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Nine countries have confidentially submitted more than 50 proposals to liberalise different service sectors in Bangladesh that accounts for 49.3 per cent of the national GDP, Action Aid, an international NGO, has revealed.
   The countries have also requested to allow their companies and nationals to operate in certain sectors with the same privileges accorded to Bangladeshi nationals and companies.
   The sectors include water distribution, construction, telecommunications, tourism and financial services.
   Most of the countries have also proposed to allow employment of their citizens in different professional services including architecture, management consulting, banking, transport, publishing, recreational, cultural and sports services.
   The government received these requests before July 2002 under the ongoing bilateral request-offer process mandated in the 4th WTO ministerial conference in Doha in 2001.
   The bilateral negotiations are expected to be incorporated into the multilateral framework as commitments from members under the General Agreement of Trade in Services.
   All requests — initial proposals — had to be submitted by June 2002 and all offers — replies to requests — by March 2003. But almost two-thirds of the WTO membership failed to comply due to the complex procedures.
   In that context the WTO has recently decided that all offers must be submitted by May 31, 2005.
   The nine countries, including the European Union, the United States, Japan, Malaysia, South Korea and Norway, have asked for access mostly under the fourth mode of supply — presence of natural persons — besides the other three modes of supply.
   Both the European Union and Norway have proposed to allow privatisation of water services, although that is not recognised under the WTO schedule of services.
   Quarters concerned said the European Commission has been lobbying the WTO to recognise “water for human usage” as a negotiable service sector. According insiders, Bangladesh is being pressured by the European Commission to submit an offer replying to their proposal soon.
   Malaysia’s request includes deregulating professional services, architectural services, telecommunications sector with full access of companies to set up offices and their nationals to work here.
   Japan requested for their nationals to be allowed to work in the infrastructure services.
   Requests in other sectors such as transport, banking and insurance, computer and construction services include allowing foreign companies to operate from Bangladesh with full privileges of enjoyed by national companies of the same category.
   A commerce ministry official told New Age on Wednesday that Bangladesh and Zambia, on behalf of least developed countries, submitted modalities in September 2004. “They categorically stipulate that the LDCs be given full market access in all sectors of their interest,” he said.
   He said the LDCs made it clear that deregulating service sectors will depend on each LDC’s discretion.
   Regarding the European Union, he said there has been no pressure whatsoever. “In fact none of those countries have pursued our government for offers.”
   According to quarters concerned the bilateral process of negotiations for services is undemocratic and denies poorer WTO members the benefits of multilateral negotiations. They say the very nature of the negotiations being confidential and kept away from the public eye smacks of conspiracy and should be opposed.
   Apparently the European Service Forum and the US Coalition of Services, comprising of multinational companies, have started assisting the WTO to prepare the text of the services agreement since February 2004.
   Ziaul Hoque Mukta of Action Aid Bangladesh, while briefing newsmen about the requests, said on Wednesday, “The governments, who are actually WTO members, are not involved in the process. Instead, companies have taken their places. These companies are naturally interested to see deregulation of the service sectors.”
   The press briefing, organised jointly by Action Aid Bangladesh and Alliance of Food Sovereignty Campaign, put forward three recommendations to the government.
   They recommended that Bangladesh make no offers during the bilateral negotiations, that the requests be discussed openly in public and decided upon with a national consensus, and that the services agreement inherently flawed and skewed towards the interest of the wealthier countries be reviewed at the 6th WTO ministerial in December 2005.
   The commerce ministry source said the ministry had been working on the requests with the cooperation of other departments and ministries. “Our working group under the WTO advisory committee is working on the requests.”
   When asked about the deadline of May 31, he said Bangladesh has already opened two sectors — telecommunications and five-star hotels — a long time ago. “Besides, the modality submitted clearly mentions that it should be up to the LDCs to decide on liberalising certain sectors.”

