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Gas supply will remain suspended in some parts of Dhaka, Comilla and Chandpur until Monday midnight due to repair work on the 20-inch Bakhrabad-Demra pipeline, one of the four key transmission lines that supply gas to capital and its surrounding areas.
   Titas Gas Transmission and Distribution Company in a public notice said supply would be disrupted for 48 hours from Saturday midnight to some places around Dhaka including Gazaria, Meghnaghat, Sonargaon, and Roopganj due to the repair work of a 385 metre pipeline at Shahidnagar at Daudkandi of Comilla.
   The south-eastern parts of the capital including Demra, Shyampur, Jatrabari, Fatulla, Keraniganj, Sutrapur, Kotwali, Lalbag, Hazaribag, New Market, Shahbag, Motijheel, Paltan, Ramna, Sabujbag, Khilgaon, Tejgaon, Gulshan and Badda thana areas will be affected, the notice said.
   Following the announcement, people went for panic buying of kerosene stoves, whose prices shot up on the back of sudden rise in demand.
   Officials informed some places of Comilla like Homna and Gauripur, and Banchharampur and Kachua in Chandpur would also suffer as the supply from the Bakhrabad gas field in the pipeline would be stopped.
   Titas Gas officials responsible for the repair said they would try to fix the line as soon as possible.
   ‘The 385-metre pipeline has already been laid. We will just do the joining work and may require half of the time,’ said Gas Transmission Company Limited managing director Monzur Morshed Talukdar.
   Most areas in the capital including Gulshan and Banani will not face any major crisis as the three other lines —- Titas-Demra, combined Titas-Joydevpur, and Dhanua-Amin Bazar —- will be supplying maximum feed.
   The suspension through the Bakhrabad-Demra will affect supply of 220-240 million cubic feet per day. ‘We will divert most of the gas and the maximum shortfall in the network would be around 60 MMCFD,’ said the GTCL chief executive.
   The 100MW NEPC power plant and PDB’s 50 MW plant at Haripur have been asked to keep their operations suspended till restoration of the gas supply, the official informed.
   This period has been chosen for the repair work as the 450 MW Meghna Power Plant will remain shut until Monday for annual maintenance.
   The authorities will be trying to resume generation of the 80 MW Tongi power plant and compensate some of the shortfall.

Influential backstage quarters in the military-backed interim government, which initiated the move for a new political polarization by keeping politicians divided and the top two leaders — Sheikh Hasina of the Awami League and Khaleda Zia of the BNP — out of the political arena, have started pulling strings to derail the unification process of the BNP, said sources in the party.
   A small section of the BNP leaders, in both the conformist and the reformist factions, are also dancing to the tune played by the offstage quarters for their [leaders’] personal gains, said sources in both factions of the party.
   In another development the acting chairperson of the dissident faction, M Saifur Rahman, who was reportedly ready to quit the post, announced three preconditions for the unification of the two factions on Saturday.
   ‘We are yet to be sure if the moves for unification of the party will be successful as local and foreign intelligence agencies have become very active in either foiling or misguiding the process,’ a BNP joint secretary-general, apparently a conformist, told New Age on Saturday.
   A former Jatiyatabadi Chatra Dal president, who enjoys the confidence of the detained BNP chairperson, said, ‘The moves to unite the factions of the BNP have been going on for sometime. But a section of the backstage quarters are now out to derail the process to implement their plan and keep Khaleda Zia out of the political process.’
   Some of the party’s leaders are also playing a mysterious role with the support of certain powerful quarters to protect their petty personal stakes, he said.
   A reformist and former BNP lawmaker from a Barisal constituency said he was confused, and according to all the signs it seems that a section of the leaders are trying to implement some ‘hidden’ agenda in the name of unification.
   BNP leaders made those remarks as the prospects of unification of the two factions have visibly brightened after Khaleda Zia, through a lawyer, on Friday reiterated her call for unification, and reformist leader M Saifur Rahman wished to quit as the dissidents’ chief, and both groups welcomed speaker Jamiruddin Sircar’s proposal to mediate.
   Saifur Rahman on Friday expressed his readiness to quit as the acting chief of the reformists’ faction at a meeting with Rizvi Ahmed, BNP’s acting office secretary and envoy of the party’s secretary-general Khandakar Delwar Hossain.
   Saifur, however, on Saturday said he welcomes any process for unification of the party, but he wants that the party to be democratised through an acceptable process and
   be freed from monetary influence, and the two expelled leaders — former secretary-general Abdul Mannan Bhuiyan and joint secretary-general Ashraf Hossain — reinstated in the party.
   ‘The party must undertake a plan to bring about reforms within the party. The party must be freed from monetary influence. And the leaders, who were expelled, should be taken back,’ he told reporters.
   On January 27 Hafiz Uddin Ahmed, acting secretary-general of the Saifur Rahman-led faction, expressed his readiness to quit.
   A day before her arrest on September 3, 2007, Khaleda expelled the party’s longest-serving secretary-general Abdul Mannan Bhuiyan, and appointed Khandakar Delwar Hossain to the post amid a wave of calls for reforms within the party and open criticism of her leadership.
   The expulsion orders angered the reformists, who in a midnight meeting later chose Saifur Rahman and Hafiz Uddin as their leaders.
   The Election Commission officially invited this faction to the dialogue on electoral reforms, enraging the conformist faction. The issue now awaits the High Court’s decision.
   The two camps have remained apart for months.
   Things started taking a new twist after the detained party chief, during her brief parole on January 19, asked her party men to stop mud-slinging and work for unity.

