The New Nation - Internet Edition

UNB, Dhaka

Chief Adviser Dr Fakhruddin Ahmed Saturday said conscious and well-educated citizen is essential for the success of nation's effort to establish honest leadership and real democracy by uprooting corruption in the country.

It is also necessary to set up knowledge-based enlightened society through establishing good governance and ensuring justice and human rights, and to keep the wheels of economy moving, he said. "For this, today it is very urgent to enlighten all citizens with the light of education in the shortest possible time." The Chief Adviser made the remarks formally inaugurating the main programme marking the International Literacy Day 2007 at the Osmani Memorial Auditorium. This year's theme of the Literacy Day is 'Literacy: Key to health and wellbeing'.

Dr Fakhruddin said ensuring quality education for all is one of the major national issues while eradicating illiteracy within shortest possible time is now the prime challenge.

He said combined effort by all is essential to face the challenges and implement the initiatives already taken. "Specially seting up an effective connection between schools and society is a demand of time." Apart from the government, he said, it is also essential to build up firm institutional foundation comprising private organizations, representatives of civil society and elite in conducting the schools. Strengthening supervision is necessary for ensuring quality education and for its expansion, he added.

The Chief Adviser called upon teachers, guardians, officers and employees, governing commitees of schools, NGOs and members of civil society to work together in this regard. He said education has been recognized as the most effective weapon for ataining rapid and sustainable socioeconomic development, and in poverty alleviation and empowering people.

A national working plan has been adopted to ensure quality education for all to fulfill the constitutional obligation and the country's pledge to the international community, he added. "Keeping this in mind the present government has atached topmost priority to education, the most vital driving force to take the nation forward."

Referring to the current national budgetary allocation of about Tk 12,500 crore for education and technology sectors, Dr Fakhruddin hoped that this would play a meaningful role in the country's sustainable economic growth.

He said various measures, including implementation of compulsory primary education, are being carried out across the country to raise the literacy rate to 90 percent by the year 2015.

He said emphasis has been laid on increasing the rate of enrolment of children in primary school, achievement of gender parity, development of quality education at the primary level and ensuring equal rights for education as the tactical goal for 'Education for all by the year 2015."

"Already the country's achievement in this field has been acclaimed worldwide, but we'll have to go a long way and have to reach the target by all means."

The Chief Adviser urged all to contribute in raising the "status of our dearest motherland having enormous potentials" through patriotism and productive and moral education.

He expressed the hope for successful completion of all efforts to establish a modern and prosperous Bangladesh and in making worthy citizens by ensuring quality education.

Education Adviser Ayub Quadri presided over the function organized by the Primary and Mass Education Ministry.

Secretary in-charge of the Primary and Mass Education Ministry M Mosharraf Hossain Bhuiyan also spoke at the function. Advisers of the caretaker government, teachers of different schools, representative of development partners and high civil and military official were present

Staff Reporter

Speakers at a view exchange meeting urged the government not to depend on foreign management and to use local technology for establishing Effluent Treatment Plant (ETP) in the country.

The Department of Environment (DoE) has no experience about the ETP. There should have coordination between the DoE and the ETP authority commitee, speakers said.

The government should give importance on establishment of common ETP and set up of one ETP in industrial areas. "If the government sets up common ETP instead of small ETP, the cost will be reduced and beter services provided," they added. The view exchange meeting on 'Common Effluent Treatment Plant (ETP) to be set up at Shyampur industrial area as a model' was jointly organised by Bangladesh Textile Dying and Printing Industries Association (BTDPIA) and Coalition of Local NGOs, Bangladesh (CLNB) at the National Press Club yesterday.

Lt Gen (Retd) M Mahbubur Rahman, former Army Chief, presided over the meeting, while Harun-ur-Rashid, Chairman of CLNB, moderated it Eng Shahidullah, leader of Movement for Protection of Oil-gas, Mineral Resources, Comrade Nurul Haque Mehedi, Saiful Islam Shishir, Executive Director of Gonoshasthya Kendra, Badrul Haque Maksud, President of BTDPIA, Syed Abul Maksud said the price hike could not be controlled, as most of the politicians were businessman during Awami League and BNP-Jamaat alliance rules.

Demanding subsidy for the agriculture sector he said the government should form a coordinated agriculture policy to reduce the suffering of the farmer.

Besides, former minister Sheikh Shahidul Islam, former MP GM Kader, eminent Scientist and Researcher AKM Khairul Anam, Barrister Turin Afroz, Sirajul Haque Khan, former Director of Bangladesh Jute Board, Abul Kalam Azad, former Joint Secretary for the Ministry of Commerce, Engineer Sarder Amin, Barrister Sadia Arman, among others, were present on the occasion.

