PM Sheikh Hasina and India’s PM Manmohan Singh unveil the foundation plaque for Rampal power plant; Bangladesh requests United Nations to send observer to monitor upcoming general election; BNP leader Salauddin Quader Chowdhury sentenced to death for comm
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    • According to reports, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and India’s Prime Minister Manmohan Singh unveiled the foundation plaque for Rampal power plant on October 5, 2013. Though the Rampal project site is in Bagerhat, the unveiling ceremony was held at Bheramara in Kushtia, where the two leaders also inaugurated the Bangladesh-India Power Transmission Centre. Dr. Singh joined the programme through a video conference from New Delhi. Through the Bheramara power transmission centre, Bangladesh will get every day 500 megawatt (MW) of electricity .This is the first time in South Asia that the two countries are trading electricity. Bangladesh on October 5, 2013 got 175MW of power, which will gradually go up to 250MW a day next month and to 500MW at the end of the next month. Hasina also inaugurated a 360MW gas-fired power plant in Bheramara.1

    Reports noted that Bangladesh has officially requested the United Nations to send its delegation to observe the upcoming general election expected to be held between October 25, 2013 and January 24, 2014. 2

    According to reports, in the first-ever war crimes verdict against any BNP leader, a special tribunal sentenced Salauddin Quader Chowdhury to death on October 1, 2013 for committing crimes against humanity and genocide during the country’s Liberation War in 1971. The BNP lawmaker was found guilty on nine of the 23 charges brought against him. The International Crimes Tribunal-1 awarded him death penalty on four charges — his involvement in two acts of genocide, the killing of Nutan Chandra Singha, and Awami League leader Mozaffar Ahmed and his son in Raozan of Chittagong. Salauddin, 64, was also sentenced to 20 years’ imprisonment each on three charges and five years’ each on two charges. 3

    In other development, according to reports, the government of Bangladesh honoured 60 more foreign friends at a ceremony for their invaluable contributions to the country’s Liberation War in 1971 on October 1, 2013. This was the seventh and the last such function organised by the present government during its tenure, where two categories of award — “Bangladesh Liberation War Honour” and “Friends of Liberation War Honour” — were conferred on the foreign nationals at the function. Of the award recipients, 44 were from India including former Indian president Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed and former Indian prime minister Gulzarilal Nanda, four each from Pakistan and the USA, two each from the UK, Japan and Egypt, and one each from Sri Lanka and Turkey. The 58 others were honoured with “Friends of Liberation War Honour”. 4

    According to reports, Asian Development Bank said on October 2, 2013 that Bangladesh’s economic growth will slide to 5.8 percent in the current fiscal year due to rising political uncertainty and weakening exports amid a dull consumer and investment demand,. The projection is significantly lower than the government’s estimate at 7.2 percent for fiscal 2013-14. 5

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