News

Primary Education In A Shambles-1 70pc can’t read, write even after 5-yr study Suranjith Deabnath and Raihan Sabuktagin The quality of the country’s primary education is so substandard that around 70 percent of students who complete the five-year primary level education are unable to read, write or calculate properly. According to a new government study, ... Read more

Staff Correspondent The government is planning to float tenders online to make the public procurement system transparent, accountable and functional and keep it free from undue influence, officials said. As part of the Public Procurement Reform Project-II, it has taken up a plan to introduce, in phases, e-government procurement (e-GP) to modernise the outdated procurement ... Read more

Pinaki Roy The government is going to start work on Trans-Asian Railway (TAR) that would connect the country’s railway system to a 81,000-km network stretching from Europe to East and South-East Asia. ” The prime minister has already directed me to take initiative in this regard,” Communications Minister Syed Abul Hossain told The Daily Star. ... Read more

Bdnews24.com . Dhaka The main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party will chair four parliamentary standing committees, chief whip Abdus Shahid said on Friday. No opposition party chaired a standing committee — parliamentary watchdog on ministries — in the previous eight parliaments. ‘Proportionately, the main opposition BNP will get four chairs of the standing committees. We’ve already ... Read more

Raheed Ejaz Dhaka and Washington will focus on security, especially combating terrorism, and trade, during the US senior assistant secretary of state Richard Boucher’s scheduled meeting with the officials here today and tomorrow. Boucher was scheduled to arrive in the capital early Saturday on a two-day visit to Bangladesh to meet officials, including the prime ... Read more

Staff Reporter The proposed South Asia Task Force and giving ‘transit ‘ to India under bilateral agreement would cause an extreme, harm to the country’s independence and sovereignty, said speakers at a roundtable in the city. They said any move to allow transit to India under bilateral deal would not be welcomed by the people ... Read more

Staff Correspondent, Ctg The government is to start the process of constructing a tunnel under the Karnaphuli in Chittagong as soon as mid September. Communication Minister Syed Abul Hossain said this while visiting the site of the under-construction third bridge over the Karnaphuli yesterday afternoon. The Awami League had promised in its electoral pledges that ... Read more

Pakistan to publish report next week Afp, New Delhi/ Lahore India for the first time yesterday directly accused Pakistan’s military intelligence agency of involvement in the Mumbai attacks. In a speech in Paris reported by the Indian media yesterday, Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon said the perpetrators “planned, trained and launched their attacks from Pakistan, and ... Read more

Deal allows passage of goods through one country into another UNB, Dhaka Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s cabinet on Thursday decided to renew for three years the Bangladesh-India trade agreement, which allows passage of goods through one country into another under one of its provisions. Endorsing another major

Staff Correspondent The Election Commission on Thursday filed a case against the fisheries and livestock minister, Abdul Latif Biswas, his daughter and four other local Awami League leaders for intervening in polling and violating the electoral code of conduct in the upazila elections. The commission in the case alleged Latif had assaulted polling personnel, snatched ... Read more

Bdnews24.com . Dhaka The Anti-Corruption Commission chief has dismissed as ‘not right’ the prime minister’s contention that the anti-graft drive was used to shackle politicians. ‘The Anti-Corruption Commission has conducted its drive on specific information and evidence. The remark that the commission was used to shackle politicians is not right,’ chairman Hasan Moshhud Chowdhury said ... Read more

Staff Correspondent The number of drug and alcohol addicts is alarmingly increasing in the city and across the country while drug traders have expanded their drug business pushing large number of people including young and women of low, middle and higher income families into drug addiction. At least 65 lakhs people including 1 lakh and ... Read more

Says Muhith, seeks NGO help Staff Correspondent Finance and Planning Minister AMA Muhith yesterday sought cooperation of the NGOs to eliminate begging from the country within five years. “Awami League in its election manifesto pledged to eliminate begging within five years but there is no model for achieving the target. So, a model has to ... Read more

Staff Correspondent BNP grassroots level leaders and activists on Thursday said that the party has been negatively affected organizationally due to its participation in election forming an alliance with Jamaat. As part of party reconstitution, 3rd day of exchanging opinions, BNP grassroots levels leaders and activists expressed their anger to the central leaders at Nayapaltan ... Read more

Staff Correspondent Large areas of the Old Town of Dhaka plunged into chaos as porters of Sadarghat launch terminal rampaged through the streets hurling crude bombs and halting traffic for about two hours Thursday afternoon over tender for labour handling at the terminal. Launch services remained suspended during the violent demonstrations causing enormous sufferings to ... Read more