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Overpopulation and mismanagement are the major reasons of the capital’s acute problems such as unplanned growth, traffic congestion, and water and gas shortage which are making Dhaka unliveable, experts and planners said.
   They called for immediate action to save Dhaka, which ranks the second among the worst liveable cities of the world, according to the Liveability Survey 2010 of the Economist Intelligence Unit.
   Residents of the capital have for long been suffering from nagging traffic congestion, water stagnation, road stretches in poor conditions with wastes piled on them and acute water and gas shortage.
   Repeated attempts of government agencies, including the Dhaka Metropolitan Police, have failed to ease tailback on the road that eats up several working hours.
   The should work out a comprehensive plan to manage the capital and it should also take measures to decentralise administrative facilities from the capital and develop other divisional cities so that there could be no surge in migration to the capital, urban experts told New Age.
   ‘The Dhaka city has been plagued with many problems in such a manner that the mayor has nothing to do with these nagging problems. It needs the attention of the people high up in the government,’ said the Bangladesh Institute of Planners president, Sarwar Jahan.
   ‘The government will first need to decide how it will manage the overcrowded city which will for certain need a comprehensive plan,’ he said.
   As the Election Commission is preparing to hold elections to the Dhaka City Corporation, urban experts and planners said the first of many tasks of the new city mayor should be to work out a comprehensive management plan for the capital.
   The city corporation has always been seen struggling to manage the affairs but wastes continued to remain scattered here and there on the roads posing a serious health risk.
   The city residents are not even free from the mosquito menace. The menace has gone beyond the control for lack of regular anti-mosquito drive by the Dhaka City Corporation. Even during the day, people need to use anti-mosquito spray in business establishments, offices and also in houses.
   The urban experts observed there would be no end to the nagging problems unless a coordination authority was formed to deal with the problems of the city.
   ‘The first task of the next city mayor will be to check nagging traffic congestion as the Dhaka Transport Coordination Board runs under the supervision of the mayor,’ said urban expert Jamilur Reza Choudhury, also a former vice-chancellor of the BRAC university.
   ‘The city corporation in cooperation with Rajdhani Unnayan Kartripakkha should also identify risky buildings and take necessary measures either to demolish or to retrofit them and make necessary preparations to enforce the detailed area plan, which is almost completed by Rajuk, to stop unplanned urbanisation,’ he said.
   Jamilur Reza also suggested computerised automation of the activities of the city corporation and other utility agencies to bring dynamism in the organisations.
   Urban expert Nazrul Islam, also chairman of the University Grants Commission, stressed the need for the formation of a coordination authority, brining the utility service agencies under a single roof for an effective result in addressing the problems of the city.
   ‘City residents face the problem of water stagnation and mosquito menace all the year round,’ Nazrul Islam said. ‘The corporation must also keep public toilets useable.’
   Water stagnation has become commonplace during rains every year for lack of sufficient storm sewers and drains and lack of their proper maintenance.
   Acute water crisis during the dry season every year compel the dwellers to take to the streets.
   As for traffic congestion in the capital, Nazrul Islam said the issue should be handled exclusively by a senior minister.
   ‘Containing snarl-up is not possible only with the efforts of the Dhaka City Corporation as it involves affairs of many government organisations. The government should look into the issue in a holistic manner and should designate a senior minister to resolve the longstanding problems,’ he said.
   The honorary secretary of the Centre for Urban Studies, Nurul Islam Nazem, also emphasised ensuring good governance, transparency and accountability in administrative affairs of the corporation and other related agencies in addition to the formulation of an innovative management plan.
   Architect Iqbal Habib, who is also member secretary of Bangladesh Paribesh Andolan, said the next mayor should play the role of a coordinator in addressing city problems as such problems are related to 11 ministries and 54 government organisations.’
   Air and sound pollution have also increased alarmingly posing a serious health hazard for city dwellers.

