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Hundreds of university students across Bangladesh blockaded roads yesterday in a third day of protests against what they say are discriminatory quotas for  government jobs. Students took to the streets in Dhaka and elsewhere despite assurances from the government that it would review the controversial quota system. The mass protests roiling campuses across the country have been among the biggest faced by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in her decade in power. At Dhaka University – where more than 100 were injured in clashes with police in recent days – students vowed to stage sit-ins until the government reform the quota system. “We’ll continue our agitation until the authorities accept our demands,” said Rahat, one of the roughly 500 students camped out at the university’s main square. The protest was largely peaceful, with no repeat so far of the tear gas and rubber bullets fired by police to disperse crowds. But outside the camps, traffic was brought to a standstill as protesters blocked roads in the nation’s capital.  The protests also spread to private campuses for the first time since the demonstrations erupted on Sunday, drawing hundreds to the streets. 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 independence war in 1971. The government promised to review the system yesterday, but that caused a rift among demonstrators, with some accepting the assurance and  others resisting it. A pro-government faction of the student movement had postponed its protest action but left-leaning groups pledged to keep up the fight. Hasina – whose father was the architect of the Bangladesh’s independence from Pakistan – has in the past rejected demands to slash the quotas.

Thousands of students across Bangladesh staged protests and sit-ins yesterday after clashes at the country’s top university left at least 100 people injured. Police fired rubber bullets and tear gas at Dhaka University students fighting what they complain are discriminatory quotas for government jobs in favour of special groups. It was one of the biggest protests faced by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in her decade in power, and the government agreed later yesterday to review the quota system. Following the violence that erupted on Sunday and continued into the early hours yesterday, classes at Dhaka University ground to a halt as thousands occupied the main square chanting “Reform,  reform!” Protests spread with students at state-run universities in Chittagong, Khulna, Rajshahi, Barisal, Rangpur, Sylhet and Savar boycotting classes and staging sit-ins, police and media said. At Jahangirnagar University in Savar, where more than 1,000 students demonstrated, protests turned violent with more than 30 injured in clashes with police. Fifteen students remained in hospital for treatment, said Zahidur Rahmab, a spokesman for Enam Medical College Hospital in Savar. The students are angry at the government’s decision to set aside 56% of civil service jobs for the families of veterans from the 1971 war of independence and for disadvantaged minorities. That leaves most university graduates to fight for only 44% of the jobs. Dhaka University students said they would continue their fight. “We won’t leave the streets unless our demands are met. This is all about dignity. We are not afraid of bullets,” said Abdullah Bhuiyan, a 22-year-old English student. Another student, Saimon Rahman, said quotas meant young graduates missed out on government jobs: “We want a merit-based society. We want equal opportunities for all,” he said. Students burned furniture and set lengths of bamboo alight but no fresh clashes were reported after the overnight scuffles turned Dhaka University into a battleground. Hundreds of police patrolled key entry points to the campus. Organisers in Dhaka said they had been holding peaceful protests on Sunday when police started firing tear gas and rubber bullets, and used batons and water cannon to clear a central square. As violence spread across the campus, thousands of male and female students engaged in pitched battles with officers. “More than 100 people were injured,” police inspector Bacchu Mia said, adding they were treated in hospital but their condition was not serious. Protesters threw rocks, vandalised the home of the Dhaka University vice-chancellor, torched two cars and ransacked the fine arts institute, said senior police officer Azimul Haque. Fifteen people were detained, police said. Hasina ordered the job quota system be reviewed after meeting with her cabinet yesterday, said senior minister Obaidul Quader. “The government does not have a rigid stance on this (issue),” Quader said. Hasan Al Mamun, leader of the student group behind the demonstrations, said they had postponed further protest action for the month in the wake of the government’s decision. He earlier said tens of thousands of students joined the protests nationwide yesterday. Police declined to estimate the number. Al Mamun said the quota for top-grade jobs should be reduced to 10%. “These quotas are discriminatory. Due to the quota system, 56% of the jobs are set aside for 5% of the country’s population. And 95% of the people can compete for the 44%,” he said. Students are particularly upset at the 30% quota set aside for descendants of veterans of the independence war. Sheikh Hasina, whose father was the architect of the country’s independence from Pakistan, has in the past rejected demands to slash the quotas. Bangladeshi university students clash with police during a protest against the quota system used in government recruitment in Dhaka yesterday.

