RMG factory torched in Gazipurn Our Correspondent, Gazipur

Following a rumour of the deaths of two fellow employees, workers set � re to three buildings of Standard Group garment factory in Konabari industri-al area of Gazipur in the early hours of yesterday.

It took over 13 hours for � re � ghters to tame the � ames.

Earlier, workers of some adjacent sweater factories held a rally in front of Standard Group on Thursday afternoon demanding a wage hike. They called upon Standard Group workers to take part in the rally.

At one stage the agitated workers began to throw brick chips at the facto-ry. Police rushed to the spot and drove them away by � ring rubber bullets and teargas, local people who witnessed the incident told this reporter.

Later at night, the agitated workers returned in front of the factory and when police � red tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse them they locked in clashes with police, they said.

“When about 200 workers were leaving the factory around 10:30pm

PAGE 2 COLUMN 3

Three more die as blockade endsDeath toll in the opposition’s 71-hour transport strike stands at 21n Kailash Sarkar

Three more arson victims died yester-day, raising the death toll in the op-position-sponsored 71-hour transport blockade to at least 21.

The rail-road-waterways programme also left several hundred others injured.

Sweater factory worker Md Robin, 25, died at the Burn and Plastic Surgery Unit of Dhaka Medical College Hospi-tal around 3:40pm yesterday, about 21 hours after miscreants set a running

bus on � re near Matsya Bhaban in the capital on Thursday evening.

Robin followed his cousin Nahid Molla, who died around 10:30pm on Thursday in the � re.

In Chakoria of Cox’s Bazar, a 42-year-old man was shot dead around 4:00pm yesterday in the municipality area in clashes between BNP-Jammat men and police following the death of Abdul Halim, who was an organising secretary of the Upazila unit Jubo Dal.

BNP and Jammat claimed Halim -

who was arrested on the � rst day of the shutdown and freed the following day on bail - died in the early hours of yes-terday because of police torture.

Meanwhile, a signi� cant number of patients are still � ghting for their lives at hospitals.

During the blockade, hundreds of vehicles were torched railway tracks were uprooted, causing derailments and communications to be snapped.

Dhaka remained almost isolated from other parts of the country while

rickshaws and auto-rickshaws domi-nated the city streets.

Several people of the ruling Awami League and its di� erent front organisa-tions were also among the dead.

BNP joint secretary general Ruhul Ka-bir Rizvi at a brie� ng yesterday claimed nine of the dead belonged to the 18-par-ty alliance while 3,205 of their party men were injured, and police had � led cases against around 16,005 of their al-liance men with 1,200 of them arrested during the shutdown and blockade. l

BGMEA TERMS SABOTAGEP3

16 pages | Price: Tk10

Agrahayan 16, 1420Muharram 25, 1435Regd. No. DA 6238Vol 1 No 246 SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 30, 2013 | www.dhakatribune.com | SECOND EDITION

News3 The Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation has � nalised the premiums for eight foreign companies for importing re� ned fuel oil in the � rst half of the next year.

News6 The 16,000 hawkers and street vendors in Chittagong have been facing an acute fall in their sales during the hartals and blockade, according to the general secretary of Chittagong Sammilto Hawkers Federation.

International8 Police � red tear gas on Friday at Islamists who demonstrated in Egypt, defying a new

law banning unauthorised protests that also angered activists after the arrest of a blogger.

Op-Ed11 It is safe to assume that few people have visited both the world’s longest beach at Cox’s Bazar and the town of Rio Grande in southern Brazil, home to the beach called Praia do Cassino, which also claims the same title.

Back Page16 The Central Medical Stores Depot (CMSD) has procured a drug at Tk700 apiece for DMCH’s new Bone Marrow Transplant unit - a staggering 4,661% more than the Tk14.70 paid by the DMCH only just a few months ago.

INSIDE

5 PrescriptionKeep awaythe sorethroats

9 InternationalChina sends jets to counter incursion

14 SportSpurs win to ease pressure on Villas-Boas

Ban Ki-moon writes to Hasina, Khaledan Sheikh Shahriar Zaman and

Mohammad Al-Masum Molla

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon has sent separate letters to Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and opposition chief Khaleda Zia in the build up to his dep-uty’s scheduled Dhaka trip next week.

Although main opposition BNP’s Vice-Chairman Shamsher Mobin Chow-dhury con� rmed receiving the letter, the Prime Minister’s O� ce (PMO) was yet to do so.

A foreign ministry o� cial told the Dhaka Tribune that the premier had re-ceived the letter.

UN Assistant Secretary General for Political A� airs Oscar Fernandez Taranco is due in Dhaka on December 6 on a � ve-day trip.

In the letter to the prime minister, the UN chief reportedly wrote about the necessity of a free and fair election and holding a dialogue in this regard, the o� cial said.

“It is a routine letter in which the secretary general has written to the

PAGE 2 COLUMN 1

CONFRONTATIONAL POLITICAL SITUATION

Government using intel agencies: Khaledan Mohammad Al-Masum Molla

BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia yester-day alleged that the government had created the confrontational situation using law enforcers illegally and “un-leashing” intelligence agencies and party cadres on peaceful protest pro-grammes.

Asking the Election Commission to postpone the election schedule of the “lopsided and farcical elections,” the opposition leader urged the people to peacefully continue the ongoing move-ment against the “hurried” announce-ment of the polls schedule.

In a statement signed by party’s PAGE 2 COLUMN 1

AL names candidates for JS pollsn Kamran Reza Chowdhury

The Awami League yesterday an-nounced its “primary” list of candi-dates for each of the 300 constituencies for the upcoming general elections.

Some controversial lawmakers were dropped from the party ticket for the 5 January contest, including former com-munications minister Syed Abul Hos-sain, for whom the World Bank declined to give the $1.97bn Padma bridge loan.

However, some controversial politi-cians who previously failed to secure the party nomination were given elec-

tion tickets this time – Shamim Osman is one of them.

Speaker Shirin Sharmin Chaudhury, an elected MP from the women’s’ re-served seats, also failed to get nomina-tion for the Noakhali-1 constituency.

“I have nothing to say about the nomination. This is party decision,” the speaker told the Dhaka Tribune.

Tanvir Imam, the son of the Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s former advis-er HT Imam, received nomination for the Sirajganj-4 constituency.

Syed Ashraful Islam, the party gen-eral secretary, announced the names of

the candidates at the Dhanmondi o� ce amid cheers of the party supporters.

The Awami League leaders said many of the candidates would have been dropped had the main opposition contested the polls.

Syed Asharaf said the list was of the Awami League and it “could be changed” after holding talks with the component organisations of the 14-par-ty alliance and Jatiya Party.

“This list is not � nal. We will take the 14-party alliance and the Grand Alliance into cognisance while PAGE 2 COLUMN 4

Day of drama ends in another blockaden Mohammad Al-Masum Molla

The BNP-led 18-party opposition com-bine is enforcing a 72-hour country-wide rail, road and waterway block-ade starting today, just 25 hours after its previous spell of 71-hour blockadeended.

The opposition’s previous plan was to observe demonstration programmes around the country for today protest-ing the repression on leaders and ac-tivists.

At 11:30am yesterday, Ruhul Kabir Rizvi announced the demonstration programme. At � rst they wanted to hold the programme in the capital’s Suhrawardy Uddyan. Police rejected their application, he claimed.

Later, they sought permission to hold a rally in front of the party’s Nayapaltan headquarters. Police re-portedly rejected that too.

Around 7:30pm, Rizvi called anoth-er brie� ng in which he told journalists

PAGE 2 COLUMN 4

JP grassroots accuse top brass of nomination businessn Manik Miazee

A number of grassroots leaders of the Er-shad-led Jatiya Party have alleged that its top brass has awarded nominations to un-known faces in exchange of money.

There were many faces who had never attended any party meeting, some of these leaders told the Dhaka Tribune.

They said the parliamentary commit-tee of JP accepted monetary payments for awarding nomination to some of these unknown faces, bypassing the dedicatedworkers.

They accused party chief HM Ershad, Secretary General ABM Ruhul Amin Haw-lader and the members of the parliamentary committee of the ill practice.

“There are many people who never ex-pected nomination from the party, but were given tickets to contest polls for JP. The grassroots do not know them because they have never attended any party meeting or programme. Surely, they are some � nancial matters,” said Didarul Alam Didar, organis-ing secretary of JP.

The party yesterday � nalised its PAGE 2 COLUMN 6

A cloud of black smoke billows from the Standard Garment Factory building in Gazipur’s Shonabari yesterday as a section of the building burns DHAKA TRIBUNE

News2 DHAKA TRIBUNE Saturday, November 30, 2013

Day of drama ends in another blockade PAGE 1 COLUMN 6that police had denied them permis-sion to hold programmes in the capital.

Around 9:30pm, from another brief-ing, Rizvi made the announcement for the fresh blockade.

At least 21 people, including two in an arson attack on a passenger bus in the capital’s Shahbagh on Thursday night, were killed around the country during blockade violence.

The announcement comes only six hours after at least 14 top opposition leaders were sued in a case � led in connection with the Shahbagh arson attack.

Party insiders have said although the initial announcement was for a 72-hour programme, there are chanc-es that that it may be extended, just like the previous blockade programme which was extended twice.

In recent time, this is the � rst in-

stance of the opposition staging a ma-jor programme on Saturday – a weekly holiday.

Earlier, around 7:30pm yesterday, BNP’s ally Jamaat-e-Islami’s Assistant Secretary General Barrister Abdur Raz-zaque met opposition chief Khaleda Zia at her Gulshan o� ce.

Party insiders said Razzaque and Khaleda discussed their next course of action.

Meanwhile, protesting repression on opposition leaders and activists, local units of BNP in Dinajpur, Chit-tagong, Bogra and Cox’s Bazar have called daylong hartal for tomorrow, which is likely to be enforced alongside the blockade.

Yesterday after the Jumma prayers, the opposition alliance o� ered Gayeba-na Janaza in Nayapaltan, praying for salvation of the souls of those killed in the past three days’ violence.

After the janaza, BNP acting secre-tary general Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alam-gir once again said his party wanted to hold polls through compromise and understating with the ruling party.

“I will request the Election Com-mission again ... there is still time in your hands. Postpone the election schedule of a one-sided election …takeinitiatives to hold an inclusive elec-tion,” he said.

That was the � rst time that Fakhrul came out in public after November 25, when the opposition announced the blockade programme. He, however, left the area on a motorbike almostimmediately after the janaza prayers were over.

Meanwhile, protesting repression on opposition leaders and activists, local units of BNP in Dinajpur, Chit-tagong, Bogra and Cox’s Bazar have called daylong hartals for tomorrow. l

Ban Ki-moon writes to Hasina PAGE 1 COLUMN 1prime minister that he is sending Taranco to Dhaka and sought cooper-ation on his deputy’s behalf,” he said.

The letter was sent to the PMO on Wednesday after UN ResidentCoordinator Neil Walker met Foreign Secretary Md Shahidul Haque at the ministry.

On the other hand, although BNP Vice-Chairman Shamsher Mobin Chow-dhury con� rmed that the opposition chief received the UN chief’s letter, he refused to disclose anything in detail about it. “Even If I knew the content [of the letter], I cannot disclose it.”

This will be Taranco’s third visit to Bangladesh. He came to Dhaka in De-cember last year and this May.

Similar letters were sent to the two ladies during Taranco’s previous two visits as well.

During Taranco’s visit, he would hold meetings with the Election Com-mission and the foreign secretary. The meeting with the EC would be a techni-cal one and discuss how UN could help holding the next election, the foreign ministry o� cial said.

The UN did not have any mandate to send any observer for monitoring elec-tion but it might facilitate observers of other countries and regions, he said.

In the last two visits, Taranco held series of meetings with all the major stakeholders including the prime min-ister, leader of the opposition, speaker of the house, chief election commis-sioner, leaders of other political parties and members of the civil society.

During his last visit in May, the dep-uty UN chief expressed concerns with the fast running out time for � nding a path to holding free, fair, credible and non-violent elections.

On October 22, BNP claimed that Taranco had called up BNP acting sec-retary general Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir, welcoming BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia’s proposal for forming polls-time government with advisers to the past caretaker governments.

On September 8, US Secretary of State John Kerry sent separate letters to the prime minister and the leader of the opposition. He also urged the two leaders to come to a consensus regard-ing the next elections. l

RMG factory PAGE 1 COLUMN 6after their shifts were over a clash was going on outside. As soon as the work-ers came outside police � red rubber bullets, injuring 20 workers,” said Line Chief of the factory Tariqul Islam and other workers.

Then someone made an announce-ment through a loudspeaker from a nearby mosque that two workers died in police � ring. As the rumour � ew around hundreds of workers of Stan-dard Group and from adjacent factories entered the factory and set the three buildings on � re, local people said.

Gazipur Civil Defence and Fire Ser-vice Deputy Assistant director Akhta-ruzzaman Liton said 12 units of � re ser-vice department from local and Dhaka Headquarters worked jointly and around 1:30pm the � re was brought under control.

However, the � re again spread as it came in contact with liquid chemicals kept inside the premises.

“The 10-storey main building and two six-storey buildings were com-pletely gutted. We cannot estimate the loss at this moment.”

Standard Group head o� ce General Manager Rezaul Karim said 18 loaded covered vans that were ready for ship-ment and 13 other vehicles, including private car, micro bus, and small covered vans of the factory were burnt to ashes.

“All three buildings, vehicles, � n-ished products and all other materials inside the factory were destroyed by the � re,” he said.

Standard Group Senior Manager Nur-E-Alam said the company started its venture in 2012 with Tk15bn investment.

Gazipur Industrial Police Inspector Shawkat Kabir said he did not have any information about the death of any worker. “We have � red rubber bullets only to control the situation and to pro-tect properties.”

Meanwhile, Gazipur District Com-missioner Mohammad Nurul Islam formed a seven-member probe com-mittee headed by Additional District Magistrate Mohammad Mohsin to in-vestigate the incident. l

Government using intel agencies PAGE 1 COLUMN 2Joint Secretary General Abdul Latif Jony, the former premier alleged that the government had pushed the coun-try towards uncertainty as it was plan-ning to hold a lopsided election avoid-ing dialogue and compromise cleverly.

“The Election Commission has fuelled the � re,” Khaleda said in her � rst-ever statement since the arrest of party leaders, including six top ones, and announcement of the three-day blockade.

She claimed that the prime minister had publicly instigated attacks on and torching of vehicles owned by opposi-tion men.

“Who will � le the case against her for instigating violence?” the BNP chief said.

Khaleda said her party’s acting sec-retary general had urged people to take

to the streets warning not to vandalise any vehicles, but his statement had been distorted and now a case had been � led against him on charge of in-stigating violence.

Harshly condemning � ling of cases against the BNP-led 18-party alliance leaders and activists, she demanded immediate withdrawal of the cases and release of the detained leaders and ac-tivists.

“Do not choose the path of autocra-cy. The consequences will be like those of an autocrat.

“Create the atmosphere of a dia-logue to open the door to hold free, fair and credible elections under a non-par-tisan interim government,” she said.

Khaleda expressed deep shock for the deceased and urged the people to participate in the opposition’s logical movement. l

JP grassroots accuse top brass PAGE 1 COLUMN 2candidates to 299 constituencies for the 10th national elections.

“We have never heard the names that the party has nominated, especial-ly those who were given tickets to run in the elections from Jessore 1, 2, and 3 constituencies,” said Altaf Hossain Razib, secretary general of Jessore dis-trict unit JP.

Many other leaders, who did not get JP ticket, questioned the party’sdecision to give nomination to un-known faces.

Party Secretary General ABMRuhul Amin Hawlader, however, de-nied the allegations saying those who failed to get ticket had been saying such things.

Kazi Firoz Rashid, member of the parliamentary committee, told the Dhaka Tribune: “Such a situation aris-ing out of dissatisfaction is not unusual for a political party.”

The Dhaka Tribune tried to contact party chief HM Ershad over phone; but he rejected the calls. l

AL names candidates for JS polls PAGE 1 COLUMN 5making the � nal list of candidates,” Syed Ashraf said.

Former minister and MP (Jessore-2) ambassador Mostofa Faruque Moham-med who served Abul Hossain’s SHAH-CO that was blamed for corruption con-spiracy in the Padma bridge project, was also dropped.

Golam Rabbani, a leader of the 2006 Kansat movement during the rule of the BNP, was given party ticket for Chapain-awabganj-1 constituency, replacing for-mer state minister for energy M Enamul Haque.

AFM Bahauddin Nasim has managed the party ticket for Madaripur-3 seat, the constituency of Syed Abul Hossain. The party leaders and activists shouted aloud as Syed Ashraful Islam announced AFM Bahauddin Nasim’s name.

Md Golam Maula Rony, who embar-rassed the government by making an-ti-Awami League statements in TV talk shows and was later arrested for assault-ing a TV reporter, was not given party ticket for the Patuakhali-3 seat.

But AKM Jahangir Hussain, who

was deprived of the nomination in the last election for his anti-Sheikh Hasi-na stance during the rule of the mili-tary-backed caretaker government, got the party ticket for the Patuakhali-3 con-stituency.

Talukdar Mohammad Towhid Jung Murad, who was backer of the Rana Pla-za owner Sohel Rana, was picked as par-ty candidate. Dr Enamur Rahman, the owner of the Enam Hospital that earned fame for treating the victims of the Rana Plaza in Savar, won the nomination for the Savar constituency (Dhaka-19).

The Awami League leadership was embarrassed as the world media linked Towhid Jung Murad with the Rana Plaza collapse stories. He was in the bad books of the government as huge complaints of land occupation were brought against him.

Controversial leader Shamim Osman got the party ticket for the Narayan-ganj-4 seat in place of popular actress Sarah Begum Kabari. The Awami League leaders in Narayanganj are divided over Shamim Osman who and his brother Nasim Osman are allegedly involved in

promoting muscle power there. Shamim Osman � ed the country after the BNP-led government came to power in 2001.

Another controversial MP of the My-mensingh-10 constituency, Ghyas Uddin Ahmed, who opened � re on party work-ers, failed to con� rm his nomination. Ghyas reportedly told a public meeting in his constituency Goforgaon, Mymens-ingh that he did not fear anyone as he shot the former president Major Gen Zi-aur Rahman, the BNP’s de-facto founder.

In Jessore, three of the six sitting MPs failed to get nomination. Amirul Islam got the Jessore-2 ticket replacing Mostofa Faruque Mohammed. Kazi Nabil Ahmed got the nomination for the Jessore-3 con-stituency, now represented by Khaledur Rahman Tito. Whip of the Jatiya Sangsad Sk Abdul Wohab failed to manage the party ticket for the Jessore-5 constituen-cy that went to Ismat Sadeque.

Two Awami League presidium mem-bers, Mohammad Nasim and Kazi Zafar Ullah - who were charged with corruption by the military-backed interim adminis-tration - got nomination for the Sirajganj-1 and Faridpur-4 seats respectively. l

BRTC bus torched n Kailash Sarkar

An articulated bus of Bangladesh Road Transport Corporation (BRTC) was set on � re in front of Bangla College in the capital’s Mirpur area yesterday.

Con� rming the incident, Imtiyaz Ahmed, Deputy Commissioner (DC) of Mirpur Division, said unidenti-� ed criminals torched the govern-ment-owned bus while it was crossing the area around 1pm.

“No casualties were reported as the bus was almost empty,” the DC said.

“We are not sure yet whether the op-position members were involved with the attack,” he added.

Hefazat-e-Islam staged a country-wide agitation programme to press home their demands yesterday.

The bus driver and his helper could not be traced, as their mobile phones remained switched o� since the occur-rence of the incident, said Imtiyaz.

“We are trying to verify whether they had any links with the arson at-tack,” added the DC. l

Saturday’s primary terminal exams rescheduledn Tribune Report

The Primary Terminal Examination (PTE), also known as Primary School Certi� cate examination, for Saturday has been rescheduled to December 6.

Information and Public Relation Of-� cer of Primary and Mass Education Ministry Rabindranath Roy informed the Dhaka Tribune.

The examination will be held at 9:30am, said the o� cial.

The decision was made during a meeting at the education ministry on Friday, immediately after the 18-party called a fresh blockade.

Earlier on Wednesday, the educa-tion ministry rescheduled the exam as BNP extended its 48-hour blockade.

The PTE started on November 20, this year a total of 2,950,193 class-V stu-

dents are registered to take the public exam. The examinations will end on November 28.

Chittagong University authorities on Friday postponed the admission tests of six subjects under “B” unit.

The authorities said the exams were postponed due to the 72-hour fresh blockade called by the BNP-led 18-par-ty alliance.

Professor Dr Imran Hossain, dean of Arts and Humanity Faculty, told the Dhaka Tribune that they would an-nounce a date for the admission tests later.

Besides, the viva examination of “D” unit will be held on December 6 in-stead of November 30.

More detail could be found at the university website www.cu.ac.bd. l

Zafar, Mosih ‘take’ JP helmn ManikMiazee

Kazi Zafar Ahmed, the recently expelled Jatiya Party leader, has claimed that the party Presidium declared him the presi-dent and Golam Mosih the secretary gen-eral of the party.

A press release issued by Zafar’s Press Secretary Golam Mostafa claimed yester-day that a meeting of the party’s Presid-ium members, vice-chairman, lawmak-ers and executive committee members made the decision in the afternoon.

The meeting was held at Golam Mosih’s Gulshan residence around 4pm.

According to the press release, JP Pre-sidium members Kazi Zafar Ahmed and Golam Mosih were made the party chair-man and secretary general until the next party council.

The press note also stated that the party dismissed its present chairman HM Ershad for “being inconsistent in his posi-tions.” The meeting � xed December 18 for holding the next council of the Jatiya Par-ty as per section 37 of the party’s charter.

Party insiders told the Dhaka Tribune that earlier in the day, Kazi Zafar had made a sudden visit to BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia’s Gulshan residence.

Details of the sudden meeting could not be known immediately, but sources close to Kazi Zafar said the meeting was to discuss the current political situation of the country.

On Thursday, Jatiya Party Chairman HM Ershad and Kazi Zafar expelled each other from the party. Ershad expelled Kazi Zafar for making frequent statements against him “violating the party charter.”

An hour later, Kazi Zafar sent Ershad a suspension letter, claiming that he was the “all-in-all” in the Jatiya Party, not Ershad. He also claimed that majority of the Presidium members were with him and they would expel Ershad through a special council within a day or two.

On Saturday, Zafar stated that Ershad had betrayed the nation by joining the polls-time government.

Recently, Golam Mosih also resigned from the party. l

Campaign materials still on display in cityEC asks for a list of electoral code violators n Mohammad Zakaria

Billboards, banners and posters of as-piring parliamentary candidates are still on display in Dhaka despite a direc-tive of the Election Commission to take them down by Thursday night.

During a visit to the city’s Mirpur, Mohammadpur, Bijoy Sarani and Farmgate areas yesterday, there were still many unremoved campaign mate-rials � outing the electoral code of con-duct. There are allegations that some candidates have even replaced old ma-terials with new ones.

The EC yesterday asked the met-ropolitan police commissioner, the district police super and the returning o� cer to prepare a list of the code vio-lators, o� cials said, adding that “stern action” would be taken against them if found guilty.

Earlier, the commission asked polit-ical parties and aspiring candidates to take down all their advertising materi-als by Thursday night. It also said the costs of removing those would have to be borne by those responsible for them.

Mohammad Shah Alam, a senior election o� cer of Dhaka, said the com-mission had instructed the authorities

of metropolitan police and city corpo-rations to remove all campaign ma-terials as soon as possible. “It would take stern action against anyone found guilty of violating the code.”

EC o� cials also sounded similar cautions and said show-cause notices would be sent to the violators once the deadline for � ling nomination papers was over.

According to section 12 of the code of conduct, political parties or their nominated candidates and indepen-dent candidates or any person on their behalf, can launch electoral campaigns starting three weeks prior to the sched-uled voting day.

A violation of the code would be considered an o� ence punishable by up to six months in prison or up to Tk50,000 in � ne, or both. If the o� end-er is a political party, the maximum punishment is a � ne of Tk50,000.

The 10th parliamentary polls are scheduled to be held on January 5. The last day for � ling nomination papers is December 2 while the last date for withdrawal of candidature is Decem-ber 13. The returning o� cers of the commission will scrutinise nomination papers on December 5-6. l

A victim of Thursday’s petrol bomb attack on a bus undergoing treatment at the DMCH burn unit yesterday MAHMUD HOSSAIN OPU

News 3DHAKA TRIBUNE Saturday, November 30, 2013

BPC � xes fuel oil import premiums for Jan-Jun 2014n Aminur Rahman Rasel

The Bangladesh Petroleum Corpora-tion has � nalised the premiums for eight foreign companies for importing re� ned fuel oil in the � rst half of the next year.

BPC o� cials said the per-barrel pre-miums of diesel, octane and jet fuel had been kept the same as the existing ones. The cost of high speed furnace oil would come down by $2 per tonne.

