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The prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, on Monday said her government had taken initiatives so that Bangla was made the seventh official language of the United Nations.
   Inaugurating the Amar Ekushey Book Fair 2010 on the Bangla Academy premises on Monday, the prime minister said she had also underscored the demand at the UN General Assembly by delivering her address in Bangla. The UN now has six official languages: Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian and Spanish.
   She also recalled the contribution of two Bangladeshi expatriates, Salam and Rafique, who had spearheaded the campaign that led to UNESCO’s declaring February 21 as International Mother-language Day in 2000. The 1996-2001 government of Awami League had backed the move.
   Hasina called upon the publishers to encourage fresh and promising writers by publishing their books alongside those of established writers.
   ‘Please encourage the new writers by publishing their works alongside the works of established
   writers. Nurture and evaluate good literature,’ she said.
   Hasina said her government would extend all necessary support to advance the activities of Bangla Academy to fulfil the expectation of the people. ‘We have to make the academy into an institution of pride for the nation.’
   She lamented that BNP-Jamaat government had shrunk the activities of Bangla Academy by allocating funds only for publishing textbooks ignoring creative works and translation of gems of the world literature.
   She also said her government would reinitiate the project for establishing the International Mother-language Institute which had been abandoned by the BNP-Jamaat alliance government. ‘They do not have any sympathy for Bangla language,’ Hasina said.
   ‘We hope the institute would gather information about the situation of languages across the globe and develop an archive on endangered languages,’ she said.
   Hasina also paid tributes to the country’s founding president Sheikh Mujibur Rahman for his role in the 1952 Language Movement. ‘When Khwaza Nazimuddin announced that Urdu would be the state language of Pakistan, Bangabandhu was in jail. He was in Dhaka Medical College Hospital for treatment where he had clandestine meetings with student leaders and advised them to proceed with the movement and it was decided to observe February 21 as demand day,’ she said.
   ‘Meantime, he [Mujib] was transferred to Faridpur jail where he began fasting on February 14. The authorities brought him to Dhaka Medical College Hospital for treatment on February 16 and from there he instructed the protesters to break section 144,’ Hasina said.
   The prime minister also launched the Language Movement Museum housed in the Burdwan House on the academy premises. She went round the fair ground, bought some books and talked with writers and publishers.
   Information minister Abul Kalam Azad, state minister for cultural affairs Pramod Mankin, president of Academic and Creative Publishers Association of Bangladesh Mohiuddin Ahmed and director general of Bangladesh Academy Shamsuzzaman Khan also spoke at the programme chaired by academy chairman Kabir Chowdhury.
   As security was relaxed after the prime minister’s departure, hundreds of visitors, who were eagerly waiting outside, poured into the ground.
   The organisers said more than 4,000 new books were expected to hit the fair featuring 505 stalls of 356 publishing houses, government agencies, non-government organisations and media houses. There are 203 single unit stalls, 103 two-unit stalls and 23 three-unit stalls. The fair will have 26 more small stalls for little magazines at Baheratala.
   The fair ground has been brought under the coverage of a wi-fi network with the help of the Bangla Lion Communications to provide the visitors with facilities for free internet browsing.
   Although six archways were supposed to have been set up at the two entrances – one on the Atomic Energy Commission end and the other on the Institute of Food and Nutrition end – for security checks, there was no archway after the prime minister’s depurture.
   Fifteen closed-circuit television cameras have been installed in the compound. Plainclothesmen were also deployed in addition to the personnel of the police and the Rapid Action Battalion to maintain security.
   A task force will also be on vigil against sales of pirated and illegal books. Use of polythene bags
   and smoking is strictly prohibited on the fair ground.
   Books were sold at 25 per cent discount in all stalls but the Bangla Academy pavilion sold books at its regular discounts. The fair will remain open between 3:00pm and 9:00pm on weekdays and between 11:00am and 9:00pn at the weekend with a two-hour break from noon.
   It is the 38th book fair since the country’s pioneer publisher Chittaranjan Saha started it in 1972 on the academy premises. Later the academy alone began organising the fair until the publishers’ association joined hands with it in 1984. The fair is meant to commemorate the 1952 Language Movement heroes who embraced martyrdom.
   The fair took the shape of a full-fledged fair in 1978. The fair is being organised in association with the publishers and sellers’ association since 1979.
   The fair was named Amar Ekushey Granthamela in 1984 and a guideline for the fair was formulated in the same year.

Inflation due to hike in food prices reached almost double digit in urban area as the monthly inflation rate in November jumped to 7.24 per cent, the highest in last 14 months.
