News

Tk 100-7,000 for a licence, Tk 100-500 for passing test, reveals TIB study on BRTA graft; minister pledges reform committee Staff Correspondent Sixty-one percent drivers have got driving licences from Bangladesh Road Transport Authority (BRTA) without sitting for the required test while 54 percent of them drive vehicles on roads in the country with expired ... Read more

bdnews24.com, Dhaka The four top administrators of Bangabandu Sheikh Mujib Medical University quit their posts on Sunday, citing ‘personal reasons’. Vice-chancellor Prof Nazrul Islam, pro vice-chancellors Chowdhury Ali Kawser and Mohammad Kamal and treasurer Ruhil Amin Miah, appointed during the past caretaker government regime, faxed their resignation letters to the health secretary in the afternoon. ... Read more

Staff Correspondent Some 153 more Bangladesh Rifles personnel have been arrested in connection with the bloody February 25-26 rebellion at the border guards’ headquarters in Dhaka. The Criminal Investigation Department, tasked with probing the case, produced the BDR soldiers in the Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Court on Sunday showing them arrested in the case filed with ... Read more

UNB, Dhaka Anti-Corruption Commission Chairman Lt Gen (retd) Hasan Mashhud Chowdhury Sunday said that it is not easy to combat corruption without political goodwill and commitment. The fight against corruption gets difficult unless the political will against graft does not become visible, the ACC chairman said while speaking at a roundtable on “Applying lessons from ... Read more

Inam Ahmed We have been acting like an ostrich for quite some time and we can keep on doing that. The wave will nevertheless wash over the economy; it actually is making its ripples bigger. The recession is knocking at the door. Take it or not. For a country that is so perilously poised on ... Read more

Staff Reporter A new FBI team arrived in Dhaka Tuesday night to help probe the February 25-26 BDR mutiny yesterday and visited Peelkhana, the headquarters of the border guards. The seven-member team of US Federal Bureau of Investigation visited the places of occurrence of massacre for four hours. US Ambassador to Bangladesh James F Moriarty ... Read more

BB intensifies monitoring on suspicious transactions: Governor UNB, Dhaka Finance Minister AMA Muhith on Wednesday pointed his finger at some new NGOs launched during the rule of former BNP-led alliance government and said they might be behind the funding of militant groups. Referring to such NGOs, he said there were some investments in the country ... Read more

Home minister tells JS Staff correspondent Six hundred and eighty persons died in the custody of law enforcement agencies after 2002, the home minister, Shahara Khatun, told the parliament on Wednesday. They died when the lawmen launched drives to either arrest criminals or recover illegal arms, she said, adding many of them died of heart ... Read more

Residents suffering for last two months Helemul Alam Just after recovering from illness, Kohinoor Begum came to fetch water from a water-carrying lorry of Dhaka City Corporation (DCC) at Senpara Parbata in the city’s Mirpur area yesterday. The woman in her 50s waited around half an hour in a queue and finally managed a bucket ... Read more

Pankaj Karmakar Most of the state run universities and colleges across the country including the apex Dhaka University are gradually getting tourmoiled as Bangladesh Chhattra League (BCL), student organisations of the ruling party Awami League (AL), has become aggressive to establish supremacy over different campuses. This has so happened despite Prime Minister and party chief ... Read more

Taib Ahmed The Fire Service and Civil Defence on its own does inspect not the city high rises to check the status of fire safety measures, sources in the fire service said. Spot visits shows many high rises in the city lacked adequate fire-fighting equipment and properly trained personnel. The building owners neither conduct fire ... Read more

Recruitment slips to half for global meltdown, unscrupulous middlemen Porimol Palma Poor labour recruitment arrangements coupled with ongoing financial meltdown have dealt a double blow to overseas employment, which is moving towards a precarious state. On an average, monthly 46,288 jobseekers left the country in the last three months, while the same rate was 75,516 ... Read more

Business leaders demand a Tk 6,000cr rescue package to face challenges of global recession Staff Correspondent The prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, on Sunday renewed her government’s pledge for ‘a special package’ to face the challenges in the wake of global recession in Bangladesh. At a meeting with the leaders of the Federation of Bangladesh Chambers ... Read more

Staff Correspondent A writ petition was filed on Sunday seeking a High Court direction on the government to arrange sufficient equipment to fight fire in high rises. In the petition, the Human Rights and Peace for Bangladesh also sought a direction on the government to submit a list of necessary equipment which the government lacked ... Read more

Staff Correspondent Authorities at the Bangladesh Rifles (BDR) headquarters began to count up their arms and ammunition yesterday, 17 days into the bloodbath, to figure out exactly how many of them are still missing. Director General (DG) of BDR Brigadier General Moinul Hossain told The Daily Star, “Until the calculation is done we can not ... Read more

Staff Correspondent The House yesterday witnessed a brief discussion on Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s statement after she said that grenades and bullets still haunt her. The discussion followed comments by BNP lawmaker Salahuddin Quader Chowdhury regarding what the prime minister said during an interview. “We panicked at her remarks. If the prime minister suffers from ... Read more

Staff correspondent The Awami League-led government is likely to place the national budget for the financial 2009–2010 in the parliament on June 11. ‘The national budget is likely to be placed on June 11,’ the deputy speaker, Shawkat Ali, told reporters after a meeting of the business advisory committee of the parliament on Sunday. It ... Read more

Staff Correspondent As many as 201 fire brigade stations throughout the country including 13 in the city have been working with inadequate equipment and manpower over the decades to bring fires under control. Fires, for different reasons regularly take place and damage huge amount of private and public assets making a good number of people ... Read more

Ctg Arms Haul NSI official called for questioning Coastguards, security personnel to be quizzed Staff Correspondent, Ctg The Criminal Investigation Department (CID) has asked the former assistant director of National Security Intelligence (NSI) for Chittagong to appear before investigators of the sensational Chittagong arms haul case for interrogation. Sources said the first two investigation officers ... Read more

Afp, Austin, Texas Newspapers are dying but journalism is evolving, an acclaimed science writer told a gathering of the techno-hip at South By South West Interactive Festival on Friday. Steven Johnson equated newspapers to old growth forests, saying that under the canopy of that aged ecosystem blogging, citizen journalism, Twittering and other Internet-age information sharing ... Read more