‘In major accidents, fire service divers risk their lives, not naval or BIWTA officials. We have a river unit, but there is no post for divers’ Arrested Pinak 6 owner blames BIWTA n Ashif Islam Shaon The owner of Pinak 6 launch which sank in the Padma River on August 4 blamed the Bangladesh Inland Water Transport Authority officials and les- sees of three launch ghats (terminals) for the tragedy. A joint team from RAB 7 and RAB 11 arrested launch owner Abu Bakkar Sid- dique at a house in Agrabad Housing area in Chittagong city around 3:30am yesterday and later he was taken to the RAB headquarters in Dhaka. Siddique, 60, denied his involve- ment and said it was the BIWTA that controls launch operation for 10 days before and after Eid. They knew well about overloading, he added. “I am an owner. How can I know the number of passengers getting on my launch? I don’t stay at launch ghat…,” he said while talking to reporters at the RAB headquarters. Asked if he wasn’t responsible why he went into hiding following the dis- aster, he said, “I fled in fear. But in fact, the death of many people hurt me. It broke my heart.” Siddique claimed that the launch had enough life jackets and life- saving equipment. “We cannot operate launches with- out getting permission from terminal lessees. They force us to carry addi- tional passengers and take extra mon- ey,” he claimed. Blaming the Bangla Bazar ghat les- see, he said, “If we don’t touch this ghat, they don’t give us the serial num- ber to operate the launch next day. The BIWTA knows it, but they don’t take any action.” He added: “We have to anchor our launches at Bangla Bazar and Kanthal- bari ghats after leaving Kewrakandi. The leaseholders used to force us to carry passengers beyond capacity at the ghats.” “The leaseholders, led by one Yakub Bepari, used to force all launches to carry 60-70 extra passengers. They beat launch staff if they do not want to carry extra passengers. Once I was in- volved with BNP politics and now I am an Awami League activist,” he claimed. With more than 250 passengers, the double-decker vessel which was on way to Mawa from Kewrakandi sank in the Padma River around 11:00 am on August 4 due to strong current and high winds. PAGE 3 COLUMN 2 REAL MADRID REINFORCEMENTS SHINE IN SUPER CUP VICTORY 20 pages plus 16-page T -Mag tabloid | Price: Tk12 THURSDAY, AUGUST 14, 2014 | www.dhakatribune.com | SECOND EDITION Shraban 30, 1421 Shawal 17, 1435 Regd. No. DA 6238 Vol 2, No 132 WHAT CONSTITUTES A CONSTITUTION? ABLE-ING THE DISABLED WHEN ARROGANCE IS THE STRATEGY 7 | JURIS 11 | OP-ED 14 | SPORT TMAG 13 | Sport The only advice Habibul Bashar has for the cricketers is to enjoy the game in the Carib- bean. He believes a positive result is possible when the team start enjoying its cricket. 8 | World Canada will donate a small quantity of an ex- perimental Ebola vaccine to the World Health Organization for use in Africa, the country’s health minister said on Tuesday. 5 | News The plan to construct four arches made of steel in Kazirbazar bridge in Sylhet has been scrapped despite spending an additional Tk15 crore on piling. 12 | Entertainment ‘So, you’re a doctor? Can you do a vasectomy procedure right now?’ Why not! After all, the first line we comedians get at a social setting is: ‘You’re a comedian? Tell a joke!’ 3 | News The government is likely to cancel a major power plant deal with an Indian contractor because the company failed to deposit the security money. 4 | News The acute shortage of teachers for the ‘basic subjects’ at most public medical colleges has prompted the government to consider training and recruiting around 200 new doctors to fill the vacant lecturer seats. INSIDE Members of RAB take Pinak 6 owner Abu Bakkar Siddique to their headquarters yesterday. Siddique was arrested at a house in Agrabad Housing Society in Chittagong DHAKA TRIBUNE Fire service divers little equipped for operation n Syed Samiul Basher Anik The diving unit of the Fire Service and Civil Defence, a very important unit for rescuing victims of waterways acci- dents, has remained ill-equipped over decades despite the fact that such acci- dents have meanwhile increased in the country. The unit has only 20 divers at pres- ent, who work in rescue operations across the country. No governments have taken any major initiatives, since the inception of the FSCD in 1982, to develop the diving unit. The FSCD has rather focused all its efforts on the development of other wings. Officials concerned said the unit’s manpower has not increased since its formation with just 25 divers in 1990. If an accident occurs, these divers are always called in to conduct rescue operations. If a major accident takes place, the FSCD faces enormous prob- lems as small accidents also happen across the country and resources are stretched thin. When these divers are sent to tackle the aftermath of an accident, they can- not conduct rescue operations proper- ly because they are not well equipped. They cannot even carry out searches at depths greater than 30 feet because they are all shallow water divers, offi- cials said. There are two divers each in Chan- dpur, Chittagong, Sylhet, Khulna, Ba- risal, Rangpur, Rajshahi, Mymensingh and Sadarghat terminals, apart from four divers at the Siddikbazar head- quarters. At least 4,420 people were killed, 520 injured and 400 others remain miss- ing in over 550 launch accidents in the last 38 years, according to official figures. Of them, around 1,960 people were killed and 176 went missing in the last decade. However, the number of deaths are probably higher than the official figure. In August this year, 45 passengers were killed as launch Pinak 6 capsized in the Padma River while MV Miraj PAGE 3 COLUMN 2 Critics, who slammed creative questions, have little to complain n Mushfique Wadud No negative indicators were found in the results of this year’s Higher Sec- ondary Certificate examination, as the overall pass rate in the country, num- ber of GPA 5 scorers, number of col- leges that had 100% pass rate, etc were higher compared to last year’s results. The number of colleges where no students passed was also less this year, marking another positive indicator. Last year, the HSC results took a plunge compared to the previous year’s result, and critics accused the new- ly-introduced creative question system for that. However, this year the critics have little to complain about. The combined pass rate this year is 78.33%, which was 74.3% last year. A total of 70,602 students got GPA 5 this year, compared to last year’s 58,197. A total of 1,147 colleges have the 100% success rate this year, as opposed to 849 colleges last year. The number of colleges with 0% pass is 24, this year, whereas last year it was 25. A total of 1,129,972 students sat in the HSC examination this year – 127,476 more than the number of examinees last year. In terms of pass rate, the female students has performed well – 78.86% among female students, 77.86% among male students. However, in terms of scoring GPA 5, male students are ahead, with 38,787 male students and 31,815 female stu- dents achieving the perfect score. The HSC results was published yes- terday. Education Minister Nurul Islam Nahid handed over the results to Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in the morning, and then announced it at a press brief- ing in the Secretariat in the afternoon. At the press briefing the first question that the education minister faced after announcing the results was whether the question paper leakage contributed to the higher pass rate this year. PAGE 4 COLUMN 2 Legal notice seeks punishment of 8 BIWTA officials n Ahmed Zaeef A legal notice was issued yesterday seeking punishment of eight officials of the BIWTA, the authority to over- see operations of water vessels, for the tragic capsize of Pinak 6 launch on August 4 and their failure in the rescue operation. The notice gave the authorities 72 hours to initiate a survey to determine the exact number of vessels operating in the country’s waterways, enforcing mandatory registration for each vessel and launching fitness checking pro- grammes. Supreme Court lawyer Enamul Haq Mollah issued the notice on behalf of Ashish Kumar Dey, convener of the National Committee for Protection of Roads, Waterways and Rail, and Tushar Rehman, general secretary of the Citi- zens’ Rights Movement. Respondents of the notice are the shipping secretary, the director general of Department of Shipping, the BIWTA chairman, the traffic inspector and the inspector of Mawa-Kawrakandi river belt, the engineer and ship surveyor of Mawa region, the BIWTA officer at Mawa river port, the director of port department, the director of river se- curity and traffic department and the PAGE 3 COLUMN 1 2001 28.41 2002 27.10 2003 38.43 2004 47.73 2005 59.16 2006 63.92 2007 64.27 2008 74.85 2009 72.78 2010 74.28 2011 75.08 2012 78.67 2013 74.30 2014 78.33 General Education (all boards) 2014 2013 Pass rate 78.33% 74.30% Male 77.86% Female 78.86% GPA 5 scorers 70,602 58,197 Male 38,787 Female 31,815 100% pass colleges 1,147 849 All fail colleges 24 25 No. of examinees 11,29,972 10,02,496 HSC Pass Rate 2001-2014 Dhaka Board 84.54% Rajshahi Board 78.55% Comilla Board 70.14% Jessore Board 60.58% Chittagong Board 70.06% Barisal Board 71.75% Sylhet Board 79.16% Dinajpur Board 74.14% Madrasa Board 94.08% Technical Board 85.02% BOARD-WISE PASS RATE 2014 HSC RESULT HIGHLIGHTS Pass rate going up, up and up n Mushfique Wadud The pass rate in the Higher Secondary Certificate examinations in the country has been increasing breaking all previ- ous records. It has risen to 78.33% this year from the 28.41% in 2001. There has always been a debate re- garding the hike of passing rate in the board examinations. Some education- alists label it a positive thing, while some others say pass rate is increasing because of the examiners’ liberal atti- tude towards the exam scripts. Dhaka University’s Institute of Edu- cation and Research Professor Abul Eh- san said the increase in passing rate was a positive thing, but there remained a concern: whether the examiners were checking the exam scripts properly. “It seems some teachers check the exam scripts liberally,” he said, and suggested that the examination system should be reformed. “We need a good examination sys- tem where a student’s talent is properly evaluated,” he said. In an earlier interview, Viqarunnni- sa Noon School and College Principal, Manju Ara Begum told the Dhaka Trib- une that she did not believe in the idea that the quality of education had fallen. “In the grading system, students normally get higher marks than the previous system and the creative ques- tion style is another important thing to fuel the pass rate,” she said. Earlier in June this year, Education Minister Nurul Islam Nahid sat with leading educationalists, where some educationalists questioned the stand- ard of education. Professor Abdullah Abu Sayeed, in that meeting, raised questions regard- ing the scrutinisation of answer scripts. He said the number of GPA 5 scorers were increasing because of liberal scru- tinisation, but their academic skills were not improving that much. At yesterday’s press briefing follow PAGE 4 COLUMN 1 Dhaka Board records the highest pass rate n Mushfique Wadud Dhaka Board has the highest pass rate among the general education boards in the Higher Secondary Certificate exam- ination published yesterday. The boards outside Dhaka that per- formed well in the previous years se- cured comparatively low pass rate this year. Dhaka Education Board had to post- pone its English Second Paper exam- ination after allegations of question paper leakage. There were allegations about some papers of examinations that they were leaked on the social media. Some teachers speaking to the Dha- ka Tribune said question paper leakage contributed to good result of the Dhaka Education Board. The result document shows that the pass rate in Dhaka Board is 84.54, in Rajshahi 78.55, in Comilla 70.14, in Jessore 60.58, in Chittagong 70.06, in Barisal 71.75, in Sylhet 79.16 and in Di- najpur 74.14. In 2013 the pass rate in Dhaka Board was 74.04, it was 81.82% in 2012and 76.89% in 2011. The Jessore Board performed badly in this year’s HSC exams. The pass rate is 60.58 this year. Last year, the pass rate was 67.49. Some teachers said as the students in Dhaka are more social media user, and leaked questions were on the social media, Dhaka Board performed well. Moreover, the subject-wise result shows that Dhaka Board students per- formed better in English than the result of last year. In English, 92.59% students passed this year while last year it was 82.30%. The Jessore Board which performed badly mainly for English. Only 65.07% students passed in this subject. “Question leak certainly contribut- ed to the good result,” a teacher of a PAGE 4 COLUMN 2 No negative indicators in HSC results Students of Rajuk Uttara Model College celebrate their success in the HSC exams yesterday MEHEDI HASAN
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‘In major accidents, � re service divers risk their lives, not naval or BIWTA o� cials. We have a river unit, but there is no post for divers’
Arrested Pinak 6 owner blames BIWTAn Ashif Islam Shaon
The owner of Pinak 6 launch which sank in the Padma River on August 4 blamed the Bangladesh Inland Water Transport Authority o� cials and les-sees of three launch ghats (terminals) for the tragedy.
A joint team from RAB 7 and RAB 11 arrested launch owner Abu Bakkar Sid-dique at a house in Agrabad Housing area in Chittagong city around 3:30am yesterday and later he was taken to the
RAB headquarters in Dhaka. Siddique, 60, denied his involve-
ment and said it was the BIWTA that controls launch operation for 10 days before and after Eid. They knew well about overloading, he added.
“I am an owner. How can I know the number of passengers getting on my launch? I don’t stay at launch ghat…,” he said while talking to reporters at the RAB headquarters.
Asked if he wasn’t responsible why he went into hiding following the dis-
aster, he said, “I � ed in fear. But in fact, the death of many people hurt me. It broke my heart.”
Siddique claimed that the launch had enough life jackets and life- saving equipment.
“We cannot operate launches with-out getting permission from terminal lessees. They force us to carry addi-tional passengers and take extra mon-ey,” he claimed.
Blaming the Bangla Bazar ghat les-see, he said, “If we don’t touch this ghat, they don’t give us the serial num-ber to operate the launch next day. The BIWTA knows it, but they don’t take any action.”
He added: “We have to anchor our launches at Bangla Bazar and Kanthal-bari ghats after leaving Kewrakandi. The leaseholders used to force us to carry passengers beyond capacity at the ghats.”
“The leaseholders, led by one Yakub Bepari, used to force all launches to carry 60-70 extra passengers. They beat launch sta� if they do not want to carry extra passengers. Once I was in-volved with BNP politics and now I am an Awami League activist,” he claimed.
With more than 250 passengers, the double-decker vessel which was on way to Mawa from Kewrakandi sank in the Padma River around 11:00 am on August 4 due to strong current and high winds.
PAGE 3 COLUMN 2
REAL MADRID REINFORCEMENTSSHINE IN SUPERCUP VICTORY
20 pages plus 16-page T-Mag tabloid | Price: Tk12THURSDAY, AUGUST 14, 2014 | www.dhakatribune.com | SECOND EDITION
Shraban 30, 1421Shawal 17, 1435Regd. No. DA 6238Vol 2, No 132
WHAT CONSTITUTES A CONSTITUTION?
ABLE-ING THE DISABLED
WHEN ARROGANCE IS THE STRATEGY
7 | JURIS 11 | OP-ED 14 | SPORTTMAG
13 | SportThe only advice Habibul Bashar has for the cricketers is to enjoy the game in the Carib-bean. He believes a positive result is possible when the team start enjoying its cricket.
8 | WorldCanada will donate a small quantity of an ex-perimental Ebola vaccine to the World Health Organization for use in Africa, the country’s health minister said on Tuesday.
5 | NewsThe plan to construct four arches made of steel in Kazirbazar bridge in Sylhet has been scrapped despite spending an additional Tk15 crore on piling.
12 | Entertainment‘So, you’re a doctor? Can you do a vasectomy procedure right now?’ Why not! After all, the � rst line we comedians get at a social setting is: ‘You’re a comedian? Tell a joke!’
3 | NewsThe government is likely to cancel a major power plant deal with an Indian contractor because the company failed to deposit the security money.
4 | NewsThe acute shortage of teachers for the‘basic subjects’ at most public medical colleges has prompted the governmentto consider training and recruiting around 200 new doctors to � ll the vacant lecturer seats.
INSIDE
Members of RAB take Pinak 6 owner Abu Bakkar Siddique to their headquarters yesterday. Siddique was arrested at a house in Agrabad Housing Society in Chittagong DHAKA TRIBUNE
Fire service divers little equipped for operation n Syed Samiul Basher Anik
The diving unit of the Fire Service and Civil Defence, a very important unit for rescuing victims of waterways acci-dents, has remained ill-equipped over decades despite the fact that such acci-dents have meanwhile increased in the country.
The unit has only 20 divers at pres-ent, who work in rescue operations across the country.
No governments have taken any major initiatives, since the inception of the FSCD in 1982, to develop the diving unit. The FSCD has rather focused all its e� orts on the development of other wings.
O� cials concerned said the unit’s manpower has not increased since its formation with just 25 divers in 1990.
If an accident occurs, these divers are always called in to conduct rescue operations. If a major accident takes place, the FSCD faces enormous prob-lems as small accidents also happen across the country and resources are stretched thin.
When these divers are sent to tackle the aftermath of an accident, they can-not conduct rescue operations proper-ly because they are not well equipped. They cannot even carry out searches
at depths greater than 30 feet because they are all shallow water divers, o� -cials said.
There are two divers each in Chan-dpur, Chittagong, Sylhet, Khulna, Ba-risal, Rangpur, Rajshahi, Mymensingh and Sadarghat terminals, apart from four divers at the Siddikbazar head-quarters.
At least 4,420 people were killed, 520 injured and 400 others remain miss-ing in over 550 launch accidents in the last 38 years, according to o� cial � gures. Of them, around 1,960 people were killed and 176 went missing in the last decade. However, the number of deaths are probably higher than the o� cial � gure.
In August this year, 45 passengers were killed as launch Pinak 6 capsized in the Padma River while MV Miraj
PAGE 3 COLUMN 2
Critics, who slammed creative questions, have little to complainn Mushfi que Wadud
No negative indicators were found in the results of this year’s Higher Sec-ondary Certi� cate examination, as the overall pass rate in the country, num-ber of GPA 5 scorers, number of col-leges that had 100% pass rate, etc were higher compared to last year’s results.
The number of colleges where no students passed was also less this year, marking another positive indicator.
Last year, the HSC results took a plunge compared to the previous year’s result, and critics accused the new-ly-introduced creative question system for that.
However, this year the critics have little to complain about.
The combined pass rate this year is 78.33%, which was 74.3% last year. A total of 70,602 students got GPA 5 this year, compared to last year’s 58,197.
A total of 1,147 colleges have the 100% success rate this year, as opposed to 849 colleges last year. The number of
colleges with 0% pass is 24, this year, whereas last year it was 25.
A total of 1,129,972 students sat in the HSC examination this year – 127,476 more than the number of examinees last year.
In terms of pass rate, the female students has performed well – 78.86% among female students, 77.86% among male students.
However, in terms of scoring GPA 5, male students are ahead, with 38,787 male students and 31,815 female stu-dents achieving the perfect score.
The HSC results was published yes-terday. Education Minister Nurul Islam Nahid handed over the results to Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in the morning, and then announced it at a press brief-ing in the Secretariat in the afternoon.
At the press brie� ng the � rst question that the education minister faced after announcing the results was whether the question paper leakage contributed to the higher pass rate this year.
PAGE 4 COLUMN 2
Legal notice seeks punishment of 8 BIWTA o� cials n Ahmed Zaeef
A legal notice was issued yesterday seeking punishment of eight o� cials of the BIWTA, the authority to over-see operations of water vessels, for the tragic capsize of Pinak 6 launch on August 4 and their failure in the rescue operation.
The notice gave the authorities 72 hours to initiate a survey to determine the exact number of vessels operating in the country’s waterways, enforcing mandatory registration for each vessel and launching � tness checking pro-grammes.
Supreme Court lawyer Enamul Haq Mollah issued the notice on behalf of Ashish Kumar Dey, convener of the National Committee for Protection of Roads, Waterways and Rail, and Tushar Rehman, general secretary of the Citi-zens’ Rights Movement.
Respondents of the notice are the shipping secretary, the director general of Department of Shipping, the BIWTA chairman, the tra� c inspector and the inspector of Mawa-Kawrakandi river belt, the engineer and ship surveyor of Mawa region, the BIWTA o� cer at Mawa river port, the director of port department, the director of river se-curity and tra� c department and the
PAGE 3 COLUMN 1
2001
28.41
2002
27.10
2003
38.43
2004
47.73
2005
59.16
2006
63.92
2007
64.27
2008
74.85
2009
72.78
2010
74.28
2011
75.08
2012
78.67
2013
74.30
2014
78.33
General Education(all boards)
2014 2013
Pass rate 78.33% 74.30%Male 77.86%Female 78.86%
GPA 5 scorers 70,602 58,197Male 38,787Female 31,815
100% pass colleges 1,147 849All fail colleges 24 25No. of examinees 11,29,972 10,02,496
HSC Pass Rate2001-2014
Dhaka Board 84.54%Rajshahi Board 78.55%Comilla Board 70.14%Jessore Board 60.58%Chittagong Board 70.06%Barisal Board 71.75%Sylhet Board 79.16%Dinajpur Board 74.14%Madrasa Board 94.08%Technical Board 85.02%
BOARD-WISE PASS RATE
2014 HSC RESULT HIGHLIGHTS Pass rate going up, up and upn Mushfi que Wadud
The pass rate in the Higher Secondary Certi� cate examinations in the country has been increasing breaking all previ-ous records. It has risen to 78.33% this year from the 28.41% in 2001.
There has always been a debate re-garding the hike of passing rate in the board examinations. Some education-alists label it a positive thing, while some others say pass rate is increasing because of the examiners’ liberal atti-tude towards the exam scripts.
Dhaka University’s Institute of Edu-cation and Research Professor Abul Eh-san said the increase in passing rate was
a positive thing, but there remained a concern: whether the examiners were checking the exam scripts properly.
“It seems some teachers check the exam scripts liberally,” he said, and suggested that the examination system should be reformed.
“We need a good examination sys-tem where a student’s talent is properly evaluated,” he said.
In an earlier interview, Viqarunnni-sa Noon School and College Principal, Manju Ara Begum told the Dhaka Trib-une that she did not believe in the idea that the quality of education had fallen.
“In the grading system, students normally get higher marks than the
previous system and the creative ques-tion style is another important thing to fuel the pass rate,” she said.
Earlier in June this year, Education Minister Nurul Islam Nahid sat with leading educationalists, where some educationalists questioned the stand-ard of education.
Professor Abdullah Abu Sayeed, in that meeting, raised questions regard-ing the scrutinisation of answer scripts. He said the number of GPA 5 scorers were increasing because of liberal scru-tinisation, but their academic skills were not improving that much.
At yesterday’s press brie� ng follow PAGE 4 COLUMN 1
Dhaka Board records the highestpass raten Mushfi que Wadud
Dhaka Board has the highest pass rate among the general education boards in the Higher Secondary Certi� cate exam-ination published yesterday.
The boards outside Dhaka that per-formed well in the previous years se-cured comparatively low pass rate this year.
Dhaka Education Board had to post-pone its English Second Paper exam-ination after allegations of question paper leakage.
There were allegations about some papers of examinations that they were leaked on the social media.
Some teachers speaking to the Dha-ka Tribune said question paper leakage contributed to good result of the Dhaka Education Board.
The result document shows that the pass rate in Dhaka Board is 84.54, in Rajshahi 78.55, in Comilla 70.14, in Jessore 60.58, in Chittagong 70.06, in Barisal 71.75, in Sylhet 79.16 and in Di-najpur 74.14.
In 2013 the pass rate in Dhaka Board was 74.04, it was 81.82% in 2012and 76.89% in 2011.
The Jessore Board performed badly in this year’s HSC exams. The pass rate is 60.58 this year. Last year, the pass rate was 67.49.
Some teachers said as the students in Dhaka are more social media user, and leaked questions were on the social media, Dhaka Board performed well.
Moreover, the subject-wise result shows that Dhaka Board students per-formed better in English than the result of last year.
In English, 92.59% students passed this year while last year it was 82.30%. The Jessore Board which performed badly mainly for English. Only 65.07% students passed in this subject.
“Question leak certainly contribut-ed to the good result,” a teacher of a
PAGE 4 COLUMN 2
No negative indicators in HSC results
Students of Rajuk Uttara Model College celebrate their success in the HSC exams yesterday MEHEDI HASAN
News2 DHAKA TRIBUNE Thursday, August 14, 2014
CID asked to submit report on Rana Plaza collapsen Md Sanaul Islam Tipu
A Dhaka court has asked the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) to sub-mit its probe reports by September 18 in two cases � led in connection with the Rana Plaza collapse.
Dhaka Senior Judicial Magistrate Kazi Shahidul Islam passed the order as CID Assistant Superintendent Bijoy Krishna Khar, also the investigation of-� cer of the cases, failed to submit the probe reports yesterday.
On June 30, the court asked the CID
to submit the probe reports before the court on August 13.
Meanwhile, Additional Public Prose-cutor Anwarul Kabir Babul yesterday � led a petition before the court seeking a pro-gress report of the investigation of cases.
Babul said: “We � led a petition with the court seeking a progress report on the investigation, and the court grant-ed it and asked the CID to submit a pro-gress report.”
On April 24 last year, the collapse of Rana Plaza, which housed � ve garment factories, a shopping mall and a bank,
left at least 1,135 people dead and over 2,000 others wounded.
Rajuk o� cial Md Helal Uddin � led one of the cases against building owner Sohel Rana for structural fault at the nine-story building, construction of the structure with substandard materials, and viola-tion of the National Building Code.
The other case was � led by Sub-In-spector Wali Ashraf of Savar police station against Rana, his father Abdul Khalek and owners of the � ve garment factories housed in the nine-storey build-ing, in connection with the loss of lives.
Apart from the two cases, Sheuli Ak-ter, wife of Jahangir Alam, whose body was recovered on April 24, � led anoth-er case against Rana, New Wave Style garment factory owner Bazlus Samad Adnan, and the chief engineer of Savar municipality.
The court, however, asked the CID to investigate the case together with the one � led by police immediately af-ter the incident.
Seven out of 21 accused in the cases are now on bail, while the rest includ-ing Sohel Rana is in jail. l
Man arrested at Dhaka airport, 1.5kg gold seizedn Tribune Report
Customs o� cials arrested a man along with three bars of gold, weighing 1.5 kilogrammes, at Hazrat Shahjalal Inter-national Airport in the capital yester-day morning.
MA Rashid, 47, was a passenger of BG-087 � ight that arrived in Dhaka from Malaysia at 6:00 am.
The customs o� cials also seized 700
grammes of gold from four other pas-sengers of the same � ight as they were carrying more gold than the amount permitted by the relevant law. The four were set free after realising � ne, said Customs Intelligence Assistant Direc-tor Umme Nahida Akter.
The market price of gold which had been carried illegally is Tk1.10 crore, she added. As per the rules, a passenger can carry 200 grams of gold. l
Study: Injections unavailable to mothers giving preterm birthn Moniruzzaman Uzzal
Only half of the women who give preterm birth in hos-pitals receive steroid injec-tions which prevent death and disability of vulnerable preterm newborns, a new WHO study has revealed.
The World Health Organ-isation published the report on their website yester-day. The study, conducted across 29 countries, mostly comprising of low- and mid-dle-income families, was also published in The Lancet medical journal.
It is the largest study to look at the use of the life-saving steroid injec-tions which do not require refrigeration and cost less than $1 for an injection.
It is known to be the most e� ective intervention to reduce the risk of res-piratory distress syndrome among preterm babies born in hospitals where access to further newborn care is available. This is the stand-ard-of-care for women in preterm labour between 26 and 34 weeks’ gestation (a full-term pregnancy is 40 weeks).
“More than three-quar-ters of preterm babies born in hospitals could be saved with cost-e� ective interven-tions like corticosteroids to the pregnant woman before she gives birth. This is par-ticularly important in Africa and Asia where more than 60% of preterm deliveries occur," said Dr Marleen Tem-merman, director of WHO’s Department of Reproductive Health and Research and co-author of the study. l
'BCL activist planned CID o� cial murder'n Mohammad Jamil Khan
After almost a year of inves-tigation, police claimed that they had solved the murder of Fazlul Karim Khan, a re-tired additional police super of the Criminal Investiga-tion Department (CID), who was leading an anti-drug campaign in the capital’s Rampura area when he was murdered.
Talking to the Dhaka Tribune yesterday, the high o� cials of the Detective Branch of police, who are in charge of the investigation, said the murder was orches-trated by Tapu, a Bangla-desh Chhatra League leader of Rampura unit.
They said Tapu planned the murder and hired kill-ers for the job, who gunned down the former CID o� cial at his house in Rampura’s Wapda Road on August 29 last year.
All of this information was revealed by Washim Ratan, one of the killers, who was ar-rested by the DB shortly after the investigation started. He confessed to being involved in the murder before a low-er court in Dhaka, where he gave details of the killing.
In his statement, Washim named Tapu as the master-mind behind the murder and said he had decided to kill Fazlul because he was creat-ing trouble in Tapu’s illegal drug trade in Rampura and
the surrounding areas. A day before the incident, Tapu held a meeting with the kill-ers at his girlfriend’s house, which was in the same area. At the meeting, he explained the plan to the killers and gave them three � rearms to use in the murder.
Among the killers, Rajib was killed in cross� re with the DB in the capital’s Hatir-jheel area on August 7. The others are still in hiding.
The DB also found out that Wahid, sub-inspector at Rampura police station who was initially in charge of the investigation before the DB took over, was privy to the murder plan the entire time, but kept silent as he was in good terms with Tapu and frequently took money from him.
He even alerted Tapu and the killers whenever the DB raided Rampura area look-ing for them, the DB sources said. After getting enough evidence on Wahid, the DB requested his transfer to the higher authorities, who transferred Wahid to the Ra-jarbagh Police Line around one and a half months ago.
Asked about the progress of the case, Jahangir Hossain Matubbor, deputy commis-sioner of the DB and coor-dinator of the investigation, told the Dhaka Tribune: “The investigation is at full swing and we are trying our best to arrest all the accused.” l
3NewsDHAKA TRIBUNE Thursday, August 14, 2014
Defence fumbles in Qaisar case argumentn Udisa Islam
A war crimes tribunal yesterday gave the defence of accused Syed Mohammad Qaisar another half session to conclude their closing arguments in the case.
Defence counsel SM Shahjahan ar-gued on 11 charges out of 16 on the � fth day of submission. Later, the tribunal adjourned the proceedings keeping the arguments incomplete and asked him to sum up the arguments by the � rst session today.
Yesterday, Shahjahan failed to place his submission properly and it prompted the members of the International Crimes Tribunal 2 to intervene several times.
Qaisar, a Jatiya Party state minister during HM Ershad’s regime, was pres-ent in the dock.
When the defence counsel contin-uously claimed that his client had not been present at the crime scenes, the tribunal intervened: “Is it necessary for the accused to be present in every crime scene? If a witness says the army killed
anyone, then the person who helps them to identify the victim is also responsible.”
The tribunal also criticised the way the defence placed arguments and sug-gested that Shahjahan choose strong and relevant points.
When the defence mentioned the name of a witness and claimed that he had not actually witnessed the incident, the tribunal asked him whether they cross examined the witness on this point.
The defence counsel answered in the negative. The tribunal said: “If some-one claims that he saw something and you cannot prove that he did not, then he is right.”
Earlier, the defence claimed that during the war, there had been no scope for his client to form the “Qaisar Bahini” which is blamed for collaborating with the Pakistani occupation forces.
Meanwhile, the tribunal adjourned the trial against Maulana Abdus Subhan until August 20 following a time plea submitted by the prosecution to place the next witness. l
BNP: No reason for government to be scared n Mohammad Al-Masum Molla
The BNP has claimed that the government has no reason to be afraid of BNP’s movement as its upcoming programmes would be peaceful.
“We will bring out processions, we will stage demonstrations. But those programmes will be peaceful. You [government] are enjoying comfort and should continue to live in comfort,” Mirza Abbas, convener of BNP’s Dhaka city unit, said after holding a meeting with the unit’s leaders at the capital’s Bhasani Auditorium.
