n Tribune Report

Around 26 million people in Bangla-desh do not have access to “improved” drinking water, say Unicef and the World Health Organisation.

Bangladesh is among the 10 coun-tries that are home to almost two-thirds of the global population but do not have access to improved drinking water sources, according to estimates of the two global bodies.

They disclosed the data up to 2013 yesterday on the occasion of the World Water Day today.

Unicef says women and girls are disproportionately a� ected by the lack of access to safe water. An estimated 71% of the burden of drinking water collection is being shouldered by women and girls.

“We have had to consume malo-dorous water from tube wells for the last � ve years. We also found algae in tube wells,” Nazrul Islam of Goner-gaon village under Shilmandi union of Narsingdi district told the DhakaTribune on Thursday.

People in at least six unions in Nars-ingdi had been su� ering from this problem, the shopkeeper said, adding that local people believed that dis-charge of industrial waste from nearby factories had led to the situation.

“We have to drink this water as there is no other alternative sources,” he said.

One of the MDG targets for Bangla-

desh is to bring 89% of the country’s population under the coverage of safe drinking water.

In Bangladesh, arsenic contamina-tion, industrial pollution, saline in-trusion in ground water in the coastal belt, contamination of river water and decrease in ground water level in many parts were major reasons for the short-age of safe water, Professor M Feroze Ahmed, a water expert, told the Dhaka Tribune yesterday.

The former teacher of Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technol-ogy, now vice-chancellor of Stamford University, said the situation was worst in hilly and char areas.

According to the joint monitoring programme of the WHO and Unicef, water supply coverage in Bangladesh increased from 78% in 1990 to 98% in 2006. However, arsenic contamination of 22% of the tube wells in the country proportionately lowered the service coverage to 78%.

The latest multiple indicator survey of Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics in 2009 revealed that access to improved source of water adjusted for arsenic contamination had increased 86%.

There is still more than 20 million people drinking water that contains arsenic above the Bangladesh standard for drinking water – 50 parts per billion. Close to 90% of these people live in ru-ral areas and 5 million of them live in areas where 80% sources are contami-nated with arsenic.

Increasing saline intrusion in PAGE 2 COLUMN 3

BNP’s movement plan in tattersn Mohammad Al-Masum Molla

The BNP is still reeling from the nega-tive impact of its recent “violent” pro-tests that the country saw in its recent hartal and blockade programmes.

When the party is in a total disarray it � nds it di� cult to reorganise its com-mittees of di� erent tiers with the upazi-la parishad elections adding woe to its misery. Moreover, arrest of its top level leaders also rubbed salt into its wound.

The party insiders said they were now pressing ahead very cautiously as a sin-gle mistake might ruin their entire plan and which is why they had remained silent even after charges were framed against party Chairperson Khaleda Zia and her son Tarique Rahman.

“We know the party rank-and-� le members have become demoralised as

we failed to announce any programmes protesting framing charge against the party chairperson and her son,”they said.

The leaders think as people never accept destructive programmes they are now abstaining from announcing any such programmes.

They, however, are scared of mount-ing government oppression on the op-position leaders and activists if they remain o� the streets.

A number of senior leaders were re-ported to have advised Khaleda Zia to go for a comprehensive preparation to launch a vigorous campaign along with grassroots leaders putting pressure on her for the same.

“Standing committee meeting will be called soon and the next course of action programmes will be � nalised there,” a

standing committee member seeking anonymity told the Dhaka Tribune.

He also said: “We have a plan to wage a movement after reorganising the party and completion of upazila parishad elections, but the detention of the senior leaders and charges framed against the madam (Khaleda) and Tari-que Rahman really put us in trouble.”

Now it has become very important for us to prioritise the agenda � rst,he said.

A joint secretary general of the party wishing not to be named said many dis-trict and upazila level leaders were on the run and could not secure bail even from the High Court rather new cases were � led against them over upazila elections.

“The government is � lling cases one PAGE 2 COLUMN 1

BRAHMAPUTRA POLLUTIONP3

16 pages plus 24-page Avenue-T & 16-page BBF Leadership Summit supplement | Price: Tk10

Chaitra 8, 1420Jamadiul Awal 20, 1435Regd. No. DA 6238Vol 1 No 358 SATURDAY, MARCH 22, 2014 | www.dhakatribune.com | SECOND EDITION

News3 The Old Brahmaputra River � owing through the district was once a lifeline for thousands of local people. But, those days are gone by as its water has now turned pitch black.

4 Two mobile phone operators have asked the country’s telecom regulator to give them another year to shift their Blackberry subscribers to another platform.

5 A gang of criminals are active in the city who get children involve in stealing mobile phones after they were provided training.

Op-Ed11 Thanks to a misguided burst of emotionalism born of sincere nationalism, Bangladesh failed an entire generation of youth who could nary put together a coherent sentence in proper English.

INSIDE

AVENUE-T | WORK IT, GIRL! 12 | GAME OF THRONES MAY END AS MOVIE9 | THAI COURT VOIDS ELECTION7 | TRY TO AVOID NASTY NICKEL

FOURTH-PHASE UPAZILA ELECTION

AL eyes more chairman posts n Emran Hossain Shaikh

The ruling Awami League looks to a violence-free fourth phase upazila poll scheduled to be held tomorrow and hopes that it would bag more chairman posts in this turn.

Several leaders of the party hope

that in the fourth phase they would fare better than any other phases.

They alleged that the BNP-Jamaat alliance would resort to violence to make the polls questionable.

The leaders said that was why they instructed their grass roots activists to

PAGE 2 COLUMN 4

India outplay Pakistan in cool Super 10 openern Raihan Mahmood

India opened their ICC World T20 campaign with a cool seven wicket win over arch-rivals Pakistan in the � rst match of the Super Ten phase at the Bangabandhu National Stadium yesterday.

It was not a big target to chase for the Indian batting lineup that contained Shikhar Dhawan, Virat Kohli, Suresh Raina and Mahendra Singh Dhoni and they cruised to victory with 131 in 18.3 overs with seven wickets to spare.

The 25,000+ capacity crowd, how-ever, did not see the � air and � re of a typical T20 of the traditional sub-conti-nental rivals; it was rather a controlled and calculative India who made a win-ning start.

Openers Rohit Sharma and Shikhar Dhawan put on 54 before Dhawan fell on 30. Virat Kohli and Suresh Raina ensured no further damage in the 66 PAGE 2 COLUMN 1

26m Bangladeshis deprived of ‘improved’ waterArsenic, industrial pollution, salinity, decrease in groundwater level major reasons

Indian batsmen Virat Kohli and Suresh Raina are ecstatic after their win against arch-rival Pakistan in the � rst group stage match of World Cup T20, 2014 at Sher-e-Bangla National Stadium yesterday MUMIT M

News2 DHAKA TRIBUNE Saturday, March 22, 2014

Accepting Islami Bank donations ‘contradictory’ to PM’s statementsn Tribune Report

An anti-war criminal forum yesterday claimed that the government’s accep-tance of a Tk3 crore donation from Islami Bank Bangladesh Ltd, a pro Jamaat-e-Islami banking institution, during fundraiser for a new Guinness world record on March 26 is ‘contradic-tory’ with the prime minister’s state-ments against Jamaat and its allied in-stitutions.

In a statement released yesterday, Forum for Secular Bangladesh and Tri-al of War Criminals of 1971 condemned the government’s move to collect do-nations from the Islami Bank.

The donation was accepted during a fundraiser of the government for “Sonar Bangla in Million Voices,” an at-tempt to set a new world record on the most number of people sing the nation-al anthem together on the country’s In-dependence Day.

Appreciating governments initiative for organising ‘Sonar Bangla in Million Voices’ programme, the statement also added: “We understands that the gov-ernment needs � nancial support from

both the public and private organisa-tions for hosting the programme, but the move to collect money from the commercial organisation by the an-ti-liberation force Jamaat-e-Islami has surprised and shocked us.”

The statement was signed by the forum’s President Mohammad Golam Rabbani, Executive President Shahriar Kabir, Vice President Muntasir Mamun, general secretary Kazi Mukul, and Shy-amoli Nasrin Chowdhury, Ferdousi Pri-yobhashini, � lmmaker Shamim Akhter.

“We has been demanding govern-ment to seize of all commercial organ-isation belonging to Jamaat-e-Islami and its assets for a long time, which the government has not implemented. Rather, it has accepted donations from its allied institution Islami Bank, which we condemn.”

With the statement, the platform has demanded a ban on Jamaat-e-Isla-mi’s politics, seize of all of its commer-cial organisation and assets.

It also urged the government to re-turn the money to Islami Bank and not to collect any donation from the anti liberation force or its allies in future. l

Tofail, Nasim criticise NHRC chief’s 'pro-BNP-Jamaat' role n Arif Ahmed

Commerce Minister Tofail Ahmed and Health Minister Mohammed Nasim yesterday hinted at National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) Chairman Mizanur Rahman for being a pro-BNP-Jamaat intellectual.

They made the comments in the presence of Mizanur, at a conference organised by Jatiya Puja Udjapon Pari-shad at Dhaka University’s TSC.

Earlier at the same program, Mi-zanur had criticised the government’s failure in preventing communal vio-lence surrounding the 10th parliamen-tary election.

The NHRC chief said in many of the violence-hit areas, cases had most-ly been � led without naming anyone as accused, adding that these cases against the unnamed had been lodged

only for “business purposes.”He also expressed disappointment

as the accused were yet to be brought to justice.

Later, Health Minister Nasim re-ferred to the NHRC chief’s speech and said: “The real attackers are known faces, but the speaker [Mizanur] did not mention anything against those who were involved with such heinous attacks.”

He added that some intellectuals never point blame at the real culprits, as they were patronised by the evil forces.

Further referring to Mizanur’s speech, Nasim said such speech was attractive to the public, but not fruit-ful. The minister also vowed to work with the premier to make Bangladesh a non-communal country.

Speaking as chief guest, Commerce

Minister Tofail also criticised Mizanur’s remark, saying: “One [Mizanur] gave speech aiming at the ministers, but did not specify the main culprits. Here is the di� erence between our intellectuals and pro-BNP-Jamaat intellectuals.”

Tofail assured of ensuring proper punishment for the miscreants who committed the heinous attacks during the national election.

President of Jatiya Puja Udjapon Parishad Kanutosh Majumdar presid-ed over the programme, which was conducted by the parishad’s Secretary General Monindra Kumar Nath. Among others, DU Vice-Chancellor Professor AAMS Are� n Siddique, Federal Union of Journalists President Manjurul Ah-san Bulbul, Hindu-Buddhist-Christian Unity Council President Rana Dasgupta were present. l

Six murdered in separate incidentsn Tribune Report

At least six people, including a child, were killed in separate incidents in Ra-jbari, Bandarban, Mymensingh, Narail and Pirojpur yesterday.

Miscreants shot dead Salmi, 35, and Chan Mia, 42, near Doulatdia railway station in Rajbari yesterday evening.

Abul Bashar, o� cer-in-charge of Go-alanda police station con� rmed.

At least 10-12 miscreants shot dead Ka Hla Thowi Marma, 48, in Bandar-ban yesterday, Lama police station Of-� cer-in-Charge Shahjahan Khan con-� rmed.

In Mymensingh, a farmer was mur-dered and two others, including the farmer’s son, sustained critical injuries in a clash over watering of Boro � eld at Nagua village in Tarakanda.

The deceased was Rokon Uddin, 70, of Nagua village.

Critically injured Nazim Uddin, 35, and his wife Jubeda Khatun, 30, were admitted to Mymensingh Medical Col-lege Hospital (MMCH). Nazim was later referred to Dhaka as his condition dete-riorated, police said.

Nazim Uddin locked in a quarrel with his neighbour Abu Taher over wa-tering of Boro � eld. At one stage, Taher and his men attacked Nazim with sharp weapons around 5am. When Nazim’s wife Jubeda reached the spot hearing the shouting, the gang also attacked her, said police.

The gang also hacked Nazim’s father Rokon when he came out from a local

mosque after saying his Fazr prayers, they also hacked him indiscriminately, leaving him critically injured, said Ali Ahmed, o� cer-in-charge of Tarakanda police station.

Three injured were rushed to the MMCH where on duty doctors pro-nounced Rokon dead. Police visited the spot but no one was arrested till � ling the report.

Meanwhile, a mother killed her two-year-old son, drowning in a pond at Paikmari village in sadar upazila of Narail early yesterday.

Narail sadar police station O� -cer-in-Charge Amir Toymur Eli said be-ing informed police visited to the spot and recovered the body. A case was � led in this connection.

In Pirojpur, a 13-year-old boy Sujit Kaora was beaten to death in Buch-haikathi area under Nazirpur upazila. Sujit who hailed from Satkhira was with a pig rearing team.

Mintu Kaora, one of the team mem-bers, told reporters that they went to that area with 150 pigs a few days back.

“Around 4am our team member Ut-tam started beating him up when we were asleep. We took Sujit to a hospi-tal but he died around 11am,” he said, adding that they had no idea why Sujit was killed.

Abdul Khaleque Hawlader, o� -cer-in-charge of Nazirpur police station said Uttam had confessed about the killing and Sujit’s family members had been informed. A case would be � led, the OC added. l

Another victim of Tazreen factory � re diesn Tribune Report

Sumaya Khatun, 16, another victim of Tazreen Fashions � re, died yesterday evening. The death toll in the deadly incident now stands at 113.

Sumaya died at her home in Nis-chintapur of Ashulia. She died from an aggressive and rapidly growing tumour behind her right eye possibly triggered by the chemical fumes she had inhaled being trapped in the Tazreen Fashions factory, according to a press release.

The girl had neither received the salary for the month of November 2012 when the � re incident happened nor did she receive any compensation as an injured worker.

The � re broke out on November 24, 2012 at the Tazreen Fashions factory in Ashulia on the outskirts of the capital.

At least 200 were injured in the deadliest factory � re in the country’s history.

Sumaya will be buried at Melanda-ho of her home district Jamalpur after

Zohr prayers today. Eminent economist Professor Anu

Muhammad, Moshrefa Mishu, a leader of Bangladesh garment workers’ forum, photographer Taslima Akhter, colum-nist Rahnuma Ahmed, and Activist Anthropologists members Saydia Gul-rukh, Nazneen Shifa and Mahmudul Shumon expressed deep condolences at the death of Sumaya. They demand-ed that all injured and missing workers of Tazreen Fashions � re get their right-ful compensation immediately. l

180 Jamaat leaders resign en mass in Pabnan Tribune Report

More than 180 leaders of Jamaat-e-Is-lami’s Bera upazila unit in Pabna re-signed en mass yesterday, protesting the withdrawal of the Jamaat-backed candidate from the upazila poll and directives to support the BNP-backed candidate.

“The decision to resign en mass was made at an emergency meeting of the party’s local leaders, including the chairman candidate,” said Ataur Rah-man, secretary of Jamaat’s Bera upazila unit.

He also said Bera upazila Jamaat Ameer Abdul Baten was chosen as Ja-maat’s candidate to contest the upazi-la poll to be held on March 31 as there was a possibility of win in the party’s stronghold.

“However, on Friday morning, Ja-maat-e Islami Pabna district Ameer Ab-dur Rahim asked Baten to withdraw his candidacy and directed him to work for the BNP-backed candidate in the area,” he added.

“Following the decision, Jamaat leaders called an emergency meeting and decided to resign en mass,” Ataur said.

Pabna district Jamaat Nayeb-e-Ameer Jahurul Islam, however, said no instructions had been given for the withdrawal of Baten’s candidacy.

The withdrawal might have been a result of an intra-party feud among lo-cal leaders, he said, adding that he was not aware of the resignation. l

A mobile court destroys jars containing unsafe water and seals o� a factory at the capital’s Karwan Bazar area yesterday. The factory has been bottling and distributing unsafe drinking water for quite some time MAHMUD HOSSAIN OPU

BNP’s movement plan in tatters PAGE 1 COLUMN 5after another to mount pressure on the BNP and to defuse the movement but it will not work,” Abdullah Al-Noman, vice-chairman of the party, said.

BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia said she would wage movement after reor-ganising the party as it had been due for a long time.

But by the time detention of the senior leaders including party’s acting secretary general Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir forced the party to shelve its organisational plan.

However, another senior leader seeking anonymity, said they launched

the movement after Khaleda’s eviction from her residence but it went in vain and the legal battle went down badly too.

“There is no alternative to putting pressure on the government because legal battle will not work as the court will act on the instruction of the gov-ernment,” he said.

Over the last one month the party has announced programmes like demonstration and submission of memorandum but they reportedly received lukewarm responses from leaders and activists from across the country. l

India outplay PAGE 1 COLUMN 6runs unbeaten third wicket partnership where Kohli contributed 36 o� 32 balls, including four fours and one six, and Raina adding 35 o� 28 balls.

Earlier Pakistan failed to crawl out of the web cast by the Indian bowlers, the spark was never there with the last over producing 15 runs as the most pro-ductive over for Pakistan. With Kam-ran Akmal returning to the dressing room in the second over o� a run out, Pakistan failed to attain an ideal start. Kamran, strong in playing lofted shots, scored just eight o� 10 balls. The mis-communication between the Pakistani

batsmen was visible again between Ahmed Shehzad and Md Hafeez, but fortunately they survived.

However, runs were not coming o� the bats. Indian skipper Mahendra Sin-gh Dhoni continuously switched his bowlers. The fourth over bowled by Md Shami conceded only two runs, the 10th over by Rabindra Jadeja cost three runs, the ninth over bowled by Amit Misra was a wicket maiden and the 16th, 17th and 18th overs produced eight runs only. The � rst Pakistan six was hit by Shoaib Malik in the 12th over. Pakistan was never in the spree of runs and Indi-an bowlers apart from the 11th and 20th

overs were never disturbed. Dhoni in-serted Yuvraj Singh in the 11th over and it cost him 13 runs, the second highest in an over for Pakistan. The cocktail of pace and spin was perfectly mixed for a bitter taste to the Pakistani batting.

Ahmed Shehzad’s 22 o� 17 balls, Umar Akmal’s 33 o� 30 balls, Shoaib Malik’s 18 o� 20 balls and Sohaib Maqsud’s 21 o� 11 balls in the dying stage provided some respectability to the Pakistan innings. Shahid Afridi failed to � re as well. Leg spinner Amit Misra was the pick of the bowlers scalp-ing Ahmed Shehzad and Shoaib Malik for 22 runs in his four over. l

AL eyes more chairman posts PAGE 1 COLUMN 5remain alert to prevent any untoward incident.

They urged the government and the Election Commission to tough out the violence centring the upazila polls.

In the fourth phase, the ruling party faces 43 rebel candidates in 91 upazila parishads.

As a move to put down rebellion, the party high-ups have strengthened their support to the Awami League-backed candidates.

Sohel Sarwar Kajol, brother of lo-cal lawmaker Saimum Sarwar Komol, stood for the election as a chairman

candidate of Ramu upazila under the Cox’s Bazar district backed by the local Awami League leaders, but the central committee gave another candidate Ab-dul Mabud the nod to vie for the poll.

Salauddin Ahmed, secretary to the Cox’s Bazar district unit Awami League, said: “Sohel was more popular than others, but we do not know why the party high command withdrew support from Sohel.”

Khalid Mahmud Chowdhury, Awa-mi League organising secretary en-trusted with coordination of upazila polls in Rangpur division, told the Dhaka Tribune their leaders and activ-

ists at grass roots level were kept alert to thwart any sort of violence commit-ted by the BNP-Jamaat alliance.

He said they hoped to do better than the previous phases.

Awami League presidium member Kazi Zafarullah echoed the same.

He said Awami League-backed can-didates were defeated in many upazila parishad polls because of the rebel can-didates.

“Though we are more careful about the matter, but in the local body elec-tion, we have some limitations to get tough with the rebels,” Kazi Zafarullah maintained. l

26m Bangladeshis deprived of ‘improved’ water PAGE 1 COLUMN 2ground water in the coastal belt, low-ering of the ground water level, which is more serious in hilly areas including the Chittagong Hill Tracts in the south-east and some parts of Sylhet in the northeast, make access to potable wa-ter a big challenge.

The nine other countries and their population without su� cient access to safe drinking water in the Unicef-WHO � nding are: China (108 million), India (99 million), Nigeria (63 million), Ethio-pia (43 million), Indonesia (39 million), Democratic Republic of the Congo (37 million), United Republic of Tanzania

(22 million), Kenya (16 million) and Pa-kistan (16 million).

According to the Unicef-WHO esti-mates up to 2013, a staggering 768 mil-lion people do not have access to safe drinking water across the globe, caus-ing hundreds of thousands of children to fall ill and die each year.

Most of the people without access to pure drinking water are poor and live in remote rural areas or urban slums.

Unicef says 1,400 children aged un-der � ve die every day from diarrhoeal diseases linked to lack of safe water and adequate sanitation and hygiene.

“Every child, rich or poor, has the

right to survive, the right to health, the right to a future,” Sanjay Wijesekera, head of Unicef’s global water, sanita-tion and hygiene programmes, said in a statement yesterday.

“The world should not rest until ev-ery single man, woman and child has the water and sanitation that is theirs as a human right.”

Almost four years after the world met the global target set in the MDGs for safe drinking water, and after the UN General Assembly declared that water was a human right, over three-quarters of a billion people, most of them poor, still do not have this basic necessity,

Unicef said in a press release on the oc-casion of the World Water Day.

The MDG target for drinking water was met and passed in 2010 when 89% of the global population had access to improved sources of drinking water such as piped supplies, boreholes � tted with pumps, and protected wells.

Also in 2010, the UN General Assembly recognised safe drinking water and sanitation as a human right meaning.

“We must target the marginalised and often forgotten groups: those who are the most di� cult to reach, the poorest and the most disadvantaged,” Wijesekera said. l

91 upazilas to go to polls tomorrow Violence may � are, hint intelligence agenciesn Mohammad Zakaria

The fourth phase of the ongoing upazila polls will be held tomorrow in 91 upazila parishads, amid widespread allegations of manipulating and threatening voters and opposition candidates by ruling par-ty-backed aspirants.

Voters, candidates and their agent, mainly the BNP-backed candidates, have expressed concerns over violence and polls manipulation after receiving threats from ruling party-backed candidates.

Although the Election Commission has received complaints from many candidates on being harassed from the administration o� cials and police, the commission has not yet moved to ad-dress the allegations.

Meanwhile, election campaigning in 91 upazila parishads yesterday ended and all vehicular movement had been halted from midnight.

