As all sampled farm households were landed farmers, the lion share of household income earned from agriculture and it sustained the food security for the farm households, according the study.

It was observed that household expenditure spent mainly on family food and farming. Moreover, expenditure spent was the highest (47 percent) for farming followed by 31 and 9 percent for food and housing.

The study reveals that housing facilities increased significantly compared to before changing land use patterns. At present, about 24, 54 and 30 percent of farm households have building, tin shed and straw roofed houses while the corresponding percentages were 8, 51 and 27 respectively for the farm households before changing land use patterns.

It is noted that the percentage of building (brick house) increased about 3 times than before. Household water and sanitation facilities had improved. About 57, 42 and 30 percent of farm households had owned hand tube well (HTW), pucca toilet and kutcha toilet respectively.

After changing land use pattern, most of the farm families can meet the doctors for their treatment and health care. There had been a noteworthy improvement in communication facilities of farm households in the study areas.
About 49% and 52% of farm households have access to radio and television and have bicycle or motor cycle whereas it was 15% and 19% before changing land use patterns, says the study.

Ninety three percent of sampled farm households reported that quality and choice of food items increased under changing land use patterns.

Under this circumstance, it implied that farm income, crop yield, supply of food, choice of taking different food items, nutritional status, educational status, and employment opportunity of farm households and finally the food security increased under changing land use patterns.

The study indicates that rice is still the staple food item of the rural people in Bangladesh followed by vegetables, potato, milk and meat.
The study reveals that average daily per capita calorie intake (2439 Kcal) and protein intake (63.84 grams) which were slightly higher than the national average.

Food intake was relatively higher, as expected, for large and medium farm households and for higher income group households compared to small and marginal farm households and those of lower income groups.
However, large farm households had higher income and consumed more protein followed by medium, small and marginal farm group, respectively, study says.

It is found that the selected new land use patterns have contributed a lot to increase household income of the farmers. In fact, they are enjoying better livelihoods than ever before due to following these new land use patterns.

The study recommended for taking positive steps to improve food intake of small and marginal farmers under the circumstances.

It was suggested that more farmers should be encouraged to follow these land use patterns for earning higher farm income and ensuring food security for farm households in Bangladesh.

Principal Investigator of the study Prof M Serajul Islam told UNB that consumption of rice was similar before and after changing land use patterns. Frequencies of consumption of ruti (crushed wheat) and dal have decreased after changing land use patterns while frequencies of consumption of vegetables, meat, fish, egg, fruit and milk in a year have increased.
He said increased consumption of nutritious food might be attributed due to the increased income with the new land use patterns and better knowledge about nutrition of the farm households.

Prof Islam assessed per capita food intake and nutritional status of different categories of farm households and the average daily per capita calorie intake by households was estimated to be 2439 Kcal which was slightly higher than the national average of 2238.5 Kcal.
“Considering all land use patterns the food energy received from individual food items was the highest for rice (1790 Kcal) followed by potato (100 Kcal), fish (97 Kcal), vegetables (78 Kcal), oil (70 Kcal), milk (64 Kcal) and sugar (58 Kcal) respectively,” he said.
Prof Islam, also teacher of the Department of Agricultural Economics at Bangladesh Agricultural University said that protein is an important nutrient in human diet and the study shows that protein intake per capita per day was 63.84 grams considering all selected land use patterns.

“However, per capita per day protein intake was relatively higher for those farm households under selected land use patterns who consumed higher amount of food which are mentioned above,” he added.

Rumours are spreading within the main opposition that Mosaddek Ali Falu, once very powerful in the party, has sought exemption from the chairperson's advisory council.

He even submitted a letter to the chairperson seeking release from the party committee, said party insiders, adding that the matter is still pending as Khaleda Zia did not accept his resignation letter while Falu has yet to withdraw it.

Falu, former personal aide to the chairperson, however denied it saying that he did not send any letter to the chairperson.

“It's not true, I did not send any letter,” Falu, also a former lawmaker of the party, told The Daily Star over the phone on Thursday when asked whether he had resigned from the advisory council.

A number of party leaders, however, claimed that Falu had tendered his resignation from the advisory council just after formation of the BNP central committee on January 1 this year, as he was expecting more important post in the party's central body.