   Experts predicted a further hike in inflation in coming months as prices of rice went up substantially in last two months despite presence of Aman rice, the second largest cereal product, in local market.
   According to Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics, food price inflation witnessed 9.83 per cent increase in urban areas in the penultimate month of last year, pushing up the overall inflation to a danger level.
   The last time the country witnessed a high inflation of 10.19 per cent was in September 2008 while inflation rate was 6.12 per cent in November 2008.
   The monthly rate of inflation, which was hovering around 4 per cent between January 2009 and September 2009 witnessed a sudden jump and started to torment low-income groups both in urban and rural areas.
   The food inflation rate in November in rural area stood at 7 per cent, BBS officials told New Age.
   Finance minister AM Muhith has already expressed his concern over the price hike of commodity items in world market which could push the country to face soaring inflation.
   He told reporters on Sunday that prices of essential commodities, including petroleum products, increased in the international market that posed serious challenges for the present government’s major election pledge of keeping the price of essentials within a tolerable level.
   Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies director general MK Mujeri told New Age that a low price regime which started with the assumption of office by the Awami League led coalition was over.
   People have started feeling the pinch of a fresh bout of price hike of essential commodities as the government, despite its promises, could not do anything effective to rein in price hike of essentials, he observed.
   Experts pointed out that besides proper market intervention, the government needs to concentrate on creating suitable atmosphere for productive sectors as new investment nosedived.
   Foreign direct investment declined by 34 per cent till the first quarter of the current fiscal. Local commercial banks are sitting on idle money worth over Tk 250 billion because of less demand by the private sector.
   Bangladesh Bank governor Atiur Rahman told the annual meeting of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank in October that excess liquidity and higher inflow of workers’ remittances created a bubble-like situation in the prices of essentials and assets.
   The country witnessed a double-digit inflation for most part of 2007 and 2008 because of surging prices of food, fuel oil and fertiliser in both local and international markets.
   Food inflation was so high that poor and even middle-income people struggled to buy their daily provision. It hampered the country’s poverty reduction goals as many low income groups re-entered the poverty trap.

Prime minister Sheikh Hasina at a cabinet meeting on Monday expressed her displeasure at the failure of the authorities concerned in easing traffic congestions in Dhaka city.
   Everything has got stuck in tailbacks as all directives in this regard fell on deaf ears, she was quoted by a cabinet member to have told the meeting.
   Presiding over the weekly cabinet meeting at the Cabinet Division, the prime minister castigated the home affairs and communications ministers for their failure to improve the traffic management despite several directives as the city continues to grapple with chaotic traffic, according to a meeting source.
   The cabinet, however, approved the labour and employment ministry’s proposal for dividing the city into seven zones for staggered weekly holidays for markets, shopping malls and shops in a further move to address traffic congestions and save electricity.
   Hasina identified traffic tangles as ‘a management problem’ while communications minister Syed Abul Hossain tried to defend himself saying that the situation was worsening as the number of vehicles was increasing daily.
   The prime minister blamed callous management by the traffic department of police, Bangladesh Road Transport Authority and the city corporation for the capital’s chaotic traffic, according to the source.
   ‘The traffic situation would have improved had the authorities concerned, including the BRTA and traffic police implemented the existing rules properly,’ the prime minister was quoted as saying.
   ‘The cabinet has approved the proposal for dividing Dhaka city into seven zones for staggered and half-day holidays for shopping malls, markets and shops in respective areas to ease traffic,’ the prime minister’s press secretary Abul Kalam Azad told reporters after the meeting.
   The zone-wise staggered holidays for markets and shops would immediately come into effect, he added.
   Azad said that the Awami League-led government had taken a number of initiatives, including rescheduling of school and office hours to rid the city of traffic tangles.
   The markets and shops will remain closed on Fridays and half-day (till 2:00pm) on Saturdays in zone-1 which covers Banglabazar, Farashganj, Shyambazar, Jurain, Postagola, Shyampur, Dolaipar, Gendaria, Dayaganj, Dolaikhal, Mir Hazaribagh, Tipu Sultan Road, Dhupkhola, Wari, Lalbagh, Kotwali, Bangshal, Nawabpur, Chankharpul, southern part of Gulistan and southwestern side of Jatrabari areas.
