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Academic activities in public universities are seriously hampered as the teachers remain busy working part time with private universities and consultancy firms, according to a report of the University Grants Commission.
   Students of public universities levelled similar allegations against the teachers.
   Senior teachers, in some cases, are more interested in round tables, meetings, seminars and talk shows on television which also hampers education and add to session jam, the students said.
   ‘Public universities lag behind in academic session because of session jam. The incidents of such session jams are not all because of internal affairs of the universities,’ said the 2008 annual report of the commission, which regulates universities.
   The commission has recommended the university authorities along with all quarters should come forward to solve the problem of session jam.
   The commission’s annual report for 2008, scheduled to be submitted to the president in a few days, has also recommended public universities should formulate policies to stop the practice of indiscriminate part-time job by their teachers so that they could concentrate more on their primary job.
   In support of the UGC observation, an anthropology student of Dhaka University said he became astonished when he came to know that one of the fresh lecturers in his department was doing part-time jobs in a private university, ignoring his main job.
   ‘How does the university allow such a teacher to do part-time job in a private university?’ he said. ‘Some teachers use the Dhaka University job as the passport to part-time jobs in private universities or in consultancy firms for a handsome amount of money.’
   ‘I know that some of my professors who are hard pressed for time in taking classes frequently appear in television talk shows and attend seminars and meetings,’ said a student of law of the university.
   When his attention was called to the matter, Dhaka University Professor Emeritus Serajul Islam Choudhury told New Age on Saturday that public university teachers should not be allowed to be engaged in consultancy.
   ‘As public universities do not have too many seats, students are compelled to enrol on private universities. The reality is that most private universities do not have the ability to recruit full-time teachers and so they depend on part-timers. Likewise, public university teachers also need money to lead a bit better life,’ he said.
   ‘Teachers could be allowed to do part-time teaching job if they do not ignore their main job. But I do not support consultancy as it warrants no creativity. Teachers should be engaged only in teaching,’ he said. ‘The UGC can formulate a guideline and take steps for its strict enforcement.’
   Dhaka University English professor Syed Manzoorul Islam on Saturday said he knew some teachers who were doing part-time job in more than five private universities at a time and such practice was a clear violation of rules.
   The government should work out a set of guidelines on allowing public university teachers to do part-time teaching job in private universities so that their primary job could not be hampered.
   The UGC report said that there were 11,76,969 students in the 31 public universities in 2008 — the National University alone has 9,39,730 students. The number of teachers in the 31 public universities was 67,155.
   The 51 private universities had 1,82,641 students and 8,364 teachers, 3,543 of whom are part-timers.

The Federation of Bangladesh University Teachers’ Association has demanded introduction of a separate pay scale for
   the teachers of public universities.
   The FBUTA, in a meeting in Dhaka Friday made a three-point charter of demands which also included giving due honour to the teachers of public universities in the warrant of precedence and evaluate them equally in allocating Rajuk plots, said a press release Saturday.
   The president of the association, Professor Bazlul Haque, chaired the meeting, which was moderated by the secretary general of the federation, Professor ABM Obaidul Haque.

The BNP secretary general, Khandaker Delwar Hossain, on Saturday said the situation in the country was more perilous now than in 1975 and asked ‘nationalist forces’ to unite and get prepared for protest movement against the ‘undemocratic’ activities of the government.
   ‘Today’s context is more perilous than it was in November 1975. A puppet government and a rubber stamp parliament have been installed through got-up polls. People have started feeling the pinch…,’ he said at a discussion organised by the BNP marking the National Revolution and Solidarity Day at the Institution of Engineers. The party chief, Khaleda Zia was in the audience.
   The government has turned the country into a safe haven for hegemonic forces, he said. ‘Hegemonic and expansionist forces are conspiring against the country in the way they did in 1975,’ he said and urged his party activists to guard against the plots.
   ‘The government is continuing with the move of the military-controlled government to divide BNP into pieces by filing fresh cases and attempting to extract confessions by force from the party leaders in custody. To put the government back on track and to safeguard democracy, all nationalist forces should unite under the leadership of Khaleda Zia,’ he said.
   Delwar accused the government of being engaged in a smear campaign against BNP in a bid to weaken it. ‘Conspiracies are continuing against the party founded by Ziaur Rahman. The prime minister herself is lying in the house about the leader of the opposition. They have turned the parliament into a centre of conspiracies…,’ he said.
