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A parliamentary panel Sunday levelled contempt charge against top officials of the Anti-Corruption Commission and its immediate past chairman for non-compliance with a legislative summon, officials said.
   The parliamentary committee on public undertaking at a meeting accused ex-ACC chief Hasan Mashhud Chowdhury, its former secretary Delwar Hossain and two commissioners – Habibur Rahman and Abul Hasan Manzur Mannan – of undermining parliament and the constitution by not attending a meeting of the committee.
   ‘They have undermined the sovereign parliament. But still we will give them one more chance to appear before the committee as it is presumed that they were ignorant about law and the constitution,’ Mohiuddin Khan Alamgir, the chairman of the committee, told reporters after the meeting held at the Jatiya Sangsad Bhaban.
   The meeting asked them to clarify under what law they had refused to appear before the committee.
   ‘The parliament will take legal measures if they fail to do so.’
   The meeting, however, said that the next course of action would be decided at a joint meeting of the parliamentary standing committee on law, justice and parliamentary affairs and the public undertakings committee so that no officials dared to repeat it in future.
   The joint meeting is scheduled for June 2, according to the decision.
   When asked for comments on the JS panel’s decision, the acting chairman of the Anti-Corruption Commission, Habibur Rahman, said that they would fight a legal battle, if necessary, to counter the parliamentary committee’s contempt charge.
   ‘Laws are not for them [parliamentarians] alone. There are laws also in our favour,’ Habibur Rahman told reporters on Sunday.
   When asked about punishment for contempt of parliament, a committee member said the violators might face financial penalty or jail term or both for the offence.
   ‘You will see what proceedings we draw at the June 2 meeting,’ said Mainuddin Khan Badal referring to the imprisonment and expulsion from parliament of slain Indian prime minister Indira Gandhi for contempt of parliament in the late 1970s.
   The public undertakings committee had invited the top officials of the ACC and its ex-chief Mashhud, whose sudden resignation from the position on ‘personal ground’ surprised many, to appear before the committee for discussion on the problems in the anti-graft body and on certain activities of the commission during the two years of rule of a military-backed government.
   The JS panel also wanted discussion on the ACC’s annual report, expenditures and a few other actions.
   But the commission in a letter termed the parliamentary summon motivated and refused to attend the meeting.
   Hasan Mashuud Chowdhury also expressed his inability to appear before the parliamentary panel contending that the invitation was not legitimate.
   ‘But my decision is not meant for demeaning parliament,’ he mentioned in the brief letter to the committee secretary.
   Briefing newsmen after Sunday’s meeting, the committee chairman said that there were some allegations of irregularities in the Anti-Corruption Commission and the commission officials were summoned for discussion about its activities.
   ‘They [ACC] can discharge their functions independently but they are not beyond accountability,’ the chairman pointed out adding that they should know the rules and provisions of the constitution to serve the nation.
   He said the cabinet secretary, the Comptroller and Auditor General, and chief of National Board of Revenue had responded to the committee’s call and turned up at the meeting.
   The meeting asked them to inform the committee about certain actions related to the activities of the ACC during the last two yeas and a half.
   It asked the cabinet secretary to report to the committee a week before the next meeting how the former ACC secretary Delwar, now secretary to the land ministry, could issue a statement flouting the rules despite being a public servant.
   ‘The secretary has violated the law and undermined parliament,’ said the committee chairman who also wanted explanations for the unilateral decisions the ACC made during its reconstitution after the January 11, 2007 changeover.
   The cabinet division was also asked for reports on the elevation of the ACC chairman to the rank of a minister from that of a state minister, process of his appointment [whether a search committee was formed beforehand as per the law] and whether the commission had unanimously decided actions against any individuals.
   The Comptroller and Auditor General was asked to examine more attentively the two years’ expenditures by the ACC as there had been allegations that the commission had spent more than Tk 13 crore as source money and that the counsels were paid more than the chief justice’s remuneration.
   The meeting also directed the NBR chief to explain under what laws the Anti-Corruption Commission had disclosed documents of selected taxpayers, and under what authority they had frozen bank accounts of certain individuals.
   The committee noted that there were certain constitutional provisions as regards the sources from which money should be coming to the republic’s consolidated fund. But money was taken forcibly from a few people.
   ‘Such activities are tantamount to robbery. No government can do it,’ Alamgir said.

