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Knowledge of food ingredients and nutrition is very little among many educated people and even doctors in the country, nutrition experts said at a seminar in Dhaka on Thursday.
   Children of many educated and affluent families also suffer from malnutrition due to the lack of knowledge, they said.
   They were speaking at the seminar on ‘Nutritional status of children in Bangladesh and a thought for alternative sources’ jointly organised by the American Soybean Association-International Marketing, Palli Shishu Foundation Bangladesh and the United States Department of Agriculture at Hotel Rajmoni Isha Khan.
   The experts said many families, despite having adequate food, do not know when and how their children should be given food and what types of food they should be given.
   As a result, they mostly give unbalanced food to their children and feed them forcefully, creating a fear among the children in taking food and ultimately decreasing their appetites, they added.
   ‘Even many physician mothers do not know how to breastfeed their babies,’ said Professor Ainun Afroze of the paediatric gastroenterology and nutrition of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University, who presented a paper on social awareness for nutrition supplementation of children.
   Nutrition education is one of the most sustainable drivers of food security and dietary diversification, she said and stressed dissemination of nutrition information in an easier way for all using mass media.
   ‘In academic curricula, nutrition education has to be given due importance for spreading the nutrition knowledge,’ she said.
   In Bangladesh, due to malnutrition, 40 per cent children still born underweight, 46 per cent stunted, 15 per cent wasted and 1.4 per cent children are born overweight, Afroze said in her paper.
   Three more papers were also presented in the seminar. Professor Abid Hossain Mollah, head of paediatrics of Dhaka Medical College Hospital, presented a paper on adverse effects on child health due to malnutrition, Professor Sirajul Islam, vice-president of Palli Shishu Foundation Bangladesh, on nutritional status of children, current situation in Bangladesh, and Mohammad Zahurul Haque, technical director of ASA-IM, presented a paper on alternative source of nutrition to combat nutritional deficiencies of children.
   They said over 60 per cent mothers and children suffer from malnutrition in the country.
   ‘The long-term consequences of malnutrition of children are low intellectual development, poor attendance and performance in schools, dropouts, heart disease, diabetes, kidney disease and so on,’ said Professor Abid Hossain said.
   Professor Sirajul Islam said in the wake of price hike of essential commodities and in the aftermath of cyclone Sidr most of the people in the country, particularly in the cyclone-hit areas, are struggling to survive amid malnutrition.
   He also stressed immediate steps by the government to ensure nutrition, particularly to the children of poor families.
   To meet the nutritional demand of children, soybean foods like soymilk and soya protein biscuit can be a cheap alternative in Bangladesh, said Zahurul Haque of ASM-IM.
   MA Faiz, director general of Health Services, who attended the seminar as chief guest, said as the countrymen are fond of traditional foods it would be difficult for them to adapt soybean foods as alternative to the traditional foods.
   He, however, stressed the need for informing the people of the utilities of soybean foods and thinking the scopes of soybean cultivation in the country.
   Professor Md Hanif, academic director of Dhaka Shishu Hospital, who attended the seminar as special guest, stressed the need for proper nutrition of mother as a well-nourished mother could give birth to a healthy baby.
   Dr AK Azad, executive director of Palli Shishu Foundation Bangladesh, also addressed the seminar.

Human rights activists and development experts at a workshop in Dhaka on Thursday called for united efforts to curb violence against women.
   Journalists along with judges, lawyers and civil society members should also play an active role in raising awareness among the bodies concerned, they told the workshop on poverty reduction strategy paper and violence against women.
   PRIP Trust and OXFAM-
   GB jointly organised the
   workshop at the CIRDAP Auditorium.
   Rasheda K Chowdhury, adviser in-charge of the women and children affairs ministry, was the chief guest at the workshop attended by over 200 development activists, lawyers, NGO activists, government officials and journalists.
   ‘Women fall victims to repression everywhere and even by the members of the same
   family,’ she said adding as the victims keep mum in 66 per cent of the cases, it give rise to violence and discrimination against women.
   Stressing the need for enactment of new laws, she said the existing laws of the land appeared to be insufficient to curb violence against women.
   Selina Hossain, who chaired the workshop, said dowry, illiteracy, early marriage and dependence of women on their husbands were the main reasons behind violence against women.
   She said violence against women was a social vice, which can be controlled by creating awareness, changing the mindset of the male persons and punishing the culprits.
   Among others, Aroma Dutta, MB Akhter, Ruchira Tabassum Naved, Salma Chowdhury Zohir, Maheen Sultana, Faustina Pereira, Sarah Hossain, Abdullah Zafar and Naznin Pappu addressed the workshop while Mahmuda Islam addressed as special guest.