Ahead of the meeting, a large number of police was deployed in front of the city BNP o� ce, who barred leaders and activists from taking
position in front of the o� ce.Criticising the government for
deploying additional forces in front of the o� ce, Abbas said: “We are just holding a meeting and in such a situation police took an armed position. They did not allow anyone to stand in front of the o� ce. If they [government] get scared about such a small meeting then what will they do in the days ahead?”
In reaction to ruling party leaders’ claims that the BNP did not have any capacity to wage a movement, the BNP leader said: “If we do not have any capacity to wage movement, then why are you taking such preparations? Please do not gag democracy, rather let it go on its way.” l
War crimes suspects Taher, Noni sent to jailn Udisa Islam
The two war crimes suspects from Netrakona arrested on Tuesday were sent to jail after they had been produced before the International Crimes Tribunal 1 yesterday.
Police produced Obaidul Haque alias Abu Taher and Ataur Rahman Noni before the three-member tribunal. Upon query, Obaidul claimed himself to be innocent mentioning that he had been a victim of a conspiracy.
Tribunal Chairman Justice M Enayetur Rahim said: “If it is true then you will walk free after the trial. For now, we are sending you to jail. In the meantime, you better appoint a lawyer.”
When the tribunal enquired the prosecution about the investigation report, prosecutor Mokhlesur Rahman said they were working on it. In response to another question, he said investigation had begun on June 6 last year.
The tribunal then asked the prosecutor to facilitate the duo to meet their relatives so that they could appoint lawyers.
On Tuesday, upon receiving arrest warrants of the tribunal, police arrested Obaidul from his business outlet at Chhotobazar in Netrakona while Noni from his house at Mokhterpara.
The investigation agency has found primary evidence of their involvement in the killing of over 500 unarmed civilians, arson and looting in di� erent places of the district during the war.
The agency has been asked to submit progress report to the tribunal before September 14. l
Major power plant deal with Indian contractor likely to be scrappedn Aminur Rahman Rasel
The government is likely to cancel a major power plant deal with an Indian contractor because the company failed to deposit the security money.
Haryana-based Lanco Infratech Ltd was supposed to deposit around $3m as a performance security deposit (PSD) by July 15 against a letter of intent (LOI) from the Bangladesh government for building a 367MW dual energy power plant in Sirajganj.
In the meantime, Singapore-based contractor Sembcorp has sent a pro-posal to build a gas-based power plant at the same location.
The proposal letter, signed by Sem-bcorp’s Executive Vice-President Tan Cheng Guan, was recently sent to State Minister for Power Nasrul Hamid. The junior minister then forwarded the let-ter to the director general of Power Cell,
recommending that he take steps.An o� cial of the government’s Pow-
er Division said it would have been the biggest power plant building deal with an Indian company based on the pro-duction capacity.
“We are seeking permission from the Power Division to cancel the LOI and make a move to bring the security money [that Lanco was supposed to deposit],” said CFK Musaddeq Ahmed, a director of Power Cell – a concern of the Power Division.
Existing rules suggest that when the government issues an LOI to a compa-ny for any contract, the company must pay a performance security deposit within a stipulated time. In case the PSD payment deadline cannot be met and the deal is cancelled, the company must still pay the money to the govern-ment as a form of compensation.
“The company was supposed to
come up with the PSD on July 15; but it missed the deadline. The company then sought more time to submit the PSD...The government is going to make a decision in this regard very soon,” Musaddeq said.
Mohammad Hossain, director gen-eral of Power Cell, told the Dhaka Tri-bune: “After receiving [Sembcorp’s] proposal, we are now thinking about how we can move forward.”
Power Cell is supervising the project for building the 367MW power plant in Sirajganj.
Sources said the Indian company could not make the security deposit in time because of a � nancial crisis. In fact, the company had to shut down some of its major power plants at home and abroad because of the crunch.
On March 28, 2013, Lanco signed an initial agreement with Bangladesh for a power and gas purchase-sale on the pro-
posed 367MW Sirajganj dual-fuel power plant, which was supposed to start com-mercial operation in mid-2015.
On August, 2012, the Cabinet Com-mittee on Government Purchase ap-proved the Indian sponsor’s o� er to implement the project as an inde-pendent power producer (IPP) on a build-own-operate basis.
Earlier, Lanco was awarded another project for building a 214MW plant in the southern district of Bhola. How-ever, after the contract-signing, the company sought relocation of the plant from Bhola to Sirajganj and proposed setting up a dual-fuel power plant in-stead.
According to the minutes of a June 1 meeting of the Large Power Plant Im-plementation Committee, a decision was made to hand over both the proj-ects to the state-owned North-West Power Generation Company. l
Speakers address journalists at a meet-the-press programme in the National Press Club yesterday, ahead of next week’s Sustainable Development Summit MEHEDI HASAN
SAGAR-RUNI MURDER
Probe report due on Sept 18n Md Sanaul Islam Tipu
A Dhaka court yesterday extended the deadline for the submission of the Sagar-Runi murder investigation report before the court to September 18.
Metropolitan Magistrate Tarique Mainul Islam Bhuiyan granted the ex-tension to the case investigators.
This is the 27th time that the dead-line to submit the probe report has been extended since the investigation of the journalist couple’s murders began.
However, a progress report was sub-mitted before the court on Tuesday.
“Md Wares Ali, assistant superinten-dent of police at the Rapid Action Battal-ion (RAB) and the investigation o� cer, submitted a progress report to the court in which he stated that there had been some development in the investiga-tion,” said Sub-Inspector Md Humayun Kabir, general recording o� cer at the Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Court, while speaking to the Dhaka Tribune.
The accused in the case are: Mintoo
alias Bargia Miah alias Masum Miah, Kamrul Hasan alias Arun, Md Bakul Miah, Ra� qul Islam Abu Syed, Md Tan-vir Rahman, Palash Rudro Paul and Enam Ahmed alias Humayun Kabir.
All of the accused, who are now in jail, were presented before the court yesterday.
Earlier, RAB submitted a progress report on the investigation to the High Court on March 10.
The victims, Sagar Sarowar and his wife Meherun Runi, were killed at their rented � at in the capital’s West Rajaba-zar area on February 11, 2012.
Sagar was news editor at private TV station Maasranga, and Runi was senior reporter at ATN Bangla.
Investigation of the murders started after a case was � led with Sher-e-Ban-gla Nagar police station in this regard.
Later, the case was moved to the to the Detective Branch (DB) of Police, but the High Court issued an order to trans-fer the case to RAB as the DB stated it was unable to solve the case. l
Legal notice PAGE 1 COLUMN 1director of river conservation and oper-ations department.
Punishment has been sought for the eight o� cials except for the shipping secretary and the DG of the shipping de-partment.
In the notice, lawyer Enam said: “Pinak 6 was carrying passengers be-yond its capacity. On the other hand, the government o� cials concerned were not in Kawrakandi when the accident occurred.”
The notice said: “As the respondents did not monitor the activities and failed to stop the launch from taking excess passengers than its capacity, they are in-volved with the accident indirectly. That is why they should be punished.”
According to o� cial count, the bod-ies of 45 passengers have so far been recovered from di� erent rivers while 62 remain missing. The salvage operation was called o� on August 11 as the rescu-ers could not � nd the vessel. The launch was reportedly carrying around 300 pas-sengers from Kawrakandi to Mawa.
When it capsized, the Pinak 6 was operating on a temporary conditional permission from the authorities. The conditional permit was given after the management of the launch had applied for an operation permit, o� cially known as “survey certi� cate,” in April; but the decision on the permit is still pending.
The 19.5-metre-long launch also did not have any valid certi� cate from the Shipping Department to operate on the Mawa-Kawrakandi route in the Pad-ma River. One of the conditions for the temporary permission of the launch was that it was allowed to carry maximum 85 passengers at a time. l
Arrested Pinak 6 owner blames BIWTA PAGE 1 COLUMN 4After an eight-day search, the rescuers on Monday called o� the rescue oper-ation. A total of 48 bodies have so far been recovered and 58 are still missing.
While brie� ng reporters, Com-mander Mufti Mahmud Khan, director of RAB’s Legal and Media Wing, said Siddique went into hiding soon after the launch capsized. “He stayed at sev-eral places after the incident.”
The RAB o� cial said the Pinak 6 launch made in 1991 did not have ade-quate safety measures and � tness cer-
ti� cate. Even the master [who operates launch] had no licence.
Siddique bought the old launch from one Moniruzzaman Khokon of Barisal for Tk11 lakh. His eldest son Md Limon, 27, and nephew Ratul, 23, were in charge of its operation, Mufti Mah-mud said.
“Without following relevant rules, the launch owner being in� uenced by greed was operating it to earn pro� t.”
He said � ve accused in the case � led in connection with homicide are still at large. Law enforcers were trying to
hunt them down.According to RAB, Siddique is a
resident of Louhajang in Munshiganj. Apart from Pinak 6, he has half ownership of single decker launch Mawa Express which operates on the same route.
Siddique, also a transport businessman, is one of the owners of Ilish Paribahan.
After the launch accident, a case was � led against Siddique and � ve others, including the master, for overloading and homicide. l
Fire service divers little equipped for operation PAGE 1 COLUMN 64 sank in the Meghna River in May, claiming the lives of at least 57 people.
According to data compiled by the � re service control room, the FSCD team had attended 516 waterway accidents where 722 bodies were recovered and 12 people were rescued.
From January to August 10 this year, the team attended to 41 river accidents.
Abul Khayer, team leader of divers, told the Dhaka Tribune that the diving unit is facing an acute shortage of divers, seriously hampering rescue operations.
“We have only 20 divers across the country. So, we sometime have to face problems in dealing with accidents if two accidents happen at the same time. If we send divers to one spot, another operation is hampered. Additionally, we are not well equipped,” he said.
About the Pinak 6 launch capsize,
he said: “There were four divers at Mawa to carry out rescue operations. But in the middle of the operation, we were asked to send two divers to attend another accident. I sent two of them and they returned to Mawa after completing the other operation which took a long time, hampering the operation at Mawa.”
“I yesterday attended to four operations in the Buriganga and Shitalakkhya Rivers, and in Ashulia and Khilgaon Taltola. Like me, all of our divers have to attend frequent diving missions within the shortest possible time as our department is understa� ed. At least 200 divers are badly needed to help us rescue people properly,” said Khayer who has won several awards, including the Prime Minister’s Award for showing courage during the operations.
Fire service o� cials said the number of divers should be increased
soon and all the divers should be given training and proper equipment.
“In the major river accidents, � re service divers risk their lives, not naval o� cers nor BIWTA o� cials. We have a river unit, but there are no posts for divers,” said Khandoker A Jalil, senior station o� cer (station chief) of the � re service headquarters.
Both Khayer and Jalil con� rmed to the Dhaka Tribune that FSCD had not increased its manpower since its inception and the number of divers never exceeded 25.
When contacted, FSCD’s Director General Brigadier General Ali Ahmed Khan said his organisation needs a minimum of 150 divers to work smoothly.
“The number of divers is less compared to demand. We have informed the home ministry of the issue and the needs for immediate recruitment,” he added. l
Sustainable development summit starts Saturday n Tribune Report
A four-day conference called Bangla-desh Summit on Sustainable Develop-ment 2014 is going to begin on Saturday at Nabab Nawab Ali Chowdhury Senate Bhaban of the University of Dhaka.
Addressing a press brie� ng at the National Press Club yesterday, not-ed economist and Chairman of Palli Karma-Sahayak Foundation Dr Qazi Kholiquzzaman Ahmad said the agen-da of the conference includes sus-tainable development target for de-veloping countries and determining post-2015 development agenda.
Bangladesh has made much prog-ress in attaining the millennium de-velopment goal but the impoverished section of the society, including char,
haor and coastal people, tea workers and indigenous people, is yet to bene� t from this, said Kholiquzzaman.
“There was a time when poverty meant income poverty. Income was the main determinant of whether a person was rich or poor. Now we have a range of criteria to measure poverty such as education, health and quality of food,” he said.
An initiative of Global Citizens Forum on Sustainable Development, the con-ference has been organised by Eminence Associates for Social Development. Or-ganisations including UNFPA, Save the Children, Wave Foundation and Chris-tian Aid, will organise the sessions of the conference. ATN Bangla, Dhaka Tribune, Bangla Tribune and Canvas Magazine are the media partners of the summit. l
Amu: Govt prepared to face agitationn Emran Hossain Shaikh
Industries Minister Amir Hossain Amu yesterday claimed that the government had adequately prepared to tackle the opposition movement.
“We understand that they [BNP] may attack key point installations (KPIs) like power plants and railways and cause harm to people and their property. So, we are on alert for such attacks. We have made all prepara-tions,” Amir Hossain, also chairman of the cabinet committee on law and or-der, said while addressing a discussion at the Shilpakala Academy Auditorium.
Now no violence would be allowed in the name of movement, Amu, a member of the Awami League Advisory Council, warned. “The character of BNP has not been changed yet,” he added.l
Locals stage a demonstration yesterday protesting a recent sexual assault on an indigenous woman leader in Chapainawabganj’s Gomostapur AZAHAR UDDIN
Charred body found amid � re wreckage n Tribune Report
Fire service o� cers recovered a charred body from the wreckage of a burned down chemical warehouse at Chawk Bazar yesterday. Police said the deceased could be Abdul Malek, 65, caretaker of a local business.
Fire Service control room Duty Of-� cer Brojen Sarker said the � re started around 9:15pm on Tuesday, and it took
10 hours of frantic e� orts by 11 units of � re-� ghters before the blaze was � nally put out at 7:30am yesterday.
“Five of our o� cers were injured while attempting to douse the � re. They have received primary treat-ment,” Brojen said, adding: “The go-down contained various chemicals. The origin of the � re and the amount of losses could not be known immedi-ately.” l
4 NewsDHAKA TRIBUNE Thursday, August 14, 2014
‘Partition Week’ organised by Bayaan Collective ends todayn Tribune Report
Partition Week, an event created by Bayaan Collective in collaboration with University Press Limited (UPL), will conclude today following a session entitled “Teaching Partition,” by Professor Ferdous Azim, at Brac University.
The event brought together academics, writers and researchers to examine the legacies of 1947 and the partition of India in the eastern theatre of Bengal.
It looked at the socio-economic cir-cumstances, narratives, con� gurations and the consequences of dividing Ben-gal into West Bengal, which remained with India, and East Bengal which sub-sequently became East Pakistan and then Bangladesh.
The creation of East Pakistan and the independence of Bangladesh has pushed the memory of partition outside of the East Bengali public sphere.
However Bangladesh has inherited the problems of partition and many of these issues remain current in the Ban-gladeshi discourse.
The con� ict between Bengali set-tlers and non-Bengali locals in the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT), the non-Bengali “Pakistani” communities in Bangladesh, the cultural and eco-nomic segregation and the communal tensions are examples of the legacies of 1947.
Prof Zakir Hossain Raju from Independent University, Bangladesh (IUB) presented a paper on East Bengali Cinema, Tamina Chowdhury from Cambridge University presented a paper of the history of the CHT, Dina Siddiqi from Brac University spoke about the “Stranded Pakistanis” and Prof M Emdadul Haq of North South University presented on the narratives that led to partition in Bengal.
Along with the papers, a number of � lms dealing with the circumstances and consequences of partition were also screened at various venues across the capital.
Dhaka Tribune was the media partner for the � ve-day event, which began on August 10 and ending today, to coincide with the date of partition. l
Nahid for reforming university admission system n Tribune Report
Education Minister Nurul Islam Nahid said the present university admission system is unable to ensure accurate evaluation of candidates, and urged universities to reform the system con-sidering the interests of the students.
“It is a faulty system,” he said while speaking at a press brie� ng at the sec-retariat. The brie� ng was arranged to announce the results of the Higher Sec-ondary Certi� cate examinations.
“After studying for 12 years, it is not fair to judge a student by a one- or two-
hour MCQ exam. The present admission system is also making students depen-dent on coaching centres as they prepare for university admission,” Nahid said.
The minister said he was unable to reform the system as the universities are run by separate laws.
“I as a minister do not interfere in their activities. I have urged the uni-versity authorities to rethink the ad-mission system,” he said.
According to reports, many students with good grades in both HSC and SSC exams fail pass in English and Bangla in university admission exams. l
HSC GPA 5 scorers declining in Chittagongn Tribune Report
The pass rate in this year's HSC exam-ination of Chittagong Education Board has gone up but the number of GPA 5 scorers has been falling consecutively for the last three years.
This year, a total of 2,646 students obtained GPA 5 in the board while the number was 2,772 in 2013 and 3,155 in 2012. Besides, 77,526 students sat for the HSC exam while the pass rate was 70.06, up from 61.22 in 2013.
Among the students securing GPA 5 were 1,357 males and 1,289 females.
Examination Controller Dr Pizus Dutta of Chittagong Education Board said the creative question system was
introduced in HSC level last year for the � rst time, and the students faced the system in Bangla exam and one of the group subjects.
“This is why the number of students obtaining GPA 5 was less than that in 2012. This year, students faced creative questions in four subjects which might have led to the decrease in the number of GPA 5 scorers,” he said.
“In the greater Chittagong region, the pass rate in Cox’s Bazar was 72 while it was 71.17 in Chittagong district and metropolitan areas. Overall judge-ment shows this year's HSC result is better as the students had performed well in creative method,” he added.
Farida Yasmin, a humanities student
from Government Women College in Chittagong who got GPA 3.80, said she studied the four subjects extensively but failed to ensure a good GPA.
Professor Jesmin Akhter, acting principal of the college, told the Dhaka Tribune: “It is easy to obtain pass mark in a subject in the creative question system but what is hard is to score 80% marks. This explains why the pass rate is increasing but the number of GPA 5 scorers is going down.”
Aeysha Siddiqua Tamanna, a busi-ness studies student achieving GPA 3.80 from Agrabad Girls College, said teachers of the subjects are under cre-ative question system failed to deliver lessons appropriately which forced
her to seek additional guidance from coaching centres.
Associate Professor Shahid Uddin Mahmud, head of Islamic History and Culture Department at Patiya Gov-ernment College, suggested teachers should be given more training in order to help them become more competent in teaching students in the creative method.
Meanwhile, teachers of Government Hazi Muhammad Mohsin College, which produced the highest number of GPA 5 scorers in Chittagong board, said students having poor preparations for the exam were blaming the creative system.
Assistant Professor Mohammad
Abul Bashar of Botany Department at the college said that any student can obtain GPA 5 if he studies properly.
495 students of the college got GPA 5, and 1,356 students out of 1,403 passed.
Three institutions in the board se-cured a 100% pass rate - Ispahini Public School and College, Faujdarhat Cadet College and CUFCO School and College - while none passed from Ideal School and College in Patiya.
Faujdarhat Cadet College secured the top position in the board, with 43 students out of 45 securing GPA 5, while Chittagong Government College came second, with 466 GPA 5 scorers out of 752 examinees. l
Rural students perform better in Barisal Boardn Our Correspondent, Barisal
Rural students performed better than their urban counterparts in the Barisal Board of Intermediate and Secondary Ed-ucation this year’s Higher Secondary Cer-ti� cate examinations, said BEB sources.
Total 39,402 students out of 54,915 passed their examinations from 273 col-leges at 89 centers under the board. It was the highest rate of pass in last 14 years.
Of the 20 best colleges, 10 were situ-ated in divisional or district headquar-ters while rest 10 were in rural upazilas, the sources said.
According to the percentage of pass rate, Barguna district had done better with 4,454 (79.07 percent pass rate) passed and 228 GPA-5 out of 5,633 ap-peared examinees from 28 colleges.
Jhalakathi district stood second with 3,189 (73.33 percent pass rate) and 84 GPA-5 out of 4,349 appeared exam-inees from 20 colleges.
14,752 students (72.82percent) passed in Barisal district while 1,149 got GPA-5 out of 20,258 from 84 colleges.
Meanwhile, Barisal Cadet College retained the top position in the Barisal Board of Intermediate and Secondary Education in this year’s Higher Second-ary Certi� cate examinations by attain-ing 90 points.
Amritatal Dey College, Barisai se-cured the second position with 72.79 points, Barisal Government Women’s College achieved the 3rd position with 72.29, Government Syed Hatem Ali Col-lege, Barisal obtained the 4rth position with 66.73 points, Hosnabad in Barisal obtained the � fth position with 64.12 points. l
Madrasa students outshine general, vocational candidates n Tribune Report
Students appearing in this year’s HSC and equivalent examinations from Madrasa Education Board performed better than the general and vocational students in terms of pass rate.
The pass rate of madrasa students was 94.08 while it was 75.74 for general students.
Madrasa students also outper-formed the students taking the exam from Technical Education Board, where 85.02% of the candidates passed.
The number of GPA 5 scored also marked a tiny increase in the madrasa board compared to the previous year’s � gure. Last year, 6,009 madrasa stu-dents obtained GPA 5 and the � gure
was 6,025 this year.Acting chairman of Bangladesh
Madrasa Education Board AKM Saifullah said they have gone for more supervision of students in the recent times.
“We visited madrasas that have poor academic record and monitored them closely so that students can perform better,” he said.
He said the madrasa teachers were threatened with suspension of the Monthly Pay Order (MPO) scheme if the institutions performed poorly in public examinations.
“It is likely that the teachers became more cautious out fear from being dropped from the MPO scheme,” he added. l
PUBLIC MEDICAL COLLEGES
Government mulls over recruiting 200 basic-subject teachersn Moniruzzaman Uzzal
The acute shortage of teachers for the “basic subjects” at most public medical colleges has prompted the government to consider training and recruiting around 200 new doctors to � ll the va-cant lecturer seats.
To discuss the crisis of basic-subject teachers, the Health Ministry is sched-uled to hold a meeting today which will be presided over by Additional Health Secretary (medical education and man-power development) Aiyubur Rahman.
Motiur Rahman, joint health secre-tary (medical education), told the Dha-ka Tribune that the meeting’s agenda includes discussion on recommen-dations for recruiting new doctors as teachers for MBBS and BDS courses at di� erent public medical colleges. He added that the government was con-cerned about the declining number of teachers of the basic subjects which in-clude anatomy, physiology, biochem-istry, microbiology, forensic medicine, pharmacology and pathology.
Seeking anonymity, a senior Health Ministry o� cial told the Dhaka Tribune that the government was planning to train 200 doctors from a pool of over 6,000 doctors who were recently ap-pointed through the 33rd BCS exam. These doctors would be provided with
six months of training on anaesthesiol-ogy and gynaecology-obstetrics, before being o� ered to join as lecturers at pub-lic medical colleges, the o� cial added.
Several specialists on medical edu-cation have said authorities concerned at public medical colleges were facing much di� culty in carrying out aca-demic activities as the number of ba-sic-subject teachers had been gradually decreasing.
When asked about the total num-ber of teachers needed, Dr ABM Abdul Hannan, DGHS director for medical education, told the Dhaka Tribune: “I cannot tell you the exact number, but it would not be a shortage of less than 50 percent.”
Over the past few years, a large number of senior and well-reputed basic-subject teachers have reportedly left their government jobs to seek em-ployment at private colleges for higher salaries.
The crisis is also expected to grow as the government is failing to attract young doctors to join as teachers and more senior teachers are set to go on pre-retirement leaves this year.
Currently, the country has 23 public medical colleges with seven more new-ly approved colleges also set to admit students from the upcoming 2014-15 academic session. l
Private colleges outperform government colleges in Dhakan Tribune Report
Private colleges under the Dhaka Ed-ucation Board have outperformed the government colleges in this year’s Higher Secondary Certi� cate result that was published yesterday.
Sixteen of the top 20 colleges in the merit list prepared by the board au-thorities are private colleges. Moreover, only two government colleges could make it to the top 10 this year.
Abdul Kadir Mollah City College, Narsingdi, has secured the second po-sition, National Ideal College fourth, Viqarunnisa Noon College � fth, No-tre Dame College and Shamsul Hoque Khan School & College, Demra, jointly
bagged the sixth position and Mile-stone College secured seventh position in the merit list of Dhaka Board.
Meanwhile, the cadet colleges have dominated the merit list in other gen-eral education boards like the previous years.
The Education Ministry has pre-pared the top 20 list on the basis of dif-ferent academic standards, including registered students, total examinees, passed examinees, number of GPA 5 and sum of GPA 5 achieved by any in-stitution.
An analysis of the merit lists shows that colleges in the divisional headquarters or metropolitan areas performed well than the colleges in rural
areas, showing the usual rural-urban disparity in Bangladesh’s education system.
Education Minister Nurul Islam Nahid yesterday said they were working so that
the rural colleges could perform well.“Things are changing and people
will see more changes in future,” he said at a press brie� ng. l
Students of Rajshahi College celebrate their results with the beats of drums at the college premises yesterday. Sweets were also distributed among the students of the college which secured the top position in the Rajshahi Board AZAHAR UDDIN
Students con� ne hall provost in DU n DU Correspondent
Resident students of Dhaka Univer-sity’s Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman Hall staged demonstration yesterday on the campus and con� ned the hall provost to his workplace pro-testing unusual hike in residence fee.
The students con� ned the hall pro-vost Baitullah Kaderi for an hour in the afternoon, before he was rescued by DU Proctor Amzad Ali. Students alleged that the provost had been realigning Tk30 residence fee, hiked from Tk15 set by the university authorities, from all students. l
Pass rate going up, up and up PAGE 1 COLUMN 3ing the publication of this year’s HSC result, the education minister said the mentality that 50% students would fail in any examination was an old one. Students were performing better and the teachers were not showing any lib-eral attitude in checking examination scripts, he added. l
No negative indicators in HSC PAGE 1 COLUMN 2In response, the minister dismissed any such possibilities, saying: “When we learned about any ques-tion paper being leaked, we post-poned the examination.”
This year, the Dhaka education board had to postpone the English Paper II examination after allega-tions of question paper leakage. Some other questions were said to be available on social media, though the education minister de-nied any such allegations.
Students under the Dhaka board scored better in English than last year, with 92.59% of the students passing the subject, as opposed to last year’s 82.30%.
Further countering the claim, the minister said the pass rate was good in 2012 than the previous year.
“That time, this question was not raised,” he said.
He said that students performed better and so the result was good.
Surprisingly, the Dhaka board has the highest pass rate in the country, with 84.54%, against 78.55% in Ra-jshahi, 70.14% in Comilla, 60.58% in Jessore, 70.06% in Chittagong, 71.75% in Barisal, 79.16% in Sylhet, and 74.14% in Dinajpur.
Last year, the pass rate in the Dha-ka board was 74.04%, while in 2012 and 2011 it was 81.82% and 76.89%, respectively.
Nahid claimed that students performed well because of some positive steps taken by the govern-ment.He said one million teachers were trained, which had a positive impact on the education system.
Nahid said the ministry had se-
lected some colleges where students were not performing well, and addi-tional classes had been arranged for the students, which also contributed to the good result.
“We analysed previous years’ results and found that students mainly perform bad in English and Mathematics, and we arranged for additional classes in those two sub-jects,” he said.
The Jessore board performed the worst this year, mainly because of bad results in English. Only 65.07% of students passed the subject in Jes-sore board.
A total of 211 students took the examination from � ve overseas examination centres. Of them, 153 students passed, with the pass rate of 72.51%. Some 19 students got GPA 5. l
Dhaka Board records the highest pass rate PAGE 1 COLUMN 6private college in Mirpur area said. “In some examinations, question papers were available on Facebook and other social media sites,” he added. Nahid, however, disagreed with such opinion.
“Whenever we came to know about question paper leakage we instantly postponed that examina-tion,” he said.
He said that students per-formed better and so the result was good.
Nahid claimed that students performed well because of some positive steps of the government.
Dhaka Education Board Chair-man Taslima Begum also said question leakage does not have any link to good result. l
Sixteen of the top 20 colleges in the merit list prepared by the board authorities are private colleges
WEATHER
MODERATE RAIN
5NewsDHAKA TRIBUNE Thursday, August 14, 2014
PRAYER TIMES Fajar 4:13am Sunrise 5:32am Zohr 12:04am Asr 4:30pm Magrib 6:35pm Esha 7:55pm
Source: Accuweather/UNB
D H A K ATODAY TOMORROW
SUN SETS 6:33PM SUN RISES 5:34AM
YESTERDAY’S HIGH AND LOW34.2ºC 24.9ºC
Chuadanga Madaripur
THURSDAY, AUGUST 14
F O R E C A S T F O R T O D A YDhaka 32 27Chittagong 30 26Rajshahi 31 26Rangpur 29 26Khulna 31 26Barisal 31 26Sylhet 28 25Cox’s Bazar 29 26
SourceL IslamicFinder.org
Government to give Japan two tiger cubs as gift n Mohosinul Karim
The government is going to gift Ja-pan two Royal Bengal Tiger cubs as per a promise made by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina during her visit there this year.
The cubs, which would be kept in the national zoo, will be handed over during the Japanese prime minister’s visit to Bangladesh shortly.
Con� rming the news, Environment and Forest Minister Anwar Hossain Manju yesterday said necessary prepa-ration has already been � nalised and we are going to hand over the cubs, one male and another female.
“They (Japanese government) will arrange the shipment of the cubs,” he also stated. An o� cial at Fisheries and Livestock Ministry told the Dhaka Tribune that the gift would be given through the ministry although Envi-ronment and Forest Ministry is the cus-todian of the Royal Bengal Tigers. l
Housewife commits suiciden Tribune Report
A housewife allegedly committed sui-cide by hanging herself at her residence in Chittagong city’s Firoz Shah Colony yesterday.
Police said the deceased Tumpa Akter, 21, was the wife of Md Yakub. Naik Abul Bashar of Chittagong Medical College Hos-pital Police Outpost said Tumpa hanged herself from the ceiling with a scarf at her father’s residence around 2pm.
The duty doctors at CMCH declared her dead when she was brought to the hospital by her family members soon after the incident, said Naik Bashar. l
KAZIRBAZAR BRIDGE PROJECT
Tk15 crore goes down the drainn Serajul Islam, Sylhet
The plan to construct four arches made of steel in Kazirbazar bridge in Sylhet has been scrapped despite spending an additional Tk15 crore on piling though those were part of the main project.
The arches were supposed to be 100 feet tall each and it is feared the bridge will lose its beauty without the arches.
Executive Engineer of the Roads and Highways Department Abu Ehte-sham Rashed, however, said they had to avoid the risk of constructing the arches as they added more load to the structure.
The Communication Ministry said there would be a separate structur-al design to be followed by a new de-velopment project proposal and this would need a little more time, he said.
The 366m long and 18.90m wide bridge is being constructed on Surma river. Roads and Highways Department o� cials were said to have dropped the plan to build the arches by managing the high-ups.
Rashed, however, refuted the alle-gation, saying: “According to the de-sign, the arches should have weighed 700 tonnes, but the present situation demands 900 tonnes. We are forced to go for a new plan because of the addi-tional load of 200 tonnes.
“The arches were to be built for beauti� cation purpose only, but we intend to open the main bridge, which is still under construction, to the pub-lic later this year. This is why we are now prioritising construction of super structure and approaches.”
Deputy Divisional Engineer of the Roads and Highways Department Mir Nazim Uddin said construction of the
main super structure of the bridge has ended.
“Around 80% of the northern ap-proach’s construction has complet-ed. As for the southern approach, the ministry will soon begin demolishing structures erected on acquired lands and the construction will then begin,” he said.