A high-powered delegation led by Energy Secretary Md Mozammel Haque Khan had visited Singapore on November 19-26 to negotiate the pre-miums for the January-June 2014 pe-riod.

The premiums – transportation, in-surance and other costs – are reviewed every six months.

BPC Chairman Md Eunusur Rahman yesterday said the premium of diesel had been � nalised at $4.80 per barrel, jet fuel and kerosene at $5.80 per bar-rel, and octane $7.5 per barrel.

The premium of furnace oil had been set at $35 per tonne, sources said.

The BPC, the country’s lone oil im-porter-distributor, was set to import

7.7m tonnes of petroleum fuel next year; the fuel demand this year was 5.3m tonnes, corporation o� cials said.

“The BPC will import 2.7m tonnes of diesel, 700,000 tonnes of furnace oil, 300,000 tonnes of jet fuel, 10,000 tonnes of kerosene, and 30,000 tonnes of octane,” an o� cial of the BPC told the Dhaka Tribune yesterday.

The BPC strikes deals with national oil companies of other countries under government-to-government contracts for at least two years.

Bangladesh’s suppliers are the Ku-wait Petroleum Corporation, Malay-sia-based PETCO – a trading wing of Petronas, UAE-based Emirates Nation-al Oil Company, Chinese National Oil Company’s trading wing Petrochina, Egyptian National Oil Company or Mi-dor, Vietnamese National Oil Company or Petro Limex, Philippines National Oil Company, and Bumisiek of Indone-sia.

The BPC chairman said they would send a report to the cabinet committee on public purchase for approval.

The corporation annually imports about 5m tonnes of crude and re� ned oil at an average price of Tk500bn. l

Standard Group � re a ‘sabotage’: BGMEA n Ibrahim Hossain Ovi

Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA) has termed the � re incident at Standard Group as “sabotage.”

“It is a complete act of sabotage aimed to create anarchy in the readymade gar-ment sector. All groups including work-ers, trade union leaders and vested quar-ters are involved in torching the Standard Group,” BGMEA president Atiqul Islam told the Dhaka Tribune yesterday.

On Thursday night, hearing ru-mour of death of two fellow garment workers, hundreds of RMG workers of Standard Garments factory set � re to two 10-storiead buildings of Standard

Group in Gazipur.Atiqul said: “This would send a nega-

tive message to the world and tarnish our image. The country has to face dire con-sequence like Srilanka.”

The BGMEA will hold a meeting on Sunday at 12noon with chiefs of all trade bodies including the Federation of Bang-ladesh Chambers of Commerce and In-dustry (FBCCI), to devise ways to over-come the present turmoil that recently the sector had witnessed, said Atiq.

“We will decide on the next course of action after holding the meeting in line with the recommendations made by trade body’s leaders,” he added.

Regarding the state of the factory, Is-lam said the factory was a 100 percent

compliant one and there was no reason for unrest as the factory owners had pro-vided all the necessary facilities to the workers. “The incident would leave 1800 workers in dark as they would lose their jobs and we do not have the capacity to create jobs for such a huge number of people at a time.”

“On behalf of the country’s apparel makers, I urge the government to take punitive and protective measures to save the highest foreign currency earning sec-tor from the hands of evil,” said Islam.

BGMEA Vice-President Shahidullah Azim told the present time was not fa-vourable to run business as there was no control over the situation and none could handle the unruly workers. l

Students of Viqarunnisa Noon School sit for the Primary School Certi� cate examinations yesterday as earlier dates of exams were postponed because of the BNP-led 18-party opposition alliance’s blockade programmes NASHIRUL ISLAM

OSD government officials to appeal to CEC for postingn Rabiul Islam

A number of aggrieved government o� cials who have been languishing as o� cers on special duty (OSD) for � ve to seven years are to appeal to the chief election commissioner for advancements in their careers.

“We will appeal to the chief election commis-sioner to at least give us postings,” Abdul Bari, one of the OSDs from the 85th batch, told the Dhaka Tribune over phone yesterday.

He said: “An appointment to the chief election commissioner has been sought through his Per-sonal Secretary, Md Mazharul Islam.”

Talking to the Dhaka Tribune, Mazharul Is-lam con� rmed that the o� cers have sought an appointment but no decision on this has been made yet.

Meanwhile, Abdul Bari pointed out that there were instances that during the previous interim government, the election commission had given promotion and postings.

On Wednesday, dozens of aggrieved govern-ment o� cers separately met the Cabinet Secre-tary Musharraf Hossain Bhuiyan and the Senior Secretary, Abdus Sobhan Sikder to the public ad-ministration ministry.

“When we met the cabinet secretary, he told us that the election commission was now the authority to give postings,” another o� cer, now OSD for about seven years, said.

Kamruzzaman Chowdhury, an o� cer from the 85th batch said: “We would request the chief election commissioner to give us promotions and postings as now there was no political gov-ernments.”

The o� cials alleged that they were being deprived of their due promotions and postings during the immediate past Awami League-led 14-party alliance government’s tenure although they had no complaints against them. However, many o� cials who had allegations of corruption against them were given promotions, they said.

Cabinet secretary, in the meantime, said if an o� cer behaved or acted against the government, naturally it could not cannot promote that of-� cer.

According to o� cial records, over 600 o� cers including four secretaries, 39 additional secre-taries and 338 joint-secretaries were made OSDs at the public administrations ministry during the last � ve years.

The government has to pay the OSDs without taking any service from them. l

Fire-� ghters examine the ruins of a collapsed four-storey under-construction building in Old Dhaka yesterday MAHMUD HOSSAIN OPU

ARSON AND VANDALISM CASE

BNP leader Mir Nasir sent to jailn Tarek Mahmud, Chittagong

A Chittagong court yesterday sent Mir Mohammad Nasir Uddin, adviser to BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia, to jail in a case � led in connection with arson and vandalism on November 27 while he received bail in another similar case.

Metropolitan Magistrate Syed Mas-� qul Islam passed the order yesterday around 4:55pm after the BNP leader was produced before the court.

The leader was accused in the two cases lodged with Kotwali and Chawk-bazar police stations in the port city’s Kajir Dewri and Chatweshwari Road areas Wednesday, second day of the blockade enforced by the opposition.

Earlier, the same court granted an ad-interim bail in another case � led with Kotwali police station on the same charge till the next hearing scheduled to be held on December 3.

The BNP leader was � rst produced before the court at 3:45pm when the defence counsels, advocate Nazim Ud-din and advocate Abdus Sattar, plead-ed for bail terming the case politically motivated.

Mir Mohammad Nasir Uddin was shown arrested in the case � led with Chawkbazar police station and pro-duced before the same court around 4:45pm seeking a � ve-day remand while the court sent him to jail.

After the court session, BNP-backed lawyers staged demonstration on the

court premises protesting the court or-der.

Advocate Abdus Sattar, counsel for the BNP leader, alleged that the court gave the order through the interference of the government.

“Mir Nasir got bail in a case while the court sent him to jail in another similar case that proved the government inter-ference,” he said.

Police held Mir Nasir from Shah Amanat International Airport in the port city Thursday night when he at-tempted to go to the capital by air.

In protest against his arrest, BNP activists torched and vandalised some vehicles at Hathazari upazila Thursday night while no casualties were report-ed.

Meanwhile, BNP central Organising Secretary Golam Akbar Khandakar was detained along with six others Thurs-day morning, third day of the opposi-tion’s blockade, from the port city.

A Chittagong court sent the BNP leader and activists to jail rejecting their bail prayers.

The port city turned into a virtual battle� eld on the day as the opposition activists clashed with law enforcers in several areas. l

14 BNP leaders implicated in Shahbagh arson casen Kailash Sarkar

At least 14 senior leaders of main oppo-sition BNP and its associate bodies have been implicated in a case � led in con-nection with torching a passenger bus in the capital’s Shahbagh on Thursday that killed at least two.

The accused leaders are acting secre-tary general Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alam-gir, standing committee members Mirza Abbas and Goyeshwar Chandra Roy, former Dhaka mayor Sadeque Hossain Khoka, vice-chairman of Dhaka city unit BNP Abdus Salam, joint secretary generals Ruhul Kabir Rizvi, Barkat Ul-lah Bulu, Aman Ullah Aman and central leaders Khairul Kabir Khokon and Na-zim Uddin Alam.

Up to three unnamed criminals were also directly accused in the case � led by a sub-inspector of the Shahbagh police station. Sources said the BNP leaders, on the other hand, had been implicated as the planners and instigators of the deadly arson that left at least 18 passen-gers critically burnt.

Masudur Rahman, deputy commis-sioner of Dhaka Metropolitan Police, con� rmed the leaders’ names. He also said no one had so far been arrested be-cause those directly involved with the attack were yet to be identi� ed.

Three women and the driver among the 19 victims were caught by � re when criminals hurled what police thinks could be a patrol bomb or gunpowder through the window of the bus.

One of the victims Mohammad Na-hid died Thursday night. l

One shot dead in Cox’s Bazarn Tribune Report

A man was shot dead and 25 people, including two cops, were injured in a triangular clash involving activists of the ruling party and BNP, and police in Chakaria municipality area yesterday evening.

Local BNP claimed Zaker was its activist while police said he was a pedestrian. Ranjit Kumar Barua, OC of Chakaria police station, said activists of BNP and its associate bodies had brought out a procession from the bus stand area in the municipality after the namaz-e-janaza for Jatiyatabadi Jubodal leader Abdul Halim, who was beaten to death allegedly by police. At one stage, they ran riot and started vandalising vehicles, he said, adding that they also attacked the police when the law enforcers tried to resist them. Police � red over 100 blank shots. l

A Chittagong court sent the BNP leader and activists to jail rejecting their bail prayers

News4 DHAKA TRIBUNE Saturday, November 30, 2013

City High LowDhaka 29.6 18.4Chittagong 29.4 22.9Rajshahi 29.8 15.7Rangpur 28.5 17.5Khulna 30.5 20.0Barisal 30.4 21.0Sylhet 30.5 17.1Cox’s Bazar 31.7 22.5

PRAYER TIMESFajar 5:04am

Sunrise 6:23amZohr 11:47am

Asr 3:34pmMagrib 5:10pm

Esha 6:30pmSource: IslamicFinder.org

WEATHER

Dry weather likelyn UNB

Weather may remain dry with tempo-rary partly cloudy sky over the country until 6pm today.

Night and day temperature may re-main nearly unchanged over the coun-try, Met o� ce said.

The sun sets in the capital at 5:11pm today and rises at 6:24am tomorrow.

Country’s highest temperature 33.4 degree Celsius was recorded yesterday at Jessore and lowest 14.6 degrees at Mymensingh.

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

Post-blockade tra� c rush hits the capitaln Ashif Islam Shaon

City dwellers experienced huge rush of vehicles on roads and crowd at the bus terminals, launch terminals and rail-way station yesterday after the 71-hour blacked programme imposed by the opposition that ended at 5am.

Fearing possibilities of more politi-cal violence in the coming week, peo-ple poured out of home to address the pending tasks or to head outside the capital.

Shopping malls and recreation cen-ters were also abuzz with crowd in the capital.

According to tra� c control room of Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP), the pressure of vehicles started increas-ing since afternoon. A rush of tra� c slowed down the vehicle movement on most of the major roads. Number of buses and private cars started increas-ing with time.

“We could not bring out the bus on road for three consecutive days. So all the drivers like me have hit the road today,” said Mossaraf Ali, a driver of Safety Paribahan on Azimpur-Mirpur 12 route.

Inter-district buses started to head for destinations from Gabtoli Bus Ter-minal from morning. Crowd at the terminal kept increasing as day pro-ceeded.

“We sometimes experience this kind of crowd before the weekends if there are extra one or two holidays ahead. I think today’s crowd is a wave of com-muters who were waiting inside home being unable to leave Dhaka during the blockade programme,” said Aminur Rahman, counter master of Satkhira Delux.

Passengers echoed with Aminur. Nadira Musta� z, a primary school

teacher came to the city from Kochua, Khulna on Sunday to consult doctor.

She said: “I thought I would leave on Thursday evening after seeing the doc-tor. But as they extended the blockade programme, I have to come again next week and seek a new appointment.”

Sta� at the bus counters said tickets were sold out in a blink of an eye.

Sadarghat Launch Terminal wit-nessed more passengers than usual that created tra� c jam in the adjacent roads in the older part of Dhaka.

According to Senior Deputy Director of Bangladesh Inland Water Transport Authority (BIWTA) Sa� ul Haque, 55 launches reached the terminal in the morning while 23 had already left the terminal by 12:30pm. 2o more were scheduled to sail by 12:30am.

Mamun Khan, assistant master of MV Rof on Chandpur route said they were returning from a trip from Chan-dpur in the morning with thinner pas-sengers but hoped that at night the down trip would be fully- packed.

Meanwhile, train passengers suf-fered severely as the authorities had to reshu� e the train schedule in the wake of subversive activities on railways.

Turna Express, and Mohanagar Pro-vati, along with four other trains could not reach the Kamalapur Railway Sta-tion on time.

A total of 12 trains reached the sta-tion till evening and left the station for destinations. Among them Isha Khan Express, Jayantika Express, Parabat Express, Dhumketu Express and Kar-nofuli Express were delayed by 30 min-utes up to two hours.

A number of passengers waited for hours for the trains to arrive as per the pre-vious schedule. Many passengers had to take to the rooftops of the trains because of the excessive number of passengers.

Contacted, Station Manager Khairul Bashir of Kamalapur Railway Station said it would take one more day to fol-low the new schedule. l

ASK concerned over violent movementsn Tribune Report

Ain O Salish Kendra (ASK) yesterday defended the right to organise move-ments in a “democratic and peaceful way” and the freedom of speech, but said violence in the name of establish-ing those rights could not be accept-able.

A press release issued by the rights body’s Executive Director Sultana Ka-mal made this observation yesterday.

The organisation also expressed “deep concerns” over the bloody po-litical developments of recent weeks, with particular reference to the ar-son attack on a passenger bus on the third day of the opposition-sponsored blockade.

“This sort of incident is unheard-of and deeply disturbing, ostensibly meant to create and spread panic.”

ASK urged the government and law enforcement agencies to take “con-crete measures” to prevent repetition of such incidents and demanded a fair investigation and punishment to those involved.

On Thursday, 19 passengers su� ered severe burns as a Bihanga Paribahan bus of Sadarghat-Mirpur route came under attack near Matsya Bhaban at Shahbagh area at around 6pm, when two picketers riding on a motorcycle threw a petrol bomb on the running vehicle. Two of the victims died in the last two days. l

BARISAL TRIPLE TRUCK EXPLOSION

Case lodged against unnamed 25, probe committee formedn Our Correspondent, Barisal

Police have started investigating the explosion of three trucks, including one laden with 480 cylinders of lique-� ed petroleum gas (LPG), which took place in Barisal late Wednesday. A case lodged in this connection was turned into a regular criminal case yesterday.

Sakhwat Hossain, o� cer in charge of Barisal Kotwali police station, said SM Zakir Hosain, owner of one of the burnt trucks, had lodged a general diary accus-ing 25 unnamed individuals which was later turned into a regular criminal case, under sections 15(1) (3) of Special Power Act and 323 and 427 of Penal Code.

Zakir registered the diary on Thurs-day afternoon, alleging that a group of unknown pickets had torched his emp-ty truck and an LPG-laden one during the opposition-sponsored blockade, as well as damaged another parked near-by – causing losses worth Tk5.8m.

Police had already visited the spot and started collecting evidence related to the incident, Sub-Inspector Faisal Ahmed, investigation o� cer of the

case, said. On the other hand, the Bari-sal Fire Service Station formed a probe committee of its own – comprised of three members – and asked it to submit its � ndings within 10 working days.

Sources at the � re service said the incident could lead to a massive in-dustrial disaster because of the place where it occurred. Pickets torched the LPG-laden truck right outside the gates of a chemical factory – Global Capsules and Chemical Industry and Nova Pack-aging of the Opsonin Group – packed with a large stock of hydrochloric acid, at the city’s Rupatali industrial zone.

It took a 30-member � re team over one-and-a-half hours to tame the blaze before it could come in contact with the stock of acid preserved inside the building. However, it did manage to gut a few shops and trees located in the adjacent areas and damaged factory properties worth Tk7m.

Moreover, most of the cylinders on the targeted truck, approximately worth Tk2m, had either exploded or been damaged by the heat generated by the � re. l

Blockade cripples transport system, prices shoot skywardn Abu Bakar Siddique and

Ibrahim Hossain Ovi

Transport owners charging more than double the usual, an acute supply shortage of essentials and fear of es-calating violence in the coming weeks have played havoc in the capital’s kitchen markets pushing prices almost through the middle-class’s roofs.

In the weeks prior to the one end-ing today, traders used to transport es-sentials to the capital city at night even during hartals.

But things have been di� erent with the recent 71-hour countrywide road, waterway and railroad blockade pro-gramme enforced by the 18-party op-position combine.

With more than 500 trucks and cov-ered vans vandalised and torched in the last three months in violent inci-dents, transport owners are not willing anymore to bring out their vehicles, es-pecially on the highways which happen to be one of the cream spots for vandal-ism and arson.

Babul Mia, a wholesaler at Karwan Baazar, told the Dhaka tribune that he had to pay Tk35,000 for a truck, which, under normal circumstances, would have cost him only about Tk16,000.

“Bringing even one of the usual con-signments to the market was a struggle because the truckers are unwilling to ply during blockades,” Babul said.

Lokman Hussain, general secre-tary of Karwan Bazaar Kitchen Mar-ket Wholesalers Association, said: “The ongoing countrywide political violence, including arsons and vandal-isms, crippled the transportation sys-tem; hence the acute supply shortage of vegetables and the rocketing prices.”

Rustom Ali, president of Bangladesh Covered Van and Truck Owners’ As-sociation, told the Dhaka Tribune that transport business had nosedived in the last few months because of hartals and blockade.

He also said: “We have been carry-ing essential commodities at night time during hartals; but this blockade has forced us to stop doing that as well.”

On an average, around 1,000 trucks, carrying rice and vegetables, come to Dhaka every day, said Nirod Baran Saha, president of Rice Dealers’ Associ-ation of Naogaon. But the number has come down to merely a hundred since violence escalated, he said.

Some traders and wholesalers of Kar-wan Bazar, the biggest kitchen market in the capital, told the Dhaka Tribune that they had been scared about what might happen in the coming weeks.

“If BNP calls more strikes, then we will have to pull down the shutter be-cause of the raging supply shortage,” one of them said.

Uncertainties of an equal degree have gripped consumers as well.

“The two major parties are leading the country towards a death valley, making our lives miserable. We are having to pay higher prices for essen-tials for the political turmoil,” said Abu Abdullah, a government o� cial, who came to the Kalmilata kitchen market yesterday for getting weekly grocery.

“I am already having to spend 20-

30% higher, compared to the previous week,” he said.

This correspondent, who visited a number of kitchen markets in the capi-tal yesterday, found that the prices of winter vegetables which come in great-er variety and taste than any other time of the year, had been a� ected the most.

As of yesterday, green chilli, which sold for Tk50 per kg last week, sold for Tk60-70; the price of locally grown onion was as high at Tk80, while imported onion sold at Tk60; brinjal sold for Tk40-Tk45, beans Tk30-Tk40, potatoes Tk20-Tk30, toma-toes Tk70, gourd Tk60 and cauli� ower Tk30-Tk40 per piece. Local ginger sold at Tk100, while imported Tk90.

The prices of all these items were Tk5-Tk10 less last week.

Although the prices of less perishable items such as sugar, soybean oil, pulse, powdered chilli and turmeric remained somewhat stable this week, traders said they had no idea what would happen once their stocks ran out and they could not bring in replenishments because of the political violence. l

Jul� kar Ali Manik wins DRU award for investigative reportn Tribune Report

Ju� kar Ali Manik, a special correspon-dent of the Dhaka Tribune, won the Shagor-Runi Award of Dhaka Reporters Unity (DRU) for his investigative report on the attack on Buddhists in Ramu.

The report titled ‘A Devil’s Design’ was published in The Daily Star on Oc-tober 14, 2012, before he joined this pa-per. Manik received Tk100,000, a crest and a certi� cate.

Dhaka University Vice-Chancellor AAMS Are� n Siddique gave away the prizes after the annual general meeting of DRU yesterday. Ten other reporters of di� erent print and electronic media received awards in di� erent categories,

each receiving Tk50,000, a crest and certi� cate.

Sharifuzzaman Pintu of Prothom Alo was awarded for reporting on edu-cation, Kazi Ha� z of Kaler Kantha for reporting on election and democracy, Selim Jahid of Prothom Alo for political a� airs, Reazuddin of Alokito Bangla-desh for foreign a� airs, Parimal Shaha Titu of Vhorer Kagoj for city problems, Jharna Mani of Vhorer Kagoj for lib-eration war a� airs, Mazumder Babu of Channel-24 for economic a� airs, Rokonuddin of NTV for city problems, Mostofa Mallick of Channel-i for hu-manistic report, and Abu Hanif Rana of online media Report.Com-24 for devel-opment a� airs. l

Police recover � rearms on information from Tofailn Tribune Report

Tofail Ahmed, one of the alleged mas-terminds of last year’s rampage against the Buddhist community in Ramu, gave information to Cox’s Bazar police which led yesterday to the recovery of two � rearms from Joroillatoli, a bor-dering area between Ramu upazila and Bandarban.

Tofail Ahmed, Bandarban’s Naikhy-ong chhari upazila Chairman, was ar-rested Thursday.

A top police o� cial in Ramu told the Dhaka Tribune that during primary interrogation, Tofail informed police about the location of the recovered arms in a hilly area in Joroillatoli.

Cox’s Bazar Superintendent of Police Mohammad Azad Mia told the Dhaka Tribune that the recovered � rearms were locally made Light Guns.

Following the recovery, police � led an arms case with the Ramu police sta-tion against Tofail and produced him before a Ramu court in connection with the arms case and another case in connection to the Ramu mayhem.

In an unprecedented communal attack in Ramu on September 29 last year, communal fanatics burnt 12 Bud-dhist temples to ashes and vandalised six more places of worship. Among the cases that were � led last year after the incident, Tofail was accused in three.

SP Azad said, the police yesterday produced Tofail before the court in one of the three cases against him.

He said police had requested for a seven-day remand to the court to inter-rogate Tofail.

As yesterday was weekend, the court � xed next working day Sunday for hearing of the prayer and ordered to send Tofail to jail. l

AL men resign en masse in Sirajganjn UNB, Sirajganj

Leaders and activists of Awami League and its associate bodies of all tiers in Belkuchi upazila resigned en masse Friday evening protesting the party’s denial of polls ticket to former � sher-ies and livestock minister Abdul Latif Biswas from Sirajganj 5 constituency for the next general election.

Leaders and activists of Awami League and its front organisations, in-cluding Jubo League, Chhatra League, Mohila League, Krishak League, Sramik League and Swechchhasebak League, signed en masse the resignation letter at the upazila AL o� ce soon after AL general secretary Syed Ashraful Islam announced the list of the party candi-dates in the capital.

Awami League Parliamentary Board has chosen Abdul Mazid to contest the next parliamentary polls from the constit-uency comprising Belkuchi and Chouhali.

Just-resigned AL upazila president AKM Yusuf Khan and general secre-tary Fazlul Haque Sarker said the party activities would remain halted in the upazila unless Abdul Latif Biswas was given the ticket. l

A policeman scans a devotee who came for Juma prayers at the Baitul Mukarram mosque yesterday as part of added security amid the country’s political unrest RAJIB DHAR

Dhaka Tribune Special Correspondent Jul� kar Ali Manik accepts the Shagor-Runi Award of Dhaka Reporters’ Unity from Dhaka University Vice-Chancellor AAMS Are� n Siddique yesterday RAJIB DHAR

This sort of incident is unheard-of and deeply disturbing, ostensibly meant to create and spread panic

On September 29 last year, communal fanatics burnt 12 Buddhist temples to ashes and vandalised six more places of worship

Needle-free injection is now in Dhakan Prescription Desk

Due to fear of needles, many patients avoid injections. Needle-free injections can be the solution. iHealthNet, a US registered com-pany, launched the

� rst commercially available Needle-free Injection Technology (NFIT), the Biojector 2000, to the citizens ofBangladesh.

This device has FDA clearance and

has been in use since 1987 in vari-ous parts of the world including USA, France, Malaysia, Philippines, Africa, Maldives, Sri Lanka and Australia.This eliminates the fear of pain and thus overcomes patients’ aversion to injections.

The Biojector 2000 (commonly known as B2000) is designed to deliver vaccines, insulin and other injectable medicine Intramuscularly (IM), Sub-cutaneously (SC) and Intradermally (ID) by pressurising the liquid dose in a chamber from which it is ejected

through a small ori� ce of a syringe with su� cient force to penetrate hu-man tissues. This device also provides dose accuracy, and eliminates cross contamination with a very negligible tissue trauma.

