Author: Arif ArifArman

ZOOMBANGLA DESK: The people of Mymensigh are eagerly waiting to welcome Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina as she is scheduled to visit the city on Saturday. The metropolis has already become colourful and decorative with scores of banners, posters, placards, festoons and paintings on the roadside walls. Prime Minister and Awami League (AL) President Sheikh Hasina last visited Mymensingh on November 2, 2018 and addressed a public rally on the local circuit house ground. On the occasion of her visit, a wave of excitement has spread across Mymensingh division, which is steeped in the fond memories of Mahua-Malua, Chandrabati and Birangana…

INTERNATIONAL DESK: The United States and India will sign a memorandum of understanding on semiconductors as both countries discuss coordination of investment and continue dialogue around policies to spur private investment, U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said on Thursday. Raimondo, who is on a four-day trip to India, is accompanied by the chief executive officers of 10 U.S. companies and is scheduled to meet India’s trade minister on Friday. The two nations will map the semiconductor supply chain together and identify opportunities for joint ventures and technology partnerships, Raimondo added. India has been seeking to attract more big-ticket investments under…

ZOOMBANGLA DESK: Information and Broadcasting Minister Dr Hasan Mahmud today said COVID-19 pandemic couldn’t force the government to stop providing national film awards for encouraging the artistes and to flourish the industry. “National Film Award was provided amid COVID-19 pandemic even in 2020 when only 25 to 26 films were released for encouraging the artistes and to flourish the industry as per the advice of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina,” he said. The minister said these while presiding over the National Film Award distribution function organised by his ministry at Bangabandhu International Convention Centre in city’s Agargaon. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina…

ZOOMBANGLA DESK: Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina today urged the filmmakers to make life-oriented quality movies, saying that a good movie can change a person’s life or a society. “Movies should be life-oriented as these attract people… a movie can change a person’s life or a society,” she said, addressing ceremony to distribute the National Film Award-2021 as chief guest in city’s Bangabandhu International Conference Center (BICC), organized by the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting. Mentioning that people get the image of their life in movies, she said cinema and drama can develop human thinking and consciousness and can keep the…

ZOOMBANGLA DESK: Foreign Minister Dr AK Abdul Momen today said Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and her Indian counterpart Narendra Modi would open jointly the maiden cross-border oil pipeline on March 18 for diesel transportation to Bangladesh. “Good news is India will send us diesel, the (Oil) pipeline has been completed,” he told reporters at a briefing at foreign ministry this afternoon. He added: “The two premiers will inaugurate the pipeline on March 18 (through videoconferencing)”. Momen’s announcement came a week after he held talks with India’s external affairs minister Dr. S. Jaishankar in New Delhi on the sidelines of the…

ZOOMBANGLA DESK: British academics and journalists have observed that the speech delivered by Bangladesh’s Founding Father Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman on 7 March 1971 is considered as the ‘Magna Carta’ of Bangladesh Independence. They made the remarks while participating a discussion titled “Contemporary Thoughts on Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib’s Historic 7 March Speech: A UNESCO Documentary Heritage” organised by Bangladesh High Commission in London marking the historic 7 March at the mission’s Bangabandhu Lounge on Tuesday, a press release received here today. The speakers said that the 18-minute seminal speech would continue to inspire freedom-loving succeeding generations across the world. Paying…

INTERNATIONAL DESK: Celebrating more women who have found strength and resilience in following their passion, we bring you a story of a forty-five-year-old single mother who has found her passion in pet grooming. Finding purpose in starting the first-ever pet grooming service, she said has helped her overcome challenges and achieve her goals. This is Chuki Gyaltshen, a mother of two. She started the pet grooming service in the capital some five years ago. Chuki says she grooms about fifteen dogs a month. She said there are times when her aggressive customers bite her but it is her passion that…

INTERNATIONAL DESK: People paid tribute to Khasi film actor Anjelus Enshon Lamare who passed away on March 6. Large number of people gathered at his Mawlai Phudmuri residence to pay respect to the departed soul. Born on December 10, 1945, late Lamare was a founder member of Seng Biria U Khasi (SBUK). He acted more in films directed by Pradip Kurbah. He also acted in many telefilms aired in Doordarshan. Ka Mon Bajwat, Hep, Onaatah and Iewduh are notable films in which he acted. Educationist Sylvanus Lamare and folklorist Desmond Kharmawphlang, who were present at the residence of the departed…