People living on north and south banks of Surma river are discontent-ed with the construction of approach ways on both sides of the bridge.
The southern approach leading to the nearby rail crossing will be 10ft higher than the existing Sylhet-Kamal Bazar road, but it is believed the ap-proach will bring no advantage to the residents of Baraikandi, Mollargaon and Bishwanath upazilas.
On the other hand, the road for pub-lic use to the west of the northern ap-proach is going to be 12ft wide, result-ing in frustration among the locals.
“Kazirbazar is a business hub in the city. It sees the arrival and departure of hundreds of goods-laden trucks every day, but the narrow road can barely ac-commodate rickshaws, let alone trucks,” said Nazrul Haque Jahangir, secretary of Kazirbazar Traders Committee.
“Of the 12 feet, drains will take up three feet. The road will only be nine feet wide,” he added.
Chairman of Mollargaon union Sheikh Makhan Mia said the majority of the locals would not be bene� tted from the approach way.
“We are in contact with the � nance minister and other o� cials concerned in order to revise construction of the approach,” he said.
Sushashoner Jonno Nagorik Pres-ident Faruk Ahmed Chowdhury said
foundation stone of the bridge was laid nine years ago but the construction is yet to be completed.
“Besides, construction of the bridge is not in compliance with the project proposal. This can be attributed to a lack of supervision. The construction, if deviated from the project proposal, will frustrate people, and will also lead to misuse of money,” he added.
Roads and Highways o� cials said they went for four-lane approaches as the bridge itself has four lanes.
Engineer Rashed said vertical walls were being constructed near approach-es.
“Construction of the approaches is underway according to the standard con� guration of the main bridge. The bridge might be operated by the city corporation, and it can work on any possible � aws of the approaches by ac-quiring land again,” he said.
Rashed said: “We are also consider-ing construction of a separate staircase in the southern approach in the face of demand raised by the locals. Construc-tion of two approaches on the same side poses a risk of accident. We will also have a discussion with people if any problem arises.
“We are now heavily focusing on
inaugurating the bridge in December. Arches can be built in June next year.”
On December 24, 2005, M Saifur Rahman, then � nance minister, laid the foundation stone of the bridge. The initial cost of the project was estimated to be Tk44.64 crore but in nine years, it has risen more than three times to Tk125 crore. Kamal Associates, a Dha-ka-based � rm, is implementing the project.
Communication Minister Obaidul Quader said the bridge, to be opened in December, would be a gift to the peo-ple in Sylhet on occasion of the Victory Day. l
Over 5,000 died in accidents last yearNo initiative taken to improve 208 black spots on highways and stop road accidents n Rabiul Islam
Deaths from road accidents across the country continue to plague society. Over 5,000 people died from road acci-dents last year, but no comprehensive steps have been taken as yet to check the road accidents, says a study.
Citing the Nirapad Sarak Chai, the study said 5,162 people were killed in road accidents in 2013, although the o� cial statistic shows that 3,137 deaths have occurred on an annual average from 2002-2012.
The study titled “Road Safety in Bangladesh: Realities and Challenges” was presented yesterday at a function at Daily Star Bhaban. Communications Minister Obaidul Quader was present at the function as chief guest.
The Power and Participation Research Centre (PPRC), in association with Brac, conducted the study.
While unveiling the report, Executive Chairman of the PPRC Hossain Zillur Rahman termed road accidents to be a fresh epidemic in the country.
The Roads and Highway Department has identi� ed 208 spots across the country where road accidents frequently occur, said the study, adding that the accident prone-districts are: Dhaka, Chittagong, Comilla, Tangail and Sirajganj.
A total of 57km of highway are most accident-prone and 95% accidents take
place within this length.Of the total length, 16.5km are on
the Dhaka-Chittagong highway, 8.8km on Dhaka-Aricha highway, 7.9km on Nagarbari-Banglabandh Highway, 5.8km on Daulatdia-Jhenaidah-Khu-lna Highway, 5.1km on Dhaka-Sylhet highway, 2.6km on Gazipur-Tangail-Ja-malpur highway, 2.2km on Bangaband-hu Shetu approach road and 1.6km on Dhaka-Mymensingh Highway.
The report says 40.90% accidents take place at bus stands, 17.80% at intersec-tions, 28.40% at kitchen markets and 13% at other places.
In his speech, the PPRC executive chairman said nine causes, including reckless driving, un� t vehicles, vulner-able road-side activities, faulty road design and poor tra� c enforcement, are responsible for road accidents.
Speaking as the chief guest, Obaidul Quader said the communication min-istry dealt with 21,500km of roads and
the Local Government and Engineering Department maintains 250,000km of the roads.
“The roads in the capital are not under my jurisdiction, and if I was given the responsibility, I could repair it within seven days,” the communica-tions minister said, adding, “I cannot do anything alone as I am involved in a political party.”
“When I take initiatives to remove kitchen markets from the highway, local elected representatives oppose it. So I cannot stop the plying of Nosiimon, Korimon on highways, which are a major cause of road accidents.”
The research report states 10-point recommendations. These include pri-ority action plans for black spot im-provement and having better quality driving training schools.
Chairman of Nirapad Sarak Chai and eminent actor Ilias Kanchan said a number of ministries including the communication ministry, health minis-try and home ministry, worked for road safety, but there was no coordination among these ministries.
Barrister Sara Hossain said steps were not taken against those who were responsible for accidents and so the culture of impunity caused even more frequent road accidents.
Bus Truck Owners’ Association’s Chairman Faruk Talukder Sohel said the arrangements for training drivers were very poor. l
OC, four SIs sued for custodial torture n Our Correspondent, Lakshmipur
Five police o� cers, including an o� -cer-in-charge (OC), were the accused in a case � led yesterday on a charge of torturing a local activist of Jubo Dal, an associate body of BNP.
The victim Saiful Islam Suman’s fa-ther, Shamsun Noor Patwari, lodged the lawsuit with Lakshmipur Session Judge Court against Ramganj police station OC Lokman Hossain as well as its four Sub-inspectors Sharif, Momin, Mozammel and Lutfur Rahman, said the plainti� ’s lawyer Md Ra� que Ullah.
According to the case statement, the accused arrested Saiful, 32, on Au-gust 7 and tortured him for two days in custody, leaving one of his eyes badly damaged.
Afterwards, they implicated him in a false case and sent him to jail.
Lakshmipur District and Session Judge Manjurul Baset directed the au-thorities concerned to have Saiful’s dam-aged eye examined by a physician within 24 hours and submit a report in this re-gard before it, the advocate continued. l
Journalists demand cancellation of new broadcast policy n Tribune Report
Journalists staged a demonstration un-der the banner of the Bangladesh Federal Journalists Union (BFUJ) in Jessore yes-terday, protesting the newly approved the National Broadcast Policy 2014.
Condemning the broadcast policy, they said the government had approved the policy so that journalists could not express their opinions freely and it would have grave impact on the democ-racy of the country. They also termed the broadcast policy as a black law.
Among others, Gerneral Secretary of the BFUJ Ma Aziz, acting vice-pres-ident of the BFUJ M Abdullah and Or-ganisning Secretary Shahidul Islam addressed the protest rally which was held at the Jessore Press Club yesterday.
Demanding the cancellation of the policy, they said the journalist com-munity would not hold any discussion with Information Minister Hasanul
Haq Inu until the broadcast policy was repealed.
They also threatened that news-men would wage tougher movements across the country if the government did not cancel the policy. In Bhola, jour-nalists also held a protest rally in front of the o� ce of the deputy commissioner de-manding the cancellation of the National Broadcast policy.
Journalists across the country have been observing agitation programmes since the Information Ministry � nal-ised the draft of National Broadcast Policy 2014. According to the broad-cast policy, all contents of radio and television will come under strict gov-ernment monitoring. TV channels will be bound to broadcast speci� c pro-grammes, including government press notes.
There will be a broadcast committee that will advise the government in pro-viding licences to the TV channels. l
Executive Magistrate of the Dhaka North City Corporation Nuruzzaman talks with a small trader during drive at Gulshan in the capital yesterday MAHMUD HOSSAIN OPU
A view of Kazirbazar bridge. The photo was taken yesterday DHAKA TRIBUNE
Students con� ne provost in protest of fee hike at DU n DU Correspondent
Resident students of Dhaka Univer-sity’s Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman hall staged demonstration yesterday on the campus and con� ned the hall provost to his workplace pro-testing unusual hike in residence fee.
Sources said the students con-� ned the hall provost Baitullah Kaderi around 2:30pm after ending demon-stration and it was lasted for over an hour, who was later rescued by Proctor Amzad Ali.
During the protest, the hall unit’s BCL activists also joined the students, who
demanded the resignation of the provost.The agitating students alleged that
the provost has been realigning Tk30 residence fee, hiked from Tk15 set by the university authorities, from all students who wanted that the rule be applicable only for new students from July 1, this year. The students also pro-tested the unusual hike in the fee.
The provost could not be reached despite repeated attempt for his com-ment while his mobile phone was found switched o� .
In this regard, Proctor Amzad Ali said the authorities would look into the alle-gation brought against the provost. l
Member of fake note syndicate arrested n Tarek Mahmud, Chittagong
A counterfeit currency trader was ar-rested yesterday with 20 fake notes of Tk1,000 from the port city’s Halishahar area in the morning.
O� cer-in-Charge Syed Abu Moham-mad Shahjahan Kabir of Halishahar police station said the arrestee Bidhan Chandra Debnath, 25, was a member of a syndicate supplying fake notes. He was arrested with the currencies near Hakkani Petrol Pump of Nayabazar area around 10:30am following a tip-o� , the OC added.
A case was lodged with Bakalia po-lice station in this connection.
OC Shahjahan said Bidhan was trying to spread the counterfeit notes among the traders in cattle markets ahead of Eid-ul-Azha. Two other members of the same gang were arrested with fake cur-rencies worth Tk 1.66 lakh on this year’s Eid-ul-Fitr eve from the city’s Halisha-har area, he added. The police o� cial said they were now trying to arrest the other members of the syndicate.
On August 10, Bakalia police arrest-ed a person with fake currencies worth Tk20,000 from the city’s Bakalia area while the same police arrested two others with counterfeit notes worth Tk 5,000 from the city’s Kala Mia Bazar on August 9. l
A total of 57km of highway are most accident-prone and 95% accidents take place within this length
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Justice is the insurance which we have on our lives and property. Obedience is the premium which we pay for it.
William PennEnglish real estate entrepreneur and philosopher
October 14, 1644 - July 30, 1718
JURIS QUOTE
What constitutes a constitution?
Justice at long lastn Sanaul Islam Tipu
A Dhaka court has recently awarded three o� cials of Ad� ame Pharmaceuticals 10
years of rigorous imprisonment, the maximum punishment stipulated in the related law, for manufacturing adulterated paracetamol syrup which killed 76 children in the 1990s. Judge Abdur Rashid of the Dhaka Drug Court also � ned the three convicts Tk2 lakh each in the case, which was � led 22 years ago. The three convicts are Ad� ame Director Helena Pasha, Manager Mizanur Rahman and Pro-duction O� cer Nigendra Nath Bala.
According to the fact of the case, the child mortality rate suddenly shot up at Dhaka Shishu Hospital between 1990 and 1992, and all of them died from kidney failure. On suspicion, the then director of the hospital Brig (retd) Mokbul Hossain verbally noti-� ed the drug administration about the matter on July 3, 1991. Several news media published news reports that many children were dying after taking adulterated paracetamol. On November 25, 1992, Abul Khayer col-lected samples of “Flammodol” and sent it to the drug testing laboratory and the WHO for examination. It was then found to have contained diethyl-ene glycol.
Dhaka Shishu Hospital’s kidney specialist Prof Mohammed Hanif came to experience the tragedy of hundreds of children dying from kid-ney failure in 1982, when he started his career as a resident doctor at the BSMMU (formerly PG Hospital). Every day, patients coming in for treatment of failures of both kidneys and fevers, were dying despite being treated with dialysis. The doctors could not do anything to help them recover.
He saw the same situation hap-pening at Shishu Hospital after he had been transferred there in 1986. The children were dying from renal failure. The physicians checked the hospital’s water sources as well as the houses of the victims and conducted several other tests but did not � nd anything that could explain the mystery.
Later the hospital authorities formed a committee with Prof Hanif as the chair. In 1990, they came to know that something was wrong with the paracetamol which was being admin-istered to the children. The children who were going to the hospital for minor surgeries started to experience renal failure, even though they did not have such complications earlier.
After reading a Newsweek article
that talked about the adulteration of paracetamol in Nigeria, Prof Hanif was sure that paracetamol adultera-tion was behind the renal problems. To convince the state authorities to do something, the probe body sent a sample of Ad� ame’s Flammodol to the government’s drug laboratory, but the laboratory did not respond.
Later they requested the Directo-rate General of Drug Administration to take a sample and send it to the drug laboratory. The laboratory again kept mum. The committee then sent a sample to Japan and to Fisons – a British multinational pharmaceuti-cals company, but those e� orts did not work out either. Finally, they sent the sample to a government labora-tory in Massachusetts, US and got a result. Following this, the committee arranged a press conference to make the fact public.
The convicts were given this sentence under the Drug Control Or-dinance of 1982. According to Section 16 (c) of the Drug control Ordinance of 1982, whoever manufactures, imports, distributes, stocks, exhibits or sells any drug which is adulterated misbranded, spurious or imitated, shall be punishable with rigorous imprisonment for a term which may extend to 10 years, or with � ne which may extend to Tk2 lakh, or with both, and any implements used in the man-ufacture or sale of such medicine or drug may, by order of the Drug Court, be forfeited to the government.
In the judgement, Judge Abdur Rashid mentioned that by manu-facturing and marketing adulter-ated paracetamol consuming which many children had died, the convicts committed a crime against human-ity. They deserved death penalty but since the law does not provide for death penalty we have to satisfy with the highest possible punishment.
There are reasons to be cynical too. This judgement which satis� ed many families who have lost their children, has come from a subordi-nate court and appeal from the judge-ment will still lie with the High Court Division of the Supreme Court. There is a reasonable apprehension that the convicts will be able to obtain a stay order against this judgement from the HCD at the time of submitting their appeal petition. We all hope the Highest Court will decide upon the case keeping in mind the gravity of the crime that the convicts have once committed. l
Sanaul Islam Tipu is a correspondentof Dhaka Tribune.
Tortuous liability in road accident casesn Md Shafi Ullah
Recently a landmark judgment was given by the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court
of Bangladesh comprising a full bench headed by the Chief Justice Md Muzammel Hossain. The order upholding the judgment of the High Court Division to compensate the victim’s family in a case involving the death of Mozammel Hossain Montu, a former News Editor of the “Daily Sangbad,” in a road accident more than two decades ago. In this case, a truck owned by Bangladesh Beverage Industries Limited (BBIL) had run over Mozammel Hossain in front of Ananda Bhaban in Dhaka’s Kakrail on December 3, 1989. He died after few days in the same year while undergo-ing a week long treatment.
On January 1, 1991, Mantu’s wife � led a case with a Dhaka court, seeking Tk3.52 crore as compensa-tion from BBIL. The lower court in its verdict on March 20, 2005, directed the company to pay the amount to the wife and two sons of Mantu. BBIL appealed to the High Court against the verdict, saying the company could not be held liable for the driver’s mistake. The High Court, however, rejected the plea in 2010, saying the company could indeed be asked to pay compensation, and � xed the sum at Tk20mn. Finally, the Ap-pellate Division of the Supreme Court disposed of an appeal � led by the BBIL challenging the verdict given by the High Court Division.
Khalilur, the counsel for Mantu’s wife pointed out that the Supreme Court verdict was a landmark one, saying that the owner of the vehicle had been directed to compensate for the o� ence of the negligent driver. In the reasoning of the decision, the trial court considered tortuous liability on the basis of the doctrine of vicarious
liability. The basis of the doctrine is a maxim that says, Nam qui facit per alium facit per se which means he who does an act through another is deemed in law to have done it him-self. This is a maxim often stated in discussing the liability of an employer for the act of his/her employee.
Historically, tort has its roots in criminal procedure. Even today there is punitive element in some aspects of the rules of damages. Considering civil wrong, the court made BBIL liable and ordered to pay compensation. Now, this judgment will be a precedent and as a result victim’s family will be able to seek compensation in similar cases in the future.
Road accident is a common phe-nomenon in Bangladesh. A recent report published by Bangladesh Jatri Kallan Somity shows that nearly 4,000 people died of road accident in the last six months from January to July. Most of the victims’ fami-lies took legal action but no proper remedy was given except for few cir-cumstances. The questions are, under which law were the cases � led and what relief was sought in those cases?
It can clearly be mentioned here that the victims’ families tend to � le criminal cases under penal code as the o� ences are of criminal in nature and their ultimate demand is to put the o� enders behind bars. However, that hardly helps victim’s families to survive in society since in some cases the victims of the road accidents are the only earning members of their families. Therefore, tortuous liability should be invoked more often in these cases to seek compensation from the perpetrators for the family members as they are tertiary victims of the incidents. l
Md Sha� Ullah is a Lecturer, Department of Law, Da� odil International University.
n SM Masum Billah
“Do I contradict myself?Very Well then, I contradict myself”“I am large, I contain multitudes” (replies the constitution).
[Walt Whitman, “Song of Myself” Leaves of Grass (1891-92)].
Constitution matters. Why? Is it because it protects our fundamental rights? Maybe, at least this is the obvious answer that we
get from the majority people. But I will provide a di� erent answer to the question by using the words of American constitutional scholar, Mark Tushnet. Tushnet tells us that consti-tution matters because “it provides a structure of our politics.” Though meant for the USA, Tushnet’s phrase holds equal substance for the Bang-ladesh scenario. For it is politics, not the “constitution,” that is the ultimate and sometimes proximate source of whatever protection we have for our fundamental rights. The judicial con-test of “uncontested” seats in the 10th parliamentary election is the recent reminder of this understanding.
The High Court Division (HCD) con� rms the legality of the 154 “un-contested” elected seats in the 10th parliamentary election. The � nding is no surprise, to say the least. From an open perspective, it seems that the court avoided the creation of a fresh constitutional chaos taking a stand in favour of legalism. The impugned Representation of People Order (RPO) provision is declared not to be viola-tive of the constitution. The provi-sion confers power on the election commission to declare a candidate elected, should be no rival candidates. This appears to be a literal approach of the court which may contribute to hold a temporary political stability in the country. However, the � nding fuels some important questions hav-ing far-reaching implications on our democratic practice.
The � rst question that confronts us is what constitutes the constitution? If constitution is the “solemn expres-sion of the will of the people” (Article 7 of the Bangladesh Constitution), how may that “will” be convincingly distinguished from a clear exercise of voting rights? It is absurd to think that in a constitutional democracy the constitution contemplates for an un-trusted system of political representa-tion. Therefore, it would be a paradox to the nomenclature of the law itself (RPO), if the word “representation” is taken in a sweeping meaning to in-clude otherwise untrusted persons. It will be interesting to see in detail how the judiciary addresses the issue.
We may recall the previous judicial stand on the question of “representa-tion” in the parliament. The Appellate Division (AD) in 1995, in an advisory opinion, held the en masse resigna-tion of the 147 MPs constitutional. One of the issues then was whether the constitution at all contemplated such en masse resignation from the parliament in disregard of duties entrusted on the MPs by the peo-ple. The other one was whether the word “absent” engulfed the meaning of intentional “boycott” from the parliament. The AD did not � nd any di� erence between “absent” and “boycott.” This judicial apathy to draw
a line between a normal “absent” and intentional “boycott” has its legacy in our parliamentary practice.
The political parties often threaten to use this sword to make the parlia-ment dysfunctional. I am afraid the “uncontested” verdict, in its present intonation is going to claim its similar tolls on our democratic voyage. The recent untrusted move for amending the constitution on the question of judges’ impeachment is nothing but an upshot of our failure to make an ac-countable parliament in the true sense of the term.
Constitution, as it is frequently ut-tered, is the supreme law of the land. What makes the constitution supreme? Say, for example, some law professors being dissatis� ed with our current constitution draft a new one having the same supremacy provision. How does this newer provision di� er from the old original one? The original one holds weight because it has a history of one-ness of a nation, because it has a time-tested public feeling that “sovereignty belongs to the people.” Is the “uncon-tested” opinion going to consolidate this feeling? I doubt very much.
Many other countries of the world have the provision for “uncontested” election. Therefore, it has been argued, it is no o� ence that Bangla-desh should have the same. Again, we should make a cautious distinction of constitutionalism from the math-ematics. Is it not our constitution that we need to expound? The point also ignites an intricate debate: to what extent is the migration of constitu-tional ideas acceptable where every constitution has its own framing his-tory? It would be disastrous if we fail to sense the blood, sweat and tears of the common people that run along the text of our constitution.
Therefore, there must be ways that show how not to read the constitu-tion. The constitution is an image. This image should not be the sole privilege of lawyerly wisdom. Even the masses draw a picture of what a constitution should look like. The lawyerly canvas may upset the people’s imagery of the constitution, but in no way does it reduce the “level” and “tone” of their expectation and criticism about how fairly they should be represented in the parliament.
Constitutional jurist Mahmudul Islam submits that the provision for uncontested election is an obvious choice. He suggests that if the political parties continue to refuse participat-ing in the election there would be a vacuum. In order to avoid this void, claims Islam, uncontested provi-sion seems inevitable. However, is it not also true that this legal sanc-tion would pave the way to conduct elections disregarding the wish of the substantive political opinion?
The discussion tempts us to term the constitution a “mystery.” It is a “mystery” because the lines of the constitution sometimes do not com-plement each other. It is a mystery because di� erent people see the con-stitution di� erently. This is because there is a pre-text for every text. The pre-text is a question of value external to the text. So, in order to unlock the constitutional puzzle, we need to cherish a democratic value. This value demands an oxymoron of the people’s rights and liberties with political inva-sions and evasions. The value-laden democracy helps us sketch the true image of a constitution. l
SM Masum Billah is a PhD candidate, School of Law, Victoria University of Wellington. Email: [email protected].
The discussion tempts us to term the constitution a ‘mystery.’ It is a ‘mystery’ because the lines of the constitution sometimes do not complement each other
SYED ZAKIR HOSSAIN
Thursday, August 14, 2014DHAKA TRIBUNE World8
I N D U S T R I A L D A M A G EActor Robin Williams’ death was ‘suicide’n AP
The actor Robin Williams tried to cut his wrist and hanged himself in a bed-room of his San Francisco Bay Area home after struggling with depression, o� cials said on Tuesday.
His wife, Susan Schneider, likely was home at the time but was unaware, Keith Boyd, a Marin County sheri� ’s lieutenant, said.
Williams was last seen alive by Schneider on Sunday night when she went to bed, Boyd said. She woke up the next morning and left, thinking he was still asleep elsewhere in the house.
Shortly after that, Williams’ person-al assistant came to the Tiburon home and became concerned when Williams failed to respond to knocks at a door. The assistant found the 63-year-old ac-tor clothed and dead in a bedroom.
Boyd said all evidence indicated the star of dozens of � lms commit-ted suicide. But he said a � nal ruling would be made once toxicology re-ports and interviews with witnesses were complete.
The condition of the body indicat-ed Williams had been dead for at least a few hours, Boyd said. Williams also had super� cial cuts on his wrist, and a pocket knife was found nearby. l
Canada to donate its own Ebola vaccine to WHO for use in Africa n Reuters, Winnipeg, Manitoba
Canada will donate a small quantity of an experimental Ebola vaccine de-veloped in its government lab to the World Health Organization for use in Africa, the country’s health minister said on Tuesday.
The decision to donate the vaccine came after the WHO said on Tuesday that it was ethical to o� er untested drugs to people infected by the virus.
The Canadian government will do-nate between 800 to 1,000 doses of the vaccine, with the � nal number given dependent on how much Cana-da holds back for research and clinical trials. The government will also keep a small supply in case it is needed do-mestically.
Health Minister Rona Ambrose said she o� ered the vaccine to Dr. Marga-ret Chan, director general of the WHO.
The US is also working on a vac-cine and the WHO and governments involved were discussing possible use inAfrica, Dr. Greg Taylor, deputy chief public health o� cer of the Public Health Agency of Canada told Reuters in an interview ahead of the Canadian announcement.
Canada only has about 1,500 an-imal doses of the vaccine, which it invented a few years ago, and would need four to six months to make a large quantity, he said. The govern-ment’s vaccine is separate from the treatment being developed by Cana-da’s Tekmira Pharmaceuticals Corp.
“We see this as a global resource, something we need to put on the glob-al table to say ... how can we make best use of this asset? “We’re looking to do that as fast as we can,” Taylor said, speaking from Ottawa.
The Ebola outbreak is the world’s largest and deadliest. So far, 1,013 people have died, the vast majority
inGuinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.The Canadian vaccine, which the
agency licensed for commercializa-tion to US � rm BioProtection Sys-tems, a unit of Newlink Genetics, has proven e� ective in animals but has never been tested in humans, Taylor said.
Last week, Iowa-based NewLink said that BioProtection had a contract with the US Department of Defense for studies to bring the Canadian Eb-ola vaccine closer to human testing.
“We’ve been trying to � gure out how we can make a contribution in
the � ght against this disease and get our vaccine into the clinic,” Brian Wi-ley, NewLink vice-president of busi-ness development, told Reuters on Tuesday. “A large amount of work still needs to be done, but when there is a dire need the powers that be move at a quicker pace.”
Canada’s Taylor did not specify which of several US vaccines in devel-opment he was referring to that may be used in Africa along with the Cana-dian vaccine.
Profectus BioSciences of Tarry-town, New York, has tested its Ebola
vaccine in monkeys with good results, its chief science o� cer John Eldridge said on Tuesday.
Still, deciding whether to use an experimental drug on humans is “very di� cult,” Taylor said.
“You really don’t know how safe it is, you don’t know what the side e� ects are going to be. But in this ex-traordinary circumstance in Africa right now, we’re trying to do every-thing we can to assist.”
The � rst doses in Africa would like-ly be available to health care workers, Taylor said. l
Clinton calls Obama to clarify Syria remarksn Reuters
Hillary Clinton, a likely contender for the White House in 2016, has called US President Barack Obama to clarify that controversial remarks she made in an interview were not intended to attack him, her spokesman said.
In an interview published by The At-lantic magazine on Sunday, former Sec-retary of State Clinton identi� ed the US choice not to intervene early in Syria’s civil war as a “failure.”
“Earlier today, the secretary called President Obama to make sure he knows that nothing she said was an at-tempt to attack him, his policies, or his leadership,” Clinton spokesman, Nick Merrill, said in a statement.
“While they’ve had honest dif-ferences on some issues, including aspects of the wicked challenge Syr-ia presents, she has explained those di� erences in her book and at many points since then.”
Clinton, also a former � rst lady and senator from New York, served as Obama’s secretary of state from 2009 to 2013.
Since then she has been touring the country giving a series of lucra-tive speeches and promoting her
memoir, “Hard Choices.”She will be on Martha’s Vineyard,
Massachusetts, to sign copies of her book on Wednesday. Obama is vaca-tioning there, and the two are expected to see each other Wednesday night.
“Like any two friends who have to deal with the public eye, she looks for-ward to hugging it out when they see each other tomorrow night,” Merrill said.
The call was � rst reported by Politico.
Syria contentionClinton has not said whether she will run for president, but she is regarded as the favorite to win the Democrat-ic nomination. Therefore each of her public statements has been scrutinised as a possible re� ection of her potential campaign platform.
While these comments were Clin-ton’s clearest e� ort at distancing her-self from the White House, she has been subtly creating space between her own record and Obama’s for months.
The June release of “Hard Choices” also provided her with a chance to note her di� erences with the president.
In the book she speci� cally identi� ed Obama’s decision not to arm moderate Syrian rebels as a point of contention while she was at the State Department. l
Israel-Hamas talks tackle Gaza blockaden Agencies
Negotiators in Cairo have addressed the issue of the Israeli Gaza blockade, as the clock ticks down to the 2100 GMT deadline that will end a current 72-hour truce.
By that time on Wednesday, Israeli and Palestinian negotiators in the Egyp-tian capital must have either agreed on a permanent cease� re, accepted an extension or risk a resumption of more than a month of bloody � ghting.
As Gaza’s residents ventured out into the quiet to try to piece together their battered lives, negotiators held a second round of indirect talks aimed at � nding a durable end to the � ve-week confrontation.
A senior Israeli o� cial told the AFP news agency there was still a long way to go to agree an end to the con� ict, which erupted on July 8 when Israel launched military operations to halt cross-border rocket � re from Gaza.
“The negotiations are di� cult and gruelling,” a Palestinian o� cial said of Monday’s opening talks, which lasted almost 10 hours and which were de-scribed as “serious.”
Tuesday’s talks, which opened during the afternoon and tackled core issues such as Israel’s eight-year block-ade of Gaza, went on late into the night.
Earlier on Tuesday, an Israeli o� cial played down the chances of success.
“The gaps are still very wide. There has not been progress in the negotia-tions,” he told AFP.
Hamas, the Palestinian group which runs Gaza, wants Israel to lift the block-ade it imposed on the enclave in 2006 before it will stop rocket attacks. Isra-el has said it will only facilitate Gaza’s reconstruction if the enclave is fully disarmed.
In a sign that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu faced domestic
political battles to sell any deal to his fractious coalition government, he called o� a planned meeting of his se-curity cabinet on Tuesday.
Hamas tunnels This is the second 72-hour cease� re to be held during the con� ict. The � rst only came about after Israel announced it had completed the destruction of a network of Hamas tunnels that crossed the blockade.
Israel is now preparing to build a network of sensors to try to detect tun-nel building into its territory from the Gaza Strip, but it could take months to prove the technology works, a se-nior army o� cer told the Reuters news agency.
In the meantime, the army might re-invade the Palestinian enclave to destroy any tunnels it discovers or that it thinks are under construction, another o� cial said, looking to calm the fears of Israelis living close to the Gaza border.
The army said it destroyed 32 tun-nels last month, but believes some, which also serve as bunkers and weap-ons caches, survived intact.
After more than a decade of failed attempts to develop ways to reveal the in� ltration tunnels, an army o� cer said the military was preparing to place sensors around Gaza’s perimeter.
The army hopes these will not only be able to detect tunnels under con-struction, but also others already built.
In a brie� ng to reporters, the o� cer, who declined to be named, said the sensors would be augmented by phys-ical obstacles placed along the 68 km-long (42 miles) frontier.
He did not discuss the technolo-gy, but said testing over the next few months would show whether it was ready for use. Previous experimentation has focused on seismic detectors. l
Ukraine says Russian aid convoy won’t be let in, denounces Moscow’s ‘cynicism’n Reuters, Kiev
Ukraine denounced the dispatch of a Russian humanitarian aid convoy to eastern Ukraine as an act of Russian cynicism on Wednesday and said it would not be allowed in.
The comments re� ected suspicions in Kiev and Western capitals that pas-sage of the convoy onto Ukrainian soil could turn into a covert military action to help pro-Russian separatists now losing ground to government forces.
“The level of Russian cynicism knows no bounds,” Prime Minister Arseny Yatseniuk said at a govern-ment meeting. “First they send tanks, Grad missiles and bandits who � re on Ukrainians and then they send water and salt.”
