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Promotions in excess of vacancies at various levels have rendered more officers without work, causing stagnation and frustration in civil bureaucracy as officers on special duty feel left out.
   Many of the senior officials who have been dumped as officers on special duty at the establishment ministry for around nine months are now in fear of losing jobs on political considerations. Some others, who are yet to be allocated responsibilities even after promotion, are getting frustrated, said officials concerned.
   Around 400 officials including 11 secretaries, 59 additional secretaries, 110 joint secretaries and 113 deputy secretaries, are at present languishing in the establishment ministry as officers on special duty, according to a recent official record.
   Those who completed 25 years in service and were made OSDs immediately after the Awami League-led government assumed office in January 2009 are now in fear of losing their jobs.
   ‘It is frustrating that most of the newly-promoted officers are working in the same positions while many have remained OSDs and left without any work…There should have a career planning for civil servants,’ said a senior official adding that the government was paying all these officials without any service.
   ‘The number of OSDs increased due to recent promotions to the levels of additional secretary, joint secretary and deputy secretary…The ministry needs to evaluate one’s background and professional experiences for proper postings,’ establishment secretary Iqbal Mahmood said on October 15 at his office.
   He said that the newly-promoted officials were being posted to various positions and the number of OSDs, thereby, would come down soon.
   The Awami League-led government on September 7 promoted a total of 494 officials mostly from the administration cadre to the levels of deputy secretary, joint secretary and additional secretary in excess of approved vacant positions in organogram and made them OSDs.
   There were already 126 additional secretaries against 108 posts, 250 joint secretaries against 355 posts while the number of deputy secretaries was 1330 against 830 posts in organogram.
   The High Court on October 18 issued a rule asking the government to explain in four weeks the legality of the promotion of 223 additional and joint secretaries after hearing a public interest litigation writ petition.
   Over 250 aggrieved officials from different levels have so far submitted applications to the establishment ministry and the cabinet division, seeking review of the promotion process.
   The establishment secretary said there might have some human errors in the promotions and the ministry will look into those seriously and review the cases if any anomalies are detected.
   The government is reportedly planning to send a large number of senior bureaucrats into early retirement because of their alleged involvement in partisan politics, presumably the BNP-Jamaat alliance leanings.
   Sheikh Hasina’s administration earlier ordered the establishment ministry to inquire into allegations against those officials, known as beneficiaries of the BNP-Jamaat government (2001-06), who reportedly still maintain links with the alliance to serve their political purposes in the bureaucracy, said officials.
   An adviser to the prime minister told New Age that the establishment ministry was probing the charges against a good number of officials at different levels. ‘If any serious allegation against anyone is proved beyond doubts, he or she will be sent into retirement,’ he mentioned, adding that none of the senior bureaucrats were made OSD without reasons.
   Almost all the officials who might be forced to retire under Clause 9(2) of the Public Servants (Retirement) Act 1974 have already been made OSDs as part of the process, which was done during every political regime in the past and rerun by the Awami League-led government soon after it assumed office, said officials.

