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Thousands of people Tuesday morning rampaged through Araihazar in Narayanganj, blocking the roads and attacking a police camp and two power stations, in protest at severe power outages.
   The people vandalised several vehicles and razed a temporary police camp and attacked two power offices. At least 30 were injured in the clashes with law enforcers.
   Local residents said several hundred people, joined in by hundred more workers of the factories in the industrial belt, took to the streets in the morning demanding smooth power supply.
   The people and the workers alleged power outages had taken place for at least four to five hours daily in the industrial belt over the past few days and the factory owners were forced to stop production because of such outages.
   Amid the ongoing power crisis, power supply had been snapped for five hours since 11:00pm on Monday till 4:00am Tuesday and electricity went off again half an hour after.
   Enraged at the situation, several hundred local people along with several hundred workers, equipped with bamboo sticks, iron rods and other weapons, took to the streets and blocked the Dhaka–Gopaldi and the Araihazar–Narsingdi Road with tree trunks.
   They also started fire with tyres in several points on the road, suspending traffic for about six hours.
   At the rumour of a police attack, the protestors immediately attacked a police outpost near by at Jalakandi and razed it to the ground.
   They also vandalised several vehicles parked on the road. They also assaulted a schoolteacher and damaged his motorcycle.
   The people then attacked the 10MW Sadardia power substation and damaged it by throwing stones.
   In a few minutes, the workers stormed into the local Palli Biddut Samiti office and assaulted assistant engineer Alamgir Hossain and linesmen Sagar, Suman and Shahar Ali. Others in the office managed to get away.
   The people then clashed with law enforcers when the lawmen went to the place to keep law and order.
   The lawmen at one point charged at the people with truncheons to disperse them, but they countered the assault by pelting the law enforcers with stones. At least 30 people were injured in the clashes.
   Awami League leaders Latif Molla, Salauddin Master and Juba League leaders Moazzem Haque, Jewel, Abdul Barek, Mala, Mintu, Mukul, Zilani, Tajul and Islam were among the injured. The injured were taken to hospital.
   The people called off the blockade after high police officials, along with the people of the power authority, had assured them of a smooth power supply.
   The Narayanganj police superintendent, Biswas Afzal Hossain, told New Age, ‘The situation is under control and law enforcers are patrolling the area to fend off further troubles.’

The state minister for power, Shamsul Haque Tuku, Tuesday advised people to keep patience, not to get frustrated or worried about the power-supply situation, as nagging outages created outcry in different areas.
   ‘I will tell the people not to be frustrated or fearful. Please keep patience,’ he said while briefing the press after a meeting with top officials of different power utilities at his ministry.
   ‘It’s not true that the power ministry is doing nothing to resolve crisis. It’s not possible to tell how much time it will take to come to a reasonable situation,’ he added.
   The power ministry convened the meeting for stocktaking of the power situation and find remedies for the frequent disruption in the supply chain.
   The power-supply situation turned worst in recent days with people experiencing blackout every alternate hour, or reportedly at sweet will of power-station operators in some cases.
   Prime minister’s adviser Taufic-e-Elahi Chowdhury, who was also present at the meeting, also had his explanation on the situation, particularly of some delays in power-deal signing.
   ‘We’re not sitting idle. We are busy reading the agreements signed in different countries of the world… it’s not a matter of doing abruptly. It needs huge study before signing an agreement,’ he said.
   He informed that the draft coal policy and other draft agreements in power and energy sector are being examined by the newly elected government.
   The meeting decided that a committee, which was formed earlier to monitor the power supply to irrigation areas, will now be working as load-management body.
   The PM’s adviser told the journalists that the present on-again, off-again power supply was a result of overdrawing on different power substations.
   He said the overdraw leads to a fall in the frequency in the power supply which ultimately causes frequent disruptions.
   From now on, this committee is assigned to check the overdrawing by any substations.

