n Ibrahim Hossain

A cumbersome import procedure and high taxes have led the Bangladeshi jewellery industry to rely heavily on smuggled gold.

Speaking to several jewellers in the city, this correspondent found that most of the ornaments available in their stores was in fact made from smuggled gold.

“About 70-80% jewellery in my shop is made of smuggled gold,” a shopkeep-er at Bashundhara City told this corre-spondent, who was at the time posing as a buyer in order to glean informa-tion.

“There is no scope for importing gold in our country because of all the hurdles and time consuming proce-dures,” the owner remarked.

Several other jewellers also admit-ted that most of their gold had come in through smuggling.

High taxes encourage the gold smuggling, said another jeweller at Bashundhara City.

“If we import gold through proper channels, price of a one bhori gold or-nament will be around Tk70-80,000. Due to the lack of a government policy, most of us depend on smuggled gold as it costs much less,” this owner said.

Yesterday in the local markets, or-naments of 22-carat gold were selling at Tk49,572 per bhori, 21-carat gold at

Tk47,356 per bhori and 18-carat gold at Tk40,590, according to the Bangladesh Jewellers Samity (BJS).

In the global market, an ounce of pure gold was selling at US$1,313. At this price, one bhori of gold in Bang-ladesh would cost Tk37,914, given the exchange rate of Tk77 per dollar.

The General Secretary of BJS, De-wan Aminul Islam Shahin, disagreed about the source of gold in the indus-try, saying the main source of gold in the jewellery industry was recycling and expatriates who brought in gold or ornaments.

“We procure gold from people com-ing to Bangladesh from abroad and it’s another source of supply,” said Dewan. “Expatriates supply over 10% of the to-tal demands of the country’s gold mar-ket.”

However, he agreed that the import policy was too di� cult for jewellers.

“There is no provision in the import policy which allows us to import gold bars directly,” he said.

“We can only import gold through opening letters of credit (LC) and have to pay 58% tax, which is a lengthy and complex procedure,” he said. “This is great problem for the industry as it has pushed the price of ornaments up and beyond the reach of common people,” he added.

When asked about the bulk amounts PAGE 2 COLUMN 3

LawBuying a plotor a � at?

5

16 pages with 8-page business tabloid plus 24-page supplement Avenue-T | Price: Tk10

Shraban 24, 1420Ramadan 29, 1434Regd. No. DA 6238Vol 1 No 139 THURSDAY, AUGUST 8, 2013 | www.dhakatribune.com

News4 Female Bangladeshi migrant workers who went to Hong Kong to work as housemaids are facing various problems, including dealing with the language and food habits.

Metro7 Buyers crowd the shopping malls in the capital in search of clothes and other wears in the last shopping rush before Eid.

Entertainment8 To mark this Eid, the TV channels have prepared a host of special programmes, tele� lms, Eid drama series and many more for the audience. In this issue the Entertainment page highlights many programmes for the � rst three days of Eid for the bene� t of the readers.

BusinessB1 The pre-Eid sales in the Dhaka shopping hubs is estimated to have declined sharply compared to last year due to what shopkeepers think is increase in prices of clothes and fear of political unrest.

INSIDE

SportBasel and Lyon hold nerve to reach playo� s

1412 InternationalBomb kills teens playing streetfootball in Karachi

FULL STORYP2

ASHRAF DEFENDSP2

HOLIDAYAll o� ces of the Dhaka Tribune will remain closed for three days from today for Eid. Therefore, there will be no issue of the daily on August 9, 10 and 11. If Eid vacation extends, Tribune will not come out on August 12 too. However, our online service will be on to keep readers updated.

Ashraf hopes for last minute-solutionn Partha Pratim Bhattacharjee

Awami League General Secretary Syed Ashraful Islam yesterday hoped that the ongoing political stando� be-tween the party and main oppositionBNP regarding the polls-time govern-ment would be resolved at the lastmoment.

“As a nation, we all are accustomed to last minute solution. It is our basic character,” he told the Dhaka Tribune yesterday at the party president Sheikh Hasina’s Dhanmondi o� ce.

Ashraf, also the LGRD minister, said certainly there was something to re-solve the political impasse. “But it is not possible to explain everything at this moment,” he added.

He also reiterated the AL’s o� er for dialogue with the BNP leadership.

Earlier, the AL general secretary joined an iftar party hosted for the em-ployees of the party’s Bangabandhu Avenue and Dhanmondi o� ces.

While talking to journalists, Ashraf hoped the current political crisis would be resolved through peaceful talks if the main opposition BNP helps. “If BNP creates appropriate atmosphere for holding the talks then dialogues must be held.”

He said dialogue was the only way-out regardless of whatever the

political di� erences were. “If the par-ties are cordial, talks are possible with-in a day.”

Ashraf also criticised the BNP for its announcement to topple the gov-ernment through movement after Eid. He said: “Enforcing hartal and waging movement will only create people’s su� ering. It will not implement oppo-sition’s desire.”

He said peace would come only af-ter formation of a new government

through a peaceful election participat-ed by all political parties.

About the government’s proposal for holding a dialogue with the BNP, the minister said: “Earlier we invited the BNP for talks several times but they declined. Even the opposition leader gave ultimatum and threatened to oust the government. But ousting an elected government is only possible through elections.”

AL leaders Nuh-Ul-Alam Lenin, Abu Sayeed Al Mahamud Swapon, Hasan Mahmud, Asim Kumar Ukil andMrinal Kanti Das were also present at the iftar. l

One formal importin last two yearsn Kailash Sarkar

In the last two years, only a single jew-ellery house in Bangladesh imported a small cache of gold through the Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport, while in the last seven months customs and Armed Police Battalion (APBn) at the airport have seized at least 30 hauls of smuggled gold weighing more than 300kg.According to sources at Bangladesh Jewellers Samity (BJS), there are near-ly 30,000 jewellery shops across the

country, including 1,500 in Dhaka, and their annual demand for gold is 16 to 30 tonnes.“Jewellery houses in Bangladesh do not usually import gold through the airport. In my two years service at the airport, I found only a single jewel-lery house that had imported only a cache of gold,” said Zakia Sultana, the customs commissioner in charge of customs at the Shahjalal International Airport.

She said they had seized 192kg gold in last seven months and 11.7kg in 2012.

Apart from customs o� cers, APBn also seized around 100kg gold in the last seven months.

“Taxes for gold bars is lower than ornaments made of gold: Tk150 for per 11.66 grams of gold in bars, but gold is not imported through legal means to evade taxes.” said Commissioner Sul-tana.

On the other hand, the government last year reduced taxes on imported gold from Tk400 to Tk200 per tola to reduce smuggling of gold into Bangla-desh.

Travellers and migrant workers, mainly from the Middle East countries, are allowed to bring in 200 grams of gold on each visit to Bangladesh.

According to sources, gold now comes to Bangladesh from the coun-tries in the Middle East, Singapore, Thailand, Hong Kong and Malaysia.

Sources said many rings are active in the smuggling of gold and currencies through the airport, who continue the illegal trading in cohorts with a section of o� cials and employees of di� erent government non-government agencies deployed at the airport.

In the last three years, more than PAGE 2 COLUMN 3

‘Government funds used for campaign billboards’n Muhammad Zahidul Islam

Funds of a ministry was also used along with donations of businessmen to � -nance ruling Awami League’s sudden publicity stunt in which it wrapped capital Dhaka with thousands of bill-boards boasting the government’s achievement in the last four and half years.

The party’s Press and Publicity Sec-retary Dr Hasan Mahmud said they have covered at least � ve thousand bill-boards in Saturday and Sunday’s drive and plan to go for port-city Chittagong during the Eid.

However, Hasan, who is also envi-ronment minister, could not con� rm the source of the huge campaign. “I re-ally do not have any idea whether the money for the giant placards and ban-ners were spent from the government exchequer or the party fund.”

However, a party source on condi-tion of anonymity and requesting that

names are not mentioned said a state minister, who is also a top leader of Awami League, disbursed funds allo-cated for publicity in his ministry for the campaign. He, however, could not con� rm the amount spent from the ministry.

“The government had a plan to allo-cate publicity fund for every ministry to publicise the achievements in this tenure. However, it is still on the plan-ning table. This ministry already spent funds for this billboard campaign in the name of government publicity.”

Meanwhile, another party source claimed the use of government fund was minimal and leaders of Jubo League, ruling Awami League’s youth front, collected most of the fund.

Ismail Chowdhury Samrat, presi-dent of Dhaka (south) city unit, who

PAGE 2 COLUMN 3

Personal sta� , househelps made AL assistant secretariesn Partha Pratim Bhattacharjee

Controversial leaders, sta� members of Awami League o� ces, and person-al sta� of ministers and party leaders have been allegedly made assistant secretaries of the ruling party’s central sub-committees in a bid to increase its organisational strength.

Although the party is yet to formal-ly announce the names of 83 assistant secretaries, Awami League President Sheikh Hasina has already approved the committee, which also has househelps of in� uential party leaders in the post.

The new committee also violates the Represetation of the People Order (RPO) as one-third of the committee members are not women.

The formation of the committee has caused grievances among the leaders and activists of the ruling Awami League.

PAGE 2 COLUMN 3

As a nation, we all are accustomed to lastminute solution. It isour basic character

Jewellery shines on smuggled goldOutdated import law and high tax barrier to legal import

Who is William Gomes?n Probir K Sarker

Sometimes he identi� es himself as a freelance journalist, sometimes as a correspondent of unheard global me-dia and posts unsubstantiated “news” on blogs. He claims to be a human rights activist who � ed Bangladesh in the face of torture and intimidation.

He is William Nicholas Gomes, whose existence is only felt online. He is very active in almost all the social media platforms in use. Recently, he hit the headlines after threatening prime min-ister’s son Sajeeb Wazed Joy in Twitter that Sheikh Hasina would have to face the same consequence like his grandfa-ther on August 15, 1975.

The “activist” demands trial of Bang-abandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman “for war crimes” and terms Ghulam Azam “an agent of peace.” l

With Eid knocking at the doors, tra� c on the roads is gradually decreasing as residents started to leave the capital for their hometowns. The photo was taken yesterday at the city’s Kuril area SYED ZAKIR HOSSAIN

The government last year reduced taxes on imported gold from Tk400 to Tk200 per tola to reduce smuggling of gold into Bangladesh

Nation goes for Eid vacation n Tribune Report

The nation goes into a vacation for Eid-ul-Fitr, the biggest religious festival of Muslims, starting from today. The members of the national moon sight-ing committee will sit in a meeting this evening at the Islamic Foundation at Baitul Mukarram to review the infor-mation of the Shawal moon sighting.

As per the decision of the meeting, the holy Eid will be celebrated either on Friday or Saturday amid religious zeal and enthusiasm after a month-long abstinence. The 48-hour shut down called by Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami from 6am on August 13 might enable many people to stay with their families across the country.

Meanwhile, all preparations for holding the Eid congregations and cel-ebrations have been completed all over the country, including capital Dhaka, port city Chittagong and Sholakia Ei-dgah in Kishoreganj where the largest Eid congregation will be held.

In the capital, the main Eid congre-gation will be held at the National Ei-dgah near the High Court at 8:30am. Khatib of Baitul Mukarram National Mosque Prof Maulana M Salahuddin will lead the prayer. In case of inclem-ent weather, the main congregation will be held at Baitul Mukarram Na-tional Mosque at 9am. Besides, � ve congregations will be held at 7am, 8am, 9am, 10am and 11am at the Na-tional Mosque.

Like the previous year, arrange-ments have been made at the Nation-al Eidgah and the National Mosque so that women can take part in the Eid prayers alongside their male counter-parts. The devotees intended to take part in Eid congregations at the Nation-al Eidgah have requested not to bring camera, mobile and vanity bag with them.

Eid congregations will be held in all Maidans, including Armanitola, Dhop-khola, and most of the mosques in the country.

The national � ag will be hoisted atop government and non-govern-ment o� ce buildings on Eid day. The main city streets and road islands will be decorated with the national � ags and banners inscribed ‘Eid Mubarak’ in Bangla and Arabic. The state-owned television and private channels will telecast special programmes on the occasion.

Special diet will be served in hospi-tals, jails, government child families, Chotomoni Nibash, centres for dis-abled people, shelter homes, orphan-ages, vagrant welfare and destitute welfare centres.

Eid, marking the completion of a month-long abstinence through day-time fasting, will also be celebrated in Bangladesh missions abroad.

President Abul Hamid, Prime Min-ister Sheikh Hasina and leader of the opposition Khaleda Zia issued separate messages greeting the people on the

occasion. Meanwhile, tight security measures

have been taken to ensure safe Eid congregations throughout the country, including the capital.

President Abdul Hamid will o� er his Eid-ul-Fitr prayers along with hun-dreds of people from all walks of life at the National Eidgah Maidan in the capital at 8.30am on the Eid day. After o� ering the Eid prayer, the President is scheduled to exchange greetings with the top tire of the government, elite of the society and diplomats at Bang-abhaban.

At � rst, the president will exchange greetings with the foreign diplomats at 10 am. Later, eminent citizens includ-ing high civil and military o� cials will exchange pleasantries with the presi-dent from 10:30am to 11:30 am.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina will exchange Eid greetings with a cross-section of people on Eid day. According to the o� cial schedule, the prime minister will � rst exchange greetings with a cross-section of people at the main entrance of Ganobhaban at 9:30 am. Later, at 11:30am, she will exchange Eid greetings with diplo-mats, judges, senior civil and military o� cials and party leaders at the Ga-nobhaban.

BNP chairperson Khaleda Zia will exchange greetings with diplomats and cross-section of people at Bangab-andhu International Conference Cen-tre from 10:30am. l

Who is William Gomes?A 28-year-old Bangla-d e s h i - b o r n “human rights activist and freelance jour-nalist,” has hit the headlines recently after tweeting Sa-

jeeb Wazed Joy, the son of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, that his mother would face the same consequence like his grandfather.

William Nicholas Gomes in his Face-book account and pages also demanded trial of Sheikh Mujib for war crimes and termed former Jamaat ameer Ghulam Azam, a war crime convict, a true leader. His writings aim at activities of di� erent government agencies, especially the secu-rity forces, and corruption allegations.

Joy reported the issue on his Facebook account and o� cial fan page on August 4 and uploaded a screenshot of the tweet which @Wnicholasgomes (Willian Nicho-las Gomes).

The tweet posted at 7:22pm on August 3 says: “Ask your Mom to pack up. Its’ time to go. For now on she will cook for you everyday. Wish she will end up like your nanu.”

Seventy-four followers of Gomes retweeted it while 47 favoured. Moreover, some people protested the tweet mention-ing Gomes while some others praised him for the “brave personality.”

Till August 5 Gomes continued men-tioning Joy in several other tweets he post-ed on Bangabandhu’s family and the cur-rent Awami League-led government.

The second one – posted at 1:57pm on August 4 – reads: “Time is coming when Bangladesh will judge D dictators Sheikh Mujibur and Hasina. Family rule will come to an end.”

Next day he posted: “Not Ghulam Azam but Sheikh Mujib should be tried for war crimes. He had initiated the war with oth-ers. Azam is an agent of peace.”

Joy made the “threat” issue public through a tweet at 6:30pm on August 5: “Self proclaimed human rights activist William Gomes threatens Bangladesh PM and her family with death.”

Gomes replied the tweet at 8:49pm on August 5: “Strange! You felt threaten by tweet? But you mom killed innocent He-fazot-e-Islam peoples. How their family felt? That was bullets.”

Then he stopped. But his personal Face-book account is still active where he did not repost the tweets on Joy.

The prime minister’s son publicised the threatening tweet in his Facebook account on August 5: “A tweet that was sent directly to me by William Gomes. He claims to be a human rights activist and has been very active spreading false claims of human rights abuses by our Government...He is really a terrorist.”

The next day, the prime minister or-dered probe into the matter. No update on the issue was known till yesterday.

One man, many facesApart from retweeting global issues, Gomes has recently reacted over the can-cellation of Jamaat’s party registration and conviction of former Jamaat ameer Ghu-lam Azam.

He had retweeted posts made regularly by some pro-Jamaat IDs, like Basherkella – a Facebook page that propagates and in-stigates attack on the state to stop the trail. He also follows and retweets Chhatra Shi-

bir account. According to his twitter information,

Gomes is a human rights activist and free-lance journalist. He also claims himself to an “Interfaith Activist and Fair Trade Ac-tivist.” His Facebook page says: “William Nicholas Gomes, a Bangladeshi journalist, human rights activist and author was born on December 25, 1985 in Dhaka.”

The cover photo of his Facebook pro� le page shows Ghulam Azam waving hand. He also posted a 1975 photograph of Sheikh Mujib on which the text says: “Sheikh Mu-jibur Rahman, the fascist ruler.... I demand bring the killer, fascist Mujib under law im-mediately.” There he also gave his mobile number (+8801974440666) and email ID (William@williamgomes.org).

The pro� le shows he is currently in-volved with Oregon-based online newspa-per salem-news.com as an assistant editor. This newspaper highlights him as: “Wil-liam Gomes: eye on the world. He’s serious about human rights violations.”

Last year, he was a visiting fellow at the Centre for Applied Human Rights at the University of York. Back in 2009, he com-pleted a diploma from Dhaka International University. According to the information on openDemocracy, a global blog site, he has worked for the Asian Human Rights Commission.

As per his Linkedin pro� le, Gomes had been the Bangladesh correspondent at Sri-lanka Guardian between January 2010 and May last year. His Facebook page says he worked for Italian news agency asianews.it from year 2009 to 2011. On that time, Gomes claimed that he was accredited as a freelance journalist by the Press Informa-tion Department of Bangladesh.

Apart from openDemocracy, Gomes writes Hu� ngton Post blog. He used to write in bdnews24blog, mynews.in and Muktomona. He also has a personal web-site that contains his works “williamnich-olasgomes.com.” Gomes founded Chris-tian Development Alternative (CDA) in 2007 and had been its executive director till 2009.

His Facebook page elaborates on his area of work at national level which in-cludes rights of minority Christians. In 2007, he had introduced himself as a � lmmaker in 2007 with short � lm Rohos-soya (Mystery) regarding the con� icts and problems of marriage of persons from in-ter-religious backgrounds, Muslim and Christian in particular, in Bangladesh’s context. Two of his � lms are titled ‘Murder in the name of Allah’ and Ojona Gontobbo [Unknown Destination] regarding the con-temporary manipulation and discrimina-tion of the religious minority communities in Bangladesh.” He claims that on his re-turn from India after screening of the mov-ies, he was “called by several intelligence agencies of Bangladesh in their o� ces.”

He claimed that due to his conversion to Christianity from Islam, he was under continuous threats from di� erent social and religious groups.

He also investigated the “extrajudicial killings by Rab” and claims that he was an active campaigner for demanding that Rab be disband for its “involvement in torture, extra judicial killings and forced disappear-ances of persons.”

When UK attorney Toby Cadman, who was Jamaat’s legal counsel for the tribu-nal’s cases, had been denied by the Bangla-deshi authorities at the airport, he wrote to the prime minster urging her to ensure credibility of the process of the trial by ful-� lling the norms of fair trial. l

News2 DHAKA TRIBUNE Thursday, August 8, 2013

TWOKI MURDERRab � nds evidence in o� ce of MP Nasim Osman’s sonn Our Correspondent, Narayanganj

Rapid Action Battalion (Rab) personnel yesterday recovered a bloodied pair of jeans, the butt of a pistol, ammunition cartridges, hockey sticks, ropes and heroin from the o� ce of Narayanganj MP Nasim Osman’s son, Ajmeri Osman, whose walls and furniture were ridden with bullet holes.

Rab-11 commanding o� cer, Lieutenant Commander Jahangir Alam, and the Twoki murder case’s investigation o� cer, ASP Robiul Islam, led the two-hour drive of 40 law enforcers at the alleged torture cell on 38/4 Allama Iqbal Road. However, Shamim Osman’s nephew, Ajmeri, was not at the o� ce.

His driver Jamsed, o� ce sta� Litu and Shipon, and security guard Shukkur were picked up by Rab.

The torture cell was one of six Twoki’s father Ra� ur Rabbi disclosed to the law enforcers.

He claimed they were run by the sons of Nasim Osman and Shamim Osman. Two of them had been raided previously.

Tanvir Mohammad Twoki went missing on March 6 this year and his

body was recovered from a canal of Narayanganj sadar upazila two days later. Ra� ur, also a cultural activist, � led a case on that very day with Narayanganj Sadar police.

Civic bodies observed a day-long shutdown in Narayanganj the next day demanding prosecution of the killers. Later, several civic bodies and cultural and political organisations formed an anti-terrorism platform, which carried on the demand for justice and trial of those involved. Ra� ur and city mayor Selina Hayat Ivy both publicly blamed the Osman family, including Nasim and Shamim, for the killing since Ra� ur was the member secretary of Ivy’s mayoral campaign and worked against key contender Shamim Osman.

Rabbi later pleaded that the case to be handed over to Rab since the police investigators were not making any headway. Rab took over the investigation on June 20.

After the transfer, one accused, Yusuf Hossain Liton, confessed to being involved. He also secured six-months bail from the High Court on June 24, which was stayed by the Supreme Court on August 5. l

Clari� cationGrameenphone Ltd has issued a clari-� cation on a report titled “Share of GP pro� ts missing: GB chief” published in the Dhaka Tribune on August 6.

It said: “Firstly, Grameenphone Ltd is a listed company, and all dividends have been paid in line with the com-pany’s dividend policy and stock ex-change regulations. Secondly, dividend from Grameenphone is paid to our shareholders. The majority sharehold-er of Grameenphone is Telenor Group with 55.8% of the shares, Grameen Telecom holds 34.2% while the re-maining 10% are free � oating – held by 68,000 shareholders. Thirdly, Grameen Bank is not, and has never been, a shareholder in Grameenphone.”

In a separate statement yesterday, Grameen Telecom authority protested Grameen Bank’s government-appoint-ed Chairman Mozammel Huq’s recent remark that Tk100bn of Grameen-phone, which was supposed to be spent for the welfare of the members of Grameen Bank, remained untraceable.

Grameen Telecom said Mozammel Huq had given di� erent statements about the amount, having mentioned an amount of Tk300bn earlier.

“He has to clarify before people from where he gets the information about the amount of the money that doesn’t match with his previous statement.” l

‘Government funds used for campaign billboards’ PAGE 1 COLUMN 6came into spotlight after running a sim-ilar stunt after Bangladesh’s win in the maritime dispute with Myanmar, is also one of the top initiators of the billboard campaign. He, however, could not be reached for comments despite numer-ous attempts.

Sources in the party and the billboard industry said that some journalists, who run advertisement � rms, implemented the campaign, which according to indus-try estimates cost nearly Tk100m.

The ruling party used mostly 600-1,000 square feet digital banners hoisted

on billboards in an unprecedented cam-paign ahead of the upcoming national elections.

Leading billboard advertising � rm Neptune’s executive Nizam Uddin told the Dhaka Tribune: “Each square feet of digital banner costs Tk15 for printing and Tk3 for installation. A standard 20 by 40 feet billboard would cost at least Tk14,400. With additional costs the amount would stand at around Tk20,000 each. So the cost of � ve thousand bill-boards would be close to Tk100m.”

Hasan pointed out printing posters would have cost nearly the same. “If we

made a million posters, each would cost from Tk6-10. So we went for billboards as it would maximise outputs.”

He pointed out that posters hard-ly attract city dwellers, most of whom read billboards. “If we hang a billboard in Farmgate area it will cover millions of passengers every day, so we went for bill-boards rather than posters.”

A senior o� cial of the Bangladesh Outdoors Advertising Establishment Owners Association, who also has close ties with Awami League, told the Dhaka Tribune on terms of anonymity that they were aware of Awami League’s plan for a

billboard campaign, but it happened ear-lier than planned.

“Awami League’s plan about bill-boards was constructive. The plan was to establish some new billboards in lucra-tive places in the capital and other cities at their own cost.”

Party sources said not only billboards, but the ruling party is also planning to go for “digital” campaign. Some profes-sional campaigners would work with the party before the general elections. Re-nowned add � rms have already been se-lected for the purpose and a huge budget has been allocated for the move. l

One formal import in last two years PAGE 1 COLUMN 63,600 people, including customs, Civ-il Aviation, National Security Intel-ligence (NSI) and crews of di� erent airlines were arrested for their involve-ment in smuggling.

Smuggled gold, seized by customs

mainly at the country’s two main inter-national airports, is deposited with the government. Gold bars weighing 126kg sized in the biggest haul in recent years at the Dhaka airport have already been deposited in the Bangladesh Bank vault, a central bank o� cial said. The seized

gold also comes back to the jewellery industry through the central bank’s oc-casional auctions to licensed jewellers.

However, a central bank o� cial admitted that gold auctions were not frequent. “The central bank goes for auction only when it feels it necessary.

Otherwise gold bars and ornaments deposited by customs are kept at the vault.”

The last auctions were held in 2008. Bangladesh Bank o� ered sale of 43kg gold through two separate tenders in May and June that year. l

No harm in billboard campaigns: Ashraf n Partha Pratim Bhattacharjee

Awami League General Secretary and LGRD Minister Syed Ashraful Islam yesterday said billboards were a way of publicising the government’s success.

“Billboard is a way for publicising what the government has done for the people…What is the problem here?” he said while talking to a few reporters at party President Sheikh Hasina’s Dhan-mondi o� ce.

