Mostafa Yousuf

The Department of Environment (DoE) has downgraded the status of the harmful shipbreaking industry in Chattogram from red to orange caving into the pressure from the ship recycling yard owners, in a development that is set to cause serious damage to the ecology in the area.

Though six of Chattogram City Corporation’s sweeping trucks are gathering dust at a dumping ground in the port city for years, the city authorities have taken up plans to buy two more vehicles at the cost of Tk 8 crore.

The wars of the 21st century will be fought over water, the former World Bank Vice-President Ismail Serageldin had predicted in 1995. And a recent visit to the Chattogram Hill Tracts suggests the region is inching that way.

After sighting multiple elephant calves over the last one and a half years, the divisional forest office of Cox’s Bazar (south) is seeing hope for the endangered species in the region.

Around 7:00am on October 13, a 30-year-old Ekram Hossain dialled 999 and reported to the police about an alleged defamation of the Holy Quran at Nanua Dighir Par puja mandap in Cumilla city.

Dozens of monkeys died in Moheshkhali forest on Tuesday after eating poisoned bananas placed as a trap by a local farmer who encroached upon the forest to cultivate his crop.

When open sewers in the port city have become a death trap claiming at least four lives in the span of just three months, the authorities concerned stay in a deep slumber instead of taking measures to prevent such deaths.

Chattogram Veterinary and Animal Science University (CVASU) has built a dormitory in a protected forest -- which was leased out to them by the land ministry for building an institute for coastal biodiversity, marine fisheries and wildlife research, amid strong opposition from the forest department.

A syndicate of bureaucrats, politicians and officials of Police Bureau of Investigation (PBI) in Cox’s Bazar have systematically siphoned off Tk 78 crore in public money from three development projects.

Wild elephants face serious threats to their survival in the country, thanks to frequent killings of the giant mammal and shrinking of their habitat in the absence of concrete protective measures by the government.

When the Executive Committee for National Economic Council (Ecnec) in August 2017 approved a Tk 7,916 crore project for Chattogram Development Board (CDA) to mitigate the waterlogging crisis, port city dwellers were exhilarated, expecting the perennial woes to end by 2020, as per the project deadline.

At a time when public trust in policing is windling, a circle of Chattogram police has taken up an initiative to find a way to improve the people-police relationship.

The Halda river, the lone natural breeding ground of carp-like fish in South Asia, has seen a poor yield of eggs mainly due to heavy salinity in the river water this year.

Nizam Uddin, a 55-year-old Cox’s Bazar resident, was attending a relative’s wedding at a hotel in the tourist town on December 23, 2019 when he received a phone call informing him that a powerful syndicate had sold his land to a government project posing as its owner.

Ahead of every spawning season, miscreants lay snares along the Halda river, the lone natural breeding ground of carp in South Asia. They net brood fish, while other aquatic creatures like dolphins also get stuck and die.

Workers who were shot during police firing at the SS Power I Plant in Chattogram’s Banshkhali have had their bullets removed surgically, but that has not signified an end to their struggles.

Intelligence and regulatory bodies fear a possible labour unrest ahead of Eid caused by the uncertainty over payment of salaries and festival bonuses of workers of some factories affected by the pandemic.

Workers of SS Power I Plant in Chattogram said long-simmering discontent over hygienic and accommodation conditions, lack of pay hikes and payment of arrears led to Saturday’s protests which left five people killed and dozens of workers with bullet injuries.

Five workers of an under-construction coal-fired power plant were killed and at least 21 others injured during a clash with police in Banshkhali upazila of Chattogram yesterday morning.

A landlord in port city’s Lalkhan Bazar has allegedly drove a family out from their home on Thursday night for failing to pay rent, forcing them to pass the night on the street. The incident took place at Dubai Colony on High Level Road.