News3 A private company has been reportedly supplying a lifesaving injectable antibiotic to the DMCH at nearly one-sixth of its market price, raising quite a few eyebrows. The antibiotic called Ceftriaxone, which is generally available in the market for Tk120 to Tk180, is being supplied to the DMCH for only Tk34.

4 The government is introducing Open Market Sale (OMS) for rice from today due to the price hike of rice, especially the coarse varieties, in the last seven days, which is a second hike in two months. Coarse rice price hiked by Tk4 per kg in a month putting low-income group people in trouble

Nation6 Poribesh Bachao Andolon (Poba), an environmental organisation, has sent a letter to the Department of Environment (DoE), seeking its Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) report and other documents of the proposed Rampal Power Plant in Bagerhat.

International8 British Prime Minister David Cameron ordered his top civil servant to try to stop revelations � owing from the Guardian newspaper about US and British surveillance programs, according to two sources with direct knowledge of the matter.

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

Bhadra 7, 1420Shawwal 14, 1434Regd. No. DA 6238Vol 1 No 150 THURSDAY, AUGUST 22, 2013 | www.dhakatribune.com

INSIDE

9 InternationalPakistan blames India over latest deadly Kashmir clash

MetroFood market running on Kalabagan footpath

7

One held in connectionwith Egyptianembassy threatn Kailash Sarkar

Detectives yesterday arrested a youth, who allegedly issued a threat on Au-gust 20 to blow up the Embassy of Egypt in Dhaka, impersonating himself as a member of the “Muslim Brother-hood”, and a supporter of Mohammed Morsi, the recently ousted President of the Egypt.

Following the threat, the embassy closed its visa issuing centre for 11 days from Tuesday.

The embassy authorities on Tuesday received the hand-written letter con-taining the threat to blow up the embas-sy like in Libya. Muslim Brotherhood is a political front that backs Egypt’s oust-ed President Mohammed Morsi.

Identi� ed as Shawkat Afsar alias Hi-ron, the 18-year-old youth was arrested at 12pm from “Focus” coaching centre run by the Islami Chhatra Shibir (ICS), students’ wing of Jamaat-e-Islami, lo-cated at the capital’s Farmgate.

Hailing from Jalalabad in Cox’sba-zar, Shawkat has passed HSC this year and had been taking part at the coach-ing centre as part of his preparation to get admitted to a university.

“During primary interrogation the detained youth admitted his involve-ment in issuance of the threat. He also admitted that he himself wrote the let-ter with his own hand and dropped it in the letter box of the Egypt embassy located at Gulshan-2 on Tuesday,” said Md Monirul Islam, Joint Commissioner of Detective Branch (DB) of the Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP).

The Joint Commissioner said, in the letter the detained youth used his identity as Shawkat Osman instead of his real name Shawkat Afsar but men-tioned his own cell phone number.

The senior DB o� cial claimed that they have found proof that the letter was written by Shawkat as they had veri� ed the writings in the letter as Shawkat’s.

PAGE 2 COLUMN 4

Hasina blames Khaleda, her sonfor grenade attackn Partha Pratim Bhattacharjee

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina yester-day said investigation had proved that Khaleda Zia, her son Tarique Rahman and a section of BNP high-ups were be-hind the August 21 grenade attack.

“The investigation into the grisly attack is almost done and the trial is under process. Now the names of the opposition leader, her son and names of other BNP leaders are surfacing,”she said.

Hasina, also the ruling Awami League president, was addressing a

programme at the party’s central o� ce on Bangabandhu Avenue after placing wreaths at the memorial of those who died in the grenade attack.

On August 21, 2004, a grenade attack was carried out on an anti-terrorism rally of Awami League at Bangabandhu Avenue that left at least 24 people dead and over 500 others injured.

Yesterday was the 9th anniversary of that grisly attack.

The premier, at her address, posed a question: “Those of whom, in spite of being in power, can launch such attack on the opposition in broad daylight,

what kind of welfare can they (BNP-Ja-maat coalition) do for people if they come back to power?”

“If those people come to power again they will give rise to militancy and terrorism.” She noted.

Terming the BNP-Jamaat as “the symbol of killing, terrorism and mil-itancy,” the AL president urged the countrymen to remain alert about the militant and terrorist activities of the BNP-Jamaat and Hefazat.

She also urged people to stay alert, and cautioned that if they assumed

PAGE 2 COLUMN 1

LBA unlikely within AL tenuren Sheikh Shahariar Zaman

The failure of the Indian government to place the constitution amendment bill to pave the way for the rati� cation of the Land Boundary Agreement with India has made the passage of the bill within the tenure of the current gov-ernment uncertain.

The Indian External A� airs Minister Salman Khurshid tried to place the bill but could not do so due to strong op-position from the Trinomul Congress of West Bengal and Asom Gana Parishad of Assam on Monday.

Khurshid in April also failed to place “The Constitution (119th Amendment) Bill, 2013” to amend the Constitution of India and give way for India to acquire territories and transfer certain terri-

tories to Bangladesh in pursuance of the agreement and its protocol entered into between the governments of India and Bangladesh.

A senior o� cial of the foreign minis-try said it was unfortunate.

“The Indian government assured us many times but could not keep the promise it made,” he said.

It is very unlikely that the Indians can place the bill within the period of the Awami League government as the next election would be held by January next year, he said.

Bangladesh High Commissioner to India Tariq A Karim was reluctant to make any comments on the issue when contacted.

“We have taken up the issue with the Indian government and it will place

the bill in their parliament. It is the only comment I want to make,” he told the Dhaka Tribune over telephone yester-day afternoon.

When asked about Bangladesh’s ef-forts to place the bill, he said: “All of us have tried for it.”

Foreign Minister Dipu Moni, on a tour to India from July 25-27, met with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Sin-gh, Salman Khurshid and Arun Jaitly, the Leader of the Opposition in the Ra-jya Sabha (the upper house of India), and held discussions regarding the placing of the bill.

Tariq A Karim on July 27 met with BJP leader Narendra Modi, apparently seeking his support for the placing of the bill.

PAGE 2 COLUMN 4

Chinese envoy o� ers role in dialogue between AL, BNP n Sheikh Shahariar Zaman

The Chinese ambassador in a rare move yesterday called upon the lead-ers of the Awami League and BNP to sit across the table to end the prevailing political stando� .

“I think it would be of great help if the leaders of the two parties have a face-to-face dialogue, Chinese Ambas-sador Li Jun said at a press brie� ng at a city hotel.

“I can tell you that I have already made my e� orts and I will continue to make my e� ort to push forward for ne-gotiation between the two parties,” he said.

The press conference was organised to brief the journalists about the Chi-nese naval hospital ship ‘Peace Ark’, now in Bangladesh on a seven day goodwill visit.

The remarks were the opening state-ment of the Chinese ambassador who, unlike other diplomats of the devel-oped world, rarely talks about domes-tic politics of Bangladesh.

After his opening statement, a jour-nalist asked him if it was a departure from the traditional Chinese policy of not interfering in the domestic politics and what the responses from the politi-cal leaders to his e� orts were.

The ambassador said: “Now you just said whether my comment is a shift from the Chinese policy in Bangladesh. My answer is no.”

He said both the parties need to show gestures of goodwill and take each other into mutual con� dence.

After the press conference, he told a small group of journalists that he had friends in both the parties and was in touch with them. He observed that there were many common grounds between the two parties despite their disagree-ments on the poll-time government.

“I think it is normal to have disagree-ment but it should be resolved through

PAGE 2 COLUMN 6

1,300 feared dead in Syria chemical attacksRights body says the � gure will go up as raids and bomb attacks continuen AFP

At least 1,300 people have been killed in � erce Syrian army bombardment with chemical weapons of Damascus suburbs on Wednesday, the opposition said, branding it a “massacre” and call-ing for international intervention, AFP said on Twitter.

AFP earlier reported more than 650 people were killed.

Britain, meanwhile, said it would refer the alleged chemical weapons attack, which could not immediately be veri� ed and has been vehemently denied by the Damascus regime, to the United Nations.

While the Syrian National Coalition gave a toll of 650 dead, a Britain-based monitoring group said earlier that at least 100 people had been killed and the number was rising.

“This � gure will surely go up. The raids and bombardment are continu-ing,” said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which gathers its infor-mation from activists and medics.

It did not comment on allegations by anti-regime activists that the army had used chemical arms in its bombard-ment of the densely-populated Ghouta suburbs where rebels have been hold-ing out against government forces.

According to activists, hundreds of people died of gas inhalation and expo-sure to chemical weapons.

Syrian authorities, for their part, de-nied charges that the army used chem-ical arms.

“Reports on the use of chemical weapons in (the suburbs of) Ghouta are totally false,” state news agency Sana said. “It’s an attempt to prevent the UN commission of inquiry from carrying out its mission.”

Al-Watan newspaper said the Syrian government had “pledged to cooperate and facilitate the work” of a UN team of chemical inspectors who launched a mission in the country on Tuesday.

The Syrian National Coalition called for an urgent UN Security Council meeting.

“I call on the Security Council to convene urgently,” National Coalition leader Ahmed al-Jarba told al-Arabiya news channel, condemning the bom-bardment of the suburbs as a massacre.

British Foreign Secretary William Hague, meanwhile, said his country will refer the opposition charges of a massive chemical weapons strike to the Security Council.

He was “deeply concerned” by the re-ports and said if they were proved they would mark a “shocking escalation.”

The Local Coordination Committees (LCC), a network of activists reported hundreds of casualties in the “brutal use of toxic gas by the criminal regime in parts of Western Ghouta.”

PAGE 2 COLUMN 1

A survivor of August 21 grenade attacks, Rashida Akhter Ruma, while going to the Awami League party o� ce to honour the lost lives inthe horri� c incident, looks at posters hanged in remembrance of the victims. The photo was taken a yesterday at the capital’s Bangabandhu Avenue SYED ZAKIR HOSSAIN

SportIrwin looks forwardto Bangladesh’sfootball future

13

‘A terrible massacre committed by regime forces with toxic gas, leaving dozens of martyrsand wounded’

Tarique implicated falsely: Fakhruln Mohammad Al-Masum Molla

Main opposition BNP yesterday alleged Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s speech implicating them and their leaders in the August 21 grenade attack was “po-litically motivated.”

Its spokesperson and acting secre-tary general, Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alam-gir, claimed at a press brie� ng at the Naya Paltan headquarters: “BNP always condemned the August 21 grenade at-tack. We also took to the streets and demonstrated in protest of the attack.

“Prime minister’s speech was false and ill-motivated targeting humiliation

of BNP vice chairman, Tarique Rah-man. The government had linked BNP and Tarique Rahman to the incident by pressuring Mufti Hannan. Even the appointment of Abdul Kahar Akhand as the investigation o� ce was to impli-cate Tarique in the case.”

Chief of the banned Harkatul-Jihad al-Islami, Mufti, was one of the prime accused in the case over the bombing on the Awami League rally at Bangab-andhu Avenue in 2004. The attack left 24 dead including late president Zillur Rahman’s wife Ivy Rahman and scores of others injured including the then

PAGE 2 COLUMN 1

News2 DHAKA TRIBUNE Thursday, August 22, 2013

BNP-led JS termed it AL’s own doingn Kamran Reza Chowdhury

Following the grenade attack on Sheikh Hasina on August 21, 2004 the then BNP-led parliament put the blame on the Awami League for the massacre instead of holding the executive ac-countable in line with the constitution-al obligation.

Muhammad Jamiruddin Sircar, the speaker of the BNP-led 8th parliament, did not even accept the opposition’s proposal to hold a discussion on the adjournment motion in line with the rule 62 of the Rules of Procedure in the parliament.

For an adjournment discussion, the parliament suspends all of its busi-nesses for a speci� c day and dedicates the whole discussion to a single issue, usually the very serious one. The ad-journment motion is considered to be a censure of the government.

Sircar rather allowed a general dis-cussion on the grenade attack under the rule 147 of the Rules of Procedure, apparently to lessen its gravity.

Never before have at least 55 Awami League MPs had gathered in front of the speaker’s chair demanding an adjourn-ment discussion on the then-leader of the opposition.

But all treasury bench lawmakers along with the speaker - putting ear-phones over their ears - pressed ahead with the usual businesses of the par-liament, resulting in total pandemoni-um in the House on September 15: the third day of the � rst session after the grenade attack.

At one stage Awami League legis-lators walked out of the House as the speaker started the general discussion on the August 21 grenade attack. The discussion started at 7.30pm and con-tinued up to 11.16pm in presence of then Premier Khaled Zia.

The Awami League MPs, in all, sub-mitted 26 adjournment motions on the August 21 grenade attack.

On September 15, the speaker decid-ed to hold a general discussion on the August 21 grenade attack along with a question-answer session for the prime minister and ministers.

The AL lawmakers skipped the 30-mintue question-answer session for Khaleda Zia at the start of the sitting at 5.00pm with Speaker Jamiruddin Sir-car in the chair.

As soon as the speaker went ahead with the scheduled question-answer hour for the ministers, the Awami League MPs entered the House and as-sembled in front of the speaker.

They chanted slogans demanding a

discussion on the adjournment motion instead of a general discussion. Imme-diately a pandemonium broke out as the BNP lawmakers stood up and be-gan to shout back at them.

Sircar even averted the looks of the opposition lawmakers and proceeded with his scheduled question-answer hour for the ministers. The chair then asked the treasury bench lawmakers to use earphones so as not to be disturbed by the commotion created by the AL.

At 6.13pm the speaker adjourned the House for 20 minutes but the sit-ting resumed at 6.45pm.

After the question-answer session was over Sircar declared the oppo-sition’s adjournment proposals null and void saying the government had formed a judicial commission to inves-tigate the August 21 grenade attack.

He said, the Rules of Procedure of the parliament did not allow the acceptance of such notices for adjournment as such discussions in the parliament could in-� uence the ongoing investigation.

As the BNP MPs started the general discussion on the August 21 grenade attack, the Awami League MPs walked out of the House at 7.30pm.

Taking the � oor during the general discussion Shamsul Alam Pramanik (Naogaon) said the throwers of the Ar-ges grenades needed “military skill”. “But all the grenades dropped on the street, not on the truck on which Sheikh Hasina was speaking.”

“At least one grenade could have fallen on the truck. People have to think about why it did not happen,” he said.

He said the grenade attack was launched on Sheikh Hasina’s instruc-tion or on the order of her party leaders just to portray Bangladesh as a terrorist country.

“There is no doubt that the Awami League itself has done it. The accounts they have presented before people af-ter the incident have proved Awami League’s involvement,” said Moshiur Rahman.

Referring to Pramanik’s statement he noted that at least one grenade could have dropped on the truck. “Only some innocent people died while the leaders have survived.”

Moazzem Hossain Alal in his speech said Ivy Rahman died as she sat on the street. The leader of the opposition re-peatedly urged Ivy Rahman to get on board the truck to which she refused.

He said Hasina knew that Ivy Rah-man would have survived had she got on board the truck but she could not tell her that. l

Joj Miah drama probe unendingn Kailash Sarkar

The “Joj Miah” drama that the BNP-Ja-maat-led government allegedly staged to protect the real culprits behind the Au-gust 21 grenade attack, has virtually slid into oblivion.

Senior Special Superintendent of Po-lice (SSP) Abdul Kahar Akand, supervisor of the investigation o� cer of the case � led in connection with the drama, said the case had seen very little progress be-cause law enforcers had been busy with the trial of the grenade attack case.

“The investigation of the Joj Miah case is closely connected with the grenade attack case. Therefore, let the trial of the grenade attack case end. Then the Joj Miah case will come to a conclusion auto-matically,” he said.

Senior Assistant Superintendent of Police Fazlul Kabir of the Criminal Inves-tigation Department (CID), � led the case in connection with the Joj Miah drama on March 29, 2009, against three former investigators: Special Superintendent of Police (SSP) Ruhul Amin and two ASPs Munsi Atiqur Rahman and Abdur Rashid.

According to the case statement, during the tenure of the then BNP-led four-party alliance government, those three former CID o� cers forced and tor-tured pretty criminal Joj Miah to make confessional statements before a magis-trate admitting their involvement in the grenade attacks.

The August 21, 2004 grenade attack on an Awami League rally in the capital’s Bangabandhu Avenue killed 24 people and injured 300 others, including party Chief Sheikh Hasina.

Joj Miah was arrested at Noakhali on June 10, 2005, nearly a year after the at-tack and confessed on June 26.

The investigator trio from CID branded Joj Miah a “key player” behind the attack.

They had also been reportedly paying Tk25,000 every month to Joj Miah’s fam-ily and providing him with everything he needed during his four-year stay in jail.

The investigators also tried to impli-cate top listed criminals like Subrata Bain, Mollah Masud, Jisan, Swapan, Mukul and Ledu Miah in the attack.

However, Joj Miah was cleared of the charges in 2008 during the caretaker re-gime and released in March 2009.

After the current Awami League gov-ernment came to power in 2009, the CID pressed charges against 52 people, including BNP’s Senior Vice-Chairman and former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia’s eldest son Tarique Rahman, former junior home minister Lutfozzaman Babar and Jamaat-e-Islami Secretary General Ali Ah-san Mohammad Mujaheed, in connection with the grenade attack. l

Tarique implicated falsely: Fakhrul PAGE 1 COLUMN 6opposition leader, Sheikh Hasina.

Fakhrul went on to say that Hannan was grilled for 120 days only to force him to implicate Tarique in the case. He claimed that Tarique was named despite the Huji chief’s alleged claim at court that the statement was made under duress.

The spokesperson continued that

BNP, which was in o� ce at that time, wanted to fairly probe the attack and even brought in the Scotland Yard for in-vestigation. However, the Awami League leaders did not cooperate with them.

“The investigators wanted a key ev-idence, the bullet-ridden car, but they were not given that car,” he said.

Fakhrul went onto rebut the prime minister’s claim that BNP was tied to

militants and said, “BNP was always against all sorts of militancy and ter-rorism. When we were in power, we took a strong position against militan-cy.”

He alleged that it was Awami League who patronised terrorism and militancy. “Incidents like the August 21 grenade attack cannot be acceptable to a sane person.” l

Chinese envoy o� ers PAGE 1 COLUMN 6negotiations and talks,” he said. “Final-ly it is for the people of Bangladesh to resolve their own problems.”

“I believe the leaders and politicians of both the parties have the wisdom to solve the problems,” he hoped. l

Hasina blames Khaleda, her son for grenade attack PAGE 1 COLUMN 5power they would destroy the country.

Recalling the memories of the gre-nade attacks, Sheikh Hasina said no civilized society allows such kind of attack where the attackers used the deadly grenades, usually used in war, to kill the AL leaders.

“A total of 13 grenades were thrown one after another. But the law enforc-ers played the role of silent spectators at the time. They helped the killers to

� ee without any obstruction,” she said.She alleged that the then govern-

ment destroyed the evidences of the attacks.

The PM said the BNP leaders threat-ened her several times publicly that they would kill her the same way they had killed the father of the nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rah-man.

Later Hasina distributed cheques among the injured and relatives of

those who died in the grenade attack as � nancial assistance for treatment and education expenses for their chil-dren.

After the PM’s address, leaders and workers of the ruling AL and its asso-ciated bodies, leaders of 14-party al-liance and other political parties and many socio-cultural organisations placed � oral wreaths at the temporary memorial built in memory of those killed on the fateful day. l

1,300 feared dead in Syria chemical attacks PAGE 1 COLUMN 2And in videos posted on YouTube, the Syrian Revolution General Commission, another activist group, showed what it called “a terrible massacre committed by regime forces with toxic gas, leaving dozens of martyrs and wounded.”

The attack “led to su� ocation of the children and overcrowding � eld hospitals with hundreds of casualties amid extreme shortage of medical supplies to rescue the victims, particularly Atropine,” the LCC said.

Eastern Ghouta “was also shelled by warplanes following the chemical attack that is still ongoing which led to hundreds of casualties and victims, among them entire families,” it said.

In one video, children are seen being given � rst aid in a � eld hospital,

notably oxygen to help them breathe. Doctors appear to be trying to resuscitate unconscious children who show no signs of bleeding.

The authenticity of the videos could not immediately be veri� ed.

The Observatory said “regime forces ... stepped up military operations in the Eastern Ghouta and Western Ghouta zones of the Damascus region with aircraft and rocket launchers.”

The heavy bombing on the outskirts of the capital could be heard by residents of Damascus, where a grey cloud capped the sky.

The Britain-based Observatory, which relies on a vast network of activists on the ground and medics, said the army operation was aimed at the recapture of Madhamiyat el-Sham, an area southwest of Damascus.

The Syrian Observatory called for

inspectors to hastily visit the stricken sites and ensure access for medical aid.

UN chief Ban Ki-moon insisted Monday that the inspectors be granted unrestricted access to Syrian sites where chemical weapons have allegedly been used in the country’s 29-month-old con� ict.

The inspectors, expected to visit three sites including Khan al-Assal near Aleppo in the north, are due to be in Syria for 14 days, with the possibility for an extension of the mission.

“In order to credibly establish the facts, the mission must have full access to the sites of the alleged incidents,” the secretary general told reporters.

The Arab League, meanwhile, urged the inspectors now inside Syria to immediately visit the site “to see the reality of the situation and investigate the circumstances of this crime.” l

LBA unlikely within AL tenure PAGE 1 COLUMN 4Dhaka rati� ed the agreement in 1974 just after it was signed by the then President of Bangladesh Sheikh Mo-jibur Rahman and late Indian Premier Indira Ghandhi. The government also issued a gazette noti� cation the same year but India is yet to ratify it.

If the LBA comes into e� ect, both countries will have o� cial borders in-stead of de-facto borders.

It would also help exchange 162 en-claves and resolve the disputes related to adversely possessed land (APL).

There are 111 Indian enclaves in Ban-gladesh territory where 34,000 people live while 51 Bangladesh enclaves with

17,000 people are inside India- the fate of those living in these territories will be settled after the implementation of the LBA.

The people in the enclaves do not enjoy any state facilities, including health and education services, as they are living in another country.

Bangladesh and India have a vast porous border of 4,076kms of which 6.5kms is un-demarcated in three plac-es.

In the 12 APL patches, the total land volume is about 5,500 acres and after the adjustment, Bangladesh would take around 2,300 acres of land and In-dia over 3,400 acres. l

One held in connection with PAGE 1 COLUMN 1“Although it seemed to be a foolish act of mentioning one’s name, but we are yet in a mystery about why mentioned his cell phone number,” said the DB of-� cial.

He said, “In the letter, Shawkat also identi� ed him as a member of the Muslim Brotherhood and a supporter of Morsi. Besides, he said, unless the “torture” on the supporters of Morsi and the people of Egypt is not stopped, the embassy of Egypt in Dhaka would face the same fate of that in Libya.”

Joint Commissioner Monirul said to have information that the detained youth is a Shibir activist and he had been inspired to issue the threat through Facebook, as he (the detainee) is also engaged in groups campaign-ing in favour of Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood.

When asked, the DB o� cial said they were verifying whether the youth have the capacity to blow up the em-bassy as mentioned in his letter or has links to any terrorist network.

DB o� cials also said they were no-ti� ed about the threat by the Foreign Ministry, and would inform the Egypt

embassy authorities about the arrest. “There is nothing to be worried about the threat”, he added.

Earlier, soon after the letter was re-ceived, security around the Egyptian embassy to Dhaka was beefed up with the deployment of a huge contingent of forces from the Rab, police and oth-er agencies. l

Ex-chief justice Kemaluddin dies n Nazmus Sakib

Former chief justice Kemaluddin Hos-sain, 90, died yesterday at a city hospital.

His daughter-in-law Farmin islam, a teacher of Dhaka university, told the Dhaka Tribune that her father-in-law had passed away at 4.55pm su� ering from cancer. Kemaluddin was interred at Banani graveyard last evening after two namaaz-e-janaza (funeral prayers) at the Supreme Court premises and Gul-shan Azad Mosque, she said.

In separate statements, President Ab-dul Hamid, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasi-na and Law Minister Sha� que Ahmed gave their condolences to the family members. They said through the death of the former chief justice, the nation had lost a person who fought lifelong for establishing justice in the country.

Judges of Appellate Division and High Court, former chief justice ABM Khairul Haque, Attorney General Mah-bubey Alam, the Supreme Court Bar Association president and secretary participated in the funeral prayer held at Supreme Court premises.

Jurist Kemaluddin was the chief justice for � ve years starting from 1977. He also served as the chairman of the Bangladesh Law Commission. l

BNP chalks out anniversary programmen Mohammad Al-Masum Molla

The main opposition BNP has chalked out a 12-day programme to observe the party’s 35th founding anniversary and jail release days of the party chairperson Khaleda Zia and its Senior Vice-Chair-man Tareque Rahman.

The programme was � nalised at the party’s Nayapaltan central o� ce in the capital after a joint meeting held with the party’s front and associate bodies yesterday.

Marking its founding anniversary, the party will hold a discussion at the

Institution of Engineers, Bangladesh on October 31.

Besides, party and national � ags will be hoisted at all the o� ces of the BNP across the country in the early morning on September 1.

The former PM along with her party leaders and activists will place wreaths and o� er prayers at the grave of BNP’s founder late president Ziaur Rahman at 10am on the day.

To mark Tarique Rahman’s jail re-lease day, Chhatra Dal, student wing of BNP, will bring out a procession on September 2, and hold discussion the

following day. Marking the founding anniversa-

ry, Swechachasebak Dal, a major front organisation of the party, will hold an exhibition on September 4 while Jatiya-tabadi Jubo Dal, another front organisa-tion of the party will bring out a rally on September 5. On the occasion, Bangla-desh Jatiyatabadi Mohila Dal will hold a discussion on September 9 to mark BNP’s founding anniversary.

Dhaka City unit BNP will take out a procession on September 10 to mark jail release days of Tarique and the ex-prime minister Khaleda Zia. l

Oishee taken to DMCH for age veri� cation n Mohammad Jamil Khan

Following several reports in the media about violation of child rights, the De-tective Branch of Police has � nally tak-en Oishee Rahman and her domestic help Sumi to the Dhaka Medical College Hospital (DMCH) for age veri� cation yesterday.

Oishee and Sumi was taken to DMCH in a special secure car of DB at around 3pm and after having some physical tests in the forensic department and X-ray at the hospital’s emergency sec-tion, they were brought back to the DB o� ce at around 4pm.

When the police sought remand for Oishee Rahman, Khadiza Khatun Sumi, and Oishee’s boyfriend Mizanur Rah-man Rony, their ages were stated to be 18, 15 and 25 respectively. However, at the press meet that followed Oishee’s surrender, police had said the girls were 16 and 10, in the same order.

Shajahan Shiraj, assistant of DMCH X-ray department told the Dhaka Tri-bune that they had taken X-rays of hands, wrists, knees and heels of Oish-ee and Shumi.

Sohel Mahmud, assistant professor of forensic department, told the Dhaka Tribune: “After getting all the physical and X-ray reports, we will able to get a report of age identi� cation of Oishee and Sumi which would take about sev-en days.”

A Dhaka Court accepted a petition of the investigation o� cer Sub Inspector Mohammad Shahidullah Prodhan in the murder case of Special Branch In-spector Mahfuzur Rahman and his wife Shapna Rahman on Tuesday.

The investigation o� cer petitioned the court saying the actual age of Oish-ee and Sumi needed to be veri� ed.

Ga� ar Chowdhury, general record-ing o� cer (GRO) of the court, told the Dhaka Tribune that the petition was � led following media reports claiming Oishee’s remand was a violation of the Children Act.

Di� erent rights bodies including the National Human Rights Commission

has criticised Oishee’s remand. Monirul Islam, joint commissioner

of DB police, told the Dhaka Tribune that the Children Act had come into ef-fect from Tuesday and Oishee was tak-en in custody on August 17, so she was not a child in the eyes of the law.

“However, we sent her to DMCH to get her actual age,” he added.

Defence asks court to stop police leaksOishee’s lawyer, Advocate Prokash Ranjan Bishwash, � led a petition yes-terday asking the court to stop the dis-closing of remand information to the media that he said would create social stigma for Oishee. According to the Right to Information Act 2009 section 7, police have no rights to disclose the information that an accused gave to the investigation o� cer in police custody.

These information may create bias about the person’s character, the pe-tition said. After � ling the petition, Metropolitan Magistrate Bikash Ku-mar Saha transferred the hearing to the court of Metropolitan Magistrate Mizanur Rahman and set today for the hearing.

Meanwhile, the detective branch is still pursuing the murder case. Joint Commissioner Moinrul Islam said DB was raiding at di� erent areas of the capital to arrest two friends of Oishee, Jony and Saidul and hoped that the case would be resolved after their ar-rest.

An investigator of the department said that they had sent the information on Jony and Saidul to all ports and bor-der areas so that they would not able to leave the country. l

AUGUST 21 GRENADE ATTACK

News 3DHAKA TRIBUNE Thursday, August 22, 2013

Low price of a lifesaving drug raises quality concernsThe company that sells a vial of Ceftriaxone at Tk120 in the market, is supplying the same drug at only Tk34 to the DMCH

n Moniruzzaman Uzzal

A private company has been reportedly supplying a lifesaving injectable antibi-otic to the Dhaka Medical College Hos-pital at nearly one-sixth of its market price, raising quite a few eyebrows.

The antibiotic called Ceftriaxone, which is generally available in the mar-ket for Tk120 to Tk180, is being sup-plied to the DMCH for only Tk34.

Ceftriaxone is a third-generation an-tibiotic often used for the treatment of pneumonia and meningitis.

People concerned have raised ques-tions about how had it been possible for the company to supply the drug as such a low price.

They have suspected that the drug might not contain the optimum ingre-dients, thus enabling the company to supply it at such a low price.

Seeking anonymity, a number of doctors have alleged that the antibiotic supplied to the DMCH by the company takes a lot more time to start working compared to the drug that is available in the market.

Doctors have said it could also be the other way round – that the drug com-panies are charging the general cus-tomers too much in the open market. The fact that it could be actually sold at one-sixth of the market price, could be proof, they said.

The DMCH consumes a total of around 500,000 vials of Ceftriaxone every year.

The Dhaka Tribune understands that on June 28, the hospital author-ities had sent 40 samples of the an-

tibiotic, selected randomly from the hospital drug store, to the Drug Testing Laboratory in Mohakhali.

The o� cial letter, signed by DMCH Director Brigadier General Mosta� zur Rahman, said the hospital had been us-ing di� erent kinds of lifesaving drugs. “The competitive tenders for supplying these drugs are � oated through the gov-ernment’s Central Medical Stores Depot (CMSD). Companies that bid the lowest tender prices are given the work order to supply the corresponding drugs.”

The letter reportedly asked the lab-oratory to test the potency and sterili-ty of the Ceftriaxone injection that the company had supplied.

Although the DMCH director ad-mitted to our correspondent that such samples were sent for testing, he re-fused to disclose any further details.

O� cials involved with the procure-ment of drugs at DMCH claimed that the company had been regularly ex-porting drugs and that it had a good reputation in the market.

The Dhaka Tribune has learnt that the company got the work order for supplying Ceftriaxone at Tk34.95 per vial to the DMCH in the 2012-13 � scal year. One such vial is generally sold at Tk120 in the market.

For the ongoing � scal that is 2013-14, the same company got the work order again by quoting Tk34 per vial, curtail-ing the price by Tk0.95.

The next lowest bidder reported-ly quoted Tk35.95. One other leading drug supplier, whose Ceftriaxone is sold at Tk180 in the market, had quot-ed Tk143.

There have been allegations that al-though the contract binds the company to supply the liquid in clear vials, it of-ten supplies the drug in low quality red containers to save cost.

However, some doctors, preferring to be unnamed, said companies could actually supply drugs at low wholesale prices because the DMCH procures huge amounts every year. They added that market prices of many of these drugs have been a lot higher because the makers have had to compensate for the amounts they would spend on marketing.

Besides, successfully carrying out a work order for the biggest healthcare facility in the country has been like a certi� cate for the company, with which it can bag international export work or-ders. That is why many companies have preferred to make the least of pro� ts in supplying drugs to the DMCH, the doc-tors said.

Seeking anonymity, a number of re-sponsible people working in the health sector, have told the Dhaka Tribune that all the medicine-making raw ma-terials available in the international market “are not of the same quality”.

They added that most of the drug-makers in Bangladesh generally import the materials from India and China. Depending on the longevity -- the expiry dates -- the prices of raw materials would also vary.

Also, they have said that the compa-ny, which had been assigned to supply Ceftriaxone with two years of shelf-life, might have bought the materials that would last exactly that long and there-fore cost a lot less. l

Tribunal allows three defence witnesses for Alimn Muktasree Chakma Sathi

The war crimes tribunal yesterday passed an order allowing three wit-nesses to testify in favour of Abdul Alim, the alleged chairman of Joypur-hat Peace Committee during the 1971 Liberation War.

The International Crimes Tribunal 2 of Justice Obaidul Hassan, Justice Md Mozibur Rahman Miah and Justice Md Shahinur Islam also asked defence counsel Ahsanul Haque to provide the names of witnesses to the prosecution.

The defence earlier submitted a list of 3,328 people as witnesses.

Prosecution placed 34 witnesses against Alim. The 19th witness was de-clared “hostile” as he did not mention anything related to the accused.

Ahsanul yesterday prayed to the tribunal that they needed to place “an adequate number” of witnesses to dis-proof the charges against Alim.

The tribunal then said disproving the charges was not the responsibility of the defence, and that it was a neg-ative assertion. “Rather the defence needs to establish their alibi.”

Arguing on the long list of witness-es, prosecutor Rana Das Gupta said it would only cause unreasonable delay in the trial procedure.

Alim who is enjoying conditional bail was in the dock.

Earlier in the day, Ahsanul cross examined Investigation O� cer ZM Altafur Rahman for the � fth day. The questioning remained incomplete as the tribunal adjourned the proceedings till today.

Alim is facing 17 charges of crimes against humanity he allegedly commit-ted in Joypurhat during the war. l

Prosecution to question Qaisar at his residence n Muktasree Chakma Sathi

The International Crimes Tribunal 2 yesterday granted a prosecution peti-tion to interrogate former Jatiya Party state minister Syed Mohammad Qaisar at his residence.

The tribunal also asked the prosecu-tion to submit a progress report on the investigation against the 73-year-old was crimes suspect on September 23.

Qaisar, presently enjoying bail due to his age, was in the dock.

Prosecutor Rana Das Gupta yester-day submitted a progress report on the investigation against Qaisar who was allegedly involved in crimes against humanity in Habiganj during the 1971 Liberation War.

On May 29, 2010, the War Crime Fact Finding Committee handed over a list of 19 top war criminals to the tribunal. Qaisar’s name was on the list.

A Convention Muslim League lead-er in 1971, Qaisar was also a local Peace Committee leader. He then formed the “Qaisar Bahini” force, which collab-orated with the Pakistani occupation army in committing crimes against hu-manity at Shayestaganj, Chunarughat and Madhabpur in Habiganj district and the Habiganj sadar area. l

KILLING OF INTELLECTUALS Witness quotes ‘driver of al-Badr abductors’ n Muktasree Chakma Sathi

A prosecution witness yesterday said the killings of several intellectuals were led by Chowdhury Mueen Uddin while Ashrafuzzaman Khan brush-� red them.

Fifteenth prosecution witness Omar Hayat submitted in the Interna-tional Crimes Tribunal 2 that he came to know these from one Mo� z, who might be the driver of a mud-covered microbus the al-Badr members had used to pick up the intellectuals on the eve of the liberation in 1971.

Omar is the brother-in-law of mar-tyred physician Golam Mortuza, who along with Dr Fazle Rabbee and Dr Alim Chowdhury used to run a secret hospi-tal for freedom � ghters during the war. “On January 4, 1972, we recovered the body of Golam Mortuza from a hole be-hind Mirpur Mazar along with several other decomposed bodies. Mo� z told the people who were looking for bod-ies of the missing victims about Mueen and Ashrafuzzaman’s involvement with the killings.”

“Mo� z also named Sirajul Haq Khan, Santosh Chandra Bhattachariya, Faizul

Mohi, Professor Anwar Pasha and Syed Rashidul Hasan who were brush � red by Ashrafuzzaman,” the 71-year-old re-tired assistant professor said.

“Mo� z also told us that Mueen was the mastermind behind these killings.”

Mueen and Ashrafuzzaman were in-dicted on July 15 jointly in 11 counts of crimes against humanity. The charges include killing of 18 intellectuals. Ac-cording to the prosecution, Mueen was al-Badr’s “operation-in-charge” while Ashrafuzzaman played the role of “chief executor.”

The witness said he heard from his sister Sayeeda Mortuza that his broth-er-in-law had been picked up on a mud-covered microbus on December 14. “Mo� z could be the driver of that microbus,” he said. “Golam Mortuza was blindfolded with the saree of his 12-year-old daughter when he was picked up by some al-Badr members.”

