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The Bangladesh Nationalist Party-led alliance government steps into its fifth year — the final year of its five-year term — today with its failures overshadowing the successes, particularly in terms of not meeting electoral pledges on the one hand, and the signs of instability looming large in the conflict-ridden political horizon ahead of the next general elections on the other.
   The ruling alliance, comprising the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, the Islamist Jamaat-e-Islami Bangladesh and Islami Okiya Jote, and the Bangladesh Jatiya Party, won 219 out of 300 parliamentary seats, defeating the candidates of the outgoing Awami League in the last general election held in October 2001.
   The successes of the government in certain areas include retention of a more or less adequate bank reserve, moderate rise in investment and offers of huge foreign investment in future, modest industrial growth, setting up of an anti-corruption commission (that is yet to begin functioning, though), decreasing air pollution in the capital by replacing two-stroke three-wheelers with CNG-run three-wheelers, controlling mass cheating in the secondary and higher secondary level public examinations and the latest drive against adulterated and rotten food.
   But the government’s successes have been overshadowed by the failures in various sectors and the non-implementation of many of the important pledges through which it assumed office with an overwhelming two-thirds majority in parliament.
   Embedded corruption in government offices, tremendous influence of informal power centres in official activities, brazen killing of opposition leaders in broad daylight, attacks (with bombs, grenades and other weapons) on opposition political rallies, extra-judicial killing, diplomatic debacles, inflation and other failures are reasons for the alliance government’s waning popularity.
   The government ‘success’ in containing violent crimes of non-political nature remains controversial, as more than four hundred people, although many of them notorious criminals, were killed in so-called ‘crossfire’, without being tried in the court of law.
   Besides, the number of unimplemented pledges of the BNP alone is still dauntingly large.
   Among them are: separation of the judiciary from the executive; decentralisation of the administration and re-introduction of the Upazila Parishad; ensuring accountability and transparency at every level of the administration; appointment of ombudsman; statements of assets owned by the prime minister, ministers and people holding high offices; autonomy of the state-run radio and television stations; regular dredging of rivers to maintain their navigability and contain river erosion; implementation of former president Ziaur Rahman’s irrigation policy by canal digging and water conservation; provision of housing for the urban and rural poor; implementation of the CHT treaty in line with the constitution; bridging trade gaps between Bangladesh and the other nations; modernisation of the telecommunication sector; creation of new jobs to solve the unemployment problem; and making the state-owned industries profitable.
   The ruling BNP and its right-wing partners are widely blamed for the rise of religious extremism and have been accused of befriending and protecting Islamist militants. Critics say that if the government had clamped down mercilessly on Islamist bombers from the very beginning of their tenure, the militants would not have become so well organised and powerful.
   The government has also become unpopular with quite a good number of friendly foreign countries and international lending agencies because of its alleged attitude of turning a blind eye to Islamist militants and its all-too-perceptible tolerance of sky-high corruption by its adherents and those who jumped onto its bandwagon.
   The price situation of essential commodities, which have become much costlier in the past four years, still remains a major problem for the alliance government. The government has had no control over the spiralling of prices that directly affects the electorate that will vote in the next election.
   On the political front, the alliance government, despite having more than two-thirds majority in parliament, has failed to make the parliament vibrant and effective. The government has hardly taken any sincere initiative to bring the boycotting members of the main opposition party back to parliament. It has given the infant democracy no chance at all to get on its feet, let alone flourish.
   Meanwhile, the Awami League and its allies have demanded electoral reforms that include changing the structure and jurisdictions of the caretaker administration, which supervises general elections, and amendment of the current election laws.
   The top alliance leaders have rejected outright the opposition proposal for bringing in changes in the composition or jurisdiction of the caretaker government, although they are ready to consider reforms in the electoral laws and rules.
   Subsequently, the opposition has taken the reform proposals as one of the leading preconditions to participating in the next election, scheduled for January 2007. They have chalked out an elaborate agitation programme to press home their demands.
   The uncompromising attitude of the opposing political camp only hints at political instability in the days to come.