   In zone zone-2, markets will have full holiday on Sundays and half-day holiday on Mondays. The area covers Rampura, Banashree, Khilgaon, Goran, a portion of Malibagh, Bashabo, Madartek, Mugda, Manda, Sabujbagh, east side of Kamalapur, Maniknagar, Dhalpur, Sayedabad, part of Jatrabari, Demra, Shanir Akhra, Rayerbazar and Dania.
   The markets and shops will remain closed on Thursdays and half-day on Fridays in zone-3 which includes Eskaton, Moghbazar, Bailey Road, Siddweshwari, Malibagh, Shajahanpur, Shaheedbagh, Shantibagh, Fakirapul, Paltan, Motijheel, Tikatuli, Gopibagh, Arambagh, Dilkusha,Segunbagicha, Bijoynagar, Topkhana Road, Press Club, High Court Mazar, north side of Gulistan, Ramna Park, Suhrawardy Park, Shishu Park, Dhaka University, Eden College and New Market areas.
   The markets and other businesses in zone-4, which covers Karwan Bazar, Hatirpul, Manik Mia Avenue, Razabazar, Indira Road, Monipuripara, Tejturibazar, Farmgate, portion of Tejgaon, Nilkhet, Katabon, Elephant Road, Kalabagan, Shukrabad, Sobhanbagh, New Elephant Road, Dhanmondi, Hajaribagh, Zigatola, Pilkhana and part of Lalmatia area, will remain closed on Tuesdays and half-day on Wednesdays.
   Markets and other businesses in zone-5 will have full holiday on Thursdays and half-day holiday on Fridays. The zone includes Mohammadpur, Adabor, Shyamali, Gabtali, Mirpur-1 and 2, Mirpur Mazar, stadium, zoo areas, Kalyanpur, Asadgate and Lalmatia.
   Zone-6 will have full holiday on Sundays and half-day holiday on Mondays. The area includes Agargaon, Taltala, Sher-e-Bangla Nagar, Shewrapara, Kazipara, Pallabi, Mirpur-10, 11, 12, 13 and 14, Ibrahimpur, Kachukhet, Kafrul, Mahakhali new and old DOHS, Kakoli, Tejgaon old airport area, Cantonment, Gulshan-1 and 2, Banani, Mahakhali and Tejgaon.
   Markets and business establishments will remain closed on Wednesdays and have half-day holiday on Thursdays in Zone-7 that includes Badda, Jagannathpur, Bashundhara residential area, Baridhara, Satarkul, Kuril, Nikunja-1 and 2, Khilkhet, North Dakkhinkhan, Joar Sahara, Ashkona, Uttara and airport road from Kuril to south edge of Tongi bridge.
   Last week the government had introduced staggered holidays for industrial units in Dhaka and its adjoining manufacturing hubs such as Narayanganj, Narsingdi, Gazipur and Savar to mitigate gas shortage.
   According to the shop owners’ association, there were 2,00,000 shops and around 100 large and small markets in the city
   The city authorities are struggling to contain the growing traffic. They have already taken a number of initiatives, including activating automatic traffic signals and introduction of lane system on an experimental basis but such initiatives could not ease traffic congestion on city roads.
   Monday’s meeting also expressed gratitude to the Almighty Allah on the execution of the court verdict in the Sheikh Mujibur Rahman murder case.
   It discussed the outcome of the Copenhagen climate conference and its next course of action.
   The prime minister also directed the communications ministry to take immediate measures to construct overpasses at level crossings in the city’s strategic points and introduce more double-decker buses to rid city roads of congestions.

Weightlifter Hamidul Islam took the honour of winning the first gold medal for Bangladesh in the 11th SA Games after the cyclists put the hosts into a humiliating situation on the fourth day on Monday.
   Hamidul lifted 257kg to clinch the gold in the 77kg weight category, an event that also presented Bangladesh their second sliver of the meet. Monoranjan Roy bagged the silver falling two kg short of compatriot Hamidul.
   Hamidul’s younger brother Akramul Huq had earned the first silver for Bangladesh a day earlier in this discipline.
   Bangladesh added their third silver later on Monday evening when judoka Mamunur Rashid finished second behind Pakistani Zahid Iqbal in men’s 100kg weight category. The hosts also won a bronze from judo with Farhana Halim finishing third in women’s 63kg category.
   The most-talked-about incident on the fourth day, however, was the humiliating disqualification of two Bangladeshi players in the women’s 50km cycling event held in Khulna.
   The Bangladesh tent burst into celebration for what they thought the first gold medal for the hosts when they saw local girl Marma Fatema Chingby pedal into the touchline ahead of all competitors.
