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The government, factory owners and workers at a meeting Sunday decided in principle to introduce trade unionism in the readymade garment sector to avert rerun of labour unrest.
   The labour and employment ministry brokered the meeting a day after police opened fire on workers demonstrating against abrupt closure of Nippon Garment at Tongi without paying their dues. At least three people were killed and scores of others injured in the incident, one of the worst since 2006.
   A 12-member committee, headed by chairman of the parliamentary standing committee on the ministry Israfil Alam, has been assigned to recommend how trade unionism could be introduced effectively in the export-oriented apparel industry to deal with labour issues amicably.
   ‘The committee comprising representatives from owners, workers and the labour ministry will recommend on allowing trade unions in RMG factories…The body will look into the incidents of labour unrest,’ labour minister Khandaker Mosharraf Hossain told reporters after the meeting.
   The Saturday’s angry labour outburst and subsequent police firing resulted from abrupt closure of Nippon, a subcontractor for large exporters which turned insolvent due to falling order.
   Industry association leaders claimed that the layoff was inevitable and lawful, and sensed a campaign of industrial sabotage in the unrest that halted traffic on the Dhaka-Mymensingh highway for hours.
   Shipping minister Shahjahan Khan, who also attended the Sunday’s meeting at secretariat, said that there was no other alternative to trade unionism in the RMG industries to avert any untoward incidents in the export-oriented apparel sector.
   ‘We must introduce trade unions in the RMG factories to settle labour issues amicably… Trade union leaders will be responsible for any untoward incidents in the sector once the unions are formed,’ Shahjahan, the labour leader-turned-minister, told the meeting.
   BGMEA president Abdus Salam Murshedy told New Age that the trade unionism should not be introduced all on a sudden in the RMG sector where 80 per cent of the workers were female.
   ‘There is no restriction on formation of trade unions as per ILO convention…We must consider that 80 per cent workers are female here. We should not allow outsiders to do trade unionism in the RMG sector,’ he said.
   Factory owners should educate and motivate the workers on labour rights before allowing trade union activities, the association leader felt.
   The tripartite meeting elaborated on the possible reasons behind the labour unrest at Tongi and concluded that the owner did not follow the law while closing the factory.
   State minister for labour Munnuzan Sufian, parliamentary standing committee chairman Israfil Alam, representatives from the Bangladesh Garments Manufacturers and Exporters Association and the Bangladesh Knitwear Manufacturers and Exporters Association and leaders of Jatiya Sramik League, among others, attended the meeting.
   Trade union leaders who attended the meeting said that registered body of workers’ representatives could handle the issue had trade unions been allowed there.
   Trade unionism would be beneficial to both owners and workers as both will then find a way out through negotiations if any dispute appears, they believed.
   The 12-member committee includes five members from the owners, five from the workers and one official from the ministry concerned as a member-secretary. All concerned have been asked to name their representatives in three days.
   Labour leaders and workers’ rights campaigners have been demanding introduction of trade unionism in the sector which involve over 25 lakh workers with 4500 factories mostly in Dhaka and Chittagong after labour unrest in 2006.
   They believe that registered trade unions, if allowed in apparel sector, could help narrow the gap between owners and workers and prevent disputes from snowballing into violent outbursts.
   But apparel industry owners so far had strong reservations about trade unionism, which, they alleged, has a chaotic history and has ruined the jute sector.

