Miscellany

Shajahan Madampat The Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) is in the news following Rahul Gandhi’s decision to contest from the Wayanad constituency, a stronghold of the party. Yogi Adityanath dubbed the League “a virus” sure to infect the rest of the country if the Congress wins. The decision also occasioned an unabashedly communal comment from […]

John Braddock On Monday, New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced the terms of reference for the Royal Commission of Inquiry into the March 15 Christchurch fascist attack in which 50 Muslim worshippers were killed. The alleged mass murderer, 28-year-old Australian Brenton Tarrant, appeared in the High Court in Christchurch on Friday. He faces 50 […]

New VAT law to be effective from July 1 Business Report The National Board of Revenue (NBR) chairman MdMosharraf Hussain Bhuiyan said the revenue authorities are weighing to impose a fixed rate or package VAT-like tax rate under the new VAT law that is scheduled to come into effect from next fiscal 2019-20. It will […]

Special Correspondent Bangladesh’s GDP growth is set to hit 8 percent at the end of current fiscal based on the continuing positive trend in exports and public investments, the Asian Development Bank, or ADB, has said. The ADB makes the prediction in its annual publication titled ‘Asian Development Outlook 2019’, or ADO 2019, after analysing […]

All children are children of God who are entitled to dignity and respect Ignorance lacks empathy and compassion. Where there’s ignorance, there will always be violence; it just makes matters worse when there are people openly teaching it in the classrooms There’s no need or justification to debate corporal punishment. It can’t be any more […]

Engr. S. A. Mansoor Back in December 1970, I was sent by the Chittagong Chamber of Commerce, to attend a fully residential in depth management program in UK. It was held at Urwick Management Center(UMC); at Slough which is close to Cambridge University in UK. It had a huge compound with around 500 yards of […]

Sir Frank Peters I am confused… totally confused… and I am sure there are millions more just like me. In some Bangladeshi newspapers on Sunday news stories heralded Bangabandhu’s birthday anniversary as his 99th. Other publications made claim it was his 100th. Which are correct? By my calculations, if Bangabandhu was born on March 17, […]

Richard Jones There are many dates worthy of celebration in Bangladesh including Mother Language Day, Independence Day and Bengali New Year’s Day  (among others), but March 17 (encircled in red and highlighted in yellow on most Bengali hearts) is probably the most noteworthy of all. That is the day, in 1920, the sun rose to […]

Kills 8.8m people worldwide every year Online Agencies Air pollution causes 790,000 premature deaths every year in Europe and 8.8 million worldwide, doubling recent assessments, according to a study released Monday. Between 40 and 80 percent of those excess deaths are caused by heart attacks, strokes and other types of cardiovascular disease underestimated up to […]

Dr. Syed Anwarul Haque I had the opportunity to visit Taipei, capital of Taiwan, in connection with my participation to the 6th ESAFS (East & South Asian Federation of Soil Science) International Conference held from 24-29 November 2003 at the National Taiwan University, Taipei. The Conference programme was highlighted on Soil Management Technology, “Low-productivity and […]