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The Tengratila Demand Realising Action Council will lay siege to the Tengratila Gas Field of Dwarabazar upazila in Sunamganj operated by the Niko Resources on Sunday. The council plans to block the main entrance of the field to press for its six-point demands.
   The council leaders declared the siege programme at a protest rally held at Tengrabazar on Saturday afternoon marking the first anniversary of the second blowout at the gas filed.
   Speakers at the rally blamed Niko for its procrastination to pay compensations for environmental and property damages in the adjoining areas.
   ‘Niko authorities are not paying attention to the victims suffering from the two blowouts for long and are yet to fulfil their commitment to the locals, while dishonest Niko officials are misappropriating crores from the company fund in various pretext,’ they claimed at the rally.
   Leaders at the rally said their movement would continue even after the siege programme until Niko fulfils its pledges.
   ‘We will keep the gas filed under siege along with its officials and employees for days if necessary, until fulfilment of our demands,’ they said.
   With the action council president, Azim Uddin Master, in the chair, the rally was addressed, by its joint convener, Nurul Amin and Shamsul Islam, Adbul Hamid, Abdul Hakim, Aiyub Ali, Mafiz Uddin Maral, Younus Ali, Shafiqur Rahman, Nurul Islam, Abdus Samad, Abdul Malik and Abdul Motalib among others.
   Earlier, the affected family members led by the council formed a one-kilometre long human chain wearing black badges from Tengrabazar to village Kaiyajuri on Saturday noon.
   Several thousand people of the five adjacent villages — Tengra, Azabpur, Shantipur, Girishnagar and Khaiyajuri — took part in the human chain to realise their demands, said sources.
   The demands include payment of Tk 84 crore by Niko as compensation for environmental damages, to resolve the water crisis in the area, to recruit 70 percent employees from the locality according to their qualification, to install a 50-megawatt gas-fired power plant, to establish a modern health complex and contribute towards improvement of the environmental situation and develop infrastructure of the Surma union.

A pro-poor policy on sustainable fisheries management is badly needed for the alleviation of poverty in line with the poverty reduction strategy paper, speakers said at a workshop on Saturday.
   The World Fish Centre in collaboration with Neeti Gabeshana Kendra, a policy research centre, organised the workshop on ‘community based co-management of fisheries and PRSP’ at the BIAM auditorium in Dhaka.
   Though the government has given priority to the poverty alleviation, the policy on fisheries, as a whole, is not pro-poor because there is no coordination between the fisheries and livestock ministry and the other ministries, they said.
   Kamrul Hasan, secretary in-charge of the fisheries and livestock ministry, attended the workshop as chief guest while Kamal Uddin Siddiqui, principal secretary to the Prime Minister’s Office, moderated the inaugural session.
   Dr Malcolm Dickson, project leader of community-based fisheries management phase-2, delivered welcome address, and Shihab Uddin Ahmad, chairman of the Gabeshana Kendra, read out a keynote paper.
   Unequal distribution of wealth and power in rural areas makes it difficult for the poorer members of society including women to have access to natural resources like fisheries, said the paper.
   ‘The state-owned water bodies are usually managed under a commercial revenue-focused leasing system controlled by the land ministry, and poor fishermen are generally excluded from the best fisheries as they cannot afford to pay for the leases.’
   The paper said the inland open water capture fisheries include a total of 4.05 million hectares of water bodies including rivers, haors, and bils. ‘Most of the country’s fish supply comes from such sources, and its productivity has been declining every year due to human interventions, ecological and environmental degradation, and over-fishing.’
   The declining catch from open water bodies has made the livelihood of the poor fishermen worse while rich and powerful non-fishermen derive the benefits of fishing rights, depriving the real ones.
   A detailed survey on the water bodies (Jalmahal) is badly needed as there is no adequate information about it in public and private sectors which are ultimately hampering the overall fisheries activities, said Kamal.
   The government is keen to address the issues by facilitating alternative management options for the open water resources so that the poor fishermen can get access and contribute to sustainable management of such resources.
   The government has been reviewing the fisheries laws and regulations, tax policies, and revenue collection methods, said Kamrul.
   Some 1.2 million people are engaged in this sector fulltime while 10.2 million part-time for their livelihood. Sub-sector contributes 5 per cent to the national income.

The World Bank has expressed its readiness to work with any government the people of Bangladesh choose in the next elections.
   The WB country director, Christine I Wallich, in a recent interview with the news agency made clear the bank’s position on the next government of Bangladesh.
   She said the World Bank would continue to release funds even during the period of the caretaker government as it had done in the past.
   Wallich, however, stressed, ‘The reform and economic development agenda of the country should be kept above politics, not captured by
   politics.’
   She said the WB was indeed changing the way it did business in Bangladesh in line with its new country assistance strategy evolved jointly by the ADB, DFID and the Japan government for reducing overall risks and bringing harmonisation in work.
   Referring to the WB’s new strategy for Bangladesh, Wallich said it was strongly aligned with government-led development strategy, now called the Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper.
   This joint strategy reflects agreement on the country context, which is the outcome of the four-partner plan made collectively to attain objectives contained in the PRSP, she noted.
   Wallich said the bank was prepared to work with whatever government the people of Bangladesh choose and had spent a lot of effort in ensuring that support for the WB’s CAS that extended well beyond the present government.

