Culture & Society

PM Tarique Rahman says disability allowances will rise when finances allow

Speaking to a disability rights group, the prime minister also pledged sign-language services in courts and hospitals, an extension of the government-job age limit and accessible buses.

ScrollBeat DeskPublished: 17 Oct 2026, 22:06

People with disabilities and their representatives attend an exchange-of-views meeting with Prime Minister Tarique Rahman at the Prime Minister's Office in Dhaka on 17 October 2026. Photo: PMO/BSS. PMO (BSS)

Prime Minister Tarique Rahman said on Saturday that the government would raise allowances for persons with disabilities further when the country's finances allow, and pledged a series of steps on accessibility, jobs and political representation.

He spoke at an exchange of views with representatives of the Bangladesh Protibandhi Kallyan Samity (BPKS) at Shapla Hall of the Prime Minister's Office in Dhaka. About 30 people with disabilities and representatives of disability organisations took part.

"Although we have already increased the allowances to some extent, we could not raise them as much as you needed. Insha Allah, we will increase them a little more in the future, depending on the financial capacity of the state," he said.

The prime minister said building plans that lack facilities for persons with disabilities would not be approved, and that instructions had already been issued. He said he would ask the law minister to examine sign-language assistance in courts and the health minister to look at similar arrangements in hospitals.

He asked the social welfare minister to expand skills training, including in information technology, and the education ministry to consider employment for persons with disabilities in educational institutions. The government would also examine extending the age limit for government jobs by one or two years, and would ask the agriculture ministry to consider special support for farmers with disabilities.

On transport, he said the government would improve the pink bus service so that it is accessible to women with disabilities, and would study introducing disability-friendly buses in Dhaka and other major cities. He said the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics would be asked to establish an accurate count of persons with disabilities.

On a demand for representation in parliament, the prime minister said the matter involved constitutional considerations and would need discussion within his party. If feasible, he said, the government would consider arrangements for a woman and a man with disabilities to be represented.

During the meeting, para-athlete Mohammad Mohsin gave the prime minister a cap. Tarique Rahman came down from the dais to receive it and promised to support Mohsin's team in events abroad. Social Welfare and Women and Children Affairs Minister AZM Zahid Hossain, State Minister Barrister Farzana Sharmin and the prime minister's Principal Secretary ABM Abdus Sattar were present.

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Iran says two oil tankers hit mines in Strait of Hormuz as waterway stays shut

The Revolutionary Guards say both tankers caught fire after striking naval mines on Saturday, one of them carrying more than 2 million barrels of crude. The US military disputes the account and says projectiles, not mines, are hitting the vessels.

ScrollBeat Desk17 Oct 2026, 23:25Open this article

Satellite view of the Strait of Hormuz between Iran and the Arabian Peninsula, taken by NASA's Terra satellite on 2 December 2020. Representative image of the waterway. NASA / MODIS, public domain. NASA / MODIS Land Rapid Response Team, Goddard Space Flight Center (public domain)

Iran's Revolutionary Guards said on Saturday that two oil tankers caught fire after striking naval mines in the Strait of Hormuz, the latest in a string of attacks on shipping in the waterway at the centre of the US-Iran war.

The IRGC Navy said the second supertanker, carrying more than 2 million barrels of crude oil, suffered a massive explosion in its engine room after hitting a mine while taking what it called an unauthorised route, with its tracking and radar systems switched off. Iran's state-run Press TV shared footage it said showed the vessel on fire. The Guards did not name or flag the tankers, and there was no independent confirmation of the incident.

The claim is disputed. US Central Command says it has cleared the strait of naval mines and that vessels are being struck by projectiles rather than mines. It said a container ship that sank this week, the M/V GFS Pride, was hit by an IRGC projectile, not a mine as Iran had said.

The two sides also give sharply different accounts of traffic through the strait. The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations, a Western maritime security body, reported at least 12 ships attacked in the week to 16 October, while warning that most crews were refusing to report incidents. US Central Command chief Brad Cooper said 400 ships and 100 million barrels of oil had moved through the strait over the past week and that the waterway is 'controlled by the United States and our regional partners, not Iran'. Tehran says Washington is exaggerating its progress.

Iran has kept the strait restricted since 28 February, when the United States and Israel began strikes on Iranian territory. Oil flows through Hormuz were about 11.6 million barrels per day in the seven days to 13 October, roughly 68 per cent of the 17.1 million-barrel pre-war baseline, according to the analysis firm Kpler, and Brent crude touched 110 dollars a barrel on Friday for the first time since May.

Diplomacy has not stopped entirely. Messages are still being relayed between Tehran and Washington by regional mediators including Pakistan and Qatar, though no breakthrough is expected soon.

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CUET team wins international mortar competition in Atlanta

Team CUET C took first place overall at the Fall 2026 American Concrete Institute Mortar Workability Competition and also finished second for economical design. A second Bangladeshi team, from IUT, placed fourth.

ScrollBeat Desk17 Oct 2026, 23:24Open this article

The civil engineering building at Chittagong University of Engineering and Technology (CUET), whose student team won an international concrete competition in Atlanta. Representative campus photograph. Photo: কামরুল ইসলাম শাহীন, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0. কামরুল ইসলাম শাহীন / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

A student team from Chittagong University of Engineering and Technology (CUET) won first place overall at the Fall 2026 American Concrete Institute (ACI) Mortar Workability Competition in Atlanta, the university and the state news agency BSS said.

Team CUET C also finished second in the economical design category. The competition ran from 11 to 14 October alongside ACI's Fall convention, and 40 teams from around the world reached the final round after a selection process.

Judges gave the greatest weight to flowability, which accounted for 50 per cent of the total score, and to stability at 20 per cent. The remaining points were split among report quality (15 per cent), carbon emissions (10 per cent) and cost-effectiveness (5 per cent).

A second Bangladeshi team, from the Islamic University of Technology (IUT), placed fourth overall and took second place in the environmental design category as well as a judges' choice award in the Aesthetics in Concrete competition. Between them, the two teams representing the ACI Bangladesh Chapter won four awards.

The CUET team was advised by Dr GM Sadikul Islam, a professor in CUET's Department of Civil Engineering and faculty adviser to its ACI student chapter. The IUT team was advised by Prof Dr Tarek Uddin, president of the ACI Bangladesh Chapter.

Swarup Chandra Modak, a member of the winning team, said the competition had shown the students what they were capable of and that, with the right resources and facilities, they could demonstrate that competence anywhere in the world. Prof Sadikul Islam said CUET's ACI chapter had won six international awards since it was founded in 2018, all in online competitions, and that a first in-person win on American soil had long been a dream.