“There is no embargo on using bill-boards!” Ashraf said after having if-tar with the employees of his party’s Bangabandhu Avenue and Dhanmondi o� ces.

The Awami League and its govern-ment have, however, so far denied hav-ing used the billboards in the capital for advertising the government’s achieve-ments. l

New law to control Grameen Bankn Asif Showkat Kallol

The government plans to abolish the Grameen Bank ordinance and set up a new law to elect the bank’s directors and increase its authorised and paid-up capital as the number of the bank’s shareholders has increased over the years.

“We will hold an inter-ministerial meeting to � nalise procedures to turn the ordinance into a law on August 14 at the � nance ministry,” an o� cial of the Banking Division told the Dhaka Tribune yesterday.

According to the new rules, nine di-rectors will be elected after being scru-tinised by two electorates appointed by the GB management.

The Grameen Bank Ordinance 1983 will be abolished in favour of the Grameen Bank Law 2013.

The Banking Division has recom-mended increasing Grameen Bank’s capital to Tk3.5bn from the existing Tk30m and its paid-up capital to Tk3bn from the existing Tk59m.

The proposal prepared by a two-member committee recommends that the government � x the date for the election within six months from the ex-ecution of the law. It will also have the authority to set the directors’ tenures. l

Jewellery shines on smuggled PAGE 1 COLUMN 4of gold frequently seized at customs at the airports, he said the gold that is smuggled in is in fact smuggled out to India again.

“Indian smugglers use Bangladesh as a channel as the government of In-dia recently increased the tax on gold import to 6.5%,” Dewan said.

In the last seven months, customs o� cers have seized over 300kg gold at Shahjalal International Airport.

What’s the fix?“There is no support from the govern-ment for the betterment of the jewel-lery industry,” said BJS Secretary De-wan.

“There is no direct import of liq-uid gold in our country; we can only import gold through LCs,” he said. “Sometimes we also buy gold from Bangladesh Bank when it goes on auc-tion, but it is a rare case.”

“If the government introduces

an exchange system to import gold through Bangladesh Bank’s nominated organisation, it would bring the jew-ellery industry under a system,” said Dewan. “It is a worldwide practice,” he remarked.

Commenting on the existing import policy, which is over 65 years old, BJS President Delip Roy said, “Sure, it al-lows us to import gold, but it takes over 15 days. That makes it tough to adjust prices as the price of gold � uctuates every day.”

“We want a comprehensive gold import policy which will tell us how we should get gold and in which prices it should be sold,” he added.

The BJS leader said if the government were to introduce a separate policy for gold import to ensure constant supply, jewellers would be able to sell their ornaments at the global rate in the local market.

A jeweller at New Market told this correspondent the Bangladeshi

jewellers made world-class ornaments which could be exported.

“Our products are in demand abroad due to their lightness and attractive designs. Our goldsmiths can made ornaments very light compared to ornaments in India,” he said.

“We just want supply of gold, rather than some policy,” the jeweller added.

“Currently, the gold is imported under the general import policy. If the jewellers have any query related to gold import, they can communicate with concerned authority,” said Commerce Secretary Mahbub Ahmed.

In 2011, responding to the demands of BJS, the government decided to formulate a national gold policy to facilitate expansion of jewellery business in the country.

It formed a committee to formulate gold import policy with representatives from the concerned ministry and organisations. The initiative, however, is yet to bear any fruit.l

Personal sta� , househelps made AL PAGE 1 COLUMN 1On December 29 last year, 66 more assistant secretaries were announced through a council.

The assistant secretaries are tasked with strengthening the party’s election campaign.

Awami League sources con� rmed that Presidium member Obaidul Quad-er and Joint General Secretary Mah-bub-Ul-Alam Hanif prepared the list.

When contacted, Hanif, however, said: “I did not propose or recommend anyone’s name. Presidium member Obaidul Quader prepared the list.

“I just played the role of a carrier. I handed over the prepared list to the party president and after her approval I sent it back to the party o� ce.”

Obaidul Quader did not recive calls from the Dhaka Tribune.

Masud Parvej and Masud Pathik, personal secretaries of Awami League Presidium member Nuh-ul-Alam Le-nin; Nazrul Islam Noman, personal secretary of advisory council member

HT Imam; Sheikh Mohammad Mehe-di Hasan, personal secretary of Hanif; Khokon Paul, caretaker of Hanif’s busi-ness organisation; Ataul Bullet, APS of Science and Technology Minister Yafes Osman; Abul Kalam Azad Ilyas, househelp of Deputy O� ce Secretary Mrinal Kanti Das; and Allauddin, o� ce sta� of Sheikh Hasina’s Dhanmondi of-� ce, got the position of assistant secre-tary in the new committee.

Some leaders – Riazul Hasan Khan, Ra� qul Islam Bappy, Asif Mohammad Joli, Masud Iqbal and Niranjan Bhow-mik who allegedly maintain good liai-son with the party high-ups, are also in the new committee.

Farhad Hossain Sangram, Simanta Talukdar, Sajjad Hossain, Jakir Hossain Maruf, Anwarul Azim Sadek, Habib Ahmed Murad, Mohammad Alam and Mustafa Jamal Babul, who have been inactive since the 1/11 changeover, also got the position.

Among them, Simanta Talukder fac-es allegations of terrorist activities and

repression of women. Anwarul Azim Sadek is allegedly involved with illegal VoIP business.

There are allegations of extortion and terrorist activites against Arifuz-zaman Mia Tutul, Ra� qul Alam Ga� ari Rasel, Saiful Islam and Jamil Hossain.

Tutul is son of Sujanagar BNP unit president and a key accused in the Dhaka College Chhatra League leader Dablu killing case.

Tarek Shams Himu, who played a controversial role during the ar-my-backed caretaker government; Khan Mainul Islam Mustak, who faces a rape case; Fazlul Haque, who print-ed posters against Hasina in his press; also got positions in the committee.

Apart from them, Swechchhasebak League vice-presidents Afzalur Rahman Babu and Gazi Misbahul Hossain Sachchu also got position, which is a violation of the party charter that one person cannot hold more than one position in the party or its associate bodies. l

News 3DHAKA TRIBUNE Thursday, August 8, 2013

Government reconsidered ICT Act to ‘misuse’ it: Defencen Udisa Islam

The counsel for BNP lawmaker Sa-lauddin Quader Chowdhury yesterday claimed that the International Crimes (Tribunals) Act 1973 was reconsidered 40 years after it had been enacted, to misuse it.

On the fourth day of closing argu-ments, the defence said with this, the government wanted to harass the po-litical � gures, otherwise it could have tried people under the Code of Crimi-nal Procedure (CrPC). Counsel Ahsanul Haque argued that all the processes of the tribunal were similar to the CrPC but it was called the ICT Act.

After yesterday’s proceedings, the tribunal 1, headed by Justice ATM Fa-zle Kabir, � xed August 12 as the date to end the defence’s closing arguments. Earlier, the prosecution took part in ar-guments for four days.

In his argument, defence counsel Ahsanul said: “I am not criticising the

[ICT] Act, law, rules or anybody else but trying to criticise the intention. We would welcome the Act if the trial began in 1973. Now the government is using this Act only to misuse it.”

At that point, tribunal member Jus-tice Anwarul Hoque asked him who had enacted the rules. Ahsanul replied that the court had created it: “I am not criticising this.”

Prosecutor Sultan Mahmud placed his submission on the matter and said the Act was formulated in 1973 but not the tribunal. “Already the tribu-nal has pronounced six verdicts. This is not the proper time to raise this question.”

Justice Jahangir then told the pros-ecution to submit a written argument and reminded them not to interfere as the defence did not interfere at the time of their arguments.

Ahsanul then argued: “There is no di� erence between Internation-al Crimes [Tribunals] Act of 1973 and

the [Bangladesh] Collaborator [Special Tribunals] as both do not provide the de� nition of crime. Why did they do it? Because the tribunal is domestic, rules are domestic and the penal code exists here. We are just calling it Internation-al Crimes Tribunals.”

He told the tribunal that the de� -nition could be taken from domestic laws, and there is therefore “no need to � nd any international de� nition.”

The tribunal then told him: “It is al-ready decided that we can use interna-tional de� nitions in our trial.”

At the beginning of the arguments, Ahsanul told the tribunal that he had been sick for the last couple of days and sought adjournment of the pro-ceedings. “I am su� ering from a respi-ratory problem,” he said.

Tribunal Chairman Justice Kabir asked him: “Where are your assistants? Why are you alone today?” Ahsanul replied that all his colleagues went on Eid vacation. l

Indictment hearing against Mir Kashem adjourned n Udisa Islam

The war crimes tribunal has set August 18 as the date for the defence’s argu-ments on the indictment hearing in the case against Jamaat-e-Islami lead-er Mir Kashem Ali, an alleged al-Badr leader and chairman of Diganta Media Corporation.

The prosecution ended their hear-ing on the formal charges on July 25. Yesterday was assigned for the defence arguments in favour of Mir Kashem, a key � nancier of Jamaat.

At the beginning of the session, de-fence counsel barrister Abdur Razzaq told the tribunal 1 that the prosecution did not provide them with 38 pages of the 109-pages document. “They did not provide us with the CDs and DVDs too. Therefore, we are not prepared enough to place the arguments.”

In response, prosecutor Sultan Mah-mud told the tribunal that they had given the defence all necessary docu-ments earlier yesterday. “It is already too late to frame the charges against Mir Kashem. We want to continue the charge framing argument.”

After hearing both the sides, the tri-bunal set the new date for the hearing.

Earlier on May 26, the tribunal took the formal charges into cognisance and � xed June 27 for the indictment hearing. Following a time petition, the hearing was deferred to July 18. That

was also deferred and the date set for yesterday.

According to the prosecution, Mir Kashem was the commander of al-Badr (a paramilitary group which assisted Pakistan’s occupation army during the Liberation War) in Chittagong district. He also allegedly set up makeshift camps at di� erent places in the port city where people who were assisting the freedom � ghters were brought in and tortured. Allegations against him also include mass killings in the Ashadnagar and Panchlaish areas of Chittagong.

State prosecutor Zead-Al-Malum submitted the formal charges to the tri-bunal. The 1,635 page document includ-ed 92 pages of formal charges and 83 pages of statements of witnesses. The prosecution also submitted evidence on two CDs, a DVD and a video CD.

The government claims that envoys from European Union countries, the US, Turkey and Saudi Arabia raised various questions about the trial of al-leged war criminals because of lobby-ing by Jamaat. 

Law Minister Sha� que Ahmed on April 28 in parliament said: “Ja-maat-e-Islami has signed an agree-ment with a US lobbyist � rm to make the trials controversial. Mir Kashem Ali paid $25 million (for this purpose).” He also claimed that the government had copies of the money receipt and the agreement as proof. l

Dhaka, Delhi join hands to � nd graves of freedom � ghtersn Tribune Online Report

India and Bangladesh are jointly mak-ing e� orts to trace graves of over 2,000 martyred freedom � ghters of 1971 Lib-eration War, buried on the border in Tripura, West Bengal, Assam and Me-ghalaya.

Quoting Indian o� cials, PTI report-ed that four nodal o� cers from the In-dian side were appointed at Agartala, Kolkata, Guwahati and Shillong who would help Bangladeshi o� cials and their representatives to � nd the graves.

Lt Col (retd) Sajjad A Zahir, joint sec-retary of liberation war a� airs ministry, told the Indian news agency that after thorough research, the Bangladesh au-thorities came up the conclusion that more than 2,000 martyred freedom � ghters were laid into eternal rest in di� erent spots of four Indian states of Tripura, West Bengal, Assam and Me-ghalaya.

“I have identi� ed 27 spots in India where the warriors of the Liberation War are buried,” Zahir said.

He said the � nal report about the lo-cation of graves was given recently to his ministry by Indian authorities.

He had visited Tripura a year ago and held talks with the state government o� cials for identifying the graves.

Zahir, who was conferred the Bir Protik award for his heroic e� ort during the war, said according to Dhaka’s esti-mates, 4,000 people had gone missing during the war.

The � rst success came to Zahir in December, 2007, when he traced the body of Bir Shrestha Hamidur Rahman at Hatimarachara, about 10km from Ambasa, the district headquarters of Dhalai and about 84km from Agartala.

Zahir had to struggle for � ve-and-a-half hours to exhume the remains be-fore taking them back to the National Freedom Fighters’ Graveyard at capi-tal’s Mirpur area.

Quoting Brahmanbaria Deputy Com-missioner Nur Mohammad Majumder, who was in India last month, PTI said it was di� cult to � nd the graves of the freedom � ghters.

West Tripura District Magistrate Kiran Gitte said if Bangladesh gave a list of possible locations, the graves could be located with the help of local people and Bangladeshi o� cials.

Two graves of freedom � ghters were identi� ed at Tripura’s Ramnagar and Joynagar, Gitte said. l

No Eid celebration for relatives of Rana Plaza victims who are on a hunger strike at the tragedy site for compensation DHAKA TRIBUNE

Tight security measures during Eid holidaysn Tribune Desk

A three-phase security measure has been implemented in the country to ensure peaceful celebration of Eid-ul- Fitr.

“We have taken three-phase secu-rity arrangements before, during and after Eid for smooth celebration of the festival,” Inspector General of Police (IGP) Hassan Mahmud Khandker told BSS yesterday.

“The security arrangements have been planned keeping in mind the safe journey of the home-goers and their return and especially to ensure securi-ty in the shopping malls, markets and houses during the Eid vacation,” he said.

“If necessary, the security measures will be extended to cover the upcoming

hartal on August 13 and 14 after Eid,” he added.

The IGP, along with Dhaka Metro-politan Police (DMP) Commissioner Benazir Ahmed, visited Bashundhara City, Rapa Plaza and Gabtoli Bus Stand yesterday to oversee the security ar-rangements there.

Check posts have been set up at all entry and exit points of the country to provide foolproof security and these are being monitored around-the-clock.

Rapid Action Battalion (Rab) and po-lice personnel have been stationed in close proximity to the all of the check posts and key point installations (KPIs) across the country.

Furthermore, di� erent agencies have been directed to conduct block raids at di� erent guesthouses, slums and crime hotspots in the city. There

will also be a strong vigil on highways and in the border areas.

Police, Rab and other members of law enforcement agencies have been asked to strengthen coordination to curb all sorts of illegal activities during the festival.

Security measures have already been strengthened at important bus, launch and railway terminals across the country to ensure safe journeys for people travelling home for Eid.

Closed-Circuit Television (CCTV) cameras were installed at di� erent stra-tegic points across the country, includ-ing at Sadarghat Launch Terminal, im-portant bus terminals and Kamalapur Railway Station. Large numbers of plainclothes police will also keep watch on 144 markets and shopping malls in the capital during the Eid holidays. l

Blogger Asif granted bailn Md Sanaul Islam Tipu

A Dhaka court on Wednesday granted bail to blogger Asif Mohiuddin who was detained on April 3 this year for al-legedly violating information, commu-nication and technology laws.

Dhaka Metropolitan Session’s Senior Special Judge Md Zahirul Haque passed the order responding to bail plea � led by defence lawyer Jyotirmoy Barua around 12 noon.

Jyotirmoy Barua said: “Asif was granted ad-interim bail for one month on health grounds.”

Earlier on July 29, another Dhaka court sent blogger Asif Mohiuddin to jail, rejecting his plea for permanent bail citing that he had no-speci� c rea-son to get bail.

On April 3, Asif was arrested in con-nection with a non-First Information Report (FIR) case � led under Section 57(2) of the Information Communica-tion Technology Act 2006. l

Reviews on environment policy still openn Probir K Sarker

The deadline for people to submit opin-ions on the draft National Environment Policy 2013 has been extended.

The previous deadline had ended on July 31, but the reviews could still be submitted on the website of the Department of Environment (DoE) at www.doe-bd.org for a few more days, said an o� cial of the DoE. However, no new deadline has been set yet.

The draft policy, prepared by the en-vironment and forest ministry, is avail-able only in Bangla.

It will replace the old one dated 1992 since the form of degradation of environment and ecology has changed while climate change requires a larger focus. In the circumstances, sustain-able conservation and development is needed besides ensuring better disas-ter management.

The proposal states that it will re-� ect the issues of conservation of en-vironment and biodiversity in line with the basic principles of the country’s constitution.

Moreover, it will be treated as a com-prehensive policy for conservation and development and will coordinate all the environment-related issues men-tioned in other national policies.

It also speci� es how the plans would be implemented in association with di� erent ministries and government agencies.

The amendment proposal covers wide range of issues: land use in plains and hill areas, water resources manage-ment, air quality, pollution, food and drinking water, agriculture, forest man-agement, biosafety, hilly ecosystems, coastal and marine ecosystems, eco-tourism, health, urbanisation, � sheries and livestock and industrialisation. l

News

WEATHER

Shehri and Iftar time

4 DHAKA TRIBUNE Thursday, August 8, 2013

City High LowDhaka 30.6 24.5Chittagong 31.2 25.8Rajshahi 30.0 26.9Rangpur 27.3 25.2Khulna 31.0 25.8Barisal 32.5 25.5Sylhet 30.8 24.7Cox’s Bazar 33.5 26.3

Day Shehri IftarRamadan 29/Aug 8 4:05am 6:41pmRamadan 30/Aug 9 4:06am 6:40pm

Slight fall in temperature likelyn UNB

Light to moderate rain or thunder-showers accompanied by temporary gusty wind is likely to occur at most places over Dhaka, Khulna, Barisal Ra-jshahi, Rangpur, Chittagong and Sylhet until 6pm today.

Moderately heavy to very heavy falls are also likely at places over the country, Met O� ce said.

Day and night temperature may fall slightly over the country.

The sun sets in the capital at 6:37pm today and rises at 5:31am tomorrow.

Country’s highest temperature 33.5 degree Celsius was recorded yesterday at Cox’s Bazar and lowest 24.1 degrees at Srimangal.

Highest and lowest temperature re-corded in some major cities yesterday were:

PRAYER TIMESFajar 4:09am

Sunrise 5:29amZohr 12:04pm

Asr 4:41pmMagrib 6:45pm

Esha 7:59pmSource: IslamicFinder.org

Female migrant workers in HK face problemsMany struggling from food and language constraints, some already terminatedn Rabiul Islam

Female Bangladeshi migrant workers who went to Hong Kong to work as housemaids are facing various prob-lems, including dealing with the lan-guage and food habits.

Though they left three months ago with expectations of high earnings, many are yet to send a penny to their families back home.

A relative of one of the migrants said her sister could not send any money over the last three months.

“How my sister will send money? After a few days of joining, the employ-er terminated her contract,” Doli Be-gum, sister of migrant Shefali Begum, told the Dhaka Tribune over the phone yesterday.

Shefali and her daughter Moush-umi went to Hong Kong following three months training, hoping to earn Tk40,000 each in monthly wages.

Doli, from Narayanganj, said: “My sis-ter was dismissed by her employer a few days after joining the job after they said she does not understand the lan-guage.”

She said: “After terminating both Shefali and Moushumi’s contracts, the employer paid them one and a half months salary.”

Later, the agency in Hong Kong sent them to Macau. They returned to Hong Kong after one month and 10 days. The agency has taken Tk100,000 from She-fali and Moushumi, Doli claimed.

“I heard that they have joined new jobs and do not know what will hap-pen. We have not started to pay o� the loan taken from Probashi Kallyan Bank. My sister has left behind another daughter and her sons, but still could not save any money,” said Doli.

Abdul Alim, proprietor of SA Trad-ing, which has sent 62 female workers

to Hong Kong, admitted that female migrants there faced some problems. However, he hoped the problems would be solved and the workers would be able to send money.

Regarding the termination of Se-fali and Moushumi’s contracts, the re-cruiter claimed that the agency in Hong Kong has already managed new jobs for them.

Alim however said that following the termination of their contracts, the migrants would have to take new visas from the authorities to avoid returning home or they have to go to Macau.

Meanwhile, Shamim Ahmed Chow-dhury Noman, proprietor of Sadia In-ternational, which sent 32 female mi-grants to Hong Kong, said many of the migrants are facing problem with food as they cannot eat Chinese food.

Bureau of Manpower, Employment and Training (BMET) Director General Begum Shamsun Nahar admitted that a few migrants are facing problems and want to return home.

“We are trying to address the prob-lems,” Nahar told the Dhaka Tribune over the phone.

Under the public-private-partner-ship, the BMET signed an agreement with Technic Employment Services Limited, a Hong Kong-based recruiting agency, to send workers to Hong Kong. According to the agreement, workers would initially be recruited for two years, with contracts that can be re-newed for three more years.

Under the agreement, so far a total of 94 Bangladeshi migrant workers have gone to Hong Kong to work as housemaids.

According to BMET o� cials, each migrant worker had to pay Tk20,000 to the private recruiting agency as service charge, including manpower clearance and government tax.

The Hong Kong-based recruiting agency took $1,300 (Tk104,000) from each worker. The BMET o� cials said the amount included the airfare, and training in both Bangladesh and Hong Kong.

The workers are paying the Hong Kong recruiting agency by taking loans from Probashi Kallyan Bank (Expatri-ates’ Welfare Bank). The repayments will be deducted from their wages over a nine-month period. l

Nuke power plant construction to end in due time: PMn UNB

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in a meeting yesterday said she was hope-ful that the government would com-plete the construction of Rooppur Nu-clear Power plant in due time.

She stated this while presiding over the 3rd meeting of the national com-mittee on Rooppur Power Plant Project held at her o� ce. PM’s Press Secretary

Abul Kalam Azad briefed the reporters after the meeting.

Hasina said the government has al-ready completed many works related with the nuclear power plant including an agreement, which was signed with the Russian government last January.

Referring to the power sector devel-opment by the present Awami League-led grand alliance government, the prime minister said the present gov-

ernment faced a severe crisis of power when it took o� ce.

Since then, the government, through various types of power plants, generated power throughout the country and now, gradually the power crisis was mitigated.

She also criticised the previous BNP-Jamaat alliance government and the army backed caretaker government for the power crisis in the country. She said these governments did not increase the

electric power generation capacities during their seven years of rule.

The meeting also approved the de-cisions that were taken in the second meeting of the national committee on Rooppur Power Plant Project.

Finance Minister AMA Muhith, Planning Minister AK Khandaker, Agri-culture Minister Matia Chowdhury and secretaries concerned were present in the meeting. l

D E S T I N A T I O N – H O M E

Government blamed for Taindong attacksn Muktasree Chakma Sathi

Rights activists, columnists, journalists and academics yesterday condemned the recent attacks on indigenous com-munities in Taindong of Matiranga in Khagrachhari district.

They said recurrence of such attacks on the indigenous communities over the years indicated the government’s failure to protect the people in the Chittagong Hill Tracts, and demanded exemplary punishment of the attackers and imme-diate rehabilitation of the victims.

The demands came from a press brie� ng held at the Dhaka Reporters Unity in the city.

They said settler Bangalees launched arson attacks in four areas of Taindong union in the afternoon of August 3 when the indigenous communities were cel-ebrating the International Day of World Indigenous Peoples across the country.

The attack left around 400 houses, including temples, burned into ashes and drove several thousand panicked locals to � ee their homesteads, they claimed. Local and international media reports say the victims took shelter in woods and also in the no-man’s land along the Bangladesh-India border af-ter crossing river Feni.

The attacks were made following the rumour of abduction of one Kamal. Later, the superintendent of police in Khagrachhari, Sheikh Mizanur Rah-man, told reporters that the episode of abduction was cooked.

Speaking at the press brie� ng, colum-nist Syed Abul Maksud observed that the country’s reputation was in stake due to such attacks on the indigenous peoples.

He said the government’s claims of development through billboards all over the capital would be marred by shame if the indigenous peoples start-

ed hanging billboards mentioning the oppression on the minorities.

Sanjeeb Drong, general secretary of Bangladesh Indigenous Peoples Fo-rum, alleged that the government had failed to provide adequate security for the indigenous peoples.

“It is more frustrating that even though we have a peace accord, the in-digenous people of the Chittagong Hill Tracts still have to seek asylum from the neighbouring country.”

“Unfortunately, no judicial investiga-tions have ever been done in such attacks on indigenous peoples,” Sanjeeb added.

Journalist Abu Sayeed Khan, Nu-man Ahmed Khan of Institute for En-vironment and Development, Nur Khan of Ain o Salish Kendra, lawyer Nilufar Banu, Asit Baran Roy of Communist Kendra and Dipayan Khisa of Kapaeeng Foundation also spoke. l

34 UP by-polls on September 5n Mohammad Zakaria

The Election Commission (EC) yester-day declared that the by-polls, to � ll vacancies of the posts of chairmen and members at 34 union parishads, would be held on September 5.

The EC would also use the updated voter list in the UP polls, last updated on January 31.

The commission, through a letter signed by its Senior Assistant Secretary Farhad Hossain, asked the concerned district and upazila election o� cers to take necessary initiatives for holding the by-election of the union parishads.

EC o� cials said the commission has taken all kinds of preparation for hold-ing the 34 UP by-elections.

The by-polls to the six chairman post out of 34 UPs are: Mollapara UP under Sunamganj sadar upazila, Umorpur

UP under Balaganj in Sylhet District, Durgapur UP under Durgapur upazila in Netrokona, Dhoom UP under Mirsa-rai upazila under Chittagong, Toria UP under Atoari upazila under Panchaghar district and Rajgati UP under Nandail upazila in Mymensingh.

