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The High Court on Thursday asked the Dhaka City Corporation chief executive officer, Dhaka Water Supply and Sewerage Authority chairman, and deputy commissioners of Dhaka, Narayanganj, Munshiganj and Gazipur to appear before it on June 8 to explain how encroachment on the rivers around the capital could be effectively stopped.
   ‘They have been asked to appear in the chamber of the judges to propose possible ways for immediate and effective removal of the illegal structures erected on the rivers around the capital and explain the impediments to eviction of encroachers,’ said Manzill Murshid, the counsel for Human Rights and Peace for Bangladesh.
   The High Court bench of Justice ABM Khairul Haque and Justice M Mamtaz Uddin Ahmed passed the order after the Bangladesh Inland Water Transport Authority chairman, Abdul Mannan, Department of Environment director general, Billal Hossain, and Land Record and Survey director general, Aslam Alam, told the court that lack of coordination among the authorities concerned, lack of proper cooperation from the district administrations and stay orders issued by the High Court were the major impediments to eviction of the encroachers from the riverbanks.
   They also said the court should issue directives to the authorities concerned in this regard and to the district administrations to demarcate the original boundaries and limits of the rivers.
   While hearing the writ petitions filed by Bangladesh Environment Lawyers Association and Human Rights and Peace for Bangladesh on Wednesday, the High Court asked the three to appear before it to report on the measures taken so far to prevent encroachment, construction of illegal structures on the riverbanks and dumping of waste in the rivers around the capital.
   According to BELA’s counsel Syeda Rizwana Hasan and Manzill Murshid, the three top officials told the court that a three-day drive to demolish the illegal structures on Turag between Tongi and Ashulia had started on Wednesday as per the directive the court issued on May 24.
   Promising to continue the drive, the officials told the court that they could not demolish many illegal structures on the rivers as the occupants showed them the High Court orders staying their eviction, said the counsels.
   They also mentioned that five illegal structures remained out of the purview of the ongoing demolition drive, launched by the Bangladesh Inland Water Transport Authority along with Dhaka and Gazipur district administrations, due to stay orders issued by the High Court.
   According to Gazipur district administration officials, four illegal structures were owned by Noman Group while a temple also took a chunk of the banks of the Turag at Pagar in Tongi.
   ‘Surveys conducted last year identified 64 such structures at Tongi in Gazipur and 68 at Ashulia in Dhaka,’ BIWTA assistant engineer, Sazedur Rahman said.
   ‘We cannot demolish the five establishments as the High Court has stayed their eviction,’ he said.
   The authorities decided to pull down 127 buildings, built for business purposes, along an eight-kilometre stretch from Ashulia Bridge to Pagar of Tongi during the three-day drive that began on Wednesday.
   About 100 labourers, dividing into three groups, started knocking down the illegal establishments on both the banks of Turag at about 9:00am with five boats, including a tug ship of BIWTA.
   About 25 structures, including the walls of Bengal Textile and Merchant Limited, were pulled down on the day, BIWTA deputy director Saiful Islam said.
   Members of Gazipur district administration, including assistant deputy commissioner (revenue) Subrata Pal Chowdhury, upazila nirbahi officer AKM Tipu Sultan, assistant commissioner (land) Atul Sarkar, magistrate Abul Bashar Md Amiruddin and BIWTA officials were present during the demolition drive.
   Large contingents of law enforcers, including armed police, were deployed to avert troubles during the drive.

