Getting justice is a dream for them I still remember the dialogue what the former Chief Justice had delivered! Once, expressing severe frustration over weak governance, the then Chief Justice ABM Khairul Haque said that law enforcement in Bangladesh was the “poorest of the poor” of the country. He had mainly focused that; there are so many laws that outnumber even England’s but the laws are rarely enforced, which is unbelievable in the civilised world.We’ve a Constitution that protects fundamental...
Elodie Sellier :China formally became the 66th shareholder of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), a largely unreported yet important development, in what seems to be a return of favour for Beijing’s decision to approve fourteen EU member states as founding members of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB).China’s initiatives have been welcome with much enthusiasm by the crisis-ridden European countries, irresistibly attracted by hypothetical economic windfalls. But for outsiders, it begs the question of how can Europe...
As much as 80 per cent of residential and commercial buildings in Dhaka city do not have sewerage connectivity. RAJUK has a provision for all residential and commercial buildings to install wastewater management systems. But only 20 per cent of buildings in Dhaka have such systems. The rest of the buildings are directly connected to the City Corporation’s drains. Dhaka North City Corporation (DNCC) has given them six-month time to install their own wastewater systems. If this is not done...
Kevin Maney :Our brains suck at data. Even worse, our brains often use random data to deceive us and make us do dumb things. Cognitive bias, it’s called. This hot company out of Seattle, Tableau Software, believes it can help people use data to be less stupid. Hard to imagine a technology that could more profoundly affect our daily existence. In this era of Big Data, we have data about everything. The data, though, is typically packed into hard-to-decode Excel...
Md. Arafat Rahman :Health is the root of all happiness. When the body is not good, we become mentally ill...
THE prosecution of the International Criminal Court has started an investigation to identify individual criminal responsibility by holding accountable people who were engaged in cross-border atrocity crimes committed against the Rohingya people. The Myanmar government has yet to co-operate with the ICC prosecution in conducting the investigation, though they admitted committing war crimes in Rakhine Province. Rohingya people were forced to cross the border looking for a safe refuge in Bangladesh.The ICC asked the Myanmar authorities to allow access to...
THE much-awaited DUCSU election is today. The general students will cast their votes to choose their leaders. But some general students have alleged they were “forced” to join the meetings at hall guestrooms where a few student leaders threaten to oust the students from halls if they vote anyone outside their organisation, as per newspaper reports. Some students have also alleged that they were being asked to cast their votes openly or show their ballot papers to the specific candidates...
Loving the nature :We are blissfully unaware of our responsibility to protect our planet. It is time to address environmental issues on a broader aspect in our primary and secondary curriculum to raise awareness among our future generations. At present, environmental problems like air pollution, water pollution, climate change, global warming, ozone layer depletion, and acid rain have been discussed in secondary level General Science and Bangladesh and Global Studies textbooks in a narrow sense. This is not sufficient to...
The Halda river is an important habitat of the endangered freshwater Ganges river dolphins. The dolphins are an integral part of the area’s ecosystem to the point that their conservation can benefit a wider range of threatened aquatic species, including turtles, gharials and fishes. But the dolphins are dying in the river at a alarming rate over the last few years. Experts say the reasons are entirely man-made, with a majority of the blame going to fishing practices in the...
António Guterres, UN Secretary-General :I am an engineer and, for the time being, I am also Secretary-General of the United Nations and we are all here because we believe in the force of Science, Innovation and Technology.From my perspective, what is important is to combine innovation and technology, innovation and public policy to make sure that innovation works for the good of humankind. But let’s look a little bit in the recent past to be able to project the near...
An inmate at Chattogram Central Jail was killed early Thursday following a fight inside a cell. The victim Amit Muhuri was accused in 15 criminal cases, including several murders. The killing of Amit inside the prison is unusual, unaccepted and mysterious. Now, a section people are trying to downplay the incident saying that a top terrorist was killed during a fight with other criminal. We must say the prison authority though was responsible for maintaining security, failed drastically in this...
Traffic woes Traffic congestion on city roads is increasing day by day with no solution in sight. There must be some way out. Officials of the road traffic department and traffic experts should sit down together to find out ways to fight this menace on the road. Lives of daily commuters have become miserable with so much of valuable time being wasted on the road every day.The traffic signal system in the city has apparently completely broken down though; it...