Besides, some by-elections member posts are: Khoyerpur-Abdullah un-der Ostogram upazila in Kishoreganj, Upadi Uttar under Motlab Dhakkhin, Goshbagh under Kabirhat in Noakhali, Halfsari under Ramgar in Khagrach-hari, Mondori under Baniacang in Hab-iganj, Padumshahar under Saghata in Gaibandha, Ulania under Mehadiganj in Barisal, Dhulahura under Hariram-pur in Manikganj, Boerchuna under Pirganj in Thakurgaon, Chandhar un-der Singaer in Manikganj, Omarpur under Chirirbandar in Dinajpur, among others. l

As one may say ‘too much of a struggle’, to these people going home by any means is the only priority. Homebound people from all walks are leaving the capital ahead of Eid-ul-Fitr to celebrate the joyous occasion with their relatives back home DHAKA TRIBUNE

Singer Jhuma ‘rescued’n Our Correspondent, Narsingdi

Narsingdi police “rescued” Channel I Khudey Gaanraj � rst runner up singer Jhum Jhum Akter Jhuma from the cap-ital’s Victim Support Centre, Tejgaon yesterday.

Narsingdi sadar police station O� -cer-in-Charge Ashduzzaman said Jhu-ma claimed she took shelter at Tejga-on’s Victim Support Centre to escape from her mother’s torture regarding di� erent issues. That is why she � ed

and took shelter in the support centre in Tejgaon at Dhaka.

Jesmin Begum, mother of Jhuma, earlier alleged that Isra� l and Faisal ab-ducted Jhuma at gunpoint on July 23. She also claimed that the Narsingdi sa-dar police were reluctant in � ling a case and take any legal action. Later, after her petition and upon Judge Enamul’s order, a case was � led.

She claimed Isra� l sent Jhuma to Tejgaon victim support centre and � ed after the case was � led. l

Road accident kills 2 in Bogran UNB

Two people were killed and 10 others injured in a head-on collision between a bus and a truck on the Bogra-Dhaka highway in Sherpur upazila, Bogra yes-terday.

The deceased were a man and a woman, from Shibganj upazila. Fur-ther details of them could not be known immediately.

O� cer-in-Charge of Sherpur police station Aminul Islam said the accident took place in Danukundi area around 7:30am when a Bogra-bound truck collided head-on with a Dhaka-bound bus, leaving two passengers of the bus dead on the spot and ten others in-jured.

Of the injured, two were admitted to Sherpur Upazila Health Complex. The bodies were kept at the hospital. l

30 injured as RMG workers stage demosn Tribune Report

Agitated garment workers staged demonstrations and vandalised a factory in Ashulia yesterday to press home their demand for their salaries from July and Eid bonuses.

At least 30 people were injured after alleged henchman of the factory owner cracked down on their demonstration. Abdus Sattar, an o� cial of the Ashulia industrial police, said the incident occurred around 9am, in the Sadupara area of the region, when workers of Landmark Group began demonstrating in front of the factory to demand their dues.

At one stage, the demonstrators went haywire and smashed doors and windowpanes of the factory. Later, police brought the situation under control, he added.

The workers alleged that the factory had paid the salaries of a few workers but the salaries of some 8,000 other workers remained unpaid. They also said 30 of their fellow demonstrators were injured as “paid henchmen” of the factory owner attacked them.

Police, however, could not con� rm the news of the attack by outsiders.

Security was beefed up in the area to avoid any further unrest.

Meanwhile, on the same day, workers of a garment factory in Chittagong staged a demonstration by erecting barricades on a road in the Badamtoli area. They too were demanding payment of their outstanding salaries and festival allowances.

Witnesses said around 250 workers of Orchid Fashion, situated in the city’s Agrabad area under Double Mooring Police Station, blockaded the Sheikh Mujib Road area around 1:30pm.

They alleged that they had failed to get their salaries despite repeatedly urging factory authorities.

They continued the blockade for an hour until 2:30pm, triggering a long tailback. Later police dispersed them and brought the tra� c back to normal.

Are� n Jewel, additional deputy commissioner (west) of Chittagong Metropolitan Police, said the workers and respective authorities had a post-demonstration meeting to solve the problem, in which the latter promised to pay all dues immediately.

The owner of the factory, however, could not be contacted for comment despite several attempts to reach his mobile phone. l

BMET and Technic Employment Services Limited, a Hong Kong-based recruiting agency signed an agreement which states that workers would initially be recruited for two years, with contracts that can be renewed for three more years.

LawDHAKA TRIBUNE Thursday, August 8, 2013 5

LEGAL TIPS LEGAL AID

NOTICE BOARD

CASE STORY LAW HUMOUR

n Law Desk

If you are thinking of buying an apartment or a piece of land for either residential or business purposes, you need to com-plete the following legal requirements.

Confirm the record of rights from the Land Office Land administration system in Bangladesh separates re-cords of ownership and records of revenue as such. We have Land Records O� ces for land records, surveys, publication and maintenance of records under the directorate of land re-cords and survey, Ministry of Land.

We also have Land Revenue O� ces under Ministry of Land. There are 11 administrative o� ces in each upazila (sub district). There are 64 districts in Bangladesh but only 61 of them have registration facility.

Three hill districts do not have registration centres. In Dhaka, the district land registration o� ce has 13 Sub-regis-trar o� ces under the Ministry of Law.

Conduct mutation on property Any transfers of titles subsequent to the last survey on Dha-ka city must be converted (mutated) to the latest survey. From January 2012 city surveys are conducted in Dhaka city instead of conducting Revisional Survey (RS) mutation. This is done by the assistant commissioner of lands (Tahsil) and speci� c Tahsil o� ces.

In order to obtain this, an application is required to be made to the concerned assistant commissioner of land with particulars of the property. The assistant commissioner will forward the same to the concerned Tahsil o� ce who are re-sponsible for conducting the relevant survey and providing a report to assistant commissioner of land.

Upon receiving the report, the assistant commissioner of land renders the mutation certi� cate. From January 1, 2012 all properties automatically come under City Survey Khatian (Record of rights).

Obtain inspection for RS mutation The permission is only mandatory when the property is under the control of either the Ministry of Works (National Housing Authority) or Rajuk (Rajdhani Unnayan Kartripak-kh). Although the permission is usually granted barring ex-ceptions, uno� cial payments are still paid in order to expe-dite the process and guarantee approval.

The buyer should make sure that the property is up to date with payments to the city corporation revenue depart-ment, gas utility service, electricity utility service, and the water utility service to make sure that there is no outstand-ing dues payable so that those liabilities do not transfer to him. These are standard steps and not mandatory for reg-istration.

Obtain the non-encumbrance certificate from the relevant sub-registry office The buyer should check the legal status of the land (mort-gaged or leased or ownership) at the relevant Sub-registry o� ce. From January 2012 onwards, both Sub-registry and Land Revenue O� ces provide non-encumbrance certi� -cates. Sometimes land report is required.

A land report gives an idea about the current status and

ownership of the land that may include chain of ownership, land tax, land record, registry status etc, whereas a non-en-cumbrance certi� cate is used in property transactions as an evidence of entitlement of the property.

Prepare deed of transfer and pay stamp dutyA lawyer may prepare the transfer deed, but it can also be prepared by the parties themselves. The deed must be pre-pared in stamped paper that should cost 3% of the property value to get it. This represents the stamp duty.

Pay capital gains tax, registration fee, VAT and other taxes at a designated bank Registration fee is payable to the bank in favour of the sub-registry o� ce and the receipt is to be presented at the mo-ment of applying for registration.

The buyer has to pay the local government tax to the concerned city corporation or municipality o� ces. Further-more, a capital gains tax (CGT) and a VAT of 1.5% (applicable only for municipal corporation area payable by private hous-ing and � at developers and commercial businesses) have to be paid at this stage. Capital gains tax is not applicable in rural areas for agriculture.

Apply for registration at the relevant Sub-registry At this stage, the buyer may apply for registration at the Municipal Deed Registry O� ce, presenting the receipts of payment of the registration and other fees. A certi� ed regis-tration document is obtained within a week for the buyer’s record. The original sale deed/certi� cate requires about six months to be obtained.

Register the change in ownership at the Land Revenue Office The change of ownership must be registered in the Land Revenue O� ce. The property is recorded under the name of the new owner, who is responsible for paying the land taxes from the day the property is transferred. l

Buying a plot or a � at?

A land report gives an idea about the current status and ownership of the land that may include chain of ownership, land tax, land record, registry status etc, whereas a non-encumbrance certi� cate is used in property transactions as an evidence of entitlement of the property

Free legal servicesfor the poorn Law Desk

Can’t a� ord a court case? Do not worry. In Bangladesh we have a good number of organisations that provide pro bono legal services for those who cannot a� ord to institute or de-fend a case in the court. National Legal Aid Services Organi-sation is one such organisation.

Since majority people of Bangladesh are impoverished, they cannot avail legal aid to protect and vindicate their le-gal rights and lawful causes. To address this problem legal aid services have been activated under the Legal Aid Act, 2000. The law provides for giving legal support to poor peo-ple to institute or defend cases in courts.

Legal aid o� ces have been set up in 64 districts to make the legal aid services more e� ective, expeditious and ser-vice-oriented.

A district legal aid o� cer, besides providing legal aid ser-vices to the poor and helpless litigants, provides people with legal advices. Currently, disposal of cases, forwarded by the Court or Tribunal, through district legal aid o� cer, is being considered by the government.

Legal aid committees headed by the respective district judges have also been constituted with government o� cers, lawyers, voluntary organisations in each district. A statutory body called National Legal Aid Organisation has been estab-lished and there is a National Board of Director consisting of 19 members.

The members represent ministers of Ministry of Law, Justice and Parliamentary A� airs as chairman, members of parliament, attorney-general of Bangladesh, govern-ment o� cials as well as representatives from civil societies.            The National Legal Aid Committee is presently looking into the jail appeal matter and as a result, many poor con-victs are getting bene� ts of the law. Under the Legal Aid Programme, private lawyers are also being engaged in this process and are conducting the jail appeals in courts. These programmes have been taken to give legal aid to the poor, distressed and helpless people access to justice.

In order to provide primary information on legal aid, the National Legal Aid Services Organisation initiated a hotline service with three mobile numbers (01761222222-4) at its head o� ce. Under the service, anyone can get necessary in-formation about legal aid service and its procedure through a phone call from any part of the country.

Primary legal advice is also given to the callers in addition to the information. l

The case that shaped Miranda Rightsn Law Desk

In Miranda v Arizona (1966), the US Supreme Court ruled that detained criminal suspects, prior to police questioning, must be informed of their constitutional right to an attorney and against self-incrimination.

The case began with the 1963 arrest of Phoenix resident Ernesto Miranda, who was charged with rape, kidnapping and robbery. Miranda was not informed of his rights prior to the police interrogation.

During the two-hour interrogation, Miranda allegedly confessed to committing the crimes, which the police appar-

ently recorded. Miranda, who had not � nished ninth grade and had a history of mental instability, had no counsel pres-ent. At trial, the prosecution’s case consisted solely of his confession. Miranda was convicted of both rape and kidnap-ping and sentenced to 20 to 30 years in prison.

He appealed to the Arizona Supreme Court, claiming that the police had unconstitutionally obtained his confession. The court disagreed, however, and upheld the conviction. Miranda appealed to the US Supreme Court, which reviewed the case in 1966.

The Supreme Court, in a 5-4 decision written by Chief Justice Earl Warren, ruled that the prosecution could not introduce Miranda’s confession as evidence in a criminal trial because the police had failed to � rst inform Miranda of his right to an attorney and against self-incrimination. The

duty to give these warnings is compelled by the Constitu-tion’s Fifth Amendment, which gives a criminal suspect the right to refuse “to be a witness against himself,” and Sixth Amendment, which guarantees criminal defendants the right to an attorney.

The court maintained that the defendant’s right against self-incrimination has long been part of Anglo-American law as a means to equalise the vulnerability inherent in being de-tained.

This and other forms of intimidation, maintained the court, deprive criminal suspects of their basic liberties and can lead to false confessions. The defendant’s right to an attorney is an equally fundamental right, because the pres-ence of an attorney in interrogations, according to Chief Justice Warren, enables “the defendant under otherwise compelling circumstances to tell his story without fear, ef-fectively, and in a way that eliminates the evils in the inter-rogations process.”

Thus, to protect these rights in the face of widespread ignorance of the law, the court devised statements that the police are required to tell a defendant who is being detained and interrogated. These mandatory “Miranda Rights” be-gin with “the right to remain silent,” and continue with the statement that “anything said can and will be used against the defendant in a court of law.”

The police are further compelled to inform the suspect of his or her right to an attorney and allow for a defendant’s attorney who can accompany him during interrogations. Because none of these rights was a� orded to Ernesto Mi-randa and his “confession” was thus unconstitutionally admitted at trial, his conviction was reversed. Miranda was later retried and convicted without the admission of his confession.

Miranda v Arizona, in creating the “Miranda Rights” , reconciled the increasing police powers of the state with the basic rights of individuals. l

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Miranda v Arizona, in creating the ‘Miranda Rights’, reconciled the increasing police powers of the state with the basic rights of individuals

New plots being developed in Uttara SYED ZAKIR HOSSAIN/DHAKA TRIBUNE

6 NationDHAKA TRIBUNE Thursday, August 8, 2013

Natural preservation cuts potato production costn Our Correspondent, Jhenaidah

A farmer in Jhenaidah has been pre-serving potatoes for the last 28 years using an environment friendly meth-od, which requires no chemicals and very low cost.

Everyday large numbers of farm-ers from across the country visits Altaf Hossain of village Ganna in Jhenaidah sadar upazila to take a look at age-old technology.

The Department of Agricultural Ex-tension, various government and non-government organisations and scien-tists have praised Altaf’s success with the method.

Altaf said the method had been passed down in his family for genera-tions. When he began farming, Altaf witnessed that large quantities of veg-etables of his own as well as of other farmers would go to waste for want of

preservation facilities. There were no cold storages in his locality.

Altaf was determined to follow the system he had learned from his fathers.

In 1995, he set up a raised platform near his house in a straw-made hut. As a test run, he brought in 50 maunds of potatoes and put them in dried sand on the platform. The potatoes lasted for six months and Altaf was able to sell them for double price in the lean season. The success of the experiment encouraged him go ahead with potato preservation.

Altaf said he preserved at least 1,000 maunds of potato in the current season and sold them at double price.

“The demand for my naturally pre-served potatoes is higher as I do not use any chemical pesticides or preserv-atives,” Altaf said.

“The trick is, before you store the potatoes, you separate the a� ected and

immature ones from the good ones so that they cannot a� ect the rest during preservation,” he explained.

With Altaf’s method, potatoes can be preserved for at least eight months.

Hard work, self-con� dence and this ingenious method has turned Altaf into one of the most successful vegetable farmers in the south-west. At least two trucks of his vegetables are sent to dif-ferent parts of the country every day, the farmer said.

Altaf said he cultivates vegetables on about 100 bighas of land including his own 45 bighas. At least 10 bighas of his land are used for potato farming. The farmer employs 40-50 farmhands every day.

Deputy Director of the Department of Agricultural Extension Joynul Abed-in said Altaf’s potato preservation sys-tem was simple and sustainable. l

10 illegal stone quarrying machines set a� re in Sylhetn UNB

A taskforce in a drive set ten illegal stone quarrying machines on � re in Jum area in Goainghat upazila, Sylhet on Tuesday.

Sources said a taskforce, along with o� cials of the local Department of En-vironment o� ce, conducted a drive in the Pian River of the area around noon and seized 10 powerful stone lifting machines, locally called ‘Boma ma-chine’.

M Azizul Islam, upazila nirbahi of-� cer of Goainghat, led the drive of the taskforce with the help of Rapid Action Battalion and police.

Such type of drive would continue in future to stop operation of the en-vironmentally hazardous stone lifting machine, said the UNO. l

Tupi Palli thriving with festivityn Tribune Desk

The ‘tupi palli’ (village of caps) at Ten-tulia in Panchagarh district is thriving with festivity as the demand for caps has reached peak ahead of the biggest religious festival of Muslims in the country, Eid-ul-� tr.

Hundreds of people, both male and female, are working day and night to produce caps of various colours and designs to cater to the increased de-mand. Besides looking after the house-holds, the women cap producers here are earning Tk100-200 per day to sup-port their families.

Cap manufacturing � rst started at the remote Mathafata village in Tentu-lia upazila in 1991 on small scale. The commercial production of caps began in 1994.

Initially, some 15,000 to 20,000 caps were produced every month. Now, the production has declined to some 4,000 to 5,000 caps a month.

The production cost of each cap is Tk50-250 depending on the materials and design.

Despite increase in the prices of raw materials, the caps produced in the Tupi Palli, are selling at reasonable prices across the country.

However, the cap industry is gradu-ally losing its tradition due to lack of capital and absence of a pragmatic government policy for � ourishing the small and cottage industry, the busi-nessmen involved in cap manufactur-ing claimed.

Al Khaiyat Cap Industry and Al Iqra Cap Industry are among the several cap manufacturing units at the Mathafata village.

Abdul Hannan, the owner of Al Khaiyat Cap Industry and a pioneer of this � eld said once the caps produced in Tentulia were exported to Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Kuwait, Indonesia, Ta-jikistan, Pakistan and other Middle Eastern countries after meeting the do-mestic demand. But now it has stopped as China has taken over the interna-tional cap market.

When he was a student, Hannan got this exciting idea of producing caps of striking designs. In 1993, he took a loan

from a friend and produced 100 caps. Later, he brought the caps to Chawk-bazar in Dhaka and sold them amid growing demands and earned quite a good amount of pro� t.

With the initial pro� t and loan of Tk70,000 taken from friends, Hannan bought a machine for sewing caps. In 1994, he went for commercial produc-tion.

Hannan said the caps are produced throughout the year but the demand rises substantially during the month of Ramadan and ahead of Eid-ul-Fitr and Eid-ul-Azha.

The Chinese government supports the cap industry in remote villages by ar-ranging electricity, gas and � rm commu-nication system as well as help market their products, so their production cost is less. Moreover, the embroidery ma-chine used in China for producing caps, costs about Tk60m, added Hannan.

Proprietor of Al Iqra Cap Industry Harun Ur Rashid said they had been producing caps on a small scale these days since the international market has been captured by China. l

River erosion wreaks havoc on Kurigram villages, crops n UNB

Unabated erosions across the banks of 12 rivers, including the Brahmapu-tra, Teesta and Dharla, have taken a turn for the worse over the last three months – leaving about 3,400 families of over 100 villages in � ve upazilas of the district homeless.

According to sources at the local epartment of Relief and Rehabilitation, the situation worsened at least at 20 points of the rivers, eroding away hun-dreds of acres of cropland, education-al institutions, historical structures, sluice gates, � ood control embank-ments and other establishments.

Meanwhile, erosion-a� ected fami-lies are living an inhuman life without emergency supplies, across the em-

bankments, roads and in their rela-tives’ houses.

O� cials at the district Water Devel-opment Board (WDB) said the Rajibpur upazila headquarters of the organisa-

tion stand threatened as the mighty Brahmaputra is getting close to it.

Many structures and parts of two cross-bars in Chilmari upazila and a one-km area of the � ood prevention embankment at Jatrapur union in Sa-dar upazila have already disappeared into a Brahmaputra gorge.

WDB Executive Engineer (Kurigram south-unit) M Abu Taher said they had earmarked 16 erosion-hit points, and

sandbags were being dumped only at the Kalirkura point to check further erosion.

He said they did not get the approval of higher authorities to start work at the 15 other points.

M Enayetullah, executive engineer of WDB (Kurigram north unit), said they could not prevent erosion by dumping sand bags at the Boldipara point, which is one of the four erosion-hit points that fell under his jurisdiction.

However, Deputy Commissioner ABM Azad said 118 bundles of corrugated iron sheets and a cash of Tk354,000 were dis-tributed among 59 erosion-hit families.

He also said some of the families were provided with 10 kilogrammes of rice each, adding that they would also distrib-ute 40 metric tons of rice and Tk500,000 among other erosion-hit families. l

3 ‘robbers’ beaten to death by mob in GazipurThree suspected robbers were killed in an attack by a mob during a robbery in Kapasia upazila, Gazipur early yesterday. One of the deceased was Masum, of Haridebpur village in Kaliganj upazila. Police and locals said a gang of robbers, numbering 10/12, entered into the house of Niranjan at Palashpur village around 4am. As the house inmates screamed, locals came to rescue them and managed to catch a member of the gang. They battered him that made him severely injured. Police rescued the robber, identi-� ed as Masum, from the angry locals but he died while being taken to Kapasia Upazila Health Complex. Later they also captured two more members of the gang. The locals beat them up merciless-ly and kept them in con� nement where they died in the morning, said Monir Hossain, sub-inspector of Kapasia police station. – UNB

5 held with hemp in MaguraPolice in a drive arrested � ve alleged drug peddlers along with 500 grams of can-nabis at Kalishankarpur village, Moham-madpur upazila, Magura on Tuesday. The arrestees were Shahid, 45, Sohel, 25, Abul Bashar, 32, Parvez, 19, and Shahabuddin, 20. O� cer-in-Charge of Mohammadpur police station Monirul Islam said on a team of police conducted a drive at the house of Manjur Hossain in Kalishankarpur village on Monday midnight and arrested the � ve. Police also recovered 500 grams of can-nabis from the house. The arrestees were produced before a court that sent them to jail, added the OC. – UNB

Farmer killed by lightning strikeA farmer was killed in a lightning strike at Talom Padmapara village, Tarash upazila, Sirajganj on Tuesday. The victim was Didar Hossain, 45, of the village. Villagers’ said Didar was struck by a lightning strike around 1pm while he was going to his cropland and died on the spot. – UNB

Indian cumin worth Tk200,000 seized in MaguraPolice seized a large consignment of cumin smuggled from India from the Dhaka-Khul-na Highway in Wapda area, Sripur upazila, Magura on Tuesday. O� cer-in-Charge of Sripur police station Biplob Kumar Nath said acting on a tip-o� , a team of police intercepted a truck on the highway around 1pm and seized huge quantity of Indian cumin in sacks. Police detained the vehicle’s driver Awal Hossain and also seized the truck. During primary interrogation, Awal admitted that he was carrying the smuggled goods to Faridpur from Jessore on hire. The driver was produced before a court. A case was � led in this connection. – UNB

Youth dies in NatoreA young man was killed after falling o� a running train at Madhanagar railway station in Noldanga upazila, Natore yes-terday. The deceased Sirajul Islam, 23, of Bogra. Ashuk Chakrabarty, station master of Natore railway station, said Sirajul fell o� Dinajpur-bound Ekuta Express train around 8:30am. His head hit a pillar of a foot over bridge as he raised the head while standing at the door of the train. Sirajul was going home to celebrate Eid-ul-Fitr, added the station master. – UNB

Truck snatched in BograMuggers took away a truck loaded with 265 sacks of wheat from Ariabazar area, Shajahanpur upazila, Bogra on Tuesday, after beating up its driver and helper. Po-lice said a gang of armed muggers blocked the Bogra-Dhaka Highway by placing logs on Monday midnight and snatched the truck carrying 265 sacks of wheat after beating up its driver Jahurul, 40, and helper Inul Haque, 35, on way to Laksham of Comilla from Hili land port, leaving them injured. Critically injured Jahurul and Inul were admitted to Shaheed Ziaur Rahman Medical College, Bogra. O� cer-in-Charge of Shajahanpur police station Mahmudul Hasan said police are trying to recover the truck. A case was � led in this connection, added the OC. – UNB

Jute turns into farmers’ bane due to � ood and drought in Kurigramn UNB

Jute growers in Kurigram are in great trouble as they are forced to harvest their produce earlier than usual this time because of � ood and river ero-sion, while other farmers of the district going through the di� cult to process their jute due to draught.

The farmers are harvesting their immature jute because of � ood in the Brahmaputra-Tista-Dharala river basin and erosion by the rivers and selling it at prices much lower than they ex-pected.

Besides, an uncertainly about time-ly retting of jute for scarcity of water in the local water bodies caused by lack of rain has gripped the cultivators of the golden � bre.

The Department of Agriculture Ex-tension, Kurigram, sources said the production target of jute was set at 21,277 hectares of land in the district this season, including the indigenous variety on 842 hectares and ‘tosa’ vari-ety on 20,435 hectares.

Jute was cultivated on 24,044 hec-tares, going 2767 hectares above the target.

But the water bodies in the district still run dry due to insu� cient rain

while it is the last week of Sraban, a Bangla month of monsoon, when they are supposed to be in spate.

Consequently, the farmers are ea-gerly in wait for rainfall to process their raw jute.

A good many of them have stacked up jute in bundles in open spaces look-ing at the time to ret it.

The jute piled up this way, on the other hand, is drying up and getting damaged, causing an ultimate loss to the farmers.

Mosta� zur Rahman, a farmer at Gorai Raghurai village, said the water bodies dried up in Kurigram sadar and Ullapara upazila and half of the Tu-pamari marshes in Burgapur area are also lying water less.

Jute is being damaged in the � elds for lack of water, he added.

Farmer Raju of Kurigram municipal-ity areas said he cultivated jute, instead of potato, on his 23 bighas which is ap-proximately 3.11 hectare of land.

As he had to harvest jute earlier and had no scope for its preservation, he had to sell the produce at lower price.

