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The military-controlled interim government has announced yet another round of dialogues with political parties following its apparent failure to remove the hurdles to holding free and fair elections in the last 21 months.
   An adviser to the government announced the plan for more dialogues barely two days ahead of the deadline for applying for registration of the political parties with the Election Commission and two weeks before announcement of the schedule for the polls slated for December 18.
   The major political parties, including Awami League and Bangladesh Nationalist Party, which are likely to join the second round of formal dialogues this week, have stressed the need for removing the hurdles at the earliest as the elections are nearing.
   The AL and BNP, and their respective allies, are persistently demanding that the government should create an atmosphere conducive to free and fair polls, ensure participation of all political parties, lift the state of emergency, defer the upazila elections by a rational length of time and cancel delimitation of the parliamentary constituencies.
   In addition to the aforesaid demands, the BNP is also pressing the government for repeal of the amendments to the Representation of People Order 1972 and withdrawal of the ‘false’ cases filed against party leaders and release of all detained politicians. The party said it would not apply for registration – which, according to the amended RPO, was mandatory for parties to contest the polls – with the Election Commission if the government did not fulfil its demands.
   The Awami League is also demanding permanent release of the party chief Sheikh Hasina, removal of ‘flaws’ from the amended RPO, and formation of a constitutional commission and disqualifying the war criminals from the polls.
   On the other hand, the government is making overt and covert moves to make the parties agree to ‘qualitative’ improvement in politics and administration.
   ‘We will hold dialogues with the political parties for qualitative improvement in the electoral process and politics’, commerce and education adviser Hossain Zillur Rahman Saturday said after a seminar on education, according to BDnews24.com, making it clear that the government intended to drag the process.
   ‘The necessity of dialogue does not end with the registration of the political parties with the Election Commission’, Zillur, also a key player in the government-sponsored dialogues, said.
   On the timing of fresh dialogues, the adviser said the talks would start at the earliest.
   The BNP secretary general, Khandaker Delwar Hossain, said Saturday the party would not contest the polls under the state of emergency.
   ‘They asked us whether we would participate in the polls under the state of emergency, and we said “no”,’ he told reporters after a meeting with a visiting UN delegation.
   He said the party would take a decision on the issue of registration after holding a second round of talks with the government.
   ‘We expected that government would settle the issue before October 20 as per our proposals regarding registration but they are yet to respond though there are only two days left’, he said.
   ‘We need to resolve the issues as the election is nearing’, he added.
   The acting Awami League general secretary Syed Ashraful Islam Saturday said an adviser to the government had phoned the party’s acting president Zillur Rahman on Friday for further talks.
   ‘Probably we will sit with the government for talks on Monday [tomorrow]. The exact date will be announced on Sunday [today]’, he said.
   Responding to a query, Ashraful said he did not believe the ‘minus two’ formula could be implemented.
   The government and its military backers’ plan to eject the two top leaders, Sheikh Hasina of Awami League and Khaleda Zia of BNP, from politics seems to have fallen through. They were detained on charges of corruption and bribery last year. Khaleda was released on bail while Hasina was paroled for treatment overseas.
   The government of Fakhruddin Ahmed, which took office a day after the promulgation of a state of emergency on January 11, 2007, wanted a consensus on certain national issues,
   including politics and post-election administration, started the formal dialogues with political parties on May 22 after holding ‘informal’ negotiations with them apparently in a bid to bridge the gap created by the anti-corruption drive targeting mainly the political leaders.
   The Election Commission is expected to announce the schedule for the ninth parliamentary elections, which were due on January 22, 2007, by the first week of November this year.

The Bangladesh Nationalist Party on Saturday said it would not contest the polls if it was held under the state of emergency and asked the foreign missions not to interfere in local politics.
   The party’s secretary general Khandaker Delwar Hossain after meeting a UN team on political affairs in South Asia and the Asia Pacific said, ‘They specifically asked whether we would participate in the polls under the state of emergency, and we said “no”.’
   ‘We reminded them that foreigners should not make any statements which cause harm to the people, go against the interests of Bangladesh and violate diplomatic norms as laid out in the Vienna Convention,’ Delwar said at the party’s central office at Naya Paltan.
   The UN team led by, Hitoki Den, head of political affairs in South Asia and Asia and Pacific region, has arrived to weight the latest political situation before the visit of the UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, to Bangladesh early in November.
   After the meeting, the members of the UN delegation and their spokesperson, Renata Lok Dessallien, declined comments when they were asked about their observation on elections under the state of emergency.
   Delwar said the UN team inquired about the party’s position on registration with the Election Commission, participation in polls and related issues.
   ‘We told them the BNP is an election-oriented party and is eager to participate in elections, but they need to be contested by all political parties, be credible and be held in a free and fair manner,’ he said.
   Delwar iterated the BNP would decide on registration after the second round of talks with the government and resented the government’s not responding to their demands regarding registration.
   ‘As the deadline for registration has been deferred at our request, we expect that government to settle the issue before October 20 as we have demanded, but the government is yet to respond and there is only two days in hand. Other issues could be discussed later,’ he said, hoping that the government would make a positive response by October 20.
   Asked if the government does not invite them before October 20 to the second round of talks, he said ‘We will discuss the matter in our forums and consult alliance partners if such things happen.’
   Delwar said they had informed the UN team that the Election Commission had talked with the party after it had amended the Representation of the People Ordinance and done other jobs which needed consultation with the party.
   ‘Even then we have talked with the commission and made our position clear. We also had a dialogue with the government on October 14 and made our points and you know the rest of the story,’ Delwar said.
   BNP standing committee members RA Gani, Chowdhury Tanvir Ahmed Siddiqui and M Shamsul Islam and joint secretary general Nazrul Islam Khan were present during the talks with the UN team.
   Coming out of the meeting, the UN resident coordinator in Bangladesh, Dessallien, said the United Nations expected that the parliamentary elections would be held on December 18 in accordance with the schedule and hoped all political parties would contest the polls.