One of the people injured in the police firing on Saturday during clashes between garment factory workers and the lawmen in Gazipur died in Dhaka Medical College Hospital on Sunday, taking the death toll in the incident to three.
   Rickshaw-van puller Babul Sheikh and mason Shafiq Hossain were killed at Tongi on Saturday as the police fired into Nippon Garment Industry Limited workers who were rallying for the payment of their salary unpaid for three months.
   More than a hundred, including 16 policemen, were injured in the incident.
   Tajul Islam, a tiles worker who was injured on Saturday, died in hospital on Sunday.
   The government on Sunday formed a five-member committee to investigate Saturday’s clashes, which began with workers’ protesting at the layoff announced at the Nippon Garment Industry and rallying for their payment.
   The Tongi police, meanwhile, sued 2,000 to 3,000 unnamed people in connection with the clashes.
   The Tongi police officer-in-charge, Tapan Chandra Saha, filed the case against eight, arrested on Saturday, two, killed during the clashes, and others who were not named.
   Tongi police officials said the case was filed against the arrested Asif, 19, Ibrahim, 22, Shah Alam, 20, Rokan, 22, Abu Baker, 25, Akash, 20, Joynal 23, Saiful Islam, 21, who are garment factory workers and rickshaw-van puller Babul Sheikh and mason Shafiq Hossain, who were killed on Saturday.
   Asked about suing people who were killed, Tapan declined comments.
   The five-member investigation committee, headed by the labour secretary, Ataharul Islam, has been asked to find out the reason and identify persons behind the incident in two weeks, the home minister, Sahara Khatun, told reporters in his office on Sunday.
   Sahara, presiding over a meeting on the issue at the secretariat, regretted the death.
   ‘No one responsible for the incident will be spared, be they workers, owners or any godfathers,’ the home minister said, adding that a case was filed in this connection.
   She, however, observed the factory owner should have announced the layoff or closure in keeping with the law.
   The committee has representation of the home affairs ministry, Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters’ Association, Bangladesh Knitwear Manufacturers and Exporters’ Association and workers.
   Asked about how many people were sued, the inspector general of police, Noor Mohammad, who also attended the meeting, said the number of the accused would be decided after investigation.
   The home minister said the government would take all the steps needed to protect the export-oriented readymade garments industries.
   The state minister for home affairs, Shamsul Haque Tuku, state minister for labour Munnujan Sufian, labour leaders, BGMEA and BKMEA representatives and senior law enforcement agency officials also attended the meeting at the Home Office.
   Dhaka Medical College Hospital officials said Tajul Islam, 55, had died from his injuries about 3:30am and his son Khokan identified the body in the hospital morgue Sunday morning.
   Khokon said his father was a resident of Tilipara in Jhalakati and had lived at House 512A in Block 3 at Ershadnagar at Tongi.
   Physicians said Tajul was admitted to the hospital about noon on Saturday in an unconscious state as an unnamed person, severely injured in the head and he died early Sunday.
   The body was handed over to the family after a post-mortem examination.
   The police handed over the bodies of Babul Sheikh, 35, and Shafiq Hossain, 45, killed on Saturday, to the families Sunday morning after post-mortem examinations n the Gazipur General Hospital morgue.
   The body of Babul Sheikh was sent to his native village in Jamalpur in police guard and Shafiq’s body was sent to Baramainka in Bhola.
   The police on Sunday produced the eight arrested garment workers in the additional chief judicial magistrate’s court. Magistrate Saiful rejected the bail prayer and sent them to jail.
   Romela Akhter, a worker of the factory, told New Age, ‘Fearing police arrest and harassment, most male members in the families went into hiding.’
   She said the factory management deprived them, the police shot them dead and now cases had been lodged against them so that they could live in their houses.
   Several hundred garment workers teamed up as the Bangladesh Garment Workers Unity Council held a rally demanding punishment of the factory owner

The World Bank has registered its disapproval of the planned amendments to public procurement rules forewarning that some new provisions being proposed or discussed run the risk of losing project finance pledged by the bank.
   In a letter last week, the multilateral lender conveyed its strong reservations to finance minister AMA Muhith about the proposed changes including lottery for contracts of jobs up to Tk 20 million and keeping the option wide open for inexperienced contractors.
   These changes, now being weighed by the government, were inconsistent with the bank’s funding guidelines, it said.
   ‘In such case, the World Bank may have no choice but to exercise remedies available to it under relevant agreement, including declaring mis-procurement, and subsequent cancellation and refund,’ the lending agency said in the letter.
   The warning of cancellation of project loans came from the global lender after a cabinet meeting on October 5 decided to amend the Public Procurement Act 2006 incorporating some new provisions.
   Finance ministry officials observed that the WB’s warning would create problems in implementation of the Tk 30,500 crore annual development programme undertaken for the current fiscal.
   The government has projected to borrow Tk 13,215 crore from multilateral lenders including the WB to purchase goods and services which account for 70 per cent of the costs of major projects under the high-spending ministries like local government, communications, shipping, energy and power.
   In its letter, the WB stated that procurement on the basis of amended law would not be eligible for the bank’s funding. It suggested that the government should keep suspended the procurement activities under the WB-funded projects if the amendments were inevitable.
   Finance minister AMA Muhith told New Age that the WB’s letter was part of communications between the bank and the government on the proposed amendments to the PPA 2006.
   ‘I would not make comment on the issue now,’ he said Sunday, adding that the proposed amendments to the public procurement law would be discussed in parliament.
   On October 25 and 26, the finance minister held meetings with agriculture, communications and planning ministers and the prime minister’s economic adviser to finalise the amendments before placing those in parliament.
   Earlier he said the government was discussing the proposed changes with the lenders as well.

