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SECOND EDITION<br />
TUESDAY, DECEMBER <strong>13</strong>, <strong>2016</strong> | Agrahayan 29, 1423, Rabiul Awwal 12, 1438 | Regd No DA 6238, Vol 4, No 226 | www.dhakatribune.com | 32 pages | Price: Tk10<br />
› 2<br />
New video shows police role in Santal arson<br />
When education becomes<br />
a luxury › 3<br />
HOLIDAY<br />
NOTICE<br />
The Dhaka Tribune will remain closed today on<br />
the occasion of Eid-e-Miladunnabi. Therefore, the<br />
newspaper will not be published tomorrow (<strong>December</strong><br />
14). However, our website www.dhakatribune.com<br />
will keep you updated on the latest news.<br />
Looting amid panicked evacuation alleged during<br />
fire at Sattola slum in Mohakhali › 32
2<br />
TUESDAY, DECEMBER <strong>13</strong>, <strong>2016</strong><br />
DT<br />
News<br />
LEAD STORY<br />
A screen shot of a video footage shows a member police setting fire to the houses of Santals in November<br />
New video shows police<br />
role in Santal arson<br />
• Tribune Desk<br />
In light of new evidence, police are<br />
seen to be directly responsible for<br />
setting fire to the Santal houses in<br />
Gaibandha in November.<br />
A video acquired by Bangla<br />
Tribune, available at www.<br />
dhakatribune.com, shows a<br />
platoon of armed policemen<br />
marched towards an abandoned<br />
Santal village. The police kicked on<br />
the doors as if carrying out a raid<br />
on a militant den.<br />
Finding the huts unoccupied, a<br />
handful of policemen proceeded to<br />
set fire to the houses.<br />
The villainous act was matched<br />
solely by the ineptitude shown by<br />
the police as they fumbled in lighting<br />
a fire.<br />
One of the civilians accompanying<br />
the police then proceeds to<br />
set the house on fire, and within a<br />
matter of hours, the whole village<br />
is ablaze.<br />
The police and their civilian cohorts<br />
strolled nonchalantly amid<br />
the burning huts – an honest-to-<br />
God implementation of “scorched<br />
earth” policy – as part of a “clash”<br />
that has since killed three Santal<br />
men and displaced 2,000 families<br />
from their ancestral lands.<br />
On November 6, a clash was<br />
reported between the police and<br />
Santal community in Gaibandha.<br />
A sizable number of trained law<br />
enforcers bearing firearms against<br />
Santals with bow and arrows guaranteed<br />
the Santals would have to<br />
relent.<br />
The reason behind the conflict<br />
was revealed to be eviction of the<br />
Santals when they attempted to<br />
reclaim their lands granted to the<br />
Rangpur Sugar Mill which the Santals<br />
alleged the sugar mill reneged<br />
on the contract.<br />
Santals lament they were deceived<br />
by the local lawmaker who<br />
promised them his support in securing<br />
their lands. The same lawmaker,<br />
they alleged, was involved<br />
in the attack that saw a small-scale<br />
invasion in the form of police, Rab,<br />
sugar mill workers, local Bangalis,<br />
AL-JAZEERA<br />
and many more essentially expel<br />
the Santals from their lands.<br />
In the wake of the initial conflict,<br />
15 Santal villages in the Shahebganj-Bagda<br />
area were raided<br />
by police and sugar mill authorities<br />
with the support of local politicians.<br />
Police filed a case against 42<br />
Santals arrested who were granted<br />
bail by the High Court.<br />
Although many human rights<br />
organisations have pleaded for<br />
justice to be carried out and<br />
the Santals be returned to their<br />
lands, the scorched earth remains<br />
witness to the schools burnt down<br />
and the BGB patrolling the fences<br />
affirm the land is anyone’s but the<br />
Santals’. •<br />
Deaths of<br />
land rights<br />
defenders<br />
treble<br />
• Thomson Reuters Foundation<br />
The battle over land and resources<br />
turned bloodier in the past year<br />
with treble the number of land<br />
rights defenders killed, amid fears<br />
the violence will get even worse.<br />
An average of nearly 16 farmers,<br />
indigenous people and advocates<br />
of land rights were killed every<br />
month through November worldwide,<br />
or three times the average in<br />
2015, according to advocacy group<br />
Pan Asia Pacific (Panap).<br />
From January to end-November,<br />
171 people were killed in relation to<br />
land rights, Panap’s data showed.<br />
At least 118 were detained<br />
through November, compared with<br />
82 last year, as conflicts with rural<br />
communities and indigenous people<br />
intensified.<br />
In the fight for land and the environment<br />
- which UK-based watchdog<br />
Global Witness calls “a new<br />
battleground for human rights”<br />
- communities are locked in deadly<br />
struggles against governments,<br />
companies and criminal gangs exploiting<br />
land for products including<br />
timber, minerals and palm oil.<br />
Global Witness documented 185<br />
murders in 16 countries last year, or<br />
more than three people a week being<br />
killed defending land, forests and<br />
rivers in the deadliest year on record.<br />
In Asia, the Philippines, Indonesia<br />
and Cambodia saw the most<br />
number of victims, while in Latin<br />
America, it was in Honduras, Bolivia<br />
and Peru, Panap data showed.<br />
Harassment and killing of land<br />
rights defenders in India are also on<br />
the rise.<br />
In Brazil, more than 20 land<br />
rights activists were killed as of<br />
August this year, according to the<br />
Pastoral Land Commission.<br />
But communities are fighting<br />
back. In Cambodia, for example, a<br />
group of farmers is at the centre of a<br />
landmark legal case that could change<br />
the way global corporations manage<br />
large-scale land acquisitions. •<br />
Investigator: Some Bangladesh Bank officials involved in heist<br />
• Reuters<br />
Some Bangladesh central bank officials<br />
deliberately exposed its computer<br />
systems and enabled hackers to steal<br />
$81million from its account at the Federal<br />
Reserve Bank of New York in February,<br />
a top investigator in Dhaka told<br />
Reuters on Monday.<br />
The comments by Mohammad<br />
Shah Alam of Dhaka Metropolitan Police<br />
(DMP) are the first sign that investigators<br />
have got a firm lead in one of the<br />
world’s biggest cyber heists.<br />
He said arrests are likely to take<br />
place very soon.<br />
On Thursday, the head of a Bangladesh<br />
government panel that investigated<br />
the heist said five bank officials<br />
were guilty of negligence but that they<br />
were only unwitting accomplices.<br />
Shah Alam told Reuters his investigations<br />
had discovered that some<br />
bank officials had knowingly created<br />
vulnerabilities in the bank’s connection<br />
to the Swift system, used for global<br />
transactions.<br />
“Bangladesh Bank’s Swift network<br />
was made insecure by some bank employees<br />
in connivance with some foreign<br />
people,” he said. “They knew what<br />
they were doing.”<br />
He said investigators were now<br />
trying to find out how the mid-ranking<br />
officials were connected to the hackers<br />
and whether they benefited financially<br />
from the heist. Asked if the officials<br />
would be arrested, Shah Alam said:<br />
“We are very close to it.”<br />
Bangladesh Bank spokesman Subhankar<br />
Saha declined to comment.<br />
Another investigator, who declined<br />
to be named, said more than<br />
100 Bangladesh Bank employees had<br />
been interviewed in connection with<br />
the heist, and some were barred from<br />
leaving the country.<br />
The hackers used fake orders to order<br />
the transfer of nearly $1billion from<br />
Bangladesh Bank’s account at the New<br />
York Fed, using the international Swift<br />
payments network.<br />
Many of the transfer orders were<br />
blocked or reversed but $81million was<br />
successfully transferred to four fake<br />
accounts in a branch of Rizal Commercial<br />
Banking Corp (RCBC) in the Philippines.<br />
Most of the funds then disappeared<br />
into Manila’s loosely regulated<br />
casino industry. •
News 3<br />
TUESDAY, DECEMBER <strong>13</strong>, <strong>2016</strong><br />
CHILD LABOUR IN SYLHET STONE QUARRIES<br />
When education becomes a luxury<br />
DT<br />
• Mohammad Jamil Khan, back<br />
from Sylhet<br />
At the beginning of every year, the<br />
atmosphere in the primary schools<br />
of Sylhet’s Gowainghat upazila is<br />
the same as schools in the rest of<br />
the country: crowded with children<br />
who are excited about starting<br />
a new school year and getting new<br />
books.<br />
But as the year progresses, the<br />
situation changes in all 124 primary<br />
schools of Gowainghat; the classrooms<br />
lie empty, the teachers have<br />
no pupils to teach.<br />
The students who should have<br />
been in school are found working<br />
diligently in the stone quarries.<br />
“In Jaflong, no less than 70-80%<br />
of the students who enrol in school<br />
stop going to classes to work, particularly<br />
in winter,” said Mahfuzur<br />
Rahman, headmaster of Ballapunji<br />
Government Primary School. “They<br />
are mainly found collecting and extracting<br />
stones in the Piyan River.”<br />
“We frequently visit our students’<br />
houses to bring them back<br />
to the classroom, they rarely come<br />
back as most of them work for the<br />
stone quarries,” said Nurun Nahar,<br />
associate teacher at Ballapunji<br />
Government Primary School.<br />
“The majority of the absentee<br />
students turn up for the final exams,<br />
but it is not much of an improvement<br />
as they barely pass the<br />
exams,” she added.<br />
However, while the absence rate<br />
is extremely high, the drop out rate<br />
is impressively low.<br />
The official student drop out<br />
rate at primary schools varies between<br />
9% and 11%, which usually<br />
rises in Classes IV and V, according<br />
to Gowainghat Education Office.<br />
The readmission rate in the same<br />
class varies between 4% and 6%.<br />
Students make sure that they<br />
are enrolled in school by making<br />
sporadic appearances throughout<br />
the year and appearing in the exams,<br />
but most of the time they are<br />
absent, said several school sources.<br />
Poverty is the biggest reason<br />
behind this alarming trend, said<br />
Shahid Miah, education officer in<br />
Gowainghat.<br />
“To support their impoverished<br />
families, these children stop going<br />
to school and start working,” he<br />
told the Dhaka Tribune. “We are<br />
working to raise awareness in this<br />
regard; we have been meeting with<br />
their mothers to make them understand<br />
the importance of being regular<br />
in school.”<br />
The situation has started to improve,<br />
he said. “Students are slowly<br />
coming back. We are hopeful that it<br />
will gradually become even better.”<br />
‘Poverty makes us illiterate’<br />
This correspondent went to Jaflong,<br />
Bisanakandi and Bholaganj –<br />
three border areas in Sylhet where<br />
the stone quarries are located – last<br />
week on a visit arranged by Bangladesh<br />
Shishu Adhikar Forum and<br />
funded by Terre des Hommes, an<br />
international child relief agency.<br />
Most of the children that this<br />
correspondent saw working at the<br />
stone quarries or in the rivers collecting<br />
and extracting stones were<br />
aged between 8 and 16 years. Most<br />
of them were seen working with<br />
their parents.<br />
Kamrun Nahar is one such parent.<br />
Her nine-year-old daughter<br />
Shila was working with her near<br />
Piyan River when this reporter approached<br />
them.<br />
Asked why she was keeping her<br />
daughter from school, Kamrun Nahar<br />
snapped at this reporter. “Will<br />
school put food in our belly? If we<br />
do not work, we will have to go to<br />
sleep with an empty stomach.”<br />
Shila wants to go to school, but<br />
she understands that she has no<br />
option. “I go to school once a week,<br />
sometimes once in two weeks –<br />
whenever we have some money<br />
saved up so we can take a break<br />
from working. I cannot go to school<br />
regularly. If I do not work, how will<br />
I eat?” asked the nine-year-old.<br />
SC: Jan 15 deadline for finalising judicial code<br />
• Ashif Islam Shaon<br />
A child worker prepares to dive into the Piyan River in order to extract more stones from the riverbed in Jaflong, Sylhet<br />
MOHAMMAD JAMIL KHAN<br />
The apex court has directed the<br />
government to issue a gazette notification<br />
finalising the rules determining<br />
the discipline and conduct<br />
of lower court judges by January<br />
15, 2017.<br />
The eight member bench of the<br />
Appellate Division headed by Chief<br />
Justice Surendra Kumar Sinha also<br />
fixed that date for further hearing<br />
and orders while holding a hearing<br />
yesterday on the Masdar Hossain<br />
case, widely known as the judiciary<br />
separation case.<br />
Later Attorney General Mahbubey<br />
Alam, who represented the<br />
state at the hearing, told reporters<br />
that they have informed the court<br />
about Sunday’s Law Ministry notification<br />
which says that the president<br />
has decided that there is no need for<br />
a gazette notification on the matter.<br />
“We prayed for two months’<br />
time before the court to settle the<br />
matter. The court granted time till<br />
January 15,” he said.<br />
In the earlier order, the Apex<br />
court had asked the government to<br />
issue the gazette notification and<br />
place it before the court Monday.<br />
Besides, it asked the two secretaries<br />
of Law Ministry – ASSM Zahirul<br />
Haque and Mohammad Shahidul<br />
Haque to appear before the bench.<br />
The two secretaries appeared before<br />
the court yesterday morning.<br />
But the Sunday’s Law Ministry<br />
notification said that there is no<br />
need to publish a gazette notification<br />
on the Disciplinary Rules for<br />
the Judicial Officers and Judicial<br />
Officers Conduct Rules.<br />
During the hearing, the court<br />
asked the attorney general why the<br />
two secretaries have not brought<br />
the gazette notification. As Mahbubey<br />
mentioned the Law Ministry’s<br />
notification, the court asked<br />
him to read it out.<br />
In response the court expressed<br />
dissatisfaction saying the court<br />
had delivered 12-point directives in<br />
the Masdar Hossain case but those<br />
were not fully implemented in the<br />
last 14 years. The government sent<br />
a draft to the court and the court<br />
made some corrections but the final<br />
gazette is yet to be published.<br />
The court said the whole thing<br />
was conveying a wrong message<br />
to the public and lawyers that the<br />
court was behind all of these, which<br />
is not correct. The court just made<br />
some changes to the draft and<br />
asked to publish the final gazette.<br />
The court said, “Do not misunderstand<br />
us. This court handles 80-90%<br />
of government-related cases. We are<br />
not government’s antagonists.”<br />
The apex court said the president<br />
might have been misinformed<br />
about the matter of the gazette. The<br />
Law Ministry officials could not<br />
have done this if they had the minimum<br />
knowledge. The court criticised<br />
the government for seeking<br />
time from the court on several occasions<br />
to issue the gazette and then<br />
saying there is no need for a gazette.<br />
Law and Justice Division Secretary<br />
ASSM Zahirul Haque told the<br />
court they prepared the letter as per<br />
Shila’s situation is what most<br />
children are going through in the region.<br />
In some cases, there are children<br />
who cannot manage to go to<br />
school more than once in a month.<br />
In Bisanakandi, this reporter<br />
met Ashraful, 8, who is a boatman’s<br />
assistant in a tourist boat.<br />
He said his daily earning is Tk50<br />
after he works from dawn to dusk.<br />
“Some days are better when tourists<br />
give me tips,” the child told this<br />
correspondent.<br />
He said he goes to school when<br />
he can save enough money to take<br />
a break from work.<br />
Speaking to numerous child<br />
and adult labourers, this reporter<br />
learned that most of them did not<br />
cross the threshold of primary education.<br />
Assraf Seddiky, assistant professor<br />
at the department of public<br />
administration in Shahjalal University<br />
of Science and Technology,<br />
conducted a study on stone quarry<br />
workers in 2014, where he found<br />
that 58.83% of the workers managed<br />
to study until Class V, while<br />
33.33% were found to be illiterate.<br />
Only 10.84% of the workers<br />
have studied beyond the primary<br />
level, some studying up to Class<br />
VIII. But none of the workers have<br />
gotten to Secondary School Certificate<br />
exams.<br />
“People in this region do not<br />
know better than working at the<br />
stone quarries, because there are no<br />
alternative livelihood options available,”<br />
Assraf told the Dhaka Tribune.<br />
“Unable to pursue education,<br />
they remain detached from the rest<br />
of the country, let alone the world.”<br />
He said the government must<br />
take steps to alleviate this situation,<br />
otherwise it would be extremely<br />
difficult to change these<br />
people’s lives. •<br />
the direction of the President’s Office.<br />
While the court said it did not<br />
want any confrontation with the government,<br />
it pointed out that in the<br />
parliamentary system the president<br />
had no power except appointing the<br />
prime minister and chief justice.<br />
“The president acted as the government<br />
recommended in the file.”<br />
The court said that the gazette is<br />
necessary for the independence of<br />
the judiciary. The control of the judiciary<br />
needs to be in the Supreme<br />
Court’s hand and it cannot be compromised.<br />
The court asked to issue the gazette<br />
by January 15. It said there<br />
was no need to place the rules before<br />
parliament or cabinet. The<br />
government can finalise the rules<br />
through a notification. •
4<br />
TUESDAY, DECEMBER <strong>13</strong>, <strong>2016</strong><br />
DT<br />
News<br />
President to meet five political<br />
parties to discuss EC reforms<br />
• Syed Samiul Basher Anik<br />
President Abdul Hamid is going to<br />
hold dialogues with the country’s<br />
five registered political parties, including<br />
BNP, beginning from <strong>December</strong><br />
18, to discuss formation of<br />
Election Commission (EC).<br />
The president will exchange<br />
views with BNP at 4:30pm on <strong>December</strong><br />
18 in the Bangabhaban,<br />
president’s Press Secretary Joynal<br />
Abedin has said.<br />
President’s Secretary Shampad<br />
Barua sent letters to the five political<br />
parties, inviting them to attend<br />
the view exchange programme.<br />
The letter, sent to BNP Secretary<br />
General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir,<br />
asked him to submit a list of not<br />
more than 10 people by <strong>December</strong><br />
15, who will attend the programme.<br />
The EC is stipulated to be reconstituted<br />
by February of next year,<br />
as the tenures of incumbent commissioners<br />
including the chief election<br />
commissioner (CEC) will expire<br />
halfway through that month.<br />
The meeting was called within<br />
seven days, after a BNP delegation<br />
on <strong>December</strong> 6 submitted a<br />
<strong>13</strong>-point proposal on the reformation<br />
of the Election Commission to<br />
President Abdul Hamid.<br />
Earlier, on November 21, BNP<br />
Chairperson Khaleda Zia called<br />
upon the government to initiate<br />
talks over reformation of the Election<br />
Commission, based on proposals<br />
she made on November 18.<br />
On November 18, Khaleda Zia<br />
recommended a search committee,<br />
clean EC, ballot reforms and<br />
empowerment of the military during<br />
elections as focal points for the<br />
reconstitution of the election commission<br />
(EC).<br />
‘BNP says, discussion<br />
with the president to<br />
focus on it’s <strong>13</strong>-point<br />
proposal’<br />
Later, during a press conference on<br />
<strong>December</strong> 3, Prime Minister Sheikh<br />
Hasina said: “She [Khaleda] has<br />
made her proposal; now she can<br />
tell the president about it, and he’ll<br />
make the decision … we’ve nothing<br />
to say ….”<br />
When asked, BNP Secretary<br />
General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir<br />
said: “It is a positive sign and<br />
the party is expecting a good outcome<br />
from the discussion.”<br />
BNP’s Senior Joint Secretary General<br />
Ruhul Kabir Rizvi Ahmed told<br />
the Dhaka Tribune that they had earlier<br />
submitted a letter and its booklet<br />
on the <strong>13</strong>-point proposal on formation<br />
of a strong Election Commission<br />
to the President Abdul Hamid.<br />
“Discussion with the president<br />
will mainly focus on our <strong>13</strong>-point<br />
proposal, on the process of formation<br />
of the EC,” he said.<br />
Party sources told the Dhaka<br />
Tribune that a 10 member delegation,<br />
led by BNP chief Khaleda Zia,<br />
will attend the meeting.<br />
The delegation will place proposals,<br />
including calls for formation<br />
of a search committee, before<br />
the president, they said.<br />
The president will also hold<br />
meetings with the Jatiya Party on<br />
<strong>December</strong> 20 around 3:00pm, with<br />
the Liberal Democratic Party and<br />
Krishak Sramik Janata League on<br />
<strong>December</strong> 21 around 3:00pm and<br />
4:30pm respectively, and with the<br />
Jatiya Samajtantrik Party-Inu on<br />
<strong>December</strong> 22 around 3:00pm, according<br />
to the schedule.<br />
The president will hold talks<br />
with other registered political parties<br />
in phases, said the president’s<br />
press secretary.<br />
In 2012, late President Zillur<br />
Rahman appointed incumbent<br />
chief election commissioner Kazi<br />
Rakibuddin Ahmad and the election<br />
commissioners through a<br />
search committee, after holding<br />
meetings with the country’s 23 registered<br />
political parties.<br />
Currently, there are 40 political<br />
parties registered with the EC.<br />
Invited political parties welcomed<br />
the move<br />
The political parties, invited by the<br />
president for discussion, have welcomed<br />
the move and told the Dhaka<br />
Tribune that they will place proposals<br />
for a strong EC that can help<br />
hold a fair and unbiased election.<br />
Jatiya Party Secretary General<br />
ABM Ruhul Amin Howlader said:<br />
“The initiative from the president<br />
will help shape country’s democracy<br />
institutionally, and will also<br />
work to raise the faith of the public<br />
on the country’s democratic system.<br />
“The president’s initiative to<br />
help political parties deliver their<br />
opinion will help country’s democratic<br />
practices on a long term basis.<br />
The meeting will work for formation<br />
of a neutral EC and will also<br />
help holding a fair election.”<br />
Liberal Democratic Party (LDP)<br />
Joint Secretary General Shahadat<br />
Hossain Selim said that they have<br />
received the letter and they will<br />
send a delegation to present their<br />
proposal for a strong election commission<br />
as well.<br />
Krishak Sramik Janata League<br />
President Abdul Kader Siddique<br />
said that the president can discuss<br />
with any political party in a democratic<br />
state and that such an initiative<br />
is a very good sign for country’s<br />
democracy. •<br />
400kV double circuit<br />
electricity transmission<br />
line begins<br />
• Aminur Rahman Rasel<br />
The newly constructed 400kV<br />
Bibiyana-Kaliakoir double circuit<br />
electricity transmission<br />
line by the Power Grid Company<br />
Bangladesh Limited (PGCB)<br />
started its operation yesterday.<br />
It is the first 400kV grid<br />
transmission line of the country,<br />
Masum-Al-Beruni, managing<br />
director of PGCB said.<br />
Each of this double circuit<br />
line of PGCB has a capacity of<br />
1200MW, he said.<br />
He also said that with this<br />
high voltage line, it will be<br />
possible to transmit around<br />
1000MW electricity to the<br />
national grid from some constructed<br />
and under construction<br />
power plants in Bibiyana<br />
of Sylhet region.<br />
The capacity of the national<br />
grid will also be increased with<br />
the introduction of this new<br />
high voltage line.<br />
RMG worker<br />
gang-raped<br />
in Dhaka,<br />
one arrested<br />
• Mahadi Al Hasnat<br />
A 16-year-old RMG worker was<br />
gang-raped on Saturday at Mohammadpur<br />
in Dhaka. Police arrested<br />
a man in this connection<br />
and took him on a seven-day<br />
remand.<br />
The victim, a resident of Nabadoy<br />
housing area at Mohammadpur,<br />
was raped on Saturday when<br />
she went to Ekota Housing area<br />
with a male friend.<br />
Five local miscreants aged18-<br />
22 violated her in a nearby catkin<br />
bush, confining her friend forcefully,<br />
a source said.<br />
The victim was sent to Dhaka<br />
Medical College Hospital on Sunday<br />
and is currently admitted to<br />
One Stop Crisis Centre in the hospital.<br />
The victim named Rakib, Yunus,<br />
Billal, Kabir and Shahin as the rapists.<br />
