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The Chief Adviser’s Office on Wednesday sent letters to 14 political parties, including the government-backed faction of Bangladesh Nationalist Party, inviting them to the ‘national dialogue’ aimed at transfer of power to an elected government by year-end.
   ‘Besides other parties, invitations were sent to both factions of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party’, an official at the Chief Adviser’s Office told New Age.
   The BNP divided after its chairperson Khaleda Zia was arrested in September last year with Hafiz Uddin Ahmed, a former military officer, leading the splinter group presumably with the government’s backing.
   The government’s separate invitation to the Hafiz-led group came at a time when most of the senior leaders in the faction are seeking unification with the party mainstream led by Khaleda Zia. Even the acting chief of the faction, Saifur Rahman, virtually quit the group last week admitting that his leadership had become useless.
   The chief adviser’s spokesman, Syed Fahim Munaim, said that a total of 19 political parties had been invited to the dialogue scheduled to begin on May 22.
   Invitations were sent to political parties, including Awami League, Jatiya Party, Jamaat-e-Islami Bangladesh, Liberal Democratic Party, Unity for Political Reforms, Bangladesh Nationalist Party [mainstream], Islami Shasantantra Andolan, Bangladesher Samajtantric Dal, Khelafat Andolan, Khelafat Majlish and the splinter group of BNP, on Wednesday.
   The identical letters sent to the respective party secretaries, requested them to send names of their representatives to the Chief Adviser’s Office as soon as possible to take part in the dialogues.
   Six other political parties which got invitations on Tuesday were watching the developments and working out their strategies for the dialogue. Workers Party of Bangladesh, Communist Party of Bangladesh, Gana Forum, Samyabadi Dal, Bikalpadhara Bangladesh and Bangladesh Krishak Sramik Janata League got invitations on Tuesday, a day after the chief adviser formally announced the time for the much-talked about national dialogue.
   After formally discussing the government’s offer, the parties will send names of their delegations to the Chief Adviser’s Office for the talks.
   The chief adviser, Fakhruddin Ahmed, who offered the ‘national dialogue’, is expected to lead the government aided by a five-member panel of advisers who have been working for more than a month to win back confidence of the politicians.
   Asked for comments, Communist Party general secretary Mujahidul Islam Selim told New Age that the party president would sit with them on Friday to discuss the matters related to the dialogue and review political developments.
   He said that the party’s main focus at the dialogue would be on holding of the elections as par the roadmap and continuation of the ongoing drive against corruption.
   About the ‘national charter’ as proposed by the chief adviser in his televised address to the nation, Selim said there was no need for a new charter. ‘The 1972 constitution is the only national charter. We want restoration of the secular constitution’, he said.
   Jatiya Samajtantrik Dal president Hasanul Haq Inu said it was not wise to impose conditions as it might not bring desired results in the long run. He suggested complete lifting of the ban on political activities throughout the country to ensure an atmosphere conducive to elections.
   Meanwhile, the five-member panel of advisers after a meeting on the day announced that the national dialogues would be held at the Chief Adviser’s Office.
   ‘We have decided that the Chief Adviser’s Office will be the venue for the formal dialogues with the parties’, commerce adviser Hossain Zillur Rahman told reporters after the luncheon meeting at the local government, rural development and cooperatives ministry.
   He told the media that the invitation letters for the dialogue would be dispatched to all political parties by the day.
   LGRD and cooperatives adviser Anwarul Iqbal hosted the meeting also attended by communications adviser Ghulam Quader, law adviser AF Hassan Ariff and foreign affairs adviser Iftekhar Ahmed Chowdhury.
   The panel discussed about how to organise the final talks with the political parties and the civic group.
   ‘This is part of our preparations for the final dialogue. We are working out the details of the schedule for the talks with the parties and the civic group’, Hossain Zillur said.

The Awami League on Wednesday demanded release of the party president, Sheikh Hasina, and withdrawal of the state of emergency before the dialogue between the government and political parties.
   The leaders at the central working committee meeting at the party chief’s Dhanmondi office put forth six-point demands.
   The meeting, which was on Tuesday adjourned till Wednesday morning, also decided to go on hanger strike across the country except for Dhaka on May 20 to push for the demands. The acting party president, Zillur Rahman, presided over the meeting.
   The meeting also decided to form human chain in Dhaka immediately.
   ‘We adopted resolutions demanding immediate release of Sheikh Hasina so that she could attend the dialogue and contest the elections as a free person,’ the party’s acting general secretary Syed Ashraful Islam said after the meeting.
   He said the party would go on a hunger strike outside the capital on May 20 and soon form a human chain in the capital city.
   Although most of the leaders opposed joining the dialogue with the government, the meeting decided to hold an emergency meeting within 24 hours after getting formal invitation to make a decision on the issue.
   It also decided to hold a meeting of the extended committee on May 26.
   Some leaders wanted to sit with the government to avoid the responsibility for foiling the dialogue, but unanimously agreed to oppose the conditions put forth by the chief adviser in his Monday’s address to the nation, sources attending the meeting said.
   ‘Some leaders expressed their opinions in favour of sitting with the government while some others rejected it straightway. We decided to observe the happenings for one more week to make a final decision,’ presidium member Abdur Razzak told New Age, adding the party would sit with the components of the alliance led by the Awami League before making the decision.
   Matia Chowdhury, another presidium member, said although most of the members opposed joining the dialogue under conditions, the party wanted to make a unanimous decision which prompted the leaders to keep the option for holding another working committee meeting.
   ‘As we formed the 14-party alliance, the decision will be made simultaneously with the other components of the combine,’ organising secretary Sultan Mansur Ahmed told New Age.
   Another organising secretary, however, said the party should at least join the dialogue to avoid being held responsible for foiling the talks as the Awami League first made the demand for dialogues between the government and political parties.
   The meeting strongly criticised the chief adviser for his ‘illogical and unconstitutional’ proposals for the formation of a national consensus, signing a national charter, and balancing power between the president and the prime minister.
   The leaders said the government was saying the dialogue would be unconditional, but the chief adviser tagged a number of conditions which could not be acceptable.
   ‘Accepting the proposals given by the chief adviser is out of the question as the proposals are unconstitutional and he is not the authority concerned to make such moves,’ the party’s agricultural affairs secretary Abdur Razzak told New Age.
   Other demands the party made on Wednesday included removal of the conditions imposed on political activities, holding of the parliamentary elections first by announcing the election schedule, end to intimidation to and interference in media, withdrawal of false cases filed against politicians and release of state prisoners, independence of the judiciary, postponement of controversial moves such as delimitation of constituencies, stern measures to arrest commodity price spiral, trial of war criminal, and proper recognition of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman in the interest of national unity.
   Terming the present situation very critical, the meeting observed only an elected government could overcome the crisis and it urged all the democratic and non-communal forces to stand united and play proper roles in this regard.

