PM hints at DCC pollsthis winterProposal for extending city administrator’s tenure sent backn Muhammad Zahidul Islam

The long awaited polls for the bifurcat-ed Dhaka City Corporation are likely to take place early next year, following fresh directives from the prime minis-ter to the authorities concerned.

During the weekly cabinet meeting, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina report-edly asked authorities to arrange elec-tions by this winter for the Dhaka North City Corporation and Dhaka South City Corporation – polls that were originally slated for May 24, 2012.

Two ministers and a state minister – who were present at yesterday’s meet-ing – con� rmed the news to the Dhaka Tribune.

Meeting sources added that the premier also rejected a proposed amendment to the local government (city corporation) act, which moved to extend the tenure of both city administrators to one year from the existing six months.

A ruling party minister quoted Hasi-na as saying: “We are not concerned about the result [of the election]; please arrange elections for the two city corporations immediately.”

After the amendment to the bill was placed before the cabinet, Road Trans-port and Bridges Minister Obaidul Quader reportedly objected to it, claim-ing that extending the city administra-tors’ tenure would send a wrong signal to the people.

Water Resources Minister Anisul Is-lam Mahmud also voiced his support to Obaidul’s remarks and said the govern-

ment should not approve the amend-ment.

Following the discussion, the prime minister recommended that instead of amending the act, the government should go for arranging the elections.

Without commenting on the election issue, Cabinet Secretary M Musharraf Hossain Bhuiyan said the proposed amendment has been sent back to the LGRD Ministry following the cabinet decision.

“The cabinet thinks amending the bill needs more consultation,” Mushar-raf said during his o� cial press brie� ng after the meeting.

Meanwhile, Local Government Di-vision Secretary Monzur Hossain, who was also present in the cabinet meet-ing, said: “It [the proposed amend-ment] has very little chance to go back to the cabinet again.”

Refusing to comment on the an-nouncement of schedule for the elec-tions, Monzur said: “Election to the local administration is Election Com-mission’s mandate and if they want our assistance we can oblige.”

Sources said the Election Commis-sion had planned to announce a poll schedule for the split DCC after Rama-dan this year, but eventually scrapped the plan. EC sources also told the Dha-ka Tribune that there were still dis-putes surrounding the delimitation of wards 55, 56 and 57.

Before the 10th national election, the commission had sent letters to the LGRD Ministry to carry out the delimitation of the wards on an emergency basis; but those calls reportedly were unheard.

PAGE 2 COLUMN 3

Active on Facebook and party forums, 13 killers of Bishwajit live above the law

n Mohammad Jamil Khan with our Shariatpur Correspondent

They are active on Facebook and have attended party programmes recent-ly. But police claim they have no clue about the fugitives convicts of the Bishwajit Das murder case.

Two years have passed since tailor Bishwajit was barbarically killed in front of law enforcers and civilians in Old Dhaka and almost a year since the verdict. But 13 out of the 21 convicts – all activists of Jagannath University unit Chhatra League – are still at large.

Of the 13 absconding convicts, two were awarded death penalty while oth-ers given life-time imprisonment by a speedy trial tribunal on December 18 last year.

Such a state of a� airs has put the family members of Bishwajit into anx-iety. They have demanded immediate arrest of the killers and execution of the verdict to ensure justice.

Bishwajit died shortly after being beaten and hacked by the convicts in Bahadur Shah Park area near the Judge’s Court on December 9, 2012. The incident was widely publicised in the media as many camerapersons and photojournalists had been present in

PAGE 2 COLUMN 2

FOLLOW THE DRAGON

7 | LONG FORM

TUESDAY, DECEMBER 9, 2014 | www.dhakatribune.com | SECOND EDITION

Agrahayan 25, 1421Safar 15, 1436Regd No DA 6238Vol 2, No 245

EC AWAITS GAZETTEP3

15 | EntertainmentDhallywood stars pay rich tributes to Khalil Ullah Khan, a dominating � gure on both the small and the silver screen, who passed away on Sunday at the age of 80.

8 | WorldAngry crowds hurled objects at police who retaliated in a second night of clashes in Cali-fornia following the death of a black man who was put in a chokehold by an NY police o� cer.

6 | NationA hill is allegedly being illegally cut down to make way for a rubber factory and its sta� quarters in Bandarban’s Naikhangchhari up-azila.

3 | NewsThe Election Commission is still waiting fora government gazette noti� cation to hold election of the bifurcated Dhaka City corpo-ration.

5 | NewsMayor Lokman Hossain Dakua of Bakerganj Municipality in Barisal has taken up a project to build drains and culverts in the historic Jail Khal (Jail Canal) in the upazila, ignoring a High Court ruling to preserve the canal.

4 | NewsBangladesh has taken steps to implement the anti-corruption charter, but it would not be possible to get rid of corruption without the support of civil society and the people, says TIB.

20 pages | Price: Tk12

CONFUSION OVER FIRE SAFETY TOOLS INSTRUCTION

B1 | BUSINESS

I N S I D E

THE MUSLIMAH PAGEANT AND A FEW OTHER THINGS

11 | OP-ED

WHO ON EARTH ARE THEY?

12 | SPORT

Poorest countries ‘left behind’ in climate � nancen AFP

Half of the nearly $8bn in climate � -nance given to the developing world since 2003 went to just 10 countries, and nations most at risk got the short end of the stick, a report said.

The top recipients were Moroc-co, Mexico and Brazil, each getting more than $500m of the $7.6bn to-tal, according to an analysis of spending over the last decade in 135countries.

The report of the Overseas Develop-ment Institute (ODI), a UK think-tank, was released ahead of the second and � nal week of UN negotiations in Lima for a world pact to curb potentially dis-astrous global warming.

“Mexico and Brazil are among the top 10 emitters of greenhouse gases, and with Morocco, all have huge re-newable energy potential,” said a state-ment.

However, many of the poorest coun-tries were left behind.

“Con� ict-a� ected and fragile states such as Ivory Coast and South Sudan, where it is generally di� cult to spend � nance, received less than $350,000 and $700,000 respectively,” said an ODI statement.

“Several middle income countries

that are vulnerable to the impacts of climate change and have signi� cant clean energy potential, such as Namib-ia, El Salvador and Guatemala, also re-ceived less than $5m each.”

The aid from rich nations is meant to help poor and vulnerable countries adapt to climate change impacts and curb Earth-warming greenhouse gas emissions through a shift away from fossil fuels like oil, coal and gas.

Funding for adaptation rocketed from $3.8m in 2003 to $2bn this year, said the report.

“While not enough, the trends in spending are positive,” it said.

“Poor countries such as Niger, Bangladesh and Nepal have received nearly $400m over the last decade to help them cope up with this growing threat.”

However, the 10 most vulnerable nations, including Somalia, the Sol-omon Islands, Burundi, Niger and

PAGE 2 COLUMN 1

Chhatra League linked to yaba trade in DUn Arif Ahmed

The police have found links of Chhatra League leaders in yaba trading on the Dhaka University campus, after having arrested – with help from DU authori-ties – seven people yesterday near the university’s Mohsin Hall and seized 1,250 yaba pills from their possession.

“Acting on a tip-o� , we arrested them near the Mohsin Hall when they were returning from the hall after buy-ing yaba at around 1:45am,” said Shah-bagh police station O� cer-in-Charge Sirajul Islam. Two CNG-run auto-rick-shaws and a motorcycle – which were

used by the arrestees – were also seized at the time, he added.

A case has been � led under the Nar-cotics Control Act 2013 with the police station in this connection, Sirajul added.

The arrestees are Subroto Kumar Bhowmik, Sanjoy Biwswas Sujon, Md Bachchu, Shahidul Islam, Kabul Kha, Akbar and Kazi Shahidul Islam. None of them are students of the university.

The OC said the detained men con-fessed to purchasing the yaba pills from Wasim, Mehedi, Maksud, Titu and Su-man – all residential students of the hall who live in rooms 311, 337 and 338.

The names mentioned by the ar-

restees include Chhatra League’s Mo-hsin Hall unit president Maksud Rana Mithu – a boarder of room 337, as well as Chhatra League’s DU unit Organis-ing Secretary Maksudur Rahman – who lives in room 338.

Although the arrestees mentioned Mithu’s name immediately after they were arrested, they later reportedly skipped saying the name during inter-rogation, sources said.

Seeking anonymity, a Chhatra League leader of the hall unit admit-ted to the Dhaka Tribune that Mithu had been running yaba business in the hall for the past year, using room 311 to

sell the contraband drug to customers. The pills were brought from Teknaf to be sold to di� erent yaba distributors in the city, he added.

However, Mithu and Maksud both denied allegations of running the drug racket in the hall, terming the claims as a conspiracy against them.

Yesterday’s arrests were made on a tip-o� , following which Shah-bagh police station Sub-Inspector Sohel Rana stationed a team of law enforcers in front of the Basunia gate near the hall in the early hours. The team stopped and frisked

PAGE 2 COLUMN 5

RMG growth to help Bangladesh get middle-income statusn Tribune Report

Political stability, value added chains, education and increased labour pro-ductivity have been emphasised as the keys to speeding up growth in Bangla-desh’s apparel sector, which can help the country achieve the middle-in-come status by 2021.

Other factors such as improving workers’ living condition, � ow of in-vestment, infrastructure development, backward integration, research and training, and human resource devel-opment are also equally important for sustaining the RMG growth trend.

The growth could also result in gain-ing competitive advantages over ap-parel giants like China and India, said speakers at a seminar styled “Can RMG sector help Bangladesh to become a middle-income country?” in the � nal session of the Dhaka Apparel Summit yesterday.

The Bangladesh Garments Manu-facturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA) organised the seminar at the Bangabandhu International Confer-ence Centre in the capital.

Speaking in the event, Jatiya PAGE 2 COLUMN 5

Parts of the under-construction four-lane Dhaka-Mymensingh Highway near the Joydebpur intersection has turned into a stand-in parking lot for pickup vans, covered vans and trucks owned by the RMG factories located in the area. The photo was taken yesterday MEHEDI HASAN

To date, nearly $10bn in start-up capital has been promised to the Green Climate Fund

Convict Rajon uploaded these photos on his Facebook pro� le on Sunday

T H E R O A D N O T T A K E N

News2 DHAKA TRIBUNE Tuesday, December 9, 2014

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina hands over a donation of Tk6 crore to Shamantalal Sen, head of the burn and plastic surgery unit at Dhaka Medical College Hospital, at Ganabhaban yesterday. The donation will be used to acquire equipment to provide Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy to patients with severe burn injuries BSS

Foreign Secretary: Dhaka, Thimpu agree to negotiate free trade agreementn UNB

Bangladesh and Bhutan have agreed to boost trade and negotiate a free trade agreement (FTA) between the two countries apart from strong collabora-tion in the power sector, especially hy-droelectric power.

Foreign Secretary M Shahidul Haque said this at a press conference arranged for the members of the Diplomatic Cor-respondents Association, Bangladesh (DCAB) at the Foreign Ministry yesterday.

“Bhutanese side has proposed to ne-gotiate an FTA with Bangladesh…our prime minister has agreed on the pro-posal,” he said.

The foreign secretary said they hoped the negotiation will start soon and the FTA will be signed which will play a vi-tal role in boosting and minimising the trade gap between the two countries.

Sharing the outcome of Bhutanese Prime Minister Tshering Tobgay’s three-day visit, Shahidul Haque said power sector collaboration, especial-

ly hydroelectric power, came up very strongly at the discussion table. “Bang-ladesh expressed its desire in both are-as – either for joint investment or pro-curing power from Bhutan.”

The foreign secretary also said four major areas – power sector collabora-tion, boosting trade, connectivity and capacity building – came up largely during the bilateral talks.

On connectivity, he said they focused on connectivity in a broader sense not concentrating on physical or road con-nectivity rather connectivity in terms of sharing thoughts, ideas and people to people connectivity. “Both countries agreed to work together in this area.”

He also said the two neighbouring nations agreed on going for transit among Bangladesh-India-Bhutan al-lowing movements of goods, services and people.

The foreign secretary said the issue of climate change also came up for dis-cussion at the meeting.

Responding to a question, the for-eign secretary said the bilateral agree-ment between the two countries has been renewed for another 10 years.

He said a new university, ‘Ranga-mati Science and Technology Universi-ty’, will be set up and the Bangladesh prime minister sought support for the architecture of the university following the Bhutanese design.

Shahidul Haque also said the Bhuta-nese embassy will also be built follow-ing Bhutanese architecture. “A land of around 2.4 bighas has been given as a gift to Bhutan and its people.”

Meanwhile, both Bangladesh and Bhutan discussed ways to further in-tensify their mutually bene� cial coop-eration, including inter alia, in hydro-power, water resources management, trade and commerce, connectivity, climate change, tourism, culture, edu-cation, agriculture, health and human resources development, according to a joint statement.

Recognising the utmost importance of enhancing regional connectivity, both sides agreed to jointly work to-wards that end both bilaterally and sub-regionally.

The two countries also agreed to work together to enhance collaboration in Water Resources Management and power/hydropower and connectivity in the sub-regional context.

Emphasising the need for enhancing trade relations for mutual bene� t and recognising the huge potential it holds in bringing prosperity, the two sides agreed to diversify bilateral trade and take further trade facilitations meas-ures for a deeper market access.

Bangladesh o� ered to export more products such as readymade garments, pharmaceuticals, ceramics, jute and jute goods, agricultural produce to Bhutan, while Bhutan agreed to look into that.

The Bangladesh side agreed to con-sider Bhutan’s request for sharing in-ternet redundancy.

Recognising Bangladesh’s lead role in developing global awareness and in-ternational partnership on autism and other neuro-developmental disorders, the two sides agreed to work together to contribute to the process regionally and internationally.

Both sides laid emphasis on hav-ing a cultural exchange programme to further strengthen the common and unique cultural linkages that date back to history.

Recognising the huge potential of tourism, the two sides agreed to further increase cooperation in this sector. It was also agreed to enhance collaboration in other sectors namely, education, health and human resources development.

Voicing concern about the adverse impacts of climate change on the two countries, the both sides stressed se-curing climate justice and equity based on the principles of UNFCCC; balanced allocation between adaptation and miti-gation; clear provision of new, adequate and predictable � nancing; and enhanced technology development and transfer.

The Bhutanese prime minister left Dhaka yesterday afternoon, wrapping up his three-day visit. l

RMG growth to help Bangladesh get middle-income status PAGE 1 COLUMN 1Sangsad Speaker Shirin Sharmin Chaudhury claimed that Bangladesh was moving on the right track to obtain the target of becoming a middle-in-come country by 2021.

She put emphasis on ensuring a con-genial investment environment, polit-ical stability, removing red tapism and developing skilled manpower to make the dream of $50bn annual export earning from the RMG sector by 2021 come true.

“We need to focus on women’s em-powerment because it is not only for the welfare of women but also is must for the economy,” Shirin said.

Commerce Minister Tofail Ahmed said Bangladesh’s economy had leapt forward in the past � ve years and if the momentum continued, Bangladesh would be able to become a middle-in-come country in the next six years.

He said the government was making e� orts to remove infrastructural bot-tlenecks by taking steps to bolster elec-tricity and gas production.

Bangladesh Bank Governor Atiur Rahman said the central bank aimed at an inclusive growth by 2021, which matched with the BGMEA’s goal of earning $50bn from RMG exports.

He said: “We need to put all hands together to craft a comprehensive strat-egy for taking the RMG sector to a new height. The RMG industry has been growing over the years in an unplanned way; it needs to grow in a planned man-ner to reduce the risks associated with structural de� ciencies.”

He assured � nancing with soft loans

for developing the sector further. He said he had recently discussed with the World Bank the arrangement of long-term funding for the sector.

BNP leader and former commerce minister Amir Khoshru Mahmud Chowdhury said political stability was the most important factor, lacking which nothing would work.

“We need to ensure the democrat-ic process, while controlling law and order and securing workers’ rights are also the prerequisites for a sustainable development,” he said.

He also underscored the need for education to boost RMG production. “Only education can bring changes in the industry. Buying capacity of work-ers should be increased by improving their living condition to create demand for stimulating the economy.”

Green Member of European Parlia-ment Jean Lambert said engagement of more women in the economy was extremely important for the economic growth as well as the RMG.

She focused on food security in line with the climate change, education, IT, democratic development, value added chains and skills for the apparel indus-try to achieve the middle-income sta-tus.

Vice-President of Global Responsibil-ity, Human Rights and Business, Gap Inc Wilma B Wallace said workers’ dormito-ries, childcare, training and wage equal-ity were the fundamental elements for the future of the apparel sector.

Managing Director of Mohamma-di Group Rubana Huq moderated the seminar. l

Active on Facebook and party forums, 13 killers of Bishwajit out of police radar PAGE 1 COLUMN 4the area to cover the BNP’s blockade programme.

It also raised an outcry over the credibility of the law enforcers in con-taining crimes committed by activists of the ruling party.

Following the incident, police � led a case with Sutrapur police station accus-ing 25 unidenti� ed people. Detective Branch (DB) of police investigated the case and accused 21 people in the charge sheet pressed on March 5 last year. For-mal trial began on June 2 at Dhaka’s Speedy Trial Tribunal 4.

The death row convicts are Md Ra� qul Islam Shakil, Mahfuzur Rahman Nahid, Emdadul Haque Emdad, GM Rasheduz-zaman Shaon, Quiyum Miah Tipu, Saiful Islam, and absconding Rajon Talukder and Mir Md Noor-e-Alam Limon.

Golam Mostafa and AHM Kibria, cur-rently in police custody, and fugitives – Monirul Haque Pavel, Obaidul Quader Tahsin, Imran Hossain, Khondoker Md Yunus Ali, Tarique Bin Zohor Tamal, Azizur Rahman Aziz, Al Amin Sheikh, Mosharraf Hossain, Ra� qul Islam, Md Alauddin and Kamrul Hasan – were sentenced to life-term imprisonment.

Among the convicts, those who are in custody have appealed with the High Court against the judgement. The ap-peals are pending for hearing.

Although the law enforcers have so far failed to arrest the fugitives, many of the convicts were attending party programmes, a Jagannath University (JnU) unit leader of the Chhatra League – the ruling party’s student wing – said seeking anonymity.

Lifer Kamrul was seen attending a Chhatra League rally held at the capital’s Suhrawardy Udyan on August 31. Imran participated in a programme held at the JnU central auditorium on August 25.

University correspondents of two di� erent media con� rmed to the Dhaka Tribune that they had talked to Imran while he was going out of the campus.

Aziz was also seen in front of the Awami League’s central o� ce on Bang-abandhu Avenue on August 15 – the National Mourning Day, several Chha-tra League leaders of the JnU unit con-� rmed.

However, President of the unit FM Shariful Islam claimed that no Chhatra League leader was ever involved in the murder. “All of them are intruders,” he said.

Asked about convicts joining party programmes, he said there was no such scope. “Still, if anyone is found attend-ing any Chhatra League programme, they will be handed over to the police,” Sharif told the Dhaka Tribune.

Apart from attending programmes, the killers are also active on Facebook. One of the fugitive death row convicts Rajon Talukder posted on Facebook that he had left the country on July 15 last year.

The latest status posted by Rajon on Facebook says: “The person whose total life has been spent in clashes, at-tacks, gun� ghts, blasts and playing blood game, someone is threatening of beating him up. Totally gone confused.”

On Sunday, he uploaded some pho-tos. Several sources con� rmed that he is now living in Kolkata – the West Ben-

gal capital.Sanowar Hossain, additional deputy

commissioner of DB police and coor-dinating o� cer of the case’s investi-gation, said arrest warrants had been sent to the permanent addresses of the convicts, and that basically the police stations concerned would take action.

“We are aware of the fugitives and will arrest them as soon as we get valid information,” he added.

Family panickingBishwajit’s elder brother Uttam Kumar Das, who was happy after the verdict, said he is in fear of attack all the time as he has to stay in Old Dhaka and run his tailoring shop in Shankhari Bazar.

“Since many of the killers are still absconding, I am scared as they may harm me any time,” he told the Dhaka Tribune yesterday.

A bust of Bishwajit was erected at his village home in Shariatpur’s Naria after he was cremated. His parents say they are afraid of the fugitive killers. Local police, however, claimed that they were safeguarding the family.

Mother Kalpana Rani Das has urged the government to take immediate steps in executing the verdict after ar-resting the criminals.

Ananta Das, Bishwajit’s father, said his one last wish was to see the execu-tion of the court verdict.

“I have come to know from media that my son’s killers are moving around freely. I do not understand how the killers dodged the police. If such a sit-uation continues, we will never get jus-tice,” he said with a sigh. l

Poorest countries ‘left behind’ in climate � nance PAGE 1 COLUMN 6Eritrea, bene� ted from just 7% of the adaptation aid.

“E� ective use of climate � nance will help win the support of poor countries which have contributed the least to climate change but bear the brun of its impacts,” report author Smita Nakhoo-da said.

Lives depend on itFinance is a sore point at the UN cli-mate talks, with developing nations insisting that rich economies show how they intend to honour promises to muster up to $100bn in climate � nance per year from 2020.

To date, nearly $10bn in start-up capital has been promised to the Green Climate Fund, the main vehicle for channelling the money.

On Friday, a UN report said develop-ing countries may need up to $500b per year by 2050 for adaptation alone.

“There is substantial scope to im-prove results and learn from experi-ence” on climate � nancing, said the ODI statement.

Funds need to become less risk averse and more � exible when it comes to donor conditions and scrutiny.

“There are now too many small cli-mate funding ‘pots’ with substantial overlap and � nance is spread too thinly between them,” added Nakhooda.

“The lives of millions of peo-ple in poor countries a� ected byclimate change depend on getting this right.” l

Chhatra League PAGE 1 COLUMN 6two auto-rickshaws and a motorbike coming out of the hall gate to � nd the yaba pills with the passengers.

Mohsin Hall Provost Prof Ali Akkass, on the other hand, con� rmed the in-volvement of DU students and Chhatra League activists in the incident. “Sure-ly the students were involved with it; otherwise how could outsiders come to the hall corridors for this business?

“A formal letter will be sent to the students of those particular rooms and

appropriate action will be taken against them,” the provost added.

Amzad Ali, acting proctor of the university, also assured of taking steps against those involved.

When asked about the possible in-volvement of Chhatra League men, the student wing’s DU unit General Secre-tary Omar Sharif claimed that Chhatra League activists could not be involved in the yaba trade. He, however, said ac-tion would be taken against any “mis-guided” activist. l

PM hints at DCC pollsthis winter PAGE 1 COLUMN 2Following the bifurcation of the Dha-ka City Corporation on November 30, 2011, fresh elections were originally slated for May 24, 2012, but the High Court issued a three-month stay order as there were complexities regarding area delimitation and preparation of the voter list.

The stay order was � nally lifted by

the court on May 13 last year, paving way for the election.

The last city corporation election in April 2002 was won by BNP leader Sad-eque Hossain Khoka – who went on to serve as mayor until the splitting of the corporation in 2011. Awami League’s Mohammad Hanif was elected the � rst mayor of the city in the � rst DCC poll in 1994. l

PM donates Tk 6cr to DMCH’s Burn Instituten UNB

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina yester-day donated Tk6 crore to the National Institute of Burn and Plastic Surgery (NIBPS) of Dhaka Medical College Hos-pital (DMCH) to procure hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT) for critically injured patients.

The prime minister handed over a cheque for the donated moneyto Project Director of the institute at her o� cial residence Ganobhabanon Sunday evening, PM’s PressSecretary AKM Shameem Chowdhuri said.

The HBOT will extend most modern treatment facilities to the critically in-jured patients as the system involves breathing pure oxygen in a pressurized room or tube.l

Prime Minister extends support to ailing artistesn UNB

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina yester-day provided � nancial support to a number of ailing senior and renowned cultural personalities of the country.

The recipients are ailing � lm actor Abdus Samad, popularly known as Tele Samad, � lm director Shahidul Islam Khokan, � lm actor Abdus Sattar who acted in colour � lm Rangin Rupban, and � ute player Basudev Das.

Sheikh Hasina handed over cheques in the form of family savings certi� -cates amounting to Tk20 lakh to each of the recipients at her o� cial resi-dence Ganabhaban.

While talking to the renowned ac-tors and artistes of the country, the prime minister said she came to know

about their problems from her younger sister Sheikh Rehana who had collected the information from national dailies.

Expressing gratitude to the prime minister, the ailing cultural personali-ties thanked her for extending support during their bad times. Tele Samad in an emotion-choked voice said throughout his career he had strived to give pleasure to people but now he is seriously sick.

In reply, the Prime Minister men-tioned that the government has some responsibility for the ailing cultural personalities who gave pleasure to gen-eral people through their performance.

Sheikh Hasina also mentioned a number of dialogues of actor Tele Sam-ad like “Darjiling, Darjiling”.

Basudev Das said Father of the Na-tion Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur

Rahman gave the National Flag to his daughter Sheikh Hasina and it is now her responsibility to protect it and up-hold the dignity of the nation.

Abdus Sattar with tears in his eyes said he acted in various � lms including Rangin Rupban and also made a � lm on Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. Today, he feels proud that the daughter of Bangaband-hu came forward with the � nancial as-sistance for him, Abdus Sattar said.

Joya Chowdhury - wife of ailing � lm director Shahidul Islam Khokan briefed the Prime Minister about the physical condition of her husband.

Prime Minister’s Press Secretary AKM Shameem Chowdhuri and PM’s Special Assistant Mahbubul Hoque Shakil were, among others, present. l

The Bangladesh side agreed to consider Bhutan’s request for sharing internet redundancy

3NewsDHAKA TRIBUNE Tuesday, December 9, 2014

Bergman pays his � nes n Tribune Report

Dhaka-based foreign journalist David Bergman yesterday paid Tk5,000 � ned by the International Crimes Tribunal (ICT) for contempt of court.

Arunava Chakraborty, deputy regis-trar of the ICT told the Dhaka Tribune: “Bergman paid the � ne at the Supreme Court branch of Sonali Bank. Today [yesterday], he submitted the invoice through his lawyer. We have informed the tribunal about it.”

On December 2, Bergman was im-prisoned in the courtroom until its ris-ing as the three-member ICT 2 found him guilty of contempt of court for circulating “derogatory criticisms and remarks about the tribunal” in articles he published on his blog in 2011 and in January last year.

He served a 10-minute sentence giv-en in line with the International Crimes (Tribunals) Act of 1973, and was � ned Tk5,000. l

EC awaits amended gazette for Dhaka City Corporation electionsn Shohel Mamun and

Abu Hayat Mahmud

The Election Commission is still wait-ing for a government gazette noti� ca-tion to hold election of the bifurcated Dhaka City corporation.

In a recent cabinet meeting, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has reportedly given go ahead to holding the Dhaka City Corporation polls this winter, in February next year to be speci� c.

Election Commission (ECC) o� cials said it all depends on when the Local Government Ministry publishes an amended gazette noti� cation.

“We are always ready to hold the polls. But it has not been possible due to a delay in getting the amended gazette centring the inclusion of a new ward in Sultanganj under the Dhaka South City Corporation,” Election Commissioner Mohammad Abdul Mobarak told the Dhaka Tribune yesterday.

In June last year, Chief Election Commissioner Kazi Rakibuddin Ah-mad also said: “If the gazette is amend-ed, the EC will announce the schedule.” According to sources, the EC had asked o� cials of the LGRD Ministry to amend the gazette by June 3 last year.

When contacted, Local Government Division (LGD) Secretary Manjur Hos-sain told the Dhaka Tribune yesterday: “The process of solving the complica-tion centring demarcation of the two city corporations’ areas is under way now. Apart from this, others problems

will also be solved soon.”Asked how soon it can be, Man-

jur, who was present at the cabinet meeting, said it cannot be predicted accurately. But he said they would dis-cuss how polls could be held immedi-ately.

Following drawn-out bickering be-tween the EC and the ministry over the inclusion of 13 new areas in Sultanganj to DSCC, the ministry on May 30 pub-lished a gazette announcing the areas as Ward 57, a new ward, and suggested that the seats be put under the reserved women councillor seats of Ward 19.

The EC wanted an amendment be-cause there was a language error in the gazette.

Citing a section from the Local Gov-ernment (City Corporation) Act 2009, an election commissioner explained that when announcing the new ward, the ministry should have mentioned “amending the � rst schedule to include new areas in the city corporation” in the gazette.

He also said the EC had already started making preparations for hold-ing the polls.

On May 13 last year, the High Court withdrew its stay order on holding the split DCC polls.

Six days later, the LGRD Ministry sent a letter to the EC asking for hold-ing the polls excluding the 13 new ar-eas. But the EC refused, saying legal complications might arise.

The Dhaka City Corporation was split on November 29, 2011, through the passage of a bill that amended the 2009 local government act. The then-mayor Sadek Hossain Khoka and 92 ward councillors left their o� ces after the amendment and the govern-ment subsequently appointed two ad-ministrators for the Dhaka North and South City Corporations.

The last election of DCC was held in April 2002. Awami League, then main opposition, did not participate, and Khoka, then a minister of BNP govern-ment, became mayor. l

CMP chief to Khaleda: Have patiencen Tarek Mahmud, Chittagong

Chittagong Metropolitan Police Com-missioner Abdul Jalil Mandal has sug-gested that BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia should keep patience as the police will obey her order too if she forms gov-ernment.

“Keep patience, please keep pa-tience. The election will be held at the right time. If you [Khaleda] win the election, you will form the govern-ment. Then people will abide by your orders. We will also work according to your instructions,” the CMP commis-sioner said at Bakalia police station’s Open House Day and Cleaning Drive held at a local community centre yes-terday.

He also warned that if anyone hurled bricks at the law enforcers, the “police’s sticks are kept ready for them too.”

Saying the country was enjoying de-mocracy at the highest level, Jalil said: “My government is a democratic gov-ernment. Setting vehicles on � re and

attacking law enforcers are not signs of democracy.”

Urging people to work together to strengthen the Sheikh Hasina-led gov-ernment, the commissioner said: “Af-ter a stormy journey, the government has started the journey of democracy followed by an election [on January 5].

“The election may have created con-troversy... every election had contro-versies. Controversy is also seen in any good work. Some miscreants are trying to create obstructions on the way to de-velopment but they cannot do this any more.”

