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A mobile court on Thursday fined Tk 5,000 and filed two cases against general manger of Haque Brothers and Company for not printing expiry date on an item and for not mentioning weight on the labels of biscuit packets.
   Three other courts also conducted drives at a number of restaurants and realised Tk 2.53 lakh for selling rotten and adulterated food and unhygienic environment and expired licence. The courts also filed 18 cases.
   A court led by metropolitan magistrate Rokon-Ud-Doulah conducted a drive at Haque Brothers at 340, Tejgaon Industrial area and found the biscuit of Narangi brand did not have an expiry date. The court also found that none of the biscuit packets mentioned weights.
   The court filed two cases against the general manager of the company, Md Selimuzzaman, and fined him Tk 5,000.
   Selimuzzaman said the company would contest the case.
   Another court led by magistrate ABM Abul Fattah filed four cases against owners and managers of four restaurants at Gulshan.
   The court found adulterated foods and unhygienic environment at the restaurants. These restaurants were using licenses for different purpose than what it had been issued for. Some had expired licenses.
   Another court led by magistrate Muzibul Haq filed seven cases against owners and managers of different restaurants at Fakirapool bazar for rotten and stale food and unhygienic atmosphere. The court also fined owners and managers of the restaurants Tk 53,000.
   The fourth court led by metropolitan magistrate Mizanur Rahman filed seven cases against the owners and managers of different restaurants at Tejgaon for selling rotten food and unhygienic atmosphere.
   The court fined owners and managers Tk 1.10 lakh.

Seventeen dengue patients were admitted to hospital in the capital on Thursday, according to the official figure of the Dhaka City Corporation.
   Four dengue patients were admitted to Bangladesh Medical College Hospital and Central Hospital each, 3 in Holy Family Red Crescent Hospital, 2 in Khadim Hospital, 1 each in Ibne Sina, Salauddin Ash-Shifa General, Jahangir Nagar Hospital and Pan Pacific Hospital.
   Besides, thirty-seven patients are still under treatment in Dhaka.
   A health department official of the corporation said the corporation had been spraying adulticide and larvicide within 1000 yards of houses, offices or other places of the effected people.
   According to the control room of the health directorate, 11 dengue patients were admitted in hospital in the capital in 24 hours till 6:00am on Thursday.
   Five were admitted to Dhaka Medical College Hospital, 4 to Mitford, 1 to Shishu Hospital and 1 to BIRDEM.
   The control room said 513 patients were admitted to hospital with complaints of dengue infection this season.
   Fifty-five of the patients are still under treatment.
   Twenty-four in Holy Family Red Crescent Hospital, 7 each in Bangladesh Medical College and Ibne Sina, 5 in Dhaka Medical College, 4 in Mitford, 3 in Samorita, 2 in Central Hospital and 1 each in Monowara, Shishu Hospital and in BIRDEM.

A group of teachers wander from one place to the next in search of students. On the way, they encounter people of various age-groups from different walks of life in an against-all-odds bid to help and share knowledge with anyone who is willing to learn.
   This may be a story of an award winning Iranian film set in the war ravaged Kurdistan of Iran with little relevance to the Bangladesh educational scene—institutional or voluntary. But it has its parallel in a somewhat different form as reflected by the Sultan-Sofa Pathshala in Dhaka.
   The school — established 25 years ago by late thinker and maverick writer Ahmed Sofa to provide education to urban underprivileged children — is continuously on the move. The city landlords refuse to let their houses for underprivileged schooling.
   Sultan-Sofa Pathshala, which has been relocated many times since its inception amid the Nilkhet shanties in 1980 as Sultan Work and Education Centre, has had to move and shift venues twice last year and operated under the shades of ‘mango and banyan trees’ on public land for the first three months of this year.
   ‘Wherever we got a place we started teaching. Sometimes under a tree, sometimes on the veranda of a house and sometimes in an empty room of a student’s home,’ says Abul Hasan, head teacher of the school who like the other four teachers take up to eight classes per day.
   The school, now housed on the ground floor of a two-storey building at Kathalbagan area, teaches 140 students whose parents are predominantly from the low income group.
   In the morning shift, students upto class three and in the evening students from class four to eight are taught all subjects following the board syllabus.
   In addition there are lessons on general knowledge, biographies of personalities who came from poor background and every week a day and half of creative activities including story writing and telling, play writing and performing, singing, painting and poem recitation.
   The teachers also go from door to door to encourage the parents and guardians to keep sending their wards to the school.
   ‘It’s vital that the parents become conscious. We’re trying to give them lessons as well.’
   Despite its vibrant activities in three makeshift classrooms, the teachers are worried that they may have to move again by the end of this year when the contract ends.
   ‘It’s a vicious circle. Since we don’t have a permanent place, we can’t have registration. Since we don’t have registration, we don’t get help from the government,’ says Hasan, a disciple of the late Sofa.
   What about all the international and non government organisations? Why they are not extending their helping hands?
   The head teacher goes little critical of some of these organisations.
   ‘When we desperately needed financial help, one famous international organisation sent us some textbooks.’
   The school’s major success is giving hope and ambition to its pupils who predominantly come from families whose parents are rickshaw pullers, guards, vendors, salesmen, garment workers, domestic helps and peons.
   ‘I want to be a judge’ says Sharmina Akhter of class four whose father is a mason.
   ‘I want to render justice. I don’t want people stuck in jail under false allegation’, says a determined Sharmina whose uncle was in jail for four years in a false case and was recently freed. Similarly many others want to be doctor to offer free medical service.
   ‘Due to lack of treatment many suffer and die,’ says Runi Akhter and Soheli Akhter both of whom want to be doctors. Although the students have high ambitions, their expectation from the school is too little.
   Many students know very well about SM Sultan, a renowned artist, and Ahmed Sofa after whom the school has been co-named. They have never seen them alive.
   A number of them — who are very young — still do not know much about them. ‘Sultan? He’s a great scientist,’ says a confident and smiling Shohag. As Sultan-Sofa’s dream is coming true everyday through students like Shohag, knowing them well perhaps matter very little.

