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Allowing India to build infrastructures in Bangladesh for transit purposes might invite New Delhi’s unwarranted control over transport system here, foreign policy experts feel, suggesting the country should rather mobilise its own resources to invest in road, railway and ports.
   New Delhi has long been pressing for a transit route through Bangladesh territory to carry goods from one part of India to another and has offered to invest in transport infrastructures here. The government is in negotiation with India for cooperation in transport sector, mainly railway.
   Foreign policy experts suggest the government should mobilise domestic resources for development of infrastructures such as roads, railway network and river port, to keep Dhaka’s absolute command over the movement of vehicles through Bangladesh.
   Scopes remain wide open for Dhaka to bargain hard with New Delhi on transit issue to maximise national interests on a long-term basis instead of any piecemeal arrangement, they point out.
   ‘We should thoroughly examine the requirements and modes of investments for a better regional connectivity. It is a question of our national interests, pride and dignity to develop our own infrastructures and I think we should afford the costs,’ Shamsher Mobin Chowdhury, a former foreign secretary, told New Age Tuesday.
   Imtiaz Ahmed, professor of international relations at Dhaka University, said Delhi realised it would not be able to develop India, especially the north-eastern region, without cooperation from Bangladesh.
   ‘So, we should try to cash in on India’s compulsion. We should think about long-term funding to establish regional connectivity, not merely India connectivity,’ he said.
   A former diplomat who is now a member on the parliamentary standing committee on the foreign ministry, Mostafa Faruk Mohammad, however, did not see any problem in receiving Indian fund for development of road, railway and port infrastructures.
   ‘What is wrong if we take Indian investment as we are having investments from countries such as China and Japan in transport infrastructures?’ he asked.
   As Bangladesh has resource constraints, it needs to have foreign capital, be it from India or any other country, to develop its infrastructures, Mostafa Faruk viewed.
   Transport expert M Rahmatullah said no concrete assurance of funding was in sight either from international financing institutions or private investors for building overall connectivity.
   ‘We need not invest money right now in establishing connectivity with India as Indian multi-excel vehicles can transport goods from Akhaura to Agartala,’ he said, referring to Bangladesh’s decision on giving India access to the Ashuganj port to transport heavy consignments for the Palatana Power Project in Tripura.
   Professor Imtiaz said the matter of water transit through Ashuganj should be considered a test case, but not the ‘one that fits all future cases.’
   ‘While giving India the much-needed access through Bangladesh, we have to think about a comprehensive deal keeping it open to review from time to time to ensure national interests and interests of the posterity,’ he pointed out.
   Shamsher Mobin said Dhaka must examine the proposal put forward by Delhi seeking transit through the Bangladesh territory. ‘It is important who would control the route. When we will give a country access through our territory, its control should be absolutely ours,’ he insisted.
   Dhaka agreed to allow India to use the Bangladesh territory to carry goods to Tripura during a meeting between the foreign minister, Dipu Moni, and her Indian counterpart SM Krishna in New Delhi on September 8.
   The two countries are scheduled to sign a deal in May 2010 on India’s access to the Ashuganj Port.
   The Indian authorities have, however, not yet made any offer of financial packages of benefits when they offered to invest in building required infrastructures, sources in the foreign ministry said.
   Bangladesh will need an investment of $2.4 billion or Tk 16,800 crore for building infrastructures to effectively join the Asian Highway network, including transit to India, according to a study by the Asian Development Bank and its Tokyo-based institute.

The banking sector and the capital market have offered to chip in to mobilise resources for the proposed Power and Gas Development Fund worth up to $ 10 billion to help the country tide over the nagging energy crisis.
   The offer was made at a meeting at the power and energy ministry on Wednesday where local and foreign commercial banks, financial institutions and Dhaka Stock Exchange assured of their support in building the fund having the size of between $5 billion and $10 billion to be used for intensifying gas exploration activities and setting up new power plants.
   Representatives of the banks told the meeting that they had enough idle liquidity that could be injected into the fund while DSE assured they could help raise around Tk 20,000 crore from the capital market in next three to four years.
   The meeting, attended by the adviser to the prime minister, Tawfiq-e-Elahi Chowdhury and state minister for power and energy Enamul Haque, decided to form a committee, headed by Bangladesh Bank deputy governor Ziaul Hasan Siddiqui to come up with recommendations for creating the proposed fund.
   The committee will make recommendations on the structure of the fund and how and in what terms the banks and other institutions would participate in the project, officials present at the meeting said.
   ‘The committee will be formed shortly and it would be given a timeframe for submitting its report. After getting the report, the government will move for establishing the fund,’ a senior official of the ministry told New Age.
   Energy and power secretaries, chairman of Securities and Exchange Commission, deputy governor of Bangladesh Bank, president of Dhaka Stock Exchange, managing directors of different public banks like Sonali, Janata and Agrani, representatives of private and foreign commercial banks like HSBC and CitiBank NA, Investment Corporation of Bangladesh and Infrastructure Development Company Limited were present at the meeting.
   Tawfiq and Enamul apprised the meeting that the government wanted to form a dedicated fund for the development of power and energy sector to reduce dependence on the international lenders.
   They said huge funds would be needed to implement the government’s goal to add around 7,000 MW of new electricity to national grid by 2014 and to explore and extract primary fuels like gas to run the plants.
   The policymakers apprised the financiers that they intended to generate a fund of around $5 to $10 billion to strengthen activities in the power and energy sectors.
   The bankers said they had enough liquidity which could be invested in the power and gas sectors.
   The DSE president Rakibur Rahman said the capital market response to the shares of energy and power companies like Titas Gas and Desco showed that people had confidence in the sector.
   ‘So, I think around Tk 20000 crore could be raised through the capital market in next three to four years for the power and energy sectors,’ he said.
   Enamul told reporters after the meeting that the government intended to form the fund as a long-term platform for development of the power and energy sectors.
   Tawfiq said that both public and private sector power and energy projects would be financed from the proposed fund.

