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The education minister, M Osman Farruk, has thrown in the towel in the fight against irregularities by a good number of private universities and branches of some foreign universities in Bangladesh.
   The education ministry ‘can do nothing’ although it has noticed that a number of private universities are actually doing manpower business in the name of sending students to universities overseas, he said when talking to journalists at his office recently.
   ‘There is strong opposition from different influential quarters against the proposed changes in the Private University Act 1992,’ he said. ‘I am helpless.’
   Osman Farruk acknowledged that some foreign universities had opened campuses across the country and some Dhaka-based private universities campuses outside the capital city illegally. ‘However,’ he said, ‘the education ministry can do nothing against them. Most of the private universities have become “one-stop service centres”.’
   He referred to Prime University as he tried to prove that he was really helpless.
   ‘It has been running an outer campus in my constituency in Kishoreganj for years and I couldn’t close it down despite several attempts,’ he said. ‘The ministry issued several letters to the university administration for immediate closure of the campus.’
   He said the BNP encouraged private universities despite severe criticism from different quarters.
   The ministry in 2003 initiated a move to amend the Private University Act 1992, form an accreditation council, and formulate uniform statutes and uniform grading system for all private universities. The move has been shelved.
   The ministry also formed a high-powered committee in 2003 to evaluate activities of all the 54 private universities but the committee’s recommendations for immediate closure of eight sub-standard universities remain to be implemented.
   On July 5, 2005 a delegation of the Association of Private Universities of Bangladesh met Osman Farruk and engaged in a heated discussion over the proposed amendments to the Private University Act 1992.
   The association leaders were quoted to have told Osman that the ‘universities would not abide by the laws if the amendments to the act ignored their opinions’.
   ‘We will not abide by the law and go for a legal battle against the proposed amendments,’ the founder vice-chancellor of Bangladesh University, Quazi Azher Ali, was quoted as saying.
   ‘It will not bring any good to the education ministry or the University Grants Commission if it tightens control over the activities of private universities.’
   Azher also said the owners would run their universities as they pleased since they provided the funds.

The education ministry has not taken any action even after one and a half month of detecting that a university has been
   running with a fake approval.
   In April, the ministry came to know that The International University at Uttara in the capital Dhaka has been in operation for more than five years with a fake approval.
   The ministry received a copy of the fake approval letter that the university shows to students as well as different government organisations.
   The ministry on April 17 requested the University Grants Commission to conduct an investigation and submit a report to the ministry.
   The commission, which is the regulator of both private and public universities, formed a four-member probe committee, headed by its full-time member Monirul Hoque, on May 7. The committee is yet to start investigation.
   ‘I could not start the investigation as I do not know where the so-called university is,’ Monirul Hoque said when talking to New Age on Tuesday. ‘We will start the probe from next week.’
   The registrar of the university, Shafiqur Rahman Choudhury, denied the fake-approval allegations.
   ‘We have a non-objection certificate from the education ministry and a trade licence from the Dhaka City Corporation,’ he said when talking to New Age on Tuesday. ‘It is not possible to manage a fake approval from the ministry.’
   The fake approval letter, issued on May 7, 2000, and signed by Syed Mainuddin,
   supposedly an assistant
   secretary of the education ministry, said the ministry had no objection to assist the authorities of the university under the management of West Coast Educational Foundation, Uttara, in running the professional and technology-based educational institution.
   Sources in the ministry said no such approval letter had ever been issued for any organisation and the institution had been functioning on the basis of fraudulent claims.
   ‘We have noticed that the so-called university has been trying to woo students through advertisements in newspapers offering degrees in different subjects including master’s degree in business administration, bachelor’s degrees in English and computer science and even PhD,’ a source in the ministry said.

Almost 50 per cent devaluation of the taka against the dollar over the past eight years has translated into more than Tk 2,800 crore in losses for the Power Development Board in its transactions with six independent power plants.
   The board purchased around 33,361 million kilowatt-hour of electricity from the plants till December 2005 for Tk 8,162.62 crore under contracts that require it to pay in dollars.
   The board estimates that it had to dispense with an additional Tk 2,813.49 crore because of a sustained depreciation of taka.
   When the board entered into purchase agreements for electricity from the 110-megawatt plant of the Khulna Power Company Limited, the 30MW Haripur plant of the NEPC and the 30MW Baghabari plant of Westmont in 1998-99, the exchange rate for dollar was Tk 40.