Special Correspondent

Policy planners in the government are in favour of an early broad-based political dialogue with a view to bridging differences of understanding of the current situation and on the ways and means of bringing the process of reforms to a successful conclusion.

An open forum with the high ups in the present administration like the one organised with business leaders on September 5 is thus high on agenda, highly placed sources told The New Nation yesterday.

The dialogue is felt urgent for enlisting organised political support to the present government which, it is felt, is not being strongly backed by any political party or alliance at present The said dialogue might also help remove misgivings, if any, about the declared programmes of the government

Political support is being considered urgent also to smoothen the process of transfer of power to elected representatives of the people after the completion of the process of reforms.

The proposed dialogue is preferred just after the month of Ramadan or, if possible, even during the holy month, the sources said. It is expected to give politicians an open forum to speak out their minds without any fear, as was to some extent the case of the meeting of the Chief Adviser Dr Fakhruddin Ahmed and Army Chief Gen. Moeen U Ahmed the other day with business leaders.

Relevant quarters inside the government believe that honest and dedicated leaders with grass-roots support who might emerge through the process of reforms should get opportunities to be united and function in concert to bring about qualitative changes in national politics.

The latest activism that surfaced centring on the Dhaka University incident in the fourth week of last month has made them skeptical about support from the Bangladesh Awami League (AL) or the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) for completion of the process of reforms and transfer of power to elected representatives. Political dialogue, it is believed, would lead to beter understanding of the intentions of the government and help guard against violent demonstration as was noticed in the recent past This is because highly placed policy planners believe that demonstration of such type is bound to invite harsh actions which would be counterproductive for not only the political forces but also the government

The proposed dialogue is expected to be in addition to the one for which preparations are being made by the Election Commission with a view to bringing about electoral reforms. The EC, it may be recalled, has already announced a roadmap for holding elections sometime before December 2008.

Staff Reporter

Speakers at a seminar yesterday called upon the government to control the markets considering purchasing power of the poor people in the country.

They demanded of the government to set up a number of the wholesale markets on all entrances of the Dhaka city to keep the price hike of daily essential commodities under the purchasing power of the general people.

Citizens Rights Movement organised the seminar on price hike of agricultural products and consuming goods at the National Press Club in the city yesterday.

Tusar Rehman, Secretary of the movement presented the keynote paper in the seminar while captain (retd) Alfaz presided over it

They said the government should not take the suggestions of the World Bank and IMF, as Argentina faced a big crisis for taking their suggestions. Dr Qazi Kholiquzzaman Ahmad, President of Bangladesh Economics Association, said the government of other countries have controlling system on their free market economy but the government of Bangladesh has no control on its free market economy.

The government should create production-based employments in the country, he added. Criticising the politicians Journalist Hazi Md Saifuddin Ahmed, General Secretary of BTDPIA and Shyampur Kadamtali Industry Owners Association, among others, spoke on the occasion.

Lt Gen (Retd) Mahbubur Rahman said, "Despite passing 36 years of independence, the countrymen could not achieve economic emancipation. If we want to improve this situation, we will have to develop industries. Without industry economic emancipation can not be achieved."

Jute mills of the country have already shut down. Then sugar mills will be closed down. For this reason, we should not be dependent on foreign management for establishing ETP, he added.

Badrul Haque Maksud said, "If we get technical support and time, we can establish ETP."

Lt Col (Retd) Anwar Hossain said, the country's tools factory will be able to establish ETP using our local machineries.

Internet

With crucial elections just around the corner, Pakistan is gripped with an air of expectancy following the decision of former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to return to the country on Monday, ending a seven-year-long exile.

Sharif is returning to face a ruler whose grip on the country has been slipping due to growing public unrest and an increasingly independent judiciary.

Nawaz Sharif, who has vowed to return home along with his brother on September 10 after a seven-year exile, would be detained after his arrival here and "deported" to either Britain or Saudi Arabia, a Pakistani minister has said. After his detention, "Sharif might be kept in jail for a day or so and then he will be deported to London, Saudi Arabia or elsewhere," Railways Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmad was quoted by 'Dawn' as saying. The government wanted to ensure that Sharif was not provided an opportunity to become a hero in a day, he said.

However, some reports here also said the government planned to divert to Queta, the capital of Balochistan, the plane bringing Sharif and his brother Shahbaz to Islamabad.

