Superhero blockbuster “Avengers: Endgame” was the top winner at the MTV Movie and TV awards on Monday in a show marked by messages of empowerment and self-esteem.

The Marvel movie, the second biggest box office hit of all time, took wins for best movie, villain (Josh Brolin’s Thanos) and hero (Robert Downey Jr’s Iron Man.)

But US Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the diminutive, 86-year-old liberal judge, was voted best real-life hero, cementing her status as an unexpected pop culture icon, especially among women. She did not attend the MTV ceremony in the California beach city of Santa Monica.

The MTV Movie and TV awards usually focus on crowd-pleasers and are an irreverent antidote to the more serious winter Hollywood awards season. Winners get popcorn shaped trophies and are chosen by fans voting online.

But while medieval fantasy “Game of Thrones” was named best TV show on Monday, other awards went to darker fare.

“Surviving R. Kelly,” in which seven women spoke on camera about what they said was years of sexual and emotional abuse by the “I Believe I Can Fly” singer, won best documentary.

The Lifetime network documentary led to Kelly being dropped by his record company and to criminal charges in Chicago of aggravated sexual assault involving four women, three of them minors. Kelly has pleaded not guilty and is awaiting trial.

“Survivors walked through the fire and then stood again to tell this story,” Brie Miranda Bryant, an executive with Lifetime, said in an acceptance speech.

Elisabeth Moss, star of “The Handmaid’s Tale,” took the award for best performance in a TV show, a category that was entirely made up of women. The bleak drama series portrays a near future in which women are stripped of all their rights, including working and reading.

Brie Larson’s “Captain Marvel” triumphed in the best fight category, while MTV’s popular best kiss award went to newcomers Noah Centineo and Lana Condor from the Asian-led teen movie “To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before.”

“Love who you want to love, and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise,” Condor, 22, told the audience.

Actor, producer and wrestler Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson was given the Generation award for a career that encompasses more than 30 film and TV shows, including the “Fast and Furious” movie franchise.

Johnson told the audience that when he first came to Hollywood some 15 years ago, the entertainment industry didn’t know how to handle a 6-foot-4-inch, muscled, half black, half Samoan man, “so I decided I wasn’t going to conform to Hollywood, Hollywood was going to conform to me”.

Breakout singer Lizzo gave her first awards show performance with her hit single “Juice,” an anthem to self-esteem.

“Girls Trip” actress Jada Pinkett-Smith was given the annual Trailblazer award for a career that includes author, fashion designer, women’s rights activist and funder of youth programmes.

The group that hands out the Oscars said on Monday it had invited 842 new members from 59 countries including Lady Gaga, Sterling K Brown and Letitia Wright as the organisation strives to further diversify its ranks. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences said half of the new invitees were women and 29% were people of color. If all accept, it will bring total membership to more than 9,000 – 32% of them female and 16% of them people of color.

Other invitees include Adele, Claire Foy, Tom Holland and Elisabeth Moss.

In 2016, the academy launched a campaign to diversify its membership after criticism that its largely white, male and older roster of film industry professionals was a barrier to racial and gender equality among Oscar winners and nominees.

The next Academy Awards ceremony is scheduled for Feb 9.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has alleged the BNP’s ‘nomination trade’ during the 2018 parliamentary elections has pushed up Bangladeshis’ deposits in the Swiss banks.

Hasina made the allegation in response to comments by BNP MP Rumeen Farhana who brought the issue of money laundering to the Swiss banks during the general discussion on the budget in parliament on Saturday.

Bangladeshis’ deposits in Swiss banks increased by 28.33 percent year-on-year in 2018 to Tk 53.43 billion, according to the Swiss National Bank  or SNB.

“In the 2018 election, 692 people got nominations against 300 seats. [The BNP] had nominated more than two to three for each seat. Where did they keep the fund gained from the nomination trade?” asked the prime minister.

“The answer to this question will also lead to the answer to your question on Swiss bank deposits,” she added.

The Moscow-Washington ties have long been strained by US intelligence and law enforcement findings – denied by the Kremlin

Russian President Vladimir Putin said he had “sympathized” with Donald Trump before the 2016 presidential election that swept Trump to power because of his desire to restore normal relations with Russia.

