BdNews24: GrameenPhone Fined Tk 250 crore: BTRC: "GrameenPhone Fined Tk 250 crore: Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC)
Fri, Aug 15th, 2008 1:42 am BdST
Dhaka, Aug 14 (bdnews24.com) -- BTRC has fined Grameenphone Tk 250 crore for illegal VoIP business, the second time the country's largest mobile phone operator has been penalised for such rogue activities, the telecoms regulators announced Thursday.
GP's directer of information Syed Yamin Bakht told bdnews24.com that the company had received notice of the fine and had already made a payment.
Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission said the Tk 250 crore financial penalty came as GP provided E1 connectivity to third parties enabling the use of Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP).
BTRC launched a full investigation and confirmed the company's illegal VoIP connectivities after suspicions arose in January this year, the statement said.
In 2007, GP paid a fine of Tk 168.40 crore for similar offences.
BTRC said it hoped telecommunication operators would refrain from facilitating illegal VoIP ventures, directly or indirectly.
'The operators are expected to cooperate with the government to prevent such activities in the future,' the statement quoted BTRC chief Manzurul Alam as saying.
The BTRC chairman added that no-one will be spared if found involved in any ca"
Saturday, August 16, 2008
Google AdSense: Showing clicks but no earnings?
Inside AdSense: Seeing clicks but no revenue?
Have you ever checked your reports and noticed that you have clicks reported, but no revenue? We'd like to explain why this may happen, as we frequently receive emails and questions on our Help Forum about this issue. What you're seeing may be due to one of the following:
Have you ever checked your reports and noticed that you have clicks reported, but no revenue? We'd like to explain why this may happen, as we frequently receive emails and questions on our Help Forum about this issue. What you're seeing may be due to one of the following:
- Allowed Sites setup
The Allowed Sites feature allows you to specify a list of sites where ads from your account may be displayed. If you're using this feature, you'll need to make sure that you've listed all sites where you'd like to display your AdSense ad code.
To check if this is the case, log into your account and visit the 'Allowed Sites' page under your AdSense Setup tab. If the radio button 'Allow any site to show ads for my account ' is populated, you're not being affected by this issue, and you should continue to #2 below. However, if 'Only allow certain sites to show ads for my account' is populated, review the list of sites in the box below -- are all the sites you own listed in this box? If the answer is 'no', you won't be credited for clicks on the missing sites. Please be sure to add all of the sites where you'd like to display your AdSense ad code.
We've noticed some confusion among publishers who have entered the sites of advertisers they'd like to see on their pages into the Allowed Sites list. Please know that this is not the case, as it's not possible to request ads for a particular page - the sites you enter into this box can only be sites where your ads can be placed. - Invalid clicks
It's possible that you have some clicks that our monitoring system has considered to be invalid. As we've mentioned before, we monitor all clicks and impressions on Google ads for any activity that may artificially drive up an advertiser's costs or a publisher's earnings. Any clicks that our system considers invalid will still appear on your 'Overview' page, under the Reports tab. However, because our advertisers aren't charged for these clicks and impressions, we won't show the earnings for this activity. If you're concerned about suspicious activity in your account, we recommend reviewing your site's logs and letting us know about the situation.
Rest assured that AdSense accounts are properly credited for all clicks and impressions we consider to be valid. We'll post your finalized earnings for a given month on your 'Payment History' page during the first week of the following month. For more information about invalid clicks, please review our Help Center.
Thursday, August 14, 2008
Information by Bauani: Google Apps Hit by Prolonged Gmail Access Problem
Information by Bauani: Google Apps Hit by Prolonged Gmail Access Problem
A technical problem hit an undetermined number of Gmail users,
including paying subscribers to the Google Apps hosted software
suite, locking them out of their accounts for about 15 hours on
Wednesday and early Thursday.
Google first acknowledged the problem in the official discussion
forums for Gmail and Google Apps shortly after 2 p.m. U.S. Eastern
Time on Wednesday and declared the problem solved at almost 5 a.m. on
Thursday.
A Google official posting status updates on the Apps forum wrote that
the problem affected "a small subset" of Apps users, without being
more specific.
More than 500,000 businesses and universities with about 10 million
active users have signed up for the free and fee-based versions of
Google Apps.
The problem, which also affected stand-alone users of Gmail, made it
impossible for users to log in to their accounts. They got a "502
Server Error" message when they tried to log in.
In the main Google Apps Discussion Group thread devoted to this
incident, administrators complained loudly about the length of the
outage and the lack of status update details offered by Google
officials.
A "502" error hit Gmail on July 16 as well, and also led to a long
outage for affected users, according to postings in the discussion
forums.
A day before this week's problem struck, Dave Girouard, president of
Google's Enterprise unit, talked up Google Apps at the Pacific Crest
Technology Leadership Forum.