The farmers’ production cost has also increased as they have to transport jute to farther water bodies for retting it, he added. l

20 injured in Sunamganj clashn UNB

At least 20 people were injured in a clash over a piece of disputed land at Nagorpur village, Tahirpur upazila, Su-namganj on Tuesday.

Of the injured, two were admitted to the district sadar hospital in a critical condition and � ve to Tahirpur Upazila Health Complex.

O� cer-in-Charge of Tahirpur po-lice station Mollah Monir Hossain said Saiful Islam and Ka� l Uddin of the vil-lage had been at loggerheads over a piece of land for long.

When Saiful went to cultivate the land around 1pm, Ka� l along with his followers attacked him triggering a vio-lent clash that left 20 people from both sides injured, the OC added. l

Young girls are busy last-minute shopping at a Thakurgaon market yesterday FOCUS BANGLA

A local lawmker distributing rice meant for Vulnerable Feeding Group among poorer people in Dinajpur FOCUS BANGLA

NEWS IN BRIEF

About 3,400 families lost homes in the last 3 months

Metro 7DHAKA TRIBUNE Thursday, August 8, 2013

40 animals waiting for deathat Dhaka Zoo The animals have been experiencing a range of complexities relating to their agen Moniruzzaman Uzzal

At least 40 animals of 25 di� erent spe-cies have been su� ering from age-relat-ed diseases and waiting for their deaths at Dhaka Zoo in Mirpur.

The animals have been experiencing a range of complexities relating to their agedness, such as joint pain, hip pain, blindness, and tooth decay. They are losing their physical strength.

Zoo authorities said the aged ani-mals exceeded their average life expec-tancies years ago and are now living a “bonus life”.

The aging animals are carnivores, small mammals, reptiles, birds and large herbivores.

Some of species of aged animals are: royal Bengal tiger, lion, leopard, striped hyena, Asian black bear, dingo, python, olive baboon, gavial, estuarine croco-dile, common krait, white pelican, ele-

phant and hippopotamus.A royal Bengal tiger housed at Dhaka

Zoo is around 23 years old, though their average life span in captivity generally around 15 to 20 years.

The life expectancy for a striped hy-ena is between 15 and 20 years, but two of the striped hyenas at the zoo have already lived 27 years.

Two black bears at the zoo are now 29 and 30 years old respectively, though their survival range in captivity is normally 15 to 20 years.

Two elephants are now aged 65, 5 years more than their normal expected life span.

According to international standard practice, the aged animals should be taken elsewhere, removed from their cages and kept separate from other animals, or be humanely put down, said Dhaka Zoo veterinary surgeon Dr Nazmul Huda.

He added that at Dhaka Zoo author-ities are being forced to keep the ani-mals inside the zoo until they die due to a decision taken by the Ministry of Fisheries and Livestock.

Zoo o� cials said often news media publish reports saying that animals die in the zoo due to irregularities and mis-management. But, “what they actually don’t know is that animals die in large numbers here due to senility,” said one o� cial.

According to livestock specialists though, when compared to interna-tional zoos, Dhaka Zoo is like a prison for animals.

They explained that most of the animals there live in tiny cages which are very unfriendly environments for them.

Besides the tiny cages and unfriend-ly environment there are very few modern treatment facilities available

for the animals. A veterinarian at Dhaka Zoo said

they have to diagnose the diseases of the animals with inadequate facilities as they have a lack of modern equip-ment.

The zoo was established in 1974 and is now home to over 1500 animals of 121 species.

Though almost 40 years have passed since the establishment of the zoo, still there are no laws regarding its manage-ment.

A draft law was prepared 10 years ago, but the authorities could not en-sure its success.

Later, a law titled “Dhaka Zoo Act 2012” began to be formulated.

However a source at the zoo said the law has been delayed due to a lack of cooperation within the forest ministry and Ministry of Fisheries and Live-stock. l

Eid shopping gets� nal rushn Tribune Report

Buyers crowded the shopping malls in the capital in search of clothes and other wears in the last shopping rush before Eid.

During visits to di� erent shopping malls on Tuesday night and Wednes-day morning, shop owners in the city’s shopping arcades and other outlets said they have been getting an extraor-dinary � ood of customers as many of them were trying to procure festival wears at the last moment after getting their salaries.

Shoppers, mostly belonging to the middle and lower income groups, have also been swarming roadside vendors’ stalls in di� erent parts of the city, including New Market, Malibagh, Mouchak, Gulistan, Farmgate and Fa-kirerpool.

The hawkers, who run their busi-nesses from makeshift shops, are pass-ing a busy time selling clothing, mainly shirts, T-shirts, trousers and children’s clothes.

Marzia Ahmed, a female ready-to-wear garment trader at Fortune Market in the city’s Malibagh area, said sales in her showroom rose by nearly 50% on Tuesday night, compared to other recent days.

Looking satis� ed, she said this trend in sales will hopefully continue till the night before the Eid day.

But shop owners at some city mar-kets, particularly those selling sharees, expressed disappointment over this year’s Eid sales, saying they are not get-ting the desired number of customers following a decline in the real income of people in general, increases in the prices of most items and recent politi-cal instability.

Shahidul Islam Khan, owner of the Monorama Sharees at Fortune Market, told UNB that sales before Eid-ul-Fitr have declined by around 50% com-pared to last year.

Nowadays, women have changed their lifestyles and it seems most are not interested to wear sharees, which badly a� ected sharee sales, said M Sa-lauddin Selim at Alif Sharees at Mouch-ak Market.

Sales managers of two other bou-tique houses at the city’s Mouchak Market said their sales this year have showed a decline of at least 65%.

“We sold nearly 200 pieces of clothes till yesterday noon. The volume of total sales may reach 600 pieces by the end

of the day,”said a salesman at Kay Kraft in Malibagh.

Although sales at the shopping malls gained momentum at the last moment, Eid shoppers have expressed their dis-satisfaction over the prices of clothes and other festival wears, alleging that the shop owners are charging more as the Eid-ul-Fitr is getting nearer.

Hemayet Hossain, who works at a private company, said Tuesday night that he went to a shopping mall to buy a shirt but could not a� ord it because of the extra price charged.

“The salesman demanded Tk2,100 for the shirt, which seemed too much to me,” he said.

Khadiza Begum, a government o� -cial, said she came to do Eid shopping after taking a loan of Tk10,000.

“Prices of essentials are going up, but our income has not increased. So, we have no other option but to borrow money for Eid shopping,” she said.

The overall cost of all types of Shal-war-Kameez, sharees, baby’s and gent’s wears has almost doubled this year, shoppers alleged.

Shahnoor Akhter, a shopper at the Mouchak Market, said the dresses she once bought for around Tk2,000 before Ramadan, are now being sold at Tk4,500.

The shop owners claimed that the cost of production of a piece of cloth-ing has increased on the occasion of the Eid-ul-Fitr, and that the government also increased duty on foreign dresses and fabrics. They have no choice but to increase the price they said.

During visits to the city’s shopping malls, it was found that the cost of a locally made lady’s three-piece dress varied from Tk2,000 to Tk7,000, while the Indian-made ones ranged from Tk4,000 to Tk10,000 depending on quality and design.

The prices for Anjan’s shalwar-kka-miz varied from Tk2,200 to Tk8,000; sharees from Tk750 to Tk50,000; and baby wears from Tk800 toTk2,000 de-pending on designs and fabrics.

A salesman at Mouchak Market said prices of baby wears varied from Tk750 to Tk5,000 for girls and Tk650 to Tk3,500 for boys, according to size and quality.

A salesman at New Market said they got a good response from customers yesterday.

“I sold a good number of unstitched shalwar-kameez on cotton Katan, net Katan, Madrasi-design Katan and Ru-bia Buta cotton Kotki.” l

Khulna city ready for Eid celebrationn Tribune Desk

District administration yesterday at a meeting chalked out elaborate pro-gramme to celebrate the Eid-ul-Fitr, the biggest religious festival of Muslim.

As a part of the programme, national � ag will be hoisted in the morning atop at all government, semi-government, non-government and autonomous es-

tablishments while Eid-Mubarak writ-ten � ag will be hoisted at the circuit house and road dividers of the streets in the city to mark the day, reports BSS.

The decision came up with a prepa-ratory meeting held at the conference room of the deputy commissioner with Khulna Deputy Commissioner Mesba-huddin in the chair.

Government o� cials in di� erent de-partments attended the meeting.

The main Eid jamaat will be held at 8:30am in Khulna circuit house ground while the second Eid congregation will be held at City’s town jam-e-mosque at 9:30am.

The congregation will be held at 8am, 9am and 10am respectively at the town jam-e-mosque.

Meanwhile, all the mosquesunder 31 wards in Khulna CityCorporation (KCC) have arranged Eid-ul-Fitr congregation at their suitable time.

On the day administration of Khul-na jail, government hospital and gov-ernment orphanages will serve quality foods.

Eid-ul-Fitr related video documen-tary will be screened and discussions will be held on the occasion.

Khulna Metropolitan Police have taken special security measures to en-sure security on the Eid day. l

Historic Muslin Cotton Mills set to reopenn UNB, Gazipur

The historic state-owned Muslin Cot-ton Mills, the largest cotton mill in Asia, is going to reopen under a private ownership after 23 years,.

Jute and Textiles Minister Abdul Latif Siddiqui transferred the owner-ship documents of the mill to Reefat Garments, a sister concern of Hameem Group, on Saturday. It was sold at Tk1350m.

The Muslin Cotton Mills is expected to generate employment opportunities for 25,000 people and make the upazila economically vibrant.

Set up on 100 acres of land on the bank of Shitalakhya River in Kaliganjin 1952, the mill once had threesections - spinning, looming anddyeing.

There were about 48,000 spandals in the spinning section, 496 looms in

looming section and a large dyeing section. It had a total of 2800 workers, over 300 o� cers and employees when the mill took o� in 1952.

In 1968, Gol Box Bhuiyan, a jute trader of Rupganj, bought the mill at Tk8m with support from the then East Pakistan Industrial Development Cor-poration.

The Bangladesh government took control over the mills by taking 51 per-cent of its shares in 1982.

The authorities shut the mill on July 4, 1990 for its failure to pay wages and salaries to its 2,885 workers amid seri-ous mismanagement.

Later, in 1991, the then BNP govern-ment reopened it for a while but had to close it down again, due to the stagger-ing losses incurred by it.

In 1996, the mill was handed to the authorities of Sena Kalyan Trust but the trust failed to reopen it due

to alleged noncooperation from the Bangladesh Textile Mills Corporation (BTMC).

Later, in April 2004, the BTMC took over the mill.

According to its former labourleaders, the workers were not paid when the mill was closed down in 1990 even though various items like clothes, cottons, fabrics and thread worth Tk400m were left in its store-house apart from machineries worth over Tk200m.

Muslin is a loosely woven cotton fabric, which is produced from carded cotton yarn. Before its closure, the mill used to make fabrics and yarn out of cotton.

State Minister for Women and Chil-dren A� airs Meher Afroz Chumki and Hameem Group Chairman AK Azad and local MPs were present on the oc-casion. l

Rights activists demand judicial probe into Khagrachhari attack n Tribune Desk

Rights activists yesterday demanded the government ensure punishment of those involved in the recent arson attacks by ‘Bangalee settlers’ on the villages of ethnic minority people in Matiranga upazila of Khagrachhari.

Addressing a press conference, or-ganised by a platform of various pro-fessionals at Dhaka Reporters Unity, they also demanded a judicial probe into the communal attacks on August 3 that left some 50 houses gutted.

They said the attacks led more than a thousand indigenous people to take refuge in the neighbouring Indian state of Tripura.

Reading out a written statement, Ja-gannath University teacher Rajeeb Mir said 16 houses at Sarbeshwarpara, 11 in

Baghapara, 3 in Talukdarpara and 3 in Bandarshingpara of Bhagaban Tila were burned to ashes. Besides, about 400 houses of the indigenous community were ravaged in the attacks, he said.

Rajeeb said there has been a preva-lence of communal attacks by the set-tlers in that area, mostly aimed at grab-bing the lands of the jhum farmers.

He also noted that the government needs to take immediate actions to bring back all the people who took refuge in Tripura. “They must be properly com-pensated and rehabilitated,” he said.

He also stressed the proper enact-ment and enforced of the Chittagong Hill Tracts Land Commission Law.

The press conference was also at-tended by Bangladesh Adivasi Forum general secretary Sanjeeb Drong and columnist Syed Abul Moksud. l

Arohan distributes clothes among elderly people n UNB, Dhaka

Arohan, a youth organisation, distrib-uted clothes among the elderly people at Bangladesh Probin Hitoishi Sangha (BPHS) o� ce in the city’s Agargaon area yesterday.

Mohammad Rakibul Islam, founder and president of Arohan, handed over saris and punjabis to BPHS secretary general Prof Dr ASM Atiqur Rahman in the morning.

Arohan general secretaries Rupta-nu Chowdhury, Rohit Hossain, Ra� -uddin Khan and Soumik Adnana, andexecutive director of non-govern-mental organisation ‘LIFE’ QuamrulIslam Sony, among others, werepresent.

Mentionable, students of di� erent English medium schools and colleges have recently � oated Arohan to work for the welfare of deprived section of the society, poor women and children and elderly people as well as to take part in various social activities. l

BRTA opens control room centering Eidn BSS, Dhaka

Bangladesh Road Transport Authority (BRTA) opened a control room yester-day at its headquarters in Elenbari of the capital for ensuring safe and hassle free journey of the homebound people ahead of Eid-ul-Fitr.

The Road Division under the com-munication ministry has taken the initiative to open the control room, an o� cial handout said yesterday.

The telephone numbers of the con-trol room are - 02-9113133 (land con-nection) and 017-11-119968 (mobile connection), the release said.

A joint secretary of the road division has been assigned as the focal person of the control room, remain open till August 11. l

A labourer painting road divider in Dhaka University area yesterday. The Dhaka City Corporation is conducting beauti� cation work ahead of Eid Focus Bangla

A good number of people shopping at Deshi Dosh at Bashundhara Shopping Complex yesterday MAHMUD HOSSAIN OPU

Eid-ul-Fitr related video documentary will be screened and discussions will be held on the occasion

No more holiday hartals

Jamaat-e-Islami has once again called for a 48 hour shutdown, this time on August 13-14.

This newspaper opposes the pointless calling of hartals because they have become far from being voluntary shutdowns and are too associated with acts of vandalism and violence that harm ordinary people.

The contempt shown for ordinary people by Ja-maat was demonstrated by its unpopular calling of hartals so soon after the Rana Plaza tragedy and also in the run-up to the examination period, causing chaos in the lives and schedules of the nation’s students.

Jamaat also called hartals during the holy month of Ramadan, proving that it puts its own petty political interests above religious considerations, and giv-ing the lie to its claims to be a party that respects Islam.

By calling a hartal during the Eid holiday season, Jamaat is once again showing disrespect for citizens whose lives will be disrupted and inconvenienced. The cynical claim that it has delayed the calling of this latest shutdown until after Eid will not help people, particularly those who will be travelling back to workplaces from ancestral homes.

All political parties urgently need to reconsider the destructive and needless cycle of hartals. By calling such a hartal in the holiday period, Jamaat in particular is not going to gain public sympathy for its pleadings so it should demonstrate a conscience by reconsidering its action.

A matter of safety

This being Eid season, lots of people have been travelling home to their villages, with many journeying by launch and boat. Shockingly,

many of the vessels that carry these passengers are defective, but little is done to stop them from running on our waterways. This kind of negligence is unacceptable and the government must ensure that only sound and safe vessels are allowed to ply, for the safety of the passengers.

Every year there are reports of horrendous accidents, of launch-es breaking down or, worse, overturning and lives being lost. The worst part is that these tragedies would have been avoidable had steps been taken to en-sure that unsafe vessels were not allowed to run in the � rst place.

This is why if any accidents do occur, the government can hardly say it wasn’t warned.

We, however, hope the government will take the issue of passenger safety more seriously that it seems to have in past years. We hope the govern-ment will undertake regular inspection of vessels and take strict action against those who run unsafe vessels, so as to not allow such accidents to repeat in the future.

It is the duty of the government to ensure the public’s safety, and that also extends to passenger safety on waterways. Let us all pray for a festive season without any calamities.

August 3

Dear Joy,

It is nice to see you have started taking active part in the country’s politics. You look handsome clad in black Mujib coat just like your maternal grandfather. You are an American-educated broad-minded young man. Don’t you think it is only appropriate that another young man, Tarique, son of the Leader of Opposition and former prime minister, should also be allowed to take part in the country’s politics to create a level playing � eld for both of you? Why don’t you plead to your beloved mother the Honourable Prime Minister to give the order to quash the � ctitious cases against Tarique so that he can come back to the country to play his due role? We, the ordinary citizens, would like to watch which of you draws the maximum crowd.

SA Reza Hussain

Editorial10

www.dhakatribune.com

DHAKA TRIBUNE Thursday, August 8, 2013

LETTER OF THE DAY

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CALVIN AND HOBBES

PEANUTS

Letters to the Editor

A woman of substance, Zara RahimAugust 6

Moon Ahsan Great to see Zara; she was also my colleague at Yunus centre as an intern. Good luck Zara!

Arif Anwar It’s great to hear her story but it would be even nicer to see articles that can pro� le talented successful women without focusing on their looks. All the more disappointing that the pro� le was written by another woman.

Facade of puritanism in our social cultureAugust 7

By its very nature, puritanism and the nonsense of “complete code of life” is synonymous with gender discrimination and misogyny. Screaming at the top of our lungs how some religion “gave more rights to women than any other” is sim-ply an excuse for this kind of behaviour.

Arbi

Time to burst the bubbleAugust 6

Mostafa Monowarul HawkeWhile I agree with most of the points stated here, I must add that the disinterest of EM students with the PU is not due solely to pride. I know most of my classmates applied to PU after their A-levels, but the fact remains that the PU admission is based around accommodating students from the public sector. While the PU sector in Bangladesh is highly respected and provides better education than many foreign universities our students prompt to go to instead, one must remember that the admis-sion process was made with the prospect of taking in national curriculum students � rst and foremost.

My friends faced many di� culties applying to PU simply because the curriculum was entirely alien. Many of the things we learnt in A-levels become useless and we � nd ourselves at a tremen-dous disadvantage, especially compared to national curriculum students. This disadvantage may not be signi� cant enough to completely bar the entry of EM students into the PU sector but it is signi� cant enough to dissuade students from applying. In conclusion, while I believe English Medium schools can do more to bridge the gap, public universities should also take initiatives - not to change their curriculum but rather to overhaul the admission process so as to be more accommodating. I know organisations like Bridge-Wee have helped students out tremendously, but a government initiative would still be greatly appreciated.

Monojit SahaWell said, the article re� ects the writer’s growing urge of breaking the barrier and an imaginary gap that has been created between the two mediums. We could also point out some positive steps that have been taken on bridging this gap. This includes government steps to put Bangladesh Studies as

a mandatory subject in English Medium schools. And the increasing number of EM students being interested in public universities nowadays. But this attempt of getting into a public university is not being facilitated by the university boards as they are sticking to their rigid admission processes which in some aspects fail to hold global standards. Can’t agree with the writer on his forecast of a possible con� ict between the public and the private sectors just based on the gap between EM and NC. It is not such that NC students are not being involved in the private sectors but with increasing number of BBA holders these days, the public sector as a whole is in grave danger.

Zinia AzmiA very well written article indeed! I, also being an EM student myself, agree with most of the points made here. I hope initiatives will be taken to bridge this gap before it’s too late. I think we don’t neces-sarily want to become a part of this bubble. It can only be solved if EM schools and NC board folks/ education ministry can sit together and bring about some kind of solution to this. It is long overdue.

RohenaEveryone needs to get the same education, oth-erwise this bubble will never burst. Standardised education for all.

Nazia TariqLet’s not forget that even though one may learn from institutions, education also happens at home. That being said, most EM schools should de� nitely broaden their curriculum to educate children on local culture, heritage and history and how it inte-grates into world history and development. Let’s not ignore local geography and industrialisation either.

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By calling such a hartal in the holiday period, Jamaat in particular is not going to gain public sympathy for its pleadings so it should demonstrate a conscience by reconsidering its action

We hope the government will undertake regular inspection of vessels and take strict action against those who run unsafe vessels, so as to not allow such accidents to repeat in the future

Crossword

Sudoku

CROSSWORD CODE-CRACKER YESTERDAY’S SOLUTIONS

ACROSS1 Fruit (4)5 23 centimetres (4)10 Egyptian goddess (4)11 Flightless bird (3)12 Nettlerash (5)13 Liable (3)14 Time in grammar (5)16 Make beloved (6)18 Animal attendant (6)21 Tribal symbol (5)23 Spirit (3)24 Dialect (5)26 Anger (3)27 Of the ear (4)28 Refuse to admit (4)29 Fencing sword (4)

DOWN2 Dull blue (5)3 Employ (3)4 Error (7)6 Vegetables (4)7 Electrical unit (6)8 Fastener (3)9 Footwear (4)15 Hermit (7)17 Character (6)19 Cost (5)20 Eternal city (4)22 Prophetic sign (4)23 Disencumber (3)25 Immerse (3)

6 9 4 8 2 5 7 3 11 5 7 3 6 9 8 4 28 2 3 4 1 7 6 9 54 1 5 6 9 3 2 8 79 7 8 2 4 1 5 6 32 3 6 5 7 8 4 1 93 8 1 7 5 6 9 2 47 6 2 9 3 4 1 5 85 4 9 1 8 2 3 7 6

11Op-Ed Thursday, August 8, 2013DHAKA TRIBUNE

F O O D F O R T H O U G H T

The case for madrasa reformn Ifti Rashid

Following the emergence of the Hefazat movement, Qwami ma-drasas following the Islamic De-

obandi curriculum have come under increasing spotlight in Bangladesh. There has been widespread justi� able public outcry over the infamous tetul (tamarind) speech.

The speech left little doubt about the underlying motives of the 13-point demands espoused by the so-called “non-political” network of madrasas and political parties.

The mainstream political response to Hefazat has been predictably divid-ed, not to mention opportunistic.

In the midst of partisan bickering, what is missing is dialogue on the issue of madrasa modernisation. How much longer will madrasa students be victims of such obscurantist indoctri-nation?

Calls for reforms in the curricula, � nancing and regulatory oversight of madrasas have multiplied particularly in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. Reforms can be justi� ed not only in the context of security concerns but also the country’s human resources development needs. Only a small number of madrasas may be impli-cated in terrorism, but that does not undermine the case for reform.

As the madrasa system is the only accessible and a� ordable form of education for a large segment of the population, its failure to impart cutting-edge knowledge and skills perpetuates cycles of poverty in the country.

Sustainable reforms will not be pos-sible without the participation of the stakeholders who will bene� t most from transformation, that is to say the system’s students and teachers. Given that the seeking of knowledge has been central to Muslim tradition for centuries, there is a strong case for en-couraging modernisation of madrasas.

Historically, the learning process of Muslims encompassed both revealed and earthly knowledge, with each complementing the other. In the Prophet’s (Saw) time, mosques served the role of schools and centres of knowledge. The � rst documented madrasa in Egypt circa 1005 CE o� ered courses in astronomy, architecture and philosophy with over 6500 volumes on these subjects. Some of these books were transferred to Baghdad by Nizam-ul-Mulk when he established a madrasa there in 1067 CE.

Madrasas at the time focused on science, philosophy and public ad-ministration with an emphasis on the tradition of ijtihad (independent rea-soning). They produced scholars and philosophers who played a leading role in the advancement of mathemat-ics, medicine, philosophy, science and technology. This continued with the spread of Islam in Central and South Asia with Su� saints establishing madrasas that taught grammar, poetry and literature.

Madrasas catered to Muslims and adherents of other religions alike. They were centres of intellectual en-quiry and progressive thought.

Historical accounts suggest earthly knowledge is nothing new to Muslim tradition, but the decline of madrasas started with the defeat of the Muslim empire, around which time madrasas shut the door to ijtihad and earthly knowledge.

At this point, madrasas stopped furthering earthly knowledge. Madra-sas in the British-administered Indian sub-continent underwent radical changes to reinforce their Islamic cur-riculum. Though earthly knowledge was later reintroduced, it remained marginal in emphasis.

This is a lasting legacy as madrasas in the region have not been able to wake up to post-colonial reality.

In Bangladesh, qwami madrasas

are private institutions outside the regulatory framework of the state. They are resistant to government regulation. Hence it has been di� cult to implement the National Education Policy 2010 with its common national curriculum. Consequently there is lit-tle science and technology in madrasa education and no oversight in the interpretation of Islamic scriptures.

Is this the case in other countries? Unlike Bangladesh, in Egypt and In-donesia, public and private madrasas have to follow a national curriculum combining both religious and earthly knowledge. Malaysia goes one step further and enforces the Malaysian language, BahasaMalayu, as the medium of instruction. All madra-sas have to be registered and follow government regulations on � nance, location, teaching sta� etc. enforced by respective education ministries.

Following the Malaysian example in Bangladesh would contribute to the modernisation of qwami madrasas in a way that will bene� t students, teach-ers and the wider community.

It is high time that madrasas left their self-imposed isolation from the world to equip students to face the challenges of tomorrow. Moreover, their curriculum should also cover contemporary religious interpreta-tions and philosophy providing a contextual as opposed to literalist meanings of scriptures.

