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At least 162 persons were killed and over six hundred injured in about 121 road accidents in the year 2004 in Gazipur and adjacent areas of Dhaka-Mymensingh, and Dhaka-Tangail highways as well as on other inter-regional roads.
   Among the accident-prone areas, Joydevpur tops the list with the killings of 118 persons, including 32 women, in 71 road accidents.
   Fifteen persons were killed and 8 injured in 21 road accidents in Tongi; 15 were killed in 14 accidents in Kaliakair; 8 killed in 8 mishaps in Shreepur; 4 killed and 14 injured in 4 accidents in Kapasia; and 2 killed in 3 mishaps in Kaliganj during the period.
   But the officials concerned said the actual figure of the accidents would be much higher as the death incidents in which victims die later in hospitals or clinics often goes unrecorded.
   Among the road accidents in the district, the most serious one took place at Baniarchala on the Dhaka-Mymensingh highway under Sadar upazila on June 28 that claimed 18 lives, including 10 women and children.
   Earlier on May 29, twelve persons, including four women, were killed when a Shreepur-bound minibus collided with a Dhaka-bound truck at Teknagapara in front of the Bangladesh Agriculture Development Corporation on the Dhaka-Mymensingh highway under Sadar upazila.
   On July 1, seven persons were killed on the same highway in front of the Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman Agriculture University gate area at Porabari under Sadar upazila.
   On July 2, a Dhaka-bound minibus from Shreepur collided with a Mymensingh-bound private car from Dhaka on the Dhaka-Mymensingh highway killing six persons including the driver of the private car.
   Again on July 10, a Shreepur-bound minibus turned turtle when the driver of the bus lost control and fell into a roadside ditch at Teknagapara in front of ABC Eye Hospital on the Dhaka-Mymensingh highway under Sadar upazila. Four persons were killed in the accident.
   On August 18, a couple was crushed under the wheels of a Dhaka-bound bus hailing from Tangail at Kharajora on the Dhaka-Tangail highway under Kaliakair upazila.
   On September 24, the vice-president of the Kaliakoir Thana BNP, Yousuf Ali, was killed at a place between Chandra and Nandan Park on the Kaliakair-Nabinagar road when his motorcar fell into a roadside ditch after it had lost control while he tried to give side to a roughly-driven bus coming from the opposite direction.
   Moreover, two persons were killed at Sutrapur area of Kaliakair On December 2; two were killed at Chandra Trimohini area on the Dhaka-Tangail highway on December 21; two more at Teknagapara on the Dhaka-Mymensingh highway on January 30; and two others were killed in a road accident in Kapasia Upazila on November 8.
   Apart from the deaths, more than 600 people were also injured in these road accidents during the period.
   Sources concerned in the district administration said most of the vehicles which ply these roads do not bother to have any fitness certificate.
   Besides, narrow roadside passages, absence of required highway bus counters, deliberate and rampant overtaking, and rough and adventurous driving coupled with lack of required skill of the drivers are the main reasons behind the accidents, they pointed out.

Female students fared better than their male counterparts in the junior scholarship examinations 2004 in Sylhet division, according to results published on March 31.
   Of the 14 students who secured the top-10 position in the merit list, the number of female students is 10.
   There are 404 female students among the total 754 who got scholarship in the Sylhet division.
   Of the 100 students of Sylhet district who got the talent pool scholarship, 56 are female. A total of 111 female students got scholarship in general grade out of total 201.
   Of the 55 students who obtained talent pool scholarship in Moulvibazar, the number of female students is 31.
   Sixty-two female students are among the 110 who got general grade scholarship in this district.
   In Sunamganj, 49 students got talent pool scholarship and 99 students general grade scholarship. Of them, the number of female students is 25 and 50 respectively.
   In Habiganj, 25 female students and 23 boys got talent pool scholarship.
   The 14 students who secured the top-10 position in the merit list: are Shafkatur Rahman of Khalil Chowdhury Biddya Niketon, Beanibazar, Tabassum Ferdous Khan Mahi Blue Bird Girls High School, Sylhet, Nowshin Binte Newaz of the same school, Tanusree Talukdar of Government Girls High School, Sunamganj, Shameem Noor Juhee of the Bud’s Residential Model School and College Srimangal , Mahmud Afzal of BTRI High School, Srimangal, Moulvibazar, Mamunur Rahman of the Flowers KG and High School, Moulvibazar, Ratna Chakrabarty of the Government Girls High School, Sunamganj, Shah Newaz Karim of the Government Pilot High School, Sylhet, Surabhi Sen of Ali Amjad Government Girls High School, Moulvibazar, Tamanna Tasneem and Rafsana Mashrafee of the Jalalabad Cantonment Public High Scholl and College, Sylhet and Nusrat Jahan of Fenchuganj Fertilizer High School, Fenchuganj.