A major earthquake in Dhaka or its neighbouring districts could cause more than 24,000 houses to collapse in the capital, causing damages of over Tk 16,000 crore, reveals a study.
   ‘The number of deaths and injuries will place so severe a strain on emergency relief and healthcare infrastructure that Dhaka will not be able to function as the capital of Bangladesh,’ warns the study, conducted by a leading Bangladeshi earthquake expert and funded by Tokyo University.
   ‘The earthquake that could cause this damage need not be of a greater intensity than the one experienced in Pakistan and India on Saturday,’ said Mehedi Ahmed Ansary, associate professor at Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology and author of the report.
   An earthquake that clocked 7.6 on the Richter Scale claimed over 20,000 lives in Pakistan and India on Saturday, with aftershocks that clocked up to four on the Richter scale reaching Bangladesh’s southern district of Noakhali.
   Meanwhile, two of three major components in earthquake monitoring equipment at Bangladesh’s lone observatory in Chittagong remain invalid since 1996, hindering the country’s ability to record and predict earthquakes, sources concerned claim.
   Monitoring stations planned for Sylhet, Rangpur and Dhaka have also remained dysfunctional for over eight years now due to shortage of funds in procuring equipment, a New Age report revealed last month.
   The lack of data and monitoring means that the damage could be far greater than estimated in Ansary’s study as the latter was limited to eight wards of the Dhaka City Corporation, experts say.
   This emphasises Dhaka’s global ranking as the most vulnerable city at risk of earthquake damage, alongside the Iranian capital Tehran, as listed by a United Nations report from 2003.
   ‘Bangladesh has a high probability of experiencing a major earthquake, a probability corroborated by the high number of small quakes we have been experiencing over the last fifteen years,’ said Maksud Kamal, assistant professor of geology at Dhaka University.
   Kamal pointed out, however, that a study so limited in its scope should not be the basis for the conclusions it reaches. ‘Without going into numbers, we need to commission a full-fledged study into the entire city’s earthquake vulnerability,’ Kamal said.
   The study further identified four probable earthquake zones: the Assam fault zone, the Tripura fault zone, the Sub-Dauki fault zone, and the Bogra fault zone.
   ‘In 1897 Assam had one of the greatest earthquakes of the last 100 years. Meghalaya is a very tectonically active region, if another major earthquake hits that region, Dhaka stands to lose most of its eight-to-twelve-storey buildings even though Dhaka could be located 200 to 300 kilometres away from the epicentre,’ said Kamal, explaining how the building frequency of anything lower or higher will not match the earthquake frequency on the soil.
   ‘The soil quality will determine whether a place gets affected or not. Thirty-five per cent of Dhaka, including Dhanmondi, Lalmatia, some parts of Old Dhaka and Uttara, is on red soil and it is less susceptible to an earthquake, whereas the Basundhara and Banosri areas, built on landfills, stand to lose the most,’ added Kamal.
   The experts are further concerned that a major earthquake is not very far away.
   ‘In December 2001, an earthquake of the magnitude of 4.5 caused a four-storey building in Old Dhaka to tilt, while a 100 prisoners were injured as a floor collapsed at the Dhaka central jail. Earthquakes of similar intensity have hit on and off since the nineties. Frequent, small earthquakes generally indicate that a major earthquake is in the offing,’ said Kamal.
   Professor Aftab Alam Khan of the department of geology at Dhaka University agrees that all signs indicate that a major earthquake is in the offing.
   ‘Studies indicate that the recurrence period for an earthquake is generally 100 to 120 years. The last major earthquake in and around Dhaka was in Manikganj in 1885. Exactly 120 years ago,’ he said.
   In 1897, 1,542 people died because of the Assam quake. Today, cities like Dhaka and Guwahati have 50 times the population they had 100 years ago. ‘The Dhaleswari fault has since merged with the Buriganga fault endangering Dhaka even further,’ added Aftab.
   Little has been done so far to prevent a major disaster.
   ‘The building code in Dhaka has not been updated since 1993 and does not account for earthquake susceptibility. The land-filling in different areas do not follow land use regulation and these things can complicate Dhaka’s woes,’ said Kamal.
   Aftab points out that Dhaka requires proper planning including creation of diverging modes, detailed micro-zoning maps and subsurface imaging.
   ‘Only 50 square kilometres of imaging of Dhaka has been done so far. At least 5,000 square kilometres have to be covered to find out the exact state of Dhaka’s earthquake susceptibility,’ he said.
   The study conducted by Ansary suggests that the existing houses should be encouraged to do retrofitting.
   ‘Increasing the number of iron rods and beams going through a building can lower earthquake damage risk as iron absorbs pressure and isolates seismic energy,’ said Kamal.

