Rakib Khan’s Blog

Bangladesh’s military-backed government will reopen negotiations with Indian conglomerate Tata on Sunday on the group’s record three-billion-dollar investment plan, officials said.

Senior Tata officials led by its executive director Alan Rosling will meet top government bureaucrats nearly two years after the conglomerate postponed what would be the biggest single foreign investment in Bangladesh.

The Indian salt-to-telecoms giant offered to build a steel plant, two power plants, a fertiliser plant and a coal mine back in 2006, after upgrading a 2004 plan.

Bangladesh investment board chief Kamaluddin Ahmed confirmed the talks, but refused to provide agenda details.

A Tata official said the group was encouraged by “positive indications” from the Dhaka government.

“Yes, there is an intention to move it forward,” said Tata’s Bangladesh chief Syed Manzer Hossain.

He said the company was ready to discuss all the issues.

“We submitted it in 2006 and it’s now 2008. Obviously there are some changes. The government may have some issues. We’ll evaluate the changing scenario after we meet,” he said.

Bangladesh has been under emergency rule since January 11 2007 when the president cancelled elections amid allegations of poll rigging.

The government has promised to “take up all necessary projects” to promote long-term economic growth and vowed to clean up corruption before restoring democracy and holding elections before the end of 2008.

The Bangladesh Nationalist Party government had promised a decision on the Tata project by June 2006.

But after two years of negotiations, it halted the deal, saying political sensitivities just ahead of the polls make it difficult to reach a decision and left it for a new government after parliamentary elections.

Anti-Indian sentiment is rampant among Bangladeshi voters as many believe India seeks to bully its smaller neighbor and political leaders traditionally fear being seen courting the regional power.

Source: Yahoo! News Service

The country’s telecom watchdog has formally invited applications from eligible entrepreneurs for license to establish call centres.

Any individual or enterprise, both local and foreign, can apply for establishing call centre, either individually or in joint venture, with a payment of Tk 5, 000 in favor of Bangladesh Telecommunication and Regulatory Commission (BTRC).

BTRC officials said the commission has not set any deadline for submitting application.

The BTRC has restricted foreign equity to a maximum of 45 percent in case of joint venture Call Centre projects.

A call centre is an office where a company’s inbound calls are received, or outbound calls are made. Call centres have become increasingly popular in a world, where many companies have centralized their customer support functions.

India earns around US$10 billion per year by conducting call centre outsourcing business.

“The telecom sector can be a major source of foreign currency earning. It can create employment opportunities, as there is a potentially big market for call centres in our country,” said Manzurul Alam, chairman of BTRC, at a meeting on call centre recently.

Some 3,000 interested individuals attended a ‘public hearing’, organized by BTRC last month on call centre, and expressed their interest to set up call centres in Bangladesh, BTRC sources said.

The proposed call centres will not only receive subscribers’ calls, it will also provide data and information processing services.

Bangladesh and India are set to sign a supplementary deal next week on the commissioning of the Maitree Express, cross-border passenger train service between the two next-door neighbours, by Pahela Baishakh.

The Dhaka–Kolkata passenger train service will initially begin without a box-type temporary fence on no man’s land on the Bangladesh side as it is yet to complete its preparation for fencing, communications ministry officials told New Age on Wednesday.

The Bangladesh army chief, General Moeen U Ahmed, on his recent visit to India, said the cross-border train service may begin on Pahela Baishakh.

‘If everything goes well, the train will start running on Pahela Baishakh,’ Moeen told the newsmen after a visit to the Indian border station Gede on February 29. Pahela Baishakh falls on April 14 in both the countries this time.

‘As we have planned to move our customs and immigration point very near the international border, we need some more time to put up the fence,’ a high ministry official said.

Bangladesh will construct the fence similar to that of a tennis court and the design was in the final stages.

The ministry officials said the deal for the Maitree Express would be signed at a three-day inter-governmental railway officials’ meeting scheduled to begin on March 23 in Dhaka.

PN Verma, member (traffic) of the Indian railway ministry, will lead his country to the talks while the home team will be led by additional secretary of the Bangladesh communications ministry ATKM Ismail.

A high-level team, led by the Bangladesh home secretary, Abdul Karim, is scheduled to visit Darshana on March 21 to asses the preparation for immigration and security measures required at the immigration point on the Bangladesh side.

Bangladesh has initially set up the immigration centre in a rented warehouse at Darshana. The centre will later be shifted near the international border.

The cabinet on February 24 approved the Indian proposal for the construction of a box-type temporary fence on no man’s land between the two countries, clearing the way for the commissioning of direct passenger train service.

The proposal will be included in the Indo-Bangladesh agreement signed earlier, on the basis of which the train service will be in operation till mid-2010.

The commissioning of the train service was delayed as the two countries failed to narrow down their difference over ‘security cage’ on the railway.

As per the earlier agreement regarding the frequency of the service, two trains are supposed to run a week, one from Bangladesh and the other from India.

