Agriculture a key driver in reducing poverty
Agriculture is a leading contributor to poverty reduction in Bangladesh since 2000, a new World Bank report said. The country now needs to shift towards high-value agriculture, including horticulture, livestock, and fisheries as well as greater value addition to improve farmers’ income and household nutrition.
The report launched on May 17, “Dynamics of Rural Growth in Bangladesh: Sustaining Poverty Reduction,” says pro-poor agricultural growth has stimulated the non-farm economy. It estimates that a 10 percent rise in farm income generates a 6 percent rise in non-farm income. Hence, the growth of the non-farm economy largely depends on agriculture. Although rural non-farm employment is almost 2 times higher than all urban employment put together,
India plans to ‘divert rivers’; Bangladesh cries foul
India is set to divert water from major rivers such as the Brahmaputra and the Ganges to regions in the country that are prone to severe drought, Water Resources Minister Uma Bharti told BBC on Monday. However, Bangladesh’s water resources minister urged the Modi government to ensure the country gets its share of water.
Stating that the project on The Inter Linking of Rivers (ILR) has 30 planned links for water-transfer, Bharti said one link is set to kick off any time.
“Interlinking of rivers is our prime agenda and we have got the people’s support and I am determined to do it on the fast track,” Bharti told BBC.
“We are going ahead with five links [of the rivers] now and the first one, the Ken-Betwa link [in
BD ranked 5th with people without net access: WB
With 148 million offline population, Bangladesh still has the world’s fifth largest number of people who are not connected to the internet, said a World Bank report.
India has the largest number of 1.003 billion people who are not connected to the internet, followed by China with 755 million offline population, Indonesia with 213 million and Pakistan with 165 million respectively, the report showed.
According to the report titled ‘World Development Report 2016: Digital Dividends’ launched in a city hotel on Monday, Bangladesh has one of the cheapest rates to make a phone call, but internet prices remain high, says news agency UNB.
However, the number of people having access to the internet has recently crossed 60 million in
Is North Korea behind the £81m BB cyber-heist?
The probe into the $81m (£56m) cyber-heist at the Bangladesh central bank has taken a strange turn as security researchers from BAE Systems claim to have linked the malware used in the attack to the online siege against Sony Pictures in 2014.
Many, including experts in the US government, believe the cyberattack against Sony was the work of hackers affiliated with the North Korean government. Could the reclusive nation really be involved in this latest incident?
The BAE report, titled Cyber Heist Attribution, claims what initially appeared to be an isolated attack against one bank has turned out to be larger in scope than previously thought.
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New results on how to delay child marriage
While growing up in Bangladesh, my grandmother was married at the age of 14. My mother was wed at 16 years old. Today, 2 out of 3 girls in the country are married as children — Asia’s top rate and the world’s fourth highest. Many become mothers while they themselves are still children.
And yet, I’ve never been more optimistic about the future for Bangladeshi girls and their communities. When I was a teenager in Dhaka in the 1970s, women had an average of seven children each, extreme poverty was endemic and women had far fewer rights and opportunities than men. You were lucky if you lived past 50 years old. But deep investments in 
BD made progress, but labor right to be ensured, US envoy
Marcia S. B. Bernicat, the US ambassador to Bangladesh praised that Bangladesh has made remarkable progress, especially in the areas of improving living standard, health, hygiene and sanitation. But she also opined that labor rights including rights to trade union should be ensured in workplaces, says a press release.
The US envoy was peaking as the Guest of Honor in the 10th Anniversary and Annual General Meeting (AGM) of 2015 of IBFB held on Thursday, 12 May 2016 at Pan Pacific Sonargaon, Dhaka. She also praised the works of IBFB to improve better business environment done in the past.