Villagers desperate to find survivors dug with bare hands Sunday through the debris of a collapsed school where children had been heard crying beneath the rubble after a massive earthquake. Pakistani officials said the death toll ranged between nearly 20,000 and 30,000.
   Pakistan’s president called Saturday’s magnitude-7.7 earthquake the country’s worst on record and appealed for urgent help, particularly cargo helicopters to reach remote areas. Rival India, which reported more than 600 dead, offered assistance.
   ‘I have been informed by my department that more than 30,000 people have died in Kashmir,’ Tariq Mahmmod, communications minister for the Himalayan region, told The Associated Press.
   In mountainous Kashmir, the quake flattened dozens of villages and towns, crushing schools and mud-brick houses. The dead included 250 girls at a school razed to the ground and more than 200 Pakistani soldiers on duty in the Himalayas.
   The quake was felt across a wide swath of South Asia from central Afghanistan to western Bangladesh. It swayed buildings in the capitals of three nations, with the damage spanning at least 250 miles from Jalalabad in Afghanistan to Srinagar in northern Indian territory. In Islamabad, a 10-story building collapsed.
   ‘We are handling the worst disaster in Pakistan’s history,’ chief army spokesman major general Shaukat Sultan said.
   Officials said Balakot was one of the hardest-hit areas. Near the ruins of one collapsed school, at least a dozen bodies were strewn on the streets of the devastated village of about 30,000.
   Dozens of villagers, some with sledgehammers but many without tools, pulled at the debris and carried away bodies. Faizan Farooq, a business administration student, said he had heard children under the rubble crying for help immediately after Saturday’s disaster.
   Helicopters and C-130 transport planes took troops and supplies to damaged areas Sunday. However, landslides and rain hindered rescue efforts, blocking roads to some remote areas.
   Injured people covered by shawls lay in the street, waiting for medical care. Residents carried bodies on wooden planks. The corpses of four children, aged between 4 and 6, lay under a sheet of corrugated iron. Relatives said they were trying to find sheets to wrap the bodies.
   ‘We don’t have anything to bury them with,’ said a cousin, Saqib Swati. President general Pervez Musharraf appealed to the international community for medicine, tents, cargo helicopters and financial assistance.
   He told the British Broadcasting Corp the only way to reach many far-flung areas was by helicopter because roads were buried by landslides.

