BANGLADESH

A parliamentary committee has recommended giving upazila chairmen the right to write annual performance reports of upazila level administrators.

In a report presented to parliament on Monday, the parliamentary committee on local government also recommended that the chairmen remain executive heads of the upazila parishads and upazila executive officers the chief executive officers.

The report on Upazila Parishad (amendment) Bill was presented by Nur-e-Alam Chowdhury MP.

Once passed, the bill will enable upazila chairmen to exercise executive power in all matters of the sub-district except land.

They will be able to supervise secondary and madrassah education and all local works of the local government and liberation war ministries. The chairmen will provide the APRs of the officials working under such projects, which will be considered a part of the annual confidential reports.

To remove an Upazila chairman, four-fifth no-confidence will be required in the council and the divisional commissioner will arbitrate the matter. At present the deputy commissioner is the arbitrator.

The chairman will not be removed for facing criminal charges, but only when a court takes it into cognisance.

Upazila Parishad Chairmen Association president Harun-ur-Rashid told reporters that the government's efforts were positive. Local government division officials said most of the demands made by upazila chairmen had been incorporated into the bill.

The judicial committee investigating the alleged police torture on Dhaka University student Abdul Kadar has found that he had been tortured in detention on false charges.

The law ministry's joint secretary Ashish Ranjan Da said in the report that police had detained Kadar on suspicion, shown him arrested over false charges and tortured him in custody. Ashish, now the law secretary, led the one-man committee formed in July at the directive of the High Court.

Deputy attorney general A B M Altaf Hossain presented the report to the bench of justices A H M Shamsuddin Chowdhury and Jahangir Hossain on Monday. He told  that the hearing will take place in the afternoon.

Police had done these without verifying his statement and identity, the report said.

"Police's slipshodness in duty, fancifulness and tendency to implicate someone in false charges were observed," it added.

Police claim they detained Kadar with another from Khilgaon while they had been preparing for a robbery in the early hours of July 16. But the Dhaka University student of biochemistry and microbiology said police had picked him up in front of the Anticorruption Commission headquarters in Segunbagicha while he was on his way back to campus.

The university students have been maintaining that the arrest was meant for harassment.

The High Court intervened when news reports said Kadar was allegedly tortured in police custody.

Kadar had told the High Court that Khilgaon police chief Helel Uddin, sub-inspector Alam Badsha and assistant sub-inspector Shahidur Rahman had severely assaulted him. The High Court ordered suspension of the trio following the allegations.

Kadar's family also alleged police torture and false case. Manowara Begum, his mother, had also lodged a complaint with the National Human Rights Commission. Kadar's father, Abdul Rouf is an education officer at Debidwar in Comilla.

The judicial enquiry committee made four recommendations to prevent a repeat of such incidents.

The proposals include directing police to be careful in establishing an individual's involvement in a crime for making an arrest. Secondly, issuance of directives from the top of the police administration for properly adhering to the directives of the law in force, including the order from the High Court, to not torture any individual in police custody.

The other proposals are to be certain about primary indicating involvement of an individual in any case before filing it, and to file cases based on true incidents and to pass stringent directives by the top level authorities of police to prevent anyone, in any condition, from filing any case with false information hiding the true incidents.

The cricket caravan is back in the country, and set to roll again, as the Tigers face off with Pakistan in the lone T20 international here on Tuesday to kick-start the tour.

While Pakistan, fresh from humiliating World Cup runners-up Sri Lanka in all three formats of the game in the UAE, are expected to come out all guns firing, the hosts would aim to pick up from where they left off last month, having beaten the West Indies by three wickets in a thriller at Mirpur stadium.

Tuesday's match will be played at the same Sher-e-Bangla National Cricket Stadium from 5 pm. And the Tigers would hope to eke out their first T20 victory against Pakistan, having lost all four matches in the smallest version of the game played between the two teams till date.

A formidable force in this form of cricket, Pakistan have won the world T20 title once and finished runners-up and been eliminated in the semifinals once each.

Facing Pakistan's strong bowling attack will be Bangladesh's main challenge. The three highest wicket-takers in T20 internationals are all members of this Pakistan team: Shahid Afridi with 53 T20I wickets, Umar Gul with 49, and Saeed Ajmal with 46 have, between them, the ability to grind any batting line-up.

All-rounders like Mohammed Hafeez and Shoaib Malik add to the Pakistan team's bowling depth.

The top Pakistani batsmen -- Hafeez, Imran Farhat, Shahid Afridi and Umar Akmal -- are in good form and senior pros Yunus Khan and skipper Misbah-ul-Huq have the proven ability to play match-winning knocks.

Bangladesh, meanwhile, are also high on confidence, having beaten West Indies in the T20 here on October 11, and new skipper Mushfiqur Rahim will aim to continue with that winning form.

Though Tamim Iqbal is in good shape, fellow opener Imrul Kayes still remains a shadow of his former self with the willow. In fact, Tamim, too, has not shown his best in T20s.
Mushfiqur will thus look at him to give a flying start.

The hosts also have depth in both batting and bowling, with all-rounders Shakib Al Hasan, Mahmudullah Riyad, Naeem Islam, Nasir Hussain, Alok Kapali and Farhad Reza expected to take the field on the morrow.

The left arm spin-duo of Abdur Razzak (22 T20 wickets) and Shakib (19 wickets) will lead the bowling attack, while Elias Sunny will add support to the spin attack.

