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Taxicab and auto-rickshaw drivers and owners continue to disregard the government set guidelines causing immense sufferings to the passengers.
   The government introduced the taxicab service in 1998 and CNG-run auto-rickshaws in 2003 with a view to improve the city’s transport system, but these services have now become irritating to the city dwellers.
   The owners responded to the government offer and introduced the services importing vehicles on reduced taxes at the time but most of the vehicles are now worn out.
   Seats of most of the taxicabs have become uncomfortable, leaving the passengers no other option but to avoid hiring them as much as possible.
   More than 10,000 taxis are registered as cabs – over 4,000 of them air-conditioned yellow cabs and the rest are economy or non-AC black or blue cabs. But only a few hundred are now plying the streets of the capital, sources said.
   As per the guideline, a taxicab cannot carry goods only but they are doing so everyday and going outside the capital.
   ‘We have to deposit more than Tk 800 to Tk 1200 to the owners as daily deposit and there is no alternative but to carry goods to earn it,’ said a driver of blue-cab, Abul Kashem.
   He said that many of the cabbies avoid taking passengers on short distances and look for a chance of carrying goods.
   ‘After earning the deposit money, we then go to the destinations of our own choice,’ he admitted.
   An official of a reputed taxicab company said that as the passengers avoided the worn-out cabs, many of them are now involved in illegal activities to earn money for the daily deposit.
   The guideline says ‘no cab or auto-rickshaw can run with passengers having its meter out of order or tampered. And if it is found, action will be taken against the driver and owner.’ But it has become a regular feature that the drivers carry passengers on contract basis.
   The yellow cabs, which are supposed to be air-conditioned, often do not run the AC on the plea that it is out of order, but they charge the same fare fixed for the A/C cab, a regular passenger pointed out.
   The guideline also says that the vehicles will be driven by the company drivers but many owners sold the vehicles to others who then leased their vehicles to the drivers with agreement of depositing money on daily basis.
   The cabs, according to the guidelines, are supposed to have radio for communication between the company control room and the taxicab so that the driver can be asked to pick up passengers for an extra payment of Tk 10 but this is no more being followed.
   Regarding the matter, the company official said that the government was charging a high rate of Tk 1,100 for each of the walkie-talkie which is unaffordable.
   The official mentioned that the government was yet to set up a permanent stand for the taxicabs in the city where they can wait and pick passengers.
   The taxicabs are often handed over cases by the traffic police for picking up passengers from non-parking areas, he said listing a number of other allegations of harassment by the authorities on the road.
   The guidelines say the worn out vehicles would be replaced by new ones but these are yet to be done, he admitted.

Frequent power outages have hit hard production in printing presses, packaging industries and engineering workshops in the Khulna
   city adding to the sufferings of the owners and workers and employees as well.
   Although power outages affect the overall industrial production, printing presses, packaging industries and engineering workshops are the worst suffers as price-hike of raw materials has already hit the sector, industry insiders said.
   The Power Development Board sources they could supply around 50 megawatt to 60MW electricity in the city against the demand of about 100MW.
   According to the press and workshop owners, there are 80 printing presses, including six letter presses, six packaging industries, and about
   300 engineering workshops in the city.
   They said they were allowed to keep the presses and workshops open till 8:00pm and on average, they had to keep their production suspended four to five hours because of load shedding.
   Compose, design and printing works at the presses and welding at the engineering workshops are kept suspended during the load shedding
   and the workers have to remain idle, they said adding that
   these hamper production
   and increase the production cost.
   Price hike of raw materials, such as paper, inks and printing plates for presses, and pipes and iron rods for workshops earlier hit the printing and engineering workshop sectors,
   they said, adding that power outages have compounded their plights.
   ‘As our income has declined sharply due to the severely-hit production, we are facing difficulties in paying the wages of the workers and employees,’ a printing press owner said, adding that many of them, who have bank loans, are also being failed to pay the instalments for the past few months.
   The packaging industries, that produce packs and cartons for packing frozen foods at the shrimp processing plants in and around the city, have to use generators during power outages, they said, adding that use of generators for four to five hours pushes up their production cost significantly.
   Golam Robbani, owner of Rabi Printing Press at the city’s Shantidham Crossing, told
   New Age that they had been incurring loss for past several months for frequent power outages and price spiral of raw materials.
   Workers and employees
   at some printing houses and workshops said as their
   production fell sharply due to load shedding pushing their owners into hardship, they were not getting their wages regularly.
   The press, packaging and engineering workshop owners said they could overcome the losses if they were allowed to keep their businesses open as long as they want.

