The Indian external affairs minister’s maiden visit to Dhaka, was not one that garnered high expectations as it is considered to serve the protocol of formally bringing an invitation to our prime minister from her Indian counterpart and completing the preparatory work for it. Even so, we cannot help but feel disappointed by Mr S Jaishankar’s visit if not by what was said but more so by what remained unsaid.

Agriculture and food security, both of which have been cornerstones of government policy, have resulted in robust crop production in the country. Yet, we find that farmers in Sunamganj’s haor areas have not been getting the benefit of the various procurement policies that the state has in place. Allegedly, middlemen have been making use of fake farmer cards to buy paddy. This malpractice, along with others, is apparently depriving genuine farmers of the benefit of selling paddy as listed farmers and getting the government-fixed price of Tk 1,040 per maund.

It has been six months since the devastating fire that ripped through Chawkbazar.

We condemn the attack on Ducsu Vice President Nurul Haque Nur by the ruling party men during Eid vacation.

It is very unfortunate that the flood victims of Sirajganj have yet to receive any assistance from the government to rebuild their houses washed away by the devastating flood.

The Dhaka University’s decision to re-affiliate seven Dhaka-based government colleges from the National University in 2017 has had the unfortunate effect of aggravating the very problems that they had hoped to address.

The fire that burned through an entire slum at Mirpur’s Chalantika area on Friday was reportedly exacerbated by plastic pipes facilitating illegal gas connections. The plastic pipes melted in the heat, releasing gas from within and making the blaze spread much faster than it would have otherwise. Locals have alleged that syndicates run by some ruling party men in cahoots with employees of Titas Gas stole gas from the main transmission and distribution lines and diverted it to the slum in exchange for money from slum dwellers. Thanks to these illegal gas pipes, it was an accident waiting to happen.

We are appalled to learn that Barisal city does not have any specialised disposal system for its medical waste. Waste from the government hospitals, clinics, diagnostic centres, blood banks and upazila health complexes—around five tonnes of it—is collected and dumped with regular garbage into a six-acre landfill. Such waste poses grave risks to both humans and the environment.

The return home for hundreds of thousands of people from the holidays may not be a joyous one, as transport terminals have been identified as areas that are ripe for Aedes-mosquito-breeding. Despite repeated assurances about cleanups by city authorities,

The Mirpur slum fire, which razed thousands of homes to the ground on Friday night and rendered their occupants homeless, is a monstrous exemplar of rapid, unplanned housing of the sort being seen in Dhaka and the disaster that it can cause, often with fatal consequences.

A major report, “Below the Canopy”, jointly written by the conservation group World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and Zoological Society of London (ZSL), has brought to the fore some startling findings.

We laud the government’s plan to provide daily meals for all 1.73 crore primary students in order to increase attendance and reduce the number of dropouts. While enrolment of students has increased significantly over the years, keeping students in school has been a great challenge for the government.

We are deeply saddened to learn that at least 26 people died in road accidents across the country during the three-day Eid vacation.

We know from previous years that about 1 crore animals would be sacrificed during Eid-ul-Azha. So, the collapse of prices came as a big surprise, as the market had anticipated, or should have anticipated, this huge supply of rawhides.

Rajshahi prison authorities have partly destroyed a pre-colonial-era building inside the jail complex in the city’s Sreerampur area without consulting any archaeologist. The building was previously being used as the bungalow of deputy inspector general (prisons) since the

News has emerged of a trafficking network in Oman that is enticing Bangladeshi women with promises of regular jobs but ultimately pushing them into sexual slavery. What we have learnt from talking to those few who have managed to gain their freedom and return

As we get ready to celebrate Eid-ul-Azha, the second most important festival in the Islamic calendar, we hope that it will go beyond simply observing ritualistic practices and that we put more emphasis on the spiritual side of the day.

The recommendations that the United Nations Convention against Torture (UNCAT) committee has come up with recently in regard to Bangladesh are well overdue. The committee has expressed concerns about allegations of torture against law enforcers, and secret detention and enforced disappearance of citizens. Despite the fact that Bangladesh is a signatory to the UNCAT Charter, it took the country 20 long years to submit its first-ever report, which the committee noted with regret.

In a report on the annual development programme (ADP), prepared by the planning ministry and shared in a review meeting by the minister, we find that most ministries prepare projects without proper feasibility and technical design.

What we are hearing from entomologists in the city is that hay, when wet, provides suitable conditions for the Aedes mosquito to lay its eggs. If there is consistent rain, then hay, a staple food for cattle, which have begun to arrive in their thousands for Eid-ul-Adha, could potentially pose a new level of threat for the expansion of the dengue outbreak. So what is to be done? Experts believe that if the cattle grounds can be kept clean by actively seeking out breeding grounds of the Aedes mosquito, the city can be made safe.