Warning against militant activities, he said: “Police in plain clothes and in uniform will be positioned at mosques to arrest militants who distribute an-ti-state lea� ets among people entering the prayer houses like thieves.”

The commissioner also criticised the participants of TV talk shows, al-leging that they misguide the nation by “delivering unnecessary speech in exchange for Tk2,000.” l

Charge sheet submitted against Khoka in sedition casen Tribune Report

The police yesterday submitted a charge sheet against former Dhaka mayor and BNP leader Sadeque Hos-sain Khoka in a sedition case � led for provoking party members to indulge in violent activities.

Paltan police station O� -cer-in-Charge (investigation) Tofail Ahmed, also the investigation o� cer of the case, submitted the charge sheet to the Dhaka Chief Metropolitan Magis-trate Court.

In the charge sheet, the investigator also named 24 people as prosecution witnesses.

After receiving the charge sheet, the court � xed December 14 to decide

whether it would accept the charge or not.

According to the charge sheet, at a joint meeting in the capital’s Bhashani Auditorium on October 14 last year, the BNP’s the then Dhaka city convener Khoka asked party men to get ready with “machetes and axe to resist any ploy to foil” a BNP rally scheduled for October 25 last year.

In this connection, police at the Paltan station � led a general diary against Khoka.

Later on December 7 last year, Paltan police station Sub-Inspector Khairul Md Shohidullah Prodhan � led the case against Khoka. The BNP leader is currently out after securing bail in the case. l

Dipu Moni marks her birthday by sweeping college campusn Our Correspondent, Chandpur

On her 50th birthday, former foreign minister Dipu Moni picked up a broom and took part in the “Clean Campus, Save Campus” campaign at Chandpur Government University College yester-day.

The event was organised by the col-lege unit of the Chhatra League.

Speaking at the inaugural event, Dipu Moni said a clean campus was imperative to the well-being of the stu-dents. And that is why Sajeeb Wazed Joy launched the campaign.

“The aim is to keep the campus safe and clean, so that students can learn in a proper environment. Such small initiatives can encourage all to make a positive change,” she said. l

Police disperse students of Rajshahi College who blocked both sides of the road at Zero Point in Rajshahi city yesterday pressing 11-point demands in protest against the death of three fellow students in a road accident on Sunday AZAHAR UDDIN

Dumped garbage, occupying more than half of the road, impedes the passage of vehicles, and the resultant odour causes su� ering for the residents of nearby areas. The photo was taken from Harjir Pukur on the Gazipur highway MEHDI HASAN

Trouble-making forces court to adjourn Khaleda hearingn Tribune Report

A Dhaka court had to adjourn court minutes after starting to record deposi-tion of the complainant in two corrup-tion cases against BNP chief Khaleda Zia, amid chaos by defence counsels.

Judge of the Special Judge’s Court 3 Basudev Roy also had to adjourn hear-ing until December 17 in the Zia Or-phanage Trust and Zia Charitable Trust corruption cases.

The also court rejected six adjourn-ment petitions submitted by Khaleda’s lawyers as the day’s proceedings start-ed. But later Khaleda’s non-appearance petition was granted which said she could not appear before the court due to security reasons.

After rejecting the petitions, the court asked plainti� Harun-ur-Rashid, deputy director of the Anti-Corruption Commission, to give his deposition.

Before he could start, Khaleda’s law-yers submitted two separate petitions seeking reconsideration of the previ-ous adjournment appeals. A chaos en-sued over the appeals as the recording

went through.Harun could speak for barely � ve

minutes before the court had no choice but to adjourn the hearing.

In previous hearings, the court re-jected four petitions � led by Khaleda seeking time for recording deposition on December 1 and on October 13. On September 22, the court began pro-

ceedings in the cases in absence of the BNP chief, and recorded a partial state-ment of the complainant.

The BNP chairperson had also skipped appearances in the court on December 1 citing the same security reasons.

After recording the statement for around a quarter of an hour, the judge was forced to postpone the hearing un-til December 8 due to the uproar creat-ed by defense lawyers.

On 2009, the Anti-Corruption Com-mission � led the Zia Orphanage Trust graft case charging Khaleda and others of embezzling over Tk2.1 crore by form-ing a “fake” trust which existed only on papers.

The anti-graft watchdog � led the Zia Charitable Trust corruption case in 2011 accusing four people, including Khaleda, for abusing power in setting up the charity organisation. l

Ex-Jubo League leader suspected in Tk20 lakh muggingn Ashif Islam Shaon

Police are suspecting involvement of a former Jubo League leader in the mug-ging of Tk20 lakh from a store manager in Goran of the capital.

As for the mugging of Tk90 lakh from a private car by shooting the driv-er at Rupnagar in Mirpur, police are suspecting the three who were in the vehicle and were taking the money to deposit in two di� erent banks.

Both the crimes were committed on Sunday.

Police said they suspect the accom-plices of Galib, who was the president of ward no 23 of Jubo League, snatched the money in his presence from the store manager.

O� cer-in-Charge of Khilgaon police station Mosta� z Bhuiyan said some suspects would soon be interrogated

over Sunday’s mugging. On Sunday afternoon, muggers shot

Abdus Salam, 30, and took away the money. He was taken to Dhaka Medical College Hospital. Salam also � led a case accusing six to seven unnamed people.

Requesting anonymity, an investigator said he learned that Salam would go to the bank to deposit the money on Sunday.

“In the morning, Galib’s accomplic-es took position near the store Salam works at. Salam, accompanied by an employee of the store, headed for the local branch of Dhaka Bank on a rick-shaw in the afternoon to deposit the money. A few minutes later, Galib and his abettors swooped on them, � red Salam and � ed with the bag the money was in,” he said.

Police suspect the three passengers of the car had connections with the muggers in the Mirpur case.

The probe team led by an additional commissioner of Dhaka Metropolitan Police has already quizzed 13 people, including the three car passengers and the four who were riding two motor-bikes to escort the vehicle.

“The escorts witnessed the whole incident but took no action. They did not even ask any passer-by to do some-thing,” said an investigator. He said vid-eo footage obtained from CCTV cameras installed in nearby buildings was scru-tinised and a mugger was identi� ed.

“We have interrogated some youths and we hope the case will be solved shortly,” Nisharul Arif, deputy com-missioner (Mirpur division) of Dhaka Metropolitan Police, told the Dhaka Tribune yesterday.

The three passengers in the car work at a distribution � rm that has business with bKash and Airtel. l

14 injured in clash over land dispute n Our Correspondent, Gaibandha

At least 14 people were injured in a clash over a land dispute between two rival groups at Panchgachi village in Sundar-ganj upazila of Gaibandha yesterday.

Of the injured Abdus Sattar,50, Saiful Islam, 44, Ambia Begum, 38, Ma-lika Khatun, 28, Anarul Islam, 30, Jhan-tu Mia, 33, Samiran Bewa,55, Motijan Begum, 40, Ayub Ali,50 were undergo-ing treatment at the Sundarganj Upazi-la Health Complex.

Police arrested three people from the spot. The arrestees are Rawshan Ali, Rubel Mia, and Ratan Mia.

Sundarganj Police Station O� -cer-in-Charge Mojammel Haque said there was a long standing dispute be-tween Abdul Jabbar and Abdus Sattar over a piece of land at the village.

Sattar erected a building structure on the disputed land on Saturday, he said. The clash ensued when some people led by Jabbar went to remove the structure, while some people led by Sattar tried resist them, the OC said.

On information, police went to the spot and took the situation under control. l

The last election of DCC was held in April 2002. Awami League, then main opposition, did not participate, and Khoka, then a minister of BNP government, became mayor

The anti-graft watchdog � led the Zia Charitable Trust corruption case in 2011 accusing four people

News4 DHAKA TRIBUNE Tuesday, December 9, 2014

Court takes cognisance of defamation plea against ETV chairman and three journalists n Md Sanaul Islam Tipu

A Dhaka court has taken cognisance of a defamation petition against the chair-man and three journalists of Ekushey Television.

Mohammad Abu Taher Bhuiyan, se-nior data entry control operator of the central bank’s Green Banking and CSR Section, � led the petition yesterday.

The accused are: ETV Chairman Ab-dus Salam, Chief News Editor Md Ibra-him Azad, Sta� Reporter Faruk Hossain

and Video Journalist Abdur Razzak. Metropolitan Magistrate Ashok Ku-

mar Datta ordered the Tejgaon police station OC to look into the complaint and submit a report by January 8.

The petition termed as fake, baseless and fabricated - a series of reports by the ETV on November 22 and 23, which claimed that the central bank o� cial had become an owner of New Tex Limited “through astonishing activities” and that he had withdrawn Tk24 crore from Jana-ta Bank in the name of the company. l

HC reinstates suspended Faridpur mayor for six months n Tribune Report

The High Court has stayed the suspen-sion of Shaikh Mahtab Ali Methu from the post of Faridpur municipality may-or for six months.

The bench of judges Naima Haider and Md Jahangir Hossain passed the or-der in response to a writ petition chal-lenging the suspension yesterday.

The court asked the government to explain in four weeks as to why the

suspension of Mahtab should not be declared illegal.

Deputy Attorney General Mokhlesur Rahman opposed the writ petition, say-ing there were speci� c allegations of mis-appropriating money against Mahtab.

On December 7, Mahtab was sus-pended from his mayoral post and served a show-cause notice for com-mitting irregularities, including in-creasing tax and VAT without consider-ing people’s interests. l

Liberation war veteran Alam diesn Tribune Report

Veteran freedom � ghter Md Shamsul Alam, who fought for Bangladesh’s lib-eration in Barisal, died yesterday night in Birdem hospital.

Alam, 66, was a suicidal squad member under Sector 9 of the Libera-tion War in 1971.

Shamsul Alam died after he experi-enced a brain stroke. He also had some other physical complications. He was brought to Birdem a month ago from Barisal after he had his � rst stroke but he went back home when he was released.

Alam was again brought to Birdem after another stroke in the third week of November and remained under treatment in the Intensive Care Unit of Birdem till he breathe his last, accord-ing to his son.

Liberation war hero Alam left a wife, a son and a daughter behind. His son Najmul Alam Nobin, who was once a journalist, is an assistant commissioner and executive magistrate currently.

Alam was student of Barisal BM Col-lege when he joined the Liberation War. He was a leader of Barsial district branch of Chhatra League and later he also be-came vice-president of the central body of the student organisation which had a glorious role in the Liberation War.

His relatives, friends and admirers in Dhaka rushed to Birdem hospital after hearing the news of Alam’s departure. Alam was also a leader of Bangladesh College Shikkhak Samity and Barisal Shilpakala Academy.

Alam’s body was taken to Barisal on an ambulance before midnight yester-day. His body will be buried at Barisal central graveyard after a Namaj-e-Jan-za which will be held after Asr prayers at Town Hall premises of Barisal city.

One killed and two injured in city road accidentsn Tribune Report

A man was killed and two others, in-cluding a child, were injured in sepa-rate road accidents in the capital yes-terday.

The dead was Arafat Islam Mahin, 25, and the injured were Abu Taleb, 36, and Irin Akhter,11.

Sabujbagh police station Sub-In-spector Abul Kalam said: “Mahin lost control of his motorcycle when he tried to avoid contact with a rickshaw near the Khilgaon � yover.

After the accident, Mahin and Taleb, who was riding on the back of the bike, were taken to Dhaka Medical College Hospital where duty doctors declared Mahin dead at 2:40pm. The body was sent to Dhaka Medical College morgue.

In another incident, Irin was hit by a bus at Mirpur 1 while crossing the road, leaving her critically injured.

Her uncle, Sajib, said: “The accident occurred when she was going to her school in Mirpur 2 around 1pm. When she was crossing the road near Sainik Cinema Hall, a bus of Shakalpa Parib-ahan hit her and she fell on the road.” She was rushed to DMCH right after the incident, he added.

Following the accident, an angry mob vandalised the bus and its driver, Muminul Islam Mumin, 30, was arrest-ed by the police. l

RU Prof Ataur Rahman Khan dies n RU Correspondent

Ataur Rahman, a professor of Botany department of Ra-jshahi University (RU), died at the age of 63 yesterday.

He was undergoing treat-ment at the Rajshahi Med-ical College Hospital. He was su� ering from several complications after a brain stroke, said a press release.

He left behind his wife, a son and a daughter to mourn the death.

RU Vice-Chancellor Prof Muhammad Mizanuddin and Pro-VC Prof Chowdhury Sarwar Jahan expressed their deep condolence at the death.

Prof Ataur joined the Botany department in 1974 as a lecturer. He also served as chairman of the depart-ment. l

Suranjit: No chance for BNP to stage movement against government n Abu Hayat Mahmud

Awami League Advisory Committee member Suranjit Sengupta yesterday said the BNP would be given no chance to wage movement against issues such as hike in oil and gas prices, and Janu-ary 5 general elections.

Responding to BNP leaders’ threat of non-stop movement in case energy prices are hiked, Suranjit said: “Prices of oil, gas and electricity will be adjust-ed in line with prices in the internation-al market.”

“Threats from BNP leaders can-not dictate whether prices will be in-creased or not which means the party will have no option to stage movement over this,” he said while addressing a discussion organised by Nauka Samar-thak at Diploma Engineers Institution

in the capital. Referring to BNP Chairperson Khale-

da Zia, Suranjit said she has the right to stage movement, but that should be done democratically.

“She [Khaleda] cannot perpetrate vio-lence in the name of movement,” he said.

The Awami League leader said he wondered how the BNP could stage movement when it has got many dis-senting voices within the party and cannot even think of forming a com-mittee.

The BNP chairperson on Sunday called on activists to unite and work with the party leaders for the upcom-ing movement, which she said is like-ly to be waged in January next year. She also said she too would be on the streets to be a part of the movement.

But Suranjit said the BNP chairper-

son should regroup her party � rst.“Address frustration of the leaders

and activists, and then think about movement. Otherwise the month of January will come and go repeatedly, but you will fail to stage movement,” the Awami League leader said, refer-ring to Khaleda.

“Moreover, the people will join a movement only when they will be dis-contented with the activities of the government. But the incumbent gov-ernment is prioritising the demands and needs of the public in its activities. So why would they respond to the BNP’s illegal call for violence?” said Suranjit.

The senior Awami League leader advised the BNP policymakers to put their house in order before thinking about waging movement against the government. l

Witness: Siraj Master killed my fatherThe alleged war criminal is facing six charges of crimes against humanity n Tribune Report

A new prosecution witness yesterday told the International Crimes Tribunal 1 that he had been stabbed by war crimes accused Sheikh Sirajul Haque alias Siraj Master for begging his father’s life who later shot dead by the accused during the 1971 Liberation War.

Tapan Kumar Das, 57, from Ranjitpur of Bagerhat gave his deposition in the case against Siraj Master and two others as the fourth prosecution witness.

He said: “After the March 7 speech of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rah-man, we formed a committee to guard our village.”

Citing Siraj Master as “Siraj Kosai,” the witness said: “It was around 10pm of May 13 in 1971 when the accused and his associates gathered in the nearby village of Khanpur to attack our village. But the resistance of around 400-500 people drove them away.”

But as many people went back home, the collaborators led by Siraj attacked Ranjitpur again around 2pm.

“They � rst attacked the house of Mon-indra Nath and set it on � re. They also started to shoot.

“I along with my father Kanai Lal Das, my mother and other brothers took shelter in the nearest jungle. Sir-aj and his associates con� ned us from there and started to torture. We begged Siraj to leave my father. At that time, he stabbed in my right thigh.”

Saying this, the witness showed the mark before the court.

“Then Siraj killed my father by � r-ing. He also killed Nishi Kanto and Du-lal who were with us. They later looted our hose and set it on � re.”

The witness said the collaborators had killed around 50-60 people on that day, of who only 24 bodies could be identi� ed. “Villagers buried the bodies and after two days we left Bangladesh for India and took shelter in a refugee camp.”

The local people later built a memo-rial at the place where the bodies had been buried.

Siraj is facing six charges for his al-leged involvement in crimes against humanity and genocide. He was called Siraj Kosai for his brutality perpetrated against the pro-liberation peole.

The proceeding of the case was ad-journed until today.

Meanwhile, Renu Chandra Paul gave his deposition in the war crimes case against fugitive Syed Mohammad Hassan alias Hassan Ali as the � rst prosecution witness.

Hassan is facing six charges of crimes against humanity he allegedly committed in Kishoreganj during the Liberation War. l

US Embassy: Diversity Visa emails are fraudulentn Tribune Desk

Emails claiming that the re-cipient has won a US Diversi-ty Visa lottery are fraudulent and are not sent by the US Embassy, a press statement from the embassy in Dhaka said yesterday.

Visa lottery, commonly known as the Diversity Visa (DV) Programme, ended for Bangladeshi citizens in Sep-tember 2012. The press state-ment mentioned that some Bangladeshi citizens were still receiving DV emails.

“Please note that the US Government does not communicate via email or telephone that an enrollee has won the visa lottery, nor advertise to enrol in the lottery. These emails are fraudulent and are not sent by the US Embassy,” the press statement read.

It advised citizens to visit the website of the embassy at http://travel.state.gov for any inquiries and informa-tion about travel to the US. l

Anti-corruption campaigners form a human chain at Dhaka University’s TSC yesterday ahead of the International Anti-Corruption Day today RAJIB DHAR

After being resisted by the villagers in the morning, the colaboartors led by Siraj Kosai attacked the village again at noon, and committed atrocities

A cultural body from Narayanganj lights candles at a human chain urging the prime minister to take necessary steps to ensure justice against the killers of Twoki, who was killed 21 months ago FOCUS BANGLA

WEATHER

PRAYER TIMES Fajr 5:09am Sunrise 6:29am Zohr 11:51am Asr 3:36pm Magrib 5:12pm Esha 6:32 pm

Source: Accuweather/UNB

D H A K ATODAY TOMORROW

SUN SETS 5:12PM SUN RISES 6:30AM

YESTERDAY’S HIGH AND LOW29.5ºC 10.2ºC

Box's Bazar Rajshahi

TUESDAY, DECEMBER 9

SourceL IslamicFinder.org

F O R E C A S T F O R T O D A YDhaka 27 17Chittagong 28 17Rajshahi 27 13Rangpur 26 12Khulna 27 12Barisal 28 15Sylhet 28 14Cox’s Bazar 28 20

5NewsDHAKA TRIBUNE Tuesday, December 9, 2014

PARTLY CLOUDY

BCL men con� ne Madan Mohan College principal for fee cutn Our Correspondent, Sylhet

Madan Mohan College unit Bangladesh Chhatra League (BCL) activists yester-day con� ned its principal in demand of allegedly registration access with-out fee for some students of the degree (pass) course.

Sources at the college said the reg-istration of the all degree (pass) cours-es started from December 1 and the poor, distress and disabled pupils aswell as the children of the freedom � ghters got a reduction as per the promise of Finance Minister AMA Mu-hith as the college’s governing body chairman.

Some BCL activists led by its one leader named Rumel came to Principal Dr Abul Fateh Fattah’s room around 10am and demanded full registration

fee waiver for 25 students. When the principal turned down the

plea, the activists locked his room. Be-ing informed, police rushed to the spot and unlocked the room around 11am.

When asked, Abul Fateh con� rmed the untoward incident, telling they have already decreased the registration fee to Tk4,000 from Tk8,500.

When contacted, Lamabazar po-lice outpost SI Sirajul Islam said they brought the situation under control through rescuing the principal from the con� nement.

Earlier on September 24 last year, the minister heavily scolded the col-lege unit BCL leaders for allegedly loot-ing around Tk70 lakh through illegal admission-related business and a case in this connection was also launched accusing 16. l

Muggers attack mobile sales exec with spray, robs 40 setsn Tribune Report

A group of muggers incapacitated a sales executive of a mobile phone com-pany and robbed 40 mobile phones from him in the capital’s Gulistan area yesterday.

The victim, Azhar Ali, 23, territorial sales executive of Mycell Mobile, told the Dhaka Tribune that the robbery occurred in front of Gulistan Shopping Complex around 11:30am.

“The miscreants sprayed an un-known substance at my face, which temporarily paralysed me, and snatched away a package from me that contained 40 sets of mobile phones by

my company,” he said. Mahbubur Rahman, general manag-

er of Mycell Mobile, told the Dhaka Trib-une: “Azhar and Tutul Saha, our region-al sales manager in Dhaka zone, were assigned to deliver 130 mobile phones at two places in Dhaka and one place in Narayanganj today [yesterday].”

After delivering the ordered con-signment at Gulistan Shopping Com-plex, one of the destinations, they parted ways – Tutul went to deliver at Baitul Mukarram and Azhar started for Narayanganj, he said.

“As Azhar attempted to cross the road in front of the shopping complex, four or � ve goons attacked him with

the spray, rendered him temporari-ly paralysed in the middle of the road and stole the mobile phones away from him,” Mahbub said.

Azhar said locals rescued him and took him to the nearby Islamia Hospi-tal for primary treatment. He was later referred to Dhaka Medical College and Hospital.

Md Habib, sub-inspector at Paltan police station, said they had heard about the incident.

“But no one has come to us to � le a complaint or a case. We will take actions when we receive a complaint about this incident,” he told the Dhaka Tribune. l

Police bar Chhatra Federation from holding rallyn Tribune Report

Police attacked the activists of the Chhatra Federation of Chittagong Uni-versity (CU) unit yesterday, leaving � ve of them injured.

The students’ organisation arranged a sit-in programme in front of CU vice-chancellor o� ce demanding re-sumption of shuttle train service from Chittagong Railway Station.

Of the injured, Chhatra Federation’s General Secretary Bikul Tazim, second year student of Bangla department, and Publicity Secretary Mirza Fakrul received primary treatment from CU medical centre, said campus sources.

Witnesses and leaders of Chhatra

Federation said police swooped on the demonstrating activists during their scheduled programme in front of CU administrative building around 12:30pm.

“Police attacked on us during the programme in presence of assistant proctor of Ziaul Islam, a teacher of Islamic History and Culture depart-ment,” said Bikul Tanzim.

Later, the activists held a protest ral-ly in front of CU Proctor’s o� ce around 1:30pm protesting the police action on them in presence of the assistant proctor.

CU Proctor Siraj Ud Dowla said police had locked into scu� e with the Chhtra Front activists while law enforces were dispersing them from the VC o� ce. l

Capital punishment demanded over the death of 3 students n RU Correspondent

Students of Rajshahi Government Col-lege yesterday staged a demonstration in the city demanding capital punish-ment to the drivers who are responsible for the death of three students of the college in a road accident on Sunday.

Several hundred students wearing black badges gathered in front of the college gate around 10:30am demand-ing the punishment to the drivers of the two buses that collided on the Dha-ka-Rajshahi highway in the city, leav-ing three students of the college dead and some 30 others injured.

The students also staged sit in front of the college blocking the road causing tra� c congestion on both sides.

The three female students were killed in the accident when a bus carrying the students plunged into a roadside ditch after collided head on with another bus coming from Sirajganj to Rajshahi city.

However, the college authority formed a � ve member probe body to investigate the incident. l

Bakerganj mayor ignores HC rulingIllegal constructions put 300-year-old Jail Canal in dangern Our correspondent, Barisal

Mayor Lokman Hossain Dakua of Bak-erganj Municipality in Barisal has taken up a project to build drains and culverts in the historic Jail Khal (Jail Canal) in the upazila, ignoring a High Court rul-ing to preserve the canal.

Sources at the municipality said the mayor, who is also the secretary of Awami League’s Bakerganj unit, took up the project without the approval of the municipality or any other authori-ties concerned.

The constructions, if � nished, will shrink the canal’s width to around � ve or six feet and severely hamper its nav-igability, they said.

This correspondent recently visited the spot and talked to the local resi-dents, who claimed the project was il-legal as well as hazardous for the canal.

“We did not even demand for any such

constructions as it will shrink the canal,” said Kamrul Hasan, a local businessman.

Locals also said the canal, which is around 300 years old, was originally 25-30 feet wide and surrounded Bakerganj.

It was named after Mughal Subadar Aga Baker. Later, it became known as the Jail Canal as prisoners were transported to and from the Barisal Jail via the canal.

“Even after the Liberation War, the canal was around 15-20 feet wide, but over the years it shrunk to 10-12 feet due to illegal encroachment,” said local res-idents Nannu Miah and Amir Hossain.

“This canal is vital for our town as it protects it from waterlogging,” Nannu said.

Hosneara Begum, who lives near the canal, said: “The water of this canal is used for various purposes, including ir-rigation. It must be preserved.”

To protect the dying canal, a division bench of the High Court ordered relevant

authorities to take steps for preserving the canal and stopping � lling and dump-ing waste in it on October 20 this year, in response to a writ petition � led by Advo-cate Asaduzzaman Siddique.

The Dhaka Tribune contacted local ward councillor and panel mayor of Bakerganj Municipality, Mashiur Rah-man, yesterday in this regard, who said Mayor Lokman took the project for his personal bene� ts and without the ap-proval of the municipality itself or any other relevant authorities.

Shahidul Islam, assistant engineer at Bakerganj municipality, said, the project was a part of municipal development and would ensure smooth water � ow.

But when the Dhaka Tribune asked him about the project’s details, he re-fused to answer.

The Dhaka Tribune also contacted the mayor himself, who denied the al-legation of illegal encroachment. “The

municipality decided to construct a concrete drain and culvert by narrow-ing the canal for smoother water dis-posal and road expansion,” he told the Dhaka Tribune yesterday.

Asked about the matter of taking approval from the Department of Envi-ronment in this regard, he said he did not know that it was required.

He also denied his personal involve-ment with the project, saying contrac-tor Syed Siddik Ahmed was given the job after winning the tender called by the municipality.

Sukumar Biswas, director of the De-partment of Environment’s Barisal of-� ce, told the Dhaka Tribune yesterday that encroachment and � lling of the ca-nal was prohibited by the water body act.

“The municipality does not have the authority to do it, and my department will investigate this matter,” he told the Dhaka Tribune. l

RU TEACHER SHAFIUL MURDER

Teachers, students for speedy investigationn RU Correspondent

Students and teachers of Rajshahi Uni-versity (RU) formed a human chain yesterday demanding speed up the investigation into the murder of Prof AKM Sha� ul Islam who was hacked to death on November 15 on the way to his residence.

Over 400 hundred students and teachers participated in event organ-ised by sociology department on Pairs Road of the campus around 11am.

In the human chain, teachers said masterminds behind the killing were yet to be identi� ed and investigation process to bring the real culprits to the book was not satisfactory.

They said police were reluctant to bring Sha� ul killers’ into the light.

Chairman of Sociology department Prof Owardatul Akmam presided over the programme while General Secretary

of RU Teachers’ Association Prof Pranab Kumar Panday and Vice-President Prof Martuza Khalek addressed the rally.

A day after the murder, RU registrar Prof Entajul Haque � led a murder case with Motihar police station and 17 sus-pects now in jail in connection with the case.

O� cer-in-Charge of Motihar police station Alamgir Hossain who is also the investigation o� cer of the case told the Dhaka Tribune that police had been working over the murder case with due responsibilities.

Iftekharul Alam, spokesperson for commissioner of Rajshahi Metropolitan Police and also an assistant commis-sioner of the Detective Branch, told the Dhaka Tribune they were analsing the informations got from the arrestees.

He also said the police were current-ly looking into the involvement of oth-er people in the murder. l

TK1O lakh mugged in Sylhet n Our Correspondent, Sylhet

Armed muggers has reportedly snatched Tk 10 lakh from a stone trader in the city’s Zindabazar area yesterday afternoon.

The victim is Delwar Hossain, 30, son of Abdul Khaleq, Tilagram under Goainghat upazilla and a stone trader of the Ja� ong area.

A gang of four armed muggers at-tacked Delwar when he was going to Zindabazar on a rickshaw after drawing the money from Pubali Bank, Dorgha gate branch and took away a bag con-taining around Tk 10 lakh after beating him up around 1:30 pm, according to Delwar’s uncle Monsur Ahmed. l

Road accidents take lives of six n Tribune Report

At least six people were killed in sep-arate road accidents in Barisal, Mgura and Bandarban yesterday.

A man was killed and 20 others were injured at night as a bus plunged into a roadside ditch at Bashtola under Baris-al airport police station.

The deceased was identi� ed as Kar-tik, 30, a resident of Ganopara of Kashi-pur under Barisal airport police station.

The bus fell into a roadside ditch as it’s driver lost control over steering, leav-ing Kartik dead on the spot.

In Magura, a bus and a truck collid-ed head-on on the Dhaka-Khulna high-way in Kalnagar area of Sadar upazila around 9:30am, leaving three persons in the truck dead on the spot and ten others injured.

The deceased are Nazrul, 34, of Katcherkhol village in Jhenidah, Jinnu, 40, of Charshandha village in Mani-kganj, and Shaheb Ali, of Chirkunia vil-lage in Comilla.

In Bandarban, a man, namely Md Kabir Hossain, 29, got killed instantly and ten people were injured as a mi-cro-bus carrying tourists fell on a road-side ditch in Sadar upazila at noon after losing control, says Sadar police station OC Imtiaz Ahmed.

On Sunday night, a man named Foy-sal Mahmud, 30, was killed and three others were hurt when a Jeep carrying tourists on the same destination from Nilgiri fell on a roadside ditch. l

Tra� c jam is a common phenomenon for city dwellers and road digging by di� erent utility service providers adds to the su� ering. The photo snapped yesterday from Mirpur 10 in the capital shows the Dhaka Wasa has dug a portion of a road which is not only creating tailback but also causing su� erings for pedestrians MAINOOR ISLAM MANIK

DIGGING PUTS COMMUTERS ON PATIENCE TEST

The Bangladesh Inland Water Transport Authority conducts a drive in Sadarghat area in Old Dhaka yesterday. During the drive, the BIWTA demolished illegal structures built along the Buriganga River MAHMUD HOSSAIN OPU

6 NationDHAKA TRIBUNE Tuesday, December 9, 2014

Question paper leak halts primary school exam in Chuadangan Our Correspondent, Chuadanga

The year � nal examination of class four of all schools in Damurhuda upazila of Chuadanga was marred by allegation of question paper leak.

