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 …
THE INTERNATIONAL Flood Action Campaign Committee says the Flood Action Plan (FAP) for Bangladesh, coordinated by the World Bank, ignores environmental aspects and will uproot thousands of people. The Brussels-based coalition of European parliamentarians, nongovernmental organisations and academics, demands environmental impact studies be done before project work begins. This could …
BANGLADESH'S massive afforestation programme is fast becoming a people's movement. More than 60 million saplings were planted last year under the programme, partly funded by the UN Development Programme and the Food and Agriculture Organisation. According to official sources, a countrywide radio and television programme has been started to educate …
THE POPULAR fish, Palla, or Ilish as it is known in Bangladesh, is an endangered species, says a Panos Features report quoting Mirza Arshad Beg, former chairperson of the Pakistan Council for Scientific and Industrial Research. Beg says dams have restricted the fish's movement in the last few decades and, …
THE BANGLADESH government has modified procedures for nongovernmental organisations (NGOs) in order to simplify procedures and establish their accountability, reports Mostafa Kamal Majumder. The step followed allegations by the NGO Affairs Bureau that leading NGOs were violating rules. Under the new rules, the ministry of home affairs will decide whether …
A NEW strain of cholera bacteria -- Vibrio cholerae non-01 -- that scientists say was earlier associated only with sporadic diarrhoea cases, has invaded India and Bangladesh. The killer microbe has already claimed more than 1,000 lives in the Indian subcontinent. West Bengal and Tamil Nadu are the worst-hit in …
Drainage congestion and increased rainfall runoff over eight centuries are increasingly choking Dhaka, the "unplanned Capital of Bangladesh", and this is leading to internal flooding, reports Panos Features, citing a recent study by S Dara Shamsuddin and Rafique Ahmed. The two researchers used data collected by the Bangladesh Meteorological Department. …
FOR 11 years now in Bangladesh, transnational pharmaceutical firms have been squeezed out of the market because of a drug policy that has kept down prices of medicines, increased their production and encouraged the local drug industry. But the big firms looking for big bucks may be back if the …
THE FIRST patient of the day at M A Muttalib's clinic in Dhaka is a 6-year-old boy. After asking the boy's mother a few questions, Muttalib prescribes medicine for a parasitic and then comments, "The child goes back into the same unsanitary environment and becomes re-infected. Within six months, he'll …
BANGLADESH'S national drug policy is based on the essential drugs concept propounded by the World Health Organisation (WHO). It says that drugs that satisfy the health needs of the majority of the population should be available at affordable prices at all times in the right dosage. Since 1977, WHO has …
What was it that led you to abandon a lucrative career abroad and return to your country? Was it your rural roots? No, though I was born on December 27, 1941, in Uttarpara village of Chittagong district, I had hardly any rural connections. I was schooled in Calcutta, then at …
INEXPENSIVE and plentiful Himalayan hydroelectric power remains a dream, with Nepal's total installed capacity standing at only 250 MW. Most Nepalese lack electricity and those linked to the grid suffer periodic power cuts. However, judging by a recent seminar in Kathmandu on Cooperative Development of Himalayan Water Resources, turning the …
CONTROLLING floods in the plains is laudable, but it is not a harmless activity as far as near-shore fish are concerned. Almost all fish-harvesting in Bangladesh is near the shore. All the dams, culverts, embankments and river closures installed in Bangladesh to protect 3 million, flood-prone hectares, have led to …
A study in rural Bangladesh has found victims of watery diarrhoea treated with rice-based oral rehydration solution (rice-ORS) recover faster and require fewer hospitalisations than those treated otherwise (Glimpse Newsletter, Vol 14 No 4). Rice gruel has traditionally been used to treat diarrhoea. Packaged rice-ORS and glucose-ORS were supplied to …
INDIA and Bangladesh have arrived at an agreement to prepare a comprehensive and permanent sharing of the Ganga-Brahmaputra waters. This agreement was reached in New Delhi between visiting Bangladeshi Prime Minister Begum Khaleda Zia and her Indian counterpart, P V Narasimha Rao. The pact also refers to using waters from …
RISING sea levels and drowning areas is one of the much publicised consequences of global waarming - in fact, sea levels do rise, the effect on island countries like the Maldives and those with long coast lines like India and Bangladesh could be catastrophic. However, according to P K Daformer …
An Ordinance to provide for the establishment of an Institution for standardisation, testing, metrology, quality control, grading and marking of goods.
The Bangladesh Centre for Advanced Studies (BCAS) is an independent, non-profit, non-government, policy, research, and implementation institute working on sustainable development (SD) at local, national, regional and global levels. BCAS addresses sustainable development through four interactive themes: (a) Environment-development integration; (b) Good governance and people’s participation; (c) Poverty alleviation and …
PSU is a policy support unit (PSU) of the Policy Implementation and Arsenic Section (WS-3) of the Water Supply Wing of the Local Government Division advising LGD on sector development and specifically on the implementation of policies and strategies of the water supply and sanitation (WSS) sub-sector in Bangladesh PSU …
WaterAid has been working in Bangladesh since 1986 and has a total of 21 partners covering 19 rural districts, three City Corporations and one Municipality in urban areas. WaterAid's strategy is to work through local partners to improve hygiene behaviour and access to water supply and sanitation (WSS) services for …
Grameen Shakti (GS) has developed one of the most successful market based programs with a social objective for popularizing Solar Home Systems (SHSs) including other renewable energy technologies to millions of rural villagers. Currently GS is one of the largest and fastest growing rural based renewable energy companies in the …