In an interview with US filmmaker Oliver Stone dated June 19 and published on the Kremlin web site on Friday, Putin also said that any alleged Russian hackers were still not able to influence the vote’s outcome.

The Russian president reiterated that he had not and would not interfere in US elections.

The Moscow-Washington ties have long been strained by US intelligence and law enforcement findings – denied by the Kremlin – that Russia tried to influence the results of the 2016 US presidential election to boost Trump’s chances of winning the White House.

US intelligence and law enforcement agencies say Russia used disinformation and other tactics to support Trump’s 2016 campaign. Putin has denied it.

“And whichever our bloggers – I don’t know who works there in the Internet – had expressed their point of view on the situation in the USA in this or that way, this had not been able to play a decisive role. This is nonsense,” Putin said.

“But we had sympathized with Trump, because he said that he wanted to restore normal relations with Russia. What’s bad in this? And of course, we couldn’t unwelcome such a position.”

Probashi Kalyan Bank (a specialised Banking for the welfare of expatriate Bangladesh) is likely to commence soon its onward journey fulfilling the long felt demand of our expatriate foreign exchange earners scattered all across the globe and an election pledge of the incumbent government. It is said that it is better late than never. So hopefully a long felt demand is going to be materialized which should have been done long before.

The creation of this specialized Bank will primarily serve two crucial purposes simultaneously (a) creating an opportunity for loan for those who aspire to go abroad on getting employed and (b) remitting money to their beneficiaries at home hasslefree. The bank will also do motivational work on the beneficiaries so that they do not use the hard-earned money in unproductive spending. Bangladeshi expatriates working abroad remitted taka Seventy thousand nine hundred eighty-one crore in 2009, of which 66 per cent is being sent by low wage earners living abroad, Remittance of expatriates builds up 10 billion US dollar foreign exchange reserve in the central Bank. This has been created with sweated labour of Bangladeshis.

Recurrent hartals, now-a-days 5 days in a week very recently plunges the country’s economy into a state of dehydrated patient of extreme hopelessness, Electronic & Print Media pictures show labourers sit and wait for contractors to hire them almost every nook & corner of this country but go back with utter frustration. Rickshaw drivers who belong to lowest strata of economic segment of the society go back home without the call of a passenger to ride. These people go hungry because they earn their bread & butter on daily basis. Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers & Exporters Association (BGMEA) asks the feuding political leaderships to save RMG from imminent danger. And also to save 80 lakh RMG workers, mostly women from extinction. The question “if the country does not exit where these self-seeking so-called political leaders or in other vulgar word “Touts” will do their nasty political games?” The GDP is going down day after day. Now below 6%. Then how the economy will survive amid such boisterous political imbroglio?

Emergency Services including healthcare faces a shattering blow. Doctors onduty stay at home for safety reasons. Patients die at home rather than to go to hospitals because wanton vandalism perpetrated on several occasions.

Both the party in power and the opposition play blame games at the cost of human suffering. Recently Islamist Fundamentalists have made an ever big showdown in a bid to capture state power taking advantages of a political chaous. People believe in democracy and transparency of power transfer, So no sudden jerk will work here. K_vq e‡j ÔÔ†m ¸‡o evwj|ÕÕ Jamaat backing Islamist Fundamentalists to get the war criminals set free. So let us to wait & see.

Wishing a very happy Bangla New Year 1420

Toufiq M Seraj, the managing director of real estate firm Sheltech, has died at the age of 63.

He passed away in Qatar’s Doha en route to Spain for a business engagement in the early hours of Friday, a Sheltech official told bdnews24.com.

“The MD was travelling to Spain on business along with Sheltech Chairman Kutubuddin Ahmed. He suffered a heart attack while on board the flight. The plane subsequently landed in Qatar’s Doha where he passed away.”

Toufiq’s mortal remains are still in Doha but the process to bring the body back to Dhaka by Sunday is already under way, said the official.

Engineer Toufiq was the first president of the real estate trade body Real Estate and Housing Association Bangladesh (REHAB) and served three terms in the post.

Born on Jul 1, 1956 in Pabna, he graduated as an engineer from Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology in 1979 before completing his post-graduation in urban and regional planning from the same university in 1982. He subsequently obtained a PhD from Liverpool University in the UK.

He joined BUET as an academic in 1987 but later turned all his attention to business after forming Sheltech Company Limited.