“Few days later, a police o� cer named Samad brought driver Ma� z to my sister’s house. At that time, they were living in a sta� quarter of Dha-ka University on Fuller Road. They informed us that some dead bodies were found behind the area of Mirpur

Mazar. Samad also told us to search for Golam [Mortuza] there.”

Omar also said, following this, he and his sister had gone to Mirpur Mazar on January 4, 1972 along with martyred intellectual Sirajul Haq’s son Enamul Haq Khan, an army o� cial of the Indian aligned forces, Samad and Mo� z.

“Mo� z showed us some holes that were � lled up after ditching the dead bodies. We dugout one of the holes and found a shoe of my brother-in-law. I could recognise it since Golam [Mor-tuza] used to wear that kind of ‘pump shoe.’ The � rst dead body we recovered from that hole was his. We found him blindfolded with his daughter’s saree.”

“Later I read news on Mueen and Ashrafuzzaman in di� erent newspa-pers. And I was pretty shocked when I came to know both of them were Dha-ka University students and Mueen was a direct student of martyred Mofazzal Haider Chowdhury.”

Later, defence counsels Abdus Shukkur Khan and Salma Hye cross ex-amined the witness. The tribunal has been set today for further procedure of the case. l

Indictment order against Mir Kashem set for August 29n Udisa Islam

The war crimes tribunal has set August 29 as the date for passing an order on whether Jamaat-e-Islami executive council member and a key � nancier of the party Mir Kashem Ali will have to face trial.

After the last day of arguments on charges yesterday, prosecutors Sultan Mahmud and Tapas Kanti Baul pleaded to the International Crimes Tribunal 1 to indict Mir Kashem on 14 counts of war crimes.

The prosecution said Mir Kashem was the general secretary of Islami Ch-hatra Sangha, the then student wing of Jamaat, and also the Chittagong district commander of al-Badr (a paramilitary group formed with the members of Ch-hatra Sangha which assisted the Paki-stani occupation army during the 1971 Liberation War).

The prosecution argued on the charges on July 25 while the defence � nished placing their arguments on August 18. The defence, however, sought another session after Septem-ber 6, when their senior counsel Abdur Razzaq would place his arguments be-

fore the tribunal.Tribunal Chairman ATM Fazle Kabir

set August 29 for passing the order on Mir Kashem’s indictment.

Earlier, on May 26, the tribunal took the formal charges against the Jamaat leader into cognisance and � xed June 27 for the indictment hearing. Follow-ing a plea seeking time, the hearing was deferred to July 18. The date was again deferred to August 7 and � nally to Au-gust 18.

According to the prosecution, Mir Kashem set up makeshift camps at dif-ferent locations in the port city where the pro-liberation supporters were brought and then tortured. Other al-legations against him include involve-ment in mass killings in the Asadnagar and Panchlaish areas of Chittagong.

Also treasurer of Jamaat, Mir Kash-em is involved in various businesses including Islami Bank, Ibn Sina and Diganta Media Corporation Ltd which owns the daily Naya Diganta and Di-ganta Television.

According to the government, the Jamaat leader paid a US lobbyist � rm $25m to ensure the trials were contro-versial. l

CONTEMPT OF WAR CRIMES TRIBUNAL

3 Jamaat leaders skip challenging verdictn Nazmus Sakib

Three top leaders of Jamaat-e-Islami, convicted for contempt of the Inter-national Crimes Tribunal have yet to challenge the verdict despite previous announcements to this e� ect.

The tribunal 2 on June 9 sentenced two absconding leaders – acting secre-tary general Ra� qul Islam Khan and ex-ecutive member Hamidur Rahman Azad MP – to three months’ jail and � ned them Tk3,000. Assistant Secretary Gen-eral of Dhaka city unit Selim Uddin, who surrendered before the tribunal, was di-rected to stay in the court room till the end of session and � ned Tk1,000.

Selim served the sentence on that day while the law enforcers failed to ar-rest the two fugitives even though they have been spotted at various activities organised by the Jamaat.

The three leaders are among the top � ve decision makers who led the party organise series of hartals and violent movements as well as helped the party overcome the tough time.

Following the verdict, Tajul Islam, the counsel for Jamaat leaders, said they would � le a writ petition with the High Court challenging the tribunal order.

However, yesterday he told the Dha-ka Tribune: “Though we had earlier decided to lodge a writ challenging the judgement, the decision is pending for the time being. We are analysing every aspect of the issue.”

He said even though Selim had served the sentence, “we will � le a writ on his behalf too so that he can be cleared of the guilt.”

There is no timeframe for � ling the writ petition.

On February 4, speaking at a rally in Motijheel on the eve of the tribunal’s

verdict in Jamaat leader Abdul Quader Molla’s case, Selim and Hamidur had warned the tribunal that the judges needed to think before giving out ver-dicts, “for they could lead the country into a civil war.”

At a press brie� ng the next day, Ra� qul spoke along the same lines crit-icising the tribunal’s procedure. Later, testifying before the tribunal, Selim said his remarks were political and ad-dressed to the government, and that he had no intention of hurting the tribunal’s image. “Although, if the tribunal � nds me guilty, I beg for mercy,” Selim added.

Eminent jurist Shahdin Malik said: “International Crimes (Tribunals) Act, 1973 (ICT) does not say whether an ap-peal can be lodged against a sentence of contempt of the tribunal. It is not an aberration as there are many laws in our country which do not have any provision for appeal.”

In such a condition, the aggrieved party may � le a writ petition with the High Court.

Terming the Jamaat leaders “crim-inal,” he said the Jamaat men had mounted propaganda to attain the sym-pathy of the common people on the ap-peal issue. “As people do not have much knowledge about legal procedures and judicial system, they are taking advan-tage of the situation,” said Shahdin.

Prosecutor Tureen Afroz told the Dhaka Tribune: “Though the Jamaat leaders have the option to � le a writ or beg pardon from the president under Article 49 of the constitution, they did not do so.”

She said the authorities concerned were supposed to make a serious at-tempt to capture the absconding Ja-maat leaders so that nobody would dare to obstruct the war crimes trial. l

A group of street traders earn a daily livelihood in front of the capital’s Bashundhara City Mall by selling goods to passengers in vehicles, awaiting for the Sonargaon tra� c signal to go green. The photo was taken yesterday MAHMUD HOSSAIN OPU

News4 DHAKA TRIBUNE Thursday, August 22, 2013

City High LowDhaka 30.5 25.3Chittagong 31.0 25.2Rajshahi 28.9 25.6Rangpur 28.8 25.4Khulna 29.0 25.4Barisal 31.2 25.0Sylhet 34.5 25.5Cox’s Bazar 31.5 24.3

PRAYER TIMESFajar 4:18am

Sunrise 5:35amZohr 12:01pm

Asr 4:35pmMagrib 6:26pm

Esha 7:45pmSource: IslamicFinder.org

WEATHER

Temperature unlikely to changen UNB

Light to moderate rain or thunder-showers accompanied by tempo-rary gusty or squally wind is likely to occur at many places over Dhaka, Khulna, Barisal, Chittagong, Rajshahi,Rangpur and Sylhet divisions until 6pm today.

Moderately heavy to heavy falls are also likely at places over the country, Met O� ce said. Day and night temper-ature may remain nearly unchanged over the country.

The sun sets in the capital at 6:26pm today and rises at 5:37am tomorrow.

Country’s highest temperature 34.5 degree Celsius was recorded yesterday at Sylhet and lowest 23.6 degrees at Ku-tubdia.

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

Open market sale starts today as rice prices riseCoarse rice price hiked by Tk4 per kg in a month putting low-income group people in troublen Abu Bakar Siddique

The government is introducing Open Market Sale (OMS) for rice from today due to the price hike of rice, especially the coarse varieties, in the last seven days, which is a second hike in two months.

“We are introducing OMS for coarse rice with the price of Tk24 per kg from tomorrow considering the su� ering of the low income group people,” said Ahmed Hossain Khan, director general of Food Division.

The OMS programme will run across the country that includes six divisional towns - Dhaka, Chittagong, Khulna, Ra-jshahi, Sylhet and Barisal, Comilla City Corporation and most labour intensive areas - Dhaka, Joydevpur, Narayonganj and Norshingdi.

Each family will be allowed to buy � ve kilograms of rice per day and the programme will continue until rice be-comes more a� ordable to low income

groups, he added.Yesterday, the price of coarse rice

in wholesale markets was Tk34.70 per kg while the price in retail markets was Tk36, according to the Department of Agriculture Marketing.

During the beginning of July, the wholesale price of coarse rice in Dhaka City was Tk30.60 per kg and the retail price was Tk32.50. However, in the retail markets of Dhaka the price of coarse rice has been at Tk37 which is Tk9 more than the previous year’s price in the same period.

Hike in the prices of rice, especially for the coarse varieties, has had nega-tive impacts on the low income people in the country.

“The situation goes beyond the abil-ity of poor people like me,” said Ahad Ali, a rickshaw puller, living in the city’s Bashabo area.

“A rise in the price of rice by Tk4-5 in a week is a burden for me,” he added.

Rice prices have been gradually in-creasing this year since the very begin-ning of the Boro harvest, said Nirod Ba-ran Saha, president of the Rice Dealers Association in Naogaon.

The price of coarse rice at mill gates is now Tk31.20 per kg which was Tk24.65 last year, he added.

Prices of all varieties, like medium � ne and super � ne rice, have also been rising, he said.

Economist Dr Quazi Shahabuddin of Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies said it was unusual that the price of rice had risen by Tk9 per kg.

“A shortfall in Boro production and stocking up by big farmers, millers and traders, could be the causes of such price hikes,” he said adding that the gov-ernment should have intervened at an earlier stage to keep the price in check.

However he praised the government in introducing the OMS to try and reduce the woes of the lower income people. l

Tourists at Cox’s Bazar sea beach in need of better safety measuresn Our Correspondent, Cox’s Bazar

The rise in the number of drowning incidents at one of the country’s ma-jor tourist hotspot, the Cox’s Bazar sea beach, have raised many questions re-garding the safety and the measures taken by the authorities concerned.

With many tourists being swept away by the sea’s rattling tides, the beach continues to claim lives of visi-tors who � ock in hundreds to enjoy the seashore beauty each year.

According to Mostafa Kamal, the in-charge of Yasir Life Guard – a private agency that conducts rescue operations

at the beach, divers alone have recovered 135 dead bodies and have saved 1,125 lives from drowning in the past 17 years.

Yasir Life Guard, an initiative of Duncan Company, was launched in 1996 in memory of Minhaj Uddin Ya-sir who met his tragic end while swim-ming at the beach. The agency has been rescuing people from the turbulent sea water ever since.

Yasir, the son of Duncan’s senior ex-ecutive Shahabuddin, fell into a pool of quicksand while taking a bath along with his family members back in 1985.

However, the life guard agency is now beset with a multitude of problems

mainly due to lack of necessary govern-ment support, according to Mostafa.

He said: “Two years back, the agen-cy had 15 employees who had been fondly called by the locals as ‘Laal Ba-hini’ for their unwavering courage and act of bravery. But today, the members of ‘Laal Bahini’ had dropped from 15 to � ve as the employees quit their jobs be-cause of insu� cient salaries.”

“Given the current scenario, it is getting di� cult for the divers to keep a vigilant eye over the beach with only the help of a single speedboat, whose engine remains dysfunctional most of the time,” he added.

Mostofa said currently, members of Yasir Life Guard were continuing their life-saving missions from a small structure located at the northern side of Laboni Point and controlled a � ve-kilometre stretch of the coastline from Diabetic Point to Kolatoli Sea-crown. Following their footsteps, two more agencies – Robi Life Guard and Green World – had also joined the mission of saving lives and were now working day and night to ensure the safety and secu-rity of the tourists, the in-charge added.

Mostafa emphasised that the gov-ernment should start taking initiatives to set up similar life guard facilities at

other points of the beach, so that many more lives could be saved. He said alongside the familiar sea points, many tourists had reportedly been washed ashore at Saint Martin, Shah Parir Dwip and Teknaaf Bahar Chora.

Talking to the Dhaka Tribune, Cox’s Bazar Deputy Commissioner Md Ruhul Amin, also president of Cox’s Bazar Beach Management Committee, said they had thought of setting up a sea-netting system. “We would at least be able to bring Laboni Point under the purview of sea-netting given that the government provides us with neces-sary allocation,” he added. l

Rony challenges police report in his casen Md Sanaul Islam Tipu

Ruling party lawmaker Golam Maula Rony yesterday submitted a no-con� -dence petition against the � nal report pressed by Shahbagh police in the attempt-to-murder case he had � led against Independent TV owner and three journalists.

The police report said Rony made false allegations in the case.

Dhaka Metropolitan Magistrate Md Asaduzzaman Nur � xed September 21 to pass an order on the plea, also called na-raji petition, and asked police to sub-mit investigation report the same day.

Kabir Hossain, lawyer for the ac-cused MP, submitted the petition. Rony also took part in the hearing and mentioned that before submitting the report, the police neither informed him nor took his deposition in the case.

According to law, police will send notice to the plainti� before submis-sion of the � nal report.

Rony’s counsel yesterday also � led a petition to allow special vehicle for carrying his client to the court from Kashimpur jail. The court, however, did not give any order. On Tuesday, Rony � led a bail petition with the High Court. Earlier, his bail was rejected two times at the magistrate’s court.

Rony � led the case on July 20 with Shahbagh police station accusing the four of attacking and threatening him with death and trying to extort money from him. He also claimed that the ac-cused threatened to abduct him if he had not paid the demanded money.

He lodged the case hours after as-saulting two journalists of the private television channel for entering his of-

� ce in the capital. On July 30, Sub-Inspector Abu Zafar,

also investigation o� cer of the case, submitted the police report to the Chief Metropolitan Magistrate’s Court. The IO also appealed to the court to take action against Rony for � ling the “false” case under Section 211 of the Penal Code.

Police said they did not � nd any evi-dence to support the allegations Rony made about the two journalists, whom he beat up at his o� ce,of attacking him and threatened to kill.

On July 21, Younus Ali, assistant manager at Independent Television, � led an “attempt-to-murder, vandal-ism and assault” case with Shahbagh police station accusing Rony and 20 to 25 unnamed people. The next day, he � led a general diary with the same police station alleging that Rony and his people had threatened him and de-manded that he withdrew the case.

Metropolitan Magistrate Shariar Mahmud Adnan on July 24 cancelling his bail issued an arrest warrant against Rony in connection with the attempt-to-murder case. The MP was arrested the same day from the city’s Badda area. l

Traders running businesses on the capital’s Nawabpur Road often face di� culty in transporting their goods as sewerage waters continuously � ood the streets. The photo wastaken yesterday MAHMUD HOSSAIN OPU

Four witnesses testify in Bishwajit murder casen Md Sanaul Islam Tipu

A “seizure list” witness in Bishwajit Das murder case identi� ed a killer at a Dhaka court yesterday.

Witness Md Yousuf Bepari, a line secretary of transport company Baha-dur Shah Paribahan, identi� ed Mo-hammad Ra� qul Islam alias Shakil as one of the killers who hacked Bishwajit on December 9 last year in Old Dhaka.

Yousuf gave his deposition before ABM Nizamul Haque, judge of the Speedy Trial Tribunal 4. He said he had witnessed the law enforcers recovering the machete, which Shakil used to hit Bishwajit, from a dustbin near his of-� ce.

Abdur Razzak, another line secretary of the transport company, in his de-position said police had recovered the machete following information given by Shakil.

The investigation o� cer produced the machete at the court. Law enforc-ers prepared seizure list that contains details of materials recovered in con-nection with a crime.

Eight detained accused out of 21 were produced before the court. They all are activists of Bangladesh Chha-tra League, the student body of ruling Awami League.

The tribunal yesterday also recorded the deposition of two other prosecu-tion witnesses, cleaner Parbati Haw-lader and tea stall owner Md Shahid.

Later, the judge set August 25 for recording deposition of other prosecu-tion witnesses.

The court has so far recorded the tes-timonies of 13 prosecution witnesses.

In her deposition, Parbati said she had seen blood on the � oor of the In-tensive Dental Care where Bishwajit hid to save life and was hacked.

Md Saiful, who worked at the insti-tution near Bahadur Shah Park, told her that some men hacked a young man inside the chamber. She then cleaned the � oor with water.

Parbati also said she did not men-tion the name of the accused in her de-position because she was not a direct witness and that she had watched the incident on television.

Following the depositions, only Shakil’s lawyer cross examined the wit-nesses.

The counsels of the other accused declined to question the witnesses.

Bishwajit Das, a 24-year-old tailor, died at Sir Salimullah Hospital after he was hacked near Bahadur Shah Park during the opposition’s countrywide road-blockade programme on Decem-ber 9 last year. l

Schoolboy killed in Gazipurn Our Correspondent, Gazipur

A schoolboy was killed allegedly by one of his classmates at Sreepur upazila, Gazipur yesterday.

The deceased was Sumon Mia, 14, a class X student at Trimohini Bidi High School.

According to locals, the killing oc-curred over a longstanding dispute about a love a� air. The incident took place at the victim’s school ground around 1pm. After the incident, locals

began to beat Shagor, the prime sus-pect in the killing, after the incident, said witnesses.

Sreepur UNO Aziz Haider Bhuiyan along with some police o� cials were also attacked by the locals as they tried to rescue Shagor. However, the police later arrested him.

“He has confessed to his crime and informed us that there were several others who had been with him during the incident,” said Sreepur police sta-tion OC Amir. l

Parbati, in her deposition, said she had seen blood on the � oor of the Intensive Dental Care where Bishwajit hid to save life and was hacked

Police interfere the observance of a human chain programme in front of the National Press Club yesterday by 122 overseas jobseekers, who lost their passports and work permits at the BMET o� ce on August 18 SYED ZAKIR HOSSAIN

BEATING JOURNALIST

10 Jamaat-Shibir activists held

n Tribune Desk

Police arrested 10 Jamaat-Shibir activ-ists for beating a local journalist leaving him seriously wounded in his village home in Kolaroa upazila of Satkhira.

The victim was Abdur Rahman, the upazila correspondent of the daily Sang-bad, a Dhaka-based national Bangla daily.

Rahman came under attack be-cause he covering a story in which he wrote that Jamaat-Shibir activists had snatched a detained Jamaat leader, Al-taf Hossain, from police custody at the Saraskathi police camp on Sunday, ac-cording to a UNB report.

On Tuesday afternoon, a group of activists of Jamaat-e-Islami and its stu-dent wing Islami Chhatra Shibir attacked Rahman and beat him with iron rods on Tuesday.

They also vandalised his house and terrorised local people by blasting sev-eral crude bombs. Police rescued Rah-man and was later admitted to Kolaroa Upazila Health Complex.

Police later arrested 10 Jamaat-Shibir activists from various areas on Tuesday night. Alamgir Mollah, Abdul Goni, Rabeya, Insan, Tulu and Gazi were among the arrestees.

On August 18, police detained a union-level Jamaat leader, Altaf Hos-sain. Later, Jamaat-Shibir men freed him from police custody after launching an attack on the Saraskathi police camp. l

BAD BUSINESS

Special 5DHAKA TRIBUNE Thursday, August 22, 2013

n Tania Rashid

CONTINUED FROM YESTERDAY

On Jasmeen’s second visit to the Elizabeth Deten-tion Center she asked an immigration o� cer if chil-dren were allowed. “He

said yes, if they were accompanied by a guardian,” Jasmeen said. From then on, she began taking the kids to visit their father on her one day o� from her job at The Marriott Marquis Hotel where she works as a housekeeper.

There were indignities big and small. The security scans, the time limits. On Father’s Day, an o� cer stopped both daughters who made special cards for their father in the detention facility. Sanjana, the youngest daughter recalled sadly: “The o� cer said we couldn’t give him the card, because we couldn’t take anything inside.”

Meanwhile, after three months, Gell had made no progress. Though she had submitted two motions to the immigration judge to reopen Hussain’s � le, both motions had been denied.

Along with the motions, Gell submitted references from the community but chose not to submit documents on changed country conditions in Bangladesh and expert opinion, which Sabiha had speci� cally requested. Sabiha gave up on Gell after that. Hussain’s status remained in limbo.

Hussain says he missed his family terribly, but he was not mistreated during his time in detention. In the morning he prayed faj’r (Islamic morning prayer). There was no sunshine or fresh air inside, but during the day, he was allowed to spend three hours in a wire-fenced outdoor courtyard exposed to sunlight and air. Some of the inmates played sports. Hussain used that time to walk. “I was bored mostly,” he said. But everyday, the fear of deportation was real.

Hussain made frequent trips to the health services for high blood pressure, fever and headaches. He also su� ered a severe toothache and was taken to the clinic to get it removed. “Every time the o� cials took me in, my cell mates thought I was being deported, I’d always return though,”

he chuckled. When Hussain wasn’t praying, or

taking walks outside he spent the long days sitting in one place with prayer beads in hand. He recited Islamic dua’s (invocations) hundreds of times a day. The nights were the worst. The mental agony of not being with his family kept him awake.

But on June 17, 2011, three months into Hussain’s detention, John Morton, the director of ICE, released a memorandum saying the agency planned to review 300,000 deportation cases under “prosecutorial discretion,” which meant ICE would focus on cases that were deemed “most serious.”

The memo also stated that prosecutors would hold back on deporting individuals who did not pose a national security threat to society, who had close family ties to US citizens, and who had no criminal history. Hussain matched all three

categories within the memo. The only immigration laws that he had violated were staying beyond the expiration of his visa and working illegally in Queens.

Then, a month later in July 2011, Sabiha was advised by her relatives to see Kerry Bretz, a former INS trial attorney who applied for “deferred action” on Hussain’s case. A deferred action is a form of “prosecutorial discretion,” and it’s one way an immigrant in danger of deportation can halt the process. If approved, the plainti� can remain temporarily in the US. However, a compelling case has to be presented.

Prosecutorial discretion has been a developing area of immigration law since the release of the June 17, 2011 memo on the planned review of the 300,000 deportation cases. Today, the term has been applied broadly to a wide-ranging set of cases at every phase of immigration enforcement in the United States.

According to Martindale Hubbell, a respected source for biographical information on the legal community, Bretz is Av-Rated, which is the highest review rating that attorneys can attain. Sabiha said the three months she received help from Bretz produced very little hope on her husband’s release.

Bretz sent a letter to the Field O� ce

Director at the Elizabeth Detention Center showing Hussain’s community ties, clean criminal history, and dependent children who were citizens of the US. He waited three months, but received no answer on the appeal.

Sabiha was fed up. “Even the poor results cost money,” Sabiha said. She had received help from her family to pay Bretz a total of $6,500 for his services. Though Bretz’s e� orts in applying for prosecutorial discretion provided little results at the time, it was an avenue that worked to Hussain’s advantage later on.

By now, Hussain was in his 8th month of detention and Sabiha had gone through thousands of dollars in legal fees. Her daughters had been held back from school for mental and health problems, and she was in the depths of depression. In November 2011 Sabiha turned to a community leader in Jackson Heights for help.

Mohammad Rashid, a Bangladeshi-American, had a reputation as a man who could make things move. “Nothing was happening. None of the lawyers brought any results. My husband was still detained,” Sabiha said. “Rashid arrived like an angel into our lives.” Rashid immediately contacted District 26 Councilman Jimmy Van Bramer, and New York Senator Kristen Gillibrand.

Both Van Bramer and Gillibrand along with other community activists agreed to write letters to immigration o� cials to release Hussain on humanitarian grounds. According to Alison Siskin, a specialist in immigration policy for the Congressional Research Service, release under humanitarian grounds (also known as parole) can be applied to aliens with serious medical conditions, pregnant women, juvenile aliens, and “aliens whose continued detention is not in the public interest.”

Rashid also introduced Sabiha to Naresh Gehi, yet another immigration attorney in Jackson Heights. By now it seemed that Hussain’s deportation was all but inevitable. But instead of asking for money, Gehi sprang into action. On November 25, 2011, he � led a motion with the BIA to reopen Hussain’s case. He says he didn’t care whether the motion was denied, but he knew that a judge could release Hussain while the motion was pending.

A week later, Gehi sent a letter to the federal courts. “I said it is a gross injustice that we are keeping a person in detention for more than six months. He referenced the Supreme Court case, Zadvydas v Davis, which concluded that the government needed to have a clear reason for detaining an immigrant for more than six months. He also � led a writ

of habeus corpus petition, to the Attorney General.

Then Rashid and Gehi took the case public. They organised a press conference on December 4, on the second � oor of Kabab King, a South Asian restaurant in Jackson Heights, to appeal for Hussain’s immediate release.

Sabiha, and her two daughters Sabreena and Sanjaana sat silently on handcrafted wooden chairs from Pakistan, as Rashid called in reporters from the Queens Tribune, the NY Daily News, NY 1 News, and other South Asian outlets to ask questions about their case. Behind them were bright red curtains with three posters on top that read in all caps: “I AM A US CITIZEN AND I LOVE MY DAD.”

For the � rst time Sanjana and Sabreena were able to express their points of view to a wider audience. It was an uncomfortable experience for the girls, but an a� rming one. “Before, it was just my family trying to � gure things out. But now our voices were heard for the � rst time to people who didn’t even know us,” Sabreena said.

On December 7, Gehi sent a 246 application for the stay of removal to BIA, another form of prosecutorial discretion. A stay of removal is an alternative way to postpone a removal. If the “stay” were approved, Hussain would be granted a six-month stay in the US.

“I had discussions with the DHS asking them to consider the hardship on US children, who are desperately suffering,” Gehi said. “The officers said they understood the issue of children,” he said. Gehi took the officers’ notice as a good sign. The culmination of media attention, and the involvement of elected officials worked to Gehi’s benefit with the case.

Two weeks later, on December 22, Gehi received a phone call at his of-� ce from the courts that Hussain’s temporary “stay” had been approved. He called Sabiha. It was 5pm and she was having dinner with her daughters and Jasmeen. Gehi told her that her husband was to be released in just a few hours.

“I couldn’t believe it, it felt like a dream,” Sabiha remembered. At 6pm, inside the Elizabeth Detention Center, Taimur received the same information

but from an immigration o� cer. Hussain said he fell to the � oor in tears. “The other cellmates cried with me,” he said.

After arriving at the detention center, Sabiha and her two daughters ran into confusion. “We thought he was going to be released at his detention center, but we had to go to a jail next door. The o� cers directed us to a hallway.” There, in a dark room stood a familiar silhouette.

His daughters instantly recognised him. They ran up to him, hugged, and cried. For Hussain, being released felt like being born again. “I felt like I was in this world for the � rst time,” he said.

Hussain was released in time for the New Year but there were still fees to pay. The family owed Gehi a $4,000 retainer fee just a week after his discharge. “Rashid, like an angel helped me pay the mandatory fees to Gehi,” Sabiha said.

Rashid contacted merchants and mosques in Jackson Heights, requesting donations. He even asked his children to take money out of their savings. He managed to collect enough to pay the $4,000 retainer fee, but the Hussains still owe an additional $6,000 to Gehi.

Hussain said he was stunned by the amount of money his family spent on his case. “This money that went into my release could have been used on my daughter’s education,” he recalled. “Instead we are in debt. We owe all this money to family, friends, and lawyers,” he said.

With the help of Gehi, Hussain applied for and received noti� cation of a six-month work authorisation status. Until he receives this o� cial permit, he’s working at the Taj Mahal restaurant o� the books. “The processing takes time,” Hussain said.

Hussain was advised by Gehi to report back to ICE on June 5, 2012, to request another temporary extension of stay, which continues the cycle of uncertainty in the place he calls home. For his family, it just extends the anxiety.

“Sometimes when I pass by my dad’s work,” said his middle daughter Sabreena, “I go in. I just never know when they’ll take him again.” l

Tania Rashid is a multimedia journalist.

This is the concluding part of a 3-part series on Taimur Hussain, an undocumented Bangladeshi immigrant to the US, and his struggle to change his immigration status. His is a case in point depicting the hardship of many other undocumented immigrants who have been held in detention in the past decade

No way out

AFP

In July 2011, Sabiha was advised by her relatives to see Kerry Bretz, a former INS trial attorney who applied for ‘deferred action’ on Hussain’s case. A deferred action is a form of ‘prosecutorial discretion,’ and it’s one way an immigrant in danger of deportation can halt the process

Hussain said he was stunned by the amount of money his family spent on his case. ‘This money that went into my release could have been used on my daughter’s education,’ he recalled. ‘Instead we are in debt. We owe all this money to family, friends, and lawyers’

6 NationDHAKA TRIBUNE Thursday, August 22, 2013

Green body seeks Rampal Power Plant EIA reportPoba sent a letter to DoE director general requesting it to provide the report, which got the DoE approval recentlyn Tribune Desk

Poribesh Bachao Andolon (Poba), an environmental organisation, has sent a letter to the Department of Environment (DoE), seeking its Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) report and other documents of the proposed Rampal Power Plant in Bagerhat.

Poba sent a letter to the DoE direc-tor general on Tuesday requesting it to provide the Rampal Power Plant EIA report, which got the DoE approval re-cently.

The copy of the letter was also sent to the Environment and Forests sec-retary, Power secretary and the Pow-er Development Board chairman,Poba coordinator Atique Morshed told UNB.

The EIA is an assessment of the pos-sible positive or negative impacts that a proposed project may have on the en-vironment, consisting of the environ-mental, social and economic aspects, reports UNB.

The DoE, earlier this month, ap-proved its environment clearance to set up the proposed 1,320-megawatt power plant near the Sundarbans.

But, environmental experts warned that if the government implements the proposed power project near the Sundarbans, it will destroy the ecosystem, biodiversity and wildlife of the world’s largest mangrove forest.

They said if the power plant isset up at the proposed location, Bang-ladesh, as a signatory country, will violate the conditions of the Ramsar Convention.

Bangladesh signed the Ramsar Con-vention in 1972 aimed at conservingthe world’s natural forests andwetlands.

Bangladesh and India in 2009signed a deal to set up two power plants in Shapmari and Katakhali,nine kilometres away from the Sunda-rbans.

A total of 1,834 acres of landhas already been acquired to set upthe power plants. The project isexpected to be inaugurated next month.

Aiming to put pressure on the gov-ernment to cancel the power project, the National Committee to Protect Oil, Gas, Mineral Resources, Power and Ports has already announced a long-march from Dhaka for September 24, which is expected to reach Rampal on September 28. l

Gambling in the name of indoor games unabated in Bogran Tribune Report

With the permission of the high court, indoor games were organised for the reception ceremony of the mothers of freedom � ghters and development of Muktijoddha Sangsad in Bogra. Later on those games became the cause of degradation of law and order in the dis-trict, according to law enforcers.

Police sent a report to the high of-� cials informing the games as the root of degradation of law and order situa-tion. Two people were injured on Mon-day evening after the sound of a blast scared players and audience of bawdy dance at Dhunat.

Sahjahan Pasha, OC of Dhunat police station, said, “The incident has been

informed to the high o� cials of police after � ling a general diary (GD). Bawdy dance programme and gambling at the adjacent area of Jorashimul School, Dhanut were stopped on Wednesday after informing the organisers.”

SP of Bogra police Mozammel Haque said the accused of the double-murder case and robbing at Jewlig Pharma, which occurred a few days back at Sutrapur area took place to collect the money for gambling.

Moreover, the accused of hijacking Tk1.8m in Rahmania town also ad-mitted the same reason behind their crime.

OC of Bogra sadar police station Syed Sahid Alam said Bogra district Jubo League President Monjurul Alam

Mohon was supervising the gambling and bawdy dance of Dattbari area. It was organised to assist the freedom � ghters. Again, Bogra Motor Work-ers Union General Secretary Samsud-din Sheikh Helal supervised the same activities at Nishindara Karbala area which was initiated to assist the motor workers.

Ilias Uddin Ahmed, indoor games organiser at Dattbari area of Bogra and deputy commander of Bogra district unit of Muktijoddha Sangsad, said the indoor games were organised with the permission of the high court. It was or-ganised in order to conduct the recep-tion ceremony of the mothers of free-dom � ghters and for the development of the organisation. l

Prisoner dies in Comilla A prisoner of the district central jail died at Comilla Medical College Hospital on Tues-day. The deceased was Baharul Alam, 53, from Bashkhari village in Raipura upazila, Narsingdi. Nasir Ahmed, jailer of Comilla Central Jail, said Baharul fell unconscious due to respiratory problem in the after-noon and he was given � rst aid at the jail hospital. As his condition deteriorated, he was rushed to Comilla Medical College Hospital where duty doctors declared him dead. Baharul was arrested on June 23 in a drugs case � led with Debidwar police station. – UNB

Student kills herself in SylhetA student of Sylhet Agricultural Training Institute allegedly killed herself at her dormitory on Tuesday. The deceased was Aklima Akter, 19, from Bokterpur village in the Duarbazar upazila of Sunamganj. Police said Aklima, a third year student of Agriculture Diploma Course of the institu-tion, along with three of her classmates resided at Begum Rokeya Hall. Her roommates were in the academic building

giving an examination in the morning, returning at noon they found the door to their room locked. When they spotted Aklima’s body hanging from the ceiling fan through the window they called the police. Police found a suicide note written by Aklima in the room, she wrote: ‘None is responsible for my death’. Police later recovered Aklima’s body and sent it to Sylhet Osmani Medical College Hospital morgue for autopsy. – UNB

2 killed in Comilla road crashTwo people were killed in a road accident at Fakir Bazar in Chauddagram upazila, Comilla yesterday. The deceased were Su-fal, 35, from Sariakandi upazila, Bogra, and Monwar Hossain, 23, from Khetlal upazila, Joypurhat. Police said the Chittagong-bound truck carrying rice from Bogra overturned near the Dhaka-Chittagong Highway after colliding head on with a covered van coming from the opposite direction around 6am, leaving the two passengers dead on the spot. Upon being informed police recovered the bodies and seized the two vehicles. – UNB

Mawa-Kawrakandi ferry services resumes n UNB

Ferry services on the Mawa-Kawrakan-di route in Munshiganj resumed yes-terday after 12 hours of disruption due to inclement weather prevailing in the Padma River.

Sirajul Islam, manager of Bangla-desh Inland Water Transport Author-ity’s (BIWTA) Mawa o� ces, said 12 of the 16 ferries of the Mawa-Kawrakandi

dock had been kept out of service since 7pm, Tuesday due to high waves and strong winds along the Padma, but the services were continued partly by only four big ferries.

Due to the disruption, about 500 vehi-cles got stuck on both sides of the dock.

After the weather improved, ferry services were resumed in full swing at 7am, yesterday resulting in the tra� c jam starting to ease up, the manager added. l

Police detain six for killing childn Our correspondent, Netrakona

Police recovered the body of a child after two days of his abduction and detained six suspected abductors from Chhoto Gopalpur village in Durgapur upazila, Netrakona yesterday.

The deceased was a six year-old boy named Imon Ahmed.

The detainees were Saidur, Al-Amin, Rashid, Ra� qul, Samsuddin and Khale-da Begum from the village of Chak-lengura in Durgapur. Alamgir Hossain, o� cer-in-charge of Durgapur police station, said Durgapur police conduct-ed a drive and recovered Imon’s body on a tip o� , which also led to the sus-pects being detained.l

Body to probe attack on CU o� cialn FM Mizanur Rahaman,

Chittagong

Chittagong University authorities yester-day formed a three-member probe com-mittee to investigate the recent attack on an o� cial on the campus by some Bang-ladesh Chhatra League activists.

Prof Khan Tawhid Osman, acting proctor of CU, said to investigate the re-cent attack on the o� cial, authorities formed the committee headed by Prof Sultan Ahmed. The other members of the committee were SM Akbar Hossain, dep-uty registrar (academic) and Anwar Hos-sain, assistant proctor of the university.

Assistant Proctor Anwar said o� c-er’s association of CU submitted a writ-ten complaint to the authorities against the assaulters.

Secretary of the o� cer’s association Rashidul Hayder Javed said getting as-surance from Vice-Chencellor Prof An-warul, the association called o� their day long protest programme which was scheduled to be held today. l

Five killed in separate incidents n Tribune report

At least � ve people were killed in sepa-rate incidents in Jhenaidah, Bhola, Gazipur and Magura.

Our Jhenaidah correspondent adds: police recovered the body of a woman from a crop � eld at Rupdah village un-der Jhenaidah sadar upazila yesterday morning.

The deceased was identi� ed as Jos-na Khatun, 30, wife of Alamgir Mandal of the village.

The police suspected that her hus-band might have killed her sometimes at Tuesday night and � ed away.

