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Asadullah al-Ghalib, the chief of the banned Jamaatul Mujahideen Bangladesh who was indicted in a sedition case, was brought to Dhaka and quizzed at the joint-interrogation cell of the members of the army and the police on Sunday.
   Heavily guarded Ghalib, a professor of the Arabic department of Rajshahi University, arrested on February 23 for patronising Islamist outfits, was brought to Dhaka from Bogra where a local court allowed the police to place him on a 10-day remand on the day.
   They were arrested at night on February 23 from the Ahle Hadith Complex at Naodapara in Rajshahi.
   The police escort brought Ghalib to Dhaka late in the afternoon and took him to the joint-interrogation cell at Uttara for quizzing, intelligent sources said.
   The Natore police Saturday night brought sedition charges against Ghalib and 14 of his aides for their ‘involvement in anti-state activities.’
   The New Age correspondent in Natore reported that the Natore police officer-in-charge, Faruq Ahmed, filed the case.
   The other accused are Farman Ali, Shahidul Islam, Anwarul Islam, Alauddin, Mohammad Ali, Saiful Islam, Abdur Razzak, Esahaq Ali, Rafiqul Islam, Mokhlesur Rahman, Ahsan Habib, and Abdul Baki, Abdur Rahman and Khabbar Hossain.
   During interrogation in Natore, the arrested aides of Ghalib said Jamaatul Mujaheedin activists were involved in bomb blasts at different places.
   Some party activists fought with the police at Jaipurhat in 2004, they said.
   The police earlier placed them on remand for two times.
   The arrested in their statements before a magistrate in Natore said they are activists of Jamaatul Mujaheedin; and Asadullah al-Ghalib and Siddiqur Rahman, known as Bangla Bhai, a vigilante leader of the Jagrata Muslim Janata Bangladesh, are their leaders.
   The Bogra correspondent said a local court granted a 10-day police remand for Ghalib. The Rajshahi metropolitan magistrates court on Sunday rejected bail for Ghalib and three other leaders.
   The Gabtali police appealed to the first class magistrates court of Mostafizar Rahman Mridha seeking a 12-day remand for Ghalib, showing him arrested in a case related to recovery of huge explosive from a village on January 16 and the court on Sunday granted a 10-day remand.
   Ghalib has been implicated in five cases, two filed by the Naogaon police and three by the Bogra police, related to explosive, bombs and murders.
   He was taken to Bogra on Saturday after the Rajshahi central jail authorities had handed him over to the police on a warrant issued by a Bogra magistrates court.
   Keeping Galib in Bogra jail, the police went to court with papers and sought the remand.
   A police said Ghalib would be interrogated in an explosive case filed with the Gabtali police in Bogra on February 6.
   After the 10-day remand, he will be further remanded in a case related to an attack on a jatra show (traditional cultural programme) at Lakshmikala of Shahjahanpur in Bogra on January 14 that killed one and injured 40.
   After the attack at Lakshmikala, the police launched a hunt and recovered huge explosive and electronic goods from the house of Jamaatul Mujahideen activist Shafiqullah at village Chawksudu.
   Shafiqullah was quizzed by the joint-interrogation cell in Dhaka and he named Ghalib as his mentor in his statement, the police claimed.
   The Rajshahi metropolitan magistrates court did not grant bail for Ghalib and three of his associates on Sunday.
   The court sources said Shah Newaz moved the bail prayer. The court police argued that if the masterminds were released at this stage, other cases might be influenced. The court rejected the prayer after hearing.
   The court posted the next hearing for March 9 and ordered that Ghalib and the three should be produced in court in person, the sources said.
   The government in a press note on February 23 imposed ban on the Jagrata Muslim Janata Bangladesh and the Jamaatul Mujahideen Bangladesh.
   The government also launched a crackdown on Islamist militants and arrested Ghalib on the day.
   The press note said action was taken against them on charge of their extremist activities like ‘killings, robberies, exploding bombs at different places and misleading youths by exploiting their religious sentiment’.
   The government action was prompted by criticism from home and abroad in the wake of a series of acts of violence, such as bomb and grenade attacks and killings especially in the north and north-east.

The Rajshahi Metropolitan Police commissioner on Sunday asked 22 policemen in Rajshahi court to explain why Asadullah al-Ghalib was allowed to give an interview to a television channel inside the court jail on February 24.
   The policemen who received the show-cause notices include a court inspector, assistant subinspectors, subinspectors and police constables.
   The police also imposed a restriction on the entry of newsmen into the court jail premises.
   The police commissioner said the incident in which Ghalib was interviewed and the four arrested, on their way to court, were photographed by a number of television crew on February 24 was a violation of the police code.
   The police headquarters directed the Rajshahi commissioner to form an inquiry committee to investigate the matter. The commissioner order the committee, headed by Emran Hossain, an assistant commissioner of Detective Branch, to investigate the matter on February 25.
   The assistant commissioner submitted the report on February 26 where he held the policemen responsible for the incident.
   The commissioner on February 27 issued the notices on 22 policemen. No one replied to the notice on Sunday.

