BSS: Unplanned and unauthorized construction of hotels and motels in Cox’s Bazar town and adjoining areas has blurred the beauty of the world’s largest sea beach, compromising its tourism potentials.

Mayor and local administration, two main custodians of the 105-km long natural beach, said the beach town has 400 hotels, motels, resorts and guest houses, but only 60 of them have taken registration from proper authorities before their constructions.

“The Cox’s Bazar is losing its main and rare characteristics — sea in the front and hills in the rear — which gives a spectacular view to thousands of domestic and international tourists in the beach town,” mayor Sarwar Kamal told BSS recently.

Prime minister Sheikh Hasina told parliament Wednesday that the government is placing priority on rural development. Source bdnews24.com

She said special measures have been taken to allocate nearly Tk 4700 crore for the development of rural infrastructure.

Replying to a question raised by Lutfor Rahman of Cox's Bazar -3, she said the local government engineering department will undertake a project at a cost of Tk 4,691 crore aimed at developing roads, culverts and other infrastructures in rural areas across the country.

Moinul Hoque Chowdhury: (bdnews24.com) – Nearly 50,000 new voter applications have been rejected in three southeastern districts with large Rohingya populations, for identity fraud, during the updating of voter rolls.

The applications were rejected by a special scrutiny committee formed to re-examine the voter registration forms following the Election Commission's suspicions that thousands of illegal Rohingya immigrants from neighbouring Myanmar were trying to secure voting rights in Bangladesh.