Dhaka, July 10
India and Bangladesh today agreed to launch a direct passenger train service between Dhaka and Kolkata within next four weeks, more than 40 years after suspension of the rail link between the two countries.

Officials of the two countries decided that the service “will be launched within next four weeks” as the meeting between the two sides on the proposed Dhaka-Kolkata train ended here today, Bangladesh Railway spokesman Shafique Khan said.

He said Bangladeshi officials would go to Kolkata on July 29 on-board the inter-country Moitree Express in another trial run. “The spokesman said the two sides initially decided that one train from both, Dhaka and Kolkata, would ply up-down between the two cities in a total of four trips in the initial days while the frequency would be increased with further development of infrastructures.

The meeting, he said, agreed that Bangladesh would accomplish the customs and other formalities at the originating Dhaka Cantonment Station while India would do it at the border of the two countries.

The 14-member Indian delegation was led by additional home secretary A.E. Ahmed and the Bangladesh side was headed by communication ministry’s additional secretary A.T.M. Ismail.

The spokesman said the meeting decided to settle the remaining issues, including security matters, when the Bangladesh officials would reach Kolkata in another trial run of the train to the West Bengal capital on July 29.

Bangladesh Railway officials earlier said they expected the service to be launched by mid August.

The first train from the West Bengal capital reached here two days ago on a trial-run carrying 14-member Indian delegation for the two-day talks.

Officials yesterday said the two sides would require a consensus on the frequency of the inter-country Moitree Express as India insisted it be operated once a week while Bangladesh wanted it to ply three days to make it commercially viable.

“We also want the immigration and custom formalities to be accomplished at the originating stations to save journey time and make it comfortable while our Indian counterparts suggested it be done at Gede, the Indian side of the border,” a railway official said, on condition of anonymity.

The Indian delegation also proposed erection of box-type fencing along the 150 metre route on the international border and immigration point. Officials earlier said there would be three categories of fares of $8, $12 and $20 with Bangladesh keeping 78 per cent of the revenue while India getting the rest, as the distance between Sealdah and the Bangladesh border is 120 kms while the length of the rail track in Bangladesh territory is 418 kms. The proposed service comprises chair coaches of economy class (Shovon class), air-conditioned first class and air-conditioned sleeping class along with a power car, one buffet car and a prayer car. Passenger carriages of the train were imported from Indonesia but they were assembled in Bangladesh’s Saidpur Railway Workshop to run between Dhaka and Kolkata.

Passenger train service between the two countries was suspended after the 1965 war between India and Pakistan when Bangladesh was the eastern part of Pakistan. — PTI 

Washington, July 10
Mounting demands from lawmakers for a new Iraq policy are battering President George W Bush, but the White House insists the rising political heat will not force a quick about-face on troop withdrawals.

Increasing Republican anxiety over Bush’s strategy and a new Democratic assault has set the stage for the next two weeks in Congress, in what could prove the most crucial showdown yet on ending the war.

Republicans have so far, offered Bush, a firewall against attempts to handcuff his war powers by Democratic leaders, who have backed a bid to get most combat troops home from Iraq by April 1, 2008.

The new intensity of the Iraq debate came as the administration prepared to unveil an interim report on the progress of Bush’s strategy to surge nearly 30,000 extra soldiers into the war-torn nation.

US officials said the progress report to Congress, due out later this week, would give mixed reviews to the strategy and to efforts by leaders in Baghdad to take steps to quell violence.

“I’m not sure everybody is going to get an ‘A’ on the first report,” White House spokesman Tony Snow said wryly to reporters when asked about Iraq’s government and its failures thus far to meet US goals for reconciliation.

It was unclear whether the report would find many concrete achievements to praise.

“The report to be issued by Sunday will present a picture of satisfactory progress on some benchmarks and not on others. This is to be expected, given the report is a preliminary snapshot of what are the early stages of the full surge,” a senior US official said hours after the briefing. — AFP

March 27: Women students abduct three women they accused of running a brothel, then later seized two policemen. All were released after women supposedly repented and were shown to the media wearing burqas.

April 6: Mosque sets up Islamic "Shariah" court. Mosque chief Abdul Aziz pledges "thousands" of suicide attacks if the government tries to shut it down.

April 9: Shariah court passes fatwa against Pakistan against Pakistan Tourism Minister Nilofar Bakhtiar after she is pictured hugging a parachuting instructor.

April 10: The government says it has blocked the mosque's illegal website and radio station.

May 19: Students kidnap four policemen after the arrest of around a dozen mosque supporters. Two days later, students from a seminary linked to the masjid kidnap another two policemen. All are eventually freed.

June 23: Dozens of students kidnap nine persons, including six Chinese women and a Chinese man, from an acupuncture clinic, claiming it is a brothel. All are freed later.

July 3: Pakistani security forces trade gunfire with militant madarsa students in the heart of Islamabad leaving 10 persons dead and over 130 injured in a sudden flare-up of violence sparked by paramilitary deployment around the masjid.

July 4: The Pakistan Government spurn attempts by radical clerics of the Lal Masjid here to work out a negotiated settlement and ask them to surrender along with weapons as the number of persons dead in the stand off between security forces and militant mosque students climb to 21.

July 5: As the Pakistan military scale up its offensive on the masjid through selective bombardment using helicopter gunships to flush out holed up militants, deputy administrator of the mosque Abdul Rashid Ghazi offers to surrender unconditionally along with his aides.

July 6: Intense gunbattles followed by heavy explosions erupts between militants holed up inside the masjid and security forces surrounding it as the leading cleric of the mosque reversed his offer for conditional surrender on the fourth day of the stand-off.

July 7: In a blunt warning to hundreds of radical students and militants holed up in the masjid, Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf says that they must surrender failing which they would all be killed.

July 8: Fifty hardcore militants among the several hundred holed up inside put on suicide jackets and gear up to resist any raid on the complex amid reports that President Pervez Musharraf has given a go ahead for troops to storm the facility to end the six-day long stand-off.

July 9: The government holds last-ditch talks with a radical cleric and hundreds of militants holed up in the masjid here but there were little indications of a breakthrough to end the week-long standoff.

July 10: Pakistan launches a full fledged military operation to flush out hundreds of militants holed up in Lal Masjid after final round of talks for a peaceful solution to the week-long stand-off fails. — PTI