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The communications ministry has initiated a move to impose levy on phone users to meet the funding gap for constructing Padma multipurpose bridge, officials said on Saturday.
   The ministry forwarded the proposal to the finance ministry seeking the levy, which, it hopes, will generate a fund of $200 million from the people.
   If the finance ministry approves it, the country’s some 48.12 million phone users, including 46.12 million cell phone subscribers, may see at least 10 per cent rise in call charges.
   As the government is committed to arrange one third of the Padma bridge project cost from domestic sources, it is imperative for the communications ministry to explore available funding options, ministry officials said.
   The construction cost of the bridge has been projected at $1.8 billion.
   Communication minister Syed Abul Hossain Saturday confirmed that his ministry sent a proposal to the finance ministry for levying phone users to ensure people’s participation in the giant project.
   The ministry also proposed raising fund through selling bonds, he told New Age.
   ‘It is now up to the finance minister to find out suitable ways as the country’s businesspeople including chamber leaders have urged the ministry to involve them into the project,’ he added.
   Officials said the communications ministry did not propose any amount or rate for the levy.
   They, however, said imposition of a minimum surcharge for some services for a certain period would be enough to raise the required amount of fund from local sources.
   Officials said major lenders like Asian Development Bank, World Bank and Japan Bank of International Cooperation have pledged to lend $950 million.
   The government is negotiating with other multilateral and bilateral lenders like Islamic Development Bank and Kuwait Fund for more funds.
   The IDB has assured Bangladesh of $120 million in high interest loans, requiring the government to arrange at least $600 million from local sources.
   Successive governments had also levied people in different ways for years and even decades in some cases for raising fund for constructing the Jamuna Multipurpose Bridge, which was opened to traffic in 1998. Allegations were there that substantial portion of the fund raised through levies in 1980’s and 90’s was misused.
   The government has planned to securitise Jamuna Multipurpose Bridge to arrange a major portion of the local finance for the Padma bridge project apart from keeping aside a substantial amount from the annual development programme.
   The present government took up the Padma bridge as one of its priority infrastructure projects and planned to complete the construction work within its five-year tenure.
   The site has been selected and initial design of the bridge is nearing completion. The bridge, which will connect Mawa with Janjira on the two banks of the Padma, will be 5.4 km long and the country’s longest road bridge.