Victim’s mother has filed a case<br />
with Mohammadpur police station<br />
on Sunday, Mohammadpur police<br />
station OC Jamal Uddin Mir told<br />
the Dhaka Tribune.<br />
Police arrested Rakib, 22, for his<br />
alleged involvement in the rape.<br />
The OC said: “We are carrying<br />
out drives to arrest the other accused.”<br />
•<br />
The length of this new<br />
transmission line is 168km. It<br />
has been constructed under<br />
the 400kV Bibiyana-Kaliakor<br />
and 230kV Bibiyana-Fenchuganj<br />
line development project.<br />
The project is implemented<br />
with the combined funding<br />
from the government, PGCB’s<br />
own fund and Korean Economic<br />
Development Fund (EDCF).<br />
This new line has passed<br />
over Nabiganj, Baniachang,<br />
Ajmeriganj upazilas of Habiganj<br />
district, Itna, Mithamoin,<br />
Nikli, Karimganj, Kotiadi, Pakundia<br />
upazilas of Kishorganj,<br />
Gafargaon upazila of Mymensingh,<br />
Kapasia, Sripur, Gazipur<br />
Sadar and Kaliakoir upazilas of<br />
Gazipur district.<br />
The 400kV line will start<br />
in full capacity from Kaliakoir<br />
today. Earlier, the<br />
Meghnaghat-Aminbazaar<br />
400kV line was started with a<br />
230kV transmission.•
GFMD summit<br />
ends with<br />
agreement on<br />
governance of<br />
migration<br />
• Jebun Nesa Alo<br />
Global Forum on Migration and<br />
Development (GFMD) summit<br />
ended yesterday with an agreement<br />
on an instrument for migration<br />
governance.<br />
Germany chaired the closing<br />
session of the three-day long<br />
summit where representatives<br />
from <strong>13</strong>0 countries came to<br />
Bangladesh to participate in the<br />
summit.<br />
The 9th GFMD was the biggest<br />
event Bangladesh has ever hosted<br />
with 600 government delegation in<br />
attendance, said Shahidul Haque<br />
foreign secretary of Bangladesh<br />
and chair of GFMD <strong>2016</strong>.<br />
“Bangladesh pressed home the<br />
idea of designing a global compact<br />
on migration that would ensure<br />
the rights of emigrants. Most of the<br />
countries present were in favor of<br />
an international law on the issue<br />
while some countries wanting a<br />
convention on it.<br />
“Regardless of their difference<br />
of opinion, all countries agreed that<br />
there needs to be an agreement on<br />
a global governance of migration,”<br />
said Shahidul.<br />
Migration issues will no longer<br />
just be mitigated bilaterally but<br />
through a global mechanism, he<br />
added.<br />
It was a positive sign that<br />
during the summit no destination<br />
countries expressed negativity<br />
towards the home countries of<br />
emigrants and vise versa.<br />
Topics such as geopolitics,<br />
economy, migration cost, security<br />
etc were discussed during the<br />
summit.<br />
The global compact on migration<br />
was also discussed heavily and<br />
how it should be designed with<br />
migration cost being a focal point<br />
of discussions as well. •<br />
News 5<br />
TUESDAY, DECEMBER <strong>13</strong>, <strong>2016</strong><br />
Service chief tenure capped at 4 years<br />
• Shohel Mamun<br />
The cabinet has approved in<br />
principle the draft of the “Defence<br />
Forces Chiefs (Appointment,<br />
Retirement and Salary and<br />
Allowances) Act <strong>2016</strong>,” capping the<br />
service tenure of army, navy and<br />
air force chiefs at four years.<br />
The approval came in a weekly<br />
meeting at Bangladesh Secretariat<br />
with Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina<br />
in the chair yesterday.<br />
Briefing reporters after the<br />
meeting, Cabinet Secretary M<br />
Shafiul Alam said the proposed<br />
legislation was expected to be<br />
framed regarding the services of<br />
the three services chiefs in line<br />
with the constitutional provision<br />
enacted 44 years back.<br />
“So far the process [of their<br />
appointment, retirement, salary<br />
and allowances] was being done<br />
by the official order Joint Service<br />
Instructions,” Alam said.<br />
The draft proposed that the<br />
president will appoint the chiefs<br />
of defence forces and they will<br />
hold the offices for maximum four<br />
years at a stretch or with extension<br />
if they are not given retirement in<br />
public interest or opt for voluntary<br />
retirement themselves.<br />
According to the proposed law,<br />
the chiefs of three services will<br />
receive salary in same scale of the<br />
cabinet secretary in addition to<br />
Geo-data for advanced farmers soon<br />
• Abu Siddique<br />
Pillars that demarcated the land of Turag River can be seen lying on the field broken and removed from the ground. These were placed to fight encroachment of river<br />
land. The photo was taken yesterday near Birulia in Savar<br />
RAJIB DHAR<br />
A tripartite Memorandum of Understanding<br />
(MoU) was signed yesterday,<br />
with the aim of developing<br />
a satellite based agricultural information<br />
system in Bangladesh. The<br />
three parties were the Department<br />
of Agricultural Extension (DAE),<br />
Advanced Chemical Industries Ltd<br />
(ACI) and the Netherlands Development<br />
Organisation (SNV).<br />
The information services will be<br />
created under project Intelligent Decision<br />
Support System (IDSS) to provide<br />
customized advisory services to<br />
smallholder farmers through the use<br />
of advanced Geo-data.<br />
The MoU was signed by Director<br />
General of DAE Md Hamidur<br />
Rahman, Executive Director of ACI<br />
Agribusiness Dr. F H Ansarey and<br />
Country Director of the SNV Jason<br />
Belanger. Project Team Leader<br />
Shamim Murad was also present<br />
IDSS aims to raise awareness for<br />
advanced agronomic practices and<br />
increased resilience by providing<br />
monitoring and early alert services.<br />
Initially, the project will be implemented<br />
in 12 districts of the<br />
country, before expansion to the<br />
national level. •<br />
allowances.<br />
On expiry of their four-year<br />
tenure, they will be deemed<br />
disqualified to be reemployed in<br />
any civil or military administration.<br />
However, they can get<br />
appointment in any constitutional<br />
position and work contractually in<br />
any private organisation, the draft<br />
law said.<br />
Border haats<br />
The cabinet also approved the<br />
draft of a memorandum of<br />
understanding (MoU) and a modus<br />
operandi to renew the tenure of the<br />
border haats between Bangladesh<br />
and India, increasing the time to<br />
five years from the existing three<br />
DT<br />
years.<br />
The cabinet secretary said:<br />
“Border haats began in October<br />
2010 and was extended in 20<strong>13</strong>.<br />
There are four haats along the<br />
border of the two countries which<br />
have already expired. As per the<br />
new MoU the tenure of the haats<br />
will be increased. The number of<br />
haats will also be increased.”<br />
The draft also proposed to<br />
increase the number of traders<br />
from each side to sell products in a<br />
border haat to 50 from the present<br />
25.<br />
“The purchase limit for<br />
customers will also be increased to<br />
$200 from $100,” Cabinet Secretary<br />
M Shafiul Alam added. •<br />
TEMPERATURE FORECAST FOR TODAY<br />
Dhaka 27 <strong>13</strong> Chittagong 27 17 Rajshahi 26 12 Rangpur 26 12 Khulna 28 12 Barisal 28 <strong>13</strong> Sylhet 28 11<br />
Cox’s Bazar 28 18<br />
DRY WEATHER<br />
TUESDAY, DECEMBER <strong>13</strong><br />
DHAKA<br />
TODAY<br />
TOMORROW<br />
SUN SETS 5:<strong>13</strong>PM<br />
SUN RISES 6:33AM<br />
YESTERDAY’S HIGH AND LOW<br />
31.1ºC<br />
9.8ºC<br />
Teknaf<br />
Rajshahi<br />
Source: Accuweather/UNB<br />
PRAYER<br />
TIMES<br />
Fajr: 5:50am | Zohr: 1:15pm<br />
Asr: 4:00pm | Magrib: 5:22pm<br />
Esha: 7:30pm<br />
Source: Islamic Foundation
6<br />
TUESDAY, DECEMBER <strong>13</strong>, <strong>2016</strong><br />
DT<br />
News<br />
Floating farms bring smile to ultra poor women<br />
The new concept of such farming started a year ago at Notunpara village in Pabna<br />
• Imroj Khandaker Bappi,<br />
Pabna<br />
Combined farming of vegetables,<br />
poultry and fish on rafts on the<br />
Gumani River in Pabna has become<br />
successful in turning the plight of<br />
ultra poor women of the area.<br />
The new concept of such farming<br />
stared a year ago at Notunpara<br />
village in Bhangura upazila. It requires<br />
a raft made of drums.<br />
On the raft, there is space for<br />
laying eggs of ducks, which spend<br />
all day in water and lay eggs on<br />
the raft at night. The excrement of<br />
ducks is used as fish feed, as the<br />
fish are cultivated under the raft.<br />
For growing vegetables such as<br />
bitter gourd, cucumber and pumpkin,<br />
plastic bucket is used from<br />
where maca is raised on the raft.<br />
Initially, five women of the village<br />
spent Tk25 to 30 thousand to<br />
start such a farm, while no further<br />
investment is required from next<br />
year. A non-government developmental<br />
organization is helping<br />
them in this regard.<br />
Hosne Ara, wife of Dulal Kha,<br />
Hafiza Khatun, wife of Mohir Uddin,<br />
Saleha Khatun, wife of Anwar Hossain,<br />
Afroja Khatun, wife of Lablu<br />
Mia, and Rehena Khatun, wife of Jakir<br />
Hossain, from Char Bhangura Purba<br />
Para village have been able to change<br />
the poor plight of their families by doing<br />
the farming within a year.<br />
The farm also provides the families<br />
with the proper nutrition.<br />
They told the Dhaka Tribune: “We<br />
have earned more than Tk100000<br />
from the farm in a year. Now, our<br />
children can go to schools. Now,<br />
many other villagers are willing to do<br />
the farming seeing our successes.”<br />
According to Directorate of Agriculture<br />
Extension of the district,<br />
peasants are being trained up on<br />
this type of farming.<br />
They are becoming self-dependent<br />
by implementing the skills and<br />
knowledge obtained from such<br />
training, said the directorate. The<br />
directorate has been working to<br />
spread the farming in the region.<br />
Bibhuti Bhushon Sarker, deputy<br />
director of the directorate, said:<br />
“If such floating farms are spread<br />
throughout the district, it will contribute<br />
to eradicate poverty from the<br />
locality. Many parts of Chalan Bil<br />
area remain under water six months<br />
a year. Such farming can bring smiles<br />
to the people of those areas.” •<br />
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Dhaka Tribune
News 7<br />
TUESDAY, DECEMBER <strong>13</strong>, <strong>2016</strong><br />
Tobacco production in Kushtia on rise<br />
• Kudrate Khoda Sabuj<br />
Tobacco production in the district<br />
is on the rise in recent years,<br />
cutting the total amount of arable<br />
lands where essential food grains<br />
were produced earlier, said related<br />
sources.<br />
Farmers who started tobacco<br />
production in this season said: “We<br />
are doing so due to the frustrating<br />
market price of essential food<br />
grains which we produce through<br />
dawn-to-dusk hard labour. Moreover,<br />
tobacco companies offer lucrative<br />
incentive packages.”<br />
Sources from district Agricultural<br />
Extension Department (AED)<br />
said tobacco production is continuing<br />
uninterruptedly and increasing<br />
every year which may lead to<br />
decreasing cultivation of essential<br />
food grains. Farmers are cultivating<br />
tobacco on different fertile lands of<br />
the district including Doulatpur,<br />
Mirpur and Veramara upazilas.<br />
“Earlier, a variety of essential<br />
food grains including paddy, sugarcane,<br />
jute, wheat and pulse used<br />
to be cultivated overwhelmingly in<br />
these three upazilas. Almost half of<br />
the produced food grains were distributed<br />
among other districts after<br />
meeting the local demand. But in<br />
recent years, a sharp rise in tobacco<br />
production has alarmingly decreased<br />
the total amount of lands<br />
that produce food grains; although<br />
it poses a serious threat to fertility<br />
of lands and farmers’ health,” said<br />
an AED official.<br />
NHRC: Gobindaganj<br />
Santals evicted illegally<br />
• Rezaul Haque, Gaibandha<br />
Cultivators mount up tobacco leaves after the harvest. In Kushtia, almost one-fourth of the total arable lands are now being<br />
used for tobacco production, posing serious threat to fertility of lands and farmers’ health<br />
SYED ZAKIR HOSSAIN<br />
The eviction of Santals from their<br />
village in Gobindaganj was illegal,<br />
the National Human Rights Commission<br />
has said.<br />
“In primary investigation, we<br />
have noticed many crimes including<br />
murder and arson that took place<br />
during the eviction,” he added.<br />
A 10-member team consisting of<br />
NHRC members, the parliamentary<br />
caucus on indigenous issues and<br />
the United Nations Development<br />
Programme (UNDP) visited the village<br />
yesterday morning.<br />
After the visit and interviews<br />
with victims from the Santal community,<br />
the team spoke to the<br />
press at Madarpur village in front<br />
of the church.<br />
“No one has the right to forcibly<br />
evict people. Whether the Santals<br />
settled in the sugar farm legally or illegally,<br />
their eviction required a court<br />
order,” the NHRC chairman said.<br />
The Caucus convener Fazle Hossain<br />
Badha, members AK Fazlul<br />
Haque and Tipu Sultan and technocrat<br />
member Prof Mesbah Kamal,<br />
NHRC Director (investigation) Sharif<br />
Uddin, UNDP Chief Technical<br />
Adviser on Human Rights Sharmila<br />
Rasul, Taslima Nasrin and Shankar<br />
Pal were members of the team.<br />
Rezaul Haque said the government’s<br />
initiatives for the Santal<br />
community were insufficient.<br />
The mill authorities could have<br />
leased out the land to Santals on<br />
a priority basis. It should not have<br />
given the land to local influential<br />
people,” he said.<br />
Earlier the delegation spoke to<br />
the Rangpur Sugar Mill authorities<br />
and later recorded the interviews<br />
of seven evicted villagers, both<br />
Santal and Bangali.<br />
Asked about their findings, the<br />
NHRC chairman said further investigation<br />
was required, but there<br />
was clear indication of abuse during<br />
the eviction.<br />
The Santals carried out a procession<br />
with bows and arrows and<br />
sticks as the delegation left the<br />
area, shouting slogans demanding<br />
the return of their land. •<br />
According to AED statistics, out<br />
of 1,15,875 hectors of total arable<br />
land in Kushtia, tobacco is being<br />
cultivated in 30,000 hectors of<br />
land at present.<br />
AED officials and concerned citizens<br />
of the district apprehended<br />
that adequate production of food<br />
grains might be affected “if this<br />
trend continues”.<br />
They said various tobacco manufacturing<br />
companies like British<br />
American Tobacco Bangladesh,<br />
Dhaka Tobacco, Abul Khayer, Jamil<br />
Group and Nasir Group are luring<br />
the farmers offering lucrative incentive<br />
packages.<br />
Contacted, Mirpur upazila Deputy<br />
Assistant Agriculture Officer<br />
Monirul Islam said: “The companies<br />
supply fertilisers, seeds and<br />
insecticides to the cultivators in<br />
5 alleged HujiB<br />
leaders put on<br />
3-day remand<br />
• FM Mizanur Rahaman,<br />
Chittagong<br />
A Chittagong court yesterday<br />
placed five alleged leaders of<br />
banned Islamic militant outfit Harkat-ul<br />
Jihad Bangladesh (HujiB) on<br />
a three-day remand in connection<br />
with three cases filed with Chittagong<br />
city’s Akbar Shah police.<br />
The arrestees were Mowlana Tajul<br />
Islam, Nazim Uddin, Hafez Abujar Gifari,<br />
Nure Alam and Iftesham Ahmed.<br />
Chittagong Metropolitan Police<br />
(CMP) Additional Deputy Commissioner<br />
Nirmalendu Bikash Chakrabarty<br />
said: “The court of Metropolitan<br />
Magistrate Nazmul Hossen<br />
Chowdhury placed the five HujiB<br />
leaders on a three-day remand in<br />
each case after the remand hearing.”<br />
On <strong>December</strong> 8, RAB busted<br />
a HujiB den in Chittagong city’s<br />
Colonel Hat area and arrested them<br />
including three regional commanders.<br />
They found two firearms, large<br />
stash of bullets, improvised explosive<br />
devices (IED)s and bomb making<br />
materials in their possession. •<br />
advance. As a result, farmers do<br />
not pay heed to the consultations<br />
of AED officials who encourage<br />
them to produce wheat, lentils,<br />
gram, pea, maize and mustard.<br />
More and more farmers in the district<br />
are joining tobacco production<br />
as they do not get fair prices of<br />
their produced food grains.”<br />
He said out of 24,030 hectors<br />
of total arable land in the upazila,<br />
CU VC sued for making<br />
derogatory comments<br />
• FM Mizanur Rahaman,<br />
Chittagong<br />
DT<br />
tobacco is being cultivated in this<br />
season at 8,000 hectors of land<br />
where wheat, lentils, gram, pea,<br />
maize and mustard were cultivated.<br />
Earlier, after meeting the local<br />
demands; the upazila had about<br />
2,500 tonnes of surplus food grains.<br />
“If we can provide, considering<br />
the existing reality of the region,<br />
essential farming materials including<br />
fertilisers, seeds and insecticides<br />
as government incentives to<br />
farmers to inspire them to produce<br />
alternative crops, it might bring<br />
expected results,” the agriculture<br />
officer observed.<br />
Observing that cultivation of<br />
boro does not even return the fertiliser<br />
and irrigation costs; Mojibur<br />
Rahman, a farmer from Haringachi<br />
village under Rifaitpur union in<br />
Daulatpur upazila said: “That’s<br />
why I started tobacco cultivation<br />
few years ago. Tobacco production<br />
at per bigha of land costs Tk8,000<br />
to Tk12,000; and after the harvest,<br />
produced tobacco of per bigha<br />
land can be sold at Tk45,000 to Tk<br />
50,000.”<br />
Contacted, district AED’s Acting<br />
Deputy Director Dr Hayat Mahmud<br />
said: “Tobacco production takes<br />
six months of time, whereas cultivation<br />
of wheat, lentils, gram, pea,<br />
maize or mustard takes only three<br />
months with double profit.”<br />
“As we do not have any legal way<br />
to stop tobacco production, we are<br />
focusing on awareness building;<br />
discouraging the cultivators from<br />
tobacco production,” he added. •<br />
Prof Iftekhar Uddin Chowdhury,<br />
vice chancellor of Chittagong University,<br />
has been sued in a defamation<br />
case for making a derogatory<br />
comment about another teacher of<br />
the university.<br />
Prof Gazi Saleh Uddin, a teacher<br />
at Sociology Department of the<br />
university, filed the case against<br />
the VC with a court of Chittagong<br />
Metropolitan Magistrate (CMM)<br />
yesterday over making the comment<br />
about him, terming him a<br />
fake freedom fighter.<br />
Prof Iftekhar made the comment<br />
on November 28 in a commemorative<br />
meeting of former VC<br />
late prof Abu Yusuf, according to<br />
the case statement.<br />
Defence lawyer Mujibor Rahman<br />
Chowdhury told the Dhaka<br />
Tribune: “Taking the case into<br />
cognizance, the court directed the<br />
deputy commissioner of Detective<br />
Branch, Chittagong Metropolitan<br />
Police, to submit a report in this regard<br />
within 30 days.”<br />
Prof Iftekhar told Dhaka Tribune:<br />
“I will fight the legal battle.”<br />
However, he refuted the allegation<br />
brought by Prof Saleh Uddin in<br />
the case.<br />
Prof Saleh Uddin mentioned in<br />
the case statement that his father<br />
Ali Karim, a former railway official,<br />
was murdered by Pakistani occupational<br />
force on November 10 in<br />
1971.<br />
Prof Saleh Uddin fought for the<br />
country under Sector Two in the<br />
liberation War and his freedom<br />
fighter’s certificates numbers are<br />
“BMS-27910” signed by Prime Minister<br />
Sheikh Hasina and “M-6056”<br />
issued by the ministry of Liberation<br />
War Affairs, as mentioned in<br />
the case statement.<br />
Besides, Prof Saleh Udin’s two<br />
brothers Gazi Mesbah Uddin and<br />
Gazi Samsuddin were also freedom<br />
fighters, while a commemorative<br />
postal stamp was also released by<br />
Bangladesh Postal Department<br />
in the name of his father, said the<br />
case statement. •
DT<br />
8<br />
World<br />
TUESDAY, DECEMBER <strong>13</strong>, <strong>2016</strong><br />
SOUTH ASIA<br />
Pakistan names new ISI<br />
chief<br />
Pakistan has named a new head of<br />
its powerful military Inter-Services<br />
Intelligence agency (ISI), two weeks<br />
after replacing the chief of army<br />
staff in a significant shift for the<br />
military that wields huge influence.<br />
Lieutenant General Naveed Mukhtar<br />
was appointed as director-general of<br />
the ISI, replacing Lieutenant General<br />
Rizwan Akhtar. AFP<br />
INDIA<br />
India police probe politicallydriven<br />
Twitter hacking<br />
Indian police on Monday said they<br />
were trying to track down a group<br />
of cyber criminals suspected of<br />
hacking high profile Twitter accounts<br />
amid allegations the breaches<br />
were politically motivated. The<br />
unknown group, ‘Legion Crew’,<br />
on Saturday targeted two Twitter<br />
accounts belonging to prominent<br />
television journalists, both seen as<br />
critics of the policies of the ruling<br />
Hindu nationalist government. AFP<br />
CHINA<br />
China to continue opposing<br />
UN ban on Masood Azhar<br />
China said on Monday its policy on<br />
Pakistan-based terrorist Masood<br />
Azhar hasn’t changed, indicating it<br />
will continue to block India’s efforts<br />
to get the JeM chief sanctioned by<br />
the UN. Answering a query on Indo-China<br />
relations, foreign ministry<br />
spokesperson Geng Shuang said<br />
that “on the listing issue China’s<br />
position remains unchanged”. HT<br />
ASIA PACIFIC<br />
Taiwan calls on youths to<br />
join army<br />
Taiwan’s defence minister called<br />
on youths to join the army Monday<br />
after Chinese military aircraft<br />
came near the island over the<br />
weekend during a drill for the<br />
second time in the past month.<br />
Officials gave no further detail on<br />
how close the planes had come to<br />
the island, but they did not enter<br />
Taiwan’s airspace. AFP<br />
MIDDLE EAST<br />
Iran: Gulf worried about<br />
war risks with Trump<br />
Donald Trump’s election has led<br />
to unease over threats to peace in<br />
the region, Iran’s defence minister<br />
said on Sunday, warning that a war<br />
would destroy Israel and the small<br />
Gulf Arab states. Trump’s election<br />
victory has raised the prospect the<br />
US will pull out of a nuclear pact it<br />
signed last year with Iran, which<br />
Barack Obama’s administration<br />
has touted as a way to suspend<br />
Tehran’s suspected drive to develop<br />
atomic weapons. REUTERS<br />
Myanmar calls Asean talks over<br />
Rohingya issue<br />
• AFP, Yangon<br />
Myanmar has called an emergency<br />
Asean meeting to discuss the Rohingya<br />
crisis, a diplomat said Monday,<br />
as regional tensions deepen<br />
over a bloody military crackdown<br />
on the country’s Muslim minority.<br />
More than 20,000 Rohingya<br />
have flooded into Bangladesh<br />
over the past two months, fleeing<br />
a military campaign in Myanmar’s<br />
western Rakhine state.<br />
Their stories of mass rape and<br />
murder at the hands of security<br />
forces have galvanised protests in<br />
Muslim nations around the region,<br />
with Buddhist-majority Myanmar<br />
facing diplomatic pressure from its<br />
neighbours.<br />
A diplomatic source in the Philippines<br />
confirmed Myanmar had<br />
invited them for an emergency<br />
Asean meeting to discuss “the Rohingya<br />
issue”.<br />
The source declined to give<br />
more details on the meeting,<br />
which the Nikkei reported would<br />
be held in Yangon on <strong>December</strong><br />
19. Myanmar officials could not be<br />
reached for comment.<br />
The bloodshed presents the biggest<br />
challenge to Nobel Peace prize<br />
winner Suu Kyi since her party won<br />
the country’s first democratic elections<br />
in a generation last year.<br />
Last week the UN’s special adviser<br />
on Myanmar criticised her<br />
handling of the crisis, saying it had<br />
“caused frustration locally and<br />
disappointment internationally”.<br />
Suu Kyi also held talks over Rakhine<br />
with the foreign minister of<br />
Indonesia, after cancelling a visit<br />
to the country in November following<br />
protests and an attempted<br />
attack on the Myanmar embassy.<br />
State media report almost 100<br />
people have been killed – 17 soldiers<br />
and 76 suspects – in the army<br />
operation in Rakhine that followed<br />
deadly raids on police border posts<br />
on October 9.<br />
Advocacy groups put the death<br />
toll in the hundreds, but foreign<br />
journalists and independent investigators<br />
have been barred from visiting<br />
the area to verify the figures. •<br />
Q&A<br />
Why is Jakarta’s governor on trial for blasphemy?<br />
Jakarta’s Christian governor Basuki<br />
Tjahaja Purnama is being prosecuted<br />
for blasphemy, an offence that carries<br />
a five-year jail term in Indonesia, over<br />
remarks he made about the Koran.<br />