Residents in different areas of the Rajshahi city are suffering from acute water crisis as most of the water pumps of the city corporation have remained out of order for long.
   The Rajshahi City Corporation operates a total of 46 water pumps but now around 25 of them lies inoperative due to lack of repair, corporation sources said.
   A corporation official said repair of the water pumps could not be possible due to fund constraints, resulting in the present water crisis in the city.
   The situation has aggravated as three water pumps covering Sagarpara, Ghoramara, Boaliapara, Panchaboty, Raninagar and Talaimari have gone out of order recently, he added.
   Besides, the water pumps now in operation are so old that they might stop functioning any time leading to total collapse of the corporation’s water supply system, the official feared.
   Currently, the water department of the corporation has the capacity to supply 166 lakh gallons of water a day against the total demand for 226 lakh gallons, according to corporation sources.
   When contacted, assistant engineer of the corporation Pervez Mamud, said they can not install any new water pumps as they are facing severe fund crisis.
    In this regard, he mentioned that the water department of the corporation got only Tk 10 lakh allocation in the current fiscal.
   ‘The amount is too meagre to install any new water pumps,’ Pervez said adding that they are trying to repair the inoperative pumps with the money.
    A retired official of the Rajshahi Development Authority said he is not getting water of the corporation as the water pump in his area has gone out of order.
   ‘I lodged a complaint with the water department, but it did not take any initiative to solve the problem’.
   Arpon Sarker, a resident of the city’s Talaimari area said they have been deprived of corporation-supplied water since January 25.
   ‘Now we have been forced to collect tube well water for our domestic use,’ he added.
   The Rajshahi city might experience worst water crisis in the coming summer if the corporation does not install new water pumps, said a teacher at Rajshahi University of Engineering and Technology.
   The city people have recently urged the city corporation to take immediate steps including setting up of a WASA office in the corporation to ease the city’s water crisis.

Coalition for the Urban Poor at a workshop on Thursday demanded that the government should rehabilitate the slum dwellers before the eviction and allot khas land to the urban poor in phases.
   CUP organised the workshop at its central office to put forward the recommendations made in a series of workshops that were held at its eight zones in the city last year.
   Other recommendations include arranging housing facilities for the urban poor at cheap price, ensuring pure drinking water, generating employment opportunity, launching micro-credit project and creating scope for education of poor children in public institutes.
   They also put forward recommendations for protecting the girls from giving marriage before 18 years, setting up more health service centres in slum areas at private and public initiatives, identifying the causes for dropout of the students after primary education and providing them with stipends, launching adult literacy programme and training facility for poultry, mushroom and cow farming.
   ANM Imam Hasnat, chairperson of CUP, Belal Ahmed, founder chairman of Juvenile Care, Masud Khan, commissioner of ward 10, and Quazi Baby, executive director of PDAP, also spoke at the workshop.

The Bangladesh Railway, Khulna on Thursday evicted about 100 families from a slum on its land in the city on Thursday.
   The dwellers of the slum in Station Road area near the Power House intersection, who are mostly sweepers and labourers, alleged that the railway authorities had evicted them without any notice. About 100 families had been living on the land for about 15 years, they said.
   The railway authorities in Khulna, however, said they had issued notice to the slum dwellers about 15 days back, asking them to vacate the railway property.
   Abul Khaleq Mia, 55, who works in a shop at Kalibari Raod, told New Age that he, along with his family members, would have to pass the night under open sky amid shivering cold.
   ‘If they (railway authorities) would give us the notice giving at least one month time, we could manage to shift elsewhere, but the sudden drive has come to us as a thunderbolt,’ he said.

A four-day workshop on making artworks with recycled materials began at the lecture hall of the Institute of Fine Art at Dhaka University on Thursday.
   The Dhaka University vice-chancellor, Professor SMA Faiz, inaugurated the workshop arranged on the occasion of British sculpture exhibition that began on January 28. A good number of Fine Arts students are participating in the programme.
   British sculptor Claire Mitten will deliver presentation on how to make beautiful objects with materials like cardboard, paper, bottle-tops and plastic bags.
   Chaired by the institute director, Professor Abdus Shakoor Shah, the function was addressed, among others, by British Council the director June Rollinson and Bengal Gallery director, Subir Chowdhury.
   Three other workshops will be held on February 4, 7 and 11 at the same venue.

Oitijjhya, a creative publishing house, opens a month-long book festival at three venues in the city alongside its participation in the Ekushey Book Fair in Dhaka beginning today.
   The venues of the ‘Etcetera-Oitijhya Ekushey Book Festival’ are the Dhanmandi and Uttara outlets of Etcetera and Gulshan outlet of Books Express.
   The book festival is aimed at reaching the buyers, who are unable to visit the Ekushey Book Fair at Bangla Academy for time constraints or other problems, Oitijjhya chief executive Arifur Rahman Nayeem said.
   All the titles published by the house will be on display and there will be publications of other noted publishers in Bangladesh too, he added.
   Oitijjhya will offer up to 20 per cent discount on about 6,000 titles during the festival to be completed on February 28.

