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Two thousand two hundred and sixty-two children were sent to prison in 2005 although the High Court ruled exactly three years ago that any juvenile accused should not be put into jail.
   Moreover, 508 children, including 78 girls, are still in 56 prisons across the country although the court ordered the government to transfer all juvenile accused to correction homes.
   A High Court division bench of Justice Amirul Kabir Chowdhury and Justice Nijamul Haque Nasim issued a seven-point directive for the government on April 9, 2003, when disposing of a suo moto notice it had issued on the government on January 4 the same year.
   ‘Juvenile accused are to be transferred to correction homes and other approved homes with utmost expedition,’ the court had said. ‘Juvenile accused in jail must be kept apart from other prisoners.’
   Both the directives are yet to be implemented in their entirety, a study by the child rights organisation Save the Children UK suggests.
   Four hundred and boys and 78 girls were in 56 prisons, and 178 boys and 26 girls in three correction homes of Kishore Unnayan Kendra (juvenile development centre) as of March 31, says the study.
   The number of children in prison was 570 on December 31, 2005.
   The verdict has, however, instigated some progress, as the number of children sent to jails was lower in 2005 than it had been in 2004. Nearly 4,000 children were sent to jail in 2004.
   The study also says the number of children released from different prisons was higher than the number of children sent to jail in 2005. Two thousand seven hundred and fifty-four children were released in 2005.
   In 2004, around 3,000 children were released from prison, while around 4,000 were sent to jail.
   However, the prisons in Shariatpur, Faridpur, Rajbari, Chandpur, Khagrachari, Bandarban, Narail, Meherpur and Chuadanga have no juvenile inmates. No child was sent to jail in these districts either in 2005.
   In respect of confined children, the Dhaka Central Jail tops the list with 55 (54 boys and 1 girl), with the Chittagong Central Jail a close second with 52 (50 boys and 2 girls).
   The court also observed that the government should ‘consider withdrawal of juvenile accused from prosecution under Section 494 of the Code of Criminal Procedure in appropriate cases, especially from the cases charged under ordinary penal laws’.
   The section empowers public prosecutors to withdraw any person from prosecution with the consent of the court.
   ‘Taking into consideration of the provisions of Section 82 and 83 of the Penal Code,’ the court had directed, ‘the government do consider making prayers to the courts concerned for discharging the juvenile accused in appropriate cases.’
   Section 82 stipulates that no child under nine years of age
   will be convicted, tried or charged for any criminal offence as they are to be considered innocent.
   Section 83 says child aged nine to 12 years will also be free from being charged for criminal offence; however, he or she may be charged and tried if the trial court considers him or her as matured.
   The court desired that some representatives of children and non-governmental organisations should be co-opted to the high-powered national committee dealing with the enforcement of the juvenile justice system.
   The court directed that non-official jail visitors should include human rights activists, especially representatives of local children organisation.
   The last two directives have been implemented and NGOs dealing with child rights have already been included in the monitoring cell in each district.
   ‘Though the directives are yet to be implemented in its entirety, the number of children inmates in prisons is on a steady decline, as a system of monitoring juvenile criminal justice has been developed following the judgement,’ AF Hassan Ariff, president of the human rights coalition Odhikar, told New Age on Saturday.
   Ariff was the attorney general when the court delivered the verdict and was appreciated by the court in the judgement for his assistance to the court. He was disappointed when told that 508 children were still in jail.
   Nijamul Haque Nasim, who was one of the two judges of the High Court bench that delivered the verdict, said it was ‘very unfortunate that children are still languishing in prison’.
   ‘It is a clear violation of the law of the land and the verdict of the High Court,’ said Nasim, a Supreme Court lawyer and human rights activist.

Normal life was disrupted at Kansat of Shibganj upazila in Chapainawabganj on Saturday, the second day of an indefinite strike by the Palli Bidyut Unnayan Sangram Committee; there were, however, no untoward incidents.
   The committee called the strike in protest against the death of four people in an attack by local BNP activists on its procession on Thursday.
   Pro-strike activists blocked the Chapainawabganj-Sonamasjid highway for the second day by felling trees and digging hole on the road.
   The second biggest land port in the country has become almost non-operational, as goods cannot be shifted from the port. The strike has also left more than one thousand workers without a job.
   The police removed the blockade on Friday night and a number of vehicles, with imported goods, left Sonamasjid for different destinations. However, the pro-strike activists put up the blockade again.
   Imported goods, especially perishable items such as onion, are now rotting at the port.
   Samiul Haque Liton, member secretary of the C&F Agents Association, said more than 70 trucks with perishable items remained stranded at the port because of the deadlock over the past three days. ‘If such incidents continue to happen, importers will be discouraged to use the port, eventually resulting in its closure.’
   The committee did not stage any demonstration or hold rally on Saturday, as it was a day for hat (market) in the locality. It announced that it would stage a rally on Sunday.
   Many people have meanwhile left their houses fearing arrest after a case was filed with the Shibganj police against more than a thousand people over Thursday’s clash.
   The police superintendent of Chapainawabganj, Mahfuzul Islam, confirmed filing of the case but declined to disclose the identities of either the complainant or the accused.
   Local people termed the police attitude ‘mysterious’.
   The Rajshahi City Corporation mayor, Mizanur Rahman Minu, also the minister-in-charge of Chapainawabganj, convened a press conference at the local circuit house, his second in two days.
   He termed the committee members ‘criminals’ and alleged that its convener Golam Rabbani was an extortionist.
   ‘Although we have agreed with a number of demands of the committee, its convener continued the movement with an ill political motive,’ Minu said.
   He accused the committee of launching an attack on the peaceful BNP rally on Thursday and killing four people.
   Minu alleged that Rabbani had misappropriated the compensation money given to the families of two deceased in the January 24 tragedy.
   Local BNP lawmaker Shahjahan Miah echoed Minu’s allegation and warned that action would be taken against the committee under the existing law.
   Rabbani denied the allegations.
   Mother of Anwar, one of the deceased, said the government had given Tk 1.50 lakh and the money was deposited with the bank account of Anwar’s wife.

