e_Paper, Wednesday, April 21, 2017

24
FRIDAY, APRIL 21, 2017
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HAOR FISHING BANNED AS PISCINE
DISEASE SPREADS › 6
RUSSIA BLOCKS UN CONDEMNATION OF
NORTH KOREA MISSILE TEST › 9
DB officials
suspended for
posing as RAB
• Arifur Rahman Rabbi
On the night of April 18, a team
of eleven plain clothes Detective
Branch policemen led by assistant
commissioner Ruhul Amin entered
the New Wave Club in Kafrul, Dhaka.
After alleging that illegal gambling
was taking place, they demanded
that the people gathered
at the club hand over their mobile
phones and money.
Asked for identification, the DB
personnel claimed to be members
of the Rapid Action Battalion.
According to witnesses, when
people at the club protested their
presence, the DB policemen pulled
out their weapons to intimidate the
crowd. They then proceeded to force
four individuals out of the club.
Club president Shafiul Azam
told the Dhaka Tribune that one
of the people they picked up was
the husband of a Bangladesh Army
major. He added that as they were
driving away, officials at a nearby
military check-post stopped them.
After ascertaining the details of
the situation, the military officials
had released the four people and
had handed the DB policemen over
to the local police station.
According to Shafiul, the same
team had raided the club a month
earlier and had picked up two
people. He alleged that they had
demanded Tk10 lakhs from one
of the detained and subsequently
released him after extorting
TK50,000 from him.
The Dhaka Tribune attempted
to reach several DB high officials
for comments. Many did not answer
calls. Those who did refused
to comment on the matter.
Responding to the Dhaka Tribune’s
queries, the DMP Commissioner
Md Asaduzzaman Mia said
all eleven of the DB officials had
been suspended.
Masud Ahmed, Mirpur division
deputy commissioner of the Dhaka
Metropolitan Police, said the
DMP commissioner had formed a
three-member committee to investigate
the incident. The probe
committee is expected to submit a
report within three days.
He said eight DB members had
been temporarily suspended and
three had been given show cause
notices.
“Once the investigation is complete,
legal actions will be taken
against them,” added Masud. •
Rehman Sobhan: South Asia can
have meaningful agrarian reform
• Tribune Desk
Summit to build floating LNG
terminal at Moheshkhali
• Aminur Rahman Rasel
Summit Group has signed
two agreements with the
government to build and
use a floating storage and
re-gasification unit (FSRU)
at Moheshkhali, Cox’s Bazar.
Summit LNG Terminal
Company, a subsidiary of
the group, signed the two
deals, for terminal use
agreement (TUA) and implementation
agreement
(IA), with Petrobangla and
Energy and Mineral Resources
Division (EMRD)
respectively.
The signing ceremony
was hold at Petrocenter in
Dhaka yesterday.
Summit will build the
FSRU with a 9km sub-sea
pipeline and deliver LNG to
Gas Transmission Company
Limited (GTCL).
On April 6, the cabinet
approved the Summit
Group’s proposal to set up
a 500 mmcfd capacity LNG
terminal with FSRU in Moheshkhali.
Summit will build, own,
operate and transfer (BOOT)
the terminal with FSRU for
next 15 years and the government
will have to pay
the private operator about
$90 million annually to receive
its service.
Summit was awarded the
France Marquet, (second from left), Anisa Basheer Khan, vice-chancellor of Pondicherry University, and CPD Chairman
Rehman Sobhan
COURTESY: THE HINDU
contract under Speedy Power
and Energy Supply (Special)
Act 2010.
Earlier, Summit Group
signed an initial contract
with Petrobangla on January
3 for the project.
The LNG terminal company
will supply 500 million
cubic feet of gas per
day, for which the government
will pay a total of $1.56
billion a year.
On July, 18, 2016
Petrobangla signed the final
deal with Excelerate
Energy Bangladesh Limited
(EEBL) to build the country’s
first liquefied natural
gas (LNG) processing
terminal. •
The setting up of a 21st century
agrarian reforms commission and
providing the rural populace with
access to tangible assets will be key
to address the growing problem of
inequality in South Asia, economist
Rehman Sobhan has said.
Delivering the second Madanjeet
Singh memorial lecture on
‘Structural sources of inequality in
South Asia’ at the Pondicherry University
in southern India on Tuesday,
Rehman also called for making
farm and manufacturing workers
equity partners and providing better
quality education in state institutions,
reports The Hindu.
“Even within the prevailing
inequitable social dispensation
across South Asia, there is no reason
why we cannot explore agrarian
reforms which are politically
feasible as well as economically
sustainable,” he said.
“A 21st Century agrarian reforms
commission is the need of the
hour.”
Advocating the need to address
the sources of inequality rather
than the symptoms, Rehman, the
chairman of Centre for Policy Dialogue,
identified the key sources
of economic disparity as inequitable
access to productive assets,
unequal participation in markets,
educational disparities, inequitable
access to health care and unfair
globalisation.
“The poor continue to remain
vulnerable to the vicissitudes of
the market and mal-governance.
Business elites have emerged as
the dominant social force in every
country of South Asia with a corresponding
weakening, with a few
significant exceptions in the authority
of the state,” he said.
Agrarian reforms, which were
once an important political concern
across South Asia, has gone off the
radar of policy makers for at least
three decades, the economist said. •
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,
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