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 member News item published in the Times of India Kolkata Section dt 17.02.2025 dated 29/04/2025. West Bengal Pollution …
When the cyclone slammed into Bangladesh on April 29 earlier this year, the anxiety in many quarters of the world was especially heightened in anticipation of huge fatalities. Exactly to the day 3 years ago, a similar ill wind had left more than 150,000 dead in its wake. It is …
BREAKING new ground where governments have feared to tread, nongovernmental research groups from India, Bangladesh and Nepal have suggested that an "integrated approach" may be the only way to calm the turbulence over the sharing of river waters. "We have tried to transcend national perspectives and have outlined the immense …
BANGLADESH'S jute industry may finally see better days. In what Bangladesh industry minister A M Zahiruddin Khan calls a technological breakthrough, the country's scientists have developed the knowhow to manufacture packaging papers, hardboard and even a soft fibre akin to silk, using green jute plants. Bangladesh, once the world's biggest …
THE Grameen Bank - a rural credit scheme in Bangladesh - is making waves. The bank, the brainchild of economist Muhammad Yunus, advances loans to the poorest sections of the society and reached out to more than 1.6 million people in the last decade. Inspired by its success, Grameen Bank …
Spoilt milk Nestle Lanka, the Sri Lankan subsidiary of a multinational food firm, has had to send back a consignment of radioactive milk powder imported from Poland. In November 1993, Sri Lankan customs officials found the milk powder contained more radioactive particles than permissible. Sri Lanka resumed checks on imported …
STUDIES suggest that countries can reduce birth rates significantly, without waiting for development to make an impact, by promoting modern contraceptive methods. Birth rates are falling in countries too poor for development to have stabilised population growth. Between 1970 and 1991, fertility rates declined from 7 to 5.5 children per …
Who organised this meeting and what was the specific purpose of this convention? The meeting was convened by the Global Infrastructure Research Foundation (GIRF) of Japan -- a body set up 10 years ago, with the Japanese government and business community as members, to sponsor very large infrastructures spanning countries …
BANGLADESH'S Grameen Bank -- a cooperative banking system with easy loan repayment conditions -- has inspired US President Bill Clinton. When he was governor of Arkansas, Clinton launched the Goodfaith Fund, modelled after Grameen. Now, he plans to launch a similar scheme on a national level to extend lending to …
ARSENIC pollution of groundwater in West Bengal is reportedly threatening 13 border districts in Bangladesh as well. Some people are said to have died because of the pollution in West Bengal, says a Panos report. Bangladesh scientists have found arsenic in water samples collected from the bordering districts, adds the …
AS PART of its literacy campaign, Bangladesh has started a food for education programme, under which a poor family will get 15 kg of cereal a month if one child goes to school, reports Panos. This would be an incentive for parents to send to school children who are otherwise …
SCIENTISTS, physicians and surgeons in Bangladesh have formed a human tissue bank with the aim of persuading the government to remove legal hurdles in collecting human body parts for treatment, reports Panos. At present, only blood and eye collection is legal. In Pakistan, too, there are problems. Though more and …
THE BANGLADESH government has said the ecosystem in the southwestern part of the country is threatened by the excessive diversion of water from the Ganga at the Farakka barrage, 19.2 km from its border, writes Mustafa Kamal Majumder in a Panos report. The spokespersons say the flow of the river …
TWO US researchers say the cholera outbreak sweeping Bangladesh has assumed pandemic proportions and is part of a larger outbreak affecting India's eastern coast, reports The Lancet. The researchers say vaccines being developed against other cholera strains are unlikely to be effective against this strain, which originated in the region …
THE RECENT floods that engulfed more than two-thirds of Bangladesh killed more than 500 people and destroyed one million tonnes of foodgrains, resulting in a loss of $175 million to the government. However, despite Bangladesh renewing demands that India and Nepal control the powerful rivers that flow through their countries, …
BANGLADESH'S second largest waterbody, Beel Dakatia, once a 31,566-ha tract of flourishing agricultural land and balanced ecology, has been flooded with brackish water for the past decade. A dyke built to contain the 24-km-long and 16-km-wide waterbody, as part of an ambitious coastal embankment project, is to blame for choking …
NEW STRAINS of diarrhoea, malaria and cholera are spreading rapidly in South Asia, adding to the burden of health care systems that are already stretched to breaking point. Scientists in Bangladesh say the new cholera bacterium, named vibrio non-01, has killed as many as 4,000 of 70,000 victims, mostly residents …
AFTER flooding in the Mississippi valley in central USA took a heavy toll in lives and property damage recently, a poll asked whether "the floods are an indication of God's judgement on the people of the United States for their sinful ways?" Of the respondents, 18 per cent answered affirmatively. …
THE MONSOONS in Bangladesh have once again triggered floods, displacing 1.5 million people. The worst affected are Sylhet and Chittagong, where road and rail links with the rest of the country were snapped. Bangladesh, located in the delta regions of two major rivers, the Ganga and the Brahmaputra, receives vast …
ONE OF Bangladesh"s leading environmental NGOs, the Bangladesh Centre for Advanced Studies (BCAS), has taken the lead in rectifying a major lacuna in the Rio agenda. Dealing with poverty should have been the first item on the global agenda in Rio, but issues such as global warming and biodiversity, supported …
THE RIGHT Livelihood Award Foundation has rejected criticism about selecting Bangladesh's Gonoshasthaya Kendra and its founder, Zafrullah Chowdhury, for its 1992 award, by the Bangladesh Medical Association (BMA), which claimed the recipients had been engaged in anti-people activities. In a letter to the BMA, the foundation said that for more …