Bangladesh and India signed an agreement yesterday on their proposed 129.5km oil pipeline aimed at pumping Indian oil to Bangladesh with a capacity of 1mn tonnes per annum. The deal was part of the six memorandum of understandings (MoUs) which Dhaka and New Delhi signed during a meeting between their foreign secretaries at State Guesthouse Padma in Dhaka, Xinhua news agency reported. Indian Foreign Secretary Vijay Keshav Gokhale arrived on Sunday to hold talks with senior Bangladeshi officials on a host of bilateral and regional issues. “Today, we add another six documents to our large and growing list of meaningful agreements signed during the recent visits of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to Bangladesh and Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to India,” said Gokhale after the signing of the documents. The documents included the implementation MoU on the friendship pipeline between Numaligarh and Parbatipur, an MoU on co-operation between Prasar Bharati and Bangladesh Betar, an MoU for setting up an ICCR Urdu Chair in Dhaka University and an addendum to the GCNEP-BAEC Interagency Agreement.  Both sides also signed two more MoUs for projects whereby they will set up language labs in 500 schools in Bangladesh and upgrade different roads in Rangpur city. “This is part of our endeavour to undertake projects in Bangladesh in various socio-economic sectors including education, culture, health, community welfare, road infrastructure for which we are providing 1.6bn taka,” said the Indian foreign secretary. He said India remained a “committed development partner” of Bangladesh and had extended lines of credit of over $8bn to Bangladesh in the last seven years. This is the largest amount of credit India has ever committed to any single country, he said. From 2008-09, the bilateral trade almost tripled from $2.75bn to $7.52bn in 2016-17. Gokhale called Bangladesh “India’s biggest trade partner in South Asia”.  Talking about the energy and power sector, Gokhale said India was currently supplying 660MW of power to Bangladesh and they were on course to add at least 500MW more by June.  Gokhale also announced the second phase of humanitarian assistance for the Rohingya refugee camps in Bangladesh’s Cox’s Bazar. His Bangladeshi counterpart Shahdiul Haque said they were “happy” over India’s position on the Rohingya refugee issue and its progress on the pending Teesta water sharing deal. Haque said the two discussed all aspects of the relations between the two nations, including the pending Teesta water sharing issue, and was “delighted” regarding the outcome. Gokhale is expected to meet the Bangladeshi leadership including Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and Foreign Minister A H Mahmood Ali today before returning home.

Thousands of students across Bangladesh staged protests and sit-ins Monday after clashes at the country's top university left at least 100 people injured. Police fired rubber bullets and tear gas at Dhaka University students fighting what they consider ‘discriminatory’ government job quotas in favour of special groups. It was one of the biggest protests faced by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in her decade in power. A minister was due to meet protest leaders in Dhaka on Monday. But students at state-run universities in Chittagong, Khulna, Rajshahi, Barisal, Rangpur, Sylhet and Savar boycotted classes and staged sit-ins, police and media said. ‘More than 1,000 students joined the demonstrations at Jahangirnagar University,’ said Ataur Rahman, a protester in Savar where the university is located. The clashes, which began Sunday night and went into the early hours of Monday, turned Dhaka University into a battleground. Copycat protests soon started in other major cities as thousands of students boycotted classes and staged sit-ins. Organisers in Dhaka said they were holding peaceful protests when police started firing tear gas and rubber bullets. They used batons and water cannon to clear a central square. As violence spread across the campus, thousands of male and female students launched into pitched battles with police. ‘More than 100 people were injured,’ police inspector Bacchu Mia told AFP, adding they were treated in hospital but their condition was not serious. Protesters threw rocks, vandalised the home of the Dhaka University vice-chancellor, torched two cars and ransacked the fine arts institute, said senior police officer Azimul Haque. Fifteen people were detained, police said. The students are angry at the government's decision to set aside 56 percent of civil service jobs for the families of veterans from the 1971 war of independence and for disadvantaged minorities. That leaves most university graduates to fight for only 44 percent of the jobs. Hasan Al Mamun, a leader of the protests, said tens of thousands of students joined the demonstrations nationwide. Police declined to estimate the number. Al Mamun said the quota for top-grade jobs should be reduced to only 10 percent. ‘These quotas are discriminatory. Due to the quota system, 56 percent of the jobs are set aside for five percent of the country's population. And 95 percent of the people can compete for the 44 percent,’ he said. Students are particularly upset at the 30 percent quota set aside for descendants of veterans of the independence war. Sheikh Hasina, whose father was the architect of the country's independence from Pakistan, has rejected demands to slash the quotas.

Bangladesh police yesterday fired tear gas at thousands of students who gathered in the capital demanding cuts in “discriminatory” job quotas. The Shahbagh square campus in Dhaka University turned into a battleground after thousands of students chanted slogans and staged sit-in demonstrations in one of the largest protests against the government of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. Hasina’s administration has set aside some 56% of civil service jobs for the families of veterans from the war of independence and disadvantaged minorities, leaving most university graduates to fight for only 44% of the jobs. Organisers said they were holding peaceful protests when police started firing tear gas and rubber bullets and used batons and water canon to clear  students from the square. “They fired rubber bullets and tear gas at us. They beat us with batons,” said Hasan Al Mamun, the leader of the anti-quota student group, which was behind the nationwide protests in state-run universities and colleges. Live television footage showed students throwing rocks at police as officers used tear gas and water cannon.  Al Mamun said tens of thousands of students joined the demonstrations across the country. Police declined to comment on the number of  protesters. Police used “tear gas, water cannons and batons to clear the road” occupied by the protesters, a Dhaka police spokesman said, adding several people were arrested.  The country’s largest Bengali daily, Prothom Alo, said protesters blocked major highways linking major cities. Al Mamun said they were demanding the government job quotas be reduced to  only 10%.  “These quotas are discriminatory. Due to the quota system, 56% of the jobs are set aside for 5% of the country’s population. And 95% people can compete for the (remaining) 44%,” he said. He said they would continue protests until the government accepted their demand. Students were particularly angry at the 30% quota set aside for the descendants of veterans from the 1971 war of independence. Hasina, whose father was the architect of the country’s independence from Pakistan, has rejected demands to slash the job quotas.

