Prime Minister Khaleda Zia, also the leader of the House, and most of her cabinet colleagues skipped the day's proceedings and the weekly question-answer session for the prime minister was postponed without prior announcement.

The AL lawmakers preferred enforcing an eight-hour hartal and participating in the Jail Killing Day programmes to attending the legislative business, said Deputy Leader of |he Opposition Abdul Hamid.

He said the party deputies would join today's proceedings starting at 1:30pm.

The House was scheduled to sit at 1:30pm but sat at 1:55pm with Speaker Jamir Uddin Sircar in the chair. It had 54 members at the time, needing five more to make a quorum.

The parliament suffered quorum crises on several occasions during the two-hour sitting, as some lawmakmrs left the Hou{e after being there for sometime. At 3:25pm only 43 lawmakers were present.

The speaker withheld the process for passage of five bills at the request of Law Minister Moudud Ahmed and adjourned the session at 3:45pm.

The question-answer session was however held and call attention notices were placed. The law minister tabled the annual report of Bangladesh Energy Commission in the House.

State Minister for Cultural Affairs Selima Rahman introduced The Registration (Amendment) Bill 2004, which was sent to the standing committee concerned for scrutiny. The committee will submit a report on the bill in the next two months.

ALTAF SERIOUSLY SICK!
Deputy Speaker Akhtar Hamid Siddiqui yesterday told the House that Commerce Minister Altaf Hossain Choudhury failed to respond to a call attention notice on Tuesday as he had suddenly fallen sick.

Replying to a question by Krishak Sramik Janata League lawmaker Kader Siddiqui, the deputy speaker said the commerce minister informed the speaker about his sickness by telephone on the day.

"When the call attention notice was being read out in the House, the minister was in the lobby and as he felt unwell he left the parliament," he said.

Hamid agreed with Kader that it was an unprecedented incident in the parliament. "None of us has any hand in the sickness and we, including you, [may fall sick] anytime."

On Tuesday, Altaf failed to respond to a call attention notice either in person or by proxy that was brought by BNP lawmaker Manzur Quader. AL lawmakers made a noisy protest against it.

Manzur Quader yesterday again read his call attention notice on mixing of chemicals in food grains and this time Altaf made a written reply where he said the government is concerned about adulteration of food as well as mixing of chemicals with foodstuffs, vegetables and fruits. He assured that necessary actions would be taken to check the crime.

A committee headed by the local government rural development and co-operatives minister would be formed to formulate specific recommendations to that end, he said when the BNP lawmaker demanded enactment of a new law to check adulteration.