   Following allegations from the Indian, Sri Lankan and Nepali contestants it was revealed that a commissary riding on a motorbike had pushed Chingby forward and she was declared disqualified.
   Bangladesh’s second contestant in the event, Farhana Sultana Shila, was also disqualified for avoiding a u-turn. The Bangladesh Olympic Association formed a three-member committee to investigate the matter after the incident.
   In the team events, Bangladesh recorded a facile 4-0 win over Bhutan to confirm a semi-final berth in men’s football with Enamul, Nasir, Yusuf and Jitu scoring the goals. Bangladesh joined Maldives in the last four from Group A after the latter defeated Nepal 1-0.
   Bangladesh men’s handball team beat Nepal 40-18 while women’s kabaddi team recorded a 34-20 win against Sri Lanka to advance to the final. Bangladesh men’s kabaddi team also defeated Sri Lanka by 36-15 points.
   Among the participating countries, Pakistan had the maximum success on the fourth day winning five gold medals to take their tally to six that put them ahead of Sri Lanka, who had a barren day in terms of winning gold.
   India lead the medals table with 11 golds, five more than second-placed Pakistan. Bangladesh, placed fourth in the table, has won one gold, three silver and eight bronze medals.

A young housewife and her four children were charred to death in a devastating fire Sunday midnight in a remote village of Hathazari, 20 miles north of Chittagong city, police said Monday.
   The bodies of  housewife Raju Akter (35), her three sons Saiful Islam (10), Shariful Islam (3), Saikul Islam (7 months) and
   daughter Shafi Moni (5) were recovered from the remnants, police added.
   Hathazari police station’s officer-in-charge Mohammad Ismail told New Age that the fire originated from an oven in the kitchen an adjacent house at about 11:30 pm and immediately engulfed the tin shed dwelling of Babul Miah whose wife Raju Akter and children were asleep. Two other dwellings were also gutted in the fire.
   ‘Villagers rushed to the scene and later joined by the local fire station to fight the blaze, but the victims were trapped and burnt to death,’ Ismail said.
   A pall of gloom descended in the locality following the tragic deaths, he added.

Unidentified assailants stabbed to death an imam of a local mosque in front Uttara Kendriya Jame Masjid near Rajuk Uttara Model College in the capital Monday morning. Witnesses said the imam, Mohammad Rashidul Islam, 32, was passing by the area in a rickshaw when a gang of three assailants stopped him in front of the mosque at Uttara-6, and tried to drag him inside the mosque at around 9:30am.
   As he tried to resist them, the assailants stabbed him indiscriminately in the face, chest, neck and stomach leaving him dead on the spot. The miscreants exploded two crude bombs to scare away the bystanders before leaving the scene.
   Rashidul was the imam of Mainartek Jame Mosque at Uttarkhan and also a teacher of Uttara Darul Ihsan Madrassah.
   The rickshaw puller Abdur Razzak told New Age, ‘The passenger hired my rickshaw at around 9:30am and the killers intercepted him in front of the mosque.’
   ‘I saw three people having long beard stop the rickshaw, drag the imam at the entrance to the mosque and stab him indiscriminately until he fell on the ground,’ Hazi Nur Islam, an witness to the gruesome killing, told New Age.
   ‘As we tried to chase the killers, they fled the scene hurling two crude bombs,’ Nur Islam said.
   Uttara police came to the spot after the incident and took the body to Dhaka Medical College Hospital for post-mortem examination.
   A team of Rapid Action Battalion, along with bomb experts, also went to the spot and collected splinters and other evidence.
   Major Momtajur Rahman, of RAB-1 told New Age, ‘The killers hurled crude bombs to make their way out.’
   The officer in-charge of Uttara police station, Khandaker Rezaul Hasan, told New Age, ‘We are investigating the killing and trying to track down the miscreants.’
   Uttara zone’s deputy police commissioner Mohammad Nesarul Arif, told New Age, ‘We are investigating the killing and following possible leads, including militancy links.’
   Rashedul, son of Abdul Nur ofKaliganj under Deviganj police station in Panchagarh, was staying at a rented house at Chanbari Uttarkhan.

The apex court will deliver today its crucial order on BNP-Jamaat interveners’ applications for leave to appeal against the High Court ruling declaring illegal and void the constitution Fifth Amendment based on martial-law proclamations following the August 15, 1975 changeover.
   A six-member bench of the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court, headed by Chief Justice M Tafazzul Islam, Monday fixed the date for order after closing the petition hearings that took six working days.