Many helpless families, all too frequently battered by destructive cyclones, subsequent tidal surges and constant river erosion, are abandoning their ancestral homes and livelihoods and increasing the number of environmental refugees in the country.
   Erratic changes in climatic conditions, rising frequency of cyclones, increased river erosion and failure to rehabilitate the victims are together likely to spark a surge of environmental refugees, warned experts and local people.
   Mahfuza, 20, tried to hold back her tears but they slowly streaked down her cheeks as she waited in the shadow of the over-bridge, 500 metres away from the Prime Minister’s Office, on Tuesday. Her son and daughter were by her side, motionless, silent, too numb yet to feel the inevitable pain.
   Her husband Hafiz, 32, said they came to Dhaka from Kalaroa upazila in the southern district of Satkhira, the worst victim of cyclone Aila, three days ago but is yet to find any job.
   ‘I only know how to row a boat. I have heard that anybody can paddle a rickshaw in Dhaka, but I find it impossible to get a rickshaw as the owners will not rent me one unless I can get a guarantor…So far we have been surviving on less than one meal a day,’ he said.
   ‘We have no option but to live under the open sky as I could not get even a polythene sheet to protect the children from rain,’ he added.
   MA Matin, chairman of the Char Montaj Union Parishad, a remote island in Galachipa upazila in Patuakhali district, told New Age over the phone, ‘Many families have started immigrating to the towns to live a new life as they have been the helpless victims of two cyclones and tidal surges.’
   ‘The last cyclone [Aila] was a crippling blow to the people who are yet to recover from cyclone Sidr, he said.
   ‘Most of the extremely vulnerable families did not get any assistance to rebuild their homes after the onslaught of Sidr,’ he said. ‘Only 10 families, out of several hundred, were rehabilitated.’
   The coastal people have become terrified of the vagaries of nature which are increasing both in frequency and intensity, said the chairman. ‘Once people faced the cyclone bravely as they thought that the embankments would guard them from the tidal surges. But they have now lost hope as tidal surges always breach the fragile embankments.’
   The rise in sea level, unpredictable change of the climate and river erosion, all induced by global warming, are threatening the future of the people living in coastal and riverside areas, thus turning them into environmental refugees,’ said Giasuddin Ahmed Choudhury, executive director of the Centre for Environmental and Geographic Information Services, on Thursday.
   Around 22,000 more people on both banks of the three major rivers in the country are likely to become landless and homeless this year due to riverbank erosion, according to the CEGIS prediction.
   Most of the displaced people, many of whom are environmental refugees, have been heading for cities in the central region, including Dhaka, said Professor M Mujibur Rahman, a teacher of the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology. ‘It is a phenomenon which will increase every year.’
   Sidr, the devastating cyclone which struck the coast on November 15, 2007, killed more than 4,000 people, injured thousands, left millions homeless in 30 districts and wrought havoc on the eco-system of the Sundarbans, a World Heritage Site.
   After one and a half year again another cyclone, Aila, on May 25 this year killed 179 people [the death rate is bound to rise] and victimised 3.4 million people in 11 coastal districts and again damaged the Sundarbans’ eco-system, according to statistics provided by the government on Tuesday.
   Tropical cyclones in the Bay of Bengal usually occur in the non-monsoon months. But researchers warn that there can be more severe cyclones, even during the summer monsoon months of June to September.
   Professor Ainun Nishat, country director of the IUCN (The World Conservation Union), said the frequency of devastating cyclones is gradually increasing. ‘The 1970 and 1991 cyclones were moderate cyclones. In 2007 and 2008 we suffered the onslaught of cyclones Sidr and Nargis. In the first five months of 2009 we have already faced cyclones Daisy and Aila. We have to wait to see what nature will do in the months to come,’ he said.
   A research team led by Professor Sugata Hazra, director of the School of Oceanographic Studies in Jadavpur University in Kolkata, has found that 82 sq km of land have been inundated over the past three decades due to rise in the sea level.
   The more the sea, fed by melting ice, rises the greater the erosion in the estuarine islands, he said. ‘The rate is higher in the Bangladesh part of the Sundarbans due to the higher rate of deltaic subsidence.’

