Month: July 2022

LGRD Minister Md. Tazul Islam on Thursday said local government institutions need to be accountable to people by providing better services to the community and the local representatives should earn dignity by their work for people.

“Capacities of the local government institutions (LGIs) of Bangladesh, their accountability and transparency have increased to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030 after the successful implementation of the 5-year-long “Efficient and Accountable Local Governance (EALG)” project. Good practices should be replicated,” he said.

The minister while speaking at an event titled “Stakeholders’ Conference on Local Governance: Progress, Learning and Way Forward” organized by the Local Government Division (LGD) of the ministry and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) at the Bangabandhu International Conference Center (BICC).

Addressing the conference as a special guest, Sudipto Mukerjee, Resident Representative of UNDP Bangladesh said EALG project has been working with the local government for the last five years to localize SDGs and build the capacity of Union Parishads and Upazila Parishad and provide policy support to the government for establishing effective local government systems, leaving no one behind.

He thanked Switzerland and Denmark for their support to implement the project and stressed the importance of continuing the support to the local government.

Nathalie Chuard, Ambassador, Embassy of Switzerland said, “In relation to strengthening local governance in Bangladesh, we work with the government and development partners to ensure transparency, accountability, efficiency and inclusivity so that no one is left behind.”

“One of the key lessons we learned from EALG is that coordinated development planning and monitoring by the local government is crucial to ensure effective and optimum utilization of scarce resources and also avoid overlapping of activities,” she added.

Earlier, Md. Mozammel Haque, Programme Analyst, UNDP Bangladesh, presented the keynote paper on EALG Project and its Key Achievements.

Among others, Mohammed Mezbah Uddin Chowdhury, Secretary, Local Government Division, Shariful Hoque, Project Coordinator of the EALG Project, Deputy Director of Local Government from nine districts; Chairman and Vice Chairman of Upazila Parishads and Chairman of Union Parishads; Upazila Nirbahi Officers also spoke.

With support from the Embassy of Switzerland and Denmark, the Efficient and Accountable Local Governance (EALG) project of the Local Government Division and UNDP has been implemented in 251 UPs and 18 UZPs under nine districts.

Source: United News of Bangladesh

The Ministry of Liberation War Affairs on Thursday has launched smart ID card and digital certificate distribution among freedom fighters through which a total of 24,761 freedom fighters will receive smart ID cards and 46,803 digital certificates initially.

Liberation War Affairs Minister AKM Mozammel Haque inaugurated the programme at the Ministry’s meeting room on Thursday.

The Minister said that printing of smart ID cards and digital certificates of 17 districts has been completed.

“Printing of cards and certificates for the rest of the districts will be finished within next one and a half months. Among 46,803 freedom fighters who will receive digital certificates, 24,761 are alive and 22,042 are dead,” said the Minister.

In his welcome speech, Khaja Miah, Secretary of the Ministry of Liberation War Affairs, said that in rural areas, the ID cards and certificates will be distributed by Upazila Nirbahi Officers (UNOs’) while Deputy Commissioners (DCs’) will distribute them in metropolitan areas.

“The ID cards and certificates will have to be distributed checking the consolidated list published on the Ministry’s website (www.molwa.gov.bd). Cards and certificates can’t be provided to those whose names have not been listed. Those freedom fighters who’ve already died will receive only digital certificates, not cards,” said Khaja.

Source: United News of Bangladesh

Dr Kamal Hossain-led Gano Forum on Thursday placed a host of proposals before the Election Commission including introduction of a neutral government during the general elections to make the polls a free, fair and participatory ones.

A team of Gano Forum, led by its executive chairman Mokabbir Khan, raised the proposals joining the EC’s dialogue at Nirbachan Bhaban in the city’s Agargaon area.

The party, in a written paper, said since independence, no election commission was able to gain the trust of all the political parties and the masses no matter how it was constituted.

It said the common people and most of the political parties didn’t get the atmosphere to participate spontaneously in the last two parliamentary elections held in 2014 and 2018. So, the elections were not credible to the world community, it added.