   On the concluding day, Moudud Ahmed, the counsel for three intervener-lawyers, including two pro-Jamaat ones, pleaded for granting leave to appeal according to usual practice as well as article 103 of the constitution.
   Terming the Fifth Amendment political and not a legal issue, Moudud said, ‘If the apex court does not grant leave, the judiciary will be questioned in public mind with regard to its impartiality and image, which might lead to unrest and conflict in the country.’
   TH Khan, the counsel for intervener BNP secretary general Khandaker Delwar Hossain in the case, said, ‘It has become plight for us as the ruling grand- alliance government withdrew from the legal battle on the important constitutional tangle, leaving our conscience clouded with smog.’
   A veteran lawyer, TH Khan said the government wanted to justify the High Court jurisdiction in proscribing constitutional Fifth Amendment as a shield for the future.
   Opposing the BNP-Jamaat leave pleas, Mahmudul Islam, the chief state counsel for conducting the case, said the High Court had the jurisdiction to scrutinise any enactment of law by parliament.
   ‘By declaring the Fifth Amendment void and illegal, the High Court did not exercise any extra-judicial power,’ he argued.
   He submitted that since the basic feature of the constitution cannot be altered by parliament, so the question of amendment to the constitution through martial-law proclamations, which is non-exist in the constitution, does not arise.
   ‘If any other law is inconsistent with the constitution that other law shall, to the extent of the inconsistency, be void,’ Islam said, citing article 7(2) of the constitution, the supreme law of the Republic.
   The parliament, which does not have the power to enact any law ultra vires of the constitution, does not have the power to ratify it, he contended.
   Refuting the argument by Moudud Ahmed, Ajmalul Hossain, QC, the counsel for the Bangladesh-Italian Marble Works Ltd and others, submitted that article 103 of the constitution does not state the threshold or criteria for granting leave. ‘This is dealt with in the decided cases.’
   Ajmamul said the test for granting leave to appeal must be that there are reasonable grounds for sustaining the appeal and those grounds have reasonable prospect of success.
   Just to assert that there is an important constitutional point which, needs to be considered by the court, is simply not good enough for granting leave, he argued.
   ‘Since all are agreed that the martial law is illegal and unconstitutional, so the court should not grant leave in the case,’ he said.
   Ajmalul went on: If the leave is granted, it would send a wrong signal to military cabal to usurp statecraft in future circumventing the constitution.
   The attorney general, Mahbubey Alam, hailed as historical the HC judgement outlawing the Fifth amendment as he said the judgement restored the basic feature of the constitution and four state principles democracy, secularism, Bangalee nationalism and socialism — for which the people had fought for long.
   After the August 15, 1975 changeover, the constitutional provision was not followed in respect of assuming the office of president. Instead of vice-president, Khandaker Mushtaque Ahmed, Justice AS Sayem and General Ziaur Rahman usurped power one after another by martial law proclamations, which never exist in the constitution.
   Tawfique Nawaz also echoed the contentions of Ajmalul Hossain, saying that there is no element for granting leave to appeal against the High Court judgement that declared illegal the constitution Fifth Amendment endorsing usurpation of power in a row by Khandaker Mushtaque Ahmed, Justice AM Sayem and Major General Ziaur Rahman since the August 15, 1975 changeover till April 9, 1979.

Sri Lanka’s president on Monday sacked a dozen senior military officers whom the defence ministry said were a ‘direct threat to national security’ after last week’s presidential elections.
   A military official said it was the army’s biggest-ever purge and went beyond a 1962 shake up following a coup attempt by volunteer officers against late prime minister Sirima Bandaranaike.
   ‘What we have just witnessed is the biggest single shake up in the army,’ a top official said. ‘The sacking is also coupled with several drastic changes in key positions.’
   The president, Mahinda Rajapakse, had accused the defeated opposition of planning to assassinate him after he beat former army general Sarath Fonseka in the bitterly fought January 26 poll.
   Security forces kept Fonseka under siege while election results were announced on Wednesday, and 15 retired officers working at Fonseka’s offices were later arrested.
   The military official said 12 top officers, including three major generals, were sacked to thwart any attempted coup by Fonseka’s supporters inside the military.
   The defence ministry in a statement said an undisclosed number were ‘sent on compulsory retirement’ because they were considered a ‘direct threat to national security’.
   The ministry said the officers had breached military discipline by becoming involved in politics.
   Rajapakse and Fonseka were close allies in the massive offensive that finally crushed the separatist Tamil Tigers in May, but they fell out after the victory and went head-to-head in the presidential elections.