Trade deficit swelled further in November to $1.2 billion in the first five months of the current fiscal, up by 52 per cent over the same period of the previous fiscal, as surging imports modestly outpaced the export growth, according to the Bangladesh Bank data.
   External trade management is exposed to risk as the current account position, an important component of the balance of payment, reversed to a deficit of $111 million from a surplus of $169 million during the July-November period of 2004-05 fiscal.
   The central bank’s provisional data shows that import payments on goods grew by 23 per cent to $4.6 billion whereas export receipts increased by 15 per cent to $3.4 billion during the period. Trade deficit in services saw a 10 per cent rise to $343 million.
   Experts said trade deficit popped as the cost of import increased due to inflated bills on oil, food and some other commodities.
   Last year’s flooding seriously damaged the agriculture sector, resulting in increased import of food grain to make up for the local output shortfall, they added.
   The government’s food stock plunged to 6.58 lakh tonnes in December 2004, down from 8.36 lakh tonnes of a year ago. The government has already decided to import food to maintain a safe stock of 8 lakh tonnes.
   The latest Asian Development Bank update on the economy says production of aus and aman crops suffered serious setbacks due to flood.
   Earlier both the Bangladesh Bank and the Asian Development Bank predicted that the rising oil price, which again crossed $50 per barrel past week, would have a downside risk on the balance of payment.
   Taking into account the central bank’s estimate, the ADB said the import bill would increase by $300-400 million, assuming oil prices of $40-45 per barrel.
   Given the rising trend of imports, economists foresee that the pressure on the exchange rate will continue to remain as the global trade scenario is unlikely to change.
   The foreign exchange market started turning volatile since mid January and the greenback traded at a range between Tk 62 and Tk 65 since then, showing a significant jump from the pre-Eid level of Tk 59.
   The government then said pressure on the exchange rate was due to ‘temporary’ miss-match of demand for and supply of dollar.
   ‘Although the central bank made sporadic interventions to stabilise the foreign exchange market, it will be difficult to send the exchange rate back to a level of Tk 58-59 per dollar,’ said Zaid Bakht, a senior research fellow at the Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies.
   ‘I don’t see any immediate correction of the exchange rate. It seems that exchange rate would settle somewhere near Tk 63 level a dollar,’ he told New Age on Saturday.
   He reasoned that export and remittance inflow, which already witnessed modest growth, are not likely to grow further. On the other hand, demand for import continues to remain strong.
   So, the exchange rate looks set to remain under pressure, said the economist, suggesting that the government should take specific measures to control luxury imports by increasing letter of credit margin.
   As part of intervention, the Bangladesh Bank recently raised the statutory liquidity ratio that requires commercial banks to keep certain deposits with the central bank, by 0.5 per cent to 4.5 per cent, which would limit the trade financing of the banks.
   But Zaid said the indiscriminate measure could reduce the import of capital machineries as well, thus affecting the manufacturing and export sectors.
   While talking to New Age early this month, Professor Mustafizur Rahman, research director of the Centre for Policy Dialogue, cautioned that the exchange rate might see a downward pressure if export and workers’ remittance do not grow in pace with the import.
   Although the export growth accelerated in the first quarter of the fiscal 2004-05, it started declining in November due to summer flood and incessant rain during July-September, 2004.
   Growth of remittance inflow slid to 8 per cent in the first seven months of the current fiscal from 11 per cent of a year-ago period.
   The foreign exchange reserves total around $3 billion equivalent to three-month import bills till the mid-February and indication is there that the reserves may deplete with surging import.
   The Bangladesh Bank said overall balance posted a larger surplus of $479 million during the period compared to the surplus of $154 million during July-November, 2003, mainly due to larger surplus in financial account.
   Financial account showed a surplus of $695 million in five months in the fiscal against the deficit of $464 million a year back.
   Foreign direct investment increased to $171 million, up by 7 per cent over the preceding year.

The prime minister, Khaleda Zia, will receive the coffins of nine Bangladeshi soldiers, who sacrificed their lives for the cause of peace in the Democratic Republic of Congo, to be flown in Dhaka on Monday night by a special flight of the United Nations.
   Defence sources said the bodies of the Bangladeshi peacekeepers, killed in a militia ambush in eastern Ituri province of Congo on Friday, are expected to arrive at Zia International Airport at 9:00pm.
   The prime minister, who is also in-charge of the defence ministry, and the chiefs of three services will receive the coffins with full state honour.
   Family members and relatives of the slain soldiers, and senior army officials will also be present, an Inter Service Public Relation release said on Sunday.
   Namaz-e-janaza of the deceased will be held at 8:30am on Monday at Army Stadium. The president, Iajuddin Ahmed, also supreme commander of the armed forces, will take part in the janaza, which will also be opened for all. Later the bodies will be sent to respective village homes of the soldiers for burial in their family graveyards. They will be buried with full military honour.
   Eight army soldiers and a navy man, serving under the blue flag, were killed by militiamen in an ambush when they were on a patrol to protect several thousand people, ousted from their homesteads, neat Kafe city in Ituri province.
   Earlier the bodies of nine Bangladeshi peacekeepers — Captain Shahid Ashraf Khan, Warrant Officer Sohrab Hossain Talukdar, Sergeant Sirajul Islam, Corporal Alam Rahman Sarkar and Sepoys Mohammad Abdus Salam, Mohammad Abdus Salam (II), Mohammad Zahirul Islam and Mohammad Bellal Hossain of Army and Leading Seaman Nurul Islam of Navy — began the journey to home from Congo.
   The bodies were first taken to Kampala, the capital of Uganda, on Saturday. As bagpipes played, the soldiers loaded the coffins into the UN-chartered plane at an airstrip ringed by the UN and Bangladeshi flags flying half-mast.
   The flight will leave Kampala this morning straight for Bangladesh. It is expected that the flight will land at Zia International Airport between 8:30pm and 9:00pm.
   The army personnel on Sunday evening had a rehearsal for receiving the bodies of the soldiers.
   Over 1,300 Bangladeshi soldiers joined the UN Congo Peacekeeping Mission in August, 2004. The rest of the soldiers in Congo are safe. Presently, Bangladesh contributes over 8,000 peacekeepers in 12 countries under the blue helmet.
   Sixty-one soldiers died since Bangladesh joined the peacekeeping club in 1988. The highest number of 15 soldiers was killed in a plane crash in December, 2003 while they were returning home from Benin.

