Archive for August 1st, 2007
Wednesday, August 1st, 2007Inflation rate on a point-to-point basis in June stood at a 10-year high 9.20 percent, and threatens to reach a double-digit soon due to floods and the upcoming Ramadan. Economists suggest that the government maintain usual trading in the markets instead of trying to improve the price situation by deploying law enforcers.Inflation came down slightly in May but it leapt by 1.15 percentage point to reach the record high in the last month of fiscal year 2006-07.On average, it ran 7.22 percent in June compared with 7.16 percent in the corresponding period of last fiscal.According to the Bangladesh Bureau ...
(read more) Wednesday, August 1st, 2007The flood situation continued to deteriorate in most flood-affected districts yesterday while scarcity of drinking water has become a serious problem for the marooned people exposing them to various water-borne diseases.Five people, including three children, died by drowning in floodwater in Ullapara and Sadar upazila of Sirajganj yesterday while another child died in Gaibandha.Meanwhile, Chief Adviser to the Caretaker Government Fakhruddin Ahmed is to visit the flood-affected areas of Kurigram and Sirajganj today.He will visit flood-affected areas and distribute relief materials to the destitute people, reports UNB. Fakhruddin, who will be accompanied by Food and Disaster Management Adviser Tapan Chowdhury, ...
(read more) Wednesday, August 1st, 2007The government yesterday filed an appeal with the Supreme Court (SC) challenging Monday's High Court (HC) order granting ad interim bail to detained former prime minister Shiekh Hasina in an extortion case and also directing the government not to hold trial of the case under the emergency power rules.Attorney General Fida M Kamal moved the appeal with the Chamber Judge of the Appellate Division of the SC seeking stay on the HC order.After primary hearing, the Chamber Judge decided to send the matter for hearing by the full bench of the Appellate Division and set today for the hearing.The HC ...
(read more) Wednesday, August 1st, 2007As trucks lined up yesterday at Banglabandh land port to carry jute goods to Nepal for its growing carpet industry, an opposite development took place in Bangladesh. The curtain finally fell on the four state-owned jute mills marked to be closed down by the caretaker government. This latest move, sudden and widely debated, has once again brought to the fore discussions about the future of jute, globally and in Bangladesh. And at the centre of the debate lies a number of critical issues -- slow productivity in the jute industry complicated by even slower to come technological improvement, lack of ...
(read more) Wednesday, August 1st, 2007The Election Commission (EC) has started the field level task for preparing a fresh voter list with photographs in Rajshahi City Corporation (RCC) area without amending the existing electoral rolls ordinance, which does not allow such a move. Directed by the EC, the local election office on July 29 started sending its enumerators on door-to-door visits in the city corporation area to collect particulars of prospective voters with prescribed forms for preparing the voter list with photographs.Talking to The Daily Star yesterday, legal experts termed the step 'unlawful' and asked the EC not to continue the task before amending Electoral ...
(read more) Wednesday, August 1st, 2007Ex-prime minister Khaleda Zia yesterday paid Tk 33 lakh to the National Board of Revenue (NBR) under an amnesty offered to tax dodgers to get their undisclosed money legalised.The NBR has so far received around Tk 300 crore tax under the amnesty as a total of 8,559 people took the opportunity to whiten black money amounting to Tk 1,622 crore, a seniorNBR official told the news agency.The official confirmed that Khaleda, earlier notified by the Anti-Corruption Commission for submitting her wealth statement, declared her undisclosed money yesterday by paying the tax."She directly deposited the money with Bangladesh Bank ...
(read more) Wednesday, August 1st, 2007Almost all roads in the capital have turned into patchworks of potholes and craters due to substandard construction and torrential rain.Acknowledging that all roads in the city have literally become impassable, Dhaka City Corporation (DCC) officials claimed that they are trying to repair those."We started repairing the roads three or four months ago and now we have increased the volume of work...but as you can see the heavy downpour is hampering the work," said a DCC official.City residents are however quite dissatisfied with the band-aid measures taken by the DCC. Anwar Ali, a city resident, said, "I simply don't understand ...
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