Pinaki Roy

For yet another year, the city's leather industry hub in Hazaribagh continues to face serious environmental pollution and health hazards for the people living in and around the area, thanks to the delay in relocating the tanneries to Savar.

The government has not yet completed the construction work of the Central Effluent Treatment Plant (CETP) at Savar although Hazaribagh tanners are under constant pressure to relocate their businesses there.

The site of Modhumoti Model Town project, which has been declared illegal by the top court, has been expanded by filling an adjacent lake and the lowland along the Dhaka-Savar road. During a recent visit there, this correspondent found the lake almost filled. At least 30 trucks were dumping soil into the water body.

Bangladesh has acquired a several thousand square kilometres of new land over the last four decades, owing largely to deltas forming on major rivers and in the coastal areas.

Yet another deadline has gone by, but not a single tannery has been relocated from the capital's Hazaribagh to the Savar Tannery Industrial Estate. In fact, the government itself has not been able to fully install the Central Effluent Treatment Plant (CETP). Proper treatment of toxic waste discharged by the tanneries was described as a key objective of the whole relocation move.

Although the government has set March 1 as the new deadline for moving the tanneries to Savar, not a single factory building there is ready for relocation by the time. The central effluent treatment plant (CETP), the most essential component of the project, is not ready either. Hardly 50 percent work of the plant has been completed.

The government is not paying adequate attention to the health hazards caused by arsenic contamination even though millions of people are exposed to it, says Professor Abul Hussam, a US researcher of Bangladesh origin.

The quality of air in the capital is extremely unhealthy. The presence of pollutant particles in its air even on a normal day is more than six times the healthy limit. If this sounds scary, then you should know that the air in its neighbouring cities Gazipur and Narayanganj is even worse, according to the Department of Environment (DoE).

It's a hospital with 31 beds but most of them remain empty all year round. Its only X-ray machine doesn't work. There's no radiologist or pathologist at the hospital to conduct any diagnosis test.

"Borshakale nao ar shuknakale pao" is a popular saying among the people living in the haor regions. It means "boats during the

A growing number of seizure of wild animals and birds over the last five years shows that poachers and smugglers are using Bangladesh as a route for wildlife trafficking. The Department of Forest (DoF) and law enforcement agencies recovered 21,506 live wild birds and animals, including tiger and bear cubs, during the period.

For the first time in the country, rain-triggered landslides could successfully be forecast using advanced devices, which saved scores of lives in two hill districts this monsoon.

Bangladeshi river experts and environmentalists expressed concern over India's fresh move to implement the controversial river linking project that will connect trans-boundary rivers and divert water to southern Indian states.

Ten-year-olds are made to clean their school toilets by the teachers, the elders in their families cannot get a cup of tea at a local tea

It takes about three hours to cross the Padma river by ferry. So, Rezaul Karim, a private jobholder, was happy to hear the finance

It's summer; time for luscious fruits. Take a stroll through any village in the country, especially in the northern districts, and you won't miss those thick, dense bunches of green mangoes and red litchis hanging from the trees. They bring waters in your mouth as much as they bring smiles on the faces of the farmers who grow them.

What is five times hotter than the surface of the sun and is capable of killing a person in a split second? It's lightning.

Hilsa's capacity to spawn in Bangladesh rivers has decreased significantly over the past few years, meaning we will get to have less of this mouthwatering fish in the coming years if the trend continues.

To us Bangalees, hilsa isn't just a fish. It's an integral part of our culture and heritage. Be it fried or cooked with mustard, hilsa is a must in Pahela Baishakh celebrations.

Around 72 Khasi families of the Jhimai Punjee in Moulvibazar's Kulaura upazila are living in fear of eviction from the land they have been living on for years following the Jhimai Tea Garden authorities' move to set up demarcation pillars with the help of upazila administration.