   Delwar said if the events of November 7 had not taken place, the country’s independence and sovereignty could not have been protected.
   ‘After the August 15 killings, Mushtaq, a member of the then cabinet had become the president and many Awami League leaders had queued up to have a seat in his cabinet. On November 3, the then army chief Zia was interned by brigadier Khaled Mosharraf who declared himself as the new army chief. The Indian radio broadcast the news before we came to know about it,’ he said.
   ‘In such a situation, many soldiers went to Zia’s house after midnight past November 6 and freed him from confinement,’ the BNP leader said refuting the claims that Zia had captured power.
   Party standing committee member Khandaker Mosharraf Hossain blasted the ‘attempt’ of the ruling party to ‘demean’ historic events. ‘They are trying to mislead the people over the revolution of the soldiers and people,’ he said.
   Retired major general Ruhul Alam Chowdhury said most of the senior officers could not accept Khaled Mosharraf as the army chief while Ganabahini was active in every unit of the army. ‘After midnight past November 6, the entire cantonment heard rattling of rifle-fire… The soldiers freed Zia chanting “Bangladesh Zindabad, Ziaur Rahman Zindabad.” He did not capture power rather he was put in power.’
   Party standing committee member M Shamsul Islam, former speaker Jamiruddn Sircar, BNP chairperson’s advisers ASM Hannan Shah and Ruhul Alam Chowdhury, former Dhaka University vice-chancellors Emajuddin Ahmed and Maniruzzman Miah, former vice-chancellor of Shahjalal University of Science and Technology, Aminul Islam and Dhaka University development studies teacher Mahbubullah also took part in the discussion, among others.
   The BNP marked the National Revolution and Solidarity Day with a call for restoring the state-level programmes of November 7, including the public holiday.
   The BNP’s programmes began with placing flowers at the grave of the party’s founder Ziaur Rahman at Sher-e-Bangla Nagar.
   The party chairperson Khaleda Zia, along with senior leaders and several thousand activists, placed flowers and offered fateha at Zia’s graveside at 11:00am.
   The party’s activists started pouring into Zia Udyan carrying banners and festoons and chanting slogans since morning.
   Khandaker Delwar, central leaders M Shamsul Islam, Tariqul Islam, ASM Hannan Shah, Nazrul Islam Khan, Selima Rahman, Rizvi Ahmed, Jatiyatabadi Juba Dal president Barkatullah Bulu, general secretary Syed Moazzem Hossain Alal, Jatiyatabadi Swechchhasebak Dal president Habibunnabi Khan Sohel and Chhatra Dal president Sultan Salauddin Tuku were present when Khaleda arrived at the grave complex.
   The party flag was hoisted at its central office at Naya Paltan and at all local unit offices.
   The party’s associate organisations – Jatiyatabadi Chhatra Dal, Jatiyatabadi Juba Dal, Jatiyatabadi Sramik Dal, Jatiyatabadi Mahila Dal, Jatiyatabadi Krishak Dal, Jatiyatabadi Ulama Dal, Jatiyatabadi Matshyajibi Dal, Doctors’ Association of Bangladesh, Engineers’ Association of Bangladesh, Zia Shishu Kishore Sangathan and Jatiyatabadi Samajik Sangskritik Sangstha also placed flowers at the grave of Ziaur Rahman.

Public investment through the annual development programme in the country’s backward regions remains far lower than the well-developed areas due to absence of a balanced approach of the successive governments.
    Incidences of poverty in the regions like Khulna, Barisal and Rajshahi are higher than those in Dhaka and Chittagong which have been receiving the bigger slice of development outlay over the years, a planning ministry report says.
   Experts said the successive governments had clear bias towards some regions in allocation of resources that led to uneven distribution of public investment and aggravated the poverty situation given the sorry state of ADP implementation.
   About 47 per cent of the country’s people are poor and most of them live in economic backwaters, which get much less development focus compared to their population sizes, they pointed out, stressing that priority should be given to backward regions in resource allocations to reduce poverty and regional disparities.
   The planning ministry report showed that average 60 per cent of the annual public expenditure had countrywide impacts.
