This year four Bangladeshi students won Top in the World awards for their outstanding performance in a single Cambridge O Level examination.

Among them, Minhazul Islam became 'Top in the World' for his results in computer studies. The three other top students are Rehnuma Hassan (art), Ejaj Mahmood Meemo (Bengali), and Nurul Anwar (human and social biology).

They have been given awards in Dhaka at the ceremony styled 'Brilliance in Bangladesh' at a city hotel today.

At the award giving ceremony hosted by University of Cambridge International Examinations (CIE), over 80 awards were presented to Bangladeshi students who achieved the highest marks in a single Cambridge O Level or International A/AS Level examination, or a group of subjects.

The award were given in five categories — Top in the world, Top in Bangladesh in Cambridge International O and A Levels, students having five, six, seven, eight, nine and ten A grades at Cambridge International O Level, and those who achieved the highest marks across a range of subjects.

Sixteen Bangladeshi students secured more than 8 A grades at Cambridge O Level, including Mohammad Raihanul Islam from Oxford International School in Dhaka who scored an impressive 10 A grades.

British Council and CIE of the United Kingdoms are partners who arrange Cambridge International O and A Levels Examinations across the world.

Bio-waste generated at the kitchen markets of Dhaka City, the capital of Bangladesh, is now being utilized as a raw material for producing quality bio-fertilizer at a compost plant, which has been inaugurated today.

Collecting the organic waste from the vegetable markets of the city, local private firm Waste Concern, in association with its Dutch partners, has launched the compost plant at Bhulta in Narayanganj—a satellite town of Dhaka City.

This is the first 'carbon trade-based' bio-fertilizer plant in the world and also the first Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) project in Bangladesh.

The executive board of the UN-approved CDM under the Kyoto Protocol has registered the project which has entitled its owners to get certificates for 'non-generation of carbon', enabling the owners to sell the fertilizer to developed countries.

The project is producing fertilizer in such a process that it prevents generation of half a ton of greenhouse gas by producing one ton of fertilizer. As much as 25 to 30 tons of bio-fertilizer can be produced from 100 tons of waste. In Dhaka City, 3,500 to 4,000 tons of waste is generated every day, of which 80 percent is organic.

An UN-approved body-- Designated Operating Entity (DOE)—examines whether a plant generates carbon or not, and provides certificates in this regard. Such certificates have a USD 25 billion global market.

Under the CDM, developed countries seek to meet their obligations to cut carbon emissions by sponsoring carbon-cutting schemes in developing countries.

Fertilizer produced at this plant will be sold at less than half the price of bio-fertilizer now being sold in the market.

The plant built at a cost of 12.5 million euro now handles 138 tons of organic waste a day. Two more plants in Bangladesh will be set up at Gazipur and Savar next year, raising the total capacity of handling waste up to 700 tons per day.

The ninth parliamentary election in Bangladesh will be held on December 29 and upazila (local government) on January 22, announced the Election Commission (EC) of the country today.

According to the timetables, the closing date for filing candidacy applications in the national election is November 30 and in upazila polls, December 13.

37 political parties have got the registration from the EC to participate in the coming elections.  The main contenders in the elections will be the Awami League led 14-party coalition and BNP led 4-party coalition.

Narayanganj Engineering and Services Ltd (NESL), a Bangladeshi shipbuilder, is building a deep sea fishing trawler of 'purse seining type', designed and built in the country for the first time.

NESL will make the ship for a local firm, which will be capable of both bottom and surface water fishing.

The keel laying ceremony of the ship took place yesterday at the NESL shipyard at Narayanganj . 

At present Bangladesh imports all the fishing trawlers engaged in deep-sea fishing in the coastal waters of the country.

NESL has ushered in a new era in shipbuilding in Bangladesh. It may be mentioned here that from this year the country has started exporting ships to European and African countries.

Global retailer giant Tesco has started outsourcing jute-made shopping bags from Bangladesh as a part of its move to meet the worldwide consumer demand for environment-friendly and socially responsible products.

Sonali Aansh, a jute goods manufacturer in Bangladesh, has got orders from Tesco after it met compliance requirements. The retailer is now using sonali’s jute bags at its stores in Poland, Japan and Korea.

Environment-friendly jute manufacturers of Bangladesh are engaged in exporting high-fashion jute-made ladies bags, jute fabrics and espadrille, a casual flat or high-heel fashion sandal made of jute or cotton.

The demand for environment-friendly jute products such as shopping bags will rise gradually worldwide as in many countries governments discourage use of plastic bags to protect environment.

Friday, 14 November, 2008

Renata Limited, the second Bangladeshi pharmaceutical company that is manufacturing medicines for the European markets, has started sending its products to the UK.

Last year, Renata received accreditation from the UK Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA).

Renata, the seventh largest pharmaceutical firm in Bangladesh in terms of sales, has received an order to supply prednisolone, a generic steroid product, to a UK medicine company.

The company has already entered such markets as Guyana, Hong Kong, Jordan, and the Philippines.

This year Ceylon National Chamber of Industries awarded gold a trophy to Renata for its performance in the pharmaceutical market of Sri Lanka.

Renata is the second pharmaceutical company after Square Pharmaceuticals to gain access to an advanced market like the UK. Square has already shipped products to that country, and hopes to get further orders from the lucrative European market through contract manufacturing of bulk drugs and formulations.

Bangladesh has the ability to grab a greater share in the international pharmaceutical market. 

Six Bangladesh made ferries, built by the Ananda Shipyard Limited, has been handed over to Mozambique government today.