The government on Sunday placed a bill in the parliament seeking amendments to the public procurement act in order to allow persons having no experience to obtain contracts for public works or purchase of goods and services worth up to Tk 2 crore.
   The planning minister, AK Khandaker, piloted the bill in the house proposing a few amendments to the Public Procurement Act of 2006 in order to make it more flexible and more participatory.
   ‘The Public Procurement Act was enacted in 2006 to ensure transparency, equal treatment of all and make procurement process more participatory. To make it more applicable, the government has made a number of proposals for its amendment,’ the minister said in his written statement on the bill.
   The bill was sent to the parliamentary standing committee on the ministry of planning for further scrutiny and reporting back to the house in two days for its passage.
   The main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party alleged that the government’s move was designed to institutionalise manipulation in the procurement process. The BNP came up with the views when the AL-led alliance cabinet approved the draft bill recently.
   No objection was raised in the house when the minister piloted the bill as the lawmakers belonging to the BNP-led alliance have been boycotting the parliament since the budget session over a seating arrangement row.
   Lending agencies, including the World Bank, have also objected to the government’s move, fearing that the quality of public works might fall due to such measures.
   They also said that liberalising the law would encourage corruption in public procurement expenditure, which was worth over $3 billion per annum in Bangladesh.
   The bill also proposed redefinition of the head of a procuring entity to include divisional commissioners, deputy commissioners and district judges as head of procuring entity.
   At present, secretary of a ministry, head of a government department or chief executive of a directorate are made heads of procurement entities.
   It proposed bidding by lottery in case more than one party qualified as the lowest bidders against a work contract worth up to Tk 2 crore.
   The bill also proposed that a bid should be cancelled if it quoted an expenditure of more or less than five per cent of the estimated expenditure of the work contract.
   The house also introduced a few amendments to the Bangladesh Labour Law of 2006 in order to make efficient and dynamic the labour management at the country’s two seaports – Chittagong and Mongla.
   The labour and employment minister, Khandaker Mosharraf Hossain, placed the bill seeking a provision for limiting the number of trade unions and abolishing the Dock Labour Board at the ports.
   The bill proposes separate collective bargaining agents for the workers and employees while a single collective body for the port users, berth operators, ship handling operators and workers and employees appointed by other agencies.
   It also proposed a provision for transfer of money of the workers’ welfare fund for its effective use for their purposes.

Children of poor families without purchasing power must have free access to life saving vaccines as many of them often die of fatal diseases like Pneumonia, physicians and experts said.
   The number of pneumonia patients is increasing in the hospitals, health facilities and the chambers of private practioners, they said.
   ‘We are receiving more children suffering from respiratory infections including Pneumonia and most of the patients and their families are from poor background from the rural areas,’ Professor Mohammad Hanif of Dhaka Shishu Hospital told New Age on Sunday.
   He said temperatures drop between November and February and the winter chill, coupled with humidity, affects the poor children who are often malnourished and have little resistance.
   Under-nutrition, exposure to unhygienic conditions, lack of breast feeding, indoor air pollution at homes, unabated construction activities and dust outside their homes are the cause for widespread incidence of the disease, he added.
   The prevalence of pneumonia among children is high and many of the babies with severe infection die, Hanif said.
   The burden mostly falls on the disadvantaged section of people due to a lack of awareness as well as lack of buying power, he added.
   When asked how many children infected with Pneumonia die every year, Professor Samir K Saha, executive director of Child Health Research Foundation, said that some ‘50,000 to 70,000 children’ severely infected with Pneumonia die every year. ‘It is a conservative estimate,’ he added.
   Pneumonia, a severe inflammation of the lungs usually caused by infection, is responsible for one in four child deaths, more than HIV/AIDS, malaria and measles combined. Each year, it kills approximately two million children under five years of age, making it the leading child killer.
   Experts said the most effective way to prevent pneumonia deaths is to provide easy access to safe and affordable vaccines. Vaccines against two of the pneumonia’s common bacterial causes, Hib (Haemophilus influenzae type b) and pneumococcus, are routinely used in industrialized countries but are not available in most of the developing countries.
   The first World Pneumonia Day will be observed today (November 2) with a plan to focus global attention on this silent and under-noticed killer and spur policymakers to prevent and treat pneumonia seriously.
   Dr Abdul Jalil Mandal, deputy programme manager of the Expanded Programme on Immunization, said the government included the Hib vaccine in the routine vaccinations for children under the EPI from January this year.
   About 4 million under five children across the country will receive the vaccine by June 2010 in an effort to save at least 20,000 lives annually, he said.
   Samir Saha, also a senior microbiologist at the Bangladesh Institute of Child Health, however said, ‘The vaccine which we are providing for the children now have been brought here 20 years after its invention and use in the developed world.’
   He said improved vaccines have existed since 2000 but those are only available in rich countries.
   ‘The vaccine is there. But we need to get it for the poor children free of cost,’ he said. ‘It’s not a privilege. It’s a right to be immunized like all children in wealthy nations have it.’
   Laboratory analyses revealed that Hib infection is more prevalent in the first two years of life. The isolation rate of Hib bacteria however is low, possibly because of the high use of antibiotics, experts said.
   Hib vaccine has been introduced as part of a ‘five-in-one’ combination vaccine that will protect children against Hib and four other deadly diseases: diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis, and hepatitis B. Instead of three different injections (for DPT, hepatitis B and Hib), children will only need one injection at three different times during their first year of life.

