Mintu Deshwara

Amidst heightened health consciousness for the pandemic, lemon prices are skyrocketing in its present off season, benefitting a huge number of farmers in Sylhet division, especially those in Moulvibazar’s Sreemangal upazila.

Since her husband Abrahm Soreng died two years ago, 70-year-old Veronica Kerketa doesn’t get the chance to talk in her mother tongue at home. None of her children or grandchildren speak the Kharia language.

The deadline for rehabilitation work of Kulaura-Shahbazpur railway track in Moulvibazar has expired again but only 30 percent of work has been completed.

Tourism in Sreemangal upazila of Moulvibazar has started to bounce back after suffering massive losses from the coronavirus pandemic that has affected almost all sectors of the economy.

With winter coming to an end, farmers have begun to harvest their tea trees. As a result, long rows of leafless shrubs can be seen from a distance at the country’s 167 tea gardens.

A brick kiln is being operated in a residential area and adjacent to a primary school, posing serious health hazards to students and people in Jalalia under Kamalganj upazila of Moulvibazar.

Although tea is an extremely popular beverage in Bangladesh, very few people in the country know about its various flavours.

Someone was sweeping. Someone was picking up garbage. Someone was burning the waste at a certain place.

The traditional perfume industry of Moulvibazar has come to a standstill due to the Covid-19’s fallouts. With almost zero sales, a number of major perfume factories in Sujanagar of Barlekha have had to limit their activities.

Poaching of wildlife is alarmingly on the rise in Lawachhara National Park under Moulvibazar’s Kamalganj upazila.

Bangladesh Environmental Lawyers Association (BELA) recently served legal notices on 20 different officials of the government, urging them to save the environment by putting a stop to illegal extraction of sand in four upazilas of Habiganj.

Indigenous people of Ishachhara punjee(village) in Moulvibazar’s Kulaura upazila have started guarding their betel leaf gardens (paan jum) in a bid to resist any attempt to evict their families and grab their land.

At least four dead workers have apparently collected grant money awarded to 400 hundred tea workers at Sreebari Tea Garden in Chunarughat upazila of Habiganj.

Illegal selling of birds are going on unabated on Dhaka-Sylhet highway in Habiganj.

Habiganj town’s one of the largest government-owned ponds -- on nearly 200 decimals of land -- is right across the office of Water Development Board (WDB).

Meant to be used for a public library, the building in Notun Bazar area of Tahirpur upazila town in Sunamganj is being used for everything else but a library since its construction was completed 33 years ago.

Construction of the trauma centre in Habiganj’s Bahubal upazila was completed in 2013 but it is yet to be opened due to lack of electricity and gas connections.

A church was ransacked and at least one person sustained injury during an attack on Ichhachhara Khasi village in Kulaura upazila on Monday night -- several hours after the upazila administration in a raid evicted illegal occupants from a betel leaf garden belonging to an indigenous family at Katabari Paan Jum.

Several thousand farmers are finally cultivating Aman rice again on about 400 hectares of land, in Kawadighi Haor of Moulvibazar Sadar and Rajnagar upazilas, which otherwise had been under water for about twenty years.

Allegations are surfacing about a rice dealer who is giving short weight to recipients of an affordable rice distribution programme of the government in Moulvibazar’s Baralekha upazila.