The Jatiya Sangsad (Reserved Seats for Women) Election Act, which was enacted on November 29, came into effect on Tuesday, with gazette notification after the assent of the president, Iajuddin Ahmed.
   The act provisions for the Election Commission to hold the elections to the reserved seats within 45 days, from December 7.
   Before such elections, the commission will have to allocate the reserved seats to the political parties on the basis of a proportional representation in the parliament within 21 days.
   The act says the political parties and alliance will have to submit the lists of their lawmakers to the commission within 15 days for the election and allocation of the reserved seats.
   Independent lawmakers will also have the right to form alliance among them or with any party or alliance of their choice.
   If the current formation of the parties and the alliance in the parliament is not changed, the ruling BNP will get 29 reserved seats, Jamaat 3, Awami League 9 and the Jatiya Party 2.
   After such a distribution, two reserved seats will remain for the Bangladesh Jatiya Party, Islami Oikya Jote, Jatiya Party, Krishak-Shramik-Janata League, Bikalpadhara and the independent lawmakers.
   The minister for law, justice and parliamentary affairs, Moudud Ahmed, held two separate meetings with the lawmakers of the Bangladesh Jatiya Party, Islmai Oikya Jote, Jatiya Party and three independent lawmakers, and with Kader Siddiq of Krishak-Shramik-Janata League and Mahi B Chowdhury of Bikalpadhara Bangladesh on December 4.
   At the meetings, he explained the provisions of the act and the present context of distribution of the reserved seats among them.
   The Bangladesh Jatiya Party, which has four lawmakers, and the Islami Oikya Jote, with three lawmakers, will get one reserved seat if they enter into an alliance. Both the parties are partners of the ruling four-party alliance.
   Without the Islami Oikya Jote, the Bangladesh Jatiya Party may get a seat if it can manage at least one independent lawmaker for an alliance. The Oikya Jote will, however, need at least two more lawmakers with it to get a reserved seat.
   Moudud also sent letters to the general secretaries of BNP, Awami League, Jamaat and the Jatiya Party, the four major parties in the parliament, on December 5 explaining the provisions of the act.
   In the letters, he sought cooperation of the parties in the enforcement of the law.

Another listed criminal was killed in ‘crossfire’ between the Rapid Action Battalion and his associates at Rayer Bazar in the capital early Wednesday.
   The RAB said Jahangir Alam Dipu, arrested from Jigatala at about 4:30pm on Tuesday, died in the ‘crossfire’ on the Dhaka City Flood Protection Embankment near the Intellectual Killing Ground at Rayer Bazar at about 4:30am Wednesday.
   A team of RAB-2 nabbed Dipu after raiding a house of his friend at Jigatala under the Hajaribagh police station Tuesday afternoon and interrogated him, said the RAB headquarters in a news release.
   According to his confession, the team went to the Dhaka City Flood Protection Embankment.
   As the team reached the embankment, his associates started firing on the team and the RAB retaliated, said the release.
   Dipu was hit by bullets from his associates as he tried to escape from the vehicle amid the shootout and died on the spot, the release added.
   The RAB later reported to have recovered a local-made one shooter gun, two live cartridges and one used cartridge from the spot.
   The RAB said Dipu was wanted in a dozen criminal cases, including seven murders, under the Hazaribagh, Dhanmondi and Mohammadpur police stations.
   But duty officer of the Mohammadpur police station told New Age that Dipu was accused in nine cases, including murder.
   Seven of the cases were filed with the Hajaribagh police station and two cases with the Dhanmondi police station, he said.
   Local people on Wednesday told New Age that they had heard a couple of gunshots in the early hours but did not see any one but the RAB.
   Alamgir Hossain Tipu, younger brother of the victim, told newsmen at the Dhaka Medical College Hospital morgue, “My brother was not involved in any criminal activities after he had come out of jail.”
   “The RAB did not find any arms or illegal things in his possession during arrest or interrogation,” he added.
   The body was sent to the Dhaka Medical College Hospital morgue for post-mortem.
   Mohammad Farmujul Haque, the warrant officer of RAB-2, filed two cases with the Mohammadpur police station, accusing Dipu and unidentified 14/15 people.
   With the death of Dipu, who was also a close associate of top dreaded criminal Emon and main accused in the Chhatra League leader Ashru murder case in 2003, the death count in RAB operations since June 21 is now 69.

