Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal has expressed the need for effective measures to strengthen bilateral relations between Bangladesh and India. “The importance of increasing cooperation between the Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) and Border Security Force (BSF) to enhance the security of both countries,” he said on Tuesday (Jan 16). He mentioned plans to boost the training of law enforcers in Bangladesh.   He also said that India would contribute to Bangladesh's economic development by leveraging its experience, and both countries should work together to ensure mutual interests in areas such as security, economy, and communication.   Indian High Commissioner Prannoy Verma mentioned ongoing efforts to simplify the visa process for Bangladeshis and reported that 1.6 million visas were issued by India to Bangladeshis in 2023. He expressed optimism about the continuation of this friendly relationship in the coming years.  

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina called upon the European Union (EU) to extend its business facilities (GSP+) for six more years for Bangladesh like developing countries to smoothen its journey towards prosperity after LDC graduation today. Foreign Minister Dr AK Abdul Momen told a press briefing said, Prime Minister requested the European Union to extend its business facilities for six years instead of three years as Bangladesh like least developed countries (LDCs) have now been under pressure economically due to the Covid-19 pandemic and war. (BSS Repoerts) While briefing newsmen about Bangladesh Prime Minister's daily engagement in Brussels, he said the extension of business facilities will smoothen the journey of the LDC countries towards prosperity after LDC graduation. She made the remarks after holding several bilateral talks with European Commission (EC) and European Union Bank (EIB) and European Parliament leaders. The Prime Minister, who arrived in Brussels, Belgium on October 24 evening, attended a total of nine events including the opening plenary session of the Global Gateway Forum and other side events including bilateral talks. Several bilateral talks were held with EC President Ursula von der Leyen, Trade Commissioner and Executive Vice President of EC Valdis Dombrovskis, Commissioner for Crisis Management of the EC Janez Lenarcic, Vice-President of the European Parliament Nicola Beer, European Investment Bank President Dr Werner Hoyer and Commissioner for International Partnerships of the EC Jutta Urpilainen. During the talks, each and every person met her have highly praised Bangladesh's unprecedented development under the prudent leadership of Sheikh Hasina, said Information and Broadcasting Minister Dr Hasan Mahmud, who was present at the meeting. Replying to a query, he said that the biggest matter was that the invitation for the Prime Minister to join such a world forum in just two months ahead of the upcoming general election has proved that the world and EU stay beside the Prime Minister. Bangladesh Prime Minister in reply praised the EU for its role in socio-economic development of Bangladesh. The Foreign Minister said Bangladesh Prime Minister has sought larger investments from the EU countries in Bangladesh referring to the most congenial investment atmosphere in Bangladesh. Rohingyas, climate change and relation issues have come prominently during the meetings with the EU leaders. But no issues on the upcoming election and the human rights have come for discussion, he said. The Foreign Minister said Bangladesh is a role model for establishing human rights, justice, human dignity and democracy as 30 lakhs people sacrificed their lives for the noble cause. Commissioner for Crisis Management of the EC Janez Lenarcic assured Bangladesh of giving additional EUR 10.5 million for the Rohingyas, Dr Momen said. The Foreign Minister said Bangladesh Premier and the EU leaders vowed to elevate the existing 50 years bilateral relations between Bangladesh and EU to elevate to another level. To this end, the Prime Minister has gave consent to negotiate for signing a partnership agreement with the EU, he said. Dr Momen said that the Prime Minister today made history after giving her address at the opening plenary session in the Global Gateway Forum conference and all Bangalees should proud of her. "She (Sheikh Hasina) has become the attraction of the whole event," she said, adding that claps are being given time and again and all the leaders attended the session rushed to her and praised her for her speech as the Prime Minister appealed to stop the war and arms race in her speech. To this end, Information and Broadcasting Minister Dr Hasan Mahmud said," The focus of the plenary session was Sheikh Hasina. Whole international press rushed to cover Sheikh Hasina". He said the speech of Bangladesh Prime Minister was the most touching and most appealing among the speeches given in the opening plenary session of the Global Gateway Forum. PM's Principal Secretary Md Tofazzel Hossain Miah and Economic Relation.

Barcelona beat Sevilla by 3-0 margin in Spanish La Liga. In this victory, Xavier Hernández's team moved 8 points ahead of Real Madrid.  The Catalans strengthened their position at the top of the league table with a fifth win in a row. Sevilla were cornered by Barcelona's planned attack at the Camp Nou. But in the first half only the goal was elusive for the hosts.  The guests were upset by one attack after another. The first half was goalless.  After the first half, Barcelona opened their account in the second half. Barcelona took the lead in the 58th minute with Jordi Alba's goal. The Spanish defender scored from Franck Yannick's assist inside the d-box. In the 70th minute, Gavi, who was standing in the gap, made the scoreline 2-0 from Rafinha's pass. And after 9 minutes, Rafinha put the Catalans ahead. The Brazilian striker scored the team's third goal in a great partnership with Jordi Alba. So, Barcelona got a 3-0 victory.

