Mayoral candidates and their supporters have been conducting campaigns in three cities flouting the electoral code of conduct, but the Election Commission is hardly taking any action to stop this.

A distressed Saleha Begum struggled to hold back tears as she begged for the release of her only son Muhammad Rashed Khan, a quota movement leader under arrest since July 1.

The lack of government will over holding elections to the regional council and the three district councils in Chittagong Hill Tracts has long been depriving indigenous people of their right to have elected representatives in those local bodies.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has expressed hope that the Election Commission will be able to hold an inclusive, fair and neutral national election by the year-end with support from all political parties, the administration and other stakeholders.

When a group of teachers was staging a rally at Dhaka University yesterday against repression on students and teachers, Chhatra League men assaulted some quota reformists on the campus of Chittagong University.

This year's HSC exams success rate is the lowest in 11 years and it dropped 2.29 percentage points from last year's 66.84 percent owing to students' poorer performance in English, physics and ICT.

Muslim Rohingya refugees reaching Bangladesh say violence, including torture, persists against them in Myanmar and the overall environment remains "menacing" for ethnic and religious minorities, UN human rights investigators said yesterday.

Bangladesh Bank recorded some of the gold in its vault as low-grade ones although an investigation by the Customs Intelligence and Investigation Directorate (CIID) found that they were of superior quality.

Left Democratic Alliance (LDA), a newly formed platform of eight left-leaning parties, yesterday demanded that the present parliament be dissolved before the schedule for the next general election is announced.

State Minister for Finance and Planning MA Mannan yesterday claimed that all gold kept in the Bangladesh Bank's vault is secure.

The committee formed on July 2 to “review, reform or cancel” the quota system for civil service may seek 90 more working days as it has not finished collecting information and reviewing reports about the system, sources said.

Freedom fighters who won a legal battle six years ago are yet to get their retirement benefits for public service as the government has not implemented the court's verdict.

The government has been referring to a Supreme Court “order” on the reservation of 30 percent quota for the children of freedom fighters for the last few days, arguing that it cannot be changed.

Bangladesh Sarak Paribahan Malik Samity has sent a rejoinder to a report headlined “Extortion rampant in transport sector” published in The Daily Star on its front page yesterday.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina yesterday said she was unable to understand the logic behind the quota reform movement.

A group of Dhaka University teachers yesterday held Bangladesh Chhatra League responsible for Sunday's assault on teachers and students and said the student body had turned into "goons".

Barisal police filed a case on Sunday in connection with assault and attempted murder after they were at the receiving end of muscle power exercised allegedly by a ruling-party leader's men at the city's launch terminal on Saturday.

Bangladesh Bank yesterday refuted the allegation that one of the gold bars kept in its highly secure vault by the customs department was adulterated.

A state minister who also runs a transport business has came down hard on police and transports workers' organisations for rampant extortion from buses and trucks on highways across the country.

Three people, including a woman, were killed and four others, three of them policemen, injured in a microbus gas cylinder blast in Tangail town early yesterday.