Fear of ‘political retribution’ has gripped many officials in both top and field administrations, adversely affecting the performance of the civil bureaucracy, said officials.
   Aggrieved officials have started expressing their resentments openly in groups on various issues – including promotion and deputation of judicial officers to the executive wing – at the Bangladesh Secretariat, which is seen as a sign of unrest and instability in the central administrative headquarters.
   A number of ministers have complained that they are not getting full cooperation from the bureaucrats in expediting administrative activities despite directives from the Prime Minister’s Office.
   ‘All officers are not sincerely working causing sluggishness in the bureaucracy...A section of officials in the administration is not cooperating with the government. They are making unnecessary delay in discharging their responsibilities,’ land minister Rezaul Karim Hira told New Age at his office on Wednesday.
   He said the ministers were holding meetings separately with senior officials to speed up administrative activities.
   Officers lobbying for promotion or posting crowd the offices of the establishment secretary and the cabinet secretary almost everyday. Many officers are also taking various complaints to them, said officials concerned.
   It has been reported that the ‘aggrieved’ officials are holding secret meetings at the secretariat and outside and planning to get organised for creating pressure on the government.
   On July 16 about 20 senior assistant secretaries, most of them belonging to the 9th batch of the Bangladesh Civil Service (administrative), gathered at the cabinet division to press their demand for promotion when the Superior Selection Board was holding a meeting with cabinet secretary, M Abdul Aziz in the chair.
   After failing to meet the cabinet secretary, the angry officials went to the establishment ministry to give vent to their grievances to establishment secretary, Iqbal Mahood, who advised them to have patience and said that the government would consider their demands.
   When approached, both the cabinet secretary and the establishment secretary declined to make comments on the issue.
   ‘The establishment secretary has asked us not to get frustrated as the SSB is considering our cases positively,’ senior assistant secretary Khwaja Zia said adding that about 300 senior assistant secretaries had been deprived of due promotion.
   ‘We have been in service for 19 years with no promotion at all. Many officials are frustrated and also feel humiliated in the society for holding the same rank for years…We have lost interest in our jobs, which obviously affects our performance,’ an official at the cabinet division told New Age.
   On July 12 about 200 administration cadre officials from various ministries gathered at the law ministry to register their protest against deputation of judicial officers to executive positions.
   Officials in almost all the top positions were transferred while many senior bureaucrats, including 10 secretaries – two of them have gone on leave preparatory to retirement – were dumped to the establishment ministry as officers on special duty, allegedly for political reasons, after the Awami League assumed office in January 2009.
   A number of additional secretaries have recently been made acting secretaries to some important ministries like power, information, public works, food and local government, whereas experienced secretaries are languishing at the establishment ministry and drawing salaries without work, a senior official pointed out.
   Moreover, widespread changes and contractual appointments in the civil administration have also caused frustration and anxiety among a section of officials, according to insiders.
   ‘Frequent transfers have created an atmosphere of uncertainty in the administration, adversely affecting our concentration on duties,’ said an official.
   The government’s reported move to force a large number of senior bureaucrats into retirement because of their alleged partisan inclination – presumably towards the BNP-Jamaat alliance – has also panicked many officers, especially those known as beneficiaries of Khaleda Zia’s government in 2001-2006.
   Since assuming office on 6 January, 2009, the Awami League government has transferred around 500 officials of various levels, including the secretaries to the home, establishment, communications, information, education, power, energy and local government ministries, apparently to reshuffle the bureaucracy in its favour.
   According to a recent official record, a total of 342 bureaucrats, including eight secretaries and around 30 additional secretaries, have been attached to the establishment ministry as officers on special duty, of whom 176 are either on training/study leave or on study deputation. Of the OSDs, those who have served for over 25 years are in fear of losing jobs, said sources inside the administration.
   Meanwhile, a large number of upazila nirbahi officers from across the country have complained in writing to the establishment ministry against the interference of political leaders and lawmakers in administrative work at the local levels. Many of them have wanted to be withdrawn from the field due to conflict with upazila chairmen, said an official at the establishment ministry.

