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Jahirul Islam Jewel with Andrew Eagle: It's a great pleasure to feed the fish each day, says an enthusiastic Kajol Rani Howlader of Choupala Bazar in Jhalakathi sadar upazila, standing beside an unlikely fish enclosure built on swampy, disused land. “We have thousands of fish and after throwing feed, there are so many that anybody can touch them,” she says. Kajol Rani is participating in a new style of pisciculture and vegetable growing project that aims to utilise water-logged non-agricultural land to improve people's lives. To ask the ten women in the group of thirty locals involved in the project, is to hear how their husbands used to pass days in idle gossip in teashops while wives were busy with household chores. It all changed last July, thanks to the BRAC-organised project, champion...

    Death row convicts Salauddin Quader Chowdhury and Ali Ahsan Mujahid have filed presidential mercy petitions. Magistrates of the war criminals visited them at the Dhaka Central Jail this morning. President Abdul Hamid to consult Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina before taking decision on the matter. The jail authority have already completed the preparations for hanging the death row convicts. Family members of Salauddin Quader Chowdhury and Ali Ahsan Mujahid visited them Thursday at the Dhaka Central Jail. On Thursday, the Supreme Court released its full verdicts that dismissed their petitions to review their death sentences. Later the verdicts were readout to the war criminals.

    Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Authority (BTRC) has suspended the operation of social networking platform Facebook, Messenger, Viber and WhatsApp in Bangladesh for security reason. BTRC Secretary Sarwar Alam on Wednesday said they issued the order following a directive from a higher level of the government. Internet services, meanwhile, remained suspended across the country for over an hour from 1 pm fol-lowing the suspension of the operation of the four social networking and messaging platforms. The in-ternet services, however, resumed around 2:15 pm. About the disruption in the internet services, Sarwar said, “The disruption in internet services might have occurred while blocking the four social networking platforms, but there was no BTRC directive in this regar...

    The Appellate Division has upheld the death penalties for war criminals Ali Ahsan Mujahid and Salaud-din Quader Chowdhury after rejecting their review petitions. The 4-member bench of the apex court, led by the chief justice, gave the order today. Jamaat-e-Islami has called a day-long countrywide strike for Thursday protesting protesting Supreme Court’s order that upheld death penalty of its secretary general Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mojaheed on Wednesday. The court completed hearing on the review petition filed by Mujahid yesterday, and started hearing the review petition filed by of Salauddin today. The International Crimes Tribunal, or ICT-2, which is now defunct, sentenced Mujahid to death on 17th July in 2013. ICT-1 sentenced Salauddin to death on the 1st October the same y...