Most of the prospective candidates for the upcoming Dhaka City Corporation elections have blamed lack of coordination between the service agencies for the failure in delivering adequate services to the city-dwellers.
   Some of them told New Age that they have recommended formation of a coordinating authority, while others suggested amendments to the city corporation law to empower the DCC to ensure coordination in delivery of services.
   They also observed that no measures would be able to solve the nagging problems of the grossly overcrowded capital unless mass entry of outsiders into the capital can be stopped by decentralising the administration.
   ‘The DCC does not have the authority, logistics as well as the funds it needs to carry out the responsibility vested on it,’ said Fazle Noor Tapash, an Awami League lawmaker who is a prospective mayoral candidate in the DCC elections.
   He regards making the city liveable as a major challenge for the mayor.
   Abdul Awal Mintoo, a prospective BNP candidate for the post, echoed Fazle Noor Tapash’s views.
   ‘The DCC does not have the authority to carry out the tasks and responsibilities it has been given,’ said Mintoo. ‘The laws do not give the DCC sufficient power to discharge its duties effectively.’
   The organisational framework of the DCC should be restructured to make it more powerful. He, however, did not favour the formation of an authority like a city government.
   ‘It is the city’s mayor who should overcome all the difficulties and face the challenges successfully,’ he opined.
   He sees the management efficiency of a mayor as the key to solution of all the problems of the beleaguered capital. ‘A great political leader might not have enough management efficiency to run the DCC successfully.’
   Referring to Dhaka city’s intolerable traffic congestion, he said there should be a transport authority which will operate under the direct supervision of the DCC to ease traffic congestion.
   Mintoo, who thinks that overpopulation is the capital’s number one problem, said a mega-plan must be undertaken to dencentralise the administration and locate parts of it outside the capital.
   ‘The Kamalapur Inland Container Depot must be relocated in Tongi or elsewhere outside city to ease traffic congestion,’ he said.
   When he was asked what challenges the new mayor will have to face, mayor Sadeque Hossain Khoka said that the government should attach more importance to the DCC, otherwise it will not be possible to improve the situation.
   ‘The DCC must be strengthened in terms of its jurisdiction and given more budget allocations to enable it to give better services to city-dwellers,’ he observed.
   He favoured a fifty-year-long comprehensive and coordinated plan for the capital.
   ‘From my long experience gathered while discharging my duties as the mayor, I think nothing will be effective without devising a long-term plan, coordinating and concentrating the efforts of all agencies, to ease traffic congestion. That’s why I suggested a 50-year-long plan,’ Sadek Hossain told New Age.
   ‘Besides the necessary steps for decentralisation, the plan should include construction of more new roads, flyovers and elevated railway, and the plan will have to be materialised under the direct supervision of the prime minister,’ observed the incumbent mayor.
   He also suggested empowering the Dhaka City Corporation to make it the sole authority like the city governments of other countries.
   The BNP’s standing committee member, ASM Hannan Shah, also said utility service agencies, particularly the Dhaka Water Supply and Sewerage Authority, must be run under the DCC.
   He also attached importance to the managerial capacity of a mayor. ‘There is no alternative but to ensure good governance to deliver adequate services to the city-dwellers.’
   He opined that many problems would be solved if the occupied lands and wetlands of the city are reclaimed by the united effort of the DCC and the other government agencies.
   Sayeed Khokon, son of former city mayor Mohammad Hanif, said that the main aim of a mayor should be to make the city liveable and ensure the democratic and fundamental rights of the city-dwellers.
   ‘All the service agencies should be brought under a single authority which will be an autonomous body with sufficient power and funds,’ he opined.
   Khokon said Dhaka city’s population is now four to five times more than its capacity.
   He said that Dhaka city’s slum-dwellers who, according to a study, comprise 37 per cent of the capital’s total population, must be relocated to make the city cleaner and healthier.
   Another prospective mayoral candidate, Mofazzal Hossain Chowdhury Maya, did not agree to talk on the issue right at this moment.

Polls in the Dhaka City Corporation will be held in the last week of May, chief election commissioner ATM Shamsul Huda said on Friday.
   His statement came after five writ petitions filed over demarcation of DCC wards were rejected by the High Court.
   The CEC said the commission plans to conduct bye-election in Bhola-4 parliament seat, which has been vacated with the cancellation of membership of Awami League’s Jasimuddin, in the first week of May and polls in time-expired union councils by the end of this year.
   He was talking to reporters at the Chandpur circuit house before joining a programme organised by Chandpur Angkur’s Kochi Kachar Asor.
   The top election official said the commission had earlier planned to conduct DCC polls in March, but it could not due to filing of five writ petitions seeking fresh ward demarcation before the election.
   The High Court on Thursday rejected the petitions clearing the way for holding the polls.
   Sazzad Hossain, a resident of capital’s Pallabi filed the most recent petition on Feb 7 demanding demarcation the DCC wards based on the latest city census. Four others, Abdul Kuddus, Shamim Mollah, Sayed Mahiuddin and Babul Sheikh, had filed similar petitions in past weeks.
   The CEC said elections to time-expired union councils will start from the coastal region and continue to cover the whole country within this year. To a question on registration of political parties, he CEC said: ‘It is everyone’s free will. Those who will get registered can participate in polls. And those who will not cannot contest polls.’
   Last year 39 parties were registered out of 107 applied for, he said adding the rest were refused registration for their failure in meeting the requirements.
   Of the 39 registered parties, all but Freedom Party participated in December 2008 general elections, he said.