The World Bank has described the finance ministry as incapable of pursuing the restructuring of nationalised commercial banks and asked it delegate its authority to the Bangladesh Bank so that the latter can materialise the objective of NCB modernisation.
   The multilateral lending agency suggested that the powers of top NCB executives and boards, and the working group, formed to accelerate the restructuring programme, should be clarified and specific.
   An aide memoire, sent recently to the ministry and the Bangladesh Bank, also underlines the lending agency’s concern over the role of the Finance Division of the finance ministry, as the division has so far failed to implement any of the recommendations of two consulting firms, appointed for Janata and Sonali banks.
   ‘The effectiveness of these consultants depends largely on whether or not their suggestions and recommendations are implemented,’ says the memo, prepared on the basis of the March 2-8 visit of the bank’s mission, headed by its sector manager for South Asia, Simon C Bell.
   ‘At the moment, these consultants submit their recommendations and reports to the Working Group and the finance division.
   ‘There is also very little feedback from the finance division on these reports and comments of the WG. As a result, NCBs are unable to implement the recommendations of the consultants.’
   ‘The mission strongly urged the finance division to delegate its authority to BB [Bangladesh Bank] or the WG for routine matters, given its lack of capacity and its inability to provide timely and constructive feedback on the consultant’s recommendations.’
   The government has initiated the restructuring of Sonali, Janata, Agrani and Rupali banks under the World Bank-funded ‘enterprise growth and bank modernisation’ project in 2004.
   Three consulting firms with team members were appointed for the corporatisation of Sonali, Janata and Agrani by 2007, sources said.
   The team of consultants, both foreign and local, have so far submitted about 20 reports on the state of each bank’s credit, disbursement, accounting, human resource and information technology, the sources said.
   A working group on the NCB restructuring, headed by Nazrul Huda, a deputy governor of the central bank, reviews the reports of the consulting firms from time to time and suggests the finance ministry on future courses of action, the sources added.
   ‘The mission is concerned that the current arrangement whereby the team of consultants act only as advisors to NCB management further exacerbates the gravity of the obstacles to restructuring,’ says the World Bank’s memo.
   ‘Agrani, Sonali and Janata have not reaped the benefit of services provided by their consultants. The fees and costs incurred in hiring these consultants can not be justified unless their recommendations are implemented to improve the financial condition of these banks.’
   Underlying the need for clarifying the powers of the NCBs, the working group and the consulting firms, the lending agency has termed the existing coordination between the three entities and the finance ministry ‘ineffective’.
   ‘…, it is necessary for the finance division to fully inform the perimeters of the powers that can be exercised by the CEO and Board of NCBs and delegate sufficient powers to the CEOs of the NCBs,’ reads the memo.
   ‘The mission was also informed that GOB [the government] had instructed the consultants not to share these reports with the management of the NCBs they worked for.
   ‘For instance, the consultants report on vision and strategy for Sonali Bank has not been shared with Sonali management. It is clear that the current coordination vis-à-vis the MOF, NCB and consultants is ineffective.’
   Finance ministry high officials declined to comment on the issue.
   ‘Sorry, I cannot comment on the matter as we are really frustrated and appalled by a number of recent communications from the World Bank that have humiliated the ministry and the banking system, particularly the NCBs,’ a high official in the division told New Age.
   Interestingly, the bank has recently termed most of general managers and directors of the nationalised banks ineffective and inefficient, which sparked resentment in the NCB rank and file.

The government’s decision on short-term commercial borrowing and non-adjustment of oil prices may land the caretaker government in trouble, economists warned on Saturday.
   The warning comes in the wake of a government decision to borrow $500 million from Standard Chartered and HSBC banks to foot the import bill for oil.
   ‘The loans will have to be paid when the caretaker government is in power to conduct the next general elections,’ Professor Wahiduddin Mahmud, president of the Bangladesh Economic Association, told a symposium on ‘Monetary Policy of Bangladesh: Balancing Inflation and Growth’ in the capital Dhaka.
   ‘Now, some minister and bureaucrats have expressed their desire to borrow more from foreign banks, which will an additional burden for the caretaker government,’ he said. ‘It is not possible to solve the problem of oil import bills payment by such commercial borrowing.’
   Debapriya Bhattacharya, executive director of the research organisation Centre for Policy Dialogue, observed, in a similar vein, that importing oil through high-cost financing would definitely put the foreign exchange reserve under pressure during the caretaker government’s tenure.
   ‘More importantly, the government is not taking any decision to adjust the fuel prices domestically, as it is an election year,’ he said. ‘It may fall on the caretaker government to make the decision although it has no power to take such policy decisions.’
   Some reasonable adjustment of fuel price is essential, Debapriya said.
   Salehuddin Ahmed, governor of the Bangladesh Bank, however, insisted that repayment of these loans would not be very difficult and would not put the balance of payment under severe pressure.
   ‘We have adequate foreign exchange reserve for such contingencies,’ he told journalists on the sidelines of the symposium.
   He also justified the lending, saying the fund would have to be channelled from the budget; otherwise, it would create fiscal pressure for the government.
   MA Taslim, who presented the keynote at the symposium, said oil subsidy was nearly equal to the value of foreign aid this fiscal year.
   ‘Much of the problem that the government finds itself caught up in is due to that fact that it fully controls the oil business,’ he added.
   Taslim suggested that, by involving the private sector in oil trade, political consideration might be taken out of oil trade and adjustment of oil prices can be made.

