Indian village bans women from using mobile phones

Indian village has banned women from using mobile phones in public in an attempt to restrict their contacts with men and plans hefty fines for violators, police said Wednesday.

Village elders ruled that women found using a mobile phone outside their homes would be fined 21,000 rupees ($325) -- a sum it would take most rural Indians several months to earn.

The ruling was issued on Tuesday in Madora, a mainly Muslim village in the conservative northern state of Uttar Pradesh.

"We have received reports about the Khap ordering the ban on women using mobile phones," local police chief Arun Kumar Singh told AFP, referring to the informal village councils known as khap panchayats in India.

"Such orders are against the constitution and we will take action."

The council believes that mobile phones are helping unmarried women to elope and that a ban will limit their interaction with men.

The council also imposed fines on people caught slaughtering cows -- illegal in most Indian states -- or smuggling liquor.

"We do support their measures against illegal activities but won't allow them to curb the freedom of women," Singh said.

Khap panchayats are mostly run by male village elders. Although illegal, they have considerable influence in rural north India.

They are known for issuing diktats aimed at upholding the socially conservative traditions that have long held sway and resisting modernisation -- such as banning women from wearing jeans.

But they have also been blamed for ordering serious crimes, including the so-called "honour killing" of couples who marry outside caste or religion.

Critics accuse them of acting like kangaroo courts and handing down public beatings and other punishments for perceived crimes.

Source: Prothom Alo

Gazipur father-daughter suicide case prime accused held

Police arrested the main accused of the father-daughter suicide case from Karnapur village in Sreepur upazila of Gazipur on Tuesday night.
Sreepur police station Officer-in-charge Asaduzzaman said policemen arrested Sahid, 40, a neighbour of the victims and son of Nazir Uddin, at night, reports news agency UNB.
Hazrat, 45, along with his daughter Ayesha Akhter, 8, committed ‘suicide’ jumping before a moving train near Sreepur Railway Station on Saturday morning after having failed to get justice as a young man attempted to violate his minor daughter and grab his land.
After the ‘suicide’, Hazrat’s wife Halima Begum filed a case with the local police station making Sahid the main accused.
Halima claimed that some of their neighbours, including Shahid, had long been trying to grab the land of Hazrat, and their only child Ayesha was sexually abused by a neighbour barely three months back.
Hazrat informed Goshinga Union Parishad member Abul Hossain about it and he got depressed as the UP member did not take any step, Halima alleged.

Source: Prothom Alo

Myanmar soldiers caught smuggling yaba near Bangladesh border

Two military officers and two other men have been arrested in Myanmar’s restive Rakhine state with hundreds of thousands of meth tablets in their car, police sources said Tuesday.

Experts say growing demand for methamphetamines in neighbouring Bangladesh is driving a surge in drug trafficking through the volatile border region, where the army has carried out a bloody military crackdown on Rohingya Muslims.

A local border guard police officer said the four men were arrested at a checkpoint while travelling from Rakhine’s Butheedaung township to Maungdaw.

“A major and his fellow soldier and two Rakhines were arrested with stimulant tablets by a combined team on Monday morning,” he told AFP on the condition of anonymity.

“The military officer and soldier will be dealt with according to the military’s rules and regulations, so we have already transferred the two to the local military command.”

He estimated the pills had a street value of around 880 million kyat ($650,000).

Police major Kyaw Mya Win in Maungdaw town confirmed the arrests, but declined to say who was involved.

“Border guard police seized 440,000 stimulant tablets Monday morning from a vehicle that was travelling from Butheedaung to Maungdaw,” he told AFP.

Myanmar is one of the largest drug-producers in the world, churning out vast quantities of opium, cannabis and millions of caffeine-laced methamphetamine pills known as “yaba”.

Last year police confiscated a record 98 million of the tablets, nearly double the 50 million seized in 2015. Drug prosecutions also jumped by around 50 percent to 13,500.

Most pills are made by armed ethnic groups along Myanmar’s eastern border with China and then exported across Southeast Asia, with clients running the gamut from truck drivers to wealthy party-goers.

Military figures have also been accused of profiting from the drug trade but prosecutions of army officers are rare in the former junta-run country.