Participants in a discussion in Dhaka on Wednesday blasted the government for the extra-judicial killings of people by the Rapid Action Battalion in the name of “crossfire.”
   Civil society and the press should come forward and stand against such killings that took place in the name of checking violent crimes, the speakers said in a discussion on “international terrorism: Bangladesh context” organised by the Bangladesh Foundation for Development Research in the CIRDAP auditorium.
   Presided at by the foundation chairman, Shah AMS Kibria, the meeting was addressed by Father RW Tim of the Hotline Human Rights, Professor AK Azad Chowdhury of Dhaka University, Professor Kabir Chowdhury, former ambassador Waliur Rahman, Ajay Kumar Roy, and Abdul Baset Majumder.
   Tim said, “The battalion is an instrument of state terrorism — scaring off criminals by rubbing out the leading ones by death squad-style executions.”
   Criticising the battalion action, he said forensic experts should be engaged to see how all the people were killed in the same style.
   Tim also questioned the elite force’s claim that its members always came under attack by the associates of the “criminals” and how they could know about the force’s operation beforehand.
   Azad said crossfire means exchanging of gunfire between two sides and both the sides could be hurt or killed. “Over 66 suspected criminals have so far been killed but how many of the battalion members were injured and killed.”
   Referring to terrorism, Azad focused on the activities of Islamist militants. “Local terrorist groups like Harkat-ul-Jihad and Jagrata Muslim Janata are flourishing and the situation of Bangladesh can be worse than that in Afghanistan.”
   Kibria said international terrorism, which is the most crucial issue in the world, had erupted because of the Arab-Israel conflict and wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
   Mentioning the history of terrorism in the subcontinent, he said the root resulting in international terrorism should be investigated and global action is needed to address it.
   There were Sarbahara, Shanti Bahini, and some other terrorist groups in Bangladesh, Kibria said, adding that the rise of the Islamist militant groups was the main threat to stability, democracy, and future.
   Former ambassador CM Shafi Sami gave a detailed description of terrorism. The meaning of terrorism varies from country to country, group to group and, even from one terrorist organisation to other. “Which is terrorism in the eyes of the United States is the struggle for survival, liberty, and democracy for others,” he said.
   Although the attacks on the Israelis by the Palestinians are terrorism in the eyes of the United States, Israeli rocket attacks on Palestinian civilian communities are not seen as act of terrorism, Shafi said.
   “A similar picture comes out if we examine the list of terrorist organisations drawn up by the United Kingdom. The list includes Hizbullah, which is a legal political party in Lebanon with elected members of parliament,” he said.
   Bangladesh had always unequivocally condemned act of terrorism, he said. “It had an image as a peace-loving moderate Muslim nation, but it failed to maintain the position because of a series of criminal incidents, and the government’s liability to respond to these incidents.”
   Shafi said there had been some worrisome developments with a discernible rise in extremism of both religious and secular kinds over the past couple of years.
   Shafi said diplomatic efforts of Bangladesh could be geared towards achieving a comprehensive international strategy to solve the new trend of terrorism, locally and internationally.

Professor Rehman Sobhan on Wednesday questioned the sustainability of arbitrary law enforcement either in the form of the Operation Clean Heart or in the shape of the ‘Rapid Action Battalion’ as these operate outside institutional structures of the state.
   “Arbitrary and often extra-judicial forms of law enforcement may lead to a temporary abeyance of crime but their sustainability is questionable,” the economist told the 15th biennial conference of the Bangladesh Economic Association at the Institute of Engineers, Bangladesh.
   He said they also “do not address the source of the problem which lies in the patronisation of criminals in the service of party politics”.
   The adversarial politics is aggravating mal-governance and such politics has contributed to the politicisation of the bureaucracy and a malfeasance system of law and order, he said in his paper, “Challenging Bangladesh’s Crisis of Governance: An Agenda for a Just Society”.
   “These instruments of governance, operating without accountability or transparency, leads to the machinery of state being used as a political source rather than instrument of governance,” he said.
   “A major political party or an alliance with less than 50 per cent votes has to constantly consult with the opposition parties, which represent more than 40 per cent of the votes, if the political system is to remain effective.
   “The practice of illiberal democracy based on a winner taking all philosophy may be legally okay, but remains politically unstable.”
   He said unless the main political parties were willing to practice tolerance in their dealings with the opponents, parliamentary democracy will become a constraint rather than a resource for stimulating good governance.
   “It is recognised, not just in Bangladesh’s but also by our so-called development partners, that a transformation of Bangladesh’s landscape would be unrealisable without a transformation in our political culture” he said.

A 15-member Indian cricket team, led by Sourav Ganguly, arrived Wednesday afternoon amid tight security to play two Tests and three one-day internationals against Bangladesh.
   The team’s arrival dispels whatever doubt that had remained about the tour, put in jeopardy after a little-known, self-proclaimed Islamist group had threatened in a hand-written message to kill the Indian cricketers.
   The Board for Control of Cricket in India on Sunday held up the tour after the threat and the Indian government sent a security review team to Dhaka on Monday to assess whether it was safe for the cricketers to go through the tour. The security review team gave the go-ahead on Tuesday.
   On his arrival, Ganguly played down security fears and said his team was focused on playing tough cricket to improve its international ranking.
   “We want to win both the one-day and Test series,” he said. “We have just arrived and do not know much about the security measures here. However, we are concentrating on cricket and nothing else.”
   Sourav said the Indians would not take the hosts lightly and try to play their best possible cricket.
   “Bangladesh are new in the Test cricket arena and need sometime to settle down. However, we will play our best possible cricket [as] we always stay motivated for Test matches.
   “We won our last Test series against South Africa, which was good for the team, and hope that we will continue the winning spree here.”
   The Bangladesh Biman flight (BG-092) touched down at Zia International Airport at about 1:00pm and Ganguly was the first to come out of the VIP lounge.
   He took a quick look around and went back to the lounge before emerging 15 minutes later for hurriedly-arranged news conference.
   The news conference lasted for a few minutes and the Indian team left for their hotel escorted by police vans and motorcycles, leaving behind hundreds of journalists, television crew and photojournalists who had been at the airport since 11:00am.
   Security was heightened at the airport for the arrival of the Indian team. Each and every car was checked with metal detectors and the journalists were asked to produce their identity cards.
   Admittance to the lobby was restricted, even for crew of international television channels. The media people were only let in for the news conference by the Indian captain and coach John Wright.
   The Indian players were in a relaxed mood and posed for photographers before boarding the bus. Virender Sehwag and VVS Laxman are being accompanied by their wives.
   Squad: Sourav Ganguly (captain), Rahul Dravid, Virender Sehwag, Gautam Gambhir, Sachin Tendulkar, VVS Laxman, Mohammad Kaif, Dinesh Karthik, Irfan Pathan, Zaheer Khan, Shib Paul, Gagandeep Singh, Anil Kumble, Harbhajan Singh and Murali Kartik.