Members of the Bangladesh Rifles rescued a trader foiling an abduction bib at Charghat upazila of Rajshahi on Friday.
   The BDR also arrested an alleged abductor Manik Haque, hailing from Baduria village under Charghat upazila.
   According to the sources, a group of miscreants attacked Rafiqul Islam, a mango trader of Jatrabari in Dhaka, in Mukterpur border area of Charghat. They snatched Tk 27000 and a mobile phone set from Rafiqul’s possession and made an attempt to pick up him by a motorcycle. As he raised a cry for help, the BDR members came to his rescue. They caught an alleged abductor Manik Haque.
   The abductors threatened Rafiqul’s family to pay Tk 2.00 lakh as ransom or face consequence for non-compliance. The arrestee was later handed over to the police.
   The BDR filed a case with the Charghat police station in this connection.

The April 20 arson attack on Sajek villages under Baghaichari upazila in Rangamati was part of a resettlement plot, according to the report of Sajek citizens’ inquiry team.
   Incidents if setting up of makeshift houses ‘with an ultimate target to grab the land of the hill people increased in the area’ after promulgation of the emergency power rules, the team members said disclosing the report at a discussion meeting held at Dhaka University on Thursday.
   The 14-member Sajek citizens’ inquiry team, formed after the April 20 arson attack on six villages in Sajek union council of Bagaichari upazila of Rangamati, prepared the report with 7-point observations after they had visited the villages between April 27 and April 30.
   ‘Although the local people of Sajek informed the army on April 20 afternoon that a tense situation was prevailing in the area, they [army] paid no heed to it,’ says the report of the committee, headed by Biplobi Oikya Front convenor Moshrefa Mishu.
   Other members of the team included university teachers, journalists, students and members of Greater Chittagong Hill Tracts Students’ Council.
   Presided over by Moshrefa Mishu, the discussion was addressed, among others, by the executive director of Research Initiative Bangladesh, Meghna Guhathakurta, Dhaka University’s international relations department teacher Akmal Hossain, Jahangirnagar University’s anthropology department teacher Sayeed Ferdous, and Society for Environment and Human Development researcher Parth Shankar Shaha.
   Narrating the team’s experience during the visit, Mishu said the attack was a communal attack on the villages by settlers. Meghna Guhathakurta said the army had no right to stay in Chittagong Hill Tracts as they had failed to ensure people’s security even within a radius of three to four kilometres of their camps.
   Akmal Hossain said there was a conspiracy to oust the ethnic Jumma people from the Chittagong Hill Tracts.
   A conspiracy was also on against the languages of the ethnic minority communities, he said adding, ‘We must recognise the rights of the Jumma people and other ethnic minority communities to education up to primary level in their own languages.’
   Sayeed Ferdous said the army must make their position about Chittagong Hill Tracts issues clear. ‘The army cannot avoid its responsibility about the Sajek attack by just holding unknown terrorists responsible,’ he said.
   The discussion was followed by a play, titled ‘Shinga’, staged by Hatiar Natyagosthi. The play depicts army repression and attack on innocent Jumma people in the CHT.

The National Press Club in the city on Friday accorded a reception to Reuters photojournalist, Rafiqur Rahman, who won the prestigious Camera Operator of the Year-2007 from the international news agency last year.
   Reuters offered the award to Rafiq, a Bangladeshi-born staff of its Dhaka office, in recognition of his photographic work done under volatile situations like political instability, violence, natural disasters and emergencies.
   ‘I could not yet been able to take a shot of my full satisfaction,’ said an apparently happy Rafiq, who has been working for 27 years in Reuters. He, however, extended his personal gratefulness to the press club for the reception.
   The press club president Shawkat Mahmud chaired the function, also addressed by chief editor of Bangladesh Sangbad Sangstha Zaglul Ahmed Chowdhury, the press club general secretary Kamaluddin Sabuj, member of the press club managing committee Shehabuddin Ahmed Nafa, Reuters journalist Nizam Uddin, senior photojournalist Monwar Ahmed, general secretary of Bangladesh Photojournalists’ Association Nooruddin Ahmed, and journalist Shirin Sultana. The press club joint secretary Kazi Rounak Hossain conducted the programme.
   Zaglul Chowdhury commended Rafiqur Rahman’s great quality and instincts saying the award would act as a source of inspiration for the new generations to develop skills and make a qualitative change in photojournalism.
   Shawkat Mahmud lauded Rafiq for his contribution to project Bangladesh globally.
   Sabuj said many others could follow the path Rafiq has created through his devotion and hard works.

