Poor facilities scourge for HIV patients n Abid Azad

The dearth of adequate healthcare ser-vices has left AIDS patients in the coun-try helpless as they continue to su� er from the incurable disease.

Besides, discrimination and negli-gence that HIV patients frequently face at public and private hospitals in the country heighten their woes as there is still a social stigma attached to the disease.

The Health Ministry on January 1 this year introduced a free healthcare

service in public hospitals for HIV-pos-itive people, but it has not been much fruitful.

NGO o� cials have blamed the min-istry’s lack of adequate preparation for this. They said the government had installed eight machines to count CD4 cells of AIDS patients at hospitals in Dhaka, Khulna, Rajshahi, Chittagong, Rangpur and Sylhet, but most of those do not function properly.

The CD4 cell counting machine at Chittagong Medical College Hospital has been out of commission for a year,

and the hospital’s Head of Microbiol-ogy Department Dr Khan Mashrequl Alam told the Dhaka Tribune that a lack of maintenance support was the reason behind it.

“We heard that the government would arrange training on how to op-erate and maintain such machines, but that has yet to happen. The machine in our hospital displays an error message and I think there is a software prob-lem,” he said.

“The lack of maintenance sta� forces us to contact o� cials in Dhaka in case of any technical problem,” he added.

Dr Husain Sarwar, line director of National AIDS/STD Programme (NASP), told the Dhaka Tribune that the CD4 machines are not frequently used as the number of HIV patients is low. “But we always try to � x the machines whenever there is any trouble,” he said.

But Halida Khandaker, executive director of Con� dential Approach to AIDS Prevention (CAAP), said the gov-ernment did not disseminate informa-tion about the machine.

“How can the patients go to hospi-tals if they are not aware that such ma-chines exist? There is also the problem of unfriendly attitude of those provid-ing treatment at hospitals. We have yet to see any experienced and competent sta� who can provide healthcare ser-vices for HIV patients,” she said.

PAGE 2 COLUMN 1

ZIA ORPHANAGE TRUST CASE

Defence says court can’t record depositionn Tribune Report

A special Dhaka court yesterday failed to fully record a witness submission in a graft case against BNP chief Khaleda Zia and � ve others amid hullabaloo by defence counsels who said the court did not have the right to do it.

Hearing both sides for several hours, Bashudev Roy from the Dhaka Special

Judge’s Court 3 started recording the deposition of Anti-Corruption Com-mission (ACC) Deputy Director Har-un-or-Rashid, plainti� of the Zia Or-phanage Trust Corruption case.

However, around 4:15pm, minutes after the deposition began, the judge had to leave the court as the defence lawyers started shouting inside the court.

They loudly objected saying the judge did not have the legal right to

record the statement as the High Court had still not settled Khaleda’s petition for transferring the case to another court.

The lawyers also said the defend-ants should therefore be granted more time.

However, ACC’s acting chief prose-cutor Musharraf Hossain Kajal argued that it was fully legal because the HC had not barred recording of deposition either.

On Sunday, Supreme Court’s Ap-pellate Division dismissed a leave-to-appeal petition � led by Khaleda in the Zia Charitable Trust corruption case, clearing the last obstacle to proceed with the case.

On November 23, the apex court dismissed two other leave-to-appeal petitions regarding the acceptance of charges and indictment in the Zia Or-phanage Trust corruption case.

However, the former premier on Sunday � led another petition – this time seeking transfer of the two cases � led against her and others from the Special Judge’s Court 3.

Her lawyers were referring to this PAGE 2 COLUMN 2

Banglawash featuring Taijul hat-trickn Mazhar Uddin

Debutant spinner Taijul Islam’s hat-trick enabled Bangladesh to maintain their clinical and consistent performance before the World Cup as the home side handed Zimbabwe a � ve-wicket defeat in the last ODI to complete the � ve-nil drubbing at the Sher-e-Bangla National Stadium yesterday.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina was present at the home of cricket and add-ed colour to the elated occasion as she handed over the trophies of the Test and ODI series to the respective cap-tains of the format – Mush� qur Rahim and Mashrafe bin Mortaza.

Two months back the current sce-

nario in Mirpur was a hard one to im-agine as Bangladesh, who su� ered plenty of humiliations in the � rst 10 months, bounced back in the best pos-sible manner to retain the faith of the fans by outplaying and handing the vis-itors a “Banglawash” in both the Test and ODI series.

Already 4-0 up, the Tigers tinkered with their playing XI as expected and handed debuts to Taijul and Soumya Sarker as the former made the outing memorable by making history. The left-

arm spinner became the only cricketer to bag a hat-trick on one-day interna-tional debut.

The visitors had no clue whatsoever after opting to bat � rst for the � rst time in the series and was bundled out for a paltry 128 as the host spinners shared nine wickets among them with Taijul leading the pack with 4 for 11.

Chasing the mediocre target, Bang-ladesh were in a spot of bother by the “short-ball” strategy from the visitors that made them lose � ve wickets be-fore reaching 100, but Mahmudullah’s calm 51 from one end ensured there was no upset.

Earlier, Zimbabwe lost Sikandar Raza early before Hamilton Masakadza

(52) and Vusi Sibanda (37) scored over � ve-runs an over to take them to 95 for 1 in 17 overs. However, once leg-spin-ner Jubair Hossain broke the partner-ship by removing the dangerous look-ing Masakadza it was all Taijul’s show.

Taijul, who made his ODI debut af-ter an impressive Test series replac-ing Rubel Hossain, had no idea what he was about to do when he came to bowl at the 11th over of the match. The 22-year-old picked up his � rst one-day wicket in his second spell when he trapped Solomon Mire leg-before. His � rst victim of the hat-trick was Tinashe Panyangara in the last ball of the same over and he returned John Nyumbu

PAGE 2 COLUMN 1

ARE WE MIDDLE INCOME YET?

7 | LONG FORM

TUESDAY, DECEMBER 2, 2014 | www.dhakatribune.com | SECOND EDITION

Agrahayan 18, 1421Safar 8, 1436Regd No DA 6238Vol 2, No 238

15 | EntertainmentKolkata-based vocalist Kaushiki Chakrabarty captivated an audience of 55,000 onSunday night at the Bengal Classical Music Festival.

9 | WorldHong Kong protesters forced temporary clo-sure of government headquarters yesterday after clashing with police, defying orders to retreat in the Chinese-controlled city.

5 | NewsOn the last day of the week-long drive against jaywalking, two mobile courts cracked down on un� t vehicles and those driving on the wrong side of the road in the capital.

2 | NewsThe High Court yesterday dropped a plea from the cause list that sought scraping of the par-liament membership of Jatiya Party Chairman and Prime Minister’s Special Envoy HM Ershad.

3 | NewsA Narayanganj court ordered investigators looking into the 7-murder to submit charge sheet within January 22. Police yesterday produced 24 arrestees including three ex-of-� cials of RAB before the court.

4 | NewsThe High Court yesterday rejected a petition of Mia Nur Uddin Apu, personal secretary to BNP Senior Vice-Chairman Tarique Rahman, which sought cancellation of trial in a bribery case against him.

6 | NationAt least 50,000 farmers of di� erent villages in the district have become self dependent by cultivating winter vegetables in fallow land this season.

20 pages | Price: Tk12

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B1 | BUSINESS

I N S I D E

REALITY VERSUS SOPHISTICATED RHETORIC

11 | OP-ED

BARCA GRAB LAST-GASP WIN AGAINST VALENCIA

14 | SPORT

The national cricket stadium in Mirpur could have easily done without � ood lights yesterday. The remarkable ODI clean sweep against Zimbabwe brings thousand-watt smiles to the faces of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, ODI skipper Mashrafe Mortaza and test leader Mush� qur Rahim MAINOOR ISLAM MANIK

A World Aids Day procession in the capital’s Manik Mia Avenue yesterday tries to make people aware about the use of contraceptives DHAKA TRIBUNE

Killing the goose that lays the golden eggn Aminur Rahman Rasel and

Asif Islam

The government may feel safe about its energy policy and Chevron may make a pro� t, but Bibiyana gas � eld, whose production expansion was inaugurated by the prime minister on November 29, is being pushed to the brink of a disaster.

Bibiyana gas � eld in Habiganj is capable of remaining in service until 2032, but if Chevron’s extraction plans go into full e� ect, the � eld will be ex-hausted by 2024. Chevron data, pre-sented to Petrobangla recently, warns of production declines as early as 2018.

Government’s decision to allow US oil company Chevron to extract 1,200 million cubic feet of gas per day

(mmcfd) from the Bibiyana gas � eld starting in January 2015 follows a cer-tain political and business logic. But experts warn that such a high rate of extraction could kill the gas � eld, or at the least maim it badly.

“It is a combined e� ort to make a signi� cant di� erence to help solve the energy crisis in Bangladesh,” the Prime Minister’s Energy Adviser Taw-� q-e-Elahi Chowdhury said in 2012 when Chevron announced its $500m Bibiyana expansion project.

The government’s desire to parlay the massive rate of gas extraction at Bibiya-na into the generation of power reveals how crucial the sector is in terms of elec-toral politics, and how eagerly the gov-ernment wants to win public con� dence by claiming a success in the sector.

Ministers have also said the extra gas would go to propping up � agging enterprises like the country’s defunct fertiliser factories.

Chevron, meanwhile, will be able to maximally exploit the resources at Bibiyana and turn a handsome pro� t.

But according to the production sharing contract (PSC), a company should not produce more than 7.5% of the proven and probable reserve of gas in a year. As we will show, from Janu-ary 2015 Chevron will be producing at a rate of 10.4%.

Given that the remaining reserve is 4.2 trillion cubic feet (tcf), annual pro-duction should not be more than 315 billion cubic feet (bcf), which trans-lates into a daily production rate of 863 mmcfd. At present, Chevron already is over producing gas to the tune of near-ly 1,000 mmcfd. In January 2015, the company has announced that it will produce 1,200 mmcfd.

That means that Chevron is plan-ning to produce 39% more than it should according to the PSC.

According to the PSC, a gas � eld is considered to have a 25-year lifespan. Since production started in March 2007, Bibiyana gas � eld is expected to be viable until 2032. But Chevron, in a recent presentation to Petrobangla, said production from Bibiyana would start to decline after 2018. Why then is the company be willing to produce gas at a rate that will almost certainly has-ten the gas � eld’s demise?

After all, Chevron, if it extracted the proven reserve at a more leisured pace, would not only make a good return on its investment but would also be able to take advantage of a � ve-year exten-sion built into its contract to prolong its business here.

“If the gas runs out before Chevron’s contract expires or if over extraction

PAGE 2 COLUMN 1

PM: Take action against foreigners staying illegallyn Tribune Report

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has di-rected the authorities concerned to make a list of the foreign nationals il-legally staying in the country and take legal action against them.

The premier gave the directive to the ministries and divisions concerned at a cabinet meeting yesterday, a cab-inet member told the Dhaka Tribune, requesting anonymity.

The issue of the illegal foreign na-tionals was brought up at the meet-ing when Commerce Minister Tofail Ahmed asked about the activities of Accord and Alliance, two international organisations which are now looking into the labour standard in the coun-try’s ready-made garment sector.

The prime minister said foreigners are working in di� erent sectors, espe-cially RMG, while staying illegally in the country. They should be identi� ed immediately and their identi� cation should be veri� ed by the national secu-rity and intelligence agencies, the cabi-net member said.

The duration of visa and work per-mit of every foreign national should also be veri� ed by the authorities con-cerned, the prime minister said.

PAGE 2 COLUMN 5

Zimbabwe, 128 [30 overs]Bangladesh, 130/4 [24.3 overs]Bangladesh won by 5 wickets

Prosecution says the High Court hasn’t barred recording deposition either

‘Experience clearly teaches us that over extraction is badfor gas � elds’

News2 DHAKA TRIBUNE Tuesday, December 2, 2014

PM to visit Malaysia Dec 2-4n Tribune Report

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina will be visiting Malaysia from December 2 to December 4.

Brie� ng reporters at the Foreign Minis-try yesterday, Foreign Minister Abul Has-san Mahmood Ali said she would be ac-companied by a delegation of 30 members.

Hasina will meet with Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak with an aim to discuss manpower export and human resources development, trade, investment, culture, travel, and higher education among other issues.

The foreign minister said there was a possibility of other signings including a

protocol amending the MoU of 2012 re-garding Bangladeshi workers in Sarawak state, and an MoU on improving tourism and agreement regarding partial aboli-tion of visa requirements, among others.

While answering questions, he said the trade imbalance between Bangla-desh and Malaysia would also be dis-cussed at the meet.

“We will discuss how Bangladesh’s export can increase. We are already exporting world class products such as pharmaceutical products to many de-veloped countries,” he said.

The issue of illegal Bangladeshi migrants in Malaysia will also be dis-cussed, he added. l

Khaleda: Awami League presented the national � ag to razakarsn Mohammad Al-Masum Molla

BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia has said her party’s ties with Jamaat-e-Islami – an Islamist party that opposed the 1971 Liberation War – is not ideological.

“The Awami League is not a party of freedom � ghters. They have always tried to use our a� liation with Jamaat against us. I want to say clearly that we do not have any relation with Jamaat. Our alliance is based only on move-ment and election,” she said.

After inaugurating a programme of BNP’s freedom � ghters’ wing Muk-tijoddha Dal yesterday, Khaleda also said: “They [Awami League] say we presented the national � ag to the Razakars [1971 collaborators]. But it was they who � rst made Nurul Islam Razakar a minister. There are so many examples.”

She also questioned the role played by Awami League (AL) supporters during the Liberation War. “Awami League’s freedom � ghters crossed the border while BNP’s freedom � ghters fought on the battle� eld.”

Gen Ziaur Rahman, the � rst military ruler of the country and Khaleda’s hus-band, formed the BNP in 1978, seven years after the Liberation War.

Yesterday’s comment comes on the back of a heated exchange of words be-tween the arch rivals – Khaleda Zia and Prime Minister and AL chief Sheikh Hasina.

Addressing a rally in Comilla last week, Khaleda said the Awami League was a party of freedom � ghters. In response, a couple of days later the PM said in parliament that the BNP had presented the national � ags to Razakars.

Citing a book written by Tajuddin Ahmed’s daughter Sharmin Ahmed, Khaleda claimed that Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman – Sheikh Sha-hib in her words – had refused to record the proclamation of the war.

“If Ziaur Rahman had not made the proclamation of independence and if our army had not participated, the Lib-eration War would not have been suc-cessful,” she claimed.

Criticising Awami League General Secretary Syed Ashraful Islam’s state-ment on US junior minister Nisha Desai Biswal and US ambassador to Bangla-desh Dan Mozena, Khaleda said: “By scolding the BNP, the Awami League has reached such a level that they are now scolding the foreigners. They do not know how to respect others. They are tarnishing the country’s image by scolding guests.” l

Petition against Ershad’s JS membership droppedn Tribune Report

The High Court yesterday dropped a plea from the cause list that sought scraping of the parliament membership of Jatiya Party Chairman and Prime Minister’s Special Envoy HM Ershad.

Jatiya Samajtantrik Dal leader Sabbir Ahmed, who had contested the Janu-ary 5 poll from Rangpur 3 constituency, � led the writ petition alleging that Er-shad had concealed information about his educational certi� cate and wealth in the a� davit submitted to the Elec-tion Commission.

When his lawyer went to the bench of Justice Naima Haider and Justice Ja-hangir Hossain, they came to know that it had been dropped from the cause list.

Sabbir last moth � led the petition where he made the chief election com-missioner, the chairman of Dhaka Sec-ondary and Higher Secondary Educa-

tion Board, the chief of Anti-Corruption Commission and Ershad respondents.

He sought a rule from the court seek-ing educational documents from the education board chief, DU and Ershad.

If failed, the petitioner sought rule on the chief election commission to scrap Ershad’s candidature and declare Sabbir as the lawmaker from the con-stituency.

He urged the court to order with-drawal of all the facilities Ershad now enjoys as a lawmaker until disposal of the rule.

Sabbir also sought resumption of a money laundering case � led against Er-shad by now-defunct Anti-Corruption Bureau in 1995.

A former military dictator, Ershad had withdrawn his candidature before the January 5 election but the EC did not accept it since it was not submitted following rules. l

The National Freedom Fighters Association brings out a ‘victory procession’ in the capital yesterday. The photo was taken from in front of National Press Club SYED ZAKIR HOSSAIN

Banglawash featuring PAGE 1 COLUMN 6and Tendai Chatara in the � rst two balls of his next over to become thefourth Bangladeshi bowler to take a hat-trick in ODI’s after ShahadatHossain, Abdur Razzak and RubelHossain.

Shakib al Hasan, who registered his second duck with the bat in the series, also bagged three wickets as none of the other visiting batsmen reached double � gures.

Mahmudullah’s contribution in the series saw him getting awarded as the most valuable Bangladeshi player. l

PM: Take action against foreigners staying illegally PAGE 1 COLUMN 1The Detective Branch of police con-ducted a special drive against foreign nationals illegally living in the capital on November 14 and arrested 31 expa-triates from 10 African countries.

Conducted in the capital’s Uttara, Rampura and Gulshan areas, the drive took place following the murder of teenager Zubair Ahmed, an Uttara resident who was raped and killed on October 4 by his swimming instructor Abuubaida Kadir, an Algerian nation-al living in Bangladesh illegally for 14 years.

The DB took a short break after-wards, but they have been preparing for the next drive, to be carried out in the capital’s Bashundhara residential area, Banani and Nikunja areas, Abdul Ahad, additional deputy commissioner at the DB, told the Dhaka Tribune on November 15.

Sheikh Nazmul Alam, deputy com-missioner at the DB, told the Dhaka Tribune that they were keeping tabs on the foreigners who are living in Bang-ladesh as players of di� erent national leagues, teachers of di� erent English medium educational institutions, RMG buyers, travellers and students.

Asked about any suspect on their next drive, he said they had yet to make any such list.

However, requesting anonymity, a DB police o� cial, who was involved in the special drive, told the Dhaka Tribune that they had a suspect list of around 500 foreigners to check their status and documents.

PM instructs Tofail ‘not to bother’The prime minister told the commerce minister at the meeting not to bother about what Accord and Alliance were doing in the country.

Alliance for Bangladesh Worker Safety is a platform of 27 North Amer-ican retailers, while Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh is a plat-form of over 150 European buyers.

Talking about their activities, the commerce minister said they were frequently giving new conditions on workers’ safety and other issues in the RMG factories, putting pressure on the RMG factory authorities as well as the Bangladesh Garments Manufacturers and Exporters Association.

In response to his concern, the prime minister told him not to care about their activities.

Regarding the cancellation of GSP facilities for Bangladesh to the US mar-ket, the premier said the US govern-ment and people would face problems if they did not allow Bangladeshi RMG products access to their market. l

Defence says court can’t record deposition PAGE 1 COLUMN 6latest petition while they were shoutng in court yesterday.

Trial against former premier Khale-da, her eldest son Tarique Rahman and four others began on September 22 for misappropriating more than Tk2.1 crore from the orphanage trust’s fund when BNP was in power.

The BNP chief however did not ap-pear at the makeshift court set up in the capital’s Bakshibazar during the proceedings yesterday but a chair was kept empty in front of the dock for her.

Police in plain clothes kept the wit-ness box encircled when Harun was speaking. Later, the judge from his

chamber adjourned the proceedings until December 8.

According to the case statements, Khaleda Zia, during her tenure as the prime minister from 1991 to 1996, opened a current account with the Son-ali Bank’s Ramna Corporate Branch for the orphanage fund.

The plainti� yesterday told the court that on June 9, 1991, the current ac-count received $1.255m from a Saudi Ar-ab-based private bank. The said amount of Tk2.1 crore was allegedly withdrawn by the accused from that account.

Khaleda, her son Tarique, nephew Mominur Rahman and former princi-pal secretary Kamal Uddin Siddiqui,

former BNP lawmaker Kazi Salimul Haque Kamal and businessman Shar-fuddin Ahmed have been charged with breach of trust under the Prevention of Corruption Act and the Penal Code.

The charges carry life term as the highest punishment.

Of the accused, Tarique, who has been living in London with family since 2008, Kamal Uddin and Mominur are being tried in absentia.

On March 19, Judge Basudev Roy of Dhaka’s Third Metropolitan Special Judges Court indicted Khaleda in this and the Zia Charitable Trust Corruption case, both of which were then at the deposition stage. l

Poor facilities scourge for HIV patients PAGE 1 COLUMN 4At present, patients need to take HIV test at the ICDDR,B and Infectious Dis-eases Hospital, both located in Dhaka. The test is also costly.

Three NGOs – Ashar Alo Society, Mukto Akash and the CAAP – now o� er free antiretroviral (ARV) therapy to HIV patients, while the NASP also provides free medical treatment.

Habiba Akter, executive director of Ashar Alo Society, said HIV patients coming from poor families could run into trouble in the future as they can-not a� ord better treatment abroad.

“The poor only go to the NGOs and government hospitals for treatment,

and that is a cause for concern as the government has not been able to en-sure proper medical services for HIV patients. The hospitals will face a seri-ous crisis in terms of the supply of ARV medicine, proper nutrition services and mental support that the patients need,” she said.

Dr Rashidul Hoque, senior medical o� cer at the CAAP, said AIDS patients largely feel guilty about themselves and also su� er from mental agony when they think about the future of their families.

“The patients lose self-respect and gradually become isolated from their families and society,” he said.

UNAIDS Country Director Leo Ken-

ny told the Dhaka Tribune that HIV treatment needed to be comprehen-sive, and merely providing ARV drugs would be of no use if nutrition services were not arranged and infections were not treated.

“AIDS is a syndrome and not a single disease. People die not from a single in-fection, but a range of infections which a� ict people because their immune sys-tem is suppressed and cannot � ght o� in-fections from a number of other diseases, like tuberculosis and cancer,” he said.

According to government statistics, 3,241 people have been diagnosed with HIV infection in the country between 1989 and 2013, 1,299 of whom contract-

ed AIDS and 472 died from it. 370 new HIV-positive patients were identi� ed in the country last year.

UNAIDS data says the estimated new infections have increased by 25% in Bangladesh since 2001 and the re-ported new infections has increased 1.5 times over the past � ve years.

The number has been especially increasing in some key population, such as sex workers, people who inject drugs, transgenders, etc.

There were more than 9,000 people in the country living with HIV infection in 2013, two-thirds of whom did not know their status, according to an esti-mate by the UNAIDS. l

Killing the goose that lays the golden egg PAGE 1 COLUMN 2impedes production or shuts it down, who will bear the responsibility for it?” Ijaz Hossain, professor at the Bang-ladesh University of Engineering and Technology (Buet), asked.

Over productionAccording to the Bangladesh Economic Review 2014, the initial reserve of gas at Bibiyana was 7.4 tcf, of which 5.7 tcf was proven and recoverable. This is bigger than the last assessed � gure of the country’s oldest producing � eld, Titas, the reserves of which are cur-rently being reassessed.

At the beginning of 2014, the re-maining reserve amount at Bibiyana gas � eld was 4.2 tcf.

Bibiyana is now the largest produc-ing gas � eld of the country, currently producing about 40% of Bangladesh’s total domestic natural gas supply.

Chevron’s bid to extract 1,200 mmcfd starting in January 2015 will ex-ceed the maximum extraction limit by

337 mmcfd.The geological structure of the gas

� eld is at risk of irrevocable decimation because of the aggressive extraction policy agreed to between the govern-ment and Chevron, experts say.

Experts say excessive extraction of gas can destroy a gas � eld, a situation already witnessed at the Bakhrabad and Sangu � elds.

Ijaz said: “The expected gas pro-duction could not be achieved at the Bakhrabad and Sangu gas � elds be-cause of over extraction. Over extrac-tion is a danger to gas � elds.”

The Bakhrabad gas � eld used to produce 250 mmcfd, but that rate has plummeted to a mere 36 mmcfd.

Sangu once produced more than 150 mmcfd; it has now been shut down.

The Bibiyana expansion project un-dertaken by Chevron has drilled 14 new wells at Bibiyana over the last three years.

The company has built two new gas processing trains and an enhanced liq-

uids recovery unit that will produce an additional 4,000 barrels per day of con-densate.

Ijaz said: “Experience clearly teach-es us that over extraction is bad for gas � elds. Petrobangla should seriously keep this in mind.”

He was sceptical about whether Petrobangla monitors possible over ex-traction of gas.

Processing plantThe processing plant at Bibiyana gas � eld could become inoperable any day because it is producing more gas than it has the capacity to handle.

Industry insiders say processing plants should ideally be run at 90% of capacity in order to ensure a long ser-vice life.

Chevron’s updated � gures indicate with the two new trains, the processing plant has a capacity of 1,250 mmcfd. If the production rate adheres to the 90% rule, the maximum amount the plant should process is 1,125 mmcfd.

But Chevron says it is gearing up to produce gas at the rate of 1,200 mmcfd.

If production exceeds the 90% limit, there is a chance that unprocessed gas might enter the national grid, giving rise to severe complications.

Processing plants separate dust, wa-ter and condense the raw gas extracted from under the earth for use.

Adverse impactsOn June 23, 2013 the supply of gas was disrupted almost everywhere in the country for nearly 20 hours following a leak at the processing plant of the Bibi-yana gas � eld.

Daily life in most of the country, including the capital, was severely disrupted because of shortages of gas, electricity and water supplies.

In short, a fault at a single gas � eld of Bibiyana’s size and importance can cripple the country.

Buet professor Ijaz Hossain called the government’s plan to augment the already massive output of gas from

Bibiyana a “risky gamble” for the na-tion.

Istiaque Ahmad, chairman of Petrobangla, told the Dhaka Tribune that he was not in charge when the con-tract was signed, and said that he did not want to comment on it.

But he added that the government must have had its reasons for making the deal.

Chevron’s responseSince Bangladesh has just one big source of natural gas – Bibiyana – the question is should the gas be extracted at a safe and moderate pace or should it be � nished o� within a decade?

Naser Ahmed, external a� airs di-rector of Chevron Bangladesh, told the Dhaka Tribune: “Allegations about over production causing lower recovery are baseless and unfounded.”

But the energy major admitted that gas production in the country faced im-minent decline.

“Bangladesh’s gas production will

decline unless investments in seismic acquisition, exploration drilling and development are increased,” Naser said, adding that the extraction levels his company had planned were ap-proved by the government.

“The Bibiyana Expansion Project was approved by Petrobangla, and it is consistent with the Gas Sales Purchase Agreement (GSPA) and the PSC signed with them,” he said.

Declining to give information about Bibiyana’s prospects and safety situa-tion, Naser said: “As per long-standing policy, we do not release production � gures on a well-by-well, or even � eld-by-� eld basis.

“Chevron production from Bibiyana plus Chevron’s two other gas � elds is expected to reach 1.4 billion cubic feet per day,” he said.

Chevron has two PSCs in Bangla-desh, covering Block 12 (Bibiyana � eld) and Blocks 13 and 14 (Jalalabad and Maulvibazar � elds) in the north eastern Sylhet region. l

‘Sick’ Sayedee brought to Dhakan Tribune Report

Convicted war criminal Delawar Hos-sain Sayedee was transferred to Dhaka Central Jail from Kashimpur early yes-terday as he was feeling ill. The matter was not serious, authorities say.

Jamaat Nayeb-e-Ameer Sayedee, who was sentenced to jail for the rest of his life, felt chest pain and was rushed to BSMMU around 3:45am. Earlier he was taken to Gazipur Sadar Hospital.

Following a check-up, he was shifted to Dhaka Central Jail around 10:30am, Senior Jail Super Forman Ali said.

“His illness was not that serious. Doctors have prescribed some medi-cines and asked him to take rest.”

The war criminal was under ob-servation of jail doctors until lastnight. “He will be sent to Kashimpur Jail after doctors discharge him,” Far-man said. l

Rajnath asks BSF to stop cattle smugglingn Tribune Report

Indian home minister Rajnath Singh has asked his country’s border securi-ty force to check smuggling of cattle to Bangladesh at any cost.

Speaking at a programme of the In-dian Border Security Force (BSF) yester-day, the minister said: “You [BSF] have to stop illegal in� ltration from Bang-ladesh, deal with narcotics, fake cur-rency notes being smuggled from this border...You should stop the smuggling of cows at any cost and if you are doing that already I compliment you for that.”

Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) Di-rector General Maj Gen Aziz Ahmed was also present at the event, reports The Hindu. Hundreds of thousands of cattle, mainly cows, are smuggled across the border from India every year, especially during the Eid-ul-Azha which involves sacri� ce of animals.

A number of Bangladeshis have been killed and injured in the past by BSF while allegedly trying to bring in smuggled cattle consignments across the border. l

3NewsDHAKA TRIBUNE Tuesday, December 2, 2014

Three Rohingyas arrested in Bardhaman blast incidentn Ashif Islam Shaon

Detectives arrested three Rohingyas in the capital on Sunday night who are be-lieved to have links with the suspects and arrestees of West Bengal’s Bardha-man blast incident.

Names of two of them are men-tioned in the lists of India’s National Investigation Agency (NIA) and the Bangladesh law enforcers, prepared to � ght cross-border militants. India had requested the Bangladesh o� cials to arrest them on priority basis, police say.

Information gleaned by the NIA, from those arrested in India following the blast, also matched with what the detec-tives in Dhaka have got from the three arrestees during primary interrogation.

But the detectives are yet to con-� rm whether the three were physically present during the blast on October 2.

Noor Hossain alias Ra� qul Islam, 26, Yasir Arafat, 22 and Umar Karim, 25, were arrested from Lalbagh area around 9pm on Sunday. Of them, Noor

has been living in Bangladesh for four years, Yasir for one year while Umar for 12 years illegally.

Police also claimed to have recov-ered � ve detonators, two gel-based bomb materials and 100gm explosive substances from them during the drive.

They would be placed before a court seeking remand, Deputy Commission-er Krishna Pada Roy of the DMP told reporters yesterday.

“We are sure whether Noor and Ya-sir have connections with militant or-ganisations of Myanmar like Rohingya Solidarity Organisation (RSO), Aro Ro-hingya Units Voice for Human Rights and the Netherlands-based Global Ro-hingya Center (GRC),” he said.

In primary interrogation, the arrest-ees claimed that Myanmar national Khaleed alias Khalid Mohammed of the RSO, arrested in Hyderabad recently, was their ideological leader, the DB of-� cial said.

Possible Rohingya connection with the Bardhaman blast, believed to be

masterminded by banned Islamist out-� t Jama’atul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB), came to light after the arrest Khaleed by the Indian law enforcement agencies.

Khaleed reportedly ran terror camps on the Myanmar-Bangladesh border and also had links with Tehrik-e-Tal-iban of Pakistan. He is now under the custody of the NIA.

The detectives are now assessing the depth of connection between the three arrestees and Khaleed, and whether the arrestees had direct link with the Bardhaman blast.