Daniel Vettori was there and was also at his very best with the bat and the ball, but the second day of the first Test between Bangladesh and New Zealand did not belong to him. A bowler of his kind with far little fame stole the show from the Kiwi captain grabbing six wickets and a stunning catch.
   Left-arm spinner Sakib al Hasan enjoyed his best day with the ball in his short career to put Bangladesh in total control of the game by reducing New Zealand to 155-9 at stumps on Day Two at the Chittagong Divisional Stadium on Saturday.
   Vettori provided the only resistance to his left-arm spin with an unbeaten 48 at close. Vettroi got an invaluable support from Jeetan Patel, who despite not scoring any runs helped him add 29 runs in the ninth wicket stand.
   Sakib took to spectacular catch to end the 31-ball defiant innings of Patel diving to his left that gave Bangladesh gave a picture-perfect finish on the day, which they dominated mostly. The hosts, however, could add only 62 runs to their overnight total after resuming the play at 183-4.
   Neither Mehrab Hossain Jr nor Mushfiqur could covert their unbeaten half-centuries into a three-figure one and they ended up on 83 and 79 runs respectively. Mehrab, unbeaten on 79 overnight, struck a boundary in the second ball of the day, but could not add any runs in the remaining 13 balls he faced.
   Misjudging a slower delivery from Iain O’Brien, he gave a catch to Aaron Redmond at mid-on to end his 179-ball innings that included 11 sweetly-timed boundaries. Mushfique had dug in for a while, but was guilty of going down the wicket to give a catch at short fine-leg to Jamie How off Vettori.
   He had already lost debutant Naeem Islam, who was miles ahead of his crease when Brandon McCullum stumped him off Jeetan Patel with 14 runs to the name in his debut Test innings.
   Vettori quickly mopped up the tail to complete his 16th five-wicket haul and the sign was ominous for Bangladesh when New Zealand openers put together 27 runs after starting their innings in the post-lunch session.
   New Zealand’s collapse began with Rajin Saleh taking a sharp catch at short cover off Sakib to remove How (16). Rajin also caught debutant Jesse Ryder off Sakib, this time at short-leg, for his second wicket.
   Razzak had a lucky wicket, thanks to umpire Darrel Harper, who responding to an lbw shout, raised his finger against Ross Taylor when the batsman looked to have gotten an inside edge.
   The lbw decision against Aaron Raymond, however, was beyond any doubt as Sakib reduced to New Zealand to 4-52. Barndon McCullum and Daniel Flynn took the strategy of counter-attacks but paid the price in the process giving their wickets to Sakib and Naeem Islam respectively.
   Kyle Mills learnt a lesson from their mistakes and warded off 44 balls to score only four runs before he was caught by wicketkeeper Mushfiqur Rahim to give Sakib his sixth wicket.
   However, until the final moment of brilliance by Sakib, things were worrying for Bangladesh as Vettori was gaining grounds gradually.

The government is likely to decide its next course of action on melamine contamination in powder milk at an inter-ministerial meeting today.
   The Dhaka University chemistry department, meanwhile, on Saturday firmly stood by its test which detected melamine presence in all the eight brands of imported milk it was given for testing.
   ‘We will set the next course of action after Sunday’s inter-ministerial meeting on melamine contamination in milk,’ the Bangladesh Standards and Testing Institution director general, Azmal Hossain, told New Age on Saturday.
   The commerce secretary, Feroze Ahmed, is scheduled to chair the meeting to be attended by the heads of the BSTI, Institute of Public Health and Nutrition and other agencies concerned.
   Azmal hinted repeat tests might be done on seven of the eight brands of baby milk which in the Dhaka University test were found to be contaminated with melamine.
   Only the Chinese baby milk Yashli 1 of the eight brands was found to contain melamine in lab test by PlasmaPlus and the Standards and Testing Institution, but the Dhaka University chemistry lab found all the eight brands to be contaminated with melamine.
   The DU test found melamine presence not only in Yashli 1, Yashli 2 and Sweet Baby sourced from China, but also in five major-selling brands such as Dano sourced from Denmark, Red Cow and Diploma sourced from Australia, and Nido Fortified Instant and Anlene from New Zealand.
   After the Dhaka University test report had been submitted to the commerce ministry, the government on Thursday warned people against the eight bands, but no ban was ordered on the sales.
   The agencies marketing Dano, Nido, Diploma and Red Cow rejected the Dhaka University test report claiming that all their products available on the Bangladesh market were tested to be melamine-free.
   The Dhaka University chemistry department chair, Tajmeri SA Islam, at a briefing at the department on Saturday regretted that some quarters and a section of news media regrettably created confusion about the testing in the Dhaka University chemistry lab.
   Tajmeri said the Standards and Testing Institution provided the milk samples not mentioning the brands and there is no chance for the researchers to be biased. She said it was not the chemistry department lab which volunteered to conduct the tests and the institution had rather provided the lab with the samples.
    ‘We have used proper methods and equipment and we
   are confident the test
   results are correct,’ said Nilufar Nahar, a professor at the department, who conducted the tests.
   The public health and nutrition institute director, Fatema Parveen Chowdhury, told New Age the institute had not sued the marketers of Yashli and Sweet Baby, which were marketed without registration. The companies were asked to recall their products.
   Ghulam Mustakim, head of the inter-agency task force of the government formed recently to prevent marketing of unregistered baby milk, on Thursday asked the acting IPHN director Abdur Rahman to sue the Chittagong-based Mau Enterprise and the Dhaka-based Allway Trading for marketing unregistered Yashli and Sweet Baby brands.
   ‘How did the customs authorities allow such unregistered milk brands to be imported?’ Fatema Parveen said, observing that the institute had taken ‘legal action’ by asking Mau and Allway to recall their products.

China’s premier Wen Jiabao said his government was partly to blame for the tainted milk scandal that has killed four infants and sickened 53,000 throughout the country.
   In an interview with a US magazine, Wen said although contamination of milk had occurred at dairy companies in China, the government was responsible for monitoring the industry at the heart of the crisis.
   ‘We feel that although problems occurred at companies, the government also bears responsibility, particularly in the area of monitoring,’ Wen told Science Magazine in an interview also posted on the central government’s web site Saturday.
   ‘The important steps in the dairy industry — production of raw milk, collection, transport, processing, formulation and manufactured goods — all need to have clear standards and testing requirements,’ he said.
   The scandal erupted when melamine, an industrial chemical normally used to make plastic, was discovered in Chinese-made dairy products, including milk powder, liquid milk and yoghurt.
   The chemical was added to watered-down milk to make it appear higher in protein.
   The scandal has hit China’s dairy industry hard, and continues to escalate around the world as a growing number of multinationals and countries recall made-in-China milk products.

