Six children died in France bus crash

Six children died in France bus crash

Thursday, 11 February, 2016,
Six children have been killed in a collision involving a school bus in western France, officials say.
The accident took place in the centre of the town of Rochefort in Charente-Maritime, at 07:15 local time (06:15 GMT) on Thursday morning.
The bus, which was travelling from the Ile d'Oleron to Surgeres, collided with a truck, according to a statement from local authorities.
It comes one day after a bus crash in eastern France killed two children.
A boy aged 12 and a girl of 15 died on Wednesday when the driver lost control in snowy conditions near Montflovin in the department of Doubs.
As well as the six children killed in Thursday's crash, two people have been taken to hospital.
According to regional news site France Bleu, the tailboard of the truck became separated and hit the bus carrying the children.
French President Francois Hollande tweeted about his emotion at hearing of Thursday's accident, and sent his condolences to the bereaved.
Emergency plans had been triggered and ministers Segolene Royal and Najat Vallaud-Belkacem were travelling to the scene, Mr Hollande's office said.

Law needed for SC judges too: Law Minister

Law needed for SC judges too: Law Minister
 11 February, 2016,
Law Minister Anisul Huq on Thursday said a code of conduct is also required for Supreme Court judges.
“There should be a code of conduct for SC judges…I’ll request the Chief Justice to think about it,” he said while talking to reporters after a meeting with a European Parliament delegation at his ministry.
The SC judges who have gone on LPR should not practise as lawyers in the Appellate Division until they complete the LPR period, he said.
The minister came up with the remarks a day after Justice Nazrul Islam Chowdhury, a retired HC judge, appeared before the Appellate Division as a defence counsel for convicted war criminal Mir Quasem Ali.

Muhith against making reduced call rate for IGWs permanent

Muhith against making reduced call rate for IGWs permanent
February 2, 2016
The ministry of finance has opposed a proposal aimed at making the existing temporary rates of the international incoming call termination and revenue sharing with the private operators permanent saying those caused losses worth Tk 2.1 crore daily.
Officials said the ministry of post and telecommunications, which had been maintaining the existing rates temporarily since September 2014, made the proposal to the ministry of finance.
The earning from the international call termination was reduced 50 per cent from US 3 cents to 1.5 cents per minute without taking consent of the ministry of finance which is a violation of the rules of business, they said.
The post and telecommunications ministry that introduced the new rate with the consent of the Prime Minister’s Office also lowered the government share in the international call termination earnings with the international gateways from 51.75 per cent to 40 per cent.
The rates were introduced for a period of six months initially, but were extended until September 2015.
Last month, the post and telecommunications ministry requested for the finance ministry’s approval to make the rates permanent despite suffering massive losses of Tk 837 crore in 13 months starting from September 2014.
Quoting Muhith the officials said the ministry of finance had not agreed with the proposal.
Post and telecommunications ministry secretary Faizur Rahman Chowdhury admitted that they had sought the ministry ministry’s approval to keep the existing rates despite suffering massive losses.
He told New Age that they were yet to receive the finance ministry’s reply.
‘The next step would be taken after getting the reply’, he said.
Post and telecommunications ministry officials said the call termination rates in neighbouring countries were three to eight times higher than Bangladesh.
They said the call charges and revenue sharing rates were lowered mainly to give benefits to the 25 International Gateways which got licences in 2012 because of their strong connections with the ruling Awami League.
IGWs act as intermediaries in international phone calls.
As of 2008, the state-owned Bangladesh Telecommunications Company Ltd was the only institution for international call transmission. During the last caretaker government, BTRC liberalised the gateways and issued three IGW licences.
There is an allegation that the IGW operators terminated the call at much higher price but do not share the profit with the government.
The post and telecommunications ministry gave an impression that the revenue from international call termination would rise, if the rate was reduced.
Even there was an assessment by Bangladesh Telecommunications Regulatory Commission that the government’s earnings would drop to Tk 777 crore from Tk 1,851 crore.
According to BTRC statistics, there is a market of something between 100 million and 200 million minutes of international call terminations in Bangladesh daily.

