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A trial of bus service on Bangladesh-India-Nepal route has been flagged off, what is seen as a major development in cross border transport service among the three nations. Two buses carrying 80 delegates of the three nations and led by Bangladesh Road Transport Corporation (BRTC) chairman Fariduddin Ahmed left Dhaka yesterday morning. The delegation will reach the Nepalese capital Kathmandu on April 26, via Shiliguri, scrutinising in detail all the aspects of the journey. They will submit a report, based on which a protocol will be signed. “This marks a beginning of sub-regional connectivity,” said Nazrul Islam, secretary, Bangladesh road transport and highways ministry. He said, the protocol will be signed “soon”. After the protocol agreement, commercial bus service will be launched. Among others who were present during the flag-off were Gaurav Gandhi, first secretary (economic) of the Indian High Commission in Dhaka, and Dhan Bahadur Oli, deputy chief of mission at Nepal embassy. Currently, passengers use Lalmonirhat-Burimari-Changrabandha-Siliguri route to go to Kathmandu. The new route will cut short the journey by more than 100km, while the passengers will be able to enjoy some of the lush green hills on the way. Bangladesh, Bhutan, India and Nepal (BBIN) agreed to a road transport agreement in Bhutan’s Thimpuy in 2015. But Bhutan’s withdrawal from the agreement raised doubts as to its implementation. The remaining three countries in the agreement later undertook a passenger bus initiative. Under this new agreement Bangladesh would open four routes with India and Nepal. Though a transport protocol was to be signed in Kathmandu on April 27, it is likely to be delayed as all sides are not yet ready.

A Bangladeshi court yesterday sent a female cricketer to two-days’ police custody after she was arrested with 14,000 pills of popular drug yaba, as methamphetamine is widely known in Asia, a senior police officer said. Consumption of yaba is booming in Bangladesh, with seizures alone jumping more than 2,500% to 29.4mn pills in 2016 compared with 2011. Government officials say the business is worth an estimated $3bn annually. Following a tip-off, police arrested Nazrin Khan Mukta, 23, in the southeastern city of Chittagong with the yaba tablets in her backpack as she was leaving for the capital Dhaka on Sunday. “The metropolitan magistrate court granted two days’ remand following an appeal for five days’ remand by police,” said Nirmolendu Bikash Chowdhury, an assistant  commissioner of police. Nur Mohammad, lawyer for Mukta, said they will seek bail. Police said Mukta, a student of a state-run university who plays in the Dhaka Premier League, admitted that she sourced the yaba from the nearby district of Cox’s Bazar to sell it in Dhaka in association with some others. Cox’s Bazar is a coastal district neighbouring Myanmar, factories in the northeastern part of which, according to analysts, are pushing yaba towards Bangladesh. Narcotics officials say a yaba pill can be bought for around 60 taka ($0.714) in Cox’s Bazar but retails for around 300 taka in Dhaka.