Another DB o� cial told the Dhaka Tribune that some other listed suspects would be arrested soon. “Umar Karim’s name was not on the list. But we are surprised knowing that he trained the two others.”

It was found out that the bombs made in Bardhaman were intended to be used in Bangladesh. Prime accused in the case Sajid, his wife and brother have already been arrested. l

Former MP’s son denied bail againn Md Sanaul Islam Tipu

A Dhaka court yesterday again denied bail for Humayun Sultan, son of ex-MP Khan Tipu Sultan in a case � led in con-nection with the murder of his wife Dr Shamarukh Mahjabin Sumi.

Acting Metropolitan Sessions Judge KM Imrul Kayes passed the order in response to a bail plea � led by defence counsel Jesmin Chowdhury.

Twenty-four year-old Sumi was found hanging in the bathroom of her in-laws’ Dhanmondi residence in the capital on November 13. After complet-ing her MBBS at Holy Family Red Cres-cent Medical College, she was prepar-ing for FCPS.

Her father Nurul Islam � led a case with Dhanmondi police station, accus-ing Humayun, his father Tipu Sultan and mother Dr Jesmin Ara Begum of murdering her.

The case in brief is that Sumi was tortured to death by her husband and in-laws. It was a premeditated murder.

The next day, police arrested her husband Humayan and on November 16 placed him before a Dhaka court that granted police three days to interrogate him.

Meanwhile, Humayan’s father Tipu Sultan and mother Jesmin Ara secured anticipatory bail from the High Court for four weeks in the case on November 16.

On completion of Humayun’s three-day remand, he was again produced before a Dhaka court that had also re-fused bail for the ex MP’s son and sent him to jail. Meanwhile, a Dhaka court ordered the deputy commissioner of Jessore to exhume Sumi’s body for fur-ther postmortem upon a plea � led by Sumi’s father Nurul Islam.

The previous autopsy con� rmed that Sumi had killed herself, prompting her father to � le the petition for further autopsy.

Sumi, the only daughter of Nurul Is-lam, was married o� to Humayun, the eldest son of former Monirampur MP Tipu Sultan on April 26 last year. l

Rights groups warn against new inclusion in vested properties listn Tribune Report

Rights groups warned the government against any new inclusion in the vest-ed properties list through amendment of the related law or publication of ga-zette saying it would be “illegal”.

From a press conference yesterday at the Dhaka Reporters’ Unity, nine rights groups also threatened tougher movement if an amendment propos-al tabled recently in the cabinet was passed.

They placed 10-point demands that in-clude taking action against the o� cials involved in proposing the new amend-ment and the corrupt o� cials who were hindering the implementation of the Vested Properties (Return) Act 2001 (amended in 2013).

The other demands include resolv-ing the pending applications in the appeal tribunals as soon as possible, forming special tribunal for the dispos-al of appeals against the verdicts of the tribunals, implementation of the ver-dicts given on behalf of the victims and issuing a noti� cation by the Law Min-istry to stop wasting time in resolving the applications.

Ain O Salish Kendra, Bangladesh

Legal Aid and Services Trust, Nijera Kori, Human Development Research Centre, Association for Land Reforms and Development, Bangladesh Hindu Buddhist Christian Oikya Parishad, Or-pita Sampatti Ain Pratirodh Andolon, Sammilita Samajik Andolon and Ban-gladesh Puja Udjapan Parishad.

Subrata Chowdhury, general secre-tary of Orpita Sampatti Ain Pratirodh Andolon, in his keynote paper said there were around 2.5 lakh acres of land under “Ka” schedule while 5 lakh acres under “Kha” category.

“The ‘Kha’ schedule lands are not be vested properties. But the government o� cials are not taking taxes for those lands. If the o� cials are successful in showing that taxes are not paid for one year, then the property will be consid-ered as government land. This is a con-spiracy to grab those lands,” he alleged.

Kajal Debnath, president of Bangla-desh Puja Udjapan Parishad, said: “The rate of resolving applications at the ap-peal tribunals in many districts includ-ing Sylhet, Manikganj and Habiganj is very slow. In some districts, formation and activities of tribunals have not started yet while the a� ected people are facing harassment.”

Sultana Kamal, executive director of Ain O Salish Kendra, said: “When the victims go to the AC (land) o� ce and union-level land or schedule o� ce for mutation, the o� cers concerned are demanding huge money by giving wrong explanation of the Act. Some corrupt o� cials are applying tricks so that the original owners do not get back their lands.”

Khushi Kabir, co-ordinator of Nijera Kori, and Shamsul Huda, executive di-rector of ALRD, were also present at the programme. l

SC orders retrial of Huda, wifen Tribune Report

The Appellate Division of the Su-preme Court ordered fresh hearing of a bribery case against former minister Nazmul Huda and his wife Sigma Huda, scrapping a High Court order that had acquitted them in the case.

The rehearing would be held at the High Court as per the order, ACC law-yer Khurshid Alam Khan told the Dha-ka Tribune.

A four-member bench, headed by Justice Surendra Kumar Sinha, passed the order after hearing two leave-to-appeal petitions – one � led by the An-ti-Corruption Commission and another by the State.

On March 20, 2011, the High Court acquitted the couple of the Tk 2.4 crore bribery case.

Nazmul Huda was sentenced to sev-en years in prison and � ned Tk 25 mil-lion by the Special Judges Court on Aug 26, 2007 while his wife Sigma Huda was jailed for three years alone.

ACC Deputy Director Md Sha� qul Is-lam � led the bribery case with Dhanmon-di police station on March 21, 2007. l

Operation of Mohona Hospital suspendedn Tazlina Zamila Khan

Mohona Hospital in the capital’s Panthapath area was temporarily shut down yesterday by the government for allegedly operating without license and neglecting treatment to eminent journalist Zaglul Ahmed Chowdhury.

The decision came a day after the death of Zaglul Ahmed Chowdhury, who was taken to the hospital after fall-ing victim to a tragic road accident on Sunday.

A team of o� cials, led by Joint Sec-retary of the Health Ministry Mosharraf Hossain and Professor ABM Abdul

Mannan, director of Directorate Gen-eral of Health Services (DGHS), visited the hospital around 11am.

After the inspection, they ordered instant suspension of the hospital op-erations, asking the authority to trans-fer admitted patients to other hospitals within 24 hours. The ministry also formed a three-member panel to ur-gently probe into the matter.

Mosharraf Hossain told the Dhaka Tribune: “We closed the hospital tem-porarily for two reasons. One is alleged negligence of providing treatment to a patient and the other is running a hos-pital without license. They have the li-cense for a diagnostic centre only.”

“We have also asked them to sub-mit a report on the incident and we will take a � nal decision after that,” he added.

Tofazzal Hossain, Mohona Hospital Manager said: “Around 230 share hold-ers established the hospital on June 1. Most of the them are doctors and have permanent chambers in di� erent hos-pital like Dhaka Medical Collage and Hospital and BSMMU.”

“When the patient (Zaglul) came here, we had only one doctor on duty. Dr KM Tarikul Islam, who is a Neurosurgeon took him to the OT and did a CT scan. After seeing the � lms, the doctor said the patient needed

emergency support but did not have an ICU.

“He was admitted around 8.15pm and discharged around 8.30pm. It is not true that we did not give him any treatment,” the manager said.

During a visit to the hospital yes-terday, this correspondent saw a shut down notice hanging on the gate of the hospital.

It was found that there were only 30 doctors in the hospital, but most of them were on-call. Eleven patients were admitted in the hospital before it was shut down, but only eight were left as three of them had already been discharged. l

NARAYANGANJ 7-MURDER

Court orders probe report by January 22n Tribune Report

A Narayanganj court has ordered inves-tigators looking into the seven-murder to submit charge sheet within January 22.

Senior Judicial Magistrate HM Sha� qul Islam passed the order when police produced 24 arrestees including three ex-o� cials of RAB.

Earlier, prosecution blamed police for delaying the submission of charge sheet although seven months have been passed after the gruesome murders.

“We have urged the court to take steps and � x a date as the investiga-tors have failed to submit charge sheet although it has been quite a while,” Narayanganj District Bar Association President Shakhawat Hossain told re-porters yesterday.

On April 27, seven men, including former panel mayor Nazrul Islam and lawyer Chandan Kumar Sarkar, were abducted. Later their bodies were found

� oating on the Shitalakhyya River.Nazrul’s relatives accused several

o� cials of the local unit of RAB of com-mitting the abduction and murders for a “fee” of Tk6 crore. Former Awami League leader Nur Hossain, now de-tained in India for tresspassing, is the prime accused in the seven-murder case.

Three RAB o� cials – local unit com-mander Tarek Sayed Mohammad, son-in-law of minister Mofazzal Hossain Chowdhury Maya, Maj Arif Hossain and Lt Commander MM Rana were sent into forced retirement and later arrest-ed in connection with case.

Two cases have so far been � led in connection with the crimes. A total of 12 people, including the former RAB of-� cials, have reportedly confessed their crimes and 14 have testi� ed.

RAB � led an internal probe report on the alleged involvement of its o� cials on November 23 to the attorney gener-al’s o� ce. l Carrying way more weight than its capacity, a cement tanker � nally gives up and turns over near Bangabhaban in the capital’s Gulistan area yesterday MEHEDI HASAN

BSc Dental Students’ Association demonstrate in front of the National Press Club yesterday to press home their demands MEHEDI HASAN

Envoy in Malaysia to resign over missing passportsn Syeda Samira Sadeque

Foreign Secretary Md Shahidul Haque yesterday said Bangladesh High Com-missioner to Malaysia AKM Atiqur Rah-man would step down from his post over passports going missing from the Ban-gladesh mission o� ce earlier this year.

However, when he was inquired fur-ther about the matter, he changed his statement, saying: “He [the high com-missioner] will retire.”

Shahidul was speaking at a press brie� ng on Prime Minister Sheikh Ha-sina’s visit to Malaysia at the Foreign Ministry yesterday.

When asked about the progress of inquiry into the 500 missing passports, the foreign secretary said: “All recom-mendations are being implemented and all workers involved in the incident have been withdrawn as per the recom-mendations. Administrative action has also been taken against them.”

He said they had also reviewed the entire system of storing passports. l

Some corrupt o� cials at the AC land or union level or schedule o� ces are applying tricks so that the original owners do not get back their lands

News4 DHAKA TRIBUNE Tuesday, December 2, 2014

8 attendants held from DMCH n Adil Sakhawat

The authorities of Dhaka Medical Col-lege Hospital (DMCH) detained eight fe-male unauthorised attendants who used to provide services illegally in exchange of money at the hospital yesterday.

The detainees are Lalmoti, Nurjah-an, Fatema, Jobeda, Amena, Moksuda, Roksana and Hasi.

The DMCH authorities said they were detained after family members of a patient lodged a complaint.

“We have been working as ‘special’ employees along with the forth class em-ployees at the hospital,” said Nurjahan while talking to journalists.

“For getting the appointment under this special employees quota, we had to pay 5000 taka each to the hospital’s fourth class employees union secretary Sarder Shah Alam’s wife Su� a Begum,” she said.

“Every day we have to pay her 100 taka each from our earnings which we

get from the patients,” she added. DMCH Director Brig Gen Mosta� zur

Rahman said they received a complain from the family members of a patient named Marium Akhter on Saturday, adding that the detainees demanded Tk800 for providing her a bed at the Ward No 106.

Marium’s mother alleged that the at-tendants did not allow them to go out of the hospital although they were dis-charged.

The DMCH authorities also formed a committee consisting of � ve members led by DMCH Deputy Director Dr Mus-� qur Rahman to probe into the matter.

Contacted, Shah Alam denied the allegation that his wife was involved in the recruitment. “In association with the hospital’s Ansar Platoon Command-er Ra� q, some fourth class employees conspired against me,” he claimed.

The ward master of Ward No 106 Abdul Aziz � led a case with Shahbagh Police Station against the detainees. l

Deprived leaders threaten with non-stop sit-inn Mohammad Al-Masum Molla

Deprived and aggrieved Chhatra Dal leaders yesterday threatened to en-force non-stop sit-in programmes from today in front the Nayaplatan head-quarters to press home their three-point demands, including cancellation of the new committee, expulsion of Sa-hiduddin Chowdhury Annie and Sulatn Salahuddin Tuku.

They also demanded withdrawal of the explanation of three Chhatra Dal leaders immediately who were ex-pelled for this movement.

“We have waited for a long time but we did not get any response from the BNP high-ups. As we have no other alternative, we have announced this programme,” Ferdaus Munna, one of the leaders claiming they have been deprived, told journalists.

Last Wednesday, these leaders an-nounced that if their demand were not considered within seven days, they would go for tougher movement.

On October 14, BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia announced a 201-mem-ber partial committee of the Chhatra Dal with Rajib Ahsan as president and Akramul Hasan as general secretary. Since then a group of leaders waged a movement demanding cancelation of the committee.

These leaders blamed BNP Students A� air Secretary Shahid Uddin Chowd-hury Annie and Assistant Student Af-fair Secretary Sultan Salahuddin Tuku for the crisis and demanded their ex-pulsion.

Munna said if the BNP high-ups expelled Annie and Tuku, they would work in the organisation as normal ac-tivists. l

WAR CRIMES

Date set for order on Mahidur, Afsar indictment n Tribune Report

The International Crimes Tribunal 2 has � xed December 11 to decide on whether it will frame charges against two suspected war criminals from Chapainawabganj for their alleged crimes against humanity committed during the 1971 Liberation War.

The accused are Mahidur Rahman, 84, from Dadanchak, and Afsar Hos-sain alias Chutu, 65, of Satrosia village under Shibganj upazila of the district.

The same day, the tribunal will also pass an order on their bail petitions.

During the indictment hearing yester-day, prosecutor Shahidur Rahman read out the three charges pressed against the duo that include mass killings, arson, looting, abduction, torture, con� nement and murder. Defence lawyer Mizanur Rahman refused the allegations.

They were arrested on September 16 in connection with a criminal case and later shown arrested in the war crimes case.

Meanwhile, state-appointed de-fence counsel Mohammad Abul Hos-sain placed closing arguments in the case of former Jatiya Party lawmaker Abdul Jabbar at the tribunal 1.

Later the tribunal adjourned the proceedings until tomorrow. l Nirmul Committee

demands ban on activities of Jamaat in Europe n Tribune Report

Ekattorer Ghatak Dalal Nirmul Com-mittee has demanded that the Europe-an countries ban the activities of war criminals of Bangladesh in their coun-tries including those from Jamaat-e-Is-lami so that they may not re-emerge and commit crimes again.

Speakers at a discussion in Swedish capital Stockholm on Sunday also said they would raise awareness among the people so that convicted war criminal Za-hidur Rahman alias Khokon Razakar, now hiding in Sweden, is tried in a local court.

Another death sentenced war crim-inal Chowdhury Mueen Uddin is liv-ing in the UK. Both the countries are against capital punishment.

Executive President of the organisa-tion Shahriar Kabir said the young Ban-gladeshis abroad should raise their voice against the enemies of the Liberation War including Jamaat and other groups. “They

should be brought to book in the Europe-an countries where they have been living in. We demand that the European com-munities ban their terrorist activities.”

If the Swedish government did not return Khokon Razakar, it might try him too, Shahriar said. Otherwise, someday he might be seen playing a vital role in terrorist groups like al-Qaeda or ISIS.

The discussion was organised by the Sweden branch of the committee, a cit-izens’ platform founded by Jahanara Imam campaigning against the 1971 war criminals. The programme was chaired by Sweden branch President Akhtar Zaman.

Bangladesh High Commissioner in Sweden Golam Sarwar said because of Jamaat propaganda, many Europe-an countries had negative perception about the Bangladesh’s war trials. “But now the European governments have expressed their positive stance in every matter of the tribunal, except for the death sentences.” l

Abdul Khaleque’s 1st death anniversary today n Tribune Desk

Today is the � rst death anni-versary of Abdul Khaleque, former AGM of Sonali Bank and former president of Rota-ry Club of Chittagong Pioneer.

On this occasion, a Qurankhani and a Milad Mah� l will be held at his vil-lage home at Char Kakra un-der Companygonj upazila in Noakhali district. The family members requested all rela-tives, friends and well-wish-ers to pray for salvation of his departed soul. l

HC rejects petition of Tarique’s PS in bribery case n Tribune Report

The High Court yesterday rejected a petition of Mia Nur Uddin Apu, personal secretary to BNP Senior Vice-Chairman Tarique Rahman, which sought cancellation of trial in a brib-ery case against him.

The High Court bench comprising of Justice Shawkat Hossain and Justice Farid Ahmed passed the order.

Advocate Khurshid Alam Khan represent-ed the ACC while Advocate SM Shahjahan and Sogir Hossain Leon stood for Apu.

Apu, who had been in hiding since January

11, 2007, surrendered to a Dhaka court on June 18 this year and sought bail. Reports say that he lived in Malaysia and London while in hiding.

On October 4, 2007, the ACC � led the case against seven people, including Apu, on charges of bribing former home minis-ter Lutfozzaman Babar Tk21 crore to drop the name of Bashundhara Group Chairman Ahmed Akbar Sobhan’s son Sanvir from the charge sheet in the killing of Humayun Kabir Sabbir, a director of Bashundhara Telecom-munications Network Ltd. Sabbir was killed in a house, owned by Bashundhara Group, in Gulshan on July 5, 2006. l

SC judges to get gratuity rise n Tribune report

The government has decided to raise the gratuity rate of Supreme Court judges in case of compulsory surrender of their pension.

The raise was proposed in the draft of the Supreme Court Judges (Leave, Pension and Privileges) Ordinance (amendment) Act 2014, which the cab-inet approved in its meeting yesterday.

The meeting was presided over by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.

After the meeting, Cabinet Secretary M Musharraf Hossain Bhuiyan told re-porters the judges retiring at the age of 40-45 years would get Tk260 in gratuity for surrendering each taka of their pen-sion. The amount is Tk230 at present.

“For judges retiring between 45 and 50 years, the amount will be Tk245, the existing is Tk215, while for those going into retirement at 50 or above it will be Tk230. The current amount for the lat-ter group, is Tk200,” he added. l

Workers of Common Thread Ltd, a sister concern of Harvest Group, stage a sit-in demonstrtation in front of the National Press Club in the capital yesterday demanding their due wages from August to November this year. Jaago Bangladesh Garments Sramik Federation supported the demonstration MEHEDI HASAN

AL: Khaleda’s ‘new change’ means another Hawa Bhaban n Abu Hayat Mahmud

The Awami League yesterday said BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia had promised at a Comilla rally that she would bring a “new change” once her party comes to power but she did not mean a real change, she meant introducing a new Hawa Bhaban.

“In Comilla rally, she (Khaleda Zia) promised to bring about a new change once her party comes to power,” said Awami League Joint General Secretary Jahangir Kabir Nanak.

“What she means by the word ‘new’ is introducing a new Hawa Bhaban from where she and her son could launch more terrorist acts and corrup-tion and violent politics.”

Khaleda Zia and her son could only resist the country’s development. They always try to save protect terrorists, cor-rupts and war criminals just as did the party’s founder Ziaur Rahman, he said.

Nanak made the claims at a press con-ference held at the Awami League presi-dent’s o� ce at Dhanmondi in the capital.

He claimed that BNP founder Major Zia had worked for Pakistan during the Liberation War.

To justify his claim, he showed a letter with Major Zia’s portrait and said: “Gen-eral Beg of Pakistan wrote this to Major Zia expressing satisfaction over his role as ISI agent during the Liberation War.”

“This proved that he had acted as a Pakistani agent in 1971,” he added.

Nanok alleged that the BNP-Jamaat alliance was trying to make the Janu-ary 5 polls controversial at the interna-tional level and court the international community’s support for their demand to hold the next election beforehand.

“But that will not be successful be-cause the next election will be held as per the Constitution.”

Criticising Khaleda, he said, “She woke up from sleep at 5pm, when everybody leaves their work places. So, how can she know about the (January 5) polls?”

“More than 40 percent people cast their votes in the election. The Awami League was elected and came to pow-er,” he added. l

MoU inked to make Dohazari-Cox’s Bazar-Ghundum rail track n Tribune Report

Bangladesh Railway yester-day signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with China Railway Group Ltd (CRGL) to construct rail tracks from Chittagong’s Do-hazari to Myanmar’s border Ghundum via Cox’s Bazar.

The MoU which will have a validity of 12 months was signed by Bangladesh Rail-way Chief Planning O� cer Mohammad Manjurul Islam and CRGL representative Zhang Xuecai in Rail Bhaban.

As per the MoU, the Chi-nese government will send a technical team to evalu-ate the study and the CRGL would start the construc-tion work on receiving the report from the team.

Although its foundation stone was laid in 2010, there has been no remarkable progress till now. l

HC: Stop illegal liquor sellingn Tribune Report

The High Court has ordered to take necessary action within 48 hours to stop il-legal liquor selling at the minibars and restaurants in the capital’s Gulshan and Banani areas.

The HC bench of Justice Salma Masud Chowdhury and Justice M Khasruzzaman passed the order yesterday following a writ petition � led by Human Rights and Peace for Bangladesh.

Assistant Attorney Gen-eral Titus Hillol Rema said: “The writ was � led after a national daily reported that there were 40 minibars and restaurants in Gulshan and Banani that are selling li-quor illegally. l

WEATHER

DRY WEATHER

LIKELY

PRAYER TIMES Fajr 5:05am Sunrise 6:25am Zohr 11:48am Asr 3:34pm Magrib 5:10pm Esha 6:30 pm

Source: Accuweather/UNB

D H A K ATODAY TOMORROW

SUN SETS 5:10PM SUN RISES 6:26AM

YESTERDAY’S HIGH AND LOW29.5ºC 11.9ºC

Cox's Bazar Srimangal

TUESDAY, DECEMBER 2

SourceL IslamicFinder.org

F O R E C A S T F O R T O D A YDhaka 28 19Chittagong 29 19Rajshahi 28 14Rangpur 28 16Khulna 28 14Barisal 28 15Sylhet 28 16Cox’s Bazar 28 19

5NewsDHAKA TRIBUNE Tuesday, December 2, 2014

DRIVE AGAINST JAYWALKING

45 jaywalkers and 79 vehicles � ned on the last dayn Abu Hayat Mahmud

On the last day of the week-long drive against jaywalking, the two mobile courts yesterday cracked down on un-� t vehicles and vehicles driving on the wrong side of the road at Farmgate, Karwan Bazar and Banglamotor area.

A total of 45 jaywalkers and 79 vehicle owners were � ned Tk38,870 for break-ing tra� c laws, Executive Magistrate Md Sarwar Alam told the Dhaka Tribune.

The mobile court led by him at Kar-wan Bazar and Farmgate points � ned 18 jaywalkers and 43 vehicles Tk21,450 while another mobile court led by Ex-ecutive Magistrate Abdul Kuddus at Banglamotor � ned 37 jaywalkers and 36 vehicle owners Tk16,720.

“They were � ned for jaywalking, driving un� t vehicles, and also driving vehicles on the wrong side,” said Sar-war Alam.

The Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP) began the anti-jaywalking drive on October 27 with the two mobile courts between Farmgate police box and Hotel Ruposhi Bangla intersection. The mobile courts also conducted drive against illegal makeshift shops and vendors occupying footpaths.

The drive appears to have yielded a positive result as the majority of pedes-trians complied with rules while cross-ing roads at three points in the capital city yesterday.

Though the mobile courts did not operate during the weekend, most of the pedestrians still took footbridges to cross roads.

When contacted, DMP Joint Com-missioner (tra� c) Mosleh Uddin told the Dhaka Tribune that though the drive had ended yesterday, police on duty would continue to monitor jay-walking. l

Examinations postponed at Cuet in the face of unrestn CU Correspondent

In the wake of students’ protest over several issues authority of Chittagong University of Engineering and Technol-ogy (Cuet) yesterday evening suspended all the examinations for honours level.

The decision was came from a meet-ing with Cuet Vice-Chancellor Profes-sor Dr Jahangir Alam in the chair. All deans, institute’s directors, hall prov-osts and registrars of the university were present at the meeting.

A press release singed by Cuet regis-trar (acting) Professor Dr Faruk-Uj- Ja-man Chowdhury said considering the present situation, the university author-ity had suspended all the examinations.

The next schedule of examinations will be announced from the respective departments, said the release.

The agitating students, however, vowed to continue their protest until all of their demands are met.

Students of the university have been

boycotting classes since Wednesday for nine-point demands.

The Student’s Welfare Director Pro-fessor Dr Ashutose Saha told the Dha-ka Tribune that the authorities had accepted all the eight-point demands while they need more time to change the university’s ordinance.

According to Cuet ordinance, stu-dents should not allow for the improve-ment examination after passing out with GPA 2.00 at the relevant course in honours examination.

But the students demanded to be allowed them for the improvement examination who get bellow GPA 2.50, said campus sources.

Yesterday, the demonstrating stu-dents also placed a memorandum to the VC in this regard.

Their other demands include cance-ling � ne system of dormitory’s dining, speeding up Wi Fi bandwidth at dormi-tories and withdrawing the ban on stu-dents’ politics on the campus. l

Three killed in Ctg road accidentn CU Correspondent

At least three people were killed and three others were injured when a bus collided head-on with a CNG-run auto rickshaw at Banshkhali upazila in Chit-tagong yesterday (Monday) morning. 

The deceased were Gias Uddin, 35, Sa� ullah, 32, while the identity of the other victim could not be known im-mediately, said Assistant Sub-Inspector (ASI) Pankaj Barua of Chittagong Medical College Hospital (CMCH) Police Outpost. 

ASI Pankaj said a Chittagong bound CNG-run auto rickshaw carrying six passengers including a woman collided head-on with a bus at Sarkarhat area of the upazila in the morning, leaving all the passengers critically injured. 

They were rushed to upazila health complex later shifted to CMCH where the on duty doctors declared the three dead at around 10:30 am, said the ASI adding that the injured were admitted to CMCH after the incident. l

VoIP equipment seized in Ctg n CU Correspondent

Rapid Action Battalion arrested two people with huge amount of equip-ment of Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) in Chittagong city’s Halishahar area yesterday.

The arrestees are Saidul Islam, 18 and Kamal Hossain, 30.

Mobassher Hossain, an o� cial at Chandgaon Camp of RAB-7, said act-ing on a tip-o� , they launched a drive at a house, Nahar Manjil, in Shapla Residential Area of Halishahar around 12:00pm. l

‘No alternative to trained drivers to check road accidents’n Tribune Report

Road accident is a national problem and it cannot be curbed without edu-cating and training the drivers, opined noted � lm artist Ilias Kanchan, also the Chairman of Nirapad Sharak Chai (We Demand Safe Road), an organisation advocating for safer roads.

He was addressing a press confer-ence to mark the 21st anniversary of the organisation at Dhaka Reporters Unity (DRU) auditorium yesterday.

In a written speech Ilias Kanchan said: “The government has already im-plemented some of our proposals to stop road accidents, but it is not enough.”

He urged the government to take various steps including setting up trau-

ma centres beside all major highways so that injured people can get treat-ment immediately, and establishing driving and mechanical training insti-tute in 64 districts.

“The government has approved Tk20 crore for building driving and mechanical institute in every district, but we are yet to get this money,” Ilias Kanchan alleged.

Earlier, Nirapad Sharak Chai ob-served October 22 as National Road Safety Day and urged the government to propose the UN for declaring Octo-ber 22 as International Road Safety Day.

The actor turned activist Ilias Kanchan launched the Nirapad Sharak Chai movement in late 1993 after he lost his wife in a road. The organisation has over 80 branches across the country. l

Husband throws acid at wife in the capital n Tribune Report

A woman sustained burn injuries in an acid attack allegedly by her husband in Kamrangirchar, on the outskirts of the capital, yesterday.

Nazma Begum who is undergoing treatment at the burn unit of the Dhaka Medical College Hospital told the Dha-ka Tribune that her husband Abul Hos-sain, a drug addict, had thrown acid at her as she refused to give him money to buy drugs.

The 35-year-old woman said she had been running the family by working as a street vendor ever since Abul, who used to drive a CNG-run autorickshaw, left the profession and started taking drugs.

Nazma’s work includes collect-ing the remains of slaughtered

chicken and hawking those on street corners to people of the low-income group.

Nazma told reporters at the hospi-tal that her husband, who often takes away the major portion of her earnings to buy drugs, approached her when she was selling her products in Rasulpur around 6:35pm.

“He asked for Tk200 but I refused to give. He left the place before returning shortly with a bottle. I did not see what was in it,” she said.

“It began burning when he poured the liquid on my face. Some people who were there brought me to the hos-pital,” she added.

The couple lives in a rented house with their three sons and two daugh-ters. No case was � led in this connec-tion. l

2 RAB, journo impersonatorsheld in Ctg n CU Correspondent

Police arrested two people who imper-sonated them as a member of RAB and a journalist in Chittagong city’s Hal-ishahar area yesterday.

The arrestees are Md Jwel, 35, who impersonated him as a RAB member, and Md Morshed, 42, who imper-sonated him as reporter of Sapta-hik-2000.

Using fake identities, the duo ab-ducted a businessman Abdus Salam and demanded TK2 lakh from his fami-ly members, police said.

“They picked up the businessman and later con� ned him to a � at in Hal-ishahar area where they blackmailed the person by taking obscene photos,” the OC said.

The family members, however, paid Tk 20,000 to the culprits, he added. l

Obaidul: A few cannot be allowed to ruin BCL gloryn Arif Ahmed

Awami League Presidium member Obaidul Quader yesterday said only a few members of the Bangladesh Chha-tra League were ruining its glory, which they should not be allowed doing.

Thus, they were also denting the achievement of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and Prime Minister Sheikh Hasaina and “so the student politics must be cleaned,” he said.

The former Bangladesh Chhatra League president also felt the need for cleaning campus premises. He made the remarks while the inaugural ceremony of “Clean campus and Save Campus’ pro-gramme, organised by Bangladesh Chha-tra League (BCL), at Dhaka University.

Recalling the BCL’s signi� cant role in the independence of Bangladesh as well as in other national movements,

he said: “You will also have to dedicate yourself in the future when it will be required for the country.” He urged the unruly members of the BCL to come in line and practice politics well.

BCL General Secretary Siddique Nazmul Alam was also present at the programme, with BCL President H M Bodiuzzaman Shohag in the chair.

Just after the inauguration ceremony, the BCL leaders and activists cleaned the Dhaka University campus, using brush-es and put the wastes into the dustbins there. The campus cleaning programme will be carried out at all educational in-stitutions from December 1 to 7.

On November 13, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s Information and Com-munication Technology (ICT) Advisor Sajeeb Ahmed Wazed, better known as Joy, approved the BCL plan to carry out the programme. l

Hartal protesting death of RU teacher passes o� peacefullyn RU Correspondent

A dawn-to-dusk hartal enforced by city and Rajshahi University units Jati-yatabadi Chhatra Dal passed o� peace-fully yesterday.

