a successful drive,” the minister said.

Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal said while there were some militants in Bangladesh who were trying to create instability in the country, they had no connections with Islamic State (IS) or other international terrorist groups. l

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The Human Rights Watch has condemned the Bangladeshi law enforcers for taking much time to respond to the recent spate of targeted killings and rounding up only a small number of suspected militants in the countrywide crackdown.

The New York-based group stressed that the authorities should properly investigate the attacks on secular writers, gay rights activists, and religious minorities, and identify and prosecute the perpetrators, “but should immediately stop arbitrarily arresting people without proper evidence of a crime.”

Those detained should either be charged on the basis of credible evidence of criminal activities and brought immediately before a judge, or be immediately released, an HRW statement issued yesterday said.

The authorities were initially slow to respond to these murders, making only a handful of arrests in a few cases. In several of these cases, the HRW found that police detained those arrested weeks before they formally accused them of murder, failing to inform their families of their locations or provide access to legal counsel.

However, following the high profile murders of two gay rights activists on April 25 and the wife of a senior police officer responsible

Khulna

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YESTERDAY’S HIGH AND LOW

TOMORROW SUN RISES 5:12AM

35.2ºC Rajshahi

24.6ºC Syedpur

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for counterterrorism operations on June 5, the government announced a new crackdown on extremists to bring an end to these killings, and the mass arrests began. The statement says that some of those detained are being made to pay bribes to secure their release.

The HRW, however, did not mention that the mass arrests were made under a separate but routine drive launched on June 7 to nab the people accused in cases, and those linked to crimes involving illegal arms and drug peddling. Police said that over 12,000 people accused in different cases were arrested during the drive that ended on June 13.

On the other hand, the weeklong crackdown against militants began on June 10, and until yesterday, the law enforcers have arrested 194 members of different militant outfits including 151 alone linked to outlawed Jama’atul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB).

Of the arrested militants, only one person, a member of Ansarullah, was held for his direct involvement in the machete attack on a secular publisher and his two friends in Dhaka on October 31 last year.

The wave of targeted killings began in 2013 and has escalated in the recent months with over 50 have been killed, often through machete attacks in public spaces by the members of militant groups. l

Sylhet

32

24

Cox’s Bazar

31

Fajr: 3:50am | Zohr: 1:15pm Asr: 5:15pm | Magrib: 7:01pm Esha: 8:45pm Source: Islamic Foundation

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SATURDAY, JUNE 18, 2016

Residents of 30 villages marooned as embankment collapses n Abdul Aziz, Cox’s Bazar Residents of 30 villages in Cox’s Bazar have been left marooned as flood control embankment has collapsed at several points during cyclonic storm Roanu that hit Bangladesh recently.

High tide everyday inundates a vast tract of land due to the collapse, but the Water Development Board which is entrusted with repairing and building dam yet to take any measure to re-build the damaged portions.

Officials of the Water Development Board, however, said they would repair the embankment as soon as possible.

Cyclone Roanu hit southern parts of Bangladesh on May 21, forcing half a million people to flee their homes and leaving 23 people dead in floods and rain-triggered landslides. The cyclone damaged about 10,000 thatched houses and uprooted thousands of trees.

Local sources said tidal water entering through damaged portions of the flood control embankment inundates several educational institutions and hundreds of homes, affecting 50,000 people of Akbar Ali Para, Purbochar Dhurung, Pashchimchar Dhurung, Poyjanirpara, Sohldarpara, Miarakata, Pujarpara, Bakkhali, Sadarudding Para, Jummapara, Dholghata and Mosjid Para.

ASM Shahriar Chowdhury, chairman of Uttar Dhurung union parishad under Kutubkhali union parishad, said children could not go to schools as educational institutions in the locality had been remained closed due to intrusion of saline water.

Mohammad Ullah, chairman of Matarbari union parishad, told the

Two children wade through knee-deep water as Ali Akbardail area, Kutubdia, Cox’s Bazar has been inundated due to collapse of flood control embankment. The photo has been taken recently DHAKA TRIBUNE Dhaka Tribune that crops on several hundred acres of land had been damaged by saline water.

“Farmers are fearing losses as three to four feet tidal surge has flooded their standing crops,” he said.

He also said they had contacted with the WDB for several times, but all of their efforts went in vain.

Noor Hossain, chairman of Sabrang union parishad, told the Dhaka Tribune that about 5,000 people of Majharpara, Dokkhinpara, Poshchimpara, had left their ancestral residences and started living safer places due to frequent flood caused by tidal surge.

“District administration is aware of the matter, but they yet

Kushtia poultry farming in slump Khuda Sobuj, n Kudrote Kushtia

Poultry industry in six upazilas of Kushtia has been going through a very hard time.

More than 300 poultry farms in Khoksa, Kumarkhali, Kushtia Sadar, Mirpur and Daulatpur upazila have been closed down because of increased production costs and attacks of different diseases over the last two years, according to different stakeholders.

Besides, a few more farms are also on the verge of closure due to the afore-mentioned problems.

Poultry farmer Ripon said price of a baby layer was Tk 15 four years

ago while it is Tk 80 now. Similarly, a broiler cost Tk 20 is now selling at Tk 75.

Another poultry farmer Sujan of Patildangi village in Khoksa upazila said people involved in the industry have to count huge losses as the prices of poultry feed and vaccines have increased, apart from attacks of various diseases.

Price of poultry feed was Tk 15 per kilogram (kg) four years ago but now it is Tk 38-40. Price of meat and bone meal has increased to Tk 65 from Tk 32.

Small and medium level poultry farmers of the region said since there is no government policy for the poultry industry, Indian eggs,

chicks and medicines are flooding the local market. As a result, small and medium scale farms were closed after failing in the competition.

A good number of unemployed youths took bank loan and established poultry farms in the early ‘90s to get rid of poverty, but due to continuous losses, 50 to 55 per cent of the farms had to be shut down, said Montaz Pramanik, a farm owner of Kumarkhali.

Admitting the increase in production costs, Kushtia District Livestock Officer Liakot Ali said poultry business in the region is facing a tough time for various reasons. l

to take any effective measures to build a sustainable flood control embankment in the locality to ease sufferings of locals,”he said.

Md Salehin Tanvir Gazi, upzila nirbahi officer of Kutubdia, said the flood control embankment at Uttar Durung and Ali Akbar union parishads had been damaged by the cyclone.

Executive Engineer of Water Development Board Md Sobibur Rahman said: “After the cyclonic storm Roanu hit Cox’s Bazar, we visited affected areas.”

Expressing hope, he said they had already sent a project proposal to higher authority and the repair work of the embankment would begin soon. l

3 killed in village clashes n Tribune Desk Three people were killed and several injured in clashes that took place in Jamalpur and Habiganj.

Locals said families of Mondol, 60, and Mossarraf, 48, who were residents of Goualgaon village, Bakshiganj municipality area, Jamalpur had engaged in an altercation over play of two kids on Thursday afternoon.

At one stage, the altercation turned into a severe clash, leaving Mondol and Mossarraf critically injured.

Mondol died on his way to Mymensingh Medical College and Hospital while Mossarraf succumbed to his injuries at Dhaka

Medical College and Hospital yesterday morning.

OC of Bakshiganj police station Aslam Hossain confirmed the incident, says our Jamalpur correspondent. The OC said additional police had been deployed in the area to avert any untoward incident.

Meanwhile, Abdus Salam, 40, and Afsar Ahmed along with their aides of Nizampur village in Habiganj Sadar upazila attacked each other with local weapons during an arbitration meeting that was called to settle a dispute over a piece of land on Thursday night.

Salam died on the spot. At least 10 people were injured in the clash, according to police and locals. l

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SATURDAY, JUNE 18, 2016

A family that cannot see Serajul Islam, n Mohammed Sylhet Not one, not two – but a staggering 22 people are visually impaired in a single extended family in the remote village of Putamara in Sylhet’s Companyganj upazila.

Locally, they are known as “Kanagushti” - or a family of the blind, a social stigma that they have to carry with them every day along with the struggles caused by their conditions.

Unfortunately, it remains unknown whether the blindness was only hereditary, or if it was the result of any other hidden medical condition.

The family itself claims that a mysterious illness causes them to lose their eyesights; doctors, however, have so far been unable to pinpoint the reason why so many in a family share the common condition.

The family members are all descendants of late Arzu Ali, who was the first

known person in the family to suffer from visual impairment. His children Khurshid Ali, 75, daughter Joytera, 65, are also blind along with many other members of their own families.

Not all of them, however, are visually impaired from birth; many of them mysteriously became blind as they aged – more specifically around the time they got married.

Talking to the Dhaka Tribune, Khurshid Ali said the problem of visual impairment runs in the family. His father had gradually gone blind, while three of his own children share the same fate, said Khurshid.

Joytera and her husband are both visually impaired, along with three of their sons and daughters as well as one grandchild.

Khurshid’s paternal cousin Abdun Nur has five visually impaired people in his own family, while another paternal cousin Tohur Ali’s family also has three blind persons.

Tera Mia, a schoolteacher in the village, said many members of that family had mysteriously started losing their eyesights once they got married.

The initial sign of blindness started with headaches while a white layer enveloped their eyes gradually.

Tera Mia said he took several of the family members to different eye doctors in Sylhet; but no one was able to diagnose the real reason.

He added that many people in the area were prejudiced against the family and never socially interacted with them.

Dr Moshahid Thakur, the head of Jalalabad Ragib-Rabeya Medical College Hospital, told the Dhaka Tribune that a genetic anomaly often causes physical disabilities in a family.

The main reasons behind blindness in a poor community were measles and the deficiency of vitamin A, the doctor said. On many cases local medicines, inflammation in a newborn’s eyes, and

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Dr Moshahid said problems in the central nervous system, improper growth and hereditary illnesses might also be reasons behind the family’s troubles.

Asked whether the family received any disability or elderly benefits from the government, Khurshid’s son Ansar Mia – who is also blind – said local representatives never respond to requests of aid. Different NGOs and media outlets also often come to collect the family’s details, but never return with help, Ansar said.

The local Ichhakolos union’s newly elected Chairman Kuti Mia said Khurshid’s family could not be helped in the past because there was not enough government relief.

Kuti told the Dhaka Tribune that in the future, he would try to provide the family with disability and elderly benefits. l

College student shot dead in Noakhali n Our Correspondent, Noakhali

A college student has been shot dead by suspected robbers at Botgram under Sonaimuri upazila in Noakhali.

The deceased is Md Asif Uddin Shanto, son of Md Sahab Uddin Master of Botgram and a second year honours student at Noakhali Government University College.

Locals said a group of 10 to 12 robbers broke into Asif’s house early Friday. The robbers shot Asif when they went to the rescue of the family members hearing them scream.

Meanwhile, three others were also shot during the incident. They were taken to Noakhali General Hospital.

Later, two of them were shifted to a private hospital for better treatment.

Sonaimuri OC Kazi Haniful Islam confirmed about the death to the Dhaka Tribune. l

Woman gives birth to conjoined twins A woman gave birth to conjoined twins in Chowgachha upazila of Jessore district yesterday morning.

Hospital sources said the twins were born to Rina Begum, wife of Mantu Mollah of Ujirpur area in the upazila, through cesarean section at ‘Mayer Doa Clinic’ at the upazila headquarters in the morning.

Dr Rabiul Islam and Dr Shahinur Rahman Shahin conducted the surgery.

Later, the two babies who are joined at the chest were sent to Jessore General Hospital.

Paediatric specialist Dr Mahfuzur Rahman at the district hospital said if the two babies have separate organs, it is possible to separate them.

He, however, referred them to Dhaka for further treatment. l

AZAHAR UDDIN

n UNB, Jessore

Labourers sort out gourds before uploading the vegetables on a truck in Khoira area, Mohonganj upzila, Rajshahi yesterday. Local sources said growers are frustrated with the price of gourd as they have to sell the vegetable below its production cost due to less demand during Ramadan. Per piece gourd is sold at Tk2 at local markets

Heavy vehicles banned on highways during Eid

Downpour batters life in Kurigram

n Mohiuddin Molla, Comilla

Incessant rainfall left about 100,000 esidents of Kurigram town in immeasurable woes. Heavy shower created water-logging in many areas of the town, already grappling with faulty drainage system.

Several government establishments, including the deputy commissioner’ s office and residence, Chief Judicial Magistrate Court

Plying of heavy vehicles will not be allowed three days before and after the Eid-ul-Fitr on the Dhaka-Chittagong Highway, said Road Transport and Bridges Minister Obaidul Quader yesterday.

Only the vehicles carrying perishable products and garments will

be allowed to ply the highway, he added. He told this to reporters while inaugurating an over bridge in Comilla.

Dhaka-Chittagong four-lane highway project Director Aftab Hossain Khan, Additional Director of the project Abdus Sabur and the Project Manager 2 Masum Sarwar accompanied the minister. l

n Tribune Desk

and Judge Court premises, District Lawyers Association office premises, Police Line, office of the Superintendent of Police, District Food Controller’s office, Sadar Hospital Road, Fire Service Stations, clinics, Kurigram Government College, Government Women’s College, Girls’ School, Stadium, Sadar Police Headquarters, Shilpakala Academy compound and roads of Hatirpar, Roumari Para, Bhelakopa,

Saodagar Para and Chamrargola areas remained under knee-deep water on Thursday, reports UNB. Local people cannot go out to join their works due to the water stagnation and the residents of government quarters have taken shelter in other places.

Besides, people coming to the hospitals for treatment have to undergo immense suffering while crossing the water-logged streets. l

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SATURDAY, JUNE 18, 2016

SOUTH ASIA

Myanmar bans screening of movie at film festival Myanmar’s banned the screening of a love story at an international film festival in Yangon featuring an ethnic leader over fears it could derail an ongoing peace process with the country’s rebel armies.

The Austrian-directed film, “Twilight Over Burma: My Life as a Shan Princess,” tells the true story of a 20th-century Austrian woman and her marriage to a Shan prince who was arrested in the wake of the 1962 military coup before dying in mysterious circumstances.

-AFP

INDIA

Indian court jails 11 for life over 2002 Gujarat massacre An Indian court jailed 11 Hindus for life on Friday for the murder of 69 Muslims during riots in Gujarat in 2002 when current Prime Minister Narendra Modi was the state’s chief minister. The court sentenced 12 other people to seven years in jail for arson and other charges, while another defendant got 10-year sentence, prosecutors said.

-REUTERS

CHINA

Hong Kong protesters outraged after bookseller detentions exposed

More than 100 activists marched on China’s liaison office in Hong Kong on Friday to protest against the detention of five booksellers after one of them recounted his ill-treatment by Chinese authorities. Lam Wing-kee on Thursday told reporters that he had been arrested and detained in China for more than eight months. -REUTERS

ASIA PACIFIC

Warning shot fired in Indonesian migrant boat stand-off

Indonesian authorities faced pressure Friday to allow dozens of Sri Lankan migrants stranded on a boat for almost a week to disembark, as witnesses said a warning shot was fired in chaotic scenes near the vessel. The 44 migrants have been stuck on the Indian-flagged vessel resting in shallow waters off Aceh province since last Saturday.

-AFP

MIDDLE EAST

Iraq forces retake Fallujah govt HQ Iraqi forces raised the national flag over the main government compound in Fallujah on Friday, top commanders said, a breakthrough in the nearly 4-week-old offensive against the Islamic State group’s bastion. -AFP

ANALYSIS

United States-India relations and imperatives for China n Tribune International Desk While reporting on the visit of Modi to US and the US-India relations which are on the upswing, China’s state-run Global Times published an article titled “India’s vision cannot be realised by containing China”.

It is very clear that observers in China and the leadership are concerned with the new trajectory in US-India relationship. It is being seen as a grand design of USA to contain an aggressive China by also engaging India. The quoted article while acknowledging the strengths of India is also weary of the current developments. It concludes with “India knows its great vision cannot be realised by bashing or containing China.

Instead, they should expand cooperation, explore the potentials and build mutual trust for their own good. China is more of a help than a competitor for India. This will eventually constitute India’s fundamental understanding of China”.