   Later on, the capacities of the Haripur and Baghabari plants were increased while the Rural Power Company Limited set up a 140MW plant in Mymensingh in 1999-2000 and AES Corporation a 360MW plant at Haripur in 2000-01 and a 450MW plant at Meghnaghat in 2002-03. CDC Globeleq eventually took over the AES plants at Haripur and Meghnaghat.
   If calculated at the exchange rate for dollar when the agreements were signed, the price of electricity comes to Tk 5,349.13 crore.
   When the agreement was signed, the price of each unit of KPCL power was Tk 2.51; it is now more than Tk 7.52. Similarly, the per-unit price of NEPC power has risen to Tk 3.86 from Tk 2.22 and that of Westmont power to Tk 3.07 from Tk 2.12.
   Each unit of electricity was Tk 2.47 for RPCL, Tk 1 for AES Haripur and Tk 1.18 for AES Meghnaghat, which has risen to Tk 3.55, Tk 1.60 and Tk 2.36 respectively.
   The board incurred the highest loss of Tk 870.98 crore from the purchase from the oil-run KPCL plant, followed by NEPC (Tk 573.567 crore), Westmont (Tk 303.70 crore), RPCL (Tk 427.16 crore), AES Haripur (Tk 347.13 crore) and AES Meghnaghat (Tk 290.953 crore).
   The losses look set to accrue as taka continues to depreciate against dollar, officials of the board and the Power Division say.
   ‘We cannot get out of this situation because of the agreements,’ one official said.
   Besides the depreciation of taka, variable maintenance and operations costs, and fuel prices have also meant more losses for the board, he said. ‘It is only natural that the operation costs and fuel prices will vary and the staff salaries have to be increased as well.’
   A Power Division high official said the government should have taken the foreign exchange issue in consideration when formulating the private power generation policy in the mid-1990s.
   The independent power plants were given too much fiscal incentive, he said. ‘Most of the IPPs take away their profits. There should have been a provision that the IPPs will have to offload 20 per cent of their shares into the capital market.’
   The PDB recently signed an agreement with a consortium for setting up 450MW Meghnaghat-II. The board will pay the consortium of three companies of Bangladesh, United Arab Emirate and Germany power bills in dollars as well.
    The state minister for power, M Anwarul Kabir Talukder, told New Age on Friday that he had asked the power board to do something about the losses it incurred from purchase from the independent plants.
   The PDB chairman, ANM Rizwan, said the board had been directed to rationalise and restructure tariff for power agencies such as the Dhaka Electric Supply Authority, and also to improve the board’s performance.
   He said the board would not accept any agreement that stipulates purchase in foreign currency.
   The board has already directed the Power Cell that it will purchase power from the proposed 450MW Sirajganj power plant in taka.
   The cell, which is the research and planning wing of the Power Division, has been evaluating eight bids for the Sirajganj plant, which will be set up in public-private partnership (jointly by the board and the selected bidder).

Hefty budgetary allocations by the government to stop underprivileged students from dropping out of schools continue to end up in the wrong pockets because of a flawed distribution system and in the absence of effective monitoring.
   New Age has found out that a section of teachers routinely draw money, which is allocated for free education for all at the primary level and for female students up to the higher secondary level, on various grounds without producing any legal documents. An impact study report of the government corroborates the finding.
   Students, guardians and teachers who are not engaged in the malpractice want the existing rules to be amended to ensure the stipends reach the target students. However, a good number of officials involved with the project favour continuation of the stipends under the existing criteria of distribution.
   The government spends about Tk 663 crore every year on stipend for students of primary schools and equivalent madrassahs. It also provides contingency fees to the institutions. About 43 lakh students of 60,000 primary schools across get the amount. The five-year project, which began in 2002-03, will cost the exchequer about Tk 3,312 crore.
   ‘The primary stipend project aims at enhanced enrolment of students from rural and poor families and reduction in dropout rates,’ Mahbubul Alam, director of the project on stipends for primary education, said when talking to New Age last week. ‘It also aims to increase the rate of completion of primary education, to improve the quality of education and to prevent child labour.’
   A family run by a widow or a day labourer or a fisherman or a blacksmith or a potter or a weaver or a cobbler or a landless person is designated as poor in the project documents.