The Supreme Court Bar Association will boycott the court proceedings of the Appellate Division today in protest against its series of ‘highly controversial’ rulings that validated the stringent Emergency Powers Rules.
   The EPR revokes the right to bail of an accused facing trial under it.
   The token two-hour court boycott kicks off at 9:00am.
   On May 11, an emergency general meeting of the SCBA unanimously decided to boycott the Appellate Division in protest against its recent rulings on EPR that they think resulted in ‘degradation of dignity of the highest judiciary and the rule of law’.
   Briefing journalists on Wednesday, the SCBA president, Shafique Ahmed, said the association had already informed the chief justice about its decision through a letter. ‘The bar will take disciplinary action today against the members engaged in any act contrary to the constitution of the association,’ the bar leader said.
   Meanwhile, the Asian Human Rights Commission, a Hong Kong-based regional NGO that monitors and advocates human rights issues in Asia, congratulated the SCBA boycott move, said Shafique.
   The human rights watchdog termed it a courageous step towards safeguarding the authority of the Supreme Court and the independence of the judiciary.

At least eight people, including a guard of the Noakhali Express, were killed and 30 others injured when two express trains collided at the Ashuganj railway station in Brahmanbaria early Wednesday.
   Rail communications between Dhaka, Chittagong and Sylhet remained snapped for 11 hours after the accident.
   The authorities suspended loco-master Kabir, assistant loco-master Saidul Islam and a guard, and Ashuganj station master Humayun Kabir in connection with the accident.
   One of the injured was identified as Tajul Islam, a guard of the Noakhali Express. The identity of other could not be immediately established.
   Witnesses said Upaban Express headed for Sylhet from Dhaka hit from the behind the Noakhali Express, waiting at the station at about 12:30am, killing six of the Noakhali Express passengers on the spot and injuring 32.
   The police said three compartments of the Noakhali Express derailed. Some compartments and the engine of the Upaban Express were damaged.
   Two of the 32 injured passengers died from their injuries in Ashuganj Hospital. Others were being treated at Bhairab and Brahmanbaria health complexes.
   A relief train from Dhaka and another from Akhaura reached the place at around 2:15am and started rescue work. The Brahmanbaria deputy commissioner, Mohammad Abdul Hye, visited the place and supervised rescued operation till Wednesday morning.
   The Government Railway Police officer-in-charge at Bhairab Abdul Baten told New Age, ‘Higher authorities visited the place and decided to take punitive action against the people responsible.’
   The Turna Nishitha Express stranded at the Ashuganj station started for Dhaka at around 11:30am, shortly after the rescue operation was completed.
   The communications secretary, Mohammad Mahbubur Rahman, visited the place in the morning and said a four-member committee, headed by the Bangladesh Railway’s chief engineer Noor Mohammad, was formed to investigate the matter and the committee would submit a report by Wednesday night.’
   The Brahmanbaria superintendent of police, Ataul Kibria, said the station master, assistant station master and all members on the Ashuganj railway station staff left the station after the accident.
   A case was filed with the Ashuganj police in this connection.

Objections to and suggestions about the proposed delimitation of electoral constituencies have started purring in at the Election Commission secretariat.
   At least 10 complaints regarding the proposed changes in the electoral constituencies and at least 20 suggestions have till Wednesday been filed with the EC secretariat, particularly by former lawmakers.
   The Election Commission on April 29 published a gazette notification on the draft which delimited 133 out of the 300 constituencies.
   According to the schedule, objections to the proposed changes in the electoral constituencies could be registered in writing by June 1 on condition that the people opposing a proposed change in a certain district must hail from the district. After filing objection, the hearing will be held in the objections till June 20 or 25 at the commission.
   The commission guideline also said five copies of the objection would need to be filed. It said persons filing objections would need to mention ‘where a discrepancy has been made in the demarcation in accordance with the set principles.
   An official told New Age people started sending letters of objections and suggestions to the commission. ‘We have so far received 10 objections till today [Wednesday] and about 20 suggestions about the delimitation. We are thinking about hearing only objections, and not the suggestions,’ the official said.
   Major political parties such as the Awami League, Bangladesh Nationalist Party and Jamaat-e-Islami have protested against the commission’s draft on constituency demarcation.

The Anti-Corruption Commi-ssion’s investigation officer on Wednesday received court permission to interrogate the detained former prime minister Khaleda Zia, also the BNP chairperson, and three of her detained cabinet colleagues in connection with the Barapukuria case.
   Additional metropolitan magistrate M Golam Rabbani issued the order after hearing a petition filed by the commission’s deputy director Monirul Islam, also the investigation officer of the case.
   The commission will also interrogate three former ministers — Khandaker Mosharraf Hossain, AKM Mosharraf Hossain and Altaf
   Hossain Chowdhury — at the jail gate.
   Khaleda and 15 others, including 10 of her former cabinet colleagues, were sued on Tuesday for allegedly embezzling Tk 158.71 crore by awarding the production, operation and maintenance contracts for the Barapukuria coal mine to the highest bidder.
   Others accused in the case include former ministers Saifur Rahman, Abdul Mannan Bhuiyan, Matiur Rahman Nizami, M Shamsul Islam, MK Anwar, Aminul Haque, Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mujahid and AKM Mosharraf Hossain.
   The commission’s assistant director Shamsul Alam lodged the case with the Shahbagh police on February 27.

The interim government is going to create two special funds through the revenue budget for mitigating the effects of natural calamities and for unexpected development expenditures under the Annual Development Programme in the next fiscal year.
   The Planning Commission has earmarked Tk 318 crore, inclusive of Tk 268 crore in the form of project aid, for the contingency fund in the 2008-09 fiscal year, said sources in the PC.
   A revolving fund for tackling the effects of natural hazards such as floods and cyclones is also likely to be floated in the next budget with a ‘modest’ allocation of Tk 100 crore from the revenue budget in line with the interim government’s pledge to do so, said finance ministry officials.
   ‘This fund will just be the beginning of the floating of a huge fund, following assurances from international donors that they will contribute to the protection of Bangladesh’s economy from the aftermaths of calamities. The idea was mooted immediately after the cyclone, Sidr, devastated the southern and coastal districts in November 15, 2007,’ an official told New Age.
   The country’s overseas development partners have already proposed the floating of a multi-donor trust fund to mitigate the effects of climate change as Bangladesh is considered one of the most vulnerable countries to environmental changes.
   The finance and planning adviser in April announced the creation of such a fund in the next budget when the Bangladesh Economic Association demanded the floating of the fund, amounting to Tk 1,000 crore, with local resources.
   However, sources in the Planning Commission admitted that the contingency development fund, aimed at providing development assistance for special purposes, might be used as another version of block allocation, which was earlier criticised in view of lack of budgetary discipline.
   The government has so far earmarked Tk 40 crore, from local money entirely, as special allocation for more poverty-ridden regions in the next Annual Development Programme. Another sum of Tk 8 crore has been earmarked as development assistance to special regions excepting
   the Chittagong Hill Tracts, which is expected to be provided with Tk 80 crore in three components of the development programme, added the sources.
   In the next development budget, the government plans special assistance for the agriculture sector amounting to Tk 80 crore from local sources as donor and lenders are yet to make any pledges for providing such assistance.
   Besides, an amount of Tk 100 crore has been earmarked to give development assistance to the upazilas although no elections have been held in this tier of the local government since 1990.