A train will leave Dhaka for Kolkata every Saturday and travel back to Dhaka on Sunday. Another train will leave Kolkata every Saturday and will go back on Sunday. The Maitree Express will have the capacity to carry 308 passengers at a time.

The Indo-Bangladesh passenger train will now run on the route between the cantonment station in Dhaka and Chitpur in Kolkata through the Darshana border.

Train fares will be between $8 and $20 depending on the class for the 536km journey — 416km in Bangladesh and 120km in India.

Dhaka and New Delhi signed the agreement on the resumption of direct train service in 2001. A series of meetings have taken place at different levels between the two sides since then.

Source: New Age, A Bangladeshi Daily.

The Hong Kong women’s team will tour Bangladesh for eight days starting next week. Between 20 and 29 March the side will play four one-day matches against the Bangladesh women’s team.

The Bangladesh Cricket Board has selected 14 players for the training camp ahead of the tour, while there will also be four reserves.

Bangladesh women Shathira Zakir Jessy, Shukhtara, Ayesha Akhter, Salma Khatun, Irin Sultana, Chamily Khatun, Rumana Akhter, Panna Ghosh, Shamima Akhter Pinky, Jahanara Alam, Lily Rani, Tithi Rani, Papiya Haque Babu, Mina Khatun.

Reserves Fatematuz Zahora, Rifat Ara, Mahmuda Khan, Lata Mondal.

HTC, a handset maker, has introduced six PDA mobile phones in Bangladesh.

The mobile phones, mainly meant for corporate users, will be available in local market by mid next month, Kevin Hou, South East Asian managing director of HTC (High Tech Computer Corporation), told a launching ceremony in Dhaka yesterday.

“The growing corporate sector people in Bangladesh need this type of phone,” said Hou.

Melvin Chua, product marketing manager of HTC, said the company will set up a services centre in Bangladesh in association with its local partner Global Cellular.

The models of the new phones are HTC Touch, Touch Dual, Touch Cruise, HTC S730, SHIFT and TYTN 2.

Hou said the prices of the phones will range between Tk 35,000 and Tk 1.05 lakh each.

Tariqul Islam, chief operating officer of Global Cellular, was also present at the function.

Four new private airlines have rushed in to meet the fast-growing demand for air travel, seizing the initiative from Bangladesh Biman International, which has remained sluggish after its belated privatisation last year.

This is aviation boom time in Bangladesh with the launch of three private airlines in the last eight months and another set to start commercial flights next month.

Private airline operators say the industry is growing by 7.5-8 percent every year, with a market size of passengers alone swelling to around 35 billion takas ($6 million).

‘The aviation industry witnessed a 7.6 percent growth globally last year and it was also the same in Bangladesh,’ said Tasbirul Ahmed Choudhury, chairman and managing director of United Airways (BD) Ltd., which started operation in July 2007.

An ailing Biman, with its losses piled up and short of funds to refurbish its fleet, could not meet the passenger traffic last year, mostly of Bangladeshis working abroad, forcing the government to bring in foreign airlines to transport an estimated 130,000 passengers, who were on the verge of losing their jobs because of the delays.

Around four million passengers fly from Zia International Airport (ZIA) to different foreign destinations every year, while about 180,000 to 240,000 more aspiring passengers cannot go to the Middle East due mainly due to lack of seats, Wahidur Rahman of Anmole told The Daily Star newspaper.

Apart from United Airways, Best Air made its debut in mid-January and Aviana Airways, with the brand name Royal Bengal, in late January, both on domestic routes so far.

Earlier, GMG Airlines was the only private airline operating on domestic routes along with national flag carrier Biman Bangladesh Airlines Ltd.

Anmole Albab Airlines Ltd, another private airline, under the brand name of A2 Air is set to operate international passenger flights from Bangladesh in March this year.

Initially, it will operate flights to the Middle East and Far Eastern countries.

‘We have already completed all the procedures to collect two Boeing-747 aircraft to operate flights on international routes,’ said Wahidur Rahman Rana, chief financial officer of Anmole Albab Airlines.

Non-resident Bangladeshis’ contribution to the industry is significant as they, mostly from Britain and the US, have launched two of the four private airlines.

The private airlines are also planning to add more aircraft to their fleet so that flights can be expanded to international destinations.

United Airways has already purchased another Dash-8-100 and signed a letter of intent with a Singapore-based company to lease an Airbus A300 or A310. The airline is also negotiating to lease a Boeing 747 or 300.

Best Air is going to add another Boeing 737 to its fleet by March this year.

The new private airlines are operating domestic flights on Dhaka to Chittagong, Cox’s Bazar, Sylhet and Jessore routes so far.

Besides, GMG is operating international flights from Dhaka to Kolkata, New Delhi, Kathmandu, Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur and Dubai.

The other private airlines are also planning to launch international flights.

‘It’ll be very difficult to survive by operating only on domestic routes; it’s essential to go for international routes,’ said Tasbir of United Airways, founded by non-resident Bangladeshis mostly from Britain.