   When he resigned from the military in November and launched his ill-fated bid to unseat the president, Fonseka accused Rajapakse of falsely suspecting him of planning a coup.
   Rajapakse also carried out a major shake-up of the army over the weekend, transferring 40 officers and promoting several considered loyal to his administration.
   Fonseka told reporters in Colombo on Monday that he ‘was very surprised to know that I had so many loyal people at the very top and middle level in the army’.
   He accused Rajapakse of politicising the military and said his party workers and supporters were still being harassed.
   ‘Even retired army officers who helped me have been taken in (to custody), and no one knows where they are being held,’ he said.
   Fonseka said the government had targeted his office to prevent his party from collecting evidence to mount a legal challenge to the election result.
   Rajapakse won 58 per cent of the vote, trouncing Fonseka, who got 40 per cent, after a contest that many had expected to be much closer.
   Rajapakse called the vote four years into his six-year term to capitalise on popular support for the defeat of Tamil rebels that ended a decades-long separatist war.
   The government insisted the election was free and fair but the United States has pressed for a probe into the charges of vote fraud.
   The European Commission too issued a statement calling for an investigation.
   Before polling day, the country’s independent election commissioner had complained about misuse of state resources for the president’s re-election campaign and bias in the state media.
   KD Knight, chairman of the Commonwealth observer mission, said Fonseka would have to find hard evidence of malpractice to launch any legal challenge to the result.

Bangladeshi businessmen face agonising hassles in securing Indian visa which is required for them to frequently travel to the next door neighbour which happens to be the country’s largest trading partner and a major source of industrial raw materials and capital goods.
    Though bilateral trade is heavily lopsided in favour of India which sells goods and services worth billions of dollars to Bangladesh, businessmen from the country have to undergo an arduous process for getting the Indian visa they require for meeting suppliers or for exploring market for Bangladeshi products there.
   Trade body sources told New Age that business community in Dhaka had been irked hearing that visa hassles recently prevented a Dhaka Chamber of Commerce and Industry delegation from attending a trade fair in Tripura.
   Bangladeshi businessmen feel that by refusing visas, the Indian authorities virtually denied a level playing field which is a prerequisite to a balanced growth in bilateral trade.
   The Dhaka chamber on January 27 applied for multiple-entry visas for its 11-member Tripura delegation following an invitation from Tripura Chamber to join their annul industrial and commercial fair.
    DCCI secretary AHM Nurul Islam said the Indian authorities initially agreed to provide only three single entry visas and later on they agreed on make it for three more.
   “So, the visa hassles forced us to cancel the visit to Tripura to attend the trade fair there,’ Islam said. The proposed delegation included two directors and one vice-president at the board of DCCI, Bangladesh’s premier business chamber.
   Islam observed that the India authorities should make their visa regime business-friendly which is especially required for promoting business with a neighbouring country like Bangladesh.
   ‘It is extremely disgraceful that the Indian authorities refused visa to Bangladeshi Businessmen when Indian products dominate Bangladesh market and local ports and roads are set to be opened for Indian businesses,’ lamented one senior DCCI member.
   He cited that the lion’s share of Bangladesh’s import spending goes to India—worth more than US$ three billion US dollars annually—while India imports from Bangladesh worth a paltry US$ 300 million.
   A director at the Federation of Bangladesh Chambers of Commerce and Industry—the country’s apex trade body—also echoed the sentiment of the DCCI member.
   ‘The attitude of Indian authorities is certainly irksome,’ he said. ‘It’s India that should show cordiality so Bangladeshis can feel that they are a responsible neighbour eager to promote bilateral trade and economic cooperation,’ he said.

US president Barack Obama’s administration acknowledged Monday that the budget deficit will swell to a record 1.556 trillion dollars but called for a bipartisan panel to reduce red ink to sustainable levels.
   The White House had earlier forecast a budget gap of 1.502 trillion dollars in the 2010 fiscal year ending September 30 as the administration poured immense resources to contain a serious financial crisis that plunged the nation into recession.
   Figures released Monday under Obama’s government budget for the 2011 fiscal year, which begins October 1, show that the 2010 deficit would shatter the record deficit of 1.413 trillion dollars for 2009.
   Accumulating deficits beyond this year — although expected to decline — would double federal debt held by the public to 15.686 trillion dollars in seven years and push it even higher to 18.573 trillion dollars in 2020.
   Measured against the size of the economy, the 1.556 trillion budget shortfall in 2010 would equal a hefty and unsustainable 10.6 per cent of the gross domestic product, the basic measure of a country’s overall economic output.
