Two killed ina ‘gun� ght’in capitalFamilies allege police were ‘hired’by political rivals to kill themn Adil Sakhawat and

Tazlina Zamila Khan

Con� icting statements have emerged about the identity of the two men killed in an alleged gun� ght with law enforcers in the early hours of yester-day in the capital’s Motijheel area.

While police said they were still to be identi� ed, the family of the two deceased had claimed that they were leaders of the ruling party’s labour front.

There are also some confusions about how they died. While police said they were killed in a “gun� ght,” a wit-

ness said policemen killed them with gunshots.

According to the witness, whose identity we are not disclosing for secu-rity reasons, around 2:15am yesterday, police cordoned o� six men, travelling on two motorbikes in front of the T&T school in Motijheel.

“The bikers opened � re at police and hurled a cocktail. In reply, police also opened � re. I heard at least 40 rounds of gunshots,” said the witness, who is a resident of the adjacent AGB Colony and watched the entire incident from his bedroom window.

“After the gun� re exchange, I saw

two people fall on the road. Police left the two bodies there and took the four others on a van. A little later, police came back and took away the bodies,” the witness said.

He claimed that he had also seen po-lice dump sand onto the road to cover the blood stains.

Yesterday, SI Nripen Kumer Bhou-mik from the Detective Branch of Po-lice � led two cases in connection with the incident.

According to one of the � rst infor-mation reports (FIRs), police admitted that there was a gun� ght in which they � red 40 rounds, but also said they did not kill the two; rather they were killed by bullets � red from the guns of the other “criminals.”

The FIR also says police are not yet sure about the identity of the deceased.

Md Masudur Rahman, deputy com-missioner of Dhaka Metropolitan Po-lice, said: “They might have been plan-ning a robbery. They attacked when police challenged them for gathering there at that hour and asked for iden-ti� cation.”

However, the families of the two de-ceased have already got the bodies from the Dhaka Medical College Hospital.

According to them, one is Zakir Hossain Akmal, 35, president of the Sayedabad unit of Sramik League; and the other is Ramzan Zabed, 35, general secretary of the same unit of the ruling party wing.

PAGE 2 COLUMN 1

Double Dutch late show � oors Mexicon AFP, Fortaleza

The Netherlands scored twice in the dying minutes through Wesley Snei-jder and a Klaas Jan Huntelaar penalty to move into the quarter-� nals of the World Cup with a 2-1 win over Mexico on Sunday.

In a match conditioned by the bak-ing heat and humidity in Fortaleza, Gio-vani dos Santos looked to have Mexico on the way to their � rst quarter-� nal

appearance on foreign soil when he opened the scoring three minutes into the second-half.

However, Sneijder levelled with a thumping volley from the edge of the area two minutes from time before Huntelaar converted from the spot in stoppage time after Rafael Marquez

had upended Arjen Robben.Louis van Gaal’s men will now face

Costa Rica or Greece in the last eight in Salvador on Saturday.

The Netherlands had been disrupt-ed by an early injury to Nigel de Jong as he hobbled o� to be replaced by Bruno Martins Indi.

Mexico’s Hector Herrera then had the clearest opening of the � rst 45 minutes as he collected Oribe Peralta’s pass on the edge of the area and cut inside before

dragging a right-foot shot inches wide.Dutch keeper Jasper Cillessen was

then forced into his � rst save of the afternoon by a long-range e� ort from Carlos Salcido.

The Netherlands didn’t register an e� ort on target until the 26th minute when Robin van Persie skewed wide form a narrow angle after collecting Stefan de Vrij’s pass inside the area.

Both sides were then handed the PAGE 2 COLUMN 4

SHEHRI AND IFTAR TIMEDay Shehri IftarRamadan 1/June 30 – 6:53pmRamadan 2/July 1 3:42am 6:54pm

7 | MIDWIVES LOWER MATERNAL MORTALITY

20 pages | Price: Tk12MONDAY, JUNE 30, 2014 | www.dhakatribune.com | SECOND EDITION

Ashar 16, 1421Ramadan 1, 1435Regd. No. DA 6238Vol 2, No 90

B1 | STOCKS JUMP, CAPITAL GAIN TAX GOES 8 | IRAN ‘READY’ TO HELP IRAQ

Police are not yet sure about the identity of the deceased

WC SECOND STAGE MATCH SCHEDULEJune 30, 201410pm France vs NigeriaJuly 1, 20142am Germany vs Algeria10pm Argentina vs SwitzerlandJuly 2, 20142am Belgium vs United States

2nd Round Details on page-15

INSIDE2 | NewsThe BNP yesterday demanded an international probe to � nd and punish those who siphoned money out of the country to Swiss Bank.

3 | NewsA lawmaker told parliament yesterday that the Home Ministry should not have any budgetary allocation from the public exchequer as the police earn a lot extorting people.

11 | Op-EdThe incident of Shakib al Hassan beating up a spectator for ‘passing indecent comments’ at his wife is not only shameful, but is actually part of a much bigger conversation.

11 | Op-EdOn the occasion of the 92nd birth anniversary of Sa� uddin Ahmed, his son Ahmed Nazir has arranged for an exhibition at the Gallery Chitrak.

4 | NewsMental depression su� ered by a large number of diabetics remains undiagnosed and is causing the complications of the disease, claims a leading specialist of the � eld.

* * *The initiative to enact the Public Service Act prepared in 2010 to ensure discipline in the civil bureaucracy has come to the fore. It was drafted four years ago.

5 | NewsThe low-lying areas of Chittagong city were submerged in waist-deep water after a heavy downpour yesterday, causing immense su� ering of residents and commuters.

6 | NationBene� ciaries of Mother Healthcare Voucher in Shibganj, Chapainawabganj have alleged that local government employees are asking for bribes.

9 | WorldWestern governments are rushing to visit India’s new Prime Minister Narendra Modi, drawn by theprospect of multi-billion-dollardeals.

Colombia’s James Rodriguez celebrates his goal against Uruguay during their 2014 World Cup round of 16 game at the Maracana stadium in Rio de Janeiro yesterday REUTERS

Nasim: Doctors only here work even on holidaysn Kamran Reza Chowdhury and

Moniruzzaman Uzzal

Health Minister Mohammad Nasim yesterday told parliament that Bangla-desh was the only country in the world where physicians provided treatment even on holidays – a statement health experts have described as “untrue.”

According to parliamentary norms, telling lies or providing untrue statement is a serious o� ence. A minister of the leg-islature telling lies may even be forced to leave o� ce in vibrant democracies.

Nasim, who after assuming o� ce in January vowed to force truant doctors PAGE 2 COLUMN 5

JS PASSES FY2014-15 BUDGET

Lawmakers worried about banking bugsn Asif Showkat Kallol

The Jatiya Sangsad passed the Tk2,50,506 crore budget for FY2014-15 yesterday, amid lawmakers’ concerns about glitches in the country’s banking system.

On June 5, Finance Minister AMA Muhith placed the proposed budget be-fore the House, leaving out the much-talked-about provision for whitening black money.

However, the provision was retained in Finance Bill 2014 that was passed in parliament on Saturday.

Before the passage of the budget yesterday, ministers defended the budgetary allocation given to their re-spective ministries.

Up against a total of 56 allocation demands placed by the ministries and divisions of the government, an inde-pendent lawmaker and several oth-ers from main opposition Jatiya Party (JaPa) placed 249 cut motions.

However, all the proposals – most of which were token ones – for trimming allocations were rejected in voice vote.

After the � nance minister placed a formal demand for higher allocation for the Bank and Financial Institu-tion Division, independent lawmak-er Tahzib Alam Siddique said if the

PAGE 2 COLUMN 1

Gonoshasthaya Kendra put up for auctionn Mohammad Al-Masum Molla

Properties of Swadhinata Award win-ning organisation Gonoshasthaya Ken-dra have been put up for auction as the institute has gone bankrupt.

A Dhaka court on May 29 announced the auction through a newspaper ad-vertisement saying the auction will take place on June 22 this year and the highest bidder will win the auction.

When contacted Dr Zafrullah Chowdhury, one of the founders of the Gonoshasthaya Kendra, prestigious Magsaysay award winner in 1985, however said a High Court stay order

was given over the auction notice.The auction notice mentioned the

names of the three decree holders in-cluding Mohammad Harasatullah, Sa-hida Jinat Ara, wife of Harasatullah and Mehraz Parvin, daughter of Hara-satullah.

All of their addresses were men-tioned as Jinat Bhaban, 41/1 Kazi Naz-rul Islam Avenue of Kawran Bazar.

According to the auction notice the properties include over 3 acres 2 Bigha 11Katha and 13Chattak Pharmachemi Bangladesh Ltd situated in Tongi In-dustrial area, Tongi, Gazipur. The

PAGE 2 COLUMN 4SYED ZAKIR HOSSAIN

Kamal Majumdar demands withdrawal of police n Kailash Sarkar

Ruling party lawmaker Kamal Ahmed Majumder yesterday led demonstra-tions in the capital’s Mirpur, demand-ing the withdrawal of three police o� cials who ordered the removal of makeshift archways on city roads built to mark Awami League’s founding an-niversary.

Supporters of Kamal, the MP from Dhaka 15 constituency, Made a block-aded on Mirpur roads for around one and a half hour in the afternoon. He

called for the removal of deputy com-missioner of police in Mirpur Division, Imtiyaz Ahmed, and the o� cers-in-charge of Kafrul and Bhashantek police stations.

During the demonstrations, local Awami League activists claimed that the police had removed over a dozen archways from roads at Shewrapara, Kazipara, Mirpur Section 10, Kochuk-het and Ibrahimpur areas.

Addressing a rally at Mirpur Section 10, Kamal warned of organising further road blockades from next Saturday if

the police o� cials were not withdrawn by Thursday.

He also alleged that the three police o� cials were involved in assisting ille-gal trades, extortions and movement of illegal vehicles.

Meanwhile, the police o� cials con-cerned said they had removed the makeshift archways as the structures were unsafe for city roads, obstructed tra� c movement and posed a risk to the public.

Talking to the Dhaka Tribune, DC Imtiyaz Ahmed said the police decided

to remove the archways considering public interest and safety.

“Those archways had been con-structed creating obstruction to tra� c movement, posing a hazard for city roads and also risking public lives,” the DC said.

“I had given no objection for the construction of seven arches on condi-tion that they obtained approval from the proper authorities like the tra� c department and the Dhaka City Corpo-ration.

PAGE 2 COLUMN 3

Two killed in a ‘gun� ght’ PAGE 1 COLUMN 2The families also said Ramzan had a mo-tor parts business and Akmal was in the cloth trade. Ramzan’s sister Yarunnessa said her brother’s political rival Saiful Islam Kokhon, alias “Blade” Khokon, might have orchestrated the killing us-ing his connections inside police.

“My brother told us once that if any-thing happened to him, then we should tell the police Blade Khokon’s name,” she said.

His wife Nusrat Jahan Jhorna said: “Khokhon and Khayer have connec-tions in DB police. Police killed my hus-band for money.”

Interestingly, Khokon was with Ramzan and Akmal when they were allegedly killed. In fact he was among the four taken away by police after the incident and was reportedly freed later.

Jhorna said her husband had left home with Khokon and Babu on a mo-torcycle around 10:30pm Saturday and never came back.

Although police said they did not know the whereabouts of the four oth-ers that they had picked up from the spot and later freed, some of them,

including Khokon, came to the DMCH yesterday to see the dead bodies of Ramzan and Akmal.

Khokon yesterday told journalists: “It seems police is involved in the matter. I do not have any con� ict with Ramzan. A fair investigation is required into this incident.”

He, however, refused to make any comment on the fact that they were termed “absconding” in the FIRs.

Akmal’s wife Sabina Yasmin Dulu said: “My husband is a cloth merchant and also involved with the politics of the ruling party. Everyone in the area respects him a lot... I swear upon my son, my husband did not carry any weapon. He went out alone and did not even take his motorbike.”

According to the postmortem re-ports, the deceased received four to six bullet wounds in the face, chest, throat and ear.

A� al Hossain, security guard of the T&T High School, told the Dhaka Trib-une that on that night, he had heard several gunshots at around 2am. But he could not gather the courage to come out of the main gate of the school see

what was going on. DB police spokesman Masudur Rah-

man said: “DB police is not used by vested groups for their personal inter-ests. The deceased are still unidenti� ed and we are trying to dig out their iden-tities and also criminal records.” l

News2 DHAKA TRIBUNE Monday, June 30, 2014

Ministry submits probe report in question leakn Mushfi que Wadud

An education ministerial investigation committee � nally submitted its report yesterday, making a set of recommen-dations to avert any recurrence of question leaks in the country.

Additional Education Secretary Sohrab Hossain, who headed the com-mittee, submitted the report to Educa-tion Minister Nurul Islam Nahid at the ministry.

Earlier, on April 10, the ministry formed the seven-member committee with Sohrab in the lead, a day after the Dhaka Board postponed its English Second Paper examination scheduled for April 9.

The deadline for submitting the re-port had been extended twice as the committee had failed to submit its re-port within the deadline.

Speaking to the Dhaka Tribune, Sohrab said they had given a set of short term, midterm and long term rec-ommendations, some of which need time to be implemented, in order to avoid any repetition of question leaks.

He added that some reforms had

also been suggested in terms of prepar-ing and distributing question papers, which they believed, could reduce the risks of question leaks in the exams.

As a long term solution, the commit-tee suggested sending out question pa-pers via the internet, which it believed, hardly carries any risk of question leak.

When he was asked whether all the schools and colleges are equipped with internet facilities, investigation com-mittee chief Sohrab said such facilities should be provided in the long run.

The committee also suggested mak-ing a good number of question papers to avoid question leaks and selecting the question paper through a lottery system, only on the day of examina-tions.

The committee, however, has not found any clue as to where the ques-tion paper was leaked from.

Investigation committee chief Sohr-ab was asked whether any source of question leak was found and he said a person had been arrested in this regard in Faridpur. The committee suggested lawmen grill him to elicit a clue.

He also said they had not found any other examination question paper leaks.

Seeking anonymity, a committee member said they had found out the leak of mathematics examination question paper but after learning about it, the board had changed the question paper set � xed for the examination.

Terming the English second paper question leak a black mark on his � ve and a half years as education minister, he told reporters after receiving the report that the ministry would do all it could to avoid any question leaks in future. l

BNP demands international probe into money launderingn Mohammad Al-Masum Molla

The BNP yesterday demanded an in-ternational probe to � nd those who siphoned money out of the country to Swiss banks and to ensure punishment for the culprits.

“Prime Minister said she would unveil the list of those who had deposited mon-ey there. We are demanding an inter-national probe to identify theses people who siphoned money out of the coun-try,” said the party’s acting secretary gen-eral Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir.

Fakhrul made the demand in re-ply to Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina who on Friday said the government knows the details of those who laun-dered money abroad and the money would be brought back. Addressing a progrqamme at National Press Club de-manding the whereabouts of missing BNP leader Chowhdury Alam, Fakhrul said: “Who deposited what amount of money can be known if an international

probe takes place. But the government would not investigate because they are the ones who deposited money there.”

He also alleged that several ruling party men plundered money from the country’s capital markets, � nancial institutions and the hallmark scandal, and smuggled the money abroad.

“They used the smuggled money to construct residential areas in Canada. Awami League leaders have built their houses there and even created second homes in Malaysia... They themselves have been laundering money and now they again question who has money in Swiss banks.”

Terming the current parliament illegal, Fakhrul said, “As there is no representation of people, so this parlia-ment is not peoples’ parliament. Parlia-ment leader said this house was an idle house because the opposition party played constructive role.”

He also added the illegal govern-ment has passed a budget on Sunday

where scope of whitening black mon-ey remained intact. “This budget was passed to plunder more money out of the peoples’ pocket.”

The party spokesman further alleged that the Awami League leader had been sheltering criminal godfathers and the whole country was now being turned into a kingdom of criminals.

“There are two sort of laws prevail-ing in the country—one for the opposi-tion party and the other for the ruling party. We were obstructed to hold ral-lies and processions in the capital while the ruling party men holding proces-sions blocking the streets.”

Fakhrul said they have failed to wage proper movement after the abduction of BNP leader Chowdhury Alam. “If we could wage tough movement against abduction since the beginning, then it would be possible to resist the trend. Unfortunately, we failed to do so.”

Fakhrul also said the civil society mem-bers were now in fear of repression. l

Government yet to � nalise shrimp policyn Mohosinul Karim

Despite being one of the major export sector of the country, the government has yet to � nalise the national shrimp policy for the last four years. Sources said Ministry of Livestock and Fisher-ies formulated the policy that was not � nalised without any logical reason.

Shrimp cultivators have long been urging the government to formulate the policy.

According to the Export Promotion Bureau, frozen � sh and shrimp on av-erage earn around $55 crore annually.

At the time of presenting the budget proposal for the FY 2014-15, Finance Minister AMA Muhith assured of � nal-ising the national shrimp policy soon. l

Kamal Majumdar PAGE 1 COLUMN 5“But they constructed many more than the approved number of arches. Be-sides, those gates were supposed to be removed by June 25; but they did not do that even after repeated requests and warnings,” Imtiyaz said.

Despite repeated attempts to con-tact lawmaker Kamal for comments, the Dhaka Tribune found his phone switched o� .

The agitation programme by the ruling party MP came only days after Narayanganj lawmaker Shamim Os-man allegedly threatened an assistant superintendent of police for barring a local union parishad chairman from stu� ng ballots during the by-poll on June 26. l

Lawmakers worried about banking bugs PAGE 1 COLUMN 1banks got more money, they would give out more bad loans and only wors-en the situation.

In reply, Muhith admitted that there had been some frauds in the banking sector.

He said no past government had taken any steps against the top brass of government banks for giving out bad loans.

“We have talked about bringing re-

forms to the board of directors of the [state-owned] Basic Bank. You will see it implemented very soon,” he assured.

Regarding the allocation for the Home Ministry, JaPa MP Mohammad Noman said there was no point in spending more money for the law en-forcement agencies as they would still continue to extort and commit murders.

In reply, State Minister for Home Asaduzzaman Khan said he had sought bigger allocations because the target

was to enhance the law enforcers’ ca-pabilities.

The Jatiya Sangsad (JS) yesterday also unanimously passed the Appropri-ation Bill 2014, giving authority to the government to spend up to Tk3,82,340 crore from the consolidated fund in FY2014-15 to � nance development and non-development expenditures .

The size of the Annual Development Programme has been � xed at Tk80,315 crore and the estimated de� cit is

Tk67,552 crore, which is 5% of the cur-rent GDP.

The budget targets a 7.3% growth rate, which the World Bank said was challenging but attainable if invest-ment grew 5% annually.

Yet another budgetary target is to bring the rate of in� ation down to be-low 7% in the fresh � scal year that starts tomorrow.

The revenue collection target is Tk1,82 ,954 crore, nearly 73% of the

total outlay. The government expects to raise Tk1,49,720 crore from direct taxes.

Under the appropriations approved yesterday, the Finance Division got the highest allocation of Tk44,517 crore followed by the Defence Ministry Tk16,491 crore, Local Government Di-vision Tk15,486 crore, Education Min-istry Tk15,549 crore, Primary and Mass Education Ministry Tk13,676 crore and the Home Ministry Tk11,369 crore.

The Armed Forces Division got Tk21 crore, Prime Minister’s O� ce Tk762 crore, Energy and Mineral Resources Ministry Tk2,256 crore, Road Division Tk6,868 crore, railway Tk6,463 crore, agriculture Tk11,147 crore, shipping Tk1,022 crore, rural development and cooperatives Tk1,516 crore, water re-sources Tk3,619 crore, forestry Tk911 crore, post and telecom Tk1292 crore and information and technology Tk1,027 crore. l

Gonoshasthaya Kendra put up for auction PAGE 1 COLUMN 5approximate value of the land is Tk2.5 crore.

The other land is Ganasastha Nagar Hospital located in Dhanmondi Resi-dential Area. The land measuring one bigha with a six-storey building. The ap-proximate value of which is Tk2 crore.

Another land is located on the Green road in Dhaka. The land measuring more or less 10 katha together with a two-storey building the approximate value of which is Tk50 lakh

The Gonoshasthaya Kendra located at Nayarjhat of Savar was also put up for auction. The land measuring about 100 bigha with structure thereon and the approximate value of the land is Tk5 crore.

The auction notice said the proper-ties mentioned in the notice are going to be put up for auction in a bid to col-

lect over Tk37 crore.Interested persons can participate

in the auction by June 22 and the court will decide the highest bidder and the supreme authority can reject the ten-der at anytime.

Zafrullah told the Dhaka Tribune that they bought the industry in the early 80s for about Tk2 crore 12 lakh.

“Phrmachemi was a chemical indus-try. The owner sold the industry to us as he was unable to run it. Harsatul-lah was the then owner of the organ-isation. When we went to the bank to pay o� the loan the bank authority de-nied us the money saying the owner of the company should have to go to the bank. But the owner refused to go to the bank with us. We then asked the bank authority not to disburse money against the check we have given to the owner of the company,” he said.

The case document said when the deed was signed Zafrullah paid Tk50 lakh and the rest of the amount was said to have been paid in four installments but the installments were not paid.

After that a case was lodged against Gonoshasthaya Kendra and the Gonos-hasthaya Kendra too lodged a counter case, he said.

“We have paid all the amounts in-cluding some interests on November 30, 2008,” he said adding that the property had been in their possession since 80s.

When asked about the root of the problem Zafrullah said: “They want the whole interest which the court asked to pay. Now we got a stay order for four months to � x the interest rate, be it a simple interest or compound interest.”

When contacted none of the decree holders could be reached over phone for their comment on the issue. l

Double Dutch late show � oors Mexico PAGE 1 COLUMN 6chance to cool o� for three minutes at the half-hour mark for the � rst time at a World Cup due to the searing temper-atures.

Cillessen then made a � ne stop to prevent dos Santos opening the scoring with a low e� ort.

However, the Netherlands were left aggrieved just a minute before the break when Robben appeared to have been clipped by Hector Moreno inside the area.

Mexico got o� to a � ying start in the second-half as Dos Santos held o� a chal-lenge from Daley Blind to thump home his � rst international goal in a competi-tive match for two years from 25 yards.

Oribe Peralta nearly made it 2-0 eight minutes later with a curling e� ort that Cillessen did well to claim at the � rst attempt.

Moments later it was Guillermo Ochoa who made an incredible stop to prevent Stefan de Vrij levelling as he turned the defender’s volley onto the post from point-blank range.

Sneijder then saw a de� ected e� ort � y inches past as the Netherlands went

in search of an equaliser.Ochoa had to come to his side’s

rescue again 17 minutes from time when Robben escaped the clutches of Marquez but saw his low e� ort turned behind by the Mexican stopper.

Dutch boss Louis van Gaal then sur-prisingly replaced captain Van Persie with Klaas Jan Huntelaar.

However, his decision was to prove inspired as � rstly Huntelaar turned Robben’s corner in the direction of the lurking Sneijder to power home from the edge of the box on.

And after Robben was adjudged by Portuguese referee Pedro Proenca to have been clipped by Marquez in the fourth minute of stoppage time, the Schalke striker coolly stroked home the resulting penalty to eliminate Mexico at the last 16 stage for a sixth consecutive World Cup. l

Traders: More police in Ramadan, more extortionn Asif Showkat Kallol and

Mohammad Jamil Khan

The government has planned to deploy police in the highways across the coun-try to stop extortion from vehicles car-rying essentials to prevent prices from soaring.

However, transport owners and busi-nessmen said the more police the govern-ment deploy on the roads and highways the more the prices of essentials will rise, since a nexus of police and business syn-dicates are involved in the crimes.

The Commerce Ministry sent a letter to the Home Ministry to take steps to stop extortion on the roads and highways.

The ministry also instructed 64 dis-trict commissioners to take bold steps to this end.

The prices of essentials usually go up by 40% to 60  % during Ramadan due to extortion from vehicles and business syndicates.

Commerce Secretary Mahbub Ahmed said: “We have already in-

formed the Home Ministry to take ac-tions to stop highway extortion.”

The Intelligent agencies have iden-ti� ed more than 100 people involved in such crimes and police are going to take preemptive measures by busting their dens, he added.

The Commerce Ministry sources said 1kg of brinjal is now being sold at TK20-TK25 in the wholesale markets of Narsing-di and it was sold at Tk60-70 (a 180% rise) in Dhaka’s kitchen markets yesterday.

Transport businessmen and traders blamed the syndicates and police for the extortion at a number of points of the Dhaka-Chittagong Highway.

The points are Khopur, Sitakundu, Daudkhandi, Eliatganj Bhobhachar Chittagong Road and Gabtoli, Aminba-zar, Savar, Paturia, Arepara, Nahapara, Daulatpur, and 22 other spots on the Dhaka-Narsingdi Highway.

Toll collectors are also active at Jatrabari, Dholaikhal, Tanti Bazar More, Armanitola More in the capital.

Incidents of mugging and extortion also

happen in northern, western, and eastern parts of the country and sometimes driv-ers are also killed in those incidents.

Businessmen and transport own-ers association alleged that police trap drivers and force the transport owners to pay police on a regular basis.

Dhaka Mahanagar Transport Agency Owners Association General Secretary Dholan Barura said: “We pay police and extortionists regularly and if anyone re-fuses to pay, they are branded by police as illegal drug peddlers.”

Golam Mawla, general secretary of Moulvibazar Bebsayi Samity, said the more police men are posted on the highways to stop extortion during the holy month of Ramadan, the more it will happen.

Asaduzzaman Miah, deputy in-spector general of the highway police, however, said: “Our members are not involved in toll collection in the trans-port sector.”

“If anyone can prove it, action will be taken immediately against those in-volved in extortion,” he added. l

Nasim: Doctors only here work even on holidays PAGE 1 COLUMN 6to stay in rural areas and warned of admin-istrative actions, made the pro-doctor state-ment as a group of opposition lawmakers spoke against the proposed budgetary allo-cation of over Tk11,176 crore for the health sector in the upcoming � scal year.

“Nowhere in the world will you � nd a doctor on holidays even if the patient dies. In Bangladesh, however, emer-gency services are available even on holidays,” Nasim said, adding that doc-tors in Bangladesh worked very hard.

Earlier, Jatiya Party lawmaker Moham-mad Noman, Sawkat Chowdhury, Nurul Islam Milon and independent MP Rustum Ali Faraji heavily criticised doctors.

“The health sector is in a fragile state...Dhaka Medical College Hospital is the largest slum. Doctors and nurses have been busy with health business,” Noman said, opposing the proposed budgetary allocation.

“You can sense the smell of graves in hospitals. Doctors posted at upazilas go to their workplaces once a week to sign the attendance book and practise privately in towns and cities,” he said.

Noman said dishonest hospital sta�

intentionally damage machines and sell medicines in the market.

Nurul Islam alleged that doctors were not interested in serving rural people. He suggested that students enrolling in the MBBS course should compulsorily live in villages for two months when they begin school. They should again return to vil-lage for a stipulated time to develop em-pathy for the poor rural people.

He also proposed allocating the min-istry only Tk1.

Refuting the allegations, Nasim said it was not the duty of the health min-ister or the premier to ensure doctors’ presence at grassroots level.

Terming the Mps’ allegations illogi-cal, he said: “As representatives of the local people, you have the responsibili-ties to monitor whether doctors attend workplaces.”

Experts criticised Nasim for his “un-true” statement.

“This [what Nasim said in parlia-ment] is totally wrong,” Dr Zafrul-lah Chowdhury, the trusty of Gono-shasthya Kendra, told the Dhaka Tribune last night.

He said doctors for emergency ser-

vices remained available everywhere in the world, including the US, the UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

“General practitioners are available round the clock, including on all reli-gious and national days and even dur-ing Christmas holidays,” said Zafrullah, adding: “If situation demands, they even hire temporary doctors. They never leave any patient unattended.”

He said doctors would be forced to stay in villages if the government wanted.

Professor Dr Rashide Mahbub, for-mer president of Bangladesh Medical Association, told the Dhaka Tribune: “I do not know what circumstances made the minister make such a statement. There is no country in the world where a government and a civil society exist but doctors are unavailable.

“In developed countries, doctors can do private practice on holidays but they cannot entirely remain absent from public hospitals.”

Dr Rashide, however, said Nasim’s claim was “partially correct” for health-care specialists. “They may remain absent on holidays in developed coun-tries,” he said. l

Garment workers fall ill eating lunchn Our Correspondent, Savar

About 50 garment factory workers fell ill yesterday after eating lunch at their workplace in Ashulia, Savar.

The workers of Greenlane Shahria were admitted to a local hospital.

According to sources, the garment factory authority had provided rice, beef, chicken and lentil for lunch. The workers started vomiting and many of them fainted after lunch.

Doctors determined food poisoning as the reason for the illness.

The workers' condition started im-proving after receiving treatment.

Production activities at Greenlane Shahria were suspended for several hours after the incident which created a panic in other factories in the area.

Probe committee suggests reforms for question paper setting method, preparing several sets of question papers and selecting one through lottery, and sending out those over the internet

MATCH STATS Netherlands Mexico Goals scored 2 1Total shots 14 12Shots on target 8 7Corners 10 2O� sides 1 1Fouls committed 8 12Yellow cards 0 3Red cards 0 0Ball possession 55% 45%

Kerry Kennedy blames impunity culture for endemic extrajudicial killings, torture in Bangladeshn Shahidul Islam Chowdhury

Extrajudicial killings and torture by law enforcement agencies have become widespread in Bangladesh due to a culture of impunity, according to Kerry Kennedy, a leading international human rights activist.

