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The Energy and Mineral Resources Division has set a target to realise outstanding gas bills of Tk 1,000 crore by the end of the next fiscal year, out of about Tk 1,600 crore which have remained unpaid by private and public organisations for years.
   The newly appointed adviser to the division, Mahmudur Rahman, asked private-sector industrialists on Thursday to pay outstanding gas bills of Tk 800 crore within the next six months.
   Otherwise, gas lines will be snapped and legal action taken against the defaulters, he warned.
   He requested a delegation of the Bangladesh Textile Mills Association, led by its chairman MA Awal, who paid him a courtesy visit, to issue letters to all mill owners in 15 days, asking them to pay all arrears by six months.
   Mahmud told the delegation that industrialists, mostly textile mill owners, consume around 70 per cent of the total gas supplied every day. At present the association has 650 members.
   Mahmud, also the executive chairman of the Board of Investment, told the textile businessmen that the bill defaulters would be given a chance to pay the arrears in six monthly instalments. ‘If anyone fails to pay the outstanding bill by December, gas connection will be snapped and legal action will be taken against him.’
   Talking to reporters after the meeting, he said he had set a target to realise Tk 1,000 crore of outstanding bills by the next fiscal year.
   He said other private-sector bill defaulters would be given the chance to pay their arrears from August. ‘They can pay the outstanding bills in six monthly instalments.’
   The division realised around Tk 250 crore outstanding bills in 2004 by taking similar steps, said officials.
   Regarding the public sector’s outstanding bills amounting to around Tk 800 crore, Mahmud said he would sit with officials of the ministries and departments concerned and ask them to pay the bills.
   During the meeting the textile industry leaders expressed deep concern over the old-fashioned gas distribution network in the city and its adjoining areas.
   Due to this inefficient and old-fashioned network, Savar EPZ, Narayanganj, Narsinghdi and the capital city face low pressure of gas, which hampers industrial production.
   They urged the energy division to take emergency measures for construction of the Tk 130 crore Ashuganj-Monahordi high-pressure gas pipeline to overcome the gas crisis soon.
   The total outstanding bills of the Petrobangla subsidiaries, including Titas Gas Transmission and Distribution Company, Jalalabad Gas Company and Bakhrabad Gas Company, stand at around Tk 1,600 crore, of which the private sector including the textile mill owners owe around Tk 800crore.
   According to an official estimate, different government and semi-government organisations owe Titas Gas around Tk 585 crore in outstanding bills.
   The total dues till April from different government and non-governmental agencies amounted to Tk 1,340 crore.
   Agencies under the power division, including the Power Development Board, top the list with around Tk 508 crore in unpaid bills.
   Other top defaulters are the public works ministry with Tk 28 crore, the industries ministry Tk 85 crore, the jute ministry Tk 56 crore and the textile ministry Tk 15 crore.
   Another Titas official said as many as 1,250 cases had been filed by the authorities and the consumers against each other over billing.
   When any private agency fails to pay bill in time or wants to evade payment they file cases against Titas, he said.
   Although government has been deducting gas bills from the salaries of many government employees, those are not being transferred to the Titas account in time, claimed the official.
   The company is also to get Tk 34.24 crore outstanding bills for domestic consumption.
   The bill collection rate of the agency is 95.26 per cent.