Interior Minister Arsen Avakov said on his Facebook page: “No Putin ‘hu-manitarian convoy’ will be allowed across the territory of Kharkiv region. The provocation by a cynical aggressor will not be allowed on our territory.”
Yatseniuk reiterated that any kind of humanitarian aid from the outside
had to be organised under the auspices of the International Committee of the Red Cross.
It was not immediately clear if this was an outright rejection of the Rus-sian aid, which was being taken by a convoy of 280 trucks down to the Ukrainian border on Wednesday, or a refusal to allow the Russian trucks onto Ukrainian territory.
Humanitarian crisisUkraine said on Tuesday that the car-go would have to be unloaded from Russian trucks at the border and trans-ferred under international Red Cross aegis onto other vehicles. The Europe-an Union (EU) said the contents would have to be scrutinised.
Kiev accuses Russia of supporting and arming the rebels - who now ap-pear to be on the verge of defeat by government forces - with tanks, mis-siles and other weapons. Moscow de-nies this.
Four months of � ghting in the east has produced a humanitarian crisis in parts of eastern Ukraine. People in the
main cities of Donetsk and Luhansk, on the border with Russia, are su� er-ing acute shortages of water, food and electricity.
Yatseniuk said the Kiev govern-ment had received 6 million dollars from its Western partners which would be used to alleviate conditions in distressed areas.
“We as the government of Ukraine are sending vitally needed goods to all the liberated territories,” Yatseniuk said, meaning those places which had been recaptured from the rebels.
“We as a state are looking after and are capable of looking after our citi-zens,” he said.
The convoy which Russia says is carrying about 2,000 tonnes of wa-ter, baby foods and other goods left Moscow region on Tuesday for the Ukrainian border.
Journalists monitoring the move-ment of the convoy said it appeared to be at the Russian town of Vorone-zh on Wednesday, about 340 km (212 miles) from Shebekino on the Ukrainian border. l
‘Prime Evil’ apartheid killer contests South Africa parole delayn Reuters, Johannesburg
Jailed South African apartheid death-squad leader Eugene de Kock, dubbed ‘Prime Evil’ for murdering black activists in the 1980s, has launched a court bid to force the government to consider him for parole, his lawyer said on Wednesday.
De Kock, who is believed to have been responsible for more atrocities than any other man in the e� orts to preserve white mi-nority rule in South Africa, became eligible for release last month after 20 years behind bars.
However, Justice Minister Michael Masutha delayed by a year the sensitive decision on whether or not to set him free, saying the families of his victims had not been properly consulted.
De Kock’s lawyer Julian Knight said Masutha’s argument was being challenged as legally � awed since the need to consult families about parole decisions was only introduced in 2004 - a decade after de Kock was arrested and jailed.
“It’s a political game,” Knight told Reu-ters. “The minister should be treating de
Kock as any other criminal.”If de Kock is successful in getting the
court to overturn Masutha’s decision, it will put the ruling African National Congress (ANC), which came to power at the end of apartheid in 1994, in a tight spot.
Although de Kock has few if any sup-porters, releasing convicted killers on pa-role has become commonplace, especially if - as is the case with de Kock - they have expressed remorse and are considered to no longer represent a threat to society. l
View of the waters of the Sonora River where � ve days ago a copper mine leaked 40 thousand cubic meters of sulfuric acid seriously polluting it, in the Ures community, Sonora state,Mexico on August 12. The chemical caused an orange stain along a 60-kilometer (37-mile) stretch of the river bordered by the towns of Arizpe, Banamichi, Vabiacora, Aconchi, Cananea, Ures and Hermosillo AFP
Eugene de Kock AFP
Passengers, wearing protective face masks and hand gloves push troleys loaded with personal e� ects upon arrival at the Murtala Mohammed Airport in Lagos AFP
9Thursday, August 14, 2014DHAKA TRIBUNE World
Afghan candidate casts fresh doubt over deal to share powern Reuters, Kabul
Afghan presidential candidate Ashraf Ghani cast fresh doubt over a deal to share power with his rival Abdullah Ab-dullah on Tuesday, saying the accord was ambiguous and needed clarifying.
Abdullah was the clear winner in the � rst round of Afghanistan’s pres-idential election in April, while a pre-liminary count showed Ghani won the run-o� vote in June.
However, the ballot was marred by accusations of mass fraud, which in turn have fueled tensions between the rival camps, raising fears of a civil war along ethnic lines.
US Secretary of State John Kerry has twice � own to Kabul to try to defuse the crisis and last Friday helped persuade
the pair to sign a framework agreement for sharing power, including control over key economic and security institutions.
Under the terms of the deal, the run-ner-up will be appointed to a specially created role of “chief executive,” who will share equal control with the presi-dent over certain key decisions, such as nominating the head of the army and intelligence agency.
However, Ghani appeared to back away from the idea of sharing power on Tuesday, telling journalists the lan-guage of the document signed during Kerry’s visit was unclear.
“Instead of getting into verbal dis-putes, this is one of the key areas our teams are working on,” Ghani said. “The word parity can have a range of meanings.”
Abdullah’s spokesman replied that the framework accord clearly indicated government posts would be split be-tween the candidates. “If it’s not pow-er-sharing, then what is it?” spokesman Mujib Rahman Rahimi said by phone late on Tuesday.
Abdullah has warned that violating the spirit of the deal would have dire consequences for national unity.
“It’s important that � rst of all we change the atmosphere from now on, from an atmosphere of campaigning against each other to an atmosphere of working together. That will help,” Abdul-lah told Reuters after Kerry’s last visit.
Each camp has appointed a commis-sion to � esh out the accord and they met for the � rst time on Tuesday. Rahimi said he hoped their work would continue. l
Power brokers chose safe bet Abadin Reuters, Baghdad
Pressure on Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki to step aside had become unbearable. Sunnis, Kurds, fellow Shi’ites, regional power broker Iran and the United States all wanted him out.
Maliki calculated he may have one more chance to hold onto power af-ter eight years in o� ce, even though alarmed allies had run out of patience as Islamic State jihadis swept govern-ment forces aside in much of western and northern Iraq.
Maliki’s plan would require per-suading Iraq’s most in� uential cleric that he alone could reform and unite a country that had slid back into a civil war fueled by what critics view as his sectarian politics.
A week ago, he sent a delegation from his Islamic Dawa Party to try to meet Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani in the sacred Shi’ite city of Najaf, south of Baghdad, according to an Iraqi minister and a source close to the clergy.
It was unclear if they succeeded in gaining an audience with the reclusive 83-year-old cleric, but they did get a response on paper, if not the one that Maliki was hoping for:
“Sistani made it clear that he want-ed change. He put it in writing - the � rst time that a leader of Iraq’s Shi’ite clergy did such a thing,” the minister told Reuters.
Sistani’s word is law in majority Shi’ite Muslim Iraq so the fate of Ma-liki - an unknown when he � rst came to power in 2006 with help from Iraq’s then US occupiers - was sealed.
Maliki has been caretaker prime minister since an inconclusive par-liamentary election in April. But his chances of a third term appear
over, with a party colleague named as prime minister-designate and drawing endorsements from home and abroad.
While Maliki kept digging in, the main Iraqi and foreign players moved on to wondering who could replace him.
Several names came up. One was Ahmad Chalabi, the smooth-talking, secular Shi’ite who played a role in persuading the United States to top-ple Sunni dictator Saddam Hussein in 2003.
Maliki’s immediate predecessor Ibrahim al-Jaafari was also a candidate. But he had failed to ease sectarian vio-lence during his year in o� ce. Deputy Prime Minister Hussain al-Shahristani, a nuclear scientist tortured in Saddam’s jails, seemed promising, people famil-iar with the discussions said.
But, o� cials said, in the end it came down to a choice between Vice Pres-ident Khudhaier al-Khuzaie and for-mer Maliki lieutenant Haider al-Aba-di, a deputy speaker of parliament. Both were also members of Maliki’s Dawa Party but Khuzaie was seen as too sectarian, too like Maliki in that regard.
Abadi was selected because all par-ties agreed the low-key � gure got along with leaders of the Kurdish minority and had a decent chance of appeasing Sunni Muslims, whose disgust with Maliki prompted some to join the Is-lamic State militants.
Abadi also appealed to religious leaders and others because the engi-neer appears not to be motivated pure-ly by political ambition. He spent more than two decades in exile, working in business in Britain while promoting the Islamic ideals of the Dawa party. l
Iranian the � rst woman to snare maths ‘noble’
n Agencies
Iranian mathematician Maryam Mir-zakhani has become the � rst woman to be awarded the Fields Medal, math-ematics’ equivalent to the Nobel Prize.
The professor at Stanford Universi-ty in California was among four Fields Medal recipients at the International Congress of Mathematicians held in Seoul, and the � rst female among the 56 winners since the prize was estab-lished in 1936.
“This is a great honour. I will be hap-py if it encourages young female scien-tists and mathematicians,” Mirzakhani was quoted as saying on Stanford’s website.
“I am sure there will be many more women winning this kind of award in coming years,” she said.
Mirzakhani was born in Tehran and lived there until she began her doc-torate work at Harvard University. She said she dreamed of becoming a writer when she was young, but she pursued her enthusiasm for solving mathemat-ical problems.
“It is fun - it’s like solving a puzzle or connecting the dots in a detective case. I felt that this was something I could do, and I wanted to pursue this path,” she said.
Mirzakhani was recognised for her work in understanding the symmetry of curved surfaces.
According to Stanford, the work could have an impact on the theoreti-cal physics of how the universe came to exist.
The prizes are awarded every four years. Wednesday’s honours were pre-sented by South Korean President Park Geun-hye.
“On behalf of the entire Stanford community, I congratulate Maryam on this incredible recognition, the highest honour in her discipline, the � rst ever granted to a woman,” said Stanford President John Hennessy on the uni-versity’s website. l
Japan ‘strongly protests’ against Russian exercises on dis puted islesn Reuters, Tokyo
Japan “strongly protested” on Wednes-day against Russian military exercises on Paci� c islands that it also claims and which have been at the root of strained relations between the two countries since the end of World War Two.
The exercises on the disputed islands are a blow to Prime Minis-ter Shinzo Abe’s e� orts to court re-source-rich Russia and keep the door open to dialogue, despite the Ukraine crisis.
Russia seized the islands from Japan in the waning days of World War Two and the dispute over them has prevent-
ed the neighbours from signing a for-mal peace treaty.
The islands are known as the South-ern Kuriles in Russia and the Northern Territories in Japan.
“Carrying out this sort of exercises in the Northern Territories is totally unacceptable,” Abe told reporters.Ja-pan lodged a “strong protest” at the Russian Embassy in Tokyo, the Japa-nese Foreign Ministry said in a state-ment, calling the exercises “extremely regrettable.”
Japan had already protested at the beginning of the military exercises but reiterated its objections on
Wednesday. l
Maliki says Abadi’s appointment as Iraqi PM ‘has no value’n Reuters, Baghdad
Nuri al-Maliki s aid on Wednesday the appointment of Haider al-Abadi to re-place him as Iraq’s prime minister violat-ed the constitution and “had no value.”
In a televised speech, Maliki said ev-eryone should accept a pending feder-al court ruling on an objection he � led against Abadi’s appointment, and said his government would continue until a � nal decision was made.
Abadi won swift endorsements from the United States and Iran on Tuesday
as he called on political leaders to end feuds that have allowed Islamist mili-tants to seize a third of the country.
State television on Wednesday re-ported that Abadi was working on forming a new cabinet and developing a government program in agreement with other political blocs.
But Maliki has so far refused to step aside after eight years as premier. Critics have accused the Shi’ite Isla-mist of marginalizing the country’s once-dominant Sunni Muslim com-munity during his rule and thereby
worsening the country’s crisis.On Wednesday, Maliki said the deci-
sion to appoint Abadi as prime minister was not valid without a decision from the Federal Court on an appeal he said he � led on Tuesday against the deci-sion to task Abadi with forming a new government.
“The violation that occurred has no value and its consequences have no ef-fect,” he said.
“This government is continuing, and will not be changed except after the Federal Court issues its decision.” l
Siege mentality grips Pakistan ahead of Independence Dayn Reuters, Islamabad
Thousands of riot police sealed o� Pakistan’s capital with barbed wire and shipping contain-ers on the eve of the country’s Independence Day, in a bid to foil mass protests aimed at top-pling embattled Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.
Two groups, led by cricket star turned op-position politician Imran Khan and � ery cleric Tahir ul-Qadri, plan to converge on Islamabad on Thursday intent on forcing Sharif to call an early election little more than a year after his landslide victory at the polls.
Police said on Wednesday that they had detained some 2,100 followers of the two populist opposition � gures in the past few days, and with all the obstacles in their path it was uncertain how many protesters would reach the capital.
The latest challenge to Pakistan’s fragile democracy will inevitably sow unease among neighbours and allies. They dread instability in the nuclear-armed state, which is battling an internal Islamist insurgency and is home to several virulently anti-West-ern and anti-Indian militant groups.
While police and paramilitary manned barricades round the city, how far Khan and Qadri succeed in destabilising the govern-ment could ultimately depend on the stance taken by a military with a long history of mounting coups.
The protesters insist they are reformers crusading against corruption and say last year’s election was fraudulent, whereas Sharif’s loyalists accuse them of being a front for darker, anti-democratic forces.
While the political temperature has be-come more feverish, Pakistan’s generals have stayed silent. Exchanges of � re between Pa-kistani and Indian forces on the cease� re line that acts as a de facto border in the disputed Kashmir region have added to the tension.
Many analysts doubt whether the military
wants to seize power, but there is a widespread perception that it could use the opportunity to put the civilian government under its thumb.
“The idea was to put pressure on our government and it has worked,” a minister in Sharif’s cabinet told Reuters, requesting anonymity.
“Once this is over, things will be a lot more di� cult for the government. The decision-making space will be reduced. It is unfortunate that anti-democratic forces have pushed things to this point.”
Speaking to journalists in Lahore on Monday, Information Minister Pervais Rashid was more direct, accusing a former “spymaster” of coordinating the security for Khan’s protest.
Pakistani media identi� ed him as Ahmed Shuja Pasha, who retired as head of the military’s feared Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) Directorate two years ago.
Neither were available for comment.
Bad bloodSharif and the military have an unhappy history. His last term in o� ce ended in 1999, when then army chief General Pervez Musharraf launched a coup that heralded a decade of military rule.
Since returning to power, Sharif has been at odds with generals who seemed happy to leave running Pakistan’s rickety economy to civilians but jealously guard their dominant in� uence.
Relations with the military quickly soured when Sharif’s government prosecuted Musharraf last year for treason, angering of-� cers who see the army as Pakistan’s saviour and despise politicians like Sharif as corrupt.
Recently Sharif has relented. Musharraf’s prosecution ground to a halt and he was released from house arrest, but he remains unable to leave the country.
For all the conspiracy theories over the brewing crisis, Sharif’s loyalists have, however,
avoided spreading suspicion over serving generals, and the government last month entrusted security in the capital to the military.
“There may be individuals involved in this (protest), friends of Musharraf, perhaps. But we don’t see any evidence that the army as an institution is involved,” said Ahsan Iqbal, the secretary-general of Sharif’s party.
Both Khan and Qadri have also repeated-ly denied having secret military support.
“I am not saying call in the army,” Khan said on a televised speech Monday. “The army is not the solution.”
A military spokesman did not return
messages but the military has often said it does not meddle in politics.
Dual tacticsSo far the government’s response to the pro-tests has been a mixture of carrots and sticks.
Qadri, who controls a network of religious schools and charities, has met with sti� opposition. He has a history of organis-ing protests. Last year, he returned from his home in Canada to lead tens of thousands of followers who camped out on the capital’s main street for four days.
The cleric had planned to hold another
protest in the eastern city of Lahore on Sunday but was thwarted by mass arrests of his followers. Supporters on their way to Sunday’s protest were blocked. For two days, they clashed with police in several cities. Elev-en people were killed and hundreds injured.
Khan’s supporters are considered less likely to � ght. His party has urged them to be peaceful, in contrast to Qadri, who urged supporters to retaliate if police attacked.
On Tuesday, Sharif o� ered Khan a Su-preme Court investigation into the alleged electoral irregularities. Khan rejected the o� er unless Sharif stood down. l
Iraq crisis: France to deliver arms to Iraqi Kurdsn BBC
France will supply arms to Iraq’s Kurds “in the coming hours,” French President Francois Hollande has announced.
France has received approval from authorities in Baghdad for the deci-sion, French media reports say.
Kurdish forces have been � ghting militants from the Islamic State (IS) group. The con� ict has displaced thou-sands of people.
The US has also reportedly begun supplying weapons to the Kurdish forc-es, known as the Peshmerga.
A statement from Mr Hollande’s of-� ce said the move was “in response to the urgent need expressed by the re-gional authorities in Kurdistan.”
“For several days, France has had the necessary measures in place to sup-port the operational capabilities of the forces � ghting IS,” the statement said.
“The catastrophic situation faced by the population of Iraqi Kurdistan means the international community must step up its mobilisation,” it went on.
Earlier the US announced it had sent 130 more military advisers to the Kurd-ish region.
The marines and special operations forces will assess the humanitarian sit-uation and will not be engaged in com-bat, a US defence o� cial said.
The US has been carrying out air strikes against IS � ghters in northern Iraq.
The political leader of Iraq’s Kurds, Massoud Barzani, had on Sunday ap-pealed for international military aid to help defeat the Islamist militants.
The United Nations has said that tens of thousands of civilians, includ-ing members of the Yazidi sect, are trapped on Mount Sinjar by IS � ghters and need “life-saving assistance.” l
Iraq men carry a portrait of outgoing prime minister Nuri al-Maliki ahead of a rally to show their support for Maliki on August 13. Iraq’s premier designate Haidar al-Abadi is gaining widespread support from countries hoping political reconciliation will undercut jihadists, as Iran further undercut Nuri al-Maliki’s bid to cling to power AFP
Canadian-based cleric Tahir-ul-Qadri waves to Pakistani supporters in Lahore on August 10. Pakistani police on August 10, charged a populist, anti-government cleric with murder after a policeman was killed during clashes with his supporters AFP
Maryam Mirzakhani AFP
Do you know this place?August 7
Are� n Ra� It’s the Jatrabari-Gulistan � yover. The Jatrabari and Demra deviation part.
Benazir: Police did not act cruelly with Tuba workerAugust 9Yusuf Are� n What a load of crock. Everyone saw that police had beaten the ill Tuba worker.
Save Jamaat-e-Islami?August 9Arch Bishop What exactly is the purpose of a “trial” when the author and the party he represents already know what verdict is proper and what punishment should be meted out?
Editorial10 DHAKA TRIBUNE Thursday, August 14, 2014
CODE-CRACKER
ACROSS1 Insect (4)4 Loses colour (5)8 Optical illusion (6)9 Dull, heavy sound (4)11 Wash lightly (5)12 Employs (4)14 Mature (3)15 Come forth (6)19 Composed (6)21 Vast age (3)22 Lacerate (4)24 Shaft (5)27 Sketched (4)29 Exact satisfaction for (6)30 Satis� ed fully (5)31 Paradise (4)
DOWN1 Obtain (3)2 Entertained (6)3 Season (4)4 Distant (3)5 Nimble (5)6 Lair (3)7 Country (6)10 Immense (4)13 Become � rm (3)14 Examines by trial (6)16 Came into contact with (3)17 Brought up (6)18 Blood (4)20 Over (5)23 Border (4)25 Rodent (3)26 Marry (3)28 Pale (3)
CROSSWORD
How to solve: Fill in the blank spaces with the numbers 1 – 9. Every row, column and 3 x 3 box must contain all nine digits with no number repeating.
SUDOKU
How to solve: Each number in our CODE-CRACKER grid represents a di� erent letter of the alphabet. For example, today 4 represents H so � ll H every time the � gure 4 appears.You have two letters in the control grid to start you o� . Enter them in the appro-priate squares in the main grid, then use your knowledge of words to work out which letters go in the missing squares.Some letters of the alphabet may not be used.As you get the letters, � ll in the other squares with the same number in the main grid, and the control grid. Check o� the list of alphabetical letters as you identify them.
CODE-CRACKER
CROSSWORD
SUDOKU
YESTERDAY’S SOLUTIONS
CALVIN AND HOBBES
PEANUTS
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Girl commits ‘suicide’ after failing to watch Star JalshaAugust 9
Depressed TownIt’s almost becoming a trend for a handful of young teenagers to commit suicide over such an issue. Why? It’s obviously psychological. If we look at this case, then we’ll see that it happened in Savar, a booming industrial city with a hazardous environment. Like many other places of Bangladesh, this place also lacks su� cient playgrounds, parks, and places where young people could hang out.
In the Bangladeshi context, for a girl at her age, it is extremely di� cult to go out and get some fresh air. In that su� ocating condition, she, like many other teenage girls of our country, put all her concentration into a 21” square screen, where actors and actresses dramatise and exaggerate life events. Gradually, in our case, naturally, she built up a strong connection with those Indian serials.
It is very easy for one to say that a girl died for nothing. Yes, she died for nothing. She died because of the entertainment you couldn’t provide. She died because she couldn’t go out in order to seek natural entertainment which you people have already covered up with buildings and garbage.
Romio HasanShe is not the only one. There may be thousands more ready to commit suicide on this same issue. I have talked with several teenage girls among my relatives, and they used to say the same words again and again: “If you change the channel, I will
commit suicide.” And they all were absolutely serious about that!
All of these kids’ behaviour was totally normal a few years back and now all of them are showing many traits of personality disorders and strong aggressively defensive behaviour. No matter how much you try, you can’t make them watch cartoons or any other children’s shows anymore.
There could be two possible reasons: (1) All of them, and even the elderly, have an
underlying mild to moderate, or even severe, mental illness for which they � nd these speci� c types of programs so comforting and addictive. (2) These programs are shaping their minds everyday, in a way that promotes severe mental illness.
I have studied a few of these shows, and the only thing that � lled the screen was a pure negative vibe, and the visual storytelling part was full of disturbing shots and creepy background sounds. It was hard to � nd anything positive about those shows.
So if you still think committing suicide for a “Pakhi dress” or for missing a single episode is just plain stupid, then please think again! It’s never too late to save your youngsters from taking a deadly path.
I am writing this with a hope that some of you will consider the depth and emerging danger of these repeated suicides, take e� ective initiatives to study/analyse the psychological pattern, and publish workable solutions.
Mental illness is a debilitating disorder and we need an immediate cure.
Protect whistleblowers to � ght corruption
An acting headmaster in a Rajshahi public school has been suspended by their governing body for � ling a complaint about the taking of bribes for teacher appointments.
The headmaster had lodged a complaint with the secondary and higher education directorate after discovering four teachers had submitted fake registration documents during their recruitment process.
Although the directorate has con� rmed the forgeries, and the salaries of the teachers involved are reportedly being withheld, the governing body of Mohanganj High School in Rajshahi’s Bagmara, is still ignoring demands by parents and pupils to reinstate the suspended headmaster.
It is outrageous that a public servant can be wrongly suspended in such a manner for simply performing their duty.
One of the teachers involved in this has admitted to arranging the transfer of one decimal of land to local AL leaders at the request of the governing body, as a bribe for being appointed as a teacher.
Far from being ashamed at this report, the local union AL president has stated he sees no o� ence in the process as “money is taken everywhere while recruiting teachers.” Instead, a case has been � led against the sub-registrar of land for registering the land transfer in the name of the prime minister without permission from the PMO.
The government must disown and root out this type of institutionalised and politically protected corruption.
It also needs to do more to ensure the law upholds the Whistleblower Protection Act 2011, so that people who bring wrongdoing to light are properly protected.
Unite against child tra� ckingIt is chilling that that every year 20,000 children are believed to go
missing or are kidnapped from Bangladesh.Most are understood to be taken across the border into India.
Human tra� cking is a scourge which a� ects all ages and needs to be addressed across the board. The problem of child tra� cking in particular needs to be attacked has a urgent priority.
We must build on work being undertaken with neighbouring countries like India and Nepal to strengthen anti-tra� cking measures. The problem is particularly acute in our region and it is in the interest of all South Asian countries to come together to � ght this cross-border problem.
Bangladesh should strengthen its resolve as well as its technological capability to track and rescue tra� cked children. Improved management systems, such as the “uniformed case management” system proposed at a workshop recently, may increase the e� ciency in matter of � nding, rescuing, and repatriating child victims of tra� cking.
It is a matter of great shame that Bangladesh is not up to the internationally desired standard for eliminating human tra� cking. The government must urgently take action in this regard, and start prosecuting culpable parties.
Government o� cials and law enforcement personnel must be given comprehensive training on how to spot and deal with tra� ckers. Our legal establishment has a duty to enforce anti-tra� cking laws. We need to see it act against any corrupt elements in law enforcement which have been complicit in child tra� cking, so that they can be brought to book and future abuses are prevented.
All South Asian countries should strengthen resolve to eliminate tra� cking
Ensure people who bring wrongdoing to light are properly protected
35 fake freedom � ghters’ certi� cates cancelledAugust 10
Habib KhondkerNo punishment?
Md Ashraf Husain What rewards/punishments will be given to the proven fake freedom � ghters? Will more investigations be carried out to � nd the fake freedom � ghters?
What action will be taken against the fake freedom � ghters who retired from government/semi-government/autonomous organisation service?
Mir FarzukMd Ashraf Husain: The freedom � ghters are real. The fake ones, however, should be punished for defaming our nation’s poor � ghters.
BNP delegation visits Mawa ghatAugust 8
Rashel Mahmud“A BNP delegation visited the Mawa Ghat in Munshiganj today in order to query over the progress of the rescue operation of Pinak 6, the launch that capsized in the Padma River on August 4.”
Why so late!?
Girl kills herself after mother stops her from
watching Star JalshaAugust 8
Neel AyonWhat can I say? Can’t � nd the words.
Shamim Hossain Life is no more precious than electronic gadgets,
TV-serials, fried chicken, and so on.
Fahmida Sultana Crazy people. They need to be rounded up and put
into a mental hospital. Stupid girls and women.
Xiao Xing I think it’s dumb to blame these suicidal acts
based solely on TV channels or TV programs. The poor girl must have been psychologically
unstable and no one noticed. I hope people will understand the need for counseling and the
importance of mental health.
Rakib BappiWTH is wrong with this nation!? Is it worth dying
for TV shows? Or a dress?
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
n Julian Francis
Being left-handed is like being in a secret club. We have our own bi-zarre initialisation rituals, such as
learning how to write “the wrong way.” We pay our dues every day, in terms of the extra e� ort that we must make to live in a right-handed world. When we encounter another lefty, we immediate-ly have something in common.
The club is shrouded in secrecy, because we rarely mention the topic to our right-handed friends. But as we know that the right side of the brain controls the left side of the body, we can say that only left-handed people are in their right mind!
International Left-handers Day, which was yesterday, was � rst ob-served in 1976. As its name suggests, it is meant to promote awareness of the inconveniences facing left-handers in a predominantly right-handed world. It is a day to celebrate their uniqueness and di� erence, which is about 10-12% of the world’s population.
The word “left” in English comes from the Anglo-Saxon word “lyft,” which means weak or broken. Ram-pant cultural di� erences have imbued us with the notion that left equals bad. The English word “sinister,” for example, is derived from the Latin for “left-hand side.”
In French, gauche means left and, of course, awkward, clumsy, unlucky, insincere, malicious, and socially unre� ned. Being out in left � eld is not good, and neither is having two left feet. Left-handedness has long been associated with Satanic in� uences and witchcraft, and a “left-handed compli-ment” is actually an insult.
In the Bible, the blessed are always sitting at the right hand of God, never the left. The right hand is mentioned positively 100 times in the Bible, while the left hand is mentioned only 25 times, all negatively.
Then there are the practical biases, a regular source of inconvenience, frustration, and sometimes, peril to
left-handers.Try opening a tin can with a manual
tin opener using your left hand – your arms will be crossed, and you’re likely to cut yourself on the lid. Hold a measuring cup with your left hand – the fractional amounts will be facing unhelpfully away from you.
Think: Circular saws, electric drills, chainsaws, surgical instruments, even � rearms and holsters. All designed primarily for righties. And computer keyboards are made for righties – even though Bill Gates is left-handed.
Until very recently in Taiwan, left-handed people were strong-ly encouraged to switch to being right-handed (or at least, switch to writing and eating with the right hand). It is more di� cult to write legible Chinese characters with the left hand than it is to write Latin letters.
Remember that easy and di� cult de-pend on the person using those terms, so your writing may be neater. Because it is supposedly easier to write when moving your hand towards its side of the body, it is easier to write the Roman alphabet with your right hand than with your left. Conversely, Arabic and He-brew, which go from right to left, would be easier to write with the left hand. Again, easier and harder are subjective.
It is possible that sun worship relates to the association of the left with evil. People in the northern hem-isphere, looking south, would see the sun rise on their left, move rightwards across the sky, and set on their right. In the southern hemisphere the op-
posite happens. Among cultures from the southern hemisphere, right-hand-edness is still dominant. No study on left-side connotations from those cultures has been done.
However, since most sun-worship-ping cultures see the setting sun as dy-ing or vanishing, the right side would indicate the negative associations associated with a setting sun. This is the opposite trend from that.
There is, almost continuously, it seems, research on left-handedness. Some of the � ndings are: Handedness
can be seen from ultrasounds during third trimester of pregnancy, studies show that premature babies or those with low Apgar scores are more likely to be left-handed, left-handers are more likely to be dyslexics or stutter-ers (Note: This writer had a stuttering problem), left-handers are slightly more prone to allergies and asthma than right-handers are.
Among the great leaders who were lefties are: Alexander the Great, Win-ston Churchill, Admiral Lord Nelson, and Napoleon Bonaparte. Mahatma Gandhi was left-handed too.
Last, but not least, one of the most well known “left” leaders, Fidel Cas-tro, is left-handed, and celebrates his birthday on August 13. l
Julian Francis has worked, written, and typed left-handedly for many years in Bangladesh and, since the Liberation War, has been encouraging the few left-handers in Bangladesh to assert their uniqueness in their very right-handed world.
11Op-Ed Thursday, August 14, 2014DHAKA TRIBUNE
n Sarwar Jahan Chowdhury
A Middle Eastern analyst said few years back: “If someone claims to have a quick solution to the Israeli-Palestinian con� ict,
he hasn’t understood the problem.” Ironically, this is both true and false. It takes a lot of study to grasp the crux of the issue – yet those, a lot of them actually – who have done it with some honesty can actually o� er realistic solutions.
Whether politicians will buy that or not is a di� erent issue altogether, be-cause dishonesty is pervasive among politicians of both sides, especially on part of the strong.
Gaza has almost been levelled now, and looks like German ruins at the end of Second World War after the RAF bombing campaign, or Hiroshima after the nuclear strike. As usual, the Isra-el-US narrative starts from the middle of the story. They depict Israel, the only country established in modern times with unprecedented scriptural or historic claims and through hound-ing out the indigenous population with terror, as the victim, despite its unquestionable military supremacy in the region.
Present developments, history, and political geography of the region are well-known these days. The core issue, at this instance, is the hugely disproportionate Israeli reaction to the active resistance of Gazaites under the leadership of Hamas. Judeo-Christian links, especially between orthodox Jewish and American Christians are an important facet now. Christians believe in the returning of Jews to Pal-estine as a precursor to the reappear-ance of Christ.