The interim administration is working to replace the old, manual management of annual confidential reports of government officials with a computerised system aimed at curbing irregularities and ensuring more transparency in the promotion process.
   Once the system goes computerised, each of the officials will be able to see the scores in the annual confidential reports using passwords, said a senior official at the establishment ministry, which keeps the confidential documents.
   Against the backdrop of widespread allegations of irregularities in promotion and tampering with annual confidential reports, the government is working on the computerised personal appraisal method to replace the present manual system for performance evaluation of public servants, officials said.
   ‘We are developing the software for the maintenance of the annual confidential reports…. It will help us to keep the reports in a transparent way so that officials, no matter where they are posted to, will be able to see their records,’ the establishment secretary, Md Mosleh Uddin, told New Age on Wednesday.
   He said the official would have individual passwords to access their records to be made available online.
   The secretary said the ministry was working also to modernise the evaluation system. ‘The government is actively considering introduction of the personal appraisal method to make the evaluation system more transparent.’
   The annual confidential report section of the ministry is frequented by officials but the section does not properly record the visits.
   ‘About 10 to 15 officials come here every working day to visit officials in the section…. We just keep the visitor’s name and entry time,’ said a constable standing guard at the gate of the section.
   The present system was criticised after some incidents of ACR tampering had come to light and show-cause notices were issued to several government officials for their suspected involvement in the illegal practice towards end of the immediate-past BNP-led alliance government which handed over power to the caretaker government in October 2006.
   The BNP-led government started reviewing the evaluation process in the public administration of developed countries to modernise the system of annual confidential reports.
   A ‘powerful syndicate’ routinely used to manipulate the promotion process as well as the ACR preparation,’ a high government official told New Age.
   ‘The present system also does not reflect the actual performance of a civil servant as many junior officials spend a significant portion of their working hours trying to please their superiors for favourable reports at year-end,’ he said.
   In 2005, an investigation into such irregularities found annual reports were tampered with in different ways. In some cases, scores given by senior officers were changed, some reports with bad scores were ‘taken away’ altogether, while some reports were forged.

The Cabinet Division has proposed that all ministries and divisions of the government should form internal committees to verify the wealth statements of their staffs to reduce the workloads of the Anti-Corruption Commission and help it identify the real culprits, official sources said.
   The proposal was made following a request from the corruption watchdog, which found it an uphill task to detect who among the 12 lakh people on government payroll are concealing asset information or amassing illegal wealth.
   The secretarial committee on administrative development affairs will sit tomorrow to discuss the proposal and other possible means to free the bureaucracy from corruption.
    Cabinet secretary Ali Imam Mozumder will preside over the meeting of the committee that comprises eight secretaries of the ministries including establishment, finance and commerce.
   The Cabinet Division forwarded a number of other proposals to the committee members last week for analyzing those before they sit and work out a strategy to fight corruption in the administration, sources said.
   Around 12 lakh government employees and officials, ranging from class four to class one grades, submitted their wealth statements during the first quarter of 2008 as were asked by the ACC.
   The high-powered committees, as proposed by the division, will compare the statements with the income tax returns of the government employees and detect whether anyone concealed any information about asset.
   It will select the statements through random sampling and the ministry concerned will take disciplinary action against the members of the staff found hiding asset information or amassing illegal wealth, the proposal said
   Earlier, the ACC in a letter urged the Cabinet Division and the establishment ministry to take up some steps to fight corruption in the bureaucracy. The corruption watchdog said it alone could not eliminate the all-pervasive problem unless every government department took some punitive measures at its end.

The South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation, in the wake of global food price spiral, has set up a food bank to make grains available during emergencies for the bloc member countries.
   First proposed in 2005, the SAARC Food Bank has come into being with an initial stock on paper of 2.43 lakh tonnes of grains with the endorsement at the first meeting of the bank board in Colombo in October 15–16, officials said.
   According to the decision, any member country in dire necessity of food grains will be supplied with food from the nearest stocks in any country of South Asia at local rates with deferred payment.
   ‘The SAARC Food Bank is now in operation. This will give the peoples of the South Asian region a lot of confidence in terms of food security in times of their necessity,’ Ilahi Dad Khan, a food ministry official attending the Colombo meeting, told New Age on Saturday.
   New Delhi will contribute the highest quantity of 1.53 lakh tonnes of grains to the food bank, followed by Dhaka and Islamabad with a contribution of 40,000 tonnes each.
   Colombo and Kathmandu will give 4,000 tonnes each to the bank while Kabul will provide 1,420 tonnes, Male 200 tonnes and Thimphu 180 tonnes, according to the meeting.
   ‘This was decided considering country population and agriculture production,’ said Ilahi Dad. Response mechanism, prices, quality of grains and terms and conditions of payment for food grains were also decided at the meeting, he said.
   He said the meeting decisions would be placed for consideration at the extraordinary meeting of the SAARC agriculture ministers scheduled for November 5 in New Delhi.
   Ilahi, director (administration) of the directorate general of food, however, said they would get further data on the issues and might sit for a follow-up meeting early in 2009.
   The member countries will start sharing information on grain production and probable shortfall to allow the authorities concerned to make decisions on the supply of food grains from the food bank. Update and analysis will be prepared on a six-month basis while the grains to be supplied will be exempted from duties.
   Bangladesh, a net food importing country with a food deficit of around 2.5 million tonnes almost every year, is expected to be a major beneficiary of the food bank alongside Afghanistan, the latest inclusion of the regional grouping.
   ‘This is considered especially important for the South Asian region where under-nourishment is a significant problem,’ Raiz Hamidullah, a director from Bangladesh at the SAARC Secretariat in Kathmandu, is quoted to have said.
   At the meeting, the Sri Lankan secretary of the trade marketing development, cooperatives and consumer and consumer services welcomed the SAARC initiative of taking a regional approach to address probable food crisis as the region is not immune to the fallouts of global market volatility.
   The agreement establishing the SAARC Food Bank was signed during the 14th SAARC Summit in New Delhi in 2007 after the idea was floated at the SAARC Summit in Dhaka in 2005.