Morshed Alam, a member of parliament, has been elected chairman of Mercantile Bank Limited.

He was elevated to the post at a meeting of its board of directors, the bank said in a statement on Thursday. 

He is the sponsor director of the bank and the founder chairman of Bengal Group of Industries. He is also chairman of private satellite channel RTV and the member of trustee board of Peoples University of Bangladesh.

Alam won the 10th and 11th parliamentary elections from Noakhali-2 (Senbagh Sonaimuri) constituency.

Prices of garment items exported from Bangladesh dipped by 1.61 percent over the last four years, a reflection of the pressure international clothing retailers and brands always put on the garment manufacturers for lowering prices.

If the period between fiscal 2015-16 and 2018-19 are taken into consideration, price per unit of garment items increased only last year by 1.42 percent, according to data from Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA).

Per unit prices fell 2.12 percent in fiscal 2016-17 compared to the previous year and it experienced another fall of 4.07 percent in fiscal 2017-18.

In fiscal 2018-19, Bangladesh exported 2,430.12 million kilogrammes (kgs) of garment items, registering a 10.43 percent year-on-year growth, states data of the National Board of Revenue (NBR) compiled by the BGMEA.

In fiscal 2017-18, Bangladesh exported 2,200.51 million kgs of apparel, registering a 12.41 percent year-on-year growth, the data said, adding that in fiscal 2016-17 some 1,957.53 million kgs of garment items were shipped from the country.

In terms of value, Bangladesh—the second largest garment exporter after China—received $34.13 billion from apparel shipments in the immediate past fiscal year, posting an 11.49 percent year-on-year growth.

“Bangladeshi garment exporters have been receiving some of the lowest prices in the world, whereas we have been spending millions of US dollars for strengthening workplace safety and for better compliance,” said Sharif Zahir, managing director of Ananta Group.

“Although the cost of production has been increasing every year, the retailers and brands are not increasing the prices for per unit of garment items they purchase from Bangladesh,” he said.

Moreover, there are some faults in the whole supply chain of the garment business, said the chief of the garment group, which exported over $300 million worth of goods last year.

For instance, a pair of denim jeans purchased at $6 from a factory here is sold for $30 to $35 in stores in the western world, said Zahir.

“We need to improve the efficiency level of workers and mid-level management. We need to improve the negotiation skills with the buyers,” he said, adding that the buyers should also come forward to cooperate in making better price offerings. Bangladesh’s garment manufacturers and exporters have not been getting proper prices as they do not deal with buyers directly, industry insiders said.

Most of the businesses are dealt through third party vendors, which take away a major portion of the profit from the supply chain, they add.

So the profit is shared in many layers in the whole supply chain and finally the downward pressure falls on the garment manufacturers due to their poor negotiation skills, they said.

In recent years, the garment manufacturers have spent big amounts of money to strengthen workplace safety and ensure better compliance as per the recommendations of foreign inspection agencies, including Accord and Alliance.

However, the retailers and brands which sponsored Accord and Alliance did not recommend increasing the price level of per unit garment item, some factory owners said.

So far, some 2,000 garment factories have spent $5 lakh on an average each for factory remediation as per the recommendations of the Accord and Alliance, said Rubana Huq, president of the BGMEA.

However, prices were not increased and in some cases even the prices have been lowered, she said.

Many owners have even been running their units accepting prices lower than production costs hoping to just stay afloat and pay the workers as they cannot make profit, she said on different occasions over the last few months.

Amidst constant pressure from the buyers to lower price, some 30 factories have been shut down in the last two months, Huq told The Daily Star over WhatsApp.

“Some 1,209 factories closed down in six years. We are making huge losses. Prices are dipping. Products are not improving,” she said. “Value addition literally insignificant. Has remediation given us nothing except businesses to remain here? Is continuity of business more important than sustainability?” she asked.

“Business model is set by individual businesses. But a common thread should be doing business with an ethical angle,” she added. 

Mostafa Golam Quddus has recently been re-elected chairman of Rupali Insurance Company.

The election took place at a 187th meeting of the board of directors, says a press release.

Quddus is chairman of Dragon Group, a sweater producing company. He was a former president of the Bangladesh Garments Manufacturers and Exporters Association.