The authorities cancelled the Eng-lish examination while the test on Mathematics suspended as the news of question paper leak of those subjects surfaced yesterday. The upazila educa-tion o� cer Nurjahan Begum was issued a show-cause notice in this regard.

A common set of question papers for classes one to four was prepared for all the primary schools of the upazilla in a bid to hold the year � nal exam in one

go. The test of English was held on Sun-day while the Mathematics test was due on Monday. Despite the information about question leak, the English test was still held. When the same allega-tion was made for the Maths exams, the authorities decided to cancel the tests.

Local people claimed that question papers of both English and Maths were sold in the photocopy shops on Satur-day. This correspondent was also able to secure copies of the question papers.

When contacted, Golam Nabi, pri-mary education o� cer (acting) of the district said they could not stop the English test as they heard about the leak later. But they acted immediate-

ly when they heard about the Maths question paper.

“There are about 115 primary schools in the upazila. Students of class four of all schools could not attend the Mathematics test as it was suspended. We have already served show-cause notice to the education o� cer Nurja-han Begum.”

Acknowledging the show-cause no-tice, Nurjahan Begum said: “The � nal exams started on December 7 and we have handed over the question papers to the concerned teachers only three days before. I do not know the ques-tions were leaked. The reason can only be known after an investigation.” l

Sexual harassment allegation against schoolteachern Our Correspondent, Gopalganj

Female students of Purbo Kotalopara Union Government High School have raised sexual harassment allegation against a teacher.

School authority has formed a three-member probe committee to in-vestigate the matter.

Students of the school and local peo-ple staged demonstration on the school premise yesterday, demanding actions against the teacher Subrata Lal Madhu.

Students of the school told the Dha-ka Tribune that the teacher had recent-ly sexually harassed a Class X student of the school.

The girl submitted a written com-plaint to headmaster against the teach-er on Thursday.

The agitators said it had been four days since the girl made the complaint, but the school authority was yet to take action against him.

Some students who preferred to be unnamed said the teacher earlier har-assed three students of the class, but the school governing body did not take action against him.

Headmaster, Monoj Kumar Majum-dar, said: “We have received two let-ters against the teacher, school govern-ing body would take action against him as soon as possible.”

But Madhu Lal di� ered with the al-legation saying that it was a conspiracy against him. “I did nothing,” he said.

President of school governing body Lakshmi Kanto Hawladaer said they had discussed the issue at a meeting on Sunday. The probe committee would start working soon. “If he (Madhu) is found guilty we would take action against him,” he said.

Shyamal Kanti Das, a resident of Kan-di village, said if the school authority did not take action against him they would not send their children to the school. l

BCL leader’s house attacked over Juba League leader killingn Our Correspondent, Jessore

Jubo League activists set the house of BCL Sharsha unit president on � re at Nabharan Bazar in the upazila yester-day following the killing of a leader of the wing.

Sources said Tozam, 37, general secretary of Juba League’s Nabharan working committee, sustained injuries in an attack by miscreants at the bazar on Sunday night, died in hospital.

Police said a group of miscreants attacked Tozam and beat him indis-criminately while he was going to the bazar around 7:30 pm, leaving him seri-ously injured. Juba League sources also said he was injured in a clash between Chhatra League over a mobile phone snatching incident.

He was admitted to 250-Bed Jessore Sadar Hospital from where he was sent to Dhaka Medical College and Hospital. He succumbed to his injures around 6:30 am.

As the news spread around, support-ers of Tozam vandalised the house of Sharsha upazila unit Chhatra League president Abdur Rahim and set it ablaze. They alleged that the Chhatra League president was responsible for the killing.

They also blocked the Benapole-Jes-sore Highway for an hour. On infor-mation, police went to the spot and brought the situation under control.

ASP Reshma Sharmin said additional police forces were deployed in the area.

Joint Secretary of Sharsha upazila Awami League Md Ibrahim said: “I heard that Jubo League supporters torched Ra-him and his three relatives’ houses.”

However, Sharsha police station duty o� cer Shahidar Rahman said no causali-ties were reported in the incident. l

Tension in Khagrachhari over killing of AL leadern Our Correspondent,

Khagrachhari

A tensed situation has been prevail-ing in Khagrachhari since an Awami League leader was killed by some uni-denti� ed miscreants on Saturday.

Protesting the killing, local people of Manikchhari enforced a daylong hartal yesterday which was passed o� peace-fully. Local people from a rally called the hartal on Sunday.

Chingsamong Chowdhury, head-master of Manikchhari Collegiate High School and also vice-president of Man-ikchhari upazila unit Awami League, was shot dead on Saturday. President of Janasanghoti Samity Mongsajai was

also injured in the attack. Local people said it had been two

days since the killing of Chingsamong, but police could not arrest anyone in this connection.

Protesting the killing, classes and examinations at all the educational in-stitution was suspended.

Meanwhile, the Parbatya Chhatra Sangram Parishad put up barricade on Khagrachhari-Panchhari road protest-ing shooting at a Bangali couple on Sat-urday. The protester made the United Peoples Democratic Front responsible for recent violence in the district.

However, the organisation denied their involvement with any kind of vi-olence in the district. l

Girl abducted from Bagerhat rescuedn Our Correspondent, Tangail

Rapid Action Battalion (Rab-12) res-cued an abducted six-year-old girl from Elenga Bus Terminal area in Kalihati upazila of Tangail early yesterday.

They also arrested two members of an abductors’ gang for their involve-ment in the crime. The arrestees are Zakir Hossain and Sheikh Ali Azam, Rab o� cials said.

On November 27, the victim, Sumaia Aktar Meem, daughter of Hawladar Ishrat Ali, was abducted from her village Cha-koshree in Rampal upazila of Bagerhat.

Md Muhiuddin, commander for crime prevention company-3 at Rab-12, said acting on a secret information a team of Rab conducted drives in Jokar Char and Elenga Bus Terminal area of Kalihati on Sunday night.

The Rab personnel arrested Jakir from Jokar Char. Later, they arrested Azam from the bus terminal area fol-lowing Jakir’s confessional statement.

On November 30, Sumaia’s father Ishrat Ali � led a case with Rampal Police Station. He also informed the Rab-6 in Khula about the abduction of her doughtier.

Quoting Ishrat, Rab o� cial Muhiud-din said the kidnapers demanded Tk5 lakh as ransom. In failure of the pay-ment, they threatened to kill the girl.

In a primary interrogation, the arres-tees confessed to involvement in the crime, he said. l

RMG workers block roadover fellow’s deathReadymade garment workers yesterday blocked the road in front of Dhaka Export Processing Zone in Savar over the death of a fellow worker in a road accident. The dead was identi� ed as Mukta, 27, was an operator of Yangone Garment. Inspector Azharul Islam of Ashulia police station said, a bus rammed into Mukta, 27, an operator of Yangone Garment, on the Nabinagar-Kaliakoir highway in the morning when she was crossing the road, leaving her dead on the spot. Following the incident, workers of DEPZ took to the street and blocked the highway, disrupting the tra� c movement for about an hour. They set � re on the bus and vandalised 10 to 12 vehicles. On information, police went to the spot and brought the situation under control. Police recovered the body and sent it to Dhaka Medical College Hospital morgue.– Our Correspondent, Savar

10 hurt in clash in RMG factoryAt least 10 workers were injured yesterday as two groups of a garment factory were locked in a clash in Savar centering payment of a worker. Afrosa, Monir and Farid workers of Padob Jeans Ltd said the authority paid the workers’ due payment on Sunday. But Russel, a worker named Russel at the factory was not given his full payment. Following the incident, 25-30 co-workers of Russel formed a human chain in front of the factory in the morning. At one stage, some workers loyal to the factory owner attacked the agitated workers, leaving 10 injured. Deputy Director of Ashulia In-dustries Police Shahid Ullah said: “Being informed, the police

rushed in and brought the situation under control. Additional police have been deployed in front of those factories to avert any further untoward situation.” The authorities declared the factory closed for an inde� nite period. – Our Correspondent, Savar

Cancellation of BNP’s convening committee demandedA group of activists of the BNP in Sunamganj called for the cancellation of the convening committee in the district yes-terday. They made the demand in press conference around 11am in the morning. Former general secretary of BNP’s Sadar upazila unit Selim Uddin Ahmed said: “The one-sided committee has been formed with the opportunists.” “But the dedicated activists of the party were excluded from the committee,” he also said.– Our Correspondent, Sunamganj

Signature campaign on to save Bhairab RiverJono Uddog, a non government organiztion has commenced a signature campaign to save the Bhairab River, an important river in the moribund delta area which they fear is degrading rapidly. The organization’s convenor MR Khairul Umam said they had already collected one lakh signatures in this regard. “Despite approaching every government authority only cosmetic measures have been adopted,” he said. A memo-randum was sent to the Prime Minister through the deputy commissioner yesterday in this connection.– Our Correspondent, Jessore

Hill being cut down to make way for rubber factoryn Our Correspondent, Bandarban

A hill is allegedly being illegally cut down to make way for a rubber facto-ry and its sta� quarters in Bandarban’s Naikhangchhari upazila.

The hill has been being cut down in the middle of the residential area to the eastern side of the road adjacent to Dhabankhali Marma Parha for 20 days, locals.

Residents Mongkiu Master, Md Ali, Abdul Haq and Belal Uddin of Dha-bankhali Marma Parha said the hill

cutting would put over 50 houses at the risk of collapse during the next rainy season.

They questioned the role of the ad-ministration apparently for not tak-ing any action against the hill cutting which is totally banned in all three Chittagong Hill Tracts.

They explained that the administra-tion kept silent last year, when the same rubber company cut down another hill for building a rubber factory here.

When Manager Jamal Hossain of the AG Lutfar Rahman Rubber Garden was asked about the hill cutting, he said they were cutting down this hill just a little bit and it should not a� ect any house nearby.

To make it clear that there is no ownership dispute over this hilly land, he himself said this land belonged to nobody but the company.

When Upazila Nirbahi O� cer Abu Shafayed Md Shahidul Islam was asked about this, he spoke for launching a drive against hill cutting in the upazila. l

To make it clear that there is no ownership dispute over this hilly land, he himself said this land belonged to nobody but the company

A man is seen mixing chemical with molasses in Baneswar area under Puthia upazila, Rajshahi yesterday. Local sources said molasses producers of Taherpur, Durgapur, Bagha and Charghat villages mixed harmful chemicals with molasses to get good colour AZAHAR UDDIN

The recently taken photo shows labourers cutting a hill to make way for a rubber factory and its sta� quarters in Bandarban’s Naikhangchhari upazila DHAKA TRIBUNE

NEWS IN BRIEF

7Long Form Tuesday, December 9, 2014DHAKA TRIBUNE

n Ifty Islam

Bangladesh’s growth and ex-port performance has been impressive and resilient in the face of both external shocks, such as the global

� nancial crisis, as well as internal one’s such as hartals and the Rana Plaza disaster. GDP growth has con-sistently had an average of around 6%, while the expansion of RMG exports from around $10bn in 2010 to around $24bn today speaks for itself.

Nonetheless, I believe that Bangla-desh has the opportunity, by deep-ening its ties to Japan, China, South Korea and Asean, of what I term as a new “Look East Policy” (LEP), to achieve an acceleration in GDP growth to 7-8%. This would be driven by an expansion of export sectors on the back of a rapid increase in FDI and infrastructure development.

Last week, I attended a seminar hosted by Jetro (Japan External Trade Organization) on Look East Policy where Professor Fukunari Kimura, Chief Economist of the Economic Research Institute for Asean and East Asia (ERIA), outlined new growth opportunities for Bangladesh.

In this article I want to discuss three core themes: 1) The China relocation trade 2) Japanese PM Abe’s “Big B” growth

corridor concept 3) Professor Kimura’s key theme of

international production networks and a new approach to economic development

I will then conclude with some sugges-tions on how Bangladesh should move forward.

The China relocation trade

Let us � rst start with what has been termed as the China relocation trade. The evolution and rebalancing of Chinese macro-economic policy looms large as potentially the most important in� uence on the future growth and investment opportunities for frontier markets like Bangladesh.

It has already begun to trigger a ma-jor expansion in existing export sec-tors such as RMG, will spurn dramatic

growth in others such as footwear and shipbuilding and spawn whole new export sectors such as toy manufactur-ing, light engineering and electronics/appliance assembly.

Professor Gus Papanek noted in a speech in Dhaka in 2010 that: “Bangla-desh has a unique opportunity within the next year and a half or two years because it has the possibility of taking over part of the world market that Chi-na is going to abandon.”

Former World Bank Chief Econ-omist, Justin Li-fu Lin has echoed a similar theme in several articles and speeches stating that “industrial upgrading has increased wages and is causing China to graduate from labour-intensive to more capital and technology-intensive industries.

These industries will shed labour and create huge opportunities for lower wage countries to start a phase of labour-intensive industrialisation. This process, called the Leading Drag-on Phenomenon, o� ers an unprece-dented opportunity to … (developing countries) … where the industrial sec-tor is underdeveloped and investment capital and entrepreneurial skills are leading constraints to manufacturing.”

There is a major opportunity for those countries that can resolve investment constraints by attracting some of the FDI � owing currently from China, India and Brazil into the manufacturing sectors of other devel-oping countries.

Lin concludes that “all low-income countries will compete but to catch the jobs spilling over from China, the winner must implement credible economic development strategies that are consistent with its comparative advantage.”

‘Big B’ growth corridor

It’s also important to recognise that the China relocation trade will not be driven by China alone. Indeed, coun-ter-intuitively, China may play a lesser role than countries such as Japan, Korea and Taiwan.

The reason for this is that compa-nies from these three countries, and to a lesser extent those from the US and EU, have established lower cost factories in China in the past two decades. Their re-appraisal of the at-tractiveness of those destinations as a result of higher wages will drive both the movement of existing facilities from China as well as the re-direction of future FDI.

It is also worth adding that geo-po-litical tensions between China and Japan as well as other countries over territorial disputes in the resource rich South China Sea is also likely to in� uence FDI decisions in terms of reducing political risk to investments.

In this context, the initiative taken by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to visit Japan in May 2014 and the sub-sequent return visit by Japanese PM Shinzo Abe in September, is especially signi� cant.

At the joint press conference, Prime Minister Abe, as part of the “Ja-pan-Bangladesh Comprehensive Part-nership,” committed Y600bn (approx $5bn) over 4-5 years in the form of development loans. He also noted that “Bangladesh has great economic po-tential. In order to realise its potential and expedite further growth, Japan has come up with the concept of the Bay of Bengal industrial growth belt …” or what he termed “The BIG-B.”

This concept was clari� ed in a

speech by JICA president Professor Akihiko Tanaka at Dhaka University in June 2014 in which he stated that: “Perhaps it is high time for the Bay of Bengal to be considered as a coherent strategic region within the broader framework of the Indo-Paci� c.

Bangladesh’s renewed focus to “look east” would be timely and appropriate in this sense. Bangladesh, in other words, is the linchpin of the Indo-Pa-ci� c region. It stands to gain a great deal from the shift in global economic dynamism toward the Indian Ocean. Indeed, the Bay of Bengal Industrial Growth Belt initiative (BIG-B) seeks to take full advantage of this trend.

It foresees Bangladesh transcending its national borders to become a “node & hub” of the regional economy, so that she may reshape herself as a spar-kling trading nation deeply incorporat-ed into inter-regional and global value chain networks. This transformation is imperative if its national target of becoming a middle-income country by 2021 and a developed country by 2041 is to be achieved.

Professor Tanaka went on to out-line the three pillars of “Big B” policy as follows:

1) Trade and Industry: This pillar mainly consists of constructing a long-awaited deep sea port at the Matarbari Island which would o� er Bangladesh an important trade gate-way to the rest of Asia and beyond;

2) Energy: Matarbari Island can be developed into a massive supply base of primary energy (such as coal, LNG, and oil). The electricity produced from those sources can support a quantum leap in industry and trade, not only within the area covered by BIG-B but also all over Bangladesh.

JICA has already committed $1.8bn plus to the Matarbari Coal-Fired Power Project which has two key compo-nents, a deep sea port 18m in depth for importing coal and a coal-� red power

plant with an electricity generation ca-pacity of 1,200MW. That is equivalent to 15% of current electricity demand.

The deep sea port will enable 80,000 ton class ships (panamax size) to direct-ly enter the port for coal unloading. Its construction is expected to be complet-ed in 2020. The coal-� red power plant should start commercial operation in 2022, or perhaps even earlier.

3) Transportation: To enable great-er industry, trade, and energy pro-duction, the Dhaka-Chittagong-Cox’s Bazar transport artery needs to be strengthened and even extended to neighbouring countries. More and better national highways and railways are an absolute must to accelerate the movement of goods and people that is essential for highly vibrant industrial agglomeration.

Finally, Professor Tanaka, former-ly of Tokyo University, who is also recognised as a leading development economist, highlighted the lessons for Bangladesh from the development experience of Thailand. He noted that JICA’s Eastern Seaboard Development Programme in Thailand is a model of how Japan’s experience and a pro-growth development strategy can bear fruit elsewhere.

From the 1980s to the early 1990s, JICA supported e� orts by the Thai government to pursue industrial-isation through the promotion of industrial parks and networks of ports, highways and railways with ODA loans and technical cooperation. Thailand has now become a big manufacturing hub in the global supply chain.

He gave the example of the auto-mobile sector, where Thailand’s auto production has reached 2 million units per annum in 2012, led by a cluster of major makers with 640 parts suppliers and 1,700 auto-parts subcontractors. The Eastern Seaboard itself has grown into a large industrial and export base with 14 industrial complexes, 1,300 factories and 360,000 workers. It is now the country’s second largest eco-nomic area next to Bangkok.

International production networks and a new approach to economic development

This brings us to Professor Kimura’s paper “International Production Networks and a New Development Strategy in East Asia” that he present-ed at the Jetro seminar on December 1. His core theme was that Asean coun-tries in the past decade have bene� ted from the formation of international production/distribution networks.

He noted: “The international pro-duction/distribution networks consist of vertical production chains extended across the countries in the region as well as distribution networks through-out the world.

“The major players are corporate � rms belonging to the machinery industries, including general machin-ery, electrical machinery, transport equipment, and precision machinery, though some � rms in other industries, such as textiles and garment, also

develop the networks.”It sounds complicated but the

concept is more straightforward. Let’s use the example of something we are all familiar with, the Apple Iphone 6. It is assembled by Taiwanese compa-nies, Foxconn/Honhai and Wistron in Southern China, using screens supplied by Japanese companies Sharp and Japan Display as well as LG from Korea. Memory chips come from arch rival Samsung and the camera from Taiwan Largan precision.

But most of these companies have o� shore production factories in cheaper countries. For example,

Iphone 6 touchscreen supplier Wintek has factories in China, Taiwan, India and Vietnam. We could do a similar analysis or breakdown for autos, elec-tronics, heavy machinery and many other sectors.

The chart from Professor Kimura shows the breakdown of machinery exports and imports between � nal products and parts and components by region in millions of US dollars. You can see that in Asean, parts and components have an even larger share than � nal products.

The way forward

The key point is that international production has become increasingly specialised. What economists call production “fragmentation,” has been driven by reduced transport, telecom-munications and other costs between countries that allows economies of scale from specialisation.

What are the conclusions for Bang-ladesh policy of the three themes of China Relocation, “Big B” and produc-tion networks I have outlined above? I would suggest that we adopt more explicitly a Look East Policy centred around the four core themes:

1) Investment – to include Special Economic Zones policy, FDI promo-tion/attraction, regulatory environ-ment;

2) Trade policy – to ensure tari� s are reduced to allow our products to integrate into regional networks as well as a goal of developing new Free Trade Agreements (FTA) with key trading partners such as Japan, China, Korea, Asean;

3) Regional connectivity – including concepts such as Japan’s “Big B” or China’s Maritime New Silk Route that

was unveiled by Chinese President Xi Jinping at the recently concluded APEC Summit in Beijing. These are not com-peting concepts, notwithstanding geo-political rivalries between the regions’ great powers. They are both largely about enhancing regional integration and connectivity for the mutual bene-� t of all countries in the region;

4) Infrastructure – to ensure im-proved energy, roads, rail and sea net-works are economic growth enablers and not constraints.

Maintaining ongoing dialogue with our key Asian trading partners is criti-cal. Since PM Abe’s visit on September

6, it appears that there has been a sub-stantial increase in Japanese companies visiting and/or expanding their local presence in Bangladesh. The presence has been broad, ranging from larger conglomerates such as Sumitomo, Mitsubishi, Mitsui, Itochu, Marubeni as well as medium sized companies.

A 38 member Japanese busi ness delegation also concluded a visit to Bangladesh last month. The � rst Bang-ladesh-Japan Public-Private Economic Dialogue was held on August 21 in preparation for PM Abe’s visit with a focus on boosting bilateral trade, investment and economic cooperation between the two countries.

Japanese Vice-Minister (Inter-national A� airs) of METI Norihiko Ishiguro led a 38-member Japanese delegation, while Senior Secretary of the Prime Minister’s O� ce (PMO) Abul Kalam Azad led a 32-member Bang-ladeshi delegation. It is important to maintain the momentum and I would recommend that the Bangladesh Gov-ernment request the second Bangla-desh-Japan dialogue be held in Tokyo in Q1 2015.

Finally, I would suggest that the government consider setting up a Look East Policy cabinet sub-commit-tee headed by the prime minister and also establish a dedicated unit that fo-cuses on the four key LEP components I have highlighted above.

Bangladesh stands at a critical juncture in its economic development and an enhanced focus on LEP could be the transformational factor in accel-erating growth and reducing poverty. Let’s not miss the opportunity! l

Ifty Islam is the managing partner of Asian Tiger Capital, and can be reached at ifty.islam@at-capital.com.

Follow the dragonBangladesh has the opportunity, by deepening its ties to Japan, China, South Korea and ASEAN, of what I term as a new ‘Look East Policy’ to achieve an acceleration in GDP growth to 7-8%

To enable greater industry, trade, and energy production, the Dhaka-Chittagong-Cox’s Bazar transport artery needs to be strengthened and even extended to neighbouring countries

Bangladesh stands at a critical juncture in its economic development and an enhanced focus on LEP could be the transformational factor in accelerating growth and reducing poverty

WIKIMEDIA

Tuesday, December 9, 2014DHAKA TRIBUNE World8

California police, protesters clash againn Reuters, Berkeley

Angry crowds hurled objects at police who retaliated in a second night of clashes in northern California follow-ing the death of a black man who was put in a chokehold by a New York po-lice o� cer.

Police � red gas after being targeted by what they called “explosives.” They moved in to clear roadways as pro-testers swarmed freeway overpasses at two locations in Berkeley, a Reuters reporter saw.

Police made several arrests among the demonstrators who numbered well over 500, and a number of stores in Berkeley were looted. One demon-strator who tried to prevent the looting was assaulted, police said.

Reuters could not immediately ob-tain further information from police, who some demonstrators said on Twit-ter had � red rubber bullets.

Protesters have demonstrated daily in several US cities since a grand jury’s decision on Wednesday not to bring criminal charges against the white po-lice o� cer whose chokehold contrib-uted to Eric Garner’s death in New York City in July.

The killings of Garner and of Mi-chael Brown, an unarmed black teen, in Ferguson, Missouri, have highlight-

ed the strained relations between po-lice and the black community and re-kindled a national debate over US race relations.

New York was quieter over the weekend, but West Coast cities had braced for trouble after clashes in Berkeley and Seattle, Washington on Saturday.

On Sunday, police in Berkeley � red gas after some demonstrators began hurling objects, the California High-way Patrol’s Golden Gate division said.

Arrests were made, but exact num-bers were not available. Patrol vehicles were vandalized, the division said on Twitter. It also displayed photos of rocks it said were hurled.

Authorities closed the local Bay Area Rapid Transit station for a second night due to the unrest.

The two nights of looting and rock-throwing on the West Coast con-trasted with mostly peaceful demon-strations elsewhere.

The decision by a grand jury not to return an indictment in Brown’s killing ignited two nights of arson and rioting in the St. Louis suburbs.

Earlier on Sunday evening hun-dreds of protesters began marching down a main thoroughfare in Berkeley after massing on the campus of the University of California. l

Rivalries resurface in Iraqi town recaptured from Islamic Staten Reuters

The blood of two militants killed during IS’s rout in the Iraqi town of Jalawla has yet to be washed away, but a turf war is already brewing between Kurdish and Shi’ite forces that jointly drove the insurgents out.

The recapture of disputed territory and towns such as Jalawla is reopening rival-ries over the boundary between areas of Kurdish control and those administered by the Shi’ite-led Baghdad government.

Local Sunni Arabs displaced in the

� ghting have little choice but to align themselves with one side or the other.

Not long after IS began its o� ensive across Iraq this summer, Kurdish com-manders in the eastern province of Di-yala invited the head of the largest Sun-ni Arab tribe in Jalawla to discuss jointly resisting the insurgents.

“We sat with them here in this very building,” said Brigadier General Bar-zan Ali Shawas, describing the meeting with Sheikh Faisal al-Karwi in a Kurd-ish peshmerga barracks.

“We said: What do you want? True,

you are Arabs and we are Kurds, but the unity of Iraq is in our interest.” The sheikh had replied he would consider the Kurds’ o� er to set up a unit for local Sunnis under peshmerga command, but he never came back with an answer.

Since that June day, Jalawla changed hands several times, until the peshmer-ga and Shi’ite militia drove the militants out on Nov. 23. According to Shawas, they agreed before the o� ensive that the Shi’ite militia would withdraw as soon as it was over and hand full control to the Kurds, but that has yet to happen. l

UN declares 2014 a devastating year for millions of childrenn Reuters

The United Nations children’s agency UNICEF declared 2014 a devastating year for children on Monday with as many as 15 million caught in con� icts in Central African Republic, Iraq, South Sudan, Syria, Ukraine and the Palestinian territories.

UNICEF Executive Director Antho-ny Lake said the high number of crises meant many of them were quickly for-gotten or failed to capture global head-lines, such as in Afghanistan, Dem-ocratic Republic of Congo, Nigeria, Pakistan, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen.

Globally, UNICEF said some 230 million children were living in coun-tries and regions a� ected by armed con� ict.

“Children have been killed while studying in the classroom and while sleeping in their beds; they have been orphaned, kidnapped, tortured, re-cruited, raped and even sold as slaves,” Lake said in a statement. “Never in re-cent memory have so many children been subjected to such unspeakable brutality.”

Signi� cant threats also emerged to children’s health and well-being like the deadly outbreak of Ebola in the West African countries Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, which has left thou-

sands orphaned and some 5 million out of school.

“Violence and trauma do more than harm individual children - they under-mine the strength of societies,” Lake said.

In Central African Republic, where tit-for-tat sectarian violence has dis-placed one-� fth of the population, some 2.3 million children are a� ected by the con� ict with up to 10,000 be-lieved to have been recruited by armed groups during the past year and more than 430 killed or maimed, UNICEF said.

Some 538 children were killed and 3,370 injured in the Palestinian Gaza Strip during a 50-day war between Is-raeli troops and Hamas militants, it said.

In Syria, UNICEF said more than 7.3 million children have been a� ected by the civil war, including 1.7 million who � ed the country. In neighboring Iraq an estimated 2.7 million children have been a� ected by con� ict, it added, with at least 700 believed to have been maimed or killed this year.

“In both countries, children have been victims of, witnesses to and even perpetrators of increasingly brutal and extreme violence,” UNICEF said.

Some 750,000 children have been displaced in South Sudan with 320,000 living as refugees. l

Syria says Israeli jets hit Damascusn Agencies

Syria has accused Israel of carrying out air strikes against two govern-ment-held areas in Damascus prov-ince, one of them near the Damascus international airport.

There was no immediate reaction to Sunday’s report from the Israeli au-thorities.

“The Israeli enemy attacked Syria by targeting two safe areas in Damas-cus province, namely the Dimas area and the area of Damascus Internation-al Airport,” state TV said.

The state-owned Al Ikhbariya TV station reported no casualties, but said “the Israeli enemy committed a hei-nous attack by targeting two peaceful areas in the Damascus countryside.”

Al Jazeera’s Jane Ferguson, re-porting from Beirut in neighbouring Lebanon, said the Syrian government issued a statement shortly after the news of the attacks broke.

It said the attacks were evidence that Israelis were supporting what it called “terrorists,” she said.

“The statement also said the Syrian government would respond in a way the military saw it.

But they have said this before and they have not responded militarily against Israel.”

The Israeli military has launched several air raids against Syrian mil-itary positions since the outbreak of the country’s armed uprising in 2011.

The Britain-based Syrian Obser-

vatory for Human Rights, which monitors the conflict, said one of the sites targeted, Dimas, was a military position.

Operations at the international air-port are both civilian and military.

Activists posted footage online pur-porting to show government air-to-air missiles targeting Israeli � ghter jets over the Dimas region.

Before Sunday, the most recent air raid was in March and targeted mili-tary positions in the Quneitra region that borders the Israeli-occupied Go-lan Heights.

Syria and Israel are o� cially in a state of war, and Israel has since 1967 occupied the Golan Heights.

The occupation is not recognised by the international community. l

South African court clears Briton of honeymoon murdern Reuters, Cape Town

A South African court cleared British businessman Shrien Dewani on Mon-day of charges that he paid hitmen to kill his wife while they were on honey-moon in Cape Town four years ago.

State prosecutors had argued that Dewani paid 15,000 rand ($1,300) in a plot with taxi driver Zola Tongo and others to kidnap and murder his wife, Anni, in November 2010, charges he has consistently denied.

Three South Africans, who had im-plicated Dewani as part of plea bar-gains for reduced sentences, are serv-ing lengthy jail terms for her murder.

“The application is granted. The accused is found not guilty on this charge,” Judge Jeanette Traverso told a packed courtroom. Dewani is expected to be released and could � y home to Britain later on Monday.

Anni Dewani’s family said they were “deeply disappointed” with the judge’s decision, especially because Shrien never had to take the stand to give his version of events.

“Today we feel as a family that the justice system has failed us,” Anni’s sister, Ami Denborg, told reporters outside the courtroom as family mem-bers wept nearby.

Traverso earlier said Tongo, the prosecution’s chief witness, gave tes-timony “riddled with contradictions” and it was di� cult to know where “the lies end and the truth begins.”