Sculptors, painters, artistes and writers on Saturday joined the teachers and students of Dhaka University in a street protest against the removal of baul statues from the airport road roundabout under pressure from religious zealots.
   They demanded re-installation of baul sculptures in front of the Zia International Airport and threatened to go for a tougher movement if the government failed to safeguard the artworks and monuments symbolising the nation’s glorious independence war and rich cultural heritage.
   The protesters gathered at the foot of the Aparajeya Bangla on the DU campus and vowed to protect the country’s cultural heritage.
   They chanted slogans and carried banners censuring the interim government for siding with the fundamentalist forces and removing the sculptures of baul including that of great mystic poet Lalon Fakir.
   A human chain was formed in front of the fine art institute.
   Later at a rally, professor emeritus of Dhaka University Serajul Islam Choudhury came down heavily on
   Islami Oikya Jote leader Fazlul Huq Amini who announced to raze all sculptures to the ground.
   He also criticised the government’s silence over such threats from fundamentalists. Symbols of national pride like central Shaheed Minar, Aparajeya Bangla and Sangsaptak are not free from such threats, he said.
   ‘It is not impossible for them to attack our national symbols as they had tried to establish Islamic nationalism in Bangladesh,’ he said, adding that evil forces were issuing such threats with the help of the government.
   Muntassir Mamun, a professor of history, found no scope for confusion about the
   present government’s support for the religious fundamentalists. ‘The authorities see no wrong in fundamentalists bringing out procession and violating emergency rules.
   But they act upon promptly and obstruct when university teachers proceed to form a human chain at Shaheed Minar.’
   Cartoonist Rafiqun Nabi, poet Muhammad Samad, dramatics teacher Israfil Shaheen, journalism teachers Getee Ara Nasrin and Robaet Ferdous and drama director M Hamid attended the rally.
   Sammilita Sangskritik Jote also held a rally at the Central Shaheed Minar in the afternoon denouncing the government’s role of maintaining double standard.
   ‘Cultural activists need to take permission from military for holding a cultural programme across the country, but the mullahs face no
   resistance even if they go out for creating anarchy,’ said an activist.
   Playwright Mamunur Rashid said the fundamentalists could show such audacity as the government did not punish the war criminals yet.
   Awami League publicity secretary and actor Asaduzzaman Noor said the government was trying to confuse the people and divert their attention to another issue from the next general elections.
   Bangladesh Chhatra League burnt an effigy of Amini in front of Raju Memorial Monument at the evening to protest his speech.
   Bangladesh Chhatra Union and the students of fine art painted the street in front of the institute, denouncing the role of the government favouring the bigots.
   The central steering committee of the 11-Party Alliance on Saturday demanded that the government take stern action against the religious bigots, who are out to destroy the country’s art and culture.
   The committee at a meeting protested against the government’s decision to remove the statue of Lalon from the Zia International Airport roundabout, bowing to the pressure from a group of Islamist zealots.
   The bigots were trying to stifle the nation’s glorious heritage and move the country towards darkness, the leftist leaders said.
   They also condemned the ‘audacious’ remarks of four party alliance leader Fazlul Haque Amini to demolish all the sculptures.
   They called on all progressive political forces to resist the activities of the ultra Islamist forces.
   The meeting also vowed to strengthen the unity of
   non-communal democra-
   tic political forces on the basis of 23-point charter of demands.
   Chaired by Workers Party president Rashed Khan Menon, the meeting was attended among others by Pankaj Bhattachrya, Mohammad Nurul Islam, Giasuddin Haider, Abu Hamed Shahabuddin and Asit Baran.
   Democratic Left Alliance, a combine of left leaning political parties demanded
   stern action against Fazlul Haque Amini for his state-
   ment for demolition of all sculptures.
   He must be arrested and punished immediately, the central coordination committee demanded in a press statement issued on Saturday.

Two groups of madrassah students, joined in by the students of Arabic, Persian and Urdu departments at Dhaka University, vandalised the vice-chancellor’s office Saturday afternoon.
   They also threatened to stop the admission procession if madrassah students were not allowed admission to eight of the departments.
   Madrassah Chhatra Andolan Parishad, a platform of madrassah students backed by Islami Chhatra Shibbir, and Madrassah Chhatra Swartha Sangrakshan Parishad went to meet the vice-chancellor, SMA Faiz, at about 2:30pm.
   They demanded changes in the process of admission to eight departments of the university as the present system stops them from taking admission to the departments because they could not score the required marks in Bangla and English in secondary and higher secondary exams for admission, they said.
   The eight departments require students to take 200-mark exams in Bangla and English each in secondary and higher secondary exams. The madrassah curriculum has 100-mark exams in Banlga and English.
   The departments are public administration, international relations, economics, women and gender studies, linguistics, mass communications and journalism, English and Bangla.
   The vice-chancellor told them the admission rules were set by the departments and the deans and there was nothing for higher authorities to do anything in this case.
   The madrassah students requested him to take up the issue at the meeting of the deans; committee, which began immediately after they had met him.
   They also threatened to stop all the activities of the university if their demands were not met and said the authorities would need to bear any responsibilities for any such incidents.
   As the madrassah students came to know that the rules were not changed at the deans’ meeting, they went on the rampage and vandalised the vice-chancellor’s office.
   They smashed all the windowpanes of the office, damaged the furniture and tried to break open the door of the vice-chancellor’s room when the staff locked it up.
   Faiz told the reporters he did not know the students who went to meet him and was not certain whether they were students of the university.
   ‘I told them the decision on the admission process is set by the departments concerned and higher authorities have nothing to do with the rules. I assured them of looking into the matter next time,’ Faiz said.
   ‘After the deans’ committee meeting, they suddenly attacked my office and went on the rampage. This is the most insulting incident for the university and we will not spare them. I have asked the police to arrest them if they are outsiders,’ he said.
   Faiz said it was impossible for any outsiders to carry out such an attack without any patronisation.
   The university syndicate sat for an emergency meeting at night and formed a three-member committee, headed by the pro-vice-chancellor, AFM Yousuf Haider, to investigate the incident.
   The Progressive Students’ Alliance, Bangladesh Chhatra League, Bangladesh Chhatra Maitree, and Bangladesh Chhatra Union brought out processions in the evening condemning the attack.
   The Dhaka University Officers’ Association and the Dhaka University Class IV Employees’ Union also condemned the incident.

