Disappointingly, out of the 26 deals that were signed between China and Bangladesh during President Xi Jinping's visit, three-fourths of the deals have shown no signs of progress even after a whole year has passed.

We are appalled to hear that the police at Tetulia, Panchagarh earlier refused to register a case against two rapists who repeatedly raped a girl and blackmailed her threatening to release a video clip of the incident, leading the girl to commit suicide.

The process is being questioned primarily because there is no independent party to verify whether the committee will conduct a fair and impartial inquiry and whether a military enquiry committee engaged in investigating its own members accused of mass violations of human rights can be impartial in the first place.

The Bangladesh Road Transport Authority (BRTA) has been directed by the government to keep highways clear of illegal vehicles like the Nosimon and Karimon that cannot run at 60kmph.

That the military and the government of Myanmar have been spinning lies after lies about the Rohingya genocide has once again been confirmed by the falsehood that its army chief has spewed on Thursday.

If educated and empowered properly, community members, especially women and girls, can do wonders in the fight against early marriage. Appropriate legal provisions and their timely implementation are important, as are appropriately designed awareness-raising campaigns at the community level.

The latest report presented survivors' statements about megaphones being used to announce before and during the attacks: “You do not belong here ... go to Bangladesh. If you do not leave, we will torch your houses and kill you.”

In the nine months since January this year, at least 363 children were raped and 15 died as a result, according to Manusher Jonno Foundation (MJF).

People in fixed income groups have been suffering the brunt of spiralling price of essentials. While traders love to blame rising prices of vegetables on supply shortage, adverse weather and the rains, the situation with the price of rice is a bit more complicated.

The picture of a college bus full of students moving on the wrong side of a road in the capital's Moghbazar Wireless Gate area was disturbing, to say the least.

The proposal by Myanmar that repatriation of Rohingyas be based on the 1992 deal is unrealistic. Unrealistic primarily because Myanmar is insisting on the clause that these displaced people must have proof of citizenship, i.e. they must produce either citizenship identity cards or national registration cards or other relevant documentation.

While child labour has been criminalised in Bangladesh, the social structures are such that engaging children in the labour force is commonplace.

The Daily Star report has found that this person has also taken loans amounting to about Tk 1 crore from colleagues on an informal basis. This indicates that people in his workplace were aware of his incorrigible habit of taking money and not repaying it. Why did they not report him?

To say that the report on the Rakhine situation, submitted to the UN in May this year and which was bottled up by the UN, is shocking, would be an understatement. And even more so given the fact that the Horsey study was commissioned by the UN itself.

The horrific exploitation of human beings by traffickers, as detailed in a report published by this newspaper yesterday, calls for increased vigilance against this menace.

The Department of Environment (DoE) has conducted a study on sound pollution at 70 points in Dhaka city. The results are alarming. The sound level in many places is as high as 120–130 decibels (dB) which is almost double the permissible limit. The World Health Organisation states that 60dB sound can make a person deaf temporarily and 100 dB can cause complete deafness.

A UP chairman in Noakhali, accused of beating and raping a woman, is roaming around freely. With rape on the rise across the country, it is not clear why police had initially refused to register the case and needed persuasion from locals to do so eventually.

Bangladesh has formally taken a third line of credit (LoC) to the tune of USD 4.5 billion from India. Certain changes are being made, which includes a joint panel with representatives from Bangladesh's Economic Relations Division, various ministries concerned and the Indian lending agency Exim bank.

According to the latest Bangladesh Integrated Household Survey (BIHS) carried out by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), only 7.15 percent of small and marginal farmers (who constitute 76.6 percent of the total farmer population) have access to farm credit and 10 percent can avail agricultural extension services provided by the state.

Dhaka's call to involve the United Nations in the negotiations on Rohingya repatriation is a well-judged one. Bangladesh must also insist that Myanmar agrees to a multilateral agreement. Myanmar had earlier opted for a bilateral solution.