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The government is going to bring changes in the regulations for establishing hospitals, clinics and pathology centres in the private sector to ensure proper treatment of patients and stop environmental pollution and spread of communicable diseases through medical waste.
   A committee is now reviewing the Regulations on Establishing Hospitals and Clinics in Private Sector, 1982.
   The final meeting of the committee will be held on November 8 to finalise the proposed changes in the regulations, a high official of the health and family welfare ministry said.
   ‘No private entrepreneur will be allowed to establish any hospital, clinic or pathology centre in the country without environment clearance certificate,’ the director (hospitals) of the Directorate General of Health Services, Akhter Hossain Bhuiyan, told New Age on Sunday.
   Most of the private hospitals, clinics and pathology centres have been disposing of medical waste in sewers and open spaces, causing threat to public health, he said.
   According to the data available at the health directorate, there are 437 registered clinics in the capital and 1,971 elsewhere in the country. There are also 4,245 pathology and dental clinics in the country, of which 817 are in Dhaka.
   The private hospitals, clinics and pathological centres in Dhaka are producing around 400 tonnes of medical waste a day and most of that is being disposed of in sewer and open spaces. The waste includes infectious pathogens in such concentrations that exposure to them can result in disease. It also includes blood, body fluids, tissues, and organs, hazardous pharmaceutical and chemical waste, besides sharp needles, blades, syringes, scalpels, saws, broken glass, nails, and other items that can cause cuts or punctures to passers-by.
   After considering the public health hazards, the review committee will recommend strict provisions on waste management to be inserted in the regulations, said Akhter Hossain.
   The committee is comprised of an additional secretary of the health ministry, the director (hospital) and director (medical education) of the health directorate, the principal of Dhaka Medical College Hospital, and a director of the Institute of Epidemiology, Disease Control and Research.
   According to a proposed provision, the private-sector hospitals, clinics and diagnostic centres will have to renew their licence every three years, a committee member said.

The high-powered committee on fertiliser management, at a meeting on Sunday, reviewed the overall situation of fertiliser procurement and distribution across the country.
   The meeting also formed a committee, to be led alternately by additional secretary of the agriculture ministry CQM Mostaque Ahmed and a deputy governor of the Bangladesh Bank, to fix up and monitor fertiliser prices after dissolving the two separate committees working to that end.
   The committee has identified 26 locations in 18 districts that are facing fertiliser crisis at the distribution end, according to sources. It has also suggested the filing of a criminal case against Abdul Mannan Mohaldar, owner of M/S Mohaldar Trade in Satkhira, for allegedly withdrawing 64,000 tonnes of fertiliser against an allocation of only 14,000 tonnes by means of forgery in 2005-06.
   Committee members — agriculture adviser CS Karim and industries adviser Geeti Ara Safiya Chowdhury — attended the meeting along with others at the agriculture ministry with education adviser Ayub Quadri in the chair.
   Karim rejected media reports on fertiliser shortage in the country, but admitted that there were some problems at the distribution end.
   ‘This time we have in stock more fertiliser than is required. The overall fertiliser procurement and supply situation is not bad,’ he told reporters after the meeting.
   Karim said distribution had been restricted to check misuse of the highly subsidised fertiliser. Each 50 kg bag of urea costs Tk 1,500, but is sold for Tk 300 to farmers, he pointed out.
   On Monday Karim assured farmers that the government would not increase the prices of various kinds of fertiliser at the moment. He said the government was thinking of introducing the card system for farmers to ensure smooth distribution of fertiliser next year.
   Meanwhile, the authorities concerned have taken the initiative to set up six warehouses in Noakhali, Comilla, Patuakhali, Mymensingh, Kushtia and Tangail for building up buffer stocks of fertilisers.
   The estimated demand for urea in the current fiscal year is 28.18 lakh tonnes, against the local production capacity of 15 lakh tonnes.
   The government will procure 4.5 lakh tonnes of urea from Kafco and import nine lakh tonnes to meet the demand, according to official records.
   The places facing fertiliser crisis due to problems in distribution are located in 18 districts that include Satkhira, Kushtia, Jhenidah, Magura, Rajshahi, Jessore, Chapainawabganj, Faridpur, Jamalpur, Netrokona, Pabna, Chuadanga, Sunamganj, Sherpur, Tangail, Manikganj and Bagerhat.

