Motive of the attack was to create political tension and stop cultural activities in the country, says the judgement n Ashif Islam Shaon and

Md Sanaul Islam Tipu

Chief of banned militant out� t Harkat-ul-Jihad-al Islami Mufti Abdul Hannan and seven of his aides have to walk the gallows for killing 10 people in a bomb blast incident during the traditional celebrations of the Bangla New Year at the capital’s Ramna Batamul in 2001.

For the same o� ence, six other Huji members were sentenced to life term imprisonment for conspiracy, plotting and carrying out the attack on common-ers who were visiting the place to ob-serve the day, 13 years back, on April 14.

Judge Ruhul Amin of the Second Ad-ditional Metropolitan Sessions Judge’s Court of Dhaka read out the verdict in a jam-packed courtroom amid tight se-curity measures yesterday morning.

The court also � ned the 14 convicts Tk50,000 each.

Before reading out the sentences, the judge, in his observation, said the incident had no political link, and that the case was not a political one. Those who had died had gone to the place with their family members, kith and kin and children to celebrate the Bangla New Year. They were common people.

This celebration is not meant for any particular party, class, ideology, group or religion. That day, several thousand

people of di� erent religions, castes, groups, sexes and ages gathered at the venue.

The judge said from the confession-al statements of the accused and depo-sitions of witnesses, the court learned that two powerful bombs had been planted technically in the spot early in the morning, hours before the pro-gramme began.

According to bomb experts, two re-mote control devices were used to det-onate the bombs.

The � rst bomb exploded around 8:05am and the other 10-15 minutes later. Seven innocent people died on the spot during the � rst explosion and

20-25 people sustained injuries. Later three persons died at hospitals while undergoing treatment.

“The attackers did not target any certain person, object or group. The [or-ganiser] Chhayanaut is also a non-po-litical organisation,” the judge said.

“The motive of the attacks was to create political turmoil and panic, to pollute the cultural arena and stop cul-tural activities in the country. What the attackers and the planners did that day was heinous, barbaric and cruel. There is no scope to show sympathy or favour them,” the court observed.

According to the accounts of the PAGE 2 COLUMN 1

Neymar sizzles as Brazil top group

Hosts Brazil stormed into the second round of the Fifa World Cup after powering past a spirited Cameroon in a

4-1 win at the National Stadium in Bra-silia yesterday.

Both Brazil and Mexico ended their Group A campaign with seven points after the � nal round of games but a bet-ter goal di� erence saw the Selecao top the group. Brazil had a goal di� erence of +5 while Mexico had +3 following their 3-1 victory over Croatia at Recife yesterday.

Brazil will now square o� against Chile in the round of 16 at Belo Hori-zonte on Saturday while Group A runners-up Mexico are all set to face

early pace-setters the Netherlands at Fortaleza a day later.

The Indomitable Lions made life hard for the hosts who had to toil hard till the last minute to ensure their supe-riority. Cheered on by a capacity crowd, Neymar and Co gradually grew in con-� dence.

Brazil, in their 100th World Cup game, took the lead in the 17th minute through a � owing passage of play as holding mid� elder Luiz Gustavo won the ball in the left � ank, rolled a low cross past two opposition defenders and towards the path of the onrushing Neymar who completed the task with a cool angular � ick in the far post of Charles Itandje. Neymar’s strike was also this World Cup’s 100th goal.

However, Cameroon refused to go down without a � ght. The Indomitable Lions pressed forward, cornered the Brazilian defence and duly received

rewards for their brave attacking ap-proach in the 26th minute when Schal-ke 04 centre-back Joel Matip tapped in a simple � nish after brilliant work down the right edge of the box by teammate Allan Nyom, who produced superb footwork to go past Dani Alves before unleashing the pass.

A shell-shocked Brazil were yearn-ing for a saviour to rescue them and Neymar rose to the occasion once again. Ten minutes before the conclu-sion of the � rst half, Marcelo controlled a long ball brilliantly and ran past his PAGE 2 COLUMN 6

7 | THE STATE OF DEMOCRACY IN BANGLADESH

20 pages plus 16-page T-Mag tabloid | Price: Tk12TUESDAY, JUNE 24, 2014 | www.dhakatribune.com | SECOND EDITION

Ashar 10, 1421Shaaban 25, 1435Regd. No. DA 6238Vol 2, No 84

TMAG | WHAT’S ON YOUR PLATE? 11 | TEACH, DON’T PREACH

4 HUJI MEN PLANTED BOMBSP3

6 | NationA long tra� c jam on the Dhaka-Mymensingh highway early yesterday brought passengers misery as it was taking too much time to cross the fairly large distance.

12 | EntertainmentAamir Khan, known for shunning award shows, received a packet of sweets instead of a trophy at the Star Parivaar award show for his TV programme ‘Satyamev Jayate.’

15 | SportItaly must � nd a way to shut down Uruguay striker Luis Suarez when the teams clash at the Dunas arena on Tuesday in a World Cup showdown which will decide who goes through to the last 16.

8 | WorldJohn Kerry met Iraq’s PM to push for a more inclusive government, abandoned the border with Jordan, leaving the entire Western frontier outside government control.

B1 | BusinessBangladesh Bank has raised the cash reserve requirement (CRR) by 0.5% as the money market is awash with huge liquidity.

4 | NewsThe government has disbursed Tk1,171.72 crore credits for April and May to the Power Development Board for purchasing electricity from independent, rental and quick rental power plants, of which above 80% was for quick rental plants.

5 | NewsRemoving the waterlogging problem wasa pledge that M Manjur Alam had madewhen he was elected mayor of theChittagong city.

INSIDE

15

WC MATCHES

Jun 26, 20142am Honduras vs Switzerland2am Ecuador vs France10pm USA vs Germany10pm Portugal vs Ghana

Jun 27, 20142am Korea Republic vs Belgium2am Algeria vs Russia

Jun 24, 201410pm Italy vs Uruguay10pm Costa Rica vs EnglandJun 25, 20142am Japan vs Colombia2am Greece vs Côte d’Ivoire10pm Nigeria vs Argentina10pm Bosnia-Herzegovina vs Iran

Navy chief: India maritime dispute verdict on July 2n Sheikh Shahariar Zaman in

Dhaka and Tushar Hayat in Chittagong

The verdict in the maritime boundary dispute between Bangladesh and India would be delivered on July 2, said Na-val chief Vice-Admiral M Farid Habib yesterday.

“The dispute between Bangladesh and Myanmar is over and I hope the dispute with India will also be resolved in July,” he told reporters after attend-ing a parade at the Patenga Naval Acad-emy in Chittagong.

“After the verdict, our initiative to explore gas and oil in the Bay of Bengal will be expedited,” he said.

When contacted, Khurshed Alam, secretary to the Maritime A� airs Unit at the Foreign Ministry, however, said: “We are yet to get any o� cial date for the verdict from the court.”

Bangladesh instituted the arbitral proceedings concerning the delimita-tion of the maritime boundary between Bangladesh and India on October 8, 2009 where the Permanent Court of Arbitration acts as Registry in the arbi-tration.

Meanwhile, a press release of the In-ter-Services Public Relations said it was just a matter of time that submarines would be added to the Bangladesh Navy � eet.

“According to the long-term vision of the government to ensure maritime security, it is a just a matter of time

PAGE 2 COLUMN 1

War crimes verdict in Nizami case today n Mushfi que Wadud

The war crimes tribunal is set to deliv-er its verdict today in the case against Jamaat-e-Islami chief Motiur Rahman Nizami for his role during the 1971 Lib-eration War.

The three-member Internation-al Crimes Tribunal 1 led by Justice M Enayetur Rahim set the date yesterday.

Nizami was indicted on May 28, 2012 on 16 counts of crimes against human-ity including rape, murder, abduction and inciting violence committed in Dhaka and Pabna. The accused alleged-ly played a key role in setting up Peace Committee and razakar forces, meant to oppress the pro-liberation Bangalees.

According to the formal charges, Nizami had been the chief of Islami Chhatra Sangha, then Jamaat’s student wing, prior to October in 1971. Later he became the chief of All Pakistan Chha-tra Sangha. Militia group al-Badr, which was responsible for the systematic kill-ings of intellectuals, was formed with Chhatra Sangha members.

This will be the 10th verdict in war crimes cases to be announced by the two tribunals.

Nizami, a former industries minister during the BNP-Jamaat’s 2001-06 term, already faces death sentence in the sensational 10-truck arms haul case.

However, the verdict against Nizami, PAGE 2 COLUMN 5

Rain, rally increase woes of Dhaka commutersn Mohammad Jamil Khan

and Abid Azad

Commuters in Dhaka su� ered through-out the day yesterday, as the water-logged streets, coupled with tra� c diversions prompted by an Awami League rally, resulted in long tailbacks on the busiest roads in the capital.

The tra� c congestions started ear-ly in the morning after incessant rain caused key roads in the city to go un-der water. The situation worsened when many vehicles broke down in the middle of the road and blocked tra� c movement.

“On other days, we get some space to reach our destination, but today it was di� cult as no space was found on

the road because of the water and the huge tra� c jam,” said Ali Hasan, a stu-dent of Dhaka University who uses a motorbike to commute.

Sources said roads had become wa-terlogged in Shantinagar, Motijheel, Fakirapool, Nilkhet, Bailey Road and Chankharpool, soon after the rain started.

Later in the afternoon, the tra� c congestion crisis intensi� ed when the police started diverting tra� c at Mat-sya Bhaban and Ruposhi Bangla inter-sections because of a rally by Awami League at the city’s Engineers Institute to mark its founding anniversary.

As a result, the roads at Shah-bagh, Katabon, Science Laboratory,

PAGE 2 COLUMN 2

Jihadist Huji also worked for othersn Julfi kar Ali Manik

Harkat-ul-Jihad-al Islami (Huji), the country’s � rst openly-emerged Islamist militant out� t, sometimes carried out terror attacks as per their own jihad (to establish self-interpreted Islamic rule) agenda and sometimes were used as a mercenary force.

Groups belonging to secular spirits in political and socio-cultural arenas had always been Huji’s target since its emer-gence through an open declaration of its jihad agenda at a press conference at the National Press Club in early 1992.

The bomb attack on Chhayanaut’s Bangla New Year celebrations at the Ramna Batamul on April 14, 2001 (an age-old festivity at the capital’s Ramna Park) was its own agenda, according to the case documents.

Mufti Abdul Hannan, one of the top convicted Huji leaders in this case, said in his judicial statement that they had launched the attack since the pro-gramme was “anti-Islamic.”

According to his statement, Huji wanted to stop the arranging of the programme every year by spreading panic among the countrymen.

It was not the � rst terrorist attack carried out by the Huji B – the Bangla-desh chapter of international Islamist terrorist out� t Huji. It was one of many attacks committed by Huji since Janu-ary 1998.

PAGE 2 COLUMN 1

8 Huji men to die for Ramna Batamul killings

File photo shows people, who had gathered at the Ramna Batamul to celebrate Pahela Baishakh, running away from the spot after the � rst bomb exploded

DT IN

FOGR

APHI

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Mu� i Abdul Hannan Maulana Akbar Hossain

Arif Hasan Sumon

Shahadatullah Jewel

Maulana Sha� qur Rahman

Sheikh Farid

Maulana Abdur Rauf

Maulana Yahia

Maulana Abdul Hai

Ha� z Jahangir Alam Badr

Maulana Abu Taher

Maulana Sabbir Ahmed

Maulana Abu Bakr

Maulana Tajuddin

DEATH

LIFETERM

LIFETERM

LIFETERM

LIFETERM

LIFETERM

LIFETERM

DEATH

DEATH

DEATH

DEATH

DEATH

DEATH

DEATH

RAMNA BATAMUL CARNAGE

CONVICTS AND SENTENCES

ABSCONDING

ABSCONDING

ABSCONDING

ABSCONDING ABSCONDING

Brazilian star Neymar celebrates after scoring his side’s second goal during the Group A World Cup match against Cameroon at the Estadio Nacional in Brasilia, Brazil today AP

Standings P W D L F A Pts1 Brazil 3 2 1 0 7 2 72 Mexico 3 2 1 0 4 1 73 Croatia 3 1 0 2 6 6 34 Cameroon 3 0 0 3 1 9 0

GROUP Afrom Brazil

War crimes verdict in Nizami case today PAGE 1 COLUMN 6allegedly a top collaborator of the Pa-kistani occupation forces, has been de-layed for a long time.

On November 13 last year, the tribu-nal 1 announced that the verdict in the case might be delivered any day. How-ever, the closing arguments were heard once again since the former chairman went on retirement on December 31, before the verdict was delivered.

On February 23 this year, the Law Ministry appointed High Court Divi-sion Judge M Enayetur Rahim as the chairman of tribunal 1.

A fresh hearing of the closing argu-ments began on March 10 and the trial ended on March 24.

On that day, prosecutor Tureen Afroz sought capital punishment for Nizami, and conducting prosecutor Mohammad Ali claimed that they had proved all the charges, and that death penalty was the only punishment for such an accused.

In their arguments, the defence, however, termed Nizami “innocent,” and said he had not been involved in any of the crimes stated in the charge sheet.

The defence said Nizami had not directed to kill or destroy in whole or part any of the racial, religious, ethnic or national group that are components of a genocide charge.

Since he had not targeted any of those groups, it could not be genocide, claimed the defence.

Despite admitting that Nizami was the chief of Islami Chhatra Sangha, the defence claimed that the prosecution had been unable to produce any evi-dence to prove that the accused was also the chief of al-Badr.

On July 24 last year, Aminul Is-

lam Dablew, a prosecution witness testifying against Nizami, told thetribunal that razakars and al-Badr members had killed his freedom � ght-er father and tortured his brother on Nizami’s orders.

On August 29 last year, Zahurul Huq, a freedom � ghter, told the tribu-nal that some Pakistani army personnel along with local razakars and al-Badr members had committed a massacre in Ruposhi Bausgari village of Pabna’s Santhia during the Liberation War.

He said upon Nizami’s order, at least 400 people, mostly from the Hindu communities, had been killed in an op-eration in that village. l

News2 DHAKA TRIBUNE Tuesday, June 24, 2014

MPs warned about objectionable comments in JS n Kamran Reza Chowdhury

For the � rst time in 10th parliament, the speaker yesterday reminded the lawmakers not to violate the Rules of Procedure that debars the MPs from us-ing unparliamentary and objectionable words and comments in the legislature.

Deputy Speaker Fazle Rabbi Miah, who was chairing the sitting when Awami League MP Yunus Ali Sarker was speaking, alerted the MPs about the Rules of Procedure since they fre-quently used such words.

Yunus Ali Sarker in his budget speech said: “Tarique Rahman’s gene is the gene of an autocratic ruler while Sajeeb Wazed Joy’s was that of Bangab-andhu [Sheikh Mujibur Rahman].”

As he � nished his speech, Fazle Rab-bi said: “Honourable members, I ear-nestly request you to follow rules 267 and 268 of the Rules of Procedure.”

The rules 267-270 have the guide-lines for the MPs to talk in the House, restricting them from using unparlia-mentary words.

According to parliamentary rules, the chair is considered as the speaker.

Over the last 49 days’ sittings in two sessions of the current parliament, the legislature saw frequent comments on BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia, her elder son and party’s Senior Vice-Chairman Tarique Rahman and its founder Gen Ziaur Rahman.

But neither Speaker Shirin Sharmin Chaudhury nor the deputy speaker re-minded the MPs about avoiding unpar-liamentary words.

Deputy Leader of the House Sye-da Sajeda Chowdhury said the Awa-mi League-led government could not

achieve desired growth due to the “vi-olent politics” of the BNP-Jamaat.

“Those, who are not eager to see development, talk against the country abroad. We had to resist them all the year round,” she added.

Fisheries and Livestock Minister Sayedul Haque told the House that Bang-ladesh too could come out as a strong economy like India and China – the two emerging powers in global politics.

“Bangladesh’s geographic location is very important,” he said. “India for the sake of its security interests will main-tain good relations with Bangladesh.”

Another former minister, Motahar Hossain, told the House: “The civil soci-ety members have been talking rubbish and the BNP-Jamaat has joined them.”

Without mentioning the name of the BNP, Kazi Nabil Ahmed of Jessore 3 said: “Not taking part in the poll [on January 5] without any valid ground, a big political party resorted to the path of violence. They have been threaten-ing [the government] with agitation.

“They will be defeated; [they will be] defeated repeatedly,” he said.

Kazi Nabil also urged the govern-ment to give the freedom � ghters fes-tival bonus in two Eids.

Ziaul Haque Mridha MP in his speech said the government must check bu-reaucratic hassles to implement the budget. He said the Jatiya Party was the real opposition in parliament, though it had representatives in the cabinet.

Speaker Shirin Sharmin Chaud-hury chaired the sitting as the House resumed around 11:15am. The deputy speaker took over the sitting before it was adjourned around 5pm. The House started again around 5:20pm. l

Security heightened as Jamaat mulls hartalafter Nizami verdictn Tribune Report

Security has been beefed up across the country as the International Crimes Tribunal is set to pronounce its verdict in the case against Jamaat-e-Islami Ameer Motiur Rahman Nizami today.

Dhaka Metropolitan Police and Rapid Action Battalion have already taken special security measures and deployed additional forces at key points in the capital to fend o� any kind of untoward incident. People’s movement in the tribunal area was also restricted.

Alongside the regular forces, the members of DB police, SWAT teams and APC would be on duty.

Twenty platoons of the BGB were deployed in the capital at 7pm. “They will be on duty until 8am today. If nec-essary, it will be extended further,” Maj Gen Aziz Ahmed, director general of the BGB, told the Dhaka Tribune.

Meer Rezaul Alam, joint commis-sioner (crime) of the DMP, told the Dhaka Tribune that special measures had been taken to ensure security of the city people.

ATM Habibur Rahman, director of legal and media wing of RAB, said the elite force was put on alert to avert any kind of unwanted incident.

A press release said around 8,000 RAB personnel would be on duty to tackle violence. Besides the regular force, dog squad and bomb disposal unit would conduct special drives.

Sources say the Jamaat-Shibir sup-porters have plans to carry out subver-sive activities following the verdict.

The law enforcers held several meet-ings and asked all the police stations under the DMP to take special meas-ures to ward o� untoward incidents.

Our Chittagong correspondent re-ported that the local police had taken strict measures ahead of the verdict.

Banaj Kumar Mazumder, additional commissioner (crime and operation) of the CMP, said additional 2,000 police-men were deployed at 80 points of the port city and the highways.

The CMP began drives in Ja-maat-Shibir-dominated areas, student messes and hostels from last night.

After the verdict against Jamaat leader Delawar Hossain Sayedee last year, violence � ared up in Satkania, Lohagara, Banshkhali and Sitakunda upazilas of the district when sever-al people, including policemen, were killed.

On January 30, Nizami and 13 others were sentenced to death in the sensa-tional 10-truck arms haul cases.

Jamaat plans hartalKey ally of the BNP, Jamaat has plans to announce a two-day nationwide shutdown or violent demonstration if Nizami is convicted by the tribunal.

Several party leaders told the Dhaka Tribune that the Jamaat central com-mittee had already directed its activists across the country to be prepared for any sort of tough movement.

The instructions are – if Nizami gets death penalty, the party will stage violent demonstration, bravingpolice action; and if it is life term jail, then Jamaay will merely observe pro-cessions.

A central committee member said the party had planned to call a hartal for today, but later retreated from the decision, considering “weather and po-litical situation.”

Central Committee member Syed Abdullah Mohammad Taher told the Dhaka Tribune: “We have faith in the rule of law and believe that Nizami was not involved in any type of crimes against humanity. Our party activists will not tolerate any wrong judgement against him.” l

Jihadist Huji also worked for others PAGE 1 COLUMN 6Since its inception in 1992, during the � rst regime of the Khaleda Zia-led BNP, Huji was nourished and almost un-challenged for years until the Sheikh Hasina-led Awami League government started chasing its operatives following the attack on poet Shamsur Rahman.

Later, the extremist out� t carried out several terrorist attacks during 1996-2001 and also during Khaleda’s 2001-06 reign. The incidents include bomb attacks on left cultural organisa-tion Udichi’s programme in Jessore, the Communist Party of Bangladesh’s pub-lic meeting in Paltan, an assassination attempt on Hasina in 2000 by a bomb planted in Gopalganj.

During Khaleda’s 2001-06 tenure, Huji was blamed for killing Awami League’s former � nance minister Shah AMS Kibria in a grenade attack in Hab-iganj. They also conducted a grenade attack on British High Commissioner in Dhaka Anwar Choudhury in 2004 at the Shahjalal Shrine in Sylhet.

The case linked with the attack on the UK envoy has been resolved in a tri-al court in Sylhet where Mufti Hannan

was convicted along with some other accused Huji men.

Many other attacks were made by Huji to serve their own agenda.

Huji was used as a mercenary group during the sensational grenade attack on an Awami League rally on August 24, 2004 at Bangabandhu Avenue to assassinate Hasina, then opposition leader in parliament.

According to police investigations and documents of the ongoing trial pro-ceedings, Huji had carried out the gris-ly attack masterminded by the leaders, ministers and lawmakers of the then ruling BNP and Jamaat-e-Islami.

The meeting of the plotters was held at Hawa Bhaban – then an alternative powerhouse run by Khaleda’s elder son Tarique Rahman who had left Bangla-desh in 2008 for London and has not returned since.

Huji was hired to execute the plan to assassinate Awami League chief Sheikh Hasina.

The outlawed group spread its radi-cal network through Qawmi madrasas (unrecognised private Islamic schools). Their leaders set up many Qawmi ma-

drasas across the country to expand the Huji network.

It was reportedly funded by other Islamist militant and terrorist groups abroad, mainly in Pakistan and Afghan-istan.

Huji also has links with Myan-mar’s Rohingya insurgent groups. It has trained many militants to provide them training on arms in many camps – situated in the forest areas of great-er Chittagong. They got support from Rohingya insurgent groups to operate those camps, said some sources who were with Huji from 1990s.

Many Bangladeshi Huji organisers and founders had close links with ter-rorist group al-Qaeda and its former leader Osama bin Laden and present leader Ayman al-Zawahiri. Many of them fought for the Talibans in Af-ghanistan, according to the militants’ documents.

Abdur Rouf, one of the convicted Huji leaders in the Ramna Batamul blast case, was trying to reorganise Huji and other militant groups together from jail, according to police sources.

During the BNP-Jamaat rule from

2001 to 2006, Huji founders tried to form a political party named Islam-ic Democratic Party. But the Election Commission turned down its applica-tion for registration in 2008. It is al-leged that a group of the army’s intel-ligence wing DGFI had helped in IDP’s formation at that time.

Many of the top leaders of Huji were reportedly behind the formation of Islami Oikya Jote, a key ally of the BNP-Jamaat.

Hefazat leader Mufti Izharul Islam Chowdhury, founder of Jamiatul Ulum Al Islamia Madrasa – otherwise known as Lalkhan Bazar Madrasa – played a signi� cant role in spreading the Huji network across the country since the early 1990s with the ultimate goal of launching a jihad.

The Qawmi madrasa in Chittagong, which came under spotlight after an explosion of locally-made hand gre-nades on its premises last year, has long been known as a Huji den.

The madrasa even trained Huji members in operating arms so they could � ght in the battle� eld as trained jihadis. l

India maritime PAGE 1 COLUMN 1to induct submarine with base,” said Navy chief Farid Habib at the Naval Acade-my parade. On March 1, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina said two submarines would be inducted in Bangladesh Navy by 2015 to build it as a three-dimensional force. Two new frigates procured from China were commissioned on the same day.

Two large patrol crafts with missiles, two frigates and a Coast Guard cutter were inducted in the force. Farid said: “Five patrol craft were made for the � rst time at the Khulna Shipyard and a process is ongoing to build two LPCs.” l

8 Huji men to die for Ramna Batamul killings PAGE 1 COLUMN 3accused, there was no religious or so-cial clash between the attackers and the victims. It was an attack on Benga-li culture so that the people refrained from celebrating the day.

“It is one of the most heinous, bar-baric and shameful attacks on general people since the country’s War of Inde-pendence,” the court said.

During the trial proceedings, six of the injured gave their depositions while eight more people who were present on the spot described the incident before the court. The other witnesses includ-ed eight relatives of the victims.

The court said the prosecution had succeeded in proving the charges against the accused based on the wit-ness accounts and documents. Con-fessional statements of three accused, especially Huji chief Mufti Hannan’s

statement, had helped the court to draw its conclusion. In his statement made on November 19, 2006, Hannan said they had carried out the attack since the programme was “anti-Islamic.”

The death row convicts are Mufti Ab-dul Hannan Munshi alias Abul Kalam alias Abdul Mannan, Arif Hasan alias Su-man alias Abdur Razzak, Maulana Akbar Hossain alias Helal Uddin, Alhaj Maulana Md Tajuddin (absconding), Hafez Jahang-ir Alam Badar (absconding), Maulana Abu Bakar alias Hafez Selim Hawlader (ab-sconding), Mufti Sha� qur Rahman (Ab-sconding) and Mufti Abdul Hye (abscond-ing). Of them, Hannan, Akbar and Arif Hasan admitted their involvement in the incident. Later they submitted petitions to withdraw the statements, but those were rejected.

The lifers are Hafez Maulana Yahiya, Maulana Shawkat Osman alias Sheikh

Farid, Maulana Sabbir alias Abdul Han-nan, Maulana Abu Taher, Shahadat Ullah alias Jewel and Maulana Abdur Rouf. Hannan is facing 24 other cases.

The judge started reading out the verdict around 11:45am.

Nine Huji men including Hannan were produced before the court around 10:50am. In the courtroom, they looked tensed and pale. Lifer Maulana Abu Ta-her cried after hearing the verdict.

‘Huji chief wanted no bloodshed’In his confessional statement, Hannan said Hafej Abu Taher, who was the pres-ident of Ranangan Shilpi Gosthi, a cul-tural wing of Huji, had met Huji’s former secretary Maulana Sheikh Farid in Dha-ka. He proposed to Farid that they should launch a bomb attack on the Bangla New Year ceremony to stop the programme.

“Sheikh Farid came to our city unit

o� ce, which was situated in the capi-tal’s Mohammadpur between the Shia Mosque and the Rahmania Madra-sa. After a discussion among myself, Maulana Abdur Rouf, Yahiya Sabbir, Ja-hangir Badar, Abu Bakar and some oth-ers, Sheikh Farid asked Taher to launch the bomb attack,” Hannan said.

But at one stage of the discussion, the leaders at the meeting decided to consult the matter with Huji chief Mufti Sha� qur Rahman, for approval. Farid, Abu Bakar and Jahangir went to Sha� qur’s place to � nalise the plan.

“After they came back, Farid told me that the chief had given his approval but had asked all to carry out the attack in a way so that no one was harmed.”

The Huji chief had instructed Sabbir and Jahangir to make the bombs. They were ordered to hand those over to Ta-her. The duo followed the instructions.

On the day of the incident, several Huji men including Hasan and Omar Faruque (who used to introduce them-selves as students of Dhaka College) planted the bombs.

Two cases – one for the killing and the other under the Explosive Sub-stances Act – were � led with the Ramna police station.

On December 30, 2008, the Criminal Investigation Department pressed the charges against the 14 accused in both the cases. Earlier, the court recorded statements of 61 prosecution witnesses, including the complainant of the case.

The case involving explosive sub-stances has remained stuck till now. In 2009, the Speedy Trial Tribunal 1 of Dhaka sought the Supreme Court regis-trar’s opinion on whether both the cas-es could be tried together. The registrar has yet to respond on the matter.

Hannan claims himself innocent After the judge delivered the verdict, death row convict Hannan, who had appointed no lawyers to defend him, immediately told reporters that he had not received justice. “I was a prey of political vengeance. The prosecution failed to prove the charges against me. I am innocent,” he stated.

Abu Taher claimed that he had known nothing about the incident. “God will decide my fate on the day of � nal judgement,” he said.

Additional public prosecutor SM Ja-hid Hossain said they were somewhat happy, mentioning, “The state will � le an appeal with the High Court seeking death penalty for the six Huji men who have been awarded life sentences.” On the other hand, one of the defence law-yers Jasim Uddin said they would also appeal against the judgement. l

Rain, rally increase woes PAGE 1 COLUMN 6Kalabagan, Banglamotor and Matsya Bhaban witnessed long tailbacks.

Afzal Hossain, an employee of a private company, got in a bus in front of the National Press Club at 3:30pm to go to his home at Sukrabad. How-ever, the bus was diverted near the Matsya Bhaban as the Shahbagh area was closed o� because of the Awami League programme.

Using a detour, the bus managed to reach Science Laboratory intersection at 5:30pm; but seeing the Mirpur Road jammed up ahead of him, Afzal decid-

ed to walk home instead.He was � nally able to reach his

destination after 6pm, needingtwo and a half hours to travel only around 5km.

Exhausted from the experience, Afzal told the Dhaka Tribune that it was one of the worst tra� c-related troubles of his entire life.

Seeking anonymity, a tra� c control room operator of the Dhaka Metropol-itan Police said the capital witnessed tra� c jams for almost four hours because of the rainfall and the pro-gramme by the Awami League.

It was not possible for the traf-� c department to do anything insituations where vehicles were break-ing down on waterlogged roads while processions were also being brought out by political activists, the o� cial added.

When asked about the issue, Mo-hammad Mosleh Uddin, joint commis-sioner (tra� c) of the DMP, admitted that the tra� c problem was caused by incessant rainfall and the Awami League rally. However, he claimed that tra� c movements regained normalcy after sunset. l

Left: Long tailbacks form on major roads of the capital as leaders and activists of the ruling Awami League took out several rallies to celebrating the part’s 65th founding anniversary. Right: An ambulance faces di� culties in transporting a patient due to an Awami League rally DHAKA TRIBUNE

Court sends Dr Azam to jailn Moniruzzaman Uzzal

A Dhaka court yesterday cancelled the High Court bail order for Dr Saiful Azam and ordered that he be sent to jail in connection with the case regarding the assault on a journalist.

On May 15, Dr Azam of the capital's Shikder Medical College and Hospital reportedly assaulted Shishir Morol, a special correspondent of the daily Pro-thom Alo, when he had met with the doctor to gather information.

Later, Shishir � led a case with Haz-aribagh police station in this regard.

Bangladesh Medical and Dental Coun-cil (BMDC) had formed a probe com-mittee to investigate the allegation and found Dr Azam guilty, sources said. l

Neymar sizzles PAGE 1 COLUMN 4marker before sidefooting a forward pass to the mercurial Brazilian striker. Neymar deceived two defenders before shooting between the legs of Cameroon skipper Nicolas Nkoulou and Itandje had nothing to do apart from falling down helplessly.

