Bangladesh govt to ban sale of 'SIM cards' to youths under 18

Dhaka, 8 July : In order to check the rising incidents of cellphone crimes including extortion, Bangladesh's government is to formulate a policy that would ban its sale to youths under 18, officials reports said today.
"We are framing a policy to be enforced in next two months to curb the crimes and misuse of cell phones," Home Minister Sahara Khatun told reporters after an inter-ministerial meeting also joined by mobile phone operators yesterday.
Khatun said the government decided to tighten vigilance on the sale of Removable User Identity Module (SIMs) as well as the distributors and the retailers while the cell-phone companies were asked to submit the list of dealers and retailers to Bangladesh Telecommunications Regulatory Commission (BTRC) by 30 September.
BTRC officials said all the six cell phone companies operating in the country have 55 million active mobile phone subscribers.

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Moderate earthquake off North Andaman & Nicobar islands
IANS, New Delhi, 8 July : A moderate earthquake measuring 5.3 on the Richter scale hit the coast of North Andaman and Nicobar Islands at 7.17pm Thursday, but there were no report of casualties.
The quake struck off the coast of the North Andaman island, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) said. The epicentre was located at 14.5 degrees north latitude and 93.2 degrees east longitude at the depth of 36.3 km, IMD said. The epicentre of the quake was at 14.5 degree North latitude and 93.2 degree East longitude.

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CPI(M) wins Durgapur-1 By-poll by a margin of 8,817 votes
Durgapur, 8 July : West Bengal’s ruling Left Front major CPI(M) Thursday retained the Durgapur-1 assembly seat in a byelection held Monday but with a much reduced margin.
CPI(M)’s Archana Bhattacharya defeated her nearest rival, Bansibadan Karmakar of the Congress, by 8,817 votes in the election necessitated by the death of state Power and Labour Minister Mrinal Banerjee. Banerjee won the seat in Burdwan district by around 41,000 votes in 2006. The Trinamool Congress was then aligned with the BJP. And both Trinamool and Congress had put up candidates.
The seat has for last 33 years been regarded a citadel of the left. In last year’s Lok Sabha election, CPI(M)’s Saidul Haque led by over 14,000 votes from the segment.
The result has come as a big relief to the both Burdwan district and state Left Front leaders. န Photos : Niraj Modi

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CPI(M) youth wing's e-battle to extradite UC chief Anderson
Agartala, 8 July : The Democratic Youth Federation of India (DYFI) has decided to send over 10 lakh e-mails to President Pratibha Patil to demand the extradition of former Union Carbide chief Warren Anderson from the US for the 1984 Bhopal gas tragedy.
DYFI, the youth wing of CPI(M), has organised a programme here on Thursday to formally start sending e-mails to the president from all over the country.

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1 killed, 13 injured in Assam's Kokrajhar dist rail track blast

Guwahati, 8 July : In Assam, one minor boy died and 13 passengers of the Garib Rath Express were injured when its engine and five passenger coaches derailed after a suspected bomb blast on the track between Chautara and Gossaigaon Hat Station in Kokrajhar district early this morning.

The train was proceeding to Kolkata from Guwahati when the accident took place at around 2.20am. The Loco Pilot of the train Ashim Shome and Assistant Loco Piolt Arup Chakravorty are among the injured. Police have suspected involvement of National Democratic Front of Bodoland (NDFB) militants behind this blast. An accident relief medical team led by Divisional Railway Manager of Alipurduar Division reached the site immediately after the incident to treat the injured. The General Manager of the North-East Frontier Railway Shiv Kumar, along with senior railway officials have also arrived in the accident site to supervise the relief and rescue operations.
A special train is being arranged to carry the stranded passengers to Kolkata. The railways have installed accident helplines in Guwahati, Alipurduar, New Bongaigaon and Rangiya Stations. The helpline numbers are- Guwahati: 1072 and (STD-0361)-2731621, 2731622, 2731623; Alipurduar Junction: (STD-03564)-1072, 270870, 270871, 253498; New Bongaigaon: (STD-03664)- 230407 and Rangiya: (STD-03621)- 240238. Meanwhile, the Railways have diverted all trains from Guwahati via Goalpar and Bongaigaon due to security reasons from this morning. In another incident, around five metres of rail track was damaged when a bomb planted in a pressure cooker went off under a railway culvert near Dhekiajuli in Sonitpur district on Wednesday night. န Photos : Chinmoy Roy

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Natl Human Right Commission to move SC over Nandigram

New Delhi, 8 July : In what could come as an embarrassment to the civic poll battered Left Front government ahead of the assembly polls in West Bengal, the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) is seriously mulling moving the Supreme Court, as it had done in Gujarat riot cases, to ensure compensation to victims of the Nandigram violence in 2007.
The NHRC full Bench comprising chairperson Justice K G Balakrishnan and members - Justices G P Mathur and B C Patel and P C Sharma and Amrit Pal - recently decided to seek legal opinion from Solicitor General Gopal Subramaniam regarding moving the SC in the face of a defiant stand taken by the Buddhadeb Bhattacharya government on payment of compensation.
During the much criticised police action and violence between March and November 2007 relating to opposition by locals to acquisition of vast tracts of land in Nandigram for setting up of a chemical hub, 14 people had died and nearly 300 were injured. န File Photo : Raghunandan Mallick

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Bangladesh PM Hasina arrives in Nigeria to join D8 Summit
BSS, Nigeria, 8 July : Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina arrived here today to attend the 7th D-8 Summit beginning there today.
Nigerian Transport Minister Yusuf Solaiman received the Prime Minister at Abuja Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport at 10.45 am (local time). Foreign Minister Dr Dipu Moni, who reached the Nigerian capital on Monday to attend the 13th session of D-8 foreign ministers' council, and senior officials of the foreign ministry were present at the airport to receive the Prime Minister. On her way to Nigeria, the Prime Minister made a two-hour stop over in Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia.

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'Liberty Square’ mooted in Dhaka city
IANS, Dhaka, 8 July : A memorial called Liberty Square will come up at the spot where the Pakistan Army surrendered to the joint command of Bangladesh and India 16 December, 1971, marking the country’s liberation.

Following a high court recommendation in response to a petition by freedom fighters, Bangladesh Attorney General Mahbubey Alam has said he would urge the government to implement the advice at the earliest. At the end of the 14-day war, the Pakistan Army surrendered its 93,000 officers and men at Suhrawardy Udyan, a large open space that is named after H.S. Suhrawardy, a former prime minister of then East Pakistan. The high court’s “advice” came a year after the court passed a judgment on a writ petition jointly filed by freedom fighters Maj Gen (Retd) K.M. Safiullah, who was the first army chief, and Muntasir Mamun, a professor.
The court also asked the government to declare 15 December as National Mourning Day in memory of the people who sacrificed their lives during the Liberation War.

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