In the aftermath of the violent protests that engulfed the garments factories in Ashulia and Savar industrial zones, the police have filed cases against 215 individuals and a further 1,000 unnamed garment workers on charges of vandalism and looting and reportedly more than 800 workers have been laid off.

In an alarming development reported by The Daily Star on Wednesday, the suicide rate at public universities has shown a dramatic upward trend, with a reported case of 19 deaths in five universities last year.

The Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP) is planning to include school and college students as volunteers in the fortnightly traffic programme that started on January 15.

It is good to learn that the DU authorities are hoping to hold the Dhaka University Central Students' Union (Ducsu) election by March 31 this year.

How is it that despite there being a law making extraction of sand from riverbeds a punishable offense, influential and politically connected individuals continue to do so, with complete immunity?

The treatment meted out by the Malaysian immigration police to a Bangladeshi worker who has been working legally in the country is simply unacceptable.

We take serious issue with the comments of the chief of Hefazat-e-Islam (HI), that girls should at most attend school up to class IV or V, since educated girls are prone to be “disobedient”. Not only that, he made those present at the assemblage take a vow to comply with his views.

With rapid technological advancement and the ever-increasing digitisation of various industries, a large number of expatriate workers employed in blue-collar jobs may have to return home by 2030 due to job displacement.

After forcing almost a million Rohingyas to flee from their homes and take shelter in Bangladesh, Myanmar is now taking steps to construct a concrete structure in the no-man's land on its border with Bangladesh in Bandarban's Ghumdhum area.

The piling of garbage under the Mouchak flyover is another example of the sorry state of management plaguing Dhaka city.

According to a local rights organisation, extrajudicial killings crested in the outgoing year, the highest number in our history. The spike can be attributed to the government's anti-drug drives

The recent incident of clash, allegedly, between two groups of Jubo League men over the collection of extortion money and the demarcation of the territory for extortion in the capital's Mirpur area, that include the vendors using the footpaths in that area, is a cause for concern. In the clash, one Jubo League man was killed and two others were injured.

As reported by the domestic and international media, dozens of stateless Rohingya individuals are being deported to Bangladesh from Saudi Arabia. They allegedly went to the country with Bangladeshi passports, which they had obtained from smugglers who manufactured fake or counterfeit documents for them. Some of them are now being sent to Bangladesh, having spent years languishing in jail, while some others still remaining there.

A two-day conference jointly organised by Bangladesh Poribesh Andolon (Bapa) and Bangladesh Environmental Network (BEN) is to start from January 11 bringing together environmental experts to inform the public about the government's long-term strategy Delta Plan

The Indian government has followed up on its words and passed a bill in its lower house of parliament that would accord Indian citizenship to non-Muslims from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan who have lived in India for six years, even if they are without any document.

The temporary shutdown of a depot of Bangladesh Road Transport Corporation (BRTC), which pushed on for the second day on Wednesday before being called off at midday, is the latest indication of the sad state of affairs in this very important state entity.

We congratulate Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina as she begins her fourth term as the premier of the country, with three consecutive terms running to her credit.

The Dhaka-Mymensingh highway near the Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport has been the flashpoint for ongoing workers' protest the last two days.

The prime minister has taken a bold step in infusing the cabinet, more than 60 percent, with new faces, a good number of them young and first-time MPs. This is perhaps the first cabinet of Sheikh Hasina where so many old stalwarts of the party, and of her allies, have made way for so many untried ones.

A recent study by a coalition of NGOs from around the world, the Zero Mercury Working Group, has found that levels of mercury in skin-whitening products being sold in the country are dangerously high—ranging from 90 to 16,000 times higher than the 1ppm (parts per million) limit set by 2013 Minamata Convention on Mercury. Given the deadly nature of mercury, which has the potential to cause permanent skin damage, kidney failure, skin cancer and other fatal diseases, this signifies a gross failure of the Bangladesh Standard Testing Institute (BSTI).