Authorities imposed a dawn-to-dusk curfew in parts of India’s historic western city of Jaipur on Wednesday, a day after eight bombs ripped through bustling streets, killing 63 people and injuring 216.
   The blasts within minutes of each other brought fears that Pakistani or Bangladeshi Islamist militant groups were trying to undermine a fragile peace process between India and Pakistan. But the police have not yet blamed any particular group.
   Bombs, many strapped to bicycles, exploded by a main temple and markets inside the pink-walled city. Slippers, broken pieces of glass and bits of clothes now litter the main market place.
   Towards sunset, as the curfew ended, curious residents drifted towards the blast sites to quietly stare at the rubble and mangled vehicles still lying around a day later. A handful of shops reopened for business.
   ‘It was very scary and most of us just ran as there was smoke and cries for help in every direction,’ said Anil Saxena, a businessman at a popular jewellery market.
   Authorities cleaned a blood-splattered street in front of Hawa Mahal, or the ‘palace of wind,’ a five-storied sandstone building built by a Hindu king for his queen in 1799 AD.
   Officials said they still did not know which group was responsible for the bombings.
   ‘We have detained two to three persons for questioning,’ Vasundhara Raje, chief minister of Rajasthan state, told reporters on Wednesday. ‘We have got slender leads, but not a definite lead in the case.’
   AS Gill, Rajasthan’s police chief, said that 63 people has died in the bombings.
   Many Hindus offer prayers in temples on Tuesdays and officials say that was probably what attackers were looking for.
   ‘There were hundreds of people there like me to offer prayers. I wonder what would have happened had the blast taken place inside the temple,’ Vikram Singh, an injured college student, said from his hospital bed.
   India’s junior home minister Sriprakash Jaiswal was quoted by local media as saying there ‘might be the involvement of some foreign hand in the blasts’ – a phrase often used in India to refer to Pakistan.
   Only in the past week, Indian soldiers came under heavy cross-border fire trying to stop armed men from sneaking into its part of Kashmir. Later, eight people were killed in clashes in a Kashmir village. It was some of the worse violence in Kashmir this year.
   India accused Pakistan of violating a truce by firing across the border again on Tuesday evening. But Pakistan denied any such firing had taken place.
   The Indian foreign minister, Pranab Mukherjee, is due to visit Islamabad in a week’s time to review a four-year-old peace process between the two nations, and Pakistan quickly condemned the blasts.
   ‘Pakistan condemns all acts of terrorism,’ the prime minister, Yousaf Raza Gilani, said in a statement.
   Indian authorities said they do not have information about any foreigners injured in the blast. It is low season in the tourist state of Rajasthan.
   On Wednesday, hundreds of volunteers queued up in hospitals to donate blood for survivors.
   Inside Jaipur’s main hospital, women and children writhed in pain as doctors bandaged their heads or badly injured arms.
   Others thronged the mortuary at the back of the hospital to try to get bodies of their relatives out as quickly as possible.
   ‘This is an endless wait. I don’t know when I can get my brother’s body out of here,’ Rakesh Sharma, a businessman, said.
   In the past few years, bomb blasts in Indian cities have killed hundreds of people. The deadliest was in July 2006, when seven bombs exploded on Mumbai’s railway system, killing more than 180 people.
   Last August, three bombs killed 38 people at an amusement park and a street-side food stall in Hyderabad, a city in southern India which is home to a booming outsourcing industry.

A shock of thick black hair was all that peeped out from under a white sheet that covered a small body Wednesday at a morgue in Jaipur after serial bomb blasts killed about 63 people.
   Eight bombs went off within minutes of each other in crowded markets close to several Hindu temples in what police said was a terror attack on the city 260 kilometres west of India’s capital.
   The body on the stretcher belonged to 10-year-old Kanha Mahar, who had gone to a temple to the Hindu
   deity Hanuman on a traditional day to pray to the monkey
   god. He had huge gash in his head.
   ‘We were looking for him all evening,’ said his uncle Jagdish Kumar Gathera, who found him at the hospital, unable to breathe.
   The doctors ordered drugs but before they arrived the boy was dead.
   Gathera and family looked on in shocked silence as Mahar’s body was taken off a rusty gurney into an ambulance, leaving behind a pool of blood.
   Volunteers of the right-wing Hindu organisation Rashtriya Swayamseval Sangh (RSS, National Volunteers Association), who were manning the short-staffed
   hospital mortuary said it was a scene that played through the night.
   Bodies arrived quickly from one of half a dozen blast sites, family members had to
   search for loved ones and corpses were put into the morgue’s deep-freeze for identification through the coming hot day.
   With several of the bombs going off near temples, there were fears that Hindu-Muslim riots could break out, an ever-present worry in religiously divided India.
   Blue-fatigue clad paramilitary troops of India’s Rapid Action Force and police fanned out across the city as a curfew was imposed from 9:00am (0330 GMT).
   The nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, which has links to the RSS and rules the western desert state of Rajasthan, of which Jaipur is the capital, called a strike Wednesday to protest against the bombings.
   But in the hospital wards and at the morgue, both Hindus and Muslims, a strong minority in the city, were among the dead.
   A man clad in a red shirt who arrived shortly after the Gatheras left, cried out in anguish when he saw his niece Arina Maruf, also 10, laid out on the gurney Mahar had just vacated.
   The little girl’s head was a tousle of matted curls caked with dried blood and her eyes were still open as the volunteers carefully covered her with a white sheet.
   The centre of the attacks was the walled city’s Johari bazaar, a strip of jewellers and
   clothes shops housed in the pink buildings with delicate filigree windows that are the hallmark of Jaipur, known as the Pink City.
   Jaipur is popular with foreign tourists but there were few in the city in mid-May, the hot season in northern India when temperatures soar above 40 degrees Celsius.
   At Jaipur cremation ground, Govind Khanagwal, his foot bandaged, sat by his father’s corpse as volunteers took kindling to add to the funeral pyre and recalled the confusion.
   ‘Everything was black. I ran up an alley behind the shop,’ Khanagwal, 22, said.
   ‘I came back after a minute or two and he was lying there, his legs and arms were no longer attached to his body.’
   But he pledged to return to the destroyed stall run by his father that sold garlands for temple worshippers.
   Another survivor vividly recalled the horror.
   ‘I heard two explosions and I was wondering what happened. Then a bomb went off right in front of me,’ said Malchand Bagoria, who runs a fruit stall opposite one of the bomb sites.
   ‘Then I saw a woman’s body go flying through the air. There were so many bodies.’

