Baghabari Milk Vita: Farmers in a fix as milk collection suspended

The primary milk producers under Baghabari unit of Milk Vita Limited are in a great fix as the authority has postponed buying milk from April 4.

Milk Vita officials said that they had to suspend the buying, selling and producing milk or milk-products as its 76 reinstated workers and employees enforced an indefinite strike.

The workers and employees have been enforcing the strike since April 4 and have continued with their demonstration locking the entrance of the administration building and the gates of the factories.

Milk Vita sources said that more than 500 workers and employees of the company were terminated during the 2007-2008 military controlled interim regime.

In the face of protests the government reinstated 76 of those workers and employees on January 12, 2013. They went for strike as they were yet to get their wages.

The Milk Vita manager in Baghabari, Saidul Islam, however, claimed that they had to shut down the buying and production of milk due to mechanical fault of the factory as well as general strikes called by different political parties.

He denied that the strike of employees caused the shutdown of the factory.

Milk Vita managing committee chairman Shafikur Rahman, however, said that discussions with the Milk Vita authority and the government were going going on for the resolution of the crisis. (Source)

Newspaper Transport Owners’ Association formed

The owners of transports carrying newspapers have formed an association aiming at quick and efficient transportation of newspapers across the country.

In a press release on Saturday, the newly formed Bangladesh Newspaper Transport Owners’ Association said that it also wanted to play a role in the expansion of the newspaper industry in the country.

A seven-member body and a four-member executive committee were formed on March 3 to run the association for 2013-2015 tenure.

Kazla Enterprise owner Md Akhter Hossain was made president and Chandni Paribahan owner Abdus Salam general secretary of the association, the release said. (Source)

Md Abul Kalam Azad made acting railways secretary

Primary and mass education ministry additional secretary Md Abul Kalam Azad was made acting secretary to the railways ministry on Sunday.

The public administration ministry issued a gazette notification to the effect.

The post of railways secretary fell vacant after Mohammad Mahabub-ur Rahman had been made an officer on special duty on April 4.

The government order withdrawing Mahabub to the public administration ministry came in the wake of several incidents of sabotage on railways at places during the recent general strikes called by the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party-led alliance. (Source)

Padma Bridge project to put brake on ministry-wise allocations

Finance minister Abul Maal Abdul Muhith on Sunday said ministry-wise allocations in the next budget would not increase because of the Padma Bridge project.

Focus will be on the Padma Bridge project which will not allow the government to allocate additional funds to other priority areas, like energy, social safety net, and agriculture, he said.

‘This will be a sacrifice for the Padma Bridge project,’ he said just before his pre-budget discussion with the secretaries of the ministries and the divisions at the planning commission in the afternoon.

He said the government would build the bridge with its own funds.

The government had to give up the idea of borrowing $1.2 billion from the World Bank for building the Padma Bridge as the probe into the ‘conspiracy of corruption’ by Bangladesh functionaries had hit snags.

Muhith said sovereign bonds would be issued to borrow $1 billion from the international money market for the bridge project. He said time was appropriate for the country to issue sovereign bonds like many Asian countries, including Sri Lanka, Pakistan and Indonesia.

He observed that the country’s exports and imports would fall short of targets in the outgoing fiscal because of global economic downturn. He said export and import targets in the new fiscal would not be much higher.

Muhith said the projected growth rate of the gross domestic product at 7.2 per cent would not be achievable in the outgoing fiscal. He said the GDP growth rate would hover around 6.4 per cent. (Source)

Presenting arrested bloggers before media challenged

Human rights lawyer Sultana Kamal and five university teachers on Sunday filed a public interest litigation writ petition challenging the legality of the police presenting arrested individuals before the media.

The petitioners’ counsel, Jyotirmoy Barua, told New Age that the petition would be moved to a High Court bench concerned when it will resume after the three days’ general strike begins from Monday. 

The petitioners also challenged the legality of the police presenting before the media three arrested bloggers, Rasel Pervez alias Rasel, Mashiur Rahman alias Biplob and Subrata Adhikari alias Shuvo.

On April 2, the bloggers were arrested on allegation of posting derogatory remarks about Prophet Mohammad (SM) and Islam on their blogs.

The police presented them before the media on the same day.

Other petitioners include, Jahangirnagar University economics teacher Anu Muhammad, Dhaka University mass communication and journalism department teachers Gitiara Nasreen, Robaet Ferdous and Fahmidul Haq, and DU Bangla department teacher Rafique Ullah Khan.

The petitioners sought a direction on the government authorities, particularly on the deputy commissioner of Dhaka Metropolitan Police Commissioner and Sher-e-Bangla Nagar police station’s sub-inspector Sazzad Hossain, to explain why they should not be directed to personally compensate the three arrested bloggers ‘for the threat and danger to which they have been exposed as a result of producing them before the media.’

The petitioners also sought a directive on the police and the government authorities to refrain from presenting any arrested individual before the media at the stage of investigation or trial.

They also sought court directives to ensure personal safety of the three bloggers in custody and to set them free as they were not arrested on any specific charges. 

The petitioners said the police had arrested the three

bloggers, two former Dhaka University students and one still studying in DU for allegedly posting the ‘derogatory comments.’

The police presented them before the media identifying them as bloggers.

The police introduced them to reporters as ‘known atheists and naturalists.’

The petitioners said that at a news conference at the DMP Media Cell on April 2, Detective Branch’s deputy commissioner Nazrul Islam said that as ‘atheists,’ and ‘followers of naturalism’ the arrested bloggers hurt the religious sentiment of people with their derogatory postings on blogs which is a criminal offence.

The petitioners said that they came to know that the three arrested bloggers were produced before the Dhaka Chief Metropolitan Magistrate’s court which remanded them in police custody for seven days for interrogation over the allegations.

  The petitioners said that production of the arrested before the media was a clear violation of the right to presumption of innocence and to protection against self-incrimination as guaranteed by Articles 33 and 35(3) of the Constitution of the Republic.

Every person is innocent until proven guilty by a competent court of law and that the rights of the three bloggers have been clearly violated by the manner in which the they were presented before the media, said the petitioners.

They said that reports published in the front pages of all daily newspapers with pictures of the three confirmed their arrest and described them as having ‘made derogatory remarks against the Prophet (SM) and in some cases described them as ‘Islam haters.’

The reports created a widespread impression among the public that they are certainly liable for the allegation of offences brought against them, although they are not even accused of any specific offence, said the petitioners. (Source)