“We know what we’ve to do and we’re well prepared. We’re aiming for a win [against Sri Lanka] and our main focus will be to execute the plan well. I’m hopeful we can do that."

WITH the extension of hartal until Friday morning, the country has reached a new record for enforcement of strikes for all working days in a month.

It is disquieting to see that plain land adivasis are increasingly falling victim to land grabbing. A press conference organised by two minority rights groups on Tuesday revealed that in the last two months, two murders, a rape, a rape attempt and looting of 60 Santal houses took place in the northern part of the country.

Contrary to the police claims, morgue sources who conducted autopsies of the bodies of three youths killed in Mirpur found no signs of mob beating, raising serious questions about the motive behind their murders.

The bullet-riddled bodies of the three victims of “mob-beating” send a chill down our spine. We start worrying how safe we are, whether we should trust our police force any more.

“I don't know why, but I am sensing a victory against Sri Lanka.”

AT a hugely attended public lecture by Amartya Sen, courtesy of Prothom Alo and CPD on Monday, the Nobel Laureate, made some path-shinning comments of practical relevance to contemporary affairs in the subcontinent. In precise terms, he advocated development with a strong human content and democracy with liberty and free discourse.

WE find the explanation of the police regarding the death of the three alleged arsonists in Mirpur on Monday hard to believe.

THE law enforcing agencies deserve credit for the detection of a militant training camp in a remote forest area of Banshkhali in Chittagong on Saturday. The raid resulted from information provided by some of the nabbed extremists from a madrasa in Hathazari the previous day.

WE are distressed at the untimely deaths of at least 70 people in a launch capsize in the Padma river in Manikganj on Sunday after it was hit by a cargo vessel. With 36 people still missing, it is feared that the death toll would only go up as the rescue efforts continue.

WEST Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's three-day trip to Dhaka has been eventful, reassuring and heart-warming. It proved extensive in terms of grounds covered -- diplomatic, business, cross-border terrorism, dimensions to the relations. Also, the shared experience turned out to be intensive through a renewal of cultural and emotional contacts.

THE statistics are staggering. And we cannot feel proud at what we are witnessing in the form of political movement that has seen lethal violence of an unprecedented scale.

We condemn, as we have done before, the continued violence caused by the 20-party alliance programmes of oborodh and hartals. The

As we commemorate our right to express ourselves in our mother tongue this Ekushey, we observe with concern the state of indigenous

The first rapid blood test for Ebola has been approved for use by the World Health Organization.

“Now that I have come here overcoming all obstacles, all hurdles will go away … .”

LAYING down lives to establish an innate and sacrosanct right to a people's mother tongue is a rarity in history. We are successors to this exemplary badge of honour. Such a passionate saga of sacrifice was to soon transcend into worldwide embrace through the Unesco's declaration of Amar Ekushey as the International Mother Language Day.

It is really promising that the poultry industry of Bangladesh will grow by an average of 16 per cent a year for the next five years. Poultry entrepreneurs have expressed this optimism in the opening day of 9th International Poultry Show and Seminar organised by World's Poultry Association -Bangladesh Branch (WPSA-BB).

Urging an immediate end to the growing violence in Bangladesh, the visiting European Parliament (EP) delegation yesterday echoed the calls from the international community and Bangladesh civil society for solving the political crisis.

“I saw in The Daily Star the declaration of [State] Minister Shahriar Alam saying I quote