“Extrajudicial killings and torture are endemic,” Kerry Kennedy, president of US-based Robert F Kennedy Centre For Justice and Human Rights, said in an interview with the Dhaka Tribune yesterday.

“Pretrial detention, too, cannot go on as it is inhuman and horri� c,” she added.

Kerry remarked that a culture of impunity develops when too much power was delegated to a law enforcement agency.

“I will not blame Bangladesh for everything. There are many human rights violation in my own country and anywhere across the world,” she said.

Kerry, a member of the famous Kennedy family in the United States, arrived in Dhaka on Saturday at the invitation of Noble Laureate Muhammad Yunus for the opening ceremony of “Social Business Day”.

During the interview at a city hotel, Kerry also recalled her late uncle, Edward M Kennedy, who was a great supporter of Bangladesh’s 1971 Liberation War.

“He supported the move to stop genocide committed against the Bengali people in 1971 by the Pakistani army, and said the United States should be on the side of the freedom of

people,” she said. Kerry said she had heard from

her brother, Joe Kennedy, about the euphoria at the time, with the possibility of creating a new nation _ a place free from oppression where people would get justice amid a democratic system.

Kerry, a lawyer and a writer, also visited several victims of the Rana Plaza disaster during her brief visit.

She said governments, banks, apparel-makers and buyers needed to discharge a collective responsibility to ensure proper compensation for workers, as well as decent working

conditions. “We need to make sure that people

(working in textile factories) here are treated with humanity,” she said.

“The US has partial responsibility not only to the victims and the disabled, it also has responsibility towards tens of thousands of apparel industry workers,” Kerry said.

The buyers should not be happy with “only getting cheaper shirts made by persons working in unbearable and inhuman conditions.” she added.

“Banks need to see if companies are behaving according to the international human rights convention and ILO provisions and regulations,” Kerry said.

“Responsibility of the consumers is to make sure that the brands are (getting supplies from) fully compliant factories,” she said, adding, “Responsibility of the government is that the companies follow the regulations.”

Referring to her discussion with the chief executives of several leading non-governmental organisations, Kerry said: “Working space for NGOs is shrinking…Nobody is safe if you go on the wrong side of the administration.”

She said a new law to regulate NGOs was of particular concern as it would restrict their role in Bangladesh.

In reply to a question on her country’s role in deteriorating human rights by imposing war or war-like situations on other countries, such as Iraq, Kerry blamed the former US administration led by George W Bush and Dick Cheney.

“The allegation brought against Iraq on holding weapons of mass destruction and nuclear weapons were untrue,” she observed.

She also criticised another former US president, Richard Nixon, and his secretary of state, Henry Kissinger, for supporting the genocide committed by the Pakistani army in Bangladesh in 1971.

“They tried to protect an oppressive government (in 1971),” she said.

Commenting on Kissinger’s infamous statement describing Bangladesh as an international “bottomless basket case”, Kerry said: “Kissinger is not a human being.” l

3NewsDHAKA TRIBUNE Monday, June 30, 2014

Razakar Hassan’s probe report in n Udisa Islam

The investigation agency of the war crimes tribunal has disclosed their probe report against Syed Hassan Ali alias Md Hassan alias Hachhen Ali of Kishoreganj for his alleged involvement in crimes against humanity during the 1971 Liberation war.

In the report, the investigators have found evidence of six o� ences against the fugitive war crimes suspect that in-clude killings of 24 people, abduction and torture of at least 12 persons and looting of more than hundred houses in Tarail upazila of Kishoreganj.

Hassan, well known for his notorious o� ences, had also been renowned as Razakar OC or “Razakar Daroga” in his area during the war.

The probe agency during a press brief-ing at its safe home in Dhanmondi said they might submit the report to the pros-ecution today. A panel of prosecution lawyers would scrutinise the documents before pressing the formal charges.

Abdul Hannan Khan, chief coordina-tor of the agency, said: “We are bringing six charges against this accused includ-ing murder, mass killing, abduction, con� nement and arson.”

The agency has prepared a 219-page probe report and took statements of 39 witnesses. The investigation that began on June 7 last year. This is the 20th probe report by the agency and they may place some more reports next month.

Hannan said Hassan had joined the anti-liberation forces in� uenced by his father’s ideology and soon he became the razakar commander of Tarail area.

Hassan’s father Mosleh Uddin, a

vice-president of the Pakistan Demo-cratic Party, had served as the chairman of Peace Committee in Kishoreganj during the war and his brother as a mem-ber of the razakar force, according to the background part of the probe report.

On April 4, the International Crimes Tribunal 1 issued warrant against the suspect but Hassan is yet to be arrested.

According to agency report, Hassan had been living in Brahmanbaria but po-lice said he was not there anymore. Local police said they knew that the suspect was paralysed and could not move with-out somebody else’s help; but now they were not sure about his whereabouts. l

MP: Home Ministry needs no budgetary allocationn Kamran Reza Chowdhury

The Home Ministry should not have any budgetary allocation from the public exchequer as the money police extort from people is enough to run the ministry, a lawmaker told parliament yesterday.

His remark came as the state minis-ter for home sought an annual grant of Tk11,369 crore for his ministry.

The MPs of the Jatiya Party and in-dependent lawmakers joined him and sarcastically proposed to allocate the ministry only Tk1 for its failure to en-sure people’s safety.

Another MP said the Home Ministry now symbolises “su� ering and fear.”

Law Minister Anisul Huq also drew � ak from the MPs who said the ruling party members � outed laws while the poor people were being persecuted.

Health Minister Mohammad Nasim faced criticism from the MPs for seek-ing over Tk11,176 crore as the annual budget.

The legislature, however, rejected the “no allocation” proposal by voice vote and the ministries were allocated the money they sought as the House passed the Appropriation Bill-2014 that guaranteed the allocation.

Independent MPs Rustum Ali Faraji (Pirojpur 3) and Tahjib Alam Siddique (Jhenaidah 2), and the Jatiya Party lawmakers Mohammad Noman (Laxmipur 2), Nurul Islam Milon (Comilla 8) and Sawkat Chowdhure (Nilphamari 4) took the lead in criticising the ministries who were seeking grants.

“The Home Ministry has become the symbol of ‘fear and su� ering’ in-stead of being the symbol of trust. The extortion of the police and other law enforcers is the bitter truth,” Moham-mad Noman told the House as State Minister for Home A� airs Asaduz-zaman Khan Kamal sought the annual grant.

“The ministry can be run with the money the police collect as extortion. So, there should not be any grant for the ministry,” he said.

Rustum Ali said the ruling party leaders had become “super OCs” over the o� cer-in-charge (OC) at every po-lice station. “They harass people by � l-ing false cases,” he said.

Nurul Islam Milon said o� -cers-in-charge (OCs) did not need their monthly salary and the Home Ministry should not be given any allocation.

“The government should chalk out some measures so that the police re-turn to the honest path. It will enhance the image of the government,” he not-ed.

Sawkat Chowdhure alleged some OCs became Awami Leaguers during the daytime and BNP men at night.

Seeking the annual budget, State Minister Asaduzzaman said: “Regard-ing extortion, I will urge you to come up with speci� c information. Please, tell the IGP [inspector general of po-lice] and he will take actions.

“Whenever we get any case of ex-tortion, we immediately transfer them from the posts,” he said.

Rustum Ali bitterly criticised the Law Ministry. “We have numerous laws. We make laws, but do not imple-ment them,” he said.

“Bangladesh is a unique country where the ruling party people � out laws. The laws are only for the poor. And laws are interpreted in di� erent ways by di� erent quarters,” said Faraji.

The Law Ministry had failed to en-sure proper implementation of the laws, he said and proposed that the ministry should get Tk1.

Refuting the allegations, Law Minis-ter Anisul Huq told the House that the Home Ministry was in charge of imple-menting the laws.

“You want better service but talk against giving any allocation. This is not acceptable,” he said. l

Location in Tarail Date CrimesSachail April 27, 1971 Loot, arson

Konavawal August 23, 1971 Abduction, torture and murder

Shimulhati September 9, 1971 12 murders

Borgaon September 27, 1971 8 murders and 10 abduction, torture

Araiura October 8, 1971 Two abduction and murders

Sachail December 11, 1971 One murder, loot and arson

A rickshaw-van puller struggles on Gobindapur Bazar road in Shanirakhra area yesterday. The road has stayed in a dilapidated state for the past few years causing su� erings to commuters MEHEDI HASAN

Toll policy to take e� ect on November 1 n Syed Samiul Basher Anik

The date for the recently approved Toll Policy 2014 to take e� ect has been post-poned by another four months in order to prevent the su� ering of passen-gers and transport owners during the month of Ramadan and also the two upcoming Eids.

The policy, which was scheduled to come into e� ect tomorrow, was put o� till November 1.

“The postponement decision was taken as the roads suddenly see an increase in tra� c in Ramadan and during both Eid-ul-Fitr and Eid-ul-Azha. A section of people misuse di� erent policies and increase the fares, creating anarchy in the transport sector,” Communication Secretary MAN Siddique told the Dha-ka Tribune yesterday.

He said the date was postponed till November 1 as the celebration of both Eids will be done by then and people will not be subjected to trouble.

“On March 24, the cabinet approved the draft policy for collecting toll for using key national, regional and district highways apart from the Dhaka-Chit-tagong highway. The amount of toll col-lected will range from Tk5 to Tk1,000.

Siddique said the policy will only be applicable to the highways and bridges where toll is collected at present.

“Toll will not be collected on the newly constructed bridges or high-ways. If any new bridge or road is con-structed which is over 200 metres long, a decision will be taken to bring that under the toll net with regard to provi-sions in the policy,” the secretary said.

The amount of toll will be Tk100 for district highways, Tk200 for regional highways, Tk300 for national highways and Tk400 for key national highways such as the Dhaka- Chittagong highway. l

Toll will be Tk100 for district highways, Tk200 for regional highways, Tk300 for national highways

4 NewsDHAKA TRIBUNE Monday, June 30, 2014

Mentally depressed diabetics face four times greater complicationn Moniruzzaman Uzzal

Mental depression su� ered by a large number of diabetics remains undiag-nosed, causing the complications of the disease to be four times greater among the depressed patients than ones with healthy state of minds, claims a leading specialist of the � eld.

Professor Norman Sartorius, presi-dent of the Association for the Improve-ment of Mental Health Programmes and former director of the World Health Or-ganisation’s Division of Mental Health, made the comment yesterday when speaking to the Dhaka Tribune.

Diabetologists, general physicians and psychiatrists should work together to ensure proper treatment for the dia-betic patients who su� er from depres-sion as well, he said.

Claiming that doctors could easily recognise depressed patients by asking a few simple questions, Sartorius added that correct diagnosis would reduce the complications of multi-disease and lower treatment costs for the patients.

Sartorius arrived in Dhaka to attend a three-day workshop titled “Dialogue on Diabetes and Depression” which ended yesterday at the city's Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University (BSM-MU) auditorium. The programme was jointly organised by the Association for Study of Mental Health in Bangladesh and Association for the Improvement of Mental Health Programme.

More than 80 doctors from Birdem, National Healthcare Network, National Institute of Mental Health and Bangla-desh College of General Practitioners

participated in the programme, which was also addressed by specialists Pro-fessor Linda Gusk and Dr Abdul Javed from the United Kingdom, and Dr SK Chuturbedi from India.

Dr Golam Rabbani, president of the Association for Study of Mental Health in Bangladesh, told the Dhaka Tribune that it was not possible to solve the problem without the active partici-pation of diabetologists and general physicians, as there are only a limited number of psychiatrists in the country.

Dr Md Waziul Islam Chowdhury, di-rector of National Institute of Mental Health, said around 4.6% of the adult population in Bangladesh have been su� ering from depression.

According to the International Dia-betic Federation, around 12% people in Bangladesh su� er from diabetes. l

Ramna Batamul blast case documents reach High Courtn Nazmus Sakib

The High Court yesterday received the Ramna Batamul blast case documents including the verdict that ordered the hanging of Mufti Abdul Hannan, chief of the banned militant out� t Harkat-ul-Jihad-al Islami (Huji), and seven of his aides for killing 10 people in 2001.

A Supreme Court source con� rmed that the section concerned of the High Court received the documents on June 25. A Dhaka court on June 23 handed down the judgement in the bomb blast incident during the traditional celebra-tions of the Bangla new year at the cap-ital’s Ramna Batamul 13 years ago.

The court also sentenced six other Huji members in prison. As per the Code of Criminal Procedure, better known as the penal code, the Dhaka court submitted the proceedings to the HC to con� rm the death sentence.

According to law, the HC will deliv-er its judgement after hearing both the defence and state counsels. l

Subhan blamed for Bharara killings n Udisa Islam

A prosecution witness in the war crimes case against Jamaat-e-Islami leader Maulana Abdus Subhan yester-day described the killing of his uncle, in presence of the accused, on the premises of a mosque in Pabna and the torture of his father at an army camp during the 1971 Liberation War.

Seventeenth witness Ali Rana Sheikh, 54, from Bharara under Pabna sadar police station, claimed that his father Rustam Sheikh had been ab-ducted from their house and tortured. Later he somehow managed to escape, but died after four days because of se-rious injuries.

He said: “Subhan came to our house on 5th Jaishthya [the second month of the Bangla calendar] and captured my father, uncles Jabbar Sheikh, Nurul Sheikh and Siraj Sheikh, and took them to Bharara Shahi Mosque. At the same

time, Subhan along with the Pakistani Army captured eight other unarmed civilians including Dilbar Sheikh, Ge-dom Sarder, Khokon Sheikh and Kader Sheikh, and kept them in front of the mosque.

Jabbar had been shot by the Paki-stani occupation forces on Subhan’s orders since he had argued with the ac-cused, the witness said adding that he had witnessed the incident while hid-ing in a bush. They also shot dead Kali Komol Paul from Bharara village there.

Rana said after killing Jabbar, the 12 other con� ned persons had been taken to Norpur Power Station army camp and tortured. The following day the collaborators caught more people from Debottor village under Atghoria police station.

“There they freed Siraj as he had fallen sick and took the others to a bamboo orchard and started � ring. Six of them died on the spot. My father

luckily escaped death. Local people took him to a village named Ekdonto,” the witness said adding that he had heard about the incident from his fa-ther and uncle Siraj Sheikh.

After his deposition, defence coun-sel Mizanul Islam questioned him. Af-ter the cross-examination, the tribunal 2 set today for further witnesses.

Top war crimes suspect Maulana Subhan, also a Jamaat nayeb-e-ameer, was indicted on December 31 last year on nine charges of crimes against hu-manity.

Meanwhile, yesterday, tribunal 1 continued the recording cross-exam-ination of the investigation o� cer in the trial against Jamaat leader ATM Azharul Islam, an alleged al-Badr com-mander of Rangpur during the war.

The defence cross examined the IO, SM Idris Ali, for the second day. Later the tribunal adjourned the trial until today. The IO testi� ed on June 15. l

Two including policeman held for kidnapping attempt on Dhaka court premisesn Kailash Sarkar and Md Sanaul

Islam Tipu

Two men, including a sub-inspector of police, were detained yesterday while allegedly attempting to kidnap Iqbal Hossain – a plainti� of a case – from the Dhaka Session Judge’s Court premises.

The detained included Ashulia po-lice station SI Md Shawkat – who was in plain clothes at the time of the de-tainment – and Mahbubur Rahman Majumder, the manager of a brick-� eld and also the defendant of a forgery case � led by Iqbal.

Iqbal, an expatriate residing in Germany, told the Dhaka Tribune: “SI Shawkat and Mahbub attempted to kidnap me when I had gone to the court in connection with a case related to the forgery of a cheque of Tk15 lakh given to me by Shahin Reza, the owner of the Reza-Shahzaman Brick-� eld, as we [Iqbal and Shahin Reza] were partners

in the business.”Witnesses said locals, along with

police personnel, caught Shawkat and Mahbub at the scene after hearing Iqbal’s cry for help.

Later, Shawkat was handed over to Dhaka district Superintendent of Police Habibur Rahman through Additional Deputy Commissioner Aminur Rahman, a prosecution o� cer of the Session Judge’s court, for departmental action. Mahbub was handed over to the capital’s Kotwali police station, where Iqbal also � led a case against him.

Talking to the Dhaka Tribune, SP Habibur Rahman said a committee has already been formed to probe the incident, adding that measures would be taken based on the � ndings of the committee.

Sub-Inspector Golam Rasul of Kot-wali police station con� rmed that Mah-bub was in their custody and that a case had been � led against him. l

United Airways to get 1 more month to pay duesn Nazmus Sakib

The High Court has stayed for one month the validity of the Civil Aviation Authority of Bangladesh (CAAB) notice that asked United Airways to clear all dues within June 29.

A High Court bench comprising jus-tices Kazi Rezaul Haq and Akram Hos-sain Chowdhury issued the order yes-terday, responding to a petition � led by the United Airways chairman, the peti-tioner’s lawyer AM Aminuddin said.

On June 26, the CAAB authority is-sued a letter to the private carrier asking to clear all outstanding aeronautical and non-aeronautical charges within June 29.

In case of failing to clear the dues, the airlines might face operational sus-pension, the notice added. Of the total Tk77 crore, Tk40 crore in outstanding amount accounted for charges and the rest for surcharges.

Following the notice, a writ petition was � led with the court yesterday, seek-ing more time to pay the dues. Earlier, the CAAB authority imposed a ban on sale or purchase of aircraft by United Air-ways until it cleared all current and out-standing charges in the next one year. l

RAILWAY RECRUITMENT SCAM

Ex-GM Mridha excluded from two charge sheets n Tarek Mahmud, Chittagong

Former Bangladesh Railway GM Yu-suf Ali Mridha’s name has not been included in the charge sheets of two cases � led in connection with alleged irregularities during the recruitment process for posts of goods assistant and record keeper, as the Anti-Corruption Commission reportedly could not � nd evidence of his involvement.

The ACC submitted the charge sheets yesterday before the court of Chief Met-ropolitan Magistrate Moshiur Rahman, erasing the name of Mridha, who was one of the listed accused in the FIR of the cases, said court sources.

ACC counsel Advocate Mahmudul Haq Mahmud said the court has � xed Au-

gust 27 for the next hearing of the cases.“As the investigation o� cial did not

� nd any involvement of Mridha in the cases, his name was not mentioned in the charge sheets,” he said.

According to the case documents, ACC Assistant Directors Sheikh Faiyaz Alam and Mosta� zur Rahman lodged the two cases with Kotwali police sta-tion in February 2013, in connection with recruitment irregularities for the goods assistant and record keeper posts.

So far, the anti-graft watchdog has submitted charge sheets of six cases lodged in connection with recruitment irregularities of the BR (East); with Mridha, the former General Manager (GM) of Bangladesh Railway (BR) East Zone, sued in four previous cases. l

The clock on top of the Dhaka South City Corporation building has gone out of order for quite a long time. This picture was taken at 1:50pm yesterday MEHEDI HASAN

Students of Sher-e-Bangla Agricultural University blockade the Rokeya Sarani in the capital’s Agargaon yesterday, protesting the death of a fellow student who was critically injured in a road accident on Saturday DHAKA TRIBUNE

NARAYANGANJ 5 BY-POLL

Election Commission orders to probe Shamim Osman threat n Mohammad Zakaria

The electoral enquiry committee of the Narayanganj 5 by-poll has been asked to probe the allegation against Awami League lawmaker Shamim Osman that he threatened a police o� cer on voting day.

“We have asked the committee to-day to carry out an investigation and submit the report. The commission will take steps after getting the report,” re-turning O� cer Mihir Sarwar Morshed told the Dhaka Tribune yesterday.

Shamim allegedly threatened Assis-tant Superintendent of Police Bashir Uddin who was on duty when police foiled an attempt to occupy a polling centre on the election day.

According to the Representation of

the People Order, the enquiry committee will submit the report within three days, said an Election Commission o� cial.

The two-member committee led by a joint district judge was formed before the election to prevent and control poll irregularities.

Selim Osman contested in the elec-tion on a Jatiya Party ticket and secured a victory by defeating independent candidate SM Akram by 16,742 votes.

According to reports and election observers, it was a fake vote-ridden poll, most of which were cast by Selim’s supporters. His brother Shamim is the MP of the Narayanganj 4 constituency.

The Narayanganj 5 constituency fell vacant following the death of Nasim Osman, Shamim and Selim’s brother, on April 30. l

SAGAR-RUNI MURDER

Probe report submission deferred againn Md Sanaul Islam Tipu

A Dhaka court yesterday � xed August 13 as the new date for the submission of the probe report in the sensational journalist couple, Sagar Sarowar and Meherun Runi, murder case.

Sources said the court, through set-ting the new date, has deferred the in-vestigation report submission date in the case for the 26th time.

Metropolitan Magistrate Moham-mad Erfanullah � xed the fresh date as the investigation o� cer failed to sub-mit the report before it on the sched-uled day.

Sagar and his wife Runi were mur-dered by unidenti� ed miscreants at their � at in West Rajabazar in the cap-ital on February 11, 2012. l

WEATHER

RAIN OR THUNDER-SHOWER

5NewsDHAKA TRIBUNE Monday, June 30, 2014

PRAYER TIMES Fajar 3:48am Sunrise 5:14am Zohr 12:02am Asr 3:21pm Magrib 6:50pm Esha 8:17pm

Source: Accuweather/UNB

D H A K ATODAY TOMORROW

SUN SETS 6:50PM SUN RISES 5:15AM

YESTERDAY’S HIGH AND LOW33.5ºC 24.2ºC

Rajshahi Teknaf

MONDAY, JUNE 30

F O R E C A S T F O R T O D A YDhaka 33 28Chittagong 31 26Rajshahi 32 27Rangpur 31 26Khulna 31 26Barisal 31 26Sylhet 32 25Cox’s Bazar 30 26

SourceL IslamicFinder.org

n Tarek Mahmud, Chittagong

The low-lying areas of Chittagong city were submerged in waist-deep water after a heavy downpour yesterday, causing immense su� ering of residents and commuters.

The incessant rain, which began on Saturday night and continued until noon yesterday, � ooded parts of Pas-chim Madarbari, Bakalia, Chawkbazar, Agrabad, Halishahar, Kapasgola, Chan-dgaon, Shulakbahar, Enayet Bazar, Boropol, Muradpur, Sholoshahar, Ba-haddarhat and Probartak intersection in the port city.

The Chittagong divisional Met O� ce recorded 152.60mm of rainfall in 24 hours until 3pm yesterday.

Bishwajit Chowdhury, an o� cial at the weather o� ce, said the heavy rain was likely to continue over the next few days due to low pressure over the

Bay of Bengal, in addition to the regular monsoon.

The continuous rain and water-log-ging has created large potholes on roads in the low-lying areas, hamper-ing vehicular movement.

Rickshaws took over city roads, as cars, buses and CNG autorickshaws were hardly seen plying in the � ooded areas yesterday.

Many commuters, who greatly out-numbered the available rickshaws, were seen wading through � lthy water over� owing from roadside drains to reach their destinations. O� ce-goers and students su� ered the most.

Nur Mohammad, a computer en-gineer, said the city's poor drainage system was mostly responsible for the water-logging.

Mayor M Manjur Alam of Chittagong City Corporation, however, (CCC) said although a few areas had gone under-

water, the water-logging condition was better than in previous years.

He also said the city corporation was trying to solve the problem permanently.

“The CCC is working to repair the a� ected city roads,” the mayor added.

Meanwhile, activities at Chittagong port were carried out as usual, said Mo-hibul Hoque, director (administration) of Chittagong Port Authority.

Due to the risk of rain-triggered landslides in the city's hilly areas, the district administration has been warn-ing hill-side dwellers over loudspeak-ers to take shelter in safer places, like school buildings or cyclone centres.

Abdul Quader, additional deputy commissioner (revenue) of Chittagong, said the authorities had already moved residents from the areas that were most at risk and demolished all illegal hill-side shanties to prevent casualties in possible landslides. l

Fire burn three houses in Barisaln Our Correspondent, Barisal

At least three houses including an army member’s house was burnt by a devastating � re at ward 1 under Raipa-sha-Karapur union of Barisal city yes-terday afternoon.

Nurul Amin, chairman of the union parishad, said the � re originated from a short circuit at the Haoladar Bari in the area around 1pm yesterday.

The � re rapidly spread across the adjacent areas and gutted the houses of Rashedul Islam Ripon, a soldier of Ban-gladesh army, his relatives Jalil Khan and Rustam Ali Haoladar.

Jalil Khan, one of the victims, said the � re caused damages worth Tk20 lakh.

A team of Fire� ghters from Barisal station rushed to the spot and doused the blaze at 2pm after an hour long ef-fort.

They were yet to assess the dam-ages, said Md Alauddin, senior station o� cer of Fire Service and Civil Defence station of Barisal. l

Prices of brinjal increases by 150% ahead of Ramadan n Ibrahim Hossain Ovi

The price of brinjal, a popular ingredi-ent in iftar items, has shot up by 150 percent to Tk100 per kilogram in the market ahead of Ramadan.

While visiting di� erent kitchen mar-kets on the eve of the fasting month yesterday, this correspondent found brinjal selling for Tk100 per kg at Gul-shan and Hatirpul and Tk95 at Mo-hakhali.

At Karwan Bazaar, the city's largest wholesale kitchen market, brinjal was being sold at Tk60 per kg, while it went for Tk80 just outside the market.

The retail price of the vegetable, also called eggplant, was only Tk40 per kg on Wednesday.

Meanwhile, prices of other vegeta-bles, like cucumbers and green chillies, and other essentials used for preparing iftar items also soared in city markets yesterday.

Green chilli prices doubled to Tk80 per kg, from Tk40-50 four days ago. Cucumber was selling at Tk60 perkg, while coriander leaves cost Tk150 per kg.

The price of both local and imported ginger also saw an unusual rise in the market. The Dhaka Tribune found one kilogram of local ginger selling at Tk 200, Indian ginger at Tk170- Tk180, In-donesian ginger at Tk190 and Chinese ginger at Tk230-240.

Last week, the government imposed a ban on exporting green chilies, brin-jals, cucumbers, coriander leaves and lemons to keep prices stable and ensure smooth supply of the vegetables in the domestic market during Ramadan.

Although some wholesalers and retailers blamed shortages in supply for the latest price hikes, this corre-spondent did not � nd any dearth offresh produce during visits to the city markets.

“Prices of some items, mostly brin-jal, green chili and cucumber, has in-creased because of high demands and supply shortages in the market,” said Md Emran Master, president of Bangla-desh Kancha Mal Arot Malik Samity.

Popular items for iftari _ snacks eat-en while breaking fast - have seen un-usual hikes, but the prices would come down soon, the leader of the wholesal-ers' association added.

Meanwhile, a mad rush for buying essential items in bulk for fear of price increases was also a reason behind the sudden hikes, Emran said.

“Prices of essentials used for iftari have increased as demands have in-creased more than the supply,” Com-merce Secretary Mahbub Ahmed told the Dhaka Tribune.

A total of 14 monitoring teams were deployed to check the abnormal surge in vegetable prices, the secretary said, adding that stern action would be tak-en against those responsible.

However, Kalam, a vegetable seller at Hatirpool kitchen market, said retailers did not have the means to manipulate prices, which were set by the suppliers.

“We have no in� uence over the pric-es of commodities. The prices of veg-etables increased at the supply end, prompting the retailers to hike prices,” said Kalam.

“If the government agencies set a limit between farm price and wholesale price, it would help keep prices at a rea-sonable level,” he added.

On the other hand, consumers blamed lack of monitoring by the au-thorities for the price increases.

“Due to lack of government moni-toring, prices of essentials have gone beyond the reach of the common peo-ple, and we are the su� erers,” Aminul Islam, a shopper at Hatirpool, said. l

Couple commits suiciden Our Correspondent, Natore

A young couple allegedly committed suicide yesterday at Agpara-Sherkol vil-lage under Singra upazila in the district.

The deceased are Ashraful Islam, 30, and his wife Madina Begum, 24. Ashra-ful was the son of Ahsan Ali.

Quoting family members, Singra po-lice station O� cer-in-Charge Sha� qul Islam said, “The couple went to sleep af-ter having dinner on Saturday night. The family members did not get any response after repeatedly knocking on their door in the early hours of the next day.”

“When the broke down the door and entered the room in the morning, the family members found the couple hanging from the ceiling,” he said.

Police recovered the bodies and sent them to Natore Sadar Hospital morgue for autopsies.

Sha� qul said the couple got married 12 years ago. Ashraful had been staying in Oman for three years and had returned home just two months back. They left behind a nine-year-old son, Matiur.l

Residents su� er as Chittagong goes under water in heavy rain

The photo taken yesterday from Muradnagar intersection in the port city shows that students wade through water as waterlogging created on a road after heavy shower yesterday FOCUS BANGLA

n Abu Hayat Mahmud

More than 65% of the capital's foot-paths remain illegally occupied as au-thorities of the two city corporations and the Dhaka Metropolitan Police paid little attention to a High Court order to free the pathways for pedestrians.

Sources at the Dhaka North and South City Corporation told the Dhaka Tribune that around 108 kilometers of a total of 163 kilometres in walkways in the capital had been occupied in vari-ous ways by street hawkers, vendors and permanent shops.

Saying that the occupiers were being

backed up by in� uential politicians of di� erent associate bodies of the ruling party, they further added that around 600 kilometres out of 2,300 kilometres of roads in the capital had been illegal-ly occupied by encroachers.

A study conducted by Work for Bet-ter Bangladesh (WBB) in 2011 revealed that only 18% of the capital's existing footpaths were suitable for walking while the rest remained unusable due to car parkings, hawkers, vendors and wastes.

