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Nylon net bags are almost as hazardous to environment as polythene shopping bags they have replaced as they take a long time to decompose, say environmentalists.
   After the use of polythene bags had been banned, everyone thought jute bags would come into vogue. But in reality polythene bags are still very much in use while a wide-spread use of nylon net bags for shopping poses a new threat to the environment.
   Shoppers are also using bags made of fertiliser and cement sacks which are toxic and so hazardous to people’s health and the environment, according to the environmentalists.
   A study of the Bangladesh Paribesh Andolan a few years back found that 24 per cent shoppers in Dhaka city were still using polythene bags in new form and shape and 33 per cent nylon net bags.
   The percentages of polythene and nylon bag users have also increased since the study was conducted, the BAPA said.
   The problem persists as most people are unaware of the long-term health hazards of using plastic products, said Mohidul Huq Khan, BAPA general secretary. He also regretted the absence of a system to collect and recycle plastic wastes.
   Mohidul said they would contact and urge the Department of Environment to launch a drive against production and use of polythene bags side by side the ongoing country-wide drives against food adulteration and illegal structures.
   DoE sources said they were already planning to start such a drive against production and use of hazardous and illegal shopping bags soon, which they could not do earlier due to lack of law enforcers and magistrates.
   Amit Ranjan Day, a member of the coordination committee for prevention of production and use of polythene and plastic goods, said in the law banning polythene bags there was no mention of plastic products or nylon net bag.
   He said, ‘So, as per the law, nylon net bags or plastic products are not illegal. We have urged the government several times to incorporate these items into the law to reduce their use, only in vain.’

A Bangladeshi national was shot dead by the Border Security Force of India in Balla border area under Chunarughat upazila of Habiganj on Friday.
   The deceased was identified as Abdul Kadir, 32, of Tekerghat village under Chunarughat upazila.
   Sources in the Bangladesh Rifles said BSF troops opened fire at Kadir in the afternoon when he went to the Khoai river for taking bath. He died on the spot.
   Meanwhile, the BSF and BDR exchanged gunfire along Gazipur border in Satkhira early Friday creating tension among the frontier people.
   BDR sources said the BSF members from Pakhirdanga camp fired three shots towards Bangladesh at about 4:10am without any provocation. In retaliation, the BDR personnel also fired five shots.
   There was, however, no report of any casualty from the border skirmish. BDR members have been kept on alert along the border following the incident.
   BSS from Rangpur adds: The BSF on Friday returned the body of a Bangladeshi farmer, who was shot dead by the BSF on Kalupara border under Dhamoirhat upazila of Naogaon on Wednesday.
   BDR sources said the BSF handed over the body of the victim to the Bangladesh authorities after a company commander-level flag meeting in the evening.
   The victim was identified as Emdadul Haque, 34, of village Altadighee of Dhamoirhat upazila.
   The BSF troops shot dead Emdadul while he was working in his crop field on Kalupara border at 7:00am on Wednesday. After the killing, they took away the body.

The Ekushe Television, closed down by the government on August 29, 2002 for flawed licensing process, will go on air again on February 21, authorities of the private channel announced.
   ‘We are very happy to anno-unce re-launch of our transmission after winning a legal batle,’ Abdus Salam, chairman and chief executive of ETV, told a get-together attended by the social and cultural elite on Thursday. Atiqul Haque Chowdhury of ETV also spoke.
   The channel has been on trial run since December 1, 2006, over four years after the government closed the country’s first and lone private sector terrestrial channel following a court order.
   The announcement of re-launch came after an intelligence agency last month recommended confiscation of transmission equipment of three private television channels, including the ETV, for airing programmes without getting frequency allocation from the concerned authorities.
   Sources in the information ministry said the National Security Intelligence in its investigation report, submitted to the ministry at the end of December, found that Ekushey Television, Stv US and the recently launched Bijoy Television have been airing programmes ‘illegally’, without obtaining frequency allocation, which is a prerequisite, from the Bangladesh Telecommunications Regulatory Commission.
   It also found that ETV was running terrestrial transmission with satellite viewing in violation of an August 2006 cabinet decision that preserved such facilities only for state-run Bangladesh Television.
   After winning a legal battle in 2005, the channel got a fresh order to resume its programmes on April 11, 2005. But the government has not yet allocated any frequency for the channel.
   A high official of BTRC also confirmed that the ETV was not allocated frequency as the commission did not receive any direction from the information ministry, which is the licensing authority for television channels.

