Month: October 2013

The government on Friday signed a USD 500 million financial agreement with the International Development Association (IDA), the World Bank’s (WB’s) concessional arm, to support major safety net programmes implemented by the disaster management and relief ministry. Around four million poorest households are supposed to benefit from the project.

Bank officials, dishonest businessmen involved The Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) in its investigation has found involvement of a huge number of employees of different banks in most of the graft cases taking place during the tenure of the present government. An official of ACC seeking

The Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) on Friday alleged that the government has decided to turn the Grameen Bank Ordinance into law to destroy the Bank. The party’s assistant secretary general, Ruhul Kabir Rizvi Ahmed, made the allegation at a press conference at the BNP headquarters at Naya Paltan. “Grameen Bank and its founder Nobel laureate ... Read more

An Awami League leader on Friday accused the BNP of stealing copies of the verdict against Salauddin Quader Chowdury to create a controversy. “The law ministry was not involved in leaking of the verdict, as alleged by the Opposition. In fact, the BNP was involved in the conspiracy. The guilty should be booked,” said Suranjit ... Read more

Airing doubt whether there will be any timely  election, Jatiya Party Chairman HM Ershad said here on Friday that people would not accept any attempt to hold the next polls without  the participation of all political parties. “There’s uncertainty whether the election will be held in time. The people of the country won’t accept the ... Read more

Three people were killed in separate traffic accidents in Sylhet, Magura and Bagerhat districts on Friday. In Sylhet, a young passerby was killed as a truck ran him over on Sylhet-Tamabil road in Khadimpara Bypass point area of sadar upazila around 12:00pm. The deceased was identified as Afsar Miah, 21,

Cabinet endorses draft bill The cabinet on Thursday approved the draft of the Grameen Bank Bill 2013, providing the Bangladesh Bank with the authority to ‘regulate the micro-credit organisation like other financial institutions.’ The draft proposes increasing the authorised capital of the Nobel-winner Grameen Bank to Tk 1,000 crore from Tk 350 crore and the ... Read more

Patients suffered immensely as medicine traders kept their stores shut all over the country on Thursday in protest at the raids by drug administration and law enforcement agencies and seizure of counterfeit and substandard medicines worth Tk 5 crore. The duration of the strike, enforced by

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina said on Thursday that her government would be able to complete the trials of war criminals, like the trial of the Bangabandhu killing case, in order to make the nation free from stigma. “I believe that we will be able to complete trials of war criminals who committed crimes against humanity ... Read more

Questioning the transparency of the International Crimes Tribunals, opposition BNP on Thursday said the country’s people will not accept if anyone is punished with a political motive. “Echoing Salauddin Quader Chowdhury’s family, we would like to say we also want transparent and fair trial. The people of Bangladesh can’t accept

Illegal Foreign Workers KSA plans crackdown No more amnesty in Malaysia The Saudi Arabian government will start a massive crackdown on illegal foreign workers after the end of the amnesty that expires on November 4. It warned that the migrants staying illegally in the kingdom would be fined and jailed for two years after the ... Read more

Positive Bangladesh Litre of Light In 2012, Sajid Iqbal was inspired by a video posted on his Facebook wall by a friend — ‘Litre of Light.’ His interest was kindled by the combination of art and science, creating a technology he now calls ‘Botol Bati’. In the video, Alfredo Moser, a Brazilian innovator and inventor ... Read more

The introduction of 3G technology has generated huge expectations among consumers, but experts warn that the people will not be able to enjoy the benefits of this technology much if the tariffs and the prices of mobile phones continue to remain high. At present, a 3G-enabled handset is priced at a minimum of Tk. 10,000, ... Read more

National grid to get 175 MW electricity from India The much-talked about power import from India will get under way on a commercial basis from tomorrow through the addition of 175 megawatt (MW) of electricity to the national grid. “Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina will formally inaugurate the electricity import at the power transmission centre in ... Read more

Transparency International, Bangladesh (TIB), an international non-government organisation (NGO) working as a catalyst of social movement against corruption, has found that 10 NGOs do not exist. These were part of 63 NGOs selected for projects under the Bangladesh Climate Change Trust Fund (BCCTF). Besides, nine NGOs were allocated projects on

Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) arrested seven Chinese citizens and their three Bangladeshi cohorts from Uttara area in the city on charge of smuggling Bangladeshi medicines early Thursday. They have so far smuggled consignments of huge number of tablets such as Oraplus, Loratin and Oradin to Hong Kong in the name of exporting garment products and ... Read more

A writ petition seeking a directive to hold the next two parliamentary polls under a caretaker government (CG) was filed in the High Court on Thursday. Advocate Yunus Ali Akond said his petition sought implementation of a Supreme Court verdict of May 10, 2011. In the verdict on the 13th amendment,

The agitation by teachers and counter-protest by vice-chancellor of Jahangirnagar University (JU) Prof Dr Anwar Hossain in front of the VC’s residence continued for the third consecutive day on Thursday. The agitating teachers under the banner of General Teachers’ Forum have been demanding the VC’s resignation. On the other hand, Prof. Anwar expressed