The pain of waiting 10 hours with her leg crushed by bodies under the rubble of the Rana Plaza factory was hell for Nilufer Begum. But the five-year wait for justice has been just as agonising. Bangladesh tomorrow marks the fifth anniversary of one of the world’s worst industrial disasters, a building collapse that killed more than 1,130 workers and spotlighted the Western clothing brands benefiting from the country’s low wages.  But there is mounting anger this anniversary over the glacial pace of the court case against those arrested in the aftermath of the tragedy. The weight of three bodies and rubble crippled Begum’s right leg on April 24, 2013.  The 38-year-old has had to undergo operations which have cost twice the $3,500 compensation she received, forcing her to borrow from relatives and charities. “I am counting the hours to my death. The muscles in my leg are wasting away. My kidneys are failing,” Begum, who now runs a grocer’s store near the factory ruins, said.  More than 2,000 injured workers from the nine-storey complex, which collapsed like a pack of cards, have similar stories. Many have spent all their compensation on medical bills, according to ActionAid  Bangladesh. Begum says the slow wait for justice is the only thing that keeps her going. “None of us wanted to enter the factories that day,” she recalled. “They forced us to work despite pillars that crumbled the day before. Five years have passed and no one has been tried or punished.” “The building owner is having a great time in jail. All the other accused are out on bail. The factory owners and the managers who threatened to fire us if we didn’t work are free,” said the tearful mother of an 11-year-old boy. “So many of us have lost limbs or been crippled. But now everyone has forgotten us and the disaster,” she added. Rana Plaza’s collapse triggered international outrage. European and US clothing brands, including Primark, Mango and Benetton, were pressured to improve pay and conditions at the Bangladesh factories which employ some 4mn workers with wages starting at $65 a month, among the world’s lowest. Groups which oversee safety upgrades say Bangladesh factories have improved. The 20 reported accidents last year was the lowest in recent years.  A group representing more than 100 European brands still warned however that “major life-threatening safety concerns remain” among the 4,500 textile plants. The work to improve conditions has been faster than the trial of Rana Plaza owner, Sohel Rana, and nearly 40 others – including factory officials and government inspectors who were charged with murder. Rana was jailed for three years last August for failing to declare his personal wealth to Bangladesh’s anti-graft commission. He also faces the murder charges.  Proceedings are dragging on and prosecutors say a verdict could take five more years. Prosecutor Mizanur Rahman blamed repeated adjournments. No witness has yet given evidence. “Some witnesses have already gone missing,” he said. Union leaders said the painfully slow pace of the trial has “created a climate of impunity”. “We thought the Rana Plaza disaster would help workers to unionise and hold protests for improved rights. But the opposite has happened,” said Mohammad Ibrahim, a top labour activist. Ibrahim said garment factory owners use “local goons”, the police and the government to crackdown on any hint of protests. Garment manufacturers have an outsized influence given the $30bn of textile exports account for some 80% of Bangladesh’s total. Ibrahim was one of the 41 leaders detained in December 2016 when thousands of workers staged protests for higher wages. He said he received a death threat from police. “Some 1,700 workers were fired and none got back their job,” he said. “The garment owners have become more  powerful since the disaster.” Whistleblower journalist Nazmul Huda was feted after the disaster for being the lone reporter to write and broadcast about the crumbling pillars at Rana Plaza before the collapse. His film is key evidence now. But Huda is now seeking ways to flee the country after he was detained for 42 days and charged with “inciting” workers’ pay protests. “The police took me away in a car, blindfolded. I was cuffed and dangled on a rod in the car. Then, they beat me with sticks,” he said. “They hit me on my head and ears with gun butts. I barely can hear in my right ear,” he said. Police rejected the allegations, saying Huda was detained for breaching Internet laws. At weekends, Sultan Mollah visits the Rana Plaza ruins which are now a vast hole filled with hyacinths. Mollah has been gripped by guilt at having let his reluctant daughter go to do her shift that day where she perished in the collapse. “My heart is shattered when I think of her. I try my best to  forget the past,” he said. “But how could I forget when I see all these murderers roaming freely? No one has yet to face any justice and I doubt they ever will,” said the 50-year-old father with his own personal agony.

One of Bangladesh's top female cricketers could be jailed for life after being caught with 14,000 methamphetamine pills, police said Sunday. Nazreen Khan Mukta, who plays first-grade cricket in the Dhaka Premier League, was returning from a match in the southeastern city of Cox's Bazar when police stopped and searched the team bus at Chittagong. ‘During our search, we caught her with 14,000 yaba pills she had kept in packets,’ local police chief Pronob Chowdhury told AFP, using the local name for tablets of methamphetamine mixed with caffeine. Chowdhury said the Ansar VDP star would be charged with drug trafficking, an offence that can carry a maximum sentence of life in prison. Cox's Bazar borders Myanmar's conflict-plagued Rakhine state, where authorities say methamphetamine labs produce tens of millions of yaba pills that are shipped to Bangladesh. Officials this month said drug traffickers had been more active since August, when nearly 700,000 Rohingya refugees fleeing violence in Myanmar began pouring into Bangladesh. Authorities said last month that nine million yaba pills were seized in less than three months as the refugee influx reached its peak. Nearly two million were discovered in a single haul. Dhaka has been planning to introduce the death penalty for yaba trafficking to try to curb the drug's popularity and use. Bangladesh in 2017 seized more than 40 million pills, double the previous year's haul.

Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina joined the British Queen’s Dinner at Buckingham Palace in London on Thursday night. The premier exchanged greetings with Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Charles during the  banquet on Thursday night. The queen hosted the dinner for the Commonwealth Heads of Government. Prime Minister Hasina attended different sessions of the meeting on Thursday and Friday as well. Hasina in list of most influential  people: Prime Minister Hasina has made it to the list of Time magazine’s 100 most  influential people of 2018. “Bearing the legacy of her father, who led Bangladesh’s Liberation War, Hasina has never been afraid of a fight. So when several hundred thousand ethnic Rohingya refugees started streaming into Bangladesh last August to escape atrocities by the Myanmar army, she accepted the humanitarian challenge,” local media reported, citing South Asia director for Human Rights Watch Meenakshi Ganguly, as writing about her in the Time. “An impoverished country, Bangladesh had not welcomed massive influxes of refugees in the past, but she could hardly turn back the traumatised victims of ethnic cleansing,”  Ganguly wrote further. United States President Donald Trump, French President Emmanuel Macron, North Korea Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un, Chinese President Xi Jinping and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe have also made it to the list.  According to the report, business magazine Forbes in 2015 put her on a list of 100 most  powerful women in the world.

