India has been erecting the barbed wire fence along its 4,095-km border with Bangladesh passing through West Bengal, Tripura, Assam, Meghalaya and Mizoram to check trans-border movement of militants, prevent infiltration and prevent border crimes. As per international norms, the barbed wire fencing has to be built 150-yards inside India from the zero line of the international border.
“For erecting the fence (at 150-yards from the border line) along the 841-km of the 856-km India-Bangladesh border with Tripura, over 8,730 Indian families’ homes, paddy fields, lands, farms and other assets had fallen outside the fence (making them) vulnerable,” Tripura revenue and finance minister Badal Choudhury said.
He said: “Due to stipulated distance for putting up the fence, over 19,359 acres of land, including farmland, have fallen outside the fencing in Tripura alone.”
“Following Tripura government’s persistent demand, New Delhi appraised Dhaka about the problems in erecting the fencing at the 150-yards from the boundary and the Bangladesh government has allowed India to erect the fencing at the zero line’ in certain stretches to save Indian properties and congested human habitations.”
DHAKA: Indian telecom major Bharti Airtel has an “unfair market advantage” over its competitors in Bangladesh, a report said here Sunday.
The draft Cellular Mobile Telecommunication Operators Licence Renewal Guidelines 2011, prepared by the Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC) on behalf of the posts and telecommunications ministry, allows unfair market advantage to Airtel, the latest operator to enter the market, “telecom industry insiders” were quoted as saying in New Age.
Right from Airtel’s 70 percent stake in Warid Telecom for $100,000 to allowing Airtel to exchange spectrum band access free of charge, “the government and the commission have displayed a bias towards Airtel in their treatment of the telecom industry”.
Four leading operators – Grameenphone, Orascom (Banglalink), Axiata (Robi) and Pacific Bangladesh Telecom Ltd (Citycell) – are up for licence renewal in November, after the expiry of the 15-year term of their licences.
Airtel, which acquired the licence in December 2005 for $50 million, is not up for renewal until 2020. It gets a window of nine years in which it will be providing services for much lower rates, the report says.
According to the draft, operators will need to pay application fee, licence renewal fee, annual licence fee, revenue sharing, social obligation fund as well as separate licence fees and charge for spectrum use.
The spectrum fees have been set at Tk 1.5 billion ($20 million) per MHz of GSM 1,800MHz band frequency and Tk 3 billion ($40 million) per MHz of GSM 900MHz band to be multiplied with the utilisation factor of each of the operators.
In total, Grameenphone would have to pay Tk 55 billion ($755 million), Banglalink Tk 29 billion ($410 million), Robi Tk 30 billion ($400 million) and Citycell Tk 6.2 billion ($85 million).
Top officials of the four leading operators say the proposed fee is too high and will force the operators to increase prices for services.
“Outside of Grameenphone, the three other operators still operate on losses and, therefore, we do not understand the justification of this staggering fee,” a top official of Banglalink said.
An official said Airtel’s promotional offer of dinner with Indian actors Saif Ali Khan and Kareena Kapoor was against BTRC regulations. On complaints from other mobile operators, BTRC just issued a letter to all operators to not flout rules, foregoing any punitive action against Airtel.
[ P.S. These news items were missing from main pages of main stream print and electronic media in Bangladesh. May be someone can find some mention of the above news in a one column 2 inch news on the 17th page. Both the news mentioned above deserved high value treatment and lack of such trreatment means the news was missing in Bangladesh media.]
April 17, 2011 at 5:34 pm
[ The Bangladesh Prime Minister, Sheikh Hasina, had telephoned External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee during the mutiny to ask for assistance from the international community but had not been specific about the kind of help she needed. Mr. Mukherjee had offered “to be responsive” if needed. ]
http://www.thehindu.com/news/the-ind…cle1574326.ece
Important to thing to notice here is Awami regime calling india to intervene in Bangladesh internal matters and asking india conatct other foreign countries. Just like any indian provincial govt would do. This proving what has been by many media, opposition and Bangladeshis, that is –
From the beggining of the term, Hasina and Awami regime made Bangladesh acting as an indian provincial govt by calling indian minister to intervene and asking to contact foreign country on behalf of Bangladesh.
April 18, 2011 at 11:44 am
Without India’s active help, was it possible to be independent at all? Please give some back..
May 18, 2011 at 12:34 pm
Here Awami regime out to destroy poultry industry that had been build over last 15-20 years.
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Decision to import eggs, chicks from India
Poultry industry to be hit severely
Yasir Wardad
The government’s decision to import eggs and day-old chicks (DOC) from India would lead to a great loss for the already affected local poultry industry.
The decision of import should be withdrawn immediately while 5.0 per cent Advance Income Tax (AIT) on maize should also be withdrawn, the industry insiders said.
The commerce ministry has not yet changed its decision to import 10 million eggs and DOC, which would lead to closure of thousands of small farms and a great loss to the industry, the poultry industry insiders said.
Talking to the FE they said, the decision seemed to them as a mystery as the local production had surpassed the demand.
According to the Breeders Association of Bangladesh (BAB), the local farmers are now producing 15 million eggs a day against the demand of 13 million.
The breeders are now hatching 7-8 million pieces of broiler DOC and 0.5 to 0.6 million layer DOC a week against the local demand of 6 to 6.5 million and 0.35 million respectively, according to BAB.
Convenor of National Poultry Industry Coordination Committee Mashiur Rahman said, this is not import of eggs and chicks, rather this is an import of diseases.
He said: “OIE-World Organisation for Animal Health imposed ban on the import of eggs and live bird from an avian influenza-affected country. As far as we know, India is an avian flu-affected country.”
It is not realiseable why the government allows import of eggs and live birds from a bird flu-affected country, he said.
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Full article:
http://www.thefinancialexpress-bd.com/more.php?news_id=136201&date=2011-05-19