   Of the rest, Dhaka and Chittagong regions shared the highest 12.55 and 6 per cent resources respectively, while Khulna got 2.99 and Barisal only 1.89 per cent, said the report that analysed ADP allocations between 2003-04 and 2006-07 fiscal years.
   The size of ADP was Tk 19,000 crore in the 2003-04 fiscal year, which rose to Tk 21,600 crore in 2006-07.
   As regards the government intervention for poverty reduction, particularly for under-developed regions, the scenario was not very impressive.
   Resource allocations through ADP should be regarded as the key tool to address regional disparity and poverty in backward regions, former finance adviser to interim government Mirza Azizul Islam told New Age.
   He observed that higher public investment in the less developed regions would force private investors and financial institutions to give more focus to those areas.
   Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies senior research director Zaid Bakth pointed out that the activities of private commercial banks and leasing companies were largely confined within Dhaka and Chittagong regions, which are the centre stage of both public and private sector activities.
   He said the successive governments continued to give priority to the advanced regions to back the growth already achieved in those areas, while other regions historically remained on the back burner with the regional development gap widening.
   They suggested measures for infrastructure development, targeted interventions for the extreme poor, increased inflow of remittances and simplification of regulatory regimes to fight poverty in the backward regions.

The government is planning expansion of commuter train service connecting Dhaka and surrounding districts in order to reduce pressure on road transports and ease traffic in the capital.
   'We have a plan to introduce more commuter trains connecting Dhaka with its adjacent districts to rid the capital of traffic congestion,' communications minister Syed Abul Hossain told reporters after a function at the Railway Bhaban on Saturday.
   He said the government had laid emphasis on improving the railway system as train fares were cheaper and service comfortable as well compared to other modes of transport.
   The commuter railway service introduced on Joydevpur-Dhaka-Naraynaganj route has become popular for its time efficiency and cost effectiveness although it operates once a day. The railway operates two other commuter trains from Dhaka - Jamalpur Commuter to Dewanganj and Titas Commuter to Akhaura.
   It takes a commuter from Uttara at least two hours to reach Motijheel by bus whereas by train it takes only 30 minutes from the Airport station to reach Kamalapur station in Motijheel.
   But commuters find insufficient the service of Bangladesh Railway from Joydevpur to Naraynaganj via Dhaka.
   A number of commuters said that the railway authorities should increase the frequency of the commuter service on the Joyvedpur-Dhaka-Narayanganj route considering its popularity. 'Many city people will feel encouraged to stay outside Dhaka if more commuter trains run between Dhaka and its nearby districts,' said a private service holder who resides in Tongi on the outskirts of the capital.
   'We will increase the frequency of commuter train service between Joydevpur and Narayanganj after arranging more coaches…At present, we do not have enough coaches to add them to the commuter trains,' director general of Bangladesh Railway, Md Belayet Hossain told New Age on Saturday.
   He said the commuter trains ferry passengers to and from Narayangang 11 times a day and once from Joydevpur.
   'We are also considering expansion of the commuter services to connect Dhaka with Tangail, Sripur and Bhairab but it depends on availability of coaches and development of infrastructure,' the railway chief added.
   Divisional railway manager of Dhaka, Golam Kibria said the frequency on Dhaka-Narayanganj route would be increased once the single line was turned double. 'We are planning operating commuter trains on the route every 30 minutes in the morning and evening rush hours,' he added.
   The network of the state-run railway, which has a total of 34,168 regular employees, covers a length of 2,855 route kilometers. It also operates 28 intercity trains across the country.

US government-to-government arms sales rose 4.7 per cent to a record $38.1 billion last year, and are expected to total almost as much in 2010, the Pentagon agency that administers them said on Friday.
   Arms deals, often sensitive because of regional politics, may become even more so for the administration of the president, Barack Obama, who won the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize last month.
   Some critics say Obama should rein in arms transfers, partly to avoid regional arms races. But overseas sales are increasingly important to US contractors seeking to offset Pentagon belt-tightening at home.
   Many if not most of the sales pacts signed in fiscal 2009, which ended September 30, are part of a boom in conventional weapons sales that started under former president George W Bush.
   The 2009 figures represent over a quadrupling from a sales ‘low point’ in fiscal 1998, according to Vice Admiral Jeffrey Wieringa, head of the Defence Security Cooperation Agency.
   The sales are indicative of a drive to strengthen US partners and thus boost US national security, Wieringa said in an October 22 blog posting on his agency’s web site.