The power and energy sector is in limbo as the Awami League-led alliance government is yet to work out any effective policy or initiate any move to improve the frustrating situation in the vital sector although three ministers are looking into the issues.
   Official sources said a state minister and an adviser to the prime minister had been assigned to look after the neglected vital sector, but no significant steps had been taken to work out a policy or launch any project in the power and energy sector in the first 100 days of the Awami League-led government.
   They said the prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, who is in charge of the power and energy ministry, had so far held only two meetings on power and energy issues as she remained busy with other important jobs as head of the government.
   Although the prime minister has given directives to boost power and gas production, no plans have been made on how to go with the business, the sources said, adding the activities at the power division slowed down significantly after this government had assumed office in January.
   Power and energy ministry officials are still confused about the role of the prime minister’s adviser Tawfiq-e-Elahi Chowdhury, having the rank of a minister, who was verbally assigned by Hasina to look after the activities of the ministry, as they were yet to get any official order on the assignment of Tawfiq.
   Hasina appointed Shamsul Haque Tuku as the state minister for the power and energy ministry. But he lacks initiatives in looking after the ministry activities and remains busy at the secretariat office ‘lobbying’ for the people of his constituency.
   The prime minister cannot give much time to the supervision of the power and energy ministry activities as she needs to remain busy with a lot of other important jobs of the government, an official said.
   ‘But there is a confusion about the leadership in the ministry as we have not received any official order on the appointment of Tawfiq-e-Elahi Chowdhury as energy adviser,’ he said.
   No official order in this direction has been issued in the face of protests by various quarters against his appointment because of his controversial role as a former energy secretary.
   Another official said the state minister was busy talking with about 10–20 people of his constituency every day and lobbying for their transfers and electric and gas connections.
   ‘It is obvious people will come to a political leader who has become a minister. But it is not fair that the minister will remain busy only lobbying for his own people, hampering the ministry jobs,’ he said.
   ‘The government is now going ahead with the power projects planned by the BNP-led alliance government and the interim
   regime. The Awami League-led government has not so far taken any move to increase gas production or coal extraction,’ said the official.
   ‘No one expects that the government would change the frustrating situation in the power and energy sector overnight as it was neglected during the tenure of the past governments. But this government needs to put in serious efforts to improve the situation in people’s interest,’ he said.
   Shamsul Haque, however, told reporters on Tuesday his government had initiated moves to improve the situation in the power and energy sector. ‘It is not true we are not trying to improve the situation,’ he said in connection with allegations that the government had put in not so much efforts to improve the sector.
   Tawfiq said the systematic improvement of the sector could not be done overnight. ‘The nation is facing power crisis because of inaction of more than half a dozen years. The situation cannot be changed in three months,’ he said.
   Shamsul early April also claimed they had taken steps to reduce system loss and maintain the old power plants to increase power generation.
   As for allegation of activities being hampered at the ministry because of lobbying for the people of his constituency, he the people of his constituency would come to him as he was a political leader and people had the right to talk with him as he was voted by them. ‘But it was not true they were hampering the work.’
   The country faces a shortage of around 1,500MW of electricity and people are leading a miserable life for erratic power supply.

Students taking higher secondary certificate and equivalent exams are suffering across the country in the sweltering heat because of power outages during exam hours.
   Although most of the examinees in the Dhaka city were spared of the sufferings as the city power authorities took special measures, examinees outside the capital city suffered in the sweltering heat in three examinations beginning April 16.
   Reports reaching from New Age correspondents in districts said power outages took place several times in different examinations centres during the English first and second paper exams on April 16 and 19 and Bangla first paper on Tuesday.
   Students in the exams halls in Khulna faced severe problems because of frequent power outages as a heat wave is sweeping the country.
   A number of the examinees in the centres at MM City College, Sundarban Adarsha College and Pioneer Mahila College in Khulna said they could not properly concentrate on writing because of excessive sweating. They faced power cut for an hour and a half during each of the three-hour examination beginning 10:00am.
   The correspondent in Faridpur said examinees in eight centres in colleges of Sadarpur Nagarkanda, Bhanga and Madhukhali faced power outages during examination hours. The district has 13 exams centres.
   A teacher of Bir Shreshtha Munshi Abdur Rouf Degree College at Madhukhali said students in the centre had suffered in hot weather as they received electric supply for only 40 minuets during exam hours.
   Ahmad Ali Mollah, the principal of Sadarpur Government Degree College, told New Age power outages there had been power outages several times during exam hours, which caused inconveniences to the examinees.
   Rozina Khanam a student of Adarsha Degree College of Alfadanga, said apart from power cuts during exam hours, they were also facing difficulties in making preparations at home for the exams as they faced power outages for 12 hours a day.
   Examinees at Sultan Sadi College at Araihazar in Narayanganj faced power cuts for an hour and a half during three-hour exams between 10:00am and 1:00pm, said students. Most of the colleges in the district faced power outages during exam hours.
   The correspondent in Rangpur said most of the 16 centres in the district faced power cuts during exam hours.
   Munni Hossain, an examinee at Rangpur Cantonment Public School and College, said they had passed the exams hours with almost no electricity on Sunday.
   The correspondent in Pabna said power supply had been snapped twice on Sunday causing sufferings to the examinees in the centres at Pabna College, Government Bulbul College, and Government Girls’ College.
   The students claimed they had suffered for insufficient light in the examinations halls. Most of the students wrote in the answer scripts in the light of their mobile display during power outages.
   Most of the examinations centres in the Dhaka city, however, were kept out of scheduled power cuts as authorities took special measures.
   Teachers of Mohammadpur Central University College and Dhaka Residential model College complained of power outage for 10–15 minutes on Sunday while Mirpur Bishwabidyalay College authorities said they had faced outage for an hour during exam hours.
   The Dhaka Power Distribution Company managing director, Ataul Masud, however, said there was power outage at Mohammadpur College and the Residental College during exam hours. ‘They might have faced some internal problems. We have strict instruction that no examination centres will face power outage between 9:00am and 1:30pm,’ he said.
   He said the company has around 300 feeder lines to supply electricity and the city examination centres are on 60-70 feeders. ‘We are not shedding load on the 60-70 feeders in view of the exams. Power outages on other feeders have increased,’ he said.
   The Dhaka Electric Supply Company managing director, Saleh Ahmed, claimed there was no power outage at Mirpur College between 10:00 and 1:00pm. ‘We have cut power at the place after 1:30pm,’ he said.
   He said they also took steps to keep 22 feeders, which cover colleges, free of power outage during exam hours.
   A high Power Division official said all power agencies across the country had been asked to keep the examination centres out of the power cut schedule. ‘But with around 1,500MW of shortage of electricity at day time, it has been difficult to keep some of the centres out of the power cut schedule,’ he said.