The associate bodies of the BNP went on the strike demanding immedi-ate arrest of the real killers of Rajshahi University (RU) professor AKM Sha� ul Islam.

The strike was also enforced in protest against question papers leak-ages of di� erent public examinations, including PSC, anarchy at di� erent educational institutions, HT Imam’s speech over appointing party men in the di� erent government sectors and demanding coexistence of all students political parties on campuses.

City and RU units of JCD jointly an-

nounced the shutdown from a protest rally at Bhubanmor Park on Friday.

However, no untoward incident took place during the strike. Most of

the motorised vehicles remained o� the roads and business establishments remained closed. No long-route buses left city bus terminal.

No classes and examinations were

held at RU  and Rajshahi University of Engineering and Technology.

Leaders and activists of the JCD, student wing of Bangladesh Nationalist Party, brought out protest rallies from di� erent areas of the city.

Iftekhaar Alam, assistant police commissioner and also the spokesman of Rajshahi Metropolitan police, said additional police were deployed at the main points in the city to avert any un-toward situation.

Earlier on November 15, a gang of unidenti� ed miscreants hacked Sha� ul Islam with machetes at the entrance to his residence in Chauddapai area adja-cent to the campus around 3pm, leav-ing him fatally injured.

Later, he was declared dead after surgery at Rajshahi Medical College Hospital in the afternoon. l

Police produce pedestrians who did not follow tra� c laws before a mobile court at Karwan Bazar in the capital yesterday. A total of 45 jaywalkers and 79 vehicle owners have been � ned Tk38,870 for breaking tra� c laws yesterday SYED ZAKIR HOSSAIN

A gang of miscreants hacked Sha� ul Islam to death in Chauddapai area adjacent tothe campus on November 15

Children with disabilities charging candles inaugurate a two-day handicraft fair at Drik Gallery in the capital yesterday. Products made by children with disabilities are being displayed at the fair. The Seid Trust and the HSBC Bank Ltd have jointly organised the event RAJIB DHAR

6 NationDHAKA TRIBUNE Tuesday, December 2, 2014

Two killed in mass beatingn Tribune Report

Two people were killed in mass beating in Gazipur and Madaripur in the early hours of yesterday.

A thief was lynched at Singerdighi village under Sreepur upazila in Gazi-pur.

He was identi� ed as Nurul Islam alias Nuru Mia, 40, son of Dulo Sheikh of Kandipara village under Gafargaon upazila in Mymensingh.

Police said Nurul Islam along with his � ve to six associates had gone to steal poultry brids from a farm owned by one Abdus Salam at SIngardighi vil-lage around 3:30am.

Sensing their presence, workers of the poultry farm started screaming. The locals came to the spot and caught Nurul Islam, but his others associate managed to � ee.

Later, the angry mob gave him a good beating, leaving Nurul Islam seri-ously injured.

On information, police rushed to the spot and rescued him from the people and sent him to Gazipur Sader Hospital where on duty doctor declared him dead.

Con� rming the matter, O� cer-in-charge of Sreepur police station Mo-hsin Ul Kadir said, Nurul Islam was liv-ing with his family in MC Bazaar area of Mawna in Sreepur upazila of Gazipur.

Meanwhile, an alleged robber was beaten to death at Housdi village under Madaripur Sadar upazila yesterday.

Police said a gang of robbers entered the house of Awami Legue leader Faruk Khan around 2:30am.

The robbers looted Tk1.75lakh in cash, gold ornament keeping house residence hostage.

Sensing the presence of robber, nei-bouring people chased the robbers and cauguht one of the robbers. The locals gave him a good beating in which he in-jured critically.

He was taken to Sadar Hospital where on duty doctor declared him dead. l

Two abductors heldTwo abductors were arrested yesterday in Basail upazila of Tangail district two hours after abduction a business man. The arrested were identi� ed as Tipu28, son of Nuru Talukder, Adil,38, son of Abul Hos-sain Talukder in Karotia Talukder Para. ASI Murad Hossain of Basail police station said, the arrested abducted Tarek Ajij,30, contractor of a construction farm, from in front of Basail Gobinda Govt High School around 11am while he was going to his village along with his brother.– Our Correspondent, Tangail

Two drug peddlers heldTwo drug peddlers were held at Bhurungimari in the district yes-terday. The arrested were identi� ed as Jahurul Islam, son of Abul Kashem in Singjhar village under Joymonir Hat union and Firoz,

of Singjhar village. On information, police conducted drives and arrested them form their house respectively. –Our Correspondent, Kurigram

Death penalty demanded for killer of housewife Anju Locals and family members of Irin Akhter Arju, who was murdered in Dhaka on November 5, formed a human chain at Sher-e-Bangla intersection in Panchagarh town yesterday, demanding the highest punishment to the killer. Seeking justice, they also placed a memo-randum to the state minister for home a� airs through Mohammad Salah Uddin, deputy commissioner of Panchagarh. Speakers at the human chain demanded that Arju’s husband Amanullah Aman be given death penalty.– Our correspondent, Panchagarh

Farming in fallow land becomes boon for farmersn Our Correspondent, Sunamganj

At least 50,000 farmers of di� erent vil-lages in the district have become self dependent by cultivating winter vege-tables in fallow land this season.

Sources said the farmers of Sadar and Jamalganj upazilas cultivated veg-etables on 26,000 hectares of land.

They prefer cultivating vegetables which they � nd more pro� table. They are growing high-yielding vegeta-bles like tomato, cauli� ower, cabbage, pumpkin, radish and brinjal for com-mercial purpose.

After meeting local demands, di� er-ent varieties of vegetables are sold in the capital and other parts of the country.

Tajul Islam of Gudigaon village said he cultivated brinjal on three bighas of

land spending Tk15,000, and made a pro� t of nearly Tk50,000. He also plant-ed pumpkin for Tk5,000 and earned Tk15,000. He said pumpkin is selling atTk20-25per piece in the local market.

Ka� luddin, a farmer of the village grew cabbage on seven bighas of land spending Tk160,000. Now, he is sell-ing his produce at the local market for Tk25-30 a piece. He hopes to earn Tk3-4 lakh this season.

Amjad Hossain, another farmer of the village planted 22,000 heads of cauli� ower at a cost of Tk130,000. He is now expecting a return of Tk2 lakh.

The farmers alleged that the Krishi Bank did not help them to cultivate the vegetables.

They also said the o� cials of Depart-ment of Agriculture Extension helped

them by giving training and advice.Abul Hashem, deputy director of the

o� ce said: “We have advised the farm-ers how they can grow vegetables well.”

Many unemployed youths also have changed their lots by cultivating the vegetables.

Jamal Hossain of Purandigaon vil-lage said: “I had no work after pass-ing HCS. But now I am self dependent by cultivating vegetables around my homesteads.” “DAE o� cials helped me in this regard,”he said.

Mariam Begum of the village said that her husband had to run the fami-ly doing the work of day labourer. Now they are self dependent by growing the vegetables. She said the government should help them by providing money, pesticide and fertilizer. l

Two farmers collect cucumber at Nakara Dighi village. Farmers of Godagari upazila in Rajshahi are happy after getting a good yield of the vegetable this year. Traders from di� erent parts of the country come to the district and directly buy cumber from farmers. According to growers, one maund cucumber is being sold at Tk450 AZAHAR UDDIN

NEWS IN BRIEF

7Long Form Tuesday, December 2, 2014DHAKA TRIBUNE

n Naomi Hossain

Bangladesh turned middle income on a Thursday afternoon in November. Do not look for this transfor-mation in GDP or national

income statistics, because these may tell a di� erent story. This transforma-tion was revealed in three signals on the way to Bangla Academy.

First, a sign at the Gulshan 2 cross-ing declared it a “beggar-free zone”(b-hikkhukh mukto elaka). The point was illustrated with a line drawing of a person apparently living a life of great poverty, bent double with age and destitution.

The second sign was an absence: no visible beggars as depicted. The unfamiliar sight of a rule apparently being followed on the Dhaka streets was unsettling. But was the rule being followed? Were beggars staying away because of the consequences? Or was there another reason? Could it be – and rural wages have certainly increased – that everyone is so pros-perous and secure that the supply of such beggars had dried up?

The rural economy is booming, but this last explanation felt like wishful thinking. People have worked the tra� c out of north Gulshan ever

since I can remember, and they were often the genuine article: workless northerners escaping seasonal famine, landless southerners � eeing rising wa-ters, unlucky folk from all over. There were none of these hardy souls to be seen that Thursday.

The third signal at Gulshan 2 put a spin on the story. Instead of beggars from up-and down-country, the stalled tra� c was descended upon by large numbers of young middle class people, in coordinated sa� ron gear, collecting donations. This was organised charity, not begging, by and on behalf of the well-regarded Jaago Foundation. Donations were to be re-ceipted if required, or you could sign up to sponsor a child.

A lea� et explained the aims of the

Foundation included to “break the cycle of poverty,” by investing in high quality education and new skills (dis-playing an excellent grasp of contem-porary development language). This was a large volunteer e� ort of a kind I had never seen in this part of Dha-ka. Despite questionable health and safety standards, it looked like fun for the volunteers, and they made clever use of the gridlock. Were they allowed to do this, I asked one young fellow. Yes, he said, they were licensed and everything.

Perceiving poverty

Coming so rapidly one after another, these signals turned my attention to an old preoccupation – the relation-ship between the Bangladeshi elite and the masses whom they rule. For those who think you can tell a lot about a society by how it treats its vulnerable members, there is much to read here. It feels like a big change.

The de� ning characteristic of the elite-mass relationship in the short life of Bangladesh has been an unusual degree of proximity – a� nity, even. Outsiders often sco� when I say this: to those unfamiliar with Bangladeshi society, or indeed with elite behav-iour in general, these relations appear

coldly distanced, minutely hierarchi-cal, anachronistically feudal.

But this is partly because we conceal little: Bangladeshi society has to date had a comparatively open ap-proach to poverty – a fact, not a dirty secret. We do not banish the poor to an island or the hills or the forest; they live next door. Most middle class city folk are themselves recent rural migrants, at most a generation or two from the village.

Media coverage of disasters and hu-man rights abuses keep vulnerability and destitution in the public eye. And middle aged and older people from all classes remember the horrors of the 1974 famine (although we do not talk about it). All of this combines in a tangible, perceptible poverty, which

many people of wealth and power have seen up close and personal.

Their visibility does not guaran-tee poor people good treatment, but for what it is worth, they have been di� cult to ignore. And so the Bang-ladeshi elite has, to date, had a more experiential, face-to-face perception of poverty than their counterparts in Brazil, or the US or South Africa, or even India. And this has mattered in how we have gone about tackling our problems of poverty and vulnerability. I think it helps to explain our modest successes.

To the extent that it replaces the old modes, this new generation’s new model of charity creates a distance between donor and recipient. The face-to-face element is gone, replaced by a relationship of accountability be-tween donor and charity organisation. This in turn is licenced, and receipts donations, and probably audited, too. Perhaps it is more e� cient and more transparent, but the relationship is also now a bureaucratised outsourced transaction, not a personal exchange.

It is inherently demeaning and wrong to have to beg, but it has provided a safety net for centuries of beggars across South Asia. There have always been good reasons to give alms: religion, culture, proximity, reputation, kin feeling, social capital. But these are di� erent, more mod-ern times. Perhaps the time has now come, as Bangladesh aspires to middle income status, to do this better, or at least in a less visibly demeaning manner.

The growing unacceptability of begging resonates with other debates about poverty in Bangladesh. In the rainy season, I travelled north with a team studying how to help people cope with climate change and disas-ters. The old mode is public works schemes, mati-kata kaj as the women call it. But there was a new tone to our discussions with government o� cials and aid donors.

This was a discomfort about the sight of women transporting mud with their bare hands under the beating sun, which they do for be-low-market wages. This labour builds valuable public goods – embankments and canals, in areas prone to � oods and waterlogging, yet could be made redundant with the most basic mech-anisation, at very little cost. But the labour of poor women is valued little, and those who get international aid are still required to prove themselves “deserving.” So women continue to labour on public works schemes (in all fairness, many of them like the cama-raderie of the labour crews, and value their ability to earn).

My colleague was puzzled by the discomfort of the policy elites we met. I argued that in present day Bangla-desh, to use the labour of poor women

in this way was no longer acceptable: it just looked wrong. In much of Afri-ca, he countered, nobody would have even questioned this.

It felt like at a moment of � ux, when the spectacle of the third world in our midst jars intolerably with our aspirations for middle income status. We aspire not only to more money and better roads and hospitals, but also to an absence of beggary and to a more organised, less visceral kind of poverty.

The love affair between business and charity

How will poverty be perceived in this shiny new era? The signals at Gulshan 2 reminded me of how charity came to be reorganised in late Victorian England, a place of Dickensian pover-ty as well as vast wealth and imperial power.

The Charity Organisation Society of London, a network of elite men and women, pioneered a “rational” approach to poverty that broke with a view of charity as purely a private, religious duty, and distinguished between poor relief (breeding depend-ency) and organised charity (helping poor people pull themselves out of poverty).

For Bangladeshi social welfare and development organisations, these are familiar distinctions. For the Jaago Foundation, the goal is investment in education of good quality so that bright Bangladeshis are equipped with the skills they need to “break the cycle of poverty.” The ultimate point is to render charity redundant.

The logic is market-friendly (KFC and Pizza Hut are among Jaago’s sponsors): people can be boosted into work or enterprise, and will thus pull themselves out of poverty. It speaks to familiar aims of transformation through meritocratic social and eco-nomic integration.

In Victorian England, organised pri-vate charity became more important at a time of rapid industrial and impe-rial growth. Bangladesh is at present enjoying a period of strong economic growth and growing political power of business. This is no coincidence: busi-ness and organised charity go together like gin and tonic. It is partly practical – rapid growth and development casts aside those it deems economically useless, so someone else has to help them. But it is also symbolic: an em-phasis on charity separates values of morality and humanity from matters of trade and pro� t. Charity makes it ok to make big pro� ts at a time of great poverty.

Middle income country problems

The parallels between late Victorian London and the Bangladesh of last

Thursday are that these too, are times of economic growth in the shadow of global economic volatility and over-hanging threats from rising powers. In Bangladesh and elsewhere, the project of economic growth increas-ingly depends on the quality of the population.

People whose ancestors were poor rural labourers are needed now for industry and the economy: they need to be strong and skilled and capable of competing in global markets. Mean-while waterlogging and land erosion are pushing thousands to the big cities each year, to live in unplanned unsan-itary conditions in a slum near you. Without doubt these are times to be thinking about poverty and insecurity.

So is the third signal the green light in this story? Is organised charity the answer to Bangladesh’s problems of poverty? In Britain, organised charity did not then (and does not now) solve the problem of poverty. But then nor did the progress of capitalist develop-ment, which is why the welfare state was so essential for economic growth and human development.

In a fast-growing capitalist society like Bangladesh there will always be a need to support those left behind. Charity and religion plug some of those gaps. Achieving middle-income status means a large, necessary invest-ment by the state in the Bangladeshi people. There will be more, not less, need for strong safety nets and for care of the elderly, disabled and sick. These are protections that only states can provide. No amount of business success and economic growth or char-ity work can meet this need.

This is no criticism of private charity, or of the Jaago Foundation in particular, about which all I know and hear is good. The energy of the young volunteers is particularly valuable, and should be channelled wisely. But this marker of change in how the elites perceive the poor raises a key chal-

lenge, one about the next generation of Bangladeshi elites and the growing young middle class.

How will they perceive the problem of poverty? What do they know of rural hardship, famine and disaster? How will their perceptions in� uence their actions when it is their turn to take charge? That problem of pover-ty is far from gone, even if o� cially invisible in Gulshan.

I passed these signals en route to the Hay Festival – a world class celebration of global literature and the arts in the cultural heart of Dhaka city. Surely we are middle income now? l

Naomi Hossain is writing a book about The Bangladesh Paradox.

Are we middle income yet?

SYED ZAKIR HOSSAIN

The problem of poverty is far from gone, even if o� cially invisible in the VIP areas

Is organised charity the answer to Bangladesh’s problems of poverty? In Britain, organised charity did not then (and does not now) solve the problem of poverty. But then nor did the progress of capitalist development

Bangladeshi society has to date had a comparatively open approach to poverty – a fact, not a dirty secret. We do not banish the poor to an island or the hills or the forest; they live next door

Tuesday, December 2, 2014DHAKA TRIBUNE World8

WORLD AIDS DAY

The beginning of the end for Aids?

n Reuters

The world has � nally reached “the be-ginning of the end” of the AIDS pan-demic that has infected and killed mil-lions in the past 30 years, according to a leading campaign group � ghting HIV.

The number of people newly in-fected with HIV over the last year was lower than the number of HIV-positive people who joined those getting access to the medicines they need to take for life to keep AIDS at bay.

But in a report to mark World AIDS Day on Dec. 1, the ONE campaign, an advocacy group working to end pov-erty and preventable disease in Africa, warned that reaching this milestone did not mean the end of AIDS was around the corner.

“We’ve passed the tipping point in the AIDS � ght at the global level, but not all countries are there yet, and the gains made can easily stall or unravel,” said Erin Hohlfelder, ONE’s director of global health policy.

The human immunode� ciency vi-rus (HIV) that causes AIDS is spread via blood, semen and breast milk. There is no cure for the infection, but AIDS can be kept at bay for many years with cocktails of antiretroviral drugs.

United Nations data show that in

2013, 35 million people were living with HIV, 2.1 million people were new-ly infected with the virus and some 1.5 million people died of AIDS. By far the greatest part of the HIV/AIDS burden is in sub-Saharan Africa.

The AIDS pandemic began more than 30 years ago and has killed up to 40 million people worldwide.

The United Nations AIDS agency, UNAIDS, says that, by June 2014, some 13.6 million people globally had access to AIDS drugs, a dramatic improve-ment on the 5 million who were getting treatment in 2010.

“Despite the good news, we should not take a victory lap yet,” said Hohl-felder.

She highlighted several threats to current progress, including a $3b shortfall in the funds needed each year to control HIV around the world.

“We want to see bold new funding from a more diversi� ed base, including more from African domestic budgets,” she said.

ONE also noted that HIV is increas-ingly concentrated among hard-to-reach populations such as injecting drug users, gay men and sex workers - groups who are often stigmatised and have trouble accessing treatment and prevention services. l

Aging Europe needs the migrants it doesn’t wantn Reuters

Europe is aging faster than any other region of the world. It badly needs im-migrants. But many Europeans don’t want them.

The “old continent” may be able to o� set the impact of a graying work-force until around 2020 by bringing more women and elderly people into work, encouraging mobility within Eu-rope and making better use of existing migrants, EU and OECD experts say.

But in the medium to long term, the European Union will need to attract signi� cant numbers of skilled workers from beyond its borders - and over-come growing public opposition high-lighted by the rise of populist anti-im-migration parties.

“If you close the door (to immigra-tion), you will pay an economic price,” says Jean-Christophe Dumont, an ex-pert on migration at the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Devel-opment, a Paris-based intergovern-mental think-tank.

“For now, we can make better use of migrants who are already here, match-ing their skills better to labor market needs. In the longer term, it will not only be about matching skills, it will also be about numbers,” he said.

Going by current trends, Europe’s industrial powerhouse Germany, along with Spain and Poland, will see its pop-

ulation shrink from now on, slowing potential economic growth.

Germany’s 82 million residents will dwindle to 74.7 million by 2050 and their average age will rise to nearly 50, assuming unchanged levels of migra-tion, according to EU statistics agency Eurostat. Some projections are even more dire, putting the German popula-tion as low as 65 million by 2060.

That will mean “serious labor supply constraints” in some of the strongest EU economies - Austria, the Nether-lands and Finland as well as Germany - according to a European Commission study by Joerg Peschner and Constan-tinos Fotakis that took a baseline eco-nomic recovery of just 1%.

By contrast, Britain, France, Ireland and to a lesser extent Italy can expect healthy expansion. Britain will have overtaken the Germans by 2050 as the EU’s most populous nation with 77.2 million - if it stays in the bloc - while France will have caught up with Ger-many on 74.3 million.

Regardless of their place on the scale, many European countries still recovering from six years of economic crisis are being tugged in the opposite direction from demographic realities by a tide of anti-immigration political rhetoric.

Marine Le Pen in France, Nigel Farage in Britain and Geert Wilders in the Netherlands are attracting work-

ing-class voters by raging against free-dom of movement of workers within the EU, from the poorer east and south to the wealthier north.

They accuse the EU of opening the � ood gates to “job stealing” migrants, driving down wages and living stan-dards and raising crime rates.

The backlash against immigration prompted Pope Francis to appeal in the European Parliament for an “el-derly and haggard” continent to show a more welcoming face to those who cross the Mediterranean Sea in search of a better life.

Another pressing argument for ra-tional debate is the growing impact of the demographic reversal on the fund-ing of pensions and healthcare, espe-cially in countries such as Germany and Spain which will have the oldest populations.

As the post-World War Two baby boom generation retires, the ratio of over-65-year-olds to the working age population is set to rise dramatically, while the number of under-15s de-clines by nearly 15% by 2060, accord-ing to projections by Eurostat.

At present, the age dependence rate is 27.5 on average in the 28-nation EU, but Germany and Italy are well above that level. The rate is projected to jump to 49.4 in 2050, when there will be only two people of working age for every retiree. l

Palestinian woman stabs Israeli, shot by security forcesn Reuters, Jerusalem

A Palestinian woman stabbed an Israe-li in the occupied West Bank yester-day and was then shot and wounded by security forces, the military and police said.

Violence in Israel and the Pales-tinian territories has risen in the past months. Attacks carried out by Pales-tinians have killed 11 Israelis. Twelve Palestinians have been killed, includ-ing several of the assailants.

The latest incident occurred in the Etzion bloc of Jewish settlements near Jerusalem. The Israeli was lightly wounded.

A military spokesman said the Israe-li was a civilian and that security forces “overcame the suspect and transferred her for further medical assistance.”

A police spokeswoman said the Pal-

estinian woman who carried out the attack was shot. Reuters witnesses saw her being taken to Jerusalem’s Hadas-sah hospital. A hospital spokeswoman said she was seriously wounded.

In July, a Palestinian youth was burned to death by Jewish attackers, allegedly in revenge for the killing of three Israeli teens by Palestinian mili-tants in the West Bank in June.

A 50-day war that began in July be-tween Israel and Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip resulted in the deaths of more than 2,100 Palestinians, many of them civilians, as well as 67 Is-raeli soldiers and six civilians on the Israeli side.

Tensions have also risen in past weeks over access to a Jerusalem re-ligious site holy to both Muslims and Jews, triggering Palestinian street protests. l

Mohamed UK’s most popular namen Agencies

Mohamed is the most popular baby’s name in the UK as the popularity of Arabic names continues to rise, along with those of Frozen and Game of Thrones characters.

Figures from the Baby Centre showed that when di� erent spellings, including Muhammad and Mohammad, are com-bined, it takes the top spot – up 27 places from last year.

The name of the Muslim Prophet means “praised” or “praiser of God” and is thought to be one of the most popular names worldwide, leading some men to shorten it and go by another, less common name.

It is not the only popular Arabic name appearing in the list for 2014, with Omar, Ali, Ibrahim and Kian, which can also be Irish in origin, entering the top 100 for boys.

For girls, Nur and Maryam – the big-gest riser - have grown in popularity.

Sarah Redshaw, managing editor for the Baby Centre, said: “With the increase of Arabic names plus Aarav, an Indian boys’ name, the top 100 shows the ever-increas-ing diversity of the UK today.

“Parents have also been in� uenced by celebrity name choices. The Beckhams

and Simon Cowell have been big in� uenc-es this year. Eric, the name Simon Cowell chose for his son, increased by 314%.”

The names of David and Victoria Beckham’s o� spring have prompted a trend, with Harper hitting the top 100, Romeo is up 67% and the popularity of Cruz quadrupling for new parents.

Film and television is also proving to be a big in� uence, with the phenomenal popularity of the Disney � lm Frozen making its presence felt just a year after release.

Elsa, the name of the ice queen, has shot straight into the top 100 at 75, and the friendly snowman Olaf and leading man Kristo� have both been picked by new parents for the � rst time.

Breaking Bad appears to have inspired an increase in the names Skyler, Jesse and Walter, while Emilia - a lead actress from Game of Thrones - was a new entry at number 53 for girls.

Daenerys and Tyrion have also been registered, albeit far fewer times, and the popularity of Piper almost tripled as series Orange Is The New Black continues.

But while the names of popular celebrities and � lm heroes are favoured, parents appear to be wary of more con-troversial characters. l

Iraq uncovers 50,000 ‘ghost soldiers’n Agencies

Iraq has uncovered the existence of 50,000 “ghost soldiers,” Prime Minis-ter Haider al-Abadi has said, promising a crackdown on corruption.

“The prime minister revealed the existence of 50,000 � ctitious names” in the military, said a statement from Abadi’s o� ce on Sunday after a session of parliament.

A parliament statement said the premier scrapped the 50,000 jobs, equivalent to almost four full army di-visions.

Abadi’s spokesperson Ra� d Jaboori said that the investigation started with a thorough headcount during the latest salary payment process.

“There are two kinds of ‘fadhaiyin’,” one experienced o� cer in the security forces said, using a word which, literal-ly translated, means “space men,” and refers to the � ctitious soldiers crowd-ing the payroll.

“The � rst kind: each o� cer is al-lowed, for example, � ve guards. He’ll keep two, send three home and pocket their salary or an agreed percentage,” he told the AFP news agency.

“Then the second and bigger group is at the brigade level. A brigade com-mander usually has 30, 40 or more sol-diers who stay at home or don’t exist,” the o� cer said.

“The problem is that he too, to keep his job as a brigade commander, has to bribe his own hierarchical supe-riors with huge amounts of money,” he said.

The o� cer explained that, for those reasons, the thousands of soldiers who defected or were killed this year across Iraq were rarely declared as such. l

WFP suspends food aid for 1.7 million Syrian refugeesn Reuters, Geneva

A lack of funds has forced the UN World Food Programme to stop provid-ing food vouchers for 1.7 million Syrian refugees in Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey, Iraq and Egypt, it said yesterday.

“Without WFP vouchers, many fami-lies will go hungry. For refugees already struggling to survive the harsh winter, the consequences of halting this assis-tance will be devastating,” said WFP, which needs $64m to support the refu-gees for the rest of December. l

Republican aide apologises for comments on Obama’s childrenn Agencies

A senior Republican aide has apolo-gised for her comments about Presi-dent Obama’s children, in which she claimed the girls should “show a lit-tle class” after they appeared next to their father in fashionable clothing and looking slightly bored during an o� cial address the day before Thanksgiving.

Many joked about the First Daugh-ters’ awkward stances as they stood next to their father during the par-doning of turkeys ‘Mac’ and ‘Cheese’, while many in the room laughed at the girls’ swift response of “Nah” when asked if they wanted to pet the birds.

Elizabeth Lauten, spokeswoman for Republican Congressman Stephen Fincher, instead accused Sasha, 13, and Malia, 16, of being disrespectful in a now-deleted Facebook post, and chastised the girls for their choice of clothes on the day.

Her deleted post read: “Dear Sasha and Malia: I get you’re both in those awful teen years, but you’re part of the First Family, try showing a little class. At least respect the part you play.

“Then again, your mother and fa-ther don’t respect their positions very much, or the nation for that matter. So I’m guessing you’re coming up a little short in the ‘good role model’ depart-ment.”

She continued to berate the girls’ for their appearance, advising them to “rise to the occasion and act like being in the White House matters to you. Dress like you deserve respect, not a spot at a bar,” the BBC reported.

Ms Lauten, who has since faced sharp criticism and calls for her to re-sign, has apologised for her comments.

She wrote in an apology that she had spent “many hours of prayer” thinking about her comments, talking to her parents and re-reading her words online, claiming that “I can see more clearly just how hurtful my words were.”

“I’d like to apologise to all of those who I have hurt and o� ended with my words, and I pledge to learn and grow (and I assure you I have) from this ex-perience.”

She said she had “judged the two young ladies in a way that I would nev-er have wanted to be judged myself as a teenager.” l

Putin to visit Turkey amid Syria di� erencesn AP

Russian President Vladimir Putin is traveling to Turkey for discussions on economic ties and the crisis in Syria and Iraq.

Russia and Turkey have opposing positions on Syria’s crisis but Putin and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan are expected to downplay dif-ferences to concentrate on trade ties when they meet yesterday. Russia is Syrian leader Bashar Assad’s closest ally while Turkey wants to see him de-posed. l

Pope says it is wrong to equate Islam with violencen Reuters

Pope Francis said on Sunday that equating Islam with violence was wrong and called on Muslim leaders to issue a global condemnation of terror-ism to help dispel the stereotype.

Francis, the leader of 1.2 billion Ro-man Catholics, told reporters aboard his plane returning from a visit to Tur-key that he understood why Muslims were o� ended by many in the West who automatically equated their reli-gion with terrorism.

Francis’ predecessor, Benedict XVI, caused storms of protest throughout the Islamic world in 2006, when he made a speech that suggested to many Muslims that he believed Islam espoused violence.

Benedict said he had been misunder-stood and apologised. But this year, the image of a violent religion has once more been promoted by Islamic State, who have seized swathes of Syria and Iraq, slaughtering or driving out Shi’ite Mus-lims, Christians and others who do not

share their radical brand of Sunni Islam.The Argentine pope, who has been

trying to foster cooperation with mod-erate Islam in order to work for peace and protect Christians in the Middle East, said it was wrong for anyone to react to terrorism by being “enraged” against Islam.

“You just can’t say that, just as you can’t say that all Christians are funda-mentalists. We have our share of them (fundamentalists). All religions have these little groups,” he said.

“They (Muslims) say: ‘No, we are not this, the Koran is a book of peace, it is a prophetic book of peace’.”

Francis said he had made the sugges-tion of a global condemnation of terror-ism by Islamic leaders in talks on Friday with Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan.

“I told the president that it would be beautiful if all Islamic leaders, whether they are political, religious or academic leaders, would speak out clearly and con-demn this because this would help the majority of Muslim people,” he said. l

United Nations data show that in 2013, 35 million people were living with HIV, 2.1 million people were newly infected with the virus and some 1.5 million people died of AIDS. By far the greatest part of the HIV/AIDS burden is in sub-Saharan Africa

(Top) File photo showing policeman Bret Barnum, left, and Devonte Hart, 12, hug at a rally in Portland, Oregon, where people had gathered in support of the protests in Ferguson; this photo, with more than 400,000 shares, is the most widely shared photo in the wake of the recent American protests. (Bottom) St Louis Rams players put their hands up to show support for Michael Brown before their American football game against the Oakland Raiders on Sunday. The St Louis Police O� cers Association claimed that o� cers found the actions of the players Tavon Austin, Stedman Bailey, Kenny Britt, Jared Cook, Chris Givens and Tre Mason to be ‘tasteless, o� ensive and in� ammatory,’ and demanded that they be disciplined AP/REUTERS

Tuesday, December 2, 2014DHAKA TRIBUNE World 9

Indian sisters applauded for beating up molestersn AFP

Two Indian sisters were showered with praise and cash yesterday after a video of them thrashing three al-leged molesters on a moving bus was widely replayed.