The Khagrachari unit Jamaat-e-Islami amir and five others were arrested on Friday on allegations of instigating the recent violence in the district while six Indians arrested on Monday were remanded in custody on Friday for interrogation.
   The authorities in Khagrachari on Friday said they had arrested six ‘perpetrators’ of the violence in the hill town, including the Jamaat district amir, a local Awami League leader, and two local BNP leaders.
   The arrested are the district unit Jamaat-e-Islami amir Abdul Momen, municipal unit Jamaat amir Mahbubul Huq Selim, Awami League leader Islam Uddin, BNP leaders Abul Kashem and Mohammad Siraj, and the Khagrachari unit Bangali Chhatra Parishad organising secretary Mohammad Anwar.
   The authorities relaxed the night-time curfew on Friday after three days. The deputy commissioner, M Abdullah, on Thursday said, ‘There will be no curfew tonight but Section 144 will be in force. We may order curfew if situation deteriorates.’
   The hill town started becoming normal on Friday after three days’ tension as the authorities initiated moves for peace by holding ‘peace rallies’ and dialogues among the stakeholders in the town. The district administration formed peace committees in all municipal wards.
   ‘Small meetings with the ethnic minority people and the Bengalis were organised in different places to ease tension and bring back confidence,’ a senior official said adding that a large-scale such meeting will be held in a few days.
   Bangali Chhatra Parishad threatened to announce tough programmes in protest at the arrests after observing the situation till Sunday. ‘We have suspended all our programmes to restore peace. But our leaders are being arrested. We will be observing the situation for two days and then we will announce tough programmes on Monday,’ said Abdul Mazid, secretary of the district unit Bangali Chhatra Parishad.
   The deputy inspector general of police, Asaduzzaman Mia, at a meeting said the authorities had arrested eight perpetrators of the violence in the town. ‘We have identified all the perpetrators. We have evidences that funds were mobilised from Chittagong and the evil acts were controlled from Dhaka and Chittagong over mobile,’ he said.
   He said no one would be allowed bring out processions or hold rallies without the permission of the administration.
   The authorities were looking for the perpetrators, he said. In such a situation, United People’s Democratic Front and Parbatya Bangali Chhatra Parishad leaders went into hiding.
   Ujjwal Smriti Chakma, coordinator of the district unit UPDF, said the administration was out to hide the facts and save perpetrators of the violence in Khagrachari. He said ‘military-backed ultra-communal Sama Adhikar Andolan and Bangali Chhatra Andolan were responsible for the violence.’
   The Indians arrested on Monday are members of the National Democratic Front of Boroland and they have been remanded in custody, said Amir Jafar, the police superintendent in the district.
   The administration in Rangamati, meanwhile, distributed relief goods among the arson victims of ethnic minorities at Baghaihat. But the Bengali settlers whose houses were also burnt said no relief goods had reached them.

A parliamentary caucus working on issues of the ethnic minorities on Friday demanded a judicial inquiry into the recent violence in the Chittagong Hill Tracts that its leader claimed had left as many as six people killed and many others injured.
   Members of the recently launched caucus, mostly from the ruling Awami League-led alliance, also called for full implementation of the 1997 CHT
   peace treaty that had brought to an end decades of insurgency in the hill districts.
   ‘The conflicts in the hills will continue to deepen unless the peace deal is implemented effectively,’ said Rashed Khan Menon, chairman of the group launched on February 10 to pursue the causes of the ethnic minority groups in Bangladesh.
   The caucus also placed a six-point demand to the government over the recent violence in Khagrachari and Rangamati hill districts. The demands include exemplary punishment of the people involved in the killings, arson attacks, abduction, vandalism and attempts to vitiate the political atmosphere, measures for building an atmosphere of trust between the ethnic minorities and Bengali settlers, formation of police force with people from both ethnic minorities and Bengali settlers and their deployment to maintain peace in the region, bringing the affected families under the Vulnerable Group Feeding programme for next six months, constitutional recognition of the ethnic minorities and settling land disputes by making the land commission for CHT functional.
   Menon, also a lawmaker of the ruling Awami League-led alliance, said at a press conference that disputes over land ownership in the hill districts was causing repeated flare-up of violence there. The situation has not improved as the land commission has remained non-functional for over 12 years.
   To a question, he said that the previous Bangladesh Nationalist Party-led alliance government had made the commission a lame duck. The present government, he said, has reconstituted the commission and now it should work properly to resolve the long-standing problems.
   He said that the commission must operate from the CHT instead of Dhaka.
   On the way for bringing about peace in the hills, the lawmaker said that the government must remove the temporary military camps from the interiors of CHT in line with the treaty. ‘Deployment of more forces is not a solution, a peaceful situation will exist only when the troops will be totally withdrawn,’ he said adding that it had been observed in the past that the members of the army were getting involved in violence or siding with the Bengali settlers.
   He also called upon the government to launch dialogues with all stakeholders, including the anti-peace treaty United People’s Democratic Front, to ensure peace in the region.
   Another member of the caucus, Hasanul Haq Inu, also chairman of the parliamentary standing committee on the ministry of post and telecommunications, said that the families affected in arson attacks in the hills needed relief support. He urged the government and private entities as well to send relief supplies to the affected villages where many people were still spending nights under the open sky.
   He said a parliamentary delegation might visit the affected areas after the parliament session resumes on March 1.
   Lawmakers Fazle Hossain Badsa and Amina Ahmed attended the press conference at Dhaka Reporters’ Unity.