A Rohingya Muslim refugee looks on as she takes rests after collecting relief aid at Kutupalong refugee camp in Bangladesh’s Ukhia district.

Bangladesh wants to punish methamphetamine traffickers with the death penalty, officials said yesterday, as authorities confront the growing popularity of the dangerous and addictive drug. The proposal to crackdown on the spread of methamphetamine, known locally as “yaba”, comes after Bangladesh seized more than 40mn pills of the narcotic in 2017 — double the previous year. Authorities want to elevate yaba to a Class A banned substance, meaning traffickers would face the death penalty instead of life behind bars. “We’ll raise the punishment for yaba trafficking. In the new law the maximum punishment will be (the) death sentence,” Jamaluddin Ahmed, the head of Bangladesh’s narcotics control department, told AFP in the capital. Bangladesh law enforcement say the drugs are smuggled across the porous border from Myanmar. Ahmed said traffickers had been more active since August, when Rohingya refugees fleeing violence in Myanmar began pouring into Bangladesh. Gangs had been using the Rohingya as mules and hiding drugs in fishing boats used to ferry the persecuted Muslims to safety. “Recently there has been such a huge inflow of yaba from Myanmar that it has become increasingly difficult for us to control it. As a result, its use has also increased,” Ahmed said. Raids of fishing boats have uncovered huge hauls of the drug. Authorities said last week that nine mn yaba tablets were seized in less than three months as the refugee influx reached its peak. Nearly two mn pills were discovered in a single haul. Towfique Uddin Ahmed, a director at the narcotics control department, said authorities estimate $600mn worth of yaba could be sold on Bangladesh’s streets this year. One senior official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said “drastic action” like the violent crackdown on drug users and dealers in the Philippines could be needed to stamp out the drug. “Some (traffickers) should be put in the crosshairs. We have come to that point,” he said.

Bangladesh’s opposition party accused the government yesterday of putting the health of their jailed leader at risk by refusing to let her personal doctors treat her inside prison. Khaleda Zia, the 72-year-old leader of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) who was jailed in February for corruption, has been suffering complications from arthritis and is struggling to walk, doctors say. A team of four government doctors from a state-run hospital in Dhaka have been treating Zia, a two-time former prime minister, in prison where she is serving her five-year sentence in isolation. But her supporters want Zia’s personal physicians given access to her cell. The government has yet to respond to the request. “The government is trying to break our leader’s morale and it is taking a toll on her health,” BNP spokesman Rizvi  Ahmed said. Mohammad Shamsuzzaman, an orthopaedic specialist at Dhaka Medical College Hospital who visited Zia as part of the government team, said her condition was not serious but her arthritis had worsened in prison. “She has pain in hands and legs. She couldn’t walk 50m without assistance,” he said, adding she had also developed back pain. Zia, an erstwhile ally of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina turned fierce political rival, already suffered from arthritis, diabetes and knee replacements when she was sentenced to prison for embezzlement. She has denied any wrongdoing. Her lawyers had sought her release on bail until an appeal is heard but a decision on this was postponed until next month. Zia’s supporters say the guilty sentence was politically motivated and designed to remove Hasina’s chief opponent before a general election slated for December. Last week a report by German think tank the Bertelsmann Foundation listed Bangladesh as a new autocracy, raising doubts about the credibility of the country’s elections. The ruling Awami League has rejected the assertion.