Girouard said Google has big plans to aggressively expand the
features and capabilities of the suite, while keeping the price of
the Premier fee-based version at US$50 per-user annually.
Google, Salesforce.com, IBM, Amazon, Hewlett-Packard and other major
vendors are big backers of cloud computing and the software-as-a-
service (SaaS) model for delivering applications and computing
resources via the Internet.
However, outages that leave users without access to such a basic
business tool as e-mail for extended periods of time spook business
and IT managers considering Web hosted software like Google Apps and
cloud computing offers like Amazon Web Services.
When something goes wrong with the hardware or software in the
vendors' data centers and the performance and availability of the
software or computing services are affected, there is little that IT
and business managers can do but wait for the problem to be solved,
while their end users complain and demand information and solutions
that are out of the IT department's reach.
"Seriously...It has been two hours. Can you provide us with another
update? For a company with your reputation, I'm absolutely shocked at
the apparent absence of customer service," wrote a Google Apps
administrator on the discussion forum on Wednesday. "This amount of
down time is unacceptable."
A technical problem hit an undetermined number of Gmail users,
including paying subscribers to the Google Apps hosted software
suite, locking them out of their accounts for about 15 hours on
Wednesday and early Thursday.
Google first acknowledged the problem in the official discussion
forums for Gmail and Google Apps shortly after 2 p.m. U.S. Eastern
Time on Wednesday and declared the problem solved at almost 5 a.m. on
Thursday.
A Google official posting status updates on the Apps forum wrote that
the problem affected "a small subset" of Apps users, without being
more specific.
More than 500,000 businesses and universities with about 10 million
active users have signed up for the free and fee-based versions of
Google Apps.
The problem, which also affected stand-alone users of Gmail, made it
impossible for users to log in to their accounts. They got a "502
Server Error" message when they tried to log in.
In the main Google Apps Discussion Group thread devoted to this
incident, administrators complained loudly about the length of the
outage and the lack of status update details offered by Google
officials.
A "502" error hit Gmail on July 16 as well, and also led to a long
outage for affected users, according to postings in the discussion
forums.
A day before this week's problem struck, Dave Girouard, president of
Google's Enterprise unit, talked up Google Apps at the Pacific Crest
Technology Leadership Forum.
Girouard said Google has big plans to aggressively expand the
features and capabilities of the suite, while keeping the price of
the Premier fee-based version at US$50 per-user annually.
Google, Salesforce.com, IBM, Amazon, Hewlett-Packard and other major
vendors are big backers of cloud computing and the software-as-a-
service (SaaS) model for delivering applications and computing
resources via the Internet.
However, outages that leave users without access to such a basic
business tool as e-mail for extended periods of time spook business
and IT managers considering Web hosted software like Google Apps and
cloud computing offers like Amazon Web Services.
When something goes wrong with the hardware or software in the
vendors' data centers and the performance and availability of the
software or computing services are affected, there is little that IT
and business managers can do but wait for the problem to be solved,
while their end users complain and demand information and solutions
that are out of the IT department's reach.
"Seriously...It has been two hours. Can you provide us with another
update? For a company with your reputation, I'm absolutely shocked at
the apparent absence of customer service," wrote a Google Apps
administrator on the discussion forum on Wednesday. "This amount of
down time is unacceptable."
Sunday, August 10, 2008
Transcom Media - Prothom Alo - The Daily Star - Shaptahik 2000 - Anandadhara : [BANGLA-IT] When the media turns into evil
Nagative Blog Post About Transcom Media - Prothom Alo, The Daily Star, Shaptahik 2000, Anandadhara and an upcoming FM Radio Station: [BANGLA-IT] When the media turns into evil
Author: Sunita Paul
Media can play important role in up building a nation, while the same media, being influenced by evil forces or vested interest, could turn into devastating element for any nation. Take the example of Bangladesh's leading media group named Transcom Media, which owns a vernacular daily newspaper named Prothom Alo, an English language daily named The Daily Star, two periodicals named Shaptahik 2000 and Anandadhara. Recently the group has acquired ownership of an FM radio station named 'Aina Broadcasting Corporation' (ABC). The group is rather known as 'Daily Star Group' in Bangladesh, because of tremendous influence of its English language daily as well as its top most position amongst all competitor dailies.
Before going into notoriety of Daily Star group, let me first put focus at the back ground of the emergence of this business-media group. During early nineties, present owners of 'Star Group' turned financially bankrupt when its main figure Latifur Rahman's paternal property W Rahman Jute Mills at country's Chandpur district had to declare lay-off thus leaving thousands of workers and labors unemployed. Numerous cases were filed with the Chandpur district labor and criminal courts against Latifur Rahman and other members of the factory, as they defaulted payment of worker's wages. On the other hand, W Rahman Jute Mills was listed as one of the top defaulting enterprises with Bangladesh Bank (Central Bank) for long standing loans.