More than 150 ethnic minority families who fled the arson attacks on their villages in Baghaichhari in February 19-20 and took shelter in jungles near Dighinala-Sajek road at Gangarampur Mukh were passing days in agonising wait for relief supplies.
   Jabanika Chakma was looking for some medicine for her son who had diarrhoea. ‘There was a clinic run by Médecins Sans Frontières from where we could have collected medicine but they [the attackers] also burnt it down two days after torching our house,’ she said.
   Another minor girl was suffering from fever after being drenched in rain on Thursday night.
   ‘We are passing days under an open sky…We have no food…, said Sukumar Chakma. ‘We are still scared. A few [displaced] families who have relatives nearby have taken shelter at their houses. But most of us have fled to jungles for fear of life,’ he said.
   The displaced families, who went to the highway in the morning and waited all day for relief
   supplies, were seen
   in a hurry to return to a ‘safe shelter’ before sundown.
   Ripon Chakma, a graduate from Rangunia College, said about 500 families of 12 villages of ethnic minorities had taken shelter deep in jungles, some five kilometers off the highway. He was angry at the reports published by some newspapers that the area had turned into a battlefield. ‘How come it could be called as battle? We came under attack and had no chance to retaliate,’ he said.
   Sajek union council member Nayan Ranjan Chakma, said the district administration had sent relief supplies for 465 families but the number of affected families would reach 500.
   The district administration gave five kilograms of rice, 250gms of pulses, 250 gms of nappi [mixture of malt and dried fish], utensils and clothings and Taka 1,000 in cash.
   The government record says 29 families of Bengali settlers were affected in the February 19 violence but the families who had taken shelter at Baghaihat primary school said 118 families were affected but no relief supplies reached them till Friday.

Eighty per cent of the households in the country’s southern region experienced no improvement in their economic condition last year, said a survey by Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies.
   Pointing at a shift in the concentration of poverty from the monga-prone north to the coastal belt, the survey attributed the ‘worsening condition’ in the seaside south to chronic vulnerability to frequent disasters.
   ‘Parts of the region are still struggling to recover from the destruction wreaked by Aila [cyclone] and the consequent disastrous impact on their livelihoods,’ said the BIDS Field Survey 2009 carried out last December.
   The people’s economic opportunities in the southern region are found to have been constrained by infrastructure deficiency, lower farm productivity and ‘increased risks of agricultural activities’.
   ‘The poor condition of the people in the south are largely due to recurring disasters that have destroyed all their belongings. Their suffering is chronic and they are being hit by disaster after disaster before overcoming effects of any,’ said Nazneen Ahmed, a researcher of the BIDS.
   She explained that the calamity-affected people in the south have no long-term support to enable them to get rid of poverty, and even relatively well-off people there could not retain their economic status due to loss of assets time and again. The north, which has faced a seasonal famine-like situation called monga over the years, is relatively free from such disasters, she added.
   The survey showed that 80 per cent of the respondents in the central region and 70 per cent in the eastern and northern regions had undergone some kind of improvement in their economic situation in recent times.
   However, the rising trend of the prices of essential commodities has affected the life of the people in all regions, according to the surveyors who covered about 500 households and participated in several focussed group discussions.
   There are fluctuations in the economic performance of different regions, but the people of both the north and the south, who are mostly dependent on employment, have ‘extremely limited’ access to non-farm economic work, said the report.
   The wages of agricultural and non-farm daily labourers in both the northern and southern region are much lower than those in the central part of the country, said a BIDS report on the recent performance of the economy while referring to the household income and expenditure survey in 2005.
   In the south, said the report, reconstruction of roads, cyclone shelters and embankments remains overdue and the mechanism of ‘agricultural input supply needs overhauling, especially for poor farmers’.
   Despite certain mitigation of monga in the short run, the northern region needs support for increasing agricultural productivity, industrial projects for long-term employment, implementation of development projects and skill development programmes, said the report
   Acknowledging the regional disparity, finance minister AMA Muhith said the government was looking for ways and means, apart from implementation of development projects, to increase the flow of resources to deprived regions and to create more productive activities in backward regions.