A total of 1,186 candidates, which in-cludes 389 candidates for chairman, 485 for vice chairman and 312 for women vice chairman were contesting in the 91 upazila parishads.

It was observed that in both the Awa-mi League and BNP, several rebel candi-dates have also joined the electoral race in this phase as like the previous three

phases held earlier.Meanwhile, the commission has

postponed the polls in Sherpur Sadar, Jagannathpur upazila in Sunamganj as per a High Court order.The Election Commission has already deployed the army as striking forces while other law enforcing agencies, including Border Guard Bangladesh, Rapid Action Battalion (RAB), police and Ansar, had also been positioned in the respective upazilas for maintaining the law and order situation during the polls.

An EC o� cial yesterday told the Dha-ka Tribune that intelligence reports re-ceived by the commission indicated that chances of incidents of violence and dis-order are higher than the compared the last three phases of the polls.

Election Commissioner Mohammad Abu Ha� z said the local administration would decide about increasing the deployment of law enforcing personnel considering the vulnerable polling centres.

The commission had setup 5,882 polling stations in 91 upazila polls, where 37,338 polling booths has been setup. Of total 13,859,278 voters while 6,907,956 are male and 69,51,322 are female will cast their votes on the election day.

In fourth phase, 43 of AL and 44 of BNP rebel candidates are contesting in the polls.

Earlier, allegations were made that a ruling-party candidate in Kolaroa upazi-la in Satkhira had threatened both vot-ers and opponents and their agents to stay away from polling centres or face dire consequences.

In a written allegation sent to the EC, BNP-backed candidate Shahidul Is-lam alleged that Awami League-backed candidate Firoz Ahmad Shopan issued an open threat against voters and op-ponents during a meeting with his sup-porters on March 19. He also submitted a video footage of the respective meeting to the commission.

“If you � nd ink in any voter’s � nger, cut it o� . If any voter dies after being beaten of my activists for going to cast their vote on election day, I will not re-sponsible for that,” the written allega-tion quoted the Awami League backed candidate as instructing his activists. l

3NewsDHAKA TRIBUNE Saturday, March 22, 2014

Manju: Corruption rife in environment sector n Rabiul Islam

Environment and Forest Minister An-war Hossain Manju said corruption and irregularities had engulfed the sector, tarnishing the image of the ministry.

He warned o� cials concerned of dire consequences if anybody was found in-dulging in irregularities and corruption in the forest department.

Manju issued the warning while speaking at a discussion organised by the Forest Department in the capital yesterday on the occasion of Interna-tional Day of Forest 2014.

Citing an example of alleged irregu-larities in a tender process, he said the

tender would be cancelled and called afresh and the responsible o� cer would be suspended if found guilty.

“I have asked the chief conservator to investigate the matter,” Manju told the Dhaka Tribune over phone yesterday.

Manju stressed the need for improv-ing the image of the environment and forest sector. “Monitoring of di� erent projects under the ministry has to be strengthened.”

According to the Forest Department, 17.62% area of the country is forest while the population is 16 crore.

Forest Conservator Tapan Kumar Dey presented a paper at the discussion. l

Brahmaputra no more beckons peoplePollution causes immense su� erings to themn Ashif Islam Shaon back

from Narsingdi

The Old Brahmaputra River � owing through the district was once a lifeline for thousands of local people. But, those days are gone by as its water has now turned pitch black.

Now water has become extremely toxic and pollutants are threatening the aquatic life, crops and greenery. People in seven unions under Sadar upazila don’t use its water. But, the inhabitants once blessed with the river now face the hazards.

Highly toxic industrial waste and untreated water are being released into the vast area mainly from dyeing factories since the last 15 years, destroying the farmland and water bodies.

Farmers and residents say their livelihoods have been shattered by serious water pollution caused by the 72 factories which are making its fortune at cost of their lives.

Once they cultivated two crops a year, but now they are compelled to grow one.

“During the rainy season, pitch-black water enters the � eld and destroys crops. So, we have stopped cultivating Aman. IRRI only grows during the summer season,” said 58-year-old Haji Sayed Uddin, a resident of Baniadi village under Shilmandi union. Now, he runs a shop.

“We used to produce around

30 maunds of crop per acre just 20 years back and now we can produce maximum 10 maunds. The land seems uncultivable,” he said.

According to locals, there was a few number of knitting factories 20 years back. At that time, boats would carry goods in the river and people would bathe there and even would drink its water.

Now the knee-deep river has nothing but stinky water. It � ows through the unions such as Shilmandi, Meherpara, Madhbi, Nuralapur, Pachdona and Mohishashur, polluting the riverbanks. Finally, the water of this narrow river falls into the Meghna River through Mohishashur Chanderpara sluice gate, polluting also a part of the Meghna.

There are 72 dyeing factories on a stretch of 12km area from Pachdona to Madhbi, releasing industrial waste into the river and polluting its water seriously.

“Once we cultivated crops on the banks. Now we forbid our children from going near the banks as they may have itch,” said Farid Munshi who lives in Nagar Baniandi village.

“We experienced drought last year. We saw a dog swimming across the river and it died within 20 minutes before reaching this end,” he said citing an example of the extent of the pollution.

The water quality su� ers due to severe pollution. Even deep tube-

well water has also become stinky, he added.

“Water pumped from 250 feet deep is also stinky and muddy. If we pump water from the tube-well every day, we do not get muddy water,” said Nazmunnahar Nargis, the headmistress of Gonergaon Government Primary School. The school has more than 350 students.

“Children drink this water and sometimes fall sick. When I joined the school four years back, I used to carry boiled water from home. Now we fetch water from a distance village,” she said.

“We installed a pump to get water from more beneath, but the result is same,” she said. Nazmunnahar thinks there will be no drinkable water left in these villages after a few years.

Villagers alleged that most of the 72 factories do not have e� uent treatment plants (ETPs) and others do not run those. They just dump chemical waste into the dying river.

“We have met the o� cials concerned several times and urged them to take action against the factories responsible for polluting the environment,” one of the villagers said.

“They have nexus with the o� cials. Some factories were � ned, but they did not stop operation. Most of the factories do not have environmental clearance certi� cates,” said Abdul Bakir, chairman of Shilmandi Union Parishad.

“We have also requested state

minister for water resources Col (retd) Mohammad Najrul Islam a few days back. He is yet to take any step,” he said.

Mohammad Ataur Rahman, senior chemist of Department of Environment district o� ce, said 12 factories had ETPs just three months back, now more than 65 factories have ETPs.

“It’s true that they do not want to use ETPs for extra cost. We conducted raids and realised more than Tk1 crore � ne from eight factories in the last two months and the amount was Tk5 crore in the last one year,” he claimed.

He also said that the factories usually stop operating the ETPs at night. Some in� uential owners also do it that during daytime.

“We do not have logistics and manpower to carry out drives during night time,” he said.

He said that the authority is planning to install closed-circuit cameras at the factories to monitor the untreated water released by them.

“And, we will seal the pipes if we � nd that they keep the ETPs o� ,” Ataur said.

Ataur said only 20 of the total 72 factories have environmental clearance certi� cates. They only sealed o� 3-4 factories for running without certi� cates since 2010 when the o� ce had started functioning in the district.

“Actually, factory owners started doing business many years back. So, we can’t do what we want,” he added. l

Myanmar builds checkpoints along its border n Rabiul Islam

Myanmar is reportedly building new checkpoints along its border with Bangladesh in volatile Rakhine state.

The home ministry of the country said the Myanmar government was resuming the construction of a fence along the bor-der, reported the Voice of America.

Border Guard Bangladesh o� cials said they were still unaware that My-anmar was setting up the checkpoints.

“Myanmar can set up checkpoints outside of 5km from zero line and it is their internal matter,” BGB Director Gen-eral Maj Gen Aziz Ahmed told the Dhaka Tribune over phone yesterday. “We take the matter into our consideration when it is within � ve kilometres,” he added.

Commanding O� cer of 31 battalion of Naikhangchari Lt Col Md Sha� qur Rahman said Myanmar had constructed fence as part of their security measure.

“We also gave proposal to construct fence inside our territory. If the fence was constructed the Rohingyas would not be able enter into Bangladesh,” the com-mander said. Khin Saw Wai, a member of Myanmar parliament from Rakhine state who pushed for the new security meas-ures, told the Voice of America’s Burmese service that people from Bangladesh were entering into Myanmar because there was not enough security along the border.

He said: “Although we have a fence at Myanmar’s western door between Bangladesh and our Maung Daw region [Rakhine State], this cannot stop illegal entry into the country. We have seen il-

legal entering and no e� ective system to stop it. That is why we want the gov-ernment to control this situation.

“I submitted the proposal to increase security for the Rakhine region. Now I read in the news that there will be 15 more security gates at the border, but I do not know where exactly they will be built. Nonetheless, as a person who proposed this at the parliament, I hope this will be a more e� ective way of con-trolling the border situation.”

Spokesperson of the Myanmar gov-ernment Ye Htut con� rmed that new security measures were being planned.

He said: “I only know that there have been some preparations for security in Rakhine state.  Since this measure is be-ing undertaken by the Rakhine govern-ment, it is best to ask the information department of the local government.”

Buddhist-Muslim violence erupted in Rakhine state in 2012 and has since spread to other parts of the country. The sectar-ian � ghting has killed at least 240 people and displaced 140,000 others, mainly Ro-hingya Muslims, who are called Bengalee by the Myanmar government.

Myanmar government refuses to of-� cially recognise the Rohingya, saying members of any o� cially recognised minority must be able to prove their ancestors lived in Myanmar before the British invaded Rakhine in 1823.

Talks between Myanmar President Thein Sein and Bangladesh PM Sheikh Hasina on the sidelines of a regional meeting last month produced no tangi-ble agreement on the Rohingya issue. l

Behind the scenes of bottled water trade n Ashif Islam Shaon

Filtered water stored in blue jars and sold to thirsty people is now common-place in the capital. From restaurants to tea stalls to cafeterias, a glass of � l-tered water costs only Tk1 and people drink this water believing it is pure and germ-free.

But there is a horrible story behind this puri� ed water as it is almost similar to the Wasa water and the jars are most-ly supplied by miscreants or in� uential politicians. This lucrative business has several times been a matter of feud among many criminal groups since the time the business was started.

There are more than 700 � rms in Dhaka that sell � ltered water in jars. Of those, Wasa has identi� ed 47 in Badda, Maniknagar, Jurain, Postagola, Khilk-het, Rampura and Uttara which just pour Wasa water directly into jars.

In the past few years, law enforce-ment agencies have � ned these facto-ries a large sum of money and factory o� cials have been jailed but the busi-ness could not be stopped.

Ironically, those who had water pu-ri� cation equipment and started the business with honesty now sell sub-standard water.

These companies have no registra-tion and sell each jar to rickshaw or van pullers or middlemen at Tk25, though a jar of water costs them Tk5-10. Those middlemen transport the jars to restau-rants and roadside tea stalls and sell

each at Tk45. The shopkeepers then earn Tk75 by selling a jar.

Visiting a number of factories at Badda, Eskaton, Uttara and Shahbagh, illegal factories were found in kitchen markets, congested rooms and even be-side public toilets. Jars are cleaned with bare hands.

A team of RAB yesterday raided sev-eral factories in Tejgaon and Karwan Ba-zar and caught an owner along with 14 workers from three factories red-hand-ed for � lling jars with Wasa water.

The workers were � ned Tk7,000 while owner Khandaker AK Azad was jailed for two years and � ned Tk1 lakh.

“These factories were sealed o� sev-eral times but they resumed operation without permission,” said Anwar Pa-sha, Executive Magistrate of RAB.

He said Azad had been jailed for the same o� ence two years back.

“They use blue jars so that dirty wa-ter cannot be detected from outside,” Anwar said. “We even found jars lying in toilets.”

He said: “An ideal plant should have � lling machines and � lter machines with ultraviolet ray facility. A bulb of the ultraviolet ray machine costs Tk15,000 and those can only be used for once. That is why traders do not buy that machine.

“A number of factories once set up laboratories to examine the water but most of them do not use those now. They don’t have any chemist for the purpose” l

CANDIDATES AND VOTERSChairman 389Vice-chairman 485Women vice-chair 312Total voters 13,859,278

BNP: EC helping AL-backed candidates n UNB

The BNP yesterday alleged that the Elec-tion Commission has been working in favour of Awami League-backed candi-dates in the ongoing upazila elections.

“The Election Commission is work-ing to make ruling party-supported can-didates winners in the upazila elections. We, along with the people of the coun-try, will give a be� tting reply to the mis-deeds,” BNP Joint Secretary General Ru-hul Kabir Rizvi told a press conference at the party’s Nayapaltan central o� ce.

Inspired by the violence in the third phase elections, Awami League activists were � exing muscle for staging show-downs in the fourth phase polls, creat-ing panic among the voters, he alleged.

“Besides, the law enforcement agen-cies are being used against democra-cy and the voting rights of people,” he said, adding that the EC has turned into a puppet organisation of the adminis-tration. Criticising the prime minister’s speech in parliament that drive was on against armed activists to hold peaceful elections, Rizvi said the premier con-ducted drives at the houses of innocent people, not the armed hooligans.

BNP Joint Secretary General Salah Uddin Ahmed, Mass Education A� airs Secretary Sanaullah Miah and Deputy O� ce Secretary Abdul Latif Jony were present among others. l

A couple pulls a bucket of water from a ventilation pipe of a deep tube well at Kakon of Godagari upazila in Rajshahi yesterday. Although the globe observes the World Water Day today, around 768 million people in the world – 26 million in Bangladesh – still lack access to an improved source of water DHAKA TRIBUNE

News4 DHAKA TRIBUNE Saturday, March 22, 2014

City High Low

PRAYER TIMESFajar 4:45am

Sunrise 6:00amZohr 12:05pm

Asr 4:28pmMagrib 6:10pm

Esha 7:26pmSource: IslamicFinder.org

WEATHER

Thundershowers likelyn UNB

Rain or thundershowers accompanied by temporary gusty wind is likely to oc-cur at one or two places over Khulna, Barisal, Dhaka, Chittagong and Sylhet divisions and the regions of Rajshahi and Pabna until 6pm today.

Weather might remain mainly dry with partly cloudy sky elsewhere over the country, Met O� ce said. Day and night temperature may remain nearly unchanged over the country.

The sun sets in the capital at 6:10pm today and rises at 6:00am tomorrow.

Country’s highest temperature 34.6 degree Celsius was recorded in Jessore and lowest 14.5 degrees in Dinajpur yesterday.

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

Dhaka 32.7 20.1 Chittagong 30.2 23.0Rajshahi 33.2 16.3Rangpur 30.2 15.5 Khulna 34.0 21.8Barisal 33.2 23.7Sylhet 33.6 19.0 Cox’s Bazar 31.0 22.8

Article 19 launches principles regarding water and sanitation n Tribune Report

Public bodies and private entities must ensure the people’s access to reliable and accurate information regarding water and sanitation, “The Free Flow Principles: Freedom of Expression and Rights to Water and Sanitation” launched yesterday by Article 19 said in a recommendation.

The Bangla version of the Principles entitled “Muktochintar Neetimala: Mot Prokasher Shwadhinota Ebong Paani O Sanitationer Odhikar” was simultane-ously launched at the National Press Club in Dhaka.

The Principles, developed in coop-eration with experts and activists from around the world, provide guidance to policy makers and activists on how freedom of expression and information can help secure the rights to water and sanitation.

Other recommendations made in the principles include; all decision-

making process related to the rights to water and sanitation must be demo-cratic and transparent and represent the needs of those a� ected.

Launching the publication, Tah-mina Rahman, director to Bangladesh and South Asia of Article 19 said: “The principles highlight the interconnected aspects of the right to freedom of ex-pression and the right to water and sanitation. The right to know obliges government and other duty bearers to proactively inform people about issues related to water and sanitation and water related resources and manage-ment.”

A panel discussion followed the launch where Tahmina Rahman, Iqbal Kabir, environmental activist and law-yer, Rezaul Karim Chowdhury, chief moderator of Equity BD, Bahreen Khan, a lawyer at Supreme Court of Bangladesh and Zahid Hossain, envi-ronmental protection expert, spoke as resource persons. l

Environmentalists demand cancellation of Rampal plant n Tribune Report

Members of civil society yesterday strongly demanded the cancellation of setting up of two coal � red thermal power plants in Rampal near the Sun-darbans.

Bangladesh Poribesh Andolon (Bapa), Save the Sundarban Foundation, Green Voice, Bagerhat Development Society and Centre for Human Rights Movement formed a human chain in front of the Na-tional Press Club in Dhaka.

The human chain titled "Immediate-ly cancel the Rampal Power Plant proj-ect! Save the Sundarbans, the world heritage site."

They said the government should immediately scrap the project to pro-tect the mangrove forest from its ad-verse impact. These power plants were scheduled to be located in a area that would be in the immediate vicinity of the Sundarbans' territory and would damage its wide range of biodiversity.

Apart from these harmful after-

e� ects, the power plants would also release huge hot water that would ul-timately destroy the freshwater and various species of � sh in the surround-ing water of the Sunderbans, the civil society members commented.

The thermal power plants would de-stroy the ecological balance and biodi-versity of the Sunderbans for extreme spewing of e� uents like sulphur diox-ide, nitrous oxide, carbon mono oxide, carbon dioxide and chloro� uorocar-bon  (CFC) gas, said Bapa Joint General Secretary Iqbal Habib. He also expressed his concern over the plying of oil tankers and other vessels in the water channels of the Sunderbans, saying that it would damage the � ora and fauna of the forest.

Habib presided over the programme while Sheikh Faridul Islam, chairman of Save the Sundarbans, Sheiks Mo-hammad Zakir Hossain, chairman of Bagerhat Development Society, Md Mujahedul Islam, secretary general of Centre for Human Rights Movemet also spoke among others. l

Unilever Community Health Camp inauguratedn Tushar Hayat, Chittagong

To take healthcare facilities at the doorsteps of the mass, Unilever Ban-gladesh Limited inaugurated a two-day community health camp at the Hamid-ia Ideal Government Primary School premises in Chittagong yesterday.

In collaboration with Chittagong Di-abetic Hospital, Chittagong Ma O Sishu General Hospital, and Lions Eye Hospi-tal, the camp titled “Unilever Commu-nity Health Camp,” is being held for the 8th time in the Chandgaon area of the port city.

A total of 2,500 patients had registered for the camp to avail di� erent healthcare facilities like routine checkups, mother and child health, eye care etc. The pa-tients would be provided with free drugs at the camp, said Unilever o� cials.

Speaking as the chief guest, lawmak-er Mainuddin Khan Badal said the cur-rent government had set a goal to take healthcare facilities at the doorsteps of the people of the country and physi-cians had been appointed at each of the union health centres in that regard.

He inaugurated the health camp with Shapan Bhatcharjee, general fac-tory manager of Unilever.

“A collaborative approach is neces-sary alongside government initiative to take health care facilities at the door-steps of the people of the country and Unilever is playing a key role in this re-gard,” he said.

Kazi Saiful Islam, factory human re-source manager at Unilever, said they were not keeping themselves con� ned within the commercial activities only, rather they were engaged in di� erent kinds of activities for the welfare of the society.

“We have been working in various sectors including healthcare, educa-tion, nurturing talents and women em-powerment,” he said.

Unilever had been running communi-ty health camps for the past seven years where 17,983 patients had been bene� t-ted with healthcare facilities, he added.

SM Morshed Hossain, vice president of the Chittagong Ma O Sishu General Hospital addressed the inauguration among others. l

Man kills niece over extramarital a� airsn Our Correspondent, Narayanganj

Identity of a woman skeleton was con-� rmed yesterday that was recovered earlier on Tuesday from under a con-struction site in Godail Santinagar area under Siddhirganj police station of Na-rayanganj.

The victim is Shahnaj, 28. Her lover Rashed, 36, strangulated

her to death and buried in the area eight months ago, said Rashed in a con-fessional statement given yesterday af-ter being held.

He gave the statement before the Senior Judicial Magistrate court of Na-rayanganj under section 164.

Hailing from Sharishabari area of Ja-malpur, Rashed is son of Badsha Mia.

He used to work as a supervisor at Suborno Textile. Earlier on March 18, police recovered the skeleton while construction work of a storehouse of one Hazi Abdul Manan was going on in the area.

Rashed said Shahnaj was daughter of his wife’s maternal cousin.

He and Shahnaj lived in the same house for over a year and grew an af-fair that eventually came to his wife’s knowledge. Since then, he had been passing days in agony because of the quarrels frequently breaking among the family members.

Therefore, he planned to kill Shahn-aj and as per his plan, he called up Shahnaj at night during the Eid-ul-Fitr vacation last year and strangulated her to death, said Rashed. l

Operators want one year for shifting Blackberry platformn Muhammad Zahidul Islam

Two mobile phone operators have asked the country’s telecom regulator to give them another year to shift their Black-berry subscribers to another platform.

Grameenphone and Airtel – the two operators currently o� ering the Blackberry services – applied for time extensions through letters sent to the Bangladesh Telecommunication Regu-latory Commission (BTRC) recently.

Earlier, the BTRC decided to shut-down the services in Bangladesh after the companies failed to comply with the telecom watchdog’s directives concern-ing national security. The BTRC, in a let-ter last December, asked the two mobile operators to take necessary measures to provide alternative solutions to its ex-isting Blackberry subscribers.

The decision came after Blackberry failed to take measures in providing the government with access to lawful interception of Blackberry network.

As per licensing terms and condi-

tions, the government reserves the right to access telecoms service provid-ers’ networks “as and when it deems necessary,” but such lawful intercep-tion was impossible in Blackberry handsets, which are highly encrypted to protect privacy.

Meanwhile, sources said the high commissioner of Canada – the coun-try where Blackberry manufacturers Research In Motion (RIM) are located – also discussed the issue with BTRC Chairman Sunil Kanti Bose on Wednes-day; but no decision was made at the meeting.

Canada’s High Commissioner to Bangladesh Heather Cruden requested BTRC authorities to be soft while mak-ing a decision on the Blackberry issue, the sources added.

Giashuddin Ahmed, vice chairman of the BTRC, admitted that the meeting had taken place, but said no decision was reached.

He also acknowledged that the two letters from Grameenphone and Airtel

were under consideration.If the BTRC did not accept Grameen-

phone and Airtel’s requests, the opera-tors might need to swap all BlackBerry handsets purchased from them to other devices, which will be a hassle for the users, an o� cial from Grameen-phone said.