District and thana units of the BNP have continued submitting the party’s 11-point charter of demands to the chief adviser through deputy commissioners and upazila nirbahi officers demanding release of Khaleda Zia.
   The party’s Barisal, Chittagong, Sirajganj, and Munshiganj units submitted the memorandum on Wednesday. Local leaders of the BNP and its front organisations were present during the submission of the memorandum at the offices of the deputy commissioners.
   The programme, billed by the BNP as the beginning of the movement to press for the party chairperson’s release, will end today and the party leaders and activists will observe nawfil fasting on Friday and hold prayer sessions after iftar seeking divine blessings for the country, its people and Khaleda Zia.
   The party secretary general, Khandaker Delwar Hossain, earlier announced the programmes demanding release of Khaleda Zia, her son Tarique Rahman and all political detainees.
   The charter of demands also includes lifting of the state of emergency to pave the way for an atmosphere conducive to elections, announcement of a specific polls date, fair prices of essentials and introduction of food rations.
   The party also demanded withdrawal of the decision
   to delimit electoral
   constituencies calling it unconstitutional.
   It also called for an immediate end to interference in the judiciary, allowing the media to work freely, and withdrawal of cases against the party activists across the country.
    Meanwhile, representatives of different units of the party on Wednesday met Khanaker Delwar at his Sher-e-Bangla Nagar house.
   Party joint secretary general Selima Rahman, acting office secretary Rizvi Ahmed and former lawmaker Sohrab Uddin were present.
   President of the party’s Dubai unit M Golam Zia and vice-president of UK unit Bashir Ahmed also met Delwar, said a release.

Acting vice-chancellor of National University Syed Rashidul Hasan has urged the government bigwigs, including chief adviser Fakhruddin Ahmed, to ensure security for his life.
   ‘A similar letter seeking security for my life had been sent to the chief adviser, education adviser, secretary and joint secretary (university) on May 8,’ Rashidul Hasan told New Age Wednesday.
   ‘I have been receiving death threat over mobile phone for the last few days following a fraud case filed against some officials for recruiting above 700 staff in 2004 through a fake advertisement,’ he added.
   ‘In the letter, I have also mentioned that any untoward situation may happen at any moment on the campus. I have not got any response from the government to date,’ said the VC who was made acting vice chancellor on December 27, 2007. Before the appointment, he served as a pro vice-chancellor of the university from September 2006.
   The university was founded in 1992 as the affiliating authority for 1,648 public and private colleges that offer bachelor’s and master’s degrees and diploma courses. The institutions, including 1,232 general degree colleges, cater to around ten lakh students.

The conditions that held back the holding of the national elections scheduled for January 22, 2007 are still there in existence, said the Jamaat-e-Islami amir, Matiur Rahman Nizami, on Wednesday.
   ‘How can the forthcoming elections take place with the conditions which held back the elections scheduled for January 22, 2007?’ Nizami said at a news briefing in the party’s central office at Moghbazar.
   The Jamaat chief, for the first time, came down heavily on the military-controlled interim administration for making unnecessary intervention in other jobs, keeping aside its principal duty of holding the elections. The hurriedly arranged briefing followed the pressing of charges against Nizami in the GATCO corruption case.
   He said the chief adviser had talked about holding dialogues with political parties, but no measures had been taken to create an environment conducive to holding dialogues.
   ‘It has become tough for major political parties such as the BNP, Awami League and Jamaat-e-Islami to participate in the dialogues. In all past instances of dialogues, an environment was created for political parties by releasing the detained leaders and meeting their conditions,’ he said, adding most of the major leaders are in jail this time and moves are on to detain others.
   Nizami demanded an immediate release of Khaleda Zia and Sheikh Hasina on bail. He said, ‘It will not hamper the trial process and there is no option but to release them for holding elections which could be acceptable to all.’
   The Jamaat amir said all the political leaders detained in jail were arrested on political grounds and he demanded withdrawal of all the ‘false cases’ including the GATCO and Barapukuria cases.
   ‘The constitution does not allow the government to make decisions on any policy issues, but it has made many policy decisions, making the situation more complicated. Things are worsening as the tenure of an unelected government is getting prolonged,’ he said.
   ‘The principal duty of the government and the Election Commission is to hold the elections in a fair and neutral manner which could not be held for the declaration of the state of emergency… but the Election Commission had its main agenda hampered by putting its fingers in too many pies. It has delimited 133 constituencies and accomplished many unconstitutional jobs, and is now in a dilemma over the holding of local government polls,’ Nizami said.
   ‘If the government, which has no political ambitions, intends to hold local government polls before the national elections, it prompts people to raise questions about and doubt the attitude of the government,’ he said.
   As for GATCO charges, Nizami said it had mentioned his involvement in the corruption. ‘There can be no question of individual involvement… attending a meeting does not imply any involvement… and if it so does, all the people attending the meeting should have been sued. But that has not been done.’
   ‘I have come to know that the lawmen are preparing to arrest me. I am not worried about it at all. I do not need to be morally weak as I have not committed any offence or corruption,’ he said.