   However, New Age has found out that most primary students of poor families don’t have access to the stipends because they cannot meet the eligibility requirements. The minimum requirements for the stipend are 85 per cent attendance, 40 per cent marks in annual examinations and presence and success in all examinations.
   ‘Children of solvent families can only fulfil these requirements,’ a teacher at the Meghshimul Government Primary School in Manikganj said. ‘The dropout rate in my school is increasing every year.’
   ‘Students of poor families do not get the stipend due to strict enforcement of the criteria,’ he said. ‘A student who is from a fisherman’s family can never attend 85 per cent classes or get 40 per cent marks as he has to assist his father very often.’
   Dinesh, a cobbler of Manikganj, said he had his son enrolled in Class I in 2003 but had not received a penny from the school. ‘A primary schoolteacher of my acquaintance told me that my son would get money if I sent him to school.’
   Officials of the stipend project said the number of recipients is declining significantly every year.
   Some 55 lakh students of 65,000 schools received stipend in 2003 but the number decreased to 50 lakh students of 62,000 schools in 2004, about 48 lakh students of about 60,000 schools in 2005 and some 43 lakh students up to April 2006.
   Mahbubul Alam refused to make any comment on the distribution mechanism.
   ‘If newspapers carry reports about the present status of distribution of the stipends, it will be harmful for the project as well as the officials,’ he said. ‘And I shall not provide any statistics about the project to the newsmen.’
   The report of a Transparency International survey disclosed on May 18 that the managements of the primary schools under sadar upazila in Chapainawabganj ‘realise on an average Tk 2,53,900 every year as fees from the students under different heads illegally’.
   The survey, which was conducted by the committee of the concerned citizens of the Bangladesh chapter of the anti-corruption watchdog in Chapainawabganj, also said, ‘The primary schools realised fees under nine heads. The students were made to pay admission fee, annual sports fee, milad fee and prices for books.’
   ‘Many primary schools deducted money from the stipend of the students,’ it also said.
   The present status of the female stipend projects for the student of grade VI to XII in the institutions of rural areas also shows the same picture. Launched in 1994, the stipends covers tuition fees, allowance for purchasing textbooks and examination fees.
   The government spends about Tk 200 crore every year on about 20 lakh students of rural areas under four female secondary education and one higher secondary stipend project.
   The five projects are the female secondary school assistance project phase-II financed by the International Development Agency and the government of Bangladesh covering 119 upazila; the female secondary stipend project financed by the government covering 270 upazilas; the secondary education development financed by the Asian Development Bank and the government covering 53 upazilas; and the female secondary education stipend project financed by the Norwegian Agency for Development covering 19 upazilas. Financed by the government, the higher secondary female stipend project covers the colleges and equivalent students.
   The government conducted a study, for the first time, on the impact of the female secondary stipend programme under the female secondary stipend project in July 2005.
   The study conducted on 3,510 female students of 181 educational institutions of 24 upazilas shows that 92 per cent female students from solvent families and only eight per cent of poor families are getting the stipend.
   The study says repetition and dropout of the stipend-recipient girls have increased between 2001 and 2004.
   Sixty-five per cent secondary students are not getting the stipend, the report revealed. ‘The stipend girls’ and the SSC passed girls’ families have higher income than those of the dropout girls.’
   The study report recommended that the stipend should be given to the poor and meritorious girls only. ‘The condition of obtaining 45 per cent marks and 75 per cent attendance for getting the stipend should be relaxed,’ it said.
   The number of examinees, who were scholarship recipients, for Secondary School Certificate and Dakhil examinations, also declined to 1,03,280 in 2004 from 1,63,956 in 2003.
   Enrolment of girls in five classes of the secondary schools declined to 24,10,194 in 2004 from 47,44,122 in 2001.
   However, the prime minister, Khaleda Zia, told the parliament in the last week of September 2005 that the programme for free education and stipend for girls at the secondary school level had helped to increase enrolment of girl students at the secondary level to 53 per cent.
   ‘The stipend programme for girl students at the higher secondary certificate level started in January 2002 and made it possible to raise the number of girl students to 40 per cent at that level,’ she said.
   Sunil Kumar Sarkar, headmaster of the Khanbahadur Awlad Hossain Khan High School in Manikganj, said, ‘Girls of poor families are not getting the stipend due to strict adherence of the faulty rules of disbursement. Without amending the existing rules, the misuse of fund cannot be stopped.’