The overall pass percentage and the number of highest grade grosser in the Higher Secondary Certification Examinations in eight general education boards has declined a little compared with the figures of the past year.
   The pass percentage of the students in 10 education boards, including the newly established Dinajpur board and the technical and madrassah education boards, is 72.78.
   In the 2009 Higher Secondary Certificate exams, 18,222 examinees scored the highest grade, GPA 5, but the number was 19,108 in the 2008 HSC exams, according to statistics supplied by the education ministry after the results were published on Saturday.
   The results, prepared in accordance with the grading system introduced in the HSC exams in 2003, showed the pass percentage in the eight general education boards is 70.43. The rate was 74.85 in 2008 in the seven general education boards. Examinees of the newly established Dinajpur board took the HSC exams for first time this year.
   The percentage of successful students in the seven education boards was 64.27 in 2007, higher than 63.92 in 2006. The percentage was 59.16 in 2005, 47.74 in 2004 and 38.43 in 2003.
   The success rate of science, agriculture and home economics students this year is 70.69 per cent in the eight education boards while the rate in business studies is 79.63 and in humanities, Islamic studies, and music 64.26. The number of examinees was 4,89,102 and 3,44,485 of them came out successful and 69.80 per cent of them were female.
   When asked about the reasons for such a decline in pass percentage, the education minister claimed, ‘The pass percentage this year has not declined.’
   In favour of his claim, the minister at a briefing said, ‘This year’s HSC examinees passed the SSC in 2007 when the SSC pass percentage was only 58.36. The same group of students who passed the SSC with 58.36 per cent success rate after two years passed the HSC exams with 72.78 success rate and I think this is significant.’
   In contrast, the chairmen of more than four boards told New Age after the briefing that the pass percentage had declined a little compared with that of the past year because of poor performance in the 2nd paper English exams.
   They said everybody knew English was the key parameter in coming out successful in the exams. They dismissed the minister’s explanation, terming it ‘bureaucratic.’
   Nahid officially announced the combined results of all the 10 education boards at 2:00pm at the briefing in the education ministry.
   The minister and the chairmen of all the education boards at noon handed the copies of exams results to the prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, in her office.
   The minister said the government had decided to publish the results on time despite interruption in the holding of examinations caused by cyclone Aila towards the end of May. The results are published 58 days inside the completion of the exams. The exams began on April 16 and ended on May 28.
   The Jessore board had the highest pass rate of 78.77 while the Dinajpur Board had the lowest at 55.90 per cent. The number of GPA 5 grossers in the Jessore board is 2,093 and in the Dinajpur board 1,388.
   The Dhaka board had a 71.53 per cent pass rate with 9,450 GPA 5 grossers. The rate in the Rajshahi board is 70.47 with 2,229 GPA 5 grossers and in Chittagong 76.31 per cent with 1,448 GPA 5 grossers.
   The pass percentage in the Barisal board is 67.20 with 574 GPA 5 grossers and in the Sylhet board 73.96 with 439 GPA 5 grossers and in the Comilla board 66.99 with 601 GPA 5 grossers.
   The pass percentage in the madrassah board increased a little. The success rate in HSC-equivalent alim examinations in the Madrassah Education Board is 84.14 and it was 82.43 in 2008. A total of 58,978 students took the exams and 49,624 of them came out successful. A total of 1,894 examinees achieved GPA 5.
   The alim examinees need to face only 100-mark English exam while the examinees of the nine education boards need to face 200-mark English exams.
   The pass percentage in the HSC-equivalent HSC (business management) in the Technical Education Board is 80.74. It was 81.27 per cent in 2008.
   A total of 59,792 examinees took the exams and 48,278 came out successful. Only 20 students achieved GPA 5. Dropped-out, irregular students are usually enrolled on the business management colleges under the education board.

Poor performance in the 2nd paper English exam has been identified as the main reason for comparatively poor results in the Higher Secondary Certificate exams this year, chairmen of at least four education boards told New Age Saturday.
   The average pass percentage in the 10 education boards is 72.78 and the average percentage of pass in the 2nd paper English exam is 70, according to the board chairmen.
   Referring to the results of the exams in the past years, the education board chairmen said English was the key parameter of percentage of success or failure in HSC or equivalent exams.
   ‘The examinees this year needed to face a new type of question in the 2nd paper English exam and students were not fully prepared for such questions. The percentage of pass in the paper in my board is 74 while in the first paper English exam, the pass percentage is 94. I think this is the main reason for the poor results in my board,’ said Professor Mohammad Shamsul Haque, the chairman of the Board of Intermediate and Secondary Education, Dhaka. ‘The success rate in my board is 71.53. In 2008, the percentage was higher than that of this year and the results were also better.’
   A professor of English in a government college in Dhaka, who is also an examiner of the board, said ‘The students needed to face a 55-mark grammar section in the exams this year. The students in the past year faced questions of full 100-mark communicative approach. I have evaluated 1000 answer scripts of the 2nd paper English exam, but less than 50 per cent of the students came out successful.’
   The students of eight general and technical education boards needed to face 200-mark questions in English, but the students in the madrassah board faced only 100-mark English questions.
   Echoing the Dhaka board chairman, the Chittagong board chairmen, Professor M Yousuf, said, ‘Results in my board is better compared with the results of the past 16 years. The success rate in the first paper English exam in my board is 94 and more than 70 in the second paper.’
   The Rajshahi board chairman, Professor Dipkendra Nath Das, said the percentage of pass in the first paper English exam is about 90 and in the second paper about 70.
   The Comilla board chairman, Professor Atiqur Rahman, said the percentage of pass in first paper English exam in his board was 90 while it is 70 in the second paper exam.
   In contrast, the madrassah board chairman, Professor M Yusuf, said the percentage of pass in English was better than that in the previous years and the results were better. ‘I do not know of the actual pass rate in English this year, but I am sure the rate is higher than in the previous years.’