The government must bring qwami madrasas under a regulatory frame-work covering registration, � nancing and pedagogy. Most importantly, a national curriculum should be imple-mented with a focus on vocational courses, Bengali and English to make madrasa students more ready for for-mal employment. It is also important to encourage cultural and extra-cur-ricular activities to ensure graduating students are not isolated from society at large.

There is no need to con� ne madra-sa education and religious thought to obscurantism. Bangladesh needs an evolution in theological under-standing. Madrasa reforms can help to produce the next generation of liberal Islamic scholars like the late Gus Dur of Indonesia who shun extremism and promote pluralism.

Former Malaysian prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohammad has lamented that Muslims are now “the most back-wards people in all the arts and scienc-es.” He blames “misleading, lacking in knowledge and out of date” religious interpretations for the falling behind of Muslim countries in technological advancement. He argues that earthly knowledge does not necessarily contradict revealed knowledge, saying :“Progress in medical science, genet-ics, space exploration, commerce and industry requires deep knowledge in these subjects to relate them to the teachings of the Quran.”

An overhaul of the madrasa system is possible if there is political will in the government to initiate reforms. This requires civil society to win the con� -dence of madrasa students not only to accept but to champion reforms in the system.

Such reforms will prevent madra-sas from being vulnerable to radical groups as well as providing better livelihood opportunities.

There is no alternative to madrasa reforms to meet the challenges of tomorrow without leaving a sig-ni� cant segment of the population behind. The world has changed and madrasa education must be helped to catch up. Madrasa students need more choices beyond “tetul” style speeches.

Eid Mubarak to all readers. l

Ifti Rashid is a political and security analyst.

T H I R D E Y E

The economics of zakat n Mamun Rashid

A television reporter in-terviewed me the other day about reasons for the lower � ow of zakat to ru-ral Bangladesh this year.

I asked him a return question – was he aware of the total amount of zakat distributed each year in Bangladesh?

The gentleman didn’t have any answer. Subsequently I have asked the same question to my business school seniors who work with the govern-ment revenue administration. They didn’t have any de� nitive answer, but reckoned totals would be 30%-50% more than the income tax being realised from individual income tax payers in Bangladesh.

Income tax earnings by the gov-ernment amount to Tk 300bn, out of which roughly Tk120bn comes from individual tax payers. Our preliminary estimates show that the total zakat being distributed across Bangladesh each year is around Tk150bn or $2bn. I have come across many individu-als in Chittagong who are happy to minimise or err with tax obligations, but who never compromise with their zakat payments.

Rich people in Muslim countries, including Bangladesh, usually share a portion of their assets with poor relatives or neighbours in the same community to distribute as zakat. Even though zakat is meant to help poor individuals or families come out of poverty through income generat-ing programs, zakat in Bangladesh is mostly being used to buy saris, lungis, mosquito nets, and charitable items

among poorer people.There is no e� ective or structured

method for zakat distribution in Bangladesh. Too often, rich people buy charitable items for distribution via relatives, local government repre-sentatives (union council chairman or members) or mosque imams and head teachers at local madrasas. Some also distribute clothes or food in orphanag-es out of their zakat money.

A few also buy rickshaws, carts or � shing nets to help poor people in ru-ral Bangladesh into income generating activity. Some people are seen using zakat for extension, refurbishment or repair of mosques and other religious institutions.

Few are also seen using their zakat money for building rural schools, libraries or helping poor students through scholarships. I have not come across anyone using their zakat funds for medical treatment of disadvan-taged people.

Bangladesh government’s zakat Board does not have a structured pro-cess for zakat administration, collec-tion and distribution. As currently ad-ministered by the ministry of religious a� airs, general people face a “trust gap” with the zakat Board’s manage-ment. Many people feel the board does not follow the proper or Shariah compliant way of zakat management even though the National Board of

Revenue has made contributions to the zakat Fund tax advantageous.

Other Muslim countries have come up with a structured approach to zakat collection and administra-tion. Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and espe-cially Malaysia have all set positive standards. Pakistan engages NGOs to help make e� ective distribution of zakat.

Few countries however have shown success in integrating zakat funds with “social safety net” programs. Some recent discussions suggest the social business model being cham-pioned by Nobel Laureate Professor Muhammad Yunus could help with key zakat objectives.

No doubt, there could be a better way of zakat money management in Bangladesh. Presently money is not � owing adequately to deserving target groups or causes in the community. My personal experience over the last � fteen years includes zakat items being distributed to families having sons in the police department and armed forces.

Newspapers have in the recent past reported stampede deaths during the distribution of zakat by political leaders in Chittagong, Dinajpur and Noakhali. Due to non-existence of a proper distribution network, people in more remote areas do not get an adequate share of zakat funds. It has

also been observed when political leaders, particularly in election years, spend money through zakat, most of this cash goes to vote banks or repairs of religious institutions.

Surprisingly the zakat � ow to rural Bangladesh this year is reportedly lower than before. Relevant reasons could be reduced business in capital markets and real estate, election un-certainties and associated reshu� es of candidates by the two major political parties.

No matter how much the total zakat amount built up each year in Bangladesh, the present system war-rants review and further alignment with the national poverty reduction and distributive justice strategy. The truly needy should be targeted as bene� ciaries for zakat money.

We should see this money being distributed more for bringing a person or family out of the shackles of pov-erty.

During the era of Prophet Hazrat Omar (RA), it was observed that due to the e� ective distribution of zakat among poor people for income generating programs, the total of targeted bene� ciary groups reduced each year. Bangladesh Islamic Foun-dation has translated and published a relevant book by Moulana Yusuf Al Karzavi on zakat philosophy and management.

The best way of zakat distribution is to ensure funds are utilised by the marginalised to bring tangible im-provements in their lives. l

Mamun Rashid is a business professor and � nancial sector entrepreneur.

Tourists desert Egypt as protests ragen Tom Little

By Giza’s Great Pyramids, sou-venir vendors wait restlessly in the shade, watching for the

handful of tourists who still make their way down the empty street to the once-bustling landmark.

The 2011 revolution that toppled dictator Hosni Mubarak dealt a severe blow to the country’s tourist industry, once a mainstay of Egypt’s economy.

And things have gone from bad to worse since June, when violent protests broke out against president Mohamed Morsi. On July 3, the army ousted the Islamist leader, leading to further deadly violence and an ongo-ing stando� between the two sides.

The tour buses that lined the streets around the pyramids have disappeared.

“We hope to the Lord that he will bring back those busy days, because all of us rely on tourism alone,” said Gameel Hassan, who has run a shop near the pyramids selling papyrus prints for nearly 20 years.

Now, his shop is empty. Only a few tourists come each day to browse the hundreds of pictures of Egyptian gods and pharoahs that cover the walls.

“To bring tourism back, we need stability and security,” he said. “The parties must calm down and leave the president to rule the country in the way he sees � t,” he said, referring to the country’s new interim authorities.

Out in the street, Mahmoud Atti-yah, who o� ers horseback tours of the

pyramids, is glum about business.“There have been no tourists

coming from outside. From June 30 until now, there have been none,” he complained.

But Morsi’s removal cheered Attiyah. Like many of the vendors, he thought the Morsi government was harming Egypt’s tourist industry, which once accounted for some 10 percent of GDP.

Yet not everyone has been put o� .Two travellers, laden by backpacks,

made their way past the gate to the pyramids. A crowd of jostling vendors o� ering souvenirs and horse rides followed them.

Ryan Gary and Ashley Westcott, from the US state of Colorado, were unfazed by the State Department’s travel warn-ings about the country and alarming stories on the news.

“As long as you travel safe and are smart about the kind of decisions that you are making, a lot of times the peo-ple are a lot nicer than the media makes them out to be,” one said, beaming.

But tourists like Westcott and Gary are increasingly rare.

They have disappeared from the Khan el-Khalili bazaar in Cairo. This warren of narrow streets used to see coachloads of people coming to haggle

over souvenirs, soak up the atmos-phere and relax in cafes over a mint tea and a sheesha (water pipe).

After dark, the area is crowded with Egyptians talking a stroll after the iftar meal to break the Ramadan fast, but the foreigners are nowhere to be seen.

Hussam Manaf, 41, is a university professor in the mornings but, in the evenings, he runs the small Khan el-Khalili souvenir shop his father founded.

Surrounded by hundreds of ala-baster pyramids, glass ornaments and papyrus scrolls, Manaf said only one or two tourists had visited his shop each day since June 30.

He was adamant that the tourism min-istry needed to do more to promote Egypt abroad.

“Where are the � lms showing Egypt outside of Egypt,” he asked, pointing out that other countries had done a far better job of promoting themselves.

“When you look around you see that, when they do � lm adverts, they show important places,” he said, amazed that the ministry was happy to stick to old cliches about the country.

“Tourism in Egypt is not only the pyramids,” he said, exasperated.

Tourism Minister Hisham Zaazou acknowledge to AFP that the sector is su� ering even more, as the current unrest is hitting the peak season.

“In the � rst 15 days of July 2013, Egypt welcomed 387,000 tourists compared with 515,000 tourists in the same period last year,” Zaazou said.

In 2010, the year before the revolu-tion, Egypt attracted 14.7 million vis-itors, a record high. That plunged by nearly a third to around 10 million in 2011, then rose to 11.5 million in 2012.

Zaazou said he had plans for a fresh PR o� ensive abroad, but added that get-ting countries to lift advisories against travelling to Egypt is his main aim.

“At this stage of the development of tourism in the world, a tourist won’t go abroad without travel insurance,” he said. Warnings issued by embassies and foreign ministries make it harder for them to get the insurance they need to travel to Egypt.

Zaazou said he was already talking to European ambassadors to lift the travel warnings in certain areas, such as Egypt’s pristine Red Sea resorts.

“There are other destinations dif-ferent than Cairo and Alexandria that are safe away from the hot events,” he says.

But Zaazou said he is bullish about the future, and aims to bring 13 mil-lion tourists to Egypt this year.

“I think that in the medium and long term, tourism will see a strong comeback,” he predicted. l

This article was � rst published by AFP.

The truly needy should be targeted as bene� ciaries for zakat money

The tour buses that lined the streets around the pyramids have disappeared

Historical accounts suggest earthly knowledge is nothing new to Muslim tradition

In Egypt and Indonesia, public and private madrasas have to follow a national curriculum combining both religious and earthly knowledge

What is missing is dialogue on the issue of madrasa modernisation

Are we using our zakat money the best way we can? WIKI COMMONS

14

13DHAKA TRIBUNEThursday, August 8, 2013

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Tamim Iqbal of St. Lucia Zouks hits a 4 against Antigua Hawksbills during their Caribbean Premier League match at Beausejour Cricket Ground in Gros Islet, St. Lucia on Tuesday CPLT20

Tamim’s lone hand in vainn Tribune Desk

A sluggish innings from Tamim Iqbal both kept his team the St Lucia Zouks in the game against the Antigua Hawks-bills while also creating pressure on his fellow batsmen as they went down by 33 runs at home on Tuesday.

After � nding his scoring touch in his third game of the tournament, Tamim could not make it count as he struggled his way to 33 o� 39 balls.

St Lucia choose to bowl but Antigua began with a burst of boundaries and soon found themselves well placed at 86 for 2. Their star batsmen Marlon Samu-els and Ricky Ponting never found their feet and it was Devon Thomas who pro-vided the acceleration towards the end with some clean hitting to lift them to.

Andre Fletcher started the chase with two sixes and two fours in a 7-ball 20 and before a shower interrupted play. After a 20-minute delay the St Lu-cia’s innings never regained the early momentum. Herschelle Gibbs looked woefully out of touch in his short stay, Misbah-ul-Haq couldn’t repeat the he-roics of the previous game, and Tamim just couldn’t get going.

After a slow start it seemed like he was in for the long haul but never found � uency as he tried in vain to play himself into form. With wickets falling around him and the number of dot balls rising he found himself playing a lone hand. Thus steadying the innings with his presence while conversely adding pres-sure at the same time by scoring slowly.

Samuels turned the game with his darted o� reaks, getting the wickets of Tamim, Misbah and � nally Sammy to wreck St Lucia’s chase. l

Nazmul clears air with district associationsn Mazhar Uddin

Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) presi-dent Nazmul Hassan sat with some of the district and divisional association members at the BCB-Sahara National Cricket academy yesterday and stated that there were no problems between the board and the district association, as well as spoke aggressively against the Forum, who has been critical of the president’s recent actions.

“We try to clear the things which we are reading in the newspapers - that BCB has bad relations with the district associations, which is not true and af-ter this meeting we have no such issues against each other,” Nazmul declared.

The BCB boss added that he will meet with the remaining district asso-ciation members in future. “We have to sit with almost 20 members from the di� erent sports associations from the country, such as Rangpur, Dinajpur, Manikganj, Chittagong, Khulna and others and we will get to all of them gradually,” he said.

Nazmul looked ready to take a strong stance against the Forum, who have threatened to boycott all cricketing ac-tivity if the board did not bow to their demands. “I have seen some news on newspaper and on the TV where some of them giving false information regard-ing the election. Hnece I thought that we, especially me should have no inter-action with them. Instead we’ll sit with the district associations’ joint secretary, vice president, counselors and talk about the election issues”, said Nazmul.

Nazmul clari� ed that he is not go-ing to interfere on the matter of district association regarding election issues. “We did not interfere on the matter of district associations regarding election issues and it’s up to them to select the counselors for the BCB election. Only one or two can be exceptional, where BCB have their preferences.

“After this meeting we all came to agree that we don’t have any problems with the district and divisional with the board except one or two people, we don’t have any problems with them,” added Nazmul.

One such exceptional choice was Akram Khan, who the BCB head though could help Bangladesh cricket.

Nazmul was reluctant to even rec-ognize the Forum, much less takes its in� uence seriously. “There is a relation with the associations regarding the election but there is no relation with Forum regarding the BCB election. Fo-rum is just an association in the middle of those associations, but it does not mean that every counselor will be se-lected by Forum.

“There is an association called ‘Fo-rum’ I want to say that there is no rela-tion with the BCB election with Forum and I never heard its name, so I don’t want to recognize this association.

“Every time when there is any elec-tion on any of the sports organization Forum always raises their issues only

for their bene� t”, he said.Nazmul went on to allege that those

who were involved in corruption were trying to spoil the upcoming BCB elec-tion. “A few people who are making this sports arena especially cricket dirty and have been involved in cor-ruption are behind the trouble. And we will expose all the corruption which has been done earlier, after the elec-tion,” he warned.

At least one Forum member, AJM Nasir, supported the president and clari� ed that the district associations will not do anything against the Su-preme Court verdict, which gave the BCB election the all clear. “There is no chance of giving any statement regard-ing the BCB election, as the verdict is given by the court. Anyone saying any-thing against the election is violating the courts order,” he explained. l

BCB-Aamra renew partnershipn Raihan Mahmood

The Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) and Aamra Networks Limited signed a three-year agreement under which Aamra will continue as the board’s of-� cial ISP partner up to December 31, 2015. The agreement has already had its e� ect from January 1 this year. Aamra Networks Limited, previously known as Global Online Limited, has been providing internet support to the BCB since 2004.

BCB acting CEO Nizam Uddin Chow-dhury and chief operating o� cer of Aamra Networks Sharful Alam signed

the deal on behalf of their organisations. Aamra Networks’ key support

as per the agreement will include year round  dedicated bandwidth of 10mbps for the BCB management o� ces at Sher-e-Bangla National Stadium in Mirpur and 2mbps at BCB establishments across the country. During international and major domestic tournaments/series under the jurisdiction of the BCB a bandwidth of 20mbps or more will be provided. Aamra Networks will also furnish the media centers at di� erent venues with laptops, printers, scanners and copiers etc. during the tournaments. l

Mosaddek ton propels Bangladesh U-19n Mazhar Uddin

Mosaddek Hossain’s unbeaten century led the Bangladesh U-19 team to a chal-lenging total of 286/4 against their Eng-lish counterparts at the London Road, Sleaford yesterday.

The junior Tigers received huge dividend after skipper Mehedy Hasan winning the toss opted to bat. The openers added 57 runs before Shahriar Sumon (37) was the � rst wicket to fall and one-down Mehedy also followed him next over.

However, a magni� cent 162-run third-wicket stand between Sadman Is-

lam and Mosaddek took the visitors to a strong position in the match. Sadman lost a glorious opportunity of register-ing his maiden ton as he was bowled on 86 by fast bowler Tom Barber.

Mosaddek made no mistake to make his mark as remained unbeaten on 110 from 113 balls to harbour Bangladesh’s innings. He smashed nine fours and two sixes. In reply the hosts also made a good start. When this report was � led, England were 191/4 in 39 overs. Mehedy picked two wickets while Rifat Pradhan and Mosaddek took one wick-et each. Ben Duckett made 56 while Haseeb Hameed made 67. l

No Eid vacation for hockey, football playersn Raihan Mahmood

The footballers and the hockey players, who are undergoing training in the na-tional camps of Sa� Championship and the Asia Cup Hockey, will not be able to celebrate the holy Eid-ul-Fitr thor-oughly as they were not granted any leave for the festival.

The national booters will enjoy a break on Eid day, but they will be back in full swing practice the next day. Pakistan will be arriving at the capital

on August 12 and will face the national team in a practice match on August 16. However, Pakistan will play another practice match against BFF XI on Au-gust 13, just a day after their arrival. The Pakistani national side will stay at Hotel Purbani, adjacent to Bangaband-hu National Stadium.

Meanwhile, national head coach Lodewijk de Kruif is scheduled to return to Dhaka on August 12 after spending a week long vacation. Kruif left for Hol-land from Thailand where Bangladesh

national team spent eight days for a con-ditioning camp.

During the absence of Kruif, assistant coach Rene Koster conducted the camp. Koster said de Kruif is expected to return with a specialised goalkeeping coach who has worked in the Ajax Amsterdam Football Academy.

Captain Mamunul Islam said the play-ers are fully concentrating on their jobs, but will miss their family during the Eid. “We are professional players and we know we have a big task ahead. For the

sake of the bigger commitments we are focused on our job, but it will be a lie to say that we won’t miss our near and dear ones during the Eid,” said the mid� elder.

The same thing will happen to the hockey players as Pakistani coach Nav-eed Alam will also be celebrating the Eid in Bangladesh. The hockey players are also set to play a couple of practice matches just after the Eid. Bangladesh Hockey Federation has approached Sin-gapore and asked them to visit Dhaka for couple of practice matches. l

Mir Kaisar Sadik Sajib (C) the convener of the Singna Rowing Competition speaks at the press conference while AFM Iqbal bin Anwar Dawn (R), the ADD of Walton watches at the BNS yesterday MUMIT M/DHAKA TRIBUNE

We try to clear the things which we are reading in the newspapers - that BCB has bad relations with the district associations, which is not true and after this meeting we have no such issues against each other

Traditional ‘Nouka Baich’ hits water on Sunday n Raihan Mahmood

The Walton-Cute Singna Rowing Com-petition, providing a glimpse of the thousand year old tradition of the country, will be held at the ‘Kumri Bil’ of Kalihati upazila of Tangail on August 11, Sunday.

More than 1,500 hundred rowers, commonly known as ‘Mallas’, split into � ve categories, including one for the women, will be rowing for the suprem-acy in the two kilometers long water body. The men’s sections have four categories of 100 Mallas, 50 Mallas, 25 Mallas and 7 Mallas while women’s

only have one section of 7 Mallas. The competition started back in 2008 and in the sixth edition of the event this time more than hundred festive look-ing boats specially made for rowing, locally known as ‘Nouka Baich’, will be speeding for glory on the blue waters.

Walton has stepped up with a purse of Tk100,000 for the organisers and they will also provide � ve LED TVs, � ve 21” colour TVs and � ve 14” colour TV’s for the winners of the � ve categories. Cute will provide the logistic support of the event.

In a press conference held at the Bangabandhu National Stadium Mir

Kaiser Sadik Sajib, the convener of the competition committee said the meet provides entertainment for about 200,000 people who gather at the bay of the water body. “The atmosphere takes a real festive mood and the thou-sand year tradition of the country is re� ected in every second when the rowers hit the water with their paddle,” said Sajib.

AFM Iqbal bin Anwar Dawn, the ad-ditional director of the Walton, said they have been supporting the local sporting meets for a long time and has plans to promote the sport in Ashulia in the near future.l

Acsu, T20 venue inspection team to arrive after Eid n Mazhar Uddin

Bangladesh’s adequacy of hosting the World T20 Championships next year will be decided when a venue inspection team from International Cricket Council (ICC) will make its � nal visit to Dhaka on August 17.

Meanwhile, ICC’s Anti Corruption and Security Unit (Acsu) team are also expected to visit the country around August 12-14, informed Bangladesh Cricket Board president Nazmul Hasan yesterday.

The ICC inspection team, who earlier visited on June 10, were not satis� ed with the progression of work in Cox’s Bazar and Sylhet stadium and it was learnt that this coming visit will decide the fate of holding the mega event next year.

However, the BCB boss is con� dent about the work progress of the venues. “ICC T20 venue inspection team will arrive on August 17.

Their major interest will be in Cox’s Bazar and Sylhet stadium and the alter-native venues Fatullah and BKSP,” said Nazmul.

On the other hand, the report re-garding the ‘� xing’ scandal will � nally be revealed as the Acsu team are ex-pected to present the � nal report of their investigation. “Acsu will arrive just after Eid and I think they will come on 12, 13 or 14 of August and as far I know they are going to stay more than one day so you will know everything,” added Nazmul. l

Bomb kills budding Pakistan footballern AFP, Karachi

Football mad Abdul Basit, 15, dreamt of becoming Pakistan’s Lionel Messi but his ambitions died in a bomb attack that killed him and up to seven others at a four-a-side match in Karachi.

Thousands of fans gathered to watch the � nal of one of many tournaments held during the fasting month of Rama-dan in Lyari, the most dangerous neigh-bourhood of Pakistan’s biggest city.

Lyari has overcome a notorious reputation for gang violence that has killed hundreds of people over the past 15 years and miserable facilities to produce the country’s best football players. l

Player asks Liverpool to honour agreement

Champions League play a big factor

SportDHAKA TRIBUNE Thursday, August 8, 201314

Andrea Pirlo (L) of Juventus takes a free kick during an International Champions Cup Seventh Place Match against Internazionale at Sun Life Stadium in Miami Gardens, Florida on Tuesday AFP

CHAMPIONS LEAGUE QUALIFYING

Basel and Lyon hold nerve to reach playo� sn Reuters

Basel blew a three-goal lead but hung on to beat Maccabi Tel Aviv 4-3 on aggre-gate on Tuesday and seal a place in the Champions League playo� s.

The Swiss champions will be joined

on the last step before the lucrative group stage by Olympique Lyon, who won 1-0 at Grasshoppers, Steaua Bu-charest, Fenerbahce, Slovenia’s Mari-bor, Bulgarian side Ludogorets and Shakhtyor IK of Kazakhstan.

Ludogorets, who won 1-0 at seasoned

European campaigners Partizan Bel-grade on Tuesday thanks to a late pen-alty, and Shakhtyor have not got past the second qualifying round before.

Defending a 1-0 lead from the � rst leg, Basel were ahead after � ve minutes through Fabian Schaer before Mohamed Salah and Marcelo Diaz added further goals with half an hour played.

But an own goal by centre-back Schaer revived Maccabi and Eran Zahavi kept the dreams of the 13,000 home fans alive with a goal eight minutes before the end of a breathless � rst half.

The build-up to the match had been dominated by reports of anti-Israel re-marks attributed to Salah. He and an-other Egyptian, substitute Mohamed Elneny, were booed whenever they touched the ball at the compact Bloom-� eld stadium.

The Swiss, who reached the Europa League semi-� nals last season, were rocked again eight minutes into the sec-ond half when Maharan Radi brought the Israeli side level with a shot from 30 metres that beat Basel goalkeeper Yann Sommer. l

Inter edge Juventus on penalties in friendly n AFP, Miami

Inter Milan edged Italian rivals Juventus 9-8 on penalties Tuesday after playing to a 1-1 draw in a friendly at Sun Life sta-dium.

Second-half substitute goalkeeper Juan Pablo Carrizo blocked Mauricio Is-la’s penalty then converted an attempt of his own to lift Inter to the victory in the eight-club International Champions Cup friendly tournament.

Argentina’s Ricardo Alvarez in the 28th minute for Inter and Chile’s Arturo Vidal with a penalty in the 44th for Ju-ventus accounted for the regular-time goals.

On target in the shoot-out for Inter were Andrea Ranocchia, Alvarez, Mauro Icardi, Ishak Belfodil, Patrick Olsen, Mar-co Andreolli, Alvaro Pereira, Jonathan and Carrizo.

For Juventus, Claudio Marcchisio, Carlos Tevez, Andrea Pirlo, Vidal, Angelo Ogbonna, Martin Caceres, Giorgio Chiel-lini and Paolo De Ceglie converted.

After the match ended 1-1, both Car-rizo and counterpart Marco Storari made stops to begin the penalty shootout.

Juventus and Inter matched each oth-er over the next eight rounds until Car-rizo went to his right and thwarted Isla.

Carrizo turned around to take the shot for Inter, sending a blast high down the middle while Storari went right, giv-ing Inter the win.

It was the second time in three State-side matches that Juventus lost on pen-alties. They fell to Everton in a shootout after a 1-1 draw. l

Reds must keep word and let me go: Suarezn Reuters

Liverpool striker Luis Suarez has called on the club to honour “an agreement” that said he could leave the club if they failed to qualify for the Champions League.

The Uruguayan has been the subject of intense transfer speculation during the close season after scoring 29 goals in all competitions last season.