Nobel laureate Dr Muhammad Yunus goes to New Delhi tomorrow to attend a 2-day conference in observance of the centenary of Satyagraha Movement at the invitation of Sonia Ghandi, president of All India Congress Committee.
   The conference will begin on Monday. The theme of the conference is ‘Peace, Non-violence and Empowerment: Gandhian Philosophy in the 21st Century.’
   A hundred years ago, Mahatma Gandhi launched the historic Satyagraha Movement in South Africa to fight racism and colonial oppression in that country.
   Yunus will also deliver a speech at the Federation of Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industry on January 30.

Different social and human rights organisations on Friday expressed their concern and protested at the large scale eviction of poor squatters and vendors from pavements, slums and other places of the city by the interim government without taking steps for their rehabilitation.
   Nagarik Udyog in a press release expressed concern over the ongoing drive to evict poor people from pavements and slums.
   ‘It appears from the present drive that the interim government intends to force the poor people to go back to their villages without any concern for their living,’ it said.
   The rights organisation deplored as inhuman the attitude of the authorities and well-off section of the people who thought that slum dwellers were a burden on the city. ‘The slum dwellers and vendors rather play a very important role in the informal economy,’ it said.
   It urged to the government to take initiative to rehabilitate the poor squatters before evicting them.
   Coalition for the Urban Poor in a statement said the interim government in the name of recovering government lands demolished slums at Gulshan, Uttara, Kalyanpur, and Merulbadda causing untold sufferings to thousands of squatters who were now spending the winter nights under the open sky.
   The organisation reminded the government of a Supreme Court order not to evict slum dwellers without their rehabilitation.
   President and general secretary of Samjtantrik Chhatra Front, Khalekuzzaman and Nikhil Das, in a joint statement urged to the government not to conduct any further drive to evict slum dwellers and hawkers without rehabilitating them.
   They also urged the government to arrest land grabbers and recover government khas land from them.
   Bangladesh Bashtibasi Union also called upon the interim government to stop demolition of slums in Dhaka city without rehabilitation of squatters and street vendors.

Water level of the mighty River Padma has been falling drastically during the current dry season due to unilateral withdrawal of water from its upstream points.
   According to officials, the water flow has gone to the lowest level for the first time this season in comparison to the last 10 years posing a serious threat to the environment along with biodiversity and aquatic vegetation.
   They said the river was not getting the due share of water according to the 30-year Ganges Water Sharing Treaty between Bangladesh and India.
   Officials of the Bangladesh Water Development Board told the news agency that the water level had been reducing to a great extent this season. More big shoals are being emerged on the riverbed.
   BWDB officials informed that the water level began falling since the beginning of September last and it was 17.12 metre that reduced to 16.2 at the end of that month. The water level was recorded at 7.9 metre in the middle of December. In the beginning of January, the level was recorded at 5.7 metre.
   Official sources said the water level was being reduced rapidly and it had been going to its lowest mark with the appearing of the dry season. A large number of big shoals have emerged in the river and its mainstream has been split into numerous tiny and small confluences.

Rajshahi University Institute of Environmental Science and Bangladesh Bird Club have jointly organises two day long bird fair and seminar today (Saturday)   at Third Science Building of Rajshahi University campus. RU vice-chancellor professor Altaf Hossain will formally open the fair, campus sources said.
   The organisers have chalked up various programmes including display photos of birds, collection exhibition of Inam Al Haque, stamp collection of Sumona, seminar on Bangladeshi Bird and Environment will be held at the institute hall room.
   RU VC, pro-vice chancellor professor Mamnunul Keramat, DU teacher professor Obaidul Haque, England bird lover Jemes Pender and environ-
   mentalists and students will attend.
   The bird experts also have plan to make bird watching programme by telescope at T-groin beside river Padma and bird census of Pachamaria beel of Rajshahi will also be held, the organisers said.