Dhaka has decided in principle that it will reduce the number of products in Bangladesh’s ‘sensitive list’ (list of forbidden imports) for the South Asian Free Trade Area if other member states do the same, said official sources.
   Dhaka’s sensitive list has a total of 1,306 items from which New Delhi demanded exclusion of 325 items, Kathmandu 119, Colombo 37 and Thimpu 63. Details of Islamabad’s demand for reducing the sensitive list could not be known.
   The committee of experts for the SAFTA, at a meeting at the commerce ministry on Thursday, discussed core issues relating to the upcoming talks of the economic bloc under the seven-nation South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation.
   The 9th round of expert-level SAFTA talks, scheduled to be held in Kathmandu from June 28, has been deferred to July 19-22.
   The contentious issues that earlier created deadlocks in SAFTA process will come up for ‘conclusive discussion’ in the next round of meetings, said concerned officials. The local committee of experts is also expected to sit again before the talks.
   Thursday’s meeting also identified 13 customs-related areas of the least developed member countries of SAARC for receiving technical assistance after India and Pakistan earlier wanted to know Bangladesh’s requirements in this context, the sources added.
   On the issue of rules of origin, Dhaka prefers an agreement on around 35 per cent value addition.
   The issue of compensation package for the least developed countries in the bloc to recoup custom duty losses may also take a clear shape during the upcoming meeting, said the sources.
   SAFTA is scheduled to come into force from January 2006.
   India’s sensitive list includes 927 items, Pakistan’s 1,157, Sri Lanka’s 1,065, Nepal’s 1,315, the Maldives’ 582 and Bhutan’s 136.

Two Interpol experts and a US Federal Bureau of Investigation agent interrogated George Mia, arrested on June 10, on Thursday to know whether he had any involvement in the grenade attack on an Awami League rally on August 21, 2004.
   George denied his involvement in the attack that left 23 people killed and 200 others wounded.
   He, however, reportedly told the interrogators that dreaded criminals — Jishan and Mukul — had masterminded the attack. Both the criminals have gone into hiding after the incident.
   A top official of the Criminal Investigation Department, who helped the Interpol and FBI personnel during the interrogation, told New Age that George had been questioned twice at the CID head office.
   ‘He has been interrogated extensively about the grenade attack and most wanted criminal Arman Khan, but gave misleading information,’ he said.
   ‘George first admitted his involvement in the deadly attack, but denied later. He also said he knew Arman beforehand and later said he came to know Arman after his arrest. All are quite misleading.’
   About a mark of injury in his body, George told the interrogators that he had been shot during a gunfight with the police at Kuril in Badda on November 30, 2003.
   One of three suspects of the grenade attack, George told them that Mukul was also hit by bullet during the fight which led to recovery of four AK-47 assault rifles, two revolvers, 20 hand grenades, four time bombs, and a huge cache of AK-47 bullets and explosives.
   Sources in CID said they wanted to examine the private car of Sheikh Hasina which was riddled with bullets during the grenade attack on Bangabandhu Avenue.
   A Rapid Action Battalion official told New Age that if the Interpol and FBI personnel want to interrogate Arman it must be in their custody and supervision.
   CID sources said Arman, now in the RAB custody, would be interrogated after the end of his third-term remand.
   Marc Beaucheman, an expert on public safety and terrorism affairs, Grey George Zeoski, a ballistic expert, and Trung Vu, a US analyst of civilian terrorism, arrived in Dhaka on Wednesday.
   It is the fourth visit by Interpol experts after the local police sought their help in further investigation into the grenade attack.
   The top officials of CID and intelligence agencies briefed them on the headway of their investigation and assessment at the CID head office on Wednesday night.
   CID sources said George would further be interrogated on Thursday night to extract information about the grenade attack. ‘In our custody, we have another person, Anwar Hossain Anu, to be quizzed by the Interpol and FBI experts regarding the attack.’
   During interrogation, Arman, one of the 23 most wanted criminals, arrested by RAB on June 3, reportedly gave some important information relating the August 21 grenade attacks. Following his interrogation, the police arrested two suspects — Mokhlesur Rahman and George Mia.
   During their previous trips, Interpol members visited the spot, examined the car of the Awami League chief and the video footage, and submitted a report in which they said the attackers used Arges brand anti-personnel grenades. The investigators, however, failed to detect the motive and the people behind the attack even 10 months after the incident. After interrogating Arman and Mokhlesur, RAB claimed they had revealed ‘crucial clues’ about the attack.
   The government says it is determined to settle the case, and is inviting experts from Interpol and FBI to assist the local police. But the Awami League has been blaming the government for what it said ‘the government itself masterminded the August 21 grenade attack’.

