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The dwindling size of farms, rise in landlessness and constant depletion of farmland are posing formidable threats to Bangladesh’s agriculture, increasing poverty and trapping many ultra-poor people in a vicious circle, according to various reports.
   The average farm size has been reduced to less than 0.6 hectares and the percentage of landless people stands at 58 in a country where nearly 80 per cent of the ultra-poor live in rural areas.
   Official statistics also show that the country is losing more than one per cent or 80,000 hectares each year from its original 13 million hectares of cropland due to urbanisation, industrialisation, unplanned rural housing and infrastructure building.
   Agriculture accounts for only 21 per cent of the country’s gross domestic product although the sector employs around 50 per cent of the national workforce, according to the Bangladesh Economic Review 2008.
   However, the country’s problem of landlessness has emerged as an international issue with the non-functioning of a rule-based global trading regime which has deprived Bangladesh of required supports to overcome the nagging domestic problems of food and agriculture.
   The director-general of the World Trade Organisation, Pascal Lamy, recently referred to this critical issue at an international forum, pointing out that in the world’s poorest corners, including Bangladesh, land is getting divided through inheritance and farm sizes are getting smaller and smaller with the passing of every generation.
   A Washington-based International Food Policy Research Institute, in its recent report titled ‘New Findings on the World’s Most Deprived: Characteristics and Causes of Extreme Poverty and Hunger’, mentioned that the incidence of landlessness was 58 per cent.
   Also, the number of farms in Bangladesh has doubled over the past 20 years, increasing the number of farms smaller than 0.2 hectares in size proportionately, said the World Bank in its ‘World Development Report 2008: Agriculture for Development’. ‘This is a major cause of rural poverty, said the WB.
   Pascal Lamy expressed his conviction that even the most sophisticated international trade policies would not provide incentives to agriculture in poor countries unless problems like environmental challenges and dwindling farm size were addressed by supportive domestic policies.
   ‘In Bangladesh the situation is worse,’ Lamy observed in a speech to the International Food and Agricultural Trade Policy Council in Salzburg, Austria, on May 10.
   The average size of farms diminished from 1.4 hectares to 0.6 hectares between 1960 and 2000. The increase in the number of farms has triggered a rise in landlessness, he said.
   The only crop whose area of cultivation is increasing over the past decades is rice. According to the Bangladesh Annual Economic Review 2008, the size of the area in which pulses were cultivated shrank further to 7.69 lakh acres with output declining to 2.58 lakh tonnes in 2006-07 from 17.15 lakh acres with production of 5.28 lakh tonnes in 1996-97. The country’s oil seed production was 3.22 lakh tonnes from 7.84 lakh acres in the 2005-06 fiscal year compared to 4.78 lakh tonnes on 13.7 lakh acres in the 1996-97 fiscal year. Production of wheat also dropped from 14.54 lakh tonnes on 17.49 acres of land in 1996-97 to 7.37 lakh tonnes on 9.88 lakh acres in the 2006-07 fiscal year.
   An earlier global report, titled ‘Climate Change as a Security Risk’, said that the probable loss of arable and residential lands through flooding in this part of the world [Bangladesh and its neighbourhood] would result in increase of internal and external environmental migration and strained relations between countries.
   ‘No matter how sophisticated our trade policies may be, if domestic policies do not themselves incentivize (sic) agriculture, and internalize negative social and environmental externalities, then we will always have a problem,’ said Lamy.
   Uttam Kumar Deb of the Centre for Policy Dialogue recommended that a solution to the issue of farmland depletion could be formulation of a sensible and realistic land-use policy. ‘We have to find out why people are becoming landless and how to solve the problem of shrinkage of arable land. Only then can necessary measures be taken,’ he told New Age.
   Lamy sounded a positive note by claiming that Bangladeshis, on an average, spent 60 per cent of their income on food in 1990 and that sum is said to have come down to 50 per cent now. However, he regretted that ‘the world does not have a shared vision of what global integration should look like and what it can deliver in agriculture’.
   ‘Global integration must also allow food, [animal] feed and fibre to travel from countries where they are efficiently produced to countries where there is demand,’ he argued.
   Saying that some of the world’s poorest countries have taxed agriculture the most, and that reinvestment of tax revenue in agriculture has been low, Lamy stressed the need for focussing first on national agriculture and food policy.
   According to him, land management, natural resources management, water availability, property rights, enforcement, storage, transportation and distribution infrastructure, credit systems, and science and technology are all key elements of the solution of the agriculture and food security puzzle.

