Mohiuddin Alamgir

Ten months ago, a government-commissioned research report on the fallout of the pandemic-induced shutdown divulged some grim projections: over 1.64 crore people in the country would become new poor in the second quarter of 2020.

“Not at all. You are not a witness: you’re a part of history, Tawfiq.”

Shop owners and employees of New Market, Bashundhara City Shopping Mall and Sadarghat areas in Dhaka took to the streets to protest the government’s decision to keep all shops and malls closed during the seven-day restriction to contain Covid-19 surge.

The prolonged closure of schools is causing an education crisis that may cost Bangladesh and other South Asian countries over $1 trillion in lost earnings in the long run, according to a World Bank report.

The Election Commission yesterday postponed all elections, including the first phase of union parishad and sixth phase of municipality polls, due to a steep rise in coronavirus infections.

All major political parties have failed to meet the 2020 deadline of reserving at least 33 percent of all committee positions at local and national levels for women while the Election Commission is doing nothing about it.

The ruling Awami League has won 80 percent mayoral posts in 230 municipality polls held so far in five phases.

Twenty nine municipalities in 20 districts go to polls today amid worries over violence and confusion among many voters about Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs).

Students across the country took to the streets demanding the continuation of ongoing and previously announced exams, protesting the authority’s decision to postpone ongoing exams.

Twenty public universities have decided to hold uniform admission tests, likely in June-July.

The education ministry is going to finalise the draft of the Education Act soon keeping a provision for imposing a ban on printing, publishing, and marketing notebooks and guidebooks.

The country is yet to have a specific law for appointing chief election commissioner and election commissioners though there is a constitutional provision for enacting a law for their appointment.

Fifty-five municipalities in 34 districts go to polls today amid worries over violence and confusion among many about being able to cast votes in a free and fair manner.

Intellectuals who lost their lives at the hands of Pakistani army and their collaborators in the Liberation War will be defined as martyred intellectuals, according to a committee formed by the government.

The Election Commission has drafted a guideline for imparting training to polls-related officials, keeping in it controversial positions like “special speakers” and “course advisers” amid allegations of financial corruption through such posts.

Starting of staggered elections to over 4,300 union parishads (UP) might be delayed because of completion of final voter list and Ramadan.

Voter turnout at municipalities that used Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) were five percent lower than the turnout in municipalities that used ballot papers.

Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology has decided not to join a cluster to hold a uniform admission test; rather it would enrol students through its own admission tests like previous years.

Across the country, red-green flags were fluttering over buildings -- euphoria was in the air following the end of a nine-month-long bloody war.

A record-setting number of students got GPA 5 in last year’s HSC, thanks to the lack of actual exams and the results being reflections of each student’s grades in public exams held before the pandemic.