The air hung heavy at Gazipur General Hospital on Friday as the grieving families and fellows burst into tears when the Garib and Garib Sweater Factory management handed over bodies of the workers who were killed in fire in the factory Thursday night.
   Members on the hospital staff, newsmen and pedestrians who were present there also could not their tears.
   Jarina Begum, 40, and her daughter Santana Begum, 25, residents of Durgapur at Mithapukur in Rangpur, were among the 21 workers who were killed in the fire.
   They both had worked in the swing section of the factory. Jarina’s brother Swadhin and her son Jewel received the bodies.
   As the bodies were taken out of the morgue, Jewel, who is in his teens, fell onto the coffin, crying ‘Mother, where have you gone leaving us alone?’
   Fazlu, nephew of one of the workers, Rawshan Ara, 45, who went there to receive the body from Gaibandha, told New Age, ‘I received the news of the death of my aunt about 3:00am. She worked as a sewing operator. I am yet to trace her son Jasim, who also works with the factory.’
   At least 21, including 13 women, were killed and 20 injured when fire broke out in the seven-storey factory building.
   A three-member committee was formed on Friday to investigate the fire in the factory at Bhogra in the Gazipur district headquarters.
   The committee, formed by the Gazipur district administration, is headed by additional district magistrate Mohammad Hassan Sarwar and has been asked to submit the report within the next 72 hours.
   The other two members of the committee are the additional superintendent of Gazipur police, Mohammad Mizanur Rahman, and deputy assistant director of the Gazipur Fire Service, Mohammad Rafikul Islam.
   Sarwar told New Age, ‘We started our investigation from Friday morning and have already talked with the injured at Gazipur Sadar Hospital.’
   Police and fire brigade sources said the fire began at the sewing section on the first floor at about 8:45pm and raged through other floors of the seven-storied building.
   Mohammad Abu Zafar Ahmed, an official of the Gazipur Fire Station, told New Age, ‘We managed to douse the flames after more than three hours’ frantic effort and dragged out dozens of unconscious bodies from the third floor, but the on-duty doctors at the hospital declared most of them dead.’
   Most of the workers died of asphyxiation because of the thick smoke which they could not evade as they were locked inside the factory rooms on completion of their night-duty, reportedly to ensure their security.
   ‘After completion of our night-duty the factory authorities usually lock all the doors, so we couldn’t flee even after hearing the repeated fire alarm,’ said Hanufa Banu, a worker of the sewing section.
   The bodies of the dead workers who burnt to death in the blaze or perished due to suffocation were handed over to their kin without post-mortem as per the request of the relatives.
   The factory authorities gave Tk 15,000 to the relatives of the each of the deceased, in the presence of BGMEA’s officials, for transportation and burial of the bodies. They also declared closure of the factory for four days to mourn the death of the workers.
   State minister for local government Jahangir Kabir Nanok, BGMEA president Abdus Salam Murshedi and officials, and local Awami League lawmaker Zahid Ahsan Russel visited the spot.
   In a protest meeting in front of the factory Md Abdul Matin Master, president of the Bangladesh Smrik League and also of the Garments Sramik Karmachari Oikko Parishad, demanded Tk 10 lakh as compensation for each victim but the BGMEA president announced Tk 2 lakh.
   The deceased were identified as Md Abul Kashem, 40, Sahara Begum, 35, Salma Begum, 30, Majeda Begum, 30, Majida Khatun, 26, Rahima Begum, 35, Zarina Begum, 35, and her daughter Shantana Begum, 16, Shahinur, 25, Mostafizur, 40, Badal Mia, 27, Rawshan Ara Begum, 35, Jahanara Begum, 40, Alamgir Hossain, 28, Momtaz, 40, Sufia Begum, 35, Rasheda Begum, 35, Rina Begum, 26, Afia, 35, Farida Begum, 40, and Pradip Kumar Dey, 30.
   A large contingent of law enforcers was deployed in and outside the factory to avert any untoward incident.
   All the bodies were sent on separate ambulances to their village homes under police security.
   At least 50 other workers also suffered serious burn injuries while the rest managed to leave the factory.
   Deputy commissioner of Gazipur Mohammad Kalam Uddin Takukder, superintendent of Gazipur police ASM Mahfuzul Haque Nuruzzaman and other high officials visited the spot on Thursday night and Friday morning.
   Fire fighter Abul Kalam, 25, of Kurmitola Fire Station was electrocuted and 10 workers were injured when a fire broke out in the same factory on 20 August, 2009.
   The BGMEA, in a press release, expressed sorrow at the death of the workers and announced Tk 2 lakh as compensation for each worker.
   It also formed a six-member probe committee headed by its former president Mohammad Atiqul Islam. The committee has been asked to submit its report by three days.
   Besides, various organisations — including the Bangladesh Garments Sramik Jote, Bangladesh Communist Party, Biplobi Nari Sanghati, Garments Sramik Sanghati and Gano Sanghati Andolan — condemned the factory’s authorities for not taking suitable precautions and demanded compensation and punishment of those responsible.
   Fazlul Haque Bhuiyan, on behalf of the company’s managing director Nazmul Haque Bhuiyan, expressed sorrow at the death of the workers and assured the decedents’ family members that all kinds of facilities would be provided for them.