Former state minister for law Shahjahan Omar was on Wednesday sentenced to rigorous imprisonment for 13 years and his wife, Mehzabin Farzana, for three years for amassing illegal wealth and hiding information on assets in the wealth statement submitted to the Anti-Corruption Commission.
   In the verdict, Khandaker Kamaluzzaman, judge of the special judge’s court 9 set up on the Jatiya Sangsad complex, ordered confiscation of their assets of Tk 2.06 crore, which was found disproportionate to their known sources of income.
   The court also fined Shahjahan Tk 10 lakh and Mehzabin Tk 5 lakh. If they fail to pay the fines, Shahjahan will need to serve one more year and Mehzabin six more months in jail.
   The sentences will come into execution after the surrender or arrest of the couple as they are in hiding. The court, however, acquitted their son, Adnan Omar, of the charge. Like his mother, Adnan was charged with abetting his father in committing the offences by keeping a car worth Tk 13 lakh in his name.
   Shahjahan was jailed for 10 years for amassing illegal wealth of Tk 2.06 crore beyond his known sources of income and for three years for hiding the same amount in the wealth statement submitted to the commission.
   The court ordered consecutive execution of the sentences, meaning Omar will need to serve both the sentences of a total of 13 years in jail. The commission’s assistant director Sheikh Mesbah Uddin filed the case with the Gulshan police on September 27, 2007.

Former Awami League lawmaker Maqbul Hossain’s son Masudur Rahman was on Wednesday sentenced to rigorous imprisonment for 13 years for amassing illegal wealth and hiding assets in the wealth statement submitted to the Anti-Corruption Commission.
   In the verdict, M Sirajul Islam, judge of the special judge’s court 7 set up on the Jatiya Sangsad complex, also sentenced Masud’s wife Salma Rahman to rigorous imprisonment for three years for abetting her husband in committing the offences.
   The court orders confiscation of the couple’s assets of Tk 6.22 crore, which was found disproportionate to their known sources of income.
   The court also fined Masud Tk 10 lakh and Salma Tk 1 lakh. If they fail to pay the fines, Masud will need to serve one more year and Salma six more months in jail. Masud was jailed for 10 years for amassing illegal wealth of Tk 6.22 crore and for three years for hiding assets of Tk 3.51 crore. The court ordered consecutive execution of the sentences, meaning Masud would need to serve both the sentences for a total of 13 years.
   The sentences against the couple, however, will come into execution after their arrest or surrender as they are in hiding.
   The commission’s assistant director Jahangir Alam filed the case against the couple on November 30. The sentences against Masud and his wife came one week after Masud’s father, Maqbul Hossain, was jailed for 13 years and Maqbul’s wife Golam Fatema Tahera Khanom for three years on similar charges on May 6.

The death toll from China’s deadliest earthquake in decades climbed to nearly 15,000 on Wednesday, as officials warned of calamities downstream from broken rivers and dams strained to bursting point.
   Tens of thousands of troops, firefighters and civilians raced to save more than 25,000 people buried across a wide swathe of southwest Sichuan province under collapsed schools, factories and hospitals after Monday’s 7.9 magnitude quake.
   The official death toll climbed to 14,866, as rescuers pulled at tangled chunks of buildings for signs of life.
   The government sent 50,000 troops to dig for victims.
   Amid the overwhelming gloom, there were also moments of joy.
   In Mianzhu, where thousands have already been confirmed dead, about 500 people were pulled out alive from crushed buildings.
   Rescuers in Hanwang, a village in Mianzhu, sustained a girl with food and water as they struggled to free her from the ruins of a school.
   A woman eight-months pregnant and her mother, trapped under an apartment building in Dujiangyan, were freed by firefighters.
   ‘We are very happy. We have been standing here shouting for two days,’ said Pan Jianjun, a relative. ‘But there are still three more people in there making sounds.’
   But television showed whole villages wiped out across the poor, mountainous region suggesting searchers would find many more bodies than survivors among the toppled buildings.
   Officials have also warned of dangers from increased strain on local dams as well as mudslides on brittle hillsides where rain has been forecast over the next few days.
   Two hydropower stations in Maoxian county, where 7,000 residents and tourists remain stranded near the epicentre, were ‘seriously damaged’. Authorities warned that dams could burst.
   Landslides had blocked the flow of two rivers in northern Qingchuan county, forming a huge lake in a region where 1,000 have already died and 700 are buried, Xinhua said.
   ‘The rising water could cause the mountains to collapse. We desperately need geological experts to carry out tests and fix a rescue plan,’ Xinhua quoted Li Hao, the county’s Communist Party chief, as saying.
   The quake had also stopped a river in the stricken Mianzhu region, prompting officials to evacuate residents and drain dams, downstream, the agency said.
   Underscoring the urgency of relief efforts, the Communist Party’s top discipline watchdog vowed to punish officials for any dereliction of duty.
   Pictures from Beichuan, which rescuers have struggled to reach, showed near total devastation. Survivors lay alongside the dead in the open air, surrounded by rubble as state TV showed dramatic footage of soldiers parachuting in to help.
   The premier, Wen Jiabao, made emotional appeals to workers and comfort orphaned children.
   ‘Your pain is our pain,’ he said, standing amid a cluster of residents, some of whom wiped away tears. ‘Saving people’s lives is the most important task.’
   Wen also thanked volunteers from the US-based Children’s Heartlink and said that China was grateful for outside aid.
   The quake, the worst to hit China since 1976 when up to 300,000 died, has drowned out upbeat government propaganda three months ahead of the Beijing Olympic Games.
   It has also muffled criticism from abroad over recent unrest in Tibet, with images of the human tragedy and heroic rescue efforts spurring offers of aid and an outpouring of sympathy.
   The Party’s swift action to mobilise a massive rescue force has made a jarring comparison with that of Myanmar, whose government’s slow response to a devastating cyclone has infuriated aid and rights groups.
   Central authorities have ordered stricken areas to ensure food supplies and price stability, but some Chinese news reports described price rises and shortages.
   Rain has frustrated rescuers’ efforts to get to some areas and more rain is forecast for coming days, but the weather cleared on Wednesday afternoon.
   State media reported devastation in villages near the epicentre in Wenchuan, a remote county cut off by landslides about 100 km northwest of Chengdu.
   In Wenchuan’s Yingxiu township, only 2,300 of its 10,000 residents were accounted for, Xinhua reported. The fate of tens of thousands more in nearby villages was unknown.
   A cordon of soldiers blocked anguished parents from a collapsed building at Xindian primary school in Dujiangyan, where about 200 children and staff were buried.
   A nearby sign told relatives to search for their children at the local morgue.