The council of advisers at its meeting here on Saturday approved the interim government’s 14-point programme for the rapid socio-economic development of the country’s northern region, especially Rangpur.
   The programmes include close and round-the-clock supervision for ensuring the Boro production in the coming season, formation of a committee headed by an adviser to resolve Monga problem, setting up of a full-fledged university in Rangpur, activating the airports of the region and taking measures to export more manpower from the region.
   The advisory council meeting was held at Rangpur Circuit House with the chief adviser, Fakhruddin Ahmed, in the chair. The meeting that started at around noon lasted for about three hours.
   This was the first-ever meeting of the council of advisers held outside the capital. All advisers, special assistants to the chief adviser and secretaries concerned attended the meeting.
   Other programmes taken for region include construction and maintenance of roads, railways, bridges and embankments, making Birol, Banglaband and Sonar Hat land ports functional, taking steps to increase employment and expand businesses, ensuring healthcare services and expanding inland tourism.
   After the advisory council meeting, the chief adviser Fakhruddin told reporters that some specific decisions were taken after detailed discussions and directives have been given accordingly.
   Responding to a questioner, Fakhruddin said meetings of the council of advisers would be held in other districts of the country gradually.
   About holding the meeting in Rangpur, the chief adviser said there are some regional issues that needed to be dealt with regionally, otherwise these problems would remain out of sights.
   Asked if the next government would continue the works taken by the present government, he hoped that the future government would continue the good works initiated by the interim administration.
   Giving details of the meeting, Fakhruddin said a committee, headed by education and commerce adviser DR Hossain Zillur Rahman was formed for taking quick and coordinated steps for multi-dimensional solutions to Monga (famine like situation). ‘Involving all concerned, this committee would formulate an effective strategy,’ he added.
   He said his secretary has been entrusted with the responsibility to create skilled manpower through coordinating training programmes initiated by different ministries.
   Asked when a full-fledged university would be set up in Rangpur, the chief adviser said it’s a time-consuming matter but the directive had been given to undertake a project in this regard.
   He said proposals had been received from Bangladeshi expatriates to operate services in Syedpur, Ishwardi and Takurgaon airports. ‘Subject to implementation of the proposal, these airports would be activated.’
   Under the programmes, the chief adviser said Begum Ruquiah Memorial has been brought under the women and children affairs ministry.

With most of the earlier set development goals remaining far away from achievement, officials are gearing up for preparing the second version of the lender-driven poverty reduction strategy paper.
   The first version was prepared after years of groundwork and given an ornamental name ‘Unlocking the Potentials: National Strategy for Accelerated Poverty Reduction.’ The development handbook, commonly known as PRSP, was supposed to have dictated the development policies of the government initially for three years to June 30, 2007. The period was later extended to June 2008.
   But in most cases, targets set in other policy documents were not tailored to those in the PRSP, making it almost redundant.
   Mismatches between PRSP and other policy papers caused deviation in the sense of direction of the government’s implementing agencies and yielded results far away from set targets, planning and finance officials acknowledged.
   ‘In many cases, priority projects are incorporated in development budget beforehand and planning officials are later asked to discover their (projects) relevance with the PRSP goals,’ one of them said about loopholes in the process of fine-tuning of targets and priorities.
   Ensuring food security, checking rapid depletion of cropland, export diversification and good governance were among the priorities of the strategy paper taking into account the UN Millennium Development Goals. The priorities were supposed to be backed by time-bound action plans to be spelt out in national budget and Medium Term Budgetary Framework, which itself is a product of PRSP exercise.
   A quick review of the achievements of the three years and a half of PRSP implementation shows that most of those either deviated or remained unmet.
   Setting strategic goals of creating an enabling framework for food security and assuring low-cost food supply, the strategy paper stipulated formulation of an action plan, establishment of food safety council and crop and food diversification.
   The budgetary framework set targets of maintaining a stock of at least 8 lakh tonnes of food-grain, and procuring 18 lakh to 20 lakh tonnes from different sources and 13 lakh to 15 lakh food-grain from domestic market every year — targets that all have failed in recent times, leaving the country’s food security at stake.
   One of the most urgent national issues of protecting crop-land from depletion due to non-agricultural use has been similarly mentioned in the strategy paper and the budgetary framework.
   But the government has not yet come up with a fresh land use policy to solve the problem, admitted agriculture ministry officials. Also, no effective step is also taken to increase productivity and profitability in agriculture.
   The strategy paper dealt with the issue of export diversification but focussed mainly on ready-made garments sector and its market access to different countries.
   Dwelling on good governance, the strategy paper underlined the need for establishing and making effective all constitutionally mandated local government bodies, including upazila parishad — a proposal which faced resistance equally from the politicians and bureaucrats.
   The paper, which promised pro-poor economic growth, said nothing about key targets and actions on how to ‘ensure sustainable livelihood of the poor’, except mentioning the agenda of establishing property rights of ownership and use of water bodies and harvesting forests.
   The PRSP set a target of increasing net primary enrolment rate to 100 per cent and school completion rate to 80 per cent.
   But, the Medium Term Budgetary Framework, which was introduced in line with the strategy, has fixed the enrolment target at 91 per cent and remained silent about the completion rate, shows the current fiscal year’s document.
   Bangladesh pledged universal primary education and halving poverty by the year 2015 as per the United Nations Millennium Development Goals, besides other goals related to health, sanitation and environment.
   The strategy paper fixed the target of improving women’s life expectancy from 65 in 2002 to 70 by 2006 while the budgetary framework re-fixed the target of increasing it from 65.4 years in 2006 to 70 by 2009-10 without assigning any reason for the revision.
   The budgetary framework has cleverly reworded the target of reducing maternal mortality rate to 240 per 100,000 by 2009-10 from the strategy paper’s target of bringing it down by 2006 at 275, which is though not any achievement. The same happened to infant mortality rate.
   The General Economics Division of the Planning Commission, which is responsible for formulating and review of the strategy paper, was not consulted before revision of the target, not has the division had the latest data about the achievement of the PRSP goals.
   ‘This is basically a problem of ownership since no agency follows the targets set in the PRSP. We have just started receiving data, after repeated reminders, to assess the progress before finalising the next document,’ a high official of the division told New Age.
   The previous government formulated the strategy paper to get access to funding by lending agencies, especially the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. The process started even before with insistence from the lenders and formulation of an interim-PRSP, which also followed years of research and seminars.

