BANGLADESH

The newly-formed Election Commission will hold talks with political parties if needed regarding the use of electronic voting machines in the national polls, the chief election commissioner has said.The EC will again take the initiative to hold dialogue with political parties to make use of EVMs in the national polls acceptable to everyone. The new commission has not yet taken a decision on the matter, Kazi Rakib Uddin Ahmed told journalists at the EC secretariat on Tuesday.This is first time the new CEC has talked about EVMs after taking office on Feb 9.When the previous EC talked to political parties on the issue, they suggested using EVMs in other polls prior to their use in the national polls. BNP strongly opposed their use, while Awami League extended full support.At the end of the previous commissions tenure, former CEC A T M Shamsul Huda said that they are completing all preparations needed for the use of EVMs in the national polls.The former EC also instructed BUETs IICT to develop prototype of the present EVM to be used in the national polls.New CEC Kazi Rakib said, Technology has seen massive development. So we will not lag behind the technology.Talks are going on with BUET to make the current EVMs more precise and reliable, so that normal voters do not face any problems and can cast their votes properly.

Awami League (AL) lawmaker and former state minister for home Tanjim Ahmad Sohel Taj resigned as parliament member on Monday.A confidential parliament source confirmed about the matter on Monday.
According to source, Sohel’s additional personal assistant Abu Kawsar sent the resignation letter to the speaker’s office at about 1030am.However, acting parliament secretary Mahfujur Rahman said that he knew nothing in this regard.
Earlier, Sohel Taj, son of country`s first Prime Minister Tajuddin Ahmed, sent a letter to cabinet secretariat asking why a huge amount of money was sent to his account after two and a half years and why no gazette notification on his resignation was issued.
Meanwhile, he demanded that the government take back around Tk 40 lakh deposited in his account in remuneration and allowances for the post.
Earlier on June 1, 2009, he stepped down as state minister for home affairs about five months into his appointment.
Sohel Taj, son of country`s first Prime Minister Tajuddin Ahmed, submitted his resignation to Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina at her Office on the same day.
Later, he was made a minister without portfolio.
Sources said Sohel Taj did not specify any reason except `personal ground` for his resignation.

A Dhaka Court has indicted journalist Shafiq Rehman, daily Naya Diganta editor Alamgir Mohiuddin and its publisher Shamsul Huda for libel. The Dhaka Metropolitan Magistrates court of Hakim Shahriar Mahmud Adnan framed charge against the three on Thursday.
Bangladesh Quoran Shiksha Mission president Maolana Abu Bakar Siddique, who is also Awami Olama League vice-president, filed a case accusing the three for hurting religious sentiment and defaming Islam on Mar 6 in 2011.
According to the case statement, Naya Diganta ran a column on Feb 25 in 2011 written by Shafiq Rehman titled Not a chance editor, a chance adviser quoting former chief justice ABM Khairul Haque. In another column in the same newspaper, Shafique Rehman identified Khairul Haque as Chance Muhammad, it was alleged in the case.
It was alleged in the case that Shafiq Rehman criticised prophet Hazrat Muhammad (PBUH) by writing the column and hurt emotions of the Muslims and the religion Islam was defamed.
But the judge took into cognisance only the charge of the defamation.
All the three accused pleaded their innocence after the charge was read out before them.
A T M Golam Daud argued for the plaintiff while Abdullah Mahmud Hasan stood for the accused.

Missing BNP leader M Ilias Ali's wife met his party chief again on Wednesday.

Tahsina Rushdir Luna had also met Khaleda Zia on May 3.

Khaleda's press secretary Maruf Kamal Khan told that she went to the opposition chief's office at Gulshan around 9pm and was there for more than one hour.

Khaleda's aide added that Luna went to the party chairperson's Gulshan office alone.

Luna had previously called on Khaleda on Apr 21 following the disappearance of her husband.

Ilias, one of the organising secretaries of BNP and a former MP from Sylhet, and his driver went missing in the early hours of Apr 18. His car was found abandoned in the capital's Mohakhali area.

