Bangladesh

Sharier Khan: In the last six years, the Awami League government has made significant progress in the power sector virtually eliminating the phenomenon of load shedding. But this success may grind to a halt in the near future as the gov-ernment's new plans to build two dozen large coal power plants are going nowhere fast. In the last four years, the government rolled out plans and bids to build large coal fired power plants totalling 20 thousand megawatt capacity—which is almost three times the electricity available to the nation today. Coal is cheap and it was chosen as an alternative to natural gas for power generation. As gas resources are deplet-ing fast, the government wants one third of the country's power to be generated with coal by 2030. Out of these two dozen coal power projects,...

Faisal Mahmud: The government has made an attempt to amend the model Production Sharing Contract 2012 and to increase the price of gas produced by international oil companies (IOCs) from deep sea blocks. Sources with the state-run Petro Bangla said that as per the current provision in PSC, an IOC would sell around 50 per cent of the gas produced in deep sea blocks to Petro Bangla at USD 6.50 per mcf (1,000 cubic feet). The government is now planning to increase this to USD 8 per mcf. In September 2013, the government, after its failure to attract bidders for deep-sea oil and gas exploration, had increased the price from USD 5.50 to USD 6.50 per mcf by amending the model PSC. Through that amendment, IOCs were also exempted from paying 37.5 per cent corporate tax and the transportation tarif...

    Faced with a deadly political confrontation at the beginning of the year, Bangladeshis witnessed unprecedented persecution and death threats to freethinkers leading to the killings of bloggers, writers and foreign nationals through the year. The country was shaken by the unearthing of mass graves in Thailand and Malaysia where large number of Bangladeshi migrants and trafficking victims were later learnt to have been buried. The gruesome killing of young boy Rajon in broad daylight followed by cold-blooded murder of Rakib exposed the grave state of child abuse in the country. 1. Countrywide blockade Political unrest in 2015 caused greater damage to Bangladesh's economy than that in 2013 when the nation's two main political blocs fought each other over general elections. Th...

    A total of 98.52 percent of fifth graders passed the primary terminal tests with 91.87 percent of madrasa students clearing equivalent ebtedayee exams this year. A total of 275,980 students from primary and 5,473 from ebtedayee secured GPA-5. The results were made available after 1:00pm, Primary and Mass Education Minister Mustafizur Rahman said at a press briefing. The students can obtain results from their respective schools. Also, the results will be available on the websites of respective boards and directorate and through SMS. Total 2,839,238 students appeared for the PSC exams this year while 264,134 for the ebtedayee exams. The exams began November 22 and ended on November 30. PSC, JSC results handed over to PM The results of primary terminal and Junior Schoo...

    Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Kazi Rakibuddin Ahmed today claimed that the municipality elections were held in a peaceful manner except some stray incidents here and there. Asked, if he was satisfied with the elections, the CEC said, “You will evaluate that. It’s our duty. We are doing our job.” He mentioned that the Election Commission (EC) has cancelled polls at 50 centres and one municipality. They have also suspended some officials for their negligence of duty, he added. Addressing a post-election press conference at the EC Media Centre, the CEC said they received allegations of irregularities from different political parties. “Most of the allegations were brought by the BNP.” “We have taken measures at various places after verifying the allegations,” said Rakibudd...

    Earlier in the day, the JP leader alleged that ruling party polling agents drove out polling agents of JP from 174 polling centres of 24 municipalities during voting in Wednesday’s municipal elections. Jatiya Party, a key ally of the Awami League led grand alliance government, has alleged that today’s municipality elections were not fair by any chance. “The Jatiya Party candidates even could not cast their votes in Satkania and Jamalpur Sadar municipalities and our candidates were harassed in several other constituencies,” JP’s Senior Joint Secretary Rezaul Islam Bhuiyan said at a post-polls press conference at the party’s central office today, reports Prothom Alo. Earlier in the day, the JP leader alleged that ruling party polling agents drove out polling agents of JP fro...

    BNP today said their apprehension of a ‘farcical election’ became true as today’s municipality polls have been marked by “gross irregularities”. The party demanded re-election to at least 1,500 polling centres of 160 municipalities. It alleged that the agents of the party candidates were forced out of more than 1,500 polling stations in 157 to 200 municipalities. “The election was held as per the blueprint of the government that we had anticipated earlier. There were no signs of peaceful environment during the polls,” BNP acting secretary general Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir said in a post-poll reaction this afternoon at Khaleda Zia’s Gulshan office. He said attacks on BNP candidates, their polling agents and intimidation of voters took place in most of the elec-toral consti...

    Hundreds of leaders and activists of pro-liberation and progressive organisations demonstrated at Gulshan-2 intersection on Tuesday demanding action against BNP chairperson Khaleda Zia for her remarks about the number of 1971 Liberation War martyrs. As per their earlier announcement, leaders and activists of Ekattorer Ghatak Dalal Nirmul Committee, Muktijoddha Sangsad, Sector Commanders’ Forum, and other pro-liberation organisations and free-dom fighters started gathering at Gulshan-2 since 10am, reports UNB. As they moved towards Khaleda’s residence to lay a siege around 11am, police intercepted them saying they cannot allow them to hold any gathering in the diplomatic zone. Later, the protestors took position in front of Gulshan Tower at the Gulshan-2 intersection and ch...

    A person has been killed and 3 others have been injured in a bomb attack inside a Qadiani mosque at Bagmara upazila in Rajshahi. The identity of the victim could not be known immediately. But, police claim that the deceased was a suicide attacker. The injured trio have been rushed to a local hospital immediately after the attack. The bomb assault came as a second such attack in a week when at least 5 people were injured in a mosque during Friday prayers, popularly known as Juma prayers, at the BNS Isha Khan naval base in Chittagong. Qadiani, also knwon as Ahmadiya, is considered to be a religious minority group in the country. Bangaldesh has witnessed rare atatcks on religious minorities including those on Shiite people this year. A man was shot dead and 3 others were woun...