“The next parliamentary election is a big challenge for the incumbent commission,” said Gano Forum, who joined the last national election as an ally of BNP in 2018.

About the use of electronic voting machines (EVMs) in the national elections, the party said it already opposed the EVMs joining the EC’s talks in June last as the common people have little knowledge about the machines.

“We hope that the Election Commission will clarify its stance over EVMs soon before the nation, including every political party,” it said.

Gano Forum also proposed the Election Commission to remain fully independent in case of announcement of election schedules and execution of election rules.

The other proposals include formation of election area-based all-party monitoring teams during the polls, use of transparent ballot boxes in every booth and marking these with numbers, and announcement of the election results by only the Election Commission, not by the returning officers.

Tarikat Federation wants EVMs in 150 constituencies:

Bangladesh Tarikat Federation on Thursday proposed the national election to be held in three phases and the use of EVMs in 150 constituencies in the next general election.

A team of Tarikat Federation, led by its president Syed Nazibul Bashar Maizvandary raised a number of proposals joining the EC’s talks.

The party also opined that the ceiling of election expenditure for an MP candidate should be raised to Tk 50 lakh instead of the existing Tk 25 lakh.

Tarikat Federation, an ally of ruling Awami League, suggested the commission holds the local body elections fully based on EVMs and ensure voting rights of expatriate Bangladeshis.

Source: United News of Bangladesh

A BNP-constituted probe committee has blamed the internal conflicts in the local Awami League for the recent communal attacks on Hindus and their houses, shops and temples at Digholia village in Narail district.

“Based on our field-level investigation and the statements of the affected families and the local people, our probe body has come to the conclusion that the incident was an outcome of a naked grouping in local Awami League,” said BNP vice chairman and probe committee chief Netai Roy Chowdhury.

Speaking at a press conference on the findings of their investigation into the Narail communal violence at BNP Chairperson’s Gulshan office on Thursday, he also alleged that the ruling party used to consider minorities as a very easy element to make their narrow political gains. ”That exactly happened in Narail like in other places.”

Earlier on July 18, the BNP standing committee formed a seven-member probe body, headed by Netai Roy Chowdhury, to look into the communal attacks in Narail on July 15. The probe team visited the spot on July 23.

Netai Roy said Narail Awami League President Advocate Subhash Bose visited the victims two/three days after the incident while the local upazila chairman probably did not go to the spot and the administration was apathetic. “So, it’s completely a well-planned communal attack. We went there (Narail) and gathered information from the witnesses, victims and common people.”

Presenting their findings, he said about two to three hundred unruly people entered Sahapara shouting communal slogans suddenly after Maghrib prayers on July 15 and vandalised the houses of the Hindus and their temples.

The BNP leader said the attackers also set the houses and temples on fire and broke idols but police members were seen observing the incident standing idle near the spot.

He said a rebel candidate of the Awami League was elected chairman of the Digholia Union while the Awami League’s official candidate was defeated though 70 per cent of the voters were Hindus. “This’s the apple of discord. It was assumed that the Hindus voted for the rebel candidate. This’s the reason behind the attacks.”

Netai said Hindu residents of Digholia village are now living in serious fear and anxiety following the attacks on them.

Speaking at the programme, BNP Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir said the probe report made it clear that the government was responsible for the incident in Narail.

“Whenever the Awami League came to power, repression and communal attacks on the minority communities and the incidents of plundering of their valuables and vandalising of their houses marked a rise. Most of their (Hindu’s) property is grabbed and owned by the leaders and workers of the Awami League,” he observed.

The BNP leader alleged the Hindu community members have been evicted from their homes and land, driven out of the country in a planned way by the ruling party men to grab their property. “We think the rights of different communities now can’t be protected for lack of democracy.”

He demanded immediate arrest and action against those involved in the Narail incident. “It is unfortunate that so far we have not seen any exemplary punishment of those involved in these nefarious incidents.”

Source: United News of Bangladesh

Russian forces launched a missile attack on the Kyiv area for the first time in weeks Thursday and pounded the northern Chernihiv region as well, in what Ukraine said was revenge for standing up to the Kremlin.

