n Mohammad Al-Masum Molla

BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia yesterday condemned the Sheikh Hasina-led gov-ernment for the January 5 election and the misdeeds during its previous term, and also asked it to initiate a dialogue immediately for an inclusive election.

Khaleda also questioned the join force’s drive in Satkhira and the law enforcers’ role in Gaibandha clash with Jamaat-e-Islami saying that people were sceptical about their operations. She also criticised the government for closing the daily Inqilab and arresting its three journalists.

In her speech at the post-elec-tion rally in the capital’s Suhrawardy Udyan, the three-time former premier refrained from declaring any fresh ag-itation and asked the party supporters to observe programmes peacefully.

The alliance after the election they had boycotted declared black � ag pro-cessions across the country for January 29, the day when the � rst session of 10th parliament sits.

Khaleda said the BNP did not want instability, rather peace and develop-ment. “I am not urging you to do any war. You just wage peaceful move-ment.” She hoped that the government would not obstruct the programme.

Though Khaleda earlier announced that the alliance will hold the rally, on Sunday night, the party announced that they would organise it alone. Jamaat-e-Islami, Islami Oikya Jote,

Khelafat Andolon and Jamiat-e-Ula-maye Islam leaders were not seen at the venue even though a huge number of activists of Jamaat and its student wing Islami Chhatra Shibir attended the alliance’s rallies in the past.

The BNP, which apparently fails to resist the January 5 polls even sponsor-ing non-stop agitations resulting in vi-olence and destruction, has been stick-

ing to pre-poll position on resolving the political crisis through a dialogue.

Addressing a rally after nearly two and a half months at the historic Suhrawardy Udyan, Khaleda thanked people for “boycotting” the “farcical” election and urged the government to hold fresh poll. The previous rally took place on October 25.

PAGE 2 COLUMN 2

n BSS, Satkhira

Accusing the BNP and the Jamaat-e-Is-lami of violent acts like killing, arson and vandalism, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina yesterday warned that none in-volved in these heinous crimes would be spared.

“BNP-Jamaat terrorists brutally killed numerous Awami League, Jubo

League and Chhatra League leaders and activists across the country and looted and torched their houses in the last few months. They also destroyed roads and felled trees,” she said.

“None involved in the atrocities will be spared and stern action will be taken against all culprits,” she added.

Hasina, also the Awami League President, was addressing a public ral-

ly at Satkhira Government High School Grounds here this afternoon.

The meeting was addressed by, among others, by Health Minister Mo-hammad Nasim, Civil Aviation Minister Rashed Khan Menon, State Minister for Home Asaduzzman Khan Kamal, for-mer minister Dipu Moni and local MPs including Mostafa Lutfullah.

The prime minister arrived to open 11 development projects and distribute cheques among the family members of the victims of violence that has been going on since February 28, 2013.

Hasina called upon the BNP chair-person not to disrupt peace and said she would have to pay the price for “the mistake” she committed by boycotting the January 5 polls.

“The BNP did not join the polls as its ally Jamaat-e-Islami was barred from participating in the election by a High Court order,” she said, adding the court had declared the Jamaat to be a mili-tant organisation.

“They not only boycotted the polls, they also unleashed violent acts to re-sist the election,” she said.

The Awami League chief said BNP-Jamaat terrorists made the life of the people of Satkhira miserable. “Ordinary peace-loving people could not lead a peaceful life due to the ter-rorist acts of the BNP- Jamaat, includ-ing killing, arson, felling trees, up-rooting rail lines and cutting roads,”she said.

PAGE 2 COLUMN 4

20 pages plus 16-page T-Mag tabloid | Price: Tk10

Magh 8, 1420Rabiul Awal 19, 1435Regd. No. DA 6238Vol 1 No 297 TUESDAY, JANUARY 21, 2014 | www.dhakatribune.com | SECOND EDITION

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BusinessB1 Finance Minister AMA Muhith criticised the country’s insurance sector for huge corruption and worst performance.

News3 Three trained militants of banned Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan, allegedly assigned to carry out destruction ahead of January 5 election, were arrested in Dhaka late Sunday night with bomb-making manuals.

Nation6 At least 100,000 people in three upazilas of Narail and adjacent areas are waiting for a bridge on the Madhumati River that will ease their distresses and bring a waveof development.

INSIDE

Jamaat hints at new strategyTies with BNP will remain as strong as beforen Mohammad Al-Masum Molla and

Manik Miazee

Jamaat-e-Islami’s usual visible show-down, demanding release of their lead-ers convicted for war crimes, in the BNP-led 18-party alliance rallies in the past was not seen at BNP’s rally yester-day at Suhrawardy Udyan.

Leaders of three other alliance part-ners, known for having close ties with Hefazat-e-Islam, were also absent from the rally.

For the � rst time since the emer-gence of the BNP-led 18-party alliance, the BNP yesterday held a public rally alone, keeping its distance from key ally Jamaat-e-Islami and three other re-ligion-based alliance partners.

Jamaat leaders told the Dhaka Trib-une their men had participated in the rally, but without the usual banners and festoons. This was part of their “strategy,” they said, but refused to dis-close anything about the strategy.

A senior leader of Jamaat, wishing not to be named told the Dhaka Trib-une their main concern was to ensure that the government stepped down.

“For this the BNP will devise a strat-egy and we will just follow the strate-gy,” he said.

“Whatever decision the BNP takes, it will not harm our relations. We took the decision of not joining the rally after consultation with the BNP,” said Syed Abdullah Mohammad Taher, a Jamaat central working committee member.

He also said Jamaat-Shibir men took part in 18-party alliance rallies across the country yesterday with banners but avoided the Dhaka rally.

Jamaluddin, the assistant press sec-retary of Shibir, said, “Our leaders and activists joined the programme but we did not bring any placards and banners for strategic reasons.”

Jamaat and its student wing Isla-mi Chhatra Shibir have been blamed for killing policemen, ordinary citi-zens and activists of other parties, in-cluding the Awami League. The pres-sure is mounting on BNP inside and outside the country to cut ties withJamaat.

Since the alliance began its street movement on October 27, Jamaat men

have allegedly perpetrated a great amount of violence across the country. Many ordinary people were killed and burnt alive during the movement. This appears to have tarnished the image of the alliance and the international com-munity have urged the parties to avoid violence.

The BNP held the rally at Suhrawardy Udyan to thank people for boycotting the January 5 polls. Many alliance lead-ers like Oli Ahmed, Andaleeve Rahman Partha and Sha� ul Alam Prodhan ad-dressed the rally but nobody from the Jamaat attended or addressed the rally.

Also no one from the Islami Oikyo Jote, Khelafat Andolon and Jami-at-e-Ulama-e-Islam were present in

PAGE 2 COLUMN 4

President’s concession for BNP rallyn Kamran Reza Chowdhury

President Abdul Hamid yesterday made a concession – by cutting short his stay at the parliament building and leaving early for Bangabhaban atDilkusha, Motijheel – to make the BNP’s rally at the Suhrawardy Udyan uninterrupted.

Abdul Hamid went to the Jatiya Sangsad Bhaban around 2pm to pay respect to Awami League MP Shawkat Momen Shahjahan who died in Shakhi-pur, Tangail early yesterday. He attend-ed the namaz-e-janaza of his former colleague.

He left the parliament building im-mediately after the janaza.

The parliament authorities had made preparations, assuming that the

president might stay there for a few hours as he had done in the past. But Hamid had planned otherwise.

“No, I will not stay here for long. The tra� c will come to a halt [because of his movement] and they [the BNP activists] will face hindrances to attend the rally,” an additional secretary to the Parliament Secretariat quoted Hamid as saying.

Serjeant-at-Arms Captain Ashraful Haq told the Dhaka Tribune that his team had cleaned up the president’s room anticipating his stay. “But later we were told that the honourable pres-ident decided not to go to his chamber, possibly considering the tra� c chaos that would follow.”

Abdul Hamid, a former speaker, PAGE 2 COLUMN 1

BNP o� ers olive branch again PM: No criminal will be spared

Inqilab reporter remanded n Md Sanaul Islam Tipu

A Dhaka court yesterday granted police two days to question Ahmmed Atiq, reporter of the Bangla daily Inqilab,and sent two others of the newspaper to jail.

Dhaka Metropolitan Magistrate SM Ashiqur Rahman passed the order after hearing separate remand and bail plea petitions in a case � led under the Infor-mation and Communication Technolo-gy Act 2006.

Wari police station Sub-Inspector KM Firoz Ali on January 17 sought � ve days to grill Atiq in custody. As per the remand prayer, the police needed to in-terrogate Atiq to know why he had pre-pared a “fabricated” news report, on what grounds, and which people were involved.

Defence counsel Syed Ahmed Gazi pleaded bail for the three accused and also � led remand rejection prayers.

PAGE 2 COLUMN 1

Charge sheet � nalised against Oishee, 3 othersn Mohammad Jamil Khan and

Nazmus Sakib

Detective Branch (DB) of police has completed the investigation of the murder of Special Branch (SB) Inspec-tor Mahfuzur Rahman and his wife Shapna Rahman. The � nalised charge sheet accuses four, including their only daughter Oishee Rahman of the crime.

The investigators will bring charg-es against Oishee as the killer of her parents. The charges say Oishee killed her parents with the support of house-maid Sumi, and with instigation and planning from two of her friends. The charge sheet will probably be submit-ted to the court this month, a DB police source told the Dhaka Tribune.

Deputy Commissioner Jahangir Hossain Matubbor of DB police claimed

they had � nally unearthed the mystery of the double murder case after ana-lysing di� erent reports, samples and information.

“The charge sheet is almost � nalised and it will be submitted to the court soon,” he said.

On August 14 last year, SB inspector Mahfuzur and his wife Shapna were stabbed to death at their rented � at in Chamelibagh, Malibagh. Police recov-ered their bodies on August 16. Oishee, 19, with housemaid Shumi, surren-dered at Paltan police station on Au-gust 17.

Later, Oishee gave a statement un-der interrogation that she had killed her parents and housemaid Shumi had helped her do this. Investigators also found the involvement of her two

PAGE 2 COLUMN 1

Criminal masterminds hire rookies and stay behind the scenesn Ashif Islam Shaon and

Mohammad Jamil Khan

The formation of new crime gangs has been on the rise over the past few years as listed fugitive criminals prefer to op-erate from behind the scenes and use rookie operatives in the � eld, detec-tives have said.

With a multi-layered contracting strategy in place, the criminal master-minds manage to evade law enforcers

by using third or fourth party contacts to hire young people, mostly teen-agers, to commit killings, attacks orextortion.

Detectives from Dhaka Metropolitan Police and Rapid Action Battalion said some new groups of hired guns – that were not previously on their radar – have been identi� ed during investiga-tion into a number of murder cases in the past few years.

Detective Branch o� cials said they

discovered a new gang of hired kill-ers last July after the arrest of listed criminal Banga Babu from Mirpur. All nine members of an emerging gang, who were involved in the killing of Chhatra League leader Fazlur Rah-man Babu, were arrested on Babu’sinformation.

“The ring leader Titu said he ar-ranged the killing over a dispute about a garment wastage business. He hired two youths to shoot Babu and after ar-

resting them we found that the youths were new to the profession,” said a DB senior o� cial seeking anonymity.

On December 6 last year, a young businessman, Kamruzzaman Sumon, was shot dead at Paris Road in Mir-pur section 10. Investigation later re-vealed that three hired “shooters” were used to kill Sumon over extortiondemands.

In another incident, three members of Savar’s “Ganchil” crime gang were

arrested following the killing of Basu at Shah-Ali in the capital. During a po-lice remand, one of its members, Selim, told police that they nowadays did not take part directly in killings or collect-ing extortion money. Instead, a � rst party is hired who later hires another, and usually the fourth or the � fth party executes the killing.

A DB o� cial said the novice crim-inals belonged to the fourth party,

PAGE 2 COLUMN 2

BNP acting secretary general Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir talks to party Chairperson Khaleda Zia at the rally held in Suhrawardy Udyan yesterday NASHIRUL ISLAM

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina consoles family members of a victim who died in an attack during the January 5 poll. The photo was taken in Satkhira yesterday PMO

News2 DHAKA TRIBUNE Tuesday, January 21, 2014

A portion of supporters at the BNP rally held in the city’s Suhrawardy Udyan yesterday RAJIB DHAR

President’s concession PAGE 1 COLUMN 6used to spend hours at his parliament of-� ce, but his movement would result in massive tra� c jam as the Special Security Force would close the roads for a long time.

Considering the consequences, Ha-mid has decided not to attend any pro-gramme far from his o� cial residence Bangabhaban. He hardly attends pro-grammes at the Bangabandhu Interna-tional Conference Centre at Agargaon or any hotel in the heart of the city.

Anyone wishing Hamid’s presence as the chief guest must arrange the programme at the Osmani Auditorium in front of the Secretariat, which lies in the 200m radius of Bangabhaban so that tra� c movement is not disrupted. l

Oishee: Charge sheet PAGE 1 COLUMN 3friends Roni and Joni in the murder case and they were arrested later. They are now in jail while Oishee and Sumi are in Kashmipur Women’s Jail.

Investigators said they had � nalised the charges after getting evidence of Oishee’s presence at the murder scene from DNA report.

Meanwhile, the High Court yester-day denied Sumi bail. The bench of Justice Md Rezaul Haque and Gobinda Chandra Tagore said the bail for Sumi might disrupt the process of investiga-tion and her safety might also be com-promised. l

Inqilab reporter remanded PAGE 1 COLUMN 1The court rejected the bail pleas for News Editor Rabiulla Ulla Robi and Deputy Chief Reporter Ra� q Moham-mad and sent them to prison.

The three journalists were detained on January 16 for producing “fabricat-ed” news regarding the presence of Indian military inside Bangladesh ter-ritory and the newspaper’s press was sealed o� . Later, the daily apologised for producing the report. l

BNP o� ers olive branch again PAGE 1 COLUMN 3She said it was necessary to initiate a dialogue immediately with a view to hold an acceptable election to bring peace in the country.

The BNP chief termed the government “illegal, shameless, killer and betrayer.”

Branding the government as “fa-ther of autocrats,” she alleged that it assumed power forcibly through a one-sided election and raised the is-sues of vote rigging.

“The government formed after the election in which people did not cast their votes cannot be pro-people. The election has proven that a fair poll can-not be possible without a non-party gov-ernment. As the government does not have public support, it is trying to stay in power by using force and no government can stay in power by this way,” she said.

Khaleda said the government had no right to sit in parliament. “Every-body has rejected the election. It is not acceptable to anyone. That is why, we want to say, take initiative for talks im-mediately to hold elections.”

She also termed the Election Com-mission “spineless” and criticised it for claiming the voter turnout to be 40%. “Five percent vote was not cast in the election” she claimed adding: “No fair election could be held under this Elec-tion Commission.”

Several election monitoring groups have recorded the turnout to be around 30-37%.

Citing two national dailies, the BNP chief said, “Those who are voters did not go to the polling centres that day. Only non-voters cast their votes. It is a stigmatised government.”

Attack on minoritiesThe 18-party leader brushed aside the allegations that the activists of Jamaat and BNP were attacking the Hindu communities across the country.

She alleged that it was the govern-ment supporters who had attacked the minority communities “to divert peo-ple’s attention from its failure to get public support during the voting.”

She said: “It is the responsibility of

the government to ensure security of the minorities. The government has also failed to arrest the attackers.”

Joint forces’ driveKhaleda claimed that the indepen-dence and sovereignty of Bangladesh was under threat and urged freedom � ghters and young people to protect the country and its democracy.

In her speech at the post-election rally in the capital’s Suhrawardy Udyan, the three-time former premier claimed that the government had been “killing and abducting people in the name of joint forces’ drive across the country.”

Criticising the government for clos-ing the daily Inqilab, Khaleda said: “The reports they published also came in Facebook and many online [media]. If the incident was not true, the govern-ment should explain it. Why did it arrest the journalists and sealed o� the press?”

In a report on January 16, the news-paper claimed that Indian troops were seen among the members of law en-forcers conducting joint operation in

Jamaat-dominated Satkhira area. Fol-lowing this, police launched a drive at the newspaper’s o� ce on Ramakrishna Mission Road and arrested three of its journalists – reporter Ahmmed Atiq, Deputy Chief Reporter Ra� q Moham-mad and News Editor Rabiulla Ulla Robi. They also sealed its press.

Later, the daily apologised for pro-ducing the report.

Khaleda yesterday said: “The way repression is taking place seems that they [join force members] are not the forces of our country. No citizen of Ban-gladesh can act this way with the coun-trymen.”

She asked the government to stop “repression” or face the people’s trial one day.

Mentioning about the law enforc-ers-Jamaat clash in Gaibandha, the BNP chief asked whether the country’s sovereignty was still intact or the gov-ernment had sold it to others.

MilitancyKhaleda said militancy would be com-

pletely uprooted from the country when the Awami League steps down from o� ce. “The BNP will not allow the country to be a free place for mil-itants.”

She claimed that the BNP-led gov-ernment in 2001-06 had the experience of uprooting militancy. “Militancy in-creased in the country during the Awa-mi League tenure and the BNP evicted the militants after assuming o� ce.”

The former premier ruled out alle-gations and cases of money laundering against the BNP leaders. “You [gov-ernment] are laundering money from the country. We have the information [about the senders and the amount].”

She alleged that the government was violating the constitution.

Terming HM Ershad’s role during the election “drama,” Khaleda said in 1986, Hasina had taken part in the elec-tion under Ershad and this time the opposite.

“The two autocrats are eating up the country and plundering the country’s assets,” Khaleda said. l

PM: No criminal will be spared PAGE 1 COLUMN 6They created such a situation that eco-nomic activities came to a standstill and it was very di� cult to run schools. “But due to our timely steps for containing ter-rorism and militancy, peace was restored and people could cast their votes,” she said.

Hasina congratulated the people for playing a courageous role and casting vote in the January 5 poll.

“BNP’s cohort is Jamaat, which com-mitted genocide and crimes against humanity during the Liberation War of 1971 by killing people, torching hous-es and raping mothers and sisters,” shesaid.

She said the BNP chief had failed both in waging movement and resisting polls. “Now she is getting burnt in the � re of failure and also burning people in the � ame,” she said.

“I would like to warn the BNP leader that the people want peace, food, shelter

and healthcare services. So do not de-stroy the peace of the people,” she said.

The prime minister said her previous government started the trial of the 1971 culprits who committed crimes against humanity during the War of Libera-tion in 1971 to free the country from thestigma.

“But the BNP leader became mad when the trial began and she tried to pro-tect the 1971 culprits by unleashing atroc-ities across the country,” she said.

“I want to ask the BNP leader why she is trying to save the war criminals. I think she does not believe in the coun-try’s independence. Her mind remains in Pakistan and she always dreams of Pyare [beloved] Pakistan and for this, she is so sympathetic to the war criminals.”

The prime minister said the aim of her government was to establish Bangla-desh as a peaceful country in South Asia. “There will be no room for terrorist and militant organisations in the country,”

she said.Hasina said those who had stained the

soil of Satkhira with blood by unleashing killing would not be spared and called upon the people of the district to stand up against the atrocities.

“We will be with you and the law en-forcement agencies will stand beside you. And Satkhira will not remain blood-stained. We will root out terrorism from the district,” she said.

The prime minister said the country had been liberated under the leadership of Bangabandhu and people irrespective of caste, creed and religion fought for in-dependence.

“So people of all faiths will live in the country with equal rights,” she said.

The premier said the a� ected families of the victims of the BNP-Jamaat atroci-ties had already been given � nancial as-sistance. The Border Guard Bangladesh has been tasked with rebuilding their damaged houses, she said. l

Criminal masterminds PAGE 1 COLUMN 6while the second or the third party sup-plied them small arms for executing the orders.

After negotiating the fees, the hirer reportedly provides the name, address, phone number and location to the channel. A token amount is also paid during the dealings as security money.

The “wages,” ranging between one and � ve lakh taka, are reportedly � xed according to the pro� le of the targeted person. The costs come down when the crime is related to establishing domi-nance in an area. The shooters get 30-40% of the contract money.

According to sources, the killer groups are operated by Tejgaon’s listed criminal Sweden Aslam’s maternal fa-ther-in-law Tutul, Pagla Delu, Sarboha-ra Badsha, Kader and Miraj.

On January 14, 2010, criminals shot dead ward No 41 AL’s General Secre-tary Fazlul Haque. Following the arrest of one Dulal, he told the court that he

received only TK5,000 and some drugs in exchange of the execution.

On December 20, 2009, Ramna Mosque’s Imam Shaheed Hossain was killed by Bayejeed and Uzzal – both novice hired shooters.

When contacted, Senior Assistant Commissioner of DB Tawhidul Islam said: “We have found examples of hired killing in the last one year...But these youths do not get much money for the executions.”

RAB’s Additional DG Col Ziaul Ahsan said professional killers took part with Jubo League leader Jahid Siddique Tarek in the murder of Jubo League leader Ria-zul Haque Milki last August.

Sources said listed criminals like Sub-rata Bayeen, Mollah Masud, Nobi Hossain Adnan, Prince, Haris, Ashique, Prokash, Bikash, Shahdat, Pial, Zishan, Aga Shahim, Nasir, Imam Hossain, Omar Faruk Kochi, Mashiur Rhamn Kochi, Snaullah, Kala Mabud were on the run, while Sweden Aslam, Joseph, Killer Abbas were in jail. l

EC behind schedule in providing services for candidates n Mohammad Zakaria

The Election Commission was nearly a day behind schedule in providing ser-vices related to the � rst phase of the upazila polls as the guidelines for aspi-rant candidates and nomination forms and electoral equipment were yet to reach their destinations until yesterday evening.

The commission announced the schedule of the � rst phase of the fourth upazila polls on Saturday and was ex-pected to perform these tasks immedi-ately after that.

Many aspirants visiting the com-mission’s o� ce to know procedures for candidature returned disappointed yesterday, as the later failed to provide them with necessary information.

However, a senior o� cial said the commission issued two circulars – in-cluding one with guidelines for the aspirants and one for the returning o� -

cers – and sent nomination forms to the respective upazilas in the evening.

The documents are likely to reach their destinations early today.

Three aspirant candidates from Munshiganj returned from the commission’s o� ce in the morning, without getting any information with regards the polls scheduled for February 19.

According to the schedule announced on Saturday, polls to 102 upazila par-ishads out of 487 will held in the � rst phase. The last date for � ling an appli-cation for candidacy is January 25 and the applications will be scrutinised on

January 27. The last date for withdrawing candi-

dacy is February 3.EC o� cials said aspirant candidates

could not collect nomination forms from their respective areas since the forms did not reach their destinations on the day of the schedule announce-ment.

The commission has reportedly appointed some of its own o� cials as returning o� cers in the upazila parishads polls and is currently examining several pieces of election equipment such as stump pad and brush seals.

According to o� cials, it has also tak-en preparations for printing 24-crore ballot papers for the three-phase polls considering the eight crore voters available in the upazila levels.

The possible number of polling cen-tres is over 42,000 while that of polling booths is 200,000. l

Upazila polls: schedule for 2nd phase soonLast week of February or the week nextamong probable choices for electionn Mohammad Zakaria

The election commission is likely to announce the schedule of the second phase of upazila polls sometime this week, with the probable dates of elec-tion ranging between the last week of February and the � rst week of March.

“The commission is bound by law to hold elections before the tenure of an upazila parishad expires. We already announced the poll-schedule for par-ishads nearing their expiry dates and will announce the schedule for the second phase in a day or two,” Election Commissioner Md Shah Newaz said yesterday.

“The second phase of polls will be held either in the last week of Febru-ary or the � rst week of March,” he said, narrowing down the list of possible dates to February 27-28 and March 1-2.

The commission on Sunday an-nounced that the � rst phase of polls, with 102 upazila parishads out of 487,

would be held on February 19.The second phase will include polls

to over 100 upazilas while polls to some upazilas will be held in the third week of March.

The third phase of polls, with the re-maining upazilas, may occur sometime in the third week of May, the commis-sioner added.

In deciding election dates, the com-mission is keeping in mind the dates of SSC examinations so that students do not run into snags resulting from a schedule clash.

According to the electoral laws, polls to the upazila parishads must be held within 180 days before their terms ex-pire. The � ve-year term starts with the � rst meeting of the respective upazila parishad.

In the last upazila parishad polls held in 2009, Awami League-backed candidates won a landslide victory by bagging around 400 posts of chairper-sons. l

Jamaat hints at new strategy PAGE 1 COLUMN 4the meeting. These three parties are known to be directly involved with He-fazat-e-Islam, an Islamist organisation.

Though the party staged the pro-gramme alone in the capital, rallies across the country were held under the banner of the 18-party alliance.

BNP leaders said they held the rally alone to restore its tarnished image, showing people that the BNP was a political party which did not believe in violence and the responsibility of vio-lence was not on them.

“Islamic parties were not invited to the programme,” Musta� zur Rahman Iran, chairman of Bangladesh Labour Party, an alliance member, told the Dhaka Tribune.

When asked why, Iran said, “Proba-bly in the face of pressure from the in-ternational community.”

The European Union parliament ad-opted a resolution on Thursday, urging the BNP to distance itself from Jamaat and Hefazat, while emphasising shun-ning of political violence and an urgent consensus between the major parties.

The EU parliament stressed that “parties which turn to terrorist acts should be banned.”

The BNP has maintained an alliance with Jamaat for more than a decade, calling it a “strategic partner.”

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has announced that her government would hold talks with BNP if the party severed ties with the Jamaat and in di� erent media interviews BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia said BNP would cut ties with Jamaat at the right time.l

5 BNP leaders, including Fakhrul, secure bail n Nazmus Sakib

The High Court yesterday granted bail to � ve detained BNP leaders who are ac-cused in various cases lodged during re-cent anti-government protests.

BNP acting secretary general Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir, Goyeshwar Chandra Roy, Mirza Abbas and Aman Ullah Aman were freed on anticipatory bail for di� erent periods by the bench of Justice Borhanud-

din and Justice KM Kamrul Kader.The same bench granted six months’

ad-interim bail to jailed BNP Joint Sec-retary Mahbub Uddin Khokon in each of the three cases against him, clearing the way for his release, his lawyer, AJ Mo-hammad Ali, said. Khokon was shown arrested in two cases of arson � led with Motijheel and Ramna police stations and one of instigating Hefazat-e-Islam.

The court also gave bail to Mirza Fakhrul

for eight weeks in three cases by modifying an earlier order that had directed  law en-forcers to refrain from arresting or harassing the BNP leader in new cases without due process, his lawyer Bodruddoza Badal told the Dhaka Tribune.

“The HC bench that passed the order on Thursday did not have the jurisdiction to pass such an order,” Badal said. “The bench that deals with writ petitions has that jurisdiction,” he added. l

Aspirants could not collect nomination forms from their respective areas since the forms did not reach their destinations on the day of the schedule announcement

3NewsDHAKA TRIBUNE Tuesday, January 21, 2014

Growth not less than 6.3% this year: Muhithn Asif ShowkatKallol

Finance Minister AMA Muhith has said the country’s GDP growth will not fall below 6.3% from the 7.2% targeted for the current � scal year,since the an-nounced rate was ambitious.

“Nothing can cut down the econom-ic expansionof Bangladesh,” � nancem-inister told journalists yesterday after a meeting with the chairmen and man-aging directors of state-owned banks, insurance companies and � nancial in-stitutions.

Muhith also said the growth target was � xed at 7.2% in the current � scal year in accordance with the good per-formance of the previous � scal year and would be revised in the next budget.

Regarding the estimation of the growth rate by development partners, Muhith said the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund had es-timated the GDP growth rate conserv-atively.

The World Bank annual forecast said Bangladesh’s GDP growth would be around 5.7% in this � scal year, due to political unrest, image crisis of the garment sector and slow remittance growth.

IMF estimated the growth to be 6% in 2013-14 � scal year.

In Grand Alliance government’s last tenure, the growth rate remained above 6% except for one � scal year in which it was 5.7 %, he added.

Muhith said the country’s economic position had been well during the � rst half of the current � scal year.

The position of GDP growth rate, export, foreign exchange reserve of Bangladesh was also good but import and revenue earningshad slowed down a bit, he said.

“Our economic situation is still quite well,although we had feared that the economy would fall into a bad situation due to the prolonged blockades and hartals,” the minister said. l

Biman NY � ights resume in Junen Muhammad Zahidul Islam

Biman Bangladesh Airlines is going to resume its � ights to New York from June 12, a high o� cial of the national � ag carrier said last night.

A source in Biman’s marketing di-vision told the Dhaka Tribune that the airline would start selling tickets of the New York � ights from January 31.

The Biman New York � ights were grounded in 2006.

Initially, there will be two � ights a week – one leaving Dhaka for the US city at 2pm and the other leaving New York for Dhaka at 4pm local time.

Biman, however, could not yet con-� rm the days of the � ights.

“We have initially con� rmed about the date [of resuming the � ights] and we are planning measures to meet that target,” Khan Mosharaf Hosen, general manager for Biman’s public relations, said.

Resuming Biman � ights to New York was an election pledge of the Awami League and although it tried hard in the past couple of years, it failed.

A Biman source said they had re-ceived nods for the two � ights from the New York safety agency and the US Department of Transportation, and Bi-man’s next steps now depended on the availability of passengers.

“Although we have some technical challenges, we are ready and have al-ready leased two Boeing aircraft from Egypt Airlines,” a high o� cial said.

Biman, now a losing concern, re-cently requested the government to allow it a commercial borrowing of $200m to help overcome the � nancial crisis before the � eet lands. l

Pakistani militants held in Dhaka remandedn Kailash Sarkar

Three trained militants of banned Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP), alleg-edly assigned to carry out destruction ahead of January 5 election, were ar-rested in the capital late Sunday night with bomb-making manuals in their possessions.

The South Division of Detective Branch arrested TTP members Me-hmud, 26, from Malir district, and Us-man, 23, and Fakhrul Hasan, 50, from Kourangi district, in front of Shilpakala Academy around 11pm.

Two separate cases were � led against them with Ramna police sta-tion under the Anti-Terrorism Act 2009 and the Foreign Act 1964.

The Chief Metropolitan Magistrate’s Court yesterday granted the DB 13 days in the cases to interrogate them.

Immediately after the execution of war criminal Abdul Quader Molla, the TTP threatened to bomb the Bangla-desh High Commission in Pakistan.

“The detained TTP members from Arakan in Myanmar settled in Paki-stan with their families and secured Pakistani citizenships. According to DB o� cials, they used to visit Myanmar often,” said Joint Commissioner Mon-irul Islam at a press brie� ng at the DMP Media Centre.

Monirul said of the TTP men, Me-hmud and Usman did not have any passports although a Pakistani passport was found in the possession of Fakhrul, but his visa expired. All the three ac-cused had been staying at Kakrail to start for Teknaf in Cox’s Bazar.

“The detectives were informed that the TTP members were staying in Bang-

ladesh to carry out destructive activities ahead of January 5 election,” he said.

DB o� cials said although all the three detained used to speak Urdu, of them, Usman and Fakhrul could speak in Bengali. Fakhrul was acting as guide to travel to Teknaf, said the DB o� cials.