The Anti-Corruption Commission is functionally independent, but not sovereign and its officials will need to appear before a parliamentary committee if they are summoned to explain some of their activities, said legal and constitution experts and a political analyst.
   A sort of tug of war has begun with the commission chief’s refusing to turn up at the committee meeting.
   The immediate-past military-controlled interim government by an ordinance amended Section 3(2) of the Anti-Corruption Act. The amended section says, ‘The commission will be an independent, autonomous and neutral commission.’
   The ordinance, however, has ceased be in force as it has not been passed into a law 30 days inside the first sitting of the parliament.
   Senior Supreme Court lawyer Rafique-ul Huq said, ‘The commission and its counsels might consider the commission an autonomous body, enjoying exemption from scrutiny of the committee on public undertakings.’
   Former commissioner of the anti-graft body Maniruzzaman Miah said the parliamentary committees were formed to ensure the accountability of the executive branch of the government and they had the authority to summon anyone. ‘Moreover, the officials of the commission are accountable to the people.’
   Talukdar Maniruzzaman, a retired professor of political science in Dhaka University, suggested that the commission officials should appear before the parliamentary committee. ‘As the commission officials draw salaries from the public exchequer, they are accountable to the parliament.’
   Moudud Ahmed, a barrister by profession and also the pioneer of the act, however, said, ‘The commission is certainly independent, but it is independent and neutral in fighting corruption.’
   ‘The parliament is the only sovereign organ of the state having the authority to summon any officials of institutions run by public money,’ he said, advising the people summoned to appear before the committee to prove they were not guilty of any wrongdoing or irregularities.
   All of the experts also referred to Article 76(3) of the constitution which says the parliamentary committees will have the powers for ‘(a) enforcing the attendance of witnesses and examining them on oath; (b) compelling the production of documents.’
   According to the fourth schedule of the Rules of Procedure of the parliament, any commission or corporation or body set up by the government is included in the list of undertakings under the committee’s jurisdiction, they said.
   As the report of the commission needs to be placed in the parliament, it is also accountable to the parliament, they said, explaining the provision stipulated in Section 29 of the act.
   The commission’s senior counsel Anisul Huq, however, has differed with the experts’ observation.
   ‘The parliamentary committee has issued the summons without any lawful authority as, according to law, the commission is independent and it is only accountable to the president through submission of its yearly reports,’ he said.
   In addition to Section 3(2) of the act, Section 24 says, ‘Subject to provisions stipulated in this act, the commissioners will be independent in discharging their duties under this act.’
   Section 29 says ‘(1) The commission, by March in every year, shall submit a report on its functioning during the immediate past year to the president. (2) After receiving the report, the president shall take step to place it before the parliament.’
   The Transparency International, Bangladesh chief, Muzaffer Ahmed, however, gave a different view, saying it was related to legal procedures.
   ‘If there is any doubt over the jurisdiction of any of them [either the commission or the parliamentary committee], then the matter can be referred to the Supreme Court for its opinion,’ he said.
   Shahdeen Malik, a teacher of law in BRAC University, said confusions could be there as there was no precedence of summoning any statutory commission by the parliamentary committee.
   But if conflict of interest arises between the commission and the chairman of the parliamentary committee on public undertakings, Mohiuddin Khan Alamgir, who was convicted in a case filed by the commission, then the committee chairman should not sit at the meeting, he said.

The government has directed the Dhaka Cantonment Board to take legal action against ‘violation’ of the lease agreement on allotment of the cantonment house to Khaleda Zia, widow of slain president Ziaur Rahman, according to a state minister.
   ‘She [Khaleda Zia] has repeatedly breached the conditions attached to the lease of the cantonment bungalow…As the former prime minister of the country and [now] the leader of the opposition, she should be more obedient to the government laws,’ state minister for housing and public works Abdul Mannan Khan told reporters at his office Sunday.
   He, however, said the government still expected that Khaleda would leave the house before legal actions were initiated against the allotment.
   ‘She [Khaleda] has been allotted another house on 29 Minto Road as the leader of the opposition. So she can stay there too,’ the state minister added.
   The cabinet had discussed the violation of the lease agreement and asked the authorities concerned to take appropriate measures in this regard, Mannan mentioned.
   ‘Khaleda Zia’s family is the most privileged… After the death of president Ziaur Rahman, Khaleda was provided with two houses in the capital – one in the cantonment and the other at Gulshan – and given Tk 10 lakh in cash and a car, among other facilities,’ he read out the privileges given to Khaleda Zia in 1981-82.
   According to the conditions of the lease, Khaleda, chairperson of the main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party, was supposed to pay Tk 1 as annual tax to the government exchequer.
   ‘But she did not pay any taxes since 1983 against her cantonment residence whereas she was doing politics staying at the house located in the sensitive area with her sons using the address for running their businesses,’ the state minister said.
   He said that the government was determined to apply rules and law equally to everybody, no matter how influential they might be.
   ‘Now it is the responsibility of the Cantonment Board to decide the next course of action,’ the state minister said without mentioning any timeline for the action.
   The BNP has said it would wage a movement and go for legal action against the government’s decision to cancel Khaleda Zia’s cantonment residence.