The budget session of Jatiya Sangsad began Thursday with lawmakers of the mainstream opposition parties led by Bangladesh Nationalist Party abstaining from the day’s proceedings.
   The speaker, Abdul Hamid, in his opening remarks called upon both ruling and opposition parties to play constructive role to help the government make a pro-people and realistic budget for the next financial year beginning July 1.
   Finance minister AMA Muhith is scheduled to place the national budget on June 11 and the parliament is expected to approve the fiscal measures on June 30 after debates.
   The speaker said that the budget was an important document for national life and it provides opportunities for the government to fulfil the pledges it had made to the people before the elections.
   The speaker informed the house that lawmakers would get office rooms in the parliament complex, and a process was initiated to give them office rooms in their respective constituencies so that they could work without hassle.
   He also told the house that the MPs would be provided with vehicles from the government transport pool.
   Parliament is the centre of all activities in a parliamentary democracy. ‘The ruling and opposition camps must act together to make parliament functional,’ said the speaker.
   Lawmakers of the main opposition BNP and its allies Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami and Bangladesh Jatiya Party did not join the session apparently over the seating arrangement dispute.
   ‘The offer the speaker made did not accord us the dignity we deserve. Our parliamentary party will sit sometime next week to discuss the speaker’s offer on seating arrangement in the house,’ said Zainul Abdin Farruk, the chief whip of the opposition.
   In an effort to break the deadlock over seating arrangement in the house, the speaker increased the number of front row seats for the BNP lawmakers to five from four.
   In order to accommodate two senior BNP leaders – former speaker Jamir Uddin Sircar and former law minister Moudud Ahmed – in the front row, the speaker sent Mofazzal Hossain Kaykobad, a BNP lawmaker from a Comilla constituency, to the second row. Both Sircar and Moudud won by-elections to seats vacated by BNP chief Khaleda Zia.
   Jatiya Party presidium member Rawshan Ershad, who also won by-election to a constituency vacated by her husband HM Ershad, was also given a seat in the front row, and beside her husband.
   Another Jatiya Party lawmaker, Ghulam Muhammad Quader, also a minister of the Awami League-led alliance government, was given his seat in the second row.
   The parliament adopted a condolence motion on the deaths of a number of eminent persons, including Mumtaz Iqbal, lawmaker for a Sunamganj constituency.
   After a brief discussion on the condolence motion, the speaker adjourned the sitting suspending the day’s business to show respect to Mumtaz as per the convention.
   The session will resume at 4:00pm Sunday.
   Ruling Awami League lawmaker Sheikh Fazlul Karim Selim and Suranjit Sengupta and Jatiya Party lawmaker Ruhul Amin Hawlader took part in the discussion on the condolence motion.
   The motion also included the deaths of former Indian president R Venkataraman, former Bangladeshi minister Sunil Gupta, former lawmakers Md Khorshed Alam, Md Mokhlesur Rahman, M Khalilur Rahman, Md Altaf Hossain, Khandaker Nurul Islam, Md Anwarul Islam, Dewan Shahjahan Yar Chowdhury, former MNA Dewan Abul Abbas, nuclear scientist MA Wazed Mia, former additional secretary to parliament secretariat Khandaker Abdul Haq Mia, two civilians who succumbed to their injuries sustained during the BDR mutiny and the people killed in the cyclone Aila in the coastal areas.
   Earlier, the speaker selected a five-member panel to run the session in absence of both the speaker and deputy speaker. The panel members are – Abdul Matin Khasru, HN Ashekur Rahman, Ruhul Amin Hawlader, Hafizur Rahman and Zinnatunnesa Talukder.

The lawmakers of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party-led main opposition abstained from participating in the parliamentary proceedings of the first day of the budget session on Thursday protesting seat arrangement in the House.
   Sources in parliament said the opposition MPs were unhappy with the speaker’s decision in settling the dispute over the seat arrangement in the front row to his left.
   The lawmakers of Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami and Bangladesh Jatiya Party did not join the session in solidarity with the main main opposition BNP, apparently over the seat row.
   The BNP parliamentary party is likely to meet anytime next week to decide whether their lawmakers would join the budget session of parliament.
   ‘What the speaker had offered us was not respectable. We will hold a meeting of our parliamentary party sometime next week to discuss the speaker’s offer on seat arrangement in the House,’ the opposition chief whip, Zainul Abdin Farruk, said.
   To end the deadlock over seat arrangement in the House, the speaker increased the number of front row seats for the BNP lawmakers to five from four.
   The speaker accommodated two senior BNP leaders – former speaker Jamiruddin Sircar and former law minister Moudud Ahmed—who won by-elections to seats vacated by BNP chief Khaleda Zia.
   To accommodate them, he sent Mofazzal Hossain Kaikobad, a BNP lawmaker from a Comilla constituency, from the first row to second row and Andalib Rahman, a Bangladesh Jatiya Party lawmaker from Bhola, from the second row to third row.
   Former Jatiya Sangsad speaker Jamir Uddin Sircar, before stepping down from the chair of the House, had allocated 10 seats in the front row, to the speaker’s left to opposition lawmakers, including one to LDP lawmaker Oli Ahmed.
   After taking over as speaker, Abdul Hamid, changed the seat arrangement in response to a demand from the treasury bench, allocating four seats in the front row to opposition lawmakers, including one to Oli Ahmed.
   BNP lawmakers then boycotted the parliament in protest against the speaker’s decision. They later attended the first session on assurance from the speaker that their demand for more seats in the front row would be considered before the budget session.