The regulator and the two operators met several times to hold talks on the issue, but were unable to reach a com-mon ground.

Blackberry launched its services in Bangladesh in 2008 and until 2013, it had around 6,166 subscribers including high o� cials in the Prime Minister’s Of-� ce, CEOs of leading local and foreign business conglomerates and top diplo-mats, industry insiders said.

A senior o� cial of the BTRC said the regulators were against the closure of any services but in this case they had nothing to do as the RIM had failed to comply with regulations.

The problem could have been solved had the RIM set up a server in the coun-

try, enabling the government to access the network, the o� cial explained. Without a local server, it was not pos-sible to have access to the highly en-crypted data of Blackberry.

Top o� cials of both Grameenphone and Airtel said the RIM headquarters failed to take necessary measures despite repeated requests from the companies.

One reason for the RIM’s reluctance in setting up a server was that it would not be � nancially viable in such a small market like Bangladesh, a Grameen-phone o� cial said.

Grameenphone has 4,664 Blackber-ry users, while Airtel has 1,500 active Blackberry subscribers.

Blackberry reportedly faced similar problems in di� erent countries includ-ing India, Saudi Arabia and China. In 2010, the company was prompted to set up a server in Saudi Arabia after the country’s government said Blackberry services would be closed unless it pro-vided the government with access to its network. l

BNP, LDP vye with alliance partner Jamaat in Satkanian Tushar Hayat, Chittagong

Bangladesh Nationalist Party and Lib-eral Democratic Party have jointly been � ghting with Jamaat-e-Islami – a partner of the 19-party alliance – in the upazila parishad election of Satkania known for Jamaat stronghold.

The election is scheduled to be held tomorrow.

Jamaat candidates have also been contesting polls in two other upazilas un-der the district where there are BNP can-didates with relatively strong position.

Oli Ahmed, president of the Liberal Democratic Party, in a recent visit to Satkania, introduced the BNP-backed chairman candidate Sheikh Mohammed Mohiuddin and vice-chairman candi-date Jasim Uddin as his candidates.

Local sources said Oli’s electioneer-ing could sway voters to cast vote for his candidates who might win over Ja-maat’s.

The ruling Awami League-backed candidate might cash in on such situa-tion, added the locals.

Oli was elected as lawmaker from Satkania constituency in 1996, but was defeated by Jamaat candidate Shahja-han Chowdhury in the general election of 2001.

Oli, the then standing committee member of BNP, contested the poll against Jamaat candidate, defying the request of the party high-up to sacri-� ce the constituency to their alliance partner.

The defying cost Oli his association with the BNP, said sources.

A district (south) unit leader of Ja-maat, preferring anonymity, said the local BNP was engaged in an e� ort to push Jamaat into inconvenience at Sat-kania as many of its leaders and activ-ists were on the run and in jail.

Mohammed Ishaque, acting president of district (south) unit Jamaat, however,

said Jamaat men as well as common peo-ple at Satkania had been oppressed by the government in recent period.

He added that the voters would think twice prior to casting their votes for the candidates.

“We have always supported a can-didate who can guide the oppressed people of Satkania,” he said.

Mujibur Rahman, president of the upazila unit BNP, said Satkania was not a stronghold of Jamaat, rather it was the stronghold of BNP.

He added that they had been � ght-ing with the Jamaat in the upazila elec-tion as it was the right time to prove the might of BNP at the locality.

“The common people are annoyed with the recent destructive activities of Jamaat and they would not vote for the Jamaat candidate,” he said, adding that they were con� dent over the victory of their party candidate.

Awami League-backed Nurul Absar

Chowdhury also expressed con� dence in winning the poll.

He said his party candidate won the chairman post in the upazila earlier and this time it would be much easier.

Meanwhile, Jamaat candidates have been contesting the posts of chairman in Banshkhali and Fatikchari upazilas where there are BNP-backed candi-dates with relatively strong position.

“We did not contest the post of chairman in any upazila, except Sita-kund, where BNP has a strong base,” Rabiul Hossain, assistant general secre-tary of district (north) unit Jamaat said, adding that the BNP candidate lost in Sitund upazila for not negotiating with Jamaat.

He also said it would have been bet-ter for both BNP and Jamaat if the two parties could reach an understanding and take part in the election of seven upazilas in Chittagong scheduled for tomorrow. l

Children take part in a painting competition commemorating the country’s Independence Day, at Department of Fine Arts in Dhaka University yesterday NASHIRUL ISLAM

Volunteers from Jaago Foundation remove garbage from the Banani Lake in the capital yesterday DHAKA TRIBUNE

100 students awarded for innovative projectsn Mushfi que Wadud

A total of 100 students were awarded for their innovative projects at the clos-ing ceremony of annual science fair or-ganised by St Joseph Higher Secondary School yesterday.

Khandaker Shabbir Ahmed, pro-fessor and architect of the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Tech-nology (BUET) handed over the prizes to winners. Among others, “broth-er” Robi Puri� cation, principal of the school and other teachers were present at the closing ceremony.

Students of di� erent classes were awarded prizes in di� erent categories in terms of innovative approach and presentation of their science projects. The theme of this year’s fair was “Role of Science in Human Resource Devel-opment and Economic Prosperity.”

The three day annual science fair was inaugurated on Wednesday. Around 460 projects were presented in the fair, along with a total of 750 scrap-books. Students of 50 schools across the country took part in the fair. The school premises was crowded with stu-dents and their guardians at the closing day. Students waited long to hear their name as the winner and when some-one’s name was declared as winner, s/he expressed his/her joy by shouting.

Speaking at the programme, Khan-daker Shabbir Ahmed, who is also an alumni of this school, said science fair is an important way of learning science. He said students learned to use their imagination power and the ability to ask questions through this science fair.

He also said asking proper questions and using imagination power is not only important for science but also for

all other � elds of knowledge. Three students of Bir Shreshtha Noor

Mohammad Public School and College stood � rst in the inter-school science project competition for their project ti-tled “Mobile controlled Rescue Robot.” The students are Shakti Banik, Imran Bin Yousuf, and Fazle Shawon Younus. St Francis Xavier Girls’ School came second for their project titled “New treatment using Modi� ed HIV to kill Lymphoma Cancer Cell.” The students are Eshita Agnes Puri� cation, Barsha Christina Palma, and Joyes Cicilia Sral.

Three students of Viqarunnisa Noon School placed third for their project ti-tled “Noise proof class room.”

In inter-college science project com-petition, three students of Holy Cross College stood � rst for their project on “Biodegradable Plastic and uses.” The three students are Ishmal Sifat, Fariha Mehnaz, and Redwana Noor.

Another team of Holy Cross College secured the second position as well for a project. Three students of Holy Cross College namely Faria Farzana, Maliha Anjum, and Smeeta Mahanta came as

third for their project. Moreover, the � rst, second and third

position winners of each groups were also awarded. Safwan Uddin of class three was awarded for his project of a windmill. In class three, Hanjala and Steve Probal Shanjal got second prize for their project on modern city.

Ahnaf Farhan Khan and Jawad Muntasir Riddha got � rst prize for their project on “Save the Environment.”

Students were also awarded for scrapbooks, quiz competitions, art competitions and science Olympiad. l

5NewsDHAKA TRIBUNE Saturday, March 22, 2014

CERN DG due on April 7n Tribune Report

Dr Rolf-Dieter Heuer, director general of CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research will arrive in Dha-ka on April 7, an education ministry press release said yesterday.

The press release said a preparation meeting was held regarding his arrival at the education ministry yesterday.

It said the CERN DG had been invit-

ed as the convocation speaker at the 48th convocation of Dhaka University scheduled to be held on April 7.

It said Dhaka University would con-fer the Doctor of Science (D.Sc.) upon Dr Rolf-Dieter Heuer.

He would meet with eminent sci-entists, researchers, engineers, teach-ers and students on April 8 at Nabab Nawab Ali Chowdhury Senate Bhaban of the university. l

‘Quota system in competitive examinations should go’n Ashif Islam Shaon

Quota system in every competitive examination should be annulled as it deprives meritorious students but only the freedom � ghter quota in gov-ernment jobs should exist considering their contribution to the birth of the country, Social Welfare Minister Syed Mohsin Ali has said.

“Those who have merit will get the job. The country needs the right person in the right position but quota system is an obstacle to that,” observed the minister while addressing a discussion on special priority for the Dalit and the Harijan communities in development policy and activities in a city auditori-um yesterday. The discussion was ar-ranged by Bangladesh Harijans Oikya Parishad to mark the International Day for Elimination of Racial Discrimina-tion while Manusher Jonno Founda-tion and Fair were the co-organisers.

Sharing his personal experience at the discussion, Mohsin said: “I’m a member of the governing body of three colleges. We recruited several teachers

a few months back but lately, we saw a minister recommending a candidate for the post of professor.”

Mohsin went on: “When the candi-date arrived to face the viva voce, we asked him to recite a few lines from any of Rabindranath Tagore’s poems. Sur-prisingly, the candidate who had a Mas-ters’ in Bangla Literature failed to do so. I then told his referee that the aspirant had stood seventh among eight candidates.”

“Quota system and lobbying like this allow incompetent men to come forward. The Harijans aren’t less meritorious. We will help if you demand anything to in-crease your e� ciency but don’t request for quota,” the minister said as the Hari-jan community demanded special quota in admission tests and jobs.

“The Harijans can cook delicious food and curry that the Bengalis can’t. They should utilise that skill to � nd out alternative ways of making money if they’re not educated enough,” he said.

Speaking at the discussion, Nation-al Human Rights Commission (NHRC) Chairman Professor Mizanur Rahman said the Dalit should be provided with

equal rights and facilities � rst and the quota system would be of use then.

“In educational institutions and the job market, the Dalits must be provid-ed with special facilities. They sacri-� ced their lives during our War of Lib-eration but still we are depriving them. We have to repay the debt,” he said.

The Dalits demanded forming a Dal-it commission, bringing them under the safety net programme, conducting separate census for them, and reserv-ing 80% of the jobs in services like sweeping and cleaning and also in per-manent jobs in city corporations and municipalities.

Bangladesh Harijans Oikya Parishad statistics say some 5.5 million Harijans are living in the country. Also known as Jaat (professional) sweepers, they are originally the descendants of im-migrants from India’s Kanpur, Nagpur and Andhra Pradesh.

Their jobs include sweeping streets and o� ces, clearing sewerage lines, and cleaning up manholes and hospi-tal waste. Many of them are employed in crematoria as well. l

Call to protect rivers from encroachment n Mohammad Zakaria

Speakers at a roundtable yesterday said the rivers around the capital were almost dead because of unabated en-croachment and establishment of ille-gal construction on the river bank.

They also demanded that the gov-ernment take immediate steps to pro-tect all rivers including the Buriganga around Dhaka as it was important for the country’s economy.

The speakers made the demand at a roundtable organised by Poribesh Bachao Andolan (Poba) marking the World Water Day at the National Press Club in the capital.

They said it was high time the govern-ment demarcated the rivers in the coun-try as per the Cadastral Survey record to protect the water bodies from pollution.

The discussants also called upon the government to dredge the rivers regularly and remove all illegal estab-lishments from the river banks.

They also demanded that the gov-ernment relocate tanneries and take measures to stop dumping waste into

the rivers. Poba examined the pollu-tion of Buriganga, Turag, Balu and Shi-talakkha rivers over the past one year.

In August-September, the level of oxygen in these rivers’ water was zero because of dumping of waste from in-dustries, houses and launches.

The pro-environment group ob-served that the rivers around Dhaka were almost dead for illegal establish-ments and encroachment.

It also underscored the need for im-mediate steps by the government to protect the rivers across the country.

Poba Joint General Secretary Md Abdus Sobhan said if the government did not take initiative to protect rivers, the water bodies around the capital and other places would die down.

Rajuk Executive Magistrate Rokon-Ud-Dowla said the city development authority removed all illegal establish-ments from the Buriganga river bank regularly.

Nagorik Oikko Convener Mahmudur Rahman Manna urged the government to take immediate steps to protect all rivers in the country. l

Fire burns Chittagong buildingn CU Correspondent

A � re broke out at a three-storeyed res-idential building in Chittagong city’s Baizid Bostami area yesterday after-noon.

Fire Service and Civil Defense, Agrabad Station sources said the � re broke out on the third � oor of an un-der construction building of Green Residential area at Kacha Bazar under Baizid Bostami police station at 5pm. However, none was injured in this in-cident

Jasim Uddin, deputy assistant di-rector (DAD) of Fire Service and Civil Defense, Agrabad Station told the Dha-ka Tribune that the third � oor and sec-ond � oor of the building were used as a warehouse of garment refuses while ground � oor was being used for resi-dential purpose.

On information, � re � ghters from four units rushed to the spot and put out the blaze after two hours of frantic e� orts, he said. However, he could not ascertain the cause of the � re and ex-tent of damages. l

REHAB Fair sees huge crowd on 2nd dayn Abu Hayat Mahmud

Real estate and housing companies have expressed satisfaction over the presence of a large number of visitors yesterday, the second day of REHAB Fair 2014.

Leaders of Real Estate and Housing Association (REHAB) said they were satis� ed after observing that custom-ers were interested to purchase � ats and plots from the fair.

Besides, customers said they were interested to purchase � ats and plots as many companies were o� ering dis-counts on the occasion of fair.

Customer relations’ manager of a renowned real estate company said, “Customers’ presence and their inter-ests to purchase and book � at and plot were satisfactory.” He hoped that the number of customers might be more than their expectations during the fair.

“Today (Friday) is the second day, so most of the customers wanted to know prices of plots and � ats. We hope that many of the customers will con-

tact with our main o� ce to purchase � ats and land,” he added

Another o� cial of a land developer company expressed hope that sale of plots and land would get momentum in the last two days.

Some REHAB leaders, who visited the fair yesterday evening, said this year, visitors’ presence was compara-tively more than last year.

Meanwhile, visitors were also seen happy with di� erent discount o� ers.

Masud Ahmed, an o� cial of a pri-vate company, said he was satis� ed with discount o� ers and loan facilities o� ered by di� erent realtor companies.

The � ve-day housing fair began on March 20 at Bangabandhu Internation-al Convention Centre at Agargaon in the capital aiming to promote housing sector.

This year, a total of 155 companies are taking part in the fair. Of them, 141 are housing and 14 construction mate-rials companies. Apart from the com-panies, a total of 11 sponsor companies have taken part in the fair. l

A syndicate tortures children if they refuse to get involved in theft n Mohammad Jamil Khan

It was around 10am yesterday when three minor street children had been staging a small play inside the Suhrawardi Udyan: a girl having an old vanity bag was walking on a street; another boy suddenly came in front of the girl and fell down; and the third one, another boy who was passing by, simply took away a mobile phone from the vanity bag.

However, a young man who was standing beside the spot slapped the � rst boy, and asked him to be more nat-ural while acting.

In an investigation, it was learned that it was not a play but a trained ef-fort on how to steal mobile phones from people. The man, who was giving train-ing to these street children, was identi-� ed as Sahidul, a notorious mobile thief.

There are several groups that had been training the street children to steal mobile phones, and they alleged-ly torture the children if anyone refuses to do such work.

Such sensational information was � rst � ashed after the arrest of three children from Dhaka Medical College Hospital (DMCH) last Tuesday.

The detained kids told the Dhaka Tribune that they had been learning pick pocketing from one Ibrahim, 18, a resident of Chankharpool, for the last couple of months. They got caught by

the police on the � rst day of their “real work.” Their boss Ibrahim was stand-ing nearby to instruct them, but he left soon after the hospital police caught them.

One of the detained boys said he used to sell chocolate and sleep at Sohrawardi Uddyan. Once, Ibrahim came to him and forced him to do such work. When he refused to do so, Ibra-him beat him up.

When asked, he said he had taken training with 25 other kids and all of them were of similar ages. The mas-terminds only gave them Tk100 if they could snatch any cell phone, he added.

The detained kids were sent to Opo-rajeyo Bangladesh, a non-government organisation working for the distressed children to take care of them.

Contacted, Shahima Akhter, a sta� of Oporajeyo Bangladesh, told the Dha-ka Tribune that they had taken them to their safe home at Lalbagh.

“We will � nd out their family mem-bers and hand them over,” she said, adding that if the law enforcers gave some attention to such crime, this kind of crime could be stopped.

Monirul Islam, joint commission-er of Detective Branch of Police, said sometimes under-age children were arrested, but they could not take action considering their ages.

“However, our members are active to take stern actions,” he added. l

Street kids get training on mobile phone stealing

Dhaka Medical College authority recently detained three minor boys namely Rasel, Shohag and Riaz allegedly for cell phone theft, the photo is taken from the administrative building of DMC MAHMUD HOSSAIN OPU

St Joseph Higher Secondary School awards winners of its annual Science Fair in the city yesterday MAHMUD HOSSAIN OPU

6 NationDHAKA TRIBUNE Saturday, March 22, 2014

Shailakupa residents yet to get an embankmentn Our Correspondent, Jhenaidah

People of Baruria and Krisnanagar vil-lages under Sailkupa upazila in Jhenai-dah are passing days in anxiety appre-hending that woes are waiting for them in the coming days.

Residents of the villages are afraid that like previous years, many home-steads might go under the Gorai River this year, as the Water Development Board is yet to build a permanent em-bankment to save them from erosion.

Local sources said a good portion of Baruria and Krisnanagar villages had been eroded in the mighty river, leaving around 300 families homeless over the last � ve decades.

Most of the erosion-a� ected people have taken shelter on the river bank, but they fear if the river bank is eroded they would not have any place to take shelter.

They said an embankment might stop the erosion of the river.

A member of Sarutia union pari-shad under Sailkupa upazila said they

were told that the Bangladesh Water Development Board (WDB) would put concrete blocks to stop erosion. But the work is yet to be started.

The ward member said if dredg-ing would be done in the river, erosion could be stopped permanently.

Executive Engineer of the WDB in Jhenaidah Abdul Latif said a team of the Asian Development Board had visited the a� ected area in Sarutia union under Sailkupa upazila a few months back.

The WDB had suggested to put con-crete blocks to stop the erosion perma-nently. Then, the ADB assured the WDB that they would provide fund for the work.

“But we have not received any allo-cation from the ADB yet,” he said.

Moreover, the locals said a shoal had emerged on the northern bank of the river, but some local in� uential people have illegally occupied the shoal, de-priving the actual homeless people.

Salamat Sheikh, 43, a resident of vil-lage Baruria, said at least 11 bighas of their ancestral land were eroded by the

river in the last 40 years. A number of people of Baruria village

had tried to settle in the shoal which has now become a part of Mukshidpur area under Khoksha upazila in Kushtia.

But Ekdil Bahini chief Ekdil Hossain along with his supporters had forced the erosion-a� ected people to leave the area. Being instigated by Ekdil Hossain, residents of Mukshidpur, Bhabanipur and Bamanpara villages also swooped on them. Finding no alternative, inhab-itants of Baruria and Krisnanagar vil-lages left the area, fearing life risks.

Ayub Ali, 45, a resident of Krisnana-gar said, deputy commissioners of Jhenaidah and Kushtia, along with the superintendent of police of the districts had sat to resolve the crisis.

They came to a decision that the persons whose land, according to land o� ce map, would emerge on the north-ern bank of the river in Khoksha upazila would get their land. But, the people of Khoksha upazila could not be satis� ed with the decision. l

Najirganj ferry ghat shaky for sand lifting n Tribune Desk

Najirganj ferry ghat (jetty) is now in a vulnerable state as a section of in� uen-tial people have continued sand lifting illegally from near the Padma River in Sujanagar upazila, intensifying threat of erosion in the area.

The riverbank beside the ferry ghat has kept breaking apart due to the ille-gal sand extraction from the river.

If the situation continues, the road communications of Rajbari, Faridpur and Barisal districts with Pabna, Sira-jganj and Bogra might be stopped in near future, locals apprehend.

During a recent visit, this corre-spondent saw some 8-10 dredgers lift-ing sand from the riverbed every day.

They stock the extracted sand on the nearby croplands.

People involved in the sand lifting are mostly in� uential.

More than 100-150 truckloads of sand are sold every day from here and

no one dares to complain against those involved in the illegal sand business as they are powerful.

Earlier, a mobile court realised a � ne of Tk50,000 from one Madhu of Habashpur village in Pangsha upazila in Rajbari district for illegal sand lift-ing.

But executive magistrate M Sakha-wat Hossain, also upazila nirbahi of-� cer of Sujanagar upazila, while talk-ing to the news agency expressed his inability to take any steps to stop sand lifting in Sujanagar portion of the river.

He showed the reason that the in-� uential people were continuing ille-gal sand lifting without any lease from Bangladesh Inland Water Transport Corporation.

Besides, pontoons of the ferry ghat have also become frail due to the sand lifting work.

Sometimes, buses, trucks and other goods-laden vehicles meet accident for the reason. l

Two villagers abductedn Our correspondent, Khagrachhari

Two villagers were allegedly abducted by the cadres of United Peoples Democratic Front (UPDF) at Barmachhari village under Lakshmichhari upazila in Khagrachhari district yesterday.

The two abducted men were iden-ti� ed as Ripon Chakma, 22, son of Shukya Chakma and Gorolya Chakma, 21, son of Budda Jyoti Chakma while both of them hailed from Barmachhari village in the district.

A group of around 20 armed activ-ists of UPDF raided the houses of both Ripon and Gorolya and abducted them at gun point, said Mohammad Bahar Mia, sub-inspector of Lakshmichhari police station, quoting locals.

Security personnel were trying to rescue them, SI Bahar added.

However when contacted, Niron Chakma, district unit UPDF press sec-retary denied any involvement regard-ing the abduction. l

O� cials of Wildlife Management and Nature Conservation Department under Rajshahi Forest Division rescued a rare species of peacock from a house in Lalmonirhat. Later, the wounded bird was brought to Rajshahi on Thursday DHAKA TRIBUNE

‘Brother-in-law’ beats man to deathn Tribune Report

A man was beaten to death allegedly by his brother-in-law in Palsha area under sadar upazila in Chapainawabganj on Thursday.

The deceased was identi� ed as Jashim, 36, son of Amir Master of Bil-danga area.

O� cer-in-Charge of Sadar police station Jashim Uddin said: “There was a longstanding con� ict between Jashim and his brother-in-law Khairul over land properties.”

“Over the same matter, they locked into a quarrel with each other around 12:30 pm,” he said.

