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Govt job seekers may get a 21-month extension in age limit, says minister
The ministry of public administration has proposed to increase the maximum age limit to enter government jobs by 21 months from current limit of 30 years due to prolonged academic life caused by Covid-19 restrictions.
The proposal has been sent to the prime minister, State Minister for Public Administration Farhad Hossain told reporters at the Secretariat on Thursday.
Read: Age limit relaxed for govt jobs except BCS
He said, “We have taken several initiatives for people of different classes and professions to make up for the loss caused by corona. A new proposal for government job seekers has been sent to the prime minister. “
“We did the same last year. We relaxed the age limit allowing candidates who turned 30 after March 25 to apply for government jobs.”
Farhad also said those who turned 30 on March 25 last year (2020) will also get the benefit.
He said they will get age exemption up to 21 months. It's a big deal. If the Prime Minister approves, we will issue a notification in this regard.”
At present the age limit for entry into government service is 30 years, which is 32 years for the children of freedom fighters.
Read: Age limit in govt jobs likely to be eased for pandemic: Ministry
The government increased the age limit by five months in the first phase of the Covid-19 pandemic last year.
Asked what the government's next strategy would be if the corona infection situation deteriorates further, Farhad,” We will consider both strategies. We may impose a lockdown if needed but also brainstorm about how to restrict transmission without enforcing strict restrictions considering the economy and livelihood.”
Public life at stake for mismanagement in vaccination drive: BNP
BNP on Thursday alleged that the mismanagement in the government’s Covid-19 vaccination drive has jeopardised the public life.
“There has been a complete mess in the vaccination campaign due to the government’s failure to face the pandemic,” said BNP secretary general Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir.
Read: Frustration grows as chaos continues at Bangladesh’s vaccination centres
He made the remarks when he visited Banani Graveyard in the city to place wreaths and offer Fateha at the grave of Arafat Rahman Koko, the youngest son of BNP chairperson Khaleda Zia, marking his 52nd birth anniversary.
Fakhrul urged the government to collect adequate number of vaccine doses immediately and work sincerely for people announcing a roadmap to deal with the pandemic.
He alleged that the government has totally failed to manage corona. They (govt) shouldn’t be in power any more for its ill-planned lockdown and mismanagement in the vaccination drive. “This government should go right away.”
The BNP secretary general paid homage to Koko and recalled his role in the development of sports organisations and cricket.
Read:Mismanagement, politicization made vaccination drive a complete mess: BNP
BNP leaders Aman Ullah Aman, Abdus Salam, Fazlul Haque Milon, Syed Emran Saleh Prince, Shamsur Rahman Shimul Biswas, Aminul Haque and Rafiqul Alam Majnu, Jubo Dal leaders Saiful Alam Nirob and Sultan Salauddin Tuku, Swechchasebak Dal leaders Mustafizur Rahman and Abdul Kader Bhuiyan Jewell and Chhatra Dal leader Fazlul Ramna Khokon were, among others, present.
On January 23, 2015, Arafat Rahman Koko died of cardiac arrest in Malaysia at the age of 45.
Bangladesh allows resumption of all public transport services from Aug 19
To keep the wheels of the economy rolling during the ferocious second wave of the pandemic, the government Thursday allowed the resumption of all public transport services from August 19.
All tourist spots, community centres, resorts and recreation facilities can also reopen but with 50% capacity from August 19 and following all Covid-safety protocols, the Cabinet division said in a notification.
Read: Covid-19: Bangladesh announces new restriction rules
The latest directive will remain in force until further orders, according to the Cabinet division.
Earlier, the government had allowed only half of the public transport vehicles to ply on the roads, following all health protocols. Moreover, it was silent on the reopening of the tourist spots and community centres.
According to the latest notification, all modes of public transport, including those of road, river and railways can restart operations following all health protocols.
Use of masks and social distancing will be mandatory everywhere. And legal action will be taken against violators, be it individuals or organisations, according to the government. The authorities concerned have been asked to take necessary steps in this regard.
Bangladesh was put under the “strict” lockdown on July 23 barring people from leaving their homes except for essential reasons.
Read: Bangladesh eases lockdown, but Delta variant ready to hit freedom
Scheduled to end on August 5, it was later extended to August 10.
Chinese worker goes missing in Chattogram
A Chinese national, working at a thermal power plant in Banshkhali upazila of Chattogram district, has gone missing, police said on Thursday.
The missing Chinese worker has been identified as G Kingwan, 34, an employee of the S. Alam Group that owns the power plant in Chattogram.
Read: Reward announced for info on missing Chinese engineer
"He has been missing since Wednesday noon. He was last spotted catching fish in the Bay of Bengal," said Safiul Kabir, officer-in-charge of the Banshkhali police station.