An official and seven employees of the National Curriculum and Textbook Board have been suspended for their negligence in duties or suspected involvement in the fire that broke out in the NCTB warehouse on October 18 and continued burning till October 21, in which a huge quantity of printing papers and textbooks were burnt.
   The board Sunday afternoon suspended the seven employees on the findings of a preliminary investigation report which said they might have neglected their duties or might have even been involved in the subversive act, sources in the board told New Age.
   Seven employees posted to the warehouse during the fire incident were warehouse officer M Moklechur Rahman, upper division clerks M Nazim Uddin and M Samad Bhuiyan, office assistant M Iqbal Hossain, member on lower support services Rafiqul Islam and store guards Bachchu Miyan and Ahsan Habib. New people have, however, been sent to the positions in the warehouse.
   Associate professor of management M Nasim Haider who was posted on deputation as custodian of the warehouse was also suspended, according to an education ministry order issued on Sunday.
   ‘These people will not be allowed to perform their duties until the issue is settled. If proved responsible for fire, they will need to face punishment in accordance with law,’ said a board official.
   The seven-member committee on Sunday also interrogated at least three textbook board employees, including Bachchu Miyan who has been suspended, for the ‘mysterious role’ they played before and after the incident.
   The committee suspected them on the grounds that one of them ignored his transfer order, another got a contractual job by lobbying and the other abstained from attending office after the incident, a committee member said.
   The government formed the seven-member committee, headed by additional secretary of the education ministry Razia Begum, asking it to submit its final report in 15 days, ministry officials said. The preliminary report said the incident was an act of sabotage.
   Others who were interrogated on Sunday are Abdur Rahim, a member on the lower support service, and Abu Miyan, a member on the lower support services on muster roll.
   ‘On October 1, one of them was transferred to the NCTB head office at Motijheel, but at least four influential persons lobbied for him so that his transfer order could not be implemented. Everybody knew he has a strong nexus with the people engaged in printing and publishing of textbooks and supplying papers for the job,’ a committee member said.
   Another committee assigned supervision of textbook-related job at its 7th meeting at the textbook board office on Sunday, meanwhile, raised question why 4.5 lakh copies of textbooks printed for the distribution in the 2010 academic session had been stored in the Tejgaon warehouse.
   ‘Such books were supposed to be sent to the districts. It is mysterious that these books were sent to the warehouse,’ said Professor M Aktaruzzaman of the Dhaka University Islamic history department who heads the 16-member national monitoring committee.
   The education ministry in the first week of August formed the committee to advise the government and to monitor the jobs of publishing and distribution of textbooks for the academic session 2010.
   The government has plans to distribute 19 crore copies of primary and secondary books free among the students at the beginning of the academic year 2010.

Home affairs minister Sahara Khatun on Sunday expressed regret that New Age’s staff correspondent FM Masum had been tortured by some personnel of the Rapid Action Battalion.
   The RAB personnel picked Masum up from his residence for no reason on Thursday, tortured him severely and rubbed salt into his wounds in public, and then held him in custody for 10 hours and a half and tortured him mercilessly.
   He had to be rushed to Dhaka Medical College Hospital after he was released from custody at about 10:30pm on Thursday.
   He had marks of injury all over his body and his feet were swollen when he was released. He is now being treated in a private hospital.
   He has written numerous reports on the violation of human rights, especially by the RAB.
   Sahara assured reporters that the authorities would take strong action against anyone of the elite force who was found to be responsible for torturing newsmen in custody.
   ‘It is very sad if anyone unlawfully becomes the victim of any law-enforcing agency…We feel sorry for the incident,’ Sahara Khatun told newsmen after a meeting on the prevention of smuggling at the secretariat.
   She, however, said the government would not spare anybody responsible for illegal activities, whoever they were. ‘The government will not tolerate any unlawful activities by anybody.’
   When asked why police officials were refusing to file a case in this connection, state minister for home affairs Shamsul Haque Tuku assured reporters that the police would accept the case.
   Later the two ministers went to the hospital to see Masum and assured his relatives that his torturers would be given due punishment.
   Sahara Khatun told reporters that this government would not tolerate any injustice. ‘Action will be taken against any wrong-doers,’ she added.
   Responding to an allegation that law-enforcing agencies like the RAB detain suspects for more than 24 hours in their cells instead of handing them over to the police in accordance with the law, she said the matter would be looked into seriously.
   State minister Shamsul Haque Tuku reassured Masum’s relatives that proper action would be taken against the RAB personnel involved in torturing him.
   Masum’s relatives alleged that they were not given any information of his whereabouts after he was picked up, which had left the whole family in tremendous anxiety.
   Various national and international organisations on Friday strongly denounced the inhuman torture of Masum by RAB members.
   The Rapid Action Battalion, in a statement on Friday, also regretted the ‘unwarranted incident’ that had taken place on Thursday when one of its units was conducting a raid to arrest some suspected drug-peddlers.
   RAB’s statement, signed by its legal and media wing director, said, ‘We sincerely express our regret for the unwarranted incident that has taken place between RAB personnel and journalist FM Masum of the largely-circulated daily New Age.’
   The ‘unwarranted incident’ took place when the RAB-10 was carrying out a raid on a house at 167, Dakkhin Jatrabari, at about 12:30pm to arrest a female suspected of drug peddling, according to the statement.
   The RAB, when it released Masum, claimed that they had picked him up for not cooperating with them.