Bangladeshi and Russian foreign ministers vowed to maintain the “upward trajectory” of relations during bilateral talks in Moscow yesterday, the Bangladesh foreign ministry said. Foreign Minister AH Mahmood Ali held the talks, second in two years, with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov. Ali praised the economic progress of both the countries and appreciated Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and Russian President Vladimir Putin for their “farsightedness and charismatic” role for global development and prosperity. Ali felicitated his counterpart for the landslide victory of Putin in the recently held presidential election and reminded him of the invitations to both Putin and Prime Minister Dmitri Medvedev to visit Bangladesh. He reiterated the strong admiration of the people of Bangladesh for Russia because of the valued support and contribution received from the people of the then Soviet Union during the Liberation War in 1971 and for the rehabilitation and reconstruction efforts after independence. But, Ali spoke of how the possibility of outstanding economic and social development tempo of Bangladesh may face the challenge by the enormous arrival of forcibly displaced Rohingya people from Myanmar. He informed Lavrov how Bangladesh is helping with everything in its capacity to assist Rohingya refugees from Myanmar “at a great financial, social and environmental cost on humanitarian consideration and goodwill gestures of Prime Minister Hasina”. He briefed Lavrov on the latest developments and the measures taken by the government of Bangladesh for the rehabilitation of the displaced Myanmar nationals and sought the active cooperation of Russia and all others to resolve the issue. Lavrov praised the efforts by Bangladesh and considered the recent engagements of Myanmar and the proposed inclusion of UN agencies and UNHCR in the rehabilitation arrangement as good signs towards resolving the problem. Both the ministers were happy with the progress of the project for implementing the Rooppur Nuclear Power Plant under the state export  credit extended by Russia. The Russian foreign minister assured Bangladesh of the timely completion of the project and training of the essential scientific and technical personnel.  The two ministers were also pleased with the successful operations of Gazprom in different gas fields of Bangladesh, and the Russian side promised the engagement of Gazprom in the energy sector. Regarding the ‘Intergovernmental Commission on Trade, Economic and Scientific & Technical Cooperation’, Ali and Lavrov agreed to determine date and venue of the first meeting of the commission. In the meeting, the upward trend of two-way bilateral trade which is now worth $1.64bn was emphasised. Ali urged Russia to allow duty and quota-free access of Bangladeshi products to the Russian market. Lavrov recommended approaching the issue through the platform of Eurasian  Economic Union. A memorandum of understanding on general cooperation between Bangladesh government and Eurasian Economic Commission is to be signed very soon, the foreign ministry said. The foreign ministers discussed current and possible future cooperation on the issues like fight against terrorism and violent extremism, human rights, poverty alleviation, culture and import of agricultural products, and fight against  cybercrime. Lavrov said during the forthcoming OIC foreign ministers’ meet in Dhaka, Russia will be represented by its deputy  foreign minister. The meeting was followed by a joint press briefing and a working lunch.

Bangladesh officials said on Monday a fishing boat carrying Rohingya Muslims to Southeast Asia did not set sail from its shores, where close to one million refugees live in congested camps. Police in Bangladesh's southeast said they were investigating after a boat moored at a Thai island with dozens of Rohingya aboard, but were adamant their coast guard would have spotted the vessel. "The boat didn't leave from Bangladesh," said Afrujul Haq Tutul, deputy police chief in Cox's Bazar district where the Rohingya camps are located. "But, in light of the news, we are investigating this matter." The boat, en route to Malaysia where there is a sizeable Rohingya community, stopped at an island off the west coast of Thailand early Sunday due to bad weather. Thai officials said there were about 56 women, men and children on board and that the Rohingya would continue towards their destination. Rohingya migrants attempting the boat routes south have been a rare sighting since Thai authorities clamped down on regional trafficking networks in 2015, leaving thousands of migrants abandoned in open waters or jungle camps. Since then successive waves of violence in Myanmar have driven close to 800,000 Rohingya into southern Bangladesh, where they have joined hundreds of thousands who fled previous bouts of persecution. Those who fled an army crackdown described by UN and US officials as ethnic cleansing arrived to find squalid camps and army blockades preventing them from leaving the immediate area in Cox's Bazar. Bangladesh's refugee commissioner, Mohammad Abul Kalam, said local authorities had "no such information" about Rohingya trying their luck once again on the open ocean. "We don't have any such intelligence about anyone leaving Bangladeshi shores for Malaysia by boat," he said. A senior coast guard official said it was "impossible" that a captain would be able to evade patrols, which have been stepped up in recent months to combat drug trafficking and prevent people smuggling. "They (boats) are not allowed to go out. It would be very hard to sneak out of our coastal patrol. I don't think these people sailed away from here," coast guard spokesman Abdullah al-Maruf said. Many of the Rohingya ensnared in the 2015 boat crisis wound up in Muslim-majority Malaysia and Indonesia as Thailand stuck to a policy of not accepting the vessels.