On February 26, 2012, the High Court in a verdict asked the Dhaka South City Corporation (DSCC) to take step against

any encroachment on most of the city footpaths. Despite such directives from the country's apex court, the DSCC au-thority took no noticeable steps to free the city's walkways, giving encroach-ers the opportunity to continue their business illegally.

Bangladesh Hawkers Federation President MA Kashem told the Dhaka Tribune that some 2.5 lakh hawkers in the capital had being paying daily tolls to politically-backed extortionists to run their business on the streets.

“The hawkers at the city’s centre points, such as Farmgate, have been paying a monthly toll or daily tolls as

much as Tk50,” he added.“Considering that, street vendors

pay around Tk37.5 crore as toll per month to these politically-backed ex-tortionists. Not just the political lead-ers, even law enforcers of local police stations are also involved with the rackets.” said Kashem.

However, Dhaka city unit Awa-mi League acting president MA Aziz brushed o� the allegations and said organisational actions would be taken against anyone found guilty of extorting.

Besides, there are about 350 footpath stalls in the Motijheel area. According to some of the owners, they cumulatively

pay around Tk15 lakh every month.Talking to the Dhaka Tribune, Na-

tional Hawkers Federation president Arif Chowdhury said several bodies of hawkers had repeatedly asked the gov-ernment to introduce a legal payment system so that they do not have to pay toll to the extortionists.

“The government is losing crores in revenue due to a lack of enforcement of rules and regulations [for governing footpath business],” he added.

DSCC Chief Executive O� cer Md Ansar Ali Khan told the Dhaka Tribune: “We often clear the footpaths by con-ducting raids, but the occupiers come

back every time. Only police can take action against such activities.”

Similarly, DNCC Chief Executive BM Enamul Haque said: “We will investi-gate the matter and take steps against such illegal occupiers.”

DMP Joint Commissioner Monirul Islam said: “Police is not a person but an organisation. There can be com-plaints against one or two of its mem-bers but that does not mean the entire organisation has been involved.”

He further promised to take actions after investigating whether any police member was found involved with such extortion activities. l

Woman abducted by ex-husband rescued from Pirojpur n Our Correspondent, Barisal

A woman, who had allegedly been ab-ducted by her former husband from Barisal, was rescued from Pirojpur Sa-dar upazila on Saturday night.

Abdur Razzak, OC of Pirojpur Sadar police station, said they rescued the victim, who is a Master's examinee from Government Brojo Mohan Col-lege, from the house of the alleged ab-ductor Asadul Islam Prince and handed her over to Barisal police.

However, no arrest was made during the drive, the OC continued.

Yesterday afternoon, she gave a confessional statement before a court of Ra� qul Islam, Chief Metropolitan Magistrate of Barisal and then she was handed over to her family members.

Earlier, the victim went under a medical test at Barisal Sher-e-Bangla Medical College Hospital.

On Saturday afternoon, a gang of miscreants, led by Prince, kidnapped the woman in front of the college. In the incident, the victim's father Saiful Islam � led a case accusing Prince as well as some of his accomplices.

The couple got married in 2010. However, their relation ended three months ago. l

Most of capital's footpaths remain occupiedEncroachers continue to do business on the public walkways as DCC, DMP fail to implement HC order

A procession celebrating Rath Yatra was taken out in the capital yesterday. The photo was taken from Dhaka University area RAJIB DHAR

'Every year, the prices of essentials rose abnormally ahead of Ramadan because of some unscrupulous businessmen'

6 NationDHAKA TRIBUNE Monday, June 30, 2014

Law and order situation worsens in Savarn Our Correspondent, Savar

The law and order situation in Savar has deteriorated alarmingly as nine people were killed there in just six days.

Although police could not nab the real killers, innocent civilians are being arrested, creating a sense of panic and anxiety among the locals.

There has been a prevalence of crim-inal acts, such as theft, robbery, shoot-ing and mugging, in broad daylight in the upazila.

Police, however, claim they can do nothing if family feuds lead to such killings. They also say the law and or-der situation in Savar and Ashulia is normal.

On June 29, 40 year old Mujibur Rahman’s body was recovered from Zirabo. He was on his way to his sister’s house in Tangail when miscreants beat him up, strangled him to death and left his body beside the road.

Motaleb Hossain, 33, a fruit trader by profession, was attacked with a knife when he was on his way to Baipail by bus on June 28. Miscreants took away

his money and threw his body o� the bus.

The body of a schoolboy was recov-ered from Bangshi River in the area on the same day. Ataur Rahman, 16, went missing on Friday afternoon after go-ing out to play football with friends. He

was the son of Abul Hossain, a resident of Katlapur in Savar, and a ninth grader at Adharchandra High School.

On June 23, police recovered the un-identi� ed body of a youth near Salih-pur bridge in Aminbazar. Around the same time, another body of a man was recovered near a � lling station in Zi-rani. Police presumed the deaths might have been caused by vehicles running over the deceased in the early hours of the day.

Local trader Abdul Halim said mur-

ders and abductions have become somewhat commonplace in the area.

“My family has been engulfed by fear. I feel anxious when my children go outside,” he said.

Mashiur Rahman, a job holder, said police were almost regularly recover-ing dead bodies from di� erent areas in the upazila. “Besides, there have been incidents when people were shot in daylight and miscreants took away their money. It has really become wor-risome to even go to work from home,” said Mashiur.

O� cer-in-charge of Savar Model po-lice station Mostafa Kamal, however, denied that the law and order situation had worsened.

“Often the killings happen because of a dispute in the family and police re-ally have nothing to do in those cases,” he said.

Dhaka District Additional Superin-tendent of Police Ashraful Azim said police were trying to solve the myster-ies behind the recent killings. We are also trying to arrest the culprits, he added. l

Mothers forced to bribe family planning o� cersn Our Correspondent,

Chapainawabganj

Bene� ciaries of the Mother Healthcare Voucher in Shibganj of Chapainawab-ganj have alleged that local govern-ment employees are asking for bribes in order to provide them with what is rightfully theirs.

The health visitors at the union lev-els have allegedly collected Tk19 lakh as bribe from thousands of card-hold-ing women under the voucher project.

Documents show that from July-October of 2013, a total of 2,500 women were given around Tk2,700-Tk2,800 from the Shivganj government hospital.

The giveaway package included Tk2,000 cash, gift items worth Tk500 and conveyance of Tk200-Tk300.

During November 2013 to April 2014, the women were supposed to be given Tk500 cash instead of the gift items.

However, sources said these women had been having to pay around Tk200-Tk300 as bribes to some union level government employees of the Fam-ily Planning Department to get the re-placement cash of Tk500.

Yesterday, some of these women complained about this to Dr Abdul Haque, director of the Health Depart-ment, and Dr Mojaharul Islam, civil surgeon of Chapainawabganj, when they went to visit the area.

Right away, Abdul and Mojahar or-dered the local authorities to form a three-member probe committee to look into the allegations.

Seeking anonymity, a medical of-� cer from the Shivganj hospital said: “Forming a probe committee is just an eyewash... The union level employees of the Family Planning Department have been taking bribes since the be-ginning of the project. In the past, an-other probe committee has placed a report against their ill-doings, but no action has been taken against them.”

When contacted, Md Aminul Islam, a union level government employee, said: “The Family Planning Depart-ment has the responsibility of prepar-ing and distributing mother healthcare voucher cards among the women. In line with government regulations, the money is being disbursed among the women through a committee.” l

Protest against ‘admission trade’ in Sirajganj collegen Our correspondent, Sirajganj

The people seeking admission to the Islamia Government College of the dis-trict demonstrated yesterday against what they said was an alleged admis-sion trade in the disciplines of science, humanities and commerce, thereby de-priving meritorious students.

They said the college authorities, in association with some student leaders, were allegedly involved in the malprac-tice.

Earlier, the college declared June 29 to be the last date for merit-based admissions and the wait list would be considered thereafter.

According to the guardians and the admission-seeking students, the au-thorities were not following the admis-sion policy properly, but were rather o� ering admission to those on the wait list by reportedly taking bribes.

The potential candidates vented their suppressed agony – which they

experienced all Saturday – by staging protests on the college campus yester-day.

When the newsmen appeared on the scene, hundreds of freshmen and their parents talked openly about the anomalies in the college’s � rstyear admissions, while some so-called student leaders launched an attack on them.

Sensing the journalists’ pres-ence, the college principal, Mahfuja Khanom, stealthily slipped out of thecollege along with some of her col-leagues.

When asked about admission, Vice-Principal Golam Mostofa denied outright the allegations against them about the ongoing admission.

O� cer-in-Charge of Sadar police station said they sent forces to tackle the situation.

District Commissioner Md Billal Hossain said: “I know nothing about the matter, but I will look into it.” l

Jute mill workers form human chainn Our Correspondent, Madaripur

Workers of AR Howlader Jute Mill in Madaripur formed a human chain yes-terday in front of the deputy commis-sioner’s o� ce, demanding the payment of due salaries and the punishment of the culprits who had been stealing and selling the factory’s equipment.

Defying the rain, the agitated work-ers held the human chain from 10am to 11am, which was addressed by worker leaders Abdul Hai Munsi, Azhar Bepari, Mosharof Hossain and Mizanur Rah-man, among others.

The leaders warned that they would go for tougher movements if their dues were not paid and the false cases which had been � led by the owners were not withdrawn.

Sources said the jute mill was � rst inaugurated in 1970, but was shut down in 1991 centring a dispute between the workers and owners. In 1998, some peo-ple tried to reopen the jute mill, but could not. Since then, some unscrupulous peo-ple had been stealing and selling di� erent equipments from the factory. Moreover, workers had � led several cases because their dues had not been paid. l

1,800 rice mills lie idle for rainfall n Our Correspondent, Magura

Around 1800 of the district’s rice mills have remained inoperative over last few days due to the heavy downpour.

The suspension of rice production at the mills has left around 15,000 work-ers jobless.

Magura Rice Mills Owners Associa-tion sources said the paddy could not be dried as there has been catastrophic rainfall in the district for the last 10 days.

In this situation, the workers of the mills are living hand-to-mouth. They get money on a daily basis. If there is no work at the mills, they do not get money.

For now, they have no work and they have not received payments in days.

When contacted, Jamila Khatun, a rice mill worker of Magura Notun Bazar area said: “We are passing our days half fed and unfed. We have to su� er until the weather improves.”

Shampa Das, another worker of a rice mill in Katakhali area under Magura

Sadar upazila said: “We are having a hard time because of the lack of pay-ment. Finding no other alternative, I have taken a loan from the local money lender at a high interest rate.”

Worker Marzina Khatun from Sadar upazila said: “The workers should be given appointments on a monthly salary basis.”

Mill owner Sarwar Khan said: “As there is no produce, we are unable to a� ord the workers.”

The supply of rice has also fallen short in local markets since the mills are inoperative.

Consequently, the price of rice has gone up in the markets. Rice of a coarse variety is being sold at Tk35 per kg against last week’s rate of Tk30, while rice of medium quality is priced at Tk40 per kg against last week’s Tk36.

The price hike of rice is causing suf-fering for the people with limited in-come in the district. l

The photo taken from Jhautola area in Bogra shows that a good number of rickshaws run on a road which was submerged by a heavy rainfall yesterday DHAKA TRIBUBE

Nine killed in six days, police presume family feuds behind most deaths

Health complex struggling with one doctor per 59,000 peoplen Our Correspondent,

Chapainawabganj

A health complex in Chapainawabganj is struggling because they have far few-er numbers of doctors in comparison to the number of patients.

Sources say the upazila accounts for around six and a half lakh people and Shibganj Upazila Health Complex has only been appointed 11 doctors so far against 36 physician posts. This means the upazila

has one doctor for around 59090 people. They added that some of these doc-

tors are shirking their duties and so the patients are not getting proper medical services at the health complex.

Dr Mosta� zur Rahman is the junior consultant for men while Dr Khandker Soheli Nasrin Lina (gynaecology) is the consultant for women.

There are three medical o� cers at the hospital. Of them, Dr Papia Sultana is on maternity leave and Dr Kushal Ku-

mar Bandhya and Dr Shahdat Mahfuz are usually out of o� ce and busy with their own patients.

Junior Orphopaedic consultant Dr Abdus Sobhan, junior Padaetric con-sultant Dr Md Abul Hossain and Dental surgeon Dr Shahin Ahmed alternate their duties between Shibganj Upazila Health Complex and Chapainawabganj General Hospital.

However, they are regularly present at the Shibganj Upazila Health Complex.

Statistics O� cer at Shibganj Upazila Health Complex Abdus Sattar says they have tried time and again to � ll up the remaining 25 posts for the last 10 years, but the e� orts have gone in vain.

He adds that patients with ear, nose, throat and heart problems go back up-set often after going there for treatment because there are no specialists there.

When this correspondent visited the hospital in person yesterday, several patients, including those with children,

alleged harassment by the nurses. Acting Upazila Health and Family Plan-

ning O� cer Dr Tarit Kumar Saha says: “It has become tough to run this hospital smoothly due to the lack of adequate number of doctors and other manpower.”

“The health director has already been sent a note detailing the vacan-cies and other problems here,” he says, adding: “ Doctors are having to do ex-cess duty as there is a large number of patients here.” l

Fire guts 17 shopsin PirojpurAt least 17 shops were gutted early on Saturday in a devastating � re at Pirojpur's Mothbaria. Mothbaria police station O� cer-in-Charge Nasir Uddin said the market's security guard had informed � re service after seeing the � re. Locals, � re � ghters and law enforcers tamed the � re after three hours of e� orts. Fire Service Station O� cer Abdul Karim said the � re might have originated from an electric short circuit. Upazila Nirbahi O� cer Md Ahsan Habib said the gutted shops included a library and general, cosmetics, and electronics stores. Estimating the total loss be around Tk1.5 crore, the market's General Secretary Shamsul Haque said businessmen had stocked goods in their shops ahead of the Eid-ul-Fitr, and all these had been burned to ashes.– Our Correspondent

Two arrested with 200 Yaba tabletsPolice had arrested two people on Sat-urday night from Atlora area of Gazipur's Sreepur and recovered 200 pieces of Yaba from their possession. Sreepur police sta-tion O� cer-in-Charge Mohsinul Kadir said Salma Akhter, 33, the wife of Kabir Polan, and Rajib Sarker, 20, the son of late Aman Ullah from Joydebpur's Baghia village, had

been detained. Acting on a tip-o� , a drive was conducted in Salma's residence and the Yaba was recovered from her house. Rajib was also detained in this connection from the spot, the OC added. The arrested were sent to the court, police said.– Our Correspondent

Lighting kills farmerin MeherpurA farmer was killed by lighting yesterday afteroon at Meherpur sadar upazila’s Am-jhupi village. Abdul Majid, the son of late Shamsuddin, was struck by lighting when he was working at a paddy � eld in the vil-lage amid the rainfall. He died on the spot.– Our Correspondent

Killing of college girl protested in MunshiganjA human chain was formed yesterday in Munshiganj town, demanding capital punishment of the killers of Afroza Akter Shanta, an honours student at Govern-ment Haraganga College, Munshiganj. The human chain was formed at Kachari from 10am to 11am, where students, teachers of the college, journalists, lawyers and cultural activists all partici-pated. Shanta was allegedly kidnapped on June 7 and murdered on June 9 by Nazmul Hasan and his mates.– Our Correspondent

NEWS IN BRIEF

Fire� ghters try to douse a � re that broke out at Raipasha in Barisal yesterday DHAKA TRIBUNE

n Farzana Nawaz

According to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), everyday, over 800 women die during pregnancy or childbirth.

Almost 90% of these deaths happen in the developing countries in Africa and Asia. Childbirth, however, is no deadly disease, and the tools for preventing maternal mortality have been availa-ble to us for years.

Maternal mortality is not just a women’s problem; its impact is felt on the family and society. There is evidence that infants who lose their mothers are much more likely to die before reaching their second birthday. Moreover, untreated complications, such as obstetric � stula, can leave long-term e� ects on women’s health and well-being, and keep them from being productive members of society.

It is, therefore, hardly surprising that reducing maternal and child mortal-ity were singled out as key priorities within the Millennium Development Goals.

Among developing countries, Bang-ladesh has made signi� cant improve-ments in this area in recent years. The maternal mortality rate has dropped from 574 in 1990, to 170 per 100,000 live births. However, compared to neighbours in the region, such as Sri Lanka (30 deaths per 100,000 live births) and Malaysia (42 per 100,000), Bangladesh still has a long way to go.

Evidence from around the world tells us that the presence of skilled birth attendants is the single most e� ective way to reduce maternal mor-tality. Skilled birth attendants can be doctors or nurses trained in obstetrics; however, in recent years profession-ally trained midwives have taken an increasingly important role in pro-viding high-quality and cost-e� ective maternal care. Midwives have been a key to success in developing countries such as Sri Lanka and Malaysia that have achieved dramatic improve-ments in this area. Even in developed countries like the United States and the United Kingdom, midwives have taken on a more prominent role in maternal health.

The concept of professional midwives however, is fairly new to Bangladesh. In 2010, the government of Bangladesh made a commitment to the UN to produce 3000 midwives by 2015. The government has thus far developed curricula for midwifery, and has pro-vided short training courses on some midwifery skills for several thousand community based birth attendants. However, a lot more still needs to be done to develop fully professional mid-wives who are capable of providing the range of services that these roles entail.

What does a professional midwife do?

In Bangladesh, there is still wide-spread confusion and lack of un-derstanding about what a midwife actually does. In most cases, they are assumed to be the same as traditional birth attendants such as dais or dhatris – poorly educated women who lack

credible information on maternity and whose interventions sometimes even cause birth complications.

A professional midwife however, is an advanced and complex medical role. A midwife does far more than just assist with birth. According to the International Confederation of Midwives, a midwife is:

“… recognised as a responsible and accountable professional who works in partnership with women to give the necessary support, care and advice during pregnancy, labour and the post-partum period, to conduct births on the midwife’s own responsibility and to provide care for the newborn and the infant.”

The key here is that the midwife provides her services in the commu-nities, therefore making the care a lot more accessible to pregnant women.

According to experts, the assistance of professionally trained midwives signi� cantly reduces the need for emergency interventions since prob-lems can be detected early and man-aged or referred before they become life threatening. The use of midwives has been proven to reduce incidence of birth injury, trauma, and caesarean section. Midwives, therefore, not only provide a much easier childbear-ing experience for women, but also

reduce the overall cost of maternal healthcare.

Training professional midwives in Bangladesh

One of the � rst initiatives to train professional midwives in Bangladesh is being undertaken by the BRAC Insti-tute of Global Health (BIGH) at BRAC University. The three-year-long Diplo-ma in Midwifery Programme (DMP) has been developed to train young women based on global standards of midwifery education.

DMP is a direct entry programme after students complete their higher secondary education. The 36 month long residential programme includes 155 hours of instruction. The theoret-ical component through classroom teaching makes up 40% of the curric-ulum, while 60% of the instruction focuses on lab-based and practical work through clinical and communi-ty-based learning. Moreover, the stu-dents undertake a 1 year supervised internship in selected Comprehensive Emergency and Obstetric Care (EOC) facilities in the third year of the pro-gram. Each student has to attend well over 20 deliveries to be accredited.

The DMP curriculum has been de-veloped to provide students compre-hensive knowledge and skills on ma-ternal health. In addition to anatomy, physiology, ante and postnatal care, it includes modules on basic sciences, community health, family planning, health communication, midwifery ethics and regulatory law, micro-biology and infection prevention, sexual and reproductive health rights, sexually transmitted diseases and HIV/AIDS, and advocacy and human rights in midwifery practice, among others.

The DMP programme is being run in collaboration with six local health NGOs, and all the partner organisations follow a common standard curriculum, faculty, training facilities, and assess-ment of the students. This ensures that a high level of quality is maintained in the instruction while adopting it to the local context of Bangladesh. Moreover, the strict focus on maintaining global standards also opens the door for stu-dents to continue further studies and advance their careers.

The � rst batch of 180 midwifes are expected to graduate in 2015.

Building better public health leaders at the community level

According to a 2011 Bangladesh Health Watch report, inequity in maternal health care services is particularly acute in rural areas and among the poor. Access and utilisation of profes-sional medical care during pregnan-cy and birth varies widely among socioeconomic groups in Bangladesh. While most pregnant women in the upper end of the socio economic spec-trum utilise professional care, among the poorest in the socioeconomic stratum, the rate of use of professional

care can be less than 10%. To address this problem, the BRAC

Institute of Global Health emphasises a community-based approach in all their public health curricula. As Dr Sadia Afroze Chowdhury, the execu-tive director of the institute stressed, to build better public health leaders you cannot just work in Dhaka.

The DMP students are recruited from remote and underserved areas of Bangladesh with high maternal and

neonatal health needs. It is expected that upon graduation, the students will return to live and practice in their respective communities and bring competent and compassionate care to women who need it the most.

In order to make the DMP pro-gramme accessible, all students ac-cepted into the programme are given a 100% scholarship which covers tui-tion, accommodations, meals, course materials and supplies and transporta-tion costs for community and clinical visits. They are also given a monthly stipend of Tk500 for all 3 years. 

I spoke to some of the students who are currently in the second year of the programme. Niha, a student in the DMP programme in Dinajpur, described helping fellow women and mothers in her community as the most important motivation for her studies. Her opinions were echoed by Zakia who is a DMP student in Khulna.

They both displayed a strong grasp of the importance of their work and the di� erence they can make in their communities.

However, it was clear that attend-ing the DMP programme was also ben-e� cial for the students themselves. Zakia described a huge increase in her con� dence since she started school. Her neighbours and relatives already look to her as an expert and approach her for help.

The students seemed proud to attend a programme of international quality, and excited about the oppor-tunities that such a degree can open up for their future careers. Being a product of the Bangla medium school-ing system, Zakia and Neha spoke little English when they started the

programme a year ago. However, with the help of intensive English courses provided by BRAC University, in mere-ly a year, they are now able to conduct their studies entirely in English.

By bringing high quality education and training to the local level, the DMP programme is truly helping to build a broad base of public health leaders among young women.

Recognition of midwives is crucial not only for better maternal health, but also for development

However, education alone, even through a world-class programme such as DMP, is not enough to ensure that professional midwifery can suc-ceed in Bangladesh. As Dr Chowdhury pointed out, a supportive environment is needed to ensure that midwives are recognised as quali� ed and critical professionals. This would require o� cial accreditation and licensing of midwives by the government.

A shift in culture within the med-ical community also needs to take place so that midwives are accepted in the medical community as highly skilled professionals alongside doctors and nurses. Such recognition would also create jobs and career opportuni-ties for midwives, which is essential for this profession to be sustainable.

Development experts say that maternal mortality rates in a country tend to re� ect the position of women within their culture. The better wom-en are treated in a society, the less likely they are to die during childbirth.

Bangladesh has made considerable strides in recent years in improving the position of women in our society, which is demonstrated by rising levels of education and employment

among women and girls. However, the rate of maternal mortality still remains unacceptably high, and it shows that a lot more work still needs to be done.

The development of a professional cadre of midwives can not only dras-tically improve the maternal mortality rate, it also allows young women to take a leadership role in solving a critical public health problem.

The BRAC Institute of Global Health has already taken a huge step forward in this regard through their DMP programme. Such an initiative deserves a supportive environment from the government and the public at large so that professional midwifery can thrive in Bangladesh.

Farzana Nawaz is governance expert currently working in media. You can write to her at farzana.nawaz@gmail.com or follow her on Twitter @farzana_n.

7Long FormDHAKA TRIBUNE

Midwives: The missing link in lowering maternal mortality

• Monitors the physical and psychological well-being of the mother through the childbearing cycle

• Provides mothers with education and information on prenatal and newborn care

• Provides hands-on assistance during labour and deliver

• Provides post-partem support

• Identi� es and refers women who require obstetrical attention to hospitals

(Source: Midwives International)

A midwife:

Midwifes to be receiving training in one on the programs COURTESY

Midwives have been a key to success in developing countries such as Sri Lanka and Malaysia that have achieved dramatic improvements in this area

Monday, June 30, 2014

BIGSTOCK

Marking end of Europe’s violent century

n AP, Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina

Artists and diplomats declared a new century of peace and unity in Europe on Saturday in the city where the � rst two shots of World War I were � red ex-actly 100 years ago. On June 28, 1914, the Austro-Hungarian crown prince Franz Ferdinand was assassinated in Sarajevo, where he had come to inspect his occupying troops in the empire’s eastern province.

The shots � red by Serb teenager Gavrilo Princip sparked the Great War, which was followed decades later by a second world con� ict. Together the two wars cost some 80 million Euro-pean their lives, ended four empires — including the Austro-Hungarian — and changed the world forever.

Visiting the assassination site Sat-urday, Sarajevan Davud Bajramovic, 67, said that in order to hold a second of silence for every person killed just during WWI in Europe, “we would have to stand silently for two years.”

A century later, Sarajevans again crowded the same street along the riv-er where Princip � red his shots. And the Austrians were also back, but this time with music instead of military: The Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra was scheduled to perform works of Europe-an composers re� ecting the century’s catastrophic events and conclude with a symbol of unity in Europe — the joint Eu-ropean hymn, Beethoven’s “Ode of Joy.”

The orchestra wanted to pay tribute to the history of Sarajevo, a place where re-ligions meet, said the � rst violinist, Cle-mens Hellberg. Austrian President Heinz Fischer said Europeans “have learnt that no problem can be solved by war.”

The continent’s violent century started in Sarajevo and ended in Sa-rajevo with the 1992-95 war that took 100,000 Bosnian lives. “If anything good can be found in this repeating evil, it’s more wisdom and readiness to build peace and achieve peace after a century of wars,” said Bosnia’s presi-dent, Bakir Izetbegovic.

The splurge of centennial concerts, speeches, lectures and exhibitions on Saturday were mostly focused on creating lasting peace and promoting unity in a country that is still strug-gling with similar divisions as it did 100 years ago. The rift was manifested by the Serbs marking the centennial by themselves in the part of Bosnia they control, where a performance re-enact-ed the assassination.

As Austrian conductor Franz Wels-er-Moest raised his baton in Sarajevo, an actor playing Gavrilo Princip de-scending from heaven on angel’s wings, raised his pistol in the eastern town of Visegrad, at the border to Serbia, to kill Franz Ferdinand again in a spectacular performance designed for the occasion.

For the Serbs, Princip was a hero who saw Bosnia as part of the Serb national territory at a time when the country was part of the Austro-Hungar-ian Empire. His shots were a chance for them to include Bosnia into the neigh-boring Serbian kingdom. l

Monday, June 30, 2014DHAKA TRIBUNE World8

N E W S B I T E S Egypt’s army says ‘virus cure’ needs more testsn AP, Cairo

Egypt’s military has said that a device it claimed it invented to cure AIDS and hepatitis C needs six more months of testing.

The army had earlier promised to reveal the technology to the public this coming Monday after making what ex-perts dismissed as an outlandish claim last February.

At a news conference then, the head of the army’s Engineering Agency said the military had produced an “aston-ishing, miraculous” set of inventions that could detect AIDS, hepatitis and other viruses without taking blood samples and also purify the blood of those su� ering from the diseases.

The claim caused uproar among sci-entists and the public, with many point-ing out that the technology had not been properly veri� ed. It was also lam-pooned in a famous satirical program that has now been taken o� the air.

The assertion hit a sensitive nerve in Egypt, where Hepatitis C is an epi-demic. Some studies estimate that up to 10% of 86 million Egyptians have it, making it the country with the highest prevalence in the world.

In a press conference held in a mili-tary hospital in Cairo Saturday, a mili-tary doctor said the blood puri� cation device needed further tests before it could be released to the public.

“Scienti� c integrity mandates that I

delay the start of the public release un-til the experimentation period is over, to allow for a follow up with patients already using it,” Egypt’s state news agency MENA quoted Maj. Gen. Gamal el-Serafy, director of the Armed Forces Medical Department, as saying.

El-Serafy said doctors had already started testing one of the machines, the so-called “Complete Cure Device,” on 80 Hepatitis C patients who were also being treated with medication.

Saturday’s news conference notably dropped any mention of the device as a cure for AIDS, only referring to hepati-tis. None of the research involved has been published in a reputable journal.

The original claim in February raised concerns that the military’s o� er of seemingly inconceivable future devic-es would draw Egypt back into a pat-tern of broken promises by successive rulers who would frequently announce grand initiatives that failed to meet expectations.

Generals working on the project and pro-military media adopted a defen-sive stance over the matter, insisting that the inventions would be released to the public and that any criticism of them was part of a foreign plot to rob Egypt of a major scienti� c victory.

El-Serafy said the armed forces will set up a medical center to treat the vi-ruses in the Suez Canal province of Is-mailia to carry out the tests and declare results. l

Saudi king, in Ramadan message, vows to crush Sunni militantsn Reuters, Dubai

Saudi King Abdullah, in a Ramadan message on Saturday, vowed to crush Islamist militants threatening the king-dom, the state news agency report-ed, saying the world’s top oil exporter would not tolerate “a band of terrorists.”

The remarks came two days after the monarch ordered all necessary mea-sures to protect the country against potential “terrorist threats” resulting from turmoil in neighbouring Iraq, where Sunni Islamist militants have captured some cities from the govern-

ment of Shi’ite Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.

“We will not let a band of terrorists who have taken religion as a disguise behind which they hide private inter-ests to terrorise the protected Muslims, to touch our homeland or any of its sons or its protected residents,” King Abdullah said in a message at the start of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

Saudi Arabia crushed al Qaeda af-ter the Islamist militant group began a campaign of bombings and attacks on vital installations and expatriate com-pounds in the kingdom.