   ‘Low-quality students should be given the stipend,’ he said. ‘The student of solvent families gets 45 per cent marks in the examinations as they can avail private tuition and other facilities.’
   ‘Class VII is the point of dropout as a student has to fulfil the three criteria of getting stipend along with her promotion from Class VI to Class VII,’ he added.
   Rafiqul Islam, a teacher of the Rokunuddin Girls Pilot High School at Araihazar upazila in Narayanganj, said, ‘There are gross irregularities in selection of stipend recipient girls. The school has two types of attendance register book – one for the school and the other for the inspector.’
   Sheuli Akter, a student of the school, said ‘The teachers want money for milad, sports and development funds for the school.’
   Rafiqa Afroz, a student of class X of the school, said, ‘I have never got the stipend in the past four years, as I failed to score 45 per cent marks. My father is unable to provide me with the money for a private tutor.’
   The education minister, M Osman Farruk, said instruction had been given to the project officials to stop the misuse of stipend.
   ‘Enrolment has decreased due to strict adherence of rules,’ he said. ‘I see nothing wrong with the increase of dropout.’
   ‘We must continue the stipend projects to encourage and ensure girls’ enrolment in primary to higher secondary levels of education,’ he added.

Years of deprivation because of poor interaction with owners, absence of workers’ forums or trade unions at workplaces, and often ritualistic arbitration of labour complaints resulted in the recent outburst of workers in the readymade garment industry, labour rights activists and industry insiders believe.
   They say grievances of the workers against repression by mid-level executives remain unaddressed more often than not, as the owners and their association, and most of the workers’ organisations care very little about the workers’ rights.
   In many cases, the owner and top executives of a factory are seldom in touch with the recruitment process; they neither fix the wages nor evaluate the performance of the workers.
   ‘I did not know about the salary structure for workers. I would only look at the averages of workers’ wages, calculated and forwarded by the production managers to my company’s headquarters,’ said the owner of a factory which came under attack last week.
   In recent times factory managers have been increasingly dependent on ‘labour agents’ who put together groups of unskilled or semiskilled workers. The agents fix the wages, which the workers come to know about at the end of the month.
   Mid-level executives, especially production managers, fix low wages for workers and deprive them of other benefits, aiming to impress factory owners with low production cost, Nazma Akter, president of Sammilita Garments Sramik Federation, alleged.
   ‘In almost every factory, grievances and demands of the workers do not even reach the owners, who are only interested in the volume of production,’ she said.
   Syed Sultanuddin Ahmed, assistant executive director of Bangladesh Institute of Labour Studies, agreed and said owners of garment factories in Bangladesh are more interested in making money, the faster the better. ‘They neither have long-term visions nor follow global labour practices.’
   He believes the owner-worker distance can be narrowed down through participation committees. ‘Unfortunately, only 100 out of 5,000-plus garment factories have participation committees.’
   One compliance investigator for GAP Inc, one of the major buyers of Bangladeshi RMG products, also pointed to poor relations between workers and owners during an interview with New Age recently.
   ‘A holistic assessment of workers’ needs is required which must be followed by proactive roles of the industry leaders here,’ Lakshmi Bhatia said as she talked about a ‘sense of alienation among Bangladesh’s garment workers.’
   Meanwhile, factory owners have become increasingly dissatisfied with the arbitration committee and its affiliated workers’ organisations since last week’s unrest, sources in the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters’ Association said.
   Some labour leaders often take money from the association and individual factory owners to keep workers in control, one BGMEA official alleged.
   ‘Now, some factory owners are questioning the role of the committee, and workers organisations,’ the official said.
   The labour organisations that are affiliated with the association are Gana Swadhin Garments Sramik Federation, Jatiya Sramik Federation, Bangladesh Poshak Shilpa Sramik Federation, Bangladesh Jatiyatabadi Garments Sramik Federation, Jatiyatabadi Garments Sramik Dal, Bangladesh Jatiya Garments Sramik Karmachari League, Jatiya Garments Sramik League, and Jatiya Garments Sramik Federation.
   The association now plans to enhance the capacity of its own labour and arbitration cells, the chairman of the BGMEA standing committee on labour, Reaz Bin Mahmud, said. ‘We will enhance monitoring in factories on payment of wages and other benefits to workers.’