The Bangladesh Nationalist Party on Sunday asked Sheikh Hasina to ‘behave like the prime minister of the country’ resisting the temptation of revenge, and stop threatening the opposition.
   ‘You are not the president of Awami League now. You are the prime minister of the country, you are my prime minister, you are Khaleda Zia’s prime minister… People expect you to behave like the prime minister. Scrap the illegal decision of the cabinet and curb your desire to evict Khaleda Zia from the house she has been living in for the past 28 years on lease in perpetuity,’ said the party secretary general Khandaker Delwar Hossain at a rally of BNP’s associate body, Jatiyatabadi Samajik Sangskritik Sangstha in front of the party’s central office at Naya Paltan.
   ‘Your ministers are threatening to go tough if we protest against your illegal action. If you do not want to practise democracy, if you deny our right to speak, then why not make it clear that you want to return to BKSAL rule,’ he said.
   ‘Rise above meanness. If you stand by your claim that the lease was illegal, then go to court. Nowhere in the world there is a single instance that a lease given to an individual has been cancelled by the cabinet. You can do anything with your “brute majority” but is it democracy,’ he said.
   Delwar said major things could not be done with a narrow mind. ‘Change your mind if you want to bring about changes [in the country]. If you [Hasina] have any grievances about the cancellation of the allotment of Ganabhaban to you, please forget it and admit that the decision was wrong. It will brighten your image. The Ganabhaban and a plot in cantonment are not the same,’ he said.
   ‘If you are tempted to take revenge, do it in a modest and lawful manner like a statesman,’ Delwar said.
   At another programme, BNP standing committee member Moudud Ahmed said the decision to cancel the lease had been prompted by a desire to take revenge and to hide the ‘complete failure’ of the government in past three months, to ‘divert public attention’ from the killings at the Bangladesh Rifles headquarters and the violence unleashed by Awami League’s associate body of students, Chhatra League, across the country.
   ‘The decision on the sensitive issue would trigger unrest and conflicts in the political arena. No one in the country has accepted the decision, even many senior leaders of Awami League told me that they do not agree to the decision,’ he told a discussion marking the 8th anniversary of death of Sramik Dal leader Shahidul Islam Chowdhury at the Bhasani auditorium.

India’s external affairs secretary Shiv Shankar Menon on a surprise visit arrived in Dhaka Sunday afternoon and discussed a number of issues with the prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, immediately after his arrival.
   Diplomatic sources said Menon would meet the foreign affairs minister, Dipu Moni, and the chief of army staff, General Moeen U Ahmed, today apart from holding talks with the foreign secretary, Touhid Hossain.
   The two-day visit, taking place just before the staggered general elections in India during April–May, was not mentioned in any schedules in the Prime Minister’s Office and the Foreign Office.
   Former foreign secretary CM Shafi Sami said such surprise visits also took place in the past while Shamsher Mobin Chowdhury, another former foreign secretary, described the visit unprecedented.
   ‘It happened in the past. I cannot tell more as I do not know the context of the visit,’ said Sami.
   ‘It is really unusual. I have never come across such a surprise visit. Visit by India’s external affairs secretary, of course, warrants some preparations,’ said Shamsher. ‘Only the government can say better why it was kept secret.’
   The foreign ministry and the Indian high commission in Dhaka preferred not to meet the press and did not disclose the purpose of Menon’s visit.
   This is Menon’s second visit to Dhaka after the Awami League-led alliance assumed office on January 6, 2009. He accompanied India’s external affairs minister Pranab Mukherjee during his one-day visit to Bangladesh on February 9.
   Menon made a ‘courtesy call’ on Hasina at her official residence, Jamuna, at 7:30pm Sunday and talked with her for about an hour.
   Sharing of waters of common rives, Tipaimukh dam, mutual cooperation on addressing power crisis and border problems were discussed, according to the United News of Bangladesh, which, however, did not provide any details on Menon’s discussion with Hasina.
   Menon also attended a dinner hosted by the Bangladesh foreign secretary at the state guest house Padma.