The US-allied kingdom has been rattled by a lightning advance through Iraq by Sunni militants spearheaded by the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) - aided by other Sunni Muslim militants, tribal leaders and remnants of Saddam Hussein’s Baath Party - which seized swathes of the country this month.

Saudi Arabia shares an 800-km (500-mile) border with Iraq.

The birthplace of Islam, it sees itself as a champion of pure Sunni Muslim values and regards Shi’ite Iran as its main regional foe. l

ISIS cruci� es 9 men in Syria’s Aleppon AFP, Beirut:

A jihadist group in Syria has publicly executed and cruci� ed nine men, eight of them rebels � ghting both President Bashar al-Assad’s regime and the jihad-ists, a monitor said yesterday.

The report comes amid � erce clash-es on the outskirts of Damascus be-tween the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, which is spearheading a major o� ensive in Iraq, and rebels, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

“ISIS executed eight men in Deir Ha-fer in the east of Aleppo province” on Saturday because they belonged to reb-el groups that had fought against the ji-hadists as well as Assad’s forces, it said.

ISIS then “cruci� ed them in the main square of the village, where their bodies will remain for three days,” the Britain-based monitor said.

Also in Aleppo province, a ninth man was executed and cruci� ed in Al-Bab town near the border with Turkey.

ISIS � rst emerged in Syria’s war in late spring last year and was initially wel-comed by some Syrian rebels who be-lieved its combat experience would help topple Assad. But subsequent jihadist abuses quickly turned the Syrian oppo-sition, including Islamists, against ISIS.

Rebels launched a major anti-ISIS o� ensive in January 2014, and have pushed them out of large swathes of Aleppo province and all of Idlib in the northwest.

However, ISIS remains � rmly rooted in Raqa, its northern Syrian headquar-ters, and wields signi� cant power in Deir Ezzor in the east near the border with Iraq.

Activists say the group’s Iraq o� en-sive and capture of heavy weapons — some of them US-made — appears to have boosted its con� dence in Syria.

East of Damascus, “� erce clashes broke out early Sunday between rebels from the Army of Islam and ISIS near the town of Hammuriyeh,” the Obser-vatory said. l

Iran ‘ready’ to help Iraq against militantsn Reuters, Dubai

Iran is ready to help Iraq � ght an armed revolt using the same methods it de-ployed against opposition forces in Syria, an Iranian general said, suggesting Teh-ran is o� ering to take a larger role in bat-tling Sunni militias threatening Baghdad.

Iranian leaders to date have said they would help defend Shi’ite Muslim shrines in neighbouring Iraq if neces-sary, but have also said Iraqis are capa-ble of doing that job themselves.

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamanei on June 22 also said he re-jected intervention in Iraq by Washing-ton or any other outside power against Sunni militants from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) militia.

ISIL has seized a broad swathe of territory in northern and western Iraq in recent weeks in their quest to topple the government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, a Shi’ite backed by Iran, and to set up an Islamic caliphate.

Brigadier General Massoud Jazay-eri, deputy joint chief of sta� of the armed forces and a senior Islamic Rev-olutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) o� -cer, told Iran’s al Alam television that Iran’s response to the militias would

be “certain and serious.”Jazayeri’s remarks late on Saturday

did not provide details on the assistance Iran could give Baghdad, beyond saying Iran could help with what he called pop-ular defence and intelligence.

“Iran has told Iraqi o� cials it is ready to provide them with our successful experiments in popular all-around de-fence, the same winning strategy used in Syria to put the terrorists on the de-fensive ... This same strategy is now taking shape in Iraq - mobilising mass-es of all ethnic groups,” he told the tele-vision station.

“A response is certain and seri-ous,” he said. “With Syria, too, we an-nounced we would not allow terrorists in the hire of foreign intelligence ser-vices to rule and dictate to Syrian peo-ple. We will certainly have the same approach with Iraq.”

Shi’ite Iran has spent billions of dollars propping up its ally, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, in what has turned into a sectarian proxy war with Sunni Arab states.

The help has included hundreds of military specialists, including se-nior commanders from the elite Quds Force, the external and secretive arm of the IRGC, according to Iranian sources familiar with deployments of military personnel, Syrian opposition sources and security experts. Assad has also re-ceived battle� eld support from � ghters of the Lebanese Hezbollah movement, which Tehran also backs.

Jazayeri said Iran would deal with Iraq on defence, security, border control and forti� cations. To help Iraq, he said, Iran would monitor the situation in the region, as it had done “in Syria and oth-er troubled areas in the region.” l

JK Rowling Twitter abuse was work of British spies!n Agencies

The online abuse aimed at the Harry Pot-ter author JK Rowling after she donated £1m to the Better Together campaign may have actually been the work of British spies, a senior Scottish politician has claimed. The backlash against Rowling saw Twitter users call her a “w***e,” “b****,” “traitor” and “c***,” with the comments largely attributed to apparent supporters of Scottish independence.

But writing in a local newspaper, the SNP’s Christina McKelvie reportedly sug-gested that there was no link whatsoever between the accounts which sent the author abuse and “anything to do with the Yes campaign.” Instead, McKelvie gave credence to what she described as “interesting” theories of MI5 attempts to discredit nationalists, in comments closely resembling those of veteran campaigner

Jim Sillars earlier this month. According to the Telegraph, Ms McKel-

vie wrote: “The attacks on JK Rowling for her donation to Better Together were, in fact, down to a very few people whose ac-counts no one could trace back to having anything to do with the Yes campaign.

The MSP, who chairs Holyrood’s Europe-an and External Relations Committee, added: “Whoever made them - there are interesting conspiracy theorists who think it might all have been down to secret service plants - should be totally condemned. I have no time for this kind of small-minded viciousness.”

The “personal insults” were con-demned by leading � gures on both sides of the independence debate, but Sillars claimed that it was “naive” to think that the security forces were not involved in seeking to in� uence the outcome of September’s ballot which could see the break-up of the UK. l

UN chief ‘adopts’ lion cub in Kenyan AP, Nairobi

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon capped o� a week of high-level UN discussions on the environment by “adopting” a 6-month-old lion cub Saturday. The young lioness, which was found abandoned in Nairobi National Park, will be raised by the Nairobi Animal Orphanage. Ban named the cub Tumaini, which means “hope” in Kenya’s language of Kiswahili, after his “hope that all people around the world will be able to live harmoniously with nature.”

“I sincerely hope this lion will grow healthy, strong and even � erce,” Ban said, drawing parallels with his hopes for the environment after this week’s � rst UN Environment Assembly.

The assembly was the highest-level UN body ever convened on the envi-ronment. More than 1,200 participants from 193 member states spent the week in Nairobi, where the UN Environment Program is headquartered. Ban said he hopes to see UN member states adopt a climate change deal during formal talks in Lima in December. International en-vironmental crime and terrorism ranked high on the assembly’s agenda. l

Earth-like planet discovered 16 light years awayn Agencies

Researchers have found a potentially habitable planet, located just 16 light years away, which is among the top three most Earth-like exoplanets ever discovered, the PTI reported. An international team of researchers discovered the “super-Earth” planet, GJ 832 c, which takes 16 days to orbit its red-dwarf star, GJ 832, and has a mass at least � ve times that of Earth.

It receives about the same average stellar energy as Earth does, because red dwarfs shine more dimly than our Sun, and may have similar temperatures to our planet. These characteristics put it among the top three most Earth-like planets, according to the Earth Similarity Index developed by scientists at the Uni-versity of Puerto Rica in Arecibo.

The research team, led by Dr Robert Wittenmyer in the University of New South Wales School of Physics, reported their � nding of the planet in the Astro-physical Journal. Team member and Head of UNSW’s Exoplanetary Science research group, Professor Chris Tinney, said that if the planet has a similar atmo-sphere to Earth it may be possible for life to survive, although seasonal shifts would be extreme. l

Iraqi security forces patrol after clashes with the predominantly Sunni militants from the radical Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) in the town of Dalli Abbas in Diyala province REUTERS

Clockwise from top: A man walks past a mosaic depicting Gavrilo Princip, the Bosnian-Serb nationalist who assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand in 1914 igniting the start of WWI. A couple walk past a poster of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie. Tourists pose for photos inside a replica of the ‘Graf & Stift’ car, parked in front of a museum at the historical street corner in Sarajevo AP

To help Iraq, Iran would monitor the situation in the region, as it had done ‘in Syria and other troubled areas in the region’

9Monday, June 30, 2014DHAKA TRIBUNE World

T H E H O L Y M O N T H O F R A M A D A N B E G I N S A R O U N D T H E W O R L D

N E W S B I T E S India urges Switzerland to share info on secret accountsn Agencies

India has made a fresh request to Switzerland seeking bank details and names of Indians having unaccounted money in Swiss banks, as the govern-ment expands its e� orts to combat the menace of black money.

The latest request has been made by the � nance ministry after a Swiss government o� cial recently said that Switzerland was ready to cooperate proactively with India to share details on a ‘spontaneous’ basis about persons and entities suspected to have untaxed assets in Swiss banks.

“We have written to the Swiss au-thorities seeking details in this regard. Finance Minister Arun Jaitely had prom-ised that such a step will be taken,” a senior � nance ministry o� cial told PTI.

The o� cial said that the request letter has cited the existing bilateral treaties and global protocols applicable to the two countries for getting information about bank and other details of Indians holding untaxed funds or hidden wealth. l

Man sets self a� re in Tokyo in apparent protestn AP, Tokyo

A man set himself on � re at Tokyo’s busy Shinjuku railway station yesterday in an apparent political protest. The man, who appeared in his 50s or 60s, was taken to the hospital after su� ering serious injuries, said Daiji Kubota, an o� cer at the Shinjuku police station. He said the reason for the self-immolation was under investigation. Shots of the incident on Twitter and other social media showed a man clad in a suit and tie sitting on a small mat along the metal framework above a pedestrian walkway with two plastic bottles of what looked like gasoline beside him.

Witnesses were quoted as saying the man spoke through a megaphone to pro-test the government’s moves to change Japan’s defense policy, doused himself with gasoline and set himself alight as hundreds of people watched from below and from nearby buildings. The national broadcaster NHK showed � re� ghters using hoses to extinguish the � ames. l

2 buildings topple in India, killing at least 20n AP, New Delhi

Police in southern India detained two construction company directors yesterday as rescuers using gas cutters and shovels searched for workers believed buried in the rubble of a building that collapsed during monsoon rains. It was one of two weekend building collapses that killed at least 20 people. The 12-story apartment structure the workers were building col-lapsed late Saturday while heavy rains and lightning were pounding the outskirts of Chennai, the capital of Tamil Nadu state. Police said 28 construction workers had been pulled out so far and the search was continuing for more than a dozen others.

Four of the workers died on the spot and another � ve succumbed to injuries later in a hospital, said police o� cer George Fernandes. Thirteen injured workers have been hospitalised, while six others were allowed to go home after medical attention on Saturday night. l

North Korea � res more short-range missilesn AP, Seoul

North Korea � red two short-range Scud missiles into its eastern waters Sunday, a South Korean o� cial said, in an apparent test just days after the country tested what it called new precision-guided mis-siles. A South Korean military o� cial, who spoke on condition of anonymity, citing department rules, said the missiles were � red from Wonsan and are presumed to be short-range Scud ballistic missiles. The o� cial added that the military is determining what kind of Scud missiles the projectiles were. South Korean media quoted o� cials as saying the missiles are presumed to be Scud-C missiles, the same as ones � red in March. North Korea � red the missiles without designating no-sail zones, which the South Korean military views as provocative.

North Korea regularly test-� res missiles and artillery, both to re� ne its weapons and to express its anger over various developments in Seoul and Washington. l

Beijing to boost police gun training amid security threatsn Reuters, Beijing

China will boost gun training for police in its capital Beijing, a senior security o� cial said, as it braces for what it calls an upsurge in militant violence around the country.

The vice minister of public secu-rity and head of Beijing’s Public Se-curity Bureau, Fu Zhenghua, urged o� cers to increase security in the city as he visited police stations and SWAT checkpoints along Beijing’s main thoroughfare, Chang’an Avenue, on Saturday.

Police must be ready to “deal a dead-ly blow to enemies at the critical time,” the o� cial Xinhua news agency cited Fu as saying in a report on Sunday.

Chinese police do not always carry � rearms, but top leaders have warned that security threats are mounting.

Police in Beijing have already stepped up armed patrols after � ve people were killed and 40 hurt when a

car plowed into a crowd and burst into � ames near Tiananmen Square last Oc-tober. The dead included three people in the car identi� ed by authorities as Islamists from the western region of Xinjiang.

Xinjiang is the home of Muslim Ui-ghurs who speak a Turkic language. China has blamed previous attacks on Islamists it says seek to establish an independent state there called East Turkestan.

Around 200 people have died in attacks blamed on Xinjiang militants in China in the last year or so, and the authorities have launched a campaign to stop the unrest, detaining hundreds and executing many others.

China will host an APEC summit on the outskirts of Beijing in November. This will draw heads of state and gov-ernment from around the Asia Pacif-ic region in one of the highest pro� le events to be held there since the 2008 Olympic Games. l

Eye on defence deals, western powers rush to court Modin Reuters, New Delhi:

Western governments are rushing to visit India’s new Prime Minister Nar-endra Modi, drawn by the prospect of multi-billion-dollar deals, as the gov-ernment prepares to open the nascent defence industry to foreign investment.

Senior politicians from France, the United States and Britain arrive in quick succession over the next nine days as Modi prepares to accelerate the modernisation of the country’s mostly Soviet-era weaponry.

Modi intends to build up India’s mil-itary capabilities and gradually turn the world’s largest arms importer into a heavyweight manufacturer — a goal that has eluded every prime minister since independence in 1947.

On the table is a proposal circulated within the new government to raise caps on foreign investment — with one option to allow complete foreign own-ership of some defence projects.

“All the countries are trying to make their case, especially as there is the sense that the Indian market will un-dergo a shift,” said Harsh Pant, profes-sor of international relations at King’s College London.

“They get a sense from their deal-ings that something dramatic is going to happen and they want � rst-mover advantage,” said Pant, who specialises in Indian defence.

First to arrive in New Delhi will be French Foreign Minister Laurent Fa-bius, whose top priority is to close a stalled deal to sell India 126 Rafale � ghter jets, built by Dassault Aviation, for an estimated $15bn.

Fabius, who arrives on Monday, will meet Modi as well as his most powerful minister, Arun Jaitley, who holds the twin portfolios of defence and � nance - and can therefore decide both whether to sign the deal and when to release the money.

US Senator John McCain is also due in India next week. McCain, whose Ar-izona constituency includes weapons makers such as Boeing and Raytheon, told the Senate on Thursday that Wash-ington should seek to bolster India’s economic and military rise.

“This is an area where US defence capabilities, technologies, and cooper-ation — especially between our defence industries — can bene� t India enor-mously,” McCain said of India’s drive to modernise the armed forces.

UK still hopeful on fighter jet In the second week of July, Britain is likely to send in Foreign Secretary William Hague and � nance minister George Osborne, a British government source said on Friday.

Britain has drawn some cheer from the slow progress of the negotiations for the Rafale deal. The Euro� ghter Typhoon was shortlisted along with the Dassault � ghter before India an-nounced the French jet was the winner.

Cost escalations and disagreements about building the Rafale in partnership with India’s state-run Hindustan Aero-nautics Limited have complicated talks with France, and London has never en-tirely given up hope that it will return to the race. However, on Thursday, one source at the Indian defence ministry said the deal was likely to be � nally closed during Fabius’ visit and could be signed this year. A French foreign min-istry source said talks were ongoing, but refused to provide more detail.

Russia, for years India’s top weap-ons supplier, pipped all three countries to the post, sending Deputy Prime Min-ister Dmitry Rogozin to visit the new government in Delhi two weeks ago. Washington last year replaced Moscow as India’s top defence supplier, accord-ing to IHS Jane’s.

The Western nations will have noted that India’s foreign minister expressed displeasure with Russia’s recent o� er to sell Mi-35 attack helicopters to In-dia’s arch-rival Pakistan.

“I don’t think it’s a competition,” US Assistant Secretary of State Nisha Biswal said after an early post-elec-tion visit to New Delhi. “India will have strong and positive relationships with a variety of countries and that is to be encouraged,” said Biswal. “We want to see India taking on a stronger and a leadership role in the region and around the world so we welcome that.”

$6 billion spree India spent some $6bn last year on weapons imports. It makes few of its own weapons, beyond ballistic missiles and assembly lines for foreign jets.

On Thursday, the government sig-nalled it was in the mood for liberal-isation by allowing manufacturers to build more defence components with-out licences, making it easier for Indian � rms to partner foreigners.

At present foreign companies can only invest 26% in Indian defence proj-ects without committing to technol-ogy transfer, which has put o� many investors.

Before the election, sources in Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party said there was a plan to increase the cap to 49 per cent.

“For higher-tech intellectual prop-erty we would want to go over 50% to be in a position to share technology that we have signi� cant investments in,” said Phil Shaw, chief executive of Lockheed Martin India Pvt Ltd. “An up-lift from 26 to 49% maintains the status quo and may not be su� cient incentive to make an investment here.”

Lockheed Martin already has a 26 per cent investment in an Indian joint venture with Tata Advanced Systems that manufactures airframe compo-nents for the C-130J Super Hercules cargo lifter.

India’s Department of Industrial Poli-cy and Promotion has circulated a discus-sion document that proposes allowing up to 100% foreign direct investment, or FDI, in defence production, two govern-ment o� cials told Reuters. l

Last day of Hong Kong democracy polln AFP, Hong Kong

Hong Kong citizens voted in the � -nal day of an uno� cial referendum on democratic reform yesterday, days before a record number of people are expected at an annual pro-democracy protest.

The 10-day poll has seen voters choose how the southern Chinese city’s leader should be elected, but it has en-raged Beijing with state-run media de-scribing the ballot as “an illegal farce.”

More than 760,000 people have vot-ed since the poll opened online earlier this month, as fears grow that Beijing will backtrack on its promise to allow Hong Kong universal su� rage.

Tensions are running high in the

former British colony with upwards of 500,000 people expected to participate in a pro-democracy rally on Tuesday, the anniversary of Hong Kong’s hando-ver to China.

Organisers expect this year’s July 1 march to be the largest since Britain returned the Asian � nancial centre in 1997, with Beijing promising direct elections for the city’s leader in 2017.

Hong Kong’s leader is currently ap-pointed by a 1,200-strong pro-Beijing committee and residents are guaran-teed civil liberties not enjoyed on the mainland, including free speech and the right to protest.

Turnout for the informal referen-dum, organised by pro-democracy activists, has exceeded expectations

with some 50,000 people casting their vote at polling stations on one day alone.

“Every Chinese should have the right to vote,” a 90-year-old voter, who only gave his surname as Fu, told AFP as he waited for a polling station to open outside in the Tsim Sha Tsui dis-trict Sunday morning.

“Although people can’t do it in Chi-na, we can do it in Hong Kong,” he add-ed. Another voter, William Chu, said: “We should send a strong message to the government.”

Concerns are rising in Hong Kong that Chinese in� uence over the semi-autonomous city is increasing and activists hope the high turnout will put a stronger case for reform. l

(1) Pakistan: A vendor arranges praying beads which worshippers buy for Islamic holy month of Ramadan in Peshawar. (2) Kenya: Children recite the Quran at the start of Ramadan at a madrassa, or Islamic school in Nairobi. (3) Nagpur: A vendor arranges stack of colourful sawaiyan (sweet vermicelli) on the eve of Ramadan at Mominpura. (4) Palestines: A vendor sells dates for Ramadan at a market in the West Bank city of Jenin ahead of Ramadan AP

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Visitors take aim with ri� es at a military base during an open day event of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) in Hong Kong, ahead of the 17th anniversary of the establishment of the Special Administrative Region AP

Modi intends to build up India’s military capabilities and gradually turn the world’s largest arms importer into a heavyweight manufacturer

Political party’s name in foreign languageJune 27

A BangladeshiIn your issue of June 23, a commentator, going by the moniker of “Someone,” really deserves congratulations for pointing out the non-Bangla name of the main political party, that too in two foreign languages! The Awami League established Bangladesh, a new country. “Awami” is an Urdu word, meaning “of the people,” while “League” is a common English word which means a col-lection of like-minded people or party. Our national language is absent from the name of this party. Maybe the meaning of the name of this party will recall the two nations, Britain and Pakistan.

May be now, the party may think about changing its name to Bangla, our national lan-guage. This was very interesting and curious information from the writer, which I believe escaped everyone’s notice!

Malaysia’s top court: ‘Allah’ for Muslims onlyJune 24

Vikram KhanDoes the name of Allah or God really “be-long” to anyone?!

Editorial10 DHAKA TRIBUNE Monday, June 30, 2014

CODE-CRACKER

ACROSS1 Embellishes (6)4 Cut grass (3)7 Sheeplike (5)8 Abstract (6)11 Fastener (3)12 Remaining (4)13 Probability (4)15 Praise highly (5)16 European capital (5)20 Church service (4)23 Wavelike � ow (4)24 Humour (3)25 Fit to be eaten (6)26 Spicy fragrance (5)27 Precious stone (3)28 Hid (6)

DOWN1 Copious (5)2 Clergymen (7)3 Tolerable (4)4 Look after (4)5 Responsibility (4)6 Raining (3)9 King (L) (3)10 Newt (3)14 Writer of daily record of events (7)17 Plunder (3)18 Sick (3)19 Frozen shower (5)20 Deep mud (4)21 Minute particle (4)22 Close up (4)24 Oscillate (3)

CROSSWORD

How to solve: Fill in the blank spaces with the numbers 1 – 9. Every row, column and 3 x 3 box must contain all nine digits with no number repeating.

SUDOKU

How to solve: Each number in our CODE-CRACKER grid represents a di� erent letter of the alphabet. For example, today 5 represents C so � ll C every time the � gure 5 appears.You have two letters in the control grid to start you o� . Enter them in the appro-priate squares in the main grid, then use your knowledge of words to work out which letters go in the missing squares.Some letters of the alphabet may not be used.As you get the letters, � ll in the other squares with the same number in the main grid, and the control grid. Check o� the list of alphabetical letters as you identify them.

CODE-CRACKER

CROSSWORD

SUDOKU

YESTERDAY’S SOLUTIONS

CALVIN AND HOBBES

PEANUTS

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Issue licenses to motorised rickshaws and withdraw restrictionsJune 25

Md Ashraf HossainNine million people, belonging to the lower-middle and working class, are the most signi� cant driving force for development in Bangladesh. However, the decision-makers in the government appear least bothered to solve their transport problem. These people do not own their own vehicle, nor do they get a vehicle from their employers. The public transport system is very inadequate. Whatever bus service is available does not cover all desired des-tinations, if at all. Taxi cabs are out of their reach, owing to exorbitant fares. Auto-rickshaws are not available as well and their rates far too costly.

Two decades past, human-pulled rickshaws plied on most roads in the capital, and commoners could travel to their destinations a� ordably. The government has since made one road after another o� -limits to rickshaws, supposedly to ease tra� c congestion, without arranging for any suitable alternatives.

Recently, DC motors and gears have been

incorporated into traditional rickshaws, which are energised by rechargeable batteries, making the rickshaws operate like easy bikes. This change has increased their speed and returned human dignity to the rickshaw pullers. But our authorities have not encouraged the modernisation of rickshaws in any way. Besides, these rickshaw-pullers charge the same fare as they do for traditional rickshaws, making it a� ordable for most city dwellers. The electric batteries, around Tk20 each, are charged overnight, and can power a rickshaw for approxi-mately 8 to 10 hours.

Thus, to promote the use of the aforemen-tioned vehicles, Dhaka South City Corporation and Dhaka North City Corporation should issue licenses to motorised rickshaws to ply on the streets of their respective areas, and the tra� c department should withdraw all restrictions on the movement of motorised rickshaws on the streets. Moreover, human-pulled rickshaws should be barred and their licenses not renewed further.

Remembering the true spirit of RamadanThe holy month of Ramadan is here. For Muslims in Bangladesh

– indeed the whole world – Ramadan is a month of restraint, discipline, patience, and prayer. It is a month when we leave

behind some of our more undesirable habits and cultivate better ones through silent re� ection to get closer to God.

The true spirit of Ram-adan is supposed to bring out the best side in people – it should be a time when we hold ourselves to a higher moral standard and refrain from engaging in unethical and unfair behaviour, a time for Muslims to follow the directives of God and ask for His mercy and blessings.

In practice, the sacred teachings of the spirit of fasting and self-control of-ten get drowned out in the hustle and bustle of daily life. Soaring food prices, irregular hours at public services, and unbearable tra� c jams add to the trials of our citizens, testing our mettle.

However, we as a nation should not be swayed by these hardships. Instead, we should try to better the lives of those around us and alleviate these di� culties with patience and fortitude. Whether one is fasting or not, Muslim or non-Muslim, may we all take inspiration from this month to be more peaceful and civil to one another. We wish our readers a ful� lling Ramadan-ul-Mubarak.

BSF killings not helpingOnce again, a border killing incident has increased tensions over

India-Bangladesh relations. It is disheartening to see that this news comes just as Indian Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj

leaves Bangladesh with a message of goodwill and friendship between the two countries.

A Bangladeshi citizen was beaten to death by members of the Indian BSF along the Putkhali frontier in Jessore on Saturday. The de-ceased, Mohammad Sharif, 38, was picked up by BSF members when some trad-ers were herding cattle back into Bangladesh territory early in the morning. Sharif’s dead body was found left on the frontier, bearing numer-ous marks of the treatment he received.

This is not the � rst time this has happened. Killings at the border have been happening at an alarming frequency. The nature of these killings are strongly suggestive of the bru-tality present in the way Indian border o� cials treat Bangladeshis. There have been repeated negotiations with the Indian government, and in spite of their many assurances, this callous killing of unarmed Bangladeshis continues. We are certain that this is anathema to the Indian government and that they are equally appalled by such actions. But now is the time to take whatever steps are necessary to resolve this serious matter.

In 2011, the Felani killing made headlights and brought these horrif-ic border killings into sharp focus. Three years later, violence on inno-cent Bangladeshis continue. If the newly formed Indian government is sincere in its desire to repair relations with Bangladesh, it should make it a priority to stop the killings immediately.

Now is the time to take whatever steps necessary to resolve this serious matter

May we all take inspiration from this month to be more peaceful and civil to one another

No more agitation, pleaseJune 24SammyIt would appear that the DT is slowly moving away from its principled stance that the Jan 5 elections were a farce; otherwise, why would they be asking the BNP to accept the results of the elections and do nothing?

Zero-Agenda Sammy: I think DT has made it perfectly clear through past editorials and op-ed pieces how utter-ly farcical they believe the Jan 5 elections to have been. This editorial is more geared towards how hartals and other such agitations programs do more bad than good, for both the public and the BNP’s image. They are not asking Ms Zia to roll over.

Bangladesh-born Briton calls for jihadJune 25

riazoHave the British authorities arrested him yet?

VKUnbelievable! He gets the golden opportunity to go to the UK and that’s all he can think of doing??

When Dhaka beau meets Kolkata beautyJune 24tamimHow come we have Khan as a Bangladeshi surname?? He doesn’t look like a Pathan. I guess nowadays it has become fashionable to adopt fake surnames to gain popularity.

We want justiceJune 25

ZAOur judiciary needs a serious bolt to the joints;

they are getting complacent.

The sitting ducksJune 25

JayIt is just unfortunate that the Biharis are stuck in the

camps in horrible conditions. Whatever the previous generation has done is not the fault of the young

people who were born in the Bihari camps. They are Bangladeshi citizens and they should not be singled out as the odd ones. I agree with the writer that, as

they are born Bangladeshis, they should be have the general rights like the other people to get proper

food, housing conditions, education, and the chance to contribute to the development of the country.

I gnash my teeth as others munch

June 26

Fareed WakilLiverpool’s captain sank England at the World Cup. There’s a lot Liverpool has to answer for – one way

would be for Liverpool fans to settle down.

The people’s right to knowJune 24

Jay TIt is very true that most people do not know that

the RTI Act allows all citizens to monitor the activ-ities of the government or to check their abuse of power. In this digital era, information is power. So

the public should use this act in their favour.

New gas � eld found in Narayanganj

June 21

Hamidullah BabuThis is great news.

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

n Towheed Feroze

In a season of World Cup football where minnows are standing up to giants, often killing them or

sometimes giving them the scare of their lives, we come face to face with a challenge of a di� erent sort.

However, there are similarities with the never-say-die attitude and the will to stick to one’s guns, usually adopted by the smaller teams in a World Cup match.

This time, the premise is the � eld of rural Bangladesh where a young police o� cer, ASP Bashir, instead of playing to the vulgar tunes of the time, decided to take a stand of his own – a position which has brought some pride to that uniform that he dons.

Surely, even a policeman who has been forced to become a political pawn will feel a sense of pride.

We hardly � nd positive things to write about the men in uniform tasked with upholding the law. No matter what the rhetoric about the e� cacy of the police – as stated by the politicians who have conveniently made it an institution of furthering their inter-ests – within the masses, the force

does not enjoy full trust or unalloyed con� dence.

Time and again, the uniform has been tainted because the law enforce-ment agency has been turned into a political instrument.

In the latest incident, where ASP Bashir resisted the false voting in a centre, we see, once more, the hideous face of politics in Bangladesh.

Just imagine: A chairman, who is a contestant, threatening a law enforcer to leave the area so that false votes can be cast. Now there are several dimensions to the episode – � rst, the question about the ethical values of the chairman himself.

When a person feels that he has the right to go to power by rigging and feels that shooing away the law is his prerogative, what development work can be expected of him?

Obviously, his political ideology is based on one philosophy – strength-en your own base and make money because once you have power and the wealth, the world can be bought.

