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Monday, August 3, 2009

[ALOCHONA] BDR Probe body misses 3rd deadline



UNNATURAL DEATHS OF BDR JAWANS
Probe body misses 3rd deadline

Courtesy New Age 4/8/09


Mustafizur Rahman

The investigation committee failed to make any headway in probing the deaths of BDR soldiers in custody even in the last two months and a half as such death toll soared to 35 until Sunday, officials said.
   The government has given the probe body one more month to complete the investigation into ‘unnatural deaths’ of Bangladesh Rifles soldiers in custody in the aftermath of the February 25-26 bloody rebellion at the BDR headquarters.
   The home ministry’s committee, formed on May 14, had missed the deadline for the third time, said an official concerned.
    As the last deadline for submitting probe report expired on July 26, the government on July 29 gave it one-month time further to facilitate ‘better investigation into the incidents.’
   ‘The committee asked for more time to properly investigate the incidents of unnatural deaths…We have allowed one month more so that the body can complete the task in a better manner,’ home secretary Abdus Sobhan Sikder told New Age on Monday.
   The government initiated the executive inquiry into unnatural deaths of the paramilitary force members, who were taken into custody on suspicion of their involvement with the mutiny, in the wake of pressures from local and international rights groups.
   At least 35 BDR soldiers died in custody in Dhaka and elsewhere after the rebellion that killed 75 persons, including 57 army officers deputed to the border force.
   The police so far arrested more than 3,000 BDR soldiers at places across the country in connection with the worst rebellion in BDR that stunned the nation and put the two-month old government in troubles.
   Of the arrested, seven reportedly committed suicide, eight died of ‘heart attack’ and the other 20 deaths were caused by various diseases, according to the BDR authorities.
   ‘The deputy secretary-led committee is too weak to carry out such a sensitive task,’ said a senior official at the home ministry.
   In late June, the committee was given a month’s extension for completing the inquiry into the incidents after it missed the second deadline.
   The committee formed with representatives from BDR and police was supposed to submit report in 15 days to June 4.
   But it could not even start the work in the given time as deputy secretary (law) Zakir Hassain initially declined to head the four-member body.
   It was given 15 more days.
   The committee is supposed to identify the reasons behind the unnatural deaths of border guards and recommend steps to prevent such custodial deaths.

 




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[mukto-mona] ‘They were like animals’



"A woman doctor emerged from the post-mortem visibly shaken. She beat her forehead, and confirmed gang rape. 'They were like animals', she declared.
The charge of gang rape and murder, denied initially even by the Chief Minister, were subsequently confirmed, by Forensic Science Laboratory reports, and a judicial commission of enquiry headed by Justice Jan formed. The commission confirmed that senior police officers had failed shamefully in performing their duties"
 
BAREFOOT
Torment in Shopian
HARSH MANDER
The truth about what happened in Shopian has come to light because its people joined hands for an epic non-violent shut-down. And we still don't know who the perpetrators were…

There were no acts of violence throughout the protest... only a united demand for justice.