A Myanmar minister expressed concerns on Thursday about "very poor conditions" in Rohingya refugee camps in neighbouring Bangladesh, and said repatriation of the Muslim minority should start as soon as possible due to the coming monsoon season. The United Nations and rights groups say a Myanmar military operation in the country's northwest in August has sent nearly 700,000 Rohingya Muslims fleeing to Bangladesh. Most live in flimsy, bamboo-and-plastic structures perched on hills around Cox's Bazar, in southern Bangladesh. Fleeing Rohingya refugees have reported killings, rapes and arson on a large scale. The United States and the UN have described the military crackdown as ethnic cleansing, an accusation that Myanmar denies. "Seeing is believing and we saw all the people in the camps are in very poor condition," Myanmar's Social Welfare Minister Win Myat Aye told reporters in the country's main city, Yangon, after his two-day visit to camps near Cox's Bazar. "Our main thing is to start the repatriation process as soon as possible because the monsoon is very near and we are very worried for those who fled to Bangladesh," he said. Myanmar said on Saturday it had repatriated the first Rohingya family. The Bangladeshi government and the United Nations refugee agency, however, said they had no knowledge of any such repatriation. After months of fraught talks, Myanmar and Bangladesh agreed in January to complete a voluntary repatriation of the refugees within two years. Myanmar set up two reception centres and what it says is a temporary camp near the border to house the first arrivals. But a senior UN official who recently visited Myanmar said the country was not ready for the repatriation of Rohingya refugees. Win Myat Aye said Rohingya returnees would be entitled to apply for National Verification Cards (NVCs), which are part of the government's ongoing effort to register mostly stateless Rohingya that falls short of offering them citizenship. He said those NVC holders would be in turn be granted citizenship in Buddhist-majority Myanmar within five months after they were "scrutinized according to the law". "Those who are entitled to become citizens will become citizens," he told Reuters, without elaborating. Myanmar's panel of international advisers on Rohingya issues has warned the coming monsoon season could bring "enormous deaths" as refugee camps in Bangladesh are not built to withstand the storms. 

The first rains of the year have flooded parts of the crowded Rohingya camps in Bangladesh, aid workers said yesterday, wreaking havoc and raising fears for nearly 1mn refugees ahead of the monsoon. A brief but heavy downpour turned roads into quagmires in the world’s largest refugee camp, hindering relief efforts and hinting at the danger ahead for the Rohingya who have sought refuge from violence in Myanmar. “We are seeing areas of flooding in the camps and parts of some roads have been churned up,” said Fiona MacGregor, a spokeswoman for the International Organization for Migration in Cox’s Bazar district where the camps are located. Humanitarian agencies have been warning for months about the danger posed by the impending monsoon, due to start in June, to the welfare of refugees who live cheek by jowl in cramped tents on hillsides. Landslides and floods caused by violent monsoon storms can be deadly in southeast Bangladesh, which is also prone to powerful cyclones. Last season, heavy rain triggered mud slips in Cox’s Bazar and nearby Chittagong Hill Tracts, killing at least 170 people. More than 100 died in landslides in the region in 2012, and two years earlier heavy downpours killed around 50. Aid agencies have been reinforcing tents with concrete and sandbags in anticipation of the monsoon. Save the Children spokeswoman Daphnee Cook said yesterday’s rain had already “wreaked havoc” but the monsoon proper posed a much greater threat. “If a big storm hits the camps, it would be nothing short of disastrous,” she said. There are fears heavy flooding could also overflow latrines and spread disease in the close confines of the camps, where around 700,000 Rohingya Muslims have arrived from Myanmar since August. Many of the hillsides were cleared of trees to make way for shelters, leaving the land highly unstable. Nurul Haq, a Rohingya refugee, said the brief downpour had turned paths through the camps “into long and continuous puddles of thick mud”. The UN says about 150,000 refugees are extremely vulnerable this rainy season and Bangladesh’s refugee commissioner has said that 100,000 refugees would be shifted to safer ground. Bangladesh has said it would also start relocating another 100,000 Rohingya to a desolate island off its southern coast in June, despite warnings the site is prone to violent weather.