It is intended for use in clinics by medical personnel on humans, as well as self-use by patients. A Biojec-tor B2000 can provide a minimum of 120,000 shots. Due to its cost e� ective-ness, recently many hospitals and clin-ics of Bangladesh have started to use this new needle-free injection. l

n Dr Sajol Ashfaq

During winter, the body experiences a drop in temperature as the environment cools. At the same time, the body is adjusting to the new climate. Some people can’t cope with

the environmental changes and catch a few common illnesses. Most can avoid these ailments by just being careful.

Allergic reaction in noseCold foggy wind and dust may cause irritation in the nasal cavity which trig-gers the allergic reaction in the nose. Sneezing, running or watering of the nose, and blockage are the common presenting features in allergic in� am-matory reaction of the nose. Those who are more sensitive to cold envi-ronment are a� ected badly and for pro-longed period.

Antihistamines, nasal drops for re-lieving the obstruction, and steroid nasal sprays are e� ective to control the nasal allergy symptoms. If it is left untreated, sinusitis may occur. Sinuses are naturally occurring air-� lled spaces in the skull. The sinuses are connected to the nose. In sinusitis, the inner lining of the sinuses becomes in� amed and swollen.

This obstructs the drainage of secre-tion of sinuses to the nose and leads to mucus accumulation in the sinuses. Sinusitis is marked by a sensation of heaviness of the face, a deep and con-stant pain in the area of the cheekbones, forehead, or bridge of the nose, cough and thick yellowish or greenish nasal discharge. Acute sinusitis should be treated immediately with antibiotics, nasal drops, painkillers and vapour in-halation; otherwise it may turn chronic.

Earache and ear blockageSneezing and coughing sometimes fol-low blockage of ears. The middle ear is

connected to the back of the nose via a small canal called the eustachian tube. Bacteria can make their way into the middle ear via this canal where they are usually � ushed out through the eu-stachian tube.

A blockage in the canal usually due to cold/� u can lead to germs getting trapped in the middle ear, causing in-fection in the middle ear. Children are prone to su� er from this because of the

growing anatomical and functional sta-tus of the tube. Children usually com-plain of mild to severe pain in the ear and hearing loss due to accumulation of � uid or pus in the middle ear accord-ingly. The diagnosis of middle ear infec-tion can be made easily by examining the ears. To treat middle ear infections, most of the time, antibiotics, antihis-tamine, nasal decongestant, and pain-killers are needed. Sometimes painless

� uid in the middle ear may last for few weeks or months after an acute infec-tion. It may be necessary to drain the � uid if it fails to drain by medication. Sometimes if it is not treated properly in time, a severe onset of infection may lead to perforation of the ear drum which needs further attention.

Infections in throat and voice boxMost colds start with a sore throat for

one to two days. Tonsils are mostly af-fected in the winter. Besides tonsillitis (in� ammation of tonsils), generalised infection in the pharynx is also noticed in cold weather. Most cases of sore throat are the result of acute pharyn-gitis. Tonsillitis occurs when the infec-tion gets more serious, and the tonsils become painful, swollen, and in� amed.

Di� culties in swallowing, fever, and earache are common symptoms of acute tonsillitis. Most cases of tonsil-litis are caused by viral infection and antibiotics are not necessary. Symp-tomatic treatment to relieve pain and in� ammation is required. Drinking lots of water is usually advised. Warm drinks and soothing liquids, such as soup, milk, and tea are the best choice. Gargling with warm salt water every four hours is a very e� ective measure.

Sore throat and cough may sometimes extend downwards to the voice box and cause the voice to change. Absolute voice rest and menthol vapour inhalation are e� ective measures at this stage.

For many people, asthma at-tacks  may happen more often in the winter.  The  common cold  and � u are both more likely to strike in the winter and can lead to asthma � are-ups.

Lower your family’s riskTo lower the risk of infection, wash your hands after coming in from out-side. This helps keep viruses from get-ting into your body when you touch your eyes, nose, or mouth. Alcohol-based hand sanitisers also work. Stay away from people who are ill.  If a co-worker or friend has the cold or � u, keep your distance. Protect yourself from chilly weather; cover your face. Drape a scarf across your mouth and nose, or wear a winter face mask that covers the bottom half of your face. l

The writer is Associate Professor of ENT Department at Holy Family Red Crescent Medical College Hospital, Dhaka.

Lack of sleep leads to heart disease4100 teens were studied to see the relation between sleep duration and heart disease.Researchers found teenagers who get less sleep are more likely to develop heart prob-lems later in life. Those with poor sleep qual-ity were more likely to be overweight, and have high blood pressure and cholesterol level. These cumulatively increase the risk of getting heart disease. l

Video games at night put teens at risk of diabetesTeenagers who stay up all night playing video games could be at higher risk of developing diabetes, a new study has found. Psychiatrists from the University of Pittsburgh found that teenagers who got an average of six hours of sleep or less each night had high levels of insulin resistance, a precursor to diabetes. l

Stay away from soft drinksSoft drinks are very popular to teens. New research work published in the Journal of Hepatology has linked soft drinks to liver damage, speci� cally NAFLD (Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease), which may lead to diabetes, insulin resistance, heart disease, obesity and even liver cancer. Soft drinks contain high amount of fructose, which is easily and rapidly absorbed by the liver. Israeli researchers, led by Dr Nimer Assy, said, ”People who consume too much soft drinks develop NAFLD � ve times faster than those who drink smaller amount.” Previously other researchers found this to cause teeth and bone damage. l

Laughter beats bugsRecent research published in the Journal of the American Medical Association indicates that laughter may strengthen the immune system. In the study, 26 men and women were exposed to common allergens, which made them sneeze and experience a sore, raspy throat and tearing eyes. They were then shown a funny video. Symptoms were reduced in all 26 study participants for up to four hours after watching the video. Why? Stress reduction seems to be the key to laughter’s success, say the researchers. l

Diet and exercise can prevent cancersn Prescription Desk

Healthier eating and increased physical activity could potentially decrease cancer incidence. Yes, about 25% of cancers could be pre-vented by improvements in diet and exercise, a recent research con-ducted by Medical journal of Aus-tralia found this.

In the study, bowel cancer was found to be the most preventable, followed by female breast can-cer, prostate cancer, lung cancer, mouth, and laryn-geal cancer.

From the study it is now very clear that pro-tecting yourself from these cancers could be assimple as increasing your consumption of fruits, vegetables, and whole grain, and eating less satu-rated fat and red meat. l

Prescription 5DHAKA TRIBUNE Saturday, November 30, 2013

HEALTH NEWS

| Compiled by: Dr Kazi Mahbuba Akhtar

| Compiled by: Dr Mohammad Sayem

Insect bites

Insect bite is a common occurrence. To stop itching and in� ammation of mosqui-to or other insect bites, apply one drop of peppermint oil directly to the bite. Pep-permint has anti-in� ammatory and anti-septic properties. Some insect bites react with the skin very badly and the a� ected skin becomes swollen and red. So try to meet with a dermatologist at the earliest possible time. l

Muscle pain

While you are walking, running or doing any other movements of your body you can get trauma, which may cause muscle pain. Before taking any painkillers, or even along with painkillers, you can receive an adjuvant home therapy. Heat 200g of sea salt in a heavy pan. Funnel into a clean, cotton sock (don’t over� ll – you will have to leave it pliable, like a beanbag). Pin the end. Apply to the painful area for approxi-mately 30 minutes. The heat helps to stimulate circulation and bring fresh blood to the area to speed up healing. l

Nappy rash

The most e� ective way to get rid of a diaper or nappy rash is to keep your baby’s skin as clean and dry as possible. The best way to do this is with frequent diaper changes. When your baby has a diaper rash, avoid washing the a� ected area with soap and disposable, scented wipes. In the past, it was common to use talcum powder to protect a baby’s skin and absorb excess moisture. However, doctors no longer recommend this. Zinc oxide is the active ingredient in many dia-per rash creams that can be used to treat and prevent diaper rash. l

Stained teeth

Strawberries are now grown in our coun-try. Strawberries have a lot of nutritional and medicinal bene� ts. Besides that, fresh strawberries have cleansing and bleaching properties and can help re-move tea and co� ee stains from teeth. Crush the strawberry gently and rub the pulp onto your teeth, then rinse. l

QUICK TIPS

DID YOUKNOW?

HEALTHFLASH

MEDITECH

Keep away the sore throatsThough winter is a little ways away, according to the calendar, we are already waking up to foggy mornings, and going home in chilly evenings. What are some of the most common winterdiseases in Bangladesh? Let’s � nd out

Traditional syringewith needle

Needle-freeinjection device

To lower the risk of infection, wash your hands after coming in from outside. This helps keep viruses from getting into your body when you touch your eyes, nose, or mouth

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STO

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6 NewsDHAKA TRIBUNE Saturday, November 30, 2013

BNP-backed panel bags key posts in Jhenaidah Bar Library pollsn Our Correspondent, Jhenaidah

The BNP-backed lawyers’ panel bagged key posts including president and sec-retary posts in the Bar Library Polls of the district.

The opposition-backed panel titled Mashiur–Alam parishad bagged 11 posi-tions while the Awami League-backed Akter-Nazrul parishad eight.

The Election Commission said 250 of 255 voters cast their votes in the elections.

A total of 38 candidates contested 19 positions. SM Mashiur Rahman of Bangladesh Nationalist Party was elect-ed as president with 134 votes while his rival candidate Khan Akteruzzaman of the AL-backed panel got 112 votes.

BNP-backed Ekramul Haque was elected as secretary with 122 votes while his nearest contestant Nazrul Is-lam of the AL-backed panel secured 121 votes.

Akidul Islam and Sa� ul Alam were elected as assistant secretaries, Bikash Ghosh treasurer, Rashedul Alam lit-eracy and library a� airs secretary and Saiful Alam religious a� airs secretary.

Kazi Alaul Haque Alo, Bina Kha-tun, Enamul Haque Nilu, Asaduzza-man babu, Tipu Sultan, Abed Ali, Mir Sakhawat Hossain, Moniruzzaman Lal and Qamrul Abedin Sahin were elected members of the committee. l

Port city smallholders bearing brunt of political turmoil n Tarek Mahmud, Chittagong

The 16,000 hawkers and street ven-dors in Chittagong have been facing an acute fall in their sales during the hartals and blockade, according to the general secretary of Chittagong Samm-ilto Hawkers Federation.

Masud Rana says the lower presence of people on the streets and closure of makeshift shops during the opposition programmes are the common factor for such low business.

Jamil Ahmed, a bus driver, said bus owners were not interested to run their vehicles on the roads during a shutdown or blockade. “As the hartals or strikes are being enforced continu-ously, I cannot earn the money which I need to run my family,” he said.

Abbas Uddin, the bus owner, said his vehicle had been vandalised 10 times in the last month alone by pick-eters, discouraging him from bringing the vehicle out of the garage.

Kamal Mia, who sells betel leaves at GEC Intersection, said they faced a lot

of su� erings due to hartals or blockade as sales are very low on that days.

“I sold betel leaves of Tk200 till 9pm today (on November 27) while on regular days I would have earned up to Tk1,200 by this time,” said Bashir, who is the sole bread earner of a six-mem-ber family.

Jashim Uddin, a hawker who sells t-shirts in the city’s Number-2 Gate area, said he used to sell products worth over Tk2,000, but on hartal days he can hardly manage to earn Tk400 to Tk500. He said he could make sales of only Tk100 by 3:00pm on Thursday.

Visiting major thoroughfares of the port city on Wednesday and Thursday,

this correspondent found that most of the makeshift shops of the hawk-ers, mainly garment sellers, remained closed.

Suman, a bagger in Dewanhat area, said he was surviving by eating waste food from dustbins from di� erent road sides as he could earn nothing from November 25 to yesterday.

Afsana Sultana, a SSC candidate, said she was worried that the schedule of her upcoming exam may be resched-uled repeatedly due to continuous po-litical unrest.

Many businessmen in Chittagong are dependent on the port. Moham-mad Nasir Uddin, a clearing and for-warding agent, said his importers’ goods were in the dockyard but he could not shift those to the real owners due to the unrest.

Mo� zur Rahman, a roadside res-taurant owner in the city’s AK Khan Intersection, said picketers burnt his restaurant’s valuables into ashes on November 27.

Dhaka Tribune found that on the

same day, strikers set a new motorcy-cle on � re from a showroom of a pri-vate motorcycle company near City Gate area.

AJM Nasir Uddin, general secretary of the city unit of ruling Awami League, urged the opposition to refrain from conducting subversive activities dur-ing hartal and blockade.

Dr Shahadat Hossain, general secre-tary of the city unit of BNP, said they were continuing their political move-ments peacefully.

He blamed the ruling party for con-ducting sabotage during their move-ment periods.

Banaz Kumar Majumdar, additional commissioner (crime and operation) of Chittagong Metropolitan Police, said protesters conducted violence all on a sudden that causes huge damage for public properties.

The law enforcing agencies have strong vigilance and taking action against the protesters who are con-ducting sabotage across the city, he said. l

VIOLENCE AGAINST HINDU COMMUNITY

Case � led, males who � ed home begin to returnn Our Correspondent, Lalmonirhat

A case was lodged accusing 53 indi-viduals including three Jamaat-Shibir activists and 50 unnamed others for vandalising and looting shops, houses belonging to the local Hindu commu-nity at Ghoshpara of Jongra union in Patgram, Lalmonirhat on Thursday night.

On behalf the community, Dhanjit Ghosh Tapos lodged the case with Pat-gram police station, which claimed to have been conducting drives to arrest the criminals.

Meanwhile, the males from at least 23 Hindu families, who had � ed their homes during the attack on Thursday morning, the last day of the opposi-tion BNP-led alliance enforced 71-hour nationwide blockade, have started to return following the local administra-tion’s assurance and deployment of ad-ditional police.

Police sources said activists of Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami and its students’ wing, Shibir vandalised and looted � ve shops and two houses in the village belonging to Hindus on Thursday morning. At least 12 women and children were assaulted by the gang.

One of the villagers, Subhas Chan-

dra Ghosh said: “We are innocent vil-lagers, and we are not involved with any political activities and had no en-mity with anyone, but we were being victimised.”

“I do not know what will happen in the future,” he said.

Another villager, Shilpi Rani Ghosh said: “We are still going through a panicky situation, as the area is full of Jamaat-Shibir activists and they always consider Hindus as enemies.”

“Jamaat-Shibir members here in the village would become more agitated, if police arrest them,” she said.

Upazila administration, police and local social elites, however, assured all kinds of support to the Hindu commu-nity, said the police.

The HRDF-in charge of Investiga-tion Unit of Ain O Salish Kendra (ASK), Abu Ahmed Faijul Kabir told the Dhaka Tribune: “We have sent urgent let-ters to the Inspector General of Police (IGP) on Thursday, urging to arrest the culprits and take initiatives, so that males, who � ed their homes can return home.”

Ain O Salish Kendra expressed its deep concern over the attack on the minority community of the village, he said adding an ASK team would visit the spot as soon as possible. l

Opposition to enforce hartal in four districts tomorrown Tribune Report

BNP-led 18-party alliance has called for separate daylong hartals in Chit-tagong, Cox’s Bazar, Dinajpur and Bogra districts for tomorrow on di� er-ent grounds.

In Chittagong, local BNP enforced a dawn-to-dusk shutdown in the district on Sunday protesting the arrest of BNP leaders, including BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia’s adviser, Mir Mohammad Nasir Uddin, and BNP central organising secretary, Ghulam Akbar Khandakar.

BNP Vice-Chairman Abdullah Al Noman announced the shutdown while addressing a gathering prior to the gayebana janaza held for those killed during the 71-hour rail-road-waterway blockade of the opposition at the city’s Jamiatul Falah Mosque ground yesterday noon.

Police had arrested Mir Mohammad Nasir Uddin from Shah Amanat Inter-national Airport on Thursday night while seven BNP leaders, including Ghulam Akbar Khandakar, Thursday morning.

In Cox’s Bazar, the main opposition on Thursday night called a daylong har-

tal in the district for Sunday protesting the killing of Jatiyatabadi Jubodal lead-er Abdul Halim in a police beating.

Shamim Ara Swapna, general secre-tary of district unit of BNP, said police arrested Halim, organising secretary of Chakaria upazila unit of Jubodal, from Bringa bus stand area in the upazila on Tuesday and had allegedly beat him in-discriminately at the police station.

Later, he died at a local hospital on Thursday.

In Dinajpur, the 18-party alliance yesterday called a daylong hartal in the district also for Sunday protesting Thursday’s attack on the alliance men.

Mukur Chowdhury, general secre-tary of district BNP, on behalf of the op-position alliance, announced the shut-down at a press brie� ng at the district BNP o� ce around 11am.

At least 50 people were injured as the opposition men clashed with the police and ruling party activists near the Government College intersection on Thursday noon.

In Bogra, district BNP called for a 36-hour hartal beginning 6am on Sunday demanding the inclusion of BNP lead-ers in the electoral roll. l

‘Rabbani Bahini’ chief jailed for one year n Our Correspondent, Lalmonirhat

A mobile court yesterday sentence the chief of ‘Rabbani Bahini’ to one year of imprisonment for illegal drug peddling.

Detective Branch of police arrested him from Khochabari area of the dis-trict town in the afternoon.

After the arrest police produced

Golam Rabbani, 44, before a mobile court. Executive Magistrate of the mo-bile court Abul Kashem gave him the verdict.

Assistant Superintendent of Police Mahfuzul Islam said there was an alle-gation that Rabbani along with cohorts had been running illegal drug trade in the locality for long.

Hundreds of people in the locality have been staging demonstration for the last few days, demanding arrest of the syndicate members.

The local people also submitted a memorandum to Deputy Commission-er Habibur Rahman and urged him to take necessary steps to stop such illegal drug trading. l

Dependants demand quota in railway recruitmentn Our Correspondent, Lalmonirhat

The dependants of railway sta� ers in Lalmonirhat demanded proper imple-mentation of the 30% quota in recruit-ment reserved for them and hinted at a “wider movement” to have their de-mands realised.

They formed a human chain under the banner “Dependants of Bangla-desh Railway Employees” in front of the town’s station building yester-day morning. Later, they submitted a memorandum to the director general of Bangladesh Railway through the di-visional railway manager (west zone).

There were over a hundred of par-

ticipants in the event organised by the Rangpur unit of Bangladesh Railway Sramik-Karmachari Posso Parishad.

They alleged that despite an exist-ing order of the railway for preferen-tial recruitment of the children of its employees, it was not being adhered to because of a group of unscrupulous of-� cials doing “brisk business” with the recruitment process.

In this regard, Moniruzzaman Monir, convener of the central commit-tee of the organisation, said they had plans for a central programme in Dhaka within a month or so, after organising division-level programmes in favour of the demand. l

Farmers worry as paddy prices fall but production costs hold up n UNB

Though the production cost of paddy has shot up by Tk35 per maund be-tween the last and the current Aman season, there has been no correspond-ing increase in its selling price.

The retail and wholesale prices of rice at district level has also increased by 20% and 30% respectively over the same period, indicating that it is the middlemen who are making the quick buck, leaving the growers’ with a mea-ger and unsatisfactory pro� t margin, reports UNB.

According to Department of Agri-culture Extension (DAE), about 40% of the paddy harvest has been completed by now. Traders and millers at di� erent districts said although their purchase price of per maund paddy was hover-ing over Tk750-800 just two weeks back, the current prices is no more than Tk730-750.

Raihanul Alam, a rice-miller in Panchgarh, said the current price of paddy at growers’ level is even lower compared to the price � xed for govern-ment procurement.

Food Planning and Monitoring Com-mittee (FPMC) at the food ministry

on November 27 made an announce-ment that government would procure 200,000 metric tonnes of Aman rice at Tk30 per kilogram.

The FPMC also claimed that farmers have to spend Tk17.02 on producing per kg of paddy this year while the pro-duction cost of rice is Tk25.42 per kg.

M Shahadat Hossain, a farmer from Durgapur village in Rangpur sadar upa-zila, said: “I sold out BINA 7 which I had planted a bit earlier than Aman. I harvested it 20 days earlier and sold it at Tk800 per maund.”

“The rest of the paddy in my � elds is yet to be harvested. I planted Swarna in most of my lands, and some BRRI 11 and Kalijira that I will harvest in a few days. But the price is a bit dull right now, Tk740 per maund,” he added.

Shahadat said the diesel price is higher than the price previous year and the daily labour cost during this har-vesting season has also increased by Tk100 per farm labourers. “The cost of growing paddy has increased, but the price has not increased accordingly,” he added.

Bangladesh Krishak Samity Presi-dent Morshed Ali said: “We observe that the government’s procurement decision

always comes at a time when the farm-ers sell out their harvests to traders at lower prices, incurring huge losses. So, it can be said the procurement drives by the government have been bene� ting the traders instead of the farmers.”

Besides, the volume of government procurement is pretty small to have any impact on the market, he noted.

The DAE has already estimated that farmers have cultivated Aman in about 5.8m hectares of land this � scal, ex-ceeding the government’s target by 200,000 hectares beyond.

The DAE � xed the production tar-get at 13.276m tonnes this Aman sea-son. Last year, the country harvested 12.897m tonnes of Aman rice from 5.6m hectares of land.

According to the Department of Agricultural Marketing, rice price is ranged between Tk34-37 (Sawrna va-riety in Rangpur-Dhaka) and Tk46-52 (Miniket variety in Kushtia-Dhaka).

According to National Food Policy Capacity Strengthening Programme, the retail and wholesale prices of coarse rice have marked a rise by 23.9% and 37.8% respectively in the city mar-kets in the � rst half of November com-pared to the prices one year back. l

Di� erent socio-cultural organisations form a human chain in front the National Press Club yesterday with a call to stop violence against women and minority people DHAKA TRIBUNE

Railway employees form a human chain in front of Lalmonirhat railway station yesterday, demanding quota system for dependants on railway sta� ers DHAKA TRIBUNE

BNP-backed Ekramul Haque was elected as secretary with 122 votes while his nearest contestant Nazrul Islam of the AL-backed panel secured 121 votes

Nation 7DHAKA TRIBUNE Saturday, November 30, 2013

One killed in Rajshahi clash over � shing A man was killed and 10 others were injured in a clash between two rival groups over � shing in a water body in Baghmara upazila on Thurs-day night. Abdul Hamid, o� cer-in-charge of Baghmara police station, said Ashraful Islam, 35, son of Zabed Ali, resident of Shreepur village of the upazila, along with some � shermen went to the water body numbed Khoirar beel to catch � sh in the evening. Guards of the water body rushed in and obstructed them. At one stage, both the groups equipped with weapons locked in a � erce clash. They exploded crude bombs, leaving 11 people, including Ashraful, injured. Ashraful succumbed to his injuries while being taken to Rajshahi Medical College Hospital. A case was � led in this connection. – UNB

Man jailed for 17 years in arms case in BarisalA Barisal court on Thursday convicted a man and sentenced him to 17 years’ imprisonment for possessing � rearms. The convict was identi� ed as Shahid Haoladar, 26, son of Idris Haoladar, of Sobhan Miar Pole area in the city. According to the prosecution, a patrol team of the Rapid Ac-tion Battalion arrested Shahid in possession of a pistol and three rounds of bullet from Lakutia of the city on August 11, 2011. Later, Abdul Halim Hazra, deputy assistant director of RAB, � led a case with Kotwali police station while Sub-in-spector Abul Khayer submitted a charge sheet against the accused on September 18.District special tribunal Judge Mohammad Habibur Rahman handed down the verdict. – UNB

Boro seeds distributed in JoypurhatBangladesh Agriculture Development Corporation has distributed 1,250 tonnes of Boro seeds in the five upazilas of Joypurhat to make the paddy cultivation a success. BADC official sources said of the total, 1,100 tonnes seeds were distributed through 110 dealers and 100 tonnes directly among the farmers at the rate of Tk 340 per bag (10 kg). Shafiul Alom, senior assistant director of BADC, said the local Agriculture Extension Department demanded 900 tonnes of Boro seeds for the district this year but BADC disbursed 1,250 tonnes of seeds. The BADC also distributed five tonnes of SL-8H super highbred seeds, 1,000 kg of pulse seeds, 1,500 kg of mustard seeds and 600 kg of various vegetable seeds among the farmers at fair prices. – BSS

Man found dead in LakshmipurPolice recovered the body of an unidenti-fied man at Nandia Para in Ramganj upazila yesterday. Police said after spotting the body near a brick kiln owned by upazila unit Awami League president Mohammad Shahajahan, locals informed police in the morning. Later, police recovered the body tied up with ropes and sent it to sadar hospital morgue for an autopsy. Mohamamd Jabedul Islam, officer-in-charge of Ramganj police station, said miscreants might have shot the victim to death and dumped the body. – UNB

Mighty Teesta turning into a narrow channelBarrage construction upstream blamed n Our Correspondent, Gaibandha

Teesta, the second biggest river in Gai-bandha, is drying up quickly and the drastic fall in its water level is impacting on agriculture, communication systems, employment and ecology in the region.