It had been going on for quite some time now. Moreover, they nowadays
have increased interest in Christian religious sites in the Middle East. Obviously, the Palestinians will have to keep the Christian sites open for religious Christians for pilgrimage purposes and also to have any chance to receive wider support for a Palestin-ian state.
Interestingly, Bethlehem is in PA territory, and PA has started celebrat-ing Christmas in a sort of international way by receiving Christians from dif-ferent parts of the world. PA President Mahmud Abbas and all senior leaders attend the main congregation in the Church of Nativity.
The political part is also complex. There is a long, protracted � ght of arrogance, patience, and perseverance
going on between Israel and Hamas. Both want to see themselves as the winner, demoralising the other in the longer run, instead of thinking of any immediate compromise.
Israel wants to break down all Arab resistance that questions (mostly for bargaining, hardly for any realistic possibility) Israel’s legitimacy, which of course is a big question mark, and a matter of another long debate.
It wants to have a perpetual strong upper hand in the � nal bargain, if any, and beyond. IDF and its precursors like Haganah and Irgun terrorist out� ts have hounded out about 700,000 Palestinians, who are now about 3 million, from their home. They established a state, in a most unprecedented way in a historically contentious region, by bringing Jews from all over the world, and now they want peace and security for themselves without addressing the issues of the oppressed.
Liberal Jews like Albert Einstein, Hannah Ardent, and many more pro-tested these Zionist terror acts around 1948 and beyond. Now, if Hamas fails
to keep reminding the world about Palestine, the whole Palestinian issue will go to oblivion by the grand Israeli design. They perhaps learned a lesson from Fatah in the West Bank, whose non-pursuance of resistance as per Israeli condition in favour of calm has given them hardly anything solid.
Palestinians, by and large, would have accepted a demilitarised fair deal Palestine as per the unmistakable indi-cations by Palestinian leadership, yet people like Netanyahu keeps inventing a false doomsday for Israel to promote chauvinism and jingoism. People like him are dishonest politicians.
Israel is already in possession of the Western Wall (Welling Wall) of
the Temple Mount, yet they want the whole of the al-Aqsa mosque in their jurisdiction. The Jewish orthodoxy want all the pride of possession. What about the Muslim sites of Jerusalem for the Palestinians and the Muslims?
Of course, Hamas is a doubtful right-wing entity in the measure of moderate ideas, but that will have to be dealt with after doing justice to the Palestinians. Even Saudis, America’s best Arab friends, are more radical than Hamas. Can Hamas really be called a terrorist out� t when they are � ghting for the cause of such a vividly oppressed community? Were the in-digenous Indian heroes of the colonial era, like Bhagat Singh, Khudiram, and
their bands of freedom � ghters, terror-ists in the � nal count?
In the Israel-Palestine crisis, not talking to Hamas, or not involving them in the peace initiative is some-thing impractical. Hamas has its roots deep inside Gazaite society, and even Palestinian society to some reckonable degree, and has grown over the dec-ades out of popular resistance.
It appears that Netanyahu and associates don’t want to give peace a chance, rather, continue to make up excuses to be in power riding on chau-vinistic arrogance. They know Israel will always have the option to revert to a heavy hand if a genuine peace o� er doesn’t work.
It’s di� cult to foresee how a per-manent solution can now be reached. Israeli conservatives have fallen into their own trap of impracticable condi-tions. Or, it’s more likely that this is a conscious yet mindless and habitual strategy of arrogance that they want to pursue. Only a powerful external thrust might have the potential of changing the scenario. But who can do that? l
Sarwar Jahan Chowdhury is the Head of Operations, BRAC Institute of Governance and Development (BIGD), BRAC University, Dhaka. He is also a member of the Regional Studies Research Cluster in the same institute.
When arrogance is the strategy
n Mamun Rashid
South India. We were discussing easy money-making processes in our part of the world. Most of our
friends were IIT or IIM graduates, with a few having studied in the leading business schools of the USA, including a retired general of the Indian Army. The signi� cance of this general was that he had fought for Bangladesh’s liberation in 1971 as a captain.
The meet-up almost came to the conclusion that, in our sub-continent, most of the easy money comes though political connections or by holding senior positions in the government. In India, apart from business hous-es close to the ruling party, many business conglomerates made hefty amounts through real estate develop-ment. Timely debut in the capital mar-ket also turned some into billionaires in India. E-commerce companies were also reported to be making tons of money these days. Big companies with deep pockets making huge investment in retail chains were also pocketing large sums in an increasingly consum-er-driven India.
Indian bourses have seen around $200bn market cap companies in more recent years. However, these are
all intelligent companies with better corporate governance. Nothing like being close to the ruling party though, which would all but ensure that large contracts with large kickbacks would be allocated to them.
There are companies in India that are being given large power plant, airport, or highway contracts, or large government procurement without even possessing any relevant track re-cord. The good news is that once these contracts are awarded, they sub-con-tract those projects to companies operating in the relevant sector with a proven track record.
However, our discussions revealed that siphoning out money from the banking sector is on the wane now. Unfortunately, Bangladesh is seeing the opposite. Large companies are reluctant to go the capital market way, or face sti� competition from global operators. They mostly depend on borrowed money or debt capital here in Bangladesh. One should not be at all surprised to see that most of the com-panies are in the “red” in Bangladesh, and their losses are being continuously � nanced by asset-hungry banks.
Many companies borrowing do not have relevance with their actual turn-over. Large borrowers in Bangladesh
do not occupy the top � ve positions in any of the industries or business seg-ments they operate in. Their borrowed money was reportedly used to buy stakes in other new banks. A portion of their borrowed money has also been used to bribe the bank owners lending them the money, and thus it never came back to the banks’ co� ers.
For the last few years, our govern-ment seems to have been in a buying or procurement spree – be it technolo-gy, building material, supply of digital equipment to schools, or even defence procurements. I could not convince my friends of why the only govern-ment-owned cell phone operator had to procure 3G technology much earlier than any of its competitors.
With the digitisation of the class-rooms in government schools, printing textbooks have also seen hefty sums being pocketed by political leaders or businessmen with deep political connections.
I shared with my friends questions such as how some � rst-time members of the parliament could reportedly make large sums of money. I also talked about the high price tags of low technology supplies, and more impor-tantly, only the ruling party cronies having access to “license raj.”
However, all our discussions and observations took a backseat when we came to know about Sri Lanka. Apparently it is a one-way tra� c there, a “winner take all.” We at least have something of a civil society or an increasingly strong media. The Indian media has shown its muscle during the last election. In Sri Lanka, I am told, you are either supporting the ruling party, taking all the advantages you can get out of them, or you have no place at all. However, we all agreed that only better politics, a good legal system, and most importantly, a val-ue-centric civil society could save us from the brink of rupture. l
Mamun Rashid is an economic analyst and � nancial sector entrepreneur.
Easy money In their right mindT H I R D E Y E
In the Israel-Palestine crisis, not talking to Hamas, or not involving them in the peace initiative is something impractical
Left-handedness has long been associated with Satanic in� uences and witchcraft, and a ‘left-handed compliment’ is actually an insult
Hamas has deep roots in Gaza society AFP
Political connections can be a bit like a magic lamp BIGSTOCK
EntertainmentDHAKA TRIBUNE Thursday, August 14, 201412
FilmMost Welcome 2Male� cent Transformers: Age of Extinc-tion (3D) X-Men: Days of Future Past (3D)Edge of Tomorrow (3D)Star Cineplex, Level 8Bashundhara City Panthopath Tejgaon
Khamosh Paani As a part of Nations and Notions: Partition Week Time: 1.30pmNAC Room 205, North South UniversityHercules 3DMost Welcome 2The Fault in Our StarsHeroHoneymoon
Noah 3DGodzilla 3DBlockbuster CinemasKa- 244Pragati Avenue Kuril
Exhibition Jolchhobi By Shahnoor MamunTime: 12pm – 8pmAlliance Francaise
TODAY IN DHAKA
Four movies of Robin Williams awaits releasen Entertainment Desk
The untimely death of Robin Williams has certainly been felt, and will continue to reverberate among fans all over the world.
The � rst project is “Merry Friggin’ Christmas,” an indie comedy with a November 7 release date, which also stars Joel McHale and Wen-dy McLendon-Covey. Wil-liams plays McHale’s father, who joins his son on a road trip to retrieve some forgot-ten gifts. This sounds a little bit too close to some of Wil-liams’s later � lm roles (like RV), which left a little some-thing to be desired, but just the presence of the comedi-an on screen will be enough to give it a chance.
The actor will then ap-pear as Teddy Roosevelt in the next “Night at the Muse-um” � lm, “Night at the Mu-seum: Secret of the Tomb” that comes to theatres on December 9 and all can agree that Williams is de� nitely a highlight of the series.
Next year, Williams will be heard as the voice of an animated dog named Den-nis, in the live-action � lm “Absolutely Anything.” The � lm also stars Simon Pegg and Kate Beckinsale, with voice work from almost all the surviving members of the Monty Python troupe.
The � nal performance from Robin Williams will be “Boulevard,” a drama that features the actor as a mar-ried man who picks up a gay hustler. That � lm premiered at Tribeca this year, but has no distributor as yet.
Finally, Williams was at work on a “Mrs Doubt� re 2,” which was in development at Fox with director Christo-pher Columbus and script-writer David Berenbaum. That one is still up in the air, although it’s unlikely that the studio will try to get any-one to � ll the actor’s shoes as the lead character. l
Screen siren
Lauren Bacall dies at
89
n Entertainment Desk
Harper’s Bazaar � rst launched Bacall on their cover when she was a 19-year-old model. Initially, the diva worked as an usherette.
Bacall - real name Betty Perske - was born to Jewish immigrants in New York in 1924 and was signed by Warner Bros in 1943 and two years later married Humphrey Bogart which accounted for one of the most fa-mous Hollywood couples of all time.
The pair remained together until his death from esophageal cancer in 1957. At their time of their wedding, Bacall was 20 and he was 45. They had two children, Stephen Humphrey Bogart and Leslie Bogart.
She � rst emerged as his leading lady in the � lm “To Have and Have Not in 1944.”
Director Howard Hawks paid her $124 a week for what would prove to be her breakthrough role.
The � lm contained one of the most famous phrases of Bacall when she asked Bogart: “You
know how to whistle, don’t you? You just put your lips together...and blow.”
Bacall died Tuesday at the age of 89 in New York, according to the managing partner of the Humphrey Bogart Estate, Robbert JF de Klerk. Bacall’s son Stephen Bogart con-� rmed his mother’s death to de Klerk. She
was pronounced dead at New York-Pres-byterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center at
5:21pm Tuesday, according to Kathleen Rob-inson, the hospital’s media relations director.
The Academy-Award nominated actress re-ceived two Tonys, an honorary Oscar and
scores of � lm and TV roles.She appeared in movies for more
than a half-century, but none brought her the attention of her early pictures.
Not until 1996 did she receive an Academy Award nomination — as supporting actress for her role as Barbra Streisand’s mother in “The Mirror Has Two Faces.” Although a sentimental favour-ite, she was beaten by Juliette Binoche for her performance in “The English Patient.”
She � nally got a statuette in November 2009 at the movie academy’s Governors Awards
gala.Her persona paralleled her
screen appearances: She was blunt, with a noirish undertone of
sardonic humor that illuminated her 1979 autobiography, “By Myself.” l
n Naveed Mahbub
“So, you’re a doctor? Can you do a vasectomy proce-dure right now?” Why not! After all, the � rst line we comedians get at a social setting is: “You’re a come-dian? Tell a joke!”
The comedian is expected to be “on,” 24/7/365, to entertain on demand. At least the struggling ones. The big wigs? Well, be prepared to stitch up your nose from a � st punch from Andrew Dice Clay.
But not you, Robin. You were “on” every waking hour. If it came to a speed race between Usain Bolt and your mind, the former would go home with pouted lips.
I will never forget that half hour I spent with you, just the two of us, in the green room of the Throck-morton Theater in Marin County, California. This was your favorite joint, close to your home and close to your heart. You came here to watch plebes like us and to try out new material.
The stars (pun? So be it!), the sun, the moon and the earth had all lined up perfectly that evening. It so happened that I was in Northern California for my wife’s MBA graduation from Berkeley, that the book-er of Throckmorton Theater invited me to do a spot, that I jumped on to the opportunity, that you decided to drop by, that I was alone in the green room.
You extended your hand, “Hi! I’m Robin Williams. And who are you my friend?”
I shook his hand while forgetting my own name. “When do you go up?”“I’d rather stay here with you.” Well, that’s what I
wanted to say. But I also had a packed house to entertain. Your mind then raced from the garb of a graduate
to being an engineer to being from Bangladesh to the Gulf War....I needed another seven days to digest your wits that spewed out like a machine gun.
I managed to utter a few sentences, but you cut in and � nished them all, far better and funnier than I could have imagined. I wished I had a voice recorder – that would have been instant comedy material for
my future use.You trailed o� to Sunset Boulevard and The Com-
edy Store in Hollywood. My claim to fame, to have started from the same place as you did. You held the hands of the club’s legendary owner, Mitzi Shore and I, those of her daughter and successor, Sandi Shore, for showing us the ropes. The “Store” has the names of legends like Richard Pryor, David Letterman, Jay Leno, Arsenio Hall on its walls to remind us of the big names who started their journey here. But your name shone the brightest, at least to me, as I grew up with Mork and Mindy, the only English show of the day and on the only channel in Bangladesh.
You have scaled your heights. I have just started, throwing away a lifelong career in Corporate Amer-ica and Bangladesh. Even if I’m half as crazy as you were, I’m glad to have taken the leap. Thank you for the inspiration.
But there is more. You inspired me to be Patch Ad-ams as I did my stints with terminal cancer patients at one Southern California hospital. Here I experi-enced the power of healing through humor.
That beckoning to heal pain, not just physical ones, got me to leave the “land of opportunities” and to return to the “land of possibilities” (where anything is possible…), to open up Naveed’s Comedy Club only to heal through laughter and to get people high in a non-alcoholic fashion. Thank you.
But you had your battles. It showed as we sat a few feet apart. Some may call it contradiction, or contro-versy, or even outright double standards. I call it the inherent contrast of the trade. Comedy 101: “There is no such thing as victim-less comedy.”
Well, “Only the good die young,” as Billy Joel says. Perhaps you are � nally, truly, happy.
So long. “Nanu, Nanu.” Over and out… l
Naveed Mahbub – engineer, comedian, TV host. The inset shows the author’s meeting with Robin Williams in 2008
Nanu, Nanu – Signing O�
n Hasan Mansoor ChatakA dark secluded place. Are� n Shuvo is shouting furious-ly and blurting out insults to Mahiya Mahi who is taking it in without protest. After rescuing the naive actress from the grip of danger, the macho actor scolds her for her reckless behaviour of confronting criminals without proper backup or security. The scene described above is from an upcoming move “Warning” where both the actors will be seen as young aspiring journalists and as a senior of the trade, Shuvo rightfully shouts at Mahi for her carelessness. The shoot-ing was taking place on the ground � oor of a lab in the BFDC yesterday.
After Sha� uddin Sha� ’s blockbuster “Agnee,” the duo is back on the silver screen once again with spectacular action scenes and candy-coated romance. Are� n Shuvo, one of the busiest actor of the industry with three � lms in the pipeline, “Chhaya Chhobi,” “Kis-timat” and “Chhuye Dile Mon” said to Dhaka Tribune: “I am enjoying my role in the � lm. For genuine portrayal of the character, I have tried out several looks which are not that glamorous. But I really hope the audience will appreciate my e� ort.”This time around, Shuvo is playing the enraged vic-tim whose parents were killed by a ma� a leader and he is out for revenge, whereas in “Agnee,” Mahi was seen as the lethal killer who avenges her parents’ murder. About her role, Mahi said: “Playing a journalist is always fun. You get to act bold and fearless and an in-tellectual. I have enacted the role of a journalist before in the � lm ‘Desa,’ but since my character in this � lm is di� erent, I am quite eager to play the role.”Refuing to spoil the fun by sharing too much, the di-rector Sha� uddind Sha� only said: “The � lm is a thrill-er with a di� erent tone. The audience will � nd every element of entertainment including action, romance, dance and drama.” On the 4th � oor of BFDC the shoot of an item song of “Warning” was also being carried out at the same time.
The shooting of the � lm commenced on August 3 while the director expects to release the � lm by the end of this year. Misha Sawdagor, Rubel and Kazi Hayat will also seen in the � lm in supporting roles. Sawkat Ali Emon is working as the music director and Maple Films is the production house. l
APES ARRIVEIN TOWN
n Entertainment Desk
“The Dawn of the Planet of the Apes,” released on July 11 worldwide and will hit the Star Cineplex on Saturday.
20th Century Fox’s sequel to the “Rise of the Plan-et of the Apes” has become the seventh movie of the year to cross $500m at the global box o� ce. That � gure makes Dawn the highest grossing instalment of the Apes franchise, with its predecessor “Rise of the Planet of the Apes” having earned $481.8m back in 2011.
“Dawn of the Planet of the Apes” is directed by Matt Reeves and sees Andy Serkis returning as Cae-sar. In the wake of a disaster that changed the world, the growing and genetically evolving apes � nd themselves at a critical point with the human race. l
Shuvo’s ‘Warning’
to Mahi
Ekti Jotil Ganitik ShomoshyaMaasranga TV 7:50pm Featuring Bindu, Faruk Ahmed, Jayanta Chakraborty, the tele� lm is about a mathe-matician whose work in partial di� erential equations enables him to predict the future. As he is the resident of a village, the local people started considering him as a Pir. How-ever, his daughter can only understand his father’s illness which lead her to take him to a physiological counsellor.
The Lost World: Jurassic ParkStar Movies
11:30pm Four years after the failure of Jurassic Park where the genetically bred dinosaurs went on
a rampage, multimillionaire John Hammond (Richard Attenborough) reveals that he had been breeding more dinosaurs at a secret lo-
cation. Malcolm (Je� Goldblum), his girlfriend (Julianne Moore) and a wildlife video producer join Hammond on an expedition to this secret island.
Are� n Shuvo and Mahia Mahi on the set of Warning KHAN HASAN MUHAMMAD RAFI
13DHAKA TRIBUNEThursday, August 14, 2014
Sport 1414 Happy Van Gaal names Rooney as new captain
Real � eld most expensive team in football history
15 Sri Lanka eye winning farewell for Jayawardene
Did you know?Sangakkara and
Jayawardene need to put on 36 runs to pass Greenidge and
Haynes as the second most productive Test
partnership
ASIAN GAMES, INCHEON 2014
BOA cuts o� nine disciplinesn Shishir Hoque
Bangladesh Olympic Association (BOA) has taken a ‘revolutionary’ decision by excluding nine disciplines from the initial 21 selected disciplines in the 17th Asian Games scheduled to be held in South Korea next month.
The decision left Bangladesh to compete in 12 disciplines in the Asian Games - archery, fencing, golf, shoot-ing, karate, taekwondo, beach volley-ball, wushu, football, cricket, hockey and kabaddi.
In an emergency executive commit-tee meeting yesterday, BOA, in pres-ence of o� cials of several other sport federations, decided not to send any athletes for athletics, badminton, box-ing, cycling, gymnastic, swimming, ta-ble tennis, weightlifting and wrestling after the poor results in the Common-wealth Games.
The decision mainly came as Ban-gladesh earned only one medal in the recently concluded Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, Scotland after BOA spent around Tk20m for preparations on 10 disciplines.
It’s quite clear the nine excluded dis-cliplines will now have a plenty to prove to participate in big events in future as shooting remains the only area BOA are focused on. Abdullah Hel Baki won a sil-ver medal in shooting in the Common-wealth Games and he will be the lone � ag carrier for Bangladesh in Korea.
The disastrous performance in the Commonwealth Games brought in severe criticism for BOA who � ew to Glasgow with a 69-member team that included 30 athletes.
BOA secretary general Syed Sha-hed Reza hinted to be strict from now on before sending any athlete for an
international event and said, “Asian Games is the second biggest event after Olympics and it is even bigger than the Commonwealth Games. There is more competition and stronger teams partic-ipate there.”
“So the athletes say for instance who � nished 27 out of 28 participants in Commonwealth Games, there is no logic in sending them to the Asian Games,” he said.
“It’s a revolutionary decision after the liberation war. We have had enough experience and it didn’t give us any-thing. According to the performances in the recent tournaments, especially Commonwealth Games, we decided to exclude all disciplines except shooting to take part in the Asian Games. We discussed with the federation o� cials and nobody opposed,” added the BOA secretary general.
Shahed Reza, however, also pledged to give more importance to the regional events like SA Games and Indo-Bangla Games in future.
The men’s cricket team won gold in the last episode of the Aisan Games and this time around the women’s team will also take part, as like kabaddi.
Some of the federation o� cials, however, expressed disappointment over the decision to exclude those dis-ciplines.
“They could have taken the decision earlier. Syque Caesar is strong contend-er for medal. I’m very much frustrat-ed about the decision,” said Ahmedur Rahman, general secretary of the Ban-gladesh Gymnastic Federation.
The Asian Games will begin on September 19 and a 164-member Bangladesh team drafted for 12 disciplines have been con� rmed for their visit next month. l
Carrom World Cup camp beginsn Raihan Mahmood
The Bangladesh Carrom Federation (BCF) has started a month-long train-ing camp to prepare its players for the upcoming 4th Carrom World Cup scheduled to be held in Maldives from September 13-17.
A total of 18 players including 10 in the male section and 8 in the female section are involved in the camp to grab the 4+4 slots. Selections will be � -nalised on August 20. Ha� zur Rahman, however, dubbed as the best player of the country is yet to join the camp re-portedly due to some misunderstand-ing with the federation.
Though Ha� zur is absent in the camp the other top players - Humayun
Kabir, Hemayet Mollah and Moniruz-zaman - are attending the camp.
In the women’s section Shamsunna-har Maqsuda, Farzan Akhter, Farzana Pri-ty and Afasana Khatun are the top players and they are going through the training.
The Bangladesh carrom team’s last mission was in 2012 when the men’s side defeated Canada to � nish third in the World Carrom Championship held
in Colombo, Sri Lanka. Bangladesh lost to India in the semi-
� nals of the team event and were pitted against Canada in the third-place decid-er. Earlier in the group phase, Bangladesh beat United Arab Emirates and Maldives to reach the knock-out stage. Ha� zur � n-ished sixth in the world rankings while Hemayet and Moniruzzaman were posi-tioned 13th and 15th respectively.
The BCF will have to pay $160 per player as entry fee. The host federa-tion will also have to arrange the costs of transport and food. Canada, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, Maldives, Pakistan, Poland, Sri Lanka, Switzerland, United Kingdom and United States have con-� rmed their participation. l
Afghanistan pull out from WHL n Raihan Mahmood
Afghanistan yesterday withdrew from the World Hockey League round 1 sched-uled to be held in Dhaka from Sept 5.
The message from the International Hockey Federation reached the Bangla-desh Hockey Federation (BHF) yester-day and as a consequence, round 1 will be comprised of only three teams - Hong Kong, Sri Lanka and hosts Bangladesh.
According to the previous schedule there were two matches slated per day in the duration of three matchdays on Sep-tember 5, 6 and 7. Following the Afghans’ pullout, it was learned that the match-days will be retained but the number of matches will be re-distributed. l
INTERNATIONAL FRIENDLIES
Nepal con� rms interestn Shishir Hoque
Nepal is interested to play friendlies with the Bangladesh Under-23 football team on August 25 and 28 as part of their prepa-ration for the upcoming 17th Asian Games in Incheon, South Korea next month.
The All Nepal Football Association replied yesterday expressing their in-terest to take part in two friendlies in Dhaka after the Bangladesh Football Federation (BFF) had approached on Monday to play practice matches.
The federation has prepared a budget for the friendlies - Tk1.5m for one match and Tk2.5m for two - including plane fare of the visiting team and local hos-pitality and forwarded it to the national team management committee. After the national team management committee approves the budget, the other formal-
ities will take place accordingly.“Following our invitation on
Monday, they (Nepal) replied today (Wednesday) and expressed their inter-est to play two friendly matches on Au-gust 25 and 28. We drafted the budget and forwarded it to the national team management committee. They will take the decision whether we will play one or two friendlies against Nepal,” said BFF general secretary Abu Nay-eem Shohag yesterday.
The BFF is also hopeful of organ-ising a friendly match against Malay-sia before the Asian Games. Malaysia, however, has not yet responded to the BFF’s invitation for the friendly.
Meanwhile, the national U-23 side will play their third practice match against Bangladesh Army today at the Army Stadium. l
Fond memories of WI to spur Tigers on: Bashar n Minhaz Uddin Khan
The only advice national selector Habibul Bashar has for the cricketers is to enjoy the game in the Caribbean. Former skipper Bashar, who is also the manager of Bangladesh in their upcom-ing tour of the West Indies, believes a positive result is possible when the team start enjoying its cricket besides being responsible.
As the captain of Bangladesh in their maiden tour of the islands in 2004 and also during the 2007 ICC World Cup that was hosted by the West Indies, Bashar holds valuable expertise on the local conditions and also the venues.
“There is always a message for the team. However, I think it will not be any-thing special this time,” Bashar told Dha-ka Tribune yesterday. “People love their cricket in the Caribbean. Most of the players have played in the islands and I
believe they know what is to be done or not. I think the players will do � ne if they start enjoying the game besides being re-sponsible. They also have to handle the pressure of contributing for the team. First thing I will want as a manager is for them to remain in their best health and then enjoy their cricket,” he added.
Bashar informed that the � rst thing which comes to his mind when he thinks of the West Indies is the year 2004. The 41-year old said he always had a fascination for West Indi-
an cricket.“They have amazing cricketers and
so many legends,” said the national se-lector. “Playing in the Caribbean was exciting for me. Their crowd, their cul-ture – I thoroughly enjoyed the West Indies. In fact that was Bangladesh’s maiden tour I should say. The perfor-mance of the team was also pretty good that time. So, I often recall memories of that tour,” he added.
Bashar also cherished memories of the 2007 ICC World Cup. For the � rst time in the global tournament’s histo-ry, Bangladesh progressed to the sec-ond stage in style defeating powerful neighbours India. In the second round the Tigers shocked the world again by beating South Africa.
“We went there nearly a month ear-ly and then played the World Cup. The contrast was totally di� erent compared to 2004,” he said.
“Personal achievements might have been limited but team-wise the results were fantastic. We were respected big-time throughout the Caribbean after the win against India. We became more like celebrities there. The taxi drivers, people in restaurants and almost everywhere – they used to get excited meeting us. That experience was amazing,” he added.
A 15-member Bangladesh side left Dhaka yesterday for the 38-day long tour of the Caribbean. The Tigers will begin their tour with the three-match ODI se-ries that will be followed by a lone Twen-ty20 international. Two Test matches will conclude their tour. The visitors will also play two warm-up games – one lim-ited-over tie and a three-day game.
A 15-member Bangladesh squad has already been announced for the ODIs. Following the ODI series and the soli-tary T20I, the squad for the Tests will be declared. l
National cricketer Anamul Haque’s mother is wishing her son well at the Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport yesterday night prior to the team’s departure for West Indies MUMIT M
From Tk200 to stardom n Mazhar Uddin
Five years ago in 2009 a lanky but good-looking teenager convinced a senior cricketer of his cricket academy to ‘hire’ him for a cricket match, or in other words, to take him for a ‘khep’ as it is popularly known as.
The senior cricketer in question is Rony Gope who had faith over the curious young fast bowler although he did harbour initial doubts
regarding the teenager’s ability to handle the pressure of playing with
seniors in a competitive match, which itself is no less of a pressure for anyone. On top of these, Gope also had to consider that the young kid will be playing as an outsider or ‘foreign player’ which traditionally means he has to perform well for the team or else a lot will be at stake.
Dear readers, Rony Gope was actually dealing
with none other than Taskin Ahmed, the latest fast bowling sensation of the country who was already playing for Bangladesh under-15 cricket team at that time. Typical of a pacer, the paceman had no fear to shy away from challenges which originate from playing with seniors in an alien environment.
It was a tough call to make for Rony, who was hired by a team for a Twenty20 match at Keraniganj, as he was still not convinced and therefore tried to put Taskin o� by saying he will only get Tk200. The attempt, however, proved to be a futile one as Taskin had other
ideas brewing in his mind when he replied,
“This is more than enough for me as I need Tk100 for my
transport allowance and the remaining 100 for my food.” This a� rmation just goes to show the extent of the determination of Taskin possessed from his formative years, which is so vital for any cricketer to succeed at the highest level.
So Rony agreed to take Taskin alongside him to play in the match at Keraniganj where the
youngster encountered another hiccup when the team o� cials objected to him playing citing his tender age. Thankfully for Taskin, Rony rescued him and was convinced enough himself by that time to persuade the team o� cials to allow Taskin to play.
It was enough for the 15-year old rookie to prove his mettle as he picked up two consecutive wickets in his very � rst over of the match and surprised the team o� cials as well as the large crowd who were present at the ground.
“I remember the match. I picked up two wick-ets in my � rst over and I also remember I got 200 hundred Taka for that match. At that time playing a T20 match with the white ball was a huge thing for me and I was never bothered about the mon-ey,” said Taskin to Dhaka Tribune before boarding the � ight for West Indies yesterday.
“There was a huge crowd who entered the � eld in the middle of the game and gave me 20 Taka, 50 Taka whenever I got a wicket. It is some-thing I had never witnessed before and it was an amazing experience,” he added.
All in all, the determination and insatiable hunger to play at any level of cricket were the
trademarks of the youngster from the very early stage of his career. Those attributes have later come more into fruition as the 19-year old has geared himself up for more exposure in his � rst ever tour with the national side.
This tale of digging deep into the genesis of Taskin as the new spearhead of the Tigers’ attack would be incomplete if his debut performances in T2O and ODI cricket are not recalled. Taskin showed the glimpses of his raw talent when he produced an impressive � gure of 1/24 in his T20 debut against Australia in the World T20 this year. However, the best was yet to come as he followed that up with a memorable ODI debut in the second match of the three match home series against India in June this year when he ripped through the visitors’ batting while bagging 5 wickets for just 28 runs from eight overs.
There is no doubting the fact that this West Indies series is potentially the biggest challenge of his career till date as he again � nds himself in an un-known territory which traditionally o� ers assistance to quicker bowlers. The fans of Bangladesh would be expecting Taskin would once again provide them with reasons to celebrate and bask in glory. l
Bangladesh carrom team’s last mission was in 2012 when the men’s side defeated Canada to � nish third in the World Carrom C’ship held in Colombo
MU
MIT
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DHAKA TRIBUNE14 Sport Thursday, August 14, 2014
RESULTChelsea (ENG) 2 0 Sociedad (ESP)Costa 1, 7
RESULTMan United (ENG) 2 1 Valencia (ESP)Fletcher 49, Moreno 71Fellaini 90+1
United bans laptops over security fears n AFP, London
English Premier League giants Man-chester United announced on Wednes-day they were banning supporters from bringing laptops and tablets into their Old Tra� ord stadium over security fears.
The three-time European champi-ons issued a statement on their o� cial website telling supporters that they would not be able to bring in any elec-tronic devices measuring more than 150mm x 100mm (6 inches x 4 inches), including laptops and tablet devices such as iPads and iPad minis.