The BNP is set to go for street agitation and fight a legal battle against the government’s order for the party chairperson, Khaleda Zia, to vacate the house in the Dhaka cantonment.
   The party has already instructed its associate bodies to go for agitation programmes against the decision and as part of the move, the party’s associate body of students Jatiyatabadi Chhatra Dal held countrywide street agitation on Tuesday.
   The Bangladesh Nationalist Party’s central committee will also hold a rally today in Muktangan in Dhaka against the government order.
   The party’s counsels are preparing for an intensive legal battle against the government move as they think the government needs to have a court order to evict Khaleda from the cantonment house even if they could establish her staying in the house for 28 years to be unlawful.
   The party’s secretary general Khandaker Delwar Hossain at a central Chhatra Dal rally in Dhaka on Tuesday asked the government to withdraw the evacuation notice issued to Khaleda and warned the government not to push the country towards anarchy.
   ‘We cannot sit idle. We ask you to withdraw the notice and cancel the cabinet decision. We are yet to wage any movements against the government and still request you to revoke the illegal decisions. Now it is up to you what you will do. We will do what we will do on our own,’ Delwar said at the Chhatra Dal rally.
   Delwar said the prime minister loved to watch troubles taking place in the country staying overseas. ‘Change your mentality. The slogan of a digital Bangladesh will not come true with meanness. Concentrate on building the nation. We will extend our cooperation,’ he said.
   The party’s standing committee member Moudud Ahmed, also a former law minister, asked the government to obtain a court order to cancel the leasing of the house in the cantonment to Khaleda and then to issue the evacuation order.
   ‘The government will need to move court first to cancel or declare illegal the deed, by which the president, on July 10, 1981 registered 2.72 acres of lands in the cantonment in the name of Khaleda,’ Moudud told reporters in his office at Motijheel.
   He said the government move was a political decision and said the BNP would face it politically. If the government moves court, the BNP will fight a legal battle, he said.
   The party chairperson’s adviser, TH Khan, said the party would issue a legal notice to the government in a day or two asking it to withdraw the evacuation notice.
   TH Khan, also a former High Court judge, said the legal notice was being prepared and if the government would not withdraw it notice after getting the legal notice, they would go for a legal battle against the government.
   He said they would file a writ petition with the High Court challenging the legality of the government notice issued to Khaleda.
   He also said the government had issued the notice with mala fide intention and out of political jealousy.
   ‘The notice is illegal as Khaleda Zia has not violated any rules or regulations of the lease of the house,’ he said as he talked with reporters in his chamber at the Supreme Court Bar Association.
   But Moudud said the party was yet to finalise the mode of legal battle and they would watch the government would do. ‘If they go to court, first we will face them in court.’
   Moudud said the notice failed to mention whether Khaleda had violated any of the six conditions mentioned in the lease deed.
   The Directorate of Military Land and Cantonment on Monday issued the notice to Khaleda to vacate her house on Shaheed Mainul Road in the Dhaka cantonment in 15 days.
   The cabinet on April 4 decided to cancel the lease of the cantonment house to Khaleda.

The government has taken steps to speed up the functioning of civil administration in the wake of the prime minister’s concerns about the existing sluggishness in bureaucracy.
   ‘All the secretaries to various ministries have been asked to hold inter-ministry meetings regularly as a follow-up instruction in connection with the prime minister’s concerns about slow speed in administrative functioning,’ the prime minister’s adviser on establishment ministry and administrative affairs HT Imam told New Age in his office in the past week.
   He said measures were being taken to make civil servants receptive, responsive, transparent and accountable so that the government machinery could deliver better services to the people.
   About the recent reshuffle in bureaucracy, the adviser said the government of Awami League immediately after assuming office in early January tried to bring back discipline in bureaucracy. ‘It is an imaginary proposition that transfers are creating unrest in administration,’ he observed, in reply to a question.
   The establishment ministry has, meanwhile, directed all deputy commissioners to ensure that the government agencies deliver proper services, primary, high schools and madrassas provide quality education and irregularities at grass roots are addressed, said an official concerned.
   The secretary to the establishment ministry on Sunday issued a letter to the field administrators asking them to monitor the matters and report to the additional secretary of the establishment ministry within first 10 days of every month.
   The local administration has also been asked to launch a social movement involving people against corruption and to create awareness of services of the government agencies in the field.
   On March 24, the secretaries at a meeting attributed ‘sluggishness in civil bureaucracy’ to massive reshuffle in administration within a short span of time.
   The secretary-level committee on administrative development sat at the Cabinet Division with cabinet secretary Abdul Aziz in the chair to discuss how to gear up the functioning of administration and bring in dynamism and more accountability in the activities of various ministries after the prime minister’s recent directives for legal and punitive action against the people responsible for delays or obstacles to administrative process.
   The top bureaucrats also suggested holding inter-ministerial meetings regularly to bring in dynamism in administration.
   In the second week of March, the prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, expressed her concerns about the sluggishness in the functioning of administration saying her government could not deliver services to the people at the ‘required speed.’
   ‘The prime minister has recently expressed her concerns that the ministries are not performing duties at the required speed,’ said the secretary to the Prime Minister’s Office, Molla Waheeduzzaman, in a letter to secretaries of all ministries.
   ‘She observed different ministries were making unnecessary delays in taking appropriate measures to implement government decisions and address problems,’ said the letter dated March 12.