A five-member Indian security review team visited the MA Aziz Stadium in the Chittagong city Wednesday on Wednesday to assess the security arrangement for the second cricket Test between India and Bangladesh.
   The team, led by the joint secretary of the Indian external affairs ministry, KBS Katocher, first visited the Agrabad Hotel where the Indian players would stay. The team visited the stadium in the afternoon and reviewed security arrangements there.
   Officials of the Bangladesh Cricket Board said the review team had not made any comment about overall security arrangement.
   “The members didn’t make any comment about the security measurers taken in Chittagong but said that they would submit their report to the Indian government,” the BCB deputy director, Shafiqul Haque Hira told New Age Wednesday night. “We are, however, hopeful that they would give the go-ahead.”
   The team also had separate meetings with the Chittagong City Corporation mayor, ABM Mohiuddin Chowdhury, and the Chittagong Metropolitan Police commissioner Amjad Hossain.
   The mayor said the city corporation would provide all-out cooperation to ensure security for the Indian cricketers during their stay in Chittagong.
   The security review team left the port city at about 4:00pm.
   The Indian government sent the team to review the security facilities in Dhaka and Chittagong after a little-known, self-proclaimed Islamic militant group, Harkat-ul-Jihad, threatened in a hand-written message to kill the Indian cricketers.

The US president, George W Bush, sought on Tuesday to boost the morale of US troops facing extended deployments in Iraq, but acknowledged mixed results so far in training Iraqi forces to replace them.
   As the US combat death toll in Iraq reached 1,000 since last year’s invasion with a record monthly toll in November of 136, Bush said he expected a tough road ahead.
   While a recent offensive in Fallujah “dealt the enemy a severe blow,” Bush said the guerrillas who used the city as their stronghold would “keep on fighting” and offered a more cautious assessment of the readiness of Iraqi troops than he had in the past.
   Classified CIA assessments, disclosed on Tuesday, said the situation was deteriorating and unlikely to improve any time soon.
   “Some Iraqi units have performed better than others,” Bush told thousands of camouflage-clad Marines flanked by giant American flags and heavily armed Humvees. “Some Iraqis have been intimidated enough by the guerrillas to leave the service to their country.”
   But Bush said “a great many are standing firm,” and the United States would continue training Iraqi security forces “so the Iraqi people can eventually take responsibility for their own security.”
   He touted a new NATO training programme and said efforts were underway to “develop a core of well-trained senior and mid-level Iraqi officers” to lead the new forces.
   Bush did not repeat his assertions from September about nearly 100,000 “fully trained and equipped” Iraqi soldiers, police officers and other security personnel being on the job.
   Bush said his goal was to “help the Iraqi government build a force that no longer needs coalition support so they can defend their own nation. And then American soldiers and Marines can come home.”
   But Bush offered no timetables one day after the defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, said he hoped US troops would be pulled out of Iraq in the next four years.
   The White House said Bush’s California visit was part of an effort to boost US troop morale. He flew more than nine hours round-trip from Washington to give a 30-minute speech at Camp Pendleton, which has had one of the highest casualty rates in Iraq of any US military base.
   After his speech, Bush sat down to a lunch of pasta, rice and beef in the mess hall, and met with more than 50 families of fallen soldiers.
   The Pentagon announced last week it would increase the number of American troops in Iraq to 150,000, from 138,000, to try to improve security for elections at the end of January.
   The move will extend the promised yearlong Iraq tours of 8,100 Army soldiers to 14 months and the seven-month tours of 2,300 Marines to nine months.
   In a sign of growing tension, eight US soldiers serving in Iraq and Kuwait filed a lawsuit this week over a military policy that forces them to serve beyond their enlistment contracts.
   Citing the temporary increase in troop strength, Bush said he had “a strategy in place to aid the rise of a stable democracy in Iraq, to help the Iraqi government provide security during the election period.”
   Bush has vowed to press ahead with January 30 elections in Iraq despite the surge in violence.
   “As election day approaches, we can expect further violence from the terrorists,” Bush said, adding: “Free elections will proceed as planned.”

