Perhaps not to anyone’s great surprise, revenue collection is once again set to fall short of the target this year.

It seems that the WASA managing director has revised his estimate of the quality of pure water it supplies to its consumers in the capital. He now admits that not 100 percent but only 84 percent of the water is clean. And the devil is in the faulty distribution system, according to him. We believe that the percentage of people not getting potable water is actually far more than what WASA would have us believe.

Traders living in Kachukhet area are facing the menace of getting phone calls from criminals who apparently operate with impunity.

To say that the jute sector is in trouble would be the height of euphemism. It is actually in a shambles and has been an ailing sector for decades.

We are shocked that 16 percent of the water supplied by Wasa in Dhaka is not clean and as many as 57 city areas are getting contaminated.

There surely is a strong pull factor that draws many young and educated people, the so-called ‘Dream Seekers’ to look for fortune abroad.

We can’t help but say that the whole situation in the Middle East resulting from the US-Iran standoff has been precipitated by a series of actions initiated by the US beginning with the US sanctions on Iran.

We welcome the High Court’s directive to immediately remove from the market 52 food items that have been found to be substandard by Bangladesh Standards and Testing Institution (BSTI).

The Rajshahi prison authorities have sought allotment of some 100 acres of char land in the Padma River in the city’s Sreerampur area to build a prison training academy.

According to Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) data, while poverty continues to decline, its rate of decline is slowing down.

In what seems like a case of complicity between a government agency and a private farm, a portion of land of a mangrove forest in Chattogram’s Sitakunda upazila was leased out to a private company to build a for-profit ship-breaking yard.

It is hard to imagine the plight of some 60,000 jute workers who have not been paid from anywhere between six and 12 weeks.

The tragic death of 37 Bangladeshi workers in a boat capsize in the Mediterranean Sea, on their way to Italy from Libya, is shocking.

In many countries, as in Bangladesh, International Mother’s Day was observed yesterday. In honouring our mothers, we honour all mothers and all women.

The Federation of Bangladesh Chambers of Commerce and Industries (FBCCI) has, rather belatedly, raised objections about the proposed VAT law.

It is appalling that at least 141 school buildings in Bagerhat’s nine upazilas are in such a dilapidated condition that teachers and guardians of the students fear that accidents may occur anytime.

A recent World Bank study titled “Graduate Employability of Affiliated Colleges: New Evidence from Bangladesh” portrays a dismal picture of the rate of employment of National University students.

For the last four days, demonstrations by jute mill workers in Khulna, Jessore and Dhaka have disrupted traffic on the major highways

Arrest of a returnee from Syria with suspected links to the IS gives us a clear message that we are never out of the crosshairs of the extremists. In these very columns we had cautioned against a misplaced euphoria that the extremists have been neutered and their capabilities to launch serious attacks have been blunted. The church attacks in Sri Lanka should raise our hackles about the fact that the IS’s capabilities to create trouble are all but gone.

We are appalled and anguished by yet another incident of gang-rape and murder on a bus, this time the victim being a nurse working at