At one stage of the quarrel, Khairul

beat Jashim mercilessly that left him critically injured.

Later, he died on the way to a local hospital.

Meanwhile, police arrested Khairul and his wife Lal Banu after the inci-dent.

A case was also � led in connection matter. l

Corrupt municipality o� cials put Brahmaputra at stake n Our Correspondent, Mymensingh

Piles of garbage dumped by the My-mensingh municipality in the Brah-maputra River through the Kalibari old ferry ghat are posing serious threats to the health of locals.

Around 150 metric tons of wastes are produced every day in the district which is a habitat of 10 lakh people.

Some o� cials of the municipal-ity have been alleged for carrying the wastes by 10 trucks and 25 hand trol-leys and dumping them to Brahmapu-tra River through the Kalibari ferry ghat which they are supposed to dump at a place called Moylakanda in Shomvu-ganj, on the other bank of the river.

They were doing so just to save a mere amount of fuel expense, claimed a number of locals.

They said the river was becoming polluted to a great extent which they regularly had to use for bathing and other purposes.

Locals living on both banks of the river said such immoral act of the au-thorities might seriously jeopardise the aquatic ecosystem of the river.

A number of people were dependent on the river to earn their living through � shing from it, they said.

Forhad Hossain, president of Prero-na, a local environment organisation, said because of the lack of monitoring by the local administration, wastes and

the highly dirty and contaminated wa-ter from drains were � nding ways to the Brahmaputra River which was al-ready in a dire state.

He also alleged that an in� uential sector had operated some illegal dredg-ing in the river and that the river might get � lled up in near future.

Fearing that the river might die soon, Assistant Director of Department of En-vironment, Mymensingh Yusuf Ali said steps would be taken as soon as possible to stop the dumping of garbages.

Mayor of Mymensingh Municipal-ity Ikramul Haque admitted that waste were being dumped by some employ-ees and assured that stern actions would be taken against them. l

The Facts about fatn Dr Sajol Ashfaq

Most foods contain several di� erent kinds of fat, and some are better for your health than others. You don’t need to completely eliminate all fat from your diet. In fact, some

fats actually help promote good health. But it’s wise to choose the healthier types of dietary fat and then enjoy them in moderation. When choosing fats, pick unsaturated fat over saturated or trans fat. Here’s how to know the di� erence.

Fats play an important role in our diets. Nutritionists recommend eating a diet low in fat, particularly low in saturated fat. Fats are categorised as saturated, polyunsaturated and monounsaturated fats.

Saturated fatsSaturated fats tend to increase “bad” cholesterol levels in the blood as well as total cholesterol levels. They are found mostly in animal products(eg: meat and full-cream dairy products). Two non-animal exceptions are palm and coconut oils whichalso contain saturated fat and areoften found in commercial biscuits and cakes.

Monounsaturated fatsThese fats can bene� t the body by reducing the level of total and “bad” cholesterol and increasing the level of “good” cholesterol in the blood. Found in foods such as olives, peanuts, avocados, and canola oil.

Polyunsaturated fatsPolyunsaturated fats tend to lower the total and “bad” cholesterol levels while maintaining the level of “good” cholesterol. Found in margarines, nuts, soymilks, seeds, and vegetable oils.

Trans fatThis is a type of fat that occurs naturally in some foods in small amounts. But most trans fats are made from oils through a food processing method called partial hydrogenation. By partially hydrogenating oils, they become easier to cook with and less likely to spoil than naturally occurring oils.

Research studies show that these partially hydrogenated trans fats can increase unhealthy LDL cholesterol and lower healthy high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol. This can increase your risk of cardiovascular disease.

Omega-3A type of polyunsaturated fat, which research suggests may help maintain healthy blood pressure and blood fat levels. Found in oily � sh, linseed, canola oil, soybeans, walnuts and dark green vegetables (eg: spinach and green peas).

All fats have the same number of kilojoules and need to be eaten in moderation — especially if you are trying to control your weight.

Foods made up mostly of monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats are liquid at room temperature, such as olive oil, sa� ower oil, peanut oil and corn oil. Fish high in omega-3 fatty acids include salmon, tuna, trout, mackerel, sardines and herring. Plant sources of omega-3 fatty acids include � axseed (ground), oils (canola, � axseed, soybean), and nuts and other seeds (walnuts, butternuts and sun� ower). l

n Prescription desk

When you wear earrings, your earlobes get dry and red and the skin peels o� . It sounds as though you are sensitive to nickel, which is a common ingredient in inexpensive earrings. Nickel exposure from earrings is a common cause of dermatitis on the earlobes. You’re not alone: nickel

sensitisation is quite common, with close 6 percent of people testing positive to it in a standard skin test. A 2008 study published in the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology warns that up to a third of cheap earrings will contain nickel, especially if they are made in Asia, the USA or in Australia. It is less of a problem in Europe, where the use of nickel is more strictly regulated.

The solution is to stop wearing the o� ending earrings, repeated exposure only worsens the problem Look for ear-rings labelled “nickel-free” or “hypoallergenic”; other safe choices include stainless steel, platinum or gold. l

Tips for Professional voice usersProfessional voice users include singers, actors and broadcast personalities. For all of these individuals, the voice and spoken communication is an essential part of what they do, and there are countless other professions that rely heavily on the voice. So preservation of voice is very importantn Prof Kamrul Hasan Tarafder

Anyone whose voice is essential to his or her job is considered an occupational or pro-fessional voice user. Occupational voice us-ers include teachers, clergy, salespeople,

courtroom attorneys, telemarketers, receptionists and others. Professional voice users as a group have their own special needs, the foremost being that their voices are crucial to their careers. 

Categories of professional Voice: The singing performing voice The speaking performing voice Voice demanding professions

Performance, environment, tension and hormone are factorsPerformers have to take on the person-ality and character of their perform-ing role which involves not only voice abuse, such as screaming and shout-ing, but also altering the con� gura-tion of their vocal tract for di� erent accents and to disguise their age and personality. These activities can a� ecttheir voice.

Performers are now required to be more versatile and not only sing-ers but actors and, speci� cally, danc-ers as well. The constricting costumes and physical activity can a� ect their breathing technique. Singers are also asked to sing in di� erent styles, for ex-ample, in opera the larynx needs to be lower or vertical and the main empha-sis is on vowels.

Numerous old theatres are dusty, especially in the wings, o� stage and in the curtains during change of scenes.

Arti� cial smoke and fog used for spe-cial e� ects are also known to have an irritant and drying e� ect on the voice. Many require ampli� cation in the form of a microphone. The microphone should never be placed directly in front of the lips and indeed, should be 20 cm to the side of the mouth. During perfor-mance, being able to hear the voice is desirable for control of pitch and loud-ness. Auditory feedback is frequently carried out with an earpiece or from side speakers. Singers performing in large halls or outdoor concerts with no auditory feedback tend to over-sing and strain their voices, especially early in their careers.

Performers rarely go on stage with a full stomach and tend to eat late at night. As a result, gastro-oesophageal re� ux (burning in throat) is common.

It is known that there is a slight amount of vocal fold oedema immedi-ately before menstruation and female performers were often given grace days because of this. The condition is known as laryngopathia premenstrua-lis and is now well recognised. Stand-ing on the podium with a dry mouth, sweaty hands and heavy legs is a nor-mal reaction of the body to stress and adrenaline production. 

If this performance anxiety becomes a greater problem then there are three recognised management strategies; deep breathing exercises, an emotional support (the magic feather), or cogni-tive psychotherapy. Beta blockers have been used by musicians and athletes to prevent tremor but they have had no bene� t for the voice. 

Acute illnessPerformers live in dread of developing

an upper respiratory tract infection at anytime, but especially during a performance. It is important to di� erentiate between an upper respiratory tract infection with or without laryngeal involvement. An upper respiratory tract infection can be managed conservatively with adequate

hydration and steam inhalations. If there is laryngeal involvement and the performance is a career make or break situation then steroids may have a role. If there is evidence of a laryngeal infection, however, it is recommended that the concert is postponed and antibiotics also used. In the acute

emergency, the performance should be cancelled. Aspirin is associated with vocal fold haemorrhage by its action on the platelets and is something that should be avoided at all times by the professional voice user.

Sometimes surgery is needed for vo-cal cord nodule and polyp. Vocal tract surgery can be more catastrophic than surgery on the vocal folds themselves. The patient should know the expected result and complications of the surgery.

Key steps for keeping yourvoice healthy

Drink plenty of water. Drink plen-ty (up to eight 8-ounce glasses is a good minimum target) of non-caf-feinated, non-alcoholic beverages throughout the day

Try not to scream or yell Warm up your voice before heavy

use. Warm-ups can be simple, such as gently gliding from low to high tones on di� erent vowel sounds, doing lip trills (like the motorboat sound that kids make), or tongue trills

Don’t smoke Use good breath support. Breath

� ow is the power for voice. Take time to � ll your lungs before start-ing to talk

Use a microphone Listen to your voice. When your

voice is complaining to you, listen to it. If your voice is hoarse fre-quently, or for an extended period of time, you should be evaluated by an otolaryngologist (ear, nose, and throat specialist) l

The writer is Professor of Otolaryngology and HNS department in BSMMU, Dhaka.

Prescription 7DHAKA TRIBUNE Saturday, March 22, 2014

| Compiled by: Shirsho Saaeadat

| Dr Kazi Mahbuba Akhtar

Foreign body in nose

If a foreign object becomes lodged in your nose: Don’t probe at the object  with a

cotton swab or other tool. Don’t try to inhale the object  by

forcefully breathing in. Instead, breathe through your mouth until the object is removed.

Blow out of your nose gently  to try to free the object, but don’t blow hard or repeatedly. If only one nostril is a� ected, close the opposite nostril by applying gentle pressure and then blow out gently through the a� ected nostril.

Gently remove the object  if it’s visible and you can easily grasp it with tweezers. Don’t try to remove an object that isn’t visible or easily grasped.

Go to your local ear nose throat emergency room if these methods fail.

Foreign body in ear

A foreign object in the ear can cause pain and hearing loss. Usually you know if an object is stuck in your ear, but small children may not be aware of it.If an object becomes lodged in the ear, follow these steps: Don’t probe the ear with a

tool.  Don’t attempt to remove the foreign object by probing with a cotton swab, matchstick or any other tool. To do so is to risk pushing the object farther into the ear and damaging the fragile structures of the middle ear.

Remove the object if possible.  If the object is clearly visible, pliable and can be grasped easily with tweezers, gently remove it.

Try using gravity.  Tilt the head to the a� ected side to try to dislodge the object.

Try using oil for an insect.  If the foreign object is an insect, tilt the person’s head so that the ear with the o� ending insect is upward. Try to � oat the insect out by pouring mineral oil, olive oil or baby oil into the ear. The oil should be warm but not hot. As you pour the oil, you can ease the entry of the oil by straightening the ear canal. Pull the earlobe gently backward and upward for an adult, backward and downward for a child. The insect should su� ocate and may � oat out in the oil bath. Don’t use oil to remove any object other than an insect. Do not use this method if the child has ear tubes in place or if there is any suspicion of a perforation in the eardrum — pain, bleeding or discharge from the ear.If these methods fail or the person

continues to experience pain in the ear, reduced hearing or a sensation of something lodged in the ear, go to your local Ear Nose Throat emergency room.

QUICK TIPS

SELF CARE

EXPERTOPINION

HEALTH NEWS

Try to avoid nasty nickelFermented dairy products may reduce the risk of type 2 diabetesAccording to new research published in Diabetologia (the journal of the European Association for the Study of Diabetes) higher consumption of yoghurt (an average of four and a half standard 125g pots of yoghurt per week), compared with no consump-tion, can reduce the risk of new-onset type 2  diabetes by 28%. Scientists at the University of Cambridge found that in fact higher consumption of low-fat fermented dairy products, which include all yoghurt varieties and some low-fat cheeses, also reduced the rela-tive risk of diabetes by 24% overall. Fermented dairy products may ex-ert bene� cial e� ects against diabe-tes through probiotic bacteria and a special form of vitamin K (part of the

menaquinone family) associated with fermentation. Dairy products are an important source of high quality pro-tein, vitamins and minerals. However, they are also a source of saturated fat that should be replaced with lower fat options like yoghurt.

Grapefruit, a new hope in polycystic kidney diseasePolycystic Kidney Disease is a de-bilitating condition characterised by formation of multiple cysts in the kidney with gradual loss of kidney function that can be fatal. Symptoms include  high blood pressure  and loss of kidney function, leading to the need for dialysis. Scientists at Royal Holloway, University of London, have discovered that a natural product, Naringenin, found in grapefruit can prevent these cysts formation in the kidney. This product also present in other citrus fruits has been found to successfully block the formation of kidney cysts, by regulating the PKD2 protein responsible for the condition. The discovery of the bene� ts of nar-ingenin could prove to be a vital step

forward in the future treatment and prevention of kidney disease.

DID YOUKNOW?

Sodium nitrate in processed meat may increase the risk of heart disease

Sodium nitrate, a preservative that’s used in some processed meats, such as bacon, jerky and luncheon meats, could increase heart disease risk. It’s thought that sodium nitrate may make arteries more likely to harden and narrow, leading to heart disease. Nitrates may also a� ect the way of body’s sugar utilization, making one more likely to develop diabetes. So it’s best to limit processed meat in diet and focus on lean, fresh meats and poultry.

BIGSTOCK

BIGSTOCK

BIGSTOCK

BIGSTOCK

BIGSTOCK

Saturday, March 22, 2014DHAKA TRIBUNE World8

Putin signs laws annexing Crimea while US sanctions Putin personnelRussia vows retaliatory sanctions against the US, askes for Ukraine debt repayment

n Reuters, Moscow/Brussels

President Vladimir Putin signed laws completing Russia’s annexation of Crimea on Friday, as investors took fright at a US decision to slap sanctions on his inner circle of money men and security o� cials.

Putin promised to protect a bank partly owned by an old ally, which Washington has blacklisted, and his spokesman said Russia would respond in kind to the � nancial and visa curbs.

Russian shares fell sharply after President Barack Obama also threat-ened on Thursday to target major sec-tors of the economy if Moscow tried to move on other areas of Ukraine beyond the Black Sea peninsula.

Europe also tightened the screws by widening its sanctions list, and

Germany suspended approval of all defence-related exports to Russia, ordering defence contractor Rhe-inmetall to halt delivery of combat simulation gear.

In a Kremlin ceremony shown live on state television, Putin signed a law on rati� cation of a treaty making Crimea part of Russia as well as legis-lation creating two new Russian ad-ministrative districts: Crimea and the port city of Sevastopol, where Moscow keeps part of its Black Sea � eet.

O� cials and lawmakers in Moscow have largely laughed o� Western sanc-tions imposed after Russian troops seized control of Crimea. A referen-dum in the majority Russsian-speaking region - which overwhelmingly backed union with Russia but was denounced by Washington and the European

Union as a sham - then opened the way for the annexation.

Obama’s decision to go for the � nan-cial jugular of the people who accom-panied Putin’s rise from the mayor’s o� ce in St Petersburg in the 1990s to the Russian presidency has deepened the diplomatic confrontation.

Putin said Bank Rossiya, singled out by Washington as the personal bank for senior Russian o� cials, had nothing to do with the events in Crimea and promised to keep his salary there. The St Petersburg-based bank is chaired and partly owned by Yuri Kovalchuk, an old associate of Putin’s.

Other names on the US blacklist includes oil and commodities trader Gennady Timchenko and the broth-ers Arkady and Boris Rotenberg, who are linked to big contracts on gas pipe-

lines and the Sochi Olympics, as well as Putin’s chief of sta� and his deputy, the head of military intelligence and a railways chief.

Russian Deputy Finance Minister Alexei Moiseev said he expected no big immediate impact from the sanctions.

A consortium led by Stroitransgaz, owned by Timchenko, is set to win a 3.5bn euro ($4.8bn) deal to build a sec-tion of the South Stream natural gas pipeline across EU member Bulgaria, industry sources said.

But, underlining how Washington can apply pressure via the international � nancial system, US credit card com-panies Visa and MasterCard stopped providing services for payment transac-tions with Russia’s SMP bank, owned by the Rotenberg brothers, the bank said.

Obama said Washington was also con-sidering sanctions against economic sec-tors including � nancial services, oil and gas, metals and mining and the defence industry, if Russia made military moves into eastern and southern Ukraine.

Diplomats said the mere mention of such a possibility would chill invest-ment in Russia, charging an immediate price for Moscow’s action in Crimea and serving as a potential deterrent to going further.

The EU also extended its personal sanctions to another 12 middle-ranking Russian and Crimean o� cials.

On the other hand, Russia Prime Min-ister Dmitry Medvedev made clear that Russia would step up � nancial pressure on Ukraine. He said the former Soviet re-public should repay Moscow $11bn un-der a gas supply contract that should be scrapped because it no longer applied.

Medvedev said the agreements under which Russia was to provide cheap gas in return for the lease of the Sevastopol naval base in Crimea were “subject to denunciation,” giving Rus-sia a legal right to sue for money back from Ukraine.

Altogether, Kiev owed Moscow $16bn, he added. l

EU signs landmark Ukraine political dealn Reuters, Brussels

The European Union and Ukraine signed a landmark political coopera-tion accord on Friday, committing to the same deal former president Viktor Yanukovich rejected last November, a decision that led to his overthrow.

Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseny Yatseniuk, EU presidents Herman Van Rompuy and Jose Manuel Barroso, and the leaders of the bloc’s 28 nations signed the core chapters of the Associ-ation Agreement during an EU summit in Brussels.

Soon afterwards, Russian Presi-dent Vladimir Putin signed legislation completing the process of absorbing Crimea into Russia, defying Western leaders who say the Black Sea peninsu-la remains part of Ukraine.

The deal commits Ukraine and the EU to closer political and economic cooperation, although its more sub-stantial parts concerning free trade will be signed only after Ukraine

has held a presidential election on May 25.

Van Rompuy, the European Council president, said the agreement would bring Ukraine and its 46m people clos-er to the heart of Europe and a “Euro-pean way of life.”

“(This) recognises the aspirations of the people of Ukraine to live in a coun-try governed by values, by democracy and the rule of law, where all citizens have a stake in national prosperity,” he said.

Two sets of the documents were passed around the table for the EU’s leaders and Yatseniuk to sign in a sol-emn atmosphere. Van Rompuy and Yatseniuk then shook hands and ex-changed the documents to applause, witnesses said.

Yanukovich turned his back on sign-ing the EU agreement last November in favour of closer ties with Moscow, triggering months of street protests that eventually led to his � ight from the country. l

France to suspend ‘most’ Russia military cooperationsn AFP, Tallinn

France has suspended most of its mil-itary cooperation with Russia, includ-ing joint exercises and personnel ex-changes, the French defence minister said Friday in Tallinn.

Paris has suspended “the majority of its military cooperation with Rus-sia” in the wake of Moscow’s takeover of Crimea, French Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said in the Estonian capital before heading to fellow NATO members Lithuania and Poland later in the day.

He said the suspension would con-cern joint military exercices but said nothing about the fate of contracts to supply Mistral helicopter carriers to Russia. On Thursday Le Drian had said

such a decision would not be taken un-til October.

Le Drian was on a visit to the Baltic states of Lithuania and Estonia and then Poland on Friday, with the aim of o� ering them reassurances on securi-ty, as European Union leaders sought to broaden sanctions against Moscow o� cials.

His announcement came at the same time as a German economy ministry spokesman said Berlin had decided to suspend approval of all defence-relat-ed exports to Russia

Le Drian also said France could send four planes to Lithuania on protection duty if NATO decides to boost air de-fences over the Baltic states, which are now also members of the Western mili-tary alliance. l

Turkey’s Gul at odds with Erdogan over twitter bann Reuters, Istanbul

Turkish President Abdullah Gul set himself publicly at odds with Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan on Friday, saying that it was unacceptable to im-pose complete bans on social media platforms such as Twitter.

Turkey’s courts blocked access to Twitter following Erdogan’s vow, on the campaign trail ahead of key March 30 local elections, to “wipe out” the service. In a de� ant stand, Erdogan said he did not care what the interna-tional community had to say about it.

The prime minister, who has been in power for 11 years, is battling a corrup-tion scandal that has been fed by social media awash with alleged evidence of government wrongdoing.

Gul, however, took to Twitter himself to say complete bans on social media plat-forms were unacceptable and to voice his hope that the block would be short-lived.

Turkey’s main opposition party said it would challenge the ban and � le a criminal complaint against Erdogan on

the grounds of violating personal free-doms. The country’s bar association � led a separate court challenge.

“One cannot approve of the com-plete closure of social media platforms,” Gul tweeted. He said only individual In-ternet pages should be blocked if there is a court order on the grounds that a person’s privacy is being violated.

Gul co-founded the ruling Isla-mist-rooted AK Party with Erdogan and has remained a close ally. But he is viewed as a more conciliatory � gure than the combative prime minister and their rela-tions have at times appeared strained.

In the run up to the elections, the president has been hesitant to openly criticise Erdogan, despite the brewing scandal.

Erdogan’s ruling AK Party has al-ready tightened Internet controls, handed government more in� uence over the courts, and reassigned thou-sands of police and hundreds of pros-ecutors and judges as it � ghts a cor-ruption scandal he has cast as a plot by political enemies to oust him. l

Islamist rebels � ght to take Syria crossing with Turkeyn AFP, Beirut

Three Syrian Islamist opposition groups, including Al-Qaeda a� liate Al-Nusra Front, were battling for con-trol of a regime-held border crossing with Turkey on Friday, a monitoring group said.

“Al-Nusra Front, Sham al-Islam and Ansar al-Sham are engaged in � erce clashes around the Kasab crossing with Turkey in Latakia province,” Syrian Ob-servatory for Human Rights director Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP.

“They have seized guard posts around the crossing but are not yet in control of it,” he said.

Syrian state television made refer-ence to the � ghting in a breaking news alert, saying the army was “tackling attempts by terrorist gangs to in� l-trate from Turkish territory and attack border crossings in northern Latakia province.”

The alert, citing a military source, said 17 opposition � ghters had been killed and “many others” wounded in the � ghting. l

27 killed across Iraq as militants seize villagen AFP, Kirkuk

Militants seized a village in north Iraq on Friday as attacks nationwide killed 27 people, including at least 10 police-men, amid a surge in bloodshed ahead of parliamentary elections.

The latest unrest comes barely a week before campaigning begins for the April 30 election due to take place as Iraq grapples with its worst pro-tracted bloodletting since a brutal 2006-07 Sunni-Shiite sectarian war in which tens of thousands of people were killed.