BNP has been alleging that 'government agencies picked him up', but the government has been refuting the allegation, saying it was a 'drama staged by the BNP'.

The Rapid Action Battalion and police have raided several places at Pubail in Gazipur and Dhaka in search of Ilias, but to no avail.

The fate of the Teesta deal has become uncertain, BBC Bangla radio reported quoting a 'highly-placed' official of the Indian government.

The Indian government has also informed Bangladesh's foreign minister Dipu Moni that the signing has been put off for now, it said on Wednesday.

Even though the Teesta water sharing pact was to be signed between the two neighbours during the Indian prime minister's visit to Bangladesh in September last year, it was halted at the last moment due to West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee's opposition.

Bangladesh, in return, halted the transit agreement.

Banerjee, who is also a Trinamool Congress leader, claimed that she was not shown the draft before. Indian PM Manmohan Singh had apologised for the halt in the face of intense media criticism in Bangladesh and India, and expressed his frustration over the failure.

The agreements are on hold since then and the two governments have been regularly holding talks over the deals. The deals also came up at foreign minister-level talks during Dipu Moni's recent visit to India.

While her Indian counterpart SM Krishna assured that the Indian central government is working to ease the water-sharing pact, Dipu Moni told the Indian media that the relation between Bangladesh and India would be 'hit strongly' if the pact is not reached.

India has given up on transit through Bangladesh in the future, which was to be given in return of the deal, the BBC source said.

Instead, the country is undertaking work to link Mizoram with Myanmar through Kaladan River as an alternative route for transit, the Indian official reportedly said.

"This would hike India's costs, but there is no alternative," the official was quoted as saying.

Awami League MP Tanjim Ahmed, also known as Sohel Taj, has expressed his surprise and frustration over speaker Abdul Hamid's rejection of accepting his resignation from parliament.

"I am surprised, stunned. I have talked to the speaker on more than two occasions after sending the resignation letter and have made it clear that I am resigning consciously and willingly. None pressured me," Tanjim, who is currently at Maryland, has told by phone.

"The honourable speaker assured me that he would let me know about his decision over my resignation. But he did not do that, rather he talked to media," Taj added.

Speaker Abdul Hamid on Wednesday said his office did not accept Taj's resignation from parliament on technical grounds and that the letter was not properly submitted.

The Speaker pointed out that the letter was not accepted as it did not have the words 'willing to resign' in line with the Section 67 of the Constitution.

"One has to write his resignation letter himself. But Sohel Taj's one was typewritten."

"Moreover, the signature and the date were written using two types of ink and they seemed to have been written by different people," he added.

The Gazipur-4 MP's personal aide had handed in the letter to the Speaker's office on Apr 23, nearly three years after the son of Bangladesh's Liberation War-time prime minister, Tajuddin Ahmed, had 'resigned' as a junior minister.


He joined Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's cabinet as the state minister for home on Jan 6, 2009. Only five months into taking of oath, he had resigned on May 31 the same year. After his resignation, the government had said that the president had not accepted the resignation.

The ruling Awami League general secretary has echoed the views of US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on the need to initiate a political dialogue with all political parties.

Syed Ashraful Islam, however, did not give any date or process of holding the talks to resolve 'differences'.

Clinton, during her recent visit to Dhaka, had underlined the need for and encouraged to initiate dialogue among the political actors of the state to settle all disputes.

"The political dialogue has to be held as it has no alternative (to ease an increasingly volatile political situation)," he said replying to reporters queries at the parliament building on Wednesday.

When asked about the date and process of talks, the local government minister said," Everybody will know that once the process starts."

Diplomatic quarters have been suggesting holding talks ever since the ruling coalition and the opposition took diametrically opposite stance on the issue of caretaker government.

The European Union on Wednesday joined the United States in calling the major parties in Bangladesh for a political dialogue.

An EU delegation in Bangladesh made the call at a press conference in Dhaka marking the 62nd Europe Day and 40 years of partnership between Bangladesh and the European Union.

Jatiya Party (JP), one of the key of the ruling coalition, also believes 'it's necessary to hold talks before the next general elections'.