A group of Indian lawmakers, whose support is crucial to the government, handed their resignation letters to their party chief on Friday over the conflict in Sri Lanka, officials said.
   The 13 lawmakers, including six ministers of a regional party in Tamil Nadu, want India to ask Sri Lanka to call a ceasefire immediately.
   The lawmakers say they share the increasing concern of the mainly Tamil population on the island that Sri Lankan troops are wiping out Tamils there.
   Sri Lanka has vowed to crush the Tamil Tigers militarily. It says its troops are 2 km from the rebel capital of Kilinochchi, a strategic and symbolic target.
   Troops stepped up the offensive against the LTTE rebels fighting for a separate homeland this year and the government says its forces have killed thousands of rebels since January.
   The lawmakers’ resignation could force a vote of confidence in prime minister Manmohan Singh’s government if the letters reach the speaker in India’s parliament.
   But opposition parties, who have described the move as a ‘farce’, and analysts said the threat may be more about making political noise for their local constituencies.
   ‘They are unlikely to carry out the threat and the government will not face a crisis,’ C Uday Bhaskar, a strategic analyst said.
   Earlier this week, about 39 lawmakers, all allies of ruling Congress party-led coalition met in Chennai and gave the government two weeks to intervene or face being brought down.
   The meeting was chaired by M Karunanidhi, chief minister of Tamil Nadu and leader of the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam party, a key ally of the Congress party.
   ‘We are not speaking for the LTTE, but for the orphaned Tamils,’ Karunanidhi said on Friday. ‘I am not asking for armed intervention but only restoration of peace in Sri Lanka.’
   India’s prime minister has urged Sri Lanka to solve the conflict politically but said it was not going to intervene.
   India sent peacekeepers to the island nation in 1987, only to withdraw them after losing more than 1,200 men in battle and facing allegations of human rights violations.
   ‘I am sure Karunanidhi will understand that our prime minister has come out in support of innocent Tamils caught in the battle,’ Veerappa Moily, a senior Congress party spokesman said in New Delhi. ‘This issue will be resolved.’

The acting Awami League general secretary Syed Ashraful Islam on Saturday said that the party, if voted to power, would endorse the actions and decisions made by the caretaker administration as ‘it is a normal practice’.
   ‘The next elected government will ratify the actions of the caretaker government and the practice is normal…We have already said that the Awami League, if voted to power, will endorse the caretaker government’s actions’, he told reporters at his Sher-e-Bangla Nagar residence.
   Ashraful said that one adviser to the interim government had phoned the party’s acting president Zillur Rahman on Friday and discussed about further talks between the two sides. ‘The party will sit with the government for talks sometime this week – probably on Monday. The exact date will be announced on Sunday’, he said.
   The AL leader said that issues of upazila polls deferment, lifting of the state of emergency, withdrawal of all ‘false and fabricated’ cases filed against the party president Sheikh Hasina, delimitation of the parliamentary constituencies, correction of some flaws in the amended RPO and the proposal for formation of a constitution commission would come up for discussion.
   ‘At the meeting, we will ask the government to create an atmosphere conducive to holding free and fair elections so that all political parties contest the polls without any reservations’, Ashraful said.
    The party has already had three formal meetings with the interim government – on April 13, June 11 and July 3 this year – and three rounds of talks with the Election Commission.
   He said the AL would start formal election campaigns after Sheikh Hasina’s return and would participate in the elections under her leadership. Hasina is now paroled for treatment abroad.
   Ashraful said that the Awami League had complete faith in the interim government’s commitment to holding parliamentary elections on December 18.
   ‘There is no reason that the elections should not be held in December as the chief adviser has repeatedly pledged that elections will be held in December… He even announced it before the international community while addressing the United Nations General Assembly’, he said.
   Ashraful said elections must be held on the date announced by the government and the Election Commission by foiling all conspiracies against the polls. ‘If the polls are not held in time the forces that would capture power would not do the nation any good’, he warned.
   Responding to a query, he said he did not believe the ‘minus two’ theory could be successful, referring to the military-controlled government’s alleged plan to exile AL chief Sheikh Hasina and BNP chief Khaleda Zia from politics.

The Indian high commissioner, Pinak Ranjan Chakraborty, has said the state of emergency is no barrier to acceptable elections.
   He pointed out that the August 4 municipal and city corporation elections were held in fair manner under the emergency. ‘Emergency was no obstacle to holding acceptable elections,’ he told while talking to newsmen in Chittagong on Saturday.
   He hoped that there would be no hurdles to holding acceptable elections in future. For this he suggested further relaxing the emergency rules.
   He dismissed the allegations that foreigners were interfering in the internal affairs of Bangladesh.
   Pinak said his government was ready to hand over top-listed Bangladeshi criminal Subrata Bain, now detained in Kolkata, to Bangladesh authorities under a swap.
   ‘The handover should not be done unilaterally. We want the assurance from Bangladesh authorities regarding the handover of 10 identified Indian separatists, including Paresh Barua and Jibon Singh, to our government,’ he said.
   ‘We have shown our sincerity by sending back seven Bangladeshi criminals to Bangladesh authorities, but the Bangladesh authorities have not yet handed over 10 Indian separatists to the Indian authorities,’ said the diplomat.
   He told the press that the Indian government this time wanted to sign a bilateral agreement with the Bangladesh government regarding the handover of Subrata Bain.
   The two neighbouring countries do not have any extradition treaty and so such exchanges take place informally, often through push-back deportation.
   On duty-free trade facilities, Pinak said Bangladesh’s all commodities, except those on the negative list, had access to the Indian market, which resulted in growth of Bangladesh’s exports.
   Due to duty-free trade, the volume of Bangladesh’s annual export now stands at $370 million, up from 60 million. Earlier negative list included 700 commodities while it now came down to 400, he said.
   He noted that both Bangladesh and India would have benefited economically if transit facilities had been given to India. ‘But no progress has been made till now in this regard.’
   Earlier at 6:00pm, the Indian high commissioner inaugurated an exhibition of paintings organised by the assistant high commission of India in Chittagong at the mission’s gallery at Kulshi.
   Twenty-two paintings of eleven young artists — six from Chittagong and five from Kolkata — are on display in the exhibition.
   Speaking on the occasion, the high commissioner said strong cultural bond between Bangladesh and India was deeply rooted in many common values and linkages.
   ‘Modern art movements in the two countries have always influenced each other and artists from both the countries have drawn inspiration from one another’s works. In the process they brought the two societies closer,’ he told the function.
   Keeping it in mind, the Indian High Commission in Dhaka and its office in other parts of Bangladesh organised a number of cultural events throughout the year, he said.
   The exhibition will continue till October 22 and remain open to public from 3:00pm to 7:00pm.
   The high commissioner also handed over scholarship of Tk 6,000 to each of 10 successful students in Chittagong.
   Dr Radharani Chakraborty, wife of the high commissioner, also accompanied him.