Brazil started the second half � r-ing from all cylinders as forward Fred scored the third four minutes after re-sumption. David Luiz’s e� orts on the left side of the box paved the way for Fred whose glancing header landed in the near post.

Fernandinho, coming on as a sub-stitute, completed the rout in the 84th minute as Oscar’s intelligent through pass found the Manchester City mid-� elder in the right � ank and he made no mistake � ring an angular drive in the far post to send the stadium into a frenzy. l

3NewsDHAKA TRIBUNE Tuesday, June 24, 2014

AL observes founding anniversary n Emran Hossain Shaikh

With a pledge to sustain the progres-sion of the country’s prosperity, the ruling Awami League celebrated its 65th founding anniversary yesterday.

To mark the day, Awami League President, Prime Minister Sheikh Ha-sina, placed a wreath on the portrait of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman in front of the Bangabandhu Bhaban in the capital.

The cabinet members, party senior leaders and lawmakers including To-fail Ahmed, Syed Ashraful Islam, Matia Chowdhury, Sheikh Fazlul Karim Se-lim, Abdul Latif Siddique, Sahara Kha-tun, Satish Chandra Roy, Mohiuddin Khan Alamgir, Dipu Moni, Ahmed Hos-sain, AFM Bahauddin Nasim and Kha-lid Mahmud Chowdhury accompanied the premier, among others.

As part of the observance of the day, thousands of party leaders and activ-ists carrying banners and placards con-

verged on the Bangabandhu Bhaban premises after sunrise, braving the heavy rainfall.

Later, Awami League President Sheikh Hasina inaugurated the anni-versary programmes by hoisting the national � ag and releasing pigeons and balloons while its General Secretary Syed Ashraful raised the party � ag.

The National Anthem was also sung on the occasion.

Speaking to journalists after placing a wreath on the portrait of Bangaband-hu, Syed Ashraful Islam said the Awami League has achieved a lot for the coun-try and its people in its 65 years.

“The party will continue achieving development and progress in the days to come,” he said.

Syed Ashraful said there were many political parties in the country, but few of them would be able to run the coun-try properly.

“Our expectations from the new generation are high because they are

the ones who might be able to take the Awami League to a new height,” he stated.

The ruling party also brought out a colourful procession, moving from Suhrawardy Udyan yesterday after-noon to Bangabandhu Bhaban at Dhan-mondi, parading through di� erent city streets while party activists chanted various slogans like “Joy Bangla, Joy Bangabandhu,” “Shuvo Shuvo Shuvo Din, Awami League er Janmo Din,” “Ja-maat-Shibir-Razakar, Ei Muhurte Bang-la Chhar,” “Hatao Rajakar Bachao Desh, Sheikh Hasinar Nirdesh.”

A number of central leaders also took part in the procession.

Earlier, the Awami League held a rally in front of the Engineers Institute.

In his address at the rally, Awami League Presidium Member Sheikh Fazlul Karim Selim warned BNP that it would learn a good lesson if it com-mitted acts of sabotage in the name of movements. l

Survivor: It still haunts me n Afrose Jahan Chaity

The bomb attack at Ramna Batam-ul during Chhayanaut’s 2001 Pahela Baishakh celebrations gripped many peo-ple with panic, including Nasima Shaheen who was performing on stage when the bombs exploded only a few yards away.

After witnessing the horri� c inci-dent that killed 10 people and injured over 50, Nasima went into shock and could not talk to anyone for days.

“It still haunts me. The scenes comes to my mind again and again. There were many people including women and children at the programme. I later heard that the criminals had plans to launch attacks on the stage as well,” said Nasima, who has also been a teacher at Chhayanaut since 1991.

Top leaders of Huji, a banned Isla-mist militant out� t, said in confessional statements that they had attacked the programme since it was “anti-Islamic.”

Nasima, along with other perform-ers, was singing “Eki Oporup Rupe Maa Tomar Herinu Polli Jononi” at the mo-ment of the blasts. “That day, my perfor-mance was set toward almost the end of the programme. When I was almost done with my performance, I heard a huge bang that stunned me for some time.

“I could not see anything but a massive amount of smoke around the place. First, I thought it was from an electric short circuit, but later I realised that it was a massive disaster,” she said.

Nasima saw some bodies piled up in front of the stage and people were say-ing that many more blasts might take place. “Everyone was running haphaz-ardly, looking for a safe place. I could not believe my eyes. I had never seen such a horri� c attack before,” she re-called. Nasima cannot remember how she returned home that day. l

Sanjida Khatun: It was against the country’s cultural practicesn Syed Samiul Bashar

Expressing satisfaction over the Ram-na Batamul case verdict, Chhayanaut President Sanjida Khatun said yester-day that the bomb blasts during the Pahela Baishakh celebration had actu-ally been an attack against the cultural practices of the country.

“We did not realise that there could be an attack against the traditional cultural festivities of the country. We were shocked by the deaths,” she told reporters at the capital’s Chhayanaut o� ce yesterday.

On the same day, a Dhaka court or-dered death sentences for eight mem-bers of the outlawed Islamist out� t Huji and lifeterm imprisonment for the six others accused in the case.

“A long period has already passed. Yet we are satis� ed that a verdict has been given, no matter what it is.

“We have to comply with the judge-ment. The investigation was a police matter and the judgement a matter of the court. We do not have anything to

say regarding the trial.“Our comfort is that a judgement

has come through legal ways. There is a rule of law in the country and the people going against the law will have to face legal actions. We will comply with that,” she stated.

“Chhayanaut does not have any re-action over the judgement,” she added.

Sanjida said the people’s sponta-neous participation in the Bangla New Year celebration programme has not decreased, rather it had increased.

“After the incident, people are com-ing out in greater numbers to celebrate Pahela Baishakh. Their interest and outburst have not tamed. We cannot agree with the statement that the cel-ebration is being hindered after the bomb blasts,” she said in reply to a que-ry.

The increasing participation is a test of courage and humanity among the Bangalees. “This is a signi� cant step towards the cultural movement of the country,” she said.

When asked about the quick imple-mentation of the verdict, Sanjida said, “There are matters involving investi-gation and the government’s inclina-tion is also important in executing the verdict as early as possible. There are so many cases pending with the courts which have been delaying the process. So there is nothing to say.”

In response to another question on the government’s inclination, the Ch-hayanaut chief said, “The judgement has been delivered and it is a positive move.” l

Four Huji men were tasked with planting bombs Maulana Tajuddin engaged three youths with death row convict Suman to plant the bombs before the celebrations begann Ashif Islam Shaon and Md

Sanaul Islam Tipu

The two bombs that went o� at the Ramna Batamul during Pahela Baishakh celebrations in 2001 had been planted early in the morning, dodging the eyes of the law enforcers, the court in its verdict said yesterday.

The Bangla New Year celebrations

began at sunrise, and as per the confes-sional statements of the convicts, the bombs were planted around 4:30am.

The bombs were detonated by re-mote controls or other timed devic-es. One of the bombs went o� around 8:05am while the other went o� after 10-15 minutes.

The attackers did not have any par-ticular target person or group. It was only carried out to attack the Bengali culture, to pollute the cultural arena and stop cultural activities in the coun-try, the judge observed.

The court made this observation after perusal of the confessional state-ments of three convicts – Maulana Ak-bar Hossain alias Helal Uddin, Mufti

Abdul Hannan and Arif Hasan Suman – who are among the eight Huji men awarded death sentences yesterday.

In his confessional statement, Su-man said Tajuddin (the brother of BNP leader Abdus Salam Pintu) had called him to his residence at Ali and Noor Estate in the capital’s Mohammadpur a day before Pahela Baishakh. Tajuddin was a tenant at Suman’s house.

“He introduced me to three youths who were with him and asked me to take them to the Ramna Batamul to inspect the place. We went there and observed the place,” Suman said.

According to the plan, the next day Suman and the youths named Johnny, Jewel and Sujan, hired a taxi and went to the Shahbagh area around 4am. They were carrying a locally-made time bomb and a remote-controlled bomb in the car.

“After getting out of the car, three of us, excepting Johnny, walked to the nearby Ramna Batamul. Police mem-bers checked our body during that time,” Suman said.

Johnny was in the car, watching the bombs and the car soon reached the programme spot. He got out of the car with the bombs and other materials. Suman continued talking to the police who were checking his body, keeping them busy. “By that time, Johnny and Sujan had planted the bombs beneath the ground,” said Suman.

After the blasts, even though Jewel and Johnny had returned, Sujan could not be traced, Suman said in his confes-sional statement. l

Vaccines for meningitis, in� uenza must for pilgrimsn Moniruzzaman Uzzal

The Ministry of Religious A� airs has made meningitis and in� uenza vac-cines compulsory for each pilgrim in-tending to � y to Saudi Arabia to per-form Hajj this year.

The Religious A� airs Ministry and the Health Ministry will jointly run mass-awareness campaigns to encour-age Hajj pilgrims to take the vaccines and they will also be advised to take precautions in order to protect them-selves against Middle East Respiratory Syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV).

This decision was taken at an in-ter-ministerial meeting yesterday which was chaired by Religious A� airs Minis-try Secretary Chowdhury Md Babul Hasan.

Md Jahangir Alam, deputy secretary (Hajj), told the Dhaka Tribune that both meningitis and in� uenza vaccines are a must for every pilgrim.

We are also seriously looking into the spread of MERS-CoV as it has be-come a threat to Hajj pilgrims, he said.

“The World Health Organisation has also cautioned against MERS. At pres-ent, there is no vaccine against MERS infection,” he added.

Professor Dr Be-Nazir Ahmed, direc-tor of Communicable Disease Control (CDC) of the Health Directorate, told the Dhaka Tribune that a number of decisions were taken at the meeting to raise awareness among pilgrims.

As part of the awareness campaign, pilgrims will be advised to wear masks in Saudi Arabia when they are outside and to avoid coming into contact with fellow pilgrims who are su� ering from colds. Besides, they should wash their hands and faces after returning from outside.

More than one lakh pilgrims from Bangladesh will be performing this year’s Hajj. l

When the policemen had been checking body of one, others reached the spot with a car and planted the bombs around 4:30am

Prime Minster Sheikh Hasina, who is also the president of the Bangladesh Awami League, releases peigons to inaugurate the celebrations of the party’s 65th founding anniversary in the capital yesterday BSS

Limon’s hearing deferred for the 8th time in one year n Our Correspondent, Barisal

Charges against  Limon  Hossain, in a case lodged by elite force RAB after allegedly maiming him, have not been withdrawn yet, even though 12 months have passed since a Home Ministry or-der to that e� ect was sent.

The hearing was deferred for the eighth time yesterday until August 18 since the chief judicial magistrate  of Jhalakathi had been transferred in Au-

gust last year. Moreover, the acting CJM, Senior Judicial Magistrate Md Arifuz-zaman, has no jurisdiction to hear such appeals, said M Alam Khan Kalam, ad-ditional public prosecutor of Jhalakathi.

Limon  was shot in his leg allegedly by some members of Rapid Action Bat-talion who had gone to Jamaddarhat village in Rajapur upazila in a drive to arrest members of local Mizan-Morshed gang on March 23, 2011. RAB the same day � led two cases against the teenager

and seven others of the notorious gang – one under the Arms Act and another for obstructing  government duty, making attempts to murder and injuring RAB personnel. Charges in the cases were submitted on April 24 and July 1 of 2012.

On July 9 last year, the Home Min-istry ordered a withdrawal of the charges, only against  Limon,  in both the cases. After a hearing, the judge of Special Tribunal 2 accepted the ap-peal of the prosecution on July 30 and

ordered the dropping of the charges against Limon in the arms case.

On the other hand, Limon’s mother Henoara Begum lodged a no-objection petition against the police report sub-mitted in her case. It did not state in-volvement of RAB men in maiming her son. After the petition had been rejected by a Jhalakathi court, she � led another petition to review the order. Hearing on the revision petition was deferred for the eighth time on April 28 until today. l

Top Huji leaders arrive at the court on a prison van yesterday ahead of the verdict in Ramna Batamul killing case RAJIB DHAR

Govt launches world’s largest web portal n Muhammad Zahidul Islam

The government has launched a na-tional portal for around 25,000 of its websites, claiming it the largest web portal in the world.

The idea behind “bangladesh.gov.bd” is to reduce confusion and protect the sites from being hacked.

The Prime Minister’s Information and Communication Technology Af-fairs Adviser Sajeeb Wazed Joy for-mally inaugurated the portal in a pro-gramme at the Prime Minister’s O� ce (PMO) yesterday.

“We have information that it is the larg-est web portal [in the world] and there is no confusion over it,” Sajeeb Wazed Joy said.

He also said: “The country is now half way to becoming Digital Bangla-desh and we can travel the rest of the way before 2021… Not only a mid-dle-income country, we want to be a modern and developed country and it will be possible in our lifetime.”

Joy, also son of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, said: “We are not only building a ‘digital Bangladesh,’ we are actually on the way towards staging a digital revolution and only the Awami League can do this.”

The portal will give a common de-sign and layout to all the government websites that are currently hosted and maintained individually by the respec-tive departments.

The PMO’s Access to Information (A2I) program has developed the site that will centrally maintain the web-sites of the respective ministries, divi-sions and wings of government o� ces.

A total of 50,000 o� cials have al-ready been trained up for maintaining the portal.

According to A2I, it is an exempla-ry programme where the websites of 4,550 union o� ces, 14,640 upazila o� ces, 4,032 district o� ces, 455 di-visional o� ces, 64 district council of-� ces, 488 upazila parishad o� ces, 55 ministries and divisions, 345 depart-ments and 414 city or municipal corpo-rations are being covered.

The sites contains 20 lakh contents, more than 40,000 pictures, informa-tion on all the educational institutions, government o� ces and their contact persons, government gadgets, freedom � ghters’ lists and descriptions of his-torical and tourist attractions.

The A2I also hopes to uphold citi-zens’ right to information through this portal.

In August 2011, A2I began the jour-ney of readying the national portal from Comilla.

Sajeeb Wazed Joy held a video con-ference with the local authority in Co-milla yesterday.

At yesterday’s programme, State Minister for ICT Zunaid Ahmed Palak said: “Bangladesh has created an infor-mation revolution over the last couple of years and more than 25,000 web-sites under a single platform is a proof of that.”

Speakers said the government had been observing the Public Service Week and there could not be a better example of how people could be served than “providing people with informa-tion before they ask for it.” l

In August 2011, A2I began the journey of readying the national portal from Comilla

4 NewsDHAKA TRIBUNE Tuesday, June 24, 2014

Housewife killed, eight injured in separate � res n Abid Azad

A housewife was killed and eight oth-ers sustained injuries in three di� erent � re incidents in the capital yesterday.

The injured are receiving treatment at the burn unit, said Dhaka Medical College Hospital (DMCH) Residential Surgeon Partha Sankar Pal.

The deceased was Rozi Begum, 25, a housewife from the capital’s Moham-madpur Geneva camp.

According to the victim’s brother, Rozi received burn injuries when the oven in her kitchen exploded on Sun-day around midnight. Later, doctors at DMCH pronounced her dead around 5.30am yesterday.

Rozi lived with her husband Sohel Rana and their daughter and two sons, he added.

In another incident, � ve members of a family received burn injuries when their residence caught � re after a ceil-ing fan short-circuited.

The injured were Joynal Abedin, 40, his wife Peyara Begum, 35, their sons Robiul Hasan, 12, and Rabbi, 18, and Khadiza, 18.

Meanwhile, three persons received burn injuries when a � re broke out at a factory in the capital’s Kayettuli area following an electric short-circuit.

The injured were Sattar, 38, the owner of the factory, and two of his workers Saidul, 35, and Faruk, 37. l

DNA to get a full directoraten Kamran Reza Chowdhury

The government has initiated a draft law to set up an entire directorate ded-icated to the formation of a national DNA database that will help detect crimes such as rapes and murders.

State Minister for Women and Chil-dren A� airs Meher Afroz mentioned this to the House yesterday while de-fending the DNA bill 2014.

In many cases, criminals go unpun-ished because of the cumbersome na-ture of investigations. The idea behind

the bill is that the DNA test results will be accepted at the court.

The parliamentary standing com-mittee on women and children a� airs ministry was asked to scrutinise the draft law and refer back to the legisla-ture in one month.

The bill, if passed, will set up the Directorate of DNA Laboratory Man-agement, headed by a director general. According to the draft law, the existing National Forensic DNA Pro� ling Labo-ratory will be considered a laboratory under the government.

Besides, any dispute relating to the determination of relations between per-sons can be detected by DNA pro� ling.

Police or the assigned investigation agencies can collect DNA samples from the suspects in line with guidelines written in the prescribed forms. Any-one declining to give samples for DNA pro� ling in three hours will be consid-ered reluctant to give samples.

In case of denials, police must turn to the court to order the collection of the DNA samples from the suspects af-ter hearing both sides.

Carrying out DNA tests without au-thorisation is an o� ence, says the pro-posed law stipulating a maximum � ve years and minimum three years of im-prisonment or a � ne of Tk3 lakh or both.

Every director, manager, secre-tary, partner, o� cial and sta� will be deemed to have committed crime if any company has direct involvement with the o� ences. They can get immu-nity from the charges if they can prove that the crimes were committed with-out their knowledge or they tried their best to stop the o� ence. l

Eden College BCL � ghts over watching World Cup n DU Correspondent

At least seven activists of the Bangla-desh Chhatra League of Eden College unit were injured in a factional clash yesterday regarding watching the foot-ball World Cup on television.

According to general students, the clash broke out for the second time among the group led by President Je-smin Akthar Nipa and General Secre-tary Israt Jahan Orchi, around 11am yesterday centering a previous � ght.

During the clash, the two rival groups fought each other with iron rods and wooden sticks and general secretary Is-rat Jahan Orchi received an injury.

The other injured were BCL activ-ists Taslima, Beauty, Bristy, Shurma, Eity and Urmi. The injured were taken to Dhaka Medical College Hospital for treatment.

On Saturday night around 11pm, a � ght took place at Ayesha Siddiqua Hall

when one group of students wanted to watch the football World Cup on a big screen TV but another wanted to watch a drama serial.

At least two students were injured in that clash including BCL Eden College unit president Jesmin Akther Nipa.

According to sources at Eden College BCL, the rivalry began over the shar-ing of the sponsorship money which a company had given the party high-ups to buy two separate big screens for Ayesha Siddiqua Hostel to watch the football World Cup.

However, Israt Jahan Orchi declined to call the incident a clash with her rival.

She rather termed it a misunder-standing among general students.

When contacted, Eden College Prin-cipal Professor Hosne Ara said the stu-dents were involved in a quarrel over watching television.

“It was not a big problem. We have the situation under control,” she added. l

NARAYANGANJ 5 BY-ELECTION

Intelligence report cites 17 polling centres as vulnerable n Mohammad Zakaria

An intelligence report cites seventeen polling centres as vulnerable in the Narayanganj 5 by-election to be held on June 26.

It also views 23 persons, accused of various cases, as potential saboteurs of the election, an Election Commission o� cer told the Dhaka Tribune, seeking anonymity.

The report fears that BNP and Ja-maat-e-Islami men might, posing as supporters of any of the four election candidates, try to enter polling centres and to create problems to ensure the deterioration of law and order during the election.

It has asked for increased vigilance on BNP-Jamaat leaders and activists, particularly so that they cannot cause

violence during the election. Independent candidate SM Akram,

Jatiya Party candidate Salim Osman, Krishak Sramik Janata League candi-date Sha� qul Islam Delowar and inde-pendent candidate advocate Mamun Sirajul Majid are contesting in the by-election.

However, the BNP, the Jamaat-e-Is-lami and even the Awami League, the ruling party, have not � elded any can-didate in the election.

The Election Commission o� cial said the report had also suggested that concerned authorities take actions such as arresting the potential poll saboteurs and increasing number of law enforcers at the vulnerable polling centres.

Senior Assistant Secretary Farhad Hossain sent the intelligence report to the senior secretary of home ministry,

inspector general of police, Narayan-ganj deputy commissioner, returning o� cer and superintendent of police to enable them to take action.

Chief Election Commissioner Kazi Rakibuddin Ahmad said the Narayan-ganj 5 by-polls area was sensitive and so the relevant authorities had been asked to take special steps to maintain law and order during the election.

The Narayanganj 5 constituency ac-counts for 3, 42, 405 voters, of whom 1, 74, 311 are male and 1, 68, 094 female. They will cast their votes from 141 poll-ing centres.

Voters, according to an Election Commission press release, will be in-formed of their voter serial numbers and polling centre names through mobile SMS and the Election Commis-sion’s website. l

Non-formal education act cleared by the cabinetn Mohosinul Karim

The cabinet has � nally approved the draft of the Non-Formal Education Act, 2014 to bring the non-formal education sector, which is now being run under a non-formal education policy, under a legal framework.

The approval was given yesterday at the regular cabinet meeting in the cab-inet room of the parliament building with Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in

the chair. Cabinet Secretary M Musharraf Hos-

sain Bhuiyan later briefed reporters about the approval at the Secretariat.

Bhuiyan said the government had enacted the new act considering its necessity to strengthen the non-formal education system in order to eliminate illiteracy in the country.

According to the new act, a non-for-mal education board will be formed which will evaluate the non-formal

education examinations, prepare cur-ricula and form improvement plans for the sector.

The Director General of the exist-ing Bureau of Non-Formal Education (BNFE) will be its chairman. The bu-reau will look after the administrative issues of the sector.

Cabinet Secretary Musharraf said the new act provides a punishment of six months in jail and a maximum of Tk50,000 as a � ne for violating the law.

Earlier in February, the cabinet sent back the proposed draft to place it as a new law titled “Non-Formal Education Act, 2014’ for further improvement of the proposed law after consultation with the stakeholder ministries.

It had also asked the primary edu-cation minister to improve the draft in such a way so that it would not con� ict with other laws.

Bhuiyan said it was important for the government to enact the new law to

bring dropouts and those children who were above 18, back into the education system. It would also spread non-for-mal education across the country and raise its standards.

He said non-formal primary educa-tion is a huge issue in the country, es-pecially in terms of ensuring minimum literacy for the elderly and dropouts.

The cabinet secretary also said the department of non-formal education had been looking after its activities.

But, there was no law and so it was nec-essary to enact this law to continue the activities of non-formal education.

Bhuiyan said, “Minimum literacy and also the provision of creating ed-ucated manpower with technical ed-ucation has been kept in the law as it will accommodate any kind of employ-ment.”

“If there is anything con� icting with other laws, that will be removed from the draft,” he stated. l

Sazeda HaqueJolly diesn Tribune Report

Alhaj Sazeda Haque Jolly, 68, wife of former tax commissioner and advo-cate of Bangladesh Supreme Court Md Nurul Haque Mia, died at her Banani residence on June 21 around 11pm. A special prayer has been arranged to be held on June 27 after the Asr prayer. Her relatives and close associate are re-quested to attend the prayer at House 30, Road 18, Block J, Banani, Dhaka. l

Burden of quick rental still above 80% of disbursementn Asif Showkat Kallol

The government has disbursed Tk1,171.72 crore credits for April and May to the Power Development Board for purchasing electricity from inde-pendent, rental and quick rental pow-er plants, of which above 80% was for quick rental plants.

The bills for quick rental plants in these two months stood at Tk949.57 crore, which o� cials at the Finance Division said de� nitely put pressure on the exchequer.

The Finance Division issued a letter to Power Division Secretary Monowar Is-lam yesterday, disbursing the loan to the PDB with a 3% interest rate.

As per the letter, the Finance Divi-sion disbursed Tk667.04 crore for the bill of April, of which Tk621.13 crore was for quick rental plants. For May, it paid Tk378.35 crore with Tk328.44 crore for these plants.

In � scal year 2009, the average pro-duction cost of electricity was Tk2.55 per kilowatt, which rose to Tk6.7 in FY2013 because of the payment to rent-al power plants. The average produc-

tion cost of power at quick rental plants in 2013 was Tk11 per unit, according to the PDB.

The PDB purchases 1,405MW elec-tricity from rental and quick rental power projects and 1,066MW from in-dependent power plants. Two months ago, the government raised the sub-sidy allocation for rental power in the revised budget for this � scal year by Tk500 crore from Tk5,000 crore.

The 9% increase in subsidy was revealed at a recent inter-ministerial meeting of the Finance Division.

Power subsidy has been increased by around 15% to Tk7,000 crore, while fuel subsidy has been slashed by 67.35% to Tk2,400 crore in FY2014-15 as the government pledged to the In-ternational Monetary Fund.

In April, the World Bank recom-mended phasing out quick rental pow-er plants and stopping payment to � rms that are out of production to ease the government’s subsidy burden as it has started renewing the contracts.

To date some contracts have been renewed on a ‘no power, no payment’ basis, while some rental prices have come down. More should be done to re-duce the cost of rental power and even-tually phase it out, said the World Bank in its Bangladesh Development Update.

It also suggested hiking the prices of gas, electricity and petroleum prod-ucts to cut the huge amount of subsidy, which was 0.1% of the GDP in FY2009 compared to 1.7% in FY2013. l

Bangladesh, Kuwait deal on military hardware displayn Mohosinul Karim

The governments of Bangladesh and Kuwait have agreed to exchange and display military hardware at museums in their respective countries.

The cabinet yesterday approved a draft of the agreement, which is ex-pected to be signed soon between the Bangladesh Military Museum and the Kuwait House of National Works, popularly known as the Kuwait Lib-eration War Museum, Cabinet Secre-tary M Musharraf Hossain Bhuiyantold reporters.

Under the agreement, the two coun-tries will establish separate sections in their respective museums to display each others’ military equipment.

The two sides will also exchange in-formation and experiences in the sec-

tor as part of an initiative to enhance cooperation.

Meanwhile, the cabinet also ap-proved a draft agreement on air ser-vices that will be signed with the Euro-pean Union.

According to the agreement, Ban-gladesh will get special bene� ts for air services in all EU countries, the cabinet secretary said.

At present, Bangladesh has sep-arate deals with eight EU countries, including the UK, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, France, Slovakia and Poland.

However, it is hard to maintain and renew eight separate accords, Musharraf said. So, the govern-ment has decided to sign a compre-hensive agreement with the EU, headded. l

Some contracts have been renewed on a ‘no power, no payment’ basis, while some rental prices have come down

Passengers on boats rush to cover themselves from a sudden downpour near the capital’s Sadarghat yesterday MUMIT M

Pedestrians and rickshaws brace knee-deep water on Nazimuddin Road in the capital’s old town area yesterday MAHMUD HOSSAIN OPU

WEATHER

THUNDERSHOWER WITH RAIN

5NewsDHAKA TRIBUNE Tuesday, June 24, 2014

PRAYER TIMES Fajar 3:46am Sunrise 5:12am Zohr 12:01am Asr 4:42pm Magrib 6:49pm Esha 8:17pm

Source: Accuweather/UNB

D H A K ATODAY TOMORROW

SUN SETS 6:50PM SUN RISES 5:12AM

YESTERDAY’S HIGH AND LOW34.8ºC 22.6ºCJessore Sandwip

TUESDAY, JUNE 24

F O R E C A S T F O R T O D A YDhaka 34° 28°Chittagong 32° 27°Rajshahi 37° 28°Rangpur 34° 26°Khulna 36° 28°Barisal 34° 28°Sylhet 33° 25°Cox’s Bazar 32° 27°

SourceL IslamicFinder.org

Top pledge of Chittagong mayor remains unful� lledWaterlogging could not be solved because of 'corruption' during the project's implementation

n Tushar Hayat, Chittagong

Removing the waterlogging problem was a pledge that M Manjur Alam had made when he was elected mayor of the Chittagong city. However, four years after the 2010 election, the city dwellers have yet to witness imple-mentation of that pledge.

According to the Chittagong City Corporation sources, projects worth Tk147.82 crore were undertaken with the aim to eradicate waterlogging in the city. However, the problem could not be solved due to widespread cor-ruption during the projects’ implemen-tation.

Advocate Anwarul Islam Chowd-hury, convener of Shocheton Nagorik Forum, said the mayor had put forward a 56-point pledge ahead of the city cor-poration election.

Of the pledges, 17 were short-term, 10 mid-term and 29 long-term, he added.

“Two of the mayor’s top pledges were to eradicate waterlogging and to have a clean city. But the pledges re-main unful� lled,” he said, adding that most of the other pledges were also un-ful� lled.

Sharif Chawhan, convener of Peo-ples’ Voice, said no proper studies were conducted before these projects were undertaken, which is why their imple-mentation could do little to eliminate waterlogging.

“Also, the projects could not be ac-complished properly due to corrup-tion,” he said, claiming that a vested quarter had made quick money in the guise of implementing the projects.

Mayor Manjur Alam, however, re-futed the allegation that he had failed to eradicate waterlogging, saying the problem had been reduced signi� cant-ly over the past four years due to the implementation of a number of proj-ects.

“Now, water pools in some areas af-ter heavy rainfall, but it recedes within

several hours after the rain stops,” he said.

The permanent eradication of wa-terlogging depended on the implemen-tation of the Drainage Master Plan, he added.

He said they had undertaken a proj-ect worth Tk297 crore to dredge a big canal, and the project had been await-

ing the nod of the Executive Commit-tee of the National Economic Council.

He also said a lack of an adequate number of sluice gates at the entrance of di� erent canals was a major reason behind the waterlogging.

He said he had been urging the Water Development Board to set up the sluice gates and expand the existing ones.

According to the city corporation sources, the Drainage Master Plan – es-timated to cost Tk88 crore – included the dredging of three giant canals with 30 branches, re-dredging of the exist-ing canals and their branches, setting up of embankments on both the sides of Karnaphuli River from Patenga to Dry Dock, setting up of tidal regulators at di� erent canals, and the construc-tion of navigation gates at Chaktain and Rajakhali canals.

Around Tk1,000 crore was spent during the past three tenures of former mayor ABM Mohiuddin Chowdhury to eradicate water-logging, but there has been little improvement, said the sources.

Many areas of the city, including Agrabad, Halishahar, Bakalia, Sholos-hahar, Muradpur, Bahaddarhat, Panch-laish, Chawk Bazar and Chandgaon go under knee to waist-deep water, even during moderate rain, and it worsens during torrential rainfall.

The low-lying areas of the city have been submerged in water for the past four days due to the heavy rainfall, caus-ing the city dwellers immense su� ering.

Jerina Hossain, a city planner, said people were paying the price as the projects to eradicate waterlogging were not being implemented in a coordinat-ed way.

She said each government organisa-tion was spending its budget in its own way.