'Boithok', a government's video conferencing platform, will now be expanded to public offices across the country to hold virtual meetings aimed at securing official conversations and communications.   "The government is going to extend the usage of 'Boithok' at its offices across the country gradually," sources said.    As part of extending the usage of Boithok, BCC has taken initiatives to provide training to officials of each of the 64 districts about its functions and usage, the sources added.    Currently, the platform is being used only in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Financial Institution Division, Economic Relations Division, Security Services Division, Bangladesh Police, Energy and Mineral Resources Division, ICT Division, BCC, Department of ICT (DoICT), Digital Security Agency (DSA) on regular basis.   During pandemic, last year e-Government Computer Incident Response Team (BGD e-Gov CIRT) of the Bangladesh Computer Council (BCC) of the ICT Division  developed Boithok for using at in government offices instead of using video conferencing platforms like Zoom, Google Meet and Microsoft Teams to ensure the security of information.   "Step has been taken to hold training for the officials of 64 district offices to extend the usage of Boithok at all government offices," said Executive Director of BCC Dr Abdul Mannan adding a workshop will be held tomorrow at Chittagong Deputy Commissioner's office about the functions and usages of Boithok.   Dr Mannan said one of the most important features of the Boithok platform is the unlimited duration of the meeting and it supports meeting hosting with  200 people, and the development team is working to extend the capability to 500 people.    The video and audio quality of the Boithok platforms are very smooth and clear and over 1,100 successful meetings have already been held on the Boithok platform so far and users can join a meeting just by clicking on a meeting link within a few seconds, he said.    Boithak is enabling the users to share their necessities, and thoughts through perfect instant secure video conferencing that create a real scenario of a virtual meeting. "This platform is completely secure and users' data are entirely safe. Here no data/ recordings are stored outside of the country," said Project Director of (BGD e-Gov CIRT Tarique M Barkatullah and added it supports also an end-to-end encryption feature.     Tarique said this video conferencing application is very easy to use and user friendly too as it supports Android, IOS, Linux as well as all popular browsers that we use daily, he added. Source: BSS AH

The family members of Begum Khaleda Zia have appealed to extend the stay order of her jail term to the home ministry. Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal confirmed the information to the news media on Saturday. He said that the letter was sent to the law ministry for further activities. It was known that appeal was also made for the overseas treatment of BNP Chairperson Begum Khaleda Zia. It is about one and half months remaining for the tenure of six months stay order of Begum Khaleda Zia’s jail term. AH 

With an apprehension of prolonged flood across the country, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina today asked the government officials to remain prepared for extending all sorts of support to the flood-hit people if the deluge is lingered. “Every kind of assistance would have to be extended to the flood-hit people if the ongoing flooding is prolonged,” Cabinet Secretary Khandker Anwarul Islam said quoting the Prime Minister as saying. Briefing newsmen after the regular weekly meeting at his Secretariat office Cabinet Secretary Khandker Anwarul Islam said that the Prime Minister gave them a clear-cut instruction of taking all-out preparations to tackle any situation as there was an apprehension that the flooding may be protracted. He said the prime minister asked the government officials particularly the field-level ones to stay prepared all the time staying at their workstations to face any situation if the deluge is prolonged. Simultaneously, the prime minister asked the government officials to be cautious in case of distributing relief materials amid the COVID-19 pandemic. The directives came from a regular weekly cabinet meeting with the Prime Minister in the chair this morning, a day after she gave similar instruction to her party leaders and activists. The premier joined the meeting from her official Ganabhaban residence in the capital while cabinet members and secretaries were connected from the Secretariat through video-conference. The cabinet secretary said, “The Prime Minister herself supervises it (the flood situation and relief activities).” The Prime Minister directed the local administrations to take prompt measures to accommodate the flood affected people to nearby schools, colleges and madrasahs in case of not having sufficient flood shelters, and give them all sorts of relief materials, particularly water purifying tablets and oral saline and make sure regular vaccination of their domestic animals, he said. Anwarul said field-level government employees of the ministries concerned particularly education, health, and agriculture have already been asked to stay at their workstations during the flood period. The cabinet secretary said despite having an in-built mechanism in the field-level to tackle flood, extra efforts are being made to this end as the ongoing flooding is predicted to be lingered. About relief, he said that they have an earlier preparation regarding the stockpile of relief materials, adding, “There will be no problem with distribution of relief materials as we have plenty of relief goods in stockpile.” Replying to a question, he said that the State Minister for Disaster Management and Relief made every detail of their preparations to face the possible prolonged flood. The prime minister asked the agriculture minister to take measures for cashing on the advantage of flood for bumper production of Aman and Ropa Aman (T Aman), the cabinet secretary said citing his experience that bumper productions of paddy were seen after the flooding of 1988 and 1998 when he was a field-level official. “If Aman production is hampered by the ongoing flood, it could be covered up by bumper production of Ropa Aman following the deluge that makes soil fertile,” Anwarul said quoting the premier. He said that the country’s northern region is likely to witness a bumper production of Aman paddy due to having sufficient rain and water, although the flood made havoc on the crops of low-lying lands. The Agriculture Minister informed the cabinet regarding the ministry’s measures about production of crops (Aman and T Aman) during the flood and post-flood periods, he continued. The government’s top bureaucrat said that the Prime Minister has asked the authorities concerned to take preparations in advance to rehabilitate the flood-victims after the deluge. Source: BSS AH

