The Appellate Division of the Supreme Court on Sunday stayed the HC order granting bail to ex-NSU trustee board member MA Kashem, in a case over laundering around Tk 304 crore in the name of buying land for the campus. Chamber Judge of the Appellate Division Justice M Enayetur Rahim passed the order, said Advocate Khurshid Alam, a counsel of Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC). The court also upheld the HC order granting bail to another former member of the trustee board Rehana Rahman in the case. Advocates Murad Reza, Shah Manjurul Haque and Barrister Syed Ahmed Raza stood for the two accused. Read more: HC grants conditional bail to 2 ex-NSU trustees The High Court (HC) on November 10 granted conditional bail to Kashem and Rehana in the case. They were granted bail on condition that they will not leave the country and not set foot on the NSU campus without permission, said Lawyer Shah Monjurul Hoque. Back in August, the HC issued a rule seeking explanation as to why the two NSU trustee board members should not be granted bail in this case. On May 22, the court ordered Shahbagh police to arrest four NSU trustees after rejecting their anticipatory bail pleas in the case. The other accused trustees are- Benazir Ahmed and Muhammad Shahjahan. On May 5, the ACC sued the chairman of the board of trustees of North South University (NSU) Azim Uddin Ahmed and five others for embezzling Tk 303.82 crore in the name of buying land for the campus. Another accused is- Managing director of Ashalaya Housing and Developers Limited Amin Mohamed Hilali. ACC's Deputy Director Farid Ahmed Patwar filed the case. The case states that over 9088 decimal land was bought in the name of permanent campus development of NSU with the consent of some members of the Board of Trustees bypassing the approval of the University Syndicate, University Grants Commission and the Ministry of Education. They later withdrew cash from the buyer through cash checks in their own names and kept FDR in their own names. They unjustly benefited themselves by committing illegal activities through misuse of power and embezzling university and government funds, according to the case. In carrying out such illegal activities, they committed a punishable offence by resorting to fraud and forgery and exchanging commissions.

Dhaka University (DU) and North South University (NSU) have been ranked as the top two Bangladeshi universities in Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2023. Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2023 – which includes 1,799 universities across 104 countries and regions – placed DU and NSU between 601 and 800 higher education institutions worldwide. The ranking is based on 13 carefully calibrated performance indicators that measure an institution's performance across four areas: teaching, research, knowledge transfer and international outlook. Bangladesh Agricultural University (BAU), Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET), and Khulna University of Engineering and Technology (KUET) were placed between 1201 and 1500 universities worldwide. The University of Oxford topped the ranking for the seventh consecutive year. Harvard University remained in second place, but the University of Cambridge jumped from joint fifth last year to joint third. The US was the most-represented country overall, with 177 institutions, and also the most represented in the top 200 (58). China had the fourth-highest number of institutions in the top 200 (11, compared to 10 last year), having overtaken Australia, which dropped to fifth (jointly with the Netherlands). Five countries entered the ranking for the first time – all of them in Africa (Zambia, Namibia, Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Mauritius). Harvard topped the teaching pillar. Oxford led the research pillar.        

A Jahangirnagar University teacher who was also teaching part-time at North South University has been dismissed from the latter, on charges of sexually harassing a female student.  In fact the dismissed teacher, Assistant Professor Atiqur Rahman (Department of Statistics, Jahangirnagar University) ended up getting a beating from the students enraged by his conduct, for which he was forced to apologise.  Pictures and videos of the beating and the teacher's apology spread through social media on Monday (April 11th). There, some students are also seen abusing Atiqur. Describing the incident, students of NSU said that the victim had gone to Atiqur's NSU office to understand a statistical problem, Atiqur suggested she should visit him at Jahangirnagar University to learn. When the student avoided the subject, Atiqur started harassing her in various ways, e.g. calling her late at night. Even if the student tried to avoid the topic of taking tuition from him, Atiqur would keep pressuring her in various ways.  He even tried to tempt her with an offer to buy her an iPhone. Later, the student shared the developments with her university friends, and on their advice, asked Atiqur to visit a coffee shop in Bashundhara residential area with her today. When Atiqur got there, he sensed the presence of other students and tried to run away, but he was chased down and caught.  At that point he offered to settle the matter for Tk 1 lakh. But it didn't work and instead he received a mob-beating,before students took him to the proctor's office. He was fired from NSU there and then. READ: HC seeks govt report on preventing sexual harassment in the workplace Back at JU, Atiqur Rahman adamantly denied all the allegations of wrongdoing against him. He said the student had wanted to understand a subject-related problem outside the class. He never harassed her in any form. Today, he had gone to the coffee shop at her request and got beaten up. The teacher also denied calling the student in the middle of the night, or tempting her with iPhone. Asked to explain the offer of Taka 1 lakh to the students if he did nothing wrong, he said it was more to save himself from their beating at that point. Asked why the students would do this to him without any reason, Atiqur said, "The student was upset with me for some reason, or may have done so to get revenge." Revenge for what? He couldn't say. Yet he feels 'cheated' and is going to pursue the legal route, most likely on grounds of defamation.  Neither the victim nor her friends or either university has yet commented on the matter.

Banglalink has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with North South University (NSU) to open a new window of opportunity and collaboration.