Many of the commissioners of the wards under the Chittagong City Corporation have expressed dissatisfaction over the delimitation of electoral constituencies, claiming that it would create various inconveniences for the dwellers.
   Nurul Bashar Mia, commissioner of the Uttar Pahartoli ward, told New Age that the large area of his ward was incorporated with the Sitakunda constituency, adding that the inhabitants were also dissatisfied over shifting them from a city constituency to an upazila.
   ‘It will also make the development of the area difficult,’ he added.
   Ahmedur Rahman Siddique, commissioner of the Shulokbahar, said his ward was incorporated with the constituency comprising Boalkhali and a portion of the Rangunia upazila.
   ‘The people are not publicly protesting against delimitation because of the state of emergency,’ he said, adding that reconstitution of electoral constituencies might hinder the timely holding of the next parliamentary elections.
   Dost Mohammed, commissioner of Purba Sholoshahar, said delimitation of electoral constituencies would create severe problems for the dwellers, and told New Age that he was preparing to file a complaint in this regard.
   Advocate Abu Naser, commissioner of the Jamal Khan ward, said delimitation of electoral constituencies would not benefit the dwellers, rather it might hinder implementation of the electoral roadmap announced by the Election Commission.
   ‘The EC has shown its constitutional obligation to keep the population of the constituencies proportionate as the reason behind delimitation,’ he said, but pointed out that delimitation was not reasonable eight years after the population census.

Three more bodies were recovered from the River Ghorautra at Ghoradia in Nikli upazila early Wednesday, raising the death figure in Monday’s launch capsize to 46.
   Local people recovered the three floating bodies from the river. Two of the deceased were identified as Tapan Kumar Saha Monu, 45, and Sajit Kumar Saha, 22.
   The Mitamoin-bound launch, MV Chandpur, carrying over 150 passengers capsized in the river at the point at about 5:00pm Monday as it was caught in storms, leaving scores of people missing.
   Soon after the mishap, local people recovered four bodies from the river on Monday afternoon. Later, the divers of BIWTA and Fire Services in a joint salvage operation pulled up 39 more bodies from the sunken launch on Tuesday.
   However, the salvage operation of the launch was suspended on Wednesday.
   The deputy commissioner, Sultan Ahmed, said being confirmed that no more body stuck into the sunken launch, authority suspended the salvage operation. Meanwhile, district administration has formed a one-member committee and BIWTA authority constituted a two-member committee to investigate the incident.
   The one member-committee, with Nikli UNO Kazi Saiful Islam as its member, has been asked to submit its report within three days while BIWTA committee, headed by senior deputy director Mohammad Hossain, to submit report within a week.

The Globe-Janakantha Group chairman, Atiqullah Khan Masud, also editor and publisher of the daily Janakantha, was on Wednesday sentenced again to rigorous imprisonment for seven years on another fraudulence charge.
   In the verdict, AK Roy, judge of the special judge’s court 2 set up on the Jatiya Sangsad complex, also sentenced Rajdhani Unnayan Kartripakkha authorised officer ATM Quamruzzaman to seven years’ rigorous imprisonment.
   The court also fined the two Tk 1.22 crore and ordered both Masud and Quamruzzaman to pay the fine jointly or to serve one more year in jail.
   Masud, arrested by the joint forces on March 7, 2007 at the Janakantha building in Dhaka, was present in the dock during the pronouncement of the verdict. Quamruzzaman remained fugitive.
   The Anti-Corruption Commission’s deputy assistant director Mahmud Hasan on September 30, 2007 filed the case with the Motijheel police accusing Masud and Quamruzzaman of having a role in approving the design of a 15-storey building on the DIT Road at Malibagh in 1999.
   According to the prosecution, Masud applied for the approval for the construction of the building on April 19, 1999. Quamruzzaman prepared a fake design of the building on May 23, 1999. Showing the fake design approved by the Rajdhani Unnayan Kartripakkha, Masud took Tk 1,22,44,000 from 17 people to sell the flats to them.
   With the latest sentence, Masud has so far been jailed for a total of 48 years in six cases.
   On March 6, 9 and 20 and April 27, Masud was sentenced to imprisonment for a total of 28 years, seven years each in four cases on similar fraudulence charges.
   He was also jailed on April 3 for 13 years for amassing illegal wealth and hiding assets in his wealth statement submitted to the commission.

The council of advisers of the military-controlled caretaker government on Wednesday approved in principle the Upazila Parishad Ordinance 2008 to create two seats of vice-chairman in the local government body, one reserved for women.
   The ordinance provides that the chairman and two vice-chairmen of the upazila parishad will be directly elected by voters. Union parishad chairmen, municipal mayors and elected women members to the reserved seats of wards under the upazila concerned would be members of the upazila parishad.
   A meeting of the council of advisers with the chief adviser, Fakhruddin Ahmed, in the chair sent the draft of the ordinance in the light of some suggestions for vetting by the law ministry and asked for placing it again before the council ‘as soon as possible’.
   Under the new ordinance, dispute regarding election cannot be filed in any other court except for election tribunal. The election tribunal and election appellate tribunal will have to dispose of the dispute cases within a fixed timeframe.
   The complaint will have to be placed with the election tribunal within 30 days of gazette notification and the tribunal has to dispose of the case within 180 days.
   The litigant can further appeal against tribunal verdict within 30 days while the appellate tribunal will have to dispose it of in 120 days.
   ‘If upazila parishad chairman or vice-chairmen hold any post at any level of any political party, he or she will have to resign before taking oath,’ says the new law, being made ahead of election to the revived local body.
   The candidates for upazila parishad election will have to submit declaration that the person is not disqualified for election in submitting nomination papers. The candidates will have to submit their wealth statement before being sworn in.
   Provision has been kept in the ordinance that if the outgoing upazila parishad failed to hand over office to the incoming elected parishad in presence of a first class magistrate, then maximum 3 years imprisonment and maximum Tk 20,000 in fines will be awarded to the delinquents.
   ‘If anyone is accused as war criminal by national or international tribunal, they would be disqualified for contesting the upazila parishad election like other local elections,’ says the ordinance.
   The council of advisers also approved amendment to the National Board of Revenue Order 1972. As a result, the government can appoint secretary or additional secretary to the government as chairman of the NBR.
   In the existing rule, the NBR chairman is appointed by the government from the members of the National Board of Revenue.
   Advisers and special assistants to the chief adviser attended the meeting at the Chief Adviser’s Office. Cabinet secretary, chief adviser press secretary and secretaries concerned were also present.

A Dhaka court on Wednesday ordered former prime minister Sheikh Hasina and eight others accused in the Niko scam case to appear in court on May 21.
   Metropolitan special judge Md Azizul Haque gave the order on Wednesday.
   The court ordered authorities to publish notices in the newspapers asking the six accused in the case who are absconding to appear in the court on the appointed day.
   The court also ordered for production of three other detained accused in the case — Sheikh Hasina, Rafiqul Islam and former power secretary Toufique-e-Elahi Chowdhury — in the court on the same day.
   Toufique is on bail in the case but currently detained in another case.
   The Anti-Corruption Commi-ssion deputy director, MM Shabbir Hassan, filed the case with Tejgaon police station on December 9, 2007.
   Hasina, during her term as the prime minister allegedly approved a Niko deal in 2001, which allegedly cost the government Tk 13,630.50 crore in losses, according to case details.
   The ACC submitted a charge sheet in the case on May 7.
   The graft watchdog filed another case with the same police station against another former prime minister Khaleda Zia on the same charges.