She added that the evidence pro-vided by two hitmen also convicted of Anni Dewani’s murder “contradict Mr Tongo on about every aspect of their interaction.”

Prosecutors had argued that Dewani agreed to pay for a staged hijacking in Gugulethu township on the edge of Cape Town.

Mziwamadoda Qwabe, a South Af-rican serving 25 years in jail for mur-dering Anni Dewani, told the court he commandeered the car in which the Dewanis were travelling. Police later found her body in the back seat with a single gunshot wound to the neck.

Dewani lost a three-year legal battle in Britain to avoid being extradited to and tried in South Africa. l

US sanctions aimed at changing power, Russian envoy saysn Reuters, Moscow

A senior Russian diplomat accused the United States on Monday of trying to bring down President Vladimir Putin with the sanctions it has imposed on Moscow over the crisis in Ukraine.

Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov told parliamentary deputies that ties between Moscow and Washington were in a very deep chill and were likely to remain so if the sanctions remained for a long time.

“It is hardly a secret that the goal of the sanctions is to create social and economic conditions to carry out

a change of power in Russia,” Sergei Ryabkov told a hearing in the lower house. “There will be no easy or fast way out of this.”

He said he did not expect the United States to recognise Crimea as part of Russia “for decades to come” and accused Washington of trying to drive a wedge between Russia and the other former Soviet republics.

Ties between Russia and the United States took a dive this year as the Cold War-era foes traded accusations over the crisis in Ukraine, and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has accused Washington of seeking “regime change.”

President Vladimir Putin has portrayed Western sanctions as an attempt to contain Russia and punish it for becoming strong and independent.

State media have often repeated this message and an opinion poll released by the independent Levada research group on Monday showed 74% of Russians have negative views of the United States, compared to 18% who think the opposite.

Levada said the � gures marked the lowest point in Russians’ attitudes toward the United States since 1990, the year before the Soviet Union collapsed. l

T H I S I S N O T G A Z A ; I T ’ S C A L I F O R N I A

A demonstrator throws backs a teargas canister toward the police line during the fourth night of demonstrations over recent grand jury decisions in police-involved deaths on Saturday, in Berkeley, California AFP

US to continue hostage raidsn Reuters

Despite three failed raids to free US hostages held by militants, the United States will continue to conduct such operations, o� cials indicated on Sun-day, as President Barack Obama grap-ples with a spate of kidnappings and killings of American citizens.

The latest setback came in a remote area of Yemen early on Saturday, when al Qaeda militants shot American photo journalist Luke Somers and South Afri-can teacher Pierre Korkie during a raid.

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel de-fended the operation and the intelli-gence that lay behind it."I don't think

it's a matter of going back and having a review of our process. Our process is about as thorough as there can be. Is it imperfect? Yes. Is there risk? Yes," Hagel said on a visit to Tactical Base Gamberi in eastern Afghanistan.

"But we start with the fact that we have an American that's being held hostage and that American's life is in danger and that's where we start. And then we proceed from there," he said.

An earlier raid in mid-November to free Somers also was unsuccessful - he wasn't present when US and Yemeni forces arrived - as was a July attempt to rescue American journalist James Foley, held by Islamic State in Syria. l

Crews battle 2 large � res in Los Angeles n Agencies

Crews are at the scene of two massive � res in Los Angeles, including one downtown that closed down portions of two major freeways and blanketed the area in heavy smoke.

Los Angeles Fire Department said more than 250 � re� ghters were bat-tling the blaze on Monday.

David Ortiz, Los Angeles � re depart-ment spokesman, told Al Jazeera the

� re had a� ected thousands of people in the city.

“It is under control, but it did cause extensive damage to two buildings,” Ortiz said.

The � re was burning a building planned to be a tall residential structure.

Ortiz added he didn’t think anyone was living or working there.

The city’s 101 Freeway was closed in both directions, while the California Highway Patrol says transition lanes

between the 110 and 101 freeways were shutdown.

The � re department spokesperson said that the cause and extent of the � re are not yet known.About 3 hours later a � re was reported at a mixed-use building about 2 miles (3 kilometers) to the west. About 100 � re� ghters are on that scene.

No injuries are reported from either � re. Terrazas says there's no indication the two incidents are connected. l

Los Angeles County � re� ghters battle a � re at an apartment building under construction in Los Angeles, early yesterday AP

Scientists open Egyptian mummy co� nn AP, Chicago

Once the lid was o� the wood co� n hold-ing the 2,500-year-old mummi� ed remains of a 14-year-old Egyptian boy, scientist JP Brown could relax.

The conservator at Chicago’s Field Museum and three other scientists had just used clamps and pieces of metal to create a cradle to lift the fragile lid. Wearing blue surgical gloves, they slowly lifted the contraption containing the co� n lid and carefully walked it to a table in a humidi-ty-controlled lab at the museum.

“Sweet!” Brown said, after helping set the lid down. He later added: “Oh yeah, god, I was nervous.”

The well-planned routine came Friday as scientists started conservation work on the mummy of Minirdis, the son of a stolist

priest. The mummy needs to be stabilised so it can travel in the upcoming exhibit, “Mummies: Images of the Afterlife,” which is expected to premier next September at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County. It is expected to travel to the Denver Museum of Nature and Science in fall 2016.

The Field Museum has had the mummy since the 1920s, when the institution received it from the Chicago Historical So-ciety. It’s part of the museum’s collection of 30 complete human mummies from Egypt.

“There’s always a risk of damage,” said Brown, who did the work in a lab � lled with plastic-covered examination tables set be-hind a large window to let schoolchildren watch his daily work. “So we like to handle these things as little as possible.”

Inside the co� n, there was expected

damage. CT scans, which make X-ray images that allow scientists to see inside the co� n before opening it, showed the boy’s feet were detached and partially unwrapped with his toes sticking out. His shroud and mask were torn and twisted sideways. Those also will be repaired.

Brown didn’t worry that the mummy would scatter to dust when opened – something common in the movies. Pieces of the co� n had previously gone missing, exposing the mummy to the elements.

“The last bit of ‘Indiana Jones’ and all that,” Brown explained before opening the co� n. “That’s not going to happen.”

And it didn’t.Walking around the opened co� n,

Brown pointed and explained the signif-icance of a certain marking, the colored resin on the linen wrappings or the gilded

gold on the mask. If Minirdis had lived, he would have been a priest like his father, Brown said. Scientists don’t know why he died so young.

“The fascinating thing about any mum-my is that it’s survived as long as it has,” Brown said. “They’re actually amazingly fragile.”

This kind of work is always painstaking, � lled with pre-planning and tests so scien-tists are prepared for the unexpected, said Molly Gleeson, who works with mummies as project conservator at Penn Museum’s “In the Artifact Lab: Conserving Egyptian Mummies” exhibition in Philadelphia.

“These are unique individuals, unique objects,” she said. “There’s nothing else like them. If damage were to happen, we can’t put things back together exactly the way they were before.” l

Tuesday, December 9, 2014DHAKA TRIBUNE World 9

Afghan students � nd inspiration in ISn Reuters

A quiet student at Kabul University, 25-year-old Abdul Rahim has a dream: to join Islamic State in Syria and � ght for the establishment of a global ca-liphate - a new, alarming form of radi-calism in war-weary Afghanistan.

“When hundreds of foreigners, both men and women, leave their comfort-able lives and embrace Daish, then why not us?” he asked, using a word for IS common in the region.

Although IS is not believed to have operations in Afghanistan, its in� u-ence is growing in a country already mired in daily bombings and attacks by Taliban insurgents.

With most foreign combat troops leaving the country by the end of the year, there is growing uncertainty over what direction Afghanistan will take, with the emergence of IS ideology add-ing a new risk.

A few dozen students have set up an underground group a few months after IS started making inroads into Central and South Asia this year. Some have already traveled to Syria.

Several hardline insurgent groups in tribal areas between Afghanistan and Pakistan have pledged allegiance to IS, propaganda lea� ets have been distributed and some local command-ers are said to have met IS members.

But the clandestine student group is the clearest indication yet that IS ideas are taking hold more broadly.

“Several students who are close to us went to Syria to join our brothers for a holy cause,” said student Gul Rah-man, holding a mobile phone with IS’s black � ag logo on the screen.

Islamic State is a violent Sunni group which controls large areas of Iraq and Syria. It announced the estab-lishment of a caliphate in June.

IS also declared an intention to bring Afghanistan, Pakistan and India under its control, although so far only eight Af-ghan citizens have traveled from Afghan-istan to � ght in Syria, security sources told Reuters. Among them are two sis-ters from Kabul University recruited to IS over Facebook and now in Syria.

The number is tiny compared with the thousands of recruits from Europe � ghting with IS, with its in� uence in South Asia still embryonic.

Taliban compromised?The students, speaking at a tea-shop away from campus and fearing arrest if they are identi� ed, said they drew in-spiration from IS’s success in the Mid-dle East and saw it as the best chance of bringing Asia under Islamist rule.

They were willing to give their names because they were so common the au-thorities could not identify them, they added. Kabul University has long been a cauldron of radical views - both under Soviet occupation when students sided with rebels and later when the hardline Taliban took control in the 1990s.

Now IS ideology appears to be spreading, although there is no ev-idence yet the trend goes beyond gatherings where students discuss ideas and gra� ti daubed on university walls. None of the men who met Reu-ters were armed, nor appeared bent on attacks within Afghanistan.

Rahim and Rahman said they want to � ght in Syria and Iraq because IS does not yet have enough presence in Afghanistan to challenge national and foreign armed forces. They have also abandoned sup-port for the Taliban, saying it strayed from religious doctrine in the pursuit of power.

“The Taliban are more of a political movement but Daish (IS) is purely Is-lamic,” said Rahim, sporting a bushy beard and shaved moustaches. l

Clashes erupt in Pakistan ‘shut down’ protestn Agencies

Police have clashed with hundreds of protesters from the opposition Pa-kistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party, who were attempting to shut down the eastern city of Faisalabad as part of its leader Imran Khan’s movement against the federal government.

Police used water cannons, wooden batons and tear gas on Monday against protesters in several areas, including the central Millat Chowk area, local news television footage showed.

The situation remains tense, as sup-porters of the PTI, also known as the Movement for Justice party, refuse to back down.

Protesters conducted sit-ins at main intersections in the city, a major economic hub, and shouted slogans against the Pakistan Muslim League (PML-N) government.

They burned tyres and blocked roads, while PML-N workers threw rocks and used wooden batons, prompting owners of businesses in areas where the protests were taking place to shut down their shops.

Small groups of PTI supporters have clashed with PML-N workers as well.

The protest is part of a call Khan made on November 30, calling for “shut down” protests to be held in sev-eral Pakistani cities to increase pres-sure on the PML-N government, before a countrywide strike on December 18.

Khan, a former cricketer, alleges that the PML-N government rigged the 2013 general elections, internationally recognised as largely free and fair, in order to sideline his party.

Since August this year, he has been leading protests around the country calling for Nawaz Sharif to resign as prime minister. l

Delhi bans Uber after alleged rapen AFP

The Delhi city government on Monday banned Uber from operating in the Indian capital after a passenger accused one of its drivers of rape, dealing a fresh blow to the reputation of the online taxi service.

Uber is banned from operating in the capital with immediate e� ect and the company will be blacklisted from providing transport services in future, a government statement said.

“(The) Transport Department has banned all activities relating to provid-ing any transport service by the www.Uber.com with immediate e� ect,” it said.

Friday’s alleged attack on the wom-an has dealt a major blow to the repu-tation of the company, which claims to put passengers’ safety � rst.

Local media reports say it failed to do a background check on the driver, who faced a separate rape allegation in 2011 and was acquitted the following year.

The 32-year-old man will appear in court on Monday after police tracked him down and arrested him on Sunday in his native Uttar Pradesh state, where he had � ed.

Special commissioner Deepak Mish-ra, said Sunday that early investigations showed GPS had not been installed in the taxi and police background checks were not conducted on the driver. l

Modi takes political campaign to Kashmir separatist strongholdn Reuters, Srinagar

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday took his political campaign to the troubled nort hern state of Jammu and Kashmir, prom-ising jobs and water supplies to win support in a region at the heart of nearly seven decades of hostility with Pakistan.

Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party is making a bold attempt to win pow-er in a state election under way in Muslim-majority Kashmir and bring it closer to the Indian mainstream, a long-running goal of the right-wing party.

But the BJP’s “Mission Kashmir” has already raised tension, with polit-ical rivals and separatists accusing the party of fomenting divisions in the re-gion, which includes Hindu-dominat-ed Jammu and Buddhist Ladakh.

Militants have also stepped up vi-olence coinciding with the election, killing 11 soldiers and policemen in an attack on an Indian army camp on Friday, the worst losses for securi-ty forces in six years, and inflaming

sentiment across India.Strong voter turnout in early poll

rounds showed people had reject-ed violence and seek development, Modi told a huge campaign rally in Jammu.

“The power that you have is greater than those holding the AK-47 (assault ri� e),” he said. “He can only kill, while you can change the fortunes of a coun-try with your vote.”

Tens of thousands of people ap-plauded Modi as he promised greater development if his party won.

“People want jobs for the youth, water for the farms, medicines for the elders,” he said. “Even those who have

strayed and taken up the gun are feel-ing burdened by it.”

Modi’s harder test was in Srinagar, the state’s summer capital, which is at the heart of the 25-year revolt against Indian rule.

Modi promised to help rebuild Sri-nagar and nearby areas that su� ered the worst � ooding this year in more than a century. He said he had turned Kutch in his native western state of Gujarat into India’s fastest growing district after a devastating earthquake in 2001.

About 3,000 paramilitary troops and sni� er dogs guarded a cricket sta-dium where he spoke on a cold, over-cast day. Militants have in the past tried to stage attacks during visits by Indian leaders.

The BJP has long sought to end Kashmir’s special status under the In-dian constitution, seeing the region as key to its vision of a strong, united India.

Pakistan calls the election mean-ingless, urging instead talks to resolve a dispute that has festered ever since independence from Britain in 1947. l

‘Key commanders’ killed in Pakistan airstrikesn AFP

Pakistani airstrikes have killed at least 30 militants including “important commanders” of a local warlord in the country’s restive northwest where the military launched a major o� ensive this year, o� cials and militant sources said Monday.

The target of the late Sunday strikes, in the Datta Khel area of North Waziristan tribal district, were local warlords Ha� z Gul Bahadur and his

ally Sadiq Noor, security o� cials said.Both are aligned with the feared

Haqqani network and are accused of sending � ghters and suicide bombers against US and Nato troops in neigh-bouring Afghanistan.

“At least 30 militants have been killed. Dozens of � ghters and com-manders were gathered for a joint meeting of both the groups,” a militant source told AFP.

An intelligence o� cial in the area con-� rmed the strikes and the death toll. l

Nuts? No nuts! Stop the planen BBC

A Korean Air executive is under in-vestigation over claims she delayed a plane over the way she was served nuts.

Heather Cho demanded the remov-al of a crew member from a � ight last Friday for failing to serve nuts on a plate.

Ms Cho, a vice-president of the � rm, forced the Incheon-bound � ight to taxi back to the terminal in New York.

The airline said checking service standards was part of her job, and she had the pilot’s backing. But o� cials said she was a passenger at the time.

Local media reports said that a ju-nior attendant had o� ered Ms Cho macadamia nuts in a bag, instead of serving the nuts on a plate.

Ms Cho, daughter of company boss

Cho Yang-ho, then questioned the chief � ight attendant over in-� ight ser-vice standards and ordered him o� the plane.

Korean Air said the plane arrived 11 minutes late, and that the decision to expel the senior � ight attendant had been made in consultation with the pilot.

The airline told Korea Times that checking of quality of service was one of Ms Cho’s jobs, as she is in charge of in-� ight service for the carrier.

The transport authorities are inves-tigating whether Ms Cho’s actions in-fringed aviation law.

“Even though she is senior vice president at the company, she was a passenger at that time, so she had to behave and be treated as a passenger,” a South Korea transport ministry o� -cial told reporters. l

Philippine capital braces for storm, as Hagupit kills 27n Reuters, Dolores

Typhoon Hagupit weakened to a trop-ical storm as it churned close to the Philippine capital on Monday, after killing 27 people on the eastern island of Samar island where it � attened homes, toppled trees and cut power and communications.

Manila shut down as Hagupit, which means “lash” in Filipino, took aim at the tip of the main island Luzon, just south of the capital city of 12 mil-lion people.

“We now have a total of 27 dead, most of them in Borongan, Eastern Sa-mar,” said Richard Gordon, chairman of the Philippine Red Cross, adding most of the dead drowned in � oodwaters.

He said around 2,500 houses were totally or partially destroyed in Boron-gan, a town of 64,000 people.

But despite the rising death toll, there was relief that Hagupit had not brought destruction on the scale of super typhoon Haiyan, which last year killed thousands of people in the same areas of the central Philippines.

Hagupit roared in from the Paci� c as a Category 3 typhoon on Saturday night, churning across Samar island and on to the smaller island of Masbate. l

Indian Prime Minister Narinder Modi waves during an election rally at a stadium in Srinagar yesterday AFP

In Chicago, the mummi� ed body of Minirdis, a 14-year-old Egyptian boy lies in his opened co� n after JP Brown and his team of curators at the Field Museum opened the co� n for the � rst time. Brown and his team will begin conservation work on the 2,500-year-old boy before it becomes part of a traveling exhibition, photo taken on Saturday AP

The BJP has long sought to end Kashmir’s special status under the Indian constitution

Make every dayanti-corruption day

In the 11 years since the UN designated December 9 as International Anti-Corruption Day, Bangladesh has enacted various new laws and initiatives to tackle the curse of corruption.

The fact remains, however that these laws have made very limited progress in rooting it out from our society. Few if any people have been surprised that Bangladesh continues to be ranked very low (14th from bottom) in the latest Transparency International Corruption Perception Index.

Corruption has to be rooted out urgently to stop it from harming rule of law and hindering much needed investment in the economy.

It requires politicians and policy-makers to practise what they preach when they say they will show zero tolerance for corruption. It is highly concerning that the ACC and politicians have largely reacted to the TI report by downplaying or denying its signi� cance. This is an unfortunate indicator that the prevalence of corruption is regarded as so endemic that it is widely accepted as part and parcel of life in the country.

Denial and political point-scoring will accomplish nothing to remove the stigma of corruption which holds the country back. The government must take a tougher lead in empowering the ACC and courts to help them end impunity for corruption once and for all.

It should free the ACC from political pressures by acting on the commission’s recommendation that its powers be independently set out under the constitution. It should also reverse the changes making it mandatory for the ACC to obtain government approval for � ling cases against judges and public servants.

A timeless friendship

We welcome this week’s highly successful visit by Bhutan’s prime minister, Tshering Tobgay.

As close neighbours indelibly linked by geography and history, Bangladesh and Bhutan can only gain by building on our strong bilateral ties.

The enhancements agreed on to existing trade arrangements provide a welcome boost for businesses in both our nations. They open new doors for exporters and o� er considerable scope to share expertise and resources on developing tourism.

Bhutan’s support for improving connectivity matters to all countries in our region. Improving trade and development is essential to help South Asia lift its huge numbers of poor citizens out of poverty. The region’s leaders need to do more to give life to Saarc and SAFTA by bringing down the political and trade barriers which hold the region back from developing to its full potential.

Potentially, Bhutan’s interest in developing regional co-operation on water sharing and power issues is as important to Bangladesh as its role in being one of the � rst nations to recognise Bangladesh in 1971.

Hydropower from Nepal and Bhutan o� ers an environmentally sustainable way to help Bangladesh and India meet future energy needs. While hydropower is an undoubted diplomatic and engineering challenge, such a program could be a catalyst to resolving key, related issues, notably the need to ensure fairer management of common river waters.

As nations sharing the Brahmaputra basin, Bangladesh, Bhutan, China, India, and Nepal should do more via platforms such as BIMSTEC and BCIM, to get bold, mutually bene� cial regional projects o� the ground, to bene� t all our peoples.

Tazreen Fire: They still su� er, unnoticedNovember 25

SR“They only received primary treatment, and were left in the sea since then, even though they were supposed to get necessary treat-ment at free of cost.”

The injured workers of Tazreen Fashions should be given the money they need for prop-er treatment by the authorities.

Bus lanes are more important than VIPsNovember 25

Cyclechick“Give priority to the needs of the many over the comfort of the few.”Well said. But it’s not just politicians though. Every car owner in Bangladesh is blind to the fact that the congestion is their fault, for not funding good public transport, which yes, means giving priority to the masses, not elites. Many a time I’ve heard one moan that con-gestion is all the fault of rickshaws, and buses should be banned. They’re being ridiculously sel� sh by saying so.

Editorial10 DHAKA TRIBUNE Tuesday, December 9, 2014

CALVIN AND HOBBES

PEANUTS

Be heardWrite to Dhaka Tribune

FR Tower, 8/C Panthapath, Sukrabad, Dhaka-1207Email letters.dt@dhakatribune.com

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Remove the stigma which holds the country back

Bangladesh and Bhutan can only gain by building on our strong bilateral ties and connections

CODE-CRACKER

ACROSS1 Disturbance (4)5 Mechanical man (5)9 Much ornamented (6)10 Drink (3)11 Blood vessel (4)12 Gives for temporary use (5)14 Academy Award (5)16 Gem (4)19 Becomes � rm (4)21 Cries (5)24 Young eel (5)27 Continent (4)29 Meadow (3)30 Originate (6)31 Time in grammar (5)32 Sea eagle (4)

DOWN1 Wander (4)2 Choler (3)3 Vegetables (6)4 Makes brown (4)5 Backslide (7)6 Prohibit (3)7 Of advanced age (3)8 Irritable (5)13 Period of time (3)15 Clique (7)17 Inferior (6)18 Kind of wheat (5)20 Female sheep (3)22 Form walking surface (4)23 Destiny (4)25 Sheltered side (3)26 Forefront (3)28 Tavern (3)

CROSSWORD

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

SUDOKU

How to solve: Each number in our CODE-CRACKER grid represents a di� erent letter of the alphabet. For example, today 14 represents C so � ll C every time the � gure 14 appears.You have two letters in the control grid to start you o� . Enter them in the appro-priate squares in the main grid, then use your knowledge of words to work out which letters go in the missing squares.Some letters of the alphabet may not be used.As you get the letters, � ll in the other squares with the same number in the main grid, and the control grid. Check o� the list of alphabetical letters as you identify them.

CODE-CRACKER

CROSSWORD

SUDOKU

YESTERDAY’S SOLUTIONS

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

November 25

B CohenLeave the cheese-makers out of it, big nose.

ArshadI didn’t see any mention of the kind of blunders our “ine� cient diplomats” made and why Bangladesh is lagging behind and in which � eld. The op-ed is about Model United Nations, and it should have dealt with how the MUN can play a role in building a more robust world body.

Morshed Arshad: I concur. This op-ed does not give actual examples of de� cient diplomacy. In recent years, Bangladesh has been lobbying hard to become a non-permanent member of the Security Council (again), our Ambassador to Belgium has been re-elected to CEDAW, we have been implementing UN conventions, so on and so forth. The author mentions UN peacekeepers – is he aware that Bangladesh’s ubiquity in peacekeeping missions

is largely due to past and current diplomatic e� orts? Such statements shouldn’t be made so blithely. I think any article on that topic should also distinguish between the UN secretariat itself and Bangladesh’s Permanent Missions to the UN in New York and Geneva.

As someone who participated in a number of MUN conferences myself, I am all for encouraging the activity in Bangladesh. But at the same time, I am curious to see how many good MUN-ers become good career/UN diplomats.

TJ Arshad: It’s pretty obvious that we do have ine� cient diplomats. And it’s mentioned in the piece that recently our country hasn’t made any signi� cant impact in the decision-making process of the UN. Thus, we are lagging behind in this � eld. And this is where Model United Nations comes in. The practice of MUN can help us to overcome these shortcomings.

Too used to violenceNovember 25

Ara BegumIt takes humility to learn from one’s mistakes. Not sure I have it, but we would all gain if more of us did.

SEYes, truly, violence has really taken shape in Bangladesh; so, measures should be taken to curb it and children could be taught that any form of violence is wrong.

LS“Hundreds have died in political violence, but many people don’t feel outraged.”

It’s an interesting concept that we, as a nation, are collectively unconscious. I hope we still have it in us to build a culture of empathy.

He loves me not?November24

LunaIt is high time that India starts to appreciate the friendly gestures from Bangladesh, and gives us the respect that we deserve.

SV“The ruling party camp got shaky, seeing the victory of Modi’s BJP in the April polls, as if he would make a U-turn from day-one in o� ce.”

Well, no sane person would actually expect greater bilateral relations from Modi than we have had with India previously. Having said that, the man does dress well.

Garment workers protestDecember 4

Kaosar Khan Kazal “Agitated workers of the Chunji Knit Ltd, based

in the Badda area of the capital, demonstrate in front of the BGMEA building in Karwan Bazar,

demanding immediate payment of four months’ due wages and allowances.”

Give the workers their money very quickly.

‘Dead’ woman comes back to life

December 5

PR“‘When we declared her dead, we could not feel

a pulse. Her body had become like that of a dead person. … It was a misunderstanding. The patient

is now well.”Utter negligence of #DMCH only because the

patient is #poor, alone!

A New-er Delhi November 25

vhs“Every time I go to Delhi, I notice that the city has taken several steps towards disciplined modern-

ism.”I always enjoy reading Towheed Feroze’s

naughty musings. This one reminded me an earlier piece of his on Kolkata in the good old days.

n Taslima Nasrin

Indonesia’s Miss World Muslimah beauty pageant was held quite recently. The participants of

the pageant wore makeup, just like the Miss World or Miss Universe contestants. The di� erence is that this pageant reveals an especially narrow mindset.

In the Miss World or Miss Universe contests, the women can be from any country or religion, but in the Miss Muslimah pageant, the participants have to be Muslim, and are required to wear hijabs. This is a beauty contest among women who are required to

have their bodies and heads covered, if you hadn’t guessed.

In Islam, the purpose of the hijab is to make sure that no physical beauty of a woman is on display. The Qur’an and Hadith strongly prohibit dis-playing female beauty, which is why Muslim extremists have always been against beauty pageants. But have they expressed outrage over their own Muslimah beauty pageant? Not to my knowledge.

These Muslims, who doll them-selves up and shamelessly display their beauty in front of all the men in the world, are de� nitely disobedi-ent towards Allah and the Prophet,

right? Not so long ago, a new law had been passed in Saudi Arabia: Girls with beautiful eyes were to no longer go outside with their eyes unveiled, because men get sexually excited by looking at their eyes.

Since men don’t know how to con-trol their excitement, women are the ones who have to cover themselves up head-to-toe, just so that men are not tempted to do something horrible. However, the participants of the Miss Muslimah pageant keep their eyes uncovered. The curves of their waists, breasts, and hips are also clearly visi-ble through their clothes – anyone can guess how much this excites men.

After watching the Muslim beauties, I came to the conclusion that Muslims do not want to be deprived of anything pleasurable. A few years ago, some ex-patriate Muslims living in Europe were cursing at non-Muslims there, all the while praising the Muslims in Saudi Arabia. So I asked them: “Why are you living in a non-Muslim country? You can just go to Saudi Arabia – the land of Islam, the sacred country.” They listened to my suggestion, but didn’t express any desire to follow through.

Muslims might think Saudi Arabia is sacred, but not many of them actually want to live there. Anyone can � nd clips of Saudi government-endorsed beheadings on the Internet. The truth is, Muslims can never enjoy human rights in the Arab world the way they do in the countries of non-believers.

Islamic extremists today are freely preaching their religion on Twitter and Facebook. Religious terrorists are using modern technology to spread terror. Fanatics are carrying mobile phones – an invention of the non-believers. Non-believers or atheists are inventing new technologies, and Muslims are all over those inventions.

Pious Muslims don’t have any objections about enjoying such modern conveniences. At the same time, they do not have any objections about hating non-believers or atheists, cursing and swearing at them, or even executing them while screaming God’s name. I have never seen any other religious group embracing the positive aspects of science and the negative aspects of religion in this way.

People have not only become greedy, they have also become violent. Not too long ago, followers of the Prophet used to say: “Allah’s favourite

Prophet loved everyone, he didn’t hate anyone. He didn’t want to harm anyone, and he never said we should kill non-believers.”

He, in fact, said: “Your religion is yours, and my religion is mine.’” And now, many devotees of the Prophet proudly announce: “Our Prophet killed men, we will do the same ... We will also chop non-believers into pieces.”

If religion makes people intolerant and turns them into savages, then I question its relevance in modern society. A few days ago, Bangladeshi Muslims attacked a Rajshahi Universi-ty professor, hacking him to death. His fault: He had told his female students to not wear burqas in class because of the di� culty it posed in recognising a student. After all, it could be someone else pretending to be a student, maybe even someone dangerous.

The golden boys of my golden Bang-ladesh want to cover the girls in black garb. The burqa is an Arabian attire; is it mandatory to accept the culture of Saudi Arabia as your own to be a Muslim, or can you accept your own culture and also be a Muslim? This is something I’ve pondered for years.

My mother was very religious; going to Saudi Arabia was a dream of hers, and she did eventually go. However, when she came back, I noticed that she wasn’t very fond of the country anymore. Maybe her idea of Saudia Arabia did not match the reality. Her love for that country was gone, and as long as she lived, she lived as a Bengali. It was her love and a� ection for people that made her great, not her religion – that is how she expressed her piety.

When I was looking at the various fashionable hijabs in the Muslimah beauty pageant, it seemed like the hijab was no longer a part of Islam. Eye-catching hijabs of various colours are sold in shops now, and hijabi girls are busy showing o� their beauty in di� erent ways, which is why special catwalks had to be arranged for them.

Groups of Muslims are taking part in a sexual jihad. These girls travel for miles to reach the desserts of Iraq and Syria, so that they can sexually please some unknown men. This is some-thing that is impossible to imagine even for someone with no religion and no shame.

I often hear the phrase “ghomtar tolay khemta nache,” this time I am witnessing it myself. If Muslim extremists can slaughter people in the name of Allah, Muslim girls can also sleep with them for the same reason. It’s a good thing that my mother is not alive anymore. If she were here to see these things, who knows what would’ve happened to her faith. l

Taslima Nasrin is a feminist writer and columnist currently in exile in India. This article has been translated from the original Bengali.