The government’s initiatives to check smuggling of fertiliser, fuel and edible oil to India and Myanmar have been largely unsuccessful due to shortage of manpower and inadequate logistics as well as new tactics employed by smugglers’ syndicates to outwit lawmen.
   Officials at the home ministry and the agencies concerned said the anti-smuggling drives had failed due to the shortcomings of the law enforcing agencies and the new tactics employed by smugglers.
   They said more extensive drives were needed to effectively fight rampant smuggling of fertiliser, fuel and edible oil, imported with hard-earned foreign exchange. The smuggling is causing great damage to the country’s economy, they added.
   Against the backdrop of the smuggling of fertiliser and fuel through the country’s long and porous borders, the home ministry had earlier asked the navy, Bangladesh Rifles and Coastguard to chalk out an effective strategy to fight the menace.
   Apart from regular drives, the navy and the Coastguard in September 2005 pinpointed 15 possible smuggling routes on waterways and launched a special drive to curb smuggling.
   A huge amount of fertiliser and fuel was seized and a number of smugglers netted in the drive, which never gained momentum due to shortage of manpower and logistics, including speedboats.
   Particularly the Coastguard is seriously lacking both manpower and logistics to carry on the anti-smuggling drive on the identified routes.
   ‘Smugglers quickly change their tactics following comprehensive drives at different river points,’ the director-general of the Coastguard, Commodore Sarwar Jahan Nizam, told the 37th meeting of the National Committee to Resist Smuggling.
   Bypassing the identified routes, the smugglers, on small boats, sail to the deep sea through narrow channels, making it difficult for the navy and the Coastguard to track them down, mainly for want of an adequate number of speedboats, he said in the meeting.
   He suspects that small boats are being used to transport fertiliser to larger vessels that smuggle it out of the country.
   Nizam stressed the need for supply of some speedboats on an emergency basis to continue the anti-smuggling drive. The representative from the navy, Captain HR Bhuiyan, also requested the meeting to make some speedboats available for them.
   The state minister for home affairs, Lutfozzaman Babar, said some speedboats could be rented from the Water Development Board, the Directorate of Roads and Highways and the Directorate of Forest on a temporary basis.
   The navy representative informed the meeting that a joint study report on combating smuggling was prepared by the navy and the Coastguard and has already been submitted to the home ministry. An inter-ministerial meeting will be convened soon to review the study report. Representatives from the cabinet division and armed forces will be invited to the meeting.
   Diesel and fertiliser are regularly smuggled out of the country through different land-ports and other border points. Mir Nasir Hossain, of the Federation of Bangladesh Chambers of Commerce and Industries, told the meeting that Indian trucks were being used to carry the smuggled goods.
   ‘Filling stations located at the ports and other border points help the criminals to smuggle out diesel by obtaining extra quantities of fuel from the government depots. Besides, the pumps are also being set up near the border,’ he said.
   The director-general of the DGFI put emphasis on involving the cross-section of people in the drive and making them aware of the severely adverse impacts of smuggling on the country’s economy.
   The divisional commissioner of Rajshahi, Md Mosleuddin, claimed that smuggling through the division borders was ‘under control’. He, however, admitted that a small quantity of diesel is being smuggled out with the help of the locals.
   Lufozzaman Babar said in a market economy goods tend to drift towards the high price region from the low price areas. ‘We have to control it at any cost,’ he said. ‘The cross-section of the people will be included in the campaign as our borders are very porous.’
   He also asked the law enforcing agencies to increase their vigilance to curb smuggling of fertiliser and fuel.