Myanmar tightened access to its cyclone disaster zone Wednesday, turning back foreigners and ignoring pleas to accept outside experts who could save countless lives before time runs out.
   A top European Union humanitarian official said there was now a risk of famine, after the storm destroyed rice stocks in a main farming region in one of the world’s poorest and most isolated countries.
   International aid groups held an urgent meeting in neighbouring Thailand, frustrated by a defiant regime that has held up visas for emergency workers to deliver food, water, medicine and shelter for up to two million people.
   But hope faded that the generals, deeply suspicious of the outside world, would budge, and there were warnings that time is running out as the government continues to insist on managing the catastrophe alone.
   ‘If there is a lack of access, more people will die,’ Louis Michel, the EU’s humanitarian aid commissioner, said in an interview with AFP TV in Bangkok before heading to Myanmar for talks with the regime.
   ‘The fact that it is the rice bowl of Myanmar (that has been hit) and that all the stocks of rice have been destroyed – there is a risk of a catastrophe at the level of famine,’ he said.
   State media raised the death toll to 38,491 with 27,838 missing Wednesday, but the British minister, Douglas Alexander, said reports from agencies on the ground indicated the number of dead and missing could rise above 200,000.
   Aid groups say that while tonnes of aid are flowing in – five more US relief flights arrived Wednesday – not nearly enough is reaching the southern delta which was obliterated in the May 3 cyclone.
   Only experienced disaster specialists can ensure the vast relief operation gets supplies to victims in the remote and flooded region who will fall prey to starvation and disease unless help arrives fast, they said.
   Thailand’s prime minister Samak Sundaravej said after a brief visit to Myanmar aimed at nudging the regime to accept a full-scale disaster response, that the junta had ruled out allowing in foreign experts.
   ‘They insisted they can take care of their people and their country. They can manage by themselves,’ he said after a meeting with the Myanmar prime minister, Thein Sein.
   The military, which has ruled the country with an iron hand for almost half a century, has long feared any outside influence that could weaken its tight control.
   Foreign reporters said they were turned back at stricter roadblocks on the way to the delta Wednesday, and even citizens were not allowed in if they could not provide names and addresses of people they said they were visiting.

At least 15 students were injured as rival groups of the Bangladesh Chhatra League, student wing of the Awami League, clashed on the campus of Jagannath University on Wednesday morning.
   Fearing further troubles, all shops and business establishments in the surroundings pulled their shutters and a large contingent of police was deployed on the campus in the Old Town of Dhaka.
   According to witnesses, the fierce clashes between the rival groups – one led by BCL president Kamrul Islam Ripon and the other by its general secretary Gazi Sayeed Ahmed – followed an altercation in front of the university Shaheed Minar at around 11:00am.
   Several hundred students of the university, allegedly led by Ripon and brandishing rods, cricket stumps and hockey sticks, attacked followers of Sayeed triggering the hour-long clashes causing panic in the area.
   The police and members of the Rapid Action Battalion rushed to the scene to disperse the feuding groups.
   Classes were suspended during the fighting.
   M Abdul Hannan, officer-in-charge of Kotwali police station, told New Age, ‘The clash erupted between Chhatra League’s Ripon and Sayeed groups but the situation is under control and reinforcements have been dispatched.’
   Among the injured Bidyu and Manul were admitted to Dhaka Medical College Hospital.
   Some others, including Sujan, Arif, Sumon, Abir, Jashim, Shahadat and Manik, were treated at the nearby National Medical College Hospital and local clinics.
   Kotwali police told New Age that no case was filed and none arrested in this connection till Wednesday evening.
   On March 22, violent clashes between rival groups of Jatiyatabadi Chhatra Dal, student wing of the BNP, on the university campus left one student killed and 10 others injured.

The Chief Metropolitan Magistrate’s Court in Dhaka sent the charge sheet in the GATCO scam case to a senior special judge’s court on Wednesday.
   But the court did not issue any order.
   Mohammad Zahirul Huda, deputy director of the Anti-Corruption Commission and investigating officer of the case, submitted the charge sheet against former prime minister Khaleda Zia and 24 others to the CMM Court in Dhaka on Tuesday.
   The court assistant, Kazi Nur Alam, told the news agency: ‘The judge went home. He did not give any order regarding the charge sheet in the GATCO case.’
   Huda said 12 accused in the case were shown fugitives.
   Former ministers Matiur Rahman Nizami, M Saifur Rahman, Mannan Bhuiyan, M Shamsul Islam, MK Anwar and Amir Khasru Mahmud Chowdhury were among them.
   Joint forces arrested Khaleda and her son Arafat Rahman with ties to the case.
   The Anti-Corruption Commission filed the case on September 2 with Tejgaon police station against 13 people alleging that GATCO’s contract to run the container depot at Chittagong Port was illegal.
   The case was brought
   under the Emergency Powers Rules on September 17.
   The case record shows that a tender was floated on March 1, 2003 to appoint a contractor for the container depots at Chittagong Port and Kamalapur railway station.
   The accused awarded the tender to GATCO although the company failed to meet all the conditions.
   It is also alleged that the government incurred more than Tk 1,000 crore in losses because of the GATCO deal.

Teletalk, a government-owned mobile phone operator, starts its operation in the Chittagong Hill Tracts today.
   BTRC sources said chief adviser’s special assistant for Chittagong Hill Tracts affairs ministry Raja Debashis Roy would inaugurate the operation at 12 noon by talking to the chief adviser, Fakhruddin Ahmed, over cellphone from Rangamati.
   Chief adviser’s another special assistant for post and telecommunications ministry MA Malek and chairman of the Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission Manzurul Alam will also attend the programme in Rangamati.