But, luck started moving in positive direction, when Latifur Rahman's wife's cousin Anup Chetia (leader of ULFA separatist group) came forward with hidden help of finance in businesses in Bangladesh through Rahman. It is learnt that a few million dollars were placed with Latifur Rahman in re-organizing his collapsed business and ULFA kept a secret stake of shares in all businesses initiated by Latifur Rahman after receipt of this secret fund.
Latifur Rahman understanding his failure in running industrial enterprise profitably launched a company named Transcom, which began businesses as the sole distributor of Nestle brand milk products in Bangladesh. Initial response although was very poor from the local market, due to solid financial back up from ULFA, Latifur Rahman managed to ultimately penetrate in the business and in few years, Transcom emerged as one of the mightiest enterprises in Bangladesh. Meanwhile, when Dhaka's well respected journalist S M Ali took the initiative of launching an English language newspaper, Latifur was suggested by ULFA to buy shares, as such investment would buy media influence for the separatist group, which fights against Indian government in separating seven North-Eastern states within India.
S M Ali was successful in placing Daily Star at the forefront of Dhaka's English press, because of his extra-ordinary qualities and courage. Just in few years, this newly launched newspaper sub sided most of the competitor dailies such as Bangladesh Observer, Bangladesh Times (now defunct), New Nation, Morning Sun (now defunct) and Financial Express. But sudden demise of S M Ali opened the opportunity for Latifur Rahman to swallow the newspaper. He brought Mahfuz Anam as the editor of the newspaper, who subsequently ousted ancestors of S M Ali and grabbed his shares. This was the beginning of notorious journey of Daily Star group.
Later, when Anup Chetia was arrested by Bangladeshi law enforcing agencies, Latifur Rahman stopped paying any share to ULFA. This was the first beginning of feud between notorious ULFA separatists and Latifur Rahman. It is widely rumored in Dhaka that, ULFA had hidden hands behind murder of Latifur's daughter Shazneed Rahman, who was brutally raped and murdered right inside her residence at Dhaka's posh Gulshan area.
But, the handsome investment from ULFA, gave Transcom an excellent opportunity to grow. Latifur decided to launch a vernacular daily newspaper with the initial capital of 10 million Taka in 1997. Prothom Alo recruited large number of top newsmen from Dhaka's press community. It also had dynamic Matiur Rahman as its editor, which helped the newspaper to rapidly turn into one of the leading dailies in the country. Later two vernacular periodicals were also launched by this group, one with celebrated journalist Shahadat Chowdhury as its editor.
In some years, Transcom group acquired ownership of Pepsi, Phillips and several large industrial enterprises. Luck always clicked in favor of this business group, as far as its investments in media was concerned. None of the newspapers, belonging to Transcom group had ever faced any financial adversity.
Due to such influential ownership of media projects, Latifur Rahman got the excellent opportunity of continuing various illegal businesses including import of goods from abroad under false declaration. Several consignments imported by Transcom were stopped by customs officials in Bangladesh and evidence of revenue evasion of millions of Taka was unearthed. But, everything was managed, by using the influence of Prothom Alo and Daily Star. Even after the political changes in Bangladesh on January 11, 2007, Daily Star group managed to send its Executive Editor Syed Fahim Munayem as the Press Secretary to the Chief Executive of the interim government. Even at later stage, when Anti Corruption Commission (ACC) issued notice on Latifur Rahman asking declaration of his wealth and assets, the entire issue was some how put into suppression with the help of Daily Star-Prothom Alo group.
Everyone knows the news about cracks in Jamuna Multi-purpose Bridge in Bangladesh. But, possibly no one knows the fact that the main reason behind such cracks was due to use of a particular brand of cement, which in the name of Portland Grey Cement is in fact fly ash mixed lowest grade cement. And, this inferior quality of cement went into various high cost projects in Bangladesh just because; chairman of the company producing and marketing this brand is none but Transcom's Latifur Rahman. No one in the government dares to utter even a single word about Holcim, which supplied such cement to various projects, as they are afraid of wrath of Daily Star and Prothom Alo. Despite the fact that, both the newspapers are largest in circulation in Bangladesh, main purpose of these publications is serving the interests of Corporate Crime.
Prime intention of Daily Star group is to stand against various business groups, whenever there is any business rivalry with that specific company or individual. This group went into heinous propaganda against Beximco Group, Bashundhara Group and many others in past. There is even clean track record of dubious behavior of this group is sabotaging various projects in Bangladesh, with the ulterior motive of either supporting businesses of Latifur Rahman, Transcom or members of this syndicate.
