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Water and power crises amid the persisting scorching heat have turned severe in the port city of Chittagong, causing immense sufferings to the people.
   Official sources at the Chittagong Water and Sewerage Authority said they have to keep suspended operation of their pumps most of the time a day because of power outages.
   The power situation in the city worsened after suspension of extra power supply from the national grid.
   Sources at the Power Development Board said currently they were supplying 300 megawatt power from Raujan Power Plant and Kaptai Hydroelectric Project against the demand for 600mw.
   Earlier, additional 150mw was supplied from the national grid but supply of this amount was suspended two days back, they said.
   A PDB official said we are now forced to ration 300mw in the city areas because of the frequent load shedding..
   Masuda Akter, a resident in Agrabad CDA residential area, said they were getting power for only one hour after every two hours.
   ‘Our household activities were being disrupted due to severe water shortage and power outages. My children cannot sleep at night because of searing heat,’ she added.
    City dwellers from other parts of the city, including Halishahar, Pahartoli, Kattali, Nasirabad, Chandgaon, Bakalia, Patharghata, Chawk Bazar, Muradpur and Bahadder Hat, said they remain without power most of the time.
   Sources at the Chittagong WASA said many of their water pumps have remained inoperative for hours due to erratic power supply for past two days.
   Currently, the water supply agency is supplying only 17 crore litters of water in the city against the daily demand for 55 crore litters.
   Shafiqur Rahman, chief engineer of the CWASA, said they were keeping few pumps operative by using generators during power outages.
   ‘We cannot keep all the pumps operative for lack of adequate power generators,’ he added.

Family and primary level education play a significant role in the development of a child as a good human being, Dhaka University vice-chancellor AAMS Arefin Siddique said on Friday while inaugurating a month-long young leadership programme at the BIAM auditorium in Dhaka.
   Congratulating the enthusiastic people who vowed to do something for the betterment of society, Arefin Sidduque said, ‘Those who are leading the country today also received education from their families.’
   A total of 30 students from different educational institutions will attend the leadership programme organised by the Bangladesh Young Leadership Centre.
   The organisers will run the programme in three segments that will run three hours a day and six days a week.
   In the first segment, the participants will learn to interact and communicate with each other by working in small groups and participating in team building exercises, said the organisers.
   The participants will also learn to understand different voices and perspectives in society.
   The second part consists of leadership training which will feature public speech workshops, lectures on the diagnostic framework of leadership and training on different tools and techniques to effectively and courageously exercise the act of leadership.
   The programme wraps up with community service where the students will use their newly learnt skills to find out solutions to the different problems faced by a local community.
   Youth and sports
   ministry secretary Ehsan Ul Fattah and Viqarunnisa Noon School and College principal Rokeya Akter Begum also attended the programme.

The detective police rescued a minor girl from a house at Arichpur under Tongi police station in Gazipur Thursday night, 18 days after she was abducted from their house in Gulshan in Dhaka.
   The police arrested three people, including a woman, in connection with the incident.
   The police said the abductors took away the girl, Elizabeth alias Buby, three years and a half, daughter of Mirza Rezaul Alam, from their house at Gulshan 2 at about 7:00pm on May 31.
   Later, the abductors contacted with the family and demanded Tk 50 lakh for release of the girl.
   Following the incident, Rezaul Alam filed a case with the Gulshan police station but the police and other agencies failed to rescue the girl.
   On receipt of the case, a DB police team, led by assistant commissioner Manas Kumar Podder, continued investigation and at one stage, arrested Aminul Islam, security guard of the house of Rezaul Alam, from his village home at Hethalia village under Bhandaria upazila in Pirojpur Thursday evening.
   Based on his statement, the police rescued the girl from a house at East Arichpur under Tongi police station in Gazipur at around Thursday midnight.
   The police also arrested Hanufa Akter, 25, domestic help at the house of Buby, and Pachu Sheikh, 50, guard of another house at Gulshan, during the incident.
   On receipt of the information, Rezaul, along with his wife, came to the DB office. The girl was later handed over to them.
   Meanwhile, Dhaka Metropolitan Police commissioner AKM Shahidul Haque told newsmen at the DB office that a number of gang were engaged in lifting children in the Gulshan and Banani area.
   One of the gangs used to abduct children while other gang demand ransom to their parents. The other gang could not be traced out in the case of Buby, the police said.
   The city police chief urged the city dwellers to be cautious in appointing domestic help, security guards and caretaker of their houses.