In Bhola, a man was hacked to death allegedly by his cousin over a land dis-pute at Char Si� i village under Sadar

upazila yesterday.Police said there had been a long-

standing dispute between Jasim and his cousin Hasan Meer over ownership of a piece of land.

At one stage of quarrel, Hasan chopped Jasim with sharp weapon in-discriminately, leaving him dead on the spot, reports UNB.

Beside, police yesterday recovered the body of a housewife from Char To-fazzal village in Charfashion upazila, Bhola. The deceased was Shahinur, 19, a resident of the village.

Police said Shaniur’s neighbours had spotted Shaninur’s body near the toilet in her husband’s house in the morning.

Police later sent the body to the

morgue of the local hospital for au-topsy.

Meanwhile, a madrasa student died after falling down from the rooftop of a four-storey building at Duttapar under Tongi in Gazipur on Tuesday evening.

The deceased Asif Mahmud Sayem, 12, was a class-VI student of a local ma-drasah.

Meanwhile, a schoolboy died from electrocution at Arpara village at Sreepur upazila in Magura on Tuesday.

The victim Narayan Biswas, 15, was a student of class-X of Arpara High School. Police said Narayan su� ered injuries when came in touch with a snapped electric wire on his way home in the afternoon. He died at Magura Sa-dar Hospital. l

Low-lying areas in Kolapara are inundated due to tidal surge. The photo was taken yesterday FOCUS BANGLA

People of Narayanganj forms a human chain yesterday, demanding exemplary punishment for the killers of Notordem College student Aloy FOCUS BANGLA

NEWS IN BRIEF

Environmental experts warned that if the government implements the proposed power project near the Sundarbans, it will destroy the ecosystem, biodiversity and wildlife of the world’s largest mangrove forest

DoE to sue 71 people for hill-cutting in Cox’s Bazar n Our Correspondent, Cox’s Bazar

The Department of Environment(DoE) has decided to � le cases against 71 people for illegal cutting of hills in Cox’s Bazar town, an o� cial said yes-terday.

The decision to lodge cases against the 71 suspects was taken after a hear-ing on Tuesday in the presence of Zafar Alam, director of DoE for Chittagong division, and o� cials of the forest de-partment and local administration.

Sardar Shariful Islam, deputy direc-tor of DoE’s Cox’s Bazar o� ce, told the hearing that he found evidence of hill-cutting after visiting several areas of the coastal town.

Hill-cutting was rampant at Light House Para, Mohajer Para, Kalatoli,

Pahartali, Ghonar Para, Adarsh Gram, Boidooghona and the City College ar-eas of the town, he said.

At least 71 people have been listed for their alleged involvement in the en-vironmentally damaging illegal activ-ity. A report has been sent to the DoE’s divisional director, Sardar said.

A powerful syndicate reportedly started cutting hills a few days ago in the name of building a stadium in Cox’s Bazar. The syndicate also brought an excavator to cut away at the hillsides.

Media coverage of the incident drew the attention of the authorities. A case was � led to stop hill-cutting using the excavator in the City College area. Later, the environment department started a drive to inspect hill-cutting in other areas of the town. l

Metro 7DHAKA TRIBUNE Thursday, August 22, 2013

Food market running on Kalabagan footpathn Abu Hayat Mahmud

A group of people with the blessing of ruling party leaders, have set up a gro-cery market in front of the Green Road Government Sta� Quarter in the Kala-bagan area of the capital, taking up a walkway and a portion of Mirpur road, and hindering pedestrian movement.

Furthermore, another group of encroachers set up fruit stalls selling chemical-free mangos just opposite of the site at Kolabagan Cricket Academy.

Local people said the encroachers- with the help of some leaders of organ-isations associated with the ruling par-ty- have set up the makeshift shops on the walkway.

Shahidul Islam, a resident of Kala-bagan, said: “At � rst the kitchen mar-ket set up on the sta� quarter grounds and recently it shifted to the walkway after facing resistance from the quarter authority.”

“Because of the kitchen market we cannot walk smoothly- additionally, rubbish from kitchen goods also makes the walkway and the main road dirty and muddy,” he said.

Another resident of Dhanmondi area, Afroja Parvin, said: “We have to block our noses with clothes while crossing the point due to the bad odour.”

She added that authorities should take measures to free the footpath.

Meanwhile, shop owners at the mar-ket have acknowledged that they had established the shops in the area as leaders of the ruling party’s associate organisations gave them verbal permis-sion to do so. But, they declined to give any names.

A makeshift shop owner, preferring to remain anonymous, said: “Each shop owner has to pay Tk40 to Tk50 per day.”

When the correspondent wanted to know the name of the toll collector, the shop owner said he was an activist of the ruling party.

During a visit to the spot, this corre-spondent found that a waste disposal container from the City Corporation has been stationed on the road, further disrupting the movement of vehicles.

Dhaka South City Corporation (DSCC) o� cials said they were not aware of such an encroachment.

DSCC Chief Estate O� cer Khalid Ahmed told the Dhaka Tribune: “We have not yet been informed about alle-gations of encroachments in the area.”

“We will inspect the area. If we � nd an encroachment, we will take steps to free the space from the encroach-ment,” he said. l

TK3BN SCAM BY ICL GROUP

ACC ready to serve notices to ICL chairman, directors for interrogationn Syed Samiul Basher Anik

The Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) has taken all necessary prepara-tions to serve notices to the chairman of Ideal Cooperative Society Limited (ICSL) and its nine directors for their al-leged involvement in laundering Tk3bn from at least 70,000 people, an ACC of-� cial told the Dhaka Tribune yesterday.

“We have already reviewed some of the documents submitted by its man-aging director and prepared notices for ICL group high-ups. The notices will be served, asking them to appear before the commission for interrogation at the � rst week of September,” the o� cial said.

He said the notices will be served to the Chairman M Ra� qul Alam, and di-rectors M Khairul Islam, Kazi Shamsun

Nahar Mina, Ashraful Islam, Sheikh Ahmed, SM Morshed Jewel, M Saifuz-zaman, M Anisur Rahman, M Abul Hashem, and ATM Khorshed Alam.

Earlier, on June 4, a commission team interrogated ICL Managing Direc-tor HNM Sha� qur Rahman, where he admitted that there is no money at any of the bank accounts but the company owns some land.

Before the interrogation, Sha� qur was asked to bring a list of its cooper-ative’s clients, address of its Comilla o� ce, details of its bank accounts and audit reports of the company from 2001 to 2012.

The corruption busting agency also asked ICL MD to submit all tax related documents, and documents related to bank accounts belonging to his wife,

Quazi Shamsun Nahar Mina, who is also one of the directors of the group, as well as his son and two daughters.

It has been alleged that ICSL, a sister concern of the ICL Group had o� ered high interests to its depositors and swindled around Tk3bn, in violation of the cooperative’s rule.

Following complaints by the ICSL depositors about non-payments, De-partment of Cooperatives initiated an inquiry, where they suspected that senior o� cials of ICSL could have mis-appropriated around Tk3bn from its 70,000 clients.

When the cooperative department started its inquiry in February 25, the society stopped the operations of all its 33 branches in Dhaka, Narshingdi and Comilla. l

Jubo League leader among two killed in capital n Kailash Sarkar

Two persons, including a local leader of Jubo League, were hacked to death in separate incidents in the capital on Wednesday.

The Jubo League leader was iden-ti� ed as Mokhter Hossain, 30. Police said Mokhter was killed in an ambush by a gang of unidenti� ed criminals at around 9:30am, at the rear of Abul Ho-tel in Malibagh.

He was passing through the area when the attackers swooped on him, leaving him with multiple stab wounds. Doctors at the Dhaka Medical Col-lege Hospital (DMCH) declared him dead at around 11am. Mokhter was the vice-president of ward-23 unit of Jubo

League, a youth front of Awami League.Earlier that day, a pick-up van driver,

identi� ed as Russell Bhuiyan, 21, was stabbed to death in the capital’s Demra area. Police suspected he might have been killed by people he knew and pos-sibly was in feud with. But the motive of the murder is yet to be known.

Rezaul Karim, Russell’s brother, said he went out of his rented apartment in East Boxnagar around 12am when someone called in his number. Russell was later found with stab wounds on his throat, chest and other body parts.

After he was taken to DMCH, the doctors declared him dead. A case was � led in this connection.

Russell hailed from Keshabpur vil-lage of Titas upazila in Comilla. l

Cuet masters intake begins on November 9n Tribune Report

Admission tests for postgraduate courses for the 2013-14 academic ses-sion will be held on November 9 under four faculties of the Chittagong Uni-versity of Engineering and Technology (CUET).

CUET sources said this year, ad-mission seekers can apply for Masters courses through mobile text messages (SMS) from September 2 to 9.

Further details about the admission tests can be found on CUET’s web site, www.cuet.ac.bd, and in selected daily newspapers. l

Dhaka University to observe ‘Black Day’ tomorrow n UNB, Dhaka

Teachers and students of the Dhaka University (DU) will observe ‘DU Black Day’ tomorrow to mark the atrocities unleashed by law enforcement agen-cies six years ago on the day.

A number of students were wound-ed during police action on August 20-23 following which four senior teachers and seven students were taken into custody and thrown behind bars.

The decision to observe the day as the black day was taken at an emergen-cy meeting of the university authorities yesterday, said a press release.

On the occasion, the teachers and students of the university will wear black badges and hold a discussion at the Teacher-Student Centre (TSC) in the morning. l

JU vice chancellor seeks president’s intervention to overcome crisisn Tribune Report

Vice Chancellor (VC) of Jahangirnagar University (JU), Prof M Anwar Hossain, has sought intervention from the insti-tution’s Chancellor and the country’s President, Abdul Hamid, to resolve the ongoing crisis that is hampering both academic and administrative activities at the institution.

While talking to the journalists on Wednesday, Prof Anwar said: “I request the government, president of the state, teachers and students, and people of the country to come forward to put an end to the ongoing trouble in the institution.”

Earlier in the morning, a group of teachers from the university blocked Prof Anwar, two of his deputies, and the treasurer of the institution from entering the building, demanding his resignation.

As per the previously declared pro-gramme, the agitating teachers took position in front of the administrative building around 8am. They engaged in heated verbal exchanges while two pro-vice chancellors arrived to enter their o� ces.

The teachers, who have been car-rying out the movement under the banner of the General Teachers’ Fo-rum demanding the removal of Prof

Anwar, also abstained from working on Wednesday. Leaders of the platform vowed not to be present in classrooms tomorrow.

The agitating teachers claimed to journalists that VC Prof Anwar, as well as two of his deputies, directed deroga-tory comments at them en route to their o� ces in the morning.

Professor M Hanif Ali, convener of the General Teachers’ Forum said: “We have blocked the VC and pro-VCs for their insulting remarks.”

VC Prof Anwar said he would talk to President Abdul Hamid soon to over-come the crisis. l

3 injured in BCL-Chhatra Dal clash at RUn RU Correspondent

Activists of Bangladesh Chhatra League (BCL) at Rajshahi University allegedly attacked their rivals at Jatiyatabadi Ch-hatra Dal (JCD) yesterday, in which the latter claimed that three of their activ-ists were injured.

The incident occurred on the cam-pus at around 12:30pm.

Witnesses said a group of JCD activ-ists, led by its RU unit convener Ara-fat Reza aka Ashique, were marching through the campus when BCL activ-ists gave them chase near the Tukitaki Chattar.

The JCD activists were forced to take shelter inside the university’s central library, in front of which the chasers held a short gathering afterwards.

Ashique alleged that BCL activists attacked them in front of security per-sonnel who did “nothing” to stop them, adding that the chase was part of a plan to establish “campus supremacy.”

He also said three of their activists were injured in the attack.

However, BCL-RU General Secre-tary Touhid-al-Hossain Tuhin said they “drove o� ” the JCD activists as the lat-ter were trying to “disturb the academ-ic atmosphere of the university.” l

Agitated people vandalise National Hospital yesterday after a patient died. Relatives of the patients alleged that he had died due to negligence of doctor FOCUS BANGLA

With the blessing of the ruling party leaders, encroachers set up mango shop at Kalabagan Cricket Academy MAHMUD HOSSAIN OPU

TIB engages youths to � ght corruptionn Syed Shoeb

‘Youth, Integrity and Leadership,’ a two-day long convention organ-ised by Transparency International Bangladesh (TIB) was inaugurated yesterday at the Nabab Nawab Ali Chowdhury Senate Bhaban at Uni-versity of Dhaka (DU).In the confer-ence, around 200 members of TIB’s youth wing, Youth Engagement Sup-port (YES) took oath to � ght against corruption.

Youths have the capability to bring changes in society by building up positive character and necessary skills resonated with patriotism, the speakers said at the conference.

The chief guest of the event, Dha-ka University vice-chancellor AAMS Are� n Siddique recalled the tragic grenade attack on a rally of Awami League on this very day in 2004.

The keynote speaker, Editor of

renowned English daily, The Daily Star, Mahfuz Anam, underscored the need to change oneself � rst in order to bring changes in the surround-ings.

He said, “There is a common ten-dency among us to dump our re-sponsibilities on others. But we need to be aware that the world would not become a better place until we start taking responsibilities and change ourselves.”

“If the world changes for the better but you do not change yourself, then the change in the world would mean nothing to you,” he added.

He shared an experience from his life when a rickshaw-puller handed him over the money that he had left in his rickshaw. The rickshaw-puller kept roaming around streets until he found him.

“When I asked him why he took the trouble, he said I was the � rst

ever passenger to address him with ‘apni.’ It proves that even a small act of kindness can make a di� erence,” said Anam.

He said though we have an exces-sive population, it could be turned into the most valuable resource.

“You have got two hands which you can use for begging, but again, the same hands can be used for creat-ing. Transforming the begging hands into the creative ones is where the ac-tual challenge lies,” said Anam.

TIB executive director Dr Iftekha-ruzzaman conducted the session.

Quoting the historic speech of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rah-man, he said, “We need to build for-tresses in each and every household against corruption. There needs to be a social movement against this men-ace of society.”

The session was followed with a question-answer round and lunch. l

Chilean telescope catches dramatic moment of starbirthn AP, Cape Canaveral, Florida

This is one baby picture you won’t want to miss.

The ALMA (AL’-mah) telescope in Chile has captured a close-up of the glowing material spewing from a new-born star.

The stunning images show material streaming from the baby star at incred-ible speed, glowing as it plows into the surrounding gas and dust.

Astronomers say these illuminated jets are spewing out faster than ever measured before and are more energetic than previously thought.

The glowing mass is called a Her-big-Haro object, named after U.S. and Mexican astronomers.

This one is 1,400 light-years away in the constellation Vela.

ALMA actually consists of an array of 66 antennas and is relatively new. It’s located in one of the driest places on Earth, the Atacama desert. l

Jordan’s king warns of ethenic and sectarian ‘destruction’Jordan’s king warned on Tuesday that ethnic and sectarian violence sweeping across several Arab coun-tries could lead to the “destruction” of the Muslim world. Abdullah II’s remarks came at a conference in the Jordanian capital of 100 religious scholars, both Sunni and Shia, from 35 countries. Christian clergymen also attended the meet-ing, which discussed how Muslim nations could adopt moderate policies and preserve civil liberties and human rights.

San Francisco threatens to sue over rise of Nevada patientsSan Francisco o� cials are consid-ering suing Nevada for allegedly giving some 500 poor psychiatric patients one-way bus tickets to California. The city attorney planned to send a letter contain-ing the allegations to Nevada’s attorney general on Tuesday. The San Francisco Chronicle reported that a draft of the letter threat-ened a class-action lawsuit against Nevada unless it reimburses Californian cities and counties for the costs of dealing with the patients, and adopts interstate transfer rules for patients. The letter said the patients since April 2008 had been discharged from a state-run psychiatric hospital in Las Vegas. Two dozen sent to San Francisco were broke, homeless and mentally ill.

New Zealand passes legislation allowing domestic spyingNew Zealand passed legislation on Wednesday allowing its main intel-ligence agency to spy on residents and citizens, despite opposition from rights groups, international technology giants and the legal fraternity. The bill to expand the power of the Government Commu-nications Security Bureau (GCSB) passed by 61 votes to 59 after impassioned debate, with Prime Minister John Key acknowledging the move had left some people “agitated and alarmed.” The push to change the law came after it emerged last year that the GCSB had illegally spied on Internet tycoon Kim Dotcom before armed police raided his Auckland mansion as part of a US-led probe into online piracy.

British woman dislocates jaw eating ‘triple patty’ burgerA British woman dislocated her jaw after trying to eat a “triple patty” burger at a Liverpool restaurant, The Guardian reported. Nicola Peate, 25, had to have her jaw put back into place by medics after it locked as she was trying to take a bite of the burger the previous night. Though Peate had initially laughed it o� , the pain had wors-ened by the next morning, when she decided to get it checked. An x-ray con� rmed her fears, and a doctor quickly manipulated her jaw back into place using his thumbs.

WORLD WATCH

Thursday, August 22, 20138

Cameron was behind UK attempt to halt Snowden reportsHome Secretary says police were right to detain Miranda if they thought he was ‘in possession of highly sensitive, stolen information that could help terrorists’n Reuters, London

British Prime Minister David Camer-on ordered his top civil servant to try to stop revelations � owing from the Guardian newspaper about US and British surveillance programs, two sources with direct knowledge of the matter said.

News that Cabinet Secretary Jeremy Heywood had contacted the Guardian drags Cameron into a storm over Brit-ain’s response to media coverage of se-crets leaked by fugitive US intelligence contractor Edward Snowden.

Guardian editor Alan Rusbridg-er said on Tuesday that he had been approached by “a very senior o� cial claiming to represent the views of the prime minister” after his paper had published a series of exposes based on the Snowden material.

The sources named the o� cial as Heywood, who is Cameron’s most se-nior policy adviser. “The prime min-ister asked the Cabinet Secretary to deal with this matter, that’s true,” one source told Reuters.

Government supporters say in-formation leaked by Snowden, who has obtained asylum in Russia, could threaten national security. However, rights groups have accused the govern-ment of an assault on press freedom over a series of incidents.

These include the detention of a Guardian reporter’s partner, and news that the paper had been forced to de-stroy computer � les containing infor-mation from Snowden under threat of government legal action.

A Downing Street spokeswoman said: “We won’t go into speci� c cases but if highly sensitive information was being held insecurely we have a re-sponsibility to secure it.”

The government had tried to dis-tance itself from Rusbridger’s allega-tion that the Guardian was made to destroy the computer hard drives, and from the detention of David Miranda, partner of reporter Glenn Greenwald who has led the paper’s coverage of the Snowden leaks.

It has argued that these were opera-tional security matters.

On Tuesday a White House spokes-man said he could not comment on the destruction of Snowden material. But spokesman John Earnest said he could not see US authorities destroying an American media company’s hard drives to protect national security. “That’s very di� cult to imagine a sce-nario in which that would be appropri-ate,” he said told reporters.

Britain says its security agencies act within the law and that Snowden’s leaks are a grave threat to national security.

‘Stolen information’Miranda was held for nine hours on Sunday under an anti-terrorism law at Heathrow airport, where he was in tran-sit on his way from Germany to his na-tive Brazil.

He was released without charge minus his laptop, phone and memory sticks. He had been ferrying documents between Greenwald and a Berlin-based journalist contact of Snowden.

Brazil has said Miranda’s detention had “no justi� cation,” while Miranda has launched legal action against the po-

lice and the government, accusing them of abusing anti-terrorism powers to get hold of sensitive journalistic material.

Home Secretary Theresa May, the Brit-ish interior minister, said on Tuesday po-lice were right to detain Miranda if they thought he was “in possession of highly sensitive, stolen information that could help terrorists, that could risk lives.”

But the controversy over Miranda’s detention has been fuelled by Rus-bridger’s revelations on Tuesday about events several weeks ago, when the paper came under pressure to hand back or destroy intelligence material obtained from Snowden.

Rusbridger described conversations with the o� cial now said to be Heywood and with “shadowy Whitehall � gures,” a reference to the seat of government, and said he was told: “You’ve had your fun. Now we want the stu� back.”

Later, two agents from the secretive Government Communications Head-quarters (GCHQ) came to the paper’s o� ces and watched while Guardian sta� destroyed hard drives containing � les obtained from Snowden. l

37 dead in Malaysian bus accidentn AFP, Kuala Lumpur

At least 37 people are con� rmed dead after a bus tumbled into a deep Malay-sian ravine Wednesday in the country’s worst-ever road accident, an o� cial said.

The toll could climb however, as 16 other passengers were injured, with hospitals reporting some in critical condition.

Authorities said the bus was carrying 53 passengers when it went o� a swerv-ing road and plunged down a steep 70-metre slope in the Genting High-lands, famed for a � ashy gambling and entertainment resort about an hour’s drive from the capital Kuala Lumpur.

“Thirty-seven are dead -- 13 women and 24 men,” Christopher Chong, a � re o� cial at the scene, told AFP by phone.

Chong said the bus was heading downhill when the driver apparently lost control on a bend in the road.

Reports said most of the passengers were Malaysians, but sta� at the Hospital Kuala Lumpur said the injured brought there after the crash also included a Thai man and a Bangladeshi man.

Local hospitals said several of the in-jured arrived in critical condition. Lines of rescuers clinging to an orange rope for support were seen pulling injured victims out of the bus shortly after the accident, which occurred around 3pm. l

Maharashtra bans black magic after death of activistn AFP, Mumbai

An Indian state government Wednes-day approved legislation banning su-perstition and black magic, an o� cial said, a day after a prominent champion of the bill was shot dead.

Atheist Narendra Dabholkar, who for years campaigned for such a law, was killed on Tuesday by two gunmen on motorbikes as he was taking his morning walk in Pune city in the west-ern state of Maharashtra.

Maharashtra’s cabinet on Wednes-day approved the law which was � rst mooted back in 1995, a state o� cial told AFP, adding that state parliamen-tary approval was now required.

“An ordinance will be promulgated in the next two days,” the o� cial said, declining to be named.

News on the legislation came amid a strike in Pune on Wednesday to pro-test at Dabholkar’s killing, which saw 90% of the city’s businesses and shops close, police commissioner Gulabrao Pol told AFP.

“There is no progress” on the inves-tigation into his death, he added, say-ing no arrests had been made and the motive had not been determined.

Further protests were held in the state capital Mumbai.

The Maharashtra Prevention and Eradication of Human Sacri� ce and Other Inhuman, Evil Practices and Black Magic Bill was designed to out-law several exploitative activities by charlatans preying on the vulnerable.

Details were not yet available but an earlier draft proposed bans on beat-ing a person to exorcise ghosts and on raising money by claiming to work mir-acles.

Dabholkar, who founded the Com-mittee for the Eradication of Blind Faith two decades ago, encountered opposition over the bill from Hindu na-tionalists who feared it could be used to curb religious freedoms.

In an interview with AFP two years ago, the campaigner rejected charges that such a bill was anti-religion.

“In the whole of the bill, there’s not a single word about God or religion. Nothing like that. The Indian consti-tution allows freedom of worship and nobody can take that away,” he said.

“This is about fraudulent and ex-ploitative practices.”

Some rationalists believed the pro-posed law did not go far enough, hav-ing been watered down to appease pro-Hindu groups.

Dabholkar, whom local media said was aged 71, also took on some of In-dia’s self-styled Hindu “godmen” over their claims to have performed mira-cles. l

Radioactive spillage at Japan’s Fukushima may have reached sean AFP, Tokyo

Some of the hundreds of tonnes of radioactive water which leaked from a tank at Japan’s crippled Fukushima nuclear plant may have � own into the sea, the plant’s operator said Wednes-day.

Tokyo Electric Power Co (Tepco) is desperately trying to seal a tank at the plant which has leaked about 300 tonnes of radioactive water.

Spokesman Tsuyoshi Numajiri said traces of radioactivity were detected in a drainage stream.

“There is a possibility that earth and sand contaminated with the leaked wa-ter � owed into the drainage. We cannot rule out the possibility that part of the contaminated water � owed into the sea,” he said.

“We intend to make detailed exam-inations of the matter.”

Japan also issued its strongest warn-ing about the plant since the crisis be-gan in 2011, as it struggled to seal the tank.

Plant operator Tokyo Electric Pow-er Co (TEPCO) said some of the wa-ter might have � own into the Paci� c Ocean.

Nuclear regulators said the leak represented a level-three “serious in-cident” on the UN’s seven-point Inter-national Nuclear Event Scale (INES), which measures radiation accidents.

The alert, raised from level one

which indicates an “anomaly,” is the most serious declared at the ru-ined plant since March 2011, when a quake-generated tsunami knocked out reactor cooling systems and sparked meltdowns.

At its height the Fukushima disaster was classi� ed as level seven – one of only two events ever rated in that cate-gory along with the Chernobyl disaster in 1986.

The NRA said in a statement the amount of radiation leakage and the “fact that there is no safety protective layer remaining at the facility” meant the level-three warning needed to be declared.

A TEPCO o� cial said earlier Wednesday the leak was thought to be continuing from the tank but its source had not yet been pinpointed.

The comnpany was also “hurriedly checking” if any of 350 similar tanks at the plant were also leaking.

Numajiri said workers are removing soil contaminated by the leaked wa-ter, and pumping the remaining water from the leaky tank.

He said there were no signi� cant changes in radiation levels outside the plant.

An earthquake-generated tsunami knocked out reactor cooling systems and sparked meltdowns at the plant beside the Paci� c in March 2011, in the worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl in 1986. l

These illuminated jets are spewing out faster than ever measured before and are more energetic than previously thought

The newly discovered Herbig-Haro object HH 46/47, a newborn star with a large energetic jet moving away from our solar system (orange and green, lower right) which is invisible and hidden due to dust and gas, and a visible part of the jet streaming partly towards us (in pink and purple, left) AFP

Indian demonstrators raise clenthed � sts as they protest the killing of a leading Indian anti-superstition activist in Mumbai AFP

Germany slams British action against Guardian n AFP, Berlin

Germany’s top human rights o� cial on Wednesday sharply criticised a British crackdown on the Guardian newspaper over its publication of US security se-crets leaked by Edward Snowden.

Markus Loehning, the rights chief at the foreign ministry, expressed “great concern” about media freedom in Brit-ain after the Guardian said it was forced to destroy � les linked to US surveil-lance practices or face a court battle.

He also slammed the detention and questioning at a London airport on Sunday of the partner of US journalist Glenn Greenwald who has written ex-tensively about Snowden’s revelations for the Guardian.

“The United Kingdom has a long and proud tradition of freedom but the way the authorities detained David Miranda at Heathrow airport I see as unaccept-able,” he told the daily Berliner Zeitung.

“That took place on the basis of an anti-terror law but I cannot see any con-nection to terrorism. And the actions of the security services against the Guard-ian as described by editor-in-chief Alan Rusbridger deeply shocked me. “The red line was crossed there.”

Miranda has been working with Gre-enwald and the Guardian on publishing material leaked by Snowden. l

Atheist Narendra Dabholkar, who for years campaigned for such a law, was killed on Tuesday by two gunmen on motorbikes

DHAKA TRIBUNE International

Pakistan blames India over latest deadly Kashmir clashn Reuters, Islamabad

Pakistan accused Indian troops on Wednesday of killing an army o� cer and seriously wounding a soldier in the latest clash across the disputed border in Kashmir.

Tensions have � ared between the nu-clear-armed neighbours in recent weeks over the Himalayan territory, which both control in part but claim in full.

Skirmishes have erupted across the heavily militarised Line of Control (LoC) since � ve Indian soldiers were killed earlier this month in an ambush which Delhi has blamed on the Pakistan army.

“A Pakistan Army o� cer Captain Sarfraz embraced shahadat (martyr-dom) due to Indian troops’ unpro-voked shelling at Shakma sector on line of control,” a Pakistani military statement said.

Another soldier was seriously wounded in the � ring which began late Tuesday, the statement said, adding that Pakistani troops had returned � re.

An Indian army o� cial told AFP he had no information about the incident or the casualties reported by Pakistan.

India’s Defence Minister AK Antony said Monday the army would take “all possible steps” to counter cease� re vi-olations by Pakistan along the border.

Islamabad denied any involvement in the ambush which triggered the lat-est round of clashes. The incident was the deadliest in years targeting Indian troops in the disputed region. l

InternationalDHAKA TRIBUNE Thursday, August 22, 2013 9

Egypt court orders release of ex-president Mubarakn AFP, Cairo

An Egyptian court on Wednesday or-dered the conditional release of for-mer president Hosni Mubarak in the remaining case against him, judicial sources told AFP.

It was not clear if he would be re-leased immediately, according to AFP.

In the past, when courts have ap-proved Mubarak’s release, prosecutors have leveled new charges to keep him in detention.

The decision came in a hearing on the fourth of the cases the former pres-ident currently faces.

On Monday, a court ordered his con-ditional release in the third of the cases against him, with judicial sources tell-ing AFP his lawyer would seek his re-lease on Wednesday.

Prosecutors may appeal the court decisions, as they did when it previ-ously ordered his release on the other cases.

There was no news of an immediate order for Mubarak’s release, and he still faces trials in the four cases against him, which include allegations of corruption and killing protesters, AFP reported.

In a separate report, Reurters has summed the total death count at 900 aftert the bloodiest internal con� ict in its modern history, including 100 police and soldiers, killed after secu-

rity forces broke up pro-Morsi protest camps in the capital on August 14. A spokesman for a pro-Brotherhood al-liance put the death toll among its fol-lowers at about 1,400

Signalling their determination to crush the group and silence protests against the ousting of Morsi, Egypt’s army-backed authorities on Tuesday arrested Mohamed Badie, the Brother-hood’s leader, according to Reuters.

His arrest is part of a wave of deten-tions among the upper echelons of the organisation. Egyptian state media re-ported on Wednesday that Murad Ali, a media advisor to the Brotherhood’s political party, and Safwat Hegazy, an incendiary preacher, had both been ar-rested while trying to � ee the country.

A Muslim Brotherhood statement condemned the arrest of Badie, 70, and other leaders.

“The putschists think that arresting the leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood and marring their image in the media will make Egyptians bow and give in to the coup,” Reuters quoted the Brother-hood as saying.

“The issue has become one of the Egyptian people and they will not bow. ... They have killed thousands, wound-ed thousands, arrested thousands but the (people) are continuing in their peaceful revolution and rejecting the coup and military rule.” l

Outrage in Indonesia over schoolgirl virginity testsn AFP, Prabumulih, Indonesia

The education chief of an Indonesian city sparked outrage Wednesday after proposing that teenage schoolgirls should undergo virginity tests to enter senior high school.

Activists accused Muhammad Rasyid of promoting “sexual violence against women” after he suggested the plan following the arrest of six high-school students for alleged prostitution.

“If it is possible, the virginity tests will be carried out next year,” said Rasyid, education head of Prabumulih city on Sumatra island.

The tests would a� ect students seeking to enter senior high school. In Muslim-majority Indonesia, senior high-school students are aged between 16 and 19.

“We will try to include the plan in our 2014 budget,” he said of the proposal, adding it still needed approval from the city mayor and local parliament. “We will carry it out every year.”

However, Rasyid conceded that there could be “some human rights concerns” over subjecting female students to intru-sive virginity tests.

His proposal triggered immediate anger, with Education Minister Moham-mad Nuh leading the condemnation: “If you want to protect your children from negative in� uence, there are others ways. This is not wise.”

“A virginity test is a form of sexual violence against women,” added Mas-ruchah, the deputy head of the national

commission on violence against woman, who like many Indonesians goes by one name.

“It is degrading and discriminatory against women.”

The proposal looked unlikely to be adopted, however, as the city’s deputy mayor, Ardiansyah Fikri, said that local authorities did not support it.

However he said religious and moral ed-ucation programmes were being planned to discourage people from public displays of a� ection in the city.

“Young boys and girls are not shy about behaving intimately in public,” he said. “Their morality is already out of control.”

In 2010, lawmakers in Sumatra’s Jambi province also proposed forcing teenage girls to undergo virginity tests to get into high school but the plan was dropped after opposition from central government.

Indonesia, a nation of more than 240 million people, is struggling to balance the country’s rapid moderni-sation with traditional, mainly Muslim values. l

An Indian policeman patrols a road marked with gra� ti by Kashmiri protesters, during a curfew in Srinagar REUTERS

An Egyptian stonemason works near the Rabaah Al-Adawiya mosque in Nasr city, Cairo. Egyptian authorities have arrested two more Islamist � gures: a hard-line cleric trying to � ee the country across the Libyan border and a spokesman for the Muslim Brotherhood group before leaving for Italy AP

Activists accused Muhammad Rasyid of promoting ‘sexual violence against women’ after he suggested the plan following the arrest of six high-school students for alleged prostitution

Palestinians threaten action over Israel settlements n AFP, Beit Jala, Palestine

The Palestinians threatened Wednes-day to sue Israel through international bodies if it continues expanding set-tlements in the occupied territories, warning it was an issue that could tor-pedo � edgling peace talks.

“These are not just dots on a map,” PLO executive committee member Hanan Ashrawi said of more than 2,000 new settler homes which were approved for construction ahead of a resumption of peace negotiations late last month.

“These are wilful and destructive measures to prevent the creation of a Palestinian state.

“If Israel carries out these plans... we will be forced to (have) recourse to international judicial processes through international institutions,” she told reporters near the settlement

neighbourhood of Gilo, south of Jeru-salem, where many of the new units are to be built.

Israeli and Palestinian negotiators held a new round of peace talks in Je-rusalem on Tuesday, their second since the resumption of direct negotiations in Washington late last month which ended a nearly three-year gap.

The last talks, in September 2010, broke down over the issue of settle-ment expansion.

“There has been no breakthrough and no agreement. Discussions have not been on speci� cs,” Ashrawi said of the resumed talks.

Details of the discussions have not been revealed at the request of US me-diators, who asked last week for a strict news blackout.

Ashrawi warned that Israeli settle-ment building threatened once again to torpedo peace e� orts. l

Palestinian youths train during a night military-style exercises run by militants from the al-Nasser Brigades, an armed wing of the Popular Resistance Committees (PRC), at their training camp in Gaza City, Tuesday, Aug. 20, 2013 AP

Pakistan links Quetta ‘bomb-making factory’ to attacks n AFP, Quetta

Pakistani authorities said Wednesday that a car bomb factory where troops con� scated more than 100 tonnes of chemicals had been used in recent at-tacks on troops and minority Shia Mus-lims.

Paramilitary troops found wires, detonators and mixers to turn the chemicals into bombs during Tues-day’s raid in the city of Quetta, a � ash-point for sectarian, Islamist and sepa-ratist attacks.

Eleven people have now been ar-

rested in connection with the case and the owner of the compound has been detained for questioning, said a spokesman for the paramilitary Fron-tier Corps (FC).

Suspects told investigators that po-tassium chlorate and ammonium chlo-rate had been packed with wires and detonators into vehicles at the com-pound, a paramilitary o� cial said.

Experts believe the compound was e� ectively a bomb-making factory, which had prepared explosives used in recent bomb attacks on military targets and Shia.

“We have recovered a machine which is basically a mixer, used to mix

chemicals to make bombs. We have re-covered sulphur and hundreds metre of wire,” said the FC spokesman.

“We have also recovered 79 remote controls and short circuit wires. Some 20,000 kilograms of explosive were ready at the factory and just needed to be � tted into vehicles,” he added.

On January 10 and February 16, bombers killed nearly 200 people in attacks on Shia from the ethnic Hazara minority in Quetta.

Oil and gas-rich Baluchistan, which borders Afghanistan and Iran, is a � ashpoint for violence against Shia, who make up around 20 percent of Pa-kistan’s overall population of 180 mil-lion. l

Suspects told investigators that potassium chlorate and ammonium chlorate had been packed with wires and detonators into vehicles at the compound, a paramilitary o� cial said

Bradley Manning sentenced to 35 yearsn AFP, Fort Meade, Maryland

US Army Private Bradley Manning was sentenced to 35 years in jail and dis-honorably discharged Wednesday for the biggest breach of o� cial secrets in American history.

Military judge Colonel Denise Lind delivered her verdict after a months-long trial for Manning, who passed a massive cache of classi� ed government documents to WikiLeaks, the anti-se-crecy website headed by Julian Asange.

The soldier was convicted of espio-nage and other crimes last month, hav-ing earlier admitted being the source of hundreds of thousands of battle� eld reports from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and con� dential US diplomatic cables.

His sentencing is considered espe-cially important as another leaker – the former intelligence contractor Edward Snowden, currently in Russia – is want-ed in the United States on espionage charges, having disclosed details of the National Security Agency’s secret elec-tronic monitoring operations.

Military prosecutors on Monday pressed for a 60-year prison term for Manning, arguing that the penalty would send a message to people contemplating the theft of classi� ed information.