The parliamentary standing committee on planning ministry in a meeting Tuesday recommended a ban on raising any structure
   on agricultural land, as farmlands are getting scarce in the country.
   The lawmakers also recommended inclusion of educated people in school managing committees for improvement of the degrading standard of education.
   Recruitment of teachers at educational institutions proportionate to the numbers of students and undertaking plan for construction of multi-storied pucca bhaban for government and non-government primary schools were also suggested.
   The meeting suggested fair distribution of sports materials on the basis of population as per the parliamentary constituencies, and adopted a resolution for involvement of local lawmakers for ensuring more ‘transparency and accountability’ in the distribution.
   It was informed that construction works on the Language Institute would be completed by August and the proposal for giving VIP status to gallantry-award-holding freedom fighters would get approval ‘soon’.
   Held in the cabinet room of Jatiya Sangsad Bhaban, the meeting reviewed the progress of different projects taken up by education, youth and sports, and cultural affairs ministries.
   Committee chairman Oli Ahmed presided over the meeting, which was attended by committee-members planning minister Abdul Karim Khandaker, Mohiuddin Khan Alamgir, Mohammad Nazrul Islam, Azizul Haque Chowdhury, Nawab Ali Abbas Khan and ANM Shamsul Islam.
   At the start, the meeting expressed deep shock at the death of prime minister’s husband, MA Wazed Miah, and prayed for the departed soul.

Leaders of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party on Tuesday demanded that the party’s chairperson, Khaleda Zia, take action regarding corruption suspects in the party.
   They called on her to quickly and firmly reorganise the party by placing honest, dedicated and tested leaders at the forefront.
   They also criticised the government for the latter’s submissive attitude to neighbouring India which is preparing to construct a multipurpose barrage across Barak River in Tipaimukh, which is upstream of Surma and Kushiara rivers of Bangladesh.
   ‘You need not pay heed to the judgment, if any, of the Supreme Court. You must take action against the person whom you believe to be corrupt,’ said BNP’s joint secretary-general Mirza Abbas at a discussion held at the Institute of Diploma Engineers. ‘You have a tough time ahead as conspiracies are brewing in the party.’
   Gayeshwar Chandra Roy, another joint secretary-general, said, ‘The people will be happy if you take action against corruption suspects [in the party], no matter what their number is.’
   ‘Why should you feel pity for us if we commit any offence when the Anti-Corruption Commission failed to prove that you are a corrupt person despite its all-out attempts?’ he questioned.
   Founding members of the Jatiyatabadi Juba Dal, the party’s associate organisation of youths, organised the discussion to observe the death anniversary of BNP’s founder and former President Ziaur Rahman. Khaleda was present on the podium, but did not participate in the discussion.
   Abbas and Gayeshwar urged Khaleda to identify the leaders whose loyalty to the BNP was unquestioned while reorganising the party.
   Gayeshwar said that many BNP members lack the ideals of Zia. ‘A genuine follower of Zia cannot be greedy for hundreds of mansions and cars.’
   Khaleda’s adviser ASM Hannan Shah stressed the need for quick reorganisation of the party with a firm hand by placing honest, dedicated and tested leaders at the forefront.
   Chittagong city BNP convenor Syed Wahidul Alam, Juba Dal president Barkat Ullah Bulu and general secretary Syed Moazzem Hossain Alal stressed the need to keep the party free from conflicts of interest between the leaders.
   National Press Club president Shaukat Mahmud said the incumbent government is accumulating strength from the disunity of the BNP.
   He said the Tipaimukh dam would prove to be a ‘weapon of mass destruction’ for the people, environment and bio-diversity in the north-eastern region of Bangladesh.
   Khandakar Mosharraf Hossain, a member of BNP’s standing committee, said the government has become submissive to India even though it is constructing the Tipaimukh dam which will have a tremendously adverse impact on the people and environment of Bangladesh.
   Moudud Ahmed, another standing committee member, criticised the government for its attempt to ‘wipe out the opposition from the parliament’. ‘A government without an opposition will be a short-term government,’ he predicted.