Arti and Pooja Kumar, aged 22 and 19, were harassed by the men on a crowded bus last week while returning to their home in Rohtak, a district of largely rural Haryana state that borders New Delhi.

The sisters, using their belts and their hands, were seen attacking the men who were also grabbing and shoving other women in the aisle while other passengers looked on.

Police arrested the men on Sunday night after mobile phone footage, shot by a pregnant fellow passenger, was uploaded on social media and replayed on India’s multiple 24 hour news channels.

Although many praised the girls’ bravery, others were scathing of the other passengers. Some of them were seen sniggering as the attacks took place.

“Hats off to #RohtakBravehearts. N I despise such men who just sat and watched everything happen-ing,” one posted on Twitter.

Braveheart was the term given by the media to the 23-year-old student who died after being gang-raped on a moving bus in Delhi in 2012.

The horrific attack sparked inter-national outrage, street protests and a round of soul-searching in India

about its treatment of women.Some hoped the latest incident

would inspire others to rise up against so-called eve teasing, a eu-phemism for harassment that wom-en in India endure on an almost dai-ly basis.

“Go brave girls! #girlrising and wake up bystanders! Its shame-ful, the only one who intervened was a pregnant woman!,” said ac-tress Freida Pinto, star of “Slumdog Millionaire.”

“Bravo! #RohtakBravehearts 4 standing up against eve teasing. Hope you become role models for all girls who want to stand up against #eveteasing, “another tweet said.

Rohtak police spokesman Ved Singh Nain promised a speedy inves-tigation into the incident on Friday, after the women said the men start-ed abusing them when they rejected their advances.

“On the bus, they made obscene gestures, touched us and abused us,” Pooja told NDTV news channel yesterday.

“We could not take it any more and started beating them. One of the men grabbed my sister’s hand and the other held me by the neck. That is when my sister took out her belt and started beating them,” she said.

Haryana Chief Minister ML Khat-tar announced a cash reward for the women of 31,000 rupees ($500) each, saying he hoped the publicity would sensitise others to the issue. l

Climate funds for coal highlight lack of UN rulesn AP, Indonesia

About $1bn in loans under a UN initiative for poor countries to tackle global warm-ing is going toward the construction of power plants fired by coal, the biggest human source of carbon pollution.

Japan gave the money to help its companies build three such plants in Indonesia and listed it with the United Nations as climate finance, The Associ-ated Press has found. Japan says these plants burn coal more efficiently and are therefore cleaner than old coal plants.

However, they still emit twice as much heat-trapping carbon dioxide as plants running on natural gas. Villagers near the Cirebon plant in Indonesia also complain that stocks of shrimp, fish and green mussels have dwindled.

Japan’s coal projects highlight the lack of rules to steer the flow of climate finance from rich to poor countries — a critical part of UN talks on global warming, which resume Monday in Lima, Peru. There is no watchdog agency that ensures the money is spent in the most effective way, and no definition of what climate finance is.

Japan, a top contributor of climate finance, denies any wrongdoing and has done nothing illegal — there are no rules against counting such projects as climate finance in the UN system.

“There are countries ... that cannot afford to have other methods than coal,” Japanese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Takako Ito said. “For these countries, we’d like to provide the best method of reducing carbon dioxide.”

However, UN climate chief Christiana

Figueres, who was unaware that the Japanese-funded coal plants in Indone-sia were labeled as climate finance, said “there is no argument” for supporting such projects with climate money.

“Unabated coal has no room in the future energy system,” she told AP. “Over time, what we should be seeing is a very, very clear trend of investment into clean renewable energy.”

Even the newly launched Green Climate Fund, a key channel for climate finance in the future, still only has vague guidelines on how to spend the money. Board member Jan Cedergren said he didn’t believe the fund would support fossil fuels but acknowledged no deci-sion has so far been made.

In 2009, rich countries pledged that by 2020 they would provide $100bn a year in climate finance. They agreed to come up with $30bn over the next three years, with Japan providing about half.

An analysis of the 300 top climate finance projects during that period showed Japan was the only country to include direct support to new coal plants.

The second-largest project on the list was a $729 million loan for what Japan described as a “high energy efficient thermal power plant project in East Java.” AP found that the loan from Ja-pan’s Bank for International Cooperation, or JBIC, was used to build an 815-mega-watt coal-fired unit at the Paiton power plant, which is partly owned by Japanese firms Mitsui and Tokyo Electric Power Company.

Also among the top 30 projects globally was a $214 million JBIC loan

for another “thermal power plant” in West Java, which AP confirmed was the Cirebon power station. The plant is co-owned by Marubeni Corp., a Japanese company that was fined $88 million this year by the US Department of Justice for bribing Indonesian government officials to secure a separate power project.

Japan’s climate finance also included a $15 million development loan for a plant in Indramayu, West Java, and a dozen smaller coal projects in India, Indonesia and Vietnam. Those were identified as coal projects in documents submitted to the UN, while the larger projects in Paiton and Cirebon were not.

Japanese officials said there was no specific reason for that.

“We don’t have anything to hide or disguise,” a Foreign Ministry official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to speak publicly on the topic.

Marubeni and Mitsui declined re-quests for comment. Tokyo Electric said transferring Japanese technology can lead to a substantial reduction in carbon emissions.

However, many climate scientists say even the new technology Japan promotes is not enough to meet the UN goal of keeping the global temperature rise below 2 degrees. The only way for the math to work with coal, they say, is through technology that sucks carbon dioxide from the air and stores it underground.

That expensive technology is not yet commercially available on a large scale, and neither Cirebon nor Paiton has it. l

Amit Shah halts speech for azan, woos muslims n Agencies

From a four-minute pause at 3.20pm halfway through his speech to allow azan from the Tipu Sultan Mosque to be heard uninterrupted, to handing over Rs 50,000 in cheques to four families — all Muslims — who had died in political clashes, BJP national president Amit Shah on Sunday stepped beyond mere words to woo an electorate in Bengal that is increasingly � ocking to his party in south Bengal, particularly Birbhum.

With CPM unable to � ght their cause against Trinamool Congress, a large section of the minorities are join-ing the sa� ron fold — a fact the nation-al leadership is learning to adapt to.

Signi� cantly, a considerable portion of the huge turnout in the heart of cen-tral Kolkata comprised members of the minority community.

Rahamtullah Gazi travelled around 180km — all the way from Halsidanga village in Birbhum’s Illambaazar block — to become a part of the BJP rally at Esplanade. His name didn’t � gure in the list of BJP supporters who came from the district because this former member of a CPM gram panchayat came alone.

He didn’t want to be detected. “My only fault was that I was a CPM leader and my family voted for the Left,” he said. “We were ostracised. Even now, ... BJP, to me, is the only alternative,” he added.

Mujibar Rahman from Deganaga said: “CPM hardly has a presence in our vil-lage and we prefer to extend our support to BJP rather than join Trinamool.” l

Hong Kong warns protesters not to return after clashes close government HQ n Reuters

Thousands of Hong Kong pro-democ-racy activists forced the temporary closure of government headquarters yesterday after clashing with police, defying orders to retreat after more than two months of sustained protests in the Chinese-controlled city.

Hong Kong leader Leung Chun-ying said police had been tolerant but would now take “resolute action,” suggesting that patience may have � nally run out.

Chaos erupted as commuters made their way to work, with hundreds of stu-dent-led protesters surrounding Admi-ralty Centre, which houses o� ces and retail outlets, in a stand-o� with police. The central government o� ces and the legislature were forced to close in the morning, as were scores of shops.

The latest � are-up, during which police charged protesters with batons and pepper spray, underscored the frustration of protesters at Beijing’s re-fusal to budge on electoral reforms and grant greater democracy to the former British colony.

“Some people have mistaken the police’s tolerance for weakness,” Leung told reporters. “I call for stu-dents who are planning to return to the occupation sites tonight not to do so.”

He did not respond when asked if police would clear the sites yesterday.

Hong Kong Federation of Students leader Alex Chow said the protesters had intended to paralyse government headquarters.

“The plan was a failure on the whole, given that even if some places were occupied, they were cleared by the police immediately,” Chow said.

The democracy movement rep-resents one of the biggest threats for China’s Communist Party leadership since Beijing’s bloody 1989 crackdown on pro-democracy student protests in and around Tiananmen Square.

Financial Secretary John Tsang said the protests had damaged Hong Kong’s international image and hurt investor con� dence, adding the city’s economic growth could be lower than the government’s forecast of 2.2%. The territory also reported a slowdown in monthly retail sales.

Hundreds of riot police scattered the crowds in several rounds of heated clashes overnight, forcing protesters back with pepper spray and batons.

Scores of volunteer medics attend-ed to numerous injured, some who lay unconscious and others with blood streaming from head gashes. Police said at least 40 arrests were made.

The unrest came as British law-makers said they had been told by the Chinese Embassy they would not be allowed to enter Hong Kong as part of an inquiry into Britain’s relations with its former colony and progress toward democracy.

Hong Kong returned to Chinese rule in 1997 under a “one country, two sys-tems” formula that gave it some auton-omy from the mainland and an undat-ed promise of universal su� rage. l

Imran threatens to ‘shut down’ Pakistann Agencies

Pakistan’s opposition leader Imran Khan on Sunday threatened to “shut down” the entire country by December 16 if the Nawaz Sharif government failed to initiate an impartial probe into the al-leged rigging in 2013 general elections.

The Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) chief, in a rally here outside the par-liament, said that his protest will continue till the government initiate an inquiry into the “massive rigging” in last year’s general elections, which saw Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) win by a landslide.

“The ball is in your court, Nawaz Sharif — do your talks, do your inves-tigations and solve the issue. We will close Pakistan down when December 16 comes, and what I do after that you will not be able to bear it ... It has been 109 days and ‘Naya Pakistan’ is waking up every day. We can all see it,” Khan was quoted as saying by Dawn.

“On Thursday (December 4), I will go to Lahore and shut it down. On De-cember 8, I will shut down Faisalabad,

on December 12, I will go to Karachi and shut it down. By December 16, I will shut down all of Pakistan if the poll inquiry is not initiated,” Khan said.

The cricketer-turned-politician has been holding protest-rallies in di� er-ent cities to spread his movement, de-manding a probe into the allegations of rigging the election.

Khan had launched his protest in mid-August, demanding Sharif’s oust-er, but he later withdrew his main demand of the prime minister’s resig-nation ahead of the probe and o� ered the government to constitute a judicial commission comprising Supreme Court judges, ISI and military intelligence o� -

cials, to investigate the reported rigging.

Government set to talkPakistan government yesterday decid-ed to resume dialogue with the PTI.

Dawn reported that Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif took the deci-sion after his meeting with the Leader of Opposition in the National Assem-bly Syed Khurshid Shah.

After the government’s announce-ment of resuming talks with the PTI, a formal contact with the party was ex-pected to be established soon.

Earlier today, Leader of the Oppo-sition in the National Assembly Syed Khurshid Shah said Information Minis-ter Pervez Rashid’s statement that the government would not hold talks with PTI was disappointing.

It was necessary for the PML-N led government to hold talks with PTI, the Pakistan Peoples Party leader said, add-ing that in the other case, the govern-ment risked weakening its own standing.

The government had ruled out on Sunday the possibility of resuming di-alogue with PTI. l

Indian IS recruit goes home after having to clean toilets n AFP

An Indian student who travelled to Iraq to join the Islamic State group has returned home disillusioned after ji-hadists made him clean toilets and do other menial jobs, according to media reports.

Areeb Majeed, 23, left for Iraq with three friends in late May amid fears by authorities that IS militants were at-tempting to recruit from India’s large pool of young Muslim men.

The engineering student � ew home Friday to Mumbai where he was arrest-ed and charged by India’s elite Nation-al Investigation Agency (NIA) with ter-ror-related o� ences.

Majeed told NIA o� cers he was sidelined by the jihadists for whom he fetched water and performed oth-er lowly tasks such as cleaning toilets, instead of taking part in the deadly of-

fensive like he wanted, the Press Trust of India news agency reported.

He phoned his family to say he wanted to come home after su� er-ing an unexplained bullet wound for which he did not get proper medical attention, the agency said late Sunday.

“Only after I begged them, I was taken to a hospital,” he was quot-ed as saying by NIA o� cers. “There was neither a holy war nor any of the preachings in the holy book were followed.”

India’s moderate population of 150 million Muslims have traditionally not been drawn into sectarian con� icts in the Middle East and elsewhere, but the case of the four raised concerns about online recruitment.

Al Qaeda announced in September a new chapter of its extremist move-ment charged with waging jihad in South Asia, prompting several Indian

states to be placed on high alert.Tanvir Sheikh, the father of one of

Majeed’s friends who was still missing in Iraq, said he felt betrayed by his son.

Sheikh said his son Fahad was of-fered a job in Kuwait but instead de-cided to travel to Iraq to join the ex-tremists.

“He had got a job o� er from Ku-wait with a salary of three lakh rupees ($4,800) but he ignored that and in-stead took up arms. Now what hap-pens to his future?” Sheikh told the Indian Express newspaper yesterday.

“I feel let down by my son. He had a bright career ahead of him but he took advantage of our love and betrayed us.”

Radicalised foreigners have been drawn to the IS group, which has con-ducted a series of mass executions and other atrocities since launching its of-fensive in Iraq and Syria in June. l

Pro-democracy demonstrators rest at the main protest site in the Admiralty district of Hong Kong yesterday. Police unleashed pepper spray and baton charges at students who tried to storm Hong Kong’s government headquarters early on December 1, as tensions soared in the third month of pro-democracy protests AFP

The ball is in your court, Nawaz Sharif — do your talks, do your investigations and solve the issue

Protect property rights properlyIncalculable harm is done to our economy by the failure of the

government to ensure legal certainty and protect property rights.One extreme consequence of this can be seen in our investigations

into the Jamaat Shibir stronghold at Buthpara next to Rajshahi University. Buthpara residents report that one

of the reasons for Jamaat’s support in the area is that it has astutely taken advantage of local grievances in relation to land disputes. This is because residents claim the government acquired their land for Rajshahi University without paying compensation.

It goes without saying that the government should not acquire private lands or property without paying reasonable compensation.

Although the consequences in Buthpara are unusual, the root problem is not. Despite it being a serious criminal o� ence, land grabbing is widespread and property rights are frequently trampled upon. Politically-connected individuals have notoriously been able to act with impunity in occupying public land adjacent to rivers and in trying to grab land from minority communities.

Moreover, these are merely the tip of an iceberg. The court system is congested by at least 2 million land-related cases. Endemic corruption and maladministration in the land registration system make many of these harder to resolve.

The government must act e� ectively to reform the land registration system. It should start by always paying due compensation where it appropriates land by showing zero tolerance to corrupt o� cials and grabbers in high-pro� le cases.

It must also speed reforms to the land registration system and use technology to make it more accountable and transparent.

Free school lunches to improve nutritionNew upazila-level maps illustrating the geographical concentrations

of malnourished people in the country show a high correlation with areas of poverty and more remote districts.

We cannot a� ord to continue to allow people to endure the silent but violent misery of poor nutrition. Over 53,000 children die in Bangladesh every year due to complications arising out of high rates of child and maternal malnutrition.

Nearly half of deaths among under 5s are caused by malnutrition, and seven million children su� er from stunted growth and weakened ability to recover from disease. The grave health and development consequences caused by chronic vitamin A and iodine de� ciencies cost the country more than Tk7,000cr in lost productivity every year. With 39 out of 64 districts and 300 out of 544 upazilas in Bangladesh having stunting rates above 40%, policy-makers must address malnutrition as a national crisis.

The most cost-e� ective way to do this is to introduce free good-quality school lunches in public schools to help ensure all children receive a balanced diet. As well as � ghting malnutrition, this would also help encourage enrollment and retention.

We have the resources and the food producing and distribution ability to provide balanced diets for all, but what is needed is political will to make it a priority.

The government spends a billion dollars subsidising fossil fuels and electricity each year. It should cut these wasteful subsidies and spend the funds saved on developing free school meal programs, boosting rural incomes, and improving public education on nutrition.

Helping all people access a balanced diet that goes beyond merely � ghting hunger is the only way to cure malnutrition.

Interpol interested to investigate wildlife tra� cking in BangladeshNovember 26

Green Channel“South Asia is home to the world’s 13-15% biodiversity, encompassing some of the world’s most endangered species, including the Bengal Tiger.”

Are we making sure that our wildlife is safe in their own home environment?

US hostage ‘killed by IS’November 16

RS“Kassig, 26, was a former US Army Ranger who served in the Iraq War. He later trained as an emergency medical technician, travelling to Lebanon in May 2012 to work in border hospitals treating Palestinian refugees and later those � eeing Syrian con� ict.”

It is indeed harrowing to know IS has once again committed a horrendous and reprehensible act. It should be punished for this.

Editorial10 DHAKA TRIBUNE Tuesday, December 2, 2014

CODE-CRACKER

ACROSS1 Picturesque (6)5 Annoy (3)7 Lowest point (5)8 Counting frame (6)10 Insane (3)12 Classify (4)13 First woman (3)14 Fashion (4)16 Dreadful (4)17 Knight’s title (3)18 Exchanged for cash (4)20 Laundry item (3)23 Make beloved (6)24 Bread from heaven (5)25 Floor covering (3)26 Gives credit to (6)

DOWN1 Cicatrix (4)2 Rubber (6)3 Accustom (5)4 Members of a play (4)5 Vigour (3)6 Period of time (3)9 Sheltered nook (4)11 Female deer (3)14 Amiably gentle (4)15 Commands (6)16 Immerse (3)17 Echo sounder (5)18 Transmitted (4)19 Malay dagger (4)21 Flightless bird (3)22 Joke (3)

CROSSWORD

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

SUDOKU

How to solve: Each number in our CODE-CRACKER grid represents a di� erent letter of the alphabet. For example, today 8 represents L so � ll L every time the � gure 8 appears.You have two letters in the control grid to start you o� . Enter them in the appro-priate squares in the main grid, then use your knowledge of words to work out which letters go in the missing squares.Some letters of the alphabet may not be used.As you get the letters, � ll in the other squares with the same number in the main grid, and the control grid. Check o� the list of alphabetical letters as you identify them.

CODE-CRACKER

CROSSWORD

SUDOKU

YESTERDAY’S SOLUTIONS

CALVIN AND HOBBES

PEANUTS

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Make the land registration system accountable and transparent

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Help ensure all children receive a balanced diet to end the curse of malnutrition

Stop interfering with private universitiesNovember 19

HovercraftIt is a signal to the private universities to reform themselves into educational institutions and serve society, instead of being just a money-making business.

GuestI think I can add some practical examples here. I argued with my parents, friends, and other people that if I leave Rajshahi University and join ULAB, then it will boost my personal development. I repeatedly reasoned that teachers of my former English department either miss classes unreasonably or give lectures pointlessly. Rarely are there seminars, talks, or lectures from renowned authors, researchers, or moviemakers. If, by studying literature, I would aspire to become a banker or something which doesn’t require my academic knowledge, then I would never think of transferring out of a public university.

Now, every week, there is some sort of seminar, talks, and lectures by prominent editors, authors, and � lmmakers at ULAB, where I’m currently studying. After switching to a private university, I have found a job that moderately helps me to � nance my living expenses. When

I expressed my desire to work for a newspaper, even the adviser of the department approached me with his recommendation.

Notice that a private university provides electricity 24/7, air-conditioning, access to internet (with plenty of computers and labs), multi-media classrooms where the projectors and the computers always work, and if there’s any missing classes, students are immediately compensated the following week. All the facilities here cost money, not just for the beauti� cation of the campus, but also for an appropriate learning experience.

People in authority should and must think about the unhygienic and dangerous condition of our public universities. They should take steps to � nally install proper toilets at the public university campuses, and then provide all the classrooms with functioning projectors and computers, so that both teachers and students could bene� t from them. They should also consider how they can � nance the public institutions, where seminars, talks, or lectures by renowned personalities are rarely organised.

At my current university, students are taught in a way so that they become actual future leaders. Not just passive learners.

Kissy, kissy, kissyNovember 16

ndsAgreed, so long it is on a mutual consent basis. The problem is in our society; in every aspect of life, physical force acts as a constant villain and kills everything

that is good in us.

abul kalam nds: Wow! There you are. Seemingly teaming up with the author in “making love” in public!

Love, romance are good and beautiful, but when you bring them into the public, is it romance anymore?

Son Zoo abul kalam: A newspaper is just as much an open forum for di� erent opinions as it is a source of news. Just because you don’t happen to agree with one such opinion does not mean anything more than simply you don’t agree.

Rana abul kalam: True, true, and very true!

rose Even I don’t � nd that loving each other in public should be protested, or anything as such. We need to love each other. Love is indeed a beautiful thing.

Son Zoo rose: Yes. Expressing a� ection out in the open is not the same thing as doing whatever you want to in public.

Phil Hughes: Australia cricketer critically ill after being hit by ball

November 25Mohdud Ul Huq

All sports are not good for a humans safety. Com-pletely a waste of time for bright students.

SA Mohdud Ul Huq: Good health is important. In fact,

it’s the only thing that carries into old age, with basic � exibility and movement allowing a person to function in their daily activities. A bright mind

doesn’t matter if the body can’t function.Though I must admit that yes, in this case, it

was a highly dangerous situation. Very sad to see Phil Hughes pass away. Condolences to his family.

May he rest in peace.

Foot-over bridges get cleaned upNovember 25

Nur Hossain Howlader “In a bid to ensure safe movement of pedes-

trians, law enforcers have evicted hawkers from most of the foot-over bridges across the capital.

This photo was taken in the capital’s Kamalapur area.”

Nice, and without banner festoons! A relief to see this.

n Hasanuzzamann

The category of least developed country (LDC) was created in 1971 – the year Bangladesh achieved political and economic

independence. For those LDC’s graduation analysis,

which tends to overlap with income status, it is to be distinguished here that low-income country (LIC) and LDC thresholds are mutually exclusive, ie, they produce two distinct interpre-tations. This is where the question of sophisticated rhetoric creeps in.

LIC status governs access to concessional lines of � nance, and not all LDCs are LICs. In case of Asia-Paci� c, they range from Tuvalu – an upper middle-income country (UMIC) – to Bhutan, Kiribati, Lao PDR, Solomon Islands, Timor-Leste, and Vanuatu – low middle-income country (LMICs) – and to Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Myanmar, and Nepal – LICs.

This article focuses on the develop-ment aspect, because LDC’s gradua-tion does not necessitate Bangladesh becoming an MIC or LMIC.

LDC graduation thresholds The number of LDCs is revised on a triennial basis by the UN’s Committee on Development Policy (CDP). Three major considerations for LDC’s graduation are: Gross national income (GNI) per capita, level of human capital or human assets index (HAI), and the economic vulnerability index (EVI).

The income threshold for gradua-tion is set at 20% above the inclusion threshold, and it will be $1,242 in the upcoming 2015 review. On the other hand, the EVI and HAI thresholds have been permanently � xed by CDP.

Recent government estimates from the Ministry of Finance, presented in Table 1, indicate that Bangladesh is set to graduate from the LDC group by 2021. The country is on track to meet two out of the three graduation thresh-olds before the next CDP triennial review in 2015.

During the launch of the latest UNC-TAD LDC report, a local research or-ganisation opined that Bangladesh has not met any of the three thresholds, and that it will need at least a decade beyond 2021 to become an MIC. This is certainly not true. Additionally, state-ments on whether Bangladesh will attain LMIC/MIC status certainly dilute the LDC graduation objectives.

Nor does UNCTAD make any such indications, but it highlights Bang-ladesh’s achievements within the Asia-Paci� c LDC group. In case of foreign aid, remittance, and foreign

investment, Asian LDCs registered the most progress, with Bangladesh being recognised as the main driver.

LDC graduation processSuccesses achieved in both HAI and EVI could earn Bangladesh “eligibility” recognition by 2015.

If Bangladesh is found eligible for graduation between 2015 and 2018, UNCTAD and UNDESA will prepare a vulnerability pro� le and an impact assessment, respectively. At the 2018 triennial review, CDP will review the latter, alongside country inputs, and subsequently recommend Bangladesh for graduation to ECOSOC and the General Assembly.

From 2018 to 2021, CDP will mon-itor Bangladesh’s progress with the three thresholds.

After being recommended by CDP, the UN’s General Assembly will decide within the next three years, which will be 2021 – the Golden Jubilee of Bangla-desh’s independence. Table 2 o� ers a timeline and a summarisation of both

the UN process and national priorities. The political commitment is

explicitly articulated by the nation-al 10-year Perspective Plan and a graduation strategy being prepared by the government. The prime minister of Bangladesh has rightly pointed out that “Bangladesh will be moving out of the LDC status, but the country does not need to rush ahead.”

Whilst policy-makers with left-to-centre bias promote the idea of grad-uation, opponents argue that Bangla-desh would stand to su� er heavily as a result of erosion of trade preferences if the country graduates.

The problem is neither opponents nor supporters of graduation, but

those respected opinions transcend-ing LDCs discussion to the ladder of LICs in an attempt to underplay the signi� cance of LDC graduation for Bangladesh.

The graduation of Bangladesh from LDC status is, nevertheless, inevita-ble – whether by 2021 or 2024. As we gear up to celebrate our nation’s 50th birthday, we should neither forget what has been achieved nor should we lose focus on the inevitable.

Many of us have been an expatri-ate, a foreign student, or a visitor to a country which is at least relatively more developed than Bangladesh. We have often walked with people around the world from many strands of devel-opment and income status.

There is no doubt today that we have integrated well with the global economy as a virtue of our “least de-veloped” grade, but is it not necessary to celebrate as we free ourselves from its clutches?

Recalling grandma’s adviceDuring pregnancy times, expecting parents who go all-in to planning and strategising are often cautioned by their elderly that they should wait until post-delivery to make any type of plans or purchases – whether short, medium, or long-term. Our grand-mothers believed that such impulsive engagement without focusing on the need of the hour – taking care of the mother and praying for a healthy child – jinxes the birth cycle.

Surely, we are not only praying but are also hoping of making a healthier Bangladesh. In the same vein, gaining non-LDC recognition implies a new Bangladesh – at least in the global terms, if not for many cynical citizens.

Bangladesh is our mother, and we are her children. Just as our mother walks into a non-LDC realm, we too should gear up to embrace the Golden Jubilee opportunity to tell the world our “basket case” story in a whole new way. This will not only make our mother proud but will also help others to not to shy away from rays of hope. l

Hasanuzzaman is a Research O� cer at UNDP Bangladesh.

11Op-Ed Tuesday, December 2, 2014DHAKA TRIBUNE

A depoliticised Pakistan on the rampagen Khalil Ahmad

The pivot of politics is always seeking power, so that a political party is able, so to say, to imple-

ment its program on the basis of which it wins voters’ mandate. That’s an ideal statement of an ideal polity. In reality, it doesn’t happen like that.

There are betrayals, treacheries, and opportunism on the part of political parties. There is perennial interference, for instance in the case of Pakistan, by the players who are external to the political realm but are always intent upon unleashing political instability and uncertainty in the country.

Let’s try to understand what it is that’s called being depoliticised. In Pakistan, everyone who has a bit of interest in politics knows well a term, political apathy, the usual use of which stopped probably after the Lawyers’ Movement (2007-09); though the apathy still exists.

Maybe because it’s the movement that refreshed the interest of the people in the political a� airs of the country. Prior to that, the term political apathy stood to mean people’s insensitiveness to matters political, and it was also ar-gued that it was this factor which kept the voter turnout in Pakistan too low.

As far as causes of the political apathy are concerned, one is more important than others. First, regard-less of the fact which party is in power, no civilian political government ever tried to deliver. So people became im-pervious to whatever was happening in the political arena. They turned to themselves and to their homes.

Indeed, presently there is no talk of political apathy. But that doesn’t

mean there is none, it's still there. The voter turnout in the last elections is 55%. But the argument of the present writer does not base on the concept of political apathy. It lays its whole emphasis on the notion of a depoliticised citizenry of Pakistan. It may both be non-political and/or anti-political.

The concept of political apathy is altogether di� erent from the notion of a depoliticised citizenry. Political apathy is a reaction from the people to a fruitless and barren politics. It leaves politics on its own. It withdraws its interest from such politics.

In contrast to that, a depoliticised citizenry is something very dangerous, simply because it overrides politics. It outdates politics, it predates politics. It does not lose its interest in politics, rather it is overwhelmingly interested in politics. However, it’s concept of politics is sort of unique. It’s sort of a supra-politics.

In a nutshell, a politically apathetic

citizenry is indi� erent to whoever seeks power and whoever comes in power – it knows it’s not going to change their fate. A depoliticised citi-zenry, as it is ardently and desperately interested in politics, does not believe in seeking power through political means.

It derives its inspiration from an imagined future. It is in this sense, that it is said to be depoliticised. It is the essence of depoliticised elements, whatever their form is, they always seek power hungrily and seek it in non-political ways.

As a matter of principle, political elements, their betrayals, treacheries, and opportunism aside, somehow come to believe in political ways while

seeking political power. As against this, depoliticised elements are naked power-seekers. They want power at any cost by any means. That’s their substance and hallmark as well.

One more explanation may help understand the nature of a depoliticised Pakistan, the politics of which is being witnessed in the shape of Imran Khan (Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf), Tahir-ul-Qadri (Pakistan Awami Tehreek), Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain and Pervaiz Elahi (Pakistan Muslim League-Q), Sheikh Rashid Ahmed (Awami Muslim League).

They are all seeking power in non-political ways, whatever their excuses and slogans are. In fact, it is all the martial laws which veritably nursed such power-seekers. They crafted ever newer ways for non-po-litical power-seekers; and opened a whole new world for such non-politi-cal politicians.

In addition, a constituency for such politics also emerged. That created a depoliticiased Pakistan, which think and act non-politically. It derides politics. Some of the political parties learned a lesson or two not to seek power in non-political ways; but there is no dearth of newcomers and the old stalwarts who are still clinging to the old habits of seeking power.

Imran Khan’s would have proved to be a promising party for the politically apathetic citizens also, had it gone for seeking power in a political manner. Unfortunately it has opted for an align-ment with a depoliticised Pakistan, which believes in non-political ways only.