The state minister for environment and forests, Mostafizur Rahman, on Thursday said the authorities concerned could not take effective measures against environment pollution which became disastrous over the years, due to various constraints including legal complications.
   ‘We couldn’t take effective measures to check environment pollution for legal complications and lack of adequate manpower… The authorities can’t even operate mobile courts by magistrates following separation of the judiciary from the executive branch,’ he said.
   The state minister was speaking at a press conference at the secretariat ahead of the World Environment Day-2009.
   The government, however, has taken steps to remove legal complexities and other limitations by amending the existing laws relating to environment to take stern action against the polluters.
   Asked about any possible impacts of the Indian project to construct dams on the river Borak at Tipaimukh on Bangladesh, he said he was not an expert on the issue to make any comment.
   But he said the government was worried about the impacts of climate change on the country. ‘The developed countries were responsible for global warming while developing countries like Bangladesh are the worst sufferers from it fallout …We will raise the issue at the next conference of the world leaders in Copenhagen and press for compensation.’
   Environment and forests secretary Mihir Kanti Majumder and acting director general of the department of environment Belal Hossain were present at the press conference.
   The secretary said that the rivers around the city had been polluted due to continued negligence on the part of the authorities. He said there were only 187 effluent treatment plants so far against a requirement of 567 and all the factories having the ETPs were not utilising them properly, making the rivers exposed to chemicals and wastes.
   The state minister said coordinated efforts were being made to save the rivers Buriganga, Shitalakkhya and Balu from pollutions.
   The government has taken a two-day programme on June 5 and 6 to observe the World Environment Day.
   The programme will include discussion meetings, processions, essay competition, environment fair and broadcasting special programmes on television and radio and publishing supplements in national dailies.
   Prime minister Sheikh Hasina is scheduled to inaugurate the programme at the Osmani Memorial Hall in the city today.

