Wasim Bin Habib

The government has created two separate funds worth a combined Tk 12,300 crore under its massive social safety net programmes in the next fiscal year for targeted populations and low-paid informal sector workers.

The allotment for other social protection programmes may go up to Tk 65,000 crore, up 41.47 percent year on year.

The government could not spend two-thirds of its around Tk 25,000 crore cash-food support packages for the poor and vulnerable, frontline health workers and low-income farmers in the last year after its announcement.

Keeping in mind the possible impacts of the second Covid-19 wave, the government is going to attach top priority to vaccination, economic recovery, and life and livelihood of the poor in the upcoming national budget.

Over the last couple of weeks, Abdus Sobhan, a day labourer in the capital, saw his earnings drop to almost nothing.

The government is going to provide another round of cash assistance to nearly 35 lakh poor families facing income losses and hardship amid the ongoing nationwide lockdown.

The government’s decision to increase ICU beds in 10 public hospitals in Dhaka to treat a rising number of critical Covid-19 patients is certainly a step towards the right direction.

The ongoing restrictions to curb the Covid-19 surge across the country are showing signs of failure everywhere.

In the first week of last month when the country started seeing a resurgence of Covid-19 infections, healthcare experts sounded alarm, urging the government to take immediate measures to rein in the surge before it goes out of control.

An intense and sustained vaccination campaign can play a pivotal role in Bangladesh’s future economic benefits up to more than 10 percent of its current GDP, according to a new report of the World Bank.

The record of daily cases of Covid-19 got shattered yesterday and deaths from the deadly virus have been climbing every day. Hospitalisation is soaring as well. But the situation on the streets hardly gives any indication of how dangerous things have become.

Rabindra Mohan Das spent the entire evening yesterday watching live on television the programmes celebrating 50 years of the country’s independence.

It was a spring evening on March 17, 1920. In the stillness of the evening that enveloped the sleepy village of Tungipara in Gopalganj subdivision, a baby boy was born, illuminating the humble family of Sheikh Lutfar Rahman and Sheikh Sayera Khatun.

In a first-ever move, the government is going to use €524.56 million from the ballooning foreign exchange reserves for a development project.

State lenders in Bangladesh are sometimes in the news for all the wrong reasons. But they also carry the weight of the fast-expanding economy.

With the novel coronavirus spreading to different countries across the globe early last year, there was then an obvious fear that the pandemic would hit Bangladesh’s shores soon.

In the face of depleting food stock and sluggish public procurement of foodgrains, the government has started providing cash instead of rice or wheat to implement its Test Relief and Food for Work programmes.

The coronavirus crisis has worsened education inequality between rich and poor in Bangladesh as a huge number of students from poor families are not able to access the distance learning adopted by the government, according to a World Bank working paper.

With small businesses still struggling to recover from the pandemic-induced economic slowdown, the government has rolled out two fresh stimulus packages involving Tk 2,700 crore to boost the cottage industry and SMEs and expand the social security scheme for the elderly and widows in poverty-stricken areas.

As confusion continues over the price of Oxford-AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine, the government and the Beximco Pharmaceuticals Ltd have reiterated that Bangladesh will get the vaccine at the same price India is paying.