“In line with UK airports we are reacting to the latest security intel-ligence,” said the statement. “These actions are designed to ensure the con-tinued safety and security of all spec-tators.”
United said the scale of the 75,000 capacity stadium, dubbed the “Theatre of Dreams”, and the club’s high pro� le meant Old Tra� ord was at “unique” risk.l
Martino takes reins of Argentinan Reuters, Buenos Aires
Argentina named former Barcelona coach Gerardo Martino as the new manager of the national soccer team on Tuesday following Alejandro Sabella’s decision to step aside in the wake of their World Cup � nal defeat in July.
Martino, who won the Argentine league title with Newell’s Old Boys in June 2013 before taking the reins at Barca, will make his debut in a Sept. 3 friendly against Germany in Duesseldorf.
The Germans beat Argentina 1-0 af-ter extra time in the World Cup � nal at Rio de Janeiro’s Maracana on July 13, after which Sabella decided against ac-cepting the o� er of a new contract from late AFA President Julio Grondona.
“The Rosario-born coach Gerardo Daniel Martino will take o� ce as the
new coach of the national team, suc-ceeding Mr Alejandro Sabella, who completed his contract with the AFA after the end of the World Cup Brazil 2014,” the Argentine FA (AFA) said in a statement on its o� cial website (www.afa.org.ar).
Martino was enjoying the early days of a sabbatical after a disappointing sea-son at Barcelona where he took the job left vacant when Tito Vilanova stepped down to undergo cancer treatment. Vilanova died in April at the age of 45.
He got o� to a good start at Barca but injuries to key players, including ham-string problems for Lionel Messi, saw the side stutter through the season and he re-signed after the club failed to win a major trophy for the � rst time in six years.
His failure with Barca did not seem to damage his reputation in Argentina,
where he is still highly regarded after having a successful club coaching ca-reer in Paraguay before returning to Rosario to steer Newell’s Old Boys to the league title in 2013.
After hearing from Sabella that he did not want to carry on, Grondona had planned to meet with the 51-year-old Martino to o� er him the job.
However, Grondona died of heart failure on July 30.
AFA Vice President Luis Segura took charge and the matter of appointing a new coach was postponed for more than a week.
Despite being critical about how the AFA was run a year ago, Grondona fa-voured Martino’s appointment because he had worked with Argentina captain Messi, also a Rosario native, and mid-� elder Javier Mascherano at Barca.l
Real � eld most expensive team in football history n Metro.uk
Real Madrid, the club well-known for breaking records, have � elded the most expensive starting XI in football histo-ry for their Uefa Super Cup victory over Sevilla on Tuesday.
The game at the Cardi� City Stadi-um saw Real boss Carlo Ancelotti send £382m worth of talent out to take on the Europa League winners, with the � rst piece of silverware of the new campaign up for grabs. And it was lit-tle surprise Real ran out 2-0 victors, thanks to a brace from £80m Cristiano Ronaldo, who was set up by £85m Ga-reth Bale and £27m Karim Benzema.
James Rodriguez, bought for £63m this summer following his Golden Boot performance at the World Cup, made his debut for the European champions.
The cheapest purchase in Real’s ranks was £5m defender Daniel Car-vajal, while Iker Casillas came through the youth ranks at the Bernabeu. l
Real reinforcements shine in Super Cup victory
n Reuters, Cardiff
Real Madrid ended a 12-year wait for a 10th European Cup win in May but it would be no surprise if their next title ar-rives just 12 months later based on their performance in the 2-0 victory over Sevil-la in the European Super Cup on Tuesday.
Carlo Ancelotti’s expensively assem-bled team dominated the lively annual European club season curtain-raiser against the Europa League winners in Cardi� and could easily have won by more than the two excellent goals scored by Cristiano Ronaldo.
With the Spanish League season starting on the weekend of Aug. 23-24, Ancelotti’s players have more than a week to hone their � tness and skill lev-els, to pose even more of a threat to both their domestic and European rivals.
Real go into the new season with an even stronger squad than the one that
� nished the last campaign when they won the Champions League and King’s Cup but � nished third behind Atletico Madrid and Barcelona in La Liga.
The squad has been bolstered by the arrivals of Toni Kroos from Bayern Munich, James Rodriguez from AS Mo-naco and goalkeeper Kayler Navas from Levante, an exciting trio of players who all shone at the World Cup.
In total, Ancelotti has around $840 million worth of talent at his disposal and perhaps one of his main tasks this coming season, as well as winning as many matches as possible, is to keep such an array of star players happy.
Ancelotti, however, seems totally at ease with the kind of problem that would cause plenty of headaches for most managers.
“It will be impossible for anyone to play in the 65 matches ahead of us,” the Italian said. l
Two-goal CR7 overtakes Messi on European goalsn Goal.com
Cristiano Ronaldo’s double for Real Madrid in their 2-0 win over Sevilla in the Uefa Super Cup on Tuesday saw the Portuguese reach 70 goals in European competition and overtake Barcelona forward Lionel Messi in the process.
Ronaldo was a full 18 strikes behind Messi in April of 2012, but has closed that gap after netting 12 and then a re-cord 17 in the last two editions of the Champions League - and his two goals on Tuesday mean he is now two ahead of the Argentine in the all-time list of European scorers.
The Portuguese now has 68 Champi-ons League goals and two in the Uefa Super Cup for a total of 70, which leaves him tied second in the list of scorers in continental competitions with former AC Milan and Juventus striker Filippo Inzaghi.
Ronaldo is now only six adrift of former Madrid team-mate Raul, who scored 76 times in Europe for Real and Schalke.
Messi, meanwhile, has scored 68 times in total, with 67 of those convert-ed in the Champions League and one in the Uefa Super Cup.
In total, Ronaldo has now netted 254 goals in 247 games for Real Madrid. l
Happy Van Gaal names Rooney as new captainn Reuters
New Manchester United manager Lou-is van Gaal has given England striker Wayne Rooney the role of team captain and made Scotland mid� elder Darren Fletcher his vice-captain.
“It is a huge honour for me - and for my family - to be named captain of this great club,” Rooney told Unit-ed’s website (www.manutd.com) after Van Gaal’s side beat Valencia 2-1 in a pre-season friendly at Old Tra� ord on Tuesday.l
Suarez to learn verdict on Thursday n AFP, Paris
Luis Suarez will � nd out on Thursday whether he has been successful in his appeal to have a four-month ban for biting Italy’s Giorgio Chiellini at the World Cup reduced.
The Uruguayan striker last week pleaded his case to the Swiss-based Court of Arbitration for Sport, which announced that it will deliver its ver-dict at 1300 GMT on Thursday.
“The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) will announce its decision in the matter Luis Suarez, FC Barcelona and the Uruguayan FA on Thursday 14 Au-gust 2014 at around 3pm (local time). This case was heard on 8 August 2014 at the CAS o� ces in Lausanne,” a state-ment released on Wednesday said.
“At the request of the Appellants and with the agreement of FIFA, the CAS has conducted an expedited arbitration procedure. As a consequence, the CAS Panel has accepted to render its deci-sion within a short period of time but with grounds to follow later.”l
Drogba returns to Stamford Bridge as Chelsea win n AFP, London
Jose Mourinho claims Chelsea’s Diego Costa will prove a bargain buy after the Spain striker marked his home debut with a clinical double in the 2-0 friend-ly win over Real Sociedad.
Mourinho splashed out £32 million ($53 million) to lure Costa from Span-ish champions Atletico Madrid and the
Blues boss is convinced even that hefty price tag will look cheap by the end of the season.
The 25-year-old certainly looks ca-pable of justifying Mourinho’s faith af-ter making a con� dent bow for his new club at Stamford Bridge.
He took just 57 seconds to open the scoring with a cool � nish from an acute angle and bagged his second with a tap-in after Andre Schurrle’s shot hit a post in the seventh minute.
As well as his goals, Mourinho was
also impressed with the way Costa linked with attacking mid� eld trio Schurrle, Eden Hazard and Cesc Fabregas, while working tirelessly to close down Socie-dad when they were in possession.
His qualities look ideally suited to the Premier League and Mourinho said: “Diego is a team player, he works a lot, he is not just about goals. He is about defensive work, his mentality, his am-bition.
“This is why we didn’t buy a striker in the last transfer window - we were waiting for him.
“He looks very adapted to his team-mates and the style of play.
“I won’t say he is adapted to the Pre-mier League yet because it is a very dif-� cult job to be a striker in this country, but hopefully he does well.
“You can consider that it is a bargain because the market is crazy.
Mourinho also revealed that Blues legend Didier Drogba, back from Galatasaray for a second tour of duty at the Bridge, could still recover from his ankle injury in time to feature against Burnley.
“Didier is good, I don’t want to say ready for Monday, but with the quali-ty of our medical department and the
mentally he has, I’m not saying it is im-possible for him to recover for Monday either,” he added. l
Real Madrid’s players celebrate on the pitch with the trophy after the Uefa Super Cup match against Sevilla at Cardi� City Stadium in Cardi� , south Wales on Tuesday. Cristiano Ronaldo upstaged new team-mates Toni Kroos and James Rodriguez and homecoming hero Gareth Bale as Real Madrid beat Sevilla 2-0 AFP
2014: Real Madrid (ESP)2013: Bayern Munich (GER)2012: Atletico Madrid (ESP)2011: Barcelona (ESP)2010: Atletico Madrid (ESP)2009: Barcelona (ESP)2008: Zenit Saint-Petersburg (RUS)2007: AC Milan (ITA)2006: Sevilla (ESP)2005: Liverpool (ENG)2004: Valencia (ESP)2003: AC Milan (ITA)2002: Real Madrid (ESP)2001: Liverpool (ENG)2000: Galatasaray (TUR)1999: Lazio (ITA)1998: Chelsea (ENG)
ROLL OF HONOUR
RESULTReal Madrid (ESP) 2 0 Sevilla (ESP)Ronaldo 30,49
Manchester United’s Marouane Fellaini (C) celebrates scoring the late winning goal with teammates during a pre-season friendly against Valencia at Old Tra� ord on Tuesday AFP
Chelsea’s Didier Drogba (2L) is seen on the pitch ahead of the pre-season football friendly match against Real Sociedad at Stamford Bridge in London on Tuesday AFP
SportDHAKA TRIBUNE 15Thursday, August 14, 2014
Ten Cricket10:30AM Pakistan Tour of Sri Lanka 20142nd Test, Day 1Star Sports 1, 2Pro Kabaddi League8:15PMBengaluru v Delhi9:30PMPune v Jaipur
Second women’s semi todayAbahani Limited will take on Khelaghar Samaj Kallyan today in the second semi� nal of the Metropolitan Women’s Cricket League 2014 at Sher-e-Bangla National Stadium. The winner will face Mohammedan Sporting Club Limited in the � nal on August 19 at the same venue. Mohammedan earlier sealed their passage to the � nal after defeat-ing Gulshan Youth Club by 99 runs (D/L method) at Mirpur on Tuesday.
–Tribune Desk
Qasim urges Pakistan to boost spin reserves Pakistan’s former spin great Iqbal Qasim on Wednesday urged the country’s cricket chiefs to groom more young slow bowlers after Saeed Ajmal was reported for suspect action. The umpires and match referee voiced concerns over a number of the 36-year-old o� -spinner’s deliveries during Paki-stan’s seven-wicket loss to Sri Lanka at Galle, which � nished on Sunday. Under International Cricket Council (ICC) rules, Ajmal is required to undergo tests within 21 days of the report. If biomechanical assessment of Ajmal’s action proves his action is illegal he will be banned, just like Sri Lanka’s Sachitra Senanayake and New Zealand’s Kane Williamson were last month.
–AFP
Liverpool con� rm Moreno set to signLiverpool have reached an agreement to sign Spain fullback Alberto Moreno from Sevilla, the Premier League club said in a statement on Tuesday. The 22-year-old defender, who has played three times for his country, will cost the An� eld club about 12 million pounds ($20.17 million) according to local media in Spain and En-gland. Moreno did not feature in Sevilla’s 2-0 loss to Real Madrid in their UEFA Super Cup clash in Cardi� on Tuesday but the Spanish club’s manager Unai Emery praised him after the match. “Yes he is going, but he leaves with our best wishes and we thank him for everything he has done for the club,” he said.
–Reuters
PSG without Silva for ‘several weeks’ Paris Saint-Germain captain Thiago Sil-va will be out for “several weeks” with the hamstring injury that forced him o� early in Monday’s friendly against Na-poli, the French champions con� rmed on Wednesday. “Tests undergone by Thiago Silva yesterday (ultrasound and MRI) have con� rmed an injury to his right hamstring. He will be unavailable for several weeks,” read a statement on PSG’s website. The Brazilian cen-tre-back lasted just 12 minutes of Mon-day’s 2-1 win in Italy before having to come o� after back-heeling the ball in his own penalty box. He is now unlikely to return until after the international break at the start of September, mean-ing he will miss Ligue 1 games against SC Bastia, Evian and Saint-Etienne and probably Brazil’s friendlies in the United States next month against Colombia and Ecuador. However, PSG will hope that he is able to return in time for the start of the Champions League group stage on September 16 or 17.
–AFP
Japan, Iran sign ‘partnership’ deal Asian champions Japan and rival Iran have struck a deal to cooperate in promoting football at home, with a focus on the women’s game, the Japan Football Association (JFA) announced Wednesday. The so-called partnership agreement would see the countries share and exchange personnel, including coaches and referees, as well cooperate in areas such as sports medicine and professional league management. The association said it signed the deal with its Iranian counterpart in Tehran on Tuesday with plans to work together on “invigorating women’s football,” as Iran reportedly plans to launch a female league next month. Japan won the 2011 women’s World Cup as the � rst Asian na-tion to lift the global football trophy for either sex, having come a long way since it launched a women’s league in 1989.
–AFP
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DAY’S WATCH
Bangladesh keep on winning in World Chess n Tribune Desk
The Bangladesh open chess side and women’s team on Monday posted their second successive victories in their 10th round of games in the 41st World Chess Olympiad which is being held in Tromso, Norway.
Bangladesh defeated El Salvador comfortably by 3.5-0.5 points in the penultimate round of games in the open section. Grandmaster Abdullah Al Rakib beat Fide Master Arias Daniel, GM Enamul Hossain Razib beat IM Bur-gos Figueroa Carlos, IM Minhazuddin Ahmed Sagar beat FM Chavez Ricardo Ernesto and GM Ziaur Rahman drew with IM Arias Lemnys of El Salvador. The Bangladesh open team earned 12 match points and 24 game points after the end of the 10th round.
Meanwhile in the women’s sec-tion, Bangladesh defeated IBCA by 3-1 points. WIM Shamima Akter Liza beat Zsiltzova Lisenko Lubor, WIM Rani
Hamid beat Valner Sha� ga and WFM Sharmin Sultana Shirin beat Zaru-binskaya Irina. WFM Nazrana Khan Eva lost to Stolarczyk Anna.
The Bangladesh women now have 10 match points and 22 game points out of 10 matches.l
Captain Misbah backs Ajmal to come clean on suspect actionn Reuters, Colombo
Pakistan are not worried about Saeed Ajmal’s reporting for a suspect bowl-ing action and are con� dent that the ace o� -spinner will be cleared, captain Misbah-ul-Haq said.
Match o� cials reported Ajmal to the International Cricket Council (ICC) for a suspect bowling action following the � rst Test defeat by Sri Lanka in Galle but is permitted to bowl until his bowl-ing is scrutinized further.
The 36-year-old, who has taken 174 wickets in 34 Tests at an average of 27.79, was also reported for the same o� ence in 2009 but was later cleared by the ICC.
“As far as the main bowler Saeed Ajmal is concerned it has been done before and that’s not a worry for us,” Misbah told reporters on the eve of the
second Test in Colombo.“He’s been through this process be-
fore and I hope he will be � ne. We will just concentrate on our game and look forward to playing good cricket and try to win this Test.”
Misbah blamed the lack of con-sistency from his side for their sev-en-wicket loss at Galle.
“We played well in patches. On and o� we performed well and we lacked consistency and could not win every session,” the 40-year-old said.
“We want to make sure in this Test it doesn’t happen with our batting and back ourselves with good bowling and � elding. We have to improve in all de-partments.”
The Pakistan bowlers struggled to bowl the hosts out in Galle but the cap-tain backed his bowlers to come good.
“Their batsmen know these condi-tions very well. Players like Kumar San-gakkara, who is world class and in good form, when he gets set it will be very di� cult for any team to handle their bowlers,” said Misbah.
“These are the reasons why it’s not easy to get these batsmen out in good batting conditions.
“We should not always blame our bowlers in good batting conditions, sometimes you play into the hands of the batsmen.”
Sangakkara scored his tenth double hundred in Sri Lanka’s � rst innings to move second to Don Bradman in the all-time list of Test double centuries.
Misbah was also aware that getting the wicket of Mahela Jayawardene, who will play his � nal test, would be crucial for his side.l
Djokovic outlasts Simon to advance at Cincinnati n AFP, Cincinnati
Novak Djokovic pulled his champi-onship tennis back together after last week’s early exit, beating Gilles Simon 6-3, 4-6, 6-4 to reach the third round of the ATP-WTA Cincinnati Masters here Tuesday.
The world number one was am-bushed at the same stage in Toron-to a week ago by eventual champion Jo-Wilfried Tsonga.
But Djokovic made sure he did not commit the same error twice as he be-gan a bid to win the only Masters 1000 title missing from his resume. But he was tested by his French opponent, who took Tuesday’s contest into a � nal set.
“He’s not going to give you too many unforced errors and free points, so I knew that,” Djokovic said. “But I man-aged to get a win in the end, and that’s what matters.”
Djokovic went down a service break in the opening set but got it back and added another to take the early lead. In the second set, he went up a break for 2-1 but could not stay the course. A break for 4-3 in the third kept him on the road to recovery.
He ended on his second match point after more than two hours.
Four-time Cincinnati � nalist Djokovic improved his record over France’s Simon to 8-1. He is playing the pre-US Open Masters tournament for the tenth time.
In the only other second-round match played, Australian Open winner Stan Wawrinka was broken while serv-ing for victory but pulled out a win over German Benjamin Becker 6-3, 7-6 (7/5).
Toronto winner Tsonga crashed back down to earth in his opening match, losing 6-1, 6-4 to Russian Mikhail Youzhny.l
Emotional Sri Lanka eye winning farewell for Jayawardene n AFP, Galle
Sri Lanka are determined to send for-mer captain Mahela Jayawardene into retirement with a victory in the sec-ond and � nal Test starting Thursday against a fragile Pakistan and a 2-0 se-ries sweep.
Captain Angelo Mathews said emo-tions were running high in the home team’s dressing room before the match at Jayawardene’s home ground at the Sinhalese Sports Club (SSC) in Colombo.
“It is an emotional moment for ev-eryone,” Mathews said. “We want to win it for him. He has been the pillar of strength for us for so many years. We will miss him a lot.
“The best thing we can do is try and win the game and give him the best farewell that we could possibly give him.”
Jayawardene, 37, who has already retired from Twenty20 internationals,
will quit the longer format after the Test, even though he will continue playing in one-day matches till next year’s World Cup Down Under.
The elegant right-hander is one of only � ve batsmen to score more than 11,000 runs in both Test and one-day cricket -- the others being Sachin Ten-dulkar, Ricky Ponting, Jacques Kallis and team-mate Kumar Sangakkara.
Sri Lanka won the � rst Test in Gal-le on Sunday by seven wickets after a nail-biting chase when they beat fad-ing light to surpass the target of 99 in the � nal session just before heavy rain drenched the ground.
Jayawardene’s farewell Test was originally scheduled to be played at the P. Sara Oval in Colombo before thoughtful o� cials moved it to the SSC.
Jayawardene’s 2,863 runs in 26 Tests at the SSC are the most by any batsman at a single ground, highlighted by an average of 77.37 there with 11 centuries
that include a best of 374 against South Africa in 2006.
Last month, against Hashim Amla’s South African team, Jayawardene hit a � uent 165 at the SSC to show his skills had not diminished.
He goes into his � nal Test after mak-ing 59 in the � rst innings at Galle and a quick� re 26 in the unfamiliar role of an opener during the chase.
Mathews hoped his team would not be distracted from its aim of sweeping the series.
“When you walk into a game, you want to win all the time,” he said. “That’s the attitude we take, regard-less of what’s happening around us. We want to keep our focus and play it for Mahela.”
The Galle Test was heading for a draw after just 20 wickets had fallen on the � rst four days, before a six-wicket burst from Rangana Herath skittled Pa-kistan for 180 in the second innings.
Pakistan were handed a severe blow on Monday when the International Cricket Council said star o� -spinner Saeed Ajmal had been reported for a suspect action for the second time in his career.
Ajmal, 36, who has taken 174 wickets in 34 Tests, has been allowed to play on till he is tested at the end of the month.
Pakistan captain Misbah-ul Haq said he was con� dent Ajmal’s action will be cleared and hoped his team can level the series - just like they did against the same opponents in the United Arab Emirates in January.
“We have to forget what happened in Galle and concentrate on the game ahead,” he said. “We have done it be-fore. Anything can happen in cricket.
“We played well in patches in Galle. We batted well in the � rst innings but could not repeat that in the second. Being consistent is one area where we have to improve.” l
Jayawardene a rare brand of cricketer, says Mathewsn Reuters, Colombo
Cricketers like Mahela Jayawardene come around very rarely and younger players in the team have a lot to learn from his � ghting attitude, Sri Lanka captain Angelo Mathews said on the eve of the veteran batsman’s last Test match.
The second Test against Pakistan starting on Thursday will be an emo-tional one for Sri Lanka and Jayawar-dene as the 37-year-old bids farewell to Test cricket as one of its proli� c run-scorers.
“As we all know, it’s going to be Ma-hela’s last game. It’s an emotional mo-ment for everyone... we want to win it for him,” Mathews told reporters on Wednesday.
“When you walk into a game, we want to win all the time, that’s the atti-tude we take, regardless of what’s hap-pening around. We want to keep our focus and play it for Mahela.
“It will take a long time to replace him because he’s the kind of player that comes around very rarely. We can’t do his service justice with words.
“As a team we’re very sad he’s retir-ing. The best thing we can do is play well in this match and win it for him.”.
Mathews said the team especially the younger players will miss Jayawar-dene’s presence in the dressing room.
Jayawardene will be playing in his 149th Test match, the most by a Sri Lankan cricketer.
“Mahela is a real � ghter. If you go into a warm-up match with him, he’ll still try to � ght and win. That’s the kind of character he is, he’s an unbelievable player,” Mathews added.
“He puts options on the table and he’s the most senior guy in the team, and we’re going to miss him so much. The younger guys, including me, have learned so much from him.
“Up to now, he has supported me right throughout from day one, and I’m really thankful to him for that.”
Sri Lanka won the � rst Test of the two-match series by seven wickets at Galle. l
Sri Lankan cricketer Mahela Jayawardene smiles at teammates as he attends a practice session on the eve of their second Test against Pakistan, which is also his � nal Test, in Colombo, Sri Lanka yesterday. Jayawardene, has 11,756 runs from 250 Test innings and has posted 34 Test centuries and 49 half centuries AP
Novak Djokovic of Serbia signs autographs for fans following a match against Gilles Simon of France on day 4 of the Western & Southern Open in Cincinnati, Ohio on Tuesday AFP
As we all know, it’s going to be Mahela’s last game. It’s an emotional moment for everyone... we want to win it for him
Bangladesh defeated El Salvador comfortably by 3.5-0.5 points in the penultimate round of games in the open section
16 Back PageDHAKA TRIBUNE Thursday, August 14, 2014
Posh area businesses without licence bustedMobile court unearths many more irregularities in restaurants of Gulshan, Bananin Adil Sakhawat
Many businessmen had been operating businesses in the capital’s Gulshan and Banani areas without having any trade licence, a mobile court of the Dhaka North City Corporation revealed yes-terday.
A drive led by Nuruzzaman Sharif, regional executive o� cer (area 3) and executive magistrate of the DNCC mo-bile court, also found unhygienic con-ditions in some restaurants in those areas.
Islamia Pharmacy in Gulshan 2 area has no trade licence, drug licence or approval of the Bangladesh Standards and Testing Institute (BSTI) for selling baby food.
Owner of the pharmacy Oli Ullah Sarker could not show any documents
and was � ned Tk5,000 for the irregu-larities.
Al Madina Pharmacy and many oth-er stores, including Gazi General Store, also did not have trade licences. They sell baby food, soft drinks and other daily goods without any approval of the BSTI.
The magistrate told the Dhaka Trib-une that if any businessman wanted to sell foreign products, they must bring those through authorised importers. “But these shops could not provide me with any documents regarding their selling of foreign products or trade li-cence for operating their business.”
Khalil Hamdy who was buying some products during the raid from Isla-mia General Store said: “I came here to buy powdered milk for my baby. I regularly buy my daily necessities
from this shop. But I was astonished to know that I buy these products for my 10-month-old daughter and these do not have approval!”
The magistrate also � ned those shop owners for encroaching on the footpaths in front of their business place illegally.
In Banani area, the team found many restaurants serving food pre-pared in unhygienic condition.
The kitchen of Rice and Noodles, a restaurant in the area, was found un-hygienic. The workers cooked without wearing any gloves or clean clothes. It was also found that the food items were cooked with expired ingredients.
The mobile court � ned the restau-rant owner Tk10,000. The manager later said: “This is our mistake. We will not do this in future.”
A customer named Jyoti Mahmud
told the Dhaka Tribune: “We custom-ers never enter the kitchens and so we are not aware about the environment there. But they charge the customers higher prices regularly.”
Another restaurant named Deshi Shad was found to be operating with-out a licence for Banani area. The trade licence they have was issued for Na-khalpara area.
The mobile court also found that the restaurant was using arti� cial colour and unhygienic ingredients. For the of-fences, the magistrate � ned the owner Tk15,000.
Magistrate Sharif said: “Serving cus-tomers food in unhygienic condition and using arti� cial ingredients in pre-paring food is a clear violation of the related safe food ordinance.”
The mobile court also found many
businesses operating in residential ar-eas without any approval of the city corporation.
Posh N Pink, a fashion house, oper-ates in a residential building in Banani. When the team asked for papers for us-ing a residential place for commercial purpose, owner Farhad Hossain failed to do so. He showed his trade licence but it was not issued for residential areas.
Then the team � ned the shop Tk10,000.
Sharif told the Dhaka Tribune: “A syndicate working with the city cor-poration is providing the businessmen fake trade licence in exchange of bribes. We are trying to identify the miscreants and the businessmen.”
He said they would continue con-ducting such sudden mobile courts in these up scale areas. l
Mozena: No change in US policy overJan 5 polln Sheikh Ahahariar Zaman
US Ambassador Dan Mozena yesterday said Dhaka and Washington have no political gap but it has not changed its policy over January 5 election.
US statement on January 6, US State Department Assistant Secretary Nisha Desai Biswal testimonies on February 11 and April 30 and the US Ambassador designate to Bangladesh Marcia Ste-phens Bloom Bernicat testimony on July 17 are the US policy, Mozena said.
“They are all identical. There is no change and there is no gap [between Bangladesh and US relationship,” he said in responding to a question on po-litical gap between the two countries.
He was talking with journalists after having a meeting with Foreign Secre-tary Md Shahidul Haque at the Foreign Ministry.
The US issued a statement on Jan-uary 6 and expressed discontent over the polls where candidates were elect-ed unopposed in more than half of the 300 seats and voter turnout was low.
Bernicat at her testimony before Senate Foreign Relations Committee praised Bangladesh but termed the election “undeniably � awed”.
She also said that the US felt Bang-ladesh’s main political parties urgently need to engage in constructive dia-logue that leads to a more representa-tive government.
Asked about the criticism of the Bernicat’s statement by some Awami League leaders, Mozena said: “People say what they want to say.”
“I wish people read her testimony that is extremely comprehensive and very very balanced and re� ected the continuing US policy,” Mozena said.
He said he thought his successor would get con� rmation to be the next ambassador from the Senate by July 31 but it did not happen as the Senate is going on recess.
“Subsequently I was asked by the State Department to stay on and I will,” he said.
About his meeting with the foreign secretary, Mozena said: “I updated him about the whole series of military to military exercises that is coming up in August and September.”
They also discussed about third partnership dialogue to be held in Washington where Bangladesh side will be led by the foreign secretary and US side will be US State Department Under Secretary Wendy Sherman in October.
About the statement of the for-eign ministry on US Secretary of State John Kerry’s visit to Dhaka, he said: “I don’t have con� rmation about that.Of course, I would love to have that happen.” l
Plane crash kills Brazil’s Campos n Tribune Report
Eduardo Cam-pos, presidential candidate from Brazilian Social-ist Party, died in a plane crash yes-terday.
The plane carrying him
crashed in a residential area of Santos in Sao Paulo, reports BBC. Locals said it was raining at the time of the crash.
It was � ying from Santos Dumont airport to Guaruja when hit by bad weather. All the nine people including two pilots and his entourage on board died in the accident that took place at 9:50am local time, reports A Folha de S Paulo, a local newspaper.
The former governor of Pernambuco state was running third in the polls for October’s election. l
BR employees are land occupiers, admits DGn Kamran Reza Chowdhury
The allegation that railway sta� ers were collaborating with railway prop-erty grabbers is not a new one and the authorities hardly admit such practices.
However, on Tuesday, the author-ities admitted that the railway em-ployees had been aiding in the illegal occupation of Bangladesh Railway (BR) land. The employees have been erect-ing illegal structures on the occupied railway land and renting those out to tenants for money.
The railway quarters had turned into a “stable” since the railway employees’ were building unapproved structures on the land adjacent to their assigned quarters and were competing for ten-ants to occupy these structures, Tafaz-zal Hossain, the railway director general (DG), said at a meeting of the parliamen-tary standing committee on railways.
While discussing the extent of the il-legal occupation, the director general expressed his department’s helpless-ness to remove the unapproved and makeshift houses due to their strong connections with politicians and MPs.
He said the BR would not succeed in clearing out the unwanted struc-tures unless the MPs and the ministers backed the authorities.
“The railway colony in Shahja-hanpur (Dhaka) was one of the most beautiful residential areas in Dhaka. But now you will not rate it as a live-able place; it has turned into a living place for cattle. The employees, who received allotments of 200-square-foot quarters, occupy 800 to 1,000 square feet of the land adjoining their houses and beyond,” Tafazzal told the meeting when the MPs asked him about the in-volvement of BR sta� ers in helping the people to grab railway land.
They make small compartments on the land and rent it out to outsiders, he explained.
“They earn much larger amounts than their monthly salaries from the
rent. When we proceed to evict them, they turn to the local MPs and politi-cians and receive support from them,” said the director general in the pres-ence of the Minister for Railways, Mazi-bul Haque, who is also a member of the 10-member watchdog body.
At the railway DG’s o� ce, there were some employees who allegedly maintained strong political connec-tions with very in� uential leaders of both the Awami League and the BNP.
“They even threaten us if we try to transfer them,” he said.
Tafazzal Hossain told the Dhaka Tribune that he said this in the meeting at the parliament building.
He told the meeting that BR author-ities had proof of the involvement of many BR o� cials in aiding the illegal occupation of land in di� erent parts of the country.
“They will not get support from the minister or from me. We can assure you that no one will interfere in your move to clear o� the structures. If anyone obstructs your work, then tell them to talk to me or to the minister,” ABM Fazle Karim Chowdhury, the standing committee chairman, told the DG in the presence of the Dhaka Tribune reporter.