The US India relations have been on an upswing for nearly a decade now and on a positive trajectory. There have been engagements in many areas including economy, defence, climate change, rule of law and other global issues. There is convergence of interest on issues of global warming and investing in alternate sources of green energy.

The support of USA for entry into the Nuclear Suppliers’ Group (NSG) has been consistent and India on its part has done its homework by garnering the support of other members. The Indian prime minister has been visiting leaders of member countries to impress on the need to admit a responsible nuclear power country India into the NSG. The US on its part has also been lobbying with other member nations for getting India in the NSG. With the emphasis on nuclear power, India has no choice but to get nuclear fuel and if the target is 25% of power production through nuclear energy as claimed, the country with 120bn-population have no choice but to get in to the NSG. A recently introduced bill which is expected to be cleared will allow India to be given the status of a major non-Nato ally.

This will facilitate greater access to high end technology and will

also aid the process of breaching certain technology barriers.

Coming to the prospects for the future, doubtlessly there is this China factor that is helping both India and US to join hands on many issues. From the point of view of US it can use India to countervail the influence of China to certain extent and also help in isolating China which has few friends. China is not too happy with this development which will come in the way of its aspirations.

With all the bonhomie during the visit and also the increased engagement with India in military terms, there are concerns about India becoming a client state of US. However, these fears are baseless due to the stand of India on some of the recent instances. India has not joined the joint patrols in South China Sea though it has made statements in many forums about the need for upholding the UNCLOS provisions related to freedom of navigation and over flight rules. However it has no issues with exercising with the pacific powers including China, Japan and other powers in the Pacific.

By not joining the joint patrols militarily, India has maintained its strategic autonomy which is a time tested and proven strategy for India. With the increased alliance with US whether that will continue to be possible is a point to ponder in the coming years.

The chances of India becoming a client state in my opinion are remote. India has always maintained that it will participate in international operations which are mandated by UN and only under the blue flag.

Coming to the developments in

the Pacific at about the same time as Modi’s visit to US, the 20th edition of Malabar Exercise is being conducted off Japan. It had objected seriously way back in 2007 when that edition of Malabar had a grouping of US, Australia, Japan and India exercised together in the Bay of Bengal. The maritime forces of US, Japan and India are exercising together now off Japan.

It may be recalled that Japan was also part of the Malabar exercise recently in the Bay of Bengal along with US in the joint exercised conducted in October 2015. China is not too happy with this alliance of sorts that is playing out in its back yard. Earlier, just prior to the visit of Indian President to China it also objected to the presence of Indian warships in the South China Sea. This development as part of the US policy of pivot to Asia signals a new alignment in the Indo- Pacific that is of great discomfort to China. What this does is to keep China engaged in both South China Sea and East China Sea. China will be compelled to commit more forces and effort to cater for contingencies in both the seas. This containment of the maritime forces in the Pacific favours India’s strategy. This will also be aided by increased military cooperation with Vietnam. India is training their Sukhoi Pilots; and submariners and have set up a satellite monitoring station in Vietnam. So India Vietnam relations at many levels are also on the upswing and this is again discomforting for China.

India has also started increasing its sphere of military influence in the Pacific by sale of military hardware to Phillipines and engagements with the armed forces of countries in this region. The

engagements with the maritime neighbours of China have provided an opportunity for India to enhance its foot print in a happening arena in Pacific Ocean.

That India and US are natural partners is a statement that reverberates in many US India forums and in other discussion groups.

It is important to get the perspective right on this issue by answering a few questions. Which is the number one country of choice for Indians to go? Where is that their brilliance and talent is recognised?

Where is that they are seen as contributing to the society and assimilating well? Which is the country where they hold high positions and also able to wield influence on Indian matters?

So except for the cold war period and for some time beyond (where India was seen as the one that was in the Soviet Block) both the countries have shed their mutual suspicion and are now moving on fresh turf of sound relations.

In conclusion, the developments including the recent visit of Modi to the US is a posotive sign for India on all counts. This will also sober down China to a large extent as it can blame itself for the present state of affairs.

While some of the India-US initiatives and engagements are not China-centric; the spin offs of this relation have the potential to keep China in check. It could also spur China to review and introspect on its own handling of India China relations which could have yielded positive results to both of them. l

This is an excerpt of a South Asia Analysis Group article. The full article can be found at http://bit.ly/21qy2LH

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SATURDAY, JUNE 18, 2016

Europe’s far-right parties hope for Brexit boost Anti-establishment mood

5 DAYS TO GO

n Reuters, Vienna Emboldened by a surge in voter support and the looming Brexit referendum, Europe’s leading farright parties pledged on Friday to work towards a “Patriotic Spring” that would roll back EU powers and halt an influx of Middle East refugees.

Their meeting in Vienna was hosted by Heinz-Christian Strache, whose Freedom Party (FPO) came within a whisker of winning the Austrian presidency last month and is now challenging the result. He vowed to deepen cooperation between the parties, which share a deep mistrust of immigrants and European integration but whose nationalist tendencies have hampered close collaboration in the past.

Strache was joined by Marine Le Pen, leader of France’s National Front, and politicians from the Alternative for Germany party

Illustration picture of postal EU referendum ballot papers (AfD) and Italy’s Northern League.

They expressed hope that Britain’s June 23 vote on whether to remain a member of the European Union would give their cause new momentum.

“I support the referendum in the United Kingdom because I want all the countries in the EU to have this choice,” Le Pen told a news conference in the Austrian parliament building.

REUTERS

“But even if we don’t get Brexit, it will present a huge new problem for the European Union which has pledged to give Britain special rights if it stays that other countries won’t have. So this could be the beginning of Europe a la carte.”

Le Pen and the others sat beneath a poster with a massive bald eagle on it and the words: “Patriotic Spring -- Cooperation for Peace, Security and Prosperity in Europe.”

Populist, anti-immigration parties are on the rise across the region as high unemployment and austerity, the arrival of hundreds of thousands of refugees, and recent militant attacks in France and Belgium erode voters’ traditional loyalties.

Le Pen is expected to make it into a second-round run-off for the French presidency next year.

In neighbouring Germany, where far-right parties have struggled to gain traction in the post-war era, the AfD has won double-digit support in a string of state elections and seems poised to enter the Bundestag in Berlin next year.

Since its creation in 2013, the AfD has kept other European farright parties at arm’s length. AfD politician Marcus Pretzell, recently joined the “Movement for a Europe of Nations and Freedom” grouping in the European Parliament.

The group also includes Austria’s Freedom Party, the National Front, the Northern League and rightwing Belgian and Czech parties. l

Going digital not helping troubled US newspapers n Adil Mahmood The grim news for newspapers: digital is doing little to rescue them from their deepening woes.

Reeling from weak circulation and ad revenue, the traditional newspaper world faces an ugly picture while social media and tech firms benefit from the shift to digital, a Pew Research Centre study released on Wednesday found.

Average weekday newspaper circulation -- print and digital combined -- fell 7% in 2015, the greatest decline since 2010, Pew’s annual State of the News Media report found.

Although digital circulation gained a slight 2%, that amounted to just 22% of total circulation, and online subscriptions have done little for the overall revenue picture, Pew said.

It found that total 2015 advertising revenue among publicly traded newspaper companies declined almost 8%, reflecting weakness in digital as well as print.

To make matters worse, newspaper newsroom employment fell 10% last year, the biggest drop since 2009, the researchers found.

Tech firms reap gains Major tech companies are reaping most of the revenues from online news, Pew found.

Total digital advertising spending grew 20% last year to around $60bn, a higher growth rate than in 2013 and

A QUARTER OF ADVERTISING REVENUE COMES FROM DIGITAL

25

25%

ADVERTISING FROM DIGITAL

22%

20

20%

19%

17%

15 10 5 0

2015

2014

2013

2012

2011

ADVERTISING REVENUE SEES BIGGEST DROP SINCE 2009 -5.9%

5 4 3 2 1

-26.6%

0 -1 -2 -3

-6.8%

-14.9% -7.3%

-6.4% -7.8%

-7.0% -6.6%

2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2014, Pew said.

“But compared with a year ago, even more of the digital ad revenue pie – 65% - is now swallowed up by just five tech companies,” the report

said, naming Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Yahoo and Twitter.

Facebook took in some 30% of digital display ad revenue last year, or $8bn, according to Pew. Google ac-

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counted for 16%. Part of the reason for the revenue shift is due to how people discover news -- often by happenstance on social networks or by searching online -- the report opined.

Since the Newspaper Association of America stopped reporting revenue figures for the newspaper industry as a whole in 2013, Pew tracked data from the seven publicly traded newspaper groups, which owned some 300 dailies at the end of last year.

The data accurately tracks the sector even though a majority of newspapers are privately held, the research firm said.

Mixed news The picture was more nuanced elsewhere in the media industry.

Some digital news startups appear to be generating revenues and profits, although data has been spotty, according to the report.

Those digital news operators include BuzzFeed, Vox Media and Business Insider. Although several have raised capital from investors, as private firms they are not required to report financial results.

It also found radio remains an important news source for around 25% of Americans, and is getting some help from digital technologies and podcasts.

But overall radio revenues were flat in 2015, with a 3% decline in traditional AM/FM spot advertising offset by gains in digital and off-air advertising, the report said. l

USA

Wildfires in California, New Mexico trigger hundreds of evacuations Hundreds of people have evacuated to escape a wildfire in coastal Southern California and a larger blaze in rural New Mexico. The blaze, which ignited on Wednesday in Santa Barbara, has consumed chaparral and tall grass in the Los Padres National Forest, blackening some 490 hectares.

-REUTERS

THE AMERICAS

3rd Brazil minister resigns over bribery scandal Brazil’s interim government lost the third cabinet member to a corruption scandal when it’s tourism minister Henrique Eduardo Alves resigned Thursday after being accused of taking bribes. A key witness accused him of accepting R$1.5m (around $445,000) diverted from state oil company Petrobras. He joins former transparency minister Fabiano Silveira and former planning minister Romero Juca, who were both forced to resign over leaked phone recordings linked to the scandal.

-AFP

UK

UK’s referendum campaigns cancel activities till Saturday The official campaigns for Britain to “stay” and “leave” the European Union in next week’s referendum has cancelled all national events on Saturday after an Labour Party lawmaker was killed. Jo Cox, a supporter of Britain staying in the EU, was attacked on Thursday in her own electoral district near Leeds in northern England.

-REUTERS

EUROPE

Belgium holds up major EU tax evasion deal EU nations gave final holdouts to Belgium and Czech Republic until Monday to adopt or reject a package of measures to fight tax reduction by global multinationals. The proposals by the bloc’s 28 finance ministers meeting in Luxembourg Friday come amid major revelations in the Panama Papers scandals of tax schemes. But Belgium and the Czech Republic left the meeting demanding more time to consult with their governments.

-AFP

AFRICA

2nd black box recovered from EgyptAir crash site Search teams on Friday recovered the second flight recorder of an EgyptAir plane from the bottom of the Mediterranean. Flight MS804 from Paris to Cairo disappeared from radar screens in the eastern Mediterranean last month with 66 people on board, and a vast search operation has since scoured swathes of sea off Egypt’s northern coast.

-AFP

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ANALYSIS

Mideast showed Hillary Clinton US power’s limit n Tribune International Desk In the wake of the Orlando killings this week, Hillary Clinton had harsh words for America’s Gulf allies, criticising them for funding institutions that radicalise young Muslims.

“It is long past time for the Saudis, the Qataris and the Kuwaitis and others to stop their citizens from funding extremist organizations,” the presumptive Democratic Party nominee told an Ohio crowd. “And they should stop supporting radical schools and mosques around the world that have set too many young people on a path toward extremism.”

These were not the kind of incendiary political comments common for her Republican rival Donald Trump— no proposed bans, no generalisations, no stereotypes.

But they did provide a window into how a President Clinton might approach the combustible, complex Middle East: polite but harsh truth-telling, with specifics, delivered as if among friends.

Tellingly, the comments were received without protest from regional leaders who consider the messenger as much as the message.

From her time as first lady to her globe-hopping travel as secretary of state under President Barack Obama, Clinton has formed first-name relationships in the region.

That helps in a region largely dominated by the decades-long reigns.

Such continuity can offer comfort and even open minds to criticism.

Yet in all of it, she’s learned the limits of American power in a region rich in history but impoverished by multiple wars and conflicts.

Here’s a look at some issues that will arise in the Middle East for Clinton if she wins in November--

Mubarak, found itself blamed by many Egyptians for the rise of the Brotherhood, whose year in power ended in another military takeover.

As president, she would have to decide whether to embrace Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi — an authoritarian battling a deadly Islamic State insurgency.

Interventionism and the limits of power

In this 2011 file photo, the then US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, centre, talks to Gulf Cooperation Council's foreign ministers during a meeting in Doha AP

First lady as diplomat

Even as first lady, Clinton traveled to more than 80 countries with her husband and on her own, helping promote US policy and causes such as supporting the rights of women and children.

In March 1999, Clinton stretched a 15-minute meeting with Egypt’s then-President Hosni Mubarak into an hour, pushing an autocratic but important US ally on her concerns about the rights of the country’s minority Coptic Christians.

She toured Israel and the Palestinian territories as first lady several times, once causing a stir by suggesting in 1998 — well before it was US policy — that a genuinely independent Palestinian state would “be in the long-term interests of the Middle East.”

In 1999 she unnerved Israelis when, after embracing Yasser Arafat’s wife Suha, she listened without protest as her Palestinian counterpart alleged that Israel used “poison gas” against Palestinians.

Her subsequent efforts to criticize the allegations — unsubstantiated and hotly denied — didn’t cool an

In this 2011 file photo, Hillary Clinton, right, greets the family of a vicitm, who was killed during his visit to the US Embassy in Cairo earlier the year AP

angry Israeli reaction and blistering headlines in New York tabloids ahead of her US Senate run.

As president, she would come under growing pressure to step into the Israeli-Palestinian morass, though each presidency following her own husband has seen diminishing returns in pushing peace talks.

Hawkishness on 9/11 and Iraq

The September 11, 2001, terror attacks took place during Clinton’s first year as a US senator. She arrived to the scene of the World Trade Centre the next day wearing a mask as dust still hung in the air over lower Manhattan. She called the attack “an act of war” — an early signal of her hawkishness on defence.

She then voted in 2002 to grant President George W Bush the broad authority to invade Iraq and depose Saddam Hussein, calling it “the hardest decision I’ve ever had to make.”

That vote came up repeatedly in her failed 2008 campaign against Obama, who campaigned on and later pulled all American troops out of Iraq — and has been raised by her opponents again in the campaign over the past months. Many in the Middle East do not regret Saddam’s ouster and regional allies allowed US bases in their country to support the war. But many also now fear the Islamic State group, which rose in the chaos of Syria’s civil war and Iraq’s security vacuum.

Clinton also this week used the term “radical Islamism” in discussing the Orlando shooting, a phrase generally avoided by Obama and used often by Republicans, who criticise those who don’t. However, Clinton stressed the need to reach out to all Muslims to “defeat this threat, which is so evil and has got to be denounced by everyone, re-

gardless of religion.”

Arab Spring embers

Clinton travelled nearly a million miles to 112 countries as secretary of state. While part of an Obama administration effort to “pivot” US diplomatic attention to Asia, Clinton found herself entangled in the Mideast on her first weeks in the job with the Gaza War that ended in 2009.

The traditional order of US allies and enemies in the region quickly found itself upended by the Arab Spring.

In her autobiography “Hard Choices,” Clinton recounts walking through Cairo’s Tahrir Square, the symbolic heart of Egypt’s Arab Spring uprising. Her realpolitik conclusions after that put her at odds with a more idealistic Obama White House.

“I came away worried that they would end up handing the country to the Muslim Brotherhood or the military by default, which in the end is exactly what happened,” she wrote.

Soon the US, having abandoned

Clinton has grown into an interventionist, backing the raid that killed al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden and finding herself arguing in vain for the US to arm moderate rebels in Syria’s civil war, a conflict that still rages today.

In Libya, she supported removing dictator Moammar Gadhafi — but the results are mixed at best.

