The World Meteorological Organization’s State of the Climate in Asia 2024 report warns that the region is warming nearly twice as fast as the global average, driving more extreme weather and posing serious threats to lives, ecosystems, and economies. In 2024, Asia experienced its warmest or second warmest year on …
Environmental enteropathy (EE) is a poorly understood condition that refers to chronic alterations in intestinal permeability, absorption, and inflammation, which mainly affects young children in resource-limited settings. Recently, EE has been linked to suboptimal oral vaccine responses in children, although immunological mechanisms are poorly defined. The objective of this study …
The Sundarbans mangrove ecosystem, located in India and Bangladesh, is recognized as a global priority for biodiversity conservation and is an important provider of ecosystem services such as numerous goods and protection against storm surges. With global mean sea-level rise projected as up to 0.98 m or greater by 2100 …
REDD+, agroforestry systems have the potential to reduce deforestation and forest degradation directly and indirectly. They supply timber and fuel wood that would otherwise be sourced from adjacent forests. In fact, agroforestry has been used in several protected area landscape buffer zones and in conservation programmes as a way of …
SAJAWAL, Pakistan (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - When seven hours of non-stop rain led to a flash flood that swept through his village school, leaving it heavily damaged, science teacher Ali Zamin Samejo had to be hospitalised for shock. “I passed out in a matter of seconds in the morning, seeing …
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa agriculture suffers from very low productivity, with risks of crop failures owing to persistent weather anomalies. The Climate Change Centre at the University of Agriculture, Peshawar, has warned the provincial government that the surging temperature will make the land unsuitable for cultivating wheat, maize and sugarcane. The most …
The Ministry of National Health Services (NHS) said on Sunday that the country has witnessed a 62 per cent drop in polio cases during the current year. A 55pc reduction has also been noted, with the number of children missed for vaccination falling below 1pc compared to last year’s 1.5pc. …
The rates of influenza illness and associated complications are high among children in Bangladesh. We assessed the clinical efficacy and safety of a Russian-backbone live attenuated influenza vaccine (LAIV) at two field sites in Bangladesh. Original Source
Agribusiness (including agriculture) accounts for almost one third of South Asia’s GDP and has the potential to almost double over the next fifteen years (reaching US$1.5 trillion by 2030). This increase will be driven by rapid growth in population, incomes and urbanization, as well as accelerated transformation of the sector …
The five-year project (1st October 2013-30 September 2018) entitled ‘Improving Food Security Governance in South and South East Asia through strengthened participation of organizations of marginalized farmers’ has been launched in Bangladesh, India, Myanmar and Nepal with the financial support of European Aid and DANIDA/ DanChurchAid. The project aims to …
Many of the world’s megacities depend on groundwater from geologically complex aquifers that are over-exploited and threatened by contamination. Here, using the example of Dhaka, Bangladesh, we illustrate how interactions between aquifer heterogeneity and groundwater exploitation jeopardize groundwater resources regionally. Groundwater pumping in Dhaka has caused large-scale drawdown that extends …
India will accelerate its building of new hydropower plants along three rivers that flow into Pakistan, a source familiar with the plan said on Monday, in a move likely to aggravate already tense relations with its neighbor a week after an attack on an Indian army base. Disagreements over how …
Although the Ganges River Basin (GRB) has abundant water resources, the seasonal monsoon causes a mismatch in water supply and demand, which creates severe water-related challenges for the people living in the basin, the rapidly growing economy and the environment. Addressing these increasing challenges will depend on how people manage …
Athula Priyakantha woke up on May 16 to heavy rain that had been pelting down since the previous day. The rain, part of tropical cyclone Roanu, didn't concern him. The house, just east of Colombo, Sri Lanka's commercial capital, isn't in a flood-prone area. In fact, the last time Priyakantha's …
KATHMANDU – A Spanish national and three Nepalese Sherpas were killed in a landslide in north-central Nepal, local authorities told EFE on Thursday. Thirteen others sustained injuries of varying degrees of seriousness – including six in critical condition – and were airlifted to a Kathmandu hospital. “They have suffered injuries …
A week before Russia’s Daldykan river was turned red by a leak from a metals plant, the UN issued a warning as chilling as it was overlooked: 323 million people are at risk from life-threatening diseases caused by the pollution of rivers and lakes. Cholera, typhoid and other deadly pathogens …
With space technology being used in the planning and monitoring of China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) projects, the Pakistan Space and Upper Atmosphere Research Commission (SUPARCO) is set to launch the country's first remote-sensing satellite in March 2018. Pakistani President Mamnoon Hussain said that ultimate aim of launching the remote sensing …
When most people think of Bangladesh’s native ecosystems, the Sundarbans — the world’s largest mangrove forest — are probably the first thing that come to mind. But the Sundarbans aren’t the country’s only wildlife-rich forest ecosystem: dense tropical forests once extended across large expanses of the country, housing tigers, elephants, …
Pakistan is amongst the top ten countries on the globe experiencing frequent and intense climate change events such as floods, droughts, cyclones, heavy rains, extremely high temperatures, etc. The average global temperature has increased due to increasing concentrations of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere for last …
The country's natural forests, habitats to wildlife and havens for many rare plants, are declining at an alarming rate for lack of effective conservation efforts, say experts. “Once about 86 percent of the country's forests were the natural ones, but today you will find a very poor track of land …
KARACHI: Dozens of freshwater turtles were found dead on Saturday along a lake in Sukkur where they were released a week ago, it emerged on Sunday. According to sources, scores of turtle remains were found along Kallar Lake, some 15km from Sukkur, where they were released following their seizure by …