Conspiracy of a land-grabber has landed a poor day-labourer in jail and his wife with three minor children in near-starvation in Ulipur town of Kurigram.
   Maldar Hossain, a day-labourer and father of three minor daughters, used to sell hot snacks (pianju and papor) in the evening times in the small upazila town to supplement his income.
   The land settlement officials, during a recent survey, had allegedly recorded his small piece of land at village Kazir Chak in the name of an influential person.
   As Maldar protested the incident, he earned the wrath of the land-grabber. On Thursday evening, when the 9-year-old eldest daughter of the victim was continuing frying and selling pianju in brief absence of Maldar, an agent of the land-grabber quietly left beside her a bag of rice with five bottles of phensidyl inside it.
   Later, on his information, the police came quick and arrested the poor victim. Residents of the area, who knew Maldar since long, went to the thana and strongly protested against the move.
   He must have been victimised by his foes, they said. The police, allegedly managed, did not pay any heed. And Maldar was sent to the Kurigram prison.
   An officer of Ulipur thana, Khalequzzaman, admitted to the news agency that the residents of the area came to him to say that Maldar was not a drug-seller and sought his release. ‘We are verifying the matter,’ he added.

NURSERY business has changed the lot of lots of people in the north-western district of Pabna.
   The nurseries have reduced the unemployment problem employing about 8,000 people.
   There are at least 13,500 nurseries in the urban and rural areas of the district Sadar, Sujanagar, Chatmohar, Bera, Faridpur, Bhangura, Ishwardi, Santhia and Atgharia upazilas, a recent local survey said.
   These nurseries are engaged mostly in producing and supplying saplings of fruit, timber and flower plants.
   Amirul Islam, 45, a poor farmer of village Sarabaria in Atgharia upazila, could not regularly feed his eight-member family, having four sons and two daughters.
   Now he has changed his lot after converting his 23 decimal courtyard into a nursery within the last six years.
   This year, he purchased 16 decimals of land with Tk 80,000 and took two bighas of land on lease for expanding his nursery.
   Although his sons could not go to school due to poverty, his youngest daughter now goes to school.
   Amirul earns about Tk 1,25,000 from the nursery annually, which, he thinks, is enough to maintain his family. Now he hopes to earn around Tk 4 lakh annually from his expanded nursery.
   Beside helping increase tree plantation in the locality, Amirul says he is making a significant contribution to replacing traditional fruit trees in the area with good and high yielding varieties.
   He supplies saplings of mango plants like Himsagar, Langra, Gopalbhog, Fazli, Amprapali and Mallika.
   Another successful nursery owner in the locality, Sunil Kumar Das, was unemployed after passing SSC examination.
   He started a small nursery on 10 decimals of land in his courtyard back in 1998. This has changed the lot of his family. Now five persons are employed at his nursery.
   This year he has expanded his nursery with two acres of land with about four lakh saplings of fruit and timber trees. Last year, he earned Tk 90,000 and expects to earn Tk 1,50,000 in the coming season.
   Shunil supplies saplings to Dhaka, Sylhet, Chittagong, Barisal, Faridpur and Manikganj.
   Not only Amirul or Sunil, many others in the area have been encouraged in recent times by the success stories of nursery business.

Over four lakh children of 884 villages in six districts under Barisal division are deprived of their access to basic education as there is no government primary school at those villages.
   Despite taking different government steps, the light of education did not reach over four lakh children in the six southern districts for lack of primary schools.
   There is no government primary school at 300 villages in Patuakhali, 223 villages in Barisal, 49 villages in Bhola, 87 villages in Jhalakati, 41 villages in Pirojpur and 184 villages in Barguna districts.