Tag: Featured

News Desk: The government, for the first time, will export 50,000 tonnes of non-fragrant coarse rice to Sri Lanka. The export price of per tonne rice has been set at $450, Food Minister Md Qamrul Islam told reporters at Secretariat in Dhaka today. Emerging from a meeting with the officials of Food Planning and Monitoring Commission, the minister said the government will export the rice soon after an agreement between the two countries. At present, the international market price of per tonne rice is between $400 and $420, the minister said. Bangladesh, in the past, exported aromatic rice, but this would be the first-ever shipment of non-fragrant rice as Colombo agreed to import the rice on emergency basis. In this Aman season, the government will procure three lakh tonnes of rice, whi...

In this Star file photo, Bangladeshi workers stand in line to enter Shahjalal International Airport in Dhaka, before flying to a foreign country for jobs. BSS, Abu Dhabi: The United Arab Emirates (UAE) will appoint a labour attaché at its embassy in Dhaka from the beginning of the next year to simplify the procedure of recruiting manpower from Bangladesh. UAE Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdulla Bin Zayed Al Nahyan said this when he called on Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in the Bilateral Meeting Room of St Regis Hotel in Abu Dhabi this afternoon. Expatriates Welfare and Overseas Employment Minister Engineer Khandakar Mosharraf Hossain, Foreign Minister AH Mahmood Ali, State Minister for Labour and Manpower Md Mujibul Haque, State Minister for Home Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal and Senior Secretary...

Voted above law!! Stop the bad practice immediately THIS is possible only in a country like Bangladesh. And we have written on this issue umpteen times and will continue ad nauseam to do so until this brazen and rank bad practice of violating traffic rules in a brazenfaced manner is stopped completely. It is not ministers only that violate rules of the road. It is anybody who is somebody and owning a large vehicle violates traffic rules with impunity. Thursday's issue of this paper carried several pictures showing government vehicles belonging to functionaries of various denominations and a university bus to boot going merrily along on the wrong side of the road without any regard for other vehicles. And in one instance seeing a minister's car bend the law, many private vehicles follow...

DRIVING ON WRONG SIDE OF THE ROAD End impunity of influentials violating traffic rules: HC News Desk: A police van escorts the vehicle, apparently of a minister, on the wrong side of the street near Ruposhi Bangla hotel in the capital violating traffic rules and risking a head-on collision. A long queue of vehicles follow suit to take advantage of the impunity the “minister's” vehicle is getting. The photo was taken yesterday. Pointing out that influential quarters use their impunity to tamper with and violate traffic regulations in Dhaka city, the High Court today asked government why it should not enforce traffic laws strictly to prevent such practices. "No one should escape from the radar of law with impunity," an HC bench said while issuing a suo moto rule seeking government expl...

News Desk: Migrant workers from Bangladesh and many other Asian and African countries are beaten, exploited, and trapped in forced labour situations in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. The UAE government, about to take up an influential new role in the International Labour Organization (ILO), has failed to adequately protect female domestic workers – many of them from the Philippines – from abuse by employers and recruiters. In this Star photo taken on August 27, 2013, Bangladeshi workers stand in line to enter Shahjalal International Airport in Dhaka, before flying to a foreign country for jobs. The 79-page report, “‘I Already Bought You’: Abuse and Exploitation of Female Migrant Domestic Workers in the United Arab Emirates,” documen...

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Economic growth to accelerate 6.2pc WB forecasts for current fiscal year amid strong domestic demand The economy may grow by 6.2 percent this fiscal year thanks to strong domestic demand and a revival in private investment activities and remittance flow, the World Bank said yesterday. The economy's natural capacity is sufficient to achieve growth of more than 6 percent, Zahid Hussain, a lead economist of the WB's Dhaka office, said. “And, it will not require a huge jump in investment.” But to achieve the targeted 7.2 percent growth, the country would have to raise the stagnant investment-GDP ratio to 35 percent from the present 28.7 percent. “An investment boom is required for taking the investment-GDP ratio to that level,” he told reporters while making a presentation on the economy...

News Desk: Per capita income of the people of Bangladesh grew by US$146 during the last fiscal year and is now $1,190, according to the cabinet division. Also, the country's reserve, exports and revenue collection soared up by 4.44 percent, 11.60 percent and 8.35 percent respectively. The Cabinet Division published the annual report on financial activities of FY2013-14.