The first rains of the year have flooded parts of the crowded Rohingya camps in Bangladesh, aid workers said on Thursday, wreaking havoc and raising fears for nearly one million refugees ahead of the monsoon. A brief but heavy downpour turned roads into quagmires in the world's largest refugee camp, hindering relief efforts and hinting at the danger ahead for the Rohingya who have sought refuge from violence in Myanmar. "We are seeing areas of flooding in the camps and parts of some roads have been churned up," said Fiona MacGregor, a spokeswoman for the International Organisation for Migration in Cox's Bazar district where the camps are located. Humanitarian agencies have been warning for months about the danger posed by the impending monsoon, due to start in June, to the welfare of refugees who live cheek by jowl in cramped tents on hillsides. Landslides and floods caused by violent monsoon storms can be deadly in southeast Bangladesh, which is also prone to powerful cyclones. Last season, heavy rain triggered mud slips in Cox's Bazar and nearby Chittagong Hill Tracts, killing at least 170 people. More than 100 died in landslides in the region in 2012, and two years earlier heavy downpours killed around 50. Aid agencies have been reinforcing tents with concrete and sandbags in anticipation of the monsoon. Save the Children spokeswoman Daphnee Cook said Thursday's rain had already "wreaked havoc" but the monsoon proper posed a much greater threat. "If a big storm hits the camps, it would be nothing short of disastrous," she said. There are fears heavy flooding could also overflow latrines and spread disease in the close confines of the camps, where around 700,000 Rohingya Muslims have arrived from Myanmar since August. Many of the hillsides were cleared of trees to make way for shelters, leaving the land highly unstable. Nurul Haq, a Rohingya refugee, said the brief downpour had turned paths through the camps "into long and continuous puddles of thick mud". The UN says about 150,000 refugees are extremely vulnerable this rainy season and Bangladesh's refugee commissioner has said that 100,000 refugees would be shifted to safer ground. Bangladesh has said it would also start relocating another 100,000 Rohingya to a desolate island off its southern coast in June, despite warnings the site is prone to violent weather.

Bangladesh must take climate adaptation matters into its own hands and “cannot wait for assistance”, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has said. Bangladesh has received “many promises” but “very little” international finance to tackle climate change, Hasina said at the Overseas Development Institute, a London-based think tank on Tuesday. “So we have to do something for ourselves,” she said. Among the measures the government was taking, she said, was building schools “that can double up as shelters in case of a cyclone”, constructing storm-resilient homes, and improving health and sanitation conditions in refugee camps. Bangladesh is hosting hundreds of thousands of refugees from neighbouring Myanmar in crowded camps in Cox’s Bazar District where they are threatened by flooding, disease and landslides with the monsoon season scheduled to start in the coming weeks. The environmental advocacy group Germanwatch ranked Bangladesh sixth out of 182 countries most affected by extreme weather events between 1997 and 2016. About 60% of deaths caused by cyclones around the world in the last two decades occurred in Bangladesh, according to the World Bank. Hasina told the event it was “unfortunate” that countries like the United States that were “very eager on climate change” were scaling back their climate ambitions. US President Donald Trump has decided to pull his country out of the Paris climate deal, and questioned the scientific consensus that global warming is dangerous and driven by human consumption of fossil fuels. Bangladesh in talks with UK for Tarique extradition: Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has said the government was holding talks with the British government to extradite opposition BNP leader Tarique Rahman from London to face justice in the home country. Now heading the BNP from exile, Tarique is convicted of money laundering and corruption in two separate cases in Bangladesh. He is also being tried in many other cases, including one on charges of attempted assassination of Hasina. After delivering the keynote at a programme in London’s Queen Elizabeth Centre on Tuesday, the prime minister took questions from journalists. Asked whether her government took any initiative to bring Tarique back, she said the UK should have faced the  question instead. “The UK is a free country, anybody can take shelter and refuge…that’s true. The crime that the person committed …and already he is convicted,” Hasina said. “And I don’t understand how UK enjoys keeping a convicted person,” the prime minister added. “So it’s better you ask this question to the UK people.” The prime minister also said her government was “definitely eager” to take Tarique back. “He should face the court,” she said. “Well, we are talking to the British government about it and definitely one day we will take him back,” she added. BNP senior vice-chairman Tarique, in London for a decade, is standing in for his mother Khaleda Zia who was jailed for five years for corruption on February 8. He has also been sentenced in absentia to 10 years in prison in the same case. He had earlier got a prison term of seven years for laundering money.

Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina said yesterday more international pressure was needed on Myanmar to take back Muslim Rohingya refugees. “The international community needs to put more pressure on Myanmar so that they take back their own people and ensure their security,” she told an audience in London. “Myanmar says they are ready to take back the Rohingya, but they are not taking the initiative.” UN officials say nearly 700,000 Rohingya have fled into Bangladesh from Rakhine to escape a military crackdown since August, amid reports of murder, rape and arson by Myanmar troops and Buddhist vigilantes in actions which the United Nations has likened to “ethnic cleansing”. Myanmar has denied nearly all allegations, saying it has been waging a legitimate counter-insurgency operation. Hasina said Bangladesh had submitted the names of 8,000 Rohingya families for repatriation to Myanmar, but that Myanmar had refused to take them back. She disputed a claim by Myanmar that it had repatriated five members of a Rohingya family from Bangladesh, describing them as having been living in the no man’s land between the two countries. “Maybe (Myanmar) wants to show the world they are taking them back. It’s a good sign. If they want, then why only 1 family? We have already submitted the names of 8,000 (Rohingya) families, but they’ve not taken them back,” she said. Hasina confirmed a plan to move 100,000 Rohingya refugees to a uninhabited low-lying island in the Bay of Bengal and dismissed fears that it would be put them at the mercy of floods. “Bangladesh can always be flooding and it does. The camps are very unhealthy. We have prepared a better place for them to live, with houses and shelters where they can earn a living. Where they are living now, the monsoon season is coming up, there can be land erosions, accidents are taking place,” she said. Hasina was delivering her speech in an event titled ‘Bangladesh’s Development Story: Policies, Progresses and Prospects’ at Overseas Development Institute (ODI) in London as the keynote speaker. She said although Bangladesh has achieved successes in various sectors, this does not mean that there is no challenge. “We face the challenge of climate change although we’re the least polluter,” she said adding that the rise in sea level will induce displacement of millions in the country, according to a Bangladesh news agency UNB. “It’s a shared responsibility of the global community to protect our planet, our biodiversity and our climate,” the Bangladesh prime minister said, adding that Bangladesh is in the process of developing ‘Bangladesh Delta Plan 2100’ to mitigate and manage the climate change impacts. About terrorism and militancy which of late has turned into a global threat, the prime minister said Bangladesh is following a ‘zero-tolerance’ policy against the menaces.

Bungling, distortion and diplomatic doublespeak have hollowed out the deal to repatriate Rohingya from Bangladesh to Myanmar, with refugees refusing to return to a homeland that remains perilously insecure. "We will have to stay here for a long period, maybe generations," Ali, a Rohingya refugee and father-of-six, told AFP from the Kutupalong mega-camp on Bangladesh's side of the border.  In November Myanmar agreed to take back around 750,000 Rohingya from Bangladesh -- which hosts around one million of the Muslim minority driven out by waves of state violence stretching back to 1978. Yet so far, Myanmar has signed off just 675 names from a Bangladeshi list of 8,000 refugees, citing discrepancies in the verification forms proving their residency in Rakhine state. Months have elapsed, but no one has crossed back under the deal. A family of five was "repatriated" over the weekend from a wedge of no-man's land between the neighbours. Their return was swiftly pilloried as a PR stunt by rights groups and labelled "not meaningful" by Bangladesh's home minister. "Whatever we say, they (Myanmar) agree," Asaduzzaman Khan told AFP. "But they have not been able to create grounds for trust that they will take back these people." Myanmar does not want its Rohingya, denying them citizenship and classifying the minority as "Bengalis" who have seeped over the border illegally. It forced around 750,000 out in two major army operations in October 2016 and August 2017. The UN describes the August crackdown as "ethnic cleansing". Under pressure, Myanmar agreed to take back those who can prove prior residence. Bangladesh wants swift, large-scale returns to ease pressure on the teeming camps in its Cox's Bazar district -- and salve domestic disquiet that one of Asia's poorest countries is saddled with a huge refugee crisis. Yet the refugees listed by Dhaka do not even know they have been volunteered to return to a country where they allege widespread atrocities. "We did not try to ascertain approval from them," a senior Bangladesh official told AFP on condition of anonymity. Dhaka has also muddied its side of the bargain.  Under the repatriation agreement, the head of each Rohingya family must list the address of his or her father, mother and spouse in Myanmar.  But those details were inexplicably omitted from the forms submitted to Myanmar, the official told AFP. With no new names planned for scrutiny, the process is at a standstill. Reluctant hosts For the Rohingya, return is the ultimate aim but only on condition of guaranteed safety and -- crucially -- citizenship, a red line to Myanmar authorities who stripped them of that status in 1982.  With the monsoon looming they are bedding in for the long haul. The makeshift Kutupalong mega-camp is taking on permanent features as hulking drainage pipes are dug into hillsides and bamboo shacks are upgraded with concrete. But Bangladesh does not publicly air long-term settlement in its camps as an option. Dhaka has drawn an outcry by threatening to move up to 100,000 people to a flood-prone island in the Bay of Bengal. It says its biometric register of a million refugees should clear the way for large-scale returns, if the urgency is matched by the other side. But Myanmar's sincerity is in shreds. On a first visit to the camps last week, a Myanmar official implored Rohingya to return to a "changed" country, where destroyed villages are being rebuilt and work awaits. "Please come back first... and taste it. Then, if you all feel satisfied, more can return," Social Welfare Minister Win Myat Aye told Rohingya leaders. But with villages razed, choking controls on movement in place and communal hatred still sharp, the UN says conditions inside Rakhine "are not conducive" for repatriation. Refugees are also well versed in the machinations of Myanmar's bureaucracy, after generations trapped on a carousel of forced exile and short-lived return.  "We won't go back without citizenship and security... there's no point, they will force us out again," said Mohammad Sadek, 24, a resident of Kutupalong. Over decades Myanmar's army has rehashed history, rubbing out the Rohingya's legal status and spewing Islamaphobic rhetoric across the overwhelmingly Buddhist country. The identity card offered to returning Rohingya calls them "Bengalis" -- in effect making holders complicit in renouncing their own ancestral claims in Rakhine. Myanmar will likely allow "a token number" to return, says Francis Wade author of "Myanmar's Enemy Within". But "the vast majority of Rohingya in the camps will likely live out their days there... as will their children".  'Camps here, camps there' In the impasse, Myanmar's army has been busy. Bulldozers have levelled the remains of hundreds of Rohingya villages, while transit centres and "temporary" camps for returnees have sprung up. The army has added new bases while Rakhine Buddhists are being lured to the far north to rebalance the state's demography. Independent access to Rakhine remains impossible. Somewhere between 400,000-500,000 Rohingya are left in Myanmar. Of those, around a quarter languish in IDP camps in from previous rounds of violence. "We won't go back to live in camps there," said Rohingya refugee Mohammad Ihaya, 23. "It's better to be in camps here." 