To an extent, that squalid philoso-phy topped by coarse behaviour and boorish manners is proving to be the right credo of the time.

If there had been some other o� cer who is more shrewd and willing to compromise ideals of the uniform to ad-vance his career, then there would not be any incident at that voting centre.

Everything would have proceeded peacefully, like clockwork. The top administration would have said with brazen assertiveness: “See!” What a spontaneous outpour of democratic impulse. But Bashir is not clever. He is not astute enough to understand the convoluted layers of power. He still believes that wearing that uniform of his means, at least in some cases, he cannot turn a blind eye.

I am not saying Bashir is the perfect example. In this world, where subtle forces of power always dictate the out-come of a� airs, it’s di� cult to adhere to the principles that come with the post of a social guardian.

Yet, there are some places where compromise means a total rejection of all moral compunctions.

As a young o� cer, still fresh and unjaded, Bashir could not accept that all that he learnt in training just a few years ago means nothing in real life. Hence, he de� ed.

But where does he stand now?

The media is behind him, millions of social network users have lauded him. Surprisingly he hasn’t received any public accolades from the govern-ment. We haven’t seen any top govern-ment o� cial who has said unequivo-cally that what he did was right.

Reportedly, malicious e� orts are being made to link the o� cer to an Islamist party.

A video clip where the o� cer alleg-es that Shamim Osman, MP, asked him to leave the voting spot on behalf of the chairman, and later used abusive language, has gone viral. In that clip, there is one line from the o� cer which stands out from the rest.

The interviewing journalist from Somoy TV asks: “Then you did not have permission from your authority to leave the voting spot?” To this the o� cer replies bluntly: “Permission or no permission, as a police o� cer, I cannot leave a voting centre in the hands of false voters.”

The task of a police o� cer is plainly stated there, sans the euphemisms. Unfortunately, Bashir now feels inse-cure because he has realised that the opposing force is a massive one with too many tentacles.

Politicians and the squalor of poli-tics rule the game here – law enforcers have been consumed by this beast.

It’s a bit like the line in the song Hotel California – you can check in anytime you like, but you can never leave it.

Most likely, he will be removed from the area and be sent to some oth-er place. Meanwhile, with Ramadan setting in, priority will soon shift from politics to abstinence, and then Eid. In a few months, Bashir will be forgotten by most.

However, since he was instrumental in opening this can of worms in public, the villains will wait in the shade, look-

ing for their chance to strike back. No, Bashir won’t be harmed physically, but he may be given harsh treatment within his profession, possibly stunted from advancing in his career.

Or, here’s what we would like to see – top administration of the country, plus the home minister, stepping for-ward and defending the policeman’s action, saying to the nation: “Look, the uniform still isn’t fully tarnished.”

But expecting that would be naïve. Yet sometimes, even in our cynical outlook, we feel like seeing some good old ideals enjoying a win or two – just like the World Cup matches, when small teams prevail over the super-stars, we believe that miracles, though short-lived, can happen.

Bashir did something which was aligned to his role as a police o� cer – we can either break his spirit by alienating him, or we can unite to give him a pat on the back with the line: “You did the right thing.” No, doing this won’t defeat that mighty Goliath, but at least as a nation we will feel we are not rotten to the core. l

Towheed Feroze is a journalist working in the development sector.

n Syeda Samira Sadeque

The incident of Shakib al Hassan beating up a spectator for “passing indecent comments” at

his wife is not only shameful given his national status, but is actually part of a much bigger conversation.

According to reports, the cricketer beat up a spectator a few weeks ago when he heard that the spectator had allegedly harassed his wife. Shakib wasn’t even present at the scene when this “harassment” took place, but was quick to get there and … well, react.

There are varying accounts. Some reports don’t really specify it as an account of “harassment.” Some others do. There appears to be a web of confusion as to what really happened, what was really said to his wife, and whether or not that would count as “indecent” or “harassment.” Yet, the fact that it was so easy for us to con-clude that it was harassment and that the remarks were indecent says some-thing about our society as a whole.

It shows a society where passing indecent remarks at girls/women is so common that it is often the most natural conclusion. Whether or not something is done about it is a whole other matter, but the fact that this consideration is always on our radars as an issue shows our awareness of, and yet a latent complacency with, the whole matter.

What Sakib did is unacceptable on a number of grounds.

He abused both his power in the � eld as well as his class status to react to a matter which is apparently personal to him, though, as explained above, it speaks volumes about the public sphere we live in.

He took the law in his own hands, which is not expected from people in a civilised society, whether they are a cricket hero or an average Joe. And last but not least, he acted in what is often seen as and/or promoted to be a “heroic” act. This kind of act is often seen as acceptable or even applauded because pop culture and mass media promote the image of the “hero” who shuts up or beats up the guy who is

passing lewd remarks at the girl. But in promoting these images

and acting in accordance with them, Shakib further enhanced the very fundamental practices and beliefs of a strong patriarchal system.

Beating up the guy who passes the comment is not much di� erent from actually passing the comment. In doing so, Shakib implicitly enhanced a system where this is allowed, where a girl being harassed ought to be “rescued” by “heroic” acts by yet another guy.

He encouraged a system where the attackers and saviours both are male, with the female wedged in between, stuck from both ends. And it is this mentality we have to get out of. It is this mentality that needs to be ad-dressed in our society.

This, contrary to what is often believed, is no form of chivalry. Beat-ing someone up is as unacceptable as passing lewd remarks is. If Shakib really was so enraged by what had happened, he should have used his popularity for a positive change in our society. Our rape statistics are appall-ing, harassment is prevalent every-where – from the narrow alleyways to the marital bed.

So if the incident disturbed Shakib so much, he should come forward to make a statement to the society, to his followers, and beat the system that allows men to harass and/or pass comments at any women passing by. l

The author is a journalist at Dhaka Tribune. You can follow her on twitter @Samideque.

11Op-Ed Monday, June 30, 2014DHAKA TRIBUNE

n Quazi Zulquarnain Islam

It was a moment that typi� ed the modern parlance of football – the yellow of Colombia searing down the length of the pitch. Three quick passes brought the ball

from right to left as the Uruguayans struggled to get enough men back. From the left, a cross swung beyond far post to the runner breaking free from deep and as Juan Cuardado sent a majestic cushioned header into the six yard box, you already knew that this would be a goal. James Rodriguez, fast becoming the star of the World Cup, applied the � nish to what is likely to be the benchmark team goal of the Brazil World Cup. In some ways though, this was also its signature.

In South Africa in 2010, football was all about possession. Spain, still on the upsurge of a wave that would see them become the most successful national side in football history, tiki-taka’d opposition to death, a collection of quick-moving, small, mobile mid� eld-ers playing minute passing triangles around the hulking opposition – it was the footballing equivalent of downing the school bully.

But like other things, football too evolves, and ever steadily Barcelona and Spain’s dominance dwindled. A revolution was coming, and one led by a volatile coach in hipster glasses and a baseball cap. “If Spain’s foot-ball is like the orchestra, ours is like heavy metal,” said Jurgen Klopp, after Borussia Dortmund’s manic-pressing, quick transition style wowed � rst the Bundesliga and then the rest of the world in an almost fairytale Champi-

ons League run. “There is no defence,” Klopp once said, “to something done fast and accurately.”

In Spain, another similarly heart-on-sleeve man took note.

Diego Simeone usually wore all black but in Atletico Madrid, he too was building a side that was replicating the Dortmund way – fast vertical pass-es, fast vertical sprints, furious closing down on space in the opponent half. No wonder then that in late 2012, when asked about who would win the Cham-pions League, Simeone’s answer was a wry if left-� eld one. “Dortmund,” he said, much to the reporter’s surprise.

But it became quickly evident that both sides were onto something. During their Champions League run in 2012-13, Dortmund collectively sometimes covered an astonishing 10-12kms more in ground than their opposition. And in 2013-14, Simeone’s Atletico was doing much the same. But unlike the past, this hard running was not being done by the famously styled “water-carriers.” Instead, Klopp and Simeone’s teams included players

like Ilkay Gundogan and Koke – smart, well-built, mobile, yet superbly tech-nical mid� elders who could attack and defend well in equal measure. The trick, as they both discovered, was to move fast, not just with ball but also with men.

Across the city, Carlo Ancelotti, ever the pragmatist, took note. He discard-ed with Real’s use of a playmaker in Mesut Ozil and converted previous winger Angel di Maria into a box-to-box mid� elder. And then in tandem he � elded the frighteningly fast Gareth Bale and Cristiano Ronaldo. They were supplemented by Karim Benzema, a mobile French forward, who is as good at scoring as he is at passing and com-bination. The writing was on the wall – the specialist doesn’t exist anymore. Real, of course, won the Champions League. Atletico, the Spanish league.

The trend has continued into the World Cup and in general the teams who have succeeded are the ones who are accomplished at pulling o� the quick transitions.

Step forward Colombia, but also the Dutch who showed how e� ective their fast break style could be against the bastions of possession football. Chile too, until their heartbreaking exit to Brazil, and even though Germany have been nowhere near as e� ective, their fast transitions too are the reason why they troubled Portugal to such an ex-tent. More surprisingly, France too have dominated, with their mid� elders like Paul Pogba and Blaise Matuidi experts at the quick control and release. Maybe their coach, the famous “water-carrier” Didier Deschamps is onto something.

In 2010, passmasters like Xavi and

Andreas Iniesta ruled the roost. Four years on, the stars of the World Cup have been fast, skillful players like James Rodriguez and Arjen Robben. And of course, Neymar and Lionel Messi. But neither Brazil nor Argenti-na, the two favorites coming into the tournament, have displayed anything in keeping with the character of the teams that have been so far successful.

Both teams look quite disjointed. Brazil, seemingly under tremendous pressure, are generally happy to leisurely scru� it out among their center backs. Argentina goes even one step further – their center backs seem even afraid of the ball. But both teams possess a genius each and the tactics of both seem to focus on the mantra – “get the ball to Neymar/Messi, and let us hope he does something with it.” Purists may be rolling in their graves, but Bangladeshis love nothing more than a collective game being reduced to single acts of individualism. And as Messi and Neymar have shown so far, sometimes that is more than enough. Both leads the scoring chart and somehow are still in with a chance of meeting in a dream � nal.

But perhaps what you need is a team that combines both? A genius and a quick transition style? Colombia certainly � t the second bill, and with his goal on Sunday, James Rodriguez can certainly be the former. How amazing would it be that in a World Cup full of surprises, we have a brand new world champion?

Don’t count on it though. l

Quazi Zulquarnain Islam is a freelance sports writer.

Exit orchestra,enter heavy metalFootball 2014 is about fast breaks and some individual genius

Bangladeshis love nothing more than a collective game being reduced to single acts of individualism

Even in our cynical outlook, we feel like seeing some good old ideals enjoying a winor two

Shakib further enhanced the very fundamental practices and beliefs of a strong patriarchal system

One police o� cer versus Goliath

Beat the system, not the spectator

S E R P E N T I N E D E N

A quicker, more aggressive brand of football? REUTERS

MU

MIT

M

EntertainmentDHAKA TRIBUNE Monday, June 30, 201412

FilmAvenue, Kuril Transformers:Age of Extinction3DX-Men: Days of Future Past 3D NonStop(2D)Walking with DinosaursTime: 10am – 10pmStar Cineplex, Level 8Bashundhara City 13/3 Ka, Panthopath

Exhibition Second SightTime: 12pm – 8pmThe Daily Star Centre64-65, Kazi Nazrul Islam Avenue

Artistic Musings of Great Collector Nasir Ali MamunTime: 12pm – 8pmBengal Gallery of Fine Arts, Road No 16 ,Dhanmondi

Shadow of ConcaveTime: 12pm – 8pmGallery Shilpangon

TODAY IN DHAKA

Marking Sa� uddin Ahmed's 92nd birth anniversary n Shadma Malik

On the occasion of the 92nd birth anniversary of Sa� uddin Ahmed, his son Ahmed Nazir has arranged for an exhibition at the Gallery Chitrak. The artworks on display include the works of Nazir himself, exclusive pieces of the maestro Sa� uddin Ahmed and pieces done by his teachers, and friends.

These are the artists of 30's and 40's who created a cultural impact on the art arena of Bengal. The rea-son behind installing such work is to showcase Sa� uddin's interac-tion with these artists and his ob-servation of their creative process.

The diverse collection of art-works make the exhibition a valuable experience for art lovers of the country.

Through the exhibition, Nazir takes the spec-tators on a visual journey into the life of a great master. The series of artworks, mostly on digital print includes a portrait of the great master. The work has been completed with Bangla and English fonts.

About the piece, the artist said: “These are the texts which have been taken from several write-ups on Sa� uddin's life and work.” One print shows a piece of a newspaper where the master's face ap-pears faded and another consists of the � ngerprint of his thumb.

About the piece, Nazir explains: “At the end of

his life, he was not able to sign his pension note. So, he use to give thumb impressions instead of signatures.” Nazir also paid tribute to his father's studio and his graveyard in his work. A young Sa� -uddin can be seen at the exhibition through one of his art pieces. The artist has also incorporated a portrait of the maestro on the artwork and have come up with a masterpiece truly worthy of praise.

“Great men never die, they will always be alive within us,” said Nazir.

“The master's existence is no more, buthis work will remain an entity that will have asigni� cant contribution in the compulsion of the society.”

The exhibition will remain open till July 5. l

I get paid very well, have no complaints: Kareenan Entertainment Desk

Actor Kareena Kapoor, who has worked with some of the biggest banners, says that she has no complaints about the remuneration structure in the � lm industry as she is paid really well.

While Vidya Balan and Priyanka Chopra feel there is disparity in the remuneration system compared

to actors in Bollywood, Kareena shares a di� erent opinion.

"I get paid very well and I have no com-plaints. If it's a big budget � lm, they can a� ord and what works for another actor might not work for somebody else," the actor told re-

porters in a group interview."I feel each and every actor is di� erent. For ex-

ample, I can never do 'The Dirty Picture.' I don't have that courage and boldness but for me it's a challenge to be a part of 'Golmaal 3' and still have a great role. It's an honour for me to be a part of 'Singham' and that works for me. It's unfair to draw any compari-sons," she added.

However, the 33-year-old was of di� erent opinion in the year 2012 when at an event she shared how Vidya's National Award-winning performance in the 2011 re-leased � lm "The Dirty Picture" has given actors the hope for a brighter tomorrow in the Indian � lm industry.

It was during that time Kareena said that she will � ght for "equal pay cheques" for both male and fe-male actors. l

Sporshia wants to play rockstarn Hasan Mansoor Chatak

Newcomer Sporshia is about to appear in a villainous role for the upcoming TV play “Prem Ashe Prem Jay.” Dhaka Tribune caught up with the actor to learn about her new role and much more.

Model/actor, which introduction do you prefer?De� nitely an actor. Although I came to the limelight through modeling, acting is my passion and I want to establish myself in the � eld.

Which one is your favourite character till date?I am lucky to have gotten the opportunity to present myself as various characters in my short acting career. Aneeka of “Ujan Ganger Naiya” is my favourite till date. If the charac-ter I portray is di� erent what I am in real life, I feel very enthusiastic about the role.

What is your dream role?Portraying a rockstar in a � lm is my dream role.

Who was your first celebrity crush?Johnny Depp stole my heart.

Do you have any plans to act on the big screen?

Yes, of course. I am thinking of taking up roles in the big screen when my stud-ies are � nished.

Are you enjoying your time in acting?Yes, I am. People believe that work-ing in the � lm industry is very hard, whereas it is far better than what they portray it to be.

What do you enjoy doing in your free time?I enjoy drawing, spending time with my mother and my friends. Sometimes, I just sit on my bed and enjoy isolation.

Tell us about your recent ventures.We just � nished shooting a drama titled “Prem Ashe Prem Jay” directed by Mah-fuz Ahmed. It will be aired during Eid on Channel i. I have signed with Redo-an Rony for the upcoming Eid. Besides three serials of mine are being aired, in-cluding BBC Media Action’s “Ujan Gang-er Naiya” on BTV, “Icche Ghuri” on NTV and “Amader Choto Nodi” on Channel i. One of my new serial titled “Family Pack” will be aired next month on NTV.

Orchita Sporshia came to the spot-light modeling for Parachute and Air-tel. She is now pursuing her education in Media Studies and Journalism in ULAB. l

Celebrities style evolutions portrayedn Entertainment Desk

“Celebrity Style Story” tells the story of one celeb-rity’s style evolution through their unforgettable hair, make-up and fashion choices. From the highs and lows of their career and how that a� ected their look, to how their personal relationships in� uenced their out-� t choices. The show covers all the major

fashion hits and misses throughout the decades. Alongside archival celebrity interview clips,

vibrant red carpet footage and photos, a panel of expert hairstylists, makeup artists, fashion styl-ists, designers and fashion journalists weigh in on the celebrity’s looks and transformation from each stage of their red hot career. The show will be aired on TLC today at 4:30pm. l

Vidya Balan loves watching Messi playn Entertainment Desk

National Award winning actor Vidya Balan confessed her love for football is just limited to Argentinian forward Lionel Messi's good looks.

"I just know Messi because he is good look-ing! My friends tell me when Messi's game will be telecast, that time I switch on the TV and watch...or else I don't have any interest," she admitted to reporters while promoting her forthcoming release " Bobby Jasoos".

The movie is a detective comedy that re-volves around a female character. While Vidya plays the female lead, Ali Fazal plays the male lead. The � lm is directed by Samar Shaikh and is co-produced by actor Dia Mirza and her beau Sahil Sangha. "Bobby Jasoos" will hit the the-atres on July 4. l

Beyonce and Jay Z will ‘lead separatelives’ on tourn Entertainment Desk

The couple - whose marriage has been the subject of speculation that it’s in crisis - kicked o� their joint “On the Run” concert series this week but they are said to be only seeing one another on stage, as they travel separately and stay in di� erent hotel rooms.

A source said: “They might be sharing a stage, but while on tour they’ll live practical-ly separate lives.

“Tensions between them are worse than ever, meaning they will be travelling between venues independently, staying in di� erent ho-tel suites and even having separate entourages.

“They’ll also have individual dressing

rooms, so the only times they’ll be together will be while they’re performing.”

The couple - who have two-year-old daughter Blue Ivy together - have both been the subject of rumours of in� delity and the

insider admits they are struggling to trust one another.

The source told Grazia magazine: “They’ve both been dreading the tour. Cancelling wasn’t an option, so on the surface it’s go-ing to be business as usual, but they’re both struggling with trust issues after the spate of cheating allegations.

“Jay’s given Beyonce unlimited access to his texts and emails to try and keep the peace, but a lot of their communication will be through assistants.”

Despite the claims, the pair have seemed comfortable on stage with one another and even treated fans to previously-unseen foot-age from their wedding. l

Courteney Cox gets engagedn Entertainment Desk

Courteney Cox, who stars in a TV show titled “Cougar Town,” just got engaged to her much younger boyfriend.

Cox, 50, is set to marry Johnny McDaid, 37, the guitarist and back-up singer for the British rock band Snow Patrol. Both Cox and McDaid announced the news on Twitter after posting a pretty darned adorable sel� e of the two of them.

“I’m engaged to him!” Cox posted.

“I’m engaged to her!” McDaid posted.

It has been a fairly quick romance. The New York Daily News says the two were � rst spotted together last November at Jennifer Aniston’s hol-iday party, where they were introduced by sing-er-songwriter Ed Sheer-an. Earlier this month,

Us Weekly says, the couple looked serious as they celebrated Cox’s 50th birthday in Turks and Caicos.

“Courteney looked amazing,” a source told Us Weekly. “Johnny was staring at her and smil-ing. You could see how much he loves her.” l

Dhaka University students to present Hamlet

n Entertainment Desk

The students of the Dhaka University’s The-atre and Performance Studies are bringing to stage William Shakespeare’s renowned play “Hamlet.” The four day programme will start on July 4 and will continue till July 7 at the Edward M Kennedy Centre (EMK). Directed

by Shamsur Rahman, the play will feature students from the 2nd, 5th and 6th semesters.

“It is very challenging to direct a critical and timeless play like ‘Hamlet.’ The roles of Hamlet, Claudius, Gertrude, Polonius and Ophelia were per-formed by some of the biggest names in theatre, making it more challenging for us,” says Ashiq Rahman, assistant pro-fessor of Theatre and Perfor-mance Studies.

The play set in Denmark recounts how prince Hamlet

exacts revenge on his uncle Claudius, who murdered Hamlet’s father, the King, and then takes the throne and marries Gertrude, Hamlet’s mother. The story vividly charts the course of real and feigned madness—from overwhelming grief to seething rage—and ex-plores themes of treachery, revenge, incest, and moral corruption. l

Artwork by Ahmed Nazir

Shakila Zafar to appearin cookery shown Entertainment Desk

Singer Shakila Zafar will be present in a culinary and iftar show titled “Vim Jhotpot Ranna” which will be aired on ATN Bangla throughout the month of Rama-dan at 4:10pm. The programme is anchored by Ruma-na Malik Munmun.

Traditional iftar recipes will be presented in dif-ferent ways. Nutrition facts of the dishes will be pro-vided while a quiz session is placed to make the show more communicative with the audience.

In the month-long programme, two guests will be present in every episode. Singers including Badhon, Mila, Samina Chowdhury, Kona, Ruksana Mumtaz, Asgar Alim, Kabir Bakul, Dinat Jahan Munni, Ulka Hasan and Lopa Hossain will be appearing as celebrity guests on the show. l

DHAKA TRIBUNE13Sp rt

Monday, June 30, 2014

Hail Cesar! ‘keeper revels in change in fortunes

Labelled the villain after Brazil bowed out of the 2010 World Cup, Julio Cesar broke down in tears as he was toasted as a nation’s saviour after the hosts scraped past Chile on Saturday.

The 34-year-old goalkeeper saved penalties from Mauricio Pinilla and Alexis Sanchez to set Brazil up for a 3-2 shoot-out win against their South American rivals in Belo Horizonte that took them through to the quarter-� nals of their own World Cup.

Before that he produced a superb save to deny Charles Aranguiz in the second half to help ensure a nerve-jan-gling tie remained level at 1-1 after 90 minutes and through extra time.

That Brazil avoided the humiliation of being eliminated before the quar-ter-� nal stage for the � rst time since 1990 and maintained their record of never having lost at home to Chile in 27 meetings was in large part down to the goalkeeper.

“This match proves that if you have a dream you must chase it,” he said after collecting his man of the match award at the end of an emotionally draining afternoon.

He was applauded out of the press room at the Mineirao Stadium and dominated the front pages of the Bra-zilian press on Sunday morning, being described as ‘Our King’ and Brazil’s ‘Saviour’.

The enormity of the occasion had got to the goalkeeper even before the penalty shoot-out as he broke down in tears. And he did so again during a television interview at the end of the match.

“I cried because several of the play-ers came to give me their support and tell me positive things and I couldn’t contain myself,” he admitted.

It was quite a turnaround from four years ago, when he came for a Wesley Sneijder cross and missed as Brazil threw away the lead and lost 2-1 to the Netherlands in the quarter-� nals in Port Elizabeth.

“A lot of questions were asked when I was called up,” he explained. “I pre-pared myself well physically and psy-chologically and I want to thank the sta� and my team-mates for having con� dence in me.

“It was di� cult to come out of the 2010 World Cup labelled as a villain but I have always had their backing.

“I have experienced some great joys in my career but this is special after 2010.”

Before the last World Cup, Julio Ce-sar was at the peak of his powers, hav-ing just helped Jose Mourinho’s Inter Milan win a domestic double as well as the Champions League.

But at club level his career has gone downhill in the intervening period. A move to Queens Park Rangers turned sour and he found himself frozen out at the London out� t, having to buy his own gloves and train in a local park just to maintain his � tness.

Even a move to Major League Soc-cer side Toronto FC has seen him make only seven appearances, but Brazil coach Luiz Felipe Scolari made him his � rst choice at last year’s Confeder-ations Cup.

He was named that tournament’s outstanding goalkeeper as Brazil lifted the trophy, and now he is hoping for a repeat performance in the one compe-tition that really matters to this proud footballing nation of 200 million people.

“I am a professional who is very hap-py with his career,” he insisted on Sat-urday. “What would crown this would be to lift and kiss the World Cup.” l

Willian breathes a sigh of relief, barely

They all cried more or less. It was tears of joy in case of Julio Caesar who was earlier receiving encouragement from teammates before the start of the shoot-out. Hugging coach Scolari, Neymar cried too after such an ener-gy draining encounter. But one Brazil player still continued to cry even af-ter most of the Brazilian players have left the � eld to celebrate their victory against Chile at Belo Horizonte on Sat-urday and it was none other than mid-� elder Willian, who saw his penalty kick miss the target.

With the score locked at 1-1, Wil-lian replaced his Chelsea teammate Oscar with 15 minutes of action left in the match. But he could not exert his usual dominating presence and failed to score from the shoot-out. Although Chile custodian Bravo dived the wrong way, Willian’s right-footed shot went wide near the right post.

And since missing the penalty, Wil-lian never looked a free man till the end. While he was trudging back to his players with his head down, David Luiz, who scored from � rst spot-kick, rushed to him and gave him a close hug to console which eventually helped Willian to recover.

But Willian erupted in joy when Gon-zalo Jara hit the left hand post of Caesar to miss Chile’s last spot kick. Surprisingly he again became subdued moments later and opted to isolate himself from others while the rest of the team was busy cel-ebrating. He was rather pointing to the sky, possibly asking God why he had to endure such a nerve-wrecking agony. The 25-year old winger was crying by raising his hands towards the heaven.

While most of the players left, Wil-lian was still sitting on the line of the mid-circle. A management sta� then approached him and asked him to go with him and Willian obliged. We may never know what actually was going through his mind. But we can only speculate whether it was the regret of missing the penalty or expressing grat-itude to the God for saving him from being vili� ed. l

Departing Chile earn hero status despite Brazil jinx

Chile’s so nearly conquering heroes are sure of an incredible welcome on their return from a World Cup where they eliminated champions Spain but were cruelly knocked out by Brazil for the fourth time in their history.

“The dream is over, but not the ap-plause,” said La Tercera newspaper in a chorus of praise round the nation. “Dry your tears and come back to Chile to be received with full honours.”

One of the strongest Chile teams seen at a World Cup, ‘La Roja’ (The Red) lit up the tournament from swashbuckling wins over Australia and Spain to a heart-break-ing loss on penalties to Brazil after a pul-sating 1-1 draw in the last-16 clash.

It was a desperately harsh outcome for Chile, who had matched the hosts for 120 minutes of normal and extra time, and could so easily have snatched it at the death when Mauricio Pinilla smashed a glorious shot against the crossbar.

A few centimetres lower, and Chile would have overturned a painful his-tory of defeats by Brazil, who knocked them out of the 2010, 1998 and 1962 World Cups.

As it was, the ball bounced to safety, Brazil held their nerve for a 3-2 pen-alty shootout win at Belo Horizonte’s Mineirao stadium, and the old nemesis did it for a fourth time. l

Jamal extend lead

Sony Norde netted a brace as Sheikh Ja-mal DC cemented their place at the top of the Nitol-Tata Bangladesh Premier Football League points table after over-coming Muktijoddha 4-3 in a thrilling encounter at the Sheikh Fazlul Haque Moni Stadium in Gopalganj yesterday.

Haitian international winger Norde continued his amazing run of form by putting Jamal ahead in the ninth min-ute before he doubled the lead in the 23rd minute. Nigerian striker Sunday Chi-zoba pulled one back in the 32nd minute but Wedson Anselme extended the mar-gin again six minutes into the second half.

Sunday  made it 3-2 as he scored again in the 53rd minute from the pen-alty spot before skipper Mamunul Is-lam grabbed Jamal’s fourth goal in the 64th minute.

With the victory, Jamal moved 12 points clear of Abahani at the top of the points table with 51 points while Muktijoddha remained at fourth with 34 points.l

Taijul, Likhon included in Tigers preliminary squad

Ahead of the tour of the West Indies this August, Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) on Saturday announced a 25-member preliminary squad where two entirely uncapped players in the form of left-arm spinner Taijul Islam and Bangla-desh Under-19 right-arm leg spinner Jubair Hossain Likhon were included.

Taijul’s inclusion hardly comes as a surprise as his consistent performanc-es in the domestic circuit as well as in the Bangladesh A team’s recent tour of the West Indies were able to draw the attention of the national team selec-tors while 18-year old Jubair, a regular in the U-19 side, earned a place in the squad for his displays in the nets. Ac-cording to sources, Jubair’s leg-break impressed many of the national team batsmen who recommended him to the selectors for selection.

Bangladesh will play two Tests, three ODIs and one T20 international in their month-long tour of the Caribbean. The 25 cricketers have been asked to report to national strength & conditioning coach Mario Villavarayan at Sher-e-Ban-gla National Stadium on July 1. The 25 members of the preliminary squad will start training from tomorrow. l

Mush� qur Rahim, Mominul Haque, Mahmudullah, Shamsur Rahman, Tamim Iqbal, Muktar Ali, Shohag Gazi, Rubel Hossain, Anamul Haque, Sabbir Rahman, Shakib al Hasan, Taskin Ahmed, Nasir Hossain, Arafat Sunny, Mashrafe Bin Mortaza, Mithun Ali, Sha� ul Islam, Taijul Islam, Abdur Razzak, Marshall Ayub, Imrul Kayes, Jubair Hos-sain Likhon, Al-Amin Hossain, Shuvaga-ta Hom, Robiul Islam

SQUAD

Serena crashes in nine-year low

World number one and � ve-time champion Ser-ena Williams crashed to her earliest defeat at Wimbledon for nine years on Saturday while

Rafael Nadal, Roger Federer and Maria Sharapova sailed smoothly through.