The central committee of a leading labour organisation split into two on Saturday after a long-drawn-out factional feud.
   A splinter group of the central committee of the Bangladesh Sangjukta Sramik Federation announced that they had expelled its president, Mokhlesur Rahman, general secretary, Mokaddem Hossain, and treasurer, Zulfikar Azad, from the organisation.
   At a press conference at the Bangladesh Photo-journalists’ Association’s office in the capital, this faction, comprising 19 of the 30 BSSF central committee members, accused the three office-bearers of swindling the federation’s money.
   It also announced a new central committee of the federation with Tofazzal Hossain Bagu as acting president and Jahangir Alam Chowdhury as general secretary, and announced its decision to hold the bi-annual council of the federation on July 28 and 29.
   In retaliation, the other camp, led by Mokhles and Mokaddem, in a press statement on the same day said eight members including Tofazzal and Jahangir have been expelled from the BSSF central committee for anti-organisational activities.
   According to the BSSF’s constitution, no one but a council of the federation has the authority or power to take any action against its president, Mokhles told New Age on Saturday afternoon.

Ferdous Ara Begum of Bangladesh has been elected to the Committee for Elimination of Discrimination Against Women, a UN women rights body, bagging the highest number of votes among 23 candidates vying for 12 positions.
   Ferdous Ara got 140 votes while her nearest contestant, a Japanese, bagged 131 votes, said a press release.
   The Bangladesh ambassador and permanent representative to the United Nations, Iftekhar Ahmed Chowdhury, told the media that the election of Ferdous Ara to the UN body was a great victory for Bangladesh.

Twenty eminent personalities will receive the Martyred Intellectuals Award 2005 today. Daho Sahityapatra has organised the ceremony at the Poet Sufia Kamal Auditorium of the Bangladesh National Museum.
   The recipients are Shamsur Rahman, Sajjad Kadir, Shihab Sarkar and Gazi Rafique in the category of poetry, Saiful Bari in media, Dr Abdul Latif Mallik in population research, Mahmud Kamal in literary research, Kazi Zakir Hasan in independence war stories, Md Abdul Baki Chowdhury Nobab in essays, Alam Talukder in children’s literature, Belly Shamsunnahar in lyric, Begum Momtaz Ahmed in biography, Aleya Ferdousi in education and sports, Nur-e-Hafza in radio drama, Shafi Kamal in recitation and presentation, Dr Md Mohsin in health, Mahfuzur Rahman in public relations, Selina Rashid in organisational activities, Shahab Uddin Ahmed in rhymes and Ali Taj Moni in card poems.

The results of the election to the new managing committee of Dhaka Sangbadpatra Hawkers’ Bhahumukhi Samabai Samity Ltd was announced on Friday.
   M Mostafa Kamal and MA Sobhan have been elected as president and secretary of the hawkers’ organisation, said a press release.
   The other office-bearers of the 12-member committee include vice president, M Nur Nabi Khan, directors M Abdul Kashem, M Yusuf Hossain, M Tofael Ahmed, M Imam Hossain, M Abdur Rashid, M Akhter Hossain, M Sheikh Ahmed, M Abul Hossain Khan and M Shamsul Alam.

Despite having enormous potential for the development of medicinal and herbal products, Bangladesh could not mobilise its plant resources due to inadequate surveys conducted in the last 35 years.
   The botanists of the Bangladesh National Herbarium said that about half of the country’s plants and trees that have medicinal and herbal values have not been properly analysed and evaluated.
   Nearly 1,00,000 plants of 207 families have been identified and their samples have been preserved at the national herbarium as part of the total plant resources of the country.
   Director of the herbarium, Dr M Motiur Rahman, said, ‘We believe a large number of plants, which have prospects for
   being used as medicines and herbs, are yet to be identified and subjected to research.’
   Among the plants in the Bangladesh National Herbarium, the authorities have categorised 106 plants as threatened species which need immediate conservation, said the director, adding that they have published a data book of 106 vascular plants.
   ‘Among the threatened plants is Corypha Taliera, a kind of plum tree, whose last survivor can be found at the residence of Dhaka University’s pro-vice-chancellor’s house,’ said Motiur.
   The Bangladesh National Herbarium was established after liberation under the Department of Botany of Dhaka University, replacing the Botanical Survey of East Pakistan, and later became part of Bangladesh Agricultural Research Council. In 1994 it was subsumed by the Ministry of Environment and Forest.
   The herbarium is situated beside the National Botanical Garden at Mirpur and has a rich herb museum with all modern facilities for plant research. At present the organisation has 50 staffers and among whom 12 are scientists.
   The herbarium has published 54 journals on ‘Flora of Bangladesh’ bearing information about 67 families of flower plants among the 190 families available in the country.
   Hosne Ara, a scientist of the herbarium, said that they have made various and interesting discoveries on botanical resources in the country.