Meth tablets headed for Bangladesh are often smuggled across the Naf river that divides the two countries by Rohingya Muslims, a poor and persecuted minority.

More than 70,000 Rohingya fled to Bangladesh in recent months to escape a bloody army crackdown in northern Rakhine.

State media has been reporting almost daily seizures of the pills in the area over recent months. In February a Buddhist monk was caught hiding more than four million tablets in his monastery.

Source: Prothom Alo

Over 200 Bangladeshis stranded in India

200 Bangladeshis, who were trafficked to and rescued in India four years ago, are anxiously waiting for return to their homes.

In a report, India’s First Post also said on Wednesday that the Bangladeshis are now sheltered across the Indian state adjacent to Bangladesh border.

“At present, about 220 rescued trafficked victims are lodged at various homes and are waiting to return to Bangladesh. However, some factors, legal and otherwise, have come in the way of their return,” principal secretary of the Indian state’s women and child welfare development Roshni Sen was quoted to have said.

Quoting an Indian government official, the report said in most cases the girls either cannot provide addresses in Bangladesh to where they can be sent back or their parents cannot be located.

“In most cases the addresses or the parents of the victims could not be traced, though we completed the standard operating procedure. Secondly, there were instances in which the victims were unable to identify their homes,” Sen was also quoted to have said.

Source: Prothom Alo

Khaleda’s Twitter account gets verified

The authorities of social network Twitter have verified the account of Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) chairperson and former prime minister Khaleda Zia.
The verified Twitter account is @BegumZiaBd.


BNP chairperson’s media wing member Sayrul Kabir Khan told the Prothom Alo that the account was verified at 7:00pm (BST) on Tuesday.
Khaleda officially launched her Twitter account on 1 September last year.


Source: Prothom Alo

Islamophobic' incidents rise by 10 times in Trump era

Islamophobic incidents involving US customs and border protection officials have risen by about 1,000 per cent since president Donald Trump took office in January, a Muslim activist group said.

According to the Council on American-Islamic Relations on Tuesday, preliminary data collected from its branches across the US found that instances in which officials were accused of profiling Muslims accounted 23 per cent in 2017.

Of the 193 customs and border protection (CBP) cases in 2017, at least 181 were reported after the 27 January Muslim travel ban. In the first three months of 2016, the group reported 17 cases, The Independent said.

"These are incidents which are reported to us and which we examine," Corey Saylor, director of CAIR's group that monitors Islamophobia, told The Independent.

"We look at these very carefully. Around 50 per cent, we reject."

Saylor said allegations of Islamophobia being levelled at border officials was nothing new.

He believed that Trump's election and the executive order was behind the spike in incidents. "I have no doubt in my mind that these things are connected."

In the aftermath of the travel ban, which have been halted by the courts, there were widespread reports of chaos at US airports, and people being turned away as they sought to board flights to the US at foreign airports.

Trump vowed during his election campaign that he would make it more difficult for people from certain countries to reach the US as party of tighter security, despite immigrants from countries such as Syria and Somalia already having to endure screening that can take several years.

Saylor said he appreciated the difficult job being faced by border officials, but asked that they did it without breaching the US constitution.

He cited testimony of a Customs and Border Protection official from a 2013 lawsuit, who said: "Look to the Muslim woman as an indicating factor. By the way she wears her hijab. If the hijab is a solid colour it indicates religiosity. If it's a patterned scarf, with colours, it's more likely that she is less religious.

Khaleda not listening to Zia’s words: Zafrullah Chy

Gonoshasthaya Kendra founder and trustee Zafrullah Chowdhury on Wednesday said Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) chairperson Khaleda Zia is 'not listening to the words' of its founder Ziaur Rahman.

Widely known as a pro-BNP intellectual, Zafrullah made this point at a programme organised to launch a book and website titled ‘Ziaur Rahman Bir Uttam’ at the Dhaka Reporters’ Unity in the capital.

BNP secretary general Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir was present at the function when Zafrullah was addressing it.

“Ziaur Rahman set up the first women development commission in the country and set up a separate ministry for women. He [Zia] spoke of incorporating more women into the party fold.