Arsenal o� ered jut over 40 million pounds for the striker, although Liv-

erpool have maintained that Suarez is not for sale.

Suarez, who is to have a scan on a foot injury he sustained in training, said he was prepared to take his case to the Premier League.

“I want to move to play in the Cham-pions League and there is a club o� er-ing me that opportunity,” he was quot-ed as saying in The Daily Telegraph. “I have told the manager that I want to leave the club.

“I am being accused of showing a

lack of loyalty but last year I had the opportunity to move to a big European club and I stayed on the understanding that if we did not qualify for the Cham-pions League the following season then I would be allowed to go.

“I gave absolutely everything last season but it was not enough to give us a top-four � nish. Now all I want is that Liverpool honour our agreement.”

Suarez said Liverpool manager Brendan Rodgers gave him “his word” that he would be allowed to go if Liv-erpool did not achieve Champions League quali� cation.

“Liverpool is a club with a reputa-tion for doing things the right way, I just want them to abide by the prom-ises made last season,” he said.

“I have the club’s word and we have the written contract and we are happy to take this to the Premier League for them to decide the case but I do not want it to come to that.”

Suarez, who is four games into a 10-match ban for biting Chelsea’s Bra-nislav Ivanovic, will miss Wednesday’s pre-season friendly against Valerenga in Norway due to the foot problem.

Liverpool open the new Premier League season with a home game against Stoke City on Aug. 17. l

Metalist face hearing over CL entry rulesn Reuters, Berne

Champions League participants Met-alist Kharkiv are to face a disciplinary hearing, UEFA said on Tuesday, four days after the Ukrainian side lost an appeal over a match-� xing case.

European soccer’s governing body said Metalist, who are already playing in the third qualifying round of this season’s competition, would face a hearing on Aug. 13.

“Proceedings have been opened against Metalist under articles ... of the 2013/14 UEFA Champions League regu-lations, regarding the admission crite-ria for participation in UEFA competi-tions,” said UEFA in a statement.

Metalist, runners-up in last season’s Ukrainian Premier League, won 2-0 at PAOK Salonika in the � rst leg of their third round qualifying tie last week and host the return on Wednesday.

On Friday, the Court of Arbitra-tion for Sport (CAS) upheld a Ukraine Football Federation (FFU) decision to � ne Metalist Kharkiv and FC Karpaty $25,000 each over the manipulation of a match played in April 2008.

“The football clubs FC Metalist and FC Karpaty were held liable for the

behaviour of their football players or o� cials under the principle of strict li-ability,” said CAS.

It also upheld the FFU’s decision to strip Metalist of their third-place � nish that season.

CAS also con� rmed a � ve-year ban on one Metalist player involved in the game and three-year bans on another � ve, while Metalist director Yevhen Krasnikov was banned from any soc-cer-related activity for � ve years.

Two Karpaty o� cials were given suspended bans and ordered to pay “compulsory cash contributions” to the FFU while CAS upheld an appeal by a third o� cial from the club.

Turkish club Fenerbahce, also tak-ing part in the Champions League quali� ers, were handed a two-year European ban by UEFA over domestic match-� xing in June.

However, they were re-admitted to the competition pending an appeal at CAS.

The CAS decision on Fenerbahce is due to be announced after the fourth qualifying round has been played which could create a complex problem for UEFA if they progress that far and then lose their appeal. l

Players won’t let Bale speculation distractn Reuters

Former Spurs and England defender Ledley King says speculation over the future of star player Gareth Bale will not distract the team ahead of the up-coming Premier League season.

Real Madrid are pursuing the Tot-tenham mid� elder with what is be-lieved to be a world record transfer bid in excess of $130 million, with the 24-year-old Welshman reportedly keen to move to the Bernabeu.

English Footballer of the Year last season, Bale signed a new four-year contract with the north London club last year and was their outstanding player, although Spurs missed out on a Champions League place by one point.

While club ambassador King, who retired last year due to chronic knee injuries that plagued his career, would not speak directly about Bale, he said the squad would not let the uncertainty distract ahead of the new season.

“No, as a player you’re used to this. Players don’t enjoy this period of time anyway, you just want the (transfer) window to be shut, obviously with what you’re doing as a squad and mov-ing forward,” he told a small group of reporters. l

Ribery makes � nal three for UEFA best player awardn Reuters, Berne

Bayern Munich winger Franck Ribery joined Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi when the � nal three contenders for the 2012/13 UEFA Best Player in Eu-rope award were named on Tuesday.

The Frenchman, who played a ma-jor role in Bayern’s Champions League-winning season, is the � rst player from a club other than Barcelona and Real Madrid to make the � nal three since the award was established by Europe-an soccer’s ruling body in 2011.

Argentina’s Lionel Messi won the inaugural award followed by Spaniard Andres Iniesta, his Barcelona team mate, last year.

Messi and Real Madrid and Portugal forward Ronaldo have made the last three in each of the two previous years.

Three of Ribery’s team mates at tre-ble-winning Bayern - Thomas Mueller, Arjen Robben and Bastian Schweinstei-ger - had made the shortlist of 10 play-ers announced last month.

The winner will be decided by a jury of journalists from each of UEFA’s member associations in a live poll on August 29 at the Champions League group stage draw in Monaco. l

Tevez not holding out hope of Argentina returnn Reuters, Buenos Aires

Carlos Tevez has abandoned any hope of returning to international duty with Argentina and says he almost turned his back on football entirely before joining Juventus in June.

In a television interview with ES-PN’s Latin American network, Tevez said that his time with Argentina, who look certain to grab an automatic quali-fying berth for the World Cup in Brazil next year, is “in the past.”

“It’s over, I’ve said what I have to say on the national team and I have nothing more to add,” said the 29-year-old, who has not played for his country since Alejandro Sabello was appointed coach two years ago.

“I have spoken the truth, I have said what I feel and that’s the end. If I talk about this, it seems I’m asking for a chance to come back.”

Tevez had a controversial four years with Manchester City, which included a public spat with former manager Roberto Mancini in Sep-tember 2011 when he refused to warm up as a substitute during a Champions League match against Bayern Munich.l

Lyon's mid� elder Clement Grenier (L) vies with Grasshopper's Milan Vilotic during their UEFA Champions League preliminary at Letzigrund Stadion in Zurich on Tuesday AFP

FC Bayern Munich's captain Philipp (L) and mid� elder Thomas Mueller (R) pose at the o� cial Sir Oliver kit handover at the German � rst division football club Bayern Muenchen training ground in Munich, Germany on Tuesday AFP

Sport 15DHAKA TRIBUNE Thursday, August 8, 2013

Hockey playersplead innocenceThe � ve hockey players who were suspended by the Bangladesh Hockey Federation and later convicted in a police case pleaded innocence over the allegations levied against them in a press conference at the Dhaka Mariner Young’s Club yesterday. The players - Hockey Players Welfare Association Rasel Khan Bappi, general secretary of the association Arful Haque Prince, Asaduzzaman Chandan, Shamsuddin Tuhin and Asihiquzzman - attained an eight week anticipatory bail against their cases and said all the facts that were written in the case are not true. “We did not hit the Pakistani hockey coach, and he himself said that but hockey federation said that we hit the coach, which is very unfortunate,” said Prince. The players said there were also a number of other players involved in the incident but they were not accused. They said they will go for a bigger demonstration after Eid. 

– RM

Zia � ies to Norway tomorrowGrandmaster Ziaur Rahman will � y to Tromso, Norway tomorrow to partici-pate in the Chess World Cup that will be held at the Norwegian city from August 10 to September 3. Zia will play two games in the 1st round against former Soviet Union Grandmaster Boris Gelfand (Rating-2764) who now lives in Israel. Zia will play one game with white pieces and one with black pieces. Zia (Rating-2470) will play his � rst game on August 11 and 2nd game on the following day against number 11 rated player in the World. Zia needs minimum 1.5 points from the two games to qualify in the 2nd round. Zia quali� ed for the mega event after winning the Asian Zonal Chess Championship which was held in Sri Lanka in February.

-RM

Drunk Panesar � ned for public urinating England spin bowler Monty Panesar has been � ned for drunkenly urinating in public after being asked to leave a night-club, police revealed on Wednesday. The 31-year-old was ejected from a club in Brighton on the English south coast in the early hours of Monday morning. After he was seen urinating near the venue, police were called and he was issued with a � ne for being drunk and disorderly. “A 31-year-old man received a � xed penalty notice for being drunk and disorderly after being seen urinating in public near the Shooshh Club in King’s Road Arches, Brighton, around 4:13am (0313GMT) on Monday (August 5),” said a police spokesman.

– AFP

Bale named in Wales squad for friendly Tottenham Hotspur winger Gareth Bale, strongly linked with a move to Real Madrid, was on Wednesday named in the Wales squad for next week’s friendly against the Republic of Ireland. Bale has not played for Spurs since a 1-1 draw against Swindon Town on July 16, having been ruled out of their subsequent pre-season � xtures due to injury.

– AFP

Quick Bytes

Thursday

Ten Sports10:00pm ATP 1000 Masters 2013 LIVERogers Cup Montreal Last 16Friday

Sony Six6.00am CPLT20 LIVEZouks v TridentsStar Cricket4.00pmThe Ashes 2013Test 4, Day 1 LIVESaturday

Sony Six6.00am CPLT20 LIVERed Steel v AmazonStar Cricket4.00pmThe Ashes 2013Test 4, Day 2 LIVESunday

Sony Six6.00am CPLT20 LIVEZouks v TallawahsStar Cricket4.00pmThe Ashes 2013Test 4, Day 3 LIVE

Day’s Watch

Novak Djokovic of Serbia dances for the crowd after defeating Florian Mayer of Germany during the Rogers Cup at Uniprix Stadium in Montreal, Quebec, Canada on Tuesday AFP

Ashes batsmen under investigationn AFP, Sydney

Cricket o� cials are investigating wheth-er players in the Ashes series have been using silicone tape on their bats to avoid nicks being detected by “Hot Spot” tech-nology, an Australian TV station report-ed Wednesday.

Australian skipper Michael Clarke and England batsman Kevin Pietersen both denied any knowledge of the use of silicone-based tape, saying such a prac-tice would amount to cheating.

Australia’s Channel Nine said the International Cricket Council (ICC) gen-eral manager of cricket, Geo� Allardice,

would be investigating the matter in Durham, where the fourth Test begins on Friday.

An ICC spokesman con� rmed that Allardice would be arriving in Durham on Thursday to meet the two teams to address their concerns on the controver-sial Decision Review System (DRS) but declined to comment on the alleged use of silicone-based tape.

Nine did not provide sources and gave no details of whether the Australian or England batsmen may have been using the tape to fool Hot Spot, which uses thermal cameras to see if a batsman has hit the ball, either with his bat or pad. l

Farah to lead British charge in Moscown AFP, London

Mo Farah will lead Britain’s bid for World Championships glory as the star of one of the strongest teams ever to represent the United Kingdom, accord-ing to UK Athletics performance direc-tor Neil Black.

Farah will start his World Champion-ship campaign in Moscow on Saturday by trying to win the 10,000 metres title that eluded him in Daegu two years ago when he was beaten by Ethiopian’s Ibrahim Jeilan in a tense sprint � nish.

Farah will then return to the Luzh-niki Stadium, scene of the 1980 Olym-pic triumphs of legendary Britons Allan Wells, Sebastian Coe, Steve Ovett and Daley Thompson, to defend his world 5,000m title.

If he were to win both, repeating his epic 5,000m and 10,000m double at last year’s Olympics, it would etch Farah’s name in the pantheon of long-distance running legends.

Farah’s status as Britain’s greatest distance runner was cemented when he claimed his two titles in the Olympic Stadium last year, but another double in Moscow would make him only the second man in history, after Kenenisa Bekele, to hold Olympic and world crowns in the 5,000m and 10,000m at the same time.

Black believes Farah’s history bid could be the crowning glory for a Brit-ish team he rates as even stronger than the group that enjoyed so much success at the London Games 12 months ago.

“We are without question, genu-inely, in a better position going into the world championships than we were be-fore London 2012,” Black said.

“We are better prepared. We are more focused. And we are even more excited in the potential that will come from this competition. l

England ‘worried’ and ‘vulnerable’, says Border n AFP, Sydney

Former Australia captain Allan Border on Wednesday cranked up the pressure on England ahead of the fourth Ashes Test, saying Alastair Cook’s team ap-peared vulnerable and worried.

The tourists’ hopes of regaining the famous urn were washed away by a rain-a� ected third Test draw at Old Tra� ord that concluded Monday and gave Ashes-holders England an unas-sailable 2-0 lead with two to play.

But after losing the � rst two Tests, Australia’s performance at Manchester

was much better with their batting � -nally � ring, in contrast to England’s.

After the second Test at Lord’s, Border, known as “Captain Grumpy”, slammed Australia’s top three as “em-barrassing” while telling Shane Watson to sort himself out, but he has had a change of heart.

“What a di� erence two weeks can make. In the space of 14 days, my per-ception and gut-feel about this Austra-lian side has changed,” said Border, who captained the side 93 times as it rebuilt in the mid-1980s, laying the founda-tions for a long period of dominance. l

Make match-� xing a crime to deter culprits: Dravidn Reuters, New Delhi

Fixing cricket matches must be made a criminal o� ence to strike fear into the hearts of potential o� enders, according to former India skipper Rahul Dravid.

A stylish batsman renowned for his impeccable integrity, Dravid has had the misfortune of captaining a Rajasthan Royals team embroiled in a major spot-� xing scandal that tainted this year’s Indian Premier League (IPL) Twenty20 competition.

Former test bowler Shanthakumaran

Sreesanth and two of his Royals team mates were arrested by Delhi Police in May, the trio accused of taking money to concede a � xed number of runs in the sixth edition of the lucrative tournament.

The players deny any wrongdoing and have been released on bail but the scandal has sparked nationwide outrage and prompted the law ministry to draft a new bill to deal with cheating in sport after admitting existing legislation was inadequate.

Dravid, who has been named as a witness in the case against the cricket-

ers, said merely educating players of the perils of match-� xing was not enough.

“...(we have to) police it and have the right laws and ensure that people, when they indulge in these kind of activities, are actually punished,” Dravid said in an interview published on the Cricinfo website (www.espncricinfo.com).

“People must see that there are con-sequences to your actions. That will cre-ate fear for people,” said the 40-year-old Dravid, who quit test cricket last year after scoring more than 13,000 runs in 164 matches.l

Warne criticises ‘smug’ England players n AFP, London

Australian bowling great Shane Warne has accused England’s players of be-ing “smug” during the third Ashes Test and speculated that they are being “ar-rogant” as a deliberate tactic.

England retained the Ashes after rain forced a draw in the third Test at Old Tra� ord on Monday, giving the hosts an unassailable 2-0 lead after three matches of the � ve-Test series.

Warne, Australia’s all-time leading wicket-taker, felt the England players’ conduct after the game was unedify-ing, and singled out wicketkeeper Matt Prior and spin bowler Graeme Swann for particular criticism.

“A lot of us reporting and commen-tating on the game were really taken aback by the way the England players were interviewing and behaving in

press conferences and after-match in-terviews,” he wrote in British newspa-per the Daily Telegraph on Wednesday.

“It has caught the attention of those who report on the game, especially mine.

“Yes, England are a very good crick-et team and it is their choice how they convey messages to the press and act on and o� the � eld, and also how they want to represent themselves individ-ually and collectively as a team.

“But to me there were a few mo-ments at Old Tra� ord when I thought, ‘Hang on, who do you think you are?’

“I saw an interview with (Sky Sports reporter) Ian Ward after day two and he said it had been a tough couple of days for England, which it had been, but Graeme Swann replied: ‘No, not really. We will just go out and bat now on this � at Old Tra� ord wicket’.

“Matt Prior was also very smug in his comments, which leads me to think perhaps it is a conscious e� ort or direc-tion from (England coach) Andy Flow-er to be arrogant and dismissive of the opposition.

“Let me tell you this: if you lose re-spect for the game and the opposition, cricket has a funny way of biting you on the backside.”

Warne went on to say that, if Flower did instruct his players to modify their behaviour, it would go against the grain of the players’ personalities.

“Maybe Flower wants to create an atmosphere of ‘everyone is out to get us’. He might even think England play better like that. But it is not working,” he said.

England and Australia will resume hostilities in the fourth Test in Durham on Friday. l

Djokovic light on his feet in opening winDjokovic quickly rediscovers his grooven Reuters, Montreal

World number one Novak Djokovic powered to a comprehensive 6-2 6-1 win over Florian Mayer in his � rst match since Wimbledon while Canadian play-ers upstaged Rafa Nadal with a string of surprise victories at the Rogers Cup on Tuesday.

A � t and fresh look-ing Djokovic,

who was beat-en by Andy Murray to the All England

Club crown, showed little signs of

rust from a lack of recent match practice as he took just 56 minutes to

advance on a warm Montreal evening.The Serbian, renowned for his sense

of humour and reputation as an enter-tainer, then celebrated his victory with some impromptu dancing in the centre of the main arena, much to the delight of the fans who had stayed late to watch him.

“It’s the � rst game (for me) since Wimbledon, I had four weeks o� ... but it was a great performance,” a smiling Djokovic said in a courtside interview once he had ended his crowd-pleasing antics.

The return of the two-time defend-ing champion after a month o� had fol-lowed Nadal’s � rst competitive match since his shock � rst round exit at Wim-bledon.

It proved to be a successful, yet tense, one for Nadal as he and his dou-

bles partner Pablo Andujar saved two match points before they beat Spanish compatriots David Ferrer and Feliciano Lopez 6-7(2) 6-1 12-10.

The second day’s play, however, be-longed to the understated locals, includ-ing three wildcard entries who stunned their more highly fancied opponents as they basked in the home support.

World number 71 Vasek Pospisil pro-duced the biggest upset when he surged to an unlikely � rst round win over in-form American John Isner.

Pospisil came from a set and a break down to claim a 5-7 7-6(5) 7-6(4) victory in bright and sunny conditions, thrilling a parochial home crowd who cheered his every winner.

Isner, who won the Atlanta title two weeks ago before being beaten by Juan Martin Del Potro in the Washington � nal last week, was left wondering how he had failed to get the job down.

“I should’ve won the match,” Isner said. “I should’ve won the second set and I also should’ve won the third set but I didn’t. This was a match I let slip away.”

Frank Dancevic, another local wild-card, also rallied to beat Taiwan’s Lu Yen-Hsun in three sets while Felip Peli-wo became the fourth Canadian to reach the last 32 when Finland’s Jarko Niemin-en retired with a pulled hamstring trail-ing 3-1 in the deciding set.

Canada’s top ranked player Milos Ra-onic then completed a memorable day for the hosts with a 6-3 4-6 7-5 triumph over Jeremy Chardy of France to become the � fth local into the second round. l

Australia's Peter Siddle, back, rests during a nets session two days before the start of the fourth Ashes series cricket match against England at the Riverside cricket ground, Chester-le-Street, England yesterday AP

BCB acting CEO Nizam Uddin Chowdhury (3rd from L) and chief operating o� cer of Aamra Networks Sharful Alam (3rd from R) exchange � les after signing a three-year ISP partnership agreement at the SBNS, Mirpur, yesterday in presence of chairman of BCB marketing and commercial committee Ahmed Sajjadul Alam (C). Also seen (from L-R) Zubaer Al-Imran – assistant manager marketing & commercial department, BCB, Rabeed Imam – media manager BCB, Muntasir Ahmed - senior manager branding of Aamra and Monzur Morshed - manager infrastructure of Aamra Companies BCB

Back Page16 DHAKA TRIBUNE Thursday, August 8, 2013

Hospitals ready with emergency services Cardiac complications and road-and-waterway accidents among leading Eid-time health emergenciesn Moniruzzaman Uzzal

Both public and private hospitals will keep their emergency departments open for patients in need of immediate hospital care during the three-day pub-lic holiday that starts today.

Hospitals will have their regular services scrapped because of the low-er rates of hospital admission usually seen during Eid vacations.

Already, over 60% of in-patients have reportedly been discharged from public hospitals in the past week so they can spend time with their fami-lies. Those in a critical condition will stay.

Sources said the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) had instruct-ed public hospital authorities to take special measures during the vacation to ensure proper health services for pa-tients.

They were also instructed to keepa fully-� edged medical team, ambu-lances, and medical equipment ready to handle any kind of medical emer-gency. The hospitals’ outdoor wings will be open one day after the dayof Eid.

During a visit to some of the hos-pitals, it was found that patients with non-severe illnesses were being dis-charged upon permission of doctors.

Most major hospitals in the capi-tal, including Dhaka Medical College & Hospital (DMCH), Mitford Hospital, Shaheed Suhrawardy  Hospital, Na-tional Heart  Foundation Hospital and Research  Institute, and National Insti-tute of Traumatology and Orthopaedic Rehabilitation, discharged a sizeable number of low-risk patients.

Professor Dr ABM Abdul Hannan, the director of DGHS, said, “It is nec-essary to have adequate doctors and nurses as public hospitals remain

thronged with patients even during the national holidays.”

Usually when preparing rosters for doctors, nurses and attendants, those subscribing to religions other than Is-lam are preferably chosen for Eid-time duties.

Dr Mus� qur Rahman, a deputy di-rector of DMCH, said rosters for the hospital’s sta� members would be handed out to them very soon and that patients would have “improved ser-vices.”

Brig Gen (Ret.) Shahidul Hoque Mol-lick, the director of Birdem Hospital, said the hospital’s outdoor services will not be available during the gov-ernment-announced holidays (8, 9, 10 August), but its emergency services will be.

He also said the number of patients at the 674-bed specialised facility had already decreased, but “all necessary preparations were taken” to provide services to the emergency patients.

At the Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University (BSMMU), outdoor services will be suspended but � ve departments – cardiac, neurosurgery, orthopaedics, obstetrics and gynaecol-ogy (ob/gyn), paediatrics – will remain open.

Brig Gen (Ret.) Abdul Majid Bhui-yan, the director of BSMMU, said they had made sure that there would be doc-tors, nurses and other sta� “at every ward and cabin” for in-patients.

Al-Emran Chowdhury, director for operations at LabAid Group, said the LabAid Specialised Hospital and La-bAid Cardiac Hospital will “remain open like any regular day,” adding, “we will con� rm the presence of at least 70% of our doctors, nurses and sta� -ers.”

He also said, from past experienc-es, they know that mostly patients with cardiac complications and those having met with accidents (road and waterway) are admitted to hospitals during Eid. “So we will have special preparations in this regard,” he said.

Among other private hospitals, Square, Popular, Somarita, GreenLife, Modern, Ibne Sina and Nation-al Heart Foundation also took special measures to ensure medical servicesfor patients. l

BRTC’s pre-paid smartcard plan falls � at n Tazlina Zamila Khan

Pre-paid smartcard SPASS of the Ban-gladesh Road Transport Corporation’s (BRTC) bus service has fallen � at, a year after it was introduced.

Earlier in April 2012, N-Wave Co Bd Ltd, a Japan-based software develop-ment � rm, introduced the card in four BRTC routes but the number of card us-ers is falling.

However, passengers are blaming the inopportune service of BRTC buses for the fall in commuters’ interest.

A passenger, Maksud Ibne Rahman, said, “BRTC buses always arrive late. I have to wait in a long queues every day. Sometimes, I travel on other buses as I have to reach o� ce on time.”

One of the card users, Ashiqur Rah-man, said: “I have IC card but I am not getting any advantage. Still, I have to wait in long queues.”

Moreover, a section of passengers alleged that their costs doubled after using the card.

A commuter Kamal Uddin said: “I have to recharge the card, but some-

times, I go to other bus counters as BRTC bus comes late. It costs me double.”

He also informed of paying Tk 300 for issuing the card.

Many students are also fed up with the untimely services of BRTC buses.

Raju, a university student, vented his frustration over the BRTC’s Pre-paid smartcard SPASS.

“I have the card, but what privileges am I getting?” he posed a question.

“I stopped using it as it does not give me any privileges” he added.

Muhit Imran, customer manag-er of N-Wave Company BD LTD, said,“Previously, we used to issue 250 cards per day, but now we hardly issue50 cards.”

He said, “During shutdowns, BRTC buses do not ply across the city roads. During then travellers choose alternative modes of transport. So, SPASS card hold-ers can’t use the cards during hartals.”

Shahjahan Ali, managing director of N-Wave, said, “We have sent a letter to the high o� cials of the BRTC 2-3 days ago, requesting them to bring all the buses of four routs under IC card sys-

tem, rather than giving manual tickets, but they did not pay any heed.”

He said, “BRTC o� cials promised to give 200 buses to us for using the card whereas they gave only 70-80.”

Passengers become confused as the manual ticket is also available, Shahja-han said, adding that the problem can

be solved if BRTC stop giving manual ticket to buses so all buses will use the technology. Moreover, some drivers are also accountable for the failure of the new technology.

They take passengers without tick-ets and earn extra. Drivers do not want this technology as it will stop their ille-gal income, he continued.

In this regard, a driver Idris Mia said passengers forcefully gets inside the bus without ticket. In return, they give us money.

BRTC o� cials admitted that it is not possible to monitor the bus drivers and helpers all the time.

Earlier in 2012, SPASS card was in-troduced to four routes from Shibbari to Motijhil, Abdullahpur-Motijhil, Mir-pur-Motijhil, Nobinnagar to Motijhil.