The border guards of India said they would shoot if Bangladesh restarted construction of a dam for the Water Development Board at Barshalupara at Atwari inside the Bangladesh territory in Panchagarh.
   They said this at a flag meeting on the bank of the river Nagornadi inside the Bangladesh territory on Sunday morning. However, the Bangladesh Rifles and the Border Security Force agreed on a ceasefire.
   But tension still mounts as the Indian side continued to reinforce their forces and prepare for a wholesome battle along the border.
   The trouble began Friday morning as the Indian border force began firing when Bangladeshi workers were building the dam for the Bangladesh Water Development Board at Barshalupara at Atwari inside the Bangladesh territory in Panchagarh, some 475 kilometres off Dhaka. The Bangladesh Rifles fired back.
   Sources said the BSF members of the Moragati outpost, along with more than 100 Indian villagers, intruded into the Bangladesh territory and stopped the construction work.
   They tried to loot construction materials, but the BDR personnel and the workers foiled their bid.
   The New Age correspondent found on Sunday that the BSF members ambushed along the Indian border and were in patrol in heavy army convoy. They continued keeping close watch towards the Bangladesh side using binoculars throughout the day and powerful search lights at nights.
   They also evacuated the inhabitants of the villages including Tantipara, Bhangapara, Pakaraj, Nandangaj of India to safer places.
   An unconfirmed source said the two BSF members, critically injured during the Friday shootout, were now under medical treatment at the Shiliguri Hospital. One injured member was identified as Sunil Chandra of village Kashiana under Darjiling district and the identity of the other could not be known till filing of this report.

The Supreme Court Bar Association inquiry committee, formed to investigate the bomb attack on an Awami League rally in Dhaka on August 21, 2004, published its report on Sunday without identifying the perpetrators of the crime.
   The report says the inquiry committee has failed to identify the perpetrators and the inquiry has remained inconclusive as the committee had no access to the reports of intelligence agencies and it had got no cooperation from the government.
   The inquiry committee demanded that the government should publish all the reports of investigations and inquiries into all previous grenade or bomb attacks including the August 21 incident and illegal arms seizure cases within a month.
   Failure to meet the demand may lead to adverse inferences being drawn against the government, said the report, which was released at a press conference on Sunday at the conference room of the association.
   In its report, the inquiry committee observed that the attack involved a large number of well-trained people, who had the capability of carrying out an attack involving the simultaneous hurling of a number of grenades, and it was a part of a chain of pre-planned events.
   It also observed that there might be a nexus between all the grenade attacks and the incidents of the shipment of illegal arms, including 25,000 grenades, seized in Chittagong on April 2, 2004.
   The inquiry committee found that the grenades used in all the attacks were of the ARGES model.
   Answering a question, the chairman of the inquiry committee, Kamal Hossain, said that the committee was not sure about the model of the grenades seized in Chittagong.
   As the government is not disclosing any information on the arms seizure including the model of the grenades, there is reasonable cause to believe that those grenades are also of the same model, he said.
   The report also said that the unexploded grenades, which were recovered from the place of occurrence of the August 21 attack, were reportedly exploded on the same night by the agency concerned without obtaining forensic evidence, and thus valuable evidence was lost.
   The report recommended that writ petitions be filed for necessary action to be taken to enforce the fundamental rights of the victims affected and all those who were affected by the failure of the government to carry out effective investigation, and the Supreme Court Bar Association might extend legal assistance in this regard.
   It also recommended the formation of a commission to inquire into the August 21 attack, consisting of justices and eminent persons, to be nominated through consultation with opposition political parties, professional and citizens’ organisations and the families of the victims.
   The commission should be given all necessary resources to appoint professional advisors from within the country — and from abroad, if necessary — to assist in its work.
   Convenor of the six-member inquiry committee formed on August 22, 2004, Rokonuddin Mahmud, who is also the president of the association, and other members of the committee — MA Malek, M Zahir, Amirul Islam and Mohammad Ayenuddin — also spoke at the press conference.
   The one-member judicial inquiry commission with Justice Joynul Abedin, formed by the government, had earlier submitted its report with a number of recommendations to the government on October 2, 2004. But the government did not implement any of the recommendations.