Lead defence attorney David Coombs, however, appealed for leni-ency for his client. He said Manning had expressed remorse, cooperated with the court and deserved a chance to have a family and one day walk free.

Coombs is scheduled to speak to re-porters at 1:30 pm (1730 GMT) and out-line the next steps in the soldier’s case, which may well include against the 35-year sentence, which will receive a 1,293 day discount for time he has al-ready served.

Manning was a junior intelligence analyst at a US base near Baghdad when he handed over the data – about 700,000 documents – to WikiLeaks.

The soldier was arrested in Iraq in 2010 and has been in military custo-dy since. The documents that he dis-closed rankled American allies when WikiLeaks published them, prompting warnings from US o� cials that troops and intelligence sources had been jeop-ardized.

The most notorious breach was a video and audio � le, dubbed “Col-lateral Murder” by WikiLeaks, show-ing graphic cockpit footage of two US Apache attack helicopters opening � re and killing 12 people in Baghdad in 2007. l

Iranian jailed for distributing bibles: Vatican median AFP, Vatican City

An Iranian Christian convert has been sentenced to 10 years in prison for distributing Bibles in his home country, the Vatican missionary news agency Fides reported on Wednes-day.

Mohammad-Hadi Bordhar was ar-rested in Iran in December and report-edly said he wanted to “evangelise by handing out 12,000 pocket bibles.”

He was accused of “crimes against state security.”

After being baptised, the man had created a “domestic church” in his home in Rasht in northern Iran, Fides reported. Iranian police found books, CDs and more than 6,000 Bible at his place.

Fides said he had already been arrested in 2009 and found guilty of apostasy but had since been re-leased.

The Catholic news agency quoted non-governmental groups saying that interest in Christianity among young Iranians is worrying the authorities and that churches have been shut down.

The agency said Iran’s new presi-dent, Hassan Rouhani, has raised hopes with his rhetoric about civil rights.

The Christian minority in Iran is tiny, estimated at less than 1% of the population. l

Time to demand our due compensationThe International Centre for Settlement of Investment

Disputes (ICSID) cleared Petrobangla as the respond-ent in a law suit � led by Niko Resources, which paved

the way for Bangladesh to claim compensation of $106m from Niko in its role in two blowouts that caused signi� -cant damages at the Chhatak gas � eld in 2005. Not only is this verdict a signi� cant milestone in Bangladesh’s e� orts to get justice, it also sets an important precedent in our dealings with multinational companies.

In 2005, during the drilling operations by Niko on the Chhatak gas � eld, two explosions caused by negligence of the company led to grave damage to the � eld and the surrounding community. Public interest liti-gation was brought against Niko for damages and an injunction order was issued that barred Petrobangla from paying gas bills to Niko until the compensation issue was resolved.

Not only did Niko fail to com-ply with a Dhaka court’s order for compensation, it � led counter claims against Petrobangla for non-payment of gas with the ICSID.

In fact, negligence and e� orts to avoid responsibility afterwards are not the only examples of Niko’s misconduct in Bangladesh. In June this year a Canadian court found the company guilty of bribing a former state minister.

The government of Bangladesh now needs to set a prec-edent that we will stand up for our rights when it comes to dealing with opportunistic and corrupt multinationals.

By pursuing and winning our due compensation from Niko, Bangladesh can demonstrate to the world that we are open for business, but not for abuse.

Make administration more child-friendly

Two young girls, Oishee and Sumi, have each been remanded for � ve days, charged with murdering Oishee’s parents. Being minors, their treatment at the

hands of law enforcement o� cials is a re� ection of how poorly our judicial system deals with children under the age of 18.

Law enforcement, and, indeed, all administrative bod-ies, should behave with children in a sensitive manner and respect their rights, but that was not the case here.

In this editorial, we will not look at whether or not they are guilty of the crime. Rather, our focus is on how the case against these girls has been conducted.

Since Oishee and Sumi are minors, there should have been probation o� cers present to handle their case. Moreover, they should not have been automati-cally remanded as adults.

According to the Children’s Act, there is a provision to appoint probation o� cers for mi-nors who are accused of crimes, as well as those who are victims of crimes. Even High Court directives have been passed to give administrative bodies direction on how to behave with children.

A 2009 High Court directive also ordered each police station to have at least two o� cers, one of whom must be a female, to handle cases involving juveniles accused of crimes.

However, it seems as if none of the government institu-tions have taken up these directives. Instead, they seem to have been disregarded entirely.

This cannot be allowed to continue. The procedure for bringing perpetrators to justice must be followed in keep-ing with due process.

The Children’s Act was passed to protect the rights of children in our country. That act should be upheld and strictly followed.

Teachers and secondary schoolsAugust 19We expected that the AL government would try to implement what they promised in their election manifesto.

Teachers are called the builders of the nation but the government has neglected the teach-ers at all the levels. Most of the teachers have a Masters degree with at least a professional degree up to the secondary level, but they get low salaries, even comparable to that of a clerk.

This incumbent government has failed to attract brilliant students to recruit as teachers, which are part and parcel of having a forward-thinking 21st century nation.

Not only that, but more than 200 head-teacher positions and 1,500 teaching positions have been vacant for a long time in the 317 government secondary schools across the country.

At the end of the tenure of the AL government, these posts are planning to be � lled up on an ad hoc basis, which we have come to know from the newspapers. There have been claims made that, some days ago, many medical o� cers were recruited on an ad hoc basis mostly from the members of the ruling party.

I would like to request the concerned authorities to recruit only the better-quali� ed candi-dates for the teaching positions for the betterment of the nation.

Mawduda HasninRajshahi

Editorial10

www.dhakatribune.com

DHAKA TRIBUNE Thursday, August 22, 2013

LETTER OF THE DAY

CALVIN AND HOBBES

PEANUTS

Letters to the Editor

Personal bias and personality biasAugust 18

Political dynasties are not so bad after all if leaders can live up to the legacy they have been blessed with because of their lineage.

Sardar Omar FA Hossain

Tareq Rahman is better than Joy.Pavel Khan

Mr Rahman is “highly educated”?! What’s, in fact, deeply troubling about the recent course of events is how it is overseen by highly educated individuals.

Navo

Oishee among 3 on 5-day remandAugust 18

Hena Rashid She should be admitted in a hospital to take care of her drug addiction and mental health rather than being put in remand. She is too young to be in remand.

Sandip Halder Pallab Really, I couldn’t believe that Oishee did it! Any-way, nothing is impossible.

Adil S Rahman Based on what I’ve read so far, this girl shows quite a few sociopath tendencies, not psychopath tendencies. There’s no mental “instability” here. Her parents were sedated? Planned murder with sta� involved? Yeah, not a psychopath. Lock her up, throw away the key. There’s no treatment or rehab for this one; she’ll kill again.

Farah Nusrat She needs medical treatment. No mentally stable person on earth can do that to their parents, no matter what.

The Blood telegram: Case for an American apologyAugust 19

Amazing. I highly appreciate the writer’s at-tempt to put forward such a vivid point in our history that our present day intelligent-sia chose to stay afar from upholding.

Monojit Saha

dhakatribune.com

facebook.com/DhakaTribune

The government of Bangladesh needs to set a precedent that we will stand up for our rights when it comes to dealing with opportunistic and corrupt multinationals

Law enforcement, and, indeed, all administrative bodies, should behave with children in a sensitive manner and respect their rights

‘Hawa Bhaban’ and the future of politicsAugust 15

WaliulHaqueKhondkerThe advantage of the erstwhile Hawa Bhaban was that it was a visible entity and one could reach it easily to have his/her job done! “Quite a few Hawa Bhabans” today, as the author suggests; seems to be present in actual “Hawa” (in the air)! How to reach any one of them? The author o� ers no clue! Very sad! :-(

A freedom � ghterDuring the existence of Hawa Bhaban, one of my nephews, who stood � rst in both honours and M. Sc exam, and applied for one of the three teaching position of the University, enquired if I know Tareque Rahman, whose good will is needed to get the job. I did not know Tareque and could not help her. She did not get the job. Three years ago there was another position, she applied for it and got it. She has no idea what is the di� erence between AL and BNP.

A way out for fair electionsAugust 18

QACHow is it “obvious” that the 2 billion people of South Asia are all “emotional creatures,” who, as implied, are incapable of reaching rational conclu-sions or negotiate based on rational objectives?

SamQAC’s comment amply proves the author’s point about emotionalism. For all his overtly elaborate language, the author did not say that South Asians are all emotional creatures; what he did say was that they are more likely to be emotional than other people. Commonsense, a knowledge of basic language, and an elementary understanding of statistical concepts would tell anyone the di� er-ence between the two kinds of assertions; anyone except QAC apparently.

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How to solve Sudoku: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 num-ber repeating.

Sudoku

Code-Cracker

SUDOKU CODE-CRACKER YESTERDAY’S SOLUTIONS

2 4 57 3 6

2 5 48 9

1 6 7 9 42 3

8 2 91 7 8

3 1 6

1 2 5 9 6 8 7 3 46 9 8 7 4 3 1 5 24 7 3 5 2 1 8 9 67 4 9 6 1 2 5 8 38 1 2 3 5 4 6 7 95 3 6 8 7 9 4 2 13 5 1 4 9 7 2 6 82 8 7 1 3 6 9 4 59 6 4 2 8 5 3 1 7

11Op-Ed Thursday, August 22, 2013DHAKA TRIBUNE

n Mamun Rashid

The gentleman had studied Economics at home and abroad. Having obtained a PhD, he teaches at a US university and works as

an adviser to the Federal Reserve Bank. He was meeting with friends and colleagues who are teaching at various public and private universities in Bangladesh.

While discussing challenges facing the Bangladesh � nancial sector, the gentleman politely asked a question: “I know many of our professor friends are engaged with the � nancial sector here, how far could they be blamed for the dismal picture of the � nancial sector?”

More than most countries, we have seen many public university profes-sors or teachers appointed to advise and lead state owned banks and regulatory bodies in Bangladesh. Their numbers have increased many fold in recent years, especially during the present government.

Though primarily political ap-pointees, many of them are or were very good academics. But has their engagement done much to help state banks improve their overall situation? Could they help in reducing the clas-si� ed loans? Did they help to man-age risks better? Did they improve

employee development or reform the “system, process and platform” of state banks?

There are few answers to these questions with which we can be hap-py. Pro� tability, return on assets, and employee productivity show little or no improvement overall.

So why was this group of people appointed then? I was told they were active in politics or to be more precise and simple, their posts were typically rewards for their political loyalties.

The opposition, many said, did exactly the same while they were in power and are likely to do so again if they come to power in future.

Rather than being the outcome of a thoughtful process then, such appointments are more politically motivated practices.

This is not the case in other devel-oping countries where good teachers and economists are expected to � rst and foremost teach well, conduct re-search, contribute to policy planning and in� uence growth strategies and opinion in favour of good govern-ance, accountability and distributive justice.

Commercial enterprises are left with professionals, more commer-cially driven persons who can drive pro� tability, protect capital, improve service delivery channels and develop customized products to suit the

emerging needs of their clients and market.We have seen the opposite happening in our own state owned commercial banks and regulatory bodies. In the name of � nancial inclusion, many of the seniors are forcing the banks to divert attention from their hard core commercial functions.

The real meaning of � nancial inclusion being is distorted. Many are championing the Bangladeshi de� nition or their own political de� ni-tions of � nancial inclusion, inclusive growth or sustainable development.

Bank co� ers are being used to ego massage top advisers or serve the political purpose of the government.

As a consequence, many of these banks are bleeding profusely. We have not adequately prepared them to be sustainable through rainy days, or to increase their pro� tability through booking good clients. Insu� cient work has been done to improve their IT and management information systems.

The attraction of talent and establishment of a respectable risk management culture in these banks has been left secondary to other purposes. Political appointees have not helped professionalise structures or to develop the local management or “in-house” talents.

Most of the banks are managed by a half engaged board or, more precisely, disengaged chairmen. With other priorities in their lives, they are not adequately committed to building successful organisations.

Another downside of political aca-demic appointees is that our future gen-eration of students are deprived from good teaching from these professors.

Like any other developing country or transition economy, we need hard core professionals to be engaged in running commercial enterprises, including the state owned banks.

In order to drive private sector led growth in this globalised world, our professionals need to be properly motivated, highly accountable and

adequately empowered to bring in respectable changes in the way we run our public enterprises.

To discover better examples for managing the state’s stake in the � nancial sector, we would not have to search far: China, India or at times the supposedly “failing” Pakistan will serve as � ne examples. l

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

What did our professor

friends do?

The pagodas of commercen FS Aijazuddin

Pakistan celebrated its 66th birth-day on 15 August 2013. Had it been a person, it might have con� ded in

the sentiments Countess Sophia Tolstoy wrote in her diary when she reached the same age: “My 66th birthday, and I still have all my old energy and passion,the same acute sensitivity, and,people tell me, the same youthful appearance.”

Would that Pakistan were that fortu-nate, It cannot pretend to have its old energy. In fact it has no energy left at all, the energy policies of every government since the 1970s not-withstanding. 

It has run out of passion, the force that “can elevate the soul to great things,” the tsunami of political con-viction that brought it into unexpected existence in August 1947.

Its sensitivities are no longer acute.  They have become dulled and dead-ened by intolerance and bloodshed, brutality and carnage.    

Today, having weathered storms over the past sixty-six years, Pakistan’s “youthful appearance,” like any vessel of that vintage, has been replaced by the image of a once-proud ship, launched with a light manifest, now over-crowd-ed with uncontrollable passengers, its paint peeling, its rudder beyond repair, its bilge awash with the untreated detritus of previous captaincies, its hull coated with barnacles of self-interest, and its crew in a state of near mutiny. It is not a pretty sight, nauseous even to those who do not su� er from sea-sick-ness.

It was not always like this. There is a generation that can still remember a capital city called Karachi where waves from the grey Arabian sea lapped the stone columns of the Jehangir Kothari Parade at Clifton, when Bunder Road would be washed and swept clean every evening, where a � sh dish and salmo-nella were not synonymous, where reli-gion was a private matter and politics as non-hazardous as a game of cricket.   

That generation can recall a Lahore which had carriages drawn by horses more spirited than those that operated in Karachi, a Lahore that was vibrant and alive, a crucible of education, a cradle of culture, and a hospitable stage

for every sort of performing art. Had William Wordsworth been

Pakistan’s poet laureate that morning of Independence Day on 14 August 1947, he would have repeated: “Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive, But to be young was very Heaven!”

When did Pakistan begin to lose faith in that promise of paradise? 

It would take more than a thousand words to analyse why Pakistan � nds it-self in its present predicament.  It would take many minds to explain where it went wrong, why each generation has not been able to improve upon the e� orts of its predecessors.

Exactly how did it choose the path of ignoring the high road, and choosing instead the low road to mediocrity and under-achievement?

Perhaps the earlier analogy of Paki-stan as a ship of state can be bettered by Jean-Jacque Rousseau’s famous anthropomorphic comparison of a state with the human body: “The sovereign power represents the head; the laws and customs are the brain … commerce, industry, and agriculture are the mouth and the stomach … the public income is the blood … the citizens are the body and the members, which make the machine live, move and work …”

Has the body politic, Rousseau asked rhetorically, an organ to declare its will? Even as he asked it, he knew the answer: that organ was the government, and in a democracy, an elected govern-ment. The measure, therefore, of the performance of any government must be the health of its body politic.

It is too early to assess the perfor-mance of the present government. Good decisions, like unwelcome medicine, require time to take e� ect. Bad decisions, like poison, tend to work instantaneously. Decisions by govern-ments are no exception.

On a macro level, Pakistan has been transformed from a nation which as-

pired once to industrial self-su� ciency to one dependent upon commercial imports.

The Industrial Development Bank of Pakistan (IDBP), its successor Pakistan Industrial and Investment Corporation of Pakistan (PICIC), the Pakistan In-dustrial Development Corporation (orig-inally WPIDC, and then truncated after 1971 to PIDC), the Ministry of Industries, and the once all-powerful planning commission have surrendered the stage to the single-portal Board of Invest-ment. Future growth is dependent upon the hunger of private initiative and the appetite of foreign investors.

If one was to look for traces of public policies – on population control, health, education, industry, aviation, ship-ping, to name only a few – one would � nd nothing more on the ground than the tracks of intentions. Like Pakistan Railways, there are rails but no trains, destinations but no tra� c.

In 1913, one of the tallest skyscrap-ers in New York City known as the Woolworth building stood completed. Because of its neo-Gothic design, and as tribute to the business house it symbolized, it became known as the Cathedral of Commerce.

Today, Pakistan could well be described not as a cathedral but as a Chapel of Commerce, or to be more accurate, a warren of small chapels - each dedicated to a di� erent patron saint, ready to answer prayers withthe � ick of a pen or on a disposable post-it, at the price of a pecuniary indulgence.  

Is the government at fault for not pursuing industrialisation? Or is it sim-ply a fatalistic acknowledgment of the times, an acceptance that internation-ally Chinese Pagodas have replaced the US Cathedrals of Commerce?  l

FS Aijazuddin is an art historian and author. This article was published in Dawn � rst.

Hefazat ignoring women in context of Islamic history

n Kaiser Kabir

It is widely accepted that the Prophet Mohammed (SAW) transformed Arabian society enriching, “inter

alia”, its moral, judicial, spiritual and political dimensions. What often seems to be less appreciated is that these monumental transformations took place in only 23 years.

Given this minuscule span of time, much of what we know of as Islam today has been in� uenced by historical developments long after the death of the Prophet. Islamic history has in� u-enced Islam itself. This is an obvious point but profound in its implications.

While the spiritual and moral underpin-nings of Islam have remained constant, the application, interpretation and practice of these fundamental tenets has in practice varied through time and context, even during the Prophet’s lifetime.

The Quran is rich with examples of context-speci� c application of religious tenets. It can seem contradictory needs the context of its revelation to be taken into cognisance, in order to be properly understood.

In fact, because any Quranic verse,

when taken out of context, could be misapplied or misunderstood, a science known as “Asbāb al-nuzūl” (circum-stances of revelation) was developed to enable interpreters to better determine their meaning, by understanding the speci� c conditions and reasons related to any particular verse.

After the death of the Prophet, given that the Quran was revealed in only 23 years, there was a great � urry of intellec-tual activity targeted at trying to better comprehend Islam. More than 300 schools of thought emerged with argua-bly the Mu’tazilite and Ash’arite schools at two ends of a very broad spectrum.

For its � rst � ve hundred years or so, Islamic thought was fundamentally democratic, diverse, and stimulating – a stark and tragic contrast to how the religion is often preached today.

Intolerance towards diversity of thought, which began during the latter part of the Abbasid dynasty, thrives today under the various banners of political Islam. Advocates of political Islam impose their prejudices upon so-ciety in the name of God, conveniently forgetting that throughout much of its history, debate, enquiry and diversity of interpretation and opinion had been celebrated in Islam.

Thus, when the leadership of Hefazat-e Islam attempts to relegate and con� ne women to the seraglio, they display not only a pathological mindset, but also a pathetic ignorance of the role of women in the enrichment and spread of Islam.

No doubt, there are verses in the Quran which seem to suggest that women should engage in professions of a more nurturing kind. However, the above examples demonstrate the danger of cherry-picking verses to draw such a sweeping conclusion, without appreciating the context of revelation and Islamic history.

Revelation is of course timeless, but its application to our daily lives must be dependent on time and context, if religion is to remain a dynamic and relevant in� uence in our lives. l

Kaiser Kabir is the CEO of Renata Limited.

In contrast to what many Islamists would have us believe, history is replete with examples of Muslim women in leadership roles out-side the domestic sphere. Consider the following:• The Prophet’s � rst wife, Khadija (RA) was a successful businesswoman.• Bibi Aisha accompanied the Prophet on several military expeditions and even led

the Battle of the Camel.• Al-Shifa bint Abdullah was deputed by Caliph Umar ibn al-Khattab to be market in-

spector and manager.• Amra bint Abdurrahman was one of the greatest scholars among the second gen-

eration of early Muslims.• Aisha bint Sa’d ibn abi-Waqqas was a jurist and scholar. She also taught the famous

Muslim man jurist Imam Malik, the founderof the Maliki juristic school.• Umm Salama was the Prophet’s political counsel.• Nusaybah bint Ka’ab (also Umm Ammarah) shielded the Prophet from the arrows of

the enemy, and received several wounds during the Battle of Uhud.• Sayyida Na� sa, the Prophet’s great granddaughter was a teacher of Islamic jurispru-

dence. She taught and � nancially supported Imam Sha� ’i, another great founder of the Sha� ’i school of law.

• Shuhadah bint Ahmad al-Ibrii studied in Baghdad with leading scholars to become herself a great scholar of hadith and jurist. She was known as “the pride of women.”

T H I R D E Y E

Exactly how did Pakistan choose the path of ignoring the high road, and choosing instead the low road to mediocrity and under-achievement?

Political appointees have not helped professionalise structures or to develop the local management or ‘in-house’ talents

Most of the banks are managed by a half engaged board or, more precisely, disengaged chairmen. With other priorities in their lives, they are not adequately committed to building successful organisations

RAJIB DHAR

EntertainmentDHAKA TRIBUNE Thursday, August 22, 201312

ONTV

MOVIES

TALKSHOW

COMEDY

DRAMA

NEWS

MISC

3:55pm Fox Movies PremiumBait7:30pm Star MoviesMen In Black 28:30pm Zee StudioBack To The Future Part 29:30pm WBUltraviolet9:30pm HBOMadagascar 3: Europe’s Most Wanted9:30pm Star MoviesTitanic9:35pm Fox Movies PremiumSalt11:00pm Zee StudioSurrogates11:16pm WB30011:30pm HBOHarry Potter And The Deathly Hallows Part 2

9:30am Big CBS PrimeIt Only Hurts When I Laugh11:00am AXNBloopers1:30pm Comedy CentralGuys With Kids3:30pm Sony SABTaarak Mehta Ka Ooltah Chashmah5:00pm ColorsComedy Nights With Kapil7:30pm Comedy CentralCitizen Khan8:30pm Star World2 Broke Girls10:00pm FX Episodes

7:00pm Zee CaféPretty Little Liars7:40pm Channel NineGrontikogon Kohe8:00pm Star WorldGreys Anatomy8:15pm BanglavisionDui Takar Bahaduri8:25pm Channel NineNagorik9:00pm SonyAmita Ka Amit9:30pm SATVBishesh Droshtobbo9:30pm Star PlusDiya Aur Bati Hum9:45pm BanglavisionKorta Kahini10:00pm ColorsNa Bole Tu Na Maine Kuch Kahan

12:00pm RTV Bulletin2:00pm Desh TvShongbad Shomoi5:00pm BanglavisionShongbad9:00pm Independent TVRaater 9tai Bangladesh10:00pm MaasrangaPrimetime news10:45pm RTVRaater Shongbad

7:30am SATV Shokaler Diary 7:50am ETV Din ti Kemon Jabe 9:00am Independent TV Ajker Bangladesh 9:30am Channel iShongbaadpotre Bangladesh 10:40am RTV Jibon Diya Bhalobashi 12:20pm NTV Ei Shomoy 1:30pm Channel Ekattor Rendezvous6:20pm Channel 24 Proshongo Rajniti 6:45pm NTVHello Excellency

9:30am NDTV Good TimesGet Stu� ed11:30am Fox TravellerGet Stu� ed1:30pm MTVHit It3:30pm AXNWipeout5:30pm Nat Geo AdventureMaverick Chef7:30pm TLCKitchen Boss8:30pm Vh1Playlist9:30pm Travekl XPGreat World Hotels

Prianka endorsesthe empowermentof girlsn Entertainment Desk

From Bareilly to Boston to Bollywood - Priyanka Chopra’s success story is testimony to how, if small town girls from middle-class families are given the freedom to choose their life’s course, they can do wonders. A positive change in people’s attitude towards the girl child is something that the country truly deserves, she says.

She owes it all to her parents, who let her live the life she wanted: “I am very fortunate. Not every girl child is as lucky as me,” Priyanka, who endors-es the empowerment of the girl child in the country.

“I come from a very small town and from a middle-class family. I don’t come from an a� uent background, I don’t come from somewhere, where my life was about pubs and discotheques. Despite that, my parents gave me an opportunity to be whoever I wanted to be, they educated me, they gave me values and they gave me a great life by always going out of the way,” said the 31-year-old.

“They (several girls) don’t even have the ability to have a say or have a choice in their lives, or in what their future will be. And that is something that deserves a change in this country,” added the actress-singer, who is now the face of NDTV-Vedanta’s “Our Girls Our Pride” campaign.

Priyanka, who was born in Jamshedpur, has voiced concerns for child rights and, also speci� cally, for the girl child, for as long as one can remember.

Recalling how her parents sensitised her to the issue since her childhood itself, she said: “My mother is a gynaecologist, my father was a surgeon, so as a kid, I remember how every few weeks we used to take the ambulance and go to the villages with doctors and a few nurses when we used to stay in Ba-reilly (in Uttar Pradesh, where she spent some parts of her formative years).

“I was eight or nine years old then. My mom did IVF and fertility for women, and I always saw her providing women who couldn’t have kids with children - whether boys or girls.”

“Children were an important part of my upbringing. So when I became Miss World, I got really involved with the Miss World Foundation and I started associating with a lot of NGOs and people who would help with the cause,” she added. l

Brad Pitt leads all-star cast in The Counselorn Entertainment Desk

The new trailer for upcoming movie “The Counselor” has been released, and audiences are de� nitely in for a treat judging by the star-studded cast.

Directed by Ridley Scott, the gritty � ick follows lead characterMichael Fassbender as a lawyer who � nds himself involved in the drug traf-� cking world, winding up in over his head.

Sure to be a hit when it’s released in cinemas in November, “The Coun-selor” has an impressive casting, in-cluding Hollywood veterans Brad Pitt, Cameron Diaz, Penelope Cruz and her

hubby Javier Bardem.In the movie teaser, Fassbender is

torn between living a morally right ex-istence when all around him are living the life of luxury courtesy of the pro� ts made from drug tra� cking.

Fassbender sees his life � ashing before him when he is implicated in a missing shipment of drugs.

The suspense is heightened when girlfriend Cruz asks: “How bad is it?”

While Diaz make it pretty clear just how bad when she is � lmed warning: “the slaughter to come is beyond our imagining.”

“The Counsellor” gets its UK release on November 15. l

New TV soap Nil Ronger Golpo airs on NTV tonightn Entertainment Desk

“Nil Ronger Golpo” will air every Wednesday and Thursday at 9:45pm on NTV. Written by Zakia Chowdhury, directed by Koishik Shankar Das, the series is on air from August 21.

The story is a compiled version of the three eternal love stories, Sharat Chandra’s “Devdas-Parvati,” Niza-mi Ganjavi’s “Laily Majnu” and Shake-spear’s “Romeo Juliet.” In the drama, Devdas, Majnu and Romeo study in the same university and are good friends. The last descendant of a zamindar family, Devdas becomes calm and quiet after his arrival in the city. Majnu is from the old town in Dhaka and Romeo is from a solvent family and lives in Gulshan. Devdas is senior to

Romeo and is the VP of his university. He does not believe that love exists in this era, so, no one is allowed to fall in love under his domain.

Romeo is a modern day Casanova who changes girlfriends every now and then. The story takes turn when Majnu meets Laily and Romeo meets his Juliet. Devdas’s childhood love story is very complex. After falling in love, the life of these men changes and the story takes a di� erent turn. The drama features Anisur Rahman Milon, Nusrat Embroze Tisha, Afran Nisho, Nadia Ahmed,Niloy, Nowrin Hasan Janim, Mita Chowdhury, Wahida Mollik Jolly, Manas Bandyopadhya, Kayes Chowdhury, Shirin Bokul, Kazi Ujjal, Hasan Azad, Namira Ahmed,Munia Islam, Shetu, Shumon and others. l

Amina Shundori portrays a woman’s love and sacri� cen Afrose Jahan Chaity

Theatre Art Unit staged its acclaimed popular play “Amina Shundori” at the National Theatre Hall of Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy on August 20 at 7pm. Based on a 300 year old folk lore “Nachhar Malum O Bhelua Shun-dori,”from the Chittagong region, the play had been adapted by late theatre activist SM Solaiman and directed by Rokeya Ra� q Baby.

The play focuses on love, dedica-tion and agonies in the lives of ordi-nary women in our society. It showed how di� cult and tough it is for a single woman to survive after being aban-doned by her husband, in a male dom-inating society. The primary theme of the play is woman’s love, sacri� ce and a� ection and the dishonesty and mis-use of a woman in the backdrop of a patriarchal societal structure. The play was success to present, how a woman struggled in a cruel and greedy world.

It addressed questions about the prog-ress of women’s position even after so many years.

The play saw a full-house audience on Tuesday evening. It’s an evidence of dramatic portrayal that weaves sadness, pain and dilemmas of women in a tradi-tional melodramatic narrative form.

The play has been portrayed by three Aminas rather than one, above all, An-ika Mahin Eka with her melodious and rich singing skills brought out the femi-nist theme genuinely. The male charac-ters also did a fairly good job in playing the negative role successfully.

As “Amina Shundori” is a folk art and musical drama, there was perfect in depth singing, and high energy lev-els of the performers amused the au-dience a great deal. Lighting and set added more life in the performance. Shahinur Rahman designed the set and Faiz Zaher was in charge of lights.

Women are being considered medi-ocre to men and traditional to absurd

norms are issues that are still relevant to our society, took the focus point of the show. Woman’s honest love and man’s dishonesty and betrayal is still universal factors in the male subjugated social or-der. Though, the story is 300 years old, modern women of this century can also relate to it, as it tells a heartbreaking sto-ry of a woman’s sacri� ce and the betray-al she got it turn for her loyalty.

The tragedy is that, after being ne-glected by her husband, Amina Shun-dori, the protagonist in the play, still awaits his return from Myanmar. She becomes very lonely and starts to feel desolate.

In Myanmar, Nachhar marries a local merchant’s daughter named Ekhin and does not seem to be bothered about Amina’s life. The play reaches its apex when Nachhar by luck � nds Amina at Bhola Sawdagar’s house. Instead of showing her gratitude for her patience and trust, he becomes suspicious of her purity and honesty. l

Exhibition‘Nature – Color and Vision’Khurshid Alam SaleemTime: 12 pm- 8pmShipanganHouse 7, Road 13New Dhanmondi

‘Automated Subjectivity’By Mustafa Zaman and Shuvo Ra� qulTime: 7pm (inauguration) Bengal Art Lounge House No 60, Road No 132, Gulshan Avenue, Circle 1

‘Here is There – There is Here’Toyomi HoshinaTime: 12pm – 8pmBengal Gallery of Fine ArtsHouse 275, Road 27Old Dhanmondi

Shahabuddin The Painter,The FighterIftekhar Wahid IfteeTime: 10am- 10pmZainul Gallery-2, CharukalaDhaka University,ShahbagTheatre

TheatreKhonaTheatre troupe Bot Tola Time : 7pmBangladesh Shilpakala Academy

Concert‘Last Chance To Dance Trance’With band 42Time: 7:00pmMermaid Café,Gulshan Circle 2

TODAY IN DHAKA

Bhalobasha Zindabad hits theatres over Eidn Punny Kabir

In the upcoming Eid-ul-Azha, Debash-ish Biswas’ rom-com “Bhalobasha Zindabad” will be a treat for the cin-ema-goers. The Director shared with Dhaka Tribune that he is done with the post-production of the � lm and it is a matter of time for the � lm to be submit-ted at the censor board.

The movie is starred by Are� n Shu-vo and Aireen in the lead roles and is a production of E R Cinema.

Debashish told Dhaka Tribune: “I debuted with the � lm titled Shashur-bari Zindabad which was also a roman-tic comedy. Since the title and genre of the two � lms have similarities, you can say that ‘Bhalobasha Zindabad’ is a se-quel to Shashurbari Zindabad.”

The plot of the story revolves around two youngsters who are deeply in love with each other. But the father of the heroine does not accept the hero to be

in her life. But, � nally the hero, with all his charismatic e� orts, wins over the father’s heart and hence the title is ‘Bhalobasha Zindabad.’

Debashish Biswas also ensured that the audience will be also entertained by a number of action-packed scenes.

Are� n Shuvo, who has already won hearts of millions by his handsome ap-pearance and skillful acting in TV plays and in the � lm “Jaago,” will be seen ro-mancing with Aireen on the silver screen for the � rst time. Regarding his experi-ence working in the � lm, Shuvo said to Dhaka Tribune: “A production gets its ul-timate input when the teamwork is good. I must say every single person of the unit of ‘Bhalobasha Zindabad’ gave his or her 100 percent e� ort and that makes the � lm really unique. It was a wonderful experience to be a part of the � lm.” Shu-vo, Jaya Ahsan and Shakib Khan starrer “Purnodoirgho Premkahini” might also get released in the coming Eid. l

14

13DHAKA TRIBUNEThursday, August 22, 2013

SportDid you know?

14 15 Calm Watson presses on to rare hundred

Only one team has been top after the � rst

weekend of English Premier League action

and gone down: Bolton Wanderers

in 2011-12

Afghan booters hailed after defeating Pakistan 

Milan, Celtic wobble after Champions League � rst leg

United legend Irwin looks forwardto Bangladesh’s football futuren Shishir Hoque

Manchester United Legend Denis Irwin was in Dhaka yesterday to inaugurate the 2nd season of Airtel Rising Stars yet his visit lacked the hype of that by Bryan Robson and Dwight Yorke’s last year. During his very short visit which ends today, Irwin gave less than 10 minutes to the media where he spoke about his time with Sir Alex Ferguson, new coach David Moyes, want-away striker Wayne Rooney, potential United’s targets and Airtel Rising stars.

The most asked questions by United fans was if Rooney would stay. “I hope so. David Moyes says that he is staying and he is certainly doesn’t want to sell him to his biggest rivals. He has been in-jured in pre-season and came on against Swansea this weekend. I hope to see Rooney playing for Manchester United for long time,”

Playing under Ferguson from 1990-2002, Irwin admitted that Sir Alex is the

best ever manager he has ever met. “He (Fergie) is a fantastic manager. 26 and half years he won plenty of trophies. I played for him 12 years, certainly my best time as footballer, I utterly enjoyed that. Pleasure to work under him,”

The 47-year-old also talked about Fergie’s successor David Moyes. “He had a fantastic job at Everton where he managed it for 11 years. He’s got o� to a good start by beating Swansea. He al-ready won his � rst trophy of community shield winning over Wigan. I hope he will continue well,”

Last year in his column for Sunday World, Irwin was among the � rst pun-dits to reveal United’s interest in Robin van Persie last year, and claimed the club are desperate to bring Barcelona mid� elder Cesc Fabregas to Old Tra� ord this summer. While Fabregas’ fell � at a while ago and a recent bid for Everton duo Fellaini and Baines rejected, Irwin said they are ready to welcome any ad-dition.

“He (Moyes) always looks to improve the team and the squad. It’s well docu-mented that we had a couple of bids, Fabregas turned down. It’s pretty hard to get top players to move at this stage. Any player that comes in will be wel-come addition because it’s a long hard season at Manchester United,”

Meanwhile, Irwin termed ‘Airtel ris-ing stars’ project as “Fantastic e� ort”. “We have been highly enthusiastic after the success of the previous Airtel Ris-ing Stars program in Bangladesh and we had the pleasure of working closely with a number of extremely talented players. With an ever growing fan base of Man-chester United in Bangladesh, we are hopeful to see equally talented, if not more, individuals this year too,”

“Hopefully one day, you get a play-er from Bangladesh (in the English premier league). Because it is truly a global league where so many di� erent nationality players from all over the world play,” l

Corporate 5-A-Side Football starts on Friday n Raihan Mahmood

The 8th ASCENT Corporate 5-A-Side Indoor Soccer Cup starts at Scholas-tica School’s STM Hall in Uttara from Friday.

The tournament, entering its eighth year, will see a hectic schedule with 47 renowned business houses joining in the fun.

Ascent Group is the title sponsor. Dell Computers will co-sponsor along with Securex who are associate spon-sors of the event.

The other sponsors and partners are Pepsi as beverage partners, Daily New Age is the newspaper partner, Concito PR the PR partner,  Qubee the internet partner, Monowara Hospital the medical partner, Radio Foorti the radio partner, Arkay Multimedia are outdoor partners and Highlife is the conceptual partner. Excalibur Enter-tainment has and will continue to orga-nize the event. l

Former Manchester United fullback Denis Irwin (R) and Chris Tobit, CEO and Managing Director of Airtel Bangladesh Limited unveil a jersey while announcing the o� cial launch of the second season of Airtel Rising Stars MUMIT M

The day Mosharraf crossed the English Channeln Raihan Mahmood

On August 22, 1988 Mosharraf Hos-sain Khan, the legendary Bangladeshi swimmer, crossed the English Channel and today marks the 25th anniversary of that remarkable feat.