Political problems require political solutions. Likewise, in seeking political power in non-political ways, one party may succeed, but in the process, what damage it wreaks to the state and society, it may never realise. Now it is PTI which represents a depoliticised Pakistan; it’s strengthening it also. It’s on the rampage to destroy a political Pakistan it must come back to. l

Khalil Ahmad is a Lahore-based political philosopher and author of The Rise of State Aristocracy in Pakistan (Urdu) and other books. This article was previously published in Pakistan Observer.

It is PTI which represents a depoliticised Pakistan. It’s on the rampage to destroy a political Pakistan it must come back to

Timeline UN Process National Priority

2015 CDP: First � nding con� rms eligibility, noti� es country

Inclusion of LDC graduation strat-egies in the Seventh Five Year Plan (7FYP) 2015/16-2019/20

2015-2018 UNCTAD and DESA prepare vulnerability pro� le and impact assessment respectively

Oral statement to EGM and written statement to CDP

2018 CDP: Second � nding (con� rmation) – reviews vulnerability pro� le and im-pact-assessment; reviews country inputs; recommends for graduation; ECOSOC: Takes action on CDP � ndingsGeneral Assembly: Takes note of CDP recommendation

Maintaining progress

2018-2021 CDP: Monitors development progress Prepare transition strategy

2021 Graduation (3 years after General Assem-bly’s decision)

2021-2024 CDP: Monitors development during trien-nial reviews

Implement transition strategy and update the Perspective Plan

Table 2: Golden Jubilee LDC Graduation of Bangladesh: A Timeline

Source: Compiled from CDP (http://www.un.org/en/development/desa/policy/cdp/ldc/ldc_graduated.shtml)

Criteria CDP (2012) Government (2014)b Threshold (until 2021)

GNI $637a $1,190 -

HAI 54.7 65.96 66

EVI 32 32.4 32

Table 1: LDC Graduation of Bangladesh

a GNI per capita (Atlas Method) recorded $900 as of 2013 b External Economic Policy (EEP), Economic and Relations Division (ERD), Ministry of

Finance, February 2014

Reality versus sophisticated rhetoric

Moving towards a more developed Bangladesh SYED ZAKIR HOSSAIN

n Asif Reza Akash

Bangladesh has seen a sudden upsurge in gold smuggling within 2013-14 through its international gateways. Gold seizures in the two airports have become a near regular occurrence. Law enforcers are apprehending gold smugglers at the country's two inter-national airports every other day, with gold bullions being brought in primar-ily from the Middle East, thought to be headed towards India.

Customs o� cials claimed to have seized around 650kg of gold, worth an estimated $31m, in the last 15 months. According to the Customs Intelligence and Investigation Directorate (CIID), 4.3kg of gold was seized within the 2009-10 � nancial year, 0.35kg in 2010-11, 1.21kg in 2011-12, and 5.56kg in 2012-13.

So, the extreme rise in smuggling is fairly predictable and the reason behind it is not quite subtle. Our next-door neighbour India is one of the world's top importers of gold, but its import tari� s are much higher than that of Bangladesh.

Since the government of India raised tari� on gold to 10% in August 2013 from 2% in July 2012 to check the legal gold import to trade o� a severe current account de� cit in 2012, this tari� barrier cut its gold import sharply to 19 metric tons in November 2013 from 162 metric tons in May 2013.

So the supply of gold dropped but the demand has remained the same seeing how legendary the Indian market’s demand for gold is. The price of gold doesn’t plummet much in India, even when the price goes down in the international market for the stable domestic demand. Resultantly, gold smuggling syndicates are using Bangladesh as a route to smuggle gold to India across land-borders by bribing corrupt o� cials of Biman, customs, the immigration police, and others involved.

Being interviewed by newsmen, many customs o� cials admitted that the gold being seized at the airport was only the tip of the iceberg. The amount of gold seized by the o� cials is only a fragment of the bullion that is being

brought to the country.However, the only good here is that

whatever volume of gold is being con-� scated in the airports is being added in the gold reserve of the central bank, but on the other hand Bangladesh is being highlighted in the media as a safe gold-smuggling route. The syndi-cates are poisoning our immigration mechanism through their bribing. Our local gold businesses are losing their shares and the scope for corruption is increasing.

Reportedly, Bangladesh has 12 metric tons in annual demand of gold and that is partly met by expatriates. Trav-ellers and migrant workers, working in Middle Eastern countries, can legally carry 200g of gold on each visit to Bangladesh. In addition to the Middle East, gold also � ows into Bangladesh from Thailand, Singapore, Hong Kong, and Malaysia.

Reportedly, the jewelry market in Bangladesh is entirely dependent on smuggled gold because of cumber-some import procedures.

Moreover, the higher duty on imported � nished jewelry compared to gold bars also encourages business-men to rely on smuggled gold. India has a demand of 1,500 metric tons of gold annually, but after the tari� hike in India, Bangladesh raised its own import tari� s on gold by 20 times on July 1, bringing them in-line with those of India, thanks to our corrupt o� cials who appear to have done little to stem the tide.

According to the CIID, more than 4,000 people were arrested for smug-gling at the Dhaka airport in the last three years. They include 89 airline

employees, 396 CAAB o� cials, 34 customs and immigration o� cials, and 240 Ansar personnel. But we never hear about how they were prosecuted or if the were even prosecuted at all.

Recently, the Detective Branch (DB) arrested 5 individuals, including a deputy general manager (DGM) and a � ight scheduler, and according to in-formation gathered from the arrestees, a hundred other o� cials, including some high executives, are under the surveillance of DB.

Despite their e� orts, most of those arrested in gold smuggling cases last year are now out of jail on bail. The masterminds behind this ill trade are in� uential folk who have never been clearly identi� ed.

Corruption is already rampant in Bangladesh, and o� cials aiding gold smugglers have now pushed it to a new degree. Local and international media are reporting on this gold smuggling haul regularly. There is already a perception among people that customs and immigration are already highly prone to corruption, and now this degree of gold smuggling has con� rmed their beliefs.

A lot of civil-service examination candidates put customs as their top choice because of its highly lucrative possibilities, but it will destroy our social mechanism if steps are not taken against it immediately. The sooner the government understands this, the sooner our country can advance. l

Asif Reza Akash is pursuing his MBA at the Department of Accounting and Information Systems, University of Dhaka.

The yellow-brick road

Corruption is already rampant in Bangladesh, and o� cials aiding gold smugglers have now pushed it to a new degree

12 DHAKA TRIBUNE

Spirited Bangladesh thrash Chinese Taipein Raihan Mahmood

Bangladesh made a rollicking start in their Men’s Junior AHF Cup campaign with a resounding 7-0 win over Chinese Taipei at Maulana Bhasani National Hockey Stadium yesterday. In the other match of the day, Oman thumped Thai-land by the same margin.

The Bangladesh youngsters began the match in a rusty manner having missed a number of good chances be-fore eventually netting their � rst goal in the opening half. The hosts, howev-er, came out in the second half with all guns blazing � ring in another six goals.

Bangladesh piled up a considerable amount of pressure but due to their mis� ring forwards had to wait till the 27th minute for their � rst goal. The deadlock was broken through penal-ty-corner specialist Khorshedur Rah-man after Milon’s push and skipper Sarwar Hossain’s stop.

Heading into the second half with a slender 1-0 lead, Bangladesh changed their strategy and adopted an all-out attacking approach. The alteration paid immediate dividends as Mainul Islam Koushik made it 2-0 in the 41st minute, defender Ashraful added the third three minutes later while another

defender, Khorshed, grabbed the side’s fourth in the 46th minute. Three quick-� re goals in � ve minutes broke down Chinese Taipei’s resistance.

Milon notched Bangladesh’s � fth in the 50th minute, Koushik struck his second and the home side’s sixth three minutes later while Milon hit his second in the 56th minute to complete the rout.

Bangladesh coach Mamunur Rashid said his charges, eight of whom are from the senior team, were initially nervous in the � rst half. “They were nervous and we opted for a counter-at-tacking strategy. However, in the sec-ond half we decided to attack from all

fronts while our penalty-corner varia-tions worked perfectly.”

Captain Sarwar, who plays in mid-� eld, was a relieved man following the end of the game. “The � rst half was poor but in the second we showed our potential. Technically and physically Chinese Taipei are not bad. We have to continue the trend.”

Meanwhile in the � rst match of the day, Oman thrashed a hapless Thai-land 7-0. The losing side only arrived in Dhaka on Sunday night and a match the following day was always going to be a tall order. The Thais shipped six goals in the second half. l

Tuesday, December 2, 2014

Sport1413 Barcelona grab last-gasp win against Valencia

Mash hails teamwork, Mushyhappy to contribute

14 Pirlo settles Turin derby, Inter fall to Roma

Did you know?

Three of the last 10 hat-tricks in ODIs

have been taken by Bangladesh players

H AT T R I C K O N O D I D E B U T

BDvZIM, 5TH ODIZimbabwe inningsH. Masakadza b Jubair 52S. Raza c Rahim b Mortaza 9V. Sibanda c Mortaza b Shakib 37B. Taylor b Shakib 9S. Mire lbw b Taijul 9T. Maruma b Jubair 1E. Chigumbura not out 3T. Panyangara b Taijul 0John Nyumbu lbw b Taijul 3T. Chatara b Taijul 0T. Kamungozi c Mahmudullah b Shakib 2Extras (w3) 3Total (all out; 30 overs) 128Fall of wickets: 1-16, 2-95, 3-108, 4-109, 5-112, 6-120, 7-120, 8-124, 9-124, 10-128Bowling: Mortaza 5-1-23-1 (w1), Abul 3-1-23-0 (w1), Shakib 7-1-30-3 (w1), Taijul 7-2-11-4, Jubair 8-0-41-2Bangladesh inningsTamim Iqbal c Mire b Panyangara 10Anamul Haque c Masakadza b Chatara 8Soumya Sarkar c Raza b Chatara 20Mahmudullah not out 51Shakib Al Hasan c Masakadza b Panyangara 0Mush� qur Rahim c Taylor b Chatara 11Sabbir Rahman not out 13Extras (lb6, w10, nb1) 17Total (for � ve wickets; 24.3 overs) 130Fall of wickets: 1-18, 2-28, 3-47, 4-58, 5-93Bowling: Panyangara 10-1-49-2 (w3, nb1), Chatara 10-0-44-3 (w6), Kamungozi 4-0-21-0, Mire 0.3-0-10-0 (w1)Toss: ZimbabweBangladesh won by � ve wickets to take the

� ve-match series 5-0

28.1 Nyumbu lbw b Taijul 3 Taijul Islam to Nyumbu, OUT, oh given lbw, one more for Taijul! It was � at and sliding in towards the stumps, the batsman went on the back foot but was hit right in front of the stumps and umpire gives it out

28.2 Chatara b Taijul 0 Taijul Islam to Chatara, OUT, oh he’s got it, he’s got three in three on debut, the crowd erupts, Taijul leaps in joy! Chatara went down on a knee to slog the ball on the leg side, missed it completely and the ball angled in to the o� stump

26.6 Panyangara b Taijul 0 Taijul Islam to Panyangara, OUT, one more, sneaks it through the gap! Panyangara stretched forward to defend the � ighted delivery that didn’t turn away but came in slightly with the angle and found the gap between bat and pad to hit the stumps. Kept a little low too

Zim coach Mangongo hails clinical Bangladeshn Minhaz Uddin Khan

The visiting Zimbabwe cricketers with-out any doubt are deeply disappointed having lost all matches across both for-mats – Test and one-day international – in their 45-day tour of Bangladesh but the side’s coach Stephen Mangongo be-lieves it’s not the end of the world.

Mangongo credited the home side who he thought played exceptional cricket throughout the tour, but also acknowledged the e� ort from his

charges, especially the bowlers. “I think it was disappointing to lose

the series 5-0. Disappointing because we had opportunities to win a couple of games – at least we should have won the last game which we lost by 21 runs but its not like all is doom and doomed for us,” said Mangongo during the post-match conference at the Sher-e-Bangla National Stadium yesterday. “We have lost but we will put our heads up and move on and that’s cricket and that’s sport but we must always give cred-

it where its due. Bangladesh were the better side and they played very well.”

“Our bowling department I think has put up some good performances – I am very proud of them. They bowled very well in all the � ve games. So yes, there is hope with few individuals, young Solomon Mire’s start of interna-tional career was truly outstanding. So we can built from there,” he said.

Mangongo, who is known to be a strict disciplinarian, added, “I must give credit to Bangladesh. They were reso-

lute, they had the killer instinct, when they had us down they � nished us. They executed their skills better and, yes, the better team won the series.”

“I think when I arrived for my � rst press conference I said the Tigers are for-midable they are very good in their own jungle, they can beat any team, they have very good bowlers who execute very well. Their senior batters came to the party and they beat us. That is a fact and any given day they can beat any-one,” said the Zimbabwe coach. l

Jamal a step away from gloryn Shishir Hoque

Sheikh Jamal Dhanmondi Club are just a step away from becoming the � rst Bangladesh out� t to clinch the King’s Cup title as the premier football league champions take on Indian League side Pune FC in the � nal at Changlimithang Stadium in Thimphu, Bhutan today.

The Dhanmondi-based club have exhibited impressive football through-out the tournament. After remaining unbeaten in the group stages with two wins and a draw, Jamal edged Nepalese club Manang Marshyangdi 2-1 in the last four last Saturday.

Jamal’s opponents in the � nal, Pune, who � nished seventh in the I-League last season, are also unbeaten but struggled in the semis against Kol-kata giants Mohun Bagan before even-tually winning the encounter 6-5 in the tie-breaker last Sunday.

It will be Jamal’s third � nal appear-ance in as many international tourna-ments. Previously, Jamal clinched the Safal Pokhara Cup in Nepal three years ago but their biggest achievement in

the international stage came in the 118th IFA Shield in India earlier this year when they � nished runners up.

Following the departure of Haitian international Sony Norde at the end of last season, Gambian mid� elder Landing Darboe has been Jamal’s main man on the pitch. Darboe, who previously played for Feni Soccer Club, netted twice against Mohun Bagan in the group stages. The Gambian footballer also grabbed the late winner against Manang in the last four.

Jamal coach Maruful Haque will be glad with the return of Haitian striker Wedson Anselme who missed the semi-� nal due to suspension. The Bangladesh top-� ight champions, however, will miss the services of Sohel Rana who received his marching orders against Manang.

In Jamal, Pune coach Karim Bencherifa will be up against a famil-iar opponent. The Moroccan coach was previously at the helm of Mohun Bagan earlier this year in the IFA Shield when they took on Jamal. The Moroccan, therefore, will need to be on his guard to prevent Jamal from claiming their second international title. l

Magical Taijul inspires Bangladesh n Minhaz Uddin Khan

Left-arm spinner Taijul Islam became the 116th player to represent Bangladesh in one-day internationals, and 2207th overall in the history of 50-over crick-et, when he made his debut in the � fth and � nal match of the series against Zimbabwe in Mirpur yesterday.

And he made it an occasion to re-member by grabbing a hattrick – the very � rst in ODI history by a debutant. The 22-year old ended with miserly bowling � gures of 4/11 in seven overs as Bangladesh defeated Zimbabwe by � ve wickets and subsequently white-washed the visitors.

That the Tigers eventually made it � ve ODI wins out of � ve against the Southern African nation was large-

ly down to Taijul’s exertion with the leather. Taijul is now the fourth Ban-gladeshi bowler to take an ODI hattrick after Shahadat Hossain, Abdur Razzak and Rubel Hossain.

More than the hattrick itself, the Ti-gers will be pleased with the fact that they have unearthed another genuine left-arm spinner. Taijul recently made his Test debut in the West Indies and exhibited his talents in his very � rst in-nings scalping 5/135.

And in the three Test matches against Zimbabwe that preceded the ODIs, Taijul grabbed the headlines once again registering the best ever bowling � gures in an innings – 8/39 - by a Ban-gladeshi bowler in � ve-day cricket.

All that remained to be seen was if he could continue to be consistent. His

latest heroics yesterday, however, put paid to all the lingering doubts.

Coming back to his record feat, the cricketer from Natore � rst clean bowled Tinashe Panyangara in the � -nal delivery of his sixth over. And in the � rst two deliveries of his seventh over he trapped John Nyumbu in front before again shattering the stumps to dismiss Tendai Chatara.

A humble Taijul though admitted after the game that he did not ponder taking a hattrick while coming on to bowl as his sole objective was to ac-count for as many dot balls as possible.

“I did not think about it from the beginning. I just wanted them (Zimba-bwe) to play dot balls. It happened by the grace of the Almighty Allah,” said Taijul before adding, “Mush� qur [Ra-

him] bhai kept telling me to bowl at the stumps. That is what I focused upon doing. I was unaware of the record. The senior players later told me about it.”

The year 2014 was turning out to be an annus horribilis for the Tigers pri-or to the bilateral series against Zim-babwe. Although the series sweep in Tests and ODIs will not make it an an-nus mirabilis either, it will still give the Tigers some much needed con� dence heading into the 2015 ICC World Cup in Australia-New Zealand.

And Taijul, as one of the match-turn-ers of the side, will surely have some-thing to say next year Down Under. If his recent achievements are anything to go by, the Tigers need not worry, at least in the spin department going into the global showpiece event. l

ODI HATTRICKS FOR BANGLADESH SL Bowler VS Batsmen Venue Date

21 Shahadat Hossain ZIM Mufambisi, Chigumbura, Mupariwa Harare Aug 2006

27 Abdur Razzak ZIM Utseya, Price, Mpofu SBNS Dec 2010

34 Rubel Hossain NZ Anderson, McCullum, Neesham SBNS Oct 2013

36 Taijul Islam ZIM Panyangara, Nyumbu, Chatara SBNS Dec 2014

The Bangladesh Under-21 hockey players celebrate one of their seven goals against Chinese Taipei in the Men’s Junior AHF Cup yesterday COURTESY

The Zimbabwe cricket team pose for a photograph with Bangladesh PM Sheikh Hasina following the end of the � fth ODI against Bangladesh in Mirpur yesterday

MAINOOR ISLAM MANIK

SportDHAKA TRIBUNE 13

Jubilant Mash hails teamwork, Mushy happy to contributen Mazhar Uddin

Mashrafe bin Mortaza earned full marks in his � rst assignment as Ban-gladesh one-day international captain after the Tigers completed a convinc-ing turnaround in the fate of their re-sults this year by securing a whitewash against Zimbabwe.

The 31-year-old hailed the team’s overall professionalism while he also praised Taijul Islam for his heroics on debut yesterday.

“Even if you play a gully (street) cricket match you can’t expect a per-fect result. The boys performed very professionally. Taijul came in for one match and the hat-trick might have been a matter of luck but he bowled well, he bowled in one area. He did what the team needed from him. Every boy worked hard that’s why the result was possible.

“There is no substitute for a win.

This year we had close matches and we couldn’t win those but that doesn’t mean that we played bad, we just couldn’t � nish, so no matter who we played against the fact that we man-aged to win is a good thing and we need to hold on to this feeling,” said Mashrafe before adding that the con-tribution from the fast bowlers in the team also played a crucial role behind the result.

However the ‘Narail Express’ ex-pressed concerns with the batting de-partment as time after time they are encountering mini-collapses that put the team under pressure.

Meanwhile, the outgoing Bangla-desh ODI skipper also had reasons for celebration as the wicketkeeper-bats-man received the man of the series award for his 213 runs from � ve match-es and he dedicated the precious feat his newly wedded wife.

“This is nothing new to me as I even

received similar awards while being the captain. It is my responsibility to perform well, being the captain or not

does not matter. And this was my � rst series after wedding, so I am really happy with how things went,” said Mush� q.

Mush� q faced huge criticism for the defeat earlier this year before he was relaxed from his duty of leading the Tigers in the one-day format prior this series. He, however, informed that cap-taincy never put any pressure on his performance as his focus is simply on contributing what is needed.

“Yes captaincy pressure is di� erent, but when I went into the middle to bat as a captain I never thought that okay I am captain so I have to do well, as a se-nior player I have a responsibility to do well. I need to set an example. Wheth-er I am captain or not is not my issue, the main thing for me is to contribute for my team. If I can get a team out of a troublesome situation, individually con� dence increases and I can learn as well,” he said. l

Tuesday, December 2, 2014

Star Sports 12:00PMInt’l Premier Tennis League1:45AMEnglish Premier LeagueLeicester City v LiverpoolStar Sports 27:30PMIndian Super LeagueDelhi v Kolkata1:45AMEnglish Premier LeagueBurnley v NewcastleStar Sports 41:45AMEnglish Premier LeagueMan United v StokeTen Action12:30AM Copa del Rey Real Madrid v Cornella Ten SportsFrench Ligue 112:00AM 56 Lorient v Olympic Marseille 2:00AM AS Monaco v Racing Club De Lens Ten HDCoppa Italia9:00PM Lazio v Varese 11:00PM Sassuolo v Pescara Sony Six9:30AM NBA: Regular SeasonLA Clippers v Minnesota

DAY’S WATCH

Neuer, Ronaldo, Messi on Ballon D’Or shortlistBayern Munich and Germany goalkeeper Manuel Neuer made the � nal three candi-dates for the FIFA Ballon D’Or award on Monday, joining former winners Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi on the shortlist. Argentina and Barcelona forward Messi, winner on four occasions, made the shortlist for the eighth time in a row and Portugal’s Ronaldo, last year’s winner, for the fourth time running. Germany coach Joachim Loew, Real Madrid’s Carlo Ancelotti and Atletico Madrid’s Diego Simeone were selected for the Coach of the Year award. The � nal ceremony will take place in Zurich on Jan. 12. The FIFA world player of the year award was founded in 1991 and merged with France Football’s Ballon D’Or in 2010.

– Reuters

Platini denies Sunday Times Picasso claimsUEFA president Michel Platini told AFP on Sunday that rumours he was given a Picasso painting in return for voting for Russia to host the 2018 World Cup were “totally � ctitious”. British newspa-per the Sunday Times claims to have access to a database of allegations compiled by the failed English bid team for the 2018 World Cup. The newspa-per claimed on Sunday Platini was giv-en a painting, believed to be a Picasso, as part of a bid to secure his vote. “I’d like to point out that the Sunday Times allegations are totally � ctitious and the newspaper themselves admit that they don’t have any proof to support this ridiculous rumour,” Platini told AFP.

– AFP

Spain to seek to banish ‘ultras’Spain will seek to banish groups of vio-lent fans known as “ultras” from football following Sunday’s death of a Deportivo La Coruna fan in clashes in Madrid, a government o� cial said on Monday. Francisco Javier Romero Taboada, 43, had to be pulled out of the Manzanares river near Atletico Madrid’s Calderon stadium before kicko� in a La Liga match against Deportivo and died after su� ering a cardiac arrest, hypothermia and head injuries. Trouble had � ared in what appeared to be an organised street battle between ultras tied to Atletico, Deportivo and Madrid-based clubs Rayo Vallecano and Alcorcon. –Reuters

Pakistan coach satis� ed despite � nal Test defeat Pakistan cricket coach Waqar Younis Monday termed his team’s performance over � ve Tests as “extremely good” as they beat Australia 2-0 and levelled the series against New Zealand 1-1. Pakistan went down by an innings and 80 runs in the third and � nal Test against New Zealand in Sharjah on Sunday, an ending Waqar felt should not be criticised. “It would have been icing on the cake and a happy ending had we won the last Test and the series against New Zealand but if I analyse the performance in the � ve Tests I found it extremely good,” Waqar told AFP. Pakistan’s October win - also in United Arab Emirates - was their � rst against Australia in 20 years.

– AFP

QUICK BYTES

Australia-India � rst Test moved to Adelaiden AFP, Sydney

Australia’s four-Test series against In-dia will now start in Adelaide on De-cember 9 after Cricket Australia on Monday reworked the schedule follow-ing the tragic death of Phillip Hughes.

The opening clash between the teams was due to start on Thursday at the Gabba in Brisbane but was put o� following the death of Hughes in a freak on-� eld incident, with skipper Michael Clarke admitting his players were emotionally shattered.

Hughes died last Thursday from bleeding on the brain, two days after be-ing knocked unconscious by a bouncer while batting during a domestic match at the Sydney Cricket Ground, throwing the cricketing world into mourning.

India were scheduled to travel to Brisbane on Monday to prepare for the Test, but they remained in Adelaide,

e� ectively ending any hopes that the Gabba Test may be pushed back by one or two days.

With Hughes’ funeral scheduled for Wednesday in his home town of Macks-ville, Cricket Australia Monday night list-ed a change of dates on its website, with Adelaide Oval now hosting the � rst Test.

Instead of starting on Friday, De-cember 12 - as the second Test original-ly slated for Adelaide was scheduled to - it will begin on December 9.

This is seen as a � tting venue for the new � rst Test given it was Hughes’ adopted home ground for the past two summers with South Australia.

Such a shift will allow the second Test to be played in Brisbane from De-cember 17-21 with the traditional Box-ing Day clash in Melbourne remaining unchanged, while the Sydney Test has been pushed back three days and will now start on January 6. l

ICC: clampdown on bouncers unlikelyn Reuters, London

A clampdown down on bouncers is un-likely despite the death of Australian Phillip Hughes this week, International Cricket Council (ICC) chief executive David Richardson said on Sunday.

The cricket world was in shock this week after Hughes died on Thursday, two days after being struck on the neck by a short-pitched ball in a domestic � xture.

“We need to try and keep our per-spective,” Richardson, speaking to BBC Radio, said when asked if the ICC would move to further restrict the use of the bouncer.

“It’s a bit early to determine, but my initial reaction is that that’s unlikely.

“People have died by being struck on the heart before. I don’t think cricket needs to over-react, but do what we can.”

Current regulations permit two bouncers per over in Test matches and one-day internationals and one per over in Twenty20 cricket. l

Williamson to lead limited overs seriesn Reuters

Batsman Kane Williamson has been giv-en the opportunity to � ex his captaincy credentials after being named to lead New Zealand in their one-day interna-tional and Twenty20 series against Pa-kistan in the United Arab Emirates.

The 24-year-old, who has been touted as a likely future New Zealand captain, will take over from Brendon McCullum, who is returning home to rest ahead of the Sri Lanka tour of New Zealand in De-cember and January. New ball bowlers Tim Southee and Trent Boult are also returning to New Zealand as part of the team’s player workload programme, as the series against Pakistan does not end until a week before the � rst Sri Lanka Test in Christchurch on Dec. 26.

“Managing players’ workloads will be an important part of our summer plans and this is simply an example of that,” New Zealand selection manager Bruce Edgar said in a statement. l

McCullum hails ‘band of brothers’n AFP, Sharjah

Skipper Brendon McCullum hailed New Zealand’s “not so easy” series-levelling win in the third Test against Pakistan on Sunday in the wake of the tragic death of Phillip Hughes.

New Zealand thumped Pakistan by an innings and 80 runs to level the three-match series 1-1 in a Test over-shadowed by Thursday’s death of Aus-tralian batsman Hughes.

“It certainly wasn’t easy,” admitted McCullum. “It was a very tough period. We are nowhere as a� ected as the guys back in Australia, but at the same time, cricket is a community ... it is a fraterni-ty and we felt we lost one of our own.”

Both teams agreed to abandon the second day’s play on Thursday after news of Hughes’ death in Sydney came through.

The Australian, who would have cel-ebrated his 26th birthday on Sunday, died two days after he was knocked un-

conscious by a bouncer while batting in a domestic match at the Sydney Cricket Ground.

“It hit the guys pretty hard and we tried to stay as close as we could as a group. We tried to spend a lot of time together and tried to talk through stu� and share one another’s thoughts,” said McCullum.

“It felt incredibly hard to focus on the game and still hard to talk about the game. But we will look back upon this performance in time and we will be really proud of what we have been able to achieve,” said McCullum, who hit a robust 202 which helped his team post their highest-ever Test total of 690. Pa-kistan were bowled out for 351 and 259.

McCullum said New Zealand have progressed well in Tests.

“I think from the low of being bowled out for 45 against South Africa, we could only go up,” said McCullum of their slump in Cape Town last year.

“What it allowed us to do was strip

things right back to what was import-ant for us, how we wanted to be known as a team, how the country wanted us to play and the traits they wanted to see in those representing New Zealand - like a team that never gives up, and if they do get beaten, it is very hard to beat them.”

Pakistan captain Misbah-ul Haq was disappointed at the state of the Sharjah pitch.

“We cannot do anything about it,” said Misbah.

“We asked for a turner and every-body has seen what sort of wicket this was because we wanted this Test to be decided and we asked for a turning pitch and I don’t know what happened.”

Meanwhile, New Zealand’s veteran spinner Daniel Vettori said he didn’t feel it appropriate to call time on his Test career after the death of Hughes.

The 35-year-old staged a Test come-back after an injury gap of 28 months in Sharjah. l

BRIEF SCORESAbahani v Old DOHS, FatullahAbahani 297/5 in 49 oversLiton 66, Nasir 60, Rakibul 56; Neha-duzzaman 2/53Old DOHS 131 allout in 45.3 oversNehaduzzaman 43; Apu 3/13, Mo-sta� zur 2/17, Ziaur 2/19

Abahani won by 166 runsBrothers Union v Partex, BKSP 4Partex 183 allout in 50 overs Mehrab Jr 62; Shahjada 3/33, Asif 2/32Brothers 187/3 in 43.5 overs Nazim 68, Denly 56*; Azim 2/34

Brothers won by seven wicketsVictoria v Kalabagan KC, BKSP 3Kalabagan KC 122 allout in 43.2 overs Abu 3/20, Kamrul 3/27Victoria 123/3 in 29 oversDhiman 44; Rokibul 2/18

Victoria won by seven wickets

BDvZIM, ODI SeriesMOST RUNSPlayer Runs Mat Ave SRMush� q (BD) 213 5 42.60 95.08

Anamul (BD) 200 5 40 70.42

Mahmudullah (BD) 179 5 89.50 80.26

Taylor (ZIM) 162 5 32.40 76.77

Tamim (BD) 147 5 29.40 65.33

MOST WICKETSPlayer Wkt Mat Ave EcoShakib (BD) 11 5 12.36 3.23

Arafat (BD) 10 3 7.80 2.80

Mashrafe (BD) 9 5 16.44 4.11

Panyangara (ZIM) 9 4 24.44 5.50

Kamungozi (ZIM) 6 5 29.16 4.16

Abahani, Brothers, Victoria post winsn Raihan Mahmood

Abahani, Brothers Union and Victoria defeated Old DOHS, Partex and Kala-bagan Krira Chakra respectively in the seventh round of the Dhaka Premier Division Cricket League at di� erent venues yesterday.

At Khan Shaheb Osman Ali Stadi-um in Fatullah, Abahani trounced Old DOHS by 166 runs. Abahani posted a challenging 297/5 in 49 overs with Li-ton Kumar Das scoring the highest 66 while national discard Nasir Hossain chipped in with 60. Rakibul Hasan also registered a half-century.