The Chinese national, along with his colleagues, went to the site adjacent to the Bay of Bengal on Wednesday morning for pipe installation work. His colleagues informed police about his disappearance around 2.30 pm.
"We are on the job," the OC said.
Global Covid cases near 205 million
The overall number of global Covid cases is fast approaching the 205-million mark as several countries continue their battle against the deadlier Delta variant of coronavirus even with mass inoculations underway.
According to US-based Johns Hopkins University (JHU), the total case count mounted to 204,626,055 while the death toll from the virus reached 4,322,964 on Thursday morning.
So far, 4,527,785,425 vaccine doses have been administered across the globe.
Read: US Hospitals run low on nurses as they get swamped with COVID
The US, which is the world's worst-hit country in terms of both cases and deaths, has so far logged 36,177,914 cases. Besides, 618,434 people have lost their lives in the US to date, as per the JHU data.
Brazil, which has the world's second-highest pandemic death toll after the United States, and the third-largest caseload after the United States and India, recorded 565,748 deaths and 20,245,085 cases, respectively, on Wednesday.
Neighbouring India's total Covid cases surpassed 32 million on Wednesday, with 38,353 new infections reported in 24 hours across the country, as per the federal health ministry's data.
Besides, 497 deaths were recorded since Tuesday morning, taking the death toll to 429,179.
Situation in Bangladesh
Bangladesh on Wednesday reported 237 Covid-related deaths in 24 hours, a figure that shows how bad the situation is in the country.
Read:Covid kills 237 more in Bangladesh as Delta strain raging
On August 5, the country reported 264 deaths shattering its previous single-day record of 258 Covid-related fatalities on July 27. On August 10 too, the country logged 268 deaths.
Besides, 10,420 more people came out Covid positive during the period after testing 44,430 samples, according to the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS).
Chaos at vaccination centres
Vaccination centres across the country drew huge crowds on the fifth day of the mass vaccination drive, creating a chaotic situation everywhere and raising the risk of the virus transmission.
Hundreds of jab-seekers, both male and female, turned up at small vaccination centres with or without online registrations, overwhelming its medical staff.
Read:1.77 mln doses of Sinopharm vaccine on way to Dhaka
On Saturday, Bangladesh kicked off another phase of its mass vaccination drive aimed at vaccinating 35 lakh people in six days.
Covid jabs will be administered simultaneously in 4,600 unions, 1,054 municipality areas and 433 wards of the city corporations, Director General of Health Services Dr ABM Khurshid Alam told the media on August 6.
Vaccine Stock
Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal, at a virtual meeting on Wednesday, said, “We’ve to vaccinate some 13.82 crore people of the country. We need to buy a total of 27.65 crore vaccine doses. We have 2.55 crore vaccine doses in our hands and the remaining ones need to be collected.”
India fails to put earth observation satellite into orbit
India's first space mission of 2021 suffered a major setback after an indigenous rocket carrying a state-of-the-art earth observation satellite ended in failure in the early hours of Thursday due to "a technical anomaly".
The state-owned Indian Space Research Organisation's (ISRO) Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV) rocket blasted off successfully with the earth observation satellite -- EOS-03 -- from the southern spaceport of Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh state at 5.43 this morning.
"However, the mission could not be fully accomplished mainly because there's a technical anomaly observed in the cryogenic stage," ISRO chairman K Sivan said in a statement.
Also read: 18-year-old joining Blue Origin’s 1st passenger spaceflight
In a separate tweet, ISRO said, "GSLV-F10 launch took place today at 05.43 Hrs IST as scheduled. Performance of first and second stages was normal. However, Cryogenic Upper Stage ignition did not happen due to technical anomaly. The mission couldn't be accomplished as intended."
EOS-03 could have helped India's weather department monitor natural disasters like cloudbursts and cyclonic storms and its armed forces plan an operation in case of need, according to sources.
Also read: No ET, no answers: Intel report is inconclusive about UFOs
Earlier, the Indian space agency had twice shelved its plan to launch the satellite into space. On the other hand, "this is the fourteenth flight of GSLV", ISRO said.
6 DB officials in remand suspended
Six district Detective Branch (DB) officers remanded in a gold bar robbery case have been suspended, Superintendent of Police Khandaker Nurunnabi said on Wednesday.
On Wednesday a Feni court ordered a four-day remand for DB OC Saiful Islam and three days for the remaining five arrestees.
The arrestees were Feni District OC Saiful Islam, SI Motaher Hossain, Mizanur Rahman, Nurul Haque, ASI Abhijit Barua and Masud Rana.
On Tuesday night at 11:30 pm, six DB police officers were arrested from the district DB office and handed over to Feni Model Police Station.