Mosharraf won � ve gold medals in the 1985 Saf Games swimming and set nearly 50 national records during his golden career that began in 1969 and spanned almost two decades. He won a number of medals in various interna-tional events also. He retired in 1988 af-ter swimming across the English Chan-nel, becoming the third Bangladeshi to do so, after Brojen Das and Abdul

Malek, and took 10 hours and 16 min-utes to complete the rare feat.

Mosharraf, now an expatriate in USA, served as the general secretary of the Bangladesh Swimming Federation after his retirement and also held posts in the Asian Swimming Federation. l

DPL set to go n Minhaz Uddin Khan

The much delayed Dhaka Premier League 2012-13 for now looks to be on track if no further con� icts comes up be-tween the stake holders. Cricket Com-mittee of Dhaka Metropolis (CCDM) chairman Jalal Younus announced that the players’ transfer would be held on August 25 and the tournament would begin on September 3.

The tourney has already been post-poned four times due to disagreements between the Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) and the premier league clubs, much to the frustration of fans and the cricketers themselves. The CCDM have been instrumental in resolving the sit-uation after holding several meetings between the stakeholders

Though nearly all the cricket organis-ers are currently busy with the upcom-ing BCB election, the premier league is expected to start on time. Nonetheless, the board, CCDM and the clubs will sit for yet another meeting tomorrow to � nalise the playing conditions and the constitution of the tournament.

The players’ transfer is likely to be the major topic of discussion at tomor-row’s meeting. Breaking with tradition, this year the clubs will recruit their

players by way of a rotation process. A hundred and ninety-two cricketers have been short listed by the CCDM and the board, and they will be divided into seven payment categories, each with a � xed remuneration. The list has already been sent to the 12 premier league clubs.

It was the clubs who demanded the grading and rotation system for player recruitment and against the opposition of the players – most of whom stand to see their wages lowered by the move – the proposal was eventually approved by the board. In the grading scheme, national skipper Mush� qur Rahim, star all-rounder Shakib Al Hasan, dash-ing opener Tamim Iqbal and middle-order batsman Nasir Hossain are in the highest Grade A+, with a salary of Tk2.2m. Twelve players are in Grade A (Tk1.5m), 24 in Grade B+ (TK1m), 35 in Grade B (Tk800,000), 24 in Grade C (Tk500,000) and 35 in Grade D (Tk250,000). There are also 56 players in Grade E, who will have to negotiate for their salary after recruitment.

The cricketers will be recruited via lottery and the order of last season’s standings will determine the order in which the clubs can choose from each of the grades. l

National side taste defeat against Sk Jamaln Raihan Mahmood

Bangladesh national football team crashed to a 1-2 defeat against Ban-gladesh Premier League runners-up Sheikh Jamal Dhanmodi Club in a closed door practice match at the Bang-abandhu National Stadium yesterday.

Sony Norde and Odelson, Sheikh Jamal’s two Haitian recruits, scored a goal each on the while, Mithun Chow-dhury, a substitute forward scored for the national team in the dying minutes of the match. This marks the � rst de-feat for the national team in nine recent practice matches.

The national forward line struggled to penetrate the Jamal defence, which was studded with foreign players, while Jamal’s attack threatened the national defence at the other end. Play-maker Mamunul Islam was injured in the 20th minute of the match and had to leave the � eld.

BFF president Kazi Salahuddin watched the match and was reserved in drawing conclusions from what he saw. “It’s a practice match and we saw the match as you saw it. However, I think the players have tried to adopt the Dutch style and they are building up from the deep. There were some errors but it can be recti� ed before the start of the � nal challenges,” said Salahuddin.

Joseph Afusi, the Nigerian coach of Sheikh Jamal thought the national players were tired. “The defeat does not mean that the national team has played bad football. The combinations and the passing were good. I think the players are tired and the absence of playmaker Mamunul Islam had an im-pact,” said Afusi.

Former national coach Sha� kul Islam Manik was of the same opinion. “The players looked tired and it had an e� ect upon the performance and the coach is still thinking about his � rst 11."l

Former Pakistani cricket captain Wasim Akram (L) posing for a photograph with his Australian bride Shaniera Thompson during their wedding ceremony in Lahore on August 12, 2013. Famed Pakistan paceman Wasim Akram on August 21 announced that he had married his Australian girlfriend, Shaniera Thompson, saying he has started a new life on a happy note AFP

Tigers’ deputy eyes comeback n Mazhar Uddin

Bangladesh national cricket team dep-uty Mahmudullah, who is lately going through a bad patch, is eagerly look-ing forward to perform consistently in the upcoming home series against New Zealand, he said at Sher-e-Bangla Na-tional Stadium yesterday.

The all-rounder su� ered a poor run of form with both bat and ball against Sri Lanka in March and followed it with another under par performance in the � rst Test against Zimbabwe in April where he scored only three runs. He eventually lost his place from the playing 11 in the second Test which struck the right-handed batsman

hard as he is desperate to mark a comeback. “I was not in the playing 11 of the second Test against Zimbabwe, so I want to make a comeback and for that I am working on my � tness and also on my skills,” said Mahmudullah.

“I am working on my batting as I have not batted well in the last three-four innings. I think I need to be more choosey while leaving the ball and at the same time I have to be more care-ful when I bat as I want to play big in-nings,” he added.

The 27-year-old is also a handy o� -spinner and he informed that he worked with Saqlain Mushtaq, Bangla-desh’s bowling consultant, and hopes

to do well in the forthcoming series.Mahmudullah feels con� dent about

the fast bowling department as he thinks the pacers will � re in all cylin-ders when the series begins.

“I don’t think there is any prob-lem in our fast bowling department, Mashrafe is fully � t and Sha� ul and Nazmul are also recovering fast from his injury while Rubel is in Eng-land. So I don’t think there is any prob-lem,” he said.

Mahmudullah believes playing the Dhaka Premier League would help them a lot ahead of their home series, but if that does not happen then the Ti-gers will play warm-up matches among themselves. l

Fifa gets million World Cup ticket requests in 7 hoursn Reuters

Over one million World Cup � nals ticket requests were made within the � rst seven hours of public sale, soc-cer’s world governing body Fifa said on Tuesday.

The � rst phase of sales for next year’s tournament runs until Oct. 10 and Fifa said more than 163,000 people had made requests on Tuesday for var-ious games.

The opening match on June 12 at the Arena de Sao Paulo (over 168,000 requests) and the � nal at the Maracana in Rio de Janeiro (more than 165,000) were the two most popular games. l

NEW LIFE ON A HAPPY NOTE

Match ResultsKaragandy (KAZ) 2-0 Celtic (SCO)Finonchenko 12, Khizhnichenko 77

Lyon (FRA) 0-2 Sociedad (SPA) Griezmann 17, Seferovic 50

de Ferreira (POR) 1-4 Zenit (RUS)Andre 58 Shirokov 27, 60, 90, Degra 85-og

PSV (NED) 1-1 AC Milan (ITA)Matavz 60 El Shaarawy 15

Viktoria Plzen (CZE) 3-1 Maribor (SLO)Cisovsky 8, Mejac 66Darida 58, Duris 89

SportDHAKA TRIBUNE Thursday, August 22, 201314

Spectators react in the stands as Afghan footballers celebrate their 3-0 win against Pakistan at the Afghanistan Football Federation (AFF) stadium in Kabul on Tuesday. Afghanistan's football team sparked rowdy celebrations across the war-battered nation after securing an convincing 3-0 win over arch-rivals Pakistan in the � rst international match in Kabul for ten years AFP

Afghan booters hailed after defeating Pakistan n AFP, Kabul

Afghanistan’s victorious football team met President Hamid Karzai at his palace Wednesday to receive o� cial congratulations for their 3-0 defeat of neighbouring Pakistan.

Karzai praised the players for their slick dispatch of the visitors, which triggered celebrations across a war-torn country starved of international sport-ing action.

Tuesday’s game was Afghanistan’s � rst home international since they played Turkmenistan in 2003.

The Pakistan team also attend-ed the reception the day after the match, which was watched by a noisy 6,000-strong sell-out crowd in the Af-ghan capital.

The two countries often have a fraught relationship, but Karzai said the � xture had been a symbol of strong cross-border ties.

“He told the Afghan and Pakistani teams that their match improved close-ness between them, and he asked them to strengthen this closeness,” a palace statement said.

“The president expressed hope that extremism and killing is kept away from Afghanistan and Pakistan and that both countries live in prosperity.”

Political relations have been badly strained for years between the two countries. They blame each other for bloody violence plaguing both nations.

Many Afghans are convinced that Pakistan pulls the strings behind the 12-year insurgency that has raged since the Taliban hardline regime was ousted from Kabul in 2001.

Pakistan Football Federation sec-retary Ahmed Yar Lodhi hailed the match, the � rst between the two sides in Kabul since 1977.

“Despite the one-sided loss I think Pakistan have initiated a football diplo-macy,” Lodhi told AFP.

“Win or loss are part and parcel of the game, but I think the goodwill this match has generated will go a long way.”

A return � xture had been planned for December, but Lodhi said it was now likely to be postponed to March or April.

“If the government and business-men support and invest in Afghan play-ers, we will beat the football teams of other big countries,” goal scorer Mus-tafa Maroo� told the Tolo TV channel.

Karzai is due to visit Islamabad next week for his � rst trip to Pakistan since Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif was elected. Possible peace talks with the Taliban are likely to be on the agenda. l

Del Bosque worried by Casillas situation at Real n Reuters, Madrid

Spain coach Vicente del Bosque will be watching for Carlo Ancelotti’s next Real Madrid starting XI with greater interest than usual after the Italian opened the La Liga campaign with Iker Casillas on the bench.

The 32-year-old goalkeeper, long-standing captain for both club and country, saw Diego Lopez surprisingly chosen ahead of him at home to Real Betis on Sunday, Ancelotti’s competitive debut at the helm.

Casillas was dropped and then suf-fered a bone fracture in his hand which kept him sidelined for a number of weeks under Jose Mourinho last season. When he returned from injury, Janu-ary transfer window signing Lopez re-mained � rst choice.

The fragmentation of support for Mourinho among the players, the fans and the media in his � nal months at the Bernabeu were in a large part put down to the decision to keep Casillas on the bench. Some felt it was personal rather than professional.

The arrival of the genial Ancelotti has seen an easing of those tensions in and around the club, and many expected Casillas to be restored to the number one jersey for the new campaign.

“I took this decision for today,” An-celotti said after Real squeaked a 2-1 win over Betis.

“It’s a decision taken on small details.

I made it for this game. We’ll see what happens in the next one.

“I spoke to Casillas, he is very profes-sional and he is keen to play.”

TOUGH CHOICECasillas has been undisputed � rst-

choice keeper for club and country for more than a decade.

He was won two European Cups and � ve La Liga titles with Real, and cap-tained the national team to their trio of consecutive titles at Euro 2008 and 2012, and at the World Cup � nals in 2010.

Del Bosque has always stood by him, and took him to the Confederations Cup and Ecuador for last week’s 2-0 friendly win, which may be one explanation for Ancelotti’s decision.

Casillas played the � rst half in Guaya-quil and Barcelona’s Victor Valdes, hard-ly a poor alternative, the second, but a tougher choice may need to be made for Spain’s upcoming World Cup quali� ers if the Madrid man is going to remain benched.

Spain top Group I by a point from France with three games left to play, and they travel to play third-placed Finland on Sept. 6, their last away � xture. The Finns held Spain to a 1-1 draw back in March. Valdes said he was surprised by Ancelotti’s decision at a news confer-ence on Monday.

“I have seen Iker make saves no one thought possible,” he said. “For me, he is the best but I shouldn’t say any more because it isn’t my team.” l

Lewandowski settles with Dortmundn Reuters, Berlin

Borussia Dortmund forward Robert Lewandowski has resolved di� erences with the club over a failed transfer to Bayern Munich in the close season, the Poland international said on Wednes-day after being given a pay rise.

Lewandowski was desperate to leave the Champions League runners-up to join treble winners Bayern Mu-nich but the deal fell through after Dortmund blocked the transfer, saying he had a contract until 2014.

A bitter war of words ensued be-tween the two sides, raising concerns over his commitment to Dortmund in his � nal year of his contract.

“The situation is now that I will stay in Dortmund for one more year,” Le-wandowski told sport bild magazine. “We have put aside all disagreements and have cleared the air. There were mistakes made but the case is closed.”

“I had a di� erent starting point. I thought I was allowed to transfer. I was then disappointed and angry. But now everything is calm. I have always said I would respect my contract.”

Dortmund also said they gave the for-ward an unspeci� ed pay hike last week based on last season’s performances. l

Milan, Celtic wobble after Champions League � rst legn AFP, Paris

Former European champions Celtic and AC Milan were left with work to do to reach the Champions League group stage after their play-o� � rst leg games on Tuesday.

While AC Milan will approach next week’s second leg at home to PSV Eind-hoven having secured a 1-1 draw and more importantly an away goal Celtic slumped to an embarrassing 2-0 de-feat away at unheralded Kazakh out� t Shakhter Karagandy.

Two other sides in action fared far better on their travels, Spanish out-� t Real Sociedad winning 2-0 at Lyon while a hat-trick by Roman Shirokov eased Zenit St. Petersburg to a 4-1 win in Portugal over Champions League debutants Pacos de Ferreira.

PSV exposed Milan’s rustiness - they have not yet started their league sea-son - several times in the early stages but still went behind to a Stephan El Shaarawy header on the quarter-hour mark.

The Dutch side more than held their own despite their youth - the back four’s average age was 19 1/2 - and de-servedly got an equaliser on the hour

as Tim Matavz pounced on an error by Milan goalkeeper Christian Abbiati.

Milan coach Massimiliano Allegri was relieved to have got a draw, but added that Milan’s problems were far from over.

“It is a good result but given the

problems we had in the � rst-half and the rhythm of the match which PSV imposed on us we must be very wary with regard to what lies in store in the second leg,” he said.

“It will take a good team to beat this

PSV side, who are a young and very promising side.”

His PSV counterpart Phillip Cocu said that their � uent, attacking foot-ball strategy would not change for the second leg, given the problems it had caused their opponents.

“Prior to their goal we were head and shoulders above them,” said the former Dutch international.

“Having equalised we are still in with a chance. We had six players who are less than 21 years of age in the team this evening and they showed great maturity.

“We were � uent in our passing and movement and a vivacity and liveli-ness that put our opponents o� their game.”

Celtic manager Neil Lennon still held out hope that his Scottish cham-pions could recover from one of their more embarrassing defeats of recent times and reach the group stage.

The hosts - whose traditional sac-ri� cing of a sheep on the eve of the match brought its’ reward - scored through captain Andrei Fionchenko and Sergei Khizhnichenko to take a healthy-looking advantage to Scotland for the second leg. l

Pressure a privilege for Martino n AFP, Madrid

Barcelona manager Gerardo Martino has accepted that pressure to win titles is just part and parcel of his new job as his side prepare to take on Atletico Madrid in the � rst-leg of the Spanish Super Cup on Wednesday.

Atleti boss Diego Simeone said earli-er on Tuesday that all the pressure was on the Catalans as they will be heavy favourites to lift the � rst trophy of the Spanish season.

And his compatriot Martino agreed that the expectations are such at Bar-celona that anything other than victory over the two legs will be a huge disap-pointment.

“Managing Barca the aspirations and obligations are the biggest they can be. You always have to go and win,” he told a press conference on Tuesday.

“We will try to take this title. It is a game over 180 minutes and we will play it as such.”

Barca’s 7-0 hammering of Levante in Martino’s � rst competitive match in charge on Sunday did little to dispel fears over the growing disparity in resources between Barca and Real Madrid and the rest of the sides in La Liga.

However, Martino believes that de-spite losing Radamel Falcao in the close season, Atletico are capable of pushing Barca and Madrid this season. l

Chelsea have 'plan B and C' if Rooney chase failsn Reuters, London

Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho has drawn up a contingency plan in the event he fails to land his number one target, Manchester United striker Wayne Rooney, before the transfer window closes on Sept. 2.

The Europa League holders have already had two big-money o� ers for the unsettled England international rejected and Mourinho hinted after Sunday’s 2-0 win over Hull City that he would eventually make a third attempt to sign Rooney.

“We have Plans B and C,” the Por-tuguese told a news conference on the eve of Wednesday’s home game against Aston Villa in the Premier League.

“Don’t ask me names because it’s di� cult to speak about players from other clubs. We have the conditions to try to improve our team by bringing in one more player and we are going to try that till the end.”

Chelsea will again be without Brazil defender David Luiz because of a ham-string problem but Spain mid� elder Juan Mata is hoping to feature after missing the opening game of the sea-son against Hull.

“I didn’t train for a few days but I came back, worked with the physios and on Thursday last week I trained with the � rst team, not at 100 percent but trying to get to my best,” Mata said. “Now I feel better and I am looking forward to play-ing and starting my season.” l

PSV Eindhoven's Karim Rekik (L) challenges AC Milan's Kevin-Prince Boateng during their Champions League qualifying match in Eindhoven on Tuesday REUTERS

Sport 15DHAKA TRIBUNE Thursday, August 22, 2013

Leading names continue winning in women’s chessThe leading names in the Preliminary Phase of the 34th National Women Chess Championship continued their winning ways in the second round of the meet at the chess federation hall room yesterday. A total of ten players -WFM Nazrana Khan Eva, WFM Zakia Sultana, Shamiha Sharmin Shimmi, Dilara Jahan Nupur, Kishwara Sjarin Evana, Mahmuda Hoque Chowdhury Moly, Protiva Talukder, Hamida Rah-man, Jahanar Haque Runu and Afrin Jahan Munia - shared the lead with full two points. In the 2nd round Eva beat Hilali, Zakia beat Advocate Momotaj, Munia beat Tanima, Shimmi beat Tanu, Nupur beat Annanya, Evana beat Arni, Moly beat Farhana, Protiva beat Fatima, Hamida beat Maliha and Runu beat Shukannya.

-RM

Real’s Xabi Alonso breaks bone in right footReal Madrid mid� elder Xabi Alonso has broken the � fth metatarsal bone in his right foot during training, the nine-times European champions said on their o� cial website (www.realmadrid.com) on Wednesday. Local media reported that the Spain international, who was close to a return to action after surgery on a nagging groin injury in June, faces up to three months on the sidelines. The 31-year-old has been the lynchpin in Real’s mid� eld since joining from Liverpool in 2009, and his presence was missed in their opening game of the new La Liga campaign last Sunday when they scraped a 2-1 home win over Real Betis. Alonso had been expected to make his return to action in Thursday’s Santiago Bernabeu Trophy, an annual early season friendly, against Qatar’s Al Sadd. Real coach Carlo Ance-lotti has plenty of cover in the mid� eld holding role, however, with Luka Mo-dric and Sami Khedira plus new signings Casemiro and Asier Illarramendi.

– Reuters

Arsenal’s Oxlade Chamberlain out for six weeksArsenal’s Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain will be out for at least six weeks with a knee injury, manager Arsene Wenger said on Tuesday, easing fears the England winger could be set for an even longer spell on the sidelines. He was injured in a collision with Aston Villa defender Antonio Luna in Arsenal’s opening day Premier League home defeat on Saturday which ruled him out of their Champions League quali� er at Fenerbahce on Wednesday. British media had reported that the 20-year-old could be out for up to six months but Wenger allayed those con-cerns. “It will be at least six weeks out with a posterior cruciate problem... a ligament that is stretched. We don’t think it will need surgery,” the Arsenal manager told a news conference ahead of the playo� � rst leg in Turkey on Wednesday

– Reuters

Al Shabab hold Kashiwa in AFC quarters Saudi Arabia’s Al Shabab held Kashiwa Reysol to a 1-1 away draw Wednesday to raise their hopes of reaching the AFC Champions League semi-� nals for the � rst time. A super strike from Brazil-ian mid� elder Fernando Menegazzo cancelled out Masato Kudo’s opener in the quarter-� nal � rst leg, with the return � xture in Riyadh to be played on September 18. Kashiwa were quickest out of the blocks and Brazilian forward Cleo claimed for handball and a penalty when a dangerous corner came o� an Al Shabab defender and � ashed wide. And the early pressure told when Leandro Domingues’ indirect free-kick rebounded to striker Masato Kudo, who planted it side-footed past the goalkeeper from just inside the box.

– AFP

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Day’s Watch

Airtel Rising Stars ready to openn Shishir Hoque

The second edition of Airtel Rising Stars, a scouting program searching for twelve talented young footballers from around the country to train with Eng-lish giants Manchester United, kicked o� yesterday with the English team’s legend Denis Irwin present on the oc-casion.

This year’s Airtel Rising Stars will be held over six months, at the end of which, top 12 players, under 16 years of age, will be selected. The format for the program is di� erent from last year in that the participants will have to reg-ister through their respective schools.

Registration will start from Septem-ber 1, 2013 and will continue till Sep-tember 15, 2013. All the districts of the country will be divided into 24 hubs,

each containing at least 2 districts or more. 64 teams, including one District Team, will be selected from each hub, which, within the hub, will be play in a knock out tournament. Irrespective of the tournament winners, the � ve best players will be selected by the Bangla-desh Football Federation (BFF) autho-rized coach of each hub.

A total of 120 selected players from 24 hubs will then attend a special grooming session at Bangladesh Krira Shikhkha Protishthan (BKSP), which will be conducted by coaches from Manchester United. The 12 most talent-ed players from this group will receive the chance to visit Manchester United for one week. This year, Airtel is ex-pecting to cover around 1,500 schools, participation from 1,536 teams and to-tal 20,000 players for the event.

During their stay in the United King-dom, the selected players from Ban-gladesh will receive special training at Manchester United Soccer School.

Chris Tobit, CEO and Managing Director, Airtel Bangladesh Limited said that they are looking forward to even greater enthusiasm in this year’s talent hunt.

“We are strong believers in the quality of football talent that exists in Bangladesh and look forward to dis-covering potential national level play-ers through ‘Airtel Rising Stars’. We are con� dent that this program will suc-cessfully leverage our long term asso-ciation with Manchester United and be instrumental in paving a professional career path for 12 talented footballers in Bangladesh,” Tobit declared at a press conference yesterday. l

Australia's Shane Watson hits a four during the � fth Ashes cricket test match against England at The Oval cricket ground in London yesterday REUTERS

Calm Watson presses on to rare hundredn AFP, London

Shane Watson scored just the third hundred of his Test career as England checked Australia’s progress on the � rst day of the Ashes � nale at The Oval on Wednesday.

At tea Australia were 183 for three, having been 112 for one at lunch, with Watson, dropped on 104, 121 not out and Steven Smith 15 not out.

The second session saw England spearhead James Anderson (two for 21) bowl Australia captain Michael Clarke to go clear in second place on England’s all-time list of leading Test wicket-takers.

It was no surprise when Clarke, try-ing to avoid becoming the � rst Australia captain to lose a Test series in England 4-0, chose to bat � rst after winning the toss on a good pitch.

England, though, had an early breakthrough when left-hander David Warner played a loose shot outside o� -stump to Anderson and was caught be-hind by wicketkeeper Matt Prior for six to leave Australia 11 for one.

Anderson’s 325th Test wicket saw him draw level with Bob Willis in second place in an England all-time list headed by Ian Botham with 383 wickets.

Warner’s exit brought all-rounder Watson to the crease.

Having started the series as an open-er, Watson later appeared at number six and this match saw him � lling Austra-lia’s problem position of number three after Usman Khawaja was dropped.

Watson, who has often been out lbw, survived an early leg before appeal from Anderson.

But with England’s bowlers failing to gain much movement, Watson, hit-

ting through the line with con� dence, was 80 not out at lunch.

Watson was especially severe on England’s two debutants, striking six fours apiece o� seamer Chris Woakes and left-arm spinner Simon Kerrigan, whose � rst two overs in Test cricket cost an expensive 28 runs.

But with the debutants given just six overs between them in the second ses-sion, runs were harder to come by after lunch.

Chris Rogers -- who helped Watson add 107 for the second wicket -- fell for 23 when he edged o� -spinner Graeme Swann to Jonathan Trott at slip.

Watson, on 91, was struck a painful blow on the side of his head unprotect-ed by his helmet, after he took his eye o� a Stuart Broad bouncer.

Anderson then captured the prize wicket of Clarke when he bowled the star batsman via the pad for just seven with a ball that nipped back.

Meanwhile Watson’s 41-minute spell in the 90s spanning 20 balls end-ed when he drove Anderson for three through the o� side to complete a near three-hour hundred in 114 balls with 16 fours and a six.

However, he should have been out soon afterwards when he edged Ander-son only for England captain Alastair Cook to drop a seemingly simple slip catch.

Kerrigan’s di� cult debut contin-ued when, unusually for a spinner, he was called for a no-ball as a result of bowling a full-toss above waist height smashed to the boundary by Steven Smith.

At tea, he had the expensive � gures of four wicketless overs for 38 runs. l

At TeaAustralia 1st InningsC. Rogers c Trott b Swann 23D. Warner c Prior b Anderson 6S. Watson not out 121M. Clarke b Anderson 7S. Smith not out 15Extras (lb6, nb5) 11Total (3 wkts, 58 overs) 183

Fall of wicket1-11 (Warner), 2-118 (Rogers), 3-144 (Clarke)BowlingAnderson 11-3-21-2; Broad 12-2-35-0 (4nb); Swann 22-4-45-1; Woakes 9-3-38-0; Kerrigan 4-0-38-0 (1nb)

Bank on us, says Tokyo bid chief n AFP, Tokyo

Tokyo has sent a clear message to the International Olympic Committee less than three weeks before the vote to de-cide the host city for the 2020 Summer Games: bank on us.

With the IOC under pressure to keep escalating Olympic budgets in check amid protests and political sniping in Brazil and Russia, Tokyo has underlined its promise to deliver a pro� table Games without the risk of over-spending.

“We’re very healthy,” Tokyo 2020 chief executive o� cer Masato Mizuno told AFP in an interview.

“Tokyo is a safe pair of hands and

that includes � nancial strength. We already have a $4.5 billion Olympic hosting fund so � nancially there’s no problem — we’re secure. We also have city and government guarantees. There is no worry.”

Tokyo, which tiptoed into the bidding race after losing out to Rio for 2016, re-mains the favourite with the bookmak-ers to beat rivals Istanbul and Madrid for the right to stage the 2020 Games.

Having re-entered the fray with the country still recovering from a deadly tsunami and resulting nuclear crisis in 2011, Tokyo’s budget and � nancial sta-bility could be a key factor in the Sep-tember 7 vote in Buenos Aires. l

Ferrari issue title rallying cry n AFP, Rome

Ferrari have not given up hopes of winning the Formula One world driv-ers’ title despite recent struggles, team principal Stefano Domenicali said on the team’s website.

World title hope Fernando Alonso, the twice former champion, failed to make it onto the podium in either of July’s races, allowing reigning three-time world champion Sebastian Vettel to open up his lead on the Spaniard in the overall standings to 39 points.

Kimi Raikonnen also moved a point ahead of him into second overall by � nishing second in both races while fourth placed Lewis Hamilton closed the gap to Alonso to nine points by win-ning the last race in Hungary. l

Lehmann slams ‘blatant cheating’ n AFP, London

Australia coach Darren Lehmann has accused England’s Stuart Broad of “blatant cheating” and urged fans in Australia to make sure the all-rounder “cries and goes home” during the re-turn Ashes series.

Broad has annoyed Australia’s play-ers and supporters with his behaviour during the ongoing Ashes, which Eng-land lead by an unbeatable 3-0 heading into the � nal Test at The Oval in south London starting on Wednesday.

The 27-year-old Broad angered his

Australian opponents in particular during England’s narrow 14-run � rst Test win at Trent Bridge, his Nottinghamshire home ground, when he refused to walk when given not out at a crucial stage of the game after a thick edge de� ected o� the wicketkeeper’s gloves to slip.

He then appeared to deliberately waste time to ensure lunch was taken on a tense � nal day as Australia eyed a dramatic victory.

Former Australia batsman Lehmann was unimpressed by Broad’s failure to walk, telling Australian radio station

Triple M in an interview broadcast on Wednesday: “Certainly our players haven’t forgotten, they’re calling him everything under the sun as they go past.

“I hope the Australian public are the same because that was just blatant cheating. I don’t advocate walking but when you hit it to � rst slip it’s pretty hard,” he said.

“From my point of view I just hope the Australian public give it to him right from the word go for the whole summer and I hope he cries and he goes home,” Lehmann added. l

Misbah calls for Pakistan Twenty20 league n AFP, Lahore

Pakistan captain Misbah-ul Haq urged his country’s cricket chiefs Wednesday to revive plans for an IPL-style Twen-ty20 league to get his players sharp for international competition.

Misbah, who leads the side in Tests and one-day internationals, is wor-ried his men are losing their edge be-cause they are not regularly playing the world’s best in the shortest format.

Pakistani players do not take part in the annual Indian Premier League (IPL) and the country has hosted no interna-tional games since militants attacked the Sri Lankan team bus in Lahore in 2009.

The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) planned to host a Pakistan Super League

in March and April to try to lure foreign stars but had to shelve the idea inde� -nitely, claiming it wanted to give spon-sors more time to come forward.

Misbah said Pakistan must stage the T20 league, either at home or at a neu-tral venue.

“PCB is doing its e� orts to bring in-ternational cricket back to Pakistan but in my opinion a Twenty20 internation-al league is a must, if not in Pakistan it should be held in Dubai,” Misbah told reporters on his return from the West Indies. The 39-year-old featured in the inaugural Caribbean Premier League where he represented St Lucia Zouks.

He will join the Pakistan team in Zim-babwe later this week to lead them in the three one-dayers and two Tests. l

Professional tennis players Marion Bartoli and Roger Federer attend Moet & Chandon Celebrates Its 270th Anniversary With New Global Brand Ambassador, International Tennis Champion, Roger Federer at Chelsea Piers Sports Center in New York City on Tuesday AFP

16 Back PageDHAKA TRIBUNE Thursday, August 22, 2013

Coming back to lifeA drug addict turns insurance executive

n Mohammad Jamil Khan

“My father died � ve years ago of cancer, but I did not realise anything as I was taking drugs at that time,” said Alvi Nur, an executive accounts o� cer at the Conti-nental Insurance Company.

He was talking to the Dhaka Tribune this Saturday about he started taking drugs and then luckily escaped its wrath.

Alvi said: “I was part of a happyfamily of � ve. My father, Dr RayhanFazlur Nur, who died in 2008, was a Medicine specialist. My mother, Sayeda Maksuda Alam, is a professor at the Tejga-on College.

He completed his masters’ degree in 2010 from UK and honours fromUnited International University (UIU) at Dhanmondi. His elder brother, AdnanNur, is a citizen of the UK while hisyounger sister, Afrin Nur, is an O-level student.

Alvi started taking drugs after being in� uenced by one of his cousins, Nasik Ajgar Kabir, back in 2004 and started o� with smoking cigarette.

Shortly after he started taking heroine and yaba tablets with the help of his cous-in and some so called “younger brother” at the university. He was buying drugs from

the Agargaon BNP slum, but later started taking home deliveries through a drug trader named Moynal.

Alvi said, they would order Moynal over mobile phone and buy drugs worth Tk500 every day or more. The amount would go up during occasions and his mother would provide the amount.

He said: “Though my mother would give me the money, but she would always break into tears, which had no e� ect on me. I was like an animal and I would use bad language with my family members.”

Finally, in January of 2013, my mother after seeing an advertisement on a nation-al daily, called “Apon”, a rehabilitationcentre for my treatment. They took me under their care, and gradually, I started moving away from the curse of taking drugs.

At the primary stage, it was intolera-ble for me but with every passing day I started feeling a lot better and now, I feel that I have come out of the dark world successfully.

Alvi said: “I believe that everything depends on personal will and drug addicts can do anything to save themselves. I wish that no one will step into the world of drugs.” l

USER FEE DEBATE

Tk110m distributed to para-clinical sta� of DMCHClinical sta� say the move is a clear violation of a Supreme Court ordern Moniruzzaman Uzzal

The Dhaka Medical College Hospital au-thority yesterday distributed cheques totalling Tk110m among para-clinical sta� as a “user fee commission”– a move that the clinical sta� claim was a violation of a Supreme Court stay order.

The members of the DMCH clini-cal sta� alleged that soon after o� ce opening hours yesterday, authorities, in what they claim was “suspicious haste,” handed over the cheques to the departmental heads of Radiology and Imaging, Radiotherapy, Clinical Pathol-ogy, Nephrology, and other para-clini-cal divisions.

Sta� also alleged that the move was a clear violation of a Supreme Court (SC) order issued on August 20 stay-ing the disbursement of any such pay-ments to para-clinical sta� .

Professor Dr Billal Alam from the DMCH Medicine Department, a clinical wing, told the Dhaka Tribune that the SC on August 20 stayed the July 23 HC judgement.

But the hospital authorities, despite being informed about the SC order, hur-riedly distributed the cheques yesterday.

DMCH authorities, however, claimed that they were not aware of any such SC order.

In fact, they said the money was distributed in accordance with a High Court (HC) directive issued on July 23 that asked the authorities concerned to distribute the money within a month of the issuance of the order.

Refusing to accept any of the al-legations, DMCH Deputy Director Dr Mus� qur Rahman said the money was distributed yesterday in order to avoid violation of the HC order.

He also said there were clear directives from the health ministry about distribut-ing the money among the para-clinical sta� following previous arrangements.

However, the Dhaka Tribune got a

hold of a document showing that Prof Billal Alam and others � led a civil pe-tition for leave in order to appeal with the Appellate Division to stay the high court order.

The document also claimed that the Appellate Division had actually issued an order staying the July 23 HC judgement.

The Dhaka Tribune has also got its hands on the photocopy of a certi� ed copy of an Appellate Division order that had stayed the operation of the HC judgement until September 26 that is, till the petition came up for hearing.

Seeking anonymity, a number of high-ranked DMCH o� cials have ex-pressed fears that the smooth opera-tions of the hospital may be hampered due to the stando� between the clinical and para-clinical sta� .

Patients are treated for free in pub-lic hospitals, but the amount they pay for using diagnostic facilities is called “user fees.” According to existing ar-rangements, half the amount is allocat-ed to the exchequer, and the remainder is to be disbursed among para-clinical sta� , including doctors, lab technicians and employees who carry out testing.

However, following a High Court or-der, the system of sharing user fees has been suspended for the past two years. Over that period, the entire amount collected- approximately Tk2bn- went to the government exchequer.

On October 10, 2012, following a Civil Leave to Appeal Petition � led by health ministry o� cials, higher courts issued an interim order for the release of the amount collected as user fees over the past two years. After that or-der, the health ministry raised the money, which, sources said, was more than Tk1bn.

The clinical sta� of government hospitals have been demanding a shareof the user fee commission say-ing the existing arrangement wasdiscriminatory. l

The 100-year-old Kamranga Masjid in the Zindabazar area in downtown Dhaka is fast losing its aesthetic beauty as high-rise apartment complexes and other buildings surrounding it engulf the historic structure SYED ZAKIR HOSSAIN

Slight raise proposed for BB and state-owned banks’ employeesProposals are to be � nalised at the secretary-level committeemeeting on September 1

n Asif ShowkatKallol

The secretary-level committee on new pay scales for Bangladesh Bank (BB) and state-owned commercial bank employ-ees has advised a slight raise in pay com-pared with the recommendations of the Finance Minister AMA Muhith and the demands of the bank employees.

At a meeting on August 7,Chairman of the secretaries’ committee, Cabinet Sec-retary Mohammad Musharraf Hossain Bhuiyan and Finance Secretary Fazla Kabir recommended to increase the sal-aries and allowances by a fraction of that which the � nance ministry proposed.

The committee has also decided on a separate pay scale for the Bangladesh Bank and a uni� ed pay scale for the three state-owned banks, Sonali, Jana-ta and Agrani.

It also advised that the income of the employees of these banks be paid from the banks’ own funds while additional allowances should not be given to the sta� of BB and state-owned banks as per the � nanceminister’s proposal ta-bled this January.

The committee advised that the ex-isting 19 grades of sta� be incorporat-ed with the 11 grades mentioned in the ministry’s proposal.

Cabinet Secretary Mohammad Musharraf Hossain told the Dhaka Tri-bune that another meeting will be re-quired to � nalise the two separate pay scales.

He, however, said the � nalised pay scale would not be completed if other members of the secretary committee di� er in opinion.

Meanwhile, cabinet division sourc-es said the meeting of the secretaries’ committee is scheduled to be held on September 1.

The � nance minister’s proposed pay scale was put to the secretary-lev-el committee this January for assess-ment, prior to sending it for approval from the Prime Minister. According to the proposal, the highest gross salary of a general manager will be Tk64,000.