Islamist militants blew up a girls school in Pakistan’s lawless Khyber tribal district Sunday, destroying the building and wounding four people in neighbouring homes, officials said.
   Two explosions ripped through the 18-room government high school for girls at Kari Gar village and a boy who watched the premises is missing, possibly kidnapped by the militants, local administration officials said.
   ‘The militants have blown up the school with two blasts and all rooms were demolished,’ said administration official Shafeer Ullah.
   ‘Four people in neighbouring houses were also wounded and their homes slightly damaged. We’re still trying to find out what happened to the office boy,’ Ullah said.
   Another of Khyber’s administrators, Farooq Khan, confirmed the incident.
   Islamist militants, who have carved out a strong presence in Pakistan’s semi-autonomous tribal belt on the Afghan border, have destroyed hundreds of schools, mostly for girls, in the northwest of the country in recent years.
   Nearly 200 schools were destroyed in the Swat valley alone during a two-year Taliban uprising to enforce sharia law in a district once favoured by Western tourists for its ski slopes and bracing mountain air.
   Following up a similar offensive in Swat this summer, Pakistan has been fighting against homegrown militants in Khyber and pressing a major assault designed to crush Taliban sanctuaries in South Waziristan.
   Authorities last month shut schools across Pakistan following a suicide attack on a university campus in Islamabad, although most have since reopened.
   Meanwhile, Pakistan said troops fought deadly street battles in a Taliban centre and den of Uzbek fighters on Sunday, pressing a major offensive into a third week and killing nine militants.
   Although the military provides the only regular information coming from the frontlines, none of the details can be verified because communication lines are down and journalists and aid workers are barred from the area.
   The latest casualties reported in a military statement bring to 306 the number of insurgents and 36 the number of soldiers reported killed since the operation was launched in South Waziristan on October 17.
   The district is part of the lawless tribal belt on the Afghan border where US officials say al-Qaeda and their allies are plotting attacks on the West.
   ‘Search and clearance operation of Kanigurram has commenced and 50 per cent of the town has been cleared,’ the military said in a statement.
   Troops were fighting street by street in what commanders have described as a major Tehreek-e-Taliban ‘operational centre’ and base for Uzbek fighters, one military official said.
   Uzbeks are the largest group among foreign Islamist militants backing Taliban fighters in Pakistan.

The prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, on Sunday said her government would make all necessary amendments to the poverty reduction strategy, giving priority to rural economy and employment generation to alleviate poverty.
   Speaking in the parliament after a debate on the document titled ‘Steps Towards Change: National Strategy for Accelerated Poverty Reduction II FY 2009-11’, she reiterated that her government would reintroduce the five-year plan for balanced development.
   The prime minister came up with the statements after some of her ruling coalition lawmakers censured the lender-driven strategy paper even demanding its cancellation to shrug off the legacy of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party-led alliance which had prepared the first strategy paper during its 2001-2006 rule.
   She called upon all concerned to make concerted efforts to implement the goals contained in the development document in the light of her party’s 2008 election manifesto.
   Most of the senior lawmakers of the ruling Awami League-led alliance came down hard on the lender-driven second Poverty Reduction Strategy paper urging the government to revert to indigenous five-year plan with special focus on job creation, investment and development of agriculture and rural economy.
   The strategy paper was debated in the parliament for the first time amid abstention by the lawmakers of the opposition BNP-led alliance. The opposition has been boycotting the house over a seating arrangement row since the budget session.
   The discussion, initiated by planning minister AK Khandaker, lasted for more than four hours.
   In response to criticism why the document was prepared in English, both prime minister Sheikh Hasina and finance minister Abul Maal Abdul Muhith assured the house that the government would soon publish the Bangla version of the document to enable the common people to give their opinions.
   ‘We have to finalise the document accommodating views of all of you present here. We are also discussing the matter with the development partners as well,’ the finance minister said.
   As many as 23 lawmakers, all from the ruling coalition, took part in the discussion and almost everyone lauded the prime minister for brining the document in the parliament and remembered the country’s founding president Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, who, they said, had dreamt of a Bangladesh free of poverty and injustice.
   The document was placed in the house on September 15 inserting part of the text of the Awami League’s election manifesto into the development document.
   Suranjit Sengupta said the strategy paper, prepared under the dictates of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund and authored by consultants, could not be modified for implementing the Awami League’s charter for change.
   ‘I urge the prime minister not to call it a poverty reduction strategy paper, but to term it an employment strategy paper, investment-friendly strategy paper and a strategy paper which will help the farm sector and rural economy flourish,’ the senior AL lawmaker said.
   He criticised the process of sending the strategy paper to the cabinet without consulting the lawmakers and common people as well. ‘What will you do if the parliament rejects it? Why the document has been drafted in English,’ he asked the finance minister describing the terminology of poverty reduction strategy as a mockery.
   ‘Poverty reduction is not a temporary matter. Eradication of poverty demands longer exercise, it cannot be done with the leftover document of the previous BNP-led alliance government.’
   The prime minister noted that the AL, during its 1996-2001 rule, had initiated the preparation of the document in 1999 but could not complete it before the expiry of her government’s tenure. She also blamed the successor BNP-led alliance government for dropping long-term five year programme.
   ‘The BNP had prepared a short-term development document [PRSP], but the people did not get its benefit,’ she said adding that the motto of her politics was emancipation of the poor.
   She also termed unfortunate the absence of the BNP lawmakers when the house was discussing about the document. ‘They [BNP] do not seem to have any concern for the people’s welfare.’
   Hasina said that conspiracy was being hatched to create instability and that certain quarters were engaged in a propaganda campaign in the media to discredit her government. ‘A lot of backbiting goes on against the cabinet but no one has been able to bring charges of corruption against a single member of my cabinet,’ she said.
   AL lawmaker Sheikh Fazlul Karim Selim said bureaucratic tangles and red tape in public offices were hindering development. He said that most of the officials were corrupt and without curbing corruption it was difficult to free the country of hunger.
   He also referred to high population growth and urged the government to take care of the issue as it was estimated that the country would have to feed some 25 crore people in the year 2025. ‘We simply cannot let it happen.’
   Hasanul Haq Inu, lawmaker of the Jatiya Samajtantrik Dal, called for devolution of power to strengthen local government institutions, specially the upazila parishad, and called upon the members of the parliament to be generous in allowing the local leaders to exercise their authority for local development.
   He lauded the non-government organisations’ role in creating public awareness at the grassroots level and taking money to the doorsteps of the common people.
   ‘We need to have a new generation of banks to serve the rural people.’
   Abdul Matin Khasru called upon the government to enact a law to prevent loss of arable land saying the government must frame a law and appoint specific authority to have control over the matter.
   In the latest PRSP, the government has projected the amount of resources required for its implementation at Tk 3,75,086 crore or $53.58 billion with a shortfall of Tk 1,16,046 crore or $16.58 billion which was expected to be met by foreign aid.
   The finance minister, AMA Muhith, admitted that the projection of resource mobilisation of $16 billion was not realistic and said it would be revised to $13 billion. ‘The minister said the “mantra” of his development approach is focus on rural economy and use of digital technology. ‘Our strength is democracy with good governance and we want to ensure a corruption-free administration with the participation of all.’