The Dhaka University Sunday night sent Mohiuddin Ahmed, a teacher of the Institute of Business Administration, who heads the banned Islamic outfit Hizb ut-Tahrir, until further decision.
   The police, meanwhile, seized all possessions of the organisation from its central office at Purana Paltan in Dhaka on a court order on the day.
   The Bangladesh Bank has also directed all commercial banks to freeze the accounts of the organisation.
   The government on October 22 banned all activities of Hizb ut-Tahrir Banladesh. The international Islamic political party, founded in Jerusalem in 1953, began its activities in Bangladesh in 2000.
   The university syndicate at a meeting, chaired by the vice-chancellor, AAMS Arefin Siddique, made the decision. Syndicate member Sadeka Halim told New Age the university had sent Mohiuddin until further decision.
   The fate of another Hizb ut-Tahrir leader, who also teaches in the university, was not decided till 10:00pm when the meeting was going on.
   The police have cordoned off Mohiuddin’s university quarter after Thursday when the government banned the organisation. He has been under house arrest since then.
   The Bangladesh Bank on Sunday directed all commercial banks to freeze the bank accounts of the Hizb ut-Tahrir Bangladesh.
   The money laundering department of the central bank issued a circular to the managing directors of all commercial bank in this regard.
   Central bank officials in the morning called managing directors of commercial banks asking them to freeze the bank accounts, officials said.
   The police on Sunday seized all possessions of the Hizb ut-Tahrir Bangladesh from its central office on a court order.
   The Paltan police officer-in-charge, Mohammad Mujibur Rahman, told New Age, ‘We have attached all possessions in the office breaking the padlock after obtaining a court order.’ The Hizb ut-Tahrir office is housed on the fourth floor of 55/A, Purana Paltan.
   ‘We have seized a central processing unit, a monitor, a large number of books, posters, leaflets, festoons, banners, one almirah, one file cabinet, one video camera and some bamboo sticks during the search,’ which started at 11:30am and continued till 3:30pm, he said adding that the police did not find the hard disk of the computer.
   The government on Saturday ordered all bank accounts of Hizb ut-Tahrir Bangladesh to be frozen after banning all kinds of activities of the organisation Thursday.
   It also ordered the website of the organisation to be blocked.
   The police foiled a briefing arranged by Mohiuddin Ahmed, chief coordinator and spokesperson for the organisation, on Friday at his hosue on the Green Road.
   According to Hizb ut-Tahrir’s web site, Mohiuddin Ahmed is the chief coordinator and spokesperson for the party and its central office is located at HM Siddique Mansion, 55/A Purana Paltan, 4th Floor, Dhaka.
   The police also seized a large number of Jihadi books and organisational documents from its Sylhet office on Sunday afternoon.
   Sylhet Kotwali police raided the office of Hizb ut-Tahrir in Purba Dargah Gate area at about 2:00pm and seized the materials.
   The lawmen failed to detain anyone during the drive, sources in the police said.
   Police said the owner of the building, where the office was located, filed a general diary with the Kotwali police station in the morning, requesting that the office be closed.
   In response to the request, the raid was conducted, sources in the police said.
   Officer-in-charge of the Kotwali police station, Sayeduzzaman told New Age on Sunday afternoon that the police were preparing a list of the seized documents.