Monirul said the manuals seized from the three militants contained instructions of making of 12 types of bombs.

“All the three TTP militants have also the expertise in the making of 12 types of bombs, including grenades and car bombs. They also have the ex-pertise in the operation of heavy and automatic � rearms used by militants in Afghanistan and Iraq,” he said.

Among them, Fakhrul came in Bang-ladesh one and a half months ago while Mehmud and Usman had been arrested earlier by another intelligence agency.

“After being freed on bail, they want-ed to go back to Pakistan. But Fakhrul did not let them return as he had a special mission to conduct destructive activities in Bangladesh. Their attempt was foiled for the activities of the DB,” Monirul claimed.

According to the DB o� cials, the detained TTP members had trainings from the TTP experts at Waziristan in Pakistan on making bombs, attacking techniques and operation of various � rearms.

They were also determined to be or-ganised under the banner of Tehreek-e-Azadi Arakan for � ghting there.

The DB o� cials said they had been trying to know about the motive be-hind their attempt to travel to Teknaf as well as their aides and associates in Bangladesh. l

ACC to scrutinise rising wealth of ministers, MPs and their relativesn Syed Samiul Basher Anik

The Anti-Corruption Commission will soon form a committee to conduct a formal inquiry into the a� davits of ministers and MPs who participated in the January 5 poll.

Following newspaper reports on the phenomenal rise in wealth of some ministers and MPs during the last � ve years, the ACC has collected the news-paper clippings and is now scrutinising the � les, ACC Secretary Faizur Rahman Chowdhury told reporters yesterday.

He said the commission was yet to initiate any formal inquiry against any speci� c person.

“A committee will be formed soon to formally inquire into the wealth rises of MPs and ministers,” he told reporters while addressing the monthly brie� ng at the ACC headquarters.

He added that the commission

would also investigate all the suspect-ed candidates’ relatives’ wealth, as the ACC realised that people may have ac-cumulated illegal wealth in their rela-tives’ names.

Responding to a query, the secretary also said the ACC was not hesitant to inquire into the wealth of ministers and MPs, and that it will conduct all its ac-tivities in accordance with the ACC act.

However, sources at the ACC said the commission has already started in-quiring into the wealth of nine people, including six from Awami League, two from BNP and one other from a small party.

Asked about the ACC’s course of ac-tion were the government to disapprove of charges being � led, Faizur said al-though the commission did not require government permission to � le a case, they did need permission to � le charges.

“If we do not get permission, the

media is here. Additionally, if we can-not get permission after having all the documents, we can seek court’s sup-port on the matter,” he said.

Two and half years after it was ta-bled, the Anti-Corruption Commission (Amendment) Bill 2013 was approved by parliament on November 10 last year; ignoring protests from politi-cians, civic forums and corruption watchdogs. A provision in the bill – requiring the graft-busting agency to get approval from government before � ling cases against judges, magistrates and public servants – drew huge criti-cism from di� erent sectors.

Answering a separate query about the money laundering case against BNP Senior Vice-Chairman Tarique Rahman, the secretary said the ACC had appealed in the case after the ac-quittal of Tarique.

“Following the ACC’s appeal, the

court directed him to surrender him-self. If he does not follow the directives and does not surrender, that is a matter for the court, not for the ACC,” he said.

The High Court on Sunday accept-ed the ACC’s petition, which appealed against the lower court’s verdict ac-quitting the BNP senior vice-chairman, and ordered Tarique to surrender be-fore the court in the aforementioned money laundering case.

The secretary also shed light on the activities of the commission, saying the ACC, in December, had received 490 corruption allegations; out of which which, 71 cases were considered for further investigation.

The ACC also approved the � ling of 17 cases and 16 charge sheets in December. The judgments of seven cases inves-tigated by the ACC were pronounced during the month, among which, the ac-cused were acquitted from four cases. l

Ershad, Rawshan to choose reserve women MPsn Manik Miazee

Jatiya Party’s Secretary General ABM Ruhul Amin Howlader yesterday said Ershad and his wife Rawshan Ershad would jointly select candidates for competing in the reserved seats, in-stead of conducting interviews. They would list candidates and send it to the Election Commission soon, he said.

“It was not possible to nominate all of the 96 aspirants for the six seats.” Howlader denied the allegation that JaPa nominates candidates for re-served seats in exchange of money.

In reply to a query on the ongoing con� ict between Ershad and Rawshan, he said it was “false and rootless.”

The decision to drop the interview session to select candidates for the female MPs’ election has dissatis� ed the aspirants whose interviews were scheduled to take place at Ershad’s po-litical o� ce at 11am.

The nomination seekers and Ershad went there on time, but the JaPa chief did not conduct any interview. l

Razakars chanted ‘Yusuf Bhai Jindabaad’: witnessn Udisa Islam

War crimes suspect AKM Yusuf was re-sponsible for the killing of 60 Hindus, looting and arson at Ranjitpur of Khan-pur in Bagerhat, a new prosecution witness told the International Crimes Tribunal 2 yesterday.

Bijoy Krishna, the 22nd witness in the case, gave his deposition after the defence completed cross-examination of previous witness Dilip Das. Both of them placed their statements on charge number two. Bijoy said the villagers had formed pro-liberation groups after March 7, 1971. After over two months, on May 13, they came to know that some razakars had been preparing to attack.

“On May 13, Yusuf’s accomplices came to the village and set the houses on � re. All of them who were on duty to protect the village from any attack re-treated as they were not well prepared.” 

After around four hours of the de-struction, razakars had left the area chanting slogan “Yusuf Bhai Jindabaad.”

Bijoy said he and the villagers had seen many dead bodies lying here and there. The body of his younger uncle Sa-natan Das was found beside his house.

The witness mentioned about a mon-ument on Ranjitpur School ground erect-ed in memory of at least 24 martyrs.

His testimony remained incomplete as the tribunal adjourned the proceed-ings until today.

Jamaat-e-Islami leader Yusuf is fac-ing 13 counts of crimes against human-ity including genocide, murders, arson attacks, abduction, torture in con� ne-ment, and forced conversion and de-portation of Hindus at di� erent places of Bagerhat district. l

Detective police present three militants of Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan before the media after their arrest in the capital yesterday MAHMUD HOSSAIN OPU

Crackdown on illegal workersin Malaysiafrom todayn Rabiul Islam

The Malaysian government will com-mence with its crackdown on undoc-umented migrant workers after the three-month grace period set by their home ministry expired on January 20.

“The Malaysian authorities have informed us the crackdown will start from January 21,” Bangladesh labour counsellor to Malaysia Mantu Kumar Biswas told the Dhaka Tribune.

On October 20, 2013, the authorities declared a three-month amnesty peri-od for all illegal foreign workers includ-ing Bangladeshis to become legalised.

As the deadline ended, Malaysia would start crackdown from today, of-� cials at Bangladesh High Commission in Malaysia said.

Asked about probable number of il-legal migrants from Bangladesh, the la-bour counsellor said the Malaysian au-thorities had not yet provided the list.

At least 4,00,000 to 5,00,000 Bang-ladeshis were working in Malaysia, he said.

Bangladesh High Commission said approximately 30,000 Bangladeshis failed to become legalised.

While talking to the Dhaka Tribune, Minister for Expatriates’ Welfare and Overseas Employment, Khandker Mos-harraf Hossain said, “We have nothing to do for those who could not become legalised as we have done much to persuade the Malaysian authority to extend the amnesty period, and the authority gave three more months”. l

News4 DHAKA TRIBUNE Tuesday, January 21, 2014

City High LowDhaka 23.9 16.6Chittagong 28.0 15.9Rajshahi 19.8 11.3Rangpur 22.2 15.7Khulna 24.3 15.1Barisal 26.0 13.7Sylhet 28.5 13.8Cox’s Bazar 29.1 17.2

PRAYER TIMESFajar 5:24am

Sunrise 6:43amZohr 12:10am

Asr 4:01pmMagrib 5:37pm

Esha 6:56pmSource: IslamicFinder.org

WEATHER

Weather to remain unchangedn UNB

Weather is likely to remain dry with temporary partly cloudy sky over the country until 6pm today.

Moderate to thick fog may persist over the country from midnight till morning, Met O� ce said.

The sun sets in the capital at 5:37pm today and rises at 6:43am tomorrow.

Country’s highest temperature 29.5 degrees Celsius was recorded yester-day in Teknaf and lowest 11.3 degrees in Rajshahi. Highest and lowest tem-perature recorded in some major cities yesterday were:

Government websites yet to update pro� les of ministers, state ministersn Syed Samiul Basher Anik

Though over a week has passed since the new government sworn in, many ministries are yet to update the pro-� les of their newly elected ministers and state ministers on their respective websites, according to Dhaka Tribune � ndings.

At least 15 ministry websites out of the total 40 ministries were yet to update the pro� le of their designated minister or state minister as of yester-day. Some of the websites still showed the previous minister’s pro� le, while many did not have the � eld for pro� les of state ministers.

On January 12, a 49 member cabinet led by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina was sworn in among which 29 were ministers, 17 were state ministers and

two were deputy ministers. After visiting all the websites, it was

found that pro� les of ministers were not uploaded in Ministry of Religious A� airs, Ministry of Planning, Ministry of Land, Ministry of Social Welfare and Ministry of Law, Justice and Parliamen-tary A� airs websites.

The website of religious a� airs min-istry showed the pro� le of Mujibul Haque as its minister, the law ministry showed Barrister Sha� que Ahmed, the planning ministry showed Air Vice-Marshal (Retd) AK Khandker and the land ministry showed Amir Hossain Amu as its minister.

On the other hand, Ministry of So-cial Welfare is yet to create any � eld for its new minister Syed Mohsin Ali’s pro� le.

The ministry’s website only had the

pro� le of Promod Mankin, the state minister.

Meanwhile, the food ministry which was created splitting Ministry of Food and Disaster Management on September 15, 2012, is yet to start a website. Similarly, the railway ministry also do not have a website though it was created on December 4, 2011, separating from the Ministry of Communications.

Many ministry websites are yet to initiate a designated place even for the state minister’s pro� le. The textiles and jute ministry, � nance ministry, � sheries and livestock ministry, land ministry, primary and mass education ministry and information ministry do not have any option for the pro� le of state ministers till date. These are the ministries where no state minister was designated during the previous ten-

ure of the ruling Awami League – from 2008 to 2013.

No pro� les were also found at the website of Chittagong Hill Tracts a� airs ministry and on the site of the Minis-try of Youth and Sports, clicking on the minister’s pro� le � eld prompted the message “The page is under-construc-tion.” The � eld for the ministry’s depu-ty minister was also not found.

Moreover, when the pro� le of the designated minister for home ministry was searched, the page showed an er-ror message saying “Page not found.”

On the other hand, the website of Bangladesh Parliament has also not yet updated the list of newly elected MP’s. The � elds “Members of Parliament” and “Contact a MP” on the website gives information on the MP’s of the ninth parliament. l

Bangladesh stresses collaborative partnerships for ocean governance n Sheikh Shahariar Zaman

Bangladesh has stressed that sea re-sources must be governed on the prin-ciples of mutual trust, respect and ben-e� ts and equitable sharing of bene� ts.

“Many of the developing countries like Bangladesh do not possess the crit-ically required resources, capabilities and technologies.

"But that must not limit their ac-cess and right of equitable harnessing of vast marine resources,” said Secre-tary (maritime a� airs) Khorshed Alam at the Blue Economy Summit in Abu Dhabi yesterday.

In his speech, Alam said Bangladesh recognised the need for collaborative partnerships in the wider space of ocean governance in a bid to explore the untapped potentials in sea.

“Countries as ours must be support-ed in terms of knowledge and critical minimum of resources and capacity to bring the bay under surveillance,” he said.

In the summit, he invited the Indian Ocean rim countries to an expert level meeting in Bangladesh in July to assess and re-discover the wider potential of blue economy and determine actions regarding it.

The secretary pointed out that ris-

ing sea level and salinity intrusion up-stream have posed existential threats for Bangladesh.

“There is a critical need to inquire into the science of ocean acidi� cation and the meteorological behavior and related aspects in the Bay of Bengal,” he said.

Bangladesh has 12 nautical miles of territorial sea, 200 nautical miles of ex-clusive economic zone and continental shelf beyond 200 nautical miles and over 700km coastal frontiers.

About 475 species of � sh are found in the Bay of Bengal, more than 200 commercial trawlers operate in the bay and over 50,000 mechanised and non-mechanised boats ply on coastal waters for � shing, while around 30 mil-lion people rely on the sea to make a living. l

BNP leaders to get release n Our Correspondent, Gopalganj

Communication Minister Obaidul Quader said BNP leaders, who were not involved with major and speci� c crimes, would be released gradually.

The minister told these while talk-ing to journalists yesterday after paying visit to the proposed Kalna Bridge area on the Modhumoti River at the Kalna Ghat in the district.

The minister said: “The initiative of negotiation with the BNP is underway and Interim poll will be held.”

However, the minister did not men-tion any de� nite time for the interim poll.

The minister placed wreath at the mazar of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. The minister was accompa-nied by Noakhali 4 MP Ekramul Karim Chowdhury and o� cials of Gopalganj Roads and Highways Department.

“The construction work of Padma and Kalna bridges will start soon as the premier will inaugurate these two bridges in 2017,” he said. l

PM asks cabinet to prioritise projects soonn Mohosinul Karim

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina yester-day instructed the cabinet members and high-ups of di� erent ministries and divisions to prioritise projects as soon as possible.

“The projects have to be selected in terms of priority at the very outset as those must be completed within the tenure of the government which was the election pledges of the ruling party,” the premier said in the cabinet meeting.

After the meeting, Cabinet Secretary M Musharraf Hossain Bhuiyan told the media about the directives of the pre-mier.

The cabinet division placed at the cabinet meeting the achievements, work progress and implementation of the cabinet decisions under the previ-ous government.

The cabinet secretary said the pre-mier expressed her satisfaction over the progress of implementation under the previous government.

Sheikh Hasina also ordered the high o� cials to publish the progress reports of separate ministries and divisions, he added.

According to the report, the previ-

ous Awami League-led alliance govern-ment took 1,508 decisions during its tenure at its 228 cabinet meetings.

Of those, a total of 1,427 decisions had been implemented.

Earlier, the BNP and Jamaat-led gov-ernment had taken 745 decisions from October 10, 2001 to October 3, 2006 holding 208 cabinet meetings.

A total of 611 (82%) decisions of the government were implemented.

The secretary said the cabinet of previous AL-led government approved 271 draft laws for passage in the parlia-ment.

He said eight acts which were sent to the parliament for passage were still pending.

It was mandatory to get further ap-proval for the acts from the new cabi-net as those were sent to pass in the ninth parliament, Musharraf Hossain said, adding that those would be placed before the cabinet shortly.

He added that at least 20 amend-ment proposals and new acts were pending at the ministries and divisions after getting approval of the cabinet.

The previous cabinet also approved 49 policies and strategies and 118 mem-orandum of understandings (MoU) and agreements. l

JU students for cancelling bails of Zubair killersn JU Correspondent

Students of Jahangirnagar University yes-terday demanded that the bails of 13 ac-cused, all activists of Chhatra League, in Zubair Ahmed murder case be scrapped.

They announced a sit-in programme outside the Judge’s Court during the next hearing on Thursday.

At a press conference, members and activists of “Shontrasher Biruddhe Ja-hangirnagar” vowed that the killers would not be allowed on the campus.

“On Sunday, the accused attacked two friends of Zubair who have been involved with the anti-terrorism move-ment since Zubair’s death on January 9, 2012,” Bangla department student Sam-jeer Ahmed said at the press conference.

“The accused also threatened the

activists with death...Under this cir-cumstance, we urge the High Court to take necessary action against the at-tackers and cancel their bails.”

Based on the university authority’s investigation, the Syndicate expelled seven of the accused for life and six others for two years for their direct in-volvement in the killing.

The agitating students yesterday asked the university authority to take ac-tion against Estate O� cer Azim Uddin for remaining silent during Sunday’s attack.

Azim, a former Chhatra League lead-er, had been removed from his post of security o� cer after Zubair’s death.

The students expressed concern as the accused were moving freely on the cam-pus with the help of administration and some were staying at the dormitories. l

Doa Meh� l A Doa Meh� l for the late Mujtahed Ud-din Ahmed, former director of Bengal Development Corporation (BDC), will be held tomorrow at Gulshan Central Mosque, after Asr prayers.

All friends, family members and well wishers are requested to attend the prayers. Mr Ahmed died on Friday, January 17, 2014 at the age of 90. l

50% special allowance for SC judges n Mohosinul Karim

Supreme Court judges will enjoy a spe-cial allowance, equivalent to a half of their basic salary.

The cabinet yesterday approved the draft of the Supreme Court Judges (Re-muneration and Privileges) (Amend-ment) Law, 2014, keeping a provision to give the higher court judges an extra 50% of their basic salary as a special al-lowance.

Cabinet Secretary M Musharraf Hos-sain Bhuiyan disclosed it to the media after the meeting. The draft was ap-proved at the second cabinet meeting with Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in the chair.

The move to give a pay rise to the judg-es came two weeks after Awami League was re-elected to power in the 10th par-liamentary polls, held on January 5. l

Two commit suicide in city n Kailash Sarkar

A female college student and a house-wife allegedly killed themselves in the city yesterday.

Rabeya Akhter, 17, of East Nakhal-para, a � rst year student of Tejgaon Women’s College, allegedly took in-secticides, while housewife Sharmin Akhter, 25, of Faidabad in Dakkh-inkhan, allegedly hanged herself from a ceiling fan.

Rabeya’s mother Mamtaj Begum said her daughter took insecticide around 10:30pm as she snub her over her study related issue. The girl died at Dhaka Medical College Hospital.

Housewife Sharmin’s family said she killed herself yesterday evening after quarreling with her husband who does not have any job and lives at his in-law’s house. l

Defamation case � led against Daily Jugantor n Our Correspondent, Chandpur

A defamation case was � led with a Chandpur Senior Judicial Court against the Bangla daily Jugantor yesterday for carrying a false report on former home minister MK Alamgir and former for-eign minister Dipu Moni.

Kachua upazila Jubo League activist Kazi Enamul Haque Shamim � led the case as complaint with court of Asim Kumar De, demanding Tk200 crore as compensation.

The court took the case into cogni-zance and summoned the newspaper's publisher Salma Islam, acting Edi-tor Saiful Alam, Chief Reporter Enam Ahmed and News Editor Abdur Rah-man to the court on March 11.

Helal Uddin, counsel for the com-plaint, told The Dhaka Tribune: “The Jugantor published a report on January 13 and 17 defaming the ministers, and published several distorted pictures.”

The newspaper editor, publisher and other journalists should avoid pub-lishing false reports, he said. l

Former Jamuna Bank DMD arrested n Tribune Report

The Anti-Corruption Commission yes-terday arrested Mozammel Hossain, a former deputy managing director of Jamuna Bank Limited, from capital’s Segunbagicha area with the assistance of law enforcement agencies.

ACC Assistant Director Mahbubur Rahman along with local police arrest-ed the o� cial around 3pm in connec-tion with the Tk990cr scam by Bismil-lah Group, ACC Deputy Director Syed Iqbal Hosssain told reporters.

On November 3 last year, ACC � led 12 cases against 53 o� cials of � ve banks and the Bismillah Group, a terry towel producer, for their alleged involvement in the embezzlement of funded loans worth over Tk990 crore. l

About 475 species of � sh are found in the Bay of Bengal, more than 200 commercial trawlers operate in the bay and over 50,000 mechanised and non-mechanised boats ply on coastal waters for � shing

Workers busy in the construction work of sanitary toilets for the devotees of Biswa Ijtema at the event's venue in Tongi yesterday SYED ZAKIR HOSSAIN

School children place � oral wreaths at the incomplete monument of Shaheed Asad, martyr of the mass uprising in 1969, yesterday in front of the Dhaka Medical College Hospital to mark his 44th death anniversary DHAKA TRIBUNE

News 5DHAKA TRIBUNE Tuesday, January 21, 2014

BNP rally causes long tailbacks, upsets commutersThe rally was set to start at 2pm, but thousands of supporters started converging on the venue earlier than the scheduled time n Abu Hayat Mahmud

Tra� c congestion in the capital reached an intolerable height yesterday in the wake of the BNP rally at Suhrawady Udyan that contributed much to the tailbacks across the city, much to the dismay of commuters.

The BNP rally was set to start at 2pm, but thousands of leaders and ac-tivists started converging on the venue earlier than the scheduled time.

Tra� c police were compelled to seal one side of the road from Shahbagh to Matsya Bhaban because of a huge pres-ence of BNP leaders, activists and sup-porters.

The tra� c movement halted on the connecting roads Matsya Bhaban, Shahbagh, High Court, Press Club, Purana Partan, Gulistan, Motijheel, Bijoynagar, Kakrail, Bangla Motor, Kar-wan Bazar and Farmgate, causing the tailbacks across the city.

Moreover, a large number of buses entered the city with BNP leaders and activists from outside the capital to join the rally that put pressure on the city tra� c too, said tra� c police.

Samsun Nahar, an employee of a pri-vate bank, lost almost two hours trying to return home from work.

“I have been waiting at the Motijhe-el bus station for a bus for over 30 min-utes, but am yet to � nd any,” she said.

Most commuters had the same ques-tion: Why must ordinary people su� er because of the political programmes of the two major political parties?

Like Samsun Nahar, many were seen waiting for vehicles for hours at di� er-ent bus stations to reach their destina-tions.

“I waited for a bus at Purana Paltan for nearly an hour. It would actually have been far easier had I just walked back home,” said Nilufar Iasmin, who had to wait with hundreds of commut-ers to get a ride home.

Habibur Rahman, a biker, said it took him an hour to reach the National Press Club from Bangla Motor, although it was at best a 10-minute journey.

With the current political situation slowly easing o� , one would hope that exasperated commuters of the city would � nd respite in the immediate future. l

More poor farmers turning to tobacco cultivationn Abu Bakar Siddique

Although fertile land across the coun-try is shrinking, tobacco farming is in-creasing day by day, mostly because the government is not taking proper initiatives to stop tobacco cultivation and encourage farmers to cultivate other crops.

According to the Department of Ag-riculture Extension, a total of 108,000 hectares of land have been brought under tobacco cultivation this year, 38,000 hectares more than the last, while farmers cultivated tobacco on 70,000 hectares of land.

Of the total land, 40,000 hectares of land was in Kushtia, 28,000 hectares in Bandarban, 30,000 hectares in Nil-phamari and Lalmonirhat and 10,000 hectares in Rangpur.

Nilphamari and Lalmonirhat dis-tricts are new additions to tobacco farming; interestingly however, to-bacco farming has seen a reduction in

Rangpur, an area which has seen much success in the past.

Currently, many farmers are not in-terested to cultivate paddy and winter crops on their land as they often do not get fair prices because of poor market-ing and transport.

Unlike the government, many to-bacco companies are providing various facilities to farmers so that they feel en-couraged to cultivate tobacco.

Most tobacco farmers earn more pro� t from their production as they are convinced by the prices tobacco com-panies o� er.

Tobacco farming needs a huge amount of fertiliser and poor farmers often receive credit from tobacco com-panies to buy the fertilizer.

In many cases, these companies give advance money and agri-inputs, in-cluding fertiliser and seeds to farmers, to encourage them in the cultivation.

“Tobacco companies give me all kinds of inputs, fertilisers and pesti-

cides, in advance to cultivate and � nal-ly buy my produce,” said Abdul Latif, a farmer of Lama Upazilla in the hill dis-trict Bandarban.

“Poor farmers like me who do not have ability to meet the expenditure of farming materials are receiving ad-vance money from tobacco companies to cultivate their land,” he said.

He said he had brought two acres of his land under tobacco cultivation this year.

In addition, some farmers, who have ability to cultivate their farmland with their own resources, are also engaged in tobacco farming as it gives them guar-antee of sale of their farm production.

Zamal Khondker, a farmer of Dow-latpur area of Kustia, who used to cul-tivate sugarcane even � ve years ago, had faced many obstacles in selling his agri-produces.

“Like me, many farmers have start-ed tobacco cultivation simply because there’s more money in it,” he said.

In Bangladesh, tobacco is generally cultivated in Rabi (dry) season which is approximately in between November and March.

British American Tobacco (Bat), Dhaka Tobacco and some other lo-cal companies are engaged in making farmers interested in tobacco farming to ensure supply of raw materials.

The DAE itself is worried about the growing trend of tobacco cultivation as it may reduce the acreage of the coun-try’s major cereal crop Boro paddy and other seasonal crops, including wheat, maize and pulse.

“We have already taken di� erent initiatives, including creating aware-ness on the negative impacts of tobac-co, among the farmers to check the in-creasing trends of tobacco cultivation,” said Abul Kalam Azad, deputy director (Cash crops) of the DAE.

Farida Akhter, executive director of Ubinig, said the rising trends of tobacco cultivation is a result of government’s

poor initiative as it failed to ensure fair prices of agri-produces, which leads the country towards infertility.

Farida urged the government to de-marcate the area of agriculture land to ensure country’s food su� ciency.

The government should impose a ban on tobacco cultivation for food se-curity of the country, she opined.

Abdul Wahab, an o� cial of BAT, Bandarban, acknowledged that they were helping farmers in tobacco culti-vation.

He, however, said they did not force farmers to cultivate tobacco in their land rather they are creating opportu-nity for farmers.

According to the DAE, Kustia, the government has taken “Greater Mujib-nagar Project” to discourage farmers in tobacco cultivation.

Through the project, the depart-ment will create enthusiasm among farmers so that they feel interested to cultivate tobacco on their land. l

DANDY DYEING LOAN DEFAULT CASE

Court asks mediator to submit report on Feb 23n Md Sanaul Islam Tipu

A Dhaka court yesterday asked the me-diator of Dandy Dyeing Ltd loan default case to submit report on the mediation between complainant and defendant on February 23.

Dhaka Artha Rin Court 1 Judge Md Rabiuzzaman passed the order while advocate Abdus Salam, mediator of the case, � led for an extension before the court to submit the report in writing.

The case was � led against BNP Se-nior Vice-Chairman Tarique Rahman and his brother Arafat Rahman Koko for defaulting on the loan amounting to Tk45.49crore.

On October 3, 2013, the court ap-pointed the mediator for negotiation.

On October 2, 2012, Sonali Bank Ex-ecutive O� cer Md Nazrul Islam � led the lawsuit against 10 directors of the Dandy Dyeing Ltd, including Tarique and Koko.

The 10 are Tarique Rahman, Arafat Rahman Koko, Giasuddin Al Mamun and his wife Shahina Yasmin, Nas-rin Iskander, Shams Iskander, Sha� n Iskander, Sumaiya Iskander, Moza� ar Ahmed and Kazi Galib Abdus Sattar.

As Moza� ar Ahmed died, the court included his wife Samsun Nahar and his son Masud Hasan as defendants in the case.

33 Barisal BNP leaders bailed ad-interimn Our Correspondent, Barisal

High Court yesterday granted ad-inter-im bail for � ve weeks to 33 BNP leaders and activists in Barisal in a case � led for assaulting police.

An HC bench comprising Justice Enayetur Rahim and Justice Md Akram Hossain granted the bail.

On November 11 last year, during a blockade programme enforced by the BNP-led 18-party alliance, the accused BNP activists clashed with police in Ka-shipur area of the city.

Sub-Inspector Musta� zur Rahman lodged a case against 1254 people on the same day including Maniruzzaman Faruk, city BNP vice president, Ziaud-din Shikdar, city BNP joint secretary and Barisal City Corporation councilor, and Afroza Khanam Nasrin, city joint convener of Jatiyatabadi Chhatra Dal with Airport police station.

Mojibor Rahman Sarwar, Barisal city BNP president and lawmaker and Mez-bahuddin Farhad, lawmaker and dis-trict (north) unit BNP president, were earlier granted six-week ad-interim bail in the same case. l

The people of Dhaka observe an unusual tailback after a long time yesterday. The photo was taken from Mohakhali � yover SYED ZAKIR HOSSAIN

Minor girl rescued after abduction n Our Correspondent, Narayanganj

Narsingdi police rescued a one and half-an-year old girl from the district’s Madhabdi upazila after 13-hour of her abduction, but could not arrest anyone in this connection.

The gang abducted the kid named Sumaiya Akter from her house in Narayanganj on Sunday evening around 4pm and demanded Tk30,000 as ransom.

Sayed Nurul Islam, superintendent of police of Narayanganj, said Sharifa, a member of an abduction gang who was also a colleague of the minor girl’s Metarnal aunt Munni, was used to visit Sumaiya’s house frequently.

On Sunday she visited the victim’s house and took the girl with her by say-ing the girl’s parents that she was going out for a sightseeing. But they did not return and the gang made a phone call to the victim’s father demanding the ransom money.

Following the incident, victim fa-ther Sumon � led a complaint with Fat-ullah Model police station.

Later, they rescued the girl yester-day. l

Two AL MPs slate EC, newspapers in reply of show cause notice n Mohammad Zakaria

Two newly elected Awami League MPs – Monirul Islam of Jessore 1 and Sheikh A� l Uddin of Jessore 2 – criticised the Election Commission and mass media in reply of a show cause notice.

Of the two lawmakers, A� l was elected uncontested and Monirul in the January-5 poll.

The lawmakers replied to the show cause on Wednesday, criticising the EC, electoral enquiry committee and � ve newspapers – Dinkal, Prothom Alo, Mana-bzamin, Dhaka Tribune and Daily Star.

The lawmakers in the reply of the show cause notice said the Election Commission could not cancel their candidatures after election.

If the returning o� cer wanted, he could cancel their candidature before the parliamentary polls, they said.

They also blamed the commission for using indecent word against them and urged the EC to withdraw it.

A� l, who is also the vice-president of Jessore district unit Awami League, allegedly called upon his supporters to ensure win of Monirul by occupying

poll centres and casting false votes. He made the directives while speak-

ing as chief guest at a view-exchange meeting with Monirul’s polling agents on Parbazar High School premises in Jhikargachha upazila on December 30.

A video clip of his speech was also reached at journalists’ hand.

About the news story, they said the news published in the newspaper was not correct and the report made with false information with a view to cre-ate controversy. Attaching the copies of news items, the EC issued the show cause notice to them for violating the electoral code of conduct on January 7.

The commission, however, will hold hearing over the matter on January 27, EC o� cials said. l

A� l, who is also the vice-president of Jessore district unit Awami League, allegedly called upon his supporters to ensure win of Monirul by occupying poll centres and casting false votes

The renovation work of Rajshahi Government Madrasa building is going on as its roof became risky. This administration building of the institution was established around 130 years ago. The Photo was taken yesterday DHAKA TRIBUNE

6 NationDHAKA TRIBUNE Tuesday, January 21, 2014

Maize cultivation gets a boost in Jhalakati n Tribune Report

Farmers in the district are cultivating maize in larger areas of land this season as they made sat-isfactory pro� t from the cereal item last year de-spite onslaught of cyclonic storm ‘Mahasen’ dur-ing its harvest.

While visiting di� erent areas of the district recently, the UNB correspondent found growers busy with maize cultivation in their � elds.