Four people were killed and several others sustained injuries after a commuter train from Jamalpur to Dhaka was involved in an accident in Tongi yesterday. Rail service to and from Dhaka to the rest of the country was halted for more than five hours, except on the Narayanganj line. The accident occurred in Tongi’s Notunbazar area around 12:15pm yesterday, said Joydepur Railway outpost in-charge Raqibul Islam. The last four carriages of the train derailed and were dragged along for some distance due to the speed of the train, he said. Two of the carriages overturned onto another rail line, he said. Three passengers died on the spot and several others were injured, said Kamlapur Railway police station in-charge Md Yaseen. The line was closed after the accident, cutting off rail service from Dhaka to Chattogram, Sylhet, Mymensingh and via the Bangabandhu Bridge to the north and south, he said. Seven victims were taken to Dhaka Medical College Hospital, where Md Shahadat, 38, was announced dead, said DMCH medical outpost police in-charge Babul Mia. The six others admitted to the hospital. The fire service recovered the three bodies and have handed them over to police. Their identities have yet to be confirmed. The railway ministry has formed a three-member probe to investigate the cause of the accident.

Myanmar's government announced it repatriated the first family of Rohingya refugees over the weekend, but on Sunday Bangladesh described the action as being of little importance. Five family members among the 700,000 Rohingya Muslims who fled Myanmar after a brutal military crackdown was launched last year - referred to as ethnic cleansing by the UN - returned from the border region into Myanmar on Saturday. Myanmar and Bangladesh inked a deal in November to begin repatriations. Officials say logistical hurdles, including verifying identities and building accommodations, have held up the process. The United Nations and human rights groups have expressed scepticism over the agreement, saying Rohingya returns should be voluntary, safe and to their place of origin. While Myanmar hailed the family's return, officials in Bangladesh declined to call it an official "repatriation" as the family used to live in a camp on the "zero line" border between the nations. "The family returned to their home from a camp set up on the zero line of the border. The camp is located on the Myanmar side of the border," said Abul Kalam, chief of the refugee relief and rehabilitation commission in Bangladesh. Nearly 6,000 Rohingya Muslims have been stranded at the camp in "no-man's land" since the violence began in Rakhine state in August. These people are not covered under the agreement Bangladesh and Myanmar signed, Kalam said. Still, he described the move as a "positive sign" before the formal repatriation process begins.