The comments sparked widespread<br />
anger in the world’s most populous<br />
Muslim-majority country and the case<br />
is now seen in part as a test of religious<br />
tolerance in Indonesia.<br />
But critics say it is also about politics<br />
as the governor’s foes whip up anger to<br />
reduce his support.<br />
Who is on trial?<br />
Purnama, better known by his nickname<br />
Ahok, is Jakarta’s first non-Muslim<br />
governor for half a century and a<br />
member of the country’s tiny ethnic<br />
Chinese minority.<br />
The 50-year-old has won huge popularity<br />
with his no-nonsense style and<br />
determination to clean up Jakarta, an<br />
overcrowded, disorganised and polluted<br />
metropolis of 10 million.<br />
But he has also faced constant opposition<br />
from hardline Islamic groups,<br />
who dislike a non-Muslim being in<br />
charge of Indonesia’s capital. He is running<br />
for election in February.<br />
How did this start?<br />
During a campaign stop in September,<br />
Purnama told a crowd they had been<br />
“deceived” by his opponents who used<br />
Muslims protest against Myanmar’s crackdown on ethnic Rohingya Muslims, outside the Myanmar embassy in Bangkok on<br />
November 25<br />
REUTERS<br />
Indonesian Muslims hold up posters during a rally calling for the arrest of<br />
Jakarta’s Governor Basuki Tjahaja Purnama in Jakarta on <strong>December</strong> 2. The<br />
poster, centre, reads: ‘Jail Ahok, blasphemer against the Koran’<br />
REUTERS<br />
a Koranic verse to try to put them off<br />
voting for a Christian.<br />
The speech went viral, angering moderate<br />
and conservative Muslims alike<br />
who considered the remarks offensive.<br />
Purnama apologised but Indonesia’s<br />
top Islamic clerical body declared<br />
the remarks blasphemous.<br />
In November more than 100,000<br />
Muslims swarmed Jakarta in one of the<br />
largest mass demonstrations seen in<br />
the capital in years as hardliners burnt<br />
cars and clashed with police, demanding<br />
Purnama face justice.<br />
President Joko Widodo vowed to<br />
swiftly resolve the case, and police officially<br />
declared Purnama a suspect for<br />
blasphemy.<br />
Why blasphemy?<br />
Indonesia’s constitution guarantees<br />
freedom of religion but officially only<br />
six faiths are recognised.<br />
Under tough laws dating back to<br />
1965, anyone who insults these religions<br />
or deviates from their beliefs can<br />
be charged with blasphemy and jailed.<br />
Critics say today the laws are exploited<br />
to persecute minorities, like<br />
Shia and Ahmadi Muslims, and in some<br />
cases, even atheists have fallen foul of<br />
the legislation.<br />
In 2012, a man was sentenced to<br />
two-and-a-half years prison for writing<br />
“God does not exist” on Facebook.<br />
What next?<br />
The FPI and other Islamic groups have<br />
vowed to maintain pressure until Purnama<br />
is prosecuted.<br />
While rights groups fear the campaign<br />
against Purnama could further erode<br />
Indonesia’s reputation for pluralism and<br />
have urged police to drop the case.<br />
Widodo too is feeling the pressure.<br />
He has blamed “political actors” for<br />
the instability and staged high-profile<br />
visits with military and political leaders<br />
to broadcast an image of control.<br />
But in the hours before a <strong>December</strong><br />
rally, 10 people were detained on<br />
murky allegations of treason. •<br />
Source: AFP
World<br />
Aleppo battle nears end<br />
• AFP, Aleppo<br />
The crucial battle for Aleppo entered<br />
its “final phase” on Monday<br />
after Syrian rebels retreated into a<br />
small pocket of their former bastion<br />
in the face of new army advances.<br />
President Bashar al-Assad’s<br />
forces held 95% of the onetime<br />
opposition stronghold of east<br />
Aleppo, a monitor and military<br />
official said, and appeared on the<br />
verge of retaking the entire city.<br />
The fall of Aleppo would be the<br />
worst rebel defeat since Syria’s<br />
conflict began in 2011, and leave<br />
the government in control of the<br />
country’s five major cities.<br />
The Syrian Observatory for Human<br />
Rights monitoring group reported<br />
that the army had captured<br />
southeast Aleppo’s large Sheikh<br />
Saeed district.<br />
‘A total collapse’<br />
“The battle of Aleppo has reached<br />
its end. It is just a matter of a small<br />
period of time... it’s a total collapse,”<br />
said Observatory director<br />
Rami Abdel Rahman.<br />
In the Mashhad neighbourhood,<br />
residents fleeing the army<br />
advance crowded the streets, witnesses<br />
said.<br />
Displaced civilians – many hungry<br />
after fleeing without food – sat<br />
UK to adopt new<br />
anti-Semitism<br />
definition to fight<br />
hate crime<br />
• Reuters, London<br />
Britain said on Monday it would<br />
become one of the first countries<br />
to adopt an international definition<br />
of anti-Semitism to clamp down on<br />
hate crime after an increase in the<br />
number of reported incidents targeting<br />
Jews.<br />
Adopting the definition formulated<br />
in May by the International<br />
Holocaust Remembrance Alliance<br />
(IHRA) is meant to make it harder<br />
for people to get away with discriminatory<br />
or prejudiced behaviour due<br />
to unclear or differing definitions of<br />
what anti-Semitism actually is.<br />
“It means there will be one definition<br />
of anti-Semitism – in essence,<br />
language or behaviour that displays<br />
hatred towards Jews because they are<br />
Jews – and anyone guilty of that will be<br />
called out on it,” Prime Minister Theresa<br />
May said in pre-released extracts<br />
from a speech she was due to deliver.<br />
The government is due to publish<br />
its response on <strong>Tuesday</strong> to an<br />
inquiry into anti-Semitism conducted<br />
by a committee of lawmakers and<br />
another report published in 2015. •<br />
ALEPPO’S HUMAN TRAGEDY<br />
“Aleppo is already a Sarajevo, a black chapter<br />
in the history of mankind and of international<br />
politics,” Jan Egeland, UN humanitarian<br />
advisor on Syria (Nov 29,<strong>2016</strong>)<br />
Dec 12<br />
Photos: K. Al-Masri, G. Ourfian/AFP<br />
on pavements or lay on the street<br />
with nowhere else to go, they said.<br />
State television also aired live<br />
footage from inside Salhin district,<br />
one of the areas fully retaken on<br />
Monday, showing widespread destruction.<br />
The Observatory said<br />
Monday another 10,000 people had<br />
fled rebel areas in the previous 24<br />
hours, bringing the total number of<br />
those who have left – mostly to government-held<br />
territory – to <strong>13</strong>0,000.<br />
Russian ‘double-talk’<br />
More than 300,000 people have<br />
Six months on, Brexit rift among<br />
Britons remains wide<br />
• AFP, London<br />
Now, nearly six months after<br />
Britain’s shock referendum vote<br />
for Brexit, two thirty-somethings<br />
prove the debate is still very much<br />
alive, and just as painful.<br />
“I’m very, very excited about<br />
the future,” says Chris Mendes,<br />
a 31-year-old software engineer<br />
who supports the anti-EU, anti-immigration<br />
UK Independence<br />
Party (UKIP), which helped drive<br />
the “Leave” vote.<br />
But Thomas Cole, a 33-year-old<br />
political analyst who used to work<br />
at the European Commission in<br />
Brussels, says the future is still up<br />
for play.<br />
Since the vote on June 23,<br />
many Britons have had to wrestle<br />
with some of the stark and unsettling<br />
realities of what “leaving Europe”<br />
actually means.<br />
Mendes, sporting a brown<br />
T-shirt and a three-day-old beard,<br />
acknowledges there are challenges<br />
to leaving the EU, not least<br />
pro-European MPs seeking to delay<br />
or soften the divorce.<br />
“There’s obviously a clear resistance<br />
to Brexit, there’s no question<br />
about that, but we expected<br />
that,” he says.<br />
April-May 2011 Mass student protests against President Assad. Demos crushed.<br />
July-Aug 2012<br />
Dec 20<strong>13</strong><br />
Dec 7<br />
Rebels from Free Syrian Army (armed civilians<br />
and army deserters) take eastern half of city<br />
Regime drops 1st barrel bombs on rebel-held<br />
districts housing more than 250,000 civilians<br />
Sept 2015 Russia enters war to support Assad<br />
July <strong>2016</strong><br />
Sept 22<br />
Nov 15<br />
been killed in Syria’s war, and over<br />
half the country displaced.<br />
The government assault on<br />
Aleppo has killed at least 415 civilians<br />
since mid-November, according<br />
to the Observatory. Another<br />
<strong>13</strong>0 civilians have been slain in rebel<br />
fire on the city’s west over the<br />
same period, it says.<br />
Diplomatic efforts to end the<br />
conflict have repeatedly failed.<br />
Russia last week said talks were<br />
under way with US officials on securing<br />
a ceasefire and the withdrawal<br />
of all rebel forces from Aleppo.<br />
But Cole, wearing a smart<br />
jumper and striped scarf tied at<br />
the neck, argues that the referendum<br />
was “legally not binding”.<br />
Taking back control<br />
Under pressure from members of<br />
her Conservative party and EU<br />
leaders, Prime Minister Theresa<br />
May has promised to begin formal<br />
exit talks by the end of March.<br />
But she is fighting a legal challenge<br />
against calls for MPs to take<br />
the final decision on triggering<br />
Regime cuts rebels’ last supply route into Aleppo<br />
Regime and Russia announce major offensive<br />
Regime and Russia launch most intense<br />
assault on eastern Aleppo in 2 years,<br />
using barrel bombs and artillery shells<br />
Nov 21 No functioning hospitals left in besieged part<br />
of city. Civilians without urgent medical help<br />
Rebels call for immediate truce and evacuation of<br />
civilians. At least 80,000 residents have fled since Nov 15<br />
More than 90% of city in regime hands<br />
Opposition fighter, central Aleppo,<br />
July 25, 2012<br />
Attack on rebel-held district,<br />
November 24, <strong>2016</strong><br />
But despite a series of high-level<br />
meetings there was no progress<br />
in halting the fighting.<br />
Moscow is a key Assad ally and<br />
launched an air war in support of<br />
his forces last year, while Washington<br />
and other Western nations<br />
have supported rebel forces battling<br />
the regime.<br />
French Foreign Minister Jean-<br />
Marc Ayrault said Monday the latest<br />
round of Russia-US talks at the<br />
weekend failed “because there is<br />
double-talk and a sort of permanent<br />
lie” on the Russia’s part. •<br />
Pro Europe demonstrators protest outside the Supreme court building in<br />
London on the first day of a four-day hearing on <strong>December</strong> 5<br />
AFP<br />
Brexit, amid concerns that parliament,<br />
which overwhelmingly<br />
wanted Britain to stay in the EU,<br />
will try to block it.<br />
Meanwhile the cabinet itself<br />
appears divided on the key issue<br />
of whether or not to stay in the<br />
single market.<br />
Remainers say quitting the<br />
world’s biggest trade bloc will<br />
destroy swathes of British jobs.<br />
Brexit supporters say Britain will<br />
forge new trade deals with the<br />
rest of the world. •<br />
9<br />
TUESDAY, DECEMBER <strong>13</strong>, <strong>2016</strong><br />
DT<br />
USA<br />
Trump taps John Kelly for<br />
Homeland Security<br />
Donald Trump has nominated former<br />
general John Kelly as homeland<br />
security secretary, his transition<br />
team has confirmed. The retired<br />
Marine Corps general, who stepped<br />
down in <strong>2016</strong> as commander of the<br />
US southern command, was widely<br />
expected to be the president-elect’s<br />
pick to head the Department of<br />
Homeland Security. GUARDIAN<br />
THE AMERICAS<br />
Venezuela pulls<br />
100-bolivar note from<br />
circulation<br />
The Venezuelan government is<br />
to withdraw its largest banknote<br />
from circulation in its latest<br />
attempt to tackle the world’s worst<br />
inflation crisis. President Nicolas<br />
Maduro said on Sunday that the<br />
100-bolivar note, which is currently<br />
worth only two US cents on the<br />
black market, will be withdrawn<br />
on Wednesday. GUARDIAN<br />
UK<br />
UK bans neo-Nazi group<br />
under anti-terror laws<br />
A neo-Nazi group that celebrated<br />
the murder of the Labour MP Jo<br />
Cox is to become the first far-right<br />
group to be proscribed as a terrorist<br />
organisation by the home secretary.<br />
Britain’s interior ministry<br />
said the far-right extremist group,<br />
National Action, was being banned<br />
under the Terrorism Act as it had<br />
been assessed to be “concerned in<br />
terrorism”. The move means that<br />
supporting or being a member of<br />
the organisation will be a criminal<br />
offence, carrying a potential<br />
10-year prison sentence, the Home<br />
Office said in a statement. AFP<br />
EUROPE<br />
EU, Cuba normalise ties<br />
The EU and Cuba on Monday signed<br />
a deal to normalise ties that had<br />
been blocked for decades by human<br />
rights concerns under revolutionary<br />
icon Fidel Castro. Cuba was the<br />
only Latin American country not to<br />
have a “dialogue and cooperation”<br />
deal with the 28-nation EU covering<br />
issues such as trade, human rights<br />
and migration. REUTERS<br />
AFRICA<br />
Egypt arrests four over<br />
deadly church bombing<br />
Egyptian security forces arrested<br />
four people suspected of<br />
involvement in a bomb attack<br />
on a Cairo church that killed 24<br />
people, President Abdel Fattah<br />
al-Sisi said Monday. Sisi, who was<br />
speaking at a funeral for those<br />
killed, also revealed that Sunday’s<br />
attack was carried out by a suicide<br />
bomber who had been identified<br />
as 22-year-old Mahmoud Shafik<br />
Mohamed Mostafa. AFP
10<br />
TUESDAY, DECEMBER <strong>13</strong>, <strong>2016</strong><br />
DT<br />
World<br />
China warns Trump over Taiwan policy<br />
• AFP, Beijing<br />
China expressed “serious concern”<br />
on Monday after US President-elect<br />
Donald Trump said the United<br />
States did not necessarily have to<br />
stick to its long-held stance that<br />
Taiwan is part of “one China”, calling<br />
it the basis for relations.<br />
Beijing issued its first clear warning<br />
Monday over Donald Trump’s<br />
fiery rhetoric, as state media said<br />
the Asian giant could back “forces<br />
hostile to the US” if the president-elect<br />
follows through with<br />
threats to drop Washington’s One<br />
China policy.<br />
It was the strongest signal yet<br />
from Chinese authorities that abandoning<br />
the One China policy, which<br />
guides relations with self-ruling<br />
Taiwan, would upset decades of<br />
carefully managed Sino-US relations<br />
and end cooperation between<br />
the world’s top two economies.<br />
Beijing has not controlled Taiwan<br />
for more than 60 years but<br />
foreign ministry spokesman Geng<br />
Shuang said it considered the island<br />
a “core interest” that affected<br />
China’s sovereignty and territorial<br />
integrity.<br />
The One China policy was the<br />
“political bedrock” for relations<br />
with the US, he added, and if it<br />
was “compromised or disrupted”,<br />
sound and steady growth in China-US<br />
relations and cooperation in<br />
major fields would be “out of the<br />
question”, he told reporters.<br />
The comments came in response<br />
to Trump’s remarks in an interview<br />
Sunday that he did not see why<br />
Washington must “be bound by a<br />
One China policy unless we make<br />
a deal with China having to do with<br />
other things, including trade”.<br />
Although the US is Taiwan’s main<br />
ally and arms supplier, Washington<br />
has not had official diplomatic relations<br />
with Taipei since 1979, when<br />
it switched recognition to Beijing.<br />
Trump’s decision to take the call<br />
broke with protocol, and seemed<br />
to catch China’s Communist Party<br />
leadership by surprise.<br />
The official response was initially<br />
muted, and state media largely<br />
blamed Taiwan for the phone call and<br />
advocated a wait-and-see response.<br />
But the remarks on Monday were<br />
more pointed, and a commentary<br />
in the nationalistic Global Times<br />
offered a more menacing warning<br />
to Trump, calling him “as ignorant<br />
of diplomacy as a child”, in its Chinese-language<br />
version.<br />
‘Novice’<br />
Despite the escalation in official<br />
rhetoric, many Chinese analysts<br />
still offer a note of restraint, emphasising<br />
Trump’s background in<br />
business, not politics, and the possibility<br />
his actions in office will take<br />
a softer line.<br />
“I think this could be his negotiating<br />
technique because he knows<br />
the Taiwan issue is an extremely<br />
sensitive issue, an issue China is<br />
very concerned about,” Wu Xinbo,<br />
director of the Center for American<br />
Studies at Fudan University in<br />
Shanghai, said.<br />
Trump last week appointed Iowa<br />
Governor Terry Branstad, who is<br />
personally acquainted with Chinese<br />
President Xi Jinping, as ambassador<br />
to Beijing, which hailed the nominee<br />
as a “friend of China”. •<br />
UNITED STATES AND CHINA<br />
ECONOMY<br />
GDP<br />
2015<br />
In $ trillions<br />
17.95<br />
10.87<br />
MILITARY<br />
2015 military expenditure<br />
In billions of dollars<br />
USA<br />
$596.02<br />
Sources: World Bank/SIPRI<br />
Reserves<br />
2015<br />
In $ trillions<br />
3.41<br />
Annual GDP growth<br />
In %<br />
15<br />
11.4<br />
10<br />
5<br />
0<br />
-5<br />
-10<br />
0.38 -15<br />
3.3<br />
2005 2010<br />
RUSSIA<br />
$66.42<br />
INDIA<br />
$51.26<br />
2015<br />
6.9<br />
2.4<br />
CHINA<br />
$214.79<br />
GDP per capita<br />
In dollars<br />
44,308<br />
55,837<br />
AUSTRALIA<br />
$23.59<br />
2005<br />
2015<br />
1,740<br />
JAPAN<br />
$40.89<br />
7,925<br />
SOUTH KOREA<br />
$36.43<br />
Tillerson choice raises<br />
questions of corporate v<br />
national interest<br />
The central question facing Exxon Mobil<br />
Corp Chief Executive Rex Tillerson<br />
if he becomes US secretary of state is<br />
whether a lifelong oil man with close<br />
ties to Russia can pivot from advancing<br />
corporate interests to serving the national<br />
interest.<br />
Tillerson, 64, got his start as a production<br />
engineer at Exxon in 1975 and<br />
has worked there ever since, running<br />
business units in Yemen, Thailand and<br />
Russia before being named chief executive<br />
in 2006. He was expected to<br />
retire next year.<br />
Senior senators, both Democrats<br />
and Republicans, have expressed<br />
concern over Tillerson, who emerged<br />
this weekend as Donald Trump’s expected<br />
pick for secretary of state, according<br />
to a source familiar with the<br />
situation. By choosing him, the president-elect<br />
would add another - and<br />
presumably highly influential - person<br />
to his Cabinet and circle of advisers<br />
who may favour a soft line toward<br />
Moscow.<br />
Among these is Trump’s choice<br />
for national security adviser, Michael<br />
Flynn, who raised eyebrows when he<br />
sat beside Russian President Vladimir<br />
Putin at a Moscow banquet last year<br />
and who has argued that the United<br />
States and Russia should collaborate<br />
to end Syria’s civil war and to defeat<br />
Islamic State militants.<br />
Tillerson’s links with Russia came under<br />
fire from top lawmakers on Sunday.<br />
‘A straight arrow’?<br />
Many US officials are worried by Russia’s<br />
increasingly aggressive behaviour.<br />
It annexed Crimea from Ukraine in<br />
2014, has supported Syrian President<br />
Bashar al-Assad in the Syrian civil war<br />
and is accused of interfering in US domestic<br />
politics.<br />
US intelligence analysts have concluded<br />
that Russia intervened in the<br />
<strong>2016</strong> election to help Trump defeat<br />
Hillary Clinton, and not just to undermine<br />
confidence in the US electoral<br />
system, a senior US official said.<br />
In his role at Exxon, Tillerson maintained<br />
close ties with Putin and opposed<br />
US sanctions against Russia for<br />
its incursion into Crimea.<br />
Trump praised Tillerson, saying<br />
on his Twitter account on Saturday:<br />
“Whether I choose him or not for<br />
“State”- Rex Tillerson, the Chairman<br />
& CEO of ExxonMobil, is a world class<br />
player and dealmaker. Stay tuned!”<br />
Reince Priebus, the Republican National<br />
Committee chairman who has<br />
been tapped to serve as White House<br />
chief of Staff, praised Tillerson’s relationship<br />
with Putin.<br />
However, Senator Robert Menendez<br />
of New Jersey, a senior Democratic<br />
member of the Senate Foreign Relations<br />
Committee that would weigh Tillerson’s<br />
nomination, was unsparing in his criticism<br />
of the possible appointment. •<br />
Source: REUTERS<br />
Donald Trump<br />
Trump faces an early test with<br />
Republicans over Russia<br />
• Tribune International Desk<br />
President-elect Donald Trump is<br />
facing an early test with fellow Republicans<br />
over US relations with<br />
Russia, as lawmakers seek to investigate<br />
a CIA assessment that Russia<br />
interfered in the November election<br />
and issue warnings over the incoming<br />
president’s potential pick for<br />
secretary of state, reports the Associated<br />
Press.<br />
Trump said Sunday the recent<br />
CIA assertion that Russian hacking<br />
had sought to help his candidacy<br />
was “ridiculous,” and he praised<br />
ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson, who<br />
has emerged as the leading contender<br />
to lead the State Department.<br />
But two key Senate Republicans<br />
— John McCain of Arizona and<br />
Lindsey Graham of South Carolina,<br />
a leading Trump critic — joined with<br />
two Democrats in seeking a bipartisan<br />
investigation into the Kremlin’s<br />
activities during the election. And<br />
McCain, the party’s 2008 presidential<br />
nominee, questioned whether<br />
Trump should nominate Tillerson,<br />
citing the executive’s longstanding<br />
business ties with Moscow.<br />
Russia expects to figure prominently<br />
at the start of a week in<br />
which Trump is expected to name<br />
more members of his Cabinet,<br />
which also has vacancies in the departments<br />
of Energy, Agriculture<br />
and Veterans Affairs.<br />
Trump’s transition team announced<br />
Monday that his choice to<br />
head the Department of Homeland<br />
Security is, as expected, General<br />
John Kelly. Kelly is a former commander<br />
of US Southern Command<br />
with “unique insight into some of<br />
the challenges the United States<br />
faces at its southern border,” the<br />
announcement said.<br />
During his campaign, Trump<br />
weathered turbulent relations with<br />
REUTERS<br />
fellow Republicans but has since<br />
forged a more united front with<br />
GOP lawmakers since his November<br />
victory over Hillary Clinton.<br />
The CIA recently concluded<br />
with “high confidence” that Russia<br />
sought to influence the US election<br />
on behalf of Trump, raising red<br />
flags among lawmakers concerned<br />
about the sanctity of the US voting<br />
system and potentially straining<br />
relations at the start of Trump’s administration.<br />
Trump’s decision-making on<br />
whom to select for secretary of<br />
state has stretched out over several<br />
weeks. He has been considering<br />
former Massachusetts Governor<br />
Mitt Romney, a one-time vocal<br />
Trump critic, Senator Bob Corker<br />
of Tennessee, who leads the Foreign<br />
Relations Committee, and<br />
Tillerson, the oil industry executive<br />
who met twice with Trump<br />
during the past week. •
World<br />
FACTBOX<br />
Who are Egypt’s Coptic Christians?<br />
• AFP, Cairo<br />
Egypt’s Copts, targeted in a church<br />
bombing that killed 25 people in Cairo<br />
on Sunday, are the Middle East’s largest<br />
Christian minority community, and also<br />
one of the oldest.<br />
Making up about 10% of Egypt’s population<br />
of 90m, the Coptic Orthodox are<br />
the largest Christian denomination in the<br />
Muslim-majority country. Here is a recap<br />
of their history, their status today and<br />
past attacks against the minority.<br />
‘Dawn of Christianity’<br />
The Copts go back to the dawn of Christianity,<br />
at a time when Egypt was integrated<br />
into the Roman, then Byzantine empires,<br />
following the end of the dynasty of the<br />
Pharaoh Ptolemy, who was of Greek origin.<br />
The word “Copt” has the same roots<br />
as the term “Egyptian” in ancient Greek.<br />
Their decline started with the Arab<br />
invasions of the 7th century and the<br />
progressive Islamisation of the country,<br />
which today is largely Sunni Muslim.<br />
The Bible says Joseph, Mary and Jesus<br />
sought refuge in Egypt after Christ’s<br />
birth to escape a massacre of newborns<br />
ordered by King Harod.<br />
Several churches and monasteries<br />
in Egypt are believed to be built on sites<br />
visited by the Holy Family during its flight.<br />
Copts today<br />
Copts are present across the whole<br />
country, with the strongest concentration<br />
in middle and southern Egypt, and<br />
are represented in all social classes.<br />
Most adhere to the Coptic Orthodox<br />
Church of Alexandria, headed since 2012<br />