India’s government plans to legislate to reserve one third of seats in parliament for women, a spokesman said Friday.
   The cabinet adopted the Women’s Reservation Bill at a Thursday meeting, which will now be put before the lower and upper houses of parliament for consent, an official from prime minister Manmohan Singh’s office said.
   The proposal to reserve 33 per cent of seats in parliament would radically boost women’s membership in the lower house where they occupy 59 slots out of 545. There are just 21 women in the 250-seat upper house.
   The bill, which would also apply to state assemblies, has been in the works for more than a decade, but the official said it could go to parliament after the budget was presented on Friday.
   ‘It’s likely that it might be tabled this session,’ he said.
   The bill has been held up by opposition from lawmakers who demanded a portion of the women’s quota be set aside for minorities and so-called backward classes — groups which have traditionally been socially and economically disadvantaged.
   The ruling Congress Party, which was resoundingly re-elected last May, is seen as capable of pushing through the legislation with support from its coalition partners and sympathetic opposition parties.
   Politics in India has traditionally been a male bastion, but women now hold prominent positions, including the president, Pratibha Patil, and Sonia Gandhi, president of the ruling Congress Party.
   India has had one female prime minister, Indira Gandhi, but many women have served in governments since independence from British rule in 1947.
   Panchayats — the local governing bodies in towns and villages — already reserve a portion of their seats for women, but do not have legislative power.

The opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party has welcomed Sajeeb Wazed Joy’s formal joining politics and hoped he would be able to bring about a qualitative change in Awami League’s ‘bad culture of repression on and hostile attitude to its political rivals’.
   Joy, son of prime minister Sheikh Hasina, was enrolled as a primary member of ruling Awami League from Rangpur, his native district, on Thursday.
   ‘Everybody has the right to do politics in the country. We do not believe in BKSAL concept. We welcome him [Joy] in politics, though he was already an important figure in the Awami League even before his joining [the party],’ BNP standing committee member Nazrul Islam Khan said at a press briefing on Friday when a reporter sought his party’s views on Joy’s joining politics.
   ‘Joy is a modern and progressive man and he will be able to help the party change its ‘bad political culture of repression on and hostile attitude to its political rivals.’
   Khan said now that Joy had entered the sphere of politics, all his activities would be considered politically.
   When a reporter referred to a newspaper report that Joy was allegedly involved in corruption, Khan said if any allegation was brought against Joy, he should respond to it as per law of the land.
   When asked what kind of impact the joining of a ‘corrupt person’ would have on the country’s politics, Khan said, ‘Though there is allegation of corruption against him, we do not want to term him corrupt as he has not been declared corrupt by any court.’
   Nazrul Islam Khan said BNP was welcoming Joy to politics. ‘But when our leader Tarique Rahman joined politics, Awami League did not hail him. In this context he referred to Tarique’s sending a bouquet to Joy when the latter had come to Bangladesh from the United States along with his spouse on a brief visit in 2005.
   BNP senior joint secretary general Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir and Jatiyatabadi Swechhasebak Dal president Habibun-Nabi Khan Sohel were present at the press briefing held at the party’s central office.

Broiler and turmeric prices marked fresh increase in the past week and prices of sugar, rice, lentil and onions decreased.
   Broiler was retailed for prices between Tk 140 and Tk 145 a kilogram on Friday, up by Tk 5 in a week and Tk 30 in a month.
   High price of day-old chicks and poultry feeds have forced farmers to increase chicken prices, traders said.
   Turmeric price also increased further because of short supply on the wholesale market.
   Turmeric prices increased by 50 per cent in a month to be retailed for prices between Tk 220 and Tk 250 a kilogram on Friday.
   Sugar prices decreased by at least Tk 4 a kilogram and the commodity was retailed between Tk 52 and Tk 54 on Friday.
   The prices on the wholesale market declined by Tk 200 a maund (37.3kg) in a week and a half.
   ‘The prices declined as wholesalers started releasing their stock,’ a trader at Maulvibazar said.
   A top executive of a local sugar refinery said sugar prices had declined by more than 15 per cent on the international market in three weeks.
   Increased export deliveries from Brazil and easing of sugar crisis in India were also pushing down the prices.
   Rice prices declined by about Tk 50 a maund on the wholesale market in the week. Arrival of rice, imported by private sector importers, at port, continuation of open market sales of rice by the government and dull demand at wholesale procurement pushed down rice prices, market people said.
   ‘Millers are also releasing their stocks as the government plans tightening bank financing for rice hoarding,’ said a miller in Bogra who supplies rice to wholesalers in Dhaka.
   Parboiled and coarse varieties of rice, which marked no price increase in the past week, sold for prices between Tk 27 and Tk 31 a kilogram on Friday. Fine varieties of rice sold for prices between Tk 36 and Tk 45.
   Red lentil was retailed between Tk 78 and Tk 112 a kilogram on Friday, down by Tk 10 a kilogram in two weeks.
   As the early harvest of fine and local verities of lentils started reaching the wholesale market in the past week, traders expect the prices to decline further.
   Vegetables continued to sell for low prices as potato and onion harvest peaked up. Supply of other vegetables, especially the last harvest of winter produces such as tomatoes, cauliflower and beans, remained adequate.
   Non-packed ‘super palm’ oil sold for prices between Tk 68 and Tk 70 a kilogram on Friday while packed soya bean oil sold for prices between Tk 83 and Tk 88 a litre.

