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Information minister Abul Kalam Azad on Saturday said a price commission for agricultural products should have been formed much earlier to ensure fair price to the farmers in an agrarian country like Bangladesh.
   ‘If the farmers do not get fair price of their products, they would shift to more beneficial cultivation,’ Azad said, assuring that he would raise the demand for a price commission in an appropriate forum of the government.
   The minister was speaking at a discussion meeting organised by the National Agribusiness Foundation of Bangladesh and attended, among others, by members of the civic forum at the National Press Club in Dhaka.
   Abul Kalam Azad said middlemen were responsible for the disarray in pricing and their syndicated network needs to be rooted out.
   He said the government has begun distributing khas lands among the landless farmers and was also considering bringing the farm labourers under the coverage of agricultural loan, and ensuring their employment.
   Professor Sadrul Amin of Dinajpur Haji Danesh University of Science and Technology said formation of an agricultural price commission was necessary to control the prices of the agro-products for the interest of the common people.
   ‘The prices of the agro products are fixed haphazardly for lack of coordination among the growers, sellers and overseeing authorities,’ Sadrul Amin said, adding that such commissions are working in many Asian countries for the benefit of the farmers.
   Mentioning a number of studies on pricing of agro-products, he said the researches found an anarchic situation in the product pricing because of following wrong procedure by wrong people at wrong time.
   He suggested fixing a minimum support price for protection of the growers.
   Agri-business foundation’s chairman MA Nasir and other experts working in the area also spoke on the occasion.
   They said ensuring food security and employment for the people were interrelated with commercial agriculture and called upon the authorities to work for modernisation of the country’s agricultural system.

Speakers at a rally in Sylhet city on Saturday urged the government to resist any how India’s move to construct the controversial Tipaimukh dam on the upstream of the latter’s Barak River to keep Bangladesh safe form environmental disaster.
   Muktaswar, a cultural organisation, held the rally and took out a procession in the city in the afternoon to raise its voice against the dam which will be environmentally harmful not only for Bangladesh but also for India.
   Members of Muktaswar, also joined by activists of a few other socio-cultural organisations, took part in the procession.
   The demonstrators carrying spades started the procession from the Central Shaheed Minar that parading different thoroughfares of the city ended at the Court Point where they held the rally.
   Addressing the rally, the speakers said production of crops and fishing in the north-eastern part of the country, including Sylhet division, as well as eastern region of India will be seriously affected, if the dam project on the River Barak at Tipaimukh village in Chora Chanpur of Manipur state of India is implemented.
   The controversial dam will interrupt normal water flow of the rivers in the north-eastern part of the country causing a serious drought in Bangladesh territory during winter and frequent flood in the rainy season, the warned.
   They urged the government to persuade its Indian counterpart into not going ahead further with the destructive dam project.
   Chaired by Abu Zar Rezwan, president of Muktaswar, the rally was addressed, among others, by Habibur Rahman Hiron, district unit president of Bangladesh Samajtrantik Dal.

Students beat up a lecturer and put his motorcycle ablaze at Bhawal Badre Alam Government College in Gazipur on Saturday over assault on principal of the college.
   The students also staged demonstration on the campus after a rally, demanding immediate removal of the teacher, Shafikul Islam, from the college for allegedly assaulting the principal, Professor Md Azizul Haque.
   College sources said the trouble erupted after the principal asked Shafikul Islam, a lecturer of the Bangla department of the college, not to conduct his private coaching in a room on the campus.
   The principal along with the vice-principal Md Nurunnabi went to that room and asked the teacher not to conduct privet tuition on the college campus in front of the students.
   Shafikul later went to the principal's room and at one stage of altercation, Shafikul punched on the nose of the principal and ran away, the sources said.
   As the news of assault on the principal spread, the students searched for the lecturer and set fire to his motorcycle parked on the campus. Later, the students found Shafiqul in the library and severely beat him there. On information, the police rescued the teacher.
   In a meeting, the teachers' association strongly condemned the assault on the principal, demanding withdrawal of the lecturer from the college.
   The meeting also decided to take necessary action according to service rules.

Freedom fighters of the Sector No. 11 have demanded immediate trial of those who had alleged involvement in various crimes during the war of independence in 1971.
   They placed the demand at a meeting held at Samanbhag Tea Garden in Moulvibazar on Saturday.
   The meeting was presided over by freedom fighter and Bangladesh Tea Board general manager Abdul Motin Khan.
   Speakers at the meeting said it was the right time to start trial of the war criminals.
   People of the country voted this government to power especially to try the war criminals.
   So, the government must finish its task (trial of war criminals) before completion of its tenure, they added.
   The meeting was addressed by deputy commander of the Z force Major General (Retd) Amin Ahmed Chawdhury Bir Bikrom as chief guest.
   Chief coordinator of the Sector Commanders’ Forum and former Army chief Lieutenant General Harunur Rashid Bir Protik, lawmaker Syed Mohsin Ali, publicity and publication secretary of the Sector Commanders’ Forum Harun Habib, former vice-chairman of the Muktijuddha Sangsad Anwar Hussain, former general secretary of the Muktijuddha Sangsad Salah Uddin, and freedom fighter Abdur Rahim, among others, attended the meeting.

The Rangamati police recovered the body of a schoolgirl found from a tree at Rangapani on the outskirts of the Kotowali police station on Friday.
   The victim was identified as Pinki Chakma, 15, resident of village Baghaicharimukh under Dighinala upazila in Khagrachari and also a Class VII residential student of the hostel Bishakha Bhavan of Monoghar, solely for the ethnic minority children, said sources in police, quoting the Monoghar authorities.
   Police recovered the body of Pinki after being informed by the Monoghar authorities when a group of boys went to the adjacent garden to procure jack-fruits on Friday and found the body hanging from a tree, said sources in police, adding that she remained missing for four days before her body was found.
   After post-mortem examination in the Rangamati General Hospital, the police handed over the body to the victim’s father Friday evening.
   Her body was cremated at her village home, said sources in police and Monoghar authorities.
   Tension in relation with classmates over missing money might have led her to commit suicide, suspect the Monoghar authorities.
   A UD case was lodged with Rangamati police.

The Rapid Action Battalion seized 3,030kg of Indian MOP and DAP fertilizer in the Vadsha Guchaa gram area under Jaipurhat sadar upazila on Saturday.
   Captain Mamun, second-in-command of Jaipurhat RAB camp, said being tipped of, they had raided the area and recovered the agri-input when two smugglers were preparing to load the fertilizer on a truck. The police also arrested two persons.