by Pope Tawadros II, while a minority is<br />
divided between the Coptic Catholic and<br />
various Coptic Protestant churches.<br />
Tawadros, who succeeded pope<br />
Shenuda III, was chosen after a blindfolded<br />
altar boy picked his name from a<br />
chalice, according to custom.<br />
The Catholic Copts, who form part of<br />
the Church’s eastern rites, are headed by<br />
patriarch Ibrahim Isaac Sidrak since 20<strong>13</strong>.<br />
Vatican records show some 165,000<br />
Catholic Copts lived in Egypt in 2010.<br />
Weakly represented in government,<br />
Copts complain that they are sidelined<br />
from many posts in the justice system,<br />
universities and the police.<br />
11<br />
TUESDAY, DECEMBER <strong>13</strong>, <strong>2016</strong><br />
Deadly violence<br />
Egypt’s Copts have also been the target<br />
of deadly violence after the 2011 uprising<br />
that toppled president Hosni Mubarak<br />
and the 20<strong>13</strong> ouster of his elected Islamist<br />
successor after just one year of rule.<br />
Islamist supporters of ousted president<br />
Mohamed Morsi accused the Christian<br />
community of supporting his overthrow.<br />
They pointed to the appearance of<br />
Tawadros alongside President Abdel<br />
Fattah al-Sisi in July 20<strong>13</strong>, when the then<br />
army chief, also surrounded by Muslim<br />
and opposition figures, announced on<br />
television Morsi’s removal.<br />
More than 40 churches were attacked<br />
nationwide in the two weeks after the<br />
deadly dispersal by security forces of two<br />
pro-Morsi protest camps in Cairo on August<br />
14, 20<strong>13</strong>, Human Rights Watch said.<br />
In October 2011, almost 30 people –<br />
mostly Coptic Christians – were killed after<br />
the army charged at a protest outside the<br />
state television building in Cairo to denounce<br />
the torching of a church in southern Egypt.<br />
In May 2011, clashes between Muslims<br />
and Copts left 15 dead in the popular<br />
Cairo neighbourhood of Imbaba where<br />
two churches were attacked.<br />
In March the same year, <strong>13</strong> people<br />
were killed in clashes between Muslims<br />
and Copts in Cairo’s working class neighbourhood<br />
of Moqattam, where around<br />
1,000 Christians had gathered to protest<br />
over the torching of a church.<br />
On January 1, 2011, the unclaimed<br />
bombing of a Coptic church killed more<br />
than 20 people in Alexandria. •<br />
DT
DT<br />
12<br />
Business<br />
TUESDAY, DECEMBER <strong>13</strong>, <strong>2016</strong><br />
CAPITAL MARKET SNAPSHOT: MONDAY<br />
DSE Broad Index 4,869.6 0.2% ▲ Index 1,157.1 0.2% ▲ 30 Index 1,785.6 0.1% ▲ Turnover in Mn Tk 7,412.4 -10.0% ▼ Turnover in Mn Vol 2<strong>13</strong>.8 -27.1% ▼<br />
CSE All Share Index 14,968.6 -0.1% ▼ 30 Index <strong>13</strong>,295.0 -0.4% ▼ Selected Index 9,081.7 -0.1% ▼ Turnover in Mn Tk 456.7 -3.7% ▼ Turnover in Mn Vol 16.8 -15.8% ▼<br />
ILO: Most female SME owners hardly get loans<br />
Women entrepreneurs say long application process a big barrier to access to funds<br />
• SM Najmus Sakib<br />
Over 60% women Small and Medium<br />
Enterprise (SME) entrepreneurs<br />
in Bangladesh do not get<br />
loans neither from the government<br />
nor the private loan providers, says<br />
a study of ILO, Bangladesh.<br />
On the other hand, 88% SME<br />
women entrepreneurs expressed<br />
their dissatisfaction over the cumbersome<br />
loan application process<br />
that is a great barrier in the way of<br />
getting their desired loans, view<br />
specialists at ‘Dhaka summit on<br />
skill, employment and decent work<br />
<strong>2016</strong>’ held at a city hotel yesterday.<br />
During his presentation, Francis<br />
De Silva, senior specialist of ILO<br />
Bangladesh, stated that the average<br />
loan size for women-owned SMEs<br />
is 47% less than the amount SMEs<br />
owned by men, and 36% of women<br />
reported gender-bias among financial<br />
institutions.<br />
“And to get loan, women needed<br />
nearly <strong>13</strong> time visits to the bank to<br />
get their loan approved,” he further<br />
added.<br />
According to the ILO survey,<br />
nearly 70% of the women entrepreneurs<br />
in Bangladesh are in micro<br />
and rural enterprises and overall<br />
demand for finance among women-owned<br />
SMEs is estimated to be<br />
approximately Tk9,975 crore.<br />
As an initiative to promote<br />
women entrepreneurship, the<br />
Ministry of Women and Children<br />
Affairs jointly with a2i, SME foundation<br />
and Bangladesh Women in<br />
Technology (BWIT) have fixed a<br />
target to develop 3,000 women as<br />
ICT entrepreneurs and freelancers<br />
from the remotest and under-privileged<br />
areas across the country.<br />
10 million migrant workers<br />
stayed abroad till November,<br />
<strong>2016</strong> and sent remittance worth<br />
US$12.49 billion, said Anir Chowdhury,<br />
a policy advisor of the Prime<br />
Minister Office.<br />
He said: “Apprenticeship is less<br />
costly to recruit than adult and experience<br />
workers and condition of<br />
Bangladesh is yet to be a satisfactory<br />
one compare to the developed<br />
and developing countries in giving<br />
access to the industries.”<br />
“Apprenticeship helps improve<br />
companies’ productivity and<br />
people who have trained as<br />
apprentice are likely to stay with<br />
that company, skilling people in<br />
target areas meet business need<br />
and help employers to overcome<br />
structural barriers which will<br />
ultimately be beneficial for the<br />
industries,” he reads.<br />
Under ‘Apprenticeship programme<br />
in informal sectors for<br />
unemployed youths’ a2i (is a key<br />
driver from PM office to operate<br />
skill development programmes) in<br />
partnership with ILO has started<br />
skill development in 600 informal<br />
industries and workshops in 30<br />
Upazillas and 1200 unemployed<br />
youths were receiving training,<br />
says the ILO study. •<br />
Curriculum revision needed to develop skilled workforce<br />
• Ibrahim Hossain Ovi<br />
Experts suggested revision of education<br />
curriculum to produce<br />
need-based skilled workforce as<br />
demand for skills continues to rise.<br />
“Generation of about 15m new<br />
jobs are projected over the next 10<br />
years in the country’s seven thrust<br />
sectors including garment, export-oriented<br />
manufacturing, light<br />
engineering, shipbuilding, agriculture,<br />
ICT and pharmaceuticals,” said<br />
Md Mokhlesur Rahman of the World<br />
Bank in his key note presentation at<br />
a seminar in Dhaka yesterday.<br />
The seminar titled “Skill for Decent<br />
Employment: An Effective<br />
Mean of Social Transformation”<br />
was held at the Dhaka Skill Summit.<br />
Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce<br />
and Industry President Syed<br />
Nasim Manzur moderated the seminar.<br />
Mokhlesur Rahman urged to<br />
increase the share of students in<br />
A woman sews nakshikantha in Jessore. The women SME entrepreneurs in the country struggle to run business due to lack of<br />
fund<br />
SYED ZAKIR HOSSAIN<br />
the Technical Vocational Education<br />
and Training (TVET) system to<br />
25% by expanding access to quality<br />
technical vocational education and<br />
training.<br />
Dhaka University Associate Professor<br />
of Economics Sayema Haque<br />
Bidisha was co-presenter of the<br />
keynote paper.<br />
She also found that the country’s<br />
education curriculum is not in<br />
consistent with the industry’s demand<br />
and called for making skillbased<br />
curriculum.<br />
Principal Secretary to Prime<br />
Minister Abul Kalam Azad the government<br />
has taken several initiatives<br />
to increase skilled workforce.<br />
According to the World Bank<br />
data, Bangladesh’s industrial production<br />
increased by an estimated<br />
10.1%, driven by growth in large<br />
and medium scale manufacturing<br />
and construction, while the service<br />
sector growth accelerated from<br />
5.8% in FY2015 to 6.7% in FY<strong>2016</strong>.<br />
The data said there are shortages<br />
of semi-skilled and skilled<br />
people in general, but the highest<br />
skill gap is in the agro-food sector<br />
followed by the RMG and IT.<br />
Sramik League Leader Shamsun<br />
Nahar Buiyan said the workers migrate<br />
to Dhaka and other industrial<br />
zones for jobs from rural areas.<br />
She said: “It’s difficult for the<br />
migrated rural people to bear cost<br />
of skills development training as<br />
such training facilities are mostly<br />
centred in cities.<br />
Shamsun Nahar stressed the<br />
need to introduce training programmes<br />
in rural areas too.<br />
BGMEA Vice President Mohammad<br />
Nasir said there is “a huge gap<br />
between skills produced by our educational<br />
institutes and demand by<br />
the industry.”<br />
“There are more items which are<br />
highly potential for Bangladesh,<br />
but they require special skills set<br />
to operate different types of machines,<br />
tools, and computer-aided<br />
devices,” he added<br />
The key note presenter identified<br />
lack of incentives for skill<br />
development, weak linkage between<br />
school and work transition,<br />
question of quality at different<br />
stages of education and training<br />
programmes, limited scope of skill<br />
development for those in the informal<br />
sector, inequalities in terms of<br />
gender and income and high drop<br />
out as key challenges.<br />
The presentation recommended<br />
to increase allocation in human resource<br />
development, establish coordination<br />
between vocational institutes<br />
and industry, modernising<br />
tertiary education with more graduates,<br />
dealing with negative social<br />
valuers associated with vocational<br />
education. •
Business <strong>13</strong><br />
DT<br />
TUESDAY, DECEMBER <strong>13</strong>, <strong>2016</strong><br />
Doha Bank MD: Gulf countries<br />
look to invest in Bangladesh<br />
• Jebun Nesa Alo<br />
Gulf countries are now looking at<br />
Bangladesh to invest as the economy<br />
of the country has been emerging<br />
with sustainable growth said,<br />
R Seetharaman, chief executive<br />
officer of Doha Bank in the state of<br />
Qatar.<br />
The Middle Eastern countries<br />
are diversifying their investment in<br />
multiple markets and multiple sectors<br />
beyond the oil business due to<br />
the fall in oil price in global market,<br />
said R Seetharaman while talking<br />
to the Dhaka Tribune in an exclusive<br />
interview during his recent<br />
visit to Bangladesh.<br />
The top manager inaugurated<br />
representative office of Doha Bank<br />
in Bangladesh on 8 <strong>December</strong>. Doha<br />
Bank, which was incorporated in<br />
1979, is the third largest local conventional<br />
bank by assets in Qatar.<br />
“Because of the fall in oil price,<br />
gulf economies faced extraordinary<br />
downturn in capital market,<br />
liquidity stress and fiscal deficit,<br />
said the top manager of Doha Bank.<br />
He continued as saying, “But<br />
the economy of those countries are<br />
still financially stable as economic<br />
fundamental of those is strong and<br />
they are diversifying their business<br />
beyond hydro companies to produce<br />
investment returns.”<br />
Expansionary fiscal policy taken<br />
by government of gulf states will<br />
Doha Bank Managing Director R Seetharaman<br />
give Bangladesh opportunity to export<br />
more human capital. Non hydro<br />
company is marginalised here<br />
with 1% growth and non hydro<br />
companies are growing with 7%<br />
growth and that is exactly to open<br />
up opportunity for Bangladesh, he<br />
added.<br />
He said: “Non hydro companies<br />
are here to grow and countries<br />
like Qatar are working on projects<br />
worth US$40 billion this year mainly<br />
in transport, communication<br />
and construction sector.”<br />
Governments of Gulf states have<br />
undertaken expansionary fiscal<br />
policy framework worth hundred<br />
and seventy billion dollars which<br />
will need more skilled and non<br />
skilled labours to implement the<br />
framework, he stated.<br />
As Bangladesh is now making<br />
$15 billion remittance annually<br />
which is likely to grow further.<br />
The annual trade between Bangladesh<br />
and gulf blocks is $3.5 billion<br />
which is expected to grow further,<br />
he hoped.<br />
He said: “Saudi Arab is interested<br />
to invest in Bangladesh in<br />
education and agriculture side. It<br />
already invested in construction of<br />
hospital in Bangladesh which will<br />
be very useful for the local community.<br />
Saudi Bank is coming up with<br />
investment in construction including<br />
bridges in Bangladesh.”<br />
Not only Saudi Arabia but also<br />
other gulf states are also coming<br />
up with huge investment in Bangladesh,<br />
he added.<br />
Doha bank is now here and also<br />
looking for exporting LNG into<br />
Bangladesh from Qatar. Kuwait is<br />
also coming up with public fund to<br />
invest in Bangladesh, he said.<br />
Praising the economic prgress<br />
of the country, R Seetharaman<br />
also remided that Bangladesh is an<br />
emerging economy as the growth<br />
over 7% is significant, inflation is<br />
less than 6%, current account deficit<br />
getting marginalised and could<br />
be surplus in coming days. The<br />
country now ranks the 6th position<br />
in global competitive investment<br />
index by World Economic Forum<br />
which is a good indicator that attracted<br />
gulf countries to come up<br />
with investment.”<br />
“We have ample of opportunities<br />
to support to the banking<br />
system here in Bangladesh. We<br />
are also going to work with the<br />
local banks to invite business<br />
community here to invest in gulf<br />
states. There is specific incentives<br />
disigned for small and medium investors<br />
in Qatar. Doha bank will be<br />
guarantee 87% of credit risk for the<br />
SMEs want to invest in Qatar, concluded<br />
R Seetharaman. •<br />
Laptop Fair<br />
<strong>2016</strong> begins<br />
Thursday<br />
• Tribune Business Desk<br />
A three-day Laptop Fair <strong>2016</strong> is set<br />
to begin Thursday at the Bangabandhu<br />
International Conference<br />
Center in Dhaka.<br />
The country’s largest laptop<br />
showcasing event styled “Techshohor.com<br />
Laptop Fair <strong>2016</strong>” will involve<br />
both the local and international<br />
technology brands. The fair<br />
will remain open from 10:00am to<br />
8:00pm while entry fee has been<br />
fixed at Tk30.<br />
Expo Maker, event organiser,<br />
came up with the disclosure at a<br />
press conference held at a hotel in<br />
Dhaka Sunday.<br />
Expo Maker is organising the<br />
fair for 18th time in a row as it has<br />
been organising the fair since 2008.<br />
Nahid Hasnain Siddique, Expo<br />
Maker head of operations and chief<br />
coordinator of the fair, Salahuddin<br />
Md Adil, manager, business development<br />
of HP, Protap Saha, manager<br />
(marketing) Dell, Imran Hossain,<br />
assistant general manager of<br />
Walton, were present at the press<br />
conference.<br />
Both the local and global companies<br />
will showcase their products<br />
at 44 stalls. There will be six<br />
mini-pavilions, six pavilions and<br />
one mega pavilions, organiser informed<br />
the press conference.<br />
Officials of different companies<br />
disclosed that they would launch<br />
some new models of their products<br />
at the fair. •<br />
Ryder: Skills 21 to ensure a solid base for development<br />
• Rafikul Islam<br />
The Skills 21-empowering citizens<br />
for inclusive and sustainable<br />
growth project would provide a<br />
solid base for the future development<br />
of Bangladesh, International<br />
Labour Organization (ILO) Director<br />
General Guy Ryder said yesterday.<br />
“A modern and inclusive skills<br />
system 21 initiative will build on<br />
past achievements and ultimately<br />
provide greater access to quality<br />
vocational training for men and<br />
women alike, he also said”<br />
Guy Ryder made the speeches<br />
at a joint project launching programme<br />
held at Pan Pacific Sonargaon<br />
Hotel on Monday.<br />
“With Skills 21, Bangladesh will<br />
benefit its demographic dividend<br />
not just in quantity but also in<br />
quality, he added.”<br />
Set to run from January 2017 to<br />
<strong>December</strong> 2020, the Skills 21 project<br />
will strengthen the National<br />
Skills Development System by continuing<br />
earlier reforms and by developing<br />
a National Qualifications<br />
Framework.<br />
The project also aims to support<br />
partnerships between private sector<br />
and relevant training providers<br />
to develop and implement effective<br />
professional education and<br />
training programmes. The initiative<br />
involves 20 million euro.<br />
Given the importance of labour<br />
migration in the Bangladesh economy,<br />
Skills 21 will also include<br />
actions for the integration of migration<br />
issues in the Skills Development<br />
System.<br />
The programme will support the<br />
returning migrants as well as those<br />
aspiring to migrate so they are able<br />
to secure better paid work.<br />
The project will be implemented<br />
in close collaboration with the Ministry<br />
of Education, Ministry of Labour<br />
and Employment, Ministry of<br />
Expatriates’ Welfare and Overseas<br />
Employment, Ministry of Youth<br />
and Sports, Ministry Of Chittagong<br />
Hill Tracts Affairs, National Skills<br />
Development Council Secretariat,<br />
Directorate of Technical Education,<br />
Bangladesh Technical Education<br />
Board and Bureau of Manpower<br />
Employment and Training.<br />
However, Education Secretary<br />
Md. Sohorab Hossain signed the<br />
Officials speaks at the signing ceremony of Skills 21 project in Dhaka yesterday<br />
declaration on behalf of the government<br />
while Ambassador Pierre<br />
Mayaudon and Director-General<br />
Guy Ryder inked the document for<br />
the EU and ILO respectively. Education<br />
Minister Nurul Islam Nahid<br />
witnessed the event.<br />
“This initiative will support the<br />
government’s commitment to inclusive<br />
economic growth and full<br />
and productive employment for<br />
all,” the Education Minister said.<br />
He said a skilled and productive<br />
workforce would make a major<br />
contribution to the goal of becoming<br />
a middle-income country by<br />
2021.<br />
Pierre Mayaudon said, Bangladesh<br />
required a skilled labour force<br />
to ensure sustainable economic<br />
RAFIKUL ISLAM<br />
growth.<br />
“This EU funded intervention<br />
will also aim at creating the conditions<br />
for a sector wide approach<br />
for the TVET policy area in Bangladesh.<br />
In doing so, we will also<br />
be instrumental in creating more<br />
skilled trainers and more diversified<br />
job opportunities for young<br />
Bangladeshis”, he added. •
14<br />
TUESDAY, DECEMBER <strong>13</strong>, <strong>2016</strong><br />
DT<br />
Business<br />
IEA: Growth in global coal demand to slow over next 5 yrs<br />
• Reuters<br />
Growth in global coal demand will<br />
slow over the next five years due to<br />
lower consumption in China and<br />
the United States and as renewable<br />
energy sources gain ground, the<br />
International Energy Agency (IEA)<br />
said yesterday.<br />
The IEA said last year that the<br />
world’s top coal consumer, China,<br />
could be facing peak coal demand<br />
for the first time due to measures<br />
to cap coal use to tackle air pollution<br />
and curb excess supply.<br />
“In China, coal demand is in<br />
structural and slow decline driven<br />
by a new economic growth model<br />
and diversification of coal,” the<br />
Paris-based IEA said in its medium-term<br />
coal market report.<br />
Even though China’s consumption<br />
is likely to have peaked, the<br />
country will still be the largest coal<br />
user over the next five years.<br />
Its coal demand should decrease<br />
slightly to 2.816 billion tonnes of<br />
coal equivalent by 2021, compared<br />
to 2.896 billion tonnes of coal<br />
equivalent in 2014.<br />
Globally, the IEA expects coal<br />
demand to total 5.636 billion<br />
tonnes by 2021, compared to 5.400<br />
billion tonnes last year, when coal<br />
demand dropped for the first time<br />
this century. This equates to 0.6%<br />
average annual growth from 2015 to<br />
2021, below the 2.5% average yearly<br />
growth over the past decade.<br />
“Because of the implications for<br />
air quality and carbon emissions,<br />
coal has come under fire in recent<br />
years, but it is too early to say that<br />
this is the end for coal,” said Keisuke<br />
Sadamori, director of the IEA’s energy<br />
markets and security directorate.<br />
“Coal demand is moving to Asia,<br />
where emerging economies with<br />
growing populations are seeking<br />
affordable and secure energy<br />
sources to power their economies.”<br />
The biggest growth in coal demand<br />
will occur in India, which<br />
will have an annual average growth<br />
rate of 5% by 2021.<br />
After years of decline, coal prices<br />
have rebounded sharply in <strong>2016</strong>,<br />
driven by a sharp cut in Chinese<br />
coal output coupled with strong<br />
demand across the Asia-Pacific region<br />
and in Europe.<br />
Benchmark API2 2017 coal futures<br />
rose by 4 percent to $65.75<br />
a tonne yesterday morning, the<br />
highest level since Dec 2.<br />
In its report, the IEA forecasts<br />
thermal coal prices to decline next<br />
year and then remain relatively flat<br />
to 2021.<br />
“Reasonable doubts persist on<br />
the sustainability of current prices,<br />
given that climate pressure continues<br />
and air pollution is a serious<br />
issue which will shape policies in<br />
China, India and other emerging<br />
countries,” it said.<br />
Coal demand in the United States<br />
and Europe will continue to decline,<br />
falling to 475 million tonnes and 337<br />
million tonnes respectively in 2021. •<br />
A general view of a crude oil importing port in Qingdao<br />
Goldman: Non-Opec<br />
output cut deal aimed<br />
at inventory glut<br />
• Reuters<br />
Goldman Sachs said the formal<br />
agreement by non-OPEC oil<br />
producers this weekend in Vienna<br />
to help curb output was<br />
reached with a goal of “normalization”<br />
of inventories and<br />
not necessarily just at raising<br />
oil prices.<br />
The Organization of the Petroleum<br />
Exporting Countries<br />
(OPEC) had previously agreed<br />
to cut output by 1.2 million<br />
barrels per day (bpd), and on<br />
Saturday, 11 non-OPEC producers<br />
agreed to join the effort<br />
and reduce output by 558,000<br />
bpd.<br />
The cut was short of an initial<br />
target of 600,000 bpd but<br />
still the first OPEC/non-OPEC<br />
output deal since 2001 and the<br />
largest contribution by non-<br />
OPEC producers ever.<br />
“Despite the smaller-than-preannounced<br />
cut,<br />
the agreement is nonetheless<br />
noteworthy as it lifts the uncertainty<br />
on the potential participation<br />
of non-OPEC producers<br />
to the OPEC cut,” the<br />
bank said in a note on Sunday.<br />
The agreement was followed<br />
by comments from top<br />
exporter Saudi Arabia’s energy<br />
minister Khalid Al-Falih saying<br />
that the kingdom may be<br />
REUTERS<br />
willing to cut output to below<br />
10 million bpd.<br />
The world’s top oil exporter<br />
told OPEC it pumped a record<br />
10.72 million bpd last month,<br />
an OPEC source said, up from<br />
10.625 million bpd in October.<br />
Goldman said an announced<br />
production cut from<br />
Russia was likely to remain<br />
short of the 300,000 bpd<br />
promised, noting that Russia’s<br />
participation was important.<br />
Goldman said implementation<br />
of the co-ordinated OPEC<br />
and non-OPEC production<br />
cuts was required to sustainably<br />
support spot oil prices at its<br />
H1 2017 price forecast of $55/<br />
bbl for West Texas Intermediate<br />
crude.<br />
A better-than-expected<br />
compliance would initially<br />
lead to higher prices, “with full<br />
compliance worth an additional<br />
$6/bbl to our price forecast,”<br />
it said.<br />
The bank warned, however,<br />
that as WTI prices neared $55<br />
a barrel, that producers, especially<br />
in the United States,<br />
might begin to raise their output.<br />
“Ultimately, this remains a<br />
short duration cut in our view,<br />
targeting excess inventories<br />
and not high oil prices,” Goldman<br />
said. •
CORPORATE NEWS<br />
Business 15<br />
DT<br />
TUESDAY, DECEMBER <strong>13</strong>, <strong>2016</strong><br />
China launches WTO dispute resolution case against US, EU<br />
• Reuters<br />
China said yesterday it had<br />
launched a dispute resolution case<br />
at the World Trade Organization<br />
over the surrogate country approach<br />
used by the United States<br />
and European Union to calculate<br />
anti-dumping measures against<br />
Chinese exports.<br />
When China joined the WTO in<br />
2001, it agreed to let WTO members<br />
treat it as a non-market economy<br />
when assessing dumping duties<br />
for 15 years.<br />
That gave trade partners the advantage<br />
of using a third country’s<br />
prices to gauge whether China was<br />
selling its goods below market value.<br />
But that clause expired on Dec<br />