Sharif insisted Saturday that he will return to Pakistan to campaign against its military ruler, defying last-minute pressure from Saudi Arabia to honor an agreement to remain in exile.

The two-time premier plans to fly to Islamabad from London on Monday in defiance of veiled threats to arrest him from allies of President Gen. Pervez Musharraf. Sharif was toppled in Musharraf's 1999 coup, convicted of hijacking and terrorism, and sentenced to life imprisonment before being released into exile in Saudi Arabia. After a meeting with Musharraf and Lebanese lawmaker Saad Hariri on Saturday, Saudi Arabia's intelligence chief said Sharif should respect the accord made with Saudi authorities that he stay out of Pakistan for a decade.

"We are sincerely hoping that his excellency Nawaz Sharif honors that agreement," Prince Muqrin bin Abdulaziz Al Saud told reporters outside Musharraf's office.

The Sharifs have also turned down a plea by Saad Hariri, son of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri, to delay their return to Pakistan and pledged to come back Monday as scheduled, according to a close aide of the deposed Premier.

Gen Musharraf's atempt to sack the chief justice of the country in March sparked a nation-wide protest campaign by lawyers, civil society groups and the opposition parties, puting the government on the defensive.

The president's moral standing suffered when the Supreme Court, in a popular move, reinstated the chief justice in July.

Last month, the court upheld a petition by Sharif seeking his return to the country.

Just four days before his expected arrival, the lawyers have kick-started what they call the "second phase" of their movement, aimed at preventing Gen Musharraf from running for another presidential term.

The PML(N) itself has indicated that it plans a big reception for Sharif in Islamabad, the country's capital, where he will land, and all along the 280-km route to his native Lahore city where he will travel in a land procession.

Opposition parties in the newly formed APDM alliance have expressed full support for these plans.

When asked why the Sharifs' PML-N party was keeping the name of the airline by which they would come back and its timing a secret, he said that under normal circumstances it would have made a public announcement well in advance.

"But these are not normal days for us, and we would like to give Musharraf as litle time as possible to plot how best to thwart the Sharifs homeward journey."

There are only two flights to Islamabad from Heathrow on Monday by British Airways and PIA. The Sharifs could also take the Thai airline and go back home via Bangkok.

The worst that is expected to happen to the pair on landing is that they would be picked up at the airport and put under house arrest at their Rawalpindi residence "because the courts in their assertive mood would not allow Musharraf to harass them with concocted cases," the paper quoted an unnamed close aide of Sharif as saying.

The government has banned gathering of five or more people in Rawalpindi where the airport is located. Hundreds of Sharif's party workers have already been taken into preventive custody across the country.

Meanwhile, leaders of the All Party Democratic Movement (APDM) led by PML-N have said they would go to airport Monday to receive the Sharif brothers.

"If the government does anything, they would be playing against the sentiments of people of Pakistan and they (the government) will accelerate their own process of demise by doing this," PML-N Chairman, Raza Zafarul Haq, told the media here after a meeting of APDM.

The PML-N has issued instructions to its workers across the country to reach the airport in disguise and not to stay in hotels and guest houses to avoid arrests.

Musharraf's allies have been piling pressure on Sharif to back out of his pledge to make a comeback which could upset the U.S.-allied military leader's troubled effort to retain power. The government has reopened corruption cases against Sharif and his family, and a court in the eastern city of Lahore on Friday issued an arrest warrant for his younger brother in connection with a murder case.

Musharraf has denounced both Sharif and Benazir Bhuto, another exile former premier seeking a comeback, as corrupt and incompetent and blamed them for Pakistan's near-bankruptcy in the 1990s. Information Minister Mohammed Ali Durrani said Saturday that Sharif should "honor his word" to Saudi Arabia. "He should not come (back)," Durrani told AP.

However, the Supreme Court ruled last month that the Sharifs were free to enter Pakistan - and warned that their return should not be obstructed.

While the government has accepted the ruling, authorities appear determined to disrupt the opposition's plans to afford Sharif a rousing welcome.

BSS, Rangpur

Distribution of national identity cards (NICs) among the voters of the pourasabha begins today through a ceremony at the Rangpur Zila Parishad Community Centre, official sources said.

Brigade Commander of the 72 Infantry Brigade Brig Gen Mohammad Ferdous Mia will inaugurate the NICs distribution as the chief guest at 11 am tomorrow, District Election Officer (DEO) Subhash Chandra Sarker said ysterday evening. A total of 1,37,404 eligible voters out of estimated 1.71 lakh in the Rangpur pourasabha area completed their registrations by Friday evening though the process will continue till September 13 next

The registration process continues satisfactorily and a total of over 1.51 lakh eligible voters were enrolled by today. The total number of voters will be less this time than that of the previous registered number, the DEO said.