   The 2009 tally, revised after that posting, were up from $36.4 billion in fiscal 2008 and $23.3 billion in 2007, said the security agency. It administers the Pentagon’s Foreign Military Sales programme, a key part of US alliance-building.
   Sales are expected to top $37.9 billion in fiscal 2010, which began October 1, Vanessa Murray, an agency spokeswoman, said in a written reply to Reuters.
   The top buyers in fiscal 2009 were United Arab Emirates ($7.9 billion), Afghanistan ($5.4 billion) and Saudi Arabia ($3.3 billion), followed by Taiwan ($3.2 billion), Egypt ($2.1 billion), Iraq ($1.6 billion), NATO ($924.5 million), Australia ($818.7 million) and South Korea ($716.6 million).
   Rachel Stohl, co-author of a new book, The International Arms Trade, said Obama, who took office on January 20, seems to be sticking with ‘the Bush administration mantra of sell, sell, sell, rather than a more cautious approach.’
   William Hartung of the New America Foundation, a Washington-based research group focused on US defence and foreign policy issues, said Obama should pay more attention to regional arms-race dangers, human-rights records and shun sales to countries that can ill-afford them.
   Top US arms makers such as Lockheed Martin Corp (LMT.N: Quote, Profile, Research), Boeing Co (BA.N: Quote, Profile, Research), Northrop Grumman Corp (NOC.N: Quote, Profile, Research), General Dynamics Corp (GD.N: Quote, Profile, Research) and Raytheon Co (RTN.N: Quote, Profile, Research) are hoping to boost foreign sales to hedge against US budget pressures that could slow big-ticket Pentagon arms purchases.
   Overseas sales lower the unit price of US armed forces’ weapons and keep components available that would be otherwise hard to find, said Remy Nathan of the Aerospace Industries Association, which lobbies on behalf of US arms makers.
   Demand is booming, fed in part by regional tensions fanned by nuclear and ballistic missile programs in Iran and North Korea.
   In September, for instance, the Pentagon told Congress of a possible sale to Turkey of the most modern model of its Patriot anti-missile missile in a package valued at up to $7.8 billion.
   The Gulf states and Saudi Arabia are ‘extremely worried about Iran’s pursuit of a nuclear weapons capability,’ Alexander Vershbow, US assistant secretary of defence for international security affairs, told reporters last month.
   ‘They want to buy Patriots or other systems over the coming years. So right now, demand exceeds supply because of the real sense of threat they feel,’ he said.
   Other big sales could come from the ‘best market in decades’ for fighter aircraft, with multibillion competitions under way or planned in India, Brazil, South Korea, Japan, Greece and elsewhere, said Richard Aboulafia of the Teal Group, an aerospace consultancy.
   Worldwide arms sales totalled $55.2 billion in calendar 2008, a decrease of 7.6 percent from 2007 and the lowest total since 2005, the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service said in a September report.
   The United States accounted for $37.8 billion of the total on a calendar year basis, or a lopsided 68.4 percent, up sharply from $25.4 billion in 2007, said the report by Richard Grimmett.
   Italy ranked a distant second with $3.7 billion in signed weapons deals, or 6.7 percent of the total, up from $1.2 billion in 2007, the study showed, followed by Russia with contracts valued at $3.5 billion, down from $10.8 billion in 2007.

The prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, has said Bangladesh has already talked to neighbouring India about transit route between Bangladesh and Bhutan aiming to boost cooperation in trade, tourism, industrialisation, power generation and the like.
   ‘Once this route is established, we could immediately start Dhaka-Thimpu direct bus service, with normal transportation. This would clearly contribute further to increasing people-to-people contact alongside trade,’ she told her audience at a state function in the Bhutanese capital on Saturday night.
   She called for intensifying cooperation between Bangladesh and Bhutan specifically in establishing small-and medium-scale industries in both the countries.
   Addressing the banquet function hosted by her Bhutanese counterpart Jigme Y Thinley at the Royal Banquet Hall, the visiting prime minister also stressed the need for joint efforts in power and energy sector, particularly in generating hydroelectricity, for mutual benefits.
   The prime minister proposed that the electric power generated in the Himalayan Kingdom of Bhutan could be exported to neighbouring countries, including Bangladesh.