They are now sowing seeds after tilling Aman � elds immediately after the harvest of the paddy.

This year, they have begun farming of the crop earlier in order to avoid repetition of ‘Mahasen’-like natural disaster.

‘Mohasen’ caused serious harm to maize cul-tivation in the southern district last year, making the growers deprived of more pro� t from the crop.

The farmers said non-government organisa-tion Brac, under its Food Safety Programmes, en-couraged them to cultivate maize, reports UNB.

Under supervision of the leading NGO, Hybrid Variety of Paci� c 984 maize is being cultivated on 213 acres of land (one acre=30 decimals) in Sadar and Rajapur upazilas.

Besides, being encouraged by the o� cials of local Department of Agriculture Extension (DAE), farmers are growing the crop on further 385 acres of land in four upazilas, including Rajapur and Sadar, of the district.

Of the 385 acres of land, some 125 acres are in Sa-dar upazila, 63 acres in Nalchity upazila, 135 acres in Rajapur upazila and 62 acres in Kathalia upazila.

Local agriculture o� cials said farmers require Tk15,000, including the costs of seeds, fertiliser and irrigation, to grow maize on one acre of

land, which can give 90-100 maunds yield (one maund=37.32 kgs) of the crop. Maize is sold at Tk8,000-9,000 per maund.

Anisur Rahman, a farmer of Bangkura village in the Sadar upazila, said they made pro� t by farming maize last year though ‘Mahasen’ dam-aged the crop during harvest.

Describing maize farming as pro� table, Abdul Hamid Akon, another farmer of the area, said maize is not only a nutritious food but also a key ingredient of � sh and cattle feeds.

Champack Aich, manager of Brac’s Food Safe-ty Programme, said as part of their initiative to expand maize farming in the district, they are encouraging the farmers to cultivate the crop and providing necessary supports.

He also said farmers can earn net income of Tk 50,000 by cultivating maize on one acre of land. l

Freedom � ghter threatened by drug syndicate n Our Correspondent, Lalmonirhat

A freedom � ghter at the Lalmonirhat’s New Colony has complained of threats from drug peddlers after he reported their activities to police recently.

Jagodish Chandra Adhikary, 62, said the group was well-known in the vicin-ity for selling and using illegal drugs.

“They take hemp and phensidyl openly, right in front of my house, de-spite several complaints made by locals to police. The police, for reasons un-known to me, has taken no action yet.”

Jagodish said he had lodged a for-mal complaint with the Lalmonirhat Sadar police station on January 14 after

fruits and bamboos from a nearby gar-den were stolen, triggering an “angry backlash” from the group which start-ed harassing him and his family.

“We cannot move freely now. We fear they might assault us or do some-thing like this in revenge for the com-plaint.”

Abu Bakkar Siddique, who heads the upazila unit of Muktijoddha Sang-sad, acknowledged the fact of the har-assment and warned of “tougher pro-gramme” if police failed to take action against those responsible for harassing the Adhikary family.

Police said they would take action in this regard soon. l

Brick� eld worker gang-rapedn Our Correspondent, Tangail

A brick� eld worker was allegedly gang-raped in Tangail’s Mirzapur upazila early yesterday morning.

The woman is now admitted to the Tangail district hospital.

According to police, the victim was tar-geted after she alighted from a bus at the Gorai industrial area early in the morning. She went to the brick� eld in Hatuvanga to cook meals for her colleagues.

Soon after, a group of six miscreants emerged, took her to a nearby deserted garden and raped her.

Later, police rescued the senseless victim and took her to the Mirzapur upazila health complex. She was then shifted to Tangail General Hospital be-cause of the severity of her condition.

Liton, 25, a tempo driver, was de-tained in this connection. Police said they got the names of other rapists from his confession.

They are: pickup driver Zamal (25) of Taltola village, his assistant Johny (23) of Sayedpur village, Mridul (23) of Cadet College area, Murad (24) of Hatu-vanga area, and Zahid (25) of Kamar-para village.

SI Mizan Miah, duty o� cer of Mir-zapur police station, con� rmed the news and said police were trying to ar-rest others involved in the crime.

The victim’s uncle � led a rape case with the police station accusing six in-dividuals. l

Waiting for a bridge over Madhumati Narail residents see glimmer of hope in minister’s promisen Our Correspondent, Narail

At least a hundred thousand people at three upazilas in Narail and adjacent areas are waiting for a bridge on the River Madhumati that will easy their distresses and will bring a wave of de-velopment.

People of Lohagora, Kalia and sadar upazila have to take a boat to cross the river to catch a bus or other vehicle to go to the neighbouring districts—Jes-sore, Khulna, Gopalganj and the capi-tal Dhaka.

Farmers said they are often deprived of fair prices for their commodities

as they cannot carry all their produc-tion to town because of transportation problems.

Traders said buyers cannot reach the village markets with their trans-ports to bring agricultural produce, as road communication is unsettled and uncomfortable.

School and college students also have to bear the brunt of poor commu-nication during rainy season.

Rahima, a � rst year honours student of Lohagora government college, said they often fail to attend classes on time as communications is not easy and fre-quent in the area.

Neoaz Ahmed, mayor of Lohagora Municipality, said sometimes ill people have to su� er more as they cannot go to hospital on time because of the poor transport system.

A person has to pay Tk10 to cross the river by boat and additional Tk5 for car-rying a bicycle, Tk20 for a motorbike, Tk75 for microbus and Tk150 for a bus and truck.

Residents of the upazilas said dur-ing election times, candidates come and assure voters of a new bridge. But their “sweet words” go in vain as none had kept their promise so far.

But there is some good news: Com-

munication Minister Obaidul Qader visited Kalna ghat point at Lohagora upazila in Narail yesterday, and said the government approved Tk245 crore last Sunday for Kalna Bridge Project on the River Madhumati.

The minister also made a promise that the tender for the bridge will be called within June this year, and it is expected that the construction of the bridge will be completed within 2017.

Residents of the upazila were de-lighted after hearing that the bridge will be built very soon, but some re-mained sceptical. All they want is a bridge over the Madhumati. l

62 shops guttedin Noakhali n Our Correspondent, Noakhali

At least 62 shops were gutted in a dev-astating � re in Maijdee court area un-der Noakhali Sadar upazila yesterday.

According to sources, the � re origi-nated from an electronic shop and en-gulfed the adjacent area soon.

On information, � re-� ghters from Maijdee and Chaumuhani went to the spot and doused the � re after three hours of hectic e� orts.

The shop owners claimed that the loss caused by the � re could go up to Tk30 crore.

Ekramul Karim Chowdhury MP, Mo-sta� jur Rahaman, deputy commission-er, Anisur Rahaman, superintendent of police, visited the spot. l

Policeman sent to jail over attempt to rapen Our Correspondent, Brahmanbaria

After cancelation of bail appeal, a Brahmanbaria court sent a police o� cer to jail as an accused of an attempt to rape case.

Police said the allegation against the accused Jahangir Alam, assistant sub-inspector of Brah-manbaria police station, was primarily proved.

Violence against Women and Children Tribu-nal Judge Md Jalal Uddin handed down the order on Sunday as primary investigation team found evidences against the accused.

The case statement described that Jahangir Alam attempted to rape a 24-year-old woman in her house on July 11 last year while he went at Vadhugar Village to arrest a drug-abuser youth.

But the o� cer knocked at the victim’s house door mistakenly and found her alone. Then he at-tempted to rape her.

However, to escape the rape she climb up on the roof of her house. Then at one stage of the wrestle the man push her from the roof and left the place. She received several injuries and bro-ken her hand after the fall.

Later, the victim’s mother Parul Begum � led a case against the police o� cer on July 16 in 2013.

But the policeman illegally detained the vic-tim’s brother—who was an auto-rickshaw driver by profession— from the town while he was driv-ing, and put pressure on the victim’s family to withdraw the case.

Then with the help of local people the victim’s family freed the detainee. Several persons of the town seeking anonymity said the police o� cer was infamous among the dwellers of the town for his previous misdeed and corruption. l

PM to meet minority victimsin Gaibandha visit n Our Correspondent, Gaibandha

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina will be visiting Gaiband-ha on 25th January to inaugurate several development projects and lay down the foundation stones of several others in the district, and exchange views with victims of the minority community.

Deputy Commissioner (DC) M Ehsan–E-Elahi made the announcement while speaking at the monthly meeting of the District Development and Coordination Committee, at the DC o� ce conference room yesterday.

The DC also informed that after landing at Tulshigh-at Helipad at around 11.30am, the premier will hold a meeting at the Circuit House with the family members of those killed or injured in recent attacks on the mi-nority community.

In the afternoon, she is expected to inaugurate the

Gobindaganj Fire Service and Civil Defense Station, Gaibandha Textile Vocational Institute, six food ware-houses, three 50-bed hospitals in Shaghata, Palashbari and Sundarganj upazilas respectively and an EPI store in the district through unveiling its plaque at Shah Ab-dul Hamid Stadium, he said.

“Besides, the prime minister will lay down the foun-dation stone of the Palashbari Thana Building, Fulchhari Thana Building, District Muktijoddha Sangshad Complex, Gobindaganj Upazila Livestock Development Centre, Gai-bandha Technical Training Centre and the gallery exten-sion of Gaibandha Shah Abdul Hamid Stadium,” said Elahi.

Later, the PM will attend and address a public meet-ing of the Awami League’s local district unit, at the sta-dium ground at 4.30pm, he added. Talking to Dhaka Tribune, DC Ehsan-E-Elahi said all necessary meas-ures are being taken for the prime minister’s arrival. l

30 injured over land disputen Our Correspondent, Gopal ganj

Around 30 people including women and children were injured in a clash between two groups over settling a land boundary in Batikamari village of Muksudpur upazila under Gopalganj district yesterday.

The injured are La� a, 5, Amena, 7, Lasmin, 28, Shahida, 65, Rina, 22, Jomirunnesa, 65, Ashraf Ali, 62, Mintu Bhuiya, 28, Sa� d Khondokar, 27 and Sekender Ali, 70.

They were admitted to the Muksudpur Upazila Health Complex in a critical condition.

According to Police and locals, Ashraf Bhuiya and his neighbour Sekender Bhuiya in the village had been engaged in a rivalry for long over ownership of a piece of land.

Although the two sides decided to sit for a negotiation, eventually the talk turned into squabble and at one point the two groups started attacking each other with local weapons.

On information, police went to the spot.

Con� rming the matter, O� cer-in-charge of Muksudpur police station Fer-dous Hossain said: “We have brought the situation under control. Police has been deployed on the spot.” l

‘We have brought the situation under control. Police has been deployed on the spot’

Fire � ghters try to extinguish � re that broke out in Maijdee Court area in Noakhali yesterday DHA KA TRIBUNE

7DHAKA TRIBUNE Long Form Tuesday, January 21, 2014

n Irfan Chowdhury

What does writing achieve? What does a blog achieve? What do newspaper articles achieve?

One can write as much as one likes but rulers/leaders or even the general public can (and do) ignore us. But this does not stop people from expressing themselves, however ine� ective their e� orts. And there are issues situations when, regardless of apparent inef-fectiveness, writing about the issues, highlighting, documenting the facts, suggesting possible solutions could be a worthy e� ort. Voicing our concerns, protesting against violent attacks on innocent minorities and demanding immediate, meaningful action to pro-tect our minority brothers and sisters is the need of the hour.

Hatred and hostilities do not develop overnight. They are often built over a long period, sometimes over centuries and the result of inerasable history. We know that Hindu-Muslim issues and tensions date back many centuries and that they were a cause for the partition, based on religion rather than ethnic reasoning, in 1947. The seeds sown then can now be seen in full blossom – all across the subcontinent. The concept of separating territories for particular religious groups was always going to haunt the future.

And it does. As the statistics prove today – that desire for a “pure” land is getting ever closer – sooner rather than later the cleansing could be accom-plished. But let’s not dwell on the polemics.Still, with repeated and increasing attacks on minority communities – on Hindus or Buddhists, on the Indige-nous (Adibasi) people – it is hard not to be cynical. What was started only 20 years ago as an opportunistic dicta-tor’s last ditch attempt to divert the focus of a popular movement, used by subsequent governments, has become a regular pre and post election occur-rence, surprisingly happening during what is considered to be a non-partic-ipatory, forced and unilateral election – and inconsequential, in terms of who actually went to vote for whom as the results were known long before the elections started. The preponder-ance of these attacks is a further irony under an AL government as they/the party claims to be the protector and promoter of minority issues.

Further irony in the sorry minority story is that historically they are un-derstood to be voting for the AL, which at times, de� nitely in the past, was translated as a treacherous deed to subjugate the nation to India, which, in spite of its very large Muslim popu-lation and diverse ethnic and religious groups, is unfortunately considered a “Hindu nation” by rightist elements.

( The rise of Hindu nationalism since the early 90s in the form of BJP (along with RSS and others) which is widely expected to return to government in the elections later in May, probably does not help the matter either; in fact, India has its own problems with minority issues, as does Pakistan).

I can recall endless vile, racist comments thrown at my Hindu friends and acquaintances intended to insult and demean them for their disloyalty; a common saying (it could even be doing the rounds today) was “apnader to ek pa Indiyate; taka, sompotti, bou, baccha so onkane, eai khane shudu chari ar babsa koren” which, translated loosely, measns more or less :”your one foot is in India; you have trans-ferred your wealth, wife and children there; here you merely work and do business.”

More than often the recipient(s) returned meek smiles and words. But the charge, while true in some circumstances, ignores minorities’ per-spectives completely and seeks cheap pleasure by tormenting the weak. The fun seekers do not spare a moment to consider why the minorities are leaving their forefathers’ land? And why now, if in 1947 they/their ancestors decid-ed to stay in the land of “pure,” even after knowing that they might not be a “pure” element in the countries.

This has been a popular mindset amongst urbanites in Bangladesh (I confess I do not know the villagers’ mind set ) long before we have started to point � ngers at BNP and JI. But given recent violent incidents – in Ramu, in Sathiya, in Thakurgaon, in Gaibundah, in Dinajpur, in Rangpur, in Bogra, in Lalmonirhat, in Rajshahi, in Jessore, in Chittagong and in the Chit-tagong Hill Tracts – the AL government and state law enforcement agencies cannot palm-o� responsibilities to

the opposition for failing to protect minority citizens (just as they cannot merely shift responsibilities, for the ongoing violence and loss of lives, to opposition activities alone, specially when that is exactly how they reacted during their term in opposition).

Either way, the safety of minority groups in the country is in a rotten state. Despite many attacks and subse-quent enquiries or legal investigations, perpetrators get o� easily; in some in-stances they are not even caught. Since the recent marauding erupted thou-sands of minority houses and business-es hane been destroyed. How many criminals have so far been arrested?Those who harbour the delusion

that the point of creating Bangladesh was so that we would get a secular, unoppressive state for its entire citi-zenry had better realise that this has not been its most prominent feature. Rather, as in its predecessor Pakistan, non-Muslims are being targeted and paid lip service, while the leadership constantly � ghts to hang on to power. Safeguarding minority interests, cre-ating an inclusive, harmonious society is really never on government agenda. It is a hopeless situation that is bound to deteriorate, if these issues are not addressed sincerely and soon.

However, this does not set the gen-eral public free from its responsibility – to humanity, to its fellow countrymen.

Political intimidation has persisted and probably makes it highly risky for ordinary civilians to come forward (for example, it is quite easy for me to emit a few sincere words of sympathy and solidarity but would I be able to put my life at risk to save others?) as rival goons take turns to torment and torture them.

Encouragingly, there has been strong condemnation of these attacks through long marches, editorials, opinions and talk shows. Yet, somehow these e� orts are once again weakened by a spiteful partisan exchange, and it feels that we need to do much more. Perhaps deep down we have accepted these occur-rences as a fait accompli for minorities.

But it would be wrong to assume that along with our minority siblings most of us are not su� ering; we are in an-guish. This is why the main opposition has to come from the population itself. Of course tougher laws and application of harsh punishment, the � rst step, will help, and might reduce or even stop the attacks for a while — but the real remedy lies in changed, enlight-ened perception that we are all human regardless of our creed.

I am still apprehensive, considering the past not only in our country but also globally. Minorities’ miseries are universal and can be traced back to the beginning of time. From Aborigines in Australia to Indian-Americans in

North-America,to more recent terrors for minority groups such as Armenians in Turkey, Jews in Germany, Tibetans (and others) in China, Kurds in Iraq, Muslims in Kosovo, Hazaras in Afghan-istan – a comprehensive list would be long. Minorities have su� ered everywhere, and even when reconcil-iation has started (e.g. in Canada, New Zealand or in Australia with their In-digenous peoples) it faces uphill tasks in bringing true harmony and equity across the population. The pain from past scars and wounds persists today.

Notwithstanding this, as if to coun-ter a shameful human instinct (i.e. to hurt the weak), relentless resistance, e� ort and movements, have been led by individuals, writers, poets, political or religious � gures and community groups to change the situation of minorities. Thankfully, the extraor-dinary dedication and work of some of these luminaries inspire many of us to continue the arduous task – and international and local human rights organisations are working on the issue.

Those of us migrated to western countries can feel lucky that through evaluation these societies have estab-lished the rule of law which is largely fair to all. Even so, there remain pock-ets of inherent tacit racism, hatred and phobia towards migrants, and that is only in the best case. The ghosts of racial bigotry call in other scenarios. Regardless, these nations have fought long and hard to change the mindset of their ancestors to bring their society to its present state; during this process many have su� ered.

Since we have been trying to emulate developed nations, may be with only partial success, for demo-cratic and economic progress, perhaps our attempts to build a harmonious society will go through equally lengthy learning curves. Though we have,

at least on paper, procedures and practices to improve the situation, (e.g. priority quotas for jobs, education opportunities for indigenous Bengalis, protection for citizens) the real change will be harder to achieve, not through lack of desire from the people but due to chronic political instability.

How long it will be before the tide will turn is unclear, as with political instability brazen acts can be expected for quite some time. Not least, the op-position is somewhat tamed, months of crippling strikes and street protests could resurface anytime.

It needs tireless efforts from every one. But how would that be possible when politicians and business leaders are subsumed in self-interest and the mass has many unmet demands, including such very basic ones as jobs, education, security and a normal life.

Nonetheless, If powerful, ruthless regimes such as that of Hitler against the Jews, and the many genocides across the globe have not been able to exterminate the human spirit, we can be hopeful that our e� orts to embrace our non-Muslim fellow citizens and to treat them as our equals will defeat our doubts about them.

In this cause we cannot get bogged down to any idealism – this is not about left, right, centre, pro or anti Hindu or Muslim. It is about treating all human beings as equal.

We need to begin a process of edu-cation for ourselves. This has not yet happened.

Much depends on the leadership we can o� er—in particular, whether we can turn popular solidarity in standing by our non-Muslim citizens into an e� ective campaign establishing fair treatment. l

This article was � rst published on Alal O Dulal.

Bleeding Badly: The desire for ‘pure’ land

Safety of minority groups in the country is in a rotten state. Despite many attacks and subsequent enquiries or legal investigations, perpetrators get o� easily; in some instancesthey are not even caught

Victims of after election communl violence return to their ravaged homes of Malopara, Abhaynagar in Jessore. These people were forced to abandon their homes to � nd refuge from the post election violence against minorities. Both Jamaat-Shibir-BNP and Awami League have been reported as culprits in the recent incidents DHAKA TRIBUNE

Remains of burnt down houses of minorities in Dinajpore FOCUS BANGLA A temple based primary school vandalisd in the post election communal attack DHAKA TRIBUNE

Tuesday, January 21, 2014DHAKA TRIBUNE InternationalDHAKA TRIBUNE8

13 killed in Baghdad carbombs: policen AFP, Baghdad

Five car bombs struck across sever-al neighbourhoods in Baghdad on Monday killing at least 13 people and wounding more than 40 others, secu-rity and medical o� cials said.

Two explosions went o� in the predominantly Sunni south Baghdad neighbourhood of Dura, while at least three vehicles rigged with explosives were detonated in the mostly-Shiite areas of Baghdad Jadidah, Hurriyah and Bayaa.

The deadliest attacks struck in Dura, where at least � ve people were killed, and Baghdad Jadidah, where four were left dead.

The attacks were the latest in a protracted surge in nationwide vi-olence that has left more than 650 people dead so far this month, spark-ing fears Iraq is slipping back into the all-out con� ict that plagued it in 2006 and 2007.

The countrywide unrest, coupled with a deadly stando� between securi-ty forces and anti-government � ghters west of Baghdad, comes just months before parliamentary elections. l

CAR to decide on interim leader amid violence

n Agencies

Central African Republic politicians have shortlisted eight candidates, in-cluding two sons of former leaders, to run for interim president and pull the country out of months of turmoil and sectarian violence.

Whoever is chosen from the short-list, announced on Monday, will face the

challenge of ending a cycle of violence that on Sunday saw crowds kill two men they said were Muslims and drag their bodies through the streets of the capital Bangui, then set them on � re.

The Red Cross also said it had bur-ied around 50 bodies within the past 48 hours after � ghting � ared in the northwest.

The landlocked former French colo-

ny descended into chaos in March after a mostly Muslim rebel coalition, Sele-ka, marched into the capital, unleash-ing a wave of killings and looting.

That triggered revenge attacks by Christian militia known as “anti-balaka.”

Seleka and the anti-balaka groups have continued to launch sporadic tit-for-tat killings, despite the presence of 1,600 French troops and nearly 5,000 African Union peacekeepers.

A senior UN o� cial warned last week the con� ict could descend into genocide.

Members of the transitional as-sembly were expected to select one of the candidates as interim president on Monday after former Seleka leader Michel Djotodia resigned as president under international pressure over his failure to end the bloodshed.

Celebrations quickly turned to more violence as his withdrawal created an-tagonism between his predominant-ly Muslim supporters and Christian armed groups.

Assembly vice president Lea Koyas-soum Doumta said the eight included Bangui mayor Catherine Samba-Panza; Desire Kolingba, son of former Presi-dent Andre Kolingba; and businessman Sylvain Patasse, son of ex-president Ange-Felix Patasse.

To qualify, the candidates had to show they had no link to Seleka, or the forces behind the “anti-balaka” militia.

But many have had � rst hand expe-rience of the nation’s political turmoil, particularly the former presidents’ sons.

European Union foreign ministers were expected to agree on Monday to send up to 1,000 soldiers to help sta-bilise the country, which is still in the grips of sectarian violence.

It comes after a Christian mob lynched to Muslims in Bangui on Sunday af-ter hearing reports a taxi driver had been kidnapped by Seleka gunmen, residents said.

The remains of one of the men was stoned and stabbed, said witnesses.

Central African Republic is sup-posed to hold elections by February 2015, according to the terms of region-ally brokered peace plans that set up the governing National Transitional Council in March last year. l

Iran nuclear deal comes into force as US sanctions loomIAEA con� rms production of 20% enriched uranium has been suspended, as per Geneva agreement

n AFP, Tehran

Iran on Monday halted production of 20% enriched uranium, bringing into force an interim deal between Tehran and world powers on its disputed nu-clear programme.

“In line with the implementation of the Geneva joint plan of action, Iran suspended the production of 20% en-riched uranium in the presence of UN nuclear watchdog inspectors at Natanz and Fordo sites,” Mohammad Amiri, director general for safeguards at Iran’s Atomic Energy Organisation, told the o� cial IRNA news agency.

UN inspectors from the Interna-tional Atomic Energy Agency con-� rmed that the freeze had begun, dip-lomats said in Vienna, headquarters of the watchdog.

“It’s all � ne, all their requirements have been ful� lled,” one envoy to the IAEA said in comments echoed by other diplomats. The IAEA declined to comment.

The suspension starts the clock on negotiating a trickier long-term accord aimed at ending the Iran nuclear stand-o� and averting war once and for all, a process threatened however by possi-ble new US sanctions.

On day one, Iran has to halt the enrichment of uranium to medium

levels – close to weapons-grade – and to begin diluting half of its stockpile of this material.

If the IAEA gives the thumbs-up, in Brussels EU foreign ministers will adopt legislation loosening sanc-tions on items like auto parts and gold, followed later in the day by a

similar move in Washington.Over the next six months Iran will

also not install or switch on new nu-clear machines and will grant the IAEA more access, including dai-ly visits to the Fordo and Natanz enrichment facilities.

The total sanctions relief – staggered

over the six months – is worth some $6-7bn, including $4.2bn in frozen over-seas assets. The � rst $550m instalment is due February 1.

But the core sanctions will still bite. Over the next half-year alone, Iran will miss out on $30bn in oil revenues, the White House says. Most of Iran’s

$100bn in foreign exchange holdings remains o� -limits.

Iran and the P5+1 – the US, China, Russia, Britain, France and Germany – will soon begin talks on a long-term comprehensive accord.

According to Mark Fitzpatrick, a former US State Department o� cial now at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, the powers will want Iran to slash the number of centrifuges to 3,000-4,000 from the current 19,000.

In addition Iran will have to moth-ball Fordo; change the Arak reactor under construction so that it cannot produce weapons-grade plutonium; and cut the stockpile of low-enriched uranium to less than a bomb’s worth, Fitzpatrick told AFP.

This, coupled with tighter inspec-tions, would not remove entirely Iran’s capability to make nuclear weapons – it denies this is its aim – but it would make it considerably more di� cult. According to US President Barack Obama it would be “impossible.”

But getting November’s interim deal was hard enough – reported-ly helped by secret US-Iran talks in Oman and elsewhere – and neither the powers nor Iran are under any illu-sions about the di� culty of securing a long-term agreement.

Obama said in December he saw the chances at “50-50” – a “highly optimis-tic” assessment, Fitzpatrick believes – while Iranian counterpart, the relative moderate Hassan Rouhani, has warned it will be a “long journey.”

Even if they do get a deal, the terms may be too tough for hardliners in Iran and too lax for their opposite numbers in the United States, and for Iran’s arch enemy Israel, the Middle East’s sole if undeclared nuclear power.

Iran’s conservative newspapers on Monday came out strongly against the implementation of the deal.

Under the headline, “Nuclear ho-locaust’, Vatan-e Emrooz paper said that the Geneva deal will see most of the country’s nuclear activities come to a halt.

Threatening to scupper the process is a push by US lawmakers – including some from Obama’s own party – to slap new sanctions on the Islamic republic, even though this would contravene the November deal.

This would “send the message to Tehran that the United States is un-able to hold up its end of the bargain,” Kelsey Davenport from the Arms Control Association told AFP, “likely derailing the initial deal and jeopar-dizing negotiations on the compre-hensive agreement.” l

Kiev smoulders from clashes as president orders talksn AFP, Kiev

Opposition protesters were Mon-day locked in a tense stando� with Ukrainian police in Kiev after bloody clashes that wounded over 200 people, as President Viktor Yanukovych called emergency talks to resolve the crisis.

The clashes, the worst in Kiev in recent times, came amid mounting an-ger over new restrictions on protests imposed by Yanukovych after almost two months of demonstrations against his refusal to sign a pact for integration with the EU.

A special commission set up by Ya-nukovych was due Monday to meet representatives of the opposition for emergency talks but it was unclear

if this could in any way help ease the crisis, with parts of central Kiev resem-bling a battle� eld.

After a night of violence that con-tinued into the early hours, hundreds of protesters remained on the streets Monday morning having spent the night in temperatures of minus 10 de-grees Celsius. The situation remained tense with protesters launching occa-sional sorties at the police line to throw stones or Molotov cocktails and their numbers again increasing.

“We are going to stay here until our demands are met on the annulment of the laws” restricting protests, said pro-testers Yaroslav Pyutilin, 46.

In near-apocalyptic scenes close to parliament, several police buses and

vehicles were torched late Sunday by the protesters who hurled stones and Molotov cocktails at the ranks of the security forces. Police responded with tear gas, stun grenades, rubber bullets and water cannon.

According to the Kiev health author-ities, over 100 protesters were wound-ed in the clashes, with four people sustaining serious injuries to eyes and limbs. The interior ministry said over 100 members of the security forces had been wounded.

The ministry added that 20 people had been arrested for mass rioting. US-funded Ukrainian radio station Ra-dio Svoboda said two of its journalists had been arrested Monday morning while � lming at the scene. l

Islamist group claims Volgograd attacks, threatens Olympicsn Reuters, Moscow

An Islamic militant group said in a vid-eo posted online that it was behind two suicide bombings that killed at least 34 people last month in the Russian city of Volgograd, and threatened to attack the Sochi Winter Olympics.

In a warning to President Vladimir Putin over next month’s Games, a man says in Russian in the video: “If you hold the Olympics you will receive a present from us ... for you and all those tourists who will come over.

“It will be for all the Muslim blood that is shed every day around the world - be it in Afghanistan, Somalia, Syria, all around the world. This will be our re-venge,” he says.

The video says two men called Su-leiman and Abdurakhman carried out the Volgograd attacks on behalf of a group known as Vilayat Dagestan and linked to an Iraqi faction called Ansar al-Sunna.

Dagestan is in Russia’s North Cauca-sus, where militants are waging an in-surgency to create an Islamist state. l

UN chief invites Iran to Syria peace talksn Agencies

The UN chief has invited Iran, one of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s main regional allies, to participate in the � rst phase of the Syria peace conference.

Making the announcement on Sunday at the UN headquarters in New York, Ban Ki-moon, UN secretary-general, said he invit-ed Iran after Mohammad Javad Zarif, Iran’s foreign minister, gave his backing to the peace talks in Switzerland and Iran pledged to play a “positive and constructive role” if it was asked to participate. Shortly after-wards, the Turkey-based National Coalition of Syrian Revolution and Opposition Forces said it would withdraw from the conference unless Ban retracted his invitation.

The US also said the UN invitation should be withdrawn unless Iran publicly states its support for a 2012 agreement that estab-lishes a transition government in Syria.

“If Iran does not fully and publicly accept the Geneva communique, the invitation must be rescinded,” Jen Psaki, State Depart-ment spokeswoman, said in a statement.

Earlier on Sunday, the National Coalition met in Istanbul to appoint the members of a delegation heading to the peace conference.

Ban, in his remarks on Sunday, said Iran was among 10 additional countries invited to attend the Montreux meeting that would pre-cede the talks scheduled to begin on Friday be-tween Assad’s delegation and Syrian opposi-tion groups at the UN headquarters in Geneva.

Thirty other countries had already ac-cepted invitations. The US has long said that Iran should not be allowed to attend the talks in Switzerland until it states its support for a June 2012 agreement for a po-litical transition in Syria. However, Ban said Iran had agreed to endorse the principles calling for a transitional government as part of moves to end the ongoing civil war.

More than 100,000 people have been

killed and more than twom have � ed Syria during the nearly three-year strife.

Earlier on Sunday, Zarif said in Tehran that Iran would attend the Syria peace con-ference only if there were no preconditions for its participation.

“If the Islamic Republic [of Iran] is invit-ed to this conference with no precondition, Iran will participate,” he said.

Zarif said ignoring Iran’s “outstanding role” in the region could be detrimental to the parties involved.

“The Islamic Republic has an outstand-ing role in this region, and those who do not want to use this unique role would do them-selves a disservice and will deprive them-selves of this outstanding role,” he said.