Not a single has passed the HSC or equivalent exams from 41 colleges and madrassahs in seven education boards this year, according to results published on Saturday. The figure was the same in the 2008 exams, official statistics said.
   This year there is no institutions in the three education boards which have fired blank. The boards are Comilla, Chittagong, and Sylhet.
   Of the 41 institutions having no successful students, 16 madrassahs are under the Madrassah Education Board and 4 are business management colleges under the Technical Education Board.
   The category included eight colleges under the newly formed Dinajpur board and four each under the Dhaka and Rajshahi boards. There are three such colleges under the Jessore board and two colleges under the Barisal board.
   The education minister, Nurul Islam Nahid, said the government would look into the reasons for such a poor performance. ‘We will take measures to improve the situation.’
   Seven hundred and fifty-five institutions have showed 100 per cent success rate in HSC and equivalent exams this year under the 10 education boards. The figure was 674 in 2008.

Rights group demanded that the persons found involved in poisoning drugs should be punished.
   They also stressed the need for amendment to the constitution and update of the laws to protect the people’s right to health.
   ‘Use of toxic chemicals in drugs is tantamount to violation of the people’s right to health and laws. The people involved in using toxic chemicals in drugs must be severely punished,’ the Consumers Association of Bangladesh president, Borhan Ahmed, told New Age on Thursday.
   Borhan said this when his attention was called to the recent incident in which 24 children died of renal failure after being administered analgesic paracetamol and vitamin syrups.
   According to physicians, 24 out of the 34 children admitted to Dhaka Shishu Hospital and Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University Hospital with complaints of renal failure after being administered paracetamol in remote areas in Greater Comilla, Narsingdi, Habiganj and Chittagong died. Some of them were also given vitamin syrup.
   The Consumers Association also called government attention to the incidents in 1990 to 1992 in which several hundred children died after being administered paracetamol, produced in violation of the Drug Act 1982. ‘But the offenders at the time were not punished and only the licences of some manufacturers were cancelled,’ said Borhan. ‘What is the use of law if it is not applied?’
   The Bangladesh Shishu Odhikar Forum director, M Kafil Uddin, said the government, no matter which party is in power, hardly takes any initiative to protect the right of the children. ‘Bangladesh has ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. But it is frequently violated.’
   The BSAF official said, ‘It is unexpected that children would die after taking medicine.’
   Human rights organisation Odhikar secretary Adilur Rahman Khan said it was difficult to uphold the rights of the children to survive as ‘the right to health is not recognised as a fundamental right in the constitution.’
   He stressed the need for raising voice to amend the constitution and update the law to include rights to health and education as fundamental rights in the constitution.
   When his attention was called to the scopes in the laws that allow the offenders to go unpunished, the Drug Administration director, Brigadier General M Ismail Hossain, said he had requested the government to make the Drug Act 1982 more stringent incorporating punitive actions for drug adulteration.
   Professor Mohammad Hanif of Dhaka Shishu Hospital on Saturday said no new child patients were admitted to the hospital in six days with similar complaints.
   The government sealed off the Rid Pharmaceuticals in Brahmanbaria on July 22 on suspicion that it was producing Temset and Ridaplex in violation of the ‘approved formulas.’ The authorities have also started withdrawing two ‘poisonous’ syrups produced by the company.
   The drug administration team Thursday night seized 360 bottles of paracetamol syrup, manufactured by Rid Pharma Ltd, in Sylhet, according to the news agency Bdnews24.com.
   The government, parliamentary standing committee on the health ministry and the BSMMU hospital authorities have formed three committees to find out what caused the deaths.