   ‘For such regional grid connectivity, our two countries could work together,’ she said.
   Hasina further called for united efforts for best utilisation of the two countries’ scenic beauties in the tourism sector.
   ‘Tourism is an important area where our two countries could cooperate in attracting tourists from the region, and around the world. We could prepare alluring packages combining visits to the snowy white mountain ranges of the Himalayas with the silvery, sandy beaches of Cox’s Bazaar in southern Bangladesh,’ she said.
   The prime minister of Bhutan, Jigme Y Thinley, welcomed Hasina’s suggestion for introducing bilateral road communications between the two neighbouring countries as Dhaka and Thimpu moved to enhance the two-way trade under a renewed deal.
   ‘We will be happy if we can set up land communications with Bangladesh,’ the host prime minister said when Hasina met him at his office Gyalong Tshokhang in the Bhutanese capital on Saturday afternoon and the two sides held extensive talks on cooperation.
   Bangladesh renewed its bilateral trade agreement with Bhutan Saturday for the next five years under which Bhutan will get duty-free access of 18 new products to Bangladesh, mainly fruits and vegetables.
   The commerce minister, Faruk Khan, and the Bhutanese economic affairs minister, Lyonpo Khandu Wangchuk, signed the agreement in presence of the two premiers at the Bhutanese Prime Minister’s Office.
   Under the renewed trade agreement, Tamabil of Bangladesh has been introduced as a new entry and exit point for Bhutan in the protocol to the trade agreement.
   Besides, the number of products has been increased to 90 from the previous 74 for trading between Bangladesh and Bhutan.
   The trade agreement was first signed in 1980 for ten years and extended for another 10 years automatically as per provision of the deal that means the validity was up to 2000. The trade agreement was signed again in 2003 for five years.
   Hasina in her meeting with her Bhutanese counterpart proposed that Bangladesh and Bhutan introduce cross-border road communications through three points — Burimari port (Lalmonirhat), Tamabil (Sylhet) and Naoka (Sherpur) — to enhance bilateral trade and people-to-people contact between the two close neighbours.
   Briefing reporters after the meeting the deputy press secretary to the prime minister, Nazrul Islam, said Hasina also told the Bhutanese prime minister that her government was modernising Mongla seaport and other ports of the country which Bhutan could use for the landlocked country’s external trade.
   ‘Bhutan can use the Mongla port, which will help in boosting bilateral trade and economy of the two countries,’ Hasina said.
   She declared at the meeting that the planned Rangamati University would be built in the light of Bhutanese architectures.
   The two prime ministers also discussed a wide range of other issues, including ways of enhancing the bilateral trade and business and jointly facing the risks of climate change.
   The Bhutanese prime minister thanked Hasina for her strong role in the international forums regarding arranging funds for the climate-victim countries, including Bangladesh and Bhutan, to tackle the daunting challenges stemming from the global climate change.
   Hasina, during the meeting, invited the Bhutanese prime minister to visit Bangladesh. The Bhutanese prime minister accepted the invitation.
   Earlier, the Bhutanese king, Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuk, hosted a reception for Hasina at his palace.

A senior British politician Frank Dobson MP told UK parliament this week that worldwide action is needed to rein in climate change and save the most at-risk countries like Bangladesh.
   The Labour MP and former health secretary, terming it ‘the most vulnerable’ country, said Bangladesh could only be saved by supporting long-term climate adaptation plans on a ‘vast scale’.
   ‘Nothing else will do,’ Dobson said during a five-hour debate on climate change in the House of Commons last Thursday.
   The secretary of state for energy and climate change, Ed Miliband, admitted in the debate that the 15th UN Climate Change Conference at Copenhagen in December is unlikely to produce a legally binding way forward on curbing global emissions and tackling climate change.
   He said ‘political agreement’ was a more likely outcome, which he hoped would drive forward ‘a very clear timetable, to a legally binding treaty’.
   Miliband told the Commons: ‘I think an agreement without numbers is not a great agreement. In fact it’s a wholly inadequate agreement.’
   In the Barcelona climate talks this week, held in preparation for COP15, the poorest African countries walked out of talks in protest that rich nations were not prepared to pledge the required cuts in emissions to avoid significant global warming.
   China, India and Indonesia have all recently published plans for emission cuts, but political wrangling among industrialised nations and emerging economies over details of the agreed proposals looks set to continue.