Photo: PTI

In deep grief: Family members of the two women murdered in Shopian at a press conference in Srinagar.
The people of the entire valley of Kashmir today are wracked by the anguish of one man, 28-year-old Shakeel Ahmad. His wife Neelofar Jan, and his teenaged sister Asiya Jan, were found murdered, after violent gang rape, at the outskirts of a small tow n, Shopian, on the morning of May 29, 2009.
Shakeel and Neelofar had married just three years earlier. They fell in love when she would walk past his furniture shop on her way to school and college. Both families accepted their marriage just days after they wed. Shakeel doted on his beautiful wife. "I was happy to work hard, only so I could fulfil her every wish."
Shakeel had lost his mother when he was barely two years old, and his father when he was still in his teens. His elder brothers and their wives raised him like a son. He resolved that he too would bring up his two younger sisters, one 21 and the other 17, and his 14-year-old brother, as though they were his own children. Neelofar shared fully in caring for his younger siblings. Asiya, his younger teenaged sister, was "always different from the rest". She had topped her class in the high school examinations, and had opted to study to be an engineer, an unusual career choice for women in the valley.
Separate lives
Shakeel invested in a furniture shop. But Neelofar also wanted to own an apple farm; he saved money and bought a small orchard, just across a shallow stream, Rambi-Ara. In the vicinity of their orchard is a small bridge, adjacent to a paramilitary CRPF camp and a police camp. Further ahead is a military camp of the Rashtriya Rifles. Residents recall that up to the year 2003, grenade attacks, cross firing, searches and, on a couple of occasions, even fidayeen attacks on the camps of the security forces were common in the town. It was rare for anyone to step out after dark. But although the town remained fraught with the highly visible and dense presence of security personnel, tensions eased and civil life became more normalised. However, the security forces and civilians led completely separate lives, and almost never did they encounter each other socially.
On May 28, 2009, Shakeel came home from his furniture shop for a late lunch with his wife and two-year-old son, in his usual daily routine, and then returned to his shop. Neelofer waited for Asiya to arrive from school, and they walked to the orchard. When Shakeel returned from his shop at around 7 p.m., he found that his wife and sister had not come back home. He sent his younger brother, but he reported after half an hour that he could not locate them. Shakeel set out on his motor cycle to his orchard. They were not there, and a neighbour testified to him that they had visited the orchard and left a while earlier. Shakeel searched all possible routes to his home, but the young women were nowhere to be found.
He then began to panic. He called his older brothers who all joined him to investigate. It was by then dark. They took a solar light from the home, filled petrol in his motorcycle, and continued their desperate search. At around 10 at night, they went to the local police station. A head constable with around eight other men accompanied them in a police van, and they scoured the orchard and the entire area around it with lights until around 2 in the morning. The head constable received a call on his mobile from what sounded from his tone like a superior officer. After that, he called off the search, telling Shakeel that it was pointless to continue in the dark. They would resume the search after daylight.
Shakeel could not sleep even a moment in the few hours left of the night. Before dawn, he recited his namaaz prayers, and was outside the police station as soon as it was light. But they did not open the gates. The city stirred, shops began to open. He then spotted a police sub-inspector who drove towards him in his gypsy jeep. "Don't you know?" he asked. "They have found your wife's dead body." Shakeel rushed and found the body face down on the bed of the stream. He confirmed that the body was indeed of Neelofar. Her hands were outstretched, her clothes torn, with scratch marks.
Dashed hopes
Shakeel was weeping wildly; and his heart lurched in fear for his 17-year-old sister, his precious Asiya. He hoped desperately that she had been spared the same fate as his wife. But before long her body was also found, in another part of the stream bed, her head fractured, her face bloodied, her clothes torn and stained with blood. The bodies of the two young women were at places that they had intensively searched the earlier night. There could be no doubt that the bodies were transported after their search.
Cover-up attempts
News spread around the town, and by the time the bodies were taken to the district hospital, crowds had gathered outside. They were enraged at the initial version of the Superintendent of Police Javed Mattoo, and the doctors who performed the first post-mortem, that it was a death by drowning (in a stream which even a child could walk through), ignoring and destroying evidence that told another much grimmer story. Shakeel was by now crazed with grief, but the police head thought it fit to walk to him and place his hand on his shoulder with the words, "Don't take it so much to heart. Such things happen from time to time."
The crowds were restive, and some began to pelt stones. They carried the two bodies to the office of the Deputy Commissioner, who conceded their demand and ordered a fresh post-mortem by a medical team from another district. A woman doctor emerged from the post-mortem visibly shaken. She beat her forehead, and confirmed gang rape. 'They were like animals', she declared.
The charge of gang rape and murder, denied initially even by the Chief Minister, were subsequently confirmed, by Forensic Science Laboratory reports, and a judicial commission of enquiry headed by Justice Jan formed. The commission confirmed that senior police officers had failed shamefully in performing their duties, for which they have been suspended, and the officers were later severely indicted by the High Court.
But all of this came to light only because the people of Shopian joined hands for an epic non-violent shut-down, which continued for 47 days. There were no acts of violence throughout the protest, no slogans in support of separatism or any political party, only a united demand for justice.
Still at large
However, Shakeel and the people of Kashmir are no closer to knowing who raped and killed the women. The circumstantial evidence, especially the cover-up and continuous destruction of evidence, points to members of the security forces. As a report of an International People's Tribunal including Angana Chatterji, Parvez Imroz and Gautam Navlakha put it, the investigations "failed to focus on the identification and prosecution of the perpetrators", and "concentrated instead on locating 'collaborators' and manufacturing scapegoats to subdue public outcry". The most shameful of these were remarks in the Jan Commission report, which contained libellous, outrageous insinuations about the character of the two women who were killed, and of Shakeel. Justice Jan subsequently distanced himself from these comments, blaming the police for insertions, but took no action against them.
Shakeel laments that if justice is not done, how will he face his wife and sister when he meets them after he dies. And how will he answer the questions that his son will ask when he grows up.
These are questions that each of us will also need to answer to this young boy.