For the first time in Bangladesh, noted painters and teachers of fine arts have put their works on auction to raise funds for the celebration of Pahela Baishakh, the first day of Bangla New Year.
   The auction is taking place at the Zainul Gallery of the Institute of Fine Art of Dhaka University.
   The students of the institute have been celebrating Pahela Baishakh with pomp and pageantry for the past 17 years.
   Some 23 noted artists, all teachers of the institute, have submitted their works to launch the fund-raiser. The auction will continue up to Monday.
   Besides the auction, more than 300 students of the institute are painting pictures in water-colour and are also painting clay plates to raise funds for the gala celebration.
   Some alumni of the institute and noted artists who did not study there have also joined the students in the hectic activities.
   Revealing the reason for holding this unprecedented auction, Shishir Bhattacharya, a teacher of painting department, said this year the students opposed taking sponsorship from any corporate house as they thought it would undermine their role.
   The students and teachers of the institute will bear the entire expenses of this year’s celebration, he said.
   ‘The festive mood that grips the institute during the Baishakh celebrations helps the students of fine arts to develop their skills,’ he added.
   The institute’s director, Farida Zaman, said she considered such celebrations as part of the academic activities of the institute, and the institute had formed a committee headed by her to facilitate the preparations and related activities.
   Along with the music session of Chhayanaut at Ramna Batamul in the morning, which has for long been one of the highlights of Pahela Baishakh celebrations, the masked procession of the students of the Institute of Fine Art carrying paper sculptures of rural motifs has become a tradition in welcoming the Bengali New Year. It was first brought out in 1989 at the initiative of some alumni of the institute. Symbols of Bengali folk culture are carried in the procession, and this year the students have selected the tiger and horse, symbolising the boldness of the people, especially the toiling farmers. Apart from these, masks of owl and fish and other motifs are also being prepared.
   The students said they wanted to make the occasion more colourful this time as terror threats in the past few years have taken some gloss off the Pahela Baishakh celebrations.

Nepali soldiers Saturday shot dead a demonstrator, a political leader said, as opposition parties postponed a pro-democracy rally in the capital following government threats to shoot curfew violators.
   The army gunned down the demonstrator in the popular tourist town of Pokhara, 200 kilometers west of Kathmandu, KP Oli, vice general secretary of the Nepal Communist (Unified Marxist-Leninist) party, said.
   There was no comment from the army and no further details were available.
   The reported shooting came after the government imposed a daytime curfew on Kathmandu and surrounding areas early Saturday and warned violators could be shot. Pokhara was not included in the curfew order.
   Oli said the seven-party opposition alliance had rescheduled the rally, originally planned for Saturday, to Sunday.
   The rally is seen as the highlight of a general strike called to back demands for King Gyandendra to restore democracy after seizing power last year.
   ‘Because of the curfew, people can’t move freely and we’re also worried about the risk to civilian lives,’ Oli said.
   The decision to delay the rally came after the army said clashes with Maoist rebels left at least 14 dead in the west of the insurgency-racked kingdom.
   Authorities cut mobile telephone services and imposed the curfew from 10:00am until 9:00pm (0415 GMT-1515 GMT) in Kathmandu, neighbouring Patan and other areas in the vicinity to force cancellation of the rally.
   Twenty-five students were arrested in the capital, the police said, the latest in a wave of detentions this week aimed at derailing the protests. The home minister, Kamal Thapa, said Friday 751 people had been arrested since Monday.
   There were also running street battles between police and curfew-breakers in Patan’s alleys in the Kathmandu valley.
   There were no vehicles or civilians on Kathmandu’s streets as scores of machine-gun toting soldiers and police patrolled after the start of the daytime curfew.
   Meanwhile, the army reported 11 Maoist rebels and three security men had been killed in clashes late Friday and early Saturday in the kingdom’s west.
   ‘Thousands of terrorists simultaneously attacked various security bases and government offices in Rupandehi and Kapilbastu district headquarters,’ an army statement said.
   The rebels, who have been fighting for the king’s overthrow, have called a ceasefire in the Kathmandu valley to aid the protests but have kept up attacks in other parts of the country.
   Kathmandu residents were waiting for a government announcement on whether a night-time curfew imposed Wednesday would be extended. It was not known how long the daytime curfew would last.
   The home minister said Friday the government might impose a state of emergency in the kingdom paralysed by a four-day general strike since Thursday called by opposition parties.
   The general strike backed by the rebels has shut businesses, shops and schools. Many residents had stockpiled food. The international community has denounced the crackdown, with the United States, the United Nations, the European Union, India and Japan calling for an end to arrests and release of those detained.
   The opposition parties have the support of the Maoists who formed a loose alliance with political leaders last November to restore democracy in the impoverished Himalayan kingdom.

Using a security hole at the parliament building, unidentified assailants Saturday morning started fire in three places inside the building, including the entrance to the speaker’s office.
   The fires were started in about two hours from 8:00am on the last day of the two-day weekend when none but the security personnel were supposed to be there.
   The two other places where fire broke out are the law section on fifth floor and the committee-9 on the seventh floor of the building, in which furniture and some important files were burnt.
   Security was tightened in and around the national assembly building soon after the incidents with the deployment of additional forces in uniform and undercover, sources in the parliament secretariat said.
   A six-member committee, headed by acting secretary of the parliament secretariat, Abu Naki Rezwanul Huq, was formed to investigate the incidents. The committee was asked to report in 24 hours.
   Another inquiry committee, headed by additional police commissioner Faruk Ahmed, was formed to investigate the incidents.
   An employee at the machine room first detected the fire and informed the security personnel that smoke was coming out of the 8th floor at about 8:00am.
   The security personnel started searching, found fire at the door to the committee 4 and 9 on the 8th floor and put out the fire.
   A release of the public relations branch of the parliament secretariat said the fire had damaged some portions of carpets in front of the gate to the speaker’s office. ‘At least 12 files in the law section and at the duct door of the committee branch were burnt.’
   The police, Rapid Action Battalion and intelligence agencies collected evidences from the place immediately after the incident.
   The speaker, Jamiruddin Sircar, also went to his office. He summoned his deputy, Akhtar Hamid Siddiqui and other high officials and sat together to discus the next course of action. He formed the six-member committee.
   The speaker also informed the state minister of home affairs of the fire incidents in a letter.
   Both the committees began investigation in the afternoon, but they could not to arrest anybody or find any clue to the fire till 9:00pm.
   Subinspector Mojaffar Ahmed, duty officer at the Tejgaon police station, told New Age in the evening that no case had been filed till 9:00pm.
   Jamiruddin Sircar asked the authorities to verify the educational certificate of 20 officials following the allegation that a number of officials got jobs with forged certificate.