O� cials of Bangladesh Water De-velopment Board said the water level started falling sharply in September and now most of the river has dried up at an alarming rate, leading to a num-ber of chars forming on the riverbed.

“At present, one can cross the river by foot easily, which was unthinkable only a few years back,” said Abul Kash-em, a resident of Horipur union under Sundarganj upazila.

People living by the riverbanks attri-bute the present situation to the unilat-eral construction by India of a barrage at Gazoldoba over the Teesta, around 100km upstream of the Teesta Barrage Irrigation project (TBIP) at Dalia of Lal-monirhat district.

Movement of water vessels has been suspended in all the routes of the river causing immense trouble to char dwell-ers wanting to reach the mainland.

Over 20,000 people living in the unions Tarapur, Horipur, Belka, Chan-dpur, and Kapasia under Sundarganj Upazila, are being compelled to walk

through miles of sandy char to reach the mainland to pursue their livelihoods.

“More than 200 boatmen of 30 boat routes connecting four upazilas under Kurigram and Gaibandha districts have become jobless,” said M Mazharul Is-lam, chairman of Horipur union.

A number of anglers on the basins have also become unemployed, said Horikanta Kanta Das, an angler of Bel-ka Union. Seeing no other way, many of the anglers had to take up other profes-sions, he added.

“Vast tracts of land are lying unculti-vated for the lack of � ow in the river,” said Satyen Sen, upazila agriculture o� cer.

Thousands of people living in the char and the riverbank of the upazila have become jobless, as they have no work due to drying up of the river, said Waheduzzaman Sarker Badsha, chair-man of the upazila.

The jobless were now moving to Dhaka, Chittagong and other parts of the country in search of work, some even taking loans on high interest from the local moneylenders, he added.

The char dwellers have urged the gov-ernment to take up necessary measures to resume the navigability and water � ow in the river and continue it all the year round by rolling on the water sharing treaty with India as early as possible. l

RU student, three others killed in road accidents n Tribune Report

Four people, including a female stu-dent of Rajshahi University, were killed in separate road accidents that took place in Rajshahi and Chapainawab-ganj, Natore.

The RU student was crushed under the wheels of an auto-rickshaw and an-other seriously injured in the universi-ty central gate area yesterday.

Witnesses said Sabrina Jahan, a second year student of Sociology De-partment of Rajshahi University and a resident student of Begum Rokeya Hall, along with her friend Jebun Nahar Sumi was going to Binodpur Bazaar by rickshaw.

While the three-wheeler arrived on

the Rajshahi-Dhaka highway near the university main entrance, it collapsed on the road.

Meantime, an auto-rickshaw coming from the opposite direction crushed Sabrina under its wheels.

Sabrina and Sumi were rushed to Ra-jshahi Medical College Hospital while their conditions were deteriorating.

The on-duty doctors at the hospital declared Sabrina dead.

Sabrina was the daughter of Ha-midur Rahman hailing from Kahalu upazila of Bogra district.

RU Vice-Chancellor Prof Muham-mad Mizanuddin and pro-Vice-Chan-cellor Prof Chowdhury Sarowar Jahan visited the in� rmary and expressed their condolence for the victims.

Following the accident, agitated students of RU put up barricade on the Dhaka-Rajshahi highway around 1:15pm for an hour while police came to the scene and dispersed the agitators by charging baton which left some six students injured.

RU Proctor Tariqul Hasan said the situation was under control.

In Chapainawabganj, driver of a human hauler was killed as a tractor knocked down his vehicle at Barobhi-ta in Gomostapur upazila yesterday morning.

The deceased was identi� ed as Na-sir, 18, son of Asar Uddin of Shahbazpur of Shibganj upazila.

Firoz Ahmed, o� cer-in-charge of Gomostapur police station, said a

sand-laden tractor hit the human haul-er coming from the opposite direction, killing its driver Nasir, 18, son of Asar Uddin of Shahbazpur of Shibganj upa-zila on the spot.

Two persons including a private car driver were killed in separate incidents in Natore in the morning

Police said car driver Sujarul Islam, 32, of Hulhulia village under the dis-trict’s Shingra upazila, was killed on the spot when his Pabna-bound car turned turtle and fell into a roadside ditch at Daipara area around 6am.

Abdul Wahab, 38, a labour of Natore Sugar Mills, sustained injuries when he fell down on baggas ca rrier of the mill around 8:30am. He was taken to Natore Sadar Hospita where he died. l

2 ‘robbers’ lynched in Comillan Tribune Desk

Two suspected robbers were beaten to death and three others injured by villagers in two separate robbery inci-dents at Palakhal and Dheuapara villag-es in Barura upazila early yesterday.

The deceased were identi� ed as Ab-dul Motaleb, 25, and Abdul Baten, 28.

Police said local people at Palakhal chased o� a gang of robbers, number-ing 7/8, while they were about to com-mit robbery at the village. At one stage,

they managed to catch two robbers and gave a merciless beating, leaving Abdul Motaleb dead on the spot and another injured, reports UNB.

Meanwhile, a gang of robbers broke into the house of one Dr Abinash at Deuapara village in the upazila.

As the house inmates screamed, lo-cals came to their rescue and managed to catch three members of the gang af-ter a chase.

They gave them a severe thrashing, leaving Abdul Baten dead on the spot l

A local Awami League leader collects nomination paper on behalf of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina for Gopalganj constituency-3 FOCUS BANGLA

A farmer is busy in drying up tomatoes and spraying toxic chemicals to ripen them. The photo was taken at Wabda � eld in Godagari upazila under Rajshahi DHAKA TRIBUNE

NEWS IN BRIEF

Tiger enters human territory, locals fear sudden attack n Our Correspondent, Barguna

A Bengal tiger from Sundarbans en-tered human territory on Wednesday in Barguna’s Charmijan area and has dis-appeared into the area’s paddy � elds, according to locals.

Charmijan is located near the Bishkh-ali River which meets the Bay of Bengal through the mouth of Baleswar-Haring-hata of India at 13km down of Pathar-ghata upazila under the district.

A sense of fear engulfs the inhabi-

tants as they could not yet con� rm the tiger’s whereabouts. However, the lo-cals were sure of the big cat’s presence after locating its paw marks.

School going children were mostly panicked after the news spread and as a result many have refrained from go-ing to school.

Monika Rani, 34, a local of the area, said: “Children have stopped going to school. Even the inhabitants who are mostly day labourers fear coming out of the house.”

Headmaster of Keutola Government Primary School, Md Saidur Rahman Molla, said the attendance of students had been thin after the tiger came into our territory.

Manna, a member of Tiger Team which is a local voluntary organisation, said: “At least 45 members of the organ-isation are searching for the tiger for the last three days. We did not � nd any new paw prints of the tiger, so it is assumed that the tiger is still in the area.”

Kashra� Bikash Chandra, assistant

reserve o� cer of the forest and range o� cer of Sharankhola range, said: “We have been trying force the tiger to come out from hiding by � ring blanks.”

He said: “The tiger is most de� nitely hiding inside the paddy � elds of the area. We will keep trying until the tiger is found.”

An expert on biodiversity of the Sundarbans, Harun Jomaddar, said: “Tigers roam around di� erent areas as it is part of their nature. Probably the ti-ger is hiding because he is scared after seeing humans in the area.” l

Saturday, November 30, 2013DHAKA TRIBUNE InternationalDHAKA TRIBUNE8

18 executed in Iraq after being taken away by uniformed menn AFP Baghdad

The bodies of 18 people kidnapped hours earlier by men in army uniforms were found abandoned north of Bagh-dad on Friday, the latest troubling sign of worsening violence in Iraq.

The killings come amid a surge in violence that has included multiple attacks with victims snatched from their homes, only for their corpses to be found later in scenes eerily recalling the worst of Iraq’s gruesome 2006-07 sectarian war.

Early Friday, authorities discovered the bodies of 18 men, including two tribal chiefs, four policemen and an army major, dumped in farmland near the town of Tarmiyah, just north of Baghdad.

All of the men had been shot in the head and chest, two police o� cers and a medical source said.

The kidnappers, wearing military uni-form and travelling in what appeared to be army vehicles, had abducted the men in the early hours of Friday.

They told the victims’ families that they were suspects in a variety of in-vestigations who had to be taken away for questioning.

Their bodies were found hours later, the sources said.

Recent violence worsened sharply after security forces stormed a Sunni protest camp in northern Iraq in April, sparking clashes in which dozens of people died.

More than 6,000 people have been killed so far this year, according to an AFP tally based on reports from securi-ty and medical o� cials. l

EU won’t accept Russia ‘veto’ over east Europen AFP, Vilnius

The European Union will not accept a Russia “veto” or any other meddling in its ties with other nations, Europe-an Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso said Friday.

“The times of limited sovereign-ty are over in Europe,” Barroso told a news conference after ex-Soviet state Ukraine turned its back on a major trade and political deal with the EU af-ter economic pressure from Moscow.

Speaking at the same news confer-

ence, EU Council president Herman Van Rompuy said the 28-nation bloc’s o� er to sign the landmark deals with Ukraine “is still on the table.” Though there was no signing at the two-day summit as had been hoped, “we hope that sooner or later Ukraine will be ready,” he said. “We will not give in to external pressure, not the least from Russia.”

Barroso stressed that “all stand to gain. Our neighbours and their neighbours.” “It is not against someone. Because I do not believe someone should be against democracy, prosperity, stability.” l

German cop arrested over cannibalism website murdern AFP, Berlin

A German police o� cer has been ar-rested on suspicion of murdering a man whom he met on an Internet site for cannibalism fetishists, authorities said Friday.

The 55-year-old had confessed to slashing the throat of his willing victim and then cutting his body into small pieces and burying them in his garden, police said.

But there was no evidence that the suspect, identi� ed by media as police o� cer Detlev G. of the eastern state of Saxony, had eaten any of the body parts of his victim, prosecutors said.

The victim, a 59-year-old man from Hanover, Lower Saxony, had “since his youth fantasised about being murdered and eaten,” Dresden police chief Dieter Kroll told a press conference.

When the Hanover man, a business consultant, went missing, police began a search and weeks later tracked him down using his electronic communica-tions with the suspected killer, whom he met on November 4.

“They did not know each other per-sonally until then,” Dresden head of criminal investigations Maik Mainda told the press conference, saying they had extensive email, SMS and tele-phone contact since October to arrange their fatal date. l

Russia seeks 9-year sentence for Bolshoi dancer n AFP, Moscow

Russian prosecutors sought Friday a nine-year jail sentence for Bolshoi ballet dancer Pavel Dmitrichenko over his alleged mastermind role in an acid attack that nearly blinded the troupe’s artistic director. The prosecution also asked the court to sentence Dmi-trichenko’s suspected associate Yury Zarutsky to 10 years for � inging the sul-phuric acid in the face of Sergei Filin on

January 17, a crime that shocked Russia and scandalised the historic theatre.

The trial of Dmitrichenko, Zarutsky and a third associate named Andrei Lipatov – suspected of driving the at-tacker to Filin’s home – has captivated the ballet world and revealed deep fric-tions within the legendary theatre.

“The accused are all guilty and de-serve no leniency,” RIA Novosti quoted Filin’s lawyer Tatyana Stukalova as tell-ing the court. l

UN to seek more aid for Philippines typhoon displacedn AFP, Manila

The United Nations is to seek more in-ternational aid to shelter and give tem-porary jobs to millions displaced by the Philippines’ deadliest typhoon in his-tory, o� cials said Friday.

“Providing shelter and rebuilding lives is an urgent priority,” said UN res-ident and humanitarian coordiNator Luiza Carvalho, laying out the state of dozens of towns and cities three weeks after they were ravaged by Super Typhoon Haiyan.

“There are many needs in the after-math of the typhoon and we require support to be able to put people back on their feet. Families require safety, shelter and work to sustain a decent life,” she added.

The spokeswoman for the local UN o� ce, Orla Fagan, told a news confer-ence donors had forked out $164 mil-lion, or just under half of the initial UN humanitarian appeal for $301 million.

The earlier appeal was launched on November 12, four days after Haiyan unleashed powerful 315 kilometre an hour (195 mph) winds and giant storm surges in the central Philippines.

At least 5,598 were killed and 1,759 others are missing, mainly in the pre-dominantly poor islands of Samar and Leyte, according to a government tally. l

Mortar attack at Damascus mosque kills 4 n AP, Damascus

Syria’s state television reports that a mortar round has fallen in front of a his-torical mosque in the capital, Damas-cus, killing four people and wounding 26. It was not clear when the shells fell Friday, the Muslim day of prayer when people traditionally go to mosque at noon for the weekly sermon.

The shelling near the Umayyad

Mosque in the old quarter of Damascus came 10 days after a mortar shell hit its wall, causing casualties.

Dozens of shells have struck the his-toric city center and surrounding areas in the past two weeks, launched from reb-el-held neighborhoods on the outskirts.

Mortar shells, many homemade, are known to be imprecise so it’s not possi-ble to determine whether the rebels � re them randomly or at speci� c targets. l

Three Libyan soldiers wounded in new Benghazi attackn AFP, Benghazi

Three Libyan soldiers have been seri-ously wounded in a new attack in the eastern city of Benghazi after dead-ly clashes with jihadist group Ansar al-Sharia, a security o� cial said Friday.

“Unidenti� ed men � red a machine-gun at a patrol on Syria Avenue in Benghazi, wounding three troops” late Thursday, the o� cial told AFP, speak-ing on condition of anonymity.

Fadia al-Barghathi, a spokeswoman at the city’s Al-Jala hospital, con� rmed that three seriously wounded soldiers had been brought in.

Three soldiers were killed earlier Thursday when the army cla shed with Ansar al-Sharia militants on the � nal day of a three-day strike in protest against militias. The strike was sparked by a Monday shootout between jihadists and the army that left seven people dead and 50 wounded. Another soldier was killed in a drive-by shooting in broad daylight Thursday as he left a cafe with a col-league who escaped unscathed.

Since dictator Moammar Gadha� was ousted and killed in a 2011 revolution that began in Benghazi, the transitional au-thorities in the North African nation have been plagued by security problems. l

Egypt police � re tear gas as Islamists defy protest lawn AFP, Cairo

Police � red tear gas on Friday at Isla-mists who demonstrated in Egypt, de-fying a new law banning unauthorised protests that has also angered activists following the arrest of a prominent blogger.

The Muslim Brotherhood had vowed to go ahead regardless with the weekly protests it has organised after noon prayers ever since Islamist pres-ident Mohamed Morsi was overthrown in a July 3 military coup.

Late on Thursday the interior minis-try warned against unauthorised pro-tests, after police detained prominent blogger Alaa Abdel Fattah, in a stark declaration of intent reminiscent of the autocratic rule of veteran strongman Hosni Mubarak, ousted in a popular uprising nearly three years ago.

Police used tear gas against hun-dreds of Morsi’s supporters who pro-tested in front of a presidential palace in Cairo, an AFP reporter said, adding that he also heard gunshots.

Tear gas was also � red on dozens of Islamists in Cairo’s Mohandessin dis-trict and on a key road leading to the pyramids.

Protesters retaliated by throwing stones and burning tyres in Mohandes-sin, o� cials said, adding that similar protests were also dispersed in the cit-ies of Alexandria, Suez, Mahallah and Qena.

Egypt’s army-installed government say the new law requires protest organ-

isers to give three days’ written notice to the authorities before holding any demonstration.

In addition, it also bans demonstra-tions in places of worship or starting from such places.

The interior ministry on Thursday warned against “demonstrations that break the law without obtaining prior permission from security forces” and said “it will deal with these illegal ac-tivities � rmly and decisively.”

Interim president Adly Mansour is-sued the demonstration ban last Sun-day and police have since enforced it, sometimes bloodily.

On Thursday, an engineering stu-

dent was killed during an Islamist demonstration at Cairo university, health o� cials said.

To the anger of secular supporters of Morsi’s overthrow, police have tak-en action against all demonstrations, not just those organised by the ousted president’s Islamist backers.

Activists say the ban is hypocritical as the army justi� ed its “coup” as a re-sponse to mass demonstrations across the country against Morsi’s turbulent single year in power.

Pro-democracy groups have been particularly incensed by the arrest of Abdel Fatah, a prominent Morsi oppo-nent. l

Schoolchildren face expulsion in Bosnian language rown Reuters

Several hundred children from the Serb-con-trolled part of Bosnia faced expulsion from school on Friday after camping out in Sara-jevo for three months in protest at being de-nied lessons in their native Bosnian language.

The protest has revived debate over Bosnia’s highly devolved education sys-tem, split along ethnic lines between Serbs, Croats and Muslim Bosniaks since the end of the country’s 1992-95 war.

Muslim Bosniaks in two towns in Bosnia’s autonomous Serb Republic withdrew their children from school in early September, de-manding they be taught language, history and geography classes in their own tongue.

Bosniaks are a minority within the Serb Republic, one of two autonomous regions created under a 1995 peace deal that split power in Bosnia along ethnic lines after a war that killed 100,000 people.

As such, they study according to the Serb curriculum but are entitled to Bosnian language, history and geography lessons in schools where they make up a certain pro-portion of the class. The protesting Bosniaks say this is unfair on their children, who do not qualify for the Bosnian classes because their numbers fall below the threshold.

“This is a system based on total assim-ilation,” said Muhizin Omerovic, a Muslim Bosniak parent taking part in the protest

outside the o� ce of Bosnia’s international overseer. “We Bosniaks don’t exist either as a nation or a culture.”

Authorities in the Serb Republic have o� ered to organize the Bosnian classes outside regular school hours, but the par-ents said this was not enough.

“We are determined to � ght to the end because this is a long-standing problem,” Omerovic said. “We cannot wait for anoth-er 50 years for a solution.”

The three o� cial languages in Bosnia - Bosnian, Serbian and Croatian - di� er little, but are one of many strict ethnic identi� -ers in the deeply divided country. History classes in schools vary widely between the three communities.

The children have been threatened with expulsion due to their lengthy absence from school. Friday marks the latest dead-line for them to return.

The issue has become highly politicized ahead of a parliamentary election next year. Western o� cials who are still involved in Bosnian governance say they can only mediate between the rival parties but can-not intervene. “At the root cause of all this is the fact that in Bosnia-Herzegovina there are three ethnically colored curricula,” said Trefor Williams, an education o� cial at the Organisation of Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) which is trying to help reform the school system. l

Turkey, Iraqi Kurdistan sign landmark energy contractsn Reuters

Turkey  and Iraqi Kurdistan signed a package of landmark contracts earlier this week that will see the semi-auton-omous region’s oil and gas exported via pipelines through Turkey, sources close to the deal told Reuters on Friday.

The sources said the deals were signed during Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) Prime Minister Nechirvan Barza-ni’s three hour-long meeting with Turk-ish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan on Wednesday. The move is likely to further infuriate Baghdad, which claims the sole authority to manage Iraqi oil and which said late on Thursday that any energy deal with Kurdistan would be “an en-croachment on the sovereignty of Iraq.”

The Turkish Energy Ministry de-clined to comment. Crude � ow in the KRG’s new pipeline will start very soon, and will link up with the 40 inch-line of the existing Kirkuk-Ceyhan pipeline to be exported to world markets.

The state-backed Turkish Energy Company (TEC), which Ankara set up to operate in northern Iraq, has also signed a contract to operate in thir-teen exploration blocks, in about half of those it is teaming up with US giant ExxonMobil.

The contracts also envisage the building of a new oil pipeline and a gas pipeline, aimed to help the region’s oil exports to climb to 1 million bpd by 2015. The gas � ow is likely to start by early 2017. l

Turkey court brands swimming goggles ‘weapons’n AFP, Istanbul

A Turkish court has ruled that swim-ming goggles and other protective equipment used by protesters during this year’s mass street demonstrations were “weapons,” local media reported on Friday.

Demonstrators armed th emselves with homemade gear such as masks made of plastic bottles, motorbike helmets and goggles to protect themselves from tear gas � red by riot police during the protests that gripped the country in June.

But an Istanbul court ruled Thurs-day that such items could be classi� ed as weapons in a case against 23 people who joined the action against govern-ment plans to build on the city’s Gezi park.

It said that the suspects had the clear intention of invading the park, clashing with police and destroying public property.

“They had not gone to the Gezi Park to swim, since there is no swimming pool there,” newspapers quoted the court ruling as saying. l

Egyptian protesters set � re to wood at Talaat Harb Square in downtown Cairo on during the � rst unauthorised protest on Nov 26 AFP

Tribesmen lead their camels through the sand dunes of the Liwa desert, 220 kms west of Abu Dhabi, on November 23 AFP

TIMELESS SANDS

9Saturday, November 30, 2013DHAKA TRIBUNE InternationalChina sends jets to counter incusion n AP, Beijing

China on Friday scrambled � ghter jets to monitor a dozen US and Japanese military aircraft which entered its new air defence zone, state media said.

Beijing’s announcement last week-end of the air defence identi� cation zone, which covers islands at the cen-tre of a dispute between China and Ja-pan, has raised tensions in the region.

The report indicated that Japan and the US are continuing to disregard Beijing’s demands that aircraft submit � ight plans when traversing the zone in the East China Sea or face unspeci-� ed “defensive emergency measures.”

“Several combat aircraft were scrambled to verify the identities” of US and Japanese aircraft entering the air defence zone, the o� cial Xinhua news agency said, quoting air force spokesman Shen Jinke.

The Chinese aircraft, which included at least two � ghter jets, identi� ed two US surveillance aircraft and 10 Japa-nese aircraft including an F-15 warplane, Shen said. Shen said the air force had a mission to monitor foreign aircraft in-side the zone “throughout the entire process, with timely identi� cation.”

Japan and South Korea both said Thursday they had disregarded the ADIZ, showing a united front after US

B-52 bombers also entered the area.But Beijing is facing considerable in-

ternal pressure to assert itself. China’s state media called Friday for “timely countermeasures without hesitation” if Japan violates the zone.

Washington has security alliances with both Tokyo and Seoul, and ana-lysts say that neither China nor Japan – the world’s second- and third-biggest economies, and major trading partners of each other – want to engage in armed con� ict.

The Global Times newspaper, which generally takes a more nationalistic tone than China’s government, said in an editorial Friday: “We should carry

out timely countermeasures without hesitation against Japan when it chal-lenges China’s newly declared ADIZ.

“If Tokyo � ies its aircraft over the zone, we will be bound to send our plane to its ADIZ.”

The paper, which is close to the rul-ing Communist party, said: “We are willing to engage in a protracted con-frontation with Japan.”

But it shied away from threatening Washington, which sent giant Strato-fortress bombers inside the zone, issu-ing an unmistakable message.

“If the US does not go too far, we will not target it in safeguarding our air defence zone,” the paper said. l

Chinese paper says Islamists seek to ban TV, singingn Reuters

Islamists in China’s far western region of Xinjiang are seeking to ban televi-sion, singing and other forms of enter-tainment, a newspaper said on Friday, adding that “religious extremism” was a disaster facing the area.

China has stepped up its rheto-ric against what it says is a threat the country faces from Islamist militants since an incident last month in which a vehicle ploughed into tourists on the edge of Beijing’s Tiananmen Square, killing the three people in the car and two bystanders.

China called the crash an attack car-ried out by people plotting holy war, and has reacted angrily to suggestions that it was because of frustration and anger over government repression of the region’s Muslims.

In a front-page piece in the o� cial

Xinjiang Daily, Yusufujiang Maimaiti, the head of the region’s employment bureau, said “forces” were furthering their “evil aims” by seeking to foist ex-tremist beliefs on the region’s Muslims.

“Religious extremist forces... don’t allow people to sing or dance, they in-cite them to disobey the government, to not use marriage certi� cates and ID cards. They prevent them from watch-ing television, � lms, and listening to the teachings of patriotic religious leaders,” he wrote. He did not identify the extremists but said they were “dis-torting and falsifying” religious doc-trine with a creed of opposing anyone who was di� erent from them culturally or religiously.

“Religious extremism is the biggest di-saster facing the development and long-term peace and stability of Xinjiang,” he added. “Our battle against extremism is undeniable and unavoidable.” l

New Pakistan army chief takes commandn AFP, Rawalpindi

General Raheel Sharif on Friday for-mally took over as the head of Paki-stan’s army, the most powerful position in the troubled military-dominated nation which is battling a homegrown Taliban insurgency

Sharif, named chief of the army sta� on Wednesday, took charge from pre-decessor General Ashfaq Kayani at a ceremony at military headquarters in Rawalpindi.

He takes over as the nuclear-armed state faces a daunting array of chal-lenges – the six-year Taliban campaign which has claimed thousands of lives, vexed relations with India and the

winding-down of the 12-year Nato mis-sion in neighbouring Afghanistan.

Sharif, a veteran infantry command-er, was little known outside military circles before his promotion to army chief, but analysts say he is a dedicated soldier with little interest in politics.

