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The government will keep a block allocation of Tk 3,000 crore in the upcoming budget to implement the recommendations of the seventh National Pay Commission in phases from the next fiscal year, said official sources.
   ‘We will earmark Tk 3,000 crore in the next fiscal year’s budget to implement the National Pay Commission’s recommendations which were approved by the seven-member committee of secretaries,’ said a senior official of the finance ministry.
   He also said that the government would take a decision on the number of phases for implementation of the next pay scale after receiving the secretaries’ committee’s report.
   The secretaries’ committee, however, in its first meeting decided to suggest the implementation of the National Pay Commission’s recommendations in two phases from the next fiscal year.
   The committee also decided to reduce the income gap between the highest and lowest ranks of government servants.
    According to the National Pay Commission’s recommendations, the lowest salary should be Tk 4,000 while the highest should be Tk 45,000. The government will have to spend an extra amount of Tk 6,600 crore for implementing the new pay scale.
   Finance minister AMA Muhith told reporters, ‘The suggestions of the pay commission will not be implemented at a time; it is not possible because of resource constraints’.
   Transparency International’s chairman and former finance adviser M Hafizuddin Khan told New Age that the government officials and employees would not financially benefit from the phase-wise implementation of the seventh pay scale.
   ‘I can tell you from my 35 years experience as a government servant that price of the essentials [in response to the new pay scale] will increase at once and not in phases,’ he added.
   Hafizuddin also said the salaries and allowances of the government servants should be increased in line with the market price index.
   The government has allocated Tk 15,464 crore for payment of salaries and allowances in the current fiscal year. In the 2007-08 fiscal year it allocated Tk 13,653 crore for payment of salaries.
   The seventh National Pay Commission submitted its report on the new pay scale in April, and also recommended introduction of dearness allowances, based on the average annual inflation each year, for the public servants.
   According to the commission’s report, there are 7,61,214 employees in government institutions and 8,79,545 approved posts. The government will need to spend Tk 4,790 crore more for the increased salaries. It will have to disburse a total amount of Tk 17,070 crore as salaries per year if all the vacant posts are filled up.

The government will restore the original constitution framed in 1972, irrespective of the Supreme Court’s decision on the future of the Fifth Amendment, said a top leader of the Awami League on Tuesday.
   ‘I have talked with Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on the issue and she has told me that whatever the Supreme Court’s verdict in the Fifth Amendment case, the original 1972 constitution should be restored,’ said the Awami League’s presidium member, Suranjit Sengupta, at a roundtable discussion.
   ‘The people have given us the mandate to restore the 1972 constitution, as it was our major pledge in the election manifesto, and we cannot disappoint them,’ he said.
   He, however, told the roundtable that a constitutional commission would be formed to suggest necessary amendments to the constitution for materialising the spirit of the liberation war.
   News agency In-depth News of Bangladesh organised the roundtable on ‘Cancellation of Fifth Amendment and related issues’ at the CIRDAP auditorium.
   Another presidium member of the Awami League, Abdur Razzak, said the four original fundamental principles of state policy — nationalism, democracy, socialism and secularism — must be restored.
   The state minister for law, Quamrul Islam, said the government had withdrawn the petition filed by the BNP-led government in 2005 to seek permission to appeal against the High Court’s verdict.
   The petition was withdrawn as the government accepted the verdict which eventually might restore the 1972 constitution, and the Supreme Court should not have allowed the Bangladesh Nationalist Party to file a petition seeking permission to appeal, he said.
   The prime minister’s adviser for education and politics, Alauddin Ahmed, said that the people have mandated the government to restore the 1972 constitution and the parliament should go by the mandate.