Many projects were already sabotaged by this group, thus causing tremendous loss to Bangladesh's economy. The latest episode of such rivalry of Daily Star group was with Bangladesh's lone hard rock mining project at country's Dinazpur district. Maddhyapara Hard Rock Mining Project (MHMP) became a pray of Daily Star for past several years. It is learnt that, some vested interest groups, including importers of stones and stone-chips from India, Myanmar and Malaysia are patronizing such media terror by Star, thus attempting to sabotage country's most prospective project, which not only is already saving millions of dollars, but, also is set to turn into a huge prospect of earning millions of dollars from export of world-class Granite Tiles.
First rivalry with the MHMP began when Bangladesh government appointed Polish consulting firm Kopex SA, defying the fact that this firm had no experience of hard rock mining. It is learnt that, appointment of this Polish firm was a result of heavy persuasion from some high level corrupt bureaucrats in the Energy Ministry and Petrobangla. From the very appointment, the Polish consultant had been frantically trying to sabotage the project for reason unknown.
In June 2006, Kopex SA submitted a paper with the Energy and Mineral Resources Division saying, "Maddhyapara Hard Rock Mining project has become 'virtually sick' and the employer (the government) has suffered huge financial loss."
It said Petrobangla and the project authorities, Madhyapara Granite Mining Company Limited, should ask Nam-Nam for final commissioning and test production immediately to ascertain the actual status of mine development.
"The Petrobangla and MGMCL should take over the mine after ascertaining its actual state and on documentation to establish the legal ownership of the mine," it said.
Kopex said, "The Nam-Nam has complemented major installation of the mine in over 12 years but they have not yet done the final commissioning and test run although the original development period of the mine was 6.5 years since the signing of the agreement between Petrobangla and the company in 1994."
Sources in Petrobangla, however, ditched the Kopex report, saying that the consultant should also be held responsible for the delay as it failed to come up with proper plan.
"Kopex also wants to be involved more with the mine for which it came up with such a report," Petrobangla source added.
Meanwhile, on October 15, 2005, The Daily Star published a front page news item titled 'North Korean company looks for legal coverage to finish task'. In this report, Daily Star said, "When completed, the Maddyapara hard rock mine will commercially sell 1.65 million tonnes of granite a year. The country annually imports 3.4 million tonnes of granite. Local production will save between $38 million to $58 million US dollars. The project has a life span of 45 years. However, the price of Maddhyapara granite will not be cheaper than the rocks that are commonly imported from India because of the increased project cost"
It was clearly understood that the report was published with the very intention of killing the project to protect the interest of importers-exporters syndicate, which enjoys business of millions of dollars every year by continuing to import stone from India and other countries. In this report, Daily Star claimed that the cost of production of MHMP hark rock was higher than imported one, which is nothing but a clean deviation from truth. It is learnt from dependable sources that, production cost for each tons of hard rock from Maddhyapara project stands at US$ 10 while the minimum import cost is US$ 22.
On May 18, 2006, Daily Star once again published a front page report titled "Petrobangla to take it over from DPRK firm", where it repeated the same lie on the price of the locally extorted hard rock. It said, "Maddhyapara granite will however not be cheaper than the rocks that are commonly imported from India because of the increased project cost."
Nam-Nam Corporation successfully completed and handed over the project in May last year and meanwhile; commercial production in the project is already going on. Due to timely steps taken by the present government in Dhaka, locally produced stones are purchased and used in various domestic projects on priority basis, while the cost of local stones are more than half the cost of imported ones. Being totally frustrated at the completion of the project, vested interest groups once again managed to published another front page report in The daily Star on May 16, 2008 titled "Miner now wants return of non-existent loans".
In this report, Daily Star wrote, "Nam-nam is now operating the mine with 65 South Koreans under a one-year service contract due to expire on May 27. As it did not fully transfer the South Korean technology to the MGMCL, it will get yet another year's service contract, the sources said."
This part of the news shows two things. One, the reporter knows nothing of the project but was writing thing being dictated by vested interest groups. In the same news, while the reporter said Nam-Nam is a North Korean company, how he could discover 65 South Koreans in the project (does he lack the minimum knowledge that North and South Korea do not have any diplomatic relations as yet?). The reporter also said that, Nam-Nam is not fully transferring South Korean technology to MGMCL. Ridiculous, who edits and passes such rubbish news in Daily Star? Being Dhaka's leading dailies, it should be ashamed of such poor journalistic quality. The entire report as well as all previous reports is part of propaganda and conspiracy to kill the entire project, which stands as the most prospective one for Bangladesh. Anyone can easily understand that, vested interest groups, including enemies of North Korea are patronizing such dangerous campaign not only to sabotage the project, but, also to give a good lesson to the North Korean company for being dedicated and helpful to Bangladesh is saving millions of dollars from import of hard rock.