In reply, Old DOHS capitulated to 131 allout. Abahani’s Nazmul Apu scalped three wickets conceding 13 runs while Ziaur Rahman and Mosta� zur Rahman shared four wickets between them.

At BKSP 3 in Savar, Victoria cruised to a seven-wicket win over Kalabagan KC. Kalabagan KC were skittled out for 122 with Victoria’s Abu Haider and Kamrul Islam picking up three wickets each. In pursuit of a modest 123 for victory, Vic-toria coasted to the target with 21 overs and seven wickets remaining. Dhiman Ghosh’s 44 led the way for the victors.

At BKSP 4, Brothers beat Partex by seven wickets. Partex were dismissed for 183 in 50 overs with the highest score coming from the bat of Mehrab Hossain Jr (62). Shahjada Hossain was the wrecker in chief with a three-wick-et haul. Chasing 184, Brothers barely broke sweat strolling to their target with 37 balls remaining and seven wickets in hand. Brothers skipper Na-zim Uddin scored 68 while Joe Denly made an unbeaten 56. l

Young cricket players pay tribute to the late Australian cricketer Phillip Hughes, who died recently su� ering a head injury during a match, at Marina beach in Chennai yesterday AP

The Tigers celebrate with the Test and ODI series trophy following the � fth ODI against Zimbabwe in Mirpur yesterday MAINOOR ISLAM MANIK

SportDHAKA TRIBUNE14

Pirlo settles Turin derby, Inter fall to Roman AFP, Milan

A last-gasp screamer from Andrea Pirlo saw Juventus stretch their impressive record over Torino in a 2-1 ‘Derby della Mole’ win as Roberto Mancini su� ered his � rst defeat back in the Inter hot seat on Sunday.

Juve’s 11th win of the campaign stretched their lead over title rivals Roma to six points, although Rudi Garcia’s men restored their three-point de� cit with a stirring 4-2 home win over Mancini’s vis-itors at the Olympic Stadium.

Torino showing plenty of enterprise in a thrilling second-half, but the visi-tors were undone in the � nal seconds when Pirlo, from 25 yards, smashed Vidal’s lay-o� past goalkeeper Gillet in the third minute of added on time.

Inter levelling twice thanks to An-drea Ranocchia and Pablo Daniel Osval-do following strikes by Roma’s Gervin-ho and Jose Holebas, the visitors were undone by a second-half brace from Miralem Pjanic.

Earlier, Jeremy Menez struck a sec-ond-half brace in a 2-0 win over Udi-nese as struggling AC Milan grabbed their � rst success in six matches to move up to provisional � fth place. l

Tuesday, December 2, 2014

Barcelona grabs last-gasp win Messi hit by bottle while celebrationn AFP, Madrid

Barcelona snatched a vital 1-0 win away to Valencia on Sunday thanks to Sergio Busquets’s volleyed winner deep into stoppage time.

The Spanish international pounced after Diego Alves had made a great save from Neymar’s header to ensure Barca close to within two points of leaders Real Madrid.

And on a day overshadowed by the death of a Deportivo la Coruna fan in violent clashes before Atletico Madrid’s 2-0 win over the Galicians, there were more unsavoury scenes at Mestalla as Lionel Messi was struck on the head by a plastic bottle thrown from the crowd with Barca celebrating the winner.

A � rst home defeat of the season means Valencia remain nine points o� the top in � fth.

“We were lucky to score in the last min-ute. These are three points that will give us a huge boost,” Busquets told Canal Plus.

“We never settle for a draw, we tried in every way possible and in the end it came from a corner. We had been attacking them for a few minutes and when the ball fell to me from Alves I gave it everything I had.”

Valencia boss Nuno Espiritu San-to, meanwhile, was left to lament the chances his side failed to convert in the second-half.

“We had good moments in the match and very clear opportunities to score. Barca also had chances to give

them their due,” he said. “But we had such clear chances and could easily have won.”

Barca boss Luis Enrique signalled how exacting a test he expected his side to face by naming Javier Mascher-ano alongside Busquets in mid� eld for the � rst time in his tenure.

However, they struggled to control the game in the early stages as Rodrigo forced Claudio Bravo into an early save with a rasping drive.

Barca slowly grew into the game, but their better chances arrived via long balls towards Neymar, while Luis Suarez ought to have put the visitors in front on 14 minutes.

Neymar laid Gerard Pique’s pass from the back into the path of the Uruguayan, but he � red straight at Alves with just the Brazilian goalkeeper to beat.

Barca were then fortunate not to be reduced to 10 men when Neymar ap-peared to headbutt Nicolas Otamendi, but the incident went unseen by refer-ee Fernandez Borbalan.

Moments later it was Valencia who came close as the game swung from one end to the other, Pique clearing Ro-drigo’s drive o� his own goalline.

Suarez’s frustrating night continued as he was wrongly � agged o� side when he did � nally � nd the net from Dani Alves’s cross.

Yet, in their push for a winner, Barca were opened up on the counter-attack and had Bravo to thank for making a � ne save to prevent So� ane Feghouli from opening the scoring.

The Chilean keeper had to be at his best again 12 minutes from time to beat Alvaro Negredo’s sweetly struck volley to safety.

And those interventions were to prove crucial as three minutes into stoppage time Alves parried Neymar’s header from Messi’s tempting cross and Busquets was on hand to force the ball home despite the goalkeeper’s best e� orts to keep it out. l

LA LIGASevilla 5-1 Granada Bacca 24, 79, Banega 65, El-Arabi 42-pen M’bia 89, Gameiro 90+2

Cordoba 0-2 Villarreal Vietto 24, Uche 70

Valencia 0-1 Barcelona Busquets 90+3

Van Gaal dreading busy December schedulen AFP, Manchester

Manchester United manager Louis van Gaal admitted he is dreading the Christmas period as his team continue their bid for a Champions League place against lowly Stoke City at Old Tra� ord on Tuesday.

The visit of Mark Hughes’ team marks the beginning of a month in which United play seven league � x-tures and, while his team has no inter-est in European or League Cup football, Van Gaal is adamant such a schedule is too demanding.

“I’m not happy because I do not agree with that but I cannot change that,” said the former Dutch coach.

“I don’t think it’s good for the foot-

ball players that they play within two days another match. In December, it shall be like that. We also have families. I also have a wife and kids and grand-children and I cannot see them this Christmas,” the Dutchman added.

“But, I want to work in the Premier League, I have to adapt and I shall adapt.”

Van Gaal’s concerns have been heightened by his team’s alarming in-

jury record with Angel di Maria and Wayne Rooney becoming the 41st and 42nd United � rst-team players respec-tively to sustain injuries this season, during Saturday’s 3-0 win over Hull.

Di Maria’s hamstring pull will keep him out of the Stoke game, although Van Gaal was more optimistic regard-ing Rooney’s chances of recovering from calf and knee problems in time.

Liverpool manager Brendan Rodgers has said he will persist with a pragmatic approach when the Merseysiders travel to Premier League strugglers Leicester on Tuesday.

However, following the sale of strik-er Luis Suarez to Barcelona in the close season and Daniel Sturridge’s injury problems, Liverpool have failed to re-

capture that form this term.After a run of three league defeats,

Rodgers adopted a more disciplined and defensive game against Stoke City at the weekend and saw his side grind out a 1-0 win.

And, ahead of the clash with Leices-ter, Rodgers said he planned to stick with a more conservative style for the time being.

Nigel Pearson has told his Leicester players they cannot a� ord to feel sorry for themselves if they want to end their poor run of form.

Pearson is expected to reshu� e his pack with the out-of-form Leonardo Ulloa, Leicester’s £8 million ($13 mil-lion, 10 million euros) record signing, expected to be among the fall guys. l

Klopp refuses to quit as Dortmund crash againn AFP, Berlin

Jurgen Klopp insisted Sunday he will not quit as Borussia Dortmund coach despite his team su� ering their eighth league defeat of the season to remain bottom of the Bundesliga.

Dortmund crashed 2-0 at Eintracht Frankfurt as Klopp’s men continued to frustrate fans who have seen the team, in stark contrast, ease into the Champi-ons League last 16.

But when asked if he has thoughts of walking away, Klopp insisted he will stay, despite his side being whistled and booed after the � nal whistle.

“I can understand journalists have such thoughts, but things aren’t head-ing that way, I am responsible for what is going on here,” a visibly dejected Klopp, who is under contract until 2018, told Sky.

“If it was only a question of luck and a change of coach would make a dif-ference, you only have to call me and I won’t stand in the way.

“But as long as no-one comes to me and says ‘we have someone who can do better’, I simply can’t leave. l

EPL Burnley v Newcastle United Crystal Palace v Aston Villa Leicester City v Liverpool Manchester United v Stoke City Swansea City v QPR West Bromwich v West Ham

SERIE ACagliari 0-4 Fiorentina Fernanez 17, 55, Gomez 69, Cuadrado 74

Cesena 0-3 Genoa Matri 4, Antonelli 7, Volta 43-og

Empoli 0-0 Atalanta

AC Milan 2-0 UdineseMenez 65-pen, 75

Palermo 1-1 Parma Dybala 37, Barreto 73 Palladino 40

Juventus 2-1 Torino Vidal 15-pen, Pirlo 90+3 Peres 22

Roma 4-2 Inter Milan Gervinho 21, Holebas 46, Ranocchia 36,Pjanic 60, 90+2 Osvaldo 57

BUNDESLIGAVfL Wolfsburg 1-0 M’gladbach Knoche 12

Frankfurt 2-0 DortmundMeier 5, Seferovic 78

Dortmund coach Klopp comforts defender Erik Durm after the Bundesliga match against Eintracht Frankfurt on Sunday AFP

Mancini already impatient for the transfer windown Reuters, Milan

Roberto Mancini has only been in charge of Inter Milan for two weeks and the new coach is already itching for the January transfer window.

Mancini complained that he had the wrong players for the system he want-ed to play after his side went down 4-2 at AS Roma on Sunday, leaving them in eleventh place in Serie A with only four wins from 13 games.

“This squad has been built to play a di� erent system, so it’s inevitable that there are some teething problems.

“We don’t have any out-and-out wingers, but the players are doing well to adapt. We’ve now got a month to do what we can, then we’ll see,” said Mancini, who was sent o� for dissent during the match. “We need to improve quickly,”

A new centre forward is likely to be top of Mancini’s list after Rodrigo Pala-cio, partnering Pablo Daniel Osvaldo in attack in place of the rested Mauro Icar-di, again failed to hit the target. l

Cornella keen to enjoy Bernabeu experiencen Reuters, Madrid

Third-tier Cornella, whose part-timers include a dentist and a school teacher, are determined to have fun when they run out at Real Madrid’s Bernabeu sta-dium for Tuesday’s King’s Cup last 32, second leg.

The Barcelona-based club, whose tiny arena holds around 1,500 fans compared with the Bernabeu’s capaci-ty of more than 80,000, trail 4-1 from the � rst leg and know it would take nothing short of a miracle to turn the tie around.

The match pits the world’s richest club by income, with annual revenues of more than 600 million euros ($748 million), against a club with a budget of around 1 million euros a season who were promot-ed to Spain’s regional Segunda B for the � rst time at the end of last term.

“Our goal is to enjoy ourselves,” striker Oscar Munoz, who scored Cor-nella’s goal in the � rst leg, told report-ers as the club’s party left by coach for the Spanish capital on Monday.

According to Spanish media, the

Cornella players have been promised a bonus of around 1,400 euros if they achieve the feat of eliminating the King’s Cup holders, less than Real forward Cris-tiano Ronaldo earns in a single hour.

Ronaldo and other regulars including Karim Benzema, Toni Kroos, Sergio Ra-mos, Marcelo and Pepe will be rested for Tuesday’s game, coach Carlo An-celotti said, as Real seek to extend the club record for consecutive victories of 16 they set on Saturday by beating Malaga 2-1 in La Liga. Forward Jese Rodriguez will see his � rst action since sustaining a serious knee injury in a Champions League game in March, An-celotti told a news conference.

Real and Cornella’s � rst leg was brought forward because of the Euro-pean champions’ participation in the Club World Cup this month. l

KING’S CUP Alaves v Espanyol Alcoyano v Athletic Bilbao Real Madrid v UD Cornella Las Palmas v Celta Vigo Valladolid v Elche

Saint Etienne end 20-year Lyon hoodoo n AFP, Paris

Saint Etienne beat Lyon 3-0 in France on Sunday, their � rst home win over their local rivals in 20 years, after Ligue 1’s top two, Marseille and Paris Saint Germain also won this weekend.

Moustapha Sall and Ricky Van Wolfswinkel gave Saint Etienne a 2-0 lead by half-time and Renaud Cohade � nished the job in the 69th minute.

The result sent a wave of joy round the stadium as it ended a run dating back to April 1994 and a series of seven home defeats by their bitter local rivals.

Playing with a � ve-man defence the home side were rarely troubled by Lyon’s 4-4-2 but breathed huge sighs of relief when Lyon striker Alexandre Lacazette missed a sitter at 1-0 before also sending a penalty wide in the 79th minute. l

Soldado’s barren run ends as soaring Spurs beat Evertonn AFP, London

Roberto Soldado’s near six-hour wait for a competitive goal � nally came to end as he scored the winner in Totten-ham Hotspur’s come-from-behind 2-1 win at home to Everton on Sunday.

Victory at their White Hart Lane ground saw Spurs climb into seventh place, level on points with north Lon-don rivals Arsenal, in the Premier League table.

The result ended Everton’s eight-game unbeaten run but Roberto Mar-tinez’s mid-table side had looked on course to extend that record when Kev-in Mirallas’s 15th-minute goal broke the deadlock.

But Mauricio Pochettino’s men were level just six minutes later through Christian Eriksen before former Valen-cia striker Soldado ended a run of 593 minutes without a goal in competitive football in � rst-half stoppage-time. l

EPLTottenham 2-1 Everton Eriksen 21, Soldado 45 Mirallas 15

LIGUE 1Bordeaux 1-0 Lille Diabate 62

Evian 2-0 Guingamp

Saint-Etienne 3-0 LyonBayal Sall 18, van Wolfswinkel 40, Cohade 68

Barcelona forward Lionel Messi (R) hit by water bottle during their La Liga match against Valencia CF at the Mestalla stadium in Valencia on Sunday INTERNET

Juventus mid� elder Andrea Pirlo (C) celebrates with teammates after scoring during their Italian Serie A match against Torino at Juventus Stadium in Turin on Sun day AFP

DHAKA TRIBUNE Entertainment Tuesday, December 2, 2014 15

MONIRUZZAMAN plays from the heartn Nadira Sultana Ava

M Moniruzzaman is one of the lead-ing � utists in Bangladesh, a master of several wind instruments including banshi, silver � ute, saxophone and Chinese � ute.

His three solo albums all have dif-ferent themes. Shomokal fuses dif-ferent ragas, Egaro has instrumental versions of eleven popular patriotic songs, and Destination features Su-� sm based folk music. The Dhaka Tri-bune caught up with the artist:

Our society often pushes young people towards mainstream jobs. When you decided to make music your career, did you face obstacles? Fortunately my father Ustad Abdur Rahman was himself a renowned � ut-ist. Many of the old playbacks we hear now-a-days were composed by him. So, I was lucky that way.

But I have faced real hardship � -nancially. It’s not possible to support a family only by practicing classical music. I often play in events where the organisers can’t even o� er me a stick of rajanigandha � owers due to lack of funds.

As a prominent flutist, you perform almost every day. How do you make time for your own practice?

I practice at least six hours a day. I per-sonally think that, on top of practice, every artist should keep time to re-search what they are working on.

Do you teach? Yes, I do. I teach both in Shilpaka-la Academy and at home. Even though I don’t take a sin-gle penny from students, not many are interested to learn when they see the di� culty level and the amount of practice I seek from them.

Any suggestions for upcoming young flutists?Flute is a charming and magical in-strument, but it has to be played from the heart. He or she has to love the instrument, and they must play it for their own pleasure. One can do well in anything, if it’s done with love and dedication.

Do you think the flute and classical music are treated with due respect in our country?It saddens me when I see the thou-sands of people spending thousands of taka to attend an Indian artist’s

performance, whereas sometimes we don’t even � nd 50 audience at our shows.

People think anything from abroad is better than us. They don’t even try us.

Sponsors are also not eager to pro-vide funds for classical music. Accord-ing to them, it is commercially unprof-itable.

What do you have planned for your next album?About my � rst three albums, I would like to thank Tonatuni Productions. In this world of commercialism, they came forward to sponsor us, which helps not only to me, but to the entire classical music industry.

For a long time, I’ve been planning to work on Lalongeeti. Hopefully, it will be re� ected in my next album. l

KAUSHIKI CHAKRABARTY: Connecting on a deeper leveln Rumana Habib

Kolkata-based vocalist Kaushiki Chakrabarty captivated an audience of 55,000 on Sunday night at the Ben-gal Classical Music Festival.

The lifelong musician is the daughter of vocalist Pundit Ajoy Chakrabarty, who also performed on the � rst day of the festival. But with her honeyed voice, angelic face and incredible stage presence, she is a ce-lebrity in her own right.

She sat down with the Dhaka Tri-bune for an interview the morning af-ter her triumphant performance.

You have performed many different styles of music in your career.Yes, I started with only raag sangeet, which I was trained in as a child. But over the years I’ve done collabora-tions, playbacks in di� erent languag-es, and mainstream contemporary music also.

These broaden my mindset. Be-yond the music itself, the process that musicians goes through is very inter-esting to me. I think knowing what’s going on in the mind of the musician during a song helps people connect to it on a deeper level.

Music is who I am. Music cannot lie. It is the most genuine expression of myself, so having access to di� er-ent styles gives me a path to di� erent aspects of myself: some bring out the brightness in me, some bring out my mellowness.

How do you feel about singing in Bangla? You’ve recorded Rabindrasangeet. I love poetry, and I love writing and literature. No one on earth who loves literature wouldn’t love Rabindranath Tagore. Studying him has been a part of my life, introduced to me by my mother. I sing it for myself more than anything else.

Rabindrasangeet teaches you to tell a story, give a message through the song. As a singer you can get car-ried away by the melody. But when you sing Rabindrasangeet, a part of your mind must always be soaked in the lyrics, or you can’t sing it. There is such deep thought and philosophy being conveyed.

You sang ‘Golap Sari’ at the festival, which was a huge hit with the crowd. Did you plan that when you decided to wear a pink sari?

Not at all. I just love having fun. That’s who I am. I don’t think playing classi-cal music forces you to become some-one else. Music is the truest me that I am. So when singing, I have to be my-self.

You were very playful with the audience, and they really responded to that. I love to interact with the audience. My gestures and everything I do is the

expression of what is going on in my mind. That is precisely why an audi-ence comes to a live performance: for the entire experience. Otherwise they would just put on a CD.

As a musician, I have a responsibil-ity to make them a part of the entire process. I try to bring them as close as possible to the process I am going through while creating music.

How was your own experience on stage?

Very good, apart from the fact that I was a little rushed.

Just before I went on they came told me we were short on time. It’s better idea to tell a musician after they’re on stage, maybe after the � rst piece. Because that’s the time when you want to get into the mood of the music. So it not great to mention a time factor then, because you’re not in a very practical place.

Right before getting on stage seems to be a sacred time for musicians. It is a very lonely time.

That’s when the journey with-in starts. Any creative art is done in a lonely space. We create a pseu-do-space on stage, a pseudo-reality.

The really lonely space is when we practice, when we do our riyaz. That’s where the actual journey hap-pens, and that’s what we try to go back to. That space of emptiness and loneliness is what the music stemsout of.

Regarding that loneliness, does it help coming from a family of musicians?It helps because the environment you get is one of music, and I have been fortunate to learn from my father. He

is always constant monitoring me, rectifying mistakes at once. I went on stage with father, and experienced be-ing on a dais from a young age. These help.

But my father did not come from a musical family, and for him, that is what made him a musician. It’s some-thing that comes from within.

You’ve performed in the Bengal festival all three years. How did you feel about Sunday night’s massive crowd?It was the largest audience I’ve ever performed to. When I was told it was that big, I was shocked.

I think the best compliment to an audience is when a 55,000-person group feels very cozy. People who were so much with me, and trying to connect to the process. Blessed are those days when you can actually connect.

It’s no easy task to connect to 55,000 di� erent hearts thinking dif-ferent things. But it makes it so easy and spontaneous and free-� ow-ing when everyone is reciprocat-ing the vibes that you want to give them. That makes it something veryspecial. l

ExhibitionLife is HereBy Kanak Chanpa ChakmaTime: 12pm – 8pmBengal Art Lounge

16th Asian Art BiennaleBangladeshTime 11am – 8pmNational Art Gallery

Shilpakala AcademyShegun Bagicha

TheatreBhongobongoby Aranyak, ShilpakalaTime 6:30pm – 8pmExperiemnetal Theatre HallShilpakala AcademyShegun Bagicha

B E N G A L C L A S S I C A L M U S I C F E S T I V A L 2 0 1 4

Dancer Vishal Krishna takes the stage last night on the � fth day of the festival at Army Stadium KHAN HASAN MD RAFI

Chhuye Dile Mon’salbum released n Entertainment Desk

Audio album of the � lm “Chhuye Dile Mon” was released on Friday in the cap-ital. The colourful event was attended by the stars of the movie Are� n Shuvo and Zakia Bari Momo, who also performed with a song from the movie. The cast and crew of the � lm then uncovered the audio CD.

The album is packed with six songs penned by Marzuk Russel, Saju Khadem, Shahan Kobondha, Sirajum Monir and Someswar Ali. Except one song, “Bhaloba-sha Dao, Bhalobasha Nao”, which is composed by Habib Wahid, all other songs are tuned by Sajid Sarkar.

The title song “Chhuye Dile Mon” is sung by Tahsan and Shakila while Habib has lent his voice for “Chhuye Dilam”. “Shunno Theke Ashe Prem” is sung by Kona and Imran, “Chini Na” is performed by Shaon and “Chole Jaoa” is sung by Shaon and Shakila. “Chuye Dile Mon” is a directorial debut of Shi-hab Shaheen and produced by Asiatic Dhonichitra and Monforing. l

Two Bangladeshi � lms selected for Bengaluru Film Festn Entertainment Desk

Two Bangladeshi � lms, Akash Koto Durey (The Distant Sky) and Nodijon (The River of Colours), will be screened at the Bengaluru International Film Festival, which will be held from December 4 to 11 in Bengaluru, India.

Both � lms are produced by Impress Tele� lms Ltd. Akash Koto Durey directed by Samia Zaman was released on February 14 while Shahnewaz Kakoli’s Nadijon is not released yet.

Kazi Shahriar Parvez, the executive producer of Impress Tele� lms’ Cin-ema Division, told the Dhaka Tribune that Zul� qar Russel, the story and screenplay writer of Akash Koto Durey and Shahnewaz Kakoli, director of Nodijon would attend the festival. With the post-production work going on, Nodijon is all set to hit the cinemas soon. l

A scene from Akash Koto Durey (The Distant Sky)

F O U R T H D A Y ’ S P E R F O R M A N C E S

Indian � autist Hariprasad Chaurasia’s mood livened up when the maestro broke into an enthusiastic performance of Ahir Bhairav with a large audience. Chaurasia gave an amazing display of his skill, making each one of the audience appreciate the joy that music can elicit. The duet of Pandit Tejendra Narayan Majumdar’s sarod and Ganesh Rajagopalan’s violin also captivated the audience KHAN HASAN MD RAFI

16 Back PageDHAKA TRIBUNE Tuesday, December 2, 2014

Bengal Classical Music Festival takes a bown Rumana Habib

Concluding at dawn today, the Bengal Classical Music Festival brought together 160 artistes over the course of the � ve-day music and dance extravaganza at the Army Stadium.

The third annual event was bigger than last year in every way: more days, longer hours, more headliner artistes, and a crowd to match.

Sponsored by the Bengal Foundation and Square, among others, it was a completely free event, though audiences had to register in advance – which they certainly did.

“It is by far the biggest audience I have played for,” said santoor Pandit Shivkumar Sharma. “This is a historic thing happening here.”

“I travelled from Bogra just to attend the festival,” said Md Zakaria Sheikh Justice, who returned every night. “I got o� the bus and came straight to the venue.”

More than 55,000 people attended the fourth evening. There were tra� c jams around the venue and hour-long queues to enter, even as late as 2am.

It was the audience size that astounded the musicians, many of whom have been selling out concert halls around the world for decades. Organisers attributed the surge in crowd size to � ute player Pandit Hariprasad Chaurasia, who performed that evening to a packed stadium from around 4am.

“I have been performing on stage for 60 years, but have not experienced such grand arrangements,” Chaurasia said. “More in-teresting is the enthusiasm of the audience

here, who spend the whole evening and stay up all night to listen to music.

“I have not seen such music lovers in the whole world,” he added.

Chaurasia was also a big draw last year and the year before. In 2013, the night he played was the most well-attended, at 35,000. This year’s attendance topped that number almost daily.

Set to close the festival was sarod player Ustad Amjad Ali Khan, playing for the � rst time at the annual event.

“I would like to congratulate Bengal for cre-ating awareness about music. This is the � rst time I am playing for the local people. Other performances here were all o� cial,” Amjad said. He expressed interest in returning next year and playing together with his sons Ayaan Ali Khan and Amaan Ali Khan, who

had performed the night before.The brothers were among many per-

formers from the same family on this year’s programme, which they greatly appreciated. Others were: father and son Rahul and Shivkumar Sharma, father and daughter Ajoy and Kaushiki Chakrabarty, and brothers Ajan and Sajan Misra, and Umakant and Ramakant Gundecha.

They enjoyed meeting so many fellow performers. “I don’t think I’ve ever been under the same roof with so many members of the fraternity,” said Amaan.

Shivkumar Sharma said the festival was “an answer to people who ask: What is the future of Indian classical music?”

“There are those who think classical mu-sic may be lost,” he said. “ But when I come and play here, I don’t feel like that at all.” l

‘Change in mindset required for addressing disability’n Mohammad Abu Bakar Siddique

Meet Khondokar Jahurul Alam, a man who was diagnosed with polio when he was three, only to become a key � gure in the � eld of disability rights.

Alam, Executive Director of the Cen-tre for Services and Information on Dis-ability (CSID), an NGO, argues that ad-dressing the issue of disability requires a change in thinking.

He is also the county representative of International Council for the Educa-tion of Visually Impaired Persons, and the former president of Asia Paci� c Dis-ability Forum.

He played a crucial role in formu-lating the 1995 policy, 2001 law, and the latest law adopted in 2007, for the disabled.

“Many have the deep-seated belief that the disabled have no potential. Even I had this belief as my parents got very frustrated when I contracted po-lio at the age of three. They were con-cerned about my future,” he says.

“After passing the SSC examination, I did nothing for seven years, and lat-er appeared in the HSC test. I then tried to do something and I was lucky as I met Dr RJ Garst, who founded the Rehabilitation Institute and Hospital for the Disabled (now National Insti-tute of Traumatology and Rehabilita-tion) through makeshift rehabilitation camps for the disabled and wounded freedom � ghters after the 1971 Libera-tion War,” recalls Alam.

He says Garst sent him to a vocation-al training centre for the blind, where he had to supervise the task of making

chalk pencils. “That was the beginning. It was a time when government o� -cials used to make Tk450-500 a month but I was receiving as much as Tk8,000, which gave me enormous con� dence that I can do something despite my dis-ability. I was later promoted to coordi-nator, and got a pay rise as well.”

According to Alam, the experience of a London tour of his elder broth-er was a real eye-opener for him. “My brother, having returned from London, told me the disabled in London took part in many activities, and the society did not think there was anything wrong with being disabled.”

My brother inspired me by saying that I could do a lot despite having po-lio, adds Alam.

Alam, who says Garst changed his life, graduated from Tejgaon College in 1983 and enrolled in a course at London School of Business. There he observed how the disabled were treated by oth-ers. He later obtained a Master’s degree

from Jagannath University. “In 1991, organisations working for

the disabled decided to form a forum, and I became the � rst president which changed my life again. I also became the chairman of an organisation for the disabled in the Asia Paci� c region, which was my � rst international role. I got the opportunity to see the global scenario of the disabled. However, I had to choose between whether to do the job for making money or to lead the organisation. I chose the later,” he says.

Alam claims the government has downplayed the number of the dis-abled by putting it at about 2% of the total population.

“This is unrealistic. Some interna-tional organisations say it will be about 15%,” he says.

Alam’s organisation has so far pro-vided support for many disabled peo-ple. Besides conducting researches, the organisation trained 21,000 disabled people and helped them secure jobs.

Addressing disability requires changes in social mindset as well as ap-proach in dealing with the disabled, re-iterates Alam, adding that the concep-tion of disability beggars description in Bangladesh.

“Many people in the society still believe that having a disabled child is disgraceful. They also prefer not to dis-close to others that they have disabled children, which makes it di� cult to get the accurate statistics about disabled people,” he says.

According to Alam, people with dis-abilities in the society lead a really unat-tended life, but they need care and love. l

Cabinet-approved NGO draft law comes under � re The law, if enacted, will authorise the bureau to punish NGOs for irregularitiesn Tribune Report

The draft of a new law regulating non-government organisations (NGOs) operating in the country was approved by the cabinet yesterday authorising the NGO A� airs Bureau to cancel li-cence for irregularities and corruption.

The draft law styled “The Foreign Donations (Voluntary Activities) Reg-ulation Act, 2014” gives ministries the authority to require revision of NGO projects or to order them cancelled.

It requires approval before anyone involved in voluntary activities travels abroad for project work. That is a poten-tial violation of the International Cove-nant on Civil and Political Rights.

The draft law was approved by the cab-inet at a meeting chaired by Prime Min-ister Sheikh Hasina.

But the draft has met with criticism from international watchdog Human Rights Watch, which describes it as re-strictive and prone to abuse.

“These are the kind of restrictions one usually associates with a one-party or authoritarian state, not a democracy like Bangladesh,” said HRW Deputy Di-rector Robertson.

There have been reports that 15 NGOs, including Transparency Inter-national Bangladesh, opposed the pro-posals in the law when the draft was earlier circulated for their opinions.

According to the proposed law, NGOs receiving foreign funding must register with the NGO A� airs Bureau (NGOAB) in the Prime Minister’s O� ce and subject their operations and fund-ing to increased scrutiny and control.

HRW called on foreign donors to publicly express misgivings about the proposed legislation.

“Corruption is � ourishing in the government and the private sector, so it is more than odd that the govern-ment is spending its time passing tough laws that target NGOs,” Robertson said.

The provision requiring approval for foreign funding will e� ectively allow gov-

ernment control over the issues groups. Groups receiving or planning to re-

ceive foreign funding must register with the NGOAB, submit to inspections and monthly coordination meetings with its representatives, and seek approval for all planned activities before receiving the grant, according to the draft law.

