Author: Asian Bangla

BPC logoBangladesh Petroleum Corporation (BPC) will import 66,000 tonnes of high speed diesel (HSD) equivalent to 30 rakes from India’s Numaligarh Refinery Limited (NRL), The Economic Times reported. The import will take place from NRL’s Siliguri Marketing Terminal to Parbatipur Depot of Bangladesh Petroleum in Bangladesh between May to December, said the business daily said in a report published on Thursday. Titled “Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation to import 66,000 MT of high speed diesel from Numaligarh Refinery”, the report said the decision of the import was taken in a meeting between NRL and BPC in Shillong last week. BPC chairman Abu…

The United States is on track to meet the targets of the Paris climate agreement despite President Donald Trump’s plan to withdraw from the accord, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Thursday. Guterres said emissions-cutting plans put in motion by American businesses, regional governments and cities meant that the goals set by the former US administration which signed the deal in 2016 were within reach. “We have seen in the cities, and we have seen in many states, a very strong commitment to the Paris agreement, to the extent that some indicators are moving even better than in the recent past,”…

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Moscow would expel 60 US diplomats and close Washington’s consulate in Saint Petersburg in a tit-for-tat response to the expulsion of its envoys across three continents. In Washington, the State Department said there was no justification for the Russian move and that the United States “reserves the right to respond.” “It’s clear from the list provided to us that the Russian Federation is not interested in a dialogue on issues that matter to our two countries,” spokeswoman Heather Nauert said of the expelled diplomats. “I want to remind you that there is no justification…

Hafizur Rahman and Dipto SarkarTwo more victims, Dipto Sarkar and Hafizur Rahman, of Mymensingh blast succumbed to their injuries at Dhaka Medical College Hospital (DMCH) on Friday, raising the death toll in the incident to four. Dipto and Hafizur also were students of Khulna University of Engineering and Technology (KUET). Dipto Sarkar, 22, from Magura, who was undergoing treatment at the burn unit of DMCH, succumbed to his injuries around 9:30am while Hafizur Rahman Hafiz, 24, from Naogaon died around 1:00am, DMCH police camp sub-inspector Bachchu Mia told Prothom Alo. Earlier Shahin, a final year student of KUET, succumbed to…

Participants at the internet expo.Exposed to abuse of children on the net, more than 80 per cent teenage internet users in Bangladesh feel they need stronger safety, says a UNICEF survey. About 20 per cent of the surveyed teenagers who are active on the social media, are subjected to harassment or abuse. In such a context, UNICEF, in collaboration with Facebook, on Friday launched a year-long campaign to raise awareness among children, teachers and parents and also increase their access to safe online content. More than 10,000 students from more than 100 schools, teachers, parents, policymakers, industry leaders, and…

The Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) on Friday demanded that party chief Khaleda Zia should be freed on bail and sent abroad for her treatment. BNP secretary general Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir raised the demand during a briefing at the party’s Naya Paltan central office and said Khaleda Zia’s personal physician should be allowed to test her health since, he claimed, the BNP chairperson’s health condition deteriorated. “Required steps should be taken based on recommendations by them [doctors]… The best way is to release her on bail and send her abroad for better treatment,” said Mirza Fakhrul. Talking to newsmen afterwards,…

Cultural affairs minister Asaduzzaman Noor said on Friday only the parties that believe in the liberation war and the country’s independence should be allowed to join polls. “Only those parties that believe in the liberation war should be allowed to participate in elections. After 47 years of independence, the anti-liberation forces shouldn’t have the right to speak about polls, let alone taking part in polls and coming to power,” Noor observed, according to UNB news agency. Earlier on Tuesday, Bangladesh Awami League (AL) president and prime minister Sheikh Hasina urged all to remain alert so that what she said the…

The authorities on Friday cancelled a recruitment test of the state run Rupali Bank for power outage during the exam thanks to the nor’wester that swept through the capital, said officials. The recruitment test for the post of Rupali Bank’s officer (cash) was held from 3:30pm to 5:30pm Friday, but the examination centre at the Dhaka Metropolitan Women College plunged into darkness twice for the nor’wester. Bangladesh Bank general manager and Bankers’ Selection Committee member secretary Mosharraf Hossain Khan confirmed this. He said that the examination centre plunged into darkness twice for half an hour each for the nor’wester. “That…

Every decision leads us to where we are, but some of them, of course, really stand out. For me, one such moment came in spring 1988, when, a little more than a year from college graduation and halfheartedly pursuing a teaching degree that I knew wasn’t right for me, I saw a job opening for a reporter at the Mankato State University student newspaper — aptly called the Reporter — and decided to apply. “I like writing,” I thought, glossing over the fact that before you can write news, you have to go out and talk to people and extract…

Twitter has finally rolled out an update to its Universal Windows Platform (UWP) app, transitioning it to a Progressive Web App (PWA). The update practically revives the Twitter app for Windows 10, which has been abandoned for quite some time and unable to receive a number of updates including the character limit extension from 140 to 280. With this update, users will be able to receive push notifications, which means they won’t have to open the app in order to view replies to tweets or see direct messages. The PWA version also bears some resemblance to Twitter’s PWA website for…