Main Page «
Front Page «
Business «
International «
Sports «
National «
Editorial «
Op-Ed «
Home «
Timeout «
Letters «

Archive «
Launch Supplement «
Special Supplements «

The Khulna City Corporation is yet to demolish 59 risky buildings identified more than four years ago.
   Sources in the corporation said they had prepared the list of the risky buildings in June 2004 and served several notices asking the residents to vacate the buildings, but there was no response from the residents.
   The residents are still staying in the building amid risks of accidents, they added.
   The risky buildings include 12 on West Mekot Road, 11 on Bhairab Stand Road, four each at South Central Road and Sher-e-Bangla Road, three each at Cemetery Road and at Khanjahan Ali Raod, two each at Rupsha Stand Road, Shamshur Rahman Road, Khalishpur, Clay Road and Sadar Hospital Road, and one each at Haji Muhashin Road, Gagan Babu Road, Babu Khan Road, KDA Avenue, Upper Jessore Road, Deben Babu Road, Thakurbari Lane, Helatala Road, Kalibari Road, Sir Iqbal Road, in Tulapotti and Maheshwarpasha areas, said the officials.
   They said most of the risky buildings were abandoned property and the occupiers of those had rented the establishments to the lower income group people.
   Those in possession are not interested to demolish the buildings as it would stop their earning and they might lose the right to the property.
   A source in KCC, however, said the buildings could not be demolished as it had not been decided whether the Public Works Department or the corporation would implement the task.
   The officials said if the risky buildings could be demolished, planned development programmes could be taken in those places.
   The corporation’s revenue officer, Sheikh M Tasaduzzaman, told New Age that they would very soon issue notices once again to the owners of the buildings asking them to vacate those for avoiding any accident.

Participants in a seminar held in Barisal on Monday demanded improvement of the inland waterway network for the development of the southern region.
   They said communication, transportation of goods and trade and commerce in the region were mostly dependent on waterways, but most of the rivers had been silted up.
   In the absence of proper dredging of rivers and modernisation of river ports, the overall communication, trade and commerce and transportation of goods were being affected seriously, they told the seminar held at the Celebration Point in the city.
   There were 24,000 kilometres of waterway network in the country in 1971, which reduced to 8,400km during rainy season and 5,200km during the winter in 1984, said the participants adding that there are only 6,000km of waterway network in rainy season and 3,800km in the winter.
   Water transports, however, can ply on 2,368kms, including 683km first class navigation routes having average depth of 13 feet, all round the year, they said.
   River management, in modern concept, is better than river control, they said and suggested that the government should conduct a hydrological and hydro-geographical survey and conduct regular maintenance of the waterways and dredging of rivers under a master plan to solve the problems.
   BIWTA has only seven age-old dredgers to keep this long waterway network navigable with insufficient budget, they lamented.
   The chairman of Bangladesh Inland Water Transport Authority, Abdul Mannan Howladar, was the chief guest at the seminar, titled ‘Neglected water transport routes: Barriers to the development of southern region’ organised by regional daily Ajker Paribartan and launch company Kirtonkhola.
   Professor Dwijen Sharma, Professor Md Hanif, the deputy inspector general of police of Barisal and commissioner of the Barisal Metropolitan Police, Khan Sayeed Hassan, BIWTA secretary Syed Manwar Hossain, its director (administration) Nasiruddin Khan and BIWTC director (commercial) Muhammad Ali were also present at the seminar chaired by Ajker Paribartan editor Syed Dulal.
   Nasim Ul Alam, president of Barisal Reporters Unity and Barisal bureau chief of daily Inqilab, presented the keynote paper at the seminar conducted by Manabendra Batabayal, convener of the Conscious Citizen Committee of TIB.
   Forty representatives of BIWTA, BIWTC and associations of launch owners and workers, politicians, journalists, lawyers, physicians and rights activists took part in the seminar.
   The BIWTA and BIWTC officials said although they had limited resources and allocation, they were trying their best to maintain the navigability of the river routes and modernise river ports and vessels and collect more dredgers to keep the waterways navigable all round the year.
   A master plan for sustained navigability of the waterways and proper management of river would be taken soon, they assured.