Disgruntled American troops waiting in the Kuwaiti desert to go into Iraq on Wednesday challenged the US defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, about their safety and how long they would be in the country.
   Rumsfeld flew to Camp Buehring 20 kilometres from Iraq border, to face one of the toughest questions and answer sessions with troops since the start of the Iraq war in March 2003.
   Rumsfeld was also questioned by other troops about what would happen to the Americans force in Iraq after the planned January 30 election, about missing pay, and other worries over conditions.
   Rumsfeld, who visited Afghanistan Tuesday for the inauguration of the president, Hamid Karzai, is now heading to India.

Diplomats and peers have joined scientists and churchmen to urge the prime minister, Tony Blair, to publish a death toll in the US-led war in Iraq.
   In an unusual open letter to the premier made available to Reuters, the 44 signatories said Blair had rejected other death counts from the war – figures span 14,000 to 100,000 – without releasing one of his own.
   Any totalling of the Iraqi war dead could embarrass Blair ahead of a general election expected in months in a country that opposed the US-led war.
   The group urged Blair to commission an urgent probe into the number of dead and injured and keep counting so long as British soldiers remain in Iraq alongside their American allies.
   “Your government is obliged under international humanitarian law to protect the civilian population during military operations in Iraq, and you have consistently promised to do so,” they wrote in the letter to be published on Wednesday.
   “However, without counting the dead and injured, no one can know whether Britain and its coalition partners are meeting these obligations.”
   The inquiry, they added, should be independent of government, conducted according to accepted scientific methods and subjected to peer review.
   Signatories included Air Marshal Sir Timothy Garden, who spent 32 years in the military; a former British ambassador to Iraq, Sir Stephen Egerton; a human rights campaigner, Bianca Jagger, and the Lord Bishop of Coventry, Colin Bennetts.
   Britain and the United States have suffered around 1,070 losses in the war so far. The Iraq-wide casualty count is not known, and a high tally could wreak political damage in Britain, where Blair is expected to win a 2005 election but with a reduced majority.
   The writers, also including philosophers and lawyers, said their letter reflects “an influential and growing body of opinion that the government’s failure to provide estimates of Iraqi casualties is unacceptable”.
   The former foreign office legal adviser, Elizabeth Wilmshurst, signed up, along with the secretary general of the Muslim Council of Britain, Iqbal Sacranie, writer Gillian Slovo and experts in public health.
   The toll of the 20-month US-led war is highly contentious.
   In a report released in October by the Lancet medical journal, days before the US election that returned the US president, George W Bush, to power, a group of American scientists put civilian deaths at 100,000.
   But the Iraq Body Count – an Anglo-American research group tracking civilian deaths via numerous sources – has come up with a much lower toll of about 14,000-16,000.
   The IBC has now joined forces with Medact, a charity that says the war has crippled Iraq’s medical system, to launch a new campaign challenging the government to publish casualties.
   “No figures in a war zone are going to be perfect – but that’s no excuse for not trying,” said John Sloboda, IBC co-founder.

At least 15 people, including an Awami League lawmaker, were injured in police action at Tangail on Wednesday as AL and its allies launched their countrywide programme to mobilise people to overthrow the “repressive” BNP-led alliance government.
   Leaders of the main opposition party, eight components of the 11-party alliance, a faction of Jatiya Samajtantrik Dal and the National Awami Party addressed a number of wayside rallies en-route to Bogra and Comilla and urged the people to make the December 11 “mass no-confidence human chain” programme a success.
   They earlier launched the programme, preparatory to the December 11 human chain, from the capital in the morning.
   In Tangail at least 15 people, including Ekabbar Hossain MP, were injured as the police went on action on an Elenga-bound motorcade of the AL workers inspecting sites for the human chain programme.
   The police restore to baton charge when they opposition activists locked in an altercation with them after they (police) had intercepted the motorcade near Karotia.
   Among the injured, central leader of Chhatra League, AL’s student wing, Sohel Hazari was admitted to Tangail General Hospital.
   The police, however, said a mobile court stopped the motor procession. But the processionists turned unruly, leading to go on action.
   New Age’s Comilla correspondent reports: The alliance leaders urged the opposition leaders and workers to put their best efforts to make the human chain program a success and intensify the anti-government campaign.
   Presided over by district AL president Khorshed Alam, the meeting was addressed, among others, by AL presidium member Tofail Ahmed, the Communist Party president Manjurul Ahsan Khan, Ganatantri Party president Azizul Islam Khan, Shamyabadi Dal secretary general Dilip Barua, Gano Forum presidium member Pankaj Bhattacharya, and Jatiaya Sramik Jote president Shirin Akhter. The speakers said the future course of the opposition movement would largely depend on the success of the December 11 programme.
   Tofail said the failure of the government in controlling law and order situation and price of essentials were among the main reasons that prompted the opposition to launch the movement.
   Manjurul said every party and alliance concerned was taking preparation in their own ways to make the human wall program a success.
   New Age’s Bogra correspondent reports: The alliance leaders held a meeting at the Shaheed Khokan Park with Bogra district unit president of AL Mamtaj Uddin in the chair.
   AL general secretary Abdul Jalil, presidium member Abdur Razzak, Communist Party general secretary Mujahidul Islam Selim, vice-president of a faction of Jatiya Samajtantrik Dal Shahid Nurul Ambia, Workers Party leader Fazle Hossain Badsha, Gano Forum joint general secretary Mufidul Islam Khan,
   Terming the BNP-led alliance government “failure”, the opposition leaders vowed that they would continue the movement until the government relinquishes the power.