11Op-Ed Tuesday, December 9, 2014DHAKA TRIBUNE

n Farid Bakht

Some are mourning the death of democracy. When did you last spot that thing called de-mocracy cruising the streets of Dhaka? Before democracy

can die, it must � rst be born, so I shed no tears for the death of something that never truly existed.

A free and fair election where the contest is between two dynasties with near identical economic policies is no choice at all. To paraphrase Karl Marx, the tragedies of 1971 is returning as farce as political parties trade insults on which leader was supposed to be working for Pakistani imperialism. Leave them be! Move on!

Seen through ‘their’ eyesTo the millions of present and past garments workers, the de� nition of a member of parliament is “Garment Factory Owner.” Parliament means “Business Lobby.” How will that MP represent workers’ rights? Why are we surprised that they drag their feet over compensation for the victims of Taz-reen and Rana Plaza for years? Wrong class living in the wrong end of town.

To the millions of landless labourers, the title of local party leader is “Land-owner.” Just how will a lifetime of accumulating land at low prices square with representing the interests of the poorest of the poor?

To the millions of migrant workers, the politician is a “Manpower Exporter.” How will he care for poor workers in Dubai when he is too busy hobnobbing with agents, scheming over deals and commissions where the underlying principle is Pro� t before People?

To the millions of poor women, the meaning of politician is “Rich Man,” or at best “Rich Woman,” where the only currency that matters is royal blood.

Is our representative democracy … representative? The self-styled Dem-ocrats do not represent the people in

terms of class, gender, or occupation. In this market, the vast majority is priced out. Literally.

How about dictatorship then?Well, we tried that with Ayub Khan, Yahya Khan, Ziaur Rahman, HM Ershad, and � nally Moeen Ahmed. Ask yourself if those were the years of economic prosperity, national development, or spectacular success. I have met many successful business-men who will tell anyone who cares to listen, that: “We don’t need democra-cy, we need a strongman. And then we can become an Asian Tiger.”

Sounds plausible except for a cou-ple of points:

(a) Why haven’t military dictator-ships produced the goods in Pakistan or Bangladesh? How about Myanmar since 1962? Sukarno in Indonesia was a kleptocracy. If you think Thailand is a model, then please up your levels of aspiration. North Korea? The cata-logue of failures in the Middle East are legion. Air force man Mubarak in Egypt? Iraq, Algeria, and more do not make a good case for Muslim Military despots. Shall we even mention the countless catastrophes in Africa and

Latin America?(b) In contrast, some authoritarian

rulers as well as revolutionary regimes (with no multi-party plebiscites) have overseen spectacular growth in much of the Asian Tigers. General Park in South Korea comes to mind. Taiwan? Japan, with an e� ectively one-party state since the late 1800s, barring an occasional hiccup. Then we have Communist Party regimes overseeing the rise in Vietnam and China. The countries named have a population of nearly 1,750 million.

By cherry-picking through history and ignoring inconvenient truths, that businessman in Dhaka will point to (b). Key di� erence is: He doesn’t want to follow the state-led policies of the Tigers. He just wants no one but his class to have rights. He wants the

uniforms to crush strikes. We know it seems to boil down to this: Do you have a plan? Is it the right plan? Is it based on experience and context that makes sense to your country and the present time? Can you make it work?

How you get to power matters less than what you actually do with it. The dirty little secret is that successful East Asian countries demonstrate that prosperity in Asia doesn’t need Westminster parliaments but needs a Big Idea, smart planning, and dogged determination. Ouch!

This may be anathema to many who see this as a slippery slope to totalitarianism. So, for the avoidance of any doubt, I abhor and condemn the putsches and takeovers ever since 1947. I was against 1/11. I will be against the next foreign-instigated military takeover too, Why? Because the army, navy, and air forces should be defending the borders, not taking over the capital. And, they never have

a proper plan.The situation therefore equates to:

Corrupt politics OR directionless drift of military regimes = misery. I don’t blame the Social Media Generation if they think of giving up. Surely they want to a) press delete, b) send to Trash Bin, and c) press the reset but-ton. If they do, I will retweet and push their like button too.

Is this the Utopia we really want?Being more South Asian than East Asian, far from Shanghai and Seoul, most of us would like a free and fair election between a series of non-dynastic parties with candidates from all parts of society where there is a realistic chance of winning. Moreover, this democracy would not go into a coma for � ve years until the following election. It would remain vibrant by regularly engaging with the people with annual referendums on key issues.

As examples, they could be deci-

sions on:l How do we use vital national

resources – export to Delhi or use for Bangladeshi industries?

l Corridors or transshipment in return for the just use of river water?

l Equitable investment in the dis-tricts or, as always, in Dhaka?

l Reframing the relationship with aid agencies.

Put it another way: World Bank or ADB money with lectures on good governance, or Asian Investment Infrastructure Bank (AIIB) money with no sermons?

We would expect genuine deep de-centralisation of powers and budgets in small towns where ordinary people are asked to state their priorities, and monitor how they are used. We proba-bly want the best of both worlds. Free-dom of speech, security, respect for our rights, democratic decision-mak-ing, as well as a Tiger economy where economic growth is 10% and more for the � rst decade.

We could go on, but let’s not. It isn’t going to happen this decade, and you probably won’t see it in the next decade either. Utopia will carry on gathering dust. Unless there is a Reset. Therein lies the problem. We do not have an elite that is even prepared to learn the lessons of East Asia. As the politicians continue their revisionist rewriting of national history, they might press the pause button.

Beyond the always despised lower rural and poor urban classes, we do not have a middle class that has any group batting for them. It has been abandoned.

Today’s Bengali middle class in independent Bangladesh has an elite that is as indi� erent to their needs as the Urdu-speaking Pakistani elite of the 50s and 60s.

Think about that for a moment. Who’s the Razakar now? l

Farid Bakht is a political activist and can be reached at @Liquid_Borders.

Democr@cy wanted: Dead or alive?

Can we mourn the death of a system that was never alive? BIGSTOCK

Today’s Bengali middle class has an elite that is as indi� erent to their needs as the Urdu-speaking Pakistani elite of the 50s and 60s

The participants ofthe Miss Muslimahpageant keep theireyes uncovered

The Muslimah pageant and a few other things

Modesty must be displayed

Really? Why? For us or for them?

12 DHAKA TRIBUNE

F4 driver Tushar � ies to India tomorrow n Raihan Mahmood

The lone Formula 4 racer of Bangladesh, Mahfujur Rahman Tushar, � ies o� to New Delhi tomorrow to take part in the � nal round of the 17th JK Tyre Racing Champi-onship, slated for Sunday at Buddha In-ternational Circuit in Noyda. Tushar will represent the Avalance Racing Team.

Last year, Tushar was among the top 15 racers but in this edition, the young driver wants to � nish in the top 10.

Before departing here for India, Tushar said, “The circuit is a F1 circuit and it will be my second race in a F1 circuit. I will be test driving this Friday and appear in the quali� ers this Saturday. There are two high speed corners in the track and it is quite risky. I seek blessings of the people.”

Tushar is a � rst year student at the University of Liberal Arts Bangladesh. Shah Cement will be bearing all his ex-penses as the sponsor. l

Disgruntled premier league clubs demand Badal bann Minhaz Uddin Khan

Dhaka Premier League Clubs Associ-ation (DPLCA), Cricketers Welfare As-sociation of Bangladesh (CWAB) and Bangladesh Cricket Umpires and Scor-ers Association (BCUSA) demanded to the Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) yesterday that Lutfur Rahman Badal be banned with immediate e� ect.

Badal, owner of Premier League side Legends of Rupganj, has a chequered history with the BCB. It got much worse after Badal made disparag-ing comments against BCB president Nazmul Hasan and a few board direc-tors recently.

Following a defeat against Prime Bank last Thursday, Rupganj chairman Badal slammed the BCB high-ups for manipulation and conspiracy against his side. His comments, expectedly, irked the cricket board and the mem-bers who were named in his statement.

Protesting against Badal’s com-

ments at Sher-e-Bangla National Sta-dium yesterday, the three parties, DPLCA, CWAB and BCUSA, echoed the same demand – punish the Rupganj owner for his ill-remarks and ban him from Bangladesh cricket. The trio also requested the intervention of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on the issue.

Abahani director Kazi Nabil Ahmed, on behalf of DPLCA, said the three par-

ties have gathered together on the same platform to protest against Badal’s of-fensive and indecent remarks.

“His comment against the BCB was deplorable and has hurt the majority of the cricket organisers in the country. It has also hurt the cricket of the coun-try,” said Nabil before adding, “BCB president Nazmul Hasan holds a rich background and belongs to a distin-guished political family. He is an e� -cient administrator, well-educated and also a proud member of the parliament of the country. At the moment, Bangla-desh cricket is achieving heights and

fetching good results under his guid-ance. But, a group is working against him (Nazmul) and Badal is a part of it.”

Nabil claimed that Badal is the “black sheep” of Bangladesh cricket and has been involved with several controversial incidents in the past that have polluted the cricket arena in the process.

“We condemn his acts and on behalf of CWAB, DPLCA, BCUSA and former national captains, we demand the im-mediate interference of the State Minis-ter for [Youth and] Sports and the Prime Minister. Such a controversial � gure and his team should be banned,” Nabil demanded adding that severe initiatives will be taken by the respective groups if no action is taken against Badal by the aforementioned people. Nabil further stated that Badal is likely to be axed as a member of DPLCA. However, the DPLCA will come to a � nal decision af-ter discussions between its members.

Badal had also criticised former cap-tain Khaled Mahmud, comparing the chairman of the development commit-tee with a BCB “peon”. Yesterday, Mah-mud gave his version to the media.

“We never want these incidents or ‘mud-slingings’ to happen,” said Mah-mud. “The BCB or none of us ever at-tacked him personally the way he did. It is not possible to tolerate his negative attitude towards us,” he added.

When queried if the usage of a word like “black sheep” was necessary, Mah-mud said, “We are not sorry for using words like “black sheep” or even “� lth” against Badal because of the way he be-haves.

“I think he was once � lth. Now, he has earned lots of money and is be-having nonsensically against the BCB directors and former captains. I think we have used a better word than he de-serves.” l

Tuesday, December 9, 2014

Sport1413 Hat-trick and 400th Barca goal for Messi

Abbott set for return after tragedy

14 Milan duo su� er shock defeats

Did you know?Since Cristiano

Ronaldo moved to Real Madrid, Lionel

Messi scored 202 while Ronaldo scored

200 La Liga goals

Asian a� liation for rugby n Raihan Mahmood

The Bangladesh Rugby Federation (BRF) attained the assistance of the Asian Rugby Football Union (ARFU) and from now onwards will enjoy the support as member of the Asian ruling body of the sport.

Through a media release yesterday, the BRF revealed that its application was � nally granted after previous failures in 2012 and last year. In the Congress of the Asian ruling body in Dubai last Saturday and Sunday, Uzbekistan, Lebanon, In-dia, Malaysia, Singapore and Pakistan supported Bangladesh’s appeal.

BRF general secretary Mousum Ali said he is looking forward to expanding the game through the assistance pro-vided by the ARFU. l

I will � ght all disputes with cricketing law: Badaln Mazhar Uddin

The most burning issue of Bangladesh cricket at the moment is the ongoing dispute between Legends of Rupganj owner Lutfur Rahman Badal and the Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB). Recent events are refusing to die down as the issue is snowballing with each passing day.

In a latest twist to events, BCB o� cials, under the banner of Dhaka Premier League Clubs Association, Cricketers Welfare Association of Bangladesh and Bangladesh Cricket Umpires and Scorers Association, protested against Badal at Sher-e-Bangla National Stadium yesterday and asked for him to be banned.

Dhaka Tribune had a brief conversation with the controversial Badal yesterday regarding the prevailing situation. Here are the excerpts:

What are your immediate plans?I have nothing to do at the moment as they have all the power and they can do whatever they want. I want to stick to the cricketing law and � ght against all disputes. They will not allow me to go to the � eld but I can help my team from the outside. I have the right to form my own academy. I am with cricket and not involved in any table-game whatsoever as I am a cricket organiser. I love cricket and want to stay with cricket and I am not here to � ght with anyone.

You recently stated that Khaled Mahmud Sujon is a man of many faces and that he is a disgrace to the board. Do you still back your comment?Actually, I do not compromise on such things. I want fairness and if you beat my team on the � eld fairly I am ready to accept that.

But, if you try to beat me unfairly I will not accept that. And, I think [Khaled Mahmud] Sujon is involved with the whole consortium. As for the last three years, he has been doing these things, for instance taking my players to his team. If you are involved with the board then you have to be fair.

I do not understand as to how the same person can be the coach of a side,

manager of another club and chairman of the development committee. At the same time he is in� uencing the cricketers by his power. I am against his post and his total scenario but I am not against Sujon on a personal level. Everyone knows that Sujon introduced [Mohammad] Ashraful with the bookies. He is busy with his own development rather than cricket’s development.

Why do you think you are at loggerheads with the governing body

of cricket in the country?I am heavily involved with cricket. The cricketers like me and at the same time dislike them (BCB).

I think they are jealous of me, noth-ing else. They are harassing my people on the � eld. They are even threatening the cricketers of my club. This is not a cricketing culture. This will � nish cricket, nothing else.

Any justification over your previous comment against the BCB?The way it was written, I never said every board member is a thief. What I said was that there are some people who are involved with wrongdoings and that they should be investigated. I think there was some language misunderstanding over my statement. I never said such things about [Nazmul Hasan] Papon and I think there was some gap between my statement and what was published. l

BCB - BADAL CONTROVERSY SAGA GOES ON

Titu urges team e� ortn Raihan Mahmood

Bangladesh’s interim football coach Saiful Bari Titu wants his team to play as a team, as opposed to a few brilliant individuals, when they take on the Japan Under-21 side in an international friendly at Bangabandhu National Stadium on December 18.

Titu said this during a press conference at BFF House yesterday as all the 23 members of the preliminary squad, with the exception of captain Mamunul Islam, reported. The team will reside at BFF House hostel and practise at Bangabandhu National Stadium.

Ahead of the Japan friendly, their inaugural practice session was held at the big bowl yesterday evening.

In the presser, Titu said he is aware

of the opponent’s strengths. “I am not saying we will be playing defensive football. I have to think about the formation and work on it in the available days before the match.

“What I want from my players is for all of them to play a defensive game across the � eld. The Japanese U-21 team have some tall players and we will have to tackle the aerial threats,” said Titu.

Meanwhile, team manager Amirul Islam Babu said the governing body of football in the country will approach Indian Super League side Atletico de Kolkata about skipper Mamunul.

“We will ask the club to release Mamunul for national team service. If possible, they might have to send him to Dhaka soon. We want him against Japan U-21,” said Babu yesterday. l

Unidenti� ed groups of people chanted slogans and demanded punishment of Lutfur Rahman Badal at the Sher-e-Bangla National Stadium premises yesterday MAINOOR ISLAM MANIK

Kazi Nabil Ahmed (2R), the Abahani director speaks in the press conference on behalf of the Dhaka Premier League Clubs Association MAINOOR ISLAM MANIK

A banner hanging on the BCB head o� ce wall MAINOOR ISLAM MANIK

Metropolis Table Tennis begins todayn Raihan Mahmood

The Agrani Bank Dhaka Metropolis Table Tennis League, comprising the senior, men and women paddlers gets underway at Shaheed Tajuddin Ahmed Indoor Stadium today. Among the three categories, the senior division league is poised to be the most compet-itive as all the nine participating teams have recruited overseas paddlers.

Information Minister Hasanul Haq Inu will inaugurate the event as the chief guest. Mohammed Awal Khan, DMD of Agrani Bank, will be the special guest.

Defending champions Sheikh Russel and runners-up side Palolic are in the running for the men’s title again. While in the women’s event, Dhaka Women’s Table Tennis Club are expected to pose a stern test for holders Abahani. l

Who on earth are they?n Minhaz Uddin Khan

The impromptu press conference called by Dhaka Premier League Clubs Association, Cricketers Welfare Association of Bangla-desh, Bangladesh Cricket Umpires and Scor-ers Association and former captains in Mir-pur yesterday was supposed to be a regular activity.

However, once entering the Sher-e-Ban-gla National Stadium premises, one would have been mistaken upon thinking that this is the home of cricket. More than 25 banners were seen hanging from the top and around the stadia. The banners contained indecent write-ups against Lutfur Rahman Badal.

More surprising was the presence of more than 200 people chanting lewd slo-gans against the owner of Legends of Rup-ganj. Considered the national cricket sta-dium of the country, security was meant to be high. Yesterday, however, security and protocol hardly mattered to the Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB).

People called up for the “showdown” and the protest against Badal were seen moving around the BCB premises nonchalantly. The

security personnel in and around the stadi-um appeared helpless.

BCB Umpires Committee chairman and Kalabagan Krira Chakra director Nazmul Karim Tinku reasoned that the people pres-ent inside the stadium were supporters of di� erent clubs.

“They are not part of the BCB. They might be supporters of di� erent clubs pro-testing against Badal. We saw the banners just a while ago and those will be taken down immediately. The incidents have been discussed amongst us and we will soon see who are behind these things,” said Tinku making an e� ort to explain the situation.

The explanation, however, that the peo-ple were not directly or indirectly involved with the board hardly made any sense to the media personnel. Reason? A full course of lunch was arranged for those “unidenti-� ed” people in the dining area of the BCB’s media centre.

BCB CEO Nizamuddin Chowdhury was questioned by the media about the pos-sessions and banners and if the protocol of seeking permission from the board was followed. At � rst, Nizamuddin was embar-

rassed of the situation and denied to make any comment on the issue. However, fol-lowing continuous requests by the media, the BCB high-up said, “We were aware of the press conference but not of the posses-sions and the banners. I will only be able to answer about those after learning more of it myself.”

The issue of security has been under the scanner ever since the beginning of the Badal-BCB controversy. Following Badal’s o� ensive comments, his team manager Tarequl Islam Titu claimed of being assaulted by “unruly” people related to the directors of the BCB last Saturday during their premier league game against Mohammedan at BKSP.

Titu’s claim though was denied by BCB director Khaled Mahmud, who is one of the major characters of the ongoing Badal-BCB con� ict.

“I do not think those people are part of BCB. I think this is a part of the controver-sy. We are not clear as to who those people were. The match referee from that game should have submitted a report on the inci-dent. We will explore the issue further,” said Mahmud. l

SportDHAKA TRIBUNE 13Tuesday, December 9, 2014

Star Sports 1, 36:00AM (Wednesday)India tour of Australia1st Test, Day 2Star Sports 2Indian Super League5:00PMChennai v Delhi7:30PMKerala v Pune

Pietersen still has hopes of Test revengeKevin Pietersen has not given up hope of a return to Test cricket and the chance to avenge the humiliating 5-0 defeat at the hands of Australia in the last Ashes series, the former England batsman said on Monday. The South African-born maverick was sacked by England in the wake of that tour and made reconciliation unlikely by releas-ing a book in October which contained attacks on the national cricket board and several of his former team mates. In Australia to play for the Melbourne Stars in the Big Bash Twenty20 league, however, Pietersen said he foresaw “a lot of changes” in the England set-up over the next six months which could just o� er him a route back to Test crick-et. “I have 8,300 runs, I’d love to get 10,000 Test runs,” the 34-year-old told reporters. “I’d love to beat Australia again... last time, we got hammered. That doesn’t sit well. I’m not a player who likes being hammered, I’m a player who plays to win.”

– Reuters

Playing for France made me miserable, says NasriRetired international Samir Nasri described Sunday how playing for France had made him unhappy and blasted the treatment received by former teammate Franck Ribery. Nasri, 27, con� rmed his retirement from international football days before Ribery last August after being omitted from the France squad for the World Cup. And the Manchester City mid� elder admitted that it was not “a question of age” but a “feeling” which brought about the premature decision. “I’ve already said it, the France team doesn’t make me happy,” said Nasri, who made his France debut at the age of 19 in 2007 and won 41 caps, scoring � ve goals. However, his international career was dogged by controversy.

–AFP

Ryder not in NZ’s World Cup plansTroubled batsman Jesse Ryder’s chequered past came back to haunt him Monday when New Zealand selectors left him out of a preliminary 30-man World Cup squad. The 30-year-old is regarded as one of the Black Caps’ few match-winners but his career has been littered with alcohol-fuelled incidents and chief selector Bruce Edgar said New Zealand were not prepared to gamble on him for the tournament. He said the � nal straw was when Ryder was handed a chance to break back into the national team by participating in a New Zealand A tour to Dubai last month but withdrew at the last minute citing personal reasons. “When he pulled out he left us with no real information about him and as a result we didn’t have enough conviction to warrant his selection,” Edgar told Fairfax Media.

–AFP

Falcao must accept substitute role: LVGManchester United manager Louis van Gaal has declared that Radamel Falcao must content himself with a bit-part role as the on-loan Colombian striker works his way back to full � tness. Falcao has played for only 283 minutes since signing from Monaco on transfer deadline day and has scored just once, in a 2-1 win over Everton in early October. The 28-year-old is short of sharpness following a month-long absence with a calf problem and Van Gaal told the Monday editions of several British newspapers that he will have to bide his time. Falcao is expected to be named on the bench when United visit Southampton in the Premier League later on Monday, and when asked if the striker was happy with that, Van Gaal replied: “I am not interested in that. He has to follow my philosophy. Do you understand that? I am here because of that. “I have selected him in spite of the fact he can only play for 20 minutes, because the rhythm of the game in the Premier League is the highest.

–AFP

QUICK BYTES

DAY’S WATCH

National Weightlifting Championship starts todayn Raihan Mahmood

Bangladesh Weightlifting Federation has introduced the master category in the national championship as the Walton 34th senior, 15th junior and 11th women’s national weightlifting events begin at the National Sports Council gymnasium today.

For the � rst time ever, veteran and former national weightlifters will get the opportunity to test their skills after retirement.

“It is the prescription of the International Weightlifting Federation and we are implementing it,” said

weightlifting federation general secretary Wing Commander (retd.) Mohiuddin Ahmed in a press conference at Bangabandhu National Stadium yesterday.

He also added that Bidyut Kumar Roy, the renowned weightlifter of the country will retire after his participation in the event.

Around 200 weightlifters across the country will participate in the four-day event that will be inaugurated by Biren Sikder, the State Minister for Youth and Sports.

Walton additional director FM Iqbal bin Anwar Dawn will also be present. lWalton additional director FM Iqbal bin Anwar Dawn speaks in a press conference at BNS yesterday COURTESY

Bangladesh’s interim football coach Saiful Bari Titu briefs his charges at Bangabandhu National Stadium yesterday MAINOOR ISLAM MANIK

Federer makes IPTL debut, critisises rulesn Reuters, New Delhi

Swiss great Roger Federer gave a luke-warm response to the International Pre-mier Tennis League (IPTL) after making his debut for the Indian Aces on Sunday.

“My mind was de� nitely scrambling trying to remember all the rules,” a smil-ing Federer, a late replacement for the injured Rafa Nadal in the Indian team, told reporters.

With its emphasis on speed, fun and noise, an IPTL tie comprises � ve one-set shootouts in men’s and women’s singles, men’s and mixed doubles and a past champions match with the team that wins the most games, not sets, de-clared the winner.

Additional features include a 20-sec-ond serve clock, a ‘Happiness Power Point’ in which a point is worth double once per set, no advantages, no lets, coaching timeouts and a � ve-minute shootout if a match is tied at 5-5.

Federer won his men’s singles, dou-bles and mixed doubles against Sin-gapore Slammers at the Indira Gandhi Indoor Stadium but the 17-times grand slam champion said he found some of the rules “strange” and others unnecessary.

“The one I think is most unnecessary here is like when you start the motion and let’s say you miss the ball toss, that counts as mistake,” he said.

“I think that’s probably most unnec-essary.”

Traditionalist Federer said he un-derstood the drive to speed up the game but felt it put a lot of pressure on the players.

“The way it is right now, I don’t think it will work as a Tour event,” said Federer, who agreed to play only the Delhi leg. “Maybe there’s something we could take away from this but at the end you know how I am. I’m very tradi-tional and I like the way the game is on tour. I like the scoring system.”

Federer, however, liked the team for-mat of the league which has also attract-ed world number ones Novak Djokovic and Serena Williams and former Wim-bledon champion Andy Murray.

“It’s not going to replace how we play the tour but it de� nitely has a place in our sport to have more interaction, more fun, di� erent rules,” he said.

“You bend it, you customise it, it works for everyone involved. It’s a very interesting concept.” l

Indian Aces tennis team players including Switzerland’s Roger Federer (2L), USA’s Pete Sampras (L), France’s Gael Mon� ls (3L) and India’s Sania Mirza (2R) celebrate after teammate Ana Ivanovic won against Singapore Slammers player Daniela Hantuchova during their women’s singles match at the International Premier Tennis League in New Delhi on Sunday AFP

Abbott set for return after tragedyn AFP, Sydney

Sean Abbott, who delivered the ball that killed Australian batsman Phillip Hughes, is set to return to action after being named Monday in the New South Wales squad.

There were fears that the young fast bowler may have been too traumatised to play again after Hughes died from being hit by one of his bouncers at the Sydney Cricket Ground last month.

But he was included in a 12-man squad to play Queensland in a She� eld Shield � xture in Sydney from Tuesday.

Abbott attended Hughes’s funeral last week and many people around the cricket world have expressed solidar-ity with the 22-year-old following the freak accident.

“Brilliant News...The whole #cricket-family are right behind you Sean...,” said former England captain Michael Vaughan on Twitter in reaction to Abbott being se-lected. NSW captain Moises Henriques said the bowler was holding up well.

“He’s coping pretty well,” Henriques told the Australian Broadcasting Cor-poration.

“I guess from our point of view as fellow players, we’re trying to expel his name from the tragedy a little bit, be-cause in my opinion I don’t think he’s any more at fault than any other fast bowler who’s ever bowled a bouncer in his career.

“We’re actually trying to remove his name from everything that’s hap-pened, and just treat him as another one of the players.”

Several of the New South Wales squad were on the � eld when Hughes collapsed, and coach Trevor Bayliss said the Queensland match was not

about winning.“It’s not about the result in this

match, it’s about getting the guys back on the paddock and looking after their future,” he told reporters.

“This game is about getting back and doing the things they’ve done in the past and getting back into the groove of playing high-level cricket.”

Abbott’s return coincides with Aus-tralia facing India in the delayed � rst Test at Adelaide, with a number of tributes planned. The Australian play-ers will wear Hughes’ Test cap number 408 on their shirts during the match, and black armbands in honour of their former team-mate.

Prior to the start of play on Tuesday, the Australian and Indian teams will stand before a large 408 painted on the playing surface as they observe a video tribute, narrated by former Australia Test captain and prominent commen-tator Richie Benaud.

Hughes, 25, died on November 27 from bleeding on the brain, two days after being knocked unconscious by the Abbott bouncer, plunging the crick-et world into mourning. l

Sizzling Spieth chasing McIlroy, not Tiger legendn AFP, Orlando

While Tiger Woods struggled in his re-turn from a four-month layo� , it was Jordan Spieth whose overpowering Hero World Challenge victory Sunday revived memories of Woods in his prime.

The 21-year-old American, coming o� an Australian Open triumph a week earlier, � red a six-under par 66 to com-plete a wire-to-wire triumph in the elite 18-player event at Isleworth.

Spieth’s 26-under 262 total and his victory margin of 10 strokes over Swed-ish world number two Henrik Stenson were both tournament records, his score in relation to par one not even Woods has matched over 72 holes.

“This is the best I’ve ever played, which is what I said in Sydney last week,” Spieth said. “Hopefully I’ll look back and continue to get better.”

“To take it to the next level, to win a major, I’ve got to look to Rory,” Spieth said. “He’s the one we’re all chasing. I did a good job of beginning that chase

the past couple weeks.”Spieth said in Australia he was “far,

far away” from the level of McIlroy, this year’s British Open and PGA Cham-pionship winner, but he feels he has closed the gap -- “now just far away.”

Spieth will be the same age then as Woods was in 1997 when winning his � rst major at the Masters, but the latest US prodigy played down any notion he might be the “next Tiger,” stressing a � rst major win and McIlroy’s top rank-ing are his targets.

“I understand that when I’m out here and I’m one of the young guys, people want to see somebody come up and do what Tiger did and change a generation of golf,” Spieth said.

“That’s not necessarily what I’m out here to do. I’m out here to try and win each tournament I’m in. If you happen to win majors, which is the ultimate goal, then great. But right now I look at num-ber one in the world Rory McIlroy, what he did this year, and I’m trying to chase him more than I am anything else.” l

SportDHAKA TRIBUNE14 Tuesday, December 9, 2014

Hammers climb to third, Foxes losen Reuters, London

England forward Andy Carroll returned to goalscoring form with two thumping headers in West Ham United’s 3-1 vic-tory over Swansea City that lifted the London club to third in the Premier League on Sunday.

Aston Villa also came back from a goal down to condemn bottom club Leicester City to eighth defeat in 10 matches - Alan Hutton scoring the win-ner in a 2-1 victory. l

n AFP, Madrid

A third Lionel Messi hat-trick in four games helped Barcelona keep the pres-sure on La Liga leaders Real Madrid as they recorded a 5-1 victory over local rivals Espanyol on Sunday.

After falling behind to Sergio Gar-cia’s early strike, Barcelona then took control of the Catalan derby.

Messi’s 21st Liga treble, which took him to within two of Cristiano Ronal-do’s record of 23 set on Saturday, a Ge-rard Pique header and neat � nish from Pedro, was enough to see Barca take the spoils and leapfrog Atletico Madrid in second place with 34 points.

Real still lead the table with 36 points after a 3-0 win over Celta Vigo on Saturday.

“There’s no words to describe Messi. He’s given us so much that I genuinely think it’s not possible to say everything that he’s done for us,” said Pique.

“It was a di� cult game. We were much improved in the second half. We � xed our mistakes and what we now have to do is continue like this.”

