Cabotage restriction means that Bangladeshi trucks may move to Bhutan, India and Nepal with Bangladeshi goods but cannot pick up Indian, Bhutanese or Nepalese goods on its way back to Bangladesh. That means Bangladeshi trucks have to return empty.

Finance Minister Abdul Muhith desperately wants to break out of the six percent growth trap and he seems to believe that this can be done with a larger budget.

Bangladesh along with some of its South and Southeast Asian neighbours presently stands at a crossroads.

While waiting for my connecting flight to Dhaka at Dubai's airport lounge, I came across throngs of fellow Bangladeshi nationals waiting to fly back home.

After months of negotiation and show of strength, former President Mahinda Rajapakse was finally given a ticket to contest by the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) which is part of the United People's Freedom Alliance (UPFA), a conglomerate of around sixteen parties.

Even though smart technologies and new methods of harvesting energy are being added regularly, the solar panel will be with us for some time.

Contrary to all that can be defined as the reality around me, I do believe in miracles. Call me naïve, delusional or just plain silly, but when you see a really grotesque problem actually being solved in none other than our beloved but impossible-to-live-in Dhaka city, it is akin to divine intervention.

The Kashmiris have come to develop a different thinking. They do not want either India or Pakistan to be the arbiter. They themselves want to decide what is suited to their genius.

The state of protection of consumer rights in Bangladesh is in shambles. The implementation of CRPA has been extremely poor and there's no serious political commitment towards the protection of consumer rights.

Compared to the year before, over 36 percent money went from Bangladesh to Swiss banks last year, but that's not half as shocking as the reasons given by our experts to explain that surge.

The central, painful reality that the US must accept is that a major shift in the Asia-Pacific balance of power has already taken place. The days of America's unequivocal primacy and unilateral capacity to write the rules are over.

In a sharp contrast to the riled Indian media, the country's ad guru Prahlad Kakkar paid unqualified compliments to the Roshalo satire. Rating the graphics as 'creative' he had a good laugh over the funny streak. He asked, 'Wouldn't have the Indian readers enjoyed the caricature had it been used in case of Pakistan?”

Bombings will kill people, not ideas. And that is where the first countermeasures must aim at. For this, it is not the US but the Muslim world, particularly the Arab world, which should take the lead.

Areas where further progress was needed are labour organisation in EPZ, negative publicity regarding harassment of NGOs and labour unions, and lack of data and transparency on factory inspections.

With a constitution that granted it sweeping powers and a compliant parliament, the generals are now presiding over a Potemkin democracy.

The problem of waterlogging in Chittagong has reached such an extent that the first monsoon rain is enough to shut down the city.

Begum Zia will now have to take on the responsibility of transforming BNP into a truly democratic, secular and dynamic political party. She will have to renounce dynastic politics and empower honest and committed leaders.

As countries are preparing for the next set of negotiations under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in France in December this year...

In 2006, when Mexico's President, Felipe Calderón, declared war on drugs and sent 6,500 troops to the state of Michoacán, all hell broke loose.

In the light of Dhawan's revelations, the case should be reopened. More than that, there needs to be a probe on how the institutions were diluted and the power got concentrated on Indira Gandhi.