She stressed on the necessity of im-mediate coordination among the con-cerned organisations, saying the city dwellers would have to su� er more if the ongoing situation continued. l

The photo which was taken on Sunday from Sholoshahar area in the port city shows that rickshaw pullers with their vehicles wade through chest-deep water DHAKA TRIBUNE

Commuters wait for transport at Farmgate in the capital yesterday afternoon. People had to surfer a lot because of tra� c congestion caused by waterlogging and rally of the Awami Legue SYED ZAKIR HOSSAIN

Fruit merchants resume businessn Abu Hayat Mahmud

Fruit traders across the country jointly decided to resume their businesses yes-terday after the government ensured then that traders would not be harassed in the name of anti-formalin drives.

They also announced that they would not call further strikes or demonstrations in this regard.

“We have taken the decision to re-sume business after authorities con-cerned assured us that traders would not be ‘harassed’ and their fruits would not be destroyed,” Md Sirajul Islam, general secretary of Dhaka Metropolitan Fruits Import-Export and Merchants’ Multiple Cooperative Society, told the Dhaka Tri-bune after attending a meeting with the leaders of fruit traders’ associations and fruit growers at the capital’s Badamtali Wholesale Fruit Market.

He said the Federation of Bangla-desh Chambers of Commerce and In-dustries Vice-President Helal Uddin and Haji Mohammad Selim MP, pres-ident of the Badamtali Fruit Market,

assured that they had discussed the is-sue with high o� cials of governmental bodies and con� rmed that the mobile courts would not go and destroy fruits without laboratory tests.

“Our leaders (Helal and Selim) have informed us that the government will immediately form an expert committee to test formalin limits and adulterated fruits,” Sirajul added.

Speaking to the Dhaka Tribune, He-lal Uddin said: “We asked government high-ups to ensure that the fruits be tested at the country’s Science Labo-ratory, BSTI or the Institute of Public Health, if police � nd traces of formalin at check posts.”

“Following our request, police o� -cials assured us that they would con-sider our proposal,” he added.

On Friday, Dhaka Metropolitan Po-lice held a meeting with the leaders of fruit traders’ association in a bid to convince them to withdraw the strike.

The meeting, held at the DMP head-quarters, discussed the current situ-ation and the DMP o� cials asked the

traders to resume their business.Earlier, on June 11, DMP launched

an anti-formalin drive in the capital, armed with the electronic Formalde-hyde Meter Z-300 device, which has reportedly been made to test the con-centration level of formaldehyde in air.

Later, fruit traders claimed the drive was a form of harassment and ques-tioned the dependability of the Formal-dehyde Meter Z-300 used by the mobile courts to detect formalin.

They also called a strike and formed a human chain as a protest against the ongoing anti-formalin drive as they urged the government to put an end to the controversial move.

According to several research insti-tutes in the country, such as the Institute of Food Science and Technology (IFST) and the Bangladesh Agricultural Re-search Council, and agriculturalists, the Formaldehyde Meter Z-300 is an instru-ment to measure the concentration of chemicals or gases in the air, not in food items, and it is not used on food items in the US where it is manufactured. l

Four killed in separate incidentsn FM Mizanur Rahaman,

Chittagong

At least four people, including a female and a teenager, were killed in separate incidents yesterday in Chittagong city’s Sulokbahar, Muradpur Bakalia and Ko-towali areas.

Nayek Abul Basar of Chittagong Medical College Hospital police out-post said Jalal Uddin, 45, the son of Ab-dus Sattar Shikdar from Borguna, was hit by a train at the rail crossing gate in Hamjarbag area of Muradpur around 5:30pm, leaving him critically injured.

He was taken to CMCH where on duty doctors declared him dead, he added.

Md Asinur, a rickshaw puller from Cox’s Bazar, came in contact with a live electric wire in Bakalia area around 9:30pm on Sunday night, said Nayek Bashar. He was pronounced dead by on duty doctors after he was taken to CMCH.

Roni Chakrabarti, 16, the son of Ha-radhan Chakrabarti from Ranguniya upazila, allegedly hanged himself from a ceiling fan at his residence in Amanat Manson under Panchlish police sta-tion around 5:30pm yesterday. He was rushed to the CMCH in a critical condi-tion and on duty doctors pronounced him dead.

Sarmin Akhter, 20, the daughter of Abu Taher from the same upazila, also allegedly hanged herself from a ceiling fan at her home under Kotowali Po-lice Station, said Nayek Bashar, adding that her family members rushed her to CMCH where she was declared dead.

The reasons behind the suicides could not be known immediately. l

Robbers kill security guard during robbery in the cityn Adil Sakhawat

A security guard was killed yesterday by unidenti� ed robbers while they were robbing a house in the city’s New Eskaton area.

The deceased was Abdur Rahim (40) from Muladir Char of Barisal.

According to the family living in house no 33 in New Eskaton, 13 rob-bers, around 30-40 years of age, en-tered the house from the second � oor, early yesterday morning.

“The robbers con� ned four mem-bers of my family and stole around Tk5 lakh (US$ 4000) and gold worth Tk80 lakh,” said Laikue Ali Chowdhury.

The robbers had sharp knives with them during the robbery.

“It seemed like they were not pro-fessional robbers, but knew a lot about my family,” he added.

The deceased security guard, Ra-him, had worked in that house for four years.

Sub-inspector Alam Mia of Ram-na police station told Dhaka Tribune, “After being informed by the family members, police rushed to the spot and recovered the body of the security guard. A murder and robbery case was � led with our police station and though no one has been arrested yet, we have questioned the housemaids and are trying to arrest the culprits.”

“It seems the robbers murdered the security guard because had he spotted them and had tried to inform people outside the house. They strangled him with a towel,” he added.

In another incident, the unidenti-� ed body of a young girl, aged approx-imately 20, was recovered from a lane beside Robbani Hotel in Mirpur 10 area early in the morning yesterday when police were informed by the locals, con� rmed Sub- inspector Rashidul Is-lam of Mirpur Police station.

The body was sent to Dhaka Medical College Hospital for an autopsy. l

Three killed in road accidents in Savar n Our Correspondent, Savar

Three people died in two road crashes yesterday at Savar and Ashulia, on the outskirts of Dhaka city.

Of the deceased, one was Mosharraf Hossain, 30, a worker of Rahimafrooz Batteries Ltd. The other two could not be identi� ed immediately.

Police said Mosharraf was riding on the back of a motorcycle along the Chandra-Nabinagar highway around 6:45am to go to his o� ce in Zirani area.

As they reached Kabirpur Bus Stand area, the driver lost control. Mosharraf was thrown on the road and was run over by a bus from behind. He died on the spot.

In protest, locals blocked the high-way for an hour. Ashulia police rushed there, brought the situation under con-trol and recovered the body.

Police also recovered the bodies of two other persons, who are believed to have died in road crashes in the wee hours of yesterday.

They recovered one body from from beside the Dhaka-Aricha highway next to Salihpur bridge in Savar’s Aminbazar and another from beside the Chandra-Nabi-nagar highway in Ashulia’s Zirani. l

Unusual vacation at CU to shun BCL in� ghtingn CU Correspondent

The Chittagong University (CU) authorities have allegedly forced the start of their summer vacation from today till August 7, four days before the usual date, in order to avert possible clashes between two groups of Bangladesh Chhatra League.

The CU authorities, however, stat-ed that the adverse weather condi-tions which have been hampering the smooth movement of the university’s shuttle train was the cause behind the decision to change the vacation date. The decision was made yesterday af-ternoon at a meeting presided by Vice

Chancellor Professor Anwarul Azim Arif, at his o� ce.

CU proctor Siraj Ud Dowla told the Dhaka Tribune that considering the students’ immense su� erings, classes have been suspended from June 24 till August 07, but the scheduled examinations will be held during this period.

According to the academic calen-dar, the vacation was supposed to start from June 28.

Meanwhile, the locals spotted an abandoned bag stu� ed with a lighter gun and several sharp weapons beside Sa� Tower in Gate No 2 area at 11:45am and informed police who recovered the arms, said Hathazari police station OC

Ismail Hossain. In another incident, around 12:30pm, police dispersed the gathering of the two BCL factions – Var-sity Expresses (VX) led by Ariful Islam and another led by Suman Mamun – be-fore the VC’s o� ce. Both groups are un-der city AL president ABM Mohiuddin.

Moin Uddin, in-charge of CU police outpost, said they dispersed the gath-ering because there is a ban on political activities on the campus.

Campus sources said, Nazrul Islam, Suman Mamun’s follower and a second year student of the Marketing Studies Department, was beaten up by his ri-vals on Saturday evening, triggering a tense situation.. l

Police disperse student rally in Barisal, 5 injuredn Our Correspondent, Barisal

Police put forward baton charges in an attempt to disperse a rally by the fourth-year students of BM College in Barisal city yesterday, which left at least � ve people injured, including two journalists.

Students from 18 departments of the college came together to join the rally to protest the increase of examination fees.

The injured – economics students Uzzal Kumar and Palash Khan, English student Avijit Roy, and photo journal-ists Fuad Islam and Tanmoy Das of lo-cal dailies Barisal Protidin and Kalomer Kantho, respectively – were given � rst aid treatment at di� erent pharmacies in the city.

Condemning the police attack, the agitated students threatened to lock all the departments in the college today.

The students alleged that the college authority increased the fees to Tk4,500 from Tk3,300 without giving a reason or a prior notice.

Sharmin Jahan Popy, one of the protesting students, said they had cor-doned o� the principal’s o� ce yester-day morning to press home their de-mands.

The college authority then sat down with the students and agreed to sub-tract Tk200 from the portion due for the college.

However the principal said they did not have the authority to reduce the portion � xed by National University.

Coming out of the meeting, the stu-dents blocked the road in front of the

college campus.Upon receiving information, po-

lice went to the scene and dispersed the demonstrating students by chas-ing them away and charging at them with batons, and cleared the road for tra� c movement after about an hour of blockage, said witness A B Siddik, a student of the college.

Professor Fazlul Huq, the principal, said National University had increased Tk50 for each paper, so the amount of total examination fees increased by Tk500-800 per subject.

However, the college authority de-cided to decrease at least Tk200 from the fees for the college, but could not assure that the portion of the fees � xed by National University would be re-duced, he added.

The university authority had been informed about the students’ agitation, and form � ll-up will be held from June 23 to 26, the principal said.

Shakhawat Hossain, OC of Kotwali police station, said any student move-ments on academic issues should be con� ned to the campus without ham-pering life outside.

Police interfered only after the students blocked the road, stopping vehicular movement on the busy roads and refused to go back inside the campus area, the OC told the Dhaka Tribune.

When asked about the beating of the two photo journalists, the police o� cer said they were students of the college and had participated in the movement without identifying themselves as journalists. l

6 NationDHAKA TRIBUNE Tuesday, June 24, 2014

Students of Mymensingh Medical Collegecall o� strike n Our Correspondent, Mymensingh

Students of Mymensingh Medical Col-lege called o� their hartal yesterday af-ter police arrested the main accused of the attack on Reza Hasan Toki.

O� cer-in-Charge of Kotwali Model police station said a team of police had arrested Limon from Chowrasta area in Gazipur around 9pm on Sunday.

Dr Matiur Rahman, general secre-tary of BMA Mymensingh unit, said the students of the college had called o� the movement since police managed to arrest the main culprit. He demanded punishment for Toki’s attackers.

According to campus sources, a group of 5-6 miscreants attacked Toki, a fourth year student of the medical college, when he was on his way to the college library from his Bhatikashar residence around 8am on June 14.

The miscreants hacked him indis-criminately with sharp weapons, leav-ing him critically injured.

Toki was � rst admitted to My-mensingh Medical College Hospital and later sent to Dhaka Medical College Hospital via a helicopter.

Since then the students of the col-lege have been observing agitation pro-grammes, including boycotting classes and examinations. Teachers of the medi-cal college also joined the movement, ex-pressing solidarity with the students. l

Six missing in Bogra boat capsizen Our Correspondent, Bogra

At least six persons, including three children, have gone missing since their boat sank in the Jumuna River on Sun-day afternoon.

They missing people are Mamuni, 3, Bulbuli, 3, Ruposhi, 5, Johurul Islam, 50, Nayeb Ali, 18 and Arju Khatun, 25.

Locals said the boat was going to Charghagua char of Kajla Union Pari-shad from Dhonirpara Char of Hat-sherpur Union Parishad of Sariakandi upazila.

On the way, it got caught in a storm and sank. Until Monday afternoon, no dead bodies of the missing people had been found.

Sariakandi police station O� cer-in-Charge AHM Waheduzzaman con-� rmed the occurrence of the incident to the Dhaka Tribune.

He said: “We know, however, that � ve persons, including the children went missing when the boat capsized.” l

Bandarban hills see bumper production of pineapple n Our correspondent,

Bandarban

The hill district of Bandarban wit-nessed a bumper production of pine-apples this year, with farmers mak-ing good pro� ts from their crops.

Favourable weather has led to the bumper prodution of the juicy fruits in the region. The Department of Agriculture Extension in the dis-trict says about seven lakh metric tonnes of pineapple was produced in 4,525 hectares of land this � scal,

while over six lakh metric tonnes were produced in 2012-13 and nearly two lakh metric tonnes in 2010-11.

Giant Key and Honey Queen are the two varieties of pineapples largely grown in the district.

Sources said the tasty and suc-culent fruits were exported to dif-ferent parts of the country includ-ing Dhaka and Chittagong, after meeting the local demand.

The ethnic people living in the hilly regions of Farukpara, Layem-ipara, Satmayel and Egaromayel

cultivate pineapples. A pineapple grower Pasen Bom from Farukpara said, “We are earning much better pro� ts from the sale of pineapples this year than in the previous years.”

He said he had cultivated on three acres of land and reaped around 5,000 pineapples which he sold for Tk20-Tk25 per piece.

Bandarban Agriculture Depart-ment Deputy Director Abul Kalam said pineapple cultivation was gaining momentum in the district because of its for-pro� t nature. l

Road subsidence causes tailback in Gazipur Vehicles took eight hours to cross 20kmn Our Correspondent, Gazipur

A long tra� c jam on the Dhaka-My-mensingh highway early yesterday brought passengers misery as it was taking too much time to cross the fairly large distance.

The congestion, stretching from Sal-na to Mawna intersection, was said to be the result of di� erent parts of the road subsiding due to the downpour over the last several days. The highway is being elevated to four lanes. Seasonal fruit traders also ran into di� culties while transporting their goods for export.

Trucker Abul Hasan said he set o� from Chandana intersection with goods at 4am but got stuck in tra� c on the Salna bridge at 10am.

“I reached Mawna intersection at 12 noon. It took me eight hours to cross 20 kilometres,” he said.

Another trucker Sabuj Mia started for Mymensingh from the capital’s Tej-gaon at 2:30am but was caught in the congestion at Masterbari of Gazipur at 4am. He reached Mawna intersection at 12:30pm, after driving for eight and a half hours to cross nearly 15km.

Ripon Mia, Ena Paribahan driver, said he had started from Mohakhali at 6am and faced the jam at Hotapara at 7:30am, and reached Mawna intersection at 12:30pm. A passenger of Hasnahena bus said she was supposed to register a piece of land in Mymensingh yesterday but

could not do that because she failed to reach her destination on time.

Mozammel Haque, the supervisor of Prabhati-Banasri Paribahan in Sreepur, said buses had left for Dhaka, starting from dawn till 7am, and those that had started after 7am could not cross Sreepur.

Those buses had to return, he said. Masud Parvez Manju, a lessee in Jai-

na Bazar of Sreepur, said several parts of the highway, which was being el-evated to four lanes, subsided because of the torrential rainfall over the past few days.

“A jackfruit-laden truck overturned after falling into a pothole in Nayan-pur around 11:30pm on Sunday. It took three hours to pull up the vehicle and the fruits. However, it could not cross Gazipur even after 3am,” he said.

O� cer-in-charge of Mawna inter-section highway police station Sanwar Hossain said since an upgrade of the highway was underway, di� erent parts of it, where bitumen had been applied, had subsided because of the heavy rain.

“The tailback was actually a result of this. Vehicles got stuck in Salna, Ho-tapara, Masterbari, Mawna intersection since the early hours yesterday,” he said.

“We have been trying to � x the sub-sided parts since morning by placing bricks to even out the road. Some of the vehicles tried to move after 1pm but the number of passenger vehicles tak-ing this road is declining,” he added. l

4 killed in Jessore, Cox’s Bazar and Narsingdin Tribune Report

At least four people were murdered in Jessore, Cox’s Bazar and Narsingdi dis-tricts yesterday.

According to our Jessore corre-spondent, two people had been killed in the district.

Assailants killed a jute mill worker near Jessore Jute Industry at Noapara under Abhaynagar upazila of the dis-trict.

Locals said the assailants had at-tacked Ariful Islam Nishan, 36, who was a jute mill worker from the area and the son of Sujauddin of Moallem-tola village.

Locals rescued him and had him ad-mitted to Abhaynagar Upazila Health Complex where the on duty doctor de-clared him dead.

Abhaynagar police station Assistant Sub-Inspector Afzal con� rmed the in-cident.

Meanwhile, police recovered the body of a housewife which had been stu� ed into a sack and left on the Arpa-ra-Syedpur � eld in Chaugachha upazila.

Police sources said Rahima Khatun, the second wife of Johurul Islam, had been a resident of Tirerhat village of

the upazila.Upon receiving information, police

recovered the body from the sack on the Arpara-Syedpur � eld and sent it to Jessore Sadar Hospital morgue for an autopsy.

Police arrested Fatima-Tuz-Zohora, who is Johurul Islam’s � rst wife, Fati-ma’s younger brother Rezwan Hossain and driver Shahidul Islam in connec-tion with the killing.

Our Cox’s Bazar correspondent said a youth had been shot dead by some unidenti� ed miscreants at Mathab-hanga area in Teknaf upazila.

Baharchhara Union Parishad mem-ber Gias Uddin, said the miscreants had shot Jalal Uddin, 27, who was the son of Azam Uddin, while he was sleeping in his house.

OC Md Mokter Hossain said upon re-ceiving information, the police recov-ered the body.

In Narsingdi, a youth had been killed at Dattapara area of the town.

Abul Kashem, o� cer-in-charge of Narsigdi Model police station said as-sailants had hacked Rahim Badsha to death in the morning.

He was a listed criminal of the area, said the OC. l

Feni gas cylinder blast victim diesat DMCHn Our Correspondent, Feni

A gas distribution company technician, who was injured in a gas cylinder ex-plosion at a CNG Gas Filling Station of Chhagalnaiya municipal town in Feni, died yesterday.

Ra� qul Islam, 45, died at the burn unit of Dhaka Medical College and Hos-pital (DMCH) in the morning, Sayeedul Islam, manager of Bakharabad Gas, told the Dhaka Tribune.

Earlier on Sunday, Ra� q, who was a technician with the Bakhrabad Gas Distribution Company Limited’s Feni o� ce, and eight others were injured in the gas explosion.

Manager Sayeed said the eight oth-ers were undergoing treatment at DMCH burn unit and at Feni General Hospital. l

41 schools run without headmasters in Comilla, education o� ce keeps mumn Our Correspondent, Comilla

The headmaster posts of at least 41 out of 102 government primary schools have been lying vacant in Monohorganj upazila of Comilla for a long time, ham-pering the administrative, manage-rial and educational activities of those schools.

Assistant headmasters at these schools have been performing the du-ties of the headmaster, and this has sometimes caused trouble for the en-tire school. Moreover, about 70 posts of assistant teachers have remained vacant for the last few months.

Sources at the schools said it was di� cult to run the schools smoothly in the absence of headmasters, as existing teachers have to do extra work to ful� ll the di� erent terms and conditions of the government.

The schools without headmasters are Burprista, Hawra, Udais, Mandar-gaon, Borochandpur, Sorospur, Sa-hapur, Bhaopur, Monipur, Norpaiya, Baduara, Daiyara, Pomgaon, Moishat-ua, Hazipura, Somsherpur, Khorkho-ria, Kandirpar, Lakshanpur, Taherpur, Borola, Fenua, Poranpur, Dumuria, No-agaon, Janota Bazar, Sahapur Paschim,

Bhaopur Purbo, Sripur, Mirjapur, Noro-horipur, Dakhshin Narayanpur, Bang-har, Hatiamuri Paschim, Thangarbam, Ulupara, Dakshin Fonua, Boro Uttar Haola, Nararpar, Batachow and Kachi Uttar Government Primary School.

In such a circumstance, if a teacher has to do the duty of a headmaster,

carry out administrative and other managerial work, he or she has to face lots of hurdles since other teachers, who are of the same rank as them, are sometimes reluctant to help them.

A teacher of Baduara Government Primary School, seeking anonymity, told the Dhaka Tribune that they had to take on extra loads as they did not have any headmaster.

“It will be di� cult to keep doing this job, if this situation continues,” he said.

Another teacher, who preferred not to disclose his name as well as the

school’s name, said, “Although I have been doing the job of the headmaster for a couple months now, the school authority is not paying me extra for my additional duties.”

He said the upazila education o� ce knows everything, but they did not take any steps to solve the issue.

According to the upazila education o� ce, a total of 20 government prima-ry schools are in dilapidated conditions and teachers and students have been attending school amid a lot of risk.

Last week, � ve students of Bashoiya Taltola Government Primary School were severely injured when a portion of their classroom’s roof fell on them.

Sources said they had wanted to renovate these educational institutions but could not do it for a lack of govern-mental allocation.

Arzun Kumar Mondol, upazila pri-mary education o� cer, told the Dhaka Tribune that the number of vacant headmaster posts were increasing eve-ry month because of transfers, retire-ments and deaths of headmasters.

He said they had informed the high-er authority about these various crises, including the shortage of teachers and the rundown state of the schools. l

Seven suspected robbers held in Bagerhatn Tribune Desk

Police arrested seven suspected mem-bers of an inter-district robbers’ gang, including its ringleader, in separate drives at di� erent parts of Pirojpur and Khulna districts on Sunday night.

On June 2, a group of muggers, pos-ing as police, looted Tk 13.5 lakh from two employees of a rice mill at KB Bazar in the town, said Bagerhat Police Super Mohammad Nizamul Haque Mollah while brie� ng reporters yesterday.

Madhusudhan Dam, the owner of the rice mill, � led a case in thisconnection.

On a tip-o� , a team of Bagerhat police conducted a drive at Bheku-tia Ferryghat in Pirojpur and arrested three members of the gang on Sundaynight. l

Upazila education o� ce knows everything, but they did not take any steps to solve the issue

The photo taken from Salna in Gazipur shows that a good number of vehicles get stuck on a road as many parts of the district were submerged because of heavy downpour DHAKA TRIBUNE

Growers stockpile pineapples on roadside which will be taken to di� erent parts across the country. The photo was taken from Farukpara in Bandarban yesterday DHAKA TRIBUNE

Tuesday, June 24, 20147Long FormDHAKA TRIBUNE

n Rounaq Jahan

Election engineering

The second legacy of military rule is election engineering. The two military dictators, Ziaur Rahman and HM Ershad,

organised a series of elections to establish their legitimacy. However, all these elections lacked credibility as the state machinery was used to gain outcomes that were favourable to the regime. The intelligence agencies, civil administration, and the police were the three key instruments used for engineering election results.

The � rst military dictator, Ziaur Rahman, organised three elections. In 1977, he held a referendum and claimed 87% voter turnout with 99% “yes” vote. He, then, organised a presidential election in 1978 claiming 76% of the vote. In 1979, parliamen-

tary elections were held where it was alleged that the government pre-deter-mined not only the seats that would go to the state-sponsored party, Bangla-desh Nationalist Party (BNP), which Ziaur Rahman � oated, but seats were also allocated to some state-spon-sored opposition candidates to create an image of multi-party competitive elections.

The second military dictator, HM Ershad, also organised three elections: a presidential election in 1986, and two parliamentary elections, one in 1986 and another in 1988.

He was, however, less successful than Zia in “persuading” all opposition parties to contest the elections. Zia’s party, BNP, boycotted both the 1986 and 1988 parlia-mentary elections. The Awami League, which participated in the 1986 parlia-mentary elections, but subsequently resigned from the parliament within two years, also boycotted the 1988 parlia-mentary elections. In the 1988 elections

an opposition made up of once une-lectable candidates, was fabricated and “ensured” a few seats in the parliament.

The repeated fraudulent elections, organised by the two military regimes, established certain patterns and practices which were unfortunately carried over even during the years of our electoral democracy.

Democratically elected govern-ments also attempted to use state agencies to in� uence election results. The Election Commission (EC) was never empowered to act independently and hold the government accountable for violations of election guidelines. For example, several by-elections held under the BNP government in the early 1990s were grossly rigged. This led the AL-led political opposition to demand organisation of parliamentary elections under a non-partisan “caretaker” government (NCG) which was an innovative idea not usually practised in parliamentary democracies.

The BNP initially rejected the idea of NCG, and went through the motions of a voter-less election in February 1996, but was eventually compelled to frame and pass the 13th amendment of the constitution institutionalising the NCG in 1996.

Two relatively free and fair elections were organised under the NCG in June, 1996 and October, 2001. However, the scheduled January, 2007 elections could not be held as the incumbent BNP-led four party government at-tempted to in� uence the EC as well as the NCG, and the political opposition led by the AL refused to participate in the scheduled 2007 elections.

As discussed earlier, failure to or-ganise a peaceful election participated by all major parties led to a military intervention in 2007, but the military backed government did organise a free and credible election in 2008 and handed over power to an elected polit-ical government. However, in 2014, we

again witnessed a democratically elect-ed government follow many strategies of election-engineering which have been practised by the military regimes. A majority in parliament was ensured through uncontested elections, and an opposition party was fabricated.

State-sponsored party building

The third feature of military rule was state-sponsored party-building. When the military dictators decided to civilise themselves and face elections, they � oated their own political parties. Mem-bers from both left-wing and right-wing parties joined these sarkari (o� cial) parties sponsored by the military dicta-tors. State patronage, and not ideology, was the main attraction of these parties. Thus in 1977, Ziaur Rahman founded the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) by recruiting members from both the right leaning Muslim League (ML), which had collaborated with the Pakistan Army in 1971, and the left leaning National Awami Party (NAP). In 1986, HM Ershad founded the Jatiya Party (JP), by getting supporters from the ML, NAP as well as from a sizeable rump of the BNP.

As the BNP and the JP began their journey as sarkari parties, people who joined these parties could aspire to draw on state patronage to immedi-ately become members of the cabinet, or the parliament, or local councils. These parties mobilised popular support mainly though their control of public goods and services.

Again this legacy of using state pa-tronage to build and maintain support for political parties did not end with military rule. Indeed, the practice was exacerbated during the subsequent years of electoral democracy when all institutions became increasingly in� u-enced, and the winning political party or alliance held monopoly control on all state patronage.

Indeed, during the electoral demo-cratic era, the distribution of patronage became increasingly exclusionary as a “winner-takes-all” culture took root.

Before the 10th parliamentary elec-tions, we also saw the democratically elected Grand Alliance Government pursue the strategy of breaking exist-ing parties/alliance through a carrot and stick policy, a strategy which was followed by the two military rulers when they built the BNP and the JP, by fragmenting existing parties.

Political use of religion

The � nal legacy of military rule, that I shall focus, on is the use of religion to recruit political support. The Bangla-desh Constitution, adopted in 1972, enshrined secularism as one of the four fundamental principles of state policy, and religion-based parties and politics were banned.

But soon after assuming power, Ziaur Rahman brought back Islam as a tool of political mobilisation. In 1977, through a Martial Law Ordinance, he made signi� cant changes to the con-stitution. Secularism was deleted as a fundamental principle; and in its place a phrase “ Trust and faith in Almighty Allah” was inserted. The preamble of the constitution invoked another Islamist phrase: “Bismillah-ar-Rah-man-ar-Rahim.” The second military dictator, HM Ershad went one step further. In 1988, he introduced the eighth amendment of the constitution which made Islam the state religion.

As the BNP and the JP, started por-traying secularism as anti-Islamic, the AL was put on a defensive mode, and after the restoration of electoral de-mocracy in 1991, the AL also started to use Islamist symbols. The 15th amend-ment of the constitution illustrates the contradictory position of the AL. The 15th amendment has kept Islam as the state religion, but at the same time, in the fundamental principles of the constitution, secularism was restored.

The Islamist parties were � rst rehabilitated during military rule. Ziaur Rahman withdrew the ban on religion-based parties. The Muslim League and the Jaamt-e-Islami were re-vived. Many of the Islamist politicians and alleged collaborators with the Pakistani military junta in its genocide committed on the Bengalis in 1971, joined the BNP. Their political revival continued through the Ershad-era. The Jamaat-i-Islami followed a shrewd strategy of political alliance building. The Jamaat participated in the 1986 parliamentary elections. They also lat-er joined the anti-Ersahad movement.

The Jamaat’s strategy of electoral participation as well as participation in mass movement through shifting alli-ance building with the AL and the BNP yielded rich dividends for the party. Though Jamaat had a small share of the popular vote, it could exert a much big-ger political in� uence as the deciding arbiter because parliamentary elections

were closely contested between the AL and the BNP. Thus, in 1991, the BNP was able to form the government with the support of the Jamaat. In 1996, the AL was successful in winning the election when it managed to keep the Jamaat away from an electoral alliance with the BNP. Again in 2001, BNP won the elections when it formed an elec-toral alliance with Jamaat. This alliance was carried over in the 2008 elections, but proved less fruitful for the BNP.

However, during the last few years, Jamaat has emerged as an invaluable partner of the BNP as only the Jamaat cadres have demonstrated street � ghting power to continue agitation against the AL-led regime.

Let’s now discuss about the undem-ocratic practices introduced by our elected political governments which have hindered our transition from elec-toral to a more consolidated democracy.

Undemocratic patterns and practices under elected political governments

While the democratically elected governments perpetuated many of the undemocratic practices of military rule, we witnessed the emergence of sev-eral additional undemocratic patterns during the tenure of elected political governments. Despite the restoration of the parliamentary form of government in 1991, through the adoption of the 12th amendment of the constitution, the parliament hardly functioned.

The parliamentary opposition, claiming lack of voice, persistently boycotted the sittings of parliament, and instead chose to agitate on the streets demanding either resignation of the elected government, or threat-ening to overthrow the elected gov-ernment. In the absence of a function-ing opposition in the parliament, we could not develop a system of checks and balances within the government which is very critical for sustaining democratic governance.