Seven members of the banned Islamist outfit Jamaatul Mujahideen Bangladesh, including Ataur Rahman Sunny — younger brother of its chief Shaikh Abdur Rahman — were named in the charge sheet on Sunday in two cases relating to recovery of firearms and a large quantity of explosives from a house in Basabo in Dhaka.
   In the hill tracts, the security personnel geared up the hunt for netting the Rohingya militants following their reported link with the Mujahideen.
   In the capital, the criminal investigation department of the police submitted charge sheet of two cases, filed with the Sabujbagh police station on September 8.
   Seven Mujahideen men were accused in the charge sheet submitted to the chief metropolitan magistrates court on Sunday evening.
   Six of the accused, AHM Shamim, Zakaria Jewel, Noor-e Azam Siddik alias Yasir, his wife Aleya Ferdousi Ayesha, Akramul Islam and Belal Hossain, are in jail after they confessed before the court.
   The other accused, Ataur Rahman Sunny alias Hasan, also the operational chief of the militant outfit, has been shown absconding in the charge sheet.
   Sunny had rented the ground floor flat of the six-storey building at East Basabo from where the joint team of police and the Rapid Action Battalion recovered two firearms, 700 capacitors used in bombs, black masks, compact disks, Tk 2 lakh in cash, Bangladesh’s map, books on Jihad and diaries on September 8. The flat was said to be used as a control room of the August 17 countrywide bomb blasts.
   The raid was conducted based on the statement of AHM Shamim, said to be the information technology expert of the Mujahideen and also the son of a former district amir of Jamaat-e Islami, arrested in Habiganj on the previous day.
   Some 20 people were named as witnesses.
   Meanwhile, Mufti Abdul Hannan, a leader of Islamist militant Harkat-ul Jihad Al-Islam, and Abu Taleb alias Babul Ansari, a junior security officer of the parliament secretariat arrested for his alleged connection with the militants, is being questioned by the investigators. But the two did not divulge any new information during interrogation on Sunday, said sources.
   New Age’s Bandarban correspondent reports that the security forces comprising army and the Bangladesh Rifles have strengthened the ongoing hunt to net Rohingya militants following their reported connection with the Mujahideen.
   The drive was strengthened following the statement of Mufti Abdul Hannan, leader of Harkat-ul-Jihad, said sources in the intelligence.
   Hannan, arrested from the capital on October 1, reportedly said that the Rohingyas living in the remote areas in the district were involved with the Mujahideen militants in carrying out terrorist activities and collection of arms and ammunitions.
   The joint forces have strengthened operations in Naikhyangchari, Lama, Ali Kadam and Thanchi upazilas of the district, said an intelligence official on Sunday.
   The two Mujahideen militants — Hafizuddin and Shafiqul Islam — who are on a five-day remand, have stated that they helped in the August 17 countrywide blasts.
   In Moulvibazar, the police arrested Syed Mizan Ahmed alias Khokan, a teacher of Shahituli Islamia Rabeya Emdadul Ulum Madrassah in Srimangal, from the staff quarters of Kalighat tea garden Sunday evening for his suspected links with the Mujahideen. The police recovered important textbooks from his possession.
   In Lakshmipur, two members of the Mujahideen, Arif and Mazharul Islam, were apprehended from north Mojupur in the district Saturday night.
   New Age’s Gopalganj correspondent reports that Saifur Rahman Nantu, president, and Moniruzzaman Pinu, member of district BNP, at a press conference on Sunday afternoon claimed that a news item on Mufti Hannan’s mercy petition published in different dailies on October 7 was ‘false’.
   ‘We did not sign the petition. Both the signatures and seals are false.’
   ‘We had never seen or known Mufti Hannan and we had never recommended his mercy petition,’ they said.
   Pinu also pointed out that he was not the senior vice-president of Gopalganj district BNP in 2000, as claimed by the dailies.

To ensure foolproof security, a special meeting of the Jatiya Sangsad secretariat on Sunday decided to shift a number of government offices housed inside the parliament building to adjacent or nearby buildings. The meeting, presided over by the speaker, Jamir Uddin Sircar, also decided to introduce ‘counter vigilance’ to monitor the activities of the intelligence agencies inside the parliament.
   ‘The authorities have to impose mandatory checking of all the visitors, including the lawmakers and parliament officials,’ Sircar told reporters after the meeting at his chamber. He added that check-posts would be set up at all the entry points of Sangsad.
   The decision came on the heels of the arrest of a security staff of the parliament secretariat for his suspected link with the Jamaatul Mujahideen Bangladesh, a banned Islamist militant outfit responsible for the August 17 country-wide multiple blasts that killed at least three persons and wounded 150 others.
   The meeting, also attended by the chief whip and whips of the parliament, selected chairmen of parliamentary standing committees, high officials of the parliament secretariat and the sergeant-at-arms also sought the cooperation of the lawmakers to implement the security measures undertaken by the authorities.
   A letter has already been sent to all the 345 lawmakers of the parliament seeking their cooperation, said a source.
   The meeting observed that existence of the offices of some establishments like the Public Works Department, Sonali Bank, the Biman Bangladesh Airlines, Post Office and the Medical Centre inside the parliament building might be a security threat.
   The meeting decided to shift them immediately either to the ex-MP hostel or the ministers’ hostel, adjacent to the main parliament building. The meeting also decided to shift the medical centre to the old MP hostel.
   The speaker said that every person, including the MPs and top officials, should enter through the security gate after showing his identity card, and if he wants to bring any guests with him, he should take permission from at least a deputy secretary-level officer.
   The meeting also decided to form a counter-vigilance team to monitor the intelligence agencies and to engage a special vigilance team for watching to the movement of the guests, especially inside the parliament’s canteen.
   ‘I talked to the state minister for home affairs about strengthening security in the parliament, and he said that his ministry had no objection to form the counter-vigilance team,’ said Jamir Uddin, adding that the counter-vigilance team would be formed under the supervision of the speaker, state minister for home affairs and the inspector general of police.
   The speaker said that Babul Ansari, who was arrested last Tuesday, joined the parliament as a third-class employee on December 17, 1987 and was working as the assistant security inspector.