Bangladesh government not only needs to patronize this extremely profitable and viable project, but even needs to go into fresh negotiations with Nam-Nam or the North Korean government in signing fresh agreements for exploration of more mining projects in the country. According to mining experts several more hard rock mines are already existing in the Northern region of Bangladesh, which will be able to help the country in stopping import of stones from abroad, thus saving billions of dollars each year. At the same time, government needs to identify vested interest groups within Energy Ministry and Petrobangla in order to not only protect the national interest but also to punish the culprits for their notorious roles.
Further harassment of the North Korean company will earn bad reputation for Bangladesh from the potential foreign investors. Nam-Nam deserves to be appreciated for completion of the MHMP despite series of harassments and non-cooperation from the Energy Ministry and Petrobangla.
Source: http://www.globalpolitician.com/24880-media
===================================================
What's good for Bangladesh is good for BANGLA IT. Serving your need to know.
"Innovation distinguishes a leader from a follower" - Steve Jobs
Sayeed Rahman
Founder BANGLA IT
http://www.banglait.org
http://banglait.blogspot.com/
http://www.groundreport.com/SayeedRahman
http://www.linkedin.com/in/sayeedrahman
[Disclaimer: BANGLA-IT Management is not liable for information contained in this message.
Any views expressed in this article are those of the writer and not of BANGLA IT. BANGLA IT is not responsible for the content of this article or for any external internet sites. The views expressed are the author's alone. The author takes full responsibility.]
[Disclaimer from Blog Collections: This is just a mirror copy of a New Article Post of Yahoo Group at Bangla IT. Original Source Can be Found Here : http://www.globalpolitician.com/24880-media . Management of this 'Blog Collections' is not responsible for the content of this article or for any external internet sites. The views expressed are the author's alone. The author takes full responsibility. Thank You - Editor of 'Blog Collections]
Author: Sunita Paul
Media can play important role in up building a nation, while the same media, being influenced by evil forces or vested interest, could turn into devastating element for any nation. Take the example of Bangladesh's leading media group named Transcom Media, which owns a vernacular daily newspaper named Prothom Alo, an English language daily named The Daily Star, two periodicals named Shaptahik 2000 and Anandadhara. Recently the group has acquired ownership of an FM radio station named 'Aina Broadcasting Corporation' (ABC). The group is rather known as 'Daily Star Group' in Bangladesh, because of tremendous influence of its English language daily as well as its top most position amongst all competitor dailies.
Before going into notoriety of Daily Star group, let me first put focus at the back ground of the emergence of this business-media group. During early nineties, present owners of 'Star Group' turned financially bankrupt when its main figure Latifur Rahman's paternal property W Rahman Jute Mills at country's Chandpur district had to declare lay-off thus leaving thousands of workers and labors unemployed. Numerous cases were filed with the Chandpur district labor and criminal courts against Latifur Rahman and other members of the factory, as they defaulted payment of worker's wages. On the other hand, W Rahman Jute Mills was listed as one of the top defaulting enterprises with Bangladesh Bank (Central Bank) for long standing loans.
But, luck started moving in positive direction, when Latifur Rahman's wife's cousin Anup Chetia (leader of ULFA separatist group) came forward with hidden help of finance in businesses in Bangladesh through Rahman. It is learnt that a few million dollars were placed with Latifur Rahman in re-organizing his collapsed business and ULFA kept a secret stake of shares in all businesses initiated by Latifur Rahman after receipt of this secret fund.
Latifur Rahman understanding his failure in running industrial enterprise profitably launched a company named Transcom, which began businesses as the sole distributor of Nestle brand milk products in Bangladesh. Initial response although was very poor from the local market, due to solid financial back up from ULFA, Latifur Rahman managed to ultimately penetrate in the business and in few years, Transcom emerged as one of the mightiest enterprises in Bangladesh. Meanwhile, when Dhaka's well respected journalist S M Ali took the initiative of launching an English language newspaper, Latifur was suggested by ULFA to buy shares, as such investment would buy media influence for the separatist group, which fights against Indian government in separating seven North-Eastern states within India.
S M Ali was successful in placing Daily Star at the forefront of Dhaka's English press, because of his extra-ordinary qualities and courage. Just in few years, this newly launched newspaper sub sided most of the competitor dailies such as Bangladesh Observer, Bangladesh Times (now defunct), New Nation, Morning Sun (now defunct) and Financial Express. But sudden demise of S M Ali opened the opportunity for Latifur Rahman to swallow the newspaper. He brought Mahfuz Anam as the editor of the newspaper, who subsequently ousted ancestors of S M Ali and grabbed his shares. This was the beginning of notorious journey of Daily Star group.