The acting Awami League president, Zillur Rahman, on Saturday demanded immediate withdrawal of the state of emergency and release of all political prisoners, including Sheikh Hasina.
   ‘We are now planning movement programmes on a limited scale to push for an immediate withdrawal of the state of emergency and the release of all political prisoners, including the detained Awami League chief, Sheikh Hasina. We will wage greater movements if she is not released soon,’ Zillur said at a briefing at the party chief’s Dhanmondi office.
   The party’s Sidr relief committee, which wrapped up relief and rehabilitation programme in 10 Sidr-affected districts, organised the briefing. Cyclone Sidr hit Bangladesh on November 15, 2007.
   The party leaders and activists have always stood by the people during all natural calamities, Zillur said. ‘We started relief work at the instruction of our detained party chief. She also wished to join the relief efforts.’
   The relief committee chairman, presidium member Abdur Razzak, gave details of the relief work carried out by the party and its fronts.
   He said the committee had distributed Tk 1.78 crore from the party leaders and activists among the Sidr-hit families.
   The committee also collected food materials and clothes and distributed them among the affected people, Abdur Razzak said. The party fronts also took part in relief works separately, he said.
   The committee concluded relief works on January 31.
   Presidium members Syeda Sajeda Chowdhury, Tofail Ahmed, Suranjit Sengupta, Matia Chowdhury, and Kazi Zafar Ullah, and central leaders Dipu Moni, Nazma Rahman and others attended the briefing.

Suspected Tamil Tiger rebels blew up a crowded bus in northern Sri Lanka, killing at least 20 people on Saturday, two days ahead of independence day celebrations, officials said.
   The parcel bomb ripped through the vehicle at a bus station in Dambulla, 150 kilometres north of Colombo. The bus had stopped en route to the Buddhist pilgrimage town of Anuradhapura, the police said.
   ‘There was a huge blast and the next thing I knew was I was being pulled out of the wreckage,’ said WG Premawathi from her hospital bed, her white sari soaked in blood from injuries caused by flying metal.
   The president, Mahinda Rajapakse, condemned the bombing and urged people not to be provoked by what he called the ‘savage attack’ of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.
   The rebels were ‘eager to create a backlash (by the Sinhalese majority) to obtain the sympathy of the international community’ for their long fight for an independent homeland, he alleged. There was no immediate word from the LTTE.
   In 1983, the LTTE blew up 13 Sinhalese troops, triggering massive anti-Tamil riots. An estimated 400 to 600 Tamils were massacred in the aftermath, sparking international condemnation of Sri Lanka.
   In the latest attack, 13 people were pronounced dead on arrival at Dambulla hospital, while five died there, a hospital spokesman said. Two others died while being taken from the scene.
   Several people were rushed to better-equipped hospitals elsewhere, the spokesman said.
   Many casualties had ‘serious burn injuries,’ he said.
   ‘I don’t know what happened. There was a huge bang and from then on everything’s a blank,’ said businessman K Micheal from his hospital bed.
   The attack came as Sri Lanka stepped up security ahead of festivities on Monday to mark the country’s 60th anniversary of independence from Britain.
   The privately-owned bus was taking Buddhist pilgrims from the central town of Kandy to north central Anuradhapura town. The police cordoned off the blast site and an investigation was underway, a police officer said by telephone.
   Initial reports suggested the blast originated inside the bus when it was parked at the station – a key transit point for people travelling in the region, he said.
   The historic town of Dambulla is better known for a Buddhist rock temple and an upmarket tourist resort with boutique hotels.
   Tamil Tiger rebels set off a powerful suicide truck bomb in the same area in October 2006, killing at least 116 sailors heading home on leave.
   The police increased already tight security in the capital Saturday and carried out an intensive search along the main road to the island’s international airport and found two ‘suicide jackets,’ which are usually worn by LTTE bombers.
   A government minister was killed on the same highway last month when rebels set off a roadside bomb.
   There have been a string of bomb attacks in the country this year. On Friday, a suicide bomber on a bicycle killed four people in northern Jaffna peninsula, an attack the military blamed on the Tigers.
   They were also blamed for bombing a bus in the island’s south last month, killing 27 passengers, and later killing another 10 civilians in a separate attack in the same area.

A group of European Parliament members has called upon the army-controlled interim government to lift the state of emergency and announce an election date as soon as possible.
   In a joint statement, they expressed concern over the recent political developments in Bangladesh as well as health condition of detained former prime minister Sheikh Hasina.
   ‘As members of the European Parliament we are ready to support further cooperation with Bangladesh as a long lasting development partner, if the present government restores civic and political liberties and arranges free and fair democratic elections as soon as possible in the presence of international observers,’ they said.
   Some 21 members of the European Parliament issued the statement on January 22 which was released by the Awami League office on Saturday.
   The signatories to the statement include Michael Gahler of Germany, member of the sub-committee on human rights and vice-chairman of the committee on foreign affairs, Johan Van Parke of Belgium, Dr Charles Pannock, Baroness Sarah Lubford and Sajjad M Karim of the UK, Eija-Rika Konhola of Finland, Ignasi Guardans Cambo of Spain, Dan Mulder of the Netherlands and Toina Manders of the Netherlands, Irena Belochorske of Slovakia, Therry Cornillet of France and Luisa Morgantini and Maroo Cappato of Italy.
   They said the Bangladesh caretaker government has declared to have taken several measures to fight corruption, restore law and order and reform institutions.
   However, they noted recent reports on ‘systematic oppression and implication of party leaders under the Emergency Rules have caused serious concern.’
   ‘We have learnt that the human rights situation in Bangladesh is deteriorating day by day. We believe that the government can make progress through negotiations and dialogue with all the political actors,’ they observed.
   ‘Furthermore, we are faced with alarming reports on the physical condition of former prime minister Sheikh Hasina, who has been in jail for several months, even though she is advised by specialists to get treatment aboard. We, therefore, emphasise the need for additional measures to address shortcomings in the implementation of justice.’

