The village is familiar as ‘sickle village’. Its real name is Araibaria, located at Hossainpur Upazila in Kishoreganj district. In half of the country’s land, farmers had started cutting Boro paddy with sickles made from this village. About 1.5 million pieces of sickles have been made and sailed in this Boro season from the village. ... Read more
Dhaka Mirror
Sustainable development of livestock in char areas underlined
The speakers of a function held on Wednesday underlined the need for sustainable development of livestock in char areas through providing and ensuring the services by Government and Non government organisation. “Rearing of cows, goats and sheep is very profitable and it can play an important role to alleviate poverty and eradicate monga facing the ... Read more
Hammam ‘ignores’ FIFA in voting dispute
AFC president Mohamed bin Hammam has rejected FIFA’s instruction to reinstate the voting rights of five countries at next week’s crucial congress of the regional football body, officials said. FIFA’s legal director last week told the AFC that Kuwait, Laos, East Timor, Afghanistan and Mongolia had the right to vote in deciding who will fill ... Read more
Ctg metropolis becomes champion in Zone-C nat’l handball
Chittagong metropolis hand-ball team emerged champion, while Chittagong district team finished runners-up in the Zone-C competition of the Exim Bank 19th Men’s National Handball Cham-pionship. Chittagong district team defeated Dhaka 26-13 and Chittagong metropolis team outplayed Chittagong district team 30-15 in the ‘super-three’ competitions at Rangamati Stadium on Thursday. Both champion and runners-up teams earned ... Read more
Bangladeshi dies of Swine Flu in Mexico
A Bangladeshi national was one of eight foreign national who died of swine flu in Mexico, Health Minister A F M Ruhul Haque said yesterday quoting an AFP journalist. “I heard the news (of death of a Bangladeshi) from an AFP journalist,” the Minister told newsmen. Mexico’s National Epidemiological Center on Wednesday confirmed that the ... Read more
Khaleda, her family members’ appeal for withdrawing cases against them
BNP ready for massive gathering at Paltan BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia and her family members on Thursday submitted three separate applications to the government for withdrawing 20 cases filed against them by the last caretaker government. Khaleda Zia sat in a separate meeting with the two leaders last Monday and Tuesday as there are conflicts ... Read more
May Day today
The historic May Day will be observed in the city as elsewhere across the country today with a call for establishment of the fundamental rights of the working class of people. On this day in 1886, scores of workers were killed at Hey Market in Chicago in the United States when the workers staged demonstration ... Read more
Trade union movement in doldrums for years
Party’s interest more important to union leaders than workers’ rights Opportunism, corruption, undue political interference, workers’ disunity and the ideological divide between the leaders have stalled the trade union movement in Bangladesh for decades, which has allowed the workers’ rights to be trampled across the country, said analysts and activists. The absence of constructive unionism ... Read more
Padma Bridge to be completed by Dec 2013
Communications Minister Syed Abul Hossain yesterday categorically said the construction of long cherished Padma Multipurpose Bridge (PMB) would be completed within December 2013. “On completion, the Padma Bridge is expected to contribute an additional 1.2 per cent growth to Syed Abul Hossain was speaking at a presentation on design of the Padma Multipurpose Bridge held ... Read more
Govt opens maiden power plant bids
Eight firms vie for 300MW station Eight power companies yesterday submitted their financial and technical bids to install a 300 megawatt power plant in Siddhirganj under the World Bank financing, the first power bid opened under the new Awami League government. Sources say four Chinese companies, an Indian and an Indo-German joint venture, a Korean ... Read more
Free textbooks for 70 lakh secondary students from next year
The government on Thursday decided to distribute textbooks among all the 70 lakh secondary students free from the academic year 2010, the education minister, Nurul Islam Nahid, told New Age. ‘The decision was made at a meeting attended by the finance minister and the chairman and members of the parliamentary standing committee on education ministry,’ ... Read more
Ghulam Rahman new ACC chief
The government appointed Ghulam Rahman, chairman of Bangladesh Energy Regulatory Commission, as the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) chief yesterday, twenty-eight days after Hasan Mashhud Chowdhury stepped down from the post. The government also downgraded the status of the ACC chairman to a Supreme Court judge from the status of a minister given during the tenure of ... Read more
Power generation falls to 90 MW from 230 at KHPP
Water level 75.05 MSL instead of 82.40 Kaptai Hydroelectric Power Plant (KHPP), the country’s lone hydroelectric power project, is now in operation with one unit only out of five, generating just 90 megawatt (MW) of electricity instead of installed 230MW at present. With the decline of power generation at KHPP due to drastic fall of ... Read more
Heatstroke continues to take toll: 3 more die: Diarrhoea turns endemic City water system contaminated
Diarrhoea outbreak in the city has become phenomenal as the inhabitants have no other way except for drinking muddy and stinking water. Scorching heat continues all over the country, our correspondents from Bhola, Rangpur and Gopalganj have reported that one person in each place has died of heatstroke. The deceased are Yasen Patwari (65) of ... Read more
Military and military-backed govts put brakes on desired development: PM
Asks government officials to act as friend, not master of masses Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Tuesday observed that Bangladesh could not attain its desired development yet as military and military-backed forces ruled the country frequently in the past with disregard for people’s welfare. Not only in Bangladesh but in many other countries of the ... Read more
Power struggle throws local admin in disarray
MPs find UNOs on their side in row with upazila chairmen Conflicts between the elected representatives and local administration at the grassroots have intensified with upazila nirbahi officers siding with members of parliament in respective areas throwing local administration into disarray. The grassroots administrations are suffering from a kind of inertia as the newly elected ... Read more
Trial of War Criminals maintaining International Standards
BDR massacre trial in accordance with law Law Minister Barrister Shafique Ahmed on Tuesday said the government is proceeding cautiously to hold the trial of war criminals impeccably by international standards. Addressing the press, he said, “We are not hesitating to hold the trial of war criminals which is a national demand. We want to ... Read more
Khoka-Abbas rivalry prompts Khaleda to intervene
Rivalry between Sadek Hossain Khoka and Mirza Abbas, two aspirants for the top position of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party in the capital, reflects intense grouping at different tiers of the party across the country. The party chairperson, Khaleda Zia, however, has taken a move to have the two influential leaders of the Dhaka city to ... Read more
Textbook crisis forces many schools to defer exams
Many secondary schools have been forced to defer the beginning of first term examinations as the government failed to make the textbooks available in the markets at the beginning of the academic year on January 1. The academic calendar prepared by the Ministry of Education scheduled the start of the first term examinations in all ... Read more
WHO’s worldwide warning: Too late to contain swine flu
The swine flu virus first detected in Mexico can no longer be contained and countries should focus on mitigating its effects, a top UN official said. World Health Organization deputy chief Keiji Fukuda was speaking as the WHO raised its alert level to four, or two steps short of a full pandemic. UN food inspectors ... Read more