A defence counsel in the appeals proceedings in the Sheikh Mujibur Rahman murder case on Sunday told the Appellate Division that the then chief of general staff of the army, Khaled Mosharraf, had orchestrated the mutiny that resulted in the killings of the country’s founding president and all but two members of his family on August 15, 1975.
   Abdullah Al Mamun, counsel for death row convict AKM Mohiuddin Ahmed, said it in his concluding argument on the 20th day into the hearing in the appeals against the High Court verdict that had upheld the death sentences of 12 former army personnel in the Sheikh Mujib murder case.
   With Mamun’s argument, the five-member Appellate Division bench led by Justice Tafazzul Islam, has so far heard five appeals filed by convicts Bazlul Huda, Syed Faruque Rahman, Mohiuddin Ahmed, Sultan Shahriar Rashid Khan and AKM Mohiuddin.
   The court will hear today the chief prosecutor in the case, Anisul Huq.
   Referring to the deposition of former army chief, KM Shafiullah, Mamun told the court earlier on the day that the killings at Mujib’s Dhanmondi house were a consequence of the mutiny as some top army officers did not carry out Shafiullah’s order to resist the mutineers.
   In his deposition, Shafiullah said that before the attack, he had ordered the then commander of 46 brigade, Shafayat Jamil, to resist the perpetrators but he did not know why Shafayat had not carried out the order.
   Mamun said that when Shafayat and Ziauddin of the Directorate General of Forces Intelligence had met the then deputy chief of the army, Ziaur Rahman, after Mujib’s killing, Zia asked them to uphold the constitution as vice-president Syed Nazrul Islam was alive.
   Mamun also said that Khaled Mosharraf had a desire to become the chief of the army after Shafiullah as Shafiullah and Ziaur Rahman were not on good terms. Shafiullah was appointed chief of the army staff though Zia was senior to him, he said.
   ‘The top army officers, including the then DGFI chief, backed Khaled. At his directive, Ziauddin forced the then Rakkhi Bahini chief to go to the radio station and express loyalty to Khandaker Moshtaque Ahmed,’ Mamun told the court.
   He also said that after the killings, Khaled had taken over the command of the 46 brigade and its intelligence from Shafayat. ‘Khaled was at the centre of everything after the carnage.’
   Mamun said that Khaled as general officer commanding of the Dhaka Cantonment was also commander of the 105 army personnel of the 46 brigade who had been on duty at the house of Sheikh Mujib and Bangabhaban on August 15, 1975.
   He branded illegal the Mujib murder case trial and prayed for its retrial and further investigation of the August 15 carnage. ‘There were some irregularities in the trial process as the trial of the killing of three army personnel at the scene, was held in criminal court.’
   There should have been two trials of the August 15, 1975 incident, because, besides the country’s president, three military personnel, including Mujib’s son Sheikh Jamal, who was also in the army, had been killed in the mutiny, he said.
   The trials of the killing of military personnel should be held in court martial and the killing of the civilians under the criminal court, he said.
   ‘To legalise the proceedings in the Sheikh Mujib murder case, separate trials must be held after reinvestigation,’ Mamun argued.