In a flip-flop on his ranting and raving against the prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, her picks in the cabinet and party, and the general elections, former Awami League general secretary Abdul Jalil has said ‘sorry’ for shooting his mouth off recently.
   The disgruntled ruling party lawmaker said he still suffers from the trauma caused by torture by the military intelligence DGFI in detention and blamed the mental state for the testy remarks he made while talking with Bdnews24.com in the past week.
   ‘I may have said things that welled up from anger… I am sorry for that,’ he said in a 15-minute interview with bdnews24.com in London on Tuesday.
   ‘The pain still drives me mad. That’s why I had sought justice in parliament and asked her for redress.’
   But he did not get justice and often has a fit for that, Jalil said, trying to limit the damage to his political career after his broadside at the party stalwarts.
   Now reduced to a member on the party’s advisory committee, a body without much say in the organisational matters, Jalil first spoke with Bdnews24.com on Wednesday.
   A London-based ethnic TV station had aired excerpts of an interview with him hours before that.
   His remarks, apparently for political score-settling, whipped up waves of anger and he was assaulted by activists of the AL’s youth wing Juba League in Birmingham hours later.
   The sidelined leader had said in the interview he had made a mistake by not going against Hasina on his return to the country to protect his post during the 2007-08 caretaker government regime.
   ‘It was my mistake not to go against her. My offence was extreme loyalty to her,’ Jalil had said in that interview.
   ‘My decision was wrong. I should have taken her head-on,’ he said in a rude surprise to many in the ruling establishment.
   This time, though, he sought to make amends for the tirade, days after a normally unflappable prime minister said Jalil should resign from parliament before questioning the ‘fairest’ vote.
   ‘I’ll be in politics, will pursue Awami League’s politics under Sheikh Hasina. I believe and respect her.’
   ‘I hope that my leader Sheikh Hasina will redress this torture.’
   Jalil manoeuvred to deflect the attention on Hasina’s bitter political rival — BNP chief Khlaeda Zia.
   He blamed a ‘stubborn’ Khaleda for the failure of the dialogue between him and former BNP secretary general Abdul Mannan Bhuiyan in 2006 on a credible election.
   ‘Khaleda Zia did not want fair and neutral elections,’ said Jalil, currently on a visit to the United Kingdom.
   The lawmaker for Naogaon reneged on his earlier claims in the previous interview with Bdnews24.com that his party reached a ‘compromise deal’ with the military-installed caretaker government that presided over the Dec 29 general elections.
   ‘I didn’t say anything about the election process. This was the most fair election among the all that I have witnessed in my entire life... in the history of Bangladesh and even during the Pakistan period.’
   ‘The elections could not be held if there was no ‘deal’. I wanted to mean that a situation was created for the elections, like my leader was arrested. Khaleda, many of us were also detained.’
   ‘There was a talk with the leader [Hasina] to conduct a fair election.’
   ‘This is what I wanted to mean.’
   He made a reversal to clarify the ‘compromise’ remarks that BNP has seized on to back up its contention of foul play in the parliamentary polls it so badly lost.
   ‘About the deal I wanted to mean that there was a mutual discussion with then president Iajuddin Ahmed, while there was a movement to conduct a fair election.’
   ‘The advisers had meetings with the [AL-led alliance and BNP-led alliance], which were not successful.’
   ‘The next caretaker government came as the earlier discussions failed. They stayed for two years. There was also a meeting about a fair election through which we’ve achieved a fair election, this is what I meant.’
   ‘I didn’t mean someone had put Awami League to office, and I didn’t say so… I don’t even believe that.’
   Was he really tortured? ‘Definitely,’ Jalil says. ‘They tortured me physically, psychologically, made me to sign (statement)… didn’t they?’
   ‘They took me to remand for 5-6 days, made tapes and sent those abroad through ‘Concord’.’
   ‘How could this tape fly abroad if they didn’t send it. I asked them, ‘How (did it happen)?’ They said a journalist has stolen.
   ‘I asked, ‘how did a journalist get in there?’ I said, ‘You are lying’.’
   The AL frontbencher said the pain renders him restless sometimes.
   ‘I’m 70 years now. My father, while he was alive, didn’t ever take me to task, didn’t beat me.’
   ‘It’s painful how DGFI had misbehaved with me after taking me into custody.’
   ‘This is why I spoke about it in parliament, I asked for the constitution of a parliamentary committee hoping to have justice for their [DGFI] misusing power.’
   ‘I’ve got no redress yet. I hope someday my leader will get me justice.’
   ‘I can’t digest it that a man, who was never beaten by his parents, never rebuked, he is tortured by a DGFI staff... for whom I pay... they are paid by my taxes.’
   The veteran was reminded in the interview that it was Hasina who had made him the general secretary, and a technocrat minister when he failed to get elected in 1996 and made him the head of a standing committee.
   So, why does he go out of the skin to snipe at her?
   ‘No, no, I don’t have any grievance. I didn’t speak of grievance or protest. I think I don’t deserve more than what she has given me.’
   Jalil was also given party ticket despite his statements against Hasina and her sister Sheikh Rehana to the press during task force interrogations.
   ‘She made me general secretary, a minister… I could not be those without her blessings.’
   ‘But my pain is that she gave me punishment. I wanted to know why she did so. She can do that, even a hundred times, for she is my leader.’
   ‘But I wanted to know what my mistake was.’
   ‘I was the only person to speak for the leader when everyone was speaking about reforms to exclude Sheikh Hasina from politics.’
   Last week, Jalil said ‘90 per cent’ of the current ministers were supporters of the ‘reformists’ — people who propagated the so-called reform moves in the party to sideline Hasina, allegedly with the patronage of the military-installed interim government.
   Jalil on Tuesday asserted that he was still on her side.
   ‘Yes, I’m. ‘Boat’ is not someone’s own asset. It’s owned by Bangabandhu, Sheikh Hasina and the people who are with it.’
   The former AL general secretary, who ran protracted negotiations with his BNP counterpart Abdul Mannan Bhuiyan in 2006, said the two major parties could not agree on common election ground because of Khaleda.
   ‘Khaleda Zia is responsible for that. Because, if you recall, we sat for 10 minutes in the last day, where we agreed that we’d sit again on one point.’
   ‘Bhuiyan was asked to come with his leader’s consent and I with the 14 parties’, and we’d meet again for half an hour.
   ‘I got the nod of my leader and 14-party alliance. She said ‘go ahead’,’ she gave me the permission.
   ‘I was waiting all day, but couldn’t reach him (Mannan). It was 11:30pm when I found him. I asked him to sit for 10 minutes, saying that journalists were moving around.’
   ‘He said, ‘Jalil Bhai, you’ve got your leader’s consent, but I couldn’t contact her (Khaleda). What would I say there if I don’t see her or get permission?’’
   ‘The leader later sat with the 14-party on the point we agreed, endorsed it and told me, ‘Go ahead and tell the press’.’
   ‘But Bhuiyan couldn’t come due to the stubbornness of Khaleda Zia. She didn’t want a fair election that time.’
   Jalil said he believed it was too early to write him off.
   Asked if he would be in active politics after his return home, the AL MP said: ‘Certainly, why not? I represent a constituency.’
   AL presidium member Matia Chowdhury week said the working committee will sit on Oct 3 to decide about Jalil.
   ‘Why won’t I do politics? Certainly I’ll and it’ll be the politics of Awami League, under her leadership.’
   ‘I rate her very high and I don’t believe that there won’t be any change in the country under her leadership.’
   ‘So I said out of frustration that there has been no success in the nine months.’
   Jalil had also launched a scathing attack on the party for axing him and four other senior leaders — Amir Hossain Amu, Tofail Ahmed, Suranjit Sengupta, Abdur Razzak — from the policymaking presidium.
   He had lamented ‘the lack of scope’ to work for the party after being relegated to the largely ceremonial advisory council.
   On Tuesday, though, he said it was the prime minister’s privilege to shape her cabinet the way she pleases.
   ‘We can’t say like children to ‘include us’. She’ll do that if she feels the need. It’s totally her affair to include (us) or not.’
   ‘We’ve the capability to give many things to the country and the party. We can contribute a lot under the leadership of Hasina.’
   Asked if he thought there has been a qualitative change in politics after the 1/11, Jalil said there was not much to show.
   ‘It should have happened, but hasn’t, not satisfactory in terms of the expectations.’
   The former commerce minister said he did not think his outrage would derail many other issues like war crimes trial and ‘Bangabandhu’ Sheikh Mujibur Rahman murder trial.
   ‘No. I’m also determined to see the trials move fast in our country and punishment is given. It’s a public demand, a demand of all the supporters of AL.’
   Asked if he thought the government would be able to accomplish the trials, he said: ‘I believe it in my heart that the trial must be done through the process it is on.’
   Hasina said in New York on Sunday that Jalil was given the party nomination and elected on popular vote.
   ‘Has he been elected that way? He should resign first before making such allegation,’ she snapped when asked about Jalil’s claims of ‘compromise’.
   Asked whether the party would take any action against Jalil, Hasina said: ‘I don’t have any headache about it.’
   She said Jalil has been saying many things, and ‘let him speak.’
   Earlier on Tuesday, chief election commissioner A T M Shamsul Huda dismissed Jalil’s comments on the ‘election deal’ as outpouring of a man utterly frustrated.
   Awami League general secretary Syed Ashraful Islam on Monday said Jalil’s remarks were aimed to smear the credibility of Hasina.