Bangladesh has begun relocating 100,000 Rohingya refugees to safer ground before the monsoon season for fear of deadly landslides and floods in the congested camps, an official said yesterday. The UN says about 150,000 refugees in Bangladesh’s southeast - where nearly 1mn Rohingya in total live in shanties on hillsides - are extremely vulnerable to disease and disaster this rainy season. Humanitarian groups have been racing to reinforce the basic shelters erected hastily by the Rohingya as they fled across the border after a fierce army crackdown on the community in western Myanmar. Nearly 700,000 refugees have crossed the border since August into the Cox’s Bazar region, clearing trees and packing whole hillsides with unstable shanties. Bangladesh’s refugee commissioner Mohammad Abul Kalam said 100,000 refugees living in “priority” areas most at risk from floods and landslides would be relocated before June. “We have already shifted some 10,000 refugees from different locations to safer settlements,” he said. Bangladesh had allocated roughly 3,500 acres (14sq km) of forested land in Cox’s Bazar to the newly-arrived Rohingya to build simple shelters. But the forest is being felled at a rate of four football fields a day, Kalam said. The refugees, who use the firewood for cooking, have already cleared 5,000 acres of forest, Cox’s Bazar deputy district administrator Mahidur Rahman said. The once lush hillsides have turned barren, exposing the topsoil and leaving them highly vulnerable to landslides during heavy rain, he said. “Some 200,000 people are vulnerable to landslides,” he said. Monsoon rains wreak havoc every year in Cox’s Bazar and the adjacent Chittagong Hill Tracts, a tropical forest zone home to wild elephants. Last season heavy rain triggered landslides in the tract region, killing 170 people. Experts blamed deforestation for worsening the impact of the mud avalanches. More than 100 people were killed in landslides in the region in 2012, and two years earlier heavy rain killed around 50. In the past week, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres has expressed fears the Rohingya were “extremely vulnerable” to the annual storms. He told reporters he had stressed to Bangladesh that “higher ground is the best place for this kind of relocation”. Dhaka had earlier said about 100,000 refugees from the persecuted Muslim minority would be shifted to an island in the Bay of Bengal where the Bangladesh navy is building accommodation for the refugees. But Abdul Mannan, the Chittagong regional commissioner, said the Rohingya would not be relocated to the island before the end of the year.

A prominent Bangladeshi lawyer who fought the state's case in a high-profile murder trial against extremists has disappeared, police said on Sunday, with grave fears for his safety. Ratish Chandra Bhowmik, a respected prosecutor and champion of minority rights, has not been seen since he left his home in Rangpur early Friday morning. His disappearance comes a fortnight after seven militants from the Jamayetul Mujahideen Bangladesh were sentenced to death for murdering the caretaker of a Sufi shrine in November 2015. Bhowmik led the case that saw nearly a dozen hardliners from the homegrown extremist group convicted for killing the caretaker because they considered him a heretic. Lawyers in the northern Bangladeshi city have staged protests calling for information about their colleague. "We are concerned and worried," said Abdul Malek, a lawyer who represented the state with Bhowmik in the trial against the militants. Bhowmik, a Hindu and leading cultural activist, also led the state's prosecution against five JMB extremists sentenced to death for the murder of 66-year-old Japanese farmer Hoshi Kunio in 2015. Rangpur regional police chief Khandaker Golam Faruque told AFP that Bhowmik had refused the offer of an armed escort during the high-profile trials. "There was no threat against him. His family filed a complaint about his disappearance on Friday night," Faruque said. JMB regrouped after the execution of its founder and top leadership in 2007 and has been blamed for a wave of attacks on religious minorities, atheist bloggers and foreigners in recent years.  In July 2016, suspected JMB militants stormed a Dhaka cafe and massacred 22 hostages, including 18 foreigners, in an assault claimed by the Islamic State group. Bangladesh has been waging a campaign against JMB and other homegrown militant outfits in the wake of the attacks.  Security forces have shot dead more than 70 alleged militants in a crackdown since the cafe assault. Hundreds of suspected Islamists have also been arrested, and scores have been sentenced to death.

The long wait of British woman Lucy Helen Frances Holt ended yesterday as the government honoured her with Bangladesh citizenship for her lifelong humanitarian services to the people of Bangladesh by living in the country for the last 57 years. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina handed over the citizenship certificate to 87-year-old Lucy Helen at a function at her official residence Ganobhaban. Helen also contributed a lot to Bangladesh’s Liberation War by creating public opinions in favour it in 1971. After the ceremony, PM’s press secretary Ihsanul Karim briefed reporters saying that Helen was given Bangladesh’s citizenship following her application in this regard. The prime minister thanked Helen for her charity services. In reply, Helen said she had the desire to meet Bangamata Fazilatunnesa Mujib but could not, and expressed her happiness as the dream was fulfilled today after meeting Sheikh Hasina, the daughter of Bangamata. Sheikh Rehana, the youngest daughter of Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, Prime Minister’s daughter Saima Wazed Hossain, principal secretary Nojibur Rahman and secretary of the security services division under the ministry of home Farid Uddin Ahmed were present. Helen, daughter of John Holt and Francese Holt, was born in the British town of St Helens on December 16, 1930. On completion of her 12th grade, she first visited Bangladesh in 1960. In that year, Helen joined Barisal Oxford Mission and taught primary schoolchildren. Since then, she has been staying in Bangladesh. Helen had worked in Jessore, Khulna, Naogaon, Dhaka and Gopalganj for 57 years.  She went on retirement in 2004 and came back to Barisal Oxford Mission. In her retired life, she is providing English education to distressed children. Helen also made outstanding contributions to Bangladesh’s Liberation War by taking care of the war-wounded civilians at Fatema Hospital in Jessore during the war. During the war, she wrote a number of letters to her friends in Bangladesh to create public opinion during the war as well as a letter to her parent in the United Kingdom describing the situation during that time. After the war, Helen sent a letter along with some gifts to Begum Fazilatunnesa Mujib in 1973. On behalf of Bangamata, the then school student Sheikh Rehana also replied expressing gratitude to Helen at that time. During her visit to Barisal on February 8 last, the prime minister handed over Helen’s passport with a 15-year multiple Bangladeshi visa ending her long ordeal for visa renewal every year.

