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Hilsa bonanza in winter!

River Meghna and Tentulia are teeming with an out-of-season surge of large hilsa. Fishermen from Bhola, who has put away their fishing nets after the rainy season was over, have started sailing one again to catch this hugely popular fish. According to Bhola fisheries office, 9,222 metric tonnes of hilsa was caught last November, followed by 5,526 metric tonnes on December and a whopping 16,550 metric tonnes in January. However, fishermen and traders from seven upazilas of Bhola claimed they netted up over 20,000 metric tonnes of big hilsa. hilsaDaulatkhan ...

State banks’ default loans fall

Default loans in the four state-owned banks dropped 12.77 percent in 2014 from a year ago on the back of a strong recovery drive. On December 31 last year, the default loans of Sonali, Janata, Agrani and Rupali collectively stood at Tk 16,599 crore. On an individual level too, the default loans declined in all four banks. Besides cash recovery drives, wholesale rescheduling and write-offs also helped in bringing down the bad loans in the four banks, said an official of Sonali, the largest state bank, reports the Daily Star. sonali-bank-300

Political chaos hits bus services with India

The month-long political crisis in Bangladesh has hit bus services between the two countries and bilateral trade, officials said here on Saturday. "The Dhaka-Agartala bus service has been completely stopped since last week. The Dhaka-Kolkata bus services were also become irregular due to the political turmoil in Bangladesh," a Tripura Road Transport Corporation (TRTC) official said. politics BDHe said: "We do not know when the bus services would be normalise. Due to the political violence in Bangladesh the operators are reluctant to run the bus...

Move to sign PTA with Lanka, not FTA

Bangladesh is moving forward for signing a preferential trade agreement (PTA) with Sri Lanka aiming to enhance bilateral trade, officials said, the Financial Express reports (FE). “Most of the stakeholders supported signing of PTA instead of going for free trade agreement (FTA). The issue is still under study but possibility of signing PTA is comparatively bright,” additional secretary of the Ministry of Commerce (MoC) Monoj Kumar Roy told the FE. bd-LankaThe two sides at a meeting of joint working group on trade last September had decided t...

US concerned over violence in Bangladesh

The United States is gravely concerned by the ongoing unrest and violence in Bangladesh, a press release said. usdos-logo-sealThe release said, we deplore the unconscionable attacks including bus burnings, throwing incendiary devices, and train derailments that have killed and wounded innocent victims. We condemn in the strongest terms the use of violence for political objectives. There is simply no justification for such actions in a democratic Bangladesh. All Bangladeshis must have the right and the ability to express their views peace...

2-party showdown in Bangladesh

WHEN Amulya Chandra Barman, a 45-year-old rickshaw-puller, boarded a bus in Dhaka last month, it was to go home to his village in the north of Bangladesh. Instead, he ended up in the burns unit of a hospital in the capital. A bomb was thrown into the bus, landing on the bag on his lap. His face and hands were burnt. The bag—holding a month’s savings in cash—was reduced to ashes. He is at least alive. This week eight people were killed in a firebombing attack on a bus in eastern Bangladesh. In all, about 60 people have died in a month-long transport blockade called by the main opposition, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP).
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