IT is a sad reality in our country that people with special needs, instead of being supported, are shunned from mainstream society, denied their rightful opportunities for leading a normal life. To address this, various stakeholders at a talk have urged all 17 ministries in charge of development of people with disabilities to allocate a specific budget and a comprehensive plan of action geared towards empowering them.

"In developed countries, even PMs wait at bus stands. Why can't the same happen here?

Life has already been difficult enough due to hartals ruining all the work days in the last two weeks on top of a prolonged blockade. Now they have to put up with another 72-hour shutdown from 6:00am today.

BNP had already announced on Thursday that it would go for week-long hartal should they not be allowed to stage protest rallies in Dhaka on Saturday. And

Bangladesh's present score according to international rating agency Moody's is a stable Ba3. That may change unless the political stalemate and resulting

It has been more than a month since the anti-government blockade started. With it came continuous spells of hartal, and while Molotov cocktails have become part-and-parcel of the 20-party alliance strategy, it appears that firearms are about to join the fray. The police have recently unearthed an illegal racket of arms whereby dealers are using children as arms carriers.

It is disquieting to see that three years after the ghastly murder of journalist couple Sagar and Runi, the government has not yet been able to even “identify” the alleged killers, let alone arrest them and put them on trial. Sagor Sarowar, news editor of Maasranga TV, and his wife Meherun Runi, senior reporter of ATN Bangla, were murdered in their apartment in the capital on February 11, 2012.

“When we lose, they [Bangladesh cricket fans] cry and sink in frustration. So we'll have to perform at least for their sake.”

"If she wants to go to eat noodles then she can go but if we prohibit her then she cannot go”.

With Pahela Falgun, the much-awaited Basanta or spring arrives in a display of colours. Dhaka is set to celebrate the day with flowers, poems and songs as the seasonal cycle is in transition from a bone-chilling, gloomy winter to the festivity of colours and love.

AS published in a leading Bangla daily, a study brought out by the General Economic Division of Planning Commission, poverty has reduced to 24.47 per cent.

THERE has been a surge in the number of prison inmates in the recent time, with the escalation of political violence and intensification of law and order operations. In the last 37 days alone, 13,000 people have been arrested in 700 cases, with 8 percent of cases being of a political nature.

“I don't care whether the wage is good or not. I don't have any work here. What I need the most is a job right now.”