Sunday, November 13th, 2011
Taking advantage of no government-set fare chart, truck owners and goods transport agencies have started charging extra following diesel price hike, raising fears of bumping up prices of essentials even more.
However, while some truck owners and transport agencies took the opportunity to hike the fares at will, other transport owners and agencies of the sector are waiting for the government to approve new fare charts.
Truck fares fluctuate on demand and supply, said transport owners and workers.
"Neither the government nor the truck owners' association has control over goods transportation fare," said Rustam Ali, general secretary of Bangladesh Truck-Covered Van Owners' Association.
Bus ...
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Monday, April 25th, 2011
The government has made several moves in recent months to see a murder case withdrawn against seven charge-sheeted accused, citing political affiliations.
The latest came on April 19 when the metropolitan public prosecutor directed the special PP of Speedy Trial Tribunal-1 to take necessary steps towards withdrawal of the case, filed for the murder of Ashikur Rahman Khan Apu.
The special PP, Abu Abdullah, has told The Daily Star that an application will be submitted to the Tribunal-1 on April 27 for withdrawal of murder charges against all the seven accused.
The case was filed with the capital's Sutrapur Police Station on May ...
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Sunday, April 10th, 2011
There are 61 speed breakers between Gabtoli Bridge in Dhaka and Paturia Ferry Terminal, 90km in the north. A gateway to south-western and northern districts, the road is a single lane extremely busy highway. The journey time on any normal day could take as long as four hours.
Thousands of buses, trucks, cars, minivans and scooters ply this road every day negotiating anything from a horse driven cart to rickshaw vans, nosimans and push carts carrying bamboos on the narrow road. In most cases road signs are non-existent. The roadside bazaars and thousands of people haphazardly crossing the highway any time ...
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Thursday, February 24th, 2011
Some ruling Awami League men and influential locals have grabbed a vast swathe of khas land and a canal in Keraniganj near the recently built Shahid Buddhijeebi Bridge on the Buriganga.
The bridge, which got open to the public in June last year, had acted as a trigger for the rampant encroachment by causing the land price there to rise over fivefold in a span of nearly two years.
The grabbing of wetlands and the canal--a branch of Aati Khal--is hard to escape one's notice. Then there are hoardings advertising plots on the encroached lands.
Locals fear inundation of a large area during ...
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Tuesday, January 25th, 2011
In compliance with a recent High Court order, the district administration yesterday evicted more than 100 shanties and shops in a drive to free the world's longest sea beach of illegal occupants.
The structures, erected illegally at the beach's Sugandha point and adjacent to Jhauban (tamarisk tree grove) area, were pulled down during the four-hour long drive led by Md Sukur Ali, additional deputy commissioner (revenue).
A mobile court headed by Executive Magistrate Rafiqul Islam also fined the authority of Neleema Resort at Sea Inn point Tk 30,000 and sentenced two persons to three months in prison each for selling food in ...
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Sunday, January 23rd, 2011
Ananya Begum, a resident in the city's South Kafrul, wakes up around 5:00am every day. She hurriedly prepares breakfast and lunch, as gas supply runs out in two hours.
Ananya has been doing it for more than a month, as she cannot afford to spend on a kerosene stove.
Many others in the area also face gas outage every day from 7:00am till evening.
For Moghbazar resident Fatima Akhtar Bristi, the cooking time starts shortly after midnight.
"We receive gas supply from 12:30am to 4:00am," said Bristi. She goes to bed at about 3:00am after cooking meals.
Like Ananya and Bristi, residents of Malibagh, Moghbazar, ...
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Monday, January 10th, 2011
The stock market lurched into a deep crisis, as it suffered the biggest fall yesterday in its 55-year history despite market sweeteners from the regulator.
The General Index of Dhaka Stock Exchange nosedived by 600 points or 7.75 percent to 7,135 at the end of yesterday's four-hour trading.
The fall prompted Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to ask the authorities concerned to find out the reasons behind the market instability.
The directive came at a weekly cabinet meeting at the Bangladesh Secretariat with Hasina in the chair.
"The prime minister has taken the issue seriously and directed us to look into it," a cabinet minister ...
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Wednesday, December 8th, 2010
In yet another chemical fire in Old Dhaka, two youths were badly burned yesterday while refilling cigarette lighters at a building storing liquid petroleum gas and lighter refill canisters on Nazimuddin Road.
The injured--Mohammad Sujan Ali, 30, an occupant of the four-storey building, and his relative Ripon, 28--were rushed to Dhaka Medical College Hospital, where they are undergoing treatment at the burn unit.
Sujan and Ripon had burns over 42 and 28 percent of their bodies, hospital sources said.
Sujan told The Daily Star that it was around noon and they were refilling lighters. As one of them lit a cigarette, a huge ...
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Monday, November 22nd, 2010
In the first light of day, they stream out of the forest, one by one. They push their bicycles hard over muddy tracks, the tyres flatten under illegal loads. Each bicycle carries firewood tied to the handlebar and on the carrier at the back. Slowly the men walk towards Chunarughat.
This is a new threat that the unique forest of Rema-Kalinga is facing every day, diminishing the future of this semi-evergreen forest of more than 12,000 acres, the largest of its kind in Bangladesh.
This forest, about 14 kilometres long and two and a half kilometres wide, at Moulvibazar, has been ravaged ...
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Sunday, October 31st, 2010
The government-appointed dealers for the ongoing open market sales (OMS) are selling rice on black market upsetting the effort to contain prices of the staple food.
The Daily Star investigation reveals that the dealers prepare fictitious list of potential buyers and sell the OMS rice on black market where each kilogramme of rice yields at least a profit of Tk 5.50.
Food department officials, who are "strictly monitoring" the dealers during and after the sale, are also enjoying benefits from the theft.
Under the OMS programme the government appointed 751 dealers across Rajshahi division. In the divisional city, 30 dealers each receiving four ...
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