Garment owners, after breaching agreements on the implementation of legitimate rights of the workers over the years, have now sought two months to increase wages and improve other facilities for garment workers, who were on the rampage at factories over a fortnight.
   The leaders of the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters’ Association met the leaders of the agitating workers late Thursday night and promised improvement in workers’ condition in two months.
   They also urged the workers’ leaders to stop agitating for which production was hampered and some factories remained closed.
   ‘The association leaders sought two months to increase wages and improve workers’ facilities in all factories,’ said Mushrefa Mishu, president of the Garments Workers’ Unity Forum who along with 12 of her colleagues met the association leaders.
   Mishu at a briefing in Dhaka on Friday talking of the meeting with the association iterated her strong stand on the movement if the government and garment owners fail to immediately implement the 11-point demands.
   The association invited the forum leaders to the meeting and urged their help in pacifying the agitating workers.
   Their demands include Tk 3000 as the basic minimum wage for garment workers, appointment letters, proper implementation of overtime payment and maternity leaves.
   Referring the May 24 tripartite workers-owners’ agreement coordinated by the labour ministry on meeting workers demands, she said ‘The government should protect workers rights and it is high time the government did it.’
   ‘If workers’ demands are not met in two months, our organization will initiate a countrywide movement of garment workers,’ she said.
   Mishu said the ongoing negotiation coordinated by the government fails to involve genuine representatives of workers, especially the agitators. ‘Containing labour movements with the help of the so-called labour leaders, who have no hold on the workers, is just ridiculous.’
   She said after she had been released from the jail, she was receiving death threats over telephone because of her involvement in the labour movement.
   The labour leader observed, ‘Garment workers fought back this time after being deprived for three decades.’
   Denouncing the association’s allegation that the protest was a conspiracy to destroy the garment industry, she said, ‘The government also echoed the same sentiment while the ruling party and the opposition have indulged in a blame game on the issue.’
   She said if there had been trade unions in factories, the worker could have informed the owners of their grievances and demands and the situation would not have turned violent.
   Mishu said agitating workers might have pelted stones, but they had not caused massive destruction during the movement. ‘Destructive activities might have been carried out by the vested interest groups, especially quarrelling political goons who are engaged in the supply business with garment owners.’

The minister for finance and planning, M Saifur Rahman, has hinted that he could go on retirement after placing the budget for the fiscal 2006-7 in the budget session of the parliament on June 9.
   ‘I could retire after placing the budget to let the young leadership take over,’ Saifur told a private TV channel on Friday.
   Saifur Rahman, also a standing committee member of the ruling Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), expressed the desire on Friday apparently being frustrated with the on-going conflict in the party’s Sylhet unit.
   ‘I have requested the prime minister to resolve the conflict between the old and young leadership in the party, Saifur said in an interview with the private television channel, nTV, on Friday.
   Earlier, Saifur urged the prime minister, Khaleda Zia, also the chairperson of the BNP, to resolve the crisis within three days and his deadline ends today.
   The conflict intensified when the supporters of the party’s young lawmaker, Ilyas Ali, stormed the house of Sylhet BNP president, who is loyal to Saifur Rahman, a few days ago.
   New Age correspondent adds from Moulvibazar: The district BNP will hold a rally in the town and seven upazila headquarters today in protest against the ‘audacious’ remarks of Ilias Ali MP about Saifur Rahman.
   Seven members of the Moulvibazar Chamber of Commerce and Industry in a statement also criticised Ilias Ali for his remarks on Saifur and urged the prime minister to prevent Saifur from resigning.

The Awami League president, Sheikh Hasina, has been selected for the Mother Teresa Award 2006 for her humanitarian activities.
   The Kolkata-based Mother Teresa Foundation selected Hasina, also the leader of the opposition in parliament, for the award.
   The Indian high commissioner to Dhaka, Veena Sikri, informed Hasina of the matter by visiting the latter’s Sudha Sadan residence at Dhanmondi Friday evening, AL sources said.
   During the visit, she also held a meeting with Hasina from 6:00pm to 7:30pm, they said.
   ‘The high commissioner informed Hasina of her becoming selected for the award and requested her to receive the award at the foundation,’ AL presidium member Kazi Zafarullah, who was present at the meeting, told New Age.
   Hasina thanked the foundation through the high commissioner for selecting her for the award, but could not confirm whether she would be able to receive the award through a visit to the foundation, Zafar said.