Three conditions of Dhaka for allowing India to install a gas pipeline from Myanmar through Bangladesh were incorporated in the draft memorandum of understanding prepared at the tripartite techno-commercial meeting in Yangon in February 24–25.
   New Delhi at the last moment of the final-day meeting agreed to incorporate the conditions — transit facilities for Dhaka to import hydroelectricity from Nepal and Bhutan, space for Bangladesh to trade with the two countries and reduction of trade imbalance between Bangladesh and India, said sources in the government.
   They said although Delhi was positive about the bilateral conditions, it did not want to incorporate them in the memorandum of understating, to be signed to pave the way for the gas pipeline.
   The inclusion of the three conditions means if Delhi wants a gas pipeline through Bangladesh, it will have to take steps to meet Dhaka’s demands, they said.
   The meeting, represented by two representatives from Dhaka — Petrobangla chairman SR Osmani and Gas Transmission Company Limited director (operation) Abdus Saleque Sufi and at least six officials from Delhi and a number of officials from host Yangon — could not, however, decide on the pipeline route.
   In the draft, the meeting put forth a proposal for a committee, comprising officials of the state-owned gas companies of the three countries, to decide on a route in six months after a feasibility study.
   The committee will also assess the quantity of gas in reserve, how much gas can be injected into the pipeline and the tariff, the sources said, quoting the draft.
   They said although Delhi initially opposed the provision for an international consortium for the installation, operation and maintenance of the pipeline, it was incorporated at the last moment in the memorandum of understanding.
   The Bangladeshi representatives proposed two possible routes, including the ‘more viable’ one, a 597-kilometre pipeline from Myanmar–Teknaf towards Chittagong, following Bakhrabad-Chittagong and Ashuganj-Bakhrabad pipelines up to Brahmanbaria where a spur line can connect the Tripura gas fields. The pipeline will then traverse through Kishoreganj, Gazipur, Tangail, Sirajganj, Pabna, Kushtia, Jessore and enter West Bengal, India, at Bongaon.
   The sources said if India wants the pipeline through Bangladesh, it will have to set it up along the route proposed by Dhaka as the officials of the Gas Transmission Company already conducted a study.
   They said as the Dhaka representatives would be there on the three-nation feasibility committee, they would press for the route proposed by Dhaka.
   The memorandum will, however, be signed by Bangladesh, India and Myanmar, if it is ratified by the three governments, by April and the route will be decided later.
   Sources said only two representatives from Dhaka went there; but six officials from Delhi and the Indian embassy in Yangon joined the meeting.
   The sources said as the draft proposal has been prepared, Dhaka should immediately send fresh proposals to Delhi incorporating views from the foreign and finance ministries and the Power Division on transit, hydroelectricity and trade issues.

Armed musclemen in a pre-dawn attack on Sunday evicted about 2,000 landless peasants from government khas land in Satkhira.
   The victims said the attack was launched at Bairagir Chak, Chingrikhali of Kaliganj and Bashukhali of Ashashuni upazila. The attackers fired 150 gunshots and exploded about 500 bombs resulting in injuries to more than 70 people. Ten persons were missing.
   They claimed that 358 houses were set on fire.
   The district police super and UNO visited the area. The police arrested 8 persons on charge of the attack on landless peasants settled there more than a decade ago.
   The arrested were identified as Israil, Hossain Ali, Sheikh Rezaul Islam, Ansar Ali, Fazal Ali, Ahmed Ali, Imdadul Haq and Mahadev Das.
   About 70 people including women and children were wounded in the attack. The critically wounded are Alim, Mohsin Ali, Mohammad Ali, Mother Bux, Ashraf Mir, Harun, Khairul, Yasin, Farid, Rashida Begum, Nazma Khatun, Naryan Chandra, Kashinath Moral, Khokan Gazi and Raisul Islam.
   They were admitted to local hospitals. The condition of five was stated to be serious. Unconfirmed report said one of them died in the evening.

Sramik Karmachari Oikya Parishad, a combine of 14 labour organisations, has called for a 48-hour countrywide strike on April 5 and 6 to protest against the government’s indifference towards implementing an agreement it had signed with labour leaders on January 8.
   The leaders at a news conference at the SKOP central office in Dhaka on Sunday said the agreement provided that the government would not go for privatisation of nationalised factories, and take initiative to reopen closed factories and revamp sick factories.
   All the mills and factories, and the transport sector will observe the strike, they said.
   The combine will hold protest rallies in the industrial belts and a ‘grand rally’ at Paltan Maidan in Dhaka on April 1 to press home their demands.
   Announcing the programmes, a leader of the combine Abdul Kader Hawlader said the government agreed to implement the clauses of the signed agreement within four month from January 8, but failed to do so.
   The government on the other hand, ignoring the different sections of the agreement, were in a spree of privatising the nationalised mills and factories and closing down the other running ones, he added.
   The leaders alleged that the government was working under the directives of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund and called upon the government to implement the agreement immediately.
   The press conference was also attended by the coordinator of the combine, Wazedul Islam, along with its other leaders Jafrul Hasan, Shahidullah Chowdhury, Shafiqur Rahman Majumder, Nurul Amin, Abdul Matin Master and Mohammad Nurul Islam.