11, and China has demanded that<br />
countries abide by the agreement.<br />
US Commerce Secretary Penny<br />
Pritzker said in November the<br />
time was “not ripe” for the United<br />
States to change the way it evaluates<br />
whether China has achieved<br />
market economy status, and there<br />
was no international trade rules requiring<br />
changes in the way US anti-dumping<br />
duties are calculated.<br />
China’s Commerce Ministry said<br />
in a statement on its website that 15<br />
years on, all WTO members had an<br />
obligation to stop using the surrogate<br />
country approach.<br />
“Regretfully, the United States<br />
and European Union have yet to fulfil<br />
this obligation,” the ministry said. •<br />
Dutch-Bangla Bank has recently opened its 162nd branch at Kurigram, said a press release. The bank’s<br />
DMD, Md Sayedul Hasan inaugurated the branch<br />
GSP Finance has recently elected its directors Moin U Haider as chairperson of the company’s executive<br />
committee while Saber Hossain Chowdhury and Dr ATM Shamsul Huda were elected as the company’s<br />
vice chairpersons, said a press release<br />
Faculty of Shipping Administration of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman Maritime University<br />
organised a seminar on Role of Inland Waterway Transportation Systems in the Economic Development:<br />
Bangladesh Perspective on its temporary campus yesterday<br />
Apex Footwear Limited has recently opened three new outlets in Paltan, Farmgate and Pallabi, said<br />
a press release. The company’s AMD, Syed Gias Hussain and its COO, Rajan Pillai were present on the<br />
occasions
18<br />
TUESDAY, DECEMBER <strong>13</strong>, <strong>2016</strong><br />
DT<br />
Biz Info<br />
| awareness |<br />
Dignity for septic tank emptiers<br />
Ensuring decent work conditions for all<br />
The FSM Network in Bangladesh<br />
has organised the first national<br />
convention for septic tank and<br />
pit emptiers, as this population<br />
group often faces social<br />
stigmatisation even while risking<br />
their own health doing work for<br />
the community on a daily basis.<br />
Almost 100 septic tank and pit<br />
emptiers were brought together<br />
to share their life stories, and<br />
together with government and<br />
development officials came up<br />
with inclusive ways to improve<br />
their situation.<br />
The progress to date on<br />
improving access to sanitation<br />
and reducing open defecation<br />
can be seriously undermined<br />
by failing to sustain the use of<br />
existing toilets and the unsafe<br />
disposal of faecal sludge.<br />
Household sanitation in urban<br />
areas consists predominantly<br />
(80%) of on-site technologies,<br />
i.e. septic tanks and pits. These<br />
require regular emptying, but<br />
presently most of them are never<br />
emptied as they are directly<br />
connected to drains or open<br />
water bodies. The ones that<br />
are, are emptied manually by<br />
sweepers and not mechanically.<br />
As the urban population is<br />
increasing exponentially, there is<br />
a need for efficient and effective<br />
faecal sludge management<br />
(FSM) services. This can only<br />
be achieved through better<br />
organisation of the current<br />
services, and by ensuring<br />
improved occupational safety and<br />
health standards for the service<br />
providers.<br />
The national ‘Dignity for<br />
Septic Tank Emptiers’ convention<br />
held at IGED Bhaban, Shere-Bangla<br />
Nagar, Agargaon in<br />
Dhaka on <strong>December</strong> 7, <strong>2016</strong>. It<br />
was a day-long event, starting<br />
with an opening speech by<br />
the Honourable Kazi Reazul<br />
Hoque, Chairman Human<br />
Rights Commission, followed by<br />
speeches from septic tank and pit<br />
emptiers and other special guests.<br />
Then issues related to septic tank<br />
emptying will be discussed along<br />
with the lines of the four domains<br />
of Decent Work as defined<br />
by the International Labour<br />
Organization (ILO): Dignity,<br />
Equality, Fair Income, and Safe<br />
Working Conditions. Suggestions<br />
and recommendations will be<br />
collected from septic tank and pit<br />
emptiers and other stakeholders,<br />
after which the event will<br />
be concluded by a cultural<br />
programme.•<br />
| meeting |<br />
Brain Gain talks by AAA<br />
| notice |<br />
ISPR Directorate<br />
reassures students about<br />
UGC ad<br />
American Alumni Association<br />
(AAA), organised tea time talk<br />
under its Brain Gain Initiative<br />
yesterday at its Secretariat<br />
located in Banani. AAA member<br />
Ehsanur Rahman, an immigration<br />
lawyer by profession, shared<br />
his experiences and advice<br />
regarding various aspects of<br />
US immigration. The event was<br />
also graced by AAA president,<br />
secretary and members.<br />
AAA launched the Brain Gain<br />
Initiative in 2011 under which<br />
AAA considers the intellectual<br />
capital of the expatriate<br />
talents, as an asset for national<br />
development and urges them<br />
to contribute to the society<br />
by sharing their education,<br />
experience and skills. AAA often<br />
arranges events, seminars and<br />
presentations to enhance and<br />
facilitate knowledge transfer. •<br />
• Features Desk<br />
The Inter-Service Public<br />
Relations (ISPR) Directorate<br />
assured students that the<br />
advertisement by the University<br />
Grants Commission (UGC),<br />
published on November 16<br />
would not be applicable to the<br />
three universities run by the<br />
Bangladesh army.<br />
The three institutions<br />
receiving exemption are<br />
Bangladesh Army University of<br />
Engineering and Technology<br />
(BAUET), Bangladesh Army<br />
International University of<br />
Science and Technology<br />
(BAIUST) and Bangladesh<br />
Army University of Science and<br />
Technology (BAUST).<br />
In a press release, the ISPR<br />
said that the vice-chancellors<br />
appointed by the boards of<br />
trustees concerned have been<br />
running the universities from<br />
the very beginning.<br />
The panel of VC’s has been<br />
placed before the Chancellor<br />
through the ministry of<br />
education for approval. This<br />
move impacts the issuance<br />
of graduation certificates for<br />
the students of the concerned<br />
universities.<br />
The new release by ISPR<br />
assures guardians and students<br />
that the advertisement by<br />
UGC should have no negative<br />
impact on the conferring of<br />
degrees and certificates by the<br />
universities. •
Auto Connect<br />
19<br />
TUESDAY, DECEMBER <strong>13</strong>, <strong>2016</strong><br />
DT<br />
The dynamic commuter<br />
2011 Toyota Ractis – a perfect blend of<br />
comfort and styling<br />
• Tahsin Momin<br />
The 2011 Toyota Ractis is designed<br />
with the most dynamic features,<br />
paying tribute to the Vitz, on<br />
which it’s based on. The purest<br />
aerodynamic design and its<br />
fabrication of interior and exterior<br />
with obliging quality gives it a<br />
higher rating and it radiates a<br />
lively youth touch to its entire<br />
presence. Even the name itself<br />
is self-explanatory - “Ractis” is<br />
derived from “Run,” “Activity” and<br />
“Space.”<br />
Exterior<br />
With the most vibrant and hightech<br />
engineering, Toyota has given<br />
an entirely fascinating shape to<br />
the Ractis. From its dumping<br />
bonnet to the hatch back, the<br />
entire vehicle is smartly designed.<br />
The crystal brake lights and the<br />
origami shaped crystal headlights<br />
embellish the lively existence of<br />
this car. The chrome accent on the<br />
front grille adds more elegance to<br />
the front end and separates it from<br />
its yore models. The glazing 16-<br />
inch alloy rims make the running<br />
of this car smoother and swifter.<br />
Interior<br />
On the inside though, it’s quite<br />
disappointing. It’s all resolutely<br />
and crushingly Japanese. The<br />
switchgear is chunky to touch and<br />
clunky to operate. There’s even an<br />
odd array of dashboard surfaces<br />
too, of which the most offensive<br />
is a pinstriped two-tone outing<br />
across the instrument binnacle.<br />
Compared to rivals, it feels rather<br />
down-at-heel. But then again, the<br />
car is well packaged and there’s a<br />
lot of space for the rear passengers<br />
and abundant of cargo space at the<br />
back.<br />
There are other appealing<br />
features in this car as well. For<br />
instance the air conditioner, which<br />
is very reliable, and the audio<br />
system that ensures a blissfully<br />
blithe drive. Overall, the interior<br />
is a compact; even though, luxury<br />
might not be its strong suit, the<br />
Ractis tries hard to prove itself<br />
worthy.<br />
Performance<br />
At the heart of the Ractis is a<br />
1.5-litre four-cylinder 1NZ-FE<br />
engine that pumps out 110HP<br />
and 103lb.ft of torque. There is<br />
no shortage of power; hence,<br />
you are most certain to have a<br />
smooth and powerful drive. The<br />
engine is highly efficient. It is<br />
very responsive and has a superb<br />
acceleration. The engine is mated<br />
to a CVT gearbox, which means it<br />
is effortless to drive in heavy traffic<br />
as well as on highways. And the<br />
best part is that it will do <strong>13</strong>km/l<br />
inside city, which means less<br />
frequent trips to the gas station.<br />
Safety<br />
On par with safety, the Ractis<br />
comes standard with an antilock<br />
braking system, electronic brakeforce<br />
distribution and dual front<br />
airbags.<br />
Verdict<br />
In a nutshell, the Ractis is<br />
an immaculate car. It is not<br />
unpleasant to live with in terms<br />
of maintenance and most<br />
importantly it comes endorsed<br />
with the reliability of a Toyota. The<br />
2011 Toyota Ractis is a fascinating<br />
machine which is full of modernity<br />
and class.<br />
Price: Call for Pricing<br />
Available at: New City Ride<br />
32, Shaheed Tajuddin Ahmed<br />
Sarani, Tejgoan, Dhaka-1215<br />
Contact: +8801760127018,<br />
+8801791235254•
DT<br />
20<br />
Editorial<br />
TUESDAY, DECEMBER <strong>13</strong>, <strong>2016</strong><br />
TODAY<br />
Bangladesh leads<br />
on migration<br />
discussions<br />
In countries with labour shortages or<br />
aging populations, migrants can propel<br />
economies forward<br />
PAGE 21<br />
The unlettered<br />
Prophet (pbuh)<br />
Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) was called<br />
‘unlettered’ not because he was unable<br />
to read or write, he was called that<br />
because his ‘letters’ were innate, not<br />
acquired<br />
PAGE 22<br />
BIGSTOCK<br />
Where do the<br />
boys go?<br />
Not only does Bangladesh need a<br />
socio-political overhaul (if it so desires<br />
to attain liberal-democratic values),<br />
it requires an education system that<br />
allows for doubt, critical thinking<br />
PAGE 23<br />
Be heard<br />
Write to Dhaka Tribune<br />
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DhakaTribune.<br />
The views expressed in opinion<br />
articles are those of the authors<br />
alone and they are not the<br />
official view of Dhaka Tribune<br />
or its publisher.<br />
The message of<br />
Eid-e-Miladunnabi<br />
Today is the holy day of Eid-e-Miladunnabi.<br />
It was on this day that the Prophet Muhammad<br />
(pbuh) was born into this world in the year 570. The<br />
date also marks his passing from the earthly realm.<br />
Eid-e-Miladunnabi then, marked on our calendars as a public<br />
holiday, is a solemn occasion to reflect on the deep wisdom in<br />
the teachings of the Prophet (pbuh), and look to his life, which<br />
exemplified all the virtues for the true Muslim.<br />
The extent to which Prophet Muhammad’s teachings<br />
changed the world is incalculable. A man of humble origins born<br />
in Makkah, he taught mankind the word of Allah, and united<br />
people in faith, brotherhood, peace, and prayer.<br />
Islam today has 1.6 billion adherents worldwide.<br />
As we move forward in a world full of strife, let us remember,<br />
with love and reverence, the true teachings of the Prophet<br />
(pbuh).<br />
This is a day which calls for prayer. This is a day which calls<br />
for organised gatherings to discuss the birth, life, and message<br />
of Prophet Muhammad (pbuh). This is a day for feeding the<br />
poor.<br />
There is a need, in this day and age, to reach out to non-<br />
Muslims and dispel any misconceptions about Islam.<br />
Let us move beyond the endless policiticisation of religion<br />
and look inward.<br />
We wish a meaningful and spiritually satisfying Eid-e-<br />
Miladunnabi for all.<br />
As we move forward in<br />
a world full of strife, let<br />
us remember, with love<br />
and reverence, the true<br />
teachings of the Prophet<br />
(pbuh)
Opinion 21<br />
Bangladesh leads on migration<br />
discussions<br />
DT<br />
TUESDAY, DECEMBER <strong>13</strong>, <strong>2016</strong><br />
The Global Forum on Migration and Development will benefit both migrants and the nations which<br />
host them<br />
• Anne C Richard<br />
People do not make the<br />
decision to leave their<br />
homes lightly, but<br />
sometimes circumstances<br />
compel them to move. Many<br />
Bangladeshis leave home to<br />
pursue opportunities in the wider<br />
world.<br />
And tensions, conflict,<br />
and discrimination inside<br />
neighbouring Myanmar have, over<br />
the years, led people from that<br />
country to flee across its borders<br />
into Bangladesh, Thailand, China,<br />
and beyond. These phenomena<br />
-- migration and flight -- are not<br />
limited to this region.<br />
For many years, Bangladesh<br />
has taken a leading role in<br />
multilateral discussions on<br />
refugee and migration issues.<br />
Such discussions support<br />
international efforts to protect<br />
the most vulnerable people who<br />
have been displaced from their<br />
homes. Bangladesh’s leadership<br />
again was demonstrated this week<br />
when its government hosted the<br />
Global Forum for Migration and<br />
Development (GFMD).<br />
Around the world, record<br />
numbers of people are on the<br />
move. The issue of migrants<br />
and refugees has exploded onto<br />
the international agenda. It<br />
was a dominant theme at last<br />
September’s high level meeting of<br />
the UN General Assembly in New<br />
York and the concurrent Leaders’<br />
Summit on Refugees.<br />
This week, more than<br />
700 diplomats, officials, and<br />
representatives from civil society<br />
converged in Dhaka for the Global<br />
Forum -- 200 more than originally<br />
expected. Participants came<br />
together to better understand<br />
the root causes of migration,<br />
share best practices, forge<br />
partnerships, and discuss ways to<br />
solve thorny problems. We talked<br />
about practical steps countries<br />
can take to prevent the loss of<br />
life, and to crack down on the<br />
ruthless smugglers who prey upon<br />
desperate people.<br />
In Dhaka, as in previous Forum<br />
gatherings, we discussed how to<br />
create and promote legal avenues<br />
for migration. Well-managed<br />
migration can, after all, benefit<br />
both sending and receiving<br />
countries. Families rely on<br />
remittances sent home by overseas<br />
Countries need to recognise what migrants bring to the table<br />
workers and these remittances<br />
provide more resources to many of<br />
the world’s poorest nations than<br />
development assistance does.<br />
Employers abroad need the<br />
energy and skill that migrants<br />
offer. And in countries with labour<br />
shortages or aging populations,<br />
migrants can propel economies<br />
forward. Studies show that<br />
migrants usually contribute more<br />
to society -- including by paying<br />
taxes -- than they receive in<br />
benefits.<br />
Most participants shared a<br />
sense that more must be done<br />
to aid and protect those who are<br />
forced to flee and that we all have<br />
a legal and moral obligation to do<br />
this. Just as Bangladesh and the<br />
international community have<br />
worked together to address the<br />
plight of the Rohingya, the world<br />
must make protection of refugees<br />
a priority and devote the necessary<br />
resources to this challenge --<br />
including support to nations that<br />
host refugees.<br />
Vulnerable and impoverished<br />
migrants also need ways to<br />
travel safely and legally. Victims<br />
of human trafficking, migrant<br />
smuggling, and people scattered<br />
by natural and man-made<br />
disasters want a chance to live<br />
in dignity, to heal, and to rebuild<br />
Employers abroad need the energy and skill that migrants offer. And<br />
in countries with labour shortages or aging populations, migrants can<br />
propel economies forward<br />
their lives.<br />
Clearly nations have a<br />
sovereign right to control<br />
their borders. Dangerous and<br />
unmanaged migration risks lives,<br />
enriches smugglers, traffickers,<br />
and criminal networks, and<br />
undermines public confidence in<br />
government. Thoughtful nations,<br />
however, have found ways to<br />
develop border control and<br />
migration policies that protect<br />
citizens, asylum-seekers, and<br />
migrants while maximising the<br />
benefits of legal migration.<br />
This year’s GFMD also advanced<br />
discussions related to the New<br />
York Declaration for Refugees and<br />
Migrants, a document produced at<br />
the United Nations in September<br />
that calls for the development<br />
of two separate “compacts” on<br />
refugees and safe, orderly, and<br />
regular migration.<br />
The compacts hold promise<br />
for improving the way the<br />
world responds to the global<br />
refugee and migration crisis<br />
-- if nations can overcome their<br />
reluctance to embrace these issues<br />
constructively.<br />
This is why I believe that the<br />
GFMD -- and other migration<br />
dialogues around the world -- are<br />
essential. They bring countries<br />
together to address equally<br />
the challenges and benefits of<br />
migration.<br />
Governments around the<br />
world have recognised that the<br />
time for action is now. Through<br />
pragmatic leadership -- of the type<br />
Bangladesh has demonstrated<br />
by organising and hosting the<br />
Global Forum on Migration and<br />
Development -- both migrants and<br />
the societies that host them will<br />
benefit. •<br />
Anne C Richard is the US Assistant<br />
Secretary of State for Bureau of<br />
Population, Refugees, and Migration.<br />
BIGSTOCK
22<br />
TUESDAY, DECEMBER <strong>13</strong>, <strong>2016</strong><br />
DT<br />
Opinion<br />
The unlettered Prophet (pbuh)<br />
Let the Almighty’s mercy and blessings be bestowed on Prophet Muhammad (pbuh)<br />
Perfect purity, free from word and script<br />
• Syed Rezaul Karim<br />
The Prophet of Islam,<br />
Hazrat Muhammad<br />
(pbuh) was endearingly<br />
called by Allah as<br />
Rahmatan lil-Alameen or “mercy<br />
for the worlds” (21:107) in the Holy<br />
Qur’an, but he was also addressed<br />
as “Abduhu” (His servant) in the<br />
Qur’anic Surah of Bani Israel:<br />
“Glory to (Allah) who did take his<br />
servant for a journey by night from<br />
the sacred mosque to the farthest<br />
mosque.”<br />
The night mentioned is the<br />
night of Ascension (or Miraj).<br />
Abduhu must indeed be the<br />
highest possible and most<br />
honorific attribute given to a<br />
human being. The Qur’an also<br />
praises the personality of the<br />
Prophet in the following words:<br />
“And surely thou hast sublime<br />
morals” (68:4).<br />
What is the significance of<br />
servanthood of the Prophet?<br />
One of the earliest<br />
interpretations comes from 11th<br />
century Sufi scholar, Hazrat Abul<br />
Qasim al-Qushayri. In his book<br />
Al-Risala, he says: “Servanthood<br />
means to fulfill the duties of<br />
obedience unstintingly, to look at<br />
what proceeds from as insufficient<br />
and to view what is produced by<br />
your virtues as ordained by God.<br />
And it is said that servanthood<br />
means to give up your own will for<br />
the sake of the manifest order of<br />
God.”<br />
The emphasis on Abduhu<br />
served to remind Muslims always<br />
Rumi explains that Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) was called ‘unlettered’<br />
not because he was unable to read or write, he was called that because<br />
his ‘letters’ -- his knowledge and wisdom -- were innate, not acquired<br />
to remember Muhammad (pbuh)<br />
as a created being even during the<br />
height of his mystical experience,<br />
and however much God had<br />
glorified him and exalted him<br />
among all creatures.<br />
We know that Prophet<br />
Muhammad (pbuh) was an<br />
orphan; his father Abdullah, son<br />
of Abdul Muttalib died before<br />
his birth; his mother Aminah<br />
died when he was six years old.<br />
His guardian grandfather Abdul<br />
Muttalib died when he was eight<br />
years old.<br />
He was born in the Hisham<br />
branch of the clan Quraish. When<br />
the Prophet was born, Aminah was<br />
in her uncle’s house and she sent<br />
a word to Abdul Muttalib, asking<br />
him to see his grandson. He took<br />
the boy in his arms and carried<br />
him to the sanctuary and into<br />
Kabaa, the Holy House where he<br />
prayed a prayer, thanking God for<br />
this gift.<br />
It was customary for all great<br />
families of Arab towns and<br />
certainly of Bani Hashim to send<br />
their sons to be weaned by a foster<br />
mother chosen from the Bedouin<br />
tribes living on the fringe of the<br />
desert, near Makkah.<br />
Normally, foster parents were<br />
on the lookout for a baby from<br />
well-to-do or influential families,<br />
not so much for monetary<br />
considerations, but for social<br />
relationships at a later period<br />
when the child grew up.<br />
In the case of Muhammad<br />
(pbuh), his father was dead,<br />
his mother was poor, and his<br />
grandfather, though famous, was<br />
old and distant.<br />
Halima, the foster mother of<br />
the Prophet, was initially reluctant<br />
to accept Aminah’s son when<br />
she came to the town to look<br />
for a foster child. Having failed<br />
to manage a suitable ward, she<br />
accepted him just to avoid going<br />
home empty-handed.<br />
While staying at a foster<br />
parent’s house, an unearthly<br />
incident happened to young<br />
Muhammad (pbuh).<br />
One day, Halima’s son reported<br />
to his parents that two men<br />
clothed in white had taken young<br />
Muhammad (pbuh) and had laid<br />
him down and opened his chest<br />
and stirred it with their hand.<br />
They asked Muhammad (pbuh)<br />
what exactly had happened -- he<br />
confirmed Halima’s son’s claims,<br />
and said: “They searched for it for<br />
I know not what.”<br />
Yet, there was not even a scar<br />
on the foster child’s body. Out of<br />
apprehension and fear, Halima<br />
returned the child to Aminah, who<br />
was surprised at the undue return.<br />
The Holy Qur’an, in a different<br />
context, alludes to the above<br />
incident in an allegorical tone:<br />
“Have we not expanded thee<br />
thy breast? And removed thee<br />
thy burden which did gall thy<br />
back?” (94:1) The Holy Prophet’s<br />
human nature had been purified,<br />
expanded, and elevated.<br />
Addressing the Prophet as<br />
“Ummi”<br />
The Prophet of Islam was<br />
addressed as “Ummi” by Allah<br />
in the Holy Qur’an (Surah Al-<br />
Araf/7:157-188), a word generally<br />
interpreted in Islamic tradition as<br />
unlettered/illiterate.<br />
The Qur’anic verse: “Say, O<br />
man I am sent unto you all as<br />
the Messenger of Allah to whom<br />
belongeth the dominions of<br />
heavens and Earth: There is no<br />
God but He that giveth life and<br />
death. So believe in Allah and His<br />
Messenger the unlettered Prophet<br />
who believeth in Allah and His<br />
BIGSTOCK<br />
words -- follow him that (so) you<br />
may be guided.”<br />
Rumi, the great Sufi sage<br />
and poet explains that Prophet<br />
Muhammad (pbuh) was called<br />
“unlettered” not because he was<br />
unable to read or write, he was<br />
called that because his “letters” --<br />
his knowledge and wisdom -- were<br />
innate, not acquired.<br />
Prophets come out of nonphonic<br />
world into the world of<br />
words. Once Rumi commented:<br />
“Those who have united worldly<br />
intellect, which is partial in nature<br />
with the universal intellect, which<br />
is preserved within the tablet of<br />
heart, are prophets and saints.”<br />
Another poignant and<br />
perceptive point in calling the<br />
Prophet (pbuh) “Ummi” was<br />
observed by the late professor of<br />
Indo-Muslim culture, Anne Marie<br />
Schimmel of Harvard University:<br />
“Just as in Christianity, where God<br />
reveals Himself through Christ,<br />
the virginity of Mary is required in<br />
order to produce an immaculate<br />
vessel for the divine word, so in<br />
Islam where God reveals Himself<br />
through the word of the Qur’an,<br />
the Prophet had to be a vessel that<br />
was unpolluted by ‘intellectual’<br />
knowledge of word and script so<br />
that he could carry the trust in<br />
perfect purity.”<br />
Let the Almighty Allah’s mercy<br />
and blessings be bestowed on<br />
Prophet Muhammad (pbuh). •<br />
Syed Rezaul Karim is the Ex-Managing<br />
Director of Hoechst Bangladesh Ltd and<br />
Advisor to Allama Rumi Society, Dhaka.