But before the spinners come into play, the hosts would look at opening bowlers Shafiul Islam and Rubel Hossain to make some dent in the much-vaunted Pakistan batting line-up. The pace duo's failure to give initial breakthroughs would make it that much tougher for the spinners, who would be forced to bowl a containing line.

Skipper Mushfiqur Rahim had expressed disappointment over the pitch in the last home series against the Windies. But the team management may be in a Catch-22 situation this time around: an overtly spin-friendly track would surely help the home spinners, but it could also boomerang in this series, as Afridi, Ajmal and Hafeez are more than capable of extracting help from the wicket.

So the task for the bowlers against Pakistan is cut out: make early inroads, contain and frustrate the batsmen, and then go for the kill with the spinners. While it may sound a tough job, cricket is played as much on the 22-yard strip as in the head, and the Tigers' confidence and the crowd's enthusiasm may just see David slaying another Goliath.

German president Christian Wulff is coming to Dhaka on a three-day visit on Monday.

He will be arriving on a special plane in the afternoon, according to his itinerary.

This is the second time a German president is visiting Bangladesh after his predecessor Von Weizsucker came here in 1986.

President Zillur Rahman is expected to receive him at the airport. Both the presidents will have a meeting on Tuesday. Wulff will have meetings with representatives of civil society and different faiths at the Goethe-Insititut, Germany cultural institution, the same day.

He will also meet prime minister Sheikh Hasina and foreign minister Dipu Moni and deliver a lecture at the Dhaka University the same day.

Germany is one of the biggest trading partners of Bangladesh and destination of over $1 billion of exports.

The cabinet has cleared proposals to tax salaries of the speaker and members of parliament, having earlier endorsed similar plans to tax the ministers.

The MPs will have to pay income tax once these proposals are passed in parliament.

The approval came from a cabinet meeting on Monday chaired by prime minister Sheikh Hasina, her press secretary Abul Kalam Azad told reporters.

On Nov 17, the cabinet approved proposals to levy tax on the salaries of ministers, state and deputy ministers.

Hasina had announced in the last budget session of parliament that salaries of ministers, state ministers, deputy ministers, and MP will no more remain tax-free.

The latest nod was another step towards the implementation of that announcement.

Officials said the cleared proposals will be sent to parliament for their passage into law.

Azad said the proposals were about amendments of The Speaker and Deputy Speaker (Remuneration and Privileges) Act and The Member of Parliament (Remuneration and Privileges) Act.

According to existing laws, prime minister and MPs' salaries cannot be taxed.

Hasan Mahmud remains in his own portfolio, environment and forest ministry, as a full minister while Suranjit Sengupta gets the parliamentary affairs ministry, a highly placed source in the government tells .
Obaidul Quader is likely to get either the cultural affairs or the information ministry, the source said.

President M Zillur Rahman administered oath to the three new cabinet additions at Bangabhaban around 8.10pm on Monday. Cabinet secretary Musharraf Hossain Bhuiyan conducted the 10-minute ceremony.

Having represented his electorate in most parliaments, Suranjit became a minister for the first time, joined by another senior leader Quader. State minister for environment and forest Hasan Mahmud got elevated to the cabinet rank in the same ministry.

They took oath clad in 'Mujib coats', as prime minister Sheikh Hasina, Awami League general secretary Syed Ashraful Islam, parliament's deputy leader Syeda Sajeda Chowdhury and principal secretary to prime minister Shaikh Mohammad Wahid-uz-Zaman watched on.

Hasan was the state minister for environment and forests after he was shuffled from the foreign ministry as its junior minister. He was elected to parliament for the first time this past election from a Chittagong constituency.

Senior politician Suranjit was adviser to Hasina in her 1996-2001 term with the rank and status of a minister. Quader was the state minister for youth, sports and cultural affairs.

Amid the buzz that the prime minister was bringing major changes to her 34-month old cabinet, the government source earlier in the evening told that Suranjit and Quader will become ministers.

The source also told  no-one was going out of the cabinet but some offices would be reshuffled.

The current Awami League cabinet was formed on Jan 6, 2009 with 32 members and later expanded to 38.

Awami League's current ministers are Abul Maal Abdul Muhith, Begum Matia Chowdhury Abdul Latif Siddique, Shafique Ahmed, A K Khandker, Rajiuddin Ahamed Raju, Shahara Khatun, Syed Ashraful Islam, Khandker Mosharraf Hossain, Rezaul Karim Hira, Abul Kalam Azad, Enamul Hoque Mustafa Shahee, Dilip Barua, Ramesh Chandra Sen Ghulam Muhammed Quader, Muhammad Faruk Khan, Syed Abul Hossain, Muhammad Abdur Razzaque, Afsarul Ameen, A F M Ruhal Haque, Dipu Moni, Nurul Islam Nahid, Abdul Latif Biswas and Shajahan Khan.

The state ministers are Mostafizur Rahman, A B Tajul Islam, Yeafesh Osman, Hasan Mahmud, Begum Monnujan Sufian, Dipankar Talukdar, Ahad Ali Sarkar, Shahjahan Miah, Abdul Mannan Khan, Kamrul Islam and Shamsul Hoque Tuku.

Prime minister Hasina had picked Tanjim Ahmed, better known as 'Sohel Taj', in first phase but he later resigned.