   Officials say a sustainable deficit to GDP level is about three per cent.
   ‘The target is something in the range of three per cent of GDP, which would balance the budget outside of interest payments on the debt,’ Obama’s budget chief Peter Orszag said, when asked about a sustainable figure.
   ‘We faced a very severe economic downturn, and that expands the deficit and requires dramatic action. So you’ll see lots of big numbers that might seem scary, but that’s what it reflected,’ he said in an interview with MSNBC.
   The budget unveiled Monday will be accompanied by Obama’s call for a bipartisan Fiscal Commission to identify deficit cutting policies over the long term and to balance the budget.
   ‘We believe a bipartisan process is necessary, and that’s why we’re setting up the bipartisan fiscal commission,’ Orszag said in an interview with MSNBC.
   The 3.834 trillion dollar budget the White House will send to Congress at 10:00am (1500 GMT) includes a three-year freeze on non-security discretionary spending, a 100 billion dollar jobs package and extra education and homeland security spending.
   Congressional estimates last week had actually showed the government’s budget deficit narrowing slightly to 1.349 trillion dollars in 2010.
   The Obama administration said the 2011 budget is aimed at dealing with the aftermath of the financial, fiscal, housing and unemployment crises, and to put the United States on a path to long-term economic security.
   Obama, who inherited a flood of red ink from his predecessor George W Bush, has promise to cut the 1.3 trillion dollar deficit he inherited in half by 2013.
   The 2010 budget figures foresees the deficit falling to 1.267 trillion dollars in the 2011 and tumbling to 828 trillion dollars the next year and 727 billion dollars, or four per cent of GDP by the end of Obama’s term in 2013.
   Obama also called for an extra 33 billion dollars this year to pay for his troop surge in Afghanistan, and wants a big boost in spending on US wars in 2011.
   The extra 33 billion request this year will pay for 30,000 reinforcements the president has ordered to Afghanistan, and spending on US wars abroad will then increase to 159.3 billion dollars in 2011.

The government is considering ‘positively’ a new proposal of the UK-based Asia Energy which offered the government only 10 per cent stake in the Phulbari coal field for operating an open-pit mine, said sources in the government.
   Besides, the government has also engaged the UNDP and German GTZ, which has supported open-pit mining in Bangladesh, for conducting a feasibility study for an open pit coal mine on the north flank of Barapukuria coal field, they said.
   Asia Energy, which had submitted a controversial proposal for an open-pit coal mine at Phulbari in 2005, recently submitted another proposal to the energy and mineral resources division offering the government a 10 per cent share of the coal field without any government ‘investment’.
   Besides, the company also proposed to install a 5,000MW power plant at Phulbari using the coal of the open-pit mine, said sources.
   The company, which was formed centring on Phulbari coal field and has no previous experience in coal mining, claimed that it would provide the ‘best price’ for the land to be used for the proposed open-pit mine, they said.
   ‘The government policymakers have discussed the new proposal. There is every indication that the government is actively and positively considering the proposal of Asia Energy. The energy division will send a summary on Asia Energy’s new proposal to the prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, shortly for a decision,’ said a source in the government adding that the company had recently started hectic lobbying for the proposed open-pit mine.
   The company’s earlier proposal for the open-pit mine was shelved after violent protests by the people of Phulbari as they feared the planned open-pit mine would displace more than 40,000 people.
   The company in its initial study said that it would extract around 15 million tonnes of coal from the field that has a reserve of 572 million tonnes of coal. It said the government would get only 6 per cent royalty for the coal as per the agreement while it would also export coal.
   It had also proposed that the company would install a power plant at the mine-mouth.
   Energy experts and rights activists have warned that such an open-pit mine in the densely populated area and fertile land would badly impact the environment.
   Besides, an expert committee formed by the government and headed by BUET professor Nurul Islam, termed ‘illegal’ Asia Energy’s agreement with the government for the coal field and viewed that operating an open-pit mine at Phulbari would not be viable.
   Three people were killed and several others were injured when law enforcers opened fire on hundreds of people protesting at Asia Energy’s planned open- pit mine at Phulbari in August 2006. The company was forced to leave Phulbari but has been lobbying successive governments to take over the coal field.
   Sources in the government said Asia Energy became active as soon as the government of Awami League-led alliance took office.
   The government, meanwhile, engaged the UNDP and GTZ for conducting a feasibility study to operate an open-pit mine in Barapukuria coal field, adjacent to Phulbari coal field.