Amid bitter criticisms by the press and civil society, the police raided ‘fugitive’ Jamaat-e-Islami secretary general and ex-minister Ali Ahsan Muhammad Mujahid’s Uttara apartment on Saturday afternoon in an abortive bid to arrest him.
   Mujahid, wanted in the Barapukuria coalmine corruption case against the top brass of the immediate-past coalition government, was not present at his apartment at Plot-5, Road-10, Uttara Sector-11, when the Uttara police, armed with warrant of arrest, went there at about 4:00pm.
   The police conducted one-and-a-half-hour search till 5:30pm. They enquired his family members about his whereabouts.
   Additional deputy commissioner (Uttara division) Sheikh Rafiqul Islam told the
   news agency that the police searched his home but did not find him.
   Former prime minister and BNP chairperson Khaleda Zia and 15 others, including 10 ex-ministers, are accused in the case filed in the wake of a crackdown on the political arena after the 1/11, 2007 changeover following a
   political crisis over elections issues.
   On October 8, a metropolitan court of Dhaka issued warrants against nine, including Mujahid, and asked all of the accused to appear before the court on October 16.
   With the arrest warrant hanging overhead, the Jamaat leader openly conducted his party activities as his lawyer claimed that a bail petition from him was pending with the High Court.
   A fierce criticism sparked off when he attended a dialogue on elections issues on October 14 with the interim government as a member of the Jamaat delegation. Mujahid was also present at the post-dialogue press briefing addressed by the commerce adviser, Hossain Zillur Rahman.

Britain will impose tougher restrictions on immigration as the global financial crisis lifts unemployment to the highest rate in nearly a decade, the country’s new immigration minister said Saturday.
   ‘If people are being made unemployed, the question of immigration becomes extremely thorny,’ Phil Woolas told The Times newspaper.
   ‘It’s been too easy to get into this country in the past and it’s going to get harder,’ he added in an interview.
   In a dramatic change of policy, the Labour government intends placing a limit on immigration, according to the daily.
   ‘There has to be a balance between the number of people coming in and the number of people leaving,’ said Woolas.
   The minister said his government would not allow Britain’s population to grow to 70 million people.
   Britain’s population grew by about 3.4 per cent to almost 61 million people between 2001 and 2007 fuelled by expansion of the European Union, according to latest figures from the Office for National Statistics.
   Reacting to the comments made by Woolas, the opposition Conservative Party’s spokesman on immigration, Dominic Grieve, said: ‘We have been calling for immigration limits for years now but the government have repeatedly poured scorn on this.
   ‘But tough talk is simply not enough; they must now explain how they intend to deliver. Will they implement our plans for an annual limit on non-EU immigration, transitional controls on future EU immigration, and establish a dedicated UK border force to secure our borders?’
   Britain’s unemployment rate jumped to an eight-year high of 5.7 per cent in the three months to August, official data showed on Wednesday. Under the International Labour Organisation measure of unemployment, the rate had stood at 5.2 per cent for the three months to May.
   The 5.7-per cent unemployment rate was the highest since the three months to March, 2000.

A fresh bird flu scare grips the country’s embattled poultry industry after detection of avian influenza virus in a northern district farm two weeks back.
   Industry leaders have said the government is unprepared to prevent the disease from spreading and rattling the sector like it did last year, throwing many small and marginal farmers out of business.
   Most of these farms, which were victims of massive culling of fowls, are still struggling to return to business amid complaints that the government forgot about many of the pledges like bank loan rescheduling facilities and due compensations.
   ‘The government is yet to facilitate vaccination in the poultry sector to keep the virus away,’ said the managing director of Kazi Farms Group, one of the leading poultry farms in the country.
   Kazi Zahidul Hasan said the government continued to ignore the early warning from the World Health Organisation and its advice for taking steps for vaccination.
   Veterinary officials confirmed bird flu in a poultry farm in Naogaon on September 29, the first case since the last one detected in a Tangail farm four months ago.
   ‘The detection indicates that the virus is still active and may spread to other places,’ chief veterinary officer and director of the Department of Livestock Services Salehuddin Ahmed said.
   Moshiur Rahman, general secretary of Breeder’s Association of Bangladesh, alleged that the government so far did nothing to eradicate bird flu other than arranging some training programmes for officials.
   Small and marginal farmers, who were left with empty firms and bank loans after a massive culling spree, are yet to get any fresh funds despite the government’s assurance, he regretted.
   The government had also promised to arrange loan rescheduling facilities for six months and due compensation for the affected farms to help them recoup last year’s losses and restart business.
   ‘Small farmers are left out and the whole poultry business has fallen into the hands of big players, and prices of egg and poultry meat have continued to go up,’ Moshiur said.
   Khondoker Mohsin, joint secretary general of Bangladesh Poultry Association, said, ‘The government gave only Tk 90 for a culled layer bird, which costs a farmer about Tk 350 for five months’ rearing until it starts producing eggs.’
   Farmers were also denied compensation for birds, which died before the final diagnosis, he said.
   ‘I have lost everything of my poultry business. I got a compensation of only Tk 11 lakh against my investment of Tk 60 lakh, while the interest on bank loans accrued to around Tk 12 lakh’, said Sajeda Sadeque, a woman entrepreneur whose some 16,000 layer birds were culled.
   Meanwhile, the Bangladesh Poultry Association has taken up some programmes on its own to prevent bird flu from entering the Dhaka city. The six-month programmes include spraying anti-virus drugs at 14 exit points surrounding the capital city and keeping the city’s 25 wet markets clean.
   The association also initiated bio-security improvement programme in poultry concentrated areas like Gazipur, Savar, Barisal, Khulna and Bogra.
   The first outbreak of avian influenza was detected on February 22 in 2007 and the virus was later confirmed in 288 farms under 47 districts in Bangladesh, leading to culling of 16,37,606 chickens in 548 farms. The industry estimated a loss of about Tk 4,500 crore from the disease.
   Only one human case of avian influenza was found so far, and the disease was confirmed long after the infected boy was cured.
   Even then the news of bird flu outbreak leads to serious health scare and scares poultry consumers off in a country where per head protein consumption is much lower than required for good health, industry leaders said.