Students of the dental unit of Rajshahi Medical College on Monday submitted a memorandum to the director general of the health directorate to push for a five-point charter of demands, including appointment of teachers.
   In the memorandum submitted through the college principal, the students also demanded setting up of a full-fledged library and solve the problems prevailing in the unit.
   Their other demands include allocation of sufficient dental chairs and instruments and appointment of some employees in the unit.
   The students said the health ministry had assured in 1989 to upgrade the unit into a full-fledged one, but they were yet to take any initiative to this effect.
   The students said the ministry had given some instruments to the dental unit, but those were not properly used for want of manpower.
   They also said that only one associate professor, six assistant professors and four lecturers were taking classes of 10 subjects of the unit. ‘Our classes are now suspended and the laboratory remains idle as orthodontics and dental prosthetics teachers are now on leave on account of illness,’ Delwar Hossain, a fourth year student said. ‘No posts of teachers or employees have been created for the unit in the past 19 years,’ reads the memo.

The rights activists urged the government, on Monday, to uphold the high court judgement to enrol the Urdu-speaking people dwelling in some 116 camps on the electoral roll and take actions against the ‘vested quarters’ who are intimidating them not to get enrolled.
   They also requested the government to extend the deadline for their enrolment.
   ‘Many of the potential voters could not enrol them because of a short time limit given by the election commission. Therefore, we demand that those who could not enrol as voters should be given opportunities, when the process of taking photographs begins on Monday,’ C R Abrar, coordinator of the Refugee and Migratory Movements Research Unit, said at a press conference at the Dhaka Reporters’ Unity.
   The press meet was organised to demand rehabilitation of the Urdu-speaking people in Bangladesh with dignity.
   The RMMRU, Urdu Speaking People’s Youth Rehabilitation Movement, Shamshul Haque Foundation, Syedpur, and the Association of Young Generation of Urdu-Speaking Community organised the press conference.
   The High Court bench of Justice MA Rashid and Justice M Ashfaqul Islam, on May 18, gave a verdict to enrol the eligible Urdu-speaking people living in different camps as Bangladeshi citizens.
   Referring to the vested groups, Abrar said, ‘A small section [of Urdu-speaking people], however, could rot enrol themselves on the electoral roll because of the machination of the vested interests in the community who will gain by keeping them disenfranchised after 37 years.’
   He said that a small group was engaged in spreading rumours, having been frightened by the empowerment of the general members of the community as citizens of the country.
   ‘This has resulted in a fear among the members of the section that they will be evicted from the camps and lose whatever benefits they are getting from the government,’ Abrar added.
   He felt that an immediate declaration from the government of keeping them in the camps and allowing them the benefits they were getting was imperative now.
   To resolve the problems related to the enrolment of the Urdu-speaking people, the speakers put forward a set of demands to the government, which included ensuring enrolment of all the members of the community, punitive actions against those who impede the preparation of the voters’ roll and an assurance from the government that none would be evicted before reaching a befitting solution.
   Sadakat Khan Fakku and Shahid Ali Bablu of the Urdu Speaking People’s Youth Rehabilitation Movement attended the press conference.

The number of kidney patients in the country is increasing at an alarming rate as about two crore people are suffering from the disease, Professor Harun-Ur-Rashid, chairman of the Department of Nephrology of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University, said.
   ‘About two crore people are now somehow suffering from kidney disease, which was about one crore 10 years back. The rate of the chronic kidney disease has also doubled to reach 18 per cent during this period,’ he told the news agency quoting various statistics.
   ‘If the present rate of the disease continues, it will reach 28-30 per cent in the next 10 years,’ said Harun, also the president of Kidney Foundation.
   Harun said one in every six persons had been suffering from the disease and 40,000 people die of kidney failure annually.
   As 95 per cent kidney patients of the country are unable to bear the cost of treatment, they slowly move towards death, he added.
   Taka two lakh is needed for a patient a year if he or she undergoes dialysis twice a week, which is very expensive for general people, Harun said, adding up to 3,000 of the 40,000 victims can afford the treatment cost.
   According to statistics, 64 per cent kidney patients undertake treatment by selling their property, 20 per cent take loan, 15 per cent get government and non-government assistance and only five percent can afford the treatment cost.
   Harun said the treatment of end stage renal disease was either dialysis or transplantation and both forms of treatment were very expensive and out of reach for majority of people.
   As a result, he said, 70 per cent of kidney failure patients, who started dialysis, stop treatment in three months because they do not have money.
   Harun said lack of nephrologists in the country also hindered the treatment of kidney patients. ‘There is one nephrologists for 25 lakh people but the ratio should be one for 2/3 lakh people,’ he said.
   He said lack of awareness among the people was also responsible for increasing the number of kidney patients in the country. Quoting a survey of the foundation, he said 60 per cent people in BSMMU area are not aware of diabetes and high blood pressure, which are the main reasons for kidney disease.
   Harun said the number of diabetic and high blood pressure patients was also increasing alarmingly in the country. At present 4.5 per cent and 18 per cent people have been suffering from diabetes and HBP respectively, which was 2.5 per cent and 10 per cent 10 years ago, he said.