Field workers of a number of non-governmental organisations are feeling afraid after the recent spate of bomb attacks on offices of the country’s leading NGOs. Their apprehension is slowing down social development work across the country.
   Concerned at the ‘well-planned’ attacks on these organisations, the Federation of the Non-Government Organisations on Sunday urged the government to take appropriate steps to ensure security of the development workers and dispel their fear of fresh attacks on them.
   If the development workers’ security is in jeopardy, the country may find it difficult to achieve the Millennium Development Goals, for which the government and the non-government organisations work hand in hand, observed FNB leaders at a meeting with the State Minister for NGO Affairs, Lutfur Rahman Khan Azad, at his office.
   ‘A well-trained group has targeted the non-governmental organisations and is responsible for one attack after another,’ an official of one of the leading NGOs told New Age, pointing out a radical Islamic group which has been opposing NGO activities in Bangladesh for long.
   Although it was late, the government took action against the group, observed the FNB representatives at the meeting with the state minister. They suggested that the government be firm on its stance to protect the NGO sector, which is vulnerable to extremists’ attack.
   A number of NGOs, including the leading Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee and Grameen, came under attack, which the development workers believe was perpetrated in an organised manner. The attackers have thrown grenades on NGO establishments, planted bombs at offices and stolen the resources.
   The people arrested in connection with the attacks have confessed to the police that they are linked with the banned Jamaatul Mujahedeen, said one source.
   Giving details of major incidents, a BRAC official said that his office has undergone at least a dozen attacks in the last three months. Even small NGOs are not spared, he said, and none of the NGO offices have security arrangement at the grassroots level.
   Bangladesh now has over 2000 non-government organisations registered with NGO Bureau, and their branches are spread across the country to expedite human resource development, poverty reduction, women’s empowerment, literacy and strengthen democratic institutions.
   Asked whether the organisations would use their own sources for security, Aminul Alam, the deputy executive director of the BRAC, said it is quite impossible in the present context.
   ‘It is the sole responsibility of the government to protect the lives and property of the people,’ he said.
   Asked about government measures, he said police raided a number of places to nab the attackers, but still a large number of cases remained unsolved. The main culprits remain out of reach.
   He said police officials in many places requested NGOs not to work at night in the villages.
   At Sunday’s meeting with FNB leaders, the state minister assured them that the government would take every possible measure to protect the NGO sector, said a source who had attended the meeting.
   Chairman of the BRAC, Fazle Hossain Abed, in a statement on Saturday expressed grave concern over the attacks on NGOs. He urged the government to be firm against the attackers.

The main opposition party in Jatiya Sangsad, Awami League, demanded resignation of the speaker, Jamir Uddin Sircar, as he failed to protect the members of the house from repression of the police.
   The AL also alleged that the prime minister and the state minister for home affairs had asked the police to batter the opposition lawmakers.
   ‘The speaker should leave the office as he has lost his neutrality and failed to protect the members of the House,’ the opposition chief whip, Abdus Shahid, told a press briefing on Sunday at the Sangsad Bhaban over the police attack on an opposition whip, Mirza Azam.
   Mirza Azam, who is also president of the Awami Juba League, the youth front of the AL, was injured as the police battered him during an anti-government procession on Saturday at Bangabandhu Avenue in Dhaka. ‘After the attack on Mirza Azam, we at least expected a statement from the speaker,’ the chief whip said.
   The Awami League presidium member, Suranjit Sengupta, who was also present in the briefing, said, ‘The attack on a sitting lawmaker is a punishable crime.’
   He alleged that the attack on Azam took place at the directive of prime minister [Khaleda Zia] and state minister for home affairs [Lutfozzaman Babar].
   About the banning of two extremist Islami militant groups, Jagrata Muslim Janata Bangladesh and Jamiatul Mujahidin, Sengupta said the government earlier denied the existence of any such militant group. Why did the government now ban the two militant groups?
   Criticising the government for arresting the militants under section 54, he said that if they belong to the banned groups why merely the section 54 was being applied to arrest them.
   Replying to a question, he hinted that they might join the current session of parliament at any time.
   He, however, said the main opposition party is not participating in the session as part of their movement in protest against the killing of former finance minister, Shah AMS Kibria.
   ‘How could we join the parliament when the government did not do anything to arrest the perpetrators of the killing,’ Sengupta said.
   AL lawmakers Faruk Khan, Professor Aman Ullah, Promod Mankin and Sohel Taj were also present at the press briefing.

The minister for finance and planning, M Saifur Rahman, leaves Dhaka today for Paris to attend a World Bank-sponsored meeting on development aid to be held on March 1 and 2.
   The meeting, a follow-up of the Monterrey conference on financing for development held in March 2002, is not Bangladesh specific, as sections of the press have erroneously reported, but one that will address issues relating to all developing countries that receive foreign aid.
   Saifur is scheduled to address a ministerial forum titled ‘The second high-level forum on enhancing the effectiveness of development aid’ on March 2.
   Issues such as aid governance and remedial measures for removing barriers to commissioning of development projects will come up for discussion at the meeting, in which executives of the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank will be present. Representatives from the Organisation of Economic Cooperation and Development countries will also be present.
   The secretary of the Economic Relations Division, Ismail Zabiullah, will represent Bangladesh at the forum on implementation and utilisation of development aid.
   The finance minister will also attend ‘The World Bank roundtable on integrating global initiative in coherent country programmes’ scheduled to be held in the French capital on March 1.
   ‘This forum is mostly meant for Africans, so some of the officials of the lending agencies will meet me on the sidelines,’ Saifur told journalists at the ministry on Sunday.
   A finance ministry official said the forum would provide the minister the scope to explain Bangladesh’s position on different development issues as well as its performance in utilising foreign aid.
   Saifur is also scheduled to meet the French foreign minister, Michel Barnier, in Paris on March 2.