Opinion<br />
23<br />
TUESDAY, DECEMBER <strong>13</strong>, <strong>2016</strong><br />
DT<br />
Where do the boys go?<br />
Too many young men end up taking the path of militancy<br />
Young minds are ready to be armed<br />
Not only does Bangladesh need a socio-political overhaul (if it so desires<br />
to attain liberal-democratic values), it requires an education system that<br />
allows for doubt, critical thinking<br />
• SN Rasul<br />
The problem with security<br />
is that, given enough<br />
time, it will start to wane.<br />
Whereas walking<br />
into Bashundhara City used to<br />
involve putting my bag on the<br />
counter, it being opened and<br />
thoroughly checked, my person<br />
given an equally thorough patdown,<br />
cigarettes and lighters<br />
inadmissible, it is now a cursory<br />
spank on the butt and a grunt.<br />
I suspect it is the same in most<br />
places.<br />
We are meant to follow patterns<br />
and act accordingly. So, when<br />
something breaks that pattern,<br />
such as the Holey Artisan attack,<br />
our danger signals tingle, our panic<br />
buttons are pressed, we unsheathe<br />
our swords in defence. But, when<br />
nothing happens for, say, six<br />
months, our minds automatically<br />
recognise a new pattern and we<br />
relax, we give in to the way our<br />
world starts to become as it used<br />
to be: We re-holster our guns.<br />
And militants know this.<br />
For the last two weeks, an<br />
increasing number of boys have<br />
been going missing throughout the<br />
country, much in the same way<br />
the attackers of Holey did. Some<br />
from here, some from there. A<br />
few NSU students, of course; one<br />
from cantonment; one who works<br />
for the National Curriculum and<br />
Textbook Board.<br />
Police thinks militancy is<br />
again on the rise. Is this what the<br />
terrorists do, wait for the panic to<br />
die down, and then start recruiting<br />
again? And, after Kallyanpur, and<br />
after killing Tamim Chowdhury,<br />
the apparent emir of Bangladeshi<br />
IS, after statements which implied<br />
that terrorism had, in fact, been<br />
rooted out, why does this continue<br />
to happen?<br />
Is it because the government’s<br />
insistence that these people are<br />
under the influence of the JMB<br />
doesn’t ring true? Is it because,<br />
that a show of success which<br />
BIGSTOCK<br />
prevents the public from panic,<br />
in the short-term, is much more<br />
important to the government than<br />
actual long-term solutions to the<br />
problem of terrorism?<br />
To understand why so many<br />
young men decide to take the<br />
path towards militancy requires a<br />
socio-political understanding that<br />
the government seems to lack. It<br />
requires a true understanding of<br />
the culture that has been allowed<br />
to fester in Bangladesh.<br />
If one thinks that the Holey<br />
Attack is not related to the killing<br />
of the Santals, or the burning of<br />
the Hindus, or the way Rohingyas<br />
are oftentimes treated, they’d be<br />
wrong. These are all connected<br />
by the thread of difference and<br />
sectarianism; if not in law, then in<br />
spirit.<br />
Bangladesh’s proud history of<br />
pseudo-secularism is as much as<br />
myth as the fictional universe of<br />
current secular values perpetrated<br />
by the governmental narrative and<br />
under-the-gun editorials by the<br />
media.<br />
Like all of history of all<br />
the lands in all the world, the<br />
persecuted have become the<br />
persecutors. And the circle will<br />
continue.<br />
The problem lies in the<br />
undeniable fact that most people<br />
in Bangladesh, the ones who will<br />
not end up reading this piece in<br />
this paper, have no false notions<br />
with regards to the religio-ethnic<br />
identity of their country: Bengali<br />
Muslims. They do not care, or<br />
they do not know, or they do not<br />
recognise the technicalities of the<br />
Bangladeshi constitution which<br />
allow for equality and freedom of<br />
religion.<br />
This is further the case amongst<br />
boys in their late teens and late<br />
20s; they are surrounded by a<br />
populace who do not validate<br />
the feelings of disenfranchised<br />
loneliness and sexual frustration<br />
that they so desire. The only time<br />
they get it is when they give in to<br />
fundamentalist narratives woven<br />
out of the theocratic ideals of a<br />
few religious leaders funded by<br />
Wahhabi agenda.<br />
The validation is two-fold:<br />
Society recognises their attempt<br />
at “goodness.” The recruiters, be<br />
they IS or JMB, recognise their<br />
value to the cause, provide them<br />
with purpose, and offer up eternal<br />
happiness and 72 virgins (to quote<br />
the popular notion). If given a<br />
choice between pure satisfaction<br />
and continued frustration, which<br />
would you choose?<br />
Would you have the knowledge<br />
required to understand the<br />
difference? And, even if you did,<br />
could you take the less violent<br />
route?<br />
Most people in the country do,<br />
despite their common attachment<br />
to the religion. They recognise<br />
the Western imperialism, the<br />
frustratingly one-sided Western<br />
narrative, but an inherent moral<br />
code kicks in, thankfully.<br />
But if most of the populace<br />
continues to attach itself to an<br />
interpretation that is potentially<br />
violent and disastrous, and when<br />
our government and police forces<br />
also buy into it to varying extents,<br />
why wouldn’t young boys not<br />
be given the free space and time<br />
where they are heavily susceptible<br />
to the influences of militant<br />
recruiters?<br />
Not only does Bangladesh<br />
need a socio-political overhaul<br />
(if it so desires to attain liberaldemocratic<br />
values), it requires an<br />
education system that allows for<br />
doubt, critical thinking, and the<br />
questioning of the very basis on<br />
which not only faith was founded,<br />
but the very identity of the nation.<br />
Otherwise, the minds that come<br />
out of the schools only mould to a<br />
shape that is ripe for the plucking,<br />
and their hands, ready to be<br />
armed with a trigger that could<br />
potentially blow our world to<br />
smithereens. •<br />
SN Rasul is a Sub-Editor at the Dhaka<br />
Tribune. Follow him @snrasul.
DT<br />
24<br />
Sport<br />
TUESDAY, DECEMBER <strong>13</strong>, <strong>2016</strong><br />
TOP STORIES<br />
Cook: Root ready to<br />
captain England<br />
England captain Alastair Cook<br />
said Monday Joe Root was ready<br />
to take over as skipper but that no<br />
decision on his own future would<br />
be taken until the new year. His<br />
future was called into question<br />
just before the tour started. PAGE 25<br />
Bangladesh’s Tanvir Haider (R) takes a selfie alongside the other national cricketers<br />
in the sidelines of their training session in Sydney while Mushfiqur Rahim and his<br />
team mates relax in front of the Sydney Opera House<br />
COURTESY<br />
Juventus win derby<br />
with Higuain brace<br />
Juventus striker Gonzalo Higuain<br />
again showed his killer instinct<br />
with two expertly-taken goals in<br />
a late 3-1 win at Torino after their<br />
less illustrious neighbours had<br />
scored first and dominated the<br />
Serie A game on Sunday. PAGE 26<br />
How Tendulkar put<br />
Kohli on path to glory<br />
India captain Virat Kohli revealed<br />
Monday that sage advice from<br />
India great and legendary Sachin<br />
Tendulkar after a disastrous tour<br />
of England two years ago helped<br />
turn him into world cricket’s top<br />
batsman. PAGE 27<br />
Tevez leads Boca to<br />
victory at River Plate<br />
A brilliant Carlos Tevez scored<br />
twice in the final half hour as<br />
Boca Juniors came from 2-1<br />
down to beat River Plate 4-2 at<br />
El Monumental in a thrilling<br />
Argentine ‘superclasico’ on<br />
Sunday. PAGE 28<br />
Arsenal get Bayern again,<br />
Barcelona return to Paris<br />
• AFP, Nyon<br />
Arsenal were once again drawn<br />
against Bayern Munich in the last<br />
16 of the UEFA Champions League<br />
on Monday, while Barcelona will<br />
also come up against familiar foes<br />
in the shape of Paris Saint-Germain.<br />
Arsene Wenger’s side had<br />
hoped winning their group for the<br />
first time in five years would spare<br />
them a tie against one of the continent’s<br />
giants in the first knockout<br />
round. But instead they must<br />
face Carlo Ancelotti’s German<br />
champions, who came second in<br />
their section, with the first leg in<br />
Bavaria.<br />
Bayern eliminated Arsenal en<br />
route to winning the trophy in<br />
2012/<strong>13</strong> and repeated the feat a<br />
year later, while the teams also<br />
met in the group stage last season<br />
-- the Gunners won 2-0 in London<br />
but lost 5-1 at the Allianz Arena.<br />
“It’s an interesting and difficult<br />
draw. We know Arsenal from<br />
the last few years when we often<br />
played against them, twice<br />
already in the last 16, when we<br />
had a good experience and got<br />
through,” said Bayern goalkeeper<br />
Manuel Neuer.<br />
“Arsenal are a strong team and<br />
I rate them as stronger at the moment<br />
than in the last few years.”<br />
PSG came second to Arsenal<br />
in Group A, leaving them more<br />
vulnerable to a tough draw and<br />
five-time winners Barcelona have<br />
eliminated the French club in the<br />
quarter-finals in two of the past<br />
four seasons, while the teams also<br />
met in the group stage in 2014/15.<br />
“If I could have chosen another<br />
team, I would have done,” admitted<br />
Paris director of football Patrick<br />
Kluivert, a former Barcelona<br />
striker.<br />
Barcelona vice president Jordi<br />
Mestre told beIN Sports Spain:<br />
“There is no guarantee but it does<br />
give you a certain confidence to<br />
have beaten them before. Every<br />
game is different and we will see<br />
what happens.”<br />
Reigning European champions<br />
Real Madrid will face Napoli<br />
as they look to win the trophy<br />
for a record 12th time, while Pep<br />
Guardiola’s Manchester City face<br />
a testing two-legged encounter<br />
Reigning European champions Real Madrid<br />
will face Napoli as they look to win the trophy<br />
for a record 12th time, while Pep Guardiola’s<br />
Manchester City face a testing two-legged<br />
encounter against Monaco<br />
against Monaco.<br />
City, currently struggling for<br />
form, cannot afford to take the<br />
principality side lightly -- they are<br />
the most prolific side in Europe’s<br />
leading leagues this season and<br />
have beaten Arsenal and Tottenham<br />
Hotspur in the Champions<br />
League in the past two years.<br />
“We are happy to be here, and<br />
then we have avoided Real Madrid<br />
and Barcelona,” City’s director of<br />
football Txiki Begiristain told BT<br />
Sport.<br />
“Monaco are playing probably<br />
the best football in France now. In<br />
a group with Tottenham and Bayer<br />
Leverkusen they were top and<br />
they have young players and a lot<br />
of talent.”<br />
Monaco coach Leonardo Jardim<br />
said: “Manchester City are<br />
looking to win the Champions<br />
League. We are not the favourites<br />
but we believe in our qualities.”<br />
Premier League champions<br />
Leicester City will take on last season’s<br />
Europa League winners Sevilla<br />
as a reward for topping their<br />
group in their debut appearance<br />
in the competition, with a visit<br />
to the Sanchez Pizjuan in the first<br />
leg.<br />
Leicester’s European form -- an<br />
English record 5-0 defeat at Porto<br />
last week apart -- has provided a<br />
welcome tonic amid a poor defence<br />
of their domestic title, but<br />
Sevilla sporting director Monchi is<br />
wary of Claudio Ranieri’s side.<br />
“They are a team that last<br />
weekend scored four goals against<br />
Manchester City. They had a great<br />
group stage and I think they will<br />
be very difficult opponents,” he<br />
said.<br />
Atletico Madrid, runners up to<br />
city rivals Real in two of the last<br />
three seasons, were drawn against<br />
Germany’s Bayer Leverkusen in a<br />
repeat of their clash at the same<br />
stage in 2014/15. On that occasion,<br />
Atletico emerged victorious after<br />
a tense penalty shoot-out.<br />
Two-time winners Juventus<br />
were drawn against FC Porto,<br />
while Borussia Dortmund also<br />
face Portuguese opposition in the<br />
shape of Benfica.<br />
The first legs will be played on<br />
February 14, 15, 21 and 22 with<br />
the second legs on March 7, 8, 14<br />
and 15. •
Pogbas to clash<br />
in Europa last 32<br />
• AFP, Nyon<br />
Manchester United will take on<br />
Saint-Etienne in the last 32 of the<br />
Europa League, with Jose Mourinho’s<br />
side hosting the French club in<br />
the first leg, after Monday’s draw.<br />
The tie will see United and<br />
France midfielder Paul Pogba, the<br />
world’s most expensive player,<br />
come up against his elder brother<br />
Florentin, the Guinea international<br />
defender.<br />
The teams met in the now defunct<br />
Cup Winners’ Cup first round<br />
in 1977, with United winning 3-1 on<br />
aggregate.<br />
On that occasion, United were<br />
forced to host the second leg in<br />
the southern English city of Plymouth,<br />
450 kilometres away, following<br />
crowd trouble in the first leg in<br />
France.<br />
Mourinho’s men finished second<br />
in Group A behind Fenerbahce<br />
while Saint-Etienne topped Group<br />
C. The other Premier League representative,<br />
Tottenham Hotspur, will<br />
face Gent of Belgium after being<br />
eliminated from the Champions<br />
League.<br />
Villarreal of Spain will face Italian<br />
giants Roma in one of the standout<br />
ties, while Bundesliga club<br />
Borussia Moenchengladbach were<br />
drawn against Fiorentina of Italy.<br />
The first legs will be played on<br />
Thursday, February 16, with the return<br />
matches a week later. •<br />
FIXTURES<br />
Athletic Bilbao v APOEL<br />
Legia Warsaw v Ajax<br />
Anderlecht v Zenit<br />
Astra v Genk<br />
Man United v Saint-Etienne<br />
Villarreal v Roma<br />
Ludogorets v FC Copenhagen<br />
Celta Vigo v Shakhtar<br />
Olympiakos v Osmanlispor<br />
Gent v Tottenham<br />
Rostov v Sparta Prague<br />
Krasnodar v Fenerbahce<br />
M’gladbach v Fiorentina<br />
AZ Alkmaar v Lyon<br />
PAOK v Schalke 04<br />
Sport 25<br />
DT<br />
TUESDAY, DECEMBER <strong>13</strong>, <strong>2016</strong><br />
Real Madrid’s Portuguese forward Christiano Ronaldo (2nd R) and his teammates run during a training session at Mitsuzawa stadium in Yokohama yesterday ahead of<br />
their Club World Cup match against Club America of Mexico on Thursday<br />
AFP<br />
Real hot shots ready for Japan test, says Zidane<br />
• AFP, Yokohama<br />
Real Madrid coach Zinedine Zidane<br />
looked frazzled after arriving in<br />
Japan on Monday but he has promised<br />
his side will be ready for the<br />
Club World Cup.<br />
The European champions, chasing<br />
a second world title in three<br />
years, worked out the kinks as<br />
night fell, talisman Cristiano Ronaldo<br />
leading the players in a gentle<br />
jog around a pitch in chilly Yokohama.<br />
“We’re very tired from the long<br />
flight of course,” a bleary-eyed Zidane<br />
told AFP. “But that’s normal.<br />
We will untangle ourselves a bit<br />
and feel better after a good night’s<br />
sleep.<br />
“The serious work starts tomorrow,”<br />
added the Frenchman, whose<br />
side take on Mexico’s Club America<br />
on Thursday for a place in the final.<br />
“We are here to win the Club<br />
World Cup. It’s an extremely important<br />
target for Real Madrid.”<br />
Zidane’s Spanish table-toppers,<br />
who have strung together a club record<br />
35-game unbeaten run, swept<br />
into Tokyo before sunrise on Monday<br />
and were greeted at the airport<br />
by around 300 fans.<br />
“Personally, I’m knackered,”<br />
said a smiling Zidane, who hoisted<br />
the Club World Cup’s forerunner,<br />
the Intercontinental Cup, with Real<br />
in 2002 and Juventus in 1996.<br />
“But the players will be ready.<br />
We’re on a fantastic run and that’s<br />
Cook: Root ready to captain England<br />
• AFP, Mumbai<br />
England captain Alastair Cook said<br />
Monday Joe Root was ready to take<br />
over as skipper but that no decision<br />
on his own future would be taken<br />
until the new year.<br />
His future was called into question<br />
just before the tour started<br />
when he admitted he could quit<br />
at the end of the series and he was<br />
finding it difficult to be apart from<br />
his family for long periods.<br />
“Those comments I made don’t<br />
change,” Cook told reporters following<br />
England’s innings and 36-<br />
run loss at Mumbai’s Wankhede<br />
Stadium.<br />
“It sticks true to the end of<br />
this series. Then I’ll sit down with<br />
Straussy (England’s Director of<br />
Cricket Andrew Strauss) in the<br />
new year, like we made that pact<br />
to always talk openly and honestly<br />
about stuff.”<br />
Root has been widely tipped<br />
to succeed Cook and the veteran<br />
left-hander said the 25-year-old<br />
was the ideal candidate to step into<br />
his shoes.<br />
“I think Joe Root is ready to captain<br />
England. He’s ready because<br />
he’s a clued on guy, he’s got the<br />
respect of everyone in the changing<br />
room. He hasn’t got much captaincy<br />
experience but that doesn’t<br />
mean he can’t be a very good captain,”<br />
Cook added, saying the magnitude<br />
of the task should not be<br />
underestimated.<br />
“You’re thrown in at the deep<br />