The Bangladesh Chhatra League, student wing of the Awami League, brought out a procession on the Dhaka University campus on Monday demanding release of all detained party leaders, arrested after the 1/11 changeover.
   They started the procession from the Madhu’s canteen and later held a rally at Aparajeya Bangla. Chhatra League leaders at the rally said the government was arresting AL leaders, who were possible candidates for the next parliamentary polls, from places across the country without any specific charges, to keep them out of the electoral process.
   The organisation president Mahmud Hasan Ripon said, ‘It is a conspiracy of the government to make the national polls tougher for the AL. We will wage tougher movement for release of our party leaders’.

Light to moderate rain or thunder showers accompanied by temporary gusty wind is likely to occur at a few places over all the six divisions — Rajshahi, Dhaka, Khulna, Barisal, Chittagong and Sylhet — during the 24-hour period till 6:00pm today, the Met Office said.
   The day temperature may remain nearly unchanged over the country, it said.
   The country’s highest temperature on Monday, 34.5 degrees Celsius, was recorded at Ishwardi and the lowest, 24.1 degrees Celsius, at Sandwip.
   The sun sets in the capital today at 6:22pm and rises tomorrow at 5:38am.
   The Met office predicted a little change in the outlook for subsequent two days and increased rainfall activity in the extended outlook for another five days.

Frequent shifts in focus of global donors and lenders have perpetuated the country’s aid dependency, eventually inviting their interventions into the national politics, a former finance minister said.
   M Syeduzzaman, while narrating the evolution of foreign aid policies and focuses in Bangladesh’s context at a seminar on aid effectiveness, had a critical look at the development partners experimenting one policy after another and rerunning the history of failures over the last decades.
   ‘Donors [once] said “get your organisations right” and when it did not work they said “get your policies right”… When the structural adjustment programme did not pay off, they said “get your institutions right” and then said “get your governance right”,’ he told the discussion organised by Centre for Policy Dialogue at the BRAC Centre in Dhaka Monday.
   ‘When many things cannot change or improve because of politics, they are now saying, “get your politics right”,’ he observed.
   Finance adviser Mirza Azizul Islam viewed that donors and lenders should not be encouraged to poke their nose into the issues of democracy and human rights in Bangladesh. ‘We will do it on our own but not under the diktats of the donors when there is the question of reducing aid conditionalities,’ he said.
   The adviser, however, maintained that Bangladesh had not yet attained an economic status to say goodbye to external assistance amid resource constraints, foreign exchange volatility and fear of soaring inflation.
   ‘Since we cannot do away with foreign aid, we have to make it more effective,’ he said.
   Mirza Aziz also contradicted the views expressed by Syeduzzaman that foreign aid was more effective when its share in gross domestic product was higher at about 10 per cent compared to the presently declining rate of 2 per cent. ‘The fall in share of aid rather proves effectiveness of aid,’ said the adviser.
   Dwelling on the donors’ concern about the ownership of new version of poverty reduction strategy paper by the next elected government, he said it would not be a problem since the present government was not bringing any dramatic changes to the development document.
   At the seminar organised ahead of a multi-national and multi-donor conference in Ghana’s capital Accra to discuss aid effectiveness, AMA Muhit, another former finance minister, pointed out that Bangladesh was being penalised as it was not granted any debt relief for efficient management of debt. ‘Bangladesh should argue that at the Accra meet,’ he added.
   Moderating the session, CPD chairman Rehman Sobhan mentioned that the donors should make independent evaluation of projects funded by them from points of views of the beneficiaries and make the reports public.
   Referring to lack of their transparency, he said, ‘I found it puzzling.’
   Former finance secretary Siddiqur Rahman Chowdhury said the Paris Declaration that emphasised ownership of aid had not been applicable for Bangladesh as lenders such as the World Bank had imposed their own rules instead of complying with the country’s public procurement rules formulated at their prescriptions.
   Ahmad Swapon of Voice, an NGO, cited an example that the International Monetary Fund had imposed 41 conditions for allocating each chunk of loans recently.
   ‘Aid also contributed to widespread corruption and wastage of resources, raising various questions,’ economist Mostafa Zaman Muzeri said while discussing on the keynote titled ‘Accra Conference on Aid Effectiveness: Perspective from Bangladesh’ presented by CPD’s senior researcher Fahmida Khatun.