According to the officials, all formalities, including taking of photographs and fingerprints of 80.32 percent of the estimated eligible voters at Rangpur town, were completed by Friday evening to enroll people as voters and prepare their NICs.

The fourth and last phase of the registration process, that began on last September 5 at wards-11, 12, 13 14 and 15 of the pourasabha, is now progressing fast to complete the pilot project on the schedule and the NICs distribution will continue till September 30 next, the officials said.

Technical teams of the Bangladesh Army led by Commanding Officer of the 5 Signal Batalion of the 66 Infantry Division Lt Col Shahriar Ahmed Chowdhury has been extending all necessary supports for the Election Commission to register the people as voters from August 19.

Staff Reporter

The Council of Advisers of the Caretaker Government yesterday approved in principle the Fertilizer Management (Amendment) Ordinance 2007 with a view to preventing selling of substandard fertilizer in the name of organic fertilizer.

The approval was given at the regular meeting of the Council of Advisers held at Chief Adviser's Office with Chief Adviser Dr Fakhruddin Ahmed in the chair.

In the Fertilizer Management Ordinance amendment, the definitions of organic and mixed fertilizers, inscription of manufacturing date and maximum retail price of fertilizer on fertilizer bags have been incorporated aiming at stopping production and sale of adulterated and substandard fertilizers.

The meeting was apprised that definitions of organic and mixed fertilizers were not incorporated in the Fertilizer Management (Act) of 2006. As a result, the meeting observed that unscrupulous traders are used to cheat with farmers by buying adulterated and low-standard organic fertilizers.

The meeting also discussed and asked for re-examining incorporation of expiry date of fertilizer in the draft Ordinance to prevent selling of date expired fertilizer.

The Council of Advisers held elaborate discussions on two proposals on the National Human Rights Commission Ordinance-2007 and formation of a joint commission on bilateral cooperation between Bangladesh and Myanmar.

The proposals were placed by the Ministry of Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs respectively. After thorough discussion, the council of advisers asked the Ministry of Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs to re-examine the National Human Rights Commission Ordinance-2007 and place it before the council afresh

The meeting also asked the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to re-examine the various clauses of its proposal to form the joint commission between Bangladesh and Myanmar and submit the proposal again before the council.

Advisers of the caretaker government atended the meeting. Cabinet Secretary, press secretary to the Chief advisers and secretaries concerned were present

All members of the Advisory Council atended the meeting while the Cabinet Secretary and other concerned Secretaries were present at the meeting.

BSS, Dhaka

To protect domestic industries Bangladesh needs to develop the capacity to detect dumping by other countries, FBCCI suggested on Saturday.

It would enable Bangladesh to lodge anti-dumping cases with the WTO and exercise its right to impose countervailing duty to protect domestic manufacturing, it said.

"Bangladesh became the dumping ground for many cheaper products," discussants said at a presentation at the FBCCI emphasising the need for remedial measures to counter it

"We are failing to detect, as per the WTO procedure, dumping at regular pace by India and China, to seek remedial measures," they said. A participant said China's atempts at dumping in the India's market was facing strong resistance.

Similarly, said speakers, Brazil was resisting such moves. They said, least developed countries (LDCs) like Bangladesh were yet to develop the capacity to counteract dumping.

He said, though sugar sells at Rs 17 per kg in Kolkata markets India exports it to Bangladesh at a price of Rs 10 per kg. The Indian central government as well as provincial government, he said, were giving subsidy of 65 US dollars per tonne of sugar export to Bangladesh.

Such subsidized export by India, he said, was destroying the Bangladesh sugar industry. "Bangladesh needs to learn how to make a case out of it to be able to claim remedial measures," he emphasized. Gustav Brink, a consultant, made the resentation on the subject "Trade Defense Mechanism in Bangladesh."

A team of experts under a project, funded by the European Commission, worked out a 'guide to anti-dumping investigation' for Bangladesh Tariff Commission, he said.

The objective of the project is to build Tariff Commission's capacity in the area and suggest how to collect information on dumping, how to process it and make disclosures to authorities, he said. The government in an affected country has the right to impose countervailing duty against dumped products if it can prove at the arbitration that some exporters are dumping cheaper products below the normal export prices with the support of subsidy from government of the exporting country.