According to Gautam, apart from absolute hunger stemming from lack of food, there are at least three more types of hunger, for instance, “hidden hunger” for micronutrients such as minerals and vitamins.
[Xinhua News Agency, Jun. 2002]
According to Gautam, apart from absolute hunger stemming from lack of food, there are at least three more types of hunger, for instance, “hidden hunger” for micronutrients such as minerals and vitamins.
[Xinhua News Agency, Jun. 2002]
Disagreeing with the recent observation by an economist that a ‘silent famine’ has been prevailing in the country, the Food and Disaster Management Adviser Dr AMM Sawkat Ali yesterday categorically said a ‘hidden hunger’ is now persisting in the country rather than famine.
“When people die on a large scale due to starvation for scarcity of food then it can be termed as ‘famine’,” he said while speaking at a press briefing at the conference room of the Food and Disaster Management Ministry.
Listing the government initiatives for providing food to the marginalized people at affordable price, the Adviser, who is also in charge of the ministries of Health and Family Welfare said so far 137 metric tons of rice have been distributed under the Open Market Sale (OMS) of rice throughout the country. A total of 47 trucks have been engaged for selling of OMS rice throughout the country from the beginning of this month, he added.
He said that 40 more OMS rice trucks have added to the existing 15 in the capital city form yesterday.
He informed that 3 lakk 91 thousand and 228 people would get food under VGF programme up to the month of June as against 2 lakh 30 thousand and 328 people in the last year.
“Besides the VGF programme 44 thousand 5 hundred and 63 metric tons of rice would be provided to the distressed people under Gracious Relief (GR) programme” the Adviser said while mentioning different initiatives for the providing food to the poor of low income group.
Replying to a query he said rice has started arriving from India.
“The government has signed a contact with a private firm of India for importing 50 thousand metric tons of rice at a price of $ 397 per metric ton” he mentioned
He further said that USAID would provide 90 thousand metic tons of rice and ‘Care’ would supply it to the poor people.
He hoped that with the arrival of new harvest ‘Boro’ there would be no food crisis in the country.
Highlighting the importance of employment for the marginalized people Dr Sawkat Ali said Tk 100 crore has already been distributed to the District Commissioners (DC’s) for creating employment and income generating projects for the poor people.
He said that per person will get Tk 150 as wage per day labour under Food for Work Programme, repairing roads and embankments, canal digging, tree plantation and nurturing.
“Local Government and Engineering Department (LGED) is also working with different programmes at 118 upazilas of the country for employment of the poor people,” the Adviser added.
Secretary and high officials of the Food and Disaster Management ministry among others, were present on the occasion.
Five new advisers to the caretaker government were sworn in yesterday evening at Bangabhaban to replace the advisers who resigned in the last few days.
The new advisers are AMM Shawkat Ali, former agriculture secretary, AF Hassan Ariff, former attorney general, Hossain Zillur Rahman, executive chairman of Power and Participation Research Centre, Major General (retd) Ghulam Quader, former director general of National Security Intelligence, and Rasheda K Choudhury, chief executive officer of Campaign for Popular Education.
Chief Adviser Fakhruddin Ahmed is likely to distribute today the portfolios of over 16 ministries among the newly appointed advisers, sources in the cabinet division said.
Four advisers to Bangladesh’s interim government resigned Tuesday, local television reports said.Mainul Hosein, Geetiyara Safia Chowdhury, Tapan Chowdhury and Matiur Rahman, who have been in charge of various ministries since the interim government took over in January last year, sent their resignation letters to President Iajuddin Ahmed.
Mainul and Tapan told reporters that they tendered their resignation from the Council of Advisors, as the government desired.
Earlier on December 26, Education Adviser Ayub Quadri resigned in the wake of Paris-bound artefact scandal.
The resignations came on the eve of Fakhruddin Ahmed’s caretaker government’s completion of one year in office on January 12.
Official confirmation of the resignations was not immediately available.
Chief Adviser’s Press Secretary Syed Fahim Munaim told reporters that the four had resigned on personal grounds. He said the Chief Adviser’s Office sent the resignation letters to the president’s office yesterday.
Their replacements are to be sworn in today at the Bangabhaban, the chief adviser’s press secretary said.
Meanwhile, policymakers of the caretaker government were searching for persons to fill in for the five in the remaining months of the interim regime supposed to hand over power to an elected government by December this year.
After the caretaker government system was introduced in 1996, this is the second instance of a group of advisers leaving their office before completion of job.
Sources close to the caretaker government’s policymakers said Chief Adviser Fakhruddin Ahmed might address the nation on January 12. In his speech, he would seek to assure people that his government is committed to mitigate their sufferings and resignations of the advisers would only help him avoid his words being perceived as empty rhetoric, added the sources.
Political analysts and politicians however observed that it would be difficult for the interim regime to improve the overall situation by only brining changes in the council of advisers.
(Original News From The Daily Star)
Investigators yesterday retrieved some broken pieces of the two stolen Vishnu statuettes from a dump on the city outskirts and the National Museum authorities confirmed that those belong to the 1,500-year-old relics.