“We will evict them very soon,” Taf-azzal assured the chairman.
The standing committee then rec-ommended the eviction of all the illegal land occupiers and the transferring of the employees who had occupied land.
The documents presented at the watchdog meeting show that BR held more than 61,605 acres of land across the country, of which over 13,000 acres had been leased out. A huge portion of the land was under illegal occupation.
BR’s land survey project in limboIn June 2007, the BR assigned a private � rm to implement the “Land Survey and Preparation of Land Use Plan of Railway Land in Bangladesh,” aimed at prepar-ing a report to show the state of rail-way properties across the country. The survey report would also � nd out how much of the land was illegally occupied.
The project was supposed to be � n-ished by June 2009. But despite sev-en time extensions, the project had achieved an implementation level of just 68% as of June 2014.
Tafazzal told the meeting that the survey company had been given a deadline to � nish the project by De-cember this year. l
Another Tazreen factory � re victim diesn Our Correspondent, Savar
Another victim of Tazreen � re died yesterday, after � ghting for her life for nearly two years.
Amena Begum, the victim of the � re, died early morning yesterday in Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University (BSMMU) where she was re-ceiving treatment.
Amena worked on the � fth � oor of Tazreen Fashion. When the � re broke out on her � oor, she saw her co-work-ers being burnt alive and to save her
life she jumped from the � fth � oor. She broke her bones in her hand, feet and waist from the jump.
For the � rst few days she received treatment from the hospital, but her family could a� ord to keep her there, so they brought her home in Nischin-tapur in Ashulia and looked after her there.
When her condition deteriorated a few days ago, she was again admitted to BSMMU, where she died on Wednes-day morning.
When her body was brought to Nis-
chintapur, the locals and her former colleagues came to see her one last time and many of them broke down in tears.
Amina’s husband Abul Hossain said: “I don’t know what to say to our chil-dren. I did my best to provide her with proper treatment.
After the tragedy, many people as-sured us of help, but all of them were hollow promises.”
Many of her colleagues said other victims of the � re, like Amina, are pass-ing away one by one, after su� ering
unbearable pain, without proper treat-ment. Nobody cares for them, and the union leaders are only good with clever words, the workers complained.
Around 11pm, an ambulance took Amina’s body to her village in Lalmon-irhat, where she would be buried, the deceased’s relatives told to the Dhaka Tribune.
On November 24, 2012 a devas-tating � re broke out in Tazreen Gar-ments which killed at least 112 workers,and injured more than two hundred severely. l
Bills to amend CHT laws sent back for anti-peace deal moven Kamran Reza Chowdhury
The parliamentary body tasked to � -nalise recommendations on three draft laws on three hill districts criticised the Chittagong Hill Tracts Ministry for not initiating the laws in line with the 1997 peace deal.
While discussing the three draft laws – Rangamati Parbatya Zilla Parishad (amendment) Bill, Khagrachhari Par-batya Zilla Parishad (amendment) Bill and Bandarban Parbatya Zilla Parishad (amendment) Bill – the parliamentary standing committee on Chittagong Hill Tracts yesterday refrained from mak-ing recommendations for procedural lapses by the ministry.
According to the parliamentary rules, the three bills must not be passed without the recommendations of the watchdog.
The draft laws the state minister Bir Bahadur U Shei Ching tabled in parlia-ment on July 1 were aimed at amending
similar laws passed in 1989 governing the three hill districts.
“We have not � nalised the bills to-day [Wednesday]; we have suggested the ministry discuss [with the hill lead-ership],” Kujendra Lal Tripura, Awami League MP and committee member, told the Dhaka Tribune.
“This is better to have discussion [with the hill leadership] before pas-sage of the laws,” he said.
In 1989, the government passed three laws – Rangamati Parbatya Zilla Parishad Act, Khagrachhari Parbatya Zilla Parishad Act and Bandarban Par-batya Zilla Parishad Act. In line with the laws elections to the three district councils took place in 1989. Since then no election has taken place.
On May 24, 2009, the government annulled the 10-year-old district coun-cils, inserting a section into the original laws. The section authorised the gov-ernment to form � ve-member unelect-ed interim district councils.
The latest three bills have proposed increasing the members of the interim councils tasked with supervising the activities of 23 agencies transferred in line with the 1997 peace accord.
The government peace agreement with the Parbattya Chattagram Jana Sang-hati Samity has stipulated that the authorities must consult the district councils and the regional council to bring any change to the laws relating to the Chittagong Hill Tracts.
Ushatan Talukder, independent MP from Rangamati and member of the standing committee, raised the proce-dural lapses involving the bill.
The chairman, RAM Obaidul Muk-
tadir, then sought clari� cation from the ministry o� cials attending the meeting. One of the o� cials said the amendment bills were “not law mak-ing,” prompting a deputy secretary of the parliament secretariat to refute it.
“They must be consulted,” said the chairman, before asking the ministry to have talks with the hill leadership.
Opposing initiation of the bills with-out discussion, Ushaton earlier told the Dhaka Tribune increasing the num-ber of interim councils meant that the there would be no election to the local government bodies.
The amendments propose increas-ing the members of the interim coun-cils tasked with supervising the activ-ities of 23 agencies transferred in line with the 1997 peace accord.
According to the proposals made in three separate bills, the government will form three 11-member interim councils for each of the districts in-stead of present � ve-member bodies.
Rangamati District Council will con-sist of a chairman and 10 other mem-bers: three from Chakma and three from non-tribal people, one from Mar-ama, one from Kheyang and or Lusai, one from Tanchangya, and one from Tripura.
Khagrachhari district council will have one chairman, three members from Chakma and three from non-trib-al people, two from Marma and two from Tripura.
One chairman, three members from non-tribal members, two members from Marma, one from Tanchangya or Chakma, one from Mro, one from Tri-pura, one from Chak, Kheyang or Khu-mi, and one from Bom, Lusai or Pankhu will constitute the Banderban district council.
Hill people allege that the government had been amending the laws “to nominate its own people to the district councils bypassing the long due elections.” l
Some employees allegedly maintain strong political connections with very in� uential leaders of the AL and the BNP
Even though they are the reason why many children will be able to celebrate special occasions with the juvenile joy of playing with balloons, poverty has forced 11-year-old Rakib, wearing a shirt in the picture, and 13-year-old Sumon to work in sweatshop conditions at a balloon factory in the capital’s Kamrangirchar. To support their families, both children have to work from 7am to 5pm, six-days-a-week, only to earn a meagre Tk2,000 each month. Although they are surrounded all day with colourful balloons, Rakib and Sumon have little colours existing in their lives. None of them goes to school or has any time to play games as they struggle to make a living
MAHMUD HOSSAIN OPU
‘This is better to have discussion [with the hill leadership] before passage of the laws’
Editor: Zafar Sobhan, Published and Printed by Kazi Anis Ahmed on behalf of 2A Media Limited at Dainik Shakaler Khabar Publications Limited, 153/7, Tejgaon Industrial Area, Dhaka-1208. Editorial, News & Commercial O� ce: FR Tower, 8/C Panthapath, Shukrabad, Dhaka 1207. Phone: 9132093-94, Advertising: 9132155, Circulation: 9132282, Fax: News-9132192, e-mail: [email protected], [email protected], Website: www.dhakatribune.com
www.dhakatribune.com/business THURSDAY, AUGUST 14, 2014
B3 China’s July economic data points to further softness
B4 Japan su� ers biggest economic slump since 2011
AkzoNobel India plans to set up plant in Bangladeshn Kayes Sohel
Paint manufacturer AkzoNobel India plans to set up a plant in Bangladesh with local conglomerate ACI Formu-lations Limited in next two to three years.
The plant will produce Dulux brand – a product of decorative paint now being marketed in Bangladesh by ACI Formulation, a subsidiary of conglomerate ACI Ltd.
Executive director of consumer brands, ACI Ltd, Sayed Alamgir said: “We are working on manufacturing the Akzo brands in Bangladesh.”
Initially, AkzoNobel will use the ex-isting facility of the ACI Formulations to produce its brands on tolling ar-rangement, he said.
“If it is successful, the company might go for establishing a manufac-turing unit in Bangladesh,” he said.
ACI Formulations currently distrib-
utes the Dulux brand in the country in the last seven to eight months.
The company is now into crop pro-tection chemicals, mosquito pesticides and household chemicals had its lin-eage in erstwhile ICI Bangladesh Man-ufacturers Ltd.
After ICI exiting business in Bangla-desh, a former Chairman of ICI took over the company and renamed it as Advanced Chemical Industries (ACI) Ltd in May 1992.
Earlier, AkzoNobel, a leading global paints and a major producer of special-ty chemicals, had entered into a tolling agreement with ACI to supply the raw materials and formulations to be man-ufactured by the proposed Bangladesh entity.
AkzoNobel India Managing Director Jayakumar Krishnaswamy told Indi-an media on Monday that Bangladesh market was growing at a CAGR (com-pound annual growth rate) of 8% to 9%
during last three to four years. He said ACI Formulation Ltd has a
capacity to produce around 2m litres of paints. “At the initial phase, we would use the facility to produce Akzo brands on fee-based tolling. If the experiment is successful and we are able to make a dent, then we would consider invest-ment in having a capacity of seven to eight million litres at a later stage.”
In September, Akzo revived the Du-lux brand in Bangladesh through ACI’s distribution network. “In the next 36 months, we hope to grab 5% market share in Bangladesh. We are beginning with decorative paints. Later on, we would be looking for industrial paints markets too in Bangladesh,” Krishnas-wamy said.
He said the company had spent Rs240 crore in last three years for set-ting up a new unit in Gwalior and in other places like Bangalore and Hyder-abad of India. l
Committee okays $1.5bn hard-term loans n Tribune Report
The government will take hard-term loans of more than $1.5bn to imple-ment development projects as well as maintain uninterrupted fuel oil im-ports after it failed to get soft credits from multiateral donors like World Bank and Asian Development Bank.
Hard-term loans committee ap-proved the proposals at a meeting yes-terday presided over by Finance Minis-ter AMA Muhith.
Of them, Power Division proposals in-clude construction of 275-megawatt thermal power plant at Barapukuria and 365-megawatt combined power plant at Ghorashal.
It proposed to take around $450m loan at 6% interest rate from the Chi-nese Industrial and Commercial Bank to implement the two power projects.
The division sent the proposals to Economic Relations Division which, however, failed to convince the multi-lateral donors to bankroll the projects which are considered crucial in the power-starved country.
Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation (BPC) had its proposal approved to take a record $900m suppliers’ credit from four companies of the East Asian coun-
tries to import fuel oils. Petco-Malaysia, Petro-China, PNOC-
EC of the Philippines and Unipec of Sin-gapore have agreed to provide $300m, $250m, $200m and $150m respectively in the current � scal year in this regard.
BPC, which is struggling to meet surging demand of oil of more than 5m tonnes, three-times higher in less than � ve years, due to costly and oil guz-zling rental power plants, will import the oils. The annual fuel import bill has now reached $6bn.
Proposals from local government division were to get $150m and $40m loans from the ADB and OPEC fund re-spectively. These loans will be taken at high interest rate to implement the Third Urban Governance and Infra-structure Improvement project.
Held at the � nance ministry, the meeting was attended by Bangladesh Bank Governor Atiur Rahman, Finance Secretary Mahbub Ahmed, Economic Relations Division Secretary Moham-mad Mejbahuddin and Banking Divi-sion Secretary M Aslam Alam.
Experts said the surge in hard-term and suppliers’ credits over the last few years would push up the country’s for-eign debt repayment bill to over $2bn in the coming � scal year.
The government had to pay $1.13bn in last � scal year to meet debt obli-gations against foreign loans worth $59.31bn taken from the country’s bi-lateral and multilateral donors since Independence. The rate of interest for soft loan is 1%, but more than 6% annu-ally for the hard-term loans.
Experts said the government relied on hard-term loans due to falling aids from the donors. The interest rate and condi-tions of such loans are sti� , they said. l
International hotels awarded duty rebate once again n Tribune Report
The National Board of Revenue (NBR) has once again o� ered tax bene� ts for the construction of the international standard luxury hotels in the country, allowing the interested investors to im-port capital machinery including plas-tic, wood and steel-made equipments by paying only 5% customs duty.
The board had earlier in April this year exempted the posh hotel build-ers from all the taxes, but 5% customs duty on the import of materials like ex-terior-interior decorations, kitchen and cooking equipment, building security equipment, � re-safety tools, electric-ity substation machinery, lighting and health club materials.
The board again exempted the en-trepreneurs from paying taxes for the import of dunnage rack (plastic), steel sink, kitchen hood exceeding 120 CFM, RFID encoder, RFID key covered with hotel logo, wooden height box, height
box, chair and steel furniture, accord-ing to a Statutory Regulatory Order (SRO) issued last week.
The exemption is to attract invest-ment in the potential tourism and hos-pitality sector, said an o� cial of NBR.
The NBR has � nalised the list of the materials for giving tax bene� ts through discussions with the o� cials of the civil aviation and tourism minis-try and Board of Investment (BoI).
According to o� cials, this exemp-tion will be given only to the franchise of international chain hotels and local hotels of international standards to be certi� ed by the tourism ministry. These facilities will be available only after the interested companies can obtain quali-ty certi� cation from the ministry con-cerned.
To get these tax bene� ts, the en-trepreneurs will have to show all the agreement documents signed with the international chain luxury hotel com-panies.
For local luxury hotels of interna-tional standards, they will have to sub-mit VAT payment certi� cates and ap-provals from the Board of Investment.
Tax bene� ts will remain e� ective only during the construction work of the hotels and will also continue until the commercial launching of the hotels.
As the number of foreign visitors and businessmen has been increased in recent times while Bangladesh hosted a series of international sporting events like T-20 World Cup Cricket tourna-ment, the investors are keen to build and expand their luxury hotel business in the country.
The NBR had earlier made a decision for providing tax break to the investors in tourism sector as many hotels in-cluding Sea Pearl Beach Resort and Spa Ltd in Cox’s Bazar, Radisson Bay View Hotel in Chittagong, Hotel La Rose in Sylhet requested the NBR for the tax cut to help them in promoting hospi-tality sector. l
Consumer loan terms liberalised Banks burdened with huge idle money allowed to raise auto loan limit to Tk40 lakh
n Jebun Nesa Alo
The loan limit as well as debt to equity ratio for purchasing vehicles has been increased to encourage purchasing ve-hicles, apparently liberalising the con-sumer credit regime.
Bangladesh Bank (BB) raised the conditions of consumer � nancing with the immediate e� ect considering the present market price and consumer demand for vehicles, said a circular is-sued yesterday.
It instructed the commercial banks now burdened with huge excess liquid-ity to increase their exposure to con-sumer � nancing – individuals would now be entitled to get up to Tk40 lakh of auto loan, double than the exiting ceiling of Tk20 lakh.
Borrowers’ equity has also been liberalised to 50% of the vehicle price from 70%. Banks would now � nance half the amount of the total vehicle price and the borrowers will pay the rest half, which was earlier 70%.
Bankers said this is apparently the � rst step towards liberalising the con-sumer � nancing conditions to help bail out the commercial banks burdened with huge idle money.
The central bank had tightened the
conditions in January 2012 to curb credit � ow to the unproductive sectors.
“It would help push up the amount of small credit … it would be helpful for the banks,” Pubali Bank Managing Director Helal Ahmed Chowdhury told the Dhaka Tribune yesterday.
The decision has been made to boost the credit growth although the central bank always discourages the loan in� ow to the unproductive sector.
It, however, has increased the con-sumer loan ratio against the backdrop of the slower credit growths, said a se-nior executive of Bangladesh Bank.
Earlier, on January 22, 2012, Ban-gladesh Bank had set the loan margin ratio at 30:70 for car loans and all other consumer � nancing from the previous ratio of 50:50 to discourage lending to the unproductive sector.
Consumer � nancing registered about 11% negative growth in Octo-ber-December quarter last year com-pared to more than 18% growth in the preceding quarter, according to Ban-gladesh Bank data.
It, however, witnessed a substantial growth of 32% in January-March quar-ter last year compared to the negative growth of 5% in the preceding quarter as all the banks had disbursed con-
sumer loans aggressively amid lack of credit demand from the industrial sec-tor, said a senior executive of a private bank.
Industrial term loan decreased by 27% to Tk9,283 crore in January-March quarter of the current � scal year as compared to Tk12,685 crore in the pre-ceding quarter, according to the central bank data.
Banking sector had failed to use the full space of credit growth set by the last two monetary policy due to lack of adequate credit demand amid slug-gish investment climate and political unrest.
Against the backdrop, the cen-tral bank announced its mone-tary policy statement for the � rst half (July-December) of the � scal year 2014-15, keeping private sector cred-it growth and other key policy rates unchanged from the immediate past policy.
It set private sector credit growth target at 16.5% (including foreign bor-rowing by local corporates) as like as its January-June target. The target was not achieved, however.
The growth in the private sector credit was 15.7%, including foreign borrowing, as of May last.
Banks have already cut the interest rate on deposits as they have enough li-quidity, but could not use the fund due to lack of demand, said another senior executive of a private bank.
The deposit rate stood at 7.79% in June, down from 8.01% in the previous month. It remained between highest 8.68% and lowest 8.01% in more than last two years.
Banks also cut lending rates to en-courage entrepreneurs to take loans. The interest rate on loans and advances reduced to 13.1% in June from 13.23% in the previous month. l
Figures in Taka crore
EXCESSS LIQUIDIT Y TREND
Jan’13 Mar’13 Jun’13 Sep’13 Dec’13 Jan’14 Mar’14
60,00066,000
79,00084,000
95,70089,300
1,00,900
PMO to decide on Agrani Bank MD appointment n Tribune Report
The proposal to appoint the manag-ing director of the state-owned Agrani Bank will go to Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina as the Finance Ministry failed to come up with the decision, o� cial sources said.
The decision came yesterday at the ministry’s meeting held to dispatch the proposal to the Prime Minister’s O� ce for appointing the Agrani Bank MD.
Presided over by Finance Minister AMA Muhith, the meeting was also at-tended by the Bangladesh Bank Gover-nor, Atiur Rahman, and Banking Divi-sion Secretary M Aslam Alam.
Seeking anonymity, an o� cial that attended the meeting, said the tenure of the outgoing MD of Agrani Bank, SM Aminul Rahman, could be extended as per the wish of the government high-ups.
The proposal will go to the Prime Minister’s O� ce next week and the new MD of Agrani Bank will take o� ce thereafter, said the o� cial.
Regarding swap of places between the managing directors of Rupali and Ja-nata Banks, sources in the meeting said the state-owned Rupali Bank MD Farid Uddin was doing well and the � nancial institute needed that kind of MD.
Meanwhile, some incumbent and former managing directors of the state-owned banks including the Agrani Bank boss SM Aminul Rahman, whose second tenure expired on July 27, have intensi� ed their lobby to be reinstated.
The other incumbent managing di-rectors are Dr Md Zillur Rahman of the state-owned Bangladesh Development Bank Limited, Md Abdus Salam of Ban-gladesh Krishi Bank and Md Mofazzal Husain of Rajshahi Krishi Unnayan Bank.
The Banking Division wants to re-tain SM Aminul Rahman as the MD of Agrani Bank for another term.
Aminul has also intensi� ed his lob-bying with the government high-ups for his reinstatement for another six months before going to retire. l
Photo taken from a city road re� ects the rising demand for car in the country SYED ZAKIR HOSSAIN
TU urges reopening Tuba Group factoriesn Tribune Report
The Garment Workers Unity Forum yes-terday urged the Tuba Group owners to reopen closed factories and demanded payment of Eid bonuses in no time.
The forum president, Mosrefa Mi-shu, made the call at a media brie� ng in the city.
The trade union will also hold a sol-idarity rally on August 17 to drum up support for the Tuba Group workers’ demand, besides holding a workers’ rally at Badda in the city on August 20.
In the brie� ng, Mosrefa Mishu made a six-point demand including imme-diate payment of Eid bonuses to 1,600 workers of the group, reopening the closed factories and running it as per the laws, scrapping Tuba Group own-er Delowar’s bail and taking punitive action against him as he deliberately killed workers in his Tazreen fashions, forfeiting his properties and declaring it as the government assets.
Withdrawal of cases against all Tuba factory workers and stopping harass-ment by police also included.
Mishu called for the factory owners to refrain from random lay-o� s of RMG workers across the country and ensure formation of trade unions in all facto-ries, including ones in the Export Pro-cessing Zones (EPZs).
In her written speech, Mishu urged the government to seize Delowar’s passport and impose permanent re-striction on his leaving the country.
She also claimed that Shahbag police called her several times, saying: “There is an arrest warrant against her.”
Mishu alleged that the lawmen were harassing leaders of several organisa-tions that expressed solidarity with the workers of Tuba Group.
The forum president said the fac-tory owner had stealthily shifted ma-chinery from the factories and been trying to shut their operation.
If the factory was shut without any due procedures, they would go on tougher movement to realise their de-mand, she vowed.
Mishu said if the factory owner wanted to shut his factories, he must discuss the issue with the workers � rst and then take the decision jointly. l
The surge in hard-term and suppliers’ credits would push up the country’s foreign debt repayment bill to over $2bn in the coming � scal year
B2 Stock Thursday, August 14, 2014DHAKA TRIBUNE
News from trade serversACTIVEFINE: SEC has given consent under the provisions of the Securities and Exchange Commission (Issue of Capital) Rules, 2001, for raising the paid-up capital of the Company of Tk. 20 crore only through issuance of 2,00,00,000 ordinary shares of Tk. 10.00 each (issue price of Tk. 60.00 including a premium of Tk. 50.00 per share). The consent has been accorded subject to the condition that the Company shall comply with the relevant laws and regula-tory requirements, and shall also adhere to the conditions imposed by BSEC under Section-2CC of the Securities and Exchange Ordinance, 1969 which includes, among others, the following: "The revised decision should be approved by the shareholders of the Company before issuance of ordinary shares to ICB and/or other institutional investors".LANKABAFIN: SEC has given consent under the provisions of the Securities and Exchange Commission (Private Placement of Debt Securities) Rules, 2012, for raising of capital by LankaBangla Finance Limited amounting to Tk. 300.00 crore only through issuance of Zero Coupon Bond. The consent has been accorded subject to the condition that the Company shall comply with the rel-evant laws and regulatory requirements, and also shall adhere to the conditions imposed by BSEC under Section-2CC of the Securities and Exchange Ordinance, 1969.DELTALIFE: he Company has informed the
following: As per amended Income-Tax Or-dinance No. XXXVI of 1984 (ref. Finance Act, 2014) under section 54, every shareholder is required to furnish the Company his/her 12 digits Taxpayer's Identi� cation Number (TIN) for deduction of Advance Income Tax (AIT) @ 10% on payment of Cash dividend. It may be mentioned that those who would not provide 12 digits TIN will be subjected to deduction of AIT @ 15%. Therefore, shareholders are requested to submit their 12 digits TIN to the Share Department of the Company at Delta Life Tower, Plot # 37, Road # 45 (South) & 90 (North), Gulshsn Circle-2, Dhaka-1212 within seven days from 11.08.2014.COMPANY NEWS: Close-end mutual fund managed by ICB Asset Management Compa-ny Limited: For successful disbursement of the cash dividend through BEFTN, investors of the close-end mutual fund managed by ICB AMCL are cordially requested to provide (if necessary) the bank account information in their BO account before record date. The respective Depository Participants (DP) are also requested to update the bank account information (with the routing number) of the investors of the fund before the Record Date as well.ICB: Bangladesh Securities and Exchange Commission (BSEC) has approved the Rights o� er of Investment Corporation of Bangladesh for 2,10,93,750 ordinary shares of Tk. 100.00 each at an issue price of Tk.
500.00 per share (including a premium of Tk. 400.00 per share) totaling Tk. 1054,68,75,000.00 at a ratio of 1R:2, i.e. one rights share for two existing shares. The approval has been accorded subject to the condition that the Company shall comply with the requirements embodied in the Securities and Exchange Commission (Rights Issue) Rules, 2006 and other relevant laws and Regulatory Requirements, and shall also adhere to the conditions imposed by BSEC under Section-2CC of the Securities and Exchange Ordinance, 1969.ACTIVEFINE: The Company has further informed that the amount through issuance of 2,00,00,000 ordinary shares will be used for expansion of business.LANKABAFIN: The Company has further informed that the purpose of issuance of Non-Convertible Zero Coupon Bond is to meet the ongoing � nancing requirements of the Company subject to obtaining of No Objection Certi� cate (NOC) from Bangla-desh Bank.EBL1STMF, TRUSTB1MF, IFIC1STMF, 1JANATAMF, FBFIF, EXIM1STMF: The Asset Manager of the Funds has further informed that due to unavoidable cir-cumstances, the meeting of the Trustees Committee of the Fund will now be held on August 14, 2014 at 3:30 PM instead of August 13, 2014 to consider, among others, audited � nancial statements of the Fund for the year ended on June 30, 2014.
Stocks end � at with volatility n Tribune Report
Stocks ended � at with volatility yesterday as late pro� t booking wiped o� early gains.
The market moved between positive and negative throughout the session due to investors play-ing both sides of fence.
After rising almost 30 points in the morning, the benchmark DSEX saw fractional rise of 0.8 points to 4,527, after falling in the previous session.
The Shariah index rose mar-ginally 2.8 points or 0.3% to 1,051. The comprising blue chips DS30 closed at 1,693 with a slight rise of 4 points or 0.3%.
Chittagong Stock Exchange (CSE) Selective Categories Index, CSCX, witnessed slight fall of 2 points to 8,564.
Turnover at DSE tumbled down to Tk490 crore, which is 27.6% lower over the previous session’s value.
Last minute buying spree mainly on telecommunication, cement and textiles o� set pro� t booking losses on other sectors, including banks, non-banking � nancial institutions, pharmaceuticals, and food and allied, which edged lower.
Among the large cap sectors, telecommunication advanced by 2.3%, lifted by the Grameenphone (GP) that rose 2.5%.
Lanka Bangla Securities said af-
ter the fast and furious rally in last week, market lost breadth and was subdued in last two trading ses-sions. Benchmark index lost some ground giving no speci� c direction at this level, it said.
Zenith Investments said the correction phase of the market still seems to cloud over the stocks, as index barely � nished in positive zone after getting through heavy � uctuations throughout the trad-ing day.
The support mainly came from the textile sector and few large cap scrips that showed signi� cant strength over the pro� t takings shares, it said.
IDLC Investments said having last session’s correction, market ended � at with turnover shrink-ing further. “The lower turnover re� ected slowing down of selling spree among the investors.”
MJL Bangladesh topped the li-quidity chart for the second con-secutive session with Tk42 crore changing hands, followed by GP, Square Pharmaceuticals, Active Fine Chemical, Hwa Well Textiles and Appollo Ispat.
Investors’ interest in textile was vigilant from the fact that, � ve stocks emerging at the top ten gainers list with largest rise of Hwa Well Textiles.
ICB managed mutual funds dominated the losers chart as sev-en out of eight funds got featured in the list. l
CSE LOSER
Company Closing (% Change)
Aver-age (%
Change)
Closin-gAvg. Closing DHIGH DLOW Turnover
in MillionLatest
EPSLatest
PE
ICB -A -5.26 -1.47 1,872.07 1,800.00 1,887.50 1,800.00 4.212 53.53 35.0NLI 1st M F-A -4.17 -2.44 9.20 9.20 9.20 9.20 0.060 1.41 6.5Shahjibazar Power-N -3.87 -2.68 618.56 621.00 621.00 616.00 1.237 3.04 203.5Green Delta M.F.-A -3.85 -2.71 5.02 5.00 5.10 5.00 0.130 0.83 6.0Phoenix Fin. 1st MF-A -3.70 -2.44 5.20 5.20 5.20 5.20 0.013 0.71 7.3AIBL 1st Is. M. F.-A -3.64 -3.82 5.29 5.30 5.40 5.20 0.029 -0.56 -veRepublic Insu.-A -3.52 -3.25 27.38 27.40 27.50 27.20 0.110 3.26 8.4Meghna Life Ins. -A -3.45 -5.39 95.17 95.10 100.00 95.00 0.154 6.45 14.8ICB AMCL 1st NRB -A -3.45 -3.45 28.00 28.00 28.00 28.00 0.028 4.57 6.1Bangladesh Lamps -A -3.34 -3.37 113.00 113.00 113.00 113.00 0.011 1.12 100.9
DSE LOSER
Company Closing (% Change)
Aver-age (%
Change)
Closin-gAvg. Closing DHIGH DLOW Turnover
in MillionLatest
EPSLatest
PE
8th ICB M F-A -9.99 -9.82 64.90 64.90 64.90 64.90 0.065 7.96 8.26th ICB M F-A -9.91 -9.78 60.90 60.90 60.90 60.90 0.085 6.47 9.42nd ICB M F -A -8.72 -9.08 290.00 290.00 290.00 290.00 0.203 33.24 8.73rd ICB M F-A -7.59 -7.82 203.64 204.40 205.00 202.00 0.112 22.19 9.25th ICB M F-A -7.01 -6.85 165.00 164.50 169.50 160.00 0.132 18.67 8.81st ICB M F -A -6.36 -6.46 916.67 916.90 917.00 916.80 0.275 38.55 23.8Zeal Bangla Sugar -Z -5.33 -3.07 7.27 7.10 7.30 7.10 0.040 -30.63 -vePrime Insur -A -4.43 -6.91 19.40 19.40 20.10 18.50 0.515 1.28 15.24th ICB M F-A -4.10 -4.48 201.00 201.00 201.00 201.00 0.060 23.11 8.7Stylecraft -A -3.87 -3.66 920.00 920.00 920.00 920.00 0.092 26.16 35.2
CSE TURNOVER LEADERS
Company Volume-Shares
Value in Million
% of Total-Turnover ClosingP Change % ClosingY DHIGH DLOW AvgPrice
Grameenphone-A 58,600 19.76 5.96 338.90 0.00 338.90 341.80 333.10 337.15LafargeS Cement-Z 196,500 19.50 5.88 99.70 0.00 99.70 99.90 100.00 99.24BEXIMCO Ltd. -A 423,516 14.63 4.41 34.20 0.00 34.20 35.20 34.10 34.54BD Submarine Cable-A 76,500 14.31 4.31 186.00 0.00 186.00 191.00 185.50 187.02 Argon Denims Limited-A 279,806 13.86 4.18 50.00 0.00 50.00 50.80 48.80 49.53Appollo Ispat CL -N 453,000 13.65 4.12 30.30 0.00 30.30 30.60 29.70 30.14Square Pharma -A 48,488 13.41 4.04 276.70 0.00 276.70 281.80 273.00 276.57MJL BD Ltd.-A 119,268 12.38 3.73 104.80 0.00 104.80 99.20 100.00 103.83Hwa Well Textiles-N 196,000 11.18 3.37 58.10 0.00 58.10 58.30 53.00 57.04Orion Pharma-N 196,960 9.38 2.83 47.80 0.00 47.80 48.10 46.70 47.64
DSE TURNOVER LEADERS
Company Volume-Shares
Value in Million
% of Total-Turnover ClosingP Change
% ClosingY DHIGH DLOW AvgPrice
MJL BD Ltd.-A 4,090,187 425.17 8.62 104.70 6.19 98.60 107.00 89.00 103.95Grameenphone-A 778,609 262.34 5.32 339.20 2.51 330.90 341.80 325.00 336.93Square Pharma -A 744,421 205.31 4.16 276.30 -0.93 278.90 282.00 255.00 275.80Active Fine Chem.-A 2,321,360 164.81 3.34 71.00 3.95 68.30 72.50 63.50 71.00Hwa Well Textiles-N 2,810,500 159.05 3.22 57.70 9.07 52.90 58.10 53.00 56.59Appollo Ispat CL -N 4,948,200 149.26 3.03 30.30 1.68 29.80 30.80 29.60 30.16BEXIMCO Ltd. -A 3,712,803 127.82 2.59 34.00 -1.45 34.50 37.00 31.20 34.43ACI Limited- A 400,785 125.00 2.53 311.80 -1.36 316.10 325.00 295.00 311.88LafargeS Cement-Z 1,239,000 122.46 2.48 99.60 2.89 96.80 100.20 97.00 98.84SPurbanchol Power-N 1,972,088 102.87 2.09 52.90 3.73 51.00 54.10 45.90 52.16
SECTORAL TURNOVER SUMMARY
Sector DSE CSE TotalMillion Taka % change Million Taka % change Million Taka % change
Bank 307.72 6.24 17.04 4.79 324.76 6.14NBFI 143.23 2.90 12.98 3.65 156.22 2.95Investment 97.56 1.98 4.91 1.38 102.47 1.94Engineering 547.90 11.11 34.56 9.71 582.45 11.01Food & Allied 145.74 2.95 6.64 1.87 152.38 2.88Fuel & Power 960.97 19.48 41.42 11.64 1002.39 18.96Jute 0.63 0.01 0.00 0.63 0.01Textile 810.66 16.44 64.33 18.08 874.99 16.55Pharma & Chemical 812.47 16.47 45.32 12.74 857.79 16.22Paper & Packaging 0.35 6.88 1.93 7.23 0.14Service 60.54 1.23 2.23 0.63 62.77 1.19Leather 51.38 1.04 12.12 3.41 63.49 1.20Ceramic 16.78 0.34 2.44 0.69 19.22 0.36Cement 226.56 4.59 26.40 7.42 252.96 4.78Information Technology 31.37 0.64 3.35 0.94 34.72 0.66General Insurance 46.32 0.94 1.01 0.28 47.34 0.90Life Insurance 43.63 0.88 2.56 0.72 46.20 0.87Telecom 336.54 6.82 34.06 9.57 370.61 7.01Travel & Leisure 78.63 1.59 14.65 4.12 93.28 1.76Miscellaneous 212.93 4.32 22.91 6.44 235.84 4.46Debenture 0.19 0.00 0.01 0.00 0.20 0.00
Daily capital market highlights
DSE Broad Index : 4527.21009 (+) 0.02% ▲
DSE - 30 Index : 1693.02290 (+) 0.27% ▲
CSE All Share Index: 13968.36870 (+) 0.11% ▲
CSE - 30 Index : 11431.07820 (-) 0.58% ▼
CSE Selected Index : 8564.19740 (-) 0.03% ▼
DSE key features August 13-2014Turnover (Million Taka)
4,932.12
Turnover (Volume)
108,980,876
Number of Contract 101,182
Traded Issues 298
Issue Gain (Avg. Price Basis)
72
Issue Loss (Avg. Price Basis)
219
Unchanged Issue (Avg. Price Basis)
7
Market Capital Equity (Billion. Tk.)