The newly elected general secretary of the ruling Awami League, Syed Ashraful Islam, on Saturday said that a full committee of the party would be announced shortly and that the party president Sheikh Hasina had already prepared a draft committee.
   Ashraf, also the LGRD and cooperatives minister, made the assurance to a crowd of several hundred party leaders and activists who went to his official residence at Hare Road to greet him on his being elected the general secretary of the party.
   Sheikh Hasina was re-elected unopposed the president of the AL for a sixth term while Ashraf was elected general secretary uncontested at the party’s 20th national council session on Friday.
   The AL councillors who chose Hasina and Ashraf to lead the party for next three years also mandated the party president to pick party leaders for 45 posts in the 73-member central working committee.
    Section 18 of the AL constitution states that the party president will nominate 26 members in consultation with the presidium members and such nominations shall be declared within 21 days after the conclusion of the council session.
   Addressing the party leaders and activists at his residence, Ashraf reiterated the AL’s pledge to fight for eliminating corruption from the society as no positive changes were possible by encouraging corruption.
   He also vowed not to let politics of conflict and destruction return.
   ‘We all should say ‘no’ to corruption as implementation of the party’s Charter for Change is not possible if we harbour corrupt elements,’ he said adding that the AL would not allow corruption to be institutionalised as done by a ‘bhaban’ in the past.
   The AL general secretary said the party wanted to bring about changes in Bangladesh and urged the grassroots leaders and activists of the party to be at the forefront of the campaign.
   He eulogised the dedication of the grassroots activists to the party saying that democracy could not have returned to Bangladesh but for the courage and vigilance of the party’s grassroots activists.
   ‘During the rule of the caretaker government, the party’s grassroots activists stood by us and gave us courage making it possible to free Sheikh Hasina from jail and also helped the country’s return to democracy,’ Ashraf said.
   He also said there had been a deep sense of suspicion among the activists about the party leadership during the rule of the caretaker government.
   A large number of party leaders and activists, including state ministers Abdul Mannan Khan, Mustafizur Rahman Fizar, AB Tajul Islam and Quamrul Islam, Chittagang mayor ABM Mohiuddin Chowdhury and Rajshahi mayor Khairuzzaman Liton and leaders of Kishoreganj district unit gathered at Ashraf’s residence with bouquets and sweets to greet him.
   Many party leaders and activists also thronged the prime minister’s official residence Jamuna with flowers and bouquets to greet Sheikh Hasina on her being re-elected the president of the Awami League.
   Sheikh Hasina asked them to work with devotion for welfare of the people and maintain party discipline at all levels.

The main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party and its ally Jamaat-e- Islami are unlikely to travel to India with a parliamentary delegation to visit the controversial Tipaimukh dam project.
   ‘We are not going to India as part of the parliamentary delegation. It is our party decision,’ the chief whip of the opposition in the parliament, Zainul Abdin Farroque, told New Age Saturday.
   A 10-member delegation headed by Abdur Razzak, chairman of the parliamentary standing committee on water resources ministry, is scheduled to leave Dhaka for New Delhi Wednesday apparently to hold talks with Indian officials over the issue as experts feared the planned dam upstream on the river Barak would adversely affect Bangladesh.
   The team will visit the dam site in the Indian state of Manipur.
   The team, which comprises a water expert from Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology besides lawmakers and officials, also includes an independent member of parliament, Mohammad Fazlul Azim. It will assess the dam’s possible impact on the environment and people’s livelihood in north-eastern Bangladesh, an official at the parliament secretariat said.
   The BNP, which urged India to drop the project, will not send names to represent the party in the delegation despite the government’s repeated request to name two lawmakers from the BNP as BNP has no representation in the parliamentary committee.
   Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami has one lawmaker, Hamidur Rahman Azad, in the committee and he was initially included in the delegation.
   But, the Jamaat lawmaker did not submit his travel documents till Saturday to visit India.
   When contacted, Azad, who was staying in his constituency in Cox’s Bazar, told New Age that he had met an accident last week and doubted if he would be able to travel.
   When asked whether he was skipping the trip because of BNP’s stance not to go, the Jamaat lawmaker said, ‘It would be good if the delegation was an all-party team. But my participation has become uncertain because of my illness. Physicians have advised me to take rest.’
   During its six-day trip, the delegation is scheduled to spend one day in Manipur from where they will fly to the project site by helicopter.
   India plans to construct a multi-purpose dam on the river Barak to generate 1,500 megawatts electricity and prevent monsoon floods.
   But Bangladeshi experts fear that the dam, once constructed, would trigger desertification downstream as river Barak feeds Bangladesh’s Suram and Kushiyara. India plans to complete the project by 2012.

