Himu's Window

Saturday, January 2, 2010 While most people celebrated the New Year with party and picnic on Thursday night in Rajshahi city, a group of youths came out to the streets to mitigate the suffering of homeless poor people who were lying out in the biting cold. The group of four youths, all are small businessmen, celebrated the New Year by distributing winter clothes among the poor people. Minutes before the zero hour, Md Shamsuzzaman Mithu of Dari Khorbona, Rajesh Kumar Seraogi of Pathanpara, Masum Sarker of Seroil Colony and Sheikh Mehedi Iqbal Sumon of Sagarpara gathered at Kumarpara with some 250 blankets and winter clothes. They went to Rajshahi Railway Station and saw a mother, who was hardly able to save her six-month-old child from the chill, holding it on her lap and sitting at a corner of the station veranda. She was sitting there, as the floor was also cold. The unidentified mother did not delay in expressing her gratitude to the youths for giving her two blank

Friday, January 1, 2010 A ruling party lawmaker's men have allegedly occupied 25 bighas of debottor (endowed) land of Radha Govinda and Durga Temple at Sohorapara in Godagari upazila of Rajshahi district. Locals said the loyalists of lawmaker Omar Faruk Chowdhury, also general secretary of Rajshahi district Awami League, arbitrarily formed a committee in November making Omar Faruk's follower Sanjit Kumar Ghosh as its president to look after the temple and its properties. On December 1, the self-styled temple-governing committee forced Anil Kumar Ghosh, the sebayet (custodian) of the temple, to leave the village and employed some 50 people to reap paddy from the land. On completion of paddy harvest on December 5, the committee men announced their control over the land and the temple, witnesses and villagers said. Temple committee president Sanjit acknowledged that they took control over the land at the lawmaker's directive that came after locals raised alle

Friday, January 1, 2010 Bangladesh Chhatra League (BCL) leader Emdadul Haque was sent to jail after he was hauled before a court yesterday on charges of beating up a Rajshahi University teacher and attempting to extort an admission seeker. The First Court of Metropolitan Magistrate Amirul Islam also rejected his bail prayer in connection with the case filed by the assaulted folklore department teacher Anupam Hera Mondol. Meanwhile, the RU unit BCL suspended membership of Haque, mass education affairs deputy secretary of the university unit. They also wrote to the central committee for his expulsion terming the attack on a teacher a heinous crime, said Ibrahim Hossain Moon, president of RU unit BCL. Both police and RU BCL leaders say Suman, another accused in the case, could not be properly identified as his father's name and hometown remained unknown. RU Proctor Prof Chowdhury Zakaria, meanwhile, served Haque with a show-cause notice asking him to clarify in seven

Wednesday, December 30, 2 The five and a half hour cultural evening at Rajshahi Bholanath Bisheswar Hindu Academy was abuzz with nearly 2,000 of former and present students of the 111-year old school and almost all were immersed in nostalgia. Although performances by noted vocal artiste Rafiqul Alam and composer Anup Bhattacharya, who were students of the school in the '50s, were the main attraction, presentations of current students like Pial, Sangeeta Pal and Mousumi seemed no less important to the cheerful audience. The academy organised the cultural evening, to celebrate its 111 years of glory and heritage at the school premises. Beginning at 6pm, the programme ended at 11:30pm on December 26. The evening began with "Karna Kunti Sangbad" where young student Mousumi Moitra played the role of Kunti and Shukhen Mukhopadhyay performed as Karna. Former student Tarun Kumar Das, a disciple of Pundit Raghunath Das, and music director of Rajshahi Betar enthral