News

BSS, Dhaka The Awami League Parliamentary Party (ALPP) yesterday elected party presidium member Begum Sajeda Chowdhury, MP, as the deputy leader of the House. Sajeda Chowdhury replaced elderly leader Zillur Rahman who was elected as the country’s 19th president. A meeting of ALPP in the treasury bench meeting room in the Jatiya Sangsad with Prime ... Read more

Staff Reporter The government, under a broad-based reform programme, is carrying out a number of core tasks to make the public procurement system in Bangladesh well-functioning, transparent and accountable, according to official sources. Procurement or purchase of goods, works and services by any procuring entity (PE) using public funds is called public procurement. The main ... Read more

Pulack Ghatack Finance minister AMA Muhith yesterday said that the global economic recession has started biting Bangladesh, a view, which has been opposed by former Finance and Planning Adviser of the erstwhile caretaker government Dr Mirza AB Azizul Islam. “There is a negative effect of the global economic meltdown on the sectors of jute, jute-made ... Read more

Staff Reporter Senior leader of the ruling Awami League Mohammad Zillur Rahman has been declared next President of the country. The Election Commission (EC) yesterday unofficially declared him as President-elect of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh. Zillur Rahman will be sworn in at the Darbar Hall of Bangabhaban, the presidential palace, at 7:00pm today. Before ... Read more

Legal action against extra-judicial killings Staff Correspondent Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has said that her government would publish ‘whitepaper’ on corruption committed during the erstwhile Army-backed Caretaker Government and BNP-led four party alliance government regimes. During the ‘Question and Answer Session’ in the Parliament on Wednesday, the leader of the House said, “All extra-judicial

Dutch firm takes $25m for 8yr redundant service, seeks another $28m for future Sharier Khan The Rural Power Company Ltd (RPCL) is faced with the dilemma of respecting a very costly and redundant 15-year power plant service contract with a Dutch company that was signed on the basis of a secret and unsolicited negotiation in ... Read more

Shamim Jahangir Load shedding of electricity has been disrupting normal activities of the people and affecting production in mills and factories across the country for the last several days. In some areas of the country the power outage

Partha Pratim Bhattacharjee The 79-year-old politician Zillur Rahman, who is scheduled to take oath of office as the 19th president of the republic this evening, was born on March 9, 1929 at Bhairab in Kishoreganj. His father, the late Mohammad Meher Ali Miah, was a lawyer. Meher was then also the chairman of then Mymensingh ... Read more

Minister ‘mistakenly’ included Staff Correspondent The House yesterday constituted five standing committees, beginning the process of formation of the crucial committees in the current session of parliament. Three of the committees have been formed for businesses related to Jatiya Sangsad (JS) and two on ministries. But the treasury bench ignored the JS rules of procedure ... Read more

Poachers active in Hakaluki Haor Rajat Kanti Goswami, Moulvibazar With the arrival of thousands of migratory birds in Hakaluki Haor, the biggest wetland in South Asia, poachers have become active and are killing a large number of the species for meat every day. Several bands of local poachers set poison traps on the bank of ... Read more

Staff Correspondent Severe text book crisis has been created due to unpl-anned and insufficient book supply by the government to the markets as well as syndicate created by the members of allottees for printing text books with a motive to earn quick money. Book publishers, printing owners and wholesalers alleged that the government has set ... Read more

Staff Correspondent The examinations scheduled to begin on Wednesday in all the polytechnic institutes of the country, expecting the Rajshahi Polytechnic Institute, were held peacefully. The agitating students sat for the final examinations after their demand for change in the referred exams system was met, the Bangladesh Technical Education Board chairman, Nitai Chandra Sutradhar, told ... Read more

STP won’t be able to solve Dhaka’s traffic problem, says mayor Taib Ahmed The Dhaka City Corporation is yet to take any visible steps to reduce the insufferable traffic congestion and consequent jams in the capital; so far it has only formed a committee though five days have elapsed since the premier asked the mayor ... Read more

Staff Correspondent The government expects to add 741 megawatts (MW) additional power in both private and public sector by June this year to ease the country’s ongoing power crisis. According to the press statement, placed before the parliament yesterday to be answered by the prime minister during question-answer session, the government has undertaken short, mid ... Read more

Staff Correspondent A man allegedly strangled his wife to death three days into their married life at Mohammadpur in the city. The victim was identified as Shima Akhter, 22, wife of Mohammad Polash and a garment worker. She hails from Muladi of Barisal. Police recovered the body at 11 am on Tuesday from a house ... Read more

Series of street protest causes miles of tailbacks throughout the day Kailash Sarkar Traffic system in the capital virtually collapsed yesterday due to several processions and demons-trations that forced thousands of vehicles to remain stranded for hours and inflicted untold sufferings on commuters. While traffic gridlock is a regular scene in the capital, yesterday’s situation ... Read more

UNB, Dhaka Over 200 people were injured, including policemen, as polytechnic students yesterday clashed with law-enforcers during demonstrations in different districts against a new examination system enforced by the Technical

Staff Correspondent The Election Commission in its half-month investigation primarily found proofs of irregularities including stuffing of ballot boxes, capturing of polling centres, tampering with the results and intimidation at the polling centres in 50 upazilas, but suspended publication of the official results of only 20 of them. The election commissioners, after looking into a ... Read more

Staff Correspondent Power outage at daytime, in addition to the outages during evening hours, has become frequent for two days, especially in the cities, as people started using air-coolers and fans with weather warming up and power generation dropping further. Power Development Board officials said power outage in urban areas at daytime had also increased ... Read more

Shamim Jahangir The Food and Disaster Management Ministry has constituted a five-member high powered committee to investigate embezzlement of the huge amount of money from the caretaker government-initiated 100-day programme for 20 lakh extreme poor across the country. Additional Secretary of the Food and Disaster Management Ministry (FDMM) AKM Abdul Awal Majumder leads the inquiry ... Read more