Terming the countrywide load-shedding an early sign of grave economic crisis, BNP Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir on Tuesday said the government will now find it very difficult to overcome the crisis and prevent its fall. “The economists are saying problems are being created in every sector. The government will now be at a loss for what to do.  People are fuming and they’ll burst with anger, hastening the fall of the government,” he said. Speaking at a press conference at BNP Chairperson’s Gulshan office, Fakhrul also said the government has given around $7.5 to the Export Development Fund from the reserves to abet those who are doing business in different countries. “They siphoned off the money abroad and built houses there. So, that money is not coming to the country anymore. This is the beginning of the crisis.” He feared that the country’s economy will be hit hard by the frequent power outages as production in RMG and other sectors will be hampered by it. “The economy of Bangladesh mainly depends on the garment industry. When there is a shortfall in power and energy supply in that sector, problems will arise regarding the production and transportation,” the BNP leader observed. Mentioning that fuel oil and electricity are deeply intertwined with the economy, he said when the rationing system is introduced in power distribution, there will be a considerable possibility of reduction in production. “The economists are saying that this (load-shedding) is a temporary measure. They (govt) have to take steps toward a permanent solution to the problem. But they’re not going in that direction. They are not raising prices (of power) further in fear of facing public wrath as the prices have already been increased. But the economy is suffering tremendously,” the BNP leader viewed. He said the government will have to now pay the power plants that are not generating electricity due to the fuel crisis.  “In that case, a large part of the money will be spent and in most cases, these payments are made in dollars. These problems have been created due to rampant corruption and for lack of the government's plans. Their only goal is to indulge in corruption everywhere.” The BNP leader said the government paid about TK78,000 crores to the power plants that did not generate any electricity. “It is being now said that six diesel-run power plants remain closed, but they and other plants will continue to get money. I saw in the newspaper that Tk1760 crores will have to be spent for them annually. It’s now proved that they (govt) did it to create a scope for special companies to make money and thus they themselves benefited from it.” He warned that the government must be accountable to people someday for plundering public money by paying the power plant owners without producing electricity. Apart from the power sector, the BNP leader said the government is cutting money from people's pockets in various ways in the name of mega projects. "The biggest problem now in Bangladesh is the lack of good governance and accountability anywhere. So, corruption is the main cause behind the crisis that has now arisen." Fakhrul said the government should not undertake any plan or project which will be a burden on the country. ”If we buy outsized shoes we cannot wear them. That is what exactly now happening in the country, but people have to pay for it.” Even, he said the experts are warning that a situation like Sri Lanka may arise in seven other countries, including Bangladesh. At the press conference, Fakhrul also came up with the decisions made at a virtual meeting of their party’s standing committee on Monday. He said their meeting strongly condemned the recent attacks on the Hindu community members and on their houses and temples in Narail. It also formed a three-member investigation committee, headed by party vice chairman Advocate Nitai Roy Chowdhury, to look into the incident, the BNP leader said. He said the probe body has been asked to submit the report by July 26. Fakhrul said their standing committee meeting voiced concern over the crash of a cargo plane carrying arms from Serbia for Bangladesh on July 16. He said the meeting expressed wonder at the contradictory statements by the ISPR. “The statement of the Serbian Defense Minister and the statement of the ISPR are not consistent, causing confusion among people.” The BNP policymakers urged the government to make public the real information in this regard. Besides, the meeting denounced the government’s move to increase the prices of WASA’s water and 53 medicines. Referring to different comments of Chief Election Commissioner Kazi Habibul Awal, Fakhrul said,”He (CEC) has now become a laughing stock.” He said it has been proven over the last 10 years that a fair and credible election is not possible under Awami League and any partisan government. “The government must restore the caretaker government system for ensuring an acceptable election and overcoming the crisis.”

The remains of nine Native American children who died more than a century ago while attending a government-run school in Pennsylvania meant to assimilate them into white culture have been returned to their South Dakota tribe for burial on its reservation. The Rosebud Sioux planned to rebury the remains during a ceremony on Saturday, the Argus Leader reported. Read: Unmarked graves found at another Indigenous school in Canada The effort to return the remains took nearly six years. A caravan of young adults tasked with bringing the remains home to the reservation set out Tuesday from the site of the former Carlisle Indian Reform School, which is about 20 miles (32 kilometers) west of the Pennsylvania capital Harrisburg. It made several stops along the way, including in Yankton and Whetstone on Friday for emotional ceremonies with tribal members. Another ceremony was held earlier Friday at a Missouri River landing near Sioux City, Iowa, which was where the children, who died between 1880 and 1910, boarded a steamboat for their journey east. “This is a common sorrow we share, but on this day we have a common celebration,” Ben Rhodd, a member of the Rosebud Sioux, told the gathering in Yankton. Rodney Bordeaux, the tribe’s president, said Friday’s events were historic and thanked the young people for bringing the remains back. Read: More than 200 bodies found at Indigenous school in Canada “This is going to make us that much stronger as a people as we reclaim who we are,” he said. “Indian Country nationwide is rising up. We’re going to be stronger as we go forward.” Christopher Eagle Bear, 23, who was part of the youth council responsible for bringing returning the remains, said, “On this day, it is an honor to be Lakota. Hopefully, what we do here can inspire another youth group to move the road further than what we have started.” Some of the children will be reburied in a veterans’ cemetery on the reservation and others will be interred at family graveyards, tribal officials said. U.S. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland last month announced a nationwide investigation into the boarding schools that attempted to assimilate Indigenous children into white society. Haaland, the first Native American to serve as a Cabinet secretary, said “forced assimilation practices” stripped away the children’s clothing, their language and their culture. She said the government aims to locate the schools and burial sites and identify the names and tribal affiliations of children from the boarding schools around the country. The Carlisle school, which was founded by an Army officer and opened in 1880, was the first of its kind off a reservation and set an example later used by other schools to assimilate Native American children into white culture. It took drastic steps to separate students from their Indigenous cultures, including cutting their braids, dressing them in military-style uniforms and punishing them for speaking their native languages. They were also forced to adopt European names. More than 10,000 Native American children were taught at the Carlisle school and endured harsh conditions that sometimes led to death from such diseases as tuberculosis.