Amid a steady rise in virus infections and deaths across the country, the Covid crisis in the bordering districts has apparently deepened further.

G7 leaders yesterday opened their first in-person talks in nearly two years, with an expected pledge to donate one billion Covid vaccine doses to poor countries on the agenda in a show of Western democratic cohesion.

A constable was held hostage at the Hathazari madrasa to force the authorities to release the bodies of four people, killed during the March 26 mayhem, without autopsies, according to a case document.

While he was still reeling with shock from the loss of his eight-year-old younger son, Mohidul Islam had to see his elder son taken away by police.

The troubled BASIC Bank is heading for a merger with the better-performing Bangladesh Development Bank Limited (BDBL) as part of the government’s efforts to improve the overall health of the country’s state banks, which have historically been sitting on a heavy pile of soured credit.

Foreign Minister AK Abdul Momen yesterday said the US will provide AstraZeneca and other vaccines to Bangladesh.

Many hospitals in the districts along the border are at full capacity as they are grappling with an increasing number of Covid-19 patients.

Lt Gen SM Shafiuddin Ahmed, quartermaster general of Bangladesh Army, will be the chief of the force for the next three years.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina yesterday hoped that model mosques would help spread the essence of Islam and its inspirational practices to all irrespective of their religions and castes.

Even though they are quite well paid and receive plenty of perks from the government, a “huge” number of civil servants own and run businesses on the side violating service rules, according to the Anti-Corruption Commission.

He liked having yaba. And it was cheap too. He knew a lot of people like him were addicted to the crazy pills. He saw the potential of making a lot of money that too very quickly if he started trading the drug instead of just consuming.

In yet another instance of female Bangladeshi expatriate workers enduring torture in a Middle East country, a 32-year-old woman returned home from Saudi Arabia with her six-month-old son.

Districts along the border in Khulna and Rajshahi divisions have continued to see record-breaking Covid-19 positivity rates and the number of daily deaths.

Thirty-year-old Dipali Nokrek made a career out of doing one thing -- making people look beautiful.

Money was never a problem in combatting the public health crisis brought on by the coronavirus pandemic but the health ministry was unable to utilise the funds, said a top bureaucrat yesterday.

Two major railway expansion projects have plunged into uncertainty as China has decided not to finance one of those and the Chinese contractors for both the projects have refused to work following downward revision of the contract prices.

The World Bank yesterday upgraded Bangladesh’s GDP growth forecast for this fiscal year by 2 percentage points to 3.6 percent, making it the second best-performing economy in South Asia behind the Maldives.

The Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission’s move on Sunday to fix the broadband prices brings to mind an oft-used quote by celebrated French author Antoine de Saint-Exupéry: A goal without a plan is nothing but a wish.

As Covid-19 cases began skyrocketing again, both the death and infection rates yesterday were the highest in the last month or so.

Bangladesh now faces uncertainty over nationwide Covid vaccination as the government depended on a single source for procuring vaccines, Dr Iftekharuzzaman, executive director of Transparency International Bangladesh, said yesterday.