With Regards

Abi
 
"My Lord, give me the capability to tolerate an opposing point of view"
- Dr. Ali shariati



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Re: [ALOCHONA] Hasina and family's lifelong security



Didn't know coconut water could help with meaningful stuff!!   My neighborhood chinese market carries the canned ones.  Would that work?


-----Original Message-----
From: Robin Khundkar <rkhundkar@earthlink.net>
To: alochona@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Sun, Aug 2, 2009 3:29 pm
Subject: RE: [ALOCHONA] Hasina and family's lifelong security

 
Dr. Maqsud
Speaking of morons you need to be one to know one!
Nothing wrong with smoking ganja, there is always a 50 -50 chance it will open your mind ! The problem my friend is with the genious whose minds are totally fossilized yet think they are self important. Even ganja has no chance here!
Robin

-----Original Message-----
From: maqsud omaba
Sent: Aug 2, 2009 4:07 AM
To: alochona@yahoogroups.com
Subject: RE: [ALOCHONA] Hasina and family's lifelong security

 
what kind of ganja...you use...to say such silly, childish, nonsense statement?

Morons like you...have been20giving false messages...to shaikh family...as if Bdesh is their forefathers zamindari.

wake up, drink more coconut water and say meaningful stuff.

dr. maqsud omar







To: alochona@yahoogroups.com
From: ezajur.rahman@q8.com
Date: Sun, 2 Aug 2009 09:26:26 +0300
Subject: [ALOCHONA] Hasina and family's lifelong security



Hasina and family's lifelong security
The expatriate who objects to the full security offered to Hasina and her family (July 30) fails to understand the importance of this family. Without this family there would be no Bangladesh, the Awami League would be in chaos and this government would collapse. This family, and all its descendants, must be given full security to ensure the sovereign integrity of Bangladesh, the unity of Awam i League and the stability of the Bangladesh government.
   Ezajur Rahman
   Kuwait
 





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[ALOCHONA] Taxicabs worth Tk 80 crore turn into junk



Taxicabs worth Tk 80 crore turn into junk
Cheap Indian cars are to blame

 

Taxicab operators are now counting the cost of their wrong choice of vehicles that forced them to pull 90 per cent of cars out of service much before their average lifetime expired.


   Their association estimates that return on their Tk 200 crore investment in the nascent service in last six years was much less than expected as light vehicles with low engine capacity lost their resale value. Cars worth more than Tk 80 crore turned into junks.
   The blame goes to cheap Indian cars with low capacity engines, which made their way into Dhaka's streets due to cost-cutting exercise of operators and promotional prices offered by local car dealers.


   Affected cab operators now point their finger at the government's wrong policy that paved the way for low quality Indian cars and forced more than a half of taxicab companies to fold within years of operation.
   The insolvent operators are now avoiding the commercial banks which invested in taxicab services. Some others have their garages filled with junk cars and scraps.
   In 2003, the communications ministry gave permission to 10,000 taxicabs to ply in the city, opening the floodgate for poor quality Indian cars. Initially these taxicabs were given 8-year road permit which was later extended to 10 years.


   But within five years, taxicab operating companies which invested crores of taka through bank loans realised that their investment went down the drain.
   'Indian made cars are not viable for taxicab service,' said Mannan Chowdhury, president of Bangladesh Association of Taxicab Operators.


   The realisation is, however, late and proved costly as more than 70 operators lost about Tk 80 crore in taxicab business.
   Only 1,000 taxi cabs are in operation in the capital while the rest are turned into scrap, he added.
   Anudip Auto Ltd, which got permission to run the highest number of nearly 1600 taxicabs, is now guarding two yards of scraps of Indian cars — one at Mirpur and the other in the outskirt of the capital.


   Cab Express (BD) Ltd. Cab One, Cab Bangla Ltd, Cab Salida Ld, Cosmo Cab (Pvt.) Ltd, Nihon Taxi Cab, Cosmo Cab (Pvt.) Ltd, Yellow Lines Ltd and Orion Texi Cab (Pvt.) Ltd were among the companies which pressed low-quality Indian cars into service and suffered losses.
   Out of 70 operators, 40 have already folded their business and distanced themselves from banks after failing to repay loans.


    Banks and leasing companies like Islamic Bank, UCBL, ICB Islamic Bank formerly known as Oriental Bank, AB Bank, Phoenix and Uttara Finance and Investments Limited, which provided the loans, are planning to file cases against the loan defaulters.
   An official of the Islamic Bank on condition of anonymity told New Age they are following rules and regulations to realise their loans as they found many taxicab companies 'simply unresponsive' despite repeated reminders.