After a two-decade interval, the Islami Chhatra Shibir on Sunday once again tried to reinstate itself in Dhaka University but was compelled to retreat in the face of other students’ wrath.
   The sudden emergence of Shibir and the consequent clash injured at least 13 student members of the opposition parties’ fronts. The Shibir leaders claimed that 20 of their leaders were injured in the sporadic attacks on them, and accused the Bangladesh Chhatra League and leftist activists of attacking them.
   Among the injured, the condition of central office secretary of Shibir, Zahidur Rahman, and its social science faculty unit’s president, Mashukur Rahman, were said to be critical.
   Shibir’s Jasimuddin Hall unit’s organising secretary, Humayun Rashid, the arts faculty unit’s president, Mohiuddin, and activists Zakaria, Ferdous, Maruf, Muhsin, Zia, and Mahfuz were also taken to Dhaka Medical College Hospital.
   Chhatra League’s Dhaka University committee’s member Pradip Kumar Titu and Amar Ekushey Hall unit’s president Harisul Islam were also admitted to the hospital.
   Campus sources said the students became angry when they found some Shibir leaders distributing invitations for an iftar party organised for Dhaka University students and teachers, scheduled on October 13, which former Jamaat chief Ghulam Azam was expected to attend.
   The students instantly protested against the activities of Shibir, the student wing of the Jamaat-e-Islami, which has faced an unofficial ban on the campus over the years for the anti-Bangladesh role of its parent organisation during the War of Liberation in 1971.
   After being expelled from the Arts Building, the Shibir supporters gathered at the mall area and mobilised their activists from various residential halls and different parts of the city.
   On seeing them trying to remobilise, a group of Chhatra League activists attacked the Shibir members and injured one of its central leaders along with about 15 activists.
   After the attack, the Shibir activists regrouped and chased the Chhatra League members, and brought out a procession chanting ‘Naraye Taqbir’.
   They also went to the vice-chancellor’s office to complain against the attack and held a brief rally there.
   In the meantime, the city units of Shibir mobilised many of their activists at the emergency unit of Dhaka Medical College Hospital where the injured activists were taken for treatment.
   Hearing this news, the opposition parties’ students rushed there and fought the Shibir activists with clubs and brickbats. Police lobbed several canisters of teargas to disperse the combatants.
   Most of the opposition parties’ student organisations reacted sharply to the re-emergence of Shibir at Dhaka University.
   Chhatra League’s president, Liakat Sikder, announced an emergency and exhorted his fellow activists to expel Shibir from Dhaka University.
   Liakat, at a rally at Aparajeya Bangla, thanked the students for driving out Shibir from the campus and urged them to join in the movement against communal and fundamentalist politics.
   He accused Dhaka University’s vice-chancellor of promoting and sheltering Shibir. ‘It is normal for the vice-chancellor, pro-vice-chancellor and treasurer to shelter them as they are the agents of war criminals.’
   The Progressive Students’ Alliance, a combine of left-leaning student organisations, held a rally in protest against the activities of Shibir. Leaders of the organisations blamed the university administration for sheltering Shibir.
   The Bangladesh Chhatra Union will stage a rally today in protest against the ‘suspicious’ activities of Shibir.
   Shibir’s leaders, at a news briefing in the National Press Club, demanded academic action against the Chhatra League’s leaders and activists as per the university ordinance.
   ‘Shibir is not an inactive organisation and is widely recognised for its constructive role,’ claimed Shafiqul Islam Masud, secretary general of Shibir’s central committee.
   He demanded a fair investigation of the incidents, saying that if the probe finds any Shibir activists guilty, they will be ready to face any punishment.
   The Shibir’s leaders fear further attacks on their fellow activists in the university’s residential halls and have sought the help of the authorities.
   Members of the Jatiyatabadi Chhatra Dal, student front of the BNP, were silent spectators of the clashes between Shibir’s supporters and other students of the university.
   Chhatra Dal president, Azizul Bari Helal, said he would discuss Shibir’s activities on the campus with other student organisations. ‘If they agree to allow Shibir on the campus, we will have no complaint,’ Helal added.
   A tense situation is prevailing on the campus and extra contingents of police have been deployed at certain spots and in front of Dhaka Medical College Hospital.