The Indian foreign secretary, Shivshankar Menon, made a courtesy call on the prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, on Sunday night, when a wide range of matters of bilateral interest of Bangladesh and India were discussed.
   During the hour-long meeting at the Prime Minister’s Official residence Jamuna, Hasina and Menon discussed the sharing of river waters between the two countries, mutual cooperation on electricity crisis, border problems and Tipaimukh dam.
   The Indian high commissioner in Dhaka, Pinak Ranjan Chakravarty, Prime Minister Office secretary Mollah Waheeduzzaman, prime minister’s press secretary Abul Kalam Azad, special assistant to the PM Abdus Sobhan Golap and former ambassador Ziauddin were present.

The Rapid Acton Battalion arrested eight suspected members of the banned Islamist outfit, Jamaatul Mujahideen Bangladesh, at a house at Khilkhet in the capital early Sunday, RAB sources said.
   The RAB members also seized a large quantity of raw-materials for making bombs from their possession two days ahead of the Bangla New Year.
   The arrested are Tariqullah alias Rubel, 20, Hasanuzzaman, 26, Abdul Matin alias Zakir, 32, Yusuf Al Asadullah bin Wahidullah, 21, Sumon alias Abdullah, 18, Zahidur Rahman Zahid, 28, Anwar Hossain alias Baten, 30, and Abu Sayeed alias Parvez, 25.
   Acting on a tip-off, the battalion members raided the house of one Maulana Wazuddin at Tekpara under Khilkhet at about 3:00am and arrested the eight JMB suspects as they assembled there for a meeting.
   The lawmen also seized the raw-materials for making bombs including 10,000 pieces of lithium batteries, 10 detonators and two 12v batteries, freshly printed leaflets, books on jehad, CDs, audio cassettes, CPU and IPS from the house, the RAB-1 commanding officer, Bakhtiar Alam, told newsmen at the RAB-1 headquarters Sunday afternoon.
   The battalion said it had been watchful about the JMB activities since the execution of its top six leaders and arrested the Dhaka divisional commander of the regrouped organisation, Mohtasim Billah on February 20.
   Based on his statement, the battalion came to know about the present members of the organisation and their activities in the capital.

The economic affairs adviser, Moshiur Rahman, in a workshop on Sunday suggested that the techno-feasibility study of a deep sea port should include its potential contribution to the country’s growth and regional distribution.
   The project’s consulting firm, Pacific Consultation International of Japan, has not focused on such important issues in its final report on deep sea port in Sonadia, which was released during a workshop held at a city hotel.
   The study also failed to focus not only on the issue of growth but on issues like the development of an internal communications network to back up the activities of a mega-port, and synchronization of tariff rates for the port’s users to turn it into a regional hub.
   ‘All these issues are important and should be addressed,’ said Rahman while speaking at the workshop on the techno-feasibility study of the proposed deep sea port in Sonadia as the special guest.
   He added that the consulting firm should project the inflow of foreign direct investment and the regulatory framework.
   The consulting firm, appointed almost three years ago, took about $13 million to complete the study in two phases.
   Its main task in the first phase was site selection, and the financial and other technical aspects were in the second phase, according to shipping ministry officials.
   The shipping ministry organised the daylong workshop, which was addressed by its minister, Afsarul Ameen, and the chairman of the parliamentary standing committee on shipping, Noor-e-Alam Choudhury, along with others.
   Ameen said the proposed deep sea port is a ‘visionary project’ and is indispensable, considering the increasing demand of the country’s trade in the future.
   Of the country’s two ports, Chittagong Port alone handles 90 per cent of the sea-borne trade.
   The minister pointed out that port-related activities were likely to increase in the future with the advent of expected cargo from Nepal, Bhutan, the landlocked north-eastern states in India, and even Myanmar and China.
   ‘Since there is no operational deep sea port in Myanmar and also on the east coast of India, there is the possibility that a deep sea port in Bangladesh can provide services to these areas in addition to supporting Chittagong and Mongla ports, and handling increased volume of export and import cargos,’ Ameen added.
   ‘We can expect the deep sea port to become a major vehicle of economic growth in Bangladesh, we can even expect it to become another Hong Kong or Singapore,’ he added.
   The required investment for the first phase of the proposed deep sea port project, which will take at least 10 years to complete, has been calculated at $2.2 billion.
   The entire project, to be completed in four phases, will, take 46 years and an investment of more than $8 billion.
   The consulting firm, in its study, suggested public-private partnership and bond or equity from the share market, to fund the project. As decided earlier the Chittagong Port Authority will bear 30 per cent of the project’s cost, said officials of the ministry.
   Besides, the ministry is expecting investment from the bilateral and multilateral lending agencies, they said.