The committee on Bangladesh Rifles reorganisation formed after the February 25–26 rebellion of soldiers in its headquarters in Dhaka has suggested
   that the force should be restructured with new name, uniform, moto and logo.
   With the recommendations, the committee on Tuesday submitted its partial report to the coordination committee on three investigation committees formed after the rebellion.
   ‘The committee suggested 10 proposed names both in Bangla and English, 10 proposals for the moto, 7 proposals for the logo and 2 sets of uniforms for the border guards — one for the members posted to the border outposts and the other for guards inside the country,’ the coordinator of the three committees, Faruk Khan, told reporters after a meeting of the coordination committee in the BDR headquarters.
   ‘All the proposals will be sent to the government and the government will choose the new name, uniforms, moto and logo for the border guards,’ said Faruk, also the commerce minister.
   Asked about the command structure and involvement of army officers in the restructured border force, Faruk said the sub-committee was yet to make its recommendation on the issue.
   In reply to a question, Faruk Khan said the sub-committee on BDR restructuring had distributed 6,000 forms with a set of 18 questions among individuals such as former officials of the police, army, navy, air force, Ansars and Village Defence Party, Rapid Action Battalion, former directors general and deputy directors general of the Bangladesh Rifles and bureaucrats.
   Many of the individuals have already sent back the forms filled in to the sub-committee on which a partial report was submitted to the coordination committee and the committee discussed it elaborately at Tuesday’s meeting.
   As for inquiry committees, Faruk Khan said only the court of inquiry, formed by the army, has submitted its report and report of the government committee was expected soon.
   The investigation of the criminal offences committed during the rebellion, however, will take time, he said.
   Terming the media reports on the report of the army’s court of inquiry ‘fabricated,’ the minister said the report was yet to be sent to the government.
   ‘The army has investigated the incident on its own and it will implement the findings and, if necessary, will send a part of the report to the government,’ the minister said.
   He said, ‘The general amnesty announced by the prime minister is not applicable to the soldiers outside the headquarters in Dhaka as they rebelled on February 26, a day after the announcement of the amnesty.’
   The general amnesty is not applicable also to the soldiers who planned the rebellion and were involved in the killing of officers, he said.
   The minister said the law enforces had so far arrested 1,581 soldiers at different battalions and sector headquarters in 29 districts outside the capital and they had been sent to jail.
   The lawmen in Dhaka arrested 1,390 soldiers and 580 of them were remanded in police custody while 85 of them gave statements in court, the minister said.
   The lawmen also recorded statements of 500 soldiers under Section 161 of the Code of Criminal Procedure and they interrogated 3,207 soldiers.
   The investigation by the Criminal Investigation Department is going on smoothly and it will take time to complete the process, he said.
   The briefing was arranged after the four-hour fifth meeting of the coordination committee of the three probe bodies held on Tuesday.
   ‘The coordination committee has so far made 52 decisions and 46 of them have been implemented. Six others are being implemented,’ Faruk Khan said.
   As for missing firearms, the minister said the number of missing firearms stood at 93, including pistols, revolvers, rifles and submachine guns.
   The Bangladesh Rifles director general Mainul Islam and director operations Jahangir Kabir Talukder also attended the briefing.

The Bangladesh Rifles on Tuesday published a list of 25 soldiers who have been absconding since the bloody February mutiny in the Pilkhana.
   The number of absconding soldiers was much higher, but many of them have either been arrested or have surrendered by this time, commerce minister Mohammad Faruk Khan, also the coordinator of three investigation committees probing the BDR rebellion, told reporters on Tuesday.
   Lists of the absconders along with their photographs have been sent to police stations, airports and border outposts, said the minister, adding that many of them were involved in the massacre in the Pilkhana.
   According to the new list, the absconding soldiers are Sepoy Mohammad Mainuddin of 13 Rifles Battalion, Nayek driver Mohammad Ayub Ali of Dhaka Sector headquarters, Sepoy Bishu Mitra Barua of 1 Rifle Battalion, Sepoy Mohammad Rezaul Karim of 7 Rifles Battalion, Sepoy Ayub Ali of 9 Rifles Battalion, Sepoy Baki Billah of 13 Rifles Battalion, Sepoy Atiqur Rahman of 13 Rifles Battalion, Sepoy Mohammad Sadullah of 13 Rifles Battalion, Sepoy Mizanur Rahman of 24 Rifles Battalion, Sepoy Paltan Chakma of 24 Rifles Battalion, Sepoy Mukul Alam of 24 Rifles Battalion, Sepoy Kamrul Hasan of 26 Rifles Battalion, Sepoy Mezbah Uddin of 31 Rifles Battalion, Sepoy Kamrul Islam of 36 Rifles Battalion.
   The others are Sepoy Mohammad Selim of 36 Rifles Battalion, Sepoy Nurul Alam of 36 Rifles Battalion, Sepoy Al Mamun of 44 Rifles Battalion, Lance Nayek Hamidul Islam of 44 Rifles Battalion, Sepoy Abdus Samad of 44 Rifles Battalion, Sepoy Anisur Rahman of 44 Rifles Battalion, Sepoy Farhad Hossain of Headquarters Rifles Battalion, Sepoy Noor Hossain of Headquarters Rifles Battalion, Nayek (assistant) Mizanur Rahman of the Record Wing, Mokbul Hossain of DDG office and Sepoy (medical assistant) Nazrul Islam Mollick of BDR Hospital.
   The government had earlier announced a bounty of Tk 50,000 for the arrest of each of the absconding soldiers, which still remains in force, he added.