The country is still an active war zone where rival governments and militias battle. A US ambassador and others were killed on Clinton’s watch, sparking a series of Congressional investigations.

Even on the tiny island of Bahrain, home to the US Navy’s 5th Fleet, Clinton was unable to stop Saudi and Emirati forces from crushing a protest by the nation’s Shia majority.

As president, she will have to balance America’s relations with its Sunni allies — the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and other Gulf nations — with its emerging rapprochement with Shiite power Iran.

The Gulf’s distrust of last year’s nuclear deal with Iran will loom large in any Clinton presidency, testing her ability to balance priorities, leverage relationships and manage crises in one of the most explosive corners of the world.

She already knows the challenge as she once wrote: “Trying to drive change in the Middle East could feel like banging your head against a brick wall.” l

Source: AP

In this 1999 file photo, the then first lady Hillary Clinton, left, and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak talk at the presidential palace in Cairo AP

Pope’s remarks on modern marriage draw sharp criticism n Reuters, Vatican City Pope Francis has said the “great majority” of Catholic marriages being celebrated today are invalid because couples do not fully realise it is a lifetime commitment, drawing sharp criticism from Church conservatives.

The pope, who has come under fire before for making spontaneous comments about doctrinal matters, was speaking at a Q&A with priests, nuns and parish workers on Thursday night in a Rome basilica.

“We are living in a provisional culture,” Francis said in response to a man who spoke of “the crisis of marriage” and asked how the Church could better prepare young couples.

“Because of this, a great

majority of our sacramental marriages are null because they (the couple) say ‘yes, for the rest of my life’ but they don’t know what they are saying because they have a different culture,” Francis said.

In the Vatican’s transcript issued on Friday morning his words were changed to read “some” instead of “a great majority”. A Vatican spokesman said the pope’s off-thecuff remarks are sometimes edited after consulting with him or among aides.

Critics appeared to take the pope’s words as a suggestion that most Catholics do not take their marriage vows seriously.

Ross Douthat, the conservative Catholic writer and New York Times columnist, said in one of his some 20 tweets on the subject that Francis

had made “an extraordinary, irresponsible and ridiculous claim”.

The Catholic Church teaches that a marriage can be ended only by death or an annulment -- a Church ruling it was not valid in the first place because it lacked prerequisites such as free will and psychological maturity.

“The crisis of marriage is due to the fact that people don’t know what the sacrament is, the beauty of the sacrament, they don’t know that it is indissoluble, that it is for your entire life,” the pope said, adding that many young people had a materialistic and superficial approach to their wedding day, such as an obsession with choosing the right gown, the right church and the right restaurant. l

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World

SATURDAY, JUNE 18, 2016

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Learn English

SATURDAY, JUNE 18, 2016

JOKES Where does the world’s biggest spider live?

Do you understand the joke?

A 'web' can be a spider's web, and it can also be short for the Internet or the World Wide Web (www.)

Find lots more fun things to do at www.britishcouncil.org/learnenglishkids Š British Council 2016

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Ramadan Special

SATURDAY, JUNE 18, 2016

Ramadan: Yūgen n Shireen Pasha Soul

I was about 18 when I was first introduced to the idea of Islam and nature. Intuitively, the idea floated beautifully in my heart, but mentally, I was surprised. The man who lit the light was my professor for Environmental Studies at Sweet Briar College, Professor Sang Hwang. He was a Chinese American, Birkenstock-sporting elegant man who named his son Shiraz (light in Persian).

It was a private college. Funds were low but he managed to accumulate some together to bring over an environmental scientist from Pakistan to talk with our small class about intention (niyat) and its role in Islam and Nature.

“Who and what is included in the intention of your actions?

Do you think about the earth, the water, the air, the vast life around you and other than human beings who rely on a healthy environment?” Both men were so soft and poetic in their speech, one could feel the yūgen that filled their hearts and breath.

Yūgen is a Japanese word that expresses a deep felt emotion triggered by the mahima (wonder) of nature - a universe that is too textured and deep to verbalise.

In the countryside, you may have heard the song “Ki boli thomaro, mahima thomaro, Alahamdulillah, Alahamdulillah” (What can I say of your mystery and wonder, I am grateful to thee Allah, I am grateful to thee).

In popular culture, there is a scene where Hrithik Rowshan, playing the Emperor Akbar in the film Jodha Akbar, praying by the grave of Khwaja MoinuddinChisti (defender of the poor). Akbar was asking Allah for divine guidance on uniting warring India, while standing in the background of a beautiful lustrous tree. He then received the idea to marry Princess Jodha so that both Hindu and Muslim pilgrims could travel safely in Ajmer.

Illustrated in the scene was the yūgen Akbar felt, with the bright green tree radiant against Chisti’s white dargah (shrine). The tree personifies hope, the continuation of life and divinity on earth.

Mind Beloved Muhammad, peace be upon him, encouraged people to consume less, to protect biological

and cultural diversity, to repair, reuse, recycle (just as he did with everything from pots to shoes) and revere Allah by being kind to creation.

Some additional advice included: 1. Plant a tree, even if it is your last deed.

2. When you plant a garden, you create a small biosphere for other beings - one of the greatest offerings to Allah.

3. Include biological and cultural diversity in your intentions so that they may also thrive.

4. Do not be selfish in caring for other beings.

5. Manage water by caring for it’s vitality and share it free of cost. It is an inalienable right to provide the sustenance of all life.

Body Are you taking the time to commune with nature? It is excessively harder to find it within walking distance these days but make the effort, for Allah exists in all things. A wonderful Tagore song celebrates the light that is spread from tree to tree to our hearts, “Tumi je surer agun lagiye dile mor prana” (there is an inherent assumption that there is no separation between the divine and nature).

There is a beautiful rendition

by Debabrata Biswas as well.

All nature is also a hymn to Allah. These hymns are pure energy, which can bring us closer to ourselves and the infinite divine. They have the potential to unlock our secrets, and our deepest questions. Wasn’t it

Newton who was sitting beneath an apple tree contemplating the mysteries of the universe when the falling of an apple led his mind to the vast moon and the idea of a connecting force: gravity?

Wasn’t it Buddha who was sitting beneath a bodhi tree in contemplation when he was able to unfurl the history of creation of self and the planet in his DNA, the rules of Karma (or the energy

in cause and effect), and freedom from attachment?

Wasn’t it Rabia Basri who would meditate amongst trees at night on the magnificence of creation and praying for the freedom of her enslaver from his self-enslavement, which also led to her freedom?

Nature has a key. Why not layer our hearts with Yūgen? Allah is in the sublime. The sublime will free us. l

A Golden Moment “Early on a winter morning during Ramadan, I went to the bank of the Buriganga River near the Sadarghat Boat and Launch Terminal in Dhaka, Bangladesh,” writes Your Shot member Md Rafayat Haque Khan. “I saw a few boys swimming and playing in the river. This scene brought me back to the simpler days of being a child and caught in small moments that seemed so magical - such a serene, peaceful (moment), the kid representing the golden moment of life.”

PHOTO: Md Rafayat Haque Khan, National Geographic Your Shot

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Feature

SATURDAY, JUNE 18, 2016

Understanding Mary Meeker’s insights offline in Bangladesh, Pakistan, Ethiopia and Nigeria.

Smartphones

The global smartphone shipment showed a dramatic decline in the last five years from 28% to 10%, indicating smartphones have become more durable and users do not feel the need to change them every year.

Android has a higher market share over iOS, but there is a decline in the average android selling price. Although the android platform is definitely becoming more attractive (good news for developers), the phone market is becoming less profitable.

Advertising trends Mary Meeker addressing the crowd Mary Meeker, a living legend amongst venture capitalists, has published critical statistics about how technology is evolving.

Her annual presentation shows where digital trends and Internet marketing are today, and where they will be heading in the coming years. Here are some of the important things you need to know from her 2016 Internet Trend presentation.

Internet usage

The report shows the global Internet adoption rate was flat year-over-year at 9%, reaching 42% of the world’s population, which means there are still many users for apps to attract.

India has passed USA to become the second global Internet user market, while China remains seated at the top. This shows the

potential in these regions and also the shift of the Internet market towards Asia.

The biggest barrier for Internet adaptation is network infrastructure and the incentive to go online, keeping 1,438 million people offline in countries like India, Egypt, Indonesia, Philippines and Thailand. Illiteracy and low income comes as the second barrier, keeping 548 million people

Mobile Internet advertising had a massive year-over-year growth of 66% from 2014-2015.

Facebook grew by 59% and Google by 18% with regard to Internet advertising. Marketers definitely need to see where they are investing for advertisements, as the legacy media is not working much anymore. Ad platforms, which do not collect vast data, will be facing trouble soon.

Despite the growth of online advertisements, online video ads did not cut up to the mark.

It is important to put up ads that are relatable, entertaining and authentic.

Modes and mediums

Visual apps like Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram have more usage than the text-heavy apps like Twitter and LinkedIn. This is because of the rise in people’s preference to share images.

Instead of focusing on the millennial market, apps should be created focusing on Gen Z’s image focused creators.

The intimacy of direct communication and the urgency of live broadcast has made live content incredibly effective. Video creators need to make content designed for Facebook and Snapchat.

Snapchat’s growth is very high in case of photo and video sharing, while SMS is getting left far behind with the shift of users towards Snapchat. Voice interface will be the next big thing as voice recognition accuracy is close to 90% in 2016.

It is easier in mobiles to use voice commands than to type.

One in five searches on Android gadgets are now spoken. l

The World Bank and BetterStories organised Make A-Thon Bangladesh 2016 In partnership with the ICT Division of the Ministry of Post, Telecommunications and Information Technology, 18 esteemed partners have organised Make-A-Thon 2016.

This event brought forward 100 top talents from the fields of engineering, agriculture, business, fashion technology and design together to solve problems for Bangladesh.

Make-A-Thon 2016 received 400 applications for participation, from which the top 100 participants were filtered.

Together, these participants put themselves through 68 hours of grueling training and mentoring, all to built the perfect prototypes.

In teams and as individuals, they have built 32 prototypes on paper and 3D. The prototypes focus on real-life problems and applications relevant to healthcare, transport and infrastructure, agriculture, biomedical engineering, energy generation, physical challenges, sustainable energy management

Make-A-Thon 2016 received 400 applications for participation, from which the top 100 participants were filtered

and more.

The top 10 projects were QC Pro, a prototype that ensures quality of food and agricultural products; ULTRACANE, a tool to help visually challenged people to navigate easily; FLOBUDDY,

a prevention tool for fatalities caused from drowning; Smart Card based Public Services, a management system for public transport; UAV For Humanity, an aerial solution run on drone technology; W-Bot, a sanitation

system for water bodies; Smart Gas Burner, a system that reduces gas usage; Happiness for All, an economically feasible and affordable toy drone; Drivers, Go Safe, a tool that assists drivers and Health Assistant and Harassment

Prevention, a wearable medical assistant.

Other notable projects were ROBO-NURSE, a robot that can provide basic healthcare services; and TRAFFIC AI, a system that helps its users tackle traffic and find low-congested routes to their destination. l Reprinted under special arrangement with SD Asia

SATURDAY, JUNE 18, 2016

Of Carnage and Krishnachuras

EDITOR’S NOTE

I

n this issue, Arts & Letters pays tribute to Rudro Mohammad Shahidullah who had left us, much before his time, on the 21st June in 1991. His poetry immensely inspired the generation that successfully brought about the democratic revolution in 1990. To commemorate the 25th death anniversary of the poet, we print excerpts from an article that make an apt assessment of the power of Rudro’s poems.

Apart from snippets and news bites, this issue offers a very timely article by fiction writer Mahmud Rahman who argues how the Liberation War Denial Crimes Act, if it comes into effect, will impinge on the imaginative freedom of fiction writers.

There’s also a short story by Junaidul Haque, the conversational style of which, we believe, will strike a chord with many readers.

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n Khondker Ashraf Hossain

The optimism that was born out of the ashes and the blood is recorded in the poems written by the younger poets of the seventies. The best representative of them is Rudra Muhammad Shahidullah, from whose poem ‘Swajaner Shubhra Harh’ I quote : I will build my home here at this golden time.

Here the Aghraan fullmoon will shine all the year round The long night of sorrow over, The bloodshed of destruction over, We meet again on the coral reef of woe.

The dear earth is awash with blood White bones of the dear ones are abloom like bright flowers.

Shahidullah wrote with anger and disgust about the widespread carnage of the war of liberation, the decomposing corpses strewn everywhere, the outcries of the widows and the orphans. But the waning of the values of the liberation struggle as was manifest in the infinite greed of the power-mongers and the resurgence of the anti-liberation communal forces immediately following the birth of Bangladesh saddened him all the more. Rudra’s language is emo-

Mahmud Rahman writes on Liberatin War Denial Crimes Act

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tional, unadorned, direct and piercing: Even today I smell the corpses in the air, Still I watch the naked dans macabre on the earth; I hear the outcries of the raped women in my sleep; Has this country forgotten that nightmare, that bloody time? ...

The same old vulture has clutched the national flag.

Forty years have elapsed; forty summers and winters have heaped up the dust of oblivion on our memory. The generation who fought the war is fast dwindling in the natural course of time. The ‘Muktijuddho’ now lives on in the memories of those who still live and in the myths and metonymies ensconced in literature. The latter will ultimately be the place for any future retrieval, of those fires and tears that had once surged in millions of hearts in this land where krishnachuras bloom. l Khondakar Ashraf Hossain was a poet and professor of English Literature at Dhaka University. His collections of Bangla poems include Partho Tomar Teebro Teer, Jibaner Saman Chumuk, Sundari o Ghrinar Ghungur. On Behula’s Raft is the collection of his selected poems in English. His doctoral thesis was on Western influence on Bangladeshi Poetry.

FICTION Friendship

Send your submissions to: anl@dhakatribune.com

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Arts & Letters

L I B E R AT I O N WA R D

What will it mean for fiction writers? n Mahmud Rahman

I

t was either 2007 or 2008.

While browsing the bookstalls at the Ekushey Book Fair in Dhaka, I came across one featuring books on the liberation war.

Some of the titles were familiar, others new to me. I asked a man behind the display why they didn’t carry Shaheen Akhtar’s novel Talaash. He replied that they did not consider the book to be pro-liberation war.

I could not elicit any details.

I found his remarks ironic since around the same time, a writer in Shaptahik 2000, a weekly magazine, had listed Talaash as one of ten significant books on the war.

I’m wary of such lists, but I do agree that Talaash is a vital novel about 1971 and its aftermath. I have read this book more than once, translated part of a chapter, and also helped edit the English translation published as The Search by Zubaan Books India.

The novel opens before the war. After a scandal in the village, a young woman named Mariam is sent off by her parents to attend college in Dhaka. She falls in love with Abed, a student leader, who scorns her for her lack of politics but doesn’t mind sleeping with her as often as he can. When the war breaks out, Mariam joins thousands of others who flee the city.

Unfortunately, the Pakistani army captures her and for the duration of the war she is held in a school building where she and other women are tortured as sex slaves. The end of the war brings release from captivity but a fate far from liberation. Though the new government declares women like Mariam as Biranganas, they are scorned by society. Some of Mariam’s peers commit suicide, some leave with the Pakistani soldiers, and others survive selling their bodies. Talaash is the story of Mariam’s struggle to refuse any of these fates over the next thirty years.

Asking around, I found hints of why some people objected to Talaash. There were people who thought the book maligned student leaders. One reader had trouble with the fact that Mariam was not a virgin. Approaching the novel from the standpoint that the Pakistani military had destroyed ‘the honour of our women’, it didn’t sit well with him that the novel’s protagonist was someone already having sex.

All signs suggest that the Parliament will soon pass the Liberation War Denial Crimes Act. This law will give anyone the right to file a complaint with the police or the courts. While history is defined

QUAMRUL HASAN

Of course there will be critical debate over works of fiction. On any book you can find a range of opinion, and in reading fiction, taste can be highly personal and subjective. Until now, most criticism about 1971 fiction has remained verbal or on the page. But what happens when writers fall under the shadow of the proposed law? as settled, the law’s clauses about history are vague, and it goes on to consider it a crime to be “representing the liberation war history inaccurately or with half-truth in the text books or in any other medium” (italics mine).