A four-day fine arts festival, organised began in Barisal Friday.
   The Charukala Barisal organised the festival marking successful 20 years of its founding.
   Shahid Kabir, a Spain expatriate painter of the Barisal origin, inaugurated the festival styled ‘Duur Hok Ruchir Durvikkho: Agiey Cholar Bachhor Kuritey (Let the crisis of tastes vanish: the year of progress is in twenty).
   The inaugural session included a colourful procession and opening a painting and sculpture exhibition at the City College.
   Paintings and sculptures by 44 Barisal based artists featured in the festival.

Rain or thunder showers accompanied by temporary gust or squally wind is likely at one or two 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 Friday, 35.2 degrees Celsius, was recorded in Madaripur and the lowest, 21.3 degrees Celsius, in Rangpur.
   The sun sets in the capital today at 6:39pm and rises tomorrow at 5:12am.

The Directorate of Fisheries has been implementing a fisheries development project with the objective of ensuring food security through creating job opportunities for the ultra poor people in the poverty-stricken five northern districts.
   According to the officials concerned, the three-year project styled ‘Ensuring Food Security and Poverty Alleviation in the Poverty- stricken Northern Area’ is being executed in Nilphamari, Lalmonirhat, Kurigram, Gaibandha and Rangpur at an estimated cost of Tk 11.75 crore.
   Under the project, 200 hectares of state and private level derelict, hyacinth and abandoned water bodies like ponds, bils and dried river would be re-excavated and renovated through construction of embankments and infrastructures.
   The improved water bodies are being handed over to the target group after organising them for fish farming. The beneficiaries are being made competent to operate fish farming in the developed water bodies after bringing those under a proper management.
   Apart from this, the project has been working to make the beneficiaries equipped through imparting need-based training and releasing fish fry, arranging transportation, marketing and feeding.
   In addition to infrastructure development and pond re-excavation for enhancing fish production by the target groups, physical development works of water bodies, extension activities and technical training for the farmers would be implemented.
   Likewise, local non-governmental organisations are being given responsibility to motivate the farmers in modern fish culture along with making them competent in operating some other necessary works like committee formation, maintaining accounts and records, loan receiving and repayments.
   It has also provision for engaging the unemployed people to fish farming after extending necessary training and inputs.
   Various environment-friendly saplings of trees would be planted in the poverty-prone areas to protect those from the natural calamity. On maturity, the plants would play a vital role in ensuring financial security for the target people.
   Talking to the news agency, Rajshahi divisional deputy director of the Directorate of Fisheries Shawkat Ali said on successful implementation, the project would help production of additional 400 to 600 tonnes of fish per year. In this way, employment opportunity would be created and malnutrition could be removed.
   The unemployed and non-skilled people could be transformed into skilled and production-oriented human resources through providing them with time fitting training.
   A long-term financial security is likely to be ensured at the much-talked about northern area through distribution of the improved water bodies among the jobless poor people.

