Archive for August 10th, 2006
Thursday, August 10th, 2006In a rare incident in the country, a Dhaka court yesterday issued arrest warrants against five prominent citizens who are also members of the board of trustees of an independent research organisation, Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD), following a defamation suit filed by Executive Chairman of the Board of Investment (BoI) Mahmudur Rahman. The accused prominent citizens are renowned economist also CPD Chairman Prof Rehman Sobhan, its Executive Director Dr Debapriya Bhattacharya, CPD trustee board members -- former adviser to a caretaker government Syed Manzur Elahi, former finance minister M Syeduzzaman, and former president of the Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce ...
(read more) Thursday, August 10th, 2006With the voter list not updated in many areas as yet, the Election Commission (EC) sits today for another round of extension to the time limit, which expires today, amid allegation of underage people being drafted in the list under political pressure.The EC first extended the time limit from July 30 to August 10 to complete the job after it gave in to the popular demand of a door-to-door visit for the update.The EC Secretariat yesterday claimed that field level staffs received over one crore applications from aspiring voters and 9.31 lakh applications for deleting names from the list.But ...
(read more) Thursday, August 10th, 2006The Bimstec countries yesterday agreed to speed up talks to conclude Free Trade Area (FTA) before the next summit to be held here in February next year.The seven-nation group, during the day-long ministerial meeting here, welcomed the decision to set up Bimstec energy centre in India which will serve as secretariat to coordinate efforts for sharing experience and capacity building.Describing terrorism as an important area requiring cooperation, the meeting underlined the need for speeding up work of the Joint Working Group (JWG) to reach "concrete areas of agreement and cooperation" to combat terrorism.On energy, the meeting stressed the importance of ...
(read more) Thursday, August 10th, 2006Legal experts and prominent civil society members at a roundtable yesterday demanded full implementation of the High Court (HC) verdict on voters' right to know about candidates in elections.Prior information about them is citizens' constitutional right and it is a must to form a healthy parliament through polls and thereby protect democratic institutions from politicisation and corruption to free the society from the scourge of black money and criminalised politics, they stressed.They felt that civil society members, professionals and media personnel should immediately start collecting information about candidates in the next polls so that people can judge them and exercise ...
(read more) Thursday, August 10th, 2006Senior leaders of the main opposition Awami League (AL) yesterday came under severe criticism from their allies in the 14-party combine over AL leaders' presence in a meeting of the Local Consultative Group (LCG) where ruling Jamaat-e-Islami leaders were present.Most of the leaders of 14-party components, at an emergency meeting of the opposition combine, reacted sharply to AL leaders' sitting with Jamaat.Having their strict stance against Jamaat and anti-liberation war force, leaders of the AL's allies also warned that they would not be with AL if it sat with Jamaat at any meeting in future. The meeting unanimously decided that ...
(read more) Thursday, August 10th, 2006Top business leaders, economists, bankers and civil society members were yesterday shocked at issuance of arrest warrant against five prominent citizens.They termed it 'unfortunate' and 'regrettable' and two eminent persons said should a defamation case have been filed, it should have been against the BOI Executive Chairman Mahmudur Rahman for making defamatory statements.Former adviser to the caretaker government M Hafiz Uddin Khan observed that Mahmudur Rahman should be charged for terming the CPD a 'conspirator and lair'.According to him, the prominent citizens against whom cases have been filed are very respectable persons and are not likely to hatch conspiracy. "I ...
(read more) Thursday, August 10th, 2006Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD) yesterday strongly protested some daily newspapers' distorted version of some of the speeches delivered at the press conference on August 8 organised by CPD in response to the speech of Board of Investment (BoI) Executive Chairman Mahmudur Rahman.Some daily newspapers including The Daily Inqilab, Ittefaq, Bangla Bazar, News Today made distortion of the speeches addressed at the press conference held at the CPD auditorium in the capital. These newspapers wrote that CPD Board of Trustee Manzur Elahi termed Mahmudur Rahman as a 'Razakar' or 'collaborator', a CPD press release said."No such remarks were made in ...
(read more) Thursday, August 10th, 2006Syed Manzur Elahi's comment, which prompted the BoI executive chairman to file yesterday's defamation suit, was not at all about Mahmudur Rahman, but a mere jocular demonstration of how unthinkingly people sometimes talk about others.After viewing the file footage from TV channels, The Daily Star found that former adviser to a caretaker government Manzur Elahi had not made any such comment about Mahmudur Rahman.During the CPD news conference, reporters asked Manzur to comment on Mahmudur's slamming of Dr Debapriya Bhattacharya.Referring to what Debapriya said, Manzur added, "No such blanket comment should be made. There can be debates on information, but ...
(read more) Thursday, August 10th, 2006Eminent jurists and lawyers' leaders termed the filing of the case and issuance of warrants against five eminent citizens as unfortunate and said the incident reminds how urgent is the separation of judiciary from the executive branch of the government.The jurists strongly criticised the filing of the case by Energy Adviser Mahmudur Rahman and the issuance of warrants against the five top brass of the country's leading think-tank, the Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD).Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) President Barrister Amir-Ul Islam said this is another instance and also an illustration of the judicial output, it has not been made ...
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