Pinaki Roy

Around 72 Khasi families of the Jhimai Punjee in Moulvibazar's Kulaura upazila are living in fear of eviction from the land they have been living on for years following the Jhimai Tea Garden authorities' move to set up demarcation pillars with the help of upazila administration.

Things did not work as per the plan from the very beginning. The bad news came even before we flew to Kolkata.

Tender has been floated for constructing the 1,320 megawatt Rampal plant near the Sundarbans amid concerns from the Unesco and

Over 10 thousand samples of more than 50 different food items were tested at the Institute of Public Health in 2012-13.  About 60 percent of the samples were found adulterated or contaminated

The importers of ripening agents dupe the government by saying they are only importing the PGRs.  They get away with this, as the government has no mechanism in place to monitor what is being imported and marketed, said industry insiders.

The government should recover and excavate the encroached land and turn those into parts of the rivers again, they added.

Bangladesh Inland Water Transport Authority (BIWTA) or the district administration could not take legal action against the encroachers following the status quo.

However, recent visits to the embankment revealed that filling up of the river continues on both sides of the BIWTA office.

Moreover, the cadre officials have also influenced an unplanned bridge, now under construction, over the Turag just to connect their housing project to the Tongi-Ashulia bypass.

Everything is clearly visible on the other bank as the once mighty Turag, popularly knows as Kohor Daria [big river], has been reduced to hardly 50 feet in width here.

A lush green lawn and a well-planned pond increase the beauty of the building, which in fact choked the river here.

The sand and soil carrying cargo boats, locally known as 'bolget', are the main transports operating on these river routes.

Hazrat Mukhter was born and brought up in Kamarpara village by the now-reduced Turag. He has many memories about the river.

Amid encroachment by housing estates, private universities and refuelling stations, the tiny Turag, the major flood flow system of the capital from north to south, is being choked and reduced every day.

The grabber has raised the plinth about 10 feet above the water level which easily draws attention.

Although the AL pledged before the national elections to bring "changes in political culture and prevailing ill practices", no change is apparent in the culture of river grabbing.

Sidr was considered as fierce a cyclone as the ones that hit the country in 1970 and 1991 killing 5 lakh and 1.4 lakh people respectively