Well-managed cooperatives can be the best way for both rural and urban people to improve living standard through a wider and organised access to technology, finance and public property, economists believe.
   They stress the need for adequate supports and strong monitoring by the government to protect cooperatives’ management and public property from the clutches of local vested interest groups.
   ‘The government should extend all out supports to cooperative sector which has a great potential to change the life of the poor,’ Bangladesh Economic Association president Quazi Kholiquzzaman Ahmad said.
   Especially he mentioned farmers’ cooperatives to ensure fair prices of produces both at growers’ and consumers’ ends. ‘Now growers get less although we, the consumers, pay higher prices,’ he said.
   He said the masses lose their enthusiasm in forming cooperatives and continuing their membership as in most cases some influential people grab the organisations and misappropriate the assets.
   The governing bodies of many cooperatives do not comply with the constitution of the organisation and the laws and rules concerned, he pointed out.
   Kholiquzzaman, who also chairs research organisation Bangladesh Unnayan Parishad, observed that the government gradually lost sight of its role to help cooperatives flourish.
   ‘Rather, it was guided by the market-driven economy and supported individuals to acquire properties.’
   Anu Muhammad, professor of economics at Jahangirnagar University, said economic policy and philosophical guideline of the country were not conducive to development of cooperatives.
   ‘Wrong economic philosophy is the main reason for the failure of cooperatives, though the sector could be highly rewarding in Bangladesh where at least 50 per cent people live below poverty line,’ he said.
   The cooperative sector has always missed out on priorities of the governments, which kept it as an ornamental instrument, he observed. ‘Their affection for cooperatives is mere rhetoric.’
   The leftist economist said the governments have complied with the instructions of the World Bank and the IMF, and privatised public property including rivers and canals in last two decades.
   ‘Privatisation has become an instrument to grab public and common property like water bodies,’ he said adding that powerful quarters grab water bodies in the name of cooperatives of fishermen.
   Anu suggested that the state should change its policy and start providing support to genuine cooperative movement.
   Mahbub Hossein, executive director of BRAC, pointed finger at cultural constraints and attitude of negativism that stood in the way of development of cooperatives in Bangladesh. ‘Our people cannot stay united for long…Cooperatives exist in name only as negativism dominates here everything,’ he said.
   Primary cooperatives formed for common agricultural and irrigation purposes failed to survive due to weaknesses in the management as everybody wants to be leader to make their own fortune depriving others, the agriculture economist pointed out.
   Mahbub, also a former director general of Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies, said strong cooperatives are needed for adoption of modern technologies to increase production and economic activities.
   ‘We should create a positive sense among the people that they can change their fortune together,’ he said.
   Cooperatives mean that people together will plan big things on their own instead of giving relief to the members, he added.
   About the role of the government to make cooperatives successful, he said top-down approach never works in cooperatives.

A Dhaka court on Sunday ordered Freedom Party activist Sheikh Safiullah Sofu to be remanded in police custody for three days in connection with Wednesday’s bomb attack on the ruling Awami League’s lawmaker Fazle Noor Taposh.
   Detective Branch police arrested Sofu at Segunbagicha in the city early Sunday for his suspected link to the attack on Taposh, a prosecution lawyer in the Sheikh Mujibur Rahman murder case.
   With the arrest of Sofu, the number of suspects arrested in this connection rose to four till Sunday evening.
   Taposh escaped the attack unhurt but 12 others were injured by the blast.
   Assistant commissioner Akbar Hossain of the Detective Branch, also the investigation officer in the case, produced Sofu in the Chief Metropolitan Magistrate court on Sunday seeking a 10-day police remand for him.
   First additional chief metropolitan magistrate, Ehsanul Haque granted a three-day remand after hearing.
   Earlier on Saturday, police arrested Khandaker Mehnaz Rashid, the eldest daughter of retired lieutenant colonel Khandaker Abdur Rashid, a fugitive condemned to death in the Mujib murder case, for her suspected links to the bomb attack on Taposh.
   On Thursday, police arrested Kamrul Haque Swapan, younger brother of retired major Shariful Haq Dalim, another condemned convict on the run, and Freedom Party leader Abdur Rahim in this connection. All the arrested persons have been remanded in custody.
   Taposh, a nephew of prime minister Sheikh Hasina, is involved with the legal team assisting the state counsels in the appeals proceedings. He came under a bomb attack as he was leaving his Motijheel office by a car on Wednesday night. His parents Sheikh Fazlul Haque Moni and Arzoo Moni were murdered on the night of August 15, 1975.
   Taposh said on Thursday that the culprits had wanted to kill him in a bid to disrupt the appeals proceedings in the Mujib murder case.
   He filed a case with the Motijheel police station, naming no one as accused, but alleging that the relatives and associates of the convicted of the August 15 carnage were involved in the attack.
   In the case it was said the attack was premeditated. The culprits wanted to kill Taposh in order to disrupt the final outcome of the trial of the killers of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.
   Sub-inspector Arju Mia of Motijheel police station was assigned the investigation of the case.
   The detective branch police received the case docket and documents on Saturday morning.