    Taxicab operators last week at a press conference demanded waiver of bank loan interest. They have been urging the communications ministry for the last couple of years to intervene into the matter for the protection of their business.
   Some operators including Navana Tax Cab and Nippon, however, stood out from the rest, and they are doing well with Japanese cars.


   Navana manager Ainul Kabir Chowdury told New Age that his company operates around 400 cars, all Japanese, to run their cab business since 2000.


   Lack of feasibility study to determine whether the Indian cars were viable for running such business was the main reason for the present debacle, he pointed out.
   He said the government has of late realised the mistake and decided to allow cars with engine capacity of above 1300 cc for taxicab services from the current fiscal year.

 

http://www.newagebd.com/2009/aug/04/front.html




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[mukto-mona] police- my first article [Bangla]

anari haater ekti lekha pathalam.lekhati kemon hoyese kingba adou mukto-monar moto ekti rich site e prokash howar  joggo kina kisui jani na.

http://mukto-mona.com/banga_blog/?p=1994
 
                                                                        valo thakun
                                                                        Samir


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[ALOCHONA] Ex Advisor Bar. Mainul charged with graft to favour family



Mainul charged with graft to favour family
 
 
Mon, Aug 3rd, 2009 2:49 pm BdST
Dial 2324 from your mobile for latest news  
Dhaka, Aug 3 (bdnews24.com)—Allegations of massive irregularities have been levelled at former housing and law adviser Mainul Hosein by a parliamentary panel which says he had misused his office mostly to favour his family.

The head of the all-party parliamentary probe body, formed by the standing committee on housing and public works on June 25, said on Monday that Hosein's son, Arshad, had occupied a house in Gulshan and turned it into a restaurant violating government rules.

Hosein had directly intervened when city developer RAJUK had tried to take action against his son.

Arshad had set up a restaurant in Gulshan-1 (CSE-G, plot-1), said Nasrul Hamid Bipu, an Awami League MP and convenor of the probe body, at a press conference after a meeting at parliament building.

The former adviser to military-backed interim government had also allocated 158 plots of the Khulna Development Authority and 459 plots in Kushtia Housing Estate "in violation of the government rules", alleged Bipu.

Hosein trashed the allegations. "Let them prove the allegations."

"Bangladesh is yet to give birth to a person worthy of proving corruption charges against me," he told bdnews24.com.

Bipu said the probe body would hold two or three meetings to finalise and submit the charges against Hosein to the parliamentary standing committee on housing and public works ministry for final decisions.

He, however, said his committee would suggest that the standing committee recommend legal actions against Hosein.

"We have received innumerable corruption charges against former adviser Mainul Hosein.

"He while serving as adviser misused his authority to help his son and wife for gains," Bipu told reporters at parliament's media centre.

The committee chief said Arshad illegally grabbed the house of Rizia Mannan and Fazle Mannan in Gulshan and made it a commercial entity—Mantra and Steak House—without RAJUK's permission.

"RAJUK could not demolish the building as his adviser father Mainul Hosein directly intervened," said Bipu.

"In addition, the son also constructed the Musafir Tower in Kakrail in flagrant breach of the RAJUK guidelines."

Hosein however said that the tower had been built much before he became adviser.

Bipu said Hosein also allocated public land to 'a private university' in Mirpur "in violation of the government rules". He would not name the university.

The Awami League MP said due to the former adviser's "arbitrary decision", the ship-breaking workers were employed in the demolition of the Rangs Bhaban, leading to the death of 13 innocent people.

"Their deaths must be investigated," he said.

Hosein is the second adviser to the immediate-past caretaker government, which came to power pledging elimination of corruption, to face graft charges.

Former shipping adviser M A Matin is the first to face corruption charges.

Both Hosein and Matin were very critical of the politicians after the announcement of the state of emergency on Jan 11, 2007.

MPs from both the Awami League and the main opposition BNP have demanded in parliament that the persons involved in the declaration of the state of emergency and violation of the constitution are tried.

Asaduzzaman Khan, Jahirul Haque Bhuiyan Mohan and Enamul Haque and the BNP's Lutfar Rahman are the other members of the enquiry committee on Hosein.

bdnews24.com/krc/bd/1443h.
WARNING: Any unauthorised use or reproduction of bdnews24.com content for commercial purposes is strictly prohibited and constitutes copyright infringement liable to legal action.



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[ALOCHONA] Tipaimukh Debate : Robbing Paul to pay Peter




By Lutfur Rahman , Canada

India complains about 25000 Bangladeshis who go to India, a year, and decide not to come back. A few years back, India was claiming umpteen millions of illegal Bangladeshis, inside India, while justifying her policy of 'Push Back' of destitute Bengali speaking people across the border in the middle of the night.