They also said that a dispute with an influential leader of the party also prompted Falu to take the decision of quitting the party committee.

BNP on January 1 had declared its 386-member central body and 32-member chairperson's advisory council keeping Falu as an adviser.

Party insiders said a few days after the announcement of the committee Falu met the chairperson and submitted the letter seeking release from the advisory council.

Khaleda Zia later called Falu at her office to discuss the issue and at a certain stage of their discussion, she offered Falu a vital post of party's Dhaka city unit but failed to convince him, they said.

Asked whether Khaleda offered him any important post of city unit, Falu declined to make any comment on the matter.

Khaleda also asked Falu to continue the party activities as a special assistant to her but he did not accept the proposal, sources said.

Since then Falu refrained from taking part in any party activities. He was not seen in any programme held at chairperson's Gulshan office or party's central office in Nayapaltan or at any street demonstration, the insiders said.

The issue came up for discussion following the resignation of Gayeshwar Chandra Roy from the standing committee on August 2, which too was not accepted by the chairperson.

This correspondent contacted Falu over the phone on August 11 for his version of the issue.

Falu asked the correspondent to meet him at his office yesterday. He also suggested making a phone call before going to his office.

Following his suggestion, this correspondent made a phone call yesterday when Falu once again asked about the issue.

After hearing the subject of discussion, he said, “I am away from my office, so tell me whatever you want to know from me over the phone.”

On submission of the letter, he just said that he did not send any letter to the chairperson.

Salsa is not easily defined. Salsa is syncretic dance form with origins from Cuba, as the original meeting point of European and African cultures. Its movements originate in Cuban Son, with strong influences from Mambo, Guaguanco, and other Afro-Cuban music.
Salsa is a distillation of many Latin and Afro-Caribbean dances. Each played a large part in its evolution.
Salsa is similar to Mambo in that both have a pattern of six steps danced over eight counts of music. The dances share many of the same moves. In Salsa, turns have become an important feature, so the overall look and feel are quite different form those of Mambo. Mambo moves generally forward and backward, whereas, Salsa has more of a side to side feel. Salsa is normally a partner dance, although there are recognized solo forms, line dancing, and Rueda de Casino where groups of couples exchange partners in a circle. Salsa can be improvised or performed with a set routine.
Basic movements:
There are a few basic steps of salsa, the most commonly is the three weight changes (or steps) in each four-beat measure. The beat on which one does not step might contain a tap or kick, or weight transfer may simply continue with the actual step not occurring until the next beat, some individuals may insert an actual pause. The option chosen depends upon individual choice and upon the specific style being danced. One of the steps is a "break step" a little bit longer than the other two. Different styles of Salsa are often differentiated by the direction and timing of the break step. After 6 weight changes in 8 beats, the basic step cycle is complete. While dancing, the basic step can be modified significantly as part of the improvisation and stylings of the people dancing.

Every day 268 million people use Google to search for something. The query goes in, the company's software programs, called spiders, crawl the Web and deliver back the most relevant links. The interaction is so simple—and the hidden calculation behind the results so complex—that it's no wonder people tend not to notice much about the process. Who bothers to ask the ingredients of a magic formula?

For all of its experiments with maps, books, e-mail, and social networking, Google is still an empire built on search. Ninety-seven percent of the company's $23.7 billion haul in 2009 came from advertising. While Google doesn't break out what each of its individual ad products such as AdWords or AdSense generates, multiple people within the company concede that Google is as dependent on the "Sponsored Links" generated by search queries as an oil nation is on its wells.

Since Google's 1998 debut, the search results page—where a home page query is returned with 10 suggested links on the left and multiple advertiser links on the right—has been through seven subtle redesigns. The most recent, in May 2007, saw the addition of images and video in what was dubbed "universal" search. On May 5, Google began rolling out its eighth iteration, which Marissa Mayer, vice-president of search products and user experience, calls "particularly large and particularly important."