end and you kind of sink or swim.<br />
because we have a great bunch of<br />
players - quality players, intelligent<br />
players - who work their socks off<br />
every day in training to be as good<br />
as they are.<br />
“We have played nine matches<br />
in three weeks but we want to keep<br />
this run going,” added the former<br />
World Cup winner.<br />
Real will be without Gareth Bale<br />
as they look to be crowned the<br />
world’s best team for a fifth time.<br />
The Welshman is recoving from<br />
ankle surgery, but the Spanish giants<br />
have been boosted by the return<br />
of German Toni Kroos after a<br />
metatarsal fracture.<br />
Ronaldo is expected to take centre<br />
stage as he waits to hear if he<br />
has won his third Ballon d’Or, set<br />
Nothing can really prepare you for<br />
it. You are the forefront of the team<br />
and it comes onto your shoulders<br />
when you win or lose.<br />
“In the heat of the battle you<br />
make those decisions. You either<br />
make good ones or bad ones and<br />
you have to live with that,” said<br />
Cook.<br />
Cook, who recently overtook<br />
Michael Atherton’s record of 54<br />
Tests as England captain, said a<br />
lack of world class spin bowlers<br />
had hurt his side in India. •<br />
to be announced later on Monday<br />
- early <strong>Tuesday</strong> morning Tokyo<br />
time.<br />
“We will stay up tonight to see if<br />
he’s won,” said Brazilian defender<br />
Marcelo.<br />
“We’re all nervous to see if Cristiano<br />
wins. He’s a great player and<br />
he deserves to win. I have so much<br />
respect for him.”<br />
Real president Florentino Perez<br />
has demanded the team complete<br />
a Champions League, UEFA Super<br />
Cup and Club World Cup treble.<br />
But Marcelo shrugged: “This<br />
is Real Madrid - we’re obliged to<br />
win. We haven’t had much time to<br />
sleep and it’s a crazy schedule but<br />
it would be a dream for the players<br />
to win this title.” •
26<br />
TUESDAY, DECEMBER <strong>13</strong>, <strong>2016</strong><br />
DT<br />
Rangpur,<br />
Mymensingh in<br />
football final<br />
• Tribune Report<br />
Rangpur and Mymensingh district<br />
swept into the final of the JFA under-14<br />
Women’s National Championship<br />
<strong>2016</strong> yesterday. The two<br />
sides will face each other in the<br />
grand finale at Bangabandhu National<br />
Stadium tomorrow at 3pm.<br />
Rangpur defeated Thakurgaon<br />
in the penalty shootout 3-1 in the<br />
second semi-final of the day at BNS<br />
to secure their final berth while favourites<br />
Mymensingh got a walkover<br />
from their last-four opponents<br />
Satkhira in the day’s first semi-final<br />
After the game ended 1-1 following<br />
the stipulated time of 70<br />
minutes, Mayuri took the last four<br />
by storm with her heroic display in<br />
the tiebreaker. The young Rangpur<br />
goalkeeper produced two lovely<br />
saves to oust Thakurgaon from the<br />
tournament.<br />
It was Thakurgaon who went<br />
ahead in the game with only eleven<br />
minutes into the clock through<br />
a goal from midfielder Baby before<br />
Rangpur midfielder Rabeya cancelled<br />
out the lead at the stroke of<br />
the opening half with a long-range<br />
strike.<br />
Mayuri saved two shots from<br />
Munni and Ashamoni in the tiebreaker.<br />
Rumi, Rekha and Nargis<br />
converted their chances for Rangpur<br />
while Mini scored Thakurgaon’s<br />
only goal in the shoot-out.<br />
Mayuri was included in the national<br />
U-14 women’s team camp<br />
but was the fourth-choice keeper<br />
there.<br />
Meanwhile, the tournament<br />
kicked off with the participation of<br />
eight teams on <strong>December</strong> 5. •<br />
Sport<br />
Juventus’ Gonzalo Higuain in action with Torino’s goalkeeper Joe Hart during their Italian Serie A match at Olympic Stadium,<br />
Turin, Italy on Sunday<br />
REUTERS<br />
Juventus win Turin derby with Higuain brace<br />
• Reuters, Milan<br />
Juventus striker Gonzalo Higuain<br />
again showed his killer instinct<br />
with two expertly-taken goals in a<br />
late 3-1 win at Torino after their less<br />
illustrious neighbours had scored<br />
first and dominated the Serie A<br />
game on Sunday.<br />
Substitute Miralem Pjanic<br />
scored the third goal as the Italian<br />
champions opened up a seven-point<br />
lead over AS Roma and AC<br />
Milan, who clash in the capital on<br />
Monday.<br />
Napoli’s Dries Mertens scored<br />
a hat-trick to lead the revitalised<br />
team to a 5-0 rout at leaky<br />
Cagliari, while bottom club Palermo<br />
slumped to their ninth league<br />
defeat in a row, losing 2-0 at home<br />
POINTS TABLE<br />
Team P W D L GD Pts<br />
Juventus 16 <strong>13</strong> 0 3 21 39<br />
Roma 15 10 2 3 19 32<br />
AC Milan 15 10 2 3 8 32<br />
Napoli 16 9 4 3 17 31<br />
Lazio 16 9 4 3 12 31<br />
SERIE A<br />
Cagliari 0-5 Napoli<br />
Mertens 34, 69, 72,<br />
Hamsik 45, Zielinski 51<br />
Atalanta 1-3 Udinese<br />
Kurtic 47 Zapata 45,<br />
Fofana 72, Thereau 87<br />
Bologna 0-0 Empoli<br />
Palermo 0-2 Chievo<br />
Birsa 14, Pellissier 49<br />
Torino 1-3 Juventus<br />
Belotti 16 Higuain 28, 82, Pjanic 90+2<br />
Inter Milan 2-0 Genoa<br />
Brozovic 38, 69<br />
to Chievo.<br />
Inter Milan’s Marcelo Brozovic<br />
scored twice to earn a 2-0 win over<br />
Genoa, leaving Stefano Pioli’s side<br />
in eighth place.<br />
The Croatian midfielder volleyed<br />
the ball in from a corner seven<br />
minutes before halftime and<br />
tapped home the second after a<br />
surging run by Joao Mario midway<br />
through the second period.<br />
Torino, a respectable seventh<br />
under Sinisa Mihajlovic, made a<br />
bright start at home to Juve and<br />
went ahead after 16 minutes when<br />
Andrea Belotti headed in Daniele<br />
Baselli’s cross for his 11th goal of<br />
the season.<br />
Juve were on the ropes but<br />
levelled 12 minutes later when<br />
Higuain collected Mario Mandzukic’s<br />
flicked pass in his stride and<br />
burst through the defence to place<br />
his shot past Joe Hart.<br />
Torino had the better of the<br />
second half and Adem Ljajic could<br />
have put them back in front but his<br />
shot clipped the far post.<br />
Juventus, though, have made<br />
a habit of grinding out results and<br />
they did it again with two goals in<br />
the final 10 minutes.<br />
A long ball forward found<br />
Higuain and, although the Argentine<br />
was closely marked, he turned<br />
past Antonio Barreca and fired an<br />
unstoppable shot past Hart for his<br />
ninth league goal of the season.<br />
Paulo Dybala set up the third<br />
with a run down the touchline<br />
and Hart did well to save shots by<br />
Higuain and Pjanic before the Bosnia<br />
midfielder scored at the third<br />
attempt.<br />
“Even when Higuain doesn’t<br />
score, he provides a big contribution,”<br />
said Juve coach Massimiliano<br />
Allegri. “I know he lives for goals<br />
but that’s not the only reason he<br />
was signed.”<br />
Mihajlovic told reporters: “Juventus<br />
didn’t have a shot on goal<br />
during most of the second half but<br />
when you don’t take your chances<br />
against a team like that, you get<br />
punished.<br />
Napoli’s Mertens broke the deadlock<br />
against Cagliari after 34 minutes<br />
with a shot on the turn before<br />
their inspirational captain Marek<br />
Hamsik turned in a rebound on the<br />
stroke of halftime after Lorenzo Insigne<br />
headed against the bar. •<br />
FIVE THINGS WE LEARNT IN THE PREMIER LEAGUE IN GAMEWEEK 15<br />
Vardy’s party back on<br />
“Jamie Vardy’s having a party!” became<br />
a familiar chant at the King Power<br />
Stadium last season as the rough-cut<br />
striker inspired Leicester City to their<br />
fairytale title triumph. His difficulties in<br />
front of goal this season had come to<br />
symbolise the club’s post-title hangover,<br />
the England striker going 16 games<br />
without a goal as Claudio Ranieri’s<br />
side slithered towards the relegation<br />
zone. But he blew off the cobwebs in<br />
style in a rain-lashed evening game<br />
against Manchester City on Saturday,<br />
firing Leicester to victory with his first<br />
hat-trick since his non-league days. All<br />
three goals were taken in the clinical<br />
fashion that was Vardy’s calling card<br />
last season, with the second -– teed up<br />
by Riyad Mahrez’s gossamer-soft pass<br />
-– a particular treat.<br />
Arsenal show title mettle<br />
Trailing to Charlie Adam’s 29th minute<br />
penalty, Arsenal faced a potentially defining<br />
moment in their Premier League<br />
campaign, and to Arsene Wenger’s<br />
delight his players rose to the challenge.<br />
It was the sort of scenario that has<br />
caused Arsenal to collapse many times in<br />
recent years, but this season looks a little<br />
different. They equalised in the 42nd<br />
minute when Theo Walcott bagged his<br />
100th club goal and took the lead four<br />
minutes after half-time through Mesut<br />
Ozil’s header before youngster Alex Iwobi<br />
sealed the points in the 75th minute<br />
to extend Arsenal’s unbeaten league run<br />
to 14 matches and keep the pressure on<br />
title rivals Chelsea.<br />
Conte willing to adapt<br />
Faced with an obdurate opponent in<br />
Tony Pulis’s well-drilled West Bromwich<br />
Albion, Chelsea boss Antonio Conte<br />
showed his flexibility by ditching his preferred<br />
three-man defensive formation<br />
and his gamble paid immediate dividends.<br />
Conte’s side had been frustrated<br />
for over an hour at Stamford Bridge on<br />
Sunday when the Italian sent on Willian<br />
and Cesc Fabregas in a switch to a 4-4-2<br />
system. The move gave Chelsea more<br />
attacking options and in the 76th minute<br />
a Fabregas pass induced a mistake from<br />
Albion defender Gareth McAuley that<br />
was punished by Diego Costa’s clinical<br />
finish. Chelsea’s ninth successive league<br />
win reopened a three-point lead at the<br />
top and underlined that Conte is more<br />
than a one-trick pony.<br />
Mkhitaryan United’s missing link?<br />
Having spent the best part of three<br />
months as a virtual spectator following<br />
his transfer from Borussia Dortmund,<br />
Henrikh Mkhitaryan has belatedly<br />
emerged as Manchester United’s go-to<br />
attacking player. After a pair of assists<br />
in a 4-1 League Cup win over West Ham<br />
United and a first United goal against<br />
Zorya Luhansk, he settled Sunday’s<br />
game against Tottenham Hotspur with<br />
a burst from deep and an emphatic<br />
shot. The Armenian playmaker was<br />
stretchered off after injuring his ankle,<br />
but to sighs of relief all round Old Trafford,<br />
manager Jose Mourinho said it<br />
was not serious. United have struggled<br />
for goals in the league, scoring eight<br />
in their last nine games, but in the jetheeled<br />
Mkhitaryan they possess a player<br />
capable of bridging the gap that had<br />
existed between the team’s midfield<br />
and lone striker Zlatan Ibrahimovic.<br />
Liverpool case for defence weak<br />
For a second successive match Liverpool’s<br />
dazzling attack wasn’t sufficient<br />
as their defence was again exposed as<br />
the Achilles’ heel with struggling West<br />
Ham taking a point in a 2-2 draw. The<br />
yield of just one point from the last six<br />
could prove very costly come the end<br />
of the season. German goalkeeper Loris<br />
Karius will again be under the spotlight,<br />
especially with Dimitri Payet’s freekick,<br />
but the back four do not inspire confidence<br />
and January could see action at<br />
Anfield in the transfer market. •<br />
EPL POINTS TABLE<br />
Team P W D L GD Pts<br />
Chelsea 15 12 1 2 22 37<br />
Arsenal 15 10 4 1 21 34<br />
Liverpool 15 9 4 2 17 31<br />
Man City 15 9 3 3 <strong>13</strong> 30<br />
Tottenham 15 7 6 2 <strong>13</strong> 27<br />
Man Utd 15 6 6 3 4 24<br />
Watford 15 6 3 6 -5 21<br />
West Brom 15 5 5 5 2 20<br />
Everton 15 5 5 5 0 20<br />
Southampton 15 5 5 5 -1 20<br />
Stoke 15 5 4 6 -5 19<br />
Bournemouth 15 5 3 7 -4 18<br />
Burnley 15 5 2 8 -10 17<br />
Leicester 15 4 4 7 -5 16<br />
Crystal Palace 15 4 3 8 -2 15<br />
Middlesbrough 15 3 6 6 -3 15<br />
West Ham 15 3 4 8 -16 <strong>13</strong><br />
Swansea 15 3 3 9 -12 12<br />
Hull 15 3 3 9 -18 12<br />
Sunderland 15 3 2 10 -<strong>13</strong> 11
Sport 27<br />
DT<br />
TUESDAY, DECEMBER <strong>13</strong>, <strong>2016</strong><br />
How Tendulkar<br />
put Kohli on<br />
path to glory<br />
• AFP, Mumbai<br />
Virat Kohli revealed yesterday that<br />
sage advice from India great Sachin<br />
Tendulkar after a disastrous tour of<br />
England two years ago helped turn<br />
him into world cricket’s top batsman.<br />
Kohli flopped during India’s<br />
3-1 series defeat in England in the<br />
summer of 2014, making a total of<br />
only <strong>13</strong>4 runs over 10 innings and<br />
mustering a top score of just 39.<br />
Two years on and 28-year-old<br />
Kohli is celebrating a 3-0 series victory<br />
over Alastair Cook’s side.<br />
Kohli said he spoke to Tendulkar,<br />
regarded by many as the<br />
greatest batsman ever, and attributed<br />
some of the turn-around in<br />
his form to what the former India<br />
captain had to say.<br />
“The best advice was not to read<br />
or look up things that were being<br />
said about me. I’m not joking or<br />
trying to be sarcastic. That was the<br />
best advice I got,” said Kohli.<br />
“That was one thing that kept<br />
pulling me back as far as Test cricket<br />
is concerned,” added Kohli, who<br />
succeeded Mahendra Singh Dhoni<br />
as captain early last year.<br />
“Being captain took my mind<br />
more off those things because I had<br />
absolutely no time to read up or<br />
hear what people had to say about<br />
me. It was all about thinking about<br />
what the team has to do and that<br />
has helped me immensely to stay<br />
focused on what I have to do on the<br />
field,” said the star batsman. •<br />
DAY’S WATCH<br />
FOOTBALL<br />
STAR SPORTS 1<br />
7:20 PM<br />
Indian Super League <strong>2016</strong>: Semi<br />
Final 1<br />
Mumbai v Kolkata<br />
STAR SPORTS 2<br />
7:20 PM<br />
Indian Super League <strong>2016</strong>: Semi<br />
Final 2<br />
Kerala v Delhi<br />
STAR SPORTS HD 1<br />
1:50 AM<br />
Premier League <strong>2016</strong>/17<br />
Everton v Arsenal<br />
STAR SPORTS SELECT HD 2<br />
1:35 AM<br />
Premier League <strong>2016</strong>/17<br />
AFC Bournemouth v Leicester City<br />
TEN 1<br />
1:45 AM<br />
Sky Bet EFL <strong>2016</strong>/17<br />
Norwich City v Aston Villa<br />
CRICKET<br />
SONY ESPN<br />
10:00 PM<br />
CSA T20 Challenge <strong>2016</strong><br />
2nd Qualifier v 3rd Qualifier<br />
India hail ‘sweetest’ win over England<br />
• AFP, Mumbai<br />
Virat Kohli hailed India’s series<br />
win over England as his “sweetest”<br />
as captain yesterday after the<br />
hosts humiliated the tourists by an<br />
innings and 36 runs in the fourth<br />
Test.<br />
Off-spinner Ravichandran Ashwin<br />
tore through England’s lacklustre<br />
lower order in just half-anhour<br />
in Mumbai as India clinched<br />
the five-match series 3-0 with a<br />
game to spare and equalled their<br />
longest unbeaten run.<br />
England started the final day<br />
at the Wankhede Stadium trailing<br />
by 49 runs with four wickets remaining,<br />
and needing something<br />
extraordinary to avoid defeat. But<br />
Ashwin grabbed all four wickets<br />
to send England crashing to 195 all<br />
out and finish with figures of 6-55<br />
in the innings, and 12 scalps in the<br />
match.<br />
Skipper Virat Kohli was named<br />
man of the match for his brilliant<br />
double century in a win that confirms<br />
India as Test cricket’s top side<br />
and avenges their two consecutive<br />
series defeats to England.<br />
“This series win is probably the<br />
sweetest we have had in the last 14-<br />
15 months,” said Kohli, who took<br />
over from Mahendra Singh Dhoni<br />
as Test captain last year.<br />
India have now won five straight<br />
series under Kohli, who struck his<br />
third double century of the year,<br />
and are unbeaten in 17 Tests, which<br />
equals their best-ever run which<br />
was set back in 1987.<br />
England captain Alastair Cook<br />
paid tribute to Kohli’s batting, saying<br />
his Indian counterpart had led<br />
from the front and was in the form<br />
of his life.<br />
“Clearly (he is) one of the greatest<br />
batsmen of our generation,”<br />
said Cook, the highest scorer<br />
among current Test players.<br />
Cook, who has hinted he may<br />
step down after the series, also admitted<br />
it was a mistake to pick only<br />
two specialist spinners in Mumbai’s<br />
spin-friendly conditions.<br />
Ashwin first dispatched Jonny<br />
Bairstow, who could only add one<br />
run to his overnight half-century,<br />
before clean-bowling Chris Woakes<br />
for nought. Adil Rashid followed,<br />
caught in the deep by Lokesh Rahul<br />
for two, off Ashwin’s bowling,<br />
to put England at 193 with just one<br />
wicket remaining.<br />
Emotions then threatened to boil<br />
over as Ashwin approached and exchanged<br />
words with James Anderson<br />
as he came into bat. He walked<br />
with him down the crease, forcing<br />
the umpire to intervene. Anderson<br />
was soon caught to become Ashwin’s<br />
sixth victim of the innings as<br />
England were all out for 195, failing<br />
to make India bat again. •<br />
LankaBangla organised a football tournament for its employees at National Handball Stadium, Gulistan in Dhaka last Saturday.<br />
Bangladesh Football Federation senior vice president Abdus Salam Murshedy was present on the occasion as the special guest<br />
