The coronavirus variant first identified in India is highly infectious and can be caught by people who have already had the disease or been only partially vaccinated, a panel of Indian government scientists said in a report published yesterday.

The government is cautious about addressing the challenges the country would face after its transition to a developing country in 2026.

Bangladesh has made a strong call for a temporary waiver from certain TRIPS obligations for the production of vaccines, medicines and health technologies to effectively respond to the coronavirus pandemic.

Bangladesh and 15 other Asian countries will receive approximately 70 lakh doses of Covid-19 vaccine out of nearly 1.9 crore doses that will be shared by the US through COVAX, according to a White House fact sheet.

BNP secretary general Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir yesterday said the proposed budget completely failed to address how people’s lives and livelihood can be protected amid the pandemic.

In a significant development, Myanmar’s National Unity Government has announced drafting a new constitution and committed to ensuring citizenship and fundamental rights of all ethnic groups, including the Rohingyas.

A SpaceX rocket took off Thursday for the International Space Station carrying supplies for scientific experiments, including some surprising passengers -- squids and virtually indestructible microorganisms called tardigrades.

At least 4,510 Bangladeshis illegally reached Italy, Malta, Spain and Greece by sea and land last year.

The new national budget proposes hiking the monthly allowance of valiant freedom fighters to Tk 20,000 from Tk 12,000.

Government research confirmed community transmission of the Delta variant, popularly known as Indian variant, in the country and it also found one unidentified variant of coronavirus.

In the wake of skyrocketing Covid-19 cases in bordering areas, partial lockdown and night-time travel restrictions were imposed in three more districts yesterday, while Satkhira will go into a seven-day lockdown from tomorrow.

As Bangladesh continues to fight against the pandemic with rising infections in frontier districts, it recorded 30 more deaths from Covid-19 in 24 hours till yesterday morning, raising the death toll to 12,724.

Pakistan and the United Nations agreed on relief operations for victims of the war in East Pakistan, a UN spokesman announced today.

Domestic manufacturing might enjoy a big boost as the government plans to encourage local investment in products labelled “Made in Bangladesh”.

The government is going to bolster the country’s expanding ICT sector with tax exemptions in six more services and VAT waiver on hardware manufacturing as it looks to prepare the nation for the fourth industrial revolution.

A Nigerian state government said it was negotiating with gunmen who seized 136 children from an Islamic seminary at the weekend, the latest in a string of mass kidnappings in the country.

A shadow government in Myanmar yesterday called on the Rohingya minority to help it overthrow the junta, promising citizenship and repatriation for the persecuted Muslim community in a future democratic Myanmar.

Countries and private donors pledged nearly $2.4 billion to the Covax vaccine-sharing plan, expanding efforts to make Covid-19 shots more available to people in poorer nations.

Bangladesh has taken a huge responsibility by hosting almost one million Rohingya refugees in the largest refugee camp in the world, said the UN Refugee Agency, calling on the international community to support Bangladesh and share its burden.

Belarusian freelance journalist Alexander Burakov, who regularly reports for Germany’s Deutsche Welle, was freed Tuesday after 20 days in jail where he said he was tortured for covering an “unauthorised event”.