We congratulate the Bangladeshi audience, all the law enforcement agencies and others but for whose cooperation this magnificent festival would not have taken place. Most of all, we congratulate Bengal Foundation, its leadership and all its team members for a superb job done.

2017 has been a year of great ups and downs. It has been a year where we have seen significant improvements in the economic sector in particular, as evident from our high GDP growth rate and per capita income, as well as the ICT sector, which is set to grow even faster in future.

The government's Economic Relations Division has found that slow implementation in several ministries has sat on the back burner several important projects.

We have been expressing our alarm about the continued degradation of the Dhaleswari river for an umpteen number of times and yet our concerns have fallen on deaf ears.

We agree with what the prime minister has suggested when it comes to doctors being on station at upazila-level hospitals. This has been a major problem for decades.

As part of an initiative to rehabilitate prison inmates, the government has recently opened a mini-garment factory inside Narayanganj District Jail.

Two individuals and five local IT firms were awarded The Daily Star, in association with Bangladesh Association of Software and Information Services (BASIS) and The Daily Star for their outstanding contribution to

A study financed by the fisheries and livestock ministry has found that in the last seven years the Halda river has lost 26 of its fish species.

We are relieved to know that ex-Chhatra League leader Arif Hossain Howlader has finally been arrested for allegedly raping six women.

Drug dealing is serious business. Unfortunately, six out of 10 accused in drug-related cases got off scot-free in the first nine months of 2017.

The findings of a study conducted by the Bangladesh Agricultural Research Council (Barc) this year on the quality of drinking water is horrifying.

Will the world body stand by and let this carnage continue? By the looks of what happened at the UN general assembly on December 25 that appears to be precisely the case.

We applaud the efforts of selfless endeavours of missionaries who have been serving the poor and needy in Bangladesh. On December 25, The Daily Star reported on the contributions of a Christian charity where around 100 people of different faith groups, who suffer from a number of problems, are taken care of by the nuns trained as paramedics and nurses.

It is a story that repeats over and over: An indigenous community living for generations in an area suddenly being told that they will be evicted because some influential has decided to use it for lucrative purposes.

Christmas is revered and celebrated by Christians all over the world as the day Jesus Christ was born. But Christmas is celebrated by everyone, not only for the festivities that it comes with, but for the realm of values that define humanity and symbolised by Jesus and his teachings.

It is not that we are pointing the finger at the government and blaming it for the disappearances, but we must question its lack of interest when it comes to investigating these incidents

According to a recent report by UN Women and the International Organization for Migration, hundreds of thousands of South Asian women migrant workers in the Middle East have signed employment contracts that they do not understand or which do not protect them against discrimination and abuse.

It is ludicrous to think that a container carrying relief materials donated by a friendly nation for the victims of Cyclone Mora has been lying at Chittagong port since May of this year.

We congratulate Jatiya Party's Mostafizur Rahman Mostafa in winning the race in the mayoral elections in Rangpur, that too by a wide margin against the two other contestants from Awami League and BNP.

It did not surprise us when, after the police headquarters (HQ) launched an online complaint cell for people to report about police misconduct and offences, it started to receive a barrage of allegations from day one.