ONE doesn't really know what to make of the CEC's comments made after his return from six-week leave abroad. During that time a lot had happened in respect of the UZ elections. And the actions, or rather the inaction of the EC, have caused erosion of public confidence in the commission. We commented before on the rationale of the CEC choosing to go on leave at a time when a very important election was being held, and it is every...

ABU Bakr Siddique's abduction in the middle of the day and that too at a busy filling station gives us a chilling reminder of how easy it is for criminals to whisk someone away. While it is too early to comment on why he was taken away against his will, although a number of reasons have been speculated in the media, that should not diffuse the investigation and make it lose its focus. The problem of such incidents is...

AS doctors are on an indefinite strike, a large number of patients at the BIRDEM hospital have been going through an unprecedented ordeal since Tuesday. Reportedly, some angry relatives of a deceased patient had allegedly assaulted on-duty doctors, precipitating the present crisis. Though the dead patient's daughter denied the allegation of assault at a press conference, the situation at the hospital seems to be aggravating rather than improving. The question is why are the doctors causing hundreds of patients to...

AS per a study done by Transparency International Bangladesh (TIB), the government department overseeing cooperatives in the country is a den of corruption. Lack of oversight coupled with political patronage has opened up the Pandora's Box as far as getting easy registration goes, which seldom comes under scrutiny and is based mostly on speed money. With such a state of affairs, we are not surprised to find that cooperatives are involved heavily in micro credit, charging up to 45...

DESPITE banks having no liquidity crisis, credit to the private sector has all but stagnated. Indeed, going by central bank data, loans taken by the private sector is nearly six per cent lower than Bangladesh Bank's target of 16.5 per cent for the current fiscal. Reasons for such a gloomy picture are multifaceted. With foreign bank borrowings hitting the US$1.5billion mark, most Bangladeshi banks have ended up with excess monies on their books. The fact that most banks have...

MUGGING and snatching in broad daylight in the city have registered a sharp rise. Notably, the target of most of the recent incidents has been a particular money transfer agency, bKash, whose employees have been robbed as they were on their way to banks for depositing their collected money. From the style and timing of attacks on their prey, it appears the muggers are organized and have a strong network to keep tabs on the movement of their victims. In...

Pahela Baishakh, the first day of Bangla new year, marks a renewal of our bonding to our cultural heritage. It provides a powerful impetus to seek a new dawn collectively as a nation. Symbolically, the observance of the day signifies living with the nature, be alive to seasonal variations and, above all, greet the new with hopes for a better future. The tradition of Pahela Baishakh is rooted in the Mughal era when emperor Jalaluddin Mohammad Akbar introduced it to...

From a report carried in this newspaper, the old part of the capital is sitting on a powder keg waiting to explode, given the large number of chemical warehouses and shops still operating in the area. Adding to the prospect of accident is that the premises of many of these stores and shops are being used as hospitals and other public utilities. We seem to become active only after a serious disaster strikes us as evident from the fact that...

Four individuals died and many more have been badly injured in Tejturi Bazar fire on Thursday. Reports relating to the hazards posed by factories and chemical workshops situated in residential areas have appeared regularly in the media. Despite all the concerns expressed over the years and court orders to free residential areas of chemical stores, no effective compliant measures have neither been enforced nor taken. What has happened in Tejturi Bazar is simple: an open 200-litre paint thinner barrel developed...

Fraudsters are approaching the poor people of different districts with promises of recruitment for the future construction of Padma Bridge. Needless to say, this is a project that has yet to be finalised and whatever promises being made are totally baseless. That these cheats are making use of fictitious Bridges Division forms to trick poor people of precious savings anywhere between Tk. 5,000 and Tk. 30,000 is worrying enough. That advertisements have been published in some dailies stating that...