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif passed over two more senior generals to ap-point his namesake, who is no relation, and will be hoping to avoid a repeat of events the last time he named an army chief – General Pervez Musharraf over-threw him in a coup in 1999.

Pakistan has seen three coups and been ruled for more than half its 66-year history by the military. The armed forces still retain a powerful in� uence. l

India’s Tejpal brie� y arrested and bailedn Agencies

Prominent Indian journalist Tarun Tejpal, accused of sexual assault by a colleague, has been brie� y arrested at an airport in westen Goa state before being granted a new interim bail until Saturday morning.

A young female journalist has ac-cused Tejpal, the editor-in-chief of investigative magazine ‘Tehelka’, of assaulting her twice in a hotel elevator during a conference in Goa this month.

On Friday, a Goa court granted Tejpal an interim bail until Saturday 10 am lo-cal time, the local NDTV reported.

He had earlier been granted a few hours interim bail which ended at 2.30pm local time. Tejpal was at Goa’s Dabolim airport at around 5.10 pm when the brief arrest was made.

Tejpal has � ip-� opped in his state-ments about the incident. He apologised but later said the accusations were false.

The powerful journalist was asked to appear before the investigating o� cer on Thursday for interrogation. But, after failing to do so, a court in Goa asked Te-

jpal to appear by 2:30 pm on Friday.On Thursday night, police o� cials

conducted a search of Tejpal’s resi-dence in New Delhi.

Shoma Chaudhury, the managing editor of Tehelka, to whom the victim had emailed an account of the inci-dent, stepped down from her position on Thursday. The victim had earlier not

� led a case with the Goa police.The police had � led an FIR (First In-

formation Report) without any statement from the victim but she later � led a report.

Tejpal was listed as one of Asia’s 50 most powerful communicators in 2001 by Asiaweek, while the Guardian news-paper ranked him among the 20 who constitute India›s new elite in 2007. l

Japan’s wrestling diplomat in � nal Sudan bout!n AFP, Khartoum

A wrestling diplomat from Japan challenges a Sudanese Nuba opponent for the sixth and � nal time on Friday, hoping for his � rst win.

But even if he loses yet again, Yasuhiro Murotatsu says he will still have secured a victory of sorts, helping to unify a divided and war-torn land. The Nuba Mountains of South Kordofan state are home to a linguis-tically and religiously diverse group of peo-ple collectively known as “Nuba.”

Their form of wrestling, practised for thousands of years, is completely di� erent from the iconic national sport of sumo in Murotatsu’s homeland.

Wrestling is central to the Nuba’s farm-

based society despite a more modern form of combat that has devastated the region for more than two years.

Non-Arab rebels from South Kordofan have joined with other insurgents from Dar-fur, in Sudan’s west, in rising against the Ar-ab-dominated Khartoum government which they complain has marginalised the regions.

Japan’s embassy says Murotatsu was the � rst foreigner ever to set foot onto the san-dy Sudanese wrestling pitch to take on the country’s toughest.

In a pre-match interview, the 33-year-old told AFP he sees his participation as part of an e� ort to help bring the multi-ethnic and multi-religious Muslim-majority country to-gether through sport.

“This is my strongest message I want to send to make Sudanese people more uni-� ed, because now Sudan is at a very sensi-tive stage,” he said.

Murotatsu, known as “Muro” to local wres-tling fans, says the Sudanese sport is similar to more widely known freestyle wrestling in which he competed at junior high school. Since February he has wrestled in special “friendship” matches during the regular Friday evening card in Haj Yousef, a poor Khartoum neighbourhood of mud-brick houses.

Murotatsu, a political o� cer at the em-bassy, is a slightly built bespectacled man who on Friday evening will face a teenaged opponent, Saleh Omar Bol Tia Ka� , for the third consecutive time. l

Muslims tried to decapitate UK soldiern AFP, London

Two Muslim converts attempted to hack o� a British soldier’s head with knives and a meat cleaver in broad daylight on a London street, a court heard as their long-awaited murder trial opened Fri-day. Michael Adebolajo, 28, and Michael Adebowale, 22, are accused of murdering 25-year-old Lee Rigby as he walked to his barracks in Woolwich, south London, in May. The two defendants, both Britons of Nigerian descent, deny murder.

As the trial opened at London’s Old Bailey court, prosecutor Richard Whit-tam said the pair had run Rigby over with a car, rendering him unconscious, before attacking him with the knives in a “cowardly and callous murder.” l

Nato probes Afghan airstrike that ‘killed child’n AFP, Kabul

US-led Nato forces in Afghanistan on Friday vowed to investigate an airstrike that President Hamid Karzai said killed a two-year-old boy, as acrimony deep-ened over a deal to allow US troops to stay in the country after 2014.

Civilian casualties have been one of the most sensitive issues of the 12-year military intervention in Afghanistan, and Karzai warned that the latest incident threatened the proposed bilateral securi-ty agreement (BSA) with Washington.

The Nato coalition acknowledged reports of the b oy’s death and said it “deeply regrets any civilian casualties” caused by Thursday’s airstrike in the southern province of Helmand, a hot-bed of the Taliban insurgency.

Karzai, whose troubled relationship with the US erupted again in public last week over the security deal negotiations, has often used civilian deaths caused by Nato to berate the international coalition for its failures in Afghanistan.

Karzai “strongly condemns the air-strike by Nato forces on a house which killed one child and wounded two women,” a statement from his o� ce said late Thursday.

“This attack shows American forces are not respecting Afghan lives... As long as unilateral acts and atrocities continue by American forces on our people, we won’t sign this BSA.”

The strike was launched from an unmanned drone and hit the village of Faqiran in Helmand on Thursday morning, the statement said. l

Earthquake near Iran nuclear plant kills 8n AFP, Tehran

A 5.7 magnitude earthquake on the Gulf coast near Iran’s sole nuclear power plant killed eight people and injured 190 on Thursday, emergency response chief Hassan Qadami told state media.

“So far, there are seven dead and 30 injured receiving hospital treatment,” the o� cial IRNA news agency quoted Qadami as saying.

However, an o� cial said the tem-blor had “not created any problem for the activities of the power plant” at Bushehr, where Iran has its R us-sian-built reactor.

The quake’s epicentre was near Bo-razjan, around 60 kilometres (35 miles) from Bushehr.

The media said the quake had de-stroyed around 250 homes and busi-nesses, while Dashtestan provincial Governor Alireza Khorani also spoke of damaged houses and electricity pylons.

Iran stands on several seismic fault lines. In April, a 7.8 magnitude earthquake struck southeastern Iran and neighbouring Pakistan, killing 40 people.

A massive quake in December 2003 struck the southern city of Bam, killing 26,000 people and destroying its an-cient mud-built citadel.

Iran’s Arab neighbours across the Gulf have often raised concern over the reliability of the Bushehr plant and the risks of radioactive leaks in case of a major quake.

But Iran and Russia insist it respects international standards under the super-vision of the UN nuclear watchdog. l

US drone strike kills two in Pakistann AFP, Miranshah

A US drone strike targeting a militant compound killed at least two suspect-ed insurgents in a restive Pakistani tribal region near the Afghan b order on Friday, o� cials said.

The strike took place in the Anghar area, 10 kilometres (six miles) south of Miranshah, the main town of North Wa-ziristan tribal region, a stronghold for Taliban and Al-Qaeda linked militants.

“A US drone � red two missiles on a

militant compound, killing two suspect-ed militants and wounding two others,” a senior security o� cial told AFP.

Another security o� cial also con-� rmed the attack and casualties that took place after midnight (1900 Thurs-day GMT). The identities of those killed in the strike were not immediately known but they appeared to be of Cen-tral Asian origin, the o� cial said.

A third security o� cial in Miran-shah said two Taliban � ghters were wounded in the fresh attack and were

identi� ed as “Punjabi Taliban,” from Pakistan’s central Punjab province.

“One of them, Aslam alias Yaseen, is linked with attacks on Pakistan army headquarters in Rawalpindi and anoth-er attack on (the) naval base in Kara-chi,” the security o� cial told AFP.

In May 2011, a group of heavily armed militants besieged Pakistan’s naval air base in Karachi, destroying two US-made P-3C Orion surveillance aircraft, an attack that took 17 hours to repel and left 10 military personnel dead. l

Japan-China disputed islands

l The archipelago consists of � ve islands and three reefsl Japan, China and Taiwan claim them; they are controlled by Japan and form part of Okinawa prefecturel Japanese businessman Kunioki Kurihara owned three of the islands but sold them to the Japanese state in September 2012l The islands were also the focus of a major diplomatic row between Japan and China in 2010

China’s position

l Islands have been part of its territory since ancient times, serving as important � shing grounds administered by the province of Taiwanl Taiwan was ceded to Japan in the Treaty of Shimonoseki in 1895, after the Sino-Japanese warl When Taiwan was returned in the Treaty of San Francisco, China says the islands - as part of it - came with itl China also cites the Cairo and Pots-dam declarations, under which Japan was ordered to return territory taken from China

Suicide bomber wounds MP in Afghan capitaln Reuters

A suicide bomber wounded a promi-nent anti-Taliban Afghan legislator and his bodyguards in an attack in Kabul on Friday, intelligence o� cials said.

The bomber detonated his device in-side the house of Hameedullah Tokhi, a member of parliament for Zabul prov-ince, and wounded Tokhi and four of his bodyguards, the o� cials said.

It was not immediately clear who was behind the attack, which came as President Hamid Karzai deliberates over an agreement allowing Nato forc-

es to stay in the country beyond 2014.Many Afghans, including his closest

advisers and a gathering of 3,000 prom-inent Afghans, have urged him to sign it. But Karzai keeps adding extra con-ditions to the text and has said he does not want to sign until after elections scheduled for April. Diplomats from the United States have been unusual-ly blunt, warning that the delay risks leading to a complete US withdrawal from the insurgency-plagued country, where Western troops and national se-curity forces have been � ghting Taliban militants for the past 12 years. l

Protesters break into Thai army compoundn Reuters

Anti-government protesters brie� y forced their way into the compound of Thailand’s army headquarters on Friday in a dramatic escalation of city-wide demonstrations seeking to topple Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra.

Protesters burst into the army base Bangkok’s historic quarter, waving � ags and blowing whistles. In anoth-er district, about 1,000 people massed outside Yingluck’s ruling party head-quarters, shouting “get out.”

The invasion of army headquarters deepened a con� ict broadly pitting

the urban middle class against the mostly rural supporters of Yingluck and her brother, Thaksin Shinawa-tra, a former prime minister who was ousted in a 2006 coup and who remains central to Thailand’s eight years of on-o� turmoil.

The demonstrators left the head-quarters peacefully after a few hours and late on Friday, protest leader Suthep Thaugsuban told his support-ers to increase the pressure and target main state buildings on Sunday, in-cluding the headquarters of city and police, four ministries and Govern-ment House, Yingluck’s o� ces. l

Indian writer Tarun Tejpal AFP

Dhanmondi Lake development scheme put o� againNovember 23

Knew it.Hasina Rahman

Why can’t they leave it alone?Naheed Kamal

Don’t � nd it attractive! :|Ehsanul Haque Nitol

Terrorism by any other nameNovember 24

Then, what else they can do?Hasina Rahman

This nation seems to be everyone’s to burn. There is no democracy here, friends.

Anjan Kumar Deb

BAL must learn to hold fair elections. By similar logic, Chhatra League’s activities are also terror-ism.

Ahnaf Saber

If they understood, would they be doing the things they do?

Waziuddin Chowdhury

Living wage is a good target

The Swedish company, H&M, which is the world’s sec-ond-biggest clothing retailer, has pledged to pay a living wage to 850,000 textile workers in 750 factories around

the world by 2018.It is starting a pilot project to support factory owners at two

textile factories in Bangladesh and one in Cambodia to enable them to adopt a fair living wage for workers by the end of 2014. It has also announced its intention to roll this out to cover all the factories that supply its stores by 2018.

There is no set de� nition of a living wage, but typically it is based on a formula that seeks to go further than the legal minimum wage by taking into account the amounts needed to provide minimum acceptable living standards.

As many basic costs such as rent for accommodation are increasing faster than in� ation, this process, which is based on improving industrial dialogue, can clearly bene� t workers. The company says it believes it will also bene� t as paying more to factories to adopt a living wage would not push up the price of its goods, because productivity and quality would also improve.

By announcing its intention to roll out this programme to cover all the factories that supply its stores by 2018, the com-pany has taken a bold initiative to address long-term problems. This commitment is a positive step towards supporting mature industrial relations in the RMG sector. Other brands and factory owners should follow it closely and seek to emulate its intended bene� ts.

Tapping into the potential of wind energyIt has been recently reported that the cabinet committee on

public purchase has approved the plan to set up the country’s largest wind-based power project in Anwara, Chittagong. Giv-

en that wind power is one of the cheapest clean energy options, this is a highly welcome initiative.

With increasing economic development, Bangladesh now faces an accelerating demand for energy. The country is current-ly almost exclusively dependent on fossil fuel to generate power and we also import a signi� cant amount of energy from abroad. Not only is this economically unsustainable, since it costs us a large amount of foreign exchange every year, it is also harmful for the environment.

Wind energy on the other hand provides an alternative way to generate power that is both economically and envi-ronmentally viable. We can also learn valuable lessons from other Asian countries such as China, Taiwan, Indonesia, Japan and South Korea who have in-vested heavily in wind power in recent years. In fact, China has more the doubled its wind power capacities in the last ten years.

The average speed of wind in Bangladesh is 2-6 metres/sec-ond, which makes us ideal candidates to generate wind energy. Moreover, experts have posited that if proper investments are made in wind power, Bangladesh can become a net energy exporter.

We have editorialised before on the need to integrate smart climate strategies into our economic development plan. Suc-cessful utilisation of wind power can make a signi� cant impact in this regard. What is now needed is a combined e� ort from policymakers and the private sector to prioritise investment in wind power to ensure that our energy future is secure, sustaina-ble and clean.

Editorial10

www.dhakatribune.com

DHAKA TRIBUNE Saturday, November 30, 2013

LETTER OF THE DAY

CALVIN AND HOBBES

PEANUTS

Letters to the Editor

The average speed of wind in Bangladesh is 2-6 metres/second, which makes us ideal candidates to generate wind energy

As many basic costs such as rent for accommodation are increasing faster than in� ation, this process, which is based on improving industrial dialogue, can clearly bene� t workers

The power of the sunNovember 25

We are neglecting to make better use of the sun as a source of energy in our country. Just as we can light a paper on � re merely by the use of a magnifying glass, in the same way, we can use solar power to create electricity, say, by focusing the rays through a magnifying glass onto a copper plate, but proper research is � rst needed.

If we can harness the power of the sun, which is a primary source of � re and light, it can prove to make our nation prosperous. Plus, it’s an inexpensive way to create electricity. Ours is a poor country, which is why we must think of easy and cheaper means to produce electricity. To this end, government support is needed.

Md Eliwas Mollah

Banks pay scale faces new hurdleNovember 24

Md Shaikh RusselHow do Basic Bank, Teletalk, PGCBL, PWD and other nationalised institutes get their salary, and under which law?

asad Md Shaikh Russel: All these so-called laws have been created by our prudent Secretaries.

FahadServices (Reorganisation and Conditions) Act, 1975. Section 5 (1) permitted the government to allow SPS. Read the act, please.

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.

CROSSWORD YESTERDAY’S SOLUTIONS

ACROSS1 Oppressive ruler (6)4 Ply the needle (3)7 Banishment (5)8 Be eager (6)11 Boy (3)12 Be in readiness (4)13 Satellite (4)15 Weapon (5)16 Soft sweet (5)20 Fitting (4)23 Fertile soil (4)24 Slender stick (3)25 Exact satisfaction for (6)26 Perfect (5)27 Female swan (3)28 Recently (6)

DOWN1 Melts, as snow (5)2 Stir violently (7)3 Swarm (4)4 Airtight grain store (4)5 Dash (4)6 Marry (3)9 Plant juice (3)10 Filled pastry (3)14 Wealthy (7)17 Spanish nobleman (3)18 Prevent from speaking (3)19 Very hard mineral (5)20 Fashion (4)21 Paradise (4)22 Lofty (4)24 Tear (3)

Crossword

Code-Cracker

SUDOKU

US for safeguarding RMG workers’ rights in BangladeshNovember 23

Of course the US government is all for it. US buyers are all for it too (verbally) but the question remains whether US buyers are willing to pay an extra pence for it in real life. That is what matters at the end of the day.

Ahnaf Saber

BGB, Awami League, BNP men among 6 deadNovember 26

Again we are witnessing the politics of killing, vandalising, torching vehicles in the name of blockade or hartal. We are commoners who want to move on without any fear, go to our workplaces without any panic, send our children to the exam hall without any tension, live in our homes without hearing the blast of cocktail bombs going o� , and cast our votes independently.

Please, we are requesting both parties to resolve this ongoing political unrest.

Lutfor Rahman

Government to introduce genetically-modi� ed cottonNovember 23As a cotton farmer from India growing Bt Cotton since 2003, I vouch for the merits of Bt technology. Besides Heliothis (American boll worms), BG2 Bt Cotton controls spotted boll worms and pink boll worms. One of the major reasons for cotton yield reduction is due to the damage caused to the � owers, squares and bolls. As Bt Cotton protects the plant from these boll worms, boll retention rate of Bt Cotton is relatively higher in Bt Cotton, which ultimately translates in to higher yield. This is my personal experience as a cotton farmer.

In addition there are other advantages too, such as drastic reduction in pesticide usage, preservation of non-target insect predators, like the lady bird beetle, spider, etc which feed on the sucking pest, and so on. I wish my Bangladeshi farmer friends happy farming. I congratulate the Bangladesh government for adopting a farmer-friendly policy.

VKV Ravichandran

The people know what counts as a fair electionNovember 19The days are long past in this country when the people used to determine what was what. But now they have completely surrendered that authority to Khaleda and Hasina. People have taken their seats in the gallery and their only function is to cheer on this or that lady.

nds

LETTER OFTHE WEEK

11Op-Ed Saturday, November 30, 2013DHAKA TRIBUNE

n Niaz Alam

It is safe to assume that few peo-ple have visited both the world’s longest beach at Cox’s Bazar and the town of Rio Grande in southern Brazil, home to the

beach called Praia do Cassino, which also claims the same title.

Not having been to either, unless you count driving past, I am reliant on the internet for the disputable geographical facts and can only say they both look very inviting on Google Earth.

With the World Cup and Olym-pics heading to Brazil, the municipal burghers of Rio Grande will have plenty of opportunities to boost their beach. Uruguay, with its soon to be expected rush of legalised cannabis tourists, is relatively nearby (Monte-video is roughly 600km away which is less than a third the distance to Rio de Janeiro), so prepare to see its beach length claims discussed more widely.

This should not dishearten patriotic Bangladeshis. The Olympics will one day move on and Cox’s Bazar will still be under 400 minutes � ying time from nearly half the world’s population. In any case, it is a wonder of the world that such a small land mass as Bang-ladesh should boast great rivers, long beaches, and the unique solitude and World Heritage site of the Sunderbans.

Keen surfers aside, the people with the most interest in visiting both beaches are probably located among the good citizens of Cox’s Bazar. If any of them are planning a fact � nding visit to discuss town twinning arrange-ments, I’m sure there’ll be a steady queue.

All of which is another way of bring-ing up the awkward reality that Bang-ladesh is not talked about as much abroad as the size of its population (eighth highest in the world) warrants.

Yes, I know that, to misquote Life of Brian, readers of this newspaper will have plenty of answers to the question of what has Bangladesh ever done for the world? Its peaceful foreign policy and supply of troops to United Nations programs is admired and the achieve-ments of world renowned NGOs like Brac and Grameen are widely applaud-ed and emulated.

People living in the West could also add that people of Bangladeshi origin have a growing pro� le, albeit one that is often subsumed within broader identities such as South Asian sub-continent or Muslim heritage. The never-ending rush of UK celebrities and politicians to the annual British Curry awards which took place this week is a one such example.

But the fact remains that even though Bangladesh is on the front-line of many of the key issues facing the world, from climate change and corporate responsibility to debates about secularism and democracy, its footprint on the world stage is still relatively small.

The meme started by the CIA World Factbook in the early 1990s that Bang-ladesh is roughly ‘’the size of Iowa’’ doesn’t exactly help. But at least the parochialism of using Iowa as a unit of measurement adds some insight into US intelligence debacles over the years. (What it should say of course is that Bangladesh has a population somewhat larger than Russia in a space slightly larger than England.)

Like other poor countries not high on the tourist trail, Bangladesh

tends to � gure in the global media consciousness only during times of disaster. The coming ICC World T20 tournament next March is unlikely to change the number of Western newspapers that include the taka in its tables of daily exchange rates or which care about the Dhaka Stock Exchange.

The underlying reasons for the country’s “failure to project” are

complex in cause and e� ect. Bangla-deshi independence was a worldwide cause célèbre, but that was a genera-tion ago. Contemporary interest in the country abroad is typically limited to speci� c issues such as labour rights and sea level rise. That these tally with Western associations of Bangladesh with crisis, disaster and poverty has not helped to improve perceptions, the undoubted success of the large NGO sector in challenging gender inequal-ity and reducing rates of population growth notwithstanding.

Analysing this background alone will not help to quickly increase inter-national interest or to change stereo-types. That can only come over time with greater global interaction through growing trade and cultural in� uence.

Leading NGOs still play a creative role in modernising the economy by for example helping to popularise technological innovations in facilitat-ing payments by mobile phone, but the future requires the country’s pri-vate sector brands to become as world famous as the Grameen Bank.

Victimhood is not a viable option for a country that may need to feed 220 million people by 2050. Dhaka’s

burgeoning megacity status demands that the country become known again for the quality of its goods and the wealth of its people rather than sweat-shops and disasters. The millions of poor Bangladeshis on whose resilience and hard work the economy depends deserve nothing less.

The country’s leaders have to raise aspirations higher. Excuses for not following best practice standards, par-ticularly for safety and environmental management, should no longer be tol-erated. And the people who named the Dhaka-Kolkata train as an “express” when it barely averages 20 miles an hour need reminding this is the age of Maglev and undersea tunnels. If we are seriously telling ourselves that two of the biggest cities in the world can do no better than this sort of speed, then how can we expect to cope with the challenge of raising living standards while improving resilience to climate change?

Bangladesh’s per capita GDP has a long way to grow before reaching the world average, which is currently around $10,000 per year. The econo-my’s size just about scrapes its ranking into the top 60 list of global econo-mies, but per capita it is still closer to 160th in the world. But if China and India can grow their economy to be on the cusp of matching their world ranking by population, then Bangla-desh needs to aim for the world top 10 as well.

How and when exactly this can hap-pen, I do not know. But it is a moral as well as economic imperative to try. The people will provide the answers.

Maybe most of the world doesn’t think about Bangladesh much yet. One day soon, this will change. l

Niaz Alam has worked on ethical business issues since 1992, and is a former vice-chair of War on Want.

Is Cox’s Bazar getting its due? WIKIMEDIA

R A M B L E O N

Half a world away

In any case, it is a wonder of the world that such a small land mass as Bangladesh should boast great rivers, long beaches, and the unique solitude and World Heritage site of the Sunderbans

How to be a good leadern Muhammad Eusha

Two men besought a leader so that he would assign them the responsibilities of positions

which would have allowed them pow-er over people. The leader mentioned one of the most fundamentally crucial facts about leadership in his refusal to yield to their appeal. “We never appoint anyone who aspires to be a leader,” he observed. That indeed was a clever and succinct way of encapsu-lating in a single sentence the single most important principle of choosing leaders.

It is not easy to understand the sentence, however, since only a discerning mind can comprehend the truth contained in it. It is quite clear that this leader believed that a true leader is one who does not, rather par-adoxically, hanker after positions and authority. It is essential that one assays this assertion with a little more care.

Who does not want to be a leader

these days? It is a most common hu-man tendency to develop a narcissistic self-con� dence which convinces one that he is the one who should lead to bring an end to all the su� erings in the world. Think about all the people you know who give you lists of things they would do if given an opportunity to become the ruler of the nation for one day.

Very rarely do you see a person who does not possess the instinctive pride and overcon� dence in his own abilities to think, judge and act. Humility is a quality which should be innately present in a leader. He would be the last person to go and tell people: “Vote for me because I am the solution to all your problems.”

Alas, not only in Bangladesh, but worldwide today, you see people who actually have grown so much arro-gance as to declare that people will make a mistake if they choose a leader other than him! The reader should not make the mistake of thinking I am de-

manding that a leader must be lacking in self-con� dence.

What I am stressing on is that a leader must be humble and conscious of the fact that he is not infallible and is a human being after all. Arrogance should not be an integrated part of a true leader’s character. Only a humble person does not make the grave mistake of imagining that the world should revolve around him and that he is the salvation the world has been waiting for.