Other writers have expressed anxiety about what this means for the freedom to research the complex and polyphonic history of the entire movement for independence.

I share those concerns but as a writer of fiction, I also fear for the burden this will impose on creative writers.

Ordinary people learn about history not just from text books but also from stories, novels, plays, and films. I am haunted not just by what I saw and heard in 1971 but also by narratives I have read in books. My sense of the texture of 1971 is rooted in personal experience but it has also been enhanced by the efforts of many writers.

Bangladesh owes an immense debt to such writers.

Of course there will be critical

debate over works of fiction. On any book you can find a range of opinion, and in reading fiction, taste can be highly personal and subjective.

Until now, most criticism about 1971 fiction has remained verbal or on the page. But what happens when writers fall under the shadow of the proposed law?

What if someone who feels that Talaash is not sufficiently pro-liberation war decides to file a case that the book “represents history inaccurately or with half-truth”? In our highly litigious society, it is not unknown for random individuals, either with personal axes to grind or the desire to curry favour with the powerful, to file defamation cases. The proposed law is setting the stage for malicious “denial of history” cases. Given that the law is written with vague references to “events” and “truth”, it opens the door to abuse and harassment.

Consider another scenario.

Mahmudul Haque’s novel Jibon Amar Bon is one of the most

significant works of fiction from Bangladesh. It was first published in a magazine in 1973, not long after the country became independent. When I first read the novel, I was struck by its unsentimental approach to the liberation movement. The story is set entirely in March 1971, during the upheaval that led to the breakout of the war.

In Translation Review, Shabnam Nadiya wrote this about Jibon Amar Bon: “Post-war disillusionment is perhaps inevitable; but Khoka’s prewar apathy was the first attempt to capture a consciousness that ran counter to the glorious nationalist narrative being constructed. With the world around him exploding in the passion of protest against Pakistani domination, Khoka remains disdainful. He justifies his detachment saying that the same mob once welcomed the military dictator Ayub Khan. Seemingly oblivious, Khoka fits in nowhere and his choice is to remain enmeshed in his life of friends

(whose impassioned debates make him think of the futility of humans); his beloved sister Ronju; Neela, the woman of his desire. Yet hinted through the mirror of this detachment is a dire imagining of post-war Bangladesh of easy money, elaborate corruption, a burgeoning middle class bent on grabbing opportunities provided by ‘public sentiment’.

“Khoka’s detachment is destroyed when he loses his sister to war; life leaves none untouched, despite our illusory distance. We don’t know how Ronju dies, for Khoka’s recall lacks clarity. All we know is Khoka’s mistake: ‘All he had wanted was for Ronju to survive…His sad country could never have given Ronju the right to live.’”

Nearly a decade ago when Mahmudul Haque was still alive and I was in Dhaka, I had many conversations with him about everything under the sun. I had asked him about reactions to Jibon Amar Bon. He said that it had been well received by some, criticized by others. “One day,” he told me, “I was stopped while riding in a rickshaw. A man stepped out of a car and asked me to accompany him. I asked, ‘Why do I have to come with you?

You know where I live and work. I’m going to work now, you can meet me there.’ The man was from an intelligence agency; someone had brought the novel to their attention.”

Through one of his friends, Mahmudul Haque met Sheikh Mujibur Rahman in the Prime Minis-

DENIAL ACT

ter’s office. The prime minister was informed that the author had been receiving some flak over a novel he had written. When he asked what the book was about, Mahmudul Haque had replied, “To answer that properly, you would have to read the book but where could you find that sort of time?” He related to me that Mujib had replied, “We freed the country. We are an independent country, people will write what they will. If someone harasses you, let them know that we have spoken.” Nothing further happened after this meeting.

If the Denial Act comes into place, a hostile critic could demand Jibon Amar Bon be banned because it’s guilty of “denying events that were for the preparation of the liberation war between 1 March 1971 to 25 March 1971’ and that it represented the war ‘inaccurately or with half-truth.”

I have written several stories related to the 1971 war that appear in my book Killing the Water. In the story “Kerosene,” a liberation fighter is part of a mob burning down a warehouse filled with women and children belonging to a minority community of whom many had collaborated with an occupying army. The story is allegorical, set in an imagined place, but readers familiar with 1971 will recognize that it’s written about our own atrocities towards the “Biharis”. There are many who would like to deny this shameful aspect of our history.

When I wrote this story, I recalled a story I had heard when I stepped over to Agartala in 1971, a story of shame that refused to let go and sank itself into my being. “Kerosene” was an effort to use fiction to come to grips with that experience.

People can like or hate my stories. Just as some might consider Talaash or Jibon Amar Bon or a dozen other published narratives as insufficiently patriotic. But literary dis-

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SNIPPET

agreement, even when laced with emotion, should not spill over into police attention or criminal courts.

Laws must not burden writers with shackles that prevent them from freely imagining history in their writing. I fear that the proposed law will come down as a restraint on writers, preventing them from exploring the complexity of our history through stories and novels. This will not serve the country well at all. *** Fiction has a complicated relationship with history. Those of us who are fiction writers do not pretend to be historians but our fiction can draw on history and interrogate history in ways that historical texts cannot. In fiction, writers often seek to explore truths in unconventional ways.

Some writers prepare for their historical fiction with detailed research. Others draw from experience or start from an impressionistic view of events and rely more on their imagination. In each case, an author searches for truths through the tools of fiction: characterization, description, narrative, imagination.

History cannot be reduced to a mere chronicle of events. Behind events lie the actions of human beings. Behind those actions, or passivity, lie a complicated mix of consciousness, will, accident, reaction, emotion, thought. Historical researchers can try to unravel that blend, seeking threads, answers, and patterns, but there is a large area of the unknown – what goes on in the minds of humans? – that fiction writers can use imagination to probe more boldly than others.

What if in the course of writing fiction, we enter into the minds of heinous people like Pakistani military men or collaborators? What if we make efforts to build such characters not just as embodiments of

evil but as fleshed out characters?

What if someone takes offence at such examples and interprets these as misrepresenting History?

What if we enter the minds of those we may consider on “our side” but who reveal in their interiority a complex mix of emotions, not just courage and resolve but also shame, cowardice, small-mindedness?

The tool chest of fiction writers is vast. It may not even be constrained by fact. Some, for example, explore alternate histories.

What if a writer chooses to write a novel imagining a history where it was the Pakistanis who won? Or one where the Indian army decided to stay and maintain an occupation? Or where a radical regime came to power? Any of these scenarios would be factually untrue, but fiction writers can use scenarios like these to tell stories about the multifaceted time that Bangladesh had gone through in 1971.

Yet, if the denial law comes into effect, someone daring to take on these imaginative challenges would be targeted by those who only see a simplistic story line for 1971. Then the police and courts would wade into this territory, mostly unfamiliar to them, to determine judgements and sentences. Is that where the legal system, already pressed hard to deal with crime, should devote its resources?

It’s hard enough when Islamic fundamentalists have created an atmosphere when every writer has to watch what they say about religion. It would be an additional burden when lawmakers, driven by a different kind of rigid mindset, pass a law that may penalize writers for writing about 1971 in unorthodox ways.

Those writers who experienced 1971 are passing. There are yet many stories to be written about the times of war and the country they bequeathed. It will mostly fall on younger writers, those who didn’t directly experience the war, to draw from historical research and their own inclinations and imagination. What burden is the state putting on those who would want to write on the canvas of 1971? Do we really want to impoverish the literary possibilities about 1971 or for those who refuse to conform, do we want to send them to jail for their creative efforts? l Mahmud Rahman is a Bangladeshi writer and translator based in the US. He is the author of Killing the Water: Stories, published by Penguin India, and Black Ice, a translation of Mahmudul Haque’s Kalo Borof, published by HarperCollins India.

JK Rowling nominated for crime novel award Career of Evil is one of six titles now in the running for the Theakston Old Peculier crime novel of the year award

n Arts & Letters Desk It is no news that JK Rowling has taken up writing a series of crime novels under the pseudonym of Robert Galbraith. Her alter ego Robert Galbraith is one of six novelists to be nominated for the title of Theakston Old Peculier crime novel of the year.

Galbraith’s Career of Evil is the third novel in the adventures of private investigator Cormoran Strike who, in a mysterious package, receives a woman’s severed leg and a note which links to Strike’s past.

“The new writing identity that Rowling has forged for herself is not only utterly unlike that of her fantasy endeavors, but quirkily different from most of the already established confrères she is befriending in the crime writing world,” a review in the Independent declared.

Also on the shortlist are former TV documentary maker Renee Knight’s debut Disclaimer, often heralded as the new Gone Girl; former police officer Clare Mackintosh’s first thriller, I Let You Go; 2005 and 2009 winner Mark Billingham, here with his 13th novel in the popular Tom Thorne series, Time of Death; Northern Irish writer Adrian McKinty’s Rain Dogs; and Eva Dolan’s Tell No Tales, which focuses on murdered migrants and racial tension.

The award ceremony will be hosted on 21 July, as the opening night of the 14th annual Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival in Harrogate. According to an Independent report, Gemma Rowland, Operations Manager at Harrogate International Festivals, the arts organisation that delivers the festival, said: “2016’s winner will join the list of game-changing authors who have won one of the most coveted awards over the last decade, including Denise Mina, Lee Child, and Sarah Hilary. The public’s vote is incredibly important as ultimately readers decide when it comes to judging a book’s worth, so I’d encourage everyone to make their voice heard – it’s free and simple to vote online.”

The winner will be decided by both a panel of judges, and the online public vote; with voting opening on 1 July and closing 15 July. l

‘The new writing identity that Rowling has forged for herself is not only utterly unlike that of her fantasy endeavors, but quirkily different from most of the already established confrères she is befriending in the crime writing world,’ a review in the Independent declared

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SATURDAY, JUNE 18, 2016

FICTION

Friendship This is the first installment of a two-part story. The final installment will appear in the next issue Hi, Sonia, how are you? How is your Jilibi?

Fine. Jilibi? He is fine too.

(Smiles) How come you remember his nickname even after all these years?

Boys are not like girls, Mrs Sonia Fletcher. They don’t forget easily.

(Smiles) Thanks for looking slim and beautiful. I was dying to meet you before getting old. I have been telling friends about you all these years. See, boys remember. Sincerity and loyalty are basically masculine qualities. Pogos remember even more.

Pogos! Hearing the word after such a long time! You would call half-mad people pogos! The sad, sensitive, unsuccessful kind. “Paji Pogo” sounds even better. It was my nickname for you years back.

Righto! You would address me as Paji even in your letters. My collection of Indo-Anglian novels contains a few such letters. Very polite, decent letters. Girls love to remain safe. They are not madly romantic like us.

You are wrong, Mr Rahman. Always criticising girls! They are sincere, Sir! They are romantic. But they are not crazy like you. (Blushes) Like boys or pogos they don’t chase married friends and forget to marry the right person at the right time.

Pogos are none else but Eliot’s Prufrock, Camus’ outsider. A story

BIGSTOCK

n Junaidul Haque

You are wrong, Mr Rahman. Always criticising girls! They are sincere, Sir! They are romantic. But they are not crazy like you.

(Blushes) Like boys or pogos they don’t chase married friends and forget to marry the right person at the right time

by Kolkata’s Shirshendu Mukherjee also had a character named Pogo.

You were talking about marriage.

Pogos are not fated to do the right thing at the right time. I remember that once you had praised the pogos a lot. You smilingly said that the pogos were a surprising species.

They were gentlemen who could make dangerous demands to their married friends and effortlessly get away with it! Sonia, didn’t I admire you with the simplicity of a boy at the height of youth? You won’t get many people with pure emotions like me in this cynical world.

I would like to call my friendly love for you quite heavenly.

Mr Pogo, you give quite good speeches. You have learned to praise yourself quite well. Once

you used to praise others only. Hey, how is your Mermaid, your Ilish Machh?

You haven’t forgotten! You gave her those names. Ilish Machh alias the mermaid lives in London with her husband. She is married to a microbiologist. She is quite happy. It makes sense that she didn’t marry me! I have made her suffer a lot. She deserves her present happiness and peace. As a young man I would think that she had caused me more suffering. With the passage of time I could detect my own mistakes and forgive hers. I wish her well. I proudly remember that you would always call her pretty.

(Smiles sadly) Why not? If she is not pretty, who is? It was you who didn’t un-

derstand how precious she was!

I did understand, Sonia. My heart bled a lot for her. But I understood her true worth only after losing her. When is Mark going to return? Why are you spending such a lot of money and staying in Hotel Sonargaon?

Not spending our money.

UNICEF is keeping us here. I too have joined UNICEF a few years back. Mark has always been there.

You know that. Mark has gone to meet a friend of his. He will be coming now. Let’s go on talking.

Good. You will be able to keep a better watch of your Jilibi now. Is he still slim like you? Or is he getting heavy like me?

He is not heavy but he has very little hair left on his head. Are you

still angry with the Americans?

(Smiles) No! What is the use?

How is your brother Humayun?

Your bhabi Sandhya? Your parents?

Mother-in-law? Ah! We have met after such a long time!

Wait.

I am telling you everything. Humayun is fine. He is your age, forty plus. Assisting my father in his legal practice. He is in Mumbai for almost the whole year.

Sandhya Bhabi is fine too. They have two lovely children.

Is Sandhya saying “Hari Om” in the evening even now? You would say that she was saying ‘Hurry home!’ to her husband.

(Smiles again) You really remember everything! Dad and Mom are fine. Mark’s mother is in Houston and is quite strong. She has crossed 75. Really we are in Dhaka after such a long time. I am fortunate that I could meet the great chicken-eater of Bengal again. You were very fond of chicken legs.

Yeah. And you were very fond of Biroi rice of Mymensingh. Your Dad is very handsome. You resemble him more than your mother.

You liked both of them but I guess your father was dearer to you. I am also fond of girls who dote on their father. I wish I had a daughter myself. Your brother married in a Hindu family to strengthen secular India. You married Mark to promote international solidarity. How big are your children?

I don’t have children!

What do you mean? We then have a similar fate!

You don’t have children too?

Yes. Doctors still give us hope.

Didn’t you seriously want children?

(Smiles sadly) You are such a nice soul! I don’t want to make you feel bad. Please tell me about your wife.

(Looking unhappy) I told you fifteen years back and I am telling you now. You deserve a hundred children. We need as many copies of you as possible. (Stopping for a while) My wife is a nice person. She has seen your photograph a lot. And she has always called you pretty.

I feel proud of that. I used to think that only boys made good friends.

I don’t regret that a beautiful, extremely intelligent, thoughtful tomboy proved me wrong. (Smiles) .l Junaidul Haque is a fiction writer.

Lit competition for young writers n Arts & Letters Desk GolpoKotha, a performance-based bilingual literary group, has organised a creative writing competition for emerging writers and poets. What makes this competition different is that submissions will be accepted both in English and Bangla.

The submissions will be judged by eminent writers Syed Manzoorul Islam, Kaiser Haq and Fakrul Alam. Selected writers or poets will get the opportunity to get published in a bilingual literary anthology.

Rules and guidelines for submission are as follows: A writer can submit a maximum of

3 poems or a short story not exceeding 1500 words.

Submissions should include a very short biography of the writer (not more than 100 words).

All submissions should be typed and double-spaced.

For English entries the font is New Times Roman and the size 12.

For Bangla entries the font is Bijoy.

Entries have to be Microsoft Word documents.

Subject lines are to be written in the following format: GolpoKotha, Poetry/ Story, Bengali/English, title, name of writer.

No plagiarised submission will be accepted.

The deadline for submission is on 15th of July.

Those who are interested to take part should send their work at golpokotha.emk@gmail.com. To know more about the event go to: https:// www.facebook.com/MíK_v-Golpokatha.

19

SATURDAY, JUNE 18, 2016

| forum |

| partnership |

Digital Creative Industry Forum organised by British Council and NSDC-S

Aarong-Novoair campaign

The British Council and National Skills Development Council Secretariat (NSDC-S) organised a Digital Creative Industry Forum at the NSDC Secretariat premises on Thursday, June 16.