4TH TEST, DAY 5<br />
England 1st innings 400 (K. Jennings 112,<br />
J. Buttler 76; R. Ashwin 6-112)<br />
India 1st innings 631 (V. Kohli 235, M. Vijay<br />
<strong>13</strong>6; Rashid 4-192)<br />
England 2nd innings 195 (J. Root 77; J<br />
Bairstow 51; R Ashwin 6-55)<br />
ENGLAND R B<br />
J. Bairstow lbw Ashwin 51 107<br />
J. Buttler not out 6 17<br />
C. Woakes b Ashiwn 0 6<br />
A. Rashid c Rahul b Ashwin 2 7<br />
J. Anderson C Yadav b Ashwin 2 6<br />
Extras (b15, lb2, nb2) 19<br />
Total (10 wickets, 55.3 overs) 195<br />
Fall of wickets<br />
1-1 (Jennings), 2-43 (Cook), 3-49 (Ali),<br />
4-141 (Root), 5-180 (Stokes), 6-182 (Ball),<br />
7-185 (Bairstow), 8-189 (Woakes), 9-193<br />
(Rashid), 10-195 (Anderson)<br />
Bowling<br />
Kumar 4-1-11-1, U. Yadav 3-0-10-0, Jadeja<br />
22-3-63-2 (1nb), Ashwin 20.3-3-55-6, J.<br />
Yadav 6-0-39-1 (1nb)<br />
Result: India win by an innings and 36 runs<br />
India’s players celebrate the wicket<br />
of England batsman Jonny Bairstow<br />
during their Fourth Test at Wankhede<br />
Stadium, Mumbai yesterday REUTERS<br />
17<br />
IN NUMBERS<br />
Consecutive Tests in which<br />
India have remained unbeaten,<br />
which equals their record<br />
- they also went 17 Tests without a<br />
defeat between September 1985<br />
and March 1987; however, they<br />
only won four of the 17 matches<br />
over that stretch, drawing 12 while<br />
one was tied. In this stretch of 17,<br />
India have won <strong>13</strong> and drawn four.<br />
Successive series wins for<br />
5 India, which also equals their<br />
record: they had won five in a row<br />
between 2008 and 2010, at home<br />
against Australia, England and Sri<br />
Lanka, and away in New Zealand<br />
and Bangladesh. This time, they<br />
have won at home against South<br />
Africa, New Zealand and England,<br />
and away in Sri Lanka and the West<br />
Indies.<br />
Instances of teams losing by<br />
3 an innings after scoring 400<br />
or more in the first innings of a Test.<br />
The two previous such instances<br />
were in 1930, when England lost to<br />
Australia at The Oval, and in 2011,<br />
when Sri Lanka lost in Cardiff.<br />
Ten-wicket hauls for R Ashwin,<br />
7 just one behind Anil Kumble’s<br />
eight, which is the highest for India.<br />
Ashwin has played just 43 Tests<br />
for his seven such hauls - only two<br />
bowlers have reached there quicker:<br />
Sydney Barnes, who got there<br />
in 27 Tests, and Clarrie Grimmett<br />
(37). The next fastest is 58 Tests, by<br />
Dennis Lillee.<br />
Five-wicket hauls for<br />
24 Ashwin, which takes him<br />
past Kapil Dev, and into third place<br />
in India’s all-time list, after Kumble<br />
(35) and Harbhajan Singh (25). In<br />
terms of number of matches to get<br />
to 24 five-fors, Ashwin is second<br />
fastest after Barnes, who had 24 in<br />
27 Tests. Muralitharan got there in<br />
58 Tests, and Richard Hadlee in 60.
28<br />
TUESDAY, DECEMBER <strong>13</strong>, <strong>2016</strong><br />
DT<br />
Sport<br />
Fans of Cruzeiro show Chapecoense logos in tribute to the victims of the Colombia plane crash containing the Chapecoense players during their Brazilian Series A<br />
Championship match against Corinthians at the Mineirao stadium, Belo Horizonte, Brazil on Sunday<br />
REUTERS<br />
Tevez double leads Boca<br />
to victory at River Plate<br />
• Reuters, Buenos Aires<br />
A brilliant Carlos Tevez scored<br />
twice in the final half hour as Boca<br />
Juniors came from 2-1 down to beat<br />
River Plate 4-2 at El Monumental in<br />
a thrilling Argentine ‘superclasico’<br />
on Sunday.<br />
The victory put Boca top of<br />
Primera A with 28 points from <strong>13</strong><br />
matches, one point ahead of Estudiantes,<br />
who lost 3-2 at San Martin,<br />
and San Lorenzo, who beat Union<br />
3-2 on Saturday.<br />
“I had a great match,” said Tevez,<br />
who may have played his last<br />
superclasico as he mulls over a 40<br />
million euro ($42.18 million) offer<br />
from China’s Shanghai Shenhua.<br />
“The Boca fans know I would<br />
die for this shirt.”<br />
Boca coach Guillermo Barros<br />
Schelotto said Tevez was a key<br />
component of his team and is hoping<br />
to persuade him to stay at least<br />
until the end of the season in June.<br />
“I’ll talk with him, he knows<br />
what we want,” Barros Schelotto<br />
said.<br />
“We built a team around him.<br />
Let the Chinese wait another six<br />
months.” •<br />
Boca Juniors’ Carlos Tevez celebrates after he scored his team’s second goal<br />
agaisnt River Pate during their Super Calsico math of Argentine First Division at<br />
Antonio Liberti Stadium, Buenos Aires, Argentina on Sunday<br />
REUTERS<br />
Cavani saves PSG against Nice<br />
• AFP, Paris<br />
A second-half brace from Edinson<br />
Cavani saw champions Paris Saint<br />
Germain come from two down to<br />
earn a 2-2 draw with Ligue 1 leaders<br />
Nice at the Parc des Princes on<br />
Sunday.<br />
The visitors withstood an early<br />
onslaught to go into the break 2-0<br />
up after a sumptuous free-kick<br />
from Wylan Cyprien on 32 minutes<br />
and a slick left-foot shot from Alassane<br />
Plea right on the break.<br />
The result puts Nice on 40<br />
points from 17 games, one clear of<br />
second placed Monaco, who beat<br />
Bordeaux 4-0 on Saturday and four<br />
clear of under-pressure Unai Emery’s<br />
champions.<br />
Nice coach Lucien Favre looked<br />
relieved with the point after Cavani<br />
had finished from close range on<br />
46 minutes and then on the hour<br />
mark before the champions ripped<br />
into the Ligue 1 leaders all the way<br />
to the final whistle.<br />
“We really suffered out there,<br />
they imposed a terrible rhythm<br />
early on and it was difficult for us,<br />
but then came that extraordinary<br />
goal,” Favre said after the game.<br />
Cavani had the ball in the back<br />
of the net again with 15 minutes to<br />
go but Blaise Matuidi was offside<br />
when receiving the ball to provide<br />
the final pass.<br />
The PSG front line’s assault saw<br />
Nice ‘keeper Yoan Cardinale produce<br />
seven saves, the last a brilliant<br />
stop on the line from a Layvin<br />
Kurzawa header in stoppage time.<br />
But earlier Cavani was in the<br />
right place at the right time to prod<br />
home the equaliser after Cardinale<br />
had punched away a cross right<br />
into his captain Dante and the Uruguayan<br />
pounced on the loose ball.<br />
The opening goal came when<br />
Cyprien whipped a ferocious freekick<br />
round the PSG wall into the<br />
top right hand corner against the<br />
run of play. And then, just before<br />
the break, Plea beat both Thiago<br />
Silva and Marquinhos at the edge<br />
of the PSG area to dispatch a deft<br />
left-foot shot that saw the home<br />
side booed off at the break.<br />
LIGUE 1<br />
PSG 2-2 Nice<br />
Cavani 46, 60 Cyprien 32, Plea 45+3<br />
Saint-Etienne 1-0 Guingamp<br />
Hamouna 25<br />
Lyon 1-0 Rennes<br />
Valbuena 28<br />
LIGUE 1<br />
Team P W D L GD Pts<br />
Nice 17 12 4 1 20 40<br />
Monaco 17 12 3 2 37 39<br />
Paris SG 17 11 3 3 19 36<br />
Lyon 16 9 1 6 11 28<br />
Rennes 17 8 3 6 -2 27<br />
Mou left scared<br />
by Mkhitaryan<br />
injury blow<br />
• AFP, Manchester<br />
Jose Mourinho admits he was<br />
scared when he saw Manchester<br />
United midfielder Henrikh Mkhitaryan<br />
stretchered off the field during<br />
his team’s 1-0 Premier League<br />
victory over Tottenham Hotspur.<br />
Mkhitaryan scored the winning<br />
goal against Tottenham on Sunday.<br />
But late in the game at Old Trafford,<br />
the Armenian went down under a<br />
foul from Spurs defender Danny<br />
Rose and had to be carried from the<br />
field with what appeared a nasty<br />
injury to his ankle. But to the relief<br />
of the United manager, Mkhitaryan<br />
should miss just two games, away at<br />
Crystal Palace and West Bromwich<br />
Albion this week, before returning<br />
for the busy holiday schedule.<br />
“Hopefully he can play at Christmas.<br />
We believe it’s possible,”<br />
Mourinho told reporters.<br />
“When I saw him on the stretcher<br />
I thought it would be more difficult.<br />
When I watched the tackle<br />
on TV, I was a bit scared. It’s a pity<br />
because he is going to miss matches<br />
in his best period but at least we<br />
don’t lose a player for so long.” •<br />
In the second half, Paris concentrated<br />
on the flanks and the<br />
two Cavani goals, which took his<br />
league taly to 16 so far, came from<br />
wide crosses from Serge Aurier<br />
and Kurzawa. Mario Balotelli came<br />
on as a late substitute and quickly<br />
produced a snap shot that PSG<br />
keeper Alphons Areola saved well.<br />
Hatem Ben Arfa, who switched to<br />
PSG from Nice in the summer, also<br />
made a late cameo.<br />
Cyprien said after the game his<br />
side had never expected to be top<br />
at this stage.<br />
“That match taught us something<br />
we didn’t know about ourselves.<br />
It keeps us top and we can<br />
do even better,” the striker said. •
Downtime<br />
29<br />
TUESDAY, DECEMBER <strong>13</strong>, <strong>2016</strong><br />
DT<br />
CROSSWORD<br />
ACROSS<br />
1 Spoken (4)<br />
3 Nothing (4)<br />
7 Colour (3)<br />
8 Ooze out (5)<br />
11 Step (4)<br />
12 Bishop's headdress (5)<br />
<strong>13</strong> Sport's enclosure (5)<br />
15 Deeply engrossed (4)<br />
18 Rational (4)<br />
19 Sovereign (5)<br />
20 Lift up (5)<br />
21 Sibilate (4)<br />
23 Worth (5)<br />
24 United (3)<br />
25 Expensive (4)<br />
26 Enquires (4)<br />
DOWN<br />
1 Musical dramas (6)<br />
2 Mental acuteness (6)<br />
4 Period of time (3)<br />
5 Cooking instructions (6)<br />
6 Lyric poem (3)<br />
9 Restaurant cars (6)<br />
10 Greek letter (3)<br />
11 Read carefully (6)<br />
14 Plunder (6)<br />
16 Makes watchful (6)<br />
17 Facts (6)<br />
19 Edge (3)<br />
21 Brick's trough (3)<br />
22 Briny (coll) (3)<br />
CODE-CRACKER<br />
How to solve: Each number in our<br />
CODE-CRACKER grid represents a<br />
different letter of the alphabet. For<br />
example, today 2 represents L so fill L<br />
every time the figure 2 appears.<br />
You have two letters in the control<br />
grid to start you off. Enter them in the<br />
appropriate squares in the main grid, then<br />
use your knowledge of words to work out<br />
which letters go in the missing squares.<br />
Some letters of the alphabet may not be<br />
used.<br />
As you get the letters, fill in the other<br />
squares with the same number in the<br />
main grid, and the control grid. Check<br />
off the list of alphabetical letters as you<br />
identify them.<br />
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ<br />
CALVIN AND HOBBES<br />
SUDOKU<br />
How to solve: Fill in the blank spaces with the<br />
numbers 1 – 9. Every row, column and 3 x 3 box must<br />
contain all nine digits with no number repeating.<br />
PEANUTS<br />
YESTERDAY’S SOLUTIONS<br />
CODE-CRACKER<br />
CROSSWORD<br />
DILBERT<br />
SUDOKU
30<br />
TUESDAY, DECEMBER <strong>13</strong>, <strong>2016</strong><br />
DT<br />
Showtime<br />
Team behind the ‘Detective The Game’<br />
• Hasan Dabir Uddin<br />
It’s not too common in here to<br />
tell a story on screen through<br />
animation, especially when we<br />
are talking about any Tagore story,<br />
its rare. Jazz Multimedia, one<br />
of the country’s renowned film<br />
production companies, brought<br />
on a full-length animated feature<br />
titled Detective. Tariq Anam Khan<br />
wrote the screenplay based on a<br />
story by Rabindranath Tagore.<br />
Tapan Ahmed created 3D and<br />
directed the animated feature.<br />
Meanwhile, a group of talented<br />
tech boys created Detective The<br />
Game based on the film, which<br />
released last month. The tech boys<br />
belong to Team Reboot, which<br />
brought the game prior to the<br />
film’s release as a promotional act.<br />
Members of Team Robot are<br />
Jisan Haider Joy (lead developer),<br />
Md Rezaul Hasan Evan (lead<br />
graphics designer), Md Emdadul<br />
Haque (level designer ), Juned<br />
Chowdhury (sound engineer),<br />
Meheraj Maruf (gameplay<br />
developer), Shazahan Kabir Saju<br />
(jr developer), Md Shakerul Islam<br />
(UX/UI designer) and Abdullah Al<br />
Mamun (jr developer).<br />
Recently, Showtime sat with<br />
Team Robot to learn their venture<br />
with Jaaz.<br />
What influenced you to make<br />
video games?<br />
Basically, we were captivated<br />
by various video games in<br />
our childhood. It’s a common<br />
phenomenon here that we played<br />
the games, which were made in<br />
developed countries.<br />
And eventually, we aimed to create<br />
a new history in the country’s<br />
tech industry by creating games<br />
like those. When we started our<br />
graduation, we locked our destiny<br />
to do so we believe.<br />
How did you connect with Jaaz<br />
Multimedia?<br />
That was an exceptional moment<br />
for us when Jaaz Multimedia<br />
offered to make a cinematic game<br />
for promoting their upcoming<br />
film Detective. We have seen this<br />
kind of initiative in Hollywood,<br />
Bollywood, but not in this country.<br />
They noticed our debut gaming<br />
initiative Fly.<br />
What’s the game actually about?<br />
How is it played?<br />
Mohim Babu, a detective, found<br />
a mysterious person with secrets<br />
and unsolved problems. He starts<br />
chasing this unknown man who<br />
tries to escape after conducting a<br />
theft. A player has to help Mohim<br />
Babu in his journey in order to<br />
catch the thief.<br />
Players have to run, jump and<br />
slide to save themselves from<br />
bumping into obstacles and collect<br />
coins as much as possible to place<br />
anyone’s name on the throne.<br />
Players can challenge their friends<br />
and other players to beat them in<br />
the leader board.<br />
Is the game represent our culture<br />
in any way?<br />
We tried to represent our culture<br />
in this game in various ways for<br />
instance, the game’s background<br />
is almost like our cities. When we<br />
created this game, we had to focus<br />
on our local sights and ambience<br />
including roads, houses, trees,<br />
dresses and even the ornament the<br />
characters put on.<br />
What are you r future plans?<br />
We want to promote our country<br />
around the world. Game could be<br />
a medium to introduce our nation<br />
internationally. •<br />
Patriotic Song by Shusmita<br />
Anis this Victory Day<br />
• Showtime Desk<br />
Shusmita Anis has voiced a<br />
patriotic song for the coming<br />
Victory Day. The song titled “E<br />
Pran Amar Bangladesh” is written<br />
by Muniruzzaman Munir and<br />
composed by Sheikh Saadi Khan.<br />
Famous Indian singer and music<br />
director Anupam Roy has arranged<br />
the music for this song. The music<br />
video has been directed by Gazi<br />
Shuvro. The music video of the<br />
song is available online under the<br />
Gaanchill banner.<br />
Sushmita noted that the song<br />
has been prepared to encourage<br />
youth towards patriotism.<br />
Shusmita Anis was raised in a very<br />
traditional family. Her foundation<br />
in singing was laid by her aunt,<br />
the famous Nazrul singer Firoza<br />
Begum. From the age of five she<br />
trained with Firoza Begum in<br />
various sections of singing.<br />
Shusmita Anis who is more<br />
inclined towards modern songs<br />
said, “With the change of age, it is<br />
natural modern instrumentation<br />
that will come closer to classic<br />
songs. But we have to ensure that<br />
the tune of the song remains the<br />
same. She thinks the dedication<br />
of the youth is key to maintaining<br />
this.”<br />
The music video was shot at a<br />
remote embankment of the river<br />
Padma. 50 models of various ages<br />
participated with Shusmita Anis in<br />
the video. Regarding the video of<br />
the of the song she said, “One has<br />
to see it through their own eyes<br />
to truly appreciate the beauty of<br />
Bangladesh.”<br />
Many may not know about the<br />
widespread riverbanks just outside<br />
Dhaka. The blissful and foggy<br />
winter morning makes the heart<br />
go crazy. Sweet sunshine starts to<br />
peek as the day progresses. Clouds<br />
float in the sky. The distance starts<br />
to fade away after dusk with the<br />
emergence of fog. It is the symbol<br />
of little Bangladesh.<br />
The focus of the young society<br />
has been portrayed perfectly in<br />
the music video. Shushmita said,<br />
“As the patriotic song has been<br />
sung and dedicated towards the<br />
younger generation, they have<br />
been represented in the music<br />
video. Along with the usage of<br />
latest equipment, vivid scenery<br />
of beautiful Bangladesh. The song<br />
will also feature various success of<br />
Bangladesh over the years.<br />
YouTube link for the song:<br />
https://www.youtube.com/<br />
watch?v=O0M5egxbQt8 •
Showtime<br />
31<br />
TUESDAY, DECEMBER <strong>13</strong>, <strong>2016</strong><br />
DT<br />
Mindshare Bangladesh wins gold<br />
• Showtime Desk<br />
silver in the Rest of South Asia<br />
(ROSA) Media Agency of the year<br />
On <strong>December</strong> 5, Bangladesh’s category in 20<strong>13</strong> and two golds<br />
leading media agency Mindshare, for the same category in 2014<br />
once again, won the prestigious and 2015. Mindshare made a<br />
Campaign South Asia’s Agency of significant buzz in the region by<br />
the year Award. This consecutive winning gold in both South Asia<br />
accolade is a recognition for<br />
and Rest of South Asia’s Digital<br />
the company’s 360 degrees<br />
Agency of the year category in<br />
Digital Services and reflects the 2014.<br />
inspired leadership, management This year, the agency was<br />
excellence, outstanding business shortlisted in three categories,<br />
performance and overall<br />
including ROSA Media agency<br />
achievements in Asia-Pacific’s of the year and the other was<br />
advertising and communications ROSA Digital Agency of the year,<br />
industries; continuing a grand along with local and international<br />
tradition of 23 years.<br />
market players. The awards were<br />
This is the fourth consecutive held on November 30, <strong>2016</strong> at<br />
year, Mindshare won a Campaign the ITC Grand Central Hotel in<br />
Asia title, highlighting its<br />
Mumbai. Executive Director<br />
dominance in the Digital<br />
Mr Morshed Alam, Deputy<br />
Spectrum, along with its<br />
General Manager Rezaul Hasan<br />
continuous success in media and Director Tusnuva Ahmed<br />
business. Since 20<strong>13</strong>, Mindshare received the a wards on behalf of<br />
has won accolades including, Mindshare Bangladesh. •<br />
The latest poster of Ok<br />
Jaanu received well<br />
• Showtime Desk<br />
After the super romantic first poster of Ok Jaanu, the makers have<br />
released another one, which features Aditya Roy Kapur and Shraddha<br />
Kapoor. The latest picture of the actors in the poster has Mumbai’s<br />
famous Chowpatty in the backdrop, while displaying a sense of instant<br />
tranquility.<br />
Source: India Times<br />
Happy 27 to Swift<br />
• Showtime Desk<br />
Taylor Swift has become one of<br />
the most powerful celebrities<br />
in the world. She is famously<br />
methodical about her multimillion<br />
dollar brand, and<br />
meticulously chooses her<br />
collaborators and projects. Out<br />
of nowhere late Thursday night,<br />
Taylor Swift and former One<br />
Direction member, Zayn, dropped<br />
a single called “I Don’t Wanna<br />
Live Forever”. Written by the pop<br />
megastar herself, along with Jack<br />
Antonoff and Sam Dew, the song<br />
is from the soundtrack of Fifty<br />
Shades Darker, the upcoming<br />
sequel to Fifty Shades of Grey.<br />
Within hours, the pop-dance track<br />
was the number one worldwide<br />
trending topic on Twitter and<br />
number one on iTunes. “Well, that<br />
escalated quickly,” Swift wrote on<br />
Instagram, as if she didn’t know<br />
that would happen. Today is her<br />
birthday. Let’s have a recap of her<br />
year.<br />
Despite starting the<br />
year out with some<br />
serious Grammys success, the<br />
rest of Swift›s <strong>2016</strong> was hardly<br />
music-related at all. Well, at least<br />
when it comes to her own music.<br />
From ghostwriting to whirlwind<br />
romances, take a look back yet<br />
another year of Taylor Swift.<br />
At the February 16 ceremony,<br />
where Swift debuted an Anna<br />
Wintour-esque bob, she further<br />
proved to be a powerhouse in<br />
her field by winning three more<br />
Grammys to add to her seven<br />
previous trophies. The most<br />
notable was her big victory in<br />
the Album of the Year category,<br />
marking her second win of the<br />
marquee award, and becoming<br />
the first female artist to snag two<br />
in their career.<br />
After more than a year of<br />
establishing themselves as one<br />
of music’s power couples. They<br />
were revealed as the highestpaid<br />
couple in the biz in June<br />
2015. Swift and Harris apparently<br />
lost their spark and called it quits<br />
in early June <strong>2016</strong>.<br />
Swift went rather quiet on<br />
Instagram following the breakup<br />
news, but broke her silence to<br />
reveal that she had surprised<br />
a fan at his wedding. She even<br />
serenaded the newlyweds and<br />
their guests with a strippeddown<br />
performance of “Blank<br />
Space”.<br />
Just about a month after<br />
‘Swifties’ were devastated to<br />
find out that ‘Talvin’ was no<br />
more, Swift threw them for<br />
a loop when she was spotted<br />
kissing Thor actor Tom<br />
Hiddleston in Rhode Island out of<br />
the blue. The two seemingly had<br />
quite the fantastical romance,<br />
traveling to Europe and Australia<br />
together within the first month,<br />
but the flame fizzled after only a<br />
few months.<br />
With no new material to be<br />
eligible for the 2017 Grammys,<br />
Swift needed some other way to<br />
look forward to the New Year.<br />
One month after Swift’s deal with<br />
AT&T was revealed, the company<br />
announced that it would unveil<br />
a «new video experience» called<br />
Taylor Swift Now, which will<br />
feature <strong>13</strong> chapters of exclusive<br />
content.•
32<br />
TUESDAY, DECEMBER <strong>13</strong>, <strong>2016</strong><br />
DT<br />
MOST FEMALE SME OWNERS<br />
HARDLY GET LOANS PAGE 12<br />
Back Page<br />
ARSENAL GET BAYERN AGAIN,<br />
BARCA RETURN TO PARIS PAGE 24<br />
TEAM BEHIND THE<br />
‘DETECTIVE THE GAME’ PAGE 30<br />
ANOTHER SLUM FIRE IN MOHAKHALI<br />
Looting amid panicked<br />
evacuation alleged<br />
A dejected elderly woman sitting on her charred belongings after a fire burnt the Sattola slum in Mohakhali early yesterday<br />
• Kamrul Hasan and<br />
Arifur Rahman Rabbi<br />
There have been numerous allegations<br />
of rampant looting of homes during the<br />
Sattola fire amid frantic rush for safety.<br />
The fire broke out in the early hours<br />
of yesterday at Adarshanagar area of<br />
the slum and raged on for two hours<br />
burning down 111 homes before it<br />
could be doused, said an official of Brac<br />
urban development project.<br />
Around 1:10am an announcement<br />
was made from the Chowdhurypara<br />
Mosque of the slum. The Fire Service<br />
rushed to the spot around 1:30am.<br />
It took seventeen fire service units<br />
two hours to bring the fire under control<br />
around 2am, said Fire Service Control<br />
Room Official Mahmudul Hoque.<br />
Victims of the fire claim that several<br />
outsiders broke into their homes and<br />
looted their valuables.<br />
Salma, the owner of a computer<br />
shop in the slum, said during the frantic<br />
rush to get out of the slum someone<br />
broke into her shop and stole the only<br />
computer she owned.<br />
Another resident, Shilpi Akhter said<br />
she locked the doors of her home before<br />
she ran for shelter came back to find the<br />
door unlocked and her room ransacked.<br />
RAJIB DHAR<br />
Many other residents claimed their<br />
cellphones were pick pocketed during<br />
the fire.<br />
Jasim Uddin said the fire broke out<br />
inside the Brac school in the slum. Salma<br />
said she heard a big explosion from<br />
near the Brac school and saw a blue fire<br />
there.<br />
“Very soon the fire engulfed the<br />
whole area.”<br />
Jasim alleged that drug addicts<br />
regularly broke into the school to use<br />
drugs there. However, Brac school programme<br />
officials said they were unaware<br />
of that fact.<br />
Brac school official Rokonuzzaman<br />
said the school was locked after hours<br />
and the local parents committee also<br />
provided security for the building.<br />
Local Councilor Md Nasir also took<br />
this view.<br />
But a resident asking not to be<br />
named claimed that sometimes powerful<br />
factions set fire to the slum in a<br />
bid to grab the land.<br />
Several residents alleged that a racket<br />
controlled by a criminal godfather<br />
named Akhter Mia, who is currently in<br />
jail, was involved with the fire.<br />
“Sometimes these fires are set to<br />
grab property in the slum. The powerful<br />
shanty owners take over the shanties<br />
owned by others and the previous<br />
owners lose everything and become<br />
tenants at the slum or leave,” one resident<br />
said.<br />
This is the second slum fire this<br />
month in Dhaka. Parts of the nearby<br />
Korail slum burned down on <strong>December</strong><br />
4, gutting 500 houses. The victims<br />
there have also alleged that it was an<br />
arson intended to scare them out of<br />
the slum.<br />
Dhaka North City Corporation Mayor<br />
Annisul Huq visited the spot around<br />
12:30 am yesterday and assured of assistance<br />
and rehabilitation for the victims.<br />
Besides, Brac supplied some utensils<br />
to the victims yesterday afternoon<br />
and they will sit with Mayor Annisul<br />
around 11am today to discuss a<br />
rehabilitation process, said Hasina<br />
Mushrofa.<br />
They were arranging cloth tents<br />
for the victims so that they would not<br />
be living under the sky during night,<br />
said Brac School programme Manager<br />
Tamzidul Islam.<br />
Banani police station Inspector (Investigation)<br />
Waheduzzaman told the<br />
Dhaka Tribune that they had deployed<br />
police there and investigating into the<br />
matter. •<br />
High Court: VAT on<br />
English medium<br />
tuition fees illegal<br />
• Ashif Islam Shaon<br />
The High Court has declared<br />
the 7.5% VAT on tuition<br />
fees at English medium<br />
schools illegal.<br />
The court yesterday said<br />
the imposition of VAT was<br />
discriminatory and contradictory<br />
to the constitution,<br />
and thus it cannot be extracted<br />
from students from<br />
January 2017.<br />
The govt<br />
imposed a 4.5%<br />
VAT on fees<br />
and services in<br />
English medium<br />
schools in 2010.<br />
In 2014, it was<br />
raised to 7.5%.<br />
There is no<br />
VAT for Bangla<br />
medium schools<br />
The High Court bench of<br />
Justice Zubayer Rahman<br />
Chowdhury and Justice<br />
Mozibur Rahman Miah<br />
gave the verdict on a writ<br />
petition that challenged the<br />
government decision to impose<br />
VAT on tuition fees at<br />
English medium schools.<br />
On September 17, 2015,<br />
the High Court stayed the<br />
collection of VAT on tuition<br />
fees for six months after<br />
two guardians filed the writ<br />
petition.<br />
At that time the court<br />
also issued a ruling, asking<br />
the authorities concerned<br />
to explain why the VAT imposition<br />
should not be declared<br />
illegal.<br />
The National Board of<br />
Revenue chairman, secretaries<br />
to the Education<br />
Ministry and the Internal<br />
Resources Division of the<br />
Finance Ministry were<br />
made respondents to the<br />
ruling.<br />
Yesterday, the court declared<br />
the VAT imposition<br />
illegal after concluding<br />
the final hearing on the<br />
issue.<br />
The writ petition argued<br />
that it was the government’s<br />
duty to ensure education<br />
and equal opportunity<br />
for all according to the<br />
constitution. Hence, imposing<br />
VAT on tuition and<br />
other fees violate it.<br />
The government imposed<br />
a 4.5% VAT on fees<br />
and services in English medium<br />
schools in 2010. In<br />
2014, it was raised to 7.5%.<br />
There is no VAT for Bangla<br />
medium schools.<br />
The demand for withdrawal<br />
of the VAT on English<br />
medium schools grew<br />
strong after the government<br />
decided to remove VAT on<br />
tuition fees at private universities,<br />
medical colleges<br />
and engineering colleges. •<br />
Editor: Zafar Sobhan, Published and Printed by Kazi Anis Ahmed on behalf of 2A Media Limited at Dainik Shakaler Khabar Publications Limited, 153/7, Tejgaon Industrial Area, Dhaka-1208. Editorial, News & Commercial Office: FR Tower,<br />
8/C Panthapath, Shukrabad, Dhaka 1207. Phone: 9<strong>13</strong>2093-94, Advertising: 9<strong>13</strong>2155, Circulation: 9<strong>13</strong>2282, Fax: News-9<strong>13</strong>2192, e-mail: news@dhakatribune.com, info@dhakatribune.com, Website: www.dhakatribune.com