Bangladesh and India showed ‘positive attitude’ towards addressing the contentious bilateral issues, including trade and border problems, at the talks in New Delhi that unlocked a train of joint initiatives for next few months to work out solutions.
   The foreign secretary, Hemayetuddin, made the statement on his return from the foreign secretary-level meeting between the two countries in New Delhi on June 21-22.
   ‘We feel discussions have created a right atmosphere for further discussions. In few months time more exchanges and meetings will take place,’ he told reporters at the Zia International Airport.
   Asked about any concrete outcome of the meeting with his Indian counterpart Shyam Saran, he said, ‘The foreign secretary-level consultations are not designed to find solutions, but facilitate a solution.’
   Hemayetuddin, who led the Bangladesh delegation to the consultation, said New Delhi assured Dhaka of withdrawing tariff and non-tariff trade barriers to reduce a yawning trade deficit facing Bangladesh.
   Two agreements relating to trade and investment would be signed shortly, when the joint working group on trade, para-tariff and non-tariff barriers and on customs matters would meet in Dhaka by August, he said.
   Asked about the crucial issues of border fencing by India within 150 yards of the zero line, he said the two sides stated their respective positions. Bangladesh side stressed the need for conforming to the 1975 border guidelines and ‘avoiding any action that may impact adversely, on the peace and stability in the border areas.
   The two sides decided to resume meetings of the joint boundary working groups to consider boundary-related issues in August this year.
   Hemayetuddin said Dhaka and New Delhi reaffirmed their commitment not to allow their territory to be used for any activities inimical to each other’s interest.
   Indian side, he said, has welcomed Bangladesh’s recent actions in the border areas to flush out unwanted elements. Bangladesh side also stressed the need for action against Bangladeshi criminals and providing consular access to them.
   The foreign secretary said he raised the issue of the killing and anti-Bangladesh campaign during his meeting with the Indian home minister, Shivraj Patil, who assured that necessary steps would be taken to stop it.
   He said both sides agreed to maintain peaceful border.

Dhaka on Thursday categorically denied any presence or activity of Inter Services Intelligence of Pakistan in Bangladesh.
   ‘Why will we allow ISI? Will you allow them to operate in your country [India]? What is our interest?” asked the foreign secretary, Hemayetuddin, while talking to journalists prior to his departure for Dhaka after a two-day meeting in New Delhi.
   He said Dhaka had clearly told the foreign secretary level meeting that no criminal or insurgent would find place in the soil of Bangladesh.
   ‘Criminals from both sides can take advantage, but we do not allow anyone to use our territory against any other country,’ said Hemayetuddin.

Enayetullah Khan, editor of the daily New Age and editor-in-chief of the weekly Holiday, left Toronto General Hospital in Canada on Thursday, after two months of surgical and post-surgical interventions and medical care.
   He had been struck with ‘obstructive jaundice’ in Dhaka in March and was treated by Dr Anisur Rahman of BIRDEM Hospital.
   He was diagnosed to have carcinoma –– a malignant growth at the head of the pancreas — and has since been moved to Toronto.
   Khan was admitted to Toronto General Hospital on April 24 for a pancreatic surgery. Dr Alice Wei, one of the leading surgeons in North America, conducted the surgery on April 28, which went through some severe complications (infection) over the next few weeks.
   The hospital authorities, having strictly monitored the health, vital signs and various other organs of Khan, finally released him from the hospital subject to the next course of treatment and medical oversight.
   Khan will be under observation and home care for a month, and is expected to return home in August.