The Forum brought together some of the leading professionals in the field of digital creatives to discuss the opportunities and challenges the sector has in ensuring a talent pipeline and ongoing professionalisation of the sector. The importance of the sector is recognised by the Government of Bangladesh.

Initially, the meeting explored the new role of Industry Skills Councils in skills development

and specifically the perspective of establishing an Industry Skills Council for the Digital Creative Industries.

The event was hosted by ABM Korshed Alam, Additional Secretary, CEO of NSDC-S, and Louise Cowcher, Director Development Contracts of British Council Bangladesh.

Bangladesh enjoys a large youth population who are aspirational, technologically savvy, and globally connected, who can develop in this sector.

It is a high-value high-level skills sector, and while there are formal employment opportunities within the sector, it is also

driven by freelancers and small independent creative businesses.

In this way, Digital Creatives as a sector, can drive employment through multiple pathways and contribute to meeting the aspirations of young people.

In addition, there is a clearly articulated Digital Bangladesh strategy, which incorporates the philosophy of effective and useful use of technology in terms of implementing the promises in education, health, job placement, and poverty reduction.

The discussions were facilitated by Louise Cowcher, Director Development Contracts of British Council Bangladesh. l

| meals |

DT

Biz Info

Aarong and Novoair have partnered to reward three customers every week of Ramadan by offering two roundtrip flight tickets to selected destinations. In order to be eligible for the offer, Aarong customers must make a purchase online at aarong.com.

The top three customers based on their highest purchase amount in a single invoice will be selected as the respective 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place winners.

The destinations being awarded

are Yangon, Cox’s Bazar and Sylhet, respectively. The campaign will run throughout the month of Ramadan, with the timeline as 1st week - June 12-16 (3 winners), 2nd week– June 17-23 (3 winners), 3rd week– June 24-30 (3 winners), 4th week– July 1-7 (3 winners). A total of 12 winners and 24 tickets will be awarded. The winners will be announced every week on their website and facebook page. l

| meals |

Meat Lovers presents delightful iftar platters

House of Thai

House of Thai brings an authentic thai platter this Ramadan, with an amazing low price. This “platter ultimate” is ideal for two people, with a price of Tk799, including

VAT. Please reserve beforehand, as the offer is limited.

Platter Ultimate offers: Drinks - Iced lemonade (2 glasses) Appetiser - Onion rings

Soup - Dumpling soup Main dishes - Thai fried rice, spicy thai grill chicken, thai basil chicken with seasonal vegetables Dessert - Mi-Amore ice-cream l

This Ramadan, Meat Lovers gives you the opportunity to choose from three different iftar platters.

Spice up that meal at the end of the day with their charcoal grill platter, pizza and filletto platter, or steak platter, starting at an

inexpensive price of only Tk350.

Apart from these, Meat Lovers also offers exquisite take away items such as the aloo keema chop, fried chicken, prawn tempura, oreo ice cream, and many more. l

DT

20 Editorial

SATURDAY, JUNE 18, 2016

INSIDE

Working for peanuts No one seems to be believing her version of the story even if she is fervently honest about what she is doing. This is what our society is. To me, what she has shown could be great inspiration for the great number of women and the unemployed people in the country PAGE 21

Bangladesh and company In doing so, the Company became, for nearly a century, the de facto rulers of these lands of Bangladesh. Many, no doubt, suffered for it, especially in 1770, but many, also, certainly benefitted PAGE 22

There are renewable energy and ‘big data’ revolutions led by progressive business. There is innovation and resilience in the informal economy, too. Policy instruments are emerging to scale up green approaches PAGE 23

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

The views expressed in Opinion articles are those of the authors alone. They do not purport to be the official view of Dhaka Tribune or its publisher.

Digital land records a must

D

Climate change

Be heard

BIGSTOCK

igitising land records has been highlighted by 30 leading economists as one of the most cost-effective ways in which the government can spend public money on improving governance.

The Smarter Solutions study carried out by BRAC RED and the Copenhagen Consensus Centre estimates a return on investment of Tk619 for each taka spent on land records digitisation, and Tk663 for each taka for implementing e-procurement.

It is encouraging that this study, which analysed 1,000 different policy ideas, found many existing national policies including the government’s promises to digitise land records as well as existing immunisation programs, among the list of 72 policy options which it found to be most beneficial in terms of return to investment.

The government should redouble efforts to digitise land records and bring in electronic procurement. Both these policies are vital to increase efficiency and reduce delays.

It is especially important for land records. Over three fifths of outstanding civil litigation cases, involving some 1.8 million litigants, relate solely to land disputes.

While backlogs in the judicial process exacerbate this number, the root cause of this huge backlog is poor record-keeping and corrupt administration in the land management system.

Digitising land records so that ownership of land can be transparently confirmed online for a small fee would transform this scenario.

Allowing land registration and survey matters to be processed on an open, digital basis is essential to level the playing field for land disputes and curb the scope for corruption.

Ensuring that these two initiatives are implemented rapidly and invested in now rather than later is a not only important, but should be a win-win situation for the government.

Timely investment to fully implement e-procurement and land transactions will clearly pay for itself by cutting corruption and improving the efficiency and quality of services available for the public.

Allowing land registration and survey matters to be processed on an open, digital basis is essential to level the playing field for land disputes and curb the scope for corruption

DT

21

Opinion

SATURDAY, JUNE 18, 2016

Working for peanuts Women in Bangladesh always face scrutiny and criticism for their career choices

Can selling peanuts be a respectable way to make a living?

BIGSTOCK

No one seems to be believing her version of the story even if she is fervently honest about what she is doing. This is what our society is. To me, what she has shown could be great inspiration for the great number of women and the unemployed people in the country

n Ekram Kabir

T

he news of a girl deciding to quit her job from a travel agency to sell peanuts by Rabindra Sarabar in Dhaka’s Dhanmondi area seemed quite intriguing to me. Many have appreciated the jeans-clad girl’s initiative, many have criticised it, some have hated it.

I haven’t spoken to the girl, and that’s why several thoughts popped up in my mind. If I could verify this news from her, perhaps this write-up would have been different. However, I’ll have to depend on my analytical abilities to express my thoughts, which I will do as honestly as I can.

When I saw her picture, from a guy’s point of view, and a chauvinistic one at that, I thought “she’s hot.” Call me a bad guy if you want, but I felt that way -- the so-called male way. I’d love to buy peanuts from her every day if she was around.

No matter how much men deny,

I’m pretty sure that this is what most of the male readers of the news felt that way. She’s attractive enough for me to be able to purchase her products every day.

Now, kindly allow me to analyse this from a father’s or parent’s point of view. If the peanut girl were my daughter, I’d go to any length to convince her not to continue with this.

I strongly believe that most fathers would agree with me. As Bangladeshi fathers, we never expect our daughters to become vendors who roam around with a peanut-bucket.

I’d first think of my daughter’s physical security. Given our hawkish social atmosphere, I’d be seriously concerned about my daughter’s safety, as I believe a girl moving around and selling her products like that is never physically secure. If she is out there, as a father, I’d be dead scared about her safety.

Many readers would argue that if a man can roam around doing business, why would a girl be

different? Yes, that’s a big question which we need to answer collectively as a nation. I’d also request the female readers of this piece to ask themselves the same question.

Would you feel safe allowing your sister or your daughter to sell peanuts or for that matter any product on the streets of Dhaka?

The news has also angered many, as they considered it a strategy to gain some quick popularity in the media; they said this was nothing but trying to draw some attention.

They said maybe she was bored with her life; may be there’s no one to guide her. They have argued that wanting to leave a job for selling peanuts is nothing a whim.

This was perfect for a dress-asyou-like contest! They’re arguing that the girl wanted to be news.

And, interestingly, a school of marketeers has immensely welcomed her move, saying that what she did has been great branding and she should build on it.

They say she has great prospects for business in not only selling peanuts, but any product.

However, another school of marketeers objected to her initiative, as they thought she should have been in a shopping complex with her peanut business, leaving the streets to the existing lungi-clad peanut sellers. She shouldn’t be eating up their market share.

Another group of people have

objected to the idea of calling her a “smart peanut seller.” They thought one just doesn’t become “smart” by wearing merely a pair of jeans. This school of people didn’t have any problem with the girl becoming a sales-person on the street; rather, their problem was with the diction that the media had used.

See? Everyone has a point of view regarding this girl’s move to leave her job and initiate a business. But what does the girl have to say? She said this has freed her from a monotonous ten-tofive captivity in her job. She said she was inspired by another street seller Likhon’s “Dream Van.” She added that her boss at the travel agency had never let her go home at five o’clock in the evening. But this made her independent and free.

But no one seems to be believing her version of the story, even if she is fervently honest about what she is doing. This is what our society is.

To me, what she has shown could be great inspiration for the great number of women and the unemployed people in the country.

However, my question is: Has our society yet graduated to that level where a well-dressed girl from a considerably well-off family would choose to sell products on the street and it would be easy for her? l Ekram Kabir is a writer.

Heritage

DT

22

SATURDAY, JUNE 18, 2016

Bangladesh and company The East India Company might have been the world’s first corporation

n Tim Steel

I

t was probably the Battle of Lepanto in 1571 that finally revived a real interest for European nations in the potential for Eastern trade.

And perhaps, offered a desperately needed opportunity for a rather embattled England to seek new sources of much needed trade, and, maybe above all, explore a major potential source of the gunpowder that was much needed to sustain support for the embattled fellow Protestant Netherlanders, and enrich their own supply to resist what was becoming, clearly, a looming threat to themselves from Catholic Spain.

It is, perhaps, worth noting that, in 1564, preparing for the attempted invasion of Malta, to shore up their naval authority in the Mediterranean, the Ottoman forces, themselves, in one of the instructions issued to regional governors, outlining support required from them, noted: “There is a shortage of gunpowder.”

It is not hard to work out that, if the Ottoman Empire was short of the resource, vulnerable nations of Europe were, surely, even more short.

The Levant Company, formed in London in 1581, reached out across a Mediterranean Sea that had been swept of much of the piracy, patronised by the defeated Ottoman Empire, to establish its main base in Aleppo.

It was the Portuguese, of course, who recognised, after the Ottoman capture of Constantinople in 1451, by Mehmet

In doing so, the Company became, for nearly a century, the de facto rulers of these lands of Bangladesh. Many, no doubt, suffered for it, especially in 1770, but many, also, certainly benefitted 2nd, that the East was likely to remain inaccessible for direct trade for a foreseeable future.

Under the guidance of Prince Henry “the navigator,” the Portuguese, with the authority of the Pope, who had, somewhat speciously, arrogated to himself the right to divide the world between the Spanish and the Portuguese, exploration had already commenced along the coast of Africa, and, in 1498, Vasco da Gama reached the Indian subcontinent, via the south of Africa.

Conditions for trade further deteriorated in the Mediterranean, following the accession to the throne, in 1520, of Suleiman, known as the “Magnificent,” ruling the Ottoman Empire from what became known as the, sublime porte.

Patronising Islamic piratical settlements of Algiers and Tunis, as part of his warfare with, in particular, the Hapsburg Empire of Europe, such trade shrunk further.

Even the Venetians found conditions deteriorating, rapidly, especially as France allied itself with the Ottomans.

Lepanto may not have finally destroyed the Islamic pirates, but the defeat diminished the patronage of the Ottoman rulers, and offered the prospect, after

nearly a century, of reasonably safe navigation through the Mediterranean Sea. By 1581, England, isolated by its religious differences with the Roman Catholic nations of Europe, had established a Company to develop trade with the east, the Levant Company.

In 1583, it was that Company that facilitated, through its newly established factory in Aleppo, the voyage of a company of merchants seeking to head to India.

That company was led by a leather merchant, named Ralph Fitch. By 1585, he had, with the permission of Emperor Akbar, arrived in the region of the Ganges delta.

He certainly spent a great deal of time in the region around the Ganges, and it seems a little difficult to imagine he was simply sightseeing.

Indeed, since leather merchants were amongst the people most familiar with the properties of saltpetre, and refined gunpowder, using Saltpetre in tanning, and their finished product being amongst the safest material for carrying the highly combustible, and readily ruined, finished product, gunpowder, we may well wonder, what, exactly, was his reason for spending so much time

hereabouts.

It may be reasonable to consider the relative speed with which Fitch’s report back to London, in 1590, resulted in the setting up of an entirely new trading company, granted, in 1600, a Royal Charter of exclusive rights to trade with India and the east.

The East India Company, as it was called, began trading, immediately. Indeed, there is even some evidence that the Royal Charter was anticipated by activity at sea, and by 1612, had arrived on the east coast of India.

Around 1620, it had obtained Imperial consent for setting up a trading station at Balasore, in Orissa, as close to the Ganges Delta as it could obtain permission to be.

By the 1630s, the journals of staff and visitors to the Company facilities, including a gunpowder factory set up on the banks of the Ganges, near Patna, write of large cargoes of refined gunpowder and saltpetre being shipped down river to catch the monsoon shipping for passage to England.

It appears that both the Portuguese and Dutch had already taken an interest at Pulicat, close to Madras, before the end of the 16th century, in the refinement of gunpowder.

It seems, however, perhaps as

a result of Fitch’s report, that the English were more interested in the lands in and around Bengal as a greater source of supply.

In fact, the first Company factory had been established a little way inland, along the Ganges, at Patna, by 1620. Inevitably, at that time, company trade would probably have passed along the main flow of the Ganges River, through Dhaka.

As far as we can tell from Company records, initial trades may have been in cotton and refined silk cloths.

However, by 1657, the factory at Patna had “increasingly focussed on the collection and refinement of saltpetre into gunpowder,” as well as selling English produced woollen fabrics, mercury, and vermillion dyes.

Within a few decades, the Company had become the contracted supplier of this essential ammunition to the English navy.

That, of course, was the navy that, by 1759, “ruled the seas” by courtesy of its apparently endless supply of gunpowder, at least as much as the nautical skills indigenous to such an island race.

There is no doubt that such luxuries as muslin, silk, indigo dye, musk, and spices also rapidly developed as cargoes, together with the apparently plentiful diamonds from Orissa, which rapidly became a “go to” for, especially, the private trades permitted to Company staff.

Until the Battle of Plassey, such trades were undertaken by courtesy of the much remunerated Mughal power in the region.

Once that courtesy was imperilled by the independent Nawab of Bengal, as Mughal authority declined, it was, perhaps, inevitable that both the Company, with its own compelling commercial interests at heart, and the very evident support of the English government, should seek to protect its trade.

In doing so, the Company became, for nearly a century, the de facto rulers of these lands of Bangladesh. Many, no doubt, suffered for it, especially in 1770, but many, also, certainly benefitted. Such is the way of political history.

The history of what has become known as “the world’s first corporation,” is, perhaps, in this age of mega corporations, potentially, equally instructive. l Tim Steel is a communications, marketing and tourism consultant.

23

DT

Climate Change

SATURDAY, JUNE 18, 2016

The basis for climate-friendly prosperity

Solar needs trained engineers

n Steve Bass

I

was in Paris for the first working day after the historic climate change agreements in December 2015. The Secretary General of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), Angel Gurria, had called many of us together to “begin the task of changing economies so that they deliver on our climate agreements.” We asked ourselves, “How can we shift economies off their heavy use of the fossil fuels that cause damaging climate change, and encourage economic activities that help us to be resilient to at least a 2 degree temperature rise?”

The last few years have given us some experience to build on.

The financial crisis of 2008 saw many governments wondering how to boost faltering economic growth, and to create more jobs.

Some countries such as Germany, Denmark, and Korea responded with “green stimulus” packages.

They had noted that there was good business to be done in clean technology production and in installing efficient transport and energy infrastructure. They chose to focus their fiscal stimulation on the new “green goods and services” sector of the economy.

A new international institution, the Global Green Growth Institute (GGGI), was set up in Korea to extend this approach across many countries, and is one of the fastest-growing international organisations. Many business and government leaders now recognise that high-carbon intensity and

COURTESY

heavy use of natural resources are indicators of inefficiency.