After last December’s Asian Tsunami forced an eleventh-hour postponement, Saturday’s earthquake in Pakistan and India once again gives rise to the oft-repeated question as to whether the 13th SAARC summit would take place on schedule, even though host Bangladesh is confident about getting it through.
   ‘The SAARC summit is on,’ the foreign minister, M Morshed Khan, told UNB responding to a question on if there is any possibility of further deferment of the twice-postponed meet of South Asian leaders in the wake of a sub-continental earthquake.
   The foreign minister hoped that the natural calamity — which left some parts of Pakistan and India in ruins –– would not affect the holding of the 13th summit on November 12-13.
   ‘The Dhaka summit is still one month away. I don’t think it will affect the summit,’ he said.
   Morshed said the summit had to be postponed first as Tsunami hit some SAARC countries just a few days ahead of the meet in January.
   It was again put off for the second time in February when India unilaterally pulled out on the plea of the royal coup in Nepal and ‘security concern’ in Dhaka.
   Meanwhile, the foreign minister, the foreign affairs adviser Reaz Rahman, and senior foreign ministry officials Sunday visited the Jamuna state guesthouse and Bangladesh-China International Friendship Centre, the two major venues of the summit.
   ‘Full mobilisation for the summit is on,’ a senior official of the ministry said.

Durga Puja, the biggest festival of people of the Hindu faith, began across the country on Sunday under strict security blanket.
   The five-day festival started with shashthi rituals welcoming the goddess Durga on the earth. The saptami puja will be held today and maha ashtami on Tuesday. As the lagna falls on Wednesday, the nabami and dashami pujas will also be held on the same day.
   The celebrations will conclude on Thursday with the immersion of the Durga idol. This year the festival coincides with the observance of the month of Ramadan.
   Some 22,000 idols, including 150 in Dhaka alone, have been set up across the country, governemnt statistics said.
   In the capital, the Dhakeswari Mandir, the Ramakrishna Mission, and the Siddheswari Mandir are among the main temples where devotees surge during puja rituals and fairs. Besides, there are mandaps at Shankhari Bazar, Tanti Bazar, Bangla Bazar, Sutrapur, and Jagannath Hall at Dhaka University.
   The government has deployed the Rapid Action Battalion, and troubleshooters in plainclothes alongside other regular forces like the Bangladesh Rifles, the Armed Police Battalion, the police and Ansar at the puja mandaps.
   The puja committee has also taken some precautionary measures to avoid any disturbance during Ramadan programmes. The measures include limiting the use of microphones and musical instruments during the puja.

Multilateral lending agencies, including the World Bank, have not been releasing about half a billion dollars of foreign currency that was pledged by them on account of non-implementation or procedural problems of a large number of development projects. This was revealed at an inter-ministerial meeting held to review the current status of foreign aid-funded projects in the Annual Development Programme (ADP).
   Chairing the meeting, the finance and planning minister, M Saifur Rahman, asked the officials concerned to expedite the implementation of projects, restructure some schemes and meet other conditionalities of the lending agencies so that foreign currency is released immediately.
   ‘Slow pace and non-implementation of projects are the reasons behind bad performance in regard to the ADP. Of course some of these projects are too ambitious for our limited means. But those officials who cannot implement the projects are responsible for the ADP fiasco,’ he told journalists after the meeting at the finance ministry.
   Saifur also blamed the World Bank for not releasing the money it had promised for funding a number of projects, especially for the post-flood rehabilitation programme in the Sylhet region, despite positive evaluation by the lending agency’s consultants and release of money for similar projects funded by the Asian Development Bank and the Department for International Development of the United Kingdom. The World Bank’s local office is said to have described some projects as over-valued.
   The Ministry of Communications alone has been awaiting receipt of about $200 million. Some $100 million external assistance for the Ministry of Education has not been released due to absence of uniformity and anomalies in the process of issuing monthly pay orders to non-government schools, madrassahs and colleges.
   The finance minister expressed his hope that the meeting would provide a certain impetus to the ministries and agencies for implementation of development projects, leading to smooth release of foreign currency pledged by the multilateral lending agencies.