Nepal is set to sweep away a discredited monarchy but a new political dynasty is emerging to rule the Himalayan outpost with key elections scheduled for April.
   The ailing prime minister, Girija Prasad Koirala, has appointed his controversial daughter as minister without portfolio and she has moved quickly to strengthen her role as the power behind the throne.
   Sujata Koirala says she fully deserved the January 10 appointment to a seat in cabinet and scoffs at parallels with the political dynasties of South Asia – the Gandhis, Bhuttos and Bandaranaikes.
   But her story has eerie parallels.
   ‘I was born into a family where everyone was in politics,’ Sujata said in an interview late Thursday. ‘I used to accompany my father on his visits.’
   The father, now 84 years old, and two of his late brothers – Bishweshwor and Matrika – have been at the centre of the often violent struggle for democracy in Nepal since the 1940s. Each one became prime minister.
   Girija Babu, as he is affectionately known, led a coalition that forced the king to stand aside in April 2006. He has been premier since then – his fourth spell in the post – and is credited with restoring peace after a decade of civil war that left 13,000 dead.
   Despite the family history, Sujata, aged 52, said her path into politics was far from easy.
   Rivals of her father blocked her first attempts to penetrate the Nepali Congress party apparatus.
   ‘But I became very popular among my workers ... and they wanted me to fight internal elections,’ she says.
   ‘Some people who were going to take (the) leadership after my father they objected ... so many people tried to stop me.’
   After nearly a decade, she was elected three years ago to the party’s central committee and put in charge of international affairs.
   Her house has since been bombed twice – she suspects ‘the palace organised’ one attack and the Maoists the other.
   And like most politicians here she has been repeatedly arrested.
   ‘I was arrested so many times I have lost count,’ she says recalling spending up to two months at a time in police cells.
   Nominated to the new parliament, she says she’s working to ease the burden on her father.
   ‘I will try to help the prime minister. The last time he was not well I was calling all the ministries, but I have no authority so far to sign a lot of things.
   ‘I am thinking about strengthening the prime minister’s office,’ she says, listing an urgent need to install computers and link ministries that the IT age has passed by.
   Sujata has also waded into controversy – creating a storm as Nepal readies for elections in April which will elect a body that will rewrite the constitution and most likely abolish the monarchy.
   ‘I am very vocal ... say what I think,’ she admits.
   This has seen her appear to disagree with Congress policy on the major issues – the fate of the monarchy and a federal republican future.
   Sujata dismisses the row saying politicians have to air the options and that she just gave her personal views, not those of the party.
   ‘We should give power to the people rather than the federal system,’ she says.
   Sujata also feels a ‘cultural monarch’ – although not the current unpopular King Gyanendra – could suit Nepal with its distinct Hindu-dominated culture.
   As to her own future, she is less outspoken.
   Congress leaders ‘should not feel threatened by me. I am very much willing to cooperate and work together with them.’

A Dhaka court is likely today to hear the power plant case filed against the detained former prime minister Sheikh Hasina and seven others.
   The hearing in the framing of charges in the case is scheduled to be held at the special judge’s court of M Firoz Alam on the Jatiya Sangsad complex.
   If the charges are framed in the power plant case, the trial will begin and it will be the first-ever trial of a former prime minister in a graft case filed by the Anti-Corruption Commission.
   Hasina, also the Awami League president, also faces a trial of the Tk 299 crore extortion case in another court on the complex. The next proceedings of the trial are scheduled for Monday.
   Hasina, detained in a special jail on the complex, now faces six cases filed after the interim government had assumed office on January 11, 2007.
   In the barge-mounted power plant case, Hasina, along with seven others, including former energy secretary Toufiq-e-Elahi Chowdhury, is facing charges for allegedly taking Tk 3 crore in bribe from the officials of three power companies.
   Toufiq was sent to jail after his surrender in court on January 16. Six others accused in the case, now in hiding, are former Power Development Board chairman Noor Uddin Mahmud Kamal, Summit Corporation managing director Mohammad Aziz Khan and its director Mohammad Farid Khan, United Group chairman Hasan Mahmud Raja and its director Abul Kalam Azad and Bangabandhu Memorial Museum curator Syed Siddiqur Rahman.
   The commission on January 10 filed the charge sheet with the court in the power plant case accusing Hasina and the seven. The case was lodged with the Tejgaon police station on September 2 against seven of the accused. Siddiqur Rahman was not named on the first information report.
   On January 28, senior Dhaka metropolitan special judge M Azizul Haque transferred the case to the special judge’s court of M Firoz Alam after fixing the date.

After long 15 years, the housing and public works ministry has at last initiated a move to look into the appeal of father of the 1969 Mass Uprising hero Matiur for allocation of an abandoned house in Dhaka city to live in.
   The file of Matiur’s father Azhar Ali Mallik (sha 10/lal/26-83) has been pending with the authorities concerned for over 15 years just to gather dust with no reply so far from the government regarding allocation of the abandoned property at 7/1 Joygan Road, Lalbagh.
   ‘The issue has come to my notice. I have instantly ordered the concerned desk to put up the file of Matiur’s father,’ housing and public works secretary ASM Rashidul Hai told New Age on Sunday.
   He said the ministry would make all efforts to remove hurdles, if any, to resolving the issue. ‘I would do my best in this regard. But everything must be done in legal framework to avoid further complication in future,’ the secretary added.
   In an article on the Mass Uprising Day on January 24, Azhar Ali appealed to chief adviser Fakhruddin Ahmed for looking into the file pending with the public works ministry for years and issuing directives as per law. ‘I have been living in rented houses for 55 years in the city. I have no house of my own anywhere in the country……My file has been pending with the public works ministry for 15 years,’ he writes in the article.
   A retired Sonali Bank official, Azhar is proud of his second son Matiur, who sacrificed himself in 1969 mass upsurge against the then Pakistani military junta. His youngest son, the lone earning member of the family, was killed in an accident in Saudi Arabia in 1984. His elder son is visually impaired. The family now lives on a meagre monthly pension of Tk 2194 of Azhar, who has no alternative source of income at present.
   Matiur Rahman Mallik was a Class X student at Nabakumar Institution when he joined a students’ procession and was shot dead by the police at the secretariat gate in Dhaka on January 24, 1969. His death intensified the movement that led to fall of the then Pakistani autocrat Ayub Khan and ultimately culminated into the birth of Bangladesh through the 1971 War of Independence.