Read: BIWTC officer suspended for not wearing mask
District Superintendent of Police Khandaker Nurunnabi said the district police had arrested six officers on the basis of a case filed by a gold trader of Chattogram. At that time 15 gold bars were recovered from them. A case of robbery was registered against them at Feni Model Police Station.
On the night of August 8, under the Fatehpur flyover of Feni on the Dhaka-Chittagong highway, the accused held Gopal Kantidas, a gold trader who was going to Dhaka from Chattogram and seized 20 gold bars worth Tk 1.24 crore from him.
After Gopal Kantidas lodged a written complaint to the District Superintendent, they were arrested for their involvement in the case.
Rescued crocodile gets new life at Bangabandhu Safari Park
A crocodile, rescued from a lake in Jalil Mollah Dangi village in Faridpur’s North Channel Union, found a new habitat at Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Safari Park in Gazipur.
The crocodile was handed over to officials at the Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Safari Park on Wednesday noon by Sundarbans’ Karamjal Wildlife Breeding Center officer-in-charge Hawladar Azad Kabir and other officials.
Hawladar Azad Kabir, officer-in-charge of the Karamjal Wildlife Breeding Center in the Sundarbans, said the crocodile was brought to Khulna from Faridpur after being rescued. It was found to be a female crocodile. The crocodile is seven feet long and one and a half feet wide.
Since there are male crocodiles in Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Safari Park in Gazipur, the senior officials decided to keep the rescued crocodile in the safari park, he said
Earlier on Monday, the crocodile was captured by villagers near the lake as it was about to attack the ducks roaming in the lake.
Later that evening it was rescued by Md. Mofizur Rahman Chowdhury, Fisheries Specialist, Department of Wildlife Management and Nature Conservation at Khulna Forest Department. The crocodile was kept at the wildlife rescue and rehabilitation center that night and various tests were done on Tuesday.
HC issues contempt of court rule against three health ministry officials, two others
The High Court on Wednesday issued a contempt of court rule against the health secretary, director generals of health directorate and drug administration, and two others on charge of ignoring its directives on halting production of substandard antibiotics.
The HC directed the concerned officials to explain in four weeks why contempt of court proceedings should not be drawn against them over the matter.
The officials are Health Secretary Lokman Hossain Miah, Director General of Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) Prof Dr ABM Khurshid Alam, Directorate General of Drug Administration (DGDA) Maj. Gen. Md Mahbubur Rahman, Director General of Directorate of National Consumer Rights Protection (DNCRP) Babul Kumar Shaha and Managing Director of Indo-Bangla Pharmaceuticals Limited AFM Anwarul Haque.
The HC bench of Justice Mamnoon Rahman and Justice Khandaker Diliruzzaman issued the rule following a contempt of court petition filed by Advocate Ripan Barai on behalf of rights organization -- Human Rights and Peace for Bangladesh (HRPB).
Read: HC inquires about progress in establishing e-judiciary
The HRPB had filed a writ petition in the public interest to stop the production of antibiotics by 20 pharmaceutical companies including Indo Bangla Pharmaceuticals of Barishal stating these companies don’t follow the Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP) in the pharmaceutical industry.
Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP) is a system for ensuring that products are consistently produced and controlled according to quality standards.
Following the final hearing of the writ petition, on February 13, 2017, the High Court directed the concerned officials of the health department not to allow these companies to produce medicine unless they adhere to GMP.
However, a contempt of court case was filed in the High Court on behalf of HRPB after news broke that Indo Bangla Pharmaceuticals in Barishal was illegally producing and selling antibiotics in defiance of the court order.
Biman temporarily closes online ticketing
Online ticketing services of Biman Bangladesh Airlines will temporarily remain closed as the service provider failed to operate properly, a media release said Wednesday.
The domestic service provider failed to operate the ticketing services properly due to which the authorities decided to close online ticketing, said a release from Biman.
Read: Biman to start Syedpur-Cox's Bazar flight
In 2019, Biman Bangladesh Airlines, hired an organization to sell tickets online on a temporary basis under a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to encourage domestic service providers. But the organization failed again and again, at various stages, in the full implementation of the expected activities of the airline. It provided services in an unethical manner and tried to create confusion among the passengers.
Biman is going to ensure the provision of advanced online services through a world recognized service provider soon, the release also said.
Read: Biman to operate domestic flights from July 15 to July 22
However, the ongoing process of purchasing, changing and refunding tickets for all routes of Biman through all domestic and foreign sales offices of Biman, authorized travel agencies and Biman call centers would continue.
In addition, the sales centre of Biman's head office in Balaka would remain open 24 hours a day from Thursday to provide services to the passengers.