Despite having not won at the Camp Nou since 2009 it was the visitors who started the brighter, creating the game’s � rst chance after eight min-utes, however Jordi Alba was able to clear Garcia’s cross with Lucas Vazquez poised to tap in from close range.

Barcelona did not heed the early warning, and they soon found them-selves behind.

Felipe Caicedo challenged Sergio Busquets just inside the Barcelona half, and as the Camp Nou waited for a whistle that never came from referee Ignacio Iglesias Villanueva, Sergio Gar-cia ran directly at a static Pique before � ring past Claudio Bravo to stun the hosts.

It was Espanyol’s � rst goal at the home of their illustrious neighbours since Ivan De La Pena’s double saw them record a 2-1 win there � ve years ago.

After being brought down on the edge of the box, Messi saw the result-ing free-kick bounce o� the crossbar with goalkeeper Kiko Casilla beaten, and it only seemed a matter of time be-fore the home side equalised.

The equaliser arrived on the stroke of half time with the kind of goal that Barce-lona have made their trade-mark.

Jordi Alba cut inside from the left, feeding Xavi Hernandez, who in turn laid the ball o� to the Argentine who swept home from just outside the box.

Five minutes after the break it was 2-1 when Neymar combined with Luis Suarez to � nd Messi on the edge of the box, and the 27-year-old ri� ed a right-footed e� ort past a hapless Casil-la to knock the wind out of their oppo-nents’ sails.

Two minutes later the advantage was doubled as a Rakitic corner was met by Pique, and from there on there was only one winner.

With 13 minutes remaining an Alba diagonal ball found substitute Pedro Rodriguez, who had earlier replaced Suarez, and the Spain international made no mistake to further stretch Barca’s lead.

Nine minutes from time Messi capped o� a � ne afternoon as he scored his third, and his side’s � fth, following a give-and-go with Pedro.

Former Manchester United manager

David Moyes su� ered his � rst defeat as Real Sociedad boss

in a 4-0 thrashing away at Villarreal.

There was a touch of fortune over the � rst goal just after the hour mark as Bruno’s free-kick crashed o� the bar and rebounded into the net via the back of Sociedad goalkeeper Enaut Zu-bikarai.

Real Madrid loanee Dennis Chery-shev then sealed the points with a � ne low strike that also clipped the wood-work on its way past Zubikarai before Moi Gomez struck twice in the � nal 10 minutes to round o� the scoring.

Defeat leaves Sociedad in 14th, three points above the relegation zone, while Villarreal move up to sixth.

Valencia’s recent struggles contin-ued as their winless streak in La Liga stretched to four games after a thrilling � nish in a 1-1 draw at Granada.

Alvaro Negredo looked to have giv-en the visitors all three points when he smashed home his � rst goal for the club seven minutes from time.

But after Valencia were reduced to 10 men when Paco Alcacer was shown a red card for a clash with Juan Carlos, Isaac Success bundled the ball home two minutes from the end to hand Joaquin Capar-ros’s men a vital point.

Valencia remain in � fth but are now four points adrift of Sevilla in fourth, with the Andalusian side running out 1-0 victors at Rayo Vallecano thanks to Carlos Bacca’s 11th g o a l o f t h e season. l

LA LIGARayo Vallecano 0-1 Sevilla Bacca 8

Barcelona 5-1 Espanyol Messi 45+1, 50, 81, Pique 53, Pedro 77 Sergio Garcia 13

Villarreal 4-0 Real SociedadEnaut Zubikarai 63-og,Cheryshev 73, Moises 80, 86

Granada 1-1 Valencia Isaac 89 Negredo 83

Milan duo su� er shock defeatsn AFP, Milan

Roberto Mancini su� ered his second straight defeat as coach of Inter Milan after a shock 2-1 reverse to Udinese that left his side in 12th spot in Serie A on Sunday.

A week after a 4-2 defeat away to Roma, Inter welcomed former handler Andrea Stramaccioni back to the San Siro for the � rst time since his sacking at the end of last season.

Udinese were looking to end a � ve-game winless streak, and it was 38-year-old Stramaccioni who walked away with the plaudits after a com-posed and determined performance by the northerners.

But the Udinese coach admitted In-ter and their sta� are “still close to my heart” when he told Sky Sport: “Some things you don’t forget. It would have been better to beat Milan.”

Mauro Icardi gave Inter a � rst-half

lead on the stroke of half-time.But Bruno Fernandes levelled on the

hour before Frenchman Cyril Thereau, who replaced Antonio Di Natale on 64 minutes, gave Udinese the lead seven minutes later.

Inter remain 12th, 18 points o� the pace and nine behind third-placed Ge-noa in the third and last Champions

League qualifying spot.On a weekend that saw the top three

- Juventus, Roma and Napoli - held to draws, Genoa were among the few top-� ve teams left celebrating.

Genoa welcomed Filippo Inzaghi’s Milan to the Luigi Ferraris looking to stretch their unbeaten run to nine games and had plenty of incentive after Napoli were held 2-2 by Empoli earlier.

Milan are seventh, 14 points behind Juventus and � ve behind Genoa.

Juventus, held to a scoreless draw at Fiorentina on Friday, lead Roma by three points after Rudi Garcia’s men battled for a 2-2 draw at home to Sas-suolo on Saturday.

Elsewhere Sunday Lazio ran out 2-1 winners at Parma and Atalanta beat struggling Cesena 3-2.

Sampdoria dropped to sixth, but can go fourth to trail city rivals Genoa by just a point if they account for Verona on Monday. l

Champions League futures on line in � nal matchdayn AFP, Paris

Liverpool face a must-win showdown with Basel, Juventus need a point against Atletico Madrid to reach the last 16 and Russian-owned Monaco host Russian side Zenit in the Champi-ons League on Tuesday.

Olympiakos head into their � nal Group A game at home to Malmo still in with a chance of reaching the knockout stage for the second season running. However, even a win in Piraeus may not be enough for the Greek champions, who must beat Malmo and hope Juven-tus lose at home to already-quali� ed At-letico Madrid if they are to go through.

Memories are still fresh among Ju-ventus fans of their elimination in the group stage last season and the Italian champions are desperate to avoid a re-peat as they entertain Atletico Madrid in their � nal Group A game in Turin. The Serie A leaders need just a point to be sure of progressing and a win by two goals or more would even see them pip Atletico to � rst place.

Atletico, who have won 10 of their last 11 games in all competitions, are without defensive duo Joao Miranda and Cristian Ansaldi. Simone Padoin could come into the starting line-up for Juve, who drew

0-0 at Fiorentina on Friday.It is all or nothing for Liverpool as

they host Basel at An� eld. Only a win will be enough to take the Reds through to the last 16 for the � rst time since 2009. Anything else and Basel, who were convincing 1-0 winners when the teams met in Switzerland in October, will go through instead.

With reigning European champions Real Madrid already through to the last 16 as group winners having won all � ve Group B games so far, and Ludogorets out, there is not much at stake at the Santiago Bernabeu.

It is all to play for as Monaco take on Zenit St Petersburg in the Mediter-ranean principality. Monaco, whose revival has come about since they were taken over by Russian billionaire Dmi-try Rybolovlev three years ago, need

just a point to advance to the last 16 at Zenit’s expense and they can also win the group by bettering Bayer Leverku-sen’s result in the night’s other game.

Leverkusen are already through to the last 16 for the second season in suc-cession but only a win against Portu-guese champions Ben� ca in Lisbon will guarantee them � rst place in Group C. A draw will also be enough, as long as Monaco fail to beat Zenit.

Arsenal are already through to the last 16 as they head to Istanbul for the second time this season to face Galatasaray. However the Gunners, who beat Besiktas in a play-o� to reach the group stage, know the importance of winning the group and the easier draw that would almost certainly fol-low in the next round as a result. To � nish � rst, they must beat their Turk-ish hosts and hope Borussia Dortmund lose at home to Anderlecht.

Already through to the last 16, Dort-mund need only draw at home to An-derlecht to be certain of advancing as Group D winners. Anderlecht, who are already certain to � nish third and parachute into the Europa League, are coming o� the back of a 4-2 defeat at Mouscron at the weekend and lost 3-0 at home to Dortmund in October. l

Schaaf’s Frankfurt thrash Bremenn Reuters, Berlin

Eintracht Frankfurt thrashed Werder Bremen 5-2 on Sunday as their coach Thomas Schaaf faced the club where he spent 41 years as player and coach for the � rst time.

Schaaf spent his entire playing ca-reer at Bremen, joining them as a junior in 1972, and also coached the club for 14 years, winning one Bundesliga and three German Cup titles.

He also coached the junior teams in between but his association with them ended when he was � red in May 2013. l

Donovan goes out on top as Galaxy win MLS Cupn AFP, Los Angeles

The Los Angeles Galaxy gave Landon Donovan a fairytale ending to a storied career Sunday, beating the New En-gland Revolution 2-1 after extra time in the MLS Cup � nal.

Ireland international Robbie Keane scored the winning goal in the 111th minute as the Galaxy claimed a record � fth Major League Soccer title.

Donovan, the all-time leading scorer for both the United States and in Major League Soccer, announced he would

retire at the end of the season in Au-gust - after he was left o� Jurgen Klins-mann’s World Cup squad.

Keane, the newly named Most Valuable Player of the MLS regular season, slipped in behind the defense - thanks to superb ball from Marcelo Sarvas - to slide a shot into the bottom right corner. l

Marseille reclaim top spotn AFP, Paris

Marseille reclaimed top spot in Ligue 1 from Paris Saint-Germain with a hard-earned 3-1 victory over Metz at the Sta-de Velodrome on Sunday evening.

An eighth consecutive home win for Marcelo Bielsa’s side means they end the weekend one point clear of defend-ing champions PSG.

Earlier, a stoppage-time penalty from Ligue 1’s leading scorer Alexandre Lacazette allowed Lyon to win 3-2 at Evian and move back into third place. l

Game-changer Messi shows he’s anything but boredn Goal.com

Lionel Messi is back in business. After something of a slow start to the sea-son for Barcelona, the Argentine has hit three hat-tricks in his last four

matches and, like so many times in the past,

dug his side out of a dif-� cult hole on Sunday. Bored? It hardly looked

like it. The Argentine appeared disinterest-

ed on occasions last season and earlier this term as well, but he has learned to conserve his energies for short sprints and bursts when he can be most e� ec-tive. And having seemed increasingly isolated when things are not going his way of late, he has now proved himself all over again in recent weeks.

After last weekend’s last-gasp 1-0 win at Valencia, former Manchester United mid� elder Paul Scholes wrote in his column with The Independent that Messi looked “bored” at Barce-lona. “In him, as much as anyone, I detected that mood of boredom,” he opined. “Messi has never been a player given to chasing the full-back when his team lose the ball, but now, more than ever, he keeps his movement to an ab-solute minimum.”

And he added:  “For a young man-ager like Luis Enrique, it will be hard to change the way Messi, and the rest of the stars in this team, play the game.”

On Sunday’s evidence, however, he won’t want to. Barca, behind to a Ser-gio Garcia goal and lacking both ideas and inspirataion against an excellent Espanyol, were just moments away from a chorus of half-time boos until Messi’s magic lifted the mood at Camp Nou in their lastest Liga � xture.

“There are no words to describe Messi,” Gerard Pique (who also scored on Sunday) said after the game. “He has given us so much that, I repeat, there really aren’t words to describe everything he has given us.”

And Luis Enrique added: “Messi’s equaliser was key. We played very well in the second half. It is easy to get used to having such a decisive player like him.” l

RESULTLA Galaxy 2-1 New EnglandZardes 52, Keane 111 (Tierney 79)

After extra time

BUNDESLIGAHamburg 2-1 Mainz 05 Cleber 32, van der Vaart 54 Okazaki 89

Frankfurt 5-2 Werder Bremen Meier 34, 68, Seferovic 52, Gebre Selassie 45,Aigner 76, Stendera 80 Caldirola 79

SEREI ANapoli 2-2 Empoli Zapata 67, De Guzman 72 Verdi 19, Rugani 53

Atalanta 3-2 Cesena Benalouane 45+1, Defrel 31, 43Stendardo 50, Moralez 52

Genoa 1-0 Milan (Antonelli 32)

Parma 1-2 Lazio (Palladino 45) (Mauri 45+3, Anderson 59)

Inter 1-2 Udinese Icardi 44 Fernandes 60, Thereau 71

AC Milan mid� elder Riccardo Montolivo reacts during their Italian Serie A match against Genoa at ‘Luigi Ferraris Stadium in Genoa on Sunday AFP

LIGUE 1Evian 2-3 Lyon Barbosa 28, 64 Benzia 62, Lacazette 81, 90+4-pen

Lens 1-1 Lille Coulibaly 90+2 Gueye 47

Reims 2-3 Guingamp Charbonnier 6, Jacobsen 33,Oniangue 68 Mandanne 48, Beauvue 78

Marseille 3-1 Metz Gignac 43, Ayew 59, Payet 90+2 Malouda 46

CHAMPIONS LEAGUE Juventus v Atl Madrid Olympiakos v Malmö FF Liverpool v FC Basel Real Madrid v Ludo Razgd Ben� ca v Bayer Levkn Monaco v Zenit Bor Dortmund v Anderlecht Galatasaray v Arsenal

Hat-trick and 400th Barca goal for Messi

Barcelona forward Lionel Messi celebrates after scoring against Espanyol during their La Liga match at Nou Camp stadium in Barcelona on Sunday REUTERS

Exhibition16th Asian Art Biennale BangladeshTime: 11am – 8pmNational Art GalleryBangladesh Shilpakala Academy

Realms of PerceptionTime: 12pm – 8pmGallery Twenty One

MonochromeTime: 12pm – 8pmBengal Gallery of Fine ArtsRoad No 16, Dhanmondi

Perception of TimeBy Artist Md. Alomgir HassanTime: 3pm – 8pmDhaka Art Center

Film13th International Short & Indepen-dent Film Festival Central Public Library, Shahbag

Ouija, Interstellar, Gone GirlAnnabelle, Pipra BiddaEk Cup Cha, Into The StormBlockbuster Cinemas

DHAKA TRIBUNE Entertainment Tuesday, December 9, 2014 15

ZoolanderHBO Hits, 10:10pm

At the end of his career, a clueless fashion model is brainwashed to kill the Prime Minister of Malaysia.

Lage Raho Munna Bhai

Sony Max, 8:25pm In this sequel, Munnabhai meets Mahatma Gandhi.

Man vs FoodTLC, 10pm

Richman explores the big food of a di� erent American city before fac-ing o� against a pre-existing eating challenge at a local restaurant.

n Entertainment Desk

Khalil Ullah Khan, who dominated both the small and the silver screen, passed away at a city hospital on Sun-day morning at the age of 80. The winner of the Ekushey Padak and the lifetime achievement award at the National Film Award 2012, Khalil Ul-lah Khan worked in about 800 � lms establishing himself as an institution in the � lm industry. Dhallywood ce-lebrities expressed their condolenc-

es at the demise of their beloved actor.

ShabnamKhalil was a � aw-less performer. With his charm-ing smile and positive energy,

he always used to encourage the cast and crew of a � lm. Khalil was one of the few gifted actors that we have in our � lm industry. No one can replace him or � ll his shoes.

Kabori SarwarThere was always a spark in Khalil’s acting that hooked the au-dience immedi-ately. He had the ability to change his voice tone enabling him to act di� erent

characters on screen. For this unique trait, he could portray his character in a lively manner. As an actor he always did justice to the script and to his role. There will be no second Khalil in our industry. I pray for his departed soul.

BobitaI have known Khalil since my childhood. With his love and af-fection I grew up. I have worked with Khalil in over hundred � lms. Like a fa-ther, he was al-ways concerned

about me and my son Onik. He was a talented actor. Have we been able to acknowledged his contribution to the � lm industry properly? Our responsi-bility does not end with writing obit-uaries or condolences for an actor like Khalil. Legends never die. I hope in the coming years, we would be able to ful� l his dreams and promises that he made to the industry.

Nayok Raj RazzakHe was like our parent, a guardian to guide. But, he never gave us the feeling that he was a veteran ac-tor. He was not only my

friend but also a friend of my two sons. His absence has shattered my

family. Khalil’s sudden death was a shock. May Allah grant him Jannah.

Kohinoor Akhter ShuchondaBefore I be-came an ac-tress, I was a fan of Khalil, a jovial per-son with full of life and laughter. If he saw any malice among

people, he would use him charm and had the power to negotiate. His art of communication was impeccable.

Shakib KhanKhalil was one of the f o u n d e r s of the C h a l a c h it r a Shilpi Samity. In the last National Film Award, Khalil m e n t i o n e d

that he wouls be always with the Dhallywood � lm industry and his support would always continue. He was like my father who would hold my hand and show me the right path. His advices will always remainwith me. l

Dhallywood stars pay tribute to KHALIL ULLAH KHAN

Children are Awesome Artistsn Nadira Sultana Ava

It is a general perception that under-privileged children may not be that artistically talented because of being deprived of enough facilities. In a life-long struggle for the basics, practicing art may be an unimaginable luxury for many of these children. However, such world barriers do not matter for some children, who are born with an artistic � re.

The art exhibition titled Awesome Artists, showcasing pieces done by some underprivileged children, is a testimony that art transcends all the di� culties and shortcomings of life. The exhibition organised by Action-Aid at the Russian Centre of Science and Culture at Dhanmondi featured about 70 drawings done by children from playgroup to class 10 from dif-ferent children homes of the capital.

Staying true to the title of the ex-hibition ‘Awesome Artists’, the chil-dren demonstrated a wonderful sense of colour, superb measurement and

variation in themes in their drawings. The artworks are rich in terms of aes-thetic beauty but do not lack childlike simplicity and innocence.

One of such simple yet charming drawings was created by Brishty, who has depicted an eye-soothing land-scape of a rural scenery. A wide, blue river making its way through paddy � ends and villages has been portrayed by the artist in the drawing, which also includes small children playing on the bank of the river.

Awesome artist Liza, a student of class 2, drew some children who were imagining that they were studying in a school. She used series of thought bubbles in the drawing depicting the imaginations.

Some of the children showed great consciousness about social issues. A student of class nine, Sharmin Ak-ter, drew wide highways with lots of transports plying on them in the drawing titled “Nirapad Sarak Chai”.

The two-day exhibition ended yes-terday. l

Mohajoner Nao to be staged today n Entertainment Desk

Subachan Natya Shangsad will stage its highly acclaimed play “Mohajoner Nao” at 6:30pm at the Experimental Theatre Hall, Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy.

Written by Shakoor Majid and di-rected by Sudip Chakraborty, the 33rd production of Subachan narrates the story of Shah Abdul Karim and his journey to the realm of music through

di� erent sequences based on his bi-ography.

Throughout the play, the actors, partly and fully, sing over 20 timeless songs from Abdul Karim’s repertoire of over 1500 songs. Karim’s philoso-phy is, perhaps, best re� ected through his songs. Both the playwright and di-rector have aptly taken this approach to establish the storyline. The play also focuses on the di� culties that Karim faced in society. l

BIFA: CUMBERBATCH and SCOTT win top prizesn Entertainment Desk

Sherlock stars Andrew Scott and Benedict Cumberbatch were both championed at the Moet British Independent Film Awards (BIFA).

Scott—famous for playing the Sher-lock’s nemesis Moriarty—was awarded the Best Supporting Actor gong for his role in “Pride,” the heart-warming true story of how a group of gay and lesbian activists raised money to help support the families of striking Welsh miners in the 1980s.

Meanwhile, Cumberbatch—whose � lm roles this year have varied from playing codebreaker Alan Turing in “The Imita-tion Game” to voicing a wolf in animation Penguins of “Madgascar”—was honoured with the Variety Award at the star-studded ceremony at Old Billingsgate in London.

Cumberbatch missed out on the Best Ac-tor accolade for his turn as Turing to Harry Pot-ter star Brendan Gleeson for his performance as a troubled Catholic priest in “Calvary.

“Pride” won the most awards of the night, also scooping Best British Indepen-dent Film and Imelda Staunton taking home

Best Supporting Actress for her role as a Welsh union activist in the comedy.

Gugu Mbatha-Raw was named Best Actress for her title role in Belle, the true story of Dido Elizabeth Belle, the illegitimate mixed-race daughter of a Royal Navy Ad-miral, raised by her aristocratic great-uncle Lord Mans� eld who as Lord Chief Justice helped end slavery in England. Emma

Thompson was presented with the Richard Harris award for outstanding contribution by an actor to British � lm.

And the Special Jury Prize honoured 81-year-old director John Boorman, whose � lms include “Deliverance,” “Point Blank,” “Excalibur” and “Hope and Glory.”

The Best International Independent Film award went to Richard Linklater’s Boyhood. l

STING and TOM HANKShonoured by Obama

n Entertainment Desk

British singer Sting and Oscar-winning US actor Tom Hanks have been feted in Washington as recipients of this year’s Kennedy Center honours.

Soul singer Al Green, 9 to 5 star Lily Tomlin and ballet dancer Patricia Mc-Bride were also saluted at the White House ahead of a gala concert.

Sting, 63, said it was rare for an En-glishman to receive the honour.

“I’m not sure when I’ll wear it again, but I think I look rather fetch-ing in it,” he said of his rainbowribbon.

The former Police frontman is set to join the cast of his Broadway musi-cal “The Last Ship,” about shipbuild-ing in the north east of England.

Hanks, who won Oscars for his roles in “Philadelphia” and “Forrest

Gump,” said he couldn’t believe it when he was told he was among the honourees.

Tomlin, 75, also admitted she had been surprised by her selection, say-ing she had never been privy to the insider’s circle.

Sunday’s White House reception saw this year’s recipients presented with their ceremonial ribbons by Pres-ident Obama.

The event preceded a concert at the Kennedy Center for the Perform-ing Arts which saw Lady Gaga, Bruce Springsteen and Bruno Mars sing Sting’s hits.

The musician told reporters it was “quite something to have other people sing my songs and have to do virtually nothing but smile”.

Jennifer Hudson and Usher kicked o� proceedings with a medley of

Green’s hits, before � lm director Ste-ven Spielberg described Hanks as “America’s favourite son”.

“Tonight, Washington puts the arts above politics,” said host Stephen Col-bert. “Because no matter what party you belong to, everybody wants a self-ie with Tom Hanks.”

This year’s concert, which also fea-tured appearances by Earth, Wind and Fire, Jane Fonda and Glee actress Jane Lynch, will be broadcast on the CBS network on 30 December.

Hanks was joined in Washington by his actress wife Rita Wilson, who is set to follow her husband onto the Broad-way stage.

Following Hanks’ 2013 appearance in Nora Ephron’s play Lucky Guy, Wil-son will appear in Larry David’s new comedy Fish in the Dark from Febru-ary 2 . l

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BIPASHA BASU to play conjoined twinsn Entertainment Desk

Bollywood actress Bipasha Basu will be seen with television heartthrob Karan Singh Grover in Kumar Mangat’s upcoming horror love story “Alone.” Bhushan Patel, who directed the hit � lm “Ragini MMS2,” will be directing this � lm that has Bipasha playing conjoined twins.

The combination of horror and sex in � lm “Alone” and Bipasha in her double avatar.

The � lm is scheduled to be released on Jan-uary 16. l

Fake drug factory busted in Dhaka

n Ashif Islam Shaon

Rapid Action Battalion (Rab-10) busted a fake medicine factory in the capital’s Bangshal area yesterday.

Acting on a tip-o� , the Rab conduct-ed the drive at a house on the 6th Kh-ilghar road and found the illegal medi-cine factory, Rab o� cials said.

A mobile court sentenced the fac-tory’s owner to jail for two years for producing six types of handmade med-icines, including some reputed brands’ antibiotics, illegally.

The convict, Akbar Hossain Bhashani, 40, was engaged in making the fake medicines for tetanus, pain killers, hear and stomach related dis-

eases for the past two years, said An-war Pasha, an executive magistrate who conducted the drive with help of the elite force.

Akbar had � nished his education after class VI, and begun to work at a medicine shop before he got involved in the ‘business’ of fake medicine.

He used to make injection for teta-nus and selling those in the market by changing the labels of pain killing in-jection ‘Atropine sulphate’, said Anwar Pasha.

The convicted was found using plain water to make fake medicine for eyes and nose, he said.

Akbar used to package the medi-cines for stomach related diseases into packets of medicines for cardiac dis-eases and sell those in the market by changing the levels, he said.

“He also used to change the labels of low priced medicines into high priced ones of reputed brands,” the executive magistrate said.

“Akbar had chosen various kinds of medicines which look almost alike,” he added.

He used to sell his fake medicines in the wholesale medicine market at Mitford in the capital’s old part, Anwar Pasha said.

From there, a network of traders were engaged in selling those in the medicine shops in rural areas.

The mobile court also seized some machines which were used to change labels of medicines, and some labels from the house.

Directorate of Drug Administration’s O� cial Mahbub Hossain was present during the drive led by ASP Sajjad Hos-sain of Rab-10. l

16 Back PageDHAKA TRIBUNE Tuesday, December 9, 2014

W A R M T H B E C K O N SOnline registration, MRP must for hajj Next year 101,758 to be allowed to make the pilgrimage under two packagesn Muhammad Zahidul Islam

The cabinet has approved the draft of Hajj Package 2015, which makes it man-datory for prospective pilgrims to reg-ister online and have machine readable passports (MRPs) to perform hajj.

The draft was approved at the week-ly cabinet meeting presided over by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina at the secretariat yesterday.

A total of 101,758 Bangladeshi pilgrims will be allowed to perform hajj next year, which was 98,000 this year. Only 10,000 of them can go on the pilgrimage under government arrangements.

Cabinet Secretary M Musharrof Hos-sain Bhuiyan told reporters after the meeting pilgrims would have to choose from two packages in 2015.

“The estimated cost for the � rst package, excluding the cost for sac-ri� cial animal, will be Tk354,745, up from the previous year’s � gure by Tk429. The second package will cost Tk296,206, excluding the cost for sacri-� cial animal, and involves an increase of Tk430 compared to the previous amount,” he explained.

Musharrof said hajj packages an-nounced by private agencies could not cost less than Tk296,206, and the agen-cies would be allowed to o� er two hajj packages at most.

Besides, every pilgrim will have to

carry an additional 500 Saudi Riyals with him for the purpose of sacri� cial animal. Apart from this, every pilgrim could car-ry a maximum of $1,000 with him.

Pilgrims willing to perform hajj un-der government arrangements will need to pay Tk151,690 during online registration for airfare and other fees while it will be Tk148,331 for those choosing private agencies. Online reg-istration for hajj can be done from Jan-uary 21 to February 5.

The remaining Tk2,03,055 for pack-age 1, and Tk144,516 for package 2, will have to be paid by June 10 next year. The amount will cover costs like accom-modation, food and other expenses.

The cabinet secretary said the Saudi Arabia authorities had introduced a new electronic hajj management system for the next year, which would require the pilgrims to register themselves online in advance and to have MRPs.

“Online registration will involve no hassle as internet connections are available even in villages and union digital centres,” he said.

“Accordance to rules set by the Saudi Arabian Monitoring Authority, all hajj pilgrims � ying to the realm under pri-vate arrangements will need to open personal bank accounts in Saudi Arabia to deposit the money they will spend during their stay,” added the cabinet secretary. l

UN: Opium harvests soaring in Southeast Asian Tribune Report

A new UN report has revealed that the cultivation of opium poppy has nearly tripled since 2006 in the heroin-pro-ducing “Golden Triangle” - the area ad-joining Myanmar, Laos and Thailand.

In its annual Southeast Asia Opium Survey, the UN O� ce on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) yesterday said poppy cultivated in Myanmar and Laos in 2014 reached 63,800 hectares – the equiva-lent of nearly 90,000 football pitches – up from 21,600 hectares in 2006.

The latest � gure represents a rise in cultivation for the eighth consecutive year, boosting an industry estimated to be worth $16bn a year in Southeast Asia, reports Al Jazeera.

Myanmar, the world’s second largest producer of opium behind Afghanistan, together with Laos this year produced 762 tonnes of opium, most of which

would have been re� ned with chem-icals into roughly 76 tonnes of mixed-grade heroin to be tra� cked into global markets and across the region, where drug use is on the rise.

Myanmar authorities did not respond to Al-Jazeera’s requests for comment. The increase comes despite promises by the reformist Myanmar government to eradicate the problem.

Northern Laos accounted for just 9.72% of the total � gure.

Myanmar government pledged in 1999 to wipe out all opium cultivation over in 15. But, a regional increase in demand has triggered a resurgence of production, largely by transnational crime networks.

As of 2014, China accounts for near-ly 58% of the 3.33 million estimated opiate users throughout Asia. In Myan-mar, opiate use is now one of the high-est in Southeast Asia. l

US asst secy: Police should be held to di� erent standardn Syeda Samira Sadeque

The police should be given di� erent consideration for their actions because of the function they perform on the public’s behalf, visiting US Assistant Secretary of State William Brown� eld said yesterday at a roundtable discus-sion at the American Centre in Dhaka.

In response to this correspond-ent’s question on how to address the issue of police brutality, an issue cur-rently making headlines in the US, he said: “We should have a considerable amount of sympathy and understand-ing in terms of the risks that they take and the sacri� ces they make.”

His comments come in the midst of nationwide protests in the US following a grand jury’s decision last week not to bring criminal charges against a white police o� cer who contributed to the death of an unarmed African-American man in New York in July.

That decision, following a similar decision not to press charges against police in the shooting death of an un-armed black teenager in Missouri in August, has triggered widespread de-bates in the US over race relations and the culture of impunity in the police.

Brown� eld, however, said police should be monitored for their actions and held responsible when they are in breach of law.

“For that we need mechanisms,

by which we, as a profession, can in-vestigate and if we conclude through some fair adjudicatory process, that they have violated our standards, our rules, the means by which we operate as a profession, they can be subject to expulsion and then subject to the civil or criminal judiciary system,” he said.

“We cannot hold them to the same standards as everyone else on the plan-et because we ourselves have asked them to perform this function,” said Brown� eld, who is the Assistant Sec-retary of State for International Nar-cotics and Law Enforcement A� airs, in response to a question regarding police violence – a problem that has escalated worldwide.

Brown� eld said he discussed vari-ous avenues to enhance Bangladesh’s engagement with the United States on a number of security and rule of law interests.

