Mokammel Shuvo

Imagine neat rows of vegetable saplings in the thousands growing in a temperature and humidity controlled environment fitted with drip irrigation and free from pests, capable of providing harvests 15 days in advance.

People of Khulna division are at great risk of being infected with the Indian variant of coronavirus, as six of its districts have borders running for a total of 284 km with India, which is struggling to control the Covid-19 surge and the new variant -- B1617.

The movement restrictions and ban on tourist arrival, imposed to curb the spread of Covid-19, on the picturesque Saint Martin’s Island have come as a blessing for a few public representatives and their accomplices.

Eight Covid-19-positive Bangladeshis, who had returned from India and then fled from quarantine at Jashore General Hospital, were not infected by the Indian variant of coronavirus, according to the genomic sequencing report prepared by Jashore Science and Technology University’s genome centre.

Import from India through Benapole remained suspended since yesterday morning, as the port’s users and stakeholders went for protesting India’s restriction on exports from Bangladesh.

After Gopalganj farmer Nikhil, college student Imran from Jashore becomes second victim of alleged police brutality

The Bangladeshi workers who were killed in Mizda town in Libya were kept hostage on the way to Tripoli from Benghazi by a group of international traffickers, comprising Libyans, Bangladeshis and Somalians, who demanded Tk 10 lakh from each of the hostages’ families.

Abdul Karim’s eyes sparkle with joy when he stares at his salt flats shining white under the sun. But his joy soon begins to fade when he thinks of selling the fruit of his labour.

Different transport workers’ associations and local goons are extorting money from cattle-laden trucks at seven points on the Jashore-Dhaka highway.

Under the ongoing food grain procurement programme, the government is buying only 1.5 lakh tonnes of paddy from farmers, which makes up less than one percent of the total estimated production of around 1.96 crore tonnes this boro season.

With sacks of paddy piled on both sides of the road at Barmi Bazar in Gazipur, farmers were waiting under the scorching sun to sell their produce at a fair price.

Services at Narail Sadar Hospital have improved to some extent over the last one week with the attending doctors making sure that no one is absent there.

Recently, Sisnabi Mondol, a farmer in Dinajpur's Chirirbandar upazila, has sold his Aman paddy at Tk 600 per maund, whereas the rate was Tk 720 when the harvest season began in December.

Exhausted Rohingyas walking with loads of firewood on their heads used to be a common sight around the refugee camps in Cox's Bazar, raising concerns about the long-term impact on the forest.

The much-awaited launch of the Rohingya repatriation was cancelled at the last moment yesterday as the refugees refused to return to Rakhine for fear of fresh persecution.

The first batch of Rohingyas is all set to be sent back to Myanmar today amid reports that many of the refugees listed for return are hiding in fear of forcible repatriation.

With early rains falling on the Rohingya camps in Cox's Bazar, the fear of natural calamities has heightened among the refugees living in tiny shanties made of bamboo poles and tarpaulin in the district's Ukhia and Teknaf.

The historic Jessore Road, immortalised in Allen Ginsberg's poem “September on Jessore Road”, is steadily losing the essence of its legacy due to a corrupt chain of unbridled tree-felling.

It was around eleven in the morning.

Although there is sufficient government land on both sides of the historical Jessore Road for its expansion, the local authorities seem to be hell-bent on doing the expansion by felling more than 2,300 trees, a several hundred of them nearly two centuries old.