The Bangladesh Bank fears the commercial banks will face serious liquidity crisis in the near future as their loan growth rate is higher than deposit growth rate.
   The banks’ loan growth rate stands at 20.52 per cent while the deposit growth is 17.72 per cent on August 14, 2008, according to the central bank statistics.
   ‘The banking sector will face serious liquidity crisis if the deposit growth rate become higher than the lending growth rate,’ a central bank high official said.
   He also said if that situation continues, the commercial banks will not be able to lend money to their clients.
   The issue will be discussed in a bankers’ meeting of the central bank today, said BB sources.
   According to the BB statistics, the private sector commercial banks’ loan growth was 26.96 per cent.
   The loan growth rate of commercial bank was 19.51 per cent during the last fiscal year ended in June while the deposit growth rate was 17.28 per cent. Besides, the private sector banks’ lending growth rate was 25.80 per cent.
   The total loan given by the banks to their clients was Tk1,61,891.43 crore on August 16, 2007 while it stands at Tk 1,95,08.59 on August 14, 2008. Besides, the total loan growth rate is 20.52 per cent.
   State owned banks’ loan growth rate was (-) 7.66 per cent, private commercial banks’ loan growth rate 38.02 per cent, foreign banks’ 23.83 per cent and that of specialised banks’ 13.56 per cent.
   Meanwhile, the commercial banking sector’s total deposit stood at Tk 1,98,578.86 crore on August 16, 2007 while total deposit stands at Tk 2,33,768.76 crore and deposit growth rate is 17.72 per cent.
   State-owned banks’ deposit growth rate was 4.61 per cent, private sector banks’ 25.15 per cent, foreign banks’ 24.00 per cent and that of specialised banks’ 14.69 per cent.
   Private sector lending amount was Tk 1,49,768.41 crore while it stands at Tk 1,90,144.70 crore and growth rate is 26.96 per cent.

The chief adviser, Fakhruddin Ahmed, has hoped that the Asian University for Women will inspire females for pursuing best education they can.
   ‘Bangladesh has been able to make exemplary strides in empowering women-in education, in economic fields such as micro- finance and protection of rights,’ he said and added now the country was deeply enthralled at the opportunity to host the AUW.
   The international university is located in Chittagong, at an attractive hilly landscape in the Pahartali area.
   The chief adviser, who is also the chief patron of the AUW, was addressing the launching ceremony of the AUW held at the Bangladesh-China Friendship Conference Centre in the capital on Saturday.
   Adviser, high civil and military officials, educationists, dignitaries and students attended the ceremony chaired by the chief adviser.
   Nobel laureate and founder of Grameen Bank Professor Muhammad Yunus was chief guest on the occasion.
   Chairman, Board of the AUW Support Foundation Jack Meyer, co-chair and Member of Parliament and former minister of Denmark Ms Lone Dybkjaer, acting vice-chancellor and provost of AUW the Hoon Eng Khoo and member of the foundation Kathy Matsui spoke on the occasion.
   President and CEO of the foundation Kamal Ahmad conducted the programme. The programme was followed by a cultural function.
   Women students from Cambodia, Myanmar, India, Pakistan, Nepal, Sri Lanka and host Bangladesh are now studying in the AUW.
   The government of Bangladesh has donated 104 acres of land for establishing the women university in Chittagong.
   The AUW started its Access Academy, a pre-collegiate bridge programme, from March to prepare its students for pursuing university education.
   The AUW has already students of six different Asian countries, Fakhruddin said and added in the next year students from another five countries would become represented in the student body.
   The chief adviser said the AUW could make an important contribution to fostering excellence in higher education by actively engaging in recruiting the most gifted students from across Asia and faculty from
   all over the world.
   By bringing women from all across Asia, Fakhruddin said, AUW could also help forge a new Asian identity that could be immensely beneficial in a region where economic prosperity has accrued unevenly.
   In Asia, he said, most successful new economies in the world today exist side by side with largest concentration of poverty in the world.
   Professor Yunus said the AUW would be a melting pot for Asia where girl students from different countries, ethnicities, languages and religions would study together and transform them into new human being.
   He also hoped that the AUW would set examples to others in educating the students who would not only create jobs for their own but also would provide jobs for many others.

Tata group chief Ratan Tata, forced to relocate production of the world’s cheapest car from eastern India, has warned there could be a flight of capital and industry from the poverty-hit region.
   In an open letter to residents of communist-ruled West Bengal, Tata asked whether they wanted to build a prosperous state or ‘see the state consumed by the destructive political environment of confrontation, agitation, violence and lawlessness?’
   The letter received here Saturday was published in leading West Bengal newspapers the previous day.
   The tea-to-steel group earlier this month shifted production of the high-profile Nano car to the business-friendly western state of Gujarat, abandoning the original site in West Bengal.
   The decision to move production followed a month of violent demonstrations by activists and evicted farmers who complained they were forced to give up their land for a pittance to make room for the factory.
   ‘Many may have forgotten that West Bengal was a major centre for heavy industry and steel fabrication,’ Tata said.
   ‘Agitation and violence drove away many industries around 30 years ago. Is it therefore ironic that at this crucial time and moment of hope for the state, history appears to be repeating itself?’ he asked.
   He said he wrote the letter to rebut allegations that Tata Motors’ decision to move the Nano car project ‘was hasty and politically motivated.’

An opposition web site in southern Russia said more than 50 soldiers were killed by militias on Saturday in clashes that officials told Russian news agencies had killed only two soldiers.
   The Ingushetia.org web site cited a local official from the interior ministry giving the casualty figure, which would represent one of the worst losses for Russian forces since the end of major combat operations in Chechnya.
   The web site also quoted hospital sources and its own correspondent.
   Russian officials in Moscow and in the province of Ingushetia where the clashes took place could not be reached for comment on the report.
   Ingushetia, a mainly Muslim province neighbouring war-ravaged Chechnya, has been racked by a growing number of attacks against security forces that are frequently blamed on separatist rebels and Islamist fighters.
   ‘A source from the Sunzhensky region interior ministry said around 50 soldiers were killed’ in a single attack in which armoured personnel carriers and trucks were also destroyed, the Ingushetia.org web site reported.
   Five more soldiers were killed in two other attacks, the web site said.
   Interfax news agency quoted local prosecutor Pavel Belyakov saying two interior ministry soldiers were killed and nine others were injured in an attack on a military column that was carried out by rebel fighters.
   Officials earlier said two soldiers were killed and five injured.
   ‘The situation in Ingushetia is under control,’ Belyakov told Interfax, adding that Russian authorities had declared the area where the attack took place a ‘counter-terrorist operation zone.’
   ‘A search of the area is currently taking place, the bandits who carried out the attack on a defence ministry military column are being tracked,’ a spokesman for the armed forces in southern Russia, told Interfax.
   Ingushetia.org said one attack occurred near the village of Galashki in which the 50 soldiers were killed, while another was on the road between the villages of Surkhakhi and Alkhasty where two more soldiers were killed.
   There was also a third attack on a military column that had come as reinforcement to the road between Surkhakhi and Alkhasty in which at least three soldiers were killed, Ingushetia.org reported.
   The web site is highly critical of local authorities in Ingushetia. Its owner, Magomed Yevloyev, a local opposition leader, was shot dead in a mysterious incident after being taken into police custody in August.
   Following Saturday’s attacks, activists from the website said they were cancelling a demonstration to demand an objective inquiry into Yevloyev’s death that had been planned for Sunday in Ingushetia’s main city, Nazran.
   In what appeared to be a separate incident, a car exploded in the village of Kantyshevo in Ingushetia, killing its driver in what reports quoted officials as saying could be the accidental detonation of a bomb intended for an attack.