The parliament is the constitutionally empowered body to scrutinise the activities of the executive, and hold it to account. In the absence of parliamentary scrutiny, the executive branch became increasingly more powerful under democratically elected political govern-ments. Civil administration, police, and lower judiciary came under partisan political pressure which eroded the rule of law. The political competition be-tween the two major parties, the AL and the BNP, instead of ensuring a peaceful transfer of power between the two par-ties, escalated into an enduring political confrontation. Bangladesh consistently scored low in various assessments of the quality of democracy conducted by di� erent organisations such as the Freedom House and the World Bank. Weak rule of law, lack of accountability, and confrontational style of politics can safely be identi� ed as three persistent undemocratic patterns that have marked Bangladesh’s electoral democracy.

Weak rule of law

After the restoration of democracy in 1991, successive elected political governments attempted to politicise the civil and police administration and lower judiciary by using the government’s power of appointment, transfer, and promotion. Supporters of the ruling party or parties were rewarded while those deemed loyal to the outgoing government or who were not conspicuously loyal to the incum-bent government were ignored or punished. Law enforcement became partisan and arbitrary.

The country was also plagued by pervasive political as well as non-po-litical violence. Inter-party and intra-party contestations were often settled through violent means.

To improve the law and order situa-tion, the BNP-led alliance government from 2002 onwards, began a series of anti-crime drives using the military and the paramilitary forces, eventually set-ting up a specially equipped quasi-mil-itary body, known as the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB). These drives were marked by incidents of extra-judicial killing and torture by law enforcement agencies, which drew widespread crit-icism from the human rights organisa-tions inside and outside Bangladesh.

When the AL-led grand alliance government came to power in 2009,

they pledged to eliminate, or at least reduce extra-judicial killings. But the media reports indicate many instanc-es of extra-judicial killing over the last � ve years. Goom (enforced disappear-ance) has became another instrument of partisan use of law enforcement.

Overall, the country’s performance in establishing rule of law was rated poorly by both the Freedom House and the World Bank in their successive global assessments.

Pervasive corruption was another indicator of weak rule of law. Allegations of corruption, particularly by politicians, were given wide publicity in the media, but these allegations were rarely investi-gated or prosecuted without prejudice. Indeed, successive elected governments increasingly used anti-corruption laws to pursue partisan interests.

High pro� le corruption cases were lodged against leaders of the political opposition, but the government rarely moved to � le anti-corruption cases against high-ranking members of the ruling party. Again, Bangladesh scored poorly in all global surveys with regard to her e� orts to control corruption.

The current government has recently sent signals that it will take action against members of the ruling party in corruption cases. We still have to wait and see the outcomes of this intention of the government.

Lack of accountability

Though during the era of electoral democracy, some of the institutions tried to ensure what we call in politi-cal science jargon “vertical accounta-bility” such as the media, civil society, and the electorate became stronger which resulted in Bangladesh consist-ently scoring high on “voice” indicator in the World Bank’s assessment of democratic governance, we still had problems with what is called “hori-zontal accountability” institutions such as the parliament, judiciary,

election commission (EC), anti-cor-ruption commission (ACC) etc which continued to remain weak.

As pointed out earlier, the parlia-ment which is the most important horizontal accountability institution to hold the executive accountable, became dysfunctional as the main opposition party started to boycott parliamentary sittings and chose street agitations to register their protest and destabilise elected gov-ernments. Nearly half of the par-liamentary sittings were boycotted by the opposition - 75% of the � fth parliament, the eighth parliament, and over 80% sittings of the ninth parliament.

In the absence of the opposition, the ruling party members also lost in-terest in attending parliament, which frequently faced a quorum crisis, and mostly tended to rubber-stamp the decisions and actions of the govern-ment.

The parliament not only failed to discharge its scrutiny and oversight functions, members of parliament also refused to bring themselves under a parliamentary code of conduct to en-sure their continuing accountability to their electorate. The media reported many cases of misconduct and cor-ruption of MPs, but they never faced investigation or punishments. As a result, media reports had little impact in changing the conduct of the MPs.

Other horizontal accountability institutions such as the judiciary, the Election Commission (EC) and the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) were not empowered to check the misbehaviour of the government.

The judiciary, particularly the lower judiciary, remained under the control of the executive branch of the government and was often used to further the partisan interests of the party/parties in power. The EC was not empowered to challenge the government’s electoral malpractices. The ACC also remained weak and could not move against anybody in-dependently without the green signal from the government.

This article is based on the second Moza� ar Ahmed Chowdhury Memorial Lecture by Rounaq Jahan, delivered on February 3, 2014. A former faculty of Dhaka University, Professor Jahan teaches and researches at Columbia University.

During the electoral democratic era, the distribution of patronage became increasingly exclusionary as a ‘winner-takes-all’ culturetook root

The parliamentary opposition, claiming lack of voice, persistently boycotted the sittingsof parliament

The state of democracy in BangladeshThe second of a three-part series on the current state of democracy,the challengesit faces, andthe future

SYED LATIF HOSSAIN

Tuesday, June 24, 2014DHAKA TRIBUNE World8

Al-Jazeera journalists jailed in Egyptn Agencies

Two Al Jazeera English journalists have been sentenced to seven years in jail and one to 10 years by an Egyp-tian court on charges including aiding the Muslim Brotherhood and reporting false news, Al Jazeera reported.

The guilty verdicts were announced by a judge yesterday against Peter Greste, Mohamed Fahmy, and Baher Mohamed. Greste and Fahmy were sentenced to seven years in prison, while Baher Mohamed was sentenced to an additional three years for posses-sion of ammunition.

Mohamed was in possession of a spent bullet casing he had found on the ground during a protest.

Other Al Jazeera journalists being tried in absentia were sentenced to 10 years. Their names are Alaa Bay-oumi, Anas Abdel-Wahab Khalawi Hasan, Khaleel Aly Khaleel Bahnasy, Mohamed Fawzi, Dominic Kane, and Sue Turton.

Greste, Fahmy, and Mohamed were arrested in December in Cairo as they covered the aftermath of the army’s removal of Mohamed Morsi

from the presidency in July.The prosecution said Greste, Al

Jazeera’s East Africa correspondent, and his Egypt bureau colleagues aid-ed the Brotherhood and produced false news reports of the situation in Egypt. The Brotherhood, which sup-ported Morsi, was listed as a “terrorist” organisation by the interim Egyptian government shortly before the accused were arrested.

The prosecution produced a num-ber of items as evidence including a BBC podcast, a news report made while none of the accused were in Egypt, a pop video by the Australian singer Gotye, and several recordings on non-Egyptian issues.

Meanwhile, Al-Jazeera slammed as “unjust” the court decision to jail three of its journalists. “We condemn... this kind of unjust verdict,” the network’s chief Mustafa Sawaq told the satellite news channel after a Cairo court jailed the three in a case that has caused in-ternational outrage.

“We are shocked,” he said, charging that evidence provided by the prosecu-tion “was not enough to jail someone for a single day.” l

Gordon Brown enters the battle for Scotlandn Reuters, Dundee

Gordon Brown, once ranked Britain’s most unpopular prime minister in half a century, may yet emerge as the man who convinc-es Scots to reject independence.

For many English, Scotsman Brown is an unlikely hero. Often brooding and awkward in front of the camera, the former prime minister led his Labour party to its worst electoral defeat in a generation in 2010.

But in the industrial towns of Scotland where the fate of the United Kingdom will be set by 1 million as yet undecided voters in a September 18 referendum, few rival Brown’s in� uence. In speeches in towns and cities across Scotland Brown makes a passionate case to stay within the United Kingdom - a G8 power with a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council.

Brown and an increasing number of others are fearful Britain may be sleep-walking towards a break up.

“Countries can be lost by mistake,” Brown, who still speaks with the accent of his native land, told reporters over lunch in London’s Westminster parliament.

“Don’t allow it to become British poli-ticians versus Scotland, which is how too easily this has been caricatured, because that simply plays into the hands of the nationalists. That’s a losing ticket.”

Less than 100 days before Scotland’s independence vote, Brown’s is a sobering intervention for many English. Polls show Scots are still unlikely to vote for inde-pendence but they also show the Better Together campaign’s lead has narrowed. The head of that campaign, Alistair Darling, has said the vote will be close.

Supported by Britain’s three main polit-ical parties, the Better Together message has veered from warnings over the perils of secession to emotional appeals for unity.

Better together?Prime Minister David Cameron, whose Conservative party has just one of Scot-land’s 59 seats in the London parliament, has conceded that his privileged English background and centre-right politics mean he isn’t the best person to win over Scots.

That has left the Better Together cam-paign largely in the hands of opposition Labour, winner of 41 Scottish seats in 2010 and the only party with the local organisa-tion and support capable of checking the secessionist Scottish National Party.

Labour strategists said many of the un-decided voters are Labour party supporters who dislike being lectured by English Conservatives. Enter Gordon Brown, one of very few British politicians Scottish nation-alist leader Alex Salmond is said to fear.

“As a patriotic Scot I cannot opt out of a debate and decision that a� ects children whom I love and people whom I respect and represent, all the more so since we are being asked to make an irreversible decision that will have consequences for generations,” Brown said in his treatise ‘My Scotland, Our Britain: A Future Worth Sharing’. l

Kerry pushes Maliki for reformIraq loses control of Syrian, Jordanian border crossings

n Reuters, Baghdad

US Secretary of State John Kerry met Iraq’s prime minister in Baghdad yes-terday to push for a more inclusive government, even as Baghdad’s forc-es abandoned the border with Jordan, leaving the entire Western frontier out-side government control.

Sunni tribes took the Turaibil border crossing, the only legal crossing point between Iraq and Jordan, after Iraqi se-curity forces � ed, Iraqi and Jordanian security sources said.

The tribes were negotiating to hand the post over to insurgents from the Is-lamic State in Iraq and the Levant who took control of two main crossings with Syria over the weekend.

Kurdish forces control a third border post with Syria in the north, leaving cen-tral government troops with no presence along the entire Western frontier which includes some of the most important east-west trade routes in the Middle East.

For the insurgents, capturing the frontier is a dramatic step towards the goal of erasing the modern border alto-gether and building a caliphate across swathes of Syria and Iraq.

Washington, which withdrew its troops from Iraq in 2011 after an occu-pation that followed the 2003 invasion that toppled dictator Saddam Hussein, has been struggling to help Iraq contain a Sunni insurgency led by ISIL, an al Qaeda o� shoot which seized northern towns this month.

US President Barack Obama agreed last week to send up to 300 special forces troops as advisers, but has held o� from providing air strikes and ruled out redeploying ground troops.

Washington is worried that Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki’s Shi’ite-led government has worsened the insur-

gency by alienating moderate Sunnis who once fought al Qaeda but have now joined the ISIL revolt. While Washing-ton has been careful not to say public-ly it wants Maliki to relinquish power, Iraqi o� cials say such a message has been delivered behind the scenes.

There was little small talk when Ker-ry met Maliki, the two men seated in chairs in a room with other o� cials. At one point Kerry looked at an Iraqi o� -cial and said, “How are you?”

The meeting lasted one hour and 40 minutes, after which Kerry was escort-ed to his car by Iraq’s Foreign Minister Hoshiyar Zebari. As Kerry got in, he said: “That was good.”

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Sunday accused Wash-ington of trying to regain control of the country it once occupied - a charge Ker-ry denied. Iraqis are due to form a new government after an election in April. Maliki’s list won the most seats in par-liament but would still require allies to win a majority.

Kerry said on Sunday the United States would not choose who rules in Baghdad, but added that Washington had noted the dissatisfaction among Kurds, Sunnis and some Shi’ites with Maliki’s leadership. He emphasised that the United States wanted Iraqis to “� nd a leadership that was prepared to

be inclusive and share power.”Senior Iraqi politicians, including at

least one member of Maliki’s own ruling list, have told Reuters that the message that Washington would be open to Ma-liki leaving power has been delivered in diplomatic language to Iraqi leaders.

Recent meetings between Maliki and American o� cials have been described as tense. According to a Western dip-lomat briefed on the conversations by someone attending the meetings, US diplomats have informed Maliki he should accept leaving if he cannot gather a majority in parliament for a third term. US o� cials have contested that such a message was delivered. l

Israeli air raids kill 10 Syrian troops n AP, Beirut

Israeli air raids on several Syrian mili-tary facilities overnight killed at least 10 troops and destroyed an army command center, an activist group said yesterday.

The Syrian government has not com-mented on the airstrikes, which the Is-raeli military said hit nine targets inside Syria before dawn. The raids were in re-sponse to a cross-border attack the pre-vious day that killed an Israeli civilian.

The director of the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, Rami Abdurrahman, said the Israeli strikes destroyed two tanks, two artil-lery batteries and the headquarters of Syria’s 90th brigade. The Observatory collects its information through a net-work of activists inside Syria.

The Israeli military said “direct hits were con� rmed” on the targets, which were located near the site of Sunday’s vi-olence in the Golan Heights and includ-ed a regional military command center and unspeci� ed “launching positions.”

Israel has kept a close eye on the Syrian uprising since it began in March 2011, although it has avoided backing either side in the con� ict. On several occasions, artillery rounds have landed on the Israeli side of the de facto bor-der, drawing limited Israeli reprisals. l

UNESCO adds French cave art to world heritage listn AP, Paris

Drawings of mammoths, human footprints and other art carved on cave walls in southern France about 30,000 years ago have been inscribed on UNESCO’s World Heritage list.The UN cultural agency says that the Decorated Cave of Pont d’Arc contains the best preserved � gurative drawings in the world.

The agency’s World Heri-tage Committee said in a state-ment that it added the cave and other sites at a meeting Sunday in Doha.

Experts have recorded more than 1,000 images from the walls of the cave, also known as the Grotte Chauvet-Pont d’Arc.

The drawings, among the oldest known human draw-ings, were unexpectedly dis-covered in 1994 by researcher Jean-Marie Chauvet in the Ardeche region. l

Ukraine seeks Western help to end pro-Russia revoltn AFP, Izvarino

Ukraine pressed German Chancellor Angela Merkel and other Western allies yesterday to help end a pro-Russian uprising that has continued to rage in the industrial east despite Kiev’s uni-lateral cease� re.

President Petro Poroshenko con-ducted another furious round of tele-phone diplomacy while his top diplo-mat prepared to outline the details of Kiev’s new peace plan to EU foreign ministers in Luxembourg.

Poroshenko will also sign an historic EU trade pact on Friday that crowns his May 25 election promise to make the decisive move westward – a move that is strongly opposed by Russia and lies at the heart of the current crisis.

The new president’s high-stakes peace push envisions talks with east-ern representatives but not rebel lead-ers – a condition that Russian President Vladimir Putin says will not help end the 11-week revolt.

Putin threw his weight behind Po-roshenko’s plan over the weekend provided it also leads to constitutional changes granting better protections to ethnic Russians who remain wary of

the new government Kiev. Russia fur-ther insisted yesterday that the week-long cease� re Poroshenko ordered last week be extended over the long term.

Ceasefire ignoredInsurgent commanders have ignored Poroshenko’s overtures and continued waging their campaign to gain inde-pendence and eventually join Russia – a drive thus fur resisted by the Kremlin.

AFP reporters near the Russian bor-der saw rebels push back and in some cases encircle government soldiers dispatched by Poroshenko to stem the � ow of weapons and gunmen into the con� ict zone.

“Their forces tried to blitz us (on Fri-day) but things turned out very di� er-ently,” a 54-year-old rebel commander named Oleksandr said in Izvarini, a small town about 50 kilometres (30 miles) east of the separatist stronghold of Lugansk.

“They are surrounded,” he claimed. “They have no food and water... and no chance to escape.”

Poroshenko told Merkel by tele-phone that the rebels had attacked government positions “more than 20 times” over the weekend in an apparent rejection of Putin’s

call for both sides to halt � re.A Ukrainian military spokesman

said on Monday that six Ukrainian sol-diers were wounded overnight.

Poroshenko told the German chan-cellor in a telephone exchange on Sunday that her involvement and that of other world leaders is “critically im-portant to a settlement of the con� ict in eastern Ukraine,” his o� ce said.

Both Washington and its European allies have threatened Russia with bit-ing sanctions against entire sectors of its economy should Putin fail to take substantial steps to de-escalate a crisis that has plunged East-West relations to a post-Cold War low.

US Vice-President Joe Biden told Poroshenko that Washington was “working closely with its G7 partners to prepare further economic sanctions against Russia if Moscow did not... stop the � ow of arms and militants across the border and use its in� uence to pub-licly call on the separatists to lay down their arms,” the White House said.

And British Foreign Secretary Wil-liam Hague said on his arrival for the EU meeting that Russia should be left in “no doubt” that it faced the threat of more punitive steps. l

An Iraqi refugee stands outside of her tent at a camp for displaced Iraqis who � ed from Mosul and other towns, in northern Iraq AP

‘ D O N E T S K P E O P L E ’ S R E P U B L I C ’

Ad billboards are displayed in front of a construction site in the self-proclaimed ‘Donetsk People’s Republic’ in Donetsk. Donetsk and the neighbouring heavily Russi� ed region of Lugansk declared independence in disputed May 11 referenda, the legitimacy of which was rejected by Kiev and the West AFP

9Tuesday, June 24, 2014DHAKA TRIBUNE World

A I D S U P P L Y F O R I N T E R N A L L Y D I S P L A C E D P A K I S T A N I S

China: 32 terror groups broken up in crackdownn AP, Beijing

Chinese authorities said Monday they broke up 32 terror groups and arrest-ed more than 380 suspects in the far west in the � rst month of a crackdown aimed at demonstrating the Commu-nist Party’s resolve to maintain order in a borderland hit by recent unrest. Many suspects received rapid trials and sti� sentences, including death penalties.

Security forces also seized sever-al hundred explosive devices, a few tons of explosive material and com-puters and books about terrorism and religious extremism, o� cials from the Xinjiang region told reporters.

The crackdown follows a string of

high-pro� le attacks on civilians since late October that have handed Com-munist Party leader Xi Jinping a major security challenge during his � rst year and a half in o� ce. Last month, a mar-ket bombing killed 43 people in the re-gion’s capital, Urumqi.

Authorities have responded to the attacks by taking an even harder line toward the already tightly controlled re-gion, overshadowing the government’s promises of creating more jobs and ed-ucational opportunities for the region.

O� cials have made a � urry of an-nouncements of prosecutions, arrest-ing scores of suspects and putting them through swift trials resulting in heavy sentences. In some cases of unrest,

police have fatally shot alleged assail-ants, including 13 people who authori-ties said tried to ram a police station in Kashgar prefecture on Saturday.

The high-intensity campaign has raised concerns among rights groups that the authorities’ rapid prosecutions may come at the expense of judicial procedure and the protection of citi-zens’ legal rights.

Human Rights Watch researcher Maya Wang said perpetrators of violent attacks in the region should be held accountable but that the authorities’ current “strike hard” campaign might prove counterproductive.

“Usually in these types of high-lev-el crime crackdowns there’s a political

pressure to focus on these kinds of crimes and � nd the perpetrators quick-ly and there are a lot of risks for coerced confessions and the lifting of basic pro-cedural protections,” Wang said. This might result in o� cials rounding up people to take the blame for various crimes, while the true perpetrators go free, she said.

Beijing says the attackers are reli-gious extremists with ties to overseas Islamic terror groups, but has publicly shown little evidence to support that. Uighur rights advocates say tensions are fueled by an in� ux of settlers from China’s Han ethnic majority and o� cial discrimination that indigenous groups complain has marginalized them. l

India to open civilian nuclear program to greater scrutinyn Reuters, New Delhi

India said yesterday it was ratifying an agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to ex-pand oversight of its civilian nuclear program, in a move aimed at unblock-ing a major nuclear partnership with the United States.

The rati� cation sends a strong signal that Prime Minister Narendra Modi, elected by a landslide last month, wants to bolster strategic and trade ties with the United States when he meets President Barack Obama in Washington in September. “I can con� rm that we are ratifying the Additional Protocol to the IAEA Safeguards Agreement,” said Syed Akbaruddin, spokesman for the Ministry of External A� airs.

The move signals India’s commit-ment “to the responsible use of nuclear power,” Akbaruddin added, con� rming earlier domestic reports. No comment was available from the IAEA.

Yet critics say the pact fails to ad-dress concerns that India could as a result get its foot in the door of a club of countries that trade in nuclear ma-terials, without � rst signing a treaty that seeks to curb the spread of nuclear weapons. There would be “no gain for non-proliferation” said Tariq Rauf, a former senior IAEA o� cial.

India, which � rst tested a nuclear weapon in 1974, is not a party to the Non-Proliferation Treaty. That means its military nuclear program is not sub-ject to inspections by the IAEA, the United Nations nuclear watchdog.

Both India and Pakistan tested nucle-ar weapons in 1998, setting o� an arms race between neighbors that have fought three wars since independence. That in turn has raised tensions with Asian su-perpower China, Pakistan’s patron.

In a report last week, a defense re-search group said one Indian enrich-ment facility was undergoing an expan-sion and could be capable of producing a large surplus of weapons-grade urani-um from mid-2015. [ID:nL4N0P11HQ]

The plant would be able to produce an estimated 160 kg of weapons grade uranium a year - enough for � ve atom bombs - in excess of the needs of In-dia’s planned � eet of nuclear-powered submarines, IHS Jane’s said.

Indian o� cials have shown displea-sure over the report, with a newspaper quoting one saying it was “mischie-vously” timed to in� uence a meeting this week of the 48-member Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) in the Argentin-ian capital Buenos Aires. l

Japan’s holiest shrine opens door to foreigners after 2,000 yearsn Paul Vallely

Under the double-barred gateposts, by the entrance to the bow-backed bridge, a solitary � gure was waiting. He was white-robed and bare-headed. He was about to make history.

The Shinto priest bowed deeply to the group of men and women who approached the most venerated shrine in Japan. They, too, were enrobed – in the rich gold-em-broidered red and blue of Chinese Taoism, in glorious Hindu saris, in simple white Is-lamic tunics and shifts, in bright yellow Sikh scarves and turbans, in the austere cassocks of Scandinavian Lutherans, the cream vest-ments of African Catholics and the black and red academic robes of American Baptists. At any time in the past 2,000 years, the job of the Shinto guardian of the Hiyokebashi bridge would have been to prevent such aliens from entering this holiest of Japan’s sacred places. But now he bowed deeply, twice, and welcomed them to enter.

History was made at Ise Jingu in many ways this month. The ancient shrine has been completely rebuilt from new wood, as it has been every 20 years since the seventh century. The rebuilding has attracted a record 14 million visitors. Yet that is only part of a remarkable resurgence of Japan’s

ancient religion of Shintoism, which, in the decades after the Second World War, had reached a low point unprecedented in its 3,000-year history. That revival has produced a new Japanese openness to the wider world. It has welcomed in represen-tatives of the faiths of foreigners including even the Confucians and Taoists of the two great religious traditions of Japan’s historical enemy, China. Shintoism this month also hosted the � rst international conference in its entire history. And it has developed a new attitude to a world threatened by climate change and environmental degradation.

So much so that the United Nations chose the conference as a forum to invite the world’s religions to help to shape the global debate on the social, political and eco-nomic yardsticks that will replace the Mil-lennium Development Goals (MDGs) when they run out next year. The conference was named “Tradition for the Future” and its brief was to discover “culture, faith and values for a sustainable planet.” The rebuilding of the Ise shrine is a potent symbol of that – for a paradox lies at its heart. Every 20 years, the shrine buildings are totally demolished and replaced with entirely new ones. It is thus a symbol of both change and continuity. The 20-year cycle allows ancient traditions in for-

estry and carpentry, thatching and weaving, metalwork and leather skills to be passed on from one generation to the next in an unbroken line. This is not a mere ritual. It is a practical necessity. Over two decades, 100 million people will cross the bridge, wearing it away to half its 6in thickness in the course of its lifespan. Those rebuilding the bridge have inherited the skills of boat carpenters practised in � tting together the � oor of the bridge so that it is resistant to rain.

Shintoism is an unusual religion. It has no creeds or dogmas, no doctrines or scriptures. It is rooted in an animist belief that spirits or deities, kami, reside in objects throughout the natural world – rocks, rivers, waterfalls, mountains – as well as in animals and people, and that the spirits of the ancestors live on in the places in which they once dwelt. There are 80,000 shrines to such spirits through-out Japan. But Ise Jingu is special. This is the shrine in which it is believed the spirits of the Japanese imperial family’s ancestors are en-shrined, dating back to the sun goddess Am-aterasu, from whom the emperors claimed descent. After each rebuilding, these imperial deities are transferred to a new dwelling. l

The report was � rst published by The Independent.

Rogue South Korea soldier shoots himself, ending long stand-o� n Reuters, Seoul

A stand-o� between South Korean troops and a conscript soldier who killed � ve comrades ended yesterday when the young recruit shot himself in an incident that has raised fresh ques-tions over the country’s rules on com-pulsory military service.

Troops cornered the 22-year-old sol-dier in a densely forested area near a small town in Goseong county, a moun-tainous region on the eastern coast of the peninsula near the border with North Korea.

After a 24-hour stand-o� and despite pleas by his father to give himself up, the conscript shot himself in the side, and was taken to a military hospital. Late on Saturday night the soldier threw a grenade and opened � re, killing � ve members of his unit and wounding sev-en at a base outpost in Goseong county. The conscript then � ed carrying a � re-arm, ammunition and a grenade and exchanged gun� re with troops.

The soldier, identi� ed as Sergeant Lim, was described by an o� cial as an “introvert” and said there had been earlier concerns over his psychologi-cal health, but he was deemed � t to be deployed to the outpost after passing a test in November.

The military has been criticised be-fore for lax discipline in some units and failure to prevent previous cases where soldiers, su� ering personal problems, have shot fellow soldiers. In a similar incident in 2011, a South Korean marine went on a shooting spree at a base near the tense maritime border with North Korea, killing four fellow soldiers. l

Afghan Taliban free 33 professorsn AP, Kabul

An Afghan o� cial says the Taliban have released 33 university professors and students abducted nearly two weeks ago in the country’s east.

Mohammad Ali Ahmadi, the deputy governor of Ghazni province, says the hostages were released overnight and early yesterday, following mediation by tribal elders in the region and the sta� from the o� ce of the International Committee of the Red Cross in Ghazni.

Ahmadi says the 33, most of whom are professors at the Kandahar univer-sity, were on their way to the Afghan capital, Kabul, earlier this month when their bus was stopped by the Taliban in the province’s Qarabagh district.

The Taliban spokesman, Zabihul-lah Mujahid, con� rmed the release of the 33 in a statement to media. He didn’t say if a ransom was involved or provide details. l

Pak anti-govt cleric returns home, police clash with supportersn Reuters, Lahore

A prominent cleric returned to Pakistan yesterday to lead what he calls a peace-ful revolution against Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif as his supporters fought pitched battles with police � ring tear gas in the capital Islamabad. Tahirul Qa-dri, a Pakistani preacher turned political activist who lives in Canada, is a divisive � gure in Pakistan, where he made head-lines last year by leading mass rallies against the previous government.

As a plane carrying Qadri ap-proached Benazir Bhutto International Airport near Islamabad, violence broke out on the ground as police � red tear gas at 2,000 of his supporters in chaotic scenes rarely seen in the orderly capi-tal. The authorities, fearing an escala-tion of unrest, diverted the commercial � ight to the eastern city of Lahore.

“We want no corruption, we want no terrorism in our country,” Qadri told Reuters aboard the plane. “We want to-tal transparency of institutions.”

Qadri’s sudden ascent to promi-nence has prompted speculation that the army, which ruled Pakistan for decades, may be using him as a proxy in e� orts to sideline the civilian gov-ernment. His comeback comes at an uneasy time for Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, whose civilian government has failed to engage Taliban militants in peace talks, prompting the army to launch a major o� ensive against the militants. l

Malaysia’s top court: ‘Allah’ for Muslims onlyn Agencies

Malaysia’s highest court has rejected a challenge to the ban on Christians us-ing the word “Allah” to refer to God, in a highly divisive legal case in the Mus-lim-majority nation, BBC reported.

The case was brought by the Cath-olic Church, which sought to overturn a ban � rst put in place in 2007. But the Federal Court said an earlier ruling backing the ban was correct.

The case began over the use of “Al-lah” to refer to the Christian God in the Catholic Church’s Malay-language paper. People of all faiths use the word Allah in Malay to refer to their deities.

Christians argue they have used the word, which entered Malay from Ara-bic, to refer to their God for centuries and that the ruling violates their rights.

Malaysian authorities say its use by Christians could confuse Muslims and lead some to convert to Christianity. Ma-

lay Muslims make up almost two-thirds of the country’s population, but there are large Hindu and Christian communi-ties. The long-running case has proved very controversial, sparking impas-sioned debate and leading to occasional attacks on mosques and churches.

The Catholic Church’s newspaper, The Herald, appealed against the ini-tial ban and in 2009 a court ruled in its favour, but that judgement was later overturned by the Court of Appeal.

This ruling was handed down by a seven-member panel, which voted by 4-3 to dismiss the challenge.

Herald editor Father Lawrence An-drew said he was “greatly disappoint-ed” by the judgement which “didn’t touch on the fundamental rights of minorities.” However, Muslim activists outside the court welcomed the deci-sion. S Selvarajah, one of the lawyers for the Church, said the ruling marked the end of legal proceedings. l

Inner Shrine, Ise Jingu WIKI

Internally displaced Pakistanis gather to receive food aid at a distribution centre in Bannu on June 23. The World Food Programme yesterday began distributing aid for hundreds of thousands of people who have � ed a military operation in Pakistan, as refugees clashed with authorities over delays AFP

Muslim women sit in front of a banner reading ‘Allah’ during a protest outside the Court of Appeal in Putrajaya, outside Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, June 23 AP

India is not a party to the Non-Proliferation Treaty, meaning its military nuclear program is not subject to inspections by the United Nations nuclear watchdog

Daughter still unaware of family members’ killingJune 18vihanThis is such a shameful, horrible, and tragic story!

Bangladesh-born American arrested on terror chargesJune 20AnonWhat a waste of life!

Editorial10 DHAKA TRIBUNE Tuesday, June 24, 2014

CODE-CRACKER

ACROSS1 American state (5)4 Agreement (4)7 Annex (3)8 Early freshness (3)9 Old sailors (5)12 Singer (4)13 Lecturer (7)15 Kitchen utensil (3)16 Spanish nobleman (3)18 Tree (3)19 Make brown (3)21 Regain health (7)24 Foundation (4)26 Strong thread (5)27 Conclusion (3)28 Observe (3)29 Ugly amphibian (4)30 Presentation (5)

DOWN1 Church service (4)2 Makes suitable (6)3 Not working (4)4 Fruit (4)5 Boring tool (3)6 Prickle (5)10 Faucet (3)11 Kind of ray (5)14 Make into a decree (5)17 Key (6)18 Boundary (5)20 Today (3)21 Tear (4)22 Passport endorse-ment (4)23 Water grass (4)25 The Briny (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 22 represents K so � ll K every time the � gure 22 appears.You have one letter in the control grid to start you o� . Enter it in the appropriate 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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No need for a war on EnglishJune 19

ImzyThe ruling is not even asking for English to be removed entirely. It is stating everything must be in Bangla, which makes sense, as it is Bangladesh (in China, it will be in Mandarin/Chinese), and people are free to add English on too, for business purposes.

