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Green Road, Central Road and some other roads in Khilgaon and Dhanmondi are facing severe traffic jams because of rickshaws, especially during school hours.
   In the morning and afternoon, when the schools start and close, hundreds of rickshaws and private cars block the lanes and by-lanes.
   After the withdrawal of rickshaws from Mirpur Road and some other major roads for preventing traffic jams, these lanes have become the only routes for rickshaw pullers.
   Although the traffic police are on duty from morning to afternoon in some of the roads of Dhanmondi and Green Road, most of the time the jam caused by rickshaws goes beyond their control.
   Ansar Uddin Khan Pathan, deputy commissioner traffic of the Dhaka Metropolitan Police, told New Age that they deploy additional traffic police in Dhanmondi, especially during the school hours. ‘We post more traffic police to control traffic jams, mainly caused by rickshaws and private cars in the school hours from 7:00am to 10:00am in Dhanmondi.’
   Ansar Uddin said they are not able to deploy traffic police at Green Road, Central Road and Khilgaon to control severe traffic jams because of shortage of manpower.
   In the evening there is no traffic police and no rules for rickshaw pullers and also for other vehicles. Rickshaws, vans and private cars go in all directions and block the roads hour after hour.
   Shahabuddin, a traffic police, while controlling traffic at Road 8 in Dhanmondi on Monday, said, ‘The pressure of rickshaws during school hours goes beyond control some times at this place because these are the alternative routes for rickshaws.’
   ‘It takes nearly one and half hours to go from Gausia Market to Indira Road through the Central Road and Green Road,’ said rickshaw puller Monir Hossain.
   He said their incomes have gone down by more than half because of the withdrawal of rickshaws from the major roads.
   ‘That is why all the rickshaws use the lanes and by-lanes as the alternative roads and create traffic jams,’ said Monir.
   Jannatul Amin, a housewife, said, ‘We have to use rickshaws to take our children to school and pick them up because we have no cars and moreover there are no bus routes from our homes to the school.’
   She said sometimes the jams caused by rickshaws go beyond the control of traffic police and they have to wait for hours for the jams to clear. ‘But most of the time there are no traffic police to control traffic in the alleys.’

Six national and international organisations working for the welfare of children urged the government on Thursday to take immediate action to protect working children from hazardous jobs.
   They said as one of the signatories to the convention 182 of the International Labour Organisation, which prohibits employment of children in hazardous jobs, Bangladesh should immediately act against the worst forms of child labour rampant across the country.
   The International Labour Organisation, United Nations Children’s Fund, Bangladesh Shishu Adhikar Forum, Dhaka Ahsania Mission, Centre for Mass Education in Science and Save the Children Alliance jointly organised the briefing under the banner of the Joint Child Labour Working Group at the National Press Club.
   The organisation’s chief technical advisor, Sujeewa Fonseka, read out the group’s common view and action plan on child labour.
   He said it is not only poverty that causes child labour but it is the denial of fundamental rights which very often causes child labour.
   For many children and their guardians the lack of adequate professional training pushes them towards child labour, he added.
   Sujeewa told the briefing that children working do not necessarily mean it is child labour.
   According to the latest Child Labour Survey by the government, out of 44 million children 7.2 are working children.
   About 3.2 million are child labourers and 1.1 million are engaged in hazardous jobs.
   The group urged the government to identify hazardous jobs and enact laws in this regard.
   Save the Children UK programme director David Humphrey said the child labour issue should come into the national dialogue and get priority on government agenda.
   Stressing on community involvement he said the issue cannot be solved through incorporating new laws, but clear understanding and active participation are also required.

Labourers of eight state-owned jute mills in Khulna region will hold a rally at the Peoples’ Square in the city on tomorrow, demanding payment of their outstanding wages and resumption of production.
   About 35,000 labourers of the mills earlier on Wednesday snapped the power and water supply connections to the quarters of officials of their respective mills.
   The labourers, who have not been paid for between four and eight months, separately laid siege to the chamber of the project officers of the mills on the day.
   Prior to the rally scheduled for Saturday afternoon in Khalishpur industrial area, they will again lay siege to the mill chambers in the morning.
   The mills are Crescent Jute Mills, Platinum Jubilee Jute Mills and Peoples’ Jute Mills in Khalishpur industrial area, Eastern Jute Mills and Alim Jute Mills in Atra industrial area, Star Jute Mills in Dighalia and Jessore Jute Industries and Carpeting Mills at Noapara industrial area in Jessore.
   Seven of the mills are not in production for the past three to six months while Crescent, the biggest jute mill, produces between 15 and 18 tonnes of jute goods a day against its capacity of 90 tonnes, the mill sources said. The labourers of the mill, however, have not been paid for six weeks.
   According to officials, labourers in Eastern Jute Mills remai unpaid for 31 weeks while in Alim Jute Mills and Carpeting Mills 29 weeks, in Platinum Jubilee Jute Mills 14 weeks, Peoples’ Jute Mills 18 weeks, Star Jute Mills 14 weeks and Jessore Jute Industries 13 weeks, the sources added.
   According to the officials, the electric connections were restored Thursday morning, but the water supply connections remained snapped till Thursday noon.
   A top official of the Peoples Jute Mills told New Age that they had informed the higher authorities of the situation.