Finance minister AMA Muhith ear-lier rejected a draft of the pay scale submitted by the Bangladesh Bank and state-owned commercial banks which demanded hikes of up to 80% for the basic salary of their employees.

According to the latest proposal, the employees of Bangladesh Bank and state-owned banks will get house rent equivalent to 65 percent of their basic wage, 10 percent as conveyance allow-ance and another 10 percent of the ba-

sic wage as recreation allowance.Furthermore, the festival bonus for

sta� will be increased or slashed de-pending on the income of the respective bank in which the sta� members work.

The national pay scale committee took the salary structure of three pri-vate commercial banks and the govern-ment pay structure into consideration when preparing the new pay scale, the proposal said.

However, salaries of the governor and deputy governors of BB, and chief execu-tives of the state-run banks, will be � xed by the government, as per the proposal.

The basic salary of a general manager (GM) will be Tk52,000 with the gross sala-ry amounting to Tk64,000. A deputy GM will get Tk42,000 as basic salary, while the gross salary cannot exceed Tk56,000.

According to the proposed pay structure, the basic salary of an assis-tant general manager will be Tk34,000 with a gross salary of Tk49,000, a se-nior principle o� cer will receive a gross salary of Tk44,200, principle o� -cers Tk39, 200, senior o� cers Tk33,600 and o� cers Tk 32,100.

An entry-level o� cer (provisional o� cer) will receive Tk10,000 as a ba-sic salary, while the gross salary will be Tk26,600. l

Hearing on contempt charge aginst HRW todayn Udisa Islam

The International Crimes Tribunal will hear today the contempt petition � led against Human Rights Watch for pub-lishing a report on the recent convic-tion of Jamaat-e-Islami guru Ghulam Azam terming it “deeply � awed.”

In the petition � led on Tuesday, the prosecution identi� ed three opposition parties – Human Rights Watch, its Execu-tive Director of Asia Division Brad Adams and Associate of Asia Division Storm Tiv, who is also the writer of the report.

Tribunal Chairman Justice ATM Fazle Kabir yesterday said: “We have gone through the application. We will

hear the matter on Thursday [today].”The report titled “Bangladesh: Azam

Conviction Based on Flawed Proceed-ings: Analysis Outlines how Fair Trial Rights of Accused Seriously Compro-mised” was published on August 16. It said: “Human Rights Watch’s concerns about the Azam trial include: judges improperly conducted an investigation on behalf of the prosecution; collusion and bias among prosecutors and judges; failure to take steps to protect defence witnesses; changes in the trial court panel; and lack of evidence to establish guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.”

The tribunal 1 on July 15 sentenced Ghulam Azam to 90 years’ jail for mas-

terminding war crimes during the 1971 Liberation War. Both prosecution and the defence have � led appeals at the Ap-pellate Division challenging the verdict.

In the contempt petition, the pros-ecution said there were widespread allegations against the New York-based rights group for publishing “motivated and fabricated” reports in the past, hav-ing been driven by various interests.

The prosecution in the petition in-cluded some allegations against the rights group that include poor research and inaccuracy, ideologically biasness, unethical fund raising policies and ap-pointing of a Nazi policy supporter like Marc Garlasco as investigator to report

on war crimes and crimes against hu-manity.

However, Tajul Islam, one of the counsels of Ghulam Azam, said the re-port was “objective” and re� ected Ja-maat’s view on the tribunal.

Prosecutor Tureen Afroz earlier said what the rights body mentioned in the report was “outrageous.” She said: “This petition will convey message to all human right organisation that ev-erybody should have accountability on his work.”

Another prosecutor Tapos Kanti Bol said since two appeals had been � led over the verdict it was clearly a sub ju-dice matter. l

SHROUDED BY PROGRESS

‘Compensate Taindong attack victims’n Muktasree Chakma Sathi

Civil society representatives, lawmak-ers and journalists yesterday alleged that the August 3 attack in Taindong by Bangalee settlers was part of a system-atic process to uproot the indigenous peoples from the Chittagong Hill Tracts.

They demanded proper compen-sation for the victims and exemplary punishment for everyone involved with the attack and urged the govern-ment to take immediate steps to ease the mistrust between the settlers and the indigenous people.

They also criticised the government for inaction in preventing the systemat-ic marginalisation that was instigating atrocities against indigenous peoples.

Awami League lawmaker Fazle Hossain Badsha, human rights activist Khushi Kabir, researcher Swapan Ad-nan, Professor Anu Muhammad of Jah-angirnagar University, lawyer Sara Hos-sain, CHT Citizens’ Committee member Nirupa Dewan and journalist Sushmita S Preetha made the observations in a press release.

“The pattern of the recent attack is almost the same as the previous ones. The arson seems to be pre-planned aiming to grab the land of the indige-nous peoples. Some in� uential peo-ple instigated the settlers.” The group said when the victims had gone to the border area to save their lives, land of many of them were grabbed, their valu-ables looted and the houses burnt. l

EU to stop arms sale to Egypt n AFP, Cairo

European Union foreign ministers agreed to suspend the sale of security equipment and arms to Egypt, the EU’s foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said Wednesday.

Ministers of the 28-nation bloc hold-ing emergency talks in response to the violence in Egypt also agreed to review aid to the country, she added.

“We strongly condemn all acts of violence and we do believe the recent actions of the military have been dis-proportionate,” Ashton told a news conference at the close of a four-hour meeting between the ministers.

She said the EU called “on all sides” to halt the violence and urged all sides to come together in an inclusive pro-cess to agree a political solution to the country’s crisis.

“We will review assistance to Egypt but assistance to the most needy will remain,” Ashton added.

“All member states feel very strong-ly they want to continue to support the people of Egypt.”

The ministers had agreed to sus-pend export licences to Egypt for any equipment which could be used for in-ternal repression and to reassess arms export licences and review their securi-ty assistance with Egypt. l

Call for a uniform semester system at universitiesn Mushfi que Wadud

Lack of a standardised semester system in the universities across the country is creating problems for the students to transfer credit from one university to another within the country.

Some universities follow the year-ly system for four years of bachelors, while some follow the semester sys-tem dividing the academic year into two terms, each with six months. Some universities also follow the trimester system dividing the academic year into

three terms, each with four months. While the public and national uni-

versities mostly follow the yearly sys-tem, most of the private universities opt for the trimester system.

Moreover, some universities follow yearly system for some courses and se-mester system for others.

Students say due to the di� erent systems, they are facing problems to transfer credits.

Omar Faruque, who is studying BBA in a private university in Chittagong, said: “This is a big problem. I had

studied for one year in a university in Chittagong and then shifted from Chit-tagong to Dhaka. But even after spend-ing one year, I had to start the course from the scratch as there was no option to transfer credit.”

Anisur Rahman, a student of Uni-versity of Dhaka (DU), said since it was possible to transfer credit from a university of home country to auniversity abroad, there should be some provision to transfer credits within the country as well.

University Grants Commission

(UGC), in its latest annual report, ex-pressed concern over the adaptation of di� erent semester systems by di� erent universities and said due to this stu-dents had been facing major di� culties in transferring credits.

UGC chair AK Azad Chowdhury told the Dhaka Tribune that it was true that lack of a common semester system in the universities had been creating problems for the students and they were working to introduce a uniform system in the universities to solve this issue. l

Editor: Zafar Sobhan, Published and Printed by Kazi Anis Ahmed at Romask Limited, 184, Tejgaon Industrial Area, Dhaka-1215. Editorial, News & Commercial O� ce: FR Tower, 8/C Panthapath, Shukrabad, Dhaka 1207.Phone: 9132093-94, Advertising: 9132155, Circulation: 9132282, Fax: News-9132192, e-mail: news@dhakatribune.com, info@dhakatribune.com, Website: www.dhakatribune.com

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Business

Businesswww.dhakatribune.com/business Thursday, augusT 22, 2013

Microcredit registers faster growth

Familytex puts BSEC in discomfort

B3

B2

Saarc trade ministers to talk ways to zero-tariff regime GM Quader leads Bangladesh team to Colombo meet beginning tomorrow nAsif ShowkatKallol

The trade ministers of Saarc countries are go-ing to meet in Colombo tomorrow to decide on reducing non-tariff barriers and withdraw-ing all duties by 2021.

The reduction or removal of trade barriers is expected to help member countries like Bangladesh boost their regional trade.

There may be bilateral talks on the side-lines to supply electricity from the surplus country to the deficit ones in the region.

Nepal, Bhutan and some Indian states are said to have surplus electricity production.

Commerce Minister GM Quader is leading a five-member Bangladesh delegation to the meet called “SAFTA Ministerial Council.”

Prior to the meeting, SAFTA expert groups are now holding meetings. Started yesterday, the experts continue their meet till today.

Sources said consultants will be appointed to identify and withdraw non-tariff barriers and to provide progress reports on imple-menting the zero-tariff regime by 2021.

The major non-tariff barriers include local tax, testing certificates and court orders. Ban-gladeshi exporters are facing non-tariff barri-ers in the neigbhouring India.

Meanwhile, Bangladesh is set to import 250 megawatt of electricity from India from October to mitigate its power shortage of over 2000MW. Bangladesh can also avail of electricity from Bhutan at cheaper rates after

building Saarc power supply grid. Bhutan gen-erates 97% of its 3000MW power from hydro plants.

Meanwhile, despite efforts to increase trade volume among Saarc countries, Bangla-desh exports to Saarc nations declined mar-ginally in the just concluded fiscal (2012-13).

The exports to Saarc countries is yet to get a boost, sources said, adding that it remained al-most static below 3% of the country’s total ex-port earnings. Lack of trust, non-tariff barriers, under-developed port facilities, non-diversifi-cation of export items and lack of infrastruc-

ture facilities are considered to be the main reasons behind the lackluster performance.

According to Export Promotion Bureau (EPB), Bangladesh’s exports to Saarc countries totaled $690m in the last fiscal against $691m in the previous year. The amount represents 2.55% of the country’s total exports as against 2.84% in the previous fiscal.

Bangladesh’s export to India, the EPB fig-ures showed, was the highest among the Saarc countries in last fiscal amounting to $564m, about 82% of the total export in the region. The export earnings from India in fiscal 2011-12 were $498m. The amount was $512.5m in the previous year. The lowest amount of ex-port among the SAARC countries in last fiscal went to the Maldives, amounting $1.5m. The amount was $1.8m in the previous year.

Except India, exports to most of the coun-tries declined drastically during the period with Bhutan and Nepal making the highest falls. Bhutan and Nepal experienced a neg-ative growth of 80% and 57% respectively. Goods worth about $1.8m were shipped to Bhutan in last fiscal against $9m during the same period in the previous fiscal. Nepal also received goods worth about $26.4m as against $62m a year ago.

Exports to other Saarc destinations: Sri Lanka $23.7m in last fiscal against $42.6m in the previous year, Afghanistan $3.6m against $3.5m and Pakistan $68.7m against $ 73.2m in the previous year. l

Falling Indian Rupee seen a boon for Bangladesh importsnKayes Sohel

The steep fall of Indian rupee against the US dollar should make Bangladesh’s imports cheaper while putting its exports in tough competition with India local products, businessmen said yesterday.

Exports to India would be affected as local products like garments – mainstay of Bangladesh economy – will lose competitive edge while import costs would fall by more than 10% or around $500m.

“Devalued rupee is a bane for local exporters, but boon for the importers,” said Matlub Ahmad, President of India-Bangladesh Chamber of Commerce and Industry (IBCCI).

Since June 2013, the rupee depreciated by 17% against the greenback. Its exchange rate currently averaged at a range between Rs63 and Rs64 to a dollar.

Bangladesh exports goods including raw jute,

jute goods, frozen food, agri-products, woven garments, knitwear, leather and chemical products while imports goods including automobile, textiles and textile articles, products of the chemical or allied industries, machinery and mechanical appliances.

Matlub said India would get competitive advantage to export Bangladesh’s common products like garments, shrimp and jute to third countries, which is not good news for the country’s apparel industry.

Moreover, Indian importers feel discouraged to import from Bangladesh because of their higher import costs, he said. “But the silver lining is that we can save over $500m, which is 10% of our total import from India. This is not bad.”

Annual bilateral trade between the two countries is around $5bn, broadly tilting towards India with its exports to Bangladesh hitting at around $4.5b.

Matlub, however, said the plunging rupee would stage comeback within a short span of time as the base of India’s economy is strong.

Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies research director Zaid Bakth said local exports would lose competitiveness for a short-period.

“But in my view rupee will strongly rebound as Indian economy will be back on track,” he said.

Export of products like fish and edibles to India is also being affected.

Imports of fish and other edibles from Bangladesh remained suspended for over a month even as traders on the other side of the border are continuing to export goods through the Akhaura check post in Agartala, Times of India reported on Monday.

The India-Bangladesh Importers-Exporters Association has blamed devaluation of Indian currency and rise in the value of the US dollar for the suspension of trade between the two countries.

Indian importers said that because of the devaluation of the rupee, they do not have the required demand to import items from Bangladesh as prices of the imported goods will be much higher in Tripura’s market compared to normal prices. This has prevented the traders from importing goods from the neighbouring country.

Habul Biswas, an official of India-Bangladesh Traders Association, said import of fish and other edible items from Bangladesh has been suspended since July 9 because of Ramzan. But even after Bangladesh lifted the suspension of exports on August 10, Indian traders have not yet resumed import of fish and edible items because of the devaluation of rupee.

He said trade volume between India and Bangladesh has reduced by 15%, and except for boulders, nothing has been imported from Bangladesh for over a month due to the escalating exchange rate. l

NBR to increase duty on green chilli againnSyed Samiul Basher Anik

As the market is stable now, the National Board of Revenue has decided to re-impose duty on green chilli import, official sources told the Dhaka Tribune yesterday.

On 18th July, the duty was reduced to 25% from 92.3% through a statutory regulatory order (SRO) to contain price of green chilli. The order was supposed to remain effective till December 31.

“The decision [to reduce duty] was taken to control price of green chilli. But the price is affordable now”, said a NBR official said.

He said a format of the revised SRO has already been prepared in this regard to increase duty again and an abstract of it has also been to the finance ministry for appraisal.

Meanwhile, a NBR assessment estimated a total of Tk2.5m loss of revenue due to cut in import duty on the green chili.

Just before Ramadan began, the retail price of green chilli went up sharply reaching Tk160-200 per kilogram from Tk70-80.

After reduction of duty, the price fell to Tk 80-100 a kg. The visits to the city’s kitchen markets yesterday found the green chilli was retailing at Tk90-100 per kg.

“As the price [of green chilli] is stable, the re-imposing of duty will help our local farmers get their due price,” Md Helal Uddin, Vice President of FBCCI, told the Dhaka Tribune. l

Commerce Minister gM Quader

Thursday, augusT 22, 2013dhaKa TrIBuNE Business2

Microcredit registers faster growthRefused by banks, rural small entrepreneurs come to microcredit institutions: Mahbub nJebun Nesa Alo

The microcredit operations of Grameen Bank (GB) and big other NGOs have expanded in the rural areas of Bangladesh as credit disbursements increased by 14% in the first 9 months (July-Mar) of the previous fiscal year 2012-2013.

“A large segment of the population, particularly the rural poor, who are now aware about the benefits of the micro-credit that helped lift them out of severe poverty and accelerate the pace of the economic development,” said a Bangladesh Bank (BB) senior executive.

The central bank took several initiatives such as opening bank accounts with Tk10 and expansion of mobile banking service to help bring rural people under the banking service. As a result, the rural people’s access to banking service has expanded, resulting in increased microcredit disbursement, he said.

According to a BB report, the total microcredit disbursement of large NGOs, including Grameen Bank, Brac, ASA and Proshika, stood at Tk255bn up to March 2013 as compared to Tk223bn of the same period previous year.

Brac Executive Director Mahabub Hossain said despite high interest rates, rural people have a demand for microcredit as they are being benefited. “The small entrepreneurs, who are being refused from banks to get credit, are coming to the microcredit institutions and are becoming successful in their businesses. Credit limits for them have increased in proportion to the vertical expansion in their business.”

Grameen Bank disbursed microcredit worth Tk27bn from July to September, Tk30bn from October to December and Tk32bn from January to March of the fiscal year 2012-2013 as against Tk24.29bn, Tk29.59bn and Tk31.16bn respectively during the previous fiscal year.

Grameen Bank’s credit disbursement has increased gradually every year as it has disbursed credit worth Tk116bn in FY12, Tk103bn in FY11, Tk87bn in FY10, Tk71bn

in FY09, Tk55bn in FY08, Tk50bn in FY07, Tk46bn in FY06, Tk31bn in FY05 and Tk23bn in FY04 respectively.

Of the large NGOs Grameen Bank, Brac, ASA and Proshika have disbursed credit worth Tk89bn, Tk82.67bn, Tk81.41bn and Tk2bn respectively in the first 9 months (July-Mar) of FY13.

Total loan recovery of the microcredit operations stood at Tk258bn in the first 9 months of FY13 compared to Tk215bn in the previous fiscal year.

Of the total Grameen Bank, Brac, ASA and Proshika had recovered Tk86bn, Tk88bn,

Tk82bn and Tk2bn respectively. Total loans overdue stood at Tk15bn out

of total loans outstanding Tk600bn. The microcredit growth was achieved

due to the expansion of microcredit-related activities in rural areas, said an official of the Microcredit Regulatory Authority (MRA).

MRA Director Abu Farah Md Nasser said microcredit operations have expanded because of increased funds.

Earlier microcredit institutions depended on foreign donations, often causing them to suffer from fund crisis. But the institutions

have now overcome the crisis as they now collect deposits following the MRA Act, 2006 and have also been allowed to reinvest.

As a result microcredit funds have increased rapidly. In 2011, the total fund was Tk60bn which has grown to Tk75bn within one year in 2012.

In addition, improved life style and changes in business patterns have helped increase clients’ demand for credit. MRA has also been conducting awareness programmes on microcredit, which has also helped the disbursement rate to grow, Nasser said. l

small entrepreneurs, who have little or no access to bank finance, choose microcredit despite its high interest cost Syed Zakir HoSSain

DCCI offers online company registration servicesnTribune Business Desk

Dhaka Chamber of Commerce and Industry (DCCI) set up a help desk to provide services to new entrepreneurs for getting registra-tion with Registrar of Joint Stock Companies and Firms (RJSC).

On 13 May, 2013 DCCI also signed a mem-orandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Registrar of Joint Stock Companies and Firms (RJSC) in order to facilitate the busi-ness registration process through DCCI Help-desk.

This is an exceptional and first example in Bangladesh that a private organization

is providing government services to new entrepreneurs to get registered with RJSC through introducing help desk, said DCCI in a statement. Three companies have already registered with RJSC through DCCI Help Desk, it added.

DCCI is committed to provide more ser-vices to the business community in order to facilitate business authority and helping efforts will be continued in near future, it continued.

Companies willing to get company regis-tration are requested to come to DCCI Help Desk for getting smooth company registra-tion process. l

Westin Dhaka serves Italian breakfast The Westin Dhaka is offering real Italian breakfast at the daily treats for its valued clients, said a statement yesterday. It is of-fering La Prima Colazione Breakfast to the guests. The breakfast will contain choices of fresh juice, choices of croissant (chocolate/fruit plan/almond) or choices of sausage roll (chicken or beef) and selection of coffee. l

BPDB, Cross World Power sign deal to install power plantnTribune Business Desk

Bangladesh Power Development Board (BPDB) and Cross World Power Ltd yesterday signed agreement to install 2 mega watt power plant at Sandwip. Under the contract, Cross World will provide supply, installation, testing, and commissioning of heavy duty (2x1000KW) of 10%. Prime Power Diesel package generation set with all other related auxiliaries and electri-cal system at Sandwip Chittagong on turnkey basis. Abul Bashar Khan, Director Purchase of BPDB, Jasim Uddin Deputy Director, Pur-chase of BPDB, Nur Hosain, GM-sales, CWPL, Soumendranath Biswas, GM-MSD, CWPL, Moshiur Rahman, Senior Manager-sales, CWPL and other high officials from both side were present in the signing ceremony. l

United Air adds aircraft The United Airways (BD) Limited added an ATR-72 aircraft to consolidate its domestic, regional and international network yesterday. The new ATR-72 aircraft having 64 economy class seats will primarily be used for Dhaka-Bangkok-Dhaka routes, said a press release. l

BusinessdhaKa TrIBuNE Thursday, augusT 22, 2013 3

sonali, Basic banks’ performanceget worsenAsif Showkat Kallol

The performance of six state-owned commercial and specialised banks were unsatisfactory in the first quarter of this year while the condition of Sonali Bank worsened, according to the latest CAMEL rating by Bangladesh Bank.

Bangladesh Development Bank ranked first in the rating, in which capital, asset, management, earning and liquidity (CAMEL) are used as indicators for measuring the banks’ performance.

Janata, Agrani and Rupali banks were ranked at second position, according to the rating in March 2013. The central bank evaluates the performance of the state-owned banks on the basis of the CAMEL rating.

The ratings on state-owned banks were presented to Finance Minister AMA Muhith at a recent meeting at the finance ministry with the chairmen and managing directors of the six banks.

Meanwhile, Credit Rating Agencies of Bangladesh (CRAB) has recently downgraded BASIC Bank’s rating by five notches to BBB1 from AA2, a year ago, because of worries about bad governance and a buildup of nonperforming loans in the state-run bank.

Once a healthy bank, BASIC Bank came to the spotlight in recent months after the central bank unearthed major irregularities, involving around Tk40bn.

Sonali Bank scored 5 in the CAMEL rating, which is unsatisfactory performance, while Janata, Agrani and Rupali banks secured a score of 4 which puts those banks’ performance position at a marginal level, according to Bangladesh Bank data.

Mahfuzur Rahman, executive director and spokesperson of Bangladesh Bank, said the performance of the state-owned banks have gone up and down over time. “We are monitoring the state owned banks according to the MOU.” l

CSE to cut trade settlement period by one daynTribune Report

Chittagong Stock Exchange (CSE) is all set to introduce the trading cycle to T+2, reducing a-day from the existing T+3 from November 3 this year.

The T+2 means buyers will receive shares and sellers will get money two days after a trade is made.

On August 17, the port city bourse, decided to cut the trading cycle by one day at its board meeting.

The country’s second bourse has informed their members about the new trading cycle.

“We are all set to go with T+2 trading cy-cle,” said Syed Sajid Husain, the CSE chief executive officer (CEO). He said the gazette notification on new settlement regulations is under the process and will be done soon.

“T+2 trading cycle is mostly needed to curb manipulation and to increase trading volume and that’s why the decision is time befitting,” said a former director.

He said it is needed to upgrade our stock market to international standard.

In 2011, Bangladesh Securities and Ex-change Commission (BSEC) approved the proposal by the twin bourses in reducing the trading cycle.

Later, Dhaka Stock Exchange (DSE) decid-ed not to reduce the settlement period, con-sidering the then current market situation. l

Bourses to establish clearing company nTribune Report

The Dhaka and Chittagong Stock Exchanges yesterday signed a memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to establish a clearing company.

DSE chief executive officer (CEO) Swapon Kumar Bala and CSE CEO Syed Sajid Hussain signed the MOU on behalf of their respective bourses.

DSE president Ahsanul Islam, CSE president Al Maruf Khan and senior executives of the bourses were present at the signing ceremony.

The MOU will help the bourses to settle a day’s trading on the following day, said a statement. It would also help introduce derivatives and commodities markets, it said. l

Familytex puts BSEC in discomfort nKayes Sohel

Bangladesh Securities and Exchange Commission (BSEC) is in discomfort after Familytex (BD) Ltd turning into a junk company in just around seven months of approving the company’s initial public offering (IPO).

Immediately after the listing, the company has been degraded as Z-category (poor performing one) by the stock exchanges due to its failure in giving any dividend to its shareholders for the year 2012.

The poor performance within short span of time from BSEC’s nod to go public has raised question about the capacity of the regulator, issuer and issue manger in scrutinising the financial health of the companies and their future prospect, analysts say.

“It’s a matter of concern,” said a top official of BSEC.

The regulator lacks adequate manpower to look into the company’s financial statements thoroughly, sources said.

Following bourses’ downgrading the company, the regulator served a notice to Familytex for breaching securities rules by declaring dividends before the listing and asked to reply in three working days.

In response, Familytex said it had only approved the draft audited financial statement for the year 2012. “But no decision on dividend was made in its board meeting held on July 23. The company had only sought advice from the DSE and CSE regarding dividend declarations,” the letter

reads.But both the bourses refuted the

statements saying they have enough documents to quash it (company’s reply).

“We have proper documents regarding dividend declaration of the company,” said a DSE top official.

According to the Company Act, agenda for dividend declaration on annual general meeting of a listed company is a must. Familytex has already held its AGM on August 4, he said.

Echoing DSE, CSE management also binned Familytex statements.

“We have enough documents to prove wrong the statement of the company,” said CSE chief executive officer Syed Sajid Hossain. “Familytex informed us that it had taken no decision on dividend for 2012. After that we have decided to downgrade the company as per the listing rules.”

On the debut trading day on June 18, the bourses in their website said the board of directors of Familytex decided not to issue any dividend for its shareholders for the year ended on December 31, 2012, prompting it to degrade the company.

The company had taken a decision

regarding dividend declarations on April 29 before being listed on July 18. “This is clearly violation of securities rules,” said Saifur Rahman, BSEC executive director.

BSEC approved Familytex to go public on January 22 this year to raise Tk340m by offloading 34m ordinary shares at an offer price of Tk10 each.

Companies like Familytex have turned poor perfuming ones soon after listing, which is not good news for the market as well as investors, said a market expert, on condition of anonymity.

He said the responsibility goes to regulator, issuer and market intermediaries, including issuer and underwriter.

Before applying for any IPO, he said, an issue manger from the point of their responsibility entrusted by the regulator should screen out the company’s eligibility for going public.

Before the IPO process of Familytex, Abdul Kader Faruk was its chairman. Later, he resigned from chairmanship of the company to make the IPO approval process smooth.

During the time, Faruk was the managing director of RN Spinning Mills and faced music from the securities regulator on fraud charges in October last year as the company provided false documents for getting approval to rights share.

According to the half-yearly report of the company, it made a net profit after tax of Tk453.5m, an increase of about 71% over the same period a year ago. l

Stocks edge lower amid profit taking nTribune Report

Stocks edged lower in a volatile trading yesterday as investors booked profit for second straight session.

The benchmark DSEX index closed at 4,068 with a marginal drop of 14 points or 0.4%. The blue chip index DS30 fell 13 points or 0.82% to 1,537.

The Chittagong Stock Exchange (CSE) Selective Categories Index, CSCX, declined 36 points to 7,977.

“Investors’ shaky confidence fostered by turnaround phenomenon further pulled down the market into negative territory. As a result, the bourse ended red and lost 13.94 points,” said IDLC Investment in its daily market analysis.

Lack of fresh positioning and re-positioning kept the participation sluggish as DSE turnover stood at Tk5.5bn, down 21.5% over the previous session’s value.

Out of 287 issues traded, 107 advanced, 148 declined and 32 remained unchanged.

Investors were upholding their judgment to be careful in respect of their day-to-day trading as they were observing future directions of capital market, said IDLC.

Despite flat movement of the overall market, nine textile-sector companies have gained by more than 5%, which helped the sector to close 2.44% higher.

“Probably investors are feeling encouraged to see readymade garments export growing at a robust 26% in the month of July 2013,” said BRAC-EPL.

Tannery was the worst losers with a drop of around 8%, followed by non-banking financial institutions 2.3%, travel and leisure 1.7%, non-life insurance 1.6% and engineering 1%.

Bangladesh Submarine Cable Company Ltd became the top turnover leader with shares worth Tk406m changing hands followed by Padma Oil, Grameenphone, RN Spinning, Meghna Petroleum, Tallu Spinning and Square Pharmaceuticals. l

‘Familytex informed us that it had taken no decision on dividend for 2012. after that we have decided to downgrade the company as per the listing rules’

Tough-talking China pricing regulator sought confessions from foreign firmsnReuters, Beijing

A senior Chinese official put pressure on around 30 foreign firms including General Electric and Siemens at a recent meeting to confess to any antitrust violations and warned them against using external lawyers to fight accusations from regulators, sources said.

The meeting is evidence of what many an-titrust lawyers in China see as increasingly ag-gressive tactics to enforce a 2008 anti-monop-oly law and highlight a worsening relationship between foreign companies and China’s array of regulators.

Two sources who were at the July 24-25 closed-door meeting said the senior official showed in-house lawyers how to write what they called “self-criticisms” and displayed copies of letters from companies admitting guilt in past antitrust cases. Lawyers em-ployed by some of those firms were in the room.

The two sources, and another source with direct knowledge of the meeting at a small ho-tel in Beijing, said the official who delivered the blunt remarks was Xu Xinyu, a division chief at the National Development and Re-form Commission (NDRC).

One of the sources at the meeting said Xu noted, without being specific, that half of the companies in the room were either being in-vestigated or had been probed by the NDRC. “The message was: if you put up a fight, I could double or triple your fines. This speech went way over the line,” the second source who attended the meeting told Reuters.

The NDRC did not respond to questions from Reuters. Xu could not be reached for comment.

The agency has been at the forefront of a wave of investigations into how companies do business in China, especially into wheth-

er they effectively force retailers to sell their products at a minimum price.

On August 7 it announced fines totaling a record $110m against five foreign milk powder firms and one Chinese producer for price fix-ing and anti-competitive behavior. Three oth-er milk powder makers were investigated but not fined because, among other things, they carried out “self-rectification”, the NDRC said at the time.

In-house lawyers from some 30 firms at-

tended the July meeting, which was conduct-ed in Chinese. It had been billed as a training session for multinationals to mark the fifth anniversary of the anti-monopoly law. Offi-cials from the Ministry of Commerce as well as the State Administration for Industry and Commerce (SAIC), a regulator in charge of market supervision, were also at the meeting, but their presentations were overshadowed by Xu’s speech.

His comments were perceived as threat-

ening, and while other NDRC officials at the meeting may not have supported the way it was conveyed, Xu’s message was consistent with the approach taken by other officials in private conversations with companies in re-cent months, the two sources at the meeting said.

They declined to be identified because they were not authorized to speak to the me-dia, but word of the meeting has circulated widely in the antitrust community. l

Thursday, augusT 22, 2013dhaKa TrIBuNE Business4

The national flag of China flutters behind a fence of the headquarters of the National development and reform Commission (NdrC) in Beijing on July 12, 2013 reUTerS

Asian economies warned against bypassing manufacturingnAFP, Singapore

Growth-hungry Asian economies which by-pass industrialisation and leapfrog from ag-riculture to the services sector may fall into a “middle income trap”, the Asian Develop-ment Bank (ADB) cautioned Wednesday.

ADB chief economist Changyong Rhee said the region’s low-income economies should focus on developing their manufacturing sec-tors, which would in turn generate high-qual-ity service jobs and improve agricultural pro-ductivity.

“A lion’s share of Asian economies are moving directly from the agricultural sector to the services sector, bypassing industrialisa-tion,” he told a news conference in Singapore.

“We find that historically, virtually no country becomes a high-income country without having a significant degree of indus-trialisation.”

Rhee said a study of 100 countries by the Manila-based lender showed that economies which achieve high-income status - with per capita income of above US$15,000 - have at least an 18% share of manufacturing in total output and employment for a sustained pe-riod.

“What we found is that without reaching this 18% threshold in employment and out-put share, you will have difficulty moving out of the middle-income trap,” Rhee said.

The ADB study identified the Philippines, India, Sri Lanka and Pakistan as among Asia’s agriculture-driven economies that have bypassed industrialisation for the ser-vices sector.

They only attract “low-quality” service sector jobs because of their lack of a substan-tial manufacturing sector, according to Rhee.

Without manufacturing experience it would not be easy to attract high-quality

service-sector jobs such as legal and IT work, Rhee said.

The ADB study showed the agricultural sector comprised just 10.9% of the total GDP of 45 nations or territories from Central Asia through to the Pacific islands excluding Ja-pan.

This was despite the sector accounting for 42.8% of total employment in the region.

Rhee said despite the slow pace of struc-tural reforms, governments in Asia un-derstood the importance of developing manufacturing to avoid being stuck in the middle-income trap.

“I have no doubt in their political will, but the question is implementation because of local politics and government structures,” he said.

The ADB in July trimmed its growth fore-cast for Asia to 6.3% from 6.6%, citing Chi-na’s slowing growth. l

Facebook launching project to make Internet more affordablenReuters

Facebook Inc’s Chief Executive Mark Zucker-berg has enlisted Samsung Electronics Co Ltd, Qualcomm Inc and four other companies for a project aimed at bringing Internet access to people around the world who can’t afford it, mirroring efforts by Google Inc and others.

The project is called Internet.org and will be launched Wednesday. It focuses on en-abling the next 5 billion people without access to come online, Zuckerberg said.

“The goal of Internet.org is to make In-ternet access available to the two-thirds of the world who are not yet connected and to bring the same opportunities to everyone that the connected third of the world has today,” said Zuckerberg. Other players in the project include Ericsson, MediaTek Inc, Nokia, and Opera Software ASA. The partnership will de-velop lower-cost, higher-quality smartphones and deploy Internet access in underserved communities, Facebook said. l

BusinessdhaKa TrIBuNE Thursday, augusT 22, 2013 5

Iraq PM heads to India for investment and tradenAFP, Baghdad

Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki is to visit India, officials said yesterday, to push for investment in much-needed reconstruction as New Delhi looks to secure critical energy supplies.

The premier’s three-day trip to New Delhi and Mumbai, the first by an Iraqi leader since the 2003 US-led invasion ousted president Saddam Hussein, comes on the heels of a visit by Indian Foreign Minister Salman Khurshid to Baghdad in June.

But the prospects of luring foreign investment to Iraq have been complicated as the country has been hit by its worst violence since 2008, with the interior ministry describing Iraq as a “battleground”.

Maliki will set off on Thursday with a delegation including the ministers of oil, health and agriculture, the head of Iraq’s national investment commission, and several advisors.

He is due to meet with his Indian counterpart Manmohan Singh, as well as India’s President Pranab Mukherjee and other top officials and leaders, according to Suresh Reddy, India’s envoy to Baghdad.

“It is a very important visit,” Maliki’s spokesman Ali Mussawi told AFP. “It will mark a major change in relations between Iraq and India, a big step forward.”

Mussawi said discussions would focus on energy, but also housing, healthcare, education and railways.

“Naturally...economic considerations would be a big part of bilateral discussions,” Reddy said.

“Since energy is of critical importance to Iraq, and India being dependent on imported energy, so energy would constitute a very important component of the discussions.”

“But it’s not just trade alone.”Reddy said Indian exports to Iraq totalled

around $1.3bn in 2012, up from $740m in 2011, while Baghdad’s exports to India - the vast majority of which were oil - totalled more than $20bn last year, compared to around $9bn in 2011.

Iraq, which currently exports around 2.3 million barrels per day (bpd) of oil, is looking to dramatically boost its energy output, with officials aiming for overall production

capacity of 9 million bpd by 2017.Baghdad is almost entirely dependent

on oil sales for income, and while efforts to boost energy production have resulted in a significant increase in output, steps to diversify the country’s economy have sputtered.

India, meanwhile, has made clear its requirement to secure energy supplies to drive economic growth and development, with its dependence on Iraqi exports increasing as sanctions have limited Iran’s oil sales.

While in Baghdad in June, Khurshid insisted that India also wanted to promote investment in other fields in Iraq.

But whereas firms from the West, Turkey, South Korea and China have sought to win major government contracts in Iraq as Baghdad looks to restore its war-battered infrastructure and dilapidated economy, Indian companies have been noticeably absent.

Considerations of investment in Iraq have been complicated by a marked spike in violence in recent months that authorities have failed to stem.

More than 1,000 people died as a result of violence last month, the United Nations said, the highest such figure since 2008, and more than 400 have been killed already this month, according to an AFP tally. l

Japan economy may have bottomed out in late 2012 - government panelnReuters, Tokyo

Japan may have emerged late last year from its shortest economic contraction in rough-ly 60 years, findings of a government panel showed, as optimism generated by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s reflationary policies led to robust personal consumption.

Some members of a government pan-el, charged with gauging Japan’s economic cycle, though the economy may have hit bottom in November last year judging from trends in the coincident indicators’ index, a measurement of current economic condi-tions.

But the panel decided that more data and evidence would be needed before coming to a conclusion, though GDP data released earlier this month showed the economy ex-panded 2.6% on an annualized basis in the second quarter of this year, slowing from 3.8% growth in the first quarter.