A parliamentary panel on Tuesday suggested that a controversial deal with a Singapore company for construction of a luxury hotel and private golf course inside the air security zone of the country’s biggest airport should be scrapped.
   ‘We have asked the authorities concerned to cancel the deal as the company violated the lease agreement,’ said Mosharraf Hossain, the chairman of the parliamentary standing committee on civil aviation and tourism ministry, after a meeting.
   The civil aviation and tourism affairs ministry signed a deal in 1999 with the Singapore-based IPCO Group, an international developer, turnkey contractor and investor, for construction of a five-star hotel, a golf course and a country club in the Zia International Airport complex.
   The company was given a total of 144.73 acres of land on a 60-year lease at a nominal charge in spite of opposition by a section in the government who considered the project to be a security threat for the airport.
   Mosharraf Hossain was the aviation and tourism minister at that time.
   Officials of the civil aviation and tourism ministry said that the company flouted lease agreements while starting construction of the hotel. They had objected to the project as the hotel might threaten airport security.
   Moreover, one of the anti-graft taskforces confiscated the lease documents and submitted a report to the ministry with a note suggesting discontinuation of the project. A similar note was forwarded by a secretary-headed committee formed to investigate the irregularities in the deal.
   The Singapore company, according to the officials dealing with the project, has not been paying rent for the lease-hold land for at least the last four years.
   The taskforce’s report said the authorities may need the land to enlarge the airport and increase passenger facilities in the near future.
   After various committees suggested that the deal should be scrapped, an influential quarter has been trying to persuade the government high-ups to retain the lease, said the ministry officials.
   Abul Khair Litu of the Bengal Group works as the local representative of IPCO, which runs three ventures in Bangladesh — Ipco (Development) Bangladesh Ltd, Ipco Hotels Ltd and Ipco Resorts Ltd.
   The construction of the hotel has remained suspended for the last two years.
   The parliamentary committee, after reviewing the lease agreement and its violation by the lease-holders at Tuesday’s meeting, asked the government to cancel the lease.
   ‘We have also asked the ministry to take legal measures against the company for violating the agreement,’ said Mosharraf who presided over the meeting.
   The civil aviation and tourism minister, GM Quader, who is also a member on the committee, told New Age that he would go by the committee’s recommendations after examining the documents and relevant laws.
   The meeting — attended by committee members Mujibul Haq, Mahbubur Rahman, Moinuddin Khan Badal, Syed Mohsin Ali, Shafiqur Rahman Chowdhury, Md Faridul Haq and Md Mesbahuddin Farhad — also reviewed the overall activities of the CAAB, its organisational structure and the development projects that are underway.
   The meeting also asked the aviation authorities to strengthen the security arrangement at all the airports and improve the service for the passengers, keeping in mind a competitive global market.

Three activists of the Bangladesh Chhatra League, the associate student body of the ruling Awami League, were arrested on the Dhaka University campus on Tuesday.
   The Shahbagh police arrested the three — Utpal Saha, management 3rd year student, Mostafa Kamal, economics 4th year student, and Sheikh Saminur Rahman Sumon, a 2nd year student of public administration of the university — from the TSC and Arts Bhaban area on Tuesday, said the Shahbagh police officer-in-charge, Rezaul Karim.
   The three were held for creating instability on the university campus while two of them, Mostafa and Sumon, were accused in regular case, the OC said.
   Claiming Utpal Saha to be an outsider, Sazzad Sakib Badshah, secretary of the university unit BCL, told New Age, ‘He was trying to create instability on the DU campus and he gave shelter to terrorists of Jatiyatabadi Chhatra Dal of Jashim Uddin Hall. Many students complained against him that he sold off computers of the Jagannath Hall computer lab.’
   ‘Kamal was a Jatiyatabadi Chhatra Dal activist and he also beat two of our activists in the morning at the university mall,’ he added.
   Utpal and Sumon have lost their membership of Chhatra League for their previous activities, he said.
   Meanwhile, the Chhatra League activists of Jagannath Hall said the arrest was a conspiracy of the central leaders as Utpal Saha was in the leading position of the Chhatra League faction that was collecting signatures urging Sheikh Hasina to remain as chief of the organisation. They brought out a procession in front of the Jagannath Hall Tuesday afternoon, demanding release of the three.
   The university proctor, AKM Saiful Islam Khan, said that the three were involved in infightings of BCL. ‘Sumon was arrested in connection with two cases but there were no case against Utpal and Kamal,’ he added.
   Infighting of Chhatra League led to the closure of a total of 25 universities, medical colleges and colleges so far after the Awami League-led government assumed office in January.
   The Awami League chief, Sheikh Hasina, stepped down as organisational chief of the Bangladesh Chhatra League on April 4.
   The university unit Chhatra League president, Sohel Rana Tipu, told New Age, ‘We tried a lot to keep the situation stable on the DU campus. Some Chhatra League activists, who joined the organisation after the last national poll, have tried to create instability but we helped the authorities and the police to find them out.’
   ‘We have cancelled the membership of many of our activists who wanted to create crisis on the campus and requested the university authorities to cancel their studentship,’ he added.