The other kind of person who is intimidated by thoughts of leadership is the one who knows the gravity of the responsibilities to be shouldered by him. Of course, you have those barbaric satanic crooks who are interested little in the duties attached to leadership, and it is only about securing the rights to all the privileges and prerogatives it comes with.

Everyone wants to be the man for whom the busy Dhaka tra� c in the afternoon would stop to let him pass � rst. Those who are sincere and are

aware of the tremendous levels of responsibility pertaining to leader-ship, would focus apprehensively on the di� culty of it and worry about whether he would be able to carry out his duties with propriety or not.

A fool, on the other hand, would see nothing in leadership except the big villa which he would be allowed to stay in and the pleasure of having people obey you like sycophants. Too much enthusiasm about leadership is a conspicuous indication of the fact that you are probably unaware of the colossal demands of the sacred responsibility and are just fascinated by the glamour of the job.

Now the reader should try to judge our leaders in the light of the theory propounded in the preceding para-graphs. Do our leaders seem to possess the vital quality of humility? The answer to that question is, sadly, no. We have abundant arrogance, on the other hand. Do they seem to be con-scious of the heaviness of the burden

called responsibility they seem to be so enthusiastic in bearing?

This is a question which also can be answered with a “no”. The results of immature and puerile leadership are being manifested in our lives today. It would not be inapposite to end this piece with a pertinent anecdote.

A famous leader once was asked to ap-point his son as the successor. And his reaction to such a suggestion was both shocking and enlightening. He said: “Why would I do that to my own son?” Talk about being aware of responsibil-ities. l

Muhammad Eusha is an HVAC specialist and a DT columnist.

The winds of changen FS Aijazuddin

The di� erence between being elected and being re-elected is whether, if you are elected,

you are prepared to clean up the mess left behind by your predecessor, or if re-elected, you intend to continue making a mess of governance yourself.

Unlike his counterpart Prime Minis-ter Manmohan Singh who was elected in 2004 and then re-elected in 2009, Nawaz Sharif has never enjoyed a con-secutive term as prime minister. On each occasion – in 1990, again in 1997, and most recently in 2013 – he has had to clear someone else’s mess.

Such stop-start mandates would challenge any leader. Nawaz Sharif cannot hope to be an exception. His reluctance to govern is not feigned. It is born of an insecurity which has taught him to mark � rst the exit door.

Fourteen lean years in exile sep-arate July 1999 – the year he made a quick unscheduled dash to elicit Presi-dent Clinton’s support for a resolution of the Kargil crisis – and October 2013, when he spent an unhurried 90 min-utes with President Barack Obama in the Oval O� ce. In 1999, Nawaz Sharif feared a coup by General Musharraf; in October 2013, he went as the Truman con� dently prepared to choose his own General Macarthur.

General Kayani however did not wait to be � red or to be booted up-stairs. He announced on October 6 that he would retire from the army as chief of army sta� on November 29. Kayani had become COAS in 2007 after “per-suading” his boss Musharraf to leave. In 2010, he was given an extension of three years (with President Zardari’s consent) by a PPP Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani. He was not pre-pared to accept the crown a third time.  

However, altruistic Kayani’s motives may have been, Kayani’s announce-ment has sent a clear message to any would-be Bonapartes within the Paki-stan Army. “As I complete my tenure,” his requiem reads, “the will of the peo-ple has taken root and a constitutional order is in place. The armed forces of Pakistan fully support and want to strengthen this democratic order.”

The last general who thought like that was an Indian - General Sam Maneckshaw, who as COAS reassured Mrs Indira Gandhi that he did not pose a threat to her prime ministership.

Whoever Nawaz Sharif may be considering as Kayani’s replacement as COAS should be prepared, like Prince Charles, for a long wait. Sharif has yet to decide which of his two advisers on Foreign A� airs – Sartaj Aziz or Tariq Fatemi – should be the de jure foreign minister.

Mr Sharif’s style of governance has a light touch to it. It has all the informality of a family business. He has delegated the erratic economy to Ishaq Dar (whose son Ali is married to Sharif’s daughter). He has left the volatile security situation to Nisar, a

loyalist sans pareil. And he has farmed out the Punjab to his younger brother Shahbaz Sharif.

There must be moments when Nawaz Sharif must envy the comforts of the presidency to the hurly-burly of the prime ministership. His detractors – of whom Imran Khan has become the most vocal – accuse him of seeking solace in foreign trips instead of tack-ling the real issues such as education, health, water, housing, population control, food security, internal securi-ty, and spilling over them all, provin-cial disharmony.  

As much as Nawaz Sharif would wish otherwise, his brother’s Punjab is not Pakistan. A MQM-PPP dominated Sindh is a headache; Balochistan is a tribal and troublesome expanse; and Khyber-Pakhtoonkhwa is the migraine that will get worse by 2104.

When Imran Khan’s Tehrik-e-Insaf party won the toss in the unsettled province of Khyber Pakhtoonkhwa in the last general elections, he had not anticipated to be called to bat so soon. Nor had it expected to � eld bullets and drones. Circumstance has made Imran Khan a born-again pragmatist. His call for negotiations with the Pakistan Taliban echoes Nelson’s Mandela’s sage observation: “If you want to make peace with your enemy, you have to work with your enemy.” The second part of Mandela’s advice – “Then he becomes you partner” - may be more di� cult his coalition KPK government to swallow.

By the end of this year, there will be a new army chief and a new supreme court chief justice in place. It is unlikely that the new incumbents will want to continue with the trial of General Musharraf for treason. Revenge is a dish best eaten cold; it is unsafe when stale.

By this time next year, there will be a new Afghan leader elected in place of the papier-mâché president Karzai and in New Delhi, there is a real (and frightening) possibility that Narendra Modi may be India’s next prime minister. Mr Modi wears half-sleeve shirts; Mr Sharif should not be surprised when Modi keeps nothing up his sleeves.

Domestic imperatives apart, the challenge for Nawaz Sharif in 2014 will be his ability to manage these impor-tant changes simultaneously on his eastern and western borders. l

 FS Aijazuddin, OBE, is the author of more than a dozen books. This article was � rst published by The Tribune, India.

Humility is a quality which should be innately present in a leader. He would be the last person to go and tell people: ‘Vote for me because I am the solution to all your problems’

Whoever Nawaz Sharif may be considering as Kayani’s replacement as COAS should be prepared, like Prince Charles, for a long wait

REUTERS

EntertainmentDHAKA TRIBUNE Saturday, November 30, 201312

ON TV

MOVIE7:50pmHBOThe Animal8:30pm Fox Movies PremiumPrometheus

DRAMA8:00pm SonyAadalat8:30pm Star PlusArjun

NEWS5:00pm Maasranga TvNews Flash2:30pm Independent TvPurba Pashchim

MISC2:30pm FTVFashion Week8:30pm AXNThe Hero

COMEDY12:30pm Comedy CentralHappily Divorced9:30pm Z CafeThe Big Bang Theory

BENGAL CLASSICAL MUSIC FESTIVAL 2013

Bangladeshi artistes in focus

Today’s Indian artistesPandit Hariprasad ChaurasiaBorn in 1938, Pandit Hariprasad Chaurasia, the internation-ally renowned exponent of the bansuri or bamboo � ute, had an early love of music. Chaurasia has become one of India’s most-respected classical musicians, earning several awards, including the national award of the Sangeet Natak Academy in 1984, the Yash Bharati Samman in 1994, the Padma Vibhu-shan in 2000 and the National Eminence in 2012. Chaurasia currently heads the world Music Department at the Rotter-dam Music Conservatory.

Pandit Shivkumar SharmaBorn in 1938, Pandit Shivkumar Sharma is the winner of a Padmashree and is a musician par excellence. Santoor, which was used in Su� music in the valley of Kashmir, owes its sta-tus in classical music to Pandit Shivkumar Sharma. Through his career of over a half century, he has created millions of new listeners and ardent fans of Indian classical music. His awards and accolades are many, and include the Honorary Cit-izen award for the City of Baltimore, USA, Sangeet Natak Acad-emy Award, Maharashtra Gaurav Puraskar, to name a few.

Vidushi PadmaTalwalkarPadma Talwalkar was born in Mumbai, India. She received training in Khyal gayaki in three main gharanas, namely Gwalior, Kirana and Jaipur. Their son Satyajit Talwalkar and daughter Savani Talwalkar are also tabla players. Vidushi Pad-ma Talwalkar received a � ve year scholarship from the Bhula-bhai Memorial Trust, a two-year fellowship from the National Center for Performing Arts, the Pandit Jasraj Gaurav Puraskar in 2004, the Vatsalabai Bhimsen Joshi award in 2009 and the Rajhans Pratishthan Puraskar in 2010.

Kumar MardurHailing from the rich traditions of Dharwad and with many accolades, Kumar Mardur received his � rst training from his father Pandit Somanath Mardur, a renowned Hindu-stani Classical Vocalist of the Kirana Gharana and a senior disciple of the late Padma Bhushan Dr Basavaraj Rajguru. Endowed with a melodious voice, he is known for pure and aesthetic presentation of ragas, crystal clear taan patterns and command over laya.

Pandit Swapan ChaudhuriWinner of Bharat Ke Sangeet Ratna Award in 2011 and the pres-tigious Sangeet Natak Academy Award in 1997 from the Gov-ernment of India, Swapan Chaudhuri is considered one of the greatest tabla virtuosos, who took lessons from his guru, the legendary Acharya Santosh Krishna Biswas of Lucknow, from the age of � ve, in Kolkata. He is the recipient of the American Academy of Artists Award and is nominee to Percussive Arts Society Hall of Fame, distinctions reserved for only those mu-sicians who have attained the highest level of artistry.

Pandit Uday BhawalkarBorn in 1966, Pandit Uday Bhawalkar is a standard bearer for Dhrupad and a strong force in its growing recognition and popularity. Uday spent over 12 years studying and liv-ing in the traditional guru-shishya parampara with Ustad ZiaFariduddin Dagar and Ustad Zia Mohiuddin Dagar, the pil-lars of the Dhrupad tradition. Uday has received prestigious awards including the Kumar Gandharva Samman and the Raza Foundation Award. He joined ITC SRA as a visiting guru from June 1, 2012.

Rajrupa ChowdhuryRajrupa Chowdhury took up sarod when she was � ve years old and started learning at the Ustad Ameer Khan School of Instrumental Music under the guidance of Pranab Naha. Soon afterwards she started learning with Siddhartha Roy Chowd-hury and continued with him for more than two decades. She has won many national music competitions such as the � rst prize in Dover Lane Music Competition in 1999, ITC-SRA Prom-ising Artist Award and a national government scholarship.

We could have dedicated our life towards exploring music: Reenat Fauzian Saddam Hossain Hriyad

Reenat Fauzia was born in 1967. She belongs to the legendary Khan family rooted in Shib-pur, Brahmanbaria. She is the grandchild of Ustad Ayet Ali Khan, the legendary mae-stro of music of the subcontinent, youngest brother of Sursamrat Ustad Alauddin Khan, the world famous maestro of the genre. Her father, Mobarak Hossain Khan is a distin-guished musicologist and litterateur and mother Fauzia Khan, is a famous vocal artist. Her � rst lessons came from her eldest cousin Ustad Khurshid Khan.

You belong to a highly revered family of Classical Music. Do you have regular interactions with your cross-country family members?Yes, we are lucky to share that bond. Ustad Alauddin’s children and grandchildren reside mainly in Mumbai and Los Angeles. Whenev-er anyone comes for a visit, we all meet up. Few years ago, my younger brother went to see Annapurna Devi in Mumbai. When Us-tad Ali Akbar Khan (Sarod) came to Bangla-desh, my father took us to meet him. Also his sons Ustad Aashish Khan (Sarod) and Ustad Pranesh Khan (Tabla) keep contact with us. When Aashish Khan came to Dhaka for a visit, he noticed that my sitar lacks proper strings as they are not available locally. He went back to USA and sent me a carton of strings which I still use.

What are you going to perform today? I will play the traditional classical music. Starting with Aalap, then moving towards

Bilambit Teentaal and reach the climax. I have been thinking of playing Raga Kirwani, though I am still contemplating on that. My time limit is 25 minutes. Swapan Kumar Das will be playing Tabla and my son, Tahsin Khan, will be on Tanpura.

How is your preparation, I mean the voice?Classical music is a very complicated per-forming arts and we need to practice on a regular basis. I am looking forward to a nice performance, hopefully.

Do you think this programme will renew interest in classical music?It is a real extravaganza. It’s not only attract-ing a huge audience but also artistes around the world. It’s really very encouraging. Who knew that there were so many interested en-

thusiasts in Bangladesh, who would come to listen to classical music! Such a patronage was so crucial for the rejuvenation of audi-ence interest.

If you are requested to give one suggestion to change the scenario here, what wouldthat be?I would suggest for a government benefaction to the classical artistes. Previously, during the rule of kings and emperors, musicians use to perform in courts and that was their way of warning bread. But we can’t maintain ourselves in that manner nowadays. We need to have another profession to keep ourselves respectably. If the government would pro-vide a clear scholarship and maintain it, we could have dedicated our life towards explor-ing music. l

A scene from the � lm Nirobey

Maestros from India entertaining the audience at the Bengal Classical Music Festival 2013 on November 28 AMIRUL RAJIV

Seasoned classical singer of Bangladesh, Reenat Fauzia will perform today at the festival

Nirobey screened at KynnysKINO festivaln Entertainment Desk

The � lm Nirobey (silent) has been screened in the KynnysKINO 2013 � lm festival yesterday. KynnysKINO � lm festival is a forum for novel and alter-native points of view, presenting the vast and astonishing scopes of human mind and body. The main organiser of the festival is The Threshold Associa-tion (Kynnys ry), whose primary aim is to promote the human rights of per-sons with disabilities, together with the Finnish National Gallery in Helsinki and Turku Main Library.

A total of 18 � lms will be screened at the festival, that will continue till No-

vember 30 at Contemporary museum Kiasma, Helsinki, Finland. Scripted, directed and produced by Jannatul Fer-dous Ivy, Nirobey focuses on the wom-en activists of the country.

The director of the � lm is a burn af-fected woman, who works as a rights activist. Noted actors Elora Gohor, Rai-sul Islam Asad, Shawdesh, Chanchal, Mohammed Musa, Sahaby and others acted in the � lm.

Nirobey is an aspiration for NGO work-ers, as it caters to the NGO governance policy for gender equality of human rights activists and the success of a dis-abled woman who uses her adequate skills to help the non-disabled women. l

Tapan Chowdhury to perform at IGCC todayn Entertainment Desk

Indira Gandhi Cultural Centre (IGCC) in association with Asian Paints, IRCON and Marico Bangladesh is organising A Musical Evening by eminent Bangla-deshi musician, Tapan Chowdhury, at 6:30 PM on November 30, 2013 at IGCC, Gulshan-1, Dhaka.

Born in Chittagong, Tapan Chow-dhury trained in music under legends such as Late Ustad Priyadaranjan Sen, Ustad Mihirlala and Ustad Sanjit Dey. He commenced his musical career with the renowned rock band Souls, with which he was associated for 22 years. Concurrently, he also performed as a playback singer in over 300 � lms. Chowdhury has worked with almost all reputed music directors of Bangla-desh. He has released almost 100 CDs of his solo, duet and mixed albums in Bangladesh and abroad. He excels in band music, modern Bangla songs, folk songs, Rabindra Sangeet and fusion music.

Tapan Chowdhury has performed all over the world as a member of o� -cial Bangladeshi cultural delegations. He has also been invited by several for-eign private cultural organisations for performances overseas. Since the last 40 years, he has been performing for Bangladeshi television and radio. He has received several awards for his out-standing musical performances both within Bangladesh and abroad. l

The 39-year-old, who is known for posting rather funny photos on her Twitter page, continued to make her followers smile as she posted a comical picture of her singing a duet with a Barbie Doll - that appeared to be Posh Spice

Victoria Beckham

14

13DHAKA TRIBUNESaturday, November 30, 2013

SportDid you know?

14 15 Ex-India batsman Kambli su� ers heart attack

Antonio Valencia has yet to lose when

he has scored for an English club in all

competitions (Wigan, Man Utd), winning 24

and drawing one

Giggs reaches 40 and still going strong

Spurs win to ease pressure on Villas-Boas

Gazi Tank v Prime DoleshwarGazi Tank 295/7 in 50 overEoin Morgan 84, Mahmudullah 51Taijul Islam 74/2

Prime Doleshwar 235/10 in 45.4 overMominul Haque 86, Farhad Reza 79Ashar Zaidi 39/4, Naeem Islam Jr 38/3

Gazi Tank won by 60 runs

Sheikh Jamal v Kalabagan CAKalabagan CA 223/10 in 49.1 overAbdul Mazid 102, Saghir Hossain 31Abdur Razzak 56/4, Tanveer Haider 46/2

Sheikh Jamal 228/6 in 39.2 oversMush� qur Rahim 97*, Tushar Imran 62

Sheikh Jamal won by four wickets

Mohammedan v Prime BankPrime Bank 280/6 in 50 overRavi Bopara 157, Saikat Ali 67Mashrafe Mortaza 58/2

Mohammedan 266/10 in 48.5 overRahmat Shah 64, Mashrafe Mortaza 53

Prime Bank won by 14 runs

BRIEF SCORES

Teams M W L N/R Pts RRGazi Tank 15 11 4 0 22 +0.612Sheikh Jamal 15 10 5 0 20 +0.692Prime DSC 15 10 5 0 20 +0.274Mohammedan 15 9 6 0 18 -0.332Prime Bank 15 7 8 0 14 +0.389Kalabagan CA 15 6 8 1 13 -0.801

DPL POINTS TABLE

Gazi Tank players celebrate after their skipper Mahmudullah bowled Prime Doleshwar’s Mominul Haque out during their Dhaka Premier League match at the Sher-e-Bangla National Stadium yesterday MUMIT M

BFF appeal to Hollandn Raihan Mahmood

Bangladesh Football Federation has sought Netherlands assistance to raise the standard of football in the country.

The president of BFF Kazi Salahud-din, vice presidents Kazi Nabil Ahmed and Tabith Awal called on Gerben de Jong, the Dutch ambassador at his embassy o� ce yesterday. Tabith was upbeat about a sustainable link. “The ambassador assured us of providing all possible support regarding the devel-opment of football in Bangladesh and asked us to submit the requirements on paper. We will provide it soon,” said Tabith.

National head coach de Kruif and assistant coach Rene Koster, who took charge of the national team in June this year, are both from the Netherlands. l

Afusi delighted with big winn Raihan Mahmood

Sheikh Jamal Dhanmondi’s Nigerian coach Joseph Afusi praised his play-ers while Mohammedan’s acting coach Jewel Rana admitted that they were outplayed by a better team in the post-match presser at the Bangabandhu Na-tional Stadium yesterday.

Afusi appeared to be a satis� ed man. “After the previous matches, it was asked why Jamal was not winning big. Today we won by a 3-1 margin against a good team and my team played good football to be the deserving winner,” said Afusi.

Afusi thought Sony Norde played well and he is a positive feature for Bangladesh football. “He is not impor-tant for Jamal, he is important for Ban-gladesh football as the footballers can raise their standards against him. He is also a crowd puller,” said the Nigerian.

Jamal skipper Mamunul Islam said he had a good chemistry with Sony. “Last year, we played about 28 matches together for Sheikh Russell. This year, we have played three so we have some communication between us,” said Ma-mun, who delivered both the through passes that Sony turned into goals.

Mohammedan coach Jewel Rana said he lacked quality foreign players and his star player Zahid Hossain was below par. “Jamal proved themselves the better team. Their foreign players possess better quality than ours, we were also let down by Zahid who was below par, we failed to produce teamwork,” he summed up. l

Sony leads Jamal into semi-� nalsn Shishir Hoque

Sony Norde proved once again why he is the high-est paid footballer in Bangladesh as

the Haitian international striker scored a brace in Sheikh Jamal Dhanmondi Club’s 3-1 win over Mohammedan Sporting Club in the � rst quarter-� nal of the Walton Federation Cup yester-day.

The Bangabandhu National Stadium was � lled packed with 7,000 spectators - most of them Mohammedan support-ers - but Sony Norde stole the show with two brilliant goals to take Jamal into the semi-� nal. It will be the club’s fourth consecutive appearance in the last four.

  Sony, however, was taken o� the

� eld on a stretcher at the hour mark af-ter being badly fouled by Mohammed-an’s Nigerian mid� elder Sesan Idowu. Sesan was lucky to only get a yellow card after kicking Sony’s knee. Jamal coach Joseph Afusi was furious at ref-eree’s decision and his reaction saw him being sent away from the dugout.

Despite all the attention on Sony Norde, Jamal skipper Mamunul Islam also showed glimpses of his brilliance and was inarguably the second best player on the � eld. He scored a goal himself and set up Sony for the other two. 

The star-studded Sheikh Jamal side were threatening from the beginning and quickly settled into their stride with Sony and Darlington being particularly impressive. It was Sony who opened the scoring in the 34th minute, showing his skill, pace and

power. Mamunul delivered a long ball for Sony, who paced forward and dodged past three defenders- Mintu, Baybeck and Sesan Idowu- before � ring the ball home into the near post.

Sony created another opportunity on the stroke of the half-time, snatching a ball from Baybech and chipping it outside the bar. It took him only nine minutes into the second half to score his second of the night. Mamunul provided a lob to the Haitian, who skipped past Sesan and rounded o� Tapu before placing the ball into the net. Five minutes, later the incident took place that forced Sony to leave the � eld and national striker Shakhawat Hossain Rony came in in his place.

Jamal’s attacking instinct did not stop there and continued to mount the pressure. Mamun Khan produced a decent save to deny Darlington from

scoring the third.Mamunul sealed the victory seven

minutes before time with a screamer. A Sohel Rana cross from the left � ank was cleared by a Mohammedan defender but the rebound was collected by Mamunul, who powered the ball past Mamun Khan from 20 yards out.

Mohammedan made three changes to their starting eleven with Mintu Sk, Sohag and Mostafa Seddik replacing Ariful, Hemanta and Chuka Charles. Egyptian forward Seddik made his � rst appearance in Bangladesh, coming on for Chuka Charles in the second half. Chuka made an immediate impact by scoring a consolation goal for Mohammedan in the 84th minute.

Sheikh Jamal will take on the winner of today quarter-� nal match between Abahani Limited and Soccer Club Feni on December 4 in the � rst semi-� nal. l

Gazi Tank claim � rst DPL titlen Mazhar Uddin

Gazi Tank clinched their � rst ever Dhaka Premier League (DPL) title after beat-ing Prime Doleshwar by 60 runs at the Mirpur Sher-e-Bangla National Stadium yesterday.

Both sides had20 points from 14 matches going into the match, which e� ectively turned the game into a � nal.

After being put in to bat, Gazi made a good start as the openers put on 60. The partnership was broken when Riazul Is-lam (36) was dismissed by left arm spin-ner Taijul Islam. Soon after, the other opener national discard Imrul Kayes, was removed for 40 by Sha� ul Islam. With a tally of 655 runs in the tourna-ment, Imrul � nished the league as the second highest scorer.

Another national discard Raqibul Hasan together with English cricketer Eion Morgan, who has not performed to expectation in the last four games, how-ever stood up for the batting side.

Raqibul (27) was dismissed by na-tional cricketer Mominul Haque but Morgan continued his aggressive bat-ting and with skipper Mahmudullah at the other end � nding the boundary fre-quently, the Gazi innings was cruising. Even after Mahmudullah was removed for 51, Morgan carried on smoothly be-fore Taijul dismissed him for a brilliant 84 o� 71 balls (nine fours, two sixes). To-wards the end of the innings, Dutchman Ryan ten Doeschate scored a quick 35 o�

18 balls to take the total to an imposing 295/7 in 50 over. Left arm spinner Tai-jul Islan took two wickets while Farhad Reza, Sha� ul Islam and Mominul Haque bagged one apiece for Doleshwar.

In reply, Doleshwar lost both openers quickly as national paceman Rubel Hos-sain removed Mehedi Maruf for 1 and English cricketer Joshua Cobb for 3. Lat-er, the in-form Englishman Dawid Ma-lan was out for 5, leaving Doleshwar in dire straits at 95/6 at the half way stage of the innings.

However, Mominul who came to bat at number four, was playing his natural game and stroking the bad balls to the boundary and with skipper Farhad Reza for company, was looking to hold the in-nings together.

Mominul was looking dangerous as he headed towards a hundred before Mahmudullah clean bowled the left hander for a � ne 92-ball 86 (eight fours). It proved to be the turning point of the match and although Farhad tried to up the tempo, he could not � nd support at the other end. Farhad eventually fell for 79 o� 60 balls (nine fours, two sixes) and Doleshwar went on to be bowled out for 235 in 45.4 overs.