“If November were to be the bottom, that would make it quite a short period of con-traction,” Hiroshi Yoshikawa, the panel’s chairman and a professor of the University of Tokyo’s graduate school, told a news con-ference after the meeting on Wednesday.

“When you look at GDP since the fourth

quarter of 2012, personal consumption has made a big contribution to growth.”

Some panel members noted that the cur-rent economic recovery was a rare case of personal consumption, rather than exports, driving growth, Yoshikawa added.

The panel also agreed that Japan’s econ-omy peaked in April last year to end a three-year expansion that pulled it out from the aftermath of Lehman Brothers’ collapse.

During that time the economy also with-stood the pain of a devastating earthquake in 2011.

Exports and a pick up in personal consump-tion were at the forefront of the economy’s sixth longest postwar expansion as it re-bounded sharply from the slump brought about by Lehman’s failure.

The panel, consisted of private-sector economists and academics, meets regularly to determine the peak and bottom of Japan’s economic cycle. It takes into account various data such as GDP and the coincident indica-tors’ index. l shoppers walk past sale posters in Tokyo June 27, 2013 reUTerS

Global stocks, emerging currencies hit as Fed minutes nearnReuters, London

World shares hovered near six-week lows on Wednesday and vulnerable emerging market currencies extended losses as investors looked to a US Federal Reserve report expected to signal a cutback in its stimulus policy.

Fed chairman Ben Bernanke said in June the central bank expected to taper its monthly $85bn bond buying program this year, triggering a glob-al selloff that weighed heavily on emerging mar-kets, which benefit most from the extra liquidity. The widely-held conviction that the minutes of the Fed’s July meeting, due at 1400 ET, will hint at that policy shift next month hit the Indian ru-pee, Indonesian rupiah and Turkish lira - despite supportive words and actions from the countries’ central banks. “I don’t think we’re going to get that clear signal as to whether September is when they pull the trigger on tapering, but that is what the markets are hoping for,” said Daragh Maher, FX strategist at HSBC.

The rupee fell to a record low of 64.52 per dol-lar, the rupiah looked set to break the key 11,000 per dollar level and the lira plumbed an all-time low, drawing no support from a rate hike. Large current account deficits make all three countries particularly vulnerable to capital outflows at times of monetary tightening.

Emerging stock markets have shared in the selloff, victims of a growing conviction among in-vestors that an end to Fed bond buying due to the stronger US economic outlook makes developed debt and equity markets a sounder bet. l

When you look at GdP since the fourth quarter of 2012, personal consumption has made a big contribution to growth

reddy said indian exports to iraq totalled around $1.3bn in 2012, up from $740m in 2011, while Baghdad’s exports to india - the vast majority of which were oil - totalled more than $20bn last year, compared to around $9bn in 2011

BANKABBANK | 2.95 | 32.60 | Vol. 407684 D: 25.00 ⇓ 1.96% | 25.17 | 26.00 / 23.00 C: 24.90 ⇓ 1.19% | 25.06 | 25.30 / 24.80CITYBANK | 1.15 | 25.97 | Vol. 292617 D: 17.30 ⇓ 1.14% | 17.42 | 18.10 / 16.00 C: 17.30 ⇓ 1.14% | 17.41 | 17.80 / 17.10IFIC | 1.10 | 18.34 | Vol. 322075 D: 21.20 ⇓ 0.47% | 21.44 | 22.00 / 20.00 C: 21.10 ⇓ 1.40% | 21.33 | 21.60 / 21.00ISLAMIBANK | 3.78 | 27.16 | Vol. 259096 D: 37.20 ⇑ 0.27% | 37.17 | 38.00 / 33.40 C: 36.90 ⇑ 0.27% | 36.93 | 37.00 / 36.80NBL | 1.05 | 15.76 | Vol. 1783322 D: 11.80 ⇑ 0.00% | 11.95 | 12.20 / 11.00 C: 11.90 ⇑ 0.00% | 11.93 | 12.10 / 11.80PUBALIBANK | 1.92 | 21.18 | Vol. 138002 D: 29.60 ⇑ 0.00% | 29.63 | 30.60 / 27.00 C: 29.60 ⇑ 0.34% | 29.44 | 29.70 / 29.20RUPALIBANK | 6.70 | 64.27 | Vol. 10868 D: 61.40 ⇓ 0.81% | 61.42 | 62.00 / 58.00 C: 60.10 ⇓ 1.64% | 60.21 | 61.00 / 60.00UCBL | 1.90 | 21.72 | Vol. 2217754 D: 18.60 ⇓ 1.59% | 18.77 | 20.00 / 17.20 C: 18.50 ⇓ 1.60% | 18.68 | 19.10 / 17.00UTTARABANK | 3.42 | 26.97 | Vol. 321078 D: 25.10 ⇓ 0.79% | 25.23 | 26.00 / 23.00 C: 25.20 ⇓ 0.40% | 25.23 | 25.40 / 25.00ICBIBANK | -1.60 | -13.03 | Vol. 169000 D: 5.90 ⇑ 0.00% | 5.92 | 6.10 / 5.90EBL | 3.91 | 28.22 | Vol. 1898108 D: 26.00 ⇑ 1.96% | 27.80 | 27.90 / 25.40 C: 25.90 ⇑ 1.97% | 25.48 | 26.00 / 25.10ALARABANK | 2.03 | 14.91 | Vol. 377370 D: 14.90 ⇓ 0.67% | 14.94 | 15.50 / 14.00 C: 14.70 ⇓ 0.68% | 14.74 | 14.90 / 14.70PRIMEBANK | 2.89 | 22.40 | Vol. 35280 D: 22.30 ⇓ 2.19% | 22.58 | 23.50 / 21.50 C: 22.10 ⇑ 0.00% | 22.22 | 22.50 / 22.00SOUTHEASTB | 1.89 | 22.66 | Vol. 377426 D: 16.30 ⇓ 0.61% | 16.44 | 16.60 / 15.00 C: 16.30 ⇓ 0.61% | 16.28 | 16.50 / 16.20DHAKABANK | 1.46 | 18.08 | Vol. 125259 D: 20.20 ⇓ 0.98% | 20.28 | 21.20 / 19.00 C: 20.10 ⇓ 0.99% | 20.13 | 20.80 / 20.00NCCBANK | 1.90 | 15.88 | Vol. 427558 D: 12.20 ⇓ 1.61% | 12.31 | 13.00 / 11.40 C: 12.30 ⇑ 0.00% | 12.27 | 12.50 / 12.20SIBL | 2.05 | 14.47 | Vol. 332962 D: 12.20 ⇓ 0.81% | 12.25 | 13.00 / 11.20 C: 12.20 ⇓ 1.61% | 12.20 | 12.30 / 11.80DUTCHBANGL | 11.57 | 54.27 | Vol. 22580 D: 99.00 ⇓ 0.20% | 99.05 | 99.90 / 98.20 C: 98.00 ⇓ 0.41% | 98.27 | 105.0 / 98.00MTBL | 1.17 | 17.27 | Vol. 67848 D: 14.80 ⇑ 0.00% | 14.79 | 14.90 / 14.00 C: 14.50 ⇓ 1.36% | 14.47 | 14.50 / 14.50STANDBANKL | 2.33 | 14.41 | Vol. 434148 D: 13.50 ⇑ 0.00% | 13.54 | 14.00 / 12.20 C: 13.40 ⇓ 2.19% | 13.47 | 13.90 / 13.20ONEBANKLTD | 2.35 | 15.34 | Vol. 780463 D: 15.10 ⇓ 1.95% | 15.27 | 16.00 / 14.00 C: 15.20 ⇓ 1.30% | 15.10 | 15.50 / 14.00BANKASIA | 1.35 | 20.80 | Vol. 918458 D: 19.50 ⇑ 1.04% | 19.51 | 19.60 / 18.50 C: 19.10 ⇑ 0.53% | 19.12 | 19.30 / 19.00MERCANBANK | 2.07 | 16.59 | Vol. 377991 D: 12.10 ⇑ 0.00% | 12.15 | 13.00 / 10.90 C: 12.10 ⇑ 0.00% | 12.03 | 12.20 / 11.90EXIMBANK | 1.80 | 14.31 | Vol. 778617 D: 12.00 ⇑ 0.00% | 12.11 | 12.50 / 11.00 C: 12.00 ⇓ 1.64% | 12.03 | 12.40 / 11.90JAMUNABANK | 2.47 | 18.56 | Vol. 201290 D: 14.30 ⇓ 1.38% | 14.12 | 14.50 / 14.00 C: 14.00 ⇓ 2.10% | 14.07 | 14.20 / 14.00BRACBANK | 1.51 | 24.87 | Vol. 117948 D: 28.80 ⇓ 0.69% | 28.87 | 30.00 / 26.50 C: 28.60 ⇑ 0.00% | 28.60 | 28.70 / 28.50SHAHJABANK | 2.61 | 14.47 | Vol. 323393 D: 14.70 ⇓ 0.68% | 14.71 | 16.00 / 13.50 C: 14.70 ⇑ 0.00% | 14.73 | 14.90 / 14.60PREMIERBAN | 1.18 | 13.95 | Vol. 258764 D: 10.20 ⇓ 0.97% | 10.22 | 10.40 / 9.30 C: 10.20 ⇓ 1.92% | 10.25 | 10.40 / 10.20

TRUSTBANK | 0.50 | 18.00 | Vol. 47990 D: 17.70 ⇓ 0.56% | 17.70 | 18.00 / 16.10 C: 17.60 ⇓ 1.12% | 17.59 | 17.70 / 17.50FIRSTSBANK | 1.85 | 13.89 | Vol. 563428 D: 12.10 ⇓ 0.82% | 12.01 | 12.30 / 11.00 C: 12.10 ⇑ 0.00% | 12.12 | 12.30 / 12.10

NON BANKING F IIDLC | 4.43 | 29.18 | Vol. 242090 D: 64.10 ⇓ 0.47% | 64.64 | 65.50 / 63.00 C: 64.50 ⇓ 0.46% | 64.23 | 65.00 / 60.00ULC | 1.80 | 14.90 | Vol. 38795 D: 27.60 ⇓ 2.13% | 27.81 | 28.50 / 26.00UTTARAFIN | 7.16 | 41.54 | Vol. 167274 D: 78.10 ⇑ 1.69% | 78.65 | 80.00 / 71.00 C: 78.10 ⇑ 2.36% | 78.25 | 79.00 / 76.80MIDASFIN | 0.16 | 10.21 | Vol. 14771 D: 36.00 ⇑ 3.45% | 36.02 | 36.50 / 32.00FLEASEINT | 2.34 | 13.93 | Vol. 461250 D: 25.80 ⇓ 2.64% | 26.10 | 26.60 / 25.50 C: 25.80 ⇓ 3.73% | 25.97 | 26.00 / 25.80PLFSL | 1.37 | 17.48 | Vol. 904870 D: 23.50 ⇓ 2.89% | 23.70 | 25.50 / 22.00 C: 23.60 ⇓ 2.48% | 23.95 | 24.60 / 23.30PRIMEFIN | 0.87 | 17.88 | Vol. 219922 D: 25.90 ⇓ 1.89% | 26.14 | 26.70 / 25.00 C: 26.00 ⇓ 2.26% | 26.23 | 26.90 / 25.90PREMIERLEA | 0.10 | 11.37 | Vol. 43435 D: 10.40 ⇑ 0.00% | 10.45 | 10.60 / 9.80 C: 10.30 ⇓ 0.96% | 10.30 | 10.30 / 10.30ISLAMICFIN | 1.03 | 15.48 | Vol. 406842 D: 15.60 ⇓ 1.89% | 15.85 | 16.00 / 14.40 C: 15.50 ⇓ 1.90% | 15.61 | 17.00 / 15.50LANKABAFIN | 1.61 | 31.07 | Vol. 1134122 D: 59.30 ⇑ 1.72% | 58.79 | 62.30 / 52.50 C: 59.70 ⇑ 4.74% | 58.97 | 60.00 / 57.60BIFC | 0.15 | 18.58 | Vol. 21989 D: 13.70 ⇑ 0.74% | 13.63 | 13.80 / 12.50 C: 14.50 ⇑ 5.07% | 14.50 | 14.50 / 14.50IPDC | 1.23 | 19.43 | Vol. 31522 D: 16.40 ⇑ 0.00% | 16.52 | 16.80 / 16.30 C: 16.50 ⇓ 0.60% | 16.49 | 18.20 / 16.40UNIONCAP | 0.54 | 17.85 | Vol. 25972 D: 28.00 ⇓ 1.06% | 28.05 | 29.00 / 26.00 C: 28.60 ⇓ 1.04% | 28.23 | 28.60 / 27.00BDFINANCE | 0.57 | 14.77 | Vol. 58840 D: 18.00 ⇓ 0.55% | 18.23 | 19.90 / 17.00 C: 18.20 ⇓ 1.62% | 18.39 | 18.60 / 18.20ILFSL | 0.35 | 12.19 | Vol. 154050 D: 12.30 ⇓ 0.81% | 12.47 | 12.70 / 12.20 C: 12.30 ⇓ 1.60% | 12.36 | 12.70 / 12.30PHOENIXFIN | 2.46 | 19.39 | Vol. 183514 D: 33.70 ⇓ 0.88% | 33.66 | 34.20 / 30.60 C: 33.00 ⇓ 2.37% | 33.24 | 33.80 / 33.00FASFIN | 0.19 | 13.56 | Vol. 305734 D: 13.40 ⇓ 2.19% | 13.56 | 14.00 / 13.00 C: 13.50 ⇓ 1.46% | 13.70 | 13.80 / 13.50DBH | 3.40 | 16.80 | Vol. 68525 D: 69.10 ⇑ 1.02% | 69.38 | 70.70 / 62.00 C: 70.90 ⇑ 1.29% | 68.50 | 70.90 / 67.60NHFIL | 0.57 | 12.70 | Vol. 251202 D: 28.20 ⇑ 0.36% | 28.67 | 29.50 / 27.50 C: 28.40 ⇓ 0.35% | 28.60 | 29.00 / 28.00BAYLEASING | 0.72 | 25.55 | Vol. 129780 D: 29.80 ⇓ 1.97% | 30.08 | 31.70 / 27.50 C: 29.50 ⇓ 2.96% | 29.55 | 29.70 / 29.20ICB | 109.65 | 595.98 | Vol. 34000 D: 2204 ⇑ 4.57% | 2193 | 2210 / 2135 C: 2195 ⇑ 3.86% | 2195 | 2200 / 2180GSPFINANCE | 1.63 | 22.23 | Vol. 174180 D: 25.00 ⇓ 2.72% | 25.30 | 26.50 / 23.30 C: 25.00 ⇓ 3.10% | 25.20 | 25.30 / 25.00

INVESTMENT1STICB | 64.70 | 137.05 | Vol. 50 D: 897.0 ⇑ 4.44% | 897.00 | 897.0 / 897.02NDICB | 33.02 | 76.34 | Vol. 1150 D: 293.4 ⇓ 0.54% | 293.04 | 308.0 / 290.63RDICB | 24.83 | 58.91 | Vol. 900 D: 211.4 ⇑ 4.19% | 211.11 | 214.0 / 208.04THICB | 23.40 | 58.63 | Vol. 2000 D: 216.0 ⇑ 2.27% | 216.00 | 218.8 / 209.95THICB | 18.93 | 41.95 | Vol. 4700 D: 190.0 ⇑ 0.05% | 189.79 | 190.0 / 189.0

6THICB | 10.58 | 26.73 | Vol. 35800 D: 53.10 ⇓ 4.84% | 54.33 | 57.00 / 52.108THICB | 12.33 | 29.54 | Vol. 500 D: 68.20 ⇓ 9.91% | 68.20 | 68.20 / 68.201STBSRS | 14.43 | 161.88 | Vol. 32000 D: 103.1 ⇓ 0.29% | 102.72 | 104.4 / 101.0AIMS1STMF | 3.02 | 15.70 | Vol. 593775 D: 41.00 ⇓ 2.15% | 41.33 | 42.00 / 40.00 C: 41.00 ⇓ 1.68% | 41.20 | 41.90 / 40.90ICBAMCL1ST | 7.14 | 48.54 | Vol. 154000 D: 60.00 ⇓ 0.17% | 60.08 | 61.00 / 59.40 C: 60.40 ⇓ 0.98% | 60.40 | 60.40 / 60.40ICBISLAMIC | 2.21 | 26.81 | Vol. 65000 D: 20.70 ⇓ 5.05% | 20.95 | 22.20 / 20.70GRAMEEN1 | 6.26 | 33.23 | Vol. 332500 D: 43.20 ⇓ 0.23% | 43.32 | 45.20 / 42.90 C: 43.20 ⇓ 1.82% | 43.76 | 45.00 / 43.00ICB1STNRB | 4.06 | 35.31 | Vol. 20000 D: 26.60 ⇓ 1.48% | 26.62 | 27.00 / 26.10 C: 26.00 ⇓ 7.14% | 26.00 | 26.00 / 26.00ICB2NDNRB | 2.49 | 16.24 | Vol. 602000 D: 11.40 ⇓ 1.72% | 11.52 | 11.70 / 11.40 C: 11.50 ⇓ 2.54% | 11.53 | 11.60 / 11.50GRAMEENS2 | 2.17 | 16.41 | Vol. 939600 D: 16.80 ⇓ 1.18% | 16.93 | 17.50 / 15.80 C: 17.10 ⇑ 0.00% | 17.06 | 17.20 / 16.901STPRIMFMF | 0.64 | 11.63 | Vol. 299000 D: 15.90 ⇓ 1.85% | 16.12 | 16.50 / 15.90 C: 16.20 ⇓ 0.61% | 16.20 | 16.20 / 16.20EBL1STMF | 0.60 | 12.62 | Vol. 458500 D: 8.00 ⇓ 2.44% | 8.07 | 8.30 / 8.00 C: 8.10 ⇓ 3.57% | 8.17 | 8.40 / 8.00ICBAMCL2ND | 0.60 | 12.12 | Vol. 93000 D: 5.50 ⇓ 3.51% | 5.59 | 5.80 / 5.50 C: 5.40 ⇓ 6.90% | 5.40 | 5.50 / 5.30ICBEPMF1S1 | 0.52 | 11.32 | Vol. 134500 D: 5.40 ⇓ 1.82% | 5.50 | 5.60 / 5.40 C: 5.30 ⇓ 3.64% | 5.37 | 5.50 / 5.30TRUSTB1MF | 0.82 | 11.65 | Vol. 938000 D: 8.70 ⇑ 0.00% | 8.70 | 8.90 / 8.60 C: 8.70 ⇓ 1.14% | 8.67 | 8.80 / 8.60PRIME1ICBA | 0.42 | 11.18 | Vol. 112500 D: 5.00 ⇑ 0.00% | 5.08 | 5.20 / 5.00 C: 5.00 ⇓ 1.96% | 5.06 | 5.10 / 5.00DBH1STMF | -1.12 | 10.15 | Vol. 139500 D: 5.70 ⇓ 1.72% | 5.81 | 5.90 / 5.70 C: 5.70 ⇓ 1.72% | 5.70 | 5.70 / 5.70IFIC1STMF | 0.90 | 11.88 | Vol. 612000 D: 8.10 ⇓ 1.22% | 8.07 | 8.30 / 8.00 C: 8.10 ⇓ 2.41% | 8.05 | 8.10 / 8.00PF1STMF | 0.51 | 11.11 | Vol. 99000 D: 5.10 ⇑ 0.00% | 5.12 | 5.20 / 5.10ICB3RDNRB | 0.00 | 10.60 | Vol. 305000 D: 5.00 ⇓ 1.96% | 5.11 | 5.20 / 5.00 C: 5.20 ⇑ 0.00% | 5.13 | 5.20 / 5.101JANATAMF | 0.78 | 10.68 | Vol. 448500 D: 5.70 ⇓ 1.72% | 5.75 | 5.90 / 5.70 C: 5.70 ⇓ 1.72% | 5.78 | 5.90 / 5.70GREENDELMF | -0.82 | 9.72 | Vol. 134000 D: 5.30 ⇑ 0.00% | 5.32 | 5.40 / 5.30 C: 5.30 ⇓ 1.85% | 5.24 | 5.40 / 5.20POPULAR1MF | 0.79 | 11.38 | Vol. 794000 D: 6.10 ⇑ 0.00% | 6.09 | 6.20 / 6.00 C: 6.00 ⇓ 1.64% | 6.02 | 6.10 / 6.00IFILISLMF1 | 0.00 | 10.45 | Vol. 345000 D: 4.90 ⇑ 0.00% | 4.91 | 5.00 / 4.90 C: 4.90 ⇓ 2.00% | 4.87 | 5.00 / 4.80PHPMF1 | 0.63 | 10.92 | Vol. 394500 D: 5.50 ⇓ 1.79% | 5.61 | 5.70 / 5.50 C: 5.60 ⇓ 1.75% | 5.61 | 5.70 / 5.60AIBL1STIMF | -0.07 | 9.25 | Vol. 28500 D: 6.50 ⇓ 1.52% | 6.57 | 6.60 / 6.50 C: 6.50 ⇓ 4.41% | 6.50 | 6.50 / 6.50MBL1STMF | -0.16 | 9.08 | Vol. 157000 D: 6.10 ⇓ 1.61% | 6.15 | 6.30 / 6.10 C: 6.30 ⇓ 1.56% | 6.30 | 6.30 / 6.30SEBL1STMF | 1.03 | 11.85 | Vol. 783000 D: 8.80 ⇓ 1.12% | 8.83 | 9.00 / 8.80 C: 8.70 ⇓ 3.33% | 8.68 | 8.90 / 8.50RELIANCE1 | 1.05 | 11.36 | Vol. 755000 D: 10.00 ⇓ 0.99% | 10.05 | 10.20 / 9.90 C: 10.00 ⇑ 0.00% | 10.02 | 10.10 / 10.00ABB1STMF | 1.00 | 10.63 | Vol. 230500 D: 8.00 ⇓ 3.61% | 8.03 | 8.40 / 8.00NLI1STMF | 1.29 | 12.22 | Vol. 416500 D: 9.90 ⇓ 1.98% | 10.00 | 10.20 / 9.90 C: 9.60 ⇓ 4.95% | 9.61 | 9.80 / 9.60

FBFIF | 1.43 | 10.27 | Vol. 2005500 D: 9.90 ⇓ 1.98% | 10.00 | 10.00 / 9.90NCCBLMF1 | 0.00 | 10.48 | Vol. 2000 D: 8.40 ⇓ 6.67% | 8.50 | 8.50 / 8.40ICBSONALI1 | 0.00 | 10.39 | Vol. 538000 D: 7.00 ⇓ 1.41% | 7.09 | 7.20 / 7.00 C: 7.00 ⇑ 0.00% | 7.07 | 7.20 / 7.00EXIM1STMF | 0.00 | 10.91 | Vol. 10500 D: 7.50 ⇓ 1.32% | 7.52 | 7.60 / 7.40

ENGINEERINGAFTABAUTO | 4.29 | 52.65 | Vol. 546046 D: 116.1 ⇓ 0.85% | 117.72 | 120.1 / 108.0 C: 116.3 ⇓ 0.51% | 117.56 | 119.5 / 115.3AZIZPIPES | 0.39 | -42.04 | Vol. 400 D: 15.70 ⇑ 1.95% | 15.00 | 15.90 / 15.40OLYMPIC | 5.94 | 14.91 | Vol. 743927 D: 219.6 ⇓ 3.43% | 223.81 | 234.7 / 210.0 C: 219.8 ⇓ 3.21% | 224.06 | 233.0 / 218.1BDLAMPS | -5.31 | 37.07 | Vol. 13175 D: 141.9 ⇑ 1.43% | 142.54 | 145.5 / 130.0 C: 141.6 ⇓ 0.42% | 141.60 | 143.0 / 140.0ECABLES | 2.04 | 18.87 | Vol. 3300 D: 62.60 ⇓ 3.10% | 62.80 | 63.80 / 62.10 C: 61.60 ⇑ 5.66% | 60.94 | 61.60 / 60.80SINGERBD | 9.99 | 45.74 | Vol. 231036 D: 202.0 ⇓ 2.98% | 204.94 | 212.0 / 190.0 C: 202.1 ⇓ 3.21% | 204.48 | 210.0 / 200.4ATLASBANG | 11.98 | 207.70 | Vol. 25774 D: 179.5 ⇓ 0.44% | 180.14 | 182.2 / 179.0BDAUTOCA | 0.25 | 6.23 | Vol. 4200 D: 22.70 ⇓ 0.44% | 22.86 | 23.20 / 22.50QSMDRYCELL | 1.65 | 58.49 | Vol. 174035 D: 36.30 ⇑ 0.83% | 36.39 | 37.40 / 35.80 C: 36.00 ⇑ 0.84% | 36.37 | 37.20 / 35.90RENWICKJA | 5.62 | -90.00 | Vol. 13300 D: 171.7 ⇓ 1.04% | 173.53 | 181.0 / 170.1NTLTUBES | -2.52 | 312.10 | Vol. 50140 D: 68.10 ⇑ 0.15% | 68.75 | 70.20 / 65.00BDTHAI | 0.43 | 39.35 | Vol. 451905 D: 23.60 ⇑ 2.61% | 23.86 | 25.00 / 22.00 C: 23.60 ⇑ 2.16% | 23.97 | 24.50 / 23.50ANWARGALV | 0.51 | 8.08 | Vol. 6000 D: 14.40 ⇓ 0.69% | 14.40 | 14.50 / 14.40 C: 14.10 ⇑ 0.00% | 14.10 | 14.10 / 14.10KAY&QUE | -3.89 | 6.03 | Vol. 9500 D: 13.10 ⇓ 0.76% | 13.16 | 13.20 / 13.10RANFOUNDRY | 2.84 | 18.62 | Vol. 117500 D: 77.90 ⇑ 9.87% | 77.85 | 77.90 / 76.00 C: 76.20 ⇑ 8.24% | 76.20 | 77.40 / 75.00SALAMCRST | 3.31 | 20.00 | Vol. 920950 D: 42.90 ⇓ 2.28% | 44.22 | 45.50 / 41.50 C: 43.10 ⇓ 1.60% | 44.28 | 45.00 / 42.80GOLDENSON | 3.70 | 28.70 | Vol. 327593 D: 40.50 ⇓ 1.70% | 40.89 | 42.00 / 37.50 C: 39.50 ⇓ 6.18% | 39.80 | 41.00 / 39.10BSRMSTEEL | 3.06 | 19.53 | Vol. 704776 D: 77.90 ⇑ 0.52% | 79.32 | 80.30 / 72.00 C: 77.10 ⇓ 0.13% | 78.14 | 80.00 / 76.90NAVANACNG | 4.09 | 27.04 | Vol. 164980 D: 64.50 ⇓ 0.92% | 65.10 | 66.80 / 60.00 C: 64.80 ⇓ 1.37% | 64.85 | 66.00 / 64.20DESHBANDHU | 1.16 | 12.02 | Vol. 278525 D: 20.80 ⇑ 0.00% | 21.06 | 21.50 / 19.00 C: 20.90 ⇑ 0.00% | 21.16 | 21.50 / 20.70GPHISPAT | 2.32 | 16.80 | Vol. 194900 D: 48.60 ⇑ 0.00% | 49.32 | 50.20 / 45.00 C: 49.40 ⇑ 1.65% | 49.73 | 50.50 / 48.90BENGALWTL | 2.42 | 20.72 | Vol. 193400 D: 43.60 ⇓ 1.58% | 44.03 | 45.00 / 43.60 C: 43.50 ⇓ 2.03% | 43.65 | 44.50 / 42.20NPOLYMAR | 2.01 | 324.37 | Vol. 266230 D: 47.60 ⇑ 8.92% | 47.00 | 48.00 / 44.00 C: 47.70 ⇑ 9.66% | 47.35 | 47.80 / 44.00

FOOD & ALLIEDBANGAS | 7.20 | 50.27 | Vol. 72950 D: 436.9 ⇑ 8.74% | 433.60 | 436.9 / 421.0 C: 443.8 ⇑ 8.75% | 435.49 | 443.8 / 415.0BATBC | 65.69 | 117.22 | Vol. 21225 D: 1496 ⇓ 0.71% | 1512 | 1550 / 1490 C: 1500 ⇓ 1.96% | 1550 | 1600 / 1500GEMINISEA | 10.88 | 9.69 | Vol. 3600 D: 171.7 ⇑ 5.86% | 171.67 | 173.0 / 166.2NTC | 29.88 | 110.05 | Vol. 1120 D: 845.0 ⇑ 0.36% | 844.12 | 850.0 / 800.0 C: 840.0 ⇓ 0.28% | 840.00 | 840.0 / 840.0

ZEALBANGLA | -23.01 | -193.09 | Vol. 800 D: 7.90 ⇑ 1.28% | 7.50 | 8.00 / 7.80CVOPRL | 2.66 | 13.28 | Vol. 81680 D: 566.7 ⇑ 6.42% | 554.80 | 572.4 / 531.0 C: 560.0 ⇑ 6.26% | 551.80 | 566.5 / 540.7AMCL(PRAN) | 6.53 | 53.37 | Vol. 236900 D: 240.5 ⇑ 5.95% | 241.38 | 246.0 / 232.0 C: 245.3 ⇑ 8.49% | 242.28 | 245.8 / 235.0RAHIMAFOOD | 0.62 | 4.46 | Vol. 37500 D: 15.40 ⇑ 0.65% | 15.41 | 15.50 / 15.30 C: 15.30 ⇓ 1.29% | 15.40 | 15.50 / 15.30FUWANGFOOD | 1.26 | 12.37 | Vol. 313808 D: 24.90 ⇓ 1.97% | 25.35 | 26.00 / 24.00 C: 25.00 ⇓ 2.72% | 25.23 | 25.70 / 24.90MEGHNAPET | -0.58 | -1.02 | Vol. 1000 D: 5.50 ⇑ 3.77% | 5.50 | 5.50 / 5.50MEGCONMILK | -6.68 | -16.22 | Vol. 20500 D: 6.70 ⇑ 1.52% | 6.78 | 6.80 / 6.60BEACHHATCH | 1.01 | 12.48 | Vol. 305485 D: 18.20 ⇓ 3.19% | 18.42 | 19.10 / 17.50 C: 18.30 ⇓ 2.14% | 18.50 | 18.90 / 18.20FINEFOODS | -0.11 | 10.58 | Vol. 162300 D: 17.60 ⇑ 0.00% | 17.65 | 19.00 / 17.00 C: 17.30 ⇑ 6.13% | 17.29 | 17.50 / 17.00RDFOOD | 0.91 | 16.84 | Vol. 384272 D: 21.00 ⇑ 0.00% | 21.10 | 21.50 / 20.00 C: 20.90 ⇑ 0.00% | 21.08 | 21.90 / 20.90GHAIL | 1.01 | 22.08 | Vol. 885880 D: 45.90 ⇑ 2.00% | 45.50 | 46.20 / 40.50 C: 46.10 ⇑ 2.44% | 45.39 | 46.80 / 44.10

FUEL & POWERLINDEBD | 31.71 | 144.00 | Vol. 17950 D: 622.8 ⇑ 3.03% | 627.58 | 635.0 / 599.0PADMAOIL | 16.38 | 43.67 | Vol. 837698 D: 385.1 ⇓ 1.36% | 392.30 | 402.4 / 375.0 C: 383.2 ⇓ 1.77% | 391.88 | 402.0 / 380.2EASTRNLUB | 6.32 | 68.68 | Vol. 2250 D: 312.9 ⇑ 1.72% | 312.89 | 315.0 / 301.0BDWELDING | 0.33 | 16.82 | Vol. 157260 D: 18.10 ⇑ 0.56% | 18.30 | 19.00 / 17.00 C: 18.00 ⇑ 1.12% | 18.18 | 18.20 / 18.00SUMITPOWER | 3.17 | 19.26 | Vol. 309476 D: 36.40 ⇓ 0.82% | 36.67 | 38.50 / 35.00 C: 36.40 ⇓ 1.62% | 36.62 | 37.20 / 36.20DESCO | 2.80 | 35.25 | Vol. 167145 D: 82.10 ⇓ 0.97% | 82.88 | 84.70 / 78.00 C: 81.10 ⇓ 2.29% | 81.87 | 82.30 / 81.00POWERGRID | 2.56 | 48.08 | Vol. 106507 D: 56.40 ⇓ 1.91% | 56.54 | 60.00 / 53.00 C: 55.60 ⇓ 2.63% | 55.27 | 55.70 / 52.00JAMUNAOIL | 22.78 | 50.24 | Vol. 682305 D: 238.4 ⇓ 1.32% | 242.00 | 247.5 / 230.0 C: 237.4 ⇓ 1.66% | 241.46 | 247.8 / 236.6MPETROLEUM | 16.98 | 40.41 | Vol. 781918 D: 284.2 ⇓ 2.03% | 289.09 | 297.0 / 275.0 C: 283.6 ⇓ 2.51% | 288.13 | 297.0 / 283.0TITASGAS | 9.01 | 36.56 | Vol. 1688484 D: 86.90 ⇓ 1.70% | 87.92 | 90.80 / 79.60 C: 86.90 ⇓ 1.36% | 87.85 | 90.20 / 86.70KPCL | 4.73 | 15.86 | Vol. 292031 D: 51.70 ⇓ 0.58% | 51.93 | 53.00 / 48.00 C: 51.70 ⇓ 0.39% | 51.84 | 52.10 / 51.60BEDL | 1.57 | 17.89 | Vol. 697034 D: 35.80 ⇓ 2.19% | 36.29 | 38.00 / 33.20 C: 35.90 ⇓ 1.91% | 36.13 | 37.00 / 35.00MJLBD | 2.73 | 30.24 | Vol. 181521 D: 75.50 ⇑ 1.89% | 75.14 | 77.10 / 67.20 C: 75.20 ⇑ 2.73% | 75.32 | 77.90 / 73.20GBBPOWER | 1.86 | 22.63 | Vol. 665213 D: 26.00 ⇓ 3.70% | 26.57 | 29.00 / 24.40 C: 25.80 ⇓ 4.09% | 26.32 | 27.20 / 25.50SPPCL | 3.81 | 23.34 | Vol. 942630 D: 62.10 ⇓ 1.11% | 62.90 | 66.20 / 56.70 C: 62.00 ⇓ 1.43% | 62.65 | 64.00 / 61.80

JUTEJUTESPINN | 2.06 | 17.42 | Vol. 3000 D: 80.40 ⇓ 3.13% | 80.33 | 85.00 / 79.00SONALIANSH | 5.54 | 218.80 | Vol. 42900 D: 146.4 ⇑ 0.00% | 147.41 | 152.5 / 142.7

TEXTILEAL-HAJTEX | 1.35 | 15.64 | Vol. 273557 D: 66.10 ⇑ 9.80% | 64.53 | 66.20 / 56.50

dhaKa TrIBuNE Share Thursday, augusT 22, 20136 dhaKa TrIBuNE Share6

CompanyCode | EPS | BV | Volume Traded (Share)DSE/CSE: ClosePrice ⇓/⇑ Chn % | Avg.Price | Hi / Lo

Combined Turnover Leader Vol. TO M.