“But, Khaleda Zia has kept only one woman member in the the party’s National Standing Committee, suggesting that she is not listening to Ziaur Rahman,” said Zafrullah Chowdhury.

Khaleda Zia, a former prime minister, herself is the only female member of the BNP's standing committee.

Voting continues in Indonesia amid religious tension

Jakarta went to the polls in a tight run-off Wednesday with the Christian governor fighting for his job as he stands trial for blasphemy, in a divisive election that has stoked religious tensions in Muslim-majority Indonesia.

Basuki Tjahaja Purnama is facing a Muslim challenger, heavyweight ex-minister Anies Baswedan, in a neck-and-neck race to lead the teeming capital of 10 million people.

The vote is seen as a test of whether the moderate Islam traditionally practised in the world’s most populous Muslim country is under threat from the influence of hardliners, who have led mass demonstrations against Purnama.

Purnama, the city’s first non-Muslim governor for half a century and its first ethnic Chinese leader, won in the first round in February but not by a big enough margin to avoid a run-off.

The race was already significant as politicians see the job as a stepping stone to the presidency at 2019 polls, but the stakes were raised dramatically by a controversy sparked by claims that Purnama insulted the Koran.

The allegations drew hundreds of thousands of conservative Muslims onto the streets of Jakarta in major protests last year, and led to Purnama-known by his nickname Ahok-being put on trial for blasphemy in a case critics see as politically motivated.

After casting his vote, President Joko Widodo-whose party backs Purnama-urged Jakarta residents to accept the result and for the city to come together after the bitterly fought poll.

“We must not let different political choices break our unity,” he said. “Remember we are all brothers and sisters.”

Over 7.2 million people were registered to vote in the polls, which closed at 1:00 pm (0600 GMT).

Early vote tallies from private pollsters were expected to give an accurate indication of the winner within hours although official results won’t be released until early May.

After an anti-Purnama protest last year turned violent, authorities were taking no chances and over 60,000 security forces had been deployed.

Hardline groups had pledged to station monitors at polling booths. Police blocked the plan, warning it could cause “intimidation”, but groups of hardliners appeared to be outside some polling centres in defiance of the ban.

However there was no sign of unrest and police said the election had run smoothly.

Tolerance test
Despite Purnama’s first-round victory, former education minister Baswedan, 47, was initially seen as the favourite in the run-off because the votes from a third, Muslim candidate who was knocked out were expected to go to him.

But with tension over the governor’s alleged blasphemy subsiding in recent weeks, Purnama has regained momentum and recent polls show the candidates in a dead heat.

Baswedan, an academic who was sacked from the government by Widodo, has been accused of abandoning his moderate Islamic values during the campaign by cosying up to hardliners in a bid to win the support of Muslim voters angered by Purnama’s alleged blasphemy.

Purnama’s troubles began in September when he lightheartedly said in a speech that his rivals were tricking people into voting against him using a Koranic verse, which some interpret as meaning Muslims should only choose Muslim leaders.

His long-running blasphemy trial began in December, and the verdict is expected within a few weeks.

If he does win the vote and is convicted of blasphemy, he would not automatically be barred from holding office and could avoid jail for a long time by appealing.

Many voters still back Purnama due to his record leading Jakarta since 2014. He has won praise for cleaning up the city’s once-filthy rivers and creating more green spaces, although his acerbic style has upset some.

“I voted for Ahok because I’m poor and I have felt the difference-we’re being taken care of,” said Tayem, a 62-year-old housewife who like many Indonesians goes by only one name, after casting her ballot.

But some have been swayed by the blasphemy controversy.

“As a Muslim, I will choose according to my faith,” Elva Sativia, a 33-year-old housewife, told AFP.