The government is trying to harmonise the ‘huge variations’ in the reports of two separate audits on the valuation of assets and liabilities of Rupali Bank before floating the tender for off-loading its shares, said sources in the agencies concerned.
   The valuation of assets by an international audit is much higher than the estimate made in the internal statutory audit. The intention of the internal audit may be aimed at hampering the process of off-loading Rupali’s shares by making the government less willing to sell the bank’s shares, according to sources in the Privatisation Commission.
   Meanwhile, the Privatisation Commission, a statutory regulatory body responsible for disinvesting public sector entities, has declined to inject fresh funds into Rupali Bank for the improvement of its financial status, shrugging off such a prescription from the multilateral lending agencies.
   A five-member committee, headed by an additional secretary of the Ministry of Finance, has been formed and asked to make a harmonised report on the basis of the two separate audit reports so that the country’s interests are not compromised in any way. The committee held a meeting on Wednesday.
   The commission has also asked Rupali Bank authorities to call an extra-ordinary general meeting within June 8 to change the rules and regulations for privatisation.
   On completion of harmonising the two audit reports, the government will finalise the tender documents, which will be given to seven short-listed financial institutions from home and abroad at a cost of $2,500 each, to make financial and technical offers for obtaining Rupali’s shares.
   However, commission sources said the process of selection of bidders, which was supposed to be completed by August 31, might be delayed by about a fortnight because of anomalies in the audit reports and also possible legal snags.
   The commission has also appointed a legal consultant to facilitate the privatisation of 67 per cent of Rupali Bank’s shares, one of the four nationalised commercial banks of the country.
   The Ministry of Finance was learnt to have given its opinion in favour of using consultancy service of the GBRW, the consulting firm assigned to bring Rupali Bank to the point of privatisation, for addressing the legal issues involved in the process.
   ‘How could we depend on foreign consultants’ recommendations on domestic legal issues and matters of national interest? So we preferred appointing our own legal adviser,’ a commission official told New Age.
   The sources said the government would add a provision which would ensure that the future strategic partners of Rupali Bank would not be able to claim the dues of the bank from any public sector entities since they would not have to bear the liabilities of the bank.
   In this context, the sources added that the lenders’ prescription to funnel funds into Rupali Bank was not acceptable because it would lead to financial loss. ‘Why should we pump money into a bank which is only for sale, why not other into other state-owned banks? It is a suggestion that has come out of the mala fide intentions of some people,’ an official said.

More than 100,000 Maoist rebels and supporters Friday thronged Kathmandu where top leaders addressed their first mass meeting here and offered to merge forces with Nepal’s army, report Reuters and AFP.
   The giant gathering swelled to around 180,000 people, according to estimates by diplomats, overflowing a large open air theatre earmarked for the event.
   ‘We will burn the crown and we will run the country,’ the people shouted as they filled into a dust-choked public ground just 500 metres from the royal palace for the rally in Kathmandu.
   Chants of ‘Gyanendra thief, leave the country’ and ‘Hang Gyanendra’ were also heard.
   Dozens of soldiers carrying automatic rifles stood in front of the heavily guarded palace. Scores of riot police maintained a vigil outside the venue where red hammer and sickle Maoist banners fluttered.
   ‘We are willing to merge with the army if everything is settled with the government,” announced Maoist military commander Prabhakar who uses one name.
   Krishna Bahadur Mahara, the head of the Maoist peace talks team, said the rebels had been complying with a ceasefire code of conduct, but the government had not.
   ‘We have given 100 per cent in implementing the code of conduct but the government has not. The government has breached the code of conduct as security forces are manning the streets carrying weapons. We are watching this with suspicion,’ Mahara said to applause and whistle-blowing.
   Maoists sang revolutionary songs and watched traditional dances in between speeches in a largely peaceful gathering.
   The event was however marred by some violence with an AFP reporter witnessing one man badly beaten by a Maoist mob who suspected him of being an agent provocateur.
   Nepal’s insurgents are in a stronger position than ever after King Gyanendra ended 14 months of direct rule last month following weeks of pro-democracy protests organized by opposition parties in concert with the rebels.
   The mood was festive as the rebels came into the open, many for the first time in a decade.
   Despite the limited security, a government official said agencies were on ‘high alert’.