Awami League and Bangladesh Nationalist Party on Monday said it wouldn’t be possible for the political parties to get registered within October 15, the deadline set by the Election Commission.
   ‘It won’t be possible to get registered with the Election Commission within the timeframe,’ Awami League presidium member Amir Hossain Amu told reporters.
   ‘We will have to complete constitutional formalities for the national council session of the party and to take all necessary decisions for getting registered,’ he said. ‘But it won’t be possible for us to hold the council during the state of emergency.’
   BNP joint secretary general Gayeshwar Chandra Roy issued a statement identical to the Awami League leader.
   ‘It is an impractical idea to register the major political parties by October 15. We [BNP] need at least six months for holding the national council session of the party,’ he said. ‘But lifting of the state of emergency and release of party chairperson Khaleda Zia from prison is essential for holding the council session.’
   He said the major political parties would have to submit ‘old’ committees with backdates if they wanted to get registered by October 15.
   The BNP leader said the Election Commission had set the date for registration as a ‘ploy to lay blame on the political parties to delay the polls’.
   Sheikh Shahidul Islam, secretary general of the Jatiya Party faction led by Anwar Hossain Manju, called on the Election Commission to refrain from registering the political parties before consulting with the political parties.
   Some other parties, however, said they were prepared for registration with the commission by October 15.
   ‘We are ready to register our party,’ the Workers Party of Bangladesh president Rashed Khan Menon said.
   He said the law for the registration was not appropriate and it would require some changes. ‘Otherwise it will create unwanted complexities.’
   Communist Party of Bangladesh general secretary Mujahidul Islam Selim also favoured the registration of the political parties. He said the new political parties must not face unwanted troubles in the beginning.

The High Court on Monday issued a rule on the government to explain in four weeks why it would not be declared to have failed to ensure safe labour migration.
   The High Court bench of Justice Syed Mahmud Hossain and Justice Farid Ahmed also asked the government to explain why it would not be directed to ensure safe export of labour.
   The court passed the order after hearing a writ petition filed by human rights organisation Ain o Salish Kendra and three victims of illegal labour export to Malaysia.
   The petitioners’ counsel Nizamul Haque Nasim told the court that three individuals — Sirazul Islam, Abu Hanif Hawlader and Enamul Haque Talukder — went to Malaysia through labour recruiting agencies Urgent International and Fatiha Overseas in 2007. The local agent in Malaysia took away the passports of the three and more than hundred other Bangladeshi migrant labourers and kept them in a warehouse for about five months. Later, they were sold out to a company and their wages had been taken by the local agent.
   A Malaysian court declared illegal the work permits of the Bangladeshi labourers after they had filed a case with the court, demanding their wages, the counsel argued, saying the Bangladeshi job seekers continued to be cheated by the recruiting agencies.
   Referring to the recent news reports carried by the national dailies, the counsel said a good number of Bangladesh workers had to come back from different countries as the government and the Bangladesh missions in those countries failed to ensure the rights of the Bangladeshi migrant labourers.

Mahmud Hassan, a banker and son of the late Mofizuddin Ahmed of Chouddogram, Comilla, died at the age of 71 on Sunday.
   A doah mahfil seeking salvation of his departed soul will be held at Gulshan-1 Jam-e-Masjid after asr prayers on Thursday.
   All relatives and friends have been requested to attend the doa mahfil, said a press release.

Coastguards and forest officials rescued 40 fishermen from the clutches of the pirates after exchange of gunfire in Keowabania canal of Sundarban in Sharankhola upazila Monday night.
   When challenged, pirates opened fire at the coastguards at 6:30pm, which were returned. As the pirates retreated, the fishermen in three trawlers were rescued. About 25 maunds of hilsa were in the trawlers.
   Pirates abducted the fishermen with their trawlers from the Bay of Bengal on Saturday night and Sunday morning.

A compartment of a local train derailed near Tarakndi rail station, suspending train communications for about fours on Jamalpur-Jagannathganj route on Monday.
   Railway sources said the compartment of a Mymensingh- bound no-254 train from Jagannathganj Ghat veered off the track at about 1:20pm.
   However, no casualty was reported. Train communications resumed on the route when the compartment was salvaged at about 5:10pm.

One to die for murder in Ctg
A Chittagong court on Monday sentenced a man to death for killing a night guard about four years back. Judge of the Speedy Trial Tribunal M Shafiqul Karim handed down the verdict against Bappi Dey under Patenga police area in the city for killing Abdus Sabur. Bappi and Sabur had locked into an altercation at Moulavipara area on April 4, 2004. At one stage, Bappi had stabbed Sabur indiscriminately and fled the scene. Sabur succumbed to his injuries at the Chittagong Medical College Hospital. A case was filed with the Doublemooring police in this connection.
— BSS