A parliamentary committee investigating alleged corruption of former Jatiya Sangsad speaker Jamiruddin Sircar has found he spent more than Tk 27.86 lakh without lawful authority.
   ‘We are convinced the former speaker received Tk 2,786,364 to meet his medical expenditure. But the then prime minister twice refused to approve the amount,’ the committee’s head Fazle Rabbi Mia told reporters after a meeting on Sunday.
   Jamiruddin spent the money on his treatment in Singapore during his tenure as the speaker of the parliament.
   Sources attending the meeting said Jamiruddin had written in a note on the expenditure that Khaleda Zia, then the prime minister, had not approved the expenditure and he would return the amount to the state exchequer if it was questioned.
   The meeting, presided over by the chairman of the committee, will resume on Monday.
   The committee may call the former speaker, elected a lawmaker on the Bangladesh Nationalist Party ticket in by-elections, for his version regarding the alleged fund misappropriation.
   The parliament on March 19 formed the 11-member committee, with both the ruling and opposition lawmakers, to investigate alleged corruption, irregularities, abuse of power and wastage of public money by the former speaker.
   The BNP lawmakers refused to attend the meting, saying it was a motivated move against the former speaker.

The US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton says ‘Shubho Nobo Borsho’ by sending greetings to all around the world who are celebrating Pahela Baishakh, the Bengali New Year festivities celebrated by those who share common Bengali cultural and linguistic traditions.
   ‘As you welcome the year 1416, I salute the spirit of tolerance and shared linguistic and cultural heritage that brings so many together, regardless of religion or nationality, to usher in a new year with music, drama, and traditional foods,’ she said in her message of greetings.
   Hillary said all New Year celebrations reflected the hope of new beginnings. As the world faces the greatest economic challenges in generations, she said ‘we all must stand together to embrace the New Year’s promise of rebirth and renewal.
   It is our shared hope
   for the future — our shared dream of a better world
   for our children — that brings us all together to celebrate our common humanity.’
   She said ‘I send my best wishes for a special day shared with family and friends. Shubho Nobo Borsho!’

The price of standard size Hilsa fish at the Barisal wholesale market went up to Tk 1,500 per kilogram on Sunday, two days ahead of the Pahela Boishakh, the first day of the Bangla New Year.
   It was found that the standard size Hilsa of 900-1,300 grams was selling at Tk 63,000-65,000 per maund (42 kgs) at the Barisal wholesale markets, including the Barisal BFDC fish landing centre.
   The medium size Hilsa of 600-900 grams was selling at Tk 25,000-35,000 per maund and the small size Hilsa of below 600 grams selling at Tk.10,000-20,000 per maund.
   Two wholesalers — Ajit Kumar Das and Yusuf Shikdar — said the price of Hilsa became almost double of its price a week ago as ban was going on Hilsa fishing.
   On the other hand, the demand for Hilsa at the markets countrywide has increased ahead of the Pahela Boishakh as it is the prime item of the traditional Bangla New Year’s dish ‘Panta-Ilish,’ they observed.
   They apprehended that the price of a big size Hilsa weighing over one-and-a-half kilogram might cross Tk 3, 000 on the day of Pahela Boishakh.
   The price of Hilsa would be even more if the import by India was not stopped because of the bargain on its price between the two countries.
   Bangladesh on 12 April, 2008 had fixed the per kilogram minimum export price of Hilsa weighing 600 grams to less than 1kg at $6, 1kg to 1.5kg at $8, and over 1.5kg at $12. The price of Hilsa was $2-4 per kilogram on an average in the previous season.
   The Hilsa export remained stopped as the Bangladeshi exporters and the importers of West Bengal state in India failed to reach an agreement on its price. The importers demanded cut in the export price of Hilsa.