After what happened, post Farakka, in south western Bangladesh, in terms of dried out river beds, accelerated river erosion, sky engulfing shoals, creeping river salinity, increased arsenic contamination of ground water, ruined agriculture and fisheries, ecological and environment degradation rendering the land incapable of supporting traditional way of life, where do the Indian leadership think uprooted people go to live out their lives ?

No body erects a 4500 km long barbed wire fence around a neighbor, maintains a one way trade imbalance in it's own favor, swamps the neighbor's airwaves with own cultural inanities while barring that of the neighbor from it's own, moves heaven and earth, arbitrarily and clandestinely, to build dams, across commonly shared rivers while proclaiming love and good intentions for a little neighbor without throwing a sense of awe and incredulity to mar the whole picture.

India apparently had started working on her Tipaimukh project forty years back completing almost all of the preparatory ground work without much of discussion with any one including Bangladesh, the most effected lower riparian country.

All this was carried out over such long period of time, at such a great cost, stifling local opposition from the Manipuris (aka Indians) only to produce 1500 MW of electricity, and that too, to share part of it with Bangladesh, so goes the explanation.

Sure.

A dam designed for generating power is also a dam full of water sitting at a high altitude, ideal for a quick detour for other purposes like irrigation, navigation, river flushing municipal use, or what have you, hundreds or even thousand of miles away.

Even if one takes India's present claim on it's face value for now, with India's billion strong population growing at a high rate and her rapid industrialization, India's demand for fresh water is growing by leaps and bounds, particularly in her arid mid, west and southern regions. This demand is only going to accelerate even further as time goes.

With fresh water already becoming a rare commodity all over the world, how would a newly empowered super power, coaxed groomed and abetted by the reigning significant other, look past the handy solution that would sit right at the doorstep, in the form of Tipaimukh, if it was to be built, when the crunch of water shortage in the heartland hits the political officialdom in New Delhi?

Has Tipaimukh, the potential of turning into a reservoir of fresh water that can be channeled to other parts of India, no matter what India says now?

The north east corner of the subcontinent supports a population density that is already the highest in the world with Bangladesh's 150 Millions and perhaps a similar number, or there about, in West Bengal and the other states. With the land already straining under this huge weight of humanity what tragedy would descend on the land and it's creatures if politicians and bureaucrats should decide to withdraw water from the basin the same way as has happened at Farakka?

What recourse would Bangladesh have in countering such a move. What recourses would other regional countries have? How would this corner of the sub continent sustain it's natural habitat when China, embolden by India's move, embarks on her own design on the headwaters of the Brahma Putra?

When these are questions which do not lend to easy answers, one thing is certain. Unlike in the mediaeval times, robbing Paul to pay Peter is not a viable strategy, in the twenty first century of the Christian Era, that yields satisfactory results over a sustained period of time.

Human have survived, and thrived, for millenniums without electricity and will do so again without it, if need be, until the end of time. Try doing it without water even for a single day.

People come and go, religion come and go, countries come and go, politicians, political boundaries, brick walls and even barbed wire fences come and go with time but the land, the rivers, the trees, the birds and the flowers that a land nurtures stay, and stay for good at least in context of human concept of time.

Tipaimukh Hydro electric project has the potential of becoming the thin edge of the wedge that can reduce a corner of a deltaic paradise, home of a quarter billion people into a dead corner of a wasteland creating grounds for potential conflicts that would pale the events of 1947 to insignificance for people of the area.

It is heartening to see that other voices, other than that of Bangladeshis, are making themselves heard. Dr Debabrata Roy Laifungbam and Dr.Soibum Ibotombi of Manipur State University have laid out the fallacies of building a massive structure on one of the most seismically active zone on the earth's crust. There are many others in the academia and elsewhere who have similar concerns on this project.

If Tipaimukh is such a big deal, let it be conceived designed and constructed jointly by a consortium of all the countries who have a stake in it, with proper checks and safe guards, after proper feasibility/ environmental impact study under the auspices of an independent body like the UN.

Nothing less would do justice to an important life altering project like a massive hydro electric project, particularly, at a time of heightened environmental concern, world over. A concern for a need for taming the over bearing over invasive ways of mankind that is pushing a planet almost to the brink as a habitat for all things living.