The unrest has been primarily driv-en by anger among the minority Sun-ni Arab community, which alleges discrimination at the hands of the Shiite-led government and security forces, as well as by the civil war in neighbouring Syria.

Shootings and bombings on Friday mostly took place in Sunni-majority parts of northern and western Iraq, kill-ing 27 people and wounding more than

50, security and medical o� cials said.In Sarha, militants mounted a co-

ordinated pre-dawn assault on the village involving gunmen and a sui-cide truck bomb, and were in control of it as of noon (0900 GMT) on Friday, according to Lieutenant General Ab-dulamir al-Zaidi, head of a northern Iraq security command, and Shallal Abdul, mayor of the nearby town of Tuz Khurmatu.

Sarha is near the town of Sulaiman Bek, which has been repeatedly tar-geted over the past year by militants who have sought to take control of the area.

The latest move is a small-scale ver-sion of the ongoing, months-long crisis being played out in Iraq’s western An-bar province, where militants hold ma-jor territory.

Clashes first erupted early Fri-day in the Sarha region of Salahed-din province, between anti-govern-ment fighters and police manning checkpoints. l

Kenya legalises polygamy without wife’s consentn AFP, Nairobi

Kenya’s parliament has passed a bill allowing men to marry as many wom-en as they want, prompting a furious backlash from female lawmakers who stormed out, reports said Friday.

The bill, which amended existing marriage legislation, was passed late on Thursday to formalise customary law about marrying more than one person.

The proposed bill had initially given a wife the right to veto the husband’s choice, but male members of parlia-ment overcame party divisions to push through a text that dropped this clause.

“When you marry an African woman, she must know the second one is on the way, and a third wife... this is Africa,” MP Junet Mohammed told the house, according to Nairobi’s Capital FM.

As in many parts of Africa, polyga-my is common among traditional com-munities in Kenya, as well as among the country’s Muslim community, which accounts for up to a � fth of the population. l

UN monitor accuses Israel of ‘ethnic cleansing’, ‘apartheid’n AFP, Geneva

A UN rights expert who probes Israel’s conduct towards Palestinians on Fri-day accused the Jewish st ate of a cam-paign of ethnic cleansing and apart-heid policies.

“The realities on the ground are worsening from the point of view of both international law and from the point of view of the Palestinian peo-ple,” Richard Falk, an 82-year-old American who is an emeritus law professor at Princeton University, told reporters.

Falk is due to step down this month as the UN Human Rights Council’s monitor for the Palestinian territories taken over by Israel in 1967 – the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem.

Since he was appointed in 2008, he said, Israel has built more settlements in Palestinian territories, imposed “col-lective punishment” on Gaza, demol-ished homes and repeatedly deployed “excessive force.”

He also accused Israel of a “sys-tematic and continued effort to change the ethnic composition of East Jerusalem” by voiding Palestin-ians’ residence permits, confiscating property and allowing unlawful Is-raeli settlements there.

“This is systematic discrimination on the basis of ethnic identity, with the objective of creating a di� erent demo-graphic in Jerusalem,” he said, calling it a form of “ethnic cleansing.”

“All of these features that are objec-tionable from the point of view of in-ternational law have continued and in-tensi� ed during my six years,” he said.

“What is called occupation is now more widely understood to be a form of annexation, the embodiment of apartheid in the sense that there’s a discriminatory dual system of law, giving legal protection to the Israeli settlers and subjecting the Palestin-ian population under occupation to a continuing existence without rights,” he added.

Falk has repeatedly locked horns with Israel, the United States, Canada and some human rights groups for po-sitions including labelling Israel’s 2008 o� ensive against Gaza a war crime, and urging a boycott of companies helping Israel’s settlement drive in the Pales-tinian territories.

Washington has said he should quit his UN role, which like other rights monitors at the world body he holds on an unpaid, voluntary basis.

Falk has brushed o� the criticism.“Anyone who is 10% objective

would come to similar conclusions about international law and interna-tional morality to the conclusions I’ve reached on the main issues that are in contention,” he said.

He also rejects claims of anti-Semi-tism, saying they are defamatory and hurtful given that he is Jewish himself.

He said that personal attacks were an attempt to “shift the conversation from the message to the messenger” and part of the “politics of de� ection.” l

Israeli security forces stand guard as a Palestinian boy performs Friday prayers outside Jerusalem’s Old City yesterday after Israeli police restricted access to the � ashpoint Al-Aqsa mosque compound on the day of the annual Jerusalem marathon AFP

Russian President Vladimir Putin (C) prepares to sign documents yesterday as Sergei Naryshkin (R), speaker of the State Duma, Russia’s lower parliament house, and Valentina Matviyenko, head of the Federation Council, look on REUTERS

PRAYING IN ADVERSITY

Taliban kill nine including foreigners in K abul hotel attack

n Reuters, Kabul

Taliban  gunmen killed nine people, including four foreigners, in an attack on a luxury hotel used by UN sta� and prominent Afghan politicians in  Ka-bul  on Thursday night, before being shot dead by security forces, witnesses and police said on Friday.

The assault on the heavily forti-� ed  Serena Hotel, which lasted some three hours, was the latest in a string of attacks by the insurgents seeking to spoil a presidential election on April 5, which would mark the � rst time in Af-ghanistan’s history that one elected government hands power to another.

Four Taliban � ghters snuck past se-

curity early on Thursday evening and hid inside the building for three hours before opening � re on diners inside the hotel›s restaurant, according to interior ministry spokesman Sediq Sediqqi.

They then battled Afghan special forces as terri� ed guests hid in rooms or � ed to hotel bunkers. All the  Tali-ban gunmen were shot dead.

During the attack guests crouched in bathrooms with the lights turned o� as they listened to gun� re and people running up and down the hallways.

“I never heard an explosion or any-thing. Only � rearms and possible rock-et-propelled grenades,” one senior UN o� cial said in a text message from his darkened room.

One of the hotel’s main saferooms, which was packed with guests and Afghan members of parliament, � lled with smoke from a � re in the kitchen. “It was hard to breathe. People started putting wet napkins on their faces,” one witness said.

French news agency Agence France Presse said its Afghan reporter  Sardar Ahmad, his wife and two young chil-dren were killed in the attack. The for-eigners killed were from  Canada,  In-dia,  New Zealand  and  Pakistan, the

interior ministry said.All the 18 UN sta� members known

to be inside had been accounted for, ac-cording to a UN o� cial.

Serena hotel was safe havenPolice are investigating how the gun-men got into the Serena. The hotel has dozens of armed guards patrolling its perimeter, and anyone entering is checked with metal detectors and body searched for weapons.

“Our � rst conclusion is that unfortu-nately that was a failure by that secu-rity and measures that were in place,” Sediqqi said, showing reporters photos of pistols roughly the size of a packet of cigarettes and piles of ammunition.

Taliban  spokesman  Zabihullah Mu-jahid claimed responsibility for the at-tack and said the gunmen had targeted guests celebrating the eve of the Af-ghan new year on Friday.

“Suicide bombers have entered the  Serena Hotel, heavy battle is un-derway, enemies su� ered heavy casu-alties,” the  Taliban  spokesman said in a text message. The  Serena hotel  has been attacked several times during the Taliban insurgency, but Thursday›s assault was the deadliest so far. l

Thai court voids protest-hit election

n AFP, Bangkok

Thailand’s general election held last month was declared invalid Friday af-ter disruption by opposition protest-ers, setting the scene for possible talks between warring political parties about new polls to end the deadlock.

While the ruling from the Con-stitutional Court further delays the

formation of a new government, it also offers a possible exit from the political stalemate – if the opposi-tion agrees to end its boycott of the ballot box.

The country’s Election Commission said it planned to propose talks be-tween political party leaders about a new election date.

But Yingluck’s supporters fear she

will be removed from o� ce before an-other vote is held.

She has been charged with negli-gence by the National Anti-Corruption Commission in connection with a rice subsidy scheme, and could face an im-peachment vote in the upper house of parliament within weeks.

Yingluck has faced more than four months of street demonstrations seek-ing to force her from o� ce and install an unelected “people’s council” to oversee political reforms.

“Their aim is to put pressure in ev-ery possible way to appoint a neutral prime minister,” said the chairman of the pro-government “Red Shirts” movement, Jatuporn Prompan.

The backdrop is a years-old struggle between a royalist establishment – sup-ported by the judiciary and the military – and Yingluck’s family, which has tra-ditionally enjoyed strong support in the northern half of Thailand.

Yingluck’s Puea Thai party strongly criticised the election ruling, accusing the court of trying to “write its own constitution and expropriate sover-eignty from the people.”

“Puea Thai urges all people to unite and � ght all kinds of external forces in order to achieve true democracy through peaceful mean,” it said. l

9Saturday, March 22, 2014DHAKA TRIBUNE WorldMalaysia on MH370 search: ‘this is going to be a long haul’n Agencies

Spotter planes spent a second fruitless day scouring a remote stretch of the In-dian Ocean for wreckage from a Malay-sian jet on Friday, as Chinese relatives of the missing passengers clashed with Malaysian o� cials. 

Australian and US military aircraft usually used for anti-submarine oper-ations criss-crossed the isolated search area 2,500 kilometres (1,500 miles) south-west of Perth, looking for two � oating ob-jects that had shown up on grainy satellite photos taken several days before. 

Although the images were too indis-tinct to con� rm as debris from Flight MH370, Australian and Malaysian of-� cials said they represented the most “credible” leads to date in the hunt for the plane and its 239 passengers and crew. 

Friday’s search concluded “without any sightings,” the Australian Mari-time Safety Authority (AMSA) said. in a statement.  The planes � ew low under the cloud cover rather than rely on ra-dar, after poor weather the day before hampered the search. 

“We replanned the search to be visu-

al, so aircraft � ying relatively low, with very highly skilled observers looking out of the windows,” said AMSA o� cial John Young. 

“This means aircraft operating more closely together and we will need more aircraft for this task.” 

Friday’s aerial contingent comprised three Australian air force P-3 Orions, a US Navy P-8 Poseidon and a civil Bom-bardier Global Express jet. 

The distance from the west coast of Australia allows the planes only about two hours of actual search time before they must turn around with enough fuel to get back to Perth. 

Two merchant ships were helping with the search, but Australia’s HMAS Success, which is capable of retrieving any wreckage, was still days away. 

“This is going to be a long haul,” Malaysian transport minister Hisham-muddin Hussein told a daily press brie� ng in Kuala Lumpur. 

Australian Prime Minister Tony Ab-bott, who � rst revealed the satellite im-ages in parliament, defended himself on Friday against suggestions he may have “jumped the gun.” 

“We owe it to the families and the friends and the loved ones ... to give them information as soon as it’s to hand,” he said. 

Abbott said he had spoken to Chi-nese President Xi Jinping who he described as “devastated” by the dis-appearance of MH370 and the 153 Chi-nese nationals on board. 

Malaysia has been criticised for its han-dling of the crisis, especially by Chinese relatives who have accused authorities and the � ag-carrier airline of providing insu� cient or misleading information. 

A delegation of Malaysian gov-ernment and military o� cials � ew to Beijing for what turned out to be a bad-tempered meeting with relatives. 

The event began with family mem-bers yelling at delegates to stand up when they were being introduced. 

“You have wasted so much time,” shouted one. The nature of the events that diverted MH370 from its intended � ight path on March 8 remain shrouded in mystery, although Malaysian inves-tigators have stuck to their assumption that it was the result of a “deliberate action” by someone on board. l

South Korea, Japan to hold summit with USn AFP, Seoul

South Korea and Japan said Friday that their leaders will hold a summit with US President Barack Obama next week, in a breakthrough after Wash-ington urged the pair to mend badly strained ties.

The meeting on the sidelines of an international nuclear conference tak-ing place in The Hague Monday and Tuesday will mark the � rst formal talks between President Park Geun-Hye and Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe since they took o� ce more than a year ago.

“The government has decided to take part in a three-way summit with the United States and Japan to be host-ed by the United States on the occasion of The Hague nuclear security sum-mit,” Seoul’s foreign ministry said in a statement.

“At the three-way summit, North Korea’s nuclear programmes and the issue of nuclear non-proliferation

will be discussed.”The Japanese foreign ministry con-

� rmed the plans, while Seoul said the pair were also consulting over possible talks between senior o� cials on Ja-pan’s use of Korean women in military brothels during World War II.

Although not a one-on-one encoun-ter, the talks are a signi� cant step for-ward as Park had repeatedly ruled out a summit with Abe until Tokyo demon-strates sincere repentance for “past wrongdoings.”

Relations between Seoul and Tokyo are at their lowest ebb for years, mired in emotive issues linked to Japan’s 1910-45 colonial rule and an island ter-ritorial dispute as well as its wartime use of so-called “comfort women.”

Recent surveys have shown that the Japanese leader is even more unpopu-lar with South Koreans than North Ko-rean supremo Kim Jong-Un.

Park has welcomed Abe’s pledge, saying she hopes it will pave the way for better bilateral ties. l

Iran’s Khamenei reiterates doubts about Holocaustn AFP, Tehran

Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Friday voiced doubts about the existence and scale of the Holocaust, questioning the West’s “red lines” on freedom of expression.

In Europe, “no one dares to speak of the Holocaust, the crux of which is not clear if it is true, or if it were, how it was,” Khamenei said in remarks broad-cast live from the northeastern city of Mashhad.

Khamenei, Iran’s top decision-mak-er, has repeatedly called Nazi Ger-many’s killing of sixm Jews a “myth” and said the historical record has been distorted.

President Hassan Rouhani, a self-de-clared moderate, has adopted a softer line, going so far as to condemn “the massacre of the Jews by the Nazis.”

In February, Foreign Minister Mo-hammad Javad Zarif irked hardliners in Tehran by describing the Holocaust as a “cruel tragedy which should never happen again.”

On Friday, Khamenei appeared to draw parallels between “red lines” in the West over discussion of the Holo-caust and Iran’s own policies regarding freedom of expression.

In his speech marking the Persian New Year, Khamenei called for “resis-tance” in the face of a “cultural inva-sion” targeting the Islamic state’s reli-gious beliefs.

“Expressing opinion about the Holo-caust, or casting doubt on it, is one of the greatest sins in the West. They prevent this, arrest the doubters, try them while claiming to be a free country,” he said.

“They passionately defend their red lines ... how do they expect us to over-look our red lines that are based on our revolutionary and religious beliefs,” he asked without elaborating.

Iran’s human rights record and its limits on free expression are routinely criticised by international organisa-tions and Western powers. l

Comission gives Maldives polls ‘go ahead‘n AFP, Malé, Maldives

The Maldivian elections commission said Friday it planned to go ahead with this weekend’s parliamentary polls despite the islands’ new president ex-pressing doubts over whether the vote can be conducted. President Abdulla Yameen told a public rally in the capi-tal island Male on Thursday night that a depleted Elections Commission may not be able to conduct the vote which is due to take place on Saturday.

The head of the commission and his deputy were both sacked last week for “disobeying” a Supreme Court order to

adjourn part of last year’s presidential election which was eventually won in November by Yameen.

In a rally on Thursday night, Yameen questioned whether the commission now had the ability to conduct a free and fair poll for the 85-seat parliament given that two of its � ve positions were now vacant.

“The commission barely meets the quorum (of three) to hold an election of such importance,” Yameen said on Thursday night.

An ally of the ruling party has also petitioned the Supreme Court seeking a postponement of Saturday’s vote, but the court has yet to announce its decision. l

A South Korean worker sets lotus lanterns at Jogye Temple in Seoul yesterday ahead of celebrations marking Buddha’s birthday on May 6. Buddhism is one of South Korea’s largest and most active religions withms of followers. Although the exact date is unknown, Buddha’s o� cial birthday is celebrated on April 8th of the lunar calendar in South Korea AFP

Jaswant Singh to go rebel as BJP denies Barmer ticketn Agencies

The Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) ticket troubles continued to haunt it on Fri-day after senior leader Jaswant Singh expressed his annoyance over not be-ing considered from Rajasthan’s Barm-er constituency and has indicated he “may even consider” contesting the Lok Sabha elections as an Independent.

The BJP’s refusal to give in to Singh’s demand comes a day after par-ty patriarch LK Advani accepted the party’s diktat on where he will contest the national election from after a 24-hour sulk.

Singh, according to reports, has reg-istered his protest to the party after it � elded Colonel Sonaram Chaudhary, who recently switched to the BJP from the Congress, from Barmer.

The MP from Darjeeling in West Bengal had expressed his desire to contest, what may be his last election, from the Barmer seat.

“He may even consider contesting the election as an Independent,” a se-nior state leader told IANS.

BJP leaders in Barmer have warned that they would resign if Sonaram is � elded.

They say that someone who has for long been with the Congress should not be � elded from Barmer as this will send a wrong message to the voters.

The Rajasthan BJP is facing dissi-dence from some senior leaders and workers after the party’s candidates for the Lok Sabha polls were announced.

For instance, Sumedhanand, the BJP candidate from Sikar, being op-posed by some sections who wanted the ticket for local leaders like Subhash Maharia or Hariram Ranwa.

“Some workers pelted stones at the cavalcade of Sumedhanand when he was on his way to his Piprali ashram from Bajore in Sikar yesterday (Thurs-day),” said a BJP leader in Sikar.

Supporters of Ranwa and Maharia held separate meetings with local lead-ers to register their protest.

A delegation of party workers will soon meet chief minister Vashundhara Raje to convey their opposition to the manner in which tickets have been distributed. l

Israel spy agency says eight Iranian Jews ‘murdered’ in 1990sn AFP Jerusalem

Israel’s spy agency Mossad has con-cluded eight Iranian Jews who had tried to emigrate to Israel in the 1990s were murdered en route, the prime minister’s o� ce said on Friday.

The announcement came as Iran marked the Persian New Year, and as Isra-el chided Western powers for negotiating with the Jewish state’s arch-foe Tehran.

Mossad “has brought to a conclu-sion the a� air regarding the Iranian Jews who have been missing since the 1990’s,” Benjamin Netanyahu’s o� ce

said in a statement.“Eight of the 11 families of Iranian

Jews who went missing in the 1990’s received noti� cation from the Intelli-gence and Heritage Commemoration Center that their loved ones were mur-dered while en route to immigrating to Israel,” it said. Netanyahu’s o� ce gave no details of where the suspected mur-ders were to have taken place, and did not directly point the � nger at the Ira-nian government.

The statement came as Israel con-tinued to criticise Western powers for negotiating with Iran over its nuclear

programme, which the West alleges is aimed at building an atomic bomb – a charge Tehran denies.

Israel’s Defence Minister Moshe Yaalon on Tuesday charged that while the world powers know Iran “cheats,” Westerners “prefer to put o� confron-tation, if possible to next year, or the next president.”

Israel has refused to rule out a uni-lateral military strike against Iran.

And Israel last week intercepted a ship it said was carrying Iranian weap-ons to the Gaza Strip, in a highly-publi-cised media campaign. l

A Buddhist monk who joined Thai anti-government protesters reads a newspaper at Lumpini park in downtown in Bangkok on March 21 AFP

Afghan security o� cials display weapons and other items used by the teenage attackers in the overnight Serena Hotel attack during a press conference in Kabul on March 21 AFP

CELEBRATING BUDDHA

Not a cultural hijackMarch 16

MrBangladeshI will give you a cricketing reason why it was wrong. India hasn’t invited Bangladesh to play cricket in India, despite being our neighbouring country. And if we were going to showcase Hindi songs, we should have showcased some songs in other languages as well. Nothing to do with bigotry or hatred.

matthewislam MrBangladesh: Thank you for reading my op-ed. What you mention is wrong and we all should be raising our voice against such blatant exclusionism but I can see the issue of entertainment and sport separately and as such won’t tag both with each other. I also believe that if India doesn’t allow us to broadcast our channels in their country, regardless of demand, then we should do the same. They do, however, let our performers perform in their nation and accord them respect, appreciation and space and we should perhaps accord the same to them.

The problem is deeper than what it leads onto generally. We have a general love and acceptance for and comfort with Hindi and to automatically seek the same level of understanding from their nation without a concerted effort to take our language to them all over India, in a form that’s easy to swallow just like they did with Hindi worldwide, is illogical. To exclude fully on that basis is also quite drastic at least to me and everyone is entitled to their own opinions.

MrBangladesh matthewislam: When have you seen them allow our performers at the international stage? Locally, maybe yes. I have no problem with Shahrukh Khan, AR Rahman performing in Radisson and all the other hotspots in Dhaka. We have a far general acceptance of the English language. Yes the problem is deeper and the politics of AL and BNP/Jamaat ties into Indo/Pak favouritism and all that. Long story short, we are Bangladeshi, let’s have some pride in our culture and celebrate our culture when we can. How long are we going to be

just happy to live in someone else’s shadow? This comment has nothing to do with hatred towards India or anybody. I would have said the same thing had it been Atif Aslam performing in Urdu rather than AR Rahman in Hindi.

TakiI strongly disagree. I think they are stealing our show and, most importantly, in such an occasion when you have the opportunity to showcase your culture to the rest of the world, why be the loser!?!

ndsI am in agreement with the author’s views. Taste of culture can never be an imposition. If the people like and enjoy the performances of artists from India or any other country, then they can’t be either criticised or deterred from enjoying that by force or by insinuation, particularly in a globalised world culture . I am more than sure those who are criticising the Indian artists’ performances are doing that not because they did not enjoy it but because they have an inbuilt dislike for India on political grounds. What matters is the standard of performances for which our artists, like Bannaya and Runa Laila, are equally popular in India.

Dhaka FeraoonPeople are angry because of cultural aggression by India, which help enable its hegemony. Sure, these people make mountains out of molehills; that’s true too. The logic put forward against having Indian artists are almost always faulty. But the resentment is not. And that is why this article also fails to identify the issue.

matthewislamDhaka Feraoon: I actually agree that I failed to include that there is true resentment amongst our people against India and the dislike for this ceremo-ny has a lot to do with that. I also � nd that we don’t hold the ability to reconcile our ill-feelings and an entertainment program.

No place in the market for adulterated foodA new report by Transparency International notes that some

government o� cials are taking bribes in exchange for giving approvals to adulterated food products.

It is shameful that this practice is allowed to take place and that public o� cials are involved.

Health and consumer concerns about adulterated food have had a high pro� le in recent years, so it is scandalous that not more is being done to crack down on o� cials who collude with corrupt producers and dealers to facilitate improper practices.