US president Barack Obama heaped praise on the Central Intelligence Agency, vowing his ‘full support’ and telling employees not to be discouraged by his release of stunning details on the agency’s harsh terror interrogations.
   The president reassured the embattled spies at their Virginia headquarters amid a heated controversy over his release of secret memos detailing Bush-era interrogations of terror suspects denounced as torture by critics.
   If there were hard feelings, they weren’t on public display at the CIA.
   Hundreds of agency employees packed the lobby of the original headquarters building to hear Obama and exploded in cheers and applause when he strode in with CIA director Leon Panetta.
   ‘Don’t be discouraged by what’s happened the last few weeks. Don’t be discouraged that we have to acknowledge potentially we have made some mistakes — that’s how we learn,’ Obama said.
   ‘But the fact that we are willing to acknowledge them and then move forward, that is precisely why I am proud to be president of the United States and that’s why you should be proud to be members of the CIA.’
   Obama’s first visit to the agency’s headquarters coincided with fresh revelations about the repeated use of waterboarding, or near-drowning, on up to 266 occasions by CIA interrogators against two top al-Qaeda terror suspects.
   Last week, the president released a series of justice department memos detailing harsh techniques, including waterboarding, sleep deprivation and even a proposal to use insects to frighten a detainee, endorsed by the previous administration of George W Bush.
   The move, which came in response to a court order, exposed Obama to fierce attacks from across the political spectrum.
   Former Bush administration officials warned he had tied the hands of the agency for the future, damaged individual agents who carried out the questioning or offered a propaganda tool to US enemies.
   Human rights groups were furious that Obama simultaneously ruled out prosecutions of CIA operatives who carried out interrogations viewed as torture, by reasoning that they were acting on orders to defend their country.
   Senator Dianne Feinstein, chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, on Monday asked Obama to withhold judgment on possible prosecutions until her committee has completed a review of the secret programme in about six to eight months time.
   Obama, however, vowed ‘my full support’ for the CIA, calling it ‘an indispensable tool, the tip of the spear, in America’s intelligence mission and our national security.
   ‘I need everybody to be clear: We will protect your identities and your security as you vigorously pursue your missions. I will be as vigorous in protecting you as you are vigorous in protecting the American people,’ he said.
   Before his remarks, Obama met privately with 50 intelligence officers and agency leaders and acknowledged later that ‘people have expressed understandable anxiety and concern.
   ‘I’m sure that sometimes it seems as if... we’re operating with one hand tied behind our back, or that those who would argue for a higher standard are naive. I understand that.
   ‘What makes the United States special and what makes you special is precisely the fact that we are willing to uphold our values and our ideals even when it’s hard, not just when it’s easy; even when we are afraid and under threat, not just when it’s expedient to do so.’
   Obama said he acknowledged the difficulty of being ‘asked to protect the American people against people who have no scruples and would willingly and gladly kill innocents. al-Qaeda is not constrained by a constitution.’
   Obama showered praise on the agency operatives who operate in the shadows and have played a new and more vital role since the September 11 attacks in 2001.
   His euphoric reception was in sharp contrast with what is reported to have been an intense behind-the-scenes debate over whether to release the interrogation memos, which Panetta and other CIA officials argued against.
   Former CIA chief Michael Hayden has warned that the release of the documents could still leave agents vulnerable to civil lawsuits or congressional probes targeting CIA operatives who relied on the Bush-era memos to carry out harsh interrogations.
   ‘There will be more revelations. There will be more commissions. There will be more investigations,’ he told the TV programme Fox News Sunday.
   Hayden also insisted that the harsh interrogation techniques had succeeded in combating al-Qaeda and saving American lives, something he characterised as ‘an inconvenient truth.’
   Former vice-president Dick Cheney told Fox News on Monday he had asked the CIA to declassify memos that showed the successes that resulted from the interrogations.

The prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, had a very warm and cordial audience with the custodian of the two holy mosques King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz Al Saud at the Royal Court Al-Yamamah Palace in Riyadh Tuesday afternoon.
   During the meeting, Hasina told King Abdullah that after her party’s overwhelming victory in the last general election, Saudi Arabia was the first country where she came to perform the Umrah at Makkah Al-Mukarramah and offer ziarat at Madinah Al-Monwarah to thank Almighty Allah for the victory and seek divine blessings for peace and prosperity of the people of her government.
   The prime minister also thanked the Saudi king for the warm reception and generous hospitality accorded to her.
   Sheikh Rehana, younger daughter of the country’s founding president, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, and prime minister’s son Sajeeb Ahmed Wajed are among the members of the delegation now visiting Saudi Arabia.
   The prime minister is accompanied by the minister for labour and overseas employment Khondakar Mosharraf Hossain, Awami League presidium member Kazi Jafarullah and Nilufar Jafarullah MP.
   While briefing the reporters, Khondakar Mosharraf said the discussion between the Bangladesh prime minister and the Saudi king was fruitful.
   Referring to the longstanding problem related to the transfer of work permit of the Bangladeshi workers, he said the Saudi cabinet Monday approved a decision that from now on the Bangladeshi workers could transfer their work permit.