Owners closed at least eight garment factories in Dhaka city and its adjacent areas in last three moths allegedly without maintaining the factory laws.
   Labour leaders claimed that several thousand garment workers were thrown out of jobs and deprived of wage and allowance arrears due to abrupt closures.
    The National Alliance for Protection of Garments Workers and Industries leader Abul Hossain said the owners had no right to close their factories before clearing workers’ dues.
   The closed garment factories are Nibras Knitwear Limited and SIS Garments Limited at Mahakhali in Dhaka, Marshal Knitex Limited at Kaliakoir and Life Garments Limited at Konabari of Gazipur, Sydney Fashion Limited at Tejgaon in Dhaka, Pubali Knitex Limited in Ashulia and Fountain Garments Manufacturing at Baipail of Savar.
   Nippon Garment at Tongi was the latest unit whose abrupt closure sparked violent protest of workers and resulted in death of at least three people in police firing Saturday.
   Pubali Knitex has resumed production recently, but has not paid the workers’ dues, rights leaders said.
   Workers of most of the closed factories were not paid wages, overtime bills, festival allowances and other service benefits, they claimed.
   Garments Sramik Oikya Forum president Mushrefa Mishu said garment factory owners have the right to close their factories but they have to maintain the factory laws properly and clear all dues of workers.
   But in most cases workers are denied their rights and subjected to harassment by the authorities, she said.
   Of the country’s nearly 4,000 garment factories, roughly 3,000 units are situated in capital Dhaka and the outskirts.
   Industry sources said global recession took it toll on export orders, forcing many large factories to scale down production. Small factories, which mainly stitch as subcontractors for big companies, were badly hit and many of them turned insolvent.
   There is bankruptcy law in force, but rarely any company goes to a court to seek bankruptcy protection because of legal complication, they pointed out.
   Many factories find closures or layoffs without notice an easy exit, rendering workers jobless overnight, they said.
   Law requires a factory owner to notify at least one month before shutting down production and a copy of the notice must reach the labour department immediately. All dues and other benefits must be cleared before the closure.
   Prior notice is also a must in case of layoff and the owner is to specify the reasons, labour rights campaigners said quoting industrial relations and labour laws.
   After Saturday’s apparel industry unrest at Tongi, BGMEA president Abdus Salam Murshedy argued that falling subcontracting jobs put Nippon Garment into financial trouble and forced it to announce the layoff, which, he said, was duly notified.
   Nippon did not owe its workers any due wages and the factory notified its workers to receive October salary on November 10.
   Israfil Alam, a lawmaker and apparel industry owner Saturday pointed to a legal grey area and said it was not legally binding on factory owners to inform any authority in advance of closure or layoff. ‘I think the law should be amended,’ said the lawmaker.

Ten students of Government Kalia Primary School fell sick after they took deworming tablets at their school of Dema union under Bagerhat sadar Sunday noon. The ailing students who were admitted to Bagerhat Sadar Hospital are Shahidul, Halima, Nazir, Rasel, Jhumur, Imroz, Monira, Talim, Sadique and Rabeya.
   Sources in the hospital, quoting the ailing students and their teachers, said all the students took the deworming tablets at the school on the occasion of National Worm Control Day and the sick students began vomiting and suffered from stomach upset.
   The teachers and parents of the students took the students to Bagerhat Sadar Hospital for treatment.
   According to the sources, the district administration formed a probe committee, headed by Bagerhat sadar upazila education officer, and the health department has formed another probe committee, headed by Bagerhat deputy civil surgeon.
   Bagerhat civil surgeon Dr Subas Kumar Saha said a total of 2.5 lakh children aged from 6 to 12 were given the tablet and a few students of Kalia Primary School fell sick after taking the tablets.
   He said one of the students who firstly fell sick had been suffering from diarrhoea and was given the tablet. The other students, frightened by his illness, also fell sick immediately.
   The civil surgeon, however, said the students are being given proper treatment and a probe committee was formed by the health department in this connection.