Williams, the top seed, lost her third round tie to French 25th seed Alize Cornet 1-6, 6-3, 6-4 in a Court One clash which had been held up for over four hours because of torrential rain which saw 45 matches wiped o� the schedule.

Serena could have no complaints about an embarrassing defeat which continued a disappointing campaign for the 17-time Grand Slam champion, who has failed to get beyond the fourth round at any of the three majors so far this year.

It was her earliest exit from the All England Club since 2005 when she lost

to fellow American Jill Craybas at the same stage.

Cornet, 24, goes on to face Canadian 13th seed Eugenie Bouchard on Mon-day in what will be her � rst appearance in the second week of Wimbledon at

the eighth attempt and only her second career fourth round appearance at a Grand Slam.

In stark comparison, Nadal, Feder-er and Sharapova all secured fourth round spots playing under the Centre Court roof.

Nadal, the 2008 and 2010 champion,

dropped the opening set for the third time in three matches before turning things around in a 6-7 (4/7), 6-1, 6-1, 6-1 victory over Kazakhstan’s Mikhail Kukushkin, who had never won a Wim-bledon match before this year.

But in front of a Royal Box containing such sporting glitterati as retired Indian cricket master Sachin Tendulkar and ex-England football captain David Beck-ham, Nadal regained his composure to race away with the win, courtesy of 41 winners and just 12 unforced errors.

7 time champion Federer breezed past Santiago Giraldo of Colombia, 6-3, 6-1, 6-3 and next faces Tommy Robredo of Spain.

Sharapova, the 2004 champion, remained on course for a rare French Open and Wimbledon double after moving into the fourth round with a 6-3, 6-0 victory over American Alison Riske.

The world number � ve next faces German ninth seed Angelique Kerber who beat Kirsten Flipkens of Belgium, 3-6, 6-3, 6-2. l

Alexandra Jhedelin: personifying ‘explicit’ journalism

It was a crowded media center at Sta-dium de Minearos of Belo Horizonte where Brazil and Chile were pitted to face o� in the crucial round of 16 World Cup tie. Normally ties involving Brazil and Argentina attract most of the jour-nalists but no desks were empty this time, even two hours before the kick-o� . Suddenly one corner of the media center became a center of attraction and a mob of photographers and re-porters gathered within minutes to ex-perience a brief but savory exhibition of ‘Explicit’ Journalism.

It was Alexandra Jhedelin Nuñez Hernandez, the reporter of Canal 13 of Chile. She was supporting Chile and Glo-bo TV transmitted live while she talk-ed about her aspirations. If Alexandra wasn’t looking exotic enough in her red shirt resembling the Chilean team and a white half pant exposing her long legs, her pencil-heeled shoes and crimson lips surely ful� lled that de� ciency as she danced and kissed the presenter while talking with him. She even occasionally raised her shirts amid loud applause!

I asked a fellow Spanish journalist what she said. It was my only way to know as very few can speak in English. I was fortunate that the Spanish jour-nalist could speak in English. “I love

Chile and I hope Chile will beat Brazil. I love Chile from deep in my heart (and that’s why she raised her shirt to show her heart) and Chile is the best in the World Cup,” she said.

I later learned that Alexandra has her own style while presenting her re-port and she mixes it with a certain de-gree of carnal appeal which makes her hugely popular in the region.

It was a new experience for a lot of journalists who had come in Brazil to cover the World Cup. Just after the live transmission, she was approached by reporters of di� erent TV channels from across the world, and a Japanese TV chaneel, an Australian TV channel and a number of Spanish and local channels managed to interview her.

However, she wore a devastated look after Chile’s defeat in the penalty shoot-out. Both the exotic appearance and the pencil heel were missing. She was seen talking with her cameraman and did not show any interest to com-municate with others.

With only about a thousand female journalists among a plethora of jour-nalists from across the world present in Brazil to cover this World Cup, Alexan-dra stands out undoubtedly because of her unique personi� cation of ‘Explicit’ Journalism by mixing carnal appeal while reporting. She is probably the sexiest football reporter in the world. l

Alexandra Jhedelin poses at the media box after Sanchez scored for Chile against Brazil on Saturday INTERNET

DHAKA TRIBUNE14 Sp rt

Monday, June 30, 2014

Sensational Colombia mid� elder James Rodriguez struck twice in a 2-0 win over Uruguay in the last 16 on Saturday to move top of the World Cup scorers’ list and stake a claim for being player of the tournament.

When Colombia arrived in Brazil without injured forward and talis-man Radamel Falcao, few would have counted on baby-faced Rodri-guez, who has now scored in all four games at the tournament, to suc-cessfully replace him.

But he has taken the World Cup by storm, netting � ve times and winning three man-of-the-match awards as Colombia advanced to a mouth-watering quarter-� nal against hosts Brazil on Friday.

It seems Rodriguez was made for the biggest stage of all and, with the player turning 23 the day before the World Cup � nal in Rio de Janei-ro, few would now bet against him giving himself the greatest belated birthday present.

Rodriguez has also delivered two assists for his team mates as the South Americans are hitting top form at just the right time, thanks largely to him.

On Saturday he stunned fans at the Maracana stadium and millions of television viewers when he thun-dered in an unstoppable volley to give Colombia the lead while sur-

rounded by � ve Uruguay players.He followed that up with a smart

close-range � nish early in the sec-ond half to banish any lingering thoughts about the missing Falcao as Colombia made the World Cup’s last eight for the � rst time.

The left-footed Monaco attacking mid� elder, who is married to Co-lombia goalkeeper David Ospina’s sister, had kicked o� his � rst World Cup in style when he led Colombia to a 3-0 romp over Greece, scoring in the process. He was again on tar-get in their 2-1 win over Ivory Coast before needing just 45 minutes o� the bench to help take Japan apart in their � nal group game.

After coming on at halftime with the score at 1-1, he guided his team to a 4-1 win with an electric performance that suggested he has the potential to become one of the world’s top players.

He was one step ahead of the Japanese as he set up two goals for Jackson Martinez before capping the performance with his own mas-terpiece in the � nal minute.

After cutting his teeth in Europe with Portugal’s Porto for three years he joined wealthy French club AS Monaco in 2013 for 45 million euros ($61.27 million). After his perfor-mances in Brazil Europe’s big clubs would no doubt love to add him to their ranks, though Monaco have no need to sell the man who is already looking forward to playing Brazil. l

Baby-faced Rodriguez makes Colombia forget Falcao

Sampaoli proud of Chile’s e� ort What comes to our mind when we visualize an international football coach? Handsomely clad in a suit signifying strong personality, well mannered and tactically sound. There are a lot of them who are blessed with those attributes but when you see Jorge Sampaoli, the Argentine coach of Chile national team, your thoughts will take a sharp U-turn. Sampaoli is di� erent. He is aggressive and never remains static in one place.

When many other coaches opt for formal out� t, Sampaoli opts for a close-� tting trouser and a polo shirt with the name Chile printed at the back and it was no di� erent before Chile’s second round clash against Brazil on last Saturday. A pair of sneakers perfectly suits him to keep his continuous movement on and o� the � eld. On Saturday he entered the � eld ahead of his team and waived to the La Roja supporters and asked them to cheer the team up.

The trademark of Sampaoli is he never sits in the dugout and constantly shouts his instructions across to his players while occasionally throwing his arms in the air. While standing beside the sideline, he was seen having a jibe at Brazilian players as they moved forward with Oscar and Neymar being the targets. But his lips remained immobile when Chilean players were in possession of the ball. He almost hit Alexis Sanchez once on the face while reacting to a referee’s call as Sanchez was coming near the sideline to collect a drink.

During the early minutes, he ran to the fourth referee protesting loudly against a decision but continued to argue with the assistant referee even after being signaled to return to his den. Movement of his hands never stopped, always vocal and full of endless energy.

Sampaoli became headline by criticizing the pitch conditions of Arena de Sao Paulo before Chile’s match against Netherlands in the group stage. “The pitch in the stadium is in a bad state. We don’t want to destroy it more. Tomorrow we will have a match in the stadium on a pitch that does not meet our expectations,” complained Sampaoli.

Sampaoli had to temporarily suspend a practice session when Globo’s, a Brazilian news channel, helicopter � ew over the team’s base on Thursday, two days before the Brazil match. Hector Olave, the team’s communication director said he asked Globo not to broadcast any of the images. Sampaoli was worried ‘because he was working on tactics and didn’t want them to know how he plans to approach the match.’ Olave later revealed that the private broadcaster apolo-gized for this spying.

However, Sampoli’s heart always beats for the Chilean national team. “This is the best generation of Chilean footballers in our history. Our team is stronger than any other team we have seen before in our country. That miss right at the end has been really hard to accept. We so nearly won, it was harsh,” said Sampaoli, still recovering from the shock of exit in the post match presser.

“If we had scored, we would have made history for ever. It would have been the Mineirazo,” he said referring to Brazil’s shock defeat to Uruguay, which is known as the ‘Maracanazo’, at the Maracana stadium in Rio de Janeiro in 1950 World Cup.

“I’m very proud of my players. I’m proud for Chile. Everyone was against us in the stadium but we have given everything. We fought hard,” concluded the 54 year old Argentine. l

Brazil sweat on Neymar, Luis Gustavo suspended

Brazil were left to count the cost of Saturday’s World Cup last-16 victory over victory as Neymar su� ered a thigh knock and mid� elder Luis Gustavo picked up a second yellow card.

“We need to evaluate it but we should have three, four or � ve days to try and make sure he can play the next game,” said Brazil coach Luiz Felipe Scolari of Neymar, who took a heavy knock to the thigh after a crunching challenge from Charles Aranguiz with the match just four minutes old.

“I don’t understand how you can do that and not be booked,” added Scolari

of a challenge that left Neymar requir-ing treatment.

Neymar at least managed to com-plete the game and avoid receiving a yellow card that would have ruled him out of next Friday’s quarter-� nal against Colombia.

However, Brazil will have to do without another key player in that match after mid� elder Luiz Gustavo was booked for the second time in the competition.

The Wolfsburg player has been one of the hosts’ best performers so far and Scolari may now be forced to recall the under-� re Paulinho, who was dropped from the starting line-up against Chile.l

Rodriguez ‘like Maradona’, says Tabarez

Uruguay coach Oscar Tabarez likened James Rodriguez to Diego Maradona after his sublime volley inspired Co-lombia to a 2-0 victory in the World Cup last 16 on Saturday.

“For me, special talents are those who do things that are completely out of the ordinary,” said Tabarez, whose side were beaten by two Rodriguez goals at the Maracana stadium.

“Diego Maradona, Lionel Messi, Luis Suarez, James Rodriguez -- they do things because they have certain gifts that make them special.”

Rodriguez, 22, opened the scoring in the 28th minute with a sensational goal, chesting the ball down and hammering a

volley in o� the crossbar from 25 yards.He doubled his tally early in the sec-

ond half, sweeping home Juan Cuadra-do’s knock-down to move to the top of the Golden Boot standings with � ve goals.

“I believe he’s the best player at the World Cup,” Tabarez added. “I don’t think I’m exaggerating. He’s a young player. We tried to limit his in� uence, but he kept going and made his presence felt.

“Hopefully he’ll continue to progress, because he’s very young. Football needs players with these characteristics.”

Colombia’s victory means that they will face hosts Brazil in the quarter-� -nals in Fortaleza on July 4.

Colombia coach Jose Pekerman, who led an Argentina side containing

Messi to the quarter-� nals in 2006, said that Rodriguez was a player with rare and unusual gifts.

“In my long experience in football, I’ve had extraordinary footballer players

in my teams, elite players of a very high technical level,” said the Argentine.

“I placed James in the centre of ev-erything, because I saw the extraordi-nary ability that he had.

“What’s most surprising is that at his young age, he doesn’t have any problem taking responsibility for doing things that some footballers take many years to understand.

“He’s a technical player who has ev-erything to be a top player at a world level, both in terms of helping his team-mates to play and in taking the time to evaluate situations to see what needs to be done as a team.

“I have great praise for what he’s doing. I never had any doubts that this would be his World Cup.” l

Three more steps before we reach heaven: ScolariIn an emotional post-match conference following the round of 16 clash against Chile at the Estadio Mineirao, Belo Hori-zonte on Saturday, Brazil coach Luiz Felipe Scolari urged the fans to continue the awesome support for the home side and dubbed his squad as the best in the world right now.

Big Phil is no doubt like a father � gure to the whole squad and it was clearly evident when Neymar broke into tears while embracing the 2002 World Cup winning tactician. And Julio Cesar, hero of the penalty shootout, hugged Felipao remaining still for a long time, reminiscent of a father consoling his sons.

After the dramatic win that was achieved in the tie-breaker, Scolari celebrated by jumping into the air, a rather odd approach for a man who is 65 years old.

“People had criticised me on many occasions regarding the team. It’s normal that a coach’s selection may not please everyone but today (Saturday) Julio Cesar repaid the faith that I showered onto him. I am saying my team is the best at the moment and for the awesome support the fans had extended, I thank them,” said Scolari.

He was philosophical while explaining the tough encounter. “We took upon ourselves this mission that we must be champions. If you make a promise you must deliver. This is what the players are doing. We have crossed four steps and there are three more before we can reach heaven,” he added.

Scolari praised Chile, who nearly won the engrossing encounter in the second half of extra-time with a last-ditch shot

from Mauricio Pinilla cannoning o� the crossbar, and said Brazil must improve if they are to keep progressing. “In every match, the di� culties are escalating. The World Cup has shown that teams are very balanced. If you cannot exploit one or two or three chances, as we didn’t today, then you might pay the price for that and go out. Chile were brilliant. They are a well-organised team and it was a very balanced game,” said Scolari.

He slammed English referee Howard Webb for missing the incident when Neymar was kicked on the thigh.

“I don’t know why people do it. Back in the 2006 World Cup, I remember [Cristiano] Ronaldo receiving a similar kick against England in the 15th minute (of the quarter� nals) when I was the Portuguese coach. Neymar has a big bruise. We’ll have to work hard to make him � t for the quarter� nals,” he added.

The expressive coach admitted that he had to go through a lot of tension during the entire game against their South American counterparts. “This is a new team and even the most experienced players feel pressure. If you say you don’t, you are lying. Now let’s see if we can make less mistakes in the next matches because if we make errors we will give away chances and might not be so lucky,” said Scolari.

When asked to describe the strength of their last eight opponents, Big Phil was quick to react. “There are di� erent schools. Colombia play a quick game and rely on tactics but Uruguay are compact, physical and tough,” he added without

knowing who they are up against in the quarter� nals as the round of 16 tie between Colombia and Uruguay was yet to get underway by the time the post-match presser ended. The Colombians later defeated Uruguay 2-0 at the Maracana, Rio de Janeiro courtesy a James Rodriguez double.

Brazil will now take on Colombia in an all-South American a� air at the Estadio Castelao, Fortaleza on July 4. l

MATCH STATS Colombia Uruguay Goals scored 2 0 Total shots 10 16 Shots on target 8 9 Corners 3 5 O� sides 1 1 Fouls committed 19 17 Yellow cards 1 2 Red cards 0 0 Ball possession 55% 45%

TOP SCORERS Players GoalsJames Rodriguez (COL)Thomas Mueller (GER)Lionel Messi (ARG)Neymar (BRA)Karim Benzema (FRA)Arjen Robben (NED)Robin van Persie (NED)Xherdan Shaqiri (SWI)Enner Valencia (ECU)

DHAKA TRIBUNE15Sp rt

BTV, Maasranga TV, Gazi TV2014 World Cup10:00PMFrance v Nigeria2:00AMGermany v AlgeriaStar Sports 1, 4

4:30PM & 6:00PMWimbledon ChampionshipTen CricketWest Indies v New Zealand3rd Test, Day 5

DAY’S WATCH

Monday, June 30, 2014

For more info visit our FB event page ‘World Cup in Bangladesh’ Photography Contest

Student, North South University

VFrance Nigeria

Estadio Nacional, Brasilia (BRA)30 Jun 2014 - 13:00 Local (10:00 PM BST)

France have had more attempts at goal, 62, in their three matches than any other team at the World Cup.

Karim Benzema has scored all his three goals with his right foot.

Nigeria are aiming to reach their � rst World Cup quarter-� nal. They have twice made the last 16, in 1994 and 1998. On both occasions they were beaten in the second round by European opposition. Italy in 94 and Denmark in 98.

This is the � rst time two Africans nations (Nigeria and Algeria) have reached the knockout stages of a World Cup.

KEY STATS

LOOK AT ME Watch for goalkeepers with wobbly legs and a goal-line jiggle, all intended to distract the striker. The tactic is also helped by � uorescent or bat-winged jerseys and outsized gloves, designed to make the keeper look bigger and the goalmouth smaller.

SEEING RED Scientists say red – associated with danger or anger, which is why at times of stress we pay more attention to it -- is the most e� ective colour for keepers. Experiments at Chichester University, southern England, found that a keeper let in only 54 percent of penalties when wearing red, compared to 69 percent for yellow, 72 percent for blue and 75 percent for green.

BE MY FRIEND A keeper classic: Go up and shake the striker’s hand in a sporting gesture, pick up the ball and stroke or pat it – and then put it back slightly o� -centre. All this takes control away from the striker, forcing him to look at the keeper and abandon his preparatory rituals to readjust the ball.

PUT IT OVER HERE Dutch researchers found that goalkeep-ers who positioned themselves just

slightly o� centre – no more than 10 centimetres (four inches) o� the centre of the line – give a subconscious prompt to the striker as to where to place the ball.

The kicker is 10 percent likelier to go for the slightly wider side of the goal mouth, giving the keeper a useful predictive advantage.

DO YOUR HOMEWORK Prep work can be a neat guide to the taker’s preferences or a goalkeeper’s weakness.

In the 2006 World Cup, German keeper Jens Lehmann cunningly tucked a piece of paper down his sock from his coach ahead of a quarter-� nal shootout against Argentina. The note successfully predicted which way each striker liked to angle the short (low left, high right and so on). The crumpled paper later fetched a million euros ($1.35 million) for charity.

ALL IN GOOD TIME Time favours the striker. Researchers have found that if he takes the penalty within three seconds after the whistle has blown, he gets an element of surprise; if he waits at least 13 seconds, the agonising delay unsettles the keeper.

Penalty shootouts: Tricks of the trade

WORLD CUP IN BANGLADESH PHOTOGRAPHY CONTESTSend us your photographs to WorldCupBD@dhakatribune.com

Revamped France face Nigeria test

After � ashes of magni� cent football in the group phase, France will look to con� rm their World Cup credentials in Monday’s last-16 tie against Nigeria.

In previous World Cups, France have always reached at least the semi-� nals af-ter qualifying from the group phase, but circumspection has become the order of the day in the French camp this week.

While Didier Deschamps’s side gar-nered plaudits by sweeping past Hon-duras 3-0 and crushing Switzerland 5-2, a much-changed team could only draw 0-0 in their � nal Group E � xture against Ecuador on Wednesday.

Both Bacary Sagna and Morgan Schneiderlin suggested that France were potential champions after the stalemate at the Maracana, but cen-tre-back Laurent Koscielny has since introduced a note of caution as Les Bleus prepare for Monday’s game in Brasilia.

Nigeria’s preparations for the game were disrupted by a dispute over bo-nuses -- an issue which delayed the squad’s arrival at last year’s Confed-erations Cup -- but the matter was re-solved following the reported interven-tion of Nigerian president Goodluck Jonathan.

Chelsea forward Victor Moses missed the Argentina game due to a muscular complaint, but he trained with the squad in Brasilia on Saturday.l

There was no bite, says Suarez

Shamed Uruguayan star Luis Suarez insisted he lost his balance and did not bite Italian defender Giorgio Chiellini, according to a FIFA report on the as-sault which led to him being expelled from the World Cup.

But the FIFA disciplinary commis-sion which banned 27-year-old Suarez from all football for four months said in a report seen by AFP that he had acted “intentionally and without provoca-tion.”

Suarez’s statement to the commis-sion, which was included in their re-port, said: “I lost my balance and ended up falling on my opponent (Chiellini)”.

“At that moment, my face hit the player (Chiellini) leaving a small bruise and sharp pain in the teeth.”

He added: “In no case what has been

described as a bite or attempting to bite happened.”

Television images of the incident in last Tuesday’s Group D game in which Uruguay beat Italy 1-0 showed clear bite marks in Chiellini’s shoulder. Suarez has served two previous bans for biting.

The FIFA commission on Thursday banned Suarez from any football ac-tivity for four months, suspended him for nine international matches and ordered him to pay a 100,000 Swiss francs (83,000 euros/112,000 dollar) � ne. The Uruguayan government and football association has reacted with outrage to the sanction.

But the disciplinary commission gave a damning assessment of Suarez’s actions in its � nal report in Spanish which was leaked to various media.

It said “the o� ence was carried out

directly against an opposing player, while the ball was not being disputed, and it was done deliberately, intention-ally and without provocation.”

It added that “intentionally causing physical injury to an opposing player, through a bite ... is completely alien to football (and) obviously violates the principles of fair play or sporting ethic.”

Suarez on Saturday thanked fans for the support they have shown.

The goalscorer has taken refuge with his family since being expelled from the World Cup. The 27-year-old Liver-pool striker posted a Twitter statement “to give thanks for the outpouring of love and support I am receiving.

“Myself and my family really appre-ciate it,” he added. “Thank you very much for being by my side. I want all of us to support my teammates in today’s match against Colombia.” l

Brazil fan dies of heart failure after Chile match

A 69-year-old Brazilian fan died of heart failure while watching his coun-try’s World Cup penalty shootout win over Chile, media reported Saturday.

The man was watching the tense en-counter, which Brazil won on spotkicks after the sides were locked 1-1 after ex-tra-time, in a nearby bar when he com-plained of feeling unwell.

The fan, who was diabetic, died shortly after being taken to hospital, web news portal G1 and the website of Estado de Minas newspaper reported.

The paper added local health of-� cials had to treat some 100 people during the game, including a 50-year-old woman for a heart problem during the penalties and a young man whose nose was fractured in a � ght. l

Costa Ricans pass doping tests

Costa Rica’s players who had drug tests after two World Cup games all pro-duced negative results, their federation said Saturday.

Argentina legend Diego Maradona joined the Costa Rican federation in hitting out at world governing body Fifa when seven players were subject-ed to doping controls following their 1-0 win over Italy. The two matches were Costa Rica’s 3-1 win over Uruguay and the success against Italy. l

Woman killed after Colombia celebratory gun� re

A 25-year-old woman died Saturday af-ter she was struck by a stray bullet � red in celebration at Colombia’s World Cup win over Uruguay.

Authorities said that after Colom-bia beat Uruguay 2-0 to set up a World Cup quarter-� nal against hosts Brazil, someone celebrated by � ring into the air, which killed the young woman and injured another person in Bosa, in the south of Bogota.

“We have to be more cautious,” acting Bogota mayor Ricardo Bonilla told reporters, still wearing his yellow jersey.

Taking to Twitter, police chief Ro-dolfo Palominos agreed: “Let’s not have the joy of this victory turn into tears. Let’s celebrate with caution.”

When Colombia beat Greece in the earlier round, celebrations left nine people dead. The deaths took place despite Colombia’s ban on alcohol sales and increased policing during the matches. l

Uruguay hang Suarez kit as World Cup tribute

Uruguay paid tribute to disgraced star Luis Suarez ahead of their World Cup clash with Colombia on Saturday by hanging his kit in their dressing room.

Suarez’s number nine shirt and kit were laid out in the Maracana changing rooms even though the Liverpool for-ward is back in Uruguay with his family.

The o� cial Uruguay Football Asso-ciation Twitter account posted a pic-

ture of Suarez’s shirt, lined up in place between those of Abel Hernandez and Diego Forlan, who wear the numbers eight and 10 respectively.

The picture was accompanied by a message: “Uruguay team’s changing room at the Maracana. Luis Suarez’s place is intact. Come on Uruguay!”

Suarez was sent home from the World Cup for biting Italy’s Giorgio Chiellini in Uruguay’s � nal Group D match. l

French players attend a training session at Santa Cruz stadium in Ribeirao Preto, northwest of Sao Paulo on Saturday REUTERS

Monday, June 16, 2014DHAKA TRIBUNE

16 DHAKA TRIBUNE

Sport

Editor: Zafar Sobhan, Published and Printed by Kazi Anis Ahmed on behalf of 2A Media Limited at Dainik Shakaler Khabar Publications Limited, 153/7, Tejgaon Industrial Area, Dhaka-1208. Editorial, News & Commercial O� ce: FR Tower, 8/C Panthapath, Shukrabad, Dhaka 1207. Phone: 9132093-94, Advertising: 9132155, Circulation: 9132282, Fax: News-9132192, e-mail: news@dhakatribune.com, info@dhakatribune.com, Website: www.dhakatribune.com

Monday, June 30, 2014

13 1514 Revamped France face Nigeria test

Rodriguez makes forget Falcao

Personifying ‘explicit’ journalism

Aging is a problem in Brazil. One does not have to be a genius or use Google to be able to tell this. All you have to do is look at the Brazilian spectators during this World Cup. The same young buxom lady who famously � ashed us during halftime of the Brazil Argentina game in 1990 can still be seen in the stands. Only now she is wear-

ing an oversized Neymar jersey and resting a somnolent grandchild on her lap.

Seriously, if I see another close s hot of an octogenarian painted yellow and screaming maniacally at the camera, I will bite someone.

Observations made with the fond glasses of hindsight are often inaccurate, but in this case are bourn out by facts. Brazil does indeed have one of the biggest elderly populations in the world. To be fair, they have one of the biggest populations in the world as a whole so any subset is likely to � gure at the top of the list. Nonetheless the percentage of old people is impressive

as well. Seems like, over the last three decades, improvements in Brazil’s healthcare system have led to fewer and fewer people dying before sixty. That coupled with a robust population control campaign has lead to an unexpected rise in the demand for dentures.

I am no expert but fewer people dying and less seeds being successfully sown both seem like positive things. Experts, however, tell me otherwise. Apparently having millions of increasingly � t people walking around in canes is not always a good thing. You have to feed them and clothe them, and when the retirement

money runs out, you have to give them jobs. For a country that is expecting a youth driven economic revolution, this might be an unforeseen burden. By all accounts, however, the Brazilian government has been equal to the task at hand, and has taken several positive measures to include seniors in the country’s march towards a golden future.

Generally, football is not kind to aging. Just ask Xavi, Villa, or Gerrard. Pirlo is the only exception, but he is an exception in almost all cases. There is increasing of youth over maturity in the “beautiful game”. Unless you are a freak like Giggs, you are

done by 35. Given Brazil’s massive engage-ment with football, the aging problem that faces the nation as a whole is bound to hit the sport as well. It is touching to see the Brazilian coach, Big Phil, tackle the problem head on. He could have easily left the se-niors hanging out to dry citing the need for younger legs but he has refused to do so.

Instead Philip Scolari, rising to the chal-lenges of aging like Leonidas, has insisted on playing Fred. The veteran features for Brazil in the starting line-up. In every game. Playing Fred is a trying decision, since a cross to him is like a cross to the bar. Excepting the very rare accident, the ball will ricochet to the wrong side of the � eld or out of play.

Like most others, I too was harsh in my assessment of Scolari’s tactics in playing a real number nine who is a false number

nine for all the wrong reasons. That is until I read about Brazil’s aging challenge. Once I learned about Brazil’s problem with seniors, I started tearing up in admiration instead of frustration every time I saw Fred in yellow. Scolari has made a great sacri� ce to part of the solution to one of his country’s most pressing problems. He has jeopardized personal glory for the sake of national development, and for the happiness of one of Brazil’s largest demographic subsets.

Watching Fred’s old legs bumbling around tiredly on the � eld must bring hope and joy to the millions of elder Brazilians looking for inspiration in their bid to make a comeback in life. It must make that lady who made us so happy in 1990 feel like she still has something left in the tank. If play-ing Fred as a false number eleven pleases her, I say “right! Play Fred”. l

Age is just a numberIn Brazil’s case, it’s number 9

If revenge is a plate best served cold, Algeria will hope to dish it out to Ger-many in their World Cup Round of 16 match today 32 years after one of the most shameful games in the tourna-ment’s history.

In all likelihood, however, a power-ful Germany side will bring the Desert Foxes’ run to an end and deprive them of retribution and further glory. But it might not be easy.

The Germans, champions in 1954, 1974 and 1990, arrived in Brazil as one of the favourites. They showed their credentials by demolishing Portugal 4-0 in their opening game but stumbled slightly against Ghana, drawing 2-2.

They then dismissed the United States with a strong performance that still left some room for improvement, although Thomas Mueller showed again what a lethal striker he is.

Algeria, masterminded by the wily French Bosnian coach Vahid Halil-hodzic and carrying the hopes of the Arab world with them, have impressed with their tenacity and ball skills.

After losing their opening match to Belgium, they overwhelmed South Ko-rea 4-2 in an epic match in Porto Alegre.

In their crucial � nal group game, a headed goal by Islam Slimani brought them back from 1-0 down against Rus-sia to secure a draw, sending them through to the last 16.

Algeria have beaten Germany in the World Cup before, defeating the then-West Germany 2-1 in Spain in 1982. But what followed was a travesty.

So the stage is set for a grand show in Porto Alegre’s Beira Rio stadium on Monday, with the winner’s reward a quarter-� nal against France or Nigeria.l

Algeria � ght for revenge against Germany

Germany’s Thomas Mueller (L) winks and gives a thumbs-up beside his teammates Mesut Ozil and Roman Weidenfeller (R) as they arrive in the town of Santa Cruz Cabralia on Saturday REUTERS

VGermany AlgeriaEstadio Beira-Rio, Porto Alegre (BRA)

30 Jun 2014 - 17:00 Local (02:00 AM BST)

Striker Miroslav Klose came o� the bench to score a record-equalling 15th World Cup goal during Germa-ny’s 2-2 group stage draw against Ghana.