The United Nations World Food Programme-run feeding programme for 76 primary schools and non-formal para education centres was suspended Tuesday as 428 students fell sick after taking biscuits on Monday.
   Official and local sources said the students of eight primary schools in Lakshmichari upazila of Khagrachari on Monday morning suffered stomach upset after taking biscuits distributed under the WFP recipe meant for improving nutritional status of the hill children.
   The UN food agency also runs such free feeding operations in some other parts of the country.
   Its activity targets primary schoolchildren in the most food-insecure areas under its school feeding programme. Each school day, every student receives a ration of fortified biscuits that are produced by a local biscuit manufacturer.
   The UNO of Lakshmichari, Salimuddin, said no manufacturing and expiry dates were inscribed on the packets of the biscuits distributed among the students under a special recipe for the three hill districts.
   He said, ‘On behalf of the WFP, local NGO Kabidong supplied the biscuits, manufactured by Nabisco Biscuit and Bread Factory Limited, to the schools.’
   He said now 17 students were undergoing treatment in Mahalchari Upazila Health Complex while five in Lakshmichari and several others in Manikchari Upazila Health Complex.
   The rest returned home earlier, after the toxicity havoc that occurred on the very day of inauguration of the special school feeding programme.
   Meanwhile, the World Food Programme has deployed a team of experts to investigate the outbreaks of sickness among the schoolchildren in the district, said a WFP announcement in Dhaka.
   ‘A medical team, logistics experts and quality-control staff are working on establishing the cause of the outbreak,’ it said.
   Samples have been taken and sent to food-testing labs in Dhaka and Bangkok.
   The preliminary report of the Institute of Food and Science Technology tests would be available by June 4. After lab reports are available, WFP will take appropriate action in consultation with the government, the WFP country office said.

The Executive Committee of the National Economic Council Tuesday approved six development projects involving about Tk 969 crore, including Tk 560 crore coming as project aid.
   The prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, also the ECNEC chairperson, presided over the meeting, held in the NEC conference room, which approved the projects.
   The projects are : Construction of multipurpose cyclone shelter centres in the cyclone Sidr-affected areas and 2nd urban primary healthcare (amended) project under Local Government Division, construction of rubber dams over small and medium rivers to increase food production under agriculture ministry and Shibsha bridge from the 33rd km on Betgram-Tala-Paikgachha-Koyra road, Koyra bridge from 51st km over River Koyra (3rd amendment) and Batiaghata bridge over River Shoilamari on the Galamari-Batiaghata-Dakop road under Roads and Railways Department and BMRE project of pet bottle plant of Muktijoddha Kalyan (Welfare) Trust under the ministry of liberation war affairs.
   The planning minister, AK Khandaker, agriculture minister Matia Chowdhury, LGRD and cooperatives minister Syed Ashraful Islam, water resources minister Ramesh Chandra Sen, communications minister Syed Abul Hossain, shipping minister Afsarul Amin, PM’s advisers HT Imam, among others, were present in the meeting.

The chief election commissioner, ATM Shamsul Huda, Tuesday said local body elections should be held by February next year, which is subject to passage of necessary law.
   He said he was not certain about the passage of necessary law in the ensuing budget session of parliament for holding elections to the local bodies.
   Huda said the EC was prepared for holding the Dhaka City Corporation election. But it could not be done so far due to legal complexities.
   He was talking to local officials while visiting the construction of sadar upazila server station near the Collectorate Bhaban.
   Later, Huda visited the sites of Tarash and Kamarkhand upazila server station.

The Christian Catholic Community on Tuesday demanded transparency in the investigation of Baniarchar Church bomb blast in which 10 people were killed and dozen others injured on June 3, 2001.
   More than 3,000 people attend the Sunday masses at the church, set up in 1938, the community leaders said.
   Assailants carried out a bomb attack on a Sunday mass, killing 10 people on the spot.
   The government formed a single-member judicial investigation commission of Justice Abdul Bari and he said that the attack was a sequel to a rivalry among local groups.
   They alleged the government of the time had not continued with the investigation to save the culprits. They urged the present government to reinvestigate the incident.

The Criminal Investigation Department sent arrested former director general of National Security Intelligence Major General (retd) Rezakul Haider Chowdhury and former deputy director Major (retd) Liakat Hossain to Task Force Interrogation cell in Dhaka on Tuesday.
   Mohammed Moslem, special superintendent of CID in Chittagong, said they brought the former DG and DD of NSI from the jail at about 10:30 am and headed for Dhaka to quiz them at the TFI cell in connection with the Chittagong arms haul case.
   Metropolitan magistrate Osman Gani placed Rezakul on a six-day remand on May 27 and metropolitan magistrate Mahabubur Rahman placed Liakat on six-day remand on Monday for upper level interrogation at the TFI cell.
   CID arrested Rezakul from his Dhanmondi residence in Dhaka on May 16 following a confessional statement of Shahabuddin Ahmed, a former director of NSI, and interrogated him during a three-day remand.
   On the same day, the CID arrested another former DG of NSI retired Brigadier Abdur Rahim, who gave a confessional statement before the court on May 27 after being interrogated on a three-day remand in Chittagong and six-day remand at the TFI cell in Dhaka.
   Liakat was arrested from Dhaka on May 26 and was also grilled on a three-day remand in the same case while Shahabuddin was arrested from the capital city on May 2, based on the confessional statement of Akbar Hossain, a field officer of NSI.

