- Bangladesh has become the first country to release seeds of the Zinc rich rice variety known as - "BRI-62"
- BRI-62 is world's first zinc enriched rice variety capable of fighting diarrhea and pneumonia-induced childhood deaths and stunted growth.
- Bangladesh Rice Institute (BRI) invented it.
- Bangladesh's biggest right-wing party Jamaat-e-Islami was banned from contesting future polls by a court which cancelled its registration in a landmark ruling, leaving the once-most powerful fundamentalist party with an uncertain future.
- In the petition, they said Jamaat-e-Islami was a religion-based political party and it did not believe in independence and sovereignty of Bangladesh.
- The verdict comes at a time when the demand for outlawing the party, blamed for war crimes during the 1971 liberation war against Pakistan, was mounting.
- Several top Jamaat leaders, including its 91-year-old supremo Ghulam Azam, were recently sentenced either to death or to long jail terms for masterminding atrocities during the war.