In 2015 China, once known mainly for its very heavy pollution, became the world’s biggest solar technology and wind power producer. Bangladesh has been rolling out solar power for low-income groups. Germany and many Scandinavian countries are moving to economies powered by renewables. Even Saudi Arabia and the UAE aim to “wean the world off fossil fuels.”

While there are many “glimpses” of green growth and fine aspirations, there are also big blocks to significant progress.

This is unsurprising since economies have been structured for decades around fossil fuels and big businesses liquidating natural resources to generate other physical and financial assets. Tax regimes still favour fossil fuels.

Financial rules still attract big capital to turn forests, rivers, and seas into commodities as fast as possible. What the governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney, calls the “tragedy of short-term horizons” -- with daily stockmarket pricing, no concern for the long term, and no regular inventory taken of our natural assets, means our economy is literally stealing from the future.

No wonder that six of the eight “biggest global risks” identified by the World Economic Forum in 2015 are connected environmental problems, poverty, and inequality.

This is why there is a growing movement to help countries remove the barriers to “green economies.” Five United Nations agencies have come together

under the Partnership of Action for Green Economies (UN-PAGE), to help governments analyse their economies and make improvements to policy and plans.

Civil society organisations, as well as the UN, have joined up in the Green Economy Coalition (GEC), to explore what kinds of economy are needed in different countries -- sharing problems and ideas. Knowledge organisations have combined forces in the Green Growth Knowledge Platform (GGKP) -- to share information on technologies and policy instruments that work. Together, these offer the promise to put in place what has been missing in “sustainable development” for the last 40 years -- getting its economics right.

So what is all this work telling us a green economy should look like? My organisation, IIED, and the GEC have held dialogues in several developing countries, such as India, Brazil, Caribbean, Ethiopia involving civil society, businesses, and government. It is remarkable that every dialogue revealed a common concern for:

F Human well-being -- green F

F

F

economies must create decent jobs and reduce poverty Inclusion -- green economies must not be owned only by big energy and infrastructure companies, a majority of the population must be able to take part and benefit “Natural capital” -- green economies will nurture the ‘green’ foundations of the economy by conserving soils, water, bio-diversity, etc, and aim for their sustainable use Climate and ecological boundaries --

F

at the same time, green economies will not stress natural capital -taking care to get good information on it and respecting it in decisions Economic growth -- green economies will prioritise growth in the right places, in order to deliver above

The case for inclusion was strongly emphasised in all countries. Too many people have been failed by economic systems to date.

The test for greener approaches will be whether people are now better served by them -- by creating many new jobs at low establishment cost and with low (fossil fuel) energy use.

It will also depend on how well growth includes the informal economy -- the landless, and women with the resources they can access, ie natural capital and their own labour.

This all points to farming that makes good use of natural ecological cycling, organic manuring, and water-conserving agriculture. It points to formalising informal activities into modern, decent jobs such as waste recycling that can compete with higher-cost corporate waste management companies.

If they embrace many people, green economy activities can benefit from the greater market size needed for rolling out smallscale solar energy, community sanitation schemes, and green construction.

No country yet has a perfect green economy plan. Some intend to “mainstream” green growth ideas into the current planning

system: Zambia is shaping its 7th National Plan this way. Others know it will take a lot of learning and experimentation to get right: South Africa has a Green Economy Accord where government, business, and civil society agree to work together to evolve an approach. Germany has proven the importance of combining societal involvement with government leadership: Its Energiewende energy transition has enabled a massive shift away from fossil fuels through both government support and community ownership of renewable electricity production.

The Green Economy Coalition and Green Growth Knowledge Platform have catalogued many examples of green economic activity from all over the world.

There are renewable energy and “big data” revolutions led by progressive business. There is innovation and resilience in the informal economy, too. Policy instruments are emerging to scale up green approaches.

One example is asking environment and climate questions when public expenditure is being scrutinised. Another is environmental fiscal reform -shifting taxes towards bad things like excessive fossil fuel and resource consumption and away from good things like people’s labour. Micro-finance, microinsurance and other financial mechanisms are spinning of, aimed at encouraging green asset classes and long-term public goods.

Many countries have recently made progress in “natural capital accounting” -- keeping track of the condition and use of forests, water, etc, alongside traditional national accounting. The challenge now is to bring all this together -- to build the integrated, inclusive institutions that will shape green economies and sustain the prosperity of people and nature. l Steve Bass is Senior Associate of the London-based International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) and a Co-Founder of the Green Economy Coalition.

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.

DT

24 Sport

SATURDAY, JUNE 18, 2016

TOP STORIES

Two sevens look for redemption Star forward Cristiano Ronaldo will not be the only number seven hoping to redeem himself when his Portugal side meet Austria in their Euro 2016 group F match today in Paris’ Parc des Princes Stadium. PAGE 26

Belgium await Ireland invasion Having, in the words of their coach Marc Wilmots, “lost a battle but not the war” Belgium present arms again for today’s Euro 2016 encounter with Ireland on what they consider to be home territory of Bordeaux. PAGE 27

Abahani Limited youngster Mosaddek Hossain Saikat (C) is the toast of his team mates following their exciting win over Prime Doleshwar Sporting Club in the Dhaka Premier League recently. After a lacklustre start to the DPL, the Sky Blues have come back strong and are now third in the points table MAINOOR ISLAM MANIK

Powerhouse Abahani tackling unique pressure n Mazhar Uddin

Arambagh stun Sheikh Jamal Arambagh stunned Sheikh Jamal by sending the Bangladesh Premier League champions crashing out of the Federation Cup with a 5-4 penalty shootout victory in a dramatic quarter-final clash at yesterday. PAGE 28

Cavaliers overcome Warriors The Cleveland Cavaliers took another giant step in their historic comeback attempt with a 115-101 win over the Golden State Warriors on Thursday to force a onceunthinkable decisive seventh game to the NBA Finals. PAGE 29

There’s always been extra pressure for Bangladeshi cricketers when they represent big clubs in the Dhaka Premier League but when it comes to 17-time champions Abahani Limited, there are a few other aspects which the players need to accept as extra baggage.

At the same time almost every cricketer dreams of playing for Abahani due to the heritage, exposure and limelight which helps a player grow immensely. Abahani have been carrying the legacy with great authority over the years and the expectations from the fans, club officials and media has always been high, and this season is no exception.

But this time around, the players are feeling the strain of the unwanted attention of allegations of taking advantage by having too much power in the Bangladesh Cricket Board through the club.

At the players’ draft, as many as six BCB directors sat in Abahani’s table which included their coach Khaled Mahmud, himself a BCB director and Bangladesh’s team manager.

In the field, there have been allegations of favouritism in terms

of umpiring, getting their desired venue as well as playing a part in stopping the Super League game against Prime Doleshwar Sporting Club. While their officials have brushed aside the continued criticism, players sometime feel the pinch from their colleagues in other clubs.

But they know that performing for Abahani gives them the tag of

player it’s my duty to perform as my club has paid me the salary,” he added.

Abahani made a disappointing start in the Dhaka Premier League and at one stage, it looked difficult for them to even qualify for the Super League. However they came back strong and are now third in the points table behind Legends of Rupganj and Victoria

Many of the players from different clubs at times criticise us directly and indirectly that we are playing for the committee’s team and we will win even if we are not able to perform on the fiel being able to handle this unique pressure.

“Many of the players from different clubs at times criticise us directly and indirectly that we are playing for the committee’s team and we will win even if we are not able to perform on the field,” an Abahani cricketer said requesting anonymity.

“It’s not right as we know that we give our 100 percent on the field and being a professional

Sporting Club.

The thrashing 260-run win over eternal rival Mohammedan Sporting Club only served to boost the confidence of the side.

Tamim Iqbal has led the team and is among the top 10 run-getters in the league with 506 runs including five fifties and a hundred.

Youngster Nazmul Hossain Shanto has also made 486 runs with four fifties but it has once again been Mosaddek Hossain Saikat who has

guided his side to important wins on quite a few occasions. His late over heroics against Prime Doleshwar got them through despite the Taskin Ahmed run-out controversy. Mosaddek has made 453 runs while Taskin is their leading wicket taker with 19 scalps.

It is difficult playing for Abahani this season because while on the one hand the criticism of getting favours help other teams get away with mistakes against Abahani, most of the Abahani players are told that they are having it easy. In this sort of climate, it is not always easy to perform since not doing well would make it worse for them.

And it is often the players who face the wrath of Abahani supporters who are never satisfied since the last time they won a DPL title was in the 2010-11 season. A team’s success or failure always comes down to the players, and this time too, the Abahani players are feeling the pinch of all sorts of pressure. If they see all this positively, they can always handle harder challenges much better.

For players like Nazmul and Mosaddek, all of this prepares them for more success in their careers. l

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Eder fires pale Azzurri into last 16 n AFP, Toulouse Brazil-born striker Eder overcame an otherwise patchy performance to hit a cracking late winner in a 1-0 victory over Sweden that sent Italy into the last 16 of Euro 2016 yesterday.

Eder, playing in his first major finals for Italy after being naturalised last year, came close to being substituted by Antonio Conte after a dismal opening half up front alongside Southampton striker Graziano Pelle.

But the Inter Milan striker had the Italy bench celebrating wildly on the pitch at the Stadium de Toulouse with a well-taken 88th minute strike after running on to Simone Zaza’s header to beat Andreas Eriksson at his far post.

“I’m very happy with the goal,” said Eder, who struggled to make an impact after moving from Sampdoria to Inter in January.

“I’m delighted for the team, and I’m very happy the coach has kept faith with me.

“I think it helped me I wasn’t playing for Inter Milan a lot at the end of the season. That helped me to save some energy for this championships and also allowed me to work a lot of my fitness.”

Italy, 2-0 winners over Belgium last week, now top Group E with six points, leaving Sweden, who had late claims for a penalty waved away, realistically needing to beat Belgium on Wednesday if they are to have any hope of making it to the knockout phase.

After a mediocre display in Sweden’s 1-1 draw with the Republic of Ireland, all eyes were on captain Zlatan Ibrahimovic as the towering striker sought to make his mark by becoming the first man to score in four editions of the competition.

But a cautious Italy restricted the former Juventus and Paris Saint Germain striker to few real

Italy forward Citadin Martins Eder (L) shoots to score beside Sweden defender Andreas Granqvist during their Euro 2016 Group E match at Stadium Municipal in Toulouse yesterday AFP

RESULT 1-0

Italy

Sweden

Eder 88

chances in front of a huge army of yellow-clad Sweden fans.

A tight first half saw few chances at either end as Italy’s formidable three-man defence of Andre Barzagli, Leonardo Bonucci and Giorgio Chiellini kept Ibrahimovic in check, whilst Pelle and Eder failed to shine on their few real forays up the park.

Veteran Italy captain Gianluigi Buffon had little to do in goal until he dived to collect Kim Kallstrom’s curling shot, and the Juventus ‘keeper was happy to see Olsson’s

drive whistle past the post soon after.

Sweden edged closer as the half wore on, Sebastian Larsson chesting a long cross into the path of Celta Vigo’s John Guidetti only for the striker to skew wide.

Italy started the second half in positive fashion, Pelle controlling Eder’s cutback from a Marco Parolo through ball, but his volley dipped over the crossbar.

Parolo did well to control De Rossi’s pass and set up Candreva on the right, but the Lazio man’s drive into the area was collected

by Isaksson, who got down quickly to smother moments later after another Candreva delivery.

On that occasion, Eder was well

out of position but it was Pelle who was replaced on the hour, by Zaza.

Minutes later, Florenzi’s high delivery across goal found Candreva at the back post, yet Isaksson again got down low to smother the Lazio man’s low first-time effort.

Italian hopes looked to be dying out and the Azzurri breathed a sigh of relief when Ibrahimovic fired over from a yard out at the back post although he was ruled offside.

Parolo was inches away from the opener on 82 minutes with a header that came off the woodwork.

But it was Eder who rescued Conte’s men with a fine run that took him past the Swedish defence to fire the ball into the net with two minutes to play. l

Rooney reborn in England midfield role n AFP, Chantilly Wayne Rooney arrived in France for Euro 2016 with his place in England’s team reportedly under threat, but a new midfield role has given him a fresh lease of life.

With Rooney under pressure from rivals such as Tottenham Hotspur’s Harry Kane and Leicester City sensation Jamie Vardy, England manager Roy Hodgson faced pre-tournament calls to drop the country’s record goal-scorer.

Instead he withdrew him into midfield and Rooney has prospered, attracting plaudits for his displays in the 1-1 draw with Russia and 2-1 win over Wales that have taken England to the brink of the last 16.

“We are happy with the composure he brings to the team, with the calmness at times when it gets a bit frantic chasing an equaliser or a winner,” Hodgson said after England beat Wales in Lens.

“His long cross-field passes have always been a feature of his game.

He’s had that ability.

“And in particular, having survived some doubts about him in the build-up to this tournament and my selection of the 23, I’m so pleased for him that he’s shown everyone he’s still a big player capable of having a big influence on the team.”

While he is purring now, Hodgson has needed convincing about the wisdom of playing Rooney in midfield, despite the fact he ended the season playing there for Manchester United. In England’s final pre-tournament friendly, an unconvincing 1-0 win over Portugal on June 2, Rooney led the line as a central striker in a 4-3-3 formation.

Two weeks later, he is being picked in midfield ahead of specialists like Jack Wilshere, Jordan Henderson and James Milner.l

Subs rescue Czechs in flare-hit draw with Croatia n AFP, France

A 94th-minute penalty rescued a point for the Czech Republic in their dramatic 2-2 draw with Croatia as flares thrown onto the pitch marred yesterday’s Euro 2016 match.

With Croatia 2-1 up and with one foot in the last 16, referee Mark Clattenberg briefly halted play late in the game when flares thrown by Croatian fans landed on the pitch in Saint-Etienne.

When the match resumed, Croatia defender Domagoj Vida was penalised for handball and Tomas Necid drilled home the resulting

RESULT Czech Republic Skoda 76, Tomas Necid 90 (P)

2-2

Croatia Perisic 37, Rakitic 59

penalty, deep in added time, to claim their first point in Group D. European football’s governing body UEFA are poised to impose further sanctions on the Croatian Football Federation for the crowd trouble.

Croatia were stripped of one point in qualifying, forced to play two home matches behind closed doors and fined 100,000 euros ($112,000)

by UEFA after a swastika was painted

on the field before a match against Italy in June 2015 in Split.

A member of the ground staff at the Stade Geoffrey Guichard appeared to have been hit by a flare.

Croatia were cruising towards the last 16 after their two Ivans -Rakitic and Perisic -- netted either side of the break.

Having beaten Turkey 1-0 in their opener at the European championship finals, Croatia appeared to have their second win in the bag.

But Czech replacement Milan Skoda pulled one back before fellow replacement Necid’s dramatic spot-kick. l

Stewards deal with flares that have been thrown by Croatia fans during their Euro 2016 Group D match at Stade Geoffroy-Guichard yesterday REUTERS

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Hungary and Iceland clash in last 16 hunt n AFP, Marseille Two Euro 2016 surprise packets face off in Marseille today, with Group F leaders Hungary taking on Iceland who kept Cristiano Ronaldo at bay in their opener.

With expectations low, the unfancied Magyars stunned the increasingly rated Austria with a 2-0 win, their first victory at the tournament since 1964. They would secure a last 16 berth if they beat Iceland.

In their tournament debut, the gritty Atlantic islanders, who finished ahead of Turkey and the Netherlands in qualifying, went a goal down against Portugal. The tiny Nordic island nation of 330,000 people, is the smallest country by population ever to feature at a Euro finals.l

Germany’s Andre Schurrle (R) in action with Poland’s Kamil Glik during their Euro 2016 Group C match at Stade de France, SaintDenis near Paris on Thursday REUTERS

GROUP F

V ICELAND

No attacking spark from Germany in Paris HUNGARY

Stade Vélodrome, Marseille 5pm local time (10pm BST) * Bangladesh standard time

HEAD-TO-HEAD ICELAND

34 10 3 7 0 10 21

HUNGARY Fifa ranking Matches Wins Losses Draws Goals scored Goals against

20 10 7 3 0 21 10

n Reuters, Paris Germany bolstered their back line with the return of central defender Mats Hummels on Thursday but lacked penetration at the other end of the field as they were held to a 0-0 draw by Poland at Euro 2016.