The Election Commission will use teachers of different government and non-government schools and colleges only to collect individual information on people eligible to enlist in a fresh voters’ roll.
   The main work for preparing the new voters’ roll, the door-to-door information collection, is likely to begin some time in November, after Eid-ul-Fitr.
   The commission has already prepared a guideline to appoint three lakh enumerators, and will issue the guideline to the District Election Commission offices within this week, EC sources said.
   Besides, the commission is thinking of using teachers of different kindergartens and the employees of different government organisations to collect individual information for Dhaka city, the sources added.
   According to the guideline, each of the enumerators to be appointed by the DEC offices will collect information on 200 to 300 voters.
   The enumerators would visit the residences of the voters to gather necessary information about them to fill up the prescribed forms of the EC. Some 75,000 supervisors will monitor the activities of the enumerators.
   The secretary to the Election Commission Secretariat, SM Zakaria, said the voters’ roll is being prepared according to the procedures similar to the previous years. The field level enumerators, supervisors, and revising authority are also being appointed as per the act and rules like previous years, he added.
   Earlier, the commission was mulling to engage the representatives of the local government with the enumerators to collect individual information about eligible people. But, in the face of an uproar in the opposition camp, the commission retracted from its proposed plan.
   The commission, however, has completed the table work to make the new voters’ roll. It has constituted the district coordination committees and appointed 6,400 assistant registration officers. Each ward will have an assistant registration officer.
   The commission on August 13 sent a proposed budget of Tk 146.29 crore to the finance ministry for approval, but the ministry is yet to okay the budget.
   According to the proposed budget which has 37 sections, the expenditure for gathering the field level information was fixed at Tk 75 crore. The expense for printing of the materials is expected to be Tk 27 crore, and the cost of training the officials about Tk 5 crore.

The United Kingdom-based Asia Energy Corporation on Sunday submitted a proposal to the government to set up a 500 megawatt coal-fired power plant at Phulbari in Dinajpur using coal of the Phulbari coal field.
   The company’s proposal for extracting coal from the field under the open pit system, which it submitted last week, is pending with the government.
   The company’s chief executive officer in Bangladesh, Gary Lye, submitted the proposal the power plant on Sunday to the Board of Investment and the Power Development Board.
   Asia Energy will begin mining in the Phulbari coal field by 2006 and extract around 15 million tonnes of coal a year after developing the field, if the government approves its feasibility study and scheme of development.
   The proposed power plant, which would go into production in 2011 after the start of coal production in 2008, will use pulverized technology and generate 3,700 gigawatt of power every year burning 1.5 million tonnes of coal, about one tenth of the mine’s annual output.
   The company estimates that construction of the plant will need $476 million and there would be a provision for adding a second 500MW plant at the site.
   Mahmudur Rahman, executive chairman of the investment boards, also energy and mineral resources adviser, told New Age that the company submitted the proposal for setting up the power plant as per government policy, which stipulates that the plant be set up at the mouth of a mine.
   He said the company’s proposal for setting up the plant under the build-own-operate system would be sent to the next meeting of the Private Infrastructure Committee for review.
   ‘As it is an unsolicited proposal, the committee would take the suggestion of the line ministry regarding the matter,’ he said.
   Lye said that the mine-mouth location of the plant will achieve economies of scale that enable the plant to generate electricity at a competitive tariff.
   Asia Energy was supported in the preparation of the proposal and plant design by a little-known power plant development company of the UK — Black & Veatch International — and O&M Solutions of Bangladesh.
   Regarding the company’s coal field development scheme, Mahmud said the government would form a committee to review its proposal.
   ‘The committee will comprise officials of the energy and mineral resources division, Petrobangla, local and foreign experts and experts provided by the Asian Development Bank and World Bank,’ he said.
   ‘As the company has proposed for open pit system, we have to review whether it will be environment friendly. The foreign experts would suggest us in this matter as the system is new in Bangladesh.’