The Border Security Forces of India shot dead a Bangladeshi young man in Shibganj, an upazila in Chapainawabganj some 251 kilometres north-west off Dhaka, on Wednesday.
   After the killing, the BSF men reportedly dragged away the victim’s body into the Indian territory
   The Bangladesh Rifles and local sources said the Indian border guards “crossed the border into Bangladesh’s Telkupi village and shot down” Shariful Haque, 38, working in the field at about 6:00am.
   When contacted, Shibganj Upazila Nirbahi Officer Rafiqul Islam said he knew about the incident.

The prime minister, Khaleda Zia, on Wednesday said her government would continue its efforts to build up the armed forces to face the challenges of the present century.
   “We are implementing various programmes for modernisation, strengthening and flourishing of professionalism of the army,” she said while addressing a ‘darbar’ on the occasion of the 4th Ordnance Corps Reunion and the 5th Colonel Commandant Investiture Cere-mony at Rajendrapur Cantonment, in Gazipur, 29km north off Dhaka. The prime minister said her government established the foundation of Bangladesh as a strong state to face the challenges of the new century through socio-economic development, modernisation of the armed forces and expansion and development of information communication technology.
   She hoped that every member of the army would make meaningful contributions to the process of building a modern armed force.
   Khaleda, who is also holds the portfolio of the defence ministry, reminded the soldiers and officers of the corps that the responsibility of safeguarding the country’s independence was vested with the armed forces.
   She expressed her firm belief that they would continue to work with more confidence and devotion to discharge the responsibility.
   Ministers, chiefs of the three services, senior civil and military officials as well as serving and retired solders of the corps and family members of the corps’ martyred members were present at the function.
   Earlier, the prime minister was received by the army chief, Lieutenant General Hasan Mashhud Chowdhury and Corps Colonel Commandant Major Gene-ral Abu Rushde Rokonuddawla.
   Khaleda placed wreath at the local mausoleum — Roktoshopan — build in memory of the corps’ martyred members who made supreme sacrifices during the War of Independence in 1971.
   She also planted a sapling in front of the administrative building of the Ordinance Centre School and took part in luncheon with the soldiers.
   The agriculture minister, MK Anwar, the water resources minister, Hafijuddin Ahmed and the prime minister’s political secretary, Harris Chowdhury, were also present.

The very existence of Bangladesh, a small country with a population of about 144 million, is no less a wonder than Taj Mahal, said the finance and planning minister, M Saifur Rahman, on Wednesday.
   “We are not eating each other and are instead living on two square meals to the amazement of many countries,” he told a seminar on “Bangladesh in the 21st Century: The Political Economy Perspective”.
   Saifur said institutional
   and policy reforms, and increased efficiency in resource management would be Bangladesh’s agenda for the 21st century.
   Priority should also be given to enhancing the implementation capacity of the public sector to reap maximum benefit out of the reforms, he told a seminar on.
   “Bangladesh lacks no resource but lacks governing capacity and prudent management of its resources,” Saifur said at the seminar, organised by the Bangladesh Economic Association at the Institution of Engineers, Bangladesh.
   He stressed self-sufficient economy and said the focus should be on generating more internal revenue amid decline in external resources.
   Development of human resources, rural infrastructure, agro-economy and software industry should have get topmost priority to ensure economic growth, Saifur said.
   The agriculture sector can generate more employment and contribute to poverty alleviation, he said. “We have to increase efficiency in crop management to get a maximum return from the sector.”
   Saifur said he was optimistic that the manufacturers would prove their worth in the whole of South Asia once they got necessary policy and logistic support.
   Regional trade agreements would reap little benefit for Bangladesh until and unless a sound macroeconomic framework is established and human resource developed, he said.
   Saifur said he had told his Indian counterpart during his recent visit to India that Bangladesh’s export would grow significantly if New Delhi withdrew all non-tariff barriers for only six months.
   BEA president Qazi Kholiquzzaman Ahmad presided over the seminar and general secretary Abul Barkat delivered the welcome speech.