The world champions failed to pierce a disciplined Poland rearguard, seeing most of their attacks break down on the edge of the penalty box.

Coach Joachim Loew turned to Hummels, back after sustaining a thigh muscle injury last month, to stabilise the defence after a shaky

first half against Ukraine in their opening Group C win last week.

Hummels, taking the place of Shkodran Mustafi, delivered a solid performance, renewing his 2014 World Cup-winning partnership with Jerome Boateng and giving Poland little space up front.

With Benedikt Hoewedes and Jonas Hector as full backs, Germany also managed to avoid being caught on the break by the speedy Kamil Griscki and captain Robert Lewandowski.

Loew had warned of counter attacks led by Lewandowski and Arkadiusz Milik but the pair

were restricted in terms of scoring chances.

While Germany’s defensive operation will no doubt boost confidence going into their final group game against Northern Ireland next week, they struggled in attack with neither Mario Goetze nor Mario Gomez able to land a knockout blow.

Goetze received a second consecutive start despite a below-par performance in the opening game and again failed to deliver, the attacking midfielder never settling in the role of striker.

He and Julian Draxler were kept

quiet by Michal Pazdan, Lukasz Piszczek and the rest of Poland’s hard-working defenders.

Goetze, who grabbed the winner in the 2014 World Cup final, may now make way for Andre Schuerrle against the Irish.

“We could not get chances in the last third of the pitch,” said Loew.

“We could not combine and play our football. I must say that both teams defended really well.”

Loew brought on substitute Gomez, his only out-and-out striker, in the 72nd minute but the Turkish league’s top scorer could make little headway. l

Two sevens, Ronaldo and Arnautovic, look for redemption n Reuters, Paris Cristiano Ronaldo will not be the only number seven hoping to redeem himself when his Portugal side meet Austria in their Euro 2016 group F match today.

Ronaldo’s less heralded opposite number for Austria, Marko Arnautovic, also came into the tournament with high hopes only to start with a below-par display made worse by a sulky attitude.

Ronaldo missed a late chance, repeatedly wasted free kicks, protested to the referee and then made some unsporting comments about the opposition after Porutgal drew 1-1 against rank outsiders Iceland.

Arnautovic fared little better in Austria’s 2-0 defeat by Hungary, losing heart as he was effectively marked out of the game.

He went to ground far too easily, moaned at the match officials and his body language bore the hallmarks of a man who felt the world was against him.

Arnautovic’s temperament has often threatened to override his talent, with his career marked by some bizarre episodes.

He famously borrowed a Bentley belonging to team mate Samuel Eto’o at Inter Milan, only to have it stolen while he was eating at a restaurant. During a stint at Werder Bremen, he was pulled over for

speeding in the early hours of the morning on the day of the game and he once injured his knee playing with his dog.

But Austria coach Marcel Koller and his club coach Mark Hughes at Stoke City have between them managed to tame a man who was compared to a child by Jose Mourinho at Inter. Asked at a press conference earlier in the tournament how he had managed to curb Arnautovic’s excesses, Koller said it was not an issue he could adequately explain “in a few minutes”.

Koller will doubtless have his arm around Arnautovic’s shoulder again in the run-up to today’s match. l

GROUP F

V PORTUGAL

AUSTRIA

Parc des Princes, Paris 8pm local time (1am BST) * Bangladesh standard time

HEAD-TO-HEAD PORTUGAL

8 10 2 3 5 11 19

AUSTRIA Fifa ranking Matches Wins Losses Draws Goals scored Goals against

10 10 3 2 5 19 11

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QUICK BYTES

GROUP E

Mohammedan return to winning ways

V

Mohammedan Sporting Club returned to winning ways in the Green Delta Premier Division Hockey League when they beat Wanderers Sporting Club 5-1 at Maulana Bhasani National Hockey Stadium yesterday. Russel Mahmud Jimmy netted three goals in the 12th, 25th and 60th minutes of the game for the Black and Whites while Imran Hasan Pintu and Salman Hossain added one apiece.

Bishal bagged the consolation goal for Wanderers. In the day’s other match, Bangladesh Sporting Club and Wari Club played out a 2-2 draw. Prince and Siraj Ali notched one apiece for Bangladesh Sporting while Jihad and Krishna scored one each for Wari.

BELGIUM

IRELAND

Nouveau Stade de Bordeaux 2pm local time (7pm BST) * Bangladesh standard time

HEAD-TO-HEAD BELGIUM

2 13 5 3 5 25 20

IRELAND Fifa ranking Matches Wins Losses Draws Goals scored Goals against

33 13 3 5 5 20 25

–TRIBUNE REPORT

A combination of two file pictures show Ireland’s forward and captain Robbie Keane (R) in Dublin on February 29, 2012 and Belgium’s forward and captain Eden Hazard in Lyon on June 13, 2016 AFP

Landry leads, McIlory slumps at US Open American journeyman Andrew Landry held the early first-round clubhouse lead at the rain-hit US Open at Oakmont yesterday, one-stroke better than former world number one Lee Westwood of England. The 28-year-old Texan completed his 18 holes early on by knocking in the 10-foot putt at the ninth that he had slept on overnight after play was called off for the day due to a series thunderstorms.

–AFP

Koeman faces fight to keep players Ronald Koeman was unveiled as the new Everton manager yesterday with an assurance to supporters that will try to persuade the club’s best young players to stay. The 53-year-old Dutchman confirmed at a press conference that he turned down the chance of a new contract with Southampton to join the Merseyside club on a three-year-deal as successor to Roberto Martinez. But Koeman will face an immediate struggle to stem a predicted talent drain with the club’s England defender John Stones already tipped for a move to Barcelona or Manchester City.

–REUTERS

Di Matteo warns players to obey rules New Aston Villa manager Roberto Di Matteo has warned his players to abide by team rules in the Championship as they prepare to make a quick return to the Premier League following last season’s relegation from the top flight.

In Villa’s previous campaign.

–REUTERS

Belgium await friendly invasion by Ireland n Reuters, Bordeaux Having, in the words of their coach Marc Wilmots, “lost a battle but not the war” Belgium present arms again for today’s encounter with Ireland on what they consider to be home territory of Bordeaux.

The Red Devils have set up camp for the Euro 2016 campaign just outside the city, using the training headquarters of Girondins Bordeaux, the club for whom Wilmots once played.

He has come under unfriend-

ly fire there following the 2-0 defeat by Italy in the opening group match but insisted this week there would be no change of an attacking philosophy based around the talents of players such as Eden Hazard, Kevin de Bruyne and Romelu Lukaku. Unfortunately, the latter pair were badly out of sorts against the Italians, while defensive fallibility was evident, too, in the absence from the tournament of the injured Vincent Kompany and Nic Lombaerts.

De Bruyne and Hazard were

both given extra time off this week after suffering minor knocks but are expected to be fit. Some Belgian critics would prefer to see their roles reversed, however, with Hazard playing as the number 10 behind the main striker and De Bruyne out wide.

For however much or little it counts, Belgium have history on their side in not having lost to the Irish for 50 years, which includes beating them by a single goal in the playoffs to win a place at the 1998 World Cup in France.

Shanaka magic delights Mathews n AFP, Malahide Sri Lanka captain Angelo Mathews hailed the one-day international debut of Dasun Shanaka after his match-winning performance in the first ODI against Ireland at Malahide.

Shanaka scored 42 off 19 balls on Thursday and then took five for 43 to bowl the tourists to a convincing 76-run win, their first since their arrival in England last month for a tour of Britain and Ireland.

“Dasun had a dream debut and we are all happy for him and hopefully he will continue in the next few matches,” Mathews said of the 24-year-old Shanaka, whose lively medium-pace bowling saw him take an encouraging three for 46 on his Test debut against England at Headingley last month.

“It’s nice to get the momentum

Shanaka scored 42 off 19 balls on Thursday and then took five for 43

BRIEF SCORE SRI LANKA 303/7 (Chandimal 100*, Mendis 51, Mathews 49) beat IRELAND 216 (Porterfield 73, O’Brien 64, Shanaka 5/43) by 76 runs (D/L method)

on your side,” Mathews, himself a seam-bowling all-rounder, added.

“We have not done well in England and we have lost the Test series, but we have now won in similar conditions and can look forward to the one-day series (against England) coming up.”

“It was a challenge for the batsmen but they put up a good effort,” he said of an innings that featured an unbeaten hundred from Dinesh Chandimal.

“I thought we got a brilliant start and the debutant, Kusal Mendis, batted brilliantly to score 51 and Chandimal has been batting brilliantly throughout.

“Shanaka then scored 42 off just 19 balls and finished the job for us,” added Mathews who modestly failed to mention his own innings of 49 from 53 balls with four fours and two sixes.l

If the Belgians are regarding this as a home fixture, however, they will be shaken by the strength in numbers of the Irish.

Green “army” or not, Ireland’s traditionally friendly followers are more likely to take on the opposition in a sing-song than a fight.

After their team lost every game at Euro 2012 and failed to qualify for the last World Cup, the mood ahead of a difficult Group E programme was guarded, but in Paris on Monday only an own goal prevented victory in a 1-1 draw with Sweden.l

Defending champ Kerber fights back n AFP, Birmingham Defending champion Angelique Kerber made a typically tenacious comeback from a set down and a day’s delay to reach the quarter-finals of the Wimbledon warm-up event in Birmingham yesterday.

She did it with a 5-7, 6-2, 6-2 win over Daria Gavrilova, an improving young world number 50 from Australia who ended yesterday’s rain-ruined schedule within two points of snatching the first set.

The fifth day did however bring an improvement in the weather forecast and Carla Suarez Navarro, took advantage to similarly recover from a set down. Her patient 4-6, 7-6 (7/5), 7-6 (7/5) marathon win earned her a meeting with Kerber.l

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Pink ball makes India debut as day-night clamour grows n AFP, New Delhi India will witness its first ever multi-day pink ball game at Kolkata’s Eden Gardens from today, a possible precursor to a day-night Test later this year in the world’s richest cricket market.

The four-day match is an inter-club final between Mohun Bagan and Bhowanipore Club which is being hosted by the Cricket Association of Bengal, headed by former India skipper Sourav Ganguly.

The success of the experiment is expected to have a bearing on efforts by the Board of Control for Cricket in India to host a day-night pink ball Test against New Zealand in October.

“Time has come to market Test cricket in a better way (to bring back the fans),” Ganguly, who sat alongside former Australian batsman Dean Jones and former India batsman VVS Laxman at a promotional event on Thursday, was quoted as saying by the Indian Express website.

“Just think about Virat Kohli facing Jimmy Anderson in a pink ball Test - the spectacle it will present. Let’s see the problem, address it and try to fix it with the technology we have.”

The Kolkata club match will be broadcast live in India with many prominent former Indian cricketers providing commentary.

The Board of Control for Cricket in India also announced earlier this month that the domestic Duleep Trophy tournament in September will be played under lights with a pink ball for the first time.

Australia and New Zealand played the inaugural day-night Test in Adelaide last year, attracting huge crowds in what was a boost to the struggling five-day format.l

Arambagh striker Kester Akon (C) shoots to score his side’s equalising goal against Sheikh Jamal Dhanmondi Club during their Federation Cup quarter-final clash at Bangabandhu National Stadium yesterday MAINOOR ISLAM MANIK

Arambagh stun Sheikh Jamal in Fed Cup n Tribune Report Arambagh Krira Sangha stunned Sheikh Jamal Dhanmondi Club by sending the Bangladesh Premier Football League champions crashing out of the Federation Cup with a 5-4 penalty shootout victory in a dramatic quarter-final clash at Bangabandhu National Stadium yesterday.

The recently promoted premier league side reached the last four of the Federation Cup for the first time in recent years and will face the winner of the fourth quarter-final between Team BJMC and Muktijoddha Sangsad, scheduled for this Wednesday.

Veteran midfielder Enamul Haque and Haitian winger Wedson Anselme gave Sheikh Jamal, the two-time Federation Cup champi-

ons, a two-goal lead in the opening half but Cameroonian midfielder Yoko Samnick and Kester Akon’s goals in the second half enabled Arambagh to return to the game.

After the extra 30 minutes failed to produce any goals, Sheikh Jamal goalkeeper Mazharul Islam Hemel dived to his right to save the first Arambagh penalty taken by Samnick.

Issah Yussif, Palash, Bhasani, Akon and Monsur Amin though converted all of their penalties in the tie-breaker.

On the other hand, Enamul missed Sheikh Jamal’s third penalty after Nigerian forward Emeka Darlington and Wedson dispatched their penalties to the back of the net. Yeasin Khan and Gambian midfielder Landing Darboe also converted their chances but Kesto Kumar shot wide in sudden death

to spark wild celebrations in the Arambagh dug-out.

For the first time this season, Sheikh Jamal’s attacking trio – Wedson, Landing and Emeka – got

RESULT Sheikh Jamal

2-2

Arambagh

Enamul 42 Samnick 61 Wedson 45+1 Akon 70 Arambagh won 5-4 on penalties

the nod in the starting XI and they duly dominated the first half.

And unsurprisingly, it was Sheikh Jamal who took the lead in the 42nd minute when Enamul fired the ball into the near post after a defence-splitting through pass from Wedson. Wedson doubled the lead in the added time of first half when he received a Landing pass before slotting home.

Arambagh appeared a different side after resumption, coming out of their defensive strategy.

Samnick was at the heart of all things good for Arambagh and he was rewarded for his hard-work at the hour mark when his glancing header from a Jafar Iqbal cross entered the net.

Akon then shocked the Dhanmondi-based outfit in the 70th minute when he brought parity, sending the ball over Hemel from a Samnick pass.

Sheikh Jamal missed a host of chances in extra time and it came back to haunt them in the penalty shootout as they exited the second tournament of this season in the last eight.

Sheikh Russel will take on Rahmatganj MFS today in the second quarter-final at 3:45pm. l

US edge Ecuador, reach Copa last four n AFP, Seattle

United States midfielder Alejandro Bedoya (R) shoots the ball against Ecuador defender Arturo Mina during their 2016 Copa America Centenario quarter-final at Century Link Field on Thursday REUTERS

Clint Dempsey struck again as the United States powered through to the semi-finals of the Copa America Centenario on Thursday in a stormy 2-0 win over Ecuador that saw both sides finish with 10 men.

Dempsey scored his third goal in as many games for Jurgen Klinsmann’s side at CenturyLink Field, pouncing on 22 minutes before setting up a second for Los Angeles Galaxy forward Gyasi Zardes in the 65th minute. Michael Arroyo pulled a goal back for Ecuador in the 74th minute to set up a frantic finale, but the US held on and will now face either Ar-

gentina or Venezuela in the semi-finals in Houston next week.

Man-of-the-match Dempsey said the hosts were determined to extend there stay in the tournament beyond the semis.

RESULT United States Dempsey 22, Zardes 65

2-1

Ecuador Arroyo 74

“Hopefully we can keep going, we’re in the semi-finals of a major tournament so we’re happy,” Dempsey said.

“This is what you dream about

as a kid. We’re going to keep wishing, we’re going to give everything we can, we’re going to try and get to the final, we want to win it.

“You don’t get many opportunities to go all the way in a major tournament and that’s what we’re trying to do.”

But the victory came at a cost for Klinsmann’s side, as key midfielder Jermaine Jones was sent off early in the second half to earn a suspension which will see him miss the semi-final. France-based midfielder Alejandro Bedoya and Hamburg striker Bobby Wood also earned yellow cards that will see them suspended for the last four.l

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NBA FINALS

Federer beats Goffin to reach Halle semi-finals n Reuters Roger Federer eased to a 6-1 7-6 (10) win over Belgium’s David Goffin to reach the semi-finals of the Halle Open yesterday.