Citing concern over the health of Khaleda Zia, the Bangladesh National Party (BNP) yesterday demanded her unconditional release from jail. “We are anxious over her health. We urge the government to release her immediately so that we can arrange necessary medical tests and treatments by her personal physicians,” BNP secretary-general Mirza Fakhrul Alamgir said at a media briefing in Dhaka yesterday. When asked if the former prime minister would be taken abroad if released, Fakhrul said: “We just want an unconditional release for her so that we can arrange medical care for her, either in the country or abroad.” “We have not asked for parole. We have asked for her release which she is entitled to. She has already secured bail,” he further said.  A special trial court ordered a five-year jail sentence for Zia on February 8 after finding her guilty in a graft case involving Zia Orphanage Trust. Since then, the BNP chairperson has been behind bars in Old Dhaka. A High Court order granting bail to her for four months was stayed by the appellate division on petitions by the state and the Anti-Corruption Commission, the plaintiff of the case. Alamgir was due to meet Zia on Thursday but the meeting was cancelled after Zia fell ill in jail, according to BNP. The jail authorities are yet to make a formal announcement, but the BNP claims that it was the jailer who phoned Zia’s personal secretary to inform him about her deteriorating health. Zia’s lawyers have time to time told court that the 73-year-old had ailments related to heart, eyes and knees. She needs to take prescribed medicines regularly and follow a certain diet chart. Zia’s personal physicians have tried to visit her several times since her conviction but had to return from the jail gate. The jail authorities said they would call in the doctors when needed.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has reiterated her call to the international community to continue pressure on Myanmar to take back its nationals from Bangladesh. She made the call when WHO-SEARO regional director Dr Poonam Khetrapal Singh met her at her official residence in Dhaka yesterday. Prime minister’s press secretary Ihsanul Karim briefed  reporters after the meeting. The prime minister informed the WHO regional director that Bangladesh has given shelter to Rohingya refugees on  humanitarian grounds. She said the Bangladesh government has completed the biometric registration of the Myanmar’s displaced nationals who have entered Bangladesh facing atrocities unleashed by the Myanmar forces in Rakhine state. Hasina said the government has given identity cards to Rohingya so that they could be identified easily and the Myanmar government could take them back. She said some 28,000 people are working round the clock to manage more than 1,000,000 Rohingya. Dr Poonam Khetrapal Singh highly appreciated Bangladesh government’s move over the Rohingya issue. “The Bangladesh government is doing a great job,” she said. She also mentioned that WHO will help Bangladesh provide immunisation and medical services to the Rohingya. Expressing her concern over the health condition, sanitation and waterborne diseases of the Rohingya in the upcoming monsoon, Dr Khetrapal Singh said it would be a challenging job to tackle those and urged the government to continue its  immunisation activities. She said the huge number of Rohingya refugees, which is more than the total population of Bhutan, is the main problem to manage. “This is a gigantic job,” she added. Hasina said her government is in touch with five neighbouring countries bordering with Myanmar, including Thailand, China and India, on the issue of Rohingya crisis. Referring to establishment of community clinics across Bangladesh, she said such initiative was a vision of Bangabandhu to reach healthcare services at the doorsteps of rural people. Dr Khetrapal Singh highly appreciated the prime minister for her dynamic leadership as well as for Bangladesh’s development, particularly on flood control, saying the country is an example in the world on the issue.  She also lauded Bangladesh’s achievement on health and sanitation and said, “Its achievement in reducing child mortality and maternal mortality rate is commended globally.” At the meeting, the issue of autism was also discussed when WHO regional director praised prime minister’s daughter Saima Wazed Hossain for her role in creating awareness on autism globally. The WHO regional director said that now people of South Asia know about the autism and are aware about it. Saima Wazed Hossain, chairperson, Bangladesh National Advisory Committee for Autism and Neuro Developmental Disorders and also member of the WHO’s expert advisory panel on mental health, was present during the meeting.