The US president, Barack Obama, Thursday vowed to forge a ‘new beginning’ for Islam and America in a landmark speech to the world’s Muslims, vowing to purge years of ‘suspicion and discord.’
   In what may be one of the defining moments of his presidency, Obama laid out a new blueprint for US Middle East policy, vowing to end mistrust, forge a state for Palestinians and defuse a nuclear showdown with Iran.
   ‘So long as our relationship is defined by our differences, we will empower those who sow hatred rather than peace,’ said Obama, who was greeted with a standing ovation as he stepped alone up to the podium at Cairo University.
   Obama, fresh from talks in Saudi Arabia with the King Abdullah and with the Egyptian president, Hosni Mubarak, drew applause as he sprinkled his text with allusion to the Qur’an and the Bible.
   In the university’s imposing domed Great Hall, Obama said the US bond with Israel, the source of much Arab distrust of the United States, was unbreakable.
   He also rejected ‘ignorant’ rants by those who deny the Nazi Holocaust — in an implied shot at the Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
   But breaking from his predecessor George W Bush, Obama also rebuked prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s refusal to halt West Bank settlement expansion.
   ‘I have come here to Cairo to seek a new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world,’ Obama said in a speech targeting the globe’s 1.5 billion Muslims via television, the internet and on social networking sites.
   ‘This cycle of suspicion and discord must end,’ said Obama, vowing to fight ‘negative stereotypes of Islam wherever they appear.’
   ‘But that same principle must apply to Muslim perceptions of America,’ he said, and touched on contentious regional issues like democracy and women’s rights.
   Part of Obama’s motivation appeared to be to cleanse the US image in the Muslim world, hampered by events like the Iraq war, the Abu Ghraib abuse scandal and the Guantanamo Bay war on terror camp.
   Targeting young Muslims, Obama said ‘I know there are many — Muslim and non Muslim — who question whether we can forge this new beginning.’
   ‘Some are eager to stoke the flames of division, and to stand in the way of progress. Some suggest that it isn’t worth the effort — that we are fated to disagree, and civilisations are doomed to clash.
   ‘There is so much fear, so much mistrust. But if we choose to be bound by the past, we will never move forward.’
   As expected, Obama’s speech got mixed reactions.
   The radical Hamas group which rules Gaza said the address contained ‘tangible change’ but also contradictions and appeared to be a bid to polish the US image.
   The Arab League chief, Amr Mussa, said the speech was ‘balanced’ and paved the way for good relations, while Israel expressed hope for an Arab-Israeli reconciliation following Obama’s comments.
   Obama called on Israelis and Palestinians to revive stalled peace talks, demanding Palestinians halt violence and Israelis to ease the plight of those in the occupied territories.
   ‘Too many tears have been shed. Too much blood has been shed.’
   ‘America will not turn our backs on the legitimate Palestinian aspiration for dignity, opportunity, and a state of their own,’ Obama said, calling on both sides to live up to obligations under the stalled ‘roadmap’ for Middle East peace.
   ‘The United States does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements. This construction violates previous agreements and undermines efforts to achieve peace. It is time for these settlements to stop.’
   The US president also renewed his offer for dialogue ‘without preconditions’ with arch-US foe Iran, over, after a decades-long Cold War style conflict.
   ‘It will be hard to overcome decades of mistrust, but we will proceed with courage, rectitude and resolve,’ Obama said.
   ‘It is clear to all concerned that when it comes to nuclear weapons, we have reached a decisive point,’ he said.
   Obama also weaved his own biography, with Islamic lineage among family members in Kenya, and several years growing up as a boy in Indonesia, into his search to pick out a new path for the United States and Islam.
   He also potrayed Islam as an essential part of the American cultural mosaic and said one of his duties as president was to make sure the Muslim faith was not misrepresented.
   But he surprised his audience by saying Islam must also not mispresent the United States, and warned he would ‘never tolerate’ violence, citing the trauma of the September 11 attacks in 2001.

Cricket’s newest and most explosive format returns to its birthplace England when the second edition of the Twenty20 World Cup begins today at Lord’s amid pomp and grandeur.
   A 35-minute colourful ceremony will mark the opening of the 12-team competition with Alesha Dixon, one of Britain’s most popular artistes, taking the stage to provide a rousing curtain raiser.
   Originally conceived as a fun way to bring in new audiences, who are accustomed to a high-speed lifestyle and thus unable to enjoy Test or 50-over format, Twenty20 has taken the sport by storm.
   England introduced the format in county cricket following a market research in 2003, but the shortest version of the game gained universal popularity after India, the commercial hub of cricket, won the inaugural edition two years ago.
   Indian administrators had initially opposed the idea of Twenty20 cricket fearing its impact upon the 50-over game. But the success of MS Dhoni’s side in South Africa, opened their eyes.
   The introduction of Indian Cricket League in the following year made India the breeding ground of Twenty20 cricketers and it made such a positive impact on their game that for the first time in a global event they came as the hottest favourites.
   And the game itself has been hugely benefited by India’s success which is evident in the fact that the second edition of the Twenty20 World Cup is going to be the most-viewed cricket event in history.
   Cricket fans of 218 countries across the globe will have the chance to watch the matches of the 17-day competition and running commentary will be available in as many as 10 languages including Russian, French, German, Polish and Turkish.
   Understandably, the International Cricket Council, the game’s global ruling body, is delighted at the prospect.
   ‘Apart from providing entertainment and an economic boost to the global game, the ICC World Twenty20 is one of the ways we are reaching out and spreading the message of cricket across the world,’ ICC’s chief executive officer Haroon Lorgat said in a statement ahead of the tournament.
   England will face the Netherlands in the opening match of the tournament at Lord’s, which will kick off at 10:30pm Bangladesh standard time. But the competition is expected to pick up the real momentum the following day when India face Bangladesh at Trent Bridge.
   All 17,000 tickets of Bangladesh-India match have already been sold out and tickets for the other matches scheduled to be held in the city are also selling fast. According to the latest count, only 400 tickets have remained unsold for the semi-final match to be held in the city on June 18.
   A similar Twenty20 event for the women will begin at Taunton, which will make the ICC World Twenty20 the first cricket event to be played by both men and women. While 12 nations play in the men’s event, eight top cricketing countries have sent their teams for the women’s event.
   Among the 10 Test-playing nations, Zimbabwe are missing the tournament due to the political reasons while three associate members – Ireland, the Netherlands and Scotland – have qualified for the men’s tournament through the qualifying round held in Belfast last year.
   Bangladesh are ranked fifth in the $20-million prize money tournament due to their success in the last edition when they knocked out West Indies from the first round. 10 players of the present Bangladesh squad have played in the inaugural edition in South Africa and are waiting to repeat the feat in England.