Google has long had advanced search capabilities, but they were difficult to find. The goal was to surface them and integrate them into the main results page. Users now get results with an extra column of tools to drill deeper into information. That means a query can be quickly refined to show only results from shopping sites, say, or just videos on a topic, or the latest news results. Add in a new logo and a splash of colorful icons on the left side of the page that guide users through the new options, and the look is noticeably different.

Given that the shift of a single pixel can impact Google's profits, why would the company ever mess with the most successful product in the history of the Internet? "The Web is always changing, evolving, and innovating," says Mayer. "It's important even for sites that people use every day and are very familiar with, like Google, to update their look."

It's not just the look that's been updated. Microsoft's Bing, Facebook, and Twitter have made a case for the past few years that Google's search, based on ranking the overall relevance of a Web page, is outmoded, and that the future lies in an integration of relevance with real-time search. In December, Google conceded the point and announced it would begin indexing the Web in real time to help users organize the cacophony emanating from social media.

Some experts are skeptical of introducing complexity to the results pages. "Advanced search almost never works," says Jakob Nielsen, principal of the Norman Nielsen Group and co-author of the book Eyetracking Web Usability. "People don't want to use a search engine. They want to get away from a search engine. That's the reason the advertising works so well—the search engine is one site they want to get away from so they might go to an advertiser." In other words, Google has thrived precisely because it hasn't tried to envelop its users in a full-frills experience.

For the first time since an explosion on a drilling rig 15 days ago left an undersea well spewing crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico, engineers succeeded in shutting off one of the three leaks from the damaged well late Tuesday night, a spokesman for BP said on Wednesday morning.

Though by itself the move was not expected to reduce the amount of oil being released — estimated at 210,000 gallons a day — it “does enable to us to make progress, to winnow down the focus from three leaks to two,” said the spokesman, John Curry.

Submersible robots, controlled remotely from a ship on the surface, were able to place a specially designed valve over the end of a leaking drill pipe lying on the sea floor in water about 5,000 feet deep, and stop oil from escaping at that point, Mr. Curry said. The company had been trying since Monday to place the specially designed valve but had been hampered by rough seas and high winds that diminished on Tuesday.

With one valve shut, BP is now turning its attention to capping the worst of the leaks. Crews have loaded a 98-ton, four-story structure called a containment dome onto a barge, and are expected to tow it at midday Wednesday to the site of the spill, a 12-hour trip.

The plan is to lower the dome to the sea floor and place it over the leak, capturing the gushing oil and funneling it up to a rig waiting at the surface. That is expected to be operational by the end of the week, BP officials said.

Weather conditions continued to look promising on Wednesday, allowing recovery crews to move forward on several fronts to control the spread of the oil slick.

Mr. Curry said crews were preparing to conduct a “controlled burn” of some of the oil at sea, and that skimming boats were out in other areas to corral the thick oil from the surface of the water. Aircraft were also expected to resume dropping dispersants from overhead.

The report of progress in containing the leak came as BP, which is responsible for cleaning up the vast oil spill resulting from the fatal explosion and fire that destroyed the rig it was leasing, acknowledged that the flow of oil could become vastly larger than initially estimated.

In a closed-door briefing for members of Congress, a senior BP executive conceded Tuesday that the ruptured oil well could conceivably spill as much as 60,000 barrels a day of oil, more than 10 times the estimate of the current flow.

The scope of the problem has grown drastically since the rig, the Deepwater Horizon, sank into the gulf. Now, the discussion with BP on Capitol Hill is certain to intensify pressure on the company, which is facing a crisis similar to what the Toyota Motor Company had with uncontrolled acceleration — despite its efforts to control the damage to its reputation as a corporate citizen, the problem may be worsening.

Amid growing uncertainty about the extent of the leak, and when it might be stanched, pressure on BP intensified on multiple fronts Tuesday, from increasingly frustrated residents of the Gulf Coast to federal, state and local officials demanding more from the company.

The company considered a broad advertising campaign, but top BP executives rejected the idea before planning even started. “In our view, the big glossy expressions of regret don’t have a lot of credibility,” said Andrew Gowers, a BP spokesman.

Instead, the company has dispatched executives to hold town meetings in the affected region, and it has turned to lower-profile social media outlets to trumpet its cleanup efforts and moves to organize volunteers.