Bangladesh is not expecting much help from foreign donors as it forges ahead with plans to relocate 100,000 Rohingya refugees to an uninhabited island, an undertaking that does not yet have a timeline, a state minister said in an interview. The minister of state for foreign affairs, Mohammed Shahriar Alam, told Reuters that Bangladesh was paying the entire roughly $280mn to build homes and fortify the muddy island in the Bay of Bengal from cyclones, and that it was mulling a formal request for  international funds. No refugees who fled a military crackdown in Myanmar would be moved there against their will, he added. Some 700,000 Rohingya Muslims crossed the border from Myanmar’s Rakhine state since August, and are in cramped camps at Cox’s Bazar. Because a repatriation deal between the neighbouring countries has been delayed, Bangladesh aims to prepare new homes on the nearby island, called Bhasan Char, before the onset of seasonal monsoon rains that could come in late April. “We don’t have a timeline because it’s a lot of money,” Alam said at Bangladesh’s United Nations office in New York. “We are so far building it with our own finances. I am not very hopeful about how much funds the international community will be able to raise.” The latest wave of refugees joined about 300,000 Rohingya already in Bangladesh, one of the world’s poorest and most crowded countries, who fled previous bouts of violence. A UN co-ordination branch has separately requested $951mn for immediate relief. Alam pointed to blueprints of construction on the island 30km (21 miles) from the mainland, and said one plan could be to bring potential donors there.  He brushed off as “misunderstandings” concerns raised by humanitarian groups such as Amnesty International that the silt island was vulnerable to flooding. “Some people raised concerns about Bhasan Char (but) there is absolutely no reason to be concerned because we are building an embankment,” he said. Bangladesh sees the island as a temporary arrangement for refugees but has given conflicting signals on how much freedom they would have to leave once there. Alam said Bangladesh shared the building designs with the Organisation of Islamic Co-operation, which suggested “we engage people, countries and organisations to come help and contribute” to the cost. “We are yet to do it,” the minister said. “We haven’t decided on that.”

Bangladesh security forces have seized nearly 9mn methamphetamine pills in less than three months as a massive influx of Rohingya refugees brings increased smuggling from Myanmar, officials said yesterday. Increased raids on fishing boats on the Naf river, which divides the neighbours, have reaped the massive haul of ‘yaba’ pills which are snapped up by Bangladesh youth. Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) troops in the border town of Teknaf have seized some 5.16mn of the caffeine-laced meth pills and coast guards have confiscated 3.47mn pills since January 1, officials said. “In one raid on March 15, we seized 1.8mn yaba pills abandoned in four sacks in the Naf river,” border guard commander Lieutenant Colonel Asadud Zaman Chowdhury said. “It is the biggest ever yaba seizure by the BGB,” he said. The guards arrested 11 smugglers in March, including seven Rohingya. Coast guards patrolling the Bay of Bengal arrested six Myanmar citizens and seized some 300,000 pills from one fishing boat this month, a senior officer said. Yaba is a Thai word meaning “crazy medicine”. The pills have become an easy source of income for the Rohingya who have poured across the border since the Myanmar military launched a crackdown in their home Rakhine state in August last year.  The refugees act as ‘yaba’ carriers, handing over the pills to dealers on the Bangladesh side of the border who then take them to the country’s main cities, according to police. Border guards and counter-narcotics officials said that the trafficking flourishes because of the difficulty patrolling the 54km (33 miles) of the Naf which acts as the border between the two countries. The pills are produced in bathroom-sized labs on the Myanmar side of the border, according to a Bangladeshi counter-narcotic official. Nearly 700,000 Rohingya have entered Bangladesh since August 25, joining another 300,000 already living in camps along the border for many years.  “The number of people who were used as carriers has increased due to the influx. The internal carriers have increased. Some of them are desperate just for survival,” Chowdhury said. “It is a way to make easy money,” said Chowdhury, who explained that a yaba pill bought on the Myanmar border for 20 US cents can be sold at three-four dollars in the Bangladesh capital Dhaka. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has called for “zero tolerance” on yaba smuggling from Myanmar and ordered an increased anti-narcotics drive along the border, the coast guard officer said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Bangladesh has honoured the martyrs of 1971 and thanked them for their contribution to the development of Bangladesh as an independent and prosperous nation on the 47th anniversary of the country’s independence. Many came to the National Memorial in Savar yesterday to pay their respects. President Abdul Hamid and Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina presented flowers at the monument at dawn on behalf of the nation. The gates to the National Memorial opened to the public. Various representatives from political, social, cultural and economic organisations and families came to the site to pay their respects and commemorate Independence Day. Bangladesh has travelled a long and difficult path since its bloody birth on March 26, 1971. The country recently became eligible to graduate from the UN’s list of least developed countries (LDC) to the list of developing countries and dreams of one day making the list of developed countries. LDC graduation brings with it the potential for further development, but will also lead to the loss of several advantages in aid and trade previously  available to Bangladesh. “The fact that the UN has declared Bangladesh eligible to advance from its categorisation is proof of how far Bangladesh has come,” Road Transport and Bridges Minister Obaidul Quader said, adding, “But the enemies of Bangladesh’s independence are still casting a dark shadow, working against the values of the Liberation War. We must root out the poison of those who opposed our  independence.” Though crowds had filled the National Memorial premises as soon as it opened in previous years, the early push was less dense this year. But attendance grew as the day wore on. Information Minister Hasanul Haq Inu said, “But Bangladesh is not out of danger yet,” he said. “Enemies are still involved by proxy.” Many organisations commemorated Mass Killing Day on March 25, he said. “They do not accept the Father of the Nation, Mass Killing Day or the death toll of 3mn,” Inu said, adding, “We have two major challenges before us,” he said. “The first is to hold the election in time and the second is to prevent militants and their backers from coming to power.” A delegation of BNP leaders, including BNP secretary-general Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir, came to the National Memorial to pay his respects. “The democracy the Liberation War was fought to protect has been constrained,” he said, adding, “A three-time prime minister is in jail. The people do not have the freedom to speak. They do not have the right to engage in politics. Democracy does not exist.” The BNP is fighting to restore democracy and will continue to fight until they win, he said. “We will continue to advance towards the goal of freedom from want, from poverty, from hunger that the people of this country desire,” said Bangladesh Workers Party president and Social Welfare Minister Rashed Khan Menon. People of all ages and all walks of life came to pay their respects to the martyrs wearing the red and green of the Bangladesh flag.

