Anwarul Haider

Inspections find empty classrooms, poor oversight and falling attendance across island schools

Siraj Mia, 70, a farmer from Katabunia village in Char Amanullah Union of Subarnachar upazila, Noakhali, had spent Tk 10,000 this year cultivating soybeans on 40 decimals of land. He had hoped to harvest 12 to 15 maunds (1 maund = 40 kg) and, with prices ranging from Tk 1,500 to Tk 1,600 per maund, expected a profit of Tk 10,000 to Tk 14,000.

A general diary was filed over the alleged rape and torture of a woman in Noakhali’s Hatia upazila on Sunday, after which a forensic test of the victim was conducted at Noakhali General Hospital yesterday -- two days after she was admitted on Saturday.

The National Human Rights Commission yesterday sent a letter to Hatia Police Station in Noakhali, asking the law enforcers to register a complaint and take necessary legal steps over the alleged rape and torture of a woman there.

Noakhali-5, seen as Awami League General Secretary Obaidul Quader’s “impenetrable fortress” for a decade and a half, transformed into a fiercely contested battleground for the BNP and Jamaat-e-Islami after the 2024 uprising.

The 192-kilometre road network within Lakshmipur municipality has become largely unfit for vehicles due to years of neglect.

Residents of the 150-year-old Noakhali municipality have long suffered due to a poor drainage system.

An acute shortage of teachers has long been hampering academic and administrative activities at 16 government high schools across the nine upazilas of Noakhali.