This is in marked contrast to the prompt call issued by poultry industry association leaders this week, to urge the shutdown of factories that have been found to be producing toxic feed using tannery waste.

Yet, individuals ranging from Health Department sanitary inspectors to food retailers are reported to be party to a corrupt nexus permitting adulterated food to be produced and sold. Field o� cers from BSTI responsible for inspecting food factories were among those reported to be taking bribes.

This shameful practice cannot be allowed to continue with such impunity. Not only does it risk public health and shortchange the consumer, but public trust and con� dence is undermined by o� cials whose job it is to uphold basic standards.

Citizens expect the government to show zero tolerance for any practices that allow the market to be contaminated with adulterated food.

These practices must be stopped and corrupt o� cials weeded out. There is no place in the market for impure food.

Stop the attacks against CHT women

In the � rst three months of this year alone, there were 10 rapes and attempted rapes and two murders of women from indigenous minority groups in the CHT region.Shockingly, a few of these cases involved children, and in some

instances where perpetrators were identi� ed and apprehended, there are reports of perpetrators being released by informal or illegal means, via the payment of bribes or cursory � nes.

We are concerned that the number of incidents of sexual violence against minority women in Bangladesh is growing and in many cases, going unpunished. This represents a massive failure of law and order which must be addressed immediately.

Home ministry statistics indicate that out of 57 such cases � led by indigenous women in the year from 2010-2011, not a single verdict was pronounced punishing the o� enders.

That such heinous crimes can be neglected by our state is extremely distressing. Women from indigenous minority groups already endure discrimination. If there are patterns found of them being targeted for physical or sexual violence, then law enforcers have a duty to properly investigate this and to act to prevent it taking place.

The government needs to play a greater role in putting a stop to violence against women in CHT.

Every citizen is part of our community, and must have their rights protected equally by the state.

If the police and judicial system are not adequately protecting vulnerable groups, the government must act to ensure law enforcers do their duty.

Editorial10

www.dhakatribune.com

DHAKA TRIBUNE Saturday, March 22, 2014

LETTER OF THE DAY

CALVIN AND HOBBES

PEANUTS

Letters to the Editor

Govt’s billboard hogging frustrates advertisersMarch 18It also frustrates the public, believe it or not!

Sumi

Every citizen must have their rights protected equally by the state

Citizens expect zero tolerance for any practices that allow the market to be contaminated

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The poorest PM in the worldMarch 17

The PM of Nepal is the poorest PM in the world. He was living in a simple home, rented and paid for by his party, before he came to power, and even in a leadership capacity, he continued to lead a simple life. He has no property, like land, house, investments, ornaments etc. He has only two cell phones.

On the other hand, what about our present party leaders? Seems to be a far di� erent situation. The public wants to know just how much property the present cabinet members, lawmakers and upazila chairmen have.

Israr Istiaque Ist

Mahathir: Wait until next pollsMarch 16This is hilarious. And too surreal to make sense of. Mr Mahathir Mohammad, of all people, a ruthless unreconstructed autocrat in his time, dishing out his gems of wisdom on “democra-cy,” of all things. Easy to preach such platitudes when one is no longer held to account. Mr Ma-hathir will be glad to know that his self-serving counterfeit democracy in Malaysia for 22 years is an approach that has been avidly adopted by the incumbent regime and his hosts, today I suspect he has no scheduled meeting with the BNP Chairperson. Oh well, she can do without such condescending counsel.

Ronnie

Crossword

Sudoku

CROSSWORD YESTERDAY’S SOLUTIONS

ACROSS1 Coastal vessel (4)6 Forefront (3)7 Untidy state (4)9 Bearing (4)10 Nettle rash (5)11 Allude (5)12 Also (3)14 Stair handrail post (5)17 Corners (5)20 Land measure (3)21 Famous (5)23 Conductor’s wand (5)25 Border (4)26 Mine entrance (4)27 Sick (3)28 Transmit (4)

DOWN1 Chinese boat (6)2 Carry to excess (6)3 Decline in power (4)4 Speed an engine (3)5 Donkey (3)7 Deep mud (4)8 Cut o� (5)10 Female bird (3)13 Wanderer (5)15 Walk like a duck (6)16 Traditional story (6)18 Marine unit of speed (4)19 Male o� spring (3)22 Slippery catches (4)23 Sporting item (3)24 Gratuity (3)

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

SUDOKU

11Op-Ed Saturday, March 22, 2014DHAKA TRIBUNE

n Quazi Zulquarnain Islam

Amidst the euphoria of Bangla-desh’s comprehensive triumphs over Afghanistan and Nepal

in the T20 World Cup, two small inci-dents run the risk of being completely overlooked. The more galling of them took place during the second ball of the 16th over on Tuesday.

With one run needed for victory, Shakib Al Hasan plonked the Nepalese Sagar Pun down to long-on for what should have been an easy single. But even as non-striker Sabbir Rahman shu� ed down the track to complete a routine win over Nepal, Shakib turned him back. Sabbir was surprised, so was the whole Nepal contingent and also the commentators. Shakib, they con-cluded, wanted to end this with a big one. Rameez Raza called it “extreme self-con� dence” and Shakib duly showcased such by hoisting the next delivery over the long-on boundary.

In the immediate aftermath, people reveled in his “cheek” and “� air” but Shakib’s overt taunt at the consid-erably weaker opponents made me uncomfortable and seemed unprofes-sional, arrogant, and obnoxious.

For metaphor’s sake, Shakib refus-ing the single to win the match when the opportunity presented itself is the footballing equivalent of a team inten-tionally spurning a goal-scoring oppor-tunity because the opponent is already well-beaten. It showcases neither � air, nor cheek, but a lack of professional ethics when playing the game. As professionals you are required to take every single opportunity that comes your way and do so to the best of your ability; imagine if Cristiano Ronaldo passed up the chance to score tap-ins against Granada because he wanted to score belters instead. An act as brazen as this shows a distinct lack of respect towards your opponents.

Taken in isolation, Shakib’s incident could even be overlooked as a one-

o� (in a lengthy series of one-o� s), but coming on the heels of Anamul Haque’s three ball defensive act before � nishing with a � urry against Afghan-istan, it seems that the Tigers are out to put their lowly opponents in their place. And please no half-hearted net run rate excuses.

In truth, there is nothing to celebrate in this. Imagine if an Australian or an Indian had done the same to us during one of their many comprehensive victories over us – how would our avid fan following have reacted then? Im-agine if Sri Lanka had decided to forget about winning the Test match with the series already secured and piled on to score a thousand runs against us, in one of the many Tests that we have struggled in. Or answer this, would someone like Shakib or Anamul have the gall to do this same against a Paki-stan or a South Africa?

In a sporting world where toe-ing the line is increasingly seen as a down-market trend, someone should tell the increasingly conceited Bang-ladeshi players that there is nothing particularly wrong with understanding or practicing humility. In fact, some-times, it might even be professional to do so. l

Quazi Zulquarnain Islam is a freelance sports writer.

n Esam Sohail

Thanks to a misguided burst of emotionalism born of sincere nationalism, Bang-ladesh failed an entire gen-eration of youth who could

nary put together a coherent sentence in proper English in the spoken or written formats.

In the quarter century between independence and the mid-90s, the war on English was raged with zeal by popularity-seeking demagogues and self-congratulatory intellectuals whose own children, for the record, remained comfortably ensconced in elite English medium schools at home or the board-ing schools across the verdant North Indian hill regions.

By the time the then government allowed the tepid re-introduction of English as a medium of instruction in a limited number of public schools in the early 1990s, the damage had been done – unlike any other generation before, Bangladeshi students going abroad were more likely than not to spend semesters in remedial English classes, call centres were coming to India, Pakistan, and the Philippines where the medium of instruction is mostly English, and only one � edgling English-language publishing house was left standing.

Far from the times of the 1960s when Bengalis were often found in prestigious global journalism positions, most of Dhaka’s own English dailies were re� ections of the utterly poor state of the language in our society.

Fortunately, things have slowly changed for the better, thanks to globalisation, an occasionally commonsensical government decision, and bold initiatives by the private sector which has picked up the lion’s share of the burden of English-medium education at every level from primary instruction to graduate school.

Yet, the demons of cheap emotional-ism are hardly quiet. Not content with leading bizarrely comical crusades against English lettering on commercial signboards and English words in liter-ary journals, these denizens of cultural chauvinism are making even greater rumblings to push back the clock.

Not a month goes by without some minister or his bureaucratic sidekick wanting to impose state controls on private sector education; few seminars attended by the cultural types are free from the obligatory bemoaning of the loss of native heritage in the evolving private higher education sector.

Left to their own devices, these self-selected guardians of culture and heritage would like nothing more to

bring back the erstwhile state of things when only the super-rich and the well-connected could a� ord to provide their children with a modern education worthy of the world of today. If you don’t believe me, take a closer look at the current cabinet itself: Chances are that at least half the members have children who were sent abroad to get the � rst class education that these min-

isters would deny to others.  The truth is, that for developing

countries – unlike the developed ones like Korea or Japan – a mastery of the English language is one of the few readily available tools for mass advancement in the economy of tomorrow. India, Pakistan, Malaysia, and Singapore know it all too well. In fact, in Pakistan’s most backward tribal heartlands, a conservative government just decreed that English was to be-come the parallel language of instruc-tion starting next year.

Whether we like it or not, English as a mere subject is simply not going to cut it anymore. And regardless of the pride we feel at the United Nations cel-ebrating a Mother Language Day, the

only language that matters in terms of commerce and prosperity is that of Shakespeare and Milton.

Even in Bangladesh’s domestic economy, it is quite common today to see job opportunity advertisements openly seeking applicants with a foreign degree and an English-medium tertiary education. Those lucrative jobs in the private sector should not be the preserves only of the well-o� and well-connected.

At the very least, the sniping against private sector education has got to stop. If anything, a sitting government of the day can do much better by the people by slowly instituting a parallel track of English-medium instruction alongside the existing vernacular one at all the public schools greater than a certain enrollment size.

If a government wants to go the extra mile in harnessing Bangladesh into the 21st century information paradigm, then the wise thing to do would be to get rid of all the restrictions – tari� and otherwise – on the import of books and periodicals from abroad.

Bangladesh does the motherland or mother tongue no favours by imposing a false notion of linguistic purity on her people who, as a result, get cut o� from a modern world where business is done, information is exchanged, and decisions are made overwhelmingly in English. l

Esam Sohail is an educational research analyst and college lecturer of social sciences. He writes from Kansas, USA.

n AZM Manzoor Rashid and Niaz Ahmed Khan

Swamp forests around the world play a pivotal role in maintaining biodiversity, sustaining liveli-

hood, and nourishing the ecosystem of wetlands. The Asia-Paci� c region – particularly Australia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam, Papua New Guin-ea, and countries of Africa – are still endowed with swamp forests to a var-ying degree. These precious resources act as a harbor (spawning ground) of rich fresh water species of � sh, and a repository of a number of non-tim-ber forest products. Bangladesh too is blessed with both saltwater and freshwater swamp forests. Although the state of most of these forests is somewhat dismal, they still continue to remain a vital source of � oral and faunal diversity and livelihood for local communities.

Bangladesh’s freshwater swamp forests demand special attention and signi� cance due to their unique characteristics in maintaining wetland biodiversity. The Ratargul Swamp For-est – popularly dubbed as the Sundar-ban of the East – has, of late, received heightened public and media attention on the country’s paramount freshwa-ter swamp forest. Notwithstanding the

controversy amongst concerned sci-entists regarding whether Ratargul is a natural swamp forest or an arti� cially created one, the forest has moved to centre stage of our interest and atten-tion in the recent months.

Located some 45 kilometer away from the Sylhet city centre, towards the north-west, the Ratargul For-est falls within the administrative jurisdiction of the Goainghat Upazila in Sylhet. The management of the forest is under purview of the North Sylhet Range of the Sylhet Forest Division. Inundated and nourished by the freshwater streams of the Goain River (locally called Chenger Khal) and its tributaries, Ratargul has created a unique wetland ecosystem.

Ratargul’s ecosystem is enriched with wetland plants, mammals, avifauna, and reptiles. A recent study enumerated 74 plants species, 9 am-phibians, 20 reptiles, 26 mammals, and 175 birds (including migratory ones) in the locality. The forest ecosystem is also supporting the habitat of numer-ous freshwater � sh species.

The proposed plan of the Forest Department for declaring Ratargul as a “wildlife sanctuary” has prompted some debate amongst environmental activists. One major concern is that the launch of such a governmental

facility may pave the way for bringing in a host of actors and interventions (notably physical infrastructure con-struction, unregulated � ow of tourists, a variety of commercial operators) into the locality, which may seriously jeop-ardise the biodiversity and ecosystem values of this forest.

Based on a recent study tour arranged by the Forestry and Environ-mental Science Department, Shahjalal Science and Technology University (SUST), and selected consultation with key stakeholders, we have attempted to contemplate on some remedial measures towards conservation and sustenance of the country’s only fresh water swamp forest.

To protect the biodiversity, and to give adequate room for sustaining the current status of Ratargul Swamp For-est, a combination of short, medium, and long-term ameliorative measures may be considered.

Short-termImmediate rationalisation and restrictions on tourist access to the forest until further notice; the recent uncontrolled � ux of tourists seems to be seriously a� ecting the health of the forest.

More care, sensitivity and thoughts need to go in devising an appropri-

ate policy for the media to report on Ratargul.

Mass awareness programs should be undertaken among the locals living in and around the forest to inform them about the current fragile status of the forest and the importance of conserving swamp forest biodiversity for their existence.

Mid-termA comprehensive biodiversity status assessment survey should be carried out, which may help practitioners, managers and policy makers in devel-oping management plans for Ratargul forest.

The Forest Department should stop leasing out patipata and cane to expe-dite the regeneration and conservation

process since the amount of revenue generating through this leasing system is very nominal.

Tending operations (cleaning, de-branching assist regeneration) should be carried out on a regular basis to create room for natural regeneration particularly in monsoon.

Selection of species in planting that are suitable for the existing ecosystem

and can also be a source of food for the animal, particularly monkeys.

Long-termThere should be the development of a comprehensive management plan, which involves the Forest Department, academia, researchers, local commu-nity and other stakeholders.

Infrastructural development should

be at its minimum in order to maintain the original and pristine characteristics of the forest.

The Forest Department should concentrate in improving the existing status of � oral and faunal diversity through adopting biodiversity enrich-ment program.

Taking lessons on best practices from neighbouring countries could be helpful while devising our own man-agement plan.

Sustainability of Ratargul forest will largely depend on appropriate policy, an inclusive decision-making process, and the e� ective mode of community engagement in the governance of the forest. We have to be judicious and selective in undertaking any develop-ment e� orts in order to give top priority on biodiversity protection that, in the long run, may open up many vistas of opportunities for the local communities – including eco-tourism. Ratargul repre-sents a part of our solemn heritage, and we must do our best to conserve this precious gift of nature. l

AZM Manzoor Rashid is Associate Professor, Department of Forestry and Environmental Science, Shahjalal University of Science and Technology. Niaz Ahmed Khan is Chairman and Professor, Department of Development Studies, University of Dhaka.

The war on English

A precious gift from nature

In a digital world, can we a� ord to underestimate the importance of English? BIGSTOCK

Someone should tell the increasingly conceited Bangladeshi players that there is nothing particularly wrong with humility

Freshwater swamp forests demand special attention due to their unique characteristics in maintaining wetland biodiversity

Bangladesh does the motherland or mother tongue no favours by imposing a false notion of linguistic purity on her people

Much ado about a single

AFP

EntertainmentDHAKA TRIBUNE Saturday, March 22, 201412

FilmEnders Game Avatar 3DAakash Koto Dure Thor: The Dark World 3D The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug in 3D , Frozen in 3D AgneeTime: 10am - 10pmStar Cineplex, Bashundhara City

Robocop, GravityCaptain Phillips, ElysiumTime: 12:30pm – 9:30pmBlockbuster CinemasJamuna Future Park

Exhibition Sculpture ExhibitionBy Hamiduzzaman KhanTime: 10am – 8pmAthena Gallery of Fine Arts, Progoti Shoroni, Uttar Badda

Collected ArtworkTime: 11am – 8pmNational Art GalleryBangladesh Shilpakala AcademyShegun Bagicha

Neel Megher KabboBy Mahbubul HaqueTime: 8am – 11:59pmBronia Cafe & GalleryRichamond Concord (2nd Floor)68, Gulshan Avenue, Gulshan-1

I Bow My Head to You in Deep ObeisanceBy Shahid KabirTime: 12pm – 8pmBengal Shilpalaya, House 42Road 16 (New) / 27 (old)Dhanmondi

TODAY IN DHAKA

ON TVMOVIE9:30pm HBOStep Up Revolution11 :30pm Star MoviesJurassic Park 2

DRAMA9:30pm Star PlusDiya Aur Bati Hum8:30pm ColorsBalika Vadhu

COMEDY2:30pm Comedy CentralKing of Queens11:30pm Star WorldThe Crazy Ones

MISC10:30am TLCObsession: Dark Desires6:30pm AXNThe Voice

Remembering mime maestro Marcel MarceauPartha Pratim Majumder cherishes memories with the legend on his 91st birthdayn Punny Kabir

Today is the 91st birthday of mime legend Marcel Marceau, who referred to mime as the “art of silence,” and performed profes-sionally worldwide for over 60 years. Partha Pratim Majumder, the forerunner of mime art in Bangladesh, recalls his time with the greatest mime maestro who was his friend, philosopher, and guide all the way from the time they � rst met in 1982 until Marceau’s death in 2007.

Marceau is considered as the father of French mime, with whom Majumder worked for over 18 hours a day from 1982 to 1985. After spending three years with his idol Marceau, he staged solo performances all over Europe and the USA.

In close conversation with Dhaka Tri-bune, Partha, one of the few acclaimed ar-tistes who make the Bangladeshis proud in the international arena, reveals an inter-esting story about how he met Marceau: “I went to France with a scholarship on mime, and with the dream to work with the great-est artiste of mime. It took me eight months to get glance of him. I � rst saw him live in a solo performance. The two and half hours performance left me mesmerised as I felt I saw a 3D � lm. After the performance he was giving autographs to his fans at his caravan. I ran to him with a brochure of one my ear-lier performances at Shilpakala Academy. I don’t know why, but he expressed curiosi-ty about me, and asked whether I was from India. I told him I was hailing from Bangla-desh, but he had no idea about the existence of our country. But he admired me as a

mime artist and asked me to meet him at his o� ce. On the brochure he wrote something in French and gave his autograph. I felt like all my dreams have already become true. But, a lot more was waiting for me.

“One � ne day, all dressed up with exhila-ration like never before, I managed to reach his place. First day he asked me to show some basic movements of mime, and with extreme nervousness I could manage to show those. He appreciated it, and gradual-ly he started to give me special attention as I had shown my ultimate respect and dedi-cation to him,” he added.

A nostalgic Partha said: “He trusted me so much that several times, he asked me to take care of his money bag. I was always

welcome at his home. I cannot count how many nights I stayed there. Even when he was seriously ill and was admitted in a hos-pital, I was the only person Marceau wanted to have as company.

“Marcel Marceau is my idol, my mentor and my guru who made me what I am to-day. I got many awards and recognition in my life but the best thing I got in life is that I could mingle with such a great artist who called me his ‘son.’”

These days, the Bangladeshi born “Mas-ter of Mime” is reigning in Europe, howev-er, his heart seems to have never left his beloved country. The mime artist hopes to develop an institute in Dhaka to train up professional mime artistes. l

Mahadeb Ghose to perform todayn Entertainment Desk

A musical evening by Mahadeb Ghose will take place at the Indira Gandhi Cultural Centre’s Gulshan premises today at 6:30pm.

Born in 1960, Mahadev Ghose is an accomplished singer of Rabindra Sangeet. He has learned music from renowned gurus such as late Abdul Ahad, late Ustad Fazlul Haque, and Omar Faruque. Ghose has complet-ed a certi� cate course on Rabindra Sangeet from Bul-bul Academy of Fine Arts (BAFA), where he presentlyworks as a senior teacher in the Rabindra Sangeetdepartment.

Ghose is enlisted as a special grade singer in Bangla-desh Television (BTV) and Bangladesh Betar. He has also performed for several private TV channels in Ban-gladesh and India such as Channel i, NTV, ATN Bangla and Tara Music. He has released two music albums titled Amar Hiyar Majhe and Amar Praner Manush Ache Prane and was honoured with the award Podokkhep Bangla-desh in 2011 during the celebrations marking the 40th Anniversary of Bangladesh’s independence.

Mahadev Ghose has performed at several prestigious events in Bangladesh and has held important posts in di� erent organisations such as Bangladesh Sangeet San-gathan Samonnay Parisad and Bangladesh Rabindra Sangeet Shilpi Songstha. He has performed in several concerts in Indian states such as Assam, Paschimbanga, Bihar and Tripura. He has also performed in Kuwait and Australia. He established Rabirashmi – a Rabindra San-geet organisation in 1998. l

Partha with Marceau

n Hasan Mansoor Chatak

A generalised aphorism exists in the world of arts that eastern arts are generally based on lines com-paring to the west’s vibrant colours and colour based forms. The half-true cliché is eradicated to some extent by the modern artists of the region. The contemporary eastern artworks are combined

with lines and vibrant colours which can be seen in artworks by a native artist blending the local art genre.

In vibrant colours and out of the ordinary lines, natural beauty and � gures are imagina-tively illustrated by artist Samar Majumder in the solo art exhibition titled Soil and Spirit that started from March 19 at the Dhaka Art Center, Dhanmondi.

This is the � rst solo exhibition of the artist who garnered fame around the country for book cover designs and illustrations. He is a designer at the design-centre of Bangladesh Small and Cottage Industry Corporation.

Alongside his designing job, he continues paint-ing, which is his true passion. The exhibition com-prises di� erent acrylic and mixed mediums of 70 artworks which will continue till March 25.

Samar Majumder emphasised his works through the traditional, millennium the surviving beauty of Bengal and lifestyle of the inhabitants. Framers’ working in the � eld, � shermen � shing

in the river, wandering of the bird- seller, the pro-cessing of paddy and crops, painting designs in the yards of rural households, and embroidered quilt by the rural women are depicted by Samar’s brush. A series of artworks titled 1971 comprising three artworks are also installed in the exhibition which depicts the killing and execution by the Pakistani army and local collaborators during the liberation war.