Activists of the Bangladesh Chhatra League and its six allies returned to Dhaka University on Thursday 23 days after they had been driven out of the campus by their rival, Jatiyatabadi Chhatra Dal.
   After staying about two hours at Madhu’s Canteen, the Chhatra League president left the campus along with other activists of the organisation ‘sensing a trick of offering sweets by Chhatra Dal members before television cameras’.
   Chhatra Dal drove members of the opposition-leaning organi- sations out of the campus, accusing them of exploding a crude bomb on the campus on May 31 amid a series of violent incidents in repercussion to the death of Shammi Akhtar Happy, a third-year student of psychology department, in a road accident.
   The return of the opposition was followed by a series of informal conversations between the university authorities and the student organisations but the Chhatra League president, Liakat Sikder, told reporters that his organisation had come back to the campus on its own. ‘The authorities had no role behind the return.’
   Liakat claimed his organisation had returned to the campus for realising their demands through democratic practices.
   He said they have the right to come to the campus whenever the wish. ‘No one has the right to prevent us.’
   He said the organisation was sticking to its demand for resignation of the vice-chancellor and the proctor of the university for their failure to ensure safety and security of students. ‘Fresh programmes will be announced through a press conference tomorrow.’
   Madhu’s Canteen regained its usual look on the day for the crowd of the political activists. The returnees were in a festive mood in the morning and hugged each other and exchanged greetings. Grassroots activists of Chhatra Dal seemed relieved.
   However, the JCD general secretary, Shafiul Bari Babu, said his organisation was observing the situation. ‘If they do not expel the outsiders and hooligans from their party, Chhatra Dal will rethink its present stance.’
   The university campus turned volatile after the death of Shammi Akhtar Happy in road accident on May 28 at Shabagh crossing.
   The students’ agitation mounted as police swooped on the students of the Institute of Fine Art on the day and the Chhatra Dal members attacked the agitating students on the following day in a bid to free the university’s vice-chancellor kept captive by the students at the institute premises.
   The students and opposition leaning activists took to the street in protest against the violence and demanded resignation of the vice-chancellor and the proctor.
   The Chhatra Dal declared the Chhatra League unwanted on the campus following explosion of a crude bomb beside its rally and ousted them from of different university halls.
   The university authorities said they have instructed the hall provosts to ensure peaceful coexistence of all students inside the halls, irrespective of political affiliation.

Three American soldiers and 38 Iraqis were killed and 125 wounded in a spate of violence across the country in less than 12 hours after a similar spate of bombings late Wednesday night, the US military said.
   The US military said three US soldiers were killed in fighting in Ramadi in Al-Anbar province.
   The number of US military personnel killed in Iraq since the US-led invasion of March 2003 now stands at 1,720, according to an AFP tally based on Pentagon figures.
   In the first attack Thursday, a car blew up outside a Shia mosque in a densely populated district of Karradah, and shortly afterwards a suicide car bomber blew himself up in front of a police patrol near a petrol station.
   Minutes later a third car bomb blew up outside a hammam, a male bath complex, and a fourth exploded outside another mosque in Karradah but caused only damage. The total toll from the attacks was at least 17 dead, including a number of policemen and 69 wounded, according to an interior ministry official.
   North of Baghdad, three Iraqis, including two soldiers, were killed when a suicide bomber driving a tractor blew himself up against a military convoy in the village of Albuzayla. In the town of Tuz Khurmatu, a car bomb aimed at a US military convoy killed one Iraqi and wounded 10 others, said security sources.
   On Wednesday night, three simultaneous car bombs killed at least 18 people and wounded 46 in the mainly Shia district of Shuala in north-western Baghdad.
   The violence came a day after some 80 countries pledged support for the new Iraq at a conference in Brussels and US forces announced the end of an operation against guerrillas near the Syrian border.
   Meanwhile, Iraq’s most wanted man Abu Musab al-Zarqawi announced in a purported Internet statement that an al-Qaeda militant on Saudi Arabia’s most-wanted list had been killed in the fighting with US forces on the border.
   The statement, whose authenticity could not be verified, said Rashud was killed in action during battles in al-Qaim, a restive city near the border with Syria where US forces have been fighting guerrillas.
   No date was given for his death. Rashud, 37, was one of the last three Saudi fugitives at large out of a list of 26 senior al-Qaeda militants wanted by Riyadh for a wave of deadly attacks in the oil-rich Muslim conservative kingdom.
   The Zarqawi statement said Rashud had gone to Iraq about six weeks ago.

