The movement for safer roads launched by students seems to have gone to waste and we are back to our old lawbreaking ways. Whilst the authorities are conducting Traffic week with more fervour than usual raking in thousands of cases against errant vehicles, we see very few efforts being taken to dissuade jaywalking.

According to a World Bank (WB) report titled ”South Asia's Hotspots: The Impact of Temperature and Precipitation Changes on Living Standards”, more than 75 percent of the population (13.4 crore people) will be adversely affected by rising temperatures which will result in a rise of vector-borne and other infectious diseases.

It is shocking to learn that Toriqul Islam, a student of the Department of Islamic Studies at Rajshahi University and a victim of a BCL-led attack during the quota reform movement, was denied permission to attend his Master's exams in sick bed.

Despite remarkable progress in universal primary education, poor reading skills among the primary students continue to be a blight on Bangladesh's success.

We welcome the minister-level meeting between Dhaka and Kuala Lumpur on September 25 that paved the way for all licensed Bangladeshi recruiting agencies to start sending workers to Malaysia.

The media has for the last few decades highlighted the sorry state of our rivers, i.e. how powerful, vested quarters have taken advantage of the fact that the National River Conservation Commission (NRCC) was never given any legal or institutional capacity.

We welcome our prime minister's three recommendations at a meeting on Global Compact for Refugees to end the Rohingya crisis.

A photo published in The Daily Star on September 24 depicts how unaware our workers are about their own safety.

We agree with roads and highways officials and experts who have recently said that the lack of proper road infrastructure is a major hindrance to Bangladesh becoming a developed country.

The three-point demand made by the Jatiya Oikya Prokriya should be looked at carefully by the government and not be dismissed off-hand.

We thank the Canadian House of Commons for their recent unanimously voted declaration terming Myanmar's persecution of the Rohingya as a genocide.

We are appalled by the way police baton-charged left-leaning protesters who were marching toward the office of the Election Commission on September 20, leaving scores injured.

Reportedly, Bangladeshi expatriate workers in Malaysia are being rounded up and herded off to immigration camps at random.

We are surprised that the Executive Committee of the National Economic Council (ECNEC) has so expeditiously approved tens of billions of taka to purchase thousands of EVMs (Electronic Voting Machines) that are planned to be used in the next election due to be held in 2024. It makes little sense because the next election is over five years away.

It is regrettable that the Digital Security Bill has been enacted into law in spite of the objections from all concerned. The bill effectively curtails the freedom of speech and thus the very fundamentals on which democracy is built. If a law is meant to deliver greater good to the greater mass then the new Act, we are afraid, cannot pass the test.

It would seem that many government, semi and non-government bodies believe that the electricity they consume is free. It is not free.

In a welcome move on Monday, the International Criminal Court's prosecutor launched a preliminary probe into Myanmar's crimes against its Rohingya minority, including killings, sexual violence and forced deportations.

We are extremely disappointed and shocked that a parliamentary standing committee report on the said Bill has been placed before the House without a single substantial change. The role of the JS body in this regard is disappointing.

When a sitting member of parliament (MP) decides to turn a secondary school in his constituency into a party centre for his personal use, and that too for three days during which time no classes were held, we pause to think how power goes to one's head.

On Saturday, September 15, JCD President Mashiur Rahman Rony went missing.