Death Row convict Syed Faruque Rahman’s counsel on Sunday told the Appellate Division that it should commute Faruque’s death sentence to imprisonment for life of as he had already passed 14 years in solitary confinement as an accused in the Sheikh Mujibur Rahman murder case.
   ‘Faruque deserves reduction of his death sentence to life-term because of his prolonged imprisonment in the death cell,’ said his counsel, Khan Saifur Rahman, during the 15th day of the hearing of the appeals against the High Court’s verdict that had upheld the death sentence of 12 former personnel of the army in the case.
   Saifur also argued that the army men, examined as witnesses in the case, had contradicted each other in their depositions as they had not seen the places of occurrence.
   Saifur told the court that during the cross-examination in the trial court, former Bangladesh Rifles’ director-general Khalilur Rahman said that another condemned convict, Khandakar Rashid, had introduced his wife Zobaida to him after the swearing-in ceremony of Khandakar Mushtaque Ahmed’s cabinet at the Bangabhaban on the morning of 15 August, 1975.
   After introducing him to Zobaida, who sat on the front row during the ceremony, Rashid had told Khalil, ‘Whatever we have so far done, the real planner of the event is my wife,’ Saifur quoted Khalil as saying during the cross-examination.
   The High Court, however, later quashed the proceedings against Zobaida.
   The Appellate Division, however, told Saifur that it could not take Zobaida’s case into consideration as the High Court had quashed the proceedings, finding the prosecution’s findings on Zobaida not credible.
   Referring to Zobaida’s case, Saifur argued, ‘If Zobaida is the real planner, the charges under Section 34 [common intention] against the accused are not proved.’
   Saifur also argued, that, according to the Evidence Act, there will have to reasonable grounds to believe that two or more persons have conspired together to commit an offence. Zobaida must be held solely responsible for the assassinations if she planned them on her own, he said.
   Questioning the legality of the confessional statement made by Faruque to a magistrate on 19 December, 1996, Saifur claimed that his confession was not voluntary and true as it had been recorded after 32 days of remand in police custody, when he was sound in neither body nor mind.
   ‘No accused should put in police custody for a period above 15 days at a time in any case,’ Saifur argued, mentioning the provision for remand.
   Saifur, who is also the counsel for another condemned prisoner, Mohiuddin Ahmed of the Artillery, argued, ‘Mohiuddin was remanded for seven days with effect from 19 November, 1996, but he made his confessional statement on 27 November, 2009, when he was hardly in shape to do so.
   Mohiuddin was illegally confined on the 27th of November, 1996 as he was remanded for seven days on November 19, 1996,’ argued Saifur. ‘If Mohiddin’s confinement on that day is wrong, his confessional statement should also be considered to be illegal.’
   The court will hear Saifur on Monday as his arguments have not been completed.

Twin car bombs targeting two government buildings killed at least 132 people and wounded 500 in Baghdad on Sunday, the police and health officials said, in the bloodiest attack in the Iraqi capital for months.
   Violence has fallen in Iraq since US-backed tribal sheikhs helped wrest control from al-Qaeda militants and Washington sent extra troops but attacks are still common in a nation trying to rebuild from conflict, sanctions and strife.
   The two blasts shook buildings and smoke billowed from the area near the River Tigris. The first targeted the justice ministry and the second, minutes later, was aimed at the nearby provincial government building, the police said.
   Government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said he was in a hotel when the bombs went off and he and others around him were showered in glass. He said he suspected al-Qaeda or remnants of Saddam Hussein’s former government were behind the attacks.
   ‘The initial analysis shows that it bears the fingerprints of al-Qaeda and the Baathists,’ said Dabbagh, who was at the al-Mansour hotel at the time.
   The hotel houses the Chinese embassy and several foreign media organisations. None reported serious injuries.
   The street near the provincial government building was flooded with water and firefighters pulled charred and mangled bodies off the streets. Burned-out cars were piled up nearby.
   Relief workers on cranes searched the shattered facade of the justice ministry and pulled out corpses wrapped in blankets.
   ‘I don’t know how I’m still alive. The explosion destroyed everything. Nothing is still in its place,’ shop owner Hamid Saadi told Reuters by telephone from near the justice ministry.
   A health ministry official said earlier that Baghdad’s hospitals had received 50 bodies and 460 wounded.
   US military officials say attacks like these are aimed at reigniting the sectarian conflict that gripped the nation after the 2003 US-led invasion that deposed Saddam, or at undermining confidence in prime minister Nuri al-Maliki before a parliamentary poll next year.
   Maliki is expected to run on improved security conditions throughout the nation.
   Baghdad security spokesman Major General Qassim al-Moussawi declined to speculate on who was behind the attack.
   Sunday’s blasts hit two months after bombings on August 19 targeting the foreign and finance ministries that killed almost 100 people and wounded hundreds more.
   That attack prompted a rare admission of lapses by Iraqi security forces. Most of the victims of the August 19 attacks were cut down in a blizzard of broken glass.
   The attacks raise doubts about the Iraqi forces’ ability to take over overall security from US soldiers who pulled out of Iraqi city centers in June ahead of a complete withdrawal from the country by the end of 2011.

