Mintu Deshwara

For a group of people whose most members haven’t even gone to school, many tea workers of the country are forced to maintain official communication with their employers in English.

Samra Soura, 85, the oldest resident of Soura village is forgetting his mother tongue. People of the Soura community mostly speak Bangla, Oriya and Sadri languages.

About 1,000 acres of land is lying uncultivated due to lack of irrigation facilities in Kawadighi haor of Moulvibazar Sadar upazila.

Once, Rupaichhara government hills in Habiganj used to be around 500 feet high. Due to sand extraction and tree felling, they now stand on the verge of extinction.

The government has recently started listing beneficiaries for a special programme to improve the lives and livelihoods of tea workers of the country, under the “Cha Sramikder Jibanman Unnayan Karmasuchi” scheme.

Even though everything came to a halt during the pandemic, hill cutting didn’t.

Most of the students at Sreemangal’s Daluchhara Government Primary School are members of the Tripura community.

People of greater Sylhet and Chittagong Hill Tracts regions are familiar with domesticated elephants being used to pull trees down the hills, in circuses and at various social events.

“I can’t pay the rent of the house in which my daughter and I live. The landlord called us and insulted us for nonpayment. Now, I don’t see any alternative to committing suicide,” Birangana Shila Guha said.

Bone-chilling cold and thick fog hit the poor tea workers hard in Sylhet division as hundreds, mostly children and elderly, have been suffering from different cold-related diseases due to the cold spell for the last few days.

Non-agricultural use of land especially for the development purpose has recently seen a sharp increase in Sylhet division. By filling croplands, houses, roads, buildings and business establishments are being built in an unplanned manner.

This is usually that time of the year when anglers of Hakaluki haor smile ear to ear. “This is the time to catch large hauls from the Haor,” said angler Mansur Ali. “With the income from these few months, I have no trouble running my family of seven.”

A connecting electric line runs right through the Lawachhara protected forest in Moulvibazar’s Kamalganj upazila. The power line packs 33 kilovolts, putting the forest’s wildlife in peril, as the animals often come in contact with it.

Gibbons are endangered worldwide, and it just so happens that Bangladesh is no exception to the norm.

Mala Santal is an indigenous tea worker at Baikunthapur Tea Garden in Habiganj’s Madhabpur.

“Many people like you come to visit us with a promise to help us but they never keep their words,” they resented.

A Moulvibazar polling centre reported a hundred percent turnout in Sunday’s union parishad elections although the voter list included people who have died and those who were not even in the country.

Illegally cutting down various species of aquatic trees, especially in the Hijal-Karach area, has posed a serious threat to the ecosystem at Hakaluki Haor, one of the country’s largest natural water bodies.

Sonai river, which flows through Madhabpur upazila in Habiganj, has almost turned into a canal due to illegal occupation and dumped trash. It now acts as a narrow drain carrying hazardous pollutants to the haor area.

Dewchhara beel in Kamalganj upazila of Moulvibazar used to be a sanctuary for thousands of migratory birds and different species of native fish but for the last two years,