Later, when Anup Chetia was arrested by Bangladeshi law enforcing agencies, Latifur Rahman stopped paying any share to ULFA. This was the first beginning of feud between notorious ULFA separatists and Latifur Rahman. It is widely rumored in Dhaka that, ULFA had hidden hands behind murder of Latifur's daughter Shazneed Rahman, who was brutally raped and murdered right inside her residence at Dhaka's posh Gulshan area.
But, the handsome investment from ULFA, gave Transcom an excellent opportunity to grow. Latifur decided to launch a vernacular daily newspaper with the initial capital of 10 million Taka in 1997. Prothom Alo recruited large number of top newsmen from Dhaka's press community. It also had dynamic Matiur Rahman as its editor, which helped the newspaper to rapidly turn into one of the leading dailies in the country. Later two vernacular periodicals were also launched by this group, one with celebrated journalist Shahadat Chowdhury as its editor.
In some years, Transcom group acquired ownership of Pepsi, Phillips and several large industrial enterprises. Luck always clicked in favor of this business group, as far as its investments in media was concerned. None of the newspapers, belonging to Transcom group had ever faced any financial adversity.
Due to such influential ownership of media projects, Latifur Rahman got the excellent opportunity of continuing various illegal businesses including import of goods from abroad under false declaration. Several consignments imported by Transcom were stopped by customs officials in Bangladesh and evidence of revenue evasion of millions of Taka was unearthed. But, everything was managed, by using the influence of Prothom Alo and Daily Star. Even after the political changes in Bangladesh on January 11, 2007, Daily Star group managed to send its Executive Editor Syed Fahim Munayem as the Press Secretary to the Chief Executive of the interim government. Even at later stage, when Anti Corruption Commission (ACC) issued notice on Latifur Rahman asking declaration of his wealth and assets, the entire issue was some how put into suppression with the help of Daily Star-Prothom Alo group.
Everyone knows the news about cracks in Jamuna Multi-purpose Bridge in Bangladesh. But, possibly no one knows the fact that the main reason behind such cracks was due to use of a particular brand of cement, which in the name of Portland Grey Cement is in fact fly ash mixed lowest grade cement. And, this inferior quality of cement went into various high cost projects in Bangladesh just because; chairman of the company producing and marketing this brand is none but Transcom's Latifur Rahman. No one in the government dares to utter even a single word about Holcim, which supplied such cement to various projects, as they are afraid of wrath of Daily Star and Prothom Alo. Despite the fact that, both the newspapers are largest in circulation in Bangladesh, main purpose of these publications is serving the interests of Corporate Crime.
Prime intention of Daily Star group is to stand against various business groups, whenever there is any business rivalry with that specific company or individual. This group went into heinous propaganda against Beximco Group, Bashundhara Group and many others in past. There is even clean track record of dubious behavior of this group is sabotaging various projects in Bangladesh, with the ulterior motive of either supporting businesses of Latifur Rahman, Transcom or members of this syndicate.
Many projects were already sabotaged by this group, thus causing tremendous loss to Bangladesh's economy. The latest episode of such rivalry of Daily Star group was with Bangladesh's lone hard rock mining project at country's Dinazpur district. Maddhyapara Hard Rock Mining Project (MHMP) became a pray of Daily Star for past several years. It is learnt that, some vested interest groups, including importers of stones and stone-chips from India, Myanmar and Malaysia are patronizing such media terror by Star, thus attempting to sabotage country's most prospective project, which not only is already saving millions of dollars, but, also is set to turn into a huge prospect of earning millions of dollars from export of world-class Granite Tiles.
First rivalry with the MHMP began when Bangladesh government appointed Polish consulting firm Kopex SA, defying the fact that this firm had no experience of hard rock mining. It is learnt that, appointment of this Polish firm was a result of heavy persuasion from some high level corrupt bureaucrats in the Energy Ministry and Petrobangla. From the very appointment, the Polish consultant had been frantically trying to sabotage the project for reason unknown.
In June 2006, Kopex SA submitted a paper with the Energy and Mineral Resources Division saying, "Maddhyapara Hard Rock Mining project has become 'virtually sick' and the employer (the government) has suffered huge financial loss."
It said Petrobangla and the project authorities, Madhyapara Granite Mining Company Limited, should ask Nam-Nam for final commissioning and test production immediately to ascertain the actual status of mine development.
"The Petrobangla and MGMCL should take over the mine after ascertaining its actual state and on documentation to establish the legal ownership of the mine," it said.
Kopex said, "The Nam-Nam has complemented major installation of the mine in over 12 years but they have not yet done the final commissioning and test run although the original development period of the mine was 6.5 years since the signing of the agreement between Petrobangla and the company in 1994."