The Anti-Corruption Commission has revived nearly a decade-old public fund embezzlement case against some readymade garments exporters in collaboration with customs and banks officials.
   It has started investigation into Tk 700 crore fund abuses in 2000-2001 by some 850 garment houses and 38 banks which had allegedly resorted to frauds and false declarations to realise cash incentive.
   The finance ministry that disbursed the cash incentives against exports of some selected products, including garments, to boost the country's export earnings has asked for papers and documents in this regards, according to ACC sources.
   Observers said this would be the first major move taken by the anti-graft body against abuse of export incentive funds. They observed that there were some probes on piecemeal basis on cash incentive abuses, but no thorough investigation was ever conducted in this regard.
   Since early 1990s, successive governments have doled out some Tk 7,424 crore as cash incentive to exporters to encourage them to earn more foreign exchange for the country.
   About 70 per cent of the total amount disbursed since fiscal year 1993-1994 when the scheme was introduced went to the readymade garment sector.
   Allegations were there that many business houses in the RMG sector which did not qualify for getting such incentives resorted to fraudulent means to avail themselves of the easy cash.
   Many exporters were punished for their fraudulent practices. Some 1,500 bonded warehouse licences of the knit and woven wears manufacturers were cancelled or suspended by the National Board of Revenue during the 2000-06 years on charge of frauds.
   A senior ACC official told New Age that some of those cases remained pending since the Bureau of Anti-Corruption was made abolished in November 2005 to give way to ACC as an independent body.
   It is imperative for the ACC to complete investigations on those old cases to find out the nature and trend of financial crimes taking place in the country, he observed.
   When contacted, RMG exporters claimed that the allegation of abusing cash incentives by them was a closed chapter. 'Whatever abuse that is alleged with regard to cash incentive was made mistakenly,' said Fazlul Haq, president of Bangladesh Knitwear Manufacturers and Exporters Association. He claimed that the RMG exporters have corrected the mistakes.
   Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies director general MK Mujeri suggested that a study should be done apart from the probe to find out the advantages and disadvantages of the cash incentive.
   'An in-depth study and thorough investigation would help the government in policy making issues,' he added.
   Mustafizur Rahman, executive director of the Centre for Policy Dialogue, said the abuse of cash incentive was not a new issue. He suggested that the government should tighten the scrutiny process before disbursing the money to check such frauds.
   He observed that such incentive should not be totally stopped as it is related to competitiveness of the local exporters.