The previous day, Iran’s deputy foreign minister called on participants at the Syria peace conference to adopt a “realistic view” and decision that would not embolden armed � ghters, according to media reports.

“Participants in the Geneva II forum must adopt a realistic view and remember that their decisions should not lead to the strengthening of extremist movements in Syria,” Hossein Amir Abdollahian said.

He made the remarks during talks on Sat-urday with his French counterpart Jean-Fran-cois Girault, Iran’s news agency said.

“The forum can provide a political solu-tion providing the people of Syria can de-cide the future of their country ... in a dem-ocratic solution that will be manifested in their votes,” Abdollahian said.

Earlier this week, Sergey Lavrov, Russia’s foreign minister, said Iran would inevitably become part of attempts to end Syria’s civil war, and strongly urged the West to invite Iran to participate in the talks.

Syria’s Bashar al-Assad said he is likely to run in June’s presidential race, casting more doubt on the feasibility of upcoming Geneva 2 talks which his opposition may not attend after if an invitation made to Iran is not retracted.

The Syrian president said Sunday there was a “signi� cant chance” he will make a candida-cy bid in the vote due mid this year, two days ahead of talks set to discuss a political transi-tional plan that does not include his regime.

“I see no reason why I shouldn’t stand,” he said. “If there is “public opinion in fa-vour of my candidacy, I will not hesitate for a second to run for election.”

The statements slashes any chance of a solution resulting from the Geneva 2 talks that start on January 22. Peace talks are meant to build on the Geneva I accord, which called for a transitional government but made no mention of Assad’s departure. l

Iran has to halt the enrichment of uranium to medium levels AP

Protesters clash with riot police during an opposition rally in the centre of the Ukrainian capital Kiev AFP

People celebrated when Michel Djotodia stepped down, but the power vacuum lead to violence REUTERS

Whoever is chosen from the shortlist, announced on Monday, will face the challenge of ending the cycle of violence

9Tuesday, January 21, 2014DHAKA TRIBUNE International

Cambodian ‘sorcerer’ decapitated by villagersn AFP, Phnom Penh

A Cambodian man was decapitated in a frenzied attack by villagers after he was accused of being a sorcerer in a nation where belief in black magic remains strong, police said on Monday.

The victim, 55-year-old Khieu Porn, was hacked to death with axes by un-known attackers on Saturday night when villagers were celebrating a rice harvest ceremony, according to Som Chantha, a district police chief in the southern province of Kampong Speu.

The man was killed by at least six suspects a short distance from the cer-emony site, he told AFP by telephone, adding he was a traditional healer who fell under suspicion after a number of people died in his home area.

“He had some magic powers and some people accused him of practising black magic,” Chantha said.

“His wife divorced him and remar-ried another man who died just a week after their marriage... then some people in the commune also fell ill and died, so people accused him of using witchcraft.”

Chantha said police were investigat-ing the case although no suspects had yet been identi� ed.

The killing and harassment of peo-ple accused of witchcraft is not uncom-mon in rural Cambodia, where profes-sional medical care is often lacking and traditional “Kru Khmer” healers o� er a cheaper alternative. Some 80% of Cambodia’s people live in rural areas, often in villages with no doctors, let alone a hospital. l

Chinese memorial to Korean assassin sparks feud withJapan

n AFP, Beijing

A new Asian diplomatic row broke out Monday after China unveiled a memorial to a Korean national hero who assassinat-ed a Japanese o� cial a century ago – with Tokyo condemning him as a “terrorist.”

China � red back by hailing the man, Ahn Jung-Geun, as “a famous anti-Jap-anese high-minded person.”

In 1909, Ahn shot and killed Hiro-bumi Ito, Japan’s � rst prime minister and its top o� cial in Japanese-occu-pied Korea, at the railway station in the northeast Chinese city of Harbin.

Ahn was hanged by Japanese forc-es the following year, when Korea also

formally became a Japanese colony, heralding a brutal occupation that last-ed until the end of World War II in 1945.

A joint Chinese-South Korean me-morial hall in Ahn’s honour was un-veiled at the train station on Sunday.

Yoshihide Suga, Japan’s top govern-ment spokesman, said Monday that Tokyo had told Beijing and Seoul it considered the monument “extremely regrettable.” “We recognise Ahn Jung-Geun as a terrorist who was sentenced to death for killing our country’s � rst prime minister,” Suga said.

“I cannot help saying that it is not contributing to building peace and co-operative relations in this region that

South Korea and China took the joint cross-border move based on unilateral evaluation on a matter that happened in the previous century,” he added.

In response, Chinese foreign min-istry spokesman Hong Lei on Monday defended the memorial as “completely reasonable and justi� ed.”

He described Ahn as “a famous an-ti-Japanese high-minded person” who “is also respected by the Chinese people.”

Political relations between China, Japan and South Korea – Asia’s � rst, second and fourth-largest economies – are heavily coloured by 20th-century history, when Tokyo’s imperial forces rampaged across the region. l

Deadly blast hits Pakistan’s Rawalpindi

n Agencies

A suicide bomber has killed at least 13 people in a crowded market near the Pakistani army headquarters in the gar-rison city of Rawalpindi, not far from the capital Islamabad, police have said.

The Pakistani Taliban claim responsi-bility for Monday’s attack. The market, 10 minutes’ walk from the army head-quarters, is in one of the most secure areas of the city, said Rawalpindi police chief Akhtar Hayat Lalika on Monday.

The area was cordoned o� by the military immediately after the blast.

Al Jazeera’s Kamal Hyder, reporting from Islamabad, said at least a dozen

people had been injured in the explo-sion, which happened about 600m from the medical building in which former military ruler Pervez Musharraf is being treated following reports of ill health.

“There is some speculation as to what the intended target was,” he said, adding that the death toll was expected to rise.

“The man was stopped on his mo-torbike at an army checkpoint and it is then that he decided to detonate his device. There are children among the wounded as this happened at a very busy rush hour.”

A 19-year-old student and a teacher are thought to be among the dead.l

Delhi’s ‘anarchic’ chief minister in protest stando� with policeArvind Kejriwal hits the streets on Republic Day to demand reform of the police

n Reuters, New Delhi

New Delhi’s chief minister and his sup-porters launched a sit-in against the city police on Monday, creating tra� c chaos and a stando� with hundreds of o� cers in the latest radical step by the anti-graft crusader who has shaken up a national election.

Baton-wielding police were de-ployed to prevent chief minister Arvind Kejriwal from taking his protest against alleged police inaction in crimes to the doors of the colonial-era headquarters of the home ministry.

Delhi’s police are under the con-trol of Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde, an arrangement that has irked successive chief ministers. In most In-dian states, local government controls law and order.

Kejriwal, leader of the Common’s Man Party (AAP), took o� ce in Decem-ber after a stunning debut in a state election, and is now trying to build the party’s presence before a national poll due by May.

On Monday he called on the public to join him in a ten-day protest to de-mand the police be transferred to his control. Critics say his demonstration was inviting chaos in one of India’s most sensitive security areas, minutes

away from parliament and the prime minister’s o� ce. It has led to those clo-sure of � ve metro stations.

“Some say I am an anarchist, that I am spreading anarchy. I am willing to agree to that,” Kejriwal told demon-strators, saying police inaction against crime spread chaos.

“So, today I want to spread that anarchy to Shinde’s home too. I have come to spread anarchy in the police commissioner’s house too.”

Later supporters scu� ed with po-lice. Delhi police, widely seen as cor-rupt and ine� ective, were the focus of public fury last year after a Decem-ber gang rape and murder highlighted how dangerous the city had become for women.

Kerjiwal’s supporters say that recent cases, including police reaction to the alleged rape of a Danish woman and another attack on a woman last week, are examples of failures.

Political rivals and some former al-lies have accused the one-time tax-col-lector of irresponsible governance and “mobocracy.”

“If a chief minister sits on a protest, who will run the government?” asked Meem Afzal, a spokesman for the Con-gress party, which leads the central government’s coalition. l

Fatal suicide attack on Afghanistan basen Agencies

A multiple suicide attack has hit a coali-tion base in southern Afghanistan, killing at least one soldier and injuring others, in the latest Taliban-led assault targeting Afghan and international forces.

Jawed Faisal, a spokesman for the gov-ernor of eastern Kandahar, said the attack took place on Monday against a base in Zhari district, just west of Khandahar.

The soldier was a member of the International Security Alliance Forces deployed to the war-torn country.

“One ISAF member has been killed in this attack,” a spokesman for NA-TO’s International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said. The armed � ghters have recently intensi� ed a campaign against Afghan and international forces as foreign troops withdraw this year.

The attack involved a car bomb, ex-plosive vests and gun� re against the base

and extensively damaged drones and he-licopters that were on the airstrip.

Local media outlet TOLO news re-ported that one of the bombers was believed to be female, citing Afghan authorities.

Al Jazeera’s Jane Ferguson tweeted that the Taliban had told Al Jazeera: “You are not safe anywhere. Not in Ka-bul, not even in your bases.”

This comes a day after Afghani-stan’s president said the US could no longer carry out military operations or airstrikes and must jump-start peace talks with the Taliban before his country signs a security deal to keep American troops in Afghanistan after 2014.

Hamid Karzai made the statement after being presented with the � nd-ings of an investigation into a joint Af-ghan-US military operation last week that resulted in civilian casualties which he blamed on US soldiers. l

HK police arrest employer of ‘tortured’ Indonesian maidn AFP, Hong Kong

Hong Kong police Monday arrested a woman who allegedly severely injured her Indonesian domestic helper, a day after thousands staged a march in protest at her treatment.

A police spokeswoman said a 44-year-old woman was arrested at the city’s airport on a charge of wounding, but declined to give further details. Erwiana Sulistyaningsih, 22, was reportedly abused over a period of eight months while employed by the woman.

Media reports said she was unable to walk due to her injuries when she � ew home from the southern Chinese city this month.

Police investigators on Monday travelled to Indonesia to interview Sulistyaningsih, who is being treated at a hospital in Sragen on Java island.

Claims that she had been tortured by her employer sparked an outcry by domestic helpers and others and renewed concern about the treatment of maids in Hong Kong.

Several thousand domestic helpers and rights activists staged a protest on Sunday, calling for a speedy investigation of the case and better protection for maids.

Local groups representing domestic helpers have claimed that two other helpers were also abused by the same employer.

One of them complained to police Sunday about her treatment. Hong Kong employs nearly 300,000 domestic helpers, mainly from Indonesia and the Philippines. In an earlier case a Hong Kong couple were jailed in September for attacks on their Indonesian do-mestic helper which included burning her with an iron and beatings with a bicycle chain. l

Thai protesters lay siege to provincial o� cesn AFP, Bangkok

Anti-government protesters in Thai-land besieged government o� ces in a dozen southern provinces on Monday as part of their campaign to force Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra from power, o� cials said.

The move follows weeks of mass ral-lies in the Bangkok that have sparked several bouts of violence, including grenade attacks and shootings that both sides have blamed on each other.

The government reiterated Mon-day that it was ready to declare a state of emergency if needed to control the situation.

Demonstrators blocked the en-trances to state o� ces in 12 provinces in the opposition-dominated south to stop civil servants going to work, o� cials said.

“Protesters locked the gates and asked o� cials to leave,” said Anucha Romayanan, a spokesman for the Cen-tre for Administration of Peace and Or-der, set up by the government to over-see the handling of the protests.

Protesters also surrounded a gov-ernment savings bank in Bangkok.

Yingluck is under intense pressure from demonstrators, backed by the royalist establishment, to step down af-ter more than two months of street ral-lies aimed at ousting her government from o� ce and installing an unelected “people’s council.”

She has called an election for Feb-ruary but the main opposition party is boycotting the vote. The protest-ers are seeking to disrupt the polls and have prevented candidates from registering in some southern constituencies.

The demonstrators have staged a self-styled “shutdown” of Bangkok since January 13, erecting roadblocks and rally stages at several key intersec-tions in the city, although the number of protesters has steadily fallen since the middle of last week. l

Japan bars entry toMalaysia’s Anwar n AFP, Kuala Lumpur

Malaysian opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim said Monday he was “puzzled and shocked” at being barred entry to Japan, as his party questioned whether Malaysia’s ruling coalition was behind the move. Anwar said he arrived at Na-rita International Airport on a person-al visit early Sunday and was told by immigration authorities he was barred because of his 1999 conviction for sod-omy and corruption.

The controversial conviction, which cast the then-rising political star out of Malaysia’s longtime ruling party and into jail for six years, is viewed by many as a set-up by Anwar’s enemies.

“I am puzzled and shocked by the

incident,” Anwar, 66, told AFP.“It is not the way for a democratic

country to treat an opposition political leader and a veteran politician.”

He called on Malaysia’s government to “probe this incident and lodge a strong protest against Tokyo.”

Anwar said he has visited Japan on three occasions since 2006 without inci-dent. He said Japanese immigration o� -cials told him vaguely they were respond-ing to a recent “report” involving him.

Anwar said he was invited by a Jap-anese NGO to deliver a speech on reli-gious harmony. He returned to Malay-sia on Sunday. In a blog posting, Anwar said “hidden hands may be at work here” and demanded an explanation from Malaysia’s foreign ministry. l

Arvind Kejriwal, shouts slogans after taking the oath as the new chief minister of Delhi during a swearing-in ceremony at Ramlila grounds in New Delhi REUTERS

Pakistani volunteers search the site of a suicide bomb attack in Rawalpindi AFP

Chinese visitors walking past a memorial in Harbin, northeastern China’s Heilongjiang province, to honour Ahn Jung-Geun, who in 1909, shot and killed Hirobumi Ito, Japan’s � rst prime minister and its top o� cial in Japanese-occupied Korea AFP

Demonstrators shout slogans during a march in support of an Indonesian maid who was allegedly tortured by her employer in Hong Kong AFP

Man killed for Tk1January 13

PAThat’s what life is worth in this country. Hope they all hang for murder.

Nilu Ahmed Yes, that is what a life is worth, because lives are very cheap now in this world.

Putin congratulates HasinaJanuary 14

Rakin Muhtadi There’s a definite joke in here.

Subha Roy With love from Russia. :)

No room for confusionJanuary 12

MephistoWe beg to differ, Mr Rizvi. The government we are about to have may be technically legal, but it does not have any moral basis to the average Bangladeshi, irrespective of their political leanings. Now, if you believe the majority opinion is what democracy is all about, then the government is undemocratic, and ergo, illegal on this count. Telling your readership otherwise is to display disdain for their common sense or intellectual opportunism or both.

NdsMephisto: Please spare us the teachings of ideas like morality, ethics etc which sounds like mere clichés in this land of thieves, rogues and ruffians. This society has simply flashed out these ideas down the commode.

TruthPrevails nds: I fully agree with you and am very sorry to say

that this poor country is being advised by other thieves and thugs.

ndsThere should not be any di� culty in understand-ing why the learned legal scholars, constitutional experts, eminent editors and TV talk show stars are creating room for confusion. They are doing it de� -nitely not unwittingly, but very wittingly, because none of them are free from political subordination.

Otherwise how could one expect them to have appeared up in arms in inventing thousand argu-ments endorsing the arbitrary killings, looting, burn-ing of lives and properties of common people? To give blanket impunity to this violence and brutalities by inventing a very hackneyed phrase: “These are all symptoms of the disease not the disease itself.” They always appear in the shape of saints and dish out divine knowledge and wisdom but keep their ulterior motives well hidden behind a veil.

Sending journalists to prison unacceptable

The granting of a two day remand for a reporter from the Inqilab and the sending of two fellow journalists to jail for producing a “fabricated” news report appears dispro-

portionate to the alleged o� ence.By shutting down the newspaper involved in addition to

bringing this case, the government’s actions smack of overreac-tion and needlessly curb freedom of expression.

The government has made clear that it regards the internet rumours to which Inquilab’s report referred as baseless and fabricated. Moreover the Inquilab has issued an apology for the way in which its report was pre-sented. This should be su� cient to enable most people to make up their own minds, but instead attention is now drawn to the government’s actions rather than the paper’s apparent error.

Any newspaper can make mistakes or errors of judgement that lead to facts and reports being disputed. For journalists to be held in jail over what in essence is a disputed report is not acceptable.

It is unfortunate that the ICT law enacted � rst by BNP in 2006, and amended by AL in 2013, contains the draconian provisions which enabled the bringing of this case in the � rst place. The people’s right to free media and freedom of ex-pression requires that the draconian aspects of this legislation should be repealed as matter of priority.

This would be a better use of the government’s time than reports that the information ministry is looking at new ways for the government to monitor private media � rms, including TV stations and online media.

Enquiry into allegations against AL members

Allegations that members of the AL have been involved in extortion and violence against local people in Gopalganj and Jessore warrant a full and open investigation.

Two AL members named in these allegations, a union Gen-eral Secretary in Goplaganj and a former AL MP who ran as an independent candidate in the 10th parliamentary election in Obhoynagar, Jessore, have forcefully denied all accusations as false rumours.

In Obhoynagar, where attackers burned and looted the homes of local Hindus, the new Awami League MP, Ranajit Kumar Roy, was among locals accusing a fellow party supporter of involvement in the notorious attacks, adding to speculation that the police have been lax in investigating allegations against AL supporters.

While it is not possible to substantiate the claims made by witnesses, it is apparent that an oppres-sive climate has been generated by the attacks, which may be deterring people from � ling formal complaints. It is incum-bent on the police to reassure the public that their voices will be heard and full and proper investigations pursued.

Accusations of extortion and hooliganism by members of political parties are a widespread problem, whichever party is in power. The only e� ective solution to this problem is that the police should be fully empowered to enforce law and order, without fear of political interference.

Moreover, as the ruling AL projects itself as a guarantor of communal harmony, it has added reason to ensure that any allegations that its members have been involved in seeking to grab property and harass minority communities, are fully and properly investigated.

Editorial10

www.dhakatribune.com

DHAKA TRIBUNE Tuesday, January 21, 2014

LETTER OF THE DAY

CALVIN AND HOBBES

PEANUTS

Letters to the Editor

49-member cabinet sworn in, portfolios announcedJanury 13

WaliulHaqueKhondkerCongratulations to the new Cabinet. Hope they can fulfill the aspirations of the people. Honourable ministers, Godspeed!

SamFunny that for a party that professes such love for minorities, not a single non-Muslim is in the cabinet as a full minister.

‘Fundamentalism � ourishes when democracy slowly falls apart’January 13She should have taken a clearer stance against Jamaat.

Mayisha Kabir

BSEC opens new departmentJanuary 13

Interestingly, BSEC is taking steps to increase foreign funds in our market whereas Bangladesh Bank is prohibiting private banks from custodian and other capital market-srelated services.

SM Tahidul Islam

Illegal car parking at its peak in capitalJanuary 15Where do they park then, if there is no speci� c area to park?

Hasina Rahman

The police should be fully empowered to enforce law and order, without fear of political interference

The people’s right to free media and freedom of expression requires that the draconian aspects of this legislation should be repealed

Increase income tax limitsJanuary 18The current income tax for individuals is free up to an annual income of Tk222,000, then at 10% for the next Tk300,000; 15% for the next Tk400,000; 20% for the next Tk300,000, and 25% for the rest.

The real income of service holders has fallen signi� cantly the last few years because of high in� ation. To compensate their reduced purchasing power, the government has given 20% dearness allowance in the � nancial year 2013-14 to employees. This measure compensates for a portion of the in� ation, but not much more.

Those earning a � xed income are tired of dealing with the gradual and continued rise in prices of many items. To reduce their su� ering, the free income tax limit should be raised to Tk 300,000 per annum and income tax should be imposed at 10% tax on the next Tk500,000, 15% for the next Tk500,000, 20% for the next Tk500,000, and 25% for the remainder from 2014-15 on. This proposal is very conservative as it is very di� cult to run a � ve-member family on a mere Tk 25,000 per month. This change, if accepted by the government, would reduce the tendency to evade taxes. To compensate for reduced government in-come from a proposed income tax rates, the government should set up income tax o� ces in rural upazilas. In this circumstance, government authorities need to review the income tax limit and slabs.

Ashraf Hussain

Crossword

Sudoku

CROSSWORD CODE-CRACKER YESTERDAY’S SOLUTIONS

ACROSS1 Article (4)6 Spirit (3)7 Fashion (4)9 Object of worship (4)10 Diminished by (5)11 Postpone (5)12 Sheltered side (3)14 Dogma (5)17 Enrich with a gift (5)20 Tree (3)21 Worth (5)23 Curved (5)25 Dumb (4)26 Dash (4)27 Sailor (3)28 Dissolve (4)

DOWN1 Frozen formation (6)2 Worn away (6)3 Stubborn animal (4)4 Put on (3)5 Word of acceptance (3)7 Deep mud (4)8 Low sand hills (5)10 Encountered (3)13 Register (5)15 Cosmos (6)16 Menace (6)18 Augury (4)19 Marry (3)22 Muslim leader (4)23 Wager (3)24 Pale (3)

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11Op-Ed Tuesday, January 21, 2014DHAKA TRIBUNE

n Ikhtisad Ahmed

The message from the new world order is clear: The show is over, and Bangla-desh has a new, legitimate, long-term government.

India’s repeated congratulations notwithstanding, the international community, awoken from its holiday period slumber, is not convinced.

Bangladeshis need someone to care and think about them right now, especially since their leaders from all the political parties quite clearly neither have the intent nor are so inclined.

It is heartening that the people have friends in spite of this, friends beyond the borders of the country. The country’s demand, however, has to be to further its own case, not to allow foreign agendas to take precedence.

The last few times Bangladeshis worked for and towards democracy with foreign assistance or acquies-cence, they gave birth to worse evils than the ones they were � ghting. In the spirit of lessons being impossible for citizens of this land, this paradise that never was and probably never will be, to comprehend or learn, that grave error will also be repeated in all likelihood.

The international friends will not complain as it does not interfere with their desires. On the other hand, should their words be taken at face value and they are seen to really care about the plight of the Bangladeshis

this once, this can be guarded against and the needs of the populace and the nation can become the sole concern.

The UK parliament discussed the current situation in Bangladesh by debating it in the House of Commons on January 16. This is the latest in a spate of such instances of the interna-tional community taking an interest in the country.

The US Senate passed a simple resolu-tion on the January 7, the EU followed suit by adopting one on January 16. While certainly an encouraging sign, it is hoped that this is the beginning of a spotlight being shone on an unstable nation desperately in need of attention and assistance, not a case of giving it 15 minutes of fame out of pity.

Bangladesh’s future is wholly reliant on getting its political house in order. Get it right, and a bright future awaits a country full of potential and possibilities, freed from the only thing that is holding it back.

Get it wrong – and this should not be said lightly – and the path ahead is that of a failed state left to rot. The for-

mer is undoubtedly preferable, and it now falls upon Bangladeshis and their international friends to work together towards this, working in harmony for the sake of Bangladesh.

This has been the will of the people, and, it has to be believed, the best intentions of the international com-munity. The leaders have, regrettably, betrayed and failed them repeatedly,

because they are determined not to share in this common objective.

The crucial question that the citi-zens need to ask of the foreign powers is whether the noises they are making is any di� erent to the ones they have made in the past. Those resulted in either failed attempts to bring ill-thought plans to fruition, or were rendered completely ine� ective.

That the current system is in need of an overhaul cannot be disputed, because in theory, it is supposed to serve the people and exist for them, but does quite the opposite in practice.

Solutions are not going to come by easily, and resistance will come from the quarters – small, but dispro-

portionately powerful – who have bene� ted greatly from the rampant dysfunction. The starting point needs to be a desire to work for the long-term, followed by a commitment to this cause.

There are no quick � xes for Bang-ladesh. The failures of the past can be attributed to this fact not being recognised.

Bangladesh, therefore, presents a unique opportunity to two notoriously apathetic groups. The international community has been given yet another chance to act pre-emptively and o� er a cure before the cancer metastasis-es rather than attempt ine� ective treatments akin to patching it up with plasters once it has.

Early signs are positive, but it needs to remain vigilant, be attentive towards Bangladesh, and back strong words up with decisive actions that serve Bangladeshis.

The people have been a� orded the rare chance to shape their country instead of being consigned to being of no consequence by the intolerable brand of politics Bangladesh has practised.

They have taken tentative steps, but largely remain reluctant. Both need to take this opportunity, for it will not present itself again without a worse crisis. Whether either will remains to be seen. l

Ikhtisad Ahmed is a writer and an erstwhile lawyer. He can be contacted on Twitter via @Ikhtisad.

n Yusuf Choudhry

Don’t cry for me Bangladesh. The truth is I never left you (apolo-gies to Andrew Lloyd Webber).

Far from the anguished cry of an exiled son, the diatribes of Tarique Rahman from the UK following the Bangladesh election appeared more like the charge of the light brigade than the battle of the Alamo.

The Awami League just won the election by hook or by crook but that is the way it is. Outmaneuvered, what is the alternative for BNP now? To recap brie� y, it lost the election in 2008 because it tried to be wily with the election process but the people saw through it.

After all, you can fool some people all the time and all the people some of the time, but not all the people all the time. It lost out in the recent election because of an unfounded belief that the masses would go to bat for it in the face of the AL administration.

Ironically, it was counting on the latter to wash away its own sins. Of course, that didn’t work out. What is the alternative for the party now? To carry on the movement for fair politics with its own tainted image sinking the country further into the mire?

The country clearly does not want it or deserve it. As the adage goes, he who � ghts and runs away lives to � ght another day. There are examples

in history to show which way great leaders have gone in the past. Almost a century and half ago, Stephen Douglas conceded his Senate seat to Abraham Lincoln, asserting that partisan feel-ings must always yield to patriotism.

In that spirit, Al Gore in 2000 conced-ed the US presidency to George Bush for the sake of national amity even though his party felt that he should have fought it out. Should BNP take lessons from these? Many in Bang-ladesh think that BNP would lose its political relevance if it does not assert itself now. That of course is true, but not the way BNP thinks.

What it needs is a reboot of the tired policy of slash and burn. It needs a fresh start and a fresh strategy more candid than Machiavellian. That stands to mean that the party should come clean by admitting its wrong-doings and failings in the past, and start winning the hearts and minds of

people again. That is the only way the people of Bangladesh would forgive it. That is the � rst step.

The next step is to show some enlightened leadership by looking at issues that are really relevant to the nation and taking them on in public. That would be a nice indication to the people that the party is moving away from scru� ness to sensibility.

After all, it has not lost all its political capital in one election. There are sensible ways of surviving after a shellacking. Mr Rabbee proposes a few good ones in his article “Some Bold New Ideas for BNP” (bdnews24.com, January 15, 2014). But no matter what it picks and chooses, there should be one guiding principal in particular, that the people should see it as an im-provement on its past strategies. There are many places to look for guidance in this regard, and the party leadership needs only to sift through the news media to get it.

Is this U-turn in strategy possible for the BNP? Why not? What does it stand to lose? Any hope of regaining power back soon would be somewhat unrealistic given the current national and international moods.

On top of that, the AL could still pull a few more rabbits out of its hat and use them deftly to sink BNP’s image further. If the BNP does not do something to burnish its image soon, the AL will do it for them.

Now one cannot be a ponti� with-out a cause. To me, the cause is to sustain the present trend in economic and social strides the country has been making, a loss of which worries many within the country and outside. This is worth � ghting for and sacri� cing for. There is no reason why fratricidal politics should make this di� cult to achieve if one � ghts in the true nation-al spirit.

Having said all that about the BNP, I must evenhandedly talk about a strate-gic change of direction for the AL too. Many would agree that past immersion of the party top brass has been on two issues. One was to bring a closure on the question of the liberation war crimes and the other was to bring a clo-sure on the assassination of the party chief Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.

I do believe that both have been ful� lled to a large extent and it is now time to plug the amity gap in national politics. It is quite expected that in a democracy, a change of guards would take place every now and then based upon people’s perception of the values added to their lives by the incumbent administration.

Policies are but experiments based on party ideology, and they do not always yield the desired outcome. That is why governments have to change, with new policies supplementing the old. That is the essence of democracy. To believe in democracy, one must be-

lieve in its mechanism and be ready to accept defeat if only to rise again later with better ideas and higher goals, or to accept victory with humility with the greater interest of the nation in mind.

Magnanimity lies with the winner. Now that Awami league has o� cially started on its path to a new term, it should start with a spirit of reconcili-ation and provide space for reentry of BNP in a way that is generous and not demeaning.

What would it lose if it doesn’t? For one, there is only one direction it can go without a meaningful opposition, down. Legitimacy aside in the minds of the governed, the party would fall prey to internal decay which would bring it down from within.

A second term is rare in Bangladesh’s history and should be used wisely to solve the peoples’ problems rather than personal problems of the leadership. The AL should understand that it has not swept the election with all round cheers

and that it itself has a lot of image burnishing to do. It has challenges clearly on a number of fronts – religious extremism, corruption, foreign relations, economic and social imperatives, to name a few. The party’s approach to all these should be made apparent and transparent very quickly to bring the nation on board.

It would be a mammoth challenge for Sheikh Hasina to rein in her party orneries, but she could do it if she puts her heart to it. The bottom line is giv-ing something to the people to cheer about and restore peace in the country, which could only strengthen the image of the party. Isn’t that better than an-other cycle of tension and turmoil and

constant guard against someone or something that might prove very dear in the end? l

Yusuf Choudhry is a former civil servant in Bangladesh, and is currently a professor at the American University, Washington DC.

n Mohammad Ali Sattar

This is post-election time. After the January 5 polls, people from all walks of life seem to have

gone into a recess. There has been discernible change

in the political atmosphere of the country. All fronts went quiet almost at the same time, as though the last gun had been � red in the war front.

The agitating opposition wore out, as they were e� ectively squeezed by the government until they could budge no more. However, not all the measures to gag the rivals were right. But that is what the government machinery found as the only e� ective tool for the time being.

More or less, the partners behaved accordingly. Even if we take the elections as legally right and morally wrong, the entire work has been done in a sort of haste to form the next gov-ernment (the current one).

The ruling party and its allies have won the initial victory. The � rst hurdle, the polls, was held against all odds.

Without much delay, the prime minister addressed the nation through the press on the green lawns of her o� cial home. She took on the media in style.

As I watched, I liked to believe that everything would be alright soon, as our PM sounded so con� dent.

Her cabinet has new faces. It’s rather naive to make guesses about the newer ones, as they will have to be tested with time and task.

It was surprising to see the US and a few others give a nod to the legitimacy of the new government. All of them had actually voiced their resentment earlier over the polls and the role of the government in handling the opposition.

Now the foreign ministry will have to take up a serious drive to convince the international community about its intentions. Good governance and democracy will top the list of concerns for our global partners.

Ershad has been made ambassador to the government. Not a bad move. The temperamental leader needs some-thing to live with.

What about the role of Jatiya Party members as opposition members and also as cabinet ministers? The govern-ment party prefers the JaPa members to remain outside the cabinet and function as a strong opposition.

Experts also opine that an opposi-tion minister in the cabinet will � nd it tough to contest any government motion in the parliament. Therefore, this has to be worked out in a manner that suits democratic norms.

