Author: Asian Bangla

Bangabandhu-1, the first commercial satellite of the country, will be sent into orbit May 5 (Bangladesh time) and it will be ready for use in three months after the launch. The date was confirmed from the launching station in Florida, US this morning, Telecom and ICT Minister Mustafa Jabbar told The Daily Star. This date is final and will not be changed further, the minister added. Preparations for countrywide celebrations centering the launch are already underway, he further said.

Dhaka University authority today pledged support to the quota-reform movement that picked up momentum on April 8 and spread across the country. “From my behalf and from the university’s behalf we have expressed solidarity with the movement and have asked the government to take quick measures and give assurance to the students so that they can return to normal life,” DU VC Akhtaruzzaman today said at his office. “All our students have a responsibility towards their families, towards the country and towards the university and they never boycott classes and have not boycott exams either. And only for sake of…

Asianbangla, Dhaka : Students of private and other universities are maintaining the support for the central movement demanding quota system reform, cramping Dhaka’s roads seriously in long tailbacks. As reports came in, thousands of students had rolled on to the key thoroughfares in Mirpur, Farmgate, Sukrabad, and Dhanmondi areas demanding quota reform. “So what that we study in private universities? We too want a shot at government job,” Abdur Rahim, a student of civil engineering department at University of Asia Pacific, told The Daily Star. About a thousand students of the university paraded through Karwan Bazar and Farmgate areas this…

At the heart of the escalation of US-China trade tensions is President Donald Trump’s assertion of rampant “theft” of US intellectual property by China. But what constitutes “intellectual property” in today’s global economy? In order to sell goods in China, foreign companies must form joint ventures with local companies, which are usually state-owned in China. That’s the path General Motors took when it set up shop in China, where it now sells more automobiles than in the United States. GM, the biggest US automaker, builds most of the cars sold in China in China itself and must share its know-how,…

The shortfall from revenue collection target has widened further in the first eight months of the fiscal year as collection of the National Board of Revenue did not pick up. The NBR logged in Tk 126,357 crore as revenue in July-February, up 16 percent year-on-year. The overall receipt was Tk 17,512 crore short of the target of Tk 143,869 crore set for the period. The revenue collector missed the target in January by Tk 14,802 crore, according to preliminary data from the NBR. It was apprehended that the NBR’s revenue collection for the ongoing fiscal year would be below the…

 Recently, David Pilling had a write-up entitled “Do we need to say RIP (Rest in Peace) to GDP?” The write-up draws on his latest book The Growth Delusion on which he recently spoke at the Oxford Literary Festival. In the write-up, the author has made five important observations. I am in total agreement with all of them, except for the last one. His five observations are as follows: First, GDP (gross domestic product) was a World War II phenomenon, since planners needed to know how much of the GDP could be diverted to military efforts. Absolutely true. Second, we should…

In addition to visit to United Kingdom and Australia, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina is scheduled to visit two more countries, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and New Zealand, for bilateral talks as well as to attend important international events. Sources at the prime minister’s office said Hasina is likely to begin the four-nation tour with Saudi Arabia on April 15. They said the PM’s first visit to the Kingdom is at the invitation of Saudi King Salman Bin Abdulaziz Al Saud to join a 23-country joint military exercise styled “Gulf Shield 1” in Dammam on April 16 which aims to upgrade…

It was a time when politics played havoc with the economy. The BNP-led opposition called a series of hartals in 2013 ahead of the general elections demanding restoration of the caretaker government system. The whole year was practically wasted and violence of the worst kind spread, bringing the economy to a grinding halt. The election was held in spite of that. The violence turned even worse as blockade continued until April 2015, giving businesses a hard knock. Production was hampered, distribution even more. So in 2015, 11 big business groups, each of them having loans of over Tk 500 crore…

Over 55,000 vehicles, including 3,740 belonging to different ministries and government agencies, have not had their fitness certificates renewed for more than a decade in breach of rules, official data showed. As per the law, it is mandatory for a vehicle to go through fitness check-up every year and have its fitness certificate renewed to ply the roads legally. Bangladesh Road Transport Authority (BRTA) on March 29 published two lists of “fitness defaulters” on its website — one of government vehicles and the other of non-government ones. The authority asked the owners to renew the fitness certificates by April 30.…

 A section of Dhaka University students and other job seekers who have been protesting against the quota system  blocked the Shahbagh intersection this afternoon. Around 2,000 protesters brought out a procession from in front of the Dhaka University Central Library around 2:00pm and gathered at the Shahbagh intersection to stage a sit-in, our DU correspondent reports from the spot. Traffic movement has been disrupted following the agitation since around 2:30pm, causing immense public sufferings. As the part of central anti-quota’s programme, students of Jahangirnagar and Rajshahi universities have also brought out protest processions on the campuses demanding the same. The…