The latest ticketing system functions like swipe cards on reader machines installed either on buses or at common ticket counters. The project was fund-ed by Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA). The purpose of the dig-ital ticketing is to ease commuters’ has-sle in collecting tickets from counters.

It was supposed to reduce pilfering and irregularities such as anomalies in cash handling and issuance of fake tickets to ensure transparency in fare collections and accuracy in accounts.

In this regard, Nikhil Ranjan Roy, di-rector (administration and operation) of the BRTC blamed the haphazard tra� c situation of the country for this problem.

“We plan to make four trips daily, but fail to make more than two trips due to tedious gridlock across the city,” he said. l

BRTC buses always arrive late. I have to wait in a long queues every day. Sometimes, I travel on other buses as I have to reach o� ce on time

Despite complaints of poor service, the red-green BRTC buses still make the single largest town service catering to the needs of city commuters RAJIB DHAR

Bangladesh: Global centre of online fakeryn Joseph Allchin

A British documentary for Channel 4 has found a thriving industry of ‘click farms,’ where people endlessly click on social media pages to make brands ap-pear more popular.

The documentary team met with business people and � lmed opera-tions undercover. For as little as $15an entrepreneur named Russel could give you 1,000 unique likes on aFacebook fan page, in “three or four hours.”

People working from home, end-lessly creating new fake Facebook pro-� les and clicking like over and over do much of this work. However some of the operations are based in o� ces in which ‘clickers’ do shifts, so that click-ing occurs 24 hours a day.

Amongst the brands using the click farms was an online gambling site called Monopoly Plus, which was li-censed from the popular board game owned by Hasbro. Whilst a UK tourist

board for a national park called the Peak District had also utilised a Bangla-deshi ‘click farm,’ Creative IT, owned by Ali Asgar who described himself as the “king of Facebook.”

Asgar started o� clicking as a free-lancer. Creative IT was hired by a small UK marketing � rm called SM4B, who specialise in advertising on social me-dia.

The demand for such services stems from search engine optimisation (SEO) whereby the more popular a page is the higher up an online search it will ap-pear. Whilst the growth of social media has meant that consumers increasingly look online for products or service they are after. If a page has thousands of ‘likes’ they are more likely to purchase from that site.

A site called ShareyT was amongst the market leaders. Here a stream of pages would appear and one has to watch a YouTube video for a given time in exchange for online tokens.

The tokens could then be exchanged

for tiny amounts of cash. Shar-eyT’s owner claimed to have around25,000 people clicking for him in Ban-gladesh alone. One of ShareyT’s links was for an advert for Coca Cola on You-Tube.

The video boasted 6 million views. Clickers will only make around $30 in a few months of clicking according to its owner, Sharaf Al Nomani.

Online advertising is a growing sec-tor as advertisers follow consumers away from traditional media. More-over, the use of social media works well for advertisers. People are more likely to believe a review of a product if they don’t know it has been paid for.Coupled with this, sluggish western economies have slashed marketing budgets, making cheap alternatives at-tractive.

Most of the brands featured denied any knowledge of the practice. Third parties, often-small marketing compa-nies in the west, hire companies such as Creative IT here. l

Eid-time rosters set for doctors, nurs-es and attendants

Govt hospitals asked to keep full-� edged medical team, ambulances and other services standby

Major private hospitals in city “will re-main open like any other days”

BOMB ATTACK ON FED

Verdict on Na� s tomorrow n Sheikh Shahariar Zaman

A New York court is set to give verdict tomorrow on Bangladesh national Quazi Mohammad Rezwanul Ahsan Na� s on charge of attempting a bomb attack on the Federal Reserve Bank in that state.

The 21-year-old was arrested on October 17, 2012 in a sting operation by the FBI.

Na� s was accused of trying to detonate what he thought was a 1,000-pound bomb by using his cell phone as a trigger.

On November 15, he was indicted by a grand jury at the New York court and on February 7 this year, Na� s made a confessional statement before the court and pleaded guilty.

Na� s went to the US for higher studies in January 2012. l

Editor: Zafar Sobhan, Published and Printed by Kazi Anis Ahmed at Romask Limited, 184, Tejgaon Industrial Area, Dhaka-1215. Editorial, News & Commercial O� ce: FR Tower, 8/C Panthapath, Shukrabad, Dhaka 1207.Phone: 9132093-94, Advertising: 9132155, Circulation: 9132282, Fax: News-9132192, e-mail: news@dhakatribune.com, info@dhakatribune.com, Website: www.dhakatribune.com

Continue to the Business section...

Business

Businesswww.dhakatribune.com/business Thursday, augusT 8, 2013

July exports robust despite industry disaster

Inflation falls to 7.85% in July

B3

B2

Higher prices slash Eid sales turnover Fear of political unrest adds to shopkeepers’ woes nKayes Sohel

The pre-Eid sales in the Dhaka shopping hubs is estimated to be declined sharply this year as compared to the previous year due to what shopkeepers think is increase in clothes prices and fear of political unrest.

Thin presence of customers was seen at different markets of the Capital yesterday as compared to the situation until the day before and the mad rush of the second and third weeks of Ramadan – unlike last two weeks of previous other occasions.

The shopkeepers considered that the higher prices and political apprehension have dampened the sentiment of the cus-tomers.

The city’s shopping centers are usually packed two weeks before Eid-ul-Fitr, the big-gest religious festival for Muslim communi-ty, but this year they have seen far less foot traffic.

Amid last minute shopping on Wednes-day, unhappy shopkeepers complained that sales had been down by 30% to 40% as com-pared to last year.

“I used to get more than 100 customers daily during Eid days but now it has dropped to 75-80, which shows the lack of interest,” said Aslam Parvez, head of salesman at East West, a clothing retailer shop at the new mar-ket area.

“Garments worth Tk2.7m I bought for Eid sale. But I have sold only of Tk1.5m so far,” he said.

Sajid Khoshru, a tailor, was not busy this occasion as he usually remains during the Eid festivals. “I have received fewer orders to stitch new clothes for Eid. I used to close booking on the 12th of Ramadan due to so many orders, but this year I closed it on the 18th. I got at least 30% fewer bookings,” he said.

In absence of any official or private sector data of daily and monthly sales, traders usu-ally give unrealistic sales picture, especially on Eid season, however.

“Sales were very slow,” said Shoeib Rah-man, a salesman at a shop named Richman at a city shopping mall. “You see huge rush of buyers but it does not reflect a true picture of the sales as they are more window shop-

pers,” he said.Abdul Samad, a store manager at an elec-

tronic outlet, said: “Usually two weeks be-fore the Eid, market remains open till dead night, but this year we shut our shops by 11pm because of security reasons.”

On his sale, he said: “Sales of electronic appliances declined by 40% this year ahead of Eid.”

“People preferred to leave the city before Eid this time to spend more time with their relatives at village home to avoid looming political violence and two days strike begin-ning from August 13. This might be another reason behind the slow sale,” said salesman Milton at Arati Sarees. “Price hike of prod-ucts affected the shopping spirit of consum-ers.”

Mohammad Mofiz, a salesman at Sun-flower Fashion, said clothes prices had also gone up this year.

For example, an average shalwar-kameez

is now priced at Tk500-600 as compared to Tk400-500 last year.

A good quality shalwar-kameez now car-ries a price tag of Tk1,500 as against Tk1100 last year.

Every festival triggers a shopping spree among people of all income groups, buying clothes for themselves and their loved ones, and bring-ing vibrancy to economic and business activities.

“But the scenario is differ-ent this festival as sales are sluggish,” Mofiz said.

The ongoing dull economic climate in the country, price rise in clothing prices and po-litical uncertainty are other reasons for slow sales, said economist Mamun Rashid.

“Consumers have become more selective and they pur-

chase only required items rather than buying extra items, as they do not have surplus cash in their hands,” he said.

He said many businessmen usually give gift to political leaders before Eid. “But this time political uncertainty keeps them away from giving gifts,” he said. l

a lady is having a look at ornaments at a shopping mall in dhaka yesterday Syed Latif HoSSain

‘People preferred to leave the city before eid this time to spend more time with their relatives at village home to avoid looming political violence and two days strike beginning from august 13. this might be another reason behind the slow sale’

Thursday, augusT 8, 2013dhaKa TrIBuNE Business2

The new way to send money home- Remit2HomeDrawing from expatriates’ need to send money home, Remit2Home, a cross-border online money transfer service that comes from TimesofMoney, in association with BRAC Bank offers sending money via online to Bangladesh.

Syed Mahbubur Rahman, BRAC Bank MD & CEO said: “BRAC Bank is delighted to cater to non-resident Bangladeshis (NRBs) through Remit2Home service.

NRBs will now have a convenient, hassle-free and faster way to send money to their dear ones at the remotest parts in Bangladesh.”

TimesofMoney CEO Avijit Nanda said: “Providing secure and uncomplicated money transfer solutions to expatriate Bangladeshis is a matter of pride for us and we hope to contribute to the growing economy of the country through our service offerings.

With Remit2Home, one has to visit www.remit2home.com, sign up for a free account and add details of themselves and the person whom they want to send money to. Money can be transferred directly to any bank account in Bangladesh. The sender can then track the transfer online, through email or customer support. l

Clients waiting in front of a bank’s cash counter in dhaka on Wednesday. Bankers in the city say they served a relatively moderate number of clients on the last day before Eid vacation this year than on previous occasions Syed Zakir HoSSain

July exports robust despite industry disaster nIbrahim Hossain Ovi

The country’s export earnings posted a robust rise of about 24% to around US$3bn in July, belying the apprehension that the untoward incidents in the apparel industry in the previ-ous months would badly affect the shipments.

The earnings in the first month of the cur-rent fiscal year was driven by exports of ready-made garments (RMG) also overpowering the political turmoil. The exports grew 24% as compared to $2.4bn of the same month pre-vious fiscal (2011-12), according to Export Pro-motion Bureau figures.

An export target of $30.5bn has been set for the current financial year (2013-14) as compared to $27bn earned during the last fiscal year.

“We feel very proud on the export growth as the country maintained it despite all odds like political and labour unrests,” said Abdus Salam Murshedy, president of Exporters’ As-sociation of Bangladesh (EAB).

“If the political and labour situation re-mains under control, the exports would ex-

perience further growth in the upcoming months.”

The export of knitwear garments grew by over 25% to $1.25bn and woven garments by 27% to $1.26bn in the last month. Both the items also witnessed rise in exports in the last fiscal year with nearly 15% for woven to-taling more than $11bn and 10% for knitwear amounting to $10.5bn.

Frozen foods rose by 13% to $113m and Jute by 2% to $80m. Bangladesh’s RMG products marked nearly 13% growth in last fiscal year with the amount totaling $21.5bn.

“Export earnings grew impressively in July due to continuous performance of RGM sector, which means that Bangladesh still a leader in apparel exports,” said EPB Vice-Chairman Shu-vashish Bose. He expected the rising trend will continue in the days ahead as they are trying to explore new markets for garments products.

“Initiatives taken by North American Alli-ance and Safety Accord prove that they have identified Bangladesh as a production desti-nation which is great for us,” he added. l

Yunus’s statement 'utterly nonsense': Muhith nTribune Report

Finance Minister AMA Muhith yesterday ruled out any possibility of increasing government’s stake in the Grameen Bank (GB), the Nobel Peace Prize winning micro credit institution.

“We have no intention to increase the stake. The existing stake is 25% and shall remain the same,” he told reporters after a meeting at the Economic Relations Division (ERD) office in the capital.

The minister’s comments followed a report published on the Wall Street Journal that read, Bangladesh’s government was set to announce a plan to increase its stake in the GB to 51 %, from the existing 25 %.

Regarding Grameen Bank founder Prof Muhammad Yunus’s claim that the government was out to destroy the Grameen Bank, the Finance Minister said: “Such statement is ‘utterly nonsense’, he [Prof Yunus] made it up.”

Muhith said the commission appointed by the government is expected to submit its recommendations regarding the reforms in GB. The guidelines regarding appointment of directors at the bank are in final stage and will be released soon, he added.

Earlier this year, the committee in its interim report, advised the government to bring about some changes in the appointment procedure of the directors to the board.

The government appointed three of the 13 board of directors for GB. One of them is appointed as the chairman. Rest nine are elected from the women who hold shares in the bank.

In June the women directors of the bank threatened to go for a movement if the government made any alteration to the bank’s management structure. l

BGMEA urges Jamaat to withdraw hartalnTribune Report

The Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA) has urged Jamaat-e Islami to withdraw its 48-hours har-tal for the safe return of readymade garment workers after the Eid vacation.

Bangladesh Jamaat-e Islami has called a two-day hartal for August 13-14 to protest against the High Court verdict that declared its registration with the Election Commission as illegal.

“If the workers fail to join their work after the Eid holidays on time, it will hamper pro-duction and affect shipment,” association president Atiqul Islam said at a press confer-ence at the BGMEA headquarters in the cap-ital yesterday.

Atiqul also claimed that all the members of the apparel trade body, except seven facto-ries, have already paid salaries and allowanc-es, including bonuses, to the workers ahead of the Eid-ul-Fitr festival.

The BGMEA president added that the seven factories were trying hard to resolve the prob-lem over paying the workers their dues.

Out of 3,200 BGMEA members across the country, only four to seven factories had problems over paying wages and bonuses to their workers, but the matter would be solved soon, Atiqul said.

“To avoid any untoward incident ahead of Eid, the BGMEA formed nine committees, comprising of a director and officials and fac-tory owners, to ensure salaries and allowanc-es for the workers in time,“ he said.

The trade body was closely monitoring some 927 factories, which may face problems in paying the workers. l

BusinessdhaKa TrIBuNE Thursday, augusT 8, 2013 3

Inflation falls to 7.85% in July nKayes Sohel

Inflation declined 0.2 percentage points to 7.85% in July on the back of softening rice, vegetables and other produces, Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) said yesterday.

It was 8.05% in June, the final month of the last fiscal year.

However, the inflation rate remained above the government estimate at 7% for the current fiscal year.

Food inflation was down 0.12 percentage points to 8.14% and non-food inflation to 0.35 percentage points to 7.4%, it said.

“Drop in food prices has helped inflation fall slightly,” BBS Director General Golam Mustfa Kamal told a press briefing at the BBS headquarters in Dhaka while releasing the Consumer Price Index (CPI).

He said the general perception is that inflation should have been surged due to holy month of Ramadan. But the BBS calculates inflation each month for a period of 21 days of a month.

“The prices of rice, atta, fish, vegetables, spices and powdered milk have fallen in July against those in the previous month, leading to the drop in inflation,” he said.

In rural area, inflation in the last month was 7.43%, which was 8.64% in the rural area. In the month of June, inflation in rural area was 7.53%, which was 9.08% in urban area.

The food inflation slowed down in rural areas in July compared to the previous month and it was 7.52% against 7.58% in June.

The non-food inflation in rural areas was also found declining as it was 7.27% in July compared to 7.43% in June.

In urban areas, the food inflation rate witnessed a declining trend in July as it stood at 9.65%, down from 9.94% in June.

The non-food inflation rate in urban

areas also witnessed a downward trend in July as it stood at 7.59%, down from 8.21% in June.

“Lower food prices both in domestic and

international markets were mainly behind the fall in inflation,” said Ahsan H Mansur, executive director at the Policy Research Institute of Bangladesh (PRI).

But inflation is still hovering over 7%, which is higher than the fiscal target, he said. The main challenge is to bring inflation further down by 1%, he said. l

a file photo shows price tags of vegetables at an outlet in dhaka. Prices of rice, vegetables and other food products reduced to some extent in July, bringing down the inflation marginally Syed Latif HoSSain

Dollar falls against yen in AsianAFP, Tokyo

The dollar skidded lower against the yen in Asian trade Wednesday despite the increasing likelihood of a tapering of US stimulus in the coming months.

The dollar fetched 97.10 yen in Tokyo afternoon trade against 97.76 yen in New York Tuesday afternoon and the 98-yen range in Tokyo Tuesday, trading around the lowest level since late June.

The euro, meanwhile, fetched $1.3303 against $1.3306 and 129.30 yen from 130.1 yen in US trade.

Investors flocked to the safe-haven yen as risk sentiment retreated amid growing indications that the Federal Reserve will soon begin tapering its $85bn a month quantitative easing programme, which has been credited with boosting global equity markets.

While a draw down on the stimulus would usually be seen as positive for the greenback - shrinking the number of dollars in the financial system and thereby boosting

demand - markets have been nervous about the implications of the Fed’s expected moves.

US trade numbers from the Commerce Department showed a narrowing trade deficit in June, which analysts said points to a likely upward revision to economic growth estimates.

The chiefs of the Federal Reserve’s Chicago and Atlanta branches both said that the Fed could begin tapering the stimulus programme in September, but stressed that the world’s largest economy needed to hold steady or improve.

Also on investors’ radar screens is a Bank of Japan (BoJ) two-day policy meeting expected to wrap up Thursday, with analysts expecting the bank to hold off fresh easing measures.

In other trade, the Australian dollar bought 89.55 US cents compared with 89.23 cents immediately before the central bank on Tuesday cut interest rates to a record low of 2.5%.

National Australia Bank said there were “mixed interpretations of the lack of

explicit reference to a continuing easing bias” in a post-rate cut statement, arguing further action could depend on more fresh economic figures.

“One thing of which there was no doubt yesterday is that the RBA (Reserve Bank of Australia) would welcome further AUD depreciation,” it said.

“Should the currency not weaken further, this in itself adds to the case for further rate cuts,” it said.

India’s rupee, which hit a lifetime low of 61.51 to the dollar on Tuesday, was at 61.29 Wednesday afternoon.

The dollar was firmer against other Asia-Pacific currencies.

It edged up to 43.65 Philippine pesos from 43.53 pesos the previous day, to 10,304 Indonesian rupiah from 10,283 rupiah, to 31.47 Thai baht from 31.39 baht, and to 1,118.73 South Korean won from 1,115.51 won.

It also strengthened to Sg$1.2681 from Sg$1.2677 while holding steady at Tw$29.95.

The Chinese yuan changed hands at 15.85 yen against 15.99 yen. l

Forex reserve sets a new recordnTribune Business Desk

The foreign exchange reserve has swelled to a new record of $15.69bn on the back of the rising trend of remittance inflows.

According to Bangladesh Bank (BB), the forex reserve stood at $15688.36m on Au-gust 5. The government is now in a position to pay import bills for over seven months with the reserve. The forex reserve was at $10.36bn on June 30 last year and it increased to $15.53bn on July 31 in the current year.

BB official said the forex witnessed the upward trend mainly due to increased remit-tance inflow.

The inflow of remittance witnessed is due to Eid-ul-Fitr as the migrant workers sent $1.2bn home in July, up by $172.22m from the last month’s US$1,058.24m.

According to the central bank, the country received remittance of $426.57m through State Owned Commercial Banks (SCBs), $13.29m through specialized banks, $774.87m through private commercial banks and $15.74m through foreign commercial banks. l

Thursday, augusT 8, 2013dhaKa TrIBuNE Business4

Ex-IMF chief economist to head India central banknAFP, New Delhi

India on Tuesday named a former Interna-tional Monetary Fund chief economist as its new central bank governor as it grapples with a plunging currency and the slowest growth in a decade.

Raghuram Rajan, famed for predicting the 2008 global financial crisis, will head the Reserve Bank of India for a three-year initial term, replacing incumbent D. Subbarao, who retires next month.

He takes the reins as Asia’s third-largest economy faces testing times - hit by a capi-tal flight with investors worried about weak growth, a huge deficit, stalled reforms and graft scandals that have paralysed the polit-ical process.

“There is no magic wand to make the problems disappear instantaneously,” said Rajan, who is currently chief economic ad-viser to the Indian government

But “the government and the bank are working together to address the challenges” and there is “absolutely no doubt we will deal with them,” Rajan said.

“No one can doubt the country’s prom-ise,” the 50-year-old economist added in a statement.

Rajan qualified as an electrical engineer at the Indian Institute of Technology and later did his doctorate at the Massachusetts Insti-tute of Technology.

He became the IMF’s chief economist in 2003 at the relatively young age of 40 where he warned of a global meltdown from exces-sive financial risk-taking.

Critics scoffed at Rajan’s dire predictions - made at the height of the US housing bubble - calling him misguided.

But Rajan, author of the book “Fault Lines - How Hidden Fractures Still Threaten the World Economy”, won grudging acco-lades when he was eventually proved right.

Rajan’s appointment came on a day of high financial drama in India, underscoring the challenges facing him.

The currency plunged to a fresh record low against the dollar of 61.80 rupees and a dive in share prices pushed the Bombay Stock Exchange out of the so called “$1-tril-lion club” in terms of market capitalisation.

The currency, which firmed later to 60.77 rupees, has come under pressure from a record current account deficit - the widest measure of trade, an economy growing at a 10-year-low of five percent and fears of a cut in US stimulus that has spurred investor

flows to emerging markets.Analysts have raised fears that the

once-booming country could face the crisis of the sort it suffered in 1991 that ended in a bailout by the IMF.

“He is an ideal person to take on this re-sponsibility at this difficult stage,” said Adi Godrej, president of the Confederation of In-dian Industry, a leading business group.

Rajan, who is regarded as an original thinker favouring free markets and deregu-lation, is expected to bring fresh ideas to the central bank which the finance ministry is said to regard as overly conservative.

Before returning to India last year, Rajan was a professor at the University of Chica-go’s Booth School of Business.

Last month, Rajan said “all options were on the table” to stabilise India’s currency at the same time as saying defence of the rupee should not suffocate economic growth.

The central bank has raised short-term lending rates and tightened liquidity but with little effect and analysts say it may have to hike benchmark lending rates.

“Rajan’s appointment is not a game-changer but it is an excellent choice,” Siddhartha Sanyal, chief India economist at Barclays Capital, told AFP. l

Oil price wavers but remains above $105nAP, Bangkok

Crude prices vacillated between gains and losses Wednesday as traders waited for the US Energy Department to release its latest oil sup-ply data.

Benchmark crude for September delivery was down 6 cents to $105.24 at midday Bang-kok time in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract fell $1.26, or 1.2%, to close at $105.30 on Tuesday.

Traders were waiting for the U.S. govern-ment’s Energy Information Agency to release its weekly inventories report later Wednesday. Last week, crude supplies grew 400,000 bar-rels, or 0.1%, to 364.6 million barrels, which is 2.4% below year-ago levels.

The International Energy Agency and the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Coun-tries will also release their latest assessments of energy markets, including forecasts for worldwide demand for oil. Analysts are an-ticipating some downward revisions, given a slowdown in China’s economy.

The dollar, however, is underpinning oil prices. It has fallen into a 97-98 yen range, weaker than July when the greenback was worth about 100 yen. A weak dollar tends to boost commodities, which become more at-tractive investments for holders of other cur-rencies. “The dollar also not strong enough to suppress the interest in oil so that is why oil prices will hover around the current levels,” said Kwong Man Bun, chief operating officer at KGI Securities in Hong Kong. l

China fines formula firms $108m for price-fixingnAFP, Beijing

China said Wednesday it has fined six mostly foreign baby formula producers including New Zealand’s scandal-hit Fonterra a total of $108m for price-fixing, as it seeks to cool public anger over the sector.

The penalties - also levied against firms from the US, France, the Netherlands, and one Chinese company - came after a five-month inquiry by the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), China’s top economic planner.

They were a “record high” in Chinese anti-monopoly rulings, the official Xinhua news agency said.

They also come in the middle of the latest safety scare over formula, in which Fonterra-related products have been recalled in several countries over concerns they could be tainted with a bacteria that can cause potentially fatal botulism.

It said Wednesday that all the affected items had been removed from retailers’ shelves.

China is the world’s biggest market for formula and foreign-branded products are in high demand after repeated safety scandals involving domestic products - including one in 2008 when six children died and 300,000 were sickened.

Prices are high as a result, leading to frustrations among consumers.

The NDRC said in a statement it fined Mead Johnson and Abbott from the US; Dumex, a subsidiary of France’s Danone; a China arm of Royal FrieslandCampina of the Netherlands; Fonterra and China’s Biostime.

The firms set minimum prices with

distributors and punished dealers who did not comply, the NDRC said, and their actions reduced competition and “unjustifiably maintained high milk powder prices”.

“They undermined the fair market competition order and harmed consumers’ interests,” it added. Mead Johnson said it had been fined 204m yuan ($33m), adding it remains committed to the country that is “one of the company’s most important markets”.

Biostime, based in the southern city of Guangzhou, said in a filing to the Hong Kong stock exchange that it would pay a fine of 163m yuan “in a timely manner”.

The value is around six percent of the company’s sales revenue in the previous year

- the highest rate among all firms punished - because its violations were “grave” and it “failed to rectify its wrongdoings in an active way”, the NDRC said.

Fonterra said it was fined 4.5m yuan and accepted the decision.

Its chief executive Theo Spierings said all tainted products, which were distributed in countries ranging from New Zealand to Saudi Arabia, had been removed. “All the stocks have been contained, everything is out of the market,” he told reporters in Auckland. “It’s in warehouses and there is little or no more risk for consumers.” The NDRC said Dumex was fined 172m yuan, Abbott 77m yuan and Friesland Campina 48m yuan. l

Samsung seeks smart watch trademarks in US, SKoreanAP, Seoul

Samsung Electronics Co. has applied for US and South Korean trademarks for a watch that connects to the Internet in the latest sign that consumer technology companies see wear-able devices as the future of their business.