The government is going to entrust the army with the much-discussed machine-readable passport and visa project that would cost nearly Tk 283 crore.
   The home affairs ministry took the move following directives from Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina for engaging the army in implementing the project which was originally initiated in 2004 by the Bangladesh Nationalist Party-led alliance government.
   Citing the performance of army in preparation of voters’ list and issuance of national identity cards, home affairs minister Sahara Khatun said Monday that the government has decided to give the responsibility for introducing the machine-readable passport and visa to army.
   ‘We have decided to give army the task for implementing the machine-readable passport and visa project as they have already proved their competence in preparing the voters’ roll and national identity cards during the tenure of the caretaker government,’ Sahara Khatun told reporters after presiding over an inter-ministerial meeting on the project.
   She said a project director would be appointed soon from the army and the work should start as soon as possible.
   A technical team from the army has already made a presentation on the proposed MRP, Shahara said, adding ‘We have asked for submitting samples of MRP in four colours—red, black, green and yellow—for the ministry’s approval.’
   The five-year project is expected to get underway in July 2009 and scheduled to be concluded by June 2014.
   Finance minister AMA Muhith, who also attended the meeting held at the home affairs ministry, proposed for setting up a link between the national identity cards’ database and the MRP project to check fraudulence.
   ‘The national ID cards must be made mandatory for issuance of passports. If needed, the government will enact or amend laws to this effect,’ Muhith said when his attention was drawn to the fact that the already-issued national ID cards were yet have any legal coverage due to non-existence of any national identity registration authority.
   The project was included in the annual development programme for the fiscal 2008-09 against a proposal of the home affairs ministry with a target for introducing the machine-readable passport and visa from July 2009, according to officials.
   Bangladesh, being a signatory to the International Civil Aviation Organisation, a specialized UN agency responsible for coordinating and regulating international air travel, must introduce the digital system by 2010 and convert all manually-issued passports into the machine-readable ones by November 2015, said an official concerned.
   The department of immigration and passports has so far issued some 1.2 crore passports, all of which are hand-written.
   MRP passports will have all data encoded in optical character which can be read by the computers.
   It will be mandatory for Bangladeshis to take electronic passport by 2014, to be introduced in line with the rules of the International Civil Aviation Organisation to digitally connect all member countries to end passport forgery.
   Asked why the government was not going for electronic passport, the Department of Immigration and Passports director general, Abdur Rab Hawlader, said there was still a chance for moving to e-passport. Moreover, the MRP could be upgraded anytime to electronic system, he told New Age.

Sri Lankan television broadcast images Tuesday of what it said was the body of Tamil Tiger leader Velupillai Prabhakaran, as the island’s president hailed his army’s victory over the rebels.
   The images were shown after the Tigers claimed the guerrilla leader was still alive and well, and said they would continue fighting for a separate Tamil homeland despite president Mahinda Rajapakse’s call to unite the nation.
   The video showed the upper section of a corpse which was dressed in camouflage fatigues. The back of the head, which was resting on a bloodstained newspaper, appeared to be missing.
   The face was intact, with the eyes wide open, and bore a clear resemblance to the stocky, moustachioed rebel leader.
   ‘We are a government that defeated terrorism at a time when others told us that it was not possible,’ Rajapakse said in a nationally televised address to parliament.
   Under international pressure to reach out to the Tamil minority, Rajapakse vowed that a political solution to the island’s deep rooted ethnic divisions would be found.
   ‘All should live with equal rights. They should live without any fear or doubt,’ he said. ‘Let us all be united.’
   His speech had been shadowed by a Tiger statement insisting that Prabhakaran was not dead and that his fight — which he began in 1972 — would go on.
   ‘Our beloved leader is alive and safe. He will continue to lead the quest for dignity and freedom for the Tamil people,’ the Tigers’ chief of international relations, Selvarasa Pathmanathan, said in a statement carried on the pro-rebel Tamilnet web site.
   Pathmanathan said the government had fabricated news of his death in order ‘to gloat’ following its final military victory over the LTTE.
   ‘We categorically reject this,’ he said, without making any claim to Prabhakaran’s current whereabouts.
   ‘The Tamil freedom struggle is a just cause and will not be quashed by the events of the last 24 hours. Truth and justice will always prevail,’ he said.
   Pathmanathan went on to accuse the Sri Lankan government and military of ‘crimes against humanity,’ saying senior LTTE leaders had been shot dead after being invited to negotiate their surrender.
   But the army chief, General Sarath Fonseka, stated categorically that Prabhakaran’s body had been identified — a day after defence officials reported he was gunned down trying to flee government troops.
   ‘Reports from the battlefield confirmed this morning that they have identified the body of Prabhakaran, this ruthless terrorist leader,’ Fonseka said.
   The conflicting accounts of the Tiger leader’s fate came after a dramatic day Monday that effectively ended one of Asia’s oldest and most brutal ethnic conflicts that has claimed 70,000 lives.
   The army said its commandos overran the last sliver of Tiger-held territory, killing their remaining 300 fighters and decimating the rebel leadership.
   But the Sri Lankan government’s moment of triumph came at the cost of many innocent lives, according to the United Nations.
   The UN and human rights groups have partly blamed indiscriminate shelling by the military for causing heavy civilian casualties, while accusing the rebels of using tens of thousands of people as a ‘human shield’.
   The UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, said he will visit Sri Lanka on Friday to assess the situation there for himself.
   ‘We urgently need to treat the wounds of a war that has alienated the communities in the island for almost three decades,’ Ban told journalists.
   Sri Lankan authorities have repeatedly bridled at what they see as outside interference in their internal affairs, and Rajapakse made it clear Tuesday where he felt foreign efforts should be focused.

