In a baffling move, the central bank yesterday extended a set of unprecedented facilities to defaulters with the view to giving them a fresh lifeline -- stoking fears of further deterioration of the banking sector’s financial health. As per the new policy, defaulters will be allowed to reschedule their classified loans

Frustrated after incurring huge losses, many farmers are demanding that the government procure paddy or rice directly from the growers instead of rice mill owners. “In this system, farmers have no choice but to sell their harvest to local rice mill owners. So, those mid-dlemen become the beneficiary

A month after boasting about its water quality, Dhaka Wasa yesterday revealed that its water is polluted in 57 city areas because of broken-down supply lines. The official water supplier in the city made the admission in a report submitted before the High Court.

Europe has long been a promised land for Bangladeshi fortune seekers. With illusion further fuelled by human traffickers, many take risky journeys through the Mediterranean, knowing well it may turn fatal in the hazardous sea. But when they are held hostage by human traffickers or other criminal gangs in Libya, a transit point en route to Europe, they realise

Supreme Court lawyer Imtiaz Mahmood was sent to jail by a Dhaka court yesterday, hours after police arrested him in a case filed under section 57 of the ICT Act about two years ago over his Facebook posts.

A ship-breaking worker died and five others were critically burnt in an explosion at the engine room of a ship in Chattogram’s Sitakunda yesterday morning. The incident took place at Mahinur Ship Recycling yard in Baro Awalia area around 8:00am.

A clinical Bangladesh team continued their winning run in the ongoing tri-nation ODI series, registering a comfortable six-wicket win over Ireland in a dead rubber at the Clontarf Cricket Club ground yesterday.

Alamin Miah is one of those who came back from the jaws of death and lived to tell the tale after a boat carrying migrants capsized in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, off the coast of Tunisia, last Friday night.

The names of those feared dead in the boat capsize in the Mediterranean last week are surfacing, but the chances of recovering their bodies are fading, possibly burying the last hope of their relatives to see their loved ones for one last time.

Prime Minister and Awami League President Sheikh Hasina yesterday gave instructions for probing the allegations against the “controversial” leaders in the newly formed BCL central committee, say party insiders.

Ehsan Hoque was lucky not to be blind for life, after his birth in 1964. Born with congenital cataracts, an optical disorder responsible for child blindness, he could survive with a limited eyesight. However, unlike most other victims of child blindness because of infections or nutritional deficiencies in pregnancies, his story was to unfold completely differently over the next five decades. His eyes in distress would eventually transform him into an angel parent of children in distress.

The Awami League has initiated a process to identify the BNP, Jamaat and Shibir men who have allegedly infiltrated the ruling party in the last few years to make a fortune or to avoid lawsuits.

Leaders of Bangladesh Chhatra League, who were “deprived” of posts in the just announced fully-fledged central committee, have threatened to go on hunger strike if dedicated leaders were not included within 48 hours.

The Rajshahi prison authorities have moved to grab at least 100 acres of char land in the Padma river in the city’s Sreerampur to build Prisons Training Academy complex.

Thousands of agitating jute mill workers blocked roads and railways in Khulna and Jashore yesterday, the second day of their indefinite strike at state-owned jute mills for better wages and arrears.

The state-run jute mills appear to be a bottomless pit. Over the past decade, the government handed them Tk 7,477 crore to bail them out of their financial woes, and yet their supervising authority, Bangladesh Jute Mills Corporation, has put its hand out for more.

A mangrove forest at Sitakunda upazila in Chattogram was leased to a private company last year to build a ship-breaking yard, violating a Supreme Court directive, existing laws and the national forest policy.

From now on, the trials of 17 cases against BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia will be held at a special court inside Keraniganj Central Jail in Dhaka due to security reasons.

Poverty continues to decline but at a slower pace since 2010 though the country has recorded more than 6.5 percent economic growth annually during the period, according to Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics data.

Thousands of agitating jute mill workers blocked roads and railways in Khulna and Jashore and roads in Chattogram yesterday, the first day of their indefinite strike at state-owned jute mills for better wages and arrears.