   ‘A three-party study engaging the government, UNDP and GTZ will be launched soon to study whether it would be possible to operate an open-pit mine in Barapukuria coal field,’ said a source.
   He said that on the basis of the study report, the government will finalise the coal policy.
   When asked whether the study would be neutral as the GTZ had already supported open-pit mining, a high official of the ministry said that it would be impartial as representatives of the government and UNDP would be there.
   A number of ministers of the present government have already visited some open-pit mines in Germany. GTZ arranged the visits.
   Besides, the GTZ sponsored a number of seminars that recommended open-pit mining in Bangladesh.
   Prime minister’s adviser Tawfiq-e-Elahi Chowdhury and state minister for power and energy Enamul Haque were not available for comments as they were in New York to attend a programme.

A female suicide bomber blew herself up among a crowd of Shia pilgrims on their way by foot to a shrine city in central Iraq on Monday, killing 41 people including women and children.
   Officials said the attack that also wounded 106 people targeted a rest station where pilgrims had stopped on their long journey to Karbala, 110 kilometres south of Baghdad, for a religious festival.
   ‘At 11:45am (0845 GMT), a woman wearing an explosives-filled belt blew herself up in the middle of a crowd of pilgrims going to Karbala,’ said Major General Qassim Atta, spokesman for Baghdad operational command.
   An interior ministry official gave the toll and said the wounded were being treated at five hospitals in the capital.
   At least five women and six children were among the dead, a medical official said earlier.
   ‘We were serving the people when the attack occurred inside a search tent for women,’ said Allawi Hassan, who was being treated at Kindi hospital in Baghdad.
   ‘The moment the explosion happened I felt as if I was flying through the air. I saw men, women and children wounded before I fainted. I then found myself in hospital,’ added Hassan, whose legs were hit by shrapnel.
   The victims had been travelling on foot from the central province of Diyala to Karbala to observe Arbaeen rituals.
   Arbaeen marks 40 days after the Ashura anniversary that commemorates the killing of revered 7th century Imam Hussein, whose shrine is considered one of the holiest places in Shia Islam.
   Tens of thousands of Shias, including many from neighbouring Iran, make their way at Arbaeen to pay homage at the Karbala shrine, walking as a sign of greater piety.
   It is routine practice for pilgrims to be searched at transit food stations because of the risk of attacks.
   Around 30,000 members of the Iraqi security forces have been deployed to Karbala for the holy festival which culminates on Friday.

Britain’s military ‘simply didn’t have enough time’ to source all the equipment needed for the 2003 Iraq invasion, the professional head of the armed forces said Monday at an inquiry into the war.
   Air Chief Marshal Jock Stirrup said it would have made a ‘significant difference’ to Britain’s effort if the military had had the full six months required to prepare, as opposed to just four.
   ‘The problem of course was that we simply didn’t have enough time, as it turned out, to do everything we needed to do before the operation started,’ said Stirrup, who was then in a top role dealing with military equipment.
   Asked if an extra two months to prepare would have helped, he said: ‘I think it would have made a significant difference. That’s 50 per cent additional time.
   ‘We were finding that in a number of cases we were getting 100 per cent delivery about a month or two after the operation started. So I think that the six-month assumption wasn’t a bad one.’
   Stirrup added that military chiefs had told ministers of the problems, although the inquiry has already heard of high-level concerns that military preparations in public could hamper diplomatic moves against Iraq.
   ‘We made it absolutely clear to ministers that if we were not allowed to engage with industry... we could take these (preparations) no further and that there was a serious risk that they would not all be delivered by the assumed start of operations,’ Stirrup added.

Students in Nepal on Monday reacted angrily to a British decision to suspend their visa applications, accusing the authorities in London of ‘playing with people’s lives’.
   Many said they had already paid thousands of pounds for courses in Britain, which they now feared they would not be able to attend.
   ‘I have spent a whole year applying for higher education in Britain and now I don’t know what I am going to do,’ said Rabin Bhattarai, 22, who was hoping to study in London.
   ‘My classes start on February 10 and I have already paid 3,600 pounds (5,700 dollars) to the college.’

The newly appointed Pakistani envoy in Dhaka Ashraf Qureshi is scheduled to arrive in Dhaka today to take charge of his new assignment, a Pakistani high commission statement said in Dhaka Monday.
   A career diplomat Qureshi joined the Foreign Service of Pakistan in 1977 and earlier served in different capacities at Pakistan missions in Tunis, New York, Kuala Lumpur and Brussels and worked as Islamabad’s envoy to Sri Lanka and South Africa.