The GrameenPhone Limited on Thursday clarified a news item headlined ‘GP evades Tk 31cr tax’, claims NBR’, published in New Age on June 22.
   According to the contract, signed with the Bangladesh Railway, and also rules on value-added tax, GrameenPhone is not liable to pay VAT on the payment for the leased fibre optic cable network of the railway, the mobile operator said in the clarification.
   GrameenPhone signed a contract with the Bangladesh Railway for leasing of the latent capacity and facility of its optical fibre digital communication network on September 17, 2003.

Awami League president Sheikh Hasina has called upon the Asian parliamentarians to formulate a roadmap in context of the Asian realities to achieve the millennium development goal of halving poverty by 2015.
   Addressing the senior advocacy council meeting of the Association of Asian Parliamentarians for Peace at Strasbourg, France on Thursday, she also called for introduction of an anti-poverty fund to mitigate the sufferings of millions of poor in Asia.
   Hasina, the founder President of AAPP, also stressed united efforts of the Asian parliamentarians in combating terrorism and corruption, and to prevent drug and human trafficking.
   ‘The role of Asian parliamentarians is vital in achieving the MDGs, particularly in poverty alleviation, combating terrorism and corruption and checking drug and human trafficking.’ The AAPP should advocate strengthening cooperation among the Asian countries and between the regional organisations against terrorism, she added.
   The meeting observed that Asia is beset with problems like terrorism, human rights violation and repression on and trafficking in women and children.
   The participating parliamentarians agreed unanimously that the problems could be addressed through integrated efforts of all Asian countries.
   The council, in a joint statement after the meeting, said the AAPP general assembly would consider the advocacies like the MDGs, debt relief and large-scale debt to equity conversions, anti-terrorism, drug and human trafficking, anti-corruption and creation of Asian anti-poverty fund.
   It also decided to work towards evolving the AAPP into Asian Parliamentary Assembly.
   The AAPP senior advisory council members, including the speaker of the National Assembly of Pakistan, Chaudhury Amir Hossain, president of the National Assembly of Cambodia, Samdech Krom Preah Norodom Ranaridh, speaker of the House of Representatives of the Philippines, Jose De Venecia Jr, and the vice-chairman of the foreign affairs committee of the National People’s Congress of China, Ji Peiding, were present.
   The Bangladesh opposition leader was assisted by the Awami League presidium member Sheikh Fazlul Karim Selim MP, AL international affairs secretary Syed Abul Hossain MP and member of AL international affairs sub-committee Mohammad Ziauddin.
   Hasina later met the chairman of the ALPP sub-committee on external relations, Adrian Severin, and participated in a briefing on the activities of the European Commission for Democracy.
   On Wednesday night, she attended a reception party organised by the secretary general of the Council of Europe, Terry Davis, at his residence. State dignitaries, MPs of parliament for Europe and Asia attended the reception.

Iranian regime veteran Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani faces the hardline Tehran mayor Friday in a presidential election that could hand the anti-Western right unchallenged power but whose outcome is too close to call.
   Rafsanjani and his rival Mahmood Ahmadinejad pulled out all stops in the last hours of campaigning to sway undecided voters in an election that could decide the fate of cautious reforms and set the tone for future relations with the West.
   Pragmatic conservative Rafsanjani will need to garner broad support from Iran’s disenchanted reformists and a wider apathetic electorate if he is to thwart an Ahmadinejad victory, which would leave every state institution in the hands of hardliners.
   ‘We need to choose a courageous ‘Hezbollah’ government and stop poverty, discrimination and corruption,’ Ahmadinejad said as he made a final televised appeal in the final hours of legal campaigning on Wednesday night, using the word meaning Party of God.
   ‘All the groups whose interests are in danger have unified to prevent the will of the people,’ he added.
   Rafsanjani’s camp has sought to paint Ahmadinejad, 49, in the colours of a dangerous extremist, raising fears he will roll back cautious social and market reforms and turn the clock back to the ideological rigour of the 1980s.
   ‘Friday will be a decisive day for the country. The future of the country and the revolution are at stake,’ warned Rafsanjani loyalist and top nuclear negotiator Hassan Rowhani.
   Western countries would also be more comfortable with a known quantity of Rafsanjani at a time of delicate negotiations over Iran’s nuclear programme. France’s foreign minister has said the talks are at stake in the vote.
   However, Ahmadinejad has vehemently denied claims he plans a ‘Taliban’ style rule in Iran as scaremongering, and is merely extolling the moral ‘purity’ that prevailed during the Islamic revolution.
   Instead, his team have sought to present Ahmadinejad as a friend of the poor, a modern day Robin Hood with an Islamic twist, something that plays well with Iranians turned off Rafsanjani by his allegedly fabulous wealth.