The Criminal Investigation Department arrested at Azimpur in Dhaka an associate of an Indian citizen, suspected of possessing the Nobel prize medal Rabindranath Tagore was awarded in 1913 which was stolen from Santiniketan in West Bengal in 2004.
   The lawmen arrested Mohammad Hossain Shiplu, 32, son of the owner of Rokhshana Pearls Handicrafts at Gulshan 2 DCC Market. Jiban Singh is the prime suspect of the medal theft case filed with the Indian police.
   Sources in the Criminal Investigation Department said one of its teams raided a hideout at Azimpur at around 2:30am and arrested Shiplu.
   ‘Shiplu, who lives in Italy, has been interrogated in connection with giving shelter to Jiban Singh and his alleged link with the theft,’ said additional superintendent of the CID, Abdullah Arif, who lead the team.
   ‘He gave shelter to Jiban Singh, prime suspect in the case of medal theft, after the medal had been stolen,’ Arif said. The CID made the arrest after the Indian authorities had sought cooperation in arresting Jiban Singh, believed to be hiding in Bangladesh.
   The lawmen will produce Shiplu in court today seeking him to be remanded in custody for interrogation.
   The Rapid Action Battalion on November 6, 2007 raided the DCC market in search of the medal after it had came to know that the medal had made its way to Bangladesh.
   The battalion conducted the raid after tapping telephonic conversations between Abul Hossain and an Urdu-speaking person about the stolen medal, sources said.
   The battalion picked up Abul Hossain, owner of the Rokhshana Pearls Handicrafts, and two of his employees. The employees were later released after interrogation.
   The battalion then looked for the passports of Abul Hossain and his son. Abul Hossain visited India 60 times in three years and his son, Shiplu, visited India and several European countries for several times.
   During interrogation, Abul Hossain admitted talking with an Urdu-speaking person, but he said he had not kept the medal.
   The battalion was keeping watch over a German citizen for his suspected link with the persons who reportedly smuggled the medal into the country.
   In 2004, the police in West Bengal said the Nobel medal was stolen from a museum, part of Visva-Bharati University, founded by Tagore in 1921.
   The Nobel medal for literature and the certificate and some personal possessions were stolen from a locked glass showcase in the museum on March 25, 2004. Tagore became the first non-westerner to win the Nobel prize in literature in 1913.

The chief adviser, Fakhruddin Ahmed, on Saturday urged the farmers to redouble their efforts to increase production of food grains by turning single-crop farmland into two-crop land.
   ‘We don’t have any alternative to increasing food production cultivable land is squeezing due to urbanisation, industrialisation and infrastructure development,’ he told a meeting of representatives of cross-sections of people at the auditorium of Mthapukur upazila here.
   The chief adviser assured the farmers of providing them with necessary support to increase agricultural production.
   In this regard, he mentioned that instructions had already been given to the departments concerned to timely supply agricultural inputs like fertilizer, diesel and irrigation to farmers to boost boro paddy production this year.
   He said the Rural Electrification Board has been provided with money to buy electric transformers to help irrigation for the Boro farming. Besides, shops and markets have been ordered to close after 8:00pm to save power for irrigation, he added.
   The government has set the target of procuring 28 lakh tonnes of fertilizer this year, three lakh tonnes more than previous year’s, to support increased agricultural production, he pointed out.
   Fertilizers will be distributed from 12,000 to 14,000 points so that farmers could get it timely.
   ‘Turn your one-crop land into two-crop land and two-crop into three-crop land. The government will provide all-out support to you in increasing production,’ he said.
   The chief adviser noted that the present government has prioritised the agriculture sector with increased allocation in ADP. Besides, Tk 350 crore has been earmarked for agriculture research to increase the production of food grains.
   Explaining the reason for holding the council of advisers meeting in Rangpur, he said, ‘We want to take government to the doorstep of common people. Rangpur has been selected as it is far away from the capital Dhaka.’
   He said the council meeting asked the advisers to identify the problems in the northern region and take effective measures to resolve those. From now on, the advisers will visit different districts and meet people to know their problems and find solutions.
   About the coming general election, the chief adviser said, ‘We are moving towards the elections to be held towards the end of this year.’
   He said the Election Commission is preparing a voter list with spontaneous support of the people.
   The chief adviser mentioned that the council of advisers has approved an ordinance making the Election Commission independent. ‘Our aim is not only to hold an election in a free and fair manner this year but all elections in the future.’
   Presided over by Rangpur deputy commissioner Khandaker Atiar Rahman, the meeting was also addressed by Moslem Uddin Pramanik for farmers, Shahana Begum for teachers, Abdul Halim for journalists, Shah Mohammad Hafizur Rahman for UP chairmen and Rangpur municipal chairman Abdur Rouf Manik.
   The local representatives raised various demands, including establishment of industrial units and cold storage in the region.
   The chief advisor said the government would extend all cooperation if the private sector took initiative for setting up industries.

Labourers of the state-owned Alim Jute Mills in Khulna blocked the Khulna–Jessore Highway near the mill gate for about an hour Saturday morning.
   The labourers blocked the highway at around 10:00am to push for their demand for the withdrawal of lay-off at the mill and payment of their dues. The labourers had held a protest rally at the mill gate before they blocked the highway.
   When the labourers began blocking the road, the police requested them to leave the place. The police administration later sat at a meeting with the CBA leaders, representatives of labourers and the mill administration.
   After the meeting the CBA leaders and representatives of labourers said the mill administration gave an assurance of opening the mill by February 15 and requested the labourers to withdraw the blockade.
   The labourers called off the blockade and held another rally where they said they would wage tougher movements if their demands were not met.
   ‘We know the state of emergency is in place. But we have no other options as we are hungry. We cannot see our family starving and our children staying away from schools to earn for the family,’ said Abdul Hamid, a leader of the labourers.
   The lay-off at the Alim Jute Mill has been in place for 133 days, beginning September 22, said mill officials.
   Official sources in the mill said the mill was declared lay off on September 22 for a month showing financial crunch, shortage of raw jute and power crunch and the lay-off at the mill was extended for the first time for 15 days effective from October 22.
   The lay-off was extended for the second time at the mill on November 6 for a month, on December 6 for 26 days, on December 31, 2007, for a month and on January 31 for 15 days.
   The labourers are yet to be paid their wages of 33 weeks and salaries of eight months, festival allowance and lay-off benefits, mill officials said.

