Modi's Visit ;Major streets to remain off-limits to commuters

Staff Correspondent

If you need to go to office or do any work in some part of the capital today and tomorrow, make sure you avoid the routes Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi would use.
This is because he will be visiting some places in and around the city during his two-day visit to Bangladesh. Some major roads will be off limits to commuters for a reasonable period of time to make his trips safe.
Modi is expected to arrive at Shahjalal International Airport at 10:15am today. He will go directly to the National Memorial at Savar to pay homage to the martyrs of the Liberation War.
He will head for Bangabandhu Memorial Museum in Dhanmondi before going to Sonargaon Hotel around 1:15pm. The Indian leader will go to the Prime Minister's Office around 3:30pm and return to hotel around 9:30pm.
Security personnel will restrict traffic on those roads for a longer period than they usually do during the trips of the Bangladesh prime minister, said a top traffic police official, preferring anonymity.
“But we will tighten security on roads if the Special Security Force asked us to do so,” he added.
Tomorrow, Modi will visit the Dhakeshwari Temple in Lalbagh, Ramkrishna Mission in Gopibagh, Indian High Commission in Baridhara, and the Bangabhaban. He is expected to leave Dhaka at 8:20pm.

Security in the city has already been tightened ahead of Modi's visit.
“Apart from the law enforcement agencies, the city leaders of the ruling Awami League will remain alert to any trouble,” said a deputy commissioner of Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP).
Street vendors in several areas of the capital have been evicted from footpaths. Law enforcers also set up check posts on roads, said police.
SM Jahangir Alam Sarker, acting deputy commissioner (media) of DMP, said they already planned to ensure tight security measures in and around the airport and in places Modi would visit. Top DMP officials were co-coordinating the measures.
The Rapid Action Battalion (Rab) will deploy bomb disposal teams and dog squads at the venues. They will set up additional check posts on roads. Besides, Rab men on motorcycles will patrol the key areas, said Mufti Mahmud Khan, legal and media wing director of Rab.
During his stay in Dhaka, Modi will be under the security cover of the Indian Special Protection Group and commando force Black Cat.
Indian security and protocol officials are already in the city. They had several meetings with the law enforcement agencies and the protocol unit of the foreign ministry.

Environment minister's controversial statement about tigers

Star Online Report

Meet Bangladesh’s Environment and Forest Minister Anwar Hossain Manju who seemed least bothered about the number of country’s national animal, the Bengal Tiger.
On the occasion of World Environment Day today, we bring to you the minister who advised activists not to bother about cutting down "some trees".
“Corruption is rampant in the country of 160 million people and you are telling me to be concerned over only 15 trees?” Manju said while talking to an environmental organisation in Sylhet, according to a local media Sylhet Today24.com.
“The people of southern Bangladesh don’t have gas; if they don’t cut trees what will they cook with?”
Regarding the safety of tigers in the world’s largest mangrove forest, the Sundarbans, the minister said: “We got $1,300 million to protect tigers there. I have said in my speech that we cannot save 160 million people, how can we save 400 tigers?”
He also went on to say: “There may be some 400 tigers in the Sundarbans. But who cares?

They gave money so I wrote down 440 tigers. Do you know people and tigers both sleep in the vicinity of the Sundarbans?”
Regarding environmental organisations and NGOs, the minister said, “This is a business and one of the most lucrative businesses around. We are talking about environment now, because international organisations give us money…they don’t give it to you, they give it to me” he added.

India PM Modi pays homage to Bangladesh war heroes, founding father

Star Online Report

Paying homage to Bangladesh’s founding father, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi today termed him as an “icon of democracy” and “a great friend of India”.
The visiting Indian premier made the remark in a tweet he posted while paying homage to Bangabandhu, whom he also termed as a “towering personality”, at Bangabandhu Bhaban in Dhanmondi after visiting the National Memorial in Savar earlier in the day.

“Bangabandhu lived here from 1961 till his assassination on the night of 14-15 August 1975,” Modie tweeted with a photograph taken inside the house.

There, he placed wreaths at the portrait of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and also visited Bangabandhu Memorial Museum.

Narendra Modi visits Bangabandhu Memorial Museum at Dhanmondi-32 in Dhaka on Saturday. Photo: Twitter/ @PMOIndia

Posting several pictures, he wrote on his Twitter account: “Pictures from the house where history was scripted by Bangabandhu.”

Earlier, Modi paid homage to martyrs of the 1971 Liberation War at the National Memorial at Savar on the outskirts of the capital.
Top officials who flew in with him here and officials at Indian high commission here accompanied him to the war memorial.
“Foundation Stone for Jatiyo Smriti Shoudho was laid by Bangabandhu himself. Design was chosen from various entries obtained in a competition,” reads another Tweet of the Indian premier.
He went there immediately after landing at Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport in Dhaka around 10:10am by a special aircraft of the Indian Air Force.

“Memorial gives impression of rising from the ashes like a phoenix. It symbolises courage & determination of people,” he wrote in another tweet.

This is Modi's first Bangladesh trip after he took over as the prime minister of India following the landslide victory of his party – Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) – in Indian election last year.