MACROECONOMIC performance, despite some improvements in the past nine months of the interim government, has still remained a cause for concern. A lack of political stability and the absence of necessary institutional reforms are believed to be hindering largely sustained macroeconomic progress. The Centre for Policy Dialogue in its third interim review of the...
THE problem of gas supply to industries has raised alarm about the continued shortfall in production, warning of shutdown and unpaid wages in export-oriented factories. Four trade bodies in the apparel and ceramic sectors have said that operation in many factories has halved and that the situation could worsen after Eid. For more than a couple of years, power plants...
A HIGH allocation for women in the budget and the stringent oversight of the allocation can ensure a proper use of the budget funds meant for spending on women to attend to gender inequality. In the light of such a proposition, participants in a pre-budget dialogue, ‘Advancing gender-responsive budgeting FFD4 Outcome’ that the Citizen’s Platform for SDGs...
INDIA has unilaterally pushed several hundred people into Bangladesh through several border areas, which is unacceptable because it goes against accepted border management guidelines and diplomatic standards. India has continued pushing people into Bangladesh since May 7, when a war-like situation prevailed between India and Pakistan. Of the fresh push-in incidents...
THE ongoing spate of protests by officials and employees, along with the resulting disruption in services and administrative activities across various government offices, is a cause for concern. These protests highlight fundamental issues with the government’s approach to implementing reforms and amending existing laws. On May 25, government officials and political...
THE Industrial Police has identified 198 apparel factories to be risky where the payment of wages and the festival allowance may remain uncertain before Eid-ul-Azha, likely to be celebrated in the first week of June. The police say that the number of factories, in the preliminary list so far, that might not pay wages and the allowance in time could finally vary. The apparel...
The meetings of the chief adviser to the interim government with political parties on May 24, presumably aimed at resolving the ongoing political and other crises that had led the increasingly frustrated chief adviser to consider resignation, appear not to have decisively eased the stalemate. Conflicting demands from various political parties, especially the...
A FAIR, Gazi Kalu-Champabati Mela, having been held for about two hundred years, at Jagannathpur of Kumarkhali in Kushtia has remained suspended since May 20 after it began on May 17. A clash between the Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami, which wanted a permanent end to the holding of the fair, and the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, which wanted the fair to continue, has...
NEARLY six months have passed since the Bangladesh Tree Protection Movement began a sit-in inside the partially destroyed Panthakunja Park, one of the capital’s last parks, calling for a halt to the construction of a section of the Dhaka elevated expressway from the Film Development Corporation to the Plassey crossing. Protesters say that the construction of the elevated...
A BRIEF spell of moderate rainfall brought vast areas of Dhaka to a standstill on May 22 as a grim reminder of the city’s chronic water stagnation problem. Roads went under water, forcing people to wade through knee-high water. Rickshaw pullers struggled...
THE chief adviser of the interim government, Professor Muhammad Yunus, has reasons to be unhappy about certain recent developments, political and otherwise, leading to his discontent to the extent of contemplating his resignation. The developments...
ANY assault on teachers is unacceptable as it happened when students of the National University attacked the vice-chancellor on May 21. And, further unacceptable is the reason that prompted the event as the students on the day assaulted the teacher, soon after he had got off his car at the administrative building on the university campus in Gazipur, demanding...
PERSISTENT food inflation, largely caused by a fragmented, inefficient market system, has placed millions of fixed- and low-income people in a precarious situation. Market experts, the consumers’ association and independent studies have for long pointed out the issue. Now, the Bangladesh Bank says that an inefficient market system, characterised by supply chain...
THE health sector reform report, of all the reforms commission reports, is better poised for a fast implementation, having faced little criticism and barriers as there is almost no contention about the report that recommends steps for the improvement in the health sector. What the authorities now need to do is to set strategic priorities and identify enablers and barriers to...
DHAKA continues to remain a very happening place in terms of protests that diverse groups hold to push for their demands. The rallies, demonstrations, gatherings, blockade and processions keep taking place on most of the weekdays, causing immense sufferings to people who need to go to work or do some other chores. The groups that are now out on the roads...