Instead of making it a case of mere survival, Bangladesh will try to put up a decent show when they meet Australia in the first Test of the GrameenPhone series beginning today at the Fatullah Cricket Stadium.
   Television channel StarSports will broadcast the match live from 9.30am.
   ‘When we toured Australia in 2003, we only wanted to survive. But now I want performance,’ said Bangladesh captain Habibul Bashar at a briefing on Saturday.
   And Bashar believes his team is capable of showing a good performance. ‘Australia are, no doubt, a very good team. But in the past we have played against some other good teams as well. So there is nothing to be scared of,’ he said. ‘What we need is to put in our best in all the three departments — batting, bowling and fielding.’
   Although the Met Office forecasts a rain during the course of the game, Bangladesh decided to go into the match with two spinners and two seamers, a format which has been followed traditionally during a home game.
   The spinners are none other than two left-handers Mohammad Rafique and Enamul Haque. However, there is change in the seam bowling department as Syed Russell was asked to make way for spearhead Mashrafee bin Murtaza.
   Russell looked to be in a good touch during the home series against Sri Lanka, but coach Dav Whatmore said they were not in a position to play three seamers in a game.
   ‘We make a decision based on what might happen. I saw a dry pitch and it suggested both
   the spinners [Mohammad Rafique and Enamul Haque] have a good chance to do well,’ he said.
   Captain Habibul Bashar, however, did not find the pitch as turning as it has been expected. ‘I am not sure how the pitch will behave. I have played many matches on this turf and I never saw it very turning, although I expect it will be slow and the ball will keep low.’
   There is a change in the batting department as well. Rajin Saleh, who scored a brilliant century in the final one-day match against Kenya, has been rewarded with a place in the Test team at the expense of beleaguered Nafees Iqbal.
   Apart from Russell and Nafees, Alok Kapali is the other player in the 14-member squad not to have a place in the playing eleven.
   Australia also announced a strong team for the match with both the leg-spinners, Shane Warne and Stuart MacGill, in the playing eleven. Three seamers — Jason Gillespie, Brett Lee and Stuart Clark — also got the nod to make the attack as formidable as possible.
   Squads:
   Bangladesh: Habibul Bashar (captain), Khaled Mashud, Javed Omar, Mohammad Rafique, Rajin Saleh, Mohammad Ashraful, Mashrafee bin Murtaza, Aftab Ahmed, Enamul Huque, Shahriar Nafees and Shahadat Hossain.
   Australia: Ricky Ponting (captain), Adam Gilchrist, Stuart Clark, Michael Clarke, Matthew Hayden, Michael Hussey, Brett Lee, Stuart MacGill, Damien Martyn, Shane Warne and Jason Gillespie.

A Bangladeshi was killed by the Indian Border Security Force on Saturday near pillar number 738 in the Panchagarh frontier area on Saturday.
   The victim was identified as Abu Taleb, 35, son of Abdul Jabber of Jutapukuri under Bhajalpur union.
   The Bangladesh Rifles 22 battalion sources said Taleb died on the spot when the BSF members of the Jatribari camp opened fire on him, while he was crossing the area along with his cattle at around 1:00pm.
   The BDR members recovered the body and after post-mortem examinations, handed it over to the family members.

Taking no chances ahead of the Rae Bareli election, the Congress president, Sonia Gandhi, has resigned from the Chairpersonship of the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation.
   Gandhi's resignation comes five days before the issue of notification for the Lok Sabha by-election from Rae Bareli, which became vacant on March 23 following her resignation from Parliament and the National Advisory Committee Chairpersonship in the wake of controversy over the office of profit issue.
   She resigned from the two posts after opposition parties BJP and TDP petitioned the president seeking her disqualification as MP on the ground that she held an office-of-profit.
   Two days back, Gandhi had resigned from the Chairperson-ship of the Jallianwala Bagh National Trust.
   Gandhi, who had already announced her decision to contest again from Rae Bareli, apparently wants to avoid any legal challenge by relinquishing these posts. The bye-election is scheduled on May 8.