Ershad goes Cooch Behar to visit ancestral home

Jatiya Party chairman HM Ershad went to his ancestral home in India’s Cooch Behar on Sunday on a five-day visit.
“Our chairman left Bangladesh through Burimari Land Port for Dinhata in Cooch Behar district in India around 2pm,” Jatiya Party Rangpur City unit president Mostafizur Rahman Mostafa told UNB.
He said Ershad went there at the invitation of one of his cousins to join a family programme.
Jatiya Party secretary general Ruhul Amin Hawlader and seven other party leaders are accompanying him.
He is scheduled to return home on April 27 through the land port, Mostafa added.
UNB Lalmonirhat correspondent adds: The Jatiya Party chief hoped that the solution to the Teesta water sharing problem with India will be resolved during the tenure of the current government.
He came up with the remarks while talking to his party leaders and activists before starting his India tour.
Ershad also hoped that India will take proper steps to sign the Teesta deal in the interest of Bangladeshi farmers.
About the next general election, he said their party is preparing to field candidates in 300 parliamentary constituencies.
The former military ruler also said he is visiting different districts and talking to grassroots leaders and activists to ensure good results for the party in the next polls.

Indian top court quashes criminal complaint against Dhoni

The Supreme Court on Thursday quashed a criminal complaint against former India cricket captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni by an Andhra Pradesh resident following his depiction as Lord Vishnu by a business magazine.

Quashing the criminal complaint, the bench headed by justice Dipak Misra said that the ingredients of the offence alleged in the criminal complaint amounting to hurting the religious feelings of the complainant are not made out.

Another bench of the apex court had on 5 September last year quashed an identical complaint filed by another complainant before a court in Bengaluru.

In the magazine cover that was released in 2013, Dhoni --dressed up as Lord Vishnu -- was seen holding several objects in his hands, including a shoe.

The trial court in Karnataka had directed the registration of a case against Dhoni under section 295 which pertains to injuring or defiling a place of worship with intent to insult the religion of any class along with section 34 (common intention) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).

Dhoni was also directed to appear before the court.

Dhoni had then moved the Karnataka High Court which had refused to stall the proceedings against him and others mentioned in the complaint.

The cricketer had then filed a Special Leave Petition in the Supreme Court challenging the Karnataka High Court order.

A court in Anantapur, Andhra Pradesh had also issued a non-bailable warrant against him for allegedly hurting religious sentiments.

That had prompted Dhoni to approach the Supreme Court seeking quashing of the criminal proceedings against him.

Source: Prothom Alo

Shakib to replace Mashrafe as T20 captain

All-rounder Shakib Al Hasan has been picked for Bangladesh’s Twenty20 captaincy as Mashrafe Bin Mortaza has bidden goodbye to the T20 internationals early this month.

The decision was taken at the 16th executive committee meeting of Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) held at the BCB headquarters in the capital on Saturday.

To the surprise of his numerous fans, Bangladesh’s T20 captain Mashrafe Mortaza announced his retirement from Twenty20 international cricket on 5 April just before the first match of the T20I series against Sri Lanka in Colombo.

Shakib, who played a total of 59 T20Is, has been acting as the deputy of Mashrafe in T20 since 2014.

This world’s best all-rounder had also led Bangladesh in all of three formats - ODI, Test and T20I - from 2009 to 2011.

Bangla News Today 4 April 2017 On Somoy TV News Today Bangla News Live BD Bangla Latest News

Bangladesh vs Sri Lanka First T20 Match 2017 April 4 Bangladesh News

North Korea says ballistic missile test was a 'success'

North Korea says it "successfully" test-fired a ballistic missile on Sunday in a launch supervised by leader Kim Jong-un.

State news agency KCNA described the device, fired into the Sea of Japan, as a "surface-to-surface medium-to-long-range ballistic missile".

South Korea's defence ministry called it an armed provocation to test the response of US President Donald Trump.

North Korea's latest ballistic missile test has been widely condemned.

The US, Japan and South Korea have requested an urgent meeting of the United Nations Security Council to discuss the incident.

China said it opposed North Korean missile tests and Russia said it was concerned, calling on all parties to prevent any escalation in tensions.

'Great satisfaction'

KCNA said the missile, named the Pukguksong-2, was a "new type strategic weapon system".

It said the missile used a solid-fuel engine, which gives ballistic missiles greater range and means they can be readied for launch faster than liquid-fuel missiles.

It was a new version of a missile test-fired from a submarine in August 2016 and was fired in a high arc in consideration of neighbouring countries, the report said.

Kim Jong-un "expressed great satisfaction" over the test launch, which added "to the tremendous might of the country", the state news agency said.

