A cycle rally was held in the capital to mark World Blood Donor Day. Life Cycle BD organised the rally on Friday morning, led by the Dhaka metropolitan north chief of Jamaat-e-Islami and Dhaka North City Corporation mayoral candidate Mohammad Selim Uddin.
Starting from Manik Mia Avenue on the south side of the National Parliament Building, the rally passed through the Farmgate, Karwan Bazar, Hatirjheel and Madhubag areas before returning to Manik Mia Avenue. Several thousand people took part.
In his welcome address before the rally, Mohammad Selim Uddin said this year’s budget did not reflect the public aspirations of July; rather, it was a budget of the old order. He alleged that the government had opened the way to give benefits to loan defaulters.
He further said the budget had kept provisions for whitening black money and had given benefits to defaulting borrowers, which did not help build young people into entrepreneurs.
Selim Uddin claimed that the allocation shown for the education sector included the cost of the Rooppur nuclear plant and various administrative expenses. Once these were excluded, he said, the actual allocation for the education sector would fall below 1.5 percent of GDP.
He called on young people to speak out against injustice and said Jamaat-e-Islami was working to build a healthy and liveable Dhaka.
Addressing the blood donors, he said a single bag of blood could save a person’s life. Donating blood was an act of worship as well as a service to humanity, he said.
He further said the country’s hospitals lacked adequate facilities for modern blood storage. To solve this problem, an initiative would be taken to build a digital blood donor network.
Also present at the event were Life Cycle BD director Tawhidul Islam Riyaz, adviser Mahfuzur Rahman, Dr. Fakharuddin Manik, Iyasin Arafat, Hemayet Hossen and assistant director Abdul Motaleb.
বাংলায় মূল প্রতিবেদন পড়ুন · Read the original Bengali report