Basically, there are loads of “upper-class” people who cannot even speak proper Bangla anymore, and this article is asking for the country to backpedal for them.

riazo Imzy: Upper class and middle class, from what I have seen. The only exception to this rule is that section of the middle class that is immersed in Bangla cultural activities. When I come to Dhaka (from London), I usually stun most of my relatives because I speak better Bangla than most of them. The way some of them speak gives me allergies.

goodbro123I believe people living in West Bengal love the Bangla language more than we do, but still they like and prefer most o� cial and formal conversations to be in English.

Sammy goodbro123: Very apt comparison, and anyone who has been a regular visitor to West Bengal knows that you’re right. Next, expect the HC to declare West Bengalis to be non-Bengalis. Lol

riazo goodbro123: “West Bengal loves the Bangla lan-guage more than we do.” Really? Seriously? They don’t even celebrate Ekushey February. If they prefer to have o� cial and formal conversations in English then that’s their choice. It has no relevance for Bangladesh.

Many ads are untranslatable? I disagree. That’s just laziness. It takes a little e� ort, the kind that many middle and upper-class people in Dhaka fail to make when speaking Bangla.

Sammy riazo: That may be; it is their choice what they speak. If their customers don’t like it, they would go out of business. Problem solved. Your class envy is largely unnecessary to your irrelevant argument.

riazo Sammy: What are you referring to as customers or business? All I was referring to, by my last comment, was the laziness of so many people while speaking Bangla. Speaking � awless Bangla takes e� ort. I am not against English at all. I live in London. But I believe in speaking Bangla while speaking Bangla, and English when speaking English. That shouldn’t be too hard to understand.

I have no reason to have any kind of class envy. That is your gross misunderstanding of my comment.

SammyVery well argued and practical. The HC move is little more than the cheap appeal to mob mentality that is found in the peddlers of “culture” and “religion” in abundance in Bangladesh. Ultimately, both are matters of individual choice. Using the force of government to promote a religion or language rare-ly works, and even less so in 2014 when the very backbone of information technology is in English. I can bet you my last dollar that some of the children of the very judges who pronounced this insane verdict are safely ensconced in English-speaking countries, enjoying English language ads, and English language communication.

riazo Sammy: No. The government has a role to play in ensuring the practice and survival of indigenous languages, especially in the age of globalisation which is spreading English like wild� re (not that I have a problem with that or anything). It is only ap-propriate that the language of choice in all govern-ment, media (except English ones), and many other spheres of life in Bangladesh be in Bangla. English has a place as a second language in academia, IT, communication with the outside world etc. The two have their distinct places and should be kept in those places appropriately.

Sammy riazo: “Language of choice.” Hmmm, a “choice” you want enforced by the government?? The lack of intellectual integrity in that statement is rather telling. Though, perhaps not as telling as someone sitting in England under the linguistic freedom provided by English laws wanting people in Bangladesh to be subject to laws that control what language they will use in their businesses. Yours resembles the hypocrisy of the judges I mentioned in my earlier comment to the proverbial “T.” Typical of the “I should live in freedom but you should not” mentality of Bengali chauvinists of the cultural and religious kind.

riazo Sammy: Language of choice by the government. Nothing of integrity there. That is a pure choice plain and simple. And a correct choice by the cur-rent government.

In England, there is every dimension stating that all government services provided to its citizens must be provided in English, though there have been many instances where they have been pro-vided to many citizens in other languages as well, Bangla included, something that causes resent-ment among native English people.

No more agitation, please

BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia has threatened a return to hartals and blockades after the Eid-ul-Fitr this year, should the government keep refusing to hold fresh elections under a neutral government.

The party would do well to remember that the violence unleashed during the hartals and blockades of 2013 cost many lives and crippled the country’s economy. The BNP lost a lot of public sympathy because of the su� ering their agitation caused to the common people.

BNP leaders should ask themselves: Why has the public simply accepted the January election, which was held without the participation of the BNP? It was probably because the public had grown weary of the BNP’s campaign of hartals and blockades, during which innocent citizens, sometimes even children, were horribly burned to death.

An opposition party needs the goodwill and support of the public to win elections. There is no doubt that last year’s senseless bloodshed cost the BNP the goodwill of the public.

Khaleda Zia should realise that recent murders and abductions have increased the BNP’s political capital. With Awami Leaguers being charged with serious crimes, the AL is making the BNP look good. The BNP should try to continue to look good until the next election. This means making a commitment to avoiding hartals, blockades, and eschewing violence of any kind.

Whitening money should not be focus

It looks as though the government is once again bowing down to pressure in support of holders of black money. The budget for FY2014-15 will likely include a provision that

allows for undisclosed funds to be whitened with payment of di� erent taxes including a 10% penalty tax, and investment in any productive sector.

However, data compiled by the National Board of Revenue seem to indicate that such approaches may not have the impact that this nation needs.

The past year saw very little investment being made, with only Tk234 crore being whitened in di� erent income-generating sectors between July 2013 and April 2014 of the current � scal year, and only Tk279 crore being received in taxes in the last � scal year.

These amounts are small, compared to the amount of illicit � nancial � ow from Bangladesh.As we have editorialised before, the best way to end the problems caused by large amount of undisclosed money in our economy is to simplify taxation and currency exchange rules, so there is no incentive to hide capital and income.

In order to operate e� ciently, a modern economy requires people to be able to spend their own legally-earned money as they see � t, without being constrained by onerous conditions.Outdated restrictive rules only worsen the problems of corruption and money laundering while holding back investment in the economy.

We should move towards deregulating currency controls completely as a means to ending perverse incentives and attracting more capital for investment.

Outdated restrictive rules only worsen the problems of corruption and money laundering

There is no doubt that last year’s senseless bloodshed cost the BNP the goodwill of the public

Wife kills man in NatoreJune 18

Akhtar ShahNo killing can be condoned.

Without being able to verify the facts of this “murder,” I guess she had had enough!

Mush� q apologises to nation for pathetic showJune 18

ShaukatOh, please! After apologising, you will simply go back home. What about focusing on improving your game?!

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 Shusmita Hossain Khan

Okay, we agree, it was a bad anal-ogy to begin with. Nevertheless, when you are living in a world

where one in every three people are either overweight or obese, we think it’s rather an appropriate one.

Based on a global study, the preva-lence of obesity is on the rise. Doesn’t matter if you are a boy or a girl, man or woman, living in the developed or developing part of the world – it’s true for everyone. Therefore, the assump-tion that only rich and lazy people are obese is becoming a myth everyday.

The study that we are talking about was published in The Lancet and used data from 1,769 individual studies from 183 countries. So, where does the world stand? Globally, in the last three decades – 1980 to 2013 – the propor-tion of overweight or obese people has increased considerably. For men, the corresponding numbers are a little lower than women (28.8% to 36.9% versus 29.8% to 38.0%).

So, who are getting fat? Interest-ingly, more men were overweight and obese than women in developed countries, whereas the opposite was true in developing countries. Un-fortunately, adults weren’t the only ones putting on the pounds – rates of excess weight in children and adoles-cents also increased. Between 1980 and 2013, in developed countries, the prevalence of weight problems and obesity had increased from 16.9% to 23.8% among boys and from 16.2% to 22.6% among girls.

Let’s look into Bangladesh. Don’t be content thinking that this is not our problem and we have far more people who are hungry and malnour-ished. In 1980, one in every 14 adults was overweight or obese, and in 2013, this had gone up to one in every six adults. Look around you, one in every six adult you see will be obese or overweight. For children the numbers didn’t go up so drastically, but it’s still good news for a developing country.

The speci� c causes of obesity are be-yond the scope of this article. Howev-er, some believe that as the economies of developing countries continue to improve, the risk of becoming obese increases. In addition, it has been found that although urbanisation and related dietary changes improve health to a certain extent, they place a city dweller at risk of certain health problems, including obesity.

So, what are the consequences? Like tobacco, obesity causes, or is closely linked with, a large number

of health conditions, including heart disease, stroke, diabetes, high blood pressure, unhealthy levels of choles-terol, asthma, sleep apnea, gallstones, kidney stones, infertility, and as many as 11 types of cancers, including leukemia, breast, and colon cancer. No less real are the social and emotional e� ects of obesity, including discrim-ination, lower wages, lower quality of life, and a likely susceptibility to depression.

Studies from the developing world demonstrate quite unequivocally that obesity is negatively associated with a person’s productivity and work per-formance. An obese person reportedly experiences a 50% increase in lost productivity and visits the doctor 88% more times than a healthy person. Studies have also reported that obese people were up to two times more like-ly to take a large number of sick days in a year compared to lean people, either through absence from illness or for a doctor’s appointment.

Little research on the economic impact of obesity in developing coun-tries has been undertaken, making it di� cult to assess the impact accurate-ly. In this regard, we have to keep in mind that, the ability or willingness of a country to increase healthcare expenditure is in� uenced primarily by the amount of public money available. Given that the GDPs of developing countries like Bangladesh are reliant less on technical and service-orient-ed work and more on industrial and labour-intensive work, a loss of this workforce will contribute to a slowing of overall growth and a reduction in GDP. Parallel with the economic e� ects will be a greater need for public money for health care expenditure. This demand may impede the repayment of external debts, essentially creating a need for continued external borrow-ing and a slowing of the development process.

What could be the way out? As we always say – the � rst thing is to agree that obesity has become an issue in Bangladesh. Then comes a strong political commitment. The reason why we are saying political commitment is important is because of the examples from US First Lady Michelle Obama’s “Let’s Move” campaign. This campaign has brought a lot of attention towards the obesity epidemic in the US. If we can have something like this in Bangla-desh, the elephant in the room will not be ignored anymore. l

Shusmita Hossain Khan is Coordinator of Eminence.

n Shamsul Bari

This is usually the time of the year when some attention is given to the RTI Act 2009,

which was hailed by many as the most revolutionary law of the land when it was formally adopted � ve years ago. As July 1, 2014 marks the completion of � ve years since the law entered into force, this year the anniversary is perhaps witnessing a little more focus than it did in the past.

Already a number of meetings, seminars, TV talk shows have been held on the subject while some articles have also appeared in the press. Some successes under the act have been highlighted, though, in general, pro-nouncements on the results obtained so far have not been very positive. It is important therefore to identify the reasons why.

It is not the objective of this note to go into a detailed analysis of the reasons here, but in order to set the context of the point I wish to make, I think it will be useful to draw attention on some key factors. Clearly, the most important impediment to progress has been the failure of all concerned to bring awareness about the tremendous reach of the law to people in general.

Five years since the law was enact-ed, very few people know that the act empowers all citizens, irrespective of their position in society, to monitor the work of the government and check its abuse of power. It can be used to ensure that public o� cials do their jobs in a transparent manner and in accordance with established laws, rules, and regulations. It can be used as a tool to make all public o� cials, including those working for many NGOs using public funds, accountable to citizens.

Even for those who are aware about the existence of the law, there is either distrust about its e� cacy or disbelief that the public authorities would ever give up their age-old habit of keeping all o� cial acts hidden from the peo-ple, except those that they want the people to know. There is still a general feeling that the term “information” in the act has more to do with news that media provides to the people and hence should be of main interest to the media.

Very few people realise that infor-mation in the context of the act has to do with the work of government o� ces and refers to the contents of all � les, documents, agreements, de-cisions, papers, etc, at the disposal of

government o� ces, in whatever form, be it printed, hand-written, electronic, digital, or physical. That people have a right to inspect all these as rightful owners of all powers in the land, as en-shrined in the constitution, has hardly been explained to them.

The only people who have made use of the law so far and bene� tted from it a great deal, it seems, are the most mar-ginalised sections of the society. They have been helped in this regard by a few committed NGOs and RTI activists determined to make use of the law to help them realise their rightful claims under the law of the land.

However, as stated above, the overwhelming majority of the popu-lation, including the upper, middle, and educated classes, the professional groups including lawyers, the polit-

ical parties, the media, and the civil society in general, have stayed away from resorting to the law so far. If this state of a� airs is allowed to continue, the law will only stay on paper, unable to contribute to the realisation of the revolutionary objectives for which it

was enacted, namely, transparent and accountable governance.

But this should not be allowed to happen. The situation can improve if particular attention is given, among other things, to the proper functioning of the Information Commission, which is the main body under the act to over-see its implementation. First of all, the commission should be helped by the government to function as an impartial and neutral body without any pressure or in� uence from the government or from anybody else.

Such a commission would send a strong message to all concerned that the government is genuinely commit-ted to seeing the full � owering of the law. It will encourage the citizens to make proper use of the law without fear of retribution from public o� cials for daring to seek awkward informa-tion from them. At the same time, it will warn public o� cials that the days of keeping citizens in the dark about the work of the government are over, and it is time they change their tradi-tional secretive mindset and open up to public scrutiny for the sake of good governance.

For this to happen, particular attention must also be given to the selection of information commission-ers. Unfortunately the RTI Act 2009 does not provide much guidance on the quali� cation and background of persons who could/should be chosen for the job. It only provides for a selec-tion committee for this purpose and how it would be composed. The focus here is more on representation from the three branches of the government, which is � ne, but there is very little representation of ordinary citizens for whose bene� t the law was enacted in the � rst place.

To redress the lacunae in the law,

a good practice would be for the selection committee to ask citizens to suggest names to it so that it has a good list/range of persons to choose from. Such persons could be anybody, within the age limit, from any walk of life, known for their commitment, inter alia, to public cause, objectivity, wide-ranging knowledge and experi-ence, social values, and a good sense of equity and justice.

Asking people to send SMS messag-es, or otherwise, to the secretary of the selection committee may be a quick and easy way out, from which the committee may select names which re-ceive highest mention. Such a process may also help in view of the paucity of time left for replacement of two of the three commissioners who are going to retire this month after completion of their � ve-year term.

There may, of course, be other mechanisms that the committee may wish to consider, but whatever meth-od is chosen, it must demonstratively be transparent to uphold the value of transparency in the work of all public authorities that the RTI Act 2009 seeks to promote. l

Shamsul Bari is the Chairman of Research Initiatives, Bangladesh (RIB).

11Op-Ed Tuesday, June 24, 2014DHAKA TRIBUNE

n Ikhtisad Ahmed

The recent actions of the British Education Secre-tary Michael Gove, and his public fallout with fellow conservative leadership

pretender Theresa May, provide a microcosm of ailments in Bangla-desh. A hailstorm of jingoism drowns constructive discussion in the former colony; thus, a closer inspection of the comedy of errors on the shores of the once imperial overlords better serves the purpose.

One of the hallmarks of the pre-dominantly British-instructed English medium education in Bangladesh has been the study of British texts, particularly for English lessons. Shake-speare’s plays are a mainstay, supple-mented almost exclusively by Dickens and Austen.

The forward-thinking Gove has tak-en his inspiration to redesign the Brit-ish curriculum from this overt attempt at subliminal imperialism. While the rest of the backward world, including the Commonwealth countries, looks to expand its horizons with a broader understanding of the language and its rich literature, he has exerted isola-tionism by culling non-British writers from the syllabus.

Before this ludicrous authoritarian-ism could be properly ridiculed, before even the state opening of parliament, the news cycle had moved on to the battle between Gove and May. An alleged plot by Islamists to in� ltrate schools and their governing bodies to disseminate fundamentalism that is said to have been in motion for years,

came to light due to an anonymous let-ter that is widely thought to be a fake.

May’s ministry pounced on the opportunity to make political hay due to Gove’s culpability for allowing schools to operate without satisfactory oversight. Further, he has recklessly allowed schools to set themselves up as academies and free schools outside local authority, and free to depart from the national curriculum.

Should the problem be seen as one in which ultra-conservative religious thought is exerting in� uence over education, the current government can only be blamed for having com-pounded it by expanding faith schools, in which such an in� uence is undoubt-edly at work through Christianity. This gross misappropriation of the increased funds made available to the Department of Education should serve as a warning to Bangladesh, which sees a rise of 12% for education in the annual budget.

In a country where the contribu-tions of governments in this sector have historically been erroneous, thereby making education one of the chief success stories of NGOs and the

private sector, things can be expected to go horribly wrong.

Gove’s solution to the latter prob-lem is derived from the thinking that caused the former. The government will require all schools to “actively promote British values,” he says. These include democracy, rule of law, liberty, tolerance, and respect. Mislabelling such universal values as British is to dangerously practice a false, and

lethal, nationalism. Improvement through education and hard work is made a mockery of by an antiquated education system that is regressing, and a broken political establishment that dictates society in its entirety, replacing the ability to make any kind of change through self-improvement with self-debasing cronyism.

The most undeserving rise to the top, to rule principled, educated citi-zens who have no worth in this world. Instead of this, it is better to extend the principle of separation of religion and governance to separation of reli-gion and education, with the former not being trusted with the latter (aside from Sunday schools and their alterna-tive versions, which should be opt-in

rather than mandatory). In Bangladesh, laws allowing equal-

ity of religion or religious freedoms are weakened by blasphemy laws (an im-perial construct to spread disharmony and discontent in order to better rule with an iron hand), rendering them meaningless and spreading competi-tive intolerance.

If the law allows limits to be set on what is acceptable, the law e� ectively endorses ever-worsening dogma-tism and bigotry. Treading this road irreversibly and irrevocably removes all obstacles to controlling thought, speech, and beliefs. Adopting human-ism as the overriding principle, on the other hand, harbours respect and tolerance, and allows people to be in charge of their beliefs, thoughts, and destinies.

While governments seem unwilling to, and incapable of, empowering peo-ple for fear of losing control over them, the palatial temples of education need to, for empowerment with knowledge is the only purpose of their existence.

If all people are equal, as they are said to be in the eyes of the laws and gods of every land and creed, then none has the right to impose oneself or one’s thoughts on another. Education-al institutions are about dispensing knowledge, not judgment or faith, and governments are about representing their people by being their servants. In the words of philosopher Roger Waters: “We don’t need no thought control.” l

Ikhtisad Ahmed is a writer and an erstwhile lawyer. He can be contacted on Twitter via @Ikhtisad. 

Teach, don’t preach

Educational institutions are about dispensing knowledge, not judgment or faith

The most important impediment to progress has been the failure of all concerned to bring awareness about the tremendous reach of the law to people

Let’s look into Bangladesh. Don’t be content thinking that this is not our problem

The � rst thing is to agree that obesity has become an issue in Bangladesh. Then comes a strong political commitment

The elephant in the room

The people’s right to know

F R O M T H E M A R G I N S

Knowledge, or thought control? BIGSTOCK

Angelina Jolie claims working with the survivors of rape was an honour as part of the Preventing Sexual Vio-lence Initiative (PSVI).

The “Male� cent” actor, who is a special envoy for the UN Refugee Agency said she is determined to help end sexual violence as an act of war.

“Working on the Preventing Sex-ual Violence Initiative (PSVI) and with survivors of rape is an honour in itself. I know that succeeding in our goals will take a lifetime and I am dedicated to it for all of mine. We all know how hard it is to secure convictions for rape, even in stable democratic coun-tries. So we have to work even

harder to make justice possible in fragile countries. And that is the pur-

pose of this protocol. It is an essential document and I am so grateful to the hundreds of experts and survivors who have played their part in drafting it,” she said.

Angelina Jolie, 39, who has six chil-dren with � ancé Brad Pitt said her hu-manitarian work has helped her in her own life.

“It was my work with the UN that made me feel ready to have a family. But as a mother I do often think of how I would feel when I see children and other women in those terrible situations.” l

Delve into the bizarre with Taboon Entertainment Desk

Every culture has its rituals and codes of living. Delve into the bizarre or con-fronting practices of cultures around the world with the TV show “Taboo,” which will be aired on the National Geographic Channel today at 2pm.

Discover what drives someone to insert stainless steel � shing hooks into another person’s back so they can hang from the ceiling by their � esh. How the practice of thrusting hands into gloves � lled with stinging giant bullet ants and enduring the pain over and over acceptable within a culture.

In some societies around the world, practices like these re� ect deeply held traditional beliefs or deliberate lifestyle choices. But to others outside the cul-ture, they may seem grotesque, dan-gerous or.. Taboo.

The show cuts beyond the comfort zone of individuals and across cul-tural borders to explore rituals and customs that are acceptable in some cultures but forbidden, illegal or re-viled in others. Crossing the boundary between modern practices and ancient beliefs, this series showcases a mosaic of human lifestyles and values. Each episode will examine one issue from a variety of perspectives, often venturing into rarely seen societies. The journey includes six continents and 19 coun-tries, featuring 25 indigenous cultures. Hear from some of the world’s most re-nowned and respected anthropologists and sociologists, who examine a di-verse range of cultures. Explore rites of passage, unique lifestyle choices, body modi� cation, gender decisions, nudity and spiritual quests that test the limits of the human body. l

EntertainmentDHAKA TRIBUNE Tuesday, June 24, 201412

Exhibition: Spinning Tales of Shadowist and OthersBy Ashikur Rahman TurjaTime: 3pm – 8pmDhaka Art Centre,

Time LineTime: 11am – 8pmGalleri Kaya

FilmX-Men: Days of Future PastThe Amazing Spider-Man 2 (3D)Pompeii 300 Rise of an EmpireTarkataTime: 10am – 10pmStar Cineplex, Level 8Bashundhara City 13/3 KaPanthopath

Artistic Musings of Great Collector Nasir Ali MamunTime: 12pm – 8pmBengal Gallery of Fine Arts, Road No 16Dhanmondi

Print & Art Exhibition Time: 10am – 8pmGallery ChitrokRoad No 4Dhanmondi

TODAY IN DHAKA

Aamir Khan accepts sweets for Satyamev Jayaten Entertainment Desk

Bollywood superstar Aamir Khan, known for shun-ning award shows, received a packet of sweets instead of a trophy at the Star Parivaar award show for his TV programme “Satyamev Jayate.” The 49-year-old actor was honoured for his contribution to society through his show which deals with social problems like rape, injustice to women, corruption and education issues.

“I am happy to be accepting this honour. But I don’t think you should be giving me sweets because post “Dhoom 3” I have put on a lot of weight. I think the success of the � lm has been too much for me,” joked Aamir, who was accompanied by wife Kiran Rao for the ceremony last night.

Re� ecting on his 25-year-old career, Aamir Khan said he has been very lucky to get opportunities to work with great directors.

“I think the credit goes to the great stories written and the directors who got me on board. One of my fa-vourite � lms is 'Andaaz Apna Apna,'” said Aamir.

The actor broke into an impromptu jig onstage and shook his leg to the beats of his superhit song “Aye Kya Bolti Tu” from 1998 � lm “Ghulam.” l

Pop Culture Expo gets biggern Entertainment Desk

“Dhaka Pop Culture Expo 2014” will start today at 2pm and will continue till tomorrow at the National Shooting Federation Hall, Gulshan 1. The convention is a gathering of fans of comic books, � lms, TV, anime, and video games. They will get together and celebrate the popular (and obscure) media they love. The event is being arranged by the same group who organised the “Dhaka Pop Expo” in August and many of the ele-

ments from the previous expo will dominate this event as well. Winners of the costume competition will get attractive prizes and it is rumoured that many partici-pants are forming large groups to go as characters from “Naruto,” “Bleach,” “Fairytale” and “One Piece.” Any-one interested in going as part of a group can search their Facebook page for empty character slots. Regis-tration isn't required for the competition.

The entry fee is Tk100 for each day and tickets are available only at the venue. l

Jamming with starsn Entertainment Desk

Canadian International School in partnership with Percep-tion has organised an open jamming session from today, 3pm onwards. All proceeds from the event will go towards helping underprivileged chil-dren. The sessions will be an opportunity for the audience to perform with their favou-rite underground bands on stage. The Crowd, Circus Po-lice, MiNERVA, Blunderware, ARBOVIRUS and Indalo will be participating in the event. Fans will be randomly se-lected from the crowd by the bands and they may bring along guitars, basses or drum sticks.

It is an open air event and will be held at the Canadian International School premises in Gulshan with an entry fee of Tk200. l

n Entertainment Desk

Shakib Khan will be romancing Tollywood actor Nusrat Jahan in P A Kajol's upcoming � lm “Dhakar Chele Kolkatar Meye.”

As the title suggests, it is a romantic story between a guy from Dhaka and a girl from Kolkata. Childhood friends, the duo were separated when Nusrat's family move and they fall out of touch. After a decade or so, Shakib goes to Kolkata on business and by the hand of fate, he bumps into his childhood sweetheart among the sea of strangers in the mega city. At � rst they fail to recognise each oth-er but as soon as they discover their true identity, they fall in love.

“Shakib and Nusrat gave vo-cal con� rmation for working in the movie and both are excited to be a part of a � lm that covers both the Bengals,” said P A Kajol to Dhaka Tribune.

The director said that the � lm will be a co-production and an Indian

production house is in the midst of signing a contract with Ban-gladeshi “Ma Cholochitro” for producing the movie. l

Band Mohakaal split n Entertainment Desk

Band breakups are nothing new and after ten long years together, band Mohakaal has decided to part ways. Founding member, Khayam Sanu Sandhi (vocal and guitarist) started the band which was later joined by Sand-hi's older sister Swagata and younger sister Shovvota. Early this year they started having problems and some of the members decided to form a new

band titled “Project Neon.” The lineup of the newly formed

group is Sandhi, Polock and Maruf. Sandhi said: “We will be experi-

menting a lot and for that reason, we have named our new band 'Project Neon.' For expansion and variation, we will be inviting artistes to perform with us occasionally. Our very � rst song has been released in 'Shopnochu-ra 4' and we are currently working on a solo album.” l

Akshay-Sonakshi's Holiday makes it big at box o� cen Entertainment Desk

“Holiday: A Soldier is Never o� Duty” capped a fabulous two-week run at the box o� ce with Rs1bn in its kitty this weekend.

Released on June 6, the � lm starring Akshay Kumar and Sonakshi Sinha also got good reviews. Directed by AR Murugadoss, the � lm is a remake of his South-ern hit “Thupakki.” Sal-man Khan-starrer “Jai Ho” (Rs1.16bn) and Alia-Ar-jun-starrer “2 States” (Rs 1.02bn) are the other � lms which entered “Rs100 Crore Club” in 2014.

This is Akshay’s third � lm in the hallowed club after “Rowdy Rathore” and “Housefull 2.” “Holi-day” is the 29th movie to join the club. “Dhoom 3,” “Chennai Express,” and “Krrish 3” are on top of the list. l

Poetry and music with Syed Shamsul Haque n Entertainment Desk

Syed Shamsul Haque will recite modern poetry today at 6pm at the Daily Star-Ben-gal Arts Precinct. Poet and littérateur Syed Shamsul Haq's energetic and entertaining performance will be accompanied by a musician playing the esraj. This cultural event is an extension of “Second Sight,” an exhibition of selected paintings and draw-ings by S M Sultan from the private collec-tion of Abul Khair. The recitation will take place in the gallery itself, surrounded by signi� cant artworks of S M Sultan.

Haque writes poetry, � ction, plays—mostly in verse and essays. His literary works are included in the educational cur-riculum of the Bangladesh. He received the prestigious “Bangla Academy Award” at the age of 29 and was the youngest writ-er to achieve this honour. On May 1951, Fazle Lohahi published Haque’s � rst sto-ry “Udoyasto” in his literary magazine, “Ogotta.” Haque got admitted in the En-glish department of the University of Dha-ka in 1954 and left in 1956 without com-pleting the degree. Later that year, his � rst novel “Deyaler Desh” was published. l

When Dhaka beau meetsKolkata beauty

Honoured to work with rape victims: Angelina Jolien Entertainment Desk

DHAKA TRIBUNE13Sp rt

Russel continue to stumblen

Sheikh Russel lost points once again in the Nitol-Tata Ban-gladesh Premier Football League as the title holders were held to a 2-2 draw by 10-man Brothers Union at the Bangab-andhu National Sta-

dium yesterday.Brothers goalkeeper Sabuj received a

straight red card with just eight minutes into the clock after he came out of his box to foul Mithun Chowdhury.

The Oranges, however, took the lead in the 38th minute despite playing with one man short. Augustine Walson placed home a Kester Akon cross from the six-yard box.

Sumon restored parity for Russel in the 65th minute tapping in a low cross from Mithun from the right � ank. Nige-rian forward Simon again put Brothers ahead in the 71st minute after his low drive from the edge of the box beat four defenders. Sabuj Kumar equalised three minutes later with a chip from the far post.

Brothers remained at � fth position with 33 points from 21 matches while Russel are a spot behind in sixth with 28 points from the same number of games. l

Animated Big Phil all heated up

Selecao coach Luiz Felipe Scolari is known for his strict discipline and in-stant reactions and it was evident in the pre-match press conference of Brazil’s � nal Group A game against Cameroon at the Estadio Nacional Mane Garrincha Stadium in Brasilia on Sunday.

Before the presser, a 15-minute open practice session for the media people took place in the lush green pitch and Scolari was the � rst to enter the � eld. He looked at the pitch and its surround-ings and observed that the pitch was relatively small in comparison with Sao

Paulo or the Maracana with the stands quite close to the pitch. Felipao was seen talking with Neymar and Marcelo before the Brazilian players gathered around the mid-circle and stared their training playing � rst-touch passing. The open training session was followed by the closed-door session after which Sco-lari came to the presser.

Big Phil visibly got angry after a re-porter asked him to choose between the Netherlands and Chile as his preferred second-round opponents. Brazil would have the advantage of knowing who they would meet in the round of 16 if they � nish group champions or run-ners-up as the Group B clash between the Netherlands and Chile was sched-uled to take place four hours before Brazil’s game. The Dutch and the Chil-eans have already sealed their place in the second round, all that was left to be decided was who would top the group.

Dutch coach Louis van Gaal has told the media that Fifa handed the advan-tage to Brazil as the hosts were in a position of knowing or choosing who they would potentially face in the sec-ond round. Scolari though outrightly swatted away the future Manchester United manager’s comments. “Some people expressed a view that we are go-

ing to choose who we are going to play. Those sort of comments are either stu-pid or ill-intentioned. I repeat stupid or ill-intentioned,” said an adamant Scolari whilst also raising his � nger.

“We have to play to qualify, not pick and choose our opponents. It was Fifa who chose the kick-o� time,” added Scolari.