Tension is brewing in the Chittagong chapter of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party as its joint convener was assaulted in a brawl that marred a marathon meeting at the Mehedibagh residence of former commerce minister and convener of the party’s city committee, Amir Khasru Mahmud Chowdhury early Saturday, party insiders and meeting sources said.
   The meeting, organised by the BNP’s Chittagong city committee to form thana level convening committees, continued till 2:00am.
   Joint convener of Chittagong city BNP, Shamsul Alam, who is also the chairman of Khatunganj-based MEB Group, came under attack by rivals while the scuffles broke out at around 2:00am after an altercation between joint convener Abul Hashem Bakkar and JCD leader of Bakalia ward, Gazi Siraj Ullah over formation of Kotwali and Bakalia thana committees, meeting sources and party insiders said.
   Shamsul Alam contested the last parliamentary elections on BNP ticket for Kotwali constituency, but he was defeated by Awami League candidate Nurul Islam BSc, chairman of Sanwara Corporation.
   Three other party activists also were injured as both the groups threw chairs at each other during the brawl, they said.
   When contacted, Amir Khasru Mahmud Chowdhury told New Age that some hoodlums had assaulted Shamsul Alam when he was leaving the meeting at around midnight.
   ‘But there was no clash inside my house. It took place after the meeting,’ he claimed.
   ‘We postponed formation of Kotwali thana committee in protest against the attack Shamsul Alam,’ he said.
   Despite repeated attempts, Shamsul Alam could not be contacted for comments.

The ruling Awami League and 19 others out of the 39 registered political parties have so far submitted their constitutions to the Election Commission after ratifying the changes made in the respective constitutions before the December 2008 general elections.
   The Awami League, Jatiya Party-led by HM Ershad and two other parties handed over respective constitutions to the commission on Saturday, when the six-month deadline for the submission of ratified constitutions closed.
   Eleven political parties, including the main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party, requested the commission to extend the deadline by six more months to January 25.
   The commission on July 21, meanwhile, sent a proposal to the government to amend the electoral law to give political parties six more months to submit their constitutions after having them ratified in council sessions.
   Thirty-nine political parties submitted the drafts of their constitutions to the Election Commission for provisional registration before the ninth parliamentary polls. The parties took part in the December 29 elections by bringing about provisional changes to their constitutions.
   Article 90D of the Representation of the People Order (Amendment) Act 2009 says ‘… the party shall submit a ratified constitution within six months from the date of the first sitting of the ninth parliament.’ The first session of the 9th parliament began on January 25.
   The Awami League’s outgoing office secretary Abdul Mannan Khan handed the ratified constitution over to the commission’s additional secretary Rafiqul Islam.
   The Awami League and its key ally Jatiya Party held their national council sessions on Friday.
   Mannan also submitted a letter signed by the newly-elected Awami League general secretary Syed Ashrfaul Islam to the commission.
   The letter said, ‘In accordance with the provisions of RPO, changes and inclusion in the Awami League constitution was made in the council session. The party fulfilled the legal compulsion by submitting the ratified party constitution to the commission by July 25.’
   Mannan said they had changed 6 provisions of the party constitution including one to ensure 33 per cent representation in the parties all committees by 2020.
   He said the party’s constitution allowed eight associate bodies, excluding Sramik League and Chhatra League. ‘The two organisations will be run by their own constitutions.’
   As for nomination in parliamentary polls, Mannan said the party’s amended constitution incorporated a provision stipulating that candidates would be nominated by the parliamentary board based on the opinions of grassroots leaders.