2,408.27
Market Capital Equity (Billion US$)
29.19
CSE key features August 13-2014Turnover (Million Taka) 335.19
Turnover (Volume) 8,282,994
Number of Contract 12,134
Traded Issues 220
Issue Gain (Avg. Price Basis)
65
Issue Loss (Avg. Price Basis)
148
Unchanged Issue (Avg. Price Basis)
6
Market Capital Equity (Billion. Tk.)
2,301.24
Market Capital Equity (Billion US$)
27.89
Prepared exclusively for Dhaka Tribune by Business Information Automation Service Line (BIASL), on the basis of information collected from daily stock quotations and audited reports of the listed companies. High level of caution has been taken to collect and present the above information and data. The publisher will not take any responsibility if any body uses this information and data for his/her investment decision. For any query please email to [email protected] or call 01552153562 or go to www.biasl.net
The lower turnover re� ected slowing down of selling spree among the investors
CSE GAINER
Company Closing (% Change)
Aver-age (%
Change)
Closin-gAvg. Closing DHIGH DLOW Turnover
in MillionLatest
EPSLatest
PE
Hwa Well Textiles-N 9.62 7.22 57.04 58.10 58.30 53.00 11.180 3.99 14.3Paramount Textile Ltd.-A 7.10 4.32 38.67 39.20 39.70 36.70 8.344 3.13 12.4Aramit -A 6.77 6.77 284.00 284.00 284.00 284.00 0.028 12.56 22.6Aziz PipesZ 6.67 6.73 16.01 16.00 16.10 16.00 0.008 0.42 38.1Imam Button -Z 6.58 6.58 8.10 8.10 8.20 8.00 0.016 -1.85 -veMJL BD Ltd.-A 6.40 4.32 103.83 104.80 106.90 88.70 12.384 5.04 20.6Moza� ar H.Spinning-N 5.25 1.47 31.76 32.10 32.80 30.80 2.160 2.27 14.0Maksons Spinning-A 5.00 2.91 14.48 14.70 14.80 12.60 4.482 0.21 69.0Active Fine Chem.-A 4.69 2.74 71.22 71.40 73.80 68.00 6.408 3.30 21.6Prime Textile -A 4.55 1.32 22.31 23.00 23.00 22.20 0.078 1.13 19.7
DSE GAINER
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Closin-gAvg. Closing DHIGH DLOW Turnover
in MillionLatest
EPSLatest
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Hwa Well Textiles-N 9.07 5.70 56.59 57.70 58.10 53.00 159.046 3.99 14.2Paramount Textile Ltd.-A 7.38 4.83 38.85 39.30 39.80 33.00 89.709 3.13 12.4Renwick Jajneswar-A 6.74 3.88 283.40 286.60 289.00 276.90 15.984 3.92 72.3Moza� ar H.Spinning-N 6.27 2.67 31.88 32.20 33.00 30.30 50.993 2.27 14.0MJL BD Ltd.-A 6.19 4.40 103.95 104.70 107.00 89.00 425.168 5.04 20.6Wata Chemicals -A 5.20 2.96 273.57 275.30 278.00 245.00 26.979 6.20 44.1AFC AgroBiotech-A 4.30 2.06 55.45 55.80 56.40 49.00 35.968 2.84 19.5Maksons Spinning-A 4.29 3.06 14.50 14.60 14.90 12.60 45.270 0.21 69.0CMC Kamal Tex. -A 3.96 2.28 23.37 23.60 23.80 20.70 52.802 1.38 16.9Active Fine Chem.-A 3.95 2.01 71.00 71.00 72.50 63.50 164.808 3.30 21.5
ANALYST
B3BusinessDHAKA TRIBUNE Thursday, August 14, 2014
Modhumoti Bank Limited opened its fourth ATM booth at Jamgora in Ashulia yesterday. The bank’s managing director and CEO Md Mizanur Rahman inaugurated the booth
Akij Group has undertaken two new projects that are table-ware of Akij Ceramic and Akij Particle Board Mills Ltd at Mukkumpur and Khagati in Mymensingh. Monowara Begum, wife of late founding managing director SK Akij Uddin laid foundation stones of the projects
NCC Bank Ltd has recently organised a workshop on documentation of loans and advances for its senior level executives and credit administration o� cers. The bank’s chairperson Md Nurun Newaz Salim inaugurated the workshop as chief guest
Dutch-Bangla Bank Limited (DBBL) has recently organised a day-long workshop on integrated supervision system (ISS) reporting for the bank’s designated o� cers. The bank’s managing director KS Tabrez inaugurated the workshop
China’s July economic data points to further softness n Reuters, Beijing
China’s economy showed further signs of softening in July despite a burst of government stimulus measures, sug-gesting more policy support may be needed to keep growth on track as a property downturn worsens.
Unexpectedly weak growth in in-vestment, retail sales and bank lending in July all pointed to growing vulner-abilities in the world’s second-largest economy.
The biggest surprise from Wednes-day’s data deluge came from credit and � nancing � gures that showed the amount of cash � owing into the world’s second-largest economy tumbled to a near six-year low in July of 273.1bn yuan ($44.34bn), about one seventh of that in June.
The central bank downplayed the drop, saying that the plunge in lending was a natural pull-back after an unusu-al surge in June, while conceding loan demand was slowing. Analysts said the unusually large drop may also have come on the back of a crackdown on high-risk loans and commodity � nanc-ing in the wake of a fraud scandal at the port of Qingdao.
But the dour news rattled some economists, who worried that the numbers signaled not only weaker loan demand in the property sector but growing caution on the part of banks to lend in general as credit risks increase.
The mood contrasted sharply with that in June, when data showed the economy appeared to be regaining traction after a weak start to the year.
“The reading on investment, the most important driver of the economy, missed market expectations again,” said Hu Yuexiao, an analyst at Shanghai Securities.
“Add to that the remarkable decline in credit growth in the corporate sec-tor and it could suggest an end to the economic rebound (seen) in the second quarter.”
Hu said he expected authorities to further loosen monetary policy with a
possible interest rate cut, whilst trying to stoke investment growth by slashing red-tape and wooing private capital.
Helped by a steady stream of gov-ernment stimulus, China’s economy re-bounded slightly to 7.5% in the second quarter - in line with the government’s full-year target - from an 18-month low of 7.4% in the � rst three months.
But bu� eted by a property down-turn that has hurt domestic spending, the economy appears to be sputtering again. Questions about the durability
of the economic recovery � ared last week when surveys on the services sector showed unexpected weakness, linked largely to the housing market downturn.
Property drag Accounting for roughly 15% of Chi-na’s economy, the housing sector has faltered this year as prices and sales turned south, leading many analysts to warn that it poses the biggest risk to broader growth.
Wednesday’s data showed the slow-down may have deepened. Housing sales skidded 16.3% in July compared with a year ago in terms of � oor space, Reuters calculations showed, a sharp increase from June’s 0.2 annual fall.
New construction fell 12.8% in Jan-uary-July as cash-strapped developers tried to clear huge inventories of unsold homes. But discounts and other sweet-eners have failed to attract many buy-ers, who expect further price declines.
While easier access to loans is seen
as one key to preventing a sharp correc-tion in the property market, a survey released by Standard Chartered last week indicated many developers were � nding it tougher to access funding through banks or trust loans.
They also said borrowing costs were rising, and most felt banks did not ap-pear more willing to extend loans to � rst-time home buyers despite encour-agement from the central bank.
Analysts said the wobbly real estate market had dampened overall invest-
ment growth, which was up 17% in the � rst seven months compared with the year-ago period, a level unseen in over 12 years.
“The sluggishness of the property market will continue to hang over the domestic economy,” said Louis Kuijs, an economist at RBS. “We expect the gov-ernment to continue taking and encour-aging measures to support growth.”
Economists disagree on whether China will need to resort to more ag-gressive policy loosening measures, such as cutting interest rates or the reserve requirement ratio for banks to shore up growth.
A Reuters poll last month showed analysts were split on whether China would cut the reserve requirement ra-tio this year, though half of those sur-veyed thought that a 50-basis-point reduction was possible before March.
Analysts who oppose further policy loosening, including the International Monetary Fund, argue that China’s economy is already awash in credit, and authorities must refrain from add-ing more cash to the system unless growth crumbles.
To be sure, the latest data pointed to some pockets of resilience.
Industrial output rose 9% in July from a year earlier, the National Bureau of Statistics said, slowing from June’s 9.2% gain but in line with market ex-pectations.
Data last week showed exports grew nearly twice as much as expected, though imports unexpectedly fell, pointing to soft domestic demand.
Retail sales, a key gauge of domestic consumption, rose 12.2 percent in July from a year earlier, slowing from June’s 12.4 percent pace.
“The activity � gures are basically lower than market expectations, es-pecially the investment data, which is mainly due to the weak showing in the property market,” said Zhou Hao, an economist at ANZ in Shanghai.
“I would say the government will have to further relax policies to deliver an annual growth rate of 7.5 percent.” l
People cross a bridge at Pudong � nancial district in Shanghai REUTERS
Dollar � rms in Asia amid thin trade n AFP, Tokyo
The dollar � rmed against major cur-rencies in Asian trade yesterday, but its movement was limited because many traders were o� for the summer holi-day season.
The dollar fetched 102.28 yen in Tokyo afternoon trade compared with 102.24 yen in New York.
The euro bought $1.3364 and 136.69 yen against $1.3368 and 136.67 yen.
Minutes before the opening bell, the Japanese government announced that the world’s number three economy shrank by 1.7% quarter-on-quarter in the April-June period as a sales tax rise dented activity.
But the market lacked direction, with many participants away during the summer holiday season.
“The market basically brushed o� the data - after all, it was largely within expectations,” Yasuaki Amatatsu, ana-lyst at the Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ, told Dow Jones Newswires.
Market players were instead eyeing China’s retail sales and industrial produc-tion data for July, which will be followed later in the day by US retail sales data.
China’s industrial production, which measures output at factories,
workshops and mines in the world’s second-largest economy, rose 9.0 per-cent year-on-year in July, the govern-ment said.
Retail sales increased 12.2% in the same month, the National Bureau of Statistics said.
Junichi Ishikawa, market analyst at IG Securities, said strong US data could support US shares, which in turn would strengthen the greenback.
“That could see the pair breach the 200-day moving average at 102.35 yen,” he said.
In New York on Tuesday, the euro weakened against the dollar follow-ing a plunge in investor con� dence to a 20-month low in Germany, Europe’s largest economy.
The ZEW research institute’s indica-tor of economic sentiment in Germany dived 18.5 points to 8.6 points in August, its lowest level since December 2012. Analysts had expected only a minor fall.
The institute said the decline was “likely connected to the ongoing geo-political tensions”, suggesting the Russia-Ukraine crisis and turmoil in the Middle East were weighing on the economy.
The dollar was mixed against other Asia-Paci� c currencies. l
As money leaves Russian stocks, China, other BRICS bene� tn Reuters, London
With the threat of further Western eco-nomic sanctions hanging over Russia, foreign investors are deserting Mos-cow’s equity markets and funnelling cash into other BRICS states, with Chi-na a standout bene� ciary.
Russia has performed worse than any other big emerging market so far in 2014, with stocks down 17% in dollar terms and the rouble losing 9%. In the bond market too, anyone who bought rouble-denominated debt this year would have lost 14%, according to JPM-organ’s GBI-EM index.
Sanctions placed on Moscow for its perceived role in the Ukraine crisis do not yet bar holding shares of Russian companies that are viewed as close to the Kremlin.
But investors have been exiting all the same, fearing more sanctions that could pull other Russian assets into the net.
Data, which may not capture the
latest exodus, shows that more money left Russian stocks and bonds in mid-July than at any other time in the last six months.
Investors pulled $353m from Russia equity funds in July and $172m in the week after a Malaysian passenger plane was brought down on July 17 over reb-el-held eastern Ukraine, according to fund tracker EPFR. Boston-based EPFR is estimated to capture some 15% of global fund � ows.
The outpouring of money from Mos-cow has led analysts to ask: where is all this cash going?
As funds exited Russia, emerging equity funds as a whole, tracked by EPFR, drew buoyant � ows totalling more than $10bn over July and the � rst week of August.
Russia has a relatively small 5% share in MSCI’s emerging equity index, but given $1.3tn is benchmarked to that index, a lot of money is at stake.
China appeared well placed to ben-e� t as domestic factors, which had
caused an early year blip in Chinese equities, began to improve just as ten-sions between Russia and the West reached their high point.
Hints of a stimulus plan from Beijing overlapped with the downing of the Malaysian airliner, while shadow bank-ing and property bubble fears have generally subsided.
Evidence of an allocation shift is an-ecdotal but it is strong enough to sug-gest China is a major recipient of recent Russia out� ows. China took in $1.6bn in equity in� ows last week and $2.14bn in the last week of July, the largest since April 2008, according to Morgan Stanley.
While Moscow’s main dollar-traded IRTS index has fallen 14% since the end of June, China’s benchmark Shanghai-Shenzhen index has surged 11%.
Since the Russian sell-o� there has de� nitely been a pick-up in interest in China, said Will Ballard, emerging mar-kets and Asia fund manager at Aviva Investors in London. l
After o� shore oil failure, Cuba shifts energy focus n Reuters, Havana
Cuba has shifted its focus away from o� shore oil, concentrating on renew-able energy and improving output from onshore wells due to a lack of in-terest by foreign companies for further deepwater exploration, sources close to the industry say.
With so much oil readily available around the world, oil companies in-cluding those from allies China and Russia see little incentive in drilling o� the Caribbean island, delaying the Cuban dream of oil wealth that could inject vigor into its socialist revolution.
With the U.S. trade embargo of Cuba further complicating drilling plans, the country is seeking investors in renew-able energy such as biomass and wind while attempting to increase output from existing onshore and shallow wa-ter wells.
Russia’s state-run Rosneft and the China National Petroleum Company (CNPC) separately agreed last month
to help Communist-run Cuba extract more oil along the traditional north-west heavy oil belt, but did not sign on to deepwater exploration.
The northwest heavy oil belt is a 200-mile (320-km) stretch of the north-ern coast from Havana to Villa Clara and reaching up to 3 miles (5 km) o� -shore. It produces poor quality oil that meets 40% of the country’s needs.
Rosneft and CNPC will also support the horizontal drilling of new wells from shore and join Canadian � rm Sherritt International and another Rus-sian state-run oil company, Zarubezh-neft, which are already carrying out similar work.
Cuba had hoped Russia and China, whose presidents visited in July, would explore deepwater o� shore � elds that it says may hold 20 billion barrels of oil and end its dependence on socialist ally Venezuela.
Venezuela sends 115,000 barrels of oil per day to Cuba under favorable terms. l
Oil prices mixed after IEA slashes demand forecast n AFP, Singapore
Oil prices were mixed in Asia yesterday after the International Energy Agency slashed its demand outlook for 2014 and 2015 while reporting a glut in glob-al supplies despite con� icts in Iraq and Ukraine.
US benchmark West Texas Interme-diate for September rose four cents to $97.41 in afternoon Asian trade, after declining 71 cents in New York.
Brent crude for September delivery was down 31 cents at $102.71. It fell $1.66 to � nish at $103.02 in London on Tuesday, its lowest closing point since July 1, 2013. Cutting its demand out-look for this year and next, the IEA yes-terday said “the oil market today looks better supplied than expected”.
The agency, the oil policy arm of the Organisation for Economic Coopera-tion and Development, projected 2014 oil demand would rise by 1 million bar-rels a day to 92.7 mbd, compared to its July forecast for growth of 1.2 mbd. l
B4 Back PageDHAKA TRIBUNE Thursday, August 14, 2014
DILBERT
Japan su� ers biggest economic slump since 2011 n Reuters, Tokyo
A sales tax hike last quarter drove Ja-pan’s economy into its biggest con-traction since the March 2011 earth-quake and tsunami, Cabinet O� ce data showed on Wednesday, keeping policy-makers under pressure to expand � scal and monetary stimulus should recov-ery falter again.
The April 1 sales tax hike took a heavy toll on household spending, shrinking the world’s third-largest economy by an annualised 6.8 percent from April through June, and wiping out growth of 6.1% seen in January-March as consumers went on a shop-ping spree to avoid the higher tax.
The median market forecast was for a 7.1% drop.
Seeing the slump as temporary, how-ever, the Bank of Japan remains publicly convinced the economy is on course for a moderate recovery and has no plans to expand stimulus any time soon.
The soft data, though, could compel the central bank into trimming its rosy � scal year economic projections when it reviews them in October.
If third quarter growth proves weak the BOJ may also come under pressure to add stimulus - particularly before Prime Minister Shinzo Abe decides later this year whether to implement a second sales tax hike from 8 to 10 per-cent in October next year, analysts say.
“Should the next quarter be weaker than expected, there’s the chance that the BOJ will be called on to do some more easing - and how the BOJ re-sponds then will be another point to watch,” said Yuichi Kodama, an econo-mist at Meiji Yasuda Life Insurance.
Economics Minister Akira Amari signalled the government’s readiness to compile an extra budget later this year should growth in the third-quarter stay weak, although any � scal stimulus would probably not be big enough to have a major impact on the economy, given Japan’s dire government � nances.
“At the moment I don’t feel the need (to prepare an extra stimulus) but we will take necessary steps as appropri-ate depending on economic develop-ments from now on. Appropriate steps mean every possible measure,” he told
reporters after the data was published. On a quarter-to-quarter basis, Ja-
pan’s economy shrank 1.7% in the sec-ond quarter, less than a median fore-cast for a 1.8% fall.
The second-quarter contraction was the biggest decline since the � rst quar-ter of 2011, when the devastating earth-quake and tsunami in March disrupted factory production and chilled house-hold spending.
Fiscal stimulus forthcoming Private consumption, which makes up about 60% of the economy, fell 5% in the quarter, more than the 4.3% drop forecast by markets. Capital expen-diture also slumped 2.5%, a worry-ing sign for policymakers counting on companies to support recovery by in-creasing their spending.
External demand added 1.1 percent-age points to GDP, after shaving 0.2 point o� � rst-quarter growth, but was mostly due to a fall in imports. Ex-ports fell 0.4% in the second quarter, underscoring how much the failure of
exports to rebound is weighing on the economy.
Many analysts expect a pick-up in July-September as the tax hike impact fades, with some projecting an annu-alised expansion of around 3% to 5%. A tightening job market is gradually pushing up wages and big � rms have boosted summer bonus payments, which augurs well for consumption.
Still, a majority of economists proj-ect growth for the current � scal year, which began in April, to fall well short of last month’s BOJ projection for a 1% expansion.
BOJ Governor Kuroda has repeatedly stated he would not be surprised to see a contraction in April-June economic activity, and that there was no need to o� er additional stimulus as growth is set to rebound in July-September.
Some analysts pointed to a rise in inventories in the second-quarter GDP data as a sign that companies, having underestimated the tax hike e� ect, added excess inventory and will scale back production in coming months.
“The positive contribution from in-ventories is a risk factor for the future. This means we need stronger domestic demand growth in July-September to achieve a rebound strong enough to jus-tify a second rise in the sales tax,” said Masayuki Kichikawa, chief Japan econ-omist at Bank of America Merrill Lynch.
“I think there is a 70 to 80% chance Abe will raise the sales tax again with an-other � scal stimulus package,” he said.
Government o� cials have already signalled privately that they are ready to compile an extra budget toward the year-end to shore up the economy, scraping leftover money from the pre-vious � scal year’s budget.
They remain silent on the possible size of the stimulus and when the budget would be compiled, all of which depends on economic performance this quarter.
Under its “quantitative and quali-tative easing” policy put in place last April, the BOJ now buys 70% of new government bonds issued in markets, as well as risky assets, to re� ate the moribund economy. l
A man stands in front of a shop window at a shopping district in Tokyo REUTERS
Yellen resolved to avoid raising rates too soon, fearing downturn n Reuters, Washington
Approaching a historic turn in US mon-etary policy, Janet Yellen has staked her tenure as chair of the Federal Reserve on a simple principle: she’d rather � ght in� ation than another economic down-turn.
Interviews with current and former Fed o� cials indicate that Yellen and core decision-makers at the US central bank are determined not to raise inter-est rates too early and risk hurting the fragile US economy.
It’s a commitment that will be vigor-ously tested in coming months as pres-sure builds inside the Fed, among Re-publicans on Capitol Hill, and perhaps even in � nancial markets, for the Fed to acknowledge a strengthening US econo-my with its � rst interest-rate increase in more than eight years. A global central bankers’ conference in Jackson Hole, Wyoming next week will give Yellen a major stage on which to press her case.
After taking over from Ben Bernan-ke in February, she has developed a
distinct style: o� -the-cu� and person-able in public appearances, unusually direct in calling attention to the plight of the unemployed, meticulous in her preparation for Fed meetings and high-ly attuned to the opinions of her col-leagues, the Fed sources say.
A common adjective used to de-scribe her in meetings is “over-pre-pared.” She is able to deeply question sta� and colleagues about the � ne points of their presentations, and so far has been able to forge consensus statements that have satis� ed the Fed hawks most concerned about the in� a-tion threat while keeping the central bank focused more on employment.
The nightmare scenario she wants to avoid is hiking rates only to see � -nancial markets and the economy take such a hit that she has to backtrack. Until the Fed has gotten rates up from the current level near zero to more nor-mal levels, it would have little room to respond if the economy threatened to head into another recession.
In� ation, on the other hand, is a fa-
miliar foe that Fed o� cials say they are con� dent they can control with con-ventional policy tools.
“If the Fed were to generate too much economic growth and higher in-� ation, that is a much better situation to be in than one of a faltering econom-ic recovery and the need to rely even more on unconventional tools,” said David Stockton, the Fed’s chief econo-
mist until 2011 who is now a senior fel-low at the Peterson Institute for Inter-national Economics.
“The Fed knows how to contain in-� ation if it is moving,” he said, while the impact at this point of another downturn “are more uncertain and hard to counter.”
The risks of moving too soon, Stock-ton and others in and outside the Fed say, include snu� ng out an already tepid housing market recovery with higher mortgage rates, depressing busi-ness investment and durable goods purchases, and triggering sudden de-clines in asset prices.
And after extraordinary e� orts to right the US economy after the � nan-cial crisis struck, there would likely be little appetite among Republicans or other � scal conservatives on Capi-tol Hill to use � scal policy to counter a fresh recession, making it all the more important for Yellen to avoid helping to cause such a reversal.
“The challenge that she and the Fed as an institution face is to support the
recovery, because � scal policy ... is no longer on the table for both political and economic reasons,” said David Lipton, � rst deputy managing director at the International Monetary Fund. “Now that (the economy) is recovering, the challenge is to gauge its strength and make sure it stays on the right path.”
The other scary scenario is that a bout of swifter-than-expected in� ation could erode three decades of hard-earned con� dence that prices will remain un-der control, which in turn could make it easier for higher in� ation to take � rm root. The Fed’s more hawkish o� cials also worry that the longer rates remain ultra low the more likely it is that trou-blesome � nancial bubbles will form.
Philadelphia Federal Reserve Bank President Charles Plosser formally dissented over the current dovish ap-proach at the central bank’s last policy meeting, while in recent weeks Richard Fisher of the Dallas Fed has ampli� ed his concern that the bank is falling be-hind the in� ation curve.
But even Fisher, one of the Fed’s
most outspoken hawks, credited Yel-len’s “extremely thoughtful” way of taking into account the views of other policymakers, a factor he said prompt-ed him not to dissent.
“She may be new to the chair but she’s well respected and she knows all the personalities in the room,” said former Fed Governor Elizabeth Duke. Je� rey Fuhrer, senior policy advisor at the Boston Fed, said Yellen’s com-munications style is “a little more open and accessible” than her predecessor Bernanke. Adding: “She’s a bit more approachable somehow.”
The central bank is also watching the November mid-term elections with particular interest: a Republican take-over of the Senate could give momen-tum to a proposal that would force the Fed to rely on a mechanistic rule to set interest rates based on the levels of in-� ation and unemployment in the econ-omy. That would undermine the collec-tive judgment Yellen feels is needed to guide the economy in the aftermath of the � nancial crisis. l
Customers visit an electronics store displaying Sony's video game console PlayStation 4 and game software in Tokyo on August 13. Sony said on August 13 that global sales of its PlayStation 4 console have surged past the 10 million mark in less than a year, a record for the Japanese electronics giant AFP
Janet Yellen REUTERS
German in� ation drops to lowest level in four years n AFP, Frankfurt
In� ation in Germany, Europe’s biggest economy, fell in July to its lowest level in over four years, o� cial data showed yesterday.
Con� rming a � ash estimate released at the end of last month, the federal statistics o� ce Destatis calculated that German in� ation this month dropped to 0.8% year-on-year, its lowest level since February 2010, after rebounding to 1% in June.
In� ation has been unusually low across the 18-nation eurozone, fuel-
ling concern the region could slip into de� ation: a sustained and widespread drop in prices that hampers economic activity and threatens job losses.
While falling prices may sound good for consumers, de� ation can trigger a vicious spiral where businesses and households delay purchases, throttling demand and causing companies to lay o� workers.
Such concerns persuaded the Euro-pean Central Bank to cut interest rates in June and unveil other measures to ease monetary conditions in the single currency area. l
Google ‘anti-aging’ group has a website n AFP, San Francisco
Google’s new company aimed at ad-dressing problems of health and aging has taken a step forward - with its own website and mission statement.
“We’re tackling aging, one of life’s greatest mysteries,” says the website of Calico LLC, a project announced last September by Google chief executive Larry Page.
“Calico is a research and develop-ment company whose mission is to harness advanced technologies to in-crease our understanding of the biol-ogy that controls lifespan. We will use that knowledge to devise interventions that enable people to lead longer and healthier lives.”
As previously announced, the head of the company is Arthur Levinson, who was chief executive o� cer of Ge-nentech from 1995 to 2009 and is now the chairman of the board of Apple.
The other members of the team, which had not been previously an-nounced, include Hall Barron former chief medical o� cer of pharmaceutical group Ho� mann-La Roche; David Bot-stein, a Princeton University genomics professor; and Cynthia Kenyon, a re-searcher in biology and genetics who comes from the University of California at San Francisco.
The team also includes former Ge-
nentech oncology researcher Robert Cohen and Jonathan Lewis, an execu-tive from Brussels-based UCB Pharma.
“We are scientists from the � elds of medicine, drug development, molecu-lar biology, and genetics,” the website said.
“Through our research we’re aiming to devise interventions that slow aging and counteract age? related diseases.”
Announcing the new investment last year, Page said: “Illness and aging a� ect all our families. With some lon-ger term, moonshot thinking around healthcare and biotechnology, I believe we can improve millions of lives.”
News of the website was reported Monday by SFGate, which is part of the San Francisco Chronicle. l
Twitter unveils video ads n AFP, San Francisco
Twitter on Tuesday unveiled a new ad-vertising program that delivers “pro-moted videos” to the tweet stream of us-ers of the popular messaging platform.
The new program adds to the source of advertising revenue for Twitter, which has struggled to convince inves-tors it is on a path to pro� tability.
“By using Promoted Video, it’s easy for brands to upload and distribute video on Twitter, and to measure the reach and e� ectiveness of this con-tent,” product manager David Regan said in a blog post.
Regan said test launch came “after months of experiments and feedback from users and brands.”
Regan said that to make it easier for advertisers, Twitter will o� er a “cost per view” model: “This means adver-tisers only get charged when a users starts playing the video,” he said.
“Additionally, advertisers using Pro-moted Video have access to robust vid-eo analytics,” such as how many people view the entire video, he said.
Twitter accounted for 0.5% of global digital ad revenues in 2013, according to research � rm eMarketer, and expects to increase that to 0.8% this year, as digital ad spending grows to $140.15bn.
Twitter said last month that the number of monthly active users of the platform has hit 271 million, up 24% when compared with the same period a year earlier. l
As previously announced, the head of the company is Arthur Levinson, who was chief executive o� cer of Genentech from 1995 to 2009 and is now the chairman of the board of Apple
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