The government has postponed a plan to purchase 13 new aircraft for Biman Bangladesh Airlines due to fund crisis and instead took a decision to find out a strategic partner for the survival of the loss-making national flag carrier.
   Earlier at the end of 2005, the civil aviation and tourism ministry sent a proposal to purchase 13 new passenger planes—eight Airbuses and five Boeings — to the cabinet committee on public procurement for approval.
   Biman sources said that in a recent meeting presided over by the prime minister, Khaleda Zia, and attended by senior ministers and top officials of Biman and the civil aviation and tourism ministry, also decided to take dry lease or wet lease of two or three more aircraft to maintain the flight schedules of the national flag carrier which incurred a staggering Tk 250 crore loss in the last fiscal year.
   Biman operates as many as 26 international and six domestic flights with a dwindling fleet of only 13 airliners — five wide-bodied DC-10s, four Airbus A-310-300 and four F-28s.
   The meeting also decided to withdraw the ageing DC-10 from the Biman fleet within four months as the planes have become obsolete resulting in frequent engine troubles and high maintenance costs.
   ‘There is no guarantee that flight schedules could be maintained with this ageing fleet and Biman will continue to suffer unless we get rid of this ageing fleet,’ said a top official of Biman.
   The official said that the DC-10s might be barred from flying over Europe and the United States within one year if Biman did not replace the planes which were more than 29 years old. Moreover, spare parts of the DC-10 are in short supply and very expensive.
   ‘The only way to overcome the crisis is to replace the ageing fleet of DC-10s with new generation aircraft,’ said a source in Biman referring to the flight crisis which had plagued Biman in February when three DC-10s and two Airbuses went out of order forcing the airline to reschedule more than one hundred flights to various destinations.
   The meeting also directed Biman to close down the loss-making routes and to concentrate on the profit-making routes.
   Sources said that though Biman was incurring heavy losses every year due to mismanagement, corruption and lack of aircraft, all of its 40 flights to the eight Middle Eastern destinations were making profits.
   These routes bring over 60 percent of Biman’s revenue. Biman carries at least 80 percent of its passengers on these routes — Riyadh, Jeddah, Dammam, Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Maskat, Bahrain and Kuwait.
   On the other hand, most of its flights to other destinations including London, New York and Japan are incurring heavy losses. The decision to operate Biman flights on New York and Tokyo routes again was not driven by marketing plan, sources pointed out.

The US president, George W Bush, on Saturday expressed his opposition to granting automatic citizenship to those who had crossed the US border illegally after a Republican-sponsored immigration reform plan collapsed in the US Senate.
   ‘We must ensure that those who break our laws are not granted an automatic path to citizenship,’ Bush said in his weekly radio address.
   The comment appears to place Bush at odds with two key proposals considered by the Senate over the past weeks, which offer legalisation—and eventual citizenship—to all or most of an estimated 11 million illegal immigrants currently living in the United States.
   Under a measure introduced by Democrat Edward Kennedy and Republican John McCain, the undocumented workers already in the country would have been allowed to apply for temporary legal status for six years, pay a 2,000-dollar fine, and apply for citizenship following a background check and an English language test.
   When it became apparent that this proposal would fail, Republican Senators Chuck Hagel and Mel Martinez came up with a compromise that divides all illegals into three categories.
   Under their plan, those who have been in the United States for five or more years would qualify for a work visa and later citizenship. Those with less than two years of residency would be asked to leave while the rest would be able to participate in a future guest worker programme.
   The Hagel-Martinez compromise collapsed amid bitter recrimination on Friday after Democratic Minority Leader Harry Reid moved to drastically limit the number of amendments allowed to the floor, and then supporters of the measure failed to muster the votes to cut off debate.
   The president has not formally endorsed either of the bills.
   But White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said Bush was convinced that those, who had crossed into the country illegally, have broken the law.
   In his address, Bush also said that granting amnesty to illegal immigrants would be unfair to those who obey the law.
   ‘Amnesty would also be unwise, because it would encourage others to break the law and create new waves of illegal immigration,’ he went on to say.
   The most recent opinion poll on the subject, conducted by Fox News and Opinion Dynamics, showed that 81 per cent of Americans believe it would be unfair to grant rights to illegal aliens while thousands of people wait each year to come to the United States legally.
   But Bush and members of Congress are also under pressure from the increasingly powerful Latino community, which played a crucial role in the president’s re-election in 2004 but may now defect, many Republicans fear, because of the impasse on immigration.
   Joining the blame game, the president placed the responsibility for the stalemate squarely on the shoulders on Senate Democratic Minority Leader Harry Reid because of his stance on amendments.

BNP secretary-general Abdul Mannan Bhuiyan on Saturday criticised Awami League for imposing preconditions for holding the dialogue on electoral reforms.
   ‘The dialogue can hardly begin if a series of preconditions are inflicted on us,’ he said while addressing a function held at his official residence.
   He, however, called upon the opposition to join the dialogue with an open mind.
   ‘Join the dialogue with an open mind if you really want to hold a meaningful one,’ he said.
   The ruling party stalwart made the remarks after 48 hours of receiving a letter from rival Awami League’s general secretary, Abdul Jalil.
   Jalil on Thursday, in a letter to Bhuiyan, expressed the desire to hold a bipartisan talk, excluding the Jamaat-e-Islami, a key ally of BNP.
   ‘It is unfair to expect that we will agree with everything (pre-conditions and proposals),’ Mannan Bhuiyan said. ‘In fact they (AL) do not want to really participate in the dialogue.’
   The function was organised to welcome about 200 former AL leaders of Mannan Bhuiyan’s constituency in Shibpur in Narsingdi district who have joined the BNP.
   Bhuiyan, also convener of the ministerial-level committee on law and order, criticised Awami League for the latter’s ‘conflicting’ stance and statements on the Islamist militant issue.
   ‘They (AL) do not want the militants to be wiped out,’ he said.
   ‘Awami League wants to see that the government is in trouble because of militant issues,’ he added.
   The LGRD minister, however, sought cooperation from the opposition to continue development activities and check the price spiral of essential commodities.
   In parliamentary democracy, cooperation between the ruling and opposition parties is a must, he added.
   Listing the development activities of the government in education, communications, law and order and health sectors, the minister said that continuation of BNP’s rule will be helpful to carry on development of the country.
   Among the former Awami League leaders who joined in BNP, Jasimuddin Bhuiyan, Shamim Bhuiyan and Anwara Begum spoke at the function.