When another journalist asked him the same question Scolari once again minced no words. “You are putting emphasis on somebody (Van Gaal) who is talking non-sense,” said an animated Scolari.

The 65-year old tactician took some time to contain his anger before re-turning to his normal mood a few sec-onds later and showed respect towards Cameroon. “Cameroon supposedly have nothing to lose but they have their honour to protect. They have the op-portunity to � ght and do their country proud,” said Scolari.

Scolari concluded by saying he kept faith in teamwork. “We are a group and are in this together. I will continue with the line-up that I started with in the � rst game. I am satis� ed with our performanc-es so far. We are not at the same level yet as during the Confederations Cup last year but this is a World Cup, it’s di� erent,” opined the 2002 World Cup winner. l

I thought about Richard Marx quite a bit last night. Given that “right here waiting” still plays in most of our restaurants, I like to think about Richard Marx as little as possible. It takes a desperate situation for me to spare more than the scantiest thought for the man. The Russia Belgium game was one such situation. In the absence of any meaningful action on the pitch, I was looking any old thing to concentrate on. Watching Eden Hazard run around aimlessly for many minutes led me to Mr. Marx who has a song by the same surname. As the game continued

threatening to undo all the good work done by its predecessors, I really felt like I needed to make it to the river. Marx appeared like a wise man. You know it really is a crap game when Richard Marx presents himself to your thoughts as a source of wisdom. I am convinced that Belgium scored in the 89th minute just so that the match would meet the minimum standards required for it to be considered an o� cial part of the 2014 World Cup. I desperately hope that I won’t have to think about Richard Marx again for the duration of the tournament.

Things got much better as the night progressed and footballers from other countries remembered that they are playing in a very special tournament. I am not sure what the Algerian pre-game meal was but the only thing that could compete with its e� ectiveness was whatever bulgogi the Koreans had during half time. Speaking of Algeria this is an interesting

anecdote. In 2007, the Algerian lower courts, having failed to arbitrate a case, sent it to the supreme legal body. No that is not the interesting part of this story. The interesting part is the case itself. It involved a donkey and two men. One man was selling the donkey and two men. One man was buying the donkey and the other was selling it. While they were negotiating the price the prospective buyer set the money next to the beast of burden who, presumably bored by the haggling, ate the cash. The supreme court had to decide who the money and the donkey belonged to. I have not yet found a solution to the legal and moral dilemma, and thankfully did not get much time to think about it given the frenetic action on tv, but I do hope the Supreme Court of Algeria did. I would hate to think that the poor donkey is still being held in some corner of the Algerian legal system as case evidence.

You stumble upon wonderful stu� when you think that the games won’t be good enough to write about, and need more fodder for an engaging piece. I thank Belgium and Russia for creating the panic that led to my introduction with the Algerian donkey. But I don’t think I can forgive Kompany and co. for making me think of Richard Marx for a good part of twenty-four hours.

The excitement of the remaining matches ensured that I can a� ord to forget some parts of these endless summer nights. Seriously, who leaves it till 3.5 seconds from the end to equalize? Such deadline busting is my province. I have said it before and I will say it again, Ronaldo should get some more dandru� in his hair so that he has a greater sense of urgency in future encounters. He was this close to looking like one who can bray with Algeria’s � nest. l

On your Marx, Ready set BRAY!

Tuesday, June 24, 2014

Top scorer of cellular operator Robi’s Fifa World Cup quiz contest, Shariful Islam (3rd R), receives a match ticket from the organisation’s vice president Mohammad Sameer Zoha at the Robi corporate o� ce yesterday

Wimbledon stars feel World Cup fevern Tennis’s top stars should be concen-trating on Wimbledon, which got under way Monday, but the big-name players can’t help keeping an eye on the World Cup football action in Brazil.

The Championships are a foot-ball-free zone: the All England Club refuses to show matches on the big screens. Nonetheless, the World Cup is the talk of the locker room, according to defending champion Andy Murray.

With England crashing out of the World Cup early, Britain’s hopes of sporting success now rest with the Scot.

Indeed, the very � rst press confer-ence question Murray faced at Wimble-don this year was: “How does it feel to

have the hopes of a despondent nation on your shoulders?”

Murray replied simply: “Wow.”“I enjoy it when the World Cup is

on. It gives me something to do in the evenings. I don’t have to listen to peo-ple talking about me playing at Wimble-don,” the champion said.

“When you walk into the locker room most mornings, that’s what almost all of the players are talking about,” he said of the World Cup. Rafael Nadal said Spain’s shock slump did not make him more mo-tivated to restore national sporting pride by winning a third Wimbledon crown.

“I am sad. Everybody in Spain is sad for what happened in the World Cup,” the Mallorcan said.

“But my mentality, my motivation

was going to be always at the top to play here at Wimbledon.”

For Victoria Azarenka, the World Cup is all about peace and love -- but mostly love, for Argentina star Lionel Messi.

“I’ve been a supporter of Argentina for last three World Cups,” the Belaru-sian said.

“I love Messi. I think he’s one of the greatest players of all time. He’s so little, so cute.”

What goes through Azarenka’s mind when watching the Barcelona forward?

“You don’t want to know!,” the world number eight said.

“The World Cup is one of those events like the Olympic Games. It brings all nations, all people together just glued to the TV or glued in the stadium,

that moment of celebration. That mo-ment of peace, that moment of love for the sport.

“It’s just absolutely amazing to me.”Serena Williams said she was watch-

ing at least one or two games per day.“Excited for the US. Obviously I’m

rooting for the US,” the � ve-times Wim-bledon winner said. Compatriot Sloane Stevens said the World Cup had not been keeping her awake.

However, Maria Sharapova said she had been tucked up in bed before Rus-sia’s opening match kicked o� , and it was not worth asking her opinion on Russia’s players.

“I’m no expert in football. I’ll tell you that straight o� ,” the 2004 cham-pion said. l Victoria Azarenka poses with Argentina jersey INTERNET

Murray cruises through n

Defending champion Andy Murray breezed through his Wimble-don opener on Monday with a con� dent 6-1, 6-4, 7-5 win over ba-

by-faced Belgian David Go� n.Third-seeded Murray, bidding to be-

come the � rst British man to successfully defend a Wimbledon title since Fred Per-ry in 1936, hit eight aces and 28 winners.

Murray, who has made at least the semi-� nals on his last � ve appearances at the All England Club, goes on to face Slovenia’s Blaz Rola.

The Scot was joined in the sec-ond round by Czech sixth seed Tomas Berdych, the 2010 runner-up, who came from a set down to beat Romania’s Vic-tor Hanescu, 6-7 (5/7), 6-1, 6-4, 6-3.

Latvian 12th seed Ernests Gulbis, who made the French Open semi-� -

nals, also went into the second round by defeating Estonia’s Jurgen Zopp 7-6 (9/7), 7-5, 7-6 (12/10).

Former women’s world number one Victoria Azarenka won her � rst match since January on the same court where she su� ered a knee injury which ended her 2013 hopes.

Azarenka, the eighth seed, won 6-3, 7-5 against Croatia’s Mirjana Lucic-Bar-oni, who was a semi-� nalist back in 1999, on Court One. US 18th seed Sloane Stephens, a quarter-� nalist in 2013, was defeated by Russian former top 10 player Maria Kirilenko, 6-2, 7-6 (8/6).

Australian 17th seed Samantha Sto-sur � red 13 aces but still su� ered an-other Wimbledon nightmare when she slumped to a 6-3, 6-4 defeat to Belgium’s Yanina Wickmayer.

Japanese 43-year-old Kimiko Date Krumm who made her debut 25 years ago, went down 3-6, 6-4, 7-5 to Russian 22nd seed, Ekaterina Makarova. l

Mathews, Prasad stun England

Dhammika Prasad’s dramatic four-wicket burst following a hundred from skipper Angelo Mathews left Sri Lanka on the brink of victory in the sec-ond Test against England at Headingley on Monday.

England were 57 for � ve at stumps on the fourth day, needing a further 293 runs to reach their imposing victo-ry target of 350.

The most England have previous-ly made in the fourth innings to win a Test is 332 for seven against Australia at Melbourne in 1928/29.

And only one team have made more in the fourth innings to win a Test at Headingley -- Australia’s 404 for three against England in 1948.

Sri Lanka have won just two Tests in England and never claimed a series on English soil of more than one match.

But, having held out for a draw in the

� rst Test at Lord’s with just one wicket standing, Mathews’s men were now on course for a memorable victory.

Earlier in the day, England bowled too short and Prasad, recalled in place of the dropped Nuwan Kulasekara, showed them the value of pitching the ball up.

England were making steady prog-ress at 39 without loss when Prasad, the � fth bowler used by Mathews, struck twice in his � rst over.

With his third ball he induced En-gland captain Alastair Cook to bottom edge a pull onto his stumps.

That meant the left-handed open-er’s run without a Test century since he scored the last of his England record 25 hundreds against New Zealand at Headingley last year now extended to 24 innings.

And next ball Prasad’s excellent full-length delivery had Gary Ballance plumb lbw for a duck.

Ian Bell prevented a hat-trick but

Prasad was in the wickets again when Australia-born opener Sam Robson, who in the � rst innings had made a maiden Test century, drove loosely outside o� stump and was caught by second slip Mahela Jayawardene for 24.

Prasad then surpassed his previous Test-best of three for 82 against Paki-stan in Colombo six years ago when he squared up Bell with a � ne delivery that clipped the top of o� -stump.

England were now 52 for four, with Prasad having taken four for 10 in 24 balls.

And the 31-year-old would have had two more wickets had not both night-watchman Liam Plunkett and Joe Root successfully challenged caught behind decisions given by New Zealand um-pire Billy Bowden.

But to what became the last ball of the day, Plunkett fell for nought when he chipped a gentle catch to cover o� left-arm spinner Rangana Herath. l

Angelo Mathews celebrates his century against England in Leeds yesterday AFP

DHAKA TRIBUNE14 Sp rt

Halilhodzic hails ‘heroic’ Algerian AFP, Porto Alegre

Algeria coach Vahid Halilhodzic told his players before Sunday’s clash with South Korea that now was not the time to start crying with yet another � rst round knock-out a depressing possibili-ty after an opening loss to Belgium.

There were tears alright on an idyllic sunny afternoon in Porto Alegre, but of joy, after a pulsating “heroic” 4-2 win over the 2002 semi-� nalists pushed the North Africans to the brink of an histor-ic passage to the second round.

The Desert Foxes were celebrating their � rst World Cup win since beating Chile in the 1982 � nals shortly after a remarkable victory over football super-power, the former West Germany.

And their canny Bosnian-born coach remarked: “I dedicate this victory to all the Algerian supporters who have wait-ed for this for 32 years.

“This was a victory for pride.“Now we play a third match, a play-

o� against Russia and anything is pos-sible.”

The Koreans were trailing by three goals by the time they sought refuge in the dressing room at the interval as a slick quick intelligent Algeria had them rattled with goals from man of the match Islam Slimani, Ra� cki Halliche and Abdelmoumene Djabou.

In the second half goals from Korea’s Song Heung-Min and Koo Ja-Cheol sandwiched Algeria’s fourth from Ya-cine Brahimi.

Algeria are the � rst side from Afri-ca to rack up that number of goals in a World Cup match.

Slimani was one of � ve changes from the opening line-up with Halilihodzic observing: “This was a well prepared tactic, we closely analysed the Korean way of play.

“In the � rst half we were great in ev-ery area. In the second, we let up a lit-tle against a well organised rival, there were a couple of hot moments in de-fence but we were prepared for that.”

This outcome, as spectacular as it was unexpected, sees Algeria go into their Group H closer on three points as opposed to Russia’s one point, with Korea, also stuck on one point, facing already quali� ed Belgium.

Somewhat disingenuously perhaps Halilhodzic suggested to the post-match press conference that it was Fa-bio Capello’s Russians rather than Alge-ria that were in pole to qualify.

“Russia are favourites,but we cant’t hide, we have to go in search of this quali� cation with even more audacity and su� ering.”

That game is scheduled for Thursday in Curitiba. l

Tuesday, June 24, 2014

CR7delivers

cold dose of reality

South Korea Algeria Goals scored 2 4 Total shots 9 15 Shots on target 6 8 Corners 7 5 O� sides 1 1 Fouls committed 13 16 Yellow cards 2 1 Red cards 0 0 Ball possession 54 pct 46 pct

MATCH STATS

n AFP, Manaus

Portugal are not good enough to win the World Cup their world footballer of the year Cristiano Ronaldo admitted after Sunday’s thrilling 2-2 draw with the United States.

The 29-year-old Real Madrid superstar -- whose � tness has been a hot source of debate -- kept his country’s slim hopes of reaching the second round alive with a sublime cross which was headed home by Silvestre Varela in the dying seconds of time added on.

The Portuguese, who were hammered 4-0 by Germany in their opening game, must beat Ghana and hope there is a winner from the other match between Germany and the Americans -- who both have four points -- on Thursday to leave the second qualifying spot down to goal di� erence.

However, Ronaldo -- who looks doomed to prolong the curse of the world footballer of the year never winning the World Cup the year he wins the award -- said even reaching the second round will not presage a revival that will see them lift the World Cup trophy for the � rst time.

“Portugal were never a favourite,” said Ronaldo.

“Even qualifying for the � nals was problematic (he almost singlehandedly got Portugal to the � nals with a hat-trick in the second leg of the play-o� with Sweden in Stockholm in a 3-2 win, and a 4-2 victory on aggregate).

“I never thought we would be world champions. We have to be humble and recognise our limitations. There are things we cannot do, like running faster or having more quality.

“At the moment there are better teams and better players than our own.

“Also with the setbacks we have had here, with the suspension of Pepe and the injury to Fabio Coentrao.”

Ronaldo, who had an outstanding season for Real which culminated with the ‘meringues’ 10th Champions League trophy, said he could have taken the easy way out and not come to the � nals given his � tness concerns.

“It could have been a lot easier for me, I could have not come to the World Cup and

I would have sat at home as a Champions League winner.

“Instead I answered my country’s call as always,” said Ronaldo, who inspired the Portuguese to a surprise run to the Euro 2012 semi-� nals.

Portugal coach Paulo Bento also sprang to his captain’s defence denying it was his patchy form which has been responsible for them clinging on to hopes of qualifying only by their � ngernails.

“He was � t and he played 90 minutes,” said Bento, who prior to the � nals signed an extension to his contract taking him up to 2016.

“I don’t think the problem with the displays lies with him. What happened has more to do with other players.

“The match has to be analysed from a broader perspective. I do not want to talk about individual cases and on one performance in particular.

“This is not the time to separate individual performances and the level of the team. There was not one player worse than the others. They are sad at the moment and it is not the time to criticise them.

“If there is somebody you want to criticise then it is me the coach.” l

Ugly or with � air? Belgium fuel debate n AFP, Rio De Janeiro

Relieved at securing quali� cation for the second phase of the World Cup � -nals with a late winner against Russia, Belgium coach Marc Wilmots ventured to embark upon an age-old debate.

Is it enough to win, or must success be achieved in aesthetically pleasing fashion?

Brazil fans have asked the question for decades, demanding not just suc-cess -- of which they have had plenty down the years -- but glory embel-lished with style.

Any deviance from the path of O Jogo Bonito (the beautiful game) has been met with popular irritation and a nagging sense of unful� lment.

Wilmots says he and other coach-es will be judged above all by results, leading him to an inescapable conclu-sion liable to dismay the romantic.

“It’s not about being beautiful – but about being e� ective. Belgium are through to the next round and that is what counts,” said the 45-year-old, who appeared for the Red Devils at four

World Cups including their last appear-ance at a major � nals in 2002.

“We are tactically very disciplined and we needed to be patient,” added Wilmots, who famously had a goal un-fairly chalked o� against eventual cham-pions Brazil in the round of 16 in 2002.

With so much at stake, � air was barely the order of the day until Eden Hazard jinked his way to the byline before � nd-ing teenage substitute Divock Origi for the only goal right at the death.

Wilmots is by no means alone in musing on whether teams should con-centrate on winning with � air-� lled football or in more functional fashion.

Ahead of the tournament, Brazil starlet Neymar insisted winning is what ultimately counts with style a dis-

tant second concern.“Beautiful football is the last thing we

are concerned about -- what we want to do is to win,” insisted the Barcelona man.

“Our team’s mentality is always the same – always beat any adversary, who-ever they are.”

It was therefore ironic that the hosts’ goalless draw against Mexico fueled loud grumbles from home fans when, had it not been for inspired goal-keeper Guillermo Ochoa, Brazil would have won by a hatful.

Thereby hangs a tale -- plenty of chances and attractive approach play.

Style aplenty; substance of result lacking, suggesting when it comes to a straight � ght, even the home fans con-cede it’s really all about winning.

Despite some outbreaks of cagey be-havior, this World Cup has seen attack-ing football � ourish at least in terms of the goalscoring benchmark.

After 32 of the 64 games, 94 goals has been scored for an average of 2.94 per game. The tournament average in 2010 was 2.27, the second all-time low-est after 1990. l

Singapore cracks down on illegal bets during World Cup n AFP, Singapore

Singapore police Monday said they have arrested 15 people in a crackdown on il-legal betting during intense World Cup fever in the city-state, which has become notorious for football-linked crime.

“Preliminary investigations re-vealed that the suspects are believed to have received illegal bets amounting to about Sg$800,000 ($641,000) in the past two weeks,” the Singapore Police Force said in a statement posted on its website Monday.

The suspects, 14 men and one wom-en aged between 23 and 70, were de-tained in raids on Saturday, police said.

It did not reveal their nationalities and a police spokeswoman declined to speci� cally link them to betting on matches during the FIFA World Cup, which kicked o� on June 12 in Brazil.

Cash totalling Sg$350,000, as well as computers, mobile phones and docu-ments detailing betting and bank trans-action records were seized during the raid, police said.

The crackdown is the second against illegal football betting the police have publicly announced in the past month.

On May 19, the police said 18 people were arrested for being part of an illegal football betting ring that received over Sg$8.0 million in bets.

Under Singapore’s Betting Act, sus-pects found guilty of illegal bookmaking can face � nes of between Sg$20,000 and Sg$200,000 and up to � ve years in jail. l

Algeria’s forward Islam Slimani (C) celebrates scoring during their Group H match against South Korea at the Beira-Rio Stadium in Porto Alegre on Sunday AFP

Standings P W D L F A PtsBelgium* 2 2 0 0 3 1 6Algeria 2 1 0 1 5 4 3Russia 2 0 1 1 1 2 1South Korea 2 0 1 1 3 5 1

GROUP H

United States Portugal Goals scored 2 2 Total shots 15 20 Shots on target 10 9 Corners 6 4 O� sides 1 4 Fouls committed 11 14 Yellow cards 1 0 Red cards 0 0 Ball possession 48 pct 52 pct

MATCH STATS

Standings P W D L F A PtsGermany 2 1 1 0 6 2 4United States 2 1 1 0 4 3 4 Ghana 2 0 1 1 3 4 1 Portugal 2 0 1 1 2 6 1

GROUP G

DHAKA TRIBUNE15Sp rt

England play for priden England’s wounded ‘Three Lions’ play for pride only in their � nal World Cup game on Tuesday against Costa Rica who want another scalp to seal top spot in Group D after shocking Uruguay and Italy.

In a thrilling tournament with no pushover teams, the Central Americans have perhaps proved the biggest surprise, fully deserving wins over two former world champions that have taken them beyond the group stage for the � st time since 1990.

Having beaten Uruguay 3-1 in their opener, then marked Italy’s Andrea Pirlo and Mario Balotelli out of the second game in a 1-0 win, the ‘Ticos’ are bouncing and will have no fear of England who they have never played before.

Even a draw would guarantee Cos-ta Rica top spot and a last-16 match against the runners-up in Group C.

“Surprise is for the non-believers!” said mid� elder Celso Borges of his team’s remarkable World Cup so far. l

Mourning Toure seeks to lead Elephants n Yaya and Kolo Toure will have to shake o� their grief over the death of their brother against Greece on Tuesday as they try to take Ivory Coast into the World Cup knock-out stages.

The Premier League pair were dealt a terrible blow with the news that their 28-year-old brother Ibrahim died of cancer in Manchester last week.

Just days later, Ivory Coast will take to the � eld with their World Cup hopes on the line in their � nal Group C game against former European champions Greece. In what will be one of Yaya Toure’s � nal memories of his brother, Ibrahim was at Manchester City’s sta-dium last month when he collected the Premier League trophy.

Now the captain will have to contend with his emotions as well as the magni-tude of the occasion as Ivory Coast seek to progress from Group C in Fortaleza.

Last week’s 2-1 loss to Colombia means Ivory Coast’s progress is far from assured and they will need a win to make

sure of reaching the knock-out stages for the � rst time. The Elephants trailed Japan in their opening game before the introduction of benched ex-Chelsea star Didier Drogba was credited with inspir-ing their 2-1 comeback win. l

2014 World Cup10:00PMMaasranga TVItaly v UruguayGazi TVCosta Rica v England2:00AMMaasranga TV & BTVJapan v ColombiaGazi TVIvory Coast v Greece

Star Sports 1Sri Lanka tour of England2nd Test, Day 5

DAY’S WATCH

Tuesday, June 24, 2014

VCosta Rica England

Estadio Mineirao - Belo Horizonte (BRA)24 Jun 2014, 13:00 Local (10:00PM BST)

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Referee: Marco Rodriguez (Mexico)Probable teams

Italy1-Gianluigi Bu� on; 7-Ignazio Abate, 4-Matteo Darmian, 15-Andrea Barzagli, 3-Giorgio Chiellini; 5-Thiago Motta, 18-Marco Parolo, 6-Antonio Candreva, 21-Andrea Pirlo, 8-Claudio Marchisio; 9-Mario BalotelliUruguay1-Fernando Muslera; 6-Alvaro Pereira, 3-Diego Godin, 13-Jose Maria Gimenez, 22-Martin Caceres; 20-Alvaro Gonzalez, 17-Egidio Arevalo Rios, 7-Cristian Rodriguez, 14-Nicolas Lodeiro; 9-Luis Suarez, 21-Edinson CavaniKey Stats

The � rst World Cup meeting between Italy and Uruguay took place in the group round in 1970 and ended in a 0-0 draw

In both of their two prior meetings in the World Cup, Uruguay failed to score

This is Uruguay’s 50th game in the World Cup. Their � rst was a 1-0 win over Peru played on July, 18 1930 in Montevideo.

Previous meetingsThis is the 10th meeting between the teams. Uruguay lead three wins to two with the remaining matches ending in drawsLast meetingJune 30, 2013, Salvador, Brazil (Confederations Cup) - Italy beat Uruguay 3-2 on penalties after a 2-2 draw in the third-place playo� .

FACT BOX

Greece conceded almost as many goals in their Group C opener against Colombia (three) as in their entire World Cup qualifying campaign (four in 10 matches).

In their eight World Cup matches to date Greece have scored just two goals and conceded 18.

KEY STATS

England’s defeats by Uruguay and Italy in Group D means they are elim-inated in the � rst phase of a World Cup for the � rst time since the 1958 tournament in Sweden.

Costa Rica’s two wins against those same two teams have taken them out of the group stage for only the sec-ond time in their World Cup history. In 1990, they went through thanks to wins over Scotland and Sweden in the � rst round.

KEY STATS

n Italy must � nd a way to shut down Uruguay striker Luis Suarez when the teams clash at the Dunas arena on Tuesday in a World

Cup showdown which will decide who goes through to the last 16.

Uruguay, semi-� nalists four years ago, will arrive in Natal on an almighty high after Suarez’s double strike beat England and eased the pain of their opening 3-1 loss to Costa Rica - a match their totemic striker missed as he recovered his � tness.

Italy also lost to Costa Rica by 1-0 but their opening victory over England means the four-times World Cup win-ners need a point from the � xture, while twice champions Uruguay must win be-cause of their inferior goal di� erence.

If there was any team you would back to shackle a goalscoring phenomenon, it would probably be Italy but they will need to be at their miserly best at the back to deny Suarez and his strike part-ner Edinson Cavani.

“They are a very strong combination in attack,” Italy captain and goalkeeper Gianluigi Bu� on told reporters on Sunday.

“This is not something we’re discov-ering now. They’ve established their rep-utation as a duo for Uruguay and on their own for their clubs.”

Italy’s coach Cesare Prandelli will al-most certainly have to change his team with defensive mid� elder Daniele De Rossi highly unlikely to play because of

a leg injury.Praised for his positive 4-1-4-1 sys-

tem after the victory over England, and then pilloried for the same tactics after the Costa Rica defeat, Prandelli might switch to a 3-5-2 formation for the Uru-guay clash.

Mario Balotelli would retain his place up front with the in-form Ciro Immobile joining him in a gamble on an untested strike partnership.

“It would be a novelty, with all the ben-e� ts and risks that are associated with that,” said Bu� on. If this choice is made, what happens on the � eld will tell us if it was the right decision.”

With Suarez already con� rmed as � t to play by the Uruguay team doctor despite pre-tournament knee surgery, and captain Diego Lugano still an injury doubt, coach Oscar Tabarez could stick with the same lineup that beat England.

He will be looking for another ener-getic performance from mid� elders Al-varo Gonzalez and Nicolas Lodeiro, who he brought into the side after the lacklus-tre display against Costa Rica.

Italy and Uruguay played out an en-tertaining 2-2 draw in the Confederations Cup in Brazil last year with the Italians claiming a third-place playo� win by 3-2

in a penalty shootout.Bu� on, who saved three penalties in

that shootout, believes how well Italy recover from their disappointing defeat by the Costa Ricans will go a long way to decid-ing whether the Azzurri progress.

“When you come from a defeat like that,” the 36-year-old said. “You’ve got to � nd the energy over the next few days to put things right.

“When we’re facing a challenge, that’s when we respond best.”

Meanwhile, former Uruguay interna-tional Alvaro Recoba has warned his for-mer colleagues that “loose cannon” Ma-rio Balotelli has the potential to deal the fatal blow to la Celeste’s World Cup hope.

Uruguay must beat Cesare Prandelli’s side on Tuesday to progress from Group D along with Costa Rica, with a draw or Azzurri win eliminating them.

And Recoba, who spent almost 10 years in Italy with Inter, has warned his countrymen that while the 23-year-old is inconsistent he could well send them packing in an instant.

“There is a loose cannon in Balo-telli,” the 38-year-old told La Gazzetta dello Sport. They tell me that he never maintains a whole season at a high lev-el, but the problem is that everything is decided for us in 90 minutes and, if Ba-lotelli steps out there on the right foot, in a single game he can send anyone into a tailspin.” l

VItaly Uruguay

Estadio das Dunas - Natal (BRA)24 Jun 2014, 13:00 Local (10:00PM BST)

THE BIG MATCH

Standings P W D L F A Pts Costa Rica 2 2 0 0 4 1 6 Italy 2 1 0 1 2 2 3 Uruguay 2 1 0 1 3 4 3 England 2 0 0 2 2 4 0

GROUP D

Italy look to shackle Suarez

Japan face daunting oddsn The sun could rise again for Japan at the World Cup if they upset Colombia at the Pantanal arena on Tuesday al-though they will also need the result of the other match on the last day of Group C to go their way.

Colombia have already quali� ed for the round of 16 with six points after stringing together two wins for the � rst time in � ve visits to the � nals.

They will be joined in the next round by Ivory Coast, who have three points, if the African nation defeat Greece in other Group C match in Fortaleza.

Japan, who have just one point from their � rst two matches, can expect to � nd the going tough in the hot conditions in Cuiaba which will better suit the Colombians, used to playing their home games in the quali� ers at steamy Barranquilla on the Caribbean coast.

They also face a side that iconic 1990s playmaker Carlos “Pibe” Valder-rama said had recovered his country’s footballing identity under the guidance

of coach Jose Pekerman and will be looking for a third win.“I think these lads are making histo-ry...I feel admiration and respect for the professor (Pekerman) with all he has done, he recovered the identity of Colombian football,” Valderrama told reporters.

Cristian Zapata, who has � tted into a good central defensive partnership with captain Mario Yepes after Luis Perea failed to make it to Brazil due to injury, said that despite having quali-� ed Colombia were not even thinking about the second round.

“From the start we’ve gone match by match, the next is against Japan, a di� cult match in which we want to improve and also win,” Zapata told re-porters. l

Colombia top Group C with six points after winning two matches for the � rst time at a World Cup - A draw will be enough to ensure Colombia go through to the last 16 as group winners

Japan, with one point from a 0-0 draw against Greece, can still hope to qualify with a win if the Ivory Coast either lose or draw against Greece. In either scenario, quali� cation is likely to be decided by goal di� erence

Previous meetingsThe teams have met twice with a win for Colombia and a draw

KEY STATS

Standings P W D L F A Pts Colombia 2 2 0 0 5 1 6 Ivory Coast 2 1 0 1 3 3 3Japan 2 0 1 1 1 2 1 Greece 2 0 1 1 0 3 1

GROUP C

Controversy over picture of disabled Brazil fan standing n A picture of a Brazilian fan standing in front of her wheelchair and clapping at a World Cup stadium has sparked con-troversy over the alleged “miracle.”

FIFA has not con� rmed the authen-ticity of the picture and similar ones circulating on social media, but the football governing body condemned any bid to fraudulently acquire seats for the handicapped. The most contro-versial picture shows the back of a fan wearing Brazil’s yellow team jersey at the Castelao Stadium in the northeast-ern city of Fortaleza, standing and ap-plauding in front of the wheelchair.

The photo was apparently taken during Brazil’s 0-0 draw with Mexi-co on June 17. But the two teams had played at the same venue during last year’s Confederations Cup tourna-ment, when Brazil won 2-0.

The picture sparked a debate on Twitter, with one Brazilian user sarcas-tically questioning the “great miracle,” while others noted that some disabled people can stand up some times.

Brazilian law has set aside at least one percent of World Cup tickets for people with disabilities. FIFA said that people buying handicapped seats must show a medical certi� cate when pick-ing up their tickets. More checks are conducted on game day. l

VJapan Colombia

Arena Pantanal - Cuiaba (BRA)24 Jun 2014, 16:00 Local (2:00AM BST)

VIvory Coast Greece

Estadio Castelao - Fortaleza (BRA)24 Jun 2014, 17:00 Local (2:00AM BST)

Monday, June 16, 2014DHAKA TRIBUNE

16 DHAKA TRIBUNE

Sport

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Asian football lagging behind

The standard of Asian football has been exposed terribly as the continent’s repre-sentatives continue to stumble and put in below-par displays in the ongoing World Cup in Brazil.