----------------
Lutfur Rahman Canada
E Mail :mlr_ca2003@yahoo.ca
 



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[ALOCHONA] Dams in China Turn the Mekong Into a River of Discord :Rivers know no borders, but dams do



Dams in China Turn the Mekong Into a River of Discord :Rivers know no borders, but dams do

Michael Richardson
 
(The Mekong, one of the world's major rivers, starting in Tibet and flowing through south China, Burma, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam, provides sustenance through irrigation and fishing to those living in its basin. But it also provides hydroelectric power through dams, three of which were built in China and with more planned. And it is precisely these dams that are now threatening the water supply, the livelihood of those living downstream, and the relations between China and its southern neighbors, according to Michael Richardson, senior research fellow of the Institute of South East Asian Studies. A fourth Chinese dam, Xiaowan, that should generate 4,200 megawatts of power, could affect the level of fish stocks in Cambodia and water supply for Vietnam's rice fields. But China contends controlling the water flow will prevent the adverse effects of erosion caused by the Mekong's flooding cycle and will supply renewable energy. Winning the debate or coming to a workable compromise is further complicated by China's refusal to join the Mekong River Commission, an inter-government agency whose members include the four of the downstream countries. And though the global financial crisis has put on hold other dams being planned by the downstream countries, China is moving ahead with its plans. For now, there is time to assess how China's dams may affect the other regions. But as this story shows, exploiting the natural resources that cross borders on a fair and equitable basis requires not only inter-government coordination, but also a knack for expecting the unexpected. – YaleGlobal)



Back in 1986, when China began building the first of a series of dams on the Mekong River, hardly anyone in the downstream countries of Southeast Asia paid attention. But today, as China races to finish the fourth dam for generating electricity on the upper reaches of Southeast Asia's biggest river, concerns about possible environmental impacts in the region are rising fast. Moreover, fear about antagonizing China and Southeast Asia's internecine dispute might make any concerted move unlikely.
 
 
China's Xiaowan dam, the world's tallest, poses a huge challenge to the Mekong river basin countries

The sheer scale of China's engineering to harness the power of the Mekong and change its natural flow is setting off alarm bells, especially in Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand and Laos, the four countries of the lower Mekong basin where more than 60 million people depend on the river for food, water and transportation.
 


A report in May by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the Asian Institute of Technology (AIT) warned that China's plan for a cascade of eight dams on the Mekong, which it calls the Lancang Jiang, might pose "a considerable threat" to the river and its natural riches. In June, Thailand's prime minister was handed a petition calling for a halt to dam building. It was signed by over 11,000 people, many of them subsistence farmers and fishermen who live along the river's mainstream and its many tributaries.
 

Map of dams from the Mekong River Commission..
Some analysts say that if the worst fears of critics are realized, relations between China and its neighbors in mainland Southeast Asia will be severely damaged. But mindful of the growing power and influence of China, Southeast Asian governments have muffled their concern. Meanwhile, Laos, Cambodia and Thailand have put forward plans to dam their sections of the Mekong mainstream, prompting Vietnam to object and undermining the local environmentalists' case against China.
 


Although the Mekong is widely regarded as a Southeast Asian river, its source is in the glaciers high in Tibet. Nearly half of the 4,880 kilometer river flows through China's Yunnan province before it reaches Southeast Asia. Since there is no international treaty governing use of trans-boundary rivers, China is in a dominant position, controlling the Mekong's headwater. It has the right to develop its section of the river as it sees fit, and has done so without consulting its neighbors, let alone seeking their approval.

The Mekong River basin drains water from an area of 795,000 square kilometers. The Mekong River Commission (MRC), an inter-governmental agency formed in 1995 by the four lower basin countries estimates that the sustainable hydropower potential of the lower basin alone is a massive 30,000 megawatts. But it also says that there are major challenges in balancing the benefits of clean electricity, water storage and flood control from the dams against negative impacts. These include population displacement, obstruction to fish movements up and down the river, and changes in water and sediment flow.

The cascade of dams being constructed in Yunnan will generate over 15,500 megawatts of electricity for cities and industries, helping to replace polluting fossil fuels, particularly coal and oil.. The eight Yunnan dams will produce about the same amount of electricity as 30 big coal-burning plants.

The fourth of China's Mekong dams, at Xiaowan, is due to be completed by 2012 at a cost of nearly US$4 billion. Rising 292 meters, the dam wall will be the world's tallest.. Its reservoir will hold 15 billion cubic meters of water, more than five times the combined capacity of the first three Chinese dams. Since the end of 2008, when the river diversion channel of the Xiaowan hydropower dam was closed by Chinese engineers, the reservoir has been filling with water, paving the way to start the first electricity generating turbine in September.. When full, the reservoir will cover an area of over 190 square kilometers. With a capacity to generate 4,200 megawatts of electricity, Xiaowan will be the largest dam so far on the Mekong.