Book fair gets off to a dismal start

Book fair gets off to a dismal start
February 2, 2016
Prime minister Sheikh Hasina visits a stall in Ekushey Book Fair which she inaugurated at Bangla Academy in the capital on  Monday. — New Age photo
Prime minister Sheikh Hasina visits a stall in Ekushey Book Fair which she inaugurated at Bangla Academy in the capital on
Monday. — New Age photo
About 100 stalls yet to open, still many more incomplete, lax security and dust in the air left Ekushey Book Fair in disarray on its opening day on Monday.
Prime minister Sheikh Hasina inaugurated the fair, the annual get-together of writers, book enthusiasts and publishers, commemorating the historic Language Movement of 1952, at Bangla Academy, which organises the fair.
Ahead of the fair, the fair authorities as well as the Dhaka Metropolitan Police had vowed to provide special security for bloggers, writers and publishers, but there was hardly anything to substantiate the vows.
As soon as the prime minister left the academy premises, visitors were seen entering the book fair venues without any frisking and without going through security checking.
No security archway was set up at the entry points although the fair committee had said archways would be set up at the entrances to ensure security for the fair.
Although three watchtowers have been built, no security guard was placed at the towers till 7:00pm.
A section of publishers as well as visitors vented their disappointment with the poor security measure for the fair as the memories of the series of attacks on writers, publishers and bloggers are still fresh.
‘We lost a publisher, one was injured while several writers were attacked and killed. If anything like that happens again, who will take the responsibility,’ said Shraban Prakashani publisher Robin Ahsan.
Jagriti publisher Faisal Arefin Dipan, who published books by slain science writer Avijit Roy, was
hacked to death in the capital’s Aziz Super Market on October 31, a few hours after another of Avijit’s publishers, Shuddhasar’s publisher of Ahmedur Rashid Tutul and two other writers came under similar attack in the capital’s Lalmatia.
Writer Avijit Roy was hacked to death near TSC while returning from the book fair on February 25 last year.
Many of the stalls were closed yet or their decoration was not completed on the opening day, which was a violation of the fair committee guidelines.
At least 100 publishing houses did not open their stalls till 6:30pm at both Bangla Academy and Suhrawardy Udyan.
The publishers claimed that the fair authorities were yet to complete setting electricity connections to the stalls and other important places.
All roads to the fairs were full of piled bamboos, woods, nails and other materials to be used for decorating stalls.
The fair organisers failed to provide any list of the day’s arrivals as the information centre was yet to be set up.
Book fair organising member secretary Jalal Ahmed said, ‘Usually, there remains some violations of the fair guidelines on the first day and things will be alright in the coming days.’
He said that they would ask all to complete their stalls by Tuesday.
‘All security measures will be taken form tomorrow [Tuesday]’, he said.
Meanwhile prime minister Sheikh Hasina asked the authorities concerned to translate classical and well-selected Bangla works into different international languages to introduce the world readers to Bangla literature.
‘I urge you for translation of the vast classical and well-selected Bangla works of literature to take them to the world readers,’ she said.
The theme of this year fair is ‘Diamond Jubilee of Bangla Academy’ marking its 60 years.
The fair will open at 3:00pm and continue till 8:00pm on working days, while from 11:00am to 8:00pm on holidays.
Bangla Academy will hold a discussion on the 60th founding anniversary of Bangla Academy at the fair ground at 4:00pm as part of the month-long discussion programme.

Scope for dual citizenship to be widened

Scope for dual citizenship to be widened
Cabinet clears citizenship bill restricting dual citizenship for govt officials, constitutional office holders
February 2, 2016
The cabinet on Monday approved a draft bill seeking enactment of a law widening the scope for dual citizenship, but restricting citizenship by birth for those whose parents were not Bangladeshi citizens.
The bill says that a Bangladesh citizen can also be a citizen of any other country having diplomatic relations with Bangladesh, except that of another ‘SAARC country’ or Myanmar, as long as the citizen has not renounced his loyalty to Bangladesh while taking an oath of the citizenship of the other country.
But the government officials and all those holding constitutional offices would not be allowed to enjoy the dual citizenship, said officials.
The home ministry placed the draft Bangladesh Citizenship Bill 2016 at the weekly cabinet meeting with prime minister Sheikh Hasina in the chair at her Tejgaon office.
‘The cabinet has given approval to the draft citizenship bill with some observations…This is just an updated version of the Citizenship Act 1951 and the Bangladesh Citizenship (Temporary Provisions) Order 1972, incorporating some minor changes,’ home minister Asaduzzaman Khan told New Age.
He said that those who fought against the independence of Bangladesh or took stand against the country would not be eligible for Bangladesh citizenship since such provision was already there in the 1972 order.
The government initiated the move to enact a new law as both the 1951 act and 1972 order were incomplete, cabinet secretary Mohammad Shafiul Alam said at a briefing after the meeting.
He said that the proposed law would expand the scope for getting dual citizenship by the Bangladesh nationals as the Bangladeshi expatriates staying in the United States and Britain had long been enjoying such facility as per the existing laws.
The bill would empower the government to terminate the citizenship of a person given by virtue of the registration or naturalisation if the person does any act that show disobedience to Bangladesh’s sovereignty or its constitution without setting out who would decide what amounts to disobedience.
About citizenship by birth, the existing law allows a person born in Bangladesh to become a citizen of the country except if his or her father is an ‘enemy alien’ and the birth occurs in a place which was then under occupation by the enemy.
The bill, however, proposes that a person born in Bangladesh can only gain Bangladeshi citizenship by birth if both parents are Bangladeshi nationals.
The government may have made this change to prevent children born to Rohingya parents living legally or illegally in Bangladesh from gaining citizenship, officials said.
If the bill is passed by parliament, it will repeal the 1951 act and the 1972 order.
It proposes provision allowing an ‘adult and able citizen’ of Bangladesh to renounce his/her citizenship.
It also proposes to increase punishment to five years in jail and a fine of Tk 5 lakh for furnishing false or distorted information. The punishment would double if an offender repeats the same offence, the bill said.
The existing law refers to Section 177 of the Penal Code that stipulates a maximum punishment of six months in jail and a fine of Tk 1,000.
The proposed law has six chapters and 28 sections that highlight the process for gaining citizenship, disqualification for citizenship, surrender and dissolution of citizenship and penalty for crimes committed under it.