North Korea said that the missile could be tipped with a nuclear warhead. Most analysts believe it is unlikely that Pyongyang has mastered the technology to make a miniaturised warhead that could be put on a missile - but they believe it is capable of reaching that goal in the future.

South Korea's defence ministry said the missile, launched from the Panghyon air base on North Korea's west coast early on Sunday, flew east about 500 km (310 miles) before falling into the sea.

Experts suggest the tests are programmed for shorter distances to avoid a missile landing on Japan.

Officials in Seoul said the rocket had been launched by a "cold-eject" system, which uses compressed gas for its initial thrust, a system employed for submarine-launched missiles.

This was the latest in a series of tests in the past year, including North Korea's fifth test of a nuclear device in September 2016.

United Nations resolutions forbid North Korea from carrying out ballistic missile tests - part of wider efforts to prevent it becoming a fully nuclear-armed power.

South Korea's foreign ministry said that "North Korea's repeated provocations show the Kim Jong-un regime's nature of irrationality, maniacally obsessed in its nuclear and missile development".

'Hostility'

Nato also condemned the missile test, with Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg urging North Korea "not to raise tensions further and to re-engage in a credible and meaningful dialogue with the international community".

The European Union joined the criticism, declaring in a statement that North Korea's "repeated disregard of its international obligations is provocative and unacceptable".

Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, standing next to Mr Trump on a visit to the United States, said the test was "absolutely intolerable". As for the US, Mr Trump said: "America stands behind Japan, its great ally, 100%."

In January, Kim Jong-un warned that his military was close to testing long-range missiles capable of delivering nuclear warheads to the United States mainland.

At the time, Mr Trump derided the claim in a tweet, saying: "It won't happen."

On a visit to South Korea last week, US Defence Secretary James Mattis said that any use of nuclear weapons by North Korea would be met with an "effective and overwhelming" response.

He also reconfirmed plans to deploy a US missile defence system in South Korea later this year.

Source: BBC NEWS

That rickshaw van goes to museum, puller gets air force job

The three-wheeler van in which prime minister Sheikh Hasina toured around a Tungipara village, Gopalganj, has been taken to Bangladesh Air Force’s Jessore base for preserving it either in the air force’s museum or in the National Museum.

Local Awami League leaders said the rickshaw van puller, Mohammad Imam Sheikh, is likely to be recruited as a staffer in the air force as well.

Jessore air force Bir Shreshtha Motiur Rahman base squadron leader Harun-ur-Rashid and assistant squadron leader Delwar Hossain picked driver Imam from the Gopalganj residence of AL’s religious affairs secretary and Sheikh Hasina’s parliamentary representative for her constituency Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah on Sunday.

The state-run news agency, Bangladesh Sangbad Sangstha aka BSS, reported that the air force officials handed over the appointment letter to Imam Sheikh at that time.

“Imam was given a job as per the directive of high officials. We are taking the van to Jessore from where it will be sent to a museum," Squadron leader Harun-or Rashid was quoted by BSS as saying.

Local AL leaders including the district AL general secretary Mahbub Ali Khan were present at the time of handing over the appointment letter.

Abdullah confirmed that Imam would be recruited as per his qualification.

“Steps have been taken to give Imam a job as per his qualification. Besides, the rickshaw van will be preserved either in the air force’s museum or in the National Museum,” said Abdullah.  

The air force members visited Imam's home in Tungipara's Sardarpara area and gave Tk 40,000 to his parents. The mayor of Tungipara municipality Ahmed Hossain Mirza presented Imam some clothes and an amount of Tk 2,000 for personal expenses.

Later, they headed toward Jessore with Imam and the van.

Imam told Prothom Alo over phone that he heard that he will be offered a job.

Imam had to quit his study and start pulling rickshaw van to run his family when he was in the fifth grade. Imam has four siblings. He bought the van taking loan.

The inhabitants of Tungipara saw an unprecedented scene on Friday morning when prime minister Sheikh Hasina visited a village by a local rickshaw van.

Her sister Sheikh Rehana's son Radwan Mujib Siddiq Bobby, his wife Peppi Siddiq and their daughter Lila Tuli Siddiq and son Kaius Mujib Siddiq accompanied Sheikh Hasina at that time.

Source: Prothom Alo