Immerse Thyself is another series of artworks and the most exclusive in a way that the artist’s imagination with the country’s land, beauty, peo-ple and folklore are illustrated in an enhanced manner. Samar’s latent artist mind magni� cently portrays the artist perspective and people.

Samar started painting in his early childhood, completed his � ne arts studies from the Fine Arts Institute of Dhaka University. For the past three decades he has been working on book cover designs and illustrations. He garnered the best cover designer award from National Book Center six times. l

Samar Majumder’s canvas of the soil and people

The Legend of Hercules in 3D at Star Cineplexn Entertainment Desk

Star Cineplex brings the action and adventure hollywood movie titled The Legend of Hercules in 3D. It is one of the two Hollywood-studio Her-cules � lms scheduled for 2014, with Paramount Pictures and MGM’s Her-cules: The Thracian Wars. The � lm re-ceived negative reviews from critics ; yet has become a box o� ce bomb.

Directed by Renny Harlin and co-written by Harlin with Daniel Giat, Giulio Steve, and Sean Hood. The � lm stars Kellan Lutz, Gaia Weiss, Scott

Adkins, Roxanne McKee, and Liam Garrigan.

The movie potrays origin of Hercu-les, mythical Greek hero, son of Zeus, a half-god, half-man blessed with ex-traordinary strength. Betrayed by his stepfather, the King, and exiled and sold into slavery because of a forbid-den love, Hercules must use his for-midable powers to � ght his way back to his rightful kingdom. Through har-rowing battles and gladiator-arena death matches, Hercules embarks on a legendary odyssey to overthrow the king and restore peace to the land.l

US government urges Disney to delay release of Muppets Most Wantedn Entertainment Desk

The United States government called on Walt Disney Pictures to delay or cancel the release of Muppets Most Wanted on national security grounds. Or at least, it should have. Not only might this movie annoy Russia, with whom the American government is already nose-to-nose over Crimea, but it could also cause any European allies being courted b y President Obama

to unfriend him and

the rest of the country.The � lm, a music-� lled follow-up to the

2011 hit The Muppets, lands poor Kermit in a gulag in Siberia, which is depicted just as un� atteringly as gulags in Siberia always are. Vladimir V Putin is unlikely to be amused. But the real concern, in terms of America’s international relations, is its sly skewering of its European allies, whose work habits, vacation-taking and such are mocked relent-lessly.

In the story, the gang, drunk on the suc-cess of the 2011 movie, signs on for a world tour with a shifty promoter named Domi-nic Badguy (Ricky Gervais). Dominic is in

cahoots with Constantine, a crim-inal frog who bears a striking

resemblance to Kermit. The two work a mistaken-identity trick that lands Kermit in the gulag and allows Constan-

tine to take his place on the Muppet world tour. The

Muppet stage shows in various European cities become a tool in a com-

plex scheme by Domi-nic and Constantine to steal the crown jewels in Britain. l

n Entertainment Desk

George RR Martin, author of the popular fantasy story Game of Thrones, has hinted that the book may head to the big screen in the future. Currently, the book has been adapted by HBO for its popular hit series of the same name.

Game of Thrones fourth season of the HBO series is set to debut soon. The story revolves

around a number of noble families � ghting for the legendary throne.

According to the Hollywood Reporter, Martin has said that the prospect of adapting the Game of Thrones into movie franchise is being actively discussed.

Martin added that adaptation of the books into movies will depend on how long the main series runs on HBO. According to him, the books get bigger and bigger in scope and

hence, it may require a feature to tie things up with a feature budget.

The author also added that there is also an-other possibility that a movie could be made on Tales of Dunk and E� , which is a series of three prequel novels.

Martin has already written these three stories which could be the basis for the movie. He has a dozen more in his kitty as of now. l

Game of Thrones may end with a movie

13DHAKA TRIBUNESaturday, March 22, 2014

Sport 1414 Serena, Sharapova tested but triumphant

Pirlo puts Juventus in last eight with Ben� ca, Porto

15 Du Plessis counting on momentum

Did you know?

Netherland’s 19 sixes against Ireland are

most in T20I innings, passing Australia’s

18 v England in August 2013. The 27

sixes in this game are the most in a

T20I, passing the 24 between NZ & India

in Feb 2009

LED WICKETSFor the � rst time in the ICC World T20, proper Led wickets were in used in the India-Pakistan match yesterday. Created by South Australian manufacturer Zing International, the wickets will be called Zing Wicket System. The Zing wickets will come � tted with LED. The bails will also have an in-built sensor than can deter-mine if a wicket is broken, in just 1/1000 of a second. The wickets illuminated on a number of occasions yesterday.

SPIDER CAMThe spider cam roamed all over the � eld and in all angles as per the control of the producer but once it came down so low that it was thought that it might have been hit by the ball. Pulled by strings attached in the four corners of the � eld, the spider cam caught the views all over the pitch.

ROARING TIGERS EXHALE SMOKEThe DJ zone situated over the Grand-stand was decorated with the two tiger heads and the colours of its eyes some-times turned red and green. Moreover, after the fall of a wicket or after a big hit, it exhaled smoke, adding a di� erent taste of entertainment for the spectators.

FIREWORKS COLOUR THE SKYAdding a new dimension in the World T20 at Dhaka, � reworks exploded after the fall of any wicket and after the batsmen had hit a four or six. The sound of explosion had some added entertainment. 

–Raihan Mahmood

COLOURFUL SBNS

Old enough for T20?

Twenty20 cricket is all about excite-ment and entertainment. A game that takes rapid twists and turns, a game that sometimes takes more out of you than a � ve-day Test would. Who are the enter-tainers? Well one would assume it’s the job of the young bloods hitting fours and sixes and diving around, but is it really?

In this � fth edition of the ICC World Twenty20 in Bangladesh, there are 70 players aged 30 or above and that in-cludes four players above 40 years. Though it is a format of great intensity, the teams that have more players of the above age range are actually the favou-rites to lift the trophy.

Australia, one of the leading con-tenders of the glory, has nine, the most, players aged 30 or above starting with the three Brads – Hogg (43), Hodge (39)

and Haddin (36). South Africa and UAE stand second in the list with eight “old” players each, while Khurram Khan, the latter’s captain, is 42.

Champions of 2009 Pakistan, the current holders West Indies and Sri Lan-ka have six players each while the latter has four key men over 36 (TM Dilshan, Jayawardene, Sangakkara and Herath).

New Zealand has � ve, Ireland and Netherlands have four, while India, England and Hong Kong have three each. It should be mentioned Hong Kong’s 40-year-old Munir Dar played a crucial hand of 36 for their historic win over Bangladesh a couple days back.

Like the � rst and second alphabet of the table, Afghanistan and Bangladesh has one and two players over 30. The unique feat however goes to Nepal who are the only team not to have a player over 30. l

A contest to savo ur

The India-Pakistan cricket rivalry has al-ways been something cricket fans, regard-less of nationality, can enjoy. Even the match between these

two sides played at a neutral venue like Bangladesh has fans going crazy and sometimes, it goes past the madness of the Indian and Pakistani fans.

One can ask why the craze of an Indo-Pak match in a country like Ban-gladesh, who are now one of the Test playing nations, is so intense. The an-swer would be the heritage and history between these two countries, which is somehow connected to Bangladesh,

and the madness about the two na-tion’s rivalry was one of the most inter-esting battles even before Bangladesh started playing international cricket.

Yesterday’s curtain raiser of the World T20 Championship was something a cricket fan would dream of because an India- Pakistan match as the opening game of a tournament in a cricket loving country is something special.

Around 25,000 were at the Sher-e-Bangla National Stadium to witness the epic battle while millions all over the world watched it on TV and cheered for their favorite side.

Abdul Hamid, who is a middle aged service holder, planned to witness the match between India-Pakistan almost two months earlier as he is a big fan of MS Dhoni and the Indian team. He said

that he wants to be a part of history, witnessing the match of these two side from the stadium.

“You never get the opportunity to witness a cricket match between India and Pakistan in Bangladesh and more importantly in the World Cup. I have planned to watch the match almost two months back and luckily I man-aged the ticket and here I am watch-ing my hero Dhoni right in front of my eyes,” he said.

However, to witness a cricket battle between India and Pakistan one really does not need to be a fan of either side. It is the intensity and the competitive-ness of the contest that for almost two decades enthralls cricket fans.

Afzal Ahmed, a businessman who is naturally a big fan of the Bangladesh

cricket team, went to witness the India-Pakistan match yesterday. He informed that an Indo-Pak cricket match is like a Brazil- Argentina football match and if it is a World Cup match, it just adds the cherry on the top for a sports fan.

“From my heart, I will always sup-port Bangladesh whoever we play against but as a sports lover I also want to watch an India- Pakistan match and if it is on a platform like World Cup which we are hosting then why should I miss the battle? Oh yes, I forgot to mention that I am a huge fan of Shahid Afridi,” he said.

There is no doubt that an India- Pakistan match will always get the cen-tre of attraction even if it is played at a neutral venue. The intensity and the crowd will always remain the same. l

The India and Pakistan cricket teams line up before the start of their ICC World Twenty20 tournament Group 2 cricket match at The Sher-e-Bangla National Cricket Stadium in Dhaka yesterday AFP

Chittagong curtain raisers today

The Super 10 games of the ICC World Twen-ty20 2014 in Chit-tagong will begin with two Group 1 matches today. In the after-noon � xture, world’s

number one Twenty20 side Sri Lanka will lock horns with world’s number one Test playing nation South Africa. While in the evening, the ICC World Twenty20 2009 champions England will take on New Zealand. Both the games will be held at Zahur Ahmed Chowdhury Stadium (ZACS) nestled in the port-city.

 Sri Lanka v South AfricaThe afternoon game at ZACS will see two top teams of di� erent formats of cricket battle for a good start to the multi-nation event. South Asian giants Sri Lanka are the likely favorites in the game against an injury-hit South Africa side for the reason that it had spent a little more than a month in Bangladesh and that the host country has a good fan base to support their back.

  The Lankans according to their captain Dinesh Chandimal will eye to trap South Africa with the spin attack led by Ajantha Mendis, Sachithra Sen-nanayeka and Rangana Herath, who is said to have good plans in the game against the Proteas batting. However

the side will need to assess the wickets which are not typical for Chittagong.

 South Africa came into the tourna-ment with a 2-0 defeat to Australia but gained some momentum by winning both of the warm-up games. However the side will look more into getting the injury issues solved before they head into the very important � xture.

  The side will conduct � tness tests on Dale Steyn and the captain, Faf du Plessis. Both players are attempting to recover from hamstring injuries. 

Du Plessis informed that the side is working hard on � tness and that they currently seemed to be doing � ne but a � nal call will be made just before the game. Du Plessis has been batting in the nets but still had some discomfort while running. Steyn bowled on Friday but at a little o� top pace, ahead of a full-tilt session in the morning.

 England v New ZealandTaking the recent results in the Twen-ty20 format, England will be going into the game against New Zealand without much to boost. The side lost both the warm-up game after the bowling de-partment failed to restrict India with a below par score and then in the sec-ond game, failed to defend the score against West Indies. And today, the English bowling will be challenged. 

England have only won one o� the last eight Twenty20 Internationals and with group games against Sri Lanka

and South Africa to come, they really need to turn things around soon.

Good news for the side is that skip-per Stuart Broad was able to bowl two overs – which went for 14 runs – in the � nal pre-tournament game. Broad had a painkilling injection in his knee last week and could start in the opening game tomorrow.

However, if Broad fails a � tness test, Eoin Morgan will continue to deputise as skipper.

The former champions are in for a tough assessment against New Zea-land, although the Kiwis have also lost the two warm-ups by very close mar-gins. The Black Caps lost the game to Pakistan o� the second last ball of the match and against Australia they lost by just three runs.

New Zealand captain Brendon Mc-Cullum has been in good touch, scoring 59* and 37 respectively.

There will be little room for error in the newly created Super 10 stage, which means that England can’t really a� ord to drop points in their opening game if they harbour ambitions of becoming the � rst repeat winners of the World T20.

Both the side will be mindful of dew being a major factor in the game. The � rst round matches in Chittagong had taken many by surprise by how heavy the dew was to trouble the bowlers. England looked to have noted the dew issue in and made the bowlers practice with wet balls yesterday. l

Saturday, March 22, 2014

Chelsea’s Torres hints at Atletico returnChelsea striker Fernando Torres has potentially opened the door on a return

to Atletico Madrid after expressing an interest in working under former team-mate Diego Simeone. “In football, you never know,” he told the Friday editions of several British newspapers. “You don’t know where you are going to be tomor-row, in a week’s time, or in 10 years’ time. “I’ve had a lot of admiration for ‘Cholo’ (Simeone), ever since we were team-mates. He taught me a lot in the seasons we played together at Atleti.” –AFP

Tomic trounced in record fashionAustralian standout Bernard Tomic su� ered the fastest defeat in ATP history

Thursday, crashing out of the ATP Miami Masters hardcourt event in his � rst match following January hip surgery. The world number 74 lost 6-0, 6-1 to Finland’s Jarkko Nieminen in a record 28 minutes, 20 seconds – the shortest ATP Tour match ever recorded, beating the old mark by a mere minute. Tomic was unru� ed by the defeat, in which he lost the � rst nine games. “This was the � rst match back after the operation. It’s all part of the rehabilitation process,” he said. –AFP

Tiger su� ering from bulging back discWorld number one Tiger Woods is su� ering from a bulging disc in his back that will

not require surgery, Golfweek magazine reported Thursday on its website. Woods, a 14-time major champion chasing the all-time record 18 majors won by Jack Nicklaus, withdrew Tuesday due to back spasms from the Arnold Palmer Invitational, his typical � ne warm-up event for next month’s Masters and one that he has won eight times. According to the report the news was actually better for Woods than if he had suf-fered a ruptured disc, which likely would have required an operation. –AFP

RESULTSAnzhi (RUS) 0 0 AZ Alkmaar (NED)

AZ Alkmaar win 1-0 on aggregate

Ben� ca (POR) 2 2 Tottenham (ENG)Garay 34, Chadli 78, 79Lima 90+5-pen

Ben� ca win 5-3 on aggregate

Valencia (ESP) 1 0 Razgrad (BUL)Alcacer 59

Valencia win 4-0 on aggregate

Pilsen (CZE) 2 1 Lyon (FRA)Kolar 60, Tecl 62 Gomis 45+3

Lyon win 5-3 on aggregate

Fiorentina (ITA) 0 1 Juventus (ITA) Pirlo 71

Juventus win 2-1 on aggregate

Napoli (ITA) 2 2 FC Porto (POR)Pandev 21, Ghilas 69, Zapata 90+2 Quaresma 76

FC Porto win 3-2 on aggregate

Salzburg (AUT) 1 2 FC Basel (SUI)Jonathan 22 Streller 50, Sauro 60

FC Basel win 2-1 on aggregate

Real Betis (ESP) 0 2 Sevilla Reyes 20, Bacca 75

After extra-time; 2-2 on aggregateSevilla win 4-3 on penalties

Barca need almost perfect game to beat Real: Iniesta

Barcelona will need an almost perfect performance to win at La Liga leaders Real Madrid in Sunday’s ‘Clasico’ and reignite their title bid, playmaker An-dres Iniesta said on Thursday.

Real are undefeated in La Liga since Barca beat them 2-1 at the Nou Camp in October and they are four points ahead of their arch rivals, who are one adrift of surprise packages Atletico Madrid in second, with 10 games left.

A victory for the champions at the Bernabeu (2000 GMT) would boost their chances of a � fth title in six years but defeat would almost certainly end their challenge.

“We will have to play an almost perfect match because that’s what our opponent will demand of us,” Iniesta told a news conference. We are in the right shape to do it,” added the Spain international.

“It’s a very important match for what it means for the standings, for the opponent and for everything around these kinds of games.”

Barca have su� ered some sharp criticism in recent weeks after surprise away defeats at Real Valladolid and Real Sociedad but Iniesta said they had no intention of tinkering with their trade-mark possession-based playing style.

“We have to be Barca, be coura-geous, if we are not we will su� er,” he said. “We have to go out to play for the win as when we have done that things have gone well for us.

“We must have the same con� dence we have always had before tackling these games. We have had bad days like anyone but nobody can believe Madrid will beat us easily.” l

Bayern-United clash in UCL draw

The Champions League quarter � nal draw on Friday threw title holders Bayern Mu-nich against arch-rivals Manchester United in

one of the most high tension rounds the competition has seen.

Nine-time champions Real Madrid earned a revenge meeting with Borus-sia Dortmund who dumped them out in last year’s semi-� nals. Four-time winners Barcelona take on Atletico Ma-drid in an all-Spanish blockbuster while Chelsea tackle Paris Saint-Germain in the battle of Europe’s nouveaux riche.

Dortmund captain Sebastian Kehl

called the draw “crazy”.“These are the toughest quarter � -

nals in history,” said Barcelona’s sport-ing director and former player Andoni Zubizarreta. “These will all be big con-frontations.”

Runaway Bundesliga leaders Bayern will relish the chance of again taking on a United side that snatched a 2-1 victory from the jaws of defeat in the 1999 � nal.

The two teams have played each other nine times – all in European com-petition – and Bayern will de� nitely start this one as favourites.

Bayern defender Philipp Lahm warned against complacency despite United’s struggles.

“We can’t allow Man Utd’s current position in the Premier League table to

a� ect our mindset for this game,” the veteran German international said.

“We’ll need all our strength but we have a good chance of reaching the semi-� nals.”

Jose Mourinho’s Chelsea, bankrolled by Russian tycoon Roman Abramovich, take on Paris St Germain who have be-come a force with Qatari � nance.

The Portuguese two-time European

champion has never lost at the quarter-� nal stages. And his � rst Champions League game with Chelsea was in a 3-0 win over Paris St Germain in 2004. The two teams drew 0-0 at Stamford Bridge in the return. Paris again host the � rst leg. “Getting the return leg is a small advantage for Chelsea so we will have to make the di� erence at home,” said Paris coach Laurent Blanc.

Barcelona goalkeeper Victor Valdes said the � rst leg could be decisive.

“We need to not concede at home to be able to have a better chance in the second leg,” he told a press conference.

“They are a team that presses with an intensity in the same style as their coach and I compliment everything that they are doing.” added Valdes. l

Juve draw Lyon in Europa League quarters

Runaway Serie A table-toppers Juven-tus will play French club Lyon in the quarter-� nals of the Europa League,

the continent’s second-tier tourna-ment, following the draw at Nyon, Switzerland on Friday.

With the � nal to be played at Juve’s Turin stadium, the Italian club will be

con� dent of seeing o� Lyon, one of three sides in the quarter-� nals yet to win a major UEFA club trophy along with AZ Alkmaar of the Netherlands and Swiss club Basel.

“We’re proud to be the only Italian team,” said Pavel Nedved, the former Czech playmaker who is now on Juve’s board.

“It’s a tough draw and there’s a long way to go to reach the � nal in Turin.”

AZ were drawn against Ben� ca, last season’s � nalists who saw o� Totten-ham in the round-of-16.

Basel will play Valencia, with anoth-er La Liga club Sevilla up against Porto, with � rst leg matches slated for April 3 and the return legs a week later. l

March madness as Bayern on verge of record triumph

Bayern Munich could be crowned German league champions in record time on Saturday if they win at Mainz 05.

Pep Guardiola’s Bayern hold an enormous 23-point lead and vic-tory would given them the title providing rivals Borussia Dortmund fail to win at Hanover and Schalke do not beat bottom side Eintracht Braunschweig at home.

Should Bayern wrap up a 24th Ger-man league title at Mainz, they will do so with eight games to spare, breaking their own record of six, set last season.

No side has ever been crowned Ger-man champions in March and Bayern

are bidding to become the � rst team to go through an entire Bundesliga cam-paign unbeaten.

Mainz, who are on their own � ve-match unbeaten run, have risen to � fth in the table and are challenging for a Champions League place next season.

But the Rhineland club are all too aware of the enormous task facing them against the European champions. l

Pirlo puts Juventus in last eight with Ben� ca, Porto

Andrea Pirlo kept Juventus on course for a home Europa League � nal after his superb free kick settled their battle with Italian rivals Fiorentina to send the Serie A leaders

into the quarter-� nals on Thursday.Pirlo’s dead-ball accuracy after 71

minutes, which saw him caress the ball high into the far right corner of the net, handed Juve a 1-0 win in Florence and a 2-1 aggregate success over a Fiore side who � nished with 10 men.

Juve were joined in the last eight by last season’s beaten � nalists Ben� ca, Porto, Valencia, Sevilla, Olympique Lyon, FC Basel and AZ Alkmaar.

Ben� ca survived a spirited � ght-back by Tottenham Hotspur to earn a 2-2 second-leg draw in Lisbon and go through 5-3 on aggregate while 2011 winners Porto, who sacked coach Paulo Fonseca this month, drew 2-2 at Napoli to win 3-2 on aggregate.

Sevilla overcame city rivals Real Betis 4-3 on penalties, after a 2-2 aggre-gate draw, while 10-man Basel ended the impressive campaign of Austria’s Salzburg although their 2-1 away win, after a goalless � rst leg, was marred by a � rst-half interruption when Swiss fans threw objects on to the pitch.

Needing to score after Fiore grabbed an away goal in a 1-1 � rst-leg draw, Juve

were struggling for inspiration at the Sta-dio Artemio Franchi until Gonzalo Rodri-guez was sent o� for tripping Fernando Llorente to leave Pirlo with a sight of goal.

The Italy playmaker did not let run-away Serie A leaders Juve down, strok-ing a superb strike past Neto’s out-stretched hand. l

Wenger eyes title boost in 1,000th game

Arsene Wenger will hope to mark his 1,000th match as Arse-nal manager by eating into Chelsea’s four-

point lead at the Premier League sum-mit when the London rivals collide on Saturday.

It is nine years since Wenger last lifted a trophy, but Arsenal’s 1-0 win at Tottenham Hotspur last weekend took them to within four points of Chelsea, who had slumped to a 1-0 defeat at As-ton Villa a day earlier.

Arsenal also have a game in hand on Jose Mourinho’s side, meaning that victory at Stamford Bridge would give them the upper hand on their cross-town foes as the title race enters the

� nishing straight.Chelsea manager Mourinho faces a

Football Association misconduct charge after being sent to the stands during the loss at Villa, but he enjoyed a more memorable outing on Tuesday when his side beat Galatasaray 2-0 to reach the Champions League quarter-� nals.