The government has decided to sell out the Rangpur Sugar Mills, backtracking from its earlier position of contracting out the mill to a private management agency.
   The Ministry of Industries, which controlled the mill, Wednesday handed its authority over to the Privatisation Commission, to put it out to a tender for sale, officials of the commission said.
   The commission, the body responsible for disinvestment, at a meeting on the day made the decision to privatise the loan-burdened mills, operation of which remained suspended for a long.
   Suspension of mill production has pushed sugarcane cultivation towards uncertainty in the command area of the mill in Gaibandha.
   Local lawmaker Abdul Mutalib Akhand was present at the meeting on a special invitation when the commission made the decision.
   The commission on May 6 decided to hand the mill over to a hired management agency, against an earlier plan of putting the state-owned enterprises on sale, mainly on political consideration.
   A committee, headed by the ruling party lawmaker, Abu Yusuf Muhammad Khalilur Rahman, also a member of the commission, was assigned to set the modes of the management contract for the mill.
   One of the 15 sugar mills, owned by the Bangladesh Sugar and Food Industries Corporation under the Ministry of Industries, the Rangpur Sugar Mills has 18,000 acres of land.
   “We have decided to sell out the mill in the interests of its running and keeping it alive. As its land is grabbed by outsiders and machines are pilfered, we have to dispose it of as soon as possible,” a source at the meeting told New Age.
   The meeting, presided at by the Privatisation Commission chairman, Enam Ahmed Chaudhury, requested the Ministry of Industries and the district administration to reclaim the land.
   The commission also approved disinvestment of the machinery of the fishing net factory at Mongla for Tk 30 lakh, and decided to float re-tender for two other fishing net factories in Comilla and Chittagong because of low prices offered by the bidders.
   Since its inception as the Privatisation Board in 1993, the commission has so far privatised 58 state-owned enterprises.

Water experts from India, Bangladesh and Nepal have recommended collaborative management of the international rivers of all co-basin countries for equitable and just share of waters.
   They also recommended that the donors should assist implementation of projects, identified jointly by governments of the three countries for harnessing and utilisation of waters.
   More than 20 water experts from the three countries at a two-day seminar on December 6-7 in Kathmandu focussed on the problems of flood caused by the Ganges during the monsoon and droughts in the dry season, affecting the life and living of the region where half a billion people live.
   Organised by PANOS South Asia Institute, the seminar was attended by water experts linked with the three respective governments, social leaders and media men.
   They included Jayanta Bandopaddhay, Dinesh Mishra, Gopal Krishna, Sudhirendra Sharma, J Jeyaranjan and CP Sinha from India, Professor Moniruzzaman Mia, Tauhidul Anwar Khan, Amir Khasru and Mustafa Kamal Majumder from Bangladesh, Santa Bahadur Pun, Sanjoy Adhikari, Manisha Aryal and Bharat Dutta Koirala from Nepal.
   The seminar on “War on the Ganges? Project” marked launching of a book titled Disputes over the Ganga published by PANOS and contributed by water experts of the three countries.
   PANOS observed: “With much water during the rainy season and too little of it during the lean period, the Ganges Basin is the likely arena for some of serious conflicts over water in South Asia.”
   Opening the seminar Dr Yubaraj Khatiwada, member of Nepal Planning Commission, called for regional cooperation to address the disputes over the Ganges water. He said plenty of waters of the Ganges, with proper management and just sharing, would help alleviate poverty of the region.
   His views on regional cooperation were shared by Moniruz-zaman, former Dhaka University vice-chancellor and author of a book — Farakka Problem.
   Questioning the bilateral stand of India, without naming it, for solution of the water dispute, he said: “The Ganges is an international river. Why can’t we agree for regional cooperation?”
   Pun referred to the India’s proposed rivers linking project and quoting Indian experts said such a venture would bring devastation to the peoples of the region by destroying the ecology and environment.
   Tracing history, Sudhirendra said Jawaharlal Nehru had sacked West Bengal Irrigation Engineer Kapil Bhattacharya for opposing the Farakka Barrage project in early 1960s.
   “Now after 30 years of its commission the costly barrage is going to be redundant” after causing miseries to the millions of people, he said.
   Jayanta observed that the Farakka Barrage, purely engineering interventions on the natural flow of the Ganges, was proving to be unsustainable and unprofitable. “The river itself will soon make the Barrage redundant.”
   The experts cautioned against manipulation by the western experts and the World Bank, who with misleading opinions were trying to promote the India’s proposed rivers linking project. “The project is a nexus of certain politicians, engineers and contractors to make their fortune,” said an elderly engineer from New Delhi.