City Group of Industries officials on Friday said they would go to the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court to seek protection of the riverside jetties set up in its food processing complex at Rupganj in Narayanganj.
   ‘We are making preparations to file a petition with the Appellate Division on Monday seeking permission to appeal against the High Court verdict that rejected our petition for protection of the jetties,’ a City Group director told newsmen on Friday.
   He, however, claimed the High Court had not declared the jetties illegal but some newspapers published misleading reports on Thursday terming City Jetties illegal by misinterpreting the High Court directive.
   ‘The High Court asked us to go to proper authorities for the protection of the jetties,’ the director said.
   Proper approval was obtained from the Bangladesh Inland Water Transport Authority before the installation of the jetties, he said.
   The jetties are located at the Sitalakhya riverside at Rupganj where the group has its units of flour mill, sugar, edible oil and salt refineries and some other industries.
   As is done in seaports, river ports, and other large riverside industrial units, grains in huge volumes are unloaded in the jetties of the City Group from vessels, the City Group official said.
   Dealing annually about one million tonnes of mainly imported food grains, the City Group is said to be the largest miller and marketer of some major food items.
   Operating 22 industrial units employing more than 10,000 workers, City brands source about a half of the entire supply of flour, edible oil, sugar on the local market and the group’s major supplies are processed and delivered from Rupganj.
   The City Group director said the Bangladesh Inland Water Transport Authority in 1998 approved the licence to the City Group for the construction of the RCC jetty by using foreshore land.
   The group later received more licences and it paid licence renewal fees regularly, he said.
   Citing a High Court directive on the demolition of all illegal riverside establishments, the Narayanganj district administration on February 9 asked the City Group to remove its jetties.
   The group urged the administration to hold a hearing and check the legality of the City jetties but the administration did not make any response to the plea, he said.
   The group then filed a writ petition challenging the district administration order for the demolition of the jetties and the High Court on Thursday summarily rejected the petition.

Taliban suicide bombers targeted guesthouses in downtown Kabul on Friday, killing 16 people including Westerners and Indians in one of the deadliest attacks on foreigners in the Afghan capital.
   The Islamist militia, which is waging a bitter insurgency against the US-backed Afghan government and more than 121,000 foreign troops based in the country, claimed responsibility for the attack in a telephone call to AFP.
   A car bomb exploded and two smaller blasts resounded over downtown Kabul, heralding what police called a ‘well-planned and coordinated attack’ soon after dawn as Afghanistan commemorated the birth of the Muslim prophet Muhammad.
   The attacks killed 16 people, including an Italian diplomatic adviser and a French film maker who helped set up a studio for young Afghan directors, officials said. Another 38 people, including eight foreigners, were wounded.
   New Delhi confirmed that nine Indians, including government officials, also died in the third assault on Indian interests in Afghanistan in 20 months.
   The Afghan president, Hamid Karzai ‘condemned in the strongest terms the terrorist attack in Kabul’s Shar-I-Naw area that killed and injured many civilians,’ his office said.
   The British prime minister, Gordon Brown, the first foreign head of government to condemn the bombings, was to speak to Karzai later Friday.
   The assault took place near the Park Residence Hotel in the Shar-I-Naw commercial district, where terrified people escaped through windows and climbed down scaffolding, said an AFP photographer and a reporter.
   Shattered glass carpeted the road outside the hotel, frequented by Westerners and where many employees come from India. AFP reporters saw at least four bodies, including one in a police uniform, brought out of the building. At least three attackers armed with guns and explosives targeted the Park Residence and the smaller Aria guesthouse on a nearby side street.
   ‘The first explosion took place in front of the Aria... targeting mostly doctors. Subsequently two terrorists, one wearing a suicide vest, entered the Park Residence,’ said Kabul police chief General Abdul Rahman Rahman.
   After a shootout with the attackers, the police stormed into a room where one bomber detonated his explosives, killing three police, Rahman said.

A stampede at a famed mosque in Mali’s northwestern desert city of Timbuktu crushed at least 24 people to death and left many more injured on Friday.
   ‘Sixteen bodies’ were taken to a Timbuktu hospital and there were ‘55 injured,’ a hospital source said after the crush at the Djinguereber mosque, one of Mali’s most recognisable buildings.
   Thousands of pilgrims come to Timbuktu for the prophet’s birthday and an official said the accident appeared to have happened because of a bottleneck caused by renovation work on the 14th-century mosque, made largely from mud.