The Awami League’s general secretary, Abdul Jalil, on Tuesday said he would not quit his post though he has been shunted aside and is being barred from discharging his duties.
   ‘I am being illegally barred from working as the general secretary of the party, and thus the party’s constitution is being violated. But I will not quit my post, rather I will protest against the injustice being meted out to me,’ he said while talking with a group of reporters at his office in the Mercantile Bank.
   ‘Why will I be barred from discharging my duties when the party’s National Council gave me this responsibility?’ he asked.
   He, however, said he would not contest for the post of general secretary in the next National Council of the party.
   Jalil alleged that there are many paid agents of an intelligence agency in Sheikh Hasina’s cabinet.
   ‘Many persons in the present cabinet are enjoying certain privileges despite their collaboration with a certain intelligence agency that was trying to destroy the political process during the rule of the military-backed interim government. They were the paid agents of the agency,’ he alleged.
   The AL leader, however, did not mention the names of those in the present cabinet who are supposedly the agents of the intelligence agency.
   Jalil also bitterly criticised a section of the senior party leaders for their role during the two-year rule of the interim government. He accused four senior leaders of hatching a conspiracy to oust Sheikh Hasina from the political arena after the January 11, 2007 change-over.
   He called them agents of the Directorate-General of Forces Intelligence, which had reportedly meddled in the political process during the regime of Fakhruddin Ahmed.
   ‘I was in favour of the party chief while they were against her. But the party chief gave me the same treatment as she gave to the conspirators,’ Jalil said.
   Jalil, who returned to the country on August 31, 2008 after about six months of medical treatment in Singapore, announced his re-assumption of office as the AL’s general secretary after obtaining bail from the High Court in a corruption case on September 10, 2008.
   But the then acting-president of the party, Zillur Rahman, asked Jalil to refrain from working as the party’s general secretary on ‘technical’ grounds.
   The joint general secretary of the party, Syed Ashraful Islam, who served as the secretary in Jalil’s absence, continued to do so.
   Ashraful has been working as the acting general secretary after Abdul Jalil was implicated in a corruption case and arrested on May 28, 2007 by the army-led joint forces.
   Jalil said that Ashraful fled the country for London during when the party as well as the country was going through a critical period.
   ‘Upon whose assurance did he return from London?’ he questioned.
   Jalil said that he had written a letter to Sheikh Hasina, asking her why he was not being allowed to work as the AL’s general secretary, but she did not reply his letter.
   ‘Under what law is the party’s joint general secretary convening meetings and signing the party’s invitation cards when I am present?’ he questioned. He asserted that without Sheikh Hasina’s call he would not attend any party meeting as only he has the legal authority of convening any meeting of the party.
   Jalil observed that the AL has become organisationally somewhat inactive. ‘This has happened because the dedicated leaders are not on the scene now,’ he alleged.
   About his letter to Chief Adviser Fakhruddin Ahmed in which he said he wished to quit politics and came down heavily on Sheikh Hasina for her dictatorial leadership, Jalil claimed it was distributed by DGFI personnel, not by his family members.
   ‘My wife Rehana Jalil only requested the caretaker government to release me because of the dangerous condition of my health,’ he told reporters.
   ‘The DGFI officers forced me to sign the letter,’ he claimed, adding that the contents of the letter do not express his real views as it was signed during his captivity.

The High Court has issued a contempt rule suo moto against judge ANM Bashir Ullah of Dhaka metropolitan session’s court accusing him of flouting its order and undermining the wisdom of the highest court in dispensation of justice.
   The HC issued the rule against the session’s judge over bail in a 420 and criminal breach of trust case, which is under investigation stage, according to a certified copy of the order available Tuesday.
   Issuing the contempt rule, the HC asked judge Bashir Ullah to explain why he should not be proceeded with and punished suitably for committing contempt of court for his conduct and utterance/remarks on the highest court.
   Before issuing the rule suo moto, the HC bench comprising justice MA Wahhab Mian and justice M Marzi-ul-Huq on April 15 overruled sessions court order and granted anticipatory bail to accused Afzal Hossain, a resident of Old DOHS, Dhaka Cantonment.
   The suo moto contempt-of-court rule stemmed from an order of sessions judge Bashir Ullah, who flouting the High Court orders, had sent accused Afzal to jail rejecting his prayer for bail on surrender on April 8.
   On February 23 this year, the High Court, following an anticipatory bail petition, asked petitioner-accused Afzal to surrender before the metropolitan sessions court within eight weeks with an observation.
   The HC observation said: ‘It appears that the allegations made in the FIR are purely civil in nature and if the petitioner surrenders before the court below with a prayer for bail it will definitely look into this aspect of the case in considering his prayer for bail.’
   The HC further observed, ‘If the accused surrenders before the court below as directed by this court it shall consider his prayer for bail keeping in view the observations made by this court.’
   But sessions judge Bashir Ullah, while denying compliance with the High Court observations in disposing of the bail petition made blanket remarks on the wisdom of the High Court in dispensation of justice saying ‘such order is handy if anyone goes to the High Court.’
   The High Court set April 30 for hearing on its suo moto contempt rule against sessions judge Bashir Ullah.
   AFM Mesbahuddin appeared for accused Afzal.

