City Dhaka Financial News

IHCL said its portfolio at 285 hotels includes a pipeline of 85 hotels. Suma Venkatesh, executive vice president — real estate and development, IHCL said 2023 marks six consecutive years of portfolio expansion in the Indian subcontinent. «Our approach to growth has been two pronged, penetrating deeper in existing markets with multiple brands and extending our footprint to new destinations taking our presence to over 130 locations,» she added.

Rajnath Singh on Sunday said that the surrendered 90,000 Pakistan Prisoners of War (POWs) of 1971 war were given respect while in captivity in India. «We could have treated Pakistani POWs in any way we wanted.

Awami League, Sheikh Hasina cinching victory and her fifth term in office. A general election that would join the list of Bangladesh's tumultuous poll history, saw opposition parties boycott the voting citing non-guarantee of ‘fair and free’ polls. Sheikh Hasina's Awami League party won 223 of 299 seats for a simple parliament majority, according to unofficial results from the offices of the Election Commission.

Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) did not participate in the parliamentary elections because it knew that it would lose, Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan said on Sunday. «The BNP has taken a strategy of boycotting the election with various excuses, various demands. They participated in the 2018 election and got some parliamentary seats, but this year they did not participate knowing they would be defeated,» Khan, a senior leader of the ruling Awami League, was quoted as saying by the Dhaka Tribune newspaper. Khan made the comments while talking to reporters after casting his vote at Monipuripara in Dhaka's Farmgate area.

Bangladesh will vote to elect 299 lawmakers during the 12th national election on Sunday amid a boycott by the main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party led by former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia, after PM Sheikh Hasina denied its demand to resign and let a caretaker government run the election, Al Jazeera reported. More than 42,000 polling stations are set for Sunday's elections, where a total of 119.6 million registered voters are eligible to cast their votes, as reported by the country's Election Commission.

excellent state of bilateral relations, based on deep historical and fraternal ties and shared values of democracy and pluralism," a statement by the government had said after the state visit of Hasina to India in 2022. Bangladesh shares border with India's West Bengal (2216.7 km), Assam (263 km), Meghalaya (443), Tripura (856) and Mizoram (318 km) Sharing a border with Bangladesh makes the country utterly important for India which faces challenges of cross-border terrorism, national security, migration and trade.

Bangladesh Elections: On the eve of the much controversial general elections, opposition parties in Bangladesh have started a 48-hour general strike, citing incumbent Prime Minister and Awami League leader Sheikh Hasina's inability to guarantee fairness in the poll process. Many opposition parties have boycotted the Bangladesh elections, scheduled to be held on Sunday, 7 January. Sheikh Hasina is seeking to return to power for a fourth consecutive term.

election is going to be held on January 7. "The polling will commence at 8 am and that will continue without any interruption till 4 pm. After the voting, the ballot boxes will be opened and the results at the centres will be announced," he added.

The Election Commission said voting would start Sunday and last for eight hours across the country in over 42,000 ballot stations to receive the more than 119 million registered voters. Ballot boxes, among other election supplies, have been sent over in preparation for the vote, the commission said.

Police are investigating the fires in Gazipur, on the outskirts of capital Dhaka, but suspected that wrongdoers aiming to disrupt Sunday's election had set fire to the schools in the middle of the night.

Benapole Express train caught fire in Bangladesh's Gopibagh, as reported by the Dhaka Tribune. Dhaka Tribune reported that the incident took place around 9:05 pm on Friday and at least five compartments of the train have been set ablaze by «miscreants».

Somoy news reported. According to Reuters, police suspected an arson attack during unrest ahead of national elections. "We suspect the fire incident was an act of sabotage," police chief Anwar Hossain told AFP, without giving more details.

A decade ago, global fashion companies set out to raise the pay of workers who make the clothes they sell to a living wage. It hasn’t happened. In Bangladesh, the nearly 600,000 people making clothes for Swedish giant H&M—one of the biggest retailers in this space to start talking about paying living wages—earned an average of $119 a month in the first half of 2023, excluding overtime, the latest available data shows.

By Ruma Paul and Sudipto Ganguly

12th Fail. Except that, this weekend offers several movies and web series on OTT platforms. Let’s have a look.

₹1924 (Dibrugarh-Guwahati) for economy class. Premium economy class (Dibrugarh-Guwahati) ticket flights start at ₹2324. For those seeking the ultimate in luxury, business-class prices start at ₹9924, guaranteeing a journey with spacious seats and personalized service.

₹1924 (Dibrugarh-Guwahati) for economy class. Premium economy class (Dibrugarh-Guwahati) tickets flight starting at ₹2324. For those seeking the ultimate in luxury, business class the prices are starting at ₹9924, guaranteeing a journey with spacious seats and personalized service.

Bangladesh has been rocked by the worst labour unrest in a decade with tens of thousands of workers clashing with police, demanding a near-tripling of the minimum wage to 23,000 taka ($208). Scores of factories have been damaged. Bangladesh's 3,500 garment factories account for around 85 percent of its $55 billion in annual exports, supplying many of the world's top brands including Levi's, Zara and H&M. But conditions are dire for many of the sector's four million workers, the vast majority of whom are women whose monthly pay, until recently, started at 8,300 taka ($75). A government-appointed panel raised the sector's wage by 56.25 percent on Tuesday to 12,500 taka, but garment workers have rejected the hike.

The US dollar crisis in Bangladesh has intensified as the open market rate soared to Tk128 per dollar Today, a sharp increase from the rate earlier in the week. Despite the Bangladesh Bank's (BB) stringent directives and warnings of harsh penalties for non-compliance, banks and money changers continue to bypass BB's fixed exchange rates, leading to a surge in illegal currency trading.

India and Bangladesh have launched two new railway links and a thermal power plant unit to strengthen connections and energy security in the region

"Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir has been picked up by officers of the law enforcing agency," the Bangladesh Nationalist Party said in a statement. «He has been detained by police officers,» Shamaruh Mirza, Alamgir's daughter who lives in Australia, told AFP. Dhaka Metropolitan Police spokesman Faruk Hossain said he was not aware of his arrest. Alamgir, 75, the BNP's secretary-general, has been leading the party since BNP chairwoman and two times former premier Khaleda Zia was arrested and jailed, and her son went into exile in Britain. Zia has been living under effective house arrest since her release from a 17-year prison sentence in 2020. The protests on Saturday by the BNP and the largest Islamist party, Jamaat-e-Islami, were the biggest so far this year, AFP journalists on site said, and marked a new phase in their protests with a general election due before the end of January. More than 100,000 supporters of two major Bangladesh opposition parties rallied to demand Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina step down to allow a free and fair vote under a neutral government. Hasina — daughter of the country's founding leader — has been in power for 15 years and has overseen rapid economic growth with Bangladesh overtaking neighbouring India in GDP per capita, but inflation has risen and her government is accused of corruption and human rights abuses. Both BNP and Jamaat-e-Islami called for a nationwide strike on Sunday to protest the violence. Security on Sunday was tight in the capital with thousands of police and paramilitary Border Guard Bangladesh patrolling the streets.