The president, Barack Obama, will try to establish a cooperative new relationship with Latin America this week, but US resistance to change on highly symbolic issues like Cuba and immigration could undercut the effort, analysts said.
   Obama travels to Mexico on Thursday for his first visit to the region as president and heads to Trinidad and Tobago on Friday for the Fifth Summit of the Americas. As he did at the G20 summit of major economic powers in London this month, the president plans to emphasise listening to regional leaders and working on shared goals.
   ‘With all that is at stake today, we cannot afford to talk past one another,’ Obama said on Saturday in his weekly radio speech. ‘We have to find, and build on, our mutual interests.’
   Jeffrey Davidow, Obama’s special adviser for the summit, said there had been a push to establish a new tone with pre-summit consultations and diplomacy. Obama met the Mexican president, Felipe Calderon, before taking office and several Cabinet officials have visited Latin America.
   ‘I think coming so early in the administration,’ Davidow said, ‘this ... legitimately can be seen as a new beginning.’
   Obama’s popularity, compared to former president George W Bush, and his performance at the G20 give him tremendous goodwill among fellow leaders as he begins the visit, analysts said, but much hinges on his pledge to listen and learn.
   ‘What matters is the day after,’ Luis Alberto Moreno, president of the Inter-American Development Bank, told a briefing. ‘If the US is ... saying that they’re willing to listen and to learn ... you have to walk the walk.
   ‘And in this regard there’s a number of issues that should not be removed from the agenda: things like Cuba, things like immigration,’ he said.
   Those issues, though not on the summit agenda, are sure to be debated. The president, Hugo Chavez, of Venezuela and like-minded leaders are expected to push for Cuba to be readmitted to the Organisation of American States. Debate over Cuba would underscore the divide between the United States and the region.
   Washington has said it would not end its 47-year-old embargo on the communist island. But Obama is looking at loosening restrictions on family visits and remittances to Cuba, steps many view as inadequate.
   ‘The measures that the administration seems to be willing to roll out regarding Cuban-American family travel are so limited in their impact, narrow in their scope that perversely this administration, which wants the summit not to be a Cuba summit, might make it a Cuba summit,’ said Julia Sweig, head of Latin American studies at the Council on Foreign Relations.
   That would be a mistake, analysts said, because the main issue confronting the leaders is the global economic crisis.

The railway officials of Bangladesh and India are scheduled to sit across the table for three days in New Delhi beginning on May 12 to settle some issues, including cut in travel time and re-scheduling of the Moitree Express.
   Officials of the Bangladesh Railway told New Age on Sunday that the three-day meeting would mainly focus on the issues as the cross-border train failed to attract good number of passengers in the first 12-months of its operation.
   They said that in the three-day inter-governmental railway meeting, Bangladesh would also propose to open a new ticket counter at the Kolkata railway station apart from the Shealdah and provide return tickets to the passengers of both the countries.
   ‘We are hopeful that the New Delhi meeting will make a final decision on both the issues of reducing travel time and re-scheduling of the Moitree Express,’ said Asadullah Mian, additional director general of the Bangladesh Railway.
   He added that Bangladesh would propose to reduce the immigration time from four-and-a-half-hours to two-and-a-half-hours, by one hour on each side.
   At present it takes 13 hours, including five hours for customs formalities on both sides of the border, to travel 538km — 418km in Bangladesh side and 120km in Indian side.
   He said under the current schedule, the Bangladeshi passengers who travel to Kolkata by train are to stay for seven days in Kolkata for the return train.
   The train departs Dhaka for Kolkata on Saturdays and returns from Kolkata on Sundays while the Indian train returns on the same days.
   Asad said, ‘We will place a proposal for maintaining the current schedule for the Bangladesh train, and arrival of the Indian train in Dhaka on Tuesdays and its return to Kolkata on the following day.’

The authorities concerned have started sending the members of the Bangladesh Rifles who joined the battalion outside Dhaka to the headquarters in the capital.
   Some 33 BDR soldiers from Naogaon and 8 soldiers from Chapainawabganj were sent to Pilkhana on Sunday.
   All the soldiers were in the Pilkhana headquarters during the rebellion that killed 75 people, 57 of whom were army officers, on February 25-26, and had fled after that.
   Of them, 19 soldiers joined the 46 Rifles Battalion, 14 the 43 Rifles Battalion in Naogaon and eight the 39 Rifles Battalion in Chapainawabganj.
   Official sources said that the soldiers may face interrogation at the BDR headquarters in Pilkhana.
   The Criminal Investigation Department, assigned to investigate the BDR rebellion, arrested four more soldiers on Sunday, raising the total of arrestees to 1,032.
   The four will be produced before the court on Monday, said the investigation officer, Abdul Kahhar Akand, also a senior ASP of the CID.
   Of the arrestees, more than 250 soldiers have been remanded in custody so far and about 70 of them are being interrogated by the investigators and also the members of the Taskforce for Interrogation.
   The investigators have found only one soldier who fired at director-general Shakil Ahmed, who died on the first day of the rebellion. The soldier is now in jail, said sources close to the investigation.
   Meanwhile, the lawmen have recovered a bullet-proof vest, four helmets and 10 rounds of ammunition that were abandoned when the soldiers’ families vacated their quarters on Sunday.
   The families of 17 soldiers left their quarters on Sunday, raising the number of vacated quarters to 269.
   The family members and relatives of soldiers on Sunday staged a demonstration in front of the Pilkhana’s Gate No 4 on Sunday after failing to meet the soldiers.
   The relatives sat down on the road, halting traffic movement for a few minutes on the busy road from 12:00pm.
   Later, the police removed them from the road and 20 of them were allowed to enter the Pilkhana.
   The officials then assured the wives that they would be allowed to meet their husbands in phases to calm them down.
   Sheuli, wife of a soldier Mainul, said that she could not get permission to meet her husband although she had come daily since March 22.
   ‘We do not want money, we only want to see our husbands,’ she said.
   ‘We appeal to the authorities to release the innocent soldiers but bring the culprits to book,’ said another woman, Shahina Begum, who had also failed to meet her son-in-law.

The Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation is likely to import 1.8 lakh tonnes of fuel oils including diesel from the Philippines National Oil Company during the July-December period.
   The corporation sent a proposal to the energy division last week for the import of 1.5 lakh tonnes of diesel, 15,000 tonnes of kerosene and 15,000 tonnes of jet fuel from the PNOC under an unsolicited agreement between the state-run companies, said a BPC official.
   ‘It will be for the first time that the BPC will import fuel oils from the Philippines, if the government approves,’ the BPC chairman, Anwarul Karim told New Age on Sunday.
   The Philippine company will charge premium, carrying and other charges, of around $5.15 per barrel of diesel in addition to the regular oil price, said another official. ‘This offer of premium is the lowest from among the companies from where the BPC imports fuel oils,’ he claimed.
   A high official of the energy division said the division would first send the BPC proposal to the cabinet committee on economic affairs, headed by the finance minister, Abul Mal Abdul Muhith, seeking permission so that the BPC could sign the unsolicited agreement with the PNOC for import of fuel.
   ‘If the economic affairs committee approves the proposal, another proposal for import of 1.8 lakh tonnes of fuel oils would be sent to the cabinet purchase committee, also headed by the finance minister,’ he said.
   The BPC, meanwhile, has sent another proposal to the energy division for signing a fresh deal on the import of fuel oils from the Kuwait Petroleum Corporation as the agreement expired on March 31.
   The KPC had been the major source of refined fuel oils for the BPC till 2008 as it had imported around 22 lakh tonnes of diesel, kerosene, octane and jet fuel annually from the KPC in the last five years.
   The country’s total annual fuel oil import is around 37-38 lakh tonnes, including 13-14 lakh tonnes of crude oil.
   But after the corporation’s one-year extended agreement with the KPC expired on December 31, 2008, further extension of the agreement became uncertain as the KPC imposed some conditions on the LC opening, like engaging international banks authorised by the KPC for opening of the LCs.
   The BPC then reached an agreement with Malaysia’s Petronas Trading Corporation on importing 15 lakh tonnes of diesel, kerosene and jet fuel in the March-December period.
   The BPC officials and a KPC delegation recently agreed to extend the agreement that expired in March.
   ‘If the government approves, a fresh two-year agreement will be signed with the KPC,’ said a BPC official.
   Initially, the BPC will import around eight lakh tonnes of diesel and jet fuel from Kuwait till December 2009.

A two-day trade negotiation between Dhaka and Yangon ended without any substantial results as Myanmar did not make any positive response to Bangladesh’s proposals but the one related to contract farming.
   The commerce secretary, Firoz Ahmed, led the Bangladesh delegation to the third meeting of the joint trade commission in Myanmar’s administrative capital Nay Pyi Taw.
   The negotiation ended on April 8 and the delegation returned to Dhaka on Saturday.
   Bangladesh proposed an increase in the ceiling of bank draft from the present $10,000 to at least $50,000 to facilitate trade between the two neighbours, foreign ministry officials told New Age on Sunday.
   ‘Myanmar said it had taken note of the proposal and would inform Dhaka of its stance later,’ said an official who was in the Bangladesh delegation.
   The official said because of its banking constraints resulting from western sanctions, Myanmar could not carry out its export and import in US dollars. He said Myanmar’s banking system had many limitations.
   Letters of credit for export and import with Myanmar are now operated with the help of a third country.
   The two sides at the meeting discussed discuss the issue of letters of credit, transport of goods directly through waterway, mutual exchange of gas and fertiliser, leasing of Myanmar land for Bangladeshis for contract farming, enhanced market access of Bangladeshi products to Myanmar, arrangement of border market and trade exhibitions.
   In reply to a question on the issue of increase in bank draft ceiling, a foreign ministry official said Bangladesh was allowed to get a bank draft of $20,000 in maximum for a single consignment, compelling businessmen to take more bank drafts, which increases the cost of business.
   As for contract farming in Myanmar, Yangon asked Dhaka to submit a more detailed plan on how Bangladesh could use Myanmar’s land in Rakhaine state for agricultural, poultry, dairy and shrimp farming.
   As a measure to enhance bilateral trade, the officials said Myanmar had made a lukewarm response to the proposal for the establishment of border markets.
   As for power plant installation in Rakhaine state to meet Bangladesh’s energy crisis, a Bangladesh delegation member said a Chinese investor was keen on investing in the installation of plants to sell power to Bangladesh.