In addition, the bill proposes tough sanctions for non-compliance by both organisations and individuals, includ-ing � nes and disciplinary action.

If there is disagreement over any or-der, the NGO or individuals involved would be able to � le appeal with the PMO.

However, the draft states that its rul-ing would be � nal, denying recourse to an independent judicial process.

Cabinet Secretary Musharraf Hos-sain Bhuiyan said NGO’s would have to get approval from NGOAB before adopting and implementing projects.

NGOs will need the consent of the Home Ministry to appoint foreign con-sultants, the cabinet secretary said, adding that the NGO A� airs Bureau would scrutinise such proposals.

“The consent of the Chittagong Hill Tracts A� airs Ministry will be required if an NGO wants to run a programme in the region. There will be regular vigilance by the Chittagong Hill Tracts Regional Council of the programmes,” he said.

The draft law says NGOs must main-tain a separate bank account to deal the foreign aid, and that account would be subject to scrutiny and audits by NGOAB.

NGOs must submit statements of their accounts to NGOAB, which will have the power to inspect, monitor and evaluate the activities of NGOs.

Annual statements must be submit-ted by every NGO to the NGO A� airs Bu-reau director general, the draft law says.

“The sta� and o� cials of an NGO will face criminal cases if the organisa-tion is involved in terrorism � nancing and tra� cking of women and chil-dren,” he said.

The cabinet secretary said NGOs were currently operating under two or-dinances, passed in 1978 and 1982.

The Foreign Donations Voluntary Activities Regulation Ordinance, 1978 and The Foreign Contributions Regula-tion Ordinance, 1982 were promulgat-ed during the military interregnums.

The government says it is drafting the new law for the sector after the Supreme Court declared ordinances and decrees issued during the interreg-nums unlawful. l

Bangladesh 6th on Women Resilience Indexn Tribune Report

Bangladesh was positioned sixth among the seven South Asian countries in the Women’s Resilience Index (WRI) on preparing for and recovering from disasters, said a report by the intelli-gence unit of UK-based weekly news-paper The Economist.

According to the report, prepared in collaboration with ActionAid, Bhu-tan and Sri Lanka was positioned � rst and second, respectively, in the overall ranking in the Women’s Resilience In-dex while Nepal, India, Maldives and Pakistan obtained the third, fourth, � fth and seventh positions, respectively.

Despite the country’s good reputa-tion in facing disasters, Bangladeshi women are far behind in this regard, which happened due to lack of prop-er implementation of the disaster re-sponse policy, said Farah Kabir, Action-Aid’s country director in Bangladesh.

While presenting the report at the Dhaka Reporters’ Unity hall in the cap-ital yesterday evening, she said Bangla-

desh has to increase the expenditure to prepare for and recover from disasters to decrease the vulnerability of women in this regard.

The Women’s Resilience Index as-sesses a country’s capacity for disaster risk reduction and recovery, and the extent to which the needs of women are being considered in national resil-ience building e� orts.

Bangladesh achieved an overall score of 40 out of 100, while Bhutan scored 46.4 and Pakistan scored 27.8.

The scores were determined by 68 di� erent indexes under four categories – economic, institutional, infrastruc-ture and social.

The study had Japan as benchmark regarding the disaster preparedness and recovery while preparing the index for the South Asian countries, as Japan faces similar types of, and frequent, disasters. Japan’s overall score is 80.6 in the index.

In case of the individual catego-ries, Bangladesh was placed third in the economic category, with a score of

48.6, while India and Maldives ranked � rst (55.9) and seventh (18.2), respec-tively.

Maldives scored the highest, 59.6, in the infrastructure category, while Bangladesh scored the lowest – 22.3.

In the institutional category, Bang-ladesh was positioned third with an overall score of 45.4, while Bhutan and Sri Lanka was � rst (49.7) and seventh (29.4), respectively.

In the social category, Bangladesh was � fth with 43.8, with Bhutan in the � rst place (55.6) and Pakistan in the last (21.6).

The report suggested that the eco-nomic empowerment of women in the community can make all the di� erence for their experience in disaster risk re-duction.

It also said women in Bangladesh do not play vital leadership roles in dis-aster resilience, and even though they represent the majority of micro-� nance borrowers – 90% – their access to cred-it at both formal and informal institu-tions remains limited.

Bangladesh is considered one of the most vulnerable countries to natural disasters such as cyclone, � ood and storm surge. The frequency of such natural hazards increased in recent years as a result of climate change.

According to the WRI report, Bang-ladesh’s economic damage is more than $10b, and 15,719 people lost their lives between 1995 and 2014, due to natural disasters.

Farah Kabir suggested that the government should make the local governments stronger so that they can respond intensively during disasters, and make women empowered by providing training and other support.

The role of local government institu-tions should be inclusive in this regard as they are located nearest to common people, she said.

She also said the disaster issue should be included in the government’s di� erent economic plans so that both men and women can bring themselves out of the vulnerabilities. l

Final tribute paid to Qayyum Chowdhuryn Tribune Report

Artist Qayyum Chowdhury was laid to rest at the family graveyard at Azimpur in the capital yesterday.

The body of the veteran artist was taken to the Central Shaheed Minar around noon. People from all walks of life – his colleagues and students, cultural activists, friends and family members and general people – paid their last respects to the noted artist at the Shaheed Minar.

Earlier in the morning, his body was

taken to the Institute of Fine Arts of Dhaka University where he taught al-most his entire professional life.

His namaz-e-janaza was held at the Dhaka University central mosque in the afternoon.

Artist Qayyum Chowdhury died at the Combined Military Hospital in the capital on Sunday night. He had fallen ill at the time of addressing the Bengal Classical Music Festival at the Army Stadium around 8:40pm.

Qayyum Chowdhury was born on March 9, 1934 in Feni.

After passing Matriculation from Mymensingh City Collegiate School, he studied at the Dhaka Art Institute. His teachers Zainul Abedin, Quamrul Has-san and Saifuddin Ahmed had a great in� uence on him.

He joined the institute as a teacher in 1957 but left in 1960. He rejoined the art institute – then renamed as Government Art College of Dhaka – in 1965 as a lec-turer in the commercial art department.

He retired from the Institute of Fine Arts (later renamed) in 1994. But, he continued teaching there until 2002. l

Son of artist Qayyum Chowdhury holds the hand to condole artist Monirul Islam, who got emotional as he came to pay his last respects to the late colleague at the Central Shaheed Minar in the capital yesterday SYED ZAKIR HOSSAIN

Vidushi Kishori Amankar performs at the Army Stadium in the capital on the last day of the Bengal Classical Music Festival yesterday DHAKA TRIBUNE

‘These are the kind of restrictions one usually associates with authoritarian states, not a democracy like Bangladesh’

Editor: Zafar Sobhan, Published and Printed by Kazi Anis Ahmed on behalf of 2A Media Limited at Dainik Shakaler Khabar Publications Limited, 153/7, Tejgaon Industrial Area, Dhaka-1208. Editorial, News & Commercial O� ce: FR Tower, 8/C Panthapath, Shukrabad, Dhaka 1207. Phone: 9132093-94, Advertising: 9132155, Circulation: 9132282, Fax: News-9132192, e-mail: news@dhakatribune.com, info@dhakatribune.com, Website: www.dhakatribune.com

www.dhakatribune.com/business TUESDAY, DECEMBER 2, 2014

B3 Oil prices hit multi-year lows as OPEC decision weighs

B4 Asia factories � nd demand lacking, in further blow to commodities

Topaz workers demand factory reopening n Tribune Report

The workers of closed-down To-paz Dresses Limited yesterday staged demonstration in front of BGMEA complex in the capital, protesting the factory closure and demanding its reopening.

Around 300 workers have be-come unemployed due to the closure on Sunday all on a sudden in accordance with article 13(1) of the Labour Act, 2006.

According to the Labour Act, 2006, employers may, in the event of an illegal strike by any section or department of any es-tablishment, close down either wholly or partly such section or department and the striking workers shall not be paid any wages for such a closure.

The workers alleged that the factory owner was sacking the workers without paying their due

salaries in due time as per labour law, and not paying maternity al-lowance, which led them to go for work abstention.

However, the factory man-agement said the workers went for work abstention and demon-stration illegally even without placing their demands before the management as there is a regis-tered trade union in the factory.

As the company has recently appointed production engineers from Srilanka to increase produc-tion, the workers are not willing to accept the appointment, alleged the management of the factory.

“The owners were forced to shut the factory as the workers illegally staged work abstention breaching the labor law during the last three days,” BGMEA Vice President Reaz Bin Mahmood told the Dhaka Tribune yesterday.

“We went on work abstention

on Sunday as the factory owner had transferred one of our colleagues with a threat to sack him,” said Ma-mun, an operator of the factory.

As the factory owner is going to start a 35-line factory in Gazi-pur and for shifting purpose, he is playing a tricky game with the workers. As a part of his decep-tion, he shut the factory in line with article 13(1) of the Labour Act, 2006 just to escape workers payment, he added.

Bangladesh Garment Manu-facturers and Exporters Associa-tion (BGMEA), however, said they would sit with the workers and the owner tomorrow to settle the issue, said Shahidul Islam, a line chief, who met the BGMEA lead-ers as a team leader to negotiate.

Besides, the workers of Com-mon Thread, a sister concern of Rich Harvest Group, also staged sit-in in front of the National

Press Club demanding their four-month dues.

They staged the sit-in pro-gramme under the banner of Jago Bangladesh Garment Workers Federation at 11am, which con-tinued till 3pm, according to an witness account.

In the name of two days leave on the occasion of Shab-e-Barat in June, the management of the factory shut the factory and did not re-open it, despite several pledges to open it. As soon as the workers went to join o� ce after the two days leave, they found a factory closure notice on the ground of lack of work orders.

“We did not join elsewhere as the factory authorities have been assuring us of reopening it and that is why we are demanding wages for the last four months,” said Rina Begum, an operator of Common Thread. l

BTRC warns internet gateway operator of paying duesn Muhammad Zahidul Islam

Bangladesh Telecom Regulatory Com-mission has issued a � nal show-cause notice to the � rst private Internation-al, Mango Teleservices Limited, for its non-payment of due revenues to the commission.

In the noti� cation issued on No-vember 27, the regulator said it would suspend Mango’s operation if the lat-ter fails to pay all dues amounting to Tk8.26 crore within a week according to International Internet Gateway (IIG) guidelines.

Asked about it, Mango Teleservices Managing Director Mir Masud Kabir told the Dhaka Tribune yesterday over phone: “We are yet to get any � nal show-cause notice from the regulator regarding the revenue-sharing, and even for the � rst time, I learned about such type of notice from you.”

Masud, however, acknowledged that they have a huge amount of mon-ey due to pay to the regulator.

IIGs serve as a gateway for routing international incoming and outgoing internet-based data tra� c while all in-ternet service providers are connected to global internet through them.

The internet gateway operator sources said as they fail to collect their bills from Wimax licence holders of the regulator, thus being unable to deposit the regulator’s portion.

BTRC Chairman Sunil Kanti Bose recently told journalists they would get tough with Mango for realising the outstanding bills.

Over the last couple of years, Man-go is not sharing its revenues with the commission according to the IIG guide-lines though the telecom watchdog fre-quently served notices to the internet gateway operator.

The telecom regulator served at least four notices to the operator and � xed November 20 as the last date for paying all dues, but the operator also turned non-compliant.

“All these activities are against the li-cence condition and the guidelines and also a violation of the telecom act 2001,” reads the notice sent from the Engineer-ing and Operation Division of BTRC.

A senior o� cial in the regulatory commission said they are preparing to cancell Mango’s licence according to section 46 of the telecom act and will write the government about it.

According to the guidelines, IIGs need to share 10% of its total revenues.

The telecom watchdog has so far awarded 37 gateway licences and around 22 are in operation, regulator sources said.

According to sources in the market, the licence holders are hardly following due operational procedure, and even some of them are not sharing their rev-enues with the telecom regulator. l

Tofail brushes aside fear over becoming mid income country n Tribune Report

Commerce Minister Tofail Ahmed yes-terday criticised the skepticism over the country’s becoming a middle in-come country by 2021 as he expressed con� dence by saying Bangladesh will de� nitely achieve the target as envis-aged by the government. “I can say (in the name of Almighty Allah), de� nitely the country will be a middle income one within 2021,” he told a meeting in Dhaka. “Because all the economic indicators moving in positive direction.”

He made the remarks three days af-ter a local think tank expressed frustra-tion in an analysis on a recent Least De-veloped Countries Report 2014 of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD).

On Thursday last, Center for Pol-icy Dialogue (CPD) said Bangladesh would have to wait 10 more years to graduate from the league of least de-veloped countries, as the country still lags behind economic vulnerability and human assets index despite faring well in some socio-economic indica-tors.

When this government took over power in 2009, the minister said, the

country’s exports were $14bn, but it doubled in last � ve years while foreign exchange reserve escalating four times.

He was speaking at a symposium on “Look East: Asia’s Economic Inte-gration and Bangladesh Perspective” at Bangabandhu International Confer-ence Centre.

Quoting reports of some interna-tional organisations, including the World Bank, Tofail said there are many positive reports on Bangladesh econ-omy. “But a research organisation of Bangladesh thinks it will take 10 years to achieve the goals.”

He continued: “We are talking against ourselves. It’s unfortunate.”

About the millennium development goals (MDGs), Tofail said Bangladesh has already met several targets of the MDGs like reducing poverty gap, at-taining gender parity and per capita income threshold.

“Some areas like economic resil-ience and human resource develop-ment will be attained within the time frame,” he said.

About the apprehension over losing bene� ts as an LDC, he said: “We’ll go for FTA (free trade agreement) like oth-er countries doing now.” l

Tax returns response poorer than last year n Tribune Report

While there are around 1.7m TIN hold-ers across the country, only 845,000 have submitted their tax returns this � scal year.

The number is even less than that of last year which was 1.3m.

Although the National Board of Rev-enue had extended deadline for two months separately till November 30, the response remained lacklustre.

The possibility is therefore now bleak to reach revenue collection tar-get this � scal.

The NBR has set collection target at Tk1,49,720 crore for FY2014-15.

“We hoped the total number of (in-come tax return) submissions will reach 1.3m,” said a tax o� cial yesterday.

A number of 195,000 taxpayers have applied to deputy tax commissioners for more time to submit tax returns.

NBR o� cial said they will be given

the chance. According to the latest data of revenue board, the taxes received so far from 800,000 individuals amount to Tk1,390 crore.

In the same period last year the col-lection was, however, Tk1,288 crore.

A high revenue o� cial said the total number of taxpayers who have submit-ted income tax returns this year could rise after receiving more detailed data from across the country.

“The data will be available in a day

or two as the � eld o� ces will send up-dated data soon,” he told Dhaka Trib-une yesterday.

O� cials said that the revenue board would take action against the people who did not submit their returns despite having taxpayer’s identi� cation number.

According to the Income Tax Ordi-nance-1984, tax o� cials can impose a penalty of Tk1,000 at a time and Tk50 for each day delay for non-submission of returns. l

DSE sees fall in net foreign investment n Tribune Report

Net foreign investment in Dhaka Stock Exchange (DSE) declined by nearly 7% to Tk183 crore in November compared to that in previous month.

According to DSE data, the country’s premier bourse witnessed foreign in-vestment of Tk183 crore in November, which was Tk196 crore in October.

As per the statistics, in November, foreign investors have bought more share than that in October.

Data showed foreign investors in No-vember bought shares of Tk348.37 crore, which was Tk302.88 crore in October.

Meanwhile, the selling trend was also higher in November in comparison with October.

In November, foreign investors sold shares of Tk165.45 crore against Tk107 crore in October. l

A � le photo shows women working with machine to produce textile yarn at a factory. Bangladeshi workers are often recognised for performing manual production at lower cost than automated production SYED ZAKIR HOSSAIN

Japan envoy: Cheaper manual production than automated cost drags Japanese to Bangladesh n Tribune Report

Japanese ambassador to Bangladesh Shiro Sadoshima yesterday said atten-tion of a larger number of Japanese businessmen towards Bangladesh is growing due to its low-labour cost.

“This year enquirers from Japan about Bangladesh have almost dou-bled and the number of missions has drastically increased here. So now at-tention is rising,” he said.

The ambassador was speaking at the inaugural session of a symposium on “Look East: Asia’s Economic Integration and Bangladesh Perspective” arranged by Japan External Trade Organisation (JETRO) at Bangabandhu International Conference Centre in the city.

He said in the radar of Japanese businessmen, Myanmar occupied the best position and so does Bangladesh.

“My colleagues asked me repeatedly why not Bangladesh. Eventually, they have started to think seriously over en-tering into the country.”

He said: “My point is that generally

I don’t like foreign direct investment, which is an abstract term.

“More clear vision and more speci� c common ambition are needed to boost trade and investment,” he added.

Recalling his experience on visit-ing Karnaphuli EPZ, Shiro Sadoshima said a Japanese company is producing blending machine there.

“The factory is producing products with the help of both automated ma-chine and manual system but what was most surprising to me was that manual production line is producing products with half cost compared with the auto-mated production line.”

“So combined forces between Japan and Bangladesh can do more and there is a lot of room for us to cultivate,” the envoy said, adding that Japan is ready to help develop human resources for increasing productivity.

“This country can be a stepping stone for Japanese businessmen and looking east orientation is required,” he said.

Commerce Minister Tofail Ahmed said Bangladesh export to Japan is

increasing as the country gave us du-ty-free and quota-free access except two items only.

“Hopefully it will help increase trade and investment further in days to come.” Planning Minister AHM Musta-fa Kamal said looking east is not a myth but a reality now.

“This is the time to move forward as the economic transformation is tak-ing place in the world. Bangladesh will have to get ready for that.”

FBCCI President Kazi Akram Uddin Ahmed invited Japanese businessmen to joint venture in areas like light engi-neering, leather and home textile other than apparel sector.

He put importance on interaction between the two countries’ entrepre-neurs on regular basis for � nding out investment strategy here.

JETRO country representative Kei Kawano said Bangladesh is geographi-cally situated in the best strategic loca-tion between east and west.

“So, Bangladesh can play a great role to boost trade and commerce be-

tween the two nations.” In his keynote paper presented in

the second session, chief economist of Economic Research Institute for ASE-AN and East Asia Professor Fukunari Kimura said some east-Asian develop-ing countries have been successful in attaining middle-income levels.

Highlighting economic develop-ment in some East-Asian countries, including Malaysia, Thailand, China, Indonesia and the Philippines, he said East Asia lies in the formation of its in-dustrial agglomerations. “Production networks in the region have reached a new stage of development.”

He said changes in the nature of the North South division of labour also a� ect developed countries’ attitudes toward globalising corporate activities. Moving labour intensive activities to LDCs does not necessarily mean the loss of domes-tic employment, added the economist.

“Production networks has changed the nature of the North-South division of labour. East Asia is about to present a new model for the world.” l

B2 Stock Tuesday, December 2, 2014DHAKA TRIBUNE

News, analysis and recent disclosuresREPUBLIC: BSEC is not in a position to consider the application for issuance of Rights shares of Republic Insurance Com-pany Limited as the Company has failed to comply with the requirement of rule 3(e) of the Securities and Exchange Commis-sion (Rights Issue) Rules, 2006.WMSHIPYARD: Credit Rating Information and Services Limited (CRISL) has rated the Company as "BBB+" in the long term and "ST-4" in the short term along with a stable outlook based on audited � nancial statements of the Company up to June 30, 2014, unaudited � nancials up to Septem-ber 30, 2014 and other relevant quantita-tive as well as qualitative information up to the date of rating declaration.SAIHAMCOT: (H/Y): As per un-audited half yearly accounts as on 31.10.2014 (May'14 to October'14), the Company has reported net pro� t after tax of Tk. 113.34 million with EPS of Tk. 0.84 as against Tk. 122.32 million and Tk. 0.90 respectively for the same period of the previous year. Whereas net pro� t after tax was Tk. 52.98 million with EPS of Tk. 0.39 for the period of 3 months (August'14 to October'14) ended on 31.10.2014 as against Tk. 64.66 million and Tk. 0.48 respectively for the same period of the previous year.BENGALWTL: (Q1): As per un-audited

quarterly accounts for the 1st quarter ended on 30th September 2014 (July'14 to Sep'14), the Company has reported consolidated net pro� t after tax (excluding non-controlling interests) of Tk. 78.61 million with consolidated EPS of Tk. 1.04 as against Tk. 78.13 million and Tk. 1.03 respectively for the same period of the previous year.IPO Subscription: C & A Textiles Limited subscription date 09 to 13 November 2014, NRB upto 22 November 2014. @ taka 10, face value taka 10 and market lot 500. IFAD Autos Limited subscription date 23 to 27 November 2014, NRB upto 06 December 2014. @ taka 30, face value taka 10 and market lot 200.Right Share: ICB: Subscription period for rights issue will be from 07.12.2014 to 30.12.2014. Record date for entitlement of rights share: 09.09.2014. BIFC: subscrip-tion period for rights issue of the Company will be from 09.11.2014 to 30.11.2014. Re-cord Date for entitlement of rights share: 19.10.2014. FIRSTSBANK Subscription pe-riod for rights issue will be from 07.12.2014 to 28.12.2014. Record date for entitlement of rights share: 20.11.2014.Dividend/AGMBATASHOE: 175% interim cash dividend, Record Date for entitlement of interim

dividend: 04.12.2014.ICB: 45% cash, AGM: 20.12.2014, Record Date: 03.12.2014.BATBC: 100% interim cash dividend, Record date for entitlement of interim dividend: 03.12.2014.BENGALWTL: 23% cash, AGM: 28.12.2014, Record Date: 02.12.2014.MPETROLEUM: 95% cash and 10% stock, AGM: 16.01.2015, Record date: 04.12.2014. ENVOYTEX: 12% cash and 3% stock dividend, AGM: 24.12.2014, Record date: 02.12.2014. AFTABAUTO: 17% cash, AGM: 24.12.2014, Record date: 30.11.2014.JAMUNAOIL: 90% cash and 10% stock, AGM: 07.02.2015, Record date: 11.12.2014.GEMINISEA: 7.50% cash, AGM: 22.12.2014, Record Date: 08.12.2014. KBPPWBIL: 10% stock, AGM: 29.12.2014, Record Date: 08.12.2014.RAHIMAFOOD: No dividend, AGM: 24.12.2014, Record Date: 04.12.2014. DACCADYE: 10% stock dividend, AGM: 12.12.2014, Record date: 25.11.2014. ORIONINFU: 15% cash dividend, AGM: 18.12.2014, Record date: 25.11.2014.KOHINOOR: 25% stock dividend, AGM: 18.12.2014, Record date: 25.11.2014.LRGLOBMF1: 5% cash dividend, Record date: 25.11.2014. Earnings per unit of Tk. 0.69.

Stocks register sharp rise as heavyweights gain n Tribune Report

Stocks rose sharply yesterday riding on large cap shares after remaining dull throughout last week.

The market was on a happy note in early trading that continued till the closing.

The benchmark DSEX jumped 99 points or 2% to close at 4,868, after losses over the last couple of ses-sions.

The Shariah index DSES rose 25 points or over 2% to 1,132. The com-prising blue chips DS30 ended at 1,799, soaring 39 points or 2%.

Chittagong Stock Exchange (CSE) Selective Categories Index, CSCX, closed at 9,160 with a rally of over 324 points.

Trading activities also improved as turnover at the Dhaka Stock Ex-change stood at Tk341 crore, which was 47% higher over the previous session.

Steep rally in two large cap sec-tors—telecommunication and banks that rallied 6% and 2% respectively – put such positive movement of the overall market.

Notably, all the bank scrips set-tled in positive territory after re-maining unimpressive for long time, gaining while the sector captured the highest turnover.

All other sectors also advanced

with cement surging 2.8%, power 2.7%, non-banking � nancial institu-tions 1.3% and pharmaceuticals 1% respectively.

Food and allied was marginally down on pro� t booking.

Out of 299 issues traded, 253 ad-vanced, 34 lost and 12 remained un-changed.

LankaBangla Securities said the investors started to feel the market to be at an oversold territory.

“The largest capitalised Grameenphone led the broad mar-ket rally. Moreover, banking sector was 2.2% up, which made investors bullish about the market. The day went green, backed by buying spree on large capitalised stocks.”

IDLC Investments said with lu-crative prices and expectation on the year-end disclosures, the � rst session of December was upbeat.

“Since DSEX lost 403.8 points during November, price level of most of the fundamentally sound scrips came to hand, luring general investors as well as some institu-tional investors, putting an upward pressure on overall market senti-ment.”

AB Bank was the most liquid stock with turnover of Tk15.6 crore, followed by Grameenphone which made Tk13.5 crore worth of turn-over. l

CSE LOSER

Company Closing (% Change)

Aver-age (%

Change)

Closin-gAvg. Closing DHIGH DLOW Turnover

in MillionLatest

EPSLatest

PE

Provati Insur.-A -8.26 -4.91 20.74 20.00 21.30 19.90 0.270 1.97 10.5Shinepukur Cera-Z -4.26 -1.00 13.90 13.50 14.10 13.00 0.103 0.39 35.6AMCL 2nd MF-A -4.08 -4.08 4.70 4.70 4.70 4.70 0.014 0.72 6.5GSP Finance-A -3.80 -3.82 30.24 30.40 31.00 28.50 0.680 1.59 19.0Aftab Auto.-A -2.96 -2.11 72.43 72.10 73.70 72.00 4.161 4.01 18.1Saiham Tex.A -2.91 -1.51 26.66 26.70 26.70 26.60 0.019 2.96 9.0ACI ZERO Bond-A -2.87 -2.59 1,015.00 1,015.00 1,030.00 1,000.00 0.002 0.00 -Keya Cosmetics -A -2.80 -3.30 28.09 27.80 28.80 27.60 5.266 1.93 14.6Hakkani P& Paper -B -2.78 -3.68 28.00 28.00 28.00 28.00 0.028 0.64 43.8Khan Brothers-N -2.77 -3.70 46.05 45.70 48.10 44.90 11.352 1.36 33.9

DSE LOSER

Company Closing (% Change)

Aver-age (%

Change)

Closin-gAvg. Closing DHIGH DLOW Turnover

in MillionLatest

EPSLatest

PE

Northern Jute -Z -7.34 -7.34 265.00 265.00 265.00 265.00 0.053 1.00 265.0Standard Ceramic -A -6.73 -6.73 40.20 40.20 40.20 40.20 0.020 0.60 67.0ICB AMCL 1st NRB -A -6.49 -6.49 21.60 21.60 22.00 21.50 0.054 3.24 6.7Shahjibazar Power-N -4.29 -6.31 214.83 212.00 227.50 208.00 14.995 9.00 23.9Monno Sta� lers -A -3.90 -3.97 297.86 295.90 311.50 294.00 0.834 1.17 254.6Sonali Ansh -A -3.62 -5.42 134.37 135.80 144.00 127.10 10.501 0.76 176.8Sonargaon Tex -Z -3.06 -2.24 9.58 9.50 9.90 9.20 0.246 -0.84 -veAftab Auto.-A -2.96 -2.17 72.55 72.20 77.00 67.00 26.648 4.01 18.1Keya Cosmetics -A -2.46 -4.34 27.97 27.80 29.00 27.40 99.694 1.93 14.5Khan Brothers-N -2.35 -3.25 46.41 45.80 48.40 45.20 58.195 1.36 34.1

CSE TURNOVER LEADERS

Company Volume-Shares

Value in Million

% of Total-Turnover ClosingP Change % ClosingY DHIGH DLOW AvgPrice

WesternMarine -N 298,700 18.39 6.83 61.10 1.50 60.20 62.50 60.20 61.55R. N. Spinning-Z 466,750 13.72 5.09 29.90 6.41 28.10 30.40 28.80 29.39Grameenphone-A 35,600 11.76 4.37 335.50 5.37 318.40 340.10 321.70 330.20LafargeS Cement-Z 106,000 11.56 4.29 110.40 1.28 109.00 112.50 108.00 109.06Khan Brothers-N 246,500 11.35 4.22 45.70 -2.77 47.00 48.10 44.90 46.05AB Bank - A 286,311 9.08 3.37 31.60 4.29 30.30 32.10 30.50 31.71SummitAlliancePort.-A 120,635 8.60 3.19 71.80 3.31 69.50 72.50 63.00 71.30UCBL - A 271,182 8.04 2.98 29.50 2.08 28.90 30.00 29.00 29.63BEXIMCO Ltd. -A 167,585 6.62 2.46 39.50 0.77 39.20 39.80 39.10 39.49City Bank - A 291,400 6.28 2.33 21.70 5.34 20.60 21.80 20.70 21.54Keya Cosmetics -A 187,450 5.27 1.96 27.80 -2.80 28.60 28.80 27.60 28.09Jamuna Oil -A 17,120 4.31 1.60 254.40 1.84 249.80 255.80 249.60 251.47Aftab Auto.-A 57,442 4.16 1.55 72.10 -2.96 74.30 73.70 72.00 72.43IDLC Finance -A 56,400 4.09 1.52 72.50 2.55 70.70 73.90 71.50 72.55MJL BD Ltd.-A 32,213 3.93 1.46 124.80 5.23 118.60 126.00 116.50 121.93

DSE TURNOVER LEADERS

Company Volume-Shares

Value in Million

% of Total-Turnover ClosingP Change

% ClosingY DHIGH DLOW Avg-Price

AB Bank - A 4,910,728 155.42 4.55 31.60 3.61 30.50 32.40 27.50 31.65Grameenphone-A 406,719 134.82 3.95 338.50 6.21 318.70 343.00 319.00 331.49Jamuna Oil -A 494,963 125.73 3.68 254.30 1.72 250.00 255.70 235.00 254.01LafargeS Cement-Z 1,003,000 109.73 3.21 110.80 3.17 107.40 112.20 107.60 109.40UCBL - A 3,585,601 106.87 3.13 29.80 3.47 28.80 30.10 26.50 29.80WesternMarine -N 1,681,200 103.64 3.03 61.10 0.99 60.50 62.60 60.50 61.65Keya Cosmetics -A 3,564,770 99.69 2.92 27.80 -2.46 28.50 29.00 27.40 27.97SummitAlliancePort.-A 1,375,919 98.02 2.87 71.30 1.71 70.10 72.50 64.00 71.24City Bank - A 3,426,624 73.48 2.15 21.50 4.37 20.60 21.70 19.00 21.44Beximco Pharma -A 1,156,793 71.22 2.09 61.90 1.31 61.10 62.40 58.00 61.56Agni Systems -A 2,285,203 65.06 1.90 27.80 1.09 27.50 29.40 26.00 28.47MJL BD Ltd.-A 510,044 62.99 1.84 125.90 6.60 118.10 126.80 106.30 123.50BEXIMCO Ltd. -A 1,562,941 61.62 1.80 39.30 0.51 39.10 41.00 35.20 39.43Meghna Petroleum -A 237,569 61.31 1.80 259.20 1.97 254.20 261.10 250.00 258.09IDLC Finance -A 823,893 59.74 1.75 73.50 3.96 70.70 74.00 64.00 72.51Alltex Industries -Z 4,845,000 113.67 1.51 22.90 4.09 22.00 24.20 20.50 23.46

SECTORAL TURNOVER SUMMARY

Sector DSE CSE TotalMillion Taka % change Million Taka % change Million Taka % change

Bank 581.89 17.04 44.23 15.57 626.12 16.92NBFI 249.99 7.32 15.11 5.32 265.10 7.17Investment 43.77 1.28 3.16 1.11 46.93 1.27Engineering 391.89 11.47 40.16 14.13 432.04 11.68Food & Allied 120.96 3.54 7.05 2.48 128.01 3.46Fuel & Power 545.20 15.96 28.27 9.95 573.48 15.50Jute 10.55 0.31 0.00 10.55 0.29Textile 194.83 5.70 34.20 12.04 229.02 6.19Pharma & Chemical 455.09 13.32 26.46 9.32 481.55 13.02Paper & Packaging 16.69 5.40 1.90 22.10 0.60Service 142.73 4.18 12.93 4.55 155.66 4.21Leather 16.55 0.48 4.87 1.71 21.42 0.58Ceramic 27.53 0.81 4.51 1.59 32.04 0.87Cement 130.31 3.82 13.37 4.71 143.68 3.88Information Technology 90.01 2.64 3.14 1.10 93.15 2.52General Insurance 30.84 0.90 1.44 0.51 32.28 0.87Life Insurance 56.08 1.64 2.14 0.75 58.22 1.57Telecom 142.14 4.16 13.67 4.81 155.81 4.21Travel & Leisure 28.80 0.84 4.43 1.56 33.23 0.90Miscellaneous 138.23 4.05 19.54 6.88 157.77 4.26Debenture 1.26 0.04 0.00 0.00 1.27 0.03

Weekly capital market highlightsDSE Broad Index : 4868.64575 (+) 2.08% ▲

DSE - 30 Index : 1799.27878 (+) 2.23% ▲

CSE All Share Index: 14986.42120 (+) 2.21% ▲

CSE - 30 Index : 12305.35100 (+) 1.68% ▲

CSE Selected Index : 9159.94530 (+) 2.24% ▲

DSE key features December 1, 2014Turnover (Million Taka)

3,415.34

Turnover (Volume)

85,298,535

Number of Contract 77,876

Traded Issues 300

Issue Gain (Avg. Price Basis)

244

Issue Loss (Avg. Price Basis)

54

Unchanged Issue (Avg. Price Basis)

2

Market Capital Equity (Billion. Tk.)