To mark the 109th birth anniversary of the national poet Kazi Nazrul Islam on May 25, the Jatiya Kabi Kazi Nazrul Islam Biswabidhalaya in Trishal has chalked up a three-day elaborate programme on the university premises. The programme that begins on May 25 will include holding discussions, staging of dramas and cultural functions on Nazrul songs.
   Chairman of the Bangladesh University Grants Commission, Professor Nazrul Islam will inaugurate the programme to be chaired by vice-chancellor of the university Professor M Shamsur Rahman. Professor Zillur Rahman Siddiquee, ex vice-chancellor of the Jahangirnagar University, will attend the inaugural session as special guest.
   The Mymensingh District Administration will also organise a three-day programme at ‘Nazrul Mancha’ in Darirampir of Trishal upazila, in celebration of the birth anniversary of the poet, beginning on May 25.
   Eminent educationist and Nazrul researcher Dr. Ashraf Sidiquee will inaugurate the programme to be chaired by the deputy commissioner of Mymensingh, Md. Shamsul Alam. Eminent personalities in and outside the district will also attend the programme.
   The programme will include holding of a colourful rally, a discussion on life and works of the poet, musical soiree on Nazrul songs, dance dramas, recitation of poetry, and putting up drama and dance sequences with the accompaniment of famous Nazrul songs.
   A Nazrul mela (Nazrul fair) is held each year in Darirampur in celebration of the poet’s birth anniversary. Organisers have decided to hold the mela this year as well. The fair gives the atmosphere a festive look.
   All the preparations have been completed for the celebration, said Mymensingh NDC, Abul Bashar Mohammed Amir Uddin.
   Nazrul was born in the village Churulia of Bardwan district in the West Bengal of India on May 25 in 1899. Nazrul spent about a year in Darirampur studying in the Darirampur High School.

The government has set a target to plant 10 crore saplings across the country under public and private initiatives during the forthcoming rainy season.
   The chief adviser, Fakhruddin Ahmed, will inaugurate the three-month-long Tree Plantation Campaign at a function at Bangladesh China Friendship Centre in the capital today.
   During the campaign a month-long tree fair will also be arranged at National Parade Square. Similar fair and tree plantation drive will be organised at divisional, district and upazila levels.
   Addressing a press conference in Dhaka Friday the special assistant to chief adviser for environment and forest ministry, Raja Debasish Roy, said the basic objective of the tree plantation campaign was to introduce to the cross section of people the different types of wood and fruit trees to imbue them on plantation.
   He said, the time of tree plantation had been extended from one month to three months this year considering the importance of plantation in the changed climatic situation.
   Debasish said, ‘The government has decided to promote local varieties of tree this year with a view to fostering indigenous knowledge, tradition and innovation in tree plantation. And, in view of this the chief adviser will plant a local variety of tree after inauguration of the campaign.’
   The government wants to involve major social groups including youths, women, and indigenous people along with other government and private organisations in every plain and hilly land to protect bio-diversity of the area, he said.
   The environment and forest secretary, AHM Rezaul Kabir, informed the journalists about the programme of the tree plantation campaign at a pre-launch press conference held at PIB conference room.
   The principal information officer, Iftekher Hossain, the chief conservator of forest, AKM Samsuddin, and senior officials of the ministry were present.
   The theme of this year’s tree plantation campaign is ‘Plant more trees to face storm, tidal surge, floods and droughts.’
   Laying importance on a large-scale social forestation, Raja Debasish Roy said the target of turning 20 per cent of country’s land into forest area could not be achieved before end of the Forestry Master Plan in 2015 without joint management and massive social forestation.
   He said, so far 14 per cent area of the country turned into forest and the government had taken plan to ease the existing forest transit rules to encourage people for plantation of timber producing trees in their homestead.
   Rezaul Kabir said the government was going to introduce two special awards for private sector forest growers this year in addition to the current awards in 16 categories.
   One special award would be given to the producers of ‘bio-diversified forest’ and another award would be for ‘best quality timber producers’, the secretary said.
   He said the government had undertaken a five-year plan at a cost of Tk 650 crore to bring about one lakh hectares of coastal land under plantation programme.
   Under the programme, he said, a huge plantation drive would be taken to build a west-east ‘green belt’ along the southern coastal areas of the country to protect it from regular storm and water surge.
   Replying to a question the secretary said around 12 thousand hectares of land had been brought under plantation this year while 4,000 hectors of land were recovered form land grabbers.