A leader of Jatiyatabadi Chhatra Dal, student front of the ruling BNP, and his close aide were killed in a ‘shootout’ between the Rapid Action Battalion and armed men, believed to be their accomplices, at Niribili in Savar early Thursday, raising the death toll in such incidents to 347 since 2004.
   The dead were identified as Khan Ahmed Wasib Tapu, 28, president of the Mohammadpur thana unit of Chhatra Dal, and Mohammad Faruk Hossain Rajib, 27, of Rayer Bazar.
   Tapu was one of the 10 suspected criminals arrested during nightlong RAB raids in different parts of the capital on Wednesday. In the raids, RAB also recovered firearms and bullets.
   Brother-in-law of notorious criminal, Imon, believed to be in Kolkata now to avoid RAB arrest, the JCD leader had long
   been committing crimes like murder, robbery, extortion, and snatching at Mohammadpur, Kafrul, Dhanmondi, Rayerbazar, and Hazaribagh, claimed the police.
   Tapu along with his accomplices used to hide in different places after committing crimes. He was one of the prime accused in the case of murder of Raju, a commissioner of the Dhaka City Corporation.
   According to a release issued by the RAB headquarters, four teams of RAB-4 raided several houses at Pallabi, Rayerbazar, and Mohammadpur early Wednesday, and nabbed Tapu, Rajib, Saiful, Shahadat, Masud, Rana, Meem, Zahid, and Khorshed.
   Later, they interrogated them to extract information about their accomplices and the firearms of their own and the gang.
   On the basis of the statement of Tapu and Rajib, a RAB team went to Niribili area along with them to recover more firearms and nab their accomplices, Abul and Shohel, at about 3:45am.
   As soon as the team reached the area, their armed accomplices hurled bombs and opened fire on them resulting in a gunfight. The elite force fired at least 40 rounds of bullet during the fight.
   At one stage, Tapu and Rajib sustained bullet injuries and died on the spot while they were trying to escape during the shootout, said the release.
   After the fight, RAB recovered an Italian-made pistol, one German-made .32 revolver and a single shotgun and different used cartridges, and bullets from the scene.
   On the basis of the statements of the arrested criminals, RAB teams earlier launched drives at different parts in the capital to arrest other accomplices and recover firearms till Wednesday evening and seized a AK-47 assault rifle, one Italian-made Petra-Berretta pistol, one German-made browning revolver, one country-made revolver, one .22-bore airgun, one single shotgun, and 129 rounds of bullet.
   They also seized materials and accessories to make explosives, three powerful walkie-talkies, and 40 bottles of phensidyl from their possession, the release added.