All the Asian sides - South Korea, Japan, Iran and Australia - have played two match-es so far and only two performances among the accumulated eight matches were commendable. Iran fought bravely against Argentina before conceding a narrow 1-0 defeat courtesy some magic from the nimble feet of Lionel Messi while Australia, more famous for their cricket heroics, went

neck-and-neck with the Netherlands in a � ghting 3-2 loss for the Socceroos.

South Korea, who reached the semi� -nals in the 2002 World Cup as the co-hosts, was awfully outplayed by Algeria in a 4-2 rout on Sunday. A lack of cohesion in de-fence, an apparent lack of failure to match the pace of the opponents and a dearth of skills in attack appeared to be the common glitches of the Asian teams. The Taeguk Warriors were held 1-1 by Russia in their Group H opener but the Russians are not the team they used to be.

Japan have also failed to rise to the occasion with two mediocre performanc-es - a 2-1 loss to Ivory Coast and a goalless stalemate against 10-man Greece. The Blue Samurai also lacked the killer edge upfront and their overall performance lacked consistency.

Iran, also known as Team Melli, battled hard against the Argentinians and almost grabbed a point against the two-time champions but a splash of magic from Messi in the second minute of injury time broke their hearts following a goalless draw against Nigeria in their Group C opener. The 1-0 defeat against the Argentines was a superb e� ort from the Iranians and can be dubbed as a thriller.

Australia were beaten 3-1 by Chile in their opening Group B game but the Socceroos can hold their heads high for the performance against the Netherlands as they once led before going down to a 3-2 defeat.

The Asian teams still lack the cutting edge in the � nal third of the � eld and a lack of consistency whilst whipping in crosses and free-kicks was clearly evident. Overall pace and tempo of the Asian sides were also inconsistent, team chemistry is lagging behind in comparison to the other com-peting nations while mental solidity in the crunch situations was often missing.

Ezequiel Fernandez Moores, an Ar-gentine sports journalist who has covered seven World Cups, stressed that the Asian standard was obviously inferior to that of their African and South American counter-parts.

“Overall the standard is good but at the very top they lack the required penetration. It’s not so easy as the African and Latin American players now ply their trade in the top leagues of the world. That’s where the Asian players are behind. Remaining in the top-class professional circuit makes all the di� erence,” said the veteran football reporter and writer. l

Australia SpainGoals scored 0 3Total shots 4 11Shots on target 0 8Corners 2 6O� sides 1 6Fouls committed 14 9Yellow cards 2 1Red cards 0 0Ball possession 44% 56%

MATCH STATS

Tuesday, June 24, 2014

13 1514 Italy look to shackle Suarez

Ronaldo delivers cold dose of reality

Animated Big Phil all heated up

The last World Cup goal to be scored later in normal time (94:35) was Daniel Amokachi’s strike for Nigeria v Greece on 30/06/1994

No Portuguese player has more caps (12) than Ronaldo in World Cup history

USA have faced 42 shots at the 2014 WC, eight more than any other team

There have been 94 goals scored after two rounds of group matches at the 2014 World Cup; 27 more than in 2010 at this stage (67)

USA have not won consecutive WC games since their � rst 2 matches in 1930

USA have failed to keep a clean sheet in any of their last 15 World Cup games against European opposition

Portugal have only won one of their last eight games at the World Cup (7-0 v North Korea in 2010), drawing three and losing four

Algeria are the � rst African team to score four goals in a World Cup game

WORLD CUP STATS Klinsmann makes USa high-tempo threatn A last gasp equaliser from Portugal stopped the United States from qual-ifying for the last 16 of the World Cup with a game to spare but the way in which Juergen Klinsmann’s team per-formed should give them real hope of progressing.

With four points, the U.S. need a win or draw against Germany in their � nal Group G game to be sure of a place in the second round and while that is a tough task against one of the favour-ites, there was plenty in the 2-2 draw on Sunday to give cause for optimism for American fans.

Klinsmann, who now faces the team he won a World Cup with as a player in 1990 and coached to the semi-� nals in 2006, has spent his three years in

charge of the United States attempting to push the team to a new level.

Under previous coaches Bob Brad-ley and Bruce Arena, the U.S. earned respect for their discipline, aggression and determination but the German has succeeded in producing a team that keeps all those qualities while playing a high-tempo passing game.

Klinsmann drew criticism for his squad selection for the tournament, particularly leaving out his team’s re-cord scorer Landon Donovan, but his focus on picking players who are quick and have great stamina, has paid o� .

The German has been relentless in repeating his mantra about tempo throughout the team’s training camp, where he focused heavily on physical conditioning, and throughout the early stages of the tournament. l

from Brasilia, Brazil

Double Dutch strike sinks Chile

The Netherlands defeated Chile 2-0 on Monday to win their group and like-ly avoid a World Cup showdown with Brazil.

Super-subs Leroy Fer and Memphis Depay grabbed the late goals to settle a hard-fought clash in Sao Paulo.

The victory gave Holland a 100 per-cent record at the top of Group B after earlier wins against Spain and Australia.

More importantly the win is expect-ed to see Louis van Gaal’s side steer clear of Brazil in the last 16, and play either Croatia or Mexico instead.

The identity of the Netherlands’ op-ponents will only be con� rmed after the � nal matches in Group A later Monday.

Brazil face Cameroon in Brasilia while Croatia take on Mexico.

The Netherlands, missing suspended captain Robin van Persie, � nally broke through Chile’s defence on 77 minutes.

Daryl Janmaat whipped in a cross and Fer rose high to thunder home a header.

In the dying minutes, Arjen Rob-ben burst clear down the left � ank and crossed for Depay to stab home from close range.

Spain defeated Australia 3-0 in Group B’s dead rubber, with David Villa, Fer-nando Torres and Juan Mata scoring.

Villa, 32, took his Spanish record goals tally to 59 in his 97th appearance with a clever backheeled � nish on 36 minutes, in his last international appearance.

But Villa’s goalscoring � nale was scant consolation for Spain after a di-sastrous World Cup campaign which saw the 2010 champions knocked out

after their � rst two matches.Villa, who will concentrate on a new

club football career in Australia and the United States, was substituted early in the second half, shedding tears as he left the � eld to applause.

Torres added Spain’s second on 69 min-utes, latching onto Andres Iniesta’s through ball and slotting past Maty Ryan.

Manchester United mid� elder Mata completed the scoring.

Australia meanwhile exited with heads held high with another battling performance after running Chile and Holland close earlier in the tournament.

Later Monday, Brazil will look to book their second round berth with victory over Cameroon in Group A. Brazil have failed to convince in their opening matches, grinding out a 3-1 win over Croatia before toiling to a 0-0 draw with Mexico.

However, a big win over an eliminat-ed Cameroon could give them useful momentum heading into the last 16, where they would face Chile if they top the group. l

Villa, Torres help give Spain a winning farewell

Strikers David Villa and Fernando Tor-res scored on Monday to help give de-posed champions Spain a comfortable consolation win after a miserable World Cup when they beat Australia 3-0.

Villa neatly backheeled the opener in the 36th minute after Spain carved open the Australian defence. Torres slid home in the 69th minute when set clear in the penalty box.

Substitute Juan Mata rolled a third goal between the legs of goalkeeper Mat Ryan in the 82nd minute as Aus-tralia ran out of steam.

Spain had nothing but pride to play for after losing their � rst two games. Australia were also on their way home after defeats to Chile and the Nether-lands.

Coach Vicente del Bosque made sev-en changes from the Spanish team that started the 2-0 defeat by Chile.

Mid� elder Andres Iniesta kept his place and won his 100th cap.

Iniesta, scorer of the winner in the 2010 � nal, showed his craft by helping to create Villa’s goal with a superb pass

that sent defender Juanfran clear in space on the right wing.

Villa, Spain’s record goalscorer, claimed his 59th goal in 97 games for his country when he turned in the cross. It was probably his last appear-ance for Spain as he prepares to play in MLS soccer next year.

Australia almost hit back im-mediately, goalkeeper Pepe Reinahacking the ball clear in a goalmouth scramble.

That was a rare threat from an inex-perienced Australian team who missed the presence of suspended leading scorer Tim Cahill up front.

“It was a digni� ed way to end our participation here. We took control of the match and we were the better team,” Del Bosque said in an interview with Spanish television.

Australia coach Ange Poste-coglou said his team had faded after performing well in the � rst 10 to 15 minutes.

“We just looked a little bit tired. We’ve faced three world class oppo-nents and today we really struggled,” he said. l

Leroy Fer (L) of the Netherlands scores a goal with a header during their 2014 World Cup Group B match against Chile at the Corinthians arena in Sao Paulo yesterday REUTERS

Netherlands ChileGoals scored 2 0Total shots 13 7Shots on target 8 1Corners 2 7O� sides 1 2Fouls committed 25 14Yellow cards 1 1Red cards 0 0Ball possession 36% 64%

MATCH STATS

Standings P W D L F A PtsNetherlands 3 3 0 0 10 3 9 Chile 3 2 0 1 5 3 6 Spain 3 1 0 2 4 7 3Australia 3 0 0 3 3 9 0

GROUP B

David Villa (R) is comforted by teammate Iker Casillas as he leaves the pitch against Australia yesterday AP

Spain’s Juan Mata (C) celebrates with teammates after scoring his side’s third goal during the Group B match against Australia at the Arena da Baixada in Curitiba, Brazil yesterday AP

www.dhakatribune.com/business TUESDAY, JUNE 24, 2014

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B4 Global infrastructure, capital spending to hit $9tn by 2025

Stella Kaendera may join as new IMF resident representativen Asif Showkat Kallol

Stella Kaendera is likely to join as new IMF resident representative in Bangla-desh for next two years, beginning any day this month.

The appointment, however, needs to be endorsed by Finance Minister AMA Muhith, who left Dhaka for Jed-dah yesterday to attend the general meeting of Islamic Development Bank, said an o� cial of the � nance division.

He said the endorsement would be given upon return of the minister scheduled on Thursday.

Present IMF resident representative EteriKvintradze left Bangladesh on May 30 last although her tenure was extended by one more year.

Stella, an expert on the African countries and also an economist on exchange rate and � scal policy, has served the IMF headquarters in Wash-ington DC as a researcher.

The government wanted EteriKvin-tradze to keep her as the IMF resident representative in Bangladesh for at least one more year just to facilitate the disbursement of the rest of the instal-ments of the Extended Credit Facility (ECF).

The IMF has so far disbursed � fth out of the seven-tranche loan of about US$1bn. l

Banking hours set for Ramadann Tribune Report

Banking transactions will continue from 9.30 am to 2.30 pm during the holy month of Ramadan.

However, the banks will re-main open from 9:30 to 4 pm with a 15-minute break from 1.15 pm to 1.30pm, according to a circular Ban-gladesh Bank issued yesterday.

During the prayer break, transac-tions will be done through internal

coordination as was done before Ra-madan.

After the Ramadan the o� ce and transactions time will be renewed.

Normally the bank o� ce hour is from 9:00 am to 5:00 pm.

DSE shortens trading hours for RamadanMeanwhile, share trading at Dhaka Stock Exchange (DSE) will be held for only three hours during the holy

month of Ramadan.The trading will begin at 10:30 am

and will close at 1:30 pm, instead of the regular four hours trading period from 10:30 am to 2:30 pm.

The DSE o� ce will remain open from 9:30 am to 4 pm during the month.

DSE trading and o� ce will get back to normal trading hours after the month and the holiday for Eid-ul- Fitr.l

Tax-free capital gain limit may be raised to Tk20 lakhn Syed Samiul Basher Anik

The government is likely to � nalise the ceiling for the tax-free capital gain at Tk20 lakh instead of the proposed Tk10 lakh to protect the interest of the inves-tors and maintain investment � ow to the stock market.

To encourage the investors to invest more in the stock market and to protect their interests, the government is now planning not to impose any capital gain tax on pro� ts up to Tk20 lakh as this change will not have that much nega-tive impact on the revenue earnings, a high o� cial of National Board of Reve-nue (NBR) said yesterday.

The government had earlier pro-posed imposing 3% tax for gaining over Tk10 lakh pro� ts and 5% tax for gaining above Tk20 lakh pro� ts to collect more revenue to meet its ambitious revenue target of Tk1,49,000 crore set for the upcoming � scal year.

“There are around 30 lakh bene� -ciary owner (BO) account holders in the country, who do not pay any taxes on their capital gains, as there had been no such provisions earlier for imposing taxes on capital gains,” said an o� cial.

As the move, which proposed to boost the revenue collection, expand-ing tax net, has received some criti-cisms from various quarters and is also feared to have negative impacts on the investors, the � nance minister is now considering making some changes in the provision, he said.

The minister is now planning to im-pose taxes on capital gain over Tk20 lakh although the tax rate is yet to be � xed and the changes are likely to be adjusted in the � nance bill just before the parliament passes the bill, he also added.

Di� erent associations including Bangladesh Merchant Bankers Associ-ation, Bangladesh Securities Exchange Commission have been pressing the government to withdraw the proposed provision. l

Anti-money laundering team to arrive in November n Asif Showkat Kallol

A team of the Asia Paci� c Group (APG) on Money Laundering will visit Dha-ka at the end of November this year to oversee execution of 40 APG rec-ommendations including upgrading anti-money laundering and terrorist � nancing law.

The group under the Paris-based Fi-nancial Action Task Force (FATF) out-lined the recommendations including 11 for immediate implementation in February when Bangladesh was ex-cluded from FATF grey list.

The exclusion was a recognition to the progress Bangladesh made against the money-laundering and terrorist � -nancing.

FATF is an anti-money laundering international campaign organisation strictly monitoring the governments’ anti-money laundering activities im-posing time-bound conditions.

APG is a regional organisation of the Asia-Paci� c region under FATF forcooperation in development among the member states and prevent-ing money laundering and terrorist� nancing. Besides, a FATF team will also arrive in Bangladesh in January 2015 to see the progress in the implementation of the Mutual Evaluation law.

The team will submit report on the visit to the FATF authority.

Under the Mutual Evaluation law, the two countries will exchange money laundering information and the per-sons involved in the crime.

The government will have to look into the nine issues under the FATF for

prevention of the money laundering activities.

They include evaluation of existing legal review, anti-money laundering law, investigation and judicial process, terrorist � nancing law, investigation and judicial process, implementation of UN resolution, international coop-eration and mutual legal assistance, supervision and monitoring, NGO-re-lated matters, cross border issues and matter related with formation of com-panies and bene� ciary owners.

Recently, Bank and Financial Insti-tutions Division Secretary M Aslam Alam expressed concerns over the possibility of money laundering in the share market.

He came up with the concerns at a post-budget meeting between Finance Minister AMA Muhith and the stock ex-changes at the secretariat.

He said they had worked hard for � ve years to pull the country out of the FATF grey list and was successful in February. Aslam Alam said the FATF advised the stock exchanges to look into the suspected transactions and know the details about clients.

Bangladesh’s coming out of the FATF grey list means there would be a great reduction in the cost and time of � nancial transactions with the rest of the world which would bene� t busi-nessmen in the country.

The FATF plenary meeting held in French capital Paris in February gave unanimous recognition to Bangla-desh’s actions for preventing money laundering and terrorist � nancing as reaching international standards. l

Banks compelled to keep more reserve with BBIt is to prevent unproductive investment from huge surplus liquidity and reduce in� ation pressure; unlikely to a� ect stock investment n Tribune Report

Bangladesh Bank has raised the cash reserve requirement (CRR) by 0.5% as the money market is awash with huge liquidity.

It would help mitigate the money � ow to the unproductive sectors and thus reducing the in� ationary pressure on the economy, senior bankers said.

A senior central bank executive said the measure would also help Bangladesh Bank to contribute more to the national exchequer as the interest expense on the money it mop up from the market to maintain a liquidity balance.

The amount of CRR is set to 6.5% with e� ect from today, increasing from 6% for all the scheduled banks, includ-ing shariah-based ones, said a circular Bangladesh Bank issued yesterday.

According to the circular, the banks will have to maintain the new CRR with the central bank from their total de-mand and time liabilities on a bi-week-ly basis and 6% daily from existing 6% and 5.5% respectively.

Earlier on December 15 in 2010, Ban-gladesh Bank increased the CRR to 6% from 5.5% in accordance with the mon-etary policy.

The banks would have to deposit an

additional amount of Tk3,200 crore, as a result, according to an estimate by an executive of the central bank. As of now, the banks have to provision around Tk33,000 crore against the CRR.

He said the central bank has to maintain a liquidity balance in the money market so the excess liquidity does not go to the unproductive sec-tor, putting pressure on the in� ation. The central bank has to mop up money from the market through interest bear-ing reverse repo that costs the central bank, reducing its capacity to contrib-ute to the national exchequer.

The money market was main-taining an excess liquidity of around Tk1,02,000 crore in May, including an idle money of Tk2,785 crore.

‘’We have increased the CRR as the market is going through high reserve and surplus liquidity situation, which may divert the fund for other purpos-es,” said Bangladesh Bank Deputy Gov-ernor SK Sur Chowdhury.

He said the excess liquidity would put pressure on the in� ation. The capi-tal market would not be a� ected as the market would remain liquid enough to invest in the market even after increas-ing the CRR, he added.

Bankers said Bangladesh Bank had taken several initiatives to increase the CRR in recent years amid excess liquid-ity and poor investment scenario, but stepped back due to opposition by the stock market stakeholders. They argue that it would a� ect the stock market investment.

The market players allege that the central bank decision to raise the CRR in 2010 had caused, among other rea-sons, the market crash.

Banks though liquid enough due to lack of investment opportunity amid political unrest, but they could not in-vest in the share market due to their

capital market exposure limit (25% of equity), said a senior executive of a pri-vate bank.

He said the share market though going through a lack of institutional in-vestors, the banks still in the process of withdrawing their earlier investment instead of further investment to com-ply with the new limit.

Bangladesh Bank’s Chief Economist Hassan Zaman explained a number of reasons why the central bank raised the threshold.

Recently, he said, the Ministry

of Finance decided to temporarily suspend Treasury auctions and as a result the banks have rushed to the central bank to park their excess liquidity through our interest bearing reverse repo facility.

“This has sharply increased the cost of this facility to the central bank and by extension to the taxpayer since this implies that BB can contribute less to government revenue,” he said. “By raising the CRR we save a portion of these costs.”

Zaman said the private sector credit

growth � gures show there is su� cient space for banks to lend to their custom-ers if they wish to. “So, raising the CRR will not a� ect investment.”

Moreover, he said, this move also helps us keeping to our reserve mon-ey targets, which will help in bringing non-food in� ation down further.

“So, overall, there are lots of advantages to this as entrepreneurs won’t su� er from a fund shortage, it has in� ation bene� ts and lowers the interest burden on the public,” said the economist. l

BGMEA boss seeks punishment for spreading falsehoodn Tribune Report

BGMEA president Atiqul Islam has demanded punishment of some leaders of the National Garment Workers Federation (NGWF) a� liated with IndustriAll Bangladesh Council is tarnishing the image of the country’s apparel industry through providing baseless information to the o� ce of the United States Trade Representative (USTR).

He came up with the demand yesterday while addressing an award giving ceremony titled “BGMEA-BUFT Journalism Fellowship 2014 Award” held at BGMEA Complex in the capital.

“We are demanding exemplary pun-ishment for them as they, being the leader of the federation, are harming the country’s image abroad, raising false allegations on the harassment of trade union leaders in RMG sector,” said Islam.

“As this type of act is subversive to the state, we are demanding punish-ment for those who sent the letter to the US Senators and they should be brought under trial as per the law of the land.”

The letter sent to the US senator, claimed that labour leaders are brutally assaulted by musclemen for their at-tempt to organise union.

“It is very unfortunate for us! When we are working from every corner for the development of the RMG sector, a vested quarter is engaged in negative campaign against Bangladesh apparel industry,” said commerce minister To-fail Ahmed while addressing the cere-

mony as chief gust. “Bangladesh RMG sector has been

developed remarkably, it’s a miracle,” said Tofail quoting George Miller, a se-nior democratic member of the US.

The minister also brought the same allegation that a group had been hatch-ing a conspiracy home and abroad just to hinder the development of this sec-tor, being jealous by the progress so far made in the RMG industry.

Tofail showed a copy of the letter, which was sent to the USTR written on a letter head pad bearing logo of In-dustriAll, and the letter was signed by

Amirul Islam Amin, president of NGWF. Speaking as special guest, vice chan-

cellor of Dhaka University AAMS Are� n Siddique urged the apparel makers to provide all sort of information to the journalists as mass media, being pow-er full tools, can also help develop the RMG sector as well the country.

The BGMEA and BGMEA Universi-ty of Fashion and Technology (BUFT) jointly awarded the fellowship to six journalists from print, online and elec-tronic media, for their outstanding work and contribution in the apparel sector. l

‘The private sector credit growth � gures show there is su� cient space for banks to lend to their customers if they wish to. So, raising the CRR will not a� ect investment’

A cashier is seen counting notes at a local bank in Dhaka DHAKA TRIBUNE

India’s FM: We have not received information on Swiss ‘black money’n Reuters, New Delhi

The government has not received any communication from Switzerland about “black money” suspected to be stashed in Swiss banks, Finance Minis-ter Arun Jaitley said yesterday .

Jaitley’s comments followed media reports that Switzerland has prepared a list of names of Indian account holders who they suspect of not paying taxes. Jaitley said he was writing to the Swiss authorities for more information. l

ANALYST

B2 Stock Tuesday, June 24, 2014DHAKA TRIBUNE

Stocks regain after 3-day lossesn Tribune Report

Stocks regained yesterday, break-ing three days of losses as investors took advantage of lower prices.

The market opened higher and the momentum continued till close of the trade, lifted by mainly heavy-weights – telecommunications and banks that gained more than 2% each.

The benchmark DSEX rose 45 points or 1% to end at 4,368. It was its steepest single-day gain in last ten trading sessions.

The Shariah Index DSES rallied over 9 points or 1% to 998. The com-prising blue chips DS30 closed at 1,610 with a rise of 17 points or 1%.

Chittagong Stock Exchange (CSE) Selective Categories Index, CSCX, rallied 112 points to 8,346.

Trading activities improved but still remained below Tk300 crore, indicating investors continued to adopt cautious mood in trading.

Turnover at DSE stood at more than Tk293 crore, which is 32% higher over the previous session. Investors focused sector-wise po-sitioning such as pharmaceuticals, bank and telecommunications, making up 43% of the total trade.

Gainers took a strong lead over the losers, as out of 296 issues trad-ed, 173 advanced, 87 declined and

36 remained unchanged. Power, pharmaceuticals and

non-banking � nancial institutions edged higher while life insurance and food and allied declined mar-ginally on price correction.

IDLC Investments said remain-ing dip in few sessions, a natural re-bounce � oated the market rhythm.

“Since, the indices lost substan-tially in last couple of days, a hand-some number of scrips came at lucra-tive range. Backed by this, investors re-assessed and took position in se-lective preferred stocks,” it said.

Lanka Bangla Securities said at the third day of this week, market re-bounded and ended in positive terri-tory as value investors perceived the market to be in an oversold situation.

Much of the gain can be attribut-ed to surge in banking and telco stocks, it said. Moreover, two big caps, namely Grameenphone and Lafarge Surma Cement surged by 2.8% and 2% respectively.

Grameenphone, the country’s top mobile phone operator, was the most traded stock with shares worth Tk16 crore changing hands.

It was followed by Lafarge Sur-ma Cement, Bangladesh Submarine Cable Company Ltd, ACI, Beximco Ltd, Square Pharmaceuticals and BSRM Steel. l

News, analysis and recent disclosersBDSERVICE: The Company has fur-ther informed that due to unavoidable circumstances, the meeting which was scheduled to be held on June 22, 2014 to consider, among others, audited � nancial statements of the Company for the year ended on December 31, 2013, has been postponed. The next date for the above meeting will be communicated soon.ISLAMICFIN: The Company has informed that it has credited the bonus shares for the year ended on December 31, 2013 to the respective shareholders' BO Accounts on June 09, 2014. Cash Dividend has been disbursed to the shareholders' bank account on June 22, 2014.TRADING & OF-FICE HOURS OF DSE: During the month of holy "Ramadan" of Hijri 1435, the trading of DSE will start at 10:30 AM and continue till 1:30 PM. DSE o� ce will remain open from 9:30 AM to 4:00 PM.QSMDRYCELL: The Company has informed that the Board of Directors of the Company has approved the signing of Marketing and Distribution Agreement with Bhutan Agro Industries Ltd. As per agreement Quasem Drycells Ltd. is ap-

pointed as Sole Marketing and Distribution Agent in Bangladesh for their "Royal Bhu-tan" brand various products like Fruit Juice, Fruit Drinks, Jam and Marmalades, Canned Fruits/vegetables & Juice, Fruit Squashes and Cordial, Mountain Spring Water etc.IPO Subscription: Far East Knitting & Dye-ing Industries Limited subscription date 15-19 June 2014, NRB upto 28 June 2014. @ taka 27, face value taka 10 and market lot 200. Shurwid Industries Limited sub-scription date 08-12 June 2014, NRB upto 21 June 2014. @ taka 10, face value taka 10 and market lot 500. Saif Powertec Limited subscription date 06-10 July 2014, NRB upto 19 July 2014. @ taka 30, face value taka 10 and market lot 200. Ratanpur Steel Re-Rolling Mills Limited subscription date 13-17 July 2014, NRB upto 26 July 2014. @ taka 40, face value taka 10 and market lot 200.

Dividend/AGMMEGHNALIFE: 20% cash and 10% stock, AGM: 17.07.2014, Record Date: 30.06.2014.DELTALIFE: 11% cash and 25% stock, AGM

and EGM: 20.07.2014, Record date for AGM and EGM: 25.06.2014.LAFSURCEML: 5% interim cash, Record date for entitlement of interim dividend: 30.06.2014.ASIAINS: 15% cash and 5% stock, AGM: 16.07.2014, Record Date: 19.06.2014.WATACHEM: 30% stock, AGM: 27.06.2014, Record Date: 11.06.2014.MBL1STMF: 3% cash, Record date: 02.06.2014. AIBL1STIMF: 5.5% cash, Record date: 02.06.2014.PURABIGEN: 15% stock, AGM: 29.06.2014, Record date: 21.05.2014. SALVOCHEM: 10% stock, AGM: 27.08.2014, Record date: 25.06.2014.CMCKAMAL: 12.50% stock, AGM: 30.06.2014. Record Date: 29.05.2014. RUPALIBANK: 15% stock, AGM: 31.05.2014, Record date: 14.05.2014. MEGHNACEM: 15% cash, AGM: 29.05.2014, Record Date: 14.05.2014. MONNOSTAF: 10% cash, AGM: 26.06.2014, Record Date: 19.05.2014. INTECH: 10% stock, AGM: 23.06.2014, Record Date: 15.05.2014.