The government on Sunday decided to hold road shows in London, New York and Singapore at an estimated cost of Tk 35 lakh to woo investment for the installation of four large, coal-based power plants and four other large independent power plants.
   A power and energy ministry meeting decided that the road shows would be held in December 5-15 to highlighting the prospect and benefits of investing in Bangladesh's power sector.
   The prime minister's adviser Tawfiq-e-Elahi Chowdhury and the state minister for power and energy, Enamul Haque, attended the meeting.
   The itinerary of the road shows will be decided at another meeting next week. The projected cost of the programme outings is around $50,000, which will be provided by the Power Development Board, Board of Investment and Petrobangla, said sources who attended the meeting.
   The power board at the meeting recommended that foreign investment should be wooed in the installation of four coal-based power plants, each with 500MW capacity, under public-private partnership and 330-450MW gas-based Bibiyana second phase and 150-225MW Bhola second unit as independent power plants. Other plants are 330-450MW duel fuel-based Meghnaghat second unit and 100MW furnace oil-based power plants at Savar and Kaliakair.
   More than $5 billion will be required to install the power plants, the power board has estimated.
   Participants in the meeting also recommended wooing investment for the installation of a terminal to offload imported liquefied natural gas.
   'All the recommendations will be reviewed in a week to decide which projects would be highlighted in the road shows,' said a high official who attended the meeting.
   The power secretary and the chairmen of the Board of Investment, Power Develop-ment Board and Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation will attend all the road shows. Tawfiq and Enamul will attend the programmes by turn. The meeting decided that the Petrobangla chairman might attend one or two road shows.
   Each of the road shows will span two days. In the first half on the first day, government officials will make a presentation on the power projects before prospective investors and in a day and a half, one-to-one meetings will be held to answer questions the prospective investors might have, the sources said.
   Power officials said another wrap-up road show will be held in Dhaka.
   The energy secretary, Mohammad Mohsin, the power secretary, Abul Kalam Azad, and the PDB chairman, Alamgir Kabir, were also present.

The government has actively been considering the enactment of a law to prevent profiteering as the concerned authorities have failed over the years to curb the sky-rocketing of commodity prices which is mostly caused by businessmen's machinations, a parliamentary panel was told on Sunday.
   'The process of enactment of an anti-profiteering law has been started at the commerce ministry,' said the newly appointed chairman of the parliamentary standing committee on the commerce ministry, Lutful Hye, after a meeting.
   Lutful, who recently replaced Awami League veteran Abdul Jalil as chairman, said that the meeting had underscored the need for such a law to contain the unethical practices of a section of businessmen that cause frequent rises of the prices of essential commodities.
   Once the proposed law comes into force, it will help to ensure fair competition in the commodity markets, said Lutful who believes that combating price-hikes is one of the biggest challenges facing the government.
   The military-backed government of Fakhruddin Ahmed had taken an almost similar move to prevent malpractice by businessmen to keep the market stable.
   The administration also sought the opinions of different quarters on the proposed law, titled the Competition Act 2008, with provisions of both imprisonment and financial penalty for violation of the law.
   It also suggested the formation of a commission to promote competition and protect the consumers' interest.
   The committee's meeting on Sunday also reviewed the existing market prices of essential commodities and asked the government to strengthen the market monitoring mechanism in order to keep the commodity prices within the commoners' reach.
   The committee was informed that prices of most essential commodities, including rice, flour, sugar, edible oil and powdered milk, have remained stable.
   'Only the prices of onion and garlic have increased slightly,' said a release, quoting commerce ministry's officials, issued by the parliament secretariat.
   Commerce minister Faruk Khan, committee members Tipu Munshi, Md Abul Kashem, Rumana Mahmud and senior officials attended the meeting.

The supporters of a faction of Chhatra League at Sir Salimullah Medical College Sunday staged demonstrations on the campus and demanded expulsion of those involved in Saturday night's 'attack' on the students.
   The demonstrating group brought out a protest procession in the morning and also demanded removal of the vice-principal, Samiul Islam Sadi.
   Belonging to Sayeed group in the college unit of the pro-Awami League Chhatra League, the demonstrators forced outdoor treatment at Mitford Hospital to a halt, causing untold sufferings to the patients, campus sources said.
   The SMC authorities, meanwhile, formed a three-member probe body, headed by Professor Masudul Alam, to investigate Saturday's campus violence that left 20 students wounded.
   The committee was formed at a meeting in the morning. Local MP Mostafa Jalal Mohiuddin was present at the meeting.
   Mohiuddin also held another meeting with the agitating students. 'But, the meeting couldn't reach any decision,' said a campus source.
   Supporters of Sayeed and Suvo groups clashed on the campus on Saturday night following a dispute over taking the newly admitted students of the MBBS course into the organisation, leaving the 20 from Sayeed group injured.
   Sayeed supporters also threatened to continue the class-boycott programme if their demands were not fulfilled within 24 hours.
   Meanwhile, the general students expressed their solidarity with the activities of this pacifist group of Chhatra League.

The prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, left Stockholm Sunday morning for Doha on a two-day official visit to Qatar.
   She will meet Qatar Amir Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani at Diwan Amiri today to discuss mainly issues of manpower and investment.
   The prime minister will also visit a Bangladesh school in Doha.

The Bangla daily Prothom Alo Sunday served a legal notice to five top officials of Basundhara Group, including its chairman, Ahmed Akbar Sobhan, to make their apologies within 48 hours to its editor and publisher, Matiur Rahman and Transcom group chairman, Latifur Rahman, for launching 'a smear campaign through advertisements, leaflets and posters to defame the newspaper.'
   The notice, signed by Ramzan Ali Sikder of Kamal Hossain and Associates, said the 'false' advertisements were published to demean the social status and dignity of Matiur Rahman and Latifur Rahman for money.
   The notice also asked its recipients to publish news offering the apology on the front pages of Jugantor, Amader Samay, Janakantha, Amar Desh, Naya Diganta, Jai Jai Din and Bhorer Kagoj for five days at a stretch. Legal actions will be taken against Basundhara Group if it was not done, said a release signed by Prothom Alo deputy manager M Nurul Alam.
   The other recipients of the notice are technical adviser to Basundhara Group chairman, TIM Latiful Abedin Hossain, Basundhara Steel and Engineering Limited executive director, retried major Zahidur Rahman and manager [administration] of Basundhara Group, Latiful Abedin.

All the panels, except the ruling Awami League-backed Swadhinata Chikitshak Parishad, have decided to boycott the upcoming Bangladesh Medical Associa-tion election as they fear the election will not be fair.
   Left leaning Bangladesh Chikitshak Sangsad will abstain from the BMA election scheduled for November 5, Mustaq Hossain, general secretary of the organisation, told New Age on Sunday.
   Previously, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party-backed Doctors Association of Bangladesh and Jamaat-e-Islami-backed National Doctors Forum boycotted the BMA election of November 5.
   Mustaq Hossain said it was impossible to make a united council for the internal clash in the major partner organisation and for their domineering mentality.
   The incumbent BMA leaders are also trying to stop the election, said a press release of Bangladesh Chikitshak Sangsad.
   In this situation, holding a fair election to present a professional and balanced leadership in BMA has apparently become impossible, the organisation leaders said.

A Saudi court sentenced a female journalist to 60 lashes in a case brought after a Lebanese television channel she worked for aired the sex confession of a Saudi man, the reporter and a lawyer said.
   Rosana, 22, who did not want her full name disclosed, said a court in Jeddah convicted her on Saturday on grounds that the Lebanese Broadcasting Corporation she worked for did not have proper authorisation to operate in the Islamic kingdom.
   The ruling follows the sentencing by the same court of Mazen Abdul-Awad to five years in jail and 1,000 lashes earlier in October after he appeared on an LBC show and talked about his sexual exploits.
   The show has sparked a public outcry in the US ally, one of the world's most conservative countries where clerics have wide-ranging influence and control.
   'I had nothing to do with Mazen Abdul-Jawad's show. The verdict was just because I cooperated with LBC,' the female journalist said.
   LBC is a popular channel in Saudi Arabia, one of the world's most conservative societies.

London's Heathrow Airport has been voted the worst airport in the world for the second year running in a poll of 14,500 frequent fliers while Singapore's Changi was again ranked as the best.
   The survey participants, all member of airport lounge programme Priority Pass, rated Paris' Charles de Gaulle airport as the world's second worst with Los Angeles International Airport coming third despite a recent $1 billion overhaul.
   'A result that suggests anyone wanting a romantic break in Paris should avoid the Heathrow-Charles de Gaulle route if they don't want to kill the mood,' said a statement from Priority Pass.
   'Sadly, Heathrow remains firmly entrenched as the airport the world loves to hate,' added Jonathan French, head of brand for Priority Pass.
   Also coming in the bottom five in the online poll were Frankfurt International and Miami International airports.