Other Headlines

Proposed Elevated Expressway Cost estimate too high Local experts critical of consultant’s projection; propose to cut it down to one-third Local experts are working to scale down the construction cost of the proposed Dhaka Elevated Expressway to $25 million (Tk 175 crore) for each kilometre from $75 million estimated by a foreign consultant. AECOM Australia ... Read more

Protests husband’s refusal to register marriage A teenage girl got severely injured after she torched herself yesterday at city’s Zia Sarani in Kadamtoli as her ‘husband’ refused to register their marriage. Eighteen year old Ratna Akhter was rushed to the Burn Unit of Dhaka Medical College Hospital (DMCH) after she doused herself in kerosene and ... Read more

5 held; rectified spirit seized from homeopathy drug factory A team of Rapid Action Battalion yesterday busted a fake homeopathy medicine factory and arrested five people in this connection from Old Dhaka’s Babu Bazar area. They also seized around 1,200 litres of rectified spirit from the spot. The arrestees are factory manager Mohammad Jasim Uddin, ... Read more

A 55-year-old woman and her 32-year-old son died in Dhaka Medical College Hospital on Saturday hours after being burnt in their house at Goran in the capital, hospital sources said. The mother, Aleya Begum, who worked as principal officer at the Motijheel branch of the Janata Bank, was wounded on Friday night when she went ... Read more

Bangladesh Cricket team led by its prolific skipper Shakib Al Hasan will meet New Zealand Cricket team led by experienced captain Daniel Vettori today in the fifth and last One Day International (ODI) match of the Micromax Cup at the Sher-e-Bangla National Cricket Stadium in Mirpur. The game begins at 9.00 AM BST (Bangladesh Standard ... Read more

A garment worker who divorced her husband to relieve herself from his torture is now crying in pain at Dhaka Medical College Hospital’s Burn unit with her face fully burnt by acid her former husband threw. Yar Mahmud, her former husband, threw acid on her face on Friday night, as she rejected his proposal to ... Read more

Climate change badly affecting harvest, making it difficult to feed rising population A rising population amid declining agricultural land has put the country’s future food security at risk, especially when salinity in the coastal belt, and droughts and depleting underground water level in the north have become constant realities. According to a projection of the ... Read more

Traffic control DMP sits on digital cameras, display boards The Dhaka Metropolitan Police is yet to start using its digital cameras and traffic display boards, an initiative taken four years back to streamline traffic and ease congestion on the city roads. The telecom division of the DMP initiated the project in 1997 to improve the ... Read more

The authorities have decided to strictly enforce from November 1 the safety rules on roads like fastening of seatbelts for drivers and passengers of all motorised vehicles to curb fatal road accidents, while buses, trucks, microbuses, three wheelers and human haulers still do not have seatbelts. Officials at the Bangladesh Road Transport Authority said that ... Read more

At least two people were killed and five others injured, one critically, when a train hit a microbus at a level crossing under Jhaoil bridge in Kamarkhand upazila of Sirajganj yesterday afternoon. Bimol Chaki, officer-in-charge of Government Railway Police (GRP) Station at Sirajganj, said the accident occurred as there was no rail gate at the

The government would install 12 more inflatable rubber dams on medium and small rivers in as many districts at an estimated cost of Tk 167.58 crore for dry season irrigation, officials said. They said that each dam would have the capacity to irrigate more than a thousand acres of crop land using surface water

Many schools did not give cash memos for the extra fees charged Several schools in the capital are illegally making money by holding ‘model tests’ on the plea of preparing the students of Classes V and VIII for the newly introduced public examinations. The guardians and students of the schools said that the students were ... Read more

Hundreds of Hindu devotees thronged Dhaka Ramkrishna Mission and Dhakeshwari National Temple for Kumari Puja yesterday. The Goddess Durga is worshipped in various forms during the five-day Sharodiya Durgotsab and one of those forms is Kumari, the virgin form of the

A woman here succmbed to her burn injuries yesterday after she set herself on fire to commit suicide on Thursday. Deceased Hasina Begum, 35, was the wife of Idu Mia of Munshipara under sadar upazila in the district. While undergoing treatment at the hospital, Hasina told The Daily Star Thursday night that she torched herself ... Read more

Husband arrested A group of unknown criminals strangled a housewife at a South Banasree residence of Khilgaon in the capital yesterday evening. The deceased was identified as Sumi Begum, 38. Police arrested her husband Mahfuzur Rahman Rana, an employee of a shop in Paltan, in this

New power connection Four lakh applications pending At least four lakh applications have been filed with five power distribution companies seeking new electricity connections. The new connections would need additional 1,200MW electricity while the country is facing at least 2,000MW power shortfall against the existing

Bangladeshi scientists discover how harmless viruses turn into deadly ones A group of Bangladeshi scientists made a breakthrough discovery of how a group of viruses can turn harmless bacteria into deadly cholera causing ones. The finding will have far-reaching global implications in predicting cholera epidemic, and will make it easier to produce preventive vaccine, the ... Read more

The government revived a project, after 18 months, to transform 306 non government secondary schools in as many upazila headquarters into ‘model schools’ to reduce the growing gap in the standard of education between urban and rural areas, said officials. The project, they said, would transform a non government school in each of the 306

The government has imposed a 10-day ban from today on netting hilsa in the coastal areas to create a disturbance free breeding environment for mother fish during this peak season. “The highest number of hilsa releases eggs during this period. To increase production of national fish, we are slapping the ban.”

Chilean rescuers hoisted 33 trapped miners to safety yesterday as millions watched round the globe after a two-month underground ordeal. In a complicated but flawless operation under Chile’s far northern desert, Luis Urzua, who was shift leader when the mine collapsed in early August, emerged last through 2,050 feet (625 metres) of