A recent survey of disputes in the overall industrial sector during 2017 was unveiled on May Day by Bangladesh Institute of Labour Studies (BILS). The readymade garments (RMG) sector being the largest industrial sector employing 4.4 million people directly and 10 million indirectly recorded the largest number of disputes (91 out of a total 181). We find that nearly half the disputes (40 percent) have to do with unpaid wages and 25 percent is

The city witnessed around 55mm rainfall during six hours of April 29 and that was enough to produce knee-deep water in major residential and commercial areas.

We welcome the commitment made by the UNSC delegation that resolution of the Rohingya crisis will be its top priority.

Unsuspecting people are becoming victims of reckless bus drivers and their killing machines with sickening regularity. Only in the space of 10 days three persons fell victim to wild bus drivers who thought the streets of Dhaka were racing tracks, and consequently, Rajib and Rozina eventually succumbed to their injuries. The case of the latest victim is even more appalling. He is a car driver who was deliberately run over by the driver of a private transport company, when told to stop by the victim after the bus had hit and damaged the car.

In the last two years, farmers in haor areas had lost their boro crops to flash floods caused by heavy rain, followed up by onrush of water from the upstream. This year, water has again entered the paddy fields in 88 villages of Sunamganj's Tahirpur and Dhamapasha upazilas after part of the Naotana dyke along the Tanguar Haor had allegedly been cut by some local fishermen.

The visit of the delegation of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) to first Bangladesh and then Myanmar comes at a crucial time when Bangladesh is facing several daunting challenges as it struggles to host over one million Rohingya refuges forced to flee Myanmar's persecution.

We would like to wish a joyous Buddha Purnima to all followers of Gautama Buddha in Bangladesh and all around the world. The day, observed on the occasion of Buddha's birthday, aims to celebrate his life, teachings and the message of peace and non-violence.

It was heartening to learn from a report in this newspaper that a councillor at Shibalaya Model Union in Manikganj has set up a library in his community so that people in his locality can nurture their habit of reading and become ideal citizens.

History was made when for the first time in sixty-three years a North Korean leader stepped on the southern side of the divided peninsula that at one time had been one country and one people. We welcome the momentous step that Moon and Kim have taken to shed the baggage of history, turn around from the past and transform a situation of intractable hostility to one that the world hopes presages enduring peace.

To have the Security Council members visit a country is indeed extremely significant, particularly when that is taking place in connection with a matter as important as the Rohingya crisis. Noteworthy is Myanmar relenting eventually to allow a UN visit to the Rakhine State; we would hope that the significance of the entire visit would be fully understood by our policy makers, and that the occasion would be fully utilised to carry our point home to the visiting team members.

A number of human rights organisations have expressed concerns over rising incidents of child rape at a protest rally on April 25 at the central Shaheed Minar. According to their statistics, in just the last three months, as many as 99 children became victims of rape all over the country.

This daily reported yesterday that many of the villages of Rangamati and Khagrachhari districts of Chittagong Hill Tracts are facing an acute crisis of water as most of the springs and streams in these villages are running dry. The situation is so bad that even after digging up to 150 feet, no groundwater could be found in some of the springs.

Come the major festival times come the increased activity of the fake currency gangs. Taking a stock of the incidents of busting of currency gangs would reveal this dangerous phenomenon. And this has again been confirmed by the seizure of fake currency-making materials by the Rapid Action Battalion on April 24.

Five years after Rana Plaza collapse, the deadliest garment factory accident in history that took over a thousand lives, the collective efforts of the Bangladesh government, entrepreneurs, apparel retailers and brands, workers' rights groups, NGOs and inspection bodies such as the Accord and Alliance, have led to considerable progress in fire, electrical and structural safety in Bangladesh's garment factories. But more needs to be done.

Not very often are we accustomed to seeing a news item as inspiring as the one about a school for children with special needs in Jessore published by this newspaper on April 24. A bunch of wilful and dedicated people of the district's Abhaynagar Upazila built the school on their own. The school—a tin-shed building comprising four classrooms—currently caters to as many as 101 students, many of whom discontinued or were rejected from normal schools.

We are surprised that the Santal community of Gabindaganj upazilla (Gaibandha district) who had been cruelly evicted from their own farm land by law enforcers, are still having to bring out a human chain, to demand justice and the return of their land

On Sunday, a few hundred students of Uttara University staged demonstrations demanding punishment of some staff of Turag Paribahan bus service.

On average, 16 people have become victims of enforced disappearance between 2012 and 2017, which amounts to more than one every month. It is regrettable too that in the four or five years that the afflicted families have been making their annual plea to the government through a press conference, to trace the victims out, their number has risen gradually.

A survey by the Passengers' Welfare Association revealed at least 87 percent of buses and minibuses ply recklessly in violation of traffic rules on the roads of Dhaka, creating chaos.

It is alarming news that a syndicate is using a new route to bring yaba pills from Teknaf to Dhaka and has already brought 10 lakh yaba pills through the route in the last month alone.