Iran will not stop its nuclear enrichment activities, despite mounting international pressure, a top official said on Friday, report Reuters, AFP and AP.
   ‘Iran is determined to go ahead with its nuclear enrichment work for peaceful purposes,’ the deputy head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organisation Mohammad Saeedi told Iran’s students news agency ISNA.
   His comments came before major world powers were to deliver on Friday a pivotal proposal to Iran combining incentives to halt work that could produce nuclear weapons with a threat of UN Security Council action if it refuses.
   The US and five other world powers have an offer they say Iran can’t refuse — if it knows what’s best for it.
   The six nations on Thursday came up with incentives they hope will persuade Tehran to stop suspect nuclear activities, but made it clear that Iran risks UN sanctions if it rejects the package.
   A short statement issued by foreign ministers from the six powers and the European Union did not mention economic sanctions — the punishment or deterrent favoured by the United States and that Iran has tried hard to avoid.
   The Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, said Friday that talks between six world powers in Vienna excluded all recourse to force as a method of solving the problem.
   ‘I can unequivocally say that all the agreements from yesterday’s meeting in all circumstances exclude the use of military force’ against Iran, he was quoted by RIA-Novosti news agency as saying.
   Speaking after world powers agreed on a package of incentives and sanctions to get Iran to suspend nuclear fuel work, Lavrov said that Iran had not been presented with any kind of deadline.
   ‘There is no kind of ultimatum deadline, although I think we are talking about several weeks,’ he said.
   The foreign minister refused to be drawn on what measures might be taken if Iran refused the international community’s proposals.

The economic growth, which peaked in five years, has had very weak relations with investment and employment despite an increase in public expenditure over a one decade, holding back the future expansion of the economy, says a study.
   Development expenditure remained almost the same over a decade slashing public investment, while increased costs of borrowing dampened private investment, reveals the study, to be released by development research organisation, Unnayan Onneshan.
   ‘The deceleration of expenditure on ADP means that more public funds tend to divert to non-development expenditure,’ said Rashed Al Mahmud Titumir, executive director of Unnayan Onneshan.
   The growing public expenditure in unproductive activities ahead of the national elections and growing dependence on bank financing as well as the interest rate hike on the government savings instrument are likely to crowd out private investment in the near future, which in turn would erode the GDP growth, he said, forecasting an ominous sign of economic prospects.
   The government expenditure on annual development programme was 6.21 per cent of GDP in 1996-97 and in the current financial year, the ratio is the same 6.21 per cent, revealed the study, ‘State of the Economy: FY1996-97 to FY2005-06.’
   Although gross budgetary allocation for ADP has increased over the years, poor capacity of implementation has forced the government to downsize the ADP at the end of the financial year.
   Analysing the budgetary performance of 10 years, the study said squeezed public expenditure, coupled with growing dependence on domestic borrowing and higher import growth outpacing export increment, has had a negative impact on the macro-economic scenario.
   The government, adhering to the IMF prescription, has started pursuing the contractionary monetary policy, resulting in the recent spate of interest hike and making the cost of investment higher.
   ‘So you are blocking the economy from further advancing. If investment, both public and private, shrinks, both employment and production will be hit,’ Titumir said.
   He said graduating out of poverty, as envisaged in the poverty reduction strategy paper, depends on expansion of gainful employment, driven by increased productive capacity of the economy. The existing focus of growth policy should be revisited with its relationship to investment and job creation being clearly defined, he said, referring to the goal of the study.
   Public policy-making system has so far been driven by global lenders’ agenda while public spending, whatever the amount may be, remained ad hoc with little or no reflection of real needs of the people, the study pointed out
   The real GDP has expanded by above 5 per cent during most of the years over the past decade except in financial years 1998-99 and 2001-02. The decade’s lowest growth was 4.42 per cent witnessed in financial year 2001-02, followed by the decade’s highest ever growth in the next financial year at 6.27 per cent. The projected growth rate of the current fiscal year is 6 per cent.
   As regards sectoral contribution to the GDP, the share of agriculture in GDP constituted over 25 per cent during the first five years, maintaining a modest growth rate. However, its share in GDP has declined in the subsequent years to 21.9 per cent in 2004-05 with growth rate dipping to as low as 0.01 per cent in fiscal 2001-02 from as high as 7.38 per cent in fiscal 1998-99.
