After a long Covid-induced hiatus, leading cultural organisation Chhayanaut will welcome back live audiences to its Dhanmondi auditorium with its traditional music festival on Thursday. The two-day festival -- Shuddhasangeet Utsab 1428 -- will be held at the auditorium of Chhayanaut Sangskriti Bhaban in the capital's Dhanmondi area. This year's festival has been dedicated to Chhayanaut Sangeet Bidyayatan teachers, Madan Gopal Das and Satindranath Halder. Read: Chhayanaut pays tribute to Rabindra Sangeet legend Mita Haque The festival is set to welcome the listeners at 4.30 pm on Thursday. Noted music maestroes and singers, including Khairul Anam Shakil, Rezoan Ali, Shekhar Mandal and Abhijit Kundu, will perform at the festival on Thursday till 10.30 pm. On Friday, the first session of the concluding day's programme will begin at 9 am and continue till 12 pm, which will feature the performances of Alauddin Miah, Bijan Chandra Mistry and more. The second and concluding session will be held from 4.30 pm till 10.30 pm, featuring Asit Dey, Arpita Chakrabarti and others. Read: Chhayanaut cancels Pahela Baishakh festivities at Ramna, goes back to virtual celebration with BTV Chhayanaut restricted its all in-house live events back in early 2020 when Covid-19 first hit Bangladesh. It has been broadcasting different cultural programmes on its Facebook group and YouTube channel since then.

After a long Covid-induced hiatus, India will resume regular international flights from the middle of December. This was announced by India's Civil Aviation Ministry on Friday. "The matter of resumption of scheduled commercial international passenger services, to and from India, has been examined in consultation with the Ministry of Home Affairs, the Ministry of External Affairs and the Ministry of Health, and it has been decided... may be resumed from December 15," the Ministry said in an order. Read:EU wants to stop flights from southern Africa over variant The Indian government put curbs on all domestic and international flights in March last year in the wake of the Covid-induced lockdown. Though it allowed domestic flights from May 2020, restrictions prevailed on international flights till it allowed the entry of all foreigners except tourists in October that year. However, restrictions on regular international flights to and from 14 countries, including the UK, France, Germany, China, Botswana and South Africa, will continue, government sources told UNB. Read:South African scientists detect new virus variant amid spike The Indian Civil Aviation Ministry's decision to resume scheduled international flights comes amid fears over a new variant of the coronavirus -- the B.1.1.529 strain -- that has spread to Botswana, Israel and Hong Kong since its detection in South Africa. "All passengers coming to India will need to have downloaded a government contact-tracing app, and they will also be subject to thermal screening. Also, flyers will also need to wear masks and gloves while inside airports," the sources said.