Seven fake examinees were held during the three days of admission tests of different units at Islamic University, Kushtia under 2007-08 academic session.
   Two of them were held on the last day of the tests on Thursday. They were Afsar Uddin of Tarabaria and Toufiq Rahman of Jalalpur in Pabna.
   On Tuesday, the authorities arrested three fake examinees — Jahangir Alam, a Master’s student of sociology and Alamgir Hossain, 4th year student of law at Dhaka University, and Raju Ahamed, 4th year student of English at Rajshahi University.
   Two students were arrested on Wednesday. They were Shahidul Islam, a 3rd year student of English at Rajshahi College and Ruhul Amin.
   The university authorities handed over them to the IU police.

Light rain or drizzle may occur at one or two places over Barisal and Chittagong divisions and weather may remain mainly dry with partly cloudy sky elsewhere over the country during the 24-hour period till 6:00pm today.
   Mild cold wave is sweeping the regions of Rangpur and Dinajpur and it may spread over the rest of Rajshahi division and the regions of Tangail, Mymensingh, Chuadanga and Jessore.
   Light to moderate fog may occur over the river basins of the country during early morning, it said.
   The night temperature may fall by 1-2 degrees Celsius over the country, the Met Office predicted.
   The country’s highest temperature on Thursday, 25.6 degrees Celsius, was recorded at Sandwip and the lowest, 9.0 degrees Celsius, at Rangpur. The sun sets in the capital today at 5:44pm and rises tomorrow at 6:39am.

Bangladesh can do without aid and the conditionalities attached to it that actually harm the economy of the country instead of helping it, said speakers on Thursday.
   The gross aid is about $1.5 billion, which is 2 per cent of gross domestic product, and if aid repayment of about $700 million is considered, it comes down to 1 per cent of the GDP, said Qazi Kholiquzzaman Ahmad, chairman of the Bangladesh Economic Association.
   ‘If we add consultancy fees and other expenses which go back to the donor countries, then the amount is quite meagre,’ he pointed out at a seminar on aid effectiveness organised by the Bangladesh chapter of the Society for International Development.
   The chairman of Bangladesh Unnayan Parishad said the country receives about $6 billion in remittance from workers abroad and earns quite a handsome amount from its exports.
   He said if corruption comes down to a tolerable level, the amount saved would meet the aid budget.
   Former adviser M Hafizuddin Khan said the donors seem to forget that this country repays the aid it receives.
   They should change their attitude and increase their confidence in Bangladeshis, he said.
   Ownership of programmes like the Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper is very important, said Mashiur Rahman, former secretary, in his keynote presentation.
   The development partners should be sensitive to the macro-economic implications of the actual aid flow, he said.
   He, however, said that aid would continue for quite some time due to the saving-investment and foreign exchange gap.
   Aid has a positive impact on those countries with institutionalised checks including democratic rights, right to organise and free speech about the government’s actions, said Selim Raihan, a teacher at the economics department of Dhaka University.
   Aid does not benefit people as a majority of the less developed countries do not have such rights, he said.
   This state will continue as long as governments in least developed countries restrict political freedom and multilateral institutions continue to sponsor them without ensuring respect for civil rights, he said.
   The country must develop its capacity building to benefit from aid properly, said SM Al-Husainy, president of the Bangladesh chapter of the SID.
   Syed Shah Habib Ullah, Nilufar Banu and Masud Mannan of SID, Syed Yusuf Hossain, former secretary, Zaglul A Chowdhury, chief editor of the BSS, Hafiz Majumdar of Pubali Bank, among others, spoke on the occasion.

Stern action will be taken against police personnel if they are found guilty of harassing people, said the inspector general of police, Nur Mohammed, as he attended the inauguration of a service delivery centre at the Narayanganj police station on Thursday.
   The service delivery centre has been set up as part of a police reforms programme carried out with the help of the United Nations Development Programme, Department for International Development and the European Commission.
   He later inaugurated the web site of the web site (www.nrgpolice.com) for the district police in the office of the superintendent.
   The police superintendent, M Sibgatullah, presided over the programme. Nur Mohammad later joined an anti-drug rally.

The chehlum of Monwara Khan and Pintu Khan, mother and brother of eminent social workers and convenor of MA Aziz Memorial Foundation Kamruzzaman Khan Shamim, will be held today.
   A special prayer session and feast have been arranged after juma prayers at their village home at Galimpur in Nababganj of Dhaka on the occasion, said a press release.
   All relatives and well-wishers have been requested to attend the chehlum and pray for the salvation of the departed souls.

Confce on climate change today
The 12th biennial conference of the Forum of Environmental Journalists of Bangladesh on ‘Climate change, water and environment’ will be held in the forum’s conference room in Dhaka today. UNEP Champion of Earth Award recipient climate scientist Atiq A Rahman and leading water and climate expert Ainun Nishat will be keynote speakers at the conference that will begin at 10:00am. The opening and business sessions will be chaired by the forum chairman Quamrul Islam Chowdhury.
— BSS

Hamdard serves patients free at
Trade Fair
Hamdard Bangladesh served more than 15,000 patients free of cost at its stall in the Dhaka International Trade Fair. Hamdard’s doctors prescribed around 500 patients every day in its stall at the DITF and treatments were delivered free of cost, said a press release issued on Thursday.
— New Age