Top officials from the administration of former president George W Bush mulled sending US troops to suburban Buffalo to arrest men suspected of plotting with al-Qaeda, The New York Times reported late Friday.
   Citing former administration officials, the newspaper said some of the advisers to Bush, including vice president Dick Cheney, argued in 2002 that a president had the power to use the military on domestic soil to sweep up the suspects, who came to be known as the Lackawanna Six, and declare them enemy combatants.
   Five Yemeni Americans suspected of al-Qaeda ties were arrested by the FBI in Lackawanna, near Buffalo in September 2002. The sixth man was arrested nearly simultaneously in Bahrain.
   A decision to dispatch troops into the streets to make arrests would be nearly unprecedented in US history as both the constitution and subsequent laws restrict the use of the military to conduct domestic raids and seize property, the report said.
   The Fourth Amendment to the Constitution bans unreasonable searches and seizures without probable cause.
   Meanwhile, the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 generally prohibits the military from acting in a law enforcement capacity.
   In the discussions, Cheney and others cited an October 23, 2001, memorandum from the Justice Department that argued that the domestic use of the military against al-Qaeda would be legal because it served a national security, rather than a law enforcement purpose, The Times said.

The government has decided to change the cover designs of and illustrations in all the textbooks published by the National Curriculum and Textbook Board to make the books more attractive to students.
   ‘Cover designs of and illustrations in most of the textbooks are not attractive. We have decided to change them and the students of the 2010 academic session will get textbooks with new cover designs and illustrations,’ said Mostafa Kamaluddin, the textbook board chairman.
   ‘A five-member expert committee headed by Professor Rafiqun Nabi, fine arts dean in Dhaka University, has been formed. We will make the changes in keeping with the committee recommendations,’ he said.
   Professor Dil Mohammad, chief editor at the textbook board, will act as co-coordinator of the committee.
   The textbook board, which is under the education ministry, is responsible for renewal, modification and development of curriculum, and production and distribution of textbooks for primary, secondary and higher secondary students.
   More than 22 crore copies of textbooks will be published for free distribution among the students of Class I to IX in the academic year 2010.
   Professor Muhammad Zafar Iqbal, also a member on education policy formulation committee, told New Age Friday it was a good step. ‘For a few years, I have tried to call the attention of the people who are high up in the government to the matter. The illustrations in primary textbooks now are disappointing.’

Saudi Arabia is likely to ban the elderly and children from the hajj this year to limit the risk of swine flu, but this will not change country quotas for the pilgrimage, a health official said Saturday.
   Dr. Khaled Marghlani, spokesman for the Saudi health ministry, said the government is expected to implement recommendations to block people older than 65 and younger than 12 from the hajj made at Wednesday’s emergency Arab health ministers meeting in Cairo.
   But national quotas for the annual pilgrimage to the holy cities of Mecca and Medina, which takes place in late November this year, would not change, he said.
   ‘This will not touch on the quotas, the percentage of pilgrims’ allocated each country, he said.
   ‘When we implement the new law, it will stay as it is.’
   Close to two million people were originally expected to arrive this year for the hajj, a requisite act for Muslims in their lifetime if they have the means.
   Saudi authorities each year set the number of people a country can send on the hajj based on the size of their Muslim population.
   But the spread of the A(H1NI) flu, with already around 300 cases diagnosed in Saudi Arabia, has worried officials of possible mass outbreaks during the two-week period.
   Many people have cancelled plans to undertake the minor pilgrimage, the umrah, which is most popular during summer holidays and the Ramadan period in August-September, tour agents and Mecca hoteliers interviewed by AFP said.
   On Wednesday health ministers from 22 Arab countries held an emergency session in Cairo together with officials from the World Health Organisation to address the swine flu threat to the hajj, one of the world’s largest annual mass movements of people.
   The rapid spread of the disease, which has killed some 800 people worldwide, according to the WHO, had sparked fears the pilgrimage would be cancelled or severely curtailed.
   Among numerous steps adopted by the ministers was a proposal to ban pilgrims older than 65 and younger than 12.
   Marghlani said the proposal will soon be formally proposed to the Saudi government, and he expected it will be adopted.