With four goals, Thomas Mueller is the tournament’s second joint top scorer with Neymar and Lionel Messi

Appearing at their fourth World Cup, Algeria have reached the second round for the � rst time.

Algeria’s fourth goal against South Korea in their Group H match in Porto Alegre on Sunday made them the highest-scoring African side in a single World Cup match.

Until they scored against Belgium in their opening match, Algeria had not netted a World Cup goal for 28 years.

Previous meetingsThe two teams have met twice before, including once in the 1982 FIFA World Cup, with Algeria surprisingly winning on both occasions.

KEY STATS

BRAZIL’S OVER-RELIANCE ON NEYMAR MAKES HIM A TARGET

Luiz Felipe Scolari told a story after Brazil’s game against Chile going back to when he was Cristiano Ronaldo’s manager with Portugal. “I remember we were playing against Holland and, in the � fth minute of the game, their defender, Khalid Boulahrouz, came through and pretty much broke Cristiano Ronaldo in half. Ronaldo had to go o� 10 minutes later and – here’s the thing – when I saw Neymar after the game today I remembered that.” The Brazil coach was convinced Chile had deliberately set out to nobble his best player, in the form of Gary Medel’s introductory challenge inside the opening � ve minutes. Neymar played on but his thigh was bruised and swollen – “this big!” Scolari exclaimed, hands apart – and he could be seen limping through parts of the match. The problem for Scolari is that he cannot always rely on the same player to carry the team’s hopes. Neymar does it well but it is probably not a � gment of Scolari’s imagination if he suspects opposition teams have cottoned on and started identifying the Barcelona player for special treatment.

ARE BARCELONA REALLY ABOUT TO SELL SÁNCHEZ?

The Chile forward was a snapshot of anguish in Belo Horizonte on Saturday, after he was one of those to miss from the penalty spot for his country in the last-16 shootout defeat to Brazil. But Sánchez could hold his head high, after bowing out with an eye-catching performance. He had starred at the group phase and, on the grand stage against Brazil, he not only scored but was behind almost all of Chile’s forward surges. His pace was electric while his touch was ever inventive. Sánchez was not always an automatic choice at Barcelona last season, which did not please him, and it is believed that the Catalan club are ready to sell him. His explosiveness would be well suited to the Premier League, where Liverpool and Arsenal are prominent among his admirers.

COLOMBIA, NOT CHILE, COULD END UP BRAZIL’S NIGHTMARE

OPPONENTS

Scolari had made great play of the threat posed by Chile in the buildup to Brazil’s last-16 tie, with all those concerns justi� ed over the intriguing 120 minutes and penalty shootout that ensued. The hosts limped away from that success as relieved as they were elated. Hopefully their evenings will not have been ruined by glimpses of Colombia easing beyond Uruguay, nor-mally such rugged, awkward opponents, back in Rio de Janeiro. Inspired by James Rodríguez, but with the attacking talents of Jackson Martínez, Juan Cuadrado and Teó� lo Gutíerrez working e� ectively in unison around their 22-year-old playmaker, the Colombians are coming. José Pékerman’s side travel north to For-taleza for Friday’s quarter-� nal fresh and con� dent after 11 games unbeaten. They are playing under no pressure, with this already the furthest they have ever progressed at a World Cup. There is a vibrancy to their play which all-comers will struggle to snu� out. A team that started the � nals as dark horses for the latter stages actually feel like favourites going into a tie against the hosts. Certainly, the Brazilians will have to be sharper up front and more assured at the back if they are to avoid a distinctly uncomfortable occasion on the north-east coast.

WHAT NEXT FOR URUGUAY AND SUÁREZ?

On a night when Edinson Cavani failed to live up to his billing and the ageing Diego Forlán was unable to step into the shoes of Luis Suárez, the question of what on earth Uruguay are going to do without their talisman for the next eight competitive matches hung heavily over Óscar Tabárez’s team. This group of players peaked four years ago in South Africa and, if he stays in his post, Tabárez has something of a rebuilding job on his hands. He will have to do it without Suárez. Afterwards, “the professor” was magnanimous in defeat and full of praise for Colombia in general and James Rodríguez in particular. But he would not be drawn on whether he would remain in the job. Mean-while Suárez and Liverpool have some big decisions to make over the coming weeks.

WEBB UPSTAGED BY A VERY EAGLE-EYED ENGLISH LINESMAN

Howard Webb’s performance in the Brazil v Chile game was far from perfect, and there were periods – particularly in the � rst half – during which his un-willingness to remove his notebook from his pocket seemed only to encourage rampant niggly fouling. But what caught the eye was the performance of Webb’s assistant Michael Mullarkey, who was re-sponsible for the game’s two outstanding eagle-eyed spots. The � rst, he noticed the top of Hulk’s right arm � ex with the impact of the ball as he controlled it before beating Claudio Bravo in the 55th minute, leading to a disallowed strike and a great deal of com-ment. Just under 20 minutes later Hulk had the ball again, this time on the left wing, and he crossed to-wards Jô, who was attacking the far post. As the ball arrived, the Chile defender Eugenio Mena � ung out a leg, and the ball diverted from its path and rolled out of play. It took several slow-motion replays for most viewers to be sure that Mena had not touched the ball, but that he had perhaps distracted Jô enough for the striker to miss his kick. Mullarkey, with no replays at all, correctly awarded Chile a goal-kick. Perhaps it’s � tting that the man most proudly waving England’s � ag in Brazil is a professional � ag-waver.

TALKING POINTS FROM SATURDAY5

www.dhakatribune.com/business MONDAY, JUNE 30, 2014

B3 BIS: New compass needed for global economy

B4 With new tech tools, precision farming gains traction

$82m ADB loan to � ght climate change impact in coastal beltsn Tribune Report

Asian Development Bank has provid-ed $82m in loans and $12m in grants to protect coastal towns from the rav-ages of natural disasters and climate change.

Climate change and variability are critical development issues for Bangla-desh, particularly in its low lying coast-al areas naturally exposed to sea level rise, storm surges, and more frequent and intense storm events.

The government, in its Sixth Five-Year Plan, has targeted assistance to vulnerable coastal populations with improvements in climate resilient wa-ter supply, sanitation, drainage, urban roads and bridges, solid waste man-agement, slum improvements, and transport facilities and � ood protec-tion infrastructure.

To achieve the target, Joint Secre-tary of Economic Relations Division (ERD) Saifuddin Ahmed and ADB Country Director, Bangladesh Kazuhi-ko Higuchi signed the agreements on behalf of their respective organisations at ERD in Dhaka yesterday, says an ADB press release.

The assistance will support eight

vulnerable secondary coastal towns to build up their climate resilience and di-saster preparedness.

The towns are Amtali, Galachipa, Mathbaria, Pirojpur, Barguna, Bhola, Daulat Khan, and Kalapara.

The towns were selected based on their needs, population size and densi-ty, and level of past investments.

Of the $82m ADB loan, $52m is from the concessional Asian Development Fund (ADF) resources while the rest $30m comes from the ADB Strategic Climate Fund (SCF).

The ADF loan will have a 25-year term, including a grace period of � ve years, and an interest rate of 2% per annum during the grace period and thereafter.

The SCF loan will have a 40-year term, including a grace period of 10 years, and an annual service charge of 0.10%.

The ADB-SCF is also providing $10.4m in grant for the project. The Sanitation Financing Partnership Trust Fund (the Bill & Melinda Gates Foun-dation) under the Water Financing Partnership Facility will provide an-other grant equivalent to $1.6m.

The government will provide

$23.1m equivalent for the project. The project is estimated to cost a

total of $117.1m, and scheduled to be completed by 2020.

The Ministry of Local Government, Rural Development and Cooperatives, acting through its Local Government Engineering Department and the De-partment of Public Health Engineer-ing, will be the executing agencies for the project.

“The project supports towns in need of assistance as identi� ed under the government’s Coastal Develop-ment Strategy and Strategic Program for Climate Resilience,” said ADB Country Director.

The support will be in twostages – for infrastructure required for climate resilience, and economic infrastructure; the pace of these sup-ports will be aligned with the progress in various municipal planning andservices.

Coastal areas of the country, with a population of over 38 million, are heavily exposed to cyclones, storm surges, and sea level rises, which are expected to become more frequent and extreme with the onset of climate change. l

FDR rate falls due to sluggish investment n Jebun Nesa Alo

The interest rate banks o� er against � xed deposits has come down as the banks are reluctant to mobilise more funds due to the lack of expected cred-it demand in the wake of the ongoing sluggish investment scenario.

The rate of FDR (� xed deposit re-ceipt) dropped 1% on short-term de-posits in May from December last year, according to the Bangladesh Bank data.

The commercial banks are now of-fering highest 11.50% and lowest 7% interest rates against short-term de-posits, which was 12.50% and 8.50% respectively in the same period.

Deposit growth in the banking sec-tor also remained slow from December last year as the credit demand dropped amid political turmoil over January 5 national polls.

The deposit growth was declined by 0.2% to 8.22% in January this year from 8.42% in the previous month of December and the growth rate still continued to remain slow.

As the banks could not utilise their existing fund properly due to the pro-longed political instability, the amount of excess liquidity marked a sharp rise, which virtually forced the banks to cut their FDR rates, Golam Ha� z Ahmed, Managing Director of NCC Bank, told the Dhaka Tribune.

Although the banks are o� ering slightly lower interest rate against the

deposits in comparison with the last several months, no bank is discourag-ing the depositors in depositing their money, he said.

“The deposit rate will be increased with the growing lending rates as we expect the fund utilisation will be in-creased in the new � scal year.”

He, however, noted that the lending rates also came down along with the deposit rates as Bangladesh Bank un-dertook many steps to put pressure on the banks to cut their lending rate.

The average lending rate in the bank-ing sector stood at 13.25% in April from 13.45% in December last year, according to the central bank’s latest data.

The deposit growth of the bank stood at 11.89% to Tk599,654 crore in April compared to the growth of 13.12% to Tk518,850 crore in the same period of the last year.

The growth rate was 10.98% in March and 9.89% in February com-pared to 11.84% and 10.25% respective-ly in the same period of the last year.

The credit growth rate recorded 10.6% in December 2013 compared to 16.6% in the same period of the previ-ous year.

The growth rate stood at 11.1% in January, 10.7% in February, 11.5% in March this year compared to 14.8%, 14% and 12.7% respectively in the same period of the year 2013.

The amount of excess liquidity stood at Tk138,201 crore in March from Tk79,440 crore in June last year. l

Mobile operators begin Ramadan businessn Muhammad Zahidul Islam

The country’s leading mobile phone op-erators have begun their Ramadan busi-ness with o� ering di� erent services, re-charge bonus while mobile application developers are o� ering ‘Ramadan’ app just ahead of the holy month of Rama-dan, which begins today.

All the four leading mobile phone operators Grameenphone, Banglalink, Robi and Airtel are now trying to woo their customers by o� ering various spe-cial services through strong media cam-paign during the last couple of days.

With further media campaign, the other mobile operators are also plan-ning to join the Ramadan-related trade race, informed the market sources.

Going through the content of the media campaign, it is found that Sehri and Iftar are the very common services for the operators and apps also, which could very be helpful for the absent

minded users.The market leader Grameenphone

has also launched a group of Islamic welcome-tune including Ajan while Banglalink, the second largest operator interns of subscribers, has launched 10-minute free reciting from the holy Quran if anybody takes its bundle o� ers.

As Banglalink has launched an Is-lamic portal, the subscribers can en-joy the reciting from the holy Quran, Hadith and also other religious pro-grammes in Bangla language.

Banglalink is also o� ering mobile TV for Islamic programs as like as Peace TV, which broadcasts live from Mecca and Medina.

Robi is o� ering traditional bonus o� ers while Airtel is also o� ering mo-bile TV programmes with Islamic pro-grams.

According to mobile phone oper-ators, just after launching the Rama-dan-related services, they are also pre-

paring for the upcoming Eid festival.Ahead of Eid, some handset brands

are also planing to launch few pro-grammes withing a week or two, in-formed the sources.

Meanwhile, application developer company Multimedia Content & Com-munications Ltd. installed an applica-tion yesterday containing full of Rama-dan-related Islamic activities.

The application includes a full cal-

endar for the month of Ramadan, with the facility to set alarms for Sehri and Iftar timing.

There is an in-built compass to help � nd the correct Kebla direction.

The rules for praying Tarabi namaj are also included.

Apart from that, an e-Tasbih has al-ready been introduced to use during namaj or at any other time.

Application has made the Quran available and one can listen the recit-ing of the famous Kuwaiti Qari Sheikh Mishary Bin Rashid Alafasy, informed the MCC.

The app also provide Quran rec-itations with both Bangla and English translations, the Hadith and Hamd Naat and much more.

Users are requested to download this app during Ramadan from the Google Play Store (completely free) at- https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.mcc.ramadan. l

Stocks jump as capital gain tax goes n Tribune Report

Stocks jumped yesterday, as investors cheered up with the removal of pro-posed capital gain tax from the � nance bill passed in parliament on Saturday.

The benchmark DSEX ended at 4,487 with a gain of over 77 points or 1.8%. This was the steepest daily gain in the last six and half months. The rally also broke its modest rally for the fourth straight session.

The Shariah index DSES rose 11 points or 1% to 1,017. The comprising blue chips DS30 was up 22 points or 1.4% to close at 1,639.

Chittagong Stock Exchange (CSE) Selective Categories Index, CSCX, end-ed at 8,541 with a rise of 140 points.

Analysts said the government’s deci-sion to withdraw from the capital gain tax which was earlier proposed in the FY15 budget de� nitely played a stag-gering role leaving a positive mark on the market.

“Investors gladly welcomed the news, and their positive sentiment was clearly re� ected in the stocks, setting the market in a vibrant mode,” said one of them.

Trading activities also take a lift as the total turnover at DSE stood at Tk390 crore, which was 29  % higher over the previous session.

IDLC Investments said market start-ed the week on a positive note follow-ing the government’s decision to drop capital gain tax for individual investors.

All the sectors ended in green ex-cept telecommunication as the largest sector in the market edged lower.

Non-banking � nancial institutions and food posted gains of more than 4% and 3% respectively. They were fol-lowed by banks which closed over 2%

higher, power 1.6% and pharmaceuti-cals 1.3%.

Zenith Investments said leaving a bundle of opportunities for capital mar-ket, especially for investors, the Finance Bill 2014 was passed on Saturday.

“Withdrawal of proposed capital gain tax stimulated investors very positively. Besides, tax rebate seekers’ investment continued � owing to the market, adding an additional boost to

market activities.”Out of 296 issues traded, 236 ad-

vanced, 44 declined and 16 remained unchanged.

Lafarge Surma Cement topped the liquidity chart with turnover of Tk34.5 crore. It was followed by Beximco Ltd, Grameenphone, United Airways, Square Pharmaceuticals, Bangladesh Submarine Cable Company Ltd and Eastern Housing Ltd. l

49 countries give duty-free access n Tribune Report

Commerce Minister Tofail Ahmed yes-terday said some 49 countries allowed duty-free access of Bangladeshi prod-ucts to their markets.

The country will get duty-free ac-cess of all products to Chile from Janu-ary 1 next, he said, replying to a written question from treasury bench member Begum Pinu Khan in parliament.

The duty-free markets are 28 EU countries, Australia, New Zealand, Norway, Switzerland (except arms and military equipment), Japan (except arms, military equipment and some speci� c goods), Turkey (except arms, military equipment and readymade garments), Canada (except arms and military equipment, poultry and dairy products and egg) and Rus-sia allowed duty-free access of 71 products and Belarus 71 products under the Gen-eralised System of Prefer-ence (GSP) to Bangladesh.

Tofail said South Korea has given duty-free access of 4,820 products under the Preferential Tari� for Least Developed Countries and China 4,788 products under duty-free treatment grants.

Bangladesh has got du-ty-free access of all prod-

ucts except tobacco and drugs to India under the SAFTA, while other SAARC countries Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Bhu-tan, Nepal, Pakistan and the Maldives have given such facilities under the SAFTA and SAPTA.

Thailand has allowed duty-free ac-cess of 299 products under BIMSTEC, and Malaysia 297 products.

The minister said discussions are underway to realise duty-free access of Bangladeshi products to di� erent Southeast Asian countries and Latin American nations like Brazil, Mexico and Argentina and CIS countries and South Africa.

“The government’s e� orts are con-tinuing to get duty-free access of Ban-gladeshi products from countries hav-ing export-potential by signing Free

Trade Agreement,” he said. In response to another question

from Awami League lawmaker Mor-shed Alam, he said Bangladesh fetched US$27bn in 2012-13 � scal year by ex-porting 737 products.

The products included oven gar-ments, knitwear, home textile, fro-zen food, shrimp, leather and leather goods, footwear, agri-produces, bicy-cle, chemical products, pharmaceu-tical and ceramic goods, paper and paper products, rubber carpet, cap, handicrafts, tea, dry food, wood and wood products, manmade � laments, computer services, jute and jute goods, specialised textile, cotton and cotton goods, engineering products, cement, petroleum by-products, plastic goods and printed materials. l

‘Investors gladly welcomed the news, and their positive sentiment was clearly re� ected in the stocks, setting the market in a vibrant mode’

Investors are seen at a brokerhouse placing orders to execute trades recently DHAKA TRIBUNE

DSE shortens trading hours for Ramadann Tribune Report

Share trading at Dhaka Stock Exchange (DSE) will be held for only three hours during the holy month of Ramadan be-ginning today.

The trading will begin at 10:30 am and will close at 1:30 pm, instead of the regular four hours trading period from 10:30 am to 2:30 pm.

The DSE o� ce will remain open from 9:30 am to 4 pm during the month.

DSE trading and o� ce will get back to normal trading hours after the month and the holiday for Eid-ul- Fitr.

The same timing will be followed by the other exchange, Chittagong Stock Exchange, said the bourse’s website yesterday. lA view of a mobile application

With further media campaign, the other mobile operators are also planning to join the Ramadan-related trade race

ANALYST

B2 Stock Monday, June 30, 2014DHAKA TRIBUNE

Upcoming AGMsRECKITTBEN: Interim cash @ 275% , Record date for entitlement of interim dividend: 07.07.2014.BDSERVICE: 15% stock, AGM: 25.08.2014, Record Date: 14.07.2014. NATLIFEINS: 20% cash and 38% stock, AGM: 21.07.2014, Record Date: 03.07.2014.MEGHNALIFE: 20% cash and 10% stock, AGM: 17.07.2014, Record Date: 30.06.2014.DELTALIFE: 11% cash and 25% stock, AGM and EGM: 20.07.2014, Record date for AGM and EGM: 25.06.2014.LAFSURCEML: 5% interim cash, Record date for entitlement of interim dividend: 30.06.2014.ASIAINS: 15% cash and 5% stock, AGM: 16.07.2014, Record Date: 19.06.2014.WATACHEM: 30% stock, AGM: 27.06.2014, Record Date: 11.06.2014.MBL1STMF: 3% cash, Record date: 02.06.2014. AIBL1STIMF: 5.5% cash, Record date: 02.06.2014.PURABIGEN: 15% stock, AGM: 29.06.2014, Record date: 21.05.2014. SALVOCHEM: 10% stock, AGM: 27.08.2014, Record date: 25.06.2014.CMCKAMAL: 12.50% stock, AGM: 30.06.2014. Record Date: 29.05.2014. RUPALIBANK: 15% stock, AGM: 31.05.2014, Record date: 14.05.2014. MEGHNACEM: 15% cash, AGM: 29.05.2014, Record Date: 14.05.2014. MONNOSTAF: 10% cash, AGM: 26.06.2014, Record Date: 19.05.2014. INTECH: 10% stock, AGM: 23.06.2014, Record Date: 15.05.2014. ISLAMIINS: 15% stock, AGM: 09.07.2014, RD: 12.05.2014. BAYLEASING: 17% cash & 15% stock,

AGM: 29.05.2014, RD: 12.05.2014. JMISMDL: 15% cash, AGM: 24.07.2014, RD: 22.05.2014. SUMITPOWER: 15% stock, AGM: 30.06.2014. RD: 18.05.2014. PREMIERLEA: No dividend, AGM: 26.06.2014, RD: 25.05.2014. SPPCL: 10% cash & 10% stock, AGM: 30.06.2014. RD: 18.05.2014. AZIZPIPES: No dividend, AGM: 26.06.2014, RD: 21.05.2014. RDFOOD: 10% stock, AGM: 29.05.2014, RD: 08.05.2014. BGIC: 12% cash, AGM: 26.06.2014, RD: 12.05.2014. EASTERNINS: 20% cash, AGM: 24.06.2014, RD: 15.05.2014. PREMIERBAN: 10% stock, AGM: 28.05.2014, RD: 11.05.2014. RANFOUNDRY: 22% cash, AGM: 25.06.2014, RD: 15.05.2014.PARAMOUNT: 10% stock, AGM: 25.06.2014, RD: 11.05.2014.CONFIDCEM: 27.50% cash, AGM: 25.06.2014, RD: 14.05.2014.PLFSL: 10% stock, AGM: 26.06.2014, RD: 15.05.2014. DHAKAINS: 20% cash, AGM: 26.06.2014, RD: 14.05.2014. FEDERALINS: 11% stock, AGM: 26.06.2014, RD: 19.05.2014.BDWELDING: No dividend, AGM: 26.06.2014, RD: 19.05.2014. MARICO: 50% � nal cash, AGM: 19.08.2014, RD: 02.07.2014.ASIAPACINS: 12% cash, AGM: 14.08.2014, RD: 08.05.2014.GHCL: 10% cash dividend for the shareholders except Directors, AGM: 09.07.2014, RD: 15.05.2014.ARAMIT: 50% cash, AGM: 26.06.2014, RD: 07.05.2014. l

News, analysis and recent disclosersORIONINFU: Credit Rating Agency of Bangladesh Limited (CRAB) has announced the entity rating (surveillance) of the Com-pany as "BBB3" based on audited � nancial statements of the Company up to June 30, 2013; bank liability position as of September 30, 2013 and other relevant quantitative as well as qualitative information up to the date of rating declaration.GRAMEEN1: Grameen Fund, the Trustee of Grameen Mutual Fund One, has informed that at the meeting of the Unit holders of the Fund held at 11 AM on June 26, 2014 the Unit holders elected to extend the tenure of the scheme for another 10 years term from July 01, 2015 to end on June 30, 2025 under the relevant provisions of the SEC (Mutual Fund) Rules 2001. Notwithstanding anything con-tained in any other document of the scheme or the fund, as the said Rules provides for the time being, the scheme may not be eligible for any further extension. In other separate motions, the Unitholders also re-con� rmed continuation of the appointment of Grameen Fund as the Trustee and AIMS of Bangladesh Limited as the Asset Manager of the scheme for the extended period.

IFIC: BSEC is not in a position to consider the application of IFIC Bank Ltd. for extension of time as applied for as the Company has failed to comply with the rule 7(1) of the Securities and Exchange Commission (Rights Issue) Rules, 2006 regarding submission of application for issuing rights share along with the o� er document which was required to furnish to the Commission for approval within 15 working days of approval of such issue by the shareholders of the Company in a general meeting.PROVATIINS: The Company has informed that it has credited the bonus shares for the year ended on December 31, 2013 to the respective shareholders' BO Accounts on June 26, 2014.RENATA: The Company has informed that it has credited the bonus shares for the year ended on December 31, 2013 to the respective shareholders' BO Accounts on June 26, 2014.KPCL: The Company has informed that it has credited the bonus shares for the year ended on December 31, 2013 to the respec-tive shareholders' BO Accounts on June 23, 2014. The Company has also informed that

the cash dividend including the payment of sale proceeds of fractional shares will be dis-bursed to the respective bank account of the shareholders and whose bank accounts are not found, dividend warrants will be issued and dispatched to the registered address of the shareholders through courier within stipulated time.CMCKAMAL: The Company has further informed that the 19th AGM of the Company will be held on June 30, 2014 at 11:30 AM at Factory Premises of the Company at Kaicha Bari, Bashbari, Ashulia (Savar), Dhaka.NTC: The Company has further informed that the 36th AGM of the Company will now be held on July 12, 2014 at 11:00 AM at 'Hotel Purbani' 1, Dilkusha C/A, Dhaka.NORTHERN: The Company has informed that the Registered O� ce of the Company will be shifted to Navana DH Tower, Plot-06, Panthapath, Tejgaon Dhaka-1215 with e� ect from 14th July 2014.NHFIL: The Company will be placed in "A" cat-egory from existing "B" category with e� ect from June 30, 2014 as the Company reported disbursement of 12.50% cash dividend for the year ended on December 31, 2013. l

CSE LOSERS

Company Closing (% change)

Aver-age (%

change)

Closing average Closing Daily high Daily low Turnover

in millionLatest

EPSLatest

PE

Pragati Gen. I -A -9.32 -9.32 39.90 39.90 39.90 39.90 0.056 2.52 15.8Midas Financing-Z -7.19 -7.19 14.20 14.20 14.20 14.20 0.021 -6.91 -veApex SpinningA -4.82 -4.82 75.00 75.00 75.00 75.00 0.015 1.85 40.5Imam Button -Z -3.95 -3.95 7.30 7.30 7.30 7.30 0.022 -1.85 -veRupali Life Insur.-A -2.95 -2.95 65.80 65.80 65.80 65.80 0.066 5.33 12.3Premier Leasing-Z -2.63 -1.07 7.42 7.40 7.50 7.40 0.156 0.12 61.8Active Fine Chem.-A -2.59 -0.02 64.90 63.90 66.70 63.50 3.687 3.72 17.4Da� odil Computers -Z -2.52 -2.27 11.63 11.60 12.00 11.60 0.082 0.68 17.1Federal Insu.-A -2.40 -2.22 20.29 20.30 20.40 20.20 0.041 1.36 14.9Grameen M F One-A -1.87 -1.28 42.27 42.00 42.80 42.00 0.254 3.40 12.4

DSE LOSERS

Company Closing (% change)

Aver-age (%

change)

Closing average Closing Daily high Daily low Turnover

in millionLatest

EPSLatest

PE

Active Fine Chem.-A -4.10 -1.94 64.05 63.20 67.00 61.00 58.538 3.72 17.2GeminiSeaFood-Z -3.77 -7.14 130.00 130.00 130.20 130.00 0.052 -11.90 -veSavar Refractories-Z -3.65 -3.33 58.00 58.00 58.00 58.00 0.003 0.52 111.5Central Insur -A -3.54 -4.99 24.17 24.50 24.70 23.70 0.029 3.64 6.6AIBL 1st Is. M. F.-A -2.78 -1.39 7.09 7.00 7.40 7.00 0.397 1.49 4.8Imam Button -Z -2.53 -2.88 7.77 7.70 8.10 7.70 0.167 -1.85 -veBD Fixed Income MF-A -2.47 0.00 8.00 7.90 8.10 7.70 0.020 0.56 14.3Samata LeatheR -Z -2.18 -2.07 27.00 26.90 27.20 26.90 0.162 0.09 300.0Modern Dyeing -Z -2.16 -4.35 76.52 76.90 77.10 75.10 0.088 1.61 47.5Al-Haj Textile -A -2.15 -1.52 156.65 154.70 161.70 150.00 26.548 2.00 78.3

CSE TURNOVER LEADERS

Company Volume shares

Value in million

% of total turnover

Daily closing

Price change

Daily opening

Daily high

Daily low

Daily average

BEXIMCO Ltd. -A 936,827 30.89 9.57 33.80 8.33 31.20 34.00 31.10 32.97LafargeS Cement-Z 355,000 29.61 9.17 83.00 0.48 82.60 84.10 82.10 83.42UNITED AIR-A 1,980,156 26.61 8.24 13.70 5.38 13.00 13.90 12.90 13.44Grameenphone-A 49,600 14.67 4.55 293.70 -1.24 297.40 302.00 293.00 295.85BD Submarine Cable-A 58,811 11.18 3.46 188.80 -0.58 189.90 192.50 188.10 190.15The Peninsula CTG.-N 325,600 11.18 3.46 34.20 0.59 34.00 34.70 34.10 34.33Appollo Ispat CL -N 375,000 10.60 3.28 28.30 3.28 27.40 28.70 27.60 28.26BSRM Steels-A 98,280 8.45 2.62 85.40 4.15 82.00 87.50 84.00 85.94BSC-A 13,470 7.14 2.21 531.30 2.17 520.00 541.00 511.00 530.39National Bank - A 568,207 6.23 1.93 11.30 7.62 10.50 11.40 10.40 10.96AramitCementA 132,000 6.11 1.89 46.70 1.08 46.20 46.90 45.60 46.28Familytex (BD) Ltd.-A 237,500 5.83 1.81 24.30 -0.41 24.40 25.10 24.20 24.56G Next Fashions-A 301,836 5.48 1.70 18.20 0.00 18.20 18.30 18.00 18.15Eastern Housing -A 74,778 4.68 1.45 62.10 3.50 60.00 63.50 61.70 62.62Keya Cosmetics -A 188,010 4.55 1.41 24.40 5.63 23.10 24.60 23.80 24.20