Sources in Petrobangla, however, ditched the Kopex report, saying that the consultant should also be held responsible for the delay as it failed to come up with proper plan.
"Kopex also wants to be involved more with the mine for which it came up with such a report," Petrobangla source added.
Meanwhile, on October 15, 2005, The Daily Star published a front page news item titled 'North Korean company looks for legal coverage to finish task'. In this report, Daily Star said, "When completed, the Maddyapara hard rock mine will commercially sell 1.65 million tonnes of granite a year. The country annually imports 3.4 million tonnes of granite. Local production will save between $38 million to $58 million US dollars. The project has a life span of 45 years. However, the price of Maddhyapara granite will not be cheaper than the rocks that are commonly imported from India because of the increased project cost"
It was clearly understood that the report was published with the very intention of killing the project to protect the interest of importers-exporters syndicate, which enjoys business of millions of dollars every year by continuing to import stone from India and other countries. In this report, Daily Star claimed that the cost of production of MHMP hark rock was higher than imported one, which is nothing but a clean deviation from truth. It is learnt from dependable sources that, production cost for each tons of hard rock from Maddhyapara project stands at US$ 10 while the minimum import cost is US$ 22.
On May 18, 2006, Daily Star once again published a front page report titled "Petrobangla to take it over from DPRK firm", where it repeated the same lie on the price of the locally extorted hard rock. It said, "Maddhyapara granite will however not be cheaper than the rocks that are commonly imported from India because of the increased project cost."
Nam-Nam Corporation successfully completed and handed over the project in May last year and meanwhile; commercial production in the project is already going on. Due to timely steps taken by the present government in Dhaka, locally produced stones are purchased and used in various domestic projects on priority basis, while the cost of local stones are more than half the cost of imported ones. Being totally frustrated at the completion of the project, vested interest groups once again managed to published another front page report in The daily Star on May 16, 2008 titled "Miner now wants return of non-existent loans".
In this report, Daily Star wrote, "Nam-nam is now operating the mine with 65 South Koreans under a one-year service contract due to expire on May 27. As it did not fully transfer the South Korean technology to the MGMCL, it will get yet another year's service contract, the sources said."
This part of the news shows two things. One, the reporter knows nothing of the project but was writing thing being dictated by vested interest groups. In the same news, while the reporter said Nam-Nam is a North Korean company, how he could discover 65 South Koreans in the project (does he lack the minimum knowledge that North and South Korea do not have any diplomatic relations as yet?). The reporter also said that, Nam-Nam is not fully transferring South Korean technology to MGMCL. Ridiculous, who edits and passes such rubbish news in Daily Star? Being Dhaka's leading dailies, it should be ashamed of such poor journalistic quality. The entire report as well as all previous reports is part of propaganda and conspiracy to kill the entire project, which stands as the most prospective one for Bangladesh. Anyone can easily understand that, vested interest groups, including enemies of North Korea are patronizing such dangerous campaign not only to sabotage the project, but, also to give a good lesson to the North Korean company for being dedicated and helpful to Bangladesh is saving millions of dollars from import of hard rock.
Bangladesh government not only needs to patronize this extremely profitable and viable project, but even needs to go into fresh negotiations with Nam-Nam or the North Korean government in signing fresh agreements for exploration of more mining projects in the country. According to mining experts several more hard rock mines are already existing in the Northern region of Bangladesh, which will be able to help the country in stopping import of stones from abroad, thus saving billions of dollars each year. At the same time, government needs to identify vested interest groups within Energy Ministry and Petrobangla in order to not only protect the national interest but also to punish the culprits for their notorious roles.
Further harassment of the North Korean company will earn bad reputation for Bangladesh from the potential foreign investors. Nam-Nam deserves to be appreciated for completion of the MHMP despite series of harassments and non-cooperation from the Energy Ministry and Petrobangla.
Source: http://www.globalpolitician.com/24880-media
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What's good for Bangladesh is good for BANGLA IT. Serving your need to know.
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Sayeed Rahman
Founder BANGLA IT
http://www.banglait.org
http://banglait.blogspot.com/
http://www.groundreport.com/SayeedRahman
http://www.linkedin.com/in/sayeedrahman
[Disclaimer: BANGLA-IT Management is not liable for information contained in this message.
Any views expressed in this article are those of the writer and not of BANGLA IT. BANGLA IT is not responsible for the content of this article or for any external internet sites. The views expressed are the author's alone. The author takes full responsibility.]