The port city of Chittagong was put on high alert to combat bird flu after some dead crows tested positive. The local administration swung into action with massive spraying of anti-virus liquid in the bazaars and dustbins from Saturday.
   Bird flu virus were traced in some crows found dead recently at Agrabad in the city and tested in Dhaka, officials added.
   Two control rooms were set up under the disaster management preparedness cell, the Chittagong City Corporation (CCC) and the district administration in a bid to monitor the bird flu situation, officials added.
   The Deputy commissioner of Chittagong, Asraf Shameem, told New Age that Chittagong was brought under continuous surveillance after detection of bird flu virus in the dead crows.
   He informed reporters that the bird flu virus has not yet been traced in any poultry farm here so far.
   ‘After we got the test report on dead crows, we took it seriously. All officials and concerned bodies were immediately asked to take precautionary measures to check the outbreak of bird flu,’ he claimed.
   ‘We held an emergency meeting for two hours till 12pm on Friday night and decided to maintain strong vigilance in addition to other required measures,’ he added.
   ‘We asked all officials in the city and upazilas to start massive spraying in local bazaars and on dustbins to prevent the outbreak of bird flu,’ he added.
   ‘If the virus is traced in any poultry firm, immediate measures will be taken for culling the fowls. Efforts are on for round-the-clock vigilance in this regard,’ he further said.
   Meanwhile, the sale of poultry birds and eggs declined in the local bazaars after the bird flu panic gripped the city and adjoining areas, said market sources.
   Our Kushtia correspondent said that nearly 6,000 poultry birds were buried on Saturday after nearly 5,000 died within a span of five days in the Kushtia Agro Hatchery and Poultry Farm at Barokhada under Sadar Upazila.
   Samples were sent to Dhaka on Friday through district livestock office for being tested.
   After extermination of affected fowls the rate of mortality in the farm has sharply fallen, claimed the farm owner Ataur Rahman on Saturday.
   District Livestock Officer Ajay Kumar Roy told New Age that whether it was bird flu or anything else cannot be said until the government order comes. He could not confirm when the GO would come.
   The livestock office has, in the meantime, banned the entrance and departure of any poultry birds or products to or from the farm, said the DLO. ‘We are trying to combat the infection through our limited manpower,’ he added.
   Panic gripped the people in the areas adjacent to the farm as it is located within a village. No disinfection programme has so far been launched in the area as the GO is yet to come.
   ’I have supplied the workers with gloves and masks as precaution,’ said the farm owner.

Interpol on Friday issued notices for the arrest of two brothers wanted in connection with India’s biggest ever illegal kidney transplant racket, the global police body said.
   Amit Kumar, 40, and Jeevan Rawat, 36, are the ‘subject of national arrest warrants for illegal transplanting of kidneys, cheating and criminal conspiracy’, Interpol said.
   ‘It is believed that during the past eight years around 500 people were forcibly operated on and their kidneys transplanted to foreign patients in a secret operating theatre,’ it added.
   The multi-million-dollar scam emerged last week after Indian police raided several hospitals and houses in Gurgaon, a New Delhi suburb.
   A doctor, several intermediaries and hospital staff have been arrested over the past week.
   The men behind the illegal operation are believed to have charged up to two million rupees (50,000 dollars) for a kidney from clients from across the globe, according to Gurgaon police.
   The kidneys are believed to have come from poor migrant workers, some of whom have said they were kidnapped and drugged – although police say the illegal donors were likely to have been paid around 40,000 rupees.
   Under India’s ‘Transplantation of Human Organs Act’, kidney transplants are allowed only if the organ is donated by a blood relative or spouse, or there is a swap agreement between two needy families.
   All transplants must be cleared by the government. But a huge gap between demand and supply of kidneys because of few body donations has resulted in a flourishing illegal trade.

There has been an outbreak of diseases caused by cold among the homeless people of the cyclone-stricken areas of Sharankhola upazila in Bagerhat district because of the recent continuous drizzle and bitter cold.
   Md Amirul Azad, the officer in charge of the Khulna Met office, the office nearest to Sharankhola, told New Age that the office recorded 11.8, 11.3, 12.5, 13.6, 13.2 and 10.6 degree Celsius as the lowest temperature and 22.7, 23.5, 24.8, 21, 22.5 and 22.4 degree Celsius as the highest temperature from January 28 to February 2.
   He said that the bitter cold in the zone has been made more unbearable due to the constantly blowing wind.
   The problem is further compounded because most of the people of the four unions of the cyclone-affected upazila have lost their residences and have been passing their days in makeshift shelters and tents.
   The homeless people of the area who have been living by the sides of the embankments and high roads are among those who have been suffering most from the bitter cold.
   ‘We lost our homes and belongings to Sidr on November 15, and later a good number of makeshift shelters were damaged by rain in last week of January. Now we are suffering from bitter cold and two out of every 10 persons are suffering from cold-related diseases in the area,’ said 50-year-old Mujibur Rahman of village Bogi in Sharankhola upazila.
   He said that the children and elderly people of the area are the worst victims of cold-induced diseases like cough, asthma, respiratory problems, fever and pneumonia.
   TM Moniruzzaman Masum, a village doctor of Rasulpur in Rayenda union under Sharankhola upazila, told New Age that he has to treat a huge number of patients suffering from cough, fever, asthma, skin diseases and pneumonia.
   Dr Md Shafiqul Islam, Sharankhola upazila’s health and family planning officer, told New Age on Saturday evening that the number of cold-induced diseases is higher this time than at any other time in his upazila, but the situation is still not so alarming. He, however, could not tell the percentage of the suffering people in the area.
   He said that 8 to 10 medical teams were working in the upazila on rotation at different places of the upazila.
   Md Shahnawaz Talukdar, Sharankhola’s upazila nirbahi officer, told New Age that a total of 13,451 huts was damaged totally while 8,342 were damaged partially by the cyclone in four unions of the upazila on November 15.
   Admitting that the number of cold-induced diseases has risen much higher than the previous year after the recent drizzles, the UNO said that the upazila administration has distributed 4,500 tents, 500 bundles of corrugated iron sheets, and 15,000 metres of polythene after the recent series of drizzles.