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday called his Bangladeshi counterpart Sheikh Hasina to extend the greetings of the new year 2020. Modi phoned the Bangladesh Prime Minister at 12:20pm and extended his greetings, said PM’s Press Secretary Ihsanul Karim. Sheikh Hasina also extended the new year greetings to Narendra Modi and asked him to convey her greetings to the people of India The conversation lasted for about 15 minutes. Source: UNB AH

Mayank Agarwal smashed his second double-ton in just seven Tests he played and helped India extend the lead to 343 at the end of day-2 of Indore Test against Bangladesh with four wickets in hand.  Mayank ended on 243 off 330 balls with 28 fours and eight sixes. He was hunted by Mehidy Hasan Miraz. It was Mayank’s best Test innings in his seven-match career so far.  Resuming their overnight total of 86 for 1, India ended day-2 scoring 493 for six in 114 overs. It means they scored 407 runs on day-2, which the third highest score for India in a single day of a Test.  Along with Mayank, Cheteshwar Pujara, Anikya Rahani and Ravindra Jadeja also did well with the bat scoring 54, 86 and 60* respectively. Umesh Yadav also raised eyebrows during the last few overs of day-2 scoring 25 runs off 10 balls with three sixes. He remained unbeaten on 25. The first session of the day was shared between two teams when Bangladesh removed Pujara and Virat Kohli in quick succession. Pujara fell for 54 while Virat suffered a rare fate in Tests - a duck- off two deliveries.  However, in the afternoon session, Bangladeshi bowlers failed to grab any wickets. In the fourth-wicket stand, Mayank and Rahane added 190 runs to the board. Mayank and Jadeja added 123 runs in the fifth-wicket pair. And along the way, India’s lead passed the 300-run mark.  Abu Jayed Rahi, the right-arm fast bowler, bagged four wickets conceding 108 runs in 25 overs. Ebadat Hossain, the second pacer of Bangladesh, bowled 31 overs so far and managed only a wicket conceding 115 runs.  Taijul Islam and Mehidy Hasan Miraz bowled 55 overs together and returned only a wicket conceding 245 runs.  Earlier, Bangladesh were wrapped up only for 150/10 in 58.3 overs. While Mohammad Shami bagged three wickets conceding 27 runs, Ishant Sharma and Umesh Yadav scalped two wickets each, and Ravichandran Ashwin hunted two wickets as well. Brief score at the end of day-2: Bangladesh first innings 150 in 58.3 overs, Mushfiqur 43, Mominul 37, Liton 21, Shami 3/27, Ishant 2/20. India 493/6 in 114 overs, Mayank 243, Ajinkya 86, Jadeja 60*, Rahi 4/108, Ebadat 1/115. Source: UNB AH