Let the New Year bring us success so that we can realise ‘Shonar Bangla’ or ‘Golden Bangladesh’ dreamt of by the Father of the Nation, said Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina after exchanging New Year’s greetings with the party activists at the Ganabhaban on the first day of the Bangla New Year. The prime minister quoted from the speeches of her father, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, saying: “We are Bangalis, Bangla is our nation, Bangla is our language. Our Bangladesh is a state based on language. We speak in Bangla, think in Bangla, laugh in Bangla and cry in Bangla.” The prime minister said that she has resolved to translate the dream of her father into reality. “We will build the country the Father of the Nation envisioned - a Bangladesh without hunger and without poverty. This is my New Year’s resolution.” Hasina called on everyone to be vigilant and ensure that no group that would hurt the Bangla language or Bangla culture ever came to power. “Let no evil power that aims to harm our heritage, our language, our culture or our existence come to power.” The prime minister spoke of the Bangla New Year 1400 celebrations, which she said the then-ruling BNP had attempted to block. A national committee had been formed, chaired by poet Sufia Kamal, to organise the New Year celebration, she said. The BNP had tried to halt the celebrations and bring the New Year under a ‘shroud of religion’, Hasina said. “Even we could not believe that such obstacles would come in the year 1400. The main programme was to be held at Suhrawardy Udyan and Khaleda Zia said we could not enter the grounds. But Bangalis have never backed down from an obstacle. We overcame them and, alongside poet Sufia Kamal, entered Suhrawardy Udyan and held the event.” “They were trying to turn Bangladesh into something completely different,” Hasina reminisced. “These people, who came to power illegally, tried to rebuild Bangladesh in their image.” “They do not understand Rabindranath Tagore. They do not understand Nazrul Islam,” she said, alluding to the BNP. The prime minister spoke of the all-embracing nature of Pahela Baishakh. “We all celebrate this festival together, regardless of language or creed. The Bangla New Year is for Bangalis. Hindu, Buddhist, Christian, Muslim – everyone celebrates equally. It was part of our combined heritage to finish off last year’s calculations and begin business anew; to open our fresh, new ledgers and set off on a new journey.” The prime minister reminded the audience of the Pahela Baishakh allowance that was started last year, saying that now everyone in Bangladesh could celebrate the holiday.

People participate in a cleaning drive in Dhaka yesterday. As many as 15,000 Bangladeshi people participated in a cleaning drive, the last day of Bengali New Year of 1424, trying to break a Guinness world record set in India.

The World Bank has approved $55mn to expand the use of clean renewable energy in rural areas of Bangladesh where grid electricity cannot reach easily. The additional financing to the Second Rural Electrification and Renewable Energy Development (RERED II) Project will install 1,000 solar irrigation pumps, 30 solar mini-grids and about 4mn improved cooking stoves in rural areas, Xinhua news agency yesterday quoted the bank as saying on Wednesday. The project, including the additional financing, will enable about 10mn people living in villages, shoals and islands to access electricity and use energy efficient cooking stoves. These interventions will help the country reduce carbon emissions, said the bank. “We are proud to be helping Bangladesh increase access to clean electricity through solar power. Today, the country has one of the world’s largest domestic solar power programmes, covering 14% of the population,” said Qimiao Fan, World Bank Country Director for Bangladesh, Bhutan and Nepal. “Building on its success in using solar energy to provide electricity in rural areas, this financing will also scale up other clean renewable energy options,” said Fan. The project has already built 10 solar mini-grids in remote areas, including islands and shoals to provide grid-quality electricity. This additional financing will help construct another 30 solar mini-grids. These will provide about 28,000 connections to households and businesses, including small and medium-sized enterprises.

A Dhaka University student paints on a wall in preparation for celebration of Bengali New Year 1425 which falls tomorrow, in Dhaka yesterday.

Bangladesh student leaders on Thursday demanded the release of detained demonstrators as they agreed to end days of violent protests against government job quotas. The action was ended after Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Wednesday told parliament the system where certain groups are guaranteed a number of jobs would be abolished. Hasina said ‘the quota policy doesn't need to exist’ while also criticising the students for ‘misusing internet for spreading rumours’ and for blocking roads and highways. Speaking at Dhaka University, student leader Rashed Khan told reporters: ‘We decided to postpone our protest by honouring the prime minister's speech.’ ‘We request the government to publish the gazette (of abolishing the policy) as soon as possible and to free the detained students,’ he said. Student leaders have also demanded that security forces who fired rubber bullets and teargas at the protesting students be punished. Since Sunday, tens of thousands of students had been staging protests and sit-ins and blocking main roads in cities across the country in the biggest social challenge to Hasina in her decade in power. A number of students were detained, but no number has been given. On Sunday about 100 protesters were injured in clashes with police. Demonstrators had wanted the share of top government positions set aside for minority groups significantly reduced.