Only 40 to 50 of a total 312 call centres which got license from Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission are in operation while one of the operators has gone into hiding embezzling about Tk 1 crore from more than 100 youths.
   BTRC, the country's telecom regulatory body, appears to have no authority to punish any of the licencees in case they fail to go into operation or cheat people, sources in BTRC said.
   One Shahed Latif, who took a call centre licence from BTRC in May in the name of Bentel Care 24x7, had collected around Tk 1 crore from different people for making them franchise partner for the proposed call centre and training programme.
   But it now alleged that Latif left the country in September with the money he collected from people.
   Shahed Latif had procured the call centre licence in May by paying BTRC a fee of Tk 5,000 showing his office at Dhanmondi, officials of BTRC said.
   A group of 15 deceived youth recently filed a general diary with Dhanmondi police station, claiming that they had deposited Tk 47.49 lakh to Shahed to become franchise partner of Bentel for different areas of the country.
   They alleged that they were lured by advertisement of Bentel and signed written agreements with the company officials for becoming their franchise partners.
   The youths alleged that they did not find any trace of Shahed Latif after the vacation of Eid-ul-Fitr last September.
   In the GD the youths mentioned that Salahuddin, a resident of Mohammadpur, had given Shahed Tk 4 lakh, Mahafuzul Bashar of Mirpur Tk 2.22 lakh, Mohammad Ayub of Narayanganj Tk 2.61 lakh, Abu Sayeed of Savar Tk 2 lakh, Hasan Mahmud of Chandpur Tk 2.34 lakh, Zahidul Alam of Chitagong Tk 3.17 lakh, Mozaffar Hossain of Chittagong Tk 5 lakh and Iqbal of Chittagong Tk 2.80 lakh.
   They also alleged that Shahed also collected lakhs of taka from other youth people from across the country.
   Besides, Bentel also collected Tk 32,000 from each of some 100 people for giving them training on call centre operation.
   Shahed Latif also did not pay salaries to 22 staff of Bental before he left the country, they alleged.
   The office of Bentel is now under lock and key and all their mobile phones are switched off.
   Asked about BTRC steps against fraud licensees of the call centres, a BTRC official told New Age that they had no authority to take any legal steps against people like Shahed. All that BTRC can do is to cancel his licence.
   'If any licensee cheats with any person, it is a criminal offence. The victim should file case and police should take steps in such cases. We don't deal with criminal offences. The Telecommunication Act has not given us such authority. We can only cancel the licences,' he explained.
   When asked whether the BTRC should take steps to include provision in the act to punish the culprits, he said, 'Such provision can be included. But for cheating there is provision in the penal code for punishment. If we include such issue in the telecom act, it might contradict with the penal code,' he pointed out.
   The official said that BTRC already put out advertisements in newspapers last week asking call centre licencees, who are yet to start operation, to surrender their licences to the commission.
   The number of licencees of call centres became too many because of low amount for the licence fee.
   BTRC chairman Zia Ahmed could not be reached for his comments despite repeated attempts.

At least eight people were injured in a violent clash between the activists of the Bangladesh Chhatra League and Chhatra Moitree at the Politechnic Institute in Rajshahi on Sunday.
   Three of the injured, including the institute
   unit president of the
   BCL, were admitted to Rajshahi Medical College Hospital.
   Polytechnic Institute sources said the BCL and Chhatra Moitree had been at daggers drawn over establishing supremacy on the campus since the Awami League-led alliance government assumed office in January.
   Witnesses said armed Chhatra Moitree activists, led by its institute chief Jahid Hasan and Rafi, Samrat, and Shishir had pounced on BCL leader Babu with iron rods in front of the institute's administrative building when he was returning to his hostel in the afternoon.
   As the news spread, BCL activists brandishing iron rods and hockey sticks came to the spot and charged into their rivals. The rival student groups hurled stones at each other during the clash in presence of the police.
   BCL sources alleged police charged baton on their activists during the clash in which BCL's institute unit president Nizam, and activists Shakil, Abdur Rahim and Jahangir were injured.
   Of the injured Nizam, Rahim and Shakil were admitted to RMCH.
   Chhatra Moitree activists also damaged Nizam's motorbike, witnesses said.
   The BCL accused the police of siding with Chhatra Moitree during the clash and later staged a demonstration on the campus protesting at the police attack on their leaders and activists.
   The BCL city unit leaders went to the campus and calmed their activists.
   The BCL activists stopped their protest demonstration after the assistant police commissioner of Boalia zone, Zahangir Hossain, intervened and assured them of taking action against the policemen responsible for charging baton on them.
   The BCL also threate-ned to retaliate if the Moitree activists responsible for the attack were not arrested.
   The BCL staged angry protests in the city in the afternoon.
   No cases were filed in this connection till filing of the report at 6:15pm.
   Police reinforcements have been sent to the campus to avert further trouble.

Members of the Rapid Action Battalion arrested the wife and a brother-in-law of the acting chief of banned Islamist outfit Jamaatul Mujahideen Bangladesh busting a den at Mayakanon at Sabujbagh in the capital Sunday afternoon.
   The arrested were identified as Nurunnahar Himu, 25, second wife of JMB acting amir Maulana Saidur Rahman, her younger brother and finance adviser of the outfit Muktasim Billah alias Rubel, 20, and his wife Asma Mimi, 18.
   Captain Taifur Mahbub, the operation officer of RAB-3, told New Age, 'The chief went out of the house, where he had been residing with his second wife, just 20 minutes before the drive.'
   They had seized papers inscribed with instructions on how to make bombs, some leaflets on militancy, 25 cell phone SIMs and documents of JMB funds, he added.
   Saidur Rahman, acting amir of the banned outfit, has been leading the organisation since the execution of erstwhile JMB chief Shaikh Abdur Rahman with five others on March 29, 2007.
   Battalion sources said a team of RAB-3 launched a drive on the forth floor of five-storey building located at 3/4, Mayakanan owned by Mohammad Shahidullah at around 6:00pm and arrested them from the scene.
   The team also seized huge quantity of books on militancy, money receipts, guide books of explosives and 25 SIMs of different operators.
   RAB said during primary interrogation the arrested admitted that they had been living in this residence for five months along with elder son of the chief Abu Talha Mohammad Fahim alias Bashar.