The Bangladesh Rural and Human Right Journalist Forum on Tuesday formed a human chain in front of the National Press Club, demanding halt to the construction of the Tipaimukh dam on the River Barak by India.
   The organisation also demanded that the government should refrain from going ahead with the Asian Highway according to its proposed route as it, the forum observed, would not benefit the country and instead provide India with the opportunity to use the country as a transport ‘corridor’.
   Addressing the human chain, the forum leaders also urged the government to raise the issue at different international forums to restrain India from implementing the Tipaimukh dam project.
   Language Movement veteran Rawshan Ara Bachchu said, ‘We should go for preventing the construction seriously. The north western part of the country has become dry due to the construction of Farakka barrage. The same thing will happen in the north eastern part if the Tipaimukh dam is constructed.’
   The Swadhinata Forum president, Abu Naser Mohammad Rahmat Ullah, said it is not a political issue. He called upon the people to stand united to protect the country’s environment.
   The National Democratic Party president, Golam Mortuza, its general secretary Alamgir Majumder, National Awami Party (Bhasani) chairman Sheikh Anowarul Haq, among others, attended the programme.

Chittagong Metro-politan Police as part of its pilot project so far collected information about more than 100 criminals over the last two months.
   The project was launched on April 10 with a database system for enabling the law enforcement agency to identify the criminals through their fingerprints and other vital information in the shortest possible time to combat crimes in the country.
   ‘It became a necessity to make police equipped with modern IT facilities for curbing crimes as criminals are gradually changing their patterns and techniques to do their jobs,’ the CMP commissioner, Mohammad Moniruzzaman, told the news agency in Chittagong Tuesday.
   Initially, the system was introduced by the CMP as a pilot project in the city’s Doublemooring, Halishahar and Pahartali thanas by appointing a private software firm Corporate IT Limited for developing and designing the database.
   The CIL managing director, Zillur Rahman, said the system would also put into operation in Ramna, Paltan and Dhanmondi thanas under the Dhaka Metropolitan Police on next Sunday.
   ‘After evaluating its effectiveness in Chittagong, we have held a series of meetings with home ministry and DMP commissioner on last Saturday and Sunday to start the database system for the Ramna Zone under DMP,’ he said.
   The CIL chief also said the police would gradually put this system in effect in 167 model thanas after evaluating the effectiveness in the Ramna Zone.
   Sazzad Hossain, chairman of CIL, said different types of information including physical identification like marks, skin, height, forensic report about the suspected and arrested criminals, fingerprints, criminals’ previous background like date and number of arrests, confinement, release, types of crime, case activities, address and photographs are preserved in the database.
   The CMP commissioner said the police were facing manifold problems for long in collecting and analysing information about any arrested criminal as the existing system was time consuming.
   “The police fail to grill the real culprits even after nabbing them, who later manage to get released through the loopholes of law by giving wrong information and fake identity,’ he said.
   This system will help the police have access to the essential information in a short time,’ the CMP commissioner said adding, ‘We need an IT expert to conduct the system.’