The government plans disciplinary actions against Nurul Islam, chairman of the Bangladesh Telegraph and Telephone Board made officer on special duty, and others involved in the tampering of two telecom projects.
   ‘We are planning to take strict actions against the corrupt officials other than making them officers on special duty,’ said a top official in the posts and telecommunications ministry on Thursday, without elaborating the types of actions.
   Meanwhile, Nurul Islam, who was made OSD on Wednesday, denied his involvement in tender manipulation in the Chittagong-Cox’s Bazar optical fibre transmission link project and last moment changes in the BTTB mobile phone deal, which benefited the contractors.
   ‘I have not done anything wrong. It’s a conspiracy against me. A vested quarter in the BTTB is trying to tarnish my image,’ he said.
   In the submarine cable tender, the chairman, who headed the bid evaluation committee, awarded Siemens, the highest bidder quoting Tk 49.60 crore, the tender. Nortel Netas of Turkey was the lowest bidder offering Tk 33.80 crore.
   The cabinet committee on purchase, headed by the finance and planning minister, on March 21 rejected the deal citing irregularities, and proposed punitive measures against those responsible.
   The Prime Minister’s Office in April ordered actions against six officials of the seven-member technical evaluation committee for the tender manipulation.
   The Cabinet Division, in an April 10 letter to the telecoms ministry, conveyed the prime minister’s order and asked it to inform the cabinet committee on purchase about the actions taken against the guilty officials by May 15.
   According to officials, if the PMO order is followed, four BTTB high officials and two defence officers will face departmental action.
   The BTTB in October 2003 invited turnkey bids for an optical fibre link from Chittagong to Cox’s Bazar as well as upgrading the Dhaka-Chittagong transmission link, which will ultimately link the country with the SEA-ME-WE4 submarine cable network.
   Nurul Islam also denied the ‘clandestine’ late changes in contracts with the suppliers — Siemens and Huawei Technologies — in the $76 million BTTB mobile project, for which the BTTB to overpay $37 million for maintenance of its mobile phone network. ‘The allegation is absolutely false and fabricated.’
   According to the terms and conditions of the deal that the prime minister approved, the maintenance cost for 13 years, after the first two years of guarantee period, was supposed to be covered by the supplying companies, the BTTB sources said.
   But the unauthorised changes will cost the BTTB $37.09 million to maintain the mobile network from its third year of operation, they added.
   They said Nurul Islam verbally ordered the procurement office to stipulate the precondition of ‘complete shutdown of network’, under clause 27.2, in both the contracts.
   He also asked the office to attach each vendor’s annual service proposal as ‘Annex I’ to the contract, which was signed on June 14, 2004.

The government has revised the national housing policy 2004 to address the housing problems of the citizens as 66 lakh families have no housing facilities in Bangladesh which would be doubled by 2010.
   The revised housing policy will be placed in the cabinet meeting as soon as possible, said the housing and public works minister, Mirza Abbas, at a meeting recently.
   To ensure the housing rights to all, the government formulated the policy in 1993 and made amendment to it in 1997.
   According to the figures of the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics, the number of the households was 25,362,000 in 2001 and the population about 140 million.
   ‘The government has taken initiative to revise the policy to provide all with housing facilities, develop the housing sector, and ensure the security and healthy atmosphere for all,’ said a top official of the ministry.
   According to the policy, if the government now does not take steps to minimise the housing problem, 50 per cent of the population have to stay in slums and congested area. The policy says demand of housing has been increasing each year by five lakh in urban area, although it remains static in rural area which is 2,150,000.
   Eighty-one per cent of houses are in rural area where 77 per cent of the population live in. About 40 per cent of the population in Dhaka have no housing facility, the policy says.
   Urban planners attributed rapid growth of the population, and price hike of building materials, and land to the main problems of the housing.
   According to article 4.2 of the policy, the principle of the policy is that the government would play the role of an enabler or facilitator in the housing sector, but not the role of a developer or provider.
   It promised to pay special attention to needs of housing of women particularly disadvantaged women such as widows, single women, and women belong to households living below the poverty line.
   The government has taken various projects such as cluster village, ideal village, shelter, and return to village projects for cyclone-affected people, low-income group people, rural poor, and urban slum dwellers. Urban planners, builders, and NGO activists criticised the government for not having facilities in the houses as per the international law of housing.
   According to the law, every housing should have some elements like security of tenure, availability or access to services such as safe drinking water, energy for cooking, lighting, sanitation, adequate space, protection, and access to employment and various social services,’ said Nazrul Islam, a urban planner.
   The executive director of Bandhan Society, Sanzida Khanam, told New Age that natural calamities like river erosion, flood, storm, cyclone, and fire are the main causes for destruction of housings. ‘Each year many people lose their houses and ancestral land due to flooding and river erosion.’