The government has planned additional allocation for the social safety net to increase the number of beneficiaries under the programme, official sources said.
   ‘We will expand the social safety net to cover more poor,’ a senior finance ministry official told New Age on Monday.
   The number of categories under the programme will also be increased, the official said, adding allowances for insolvent people with disabilities, distressed widows and poor mothers will be introduced.
   An inter-ministerial meeting at the finance ministry in the past decided to increase the amount and number of beneficiaries in the budget for the next financial year, sources said.
   The cabinet committee earlier held a meeting on the suggestions for social safety net proposals of the social welfare ministry which calculated about 56.17 lakh people across the country are above 65 years of age and nearly 40 per cent of them live below poverty line.
   According to the proposal, allowances for elderly people, insolvent people with disabilities and distressed women will be increased from Tk 250 to Tk 300.
   The number of old-age allowance beneficiaries will be increased from 20 lakh to 22.5 lakh and the number of insolvent people with disabilities from 2 lakh to 2.6 lakh, sources said.
   The number of beneficiaries under the poor mother maternity allowance will also be increased from 60,000 to 80,000, but the present rate of allowance of Tk 350 per month will remain the same.
   The government will not increase the number of beneficiaries from among freedom fighters, but will increase the allowance from Tk 900 to Tk 1500 a month.
   A survey conducted by the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics in collaboration with private agency Services and Solution International revealed because of weak surveillance and monitoring only 2 million out of 20 million very poor people could be brought under the government’s safety net planning.
   Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies research director KAS Murshid told New Age the government would need to strongly monitor the disbursement and distribution system of the social safety net funds.
   ‘The poor section of the people will definitely be affected by the global financial meltdown. The government will, therefore, increase the number of beneficiaries and the amount of payment for the social safety programme in the next financial year,’ he said.

The government is likely to wait for the High Court ruling on the writ petition filed by te Bangladesh Nationalist Party chairperson, Khaleda Zia, for its next course of action regarding her house in the Dhaka cantonment.
   An inter-ministry meeting, held on Tuesday in the law ministry with the law minister, Shafique Ahmed, in the chair, made the decision, sources attending the meeting said.
   As the High Court on Monday ordered the government not to harass Khaleda over the house, the government should not take any action, including any move to evict her from the house or issuance of any further notice on her over the matter, until the High Court passes any further order in the case, the meeting observed.
   The defence secretary, attorney general, two additional attorneys general, and officials of the law ministry and Directorate of Military Land and Cantonment attended the meeting.
   Earlier after the High Court passed the order on Monday, the attorney general, Mahbubey Alam, told reporters, ‘The government can take action legally regarding the cantonment house after May 22 when the deadline to reply to the May 7 notice will expire.’
   The High Court bench of Justice Syed Refaat Ahmed and Justice Moyeenul Islam Chowdhury asked the government not to harass Khaleda, also the leader of the opposition, over this matter till May 25.
   The court passed the order adjourning the haring in the writ petition filed by Khaleda challenging two notices issued by the government asking her to vacate the house in the Dhaka cantonment.
   The court also asked Khaleda’s counsels to inform the court if the government would harass her in any manner to force her to leave the house.
   Khaleda filed a writ petition on May 3, challenging the notice issued by the Directorate of Military Land and Cantonment on April 20, asking her to vacate the house in 15 days.
   She filed a supplementary petition on Sunday, challenging the second notice issued by the directorate on May 7 asking her to explain in 15 days why she would not be directed to return the house to the military estates officer.
   ‘All respondents to the writ petitions are directed to guard jointly the petitioner so that she may not be disturbed in the meantime,’ said the court in its order to adjourn the hearing of the writ petitions.
   ‘The petitioner’s fundamental rights guaranteed in Article 27 [equality before law], 31 [right to protection of law] and 42 [right to property] of the constitution must be ensured,’ ordered the court.

Jatiya Party’s chairman HM Ershad on Tuesday met Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina at her official residence [Jamuna] and requested her to withdraw Awami League’s candidate for the Sunamganj-4 constituency.
   The by-election in Sunamganj-4 will be held on June 15 as the constituency has become vacant after the death of JP lawmaker Begum Momtaj Iqbal on April 17. The AL has nominated Matiur Rahman while JP has nominated Abdul Majid to contest the polls there.
   Sheikh Hasina assured Ershad that she would take the final decision in this regard within a day or two after assessing the popularity of AL’s candidate, the JP’s secretary-general Ruhul Amin Howladar, who accompanied Ershad, told New Age. Ershad entered Jamuna at 9:15am and left at 10:05am.
   ‘We went Jamuna to express our deep sympathy for the prime minister at the death of her husband, M Wazed Miah. We also discussed the Sunamganj-4 by-election,’ he said.
   Howladar said the JP would accept any decision in this regard taken by Sheikh Hasina.
   At the meeting Ershad assured the PM that his party would always stand beside the government, said Howladar.