Tk.% of TTL avg. P

BD Submarine Cable-A 1446920 434.87 7.17 300.55

Padma Oil Co. -A 837698 328.60 5.42 392.27

R. N. Spinning-A 8898870 259.36 4.28 29.15

Grameenphone-A 1274727 253.64 4.18 198.98

Meghna Petroleum -A 781918 226.02 3.73 289.06

dsE gainer C % a % CP

Apex Tannery-A 9.97 3.91 120.20 Rangpur Found-ry-A

9.87 11.58 77.90

JMI Syringes MDL-A

9.83 11.48 103.90

Al-Haj Textile -A 9.80 7.03 66.10

Mithun Knitting-A 9.74 9.29 119.40

dsE Loser C % a % CP

8th ICB M F-A -9.91 -10.12 68.20

NCCBL Mutual Fund-1-A -6.67 -6.08 8.40

Keya Cosmetics-A -6.35 -7.24 28.00

Paramount Insur-A -5.45 -3.84 20.80

ICB AMCL IslamicMF-A -5.05 -4.03 20.70

DSE Broad Index: 4068.73 ⇓ 0.34% Turnover: 5651.57 M.Tk ⇓ 20.05%, PE: 12.94 Turnover 6,064.05 MTk .⇓ 19.91% August 21, 2013 MarketCap. 1,995.60 BTk. ⇓ 0.12% CSE All Share Index: 12587 ⇓ 0.43%, Turnover: 412.48, M Tk. ⇓ 17.81%, PE: 12.74

RAHIMTEXT | 0.51 | 73.88 | Vol. 12879 D: 239.8 ⇑ 8.41% | 235.58 | 240.5 / 225.0SAIHAMTEX | 2.75 | 29.50 | Vol. 504600 D: 31.60 ⇑ 0.64% | 31.82 | 32.30 / 31.20 C: 31.90 ⇑ 1.59% | 31.87 | 32.20 / 31.50MODERNDYE | 1.09 | 12.93 | Vol. 300 D: 65.00 ⇑ 0.00% | 65.00 | 65.00 / 65.00DSHGARME | 0.72 | 12.00 | Vol. 9400 D: 27.20 ⇓ 2.86% | 27.13 | 27.80 / 26.70DULAMIACOT | -8.46 | -27.78 | Vol. 3600 D: 8.10 ⇓ 2.41% | 8.06 | 8.30 / 8.10TALLUSPIN | 2.56 | 12.06 | Vol. 5024358 D: 41.10 ⇑ 6.20% | 41.03 | 42.50 / 35.00 C: 41.20 ⇑ 7.29% | 41.00 | 42.20 / 39.10APEXSPINN | 2.01 | 49.32 | Vol. 4800 D: 62.80 ⇑ 5.19% | 62.50 | 64.10 / 59.50MITHUNKNIT | 4.54 | 30.39 | Vol. 510792 D: 119.4 ⇑ 9.74% | 118.43 | 119.6 / 100.0 C: 118.1 ⇑ 9.86% | 117.21 | 118.2 / 109.0DELTASPINN | 3.06 | 18.12 | Vol. 587300 D: 34.40 ⇑ 1.47% | 34.64 | 35.30 / 31.10 C: 34.80 ⇑ 2.65% | 34.90 | 35.50 / 34.20SONARGAON | 0.27 | 34.50 | Vol. 120681 D: 13.80 ⇑ 3.76% | 13.70 | 14.00 / 12.50 C: 13.60 ⇑ 0.74% | 13.56 | 14.00 / 13.50PRIMETEX | 1.01 | 63.54 | Vol. 405000 D: 25.40 ⇑ 0.79% | 25.56 | 26.10 / 25.30 C: 25.40 ⇑ 1.20% | 25.53 | 26.30 / 25.20ALLTEX | -0.11 | 23.81 | Vol. 344500 D: 8.90 ⇑ 5.95% | 8.80 | 9.00 / 8.40 C: 8.80 ⇑ 6.02% | 8.86 | 9.10 / 8.50ANLIMAYARN | 1.19 | 11.01 | Vol. 279700 D: 30.30 ⇑ 1.34% | 30.51 | 31.20 / 29.40 C: 29.20 ⇓ 1.35% | 29.80 | 30.50 / 29.10HRTEX | 2.08 | 14.92 | Vol. 602942 D: 31.10 ⇑ 7.99% | 30.35 | 31.60 / 26.00 C: 30.50 ⇑ 7.02% | 30.25 | 31.30 / 29.00CMCKAMAL | 1.37 | 19.31 | Vol. 382007 D: 25.20 ⇑ 0.40% | 25.46 | 26.00 / 23.00SAFKOSPINN | 0.95 | 21.78 | Vol. 277717 D: 19.20 ⇑ 3.78% | 19.10 | 19.40 / 17.50 C: 19.20 ⇑ 3.23% | 19.17 | 19.50 / 18.00SQUARETEXT | 4.32 | 31.82 | Vol. 104079 D: 86.50 ⇓ 0.57% | 86.75 | 89.00 / 83.00 C: 86.70 ⇓ 0.46% | 86.73 | 87.30 / 86.60METROSPIN | -1.00 | 19.59 | Vol. 128823 D: 15.00 ⇑ 0.00% | 15.07 | 15.30 / 13.80 C: 15.20 ⇑ 2.70% | 15.11 | 15.20 / 14.00MAKSONSPIN | 0.16 | 20.55 | Vol. 2605439 D: 14.30 ⇑ 3.62% | 14.24 | 14.50 / 12.50 C: 14.30 ⇑ 2.88% | 14.21 | 14.40 / 13.90DACCADYE | 1.21 | 31.13 | Vol. 572735 D: 28.20 ⇑ 1.08% | 28.16 | 30.00 / 26.00 C: 28.20 ⇑ 1.08% | 27.98 | 28.30 / 27.50RNSPIN | 2.80 | 16.58 | Vol. 8898870 D: 29.40 ⇑ 5.38% | 29.15 | 29.80 / 26.00 C: 29.40 ⇑ 5.76% | 29.10 | 29.70 / 28.10BXSYNTH | 0.93 | 25.42 | Vol. 237869 D: 14.80 ⇓ 1.33% | 14.89 | 16.50 / 13.80 C: 14.90 ⇓ 1.32% | 15.08 | 15.30 / 14.90MALEKSPIN | -1.44 | 46.87 | Vol. 1728095 D: 28.90 ⇑ 0.70% | 29.22 | 29.80 / 26.50 C: 29.10 ⇑ 1.75% | 29.24 | 29.70 / 28.70ZAHINTEX | 1.91 | 35.25 | Vol. 894400 D: 32.40 ⇑ 1.89% | 32.50 | 33.10 / 30.00 C: 32.80 ⇑ 2.18% | 32.50 | 33.50 / 32.00SAIHAMCOT | 2.48 | 22.87 | Vol. 1203250 D: 29.60 ⇑ 0.68% | 29.76 | 30.40 / 29.10 C: 29.50 ⇑ 0.34% | 29.69 | 30.30 / 29.30GENNEXT | 1.68 | 15.15 | Vol. 3063470 D: 22.70 ⇑ 2.71% | 22.74 | 23.10 / 20.00 C: 22.60 ⇑ 1.80% | 22.69 | 23.00 / 22.30ENVOYTEX | 3.26 | 39.26 | Vol. 672440 D: 53.00 ⇑ 0.19% | 53.39 | 54.20 / 47.70 C: 52.70 ⇓ 0.38% | 53.11 | 54.00 / 52.60ARGONDENIM | 1.89 | 38.86 | Vol. 1606960 D: 39.60 ⇑ 3.13% | 39.23 | 40.00 / 34.60 C: 39.20 ⇑ 2.62% | 38.95 | 39.60 / 38.00FAMILYTEX | 3.72 | 14.68 | Vol. 649000 D: 31.80 ⇑ 0.95% | 31.97 | 32.30 / 31.40 C: 31.60 ⇑ 1.61% | 31.59 | 31.90 / 31.00

PHARMACEUTICAL & CHEMICALAMBEEPHA | 3.94 | 26.15 | Vol. 16000 D: 262.2 ⇑ 1.71% | 264.61 | 272.8 / 258.0 C: 261.3 ⇑ 2.07% | 261.85 | 270.0 / 255.0BXPHARMA | 3.77 | 52.55 | Vol. 278504 D: 48.50 ⇓ 3.77% | 49.40 | 52.00 / 45.40 C: 48.50 ⇓ 3.00% | 49.39 | 50.80 / 48.10

GLAXOSMITH | 20.25 | 123.32 | Vol. 2200 D: 873.3 ⇓ 0.23% | 874.55 | 883.0 / 862.5ACI | -5.82 | 126.42 | Vol. 6936 D: 150.9 ⇓ 0.40% | 150.91 | 165.0 / 150.0 C: 151.0 ⇑ 1.89% | 151.13 | 151.0 / 151.0RENATA | 33.57 | 138.83 | Vol. 9487 D: 672.3 ⇑ 0.31% | 673.76 | 685.0 / 635.0RECKITTBEN | 27.16 | 78.89 | Vol. 205 D: 765.0 ⇓ 0.14% | 764.29 | 765.0 / 750.0 C: 740.0 ⇑ 7.23% | 740.00 | 740.0 / 740.0PHARMAID | 5.06 | 26.30 | Vol. 77800 D: 193.9 ⇓ 2.71% | 198.71 | 205.8 / 191.8KOHINOOR | 9.52 | 10.49 | Vol. 170 D: 372.2 ⇑ 0.00% | 340.00 | 340.0 / 340.0IBNSINA | 3.44 | 34.02 | Vol. 8150 D: 85.00 ⇑ 0.35% | 84.69 | 85.50 / 82.70LIBRAINFU | 4.64 | 1565.37 | Vol. 2200 D: 271.3 ⇑ 7.92% | 271.36 | 271.4 / 271.0ORIONINFU | 8.72 | 1.73 | Vol. 57800 D: 42.40 ⇓ 0.24% | 42.40 | 42.90 / 42.00SQURPHARMA | 9.01 | 50.83 | Vol. 902030 D: 221.0 ⇓ 0.09% | 221.39 | 225.0 / 215.0 C: 220.9 ⇑ 0.05% | 220.77 | 223.0 / 219.0IMAMBUTTON | -1.68 | 5.67 | Vol. 6500 D: 7.10 ⇑ 0.00% | 7.20 | 7.20 / 7.10 C: 7.80 ⇑ 1.30% | 7.77 | 7.90 / 7.60KEYACOSMET | 3.19 | 19.99 | Vol. 3067554 D: 28.00 ⇓ 6.35% | 28.18 | 30.00 / 27.00 C: 27.80 ⇓ 7.33% | 28.14 | 29.70 / 27.40BERGERPBL | 32.46 | 100.20 | Vol. 5400 D: 815.1 ⇑ 0.38% | 815.00 | 820.0 / 812.0ACIFORMULA | 3.33 | 38.08 | Vol. 44530 D: 73.20 ⇓ 0.68% | 72.95 | 74.50 / 68.00 C: 73.10 ⇑ 1.39% | 73.11 | 74.00 / 71.30MARICO | 27.53 | 62.47 | Vol. 28050 D: 620.2 ⇑ 4.06% | 621.15 | 633.0 / 599.0 C: 621.0 ⇑ 1.47% | 610.27 | 638.0 / 605.0BEACONPHAR | 0.33 | 11.97 | Vol. 203750 D: 14.30 ⇓ 0.69% | 14.40 | 15.00 / 13.50 C: 14.40 ⇓ 1.37% | 14.43 | 14.70 / 14.30ACTIVEFINE | 3.23 | 13.89 | Vol. 1987693 D: 95.10 ⇑ 2.92% | 94.14 | 96.10 / 84.00 C: 94.50 ⇑ 2.16% | 94.66 | 96.00 / 93.10SALVOCHEM | 0.68 | 10.57 | Vol. 1501151 D: 20.60 ⇑ 6.74% | 20.37 | 20.90 / 17.40 C: 20.60 ⇑ 7.29% | 20.38 | 20.80 / 17.30GHCL | 2.14 | 57.31 | Vol. 321750 D: 47.50 ⇑ 0.00% | 47.91 | 48.70 / 46.90 C: 47.20 ⇓ 0.21% | 47.52 | 48.50 / 47.10ORIONPHARM | 5.02 | 68.68 | Vol. 594980 D: 66.70 ⇓ 1.04% | 67.14 | 68.60 / 60.70 C: 66.60 ⇓ 1.04% | 67.18 | 68.20 / 66.40JMISMDL | 1.12 | 12.83 | Vol. 353000 D: 103.9 ⇑ 9.83% | 102.62 | 104.0 / 97.90 C: 101.9 ⇑ 8.87% | 101.53 | 99.90 / 100.0CENTRALPHL | 0.61 | 10.99 | Vol. 873500 D: 33.80 ⇓ 1.74% | 34.06 | 34.90 / 33.60 C: 33.80 ⇓ 2.03% | 34.17 | 35.30 / 33.70

PAPER & PACKAGINGHAKKANIPUL | 0.64 | 11.02 | Vol. 3500 D: 16.70 ⇑ 1.83% | 16.86 | 17.50 / 16.40

SERVICESAMORITA | 2.31 | 17.25 | Vol. 9230 D: 72.90 ⇑ 4.89% | 72.81 | 76.00 / 65.00SAPORTL | 1.23 | 38.39 | Vol. 164192 D: 25.60 ⇓ 2.66% | 26.02 | 27.00 / 25.00 C: 25.70 ⇓ 2.28% | 25.85 | 26.70 / 25.50EHL | 2.87 | 18.48 | Vol. 234045 D: 53.10 ⇑ 0.76% | 53.41 | 54.50 / 50.00 C: 53.10 ⇑ 0.76% | 53.77 | 54.60 / 52.70

LEATHERAPEXTANRY | 6.57 | 69.38 | Vol. 828350 D: 120.2 ⇑ 9.97% | 116.44 | 120.2 / 110.0 C: 119.7 ⇑ 9.92% | 117.19 | 119.7 / 110.0BATASHOE | 49.12 | 135.53 | Vol. 83232 D: 687.4 ⇑ 7.49% | 674.68 | 687.4 / 600.0 C: 688.0 ⇑ 7.50% | 688.00 | 688.0 / 688.0APEXADELFT | 23.01 | 203.26 | Vol. 353700 D: 365.3 ⇑ 8.72% | 363.01 | 365.4 / 335.2 C: 369.1 ⇑ 7.61% | 358.50 | 371.0 / 350.0LEGACYFOOT | 0.63 | 17.19 | Vol. 30530 D: 14.20 ⇑ 1.43% | 14.35 | 14.60 / 13.70 C: 14.40 ⇑ 0.00% | 13.38 | 14.40 / 14.40SAMATALETH | -0.07 | 12.08 | Vol. 3500 C: 11.60 ⇑ 28.89% | 11.39 | 12.00 / 11.20

CERAMICMONNOCERA | 0.71 | 96.33 | Vol. 10130 D: 27.20 ⇓ 2.16% | 27.23 | 28.00 / 27.00STANCERAM | 1.07 | 15.97 | Vol. 500 D: 30.20 ⇑ 0.67% | 30.20 | 30.20 / 30.20FUWANGCER | 1.43 | 13.25 | Vol. 229295 D: 18.80 ⇓ 1.57% | 19.05 | 19.40 / 18.00 C: 19.00 ⇑ 0.00% | 19.02 | 19.20 / 18.90SPCERAMICS | 0.62 | 30.92 | Vol. 298794 D: 16.30 ⇓ 1.21% | 16.39 | 17.50 / 14.90 C: 16.20 ⇓ 2.41% | 16.31 | 16.60 / 16.10RAKCERAMIC | 1.98 | 16.76 | Vol. 151167 D: 52.80 ⇑ 3.13% | 52.70 | 54.00 / 46.20 C: 52.10 ⇑ 0.58% | 52.24 | 53.10 / 50.00

CEMENTHEIDELBCEM | 22.85 | 111.50 | Vol. 34040 D: 336.2 ⇑ 1.08% | 337.43 | 340.0 / 315.0 C: 333.9 ⇑ 0.42% | 335.83 | 340.0 / 333.1CONFIDCEM | 6.23 | 90.76 | Vol. 522277 D: 134.1 ⇑ 0.37% | 135.94 | 138.9 / 125.0 C: 133.4 ⇑ 0.08% | 135.91 | 140.0 / 133.0MEGHNACEM | 6.28 | 33.81 | Vol. 100000 D: 124.7 ⇑ 0.56% | 127.55 | 129.2 / 124.0 C: 128.8 ⇑ 4.21% | 128.77 | 129.0 / 128.0ARAMITCEM | 3.03 | 14.65 | Vol. 35500 D: 69.50 ⇓ 1.84% | 70.20 | 72.40 / 69.00 C: 69.10 ⇑ 0.14% | 69.10 | 69.10 / 69.10LAFSURCEML | 1.60 | 7.22 | Vol. 567000 D: 32.30 ⇑ 0.31% | 32.39 | 32.60 / 32.20 C: 32.30 ⇓ 0.31% | 32.35 | 32.60 / 32.10MICEMENT | 4.14 | 40.00 | Vol. 338829 D: 93.90 ⇓ 0.42% | 95.34 | 97.10 / 85.00 C: 94.30 ⇑ 0.32% | 95.30 | 97.00 / 93.90PREMIERCEM | 3.59 | 22.92 | Vol. 438800 D: 126.5 ⇓ 1.63% | 130.34 | 134.0 / 125.6 C: 124.7 ⇓ 2.43% | 127.98 | 133.6 / 124.0

IT IINDUSTRIESISNLTD | 0.28 | 17.31 | Vol. 7112 D: 13.00 ⇓ 2.99% | 13.19 | 13.60 / 13.00 C: 13.40 ⇑ 2.29% | 13.37 | 13.60 / 13.00BDCOM | 1.00 | 14.91 | Vol. 161246 D: 20.80 ⇓ 2.35% | 21.08 | 22.00 / 19.20 C: 20.80 ⇓ 3.70% | 20.84 | 21.10 / 20.70INTECH | 0.94 | 10.08 | Vol. 60348 D: 13.20 ⇓ 0.75% | 13.16 | 13.40 / 12.00 C: 13.20 ⇑ 1.54% | 13.04 | 13.30 / 12.90AGNISYSL | 1.07 | 25.52 | Vol. 187182 D: 23.50 ⇓ 2.08% | 23.83 | 24.30 / 22.00 C: 23.30 ⇓ 3.72% | 23.27 | 23.80 / 23.10DAFODILCOM | 1.12 | 11.14 | Vol. 141756 D: 17.50 ⇑ 0.00% | 17.65 | 18.00 / 17.30 C: 17.30 ⇓ 2.26% | 17.24 | 17.30 / 17.10AAMRATECH | 1.17 | 20.44 | Vol. 907400 D: 39.60 ⇓ 1.74% | 40.25 | 41.40 / 36.50 C: 39.50 ⇓ 2.23% | 40.11 | 41.40 / 39.00

GENERAL INSURANCEBGIC | 1.65 | 20.33 | Vol. 40132 D: 29.30 ⇓ 1.68% | 29.44 | 30.30 / 26.90 C: 29.40 ⇓ 1.01% | 29.42 | 30.00 / 29.00GREENDELT | 4.05 | 64.44 | Vol. 67933 D: 112.4 ⇓ 0.09% | 113.04 | 117.0 / 102.0 C: 110.0 ⇓ 5.66% | 113.06 | 114.0 / 110.0UNITEDINS | 2.47 | 21.04 | Vol. 34547 D: 47.70 ⇑ 1.27% | 47.21 | 49.00 / 45.00PEOPLESINS | 2.05 | 20.72 | Vol. 34810 D: 26.40 ⇓ 1.49% | 26.46 | 26.80 / 26.30 C: 25.70 ⇓ 3.75% | 25.87 | 26.20 / 25.00EASTERNINS | 2.22 | 35.88 | Vol. 14400 D: 37.30 ⇓ 3.12% | 37.33 | 38.00 / 37.10 C: 38.60 ⇑ 5.18% | 38.56 | 38.90 / 34.30JANATAINS | 7.84 | 170.69 | Vol. 5020 D: 235.8 ⇓ 4.46% | 239.36 | 246.0 / 235.3 C: 240.8 ⇓ 3.02% | 240.69 | 241.0 / 240.0PHENIXINS | 2.70 | 20.96 | Vol. 31866 D: 40.00 ⇑ 0.50% | 39.81 | 40.50 / 38.00 C: 40.00 ⇑ 0.00% | 40.00 | 40.00 / 40.00EASTLAND | 4.06 | 23.29 | Vol. 37071 D: 46.60 ⇓ 0.43% | 46.69 | 47.50 / 46.50 C: 47.50 ⇑ 0.00% | 45.00 | 47.50 / 47.50CENTRALINS | 1.54 | 19.04 | Vol. 32860 D: 28.40 ⇓ 2.41% | 28.76 | 30.50 / 28.00KARNAPHULI | 1.56 | 19.42 | Vol. 24620 D: 22.40 ⇓ 1.75% | 22.60 | 22.90 / 22.00RUPALIINS | 2.76 | 23.38 | Vol. 76319 D: 32.30 ⇓ 0.62% | 32.46 | 33.00 / 31.00 C: 33.00 ⇑ 0.61% | 32.55 | 33.00 / 32.10FEDERALINS | 1.10 | 10.98 | Vol. 59450 D: 22.60 ⇓ 1.31% | 22.81 | 23.50 / 21.00 C: 22.70 ⇓ 1.30% | 22.56 | 23.20 / 22.40RELIANCINS | 3.93 | 61.52 | Vol. 3000 D: 74.20 ⇓ 4.63% | 74.33 | 75.10 / 73.00PURABIGEN | 1.05 | 18.71 | Vol. 253596 D: 20.80 ⇓ 2.80% | 21.09 | 21.50 / 20.00PRAGATIINS | 2.01 | 50.30 | Vol. 28000 D: 56.90 ⇓ 0.52% | 56.93 | 57.50 / 56.00PRIMEINSUR | 2.14 | 14.14 | Vol. 58500 D: 27.30 ⇓ 3.87% | 27.59 | 28.50 / 27.20PIONEERINS | 3.11 | 23.84 | Vol. 144585 D: 74.30 ⇓ 2.75% | 75.53 | 79.80 / 70.00MERCINS | 1.53 | 14.50 | Vol. 74227 D: 26.10 ⇓ 0.76% | 26.25 | 28.00 / 25.00 C: 25.40 ⇓ 2.31% | 25.38 | 25.40 / 25.30AGRANINS | 1.73 | 14.39 | Vol. 18608 D: 23.60 ⇓ 2.07% | 23.59 | 23.70 / 22.00GLOBALINS | 1.09 | 11.78 | Vol. 30345 D: 29.60 ⇓ 3.58% | 29.71 | 30.00 / 27.70NITOLINS | 2.59 | 15.41 | Vol. 14000 D: 35.20 ⇓ 3.56% | 35.29 | 38.00 / 35.10ASIAPACINS | 1.84 | 13.76 | Vol. 34500 D: 27.60 ⇑ 0.00% | 27.62 | 28.00 / 27.30 C: 26.70 ⇓ 0.37% | 26.70 | 26.70 / 26.70SONARBAINS | 1.68 | 13.38 | Vol. 39060 D: 22.30 ⇓ 3.04% | 22.53 | 24.00 / 21.50 C: 23.00 ⇑ 0.00% | 21.00 | 23.00 / 23.00PARAMOUNT | 1.26 | 13.19 | Vol. 72468 D: 20.80 ⇓ 5.45% | 21.03 | 22.00 / 19.90CITYGENINS | 1.65 | 14.26 | Vol. 60265 D: 25.60 ⇓ 0.39% | 25.61 | 26.00 / 23.40 C: 26.00 ⇓ 0.38% | 25.42 | 26.00 / 25.30CONTININS | 1.41 | 15.68 | Vol. 37250 D: 28.90 ⇓ 1.03% | 28.98 | 30.00 / 28.40 C: 29.00 ⇑ 0.00% | 29.00 | 29.00 / 29.00TAKAFULINS | 2.19 | 15.17 | Vol. 13781 D: 30.10 ⇓ 4.14% | 30.15 | 30.90 / 30.00 C: 31.20 ⇑ 0.00% | 29.00 | 31.20 / 31.20STANDARINS | 2.58 | 13.99 | Vol. 37664 D: 38.20 ⇑ 2.14% | 38.07 | 39.10 / 36.00NORTHRNINS | 1.77 | 11.15 | Vol. 61052 D: 45.00 ⇓ 2.39% | 45.20 | 46.40 / 44.80REPUBLIC | 2.14 | 12.42 | Vol. 49566 D: 53.50 ⇓ 1.65% | 54.25 | 55.70 / 52.00ASIAINS | 1.56 | 17.34 | Vol. 33380 D: 25.90 ⇓ 0.77% | 25.97 | 28.00 / 25.80 C: 24.70 ⇓ 5.36% | 24.83 | 27.00 / 24.70ISLAMIINS | 1.29 | 11.96 | Vol. 12261 D: 26.40 ⇓ 0.75% | 26.46 | 28.00 / 26.00 C: 25.70 ⇑ 2.39% | 25.07 | 25.70 / 23.00PROVATIINS | 1.90 | 14.30 | Vol. 11807 D: 26.10 ⇓ 2.25% | 26.13 | 27.00 / 24.50 C: 26.30 ⇑ 0.00% | 27.00 | 26.30 / 26.30

DHAKAINS | 2.84 | 18.02 | Vol. 56500 D: 39.00 ⇓ 2.50% | 39.46 | 40.30 / 38.70 C: 38.00 ⇓ 5.47% | 38.16 | 40.20 / 37.90

LIFE INSURANCENATLIFEINS | 12.34 | 80.99 | Vol. 2583 D: 248.1 ⇑ 1.76% | 247.04 | 249.0 / 230.0 C: 230.4 ⇑ 0.00% | 240.00 | 230.4 / 230.4DELTALIFE | 38.53 | 189.40 | Vol. 2600 D: 5136 ⇑ 0.00% | 5108 | 5284 / 4950SANDHANINS | 2.39 | 28.22 | Vol. 15672 D: 69.00 ⇓ 1.43% | 69.30 | 70.50 / 63.00 C: 69.00 ⇓ 1.99% | 69.76 | 74.00 / 69.00POPULARLIF | 3.70 | 715.41 | Vol. 21054 D: 156.0 ⇓ 0.57% | 155.98 | 156.1 / 150.0 C: 156.0 ⇑ 5.41% | 156.00 | 157.0 / 155.0FAREASTLIF | 9.21 | 60.79 | Vol. 85996 D: 113.5 ⇑ 1.79% | 114.17 | 115.9 / 105.0 C: 112.1 ⇓ 0.36% | 112.50 | 114.9 / 112.0MEGHNALIFE | 10.82 | 48.87 | Vol. 28420 D: 93.70 ⇓ 1.06% | 94.89 | 96.00 / 88.00 C: 92.10 ⇓ 4.06% | 93.43 | 99.00 / 92.10PROGRESLIF | 2.30 | 31.45 | Vol. 1030 D: 93.20 ⇓ 1.06% | 93.03 | 94.00 / 93.10PRAGATILIF | 0.60 | 30.15 | Vol. 25000 D: 95.20 ⇓ 0.83% | 95.60 | 98.00 / 94.50PRIMELIFE | 5.51 | 27.10 | Vol. 8350 D: 92.90 ⇓ 0.75% | 93.50 | 96.00 / 91.00 C: 92.80 ⇑ 0.87% | 92.78 | 90.10 / 101.0RUPALILIFE | 3.75 | 31.25 | Vol. 12500 D: 84.70 ⇑ 0.83% | 84.72 | 85.40 / 83.30PADMALIFE | 1.63 | 25.76 | Vol. 69500 D: 59.80 ⇓ 1.48% | 60.44 | 61.30 / 59.60 C: 59.00 ⇓ 0.51% | 59.44 | 59.90 / 58.90SUNLIFEINS | 0.00 | 0.00 | Vol. 80500 D: 47.00 ⇓ 2.49% | 47.57 | 48.60 / 46.80 C: 46.80 ⇓ 3.51% | 47.83 | 48.70 / 46.70

TELECOMGP | 12.96 | 26.26 | Vol. 1274727 D: 196.1 ⇑ 0.10% | 199.01 | 203.7 / 190.0 C: 195.6 ⇑ 0.36% | 198.67 | 203.0 / 194.8BSCCL | 7.14 | 23.70 | Vol. 1446920 D: 295.4 ⇓ 3.46% | 300.57 | 309.0 / 280.0 C: 295.2 ⇓ 3.43% | 300.30 | 310.5 / 294.1

TRAVEL & LEISUREUNITEDAIR | 1.60 | 15.12 | Vol. 7314018 D: 20.70 ⇓ 0.48% | 20.88 | 21.20 / 19.00 C: 20.80 ⇓ 0.48% | 20.87 | 21.20 / 20.70UNIQUEHRL | 4.02 | 86.29 | Vol. 1622220 D: 92.40 ⇓ 1.70% | 99.59 | 103.3 / 84.60 C: 92.70 ⇓ 1.59% | 93.67 | 95.50 / 92.40

MISCELLANEOUSARAMIT | 16.07 | 99.93 | Vol. 18250 D: 261.7 ⇑ 3.03% | 255.76 | 265.0 / 244.0 C: 249.1 ⇑ 8.73% | 249.05 | 249.1 / 249.0BSC | 1.77 | 565.82 | Vol. 254970 D: 585.8 ⇓ 1.93% | 594.84 | 609.0 / 582.0 C: 585.3 ⇓ 1.55% | 594.94 | 606.0 / 581.3GQBALLPEN | 6.55 | 250.45 | Vol. 205583 D: 158.1 ⇑ 2.60% | 156.09 | 160.0 / 142.0 C: 158.0 ⇑ 4.29% | 156.05 | 160.0 / 151.2USMANIAGL | 0.50 | 26.03 | Vol. 106076 D: 135.9 ⇑ 3.03% | 136.84 | 140.9 / 125.0 C: 137.3 ⇑ 0.96% | 136.67 | 138.9 / 134.0SAVAREFR | 0.23 | 12.32 | Vol. 3500 D: 57.70 ⇓ 3.83% | 57.70 | 57.70 / 57.70BEXIMCO | 3.24 | 86.74 | Vol. 871817 D: 33.60 ⇓ 0.59% | 33.78 | 35.30 / 30.50 C: 33.70 ⇓ 0.88% | 33.81 | 34.20 / 33.60SINOBANGLA | 1.75 | 21.01 | Vol. 16500 D: 18.80 ⇑ 0.00% | 18.87 | 18.90 / 18.70 C: 18.60 ⇓ 4.12% | 18.53 | 18.60 / 18.40MIRACLEIND | 0.14 | 14.90 | Vol. 20086 D: 11.70 ⇓ 0.85% | 11.80 | 12.00 / 11.70

BONDIBBLPBOND | 0.00 | 1000.00 | Vol. 3940 D: 947.8 ⇑ 0.21% | 948.39 | 948.5 / 947.0 C: 990.0 ⇑ 4.43% | 948.06 | 990.0 / 948.0ACIZCBOND | 0.00 | 1000.00 | Vol. 88 D: 849.0 ⇓ 0.12% | 854.17 | 850.0 / 845.0 C: 840.0 ⇑ 0.00% | 836.35 | 840.0 / 835.0BRACSCBOND | 0.00 | 0.00 | Vol. 20 D: 1070 ⇑ 3.78% | 1070 | 1070 / 1070

SharedhaKa TrIBuNE Thursday, augusT 22, 2013 7SharedhaKa TrIBuNE 7

August 21, 2013 Sectotal Index: BANK: 33,587.15 ⇓ 0.40% NBFI: 21,021.05 ⇑ 0.24% INVS: 4,922.44 ⇓ 1.47% ENGG: 6,136.97 ⇓ 1.55% FOOD: 8,266.27 ⇑ 3.22% F&P: 11,141.97 ⇓ 1.53% TEXT: 3,056.69 ⇑ 2.21% PHAR: 16,909.92 ⇓ 0.65% PAPR: 780.93 ⇓ 2.29% SERV: 3,200.15 ⇓ 0.80% LEAT: 4,938.56 ⇑ 7.73% CERA: 494.52 ⇓ 0.10% CMNT: 4,301.89 ⇑ 0.05% INFO: 7,140.85 ⇓ 2.47% GINS: 9,241.47 ⇓ 1.34% LINS: 103,213.44 ⇑ 0.09% TELC: 1,453.77 ⇓ 0.83% MISC: 6,347.54 ⇓ 0.95%

8 Thursday, augusT 22, 2013dhaKa TrIBuNE Business

Corporate tax cut in Japan - Be careful what you wish fornReuters, Tokyo

Japan’s corporate tax rate is among the high-est in the world and getting companies to use more of their earnings to invest and hire is cru-cial to the economic renaissance promised by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

Yet the idea of slashing the corporate tax, floated by the government earlier this month, has received a lukewarm reception from ana-lysts and policymakers, because of doubts over whether it would unleash enough investment to justify the loss of revenue.

To offset the economic impact of a political-ly unpopular plan to double the sales tax from 5%, Abe is considering, according to a Nikkei newspaper report on August 13, cutting the corporate tax rate to between 25 and 30%.

Corporate leaders have long called for lower taxes as a measure to shore up Japan’s waning economic competitiveness.

Set at 38% for a large Tokyo-based corpo-ration, Japan’s corporate tax rate is well above the global average of 24%, as tracked by KPMG.

Keizai Doyukai, a leading business lobby, has urged lowering the rate to 25%.

But, critics, including Finance Minister Taro Aso, question whether a tax cut would provide much of an economic boost, while others warn that it could worsen Japan’s fiscal position.

SMBC Nikko estimates that lowering the corporate tax rate by 10 percentage points would cost the government some 2.5tn yen ($25.74bn) in lost tax revenue, more than dou-ble the forecast 1tn yen boost to economic out-put.

Tomo Kinoshita, chief economist at Nomu-ra Securities, said a corporate tax cut would help make Japan more competitive over the longer haul. “However, we need to recognize that it’s costly,” he said.

Keidanren, the lobby group considered the voice of big business in Japan, wants the Abe administration to consider reducing the tax

as it begins work next month on a package of measures intended to spur growth.

Currently, the only planned cut in the cor-porate tax will come when a surcharge for re-building earthquake hit areas expires in 2015, which would bring it down to 35.6 percent.

Cutting corporate tax could prove politically controversial as Abe would effectively be ask-ing consumers, paying a higher sales tax, to subsidize corporate earnings.

“If you lower the corporate tax rate on top of increasing fiscal spending you are eroding the meaning of raising the sales tax,” said Masahiro Nishikawa, a fiscal policy expert in the securi-ties division of Goldman Sachs in Japan.

Moreover, there is no guarantee that a tax cut would convince companies to invest more, given how much cash they have been hoard-ing.

Taken as a whole, Japan’s corporations out-side the financial sector had 225tn yen - almost

$2.3tn - in cash as of the end of March, accord-ing to data from the Bank of Japan.

They have been building that surplus steadily since the 2008 credit crisis, suggesting a deep-seated caution about whether Japan’s current recovery will be sustained.

For comparison, corporations in the much larger US economy had liquid assets of just $1.8tn, according to the Federal Reserve.

SoMe FirMS To SUFFer FroM LoWer TaX raTeAfter a decade of slow growth and deflation, fewer than 30% of companies actually pay cor-porate tax.

The rest are either unprofitable, or they are able to apply tax credits accumulated from losses incurred during the lean years.

The overhang of cumulative losses, which companies can use to defray future tax ob-

ligations, currently totals around 76tn yen ($776bn), according to National Tax Agency data, having come down from a peak of 90tn yen in 2008.

Japan Airlines, for example, is holding on to 348bn yen in cumulative losses stemming from its bankruptcy in 2010.

Firms used 9.7tn yen of tax credits against those losses to lower their tax burden in the fiscal year that ended in March 2012, roughly equal to the total amount of corporate income tax that went into the state coffers.

Lowering the tax rate would require com-panies that have booked losses as deferred tax assets to write down the value of those assets to reflect expectations that income taxes will be lower in the future.

As earnings have improved some compa-nies have run down their credits. Two of Ja-pan’s largest banks, for example, just started paying tax again last year following a tax-free decade.

Sony Corp and other struggling consumer electronics makers have in recent years written down tax assets to account for expectations of lower future taxable income, but the overall industry remains vulnerable to further write downs given a large overhang of tax credits, analysts said.

“Any company that has large deferred tax assets on its balance sheet will have an exercise of writing down those assets,” said Marc Lim, partner at accounting firm PwC Japan.

“That is going to then be flushed to the bottom line and impact earnings per share.” Lim said.

Write-downs stemming from a tax rate change are unlikely to be sizeable enough to be a serious problem for Japanese companies, but it could help widen the gap between strong and weak firms, said Jesper Koll, head of Japa-nese equity research at JPMorgan.

“It speeds up the good versus the bad. That’s sort of a nice technicality about the whole thing,” Koll said.l

US mortgage applications fall as rates push highernReuters, New York

Applications for US home loans fell for a second straight week and higher interest rates reduced refinancing activity, data from an industry group showed on Wednesday.

The Mortgage Bankers Association said its seasonally adjusted index of mortgage application activity, which includes both refinancing and home purchase demand, fell 4.6% in the week ended August 16.

The decline came as 30-year mortgage rates rose 12 basis points to 4.68%, matching the year’s high first hit in July.

Interest rates spiked in late May after the Federal Reserve signaled it could begin scaling back its $85 billion in monthly bond purchases by the end of the year, with investors now betting it could happen as soon as September.

Prospects of the Fed tapering its stimulus has made financial markets jittery. This week, US benchmark 10-year Treasury yields hit a two-year high of 2.9%, more than a percentage point above their level in May.

Demand to refinance existing loans has declined as rates have climbed. The refinance index shed 7.7% last week, its biggest weekly fall since late June, and is down 62.1% since peaking in the week ending May 3. The refinance share of total mortgage activity slipped to 62% from 63% the prior week.

Rates remain fairly low by historical standards, however, and the gauge of loan requests for home purchases, a leading indicator of home sales, rose 1.2%, after falling 5.4% the previous week.

The survey covers over 75% of US retail residential mortgage applications, according to MBA. l

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an empty post where a “for sale” sign used to hang is seen outside a home in Brentwood neW york reUTerS