Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina at a parliamentary party meeting of the Awami League said recently that, if World Bank withdraws funding, the Padma Bridge would be built on local initiative. She also said the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology would be asked for design and the Bridge Division would supervise the work. While the prime minister’s determination is praiseworthy, […]

In the wake of the World Bank’s insistence that it would release funds for the Padma Multipurpose Bridge Project only after a ‘complete and fair investigation’ of the allegation of ‘corruption conspiracy’ by government high-ups, the government of Sheikh Hasina on Thursday finally disengaged itself from the WB financing for the project. The government’s argument was, as reported by New […]

New York-based international rights group Human Rights Watch, like different national rights organisations, has also concluded that the country witnessed a dismal condition in terms of human rights in 2012. According to its World Report 2013 released on Friday, quoted in a New Age report on Saturday, during the period, the practice of disguising extrajudicial killing as ‘crossfire’ and ‘disappearances […]

On January 2, US President Barack Obama signed the new National Defence Authorisation Act, which ordered the commander of the US Strategic Command to submit a report by August 15 on the ‘underground tunnel network used by the People’s Republic of China with respect to the capability of the United States to use conventional and nuclear forces to neutralise such […]

I HAVE been following the debate on Eve Ensler in New Age with interest. I am a Muslim by faith and would like to quote an ayah from the Qur’an: ‘Lo! Allah enjoineth justice and kindness, and giving to kinsfolk, and forbiddeth lewdness and abomination and wickedness. He exhorteth you in order that ye may take heed’ (16:90, translation by […]

That the nomenclature of an organisation hardly speaks of the policy it pursues has been proved once again, with the chairperson of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party openly inviting the United States and its Western ally in international campaigns, the United Kingdom, to intervene in the internal affairs of Bangladesh. The BNP chief, Begum Khaleda Zia, in an article, styled ‘The […]

THE killing of four passengers of a commuter train by robbers in Brahmanbaria early Thursday provides a strong pointer that law and order across the country is on a sustained downslide and that crimes of all types are taking place at increasing frequency and ferocity. According to a report front-paged in New Age on Friday, at least four people, including […]