At the roundtable, he said he met with the inspector general of police, the home secretary, the foreign secre-tary and the law and justice minister to explore ways to enhance engagement between the two countries in law en-forcement and rule of law issues.

It is commendable that 12% of the Bangladeshi police force consists of fe-male members, he said.

“This is quite a robust � gure in com-parison to almost any police communi-ty in the entire world,” he said. l

US: Osama got NGO money while on the run n Tribune Report

Slain al-Qaeda chief Osama Bin Laden received regular monetary aid from a number of NGOs while he was alive, the visiting US Assistant Secretary of State for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement William R Brown-� eld said yesterday.

“Osama was in hiding for about ten years. During that time his expenses were covered by some NGOs, not from bank robbery, drug dealings or family resources,” he said while addressing the opening ceremony of the “Good Giving Counterterrorism Financing Training Conference” arranged at a city hotel.

He did not name the NGOs that � -nanced the slain terrorist.

“Al-Qaeda was funded, to the tune of approximately $30 million per year, by diversions of money from Islamic chari-ties and the use of well-placed � nancial facilitators who gathered money from both witting and unwitting donors, pri-marily in the Gulf region,” he said.

“Besides, investigators have linked certain charities to the funding streams for the violent extremist groups ac-cused of conducting the attacks in the 2008 Mumbai bombings,” he said.

But he said 99% of NGOs were doing a good job. “Our goal is to protect good NGOs and close down those that aid terrorism.”

“Several countries in the South Asia region are taking preventive measures to stem the � ow of terrorist � nancing, including the consideration of charity and oversight laws,” he said. l

As winter chills settle in the capital and the rest of Bangladesh, vendors in di� erent parts of the country bring in consignments of blankets to meet the elevated demand. The photo was taken at the Narayanganj Link Road yesterday MAINOOR ISLAM MANIK

A team of RAB arrests six people after raiding a factory manufacturing counterfeit allopathic drugs in the capital’s Dhania area yesterday

Outlawed Hizb ut-Tahrir’s lea� et invites the armyn Mohammad Jamil Khan

No matter what the government’s sen-ior ministers have been claiming about their “success” in taming militancy, banned out� ts such as Hizb ut-Tahrir are openly carrying on with their activ-ities in Dhaka.

This Dhaka Tribune reporter yester-day saw three young men in their late teens and early twenties, standing in front of the Sukrabad Mosque near Dh-anmondi, distributing lea� ets among people coming out after the evening Maghrib prayers.

Although the group is banned, none of the recipients of the lea� ets visibly objected.

Reportedly, such lea� ets were being distributed among people after the Fri-day afternoon’s Jummah prayers near the Uttara mosque as well.

Fazalul Haque, a resident of Sukra-bad, told the Dhaka Tribune: “It is not a new thing in the area. They would come with such lea� ets every two days. You will see them every now and then

if you keep an eye on the mosque.”One of those lea� et starts with a

message which translates into English as: “Countrymen! Where is that army o� cer who can say,...Not a single more bullet � red on the countrymen will be tolerated?”

Those familiar with the mode of op-eration of Hizb ut-Tahrir indicate that the group aspires for a “peaceful” shift towards an Islamic Shariah-based state by pursuing in� uential quarters such as the elite and the armed forces.

The lea� et that the Dhaka Tribune has collected also directly addresses army o� cers and people with power towards the end.

The message follows a black panel with words printed in bold white that appeared to be the heading of the lea� et.

“Oppressor Hasina, in order to make you bow in front of her misrule, has come down with bullets and bombs. There is only one way out – urge the duteous o� cers of the armed forces to remove her and hand over power to the Hizb ut-Tahrir for establishing Khila-

fat,” the long heading reads.Referring to both Prime Minister

Sheikh Hasina and BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia, the lea� et said it was not the “taqdeer” or fate of the Muslims to be oppressed by rulers like them.

The lea� et also called for an end of what it said was “all kinds of foreign interference in the internal matters of the country.”

It also advises recipients to encour-age the army o� cers among their ac-quaintances to topple Sheikh Hasina.

At the end of the lea� et, there is an-other black panel which appears like a “letter tail” with the name Hizb ut-Tahrir written in big fonts in Bangla. It contains the link to a webpage and a Facebook page and an email address. There is a mobile number which it says can be used to contact with the “media o� ces of Hizb ut-Tahrir and Ulaiyah Bangladesh.”

The end panel also has the link to the Facebook page of Hizb ut-Tahrir chief Sheikh Ata’ Ibn Khalil Abu Ar-Rashta.

Hizb ut-Tahrir, which has chapters in scores of countries around the globe,

started its activities in Bangladesh in 2000.

In October 2009, the Home Ministry banned the out� t and law enforcers have rounded up several members of its leaders and activists. Despite the ban, they have also brought out proces-sions in the capital in the past.

When contacted, Abul Kalam Azad, director of RAB’s intelligence wing, claimed that the outlawed group’s ac-tivities was totally stalled even until two days ago. But recently RAB have noticed that the out� t have been dis-tributing lea� ets in front of various mosques.

Any of the lea� et distributors are still to be picked up because they would stay around in place for a very short time, the RAB director said.

“They are especially targetting the weekly Jummah prayers,” he said.

“We have taken stern actions against the members of the out� t in past and our drive against them will continue. We hope to be able to stop them soon,” he added. l

Editor: Zafar Sobhan, Published and Printed by Kazi Anis Ahmed on behalf of 2A Media Limited at Dainik Shakaler Khabar Publications Limited, 153/7, Tejgaon Industrial Area, Dhaka-1208. Editorial, News & Commercial O� ce: FR Tower, 8/C Panthapath, Shukrabad, Dhaka 1207. Phone: 9132093-94, Advertising: 9132155, Circulation: 9132282, Fax: News-9132192, e-mail: news@dhakatribune.com, info@dhakatribune.com, Website: www.dhakatribune.com

www.dhakatribune.com/business TUESDAY, DECEMBER 9, 2014

B3 BIS: Sudden market swings, dollar rise expose emerging market vulnerability

B4 China faces more pressure as November imports drop, exports slow

Call for low-cost fund to face remediation challengesn Tribune Report

Availability of the low-cost fund is the main challenge to remediation of the country’s RMG sector while risk sharing, tenure of loans and lowering interest are big challeng-es for loans, speakers told a session of the Dhaka Apparel Summit yesterday.

They made the observations at the 5th session of the apparel summit held at Bang-abandhu International Conference Center (BICC) in Dhaka.

The session titled “Remediation Financ-ing for Transforming Bangladesh Garment Industry” focused on a range of issues in-cluding access to low-cost � nancing, moder-ated by Ahsan H Mansur, executive director, Policy Research Institute of Bangladesh.

The session also focused on how to en-sure low-cost � nancing for relocation of garment factories built in an unplanned way and recommendations for remediation � -nancing.

VF Corporation was the � rst to issue its fund for factory remediation.

“We are working with International Fi-nance Corporation (IFC) and other organi-sations to ensure factory remediation,” said Thomas A Nelson, vice-president of the cor-poration.

Rob Wayss, executive director, Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh, said they were in discussion about provid-ing commercial and � nancial support by the lead brands for the remediation.

“We approached 10 brands and some of them are at their � nal stage to approve fund for the remediation purpose.”

According to BRAC EPL Investments Chairman Muhammad A Ali, a national standard is required to move � nance to gar-ment factories because it is the need not only for exporters but also for millions of workers.

Kyle Kelhofer, IFC country manager, Bangladesh, Nepal and Bhutan, said it is unique that RMG industries are carrying on remediation.

It is necessary to discuss how the facto-ries that are out the purview of Accord and

Alliance and have fallen under National Ac-tion Plan will carry on remediation, Sarah Labowitz, co-director, NY University Stern Center for Business and Human Rights, said.

“I hope real discussion will be on practi-cal solution to how � nance comes to small and medium-size factories.”

BGMEA Vice-President Shahidullah Azim

observed that about 1,000 factories would be required to relocate following the inspection.

He said about $1.5m will be required for remediation and about $2m for mobilisation to relocate the factories.

Azim called for a fund for entrepreneurs at low interest rate and with no hidden charges. l

Confusion over � re safety tools instruction n Abid Azad

Fire safety equipment distributors have accused Alliance of providing “dual instructions” on certi� cation holding it responsible for a dilemma in apparel industry’s safety e� orts.

They said although the Western in-spection group recommended interna-tionally certi� ed tools to be installed in the factories, it also verbally asked to use UL-certi� ed products.

The distributors were talking to Dhaka Tribune on the sidelines of Dha-ka Apparel Summit 2014 yesterday.

“Although the Alliance recommend-ed internationally certi� ed products in written form, they verbally asked to use UL certi� ed products,” said a high o� -cial of a distributor company request-

ing anonymity. UL is a US-based safety consulting and certi� cation company with presence in 46 countries.

The o� cial accused Alliance of pro-moting UL-certi� ed products receiving � nancial support from the company.

The group, however, denied the al-legation of promoting single company certi� cation.

“We never mentioned any name of certi� cation company, rather rec-ommended to buy internationally certi� ed products. We don’t have any preference (among international cer-ti� cation companies),” said Mushiur Rahman, senior manager of Alliance.

He added: “A large number of fac-tories have showed their interest in installing � re safety equipment, which is a positive sign for the country’s gar-

ment industry.” RMG owners, now aware, said such

confusion would delay installation of � re safety tools in their factories.

They said after two deadly RMG fac-tory disasters – Tazreen and Rana Pla-za, a sense of awareness about workers’ safety has been created among them.

“The tragedies in recent time have moved us. We are now much aware and have come to the summit to learn more about � re safety measures,” said Syed Ehsanul Hoque, executive director of HAMS Garments Ltd.

He said they have also national and international pressures to ensure safe-ty in the factories, but the confusion about certi� cation instructions are slowing the process.

He also alleged that the distributors

were not able to show any internation-al certi� cation on demand.

“Though many distributors say they have international certi� cation, they cannot show any document. We have no chance to verify quality of products as we need to pay before receiving prod-ucts,” Syed Ehsanul Hoque said.

Many owners also alleged that manu-facturers and distributors were demand-ing higher prices for � re safety tools.

In response to the allegation, the distributors said they need to pay 15% duty to import the equipment.

“We need to pay 15% duty to import � re safety equipment. Besides, if you want better quality goods, you will have to pay more,” said Parvez Kawser, sales and marketing manager of ICEL Private Ltd, a safety system supplier. l

NRBs now allowed to transfer fund n Tribune Report

Non-resident Bangladeshis are now allowed to transfer fund abroad from their accounts in Bangladesh upon the central bank approval.

The entire balance in taka accounts of NRBs will be transferable subject to approval of Bangladesh Bank, said a circular issued yesterday.

BB gave the opportunity to re-frain NRBs from taking away money through illegal channel, said a senior BB executive. They could now send money to their country of residence from the taka accounts in Bangladesh by converting into foreign currency.

Subsistence costs of individual ac-count holders and their family mem-bers in their country of residence must be speci� ed. Institutional account hold-ers must apply for permissible procure-ment of goods and service from abroad.

The non-residents open taka ac-counts in Bangladesh where money from abroad is deposited. l

Experts focus RMG remediation � nancing at the Dhaka Apparel Summit yesterday DHAKA TRIBUNE

Firemen prepare for a � re safety mock training at a programme held on the sidelines of the Dhaka Apparel Summit 2014 at BICC in the capital yesterday RAJIB DHAR

Exports rise 9% in November 2014n Tribune Report

The country’s export earnings in-creased by little over 9% in November as compared to0 the same month pre-vious year.

It stood at US$2.4 billion, 5.5% high-er than the target set for the month, according to � gures Export Promotion Bureau (EPB) of Bangladesh released yesterday.

The � ve-month average growth from July to November, however, grew only by little less than 1% to over $12 billion as compared to same month previous year.

But, performance of the � rst � ve months of the current � scal year fell over 5% short of the period’s target.

Export of knitwear items rose 2% to about $5 billion during the July-No-vember period while falling short of the period’s target by 1.4%.

Woven garments witnessed setback to register $4.7 billion – down by over 1% and 10.6% respectively from same period previous year’s performance and the period’s target.

Export of frozen food items declined by over 7% to $301 million during the � ve-month period, but outnumbered the period’s target by over 7%.

Agriculture products registered in-creased earnings to $282.5 million – up 23% and 9% respectively from the per-formance of same period previous year and the period’s target.

Leather and leather products saw 4% export growth to $463 million during the July-November period, but fell about 14% short of the period’s target.

Jute and jute goods export regis-tered about 5% growth to about $349 million, which is about 9% higher than the period’s target. l

6 more counsellor o� ces abroad to chase $50bn RMG export target n Asif Showkat Kallol

The government has decided to open six more commercial counsellor o� ces abroad as part of e� orts to earn $50bn from garment exports by 2021.

The o� ces will be in Seoul, Geneva, Kunming, Istanbul, Singapore City and Pretoria to give advice on achieving ex-port targets.

“Of them, the government has al-ready � nalised the decisions to set up commercial counsellor o� ces in Seoul and Geneva,” Additional commerce secretary Shawkat Ali Waresi told Dha-ka Tribune yesterday.

He added four others will be � nal-ised in next three months.

Bangladesh currently has a total of 19 commercial counsellor o� ces across the world.

The commercial counsellor o� ces usually advise exporters about di� er-ent countries and demand of goods there.

Secretary said the counsellor o� ces will be given export targets in a year.

But some exporters alleged that the commerce ministry does not consult with respective embassies about ex-port prospects and demand of goods while setting targets.

They said embassies are given some export � gures as targets and a list of commodities to be exported, which were not discussed even with exporters.

According to them, commercial counsellors then become “shadow” sellers who never see the goods they are asked to sell.

The exporters are also concerned about e� ciency of the cousellors.

“If commercial counsellors are not e� cient, the exporters will not bene� t from them,” said Abdus Salam Mur-shedy, president of Exporters Associa-tion of Bangladesh.

He suggested evaluating perfor-mance of the commercial counsellors at regular intervals.

Murshedy also emphasised the need to coordinate e� orts to double garment export by 2021.

Senior commerce secretary Heday-etullah Al Mamoon, ndc said the min-istry set targets for commercial coun-sellors after surveys and discussions with exporters.

He said they evaluate commercial counsellors’ performance on the basis of their e� orts to achieve targets, not on the success.

He said BGMEA targets to earn $50bn by 2021 but the commerce min-istry wants to achieve $70bn exports from garment industry by that year.

According to Export Promotion Bu-reau, 24 out of 51 Bangladeshi missions in abroad have failed to achieve export targets for July-May period of � scal year 2013-14.

The key Bangladesh missions like those in Washington, London, Ottawa, Tokyo, New Delhi and Canberra have failed to achieve their July-May export targets.

Some other important missions –- Berlin, Paris, Madrid, Rome, The Hague and Stockholm -- have been able to reach their targets for the 11-month period, according to a news report.

The overall export earnings for the July-May period totalled $27.4bn against the strategic target of $27.43bn with 0.21% short of the strategic target. l

GP grilled through Facebook on network, data price n Muhammad Zahidul Islam

Senior executives of Grameenphone faced tougher questions from its sub-scribers mainly on network quality, data package and prices during a Meet the Customers programme through facebook yesterday.

This is the second time the market leader GP’s top o� cials encountered their customers through the social me-dia. This time Chief Marketing O� cer Allan Bonke and Chief Technology Of-� cer Medhat El Husseiny went live on GP’s facebook page from 10am to 11am.

The duo faced 192 queries, most of which were answered. However, some 915 facebook friends of GP liked the process. Currently, GP has more than 2.88 million fans on facebook, which is the highest in the country.

In response to a question, Chief Technology O� cer Medhat El Hus-

seiny said Grameenphone could cover most areas across the country with 3G networks by June, 2015 though it al-ready covered 64 districts.

“Though we were planning to bring your desired location under 3G service by June, 2015, we will try to do so by March next year, considering your keen interest,’’ Medhat said while re-plying to a question raised by one Shakil Ahmed from Dhunat, Bogra.

About network quality, he also ex-plained, “Sometimes, problems might be faced because of your handsets, but you are requested to send a mail to insta.service@grameenphone.com or make a call to 121 for getting more feedback.”

Another subscriber NB Newton asked why did the company always of-fer more facilities for the unused SIMs?

But Newton failed to get reply from any of the two bosses. The questioner also grilled the duo about free face-

book o� er, which was stopped sud-denly without proper noti� cation, but again the o� cials did not make any comment on the issue. Another user Nil Sabbir asked, “What kind of o� er is this as you o� ered 2GB to 8GB unlimit-ed bandwidth with conditions?”

“We have extended this o� er to the customers to avert misuse,” replied Allan Bonke. Bonke also came up with a positive response when a university student A� f Hasan asked whether the phone company could o� er a special data package for university students.

That time the cellphone company shrugged o� the discussion. The mar-ket leader will o� er a free 1971MB inter-net on the upcoming victory day.

Earlier, GP had arranged the same type of programme when former CEO Vivek Sood and Chief HR O� cer Md Kazi Shahed answered questions of the users on September 25. l

B2 Stock Tuesday, December 9, 2014DHAKA TRIBUNE

News, analysis and recent disclosuresBXPHARMA: Credit Rating Information and Services Limited (CRISL) has rated the Company as "AA-" in the long term and "ST-2" in the short term along with a stable out-look based on audited � nancial statements of the Company up to December 31, 2013, unaudited � nancials up to September 30, 2014 and other relevant quantitative as well as qualitative information up to the date of rating declaration.POPULARLIF: The Company has informed that the Board of Directors of the Compa-ny has decided to purchase land of 7.80 Decimal with Building Plot No. B-11, K.D.A, M A Mojid Sorani, Sonadanga, Khulna. Tortal price amounting Tk. 6.10 Crore approximate only.BSC: (Q1): As per un-audited quarterly accounts for the 1st quarter ended on 30th September 2014 (July'14 to Sep'14), the Company has reported pro� t/(loss) after tax of Tk. 22.55 million with EPS of Tk. 1.66 as against Tk. 17.54 million and Tk. 1.29 respectively for the same period of the previous year. Accumulated pro� t/(loss) of the Company was Tk. (2,320.33) million as on 30.09.2014.EHL: (Q1): As per un-audited quarterly accounts for the 1st quarter ended on 31st October 2014 (Aug'14 to Oct'14), the Company has reported pro� t after tax

of Tk. 50.72 million with EPS of Tk. 0.60 as against Tk. 31.36 million and Tk. 0.37 respectively for the same period of the previous year.SINGERBD: The Company has informed that the Board of Directors of the Company has approved 40% equity participation in the International Appliances Limited (IAL), a proposed private limited company. The proposed company will manufacture refrig-erators, deep freezers and other appliances.MATINSPINN: The Company will be placed in "A" category from existing "N" category with e� ect from December 08, 2014 as the Company reported disburse-ment of 25% cash dividend for the year ended on June 30, 2014.IPO Subscription: IFAD Autos Limited subscription date 23 to 27 November 2014, NRB upto 06 December 2014. @ taka 30, face value taka 10 and market lot 200. Shasha Denims Limited subscription date 14 to 21 December 2014, NRB upto 30 December 2014. @ taka 10, face value taka 35 and market lot 200. Zaheen Spinning Limited subscription date 28 December 2014 to 04 January 2015, NRB upto 13 January 2015. @ taka 10, face value taka 10 and market lot 500.Right Share: ICB: Subscription period for rights issue will be from 07.12.2014 to

30.12.2014. Record date for entitlement of rights share: 09.09.2014. FIRSTSBANK Subscription period for rights issue will be from 07.12.2014 to 28.12.2014. Record date for entitlement of rights share: 20.11.2014.Dividend/AGMKEYACOSMET: 20% cash, Record Date: 21.12.2014. Date, Time and Venue of the AGM will be noti� ed later.RECKITTBEN: 175% interim cash dividend (second time), Record date for entitlement of interim dividend: 15.12.2014.BATASHOE: 175% interim cash dividend, Record Date for entitlement of interim dividend: 04.12.2014.ICB: 45% cash, AGM: 20.12.2014, Record Date: 03.12.2014.BATBC: 100% interim cash dividend, Record date for entitlement of interim dividend: 03.12.2014.BENGALWTL: 23% cash, AGM: 28.12.2014, Record Date: 02.12.2014.MPETROLEUM: 95% cash and 10% stock, AGM: 16.01.2015, Record date: 04.12.2014. ENVOYTEX: 12% cash and 3% stock dividend, AGM: 24.12.2014, Record date: 02.12.2014. AFTABAUTO: 17% cash, AGM: 24.12.2014, Record date: 30.11.2014.JAMUNAOIL: 90% cash and 10% stock, AGM: 07.02.2015, Record date: 11.12.2014.

Stocks close � at amid volatility n Tribune Report

Stocks ended � at amid volatile trade yesterday, after two-day moderate losses.

The market in the very beginning opened higher, rising 30 points but it went in red after mid-session, be-fore recovering some points in the last hour trade.

The benchmark DSEX saw fractional gain of only 0.5 points to close at 4,930.The Shariah index DSES also wit-nessed fractional gain of 0.6 points

to close at 1,152. The comprising blue chips DS30 settled at 1,820, edging 2 points or 0.2% lower.

Chittagong Stock Exchange (CSE) Selective Categories Index, CSCX, was up 15 points to end at 9,273.

However, trading activities in-creased as turnover at DSE stood at Tk426 crore, up more than 11% over the previous session. Textile sector recorded highest investor participa-tion, capturing 17.6% of total market turnover.

Cement sector lost the most with all its scrips closing in red, led by heavy-weight Lafarge Surma that went down by 1.3%.

Power ended slightly lower. Mar-ginal gains were noticed across oth-er major sectors including telecom-munication, pharmaceuticals, food & allied and non-banking � nancial institutions.

Banks - the second largest market cap sector - gained marginally with no signi� cant movement.

Gainers beat losers, as out of 304 issues traded, 160 advanced, 107 de-clined and 37 remained unchanged.

IDLC Investments said reversing last two sessions’ downbeat, market started moving upward at the initial hour but settled with a � at ending, eventually.

Since investors’ con� dence could not solidify, the market movements were rather unsure.

As a result, gaining marginally DSEX closed at 4,930.8 points.

In the meantime, investors re-mained watchful on overall market movements and continued pursu-ing cautiousness in portfolio re-bal-ancing, said IDLC Investments.

However, a couple of block trades added some participation, settling total turnover above Tk400 crore, 11.2% higher than the previous ses-sion.

Amid this, Pharmaceuticals, Tex-tile and Engineering captured a total of 45.2% of the trade value. During the day, miscellaneous (+0.6%) was in positive territory, while non-life insurance (-1.4%), cement (-1.1%) and life insurance (-0.6%) faced the blow. l

CSE LOSER

Company Closing (% Change)

Aver-age (%

Change)

Closin-gAvg. Closing DHIGH DLOW Turnover

in MillionLatest

EPSLatest

PE

Alltex Industries -Z -9.73 -5.02 28.01 26.90 32.00 26.90 1.891 3.28 8.5Prime Islami Life -A -7.51 -7.46 64.00 64.00 64.00 64.00 0.006 4.95 12.9Wata Chemicals -A -6.70 -7.09 208.00 209.00 209.00 207.00 0.125 5.37 38.7Dhaka Ins. Ltd.-A -5.86 -5.86 27.30 27.30 27.50 27.20 0.191 2.44 11.2 Argon Denims Limited-A -3.83 -1.61 45.84 45.20 47.80 45.00 1.687 3.79 12.1BGIC -A -3.18 -1.53 21.25 21.30 21.40 21.10 0.026 2.35 9.0ACI ZERO Bond-A -3.09 -3.09 1,005.00 1,005.00 1,005.00 1,005.00 0.001 0.00 -Beach Hatchery -A -3.04 -1.30 25.85 25.50 26.50 25.40 1.474 1.29 20.0Eastern Cables-A -2.79 -2.82 125.27 125.30 125.30 125.20 0.038 0.08 1565.9MeghnaCement -A -2.76 -3.23 123.20 123.20 123.20 123.20 0.123 6.71 18.4

DSE LOSER

Company Closing (% Change)

Aver-age (%

Change)

Closin-gAvg. Closing DHIGH DLOW Turnover

in MillionLatest

EPSLatest

PE

Alltex Industries -Z -9.70 1.05 29.70 27.00 32.00 27.00 27.843 3.28 9.1Reliance Insur -A -7.68 -7.68 60.10 60.10 60.10 60.10 0.030 3.79 15.9Rupali Bank - A -5.86 -6.29 57.55 57.80 63.00 56.50 0.564 2.04 28.2Pragati Gen. I -A -4.20 -4.72 41.00 41.10 41.30 41.00 0.164 2.47 16.6ISN Ltd. -Z -4.10 1.50 12.22 11.70 12.90 11.70 1.063 0.13 94.0Hamid Fabrics -N -3.94 0.78 55.30 53.70 58.60 52.80 131.996 3.12 17.7Savar Refractories-Z -3.85 -3.85 50.00 50.00 50.00 50.00 0.030 -0.44 -veStandard Insurance-A -3.66 -4.07 26.38 26.30 27.30 26.00 0.343 3.07 8.6ICB Islamic Bank-Z -3.45 -1.72 5.73 5.60 5.90 5.60 1.255 -0.71 -ve Argon Denims Limited-A -3.19 -0.84 46.05 45.50 47.20 43.00 37.108 3.79 12.2

CSE TURNOVER LEADERS

Company Volume-Shares

Value in Million

% of Total-Turnover ClosingP Change % ClosingY DHIGH DLOW AvgPrice

Hamid Fabrics -N 539,400 29.72 9.27 53.30 -3.96 55.50 58.10 52.00 55.09SummitAlliancePort.-A 181,842 14.95 4.66 83.00 7.24 77.40 84.70 80.00 82.22R. N. Spinning-Z 437,300 14.92 4.65 32.80 0.61 32.60 35.80 30.00 34.12BEXIMCO Ltd. -A 340,542 13.55 4.23 39.50 -2.47 40.50 40.60 39.40 39.80WesternMarine -N 227,900 12.46 3.89 54.20 -0.37 54.40 55.80 53.70 54.69Ratanpur Steel -N 177,000 12.19 3.80 65.70 -0.76 66.20 69.50 65.50 68.89Jamuna Oil -A 37,991 9.66 3.01 253.30 -0.16 253.70 256.50 247.00 254.39Beximco Pharma -A 141,236 9.39 2.93 66.60 -1.48 67.60 67.40 65.30 66.45Delta SpinnersA 564,900 8.65 2.70 15.30 4.79 14.60 15.60 14.70 15.32Familytex (BD) Ltd.-A 324,500 7.52 2.34 23.10 -0.86 23.30 23.60 22.80 23.16Keya Cosmetics -A 258,250 7.45 2.33 28.30 -0.70 28.50 29.60 28.10 28.86Maksons Spinning-A 382,620 5.42 1.69 14.20 3.65 13.70 14.40 13.50 14.15Square Pharma -A 20,390 5.30 1.65 260.20 0.70 258.40 260.80 259.00 260.14G Next Fashions-A 325,750 5.21 1.62 16.00 2.56 15.60 16.30 15.00 15.98SAIF Powertec-N 61,800 4.57 1.43 74.50 4.05 71.60 74.90 71.80 73.92

DSE TURNOVER LEADERS

Company Volume-Shares

Value in Million

% of Total-Turnover ClosingP Change

% ClosingY DHIGH DLOW Avg-Price

BATBCL -A 85,950 234.20 5.49 2723.50 0.51 2709.70 2745.00 2720.00 2724.79Beximco Pharma -A 2,788,377 185.22 4.34 66.60 -0.89 67.20 67.40 61.00 66.43SummitAlliancePort.-A 1,733,316 142.54 3.34 83.40 7.34 77.70 84.00 75.00 82.24Hamid Fabrics -N 2,387,000 132.00 3.10 53.70 -3.94 55.90 58.60 52.80 55.30Keya Cosmetics -A 4,492,114 128.92 3.02 28.10 -1.75 28.60 29.60 26.60 28.70Square Pharma -A 490,028 127.87 3.00 262.20 1.16 259.20 280.00 237.00 260.94Quasem Drycells -A 1,846,649 123.00 2.88 68.50 9.95 62.30 68.50 59.00 66.61R. N. Spinning-Z 2,942,987 100.88 2.37 32.50 -0.61 32.70 35.90 30.90 34.28BEXIMCO Ltd. -A 2,196,207 87.35 2.05 39.40 -2.48 40.40 41.00 36.50 39.77Grameenphone-A 226,000 79.32 1.86 352.60 0.66 350.30 353.50 349.30 350.97BD. Thai Alum -B 1,549,737 76.52 1.79 49.50 3.34 47.90 50.30 44.00 49.38Titas Gas TDCLA 846,000 69.30 1.62 82.10 -1.20 83.10 83.00 81.30 81.91WesternMarine -N 1,252,700 68.42 1.60 54.20 0.00 54.20 55.80 53.40 54.62Jamuna Oil -A 260,600 65.53 1.54 250.30 -0.99 252.80 256.50 249.70 251.45Delta SpinnersA 4,203,000 64.20 1.51 15.00 2.74 14.60 15.70 14.70 15.27Alltex Industries -Z 4,845,000 113.67 1.51 22.90 4.09 22.00 24.20 20.50 23.46

SECTORAL TURNOVER SUMMARY

Sector DSE CSE TotalMillion Taka % change Million Taka % change Million Taka % change

Bank 375.65 8.81 21.62 6.47 397.27 8.64NBFI 302.81 7.10 16.71 5.00 319.52 6.95Investment 39.34 0.92 3.60 1.08 42.94 0.93Engineering 531.08 12.45 47.87 14.33 578.94 12.59Food & Allied 377.48 8.85 7.89 2.36 385.37 8.38Fuel & Power 457.62 10.73 32.60 9.76 490.22 10.66Jute 4.62 0.11 0.00 4.62 0.10Textile 707.71 16.59 91.01 27.25 798.72 17.37Pharma & Chemical 688.43 16.14 40.39 12.09 728.82 15.85Paper & Packaging 20.77 5.48 1.64 26.25 0.57Service 218.03 5.11 20.34 6.09 238.37 5.18Leather 66.54 1.56 4.78 1.43 71.32 1.55Ceramic 23.84 0.56 1.52 0.45 25.36 0.55Cement 72.94 1.71 6.00 1.80 78.95 1.72Information Technology 40.83 0.96 1.81 0.54 42.64 0.93General Insurance 23.36 0.55 1.89 0.57 25.25 0.55Life Insurance 28.37 0.67 1.31 0.39 29.68 0.65Telecom 86.13 2.02 5.07 1.52 91.20 1.98Travel & Leisure 61.24 1.44 7.48 2.24 68.72 1.49Miscellaneous 137.83 3.23 16.63 4.98 154.46 3.36Debenture 0.25 0.01 0.00 0.00 0.25 0.01

Weekly capital market highlightsDSE Broad Index : 4930.82322 (+) 0.01% ▲

DSE - 30 Index : 1820.13485 (-) 0.12% ▼

CSE All Share Index: 15210.09270 (+) 0.10% ▲

CSE - 30 Index : 12450.78420 (+) 0.06% ▲

CSE Selected Index : 9273.59960 (+) 0.13% ▲

DSE key features December 8, 2014Turnover (Million Taka)

4,264.85

Turnover (Volume)

108,519,637

Number of Contract 95,938

Traded Issues 305

Issue Gain (Avg. Price Basis)

139

Issue Loss (Avg. Price Basis)

160

Unchanged Issue (Avg. Price Basis)

6

Market Capital Equity (Billion. Tk.)