The ruling Awami League’s presidium member, Obaidul Kader on Wednesday said that the party could be harmed if it did not go for action against its advisory council member, Abdul Jalil for his ‘slanderous utterances’ against the party and its leadership.
   But the party’s advisory council member, Suranjit Sengupta, differed saying that the issue should over as Jalil had apologised for his remarks.
   ‘Abdul Jalil himself has confessed to have lost his mental balance because of torture by the [military intelligence] DGFI in detention. So one should not go tough on a
   man who is mentally sick,’ he told reporters at the parliament’s media centre.
   Talking with a London-based Bangla television channel on September 24, Jalil, former general secretary of the AL, fired a broadside at the party leaders who were now in Sheikh Hasina’s cabinet, accusing them all of having links with the military’s intelligence. He further alleged that that the AL-led alliance had come to the power through an understanding.
   His remarks apparently embarrassed the government and angered the party rank and file.
   But Jalil backtracked on his allegations and on September 29 said he was ‘sorry’ for his remarks. ‘I may have said things that welled up from anger… I am sorry for that,’ he said.
   Talking with reporters on Thursday, Kader said although Jalil had said sorry, his slanderous remarks had embarrassed the party and so the party should take action against him.
   ‘What he [Jalil] has said holding a position in the party is unforgivable. Such hostile stance against the party is unacceptable,’ Kader said adding that party had started investigation into the matter.
   Kader also said the issue would be discussed in the maiden meeting of the AL central executive committee scheduled for October 3. ‘If the party chief, Sheikh Hasina, forgives Jalil, we will accept her decision but no one is beyond the party constitution.’
   ‘Jalil was in the limelight in past and always wants to be in the limelight… He is making such statements now because he no longer draws any attention,’ the AL leader said.
   Earlier, AL presidium member, Matia Chowdhury said although the Jalil issue was not on the agenda of the executive committee meeting, it would discuss the reported statements by its former general secretary against the party chief.
   The prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, who is her way back home ending a week-long tour of the United States, on Sunday resented Jalil’s remarks saying that he should resign before questioning the election that made him a member of this parliament.