Police are yet to make any headway in the investigation of the death of Dhaka University student Mohammad Abu Bakar Siddique even 24 days after filing of a case.
   Abu Bakar Siddique, a third year student of Islamic history and culture, died on February 3, about 30 hours after being wounded by a tear gas shell fired by the police to disperse feuding groups of Bangladesh Chhatra League, student wing the Awami League, on February 2.
   Police so far arrested eight BCL activists, including Saiduzaman Faruq, after a case was filed with Shahbagh police station in this connection.
   Sub-inspector Emdad Hossain of Shahbagh police station, also investigation officer of the case, told New Age, ‘We are still investigating the case. We have appealed to the court for Faruk’s remand and hearing in the appeal will be held on March 3.’
   Bakar, a resident of Sir AF Rahman Hall of the university, was fatally wounded after being hit by a police tear gas shell in front of his room in the afternoon of February 2.
   Dhaka Metropolitan Police commissioner AKM Shahidul Haque, however, denied claims that tear gas shell caused Bakar’s death.
   ‘It is absurd that someone would die of injuries from a tear gas shell since the solid part of it remains inside the gas gun and only the softer portion is ejected,’ he added.
   Friends of Bakar also claimed that he had been shot, and the post-mortem report said he was hit by a heavy object.

India’s Border Security Force on Friday shot dead a Bangladeshi cattle trader near the Baghadanga border at Maheshpur in Jhenaidah and dragged away the body into the Indian territory.
   The deceased was Shafikul Islam, 30, a resident of Baghadanga at Maheshpur.
   The Chuadanga 35 Rifles Battalion commanding officer said Indian border guards if the Ramnagar camp shot dead Shafikul early on Friday when he was returning from India, where he had gone Thursday night to bring some cattle. The Indian guards later dragged the body into India.
   The Bangladesh Rifles sent a letter of protest to the Ramnagar BSF camp and asked it to return the body.

An assistant registrar of Rajshahi University was killed in a road accident in Rajshahi on Friday afternoon.
   The assistant registrar, Wasek Mamun, was a resident of Hoseniganj area in the city.
   The police said the accident took place when Wasek was going to his house in a motorcycle by a motorbike.
   The accident took place in front of the city Awami League Office at Kumarapara when the motorcycle collided head-on a bicycle about 4:45pm. Both the motorcycle rider and the bicyclist fell on the ground in which they were seriously injured.
   Mamun and the bicyclist were taken to Rajshahi Medical College Hospital where the physicians pronounced Wasek dead.
   The bicyclist has been reported to be in a critical condition. His identity could not be immediately established.

A man passing himself off as ‘Top Terror Mamun’ on Thursday night again threatened the New Age editor, Nurul Kabir, and his family of dire consequences if he would continue to write and speak against ‘terrorism of various sorts.’
   The man, who made the call from the number 01816904359 at 12:15pm, also demanded Tk 50 lakh from him.
   The caller told Nurul Kabir, ‘I can hit you in 10 minutes. Make sure
   you do not write against violence and terrorism and pay Tk 50 lakh by tomorrow.’
   The same caller earlier on Tuesday made a similar call from the same number and threatened the New Age editor of dire consequences.
   He filed a general diary (No 1178/10) with the Tejgaon Industrial Area police in this connection on Tuesday.
   The Tejgaon Industrial Area police officer-in-charge, Mohammad Shahbuddin Azad, told New Age, ‘We are investigating the incident.’

A police officer on Thursday field a general diary with the Kotwali police in Sylhet seeking security for his life as a man accused in a mugging case had threatened to kill him.
   The Kotwali police said Kayum Uddin Chowdhury, a subinspector of the Highway Police, filed the general diary in the afternoon.
   Kayum said Mahsin Dewan, accused in a case filed in connection with an incident of mugging, threatened his life at noon when Kayum was produced in court
   ‘Mahsin, who was produced in court, said he would kill me after his release from the jail,’ the police quoted Kayum as saying in the general diary. Kayum said he had also informed the court of the matter.
   The Highway Police arrested Mahsin in possession of Tk 3.5 lakh snatched from a businessman at Daspara on the Sylhet–Tamabil Highway on August 4, 2009.
   A case was also filed with the Kotwali police in this connection, the police said.

The BBC is to close down half its web site, cut spending on imported American programmes and close two radio stations in an admission it has become too large, a newspaper reported Friday.
   In a strategic review to be unveiled next month, The Times said the corporation will concede it must give space to its commercial rivals which have been hard hit by an advertising downturn during the recession.
   The British Broadcasting Corporation, funded by the licence fee levied on all those in Britain who own a television, regularly comes under fire from rivals and other critics for its alleged unfair dominance.
   BBC director general Mark Thompson will announce a cut in its web site pages by half, backed by a 25 per cent cut in staff and budget, said the paper.
   It will further close digital radio stations 6 Music and Asian Network and close outlets that target the teenage market, leaving the area free for rivals.