The National Board of Revenues has started joint audit of 1,175 files that fall under both the heads of income tax and value-added tax of large taxpayers unit to check revenue leakage in the existing audit system, NBR sources have told New Age.
   ‘The joint audit by tax and customs officials has been undertaken to verify tax and income-related information provided by large taxpayers separately,’ said SM Zahir Muhammad, member (income tax) of the revenue board.
   ‘It will contain leakage to a great extent,’ he said. ‘The joint audit will identify taxpayers who provide false declarations and conceal income tax.’
   Comprehensive audit of the files is the next step of the revenue board plans to take. Taxmen will visit business establishments and other entities of the taxpayers, said an NBR high official.
   The joint audit, which was earlier opposed by a section of customs officials, has been undertaken on the advice of the International Monetary Fund as part of reforms in the revenue front, said sources in the finance ministry.
   Joint audit of tax files of two cement companies and one insurance firm has been completed as of February 21, said sources.
   ‘We have detected gross irregularities and concealment of information relating to income, expense and production-related matters in the three audited files,’ said a joint commissioner of customs.
   Under the joint audit, a tax file belonging to both LTUs will be audited either by a joint team of customs and income tax officials, or the files will be exchanged from one LTU to another LTU, sources said.
   A uniform taxpayer identification number might be introduced later if the current initiative yields good results in terms of revenue generation, said revenue officials.
   A considerable number of large taxpayers has for long been dodging both tax and VAT officials by giving them contradictory information, as no coordination or joint audit exists between income tax and VAT wings, sources said.
   Both the LTU wings have recently held meetings with the assessees falling under the two units to inform large taxpayers about the joint audit and its objectives.
   Business establishments or industrial entities paying above Tk 20 lakh VAT per annum have been included in the VAT LTU, while financial institutions and their directors, along with companies having paid-up capital above Tk 5 crore, have been included in the tax LTU.
   The government earns about 55 per cent of its total VAT and income tax revenue from both the LTUs, said sources.
   Officials in the revenue board, however, said the joint audit has been facing serious problems due to manpower shortage.
   They said the board needs an additional number of about 50 to 60 officials with accounts backgrounds to do the auditing.

At least 15 people, including a senior police officer, were killed in violence in Nepal, authorities said on Sunday, a day after Maoists ended a crippling road blockade against king Gyanendra’s power grab.
   In the latest strikes by Maoists, a deputy police superintendent and his bodyguard were shot dead at the officer’s home at Butwal, 300 km west of Kathmandu.
   Five policemen and three soldiers were killed when rebels ambushed a security patrol in Bara district, 150 km southeast of Kathmandu on Sunday, an army statement said.
   And a police officer and a soldier were killed in another ambush in Solukhumbhu district, near Mount Everest.
   ‘Ten security personnel wounded in both incidents have been brought to Kathmandu for treatment,’ the statement said. Elsewhere, soldiers gunned down three guerrillas overnight in separate clashes.
   King Gyanendra justified his February 1 power grab, in which he took over the country and arrested political leaders, as being necessary to crush the Maoists, who are battling to set up a communist republic.
   Nepalese troops and police on Sunday maintained armed escorts for trucks carrying supplies to the capital despite a decision by Maoist rebels to call off a nationwide transport blockade.
   The rebels Saturday halted the 14-day blockade staged to protest at king Gyanendra’s seizure of power at the start of the month.
   The Maoists cancelled the protest after it slowed traffic to a trickle, sent food prices soaring and caused hardship for families in one of the world’s poorest countries.
   But Maoist supremo Prachanda, or the ‘Fierce One’, warned of a countrywide general strike next month unless the king reverses his power grab.
   Security personnel were seen at a key checkpoint escorting vehicles in and out of Kathmandu Sunday.
   ‘More than 400 vehicles left the Kathmandu valley escorted by security personnel Sunday morning,’ a police officer said
   at the Nagdhunga checkpost, 14 kilometres south of the capital. ‘Around 25 have come in.’
   ‘Escorting will continue as we cannot totally trust the rebels who said they have called off their blockade call,’ the police officer said.
   An army official at the Gajuri checkpoint, 54 kilometres west of the capital also said armed convoys were continuing.
   ‘The escorting of vehicles by security personnel will continue until further notice comes from our office,’ he said. ‘None of the vehicles has been allowed to operate without escorts.’
   ‘There are no obstacles on the roads and the situation is gradually returning to normalcy,’ the army official said.

Another suspect in the journalist Sheikh Belaluddin murder case, Syed Iqubal Hossain Swadhin, before the metropolitan magistrate court has admitted his involvement in the killing.
   The court sources said Swadhin confessed that he and Mirajul kept the bomb on the motorcycle of Belal at the Khulna Press Club at the night following February 5 according to the direction of one Hasan. He disclosed this on February 20.
   The sources said Swadhin confessed that Hasan was waiting on a motorcycle away from the spot and they two — Swadhin and Mirajul — entered the club premises.
   The police said Hasan, Swadhin and Mirajul are active members of the underground Purba Banglar Communist Party (Janajudha).
   The Rapid Action Battalion arrested Hasan from the office of former Khulna additional superintendent of police- Mofazzel Hossain, who was closed to Dhaka police headquarters and then arrested for his alleged connection with outlaws, police added.
   They said the Khulna police brought Mofazzel Hossain from Dhaka to Khulna Saturday evening and appealed for a seven days’ remand to the court in the case of attempt to murder of Khulna Jugantar Staff Correspondent, Dip Azad.
   Advocates, engaged on behalf of Mofazzel, have appealed for the bail to the court on Sunday, the sources added.
   Sheikh Belaluddin, staff correspondent of the daily Sangram, was critically injured in a bomb attack on February 5 at the Khulna Press Club. He died at Combined Military Hospital in Dhaka on February 11.
   Assailants hurled a bomb on Jugantar staff correspondent in Khulna, Dip Azad, on January 4 but he escaped unhurt, the police said.