Sri Lankan troops on Tuesday seized more ground from the Tamil Tigers, as the rebels ignored a deadline to surrender and accused government forces of killing 1,000 civilians in their offensive.
   Fresh fighting in the island’s northeast saw the government effectively slice the last small strip of coastal jungle held by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam in two, the defence ministry said.
   ‘The LTTE has not responded to the government’s call to surrender, so we are keeping up our offensive to rescue the civilians,’ military spokesman Udaya Nanayakkara said as the midday (0630 GMT) deadline passed.
   Troops have killed 29 Tamil Tigers in clashes since Monday, the defence ministry said, adding that four senior members of the LTTE were among the dead.
   The government says its troops are poised to defeat the LTTE, a hardened guerrilla group that has been fighting for an independent Tamil homeland on the ethnic Sinhalese-majority island since 1972.
   The LTTE acknowledged they had lost even more ground, with the coastal village of Puttumatalan — used as a key port for supplies to the rebel-held zone — falling to government troops.
   The rebels said the latest fighting had left 1,000 civilians dead and another 2,300 wounded, describing the northeast as a ‘bloodbath’.
   ‘The Sri Lankan armed forces are trying to weaken the resistance of the LTTE by using the Tamil civilians as human shields,’ the Tigers said, appealing for help from the International Committee of the Red Cross.
   ‘The LTTE requests the ICRC provide medical supplies and evacuate by ship the 2,000 people injured and facing imminent danger,’ they said. ‘Immediate food is required as several are faced with starvation.’
   Sri Lankan authorities, however, denied the rebel claims. Officials in Colombo have long accused the LTTE of keeping civilians hostage, and on Monday said some 50,000 men, women and children had managed to escape the area.
   Children clutching elders, mothers carrying infants and wounded men and women with bandaged limbs have been pictured walking through minefields and wading through waist-deep water to escape Sri Lanka’s war zone.
   Live video from a Sri Lanka airforce spy plane broadcast Tuesday showed thousands of people grabbing whatever they could and making a dash for safety despite firing by rebels.
   ‘They [Tigers] were shooting, they were shooting. They tried to stop us,’ an unidentified woman told the state-television reporter embedded with security forces. ‘We are happy to get away.’
   Another man said he was glad to be alive. ‘We have no problem here, we are happy,’ the Tamil man said in faulty Sinhalese.
   ‘They [Tigers] shot us. They hit us. They didn’t let us come out earlier,’ a teenage girl said at the makeshift reception centre.
   A middle-aged man said he had not had a proper meal in days. ‘We have not eaten. I am looking forward to a meal.’
   The defence ministry said 17 civilians who tried to escape from rebel-held territory on Monday had been killed by the guerrillas while another 373 had been wounded.
   Independent journalists are barred from working in the north, making it impossible to verify the rival claims.
   Government estimates show another 30,000 civilians could still be held by the Tigers but the United Nations says the number could be twice as high and warned Tuesday of the risks of an all-out final assault.
   The ICRC also said it was concerned there would be a ‘dramatic increase’ in civilian casualties and described the situation ‘nothing short of catastrophic’.
   In Washington, a US official warned that time was running out for a deal that he hoped would bring lasting peace to Sri Lanka.
   The crisis has sparked protests in Europe and expressions of concern by UN and human rights groups.

A senior official of the National Board of Revenue on Tuesday criticised the lender-driven revenue reform projects saying that those could not contribute positively.
   ‘Many reform projects of the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank were implemented without achieving the target,’ said Azam-e-Sadat, additional project director of the WB-funded modernisation and automation project.
   Sadat, also a commissioner of income tax, was presenting the updates on the project before the finance minister AMA Muhith at a meeting in the conference room of the NBR on Tuesday.
   He said that there were missing links in the concepts of the tax officials and the lender-driven projects which eventually contributed to the failure of the NBR projects.
   ‘The missing links should be addressed,’ he said, without elaborating.
   At least three lender-driven reform projects were implemented by the NBR, but the tax-GDP ratio could not be pushed up to a double digit figure.
   The country has been criticised by the lenders for having the lowest tax-GDP ratio in the world.
   The immediate past BNP-led coalition regime had formed a revenue reform commission in 2003, which made a number of recommendations. But most of those were not implemented, he pointed out.
   Muhith expressed his surprise at not incorporating the recommendations of the commission with the lender-driven reform projects.
   The NBR officials could not give any satisfactory answer to the finance minister at the meeting.
   Sadat told the meeting that the implementation of the ongoing revenue reform project of Tk 28 crore began during the tenure of the military-backed caretaker regime and Tk 22 crore had already been spent. Around 42 per cent of Tk 22 crore was spent on consultation, he added.
   The ongoing project will support another reform project titled ‘revenue administration modernisation project’ worth over Tk 400 crore, Sadat added.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has asked the finance ministry to include the garment sector, the country’s biggest foreign exchange earner, in the government’s stimulus package. The sector was left out of the Tk 3,424 crore cushion programme because the authorities concerned did not consider it to be sufficiently affected by the global meltdown.
   The prime minister has directed the finance minister to include the garments sector in the stimulus package, said LGRD and cooperatives minister Syed Asraful Islam while referring to a special meeting held on Monday night before Sheikh Hasina left for Saudi Arabia.
   Finance Minister AMA Muhith was among the ministers present at the meeting, Ashraful told reporters on Tuesday after a meeting with leaders of the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association.
   The BGMEA leaders met Ashraful as part of their lobbying for obtaining financial support to cope with the global recession. The government on Sunday announced that the stimulus package of Tk 3,424 crore, which includes Tk 450 crore in cash subsidies for some export industries already hit by the global economic meltdown.
   Asraful also said the government was not rigid about not including any other sector in the announced package.
   ‘We have left the government stimulus package open for all sectors that have actually been affected by the global recession,’ he added.
   Ashraful further said that the BGMEA, during Tuesday’s meeting, had also demanded a piece of land in Dhaka for setting up the proposed BGMEA University.
   ‘The BGMEA leaders also demanded security for their factories since a number of such factories had come under attack only a few months ago,’ said Ashraful.