As discrimination on the grounds of religion is an unfortunate reality for many Bangladeshi Muslims in Britain, they now feel that education and skills can be the only means to overcome their identity crisis and counter the difficulties they are facing.
   The British government is also engaged with all the faiths to retain the country’s multi-ethnic and multi-religious identity, but the minority Muslims are facing Islamophobia as a major threat, which they know has to be dissipated by spreading knowledge of Islam and its essence.
   The government is also preparing a law to check religious discrimination and harassment and is vigorously trying to promote dialogue between different faiths and cultures to ensure that members of all faiths and agnostics enjoy the same opportunities, said British officials.
   Kamruzzaman, a leader of the Bangladesh Islamic Education Centre and Mosque and the Oxfordshire Bangladeshi Association in Oxford, told the news agency, ‘There is discrimination being suffered by Muslim job-seekers. Although there is no bar to applying for any job, preference is given to those who are not Muslims. It cannot be proved, but you can sense it.’
   However, a Bangladeshi-British national, Mohammad Mushfique Uddin, the chief executive of the Ebrahim Community College in London, thinks that if a Muslim has the required educational qualifications and necessary skills, he or she will definitely get a good job. He said he knows many Muslims getting white collar jobs and many who are now in high positions.
   However Mushfique, who is offering Islamic education combined with science and social sciences, said Islamophobia is a major concern which must be confronted with more knowledge of Islam and by making education market-oriented.
   According to the 2001 census, there are 1.6 million Muslims in Britain, which is now projected at 1.8 million. Seventy-five per cent of the Muslims in the UK came from South Asia, mostly from Pakistan and Bangladesh. Muslims are also the second largest community (2.8 per cent) in the UK after Christians (71.8 per cent).
   The director of the London Muslim Centre, Dilowar Khan, said they were preserving their Muslim identity as it was their main concern.
   ‘There are threats, of course, as we are not the dominant culture here. There were repression and assaults after the 7/7 bombings in London, like hurling abusive words that were mostly directed at the women wearing hizab,’ he said.
   Dr Daud Abdullah, an official of the Muslim Council of Britain, said Muslims have been facing discrimination in Britain over the years for their religious faith. ‘If women wear hizab, many of them are deprived of their jobs,’ he said.
   However, the British Home Office through its Cohesion and Faiths Unit is trying to forge partnerships between the government, the different religious communities and other government departments.
   Maqsood Ahmed, an adviser to the Minority Faiths at the CFU, said they were helping people with different faiths but shared values to work together towards common goals, and help to create racial tolerance and mutual respect by using the shared doctrines and common values of all faiths and maintaining inter-faith solidarity.
   The terrorist attacks on July 7 and 21 in 2005 in London reinforced the need to address the issue of extremism, and to tackle the issues of inequality, discrimination, deprivation and inconsistent policies.
   The government has formed Muslim forums on extremism and Islamophobia, is arranging countrywide ‘roadshows’ of religious scholars, and is engaged with the National Advisory Council of Imams and Mosques across the country.
   As part of the government’s engagement with the Islamic world, it formed ‘Engaging with the Islamic World Group’ that is part of the government’s Directorate for Defence and Strategic Threats.
   ‘It works to counter the ideological and theological underpinnings of the terrorist narrative to prevent radicalisation, particularly among the young, in the UK and overseas, and increase understanding of and engagement with Muslim countries and communities and to work with them to promote peaceful, political, economic and social reforms,’ said Thom Reilly of the EIWG.
   However, Dr Hasan Abedin of the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies said there was no specific law to cope with religious discrimination as yet, despite the situation in Britain being quite different from the other EU countries.
   ‘The UK is open and has a community flavour, which you will not see in France or the Netherlands. There is a delicate balance at the moment in the society, and the government is interested to preserve the image,’ Dr Hasan said.
   He suggested that the community people must get involved to improve the situation.
   ‘Law is not enough and it is not the end or beginning. Discrimination caused by religion or skin colour is an age-old problem, which will not vanish because of a law overnight. It will help, but not change the situation overnight,’ he said.

