RAJUK'S, or for that matter, the government's lack of will to exercise its authority to protect environmentally-sensitive rivers, floodplains and wetlands from grabbers has again been demonstrated from the half-hearted drive that it launched on Sunday.  The move to evict an illegal structure built in the flood flow plain of Turag river in Tongi proved cosmetic.     As reported in the Monday's issue of this paper, a Rajuk executive magistrate, who had gone to dismantle the building of a proposed...

THE economy is losing nearly Tk20,000crore a year due to horrendous traffic jams that plague the capital city. This is hardly surprising. A mere 3,000 policemen are battling to coordinate traffic in a megacity the size of Dhaka with nearly a million vehicles plying the city, which is undoubtedly a daunting task. But then this is not merely an issue of having too few personnel on the streets. The fact that Dhaka has 8 per cent of its area...

WHAT was supposed to be a party-less character of upazila election has not only seen openly party backed candidates in the fray but also something beyond that crossing the line which cannot bode well for the next round of upazila elections. Violence has started gripping the pre-electoral scenario. Internecine rivalry between the ruling party blessed contestants is translating into fierce locking of horns. The case in point is Saturday's violent clashes centring around upazila election scheduled for March 15...

THIS is becoming very repetitive and the mode very predictable. It seems that the treasury bank of the government is free for all and no one seems to have bothered to wake up to the serious sap of public confidence in the largest public bank. If it is not robbery it is illegal loans amounting to thousands of crores of public money given out like manna to little known business firms under undue political pressure, or hackers siphoning off...

The observance of International Women's Day in Bangladesh this year was of special significance for quite a good number of reasons. In the first place, the spirited manner in which organisations as well as the government went into a celebration of the day was a clear signal to the forces of negativism that a medieval outlook on women is neither to be accepted nor tolerated in this country. In the second, this year's observance of the day was a...

If a picture speaks a thousand words then the one carried by this newspaper on March 7, of a police- escorted flag car going on the opposite side of the road, in flagrant violation of traffic rules, spoke many times more. That was but one instance captured of the many such violations every day of traffic rules by MPs, Ministers and State Ministers, and anyone who is authorised to adorn a mini flag staff in the cars. The picture speaks of...

NOTHING beats the blatant violation of jail rules than what an investigative report in this paper yesterday brought to light. This can make minced meat of punitive justice. From the shocking details of the booming drug trade, we find that about two-thirds of the total number of prisoners are on trial and so they have to appear before the court regularly. This provides them a link to the outside, let alone the visitors who can also be purveyors of...

THOUGH astonishing but it is true, that the less educated segment of the population in Bangladesh contributes more to the national economy than the higher educated ones. A World Bank report, after having analyzed a survey of the country's labour force said on last Tuesday that the numbers of manual workers in the country's formal and informal sectors are around 56.7 million. Out of which 23.2 million, or 41%, have had no formal education at all; and13 million have...

WE have been informed that there are presently 265 high ranking government officers on special duty (OSD). We would have benefited had we been told as to how long these pubic servants had been in that status, and also how many other than the 'high-ups' are OSD, a euphemism for those sidelined because of not being of the same ilk as the ruling party. According to reports carried in this paper on December 9, 2013, as many as 650...

MATERIALIZATION of our long standing due in terms of a fair share of Teesta water still remains elusive. Bangladesh Prime Minister during her visit to Myanmar a week ago had raised the Teesta issue with her Indian counterpart Manmohan Singh on the sidelines of the Bimstec Summit. During the Indian PM's visit to Dhaka in 2012 in reciprocation of our Prime Minister's visit to New Delhi a year before hopes were raised for finalizing a deal on Teesta water...