As the winter passes by, the most heinous part has been the treatment dealt out to the minority families in various parts of the country. This leaves a deep scar in our national psyche.

We don’t want anything like what happened in 1971. We don’t want something like the Gujarat massacre. We despise the atrocities commit-ted against the Burmese minorities. Bangladesh should be a land of peace and tranquility, like it was, once upon a time.

We should not use religion in these ways, nor should we allow the so-called free thinkers and liberal minds to try and take away the religious free-dom that one enjoys in this land.

We should not allow any extreme ideas to raise their heads in any way.

BNP is writing a new script for its upcoming schemes. This winter has not been charming. It has been atro-cious for their members and activities. The last minute video message by Tari-que Rahman just could not produce the necessary vigour in the ranks of the party.

Insiders say, the recent happenings have been good for the party, as it will now level out its shortcomings and have a � ner line up in future.

There have been reports that the party chairperson will bring about wholesale changes in all tiers of lead-ership. She is utterly frustrated over the roles of her senior and once-relia-ble colleagues.

Pundits fear the comeback of the so-called reformists of 2007-2008. They say the party needs educated, enlightened, well-conversant, smart, and inspiring � gures that might bring about changes the party so badly needs.

The parties will try and get their house in order. Maybe the cleansing within the premises will � nd priority. All this is good for democracy.

But there hasn’t been any sign of friendly discourse between the adver-saries. So what do we gain from all the in� ghting and bloodshed? Is there any change in sight? Not for now. l

Mohammad Ali Sattar is a journalist, political analyst, and DT columnist.

There are no quick � xes for Bangladesh. The failures of the past can be attributed to this fact not being recognised

To believe in democracy, one must believe in its mechanism and be ready to accept defeat if only to rise again later with better ideas and higher goals

As the adage goes, he who � ghts and runs away lives to � ght another day

So what do we gain from all the in� ghting and bloodshed? Is there any change in sight?

The treatment dealt out to the minority leaves a deep scar in our national psyche

Faces alter, not policies

Bangladeshis and their friends

The song of Achilles

Our future depends on getting out political house in order WIKIMEDIA

Bipasha Basuto marryPriyanka’s exn Entertainment Desk

Now that John has tied the knot with Priya Runchal, Bipasha Basu might wed alleged beau Harman Baweja.

“My wedding won’t be a hush-hush a� air. When I get married, everyone will get to know about it,” a� rms Bipa-sha.

“There’ll be nothing speculative about my wedding,” says the actor when prodded about “speculations” sur-rounding her impending wedding to her current � ame, ac-tor Harman Baweja. She recently celebrated her birthday at her residence with Harman, who had been dating Priyanka Chopra. In fact, Bipasha also ushered in the New Year with him in Goa, around the same time when John Abraham an-nounced his wedding to investment banker, Priya Runchal.

Sources also claim that both Bipasha and Harman’s par-ents met recently at the latter’s house in Mumbai’s Lokhand-wala Complex to discuss the wedding. l

EntertainmentDHAKA TRIBUNE Tuesday, January 21, 201412

ExhibitionShilpacharya and his Outer World of ArtTime: 12pm-8pmBengal Shilpalaya, House 42Road 16 (New) / 27 (old)Dhanmondi

City of RhythmSecond phase of Kazi Salahuddin Ahmed Time: 12-8pm Shilpangan, House 7Road 13 (New) Dhanmondi

FilmPaci� c Rim in 3DEscape PlanThe ConjuringThe Hunger Games: Catching FireStar Cineplex, Level 8Bashundhara City

TODAY IN DHAKA

MOVIE9:30pm WBThe Hangover11:45pm Fox Movies PremiumHitchcock

COMEDY10:00am Comedy CentralArrested Developement6:00pm ColorsComedy Nights With Kapil

ONTV

Naur’s � re spinning performance SADIA MARIUMN

Rivers of the World endsn Entertainment Desk

A four-day river themed artwork exhibition titled Rivers of the World concluded at Rabindra Saro-bar in the city’s Dhanmondi on January 19.

At the concluding ceremony, a musical session was held by Shondhi, Sovvota and Swagata.

The prize giving ceremony of the art com-petition themed Your Dream River was held on the same day. Robin Davis, director Partnership

and Programmes to Bangladesh, British Coun-cil and Shahriar Karim, Chief News Editor ofDhaka Tribune handed over the prize to � ve school students.

Other programmes included a solo perfor-mance by singer Minar Rahman, after which, a video screening by Tamanna Tasmeem of last year’s exhibition was showcased and in the end, Naur’s � re spinning dance performance captivat-ed and thrilled the audience. l

Padatik Natya Sangsad celebrates 36 years journey in theatren Entertainment Desk

The Padatik Natya Sangsad (TSC) is going to hold a daylong event at the auditorium of TSC, Dhaka University today marking its 37th founding anniversary.

The event will include a colourful proces-sion, an inaugural session, discussion, a cul-tural programme and staging of the popular play Macbeth.

With the slogan “Let theatre be the weap-on of struggles in life,” the theatre troupe started their journey in 1978. Jolbalika, Shojon Badiyar Ghat, Maa, Monoshar Pala, Chandraboti, Choitonney Droho and Chakkar are some of their remarkable productions.

Today’s event will begin with the proces-sion that will begin marching at 3pm from the premises of TSC. Attended by a number of theatre personalities and activists from di� erent troupes, a discussion session will be held next.

The latter phase will present a cultur-al programme featuring Padatik Musical

Group. The major attraction of the event is the staging of William Shakespeare’s tragedy Macbeth, translated by proli� c poet-play-wright Syed Shamsul Haq and directed by

young theatre talent Sudip Chakroborthy. The Padatik version of the play demon-strates the very essence of Shakespeare but in a contemporary way. l

A scene from the previous staging of Padatik’s production of Macbeth

MTV Silver Disc Awardgoes to Waqeeln Limana Solaiman

Gifted singer Waqeel won the MTV Chart At-tack Silver Disk Award for the music video to his song Amrito Meger Bari, which topped MTV Bangladesh’s chart for three consecutive weeks. MTV Chart Attack features the most fol-lowed songs and videos based on public voting.

In MTV Chart Attack, which airs on Maas-ranga Television every Sunday at 11:30pm, Waqeel’s song Amrito Megher Bari held the second position for two weeks straight, be-fore settling in the number 1 position. The fusion singer’s unique styled rendition has given a new � avor to the Lalon song with-out hampering the originality of the song of soil. Regarding the success, Waqeel shares: “A Lalon song with a very peaceful musical arrangement was a completely odd inclusion to the MTV Chart Attack. But, the result is a pleasant surprise and I’m thankful to the au-dience for conveying their support through votes and good wishes.”

Singer-composer-lyricist Waqeel spent a remarkable period of his life with the Bauls, living in di� erent parts of the country. A trea-sure trove of almost 1500 self written songs in his possession, a big number fall to the genre

of Baul. In his latest album titled Waqeel-er Gaan, he has infused folk, Baul and Western musical patterns in the songs written, com-posed and rendered by him. When asked about his interest in this particular genre Waqeel said: “Baul songs speak about the simple and unavoidable truths of life. Other musical genres may be attractive, but when it comes to lyrics, no other genre can compete with the depth that is an inherent aspect of Baul songs.

“The songs of the great philosopher Lalon is my inspiration for my inclination towards this genre. The authenticity and intensity of his lyrics is very appealing to me.”

Waqeel has recently released � ve music videos and more is in the pipeline. “I was never regular in the media. 40 of my songs are available in the market and many became quite big hits, but my face is not known to people. Since I have dedicated myself to mu-sic and took it as my profession, appearing in music videos has become a necessity.”

In his upcoming album, Waqeel is going to enchant the audience by presenting an array of romantic songs with the essence of Eastern emotions in the lyrics, with Western expres-sions in the musical arrangement. l

On tonight’s episode of Raat Biraate, popular singer Shayan will appear as the special guest. The show will telecast on Banglavision at 11:25pm. Shayan will visit her favourite places with the host and share the story of her life with the audience

Sayeed Ahmad’s 4th death anniversary todayn Entertainment Desk

Today is the 4th death anniversary of playwright, art critic and writer Say-eed Ahmad. 

Sayeed Ahmad worked extensive-ly in popularising Absurd Theatre in Bangladesh. He was conferred with many prestigious awards such as Eku-shay Padak, Bangla Academy Award and the prestigious Legion D’ Hon-neur presented by French Govern-ment in 1992. 

Observing the occassion, Bangla-

desh Silpakala Academy and Sayeed Ahmad Foundation will arrange day long programme on January 25. At � rst, a seminar titled “Amreeto Sond-haner Obhijatri Sayeed Ahmad” will be held at 3.30pm where the key note paper will be presented by Apurba Kumar Kundu.

Paying a tribute to him, theatre troupe  Palakar will stage Kalbela, written by Sayeed Ahmad, at the Ex-perimental Theatre Hall of Bangla-desh Shilpakala Academy on the same day at 7pm. l

Shunte Ki Pao in 15th Mumbai International Film Festivaln Entertainment Desk

Shunte Ki Pao! (Are You Listening!), the debut feature-documentary by Kamar Ahmad Simon, has been invited in the main international competition of the 15th Mumbai International Film Festi-val (MIFF) from February 3 to 9. Films Division, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Government of India has been organising this prime event in Mumbai, as the permanent venue of the festival since 1990.

As one of the oldest and largest (and arguably richest) Asian international � lm festivals for non-feature and ani-mation � lms, this year MIFF received a whopping 793 entries from 34 coun-tries, out of which, only 15 made into the main international competition along with Shunte Ki Pao!. The MIFF festival directorate has decided to hold

parallel screening of MIFF 2014 com-petition � lms in cities like New Delhi, Chennai, Bangalore, Kolkata, Guwa-hati and Nagpur. Apart from compe-tition screening, Kamar will take part in a panel discussion of Asian Forum for Documentaries chaired by Profes-sor Nilotpal Majumdar, dean of Saty-ajit Ray Film and Television Institute(SRFTI).

Last year Shunte Ki Pao! (Are You Listening!) won the Grand Prix in the main international competition as the best feature of 35th Cinema du reel held in Paris and the Jury Award in FilmSouthasia 2013.

Earlier, it was invited as the Cur-tain-Opener of 55th Dok-Leipzig, one of the oldest documentary festivals of the world and also in the O� cial Selec-tion of 25th IDFA, the largest documen-tary festival of the world. l

Gulzar shares memories of Suchitran Entertainment Desk

“She was senior to me yet she would call me ‘Sir’ while shooting for Aandhi, so, to take revenge, we would all call her ‘Sir’. Nobody called her madam. She had that personality that when she came on the set, everyone would get up. She was the only one who was addressed as Mrs Sen in Bengal as she commanded that respect. No other actress would ever be called ‘Mrs’,” shares Gulzar.

During the shooting of ‘Aandhi’in Kashmir, he recalls the diva looking after his daughter Bosky (Meghna)who was a child then. Hesaid that with her kind gestures, Suchitra became a member of his family and he remained a member of hers.

“She had a great personality and was a great artiste. I only wished she had got the Dadasaheb Phalke Award though she did not care for these things. Once I think she missed it as

she said she couldn’t go personally to collect it,” he added.

He also said that, over the last few years, Suchitra would go and live in Ma’s ashram in Pondicherry. Though, she lived her life as a recluse, Gulzar said that she was very emotional and an honest friend.

“Her death is a loss of a great friend though she was senior to me. I last met her about a year back and spoke to her about two months back. She lived her life like herself.” l

Shamsur, Imrul included in Test squad n Minhaz Uddin Khan

The national selection panel an-nounced a Bangladesh 14-man squad for the � rst Test against Sri Lanka. Chief of the national selection panel Faruk Ahmed made the announcement at a press conference at Sher-e-Bangla National Stadium (SBNS) yesterday.

Opening batsman Shamsur Rahman was included after having made267 in the � rst game of the ongoing Bangla-desh Cricket League for the Central Zone. Another likely partner for open-ing batsman with Tamim Iqbal will be left-handed batsman Imrul Kayes, who got a national call after around two years. The two inclusions in the national dressing replaced Anamul Haque and Naeem Islam from the pre-vious Test squad that played New Zea-land in October.

“Shamsur and Imrul have been picked because their form over the last six months has certainly been a factor,” said Faruk.

“The team management will decide who among these two will play. We have kept a back-up opener. Our input will be there if the management wants to know why we picked them both,” he added.

Shamsur’s recent feat in the BCL is the chief reason for his selection in the

Test squad for the � rst time, though he has been around the national side for a long time now. The right-handed bats-man looked forward to beginning his Test career.

“Hopefully, I get o� the mark in the Test positively. However much de-pends on the selectors and the team management. If they put me there in the playing eleven, my intension will always be to give my best,” Shamsur told the Dhaka Tribune yesterday.

Imrul’s reclaimed a seat in the na-tional dressing room after scoring a � rst-class century in the BCL and hav-ing a good for Bangladesh A, as well as in the other domestic competitions. The left-handed batsman last featured in the white out� t in 2011 against West Indies at Bloemfontein. He has so far played 16 Tests and averages 17.15.

“I have got the call after much hard-work. It is very easy to lose a place in the national team but tough to regain it. I am thankful to the selectors for considering me and hope that I will be able to play up to their expectations, if given a chance,” said Imrul.

In the bowling department, Al-Amin Hossain, who was capped against New Zealand in October, was retained. The young cricketer is joined by two other seamers, Robiul Islam and Rubel Hos-sain. In the spin department, Sohag Gazi and Abdur Razzak will � ght for the place of second spinner beside Shakib al Hasan.

The Tigers’ month long home series against the islanders begins with the two-match Test series on January 27 at SBNS. The second game will be played at Chittagong’s Zahur Ahmed Chowd-hury Stadium from February 4. l

Mush� qur Rahim (Captain), Tamim Iqbal, Abdur Razzak, Al-Amin Hossain, Marshall Ayub, Mominul Haque, Nasir Hossain, Ro-biul Islam, Rubel Hossain, Shakib al Hasan, Sohag Gazi, Mahmudullah, Shamsur Rah-man, Imrul Kayes

SQUAD

13DHAKA TRIBUNETuesday, January 21, 2014

SportDid you know?

Pakistan (302-5) completed their second highest

successful 4th innings run chase against

Sri Lanka yesterday. Highest: 315-9 v Australia 1994

14 Atletico, Barca held to give Real hope

15 Sharapova out as Nadal, Federer into last eightDAYS TO GO

0 5 4

Mush� q turns down IPL auction agreementn Minhaz Uddin Khan

Bangladesh national skipper Mush� qur Rahim turned down the Indian Premier League (IPL) auction agreement. The national selection panel named eight cricketers for the IPL auction 2014 two days ago. Mush� q was named along with all-rounder Shakib al Hasan, open-ing batsman Tamim Iqbal, Nasir Hos-sain, Mahmudullah, Anamul Haque, Sohag Gazi and Rubel Hossain. How-ever it was learnt from a close source to the Bangladesh Cricket Board that the wicket-keeper batsman refused to sign the IPL auction agreement.

It was learnt that Mush� q kept him-self o� from signing the auction agree-ment considering his chances of getting a team – a consideration for all the crick-eters in Bangladesh in view of their poor track record in the shortest format of the game.

“The truth is harsh. The IPL teams hardly have had any interest in our

cricketers except one or two from the current lot. IPL has been taking place for seven years now but only few have been able to get a team as they are not too good in the format. He (Mush� q) might have thought of the fact and pulled his name out,” said a BCB high-up to Dhaka Tribune yesterday.

Since the � rst edition of the cash-rich Twenty20 tournament in 2008, only � ve cricketers – Abdur Razzak (Royal Challengers Bangalore, 2008), Mashrafe bin Mortaza (Kolkata Knight Riders, 2009), Mohammad Ashraful (Delhi Daredevils, 2009), Shakib (Kol-kata Knight Riders, 2011 and 2012) and Tamim (Pune Warriors, 2012) were

bought from the auctions. However selection panel member-

Habibul Bashar thinks the scenario has changed now. The former national skipper believes that the Bangladesh cricketers have matured in the shortest format cricket and have been competing well with the top teams.

“It is true that Bangladesh lacked maturity and performance in Twenty20. There was a time when the boys were busy coping with the game. But I think that time has passed. Our cricketers are up there now, have been doing well in recent times and are prepared to play.

“The eight names that we chalked out were the best cricketers in the for-mat, taking their recent track record into account. We (the national selection pan-el) believed that they have a very good chance of getting a team for the upcom-ing IPL season. It is totally Mush� q’s personal decision and to be honest, I don’t know why he made the decision,” said Bashar. l

Security plan satis� es delegatesn Mazhar Uddin

The ICC World Twenty20 security plan was presented in a meeting between the hosts Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB)

and all the other representatives of the participating boards yesterday. BCB president Nazmul Hasan was con� dent that things will run smooth as the representatives seemed content

with the presentation. “We have put together a security

plan for the World T20 like any other tournament. We had sent it to the ICC, who distributed it to the participating nations. Today (yesterday) was the day when the teams would put forward their concerns, I think all of them are happy, but if they do raise a point, they will be telling the ICC and it will be discussed in the next meeting,” said Nazmul after the meeting at a city hotel.

The BCB chief said they elaborated

the security plan which was satisfactory to everyone present in the meeting and no major concerns were raised as the violence surrounding the national election has ended.

“There were no major points raised. There was political violence in our country but it has calmed down considerably. Our security plan is quite strong. Also present were government security agencies who explained how they would handle certain situations. These were questions of

the participating nations, and they are satis� ed,” he said.

Pakistan Cricket Board raised security concerns and was reluctant to send a team to Bangladesh, but Nazmul cleared the air and said it had nothing to do with the political violence rather it was the “protest against their country.”

“That’s what concerned them, but we assured them cricket is out of all these things. We said we’d give them additional security,” said Nazmul. l

Chief of the national selection panel Faruk Ahmed (C) speaks at a press conference along with other members Minhajul Abedin (L) and Habibul Bashar at Sher-e-Bangla National Stadium yesterday COURTESY

Seven star BJMC maul Baridharan Raihan Mahmood

Team BJMC’s prowess proved too much for ten-man Uttar

Baridhara as they thrashed the newcomers 7-0 equaling the biggest win in the history of Bangladesh Premier League at the Bangabandhu National Stadium yesterday.

Uttar Baridhara, the new entrants in the top � ight football of the country lost their way in the 18th minute after their central defender Saidur Rahman was sent o� for his second bookable o� ence on BJMC mid� elder Abdullah Parvez and the vacuum was too much for the newcomers as BJMC took optimum advantage.

BJMC’s seasoned forward Guinean Ismael Bangoura, Nigerian attacking mid� elder Samson Iliyasu, national forward Aminur Rahman Sajib and mid� elder Abdullah Parvez tormented their opposition defence from all possible ways and the inexperienced

out� ts were left grasping for their breath. The level of dejection was evident in the stoppage time when the players ran out of breath and out of concentration to concede the last two goals in the added three minutes.

Lethal left footed Parvez controlled the mid� eld while speedy Samson Iliyasu was instrumental in almost all the attacks. Parvez assisted the second goal in the 34th minute with a clever back heel for Bangoura before paving way for BJMC’s fourth which Sajib headed home. In between he scored the third goal in the 36th minute with curling e� ort from 25 yards and it was

a pure delight to watch.Bangoura added his second in the

57th minute, Iliyasu bagged his second in the 91st minute before and Sajib also scooped his second in the 93rd minute.

The lone attack from the losers came in the 29th minute when Nigerian forward Ekindale found BJMC goalkeeper Himel in a one-on-one situation only to shoot straight to Himel.

Parvez, who last played for the national team back in 2006, was found basking in a new motivation. “This year I thought that I have to � ght it out as there are few new players in the team, I have not lost the hunger to see myself again in the national fold, I am trying my best,” said the mid� elder.

Baridhara assistant coach Mahbub Ali Manik said they have never conceded seven goals in their history that began in 2005 in the third division, and it was overall a bad day.

Team BJMC has six points from four matches while Baridhara has two from the same number of matches. l

BIGGEST WINS IN BPL2013-14 Team BJMC 7-0 Uttar Baridhara2010-11 MSC 7-0 Arambagh2009-10 MSC 7-0 Muktijoddha2008-09 MSC 7-0 Shuktara JS Farashganj 7-0 Khulna Abahani2006-07 Abahani 7-0 Rahmatganj MSC 7-1 Rahmatganj MSC 7-0 Chittagong MSC

Nazmul yet to see the Big 3 proposaln Reazur Rahman Rohan

Recently Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), Cricket Australia (CA) and the England Cricket Board (ECB) proposed a structural overhaul of world cricket administration.

If the proposed changes are made BCCI, CA and ECB will be the bene� ciary from all sides while Bangladesh will among the many su� erers.

It is not only the Future Tour Programmes (FTP) that the big three – BCCI, CA and ECB – is looking to delink from the ICC, but they also o� ered to introduce “two-tier” Test ranking. Promotion and relegation in Test cricket is the least Bangladesh, bottom ranked Test team, needs at the moment, the moment they are progressing in the arena.

Apart from the Test concerns, if the proposed draft stand then Bangladesh will be also be a loser in the revenue

section as the restructured � nancial distribution makes everyone a loser apart from the BCCI, CA and ECB.

However, Bangladesh Cricket Board president Nazmul Hasan is yet to see the proposal, but expects to see it during the next ICC meeting.

The draft proposal will be presented to the ICC Executive Board during its quarterly meeting in Dubai on January 28 and 29.“We have to see the proposal thoroughly. We were given a hint in the Dubai meeting but the whole thing wasn’t presented to us. We will discuss these in the next ICC board meeting where they might take a decision,” he said.

The BCB boss also added, “We can’t do anything on our own. I can protest but if the other nine countries are on one side, there’s not much I can do. I have to � nd countries who are in our position, read through the proposals and then think what to do.” l

Usha, Abahani continue winning streakn Raihan Mahmood

Title contenders Usha and Abahani continued their winning spree in the Green Delta Insurance Premier Divi-sion Hockey League. Usha beat Azad 5-1 while the Sky Blues thrashed Wan-derers 11-0 at the Maulana Bhashani National Hockey Stadium yesterday.

Abahani’s drag and � ick specialist Khorshedur Rahman scored � ve goals including a hat-trick while national for-ward Pushkor Khisha Mimo netted three goals. Rising star Romman Sarker regis-tered a couple while the last one came from the stick of veteran Musa Miah.

Meanwhile, Usha also rode on their penalty corner specialist Mamunur Rahman Chayan as the skipper netted three goals- two of which came from the penalty corner with the other been a � eld goal. Moinul Islam Koushik and Krishna Kumar added the other two fro Usha. The consolation for Azad was scored by Mir Mahbub Ali. l

Team BJMC mid� elder Abdullah Parvez (2R) celebrates his spectacular goal with teammates during their Bangladesh Premier League match against Uttar Baridhara at the Bangabandhu National Stadium yesterday COURTESY

Mush� q was named along with all-rounder Shakib al Hasan, opening batsman Tamim Iqbal, Nasir Hossain, Mahmudullah, Anamul Haque, Sohag Gazi and Rubel Hossain

Atletico, Barca held to give Real hopen Reuters, Madrid

Atletico Madrid squandered a chance to climb above Bar-celona to the top of La Liga when they conceded a late penalty and were held to a

1-1 draw at home to Sevilla on Sunday.An o� -colour Barca had to come

from behind to rescue a point in the earlier kicko� at mid-table Levante but Atletico were unable to capitalise on the champions’ unexpected setback.

David Villa smashed in a loose ball to put Atletico ahead in the 18th minute at the Calderon and the home side looked

to be coasting to victory until Juanfran hauled Carlos Bacca to the ground in the area in the 71st minute and Ivan Rakitic clipped home the spot-kick.

The result meant Barca and Atletico, who drew 0-0 in Madrid last weekend, are level on 51 points at the top with just over half the season played, with Barca ahead on goal di� erence.

Real Madrid gained further ground and sit a point behind the joint leaders thanks to Saturday’s 5-0 drubbing of bottom side Real Betis in Seville.

Real and Barca, the world’s two richest clubs by income, have domi-nated La Liga over the past decade but

Atletico have emerged as genuine con-tenders for the title this season under Argentine coach Diego Simeone.

Barca lacked inspiration against a doggedly defensive Levante at their

Ciutat de Valencia stadium even with Lionel Messi, who returned last week-end after a two-month injury absence, back in the starting lineup.

Often vulnerable when defending set-pieces, they fell behind in the 10th minute when Loukas Vyntra headed past goalkeeper Victor Valdes from an Andreas Ivanschitz corner.

Barca’s equaliser also came from a corner when Gerard Pique nodded in nine minutes later but they struggled to create further chances before the break.

Messi drew a � ne save from Le-vante keeper Keylor Navas in the 59th minute and Xavi’s follow-up shot was

brilliantly blocked on the line by home captain Juanfran.

Juanfran was again in the right place to divert another Messi e� ort out for a corner three minutes later and Navas leaped superbly to turn a curling e� ort from substitute Cristian Tello around the post � ve minutes from time.

Villarreal have 37 points after they beat visiting Almeria 2-0 on Sunday, with Bilbao on 36 and Basque rivals Real Sociedad on 33 in sixth after they let slip a two-goal lead and drew 2-2 at 10-man Getafe. Sevilla, who had Alber-to Moreno sent o� in the 90th minute, have 31 points in seventh. l

PSG crush Nantes to keep leadn AFP, Paris

Paris Saint-Germain cruised to a 5-0 thrashing of Nantes on Sunday to maintain their � ve-point lead over Monaco at the top of Ligue 1.

Earlier in the day, the Principality club had kept

the pressure on the champions with a routine 2-0 win at mid-table Toulouse.

Brazil centre-back Thaigo Silva opened the scoring for PSG after just 10 minutes at the Parc des Princes as he knocked home the loose ball from six yards after Nantes goalkeeper Remy Riou failed to hold onto Edinson Ca-vani’s header.

PSG had all but put the game to bed by half-time as Zlatan Ibrahimovic dou-bled their advantage from the penalty spot.

However, it wasn’t without contro-versy as Chaker Alhadhur was deemed to have brought down Marco Verratti, despite television replays suggesting the Italian mid� elder had merely slipped.

But just six minutes after the restart it was all over as Blaise Matuidi’s back post header found Thiago Motta unmarked to scored from eight yards out.

Nantes were their own worst enemies

at times and Papy Mison Djilobodji was penalised for trying to dribble past Ver-ratti, the Italian tackling the defender and sending Ibrahimovic away to cross for Cavani to notch number four.

Ibrahimovic added the � fth after Ja-vier Pastore’s shot was blocked follow-ing more good work from Matuidi.

Goals from Layvin Kurzawa and Lucas Ocampos gave Monaco an eight-point advantage over fourth-placed Saint-Etienne, further cementing Clau-dio Ranieri’s team’s quest to earn a Champions League berth for next sea-son.

Ranieri made a change to his start-ing line-up, bringing in French under-20 world champion Geo� roy Kondogbia to replace struggling Portugal international Moutinho, although the youngster did

little to further his long-term prospects of holding down a regular starting position.

Monaco were far from convincing, particularly in the � rst half, but still turned around at the break a goal to the good through Kurzawa on 36 minutes.

And it was Kondogbia, in a rare mo-ment of quality, who provided the low cross from the left for Kurzawa to score.

There was a disappointing perfor-mance from Colombian record-signing Radamel Falcao, who missed two glori-ous chances and has not scored in the league since November 8.

He was replaced by Ocampos with 21 minutes left and it was the Argentine who sealed the win with a goal two min-utes from the end.

And it was a strike of rare beauty that looked out of place in an otherwise drag a� air as Ocampos scored with an acro-batic bicycle kick that � ummoxed goal-keeper Ali Ahamada.

Meanwhile, Lyon won for the fourth time in a row in all competitions to move up to eighth, just one place below Reims, whom they beat 2-0.

Goals from Alexandre Lacazette and Gueida Fofana secured the points as Lyon extended their unbeaten run in all competitions to 10 games since a 4-0 league reverse at PSG. l

SportDHAKA TRIBUNE Tuesday, January 21, 201414

RESULTSGetafe 2-2 Real Sociedad Marica 28, Pedro Leon 52 Agirretxe 4, 16

Villarreal 2-0 AlmeriaUche 3, Bruno 87-P

Levante 1-1 BarcelonaVyntra 10 Pique 19

Atletico Madrid 1-1 SevillaVilla 18 Rakitic 73-P

RESULTSParis Saint-Germain 5-0 NantesThiago Silva 10, Ibrahimovic 36-pen, 64,Thiago Motta 51, Cavani 58

Reims 0-2 Lyon Lacazette 25, Fofana 84

Toulouse 0-2 MonacoKurzawa 36, Ocampos 88

Super Mario saves Seedorf on Milan debutn AFP, Milan

A late Mario Balotelli spot-kick saved new AC Milan coach Clarence Seedorf’s blushes in a 1-0 win over Verona Sunday, which handed the strug-

gling Serie A giants only their sixth vic-tory of the campaign.

Seedorf has been heralded as Milan’s potential saviour since former coach Massimiliano Allegri was sacked after a 4-3 defeat to Sassuolo last week left the Rossoneri 30 points behind leaders Juventus.

For his � rst game in charge of the side for whom he made 300 appearances in 10 golden years (2002-2012), Seedorf sent out an ultra-o� ensive 4-2-3-1 for-mation with Robinho, Kaka and Japan’s Keisuke Honda playing behind Balotelli.

But despite a lightning start against Andrea Mandorlini’s high-� ying visi-tors, Seedorf grew increasingly frustrat-ed on the touchline as the hosts failed to convert a series of chances.

In the opening minutes Verona goal-keeper Rafael had to scramble to tip away a de� ected cross while under pres-sure from Balotelli as Milan pressed. A minute later Kaka � ashed a header

wide.Milan’s intensity dipped towards the

end of the half but when Balotelli was tripped just outside the area he tested Rafael with a dipping freekick that re-bounded and was bundled to safety.

A promising strike from captain Ric-cardo Montolivo sailed just wide of the upright in the closing stages of the half.

But after the restart Milan were slug-gish, Seedorf opting to replace Honda with Valter Birsa on the right.

At the other end Birsa delivered for Robinho and while the Brazilian’s shot from inside the area sent Rafael the wrong way, it came back o� the keeper’s far post.

With 12 minutes remaining Seedorf replaced Robinho with Andrea Petagna, but it was Kaka who helped make the di� erence when he tumbled in the area under a challenge from Alejandro Gon-zalez.

The referee pointed to the spot and Balotelli stepped up to send Rafael the wrong way.

Milan reclaimed 11th place, having dropped to 12th due to results else-where, although they are still 18 points adrift of Napoli, who occupy the third and last Champions League qualifying spot. l

Torres faces spell out with knee injuryn Reuters, London

Fernando Torres faces a “few weeks” out of action after su� ering a knee liga-ment injury in Chelsea’s 3-1 win over Manchester United on Sunday, man-ager Jose Mourinho said.

Torres came on as a late substitute for Cameroon striker Samuel Eto’o, whose three goals ensured Chel-sea maintained their strong Premier League title challenge.