The US ambassador, James F Moriarty, Tuesday exchanged views with the communications minister, Syed Abul Hossain, at his secretariat office and sought to know the latest about the proposed Padma Bridge.
   The government is now busy finalising all preparatory steps to invite tenders for the mega bridge so that it can float international tenders inviting builders by January next year, official sources said.
   They said the authorities were working on a plan to start the construction of the bridge by September next year. The communications minister appraised the envoy of all such preparations and sought the US support to implement the project.
   Specially, the US support is essential to hasten the signing of loan agreements with the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank for quick disbursement of funds they have pledged for the purpose.
   The government has so far received loan commitments of a total of $1,181 million for funding the Padma Bridge from various bilateral and multilateral agencies.
   The World Bank and the Asian Development Bank have promised $ 300 million and 350 million respectively.
   After the meeting Moriarty told reporters that the USA was the biggest shareholder of these two banks and the Bangladesh government had sought its exclusive support to get the loan agreement signed to make the fund quickly available.
   He said he would convey the matter to his government. He said he was impressed by various steps that the government was now taking to start the bridge construction next year.
   The meeting sources said the communications minister also apprised the ambassador of many other steps relating to the bridge construction. Some of the issues include soil testing at bridge site, land acquisition, tender preparation and construction of elevated expressway in Dhaka city.
   Abul Hossain also briefed the reporters on the meeting.
   The sources said loan commitments made by some other agencies for funding the project include $300 million by the Islamic Development Bank, $200 million by Japan Bank for International Cooperation and $31 million by Abu Dhabi Fund.
   As the preparatory work on the bridge construction is moving fast, the authorities are also taking moves on the global front to sign these loan agreements.
   Under the existing loan scenario, the Bangladesh government would have to bear huge expenditure to make up the funding deficit totalling around $650 million under the existing cost estimates, the sources said.

The education minister, Nurul Islam Nahid, has said the government will finalise a policy on admission of students in colleges, who have passed the SSC examinations, within a week.
   He said the policy would be formulated accommodating the recommendations of teachers and education experts so that rights of all students were protected.
   ‘Every student has the right to have access to standard institutions, and the government is working to improve quality of education through ensuring quality teachers, equipping institutes with necessary infrastructure and facilities so that students are encouraged to take admission in those institutes,’ he added.
   The minister was addressing a meeting to exchange views with the chiefs of different academic institutions of the Dhaka city at the auditorium of National Academy of Educational Management in Dhaka Tuesday.
   The education secretary, Syed Ataur Rahman, joint secretary Khandaker Mainuddin Ahmed, and the director general of NAEM, Professor Baitun Nahar, among others, were present.
   The minister said there was no scarcity of seats in the colleges in the country and the problem arises as students and their parents had intentions to get admitted in the renowned institutions, while seats at many colleges remain vacant.
   ‘Teachers have given their opinions in Tuesday’s meeting and we would also accept written recommendations either directly or through e-mails or through fax in this regard, and after evaluating those a policy would be finalised within a week,’ the education minister said.
   The government has given highest priority to the education sector and it wants to ensure quality education to all students in order to build a knowledge-based society, he said adding equal opportunity of education to all children yet to be ensured in the country.

Cultivation with the combination of three short-duration crops has been successful in the northern region, offering promises to help address seasonal famine-like situation called monga by increasing opportunities of farming and employment, claims a joint research.
   The rice-potato-mungbean cropping pattern is said to have been proved a profitable and suitable way of farming in monga-prone northern districts covering about 85,000 hectares of land.
   The multiple-cropping pattern has been evolved through intensive research and field trials in the region for several years, jointly carried out by scientists, academics and development workers of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman Agricultural University, Bangladesh Agricultural Institute and Rangpur-Dinajpur Rural Service.
   Mungbean that matures in 55-60 days can be fitted immediately after potato harvest in March and before transplanting rice in time targeting the harvest in October, the experts said, adding that more than 60 percent of the cropped area in that part of the country have favourable environment for mungbean. Farmers need to invest Tk 20,000 to cultivate mungbean in each hectare, which can yield over a tonne seeds worth about Tk 50,000.
   ‘Cultivation of mungbean under the rice-potato-mungbean cropping pattern offers a great opportunity to increase production and improve the rural livelihood and thus eliminate monga significantly,’ said MG Neogi, head of agriculture, RDRS Bangladesh.
   He pointed out that it required cultivation of short duration varieties of rice such as BRRI dhan- 33, BU dhan-1 or BINA dhan-7 during the Aman season to accommodate mungbean as an additional crop.
   The food minister, Mohammad Abdur Razzaque visited a mungbean field in Parbatipur, a village near Rangpur town, in the last week and appreciated the cropping pattern.
   Mungbean can be cultivated without adding fertilizers because of substantial use of fertilizers in potato cultivation beforehand, according to the research. It is a nutritious food for the human beings.
   The two partners of the research, in collaboration with Bangladesh Agricultural Research Institute and the Department of Agricultural Extension, have been engaged in promoting the cropping system for three crops a year for the last five years.
   This year, a total of 285 farmers set up demonstration sites of mungbean cultivation in greater Rangpur but more farmers are adopting the cropping pattern extensively.
   Still, nearly 50,000 hectares of land remain fallow after the potato harvest in the northern districts. The researchers said BU mug 4 and BARI mug 6 — both pulses — were also suited for the rice-potato-mungbean system.