At least 20 workers were injured at Sheorapara on Rokeya Sarani on Wednesday after the police lathi-charged them and lobbed teargas canisters when they were demonstrating after the death of a fellow worker in a road accident on early Wednesday.
   Traffic movement was suspended for about four and half hours, causing hundreds of passengers, especially women and children, to suffer unduly.
   Witnesses said that Marufa Begum, 18, a knitting operator of Outfit Fashion Ltd in Mirpur, sustained critical injuries in front of the factory when a speeding bus of Shikar Paribahan ran over her while she was crossing the road on Tuesday.
   She was rushed to the Dhaka Medical College Hospital in a critical condition where she died from her wounds at around 3:15am on Wednesday.
   When the news of Marufa’s death spread, several hundreds workers of Outfit Fashion Ltd abstained from work and staged demonstrations, demanding compensation for the slain worker, at around 3:00pm.
   The angry workers alleged that the body was kept at the hospital’s morgue due to the negligence of the garment factory’s management as they denied that Marufa was their worker to avoid paying compensation to her family.
   ‘When we asked the management to arrange compensation for Marufa, they told us that she was not their employee,’ said Nazim, a worker of the factory.
   The enraged workers instantly took to the street in front of their factory and blockaded it, stopping all traffic movement.
   The situation deteriorated when several hundreds workers of two other neighbouring factories — Outright Fashion Ltd and Outwear Fashion Ltd owned by the same persons — joined them at around 5:30pm.
   A large contingent of police and members of the Rapid Action Battalion rushed to the scene, but the workers continued demonstrations, demanding compensation.
   At one stage the local shopkeepers and businessmen asked the workers to lift the blockade, and a clash between them ensued when the latter refused to do so.
   Soon after the workers started to break the windowpanes of the stranded vehicles on both side of the road, and the police swung into action with their lathis and fired six rounds of teargas canisters, injuring 20 workers.
   Traffic movement resumed in the area at around 7:15pm.
   Assistant commissioner Akbar Ali of Mirpur Zone told New Age, ‘Police had to lathi-charge the workers when they began vandalising the vehicles.’
   A director of the factory, Moshtaqur Rahman, told New Age, ‘We pay Tk 1 lakh compensation when an on-duty worker dies, but Marufa died in a road accident, which is not our concern.’
   However, the management agreed to pay the compensation when they were persuaded to do so by the police.
   ‘We admitted Marufa to the hospital and bought bags of blood for her and footed her medical bill, and bore the expenses to carry her body to her village home,’ he added.
   The officer-in-charge of Mirpur police station, Zakir Hossain Mollah, told New Age, ‘The management agreed to pay compensation of Tk 1 lakh and we also tried to take compensation from the bus-owner as we managed to catch the killer bus.’
   Marufa hailed from Moagaon at Tarail in Kishoreganj.

Anti-corruption officials on Wednesday quizzed M A Matin, a former adviser to the army-backed interim government, for his alleged involvement in favouring a particular company to award it contract for handling containers at Chittagong Port, officials said.
   The investigators recorded his statement at Chittagong Port where a three-member panel comprising anti-corruption officials set up a temporary camp.
   Matin was charged for abusing his authority to award the container handling deal to Esak Bothers when he was in charge of the shipping ministry during the two-year rule of the immediate past interim government.
   A parliamentary panel after an investigation suggested for action against the former adviser and the shipping ministry in August, referring the matter to anti-corruption commission for taking further step.
   Matin arrived at Chittagong Port office at 10 am to face the ACC team that called him through a notice for questioning on the alleged irregularities in awarding container handling contract to the private company.
   The team also quizzed the chairman of Chittagong Port Authority, Commodore R.U.Ahmed, as part of the investigation, officials informed.
   Besides, the ACC team recorded the statements of ten other concerned officials, including the representatives of three bidder firms—Eshak Brothers Ltd, Everest Shipping Ltd and ANJ Shipping Ltd—which contested bids for the contract of container handling.
   ‘We have recorded the statement of the former minister for one and a half hours from 10 am and then cross examined him on the points of alleged irregularities,’ said the ACC team leader, deputy director (DD) Sheikh Mohammad Fanapillah, while talking to New Age.
   ‘We got the leads during questioning, but we would not disclose the same at this moment in the interest of fair investigation,’ he added when asked.
   ‘Our investigation is going ahead in line with the findings of the report of the parliamentary standing committee and we are strictly following that report,’ Fanapillah asserted.
   Replying to a question, Fanapillah said, ‘Our report will speak about the fate of the investigation and subsequent filing of cases.’
   CPA chairman R.U.Ahmed when contacted said, ‘I provided all information to ACC team which I had been asked for.’
   The ACC team drawing two members from Dhaka reached Chittagong port office on Monday night while another official from its Chittagong office joined the probe works that began from Tuesday, officials said.
   The parliamentary subcommittee headed by a ruling party lawmaker, Shah Alam, recommended scrapping of the container handling deal that caused loss of an estimated Tk 9 crore to the public exchequer and filing cases against concerned officials, including the former adviser.
    Matin had denied any irregularities in awarding the contract to Ishak Brothers.