The top-seeded Swiss, who is returning to match fitness after missing the French Open through injury, was made to work hard in the second set but completed victory after saving five set points in one hour and 21 minutes.

Federer, who has not claimed an ATP title this year, is seeking to win for a ninth time at the German tournament, which he uses as a traditional warm-up to Wimbledon. l

DAY’S WATCH FOOTBALL SONY ESPN 6:00 AM Copa America Centenario 2016 Quarter Final 2: Peru v Colombia Euro Cup 2016 7:00PM Belgium v Republic of Irealnd 10:00PM Iceland v Hungary 1:00AM Portugal v Austria

HOCKEY STAR SPORTS 1 5:00 PM Women’s Hockey Champions Trophy United States Of America v Australia

STAR SPORTS 4 9:00 PM Women’s Hockey Champions Trophy Netherlands v New Zealand

CRICKET 7:28 PM Natwest T20 Blast 2016 Worcestershire v Nottinghamshire 5:00 PM India Tour of Zimbabwe 2016 1st T20

FORMULA ONE FIA F1 World Championship 2016 Qualifying : Azerbaijan

TENNIS TEN 1 4:00 PM WTA Tour 2016 AEGON Birmingham Classic: SFs

GOLF TEN 1 11:00PM US Open Championship Day 3

GAME 6, SERIES TIED 3-3

WARRIORS 101-115 CAVALIERS 73-9, 34-7 Away

GS CLE

Cleveland Cavaliers forward LeBron James (23) dunks the ball against Golden State Warriors during the third quarter in game six of the NBA Finals at Quicken Loans Arena AP

57-25, 33-8 Home 1 11 31

2 32 28

3 4 T 28 30 101 21 35 115

WARRIORS

STARTERS D. Green A. Iguodala S. Curry K. Thompson S. Livingston

MIN 41 30 35 38 21

STARTERS K. Love L. James T. Thompson K. Irving J.R. Smith

MIN 12 43 43 39 40

FG 3PT FT REB AST PTS 3-7 0-2 2-2 10 6 8 2-5 1-3 0-2 4 3 5 8-20 6-13 8-9 2 1 30 9-21 3-10 4-7 3 1 25 1-6 0-0 1-2 4 3 3

CAVALIERS

FG 3PT FT REB AST PTS 1-3 1-2 4-6 3 2 7 16-27 3-6 6-8 8 11 41 6-6 0-0 3-4 16 3 15 7-18 2-5 7-7 4 3 23 5-11 4-10 0-0 4 3 14

Cavaliers dump Warriors to force Game Seven to NBA Finals n Reuters, Cleveland The Cleveland Cavaliers took another step in their historic comeback attempt with a 115-101 win over the Golden State Warriors on Thursday to force a once-unthinkable decisive seventh game to the NBA Finals.

The LeBron James-led Cavaliers, one victory away from becoming the first team to win an NBA championship after falling behind 3-1 in the Finals, will now head to Oakland for tomorrow’s winner-take-all showdown riding a wave of momentum.

Cleveland used an explosive first half in which they led by as many as 22 points to set the tone and never allowed the usually sharp-shooting Warriors to settle into a rhythm or get any closer than seven points the rest of the way.

The Cavaliers built a 24-point lead in the third that looked like it might spell the end for the Warriors but the reigning champions finally closed out the quarter on a 10-0 run to pull within nine points.

But the Cavaliers, who got a game-high 41 points from James, managed to hang on for the win

and keep alive their hopes at a maiden NBA championship.

Stephen Curry scored a teamhigh 30 points for the stunned Warriors but the two-time reigning league Most Valuable Player fouled out of the game late in the fourth quarter and then, in a rare display of frustration, threw his mouthguard into the stands to earn the first ejection of his career.

But Curry insists he and his teammates have not lost sight of their goal.

After falling behind 2-0 in the series, the Cavs were left for dead

Yorkshire to pay tribute to Jo Cox n Cricinfo Yorkshire will hold a minute’s silence at Headingley and wear black armbands during their NatWest Blast match against Nottinghamshire at Headingley as a mark of respect for Jo Cox, the Batley and Spen MP, who died on Thursday after she was shot and stabbed while working in her home constituency.

A Yorkshire statement said: “The whole of Yorkshire Cricket will be paying tribute to local MP Jo Cox from Batley and Spen at Headingley tonight following her tragic death in senseless circumstances yesterday.

“Ahead of tonight’s NatWest T20 Blast match against Notts Outlaws, players, officials, members and spectators will join together and remember Jo by observing a minute’s silence. The players will also wear black armbands during tonight’s match.

Mark Arthur, Yorkshire’s chief

executive, said: “Jo was a kind, intelligent person who was generous with her time. She genuinely wanted to help others, particularly those in her constituency, and make a difference to their lives. My heart goes out to her husband Brendan and their two young children.”

Andrew Gale, Yorkshire’s Cham-

pionship captain, tweeted: “What a sad day, 2 children go to bed tonight without a mum. A women was doing a job she was passionate about and lost her life. I lived in Birstall for 5 years and still own the house there and I’m saddened that we see this on our door step. My thoughts go to her family.”l

Jo Cox (C) was to become patron of Mount Cricket Club

by many impartial observers who expected the top-seeded defending champion Warriors to run away with the series, some even calling for a four-game sweep.

But after splitting the next two games, the resurgent Cavs used a sparkling Game Five performance to shift momentum in their favour and, perhaps, place a seed of doubt in the minds of the Warriors.

The Cavaliers are now just the third team to force a Game Seven after falling behind 3-1, joining the 1951 New York Knicks and the 1966 Los Angeles Lakers.l

‘Brazil woes due to my absence’ n Reuters, Sao Paulo Brazil’s failure to claim an Olympic soccer gold medal, the one major tournament they have never won, is all because Pele never played in the competition, the soccer great joked on Thursday.

“I was joking with my friends saying that Brazil never won an award, because I never played,” the 75-year-old three-time World Cup winner told reporters.

“I joke with my friends, because we really never had a title and this was a chance God gave to me in receiving this honour. Let’s hope and think positively, that maybe we can take an Olympic title, and once again, for all those who have been part of my story.”

Pele was given the Olympic order, the highest award offered by the International Olympics Committee, by its president Thomas Bach.l

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SATURDAY, JUNE 18, 2016

CROSSWORD ACROSS 1 Ridiculous sham (5) 6 Anger (3) 7 Kingdom (5) 10 Part of cask’s side (5) 12 Tide attaining least height (4) 13 Send money (5) 15 Way out (4) 16 High mountain (3) 18 Was in front (3) 20 Camping item (4) 22 Worth (5) 23 Table-shaped hill (4) 25 Existing (5) 27 Small fish (5) 28 Moved quickly (3) 29 Happening (5)

DOWN 1 Of financial matters (6) 2 Specialised matters (3) 3 Brought up (6) 4 Recluse (7) 5 Beer (3) 8 Insect (3) 9 Public walk (4) 11 Annoy (3) 14 Utter repeatedly (7) 16 Garb (6) 17 Powerful (6) 19 Facial features (4) 21 No score (3) 22 Spoil (3) 24 Secret agent (3) 26 Large covered vehicle (3)

Downtime CODE-CRACKER How to solve: Each number in our CODECRACKER grid represents a different letter of the alphabet. For example, today 18 represents R so fill R every time the figure 18 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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SATURDAY, JUNE 18, 2016

2016 show list We take a look at the upcoming television shows that have been given the green light likely way to travel through time, irreversibly complicating their personal lives in 2016, as the great moments of the past collide with today’s popular culture — with hilarious and quite disastrous results.

The Mick Pitch: The comedy revolves around a hard-living, foulmouthed woman who moves to affluent Greenwich, Connecticut, to raise the spoiled kids of her wealthy sister, who has fled the country to avoid a federal indictment. She quickly learns what everyone else already knows: other people’s children are awful.

Son of Zorn Pitch: Centres on an animated Barbarian father who comes home for the first time in 10 years to his live-action son and ex-wife.

He finds that reconnecting with his family, struggling through his mundane office job and dealing with the banality of suburban life is much harder than waging actual war in his distant, animated world.

Genre: Drama

Corey Hawkins in the lead role in 24: Legacy

n Showtime Desk It’s not like we don’t have enough television to binge on, so naturally, studios are cranking out more and more quality television. Well, that’s what they hope to produce.

Here’s a list of different TV series to grace the small screen in the near future. While there are many more to this list, these shows have been picked up for a pilot and single season that are worthy to note.

Network: ABC Genre: Comedy Downward Dog Pitch: Based the web series of the same name, it centres on a woman, Nan (Allison Tolman) and her dog. The twist is that it features a Modern Family-style confessional device – for the dog.

The Second Fattest Housewife in Westport Pitch: A family comedy narrated

by Katie, a strong-willed mother raising her flawed family in a wealthy town filled with “perfect” wives and their “perfect” offspring.

Speechless Pitch: A family with a specialneeds child is good at dealing

with the challenges he faces and excellent at creating new ones.

Genre: Drama Conviction Pitch: Tells the story of Carter Morrison (Agent Carter’s Hayley Atwell), the brilliant but ne’erdo-well daughter of a former president, who is blackmailed into taking a job as the head of Los Angeles’ newly created Conviction Integrity Unit. She, along with her team of lawyers, investigators and forensic experts, work together to examine cases where there’s credible suspicion that the wrong person may have been convicted of a crime.

Designated Survivor Pitch: Centres on a lower-level US cabinet member (Kiefer Sutherland) who is suddenly appointed president after a catastrophic attack during the State of the Union that kills everyone above him in the presidential line of succession.

The series is described as a family drama wrapped around a conspiracy thriller about an ordinary man in an extraordinary situation.

Still Star-Crossed Pitch: A period drama that picks

up where Romeo & Juliet left off, charting the treachery, palace intrigue and ill-fated romances of the Montagues and Capulets in the wake of the young lovers’ tragic fate. Based on the book by Melinda Taub.

Pitch: A young Silicon Valley tech titan (Augustus Prew) enlists a veteran surgeon (Dermot Mulroney) with a controversial past in starting a hospital with a cutting-edge, “new school” approach to medicine.

Network: CBS Genre: Comedy

MacGyver Pitch: A re-imagining of the television series of the same name, following a 20-something MacGyver (X-Men: Apocalypse’s Lucas Till) as he gets recruited into a clandestine organisation where he uses his knack for solving problems in unconventional ways to help prevent disasters from happening.

The Great Indoors Pitch: An adventure reporter (Joel McHale) must adapt to the times when he becomes the boss to a group of millennials in the digital department of the magazine.

Man With A Plan Pitch: A contractor (Matt LeBlanc) learns that raising his kids is more challenging than expected when his wife (The Office’s Jenna Fischer) goes back to work.

Untitled Keven James Project Pitch: A newly retired police officer (Kevin James) looks forward to spending more quality time with his wife (Erinn Hayes) and three kids (Taylor Spreitler) but figures out he faces more challenges at home than he ever did on the streets.

Genre: Drama Pure Genius

Training Day Pitch: Described as a re-imagining that begins 15 years after the 2001 film left off, the reboot centres on an idealistic young AfricanAmerican police officer (Justin Cornwell) who is appointed to an elite squad of the LAPD where he is partnered with a seasoned, morally ambiguous detective (Bill Paxton).

Network: Fox Genre: Comedy Making History Pitch: Centres on three unlikely friends who find an even less

24: Legacy Pitch: The new take features an all-new cast of characters and will be structured in the same style of the original series. Legacy revolves around a military hero’s (Corey Hawkins, Straight Outta Compton) return to the United States of America and the trouble that follows him back — compelling him to ask CTU for help in saving his life, and stopping what potentially could be one of the largest-scale terror attacks on American soil.

The Exorcist Pitch: A modern reinvention inspired by William Blatty’s 1971 book, the drama is a propulsive, serialised psychological thriller following two very different men tackling one family’s case of horrifying demonic possession, and confronting the face of true evil.

Lethal Weapon Pitch: Based on the feature film of the same name. When Texas cop and former Navy SEAL Martin Riggs (Rectify’s Clayne Crawford) suffers the loss of his wife and baby, he moves to Los Angeles to start anew. There, he gets partnered with LAPD detective Roger Murtaugh (Damon Wayans Sr), who, having recently suffered a “minor” heart attack, must avoid any stress in his life. l

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Back Page

SATURDAY, JUNE 18, 2016

WHAT WILL IT MEAN FOR FICTION WRITERS? PAGE 16

BANGLADESH AND COMPANY PAGE 22

THE BASIS FOR CLIMATEFRIENDLY PROSPERITY PAGE 23

$360m WB fund for BD waterways approved n Tribune Desk Bangladesh will get a $360 million World Bank fund to modernise its inland waterways.

The project will boost national and regional trade, the global lender said in a statement on Thursday.

The Bangladesh Regional Waterway Transport Project 1 will improve navigability of 900km waterways along the Chittagong-Dhaka-Ashuganj Corridor and connecting routes.

It will significantly reduce travel time and cost for cargo and passenger shipment.

“As a riverine country, Bangladesh has a large inland water transport sector, which, if strengthened, can support the needs of its growing export-oriented economy,” said Qimiao Fan, World Bank Country Director for Bangladesh, Bhutan and Nepal.

“This project will modernise and improve the multimodal transport and logistics system in the country and with its neighbours,” he added.

It is part of a Regional Connectivity and Integration Program supported by the World Bank for the Bangladesh-Bhutan-India-Nepal (BBIN) countries.

The credit from the World Bank’s International Development Association has a 38-year term, including a six-year grace period, and a service charge of 0.75%.

Under the project, a new general cargo terminal will be constructed at Pangaon and the existing terminal at Ashuganj will be improved.

Also, new passenger terminals will be built and existing ones at Sa-

The Buriganga River is one of the rivers that are going to get improved navigability as part of a World Bank-funded project, which aims to boost national and regional trade in Bangladesh by modernising the country’s inland waterways SYED ZAKIR HOSSAIN darghat, Narayanganj, Chandpur, and Barisal will be rehabilitated.

Fourteen landing stations will be built in shoals to help the poor living in remote areas. The terminals and landing stations will be constructed to improve security,

safety, and sanitation conditions.

The project will also help build the capacity of the Bangladesh Inland Water Transport Authority and aim at achieving long-term operational and financial sustainability.

“High transport costs, low ef-

ficiency and delays in the logistics chain increase trade costs and reduce the competitiveness of Bangladesh’s products”, said Diep Nguyen-van Houtte, World Bank Team Leader for the project.

“By improving riverine con-

nectivity, the project will make movement easier for traders, producers, passengers and cargo on multimodal transport networks in the sub-region, and help the poorest who rely on inland waterways as a mode of transport.” l

A hotel room in the Eiffel Tower? n BBC

CHRISTINA SONG

Seven million people visit the Eiffel Tower every year, but now a handful of those visitors will get to sleep in the iconic structure for the very first time.

Holiday rental company HomeAway has constructed a temporary VIP apartment on the first level of the tower, open only for the duration of the UEFA Euro football tournament from June 10 to July 10.

The two-bedroom apartment, with views of the Arc de Triomphe, Grand Palais and Sacre Coeur comes furnished with a big screen television for watching the game and a foosball table for

playing games. The space also includes an urban greenhouse complete with glass windows and a seating area filled with hanging plants.

To determine who got the opportunity to sleep in the apartment, HomeAway held a contest asking entrants to describe how they would enjoy their night in the tower.

“My two young sons are autistic and are both obsessed with lights and the tower itself so I’d spend the night watching them in awe!” was the winning response from Michelle, in the UK. Scott, from the United States, also won a night’s stay with his response about reuniting five generations in Par-

is: his mother who first visited the city in 1953, his daughter and granddaughter who visited at 13 and 14 respectively, and a brand new granddaughter who’ll join the trip.

The four winners will begin their one-night stays from 23 June. Although there are no other nights up for grabs, visitors have the chance to tour the apartment (and perhaps sneak in a nap on the couch!), join a match viewing party or skip the normal Eiffel Tower line by entering a competition online.

At the conclusion of the tournament, the space will be deconstructed and revert back to being a conference room. l

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