The nation welcomed New Year 2018 with jubilant celebrations and good wishes for family, friends, colleagues and fresh resolutions for the wellbeing of society and the country. The capital city Dhaka started buzzing with cracking sounds of fireworks few minutes before midnight that continued for more than an hour with random intervals. Like countries across the world, the celebration here began last night as the clock stroke 12 midnight.
Similarly, people of all ages in different cities including Chittagong, Rajshahi, Khulna, Sylhet, Barisal and Rangpur welcomed the New Year with jubilant celebrations.
On this special occasion, people conveyed their best wishes to their friends and beloved ones through greeting cards and using different messaging applications and social media platforms. Corporate and government officials and various organisations also did the same thing as they do every year to greet their nearest ones.
Samoa was the first country to welcome 2018 with celebrations including fireworks, dancing and juggling. The South Pacific island state has been the first to see the New Year since 2011 when it moved from the eastern side of the international date line to the west side.
New Zealand followed Samoa with hundreds of people gathered in Auckland city centre to participate in the country's prime attraction of New Year celebrations.
The year 2017 was a significant year for Bangladesh as the country saw many successes in major areas including politics, economy, agriculture, combating terrorism and driving the IT sectors towards attaining the middle-income status.
Alongside many achievements and global recognition, the country passed an absolute peaceful year in the political landscape in 2017. The peaceful political situation allowed the country's economy to grow faster.
The day was also a moment of looking back to the outgoing year for reviewing the successes and failures and planning strategies to reach new goals for the New Year, with accomplishing the unfinished tasks those need to be done in the coming days.
In separate messages, President Abdul Hamid and Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina greeted the countrymen on the occasion of New Year 2018.
In both global and Bangladesh perspectives, Rohingya issue drew international attention as security forces of Myanmar launched the crackdown against the Rohingya people, who were eventually forced to cross the border into Bangladesh.


For ensuring security during New Year Celebration, Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP) enforced multi-tiered security measures, including banning holding of programmes at open spaces.
Police personnel in uniform or plainclothes were deployed and members of Counter-Terrorism and Transnational Crime Unit, SWAT (Special Weapons and Tactics) and bomb disposal team discharged duties at different city points to ensure safety.
Newspapers published special supplements on New Year and radio stations and television channels broadcasted special programme.

Source: BSS