However, by 2014, China plans to finish another dam below the Xiaowan at Nuozhadu. It will not be quite as high but will impound even more water, nearly 23 billion cubic meters, and generate 5,000 megawatts of power.

Chinese officials have assured Southeast Asia that the Yunnan dams will have a positive environmental impact. They say that by holding some water back in the wet season, the dams will help control flooding and river bank erosion downstream. Conversely, releases from the hydropower reservoirs to generate power in the summer will help ease water shortages in the lower Mekong during the dry season.

However, the UNEP-AIT report said that Cambodia's great central lake Tonle Sap, the nursery of the lower Mekong's fish stocks, and Vietnam's Mekong Delta, its rice bowl, were particularly at risk from changes to the river's unique cycle of flood and drought. The Cambodian lake is linked to the Mekong by the Tonle Sap River. Scientists are concerned that reductions in the Mekong's natural floodwater flow will cause falls in the lake's water level and fish stocks, already under pressure from over-harvesting and pollution.

Vietnam worries that dwindling water volumes will aggravate the problem of sea water intrusion and salination in the low-lying Mekong Delta, where climate change and sea level rise threaten to inundate large areas of productive farm land and displace millions of people by the end of this century.

The MRC says it has been discussing technical cooperation with Chinese experts to assess downstream river changes caused by hydropower development. But China has refused to join the MRC or to agree to observe its resource management guidelines, preferring to remain a "dialogue partner". Full membership would intensify scrutiny of its dam plans by downstream Southeast Asian states and increase pressure on Beijing, which controls 21 per cent of the water, to take their interests into account.

While China's program to dam the Mekong is moving ahead on schedule, proposals to do the same on the Southeast Asian section of the river have been put on hold. Before the global credit crisis and economic slow-down hit Asia's export-oriented economies with full force this year, Cambodia, Laos and Thailand had announced plans to follow China's lead on the upper Mekong by building a series of dams on the mainstream of the river in the lower basin. There are now over 3,200 megawatts of electricity being generated on Mekong tributaries in Laos. But that too is being hurt by the crisis as Thailand, the main consumer of electricity in the lower Mekong, has announced that because of the global economic downturn, it expects to cut substantially the amount of power it imports from Laos.

The slowdown, however, provides a breathing space for Southeast Asian countries to assess how the Mekong mainstream dam projects will affect the interests of people in the river basin. But without China's full participation, no Mekong management plan can be effective.

Beijing is intent on forging closer economic integration with mainland Southeast Asia through trade, investment, communication, transport and energy cooperation with its neighbors in the Greater Mekong Subregion. But this strategy may backfire if the region concludes that Chinese dams are having an adverse impact on their future development prospects.

Michael Richardson is a visiting senior research fellow at the Institute of South East Asian Studies in Singapore.

http://yaleglobal.yale.edu/display.article?id=12580



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[ALOCHONA] Govt tenders go online in 2 months: Muhith



The government will introduce an online tendering system within next two months to stop the tender manipulation and violence during the tender approval process.

Finance Minister AMA Muhith disclosed the government's plan today after a meeting with a UNDP advisory body on 'Digital Bangladesh', ATN Bangla reports.

The Roads and Highways Department (R&HD) will start floating tender through the e-tender system soon, the minister further said.

Muhith also said all government tenders will be processed with a standard online system in phases to execute the election pledge of creating a 'Digital Bangladesh'.

 




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RE: [ALOCHONA] Re: Hasina and family's lifelong security



thanks...for the clarification.
Sorry...for the slip.

I was in a hurry.

Best wishes.
Khoda hafez.







To: alochona@yahoogroups.com
From: ezajur.rahman@q8.com
Date: Mon, 3 Aug 2009 06:30:26 +0000
Subject: [ALOCHONA] Re: Hasina and family's lifelong security



Dear Alochok Omar
My comments were dripping with sarcasm. You should have known it the moment you read the preposterous use of the term 'sovereign integrity' : )
You should have been one of those who laughed loud or smiled wryly or shook his head knowingly.
But more important than my poor sarcasm and your poor intuition is the fact that:
The majority of ministers in the government of Bangladesh believe what I have written to be true. Some of it is spoken only in grand public gatherings of the party faithful. Some of it is spoken only in private meetings of the party leadership. Some of it is spoken only in bed to a supportive spouse some it is never spoken but stays silent within amongst the insecurities, vulnerabilities and hypocrisies of many a mediocre man whose efforts at political greatness depend entirely on the mood of his Nethri.
Regards
Ezajur Rahman
    
 
    
 
 




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[mukto-mona] Minority-indigenous torture and Islamic militancy has grown up in Bangladesh



Dear Sir/Madam,

Greetings, from Germany,

How are you?

