The average life expectancy in Bangladesh dropped by six months to 72.3 years in 2021, from 72.8 in 2020, Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) shared today. According to the BBS, life expectancy for males was 70.6 years, down from 71.2 in 2020. For females, it was 74.1 years in 2021, down from 74.5 years in 2020. This means women live an average of 3.5 years longer than men. The BBS officially released the result of Bangladesh Sample Vital Statistics 2021 at a function held at its auditorium in Dhaka’s Agargaon. Planning Minister MA Mannan was the chief guest at the function. Statistics and Information Management Department Secretary Shahnaz Arefin spoke at the function while BBS Director General Motiar Rahman presided over the event. Project Director Alamgir Hossain presented the results of the report on Bangladesh Sample Vital Statistics Survey. He said the decrease in average life expectancy is quite insignificant. He commented that this might have happened due to the Covid-19 pandemic. According to the survey, the estimate for 2021, the population of the country is 16.17 crore. Out of this, 8.14 crore are male and 8.13 crore 13 are female. The annual population growth rate is 1.37 percent as before.

Chairman of Insurance Development and Regulatory Authority (IDRA) Mohammad Zainul Bari on Monday said around 30 percent of life insurance customers are not getting their claims. He said this while speaking at a press conference on the occasion of National Insurance Day-2023 on March 1. Other members of the IDRA were also present at the press conference. In a written speech Zainul Bari said that in 2022, the gross premiums of the insurance sector stood at Tk 16812 crores. Out of this, the gross premiums of life insurance is Tk 11399 crore and non-life is Tk 5413 crore. During the crisis period, the insurance sector provided greater liquidity to the banking sector of the country. Besides, Tk1305 crores of VAT and taxes have been deposited in the treasury of the government on premiums earned by life and non-life insurance companies during 2022. He said that IDRA is moving forward with a specific plan to achieve the goal of a developed, prosperous, smart Bangladesh by 2041 through the development of the insurance industry. For the development of the insurance sector, the work of the Bangladesh Insurance Development Project has been started with a total cost of Tk 632 crore, including government funding of Tk 118.50 crore and World Bank Tk 513.50 crore. The project has been extended till December 31, 2023. Read more: Meghna Life Insurance premium now through Nagad Referring to different problems in the insurance sector, he said, the main problem of insurance is a lack of awareness and lack of literacy. “We failed to highlight the importance of insurance in front of people. Could not adopt product selection, and policy in keeping with the time. Besides, we have failed to pay insurance claims in time,” he added. Around 30 percent of life insurance claims are not paid. Due to these reasons, people are disappointed and mistrusted with insurance. That leaves people wondering how else to get compensation without insurance. “We have identified these issues, which will be resolved gradually through the development of the insurance sector,” he pointed out. Through this project, the IDRA, Bangladesh Insurance Academy, General Insurance Corporation, and Life Insurance Corporation will be further enhanced in professionalism and technical capacity, IDRA Chairman said.

A Sirajganj court sentenced two people to life term imprisonment for killing an orally challenged girl in Belkuchi upazila in the district in 2017. It also fined the convicts Tk 20,000 each, in default of which they will have to serve one more year in jail. Judge of Sirajganj district and session judge court Fazle Khoda Md Nazir delivered the verdict in presence of the accused. The convicts were identified as Saddam Hossain, 33, paternal uncle of the victim, and Akbar Hossain, a former Union Parishad member and cohort of Saddam. They were residents of Bera Kharua village in the upazila. Advocate Gazi Abdur Rahman, public prosecutor (PP) of the court, said that convict Saddam planned to kill his 11-year-old niece Chaina Khatun, the mute daughter of his elder brother Jahirul Promanik, to pass on the blame centring a land dispute onto his paternal cousins. Accordingly, Saddam in collaboration with Akbar Ali strangled the girl to death and dumped the body in a pond on December 25, 2017. Read: Magura court orders PBI probe into transport worker’s death, FIR against 5 cops According to the case statement, the victim’s father, who was not aware of the plot hatched by his younger brother prior to its implementation, lodged a case naming his paternal cousins with the police station the following day. Police arrested the duo and submitted a charge sheet against them before the court in connection with the murder, based on which after all due process, a verdict was reached followed by the sentencing today.       

A court in Khulna on Friday sentenced a man in absentia to life in jail for raping a minor domestic help on the pretext of marriage and killing her in 2010. Women and Children Repression Prevention Tribunal-3 Judge Mahmuda Khatun handed down the punishment to Sheikh Khurshid Alam alias Rubel after holding him guilty of the crimes. The judge also imposed a fine of Tk 80,000 on the convict. According to the prosecution, the minor girl started working as a domestic help in the house of Abdul Kuddus in the Arambagh area of Sonadanga upazila. READ: Covid-19: Khulna shops and malls to shut by 8pm  Abdul’s son Rubel established sexual intimacy with the minor promising to marry her later. When the girl got pregnant, Rubel made her abort the baby with help of his sister-in-law, the court was told.  Following the abortion, the girl started putting pressure on Rubel to marry her. To get rid of her, Rubel set her on fire on June 16, 2010, following an argument and then left the house. Hearing her screams, neighbours rushed her to Khulna Medical College and Hospital where she succumbed to her injuries during treatment. However, the girl managed to give a dying declaration that was used by the police to implicate Rubel in the case, Tipu Lal Dash, sub-inspector at Sonadanga police station, told UNB. READ: UNB's Khulna correspondent rewarded for performance On October 4, 2010, the police submitted a chargesheet in the court against four people in the case, including Rubel. The court, however, acquitted the other three accused in the case for lack of evidence.

Life expectancy for Australians has increased to a record high during the COVID-19 pandemic. In a study published on Monday, researchers from Australian National University (ANU) found that life expectancy for both Australian males and females increased by 0.7 years between 2019 and the first year of the coronavirus pandemic in 2020. The increase far outstripped the average growth of between 0.09 and 0.14 years recorded in Australia between 2015 and 2019, according to the Canberra Times. By comparison, life expectancy in the United States fell by 1.7 years for women and 2.2 years for men in 2020. Read: US life expectancy in 2020 saw biggest drop since WWII Vladimir Canudas-Romo, co-author of the study from ANU's School of Demography, said the significant difference could be attributed to Australia's quick response to the pandemic. "Australia was in a unique position to be able to close borders to the rest of the world. Now with the strong compliance on vaccinations, we are likely to be one of the safest places in the world," he was quoted by the Canberra Times. The ANU researchers found that COVID-19 containment measures introduced in 2020 caused a "sharp decline in the spread of other infectious diseases," with deaths from pneumonia and influenza falling 20 percent. A sharp decline in social mobility due to lockdowns and travel restrictions also caused a significant decline in the number of road deaths. Read: Chinese elderly getting 'younger' as life expectancy increases "Coronavirus was among the few causes of death that really increased from 2019 to 2020 ... in the case of the United States there was an extreme case of COVID strongly declining life expectancy," Canudas-Romo said. "In Australia even when mortality increased due to COVID, we still had so much decline in infectious diseases, accidents, heart attacks and strokes, that our life expectancy increased by three-quarters of a year," he said.