The Criminal Investigation Department will produce the two arrested former directors general of National Security Intelligence before the court today (Wednesday) on completion of their three-day remand in connection with the 2004 Chittagong arms haul case.
   CID sources said they would seek a fresh remand for the two former chiefs of NSI, retired major general Rezakul Haider Chowdhury and retired brigadier general Abdur Rahim, to send them to the task force interrogation cell in Dhaka for an upper level interrogation.
   They would also seek another round of remand for the former NSI director Wing Commander Shahabuddin Ahmed for getting important information about the sensational arms and ammunition smuggling case, placing him and the two generals face to face at the TFI cell.
   The CID arrested Rezakul from his residence at Dhanmondi and Rahim from his residence at DOHS in Dhaka on early Saturday based on the confessional statement of former NSI director wing commander Shahabuddin Ahmed.
   Shahabuddin gave confessional statement under section 164 before the court of Chittagong metropolitan magistrate Abu Hannan on completion of a three-day remand in Chittagong and six-day remand at TFI cell in Dhaka.
   Police recovered a total of 4,930 different types of sophisticated firearms, 27,020 grenades, 840 rocket launchers, 300 accessories of rocket launchers, 2,000 grenade launching tubes, 6,392 magazines and 11,40,520 bullets while those were being offloaded from two engine boats at the jetty of Chittagong Urea Fertilizer Limited on April 2, 2004.
   The case, filed with the Karnaphuli police station, got a new turn following the confessional statement by two prime accused, Hafizuddin and Deen Mohammed, recorded in March 2009.

India’s Congress Party on Tuesday elected Manmohan Singh to lead its parliamentary party, paving the way for him to return as prime minister following a resounding election victory.
   Elected members met to nominate Manmohan and parliamentary party chairwoman Sonia Gandhi, a formality required to form a new government.
   Singh, who has vowed to revive economic growth in India, is likely to be sworn in by the president, Pratibha Patil, for his second term on Friday.
   Allied parties held talks with Gandhi over positions in the new administration after the Congress-led alliance coasted to victory in the elections results announced on Saturday.
   The alliance won 262 of 543 seats, with Congress Party’s own tally at 206 — its best performance since 1991.
   The main opposition grouping led by the Bharatiya Janata Party bagged only 159 seats.
   Addressing party members, Manmohan warned that voters expected a more ‘responsive’ and ‘efficient’ government during the second term.
   He made a case for major economic reforms, which analysts say will be easier now that the party has enough seats to govern without communist support.
   ‘The period ahead could be decisive. We must grasp the nettle firmly and forge ahead,’ Singh said.
   ‘This requires creating a social and political environment in which new investment can be made.’ Manmohan also said tackling terrorism would be a key goal for his new government.
   ‘I assure you we will not be found wanting in this task. The assurance of internal security is the topmost priority for us,’ he said.
   Gandhi echoed Manmohan’s words, saying the party could not take the electorate for granted. ‘We must strengthen our relations with those who we serve,’ she said.
   Manmohan has said he hopes to persuade Rahul Gandhi, Sonia’s son and the emerging star of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty, to serve in the cabinet after Rahul’s role in the successful campaign was widely praised.
   Manmohan is the first prime minister since the country’s post-independence leader Jawaharlal Nehru to be returned to office after completing a full term.
   The Congress party is likely to pick Pranab Mukherjee as the country’s new finance minister, former trade minister Kamal Nath told Reuters on Tuesday.
   Asked if the party had finalised Mukherjee, the former foreign minister, as candidate, he said, ‘more or less’.

The US president, Barack Obama, on Monday pressed a two-state solution to the Middle East conflict but failed to win a commitment from the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, to back Palestinian statehood.
   The deep differences exposed during Netanyahu’s meeting with Obama have stoked fears in Israel of cooling ties with its main ally, reports AFP
   ‘Agreed to disagree,’ was the headline in the mass-circulation Yediot Aharonot a day after the key Washington talks laid bare the discord on Middle East peacemaking and Iran.
   In the weeks preceding the two leaders’ first official meeting, Israeli newspapers had been filled with alarmist editorials that warned of a stark change of course in US policy towards Israel under Obama.
   Following the Oval Office encounter, some warned that the change of tone in Washington boded ill for the special relationship that Israel has enjoyed with its main backer over the years.
   In their first White House talks, Obama also urged Netanyahu to freeze Jewish settlement building but sought to reassure Israelis wary about his overtures to Iran that he would not wait indefinitely for diplomatic progress toward curbing Tehran’s nuclear ambitions.
   The two leaders tried to paper over their differences as Obama waded into the thicket of Middle East diplomacy four months after taking office, but the divisions were hard to ignore between Israel and its superpower ally.
   ‘It is in the interests not only of the Palestinians but also the Israelis, the United States and the international community to achieve a two-state solution,’ Obama told reporters with Netanyahu sitting beside him.
   Netanyahu, who heads a new right-leaning Israeli coalition, reiterated that he supported self-government for the Palestinians but made no mention of a state, a position underscoring a rare rift in US-Israeli relations.
   Obama sees engagement in Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking as crucial to fixing America’s image in the Muslim world and drawing moderate Arab states into a united front against Iran.
   After two hours of talks, Obama offered no new remedies in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which has defied efforts by successive US administrations. He has yet to formulate a detailed Middle East strategy.