NASA’s efforts to get the ailing Hubble Space Telescope working again have hit a snag, and engineers are trying to figure out their next step.
   Officials had hoped to have the 18-year-old observatory back in business Friday, after it stopped sending pictures three weeks ago. But a pair of problems cropped up Thursday, and now recovery operations are on hold.
   It is unclear how long the telescope will be prevented from transmitting its stunning photos of the cosmos.
   The soonest it could be operating fully again is late next week, said Art Whipple, a Hubble manager. At worst, the observatory might remain inactive until astronauts arrive with a replacement part next year.
   ‘We’re still optimistic,’ he told reporters Friday.
   Flight controllers at Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, began the lengthy process of restoring data transmission on Wednesday. Everything was going well, until late Thursday afternoon.
   First, a low-voltage power supply problem prevented one of Hubble’s cameras from being rebooted properly, and then computer trouble struck and all efforts ceased.
   It is too soon to know whether the two problems are related, said Whipple.

Pandemonium reigned in the discussion marking the 45th anniversary of birth of Sheikh Russell as the organisers split into two groups and clashed in front of the Bangabandhu Memorial Museum at Dhanmondi Saturday, leaving two people injured.
   Russell, youngest son of Bangladesh’s first president Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, was born on the day in 1964 and was assassinated along with parents and two brothers in a military coup on August 15 in 1975 at the age of 11.
   Sheikh Russell Jatiya
   Shishu Kishor Parishad, a children’s organisation after his name, organised the discussion, which was cut short due to the clash over the seating arrangement.
   Some unruly youths vandalised the venue and tried to foil the discussion, creating panic among guests including children who come to receive prizes.
   However, the organisers managed to calm the situation, allowing the guests, including Awami League presidium member Matia Chowdhury, to deliver their speeches.
   Other speakers included Awami League leader Mozaffar Hossain Paltu and economist Abul Barakat, while Parishad president Mahmud-us-Samad Chowdhury chaired the discussion.

The Awami League will hold protest rallies across the country today to push for unconditional release of the party president, Sheikh Hasina, now abroad for treatment after her release by an executive order.
   The party’s central work-ing committee at a meeting on October 13 announced the programme to push for unconditional the release of Hasina.
   The Awami League archrival BNP and its allies on October 12 went out on demonstrations across the country to press home five-point demands including a complete withdrawal of the emergency, withdrawal of cases against the party’s chairperson Khaleda Zia and other leaders, cancellation of the amendments to Representation of the People Ordinance and deferral of upazila polls.
   The Awami League in Dhaka will hold a rally in the auditorium of the Institution of Engineers at 3:00pm. Central party leaders will address the rally.

The High Court has stayed the execution of the notification for auction of the logo, copyright and shares of the private satellite television channel Ekushey Television (ETV), said a release issued by ETV on Saturday.
   The High Court bench of Justice Khademul Islam Chowdhury and Justice Mashhuque Hosain Chowdhury on October 14 also asked the Standard Chartered Bank to explain in two weeks why the notification for the auction would not be declared illegal, the release said.
   The court passed the order after hearing a writ petition filed by SN Goswami on
   behalf of Ekushey Television challenging the legality of the tender notification recently advertised by the bank in newspapers.
   According to the petitioner, the bank floated the auction of the property, mortgaged to the bank, while the authorities were trying to settle the matter through negotiations.
   ‘The bank has violated law by floating the auction when the matter was under discussion,’ the petitioner’s counsel argued.

Bangladesh crashed out of the Merdeka Cup football tournament after conceding their second consecutive solitary-goal defeat against Myanmar at the Shah Alam Stadium in Kuala Lumpur on Saturday. Earlier in their first match on Thursday, Bangladesh had lost 0-1 to Mozambique.
   Myanmar scored the match winner in the 23rd minute after a combined attack. Bangladesh strikers let the team down for the second successive match.
   Manager Badal Roy, while talking over phone from the venue, was frustrated. ‘Bangladesh played better in the second half and were close to scoring on a number of occasions, the last-minute open net miss by Emily was too much,’ said Badal.
   Bangladesh face Vietnam in their last group match on Monday.

An underground gas transmission line leaked with an explosion near the bus stand at the Shafipur market in Gazipur Friday evening, causing a huge tailback on the Dhaka–Tangail Highway.
   Local residents said the explosion took place at about 6:00pm in the Titas transmission line. People became panicked and ran for shelter.
   Communications through the road stopped for about an hour, creating a huge tailback on both ends of the road stretch.
   Half an hour inside the explosion, the police from the Mouchak outpost reached the place and cordoned off the area. They later allowed vehicles to pass by through the other lane.
   After 12 hours, the Titas authorities reached the place and started mending the leak and this caused a tailback for the second time.

The Progressive Democratic Party on Saturday demanded resignation of the interim government led by Fakhruddin Ahmed for its failure to create a level playing field for the elections in 21 months.
   The party chairman, Ferdaus Ahmad Quarishi, at a news briefing at the party’s Segunbaghicha office said the government had lost its credibility for its activities and it should quit without further delay.
   The present government has bowed down to the pressures of big political parties, the party chairman said.
   The government has also lost the moral right to remain in power by holding meeting with the fugitive Jamaat-e-Islami secretary general, Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mojahid, he said.
   A more powerful caretaker government must be formed which could create a congenial atmosphere for holding elections in three months from the time of its takeover, Quarishi said.
   The president, Iajuddin Ahmed, can form the government after dissolving the present interim government, he said.
   Quarishi iterated the demand for holding a referendum to resolve three issues before the parliamentary elections — bringing about balance in the powers of the president and prime minister, scraping or modifying Section 70 of the constitution and completion of trials of the corruption cases before the national elections.
   The party made eight-point demands before the Election Commission for holding the elections in a free and fair manner, including barring the accused in corruption cases from taking part in the elections, stopping muscle power from influencing the polls and checking the limit of election expenditure.
   The party will hand over memorandums to deputy commissioners on October 20, to upazila nirbahi officers on October 21 and to the president on October 22 to press home its demand for referendum.
   The party’s secretary general Noor Mohammad Khan and central leaders Mosharaf Hossain, Sudhir Kumar Hazra, Parvez Kabir and others attended the briefing.