It is Gazi Tank’s � rst DPL triumph, and they have become the seventh winner of the competition after Abahani (17 times), Mohammedan (nine times), Biman (� ve times), Victoria (four times), Old DOHS (twice) and Brothers Union (once) in the tournament’s 37th season. l

Jamal � nish second n Mazhar Uddin

National captain Mush� qur Rahim’s unbeaten 97 helped Sheikh Jamal Dhan-mondi Club to clinch

a four wicket win over Kalabagan CA and � nish second in the Walton Dhaka Premier League (DPL) at the BKSP 2 ground yesterday.

In the other match of the day, Eng-lish cricketer Ravi Bopara smashed an unbeaten 157 to lead Prime Bank CC to a 14 run win over Mohammedan Sport-ing Club at the Khan Shaheb Osman Ali Stadium.

Sheikh Jamal vs Kalabagan CAWinning the toss, Kalabagan elected to bat and openers Avishek Mitra and Abdul Mazid made a good start before Avishek was dismissed for 26. Kala-bagan lost wickets at regular intervals after that, with Mazid, who continued to stroke the ball sweetly, being the ex-ception. The opener duly reached his century and scored 102 o� 118 balls (16 fours, one six) before being dismissed by national cricketer Abdur Razzak.

Wicket-keeper/batsman Saghir Hos-sain’s 31 was the second highest score in Kalabagan’s 223 all out in 49.3 overs.

Left arm spinner Abdur Razzak took four wickets while another left arm spinner Elias Sunny and leg spinner Tanveer Haider bagged two each for Jamal.

Chasing the target of 224, Sheikh Jamal skipper Mush� qur Rahim con-tinued his � ne form as he remained unbeaten on 97 runs o� 81 balls (two fours, eight sixes). Tushar Imran weighed in with 62 as Jamal comfort-ably with four wickets in hand and 10 overs to spare.

With the win Sheikh Jamal, moved to 20 points and due to having a bet-ter net run rate than Prime Doleshwar, who also � nished with 20 points, � n-ished second in the league.

Mohammedan vs Prime BankAt the Khan Shaheb Osman Ali Sta-dium, Prime Bank elected to bat � rst on winning the toss and with English-man Ravi Bopara smashing the Mo-hammedan bowlers to all parts of the ground in a stunning innings of 157 not out (11 fours, � ve sixes), the batting side � ourished. Opener Saikat Ali con-tributed with 67 as Prime Bank made 280/6 from their 50 over. National paceman Mashrafe Mortaza picked up two wickets for Mohammedan.

In reply, Mohammedan could not put together a signi� cant partnership as most of the batsman threw their wickets away after getting set. Afghan recruit Rahmat Shah top-scored with 64, followed by Mashrafe Mortaza’s 53 as Mohammedan were bowled out for 266 in 48.5 overs.

Man-of-the-match Ravi Bopara picked up four wickets while Ariful Hasan took three for Prime Bank. l

Sony Norde the star of the shown Raihan Mahmood

Sony Norde, the Haitian forward of Sheikh Jamal Dhanmondi Club, was at the center of all conversation as the wily scorer rose to the occasion before being carried o� with a knee injury at the Bangabandu National Stadium yes-terday.

The skilled forward was in action from the very beginning on the left � ank, making life di� cult for the op-position defence. His dash, dribbling and control was a delight to watch and his double strike also showed his bril-liance. He beat three defenders before sending the ball into the near post with

a cracking shot for his � rst and later outfoxed Mohammedan goalie Mamun Khan, as he changed his mind about which direction to shoot and left Ma-mun clueless.

Mohammedan’s acting coach Jewel Rana and Mamun Khan appeared at the post-match presser and acknowledged the “Sony Factor”. “Maybe my defence was a little shaky about restricting Sony Norde. I always told my defence not to allow space to him inside the box but he is intelligent and made his way through,” said Jewel.

However Sony Norde was not there to celebrate his team’s success. Her was deliberately hit on the knee by Mo-

hammedan’s Nigerian mid� elder Sisan Idow in the 60th minute and had to be taken to hospital for an x-ray. The inci-dent infuriated Jamal coach Josef Afusi and he was sent o� the � eld by referee Tayed Hasan.

“I am not a referee and as a coach, I am not entitled to comment on refer-eeing. However, I would like to request the referees association and the BFF to see the DVD of the match and see whether it was red card o� ence or not,” said Afusi.

Later, Jamal o� cials said that medi-cal reports indicated Sony had not sus-tained any serious injury and he will play in the next match. l

MATCH HIGHLIGHTS

16” Darlington plays a one-two with Sony and only a last-ditch

clearance from Nahid prevents the Haitian from getting a shot o� .

32” Emily heads the ball over the bar from Emon Babu’s free kick.

34” GOAL! Sony shows his skills and dodges past three de-

fenders before � ring the ball home.

45” Sony steals the ball from Baybeck, breaks into the

penalty area and chips the ball wide of the goal.

54” GOAL! Sony again, skips past Sesan, rounds o� Tapu and

placed the ball home.

60” Sesan fouls Sony badly in the middle of the � eld, leaving

the Haitian injured. Shakhawat Rony replaces Sony.

83” GOAL! Mamunul powers the ball past Mamun Khan

from 20 yards out, after Sohel Rana’s cross is cleared by a Mohammedan defender.

84” GOAL! Chuka Charles scores for Mohammedan, after

receiving a through ball from Manik.

RESULTSheikh Jamal 3-1 MohammedanSony 34, 54, Charles 84Mamunul 83

Sheikh Jamal forward Sony Norde celebrates a goal against Mohammedan during their Walton Federation Cup querter-� nal match at BNS yesterday MUMIT M

SportDHAKA TRIBUNE Saturday, November 30, 201314

FIXTURES Elche v Atletico Madrid Celta Vigo v Almeria Real Madrid v Valladolid Espanyol v Real Sociedad

FIXTURES Bayern Munich v Braunschweig Leverkusen v Nuremberg Ho� enheim v Werder Bremen Mainz 05 v Dortmund Hertha Berlin v Augsburg Schalke 04 v VfB Stuttgart

FIXTURES Aston Villa v Sunderland Cardi� v Arsenal Everton v Stoke Newcastle v West Brom Norwich v Crystal Palace West Ham v Fulham

Robben wary of bottom side Braunschweign AFP, Berlin

Bayern Munich’s Arjen Robben has warned his team-mates to avoid any-thing ‘‘strange’’ happen-ing when the Bundesliga leaders host bottom side

Eintracht Braunschweig today.Munich’s emphatic 3-0 win at

Borussia Dortmund last Saturday ex-tended their record run to 38 matches unbeaten in the Bundesliga.

But Bayern want to consolidate their four-point gap at the top of the German league table and Robben has warned his team-mates not to assume three more points at the Allianz Arena.

“We respect each and every oppo-nent and I’ve often seen in my career that when top plays bottom, strange things can happen,” said the 29-year-old Robben.

Second-placed Bayer Leverkusen

are home to Nuremberg as they look to bounce back from their 5-0 drubbing to Manchester United on Wednesday at the BayArena, their worst defeat in Europe.

Having got their Champions League campaign back on track with a 3-1 win at home to Napoli on Tuesday, Borus-sia Dortmund are looking to kick-start their Bundesliga form at Mainz 05 after consecutive defeats. Fresh from their Champions League draw at Steaua Bu-charest, Schalke 04 host their bogey team VfB Stuttgart today.l

Madrid to take no risks with Ronaldon AFP, Madrid

Cristiano Ronaldo will play no part in Real Ma-drid’s home clash with Valladolid today as coach Carlo Ancelotti opts to take no risks with the Por-

tuguese star’s � tness.Ronaldo missed Wednesday’s 4-1

Champions League win against Galatasa-ray at the Santiago Bernabeu with a ham-string problem and, while he has now returned to training, Ancelotti believes now is the ideal time to give him a rest.

“He has had a scan and the muscle has completely recovered but he is not so comfortable. He has not trained much so we don’t want to take any risk because he has two weeks to work and prepare for the next league game,” An-celotti told press ahead of Saturday’s meeting with Valladolid.

Ronaldo, considered the favourite to win this year’s Ballon d’Or, is suspended for the Copa del Rey tie against third-tier side Olimpic de Xativa next weekend and is unlikely to feature against FC Co-

penhagen in Madrid’s � nal Champions League Group B game on December 10 with the Spaniards already having won the section. He is therefore not set to re-turn until the trip to Osasuna scheduled for December 14.

Angel Di Maria is again set to start on the left of the Madrid attack on Saturday as Ancelotti’s side look to provisionally

close the gap on leaders Barcelona to three points before the Catalans visit Athletic Bilbao on Sunday.

Meanwhile, Ancelotti believes that Gareth Bale has now integrated fully into the Madrid side. The Welshman has scored � ve goals in six games since struggling in the 2-1 defeat to Barcelona at the end of October, that run including a magni� cent free-kick against Galatasa-ray on Wednesday. l

Brazil arena to be used in World Cup despite deathsn AFP, Sao Paulo

A Brazilian stadium will not be re-moved from the World Cup roster de-spite a deadly construction accident but its completion will be delayed, of-� cials said Thursday.

The Arena Corinthians in Sao Paulo is slated to host the opener of the football extravaganza in June. On Wednesday, two workers were killed there when a crane collapsed and crushed them.

“Accidents occur. I very much de-plore the deaths, but I am absolutely convinced that the Cup will open” in Sao Paulo on June 12, said Jose Maria Marin, president of the Brazilian Foot-ball Confederation (CBF) and the Cup’s Local Organizing Committee (COL).

Ricardo Trade, COL’s director gen-eral, echoed those remarks, telling the daily Estado de Sao Paulo that the Are-na Corinthians “will not be excluded from the Cup.”

One of 12 Brazilian host venues for the football extravaganza, the stadi-um is also expected to host � ve other games, including a semi-� nal. l

Galliani to quit as Milan chief executive: ANSAn Reuters

AC Milan chief executive Adriano Galliani is to quit after 27 years at the club, he told the ANSA news agency yesterday.

“I’m leaving with or without a (sev-erance) agreement,” he was quoted as saying. “I have su� ered serious per-sonal damage, that’s not the way to carry out a restructuring; you should do it with elegance.

“I’m resigning for just cause,” Gal-liani said, adding he would leave after the Champions League match at home to Ajax Amsterdam on Dec. 11.

Milan are 13th in Serie A after a mis-erable start to the season.

Barbara Berlusconi, the daughter of club president Silvio Berlusconi, re-cently said Milan needed a new philos-ophy although she denied calling for a change of chief executive. l

No bonus for German players before WC last 8n Reuters, Berlin

German players will get a bonus at next year’s World Cup in Brazil only if they reach the quarter-� nals, with the coun-try’s football association (DFB) willing to pay out 300,000 euros ($408,000) each if they lift the trophy.

Players and the DFB agreed yesterday on what they said was a success-related bonus structure, the same as they had for last year’s European championship in Poland and Ukraine, where they reached the last four.

“The players are again committing with this success-dependent regula-tion to our performance principle,” DFB chief Wolfgang Niersbach said.

Each player will get 50,000 euros if Germany reach the last eight, 100,000 euros for a semi-� nal spot and 150,000 for losing in the � nal.

Three-time World Cup winners Ger-many have not lifted a major trophy since Euro 96 and by the time of the Brazil tournament will have equalled their longest post-war stretch without a trophy from 1954 to 1972. Germany have reached the semi-� nals or better in their last four consecutive major tour-naments but have failed to win a title. l

Spurs win to ease pressure on Villas-Boasn AFP, Paris

Tottenham Hotspur won 2-0 against Tromso in the bitter chill of Norway on Thursday to seal � rst place in Europa League Group K and ease a little of the pres-

sure on manager Andre Villas-Boas.Reports in England in recent days

suggest that the Portuguese is hang-ing on to his job after last Sunday’s 6-0 hammering by Manchester City in the Premier League, and another substan-dard performance on the trip north of the Arctic Circle would have done him few favours, even if Spurs were already through to the last 32 before this game.

Michael Dawson and Roberto Sol-dado were the only two players to keep their place in the team from the Man-

chester City debacle, and the much-changed Spurs side had to wait until the second half before � nally breaking down a team who were recently relegat-ed to the Norwegian second tier.

The opener on the arti� cial pitch at the Al� eim Stadion did not come until the 63rd minute, when Adnan Causevic turned the ball into his own net under pressure from Vlad Chiriches, and the London club doubled their advantage when Gyl� Sigurdsson set up Mousa Dembele to � re home from 12 yards with 14 minutes remaining. Dembele struck the post soon after but the 2-0 scoreline was enough to maintain Tottenham’s perfect record in Group K and boost con� dence ahead of Sunday’s Premier League clash with Manchester United.

“It was important for us to get back to winning ways. We said that before the

game when we were back in London,” said Villas-Boas.

“We knew about the conditions and the arti� cial pitch and the players did well to get a result which puts us back on our toes, ready for Man Utd.”

Meanwhile, Swansea City were un-able to get the point that would have clinched their quali� cation from Group A as they lost 1-0 at home to already-quali� ed Valencia, Dani Parejo scoring the only goal of the game in the � rst half.

However, Swansea were left to rue an erroneous decision by the o� cials to disallow an Alvaro Vazquez e� ort before the break that would have brought the Welsh side back level.

“I’ve seen the disallowed goal and it was at least one yard onside so that was a pity,” Swansea manager Michael Lau-drup told ITV after the game.

“With a little more we could have got that point, at least, that would have got us through. Now we have to maybe get that point in the last game in Swit-zerland (against St Gallen),” added Lau-drup, who lost Wilfried Bony to a ham-string injury which could rule the striker our for several weeks. Kuban Krasnodar beat St Gallen 4-0 earlier in the day, with the Paraguayan Lorenzo Melgarejo scor-ing twice, and the Russians could yet overhaul Swansea on the � nal day.

There was agony for England’s other representative Wigan Athletic, who saw their chances of quali� cation taken out of their hands in a 2-1 home loss to Bel-gium’s Zulte Waregem in Group D.

However, a total of 18 clubs have now quali� ed for the last 32, including Ein-tracht Frankurt, who secured top spot in Group F with a 1-0 victory at Bordeaux.

French side Olympique Lyonnais, who have endured a di� cult start to the season, are through after record-ing a narrow 1-0 win at home to Span-ish top-� ight strugglers Real Betis with Bafetimbi Gomis coming o� the bench to score the only goal of the Group I game in the second half at the Stade de Gerland.

Despite the defeat, Betis are also through, their superior head-to-head record against Vitoria Guimaraes - who drew 0-0 with Rijeka in Croatia - guaran-teeing them at least second spot.

And Betis’s local rivals Sevilla are certain to progress from Group H de-spite only managing a 1-1 home draw with Estoril in Spain. Rubin Kazan of Russia, Genk of Belgium, Lazio, Anzhi Makhachkala, PAOK and AZ Alkmaar also secured their berths in the knock-out stages on Thursday. l

Mertesacker backs Ozil to inspire leaders Arsenaln AFP, London

Arsenal defender Per Mertesacker has warned his side’s Premier League title rivals the

best is still to come from star mid� elder Mesut Ozil.

Arsene Wenger’s side head to Cardi� on Saturday looking to extend their lead at the top of the table before the rest of the title challengers play on Sunday.

A win would move the Gunners sev-en points clear of second placed Liver-pool, who face Hull 24 hours later, and Mertesacker is con� dent they will do just that if Ozil is at his best in Arsenal’s � rst league � xture at Cardi� since 1961.

After a brilliant start to life in Eng-land following his club record £42 mil-lion move from Real Madrid on transfer deadline day, Ozil has produced a few under-whelming displays of late.

He missed a penalty in Tuesday’s Champions League win over Marseille, but rebounded to provide an assist for

Jack Wilshere to score Arsenal’s second goal and Mertesacker believes Ozil will quickly silence any critics.

“Mesut has made good progress,” Mertesacker said. “He was always a threat against Marseille and he nev-

er gave up after the penalty that he missed.

“We are delighted with him, espe-cially in the transition from defence to o� ence, when he is always a threat.

“He can play the balls, he is the one who always goes deep all of the time. He is in good form and I think we will see more.

“Sometimes he looks like his head is going down, but we said at half-time

that we do not care about the missed penalty. We just go on and that is what he did.”

On Sunday, Liverpool will look to keep pace with Arsenal when they visit the KC Stadium and Reds mid� elder Jordan Henderson knows his team are under pressure to take advantage of a relatively easy run of � xtures.

Third placed Chelsea, behind Liv-erpool on goals scored, host South-ampton, with Spanish defender Cesar Azpilicueta admitting Jose Mourinho’s team need to bounce back from a lack-lustre display in their midweek loss at Basel in the Champions League.

Free-scoring Manchester City will look to continue their goal spree when they meet Swansea at Eastlands.

Also on Sunday, champions Man-chester United will travel to Tottenham for a clash between two teams who have under-achieved so far this season.

Meanwhile, Crystal Palace’s new manager Tony Pulis starts his reign with a crucial trip to fellow strugglers Norwich. l

Zulte-Waregem players celebrate beating Wigan Athletic 2-1 following their Europa League match at The DW Stadium, Wigan, England on Thursday AP

Giggs reaches 40 and still going strongn Reuters, London

Ryan Giggs was the � rst graduate of the so-called ‘Class of ‘92’ to make his mark at Manchester United and on the day he turns 40, he is preparing for the weekend the same way he has for most of his life.

The mercurial Welshman has out-lasted David Beckham, Paul Scholes, Nicky Butt and Gary and Phil Neville, who came o� the same United academy conveyor belt, and it is not beyond cred-ibility that he could rack up 1,000 games for the club.

United’s record appearance maker was one of the side’s best players in the 5-0 Champions League hammering of Bayer Leverkusen on Wednesday, his 953rd match for the club, and he will be in the squad for Sunday’s trip to Totten-ham Hotspur.

With 13 Premier league titles, four FA Cups, two Champions Leagues, four League Cups and, surprisingly only one PFA Player of the Year award, Giggs has achieved everything possible in his club

career, but still appears hungry for more.“I’m lucky that I have been at one

club, where I am surrounded by good players and a good manager,” Giggs said in an interview with the BBC that will be screened on Saturday.

“I still want to do well in every game, want to win trophies and my focus needs to be on that. I look after myself and try to train every day in order to make myself available for selection.

“I enjoy it as much as I can and, of

course, try to contribute to the team. I don’t know what the younger lads think of me. When I was 17 and 18, I thought 31 was ancient. And here I am at 40!”

Giggs was magni� cent against Leverkusen and team mate Wayne Rooney could not praise him highly enough.

“Their centre half was asking how is he still playing at that age,” Rooney said.

“His composure on the ball is fantas-tic. Ryan has done it for years and I’ve run out of things to say about him.

“I don’t know how he is still doing it.”Beckham, 38, who has been busy

promoting the ‘Class of ‘92’ � lm that will be hitting the big screen in December and will chronicle the rise of United’s golden generation, said Giggs “makes him feel old”.

“I’m not surprised he’s still playing because of the talent he is and how driven he still is and how he’s looked after himself over the years really is incredible,” Beckham, who ended his career last season, said in an interview on the BBC. l

RESULTSKrasnodar (RUS) 4-0 St Gallen (SUI)Melgarejo 3, 71, Ignatyev 54, Kaboré 90

Swansea (ENG) 0-1 Valencia (ESP) Parejo 20

Odessa (UKR) 2-1 Zagreb (CRO)Antonov 78, Beciraj 20Didenko 90+1

Razgrad (BUL) 2-0 PSV (NED)Bezjak 38, 79

Elfsborg (SWE) 0-1 Salzburg (AUT) Mellinger 39

Esbjerg (DEN) 2-1 Standard (BEL)Van Buren 18, 79 De Camargo 53

Rubin Kazan (RUS) 1-1 Maribor (SLO)Natcho 43 Mezga 86

Wigan (ENG) 1-2 Zulte (BEL)Barnett 7 Hazard 37, Malanda 88

Pacos (POR) 0-0 Fiorentina (ITA)

Dnipro (UKR) 4-1 Pandurii (ROM)Kalinic 12, Zozulya 56, Eric Pereira pen-70Shakhov 86, Kravchenko 89

Bordeaux (FRA) 0-1 Frankfurt (GER) Lanig 83

APOEL (CYP) 0-0 Maccabi (ISR)

Genk (BEL) 3-1 Kiev (UKR)Vossen pen-17, Yarmolenko 9Kumordzi 37, De Ceulaer 40

Rapid (AUT) 2-1 FC Thun (SUI)Boyd 17, Boskovic 64 Sadik 62

Liberec (CZE) 1-2 Freiburg (GER)Rybalka 81 Ginter 23, Coquelin 73

Sevilla (ESP) 1-1 Estoril (POR)Gameiro 7 Ruben Fernandes 90

Lyonnais (FRA) 1-0 Real Betis (ESP)Gomis 66

Rijeka (CRO) 0-0 Guimaraes (POR)

Trabzonspor (TUR) 4-2 Limassol (CYP)Olcan Adin 23, 61, 83, Abraham 68, Soner Aydogdu 25 Sangoy pen-80

Warsaw (POL) 0-2 Lazio (ITA) Perea 24, Felipe Anderson 57

Anzhi (RUS) 1-1 Tiraspol (MDA)Epureanu 58 Isa 53

Tromso (NOR) 0-2 Tottenham (ENG) Causevic og-63, Dembele 76

AZ Alkmaar (NED) 2-0 Haifa (ISR)Gudelj 37, Gudmundsson 90+5

Karagandy (KAZ) 0-2 PAOK (GRE) Dzidic og-54, Kitsiou 90+2

15SportDHAKA TRIBUNE Saturday, November 30, 2013

Siddikur impresses in second roundSiddikur Rahman came back in the Indo-nesia Open in style to � nish the second day in joint 13th position as the Ban-gladesh golfer posted a four-under-par score in his 16 holes before the round was halted due to lightning threats at the Pantai Indah Kapuk course yester-day. The 29-year-old, who was placed 43rd after some indi� erent play in open-ing round on Thursday, started the day with a birdie and then carded four more along with a bogey at the US$750,000 Asian Tour event. Meanwhile, overnight leader Gaganjeet Bhullar of India played through 16 holes on -10 while playing partner Jazz Janewattananond of Thai-land, was on -9 with two more holes to play. They will return at 6.15am today to complete the second round, along with 52 other players. Play was abandoned at 3.46pm local time due to lightning threats.

–Tribune Desk

Wasim Akram to get award on diabetes � ghtPopular Pakistan paceman Wasim Akram Thursday said he will receive the � rst-ever young leader’s award in sports for his � ght against diabetes in a congress in Melbourne. The 47-year-old, renowned for his left-arm pace bowling, has been � ghting against the disease since 1997. “I have fought against diabetes because of my discipline and hard work and the young leader’s award will be a just reward for my discipline,” Wasim told AFP. Wasim will get the award during the World Diabetes Congress to be held in Mel-bourne, Australia from December 2-6. The International Diabetic Foundation will be organising the congress. Wasim, who took 414 Tests and 502 one-day wickets, will also deliver lecture to help create awareness on diabetes. According to the World Health Organisation state-ment of 2011 around 12.9 million people have been diagnosed with diabetes in Pakistan. Wasim said he will also give coaching on how to deal with the disease.

–AFP

Bayern captain Lahm out for two weeks with thigh injuryBayern Munich captain Philipp Lahm has been ruled out for around two weeks after picking up a thigh muscle injury in their 3-1 Champions League win at CSKA Moscow on Wednesday. Lahm, 30, underwent checks upon the team’s return to Munich on Thursday and will miss their next two league games. “He will miss the upcoming games against Eintracht Braunschweig (on Saturday) and Augsburg,” the club said in a state-ment. Bayern, four points clear at the top of the Bundesliga, are already miss-ing several key players through injury, including Bastian Schweinsteiger, Franck Ribery, Claudio Pizarro and Xherdan Shaqiri, as well as long-term absentee Holger Badstuber.

–Reuters

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DAY’S WATCH

MOST RUNSPlayer Mat Inns NO Runs HS Ave SR 100 50 Ravi Bopara (Prime Bank) 10 10 1 670 157* 74.44 93.31 2 4 Imrul Kayes (Gazi Tank) 16 16 1 655 104* 43.66 73.02 1 4 Mush� qur Rahim (Sk Jamal) 12 12 3 628 145* 69.77 103.63 1 3 Saikat Ali (Prime Bank) 16 16 2 579 103* 41.35 78.99 1 5 Masakadza (Kalabagan CA) 12 12 2 559 125 55.90 108.12 1 4

MOST WICKETSPlayer Mat Mdns Runs Wkts BBI Ave Econ SR 4 5Arafat Sunny (Gazi Tank) 16 19 555 29 4/13 19.13 3.72 30.8 1 0Farhad Reza (Prime Doleshwar) 15 10 570 29 5/51 19.65 4.99 23.6 0 1Enamul Haque jnr (Prime Bank) 16 16 618 28 4/43 22.07 4.12 32.1 1 0Rubel Hossain (Gazi Tank) 10 10 364 25 6/18 14.56 4.35 20.0 1 2Taijul Islam (Prime Doleshwar) 15 7 632 22 6/19 28.72 4.56 37.7 0 1

Mahmudullah credits all-round e� ort for titlen Mazhar Uddin

Gazi Tank won their � rst ever Dhaka Pre-mier League (DPL) ti-tle and their skipper, vice captain of the

national team Mahmudullah praised his players and said it was totally a team e� ort that allowed them to clinch the championship.