DSE TURNOVER LEADERS

Company Volume shares

Value in million

% of total turnover

Daily closing

Price change

Daily opening

Daily high

Daily low

Daily average

LafargeS Cement-Z 4,124,520 344.35 8.83 83.30 0.85 82.60 84.30 82.80 83.49BEXIMCO Ltd. -A 8,060,346 265.62 6.81 33.80 8.33 31.20 34.10 28.10 32.95Grameenphone-A 655,762 193.94 4.97 294.70 -0.81 297.10 298.90 290.00 295.75UNITED AIR-A 10,053,810 135.13 3.46 13.70 5.38 13.00 14.00 11.70 13.44Square Pharma -A 388,149 107.80 2.76 277.10 0.22 276.50 279.20 265.00 277.73BD Submarine Cable-A 538,682 102.34 2.62 188.50 -0.68 189.80 193.50 175.00 189.99Eastern Housing -A 1,537,630 96.34 2.47 62.00 4.03 59.60 64.00 53.70 62.66BSRM Steels-A 1,050,506 90.47 2.32 85.40 4.02 82.10 87.50 79.40 86.12BSC-A 150,275 79.56 2.04 531.00 1.68 522.25 543.00 513.50 529.40Appollo Ispat CL -N 2,600,200 73.72 1.89 28.30 3.66 27.30 28.70 27.60 28.35HeidelbergCement -A 145,250 72.87 1.87 505.00 1.61 497.00 506.90 497.00 501.71ACI Limited- A 259,655 69.99 1.79 265.70 0.38 264.70 272.40 250.00 269.57Active Fine Chem.-A 913,997 58.54 1.50 63.20 -4.10 65.90 67.00 61.00 64.05Mercantile Bank -A 3,723,100 56.29 1.44 15.00 0.00 15.00 15.50 13.50 15.12Meghna Petroleum -A 199,480 53.10 1.36 266.00 1.41 262.30 268.00 240.00 266.21

CSE GAINERS

Company Closing (% change)

Aver-age (%

change)

Closing average Closing Daily high Daily low Turnover

in millionLatest

EPSLatest

PE

Fine Foods A 9.93 9.16 15.37 15.50 15.50 13.00 0.564 -1.01 -veAziz PipesZ 9.38 9.20 14.00 14.00 14.00 14.00 0.002 0.68 20.6National Housing Fin.-B 9.12 9.66 29.86 29.90 30.10 29.00 0.911 2.32 12.9BD Finance-A 8.87 8.01 13.35 13.50 13.60 12.70 0.451 1.22 10.9In Tech Online -A 8.80 8.83 13.44 13.60 13.70 13.10 0.551 -0.80 -veRangpur Dairy-N 8.77 7.14 18.30 18.60 18.80 17.60 1.504 1.12 16.3BEXIMCO Ltd. -A 8.33 9.14 32.97 33.80 34.00 31.10 30.886 0.59 55.9Shinepukur Cera-Z 8.20 7.25 12.87 13.20 13.40 12.40 0.896 0.64 20.1National Bank - A 7.62 5.08 10.96 11.30 11.40 10.40 6.226 0.92 11.9SummitAlliancePort.-A 7.20 6.49 24.94 25.30 25.50 24.00 3.504 1.08 23.1

DSE GAINERS

Company Closing (% change)

Aver-age (%

change)

Closing average Closing Daily high Daily low Turnover

in millionLatest

EPSLatest

PE

Fine Foods A 9.93 7.68 15.29 15.50 15.50 12.70 3.240 -1.01 -veNational Housing Fin.-B 9.67 9.24 29.44 29.50 29.50 26.00 4.601 2.32 12.7Union Capital -A 9.27 7.68 22.14 22.40 22.50 18.50 10.484 2.08 10.6Shinepukur Cera-Z 9.17 6.39 12.82 13.10 13.20 10.80 6.614 0.64 20.0BEXIMCO Ltd. -A 8.33 9.11 32.95 33.80 34.10 28.10 265.617 0.59 55.8Rangpur Dairy-N 8.19 6.07 18.18 18.50 18.70 15.50 18.239 1.12 16.2BD Finance-A 8.00 7.12 13.24 13.50 13.60 11.30 3.915 1.22 10.9In Tech Online -A 7.20 5.91 13.27 13.40 13.50 12.00 2.220 -0.80 -veNational Bank - A 6.73 5.72 11.09 11.10 11.40 9.40 38.604 0.92 12.1Fu-wang Ceramic-A 6.67 4.49 15.82 16.00 16.20 13.50 11.402 0.49 32.3

SECTORAL TURNOVER SUMMARY

Sector DSE CSE TotalMillion Taka % change Million Taka % change Million Taka % change

Bank 396.34 10.16 32.62 9.52 428.96 10.11NBFI 162.67 4.17 13.33 3.89 176.00 4.15Investment 51.15 1.31 4.43 1.29 55.58 1.31Engineering 357.90 9.17 34.70 10.13 392.60 9.25Food & Allied 168.50 4.32 9.44 2.76 177.95 4.19Fuel & Power 300.74 7.71 22.22 6.48 322.96 7.61Jute 2.20 0.06 0.00 2.20 0.05Textile 308.22 7.90 24.95 7.28 333.17 7.85Pharma & Chemical 522.89 13.40 23.19 6.77 546.07 12.87Paper & Packaging 0.43 5.67 1.65 6.09 0.14Service 111.53 2.86 8.19 2.39 119.72 2.82Leather 38.45 0.99 6.67 1.95 45.12 1.06Ceramic 22.37 0.57 2.37 0.69 24.74 0.58Cement 474.48 12.16 43.61 12.73 518.09 12.21Information Technology 24.68 0.63 2.92 0.85 27.60 0.65General Insurance 36.99 0.95 0.65 0.19 37.64 0.89Life Insurance 72.57 1.86 4.15 1.21 76.72 1.81Telecom 296.28 7.59 25.86 7.55 322.14 7.59Travel & Leisure 191.20 4.90 38.53 11.25 229.73 5.41Miscellaneous 361.09 9.26 39.11 11.42 400.20 9.43Debenture 0.56 0.01 0.02 0.01 0.58 0.01

Daily capital market highlights

DSE Broad Index : 4487.07318 (+) 1.76% ▲

DSE Shariah Index : 1017.17358 (+) 1.09% ▲

DSE - 30 Index : 1638.9007 (+) 1.38% ▲

CSE All Share Index: 13820.75760 (+) 1.60% ▲

CSE - 30 Index : 11375.76650 (+) 1.56% ▲

CSE Selected Index : 8540.83730 (+) 1.66% ▲

DSE key features June 29, 2014Turnover (Million Taka)

3,901.23

Turnover (Volume)

103,930,420

Number of Contract 100,047

Traded Issues 297

Issue Gain (Avg. Price Basis)

238

Issue Loss (Avg. Price Basis)

53

Unchanged Issue (Avg. Price Basis)

6

Market Capital Equity (Billion. Tk.)

2,315.01

Market Capital Equity (Billion US$)

28.06

CSE key features June 29, 2014Turnover (Million Taka) 325.64

Turnover (Volume) 10,871,140

Number of Contract 14,812

Traded Issues 225

Issue Gain (Avg. Price Basis)

191

Issue Loss (Avg. Price Basis)

29

Unchanged Issue (Avg. Price Basis)

4

Market Capital Equity (Billion. Tk.)

2,218.30

Market Capital Equity (Billion US$)

26.89

Prepared exclusively for Dhaka Tribune by Business Information Automation Service Line (BIASL), on the basis of information collected from daily stock quotations and audited reports of the listed companies. High level of caution has been taken to collect and present the above information and data. The publisher will not take any responsibility if any body uses this information and data for his/her investment decision. For any query please email to biasl@bol-online.com or call 01552153562 or go to www.biasl.net

Market started the week on a positive note following the government’s decision to drop capital gain tax for individual investors

Jobs, cars seen cementing US spring reboundn Reuters, Brussels

The United States can � rmly consign its weather-beaten start to the year to history this week with June vehicle sales and jobs data expected to show a strong end to the second quarter.

The US economy contracted at a 2.9% annual rate, the sharpest decline in � ve years, in the Jan-March period, � gures showed last Wednesday.

An exceptionally bitter winter, the expiration of long-term unemploy-ment bene� ts and a marked slowdown in restocking by businesses combined to drag down the world’s largest econ-omy, but these factors should have faded by April.

Monthly jobs data, arguably the most important gauge for both the Fed-eral Reserve and the American people, is expected to show US � rms are con-tinuing to hire at a solid pace as a vir-tuous circle of economic activity and growth takes hold.

US employment already returned to its pre-recession peak in May, with non-farm job gains of 217,000. Econo-mists polled by Reuters on average ex-pect that to dip by a modest 4,000 to 213,000 in June.

That would be a � fth straight month of job gains above 200,000, a run un-

matched since the Sept 1999-Jan 2000 period, just before the dot-com bubble burst.

“If we settle at a 215-220 (thousand) pace that would be consistent with a transition to a faster pace of growth of around 3%,” said Lewis Alexander, US chief economist at Nomura.

Alexander said he recognised risks, including rising oil prices from the con� ict in Iraq and Iraqi con� ict and a possible messy end to China’s housing boom.

“An impact is possible, but I don’t think all that likely. It would have to go very badly to materially impact the US outlook,” he said.

The jobs � gures on Thursday, also set to feature a steady 6.3% unemployment rate, will conclude a shortened week for the United States, which breaks for In-dependence Day on Friday.

The week will also feature auto sales, seen pulling back slightly in June after surging in May by its strongest pace since February 2007.

Meanwhile forecasts for the in� u-ential ISM (Institute for Supply Man-agement) manufacturing and services reports point to a further acceleration of growth, with respectively a � fth and fourth consecutive rise in the monthly indices.

James Knightley, senior economist at ING, believes the data will support his view that growth could top an an-nualised 5% in the April-June period due to a rise of inventories, a rebound of investment and a boost from trade.

Less optimistic economists suggest

the jobs, car and ISM reports should at least provide a counterbalance to muted consumer spending in May, re-ported last week.

Such spending rose by just 0.2% in the month, half the level forecast, and following a � at reading in April,

prompting some economists to cut their estimates for second-quarter growth to as low as a 2.2% pace from as high as 4% before.

No ecb fireworksAcross the Atlantic, the European Cen-tral Bank meets again, a month on from its unleashing of a far-reaching pack-age of measures to keep the euro zone economy from slipping into a Japan-style de� ation.

The ECB cut interest rates to re-cord lows - the deposit rate to below zero - and strengthened its pledge to keep them low well into the future by extending banks’ unlimited access to central bank money to the end of 2016.

It also plans to hand out more ultra-cheap long-term loans to encourage banks to lend more freely to euro zone companies, but the details for such op-erations still need to be worked out.

Overall, 27 of 53 ECB watchers polled by Reuters said the central bank has probably done enough for now. Many among those who disagree say a quan-titative easing programme is required for any lasting impact on the strong euro currency and in� ation.

This Thursday’s meeting is expected to be uneventful, followed by what could be one of the shortest news con-

ferences in ECB history.Preceding its meeting, euro zone in-

� ation is forecast to hold steady at 0.5% after its unexpected fall to that level in May all but sealed the case for the ECB to act.

If con� rmed, June would be the ninth consecutive month of in� ation in the ECB’s “danger zone” of below 1%.

Stability, modest growthOutside the United States, purchasing managers’ indices (PMIs) steady for manufacturing on Tuesday and servic-es on Thursday are expected to show a picture of growth or at least stability despite geopolitical tensions around Ukraine and Iraq.

Figures for the euro zone are seen unchanged for June, while those for Britain are seen pulling back from very high levels of May, when hiring in its dominant service sector matched a 17-year high.

In China, more comprehensive PMIs for manufacturing and services are ex-pected to con� rm the world’s second largest economy is stabilising thanks to Beijing’s measures to shore up growth.

Factory activity expanded in June for the � rst time in six months as new orders surged, according to the HSBC/Markit � ash PMI released last Monday. l

B3BusinessDHAKA TRIBUNE Monday, June 30, 2014

BIS: New compass needed for global economyn AFP, Geneva

Countries must dramatically rethink strategies for avoiding and dealing with � nancial crises, the Bank for In-ternational Settlements said yesterday, urging far more focus on � ghting debt.

The Swiss-based BIS - dubbed the central bankers’ central bank - warned in its annual report that while the global economy was showing some encourag-ing signs of recovery from the crushing 2008 � nancial crisis, the factors that sparked it were still very much in play.

If governments fail to make the nec-essary policy adjustments to ward o� similar crises and crashes, “the global economy may be set on an unsustain-able path,” the report said, warning that “at some point, the current open global trade and � nancial order could be seriously threatened.”

BIS voiced deep concern over the stark contrast between the euphoria currently seen in many � nancial mar-kets and the continued weak invest-ments being made in the real economy, especially at a time when the geopoliti-cal outlook remains “highly uncertain.”

“A new compass is badly needed,” Claudio Borio, who heads BIS’s mon-etary and economic unit, insisted to reporters ahead of the report launch.

Central banks’ bid to help spark growth by among other things slashing interest rates has helped create more appetite for short-term, high-risk in-vestments on stock markets, and froth in property and corporate bond mar-kets, the report found.

But at the same time, economies that had been hard-hit by the crisis had not done enough to sanitise balance sheets and root out the debt-depen-dency that got them in trouble, while

countries spared last time were show-ing growing signs of � nancial vulner-ability, the report found.

Ditch debt as key growth engine This was especially true in emerging markets that have seen their economies boom amid an abundance of cheap credit in recent years, it said, stressing that clear policy shifts were needed “in all major economies, whether or not they were hit by the crisis.”

As a clear sign of the troubled road, Borio warned that both private and public sector debt was rising steadily

“even as the capacity to pay for it is di-minishing.”

“It is essential to move away from debt as the main engine of growth,” he insisted.

To overcome the legacy of the global � nancial crisis, policymakers need to go beyond their traditional narrow fo-cus on business cycles, and take on � -nancial cycles, which are far longer but also cause far more damage when they contract, according to BIS.

“Focusing our attention on the shorter-term output � uctuations is akin to staring at the ripples on the ocean

and losing sight of the more threatening underlying waves,” Borio warned.

The BSI report called for policies aimed at aggressively warding o� � -nancial booms, but also at dishing out fewer growth incentives during busts to avoid inspiring more debt-taking.

“The road ahead is long,” Borio ac-knowledged, saying it was all the more important to “start the journey sooner rather than later.”

“The current upturn in the global economy is a precious window of op-portunity that should not be wasted,” he said. l

Tra� c � ows in front of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) in Basel REUTERS

People use computers at a job fair in Detroit, Michigan REUTERS

Global ICC elects Latifur Rahman as executive board membern Tribune Business Desk

Latifur Rahman, vice-president of the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC), Bangladesh and chairperson of Transcom Group has been unanimous-ly elected as a member of the executive board of the Paris-based ICC for a three-year term from July 2014.

Global ICC, an organisation of busi-nesses, announced the new members of its executive body at its 202nd coun-cil held in Geneva on June 27.

Latifur Rahman has served in many important national bodies with various

capacities. He was the president of Met-ropolitan Chamber of Commerce & In-dustry, Dhaka (MCCI) for several terms, president of Bangladesh Employers’ Fed-eration (BEF) for two terms and executive committee member of Federation of Ban-gladesh Chambers of Commerce & Indus-try (FBBCI), Bangladesh Jute Mills Asso-ciation and Bangladesh Tea Association.

In 2012, Rahman was awarded “Oslo Business for Peace Award” by the Busi-ness for Peace Foundation, Oslo and Business Executive of the Year 2001 by the American Chamber of Commerce in Bangladesh. l

Japan consumer price growth at 32-year high n UNB

Consumer prices in Japan rose at an annual rate of 3.4% in May, the fast-est pace in 32 years, as the e� ect of the sales tax hike started to be felt.

Japan raised its sales tax rate from 5% to 8% on 1 April, reports BBC.

The price growth in May follows a 3.2% jump in April and is a big boost for Japan’s attempt to trigger in� ation.

Japan has been battling de� ation, or falling prices, for best part of the past two decades and that has hurt domes-tic demand and sti� ed growth.

The Japanese government has taken various steps over the past few months to try and reverse this trend, and the country’s central bank has set a target of a 2% in� ation rate.

The measures, which include boost-ing the country’s money supply, have

started to have an impact and consum-er prices in the country have now risen for 12 months in a row.

Policymakers have been hoping that once prices start to rise, consum-ers and business will be encouraged to start spending and not hold back on purchases, as they may have to pay more later on.

Multiple impact? The tax hike in April was the � rst in

17 years. The increase comes as Japan is fac-

ing rising social welfare costs due to an ageing population.

At the same time, the country is trying to rein in its public debt – which at nearly 230% of its gross domestic product (GDP) is the highest among industrialised nations. The tax hike is expected to help ease some of the � nancial burden of the government. l

Meghna Bank Limited recently held its � rst annual general meeting in Dhaka. The bank’s chair HN Ashequr Rahman presided over the meeting Modhumoti Bank Limited’s executive committee recently held its 13th meeting. The

committee’s chair Barrister Sheikh Fazle Noor Taposh presided over the meeting

The Dhaka Mercantile Co-operative Bank Limited recently opened its 103rd branch at Munshigonj. Md Mohiuddin, administrator of Munshigonj Zilla Porisod attended the event as chief guest along with the company’s chair Belayet Hossen

Dutch-Bangla Bank Limited (DBBL) has recently opened Fast Track at Rajshahi University campus in Rajshahi. The university’s vice chancellor Professor Dr Muhammad Mizanuddin inaugurated the ATM at the presence of the bank’s managing director KS Tabrez

Social Islami Bank Limited’s board of directors has unanimously extended the tenure of the board’s current chair Major (retd) Dr Md Rezaul Haque in its 314th meeting. Rezaul Haque is the second founding sponsor director of the bank. He is also sponsor director of United Hospital Limited and director of SIBL Securities Ltd. He had received his MBBS degree from Chittagong Medical College under Dhaka University

Rupali Bank recently shifted its branch to a new building at Sylhet Agriculture University. Education Minister Nurul Islam Nahid was chief guest at the event where the bank’s chair Dr Ahmed Al-kabir was the special guest

B4 Back PageDHAKA TRIBUNE Monday, June 30, 2014

DILBERT

With new tech tools, precision farming gains traction n AFP, Warwick

At Little Bohemia Creek Farm, the trac-tor pretty much drives itself, weaving through rows of corn using GPS tech-nology as it injects carefully dosed amounts of fertilizer.

Farm employee Andrew Isaacson sits in the cab - his main job is to moni-tor computer screens that control the vehicle and sprayer.

“I just turn it around at each end,” he says.

With computers guiding � eld opera-tions “it makes it easier in some ways but at the same time it makes it harder. You have to put more information in”.

The farm on Maryland’s eastern shore is part of a growing “precision agriculture” movement that uses high-tech tools to replace seat-of-the-pants farming.

GPS auto-steered tractors cut down or eliminate overplowing and overlap that wastes fuel and time. Other tech-nologies can sense just how much water is needed in a � eld to cut irrigation costs.

At Little Bohemia Creek, the trac-tor’s sensors gauge the health of various segments of a � eld to deliver fertilizer and other chemicals more ef-� ciently, which has an environmental bene� t.

“This technology allows for more intricate data collection to make deci-sions,” says Rich Wildman of the ag-ricultural consulting � rm Agrinetix, which provides technology advice at the farm.

This permits the farmer to “do more fertilization or seed planting to match the needs of a � eld within an inch vari-ation,” he said.

Various studies suggest farmers can save between 10 to 20% on fertilizer and chemicals, while improving yields.

Farming in the cloud Little Bohemia Creek owner Jon Quinn, 48, is using for the � rst time this year the system called GreenSeeker, from California tech � rm Trimble.

“I don’t know if I’m using less ni-trogen, but I’m putting it in the right place,” Quinn explained.

If that holds true, the fertilizer will mainly be absorbed by the corn instead of running o� into nearby rivers.

Paul Spies of the Chester River Asso-ciation, an environmental group, said Quinn is one of a handful of farmers in the pilot project, which aims to show the bene� ts of this technology.

“You’re asking farmers to alter what they have been doing for years,” Spies said. “They want to see proof that it will work.”

Quinn also participates in a “preci-sion planting” project with Monsanto,

using data from his � eld to determine how seeds fare in di� erent soil types.

“I download it to my iPad, and it goes to the cloud so they can see it,” he said.

These technologies mean farmers need to crunch big data.

“The real power is when you can take that data so farmers can see how di� erent parts of the � eld yielded and think about (crop) management changes,” said Joe Foresman, a special-ist with the DuPont precision farming division Pioneer.

Jess Lowenberg-DeBoer, a Purdue University agricultural economist, said that in the past 15 years, technologies such as GPS and auto-steering have be-come the norm in mechanized farming in the United States and other coun-tries, from Australia to Kazakhstan to Sweden.

“The economics are incredibly clear,” he said. “You make gains either with higher yield or lower costs, and sometimes with improved quality.”

Purdue researchers found more than 80 percent of US farm equipment

being sold includes these technologies, which would mean hundreds of thou-sands of farms.

For newer technologies like soil and crop sensors, mapping and analytics, Lowenberg-DeBoer said the picture is mixed, because specialized training is needed to reap bene� ts. Just seven percent of US farm dealers o� ered sen-sor-driven equipment in 2013, Purdue researchers found.

“It will transform agriculture but it’s not clear now exactly how it will do it,” he said.

Bring in the drones Also on the horizon is the use of drones to provide real-time data to farmers to pinpoint crop problems in time to � x them.

“We can detect plant problems be-fore they are detectable through the naked eye,” said Dennis Bowman, a University of Illinois crop specialist who tests drones for farm use.

But drone use is limited while US au-thorities study safety issues -- an issue clouded by the more prominent drone applications for military and intelli-gence purposes.

“We would like to see common sense rules that look at the situation in agriculture,” Bowman told AFP.

While corn and other grains have been the main focus of precision agriculture, Florida-based AgerPoint seeks to do the same for fruit trees and vineyards, using laser scanning to give producers data on plant health, and early hints on diseases and other problems.

“This next generation of growers want real-time access to all the data on their crops,” said AgerPoint president Thomas McPeek. “The more informed the growers become, the better deci-sions they make and the more money they make.”

The advances mean farmers need to consider upgrading equipment like tractors and combines, which give them real-time data to view on smart-phones.

“They’re all skeptical at � rst,” says Bryan Peterman, a sales manager at At-lantic Tractor in Delaware.

“But this is a generational issue. You have the younger generation who use smartphones and iPads who are quick to use this. But we have to show the farmers that it is user-friendly and that it saves money.”

Dale Blessing, who farms on several thousand acres in Milford, Delaware, said he decided to add a harvesting combine with auto-steering which sends data to the cloud and makes it available to him in real time.

“It’s just more e� cient,” he said. “You can make more with less.” l

Farm employee, Andrew Isaacson watches from a tractor in a corn � eld as screens show where he has fertilised at the Little Bohemia Creek farm in United States AFP

ECB monitors impact of anti-de� ationary measures n AFP, Frankfurt

The European Central Bank is unlikely to make new policy moves at its monthly meeting next week, focusing instead on monitoring the impact of last month’s unprecedented package of measures.

After cutting rates last time round and pre-announcing new liquidity measures in its battle to prevent the single currency area from slipping into de� ation, the ECB will “sit tight” at its meeting on Thursday, central bank watchers predicted.

“The ECB is clearly going to sit tight for now at least while the interest rates and liquidity measures it announced at its June meeting increasingly kick in,” said Howard Archer at IHS Global In-sight.

“Indeed, a number of senior ECB pol-icymakers have indicated that the bank is unlikely to act again in the near term at least, as it will take time for its recent announced package of measures to take full e� ect,” the expert continued.

At its June meeting, the ECB entered uncharted waters, taking one of its key interest rates into negative territory for the � rst time.

It lowered its benchmark re� nanc-ing rate to 0.15% and cut the deposit rate, the rate at which the central bank pays commercial banks for depositing their unused cash, to minus 0.10%.

This means that banks will be charged for parking funds at the ECB, in the hope they might lend it on to businesses and consumers instead.

ECB chief Mario Draghi also un-veiled plans to pump more liquidity into the � nancial system later this year via the Targeted Long-Term Re� nanc-ing Operation.

These are di� erent to the liquidity measures it took at the end of 2011 and the beginning of 2012.

At that time, banks did not lend the cash on to the small and medium-sized companies that form the backbone of the eurozone economy and so this time, the ECB is targeting the loans to encourage banks to lend to households and non-� nancial corporations.

Other measures up sleeve With regard to further follow-up action, Draghi promised in early June that the ECB would “if required ... act swiftly with further monetary policy easing.”

But he admitted that in terms of in-terest rate cuts alone, there was no fur-ther room for action.

“For all the practical purposes we have reached the lower bound,” he said.

Analysts therefore believe the ECB has other possible measures up its sleeve, even so-called quantitative eas-

ing (QE) - widescale purchase of sov-ereign debt practised by other central banks, but which the European bank has steered clear from imitating so far.

“The ECB has indicated that it is pre-pared to take further action if the risk of prolonged too low in� ation morph-ing into de� ation persists,” Archer at IHS Global Insight said.

“And the ECB will likely want the market to keep thinking that further policy action is a very real possibility so as to keep downward pressure on the euro and market interest rates.”

Capital Economics economist Jen-nifer McKeown also believed that the ECB “is very unlikely to unveil addi-tional policy support at its policy meet-ing on July 3 as it waits to judge the ef-fect of the raft of measures announced in June.”

She expected Draghi to reiterate that interest rates should be on hold for a long time yet.

“He will probably also explain that a broader programme of quantitative easing involving government bond pur-chases is within the ECB’s mandate. But he will claim that in� ation expectations are well anchored and that such steps are not necessary for now,” she said.

Commerzbank economist Michael Schubert said the ECB “will probably want to wait and see what impact the steps taken so far will have.

“At the same time, ECB president Draghi is set to leave the door wide open for QE at the press conference,” he suggested. l

German minister eyes possibility of breaking up Google n AFP. Berlin

Germany’s justice minister says the pos-sibility of dismantling Google should be considered if the Internet giant abuses its dominant position, in a newspaper interview to be published Saturday.

“Just imagine an energy company that covers 95% of the whole market. The cartel authority would act quite quickly,” Heiko Maas told Saturday’s Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.

“Such conditions are, in market terms, not sensible, not healthy,” he said according to a pre-released copy of the interview.

“So yes, if Google misuses its domi-

nant position to systematically push aside competitors, then as a last means something like a dissolution should be considered,” he said.

Maas said the digital era had long left behind national borders and rules and there was now a need for an “in-ternational network law”. De� ance is strong in Germany over the US Internet search engine’s dominant position.

German-based media giant Axel Springer is among a group of players in Europe’s digital markets which has lodged a complaint with the European Commission against what it alleges are new anti-competitive abuses by Google. l

Honda’s � rst jet takes to the skies n AFP, Tokyo

Honda’s � rst business jet has logged its maiden � ight ahead of its expected certi� cation and delivery next year, the Japanese company said in a weekend press release.

The 84-minute � ight of the � rst pro-duction HondaJet took place on Friday near the world headquarters of Honda Aircraft, the aviation subsidiary of the automobile giant, in Greensboro in the US state of North Carolina, the state-ment said.

“With this � rst � ight, the HondaJet programme has entered the next excit-ing phase as we prepare for delivery,” Honda Aircraft president and CEO Michimasa Fujino said.

“Today’s celebration is the culmina-tion of extensive engineering and pro-duction e� orts, and this is an important achievement in bringing the world’s most advanced light jet to market.”

The HondaJet is currently o� ered for sale in North America and Europe through the HondaJet dealer network, the statement said.

The plane, which seats up to � ve passengers in a standard con� guration, � ies at a maximum cruise speed of 483

miles per hour (777 kph) and has a max-imum altitude of 43,000 feet (13,106 metres), it added.

Priced at $4.5 million, it has received more than 100 orders from businesses and a� uent customers, Japanese me-

dia said. In 2006, Honda announced its plan to commercialise business jet production. l

Minister: New sanctions on Russia could ‘seriously’ impact growth n AFP, Moscow

A new round of Western sanctions on Russia over the crisis in Ukraine could seriously impact its already stalled economy, Economy Minister Alexei Ulyukayev said Saturday.

The minister said Russia has pre-pared for three possible scenarios in the event of tougher economic sanctions.

The less severe one presumes sanc-tions on “luxury products, caviar, furs, etc,” while the worst “includes the whole complex: metals, fertilisers, oil, gas, and so forth, taking into account prices and volumes.”

In this case, “economic growth rates go seriously into the negative,” he was quoted as telling the Rossiya channel, though he added that the economy can still “support” this outcome.

“Investment rates go into more negative territory, incomes decrease, in� ation grows, state reserves shrink,” he said.

Ulyukayev’s comments come on the heels of Ukraine’s signing of the Asso-ciation Agreement with the European Union on Friday, and a decision by President Petro Poroshenko to extend a shaky truce with separatist � ghters in eastern Ukraine by three days.

The signing of the agreement - a 1,200-page document de� ning the political and trade terms under which Kiev will slip from the Kremlin’s em-brace - drew threats of retaliation from Moscow.

Western leaders have warned Presi-dent Vladimir Putin of tougher sanc-tions on entire sectors of the Russian economy if his policy on Ukraine, nota-bly the alleged material support of the pro-Russian rebels, does not change.

To date, EU and US sanctions have targeted speci� c individuals and enti-ties, but the so-called “phase three” of the sanctions would deliver a sweeping blow to the economy at a time when Russian growth is already � atlining. l

Honda Motor's aviation subsidiary Honda Aircraft's � rst production HondaJet during a test � ight at Greensboro, United States AFP

'The ECB is clearly going to sit tight for now at least while the interest rates and liquidity measures it announced at its June meeting increasingly kick in'