BANGLADESH

A slum caught fire in Dhaka on Sunday evening.

According to Fire Service Control Room, the fire broke out at around 7:30pm at Sattala slum in the city's Mohakhali.

They could not immediately say about the origin of the fire.

A correspondent has seen smokes billowing in the air.

The Dhaka Stock Exchange's benchmark index ended Tuesday's trade 1.81 percent higher.

The DSE General Index gained 81.64 points to close at 4578.71 points on the week's third business day.

Shares and mutual funds worth around Tk 6.28 billion changed hands with prices of 244 issues advancing, 26 declining and six remaining unchanged.

Earlier in the day, the Cabinet nodded a proposed law, The Exchanges Demutualisation Act 2012, and approved changes to the existing SEC laws to give more teeth to the capital market regulator.

The Cabinet Secretary said the changes would pave way for setting up special tribunals for stock market-related cases and punishing SEC top brass if they failed to protect confidential information.

The changes will also make tenure of SEC Chairman and Members longer, making it four years from the existing three.

On Monday, the General Index shed 45.56 points to close at 4497.08 points with Tk 5.26-billion turnover.

In the week's first trading session on Sunday, the DGEN closed in the red slipping 103.43 points. The turnover was also lower than the previous week's daily average, standing at Tk 5.24 billion.

Overall trade in the previous week saw a 36-point fall in the DGEN and the average daily turnover was Tk 8.51 billion.

A faction of a road transport owners and workers' platform has enforced an indefinite strike in seven south-western districts to press for an 11-point charter of demands, though another faction refrained from the strike after talks with the Communications Minister.

The South-Western Road Transportation Owners-Workers Unity Council-enforced strike came into effect since Tuesday morning.

No long-route buses were seen leaving Kushtia, Jhenidah, Meherpur, Rajbari and Faridpur since morning affecting road communication in 21 districts and leaving thousands of commuters and goods for transport stuck.

General Secretary of the Kushtia District Motor Workers' Union, Abjal Hossain said, "We had to enforce the pre-announced strike as no effective solution to our demands came out of the meetings with the government."

The platform of transport owners and workers had announced strike in 21 south-western districts on Oct 1 to press for their 11-point charter of demands which included bringing an end to smashing and torching of vehicles after accidents and providing adequate compensation to the owners of the damaged vehicles.

The other demands include stopping human haulers plying on the roads, returning vehicles damaged in accidents to owners within 48 hours and stopping police extortion.

Communications Minister Obaidul Quader had a meeting with the platform's leaders on Monday in Dhaka following announcement to enforce the strike.

On the other hand, General Secretary of the Paribahan Malik Sramik Oikkya Parishad Abdur Rahim Baks Dudu told journalists that they decided to withdraw their strike following the minister's assurance on their demands.

Quader had said the road transportation advisory council meeting on Sunday had had a 'fruitful' discussion on nine of the demands. Those would be implemented gradually, he had said.

News reports based on the statements of Quader and Dudu said that the transport strike had been put off, but the transporters of seven districts dissented and enforced strike in their districts.

Deputy Commissioner of Kushtia Banamali Bhoumik and Superintendent of Police Mafiz Ahmmed, however, could not be reached for their comments.

The Public Service Commission (PSC) on Sunday asked for help to spot people who leaked question papers of the 33rd Bangladesh Civil Service (BCS) examination.

PSC sought the assistance, in the form of information, data and evidence, a day after the written tests of the compulsory subjects of the 33rd BCS examination, scheduled between Oct 7 and Oct 18, were postponed citing unavoidable reasons, a media statement said.

The examinations were cancelled following allegations that the written test question paper for the 33rd BCS had been leaked and were available at the Dhaka University campus at a price of Tk 500,000.

Allegations also had it that the question papers were available on sale at a number of other educational institutions.

PSC considered the allegations as rumours, but did not take any risk and cancelled the examinations finally a day before it began.

The media statement said its decision was taken at the last moment for relieving aspirants of any confusion during the tests.

Newspaper reports on the rumours of the leak and information from the government intelligence were verified before taking the decision, the statement added.

The PSC said it, however, encouraged all to supply information, data or any evidence for stopping the business of forging question papers.

The PSC on June 28 published the preliminary test results of the 33rd BCS Examination, with a total of 28,917 candidates qualifying for the written tests.

Around 193,000 jobseekers attended the first round at 142 centres on June 1.

The Commission on Feb 29 advertised the 33rd BCS exams to fill 4,206 government posts.

French scientist Serge Haroche and American David Wineland have won the 2012 Nobel Prize for physics for work in quantum physics, the prize committee said on Tuesday.

"The Nobel laureates have opened the door to a new era of experimentation with quantum physics by demonstrating the direct observation of individual quantum particles without destroying them," the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said in a statement on the award of the 8 million crown ($1.2 million) prize.

Physics is the second of this year's crop of awards. The prizes, which reward achievements in science, literature and peace, were first awarded in 1901 in accordance with the will of Swedish dynamite millionaire Alfred Nobel.

($1 = 6.6125 Swedish crowns)