Minority-indigenous torture and Islamic militancy has grown up in Bangladesh.

It is very alarming. Please visit here: http://www.humanrightstoday.info/?p=902

My new book 'Struggling for peace' in English and 500 pages,

hope will be published on October, 2009 about Islamic militancy,

extra judicial killings, minority and indigenous repression since

independence in Bangladesh.   
With best regards,


Jahangir Alam Akash  
Journalist, Writer & HR Defender
Editor of the Human Rights Today
jahangiralamakash@gmail.com
www.humanrightstoday.info
www.youtube.com/user/jaakashbd
Skype: akashja.germany
Handy: 004917644556802
Telefon: 00494036166342  
Handy: 008801720084944
          (Only Bangladesh)
Present address:
Kleiner Schäferkamp 35c
20357 Sternschanze
Hamburg, Germany.



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[ALOCHONA] Re: Tipai team to return without visiting site

Dear Alochoks

Perhaps they did their best to get to the dam.

But there is something farcical and slapstick about this expedition.

Well. I'm being too polite - it's hilarious!!!!

Ezajur Rahman
Kuwait


--- In alochona@yahoogroups.com, "Ezajur Rahman" <ezajur.rahman@...> wrote:
>
> Tipai team to return without visiting site
> Nazrul Islam
>
> Courtesy New Age 3/8/09
>
>
>
> Bangladesh's delegation returns home today from India abandoning its
> planned field trip to Tipaimukh project site after heavy rains failed
> its attempt twice.
> The 10-member team left Guwahati, from where it tried to reach the
> site by helicopter on Friday and Sunday, for New Delhi with a hope to
> visit the project site in India's Manipur state sometime in dry season,
> officials who are in constant touch with the team told New Age Sunday.
> Former water resources minister Abdur Razzak led the delegation that
> left Dhaka for New Delhi on July 29 to talk to Indian officials and have
> a close look at the Tipaimukh dam site amid uproar against the planned
> Indian structures on the cross border river Barak that flows into
> Bangladesh rivers Surma and Kushiyara.
> The delegation members held talks in Delhi but failed to reach
> Tipaimukh because of inclement weather in the hilly terrain, according
> to officials.
> On return, the delegation would decide whether it will visit again in
> the dry season or send an expert group to assess the impacts of the
> Indian planned multi-purpose dam on downstream Bangladesh.
> 'The dialogue will continue at different levels,' said one official
> adding that the delegation members will have a meeting tomorrow to
> analyse the data they have collected on the dam during the visit.
> The team, comprising six lawmakers from ruling Awami League and
> Jatiya Party, three officials and one academic, is learnt to have
> proposed a similar visit to the dam project in November.
> Lawmakers of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party and Bangladesh
> Jamaat-e-Islami refused to accompany the team, saying that such a trip
> would be a 'picnic party' without adequate presence of experts.
> Choosing monsoon period was perhaps a wrong decision, the delegation
> chief Abdur Razzak told BBC in Guwahati.
> The delegation during its stay in New Delhi held talks with Indian
> power minister Sushil Kumar Shinde and officials concerned. Bangladesh
> proposed a joint impact study on the project. But no clear signal was
> given from the Indian side as yet.
> The Indian authorities only said that they would not take any scheme
> harmful for Bangladesh - an assurance given by Indian prime minister
> Manmohan Singh to prime minister Sheikh Hasina during a meeting on the
> sidelines of NAM summit in Egypt last month.
> The project is a hydro-electric one and there is no possibility of
> diverting water from the common river, they said.
> Environmentalists fear that the Indian project on the Barak river
> would restrict flow to the Meghna river and cause negative impacts on
> the ecology of the Sylhet region.
> Leader of the opposition and former prime minister Khaleda Zia, in a
> letter last month, requested the Indian prime minister to drop the
> project.
> The $1.7 billion project, cleared by the Manipur government, is
> awaiting approval by the Indian cabinet committee concerned. India says
> the project is designed to produce 1,500 megawatts of hydroelectricity.
> --------------------------------------------------------
>
> Kuwait Petroleum International Limited
> P.O.Box:1819 Safat 13019 Kuwait. Tel.:(+965) 22332800 - Fax: (+965) 22332776
> Registered in England, Registration Number 1734259. VAT Registration Number: GB 606 1853 52
> Registered Office: Duke's Court, Duke Street, Woking, Surrey GU21 5BH United Kingdom.
> A wholly owned Subsidiary Company of Kuwait Petroleum Corporation, Kuwait
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>
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