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Lax monitoring by the Dhaka City Corporation authorities is mainly blamed for continued selling of adulterated food items in the capital that poses a serious threat to public health.
   The city corporation has 18 food and sanitation inspectors for its 10 zones and each of them is supposed to collect 20 samples of food items a week and send them to laboratory for adulteration test.
   But a six-month performance report from January to June shows that all the 18 inspectors collected only 540 samples of food items, showing utter negligence of the authorities concerned.
   The lab analyst found 218 items adulterated out of 540 collected samples and the inspectors filed 240 cases with the food court against the sellers, distributors and manufacturers concerned, shows the report.
   Instead of collecting 480 samples of food items in six months, an inspector has collected between eight to 57 samples during the period, according to the report.
   The report also shows that 44 of the collected samples were not sent for laboratory test while one inspector sent to laboratory the samples higher than the number he has collected.
   The samples are supposed to be sent to the corporation laboratory for test and the lab analyst to place the report of the samples to the health department, sources at the Food and Sanitation department said.
   ‘If any food item contains chemical substances, the inspector concerned will file cases with the food court against its seller, distributor and producer,’ the sources said.
   Although the inspectors regularly visit the market and collect samples, they often fail to report to the health department accordingly, sources at the department said.
   The food court earlier warned the prosecution officers over their alleged involvement in cahoots with some traders of food items as some victims drew the attention of the court seeking their protection from the prosecution officers.
   They complained to the court that some prosecution officers took bribes from the owners of many shops on a regular basis.
   ‘The prosecution officials never inspect any business establishment whose owner pays them a sum of money every month,’ a source at the Food Court said.
   ‘If the officials fail to get a certain sum of money every month, they collect samples of food items for laboratory test,’ he said.
   ‘If they get less than the desired amount, they visit the shops for collecting more samples of food items.’
   The court took the matter into cognizance and warned the officials not to be involved with traders and shop owners.
   ‘If such allegations against any prosecution official are proved to be true, he will have to face legal action as per rule,’ the source said quoting the court.
   An inspector on condition of anonymity said that there was not any hard and fast rule in collecting samples.
   The rule was introduced when the city corporation had only four food and sanitation inspectors to collect samples of food items in the capital.
   ‘We collected such number of food samples as per directive by the high-ups,’ he said.
   The health department, however, plans to revise the rule and will ask the inspectors to collect samples of 10 items a week, sources at the department said.
   Officials concerned discussed the issue and would introduce a new rule regarding collection of food samples, the sources added.
   The Bangladesh Pure Food (Amendment) Act 2005 prohibits using any poisonous or harmful chemicals or ingredients or additives or substances like calcium carbide, formalin, pesticides, or intoxicated food colour or flavour matter in any food.

Speakers at a workshop on Sunday stressed the need for creating awareness among the common people about right to information law to help ensure transparency and establish good governance.
   They also called for proper implementation of right to information law to ensure rights of the people, saying that the officials concerned should change their mindset towards the people so that they can easily gain access to information.
   Assurance from political parties is a must to implement the law properly, they told the workshop on ‘right to information law and people’s right to know’ at Khulna Press Club. Mass-line Media Centre arranged the workshop.
   Shamim Reza, a teacher of mass communication and journalism department of Dhaka University, presented the keynote paper at the workshop moderated by Professor Anwarul Quadir.
   It was addressed, among others, by Khulna mayor Talukder Abdul Khaleque, Professor Zafar Imam, freedom fighter Shaikh Abdul Quayum, journalists Gouranga Nandy, Sheikh Didarul Alam and Sohrab Hossain and Khairul Alam Mukul of Mass-line Media Centre.
   The speakers underscored the need for joint efforts of all stakeholders for proper implementation of right to information law and arrangement of training courses for the officials concerned to acquaint them with rules.
   They said information is not still available from all concerned even after passing this law.
   The speakers urged the government to take necessary steps for creating mass awareness about the law so that people can get information easily.
   Civil society members, government officials, local government representatives, journalists, lawyers and NGO activists were present at the workshop.

The Bangladesh Railway will operate six special trains on different routes on the occasion of Eid-ul-Azha.
   For convenience of passengers, Bangladesh Railway will sell tickets at Dhaka, Dhaka airport, Joydevpur, Sylhet and Chittagong railway stations under special arrangements.
   Advance tickets will be sold from November 18-22 under supervision of the officers from 9am to 5pm every day.
   Additional director general of Bangladesh Railway Kazi Asadullah said they would start operating special trains three days ahead of Eid.
   Tickets for travelling on November 23 will be sold on November 18, tickets for November 24 on November 19, tickets for November 25 on November 20, tickets for November 26 on November 21 and tickets for November 27 on November 22.
   One passenger will be able to purchase maximum four tickets which are non-refundable. Intercity trains will ply during weekly holidays for the convenience of passengers.
   Police, RAB and law enforcement agencies will ensure smooth sales of tickets at the railway stations.