More than 400 trees have been recently felled and stolen from area around the Zia International Airport stretching from the Baunia cross-dam to Fayedabad.
   The Civil Aviation Authority of Bangladesh has formed a two-member body to probe the theft of so many trees.
   Sources in the CAAB said that they had allocated a piece of land measuring 150 feet by 150 feet at Fayedbad mouza for the office of Dhaka Electricity Supply Company about one and a half month ago.
   As some trees were planted on the land, the authority decided to sell them and accordingly floated a tender for felling 13 trees on the land allocated to DESCO and five more trees at the site of construction of the boundary wall of the CAAB.
   Ankhi Traders was awarded the work and it paid Tk 1.05 lakh, including Tk 10,000 as VAT, for felling and selling 18 trees.
   But the firm felled and took away more than 400 trees planted on CAAB’s land from Fayedabad to Baunia, and the trees were spirited away with the help of a section of unscrupulous CAAB employees due to which the security guards turned a blind eye, it was alleged.
   On receipt of the information, the CAAB chairman visited the spot on July 10 and found the allegation to be true.
   Immediately he instructed the authorities concerned to form a two-member committee to probe the incident but the formation of the probe body was delayed for about two weeks, allegedly due to the pressure of the same section of CAAB employees who had participated in the theft of so many trees.
   But the file to form the probe committee was belatedly released by the Air Traffic Service and Aero Division on July 22.
   Admitting the incident, ATS and Aero division’s director, Tapan Kanti Ghosh, said that action would be taken against those found to be involved in the felling and theft of trees.
   CAAB sources said that miscreants often steal trees from areas around the ZIA with the assistance of a section of unscrupulous CAAB employees.

Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates said he was forced to give up on the social networking phenomenon Facebook after too many people wanted to be his friend.
   Gates, the billionaire computer geek-turned-philanthropist who was honoured Saturday by India for his charity work, told an audience in New Delhi he had tried out Facebook but ended up with ‘10,000 people wanting to be my friends’.
   Gates, who remains Microsoft chairman, said he had trouble figuring out whether he ‘knew this person, did I not know this person’.
   ‘It was just way too much trouble so I gave it up,’ Gates told the business forum.
   Gates was in the Indian capital to receive the Indira Gandhi Prize for Peace, Disarmament and Development, awarded by the government for his work for the charitable organisation, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
   Gates also confided to the audience that he was ‘not that big at text messaging’ and that ‘I’m not a 24-hour-a-day tech person’.
   Gates, who sought to drive a vision of a computer on every desk and in every home, said the information technology revolution had been ‘hugely beneficial’ but added: ‘All these tools of tech waste our time if we’re not careful.’

Accusing former Pakistan military ruler Pervez Musharraf of ‘telling lies’, the retired Indian Army chief VP Malik Saturday said that the Pakistani General seemed to change his perceptions and actions on the Kargil war before different audiences.
   ‘Musharraf keeps changing his statements. There was time, he was not owning up his role in the conflict.
   First he said it was only irregular militants fighting, but later changed his views and owned up that regular Pakistani army troops were involved in the intrusion,’ Malik said at a ceremony to mark 10 years of the conflict, which saw extraordinary feats of bravery and dare-devilry by Indian army men and newly commissioned young officers.

Science and technology journal publishers have agreed to offer free access to their journals to academics in the world’s poorest countries, the World Intellectual Property Organisation said Thursday.
   Twelve publishers including the Oxford University Press, Elsevier and the National Academy of Sciences have agreed to grant free access to about 64 journals to research and academic institutions and intellectual property offices in almost 50 countries.
   Another 58 developing countries would also get access by paying an annual subscription of $1,000 a year, against the regular annual subscription fee of over $400,000.
   The Bangladesh minister for industries, Dilip Barua, whose country would be among those to benefit, highlighted the importance of gaining access to technology information.