Extortionists have taken control of a filling station after forcing its owner to shut up business for a while on the busy Dhaka-Chittagong highway in Kanchpur, which is on the outskirts of the capital.
   The hapless owner of the filling station, Nazrul Islam, has been going door to door of the powerful people for quite some time for a remedy, but without any success. A desperate Nazrul has even sought intervention of of the chief adviser, Fakhruddin Ahmed, and the army chief, Moeen U Ahmed, to get his problem solved. But he has received no communication from either of them.
   However, the authorities concerned have hardly taken any action to oust the illegal occupants and restore the business to its owner, although the law enforcers, members of the joint forces and other authorities have for long been requested to do so, alleged Nazrul Islam Dewan, owner of the Sonargaon Filling Station.
   The grabbers, by this time, have erected many illegal structures in the petrol pump’s premises. The law enforcers have maintained a ‘hands off’ attitude for reasons unknown, although the chief engineer of the Roads and Highways Department had earlier asked them to demolish the illegal strictures, alleged the owner.
   In separate letters to the commander of the joint forces and the local police station, the owner wrote that he had set up the gas station on 27 decimals of land leased from the Roads and Highways Department, and had earned a good reputation as a good businessman.
   But one Mokhtar Hossain, a cousin of former Bangladesh Nationalist Party lawmaker Gias Uddin, and his gang had forced him to sign a document with a promise to give Mokhtar 30 per cent share of the filling station.
   Mokhtar, an oil supplier, and his gang took full control of the filling station and ran it, but later handed it over to one Abdul Mannan for doing business with the help of a section of the unscrupulous employees of the Roads and Highways Department. Mannan allegedly managed to get a forged document.
   Nazrul said he had incurred a loss of more than Tk 1.5 crore over the last three years as the grabbers had refused to allow him to enter the station’s premises.
   Nazrul sought appointments with the chief adviser, Fakhruddin Ahmed, and the army chief, Moeen U Ahmed, to inform them of how the influential people were indulging in illegal activities at the grassroots level although the government’s anti-corruption drive was going on across the country, said sources.
   Influenced by the grabbers, a dishonest section in the R&H Department served several notices on Nazrul despite his request for renewal of the contract with the government as per the rules.
   A sub-inspector of the Sonargaon thana, Shah Alam, who investigated the matter, told New Age that Nazrul was the original owner of the station, but he took two partners and now the filling station is no longer in his control.
   ‘We cannot determine the real ownership unless the court settles the matter,’ he said.
   The owner alleged that one Shamsul Haq claimed that his ancestral land was part of the filling station’s area, and forcibly erected a few structures there. Shamsul, along with a few cronies, took away machineries from the station worth about Tk 8,20,000, Nazrul added.

Asian Peoples Alliance for Combating HIV and AIDS will hold a seminar in the city today to review the progress of HIV/AIDS situation in Bangladesh.
   The country coordination mechanism and the progress report of the government would be reviewed in the seminar at 3:00pm at Dhaka Reporters Unity, a press release said on Friday.
   The seminar has been organised to mark the end of a globally observed week-long programme of the Global AIDS Week of Action that concludes today.
   The Global AIDS Week of Action began on May 18, two weeks ahead of the UN General Assembly High-Level Meeting on HIV/AIDS in New York on June 10, to put pressure on governments to extend further support to the prevention, treatment and care related to HIV/AIDS.
   HIV and AIDS, the worst ever global epidemic, kill and infect scores of people everyday worldwide. In Bangladesh, the prevalence of HIV/AIDS is still very low, but all indicators for a quick spread of the infectious disease are remained in an alarming level.

A minor boy was killed and 10 people were injured as a storm lashed East Sahadevpur union in Kachua upazila of Chandpur on Thursday night.
   Local people said Swapan Mia’s family members, including his five-year-old son Nabir, were injured as a tree collapsed on his house at village Bhuiyan at about 7:30pm.
   Nabir was taken to Kachua Upazila Health Complex, where doctors declared him dead later at night.

BBC Sanglap in city today
The recording of the 38th episode of the BBC World Service’s discussion programme, Bangladesh Sanglap, will be held at the media centre of the Bangladesh-China Friendship Conference Centre in Dhaka today. Supreme Court lawyer Rafique-ul Huq, also a senior counsel for detained former prime ministers Sheikh Hasina and Khaleda Zia, Bikalpadhara Bangladesh secretary general Abdul Mannan, also a former minister of Khaleda’s cabinet, the BNP agricultural affairs secretary Shamsuzzaman Dudu, also a former lawmaker, and Awami League women affairs assistant secretary Shagufta Yasmin Emeli, also a former lawmaker, will take part in debates on current issues and answer to questions raised by the audience. The recording of the programme, to be presented and moderated by Kamal Ahmed of the BBC Bangla Service, will begin at 5:45pm. It will be broadcast on BBC Bangla Radio at 8:00pm on Sunday and on Channel-i television at 8:00pm on Monday.
— New Age