   Bangladesh, meanwhile, which fears rising seas will displace 200 million people by 2100, has been at the forefront of the least developed countries in pressing for global climate adaptation funds and a climate refugee plan at international forums ahead of the Copenhagen summit.
   Dobson’s speech in the Commons on Thursday focused entirely on Bangladesh, termed on the ‘frontier’ of climate change.
   He told the house, ‘Today’s debate is general and wide-ranging, and I will leave it to others to deal with many of the issues involved. It is clear that the climate is changing and that in most parts of the world it is changing for the worse. I wish to concentrate my attention on the one place that is most vulnerable to climate change and has the largest population at risk — Bangladesh, a country a little larger than England and with nearly three times our population.’
   Highlighting the problems of flooding caused by climate change, he told fellow MPs that dangerous and damaging floodwaters come from three different sources, sometimes at different times and sometimes in combination. The monsoon rains over Bangladesh, the melt waters of the Himalayas and cyclones from the Bay of Bengal all cause flooding. All three sources of flooding are beyond the control of the government and people of Bangladesh. All that can be done is to try to protect against them, he said.
   ‘Most of Bangladesh is formed of the delta of not one but two of the world’s major rivers, the Ganges and the Brahmaputra, as they discharge their waters into the Bay of Bengal. As a result, most of the people of Bangladesh live on one of the ultimate frontiers of the world — a frontier between land and water and between the works of humankind and the forces of nature,’ said Dobson.
   Dobson said just one glance at the map of Bangladesh shows both the scale and the complexity of the problem and any measures intended to deal with it.
   ‘Climate change will cause problems in [the UK], but without wishing to diminish their significance in any way, they will pale into insignificance compared with the problems of Bangladesh.
   The white cliffs of Dover are not likely to be engulfed, but the chars, sandbanks, mudbanks and riverbanks of Bangladesh will be unless we help the resilient and talented people of that country to build the protection they need against the disastrous and deadly consequences of climate change.’
   Dobson is Labour MP for London’s Holborn and St Pancras.

The police in India’s north-eastern state of Assam produced two top leaders of the banned separatist outfit ULFA in a Guwahati court on Saturday.
   The chief judicial magistrate in Guwahati sent the duo to police custody for 10 days after they were produced in his court on Saturday.
   ULFA has alleged that its ‘finance secretary’ Chitrabon Hazarika and ‘foreign secretary’ Shashadhar Choudhury had been picked up by ‘unidentified armed men’ from a house in Dhaka, sometime between November 1 night and November 2 morning.
   The outfit has called for a dawn-to-dusk general shutdown across the state of Assam on Monday (November 9) to protest against the detention of its leaders.
   In a statement e-mailed to the press, the ULFA chairman, Arabinda Rajkhowa, alleged that the detention of Hazarika and Choudhury from Dhaka was part of the Indian government’s ‘conspiracy’ to neutralise the organisation’s leaders.
   The organisation has also protested at their ‘handover to Indian authorities’ though Bangladesh has no extradition treaty with India.
   Neither the Indian government in New Delhi nor the state government in Assam has made any official statement on how the two top rebel leaders landed in the custody of the Indian police.
   Sources in India’s home ministry, however, speaking to bdnews24.com in New Delhi, said Hazarika and Choudhury had been spotted by the Border Security Force personnel on the Bangladesh-India border at Gokul Nagar in Tripura.
   ‘They were trying to cross over to India from Bangladesh, when the BSF personnel spotted them and asked them to surrender. They surrendered and were taken into custody,’ an official of the Indian government’s ministry of home affairs said.
   He added that the two ULFA leaders had later been taken to Guwahati.
   The Indian government and security agencies have long alleged that ULFA and other insurgent groups operating in the country’s north-eastern states have bases in Bangladesh.
   They claim that the ULFA chairman, ‘military chief’ Paresh Barua and other leaders remote-control the outfit’s subversive activities in Assam from Dhaka and other cities in Bangladesh.
   They have, however, acknowledged that Hasina’s government, coming to power in January this year, has come down heavily on ULFA leaders and their activities in Bangladesh, booking them in cases such as the 2004 Chittagong ‘ten truck arms’ haul.
   The Indian government’s ministry of external affairs has not yet made any formal statement on the detention of Hazarika and Choudhury.