Tens of thousands of university students marched in cities across Bangladesh yesterday in one of the biggest protests faced by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in her decade in power. Students fighting against a controversial policy that sets aside government jobs for special groups have united in mass protests rarely seen on such a scale in Bangladesh. In Dhaka, chanting mobs of students blockaded major roads and swarmed Dhaka University, bringing traffic to a standstill in the congested capital of 15mn. Police were deployed to the university where clashes in recent days left more than 100 students injured by tear gas and rubber bullets. “There are more than 5,000 protesters at the DU,” a senior Dhaka Metropolitan Police officer said, referring to Bangladesh’s most prestigious university. Police in Savar, northwest of Dhaka, said an estimated 7,000 students had descended on a major highway linking traffic to the capital, causing chaos. “They completely blockaded the road,” police inspector  Abdul Awal said. In Chittagong, the second-largest city, some 4,000 students blocked a railway  track and roads, police said. Protesters also caused disruptions in the major cities of Khulna, Barisal, Kushtia, Comilla, Mymensingh and Gopalganj. The prime minister told parliament she had instructed her cabinet secretary to review the quota system and try to resolve the situation. “Why should the people suffer? she said in a speech to parliament as reported by private broadcaster Ntv. She condemned the violence and said in the past three civil service tests, more than 70% of the posts were recruited on merit. Protests intensified yesterday after allegations circulated widely on social media of a violent confrontation between a ruling party activist and a  student protest leader. Demonstrators want the share of top government positions set aside for minority groups and the disabled  significantly reduced. They are also particularly irate that 30% of government positions are reserved for descendants of veterans from Bangladesh’s 1971  Independence War. The government has promised to review the quota system but that caused a rift among demonstrators, with some accepting the assurance and  others rejecting it. A pro-government faction of the student movement had postponed its protest action but left-leaning groups pledged to keep up the fight. “These job quotas are discriminatory. We want equal opportunities for all,” said protester Nur Mohammad, who said he missed out on a coveted government job because of the  allocation system. Hasina – whose father was the architect of the Bangladesh’s independence from Pakistan – has in the past rejected demands to slash the quotas.

Tens of thousands of university students marched in cities across Bangladesh on Wednesday in one of the biggest protests faced by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in her decade in power. Students fighting against a controversial policy that sets aside government jobs for special groups have united in mass protests rarely seen on such a scale in Bangladesh. In Dhaka chanting mobs of students blockaded major roads and swarmed Dhaka University, bringing traffic to a standstill in the congested capital of 15 million. Police were deployed to the university where clashes in recent days left more than 100 students injured by tear gas and rubber bullets. "There are more than 5,000 protesters at the DU," a senior Dhaka Metropolitan Police officer told AFP, referring to Bangladesh's most prestigious university. Police in Savar, northwest of Dhaka, said an estimated 7,000 students had descended on a major highway linking traffic to the capital, causing chaos. "They completely blockaded the road," police inspector Abdul Awal told AFP. In Chittagong, the second-largest city, some 4,000 students blocked a railway track and roads, police said. Protesters also caused disruptions in the major cities of Khulna, Barisal, Kushtia, Comilla, Mymensingh and Gopalganj. The prime minister told parliament she had instructed her cabinet secretary to review the quota system and try to resolve the situation. "Why should the people suffer? she said in a speech to parliament as reported by private broadcaster Ntv. She condemned the violence and said in the past three civil service tests, more than 70 percent of the posts were recruited on merit. Protests intensified Wednesday after allegations circulated widely on social media of a violent confrontation between a ruling party activist and a student protest leader. Demonstrators want the share of top government positions set aside for minority groups and the disabled significantly reduced. They are also particularly irate that 30 percent of government positions are reserved for descendants of veterans from Bangladesh's 1971 independence war. The government has promised to review the quota system but that caused a rift among demonstrators, with some accepting the assurance and others rejecting it. A pro-government faction of the student movement had postponed its protest action but left-leaning groups pledged to keep up the fight. "These job quotas are discriminatory. We want equal opportunities for all," said protestor Nur Mohammad, who said he missed out on a coveted government job because of the allocation system. Hasina -- whose father was the architect of the Bangladesh's independence from Pakistan -- has in the past rejected demands to slash the quotas.