2,594.42

Market Capital Equity (Billion US$)

31.45

CSE key features December 1, 2014Turnover (Million Taka) 271.40

Turnover (Volume) 7,903,420

Number of Contract 10,569

Traded Issues 213

Issue Gain (Avg. Price Basis)

169

Issue Loss (Avg. Price Basis)

41

Unchanged Issue (Avg. Price Basis)

2

Market Capital Equity (Billion. Tk.)

2,492.59

Market Capital Equity (Billion US$)

30.21

Prepared exclusively for Dhaka Tribune by Business Information Automation Service Line (BIASL), on the basis of information collected from daily stock quotations and audited reports of the listed companies. High level of caution has been taken to collect and present the above information and data. The publisher will not take any responsibility if any body uses this information and data for his/her investment decision. For any query please email to biasl@bol-online.com or call 01552153562 or go to www.biasl.net

With lucrative prices and expectation on the year-end disclosures, the � rst session of December was upbeat

CSE GAINER

Company Closing (% Change)

Aver-age (%

Change)

Closin-gAvg. Closing DHIGH DLOW Turnover

in MillionLatest

EPSLatest

PE

BDCOM Online-A 8.76 8.81 23.60 23.60 23.80 23.50 0.035 1.64 14.4Alltex Industries -Z 8.46 7.67 21.63 21.80 22.00 21.00 1.644 3.28 6.6Sonargaon Tex -Z 8.33 8.92 10.38 10.40 10.40 10.30 0.026 -0.84 -veBeximco Syn.-Z 7.96 7.37 12.09 12.20 12.30 11.40 0.191 0.08 151.1S.B. 1st M. F.-A 7.25 6.51 7.36 7.40 7.50 7.20 0.018 1.36 5.4Eastern InsurA 6.92 6.92 34.00 34.00 34.00 34.00 0.027 2.31 14.7 Trust Bank-A 6.67 6.02 19.01 19.20 19.70 18.30 1.916 2.93 6.5R. N. Spinning-Z 6.41 4.00 29.39 29.90 30.40 28.80 13.718 2.19 13.4Aziz PipesZ 5.68 7.33 18.60 18.60 19.30 17.60 0.038 -0.37 -veIslamic Finance-A 5.68 3.72 18.39 18.60 18.70 18.10 0.552 1.21 15.2

DSE GAINER

Company Closing (% Change)

Aver-age (%

Change)

Closin-gAvg. Closing DHIGH DLOW Turnover

in MillionLatest

EPSLatest

PE

Alltex Industries -Z 8.46 6.19 21.43 21.80 22.00 20.60 11.185 3.28 6.5Beximco Syn.-Z 7.96 6.24 12.09 12.20 12.30 11.70 1.378 0.08 151.1Khulna Power-A 7.34 4.72 57.43 58.50 58.80 52.00 58.888 6.36 9.0MJL BD Ltd.-A 6.60 4.89 123.50 125.90 126.80 106.30 62.989 5.11 24.2Grameenphone-A 6.21 4.67 331.49 338.50 343.00 319.00 134.824 15.72 21.1Midas Financing-Z 5.84 6.29 16.40 16.30 16.90 15.50 0.992 -7.00 -veR. N. Spinning-Z 5.71 3.43 29.21 29.60 29.90 26.00 22.737 2.19 13.3Aziz PipesZ 5.59 4.57 18.75 18.90 19.50 18.10 0.617 -0.37 -veLankaBangla Fin. -A 4.93 3.41 43.92 44.70 45.00 42.00 29.366 1.29 34.0Standard Bank -A 4.92 3.36 12.62 12.80 12.90 11.00 14.447 1.52 8.3

ANALYST

B3BusinessDHAKA TRIBUNE Tuesday, December 2, 2014

Bangladesh Commerce Bank Limited has recently opened its 48 branch at Bolla, Kalihati in Tangail. The bank’s chairperson, Md Yousuf Ali Howlader inaugurated the branch as chief guest

Rangs Workshop Limited, an authorised after-sales service provider of Mitsubishi Motors in Bangladesh has recently launched a weeklong servicing campaign for its vehicle “Lancer Ex” at its service centre in Tejgaon I/A, Dhaka. Tanzeem Chowdhury Director of East Coast Group inaugurated the service campaign

ICAB has recently awarded Jamuna Bank Limited for preparing the best-presented annual reports for the year 2013, among all private sector banking organisations. The bank’s managing director, Sha� qul Alam received a certi� cate in this regard from Finance Minister Abul Maal Abdul Muhith

Coca-Cola Bangladesh, Ocean Conservancy and Kewkradong volunteers have recently partnered for a day to clean St Martin’s seashore in order to celebrate International Coastal Clean Up Day

Islami Bank Bangladesh Limited has recently held a meeting at its boardroom, which was presided over by the bank’s chairperson, Prof Abu Nasser Muhammad Abduz Zaher

Lamudi Bangladesh has recently organised its � rst ever ' Real Estate Summit 2014' in partnership with Cityscape in Bangladesh. Rajesh Grover, co-founder and managing director of Lamudi Bangladesh has started the summit with unveiling the 'White paper research � ndings'

Oil prices hit multi-year lows as OPEC decision weighs n AFP, Singapore

Oil tumbled to new multi-year lows in Asia yesterday, extending a sharp sell-o� last week in response to OPEC’s decision to maintain output despite a supply glut and plunging prices.

US benchmark West Texas Interme-diate (WTI) for January delivery dipped $1.65 in afternoon Asian trading to $64.50, its lowest intraday level since July 2009.

Brent crude for January sank $1.76 to $68.39, to stay below the psycho-logically important $70 level. It had touched $67.90 earlier Monday, its low-est since February 2010.

“Negative actions in the oil market are continuing today. Investors see crude as remaining vulnerable after last week’s OPEC announcement,” Mi-chael McCarthy, chief market strategist at CMC Markets in Sydney, told AFP.

“We have not yet seen any piece of news or development that could trigger a bottoming-out phase in oil prices,” he added.

The unabated price plunge comes after the 12-nation Organization of Pe-troleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) opted Thursday to keep its collective output ceiling at 30 million barrels per day, where it has stood for three years.

OPEC ignored calls for a cut that have grown as oversupply and weak demand have wiped more than a third o� prices since June. Analysts warn of further falls to come.

“OPEC’s decision leaves demand and supply rebalancing to the market,” bank-ing group ANZ said in a commentary.

China data ‘not helping’ The news dragged WTI down $7.54 in New York on Friday, compared with the settlement price on Wednesday, to end

at $66.15 a barrel. US � oor trading was closed Thursday for the Thanksgiving holiday.

Brent had settled at $70.15 on Friday, down $2.43 from Thursday’s close.

OPEC has come under pressure from its poorer members, including Venezu-ela and Ecuador, to trim production as slumping prices have eaten into gov-ernment revenues and raised fears over their economies.

But the group’s powerful Gulf mem-bers, led by kingpin Saudi Arabia, resist-ed the calls unless they are guaranteed market share -- particularly in the United

States, where rising production of shale oil has contributed to the global glut.

McCarthy said weak Chinese manu-facturing data early Monday was “do-ing nothing to help oil prices”.

The o� cial purchasing managers’ index for the manufacturing sector in the world’s second-biggest economy skidded to an eight-month low of 50.3 in November, from 50.8 in October.

It was the weakest reading since a similar 50.3 reading in March. A read-ing above 50 indicates growth, while anything below points to contraction.

Tumbling energy prices scalped

energy � rms, but stocks of airlines - which count fuel as their major ex-pense - soared.

Among the biggest losers were Syd-ney-listed Santos, which fell almost 10% in the afternoon, while BHP Bil-liton lost 6.75% and Woodside shed 4.34%. In Hong Kong PetroChina was 5.39% lower and CNOOC fell 4.59%.

In Tokyo Japan Airlines added 4.01% and rival ANA gained 3.76%, while in Hong Kong Cathay Paci� c rose 3.86% and Korean Airlines in Seoul was up 6.43%.

Singapore Airlines bucked the trend, trading 0.19% lower. l

An oil tanker is seen on Lake Maracaibo in Venezuela's western state of Zulia REUTERS

Lego builds success brick by brick in digital age n AFP, London

Generations of children worldwide have grown up loving Lego and the popularity of tablets and video games will not change that, the company’s chief executive told AFP in an interview.

Joergen Vig Knudstorp said he believed that the plastic, multi-coloured bricks - whose name is an abbreviation of the Danish words “leg godt”, mean-ing “play well” - would be around for “centuries”.

The company hit trouble a decade ago b ut is now the world’s biggest maker of toys by sales, more than quadrupling its revenues in 10 years.

Far from threatening Lego’s popular-ity, Knudstorp said the digital era o� ered great opportunities for the company to build its customer base even further.

“We are one of the most popular video games, we also have reached more and more customers on social media - Lego fans are gathering like never before,” he said.

“In the past, children watched TV and then played with Lego. Now they play on tablets and play with Lego.

“The reason why they do it is that many children, and adults as well, want a real, physical experience. Even though we like to watch football or play it on a Play-Station, it’s still not the same as running on the � eld kicking the ball.”

He was speaking as Lego, whose head-quarters are in Billund, Denmark, opened a � fth “main o� ce” in London on Friday as the company seeks global growth.

One key target is Asia. As well as o� ces in Shanghai and Singapore, the company started building a new factory in China’s Ji-anxing, south of Shanghai, earlier this year to build Lego products for sale in Asia.

‘Please don’t die’Such an international presence is a far cry

from the company’s origins. The company was founded in 1932 by

Ole Kirk Kristiansen, the grandfather of the current owner, in a small workshop in Billund, and took the name Lego two years later.

It started out making products like wooden ducks, while the iconic plastic brick in its present form dates back to 1958.

Lego became a major international brand from the 1960s and Legoland in Billund, now one of Denmark’s biggest tourist attractions, was opened in 1968.

But the group hit trouble in 2004, announcing major losses. Knudstrop was appointed that year and recalls receiving “letters from customers saying ‘please don’t die’”.

He said that, at that stage, the com-pany had “spread ourselves over too many areas” and was poorly run.

To turn the business around, he focused on cutting manufacturing costs, releasing the right products in tighter timeframes and “reigniting the product innovation, really working with children to make products they � nd more appealing”.

Now the focus is on international expansion, hence the opening of the London o� ce.

The opening coincides with the Brick 2014 fan event being held at London’s giant ExCeL exhibition centre from Thursday to Sunday, featuring Lego sets, characters and construction zones.

For Knudstrop, despite the changes which he has brought and those in the digital world, the Lego brick is at the cen-tre of what the company is about -- and will remain so for years to come.

“I think the brick will stay with us for centuries because it is fundamental like football or reading a great book, telling stories,” he said.

“It’s something that will be around forever.” l

Corruption crackdown clouds China corporate jet market n AFP, Shanghai

Makers of the world’s private jets are looking to promote their aircraft as busi-ness tools in China rather than luxury toys for the super-rich, as a corruption crackdown slows sales in the country.

Chinese leader Xi Jinping launched a drive against graft after he came to power in late 2012, accompanied by policies to enforce austerity among o� cials - hitting sectors ranging from high-end liquor to luxury watches.

The market for private jets is a small, albeit fast-growing aviation segment in China, but the corruption campaign has taken some heat out of the market, according to industry o� cials.

“We’re in this anti-extravagant thing so numbers are down a little bit,” said Briand Greer, president of Honeywell Aerospace for Asia-Paci� c, which sup-plies the aviation industry.

“To me it’s like the river has slowed a little bit. Growth will be there, but it’s a di� erent period right now,” he told AFP.

The � rst US Gulfstream jets only ar-rived in China in 2003, widely seen as the dawn of the new market. By 2013, there were an estimated 248 business jets in China - a 28 percent jump from 2012, according to consultancy Asian Sky Group.

At China’s premier airshow in Zhu-hai earlier this month, major players including Gulfstream, Canada’s Bom-bardier and Brazilian � rm Embraer put their products on display.

Even the Commercial Aircraft Corp. of China, the country’s major civil air-craft maker, showed a plastic model of a new business version of its ARJ21 regional jet, as it seeks to steal market share away from foreign � rms.

“Business jets should not be treated as a luxury product because it’s con-

sidered a business tool to improve ef-� ciency,” said Christine Yan, Bombar-dier’s China marketing manager for business aircraft and aerospace.

“As long as this bene� t can be recog-nized ... in the long run it’s still a very good outlook,” she told AFP on the sidelines of the airshow.

Infrastructure issuesManufacturers remain positive about the longer-term outlook for the China market, citing steady economic growth and Chinese companies heading abroad to do business.

“For a long time, it’s been wealthy individuals buying a jet because they needed somewhere to put their money. It was cool to have a business jet,” said Greer of Honeywell.

“There’s starting to be a recognition that this is a tool that you can utilise to be more e� cient,” he said. l

Dollar up in Asia on weak oil prices n AFP, Tokyo

The dollar notched up further gains against the yen in Asia yesterday as in-vestors embraced lower oil prices as a plus for the US economy.

In Tokyo the greenback rose to 118.87 yen, up from 118.65 yen in New York Friday afternoon. The euro rose to 148.03 yen from 147.64 yen in US trade, while it ticked up to $1.2457 against $1.2443.

The dollar brie� y topped 119 yen - its highest in more than seven years - after OPEC’s decision last week to maintain output levels despite calls for a cut. However, the dollar’s upward momen-tum may be constrained, said Akira Moroga, manager of forex products group at Aozora Bank.

It seems to “have failed to jump straight to further upside due to pro� t-taking”, Moroga told Dow Jones News-wires. OPEC had not been expected to respond aggressively to a roughly 35% drop in oil prices since June, but it did

less than many predicted. On Monday a 3.1% third-quarter re-

bound in Japanese capital spending was seen as boding well for upcoming revised economic growth � gures.

But on the downside, separate data Monday showed China’s manufactur-ing growth skidded to an eight-month

low in November, signalling further pressure on the world’s second-largest economy.

Speculation about the European Central Bank’s plans to buy sovereign bonds were dampened by a governing council member, who suggested such a

move was unlikely ahead of this week’s policy meeting.

“We expect no Sovereign QE (quan-titative easing) announcement from the ECB meeting on Thursday but in-stead a commitment to more easing likely contingent upon further deterio-ration in the in� ation outlook (highly probable given falling oil prices),” Cred-it Agricole said in a note.

The dollar was � rmer against oth-er Asia-Paci� c currencies, trading at Tw$31.05 against Tw$30.95 on Friday, � rming to 32.89 Thai baht from 32.85 baht, to Sg$1.3083 from Sg$1.3044 and to 44.95 Philippine pesos from 44.90 pesos.

It advanced to 1,114.13 South Ko-rean won from 1,107.95 won, to 62.14 Indian rupees from 62.05 rupees, and to 12,273.80 Indonesian rupiah from 12,204.00 rupiah.

The Australian dollar fell to 84.45 US cents from 85.06 cents while the Chinese yuan rose to 19.34 yen from 19.30 yen. l

The Australian dollar fell to 84.45 US cents from 85.06 cents while the Chinese yuan rose to 19.34 yen from 19.30 yen

B4 Back PageDHAKA TRIBUNE Tuesday, December 2, 2014

DILBERT

Asia factories � nd demand lacking in further blow to commodities n Reuters, Sydney

Asia’s factories appeared to have stepped down a gear last month as a glut of supply met a dearth of global demand, piling pressure on prices of manufactured goods and the commod-ities used to make them.

Oil sank to its lowest in over � ve years on Monday, with the industrial bellwether copper not far behind. The rout spread to gold and silver while the US dollar cleared seven-year peaks on the Japanese yen JPY.

Both US crude CLc1 and Brent LCOc1 have now fallen for � ve straight months, the longest losing streak since the 2008 � nancial crisis.

With domestic and export demand softening and production growth weak, many Asian manufacturers were more reluctant to stock up on raw ma-terials, activity surveys yesterday.

While lower commodity prices are a boon to consumer spending power, they have damaging side e� ects in a world where o� cial interest rates are already at historic lows in many countries.

Slowing in� ation acts as an unwant-ed tightening of policy as it pushes up real interest rates, one reason China and Japan surprised with new stimulus measures in recent weeks.

It was clear in HSBC’s survey of Chi-nese businesses which found input costs fell for a fourth straight month in No-vember while its overall index of activity touched a six-month trough of 50.0.

China’s o� cial Purchasing Manag-ers’ Index (PMI) was scarcely better, slipping to 50.3 in November from Oc-tober’s 50.8.

“Domestic demand expanded at a sluggish pace while new export order growth eased to a � ve-month low. Dis-in� ationary pressures remain strong while the labor market weakened fur-ther,” said Hongbin Qu, chief econo-mist for China and co-head of Asian economic research at HSBC.

“We continue to expect further

monetary and � scal easing measures to o� set downside risks to growth.”

After saying for months that China does not need any big economic stim-ulus, the central bank wrong footed markets by lowering rates in late No-vember.

China’s troubles were felt broadly across the region, with South Korea reporting exports to the Asian giant fell for the � rst time in three months,

while its measure of manufacturing activity stayed stuck in contractionary territory.

In Indonesia, the HSBC Markit PMI reached the unwelcome milestone of the lowest since the survey began in April 2011 at 48 . That was down from 49.2 in October.

In Japan, the Markit/JMMA version of the PMI eased to 52.0 in November, from 52.4 the month before. The econ-

omy slipped into recession in the third quarter as the baleful impact of a hike in sales taxes lingered longer than any-one expected.

Still, the extent of the contraction may have been overstated, given � g-ures out Monday showed business in-vestment was stronger than thought.

India was a rare bright spot, as it has been for a few months now, with its PMI climbing to a 21-month high of 53.3

last month. A host of European and US surveys

are yet to come later yesterday. The euro zone measure is expected to be barely positive at 50.4, woefully short of the US which is forecast to come in at 58.0.

The European Central Bank releases its latest economic estimates this week when in� ation is back at a � ve-year low, adding to the case for more aggres-sive stimulus in the bloc. l

A worker carries a used car wheel after repairing it inside a factory at a second-hand automobile parts market in Kolkata REUTERS

Think tank: ECB could � x euro zone � aw with risk-free bond n Reuters, London

As the European Central Bank comes closer to buying sovereign bonds, one London-based think tank says an opportunity has arisen to � x one of the euro zone’s birth defects - the absence of a credible “risk-free” asset.

Regulators deem domestic sovereign bonds risk-free - so-called although no asset is entirely without risk - and push � nancial � rms to buy them as a safety bu� er, exempting them from a rule that requires setting aside capital for holding other assets.

However, when they assess how strong a bank needs to be, regulators consider both German bonds - the only state debt in the bloc rated triple-A by all three major agencies - and bonds issued by Greece, which defaulted two years ago, risk-free.

As a result, euro zone banks are loaded with low-rated government debt, creating a potential “doom loop”, in which troubles at a bank can drag in governments and vice-versa.

The most commonly discussed proposal for a new risk-free asset is a joint euro bond that transfers debt risk from weaker countries to stronger ones. However, that idea has faced resistance from the latter who fear they could end up on the hook for less prudent borrowers’ pro� igacy.

Luis Garicano and Lucrezia Reichlin at the Centre for Economic Policy Research have come up with an idea that they say counters that objection and breaks the toxic link between banks and sovereigns.

The two professors say the need for the ECB to pump money into the euro zone economy could be an opportunity for the market itself to create a euro bond - which the ECB would then buy - that does not lead to debt mutualization.

“The ECB would merely announce the features of the synthetic bonds it will pur-chase,” they write in a policy proposal.

Regulations would have to be changed to turn the special bond into a zero-risk asset by forcing banks to set aside cash for holding bonds as currently issued by individual countries, while not requiring any provision for holding the new product.

The new bond would include debt issued by euro zone members in propor-tion to the size of their economies and the ECB would buy only its senior tranches. The ECB has looked at similar instruments before and they could still feature in future

policy, sources with knowledge of ECB thinking said.

Market view Steven Major, global head of � xed income research at HSBC, says the proposal has “potential”, especially as he sees legal and practical issues with the ECB buying government bonds.

But he says it could hurt banks in south-ern Europe, which own large amounts of their own countries’ high-yielding debt. The creation of the new product would require them to buy expensive top-rated bonds while setting aside cash for their current debt holdings.

“If the proposal only works for core banks it would defeat the purpose,” Major said, referring to lenders in northern Europe. “To get the bene� t across the euro zone you need participation from the peripheral banks.”

Large holders of bonds issued by weaker, peripheral euro zone states warn that changing the regulatory treatment of existing government debt could destabilize those markets.

“Next day everyone will be selling Ital-ian bonds and you end up with potential self-ful� lling processes in the market where there’s no buyers and only sellers and it becomes very disorderly,” said Myles Bradshaw, European strategist at PIMCO, the world’s biggest bond investor.

Garicano, who calls the bank-sovereign

symbiosis “diabolic”, countered this by pointing to the ECB’s promise to do “what-ever it takes to save the euro”.

“I don’t think it would happen for the same reason it doesn’t happen now -- the ECB,” the professor of economics and strategy at the London School of Econom-ics told Reuters.

Liquidity Philip Brown, a Citi banker who organizes debt sales for governments, said the low liquidity of the instrument would make it “somewhat impractical”.

Wrapping bits of highly liquid govern-ment bond markets into a hybrid bond in which initial trading volumes would be tiny means any buyer would demand a liquidity premium.

Investors like liquid products because they can buy and sell them without signi� -cantly altering the market price. Therefore for this particular bond the buyer is likely to o� er the seller a lower price than what was spent to create the product to compensate for the low liquidity, some in the market say.

Garicano is not worried. “Given the large demand for safe assets,

the exclusive use of these euro safe assets for liquidity purposes at banks ... and their role as the main instrument of monetary policy, this will be a highly liquid market,” he said, adding that the ECB could help out in the early stages with a special facility to � nance creation of the product. l

The new European Central Bank (ECB) headquarters are pictured behind partially dismantled Sudfass brothel club in Frankfurt REUTERS

China manufacturing growth at eight-month low n AFP, Beijing

China’s manufacturing growth skidded to an eight-month low in November, an o� cial survey showed yesterday, fuel-ling speculation authorities will take further steps to stimulate the world’s second-largest economy.

China’s o� cial Purchasing Manag-ers’ Index (PMI) released by the Na-tional Bureau of Statistics came in at 50.3 last month, lower than the 50.8 recorded in October and the weakest since a similar 50.3 reading in March.

The index, which tracks activity in factories and workshops, is considered a key indicator of the health of Chi-na’s economy, a major driver of global growth. A � gure above 50 signals ex-pansion, while anything below indi-cates contraction.

“The decline in the PMI was broad-based, led by output and new orders,” Nomura economists said in a note on the data. “The weaker PMI data implies that growth momentum remained weak in November,” they said, adding: “This helps explain the People’s Bank of China’s decision to cut benchmark interest rates” last month.

China’s central bank on November 21 surprised economists by cutting benchmark interest rates for the � rst time in more than two years, in a move interpreted as an attempt to shore up � agging growth.

The PBoC lowered its one-year rate for deposits by 25 basis points to 2.75% and its one-year lending rate by 40 ba-sis points to 5.6%.

The move came after a string of dis-appointing data showed the Chinese economy is struggling with not just stalling factory growth, but other prob-lems including soft exports and a weak-ening property market.

Authorities had for months utilised various kinds of limited stimulatory measures such as targeted cuts in bank reserve requirements - aimed at free-ing up funds for lending -- and a cash injection into the country’s � ve biggest banks for re-lending.

More rate cuts expected Separately, a closely watched private survey of manufacturing conditions was con� rmed to have fallen to a six-month low showing stagnation.

British bank HSBC’s � nal PMI for November came in at the 50 breakeven point dividing expansion and contrac-

tion, the bank said in a statement, matching a preliminary � gure released last month. The result, compiled by information services provider Markit, was lower than October’s 50.4 and the weakest reading since May’s 49.4.

“Domestic demand expanded at a sluggish pace while new export order growth eased to a � ve-month low,” Qu Hongbin, HSBC’s chief China econo-mist, said in the statement. Qu added that the PBoC rate cuts will aid in stabi-lising investment in property and man-ufacturing in the months ahead.

“We continue to expect further mon-etary and � scal easing measures to o� -set downside risks to growth,” he added.

The Nomura analysts said they ex-pect more measures next year, includ-ing another interest rate cut in the sec-ond quarter and a reduction in reserve requirement ratios in each quarter.

China’s economy expanded 7.3% in the July-September quarter, down from 7.5% in the previous three months and the slowest since 2009 at the height of the global � nancial crisis.

A slowdown in China’s huge proper-ty sector has been weighing on overall growth, with broader worries about the health of the country’s � nancial sector also a cause for concern.

China’s housing prices fell on a monthly basis for the seventh straight month in November, a survey showed Sunday. The average price of a new home in China’s 100 major cities was 10,589 yuan ($1,720) per square metre in November, down 0.38% from Oc-tober, the independent China Index Academy said in a statement. l

Co� ee with Pepper? Robot sells espresso machines in Japan n AFP, Tokyo

Move over George Clooney - Nestle has employed a � eet of chirpy robots to sell its co� ee machines in Japanese stores.

The Hollywood heart-throb, who has become the global face of the Nes-presso brand, has been given the elbow in favour of Pepper, a cheeky and chat-ty android, which its makers claim can answer customers’ questions.

“How do you enjoy co� ee? Number one: An eye-opener co� ee; Number two: A post-meal cup of co� ee,” Pepper asked a TV personality at a promotion event Monday.

The 120-centimetre (four-foot) tall robot has a human-like face perched on top of a white plastic body, with rollers and what looks like a tablet computer on its chest.

The gimmick will eventually see 1,000 stores across Japan with their own Pepper, which makers say can under-stand up to 80 percent of conversations.

The robots will “help us discover consumer needs through conversa-tions between our customers and Pep-per,” said a joint statement from Nestle and SoftBank, whose French arm Al-debaran developed the technology.

Pepper, which was unveiled in June by SoftBank president Masayoshi Son, already sells mobile phones at SoftBank’s 74 Japanese stores, where it has been used to collect customers’ opinions.

Engineers claim the robot’s arti� cial intelligence has allowed it to expand its conversational ability by listening to what customers say.

The robot will go on sale to the public in February, with a price tag of 198,000 yen ($1,670) plus monthly fees. l

Indonesian in� ation up, manufacturing hit after fuel price hike n AFP, Jakarta

Indonesia’s in� ation rate jumped and manufacturing activity sank to a record low after the country’s new president raised the price of fuel in Southeast Asia’s top economy, data showed yes-terday.

The 30-percent increase in the price of diesel and petrol, announced last month, was aimed at cutting govern-ment subsidies that gobble up a huge chunk of the state budget and have sparked investor alarm.

But, as expected, the move caused an immediate spike in the cost of trans-portation as well as basic goods, which are now more expensive to deliver.

November in� ation surged to 6.23% year on year from 4.83% in October, o� cial data from the statistics agency showed. Economists expect in� ation to rise further in coming weeks but then drop back next year.

The fuel price hike also contributed to a slowdown in manufacturing ac-tivity, which had already been weak-ening in recent months due to falling demand, HSBC said in its Purchasing Managers’ Index for Indonesia.

The gauge fell to 48 in Novem-ber from 49.02 in October, the lowest reading since the introduction of the measure in 2001. A reading below 50 indicates contraction, while anything above signals growing.

“The hike in subsidised fuel prices may have exacerbated things, though we note that both domestic and exter-nal demand were already moderating even before the hike,” said HSBC econ-omist Su Sian Lim.

On a more positive note, o� cial data released Monday showed Indonesia’s trade balance swung to a small surplus of $20m in October from a $270m de� -cit the previous month as a fall in oil prices cut the country’s import bills.

Economists have long been calling for Indonesia to reduce its generous fuel subsidies as they are blamed for a widening current account de� cit, al-though attempts to cut them are often met with public anger.

President Joko Widodo, who took o� ce last month, made reducing the payouts a key election pledge, and has vowed to divert the money to overhaul-ing the country’s creaking infrastructure and programmes to help the poor. l

We continue to expect further monetary and � scal easing measures to o� set downside risks to growth