Two teachers and a student were injured Saturday when suspected militants hurled a hand grenade at a girls' school in insurgency-hit southwestern Pakistan, the police said.
   The militants lobbed the grenade at a state-run junior school in Quetta, the capital of oil- and gas-rich Baluchistan province, which borders Iran and Afghanistan, senior police officer Khalid Manzoor said.
   The grenade blew off the staff room's roof and splinters hit two female teachers and an eight-year-old student, he said.
   'The teachers had wounds to their heads but both are out of danger in the hospital,' Manzoor said, adding that the student had only minor injuries.
   No one claimed responsibility for the attack.
   Grenade and bomb explosions and drive-by shootings are fairly frequent in impoverished Baluchistan province, which is gripped by an insurgency.
   Hundreds of people have died since Baluch rebels rose up against the central government in 2004, demanding autonomy and a greater share of the profits from the region's natural resources.
   Meanwhile, Pakistan's military said Saturday it had killed 12 Taliban militants as government troops pressed a major offensive in the South Waziristan tribal area bordering Afghanistan.
   Some 30,000 troops backed by fighter jets and helicopter gunships launched a fierce air and ground offensive into the northwest region three weeks ago and the military has since claimed a series of successes.
   It said troops on Friday penetrated into Makin, the hometown of slain Taliban chief Baitullah Mehsud who was killed along with some of his family members in a missile strike fired by a US drone on August 5.
   Security forces were also consolidating their positions at Sararogha and its surrounding heights in the rugged mountainous region.

The ruling Awami League is unlikely to launch shortly its planned drive for recruitment of new members due to its failure to complete the preparations for the drive, party leaders have admitted.
   The member recruitment drive was supposed to begin in the second week of November but the party has not been able to finalise its manifesto and even application forms for the new members. Preparation of the party manifesto is a mandatory process for roping in new members.
   However, the party is hoping to launch the recruitment drive by the first half of December after holding its extended meeting scheduled for late November. The drive will continue for six months.
   'We have to complete certain formalities and hopefully we will be able to start the process by the middle of December,' said the party's organising secretary, Khalid Mahmud Chowdhury.
   The party is also contemplating providing party identity cards to its leaders at all levels, who would be brought under the framework of the party after new recruitments and review of old memberships, he told New Age.
   The Awami League decided to launch the drive to infuse fresh blood into it in view of stagnation in the party's activities at the grassroots level.
   The party's departmental secretaries, at a meeting on October 17, took the decision to launch the drive in the second week of November to recruit new members and renew memberships and hold an extended meeting of the party in the third week of the month.
   Organising secretaries were asked to report to the central leadership on their assessment of the situation and suggesting ways and means to overcome organisational inertia and resolving intra-party disputes at the grassroots level.
   The organising secretaries, who have already begun tour of their respective divisions, are expected to submit their reports at the next meeting of the Awami League central working committee, the highest policy-making body of the party, to be held before the extended meeting.
   At present, the Awami League has about 1.25 crore members, according to the party. The party has not fixed the number of new members to be recruited. They would be mostly from the new voters.
   'We have not set any target in terms of number. We will try to rope in as many new members as possible,' the party's general secretary and LGRD and cooperatives minister, Syed Ashraful Islam, said.
   The party's constitution reads that every citizen, aged 18 or above, shall be entitled to become a member of the Awami League; if he/she does not appear to be involved in any activities against the independence, sovereignty, state security, territorial integrity, national solidarity as well as state ideals and public security.
   There are two types of membership in the organisation - primary (temporary membership) and full membership.

Pharmacies at Mitford in Dhaka and in Chittagong went on strike on Saturday in protest at the seizure of drugs by the Rapid Action Battalion from the Popular Medical Hall in Chittagong on Wednesday.
   About 2,500 pharmacies at Mitford, the country's largest wholesale drug market, in Dhaka had been shut for several hours. More than 400 drug wholesalers on Hazari Lane in Chittagong where the Popular Medical Hall is located also went on strike.
   The Rapid Action Battalion in Chittagong seized drugs from the Popular Medical Hall about 6:00pm Wednesday. The battalion also arrested three drug sellers from the pharmacy.
   Pharmacists rallying against the seizure and the arrest on Saturday said the battalion had seized drugs worth an estimated Tk 20 lakh.