   ‘Agriculture is losing its share in GDP, but the workforce it employs still remains high, indicating depleting return on farm investment,’ the economist said, noting there has not been any structural breakthrough in the sectoral contribution over the decade and the economy has not moved towards sectors of high value-addition.
   Inflation maintained an average 5 per cent over the past decade. During the Awami League’s five-year regime, it was 4.88 and throughout the BNP regime it averages at 5.28. Often it is higher for food items than non-food items, eating into the real wage of the salaried people, it said
   The worsening trade deficit resulted from raising demand for import and limited export capacity, has continued to put pressure on the exchange rate. The situation has been worsened further due to high import bill of oil price. ‘It is the modest growth in remittance that has so far kept the current account balance at a favourable state,’ the study said.

The Awami League-led opposition alliance on Friday instructed the city leaders and activists to take all-out preparations to swamp the capital and immobilise everything during the June 11 ‘Dhaka siege’ programme.
   Accusing the government of arresting the opposition activists to foil the siege programme, the alliance leaders asked the ruling alliance to refrain from mass arrest.
   ‘Stop mass arrest, or the alliance government would be ousted through an intensified movement,’ the AL general secretary, Abdul Jalil told a press briefing after a preparatory meeting with the central and city unit leaders of the alliance at the AL central office in the morning.
   Jalil, also the coordinator of the opposition alliance, reiterated that the opposition would not participate in any election under the present chief election commissioner, MA Aziz, and demanded his immediate resignation.
   ‘We will not allow even preparation of a revised voter list under the present CEC and will urge the government to form supreme judicial council to force Aziz out of office if he does not resign willingly,’ he said.
   Earlier, the alliance leader in a preparatory meeting instructed the opposition leaders and activists to snap links of the Dhaka city with the rest of the country for six hours on June 11.
   The opposition alliance will stage ‘Dhaka siege’ demonstration from 9 am to 3 pm and block all entry points of the city holding nine rallies at nine points surrounding the city.
   ‘During the programme, movement of traffic to and from the city would be suspended and all activities in the city would be halted.’
   Chaired by the AL city general secretary, Mofazzal Hossain Chowdhury Maya, the meeting was attended alliance leaders.

Pressure mounted on US commanders Friday over the conduct of their troops in Iraq as further footage surfaced of alleged atrocities committed by coalition forces.
   The BBC aired video of dead civilians including children that appeared to contradict the US military account of a March operation in the town of Ishaqi north of Baghdad.
   US officials said at the time that a militant, two women and a child died when US troops became involved in a firefight after a tip-off that an al-Qaeda supporter was visiting a house in the town.
   But the new footage, which the BBC said it obtained from a Sunni Arab group opposed to the US-led coalition, appeared to back an Iraqi police report that US troops rounded up and shot 11 people in the house, including four women and five children.
   The video showed several bodies, including those of three children, one of them covered in blood. The BBC said it was clear from the images that the dead had sustained gunshot wounds and the footage had been cross-checked with other images taken at the time and is believed to be genuine.
   The broadcast came with Washington already reeling from accusations that US marines killed 24 civilians in the western town of Haditha last November.
   The prime minister, Nuri al-Maliki, on Wednesday described the conduct of US troops in that operation as an ‘odious crime’ and called for talks ‘to redefine the obligations of coalition forces.’
   Experts with the Naval Criminal Investigative Service hope to exhume the bodies of several Haditha victims in search of evidence, the Washington Post reported Friday, citing defence officials familiar with the probe.
   Coalition spokesmen acknowledged that the Haditha events were not the only atrocity allegations against US troops that military investigators were examining.
   The US military on Thursday ordered all coalition troops in Iraq to take a training course to refresh “core warrior values”.
   Portions of the training programme aired by US network ABC reminded ‘soldiers to destroy no more than the mission requires’.
   In another incident receiving attention, the brother of a heavily pregnant woman shot dead at a US checkpoint on Wednesday vowed to file a complaint against US forces. Al-Aswadi, who was driving his pregnant sister Nabiha to hospital on Wednesday, took a restricted military road that put him in conflict with a US checkpoint in the restive city of Samarra.
   In its description of the incident, the US forces said the car entered a clearly prohibited area and ignored repeated signals to stop and so “disabling” shots were fired.
   Such shots are meant to target the engine block but footage broadcast on Iraqi television showed two bullet holes in the car’s windscreen.