The Maldives government has accorded legal permission to over 16,000 Bangladeshis to stay and work there.
   The expatriate welfare and overseas employment minister, Khandaker Mosharraf Hossain, told the media on Sunday on his return from a four-day trip to the island country.
   'A total 16,100 Bangladeshis in Maldives had no legal papers. We approached the Maldivian leaders including the president and discussed the matter and then they permitted our people to stay there legally,' said the minister.
   The ministry sources said about 40,000 Bangladeshis now live in the Maldives.

The police on Sunday obstructed an exhibition titled 'Into Exile: Tibet 1949-2009' and locked up the venue, Drik Gallery.
   The Students for a Free Tibet, Bangladesh along with Drik organised the exhibition, scheduled for opening on Sunday evening.
   The police closed the exhibition venue about 3:00pm. The organisers, however, had the exhibition inaugurated outside the gallery.
   The Dhanmondi police officer-in-charge, Shah Alam, told New Age the police were following the instructions of 'higher authorities'. He did not say who the 'higher authorities' were.
   The organisers arranged a peaceful demonstration in front of the gate of the gallery in protest at the police action.
   'The police made the intervention before the inauguration of the event, saying the event did not have the permission to proceed,' Shahidul Alam, founder and principal of the Pathshala-South Asian Institute of Photography, said at the demonstration. 'A couple of officials from Chinese embassy in Dhaka came to us the day before and asked us to stop the exhibition. A secretary of the state also called for the same purpose.'
   A shocked Shahidul said, 'The sudden intervention by the police is surprising while a foreign country's dictation as to what to be on display is humiliating.'
   Shahidul earlier asked the police to produce the official order asking the exhibition to be stopped, if there was any. But the police refused to do so.
   'We have the right to know of the neighbouring countries. It is our freedom. I could not find any reason for stopping this freedom,' said Professor Muzaffer Ahmad, chairman of the Transparency International, Bangladesh, who inaugurated the programme outside the gallery.
   'The images feature invent of the Tibetan people, their plight, deprivation and sufferings caused by the Chinese government,' said an organiser of the students’ group.

The High Court on Sunday stayed the new candidature list announced on October 6 for the elections to the Bangladesh Medical Association scheduled for November 5.
   The court also asked the association’s election commission to explain why the new list, which reportedly had into it inserted names of 98 candidates nominated by the ruling Awami League-backed Swadhinata Chikitshak Parishad, would not be declared illegal.
   The High Court bench of Justice Abdul Awal and Justice M Moazzem Hossain passed the order after hearing a writ petition filed by a contesting panel of the BNP-backed physicians’ wing Doctors Association of Bangladesh, challenging the legality of the new list.
   Moving the petition, the petitioners’ counsel Rafique-ul Huq told the court the BMA election commission changed the candidature list in violation of the BMA’s electoral rules.
   According to the rules, the candidature list needs to be hung 30 days before the polls.

Former state minister for home Lutfozzaman Babar has filed two petitions in the High Court seeking sanctions to be quizzed at jail gate and for proper medical treatment.
   Mahbubuuddin Khokan, lawyer for Babar, told bdnews24.com the petition was filed with the bench of justices Nazrul Islam Chowdhury and Mamnun Rahman on Sunday.
   The CID police took the ex-BNP state minister for home on remand in connection with the August 21, 2004 grenade blast case.
   The Supreme Court on Thursday put a seven-day halt on a High Court stay order regarding remanding Babar.
   Babar, already behind bars since March this year, serving 17 years on an arms conviction, was shown arrested in the grenade attack case on Monday.
   The grenade attack on the Awami League rally on Bangabandhu Avenue killed at least 23 people and left scores injured, including prime minister Sheikh Hasina, who was then opposition leader.
   Some 22 people stand charged in the cases, including former BNP state minister Abdus Salam Pintu, his brother Maolana Tajuddin, also the alleged grenade supplier, and Mufti Hannan.

The tourism and hospitality department chair in Dhaka University, Afzal Hossain, on Sunday resigned from the position in the face of agitation of the department student.
   The vice-chancellor, AAMS Arefin Siddique, told New Age Afzal had tendered his resignation in the afternoon and he had accepted it.
   Afzal Hossain said a quarter was acting against him and he resigned as he thought he would not be able to face them.
   No classes have been held in the department for the four months as the department is running with only two teachers, and students kept going out on demonstrations seeking redress.
   The department could not take classes or examinations after July 2009 because of the indifference of the authorities to teacher recruitment, some students told New Age.
   The department was launched in the 2007-08 session. The second-batch students of the department have just completed their first semester, but they are yet to see any classes for their second semester.