The government on Thursday named the Armed Forces Division principal staff officer, Lieutenant General Muhammad Abdul Mubin, as the new army chief of staff, said sources in the Bangabhaban.
   Sources in the defence ministry confirmed the news adding that the appointment was likely to be finalised in a day or two.
   Mubin will replace General Moeen U Ahmed, who had his service as the army chief extended by a year on April 6, 2008.
   The extension which took effect on June 15, 2008, will expire on June 13, the sources said.
   Mubin, also former general officer commanding of 24th Infantry Division in Chittagong, was made principal staff officer to the Armed Forces Division on June 4, 2008.

The leader of the opposition in parliament, Khaleda Zia, on Thursday said the government was hindering the Bangladesh Nationalist Party’s efforts to make the parliament effective. She said this when the US ambassador James F Moriarty called on her Thursday evening.
   The ambassador said the government should take the BNP into confidence for working together to continue the democratic process here for the greater interest of the country.
   ‘Opposition BNP is a major political party here. So the government should take the party into confidence so that they can work together to continue democratic process here,’ Moriarty told journalists after visiting Khaleda at her Gulshan office in Dhaka.
   ‘The government and the opposition should have an understanding for working together in the parliament,’ he said.
   During the meeting with Khaleda, also chairperson of BNP, Moriarty appreciated Bangladesh for its commitment to containing extremism and achieving success in women’s education.
   Khaleda told the ambassador that her party had offered help for making parliamentary democracy effective and strengthening Jatiya Sangsad from the beginning of the ninth parliament, according to her adviser Shamsher Mobin Chowdhury who was present at the meeting.
   ‘But the government is hindering the BNP’s efforts to make the parliament effective,’ Shamsher Mobin quoted Khaleda as saying.
   She appreciated president Barack Obama’s speech delivered in Cairo Thursday and said it would help maintain international relations based on mutual respect.
   BNP chairperson’s adviser Reaz Rahman was present at the meeting.

Prime minister Sheikh Hasina on Thursday said that the Bangladesh Nationalist Party would not get any more seats in the front row in parliament.
   ‘The BNP was given five front-row seats though it deserved only three. The speaker allocated the party five front seats so no more seats should be given to them,’ Hasina was quoted by a lawmaker as saying at a meeting of the Awami League Parliamentary Party.
   Lawmakers belonging to the opposition bench led by the BNP abstained from parliamentary proceedings on the first day of the budget session that began on Thursday, apparently being dissatisfied with the seating arrangement in the house.
   Hasina asked the AL’s lawmakers to play a responsible role in parliament, saying that their performance would be taken into consideration for nomination in the next parliamentary polls.
   She also asked the MPs to attend parliamentary sessions on time to keep the house vibrant and prevent quorum crisis.
   Hasina, also the Leader of the House, asked questions about relief operations in the cyclone-stricken coastal districts. Lawmakers of the affected areas described the agonies of the affected people and listed their needs.
   Many lawmakers from the affected areas expressed disappointment over the role of the local union parishad chairmen and urged the prime minister to declare the posts vacant as the tenure of the chairmen had expired.
   They were also disappointed at not receiving relief at the right time in many affected areas.
   Most of the AL lawmakers expressed dissatisfaction over the role of the private secretaries and assistant private secretaries of the ministers and state ministers, said inside sources.
   They alleged that the AL members were not being given government jobs though the party was now in power.
   Hasina reminded them that the party’s activists must pass the written examination before getting any jobs, said sources.
   The AL’s organising secretary, Abdul Mannan, questioned the propriety of the behaviour of the state minister for home affairs in the last four days, and claimed that he had damaged the image of the government.
   The prime minister, however, did not make any comment on Mannan’s remarks, said meeting sources.
   Mannan also accused four senior ministers of talking too much and thus tarnishing the government’s image. He requested the party’s authorities to take appropriate measures against them.
   The premier trashed Mannan’s accusation, saying that ministers were doing well but a section of the media, which is lenient to opposition parties, has been trying to trap them in a planned way into making indiscreet remarks, said a meeting source.
   Chief whip of parliament Abdus Shahid, after emerging from the meeting, said the prime minister had requested her parliamentary colleagues to be attentive in the parliamentary sessions.
   At the meeting one minute of silence was observed in honour of the late nuclear scientist, Dr Wazed Miah, husband of the PM, and the meeting adopted a condolence motion.

