It is befuddling why the National Board of Revenue (NBR) has decided to slap value added taxes that would amount to a 27 percent levy, on the import of solar panels. This is at a time when Bangladesh is set to explore and develop its solar power possibilities through numerous projects. These include solar home systems, solar irrigation and solar power plants in various parts of the country.

Just two days after the unfortunate case of a three-year-old succumbing to alleged wrong treatment in a private hospital in Chittagong, two more patients died in separate hospitals in the city. In both cases, bereaved families accused the medical staff, especially attending doctors, of unsafe or negligent medical care.

We are pleasantly surprised that a case has been filed against a number of individuals accused of land grabbing of the Dhaleshwari river in Dhalla Union of Singair upazila of Manikganj, in the name of setting up a power plant.

As this daily has reported, prices of all types of rice, including coarse rice, shot up by Tk 3 a kilogram at retail markets in the capital over the last ten days.

That the hills in the southeast district of Bandarban are being ravaged to build connecting roads to a housing project is outrageous.

We are dumbfounded by the statement of the Dhaka University Proctor that he had not been "informed" about the multiple incidents of brutal attacks on DU students by Chhatra League members after the supporters of the quota reform movement had called a press conference to brief journalists on their next course of action.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres' visit to the Rohingya camps in Bangladesh and subsequent statements reaffirm the need to address the fundamental issue at the heart of the Rohingya crisis—that is citizenship. Myanmar has not even begun the repatriation process despite signing a bilateral deal with Bangladesh in November last year.

We are puzzled that a committee has now been formed to “review or reform or cancel” the quota system for the civil service, come as it does after the prime minister had already announced in parliament on April 11 that quotas in public service recruitment will be abolished and later, on June 26, that a committee led by the cabinet secretary was working to resolve the matter.

We are outraged by a report in this paper of how students of Dolapara Government Primary School in Nilphamari have been forced to refrain from going to class because they cannot breathe the air around them.

We are absolutely confounded at the Road Transport and Bridges Ministry's reaction to a recent report by Jatri Kalyan Samity which found that both the number of road accidents and of related deaths saw a rise during the Eid holidays.

Several leaders of the platform demanding civil service quota reform were allegedly set upon by the members of the BCL while they were about to address a press conference regarding the issue on June 30. And this was not for the first time that students ventilating their grievances collectively have suffered the wrath of the BCL activists.

The use of an elephant to stop vehicles on the Gazipur-Pubail road to collect extortion money, as can be seen in a photograph published by this newspaper yesterday, although not uncommon in our country, should raise a number of questions. Questions that mostly concern animal rights.

The first round of the 2018 FIFA World Cup in Russia refused to play by the book. Teams perceived to be underdogs defied expectations,

Areport in this daily informs us that thousands of Bangladeshi workers in Malaysia are facing arrest and deportation as a rehiring programme ended on June 30.

It is undeniable that disability in Bangladesh is looked upon very negatively. And although in recent times much has been done for the state to become more inclusive in so far as differently-abled persons are concerned, the facilities and the scope have remained limited when compared to the number of people with disability in the country, which in percentage terms is about 16 for every hundred, and increasing yearly.

A photograph published in this newspaper's front page on June 27 of an illegal human haulier stand at Joydevpur, Gazipur shows how mismanagement and lack of enforcement of rules negate the effect of development.

We applaud the government for its recent plan to create a Tk 10,000-crore fund to encourage the jute sector.

Myanmar is playing the citizenship card once again. According to a report by the Reuters,

We are alarmed at the outbreak of Hepatitis E virus in Chittagong's Halishahar and Agrabad areas.

It was a peaceful election in Gazipur—on the face of it. Noticeable by their absence were the traditional inter-party clashes, large-scale rigging and booth and ballot-paper capture—characteristics that have pervaded the system since a long time.