<p>Order of the National Green Tribunal (Eastern Zone Bench, Kolkata) in the matter of In Re: Sinking Ba’deshi vessel dumps toxic fly ash in river near Ghoramara, shows video shared by panchayat
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon began talks yesterday with key development agencies on how to tackle the crisis provoked by soaring food and fuel prices. "This is an exciting time for the United Nations, but it is also a time when we are challenged to exert our best efforts to rise to the expectations that the world is placing on us," Ban said ahead of meetings in the Swiss capital. The UN was to hammer out a battle plan of emergency measures at the two-day conference in Berne, while exploring other longer-term measures to solve the global food crisis.
Around 29,000 people living along the banks of Brahmaputra, Jamuna and Padma rivers will be rendered homeless by next one year due to riverbank erosion, a research organisation working with river and water resources forecast yesterday. A study report of the Center for Environment and Geographic Information Services (CEGIS) also said 2,840 hectares of land, 450 hectares of settlement, 150 metre of embankment, 1,860 metres of district road, 490 metres of upazila road and 3,750 metres of rural road are vulnerable to erosion along the three rivers.
With untimely swelling of Jamuna River during the last several days, massive erosion along its western bank in Sirajganj district has devoured 200 homesteads and over 100 acres of croplands in 22 villages of five upazilas in the district. The affected upazilas are Kazipur, Sirajganj Sadar, Belkuchi, Chowhali and Shahzadpur. Meghai, Maizbari, Natuarpara, Shuvogachha, Simantabazaar and Dhekuria in Kazipur upazila, Kaizury, Gudhibari, Porzona, Monakosha and Datpara in Shahzadpur upazila and Khaskawlia, Umorpur, Jalalpur and Enayetpur in Chowhali upazila are worst affected areas.
Two children were trampled to death and a man maimed as straying wild elephants destroyed two villages over the last 24 hours in southeastern Bangladesh, officials said on Monday. A girl was killed and six bamboo houses flattened as elephants ravaged a village near Cox's Bazar district town, 400 km (250 miles) from the capital Dhaka on Monday. A boy was killed and a man seriously injured when wild elephants strayed into another village in the same district on Sunday. Five houses were levelled by the rampaging elephants.
Mosquito menace continues to frustrate people in the Rajshahi city in the absence of any drive during the past three months. The Rajshahi City Corporation has not yet taken any initiative to protect the dwellers from mosquito hazards because of fund constraints.
AN INITIATIVE has been taken by the local people at five villages
Dhaka Medical College Hospital will be brought under the medical wastes management programme soon as part of the initiative to reduce the risk of health hazards. The DMCH nurses, ward boys and management staff are being imparted training and an orientation programme for the physicians will be held on completion of the training to start waste management, sources at Prism Bangladesh, an NGO working for medical waste management in the capital, said.
CNG-run city service buses have continued flouting government order for not increasing the fares on the pretext of CNG price increase as they have already been charging between Tk 2 and Tk 5 more on various routes. Passengers on Sunday complained the CNG-run buses had continued taking increased fares they started charging after the April 25 price increase. The government on Saturday revised upwards the fares for CNG-run auto-rickshaws and taxi cabs, but kept CNG-run buses out of the process because of their higher profitability compared with buses run on diesel.
Acute water crisis plagues life at different parts of the Comilla municipality due to the drastic fall in the ground water level. The residents of the town alleged they had been facing acute water crisis over the past four days while the authorities so far were yet to take proper initiative to reduce the crisis. They alleged that they were receiving scanty amount of water in the pipeline of the municipality as the authorities were supplying one-third of the total amount of water they needed.
Private sector entrepreneurs and technology experts on Sunday suggested promotion of low-cost technology, particularly in agriculture sector, to fight poverty and increase productivity. They said a huge number of people in rural areas were still unaware of low-cost technologies which could increase their earning and productivity saving time and labour while steps were needed to popularise such machinery in a coordinated manner.