The Detective Branch will seek Interpol’s help in a couple of days in its efforts to unearth the link of the local ‘terror network’ with the international mafia don Daud Ibrahim, said sources in the DB.
   The DB’s assistant deputy commissioner Mahbub Alam told New Age, ‘We have already prepared a letter to seek Interpol’s support, and after getting official approval, we will send it to the Interpol Liaison Office in Bangkok in a couple of days.’
   He also said Brahmanbaria sadar chairman Bashir Ullah Jharu and municipal chairman Hafizur Rahman Mollah were summoned to appear in the Detective Branch’s head office by Thursday to explain why they had provided the documents identifying Indian citizens Abdul Rauf alias Daud Merchant and Muzahid as Bangladeshis to enable them to get local passports.
   ‘We are now investigating the matter, especially with some questions in mind — the most important being whether the Indian criminals have any link with the local criminals and whether the local and Indian criminals help each other to reside in each other’s countries,’ Mahbub said.
   The DB personnel are now preparing a list of Bangladeshi people who are acquainted with the Indian citizens, especially of the businessmen who provided them with shelter in the country, by examining the call lists of their cell phones before interrogating them.
   ‘Mujahid, who has been living in the country for eight years, has admitted he killed Moyez Uddin, Shivaji Rao and Bappan Singh in Mumbai. After committing the murders he fled to Bangladesh,’ Mahbub said.
   ‘We have already interrogated two girlfriends of Mujahid and prepared the list of the local businessmen who helped him,’ he said.
   A joint team of the local police and DB personnel from Dhaka nabbed Abdul Rauf and Mujahid on May 27 at a tea stall at Mourali in the Brahmanbaria town. The police also arrested Kamal Mian who had sheltered Rauf.
   Rauf was convicted of murdering music baron Gulshan Kumar and sentenced to imprisonment for life.
   He fled to Bangladesh after coming out of jail on a 14-day parole on March 23, said sources.
   He entered Bangladesh through the Akhaura border in the first week of April and first occupied a house at Shekhertak in the capital. He later took shelter in the house of Kamal Mian, a tea-stall owner of Mourali village in Brahmanbaria.
   Rauf made a Bangladeshi passport, changing his name to Sheikh Abdur Rahman.

People marooned in the cyclone Aila-hit south-west continue to suffer as water was yet to recede from the areas after more than a week of inundation.
   Waterborne diseases such as diarrhoea, skin diseases and pneumonia have broken out in the areas, said medical teams working in the remote areas.
   People were seen roaming around for relief materials at Koyra and Paikgachha while thousands of families have taken shelter in makeshift shanties on the Khulna-Koyra Road.
   The Koyra upazila chairman, GM Mohsin Reza, told New Age that most part of his upazila has been under water for the past ten days as water did not recede.
   The superintendent engineer of the Khulna Water Development Board, Mostaq Ahmed, said they could not flush out the logged water from a number of the areas as the damaged embankments were not repaired or reconstructed.
   Local people alleged that the chairmen and members of the union councils were conducting electioneering for the local government elections and distributing relief goods only among their prospective voters.
   Shawkat Ali Sana of village No 2 Koyra, who has taken shelter in a shanty on the road, said the union council chairmen and members were giving relief among their chosen people in the shelters. ‘They are doing vote-business satisfying their supporters first,’ he said.
   The Koyra union council chairman, Shahabuddin Ahmed, however, denied the allegation, saying he was distributing the relief goods properly.
   The Koyra upazila chairman, GM Mohsin Reza, admitted that they were yet to reach every person despite sincere attempts.
   He also said people from different localities lodged complaints with him about the nepotism and mismanagement by the union council chairmen and members.