Experts at a seminar on Sunday stressed the need for safe use of syringes
   to check spread of HIV/AIDS and other deadly diseases.
   Careless use of syringes can infect people with various fatal diseases such as HIV/AIDS and Hepatitis B, C, they told the seminar at British Council auditorium in Dhaka.
   The Dhaka University’s clinical pharmacy and pharmacology department and pharmacy school of UK-based Nottingham University jointly organised the seminar titled ‘risk of Hepatitis B, C and HIV for careless use of injection: a way-out.’
   Prime ministers’ adviser to health and social welfare affairs, Syed Modasser Ali, attended the programme as chief guest while Dhaka University vice-chancellor Professor Arefin Siddique was present as special guest.
   Former DU vice-chancellor Professor AK Azad Chowdhury presented findings of a British Council-funded survey on six upazila complexes of the country.
   Syed Modasser in his speech said the government would take all-out measures to improve the country’s health service.
   The DU vice-chancellor underscored the need
   for safe use of syringes
   to protect people form being infected with HIV/AIDS and other deadly diseases.
   Director of health department Dr Kazi Sahadat Hossain, director of British Council in Dhaka, Charles Natal Obei attended the programme chaired by AK Azad Chowdhury.

The parliamentary standing committee on the home ministry on Sunday directed the ministry to create awareness among the people through television, radio and print media to follow the existing traffic rules.
   Chairman of the committee Abdus Salam presided over the meeting, a press release said. Members of the committee Home Minister Sahara Khatun, Mirza Azam, M Mujibul Haque, Nurul Islam Sujon, Begum Sanjida Khanam and M Safiqul Islam were present.
   The meeting discussed the progress of the implementation of the decisions taken at the meeting earlier.
   It also discussed traffic rules to help ease the traffic jam in the city and licensing, vehicle fitness, machine-readable driving licenses, machine-readable passports and e-passports. Home Secretary Abdus Sobhan Sikder, Inspector General of Police Nur Mohammad and senior officials were present.

The Chittagong University authorities on Sunday announced Eid-ul-Azha vacation from November 16 to December 3.
   No classes will take place and the offices will remain closed during the vacation. Classes will resume on December 5.
   The university shuttle train will remain suspended from November 17 to December 2, said a university press release.

Implementation work of the Barisal river port development project will finally begin next month as the ECNEC has recently approved the project initially undertaken around half a century back.
   The shipping minister will inaugurate the implementation work of the project in December, the project director, Zulhasuddin Ahmed, also superintendent engineer of BIWTA, Barisal, said.
   The work of the revised project involving around Tk 18 crore is scheduled to be completed by June, 2011, he added.
   The project components include construction of a three-storey terminal building on 1,554 square meter land, 1,500 square meter parking yard, 1,200 meter steel boundary wall, 714 meter walkway, 1000 square meter cargo shed, 400 square meter transit cargo shed, 120 feet-long six pontoons with jetty, four steel gangways, passenger lounge and waiting room with health and sanitation facilities and regular dredging of the port.
   The BIWTA deputy director Rafikul Islam said they would float a tender for construction of a terminal building in the current month.
   A fund of Tk 3 crore will also be placed under a separate head for regular dredging of the river surrounding the port, said MA Mannan, acting secretary of shipping ministry.
   The government signed contract on October 26 to purchase three dredgers and a process is also underway to purchase 10 more dredgers, he added.
   Dredging of the River Kirtonkhola surrounding the river port will start within a week, BIWTA sources said.
   The then East Pakistan Inland Water Transport Authority undertook the project in 1964 to develop five major river ports in the country’s eastern region including Dhaka, Barisal, Chandpur, Khulna and Narayanganj. Except for Barisal river port, all the four ports have been developed under the project.

Two IVF (in vitro fertilisation) women gave birth to male babies on November 8 and 9 at Infertility Manage-ment Centre of Farida Clinic in the city’s Shantinagar area.
   Infertility Management Centre established in 1992 started providing IVF facilities this year with the technical support from Agra Nursing Home, India, said a release.

Weather may remain mainly dry with partly cloudy sky over the country having chances of light rain at one or two places over the country till 6pm today.
   Light fog may occur over the river basins of the country during late night till morning, Met Office said.
   It said night temperature may remain nearly unchan-ged over the country.
   The sun sets in the
   capital today at 6:12pm and rises tomorrow at 7:15am.
   Country’s highest temperature 33.8 degrees Celsius was recorded on Sunday at Mongla, Satkhira and Jessore and lowest 20.5 degrees at Feni.