Senior officials of the seven-nation regional bloc are scheduled sit in the capital today to discuss the issue of the permanent secretariat of the Bay of Bengal rim as Dhaka hopes to house the secretariat.
   The second meeting of the joint working group for the establishment of the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation secretariat will discuss various proposals on the issue.
   Diplomatic sources said although Sri Lanka proposed to house the secretariat, the prospect of Bangladesh was bright as Thailand, the main initiator of the grouping, supports Dhaka and some member countries have expressed their reservation about Colombo in view of its internal security in the wake of civil war.
   Kazi Imtiaz Hossain, director general of the SAARC wing of the foreign ministry, on Monday told New Age the two-day meeting would discuss the structure, functions, locations, remuneration packages and financial mechanism of the BIMSTEC secretariat.
   As for Dhaka’s candidature to house the permanent secretariat of the grouping, he said apart from Bangladesh, Sri Lanka was also proposed to house the secretariat.
   Imtiaz said as per Bangladesh’s proposal, the secretariat will initially be set up in a rented house for a short period until a suitable place is found to house the office permanently.
   ‘Once the organisation agrees Bangladesh’s proposal, we will hope to build a permanent secretariat in a suitable place in three years,’ said the official, who will chair the Dhaka meeting.
   According to the proposal, the foreign ministry estimates the monthly rent for the secretariat to range between Tk 1 lakh and Tk 1.5 lakh, office decoration and furnishing to cost about Tk 20 lakh and vehicles for the office to cost about Tk 50 lakh.
   Officials there also said they had received a positive response from the finance ministry in connection with the expenses for initial years.
   Bangladesh at the last expert group meeting earlier agreed to bear the initial expenditure for the establishment of the secretariat. The permanent arrangement for the expenses with yearly subscriptions of the member countries will be finalised at the Dhaka meeting.
   The next ministerial meeting, a forum of foreign ministers, scheduled to be held in the second half of this year in Nay Pyi Taw, will announce the location of the BIMSTEC secretariat.
   Established in 1997, the regional forum has now seven members — Bangladesh, India, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Nepal, and Bhutan.

Convicted Awami League leaders Mofazzal Hossain Chowdhury Maya and Mohiuddin Ahmed were Tuesday sent to Dhaka Central Jail on their surrender before a Dhaka court.
   Judge of the Special Court-5 M Mozammel Hossain ordered them to be sent to jail.
   The judge also ordered the jail officials to accord Maya, a former state minister, first-class benefits ‘according to the jail code’.
   Earlier, both of the leaders were convicted in absentia amid a countrywide anti-corruption drive during the immediate-past caretaker government’s rule.
   Maya, also Dhaka city Awami League general secretary, was jailed for 13 years on February 14, 2008 by a court for amassing Tk 2.58 crore from sources not known.
   Munshiganj AL chief Mohiuddin Ahmed was sentenced to 11 years rigorous imprisonment in a corruption case for amassing wealth worth Tk 1.73 crore ‘illegally’.

Residents of Dahagram union, a tiny Bangladeshi enclave within Indian territory, have been denied their fundamental rights as they remain completely alienated from the mainstream of the country for 12 hours a day from dusk to dawn.
   Freedom of movement and access to medical services and education are among the fundamental rights the residents of the enclave, a 22.68 square kilometre patch of land under northern Lalmonirhat district, have been deprived of, mainly because of restrictions imposed by the Indian authorities, residents and local administration sources said.
   ‘Dahagram virtually turns into a prison every evening for 12 hours. We listen to various complaints, but cannot help our people,’ said an official source, describing the agony of some 20,000 Bangladeshis living in the enclave.
   Those Bangladeshi citizens have little access to the mainland of their country due to restrictions imposed for years by the Indian authorities, said Yousuf Ali, a 47-year old resident of Dahagram.
   ‘We don’t feel that we are independent as we do not have access to any basic amenities like healthcare and power supply, despite being citizens of an independent state,’ he lamented.
   Under the provisions of a bilateral treaty signed 1992, people of this enclave were allowed to move to and from the mainland every alternative hour, said Yousuf, who owns tea shop in Dahagram.
   He said whenever anyone in the enclave falls critically sick, he or she cannot be rushed to any hospitals at the district headquarter at Lalmonirhat immediately as there is neither an ambulance nor any mortised vehicles for the community.
   Moreover, it requires approval of the Indian authorities for exit of each patient along with two attendants during the restricted night time curfew, Yousuf said.
   There is only one medical assistant, a paramedic, available at the lone 10-bed government hospital, existing in a rundown condition, for the residents of Dahagram, who are detached from the mainland by the so-called Tin-Bigha corridor owned by India. The corridor is kept open for movement of Bangladeshis from 6:30am to 6:30pm every day.
   Locals alleged that a resident medical officer who was posted to the remote enclave does not go and stay at the hospital, rather he stays at Rangpur town, allegedly pursuing his private practice.
   ‘Serious [critical] patients often die at the corridor gate as people here do not get any emergency care. We have to wait for hours for permission to pass the corridor...The only hospital in Dahagram has only an outdoor service, providing us with a limited kind of common medicine and nothing else,’ said Noor Banu, a middle-aged woman who was waiting for medicine at the local hospital.
   Hamida, 18, another resident in the enclave, said women in the area do not have maternal healthcare facilities.
   ‘I am a mother of three children. I have to go to Lalmonirhat sadar each time I face any complications... Most people, being poor, find it hard to meet medical expenses while transportation is another problem,’ complained Hamida, who is married to a local farmer.
   Medical assistant Zillur Rahman, posted at Dahagram hospital, said he had to attend about a hundred patients a day on an average. ‘We can’t provide all the medicines they need as the hospital only gets supply of some common tablets—like Histasin or Paracitamol.
   He said the medical officer, Dr Shahjahan Basunia, had been staying in Rangpur as there was no electricity supply in the enclave.
   About the violation service rules by the medical officer, civil surgeon of Lalmonirhat MA Sobhan said that Dr Shahjahan had been served a show-cause notice for his alleged negligence in duty.
   ‘We have received complaints from the local people against the medical officer and asked him to answer within 15 days as to why he does not discharge his duties,’ the civil surgeon told New Age on Saturday.
   Dahagram does not have any electricity supply although there are electric poles with wires. There are four government primary schools and a high school within the enclave where most people are engaged in agricultural activities to earn their livelihood.