At least 150 children aged between six months and five years reportedly fell sick Thursday after taking Vitamin-A capsules and deworming tablets at Charshalipur of Charbhadra-shan in Faridpur.
   Sources said a health worker went to adminster the capsules and tablets to the children.
   ‘After about two hours, the children started vomiting and fell sick,’ a report quoting villagers area said.
   They were taken to Faridpur General Hospital where they were being treated till about 8:30pm, hospital sources said.

The government has asked all secondary schools not to collect extra fees from the students for pre-tests and tests that will be held with the newly-introduced ‘creative’ question-papers.
   A circular of the education ministry, issued on Thursday, also asked all the secondary schools to hold the pre-tests and tests with similar question papers.
   The circular also said the schools would have to hold exams with creative question-papers prepared and supplied by the Bangladesh Examination Development Unit, which is under the education ministry.
   It is mandatory for the students of Class X to qualify in the test for taking part in the Secondary School Certificate examinations.
   ‘We have received allegations that some school authorities are taking extra fees from students for exams with creative question-papers,’ a high official told New Age on Thursday.
   ‘There are allegations that some schools are not taking internal tests with the creative question-papers as the teachers are not able to prepare the new type of questions,’ he added.

Finance minister AMA Muhith on Thursday informed the parliament that the Bangladesh Nationalist Party-led government had exempted Dandy Dyeing Ltd from paying more than Tk 12 crore as interest in 2001.
   ‘The (BNP-led) alliance government had exempted the interest, amounting to Tk 12,16,83,119, of Dandy Dyeing Ltd’s bank loan on October 16, 2001,’ said the minister in reply to a question by Awami League lawmaker Muhibur Rahman Manik.
   He said that the BNP’s senior joint secretary general, Tarique Rahman, is one of the directors of Dandy Dyeing.
   Dandy Dyeing took Tk 40.64 crore as loan from a bank, said the minister, quoting the CIB database of the Bangladesh Bank.
   Tarique’s maternal uncle, Syed Eskandar, looks after the industry as its managing director.

The state minister for home affairs, Tanjim Ahmed Sohel Taj, returned to his office on Thursday after four days, drawing the curtains on the drama over his reported resignation.
   Talking to newsmen at the ministry, the junior minister denied having tendered his resignation, saying he could not attend office in the last few days because he was sick.
   He also said he would not go on leave right now because the parliament is on session.
   Home minister Sahara Khatun on Tuesday said she had recommended leave for Taj from June 6 to June 23 following an application.
   Asked whether he was facing non-cooperation from his cabinet colleagues, Sohel Taj said all his colleagues were working hard for bringing changes. ‘Barriers may come in the course of doing any work,’ he added.
   Sohel Taj on Monday reportedly submitted his resignation to the prime minister. Some sources said his apparent inability to find satisfaction in his work might have prompted the resignation.
   Ruling Awami League lawmaker Sheikh Fazle Noor Tapos on Monday said that Sohel Taj had tendered his resignation.
   Prime minister Sheikh Hasina had asked LGRD and cooperatives minister Syed Ashraful Islam to persuade Taj to withdraw his resignation.
   Lastly on Wednesday, Ashraf and Sahara together met Taj at his Bailey Road residence and took him to Jamuna, the PM’s residence and Sohel Taj eventually decided to resume his office after the meeting with Hasina.

Militants blew up a girls’ school on the outskirts of Pakistan’s northwestern city of Peshawar on Thursday as the military pressed on with an offensive against the Taliban, the police said.
   The school was heavily damaged in the attack in the Budaber area, about 10 kilometres south of Peshawar, local police chief said.
   At least 40 kilogrammes of explosives were used to blow up the school, he said, adding that ‘four rooms were completely destroyed and three were damaged.’
   Police official Shakarullah Khan said militants used a timed device to blow up the building. There were no casualties as schools are closed for the summer, he said.