CSE LOSERS

Company Closing (% change)

Aver-age (%

change)

Closing average Closing Daily high Daily low Turnover

in millionLatest

EPSLatest

PE

Wata Chemicals -A -8.73 -8.69 257.40 257.30 257.50 257.30 0.103 6.24 41.3Paramount Insur-A -8.72 -8.56 17.83 17.80 17.90 17.80 0.027 1.64 10.9ISN Ltd. -Z -6.73 -6.73 9.70 9.70 9.70 9.70 0.015 0.20 48.5B I F C -A -4.76 -4.76 12.00 12.00 12.00 12.00 0.008 0.24 50.0Prime Islami Life -A -4.28 -5.08 87.20 87.20 87.20 87.20 0.004 4.95 17.6Rahima Food -Z -4.12 -4.12 46.50 46.50 46.50 46.50 0.047 -1.01 -veMetro Spinning -A -2.98 -3.92 16.19 16.30 16.30 15.30 0.091 0.92 17.6National Life I -A -2.80 -1.79 344.31 340.20 345.00 340.00 0.603 12.46 27.6Standard Insurance-A -2.76 -2.66 28.20 28.20 28.20 28.20 0.014 2.88 9.8BGIC -A -2.38 -2.01 20.48 20.50 21.00 20.40 0.127 1.36 15.1

DSE LOSERS

Company Closing (% change)

Aver-age (%

change)

Closing average Closing Daily high Daily low Turnover

in millionLatest

EPSLatest

PE

3rd ICB M F-A -8.36 -9.20 227.00 227.00 227.00 227.00 0.045 22.19 10.2Al-Haj Textile -A -4.65 -3.78 160.85 158.00 167.20 150.00 29.396 2.00 80.4Libra Infusions-A -4.30 -4.14 401.67 401.00 401.10 401.00 0.241 4.20 95.6Wata Chemicals -A -3.92 -3.98 253.63 250.00 261.10 248.10 8.522 6.24 40.6Rangpur Foundry -A -3.50 -2.80 102.09 102.00 103.30 101.80 1.123 3.08 33.1National Life I -A -3.20 -2.31 342.01 338.60 348.00 335.00 3.364 12.46 27.4Karnaphuli Insur -A -3.13 -3.60 18.77 18.60 19.30 17.30 1.064 1.40 13.4Renwick Jajneswar-A -2.86 -1.98 255.52 254.80 261.00 254.00 2.338 3.92 65.2Linde (BD) Ltd. -A -2.75 -2.43 847.83 845.30 865.00 842.00 1.950 36.20 23.4PragatiLife Insu. -A -2.51 -2.44 139.71 139.70 142.50 138.00 1.721 2.38 58.7

CSE TURNOVER LEADERS

Company Volume shares

Value in million

% of total turnover

Daily closing

Price change

Daily opening

Daily high

Daily low

Daily average

Square Pharma -A 106,886 29.50 12.19 276.20 0.29 275.40 277.10 274.70 276.01BD Submarine Cable-A 107,770 20.10 8.31 186.50 2.64 181.70 188.40 183.00 186.47Grameenphone-A 54,200 16.35 6.76 305.10 2.18 298.60 306.00 297.20 301.68BEXIMCO Ltd. -A 557,333 15.42 6.37 27.80 4.12 26.70 28.00 26.80 27.67LafargeS Cement-Z 166,000 13.82 5.71 83.60 2.83 81.30 84.70 82.20 83.28UCBL - A 440,361 12.05 4.98 27.60 3.37 26.70 27.80 26.90 27.36The Peninsula CTG.-N 239,600 8.34 3.45 34.50 -1.99 35.20 35.60 34.30 34.81Golden Son -A 153,500 6.81 2.82 44.90 3.94 43.20 45.00 43.00 44.37Appollo Ispat CL -N 188,400 5.01 2.07 26.50 -0.38 26.60 27.00 26.40 26.60AramitCementA 106,000 4.52 1.87 43.00 1.18 42.50 43.40 42.20 42.62UNITED AIR-A 361,990 4.15 1.72 11.40 -0.87 11.50 11.70 11.30 11.47Generation Next-A 241,333 4.11 1.70 16.90 -1.74 17.20 17.20 16.80 17.04Meghna Petroleum -A 15,300 4.03 1.67 265.50 2.31 259.50 267.00 261.60 263.39Mithun Knitting -A 37,472 3.99 1.65 108.80 -0.55 109.40 110.50 106.10 106.58Aftab Auto.-A 48,912 3.71 1.53 76.10 1.47 75.00 76.80 74.70 75.89

DSE TURNOVER LEADERS

Company Volume shares

Value in million

% of total turnover

Daily closing

Price change

Daily opening

Daily high

Daily low

Daily average

Grameenphone-A 883,237 265.63 9.06 304.70 2.77 296.50 305.60 285.00 300.74LafargeS Cement-Z 2,577,000 215.06 7.34 83.70 2.07 82.00 84.50 82.20 83.45Square Pharma -A 585,978 161.05 5.50 274.70 -0.25 275.40 277.30 260.00 274.84BD Submarine Cable-A 792,091 147.79 5.04 187.00 2.80 181.90 188.00 164.50 186.58ACI Limited- A 470,857 126.63 4.32 270.00 3.09 261.90 275.00 239.00 268.92BEXIMCO Ltd. -A 4,075,168 112.67 3.84 27.70 3.75 26.70 28.00 24.10 27.65UCBL - A 3,975,024 109.00 3.72 27.50 3.00 26.70 27.80 24.20 27.42BSRM Steels-A 765,155 65.64 2.24 85.70 1.78 84.20 86.90 78.00 85.78Southeast Bank-A 2,705,213 53.64 1.83 20.00 4.17 19.20 20.20 17.30 19.83Meghna Petroleum -A 187,014 49.31 1.68 265.50 2.31 259.50 267.00 237.10 263.69Golden Son -A 1,106,334 49.15 1.68 44.80 4.43 42.90 45.20 40.00 44.43HeidelbergCement -A 89,910 44.77 1.53 496.20 -0.32 497.80 507.00 493.00 497.95Olympic Ind. -A 188,800 41.70 1.42 221.70 0.86 219.80 223.00 210.00 220.86Padma Oil Co. -A 127,694 39.04 1.33 308.90 2.73 300.70 311.60 292.00 305.75The Peninsula CTG.-N 1,097,600 38.25 1.31 34.40 -1.99 35.10 35.70 34.30 34.85

CSE GAINERS

Company Closing (% change)

Aver-age (%

change)

Closing average Closing Daily high Daily low Turnover

in millionLatest

EPSLatest

PE

Sandhani Life -A 8.80 7.94 89.59 90.30 90.90 87.00 0.421 2.39 37.5Northern G Insur-A 8.16 8.16 35.80 35.80 35.80 35.80 0.072 6.40 5.6Quasem Drycells -A 7.76 7.37 38.76 38.90 39.50 37.40 0.795 1.79 21.7Shinepukur Cera-Z 7.41 5.84 11.42 11.60 11.80 10.90 0.424 0.64 17.8Beximco Syn.-Z 6.32 5.81 10.01 10.10 9.90 10.00 0.653 0.76 13.2Power Grid Co. -A 6.25 4.75 41.93 42.50 42.50 41.50 0.503 2.13 19.7Standard Ceramic -A 6.04 5.35 40.16 40.40 41.00 39.90 0.462 1.32 30.4Takaful Islami Insu-A 5.26 5.60 30.00 30.00 30.00 30.00 0.735 1.76 17.0Beximco Pharma -A 4.46 3.66 39.66 39.80 40.00 38.30 0.566 3.60 11.0FAS Fin. & Inv. Ltd-B 4.35 4.79 16.86 16.80 17.00 16.80 0.084 0.48 35.1

DSE GAINERS

Company Closing (% change)

Aver-age (%

change)

Closing average Closing Daily high Daily low Turnover

in millionLatest

EPSLatest

PE

AIBL 1st Is. M. F.-A 6.56 6.92 6.49 6.50 6.60 6.40 2.796 1.49 4.4Beximco Syn.-Z 6.25 4.65 10.12 10.20 10.40 9.90 4.472 0.76 13.3Quasem Drycells -A 5.49 4.31 38.03 38.40 38.70 34.00 13.516 1.79 21.2Shinepukur Cera-Z 5.41 3.22 11.53 11.70 11.90 10.00 3.969 0.64 18.0Savar Refractories-Z 5.26 5.26 60.00 60.00 60.00 60.00 0.045 0.52 115.4Kay & Que (BD) -Z 4.76 1.96 13.00 13.20 13.50 13.00 0.013 -0.92 -veStandard Bank -A 4.67 3.16 11.10 11.20 11.40 9.90 7.767 0.96 11.6Golden Son -A 4.43 3.30 44.43 44.80 45.20 40.00 49.153 4.08 10.9Dulamia CottonZ 4.35 4.35 7.20 7.20 7.20 7.20 0.001 -4.13 -vePragati Gen. I -A 4.18 1.92 39.31 39.90 40.20 34.50 0.730 2.52 15.6

SECTORAL TURNOVER SUMMARY

Sector DSE CSE TotalMillion Taka % change Million Taka % change Million Taka % change

Bank 427.34 14.58 31.55 11.72 458.89 14.34NBFI 82.41 2.81 4.39 1.63 86.80 2.71Investment 39.85 1.36 2.00 0.74 41.85 1.31Engineering 260.64 8.89 24.87 9.24 285.51 8.92Food & Allied 118.82 4.05 11.20 4.16 130.02 4.06Fuel & Power 240.55 8.21 16.96 6.30 257.51 8.05Jute 0.88 0.03 0.00 0.88 0.03Textile 233.91 7.98 21.78 8.09 255.68 7.99Pharma & Chemical 434.33 14.82 39.11 14.53 473.44 14.80Paper & Packaging 0.26 0.01 7.81 2.90 8.08 0.25Service 32.82 1.12 1.40 0.52 34.22 1.07Leather 20.89 0.71 11.73 4.36 32.62 1.02Ceramic 10.51 0.36 1.66 0.62 12.17 0.38Cement 288.30 9.84 21.24 7.89 309.54 9.67Information Technology 11.39 0.39 0.94 0.35 12.33 0.39General Insurance 27.90 0.95 1.45 0.54 29.35 0.92Life Insurance 75.95 2.59 3.75 1.39 79.69 2.49Telecom 413.41 14.11 36.45 13.54 449.86 14.06Travel & Leisure 73.44 2.51 13.37 4.97 86.81 2.71Miscellaneous 136.40 4.65 17.51 6.50 153.91 4.81Debenture 0.58 0.02 0.02 0.01 0.60 0.02

Daily capital market highlights

DSE Broad Index : 4367.89798 (+) 1.06% ▼

DSE Shariah Index : 998.39342 (+) 0.97% ▼

DSE - 30 Index : 1610.67161 (+) 1.05% ▼

CSE All Share Index: 13524.52420 (+) 1.39% ▼

CSE - 30 Index : 11092.53090 (+) 1.60% ▼

CSE Selected Index : 8346.52010 (+) 1.36% ▼

DSE key features June 23, 2014Turnover (Million Taka)

2,930.59

Turnover (Volume)

67,590,385

Number of Contract 69,120

Traded Issues 297

Issue Gain (Avg. Price Basis)

167

Issue Loss (Avg. Price Basis)

123

Unchanged Issue (Avg. Price Basis)

7

Market Capital Equity (Billion. Tk.)

2,270.27

Market Capital Equity (Billion US$)

27.52

CSE key features June 23, 2014Turnover (Million Taka) 245.82

Turnover (Volume) 6,102,693

Number of Contract 9,430

Traded Issues 204

Issue Gain (Avg. Price Basis)

113

Issue Loss (Avg. Price Basis)

87

Unchanged Issue (Avg. Price Basis)

3

Market Capital Equity (Billion. Tk.)

2,195.85

Market Capital Equity (Billion US$)

26.62

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 biasl@bol-online.com or call 01552153562 or go to www.biasl.net

Since, the indices lost substantially in last couple of days, a handsome number of scrips came at lucrative range. Backed by this, investors re-assessed and took position in selective preferred stocks

B3BusinessDHAKA TRIBUNE Tuesday, June 24, 2014

Executive Motors Ltd recently inaugurated its new showroom at Tejgaon industrial area in Dhaka, occupying approximately 4,000 sqft of � oor space to put six BMW cars on display. The photo shows (left to right) Moshiur Rahman Bhuiyan, director of Executive Motors Ltd along with its chair Mizanur Rahman Bhuiyan and managing director Moklasur Rahman Bhuiyan at the launching ceremony

Bangladesh Development Bank Ltd (BDBL) recently held its 4th annual general meeting at the bank’s head o� ce in Dhaka. The meeting was presided over by the bank’s chairman Prof Santi Narayan Ghosh

Pubali Bank Narayanganj Regional O� ce recently held an open discussion on SME � nancing at its regional o� ce in Narayanganj. Executive director of Bangladesh Bank Nirmal Chandra Bhakta was present as chief guest while managing director and CEO of Pubali Bank Ltd, Helal Ahmed Chowdhury attended the event as a guest of honour

Al-Arafah Islami Bank Ltd recently inaugurated its 114th branch at Kadamtali in Chittagong. Chairperson of KDS Group and president of Chittagong Chamber of Commerce & Industries, Alhajj Khalilur Rahman inaugurated the branch as chief guest while the bank’s managing director Md Habibur Rahman presided over the launching ceremony

Dettol Shera Ami Shonge Ma, a reality show by Dettol, � agship brand of Reckitt Benckiser Bangladesh has been launched recently where a mother and her child will be paired. The inauguration of the show’s third season was made at a press conference held on June 22, where the marketing director of Reckitt Benckiser Bangladesh, Mahbub Baset was present among others

United Commercial Bank Limited (UCB) recently launched the Core Banking Systems (CBS) namely Flex Cube Universal Banking System (FCUBS) at the bank’s corporate branch. The bank’s vice chair Sharif Zahir was present at the launching ceremony among others

Apple, Google, Samsung vie to bring health apps to wearables n Reuters, San Francisco

For decades, medical technology � rms have searched for ways to let diabetics check blood sugar easily, with scant success. Now, the world‘s largest mo-bile technology � rms are getting in on the act.

Apple Inc, Samsung Electronics Co and Google Inc, searching for applica-tions that could turn nascent wear-able technology like smartwatches and bracelets from curiosities into must-have items, have all set their sites on monitoring blood sugar, several people familiar with the plans say.

These � rms are variously hiring medical scientists and engineers, ask-ing U.S. regulators about oversight and developing glucose-measuring fea-tures in future wearable devices, the sources said.

The � rst round of technology may be limited, but eventually the compa-nies could compete in a global blood-sugar tracking market worth over $12bn by 2017, according to research � rm Glo-balData.

Diabetes a� icts 29 million Ameri-cans and costs the economy some $245bn in 2012, a 41% rise in � ve years. Many diabetics prick their � ngers as much as 10 times daily in order to check levels of a type of sugar called glucose.

Non-invasive technology could take many forms. Electricity or ultrasound could pull glucose through the skin for measurement, for instance, or a light could be shined through the skin so that a spectroscope could measure for indications of glucose.

“All the biggies want glucose on their phone,” said John Smith, former chief scienti� c o� cer of Johnson & Johnson‘s LifeScan, which makes blood glucose monitoring supplies. “Get it right, and there‘s an enormous payo� .”

Apple, Google and Samsung de-clined to comment, but Courtney Lias, director at the US Food and Drug Ad-ministration‘s chemistry and toxicol-ogy devices division, told Reuters a marriage between mobile devices and glucose-sensing is “made in heaven.”

In a December meeting with Apple executives, the FDA described how it may regulate a glucometer that mea-sures blood sugar, according to an FDA summary of the discussion.

Such a device could avoid regulation

if used for nutrition, but if marketed to diabetics, it likely would be regulated as a medical device, according to the summary, � rst reported by the Apple Toolbox blog.

The tech companies are likely to start o� focusing on non-medical ap-plications, such as � tness and educa-tion.

Even an educational device would need a breakthrough from current technology, though, and some in the medical industry say the tech � rms, new to the medical world, don‘t under-stand the core challenges.

“There is a cemetery full of e� orts” to measure glucose in a non-invasive way, said DexCom chief executive Ter-rance Gregg, whose � rm is known for minimally invasive techniques. To suc-ceed would require „several hundred

million dollars or even a billion dol-lars,“ he said.

Poaching Silicon Valley is already opening its vast wallet.

Medtronic Inc Senior Vice President of Medicine and Technology Stephen Oesterle recently said he now considers Google to be the medical device � rm‘s next great rival, thanks to its funding for research and development, or R&D.

“We spend $1.5bn a year on R&D at Medtronic – and it’s mostly D,” he told the audience at a recent conference. “Google is spending $8bn a year on R&D and, as far as I can tell, it’s mostly R.”

Google has been public about some of its plans: it has developed a „smart“ contact lens that measures glucose. In a blog post detailing plans for its smart

contact lens, Google described an LED system that could warn of high or low blood sugar by � ashing tiny lights. It has recently said it is looking for part-ners to bring the lens to market.

The device, which uses tiny chips and sensors that resemble bits of glit-ter to measure glucose levels in tears, is expected to be years away from com-mercial development, and skeptics wonder if it will ever be ready.

Previous attempts at accurate non-invasive measurement have been foiled by body movement, and � uc-tuations in hydration and temperature. Tears also have lower concentrations of glucose, which are harder to track.

But the Life Sciences team in charge of the lens and other related research is housed at the Google X facility, where it works on major breakthroughs such

as the self-driving car, a former em-ployee who requested anonymity said.

Apple‘s e� orts center on its iWatch, which is on track to ship in October, three sources at leading supply chain � rms told Reuters. It is not clear wheth-er the initial release will incorporate glucose-tracking sensors.

Still, Apple has poached executives and bio-sensor engineers from such medical technology � rms as Masimo Corp, Vital Connect, and the now-de-funct glucose monitoring startup C8 Medisensors.

“It has scooped up many of the most talented people with glucose-sensing expertise,” said George Palikaras, CEO of Mediwise, a startup that hopes to mea-sure blood sugar levels beneath the skin‘s surface by transmitting radio waves through a section of the human body.

The tech companies are also draw-ing mainstream interest to the � eld, he said. “When Google announced its smart contact lens, that was one of the best days of my career. We started get-ting a ton of emails,” Palikaras said.

Samsung was among the � rst tech companies to produce a smartwatch, which failed to catch on widely. It since has introduced a platform for mobile health, called Simband, which could be used on smart wrist bands and other mobile devices.

Samsung is looking for partners and will allow developers to try out di� erent sensors and software. One Samsung employee, who declined to be named, said the company expects to foster noninvasive glucose monitoring.

Sources said Samsung is working with startups to implement a “tra� c light” system in future Galaxy Gear smartwatches that � ashes blood-sugar warnings.

Samsung Ventures has made a num-ber of investments in the � eld, includ-ing in Glooko, a startup that helps phy-sicians access their patients‘ glucose readings, and in an Israeli glucose mon-itoring startup through its $50m Digital Health Fund.

Ted Driscoll, a health investor with Claremont Creek Ventures, told Re-uters he‘s heard pitches from potential-ly promising glucose monitoring start-ups, over a dozen in recent memory.

Software developers say they hope to incorporate blood glucose data into health apps, which is of particular in-terest to athletes and health-conscious users.

“We‘re paying close attention to research around how sugar impacts weight loss,” said Mike Lee, cofounder of MyFitnessPal.

After decades of false starts, many medical scientists are con� dent about a breakthrough on glucose monitoring. Processing power allows quick testing of complex ideas, and the miniaturiza-tion of sensors, the low cost of elec-tronics, and the rapid proliferation of mobile devices have given rise to new opportunities.

One optimist is Jay Subhash, a re-cently-departed senior product manag-er for Samsung Electronics. “I wouldn‘t be at all surprised to see it one of these days,” he said. l

A model presents a Samsung Galaxy Gear smartwatch after its launch at the IFA consumer electronics fair in Berlin REUTERS

Dollar stays � rm on US optimism, but risks loom n AFP, Tokyo

The dollar maintained its strength dur-ing Asian trade yesterday , buoyed by optimism about the pace of the US re-covery, analysts said.

The greenback bought 102.03 yen, holding on to gains it made at the end of last week, when it stood at 102.06 yen in New York on Friday. The euro was also little moved, buying $1.3593 and 138.69 yen, against $1.3597 and 138.79 yen in New York.

Dealers were still buoyed by the US Federal Reserve‘s decision last week decided to keep the nation‘s ultra low-interest rate policy, while its head indi-cated they would remain low well into next year. l

Oil prices � rm on Iraq tensions n AFP, Singapore

Oil prices edged higher in Asia yester-day on continued violence in Iraq, but gains were capped as the risk premium associated with the crisis in the key crude producer is already factored in, analysts said.

US benchmark West Texas Interme-diate was up 31 cents to $107.14, while Brent crude gained 35 cents to $115.16 in mid-morning trade.

“We see oil retaining support from the violence in Iraq, but markets have already priced in a signi� cant risk premium in the last few weeks,” Da-vid Lennox, resource analyst with Fat Prophets in Sydney, told AFP.

In an interview with US television network CBS that aired Sunday, US Presi-dent Barack Obama warned that the mili-

tants who have surged through Iraq in a lightning o� ensive could destabilise oth-er countries in the volatile Middle East.

The militants were continuing an advance in western Iraq Sunday, killing

21 people after security forces left sev-eral towns.

The militants have captured swathes of the country‘s north but have yet to directly threaten the key oil-producing region in the south, the main source of exports.

"We see prices remaining relatively stable at current levels as long as the crisis does not spread to Iraq‘s south where most of its exports are coming from," Lennox said.

"The market has already been quite used to patchy output from the north where the � ghting is currently going on, and it must also be noted that Iraq has been extremely volatile in terms of output for many years now," he added.

The violence in Iraq has a direct bearing on global crude prices because the country is the second-biggest oil exporter in the 12-nation Organiza-tion of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) after Saudi Arabia.

It has more than 11% of the world‘s proved resources and produces 3.4 mil-lion barrels a day. l

Citi regional head ofFIs due today n Tribune Business Desk

Valentin Garger, managing director and regional head of � nancial institutions APAC (ex-Japan), corporate banking, arrives in Dhaka today on a two-day visit.

He is scheduled to meet senior Citi o� cials, key clients, and review  the bank’s  potential  for further business growth in Bangladesh, says a press re-lease yesterday.

Based in Hong Kong, Garger is a se-nior credit o� cer and responsible for business strategy, coverage and per-formance of the portfolio as well as the capital and credit deployed in Financial

Institutions Group (FIG). He is also a member of the Corporate Banking Oper-ating Committee and the Global FIG Capital Com-mittee.

He has expertise in top-ics such as capital manage-ment, treasury/ liquidity, debt capital markets, trans-action services, markets

trading as well as portfolio optimisation. He joined Citi in Vienna, Austria

in 1990 where he worked in various functions, which included credit/risk management, operations, relationship manager for Corporate and Financial Institution clients as well as Corporate Bank Head before moving to Belgium. l

It has more than 11% of the world‘s proved resources and produces 3.4m barrels a day

B4 Back PageDHAKA TRIBUNE Tuesday, June 24, 2014

DILBERT

Global infrastructure, capital spending to hit $9tn by 2025n Reuters, Washington

Global spending on capital projects and infrastructure will shift from West to East, and jump to more than $9tn a year by 2025, according to a forecast released yesterday by accounting � rm Price water house Coopers.

The growth will be driven by China, which overtook the United States as the top spender on capital and infrastruc-ture in 2009, Price water house said. Globally, this investment spending stood at just $4tn in 2012.

"Emerging markets, especially Chi-na and other countries in Asia, with-out the burden of recovering from a � nancial crisis, will see much faster growth in infrastructure spending," Richard Abadie, global capital projects and infrastructure leader at Price water house, said in a prepared statement.

About $78tn is expected to be spent on capital projects and infrastructure globally between now and 2025, ac-cording to the study.

Availability of funding and govern-ment � nances, demographic factors, ur-banization and natural resource endow-ments will all drive future infrastructure spending, Price water house said.

In the United States, capital projects

and infrastructure spending is expected to reach $1tn annually by 2025, grow-ing an average of 3.5% a year, according

to the � rm. U S infrastructure spend-ing will face constraints from relatively tight government � nances, but capital

spending elsewhere will get a lift from the nation's shale oil boom and invest-ment in telecommunications, it said. l

Workers spray chemical into a river to prevent the spread of algae, in front of residential buildings under construction, in Taiyuan, Shanxi province REUTERS

Australia: G20 lagging on growth targetsn AFP, Sydney

Reforms proposed to lift global growth in line with a target set by the world’s biggest economies earlier this year are so far falling short, Australian Treasur-er Joe Hockey said yesterday.

In February, the G20 economies vowed to boost global growth by more than US$2 trillion over � ve years, shift-ing their focus away from austerity as a fragile recovery takes hold.

But as Australia prepares to host the G20 summit in Brisbane in November, Hockey told The Australian newspaper that more work needed to be done.

“The submissions are not meeting our ambitious target at the moment and I expect that a number of jurisdic-tions will improve their e� ort,” Hockey told the broadsheet.

“I’ll be speaking to individual � -

nance ministers over the next few weeks, around the world, to encourage them to be more proactive.”

G20 � nance ministers and central bank governors said in February they aimed to lift their collective gross do-mestic product by more than two per-centage points over the next � ve years.

In a communique following their meeting in Sydney, the world’s top econ-omies said the “realistic” target could be achieved by increasing investment, lift-ing employment and enhancing trade.

But a report in The Australian Fi-nancial Review said modelling showed member countries had committed to reforms that would not go even half-way towards the growth target.

Hockey expressed con� dence yesterday that the reforms could be achieved, particularly given support for the agenda from the economic

powerhouses Germany, China, and the United States.

“It comes down to the goodwill around the table,” he told The Australian.

“There was, in the end, no disagree-ment in February and in fact our friends in Germany were, by the time of the Washington � nance ministers meeting in April, (German Finance Minister) Wolf Schauble was among the most emphatic supporters of the target.”

In April, G20 � nance ministers and central bank chiefs pledged to fol-low up on reforms but there was little � rm action on how to stimulate world growth further.

At the time, Hockey said that when the G20 made the commitment to en-hance growth in February, “we really meant it. It wasn’t just a rhetorical � g-ure put in the communique for public-ity purposes”. l

China, Japan manufacturing returns to growth n Reuters, Tokyo

Manufacturing in China and Japan shrugged o� months of decline and returned to growth in June as Bei-jing’s targeted stimulus measures and Japan’s improving labour market sup-ported domestic demand in Asia’s two largest economies.

External demand, however, remained weak for the two export powerhouses in a worrying sign that the United States and Europe may not be recovering as strongly as anticipated, meaning it could be di� cult to rely on exports for growth.

The stakes are high for China, which may need more stimulus to o� set a cooling housing market and avoid a hard landing. Japan’s weak exports also take the gloss o� the government’s e� orts to breathe new life into its eco-nomic reform agenda.

“This month’s improvement is con-sistent with data suggesting that the authorities’ mini-stimulus is � ltering through to the real economy,” said Qu Hongbin, chief economist for China at HSBC, referring to a series of measures announced by the government in re-cent months to spur activity.

“We expect policymakers to contin-ue their current path of accommoda-tive policy stance until the recovery is sustained,” he added. The HSBC/Markit Flash China Manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ Index rose more than ex-pected to 50.8 in June from May’s � nal reading of 49.4, beating a Reuters poll forecast of 49.7 and creeping above the 50-point level that separates growth in activity from contraction.

It was the � rst time since December that the PMI was in growth territory, and the highest reading since Novem-

ber, when it was also 50.8. The � ash PMI data is the earliest

indicator in a month to help gauge the economic momentum and thus is closely watched by investors.

Asian stock markets and the Austra-lian dollar � rmed on the news.

China’s preliminary factory reading for June indicates sequential growth could pick up to 1.8% in the second quarter from 1.4% in the � rst, Ting Lu, an economist at Bank of America-Mer-rill Lynch, said in a note to clients.

“We expect Beijing to continue roll-ing out more measures to stabilize growth,” Lu added.

The sub-index for new orders, a proxy to measure domestic and foreign demand, rose to 51.8, the fastest pace in 15 months. Much of the increase ap-peared due to stronger domestic con-sumption, as growth in new export or-

ders slowed sharply. The Markit/JMMA � ash Japan Man-

ufacturing PMI rose to a seasonally ad-justed 51.1 in June from a � nal reading of 49.9 in May, showing the � rst growth in three months.

Japan’s new orders index jumped to 52.0 from 49.6, indicating consumers are shrugging o� an increase in the na-tionwide sales tax on April 1 as strong demand for workers puts upward pres-sure on wages.

However, Japan’s export orders con-tinued to mildly contract, thwarting policymakers’ hopes that exports will help the economy shift into a higher gear after the sales tax increase.

Supportive measures China’s government has unveiled a se-ries of modest policy measures in re-cent months to give a lift to economic

growth, which dipped to an 18-month low in the � rst quarter. These include targeted reserve requirement cuts for some banks to encourage more lend-ing, quicker � scal spending and has-tening construction of railways and public housing projects.

But the recovery has been patchy. Exports remain uneven as recover-

ies in the United States and the Euro-pean Union do not appear to be giving their usual robust boost to export-reli-ant Asian economies. Taiwan’s exports grew an annual 1.4% in May, much less than the average estimate for 4% an-nual growth. Exports from South Korea and Japan also contracted in May as the region’s major exporters stutter.

Japan’s cabinet is set to approve on Tuesday an updated version of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s economic growth strategy.

A draft of the package includes cor-porate tax cuts, measures to increase skilled foreign labor and female em-ployees, but it lacks a major policy needed to convince investors that the government will change the economy’s fundamental structure.

This task is all the more crucial, be-cause the old model of relying on ex-ports to prop up the economy no lon-ger works as many Japanese � rms have shifted production capacity overseas.

China is trying to wean itself from its old economic model of relying on � xed-asset investment, particularly in the real estate sector. The govern-ment has set an annual target for the economy to grow about 7.5% in 2014 and a recent Reuters poll found that economists expected growth of 7.3% for this year, which could be the weak-est showing in 24 years. l

Japanese automakers recall 3m vehicles globally for airbag n AFP, Tokyo

Japanese automakers yesterday re-called nearly three million vehicles worldwide over an airbag defect that could pose a � re risk.

Honda said it recalled about 2,033,000 vehicles which were pro-duced between August 2000 and De-cember 2005, including more than one million in North America and 668,000 in Japan.

Two other automakers – Mazda and Nissan – also recalled hundreds of thousands of vehicles over the same problem, which was also responsible for earlier recalls by Toyota.

Japan’s Takata Corp., which made the airbag, noted its US subsidiary had manufactured the airbag, apologising for the problem and vowing to make its utmost e� orts to prevent a recurrence.

“We apologise deeply for causing tremendous trouble and worries to cli-ent companies, users of our products and other people concerned,” the com-pany said in a statement.

Nissan recalled a combined 755,000 vehicles, including 128,000 in Japan and 627,000 overseas.

“In North America, 228,000 are on

the recall list, with 7,000 in China,” a Nissan spokesman said.

A Mazda spokeswoman said: “The recall will cover 11,832 vehicles at home and 147,975 units overseas, mainly in Europe and China.”

Subject to Honda’s recall are a total of 13 types of vehicles in Japan includ-ing popular Fit and Accord models.

Front passenger airbag in� ators could have been assembled with an improperly manufactured propellant component, Japan’s third largest auto-maker said.

That could cause the container of the in� ator to rupture in the event of a crash, posing a � re risk or injuring pas-sengers, it added.

The same problem has also caused top automaker Toyota to recall millions of vehicles globally.

Toyota has earlier said it acted as it received a complaint from a Japanese customer who said his passenger seat was burned from the defect.

Honda said the company had re-ceived no complaint or reports of inju-ries on its own.

Honda shares closed down 0.63% at 3,602 yen on the Tokyo Stock Exchange while Takata soared 2.87% to 2,111 yen. l

Tax cuts, dance hall deregulationaim to set Japan swinging n Reuters, Tokyo

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is set to unveil measures ranging from phased corporate tax cuts and public pension reforms to proposed dance hall deregulation, but the latest salvo from his three-pronged strategy for economic revival may disappoint some investors urging more radical steps.

Abe, who took o� ce 18 months ago pledging to end persistent de� ation and generate sustainable growth with a trifecta of monetary, � scal and reform steps, will on Tuesday deliver the latest instalment of his so-called “Third Ar-row” of long-term economic policies.

The measures, many of which have already been leaked or announced by o� cials, are likely to receive muted ap-plause from � nancial markets and ex-perts, who say the package is a step in the right direction towards vital structural reforms but want to see how the mea-sures are � eshed out and implemented.

“I’m starting to be almost a bit of a ‘glass half-full’ guy. Abe is continuing to talk the right talk,” said one former US o� cial who has seen many past Jap-anese reform packages that promised much but failed to deliver.

“It isn’t a ‘Big Bang’ but it is a lot bet-ter than some things I’ve seen in the past. But he still has to deliver.”

Among the steps outlined so far is a future cut in Japan’s e� ective corpo-rate tax rate - among the highest in the world - to below 30% over the next sev-

eral years, and a promise to reform the $1.26tn Government Pension Invest-ment Fund in ways likely to reallocate more money to the stock market.

In a nod to the need to strike a bal-ance between stimulating growth and reining in Japan’s massive public debt, the tax plan will seek to o� set the cuts by broadening the tax base.

Di� cult but key details of many steps, such as the tax cuts, are likely to be left to be worked out later. Sev-eral bold but politically contentious proposals, such as for labor market and agriculture reforms, were watered

down or omitted as a result of discus-sions among myriad and con� icting interests.

Abenomics fatigue? By dribbling out key elements of the package in recent weeks, the govern-ment hopes to avoid the disappoint-ment that led to a sharp drop in Tokyo share prices when Abe announced the � rst tranche of his “Third Arrow” growth strategy last June.

Some market players appear to be su� ering from what one expert called “Abenomics fatigue”. l

Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe holds a news conference at the end of the G7 leaders meeting at European Council headquarters in Brussels REUTERS

An sensor that uses visible and invisible light to judge crop health is used at the Little Bohemia Creek farm on June 17, 2014 in Warwick, Maryland. The hand held sensor is used on a special well fertilized health crop to calibrate other sensors used on a tractor while fertilizing the rest of the plants AFP