So far, the law enforcers have managed to gather 27 pieces of the Gupta era idols–‘Vishnu’ and ‘Bust of Vishnu’–at Baliarpur of Aminbazar.
Of the fragments salvaged, 20 make up about 25% of the black terracotta statuette of Vishnu where the Hindu god stands with goddesses Saraswati and Laxmi on either side. The remainder pieces comprise a little over 10% of the bust, Swapan Kumar Biswas, acting keeper of the National Museum, told The Daily Star last evening.
Sub-inspector Monu Sohel Imtiaz, investigation officer of the case filed for the theft, said the retrieved pieces form 80% of the goddess portion and only a fraction of the hand [one hand was already missing] and legs of Lord Vishnu.
They make up upper part of the biscuit colour bust including most of its crown, he added.
The investigators, meanwhile, have yet to know the motive for the theft and destruction of the age-old objects that were stolen from the Zia International Airport (ZIA) last weekend. The two along with 143 others had been awaiting shipment to Paris for an exhibition at the Guimet Museum.
“We are now concentrating on further interrogation of the arrestees and efforts to hunt down Abbas,” Additional Director General of Rapid Action Battalion (Rab) Colonel Gulzar Uddin Ahmed told The Daily Star yesterday.
Earlier, a number of the arrestees have confessed to having a role in stealing the seventh century images and tearing those to shreds. They have named Abbas to be the mastermind.
The Rab official also said that the chips that have been recovered so far would be handed over to the investigation officer and used as evidence in trial.
Though they were confirmed to be of the stolen relics, if the authorities want, reconfirmation can be done. Besides, there could always be a scientific test in this regard, Swapan Kumar said.
He added that they identified the pieces primarily by matching them with photographs of the statues. In cases of those too tiny to match the photographs, they were depending on their experience.
“It would have felt great had the artefacts been recovered intact. It really hurts to see them smashed into pieces as they can neither be remade nor be restored to their previous condition,” said the stand-in keeper.
Captain Mahbubul Haider of Rab, one of those involved in the recovery drive, said “The pieces that are being retrieved are very small and I’m afraid we won’t be able to get back every part of the relics.”
Talking to The Daily Star, he also described the sequence of events leading to the retrieval.
He said as it took six days for them to obtain the confessions, the Dhaka City Corporation (DCC) cleaners by that time had taken remains of the broken statuettes collected as garbage from Uttara to a vast 300-acre dump at Baliarpur.
Unable to trace the broken off parts in Uttara, the investigators contacted the DCC staff who had collected the garbage of December 22. With help of the DCC staffers, the law enforcers marked the area at Baliarpur where garbage from Uttara is usually dumped.
They began search through the trash spread over 200 by 200 yards Thursday but did not find anything that day.
They continued scavenging through the waste piled up over the days since disposal of the artefacts and at around 11:00am yesterday they struck the leg of Vishnu.
Most of the pieces were recovered late in the afternoon. Working throughout the day, some 200 Rab personnel and 25 DCC teams rounded up around 200 pieces. Later, two National Museum officials including Swapan Kumar identified 27 pieces as parts of the stolen idols.
Shafiqul Alam, the other member of the identification team, is a conservator (wood and paper).
Observers said instead of someone specialising in wood and paper, terracotta experts should have been involved in the job to ensure the identification is accurate and flawless.
INVESTIGATION
A Rab official seeking anonymity said Abbas of the ‘Abbas-Nasir’ group, a ZIA-based gang accused of committing the theft, is known as a smuggler in Uttara. His passport seized by the law enforcers identifies him as a businessman.
The elite crime-buster added that Abbas, who has numerous allegations of smuggling against him, had travelled to many countries. Besides smuggling, his group has long been involved in stealing from the cargo terminal.
The Rab was raiding different places in the city and elsewhere to arrest six to seven members of the ring.
The motive for the heist could become clear once Abbas is captured, said a Rab official.
The adviser to Bangladesh’s army-backed interim government for education and cultural affairs, Ayub Quadri, resigned on Wednesday amid an inquiry into the theft of two rare archaeological artefacts, his family and friends said.
They said Quadri tendered his resignation citing unexplained personal grounds but government officials said it was linked to the theft of two statues of Hindu Lord Vishnu on Saturday.
The antiques were lost while being boarded in a Paris-bound plane at the Dhaka airport, which was waiting to fly a consignment of antiques from Bangladesh for an exhibition at the Guimet museum in Paris.
Officials at the Dhaka National Museum said the Vishnu antiques were sculptured about 1,500 years ago and were among the rarest archaeological objects in Bnagladesh.
Quadri later told reporters he would share responsibility for the loss of the artefacts and might consider quitting his government post.
The first consignment of artefacts was already flown to Paris by a French aircraft before authorities stopped the second shipment following detection of the theft.
“The government has decided to regret to the Guimet Museum in Paris that it would not be possible to go ahead … as planned,” said a statement from the office of the head of the interim government on Tuesday.
The decision was made as opposition from art lovers and conservers against the shipment of the rare artefacts to France had intensified following theft of two Vishnu statues.
Police detained 15 suspects and were interrogating them.The art lovers had earlier protested against the shipment as they were worried artefacts might be stolen during shipment.