Mourinho said that Senegal striker Demba Ba would now come into con-tention despite not featuring for Chel-sea since their League Cup defeat by Sunderland on Dec. 17. l

Dzeko puts prizes ahead of plauditsn AFP, London

Manchester City striker Edin Dzeko insists his side’s

remarkable goal-spree will count for nothing if they � nish the season with-out any silverware.

Dzeko scored City’s landmark 100th goal of the season as Manuel Pellegri-ni’s team took their tally for the current campaign to an incredible 103 with a 4-2 win over Cardi� at Eastlands on Satur-day

The result kept second placed City within a point of leaders Arsenal at the top of the Premier League, one of four competitions they remain in contention to win this season.

With their title challenge � rmly on course, City can turn their attention to the formality of booking a place in the League Cup � nal against Manchester United or Sunderland.

After thrashing struggling West Ham 6-0 in the semi-� nal � rst leg, Tuesday’s return at Upton Park is another oppor-

tunity for City to showcase their attack-ing talents to an increasingly captivated football world.

But Bosnia star Dzeko says seeing out the tie in business-like fashion is more important because City are fo-cused on winning prizes rather than earning plaudits.

“It is de� nitely a great achievement but we want to win something. That will be much better than these 100 goals,” Dzeko said. “We still have a lot of games to play and we will score a lot more goals but we want to win some-thing as well. “We are still in all four competitions and we will see what will happen. The key is just to try to win ev-ery next game.

“I am very happy that I am the one who scored the 100th goal. “I am enjoy-ing it at the moment. The team is play-ing amazing football.

“We are scoring a lot of goals. We just have to keep going like this.” City’s blis-tering � rst leg display means Pellegrini can rest several of his key players if he wishes. But, given City’s impressive

strength in depth, the Chilean is certain to be able to send out a strong line-up regardless of who he leaves out.

In contrast to City’s buoyant mood, Sam Allardyce’s Hammers head into the second leg at a low ebb after Saturday’s 3-1 loss against Newcastle put them back in the relegation zone.

With the pressure mounting on Al-lardyce, the West Ham boss has been working all hours in a bid to bring in new signings, but he has so far been un-successful and on Sunday he ruled out a move for Arsenal defender Thomas Vermaelen.

“I think under the circumstances at Arsenal, in the position that they’re in, in the Champions League and cup matches, they’ve had to use him as soon as any of the two defenders have been injured,” he said.

“So I don’t think there’s any chance we’ll get somebody of his quality. It would be nice if we could.

“I’ve had targets and I haven’t got one yet apart from Roger Johnson, so I’ll keep going and hope we get some.” l

Ozil mis� ring but ‘serene’ Gunners stride onn Reuters

A dip in form by record signing Mesut Ozil has not derailed Arsenal’s title challenge, with the Gunners’ consis-tency and miserly defence bringing a ‘serene attitude’ to North London, ac-cording to manager Arsene Wenger.

Arsenal beat Fulham 2-0 on Satur-day to make it � ve straight wins and preserve their one point advantage over big-spending title favourites Man-chester City at the top of the English Premier League with 16 games to go.

Most pundits retain the belief that City will eventually surpass the Lon-doners but Wenger remains con� dent his side can beat the odds and win their � rst title since 2004.

“The consistency of the results of the team since January 2013 has strengthened that maturity, and the fact that we are defensively more sta-ble gives us more of a serene attitude. That helps a lot,” Wenger was quoted as saying by British media on Monday.

However, Wenger’s other mid� eld recruit, Ozil, has not enjoyed the same praise of late. Wenger, though, leapt to the German international’s defence.

“Sometimes people expect him to make the di� erence alone,” the Frenchman told the club’s website.

“Sometimes when it doesn’t work you expect him to take the ball and put it in the net. He is more a passer than a � nisher.

“(Goalscoring) is one of the things he can add to his game for sure. It doesn’t need to be criticised, it needs to be encouraged. I think as well that the consistency of the quality of his passing slowly drains the opponent as he passes always the ball when you do not want him to do it. That slowly (al-lows) us to take over.

“He is 25, he can only get better. The best years are coming for him now.” l

Emotional Mourinho accepts writers’ awardn AFP, London

Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho thanked all those behind his extraor-dinary career as he accepted a tribute award from England’s Football Writers’ Association on Sunday.

The Portuguese boss received the honour at gala dinner at London’s Sa-voy Hotel just hours after Chelsea’s 3-1 win over Premier League champions Manchester United at Stamford Bridge took them to within two points of lead-ers Arsenal.

“Without love and happiness, I could not do my job,” said Mourinho, who was accompanied to the dinner by his wife and children.

“My assistant (coaches) are like my brothers, Frank (Lampard) represents my players, without whom I have no career, and Mr van Gaal, Mr Robson, my bosses.” “I sat down with my wife and family, and said ‘where is the best place for us? Where can we be happier as a family? To be happy as a manager and enjoy more the family and life socially?’

“We decided England, after that, for the situation to be perfect it would be Chelsea and I was lucky because the door was open for me,” said Mourinho. l

Atletico Madrid's David Villa (C) celebrates his goal against Sevilla during their Spanish First Division match at Vicente Calderon stadium in Madrid on Sunday REUTERS

Paris St Germain's Zlatan Ibrahimovic (R) jumps and kicks a corner � ag as he celebrates scoring against FC Nantes during their French Ligue 1 match at the Parc des Princes Stadium in Paris on Sunday REUTERS

Pakistan make record chase to level seriesn Azhar Ali hit a brilliant hundred as Paki-stan pulled o� a thrilling win in the third and � nal Test against Sri Lanka in Shar-jah on Monday, levelling the series 1-1.

Set a daunting 302 to win in a pos-sible 59 overs, Pakistan owed their suc-cessful chase to Ali’s � fth Test century (103) as he and Misbah-ul-Haq shared a 109-run stand for the � fth wicket.

Misbah, who � nished with 68 not out, hit the winning single with nine balls to spare in fading light.

Ali, ironically dropped for the � rst two Tests, hit paceman Suranga Lakmal for a boundary, then twice took two to reach his hundred o� 133 balls.

He hit six boundaries before fall-ing caught behind with just seven still needed to win.

Pakistan’s chances seemed to have faded away at 107-3 at tea, as they needed 195 in the last 35 overs. But Ali upped the tempo during a rapid 89-run partnership in 14.5 overs with Sarfraz Ahmed (48) which left Sri Lanka on the defensive.

Even when Sarfraz was out, caught behind o� paceman Shaminda Eranga, Pakistan needed 116. Sarfraz hit four boundaries and a six o� 46 balls.

But Misbah supported Ali as Pakistan achieved their second best chase in all Test cricket, behind the 314 they chased against Australia in Karachi in 1994.

Sri Lanka had won the second Test in Dubai by nine wickets while the � rst Test ended in a draw in Abu Dhabi.

Pakistan had lost Ahmed Shehzad (21), Khurram Manzoor (21) and Younis Khan (29) as they were derailed in their chase.

Needing to score at a rate of more than � ve an over to win, Pakistan were given a rapid 35-run start by the sixth

over but paceman Suranga Lakmal (3-79) halted that progress by dismissing openers Shehzad and Manzoor within 13 runs.

Younis Khan tried to increase the pace before being caught o� Angelo Mathews two overs before tea, but the scenario changed in the last session.

With the series tied, Pakistan also remained unbeaten in � ve series in the United Arab Emirates, which has be-come their home since security fears -- sparked in the wake of attacks on the Sri Lankan team bus in Lahore in 2009 -- forced them to play at neutral venues.

They twice drew series with South Africa (2010 and 2013) and beat Sri Lan-ka (2011) and England (2012).

Misbah said Pakistan desperately wanted the win.

“That was really a much wanted win. We wanted the win it for our coach Dav Whatmore and wanted to give him a winning farewell,” said Misbah of the team coach who ends his two-year ten-ure with this match.

Sri Lankan captain Angelo Mathews regretted batting failure.

“We dominated for three-and-a-half days but unfortunately could not score big in the second innings and lost,” said Mathews, declared man-of-the-series for his 412 runs in three Tests.

Earlier, Sri Lanka were bowled out for 214 in their second innings, with left-arm spinner Abdul Rehman � nishing with 4-56 and o� -spinner Saeed Ajmal taking 3-53, but not before their bats-men had kept Pakistan at bay on the morning of the � fth and � nal day.

On an exciting day when both teams had a chance of victory, Mathews (31) and Prasanna Jayawardene (49) shared a 62-run stand for the sixth wicket and batted positively to add 56 in the � rst hour after the tourists resumed at 133-5.

But Mohammad Talha gave Pakistan their much-needed breakthrough when he had Mathews caught o� a miscued hook. Rehman then grabbed two quick wickets to put the brakes on Sri Lanka, having Dilruwan Perera caught at short-leg for eight before removing Rangana Herath for a � rst-ball duck. l

SportDHAKA TRIBUNE Tuesday, January 21, 2014 15

Sri Lanka 1st innings 428-9 dec (D. Perera 95, A. Mathews 91, K. Sangakkara 52; Junaid Khan 3-81, Mohammad Talha 3-99)Pakistan 1st innings 341 (Ahmed Shehzad 147, Misbah-ul-Haq 63, Khurram Manzoor 52; R. Herath 5-125, S. Eranga 4-60)Sri Lanka 2nd innings (overnight 133-5)A. Mathews c Manzoor b Talha 31P. Jayawardene c Ali b Ajmal 49D. Perera c Ali b Rehman 8R. Herath c Younis b Rehman 0S. Eranga c Rehman b Ajmal 3S. Lakmal not out 2Extras: (b2, lb4 nb2, w2) 10

Total: (all out; 101.4 overs) 214Fall of wickets: 1-13 (Karunaratne), 2-37 (Sangakkara), 3-66 (Silva), 4-89 (Chandimal), 5-127 (M Jayawardene), 6-189 (Mathews), 7-203 (Perera), 8-203 (Herath), 9-209 (P Jayawardene)Bowling: Junaid 20-6-34-0 (1w), Talha 23-2-65-3 (2nb, 1w), Rehman 33-10-56-4, Ajmal 25.4-7-53-3Pakistan 2nd inningsKhurram Manzoor c P Jayawardene b Lakmal 21Ahmed Shehzad c Karunaratne b Lakmal 21Azhar Ali c P Jayawardene b Lakmal 103Younis Khan c Sangakkara b Mathews 29Sarfraz Ahmed c Prasanna b Eranga 48Misbah-ul-Haq not out 68Asad Sha� q not out 1Extras: (b6, lb1, nb1, w3) 11

Total: (for � ve wkts; 57.3 overs) 302Fall of wickets: 1-35 (Shehzad), 2-48 (Manzo-or), 3-97 (Younis), 4-186 (Sarfraz), 5-295 (Ali)Bowling: Lakmal 12-0-79-3, Eranga 15.3-0-68-1 (1nb, 1w), Herath 19-0-100-0 (2w), Mathews 11-0-48-1Result: Pakistan won by � ve wicketsToss: Sri Lanka

SCORECARD

Navratilova reveals coaching ambitionTennis great Martina Navratilova on Monday revealed she wants to become a coach, joining a growing number of former stars teaming up with the game’s top players. She said it didn’t matter if she coached a man or woman, as long as they got along. “I’ve had some pos-sibilities but nothing speci� c yet,” the 18-time Grand Slam singles champion told reporters at the Australian Open. “I love coaching and I love helping people at whatever level. I think my biggest contribution would be at the top level because I’ve been there, done that. “I’m sure that (calls) will come, and I’ll be helping somebody on the court, sitting in the box, sweating it out.” If her wish comes true, Navratilova will join a host of “super-coaches” that have � ooded the men’s game.

– AFP

Fenerbahce chief denounces � xing jail termThe head of Turkish football giant Fenerbahce has denounced as “politi-cal” an appeals court ruling upholding a jail sentence against him over a vast match-� xing scandal. The Supreme Court last week con� rmed a prison term of six years and three months against the Istanbul club’s president Aziz Yildirim and the sentences of several other Fenerbahce o� cials. “I, Aziz Yildirim, do not respect this illegal judgement, I do not recognise this po-litical decision,” he said in a statement published on the club’s website at the weekend. Friday’s court ruling means that Yidirim and all others convicted in the case that rocked the country’s domestic football league are barred from serving as club o� cials.

– AFP

Stephens denies cheering Williams exitAmerican Sloane Stephens Monday denied celebrating Serena Williams’ shock exit from the Australian Open af-ter she was � lmed smiling and laughing as she watched on TV. The relationship between the pair has been frosty since Stephens knocked world number one Williams out of last year’s tournament in the quarter-� nals. Stephens later took aim at Williams for unfollowing her on Twitter and also reportedly accused the 17-time Grand Slam champion of ignoring her. Local media seized on the footage of Stephens, � lmed without her knowledge while was she was watching the Williams match and joking with hitting partner Andrew Fitzpatrick. But Stephens said the two were merely mimicking the enthusiastic reaction of the coaches of Ana Ivanovic, the player who beat Williams on Sunday.

– AFP

Young rallies Lakers over RaptorsNick Young scored 15 of his game-high 29 points in the fourth quarter and the Los Angeles Lakers rallied from a 19-point de� cit Sunday to defeat Toronto 112-106. Spanish big man Pau Gasol added 22 points and nine rebounds while Ryan Kel-ly scored 17 points and Kendall Marshall contributed 10 points and 11 assists for the Lakers, who improved to 16-25 with their � rst back-to-back NBA triumphs in a month. DeMar DeRozan scored 23 points and Kyle Lowry added 21 to lead the Raptors, who had won six in a row at home. They fell to 20-19 but still lead the Atlantic division. A 24-5 Toronto run capped by three DeRozan baskets put the Raptors ahead 50-31 with 7:34 remaining in the second quarter but the Lakers scored the next nine points and pulled within 58-54 at half-time. Toronto opened the third period with a 12-0 run but the Lakers went on a 12-2 run late in the quarter to seize an 82-81 edge enter-ing the fourth.

– AFP

QUICK BYTES

Sony Six NBA 2013-147:00AM Chicago v LA Lakers9:30AM Golden State v IndianaStar Sports 46:00AM & 2:00PMAustralian OpenStar Sports 12:40PMBig Bash T20Melbourne Stars v Hobart HurricanesTen Action01:45AM Capital One Cup 2013/14Semi: West Ham v Man City

DAY’S WATCH

FASTEST SUCCESSFUL 300+ CHASES IN TESTTeam Score Overs RPO Opposition Ground Year Pakistan 302/5 57.3 5.25 Sri Lanka Sharjah 2014West Indies 344/1 66.1 5.19 England Lord’s 1984 England 315/4 73.2 4.29 Australia Leeds 2001 Australia 334/6 79.1 4.21 South Africa Cape Town 2002 India 387/4 98.3 3.92 England Chennai 2008

Pakistani cricket team captain Misbah-ul-Haq celebrates after winning � nal cricket Test match against Sri Lanka at the Sharjah International Cricket Stadium yesterday AFP

North Zone crush East Zone n

Left arm spinner Taijul Islam’s � ve wicket haul and Naeem Islam’s unbeaten 69 helped

BCB North Zone clinch a seven wicket win over Islami Bank East Zone with a day to spare in the Bangladesh Cricket (BCL) at BKSP-2 ground yesterday.

In the other match, national spinner Abdur Razzak’s four wickets and later Imrul Kayes unbeaten 74 left Prime Bank South Zone on the verge of victory over Walton Central Zone. South require a further 150 runs with seven wickets in hand on the � nal day of the match.

East Zone, who took a 22 run in the � rst innings, batted disastrously in the second innings to go down in defeat to BCB North Zone.

Left arm spinner Taijul Islam, who took seven wickets in the � rst innings, was the hero in the second innings as

well with � ve wickets, while paceman Shuvashis Roy took four to bowl East Zone out for just 139.

Nafees Iqbal top scored for East Zone with 37. Having started the day at 79/3, East Zone were only able to add 60 more runs before being dismissed. Earlier, South Zone had made 270 all

out in their � rst innings. BCB North Zone made 248 in their

� rst innings and were left to chase 162 to for victory on the third day.

They reached the target for the loss of three wickets, with Naeem Islam � nishing the match with a six to give his side their � rst BCL win with a day to spare.

Meanwhile Prime Bank South Zone are on the verge of winning over Walton Central Zone, who started the third day at 318/5 but could only add 56 more runs.

Experience spinner Abdur Razzak lead the South Zone bowling attack with four wickets as Central Zone � nished their second innings at 374, after having made 165 in the � rst innings.

Prime Bank South Zone had posted 230 in their � rst innings and were left to chase 310 for victory. They � nished the day at 159/3, with Imrul Kayes on 74 and Anamul Haque 67 not out, at the crease. l

Sharapova out as Nadal, Federer into last eightn

Maria Sharapova crashed out of the Australian Open in another seismic shock Monday as Rafael Nadal, Roger Federer and Victo-

ria Azarenka saw o� challenges to keep their title bids intact.

A day after Serena Williams’ exit, Dominika Cibulkova kept the upsets rolling as she ousted injury-compro-mised Sharapova 3-6, 6-4, 6-1, blowing the women’s draw even further open.

The main expected bene� ciary, two-time defending champion Azarenka, is in position to take full advantage after she � attened old foe Sloane Stephens 6-3, 6-2 to reach the quarter-� nals.

The Belarusian world number two will face either Agnieszka Radwanska or Garbine Muguruza in the quarter-� nals, with Cibulkova heading into a clash with Romania’s Simona Halep.

Men’s top seed Nadal weathered a sustained assault from Japan’s Kei Nishi-kori 7-6 (7/3), 7-5, 7-6 (7/3) to face Grigor Dimitrov in the Bulgarian’s � rst Grand Slam quarter-� nal.

The 13-time Grand Slam-winner chid-ed the umpire after he was called for a time violation, for taking longer than the allowed 20 seconds between points, at a critical moment in the third set.

“The negative thing in my opinion is

not the warning, but the timing of it. You can choose another moment to do it, not that one,” Nadal said.

Wimbledon champion Andy Murray needed � ve match points and four sets -- and angrily demolished a racquet along the way -- before beating ‘lucky loser’ Stephane Robert.

Murray cruised through the � rst two sets but he missed match points, and then dropped his � rst set of the tourna-ment, before � nishing it o� 6-1, 6-2, 6-7 (6/8), 6-2.

“He’s a fun player to watch but not

fun to play against,” said Murray, as Rob-ert milked applause from the crowd. “He made it very tricky for me, he plays all the shots very unorthodox.”

Federer, meanwhile, was a convinc-ing winner against Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, racing through 6-3, 7-5, 6-4 to set up a quarter-� nal against Murray.

There was some consolation for Sharapova when her boyfriend Dimi-trov, 22, won 6-3, 3-6, 6-2, 6-4 against Roberto Bautista Agut of Spain.

But overall it was a dismal day for the statuesque Russian, cutting short what has been a di� cult return from months out with a right shoulder injury.

Sharapova blamed her tough work-outs against Karin Knapp and Alize Cor-net after a left hip injury � ared against Cibulkova, who was motivated enough to take advantage. Sharapova was too strong for Cibulkova in the � rst set but errors crept in in the second and after the Slovak levelled at a set each, she left the court for a medical timeout.

And Sharapova, rated as the world’s highest paid female athlete, succumbed tamely in the third set as she conceded three breaks to keep her search for a � fth major title on hold.

“I think it’s a success (the tourna-ment) in terms of that I’m back and that I’m healthy. That’s quite important. Oth-erwise I wouldn’t give myself a chance to play,” she said. l

Johnson wins Border medaln Australia’s Ashes hero Mitchell John-son denied Michael Clarke a hat-trick when the paceman edged his skipper in a tight vote to pick up a maiden Al-lan Border medal on Monday.

The 32-year-old, adjudged man of the series in Australia’s 5-0 Ashes triumph over England, garnered 168

votes, 12 more than his captain, to cap a spectacular comeback by claiming his country’s most prestigious indi-vidual award.

“It has been an amazing journey coming back from injury, having a lot of doubters out there,” said Johnson, who collected more wickets than any of his compatriots across three formats of the game.l

Australia bring in new blood for South Africa tourn After a stunning Ashes triumph, Aus-tralia added specialist batsmen to a 15-man squad unveiled on Monday for the upcoming tour against world number one South Africa.

Uncapped Tasmanian Alex Doolan joins Shaun Marsh who returns to the Test scene after almost two years.

Losing out is Ashes number six George Bailey whose game is “less suit-ed to their (bowling) attack,” said chair-man of selectors John Inverarity.

“This was a di� cult decision, but on this occasion we felt Alex and Shaun have games that are well suited to fac-ing South Africa in South Africa.

“We consider that both are strong players of pace bowling which is im-portant given the strength of South Af-rica’s attack.

“Alex was on standby for the recent � fth Test in Sydney and scored a most impressive 165 not out against South Africa for Australia A last season. l

Champagne launches bid for Fifa presidencyn Former Fifa deputy general secre-tary Jerome Champagne on Monday launched his bid to succeed Sepp Blat-ter as president of the organisation that runs the global game.

The 55-year-old Frenchman, who worked closely with Blatter between 2002 and 2005, announced his cam-paign to become football’s most pow-erful man at a press conference in cen-tral London.

Champagne said he was eager to restore Fifa’s reputation after accusa-tions of corruption in recent years, ac-knowledging that the organisation had “an image de� cit problem”.

Addressing reporters in front of the slogan ‘Hope for football,’ he said: “We need a di� erent Fifa: more democratic, more respected, which behaves better and which does more.”

Blatter, 77, is approaching the end of his fourth term in o� ce and is yet to announce whether or not he will stand again in next year’s election in Zurich.

Current Uefa president Michel Plat-ini said late last year that he will an-nounce whether or not he will stand for the post either during or after the World Cup in Brazil, which starts on June 12.

In a video message, Brazil legend Pele announced his support for Cham-pagne’s candidacy. l

Michael Clarke (capt), Brad Haddin (vice-capt), Jackson Bird, Alex Doolan, James Faulkner, Ryan Harris, Mitchell Johnson, Shaun Marsh, Nathan Lyon, James Pat-tinson, Chris Rogers, Peter Siddle, Steve Smith, David Warner, Shane Watson.

SQUAD

Islami Bank East vs BCB NorthIslami Bank East Zone 270/10 and 139/10Taijul Islam 51/5, Shuvashish Roy 37/4BCB North Zone 248/10 and 167/3Naeem Islam 69*BCB North Zone won by seven wicketsWalton Central vs Prime Bank SouthWalton Central Zone 374/10Marshal Ayub 126Abdur Razzak 103/4 Taibur parvez 34/3Prime Bank South Zone 159/3Imrul Kayes 74, Anamul Haque 67, Mahmudullah 64/2

BRIEF SCORES

Dominika Cibulkova celebrates after victory against Maria Sharapova in Melbourne yesterday AFP

Speaker set to contest Rangpur 6 seatn Kamran Reza Chowdhury

Speaker Shirin Sharmin Chaudhury has bought nomination papers to contest the by-election in the Rangpur 6 con-stituency vacated by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.

Speculation was rife in political circle that the PM’s son Sajib Wazed Joy might contest the by-poll. Ha-sina was elected in Rangpur 6 and Gopalganj 3 seats in the January 5election.

Shirin Sharmin had earlier bought the nomination papers for a seat re-served for women.

The Rangpur 6 by-poll will take place on February 20.

The last day for submission of the nomination papers is January 27 and its scrutiny will take place on January 28. February 3 is the last day for withdraw-al of the candidature.

According to the electoral rule, the Election Commission can announce

Shirin the winner on February 3 if she remains the lone candidate and her nomination papers are submittedcorrectly.

The EC is yet to announce the sched-ule for the women’s reserved seats. EC o� cials say the government must amend the law on electing the 50 wom-en MPs in the reserved seats.

“One of my leaders in Rangpur has bought the nomination paper for me. I will contest [the poll] if the party nom-inates me,” Shirin told the Dhaka Tri-bune.

She said she would prefer the by-poll in the women’s reserved seat.

It is not yet clear whether the Ja-tiya Party will � eld any candidate for the Rangpur seat, which is consideredas a stronghold of HM Ershad’sparty. Ershad recently expressed his desire to see his brother get elected in the seat.

But Sheikh Hasina told the Jatiya Party leaders that she would nominate

Shirin in the seat.Shirin, who was elected the MP for

the women’s reserved seat in 2009, was elected the speaker on April 30 last year as her predecessor Abdul Hamid was elected the president.

She has earned a reputation for working impartially in the House.

Many Awami League MPs who op-posed her appointment now desire to see her re-elected.

Shirin earlier announced that she would contest the 10th general elec-tions in Noakhali 1 (Chatkhil) constit-uency on an Awami League ticket. But the party did not nominate her.

Meanwhile, the possibility of Shi-rin’s re-election as the speaker gets slimmer as the House goes into ses-sion on January 29. According to the constitution, the speaker mustbe an MP.

At the inaugural session, she must elect a new speaker and hand over power immediately. l

16 Back PageDHAKA TRIBUNE Tuesday, January 21, 2014

ATTACK ON NOOR

Another accused found deadn Tribune Report

A Jatiyatabadi Chhatra Dal leader who was accused in a case � led over the attack on the convoy of Asaduzzaman Noor was found dead in Syedpur upa-zila of Nilphamari yesterday morning.

Victim Atiqur Rahman Atiq, 30, was the general secretary of Chhatra Dal Tupamari union unit. The body bore a deep injury on the back side of the left ear, our correspondent reported.

He is the second person accused in the case to have been found dead. On Sunday local BNP leader Golam Rabbani, the prime accused in the motorcade at-tack case, was found dead in Nilphamari.

Five people including four local Awami League men were killed when activists of Jamaat-e-Islami and its student wing, Islami Chhatra Shibir, at-tacked the motorcade of the now Cul-tural Minister Noor, also a noted actor, on December 14 last year.

Firoz Kabir, the o� cer-in-charge (OC) of Syedpur police station told the Dhaka Tribune that locals noticed the body of Atiqur lying beside the Rang-pur-Dinajpur highway in Dhalagach Na-riakhamba area of Syedpur municipali-ty around 7am. They informed police.

However, victim’s elder brother Aminul Islam said on January 13 DB po-lice had arrested Atikur and Mohidul, 25, son of Anowar Hossain, at Delduar in Tangail.

Since then they had no trace of Atikur. His wife identi� ed the body yesterday.

On the other hand Atiq’s cousin Abdul Halim and father-in-law Latifur Rahman Ranju said they had hea rd that Rab had detained Atikur.

According to police, Atiqur was the fourth accused in a case � led for kill-ing Khorshed Alam Chowdhury, the president of Tupamari union Krishak League unit. Chowdhury is one of the � ve victims killed during the motor-cade attack on the day. A case has been � led with the police in this regard.

Noor’s motorcade came under attack while he was returning to Nilphamari town from visiting Laxmichap, Shisha-toli and Palash Bari villages where Ja-maat men two days back had torched some 80 shops and residences belonging to Hindus and Awami League activists.

Meherpur Jamaat leader killedin ‘gunfight’The assistant secretary general of Me-herpur district Jamaat-e-Islami Tarique Mohammad Saiful Islam, 35, was killed in a “gun� ght” with police early yester-day. He was the eldest son of Samirud-din, former chief of Meherpur district Jamaat, reported our correspondent.

Sadar police station OC Reazul Islam said they had arrested Saiful from an Islami Bank branch in the district town around 3pm Sunday in connection with nine cases � led against him.

“Saiful confessed that MA Matin, Khulna divisional coordinator of Ja-maat, would hold a clandestine meet-ing with his cohorts at Bandar village in the town around 3am today,” he said.

“So we went there with Saiful. De-tecting our presence, Matin’s associ-ates opened � re, leading to a gun� ght,” he said.

During the “gun� ght,” Saiful tried to escape and came in the line of � re. After the “gun� ght,” police found

his blood-stained body lying on the ground. One � rearm, � ve crude bombs and six bullets were recovered from the scene, the OC said.

Over 5,500 sued for Gaibandha clashPolice have sued 5,567 people includ-ing 67 Jamaat-Shibir activists in con-nection with Sunday’s attack on the law enforcers in Gaibandha.

Our Gaibandha correspondent report-ed that the accused were charged with at-tacking the law enforcers and exploding several crude bombs during the incident at Kadamtala and Khanabari villages.

Jamaat-Shibir men early Sunday ambushed a police team in Sundar-ganj upazila of Gaibandha and clashed with the joint forces, who were sent to relieve the police team, leaving more than 50 including 22 policemen in-jured. They also torched a police pick-up, vandalised 12 homes and surround-ed the policemen during the nearly � ve-hour-long clash.

Meanwhile, the law enforcers arrest-ed 59 BNP men from Narayanganj on the way to attending the BNP rally in the capital yesterday. Shibir president of Narail was arrested for involvement in vandalism, arson, sabotage and at-tacking on police.

Police in Pabna arrested Secretary of Jamaat district unit Abu Taleb Mondol, and Shibir’s Pabna town unit President, Ariful Islam from the district headquar-ters on several charges of violence. Ja-maat called a daylong hartal today pro-testing the arrest.

Two suspected Shibir men were ar-rested from Chittagong University yes-terday. l

HC issues status quo on Ershad’s Union Bank share transfer n Nazmus Sakib

The High Court yesterday gave a status quo order for six months on Prime Min-ister’s Special Envoy Hussain Muham-mad Ershad and Union Bank Ltd, im-posing a bar on transferring his shares of the bank.

A High Court bench of Justice Md Rezaul Hasan passed the order in re-sponse to a petition lodged by Golam Moshi, a promoter of the bank and also a Jatiya Party leader. The plainti� al-leged that Ershad, also the chairman of Jatiya Party and Union Bank, had not complied with an agreement between them over the transfer of the bank’s shares.

Kazi Aktar Hamid, the lawyer of the petitioner, con� rmed to the Dhaka Tri-bune that Ershad would not be able to transfer his shares of the newly-opened bank for next six months.

Earlier, the government issued a banking license for the Jatiya Party chairman, then a key ally of grand al-liance. S Alam Group � nanced the TK400 crore paid as capital for the bank, while Ershad invested TK 40 crore for a 30% share.

According to a deal, Ershad agreed to transfer 6% of his share and pay Tk6.33 crore to Moshi for his contribution to the company before its incorporation on 7th March, 2013. Ershad signed the agreement on 22nd July, 2012.

However, Ershad did not comply with the agreement, even a year after the enlistment of the bank.

Union Bank Managing Director Sha-hidul Alam, Chairman HM Ershad, Reg-istrar of Joint Stock Companies and two others were made respondents in the petition, � led yesterday by Supreme Court lawyer AQM Sohel Rana on be-half of Moshi.

The plea sought the recovery of the shares and cash from the special aide of the Prime Minister, in line with the agreement. l

Bangladeshi women gang-raped in India n Tribune Report

Two women from Chittagong were allegedly gang-raped on a boat while crossing over to Gaighata in West Ben-gal’s North 24-Parganas yesterday, re-ports the Times of India.

According to police, the two women, aged 18 and 20, left home in the morn-ing accompanied by a local youth, who allegedly promised them jobs in Kolkata.