Ukrainian officials, meanwhile, announced a counteroffensive to take back the occupied Kherson region in the country’s south, territory seized by Russian President Vladimir Putin’s forces early in the war.

Russia attacked the Kyiv region with six missiles launched from the Black Sea, hitting a military unit in the village of Liutizh on the outskirts of the capital, according to Oleksii Hromov, a senior official with Ukraine’s General Staff.

He said that the attack ruined one building and damaged two others, and that Ukrainian forces also shot down one of the missiles in the town of Bucha.

Fifteen people were wounded in the Russian strikes, five of them civilians, Kyiv regional Gov. Oleksiy Kuleba said.

Kuleba linked the assaults to the Day of Statehood, a commemoration that President Volodymyr Zelenskyy instituted last year and Ukraine marked for the time on Thursday.

“Russia, with the help of missiles, is mounting revenge for the widespread popular resistance, which the Ukrainians were able to organize precisely because of their statehood,” Kuleba told Ukrainian television. “Ukraine has already broken Russia’s plans and will continue to defend itself.”

Chernihiv regional Gov. Vyacheslav Chaus reported that the Russians also fired missiles from the territory of Belarus at the village of Honcharivska. The Chernihiv region had not been targeted in weeks.

Russian troops withdrew from the Kyiv and Chernihiv regions months ago after failing to capture either. The renewed strikes come a day after the leader of pro-Kremlin separatists in the east, Denis Pushilin, urged Russian forces to “liberate Russian cities founded by the Russian people — Kyiv, Chernihiv, Poltava, Odesa, Dnipropetrovsk, Kharkiv, Zaporizhzhia, Lutsk.”

Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, also came under a barrage of shelling overnight, according to the mayor. Authorities said a police officer was killed in Russian shelling of a power plant in the Kharkiv region.

The southern city of Mykolaiv was fired on as well, with one person reported injured.

Meanwhile, the Ukrainian military kept up a counterattack in the Kherson region, knocking out of commission a key bridge over the Dnieper River on Wednesday.

Ukrainian media quoted Ukrainian presidential adviser Oleksiy Arestovich as saying the operation to liberate Kherson is underway, with Kyiv’s forces planning to isolate Russian troops and leave them with three options — “retreat, if possible, surrender or be destroyed.”

Oleksiy Danilov, secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, said the Russians are concentrating maximum forces in the direction of Kherson, warning: “A very large-scale movement of their troops has begun.”

The British military said Ukraine has used its new, Western-supplied long-range artillery to damage at least three of the bridges across the Dnieper that Russia relies on to supply its forces.

Ukraine’s presidential office said Thursday morning that Russian shelling of cities and villages over the past 24 hours killed at least five civilians, all of them in the eastern Donetsk province, and wounded nine.

Fighting in recent weeks has focused on Donetsk province. It has intensified in recent days as Russian forces appeared to emerge from a reported “operational pause” after capturing neighboring Luhansk province.

Ukrainian emergency authorities said two civilians were killed in a Russian bombardment of the town of Toretsk. A missile struck a residential building there early Thursday morning, destroying two floors, officials said.

“Missile terror again. We will not give up. … We will not be intimidated,” Donetsk regional Gov. Pavlo Kyrylenko said on Telegram.

Military analysts believe Russian forces are focusing their efforts on capturing the cities of Bakhmut and Siversk in Donetsk province.

Zelenskyy instituted the Day of Statehood to remind Ukrainians about the country’s history as an independent state. The commemoration honors Prince Vladimir, who made Christianity the official religion of the medieval state of Kyivan Rus more than 1,000 years ago.

“You could say that for us, every day is a statehood day,” the president said in a Day of Statehood address.

“We fight every day so that everyone on the planet can finally understand: We are not a colony or enclave or protectorate, not a province, an eyalet, or a crown land, not a part of foreign empires, not a part of a country, not a federal republic, not an autonomy, not a province, but a free, independent, sovereign, indivisible and independent state,” Zelenskyy said.