Finance minister AMA Muhith on Tuesday gave a hint that the existing tax waivers to different sectors would be curbed in the next fiscal budget.
   ‘The existing tax waivers to too many sectors are a big burden on economy,’ the finance minister told the officials of the National Board of Revenue at a meeting on Tuesday.
   He emphasised the digitalisation of payment of taxes by the corporate houses to achieve the probable more than Tk 60,000 crore revenue target in the forthcoming national budget.
   Online submission of the taxpayer’s identification number returns will be introduced for the corporate taxpayers from the next fiscal budget, he added.
   A power point presentation was made on the online TIN returns, update of the ongoing programmes, and modernisation and automation project before the finance minister at the meeting in the conference room of the NBR.
   Muhith said the online submission of TIN returns would reduce the hassles of corporate taxpayers, adding that the introduction of the system for the individual taxpayers would take some time.
   It is imperative to utilise digital technology in expanding direct tax (income tax) base for more revenue collection in the backdrop of the global economic recession which suggests less dependency on the indirect tax (import duty), he added.
   Replying to a query, Muhith said the next fiscal year’s revenue budget would not be over ambitious as economists were observing that the ongoing global meltdown would put an adverse impact on the revenue collection.
   The NBR officials informed the meeting that they were lagging behind the collection target by Tk 2500-3000 crore in the first nine months of the current fiscal.
   Muhith observed that the global recession was yet to put any major adverse impact on the country’s economy.
   He said the G-20 leaders would meet in the early next month to find out ways to tackle the current global economic downturns. The world economy will return to the path of growth from 2010, he noted.
   Muhith said, ‘We will prepare our budget basing on this factor.’
   He also said that measures would be taken in the next fiscal budget to push up the local productions and consumptions to weather the effect of the global financial recession.

Pakistan on Tuesday doubled the salaries of the police in its North West Frontier Province, a key battleground in the fight against al-Qaeda and Taliban-linked extremism, officials said.
   Provincial chief minister Amir Haider Hoti announced ‘100 per cent increase in basic salary of police force as a mark of acknowledgement to the sacrifices’ rendered by them for peace in the province, an official statement said.
   The police and law enforcement agencies have been the main target of Taliban and al-Qaeda-linked militants in the province bordering Afghanistan.
   Around 400 police officials have died in bomb blasts and suicide attacks in the region over the past four years, a police spokesman told AFP.
   More than 20 people, mostly security personnel, were killed in a suicide attack in the north-western town of Bannu on Saturday.
   Hoti also announced a compensation package for families of police officials who were killed in the line of duty, the statement said.
   ‘The families of the martyred policemen will be paid one million to 1.5 million [12,500 to 18,750 dollars] as relief money,’ he said.

Two people were injured as a bomb was hurled in a shop at crowded Razar Deuri of Old Town in Dhaka Tuesday.
   The two, Apan Biswas, 11, son of shop owner Nihar Ranjan Biswas, and employee Zakir Hossain, 25, were admitted to National Medical College Hospital.
   The police said three to four assailants hurled a bomb in the shop Jyoti Department Store at Rajar Deuri at about 11:30am, leaving the two injured.
   The shop owner said that the assailants had shot dead his younger brother, Biswajit Biswas, on January 7 as he had refused to pay toll to them and three of the suspects were detained in the jail.
   Nihar alleged that the same extortionist group of the area might have been involved in the bomb attack for putting pressure on them to withdraw the case filed in connection with his brother’s murder.
   ‘The gang is still threatening us and they might have launched the attack as the case was not withdrawn,’ Nihar said.
   The police said they were in hunt for the criminals but none was arrested till Tuesday evening.

A woman and her daughter-in-law were found dead on Daptarkhana Road in the Barisal city early Tuesday.
   The deceased are Sufia Begum, 65, wife of late Ali Muhammad Mia, and Shimu Begum, 22, daughter of Azizur Rahman Mallik of village Munshir Taluk of Wazirpur and wife of Remon Ahmed, an employee in a pharmaceutical company and younger son of Sufia and Ali.
   The Barisal Kotwali police arrested Remon for interrogation.
   The police suspected it to be killing by strangulation.
   The police sent the bodies to the Barisal Sher E Bangla Medical College Hospital morgue.