Trade officials of Bangladesh and India will sit in the capital for a two-day meeting, starting from today, where they will focus on the means of removing impediments to enhancing trade between the two next-door neighbours.
   A commerce ministry official told New Age that the fifth meeting of the Joint Working Group (JWG) on trade will discuss a wide range of issues including non-tariff and para-tariff barriers, harmonisation of standards, infrastructure development, etc.
   Joint secretary to the commerce ministry, Abdul Wahab Mian, leads the home side while Rajiv Kher, joint secretary to the commerce department, leads the Indian delegation.
   ‘A wide range of issues related to non-tariff and para-tariff barriers will feature prominently in the meeting,’ said Wahab.
   ‘We will urge India to improve infrastructure facilities at land customs stations and seek entry of Bangladeshi trucks carrying export items into Indian territory in the border areas,’ said the official.
   Another official said that Bangladesh would request India to remove non-tariff barriers to the Bangladeshi products like betel nuts, Jamdani saris, dry cell batteries and toiletries.
   The country will also seek Indian recognition of the quality certificates issued by the Bangladesh Standards and Testing Institution (BSTI) to facilitate the export of local products to the Indian market.
   Responding to a query about the ban on supplying limestone to Lafarge Surma, he said that the issue would also come up under non-tariff barriers.
   The Indian Supreme Court on November 2 refrained from entertaining Lafarge’s plea to allow transport of limestone from its mines in Meghalaya to the company’s plant at Chhatak, Sunamganj,
   ‘According to the deal the Indian government is bound to supply limestone to the cement factory,’ an official argued.
   Currently, Bangladesh imports Indian products worth about $2 billion a year but exports less than $300 million to India.
   In the 14th summit of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation, held in New Delhi in April 2007, India pledged to provide duty-free access to products from the least developed countries, including Bangladesh, by 2007.

The chief judicial magistrate of Narsingdi on Sunday asked the police to file a murder case with Narsingdi sadar model police station in connection with the custodial death of Morshed Rana.
   The order was issued on a petition filed on Thursday by the victim’s brother Iqbal with the court, seeking justice for the death of Morshed in custody of the Narsingdi police.
   In the petition, Iqbal accused five persons, including the officer-in-charge of the Narsingdi police, S Alam, of torturing his brother to death. The rest of the accused are sub-inspectors Matiar Rahman and Akbar Hossain, owner of a stolen motorbike Altaf Hossain Swapan and his wife Fatema Begum.
   Among the accused, Matiar and Akbar were closed to the police line on Tuesday following an angry public demonstration against the custodial death. The two police SIs were temporarily suspended on Thursday.
   Morshed Rana, 27, son of Surat Miah, was arrested by Matiar and Akbar in front of his house in Shah Pratap area under sadar upazila at about 5:30pm on October 28 and was allegedly tortured to death within four hours.
   Iqbal in his petition said Morshed, a transport worker, was arrested by Matiar and Akbar on suspicion of his involvement in theft of a motorbike.
   Hearing the news, Morshed’s elder brother Masud Rana went to the police station and heard screams of the victim. At one stage, Matiar demanded Tk 1 lakh from Masud for Morshed’s release.
   As Masud declined to pay the amount, Matiar brought Morshed in front of him and mercilessly beat him with an iron rod, after gagged him with a towel, the plaintiff said.
   The shock of the scene drove Masud to instantly go out to arrange the sum. When he returned with the money to the police station at around 10:00pm, Masud found the two sub-inspectors and his brother were not there, the petition said.
   The following morning, Masud came to know from local newsmen that the body of his brother was kept at the morgue of Dhaka Medical College Hospital for autopsy.
   The OC, S Alam, told newsmen that Morshed was a drug addict and a member of an inter-district gang of muggers. Alam said he was accused in three cases and died of a heart attack.