The Dhaka city unit of the Bangladesh Chhatra Union began its 31st council session on Thursday at Dhaka University.
   Chhatra Union president Baki Billah inaugurated the council on the Swaparjita Swadhinata premises.
   Speakers at the inaugural session said the government’s student wing had unleashed a reign of terror at the public universities forcefully occupying halls and campuses.
   Besides, campus violence, commercialisation of education is also shrinking the scope of education for people from lower income groups, they said.
   The education sector never got the required financial allocation and in the name of increasing internal income
   the authorities are also
   imposing burden on the students by increasing fees, they added.
   AN Rasheda, Shamsul Alam Sajjan, Khan Asaduzzaman Masum, Mosleh Uddin Masud, and Rakbir Hasan spoke at the session.
   A procession paraded the campus after the session. The council began in the afternoon to elect a new leadership for the Dhaka city unit.

The Chittagong Port Authority has taken a massive project for the capital dredging and protecting the bank of the river Karnaphuli aimed at increasing the navigability, and ensuring the smooth operation of the port.
   The Tk 74-crore project will be implemented under the debt waiving programme of the Japanese government.
   Port sources said two components of the project work are 3.121 million cubic metre dredging and 2.5 kilometre bank protection embankment to be completed by June, 2007.
   The Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology has been assigned to prepare the project design and the draft of the tender .
   BUET started the site survey and soil investigation on Thursday, said sources adding that it would also supervise the project implementation.
   The Chittagong Port Authority on Thursday signed an agreement with BUET.

Two persons allegedly committed suicide at Hajaribagh and Pallabi in the capital Wednesday night and Thursday.
   The deceased were identified as Shawpan Das, 24, son of Shishir Das of Ganaktuli Sweeper’s Colony at Hajaribagh, and Hena Begum, 19, wife of Shahidul Islam of Block B, Road 27, of Pallabi in Mirpur.
   Shawpan hanged himself from the ceiling fan in his room. Neighbours recovered his body at around 10:45am.
   At Pallabi, Hena, a garments worker, allegedly committed suicide in her residence Wednesday night after a feud with her husband.
   The police said Hena was found hanging from the ceiling with her scarf at around 6:30am on Thursday.
   Two cases were filed with the coresponding police stations.

Tk 7 lakh looted in Chittagong
Robbers took away Tk 7.36 lakh from Alam Enterprise on the ground floor of the Hirocity Hotel in front of the general post office at Alkaran in the Chittagong city by making a guard of the enterprise unconscious at around 1:30am on Thursday. Three boarders of the hotel — Mohammed Hanif, Mohammed Iqbal and Rafique Ahmed — were seen gossiping with the guard and after the incident they all disappeared. The police suspect them to have committed the robbery. A case was filed.
— New Age

BRAC Univ signs memo with Microsoft
The BRAC University signed a memorandum of understanding with the Microsoft Bangladesh on the university premises on Wednesday. The university vice-chancellor, Professor Jamilur Reza Chowdhury, and the company country manager, Feroz Mahmud, signed the agreement. Computer science and engineering department chair of the university Sayeed Salam and Mumit Khan of the department, and education programme manager of Microsoft KM Imran Al-Amin were present.
— New Age

Workshop on HIV/AIDS in
Rajshahi
Discussants at a workshop on ‘prevention of HIV/AIDS among youth and adolescent’ stressed social awareness to prevent the disease. The workshop was organised by Padakkhep Consortium, in collaboration with the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare and the Save the Children USA, at Zafar Imam Tennis Complex in the Rajshahi city Thursday. Rajshahi mayor Mizanur Rahman Minu MP spoke as chief guest while additional divisional commissioner AKM Rafiqul Islam spoke as a special guest.
— New Age

Hotel management school in Sylhet
The hotel management school will begin soon in Sylhet. The Institute of Tourism and Catering Services, affiliated by the City and Guilds London Institute of the United Kingdom, will start its activities in Sylhet towards the end of June or beginning of July at Sylhet Parjatan Motel Complex. Captain (Retired) Sheikh Abdul Hai, director operation of the complex, said these while exchanging views with local media men at the complex Thursday noon. Yasin Mazumder, representative of the institute, also spoke at the sitting.
— New Age

Training for local NGO workers
A capacity building training on financial management for the first batch of local non-governmental organisations will begin on June 11 at Rajendrapur in Gazipur. The week-long training, organised in collaboration with the Federation of NGOs in Bangladesh, will be conducted by BRAC. Five-hundred participants from equal number of FNB member NGOs will receive the training in phases by August.
— New Age