Four Chhatra League activists were injured as rival groups of the associate student of the ruling Awami League clashed over teasing a girl in a compartment of a shuttle train at Sholoshahar station on Tuesday.
   The injured Mansur, Barshan, Samir and Hafiz were admitted to the Chittagong Medical College and Hospital. The university sources said a group of Chhatra league men, known as ‘sixty-nine’ group, got into a clash with another group, known as the ‘Akakar’ group, at about 2:45pm at the Sholoshahar railway station.
   The clash ensued when members of the ‘sixty-nine’ group teased a female student who is a friend of one of the ‘Akakar group men in the compartment of a city-bound train which left the university railway station at 2:00pm.
   They attacked each other with anti-cutter, iron rods, hockey sticks and wood sticks, according to the witnesses, in which four students of both the groups were injured.
   While contacted, the university assistant proctor, Chandan Kumar Poddar, admitting to the incident, said they had asked the police to arrest the students involved in the clash.

Classes of the first batches of Jessore University of Science and Technology will begin on June 10.
   The university syndicate made the decision in a meeting on Sunday, vice-chancellor Md Abdus Sattar told reporters on Tuesday.

Police arrested a fraud Project Implementation Officer at Dimla upazila sadar in Nilphamari on Tuesday for illegally collecting money from the poor promising them to provide VGD and VGF cards.
   On a tip off, a police team arrested the fake PIO from the upazila sadar for cheating the poor in the name of providing VGD and VGF cards.
   Police said they nabbed Pizirul Islam alias Babu, 28, son of Mafizuddin of village Dakshin Titpara at Dimla upazila for the illegal collection of money from the poor, claiming himself the PIO at the office of upazila nirbahi officer.

Experts on Tuesday said the construction of Tipaimukh dam on the trans-national River Barak in the Indian state of Manipur will be disastrous for Bangladesh as it will have adverse impact on its ecology, affecting the agriculture badly.
   They urged the government to collect detailed information on the Tipaimukh dam on the confluence of Barak and Tuivai rivers immediately sending investigation mission to the dam project area.
   They in a press briefing at Gana-Sanskriti Kendra at Shahbag in Dhaka suggested that the inspection team should collect details of the amount of water that India plans to release per hour every day through the dam.
   Along with the Tipaimukh project, the briefing, organised by Despremik Janaganer Mancha, also condemned the Fulertal barrage project in the downstream of the dam.
   ‘The Tipaimukh Dam will bar the flow of water after the rainy season. As a result, the haor-lands in Bangladesh that are used for boro cultivation during the winter will not emerge before January because of the slow flow of water, which will hamper the agriculture,’ the organisation chairman, Enamul Huq, said in the briefing.
   ‘The water released through Tipaimukh will be controlled and withdrawn by the Fulertal barrage for irrigation that will dry up both Surma and Kushiara during February to May,’ he described.
   The briefing also said the 163-metre high dam will cause submersion of about 31,100 hector of cultivating lands in Naga, Monipur and Mizoram and render a large number of ethnic people of the areas homeless. The organisation members Jyotirmoy Basu, Mohibullah Shantipuri and Ifma Hossain were also present in the briefing.

Advocate Sahajalal Chowdhury, general secretary of the Cox’s Bazar district unit Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami, has been declared Ukhia upazila parished chairman.
   Md Omar Farook, additional deputy commissioner, Cox’s Bazar, and upazila election returning officer declared the results in the upazila parishad conference room at about Monday midnight.
   BNP leader SM Syed Alam has been elected vice-chairman (man) and Bangladesh Awame League leader Sahina Akter has been elected vice-chairman (woman).