Leaders of Awami League and its allies on Sunday demanded that the 1971 war criminals should be tried under the Emergency Powers Rules and debarred from polls.
   ‘The government should include the issue in the Emergency Rules within a week to ensure punishment to war criminals,’ Awami League presidium member Suranjit Sengupta said at a discussion meeting organised in observance of the ‘Jail Killing Day.’
   He referred to previous statements of the chief adviser and the army chief about the war criminals, and said it is now the government’s responsibility to act upon.
   The meeting, held at the auditorium of the Institution of Engineers, Bangladesh, was chaired by acting president of the party, Zillur Rahman and addressed by key leaders of the party and the alliance.
   The alliance leaders commemorated the four national leaders, who were murdered in Dhaka central jail on November 3 in 1975, less than three months after the killing of the country’s founding president Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and all but two of his family on August 15.
   They called for unity of pro-liberation forces and implementation of the verdicts of Sheikh Mujib murder case and Jail Killing case.
   Reaffirming their allegiance to the leadership of Sheikh Hasina, now in jail, they expressed their readiness to face any tough situation to free her through legal and constitutional processes.
   Awami League presidium member Abdur Razzak demanded that the government should file cases against war criminals.
   ‘The people of the country are now united to build up strong movement for the punishment of war criminals and we will do everything necessary to uproot those elements from this soil,’ another presidium member Tofail Ahmed said.
   Workers Party president Rashed Khan Menon said that the interim government should clarify why it is not taking legal action against war criminals, although it has been doing many other things in the name of reforms.
   ‘War criminals should be tried by special tribunal and sedition charges should be brought against those who have made audacious statements regarding the liberation war,’ Menon said.
   He accused the government of attempting to create ‘guided’ political parties and urged not to mix politics up with corruption. ‘If politics is equated with corruption, all the glorious history of our nation will then be false,’ he added.
   ‘We have to take a tough political decision that war criminals and communal forces will be kept out of polls,’ Jatiya Samajtantrik Dal president Hasanul Haq Inu said.
   Top Awami League leaders, including acting president Zillur Rahman and acting general secretary Syed Ashraful Islam, expressed their firm belief that the party’s jailed president Hasina and general secretary Abdul Jalil would be acquitted of their charges and freed through legal and constitutional process.

The committee on saving people from the erosion of the Sandhya and the Sugandha and the Barisal Division Development Forum on Sunday called on the government to take immediate steps to check river erosions in Barisal.
   The committee convener, Bazlur Rahman, at a news briefing at the Dhaka Reporters’ Unity said the recent incidents of erosion of the Sandhya, Sugandha and Arail Khan had damaged land and property of the inhabitants.
   Mirganj Bandar at Babuganj and Rahmatpur were affected in the recent flood, the leaders said.
   They demanded that the government should take permanent steps to stop the river erosion, distribute government land
   among the erosion-hit eople and rebuild the damaged roads, bridges, culverts and schools.
   The Workers Party president, Rashed Khan Menon, said no government had taken any step to control river erosion.
   He called on the affected people stand united in echoing voices for the solutions to the problem.
   Jugantar editor Golam Sarwar said most inhabitants of the Barisal region were faced with river erosion.
   ATN Bangla vice-president Nawajesh Ali Khan, former secretary Sirajuddin Ahmed and local leaders also spoke on the occasion.