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Wednesday assured the country’s businesspeople of extending all-out cooperation to them in producing diversified products and exporting those to new markets across the world. "Our government is always active to produce new products and explore new markets across the world for expanding the export basket. You’ll get all-out support from us in this connection. We can give you this assurance," she said. The Prime Minister said this while addressing the Bangladesh Leather Footwear & Leather Goods International Sourcing Show (BLLISS) at Bangabandhu International Conference Centre (BICC). LFMEAB together with the Ministry of Commerce organized the 3rd edition of BLLISS 2019 to be held from October 31–November 2 at the International Convention City, Bashundhara in the city. Over 300 exhibitors from nearly 20 countries, including India, China and Pakistan, will exhibit their products at the event. The Prime Minister said Awami League, as a government, is not involved in business. It rather creates scopes for the businesspeople to do their own businesses.   "We've given importance to economic diplomacy to introduce importers with the outside world with our leather goods producers. As a result, leather goods have become the second export items in the country overtaking the jute items over the last one decade," she said.   The Prime Minister said equal opportunities and policy supports will be ensured for all the export sectors. "Any discriminatory barriers that are in place will be removed." As part of export diversification, Hasina said, the leather and leather goods sector has been defined as a priority sector in Bangladesh's economy and national industrial development strategy. "For this, various initiatives have been taken to develop the leather and leather footwear industries." Barely a decade back, she mentioned, most of the country's export earnings in this sector came mainly from exports of leather as raw materials.  The Prime Minister said footwear and leather goods factories have been expanded during the last 10 years of the Awami League government for providing incentives and laying out business-friendly policies.  She said the government has taken effective steps to resolve the environmental hazards of Hazaribagh and has shifted the tanneries to a modern industrial city in Savar. Hasina urged foreign buyers and investors to invest in various industries in Bangladesh, especially the leather and leather product sector.  "If you invest here, you’ll get better profits than any other country… that's what I can say because we’ve given various types of benefits for foreign investors what no one else can afford. Other than that, we’ve relatively cheap workers here in Bangladesh." She said financial incentives will remain on offer for the next five years at least to achieve the target of export earnings from the leather goods and footwear industry.  "There’ll be allocation of at least 150 acres of land in the extended project of Leather Industry City in Savar for setting up composite leather products and footwear factories following the international standards and Leather Working Group (LWG) certification," she said. Commerce Minister Tipu Munshi, Chairman of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Commerce Ministry Tofail Ahmed, PM's Private Industry and Investment Adviser Salman Fazlur Rahman, Commerce Secretary Dr Mohammad Jafar Uddin, Leather Goods and Footwear Manufacturers & Exporters Association of Bangladesh (LFMEAB) President Saiful Islam also spoke on the occasion. A video was shown at the program describing the expansion of the leather industry of the country. Source: UNB AH

All the member states of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) have extended their full support to the newly-elected government of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and wished it’s every success in the coming days. The support came when the ambassadors of the OIC countries to Bangladesh called on the prime minister at Gonobhaban in the capital on Sunday evening to greet the premier on her party’s landslide victory in the December 30 general election and assumption of her office as the Prime Minister for the third consecutive term. Reports BSS. “It’s a great honor for all of us to come jointly as Muslim ambassadors to congratulate you for the absolute victory that you have achieved,” leader of the 17-member delegation and Ambassador of Palestine Yousef S.Y. Ramadan told the Prime Minister. He said, “Strength of Bangladesh represents strength of the whole Muslim Ummah. We as Muslim countries, it’s our responsibility and obligation to support you.” Ambassadors of Qatar, the UAE, Egypt, Indonesia, Afghanistan, Turkey, Kuwait, Morocco, the Maldives and Charge d’ Affaires of Iraq, Oman, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia spoke on the occasion. OIC ambassadors termed the victory of Sheikh Hasina a result of the faith and trust that the people of Bangladesh have reposed in her. “The victory came through very hard work that you have done for the last ten years,” they said, adding the people of Bangladesh have seen the development and they expect better security, stability and economic development. “People of Bangladesh want their country to be the best, they want their country to prosper. They want to materialize the goal of your great father Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman,” the Palestine ambassador said. Addressing the envoys, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina said her party Awami League was voted to power again as the people realized that it worked a lot for them. “My aim is to improve the living condition of our people so that they get their food, housing, healthcare, education all other basic needs,” she said, adding that: “I’m trying my best to do it.” Extending her sincere thanks to the ambassadors, Sheikh Hasina said she is really grateful to the OIC countries because of their constant support to her government. “I always received support from your countries and many OIC leaders … your support gave me strength to work more and more for my people for whom I have dedicated my life,” she said. The premier said the people of Bangladesh suffered so much in the past and she wants to address their sufferings and present them a better life and prepare the country for future generation. “With this hope the people of Bangladesh especially women and younger generation cast vote for Awami League massively,” she said. Sheikh Hasina expressed her gratitude to the OIC countries for their support to her government, saying, “I feel proud that all Muslim brothers are here and supporting her government.” She said Bangabandhu liberated the country but he could not complete his work. “I always feel that it’s an opportunity for me to fulfill my father’s dream and I’m trying best to do it.” “People of Bangladesh would be happy to know that all Muslim countries are supporting our government and we should work together and we would work for our Muslim brothers all over the world for their progress,” the Prime Minister said. Sheikh Hasina said Bangladesh is a country of religious harmony and the people of all faiths perform their respective religion very peacefully. She also reiterated her government’s firm stance against terrorism. Foreign Minister AK Abdul Momen gave the welcome address while PM’s Advisor on Foreign Affairs Gowher Rizvi, State Minister for Foreign Affairs Md. Shahriar Alam, Principal Secretary Md. Nojibur Rahman, Foreign Secretary Md. Shahidul Haque, PMO Secretary Sajjadul Hassan and Press Secretary Ihsanul Karim were present. AH