Hillary Clinton scored a crushing win over Barack Obama in West Virginia’s primary but it did little to dislodge his stranglehold on the Democratic White House race.
   Hillary vowed to fight on after routing Obama by a margin of almost three to one in a contest that highlighted his struggle to win white, working class voters who will play a key role in November’s general election.
   ‘You will never quit, and I won’t either,’ Hillary told cheering supporters at her victory rally late Tuesday in the poor, mountainous state.
   ‘There are some who have wanted to cut this race short,’ the New York senator and former first lady said.
   ‘I am more determined than ever to carry on with this campaign until everyone has had their chance to make their voices heard,’ she said, in an apparent hint that she will fight on through five remaining primaries.
   Hillary beat Obama by a bruising 67 to 26 per cent in West Virginia, with 100 per cent of the vote counted. Seven per cent voted for former senator John Edwards, who dropped out of the presidential race in late January.
   Overall, Obama, vying to become the first African-American in the White House, leads Hillary by every metric – pledged delegates, superdelegates, popular vote tallies and number of nominating contests won.
   Bringing only 28 of the 2,025 delegates needed for the nomination, the West Virginia victory was not enough to change the math that seems destined to propel Obama to the Democratic presidential nomination.
   Hillary was conciliatory towards her rival Tuesday, saying, ‘I deeply admire senator Obama,’ and adding that she would support the nominee of her party in November.
   But she also bluntly stated her belief that she was the best candidate to lead the Democrats against Republican John McCain in the November presidential election.
   ‘I am in this race because I believe I am the strongest candidate to lead our party in November of 2008, and the strongest president to lead our nation starting in January of 2009.’
   Obama had already conceded the primary and was in the general-election battleground of Missouri as results came in, gearing up for a contest with McCain.
   ‘While the Bush-Cheney ticket won’t be up for reelection, the Bush-Cheney policies will, because John McCain is running for four more years of the same approach that has failed the American people,’ Obama said in Cape Girardeau, referring to the president, George W Bush, and the vice president, Dick Cheney.
   Hillary meanwhile fired off a fundraising appeal within an hour of polls closing, underscoring her desperate need for cash to carry on.
   Exit polls cited by MSNBC showed that Hillary won white voters by 68 per cent to 28 for Obama, and won 72 per cent of those
   earning less than 50,000 dollars, compared to her foe’s 24 per cent.
   Worryingly for Obama, Fox News exit data said 51 per cent of voters believed that he shared the views of his controversial former pastor Jeremiah Wright, who sparked a crisis for his campaign with racially tinged sermons.
   Still, Hillary’s odds grew longer as Obama drew more superdelegates – party leaders whose votes will be crucial in settling the nomination – to his side.
   Roy Romer, a former governor of Colorado and a national co-chairman of president Bill Clinton’s re-election campaign in 1996, declared his support for Obama Tuesday.
   ‘Senator Hillary has been a very strong and formidable candidate,’ Romer said. ‘But there is a time that we need to end it and direct ourselves to the general election. I think that time is now.’
   Obama now has the support of 284 superdelegates, against 272 for Hillary, according to the latest tally by the independent web site RealClearPolitics.
   In total, he has 1,882 delegates to her 1,714, and is considerably closer to the winning line of 2,025.

Ghost phobia prompted the authorities of a textile factory at Chittagong Export Processing Zone to suspend its operation for the last two days, causing a loss of around Tk 3 crore, officials said.
   ‘All the workers have already been asked to join their work and we hope that we will be able to resume the production today,’ a senior official said.
   Against the backdrop of such a phobia, the factory management held a prayers session on the factory premises on Wednesday to dispel the fear about ghost.
   The trouble hit  Universal Jeans Ltd, a sister concern of  Pacific Jeans Group at CEPZ,  after two of its workers claimed that they were attacked by ghost inside the factory’s washroom on Tuesday.
   The two workers Mohammad Faruk and Archana Dutta were admitted to CEPZ Hospital after they became unconscious on the day.
   General Manager of CEPZ Authority Ataul Hoque told New Age that the ghost story was created by a vested quarter through spreading rumours among the workers.
   ‘It has been done to create a chaotic situation inside the
   garments and textiles factories at CEPZ. There is no ghost
   and ghost attack incident,’ he said.
   The two workers became unconscious due to weakness as they got panicked after hearing the rumour about ghost, he said quoting the doctors.
   As all the workers declined to join their work, the operation at some sections of the factory remained suspended on Tuesday and Wednesday.
   Senior manager of Pacific Jeans Group Mahbubul Huq said as a vested quarter circulated the rumours, some workers felt weak and two of them suddenly became unconscious.
   ‘Due to this trouble, the factory incurred a loss of around Tk 3 crore as its operation was suspended for the last two days.’
   He, however, informed that Universal Jeans Ltd having a workforce of 4,000 was set up six months back.

The police Tuesday night returned the key to the lock of the entrance to the central BNP office at Naya Paltan, a member on the office staff told New Age on Wednesday.
   The police took away the key to the lock early Tuesday morning apparently to control admittance of party leaders although the government had conditionally relaxed restrictions on political activities across the country.

Farmers dropped off the list of diesel subsidy on Wednesday staged a sit-in in front of the office of the Sarishabari upazila nirbahi officer in Jamalpur demanding inclusion of their names.
   More than 100 boro farmers who run their pumps with diesel gathered near the office at 10:00am and went out on demonstrations for an hour.
   The farmers called off the protests as the upazila agriculture officer, Moazzem Hossain, assured them of meeting their demand at the earliest.
   The farmers who were left out will get subsidy soon, said the upazila nirbahi officer, Zakaria.
   The farmers were left out of the list as some pump managers did not submit forms in time during the land survey, Moazzem said.
   Department of Agriculture Extension deputy director told New Age, ‘A list of the farmers left out will soon be prepared.’

The government has transferred 11 senior officials of the rank from additional inspector general to superintendent of police.
   The home affairs ministry published a gazette notification to this effect on Wednesday.
   Additional IGP (acting) Sheikh Mohammad Sajjad Ali has been made commandant of the Bangladesh Police Academy at Sardah and he replaces Mokhlesur Rahman, who has been transferred to the police headquarters as acting deputy inspector general.
   Additional commissioner of the Dhaka Metropolitan Police Mohammad Moniruzzaman has been transferred to the police headquarters as DIG and he is replaced with Abdus Salam, now acting deputy inspector general of the Sylhet ranges. Mohammad Mezbahunnabi of the police headquarters has been transferred to the Sylhet ranges as deputy inspector general.
   Helal Uddin Badri, a deputy inspector general attached with the police headquarters on his return from UN mission in Cote d’Ivoire, has been made commissioner of the Khulna Metropolitan Police and he replaces Moinur Rahman Chowdhury, who has been transferred to the police headquarters as an acting deputy inspector genreal.
   Sibgatullah, Narayanganj superintendent of police, has been transferred to the police headquarters as assistant inspector general and he is replaced with Sarder Nurul Amin, now superintendent of police of Naogaon. Mofazzel Hossain, additional superintendent of police of Netrakona, will act as acting Naogaon police superintendent.
   Rezaul Karim, additional inspector general at the police headquarters, has been made superintendent of police of Habiganj, according to the notification.