Finance minister Abul Maal Abdul Muhith on Friday asserted that the proposed budget he had announced on Thursday could be implemented however ‘ambitious’ it might be, if there was no threat of political instability. Addressing a post-budget press conference in the capital, he said that not only the new budget, but the previous ones were also aimed at ‘pleasing’ people. […]

The Centre for Policy Dialogue on Friday termed the proposed budget for next fiscal year strange and inconsistent with political and economic realities in the country and said that it might need to be revised in course of time. In its analysis of the national budget for fiscal 2013-14, the CPD said that the proposed budget placed in the national […]

A day after announcement of the proposed national budget in parliament for the next financial year, prices at kitchen markets in the capital soared. Prices particularly rose of most of the essential commodities including vegetables, fish and milk powder, consumers in the city grumbled. The prices of different brands of cigarettes already increased in last few days with indication of […]

Unnayan Onneshan on Friday said that the government is likely to miss the GDP growth target of 7.2 per cent in the fiscal year 2013-14, following the second year of decline in economic growth. The achievement of the 7.2 per cent growth target will require an increase of growth rate by 1.17 percentage points from that of the previous year […]

The Centre for Policy Dialogue on Friday said that withdrawal of concessionary duty or an increase of duty in import of newsprint would affect the newspaper and publication industry. ‘The decision will make newspaper printing more costly and price of newspaper will increase and that will affect the industry,’ CPD research director Fahmida Khatun told reporters at a press briefing […]

The workers who became injured in the Rana Plaza collapse and were immediately treated in hospitals have been forced to return to their houses, with serious physical problems while physicians said that the needed follow-up treatment. Many of the injured workers told New Age in the Adharchandra High School ground, where Japan Bangladesh Friendship Hospital and the Association of Medical […]

The prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, on Friday brushed aside any possibility for talks on an election-time government as the opposition BNP withdrew its adjournment motion for the discussion of the issue in the parliament. ‘With the withdrawal from discussion, the BNP literally buried the possibility for any kind of dialogue on interim government,’ the prime minister said referring to the […]

The prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, is learnt to have told her party lawmakers that the current parliament would be dissolved in the last week of October and the next general elections would be held under an interim government as stipulated in the constitution. She made the remarks at a meeting of the Awami League parliamentary party at the national assembly […]

Bangladesh Nationalist Party leader Abdul Moyeen Khan on Friday said the people could not be misled by misinterpreting the constitution.n Talking to reporters over the Awami League general secretary Syed Ashraful Islam’s comments, he said he respected the AL general secretary but could not accept what he had said about the next general elections. Moyeen, BNP standing committee member, said […]

The Election Commission seems to have turned a blind eye to the rampant violation of electoral code of conduct by almost all candidates during their campaigns for the elections to four city corporations. With the polling day nearing, the candidates are desperately trying to win the voters’ hearts. The elections to the four city corporations—Rajshahi, Khulna, Barisal and Sylhet—are scheduled […]