Jurists, journalists, academicians, and freedom fighters at a discussion on Sunday demanded reinstatement of the 1972 constitution and trial of the war criminals of 1971.
   If the four fundamental principles of the state enshrined in the 1972 constitution — democracy, socialism, secularism, and nationalism — are restored, the religion-based political parties will be abolished, they observed.
   It is possible to hold trial of the war criminals under the preamble of the constitution, if the government takes initiatives sincerely, they said.
   Ekattorer Ghatok Dalal Nirmul Committee organised the discussion, titled ‘Constitution of Bangladesh, sprit of the war of independence and trial of the war criminals’, to mark the 36th Constitution Day at the Supreme Court Bar Association auditorium.
   The speakers called on all the progressive political parties to be united to bring the war criminals to book.
   The deputy commander-in-chief of liberation forces, AK Khandaker, Bar Association president Amirul Islam, liberation war sector commander Abu Osman Chowdhury, Shahriar Kabir, Shamoli Nasrin Chowdhury, Dhaka University professor Ahsanul Haque, and Ferdousi Priobhasini, among others, took part in the discussion chaired by Justice KM Sobhan.

The Baghmara police in Rajshahi Saturday night arrested an activist of the ultra-left Purba Banglar Communist Party.
   The arrested is Montu, 38, a resident of Bhabanpur at Baghmara.
   The police said they had raided his house on information and arrested him.
   He was produced in court on Sunday and was sent to jail, the police said.

Framers of the constitution at a discussion on Sunday demanded that the government should announce Constitution Day a national day.
   They also demanded including a gist of the constitution in text books.
   Five members of the 34-strong committee who had framed the constitution in 1972 were present at the discussion at the National Press Club on the occasion of Constitution Day. They are Dr Kamal Hossain, Amirul Islam, Suranjit Sengupta, Abu Sayed, and Abdur Rouf.
   The constituent assembly, the forum of people’s representatives, on November 4, 1972 endorsed the constitution, which came into effect on Independence Day, December 16, the same year. Since then, November 4 has been being observed as Constitution Day.

A man was killed and 15 more were injured in a clash at Mashtia of Santhia in Pabna, over cutting of sugarcane on a piece of disputed land on Saturday.
   The deceased was Elahi Box alias Babu, 35, a resident of Mashtia.
   The police said when Abdul Quader’s men went to cut the sugarcane, Bazlur Rahman’s men put up a resistance. The two groups at one point began clashes, inw which 16 were injured.

Former state minister for home affairs Lutfozzaman Babar was shown arrested on Saturday in a case lodged for taking Tk 50 crore in bribe from Basundhara Group chairman Ahmed Akbar Sobhan alias Shah Alam in July 2006.
   Dhaka metropolitan magistrate Golam Rabbani ordered to show Babar as arrested on a petition filed by the investigation officer of the case, Anti-Corruption Commission assistant director Rupak Saha.
   The IO told the court that Babar received Tk 21 crore in bribe from Ahmed Akbar as part of a Tk 50 crore deal for dropping the murder charges brought against the latter’s son Sanbin Sobhan for killing Basundhara director Sabbir Ahmed on July 4, 2006.
   ACC deputy director Abdul Kashem on October 3 lodged the case with the Ramna police against Babar, Ahmed Akbar and his sons Shafiyat, Sanbin, and Shahadat, another Basundhara director Abu Sufian, and Tarique Rahman’s personal assistant Miah Nuruddin Apu.
   Babar, arrested on May 28, was convicted in another case of possessing illegal firearms and sentenced to 17 years’ imprisonment.
   Meanwhile, the ACC on Sunday pressed charges against the detained former lawmaker Mufti Shahidul Islam and four others in a graft case for selling tax-free vehicle and thus inflicting a loss of around Tk 90 lakh on the government.
   The IO of the case, ACC assistant director Syed Ahmed submitted the charge-sheet to the court of chief metropolitan magistrate of Dhaka.
   The four other accused in the case filed by ACC deputy director Shahriar Chowdhury with the Kotwali police are former Dutch-Bangla Bank chairman Shahabuddin Ahmed, Navana Group director Saiful Islam, Lina Paper Mill chairman Abdul Jabbar, and a car businessman, Waliullah.
   The car imported free of tax by Mufti Shahidul as a lawmaker was sold to Shahabuddin, Saiful, and Jabbar in turn by Waliullah, violating the rules of tax-free vehicle purchase, the IO mentioned.