Dipankar Roy

Displacement fear looms over thousands living in 5 unions of Khulna’s Koyra

A group of primates wrestled with a plastic bag caught in the tangled roots of a mangrove tree. Their screeches echoed through the dense forest as they tore at the flimsy material, desperate for the scraps of food trapped inside.

In 2007, Cyclone Sidr ripped through the Sundarbans, the world’s largest mangrove forest. The forest took the brunt of the storm, saving human lives by slowing down its destructive force.

The Sundarbans, Bangladesh’s “silent protector”, the shield and first line of defense against natural disasters, has once again safeguarded the nation from a cyclone -- Remal.

On this day in 2009, cyclone Aila lashed the coastal belt of Bangladesh, leaving behind a trail of destruction that affected about 3.9 million people.

The once renowned state-run Dada Match factory in Khulna city may soon fade away from people’s memory as no effective measures have been taken to reopen it in the past 14 years.

The Khulna Development Authority has begun filling up a portion of Nirala Dighi, the largest pond in Khulna city, with sand for a road extension project, causing an uproar among residents.

When everyone else runs for cover from the scorching sun, 67-year-old Chittaranjan Das can be seen tending to palm trees on his broken bicycle. Neither scorching heat, torrential rains, nor biting cold can deter him from his mission.

Ershad Ali clutched a sliver of hope as he searched for a familiar face among the dead at Chuknagar Bazar.

Shrimp farmers in Khulna, a southwestern division of Bangladesh that grows shrimp mainly for exports, could be facing serious losses this year as the enclosures used for raising their crustaceans are drying up amid an ongoing heatwave.

The water crisis in Khulna city has deepened amidst the relentless heatwave, due to plummeting groundwater levels and the inability of the Water Supply and Sewerage Authority to meet the residents’ water needs adequately.

Gone are the days when cooking meals twice a day used to take a toll on Salma Begum.

Tushar Kanti Das lives on the ground floor of a three-storey house on Sabuj Sangh Math Road of ward-6 in Khulna city.  After a long day of work as a sales representative for a pharmaceutical company, he would have to suffer the woes of load shedding as soon as he returned home for the past week.

Every day during Ramadan, food enthusiasts gather in large numbers at a small outlet in front of Pioneer Women’s College on South Central Road in Khulna.

When Sathi Munda stepped up to take Bangladesh’s fifth and final penalty in the shootout against India on March 10, 2024, the fate of the SAFF Under-16 Women’s Championship title was hanging in the balance.

The killing of Sazzaduzzaman, 30, a forest officer in Cox’s Bazar, was not the first time that a forest official got killed by those involved in hill razing and tree felling in the forest areas of Cox’s Bazar.

An eight feet deep waterbody on 66-decimal land owned by Bangladesh Railway in Khulna city has allegedly been filled up by followers of a city corporation councillor. Now plans are afoot to build a park and other structures there.

Madhab Chandra Bairagi and Sourav Goldar were among the more than 500 people who were brutally killed by the Pakistani Army men at Badamtala area in Batiaghata upazila of Khulna on May 19, 1971.

When Sonaban Bibi, 62, got married 46 years ago, there was a pond next to her house, from which she managed to fetch drinking water.

Anyone in Khulna who either witnessed the Liberation War of 1971 or is aware of the regions’s war-history will shudder at the name of Gallamari mass grave.