A three-day mango and silk festival began in Rajshahi city on Friday with the slogan ‘Oitijher Rong Laglo Prane’.
   The Rajshahi mayor AHM Khairuzzaman Liton inaugurated the festival at the Green Plaza of Nagar Bhaban as a chief guest.
   Mirazul Alam, president of Silk Industry Owners Association and Maruf Mizan, commercial chief of Banglalink for Bogra region, among others, attended inaugural function.
   Aamra Rajshahibashi, a non-political organisation in Rajshahi, organised the three festival in association with Banglalink.
   Before the inauguration, a colourful procession brought out from the Nagar Bhaban, paraded through different city streets.
   A total of 20 stalls have been installed in the festival venue where about 230 verities of mangoes and traditional silk of Rajshahi have been put on display.
   Besides, Gambhira, traditional cultural programme, will be held everyday afternoon during the festival.
   The speakers at the inaugural function called upon the government to set up several cold storages for preservation of mangoes.

The Rajshahi University authorities Friday afternoon caught five outsiders on the campus and handed them over to the police.
   The detained are Nasir Uddin, a student of Rajshahi Commercial College, Hasibul Alam, a student of Tejgaon College in Dhaka, Rakib Hasan of Dhaka, Moniruzzaman of Natore and Murad, driver of a CNG-run three-wheeler.
   According to the campus sources, the detainees entered the campus along with their friend Farzanur Rahman, a third year student of finance and banking of the university, to visit the university.
   The university proctor, Professor Chowdhury Mohammed Zakaria, and other officials of the university caught the visitors at about 3:30pm.
   Later, the authorities handed over them over to the police. The proctor told newsmen that the authorities had imposed restriction on the entrance of outsider on the campus to ensure security.

The bus-minibus owners’ association of five southern districts threatened to enforce indefinite strike on 28 routes of the districts, demanding withdrawal of the Bangladesh Road Transport Corporation buses on the routes.
   A press release issued by the Rupsha-Bagerhat inter-district road transport association on Friday said they took the decision to go for indefinite strike from June 30 on 28 routes in Khulna, Bagerhat, Pirojpur, Jhalokathi and Barishal districts at a meeting at the association office in Bagerhat if the BRTC buses were not withdrawn by June 29.
   The release said BRTC buses carry extra passengers and also they pick passengers from unscheduled stoppages.
   The association leaders also said they have already sent letters to the communication minister Khulna and Barishal divisional commissioner, deputy commissioners of the five districts to press home their demands.
   Some passengers, however, said the bus owners’ services on the routes is much lower than the BRTC buses and demanded not to stop BRTC bus services.
   The Khulna Jatri Kolyan Samity convener Md Kamruzzaman Babu, told New Age that BRTC buses have been providing better services in different southern routs.
   He said only sixteen buses ply nine routes of southern districts while hundreds of buses run on different routs of the district.
   He claimed that if BRTC buses provide better services, what is the use of their withdrawal from the routes.

A woman was found dead in a house on Indira Road in the Dhaka city Friday morning.
   The deceased is Ajanta Datta, 42, wife of Swapan Datta and sister-in-law of the vice-chancellor of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University, Pran Gopal Datta.
   The police said on information, they came to the spot and recovered the body of the victim in the morning.
   The body was found hanging from the ventilator of a room, they said, adding that there was not mark of injury in the body.
   The police suspected that Ajanta might have committed suicide. The body was handed over to the relatives after post-mortem examination at Dhaka Medical College Hospital morgue in the afternoon.

Rain or thunder showers accompanied by temporary gusty or squally wind is likely at one or two places over Khulna, Barisal, Chittagong, Sylhet, Rajshahi and Dhaka divisions in till 6:00pm today.
   Mild to moderate heat wave, which is sweeping over the regions of Rajshahi, Ishwardi, Dinajpur, Chuadanga, Jessore, Barisal, Tangail and Madaripur may continue, said Met Office.
   Day temperature may remain nearly unchanged over the country, it added.
   The sun sets in the capital today at 7:49pm and rises on Sunday at 6:12am.
   Country’s highest temperature 39.5 degrees Celsius was recorded on Friday at Rajshahi and lowest 24.6 degrees at Srimangal.