It is common to see signs in Hindi and English and people in the gowns of the Indian Border Security Force just after the Panbari check-post of the Bangladesh Rifles.
   Then apparently inside India, the BDR personnel stand guard and signs in Bangla catch the eyes.
   It is hard to draw a borderline between India and Bangladesh at this heavily-guarded border point, divided by a 178-by-85-metre area, known as the Tin Bigha Corridor, which connects Dahagram and Angarpota, two Bangladeshi enclaves of a combined area of 18.67 square kilometres.
   According to the latest local census, 16,464 Bangladeshis live in the enclaves, now a union.
   But they have no freedom of travelling to or from the upazila headquarters of Patgram whenever they wish because of a restriction on the movement through the corridor, sovereignty on which is enjoyed by India. They only get 12 hours, from 6:00am to 6:00pm, to move through the corridor.
   The people of the corridor, which was supposed to be of Bangladesh to ease the life of the inhabitants, want at least time extension till 10:00pm until it is permanently given out to Bangladesh.
   A BDR sepoy said BSF men allow movement of Bangladeshis at night only if someone is a patient. There is no modern facility, including electric supply, in the enclaves, nor have there any healthy economic activities that can give them freedom from poverty. The Indian border force has set up 22 camps around the enclaves, keeping their grip tightened.
   Thirty years’ time is, however, not enough to see Bangladesh’s sovereignty on the corridor as stipulated in the Indo-Bangladesh Land Boundary Agreement signed in 1974.
   In good faith, Bangladesh handed over the southern half of the Dakkhin Berubari Union to India, which, in return, did not do so.
   Even after the ratification by Jatiya Sangsad, the Indian parliament is yet to ratify the agreement, widely called Mujib-Indira treaty, causing sufferings to the people of Dahagram-Angarpota for years.
   “You will hardly find any Bangladeshi living in the enclaves who did not land in Indian jails and between 1980 and 1992 we remained almost confined here,” Delwar Hossain, acting secretary of the union, told New Age, recalling the period when India sealed the corridor.
   Referring to the opening of the corridor on June 26, 1992, he said they “virtually” got freedom on that day and still observe it with demonstrations.
   Asked whether they would migrate if they were provided with better opportunities, Delwar, 45, said, “No. My forefathers suffered a lot for this motherland since the British period and we cannot cede it in any way.”
   Another man, who identified himself only as a labourer, said they foresee an upcoming period of crisis as their standing crops, mainly rice, were damaged by drought and downpour. “But we have no good means of living in this area.”
   In conformity with the 1974 agreement, India is due to hand over 51 disputed pieces of land, including enclaves and land under adverse possession, covering over 10,000 acres to Bangladesh while Bangladesh has in its possession over 111 disputed pieces of land of around 700 acres.

International Anti-corruption Day will be observed for the first time today all across the world.
   The Berlin-based corruption monitoring organisation Transparency International has organised programmes to mark the day in over 100 countries.
   The United Nations General Assembly adopted the anti-corruption convention on October 31, 2001 and declared December 9 as International Anti-corruption Day.
   TIB will be hosting a seminar on the UN convention against corruption at the BRAC Centre in Dhaka today.
   After the seminar, Nanda Saha, wife of slain New Age Khulna correspondent Manik Saha, will receive an award for honesty given to Manik posthumously.

Passengers up to age 5 travelling by airlines, waterways and land routes would be considered as children, instead of 18 years previously.
   The government recently amended some clauses of the Travel Tax Act, 2003 (Act No 5) and Tax Fixation Rules for Travel Abroad, 2004, to revise the definition of children.
   The National Bureau of Revenue said this Wednesday in a notification to clarify the confusions created after the amendment of the clauses of the said act.
   Under the clause 4(1) and 4(2), passenger means any passenger who is out of the list of the exempted travellers.
   Exempted passengers include children, cancer patients, blind, disabled persons carried by the stretchers, crews working in air flights, members of the diplomatic missions working in Bangladesh and their family members, officials of the United Nations and their family members, pilgrims who perform Hajj and Umrah, transit passengers who stay in Bangladesh for not more than 72 hours and employees of any airlines who travel free of costs or at reduced fare.
   The travelling tax has been fixed at different rates for different countries. For journeys by airlines to North America, South America, Europe, Africa, Australia, New Zealand, China, Japan, Hong Kong, North Korea, South Korea, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia and Taiwan, the tax is Tk 2,500 per passenger. For the rest of the countries, the tax has been fixed at Tk 1,000 per passenger.
   But passengers travelling to the SAARC countries by air have to pay a tax of Tk 800 per head.
   Tax for journeys by waterways has been fixed at Tk 500 per passenger and by land routes Tk 300 per passenger.