Pinaki Roy

The government is taking steps to increase food grain stock and help farmers get fair prices for their produce amid the coronavirus outbreak.

Amid allegations over theft of rice meant for poor, the government has postponed the open market sale (OMS) and taken an initiative to issue cards for lower-income people across the country to sell them rice at Tk 10.

The Forest Department is in fear of permanently losing around 16,000 acres of Sal forest in Mymensingh’s Bhaluka upazila as the land ministry recorded it as khas and private land.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has approved a masterplan to free all major rivers in and around Dhaka and Chattogram cities from encroachment and pollution by 2030.

The rotten stench emanating from the polluted Buriganga water hits the nostrils even before reaching the river’s bank.

The water was once so clear that you could see to the bottom. Locals used to drink water from the canal and also bathed in it. Now what one would find there is black liquid flowing down the river. It smells so bad that it is hard to stand beside it, said Tara Mia, an elderly man from Barabari village.

For last two years the authorities of Tannery Industrial Estate are polluting the Dhaleshwari river dumping liquid waste as their effluent treatment plant is not ready yet, now they are also polluting air by burning leather wastes in the bank of the Dhaleshwari.

After 34 years, the Joint Rivers Commission of Bangladesh and India will tomorrow update data on six common rivers and discuss a framework on sharing the waters of those.

The hazy skies of Dhaka city in the beginning of winter may seem like harbingers of the cold season. But what appears to be only mist or fog, is actually smog and dust.

A 250-bed hospital in Dhanmondi produces about 4,000 litres of liquid waste a day. The liquid is treated to ensure that it doesn’t spread infection when disposed of.

Many healthcare facilities across the capital have been breaching their legal obligations on safe disposal of medical waste, but a decade-old system is failing to hold them accountable.

He is an apparent big shot in the black market of medical recyclables. Probably in his late thirties, the man keeps close supervision over his business and is careful to leave no footprints behind.

A worker hacks away at a pipe-like object at a small scrap shop in Old Dhaka’s Islambagh. The sound of his hammer crashing against the pipe is instantly followed by bits of plastic flying off in all directions. Flecks of yellow and red tint the air.

A new research shows coastal flooding will hit nearly 42 million people in Bangladesh by 2050, meaning that the situation is likely to be worse than what was feared earlier.

It is called “body contract”, under which you do not need to pay a dime before reaching your destination. But as soon as you are there, your family members have to make the payment.

The government had announced a 20 percent incentive on rice export and a Tk 3,000 crore subsidy for farmers to buy agro tools. It had also doubled duties on rice import and nearly tripled its paddy procurement from farmers.

Gani Mia is a farmer with no land of his own. He grows paddy, jute and other crops in others’ fields. His story, though fictitious, is in school textbooks and etched in the minds of many. It stands true for a large number of the country’s farmers, especially the marginal ones.

The required level of moisture content set by the authorities has become another big headache for Boro growers hit by falling prices, as it makes most of them ineligible to sell their produce to the government.

Two government lists of farmers as Boro paddy suppliers are not what they look like. Many of them are anything but farmers. They include shopkeepers, a contractor and even a former city councillor engaged in a profession other than paddy cultivation.

A little over a week is left before the Eid-ul-Fitr but that can hardly excite the paddy growers in Naogaon as they remain preoccupied with falling prices and debts.