Leaders of non-government educational institutions at a press conference on Tuesday urged the government to make necessary allocation in the forthcoming budget to meet their seven-point demand, including increase in house allowance.
   The Bangladesh Principals’ Council and Bangladesh College Teachers’ Association jointly organised the press conference where they put forward the seven-point demand which also included establishment of an education service commission for recruiting competent teachers at non-government schools, colleges and madrassahs.
   ‘We demanded that the government should make necessary budget allocation to meet up our demands that include increase in house allowance and annual increment for non-government teachers and employees as more than 95 per cent educational institutions are under non-government management,’ Professor Mohammad Mazharul Hannan, president of the Bangladesh Principals’ Council, told the newsmen at the press conference at the Dhaka Reporters Unity.
   ‘The government in 1986 introduced the house rent allowance fixing it at Tk 100 for non-government teachers and employees but there had been no increase in the amount till date,’ he said.
   The other demands are to cancel of the ‘staffing pattern’ for non-government institutions, introduced in 1995, and formulate a new one similar to that of government institutions, to cancel the ‘illogical’ promotion system, increase in medical allowance and 100 per cent festival allowance.
   They also called on the government to reintroduce time scales and not to punish non-government teachers by non-payment of salaries for bad performance of students in the SSC, HSC and bachelors examinations.
   ‘We demand an end to the discriminatory education system which creates a distance between the rural and urban and government and non-government education systems,’ said Principal Ishaq Hossain, president of the Bangladesh College Teachers’ Association.
   Central leaders of the association AKM Abdullah, Harunur Rashid Pathan and Liakat Ali attended the press conference, among others.

Saudi Prince Badr Bin Abdullah Bin Farhan Al Saud made a courtesy call on the prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, at her office in Dhaka Tuesday morning, when they discussed various bilateral issues of Bangladesh and Saudi Arabia.
   The prime minister and the visiting Saudi prince both hoped that the two countries’ relations would be strengthened further in the days to come.
   The prime minister through the prince thanked Saudi King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz for his hospitality offered during her last April’s visit to Saudi Arabia, her first trip abroad after assuming of the office of prime minister following the December 29 general election.
   The Saudi prince expressed deep condolences at the death of prime minister’s husband, MA Wazed Miah, and the deaths of over a hundred people in the cyclonic storm Aila in the country’s coastal districts.
   Prime Minister’s Office secretary Mollah Waheeduzzaman, prime minister’s press secretary Abul Kalam Azad, Saudi ambassador in Dhaka Abdullah bin Naser Al-Busairi and former ambassador Mohammad Ziauddin were present.

An activist of an ultra-left party was killed and his two associates were injured in a bomb explosion at village Kuchiamora under Ataikula police station in Pabna on Tuesday.
   The deceased was Shipon Mondol, 30, son of Nasim Mondal of village Kuchiamora and an activist of the outlawed Purbo Banglar Communist Party (ML-Janajuddah).
   Police said Shipon and his two associates were carrying a bomb that was exploded suddenly, leaving Shipon dead on the spot. His associates Abu Bakar and Hossain Ali sustained injuries in the explosion, but they managed to flee the scene.
   The lawmen recovered the body and sent it to Pabna General Hospital morgue for post mortem examination.
   The officer-in-charge of Ataikula police station said the victim was an activist of the outlawed PBCP and a listed criminal.
   A case was filed with the Ataikula police station.

A freedom fighter at Dashmina upazila in Patuakhali on Tuesday filed a case against eight collaborators, five of them expired, for committing crimes during the country’s liberation war in 1971.
   Shahabuddin Howladar, a freedom fighter of village Khariji-Betagi under the Dashmina upazila, lodged the complaint with the Chief Judicial Magistrate Court in Patuakhali accusing the eight collaborators of the Pakistani occupant forces.
   In the case, the complainant alleged that the collaborators Gani Peyada, Lalu Peyada, Jabbar Peyada and five others dead of the village Khariji-Betagi were members of the ‘Peace Committee’ and they accompanied by a group of collaborators had attacked, looted and burned his house, and tortured family members during the liberation war in 1971.
   Reboti Kumar Biswas, magistrate of the court, recorded the case and ordered the Dashmina police station to investigate into the complaint.