Archive for June 20th, 2007
Wednesday, June 20th, 2007The interim government is seriously thinking of holding elections to the city corporations and municipalities before the general elections, so the Election Commission is going to prepare the voters’ rolls of these areas on a priority basis, said official sources. ‘We have requested the Election Commission to hold elections to three city corporations that include Dhaka, Rajshahi and Khulna, along with 44 municipalities after preparation of the voters’ lists on a priority basis in those areas where the elections have been overdue,’ LGRD and cooperatives adviser Anwarul Iqbal told reporters at the Secretariat on Tuesday. He, ...
(read more) Wednesday, June 20th, 2007The ‘dissident’ leaders in the Awami League, who initiated a move to reform the party, seem to have adopted a go-slow strategy after the party chief Sheikh Hasina declared that reform proposals must come through the party forum, not from outside. The AL president also assigned her deputies to prepare a reform agenda including proposals that leaders above 60 years of age would not be in the party executive committee and the party chief and presidium members would not hold cabinet posts simultaneously, said one of her spokesmen on Tuesday. The dissident leaders, who planned to ...
(read more) Wednesday, June 20th, 2007Law enforcers have intensified the restriction on visitors to the Awami League president, Sheikh Hasina, at her Sudha Sadan residence from Tuesday afternoon. Security measures around her house have been stepped up and no AL leader has been allowed to visit her from around 2:30pm. The law enforcers on duty, however, allowed her relatives, personal staff and physicians to enter Sudha Sadan in Dhanmondi. AL presidium member Matia Chowdhury, central leaders Faruk Khan and advocate Abdul Hamid, and women affairs secretary Dr Dipu Moni were stopped at the entrance to Sudha Sadan. The police ...
(read more) Wednesday, June 20th, 2007The dissident leaders of BNP are holding backstage negotiations with their conformist counterparts in the party over the much-talked-about democratisation of the party. BNP secretary general Abdul Mannan Bhuiyan on Tuesday held an informal parley with party’s standing committee member Khandakar Mahbub Uddin Ahmed apparently in a bid to convince the latter, believed to be a conformist, of the need for bringing about reforms in the organisation. Although some of the dissident leaders earlier said they would express their views on democratisation of the party through the press by today [Wednesday], Mannan Bhuiyan said he would ...
(read more) Wednesday, June 20th, 2007Since the members of the banned Islamist outfit, Jamaatul Mujahideen Bangladesh, are reportedly regrouping under new leadership, the home ministry on Tuesday directed the law enforcing agencies to crush the revitalised group and arrest its leaders. The directive was issued when intelligence officials investigating Islamist militancy informed the home secretary, Abdul Karim, of the re-emergence of the outfit at a meeting in the ministry. The home secretary asked all the law enforcing and intelligence agencies to launch massive drives across the country to immediately arrest those who have taken the leadership of JMB under a new ...
(read more) Wednesday, June 20th, 2007The chief adviser, Fakhruddin Ahmed, has said the present caretaker government is constitutional, accountable to the people and is moving towards holding a free, fair and credible election by the end of the next year. The chief adviser made the remarks when the US ambassador, Patricia A Butenis, made a farewell call on him at his office on Tuesday. Fakhruddin told Butenis, who would leave Bangladesh next week for Iraq to take up her new assignment, that his government was committed to a transparent process, freedom of press and the rule of law. ‘The ...
(read more) Wednesday, June 20th, 2007The Ministry of Jute and Textiles has sought Tk 600 crore in the next three fiscal years to turn the ailing state-owned jute mills into profitable units in the fourth year, said high officials. Endorsing the demand for money which will be used for buying raw jute and paying the overdue salaries of workers, an inter-ministry meeting at the jute and textiles ministry on Tuesday expressed concern over the wholesale neglect of the jute industry. ‘We are in touch with the Ministry of Finance to persuade it to make budgetary allocations or arrange funds through the ...
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