Taliban gunmen on motorbikes gunned down a woman provincial legislator in Afghanistan Sunday as authorities said they had killed 40 more Taliban in their battle
   to defeat the extremists.
   Security forces reported meanwhile Sunday they had killed 40 Taliban militants in separate battles over the weekend, .
   In one, the rebels ambushed a joint Afghan and foreign forces
   patrol district of Zabul province late Saturday, sparking an exchange of gunfire that left 22 rebels dead, provincial police chief Abdul Rehman Sarjang said.
   Separately, troops killed 18 insurgents in the northeastern province of Kunar late Friday, ISAF said in a statement.
   Legislator Sitara Achikzai, a high school teacher and women’s rights activist in her 50s, was shot dead outside her home in the volatile southern city of Kandahar, the head of the council, Ahmad Wali Karzai, said.
   ‘She has been martyred by two men on motorbikes and the case is under investigation,’ said Karzai, brother of the president, Hamid Karzai.
   A spokesman for the insurgent Taliban movement, Yousuf Ahmadi, said by telephone that his militia had carried out the assassination.
   Achikzai was targeted because she did not have a ‘good background,’ he said, without explaining what this meant.
   Achikzai had returned from years exile in Germany with her husband, a doctor and university lecturer, to work in the city, provincial governor Turyalai Wesa told a press conference, describing her as a ‘brave woman’.
   ‘They left their family, their children and their comfortable life behind in the West and came to Kandahar to live with their people and to serve their people,’ he said.
   The couple had a son and a daughter in Germany, he said.
   The Taliban — who had restrictive policies against women when they were in government between 1996 and 2001, including barring them from work outside of the home — have carried out similar assassinations in Kandahar.

The prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, is scheduled to leave Dhaka for Saudi Arabia on April 20 on a four-day tour to the Gulf kingdom, to perform umrah Hajj and hold talks with the Saudi King, Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz Al Saud.
   ‘Sheikh Hasina will meet with King Abdullah on April 21 to discuss various issues of bilateral as well as mutual interest,’ Abdullah bin Naser Al-Busairi, the Saudi ambassador in Dhaka, told New Age on Sunday.
   Earlier, the PM’s Saudi visit was postponed twice, including the recent one of March 7-11 in the wake of the bloody BDR rebellion.
   This will be the first overseas visit of the PM after the ruling Awami League assumed office on January 6.
   Foreign ministry officials said during the visit a 35-member delegation would accompany her, including the foreign minister, Dipu Moni and the state minister for foreign affairs, Hasan Mahmud.

A gang hijacked the car of the private secretary to the state minister for LGRD and cooperatives Jahangir Kabir Nanak after shooting the driver from Uttara in Dhaka Saturday night.
   The police said a gang of four stopped the car at the end of Road 14 in Sector 4 and got into it just after the driver, Kabir Hossain, 27, gad headed towards his house in the Agargaon staff quarters after dropping Nanak’s private secretary Motiur Rahman on the road at about 10:30pm Saturday.
   The gang drove the car towards the Export Procession Zone area. The carjackers shot at the driver several times, pushed him off the car in the Baipail crossing and drove away.
   Kabir was under treatment Dhaka Medical College Hospital Sunday morning.
   The car could not be traced till Sunday evening.

The Bolivian president, Evo Morales, on Sunday pledged to continue his hunger strike until today (Monday), when Congress — including the opposition-led Senate — is set to reconvene, reports CNN.
   Evo Morales on hunger strike at the presidential palace in Bolivia’s capital, La Paz.
   Morales’ speech, televised by a state-run station, was his first formal address to the nation since starting the strike Thursday in the government palace.
   More than three days into the strike, Morales appeared healthy during his address.
   The president wants the opposition-led Senate to set a date for general elections that are expected to give him another five-year term.
   Morales on Friday called on opposition members — who walked out of the Congress in mid-session late Thursday — to pass the election law, the government-run Bolivian Information Agency said.
   The nation’s first indigenous president reportedly carried out an 18-day hunger strike in 2002, when he was expelled from Congress.

The University of Chittagong on Tuesday extended the duration of the ban on political activities on the campus for two more months.
   The proctor, Professor Mohammad Jasim Uddin, told New Age the ban on political activities on the campus would remain in force for two more months.
   The university ordered the ban on March 14 fearing clashes between student organisations.