Malaysian job market almost closed to Bangladeshis

Malaysian job market almost closed to Bangladeshis
February 2, 2016
Malaysia’s thriving job market remained almost closed to Bangladeshi workers over the last seven years.
Over  273,000 Bangladeshi workers got jobs in Malaysia in 2007 while over 131,000 Bangladeshis got Malaysian jobs while in 2008.
In 2009, only 12,400 Bangladeshi workers got jobs in Malaysia and the number fell drastically to 919 in 2010.
In 2011, only 742 workers from Bangladesh got Malaysian jobs.
The number increased moderately to 30,000 in 2015.
Despite repeated efforts the Bangladesh government failed to convince Malaysia to fully reopen its doors to Bangladeshi workers.
A government to government recruitment arrangement worked out in 2012 failed to deliver.
The G2G system kept the private recruiters out of the scene following allegations of various irregularities.
But there has been no progress in formally involving the private recruiters again side by side with the official efforts.
The G2G mechanism became a failure over the last three years when under it hardly 10,000 workers could be sent to Malaysian plantations, Bureau of Manpower Employment and Training officials.
Due to the failure of the G2G system, the authorities in Bangladesh allowed private recruiters to send educated professionals to Malaysia.
There could be delays in working out the G2G Plus system with Malaysia, said EWOE ministry joint secretary Kazi Abul Kalam.
In June 2015, the two sides decided to sign a G2G Plus deal to facilitate recruitment of 1.5 million Bangladeshi workers by private recruiters in three years.
Despite several follow up meeting in both the capitals there has been no progress on the issue since then, said officials.
Recruitment of Bangladeshi workers by Malaysia remains virtually stalled, said Dhaka University’s Refugee and Migratory Movements Research Unit founding chairperson Tasneem Siddiqui.
Also DU professor of political science, she said the government was keeping the nation in the dark about the real picture relating to the stalled recruitments by Malaysia.
The nation needs to know the updates, she said.
She said that in the negotiations over the issue the country’s officials perform poorly due to lack coordination between the ministries of expatriates’ welfare and overseas employment and foreign affairs.
The Bangladesh mission in Kuala Lumpur should first secure the jobs of workers from Bangladesh who lost their legal status in Malaysia to save them from crackdowns, she said.
Ovibashi Karmi Unnayan Program chairman Shakirul Islam said the government must be cautious before allowing private recruiters to send workers to Malaysia again as they abandoned 15 lakh workers after taking them to Malaysia in two years since 2007.
The G2G system’s failure to deliver prompted the governments of the two countries to involve private recruiters side by side with the efforts of the governments with the recruitments from Bangladesh, said officials.
The two sides dubbed it as the ‘G2G-Plus’ mechanism, they said.
But there has been no progress in signing the G2G Plus agreement with Malaysia since November.
Bangladesh Association of International Recruiting Agencies president Abul Bashar took no questions relating to why Malaysia kept its doors closed to the Bangladeshis saying the EWOE minister alone knew the answer.
He said that the EWOE ministry was good at only exchanging letters.
Under the government to government arrangements, he said , no worker from Bangladesh could be sent to Malaysia despite its huge labour shortage.
Bangladesh labour counselor in Kuala Lumpur Saydul Islam said only minor issues needed to be sorted out by the two sides for concluding G2G Plus agreement.
The draft agreement also awaits cabinet’s approval in both the capitals, he said.