The UN sees a “lot of benefits” for Bangladesh once it officially graduates to a developing country by 2024, but says challenges remain. “There are lots of positive benefits to graduation,” visiting UN Assistant Secretary-General Haoliang Xu said as there is a perception that graduating to a developing country status will only mean that Bangladesh will lose all special benefits, including loan and export support, available to least developed countries (LDCs). Xu who was talking to a group of journalists in Dhaka yesterday, explained the graduation process, challenges in the way and its benefits and said this would have a “big impact” on the future financing for  development. “As an LDC the signal to investor community is that it is not the best place for investment,” he said, adding that the graduation would send “strong message to investors that Bangladesh is a right place for investments.” As LDCs, he said the international perception is “your capacity is low, your infrastructure is not sufficient and your institution is not strong”. “After graduation, the rating agency will rate Bangladesh higher in the rating for investments and what that means that the cost of investment in Bangladesh will be significantly lower, if the volume is significantly larger. The interest rate Bangladesh has to use for borrowing internationally will significantly low. “This is a big impact on the future financing for  development,” he said. He said as Bangladesh moves through the next step, “there would be more assistance from the UN to work with Bangladesh government to assess the impact of graduation.” Bangladesh, which has been an LDC since 1975, recently fulfilled the UN’s current criteria to graduate from a ‘least developed country’ to a ‘developing country’, sparking conversation and debate across the country. Bangladesh has also recently advanced from a low-income country to a low-middle income country on the World Bank’s scale. According to the UN, a country is eligible to graduate from the LDC category if it has a gross national income (GNI) per capita of $1,230 or above for three years, a Human Assets Index (HAI) of 66 or above and an Economic Vulnerability  Index (EVI) of 32 or below. Bangladesh has fulfilled the three conditions on a very large margin. Bangladesh’s current per capita income is $1,610. The HAI is 72.9, while the  EVI is 25. Bangladesh will undergo a few years of observation and can officially graduate to a developing country by 2024 at the earliest after the next review  in 2021. Xu, who was invited by the government to attend a series of celebratory events around the prospective graduation, said they are “almost certain” that Bangladesh would achieve the status. He said of the countries who have prospects from graduation - Botswana, Cape Verde, Maldives, Samoa, and Equational Guinea – Bangladesh is much bigger than others with its 160mn people. “We are proud that we were with the Bangladesh in achieving the milestone,” he said, but lots still remain to be done to achieve a sustainable transition from LDC to middle-income developing country. “Still there are lots of challenges such as challenges of climate change, job creation, and also have challenges of urbanisation and also the issue of inequality that still exists,” he said, adding that Bangladesh’s economy  needed to be diversified.

The new representative of the UNFPA has called Bangladesh “a development role model” for its success and achievements in health, family planning, female education, women’s empowerment and socio-economic development. Asa Britta Torkelsson also expressed her “deep satisfaction” over UNFPA’s partnership with the government of Bangladesh. She was presenting her credentials to Bangladesh Foreign Minister Mahmood Ali at the latter’s office yesterday, the UN population agency and the foreign ministry said in  separate statements. The UNFPA said, a citizen of Sweden, Asa Torkelsson brings with her an “extensive and distinguished” career in various UN offices all over the world, specialising in the field of women’s empowerment, development economics and international development. The foreign minister welcomed her to Bangladesh. She briefed the foreign minister about the trajectory of UNFPA’s activities moving forward in Bangladesh and prospective collaborations with the various agencies of the government. They exchanged their views on strengthening the “working relationship” between UNFPA and the government of Bangladesh. The UNFPA representative also congratulated Bangladesh on its success in achieving MDGs, particularly in the areas of poverty alleviation, primary school enrolment, and gender parity in primary and secondary level education. She also conveyed the “commendable” progress made in lowering the infant and under-five mortality rate and maternal mortality ratio. Torkelsson shared her commitment to continue working with the government of Bangladesh to end preventable maternal and neonatal death, violence and harmful practices against women and girls, including child marriage, and also to address the unmet need for family planning. The foreign minister expressed his appreciation for UNFPA’s support and contribution in Bangladesh to improve maternal health, sexual and reproductive health and gender equality, prevention of gender-based violence and child marriage, and  population and development. He also highlighted the development progress that is taking place to shift the country’s status from one of the least developed countries to a middle-income country and Bangladesh’s commitment to achieving the SDGs.