Mintu Deshwara

The government recently declared 70 percent subsidy for farmers of the haor region, up from the previous 50 percent, for the purchase of agriculture machinery.

Amid the coronavirus scare and threat of impending flash flood, farmers in the haor region of Sylhet Division are expecting a bumper Boro harvest this time.

Everything has come to a halt due to the countrywide shutdown to flatten the spread of highly contagious Covid-19.

As many as 536 permanent workers of Kaliti tea garden in Moulvibazar’s Kulaura upazila are passing days amid utter hardship as they have not been paid for the last 13 weeks.

Once unproductive and full of water hyacinth, a five-decimal pond at Moulvibazar’s Nuna village has become the centre of attention in the region, as a youth successfully farmed pearls in the waterbody.

Inclement weather. Lack of buyers. Shortage of workers. And impending flashfloods. These very real developments, coupled with a belief that prices of their harvest are set to fall, have Boro farmers in Sylhet’s haor region looking down the barrel. The government-declared stimulus package and assurances of buying up a huge amount of paddy and rice, which are meant to help, also ring hollow to many farmers.

Bidyanondo Foundation, a non-profit social welfare organisation, distributed food among 500 tea workers’ families in Chunarughat upazila of Habiganj, who had been languishing since authorities shut down the tea garden following a clash with them on March 5.

People of twenty villages near the five-kilometre road cum embankment from Sherpur to Naluar Haor in Jagannathpur upazila of Sunamganj have continued voluntary work to reconstruct the road to protect their croplands and houses and roads,

About five lakh people living and working in 163 tea gardens in the country seem vulnerable during the ongoing spread of coronavirus as they often come in close contacts.

More than 1000 tea workers’ families have been living a miserable life since the authorities shut Rema tea garden in Habiganj’s Chunarughat upazila following a clash with tea workers on March 5.

Thirteen-year-old orphan Supra Bawri’s lives with her grandparents on the Jagchara tea estate in Sreemangal upazila of Moulvibazar.

Defying laws intended to conserve the nature and forests in the country, different organisations affiliated with the government continue to destroy natural topography in the name of various development projects across the country.

Six years has passed since the government built the hospital, but it is yet to serve any patient as the authorities have still not sanctioned the necessary workforce to get the facility up and running.

For the first time ever, a day-long Fagua festival was held in the remote Sreemangal upazila headquarters, about 42 kilometres from Moulvibazar district town.

Indiscriminate earth lifting threatens a locally important bridge over the Fanai River in Kulaura upazila of Moulvibazar.

Md Zaker from Kulaura upazila of Moulvibazar grew up in a family with never-ending financial crisis.

The Wildlife Rescue Centre of Lawachhara National Park in Moulvibazar’s Kamalganj upazila hardly serves any purpose as the arrangement meant for the treatment of injured and sick wild animals is running without skilled manpower and treatment facilities for years.

A railway bridge and a road bridge over the Barachhara canal in Kulaura upazila of Moulvibazar faces risk due to large scale extraction of silica sand within half a kilometre of the important structures.

'In Loving Memory of My Husband', wrote British citizen JCG on one of the five nameless gravestones at the Dunstone Cemetery, located 16 kilometers from Sreemangal, Moulvibazar.

Just a couple of days ahead of Language Martyrs’ Day on February 21, the central Shaheed Minar of Kulaura upazila under Moulvibazar lies in an awful condition.