This is the second time, Ananda, a Bangladeshi ship manufacturer, exported vessels to a foreign buyer. Ananda sold its first ship, Stella Maris, to a Danish buyer early this year.

The Bangladeshi company has been awarded orders for building 34 ships from Denmark, Germany and Mozambique.

Another Bangladeshi company, Western Marine Shipyard, has got orders for making 17 ships for European buyers.

Bangladesh has enough skilled manpower for shipbuilding. About 300 small and large shipyards are now in operation in the country, most of them have been manufacturing ships for vast local market.

Thursday, 30 October, 2008

Dr. Sajed Kamal, an expatriate Bangladeshi, has been working on renewable solar energy for more than a quarter of a century. This particular area of science has come to the forefront in view of energy crisis and global warming. Recently he has won Boston Mayor's Green award for community leadership in energy and climate protection.

Dr. Kamal had launched first phase of photovoltaic pilot program in 1986 based on solar energy in Bangladesh.

In 1997, Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee (BRAC) invited him to serve as the consultant to plan, train and launch a renewable energy program. During the consultancy period until 2000 “BRAC Solar Energy Program for Sustainable Development” had succeeded to install over 30,000 40-50 watts stand-alone PV systems across the country, growing at the rate of about 750 systems per month. That was a phenomenal achievement.

Dr. Kamal initiated in 1999 Solar Boston, a partnership of renewable energy experts, community organization and business communities committed to promoting solar technologies throughout Boston. Solar Boston became a partner of the US Department of Energy's million solar roofs initiative in 2000. Solar Boston helped install over fifty grid connected photovoltaic solar electric systems in the region.

Dr. Kamal by now helped setting up pilot projects in the United States, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Armenia and El-Salvador.

At present Dr. Kamal is the president of the International Consortium for Energy Development, a Boston based non-profit corporation. He received Mayor of Boston's first annual green award in 2007 and Life time Achievement Award was given to him in 2008 by US Environmental Protection Agency.

Wednesday, 29 October, 2008

A Bangladesh-born immunologist, Dr Bijon Kumar Sil, now working for Singapore-based MP Biomedical Asia Pacific Ltd, has developed the most effective tool for early diagnosis of dengue infection that results in high fever from mosquito bites in tropical countries.

According to Dr Sil, the newly innovated IgA diagnosis method could yield higher results than other conventional methods, with nearly 90 percent of sensitivity and specificity.

The conventional methods cannot detect dengue before four to five days of infection; but the IgA method, on contrary, can detect dengue on the very first day of infection, he said.

The IgA method can even detect dengue within 15 to 20 minutes from any specimens like saliva or whole blood, and thus can save many lives and protect others from sufferings.

The IgA dengue-testing tool is easy to operate even in rural areas, where the village doctors would be able to apply the technology and detect dengue easily.

Wednesday, 22 October, 2008

With the completion of the electoral roll with photograph, Bangladesh is now also the proud owner of the world's largest electronic database of 81.1 million voters, which is higher than that of France's 70.3 million voters. Before preparation of electoral roll with photograph in Bangladesh, the largest electronic database belonged to France.

The electoral roll of Bangladesh is comparable to the lists prepared in the western and other developed countries. It is believed that the present voter list of Bangladesh has fewer errors compared to the lists prepared by the developed countries.

Besides election purpose, the database can be used for other constructive work.

The mammoth project of preparing the electoral roll began in August last year. The field-level task for voter registration was completed in June this year, and the rest of the tasks including printing of the draft voter list, publication of those, and printing of final electoral roll were completed on October 13 of this year. Preparing of such a large database in such a short time is amazing.

The Election Commission of Bangladesh took the high ambitious project of preparing the electoral roll with photograph and facilitating the issuance of identity cards with an estimated cost of Taka 44.7 million or approximately USD 658000.

Around 10,000 personnel from the armed forces of the country were engaged in the countrywide voter-listing project.

Besides preparation of the voter list, 81.1 million national identity cards have also been printed as a part of the project.

Ms Renata Dessallien, UN resident coordinator and UNDP resident representative commented on the successful preparation of the database that, It was ‘a truly historic achievement,’ because never before ‘have so many people been electronically registered in such a short time,’ in any other country in the world. What was impressive was the immense scale of the undertaking, the accuracy of the list, the elimination of duplicate entries. ‘If there were a Nobel Prize for voter lists, Bangladesh would be the clear winner!’

The project required 12,000 laptops to be deployed throughout the country, 8,000 printers, paper, toner, train a staff of 18,000 computer and enrollment personnel; in a situation where on an average data was collected on 300,000 to 400,000 people daily.

The prepared database has been of international standard, in the words of one of the consultants to the project, the database is ‘a list of quality no less than that of America or England.’ The UN is said to be considering replicating this model in other developing countries.

Voter registration project in Bangladesh has been a ‘co-operative venture’ between BIO-Key International Inc in the US, Tiger IT in Bangladesh, and the Bangladesh army. As an offshoot of this project, the citizens have also got National Identity (ID) Card.

The four fingerprints of each voter that was captured with BIO-key’s fingerprint ID software, and FBI-certified fingerprint readers, has already generated over 300 Million ISO fingerprint templates. Combined with the 400 million projected to be generated, it will become by far the largest biometric deployment in the world.

The national ID card includes a standard barcode which is encoded with ISO fingerprint templates, and PKI digital hash. These can be used to quickly verify the identity of the cardholder while ensuring the integrity and authenticity of the ID card. The Cognitec Facial Recognition Software has been used to capture facial images.

The database can work at a speed of one million matches per second on a single processor.