Save rivers, save Dhaka!
It seems the massive awareness creating campaign launched jointly by The Daily Star and the Channel i to save the rivers around Dhaka and adjoining areas has started yielding a positive result. The government agencies have started drives to clean the rivers and riverbanks.
Our heartiest congratulations to The Daily Star and Channel i and the environment conscious 'Janata' who took this bold initiative.
I wish you a total success.
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I have been following your special reports on, and photographic expositions of, the encroachment of Buriganga and other rivers surrounding Dhaka . The possible remedies suggested (May 1 issue) seem practical and appropriate. However, in my view, one important point is missing here the population boom. This is one of the root causes of many of the problems we are facing today because an increase in the number of population means a simultaneous increase in the demands of all the basic human needs.
An increased demand, in turn, means that you will have to produce more hence we need more houses, more vehicles, more roads, more foods, more clothes, more industries and the list goes on. Therefore, I think, the growth of population at an alarming rate is one of the major problems for all the ills in our society, including environmental degradation.
In the last 38 years since independence, the country's population has doubled. In the next 12 15 years the existing number will be doubled again causing enormous pressure on land and other basic needs. We have already gobbled up all the marshlands around the Dhaka city, and we have all forgotten about them. I am quite sure once we finish grabbing all the rivers, we will forget them as well. There is no end to our appetite for land! But I wonder where we shall turn to when we will have eaten up all the rivers!
The authorities must pay due attention to the root cause of the problem.
Rafiq Ahmed , Dhanmondi, Dhaka
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I would like to extend my sincere thanks for your publishing the special issues on "Dhaka Rivers" . I also thank the Channel i authorities for participation in the initiative. It is a timely campaign for saving the rivers.
Your initiative to awaken the government, the authorities and conscious citizens of Bangladesh is really a powerful instrument. The journalists are the "conscience of the nation". So, they have to play a positive role in all noble missions.
I, with many other citizens, do agree that there will be a civil unrest or similar disturbance in our society over the drinking water crisis, and those days are not far away.
I am more than sure that if we want to form a human chain during any weekend on the “Save rivers, save Dhaka programme” in my locality , thousands of citizens will participate in it.
M. Mahabub Alam, Baridhara, Gulshan, Dhaka
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