The news that the police has detained more than a hundred opposition activists in the run-up to the upcoming Khulna city elections is surprising.

Notwithstanding the technical glitch that has postponed the event by one day, the launch of the Bangabandhu 1 satellite, from Florida, is a momentous occasion jumpstarting our leap in advanced technology and into space-age technology.

The number of deaths caused by lightning strikes continues to increase at an alarming pace. According to a leading Bengali daily, lightning claimed 112 lives in the last 10 days, with 23 killed just on Wednesday. Lightning strikes have become one of the deadliest natural calamities in our country, with hundreds of lives lost each year.

Education as we know it today, especially at the primary and secondary levels, summons up images of all the wrong kinds: question paper leaks, cheating in exams, coaching business, emphasis on rote learning, etc. A new survey published on Wednesday provided a statistical explanation of the fault lines of our education by collating responses by students, teachers and parents on matters of ethics and values.

It defies rationale that the central bank would relax its own rules of business to allow for four state-owned banks and one government financial institution to inject Tk 715 cores into the troubled Farmers Bank. BB's investigations into the bank found that its top brass is complicit in the financial meltdown that involved the former chairman and ex-chairman of the executive committee. Yet, we find that instead of ordering structural changes in the way the bank is managed, the central bank is more interested in replenishing the bank's fortunes.

Clearing luggage at Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport (HSIA) is notoriously slow and it can take hours for passengers to get their luggage.

We are worried to learn that 109 educational institutions in the country have had zero pass rates in this year's SSC exams.

In the absence of any move by the government on issuing a gazette notification on abolishing the quota system for civil servant recruitment, demonstrators have called for fresh protests by forming human chain in colleges and universities nationwide at 11 a.m. today.

It is extremely concerning that the guideline issued by the Supreme Court for addressing sexual harassment at educational institutions and workplaces remains unimplemented even after almost a decade. This means that universities and organisations have failed to fulfil their obligation to form committees responsible for investigating sexual harassment complaints and taking appropriate action.

For the second consecutive year, the Secondary School Certificate (SSC) pass rate has suffered a decline.

It may be mentioned that the HC had also stayed the Dhaka North City Corporation mayoral by-polls for six months on January 17, 2018, scheduled for February 26. Thus it is twice now this year that the HC has stayed an election on short notice.

We cannot emphasise enough the need to heed the call of our Prime Minister for OIC (Organisation of Islamic Cooperation) members, currently meeting in Dhaka, to exert united efforts to bring about a sustainable solution to the Rohingya crisis. There is no question that the Rohingyas must be able to return to their homeland. But repatriation must come along with the guarantee of their full rights of citizenship and security of their lives.

According to a news report in this paper on May 6, law enforcers arrested a physician in possession of yaba pills, who is a post-graduate student and enrolled in BCS. Recent reports tell us that educated people have joined a growing army of dealers who trade in this illicit drug that has seen a phenomenal rise in usage over the years. Indeed, we find that over the course of a decade, yaba shipment hauls by law enforcers jumped from 36,543 pills in

This newspaper yesterday published an alarming report that nearly half a dozen brickfields in Kamalganj upazila of Moulvibazar are situated adjacent to schools.

The spate of violence in the hill tracts is distressing. The killing of an Upazila Chairman on May 3 was followed by the gruesome shooting that killed five and injured seven other indigenous people in Naniarchar of Rangamati.

After nearly a year of proposals and counter proposals, the Bangladesh Securities and Exchange Commission has approved of the joint bid from a Chinese consortium to become a strategic partner of DSE. The deal is to be inked on May 14 after the Chinese submitted a revised bid on April 30. We welcome the entry of the Shenzhen and Shanghai Stock Exchange which are listed in the top 10 stock exchanges in the world. Their entry in the running of our premier bourse will certainly help in its development.

The increasing frequency with which violence against women and girls is being carried out, despite a number of legal safeguards and a seeming national consensus about such violence, is mind-boggling. Two reports in this newspaper on Thursday described the killing of one girl and the rape of another, both students of class-III and nearly the same age. The incidents took place in Brahmanbaria and Pabna, when the girls went out from their homes

World Press Freedom Day, observed yesterday across the globe, has given a grim report of the various onslaughts that journalists face today. It also underscores the importance of press freedom and reminds governments of their duty to respect peoples' right to freedom of expression.

The Chittagong Customs House (CCH) has given the job of scanning import cargo to a foreign company (SGS) at a cost of Tk 29 crore. While the CCH is claiming it could do the job itself for a mere Tk 4 crore a year, the fact remains that it failed to set up a permanent scanning department since 2012. We find it perplexing as to why the CCH personnel, who got trained as part of the original contract signed with SGS, got transferred by the time the

That Bangladeshi women migrant workers in the Gulf countries, mostly in Saudi Arabia, have to face various forms of harassment in the hands of their employers including physical torture, sexual abuse, and even rape is nothing new. Reportedly, many of these women are even forced into sex trade and are tortured if they refuse.