Syed Mansur Hashim | The Daily Star

  • Syed Mansur Hashim

    Assistant Editor, The Daily Star

  • One-stop service caught in red tape

    Bangladesh lags behind its peers in the region when it comes to foreign direct investment (FDI). That hardly comes as a surprise given the amount of bureaucratic red-tape hurdles a prospective investor has to surmount before launching a business operation. As pointed out in a front-page report of this paper on June 3, “an investor needs up to a year and a half to get approvals from 42 desks of different government offices for starting a business, which according to the businesses is depriving Bangladesh of the much-needed foreign direct and domestic investments.”

  • Seating service: Nothing more than a sham

    Bangladesh Road Transport Authority (BRTA) had formed an eight-member committee on May 2, 2017 to submit recommendations for bringing city buses providing the so-called “seating service” under a legal framework.

  • Funding crunch for non-profits

    Non-profit organisations (NGOs) in Bangladesh are facing a general downturn in funding according to government data.

  • An effective shelving of the two-state solution

    With the death toll mounting to 58 last Monday thanks largely to a trigger-happy Israeli military and smiles all around Tel Aviv and Washington the two-state solution is all but dead and buried. When President Trump decided to move the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, all pretence of a negotiated settlement was effectively thrown out the window and what is happening in Gaza today points to a mindset that

  • The crippling effect of slow development

    Despite interest shown by foreign investors in country-specific Special Economic Zones (SEZs) and the Bangladesh Economic Zones Authority (BEZA) taking steps to acquire and allot land to that effect, it appears preparatory work on most of these zones is lagging far behind schedule.
Top