At least two persons, including a child, were killed and at least over fifty injured when a nor’wester swept over Gazipur Friday night.
   Communication between Dhaka and Narsindi remained suspended for at least nine hour as the strong wind derailed two bogies at the Tongi Railway Junction.
   Local sources said the wind caused huge losses in different areas of the district, Gazipur sadar, Tongi, Shreepur and Kapasia.
   At Gazipur sadar, a child, Sharmin, 4, died on the spot while Sharmin’s father construction worker Aziz Mia, 40, mother garments worker Parul, 30, sister Nasrin, 5, brother Farukh, 2, and garments worker Naima, 25, were injured as a wall of their room collapse on them when they were asleep at about 10.00pm.
   Local people took them to hospital.
   Night guard Fazar Ali, 50, died on the spot as he got entangled in live electric wire in front of the Asia Filling station at Gazipura on the Dhaka–Mymensingh Highway.
   At Tongi, gusty wind blew two empty bogies of a container train to the Dhaka-Narashindi Road, disrupting the communication.
   Saturday day morning, a rescue train restored the two bogies, clearing the road.
   Again, at least 40 passengers were injured critically when a Dhaka-bund mini bus from Gazipur collided head on with a Gazipur-bound bus at Nolzani on the Dhaka–Gazipur Road Friday night.
   Local people rescued the injured and sent them to hospital.
   On Friday, two persons were killed by lightening at village Kaira under Ullapara upazila in Sirajgonj and at least 200 people injured while nor’wester swept over 15 villages under Kazipur in the district in the evening.
   The deceased were identified as Abu Hanif, son of Mohammad Ali, and Asmat Ali, son of Abdur Rashid of village Kaira-Mohishkola.
   Of the injured, at least 10 were admitted to Sirajgonj General Hospital while 90 others to Kazipur upazila hospital and the rest were to different clinics and hospitals in Bogra.
   The strong wind with hailstorms damaged about two-thousand houses, uprooted three thousand trees and damaged standing crops of about five-thousand acres.
   Besides this, mosques and educational institutes of 15 villages were also damaged.

Health condition of the Awami League general secretary, Abdul Jalil, undergoing treatment at Mount Elizabeth Hospital in Singapore, has improved slightly.
   Jalil was airlifted to Singapore from Dhaka Thursday night as his health condition deteriorated.

The leader of the opposition in parliament, Sheikh Hasina, also the Awami League president, on Saturday urged the people to think twice before casting votes for the alliance candidates in the next general elections saying that they would destroy the country by looting if they are voted to power again.
   ‘Voting them to power again means giving them another chance to plunder public wealth...think twice before casting votes for their candidates,’ she told a prize distribution ceremony at Bangabandhu Bhaban.
   Bangabandhu Shishu Kishore Mela organised the programme with its president Mia Mansuf in the chair.
   The AL president distributed prizes among the tiny tots of the national cultural competition organised on the occasion of National Children Day.
   Hasina again took a swipe at the prime minister, Khaleda Zia, for what she said was her false statement in a Time magazine interview. ‘The prime minister in her interview has said she came to know about militancy in Bangladesh after August 17, 2005 when her government itself banned several Islamist outfits in February of the same year. Was the prime minister sleeping at the time?’ she questioned.
   Referring to the arrest of the top militant leaders, Hasina said militancy could not be eliminated by capturing only two leaders and urged the prime minister to arrest their patrons in the interests of the country.
   Hasina said the two arrested militant kingpins need to be quizzed properly to extract the names of their patrons.

The Palestinian prime minister, Ismail Haniya, and the president, Mahmud Abbas, denounced Friday the European Union and the United States for suspending aid payments, warning the move punished ordinary people.
   ‘These decisions were hasty and unjust,’ Haniya said in a press conference following his meeting with Abbas.
   ‘The world should respect the choice of the Palestinian people,’ said Haniya, a senior member of the Islamic radical Hamas movement.
   Abbas said that ‘the Palestinian people should not be punished for their democratic choice.’
   By cutting the aid, the United States and EU were ‘punishing all the people, workers and families,’ Abbas added.
   The Hamas-dominated Palestinian Authority received two blows Friday as both Brussels and Washington announced they were severing direct aid.
   A spokeswoman for EU External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner confirmed in Brussels that aid payments had been suspended ‘for the time being’.
   The European Commission, the executive arm of the EU, had approved the payment of 120 million euros in February to a caretaker Palestinian government following the Palestinian elections of January 25.
   But it warned that it could not provide aid to a Hamas-led government unless the militant group renounces violence, recognises Israel and agrees to abide by previous Palestinian agreements with the Jewish state.
   The EU sends around 500 million euros (600 million dollars) a year to the cash-strapped Palestinian Authority, making it the largest donor.
   The United States also announced it would suspend direct aid to the Palestinian government but said it would boost funding for humanitarian aid distributed to Palestinians through the United Nations.
   State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said the cutoff came as Hamas has not complied with demands that it reject violence and acknowledge Israel’s right to exist.
   The Palestinian Authority is already facing a financial crisis, with Haniya declaring earlier this week that the government coffers were empty.

Life in Zimbabwe is shorter than anywhere else in the world, with neither men nor women expected to live to 40, World Health Organisation statistics showed on Friday.
   The WHO’s World Health Report for 2006 said the average life expectancy in the AIDS and poverty-stricken country was 36 years — less than half of the 82-year life span in Japan, which lies at the top of the table with San Marino and Monaco.
   The report used the latest data from 2004. Last year’s report, based on 2003, put Zimbabwe’s average life expectancy one year higher at 37.
   Women in Zimbabwe were the worst-off in the world, living an average 34 years, down from 36, the WHO data showed. Male life expectancy was 37 years, unchanged from 2003.
   Zimbabwe’s HIV infection rate has actually fallen in recent years to around a fifth of the population, apparently due to increased condom use and a reduction in sex partners, giving rare encouragement to a country battling its worst economic and political crisis since independence in 1980.
   But the population of some 12.5 million still has one of the world’s higher HIV prevalence rates, and more than half the infections and deaths strike women.
   All 10 countries with the shortest life expectancy were in Africa, with people in Swaziland and Sierra Leone also expected to die before 40.