[Disclaimer from Blog Collections: This is just a mirror copy of a New Article Post of Yahoo Group at Bangla IT. Original Source Can be Found Here : http://www.globalpolitician.com/24880-media . Management of this 'Blog Collections' is not responsible for the content of this article or for any external internet sites. The views expressed are the author's alone. The author takes full responsibility. Thank You - Editor of 'Blog Collections]
BGMEA And RANGS Building Showing Disrespect To Law And Order of Bangladesh
BGMEA And RANGS Building Showing Disrespect To Law And Order of Bangladesh
BGMEA And RANGS, Two Building Structures In The Horizon Of Dhaka That Still Stand As A Sign Of Disrespect To Rule Of Law Of Bangladesh
BGMEA building and Rangs building - both should make their way to the public interest. If you left out these important signs of corruption and at the same time go out of your way to setup TAC, people will start questioning your motive. By this time, government should have learned that managing the public perception is very important.
Its appalling to see that both of these above mentioned structures still stands defying public interest.
Both should go down or make their way for the greater good of the public.
The first one, the BGMEA building seems like survived the Hatirjheel-Begunbari project, even though it has been reported how BGMEA people has shown disrespect to the law of the country with corrupt practices of the RAJUK people. Even though the alleged malpractice was done by one of the main business association of the country, they should not be given a free pass. This highly publicized corruption should give its way to the greater public interest. Government may give them some other land to build a new BGMEA building.
What do we want to do with this building? Tear down this one?
If that is creating major problem with the road construction, then yes, tear it down. Click Here to Read More...
BGMEA And RANGS, Two Building Structures In The Horizon Of Dhaka That Still Stand As A Sign Of Disrespect To Rule Of Law Of Bangladesh
BGMEA building and Rangs building - both should make their way to the public interest. If you left out these important signs of corruption and at the same time go out of your way to setup TAC, people will start questioning your motive. By this time, government should have learned that managing the public perception is very important.
Its appalling to see that both of these above mentioned structures still stands defying public interest.
Both should go down or make their way for the greater good of the public.
The first one, the BGMEA building seems like survived the Hatirjheel-Begunbari project, even though it has been reported how BGMEA people has shown disrespect to the law of the country with corrupt practices of the RAJUK people. Even though the alleged malpractice was done by one of the main business association of the country, they should not be given a free pass. This highly publicized corruption should give its way to the greater public interest. Government may give them some other land to build a new BGMEA building.
What do we want to do with this building? Tear down this one?
If that is creating major problem with the road construction, then yes, tear it down. Click Here to Read More...
Google AdSense Site Maintenance on August 9 at 10am PDT
Inside AdSense: Site maintenance on August 9 at 10am PDT
Google has announced a scheduled "Google Adsense Site Maintenance" on August 9 at 10AM PDT
Have you updated your AdSense account to a Google Account yet? We'll soon be requiring publishers to make this change, so we encourage you to do so as soon as possible if you haven't already.
Google Adsense Site maintenance on August 9 at 10am PDT
Google engineers will be performing routine site maintenance on August 9, from 10am to 2pm PDT. During this update Adsense Publisher won't be able to log in to there Adsense account. This maintenance won't affect Google Adsense Publisher ad targeting or delivery and earnings will still be tracked in respective reports like always.
To celebrate the opening ceremony of the 2008 Olympic Games, here's the start time of the maintenance in past, present, and future host cities for the Summer Olympics:
Montreal - 1pm Saturday
London - 6pm Saturday
Athens - 8pm Saturday
Beijing - 1am Sunday
Sydney - 3am Sunday
We hope the maintenance period will give you an opportunity to catch a few matches and root for your home country!
Posted by Arlene Lee - AdSense Publisher Support
Friday, August 08, 2008 at 5:03:00 PM
Source: http://adsense.blogspot.com/2008/08/site-maintenance-on-august-9-at-10am.html
Google has announced a scheduled "Google Adsense Site Maintenance" on August 9 at 10AM PDT
Have you updated your AdSense account to a Google Account yet? We'll soon be requiring publishers to make this change, so we encourage you to do so as soon as possible if you haven't already.
Google Adsense Site maintenance on August 9 at 10am PDT
Google engineers will be performing routine site maintenance on August 9, from 10am to 2pm PDT. During this update Adsense Publisher won't be able to log in to there Adsense account. This maintenance won't affect Google Adsense Publisher ad targeting or delivery and earnings will still be tracked in respective reports like always.
To celebrate the opening ceremony of the 2008 Olympic Games, here's the start time of the maintenance in past, present, and future host cities for the Summer Olympics:
Montreal - 1pm Saturday
London - 6pm Saturday
Athens - 8pm Saturday
Beijing - 1am Sunday
Sydney - 3am Sunday
We hope the maintenance period will give you an opportunity to catch a few matches and root for your home country!
Posted by Arlene Lee - AdSense Publisher Support
Friday, August 08, 2008 at 5:03:00 PM
Source: http://adsense.blogspot.com/2008/08/site-maintenance-on-august-9-at-10am.html
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