Global markets are undergoing turbulence and none can say how long they will last or if they will become the way future markets play. The same syndrome applies to Bangladesh as well including the IT sector. Information technology exports from Bangladesh dropped 4.4 per cent in the first five month
With commercial banks shying away from rural credit, economic activities in village areas relying on bank financing are facing increasing challenges. Moreover, many commercial banks are considering winding up their operations in rural areas due to factors such as high interest rates, inflation and
Lure of jobs has led many youths to go on a perilous voyage across the Mediterranean Sea to the shores of Europe, especially Italy. Of the hundreds of thousands who embark on such a dangerous journey from different countries, thousands are from Bangladesh. According to the UNHCR data, last year, cl
The country's new finance minister and a new state minister for finance are now busy finalising the national budget for the upcoming fiscal year (FY25). It will be the nation's 53rd annual national budget, and the ongoing pre-budget consultations suggest that the government will enhance the outlay
Economists have been sounding the alarm bell to the effect that the rate of external/foreign borrowing and the servicing of the same are now a reason for concern. There is a wide gap between the official line of thinking and what think tanks perceive in this regard. The general tendency at policy l
Savar is not light years away from Dhaka, just a little over 30 kilometers separate the satellite town from the Bangladesh capital. But the former normally has temperature 3.0 degree Celsius lower than in the megacity. Still more significant is the fact that in the commercial areas of Dhaka, the te
There is, no doubt, an increasing focus these days on the social safety net programmes (SSNPs) --- not only within the scope of the government's poverty alleviation exercise but also in the public discourse. Despite the many odds stacked against smooth execution of the programmes, the government is
There was a time when the urban middle class ruled the state or was about to be born. Never mind if people were not sure what it meant or how they were defined. The urban middle class was basically understood as a socio-economic category who stood guard over the national "spirit" whatever that mean
In mid-November last year (2023), the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee on Plastic Pollution (INC-3) convened its third meeting in Nairobi, the capital of Kenya. Delegates from more than 160 countries attended. Earlier, two other similar meetings were held in Uruguay and France. The fourth me
The ongoing heat wave across the country has made the current summer unbearable due to global climate change. And that is caused mostly by human action in the name of development. Over the decades, nations worldwide have compromised the balance of nature and the environment. Forests have been
At a time when Bangladesh and India are gasping for breath under the searing sun, some desert nations in the Middle East are encountering deluge caused by heavy rains accompanied with thunder and sandstorms. The highest temperature recorded so far in Bangladesh was on Monday when it hit the 43 degr
The proposed substantial increase in indirect taxes, such as the value-added tax (VAT), for the next fiscal year is a cause for concern amid persistent inflation. Despite the implementation of contractionary monetary policy, there are no signs of inflation cooling down. Recent reports indicate that
Reports say that banks' corporate social responsibility (CSR) spending dropped by 38 per cent in July-December period of 2023 compared with that in the previous six months. For CSR purposes, 53 scheduled banks spent Tk 3.53 billion in July-December of 2023 against Tk 5.71 billion in January-June of