He also said they are now waiting for the government nod to operate international flights on Dhaka-Dubai-London, Dhaka-Kuala Lumpur, Dhaka-Dubai, Chittagong-Dubai, Dhaka-Kolkata, and Dhaka-Kathmandu routes.

Like United, Best Air is also planning to launch international flights.

‘We’ll start our international flights on the Dhaka-Bangkok route in March this year and on Dhaka to Kuala Lumpur, Kolkata, Chennai and Dubai routes within the next six months,’ said Mohsin Rana, acting manager (marketing and sales) of Best Air.

The private operators said seat utilisation of their aircraft ranges from 30 percent to 60 percent.

The ever-growing demand for air transport on international routes prompted them to go for international flights, they added.

Bangladesh could take a share of Denmark’s big ICT market by becoming an outsourcing destination of the European country, Einar H. Jensen, Danish ambassador in Dhaka, told a seminar yesterday.

“Though we have a very small population, our still rising ICT market is big that requires additional manpower that is not possible to collect from our internal sources,” Jensen told the seminar titled ‘Software and IT Services Outsourcing to Denmark’.

The seminar was organised on the sidelines of the five-day Software exposition that began Thursday at Bangladesh China Friendship Conference Centre, organised by Association of Software and Information Services (BASIS).

The envoy further said the wide use of English in Bangladesh is an added benefit of bringing Danish ICT companies to Bangladesh.

Rafiqul Islam Rowly, president of BASIS, said, “Though the universities produce a good number of people every year, they cannot fulfill the market demand as their curricula do not match with the market requirements.”

“This is why we proposed to the ministry of Science and ICT for establishing an institution that will groom up graduates and other IT experts,” Rowly said.

TIM Nurul Kabir, convener of SoftExpo 2008 and director of BASIS, also spoke at the function, among others.

Source: The Daily Star

We all know that health is wealth. It is not just health; we need good and sound health. A sound health helps also to have a sound mind. In order to maintain a sound health, we all know we should do regular exercise.
Regular exercise will help us a lot. If you do a Google search using the keywords “ benefit of regular exercise” you will find many good articles from authority web sites.
Then the next question comes as how to exercise regularly. Certainly we can do exercise indoor or outdoor.
Outdoor exercise:

We can go to health club or gyms. There are many advantage of going to gyms for exercise. You don’t need to buy equipments, choose the type of equipment and exercise that fit with your lifestyles. You may also get experts help there.
There are other types of outdoor activities can be taken in the form of exercise – walking, jogging, playing, swimming are good examples.
But not all loves or get time to go to gyms or outside for exercise. In that case indoor exercise is good alternatives.
Indoor exercise:

If you do exercise at home, other than doing some free hand exercise, you may buy some exercise equipment. Treadmills are one of the good fitness equipments you may consider to have. Exercise with treadmills provides health benefits similar to walking.
Treadmills like ProForm Treadmills has power inclines. Adjusting the tread’s incline which leads to greater effort and burning of calories.

Hutbazar.com (A sister concern of RIGHT IT) is going to arrange one day symposium on SEO and out sourcing from Bangladesh. This meet will be held on February 01, 2008. All webmaster forums’ members from Bangladesh can participate.

For registration please visit at fill-up the form at DHAKA SEO MEET 2008

You can now enjoy shopping while enjoying the comforts of your home as shopping over the internet is getting more and more popular around the world and the influence can also be felt in Asian countries. HutBazar, an internet store, is owned and operated by the professionals at Right IT Corporation and if you are looking forward to do your shopping online or to send gifts to your loved ones in Bangladesh then HutBazar is your destination.

HutBazar is an internet shop that features a vast collection of different items. It features different kinds of items and these vary from beauty products, books, CDs, clothes, electronic items, sports items and much more. In short, you can find almost everything at HutBazar and so, HutBazar is an ideal internet store if you want to send gifts to Bangladesh or even if you are a resident of Bangladesh and the site entertains international clients as well.

In addition to the vast range of products, the site is user-friendly and so, it is pretty easy to find the desired item. The site has a detailed category structure and it is easy to navigate through the different categories to find the desired item. All the items available on the site have a detailed description along with a photograph. So, you can easily get the idea about the product and also about its appearance. You can also sort your products by the brand, item name, price and more. Once you have found your desired item, you can add it to the cart and then proceed further to make the payment. The best part is that you can do all this with a click of the button while enjoying the comforts of your home. Shopping in Bangladesh was never so easy.

Also, the site supports a number of established payment processors and the site lists the prices in two currencies, USD and TK and so, you can easily compare the prices with other internet stores available on the web. The site also provides a help desk and so, you can easily contact the staff whenever you are in trouble. The office is located at Dhaka and so, you can stay assure that you are dealing with a right store.

All in all, the store offers a wide range of products and it is easy to use the store. So, you are bound to have a good shopping experience while enjoying the comforts of your home. So, why don’t you just order a bouquet of flowers for your significant other and experience the pleasure of online shopping.