The French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, and his girlfriend Carla Bruni were married at the Elysee palace Saturday, local district mayor Francois Lebel told Europe 1 radio.
   Lebel said he had performed the ceremony, which came less than three months after the couple met in the wake of Sarkozy’s divorce from his second wife, Cecilia.
   Sarkozy, 53 earlier this week, divorced Cecilia in October after 11 years of marriage, and six months after taking over the French presidency. Bruni, aged 40, is a singer and former model who has a son from a former relationship.
   Lebel said it was the first time in the history of the French republic that a president had married while in office.
   Bruni is a rich heiress of Italian origin who moved from a successful career as a supermodel in the 1990s to that of a ballad singer with a hit record. The tall brunette has been romantically linked to a string of famous men including rock stars Mick Jagger and Eric Clapton as well as tycoon Donald Trump.
   ‘I am a tamer (of men), a cat, an Italian,’ she told Le Figaro magazine in February last year. ‘Monogamy bores me terribly.’
   ‘I am monogamous from time to time but I prefer polygamy and polyandry (its female equivalent).’
   Bruni reportedly met Sarkozy at a Paris dinner party organised by advertising magnate Jacques Seguela in November, one month after his divorce.
   Photographs of the pair at the Disneyland theme park outside Paris were splashed in newspapers and magazines a month later, confirming Bruni as Sarkozy’s new ‘queen of hearts.’
   The president told a press conference last month that his relationship with Bruni was serious and all but confirmed that he planned to marry her.
   Sarkozy has a 10-year-old son, Louis, from his marriage to Cecilia and two sons, Pierre, 22, and Jean, 21, from his first marriage to Marie-Dominique Culioli.

The president, George W Bush, will seek $140.7 billion on Monday for the US Army in fiscal 2009, including increased funds to buy helicopters and other equipment, according to budget documents obtained by the Reuters.
   That request would be 8 per cent higher than the Army budget requested for fiscal 2008.
   The request for weapons and equipment procurement dollars will total $24.6 billion compared with $23.8 billion sought for fiscal 2008. The 2009 figure falls short of the $26.2 billion the Army previously said it would seek for procurement.
   It will include $1.17 billion for CH-47 heavy-lift Chinook helicopters and modifications from Boeing Co and $1.06 billion for UH-60 Blackhawk helicopters from United Technologies Corp Sikorsky unit.
   The budget request also will include increases for ammunition, Stryker vehicles and a family of medium tactical vehicles.
   The funding request for Future Combat Systems, the Army’s modernisation effort, will hold roughly flat at $3.555 billion in fiscal 2009 compared with $3.563 billion a year ago.
   Fiscal 2009 starts October 1, 2008. The Army, the largest branch of the US military, has been stressed by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Much of the fiscal 2009 budget request aims to address that strain by retraining personnel and fixing or replacing equipment.
   The budget request also includes funds to increase the size of the Army to 532,400 soldiers by the end of fiscal 2009, up from about 512,400 now. That is part of a five-year plan to boost both the Army and Marine Corps.

A leading anti-government lawyer in Pakistan was detained again Saturday just two days after he had completed 90 days under house arrest, officials said.
   The action against Aitzaz Ahsan, president of Pakistan’s Supreme Court bar association, followed his tough statements in which he called for the president, Pervez Musharraf, to step down.
   Ahsan was first jailed and then kept under house arrest after Musharraf declared a state of emergency on November 3.
   That sentence was up on Thursday but the former minister was served with a fresh detention order for 30 days. However, that was withdrawn at the last minute and he was freed.
   He spoke to lawyers on Friday and again addressed them on Saturday in the eastern city of Lahore, calling for Musharraf’s resignation.
   But after Saturday’s address to hundreds of lawyers Ahsan was served with a new 30-day detention order by the police as he tried to board a plane to the southern province of Sindh, home ministry officials said.
   Ahsan said he wanted to go to the native town of slain former prime minister Benazir Bhutto to offer prayers at her grave in Nau Dero.
   He was also to meet and offer condolences to Benazir’s widower Asif Ali Zardari, who is now co-chairman of her Pakistan Peoples Party, of which Ahsan is a member.
   Ahsan said the Sindh government had also banned his entry to the region for a month and condemned the action as violation of his fundamental rights.
   He was the chief lawyer for the country’s former chief justice, Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry. Musharraf suspended Chaudhry from his post on misconduct charges in March, setting off months of political turmoil that saw judges and lawyers take to the streets in protest.
   The Supreme Court ordered Chaudhry’s reinstatement after a legal campaign led by Ahsan. However Chaudhry was later sacked and put under house arrest amid November’s emergency rule.
   Opponents accuse Musharraf of sacking Chaudhry to head off a Supreme Court verdict that appeared likely to overturn his victory in a presidential election in October.
   Ahsan served as interior minister in the late Benazir Bhutto’s first tenure as Pakistani prime minister from 1988 to 1990.

The use of contraceptives, which saw a steady rise for more than two decades and covered nearly 58 per cent of the country’s married populace in 2004, is declining fast, revealed a government survey.
   The Bangladesh Demographic and Health Survey 2007 also expressed serious concern over the diminishing rate of contraceptive use in both the urban and rural people.
   Health ministry officials and experts said the outcome was a big blow to the family planning programmes, and expressed the apprehension that the falling rate of contraceptive use might result in a population boom.
   ‘It’s a very alarming trend which is a result of the country’s current poor state of family planning activities,’ said a health ministry official who worked in the field for more than 10 years.
   He said the scenario of family planning still looks impressive on paper as indications of the feeble family planning activities and the falling rate of contraceptive use are not visible yet.
   ‘The implications will be perceived in a year or two,’ the official told New Age on Thursday.
   Experts termed the simultaneous fall in the contraceptive prevalence rate (CPR) and the total fertility rate (TFR) ‘very unusual’ because the rise of contraceptive use usually helps to reduce the fertility rate. However it may take some time for the fall in CPR to have some visible effect, so TFR may increase in the near future.
   They said that the government’s target of raising the CPR rate to 70 per cent has been a shattering failure according to the survey’s results.
   ‘The target was to bring down the net reproductive rate (NRR) to 1, and that will be possible only when TFR will be 2.2, which now stands at 2.7,’ said another official who is doing research in family planning.
   The survey, conducted by the National Institution of Population Research and Training, interviewed 10,192 men and women and found that only 55.8 per cent of them are using various contraceptive methods.
   ‘Between 2004 and 2007, contraceptive use decreased markedly in women aged 30 and over, and marginally in younger women,’ said a preliminary report, prepared on the basis of the survey.
   The experts identified non-availability of contraceptives, their prices, government’s negligent attitude towards the sector and the poor performance of about 50,000 workers serving in the field as the factors behind the fall in contraceptive use.
   The survey also indicates a drop in the use of permanent birth-prevention methods. Only 4.5 per cent of the men are using condoms, which is very disappointing for family planning workers.
   Apart from birth control, the condom is the most effective tool to check spread of HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases.
   ‘The pill is the most widely used method, which is used by 29 per cent of the women, followed by injectable preventives (7 per cent),’ says the survey.
   But the use of injectable preventives has been dropping since 2004, the year that saw the highest use of the method, by 9.7 per cent of the married people. Shortage of supply has been blamed for the drop, added the survey.
   According to the survey, less than one per cent of women mentioned male sterilization, the use of IUD, Norplant and other traditional methods.
   The prevalence of contraceptive use by married women in Bangladesh increased from only 8 per cent in 1995 to 56 per cent in 2007, a seven-fold increase. But in the past three years there has been an alarming reduction in the over-all use of contraceptives.
   The decade-long decline in the use of long-lasting contraceptive methods stabilised in 2007 as only 7 per cent of the currently married women are being sterilized or using IUD or Norplant compared with 11 per cent in 1993-94.
   In 1993-94, the long-lasting methods accounted for 26 per cent of the total contraceptive use. Now they account for only 13 per cent.
   The use of contraceptives also varies according to the women’s ages and places of residence. The survey revealed that the married women in their thirties use two-thirds of the family planning methods, which is the highest rate.
   Rajshahi division has the highest percentage of contraceptive users — 66 per cent — while Sylhet has the lowest — 32 per cent.
   Surprisingly, said the survey, education mattered little in influencing men and women to use contraceptives.
   ‘About 56 per cent of the population with no education use contraceptives while 62 per cent per cent of those who have passed secondary or higher examinations practise family control.’
   The survey, carried out between March and August in 2007, revealed that two out of five contraceptive(s) users stop using them within 12 months of starting. In the last three years, discontinuation of condom use has declined by 71 per cent.