Rapid but unplanned urbanisation coupled with fast-rising urban population is set to spell serious difficulties in meeting basic civic amenities for all, experts have warned, suggesting city planners to go back to the drawing boards immediately to tackle any disastrous consequences.
   Capital Dhaka, which has been expanding fast—both horizontally and vertically—is today home of 75 per cent of nearly two crore people living in and around the city and its suburban townships.
   The population of this mega metropolis is likely to increase to more than 2.6 crore by 2030, forecast a recent study on Bangladesh’s cities.
   Such burgeoning urbanisation, including rising townships at district and Upazila levels and other economic growth centres is also changing the pattern of citizens’ life, Hossain Zillur Rahman, an economist, says.
   ‘This is high time for the planners and policymakers to address the impending urban crises… We should go back to the drawing board to work out a holistic urban planning, consider developing secondary townships and try to address the emerging challenges of urbanisation,’ says Zillur.
   He suggested addressing such problems like traffic congestion, the unabated growth of urban crimes, power shortage and lack of other civic amenities in Dhaka and other cities and towns.
   The country’s urban centres are all plagued by inadequate utility services, insufficient transport facilities, serious housing problems and proliferation of slums, deteriorating environmental conditions and weak urban planning, according to a study on city cluster economic development carried out by Nurul Islam Nazem of Centre for Urban Studies.
   Already, more than 30 per cent of the Bangladesh population live in cities and towns due to unabated exodus of people from rural areas and emergence of new rural township at district and Upazila levels.
    In Bangladesh, there are 522 cities and towns – none of which matches international standards in terms of cost of doing business, dynamics of local economy, human resources, infrastructure, government responsiveness to business needs and quality of life.
   The growth in urban population is reportedly 3.5 per cent a year while Dhaka’s population grows at the rate of 5 per cent, showing a massive influx into the capital city which accounts for 24 per cent of gross domestic product.
   Nazem’s study observed that absence of effective local government institutions for providing infrastructures and utility services have hindered decentralisation of development and growth of services and business opportunities.
   Dwelling on the possible negative fallouts of the current transformation in the patterns of urban-rural divide, Zillur, himself a development economist, told New Age that markets of both rural and urban areas are set to be integrated due to this changing process.
   ‘We still have no plan to address increasing urbanisation and do not even know how to use the cities and towns as engines of growth. The whole policy discussion on urbanisation in Bangladesh is very fragmented that focussed on one or two issues only,’ he said, broaching the idea of ‘Rural-Urban Continuum’ in place of a rural-urban divide.
   Zillur, who was commerce and education adviser to the 2007-08 interim government, emphasised the importance of promoting an urban-based economy – the middle between big businesses and micro enterprises – which, he pointed out, remained out of ‘policy focus’.
   The demand for urban facilities to embrace a quality life in different parts of the country has increased in recent years, he said, acknowledging that agriculture remained a key sector in terms of food security and employment.
   Zillur underlined the importance of addressing issues such as economy, services, municipal governance and environmental sustainability to ensure better cities and secondary towns.
   He cited an example that there is no plan for landing of fishes required for almost 15 million population in Dhaka city. ‘Such a situation contributes to traffic congestion and causes price differentials,’ he said. ‘An integrated vision is missing.’
   In this context, his research organisation has initiated studies in a number of areas such as economy, labour market, housing and infrastructure, service delivery and migration.
   ‘We will also be holding dialogue with stakeholders on issues like necessity of introducing school bus to help reduce traffic jam in Dhaka city and elsewhere,’ Zillur added.

The counsels for Amanullah Aman — former state minister of the BNP-Jamaat government, who was sent to the Dhaka Central Jail on Tuesday in connection with an attempt to murder case — are set to begin the legal battle to get him released.
   The police on Tuesday night filed a case with the airport police station against 600-700 unnamed people, accusing them of obstructing the law enforcers from discharging their duty.
   Several hundred BNP activists, who had gone to the airport to greet Aman, staged angry demonstrations there in protest against his arrest.
   Dhaka’s metropolitan magistrate Farhana Ferdous ordered Aman, a former student leader who fought against Ershad’s despotic regime, to jail when he was produced in court.
   The court fixed October 8 for the hearing of two petitions — one filed by the Detective Branch seeking a 10-day remand for Aman, and another by Aman’s counsels seeking bail for him.
   ‘We are preparing to go to another magistrate today or the next week with the prayer for Aman’s bail,’ his chief counsel, Mahbubuddin Khokan, told New Age on Wednesday. ‘If the court rejects the petition, we will go to the higher court as two others accused in the same case were granted bail.’
   ‘Aman was not named in the First Information Report of the case but the police arrested him, claiming that he was named in the confessional statements of three persons accused in the case,’ said Sanaullah Miah, another of Aman’s counsels.
   ‘Two of the three accused have already requested the magistrates to allow them to retract their confessional statement, claiming that the police had forced them to make the confession by pressure and torture,’ claimed Khokan.
   The counsels alleged that Aman was arrested as part of the Awami League’s plot to keep the opposition under pressure.
   Osman Khan, a Bangladesh Nationalist Party activist and a businessman from Aman’s parliamentary constituency in Keraniganj, filed the case with Mohammadpur police on May 31.
   Osman complained that he, along with his friend Abdus Sobhan, was in a car in Mohammadpur on May 29 when gunmen stopped the car near Salimullah Road and opened fire on them.
   Osman was shot five times but somehow survived.

Towering tsunamis churned up by a huge earthquake slammed into the Samoan islands on Tuesday, killing at least 113 people as they wiped out entire villages and flattened tourist resorts.
   Monster waves that witnesses and officials said measured between three and 7.5 metres high pounded the remote Pacific islands of Samoa and Western Samoa after an 8.0-magnitude undersea quake struck in the early morning.
   While the quake toppled buildings and sent thousands fleeing to high ground as the tsunami approached, many others were hit by the walls of water that swept people and cars out to sea and obliterated coastal settlements.
   The US president, Barack Obama, called the incident in the outlying US territory of American Samoa a ‘major disaster’ and vowed ‘aggressive’ action to help survivors.
   ‘I am closely monitoring these tragic events, and have declared a major disaster for American Samoa, which will provide the tools necessary for a full, swift and aggressive response,’ he said.
   Samoa’s prime minister, Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi said he was ‘shocked beyond belief.’
   ‘So much has gone. So many people are gone,’ he told the Australian news agency AAP. ‘I’m so shocked, so saddened by all the loss.’
   The tsunamis swept across the Pacific, battering Samoa where hospital workers said it killed at least 84 people, American Samoa where it felled 22, and Tonga, where at least seven people died.
   As Australia, New Zealand and the United States led with immediate pledges of assistance, scores more people were missing feared dead in the chaos and despair that the twin disaster left in its wake.
   Up to 70 villages stood in the way of the waves in the worst-hit area and each housed from 300-800 people, Tuiletufuga said.
   Nine members of one family were killed in the village of Lalomanu on the south-east of Samoa, a relative said.
   Australia said at least two of its citizens, including a six-year-old girl, were dead while Seoul said two Koreans were also killed. One person from New Zealand was also feared dead.
   Apia, capital of the independent state of Samoa and nearly 3,000 kilometres from Auckland in New Zealand, was evacuated as officials scrambled to get thousands of residents to higher ground.
   Officials in American Samoa, about 100 kilometres from Samoa, said the death toll of 22 was expected to climb.
   The eastern part of the island was without power and water supplies after the devastating earthquake, which struck at 6:48am (1748 GMT) at a depth of 18 kilometres, 195 kilometres south of Apia.
   The Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre issued a tsunami alert over a vast swathe of the Pacific, as far as Hawaii, which was later cancelled.
   The walls of moving water were so powerful that small tsunami waves were able to reach the shores of Japan thousands of kilometres away.
   The United States, Australia and New Zealand all made preparations to send emergency help to the ravaged region that is home to more than 241,000 people.