ZOOMBANGLA DESK: Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal, MP, today said that no evidence of sabotage has so far been found in the Dhaka blast as investigating agencies yet to find any sign of sabotage regarding the explosion. “The investigation is still ongoing. So, we cannot say anything certainly . . . Army intelligence along with police forces are working to find out the cause behind the blast that took place in the Gulistan area of Dhaka city. But, initially, we thought that this explosion happened due to accumulated gas,” the Minister said. “After getting the investigation report, we will be…

ZOOMBANGLA DESK: US secretary of state Antony Blinken has said his country would continue to standby Bangladesh with its “best efforts” in the development endeavours of the South Asian country as he held talks with foreign minister Dr AK Abdul Momen. “We (US) will stand by you (Bangladesh),” Momen today said quoting his US counterpart as saying during their meeting in the Indian capital on the sidelines of the recent G-20 summit. The foreign minister described his meeting with Blinken as “very constructive” adding that they discussed various critical bilateral issues as “we have developed a very good rapport with…

ZOOMBANGLA DESK: Bangladesh and India had been sharing friendly and warm relations since 1971. Both the countries have been kith and kin through crisis moments. Bangladesh and India are going to script another golden chapter in their bilateral ties through the launch of operation of India-Bangladesh Friendship Pipeline (IBFP) for diesel supply on March 17, the birthday of Bangladesh’s Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. The import of diesel from India through the pipeline is one of the prime examples of maximizing the geographical proximity with Bangladesh’s perpetual neighbour country. Once the diesel arrives it will bring a…

INTERNATIONAL DESK: Devotees from across Sikkim and neighbouring countries of Nepal and Bhutan attended the Bhumchu ceremony at the Tashiding monastery in Gyalshing district on Tuesday. As per the Bhumchu Committee, which keeps records through a token system for regulating the crowd, more than 30,000 devotees were present to receive the sacred water. The distribution of Bhumchu to the devotees commenced from 2 AM of March 7, coinciding with the full moon of the first month of the lunar calendar. The ceremony was conducted by the monks of Tashiding monastery in the presence of SLA deputy speaker-cum-area MLA Sangay Lepcha…

SPORTS DESK: To think that a little over five years ago, if we talked about sportspersons from Assam, what would be the chances of the name of a female athlete popping up in our minds? Even as the women were working hard to bring accolades back to the state, fighting the additional barriers of gender-based discrimination, we hardly came to know about their names. Cut to 2023 and the same question will now yield not one, but many names. Lovlina Borgohain, Nayanmoni Saikia and Hima Das may be the most common names on the lips of people of Assam, and…

INTERNATIONAL DESK: Chinese banks are facing a new earnings challenge as growing numbers of homebuyers pay off their mortgages ahead of schedule, threatening lenders with the loss of years of anticipated interest income. The scale of mortgage repayment activity and the ultimate revenue impact is hard to glean from official data, but anecdotal evidence suggests that it has been increasing in recent months as borrowers cash out of disappointing investments or raise funds by taking out lower-rate business loans. Bankers are signaling their concern by coming up with strategies aimed at slowing down the repayment rush and keeping mortgages on…

INTERNATIONAL DESK: The World Uyghur Congress, a Germany-based Uyghur rights group, has been nominated for the 2023 Nobel Peace Prize. Canadian lawmakers and a leader of the Young Liberals in Norway, the youth wing of Norway’s Venstre political party, nominated the organization. The rights group was cited for its work toward peace, democracy and the plight of the Uyghur and other Turkic people who live under what the nomination letter described as a “repressive regime in China.” “The World Uyghur Congress has the main purpose of promoting democracy, human rights, and freedom for the Uyghur People and supporting the use…

INTERNATIONAL DESK: China may have increased its defence outlay and set up an ambitious growth rate of 5% for 2023, but perhaps for the first time, the communist leadership may not have been able to restrain itself from highlighting the myriad economic challenges the country faces. The rare outpouring of woe in the country come on March 3 at the first session of the 5th National People’s Congress that opened at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing Party and state leaders Xi Jinping Li Keqiang, Li Zhanshu Wang Yang, Li Qiang, Wang Huning, Han Zheng, Cai QL Ding…

