“So unfair!” is what middle-class taxpayers were left mouthing upon seeing the budget for the fiscal year 2019-20.

Bangladesh Food Safety Authority (BFSA) has prepared a report claiming that it has removed most of the 52 substandard food items from the market across the country and filed 52 cases against the companies concerned as per the High Court directives.

Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal yesterday proposed doubling the subsidy for the gas sector to Tk 9,600 crore for 2019-20, from Tk 4,500 crore in the previous year.

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres has expressed deep concern over the delay in forcefully displaced Rohingyas repatriation from Bangladesh to Myanmar.

More than a year ago, when Mohammad Zayed graduated from a university college in the capital, his family started expecting that he would soon take over the financial responsibility.

A 10-year-old girl was killed and her mother suffered serious burn injuries in a house fire at Patharghata upazila in Barguna early yesterday.

The new budget is growth-friendly and has set ambitious goals but shied away from addressing the key challenges confronting the economy, said a number of economists in their immediate reactions.

French President Emmanuel Macron will send a replacement oak tree to US President Donald Trump after the original was dug up from the White House garden and died.

In 2010, the government decided to construct a 128-kilometre (km) metre gauge rail track to link Chattogram with tourist town Cox’s Bazar at a cost of Tk 1,852.35 crore.

Beijing yesterday described the mass protests against Hong Kong’s extradition bill as “riots”, and said it supported the local government’s response despite international pressure to respect the rights of Hong Kongers.

Walking back on its election pledge to eradicate black money, the government in its first budget of the current tenure has once again kept the scope for whitening money.

In a major reshuffle in the police department, 21 SP-ranked officials including the SPs of 11 districts and nine DCs of the metropolitan cities were transferred yesterday.

People in Japan operating drones under the influence could face up to a year in prison under new laws passed yesterday that aim to control the increasingly popular devices.

India and New Zealand were awarded a point each after persistent rain in Nottingham forced the abandonment of their match yesterday -- the fourth no result of this World Cup so far.

Afsana Rahman’s maternity leave is about to end, and so baby formula milk will soon have to substitute breast milk for her second child. As she and her husband are both job holders with fixed income, she now has to adjust her monthly expenditures to make ends

Although the Bangladesh team in Taunton were not involved in a World Cup match yesterday, the result in another match in Taunton would have dampened spirits a bit in the Tigers camp. The match between India and New Zealand in Nottingham was washed out due to persistent rainfall

THE BIG FOUR

A blue-tailed bee-eater flies away with a dragonfly in its mouth in Chattogram city’s Salimpur Bajid area. The richly coloured, slender bird mainly eats insects, especially bees, wasps, and dragonflies, which are caught during flight. The photo was taken a couple of days ago.

The ruling Awami League yesterday termed the proposed national budget “pro-people” and “realistic” but the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and the Communist Party of Bangladesh (CPB) were critical.

Spain’s coast guard said it rescued on Wednesday 49 migrants from an overcrowded boat adrift in the Mediterranean for nearly two days after it left North Africa headed for Europe.