The need to empower Bangladesh Bank has been overdue
Strengthen budget transparency to build public confidence
Their rights must be protected both at home and abroad
It is time to register our protest once more on the issue of 'crossfire' killings. In the past five years, 1,500 people have died in what has been given out as encounters, when the security forces were 'compelled' to fire back in 'self-defence.' And in the last five months, 60 individuals have lost their lives in 'crossfire' incidents all over the country. To say that we are shocked would be an understatement. We are, all of us who believe in decency and the rule of law, simply outraged. The time has now come for us to tell the authorities that enough is enough. Far too many killings of individuals have gone on in the name of preserving or ensuring law and order than one can justify. More important is the fact that no society can stand by and witness citizens dying in dubious and...
The sugar market has been behaving erratically since long. A government press note, on the other hand, has claimed that there is no sugar supply shortage in the market with the further assurance that more sugar is in the pipeline. So, if one is to go by the government's version on the matter, there should be no crisis of sugar. Unfortunately, the reality on the ground makes a mockery of the government's claim to the contrary.
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IT is a strange way to begin an inquiry and then to end it. Suranjit Sengupta, chairman of the parliamentary standing committee on law, justice and parliamentary affairs, has informed the nation that the committee will not go any further in investigating the role certain individuals in the power circle played in the recent removal from service of two judges (the judges have since been restored to their positions). And he has based his decision on the ground that the law secretary has already apologised to the committee and has indeed taken upon himself all responsibility for the fiasco.
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IN Bangladesh foreign policy, the "India factor" looms large. Many bilateral issues have been pending for a long time and Bangladesh cannot persuade India to resolve the issues, some of which are "bread and butter" issues affecting common people.
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THE felling of at least 30,000 jhau trees in Teknaf beach is the latest incident of priceless greenery being plundered in the country.
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IT is the same old story of angry men returning home dejected at not being able to get tickets. And the sufferings of those planning to travel home to enjoy Eid with family and friends keep on recurring every year with, it seems, an ascending intensity. And their haplessness and misery continue to remain unmitigated, with no one really caring to do anything of note to see an end to the terrible situation confronting the home goers.
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ON September 10, Awami League lawmaker Saber Hossain Chowdhury moved two private members' bills in the House, one styled Oppression and Custodial Deaths (Prevention) Bill 2009, and the other Eviction of Slum Dwellers from Government Land (Prevention) Bill 2009.
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ABOUT a decade ago, a group of researchers was observing a primary school classroom in the US. The second graders were talking about Lake Michigan and water pollution in and around it. One of them innocently enquired: "Who owns the water?"
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IF pictures speak a thousand words than the photograph appearing recently in this newspaper of a boy pulling ropes at a rope factory have spoken more than a thousand words and very poignantly so. To any sensitive person the sight of an underage boy, labouring in hazardous conditions, and that too for a pittance, must evoke the most contemptuous reaction, as it does in us.
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