Main Page «
Front Page «
Metro «
Business «
International «
Sports «
Editorial «
Op-Ed «
Home «
Timeout «
Letters «

Archive «
Launch Supplement «
Special Supplements «

Lawyers on Monday demonstrated on the Supreme Court corridor in favour and against the functioning of Justice Faisal Mahmud Fayezee.
   Fayezee, however, continued functioning amid slogans in front of his courtroom by the lawyers opposing his functioning for alleged tampering with his LLB results.
   The Supreme Court Bar Association earlier decided to boycott his court on the plea. ‘The bar will continue boycotting the court of Fayezee until his LLB result dispute is resolved,’ the bar president, Mahbubey Alam, told reporters after a meeting between the former presidents of the bar and the chief justice, Syed JR Mudassir Husain, in the afternoon.
   Earlier, a group of lawyers, led by the bar secretary, Enayetur Rahim, gathered in front of Fayezee’s courtroom at about 10:20am and tried to restrain other lawyers from attending his court.
   About 20-25 deputy and assistant attorneys general led by the ruling BNP law secretary, Jainul Abedin, appeared shortly and entered into the courtroom locking into scuffles with the agitators.
   As Fayezee took his sit at 10:45am, Enayet told him that the bar continued boycotting his court and he should not continue functioning upholding the practice and precedence of the court.
   Jainul said the lawyers wing of a particular political party had brought the allegation and no programme to boycott the court had ever been endorsed by the bar association. ‘The court should continue functioning.’
   A former president of the bar, Abdul Baset Majumder, told the court that the chief justice had called a meeting with the former presidents of the bar to discuss the issue and the judge should not sit in the bench until the issue was resolved.
   As Jainul opposed it, the agitating lawyers started chanting slogans against Fayezee and the court continued hearing amid the chaos.
   ‘The boycott programme will be withdrawn when it will be proved that Fayezee has passed LLB examination and has obtained a final certificate,’ Mahbub told a briefing at his chamber in presence of the six former presidents who attended the meeting with Mudassir.
   Mahbub, who also attended the meeting, said proceeding on allegation of Fayezee’s doctored LLB result drawn by the bar council in a November 2004 notice was yet to be resolved and he had not given any reply.
   The former presidents Kamal Hossain, Shawkat Ali Khan, Quazi Golam Mahbub, Shafiq Ahmed, Abdul Baset Majumder and Ozair Faruque during the meeting requested Mudassir to keep Fayezee out of court until the result dispute was resolved. They said the bar would continue boycotting Fayezee’s court till then.
   Mudassir said he would look into the matter and sit with them again soon after consultation with the senior lawyers of the Supreme Court.
   Replying to a question, Kamal said the allegation of Fayezee’s doctored LLB result had not be resolved though the High Court had convicted journalists for contempt of court for publishing it.

Speakers at a daylong seed conference on Monday stressed on the policy reforms to face the seed crisis and to ensure the availability of the seed for the farmers by protecting the indigenous crop varieties.
   The conference, organised by the Bangladesh Resource Centre for Indigenous Knowledge, a research organisation, at the auditorium of the Bangladesh Institute of Management in Dhaka, was followed by the regional conferences at Khulna, Netrakona, Rajshahi, Barisal, Sylhet, Khagrachari, and Thakurgaon.
   All the amendments, and acts regarding seed such as national seed ordinance 1977, seed regulations 1998, new agriculture extension policy 1996, and national agriculture policy 1999 have not elaborately clarified about the hybrid and genetically-modified seed which is vulnerable for the agriculture sector and the farmers as well.
   Shree Haripada Bishwas, an inventor of Haridhan, one kind of paddy, inaugurated the seed conference and fair. Pavel Partha, the convener of conference, read out a keynote paper.
   The main objectives of the programme are to immediately stop the trend of the handover of the seed to the foreign companies in the name of solution of seed crisis, to create social awareness of an overall policy on agriculture and environment through stimulating diversified agriculture system for the welfare of the farmers.
   The speakers said the green revolution in 1960’s had damaged a huge number of seeds of the traditional varieties of rice in the name of modern agriculture technology, chemical agriculture, and sustainable agriculture, and to boost up the business of the multinational companies.
   The multinational companies were trying to import genetically-modified rice for which, they said, would meet the demand of vitamin A, but it was not true.
   If such variety is introduced in Asia, one person will need about 9 kilograms of rice per day, the speakers told the conference adding that indigenous vegetables are enough for the people to meet their vitamins.
   According to the survey of the World Food Programme that Bangladesh is using pesticides worth Tk 882 for each hectare of land instead of proper use of pesticides worth Tk 98.
   Due to sowing of hybrid seed, the quantity of chemical fertiliser, pesticide and irrigation has increased to 750 per cent, 1,170 per cent, and 175 per cent respectively, the survey says.