Samsung described “Samsung Galaxy Gear” as a wearable digital electronic device in the form of a wristwatch, wrist band or bangle in its July 29 application with US Patent and Trade-mark Office. A month earlier, it applied for a “Samsung Gear” trademark in South Korea.

The trademark applications did not show the shape of the products. But drawings from a Samsung design patent approved in May show a watch-like design with a flexible screen that curves around the wrist. The US trademark application said the device will be “capable of providing access to the Internet, for send-ing and receiving phone calls, electronic mails and messages” as well as “for keeping track of or managing personal information.”

The trademark filings in the US and in South Korea show that Samsung is deep in prepara-tions for what tech industry experts expect will be a new generation of mobile technology that dramatically expands the utility of single-func-tion objects such as watches and glasses. The South Korean consumer electronics giant was caught flatfooted by Apple’s invention of the smartphone but through what turned out to be a legally risky strategy of imitation was able to capture a dominant share of the global smart-phone market within a few years. l

dumex baby formula is pictured on shelves at a supermarket in Beijing on august 7, 2013 afP

BusinessdhaKa TrIBuNE Thursday, augusT 8, 2013 5

US GDP likely to get boost from smaller trade gapnReuters, Washington

The US economy likely grew faster than initially reported in the second quarter, thanks to a sharp narrowing in the trade deficit to its lowest in more than 3-1/2 years in June as exports touched a record high and imports fell.

The Commerce Department said on Tues-day the trade gap fell 22.4% to $34.2bn, the smallest since October 2009. The percent-age decline was the largest since February 2009. The shortfall on the trade balance was $44.1bn in May.

When adjusted for inflation, the gap nar-rowed 17% to $43.2bn, the smallest since January 2010. The deficit in June was far smaller than the government had estimated in its advance gross domestic product report last week.

Economists, who had expected the trade gap to narrow only to $43.5bn in June, said second-quarter GDP growth could be revised up to as high as an annual pace of 2.5% from the 1.7% rate initially estimated by the gov-ernment.

“Today’s surprise implies a significant upward revision to second-quarter GDP,” said Laura Rosner, an economist at BNP Pa-ribas in New York. “Our calculations suggest an implied revision of roughly plus 0.8 per-centage point and our tracking estimate of second-quarter GDP growth is now 2.5%.”

Economists had on Friday raised their growth estimates for the April-June period by a tenth of percentage point after data on factory orders showed a slightly higher pace of inventory accumulation in June than the government had assumed in its advance GDP growth estimate.

If economists’ assumptions are correct, the faster pace of economic growth could bring the Federal Reserve closer to scaling

back its massive monetary stimulus program.Economists expect an announcement

on the future of the Fed’s monthly bond purchases in September.

Trade subtracted 0.8 percentage point from second-quarter GDP growth, according to the first government estimate.

The three-month moving average of the trade deficit, which irons out month-to-month volatility, fell to $39.5bn in the three months to June from $40.5bn in the prior period.

The dollar briefly trimmed losses against the euro and the yen on the trade report. Stocks on Wall Street were lower in thin volume as investors focused on corporate earnings, while Treasury debt prices were flat.

Belt-tightening in Washington and weaker global demand weighed on the US economy in the first half of the year, but analysts

expect activity to regain momentum for the rest of 2013 as the fiscal policy burden eases and growth in Europe picks up.

The trade report offered a fairly decent hand-off to third-quarter US growth and suggested the drag on exports from sluggish overseas growth was starting to lift, which was recently highlighted in manufacturing surveys, economists said.

Exports of goods and services increased 2.2% to a record $191.2bn. The gain in exports was broad-based, with food, industrial supplies, capital goods and consumer goods rising. Motor vehicle exports, however, fell in June.

Strong export growth helped to lift the economy out of the 2007-09 recession and signs of a pickup after faltering in recent months should buoy expectations of an acceleration in GDP growth in the last six months of this year. l

Bank of England announces major policy shiftnAFP, London

The Bank of England announced a major poli-cy shift on Wednesday saying explicitly that it was now targeting unemployment as well as inflation.

The new head of the bank Mark Carney pro-vided clear guidance on when it can be expect-ed to raise Britain’s record-low interest rate.

Canadian national Carney, speaking at his first policy press conference since becoming BoE governor last month, also noted that “a renewed recovery is now under way” for Brit-ain’s economy.

In a statement, the BoE said that it “intends not to raise Bank Rate from its current lev-el of 0.5% at least until...the unemployment rate has fallen to a threshold of seven per-cent” - as it provided markets with so-called forward-guidance as used by the US Federal Reserve.

The Bank of England’s own projections in-dicate that such a drop from the current un-employment rate of 7.8% would not occur for

three years. But interest rates could rise earlier should British inflation remain high, it added.

British governments have for many years tasked the BoE with using its key interest rate to try and keep the country’s annual inflation close to 2%. But Carney on Wednesday fo-cused on the unemployment picture.

“Unemployment is still high. There are one million more people unemployed today than before this (2008) financial crisis,” said the for-mer head of Canada’s central bank.

The BoE added that its Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) stood ready to provide the economy with more cash stimulus while the unemployment rate remains above seven per-cent - and despite a recent recovery of British growth. The Bank of England described its pledge over interest rates and stimulus as “ex-plicit guidance regarding the future conduct of monetary policy”.

Finance minister George Osborne wel-comed the shift by the independent BoE.

“Given the exceptional economic chal-lenges continuing to face the UK economy, I

agree...that forward guidance can play a use-ful role in enhancing the effectiveness of mon-etary policy and thereby supporting the recov-ery,” the chancellor of the exchequer said in a published letter to Carney.

Markets had widely expected some form of guidance being introduced by Carney, result-ing in little change to sterling and London’s benchmark FTSE 100 index of shares follow-ing the confirmation.The Bank of England’s main interest rate, which has stood at 0.5% since March 2009, is closely tied to borrowing costs offered by the retail banking sector.

The BoE’s record-low rate has resulted in cheap loans for home owners but poor returns for people with deposited savings.

“By tying policy to unemployment, which is a clearly measured and very visible eco-nomic variable, the Bank is making a commu-nication statement allowing the average man in the street or business owner a much more visible and transparent measure of the Bank’s thinking,” said Alistair Cotton, senior analyst at Currencies Direct trading group. l

Facebook tunes ranking of stories in news feedsnAFP, California

Facebook’s quest to be a personalized news-paper for the Internet age continued yesterday with tweaks aimed at making sure members spy hot stories from their friends.

Changes to the leading social network’s formula for figuring out which posts will be of interest included “bumping” up potentially intriguing stories that went unnoticed during prior visits to Facebook.

“It is hard for users to get back to old things; you have to scroll through things you have al-ready seen,” Facebook news feed team engi-neering Lars Backstrom said while discussing the latest changes.

“We wanted to make it so people weren’t missing important stories that didn’t make top slots but were just below the fold.”

Signals weighed in the machine learning algorithm were modified to bump- up a sto-ry considered more interesting than fresher material that formerly got priority simply for being newer.

“We tweaked the model,” Backstrom said, noting that about 30,000 signals are balanced in the algorithm.

“Instead of just taking the new stories, we would take all stories that were new to you, that you haven’t seen, even if it isn’t the fresh-est.” A test of the change showed that the number of stories people read in news feeds rose to 70% from 57% with “bumping,” ac-cording to Facebook.

News feeds were also modified to take into account the “last actor” a member interacted with and then give that friend’s posts tempo-rary priority since they seem to be up to some-thing interesting.

“We wanted to capture your current state of mind as you were using Facebook,” Back-strom said.

“A lot of signals are long term, such as the relationship with each friend; we wanted a real time factor.”

Facebook’s ranking software assigns nu-merical scores to the roughly 1,500 stories typ-ically eligible for delivery to a member’s news feed and displays the top 300.

Powerful factors for ranking are relation-ships, along with how often a member com-ments, shares, “likes,” or otherwise acts on posts of friends. Hiding posts sinks content from that person in news feed rankings.

“Our goal is to create the best personalized newspaper for each of our readers,” Back-strom said.

Facebook engineers are experimenting with ways for News Feeds to better handle chronological posts, such as a friend firing off play-by-play updates from a sporting event.

Backstrom’s team meets each Tuesday to brainstorm ways to improve the Facebook news feed, with worthwhile ideas tested in-ternally among workers or with a tiny fraction of the social network’s more than one billion members. “It starts with intuition and then that gets written into code as a feature,” said Cox. “Then we look at interactions.”

Ads displayed as promoted posts in news feeds are handled separately from content generated by people’s friends or family mem-bers at Facebook, according to the ranking team. l

a general view of the Port of Los angeles reUterS

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Gold price crash will not hurt our plans, says Highland GoldnReuters, London

Highland Gold, a Russian gold producer partly owned by oligarch Roman Abramov-ich, will not be swayed from plans to devel-op its new deposits by this year’s crash in prices for the precious metal.

Eugene Shvidler, chairman of High-land Gold, said the company would buck the trend of other gold producers to rein in spending and put projects on hold because it had felt “no big impact so far” from the fall in gold prices by about a quarter this year.

But he expressed some frustration with smaller Russian gold companies reluctant to “marry” into partnerships after Highland tried and failed to forge deals over the last five years, warning them that this would hurt the industry.

“On the one hand (the price fall) is very scary, but on the other, it’s very healthy,” Shvidler said by telephone from his 200-hectare (500-acre) Château Thénac vineyard in southwestern France.

“There has been no big impact so far. If it stays the way it is, we’re OK. We don’t have to stop any big projects or anything like that.”

The gold price started the year at just under $1,680 an ounce and was trading at around $1,280 early on Wednesday. High-land’s 2012 all-in cash costs stood at $973 an ounce, the company said.

Shvidler, head of Abramovich’s invest-ment vehicle Millhouse LLC which owns a 32% stake in Highland, shrugged off com-ments by rival gold company, Russia’s Poly-metal.

Its chief executive, Vitaly Nesis, said last month the industry’s response to the crash was “wholly inadequate” and spending cuts were “startlingly” slow.

“He is very talkative,” said Shvidler, who

is so close to Abramovich that the owner of Chelsea football club bought him 45 High-land sheep for his 45th birthday.

He said he was not ruling out new acqui-sitions.

On April 2, two weeks before the gold price began to plummet, Highland said it had paid $212m to acquire CJSC Bazovye Metally, which allows the company to mine the Kekura gold deposit in the re-mote Chukotka peninsula. Abramovich was the governor of the region between 2001 and 2008.

Shvidler says that Highland would not have saved much if the deal had gone through later. But Nikolay Sosnovskiy, an analyst at VTB Capital, said the transaction looked “very overpriced”.

“It was well above the industry average, while the reality should be that for such an extreme region there should be a discount, not a premium,” Sosnovskiy said.

Shvidler recently increased his stake in the company from around 8 to over 12%, but said he was “not fanatical” about producing gold and would “absolutely” sell the compa-ny if offered the right price.

“We are in business, we are not in love,” he said.

There is not much love lost between some of the smaller Russian gold companies.

“For some of these people to get married in partnerships would be a total disaster,” said Shvidler, no stranger to takeovers.

He oversaw the biggest deal in Russia when, in 2005, Gazprom took over oil com-pany Sibneft for $13.1bn a company which Abramovich privatized in the 1990s and Shvidler made into Russia’s fastest growing oil producer.

Shvidler said Highland had been trying, unsuccessfully, to forge deals with other small Russian gold producers for the last five

years but that it was difficult to do business with them.

“These are local guys with local ideas,” he said. “Even this deal with Kekura took us a year, and those were not local guys.”

The gold crash has seen most big-

gold-mining companies announce billions of dollars of writedowns in recent months. Last week Polymetal said it would write down the value of its assets by up to $340m.

Highland has not announced any write-downs so far. l

24 karat gold bars are seen at the united states West Point Mint facility in West Point, New york. demand for us gold coins is still at “unprecedented” high levels almost two months after an historic sell-off in gold released years of pent-up demand from retail investors, the head of the us Mint said yesterday reUterS

Disney projects up to $190m ‘Lone Ranger’ lossnReuters, Los Angeles

Walt Disney Co expects to lose between $160m and $190m on its expensive summer movie bomb “The Lone Ranger,” the media giant said on Tuesday as it reported a small gain in quarterly profit that beat Wall Street forecasts.

The loss for “The Lone Ranger,” a West-ern starring Johnny Depp, will be recorded for the quarter that ends in September, Chief Financial Officer Jay Rasulo said on a confer-ence call with analysts.

Disney shares dropped 1.9% in after-hours trading to $65.79 from a $67.05 close on the New York Stock Exchange.

“Lone Ranger” opened July 3 with a dis-mal $29m in US and Canadian ticket sales over its first weekend.

“There has been a lot said, I know,

about the risk of basically high cost, tent pole films,” Disney CEO Bob Iger said, “and we certainly can attest to that given what happened with Lone Ranger.”

“We still think the tentpole strategy is a good strategy,” he said. “That one way to rise above the din and the competi-tion is with a big film, not just big budget, but big story, big cast, big marketing be-hind it.”

For the quarter that ended in June, oper-ating income at Disney’s film studio declined 36% as hit film “Iron Man 3” failed to match the spectacular success of last year’s “The Avengers.”

Overall, net income for the quarter rose 1% to $1.85bn. Adjusted earnings-per-share reached $1.03, beating the $1.01 average forecast from analysts polled by Thomson

Reuters.Operating income increased at the com-

pany’s theme parks and its media networks division, which operates sports channel ESPN.

“Overall it was a decent quarter, but noth-ing to get excited about,” Wunderlich Securi-ties analyst Matt Harrigan said.

A gain in fees and advertising revenue at ESPN helped lift operating income at Dis-ney’s media networks by 8% to $2.3bn for the quarter.

At the parks unit, operating income in-creased 9% to $689m as more people visited Disney’s theme parks in Florida and Califor-nia.

The interactive gaming unit posted a loss of $58m. The company is counting on the August 18 release of its Infinity game to turn the unit profitable. l

Iraq oil exports hit 16-month lownAFP, Baghdad

Iraqi crude sales hit a 16-month low in July as exports along a northern pipeline stalled even as production rose, the oil ministry said on Wednesday.

Iraq exported 72 million barrels of oil, or about 2.322 million barrels per day (bpd), ministry spokesman Assem Jihad said - the lowest daily average figure since March 2012.

The country earned $7.3bn from the ex-ports.

Much of the decline came via the Kirkuk-Ceyhan pipeline, which is a frequent target of attacks by militants. Exports along the pipeline had been as high as 547,000 bpd in June 2011, but averaged just 168,000 bpd last month.

But while exports fell, production is on the rise, reaching 3.25 million bpd in July compared to 2.94 million bpd during the same period last year, the ministry said in a statement. l

Thursday, augusT 8, 2013dhaKa TrIBuNE Business

77

China turf war over yuan reform rattles foreign firmsnReuters, Shanghai

Multinational companies in China say they are being forced to pick sides in a turf war between two major financial regulators fighting over which agency will drive cur-rency and capital account liberalisation.

The conflict between the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) and the State Adminis-tration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE) risks undermining confidence in the country’s commitment to pulling down barriers that will finally open up the economy, analysts say.

As President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Keqiang try to build confidence in their reformist agenda through consensus and resolution, analysts say the last thing they need is key agencies in charge of critical components of policy being seen as in con-flict.

“There’s a perception, particularly outside of China, that policy is unfolding according to some great plan,” said Mark Williams, chief China economist at Capi-tal Economics in London. “Clearly that’s never actually been the case, but evidence of conflict within the government will cer-tainly dent confidence.”

Over a dozen big-name companies are taking part in a range of pilot programmes that allow the free movement of the yuan and capital across China’s borders, ad-dressing a common complaint of foreign managers that it is easy to get investment into China but far more difficult to get profits out.

The programmes give the companies more freedom than they would otherwise have operating in China, but they also pro-vide the government with a laboratory to test how the economy might cope with the open financial system they have promised to ultimately deliver in order to put the world’s second-largest economy on a more sustainable development path.

Sources from companies with deep trade relationships with China, inside banks and from foreign business associ-ations, say the conflict between the two massive bureaucracies managing separate clusters of pilot programmes are begin-ning to impact decision-making at major corporations, which together channel bil-lions of dollars in investment and trade in and out of China.

“There are too many pilot programmes in our view,” said a treasurer at a major Europe-an multinational in charge of deploying sys-tems used to settle company trade in yuan.

“There are schemes from SAFE and schemes from PBOC, and they don’t like each other. If you sign up for one, you might not be chosen for the other one. So you have to be very careful what you choose and what you say to whom.”

The treasurer said concerns about being stuck on the wrong side of a fight between powerful bureaucracies - and rumours that other firms had been misled into over-investing in municipal trials that failed to

live up to promises - prompted his firm to limit the amount of capital it committed to trial programmes.

Four other sources said they too had been warned of the spat between the PBOC and SAFE, to the extent that the conflict appears to have been an open secret in certain circles of the financial community in China and Hong Kong.

“The advice we got was we should par-ticipate in one pilot or another because PBOC and SAFE were competing against one another,” said a finance executive from a major foreign multinational with close working knowledge of the pilot pro-grammes, adding that multiple sources had given him the same advice.

The sources spoke to Reuters on con-dition of anonymity for fear that speaking publicly would damage the prospects of their businesses in China. SAFE and PBOC did not respond to faxed requests for com-ment.

The root of the conflict between the central bank and SAFE is not clear. Some analysts say the struggle is simply over power, others believe different agendas are at the root of the conflict.

“The PBOC is taking a more open ap-proach (to reform), whereas SAFE sees it-self as a gatekeeper,” said a lead represen-tative of a foreign business association in China.

The central bank manages the coun-try’s money supply and to an extent has authority over Chinese banks, shared with the China Banking Regulatory Commis-sion. SAFE handles the country’s foreign exchange reserves and manages cross-bor-der currency flows. Technically SAFE is under the supervision of the central bank, but in practice analysts say the relation-ship has been frequently adversarial and agendas have conflicted.

too MUCH of a Good tHinGPilot schemes to test economic reforms locally before rolling them out nationally have been a hallmark of China’s develop-ment in the past three decades following former leader Deng Xiaoping’s slogan: “Cross the river by feeling the stones.”

After years of breakneck economic ex-pansion, Beijing has said widespread re-forms, including fiscal, monetary and le-gal changes, are needed to secure future

growth. It is expected to produce a road map for further economic reforms in Oc-tober.

China’s yuan is currently convertible under the current account, the broadest measures of international trade in services and goods. But Beijing maintains tight re-strictions on the capital account, worried that freeing up the yuan too quickly could leave the economy vulnerable to rapid movements in capital in and out of the country.

It also manages the yuan’s exchange rate and domestic interest rates. Many econo-mists see these as key financial reforms, without which China will have difficulty transitioning away from its old state-dom-inated, investment-intensive economic model toward a more market-driven and globally competitive structure.

China has over 10 currency or capital account-related pilot programmes that are active or under development, testing different aspects of liberalisation from simply reducing red tape, to allowing out-bound investment and to sophisticated programmes allowing cross border lend-ing and intra-company payments. l

The photo shows credit cards of a business man in China. Multinational companies in China say they are being forced to pick sides in a turf war between two major financial regulators fighting over which agency will drive currency and capital account liberalisation reUterS

BusinessdhaKa TrIBuNE Thursday, augusT 8, 2013

8 Thursday, augusT 8, 2013dhaKa TrIBuNE Business

China policy mantra signals privatization, securitization: officialnReuters, Shanghai

Ever since Chinese Premier Li Keqiang used the cryptic phrase “revitalize the stock” in an offi-cial policy statement in June, market watchers have pondered what policies it entails.

A central bank official has told Reuters that according to his personal understanding, the phrase refers to packaging loans into securities and sales of minority stakes in state firms.

Such reforms would be aimed at cleaning up bank balance sheets and bolstering China’s welfare system, said the official, who heads a People’s Bank of China branch in a major city and is a member of the National People’s Con-gress, China’s parliament.

China’s new leadership has pledged to wean the nation off its addiction to investment and credit-fuelled growth in favour of a more con-sumption-driven model. A range of reforms are expected to be announced at a Communist Party meeting likely to be held in October.

Such re-balancing will require a more gen-erous social safety net that can persuade Chi-nese households to save less and consume more, as well as cleaning up a banking system saddled with potential bad debts from China’s 2008-2009 stimulus spending spree.

The official asked for anonymity because he is not authorized to speak to media about gov-ernment policy. Branch presidents participate in official PBOC policy discussions, while the NPC votes to approve major policy initiatives.

Li told China’s cabinet in June that China would “make good use of the flow and revital-ize the stock,” a phrase that top leaders have since repeated many times.

“If various levels of government can reduce their equity ownership partially, it will not only further advance state-owned enterprises reform, but also release some funding. That is ‘revitalizing the stock,’” the official said.

Funds raised from stake sales could be used to shore up the national pension fund or finance more generous health-care benefits as part of Beijing’s efforts to spur consumption, he said.

While the branch president’s comments in-dicate some official support for privatization, such proposals remain contentious. A World

Bank report in February 2012 that recommend-ed gradual sales of partial stakes drew criticism that such proposals undermined the socialist foundations of the economy.

SeCUritiSationThe official said he believed the other key re-form signaled by Li was a proposal to allow banks to package some risky loans into secu-rities that could be sold off, creating space on their balance sheet to support the economy with fresh credit.

“This is also ‘revitalizing the stock.’ And the commercial banks really need it,” he said, predicting that the non-performing loan ratio would rise as China’s economy slows.

Analysts say the official ratio, which is be-low 1%, clearly understates the scale of bad debt problems and they fear that banks will seek to avoid write-downs by keeping unviable

borrowers on life support.The official said that state-backed asset

management companies would likely be the main buyers of securitized bank assets.

That could set the stage for a modified ver-sion of China’s last round of bank recapitaliza-tion. China set up four such companies up in 1999 to take 1.4tn yuan ($230bn) off the books of the nation’s Big Four banks. The companies raised money to buy the bad debts by issuing 10-year bonds backed by China’s finance min-istry.

But by 2010, those companies only recov-ered about a fifth of the value of the loans they had bought at or near face value, leaving them unable to repay the bonds. That forced the government to extend the bonds for an-other decade. Last year, provincial govern-ments were authorized to set up their own asset management companies to buy bad debt

from smaller banks, but so far only Jiangsu, a wealthy province in southeast China, has for-mally established one.

“Credit asset transfer and securitization re-ally isn’t that innovative. Internationally, (the practice is) already quite developed. We’re just taking readily available things off the shelf and putting them to use,” the PBOC official said. China began experimenting with asset-backed securities (ABS) before the 2008-2009 finan-cial crisis, with the first deal issued by China Construction Bank in 2005. But regulators halted these pilot projects during the crisis.

Securitization was cautiously restarted last year, but progress has been slow. Only 25.6bn yuan in credit-based ABS are currently out-standing in China’s interbank market, a tiny fraction of the 27.25tn yuan in total bonds out-standing, according to data from China’s two main bond clearinghouses. l

a cargo ship loaded with containers is seen anchored at a port in Qingdao, shandong province July 10, 2013. China’s exports in June declined 3.1 percent from a year earlier. Picture taken July 10, 2013. To match analysis ChINa-EXPOrTs reUterS

IMF: Germany must ‘recalibrate’ if economy slowsnAFP, Berlin

The International Monetary Fund said yester-day that Germany will have to “recalibrate” its fiscal policies if growth falters in Europe’s biggest economy.

The IMF maintained its outlook for 0.3% GDP growth this year in Germany and 1.3% in 2014, but said Berlin will have to rethink its tax-and-spend plans if growth falls short. The Washington-based fund pointed to the crucial role of the German economy, warning that a “significantly weaker German outlook would in turn affect both regional and global growth prospects”.

At the same time, said the Fund’s German mission chief Subir Lall, “uncertainty about

euro area prospects and policies, more so than about Germany itself, is holding back more ro-bust growth in Germany”.

Germany’s export-driven economy shrank in the last quarter of 2012 amid the eurozone debt and recession crisis but has since gradu-ally rebounded, booking 0.1% growth in the first quarter.

Chancellor Angela Merkel, who faces elec-tions on September 22, has pushed for aus-terity in crisis-hit nations of the 17- member

eurozone and fiscal consolidation at home to drive down public debt.

But the IMF warned Germany against tightening the purse strings too much and snuffing out growth, saying it “encouraged a recalibration of policy should growth fall short of expectations”.

It said in that case slashing spending or “fiscal over- performance should be firmly avoided as it could imply a contractionary fis-cal stance that is unwarranted in the current low growth environment”.

Lall said that lower growth would force a rethink about “whether additional domestic demand support needs to be provided”.

The IMF report commended Berlin for pru-dent economic policies and providing “an im-

portant anchor of regional stability”. But it warned that, “given its high degree

of trade openness, Germany is highly suscep-tible to a slowdown in external demand and/or elevated financial stress”.

For Germany, it said, “the outlook for the remainder of 2013 and next year is heavily de-pendent on a gradual recovery in the rest of the euro area and a sustained reduction in un-certainty”. It said that Germany and the wid-er eurozone could either lift each other up or drag each other down, warning of “interrelat-ed and mutually reinforcing downside risks”.

In the longer term, the IMF urged Germany to push forward the EU’s plans for a banking union and greater policy integration within the economic and monetary union. l

the outlook for the remainder of 2013 and next year is heavily dependent on a gradual recovery in the rest of the euro area and a sustained reduction in uncertainty