Like Arsenal, Liverpool are four points

behind Chelsea with a game in hand, while City are potentially in an even stronger position, two points further back but with three matches in hand.

After a three-week hiatus due to var-ious cup commitments, City returned to league action with a 2-0 victory at Hull City last weekend.

They, too, face a struggling team this weekend, with rock-bottom Fulham the visitors to the Etihad Stadium, and mid� elder Fernandinho knows that his side cannot a� ord to be distracted by thoughts of next week’s derby at United.

United stormed into the Champions League quarter-� nals by overturning a 2-0 de� cit with a 3-0 win over Olym-piakos on Wednesday, but they remain at risk of getting cut adrift in the battle for a top-four place. l

UCL DRAW Barcelona v Atletico Madrid Real Madrid v Dortmund PSG v Chelsea Man United v Bayern Munich

EUROPA DRAW Alkmaar (NED) v Ben� ca (POR) Lyon (FRA) v Juventus (ITA) Basel (SUI) v Valencia (ESP) Porto (POR) v Sevilla (ESP)

FIXTURES Cardi� City v Liverpool Chelsea v Arsenal Everton v Swansea City Hull City v West Brom Man City v Fulham Newcastle v Crystal Palace Norwich City v Sunderland West Ham v Man United

FIXTURES Schalke 04 v Braunschweig VfB Stuttgart v Hamburg Hanover 96 v Dortmund VfL Wolfsburg v Augsburg Mainz 05 v Bayern Munich M'gladbach v Hertha Berlin

Juventus' Andrea Pirlo (R) celebrates after scoring against Fiorentina during their Europa League round of 16 second leg match at Artemio Franchi stadium in Florence on Thursday REUTERS

Colombian singer Shakira and Barcelona's football player Gerard Pique (L) pose during a photocall presenting her new album "Shakira" in Barcelona on Thursday REUTERS

Serena, Sharapova tested but triumphant

Six-time winner Serena Williams sur-vived a � rst-set scare before overcom-ing Yaroslava Shvedova 7-6 (9/7), 6-2 Thursday to power into the third round of the ATP and WTA Miami Masters.

The top-seeded defending cham-pion will next face France’s Caroline Garcia after dispatching her Kazak rival in one hour, 45 minutes.

Fourth seed Maria Sharapova, the 2013 runner-up to Williams, outlasted Japan’s Kurumi Nara 6-3, 6-4 in anoth-er opening test.

Williams lost a 3-1 lead and trailed

3-5 as Shvedova shifted her game up a gear.

Williams got back on track in the nick of time with a break for 5-all. A love game then ended with an ace for Williams before the set went to a tie-breaker.

In the decider, the 32-year-old Wil-liams saved three set points as a ner-vous Shvedova missed her big upset chance in front of a screaming house full of her rival’s supporters.

Sharapova was down 1-3 in the 64-minute second set before rallying to beat Nara, who won her � rst WTA title in Rio de Janeiro last month. l

Serena Williams celebrates winning the � rst set against Shvedova during their match on day 4 of the Sony Open in Key Biscayne, Florida on Thursday AFP

Matches to be played April 1/2 and April 8/9

SportDHAKA TRIBUNE14

SportDHAKA TRIBUNE Saturday, March 22, 2014 15

Sony SixNBA 2013-145:30AM Miami v Memphis8:00AM Sacramento v San AntonioBTV, Gazi TV, Maasranga TVStar Sports 1, HD1ICC World T203:30PMSri Lanka v South Africa7:30PMEngland v New Zealand Star Sports 4English Premier League6:30PMChelsea v Arsenal9:00PMCardi� City v Liverpool11:30PMWest Ham v Man Utd3:00AMSony Open Tennis, MiamiStar Sports 2English Premier League9:00PMMan City v FulhamItalian Serie A1:45PMChievo Verona v AS RomaStar Sports HD2English Premier League9:00PMEverton v Swansea CityStar Sports 1La Liga1:00AMReal Valladolid v Rayo Vallecano3:00AMAthletic Bilbao v GetafeTen Sports 08:25 PM MOTO GP 2014Qualifying- QatarTen ActionFrench Ligue 1 2013/1410:00PM Olympic Marseille v Stade Rennais 1:00AM Bordeaux v OGC Nice

DAY’S WATCH

Netherlands' players celebrate their win against Ireland during the ICC Twenty20 Cricket World Cup match in Sylhet International Stadium yesterday AP

Dutch stun Ireland to qualify

The Netherlands smashed the record for most sixes in an innings on their way to upsetting Ireland in Sylhet on Friday, romping into the Su-

per-10 stages in the World Twenty20.Wesley Barresi hit Tim Murtagh over

mid-wicket for the 19th six of the innings to seal an emphatic six wicket win as the Netherlands chased down a daunting 190-run target in just 13.5 overs.

Their rampaging victory means the Netherlands qualify for the Super-10 from Group B at the expense of more fancied Zimbabwe and Ireland. They join Group One in the next round.

In all 30 sixes were hit in the match beating the previous record of 24 set by New Zealand and India at Christchurch in 2009.

Australia previously held the record for most sixes in a Twenty20 innings with 18, smashed against England at Southampton last year.

The Netherlands needed to notch the target in 14.2 overs and they owed their exhilarating chase to a � ery 23-ball 63 by opener Stephan Myburgh, 15-ball 45 by Tom Cooper and an unbeaten 22-ball 40 by Barresi.

The defeat was a heartbreak for Ire-

land who beat Zimbabwe in their open-ing match but they failed to stop the rampaging Dutch led by Myburgh.

Myburgh was in a punishing mood as he smashed three sixes in o� -spinner Andy McBrine’s second over of the in-nings and then as many sixes and one boundary in one Alex Cusack’s over.

He then brought up his second Twen-ty20 � fty in the event with a sweetly timed boundary o� Tim Murtagh, o� just 17 deliveries.

Cooper carried on from where My-burgh left o� , hitting four sixes o� Dock-

rell’s 11th over. Cooper’s innings had six sixes and a boundary. Winning captain Peter Borren felt for his rivals.

“I am sad for Ireland,” said Borren. “They played very well for 2.5 games. It was Myburgh who set the scene. I am not really sure if I have seen cleaner hitting.”

“We beat England in 2009 and that was a pretty special night. I will go back and sing the team song with the rest.”

Ireland captain William Porter� eld admitted his team fell short.

“We were pretty con� dent after scor-ing 189 but it was pretty clean striking and we couldn’t do anything.”

Ireland had raced to their second highest Twenty20 total of 189-4 with stocky Andrew Poynter hitting a 38-ball 57 while Kevin O’Brien knocked a whirlwind 16-ball 42 to punish a hapless Dutch attack.

In the � rst match of the day, All-rounder Elton Chigumbura struck a � ery half-century to help Zimbabwe achieve a � ve-wicket win over United Arab Emirates. Chigumbura smashed three sixes and six boundaries in his 21-ball 53 not out to lift Zimbabwe from a struggling 34-4 and surpass a modest 117-run target in 13.4 overs.

The win also lifted Zimbabwe’s net run-rate over Ireland who face the Neth-erlands in the crucial match to decide which team quali� es for the Super-10 stage from Group B. l

Ireland v Netherlands

Ireland 189-4 in 20 oversA. Poynter 57, W. Porter� eld 47, K. O’Brien 42 not out; Ahsan Malik 2-26Netherlands 193-4 in 13.5 oversS. Myburgh 63, T. Cooper 45, A. Barresi 40 not out

The Netherlands win by six wicketsUAE v Zimbabwe

UAE 116-9Swapnil Patil 30, Khurran Khan 26; S. Williams 3-15Zimbabwe 118-5 in 13.4 oversE. Chigumbura 56 not out; M. Guruge 2-18

Zimbabwe win by � ve wickets

BRIEF SCORES

South African women thrash Bangladesh

After being beaten by Pakistan wom-en a day before, Bangladesh women were thrashed by South Africa by eight wickets in a Women’s World Twenty20 warm-up match at the BKSP 4 ground yesterday.

The home side posted 85/8 after be-ing sent in to bat. In reply, the visitors strolled to victory in 15.3 overs with eight wickets in hand.

Opener Lizelle Lee was unbeaten on 50 o� 45 balls, featuring � ve fours and two sixes and Dane van Niekerk added 15. Fargana Hoque and Shaila Sharmin scored 21 each for the hosts. l

Rakib loses, Zia draws

Bangladesh Grandmaster Abdullah Al Rakib lost to GM Abhijit Kunte of India and GM Ziaur Rahman drew with Indi-an IM Diptayan Ghosh, but the duo still remained at the top of the 19th Interna-tional Open Grandmaster Chess Tour-nament along with 10 players. They have three points each after the end of the 4th round. GM Enamul Hossain Razib earned two points. FM Sk Nasir Ahmed and FM Kh. Aminul Islam have half point each. l

ISLAMI BANK ASIAN GAMES HOCKEY QUALIFIERS

Bangladesh ready to face Sri Lanka

Bangladesh takes on Sri Lanka in the 1st position pre-quali� er match of the Islami Bank Asian Games Hockey Qual-i� ers at the Maulana Bhashani National Hockey Stadium at 3:15pm today.

With the top six of the eight par-ticipating teams ensured a slot in the Asian Games scheduled to take place in Incheon Korea in September, Ban-gladesh is already assured of a ticket there. A win in today’s match will see Bangladesh play the winner of the Oman-Singapore match in the 1st place decider tomorrow.

In the recent past, Sri Lanka has emerged as a tough challenger to Ban-gladesh as the track record of the last

three matches show Bangladesh win-ning 5-3 in the AHF Cup, Singapore in 2012, drawinw 3-3 in the last Asian Games Quali� ers at Dhaka on 2010 and Bangladesh won the bronze medal de-cider of the 2010 SA Games 2-1 in Dhaka.

Bangladesh coach Naveed Alam looked forward to continue the scoring spree of the last match. “Our forwards scored two � eld goals in the second half against Iran and I think the for-ward line has regained the rhythm and the con� dence with that, I hope the at-tackers do the same against Sri Lanka and I want early goals which will settle the nerves,” said Naveed.

Bangladesh’s drag and � ick special-ist Mamunur Rahman Chayan is ex-pected to hit form in the match.

Sri Lanka will rely upon their young forward Lahiru Gihan Weerasooriya, who has demonstrated very good stick work while leading the attacks of his team. Jayratnam, the assistant coach of Sri Lanka however opted to keep cool. “We are not taking any pressure, we are not thinking about playing the hosts or something g like that, all we are think-ing is to play our normal game, we have a young team and we will put our best for a win,” said the Sri Lankan assistant coach.

Chinese Taipei will play against Hong Kong China at 9:00am and Iran will face Qatar at 11:15am in the � rst two matches of the day. Winners moves to 5th-6th position decider and the losers play in the 7th-8th posi-tion decider. l

Du Plessis counting on momentum

South Africa will be banking on momentum gained from the two wins in the warm-up games of the ICC World Twenty20 2014 when they lock horns with

Sri Lanka at Chittagong’s Zahur Ahmed Chowdhury Stadium today. South Africa skipper Faf du Plessis also believes the T20 series win, their last encounter in the format, against the same opponents in Sri Lanka will also boost the side in the World Twenty20 match.

“Yeah de� nitely I think it is really important that you use those games [warm-up] to your advantage. World cup tournament like this is all about momentum and you need to carry as much momentum as you can. So we are taking lot of con� dence from that. Sri Lanka are taking a lot of con� dence from winning the Asia Cup but they lost

the warm up game I think it is really im-portant what you bring into the tourna-ment, the sort of form that you have,” said du Plessis to the media yesterday.

“Sri Lanka is a fantastic team, having saying that we beat them and played really good cricket against them. So we are taking a huge amount of con� dence from that. But they are still a really good team � lled with match winners,” said the 29-year-old all-rounder.

As per the format of the tournament this time, most of the exciting teams will be forced out of competition be-fore the semi-� nal, thus adding heat to the tournament.  

“There has been a lot of talk about six or seven teams that can win this tournament so everything is going to count on how you play as a team. Hopefully we can start of tomorrow,” said the South African skipper.

The World Twenty20 2014 is South Africa’s � rst major tournament since the retirements of two key members

of the side – Jacques Kallis and Graeme Smith. However, du Plessis believes this not to make an impact on the team.

“I think the only positive thing is that Kallis and Graeme haven’t been so much part of this T20 side for the last

year or so. So we have got used to play-ing without them. Where as in the Test arena it is pretty new for that team and it might take some time to get used to the fact of them not being there. They have got a big role in South African

cricket,” said du Plessis.Meanwhile, the world’s number one

Twenty20 side Sri Lanka will put their heart and soul in the Super 10 round starting with the South Africa game. The side’s skipper Dinesh Chandimal ruled-out any pressure on the side for being at the top of the ranking and also because they lost to West Indies in the warm-up game.

“We don’t have any pressure as a num-ber one team. We played two months ago here and are familiar with the conditions like how the wicket behaves and when the dew factor is going to come into play. We also played in the Asia Cup not long ago which was held here. We will try to make the most of our recent experience here,” said Chandimal.

“We gave away 10-15 more runs than we should have in the last warmup against West Indies. We have got our lessons from that match. We will put our heart and soul in this round,” said the wicket-keeper batsman. l

Laser Skating dominate

Laser Skating Club dominated the � rst day of the two-day Walton Smartphone National Roller Speed Skating, winning 10 gold medals out of 13, at the Bangaband-hu National Stadium premises yesterday. Royal Skating Club and Saarc Skating Club claimed two and one gold respectively.

Deputy Minister for Youth and Sports Arif Khan Joy inaugurated the meet as the chief guest. A total of 350 skaters from 29 teams across the coun-try are taking part in the tournament. l

McCullum, Broad look for winnings start

New Zealand will look forward to bank on ex-perience gained on lo-cal conditions during their visit to Bangla-desh last October-No-vember, when they lock

horns with England at Chittagong’s Zahur Ahmed Chowdhury Stadium. The Kiwis losing the ODI series 3-0 to Bangladesh didn’t have the best of times during the stay, the side’s skipper Brendon McCul-lum hopes the defeats do not play a role.

 “I hope the defeat is not in the back of the mind. We have to acknowledge that we didn’t perform well when we came here. What we did was � ne tune our performance. Knowledge of learn-ing everything here. We came against a series that was red hot, hope we learn a few lessons from that and we will � nd out in two weeks,” said McCullum to the media at ZACS yesterday.

 The Kiwis are often considered as the dark horse of any tournament. Even yes-terday, South Africa captain Faf du Ple-sis used the term against New Zealand when asked for the probable teams that should make into the semi-� nals of the tournament. But McCullum disagreed to the term because the conditions are against them.   

  “I think our biggest chance of vic-tory will be in 2015, that’s when we will be playing in familiar conditions. It will give us an immense amount of con� -dence. This one, yeah we are playing well and have played some good cricket recently. But, it wasn’t that long ago that we came over here and got beaten against Bangladesh as well.

 “There is a little bit of hesitation. We have got the personal, if we can get it right early, we can get the momentum then we will be dangerous. It will be quite challenging, the nature of the game as well, you need a bit of luck as well in

this format. Hopefully it will favour us.” The wicket-keeper batsman is taking

the clash against the English side as a huge challenge.

  “This competition is so wide open; it is hard to say who is going to be the most dangerous team. We were just � ne tuning our plans today morning as part of our plans and it’s a matter of trying to execute them against a very god England team. It is really important that we adjust to the conditions here really quick. If we can start well we can get some con� dent through that,” said McCullum.

 While on the other hand, England are trying anything and everything to get a winning start to their campaign. The side came into the tournament with four defeats in � ve games, includes the two warm-up games. But the side’s skipper Stuart Broad believes a win can change the scenario for the team and that they are preparing hard for that.

 Dew has been a major factor in the previous games played at ZACS and tak-ing that into account Broad informed his side practicing with “wet balls.”

 “It looks quite obvious dew is going to play a part. We are getting the spinners bowling with wet balls, � elding with wet balls. It’s not something you do very often - I can’t think of ever doing it. It’s something we have to take into consid-eration because if you go in with three spinners and they can’t bowl you’ve stu� ed yourself a bit,” informed Broad.

“We lost but what we have talked about the game as a team, and our coach has been focused. I thought In-dia had one of the best death bowling performances we’ve seen so far. The way we played the � rst six overs with the bat was really good again. There are positives coming out. The � elding was a highlight too. There are little things to carry into the game. I know there was disappointment of losing but there was a lot of excitement from that game and belief it will turn for us,” he said. l

Bangladesh 85 for 8 in 20 oversFargana 21, Shaila 21; M Kapp 1-14 V Neikerk 1-6)South Africa 88 for 2 in 15.3 oversL Lee 50; Rumana 1-22, Khadija 1-16South Africa Women won by 8 wickets

BRIEF SCORE

New Zealand cricketers play a warm up game during a training session of the ICC World Twenty20 tournament at The Zahur Ahmed Chowdhury Stadium in Chittagong yesterday AFP

DUTCH DELIGHT

16 Back PageDHAKA TRIBUNE Saturday, March 22, 2014

Drive against illegal gas connections stalledn Aminur Rahman Rasel

After carrying out only a single drive against illegal gas connections, the Titas Gas authorities have reportedly stopped the initiative, although a large amount of money had been spent to publicise the drive.

Authorities concerned at Titas Gas – the country’s largest gas distributor – claimed that unavailability of police personnel and magistrates forced them to stop the drives.

However, a senior energy ministry o� cial, seeking anonymity, said the ministry was not taking action against illegal connections, as illegal consum-ers belonged to di� erent political par-ties, while ruling party leaders had helped them get the connections.

To tackle the crisis, the government was now planning to legalise all illegal connections, he said.

Earlier, the energy ministry pub-lished advertisements to announce its drive to remove all illegal gas connec-tions and distribution lines.

Titas Gas Managing Director Md Nowshad Islam said Titas o� cials had been assaulted during previous at-tempts at removing illegal gas distri-bution networks, adding that adequate assistance from the police and magis-trates could not be secured for the lat-est drive.

He added that it was hard to conduct the latest drive as the illegal lines were greater in number than before.

In a recent comment to the Dhaka Tribune, Energy and Mineral Resourc-

es Division Secretary Md Mozammel Haque Khan had said the latest drive would be carried out in a strict manner. However, yesterday he told the Dhaka Tribune to contact Titas Gas authorities for queries on the issue.

Sources inside Titas Gas said an in-� uential quarter of politicians from di� erent parties, along with syndicates of Titas o� cials and contractors were involved in the business of setting up illegal distribution networks in Dhaka.

According to Titas Gas o� cials, around 250km of illegal gas pipeline and two lakh illegal connections have been detected in its franchise area, with the connections consuming 200m cubic feet of gas per day and causing losses of several hundred crore taka for the government. l

UN: Fresh water sources to su� er from energy needLack of coordination and management to mainly blamen Abu Bakar Siddique from

Tokyo, Japan

The United Nations has said the world’s fresh water resources will su� er from e� orts to meet the growing global de-mand for energy, mainly due to the lack of coordination and better man-agement at all levels including policy making.

The observations were made at the United Nations World Water Develop-ment Report 2014, which was unveiled yesterday at United Nations University in Tokyo, Japan, marking the World Water Day 2014.

“The 2014 World Water Develop-ment Report highlighted the interde-pendence between the management of water and energy, which calls for vastly improved cooperation between these sectors as there will be no sustainable development without better access to water and energy for all,” said Irina Bokova, director general of United Na-tions Educational, Scienti� c and Cul-tural Organisation (Unesco).

The report also cited that around 768 million people in the world had no

access to an improved source of water, 2.5 billion people do not access to im-proved sanitation while 1.3 billion peo-ple were not connected to an electric power grid and around 2.6 billion use solid fuel, mainly biomass, for cooking.

It further highlighted that places where people do not have adequate access to water largely coincide with those where people have no electric power and how closely the two sectors were inter-connected.

Currently, the energy production accounts for around 15% of water withdrawal globally though the � gure was rising and estimates that it will be reached by 20% by 2035 due to popu-lation growth, urbanization and chang-ing consumption pattern, the report added.

In addition, agriculture was noted as the largest user of water at the glob-al level, accounting for 70% of total withdrawal as irrigation. The food pro-duction and supply chain accounts for about 30% of total global energy con-sumption, according to Food and Agri-culture Organization (FAO) 2012.

Citing the examples of Fujairah power plant in UAE and Shoaiba power plant in Saudi Arabia, the report indi-cated good practices of water and en-ergy as both of projects were working on for desalination of sea water and producing electricity.

In addition to report launching, the International Water management Institute (IWMI)-TATA water policy programme in India and NEWater pro-gramme in Singapore received the ‘Wa-ter for Life’ Best Practices Award 2014. l

Japanese FM arrives in city n UNB

Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida arrived in Dhaka yesterday evening on a two-day visit to hold talks for promoting bilateral cooperation be-tween the two countries.

Kishida, who is leading a 20-mem-ber o� cial delegation, arrived at the Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport around 8:15pm, said an o� cial at the foreign ministry.

The Japanese foreign minister will hold bilateral talks with his Bangladesh counterpart AH Mahmood Ali at 11am on Saturday at the foreign ministry to discuss ways to comprehensively strengthen the bilateral relations with Bangladesh.

During his stay in Dhaka, he will also meet Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, ac-cording to Japanese Embassy in Dhaka.

The Japanese foreign minister is also expected to hold a meeting with State Minister for Foreign A� airs Shahriar Alam. Kishida is scheduled to leave Dhaka today. l

Agriculture was noted as the largest user of water at the global level, accounting for 70% of total withdrawal as irrigation

A group of children with Down syndrome take part in a dance performance at a programme marking the World Down Syndrome Day in front of the Japan-Bangladesh Friendship Hospital at Jigatola in the capital yesterday DHAKA TRIBUNE Search on for

missing schoolgirln Our Correspondent, Barguna

Police is yet to � nd the class eight stu-dent of Barguna Government Girls School who went missing � ve days ago.

The missing girl is Ria Akhter, daughter of Khokon Mia, hailing from Fultola village of Badarkhali union un-der Barguna.

She went missing on Monday after she went out from home around 10am to attend a tuition class at the College Branch road. Her friends said they did not know her whereabouts.

Ward Councilor of Barguna Munici-pality Faruk Sikdar said: “A general dia-ry had been � led in this regard on Tues-day. Anyone who � nds her is requested to contact at 01716682721.”

Azam Khan, o� cer-in-charge of Bar-guna police station, said they were try-ing hard to � nd Ria. l

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