“It was a total team e� ort because in the middle, I went away for national duty and Imrul took over and won a number of important matches, so it was good,” said Mahmudullah.

Gazi Tank looked a compact side right from the start of the league. They had a number of stand-out performers and left arm spinner Arafat Sunny’s 29 wickets is the most in the league while Imrul Kayes’ 655 runs is the second most for the season.

“We took it match by match, we planned every match individually. Overall, and there were lots of per-formers. Imrul, Rakibul, Morgan, Ten-do all of them performed a lot,” said the proud captain.

Mahmudullah went on to praise Doleshwar and said that they played good cricket in the tournament. Tak-ing early wickets, he felt, was the key to winning the � nal match, “As a

team, Prime Doleshwar played very well, they beat us in the � rst round. I thought if we could take early wickets today, we could win the match and it felt really good.”

Mahmudullah has previously won two Dhaka league championships with Abahani and this is the third time the 27-year old achieved the feat.

Meanwhile, English cricketer Eion Morgan, who failed to impress in the � rst four matches in which he scored 0, 26, 33 and 11, played a match winning knock of 84 in the crucial encounter yesterday. The foreign recruit cred-

ited a positive mental attitude for his performance. “I haven’t made a lot of changes, I think I have just been a bit more positive and my mindset has been particularly good. In the last few matches, I was a bit unlucky but today was a very important match and we managed to cross the line. You try as hard as you can and today was a very good day.

“Batting is a very funny game. You have a lot of downs, very few ups and today was an up which I am very grate-ful for. It’s all good news today. So I am happy,” he said. l

Beximco, Anowara Group reach Corporate T20 � nal n Raihan Mahmood

Beximco Pharma and Anowara Group cruised into the � -

nal of the Marcel 3rd T20 Corporate Cricket beating DBL Group and defend-ing champions Walton at the Dhaka Residential Model School and College ground yesterday.

Beximco Pharma, bowling � rst, bundled DBL Group  out for 75 in 19.5 overs with Noor and Bashar taking three wickets each for nine and 23 runs respectively. Shariar of DBL top-scored with 16. Beximco Pharma scored 76/3 in 13.4 overs to win the match. Tinku scored 25 while Abul Bashar of Bex-imco Pharma was named man-of-the-match for his 14 runs and 3 wicket haul.

Anowara Group defeated Walton by � ve runs in a � ercely contested semi-� nal. Anowara Group scored 111 all out in 19.4 overs with Taposh Shah scoring 39 runs in 41 balls while Rahat of Wal-ton took 4/7to go along with Johirul’s 4/28.  Later, Anowara bowled Walton out for 106 in 19 overs.  Rahat made17 while Taposh Shah grabbed 3 wickets for 29 runs and Sharif took 3 wickets for 20. Taposh Shah was named man-of-the-match. l

Gazi Tank skipper Mahmudullah (R) were ecstatic after securing their maiden Dhaka Premier League title at SBNS yesterday MUMIT M

Ballance adds weight to Test chance with 55n AFP, Alice Springs

Gary Ballance boosted his chances of playing in next week’s second Ashes Test with a half-century while others failed on a sweltering � rst day for Eng-land in their tour match on Friday.

The Yorkshire left-hander, promot-ed to number three, scored 55 o� 134 balls as the tourists could only muster 212 for seven before declaring against the Cricket Australia Chairman’s XI in Alice Springs.

It was Ballance, bidding with Jonny Bairstow and Ben Stokes to replace Jonathan Trott in the second Adelaide Test, who compiled his maiden half-century for England to hold the innings together.

Stokes and Bairstow chipped in with 28 and an unbeaten 31 respectively on a day of sapping heat when the batsmen struggled to convert starts.

England are looking for a new bats-man following the shock departure of number three Trott from the rest of the Ashes series with a stress-related illness.

“I’d like to think so. To be able to get a 50 today ... I’ve given myself a bit of con� dence so if I do get picked I think I’ll be ready,” Ballance said of his Test chances.

Local openers Marcus Harris (10) and Steve Cazzulino further frustrated England’s e� orts at a quick couple of wickets after their innings declaration by reaching stumps at 16 without loss heading into Saturday’s � nal day. l

Kambli su� ers heart attackn AFP, New Delhi

Former India batsman Vinod Kam-bli, once considered as talented as his school friend Sachin Tendulkar, was admitted to a Mumbai hospital Friday with a suspected heart attack, media reports said.

Kambli, 41, had undergone angio-plasty on two blocked arteries last year and appeared to su� er a heart attack on Friday morning, NDTV news channel and Redi� website said.

There was no immediate comment from the hospital.

Kambli shot to fame in 1988 when he shared a then world record 664-run partnership with Tendulkar in an inter-school match in Mumbai, with both batsmen making unbeaten triple centuries.

Kambli played the last of his 17 Tests in 1995 before he had turned 24, � nishing with 1,084 runs at an average of 54.20. He also scored 2,477 runs in 104 one-day in-ternationals with two centuries. l

Lehmann wants more Aussie aggression in Ashesn AFP, Sydney

Coach Darren Lehmann said Friday there will be no let-up as Australia continues its aggressive in-your-face cricket against England in the current Ashes Test series.

Amid the rancour over a spiteful opening Test in Brisbane which Aus-tralia won by 381 runs last weekend, Lehmann said he wants to take Aus-tralian cricket back to the golden eras of Dennis Lillee and Je� Thomson, the Chappells and Steve Waugh.

Lehmann said the playing days of strong-willed Australian characters, Merv Hughes, Rod Marsh and Allan Border were de� ned by a good hard brand of cricket.

“We want to play within the rules but we will play aggressive, in-your-face cricket which was a trademark of those eras,” Lehmann said, writing in News Limited newspapers.

“When Australian teams are per-forming at their best they are playing right on the edge as we were in Bris-bane. That is the Aussie way.”

Australia captain Michael Clarke was � ned 20 percent of his match fee

by the International Cricket Council af-ter warning England’s James Anderson to expect a broken arm.

The � nal day of the � rst Test boiled over with constant “sledging” (insults) and plenty of � nger pointing.

Lehmann gave no indication that his Australia team would be backing o� from their � ercely-fought cricket at the Gabba, where � rebrand pace-man Mitchell Johnson was man-of-the-match with match � gures of nine wickets for 103.

“I loved the whole theatre around Mitchell Johnson’s display at the Gab-ba right down to the fact that his new moustache brought back all those rich memories of the 1970s with the stars and their handlebar mo’s (moustach-es),” Lehmann wrote.

“I like the sight of characters ex-pressing themselves in the game. That’s the sort of cricket the fans want to see.

“We have asked Mitchell to � ll a role and he did that brilliantly with aggres-sion and con� dence. We want him to liven them (England) up.

“When he is on song as he was in Brisbane he produces the type of per-

formances that are a rare and precious sight in the modern game.

“My wish is that the lessons of Johnson’s spell -- and the entire bowl-ing e� ort -- echo down through the generations.”

Lehmann said Johnson’s blistering spell at the Gabba reminded him of Australian cricket in the Lillee-Thom-son era of the 1970s.

Lehmann said it had been a dramat-ic week for cricket and he wanted to send his best wishes to Jonathan Trott following his decision to return home with a stress-related illness.

“He is a � ne player and I’m sure we will see him again at international lev-el,” he said.

Lehmann said he urged the Aus-tralian fans in next week’s second Ad-elaide Test to replicate the crowd force of Brisbane.

“The noise in Brisbane when John-son and Nathan Lyon were spearing through England’s � rst innings was something to behold,” he said.

“It is a long time since we have felt the sort of vibe that the whole country was behind us. “Thank you, Australia. Please keep it up.” l

Tomic gets wildcard to defend Sydney titlen AFP, Sydney

Australia’s Bernard Tomic has fallen back on a wildcard entry to make the rankings cut-o� and defend his only ATP Tour title in Sydney in January.

Tomic’s 51 ranking fell just outside the cut-o� point of 49 for the men’s � eld at the Sydney Int'l from January 5-11.

But organisers said they issued Tomic their � rst wildcard this week, ensuring the 21-year-old can attempt to repeat his tournament victory from early this year.

Tomic will have his work cut out against a � eld headed by world number � ve Del Potro, Wimbledon semi-� nal-ist Jerzy Janowicz, world No.13 Nicolas Almagro, No.16 Fabio Fognini and for-mer champions Jarkko Nieminen and Dmitry Tursunov. l

Warner’s Trott comments ‘out of order’: Waughn AFP, Sydney

Former Australia Test captain Steve Waugh says cricketer David Warner’s comments about England batsman Jon-athan Trott were “out of order” and had crossed the line.

Trott made a shock departure from the Ashes tour earlier this week after the England Cricket Board revealed that he was su� ering from a stress-related ill-ness. Australia’s Warner has attracted criticism for comments he made during the � rst Brisbane Test in which he de-scribed Trott as “poor and weak”.

Waugh, who was regarded as a hard-bitten and competitive Test captain, was critical of Warner’s comments.

“I think Dave Warner’s comments were out of order. I don’t believe you should comment on someone else personally on the opposition,” Waugh said on the Sydney Cricket and Sports Ground Trust website.

“He can make a generic comment, but I think when you get personal like that, you cross the line on how players treat each other, and the respect they should have. So I didn’t agree with Dave’s com-ments, having said that, he probably did smell a bit of fear in the England opposi-tion players. l

Brazil back in top 10 ahead of drawn Reuters, Zurich

Brazil clawed their way back into the top 10 when FIFA published the Novem-ber rankings on Thursday ahead of next week’s World Cup draw.

Brazil, who slumped to an all-time low of 22nd in June, went back into the top 10 after winning the Confederations Cup in July. Brazil then slipped to 11th last month but friendly wins over Hon-duras and Chile have taken them to 10th.

Soccer’s ruling body FIFA is using Oc-tober’s rankings as then primary yard-stick for next week’s draw so Brazil’s ups and downs will have no impact on their status among the top seeds for the World

Cup. World champions Spain maintained the number one spot they have held

since July 2008 followed by Germany, Argentina and Colombia.

World champions Spain maintained the number one spot they have held since July 2008 followed by Germany, Argentina and Colombia.

Thanks to their two wins over Swe-den in the World Cup playo� s, Portugal have also climbed back into the top 10.

All the nations in the top 20, except for Ukraine, have booked their tickets to Brazil next year.

The leading eight seeded teams for the draw are Brazil, Spain, Argentina, Germany, Colombia, Belgium, South American champions Uruguay and Switzerland. l

England's batsman Gary Ballance executes a shot during a two-day match against Australia's Chairman's XI at Traeger Park in Alice Springs yesterday AFP

Spain (1) 1 Germany (2) 2Argentina (3) 3Colombia (4) 4Portugal (14) 5Uruguay (6) 6Italy (8) 7Switzerland (7) 8Netherlands (8) 9Brazil (11) 10

TOP10

A mother in distress at the loss of her son, who was killed in an arson attack on a passenger bus in the capital on Thursday. Robin, the son, succumbed to his injuries yesterday evening at the DMCH burn unit RAJIB DHAR

16 Back PageDHAKA TRIBUNE Saturday, November 30, 2013

No option left for school authorities163,009 absent in PSC’s science examn Mushfi que Wadud and

FM Mizanur Rahaman

The series of anti-government move-ments by the opposition are taking a heavy toll on academic activities and examinations, with repeated shut-downs and blockades placing school authorities in a dilemma.

Head teachers are expressing con-cerns about how to � nish their academ-ic session by December 7, an obligation that every school has to meet.

“This is an awkward situation for all of us,” said Abu Sayeed Bhuiyan, head of Government Laboratory High School.

He said they found no other way but to conduct examinations during the last blockade programmes, but now the fear of insecurity has seized students and guardians.

“One of our students narrowly es-caped a crude bomb attack the other day when coming to take test in the school while some guardians also got away from blast targeting vehicles they were riding during the blockades,” said the headmaster.

He said: “It seems that no option is

left for us. We cannot conduct exams in hartals and blockades for security rea-sons, but we have to � nish exams by December 7.”

Like Abu Sayeed, most school head-masters are struggling to complete their annual examinations because of political violence.

Most city schools remained open yes-terday even though it was a weekend. From the morning, guardians were seen taking their kids to schools like a regular school day.

Zubayer Ahmed was seen in Dhan-mondi 32 area taking his son to Master-mind school. He said: “Nowadays, the weekends have turned very busy for us as schools remain open.

A parent, Nasreen Sultana, told the Dhaka Tribune she did not send her son to take exams during the blockade

fearing insecurity and now her son was facing problems to retake the examina-tions in the Government Laboratory School.

Most Bangla-medium schools re-mained open yesterday for holding make-up classes.

Manju Ara Begum, principal of Viqa-runnisa Noon School and College, said their college students took two exam-inations yesterday as exams could not be held over the last couple of days be-cause of blockade.

“We are yet to start school annu-al exams as my school is a centre forPrimary School Certi� cate exams. I don’t know how I will complete ex-ams,” She said.

The primary school certi� cate ex-aminees took their rescheduled sci-ence examination yesterday.

163,009 of them were absent on the day of science examination.

Directorate of Primary Education o� cials blamed volatile politics for the absence of students.

Director General Shyamal Kanti Ghosh of DPE also attributed the strik-ing absence to the ongoing political vi-olence.

In Chittagong, school and college authorities arranged annual examina-tions on the weekend yesterday.

Primary School Certi� cate exams were also held yesterday in di� erent centres peacefully.

Anwara Begum, principal of Bangla-desh Women Association Girls’ High School and College, told the Dhaka Tri-bune both students and teachers faced problem to sit and hold tests respec-tively beyond the academic calendar.

Sultana Khanum, a mother of 12-year-old Nawrin, who sat the PSC exam in Bangladesh Navy School and College, said her daughter faced di� -culties in paying attention to her study because of uncertainty caused by the change to exam schedules.

Prof Iftekhar Uddin Chowdury, pro-vice-chancellor of Chittagong Uni-versity, said the leaders had no right to play down the importance of the stu-dents’ career.

“Earlier O level examinations were suspended by the British Council and now the PSC, JSC and annual exams are being hindered because of the hartals and blockades which are no longer ex-pected,” he added. l

Blockade a� ecting textbook distributionn Mushfi que Wadud

Uncertainty is looming large over the education sector with the ongoing po-litical unrest hampering the distribu-tion of textbooks and eating into the study time of students.

National Curriculum and Textbook Board o� cials said they had not been able to distribute any textbooks during the 71-hour blockade programme of the opposition. They fear that if things con-tinue this way students might not get their books in time for the � rst day of the new academic year.

The opposition observed a 71-hour block-ade programme starting from Tuesday to demand the cancellation of the 10th par-liamentary election schedule.

“At present, we are only dependent on Friday and Saturday to send text-books to upazila levels. If shutdowns or blockades are observed on the week-ends it will be di� cult to distribute text-books on the � rst day of new academic year,” said an o� cial of the NCTB.

O� cials said according to the pre-vious plan, textbooks should reach upazila level by November 25 but all textbooks could not be distributed, ac-cording to the data collected yesterday.

Bangladesh Mudron Shilpa Sami-ty, a platform of printers, has recently written to the NCTB asking it to extend the time until December 31 for the book distribution.

O� cials said after textbooks are reached to the upazila level some more times are needed to send the textbooks to the schools as many schools are lo-cated in the rural areas.

There are 19,070 secondary schools and 89,712 primary level educational institutes in the country. Of the sec-ondary level schools, 526 are located in hilly areas, 528 in coastal areas, 714 in haor areas and 1,344 in river basins.

AFM Shah Alam, general secretary of Bangladesh Mudron Shilpa Samity, said they were also facing di� culties in send-ing textbooks on the weekends as trans-port owners were demanding high fare.

“Transport owners are demanding four times higher fare than usual and sometimes we are not getting transport to send textbooks,” he said.

When contacted, NCTB Chairman Sha� qur Rahman told the Dhaka Tri-bune that printing press had already informed him that they were facing dif-� culties in sending textbooks.

“Almost all textbooks have already been printed but cannot be distributed to upazila level for blockade,” he said.

Sha� qur, however, hoped that stu-dents would get textbooks on time.

“We have some emergency plans and I hope students will get textbooks on the � rst day of new academic year,” he asserted. l

Another arson victim dies, two in critical conditionn Mohammad Jamil Khan

“Bring my son back; where is my son? What have you all done to him?”

The anguished cry of a mother, whose son was burnt to death by block-aders, was blowing in the wind in the hospital corridor.

Her son, Mohammad Rabin, 25, had received burn injuries on Thursday as miscreants torched the bus he was on in Shahbagh. He succumbed to his inju-ries around 3:40pm yesterday evening at the burn unit of Dhaka Medical Col-lege Hospital.

Rabin, 25, son of Abdus Salam, worked in a sweater factory. Partha Shankar Pal, a residential surgeon of the burn unit, told the Dhaka Tribune that 59% of his body was burnt.

Rabin was shifted to ICU soon after the incident as his respiratory system was a� ected from the � re. Hailing from Shibchar of Madaripur, his pregnant wife Maria Akter Ma� lives with his mother Aklima Begum in his native village.

Aklima was walling at the burn unit gate. She said Rabin came with his cousin Nahid to Dhaka on Thursday af-ter visiting his pregnant wife as Nahid insisted on buying some winter clothes.

Nahid, a student of Class IX of Ku-tubpur High School, was also among the 19 burns victims. He died � rst at the hospital.

“What would I say to his pregnant wife who is waiting for the return of her husband?” said Aklima.

Abdus Salam, father of the victim, said they would � le a case to ensure punishment of the perpetrators.

Of the 19 burn victims, 16 patients are undergoing treatment at the DMCH. Two of them died while the family of advocate Khodeza Nasrin, 45, who suf-

fered 21% burn injury, shifted her to Mohammadpur Modern Clinic for bet-ter treatment.

Of the 16 patients, Jahangir Hossain, 45, accountant of Goshairhat Upazila, who su� ered 15% injury is undergo-ing treatment at ICU as his respiratory system was a� ected while Mohammad Nurunnabi, 55, Assistant sub-Inspector (AB-5771) is also undergoing treatment at ICU with 10% burn injuries. His re-spiratory system was also a� ected.

Partha Shankar Pal, attending doc-tor of the unit said if patients’ respira-tory systems are a� ected then it is an abnormal case.

Meanwhile, Mohammad Dulu Mia, 32, a police nayek who received a splin-ter injury in a crude bomb attack at Joy-purhat Bata intersection last Monday, is still lying unconscious even after four days of multiple operations.

The on-duty doctors of ICU of DMCH said his left eye was totally damaged and he is still unconscious as some splinters dug deeper into his head, af-fecting his brain.

On Friday evening, Dulu’s wife Ro-jina Begum was found sitting on the � oor of ICU gate as visitors were not allowed inside the ward. Talking to the Dhaka Tribune she said her daughter Dinat Jahan, seven, a student of Class I, wanted to see her father.

Holding back her tears, Rojina said on the day of the incident he called her at noon asking about the launch and that was her last conversation with her husband.

In the latest 71-hour rail-road-wa-terways blockade programme about 42 people with burn and splinter inju-ries have so far been admitted to the DMCH. Of them, four people have died while undergoing treatment. l

Tk15 drug bought for Tk700!n Moniruzzaman Uzzal

The Central Medical Stores Depot (CMSD) has procured a drug at Tk700 apiece for DMCH’s new Bone Marrow Transplant unit - a staggering 4,661% more than the Tk14.70 paid by the DMCH only just a few months ago.

The Dhaka Tribune has learnt that the CMSD sourced the heavily over-priced drug, along with many others, from a local contractor who is backed up by an in� uential leader of the rul-ing-party backed doctor’s association.

The DMCH – the biggest public healthcare facility in the country – pro-cures the necessary drugs once at the beginning of every � scal year.

Although the new Bone Marrow Transplant (BMT) unit is part of the DMCH, the CMSD procured and sup-plied the drugs to be needed by the new facility for treating cancer patients.

Sources said the CMSD landed on the procurement deal hastily because the BMT unit had been opened in a hurry.

Meropenem is an antibiotic used commonly in the intensive and coro-nary care units. The CMSD supplied this drug at Tk1,450 per piece to the BMT unit, while the DMCH bought this drug for only Tk380 at the beginning of this � scal year. The overpricing in this case is nearly 382%.

Records show that the DMCH pro-cured Fluconazole tablets for Tk2.70 apiece, but the CMSD supplied the same tablet at Tk60 each to the BMT unit – overpriced by 2,222%.

Other drugs that also saw prices re-

set unreasonably, include Filgrastim, Acyclovir, Vancomycin, Cefepime, and Cycoldhodphamide. All these were part of the 11-drug lot that the CMSD supplied to the BMT unit before it was opened on October 26.

Seeking anonymity, o� cials from a number of pharmaceuticals companies said around Tk3m had been misappro-priated in the Tk7m deal.

The CMSD reportedly � outed its own procurement policies by directly pro-curing the drugs from Harun Enter-prise – a local contractor – instead of going through competitive tendering.

There are allegations that the CMSD wrapped up the unreasonable deal having come under the in� uence of the said doctor leader, who is a supporter of the ruling party.

Seeking anonymity, a CMSD o� -

cial, who was involved with buying the medicine, told the Dhaka Tribune that a letter from the government policymak-ers had directed the CMSD to ensure the supply of drugs at any cost prior to the BMT unit’s inauguration. Since there was no time to � oat tenders, the drugs were bought from a contractor.

Sources said the drugs in question were delivered to the BMT unit in the

second week of October. But because the new unit lacked adequate sta� , the consignment was received at the DMCH store.

The irregularities were � rst discov-ered by the eight-member DMCH sur-vey committee charged with scrutinis-ing the products in store.

Dr Mashiur Rahman, head of the DMCH Medicine Store, admitted that the CMSD had bought the drugs at high

prices. He told the Dhaka Tribune that as a member of the survey committee, he could not overlook the massive ir-regularity.

Prof MA Khan, head of the hema-tology department, said the CMSD had been requested to supply top-quality drugs for the country’s � rst ever BMT facility. He, however, claimed that he had no idea about the excessive prices.

DMCH Director Brigadier General Dr Mosta� zur Rahman said the hospital had nothing to do with the procure-ment process.

Professor Dr Rashid-e-Mahbub, president of Health Rights Movement Bangladesh, told the Dhaka Tribune that the health ministry had hurriedly inaugurated the BMT unit at DMCH. “I guess these drugs were purchased just before of inauguration. So, the contrac-tor charged excess price.”

Dr Akhtaruzzaman, assistant direc-tor (collection) of the CMSD, however denied all allegations of irregularity. “As far as I remember, several types of cancer drugs were bought directly from Beacon Pharma and foreign company Roche, before the bone marrow unit was inaugurated. But those were procured in accordance with the World Bank’s di-rections,” Dr Akhtaruzzaman said.

When asked how the price of a Tk15 Amikacin injection was quoted Tk700, he claimed that since the consignment was a bulk one, the contractor rounded up the amount by � uctuating the prices.

Even if the price was set at Tk700, it had been done following existing rules, Dr Akhtaruzzaman claimed. l

Political unrest hampers Cox’s Bazar tourismn Kayes Sohel, back from

Cox’s Bazar

The number of tourists has plummeted this year in Cox’s Bazar because of the ongoing political turmoil.

Although October-April is consid-ered the peak season, political un-rest have kept tourists away from the world’s longest unbroken beach.

Small traders said the number of vis-itors this season fell sharply, leading to a decline in sales. Many of them are think-ing of switching their profession.

Mominul Islam, 18, who works in a dry � sh store, said: “Before starting working here three months back, I used to work as a photographer on the beach. I used to earn Tk10 per photograph. I delivered the photos in an hour.”

“My daily income was Tk3,000

during peak season; but this year it came down to around Tk200.”

Mohammad Milon, 25, a coral ven-dor is yet to change his mode of earn-ing livelihood. “Proceeds are almost zero. I am planning to close down my business,” he said.

Medium businesses are struggling to recoup their operational costs.

Most of the hotels and motels are also experiencing a shrinkage in the number of tourists checking-in.

Although the peak season had start-ed two months back, the number of customers are below 70% than estima-tions made according to last year.

Khandker Sha� ul Alam, gener-al manager of Ocean Paradise Ho-tel, said: “Most of the hoteliers areworried about giving salary to theiremployees. l

We are yet to start annual exams as my school is a centre for Primary School Certi� cate exams. I do not know how I will complete the exams

Transport owners are demanding four times higher fare than usual and sometimes we are not getting transport to send textbooks

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