After boarding a boat from Daulatpur, the youth and two boatmen allegedly gang-raped the victims while crossing the Ichhamati River, the report said.

BSF personnel, posted at the Angrail camp of the paramilitary force, rescued the two and handed them over to police.

The victims told they police they were thrown o� the boat near the border fencing in Gaighata after being raped, where the BSF team rescued them and handed them over to Gaigha-ta police after giving them � rst aid.

Police took the girls to Bongaon sub-divisional hospital where they are currently receiving treatment. A medi-cal test has also been conducted to es-tablish if their claims of sexual assault are true. l

Medical reps calling the shots at DMCH They allegedly bribe doctors, in� uence prescriptions; the authorities still look the other wayn Moniruzzaman Uzzal

The Dhaka Tribune found that the DMCH authority had caught more than 40 medical representatives red-handed over the past few months while violat-ing the visiting rules. The MRs were freed after giving undertakings to the hospital authority saying they would not visit doctors except during autho-rised dates

The sight of a long queue of motor-cycles parked on the side of the road, often resembling a roo� ess motorcycle shop, welcomes patients and visitors to the outdoor gates of the Dhaka Medical College Hospital every day.

The parked vehicles belong to med-ical representatives (MR) of di� erent pharmaceutical companies and private hospitals, clinics and diagnostic labora-tories – all seeking a meeting with doc-tors for promotional purposes.

Sources said the DMCH authority has permitted medical representatives to visit the doctors twice a week (Sun-day and Thursday) for promotion of drugs and other information regarding treatment facilities.

Seeking anonymity, several senior DMCH o� cials told the Dhaka Tribune that most of the MRs were violating the rules and meeting the doctors during the busy morning sessions every day, hampering the service to the patients who needed the doctors’ attention.

The medical representatives report-edly try to convince the doctors to pre-scribe their companies’ drugs, as well as check prescriptions later to moni-tor if the doctors had been making the

medical recommendations in favour of the companies.

O� cials also claimed that it was hard to identify the MRs as they came to the doctors’ rooms pretending to be patients.

Top o� cials at the hospital, pre-ferring not to be named, alleged that many unscrupulous doctors had been advising patients to buy drugs from the pharmacies, although the DMCH had been providing more than 90% of

the drugs (including fourth-generation drugs) at free of cost to the patients.

The medical representatives also allegedly bribe the doctors in the guise of marketing promotion. These bribes come in the forms of cash, cars, � ats,

expensive mobile phones, refrigerator, air-conditioners, plane tickets for plea-sure trips abroad, and the sponsorship of seminars, symposia and picnics.

The doctors’ family members are often also o� ered gifts as a persuasion strategy.

A few senior doctors claimed that the illegal activities of the MRs were also a common practice at other public and private hospitals.

The Dhaka Tribune found that the DMCH authority had caught more than 40 medical representatives red-handed over the past few months while violat-ing the visiting rules. The MRs were freed after giving undertakings to the hospital authority saying they would not visit doctors except during autho-rised dates.

The logbook containing the names of those detained over the last few months included medical representa-tives from leading companies.

Brigadier General Dr Musta� zur Rahman, director of the DMCH, told the Dhaka Tribune: “It is partially true that the MRs do not follow our direc-tions properly.

We have caught red-handed several MRs while visiting doctors beyond the � xed time they were given.”

Seeking anonymity, an o� cial of Bangladesh Association of Pharma-ceutical Industry (BAPI) claimed that nothing illegal was being done by the medical representatives.

Claiming that bribery was a gener-alised accusation against MRs, the o� -cial said answers could be provided if there was any speci� c allegation. l

Crime on the rise as law enforcers ease vigilancen Kailash Sarkar

Muggers, thieves and robbers have become con� dent taking advantage of the relaxed law enforcement since the unstable political situation became calm in the capital.

At least 20 incidents of mugging, rob-bery and theft reportedly took place in the last three days while many more remain unreported. Many are linking this rise in crime to the reduced police Rab and BGB patrolling and withdrawal of check posts by the Rab and police in the capital.

Khorshed Alam, the o� cer-in-charge of Paltan police station, admitted that since the political scene calmed down the presence of di� erent law enforcement and security agencies had been reduced and criminals like muggers, thieves and robbers had become more active.

Sources said at least � ve separate incidents of mugging took place at the capital’s Mohakhali, Paltan, Pallabi and Jurain within three hours on Sun-day night leaving at least � ve people, including a woman, injured while the muggers snatched over Tk30 lakh and other valuables from them.

In one of the incidents, locals caught one of the muggers of a gang while they were � eeing after snatching Tk20 lakh from the employees of a travel agency at Purana Paltan area.

The injured persons were admitted to the Dhaka Medical College Hospital. Four of them were stabbed and a wom-an sustained injuries when bombs had been hurled at them.

In two separate incidents in Mo-hakhali, Md Zahir Talukder, 28, a rep-

resentative of Drugs International, and buying house employee Mithu Majumder were stabbed and looted by two gangs of muggers from 10pm to 10:30pm Sunday night.

Asked, Bhuiyan Mabub Hasan, o� -cer-in-charge of Banani police station, said they were trying to capture the muggers.

In the same period, Mohammad Ha� zur Rahman, 30, and Nazrul Islam, 36, were stabbed and looted by another gang of criminals at Block B of Section 12 in Pallabi around 10:30pm.

In Jurain, a female factory worker named Alo Akhter, 26, sustained severe injuries when a gang of criminals hurled a bomb at her while she was returning to her East Jurain residence from her workplace on foot around 9:30pm.

A gang of six to seven armed crim-inals riding three motorcycles looted Tk20 lakh from the employees of a travel agency around 7pm in front of Kosturi Hotel at Paltan. Locals caught one of them although the others � ed with the money.

On Saturday, a gang of thieves made o� with almost everything of value from the house of journalist Palash Dutta in Shyamoli.

Another journalist Hayat Mahmud was chased by a gang of two muggers rid-ing a motorbike when he wa returning to his house in Rajabazar on Saturday night. The journalist ran back to his o� ce, at which point the criminals � ed the scene.

On Friday night, a gang of criminals stormed into a girls’ hostel and robbed gold ornaments, mobile phones and other valuables from a dozen young women at the capital’s Farmgate. l

President Abdul Hamid pays tribute to Shawkat Momen Shahjahan, the Awami League MP from Tangail 8 constituency who died yesterday, at the South Plaza on the parliament premises RAJIB DHAR

Hundreds of medical representatives visit the Dhaka Medical College Hospital to meet doctors every day. Their motorcycles are seen parked near the hospital yesterday DHAKA TIBUNE

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

Continue to the Business section...

Business

'Unruly' insurance companies warned of dire consequences

n Tribune Report

Finance Minister AMA Muhith came down heavily on the country’s insur-ance sector yesterday due to what he said huge corruption and worst perfor-mance of the sector

“Insurance company means it is a � eld of plundering as the sector of 76 companies expanded hugely in last few years,” he told journalists, after holding a meeting with chairmen and managing directors of state-owned banks, insurance companies and � nan-cial institutions.

The minister said there had been no control over the insurance compa-nies and now the Insurance Develop-ment and Regulatory Authority (IDRA) wants to control the companies, but it has been alleged some of them put up obstruction against the regulator.

“We have found a total of 50 cases of violation of regulation and creating obstruction.”

Muhith termed the insurance com-

panies wicked as they are doing wrong things against IDRA activities and warned the o� cials and owners of the companies to be gentle and rational as well as stopping plundering. “Else, we’ll resist it with iron hand.”

Most of the insurance companies in the country have a tendency not to meet clients’ claims and many have to face even harassment in getting due payments as the clients � led com-plaints with the regulatory authorities.

The companies allegedly do not inform IDRA about claim settlements after submission by clients, � outing a recent directive.

On March 24, IDRA issued a letter directing all companies to inform the regulator about claims within two days of submission by the policyholders, shareholders or stakeholders. Besides, companies are also bound to inform the authority about monthly reviews on initiatives taken against the claims.

But no company had complied with the directive so far, except the foreign insurance giant, Metlife Alico.

Recently on January 13, IDRA fur-ther warned the insurance companies to settle quickly the claims tabled after being a� ected by political violence.

The authorities issued the order in the back drop of complains that the companies were making unnecessary delays in settling the claims – which is being considered as a trick only to dis-courage the clients to submit the claims.

IDRA also not capable enough to monitor the insurance sector as it su� ered for e� cient manpower. The authorities did not get approval of or-ganogram as a result it fell in extreme manpower crisis.

The whole sector having 78 compa-nies is being managed by only 48 o� -cials. In this circumstance, IDRA halt-ed its inspection activities. l

www.dhakatribune.com/business TUESDAY, JANUARY 21, 2014

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E X C H A N G E R A T E SAverage selling rates to public in BDT

Banks Rupali Bank Sonali BankCurrencies SELL BUY SELL BUY

USD 77.4 78.4 77.4 78.4EURO 104.199 107.390 104.176 106.598

INR 1.187 1.343 1.19 1.29SAR 20.537 21.005 21.010 20.534

NBR reshu� es admin to achieve revenue targetn Tribune Report

National Board of Revenue (NBR) has brought some changes in the head-quarters and its � eld o� ces across the country in a bid to bring administrative dynamism for achieving its revenue target set for the current � scal year.

“The revenue board has appointed three members at the NBR headquar-ter and � ve are transferred while two new commissioners are appointed at its � eld o� ces,’’ an o� cial of the NBR told the Dhaka Tribune yesterday.

At the member level, two of its zonal commissioners and one director gen-eral were promoted as the members of the revenue body.

“Such changes in the administra-tive duties in the income tax wing was nothing new, rather it is a part of reg-ular process, which NBR goes through every year,’’ said the o� cial.

“As we are already lagging behind the target, in order to achieve the high-er target of revenue set for � scal year (FY) 2013-14, the authority has already brought some changes at income tax

wing and more administrative changes are in the o� ng,” he said.

For the FY2013-14, the NBR is set to collect Tk136,090 crore revenue; how-ever, it has already witnessed Tk8,535 crore or 15% short of target during the � rst half of the � scal year.

The newly appointed NBR members are Chowdhury Amir Hossain, Parvez Iqbal and Sirajul Islam. Earlier, Chow-dhury Amir Hossain and Sirajul Islam were appointed as tax commissioners at zonal o� ces while Parvez Iqbal was working as director general of Central Intelligence Cell at NBR.

At the � eld level o� ces, Dhaka zone-6 income tax commissioner Mir Mushtak Ali has been transferred to Dhaka Zone o� ce 2, while zone-2 com-missioner Md Abdur Razzak has been made director general at Central Intel-ligence Cell, zone-8 commissioner Zia Uddin Mahmood has been transferred to zone-one, tax commissioner and director general of BCS Tax Academy Meftah Uddin Khan has been trans-ferred to Dhaka zone o� ce-6, andMymenshing zonal commissioner Ronjon Kumer Bhoumik has been made the director general of BCS Tax Academy.

From the recently appointed tax commissioners, Begum Humaira Say-eeda has been made the commissioner at Mymenshing zonal tax o� ce, andMadhab Chandra Dash has been made the commissioner at Sylhet zonal tax o� ce.

For the FY13-14, the NBR is set to collect Tk48,300 crore from income tax. l

WB-supported solar systems supply power to 50,000 households every monthn Tribune Report

With support from World Bank and oth-er development partners, the govern-ment’s solar home system (SHS) pro-gramme is taking power to more than 50,000 rural households every month.

Rural Electri� cation and Renew-able Energy Development II (RERED II) Project is continuing to provide access to electricity in rural areas of Bangladesh through renewable energy sources, said a World Bank statement yesterday.

The project has already provided access to electricity to over 330,000 households.

Implemented by the govern-ment-owned Infrastructure De-velopment Company Limited (ID-COL) through a partnership with the non-government organisations (NGOs), Bangladesh’s SHS programme is a successful example of public-pri-

vate partnership (PPP).Solar home systems meet the basic

electricity needs of rural people, who would have otherwise been dependent on kerosene lamps for lighting, said the global lender.

A recent impact evaluation study on SHS have con� rmed increased study time for children, increased mobility and sense of security for women, and increased use of contraceptives and fall in recent fertility in SHS households, thanks to awareness from watching TV.

Building on the successful imple-mentation of the solar home systems, the RERED II project will soon start sup-porting renewable energy-based mini-grids in remote rural areas to provide electricity for productive applications.

The solar mini-grid project pipeline comprises 8 projects with a combined capacity of about 1 megawatt. Target-ing rural growth centres, the mini-grids are expected to contribute to increased

economic activities in rural areas. The project has mobilised grant

support from the US Agency for In-ternational Development (USAID) to provide grant support to the mini-grid schemes in addition to the credit sup-port from the International Develop-ment Association (IDA), the conces-sionary lending of the World Bank.

The project has started supporting solar irrigation pumps replacing die-sel-run pumps.

The solar irrigation pumps are re-ducing costs of irrigation to the farm-ers and also helping to save foreign exchange for importing diesel.

By providing a renewable source, the solar irrigation pumps are also con-tributing to reduced green-house gas emissions.

A total 50 solar irrigation pumps with a capacity of 3.3-11kWp are under construction.

To provide matching grant sup-

port to the solar irrigation pumps, an amount of $24.5m has been approved from the Bangladesh Climate Change Resilience Fund (BCCRF).

The � rst tranche of $10m has re-cently become e� ective.

More than 28m households in Ban-gladesh still rely on traditional bio-mass fuels burnt in ine� cient stoves.

With support from the RERED II project, IDCOL has embarked upon the improved cook stoves programme that will bene� t rural women and children, who are exposed to indoor air pollu-tion from ine� cient stoves.

Forty nine NGOs have been selected by IDCOL for implementing the cook stove programme, and implementa-tion is expected to start shortly.

The project will also support the second phase deployment of ener-gy-e� cient Compact Fluorescent Lamps (CFLs) and technical assistance to the power sector. l

Income tax short of December targetn Syed Samiul Basher Anik

Twenty nine of 31 income tax zones have failed to meet the income tax collection target for December due to political turmoil.

National Board of Revenue (NBR) o� cials said the body was able collect income tax of Tk2,888 crore against the target of Tk3,985 crore in the month.

Only zone 4 and Mymensingh zone achieved their respective targets at par.

NBR also missed the target set for the � rst half of current � scal year which will end on June 30.

The July-December period data showed the collection stood at Tk15,634 crore, which was 18% short of the target at Tk19,067 crore.

During the period, only three zones had been able to reach their respective targets.

NBR aims to collect Tk48,300 crore from income tax in the current � scal.

The revenue authorities’ Large Tax-payers Unit (LTU), which is responsible

for collecting the tax from the big tax-payers, also failed as the business was hit by the unrest.

LTU, contributor of around one fourth of the total collection, wit-nessed Tk1,291 crore de� cit compared to the target, said NBR o� cials.

They said many of the businesses were o� due to shutdowns and block-ades. The unrest hampered exports and imports largely.

“The prolonged political turmoil badly a� ected smooth functioning of business and revenue collection,” said Md Dobir Uddin, commissioner of tax-es at Chittagong 1 zone.

He said the Chittagong taxpayers are usually regular in paying taxes if business runs uninterrupted.

“As they could not do business during the unrest period, collection of tax was poor,” he added.

He expected the tax collection situ-ation to improve soon since business is running smoothly now.

The December data showed the

Large Taxpayers Unit collected Tk900 crore, the Chittagong income tax zone 1 Tk130 crore, Khulna Tk35 crore, Ra-jshahi Tk12 crore, Rangpur Tk23.12 crore, Barishal Tk10 crore, Sylhet Tk20 crore, Narayanganj Tk15.2 crore, Gazi-pur Tk25 crore, Comilla Tk15 crore and Bogra Tk9.05 crore. l

The revenue board has appointed three members at the NBR headquarter and � ve are transferred while two new commissioners are appointed at its � eld o� ces

Dealers allowed to make remittance of membership feesn Tribune Report

Authorized Dealers (ADs) have been al-lowed to make remittance of member-ship fees on behalf of the foreign profes-sional and scienti� c institutions, said a Bangladesh Bank circular yesterday.

Referring to the paragraph 9, chap-ter 11 of the Guidelines for Foreign Exchange Transactions (GFET) the cir-cular issued by the Foreign Exchange Policy Department of the central bank said it is now clari� ed that the above facility will also be available to busi-ness/professional entities in Bangla-desh with international a� liations.

Consequently, ADs may allow remit-tance on account of membership/a� l-iation fees payable by local business/professional entities to the profes-sional/scienti� c institutions abroad, in line with the instructions contained in above mentioned paragraph of GFET, said the circular. l

Muhith: Stock market very strong and stable in last couple of yearsDSE benchmark index remains stable at around 4,000 pointn Tribune Report

Finance Minister AMA Muhith yester-day said the country’s stock market have been very strong and stable for last two years – a unique situation of the market seen ever before.

“Journalists were writing wrong re-ports on stock market in last � ve years as they talked much about the market which was incorrect,” he told journal-ists, after a meeting with chairmen and managing directors of state-owned banks, insurance companies and � nan-cial institutions.

“We have amended the rules and regulations for development of the capital market. As a result, the busi-nessmen are coming to the market for capital instead of credit from the com-mercial banks,” said the minister.

He said the index of stock market rose substantially in the last years, but there were ups and downs in the stock market while a crash is a normal situation.

In late 2010, the market started slid-ing and gradually fell to its worst before stabilising at a low level with the then benchmark index DGEN (now defunct) remaining around 4,000 points, leav-ing investors particularly small ones to lose all the money.

In 2013, the Dhaka Stock Exchange (DSE) benchmark index registered more than 4% gain to close at 4,266. The DSEX was under severe pressure from the starting of the year and fell as low as 3438 on 30, April.

Strikingly, the volume of trade fell 6% and daily average turnover was down 5% to Tk400 crore.

Former � nance adviser to the last

caretaker government Mirza Azizul Is-lam earlier said: “The market was un-doubtedly undervalued last year if the current price-earnings ratio was taken into account.”

In 2013, price-earnings ratio stood at 15, according to the DSE. “Investors are yet to heal the wounds of market crash in late 2010, which re� ects in the lower turnovers and � at growth of indices,” he said.

The DSE saw its market capitalisa-tion increase 11% in 2013, spearheaded by a general increase in initial public o� erings (IPOs). The total market cap-italisation is Tk 264,779 crore which is 25.6% of the gross domestic product.

During the year, 17 new securities were listed on the DSE, which raised more than Tk1,000 crore through IPOs. Of the new securities, 15 were equity

stocks that raised Tk833 crore and two mutual funds worth Tk100 crore each.

Bankers advised to be cautious about fund embezzlementMuhith also directed the bankers and o� cials of � nancial institutions to be cautious about the embezzlement of money, reducing rate of default loans and adjusting the bank loan exposure in di� erent sectors.

He further directed the o� cials of � nancial institutions to take own work plans and let the authorities concerned informed.

Replying to a question, he said the government has no plan about how long it would stay in power, but any programme should be taken for � ve years whichever government comes to power. l

B2 Stock Tuesday, January 21, 2014DHAKA TRIBUNE

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

Pro� t taking ends 8-day rallyShariah Index debuts with marginal falln Tribune Report

Stocks edged lower yesterday amid pro� t booking mainly on � nancials and energy issues, ending an eight-day rally.

Shariah-based DSES index be-gan its journey with red on the � rsttrading day, as it saw marginalfall of just over 1 points or 0.2% to settle at 941 from its base point of 942.5.

The benchmark DSEX ended at 4,550 with a drop of almost 15 points or 0.4%. The blue-chip comprising DS30 index lost around 3 points or 0.2% to 1,609.

The Chittagong Stock Exchange Selective Category Index, CSCX, lost 39 points to close at 8,931.

“Market paused on pro� t taking after a long rally, which is inevita-ble,” said Akter H Sannamat, vice president of Bangladesh Merchant Bankers Association.

On new index, he said as inves-tors do not know yet which com-panies – bad or good – the new in-dex represent, investment decision should not be taken on index be-haviour.

“Stock exchange should disclose the names of the companies includ-ed in the index for understating its true re� ection.”

The total turnover on DSE stood at more than Tk600 crore, down nearly 14% over the previous ses-sion’s one-month high of over Tk700 crore.

“After a weeklong rally in index, market showed up some natural

correction, creating some scope for investors to churn their portfolios,” said Lanka Bangla Securities in its market analysis.

It said stock prices rolled over a bit under the presence of selling pressure in the � nancial and fuel & power sector.

Assurance from European Union to continue with the GSP facility for Bangladesh apparels failed to generate buying binge among the investors, as the sector index ended marginally higher by 0.3%, driven by only heavyweight Square Textile that gained more than 3%.

All other major sectors ended in red because of pro� t booking with power shedding most 1.3%, followed by banks, � nancial insti-tutions, telecommunications and pharmaceuticals.

However, life insurance andcement sectors ended in green de-clining over 2.7% and 1.5% respec-tively.

Activities centered mainly on fuel & power and engineering sec-tor, accounted for 13% and 12% of total market turnover.

United Airways dominated the top turnover chart with shares worth Tk30 crore changing hands, followed by Summit Purbanchol Power, United Commercial Bank Ltd, Padma Oil and Meghna Petro-leum.

Pragati Life Insurance was the day’s highest gainer, posting a rise of 9.7% while Meghna Condensed Milk was the day’s worst loser with a fall of 9.5%. l

News from trade serverDSE NEWS: Ware pleased to announce launch of DSEX Shariah Index (DSES) e� ec-tive from January 20, 2014. It will serve as a Shariah-compliant broad market bench-mark measuring the performance of the Bangladesh equity market. S&P Dow Jones Indices served as a consultant to the Dhaka Stock Exchange in designing the methodol-ogies for the DSEX Shariah Index. The Index is constructed as a subset of the DSE Broad Index (DSEX) and includes all stocks included in the parent index that pass rules-based screens for Shariah compliance. Constituents of DSE Broad Index are screen based on two broad parameters - Sector based screen and Accounting based Screen. On Jan 20, 2014, the index opened with 942.50271. Inception date of index is January 24, 2011 with the starting value (base value) of 1000.BSC: (Q1): As per un-audited quarterly accounts for the 1st quarter ended on 30th September 2013 (July'13 to Sep'13), the Com-pany has reported pro� t/(loss) after tax of Tk. 17.54 million with EPS of Tk. 1.29 as against Tk. (133.87) million and Tk. (16.18) respective-ly for the same period of the previous year. Accumulated pro� t/(loss) of the Company was Tk. (2,127.92) million as on 30.09.2013.BDCOM: (H/Y): As per un-audited half yearly accounts as on 31.12.2013 (July'13

to Dec'13), the Company has reported net pro� t after tax of Tk. 28.38 million with EPS of Tk. 0.85 as against Tk. 22.56 million and Tk. 0.68 respectively for the same peri-od of the previous year. Whereas net pro� t after tax was Tk. 14.38 million with EPS of Tk. 0.43 for the period of 3 months (Oct'13 to Dec'13) ended on 31.12.2013 as against Tk. 11.78 million and Tk. 0.35 respectively for the same period of the previous year.GSPFINANCE: As per Regulation 30 of DSE Listing Regulations, the Company has informed that a meeting of the Board of Directors will be held on January 22, 2014 at 3:00 PM to consider, among others, au-dited � nancial statements of the Company for the year ended on December 31, 2013.AGNISYSL: The Company has informed that it has credited the bonus shares for the year ended on June 30, 2013 to the respective shareholders' BO Accounts on January 19, 2014.RAHIMTEXT: The Company has informed that it has credited the bonus shares for the year ended on June 30, 2013 to the respective shareholders' BO Accounts on January 19, 2014.RIGHT SHARE: ARAMITCEM: Subscription 23.03.2014 to 17.04.2014. Record date for entitlement of rights share: 09.01.2014. RUPALILIFE- Subscription 06.04.2014 to

05.05.2014. Record date for entitlement of rights share: 16.01.2014.IPO Subscription: Emerald Oil Industries Limited subscription date 06-12 January 2014, NRB upto 21 Januray 2014. At per, face value taka 10 and market lot 500. Matin Spinning Mills Limited subscription date 26-30 January 2014, NRB upto 08 Feburay 2014. @ Tk. 37/-, face value taka 10 and market lot 200. Hwa Well Textiles (BD) Limited subscription date 17-23 February 2014, NRB upto 04 March 2014. At per, face value taka 10 and market lot 500.Dividend/AGMECABLES: 10% cash, AGM: 01.03.2014, RD: 29.12.2013. USMANIAGL: 11% Cash & 10% Stock, AGM: postponed, RD: 07.11.2013.POWERGRID: 15% Cash, AGM: 25.01.2014, Time: 10:00 AM. RD: 01.12.2013.EASTRNLUB: 30% Cash, AGM: 25.01.2014, RD: 04.12.2013. JAMUNAOIL: 90% Cash & 10% Stock, AGM: 25.01.2014, RD: 04.12.2013. SAVAREFR: No dividend, AGM: 30.01.2014, RD: 19.12.2013.PADMAOIL: 90% Cash, 10% Stock, AGM: 15.02.2014, RD: 23.12.2013. SAMORITA: 30% Stock, AGM: 11.01.2014, RD: 25.11.2013.

CSE TURNOVER LEADERS

Company Volume shares

Value in million

% of total turnover

Daily closing

Price change

Daily opening

Daily high

Daily low

Daily average

UNITED AIR-A 4,129,869 73.85 12.79 18.00 5.88 17.00 18.50 15.40 17.88Appollo Ispat CL -N 826,400 31.06 5.38 37.30 -2.36 38.20 38.20 37.10 37.58BSC-A 64,405 30.01 5.20 468.00 8.71 430.50 468.00 455.00 465.97UCBL - A 818,732 23.62 4.09 28.70 -1.03 29.00 29.30 28.20 28.85S Purbanchol Power-N 234,390 17.56 3.04 74.90 1.49 73.80 75.50 73.00 74.90Padma Oil Co. -A 44,760 14.72 2.55 326.90 0.12 326.50 335.00 325.00 328.94Bengal Windsor-N 144,776 10.38 1.80 70.90 -0.98 71.60 73.00 70.40 71.73Golden Son -A 149,700 9.76 1.69 64.50 -2.71 66.30 66.60 64.20 65.19Paramount Textile Ltd.-A 175,630 9.39 1.63 52.80 -0.94 53.30 54.60 52.60 53.46Generation Next-A 250,900 9.03 1.56 35.70 -1.65 36.30 36.50 35.50 36.01BD Submarine Cable-A 55,195 8.91 1.54 164.70 1.54 162.20 165.30 158.10 161.37Meghna Petroleum -A 32,936 8.26 1.43 249.20 -2.27 255.00 257.00 248.00 250.82LafargeS Cement-Z 215,000 8.04 1.39 37.50 1.35 37.00 37.90 36.50 37.39Square Pharma -A 35,227 7.72 1.34 219.00 -0.77 220.70 222.00 218.00 219.05

DSE TURNOVER LEADERS

Company Volume shares

Value in million

% of total turnover

Daily closing

Price change

Daily opening

Daily high

Daily low

Daily average

UNITED AIR-A 16,721,251 299.26 4.90 17.90 4.68 17.10 18.70 15.40 17.90S Purbanchol Power-N 2,724,870 203.75 3.34 74.70 1.22 73.80 75.60 67.00 74.77UCBL - A 6,801,754 196.26 3.21 28.70 -1.03 29.00 29.40 27.00 28.85Padma Oil Co. -A 536,432 177.03 2.90 327.40 -0.09 327.70 334.50 300.00 330.01Meghna Petroleum -A 677,991 169.96 2.78 249.50 -1.54 253.40 256.70 241.00 250.68Appollo Ispat CL -N 4,198,200 157.46 2.58 37.10 -2.62 38.10 38.30 37.00 37.51Olympic Ind. -A 700,893 122.21 2.00 172.90 -2.92 178.10 181.10 164.00 174.36ApexAdelchi Ftr -A 221,600 119.72 1.96 540.60 0.04 540.40 550.90 530.10 540.27BSC-A 254,075 117.75 1.93 467.25 8.73 429.75 467.25 445.00 463.46HeidelbergCement -A 254,900 113.03 1.85 442.60 2.03 433.80 448.30 437.00 443.43Generation Next-A 2,958,760 106.07 1.74 35.40 -1.94 36.10 36.50 32.50 35.85Delta Life Insu. -A 393,900 105.72 1.73 269.50 1.51 265.50 272.70 265.00 268.38Con� denceCement A 738,880 102.87 1.68 139.70 1.97 137.00 140.30 130.00 139.22LankaBangla Fin. -A 1,340,967 102.54 1.68 76.30 -0.91 77.00 79.00 70.00 76.46Bengal Windsor-N 1,283,332 91.49 1.50 71.00 -0.70 71.50 73.90 66.00 71.29Square Pharma -A 408,128 89.43 1.46 219.00 -0.68 220.50 225.00 205.00 219.12Grameenphone-A 399,000 82.86 1.36 207.10 -0.58 208.30 210.70 206.80 207.66BD Submarine Cable-A 515,718 82.70 1.35 163.90 1.30 161.80 165.00 150.00 160.36Active Fine Chem.-A 826,336 79.20 1.30 95.60 -0.83 96.40 97.00 90.00 95.84Paramount Textile Ltd.-A 1,403,590 74.76 1.22 52.70 -1.13 53.30 57.00 48.00 53.27

SECTORAL TURNOVER SUMMARY

Sector DSE CSE TotalMillion Taka % change Million Taka % change Million Taka % change

Bank 624.04 10.22 64.06 11.08 688.10 10.29NBFI 416.09 6.81 28.84 4.99 444.93 6.65Investment 173.53 2.84 12.39 2.14 185.92 2.78Engineering 724.56 11.86 80.84 13.98 805.39 12.04Food & Allied 167.10 2.74 18.74 3.24 185.83 2.78Fuel & Power 823.69 13.48 59.41 10.27 883.11 13.21Jute 1.69 0.03 0.00 1.69 0.03Textile 684.55 11.21 55.60 9.62 740.15 11.07Pharma & Chemical 475.78 7.79 42.40 7.33 518.18 7.75Paper & Packaging 0.49 0.01 0.20 0.04 0.70 0.01Service 26.78 0.44 1.98 0.34 28.76 0.43Leather 173.32 2.84 7.84 1.36 181.17 2.71Ceramic 31.11 0.51 2.53 0.44 33.64 0.50Cement 411.07 6.73 30.10 5.21 441.18 6.60Information Technology 53.89 0.88 8.76 1.52 62.66 0.94General Insurance 156.79 2.57 4.43 0.77 161.22 2.41Life Insurance 487.25 7.98 28.86 4.99 516.12 7.72Telecom 165.56 2.71 15.55 2.69 181.11 2.71Travel & Leisure 330.42 5.41 75.50 13.06 405.92 6.07Miscellaneous 180.92 2.96 40.18 6.95 221.11 3.31Debenture 0.07 0.00 0.01 0.00 0.08 0.00

Weekly capital market highlightsDSE Broad Index : 4550.47819 (-) 0.33% ▲

DSE - 30 Index : 941.27986 (-) 0.13% ▼

CSE All Share Index: 14080.8926 (-) 0.18% ▲

CSE - 30 Index : 11666.9112 (-) 0.40% ▲

CSE Selected Index : 8931.1129 (-) 0.43% ▲

DSE key features January 20, 2014Turnover (Million Taka)

6,108.71

Turnover (Volume)

139,692,101

Number of Contract 137,268

Traded Issues 292

Issue Gain (Avg. Price Basis)

103

Issue Loss (Avg. Price Basis)

186

Unchanged Issue (Avg. Price Basis)

3

Market Capital Equity (Billion. Tk.)