The stage is all set for a grand show on October 1 celebrating the 60th founding anniversary of the People’s Republic of China which over the years has emerged from a struggling communist country to a powerful economic giant in the world.
   The Chinese have made elaborate arrangements to strut their stuff here in Beijing to give the world a massive display of their stunning military prowess and economic strength.
   A grand parade at the Tienanmen Square in capital Beijing on Thursday would unveil some 52 new types of weapons developed indigenously by the Chinese.
   The show of China’s arsenal strength would include early airborne, early warning and control aircraft while the mass pageant would be made of 36 formations and six performing groups involving around 100,000 citizens in colourful traditional attire.
   The parade will be complemented by 60 simulated floats and a background performance involving 80,000 primary and middle school students while the highlights of the evening party will include a 30-minute fireworks display where some of the dazzles of the last Beijing Olympic games would be recreated.
   Beijing is also hosting various cultural activities including singing, dancing and speech contest and drama shows in about 1,000 parks on October 2 and 3 for which tight security arrangements have already been taken.
   The Tiananmen Square and the central thoroughfare of Changan Avenue where the national parade will pass through have been colourfully decorated with portraits of Chairman Mao Zedong and China’s great reformist Dr Sun Yat Sen.
   Tight security has been imposed and armoured vehicles posted at exclusive spots along the route of the national day parade. Nearly 6,000 policemen and about 800,000 volunteers will be deployed on the streets to ensure security during the anniversary celebrations, local media reported.
   Officials have admitted there would be serious traffic disruption due to the parade.
   Some 89 foreign journalists from 53 countries of South Asia, South East Asia, Africa, Middle East, Caribbean, and the Latin America have been invited to witness the historic celebrations where China wants to showcase itself as the emerging power.
   Talking to a group of visiting foreign journalists, Chinese assistant foreign minister Hu Zhengyue on Monday said no foreign dignitary has been invited to the parade this time.
   Military spokesman Lt Gen Fang Fenghui in a written statement said that the weaponry to be displayed at the parade would include sophisticated radar, ballistic missiles, unmanned aerial vehicles and satellite communication devices of the Peoples Liberation Army.
   There will be 56 regiments on the ground and in the air during the parade symbolizing the country’s 56 ethnic groups marching along the road of socialism with Chinese characteristics in solidarity.
   The military spokesman said compared with the previous military parades on national days 10 years ago, this one would have less troops and equipment but increased high-tech weaponry and special force units.
   Exhibitions and other programmes have also been arranged in other major cities of China to mark the auspicious occasion.
   The Beijing municipality a year ago had put out advertisements for women between the ages of 17 and 25 with height between 5’3” and 5’7” to join corps for performing the parade and rehearsals began in last December to recreate some of the glitz of the 2008 Olympics.
   Whereas the Olympics makeover was mostly in northern Beijing, the focus of the 60th anniversary celebration has been in the heart of the city, especially around Tiananmen Square, where Mao Zedong announced the birth of the People’s Republic of China on 1st October 1949.
   Along the parade route, streets have been widened, parks, monuments, subway stations refurbished.
   Apart from decoration of the main streets, all television channels and radio stations have been broadcasting special programmes to mark the occasion.

At least 21 people were killed and thousands more trapped underneath rubble after a major earthquake hit Indonesia’s Sumatra island on Wednesday, officials said.
   Large buildings, including hospitals and hotels, caved in while fires raged in the coastal city of Padang, home to nearly a million people, as communications and power remained cut hours after the 7.6-magnitude quake.
   ‘Houses and buildings have collapsed, causing thousands of people to be trapped inside in the rubble,’ health ministry crisis centre head Rustam Pakaya said, adding that a major city hospital was among the destroyed buildings.
   Rescue teams and doctors had been sent overland and were expected to arrive in about 10 hours, Pakaya said.
   Local media reported that panicked residents rushed from their homes during the quake, which struck off Sumatra’s west coast at 5:16pm (1016 GMT), 47 kilometres northwest of Padang.
   ‘A number of hotels in Padang have been destroyed,’ Indonesian tsunami warning head Rahmat Triyono said, adding the agency did not release a tsunami alert.
   The Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre in Hawaii however issued a tsunami watch for Indonesia, Malaysia, India and Thailand, but later cancelled it.
   ‘Up to now we haven’t been able to reach Padang, communications have been cut,’ Triyono said amid fears the death toll could rise sharply.

A local leader of the ultra-left Purba Banglar Communist Party (ML–Janajuddha) was killed in ‘crossfire’ with the Rapid Action Battalion at Faizullapur of Bheramara in Kushtia early Wednesday.
   The deceased, Asha alias Daku Asha, 35, was a resident of Raita at Bheramara.
   With Asha’s death, the total death figure from incidents of extrajudicial killing such as ‘crossfire’ or ‘encounter’ rose to 94 after January 6 when the Awami League-led government assumed office.
   The battalion said one of its teams raided a roadside garden at Faizullahpur on information that some gangsters were meeting there about 4:00am.
   As the lawmen approached, the gang fired into the battalion team, which fired back.
   Inside about half an hour into the gunfight, the gangsters left the place. The lawmen found Asha lying dead on the ground.The team seized a single-barrel gun, seven cartridges, four bombs and two machetes from the spot.
   The police said Asha went into hiding after his chief Panna had been killed in an ‘encounter’ in 2008. He recently returned to the area and was trying to reorganise the gang, the police said.
   A special crackdown is going on against extremists in the south and south-west. The state minister for home, Shamsul Islam Tuku, earlier said extremists had been asked to surrender or the drive would be further intensified.
   Human rights organisations have been urging the government to stop such ‘extrajudicial killing.’
   The home minister, Sahara Khatun, however on September 6, claimed no extrajudicial killing was being committed by law enforcers.