The National Poetry Festival 2008 concluded at Dhaka University on Saturday where Mahadev Saha was given the National Poetry Award.
   The National Poetry Council, organiser of the festival, also introduced another award,
   Poet Shamsur Rahman
   Award, for the young poets this year.
   The council’s general secretary Golam Kibria Pinu said, ‘We have decided to give the Shamsur Rahman Award to poet and television journalist Jahanara Parvin this year.’
   Mahadev, who was given the national award, has written about a hundred books in different literary genres. He was earlier given the Bangla Academy Award and Ekushey Padak for his achievement in poetry.
   Professor Niranjan Odhikari read out a paper on ‘the spirit of time and society in poetry’ and Sazzad Qadir on ‘the role of Bangladesh’s poets in democratic march.’
   Three poetry reading sessions and concluding session were held in the afternoon. The sessions were chaired by Mohan Raihan, Nirmalendu Goon, Belal Chowdhury and poet Faiz Ahmad.
   Poet Syed Shamsul Haq inaugurated the two-day festival on Friday.
   The council has been holding the festival every year since 1987.

Two crude bombs were hurled inside the compound of the house of former Dhaka University Teachers’ Association president AAMS Arefin Siddique Saturday evening. One of the bombs went off under the porch. No one was hurt.
   Professor Siddique said a bomb exploded under the porch at around 7:25pm and the other bomb, which landed near the entrance of the house on the Central Road, did not explode.
   He was not at home when the bombs were hurled. He later informed the police of the matter.
   The Dhaka University teachers, meanwhile, condemned the incident and demanded security for the university teachers.
   Former teachers’ association general secretary Muhammad Akhtaruzzaman accused a ‘certain quarter’ of carrying out their evil designs.
   ‘The incident has taken place when the university campus became stable after months of uneasiness. It is clear that the people who wanted to destabilise the campus have done it,’ he said.
   Arefin Siddique earlier received death threats on several occasions during the immediate-past BNP-led government.
   His office in the Lecture Theatre on the campus was also vandalised on September 9, 2004.

A woman was found dead in her house on her first wedding anniversary at Gulshan in Dhaka on Saturday.
   The family said Tasmir Hossain Munni, 25, was strangled by her husband and was hanged from the ceiling fan in her bedroom.
   Tasmir’s elder sister, Mita, told New Age, ‘The husband of my sister, Chowdhury Fahimul Zaman, called me to say that Munni committed suicide by hanging herself from a ceiling fan at about 1:30pm.’
   ‘We immediately rushed to her house and found her hanging in her bedroom. We informed the police of the matter immediately,’ she said.
   The Gulshan police recovered the body at around 2:30pm and sent it to the Dhaka Medical College Hospital morgue for a post-mortem examination.
   The police detained Fahim, who is a customer service official of the Gulshan branch HSBC Bank.
   Tasmir’s elder brother Anwar Hossain filed a murder case with the police in this connection Saturday night.
   Subinspector Abdul Based, the duty officer at the
   Gulshan police station, told New Age, ‘We will get to know of the matter after we receive the post-mortem examination report.’

The Bera police recovered the bodies of two suspected members of underground Sarbahara Party at Shyampur Char in Pabna Saturday morning.
   They were shot and chopped to death by their rivals, police said. The deceased were Bacchu Mondal, 28, son of Jasim Mondal of village Mirpur in Bera upazila and an unidentified man of 31.
   Bacchu was regional leader of a Sarbahara faction and accused of crimes including robbery.
   Officer-in-charge of Bera police station Maniruzzaman said the murders were due to internal feuds. Remote Dhalarchar union is a sanctuary for underground operatives from Pabna, Rajbari and Manikganj districts.
   Law enforcing agencies initiated a massive manhunt in June 2007 in Dhalarchar area and arrested a number of crime suspects and underground operatives.

The foreign adviser, Iftekhar Ahmed Chowdhury, has asked to immediately bring back the bodies of Bangladeshi workers who died in an accident in Saudi Arabia Thursday night.
   Iftekhar, also in charge of expatriates’ welfare and overseas employment ministry, gave the instruction while talking to the foreign secretary, M Tauhid Hossain, over telephone from Gaibandha on Saturday. In a condolence message, the adviser expressed shock at the death of Bangladeshi construction workers who died in a road accident in Saudi Arabia.
   He prayed for the salvation of the departed souls and conveyed sympathy to the members of the bereaved families.
   Eleven Bangladeshi construction workers were killed in a road accident at Abkik near Dammam, about 400 kms off capital Riyadh.