Rahat Chowdhury: The government has backtracked from their initial plan to impose 5% VAT on online shopping. According to the National Board of Revenue, the VAT on online shopping as announced in the new budget was a “printing error”. “It was printed mistakenly. We dropped the decision,” said Md Mosharraf Hossain Bhuiyan, chairman of the NBR,…
Sofian Khan: Road Trans-port & Bridges Minister Obaidul Quader regarding the fiscal year 2018-19 budget, said the has been proposed aiming welfare for the people, not the upcoming parliamentary election. “This budget is not an electoral one of Awami League. This has been proposed as a people-friendly budget,” said Quader, also the General Secretary of…
Sejuti Mourin: BNP has rejected the proposed national budget, claiming that the government has placed the colossal budget for “looting money ahead of the general election”, reports NewAge. BNP senior joint secretary general Ruhul Kabir Rizvi made the allegation at a news briefing at the party central office in Dhaka yesterday. The BNP leader claimed that…
Sofian Khan: Three more alleged drug-peddlers were killed overnight in the countrywide ongoing anti-drug operation, taking the death toll to 134 since the it begun on May 18. According to the claims of the law enforcers, one suspect was killed in an encounter during raids in Thakurgaon and Rangpur and an unidentified bullet-ridden body was…
Abrar Hussain: The US has urged the Myanmar government to fulfill its commitment in working with the UNHCR and UNDP to implement the recommendations of the Kofi Annan-led Advisory Commission on Rakhine State, reports NewAge. Heather Nauert, US Department of State spokesperson said on Thursday, “We welcome the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding by…
Sayeed Muhammad: In a surprise comment, US President Donald Trump yesterday said Russia should be reinstated to a leading group of industrialized nations before his visit to the G7 summit this weekend. The remark is an extraordinary break from key US allies, and significantly striking given Russia’s meddling in the 2016 polls. A special counsel probe…
Sejuti Mourin: United States President Donald Trump is reportedly leaving the G7 meeting in Canada earlier than scheduled in order to travel to Singapore for his much-anticipated summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un on Sunday (June 10), a few hours earlier than initially planned. His route from Canada and his new arrival time…
Abrar Hussain: Austria will reportedly expel several foreign-funded imams and shut seven mosques in an operation against “political Islam”, announced Chancellor Sebastian Kurz on June 8. Kurz said the initiative was taken after an investigation by the religious affairs authority into images which emerged earlier this year of children in Turkish-backed mos-ques playing dead and…
Raj Abrar: A senior White House official has said Pakistan has a “fundamental responsibility” to address the use of its territory by “malign actors” like the Afghan Taliban and the Haqqani network. Lisa Curtis, the Deputy Assistant to the US president and Senior Director for South and Central Asia at the National Security Council, claimed…
Abdul Aziz, Erasmus Mundus Scholar, VUB, Belgium : In the country’s history, the ruling Bangladesh Awami League has introduced a long-term ICT integration strategy. It’s a country’s first benchmark initiative to ICT development that includes a number of critical fields at the national and regional levels. Officially titled Digital Bangladesh, a multi-stakeholder initiative launched in…