2,639.57

Market Capital Equity (Billion US$)

31.99

CSE key features December 8, 2014Turnover (Million Taka) 322.50

Turnover (Volume) 10,252,858

Number of Contract 13,522

Traded Issues 223

Issue Gain (Avg. Price Basis)

103

Issue Loss (Avg. Price Basis)

113

Unchanged Issue (Avg. Price Basis)

6

Market Capital Equity (Billion. Tk.)

2,539.31

Market Capital Equity (Billion US$)

30.78

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

Reversing last two sessions’ downbeat, market started moving upward at the initial hour but settled with a � at ending, eventually

CSE GAINER

Company Closing (% Change)

Aver-age (%

Change)

Closin-gAvg. Closing DHIGH DLOW Turnover

in MillionLatest

EPSLatest

PE

ICB AMCL IslamicMF-A 9.63 9.63 14.80 14.80 14.80 14.80 0.030 2.76 5.4Quasem Drycells -A 9.51 6.42 67.14 69.10 69.40 65.00 1.772 2.24 30.0Premier Leasing-Z 9.38 9.79 10.43 10.50 10.50 9.70 2.311 0.08 130.4Midas Financing-Z 8.81 23.79 17.33 17.30 17.40 17.10 0.069 -7.00 -veAziz PipesZ 7.93 8.52 24.34 24.50 24.90 22.50 0.141 -0.37 -veB I F C -A 7.60 7.83 18.05 18.40 18.70 17.20 1.237 1.41 12.8Nitol Insurance -A 7.56 7.45 31.30 31.30 31.30 31.30 0.016 2.79 11.2SummitAlliancePort.-A 7.24 6.09 82.22 83.00 84.70 80.00 14.952 0.88 93.4Imam Button -Z 5.95 10.99 8.89 8.90 9.20 8.60 0.293 -1.72 -veMiracle Industries -B 5.30 5.05 15.82 15.90 16.00 14.00 0.318 0.40 39.6

DSE GAINER

Company Closing (% Change)

Aver-age (%

Change)

Closin-gAvg. Closing DHIGH DLOW Turnover

in MillionLatest

EPSLatest

PE

Quasem Drycells -A 9.95 5.83 66.61 68.50 68.50 59.00 123.003 2.24 29.7Anwar Galvanizing-B 9.88 5.10 35.86 36.70 36.70 34.10 7.453 0.84 42.7Aziz PipesZ 9.69 9.20 24.80 24.90 24.90 24.00 1.886 -0.37 -vePremier Leasing-Z 8.33 9.92 10.42 10.40 10.50 9.90 21.578 0.08 130.3SummitAlliancePort.-A 7.34 6.12 82.24 83.40 84.00 75.00 142.541 0.88 93.5Meghna Con. Milk -B 6.49 5.73 8.31 8.20 8.40 8.00 0.927 -4.32 -veSamata LeatheR -Z 6.13 6.67 22.40 22.50 23.00 21.50 0.336 0.05 448.0B I F C -A 5.88 5.25 17.64 18.00 18.20 16.30 20.335 1.41 12.5Dulamia CottonZ 5.80 5.58 7.38 7.30 7.50 7.00 0.048 -3.84 -veHakkani P& Paper -B 5.56 4.34 30.28 30.40 30.90 29.00 1.529 0.64 47.3

ANALYST

'In the meantime, investors remained watchful on overall market movements and continued pursuing cautiousness in portfolio re-balancing'

B3BusinessDHAKA TRIBUNE Tuesday, December 9, 2014

BIS: Sudden market swings, dollar rise expose emerging market vulnerability n AFP, Zurich

Sudden swings in � nancial markets re-cently suggest they are becoming more fragile and sensitive to unexpected events, the global organization of cen-tral banks said on Sunday, warning that a rising US dollar could have a “pro-found impact” on emerging markets in particular.

MSCI’s all-country world stock in-dex is hovering around multi-year highs after rebounding from sell-o� s in August and October.

The downturns were triggered by uncertainty over the global economic outlook and monetary policy, as well as geopolitical tensions, and the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) said the sharp and sudden dips pointed to frailty in the markets.

“These abrupt market movements (in October) were even more pro-nounced than similar developments in August, when a sudden correction in global � nancial markets was quickly succeeded by renewed buoyant market conditions,” the BIS said.

“This suggests that more than a quan-tum of fragility underlies the current elevated mood in � nancial markets,” it said in its quarterly review. “Global equity markets plummeted in early Au-gust and mid-October. Mid-October’s extreme intra-day price movements underscore how sensitive markets have become to even small surprises.”

The comments followed the organiza-tion’s warning in September that � nan-cial asset prices were at “elevated” levels and market volatility remained “excep-tionally subdued” thanks to ultra-loose monetary policies being implemented by central banks around the world.

Since then, the US Federal Reserve has brought its monthly bond-purchase program to an expected end. However, Japan’s central bank has expanded

its massive stimulus spending while China unexpectedly cut interest rates, adding to stimulus measures from the European Central Bank.

These divergent monetary policies, coupled with the dollar’s recent appre-ciation, could have a profound impact on the global economy, particularly in emerging markets where many com-

panies have large dollar-denominated liabilities, the BIS said.

“It’s the warning that the rising dol-lar could bring more (emerging mar-kets) trouble in its wake - as it did in the 1990s - that is going to challenge FX markets tomorrow morning while we’re all thinking about what the U.S. non-farm payroll data mean for Fed

rate hike timing,” Societe Generale’s currency strategist Kit Juckes told cli-ents in a note on Sunday.

Juckes was referring to the larger-than-expected 321,000 rise in US jobs in November reported on Friday, data which sent the dollar to multi-year highs against the yen and euro.

Separately, the BIS report said that

international banking activity expand-ed for the second quarter running be-tween end-March and end-June.

Cross-border claims of BIS reporting banks rose by $401bn. The annual growth rate of cross-border claims rose to 1.2% in the year to end-June, the � rst move into positive territory since late 2011. l

Tra� c � ows in front of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) in Basel REUTERS

Dollar holds up after boost from strong US jobs data n AFP, Tokyo

The dollar edged higher against the yen in Asia yesterday after rallying at the end of last week on strong US jobs data.

The greenback was at 121.50 yen in afternoon Tokyo trade, compared with 121.44 yen in New York and around 120.00 yen in Tokyo earlier Friday.

The euro bought $1.2285 and 149.28 yen against $1.2283 and 149.16 yen in US trade Friday.

Traders bid up the dollar Friday af-ter the Labor Department said the US economy created 321,000 jobs in No-vember, its best monthly performance for nearly three years.

The strong data fuels speculation that the US Federal Reserve will start raising its key interest rate sooner than expected, bolstering the greenback.

The dollar has rallied to its highest level against the yen since July 2007 in recent weeks, boosted by con� dence in the US economy and the Bank of Ja-pan’s surprise decision in October to ramp up its vast stimulus programme.

National Australia Bank said in a re-port that the jobs report was “a rather golden report for (dollar) bulls and enough to make US recovery pessimists” think again. There was little reaction to news that Japan’s economy had con-tracted more than expected in July-Sep-tember, con� rming it was in recession.

The dollar was higher against other Asia-Paci� c currencies. It inched up to Sg$1.3225 from Sg$1.3145 on Friday, to Tw$31.19 from Tw$31.11 and to 1,117.50 South Korean won from 1,113.96 won.

The greenback also advanced to 12,365.00 Indonesian rupiah from 12,298.50 rupiah, to 61.91 Indian ru-pees from 61.84 rupees and to 44.67 Philippine pesos from 44.53 pesos.

It edged up to 33.09 Thai baht from 32.94 baht. The Australian dollar bought 82.81 US cents against 83.77 cents, and the Chinese yuan fetched 19.73 yen against 19.51 yen. l

Iran unveils budget based on lower oil price n AFP, Tehran

Iran unveiled a draft budget Sunday for next year based on oil prices remaining around $70 per barrel, with President Hassan Rouhani saying the country would become less dependent on crude.

With international prices at � ve-year lows on the back of oversupply worries and a stronger dollar, major oil produc-ers are having to juggle their � nances to compensate for lower than expected revenues.

Rouhani admitted the budget for the � scal year starting in March 2015 “would be under pressure” given the big fall in oil prices in recent months, from above $100 to less than $70.

“Such a drop is unprecedented,” he said in a speech to parliament carried live on state television, noting that the government had been cautious in its forecasts.

“In the short term, we will have a decrease in our revenues. Our economy must move towards non-oil exports. The oil price drop is a new opportunity to accelerate this.”

Iran has the world’s fourth largest proven oil reserves and currently ex-ports around 1.3 million barrels per day.

However, Rouhani said oil revenues earmarked for the budget would be $24bn next year, down from $27.5bn, meaning less than half the govern-ment’s income would come from ex-ported crude.

Iran had already announced some tax rise plans on the back of the recent oil price fall, along with increases in non-oil exports.

Next year’s non-oil-based revenues will constitute more than half the gov-ernment’s total income, rising to 53% from the current 47%, according to forecasts. Total spending will rise 8.5%.

Rouhani did not state a � gure for the price of oil per barrel laid down in the budget, but the o� cial IRNA news agen-cy said it was � xed at $72 - down from around $100 in the current budget year.

Other changes have also been neces-sary. Money from oil sales put into the National Development Fund used to � nance major infrastructure projects will drop from 31% to 20% “to avoid too much pressure on the budget”, Rouhani said.

Civil service salaries will rise 14% in paper terms, but Iran’s in� ation rate is currently between 17-18%, according to Rouhani, having been above 40 per-cent when he took o� ce in 2013.

Under Iran’s budget process, MPs have 10 days to propose modi� cations to parliamentary committees that lay out speci� c spending plans for govern-ment departments.

The committees then have 15 days to present their reports to the budget commission which has an additional 15 days to present the � nal draft plan back to parliament to be voted on point by point. l

Sri Lanka cuts energy prices ahead of polls n AFP, Colombo

Sri Lanka slashed cooking gas prices on Sunday just one day after the cost of diesel and petrol was also cut ahead of next month’s presidential election.

The ministry of internal trade said it was reducing the price of a standard cyl-inder of gas used for cooking by 11.6% to 1,896 rupees ($14.50) from Sunday, the second such cut in recent months.

The loss-making state-run Ceylon Petroleum Corporation announced on Saturday it was cutting diesel and gaso-line prices by nearly � ve percent, also the second recent reduction.

It denied the move was an election sweetener instructed by President Ma-hinda Rajapakse’s government, insist-ing the cut was connected to falling global oil prices.

The reduction comes despite the fact that the corporation has accumu-lated losses of 240bn rupees ($1.84bn ), according to company o� cials.

Rajapakse, who is also � nance min-ister, is seeking reelection for an un-precedented third term on January 8.

But he faces a strong challenge from his former health minister, Maithripala Sirisena, who defected to the main op-position party last month.

While Rajapakse remains generally popular with voters from the Sinhalese majority for ending a 37-year war against Tamil separatists in 2009, critics say he has become increasingly authoritarian. l

ADN Telecom Limited holds its 11th annual general meeting at a city hotel on Sunday. The company’s chairman and managing director Asif Mahmood presided over the meeting

A FBCCI delegation, led by its acting president Monowara Hakim Ali called on visiting Bhutanese Prime Minister Tshering Tobgay at the lounge of Sonargaon Hotel in Dhaka yesterday DHAKA TRIBUNE

Experts for purpose-built RMG n Tribune Report

Experts at a session of the Dhaka Ap-parel Summit yesterday stressed the need for a purpose-built RMG manu-facturing in a modern era to cope with global competition.

They also made a series of recom-mendations at the fourth session titled “Future of workers: workplace safety and sustainable production” held at Bangabandhu International Confer-ence Center (BICC) in the capital.

Addressing the session, the speakers also shed light on the progresses made since the launch of inspection initia-tives, i.e. NTAP, Accord & Alliance.

BGMEA Vice-President Reaz Bin Mahmood moderated the session.

The discussion also covered a wide range of issues including workers’ rights, policy and capacity of the gov-ernment and private stakeholders, do-nors’ support, engagement of the dip-lomatic community and brands.

Ian Spaulding, senior partner – EL-EVATE, said remediation of factories was a complex part and it would take years to complete.

Brad Loewen, chief safety inspector, Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh, said, “The more we bring technology and transfer knowledge to Bangladesh, the more it will help the industry.”

It is necessary to have a � re service station in an area from where � re � ght-ers can reach the spot within 10 minutes, said Brig Gen Ali Ahmed Khan, director general of Fire Service and Civil Defence.

Dr Ferdinand von Weyhe, Chargé d´A� aires, Embassy of Germany to Ban-

gladesh, said: “Consumers always ask us to support the RMG sector and help and build the capacity to make the products more sustainable in terms of environ-mental issues, which is also a great con-cern for the German government.”

Former BGMEA president Anisur Rahman Sinha said: “Rana Plaza disas-ter has opened our eyes. Problems are everywhere but we have to face them professionally. Bangladesh will face all problems very con� dently.”

Besides inspection, remediation and training, it is necessary to change the mindset of factory owners about safety, said Ian Spaulding while giving recommendations at the session.

“Now, our focus is on training. We also focus on building capacity of workers’ representatives, supervisors and man-agers so that they can continue training themselves and others,’’ he added.

Brad Loewen, chief safety inspector of Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh, said: “It is necessary to build the capacity of government agen-cies like RAJUK, IEB and IAB, who are the key parts of the policy and the de-sign world.”

Education and knowledge are impor-tant for capacity building of government, regulatory agencies, young entrepre-neurs, workers and young professionals, which are key to sustain safety initiatives in longer terms, said Tuomo Poutiainen, programme manager, Ready Made Gar-ment Sector, ILO-Dhaka.

ZM Kamrul Anam, president of Bangladesh Textile & Garment Work-ers League and coordinator, Industri-ALL Bangladesh Council (IBC), said, “As per the ILO convention rati� ed by

Bangladesh, workers have the right to organise and bargain, this is equally important for the management to have a worker representative to discuss rising issues. Trade unions and work-ers have their rights and responsibili-ties as well.”

Farzana Chowdhury, Managing Di-rector and Chief Executive O� cer of Green Delta Insurance Company Lim-ited, noted that insurance companies could work strategically with RMG owners on building awareness of the workers by roadshow in the industrial areas and cultural shows.

Brig Gen Ali Ahmed Khan, Director General of Fire Service and Civil De-fence, said, “Training is going on but this is good not enough since training is a continuous process. For quick re-sponse in case of disaster in the indus-trial zones like Gazipur, Savar, Naray-anganj it is necessary to have additional � ve to six � re stations to reduce the risk of disaster. While building a factory it is necessary to keep space for � re engine.

US Ambassador to Bangladesh Dan W Mozena, said, “There must have some mechanism through which work-ers and management can resolve their issues.”

He also laid emphasis on branding Bangladesh as a preferred brand and number one brand in the world.

Debbie Coulter, Head of Pro-grammes, Joint ETI (Ethical Trading Initiative), said that there was an in-creasing demand from buyers that you were having social dialogue with work-ers. She also laid emphasis on harmo-nious relationship between workers and management. l

B4 Back PageDHAKA TRIBUNE Tuesday, December 9, 2014

DILBERT

China faces more pressure as November imports drop, exports slow n Reuters, Beijing

China’s imports shrank unexpectedly in November while export growth slowed, fuelling concerns the world’s second-largest economy could be fac-ing a sharper slowdown and adding pressure on policymakers to ramp up stimulus measures.

Exports rose 4.7% from a year ear-lier, while imports dropped 6.7%, the biggest drop since March, data released by the General Administration of Cus-toms showed on Monday.

That left the country with a record trade surplus of $54.5bn, which ana-lysts say could increase upward pres-sure on the yuan CNY=CFXS even as exporters are struggling.

Economists polled by Reuters had expected exports to grow 8.2%, a 3.9% rise in imports and a trade surplus of $43.5bn, all slowing from October.

“Despite another record surplus, the details paint a grim picture with slower export growth and a contraction in commodity imports in volume terms,” said Andy Ji, senior currency strategist at Commonwealth Bank of Australia in Singapore.

Exports have been the lone bright spot for China’s economy in the last few months, perhaps helping to o� set soft domestic demand, but there are doubts about the accuracy of the of-� cial numbers amid signs of a resur-gence of speculative currency � ows through in� ated trade receipts.

Dariusz Kowalczyk at Credit Agricole CIB in Hong Kong said over-reporting in exports may have been curbed in No-vember, which contributed to a weaker reading. But he added the import con-traction was “shocking”, re� ecting not only lower commodity prices but poor domestic demand.

“This means that pressure will rise on the government to do more to stim-ulate growth,” he said.

“We expect a reserve requirement

ratio cut in December, introduction of reverse repos this week, and another rate cut in the � rst quarter. The yuan should rise further on the data.”

After saying for months that China does not need any big economic stimu-lus, the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) surprised � nancial markets by lowering rates on Nov. 21 to shore up growth and help � rms pay o� mountains of debt.

The government is due to release data on factory output, � xed-asset in-vestment and retail sales later this week.

Analysts see more policy moves in coming months if the economy contin-ues to stumble, with many expecting both more rate cuts and reductions in banks’ reserve requirement ratios (RRR).

Sources familiar with China’s poli-

cy-making said leaders are prepared to lower rates again and loosen lending curbs on concerns that falling prices could cause a spike in bad loans, busi-ness failures and job losses.

“We expect at least one more poli-cy rate cut, 2-3 RRR cuts and targeted measures (to inject more liquidity into the banking system) throughout 2015,” said Haibin Zhu at JP Morgan.

2015 Growth target could be cut Annual economic growth slowed to 7.3% in the third quarter, the weak-est since the global � nancial crisis, weighed down by a sagging housing market and tighter credit conditions.

Full-year growth is on track to un-dershoot the government’s 7.5% target

and mark the weakest expansion in 24 years.

China’s leaders are reluctant to re-peat strong stimulus similar to the one implemented during the height of the global crisis, which resulted in piles of debt, but they are mindful of the risk that a sharper growth slowdown could undermine reforms.

The leadership is due to open a key meeting on Tuesday to map out eco-nomic and reform plans for 2015, includ-ing economic targets which will be un-veiled in parliament next March, sources at top government think-tanks said.

Government think-tanks, which make policy proposals, have urged Bei-jing to cut its economic growth target next year, probably to around 7% . l

Trucks drive past piles of shipping containers at the Qingdao port in Qingdao, Shandong province REUTERS

Oil prices down after lacklustre Chinese trade datan AFP, Singapore

Crude hit fresh � ve-year-lows yester-day following another weak batch of trade data out of China, while prices were also pressured by the strengthen-ing dollar, analysts said.

US benchmark West Texas Interme-diate (WTI) for January delivery was down 81 cents at $65.03 in late-morn-ing trade. Brent crude slipped 82 cents to $68.25.

WTI is sitting at its lowest point since July 2009 and Brent is at lows not seen since October 2009, with the con-tract continuing to be hurt by OPEC’s decision last month to maintain output despite a global supply glut.

“Investors are casting their eye on the Chinese trade data at the moment...

weakness could mean pressure on Brent,” said David Lennox, resource ana-lyst at Fat Prophets in Sydney. China said Monday that exports grew just 4.7% year-on-year to $211.66bn in November while imports dropped 6.7% to $157.19 billion.

Analysts had expected exports to grow 8% and imports to expand 3.9%.

Falling commodity prices, including oil, which has slumped by about 40% since June, “will have weighed on the value of commodity imports”, research house Capital Economics said in a note.

“The sharp fall (in Chinese imports) also hints at a further cooling of domes-tic demand,” it said.

Trade � gures out of China, the world’s top energy consumer, are closely watched for their impact on crude prices, especially the more inter-

nationally leveraged Brent contract. The latest � gures come as China

struggles with weakness in its indus-trial and � nancial sectors, prompting the country’s central bank last month to cut benchmark interest rates for the � rst time in more than two years.

Oil prices have also been hit by a pick-up in the dollar, which surged Friday in reaction to � gures showing the US economy created 321,000 jobs in November, its best monthly perfor-mance in nearly three years.

The dollar was at 121.55 yen yester-day compared with 121.44 yen in New York Friday afternoon.

A stronger greenback makes dollar-priced oil more expensive for buyers using weaker currencies, denting de-mand and pushing prices lower. l

ECB’s loans o� er clues in quantitative easing guessing game n Reuters, Brussels

The guessing game over the timing of euro zone money printing will intensify as the European Central Bank unveils a closely watched gauge of policy in the coming week, the highlight of a calen-dar dominated by Europe’s malaise.

On the other side of the Atlantic, in-vestors will continue placing their bets on a di� erent but equally crucial event: when the US Federal Reserve might raise interest rates.

U.S. data and several Fed central bankers will give a sense of the speed of the recovery and when a rate rise might be merited, while oil prices and Chinese data will provide plenty more for markets to digest.

“The key story is going to be in the euro zone,” said James Knightley, ING’s senior economist, referring to the re-sults of the ECB’s targeted long-term re� nancing operations (TLTROs) on Thursday.

The cheap loans for banks are one of the ECB’s main ways to � ush money into the stagnating euro zone economy. “If the take-up is poor, that could in-crease market talk that the ECB is going to step in and use other tools,” Knight-ley said.

That means a sovereign bond-buy-ing program like those used in the Unit-ed States, Britain and Japan, but which Germany fears would encourage reck-less state borrowing and fuel in� ation.

Such a program may come early next year. “The take-up of TLTROs could swing the ECB’s Governing Council be-tween January and March, depending on how the number looks,” said Citi-group economist Guillaume Menuet.

The � rst TLTRO was taken up only to the tune of 83bn euros. Hopes are higher for this time but forecasts hover around the 150bn euro mark, leaving the ECB short of the 400bn euros it was prepared to o� er banks in total.

On Monday in Brussels, ECB Presi-dent Mario Draghi will tell euro zone � -nance ministers no amount of stimulus can replace reforms to tax, labor and pension systems to bring down near-record unemployment.

New forecasts by the ECB predict the euro zone, which generates a � fth of global output, will grow just 1% in 2015 rather than the 1.6% predicted three months ago.

German October industrial produc-tion data and French business senti-

ment for November, due later yester-day, are likely to show the weakness of the rebound as the bloc struggles to overcome its debt and banking crises.

Falling oil prices will also have an impact on the ECB’s thinking as it deals with very low in� ation. Brent crude slipped 57 cents to settle at $69.07 a barrel on Friday, averaging below $70 in the week for the � rst time since 2010.

Euro zone � nance ministers will also try to decide on how to best help Greece in the coming weeks since a new credit line for Athens will not by ready by an original Dec. 8 deadline.

Us rates, chinese trade It’s a di� erent story in the United States, where the economy is recovering strongly. US employers added the largest number of workers in nearly three years in November and wage gains picked up, which could push the Federal Reserve closer to raising interest rates. l

Internet giants wage war on pop-up ad blockers n AFP, Paris

Imagine being able to surf the web and watch videos online without having to swat away pesky pop-up ads?

These days you can, thanks to small programs like Adblock Plus that are available free for download and that arm your browser to defend against ads.

Flashing banner ads, “pre-roll” ads (short ads that play before a video), pop-up notices that cover the whole screen - few of them make it past ad blocking software.

In the beginning, the applications acted under the radar, and were known mainly only to young people or the re-ally tech-savvy. But now they’re catch-ing on.

Adblock Plus has nearly � ve million active users in France, with a further two million in the United Kingdom and 1.5 million in Spain.

Worldwide, they have amassed about 144 million active users, up 69% in a year, according to a September re-port from Adobe software developer and PageFair, a company that helps publishers see which ads are being blocked.

Depending on the website, the per-centage of viewers equipped with ad-blocking software ranges from 10 to 60%.

Internet users may dream about ad-free sur� ng, but for advertisers and web publishers, who rely on ads to fund content, ad-blocking applications are the stu� of nightmares.

“This is no small matter; it a� ects all publishers. Our members have lost an estimated 20 to 40 per cent of their ad-vertising revenue,” Laure de Lataillade, CEO of GESTE, an association of web publishers in gaming, media, music and other domains, told AFP.

The growing popularity of ad block-ers comes as companies plough more and more money into internet adver-tising. A quarter of the 545bn dollars spent on global advertising this year went on digital ads.

To protect that investment, a group of publishers in France, including Google, Microsoft and Le Figaro news-paper, have threatened legal action against the developers of ad blocking software.

In Germany, too, publishers are alarmed at the success of the anti-ad workarounds. “There have already been some companies that have lodged a formal complaint,” Oliver von Wer-sche, head of digital marketing at Gruner + Jahr, publishers of Stern news magazine and several other leading titles, told AFP.

‘Unauthorised access’ Websites, meanwhile, are experiment-ing with a range of strategies to placate ad-addled audiences.

French sports daily l’Equipe’s web-site is using a carrot-and-stick ap-proach.

Users with ad-blocking software who attempt to watch videos receive the mes-sage: “Unauthorised access. L’Equipe.fr is funded by advertising, which allows us to o� er you free content.”

Once they deactivate the software they can gain access to the video.

“We have to � nd a viable economic model. Either the user pays for a premi-um model or he accepts advertising,” said Xavier Spender, deputy managing director of L’Equipe group.

Sean Blanch� eld, CEO of PageFair, compared the campaign against ad blockers to the music industry’s take-down of the � le-sharing program Nap-ster a decade ago.

“They should instead learn from the Napster story that the users will ultimately get what they want,” said Blanch� eld, whose company works with publishers to devise ads that “re-spect users’ privacy”.

For Helene Chartier, head of French web developers’ union SRI, the big mis-take was to let users believe the inter-net was free in the � rst place, consid-ering “there was never a problem with ads on television or radio.” l

Japan recession worse than thought n AFP, Tokyo

Japan’s economy contracted more than initially thought in the July-September quarter, revised o� cial data revealed yesterday, showing the world’s third largest economy sank deeper into re-cession.

The economy shrank 0.5% quarter-on-quarter, worse than the 0.4% es-timated in initial data released three weeks ago, the Cabinet O� ce said.

The reading was much worse than the median forecast of a 0.1% quarterly shrinkage in a survey by the Nikkei eco-nomic daily. The drop came after a 1.7% contraction in the April-June quarter, meeting a common de� nition of a re-cession as two consecutive quarters of negative growth.

On an annualised rate, the economy shrank 1.9% in the third quarter against the initially-estimated fall of 1.6%.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe over the past two years has pressed ahead with a pro-spending growth bid, dubbed “Abenomics”, which boosted stock prices and pushed the yen down.

Where it had been credited with suc-cess up until the e� ects of a sales tax rise in April this year, Monday’s revised data showed the economy in fact con-tracted 0.4% in the last quarter of 2013.

It expanded 1.4% in January-March on shoppers’ last-minute buying binge before the tax rise.

Japan’s VAT rate rose from 5% to 8% on April 1, hitting consumers.

Private consumption picked up only 0.4% after plunging 5.1% in the April-June period, the latest data showed.

Private residential investment dived 6.8% while private-sector corporate capital spending fell 0.4%.

But Marcel Thieliant, Japan econo-mist at Capital Economics, said the economy could return to growth in October-December.

Companies’ inventory adjustment was a large drag and overstated the weakness of the economy as some monthly data was encouraging, he said.

“The upshot is that the economy likely returned to growth this quarter,” he said in a note.

Separate data from the � nance min-istry showed Japan posted an 833.4bn yen surplus in October on its current account, reversing a de� cit of 154.3bn yen thanks to a weaker yen and lower oil prices.

The current account is the broadest measure of the country’s trade with the rest of the world. Income jumped with higher gains from equity and other di-rect investment, as well as from invest-ment in � nancial items, partly in� ated by a lower yen.

The de� cit on the services section was more than halved as the number of foreign tourists soared 37% to hit a single-month record. l

Study: Investment banks lag rivals on pro� tability, e� ciency n Reuters, London

Investment banks have been less prof-itable, more volatile and had consis-tently higher costs than commercial banks, according to a study of business models of the past decade.

The Bank for International Settle-ments (BIS), a global forum for central banks, said on Sunday a study of 222 lenders showed big variances in prof-itability and e� ciency across models, and investment banks had been less ef-� cient and more unpredictable.

The study identi� ed three types of business models: a retail-funded commercial bank, funded mainly by deposits; a wholesale market-funded commercial bank; and a capital mar-kets-oriented bank, commonly known as an investment bank, heavily en-gaged in trading.

Return on equity (RoE), a key mea-sure of pro� tability, averaged 10% across the banks between 2005 and 2013.

The study said RoE averaged 12.5% for retail-funded commercial banks, 8.1% at trading banks and 5.8% at the wholesale-funded commercial banks.

Trading banks had the most volatile pro� tability, and their RoE swung re-peatedly between the top and bottom of the relative ranking. l

People walk past the new ECB headquarters in Frankfurt REUTERS