The finance and planning minister, M. Saifur Rahman, Sunday categorically said country’s development activities would continue in homegrown fashion even if the donors got dissatisfied.
   ‘Development of the independent country will take place in our own fashion. If they become dissatisfied, we have nothing to do,’ he told reporters, three days after international financiers to Bangladesh’s development agenda reappraised the country’s current situation in their meeting in Washington.
   The minister made the remarks after a meeting of the Executive Committee of the National Economic Council with the prime minister, Khaleda Zia, in the chair.
   The meeting approved 10 new projects worth Tk 2,192 crore, including project aid equivalent to Tk 1,276 crore.
   Saifur’s comment came in reply to a question whether or not progress of the foreign-aided development projects would be hampered as the donors expressed their dissatisfaction regarding the non-economic issues.
   Saifur said the ECNEC approved water management-development project of Tk 1,059 crore with a foreign aid component of Tk 744 crore.
   The project has a provision for agricultural irrigation management to be finalised through consultation with the agriculture ministry.
   He said the ECNEC approved the project despite having some flaws, including excessive consultancy fees and vehicles needed for the project, which would be rectified later on.
   The meeting approved another major project for improving teaching quality in secondary education and upgrading secondary schools to higher secondary ones, five in the capital and another five in five divisional headquarters.
   Other projects approved were development and repair of damaged roads of the Chittagong City, development of Khawaza Road, including box culvert, development of link-roads from Chittagong City to coastal dam, construction of central laboratory of the Public Health Engineering Department to strengthen the system of water testing and development of upazila infrastructure.
   Local Government Rural Development and Cooperatives minister Abdul Mannan Bhuiyan, health minister Khandaker Mosharraf Hossain, industries minister Matiur Rahman Nizami, communications minister Nazmul Huda, agriculture minister MK Anwar, shipping minister Akbar Hossain and officials concerned were present.

A key ally of the Congress-led national coalition lost its majority in the Bihar state legislature, Indian television said on Sunday, as the nation’s poorest state clearly headed for a hung assembly.
   The unclear verdict is likely to strain ties within the federal United Progressive Alliance but is not expected to have an immediate impact on the stability of the government, which unveils its first full-fledged budget on Monday.
   The regional Rashtriya Janata Dal, a Congress ally, was leading in 75 seats in the 243-member Bihar assembly, while the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party alliance was ahead in 94 seats, NDTV 24/7 news channel reported.
   The local assembly elections in Bihar and two other states had been expected to boost the strength of the Congress and its UPA allies which came to power last May.
   But the Congress fought the RJD in Bihar, in alliance with another national ally, the Lok Janashakti Party, showing that UPA unity was in disarray at the state level.
   With all parties and alliances short of a majority in the lawless eastern state, there is the possibility of prolonged instability and the spectre of direct rule being imposed by the federal government.
   The RJD has 24 members in the 545-seat federal parliament, including two Cabinet ministers.
   The Congress, headed by Italian-born Sonia Gandhi, fared poorly in Bihar where it was winning or leading in just 12 seats.
   The Congress, at the helm of a diverse national coalition, now must calm the tensions the state elections have stirred.
   The Congress alliance also suffered a setback in Jharkhand state, adjoining Bihar, winning or leading in only 25 of the 81 legislature seats compared to the ruling BJP, which was close to the majority mark with leads or wins in 37 seats, NDTV said.
   The Congress also fought against the RJD in Jharkhand, creating more bad blood between the UPA allies.
   The good news for the Congress was its electoral sweep in the small state of Haryana in the north, defeating a regional ruling party by a huge landslide leading in 68 out of 90 seats.
   For the BJP, who lost national power last year to the Congress-led alliance, the possibility of retaining Jharkhand is only partial consolation as it fared poorly in Haryana and its alliance failed to win a majority in Bihar, which has been ruled by the RJD since 1990.

Indian archaeologists have found what they believe are undersea ‘stone structures’ that could be the remains of an ancient port city off India’s southern coast, officials say.
   The archaeologists learnt of the structures after locals reported spotting a temple and several sculptures when the sea pulled back briefly just before deadly tsunamis smashed into the coastline December 26.
   Divers discovered the stone remains close to India’s famous beachfront Mahabalipuram temple in Tamil Nadu state, Alok Tripathi, an official from the state-run Archaeological Survey of India, said Saturday.
   ‘We’ve found some stone structures which are clearly man-made. They’re perfect rectangular blocks, arranged in a clear pattern,’ he said aboard the Indian naval vessel ‘Ghorpad’.
   Tripathi headed a diving expedition after the tsunamis uncovered the remains of a stone house, a half-completed rock elephant and two exquisite giant granite lions, one seated and another poised to charge in Mahabalipuram, 70 kilometres south of Madras.
   The objects were found when the towering waves withdrew from the beach, carrying huge amounts of sand with them.
   Experts say the tsunami ‘gifts’ discovered in Mahabalipuram belong to the Hindu Pallava dynasty that dominated much of South India from as early as the first century BC to the eighth century AD.
   Mahabalipuram is recognised as the site of some of India’s greatest architectural and sculptural achievements.
   ‘European mariners and travellers, who visited Mahabalipuram in the 18th century, wrote about the existence of seven pagodas (temples) here,’ he said.
   ‘Some believed it was a myth, others thought six of the pagodas sank under the sea while one remained as a rock temple on the shore.’
   ‘In fact, some scholars believe the entire city, barring a few rock structures and carvings, were submerged under the sea.’
   The divers have brought up pottery pieces and small stone blocks from the seabed.
   The findings were expected to be presented at an international seminar on maritime archaeology in New Delhi between March 17-19, archaeology officials said.

Three passengers were missing after a boat had capsized in the Buriganga river at Keraniganj in Dhaka Sunday.
   Witnesses said the boat, carrying eight persons, sailed out of Ispahani Ghat under Buriganga Second Bridge at about 10:00am and collided with a sand laden vessel in the mid river.
   Five passengers managed to swim ashore, except the three whose identities could not be known immediately.