Unknown miscreants on a motorbike attacked the car of the daily Amar Desh editor-in-charge, Mahmudur Rahman when he was going to office Wednesday afternoon.
   According to a release, two motorcyclists hurled a bomb-like object at his jeep on Airport Road leaving the car slightly damaged.
   Mahmudur, also former energy adviser, escaped unhurt, said the release.
   The Amar Desh management filed a general diary with the Gulshan police in this connection.
   The release said that the incident took place when Mahmudur was driving to Amar Desh office at Karwan Bazar from his Uttara house.
   As he passed the Army Stadium, the motorcyclists followed his jeep and threw the bomb-like object which hit the bonnet of the car.
   The motorcyclists sped off after the attack. The bike did not have a number plate, the release added.

The government on Wednesday announced that Hajj flights this year would be inaugurated on October 21 at the Zia International Airport although the Biman Bangladesh Airlines Ltd, responsible for carrying pilgrims, is yet to announce a complete flight schedule.
   Hajj, the biggest congregation of the Muslims in the world which takes place in the holy city of Makkah, is likely to begin on November 27.
   The announcement was made at an inter-ministry meeting on Hajj management at the secretariat with the state minister for the religious affairs ministry, Md Shahjahan Mia, in the chair.
   ‘Hajj flights will begin on October 21 and the detailed flight schedule will be announced soon…Biman has leased one plane and the process to lease another one is going on for facilitating the operation of dedicated Hajj flights,’ Shahjahan told reporters after the meeting at the religious affairs ministry.
   The return flights from Jeddah will begin on December 1.
   He said that he was convinced that there would be no hitches in Hajj management this year and Biman would be able to ferry the pilgrims smoothly in collaboration with the Saudi Airlines.
   Officials of various ministries and agencies including the local government division, home affairs, public works, health and family welfare, power
   division, civil aviation authority, city corporation, police and representatives of the Hajj Agencies Association of Bangladesh attended the meeting to review the Hajj management situation.
   HAAB’s president Ibrahim Bahar told the meeting that Hajj management would be marred if the Biman failed to work out the complete Hajj flight schedule within two-three days.
   The private Hajj agencies missed the September 20 deadline for completing procedures for renting houses in Saudi Arabia, pushing the pilgrims from Bangladesh into uncertainty.
   ‘Out of the 250 Hajj agencies allowed to operate this year, representatives of 233 have already left for Saudi Arabia to work out agreements on renting houses…By next Wednesday we will be able to complete all procedures for arranging accommodation for the pilgrims in Makkah and Madinah,’ the HAAB’s president assured questioners.
   Initially the private Hajj operators were reportedly buying time in arranging accommodation due to possible age restrictions on pilgrims because of the outbreak of Swine Flu in many parts of the world.
   The state minister, however, made it clear that there was no possibility of any kind of bar on pilgrims imposed by the Arabian government. ‘The Swine Flu crisis is now over. The Saudi government has not informed us of any restrictions,’ he said in reply to a question.
   According to official records, around 51,000 persons from Bangladesh are supposed to perform Hajj under private management and around 8,000 under government management. So far accommodations for only the ‘balloted’ pilgrims (those whose pilgrimage has been arranged by the government) have been arranged, said officials.
   The civil aviation and tourism secretary assured the participants of the meeting that the Biman would announce the schedule of Hajj flights shortly. Biman is trying hard to lease another plane to ensure smooth Hajj flights, he added.
   Biman, which has been facing frequent disruptions in its regular flight schedule for a long time due to shortage of planes, is expected to carry only 38,663 Hajj pilgrims as the Saudi Arabian Airlines has consented to ferry 20,000 from Bangladesh, according to the civil aviation ministry officials.

The police have launched a manhunt for two of their senior officers who assaulted a pregnant lawyer during a general strike three years ago when several leaders and activists of the then main opposition Awami League were also injured.
   ‘Raids are under way to arrest police superintendent Kohinoor Mia and additional DIG Mohammad Majharul Haque,’ a senior police official said on Wednesday.
   He said plainclothesman of the Detective Branch and the Dhaka Metropolitan Police stations launched the manhunt immediately after a criminal case was filed against the two controversial officers and a constable Tuesday night by Sharmin Sultana Shanta.
   Shanta, who was carrying for seven months, had lost her unborn baby as she came under the attack of Kohinoor Mia at Dhanmondi as she was going to visit a doctor during the strike.
   Majhar was made a co-accused in the case as the incident took place in an area under his jurisdiction while he did not take any action against Mia.
   Mia also earned a bad repute for his barbaric torture on opposition leaders and activists including former home minister Mohammad Nasim, incumbent home minister Sahara Khatun, and a number of politicians and other distinguished people like Tofail Ahmed, Saber Hossain Chowdhury, professor Muntasir Mamun, journalist Enamul Haque Chowdhury both in custody and on the street.
   Several western countries including the United States and Britain earlier blacklisted him for his brutal actions during the past BNP-led alliance regime while the subsequent military-backed interim government ordered his closure as punitive steps.