The Kremlin also lays claim to the heritage of the Kyivan Rus. In 2016, Putin erected a monument to Prince Vladimir near the Kremlin.

Source: United News of Bangladesh

The Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) on Thursday filed a case against a police inspector and his wife over corruption charges.

They are Md Shahjahan, an inspector of industrial police Chattogram region and ex-OC of Lohagara police station, and his wife Ferdousi Akter.

Md Atikul Alam, Deputy Director of ACC’s Chattogram office, filed the case.

“According to their wealth statements, they acquired wealth worth Tk 1.5 crore beyond their known sources of income. The ACC has filed the case as these allegations have been primarily proved,” said Atikul.

According to ACC, Shahjahan joined the police force in 1990. ACC first learned about Shahjahan’s illegal wealth while an allegation of corruption by him was proved in 2017 when Shahjahan was the OC of Lohagara police station.

In his wealth statement, Shahjahan showed his movable and immovable properties to be worth Tk 2.65 crore. While he showed Tk 78.50 lakh as his total income since joining police, he claimed that he had spent Tk 26 lakh since then.

The ACC found Tk 1.25 crore in Shahjahan’s possession beyond his known sources of income.

Besides, the ACC asked Shahjahan’s wife Ferdousi Akter to submit her wealth statement on March 14, 2019, which she did on April 17 of the same year.

In the case statement, the ACC said that Ferdousi showed Tk 2.30 crore as her income through using the names of fake poultry and fish businesses.

Source: United News of Bangladesh

Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma has said India’s northeast (NE) can play a pivotal role in strengthening Indo-ASEAN and Indo-BBN ties.

The region can not only be a gateway to the southeast Asian nations but serve as a springboard in facilitating bilateral trades and commerce with these countries, he added.

Himanta was speaking as the chief guest at the 2nd North East India Buyer-Seller Meet organised by the Indian Chamber of Commerce in association with the Indian Ministry of External Affairs in Dispur, capital of the Indian state of Assam and a suburb at Guwahati, Thursday.

The chief minister said that since India’s northeast is located in the middle of the fastest emerging nations of southeast Asia, the region has the potential to act as the springboard for the emergence of trade and commerce with these nations.

He also said the long international borders that the region shares with southeast Asian nations, BBN countries (Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal) BBN countries, and China, give it a unique geographical advantage by being a catalyst for the development of trade and commerce.

Presenting Assam before the international delegates at the event, Himanta said Assam is the largest economy in the northeastern region.

The state has the reputation of being an industrial one because of its prolific tea, oil, coal, and tourism industries.

Assam is one of the biodiversity hot spots of the country with its 312 notified reserve forests, five national parks and 20 wildlife sanctuaries.

Taking into consideration its well-established petrochemical industry, the state can take the lead in producing green plastics which are in huge demand in developed markets, Himanta said.

Assam is also home to some of the rarest wildlife species in the world along with rich flora and fauna which offer immense scope for wildlife tourism and investment, he added.

The chief minister also said the organic products of the state such as ginger, lemon, bhut jolokia, red rice, black rice, joha, pineapple, orange, jackfruit, and banana have huge export potential.

He added: “Improved connectivity between India and southeast Asian nations has benefitted the northeastern region greatly. He said the bilateral and multilateral connectivity initiatives like the Trilateral Highway that goes from India to Thailand via Myanmar have given rise to a new hope.”

“The survey and planning work on the Imphal-Moreh Railway line is underway. The setting up of the North East Economic corridor connecting markets in Bangladesh and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) region is also being actively contemplated to give a fillip to trade and commerce.”

Pointing to the illegal movement of goods from across the border, Himanta advocated for reworking the customs tariff system for the mutual development of all.

The event which was organised with a focus on countries like Bangladesh, Bhutan, Thailand and Laos would also help in creating an enabling environment for the stakeholders to showcase their inherent strengths before the buyers, the chief minister said.

The meeting will also be a way forward towards reviving the age-old ties between the northeast and its neighbours, he added.

Source: United News of Bangladesh