Three persons were sentenced to death for killing a man at Daulatpur upazila in Khulna.
   Of the convicted Azmal Gazi and Helal Sharif were present at the court and the other, Shailen, remained fugitive.
   According to the prosecution, they murdered Ayub Ali of Aranghata village on September 15, 1995. His mother filed the case against the three.

Leaders of the Bangladesh Kazi Samity protested against the proposed government initiative to reduce the marriage registration fee.
   Being egged on by some non-government organisations, the women and children affairs ministry is trying to lessen the marriage registration fee, the leaders alleged. This will tarnish the image of the government, they said.
   Addressing a press conference at the National Press Club on Sunday, the samity’s president said that the government had taken an initiative to pass an act to make marriage registration compulsory.
   ‘The act proposes that the under-privileged section of the society will have to pay only Tk 5 instead of Tk 10 per thousand takas of dowry, which will be mentioned in the marriage agreement. But they have to be certified by the concerned union parishad chairman or ward commissioner,’ he said. The samity apprehends that if the law is enacted, the ward commissioners or UP chairmen will exercise their power over the religious clerics and marriage registrars, which will be humiliating.

The local government rural development and cooperatives minister, Abdul Mannan Bhuiyan, Sunday told the Jatiya Sangsad that Tk 15,61,55,000 was spent for introducing automatic traffic signal in the capital.
   Replying to a question from a Jamaat-e-Islami lawmaker, Abdus Sobhan, he said of the total amount about Tk 6.50 crore was spent for procurement of materials, Tk 1.95 crore for administration, Tk 4.55 crore for
   Post-maintenance and Tk 1.61 crore for customs duty and value added tax.

Professor Maniruzzaman Miah, one of the two commissioners of the Anti-Corruption Commission, has outright rejected the possibility of resigning from his office, saying he wants to continue his efforts to make the watchdog functional and effective.
   ‘I am not going to resign as reported by some newspapers… I feel it will not be prudent to quit the commission since I have been entrusted with a big responsibility,’ he told the news agency Sunday.
   Replying to a query, he said he will make endeavours to make the commission functional and fulfil its objectives.
   Maniruzzaman joined the 3-member Anti-corruption Commi-ssion on December 14, 2004.
   Sources in the commission said there were simmering conflicts between Maniruzzaman and the commission chairman, Justice Sultan Ahmed, over various interpretations of laws, modality of works and mechanism to make the body more dynamic.
   The commission is facing various problems, including appointment of a secretary, adopting an organogram for the body and the modality of works.
   A number of names have been suggested for the office of the commission’s secretary, but it is yet to be finalised. The list includes the names of former secretary of the Bureau of Anti-Corruption, major general (retd) MA Matin, former bureaucrats Reza-E-Rabbi and Abdul Haq, and brigadier (retd) Nasir.

The Bangladesh Bank on Sunday handed over a copy of its interim report on the alleged pre-IPO irregularities at the Premier Bank Limited to the Securities and Exchange Commission.
   The report says thousands of fake bank accounts were opened in different branches of the bank without supportive documents, official sources said.
   It also mentioned that the accounts were opened following verbal instruction from the bank’s managing director, Kazi Abdul Mazid, and advice from one of its vice-president, Syed Nowsher Ali, the sources added.
   Both the central bank and the regulatory body for the capital market, who started separate investigations about two weeks back into the alleged irregularities, sat together to exchange information on their respective findings and discuss subsequent course of action.
   SEC executive directors Mansur Alam and Farhad Ahmed, director ATM Tariquzzaman, deputy director Mahabubul Alam, Bangladesh Bank executive director Najmul Ahsan, and other officials were present at the meeting.
   ‘The findings of both the sides were that thousands of accounts were opened with bad intention,’ a meeting source said.
   ‘It was done following the instructions of the managing director and the vice president of the bank’s Banani branch,’ he told New Age after the meeting.
   About the next course of action, he said both the commission and the central bank would conduct a joint investigation if required.
   The BB’s interim report says that some 26,000 beneficiary owners’ accounts, which are essential to apply for primary shares, were opened under the depositary participants’ wing of the bank.

The senior joint secretary general of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, Tarique Rahman, said in Mymensingh Sunday the political parties and politicians who are isolated from people should be identified.
   “It is high time to expose the party which had come to power through people’s mandate and became busy in making its own fortune by grabbing public money,’ he said in his speech at the union parishad-level conference of the BNP held at the Mymensingh Stadium.
   The law minister, Moudud Ahmed spoke on the occasion as the chief guest, while a number of ministers and senior party leaders joined it.
   Tarique said the people might have made mistake once in the past, but the mistake should not be repeated for the sake of protecting the interest of the common people.
   ‘The conscious people should make other people aware of the motivated political activities of a political party and urged them to take decisions accordingly.’
   Terming the grassroots leaders lifeline of the party, he said the opinion of the local level leaders would be taken into consideration and it will be reflected in the party and government policies.
   He appreciated the difference of opinion showed the grassroots leader in different conferences and urged them to put pressure on central leaders to work together forgetting differences.
   The local leaders will not only protect their party interests, but also encourage people to start income-generating activities like poultry rearing and livestock farming.
   The education minister, M Osman Farruk, housing minister, Mirza Abbas, joint secretaryof the party, Goyeshwar Chandra Roy, state minister for home, Lutfozzaman Babar, state minister for energy, AKM Mosharraf Hossain and state minister for health, Mizanur Rahman Sinha, among others spoke.