The new fertiliser distribution policy comes into effect today giving lawmakers the upper hand in selecting retailers in their respective constituencies.
   The government adopted the Fertiliser Dealership Appointment and Fertiliser Distribution Policy 2009 on August 12 to streamline fertiliser distribution system, abolishing the existing network of retailers chosen by authorised dealers.
   The new policy will terminate the contract of 15,327 retailers chosen by the dealers during the immediate-past interim government. They will be replaced by a fresh batch of sales representatives to be selected under the supervision of members of parliament.
   The existing 5,109 union-level authorised dealers will, however, continue to enjoy their dealership.
   The military-backed interim regime allowed each authorised dealer to choose three retailers to sell fertilisers to farmers.
   Lawmakers are now advisers to upazila-level committees assigned to monitor distribution of fertilisers and seeds. They will also have the authority to appoint four members of the six-member union-level committee headed by Union Parishad chairman to select the retailers.
   Monitoring committees will finally select retailers and issue them cards to sell fertilisers.
   Selected retailers will purchase fertilisers from authorised dealers.
   Monitoring committees are authorised to appoint more than one dealer in a union, if necessary, in addition to the existing authorised dealer.
   According to the new policy, any individual, having warehouse facility of at least 50 tonnes and a minimum bank solvency of Tk 500,000, qualifies to be a dealer.
   District, upazila and union-level committees will oversee the entire system of fertiliser supply.

A parliamentary committee on Wednesday recommended scrapping of a number of provisions, including the one that allows government officials to run affairs at the union parishads in the absence of elected representatives, brought in through an ordinance during the two years’ rule of the army- backed administration, officials said.
   The parliamentary standing committee on local government, rural development and cooperatives ministry at a meeting also proposed cancellation of the provision of submitting affidavit by aspirants on their personal lives along with nomination papers for contesting polls at the core local government body.
   It also proposed repeal of the provision debarring utility bill defaulters from contesting elections at the union parishad, the committee chairman Rahmat Ali told reporters after the meeting at the Jatiya Sangsad Bhaban.
   ‘We have unanimously recommended that there should be no provision for appointing bureaucrats as administrators of the union parishads in the absence of elected councils,’ he added.
   The committee, however, did not propose any alternative to that. The Local Government (Union Parisahd) Bill 2009 was introduced in the parliament on September 14 as the ordinance promulgated by the interim administration lapsed due to its non-ratification by the house 30 days inside the first sitting of the parliament.
   The Election Commission had also proposed scrapping of some of the provisions from the ordinance since it found them irrelevant at the local levels.
   The committee chairman will place the report on the bill in the house seeking its passage as recommended in the current session.

A mob lynched a suspected robber and beat three others, leaving them critically injured, at Prem Bazar of Banskhali in Chittagong early Wednesday.
   The police and local people said villagers had chased the group of four, suspected of preparing for a robbery, at Tuitong of Pakua about 00:30am.
   The gang managed to get away in an auto-rickshaw, but it was stopped by a mob at Prem Bazar on being informed of the incident over mobile by the villagers, the villagers said.
   The Banskhali police officer-in-charge, Babul Banik, said the mob had captured the robbers and beat them, killing one on the spot and critically injuring others.
   The deceased was Mohammed Harun, a resident of Purbachambal at Banskhali.

The well marked low over the west central Bay of Bengal and adjoining northwest Bay persist over the same area.
   It is likely to intensify further and move in a north-westerly direction.
   Squally weather may affect the maritime ports and the coastal regions, a release said.
   Maritime ports of Chittagong, Cox’s Bazar and Mongla have been advised to keep hoisted local cautionary Signal 3.

The police are yet to identify the killers of Swechchhashevak League leader Gautam Sarkar, shot dead at Shyambazar in Dhaka early Tuesday.
   The investigation officer, BM Forman Ali, said they had begun investigation and were trying to find out who had killed Gautam. ‘No clue has yet been found but we hope to identify and arrest the killers soon,’ he said.
   The Sutrapur police officer-in-charge, Tofazzal Hossain, said the victim’s younger brother had lodged a case against some 38 persons for killing his brother on Tuesday night. The police have already launched a special drive to arrest the suspected killers, he claimed.

The prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, left Washington International Airport on her way to Dhaka via Doha at 10:40pm (local time) Wednesday.
   A Qatar Airlines flight carrying the PM is scheduled to landed in Dhaka at 7:25am (BST) Thursday after her nine-day official tour of the United States.
   Foreign minister Dipu Moni, prime minister’s son Sajib Wazed Joy, Bangladesh ambassador to the US Akramul Qader, Bangladesh permanent representative to UN Abdul Momen, minister (Press) of Bangladesh mission in Washington Akhtar Ahmed Khan, deputy chief of mission Sheikh Mohammad Belal, USA unit acting general secretary of Awami League Sajjadur Rahman, among others, saw the PM off at the airport.

The Bangladesh Riffle personnel pushed back 20 Myanmar citizens to their homeland over the Naff river on Wednesday after arresting them at Shahporirdip at Teknaf upazila in Cox’s Bazar.
   Lt Col Abdul Khaleque, commanding officer of the 42 Rifle Battalion at Teknaf, said a group of 20 Myanmar citizens — 10 men, four women and six children — were pushed back to their homeland Wednesday afternoon over the Naff river from the Shahporirdip.
   He said the Myanmar citizens had illegally entered into Shahporirdip. They came from Akiyab in Myanmar, in the morning and the BDR arrested them.
   Later, they were pushed back to Myanmar in the afternoon.

A Bangladesh Rifles soldier, arrested on May 13 in connection with the February 25-26 rebellion, died in Chittagong Medical College Hospital early Wednesday.
   So far, 47 BDR soldiers died in Dhaka and elsewhere in the country after the February 25-26 rebellion.
   The deceased, Abul Khayer, 38, of Panchbibi in Jaipurhat, was a lance nayek posted to the BDR Training Centre at Satkania in Chittagong.
   Khayer was one of about 100 accused in the case filed in connection with the rebellion at the training centre after the rebellion in the BDR headquarters. Seventy-five people, including 57 army officers, were killed during the rebellion.
   Sources in the Chittagong jail said they took Khayer to the CMCH as he complained of severe chest pain about 3:00am and doctors declared him dead after admission.