   Drug wholesalers in Dhaka teamed up as the Bangladesh Chemists and Druggists' Association had been on strike between 9:00am and 2:00pm.
   They also demanded an end to their 'harassment' and proper investigation of the seizure of drugs by the battalion.
   They also demanded that the three drug sellers arrested by the battalion in Chittagong should be released.
   Sadekur Rahman, the president of the Bangladesh Chemists and Druggists Association, told New Age there was no gazette notification defining legal drugs.
   The association's joint secretary Monir Hossain said, 'The government has not given us any list of drugs identifying them legal or illegal. So the wholesalers are confused and are harassed by various government agencies.'
   Monir Hossain alleged the law enforcement agencies had seized medicines but had not provided any seizure list.
   The association's members alleged the battalion personnel had even seized legal drugs such as insulin, eye drop, medicine for the treatment of cancer and heart saying that they were illegal.
   He urged the government to make an official list of 'legal and illegal drugs' and provide the pharmacists with the list.
   'Physicians in cases prescribe drugs which are not produced locally or imported. So there is always the need for such drugs,' Sadekur said. 'This is another reason pharmacies sell illegal drugs.'
   The New Age correspondent in Chittagong said shops on Hazari Lane kept their shops closed for the day in protest at the incident.
   The Hazari Lane Pharmacy Owners' Association president, Samir Kanti Sikdar, said the battalion seized legal medicines along with some contraband drugs but gave them no seizure list.
   'Some unnamed persons identifying themselves as RAB personnel were demanding toll from us and threatening harassment,' he said, adding that the raid was conducted as 'we had refused to pay them any money.'
   RAB 7 assistant superintendent Sazzad Hossain, however, brushed aside the allegation and said they could not provide the seizure list during the drive and they would need more than 10 hours to do so.

The US president, Barack Obama, led his nation in mourning Saturday as shocked Americans struggled to understand why a Muslim army doctor killed 13 in a massacre at a US military base.
   Alleged shooter Major Nidal Malik Hasan, 39, a psychiatrist and specialist in combat stress who had been about to deploy to Afghanistan against his wishes, also wounded 30 people in Thursday's rampage.
   Speculation swirled at Fort Hood, Texas as to whether the alleged shooter had snapped under the pressure of his job counselling thousands of war-weary troops, or was motivated by deeper convictions.
   In his weekly radio address Saturday, Obama sought to reassure US soldiers.
   ‘Thursday’s shooting was one of the most devastating ever committed on an American military base,’ he said. ‘And yet, even as we saw the worst of human nature on full display, we also saw the best of America.’
   The president noted that soldiers and civilians rushed to help, tearing off bullet-riddled clothes to treat the injured and using blouses as tourniquets.
   Obama ordered flags to fly at half-staff at the White House and federal buildings, as troops here and around the world held a minute’s silence to mourn the dead.
   Obama would also attend a memorial service due to be held in the coming days, the White House said.
   The bodies of those killed were taken to the same mortuary at Dover Air Base in Delaware.

Obesity causes more than 100,000 incidents of cancer in the US every year, the American Institute for Cancer Research said in estimates published Friday.
   The group, which funds research on the link between diet and the disease, said 49 per cent of endrometrial cancers, which originate in the womb, and 35 per cent of esophageal cancers are linked to excess body fat.
   'It's clearer than ever that obesity's impact is felt before, during and after cancer, it increases risk, makes treatment more difficult and shortens survival,' said Laurence Kolonel of the Cancer Research Centre of Hawaii.
   Scientists have long seen a link between obesity and certain types of cancer, but the study - extrapolated from US cancer incidence data - is among the first to conclude the link exists on such a scale.
   Researchers have yet to pin down the exact link between obesity and cancer, but some have suggested that fat tissue may produce heightened levels of sex hormones that spur cancer growth or that fat lowers immune function.

A company commander-level flag meeting between the Bangladesh Rifles and Myanmar border force Nasaka was held at Chak-dhalai under Naikhyangchari upazila Friday.
   BDR sources said issues relating to intruding of Rohingyas from Myanmar into Bangladesh, introduction of new BDR uniform, construction of barbed wire fencing came up for discussion in the meeting.
   An 11-member BDR team led by Subedar Nurul Islam was present at the meeting while Nasaka delegation was represented by commander of Walidang camp Tunite Ram.