An on-duty traffic sergeant was sandwiched to death by vehicles as he tried to stop a city service minibus which had hit an elderly woman on the Mirpur Road near Suhrwardy Hospital on Tuesday.
   The police and witnesses said the victim, Abdul Based Talukder, a patrol traffic sergeant, was on duty in the Suhrwardy Hospital crossing and he was checking document of a bus in front of the hospital.
   A minibus headed for Mirpur, plying Route 1/C, hit an elderly woman on the other side of the road at about 11:00am.
   As the accident took place, the sergeant approached the bus crossing the road. The driver tried to speed away, it sandwiched him, pushing him back against another bus parked near by to drop passengers.
   Based was severely injured. The woman, who sustained minor injures, survived the accident.
   After the incident, all the passengers of the two buses got down and started running and the drivers and their assistants tried to get away. The people captured the driver, Rashed, of a bus. The people rescued the traffic sergeant and the woman.
   Based was first taken to Suhrawardy Hospital by his colleagues and was later shifted to Dhaka Medical College Hospital where he was declared dead at about 12:00pm.
   A resident of Shaya Dhanghar of the Sirajganj district headquarters, Based, son of Mohammad Golam Rabbani, joined the police force in 2001. He was posted to the traffic (west) division of the Dhaka Metropolitan Police.
   He is survived by wife and two minor sons.
   ‘He was sincere in his duties and did not have any bad records in service as far as I know,’ said the deputy commissioner of the traffic (west) division, Mafizuddin Ahmed.
   The body was sent to his village home in Sirajganj in the afternoon after namaz-e janaza in the Razarbagh police line ground.
   The body was earlier handed over to the police after the post-mortem examination in the Dhaka Medical College Hospital morgue.

The Bangladesh Nationalist Party on Tuesday staged nationwide demonstrations to protest deterioration in law and order, a spree of grabbing land and institutions by ruling Awami league activists and harassment of the opposition workers by filing false cases.
   BNP leaders and activists took to the streets in all major towns and cities, except Dhaka, and district and upazila headquarters as part of the party’s month-long programme.
   New Age correspondent in Rajshahi reported the city and district units of BNP and its associate bodies jointly formed a human chain at Rajshahi court premises for half an hour from 11:00am to 11:30am.
   Former Rajshahi mayor Mizanur Rahman Minu, BNP district unit president Azizur Rahman, BNP leaders Elahi Bux Mandal and Shaheen Shawkat addressed the gathering.
   The leaders alleged that the government was trying to entangle BNP leaders with the Pilkhana massacre and conspiring against the party chairperson Khaleda Zia to evict her from her cantonment house.
   The Barisal city and district units BNP and its associate organisations staged a rally and brought out a procession in the city as per the party’s central programme.
    The procession began from Aswani Kumar Town Hall premises at around 5:30pm and after marching the city roads it terminated in front of BNP office.
    Mahmud Golam Salek, Kamrul Ahsan Shahin, Ata-e-Rabbi and Shahed Akon Samrat, among others, addressed the gathering before starting the procession.
   In Sylhet local units of BNP brought out procession and held rally in the town on Tuesday afternoon as part of the party’s agitation programme.
   Leaders and activists of the party’s district and city units brought out a procession from in front of the Central Shaheed Minar at Zindabazar in the afternoon and held a rally at city point, after parading different streets.
   Former lawmaker Dildar Hosen Selim, senior leader advocate Abdul Gaffar, district convening committee member advocate Noman Mahmud, Abdul Kaiyum Jalali and Ali Ahmed, among others, spoke at the rally.
   The BNP, on April 23, announced the agitation programmes staggering from May 5 to June 8.