The local administration with the help of the army has evicted more than 1,500 illegal structures across Jessore district.
   The drive freed the Bhairab river from land-grabbers by demolishing the illegal structures they had constructed encroaching into the riverbed.
   The administration also shifted the central bus terminal in the district town to the place designated for it.
   Transport owners till Thursday had been using the old terminal near the Monihar Cinema Hall ignoring the transfer order of the district administration.

The Geological Survey of Bangladesh is set to begin exploratory drillings at Shyamnagar in Dinajpur in February in search of a sixth coalfield in the country.
   Geological Survey officials said their test findings hint at the existence of a coalreserve in the area.
   ‘But we cannot say we are certain about a coal reserve in the area or we have found another coalfield until we find the presence of coal when we drill holes,’ an expert at the Geological Survey told New Age on Wednesday.
   He, however, said there was a huge possibility of the existence of coal in the area as three coalfields have already been discovered in the district.
   He said they were moving drilling equipment to Shyamnagar from thhe Dighipara coalfield, where the Geological Survery has been drilling appraisal holes for few months.
   ‘Shifting of the drilling equipment will be completed by this month and we will begin exploration activities at Shyamnagar in February,’ he said.
   The Geological Survey of Bangladesh discovered Barapukuria coalfield in the same district in 1985 and Dighipara in 1995, and the Australian BHP discovered Phulbari coalfield in 1997.
   The Jamalganj coalfield in Jaipurhat was discovered in 1962 and the Khalaspir field in 1995 by the Geological Survey.
   The combined reserve of coal in five existing major fields is more than 3 billion tonnes.
   A Petrobangla company, Barapukuria Coal Mining, began coal production from the Barapukuria field in 2005. Based on coal, a 250MW power plant has been set up at the place.

Former power secretary ANH Akhtar Hossain has gone into voluntary retirement after he was assigned to a deputy secretary-level position at his previous workplace, the Water Development Board, on January 14.
   WDB sources said his application for voluntary retirement was accepted on Wednesday and he would be entitled to all service benefits.
   Akhtar submitted the application as soon as the interim government sent him back from his post of the Power Division secretary to the WDB as its chief engineer last week.
   The government removed him from the division after months of controversies over disputes between Akhtar and two subsequent state ministers for power in 2006.
   The BNP-led government changed two state ministers, Iqbal Hasan Mahmood and M Anwarul Kabir Talukder, following the disputes in only a three-month span before leaving office in October.

A joint team comprising Army, RAB, police and the officials of Bangladesh Standards and Testing Institution on Friday filed 40 cases against 40 business establishments engaged in cheating consumers and adulterating various food items.
   The cases were filed during an anti-adulteration drive in the city, BSTI regional office sources said.
   The team conducted raids at Saheb Bazar, Haragram Bazar and Laxmipur Bazar where the business establishments were found guilty of cheating consumers in weight and measurement, adulterating food items and violating the BSTI rules, they added.
   The joint team also arrested some unscrupulous businessmen, seized huge adulterated consumer items, especially foods from different markets and later lodged 40 cases against each of them in these connections, the sources also said.

Extortionists shot at a bakery employee at Khilgaon in the Dhaka city Thursday night.
   The police said the extortionists intercepted the victim, Milon Miah, 30, near Matia Masjid of Khilgaon while he was on his way to his Khilgaon residence from the bakery at Mirbagh at about 10:00pm.
   They shot him in the leg as the victim refused to pay them Tk 5,000.

The outlawed JMB activist, arrested on Wednesday by the army, was handed over to the Mollahat police Thursday night.
   Sources said the army captured the activist, Romez Miah, 35, of Gaola in the upazila, during an anti-crime operation in Mollahat.

A man was killed and 20 others were injured in a road accident at Panchpukuria on Jessore-Benapole Road on Friday.
   The deceased was identified as Rokonuzzaman, 50, of Srirampur village under Bagharpara upazila in Jessore.