A new concept on negative list, proposed by Thailand in September, styled ‘common negative list’ for seven members of the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation, is set to be discussed prominently during the 8th round meeting of the trade negotiating committee of the forum, scheduled for October 10-15 in Dhaka, said official sources.
   The negotiating committee, a body of official-level trade experts, will meet on Monday to finalise a draft agreement on trade in goods among the seven members.
   The trade experts would be working on settling trade and investment issues towards a free-trade area to come into effect from July 2006.
   Members of the initiative, Bangladesh, India, Myanmar, Nepal, Bhutan, Sri Lanka and Thailand, signed a framework agreement in February 2004 for a free trade area among the seven members around the Bay of Bengal.
   AKM Fazlur Rahman, deputy secretary of commerce ministry, will lead Bangladesh at the talks to be held at Sonargaon Hotel. The meeting will be attended by about 50 delegates.
   Sources said, during the 7th meeting of the committee, held between September 12 and September 17 in Bangkok, Thailand, proposed the concept of a common negative list, instead of country-wise negative list under the agreement. The common negative list was opposed by most of the members.
   According to the proposal, items included in the common negative list would not have duty-free access within the free trade area.
   ‘Principle of reciprocity will be followed in negotiations on the proposed common negative list,’ according to the Thai proposal, on which most of the member countries have reservations, said sources.
   ‘Finalising a list of items under the proposal would be difficult considering the conflicting priorities of members since the negative list is typically drawn to protect the local industry,’ a high official of the commerce ministry told New Age.
   The accepted arrangement under the South Asian Free Trade Area is a country-wise negative list, which is yet to be finalised based on 25 per cent of products of the total tariff line of the members.

Mount Everest, the world’s highest peak, stands 8,844.43 metres (29,017 feet, two inches) above sea level, some four metres shorter than previously thought, according to the latest Chinese survey.
   The latest measurement was made by a team jointly organised by the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the State Bureau of Surveying and Mapping, Chen Bangzhu, director general of the bureau, told journalists Sunday.
   The new height compares with China’s previous measurement of Mount Qomolangma, the Tibetan name of the mountain, of 8,848.13 metres (29,029 feet, three and a half inches) which was done in 1975.
   ‘This time the measurement of Qomolangma is lower than that of the 1975 measurement,’ Chen said.
   ‘Actually the Qomolangma region is a place where the earth’s crust is moving, but the new measurement that we have announced is based on the height of the peak’s rock surface.
   ‘Before we were unable to measure the height of the rock surface, this time we measured the thickness of the ice to get the actual height of the rock surface.’
   Chen said the accuracy of the measurement had a range of plus or minus 0.21 metres, while the thickness of the ice at the summit was measured at 3.5 metres.
   The newest measurement also differs from a 1999 measurement by American scientists also using GPS satellite equipment that found the height of the mountain at 8,850 metres (29,035 feet).

The 11-Party Alliance will hold a rally in Dhaka on October 12, protesting against the price hike of essential commodities and monga in the northern districts.
   The decision was made at a meeting on Sunday at the office of Gana Forum president, Dr Kamal Hossain, where leaders of component parties were present.
   The alliance leaders expected Kamal’s participations in the programmes of the alliance. He assured them of his participation in the programmes, the meeting sources said.
   The component leaders asked Kamal Hossain to clarify his proposal to form national government. Kamal said he did not mean forming the national government before the election but after the election.

A regional leader of the underground Purba Banglar Communist Party (ML-Janajuddha) was killed in an encounter between the Rapid Action Battalion and his suspected accomplices in Mongla port area of Bagerhat early Sunday.
   With the death of Nurul Islam, also a member of Banishanta union under Dakop upazila in Khulna and convenor of the union BNP, the crossfire death toll since June 2004 rose to 406.

The prime minister, Khaleda Zia, will address the nation today on the occasion of the four-party alliance led by the BNP completing four years in state power.
   Bangladesh Television, Bangladesh Betar and private television channels will simultaneously telecast the prime minister’s speech at 6:30pm.

The 18th death anniversary of the Communist Party of Bangladesh general secretary, Mohammad Farhad, was observed on Sunday.
   A former lawmaker, Farhad was one of the main organisers of the student movement of 62 and war of independence.