The government formed body to re-fix the bus fare, which missed the June 20 deadline to submit its report, on Wednesday sought one more week.
   A member of the committee said they could not submit the report due to the removal of the committee head, the Bangladesh Road Transport Authority chairman, Faruk Ahmed.
   Faruk was removed on June 18.
   We sought a total of nine-day extension, he said.
   The nine-member committee was formed on June 8 to protect the interests of both the passengers and the transport owners and operators following a fare hike decision by the owners-operators.
   The communications minister, Nazmul Huda, requested the owners and operators not to increase the fare till the submission of the report by the committee, which includes four representatives from the Bangladesh Sarak Paribahan Samiti and the Bangladesh Bus Truck Owners’ Association.
   Other members are one representative each from the Bangladesh Road Transport Corporation, BRTA, the home ministry and the communications ministry.
   The Sarak Paribahan Samiti secretary general, Muhammad Ashraf Khan, also a member of the committee, told New Age on Thursday that the members from the two transport associations had already submitted their recommendations to the other members for review. ‘We mainly recommend reduction of the fuel price.’

At least eight Maoist rebels and seven security force members were killed in a gun battle in eastern Nepal, the police said Thursday.
   The skirmish occurred Wednesday when a group of rebels attacked a 90-strong security force team searching for Maoists who had been involved in a similar clash with troops earlier this week in a nearby area.
   ‘Following the armed clashes, the Maoists abducted about a dozen security men to an unknown destination,’ a police official said. ‘The rebels also fled with some communication equipment.’
   Army officials confirmed the incident at Gogane village in Bhojpur district, about 235 kilometres east of Kathmandu, but said they were awaiting detailed reports.
   ‘After the arrival of reinforcements, the army launched a search for the rebels,’ one army official said.
   Meanwhile, a bomb exploded overnight at private educational institute, the Nobel Academy, on the outskirts of Kathmandu, causing damage to a building and a school bus but there were no injuries, a police inspector said.
   No one has immediately claimed responsibility.

The government on Thursday transferred the chairman of the Power Development Board, Khaja Golam Ahmed, to the health and family welfare ministry as an additional secretary.
   This is the third time in 10 months that the PDB chairman has been changed.
   The government removed Sayed Abdul Mayeed in August 2004 and appointed Mokhlesur Rahman Khondakar. Khondokar was replaced by Ahmed in December 2004.
   No one was given charge as the PDB chairman till Thursday evening.

A mob lynched two suspected snatchers in the Chawkbazar area of the Chittagong city Wednesday night.
   The police said about four snatchers intercepted a rickshaw passenger with an auto-rickshaw in front of Alikhan Mosque at around 10:00pm and tried to snatch her ornaments.
   Local people caught two of the snatchers and beat them up, leaving them critically wounded. The police later sent the injured snatchers to Chittagong Medical College Hospital, where they were declared dead.

The main opposition Awami League and its front organisations organised a number of programmes Thursday to mark the party’s 56th founding anniversary.
   Central leaders placed garlands on the portrait of the late Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the first president of Bangladesh, in the morning to touch off the observance.
   In the afternoon several hundred AL leaders and activists brought out a procession, starting from Suhrawardy Udyan and ending at Bangabandhu Bhaban at Dhanmondi in the capital.
   At a rally before the procession, the leaders urged the people to forge a movement and oust the BNP-led four-party alliance government to bring about socio-economic emancipation.
   Socio-economic independence remains elusive for the people although the country won its independence 34 years back, claimed the AL general secretary, Abdul Jalil MP, when presiding over the rally.
   AL leaders Amir Hossain Amu, Tofail Ahmed, Abdur Razzak and Mofazzal Hossain Chowdhury Maya also spoke.
   The party was founded on June 23, 1949 as the Awami Muslim League with Maulana Abdul Hamid Khan Bhasani as president. Sheikh Mujib was the joint secretary. The word ‘Muslim’ was dropped from the party’s name in 1955.
   The party will also hold a discussion at the auditorium of the Institution of Engineers, Bangladesh at 3:00pm today.