The High Court on Monday issued a rule nisi on the chairman and four other officials of the Chittagong Port Authority to show cause within four weeks why they would not be punished for contempt of court for obtaining a court order upon fraudulence.
   The court passed the order after hearing a petition filed by two workers of the dockyard at the port, Abul Hossain and Abul Khair.
   Pleading for the petitioners, Azmalul Hossain told the court that the port authorities had arbitrarily changed the organogram of the dock workers.
   A writ petition had been filed challenging the changes and the High Court had disposed of the petition upon the port authorities’ promise for cancellation of the changes, he said.
   The port authorities, however, did not cancel the changes and thus had committed contempt of the court, Azmalul argued.

A writ petition was filed on Monday challenging the licence of the state owned mobile phone company, Teletalk Bangladesh Limited.
   A professor of the Dhaka University, Mesbah Kamal and an officer of the Bangladesh Telegraph and Telephone Board, Nasimul Ghani, filed the writ petition, which would be moved on Tuesday.
   In the petition, they said that the licence for operating a state owned mobile phone company was obtained by the BTTB. The Bangladesh Telecommunication Authority on September 1, 2004 issued the licence in favour of the BTTB.
   According to the terms and conditions of the licensing document, the licence cannot be transferred to any one.
   Violating the condition, the BTRC transferred the licence of the BTTB to the Teletalk Bangladesh Limited on March 16.

The cabinet on Monday approved the proposal for Bangladesh to become signatory to eight international conventions against terrorism.
   The approval was given at the weekly regular meeting of the cabinet held on Monday with Prime Minister, Khaleda Zia in the chair.
   The cabinet also approved recommendation procuring boro rice, procurement price and procurement time period.
   According to the policy approved, the government will procure 1.55 lakh tones of paddy and nine lakh tonnes of boro rice in this fiscal.

Five persons were killed and more than fifty others injured in lightning when a nor’wester swept over Patuakhali on Monday.
   Of the injured, 18 were admitted to Patuakhali General Hospital.
   Labourers Abdus Sattar, 40, and Yusuf, 35, died at Laukathi in sadar upazila.
   Pushparani, 18, and an unidentified person died at Alipura village under the same upazila and Altaf Mollah, 40, of Kachhichhira village at Itbaria union under sadar upazila.
   The storm also caused massive damages to the crops.

Four young men were sentenced to death on Monday for murder of officer-in-charge of the Pangsha police in January 2004.
   Ram Chandra Biswas, Ukil Biswas, Mojibar and Mohammad were handed down the death penalty by the speedy trial tribunal.
   The prosecution said tipped-off, OC Mizanur Rahman along with a contingent of force raided a house to nab criminals. As he entered the house the criminals began shooting, killing the police officer on the spot.
   After arrest the convicts made confessional statement to the police.
   In another case, Arif, a young man, was sentenced to death in absentia and three others were awarded life term for murder at Mirpur in October 2003.
   Anis was shot when he was returning home from his workplace.
   Masud who was awarded life term was present in the dock. Two other convicts — Jewel and Kajol — remained fugitive.
   Another report from Kishoreganj said the district and sessions judge sentenced to death a young man for murder of a woman and her uncle at Sholakia in July 2003.
   Abdul Alim alias Tunu stabbed Happy Akhter following a quarrel. Resisted, he also stabbed her maternal uncle, Anwar.

Five bodies were found in the trawler that sank in the Arialkhan river in Madaripur after it had been salvaged by rescues on Monday.
   With this, the death-toll from Saturday’s trawler capsize rose to 6, official sources said.
   As rescue ships Hamja and Rustam failed to sail to the spot for lack of navigability, BIWTA authorities salvaged the mechanised boat using a crane of the Roads and Highways Department at about 11:30am.
   ‘Five bodies were found trapped in the trawler,’ said a news release of the Bangladesh Inland Water Transport Authority.
   The trawler sank when a Madaripur-bound launch, MV Tarika, rammed it at about 8:30am in Kalkini upazila on Saturday.

Labour leader Nasim Ali died in the Holy Family Hospital at the age of 72 Monday evening.
   He is survived by his wife and three daughters.
   He worked as secretary on the executive committee of the Bangladesh Institute of Labour Studies.
   A cultural activist, Nasim was involved in the labour movement in the 1950s.
   Nasim worked as an organiser against the Pakistan regime and was an organiser in the war of independence.
   Born in 24 Parganas in India, he settled with his family in Dhaka in the 1940s. He had been living in Gandaria of Dhaka since then.
   Nazrul Islam Khan, the founder secretary general of BILS and Bangladesh ambassador to Kuwait, has condoled on the death of Nasim.
   Labour leaders Abul Bashar, Shafiqur Rahman Majumdar, Shah Mohammad Abu Zafar, Md Jafrul Hasan, BILS official Syed Sultanuddin Ahmed expressed their shock at the death and prayed for the peace of the departed soul.