INTERNATIONAL DESK: Taipei’s defence minister said Taiwan was prepared to “fire the first shot” if Chinese forces enter its territorial space, Al Jazeera reported, adding that Taiwan must be on alert this year for a “sudden entry” by the Chinese military into areas close to its territory as tensions rise across the Taiwan Strait. China has stepped up its military activities around Taiwan in recent years, including almost daily air force incursions into the island’s air defence identification zone. However, Taiwan has not reported any incident of Chinese forces entering its contiguous zone, 44.4km (24 nautical miles) from its coast.…

INTERNATIONAL DESK: India’s climate policy is directed towards sustainable development and poverty eradication, while striving to decouple carbon emissions from growth and achieve energy efficiency across sectors, Yadav said. New Delhi The climate crisis is unlike other global issues, such as those of trade or finance, and traditional responses to it or the tendency to profiteer from a disaster need to be avoided, Union environment minister Bhupender Yadav said on Sunday. “I would like to remind especially friends from the global north that we must understand that this crisis is starkly different from other global crisis of trade and finance…

Saumya Dhaundyal: One of the sessions during the inception meeting of Business20 (B20) India, an engagement group under G20, was on ‘Fostering Financial Inclusion and Empowering Societies’. The session threw light on the need for broader social policies to support financial resilience, protect against risks, and promote the financial well-being of the people. Financial inclusion needs to be a core part of business and social responsibility strategies and not just left to policymakers to deal with. As 1.4 billion adults in the world remain unbanked—more commonly women, the less educated, poor and rural populations—more dedicated, multi-stakeholder strategies are needed to…

INTERNATIONAL DSEK: Amid the G20 Foreign Ministers’ Meeting and ahead of the Raisina Dialogue, India quietly held the second conference of intelligence and security chiefs and top officials from around the world, called the Raisina Security Dialogue, on March 1 which saw participation from over 26 countries, confirmed multiple sources. “India is trying to make its presence felt in bringing together global intelligence agencies for exchanges on issues of common concern. The focus of the discussions was largely on global security which encompassed counterterrorism, radicalisation, drug trafficking, and illegal arms smuggling, among others,” an official source with knowledge of the…

INTERNATIONAL DESK: The third presidential election for Nepal is scheduled for March 9, 2023. After months of disagreement among Nepal’s major parties, the date has been set. However, the declaration also brought to a political showdown between Ram Chandra Paudel, the leader of the Nepali Congress, and Subas Nembang, vice chair of the Communist Party of Nepal-Unified Marxist Leninist (CPN-UML), who are both running for president, reported Pardafas. A weighted voting procedure is used to elect the president. As things stand, Paudel has the support of eight parties, including that of the CPN-Maoist Centre, led by current Prime Minister Pushpa…

INTERNATIONAL DESK: Both India and Uzbekistan exhibited their combat power and dominance in the joint military exercise while understanding nuances of fighting multi-domain operations in the sub-conventional scenarios. India-Uzbekistan 15-day joint military exercise DUSTLIK concluded in Uttarkhand’s Pithoragarh on Sunday after exhibiting their combat power and dominance while understanding nuances of fighting multi-domain operations in the sub-conventional scenarios, officials said. Lt Col Manish Shrivastava, public relations officer, Defence, Dehradun, said the exercise provided an opportunity for both the armed forces to train in sub-conventional operations in a joint environment under the United Nations Charter. “Both nations share a common goal…

Suraj Yengde: If you are at Washington D.C.’s Dulles International Airport and are on a connecting flight, you will transition from main terminal gates Z to concourse C. No matter which direction you come from, you pass by mid-size advertorial screens that grab the attention of passers-by. Where one is used to seeing models demonstrating clothing brands or fragrances, one will be surprised to notice two Indian men, Narendra Modi and his protégé Shivraj Singh Chauhan, flashing through the screens with the G-20 as backdrop. The advert was sponsored by the BJP-ruled Government of Madhya Pradesh, which, like other states,…

SPORTS DESK: The 7th Boccia National Championship, one of the landmark events for the Indian Army concluded at the Rajputana Rifles Regimental Centre, Delhi Cantonment on March 4. The Championship had begun on February 28th. On the concluding day, a memorandum of understanding was signed between the Mission Olympics Wing of the Indian Army and the Paralympics Committee of India for promoting the Paralympics movement in the country and providing a platform for the transition of specially-abled Indian Army soldiers into para-athletes. Played with a ball, as a sport, Boccia is predominantly played by athletes with cerebral palsy but has…