Archive for December 6th, 2007
Thursday, December 6th, 2007Terming free flow of information a driving force in democracy and good governance, Chief Adviser Fakhruddin Ahmed yesterday expressed the hope that the government will soon formulate a right to information act."I hope the information and the law ministries would soon take a step for making this law effective," he said while inaugurating a convention styled Right to Information for a Democratic and Corruption-free Bangladesh.Noting that the caretaker government would promulgate the act, Law and Information Adviser Mainul Hosein said the act however requires approval in parliament.The journalists and civil society need to play a strong role for promulgating the ...
(read more) Thursday, December 6th, 2007Various quarters are questioning the Power Cell's handling of the rental power bids as it is seriously considering offers from two inexperienced and incompliant local consortiums that should have been filtered out at the final stage of selection.Sources said two different consortiums, Energy Prima, owned by Hosaf group, and Green Power, of the Lotus Kamal group, appear to be the lowest bidders in five or six out of eight rental power tenders. As per the Power Cell's criterion, these bidders do not qualify but their bids are seriously being considered because of "low price offers".Only two foreign power companies, which ...
(read more) Thursday, December 6th, 2007A Dhaka court yesterday ordered Tejgaon Police Station to register the sedition case filed with it (court) as a regular case against two top leaders of Jamaat-e-Islami and a former chairman of Islami Bank for their anti-liberation activities.The accused are Jamaat Secretary General Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mojaheed, Assistant Secretary General Abdul Quader Mollah and Shah Md Abdul Hannan, ex-chairman of Islami Bank and a Jamaat sympathiser.In the petition case filed with the Chief Metropolitan Magistrate's Court, petitioner Mohammad Fazlur Rahman also appealed to the court to issue arrest warrant against the three to take them in custody.After hearing ...
(read more) Thursday, December 6th, 2007The verdict sentencing four Rajshahi University (RU) teachers to two years' imprisonment was based on "poor" evidence and has raised questions about the caretaker government's neutrality in enforcing Emergency Power Rules (EPR) 2007, eminent jurists have observed.Talking to The Daily Star, they said a good number of incidents have taken place so far violating the EPR, but the government has targeted university teachers only for prosecution."The judgment suffers from a lack of strict scrutiny of the oral evidence inasmuch as the conviction seems to be based on oral evidence of a single witness," Justice Ghulam Rabbani, former judge of Supreme ...
(read more) Thursday, December 6th, 2007The Saarc foreign ministers' meet beginning here on Saturday is expected to give a concrete shape to the proposed Regional Development Fund, intra-region transport connectivity and tele-medicine network.The two-day meeting will also review progress on various other proposals, including the setting up of Saarc Food Bank, Investor Protection Agreement and South Asian University, and a plan for the next Saarc summit.“Saarc has moved from declaratory to implementation stage, and we hope the meeting of the Council of Foreign Ministers can look at these and move towards implementation,” Indian Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon said briefing reporters here Tuesday evening on ...
(read more) Thursday, December 6th, 2007The verdict of the case against two Rajshahi University (RU) teachers and 12 others for torching a DGFI vehicle and assaulting a member of the intelligence agency during August 22 campus violence will be delivered today.Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Ruhul Amin will pronounce the verdict in presence of accused RU teachers Dr Chowdhury Sarwar Jahan Sajal and Dr Sabbir Sattar Tapu of Geology and Mining Department, Sadekul Islam, RU deputy chief information officer and Ataur Rahman, driver of former RU vice-chancellor Faisul Islam Faruki.The other accused are on the run. They are Bangladesh Chhatra League (BCL) RU unit Secretary Ayenuddin, ...
(read more) Thursday, December 6th, 2007Bangladesh Bank (BB) Governor Salehuddin Ahmed yesterday said the central bank is measuring the possibilities of waiving agriculture loans in the Sidr-hit districts in the country's southwest region."We will assess the ways of waiving bank loans as well as its implications in the banking sector and then submit a proposal to the government authorities concerned," Salehuddin told newsmen in reply to a query in reference to a similar request to banks and NGOs made by the army chief.The BB governor was briefing the newsmen at his office on his recent visit to two Sidr-hit districts--Barisal and Khulna.The central bank has ...
(read more) Thursday, December 6th, 2007A fisherman in a coastal village wakes up one morning to find ominous clouds looming on the horizon, he turns the switch his battery-run radio on, just to find the batteries down.He moves around his humble hut impatiently for a while and then conjures all his courage deciding to sail out to the ocean hoping to get back home early before the dark clouds may rain death on him and his peers.A storm appears earlier than he anticipated, trapping him and his peers in the mid-sea, beckoning their doom as his last wish flashes through his mind -- if ...
(read more) Thursday, December 6th, 2007In the first ever seizure of Internet Protocol Television Broadcasting (IPTB) equipment in the country, a rather new system of television broadcasting through the internet, Rapid Action Battalion (Rab) yesterday seized a large quantity of them in the capital.The drive was carried out in cooperation with officials of Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC).IPTB is a new system of providing television broadcasting service through cable TV operators, needing fibre optics facility for carrying the signal. Consumers can watch TV on the internet using the service if they are on the users log and have passwords to get access.The service providers ...
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