2,185.41

Market Capital Equity (Billion US$)

26.49

CSE key features January 20, 2014Turnover (Million Taka) 577.64

Turnover (Volume) 16,364,430

Number of Contract 21,731

Traded Issues 225

Issue Gain (Avg. Price Basis)

73

Issue Loss (Avg. Price Basis)

149

Unchanged Issue (Avg. Price Basis)

2

Market Capital Equity (Billion. Tk.)

2,092.92

Market Capital Equity (Billion US$)

25.37

ANALYSTMarket paused on pro� t taking after a long rally, which is inevitable

CSE LOSERS

Company Closing (% change)

Aver-age (%

change)

Closing average Closing Daily high Daily low Turnover

in millionLatest

EPSLatest

PE

Prime Islami Life -A -7.56 -6.97 110.70 110.00 117.00 110.00 0.055 4.95 22.4Kay & Que (BD) -Z -7.26 -7.00 21.67 21.70 21.70 21.60 0.065 -0.89 -veISN Ltd. -A -6.06 -5.32 22.05 21.70 22.50 21.40 1.158 -0.36 -veCity Bank - A -4.67 -3.14 20.65 20.40 22.00 20.00 3.022 1.17 17.6 Argon Denims Limited-A -4.60 -4.24 70.38 70.50 71.00 69.10 0.510 3.33 21.1Delta Brac HFCL-A -3.82 -1.46 68.00 68.00 68.00 68.00 0.102 4.72 14.4JMI Syringes MDL-A -3.73 -1.68 221.03 216.90 225.30 216.80 2.873 1.97 112.2 Trust Bank-A -3.48 -3.64 19.35 19.40 20.20 19.10 0.493 1.47 13.2CVO PetroChem RL-Z -3.45 -3.46 651.67 651.70 660.00 650.00 1.043 -6.76 -veBay Leasing.-A -3.37 -4.30 37.42 37.30 38.00 37.10 0.947 1.56 24.0

DSE LOSERS

Company Closing (% change)

Aver-age (%

change)

Closing average Closing Daily high Daily low Turnover

in millionLatest

EPSLatest

PE

Meghna Con. Milk -B -9.46 -11.04 13.54 13.40 14.30 13.40 2.289 -4.60 -veImam Button -Z -8.49 -9.58 9.91 9.70 10.60 9.70 0.669 -2.20 -veKay & Que (BD) -Z -8.44 -10.24 21.74 21.70 22.60 21.40 0.837 -0.89 -veMeghna PET Ind. -Z -7.69 -8.86 8.54 8.40 8.70 8.40 0.363 -0.52 -veStylecraft -A -6.55 -6.55 885.00 885.00 885.00 885.00 0.089 20.50 43.2ISN Ltd. -A -6.44 -4.56 22.17 21.80 23.00 21.50 3.740 -0.36 -veDulamia CottonZ -6.19 -10.49 9.22 9.10 9.90 9.00 0.119 -1.90 -veMidas Financing-Z -5.76 -5.24 31.27 31.10 32.00 30.50 2.486 -2.48 -veZeal Bangla Sugar -Z -4.95 -5.29 9.67 9.60 10.00 9.60 0.029 -5.64 -veJMI Syringes MDL-A -3.90 -2.26 220.16 217.10 230.00 216.30 25.869 1.97 111.8

CSE GAINERS

Company Closing (% change)

Aver-age (%

change)

Closing average Closing Daily high Daily low Turnover

in millionLatest

EPSLatest

PE

GSP Finance-A 9.90 2.91 32.51 33.30 33.30 29.00 2.289 1.47 22.1Eastern Cables-Z 9.56 9.54 98.61 98.60 99.00 92.00 0.266 0.68 145.0BSC-A 8.71 7.95 465.97 468.00 468.00 455.00 30.011 5.16 90.3Padma Islami Life*-N 8.51 4.71 69.79 71.40 72.00 65.50 3.678 1.10 63.4PragatiLife Insu. -A 6.70 5.60 214.70 231.00 231.00 212.30 6.871 2.38 90.2Meghna Life Ins. -A 6.53 5.92 134.06 137.00 137.90 129.00 0.959 6.45 20.8Apex Foods -A 6.45 5.36 112.73 113.90 114.80 108.00 0.620 3.96 28.5UNITED AIR-A 5.88 4.99 17.88 18.00 18.50 15.40 73.846 1.52 11.8Rangpur Foundry -A 5.80 5.80 104.00 104.00 104.00 104.00 0.052 3.03 34.3Sun Life Insurance-N 5.61 3.35 66.30 67.80 69.80 61.00 5.673 0.00 -

DSE GAINERS

Company Closing (% change)

Aver-age (%

change)

Closing average Closing Daily high Daily low Turnover

in millionLatest

EPSLatest

PE

Progressive Life-A 9.69 10.06 145.50 147.10 147.50 126.00 11.961 2.30 63.3Padma Islami Life*-N 9.49 5.27 69.88 71.50 71.80 62.00 56.204 1.10 63.5BSC-A 8.73 7.57 463.46 467.25 467.25 445.00 117.753 5.16 89.8National Tubes -A 7.37 3.80 100.28 103.40 105.00 91.00 36.000 1.84 54.5Standard Ceramic -A 7.37 7.45 40.80 40.80 40.90 40.00 0.408 1.01 40.4PragatiLife Insu. -A 7.35 6.13 226.36 230.70 232.40 200.00 45.971 2.38 95.1Eastern Cables-Z 6.34 6.15 99.62 100.70 102.00 93.00 5.004 0.68 146.5Sun Life Insurance-N 6.09 3.11 66.31 67.90 70.00 59.00 49.555 0.00 -GSP Finance-A 6.05 3.16 32.61 33.30 33.80 28.30 59.064 1.47 22.21st ICB M F -A 5.97 5.62 940.00 943.10 945.00 940.00 0.141 60.76 15.5

B3BusinessDHAKA TRIBUNE Tuesday, January 21, 2014

Bangladesh Thai Chamber of Commerce and Ind ustry (BTCCI) held its 2nd Board of Directors meeting for the term 2013-2015 at its conference room recently. BTCCI President Sajjatus Jumma presided over the meeting. Former DCCI President and BTCCI Founder President Rashed Maksud Khan, former DCCI President and BTCCI Director Zafar Osman, former DCCI President and BTCCI Director Asif Ibrahim were also seen in the photo

Life Insurance stocks shine despite falling indicesn Tribune Business Desk

Stock prices of twelve life insurance companies moved up by almost 3% at Dhaka Stock Exchange yesterday, con-tributing about 8% of the total market turnover.

Total value of trades in the sector stood at Tk48.6 crore yesterday with Delta Life Insurance coming out as the most traded stock with a value of Tk10.5 crore.

The list of top ten gainers was dom-inated by Progressive Life that rose 9.7%, followed by Padma Islami Life 9.5%, Pragati Life 7.4% and Sunlife 6.1%.

None of the companies within the sector made any disclosure yesterday.

The companies represent a sectoral market capital of over Tk7,500 crore, making up over 3% of the total market capital at DSE. l

Oil prices down in Asian traden AFP, Singapore

Oil prices eased in Asian trade yes-terday after China’s 2013 economic growth came in at its slowest rate in 14 years, fuelling concerns over demand in the world’s second largest economy.

New York’s main contract, West Texas Intermediate (WTI) for February delivery, was down 67 cents at $93.70 a barrel in afternoon trade, while Brent North Sea crude for March dropped 15 cents to $106.33.

China said Monday gross domestic product grew 7.7% last year, the same as 2012 and in line with a median fore-cast in a survey of 14 economists by AFP. It also beat the government’s o� -cial target of 7.5%.

Growth for the October-December quarter also came in at 7.7%, the Na-tional Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said, slowing from 7.8% in the previous three months.

Kenny Kan, market analyst at CMC Markets, said the Chinese data “paint-ed a dimmer picture for the energy sec-tor”.

French lender Credit Agricole said the slowdown in quarter-on-quarter growth was overstated “due to lower number of working days” than in the previous three months.

China is the world’s biggest ener-gy-consuming nation and the health of its economy is closely watched by oil traders.

Kan said oil prices also were under pressure over concerns about an over-supply in the United States.

Ali Al Naimi, the Oil Minister of Sau-di Arabia, on Sunday said the OPEC cartel kingpin is unconcerned by a boom in US shale oil production.

“The kingdom welcomes this new source of energy that helps ful� ll the growing world demand for energy, and helps stabilise oil markets,” state news agency SPA quoted Naimi as saying.

In October, oil production in the United States surpassed imports for the � rst time in nearly two decades, helped mainly by production from newly tapped shale-based reserves.

CMC’s Kan said trading was expect-ed to remain thin for the rest of the day yesterday as US markets are closed for a public holiday. l

Dollar mixed in Asia after upbeat US datan AFP, Tokyo

The dollar was mixed in Asia yesterday following broadly upbeat US economic data, while the yen was lifted by specu-lation the Bank of Japan’s policy board will hold o� any new stimulus mea-sures when it meets this week.

The greenback bought 104.08 yen in Tokyo afternoon trade, slipping from 104.30 yen on Friday in New York, while the euro weakened to $1.3530 and 140.84 yen compared with $1.3535 and 141.17 yen.

O� cial � gures released in Washing-ton on Friday showed US factory out-put rose 0.3% last month, extending its streak of gains since July. In addition, housing starts fell in December from November’s � ve-year high, but the drop was not as much as forecast while the pace of home building remained strong.

There was muted reaction to � gures showing China’s gross domestic prod-uct expanded 7.7% last year, its slow-est rate in 14 years at a time of concern about the strength of the world’s num-ber-two economy.

Investors will be looking for further evidence of the state of the US econo-my as the Federal Reserve prepares for its next policy meeting next week.

The central bank last month said it would trim its bond-buying pro-gramme by $10bn a month to $75bn in January, citing a � rming economy. Many investors are betting on a further reduction at the January meeting.

Eyes this week are on the Bank of Ja-pan’s next policy board meeting, which wraps up tomorrow , with expectations it will hold steady on new measures -- a positive for the yen -- until it can gauge the e� ect of an April sales tax rise.

“Although we keep an overall bear-ish stance regarding the yen, we do not exclude additional short-term correc-tion risk,” Credit Agricole said.

“This is mainly due to a falling prob-ability of the BoJ considering more ag-gressive policy action.”

Also this week, agencies Moody’s and Fitch are to announce fresh credit ratings on Germany and France. Stan-dard & Poor’s downgraded France’s rat-ing in November.

The greenback was mostly stronger against other Asia-Paci� c currencies.

It � rmed to Sg$1.2769 from Sg$1.2724 on Friday, to 1,063.14 South Korean won from 1,061.19 won, to Tw$30.11 from Tw$30.07 and to 61.62 Indian rupees from 61.41 rupees.

It also rose to 32.88 Thai baht from 32.74 baht, and to 45.12 Philippine pe-sos from 45.08 pesos while the dollar slipped to 12,120 Indonesian rupiah from 12,124 rupiah.

The Australian dollar was hovering around three-year lows, changing hands at 87.77 US cents against 88.18 cents. l

Asia manages muted cheer for China growthn Reuters

Asian markets managed a muted cheer yesterday as China reported econom-ic growth that was a fraction ahead of forecasts, a relief to many but still not enough to dispel a general air of cau-tion.

A majority of the share markets in the region stayed in the red with Tokyo o� 0.5%, Sydney 0.3% and Shanghai 0.5%.

MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacif-ic shares outside Japan pared its losses but was still down 0.2%.

Liquidity was lacking with US mar-kets closed yesterday for a holiday. Neither was there much of a lead from

Wall Street where the Dow ended last week with a slim gain of 0.1%, while the S&P 500 lost 0.2% for the week.

China’s annual economic growth slowed a tick to 7.7% last quarter, which was just ahead of market fore-casts for 7.6% and at least countered fears that monetary tightening could have caused a sharper pullback.

“The economy may be a little more robust than people thought coming into 2014,” said Tim Condon, an econ-omist at ING Group in Singapore.

“I had thought the monetary tight-ening in 2013 would pose a downside risk. The numbers reduce that down-side risk.”

The other data out were much in line with forecasts, with retail sales growing 13.6% in December from a year earlier, while industrial output rose 9.7%.

That resilience was considered a positive for Australia given China is its single biggest export market, and helped the Australian dollar clamber o� a three-year trough of $0.8756 to reach $0.8780.

Yet the Australian currency remains out of favour having shed 2.4% last week due to disappointing domestic data and demand for US dollars and yen.

In contrast, the US dollar gained 0.9% last week against a basket of major currencies on expectations the

Federal Reserve will stick with plans to scale back its bond buying at a policy meeting later this month.

The yen had been in demand on yesterday as general mood of risk aver-sion led speculators to cut back on short positions, which has been a very popular trade for months now.

The euro was particularly a� ect-ed, dropping to a six-week low at one stage before steadying at 140.73 yen. The dollar eased to 104.05 yen from an early 104.32.

The Bank of Japan holds its policy meeting on Tuesday and Wednesday and is expected to maintain its massive asset buying programme. l

Tata Motors unveils new petrol enginen Reuters

Tata Motors  Ltd yesterday showed o� the � rst variant from its newseries of petrol engines, expected to power some of its future cars, as the company looks to capture a returning shift in consumer preference for the fuel.

With the government allowing fuel retailers to gradually increase the price of diesel - a popular fuel in Indiathanks to government subsidies - the gap between the prices of petrol and diesel is narrowing, causing demand to slowly gravitate back towards petrol cars.

Tata Motors, which has seen sales plunge this year amid a widerslowdown in the auto market,generates the bulk of its passenger vehicle sales through diesel-powered vehicles.

“Petrol represents a big opportuni-ty for us. Our play in petrol has been lower than we have in diesel,” Ranjit Yadav, president of the company’s passenger vehicle business unit, told reporters.

The new 1.2 litre turbocharged en-gine will be used in the company’s compact vehicles, some of which are expected to be launched later thisyear. l A worker assembles a vehicle at Tata Motors' plant in Pimpri, India REUTERS

China sets � nal duties on US solar materialsn Reuters

China  hit the United States with � nal anti-dumping and anti-subsidy duties on imports of solar-grade polysilicon yesterday, the latest move in what has been a contentious trade battle in the solar industry.

The anti-dumping duties, an-nounced by China’s Commerce Minis-try, were in line with initial levels lev-ied last year of up to 57% on imports of the raw material used to make solar panels.

Anti-subsidy duties on US imports

were set at 2.1%, lower than the upper limit 6.5% preliminary duties set in September.

The ministry also levied � nal an-ti-dumping duties on South Korean polysilicon of between 2.4% and 12.3%.

An investigation concluded that China’s producers “su� ered substan-tial harm” due to the United States and  South Korea  selling below cost in the Chinese markets, and also due to US subsidies, the ministry said in statements on its website.

The duties would be e� ective im-mediately and last � ve years, it said.

REC Solar Grade Silicon LLC and AE Polysilicon Corp were among the hardest hit with anti-dumping duties at 57%.

Washington had called previously announced duties disappointing, and many in the US solar industry saw the move as an attempt to protect China’s struggling domestic � rms.

The United States has already im-posed its own duties of about 30% on Chinese solar panels in a case � nalized in 2012.

China and the European Union have also soured their relations over solar

industry disputes.Europe had planned to impose

heavy tari� s on Chinese solar panels but a majority of EU governments - led by  Germany  and wary of o� ending China’s leaders and losing business - opposed the plan and sealed a com-promise deal in July.

Chinese solar equipment producers like LDK Solar Co Ltd are struggling. China’s State Council, or cabinet, has pledged to boost support as the gov-ernment seeks to revive a sector strug-gling with overcapacity and falling prices. l

The kingdom welcomes this new source of energy that helps ful� ll the growing world demand for energy, and helps stabilise oil markets

A worker inspects solar panels at a solar farm in Dunhuang, 950km (590 miles) northwest of Lanzhou, Gansu Province REUTERS

China central bank o� ers emergency funds to small banks as rates rise: sourcesn Reuters

China’s central bank is o� ering emer-gency funding support to commercial banks amid a spike in cash rates, sourc-es with direct knowledge of the move told Reuters yesterday.

The People’s Bank of China (PBOC) will o� er up to 120bn yuan ($19.8bn) in 1-14 day funds to smaller banks via its Standing Lending Facility (SLF), the three sources said.

The move by PBOC comes after the interest rate that banks charge each other for short-term loans spiked in re-cent days. Traders attributed the high-er rates to elevated cash demand in the run-up to the Chinese Lunar New Year holiday, which begins on January 31.

A PBOC spokesman declined to comment.

The sources said banks incorpo-

rated at the regional or local level can apply to the PBOC for fund injections when the interest rate on the overnight bond repurchase rate exceeds 5%, the seven-day repo rate exceeds 7%, or the 14-day repo rate exceeds 8%.

The overnight rate closed at 4.30% on a weighted-average basis on Mon-day but individual trades occurred as high as 9%.

The seven- and 14-day rates peaked yesterday at 10% and 7.8%, respective-ly, according to data from the National Interbank Funding Center.

The central bank typically uses its SLF to provide one- to three-month loans to commercial banks. In this case, however, the cash injections will range from one to 14 days.

The PBOC typically provides this type of short-term cash via reverse repos at its twice-weekly open market

operations. But the central bank has skipped open market operations for the last three weeks.

The relaunch of initial public o� er-ings of stock is also boosting cash de-mand this week. IPOs, restarted last week after a 14-month freeze, drive demand for short-term funding as in-vestors need to deposit funds with un-derwriters in order to subscribe to new listings. Eight companies said yester-day that they would list on the Shen-zhen Stock Exchange on today, the � rst listings on China’s smaller bourse since the freeze ended.

Traders had previously predict-ed funding conditions would tighten in late January. The latest funding squeeze follows severe cash crunches in late June and late December.

The seven-day rate peaked at 28% on June 20, the highest trade on re-

cord, and soared again to 10% on De-cember 20 and 23.

Bankers and analysts say the PBOC is attempting to strike a balance by guiding interbank interest rates high-er without provoking a severe credit crunch that would spark panic.

Bankers say the central bank is us-ing higher money market rates as a tool to curb the explosive growth in econ-omy-wide debt since 2008, especially o� -balance sheet debt that is often funded through interbank borrowing.

The PBOC and the banking regulator have repeatedly urged banks to improve liquidity management and reduce reli-ance on short-term funding markets.

Analysts say smaller banks rely the most on money-market funding be-cause their smaller branch networks provide them less access to customer deposits. l

B4 BusinessDHAKA TRIBUNE Tuesday, January 21, 2014

Google set to face Intellectual Ventures in landmark patent trialIntellectual Ventures is set to square o� this week against Google Inc's Motoro-la Mobility unit in the � rst trial that the multibillion-dollar patent-buying � rm has undertaken since it was founded. Private-ly-held Intellectual Ventures sued Mo-torola in 2011, claiming the mobile phone maker infringed patents covering a variety of smartphone-related technologies, in-cluding Google Play. Motorola has denied the allegations and will now go to trial over three of those patents. -Reuters

Russia to support domestic car industry with subsidiesRussia plans to support its struggling auto industry with subsidies of up to 271bn rou-bles ($8bn) in the three years to 2016, the government said. -Reuters

Asian shares mostly downAsian markets were mostly lower yester-day, after China released data showing the economy in 2013 recorded its slowest growth rate for more than a decade. The losses came after a broadly negative lead from Wall Street, while Japanese gaming giant Nintendo brie� y lost almost a � fth of its value following a forecast last week that it would see a net loss this � scal year. – AFP

Japan revises down November factory output, shrinks 0.1%Japan’s factory output in November was weaker than � rst reported with industrial production turning down 0.1%, according to revised data yesterday, in the latest sign of slowing growth. The reading - which came after preliminary data had shown a 0.1% rise in output on-month - also marked the � rst contraction in three months. – AFP

Nintendo shares fall 6.14%on annual loss warningShares in Japan’s Nintendo lost nearly a � fth of their value at one stage yesterday after the gaming giant warned it would slip back into the red on poor sales of its Wii U game console. The stock plunged almost 19% in morning deals before re-couping most of its losses to close 6.14% lower at 13,745 yen. – AFP

Taiwan’s export ordersup 7.4% in DecemberTaiwan’s export orders rose 7.4% in December from a year ago on the back of growing overseas demand for new cell-phones and other consumer products. Of-fering hopes of a slightly brighter picture in 2014 for the export-reliant economy, shipments in December totalled $42.31bn, compared with a rise of just 0.8% record-ed in November, the economics ministry said in a statement. – AFP

Tokyo stocks close down 0.59%Tokyo stocks closed 0.59% lower yesterday as the dollar weakened against the yen, while gaming giant Nintendo plunged after warning last week it would slip into a loss this � scal year. – AFP

NEWS IN BRIEF

n Bijon Islam

Inventory is always bad. Based on this premise, operations modelers have forever tried to keep inventories at optimum level - just think, Wal-Mart spent billions in developing automated systems to maintain and re-order their stocks. However, Toyota changed the game by adopting “Lean Manufactur-ing” techniques. “Just in Time”, or the famous “JIT,” was born. All raw mate-rials and supplies arrived at the manu-facturing plant at the right time, went in the assembly line, and then after a series of micro-calculated steps, the complete car heads for a sales shop. Apart from work-in-process materials the system exhausts any option for ideal resources.

After the widely studied JIT tech-nique, businesses became more inter-ested in lean thinking, and Eric Ries, author of “The Lean Startup” and en-trepreneur-in-residence at Harvard Business School, popularized the mod-el for startups. As of now a high per-centage of Silicon Valley entrepreneurs adapt to this technique, top global names that utilized this technique in-clude the likes of Facebook, Dropbox and Second Life.

So what does Lean Thinking Move-ment mean exactly and how has it become so relevant for Bangladesh? The Lean Business Model entails that instead of committing too many re-sources in building a full product, one should build a Minimum Viability Pro-totype (MVP) and then test it out with customers. Based on their direct feed-back the company should then either build on the product or make neces-sary feature modi� cations. This means the company continuously commits resources on building a value the con-

sumer actually wants and stop all pe-ripheral or ancillary activities.

Post � nancial meltdown, large eco-nomic systems were hit including the states plus the European Union and global banking giants such as HSBC and Citi decided to approach leaner models. They closed down all periph-eral activities wherever possible and focused on their core expertise. For example, HSBC has closed consumer banking in Thailand and has severely curtailed their retail-banking platform in Bangladesh.

If this wasn’t enough, we recently wit-nessed the government shutdown � asco in the USA. Talks are high on how the US healthcare sector can become Lean and work in models similar to India’s (where hospitals cuts costs by adopting a hub and spoke model - for example a hos-pital brand has medical centers all over the country for high volume and short treatments but feeds in complicated and high value cases to headquarters). This way Indian hospitals are able to achieve higher economies of scale and keep ex-penses and client charges down.

So what kind of impact will this have on Bangladesh? Since the globe is increasingly focusing on Lean Think-ing, in almost every domain starting from Startups to corporate and end-ing in even public sectors, it’s time

for Bangladesh to start adopting such practices.

Any given multinational banks in Bangladesh operate with far less em-ployees than our local private com-mercial banks and still have a signi� -cantly higher revenue-per-employee ratio. Joint ventures here will increas-ingly center on lean operations, and local business es will risk losing out on competitive edge.

Moreover, Bangladesh needs the Lean Thinking Principals, our in� a-tions are high, cost of living is going up alarmingly fast, and even necessary rights to services such as quality educa-tion and healthcare are getting scarce.

Universities and programmes worldwide are adopting similar ap-proaches to solve development critical problems; India is also going big with Frugal Innovations even on an indus-trial scale (like Tata Nano), therefore to take industrialisation forward Bangla-desh has to commit on being the least wasteful and doing things that yield proper results (that also means limit-ing political instability as well).

As the connected world moves to-wards achieving higher e� cacies, global � rms will start selling products in our market by employing lean solu-tions such as social media engagement and e-commerce front ends.

We are already seeing the advent of � rms like OLX; if not careful, our do-mestic businesses, which often take extended time to react to the market, will become less cost competitive and Leaner Global Businesses will actively take up market leadership. l

The writer is the director of strategy at LightCastle Partners, an emerging market specialised business planning and intelligence � rm. Workers assemble cars at Hyundai's plant in Sriperumbudur, about 45 km (28 miles) north of Chennai REUTERS

Malaysia relaxes auto sector curbs to woo foreign carmakersn AFP, Kuala Lumpur

Malaysia announced yesterday it would allow foreign automakers to build smaller passenger cars in the country, a liberalising move aimed at repositioning the country as a leader in energy-e� cient vehicles.

The changes, e� ective immediately, will for the � rst time allow foreign au-tomakers to build cars with engines of 1.8 litres or less if those cars qualify as energy-e� cient.

Such projects will not need domes-tic investment partners and will enjoy incentives such as tax breaks, Trade Minister Mustapa Mohamed told re-porters.

“The policies used to be there to protect (national car brand) Proton. But we have opened up the market,” he said.

“We believe these policies will en-able Malaysia to regain our position as one of the most dynamic hubs for Southeast Asia.”

Malaysia, the region’s third-largest economy after Thailand and Indonesia, was once Southeast Asia’s automotive hub.

But it has fallen behind its two ri-vals through decades of industry pol-icies that coddled Proton, which was launched in 1983.

Malaysia now produces far fewer vehicles than Thailand or Indonesia.

The government had previously shielded Proton via excise and import duties of up to 150% on foreign vehi-cles, and other restrictions.

The policies have been blamed for contributing to sub-standard Proton models. The � rm, which was state-owned until 2012, has recorded losses in recent years as its market share sank.

Consumers have also complained the policies made better-built foreign cars too expensive for many Malaysian buyers.

Malaysia already allows foreign car-makers to manufacture larger vehicles in the country, after lifting foreign-eq-uity caps on such ventures in 2010.

The reforms could be attractive to some foreign manufacturers look-ing for a regional production base but should not worry Malaysia’s neigh-bours much, said A� n Investment’s auto sector analyst Chong Lee Len.

“It’s a positive step for the market, but not quite a ‘Big Bang’,” she said.

In 2012 Thailand and Indonesia produced 2.4 million and 1.1 million cars under foreign nameplates, respec-tively, up 67% and 27% from the year earlier, according to the International Organisation of Motor Vehicle Manu-facturers.

Neither country has a national car project. l

Lean thinking movement: Optimising inventory

We are already seeing the advent of � rms like OLX; if not careful, our domestic businesses, which often take extended time to react to the market, will become less cost competitive and Leaner Global Businesses will actively take up market leadership

China's 2013 growth matches its slowest rate since 1999n AFP, Beijing

China's economy last year registered � at growth of 7.7%, maintaining its slowest expansion in more than a decade as the government warnedMonday of "deep-rooted problems" in-cluding a mountain of local authority debt.

Gross domestic product (GDP) expansion for the October-Decem-ber quarter also came in at 7.7%, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said, from 7.8% in the previous three months.

The 2013 GDP � gure was the same as that for 2012 - which was the worst rate of growth since 1999 - and matched the median forecast in a survey of 14 econ-omists by AFP.

It exceeded the government's growth target for the year, which was declared as 7.5%.

Growth for the fourth quarter was better than the AFP survey's median forecast of 7.6%.

"Generally speaking China's econo-my showed good momentum of stable and moderate growth in 2013, which is (a) hard-earned achievement," NBS chief Ma Jiantang told reporters.

The agency also reported positive data for industrial output, retail sales and � xed asset investment.

"However, we should keep in mind that the deep-rooted problems built up over time are yet to be solved in what is a critical period for China's economy," Ma said.

Since the 1980s, China has shak-en o� the lethargy of the Communist command economy with reforms that brought years of blistering growth, making its GDP second only to the US and establishing it as the world's big-gest trading power in goods.

But it is expected to face slower ex-pansion in future.

Its leaders under President Xi Jin-ping say they are committed to trans-forming China's growth model to one where consumers and other private ac-tors play the leading role, rather than huge and often wasteful state invest-ment.

Yet such fundamental change will likely take time. The NBS data showed the contribution of investment to GDP growth rose last year, to 54.4%, while consumption's share fell.

For 2014, the median forecast in the AFP survey was for 7.5% growth.

"Judging from the data, our outlook for 2014 remains that China's economy will continue slowing down in the � rst half," Wendy Chen, Shanghai-based analyst for Nomura International, told AFP.

Within the past decade Chinese growth was regularly in double digits, but it has been slowing and the 2013 result has it in single � gures for three consecutive years for the � rst time since 2002.

Worries aheadChina's GDP totalled 56.88tn yuan ($9.39tn) in 2013, the NBS said. It gave the country's Gini co-e� cient - a mea-sure of income inequality with 0 rep-resenting perfect equality and 1 total inequality - as 0.473, a minuscule im-provement on 0.474 in 2012.

Ma of the NBS said China faces problems including dealing with bur-geoning local government debt.

"The risk of local government debt should be prevented and greater e� orts are to be made to weed out out-dated production capacity," he said.

China's leaders are also concerned about its � nancial system including "shadow banking" and government debt, particularly at regional level.

The results of a long-awaited debt audit last month showed local gov-ernments liabilities had ballooned to 17.9tn yuan as of the end of June, up 67% from the end of 2010.

Local authorities have long used debt to fuel growth in their regions, often by pursuing projects that are not

economically viable or sustainable.While few see the problem as a sys-

temic threat, the debt issue is consid-ered a serious potential drag on the economy unless steps are taken to rein it in.

Analysts also say shadow banking - non-transparent, less regulated credit - can stoke asset bubbles and threaten stability.

The term refers to lending some-times issued by legitimate banks and � nancial institutions, as well as private deals between individuals or compa-nies, that have arisen as a way of get-ting around strict banking rules.

Separately, the NBS said industrial output rose 9.7% in December year-on-year, and expanded 9.7% over 2013.

Retail sales gained 13.6% in Decem-ber and 13.1% in 2013, it said.

And � xed asset investment, a mea-sure of government spending on infra-structure, expanded 19.6% in 2013, the NBS added.

Hong Kong-based UBS Securities economist Wang Tao told AFP the main reason for a slowdown in fourth-quar-ter growth "was a decrease in infra-structure investment in the past few months, due to a stronger intention by the central government to control credit issuance and local government debt". l

Source: China National Bureau of Statistics, AFP

China GDP Quarterly growth (%) y-o-y

Yearly growth (%)

10

7.6

01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 1199 00 12

8.4

8.3

9.110.0

10.111.3

12.7 14.2

9.6

9.2

10.4

9.3

2013

7.7 7.8

Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3

7.5 7.7

7.7

7.9

Q42012

7.7

13

Official data