Commercial lifeline clearing with import release, but exports still remain blocked

Bangladesh's blocked commercial lifeline begins clearing with manual import release but digitally-handled export yet remains blocked to the dismay of exporters and buyers both. Customs authorities Tuesday restored some of its networks to release some key commodities and raw materials...

It's time normality returned on campuses

The Appellate Division's order on Sunday that dismissed the High Court's pro-quota verdict of June 6 can be said to be a victory of the agitating students who have been staging a bloody anti-quota movement. As the government side, by...

Livelihoods shattered, lives of low-income people hang in the balance

"My savings have depleted. If curfew goes on for more days, my family will have to starve."Eyes of 48-year-old Amena Khatun welled up as she approached one of the FE correspondents, pleading for a job, any kind of job. She...

Lingering curfew panics stranded travellers

Tanmoy Roy from Panchagarh found himself trapped in the capital city after he arrived here on Thursday morning for a recruitment exam the following day. The exam for upazila-level posts under the Ministry of Agriculture was eventually cancelled as violence...

Healthcare stymied by lack of logistics amid curfew

Mugda General Hospital wore a deserted look on Saturday. One might mistake it for an abandoned place, seeing the empty ticket counters, outdoor units, and corridors. Inside, a handful of patients, their attendants and healthcare providers -- doctors, nurses and...

Tk 8.73 billion in revenue loss counted daily

State exchequer counts an estimated domestic revenue loss of Tk 8.73 billion daily as production, trade and services falter for the ongoing nationwide quota-protest shutdown coupled with internet blackout. And an indefinite countrywide curfew imposed by the government to come...

Quota cut to 7pc, merit wins most at 93pc

Quotas in government recruitment are slashed to 7.0 per cent while merits get the most at 93 per cent in apex-court verdict delivered Sunday amid nationwide curfew enforced to calm violence during quota protests. The 7.0 per cent in the...

Woes of the less fortunate

With the quota movement peaking to its pinnacle of 'complete shutdown' programme, students could more than draw the required attention of the government to their cause. By the time this happened, it was too late for either the government or...

How's life sans internet?

Disruptions of a hundred and one kinds are part of life in this part of the world. Some of these disruptive experiences could be quite shocking elsewhere, but not here. The traffic on the road may come to a screeching...

Rural electrification is just on paper

To its credit, the government delivered on its promise of bringing 100 per cent of the population under electricity coverage in 2022 - a remarkable achievement by any yardstick. Electricity now reaches even the remotest rural backwaters and chars and...

Equity market shutdown quandary

The stock exchanges have decided to keep the capital market closed for the two days to Monday after the government announced public holiday for the weekdays through an executive order. Trading may resume on Tuesday if the tension that ensued...

Security lapse as two metro stations damaged

Sources said only four MRT policemen, including three constables, were inside the stations -- one at Mirpur 10 and another at Kazipara -- at the time of the attack.The Mirpur 10 station faced a similar threat on Thursday afternoon as...

A quick look at monetary policy

When inflation becomes unbearable or overall price situation becomes unstable, it is the central bank that has to face the biggest challenge to contain the inflation or retain the price stability in the developed countries. Though many developing countries have...

Moscow nudges Dhaka to sit for edible oil price talks

Moscow wants Dhaka to buy essential food items such as soybean and palm oil from them and requested the authorities to arrange a meeting between Russian and Bangladeshi enterprises for price negotiations, according to official sources. To this regard, the...

So near, yet so far in creation

They were the common inhabitants of one world, and they are still there even after their passing into eternity. They had many things in common, and at the same time, there were many dissimilarities or contrasts among them, too. However,...

Distorted democracy has adversely affected world economic order

Money and politics are by no means strange bedfellows. Economists and social scientists the world over have continuously attempted to propound economic theories aimed at maximising national and individual wealth. Ever since the transition of political orders from the old...

Trump, Reagan and America's assassination history

It has happened again. America's gun culture has been at work yet once again. The assassination attempt on Donald Trump reveals with disturbing clarity how a society which permits people to come by guns easily can often create havoc for...

Splash of colours in a grey city life

Once upon a time…, no, not a king story, but there were melas, i.e., local fairs, even in big cities of Bangladesh, including Dhaka. The cities had a festive image year-round, from Baishakhi mela to Eid mela to Durga puja...

BD's IsDB stake shrinks, raising risks for petroleum imports

Bangladesh's stake in the Islamic Development Bank (IsDB) has fallen due to an increase in the bank's special capital, sources said, as it consequently could make loan negotiations for petroleum product imports difficult.The country's voting rights in the IsDB's governing...

Spending on tax collection faces undesirable cut

Government investment in domestic revenue mobilisation has been declining over the years despite a pressing need to boost tax collection.The government spent Tk 0.31 to collect Tk 100 in domestic revenue in the fiscal year of 2019-20, but this fell...

Tamijuddin Textile ‘misappropriates’ over Tk 330m of bonus shares

The securities regulator has caught Tamijuddin Textile Mills having misappropriated undistributed stock dividends worth more than Tk 330.77 million by disbursing them to shareholders who were not entitled. The company has so far deposited about 1.06 million undistributed bonus shares...

Hilsas may not be taken for granted

Reports expressing concern about the country's national fish, hilsa, appeared in the media from time to time over the past few years.And those were about if hilsa stock was depleting due to overfishing or any alteration in the conditions that...

The anatomy of corruption in BD

Of late, the media in Bangladesh is abuzz with news of high profile cases of corruption coming in quick succession, sometimes simultaneously. Senior officials, both in office and retired, have been implicated in allegations of corrupt practices and for amassing...

Bhanga-Jashore section likely to be inaugurated in October

The Bhanga-Jashore section of the Padma Rail Link Project is expected to be inaugurated by the end of October next, establishing a 172-kilometre direct link between Dhaka and the south-western districts.Project officials said work on the 87km section would complete...

Bangladesh, Mauritius ink revised protocol

A revised protocol of the double taxation avoidance treaty between Bangladesh and Mauritius is set to check the scope of fiscal evasion with respect to taxes on income.Both the countries signed the protocol on February 5, 2024 and April 9,...

People want to be free from the stifling conditions

If Aristotle's famous saying, "One swallow does not make a spring" holds, one demon owl (barn owl) should not make a winter either. Right now developments all around are nightmarish with the exposure of dubious elements one after another in...

Rethinking ways to tackle inflation

The annual inflation rate last month was 9.72 per cent, a welcome decline from seven-month high at 9.89 per cent in the previous month of May. Despite this temporary easing in comparative terms, there is nothing reassuring for the common...

Ctg roads in sorry state for rain

CHATTOGRAM, July 13: Most of the roads in the port city have turned dilapidated amid monsoon rain, causing troubles for traffic and commuters.Transport workers say cracks and potholes have developed in most roads and alleys. Commuters are suffering a lot...

Transfer from OTC to SME board: Regulator has more things to fret about

Sponsor-directors of Wonderland Toys offloaded a significant amount of the company's shares within just two years and three months after listing on the SME board of the Dhaka Stock Exchange in September 2021. By December 2023, their stake in the...

Honing freshers’ skill through case competition

The IUT Career and Business Society (IUT CBS) has launched the sixth edition of 'INTERN,' an innovative and vibrant intra-IUT novice business case competition. Since 2018, the Islamic University of Technology (IUT) campus has hosted this flagship event for freshers.For...