JP chief Hussein Muhammad Ershad on Tuesday spoke in favour of initiating national polls dialogues in parliament.


"Our stance is clear ... we are ready to sit for talks or discussions with the government over the issue of non-partisan government," BNP acting secretary general Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir said on Wednesday.

"However, they (government) will have to announce that they have morally accepted the stance," he added.

Dhaka University Chancellor and President Zillur Rahman has urged Unesco Director General Irina Bokova to consider making Bengali one of the official languages of the United Nations.

"I hope the UN would consider the matter with importance showing respect to Bangla-speaking people in the world," he said at a special convocation organised at Dhaka University on Wednesday to confer an honorary Doctorate of Laws degree on Bokova.

Rahman pointed out that Unesco's initiative to mark Feb 21 as the International Mother Language Day in recognition of the sacrifices of the language martyrs of 1952 has been a great inspiration for Bangladesh. "I hope Unesco will come forward in establishing Bangla as one of the official languages in the UN."

A chamber justice of the Appellate Division has stayed a previous High Court (HC) order for four weeks that asked the inspector general of police (IGP) to appear before it on May 16.

Police chief Hasan Mahmud Khandaker on Tuesday received summons from the High Court to explain steps taken to locate two 'missing' Islamic University (IU) students who allegedly went missing almost three months back.

In response to a government appeal, the Appellate Division justice, Syed Mahmud Hossain, passed the order on Wednesday.

Attorney general Mahbube Alam and deputy attorney general Sarder Mohammad Rashed Jahangir argued for the state during the hearing.

"Besides staying the High Court's previous order for four weeks, the court also ordered to move to it with a regular appeal with four weeks," Rashed Jahangir told .

According to the petition filed over the 'disappearance' of the duo, the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) personnel in plain clothes picked up the two IU unit leaders of Islami Chhatra Shibir (ICS) from a bus at Nabinagar in Savar while they were returning to Kushtia from Dhaka on the night of Feb 4.

The missing leaders are Al Mukaddas of Al-Fiqh and Mohammad Waliullah of Dawah departments. Mukaddas is the cultural secretary of the university unit of the ICS while Waliullah is its finance secretary.

A four-day strike was observed at the university in Kushtia town in protest against the 'forced disappearance' of the two leaders.

Following a writ appeal, the High Court on Feb 15 issued a rule asking the government officials to explain why they should not be directed to produce the duo before it to prove that they were not detained illegally.

Hearing the writ petition, the bench of justices Abdul Awal and Mohammad Ashraful Kamal had issued the summons to the IGP on Tuesday.

Police on Thursday pressed charges against BNP's acting secretary general Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir and 44 others for their alleged role in torching a bus in front of the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) during the Apr 29 general strike.

Detective Branch inspector Nurul Amin, who is investigating the case, pressed the charges with the Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Court in the morning and sought arrest warrants.

Tejgaon police filed a case on Apr 29 accusing the leaders of the BNP and its allies of backing the strikers who allegedly set the bus on fire in front of the PMO.

Among the accused, BNP's joint secretary general Ruhul Kabir Rizvi was arrested and sent to jail, pending further order, while another joint secretary general Mahbubuddin Khokon was on bail.

Defence lawyer Masud Ahmed told that if convicted in the case, one may face up to two years in jail. According to the law, there is a 30-day deadline to finish the case as it was filed under the speedy trial act. The investigator may get an extension of 15 days if it is not concluded in 30 days.

The charge-sheeted accused also include BNP leaders MK Anwar, Hannan Shah, Sadeque Hossain Khoka, Mirza Abbas, Khandoker Mosharraf Hossain, Amanullah Aman, Ruhul Kuddus Talukdar Dulu, Goyeshwar Chandra Roy, Fazlul Haque Milon, Sharif Uddin Chowdhury Anne, Jatiyatabadi Chhatra Dal president Sultan Salahuddin Tuku, Liberal Democratic Party president Oli Ahmed, Jamaat-e-Islami acting chief Mokbul Hossain, BJP President Andalib Rahman Partha and Swechchhasebak Dal president Habib-un-Nabi Khan Sohel