The “ideal town” planned in Purbachal to ease Dhaka’s burden of overgrowing population is likely to become yet another extension of the unplanned capital, thanks to the long delay in implementation and constant changes in project design, according to urban planners.

The World Bank yesterday upgraded Bangladesh’s GDP growth forecast for this fiscal year by 2 percentage points to 3.6 percent, making it the second best-performing economy in South Asia behind the Maldives.

Opposition lawmakers lambasted the health ministry officials for harassing and torturing Prothom Alo’s Senior Correspondent Rozina Islam while she was performing her duties.

Hefajat’s new committee does not include Mamunul Haque and other leaders who are involved with different political parties or are in jail on charges of being involved in the violence in late March.

The government is planning to waive coronavirus testing fee in the northern districts so that more people are tested during the ongoing surge in positivity rates, which are especially high in those regions.

Opposition lawmakers yesterday came down heavily on the health ministry for its failure to curb corruption and ensure healthcare for people amid the Covid pandemic.

Baffling -- is how one would describe the parliamentary session in which the Tk 13,987.3 crore supplementary budget for fiscal 2020-21 was passed.

Desperate and discomposed, they would arrive at the doors of private hospitals to get treatment for Covid-19.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina yesterday said the country’s independence was achieved on the basis of the six-point formula, the “Charter of Freedom” for Bangalees, and reiterated her pledge to build Bangladesh as a developed and prosperous country.

Four corporate houses based in Chattogram have expressed willingness to extend their free oxygen supply support to Covid-19 patients and hospitals at border districts.

Only 2 percent of readymade garments workers were able to get Covid-19 vaccines, found a survey done jointly by South Asian Network on Economic Modeling and Microfinance Opportunities.

After Sinopharm, the government has started the process of procuring coronavirus vaccine from another Chinese company Sinovac to inoculate most of the country’s 163 million population.

Hefajat-e Islam will announce today its new committee comprising of what insiders said would be the leaders sympathetic to the ruling Awami League.

The telecom regulator yesterday fixed the prices for broadband internet connections.

The Dhaka Medical College Hospital (DMCH) medical board that was tasked with doing a physical check-up of cartoonist Ahmed Kabir Kishore told the court yesterday that they did not find any signs of torture.

The Dhaka Stock Exchange yesterday recorded its highest turnover in a decade, as the ongoing bull run seems to have gotten an added impetus from the proposed budget measures for the incoming fiscal year.

With the Covid positivity rate surging in bordering districts, the government has extended the countrywide restrictions for 10 more days to check virus transmission.

Bangladesh Bank yesterday refused to allow FAS Finance and Investment Ltd Managing Director Pritish Kumar Sarker to travel to the US.

Bangladesh yesterday recorded 11.03 percent daily positivity rate of Covid-19 tests, the highest in the last 33 days.

He set off to save lives and livelihoods in his third budget as the finance minister and his second amid the global coronavirus pandemic, and along the way, went astray.