The government failed to construct public toilets in the capital due to scarcity of land!
   ‘The government took steps to build 100 modern public toilets at important points in the capital. But due to space constraint only 40 had been set up,’ said Abdul Mannan Bhuiyan, the minister for LGRD and cooperatives, at a press conference on Thursday.
   ‘The other 60 are in the pipeline. But space is not available,’ he told journalists on the eve of observing a sanitation month in October.
   Mannan Bhuiyan did not elaborate on the ‘shortage’ of land.
   The government and non-governmental organizations will observe the sanitation month during October as a part of several steps to achieve 100 per cent sanitation coverage by 2010.
   The minister claimed that the sanitation system has experienced about 26 per cent improvement over the past two years. ‘Fifty nine percent families have come under sanitation coverage till June this year.’
   ‘Fourteen municipalities, 25 upazilas and 482 unions have achieved 100 per cent sanitation.’
   The government is implementing a project costing about Tk 267 crore to achieve 100 per cent sanitation, he said.
   But there are only 110 public toilets, including the 40 new ones, in the Dhaka city that has about 12 million inhabitants.
   Reportedly population of Dhaka increases by 1,300 new arrivals everyday.

JU students
continue demo
No classes or examinations were held at the business administration department of Jahangirnagar University on Thursday, on the tenth day of the student movement demanding expulsion of Tanvir Ahmad Siddique, a lecturer of the department, for allegedly harassing a girl student. A photography exhibition was held on the campus and female students held a rally at Amar Ekushey. They also brought out a procession. A documentary on Shahmsunnahar Hall Movement of Dhaka University was screened.

Bomb scare at
Curzon Hall
Panic gripped students at the Curzon Hall of Dhaka University Thursday evening after a chit, saying the hall would be blown up if examinations were taken on Fridays, was found at the hall. The police were called in immediately and they conducted a search in and around the old building, now being used as the examination hall for science and bioscience faculties. They found nothing. The police suspect it was the job of the examinees who were no prepared for the examinations.

Chittagong WASA conducts raid
A Chittagong WASA mobile court realised Tk 53,000 as fine from five residential houses and filed a case on different charges on Thursday. The court led by magistrate Jotilal Kuri realised Tk 20,000 from a house in the Nasirabad housing area for installing deep water pump. The court fined Badal Chowdhury of Matizarna Tk 10,000 for using water pipe line illegally. The court also fined Nurul Kabir and Dulal Mian of the same area Tk 10,000 and Tk 3,000 for illegal water connection. Abdul Halim of Debharpar at Lalkhanbazar was fined Tk 10,000 for illegal water pipe line.

Film festival
at CU ends
A four-day Korean film festival concluded in the Theatre Institute auditorium in the Chittagong city on Thursday. Eight Korean films, including Memories of Murder, The Way Home, The Feather in Wind, Old Boy and The Painting Master, were projected. The Chittagong Film Institute and the Association of Korean Investors organised the festival. Social scientist Anupam Sen inaugurated the festival at the Studio Theatre on Monday. Bidhan Barua, chairman of the festival steering committee, presided over.

Australian medics assist DMCH doctors
An eight-member team from the Interplast Australia visited Bangladesh between august 25 and September 7 to work with plastic and reconstructive surgery department at Dhaka Medical College Hospital. Australian medical experts are is assisting in difficult and challenging surgical cases. Interplast is staffed by volunteers from Australia and New Zealand.
— New Age